“That’s the way to do it,” remarked Mr. Emberg. “That’s what I like to see.”
For the next few minutes there was a busy scene in the city room of the Leader. Reporters were writing like mad on their typewriters, and rushing with the loose sheets of paper over to the desk of the city editor or his assistant. These, and two copy readers, rapidly scanned the stories, made whatever corrections were necessary, put headings, or “heads,” as they are called, on them, and gave them to the copy boys.
The lads ran out to the pneumatic tube that shot the copy to the composing room, or, in case of an important story, took it upstairs themselves so that it would receive immediate attention from the foreman.
The boys were running to and fro, as if in training for a race, typewriters were clicking as fast as though the operators were in a speed contest, the editors were slashing whole pages from stories to make them shorter, and the copy readers were doing likewise.
“Hurry up that stuff, Jones!” exclaimed the editor to one reporter. “You’ve only got two minutes!”
“Here it is!” cried Jones, yanking the last page from his typewriter.
For two minutes there was a wilder scene of activity than ever. Then came a comparatively quiet spell.
“That’s all we can make for the first,” remarked the editor, with something like a breath of relief. “We did pretty well.”
The editor looked over a book that lay open in front of him on his desk. The cover was marked “Assignments,” and it was the volume in which memoranda of all the items that were to be gotten that day appeared. The editor glanced down the page.
“Here, Larry!” he called to a tall, good-looking youth, who was seated at a small desk. “Get this obituary, will you? It’s about a man over on the West Side. He was ninety-eight years old, and belonged to a well-known New York family.”