“Um,” grunted Peter. “I’ll get square with you all right!”
It was now noon, and the paper went to press for the first edition shortly after one o’clock. So there was considerable excitement and hurry in all the departments, to get the important news set up and ready to be printed.
Reporters were hurrying in and out, the readers and editors were using their pencils rapidly, correcting and changing copy, and the three boys in the city room were kept on the jump all the time.
Shortly before one o’clock a reporter came in all out of breath.
“Man—killed—himself—in—the—Post Office just—now!” he gasped.
“Quick!” shouted Mr. Emberg. “We’ve only got ten minutes to catch the edition. Write as fast as you can. Short paragraphs. Here, one of you boys bring me the sheets as fast as Mr. Steifert finishes them.”
The reporter sat down to a typewriter, rapidly inserted a piece of paper and began to click out copy so fast that Larry wondered how he could see the keys.
“I’ll carry the sheets to Mr. Emberg,” said Bud to Larry, “and you get ready to rush them to the tube.”
This was done. As soon as Mr. Steifert had one paragraph written he pulled it from the machine and handed it to Bud, who ran with it to the city editor. The latter quickly glanced at it, corrected one or two slight errors, and passed it over to Larry, who fairly raced down the hall.
When he came back another page was ready, and this was kept up until the story was all upstairs. Then Mr. Emberg proceeded to write a head for it and Larry carried that copy to the tube.