For the matter of that, it is only in the dramatic versions that a newspaper office ever attains the aspect of frenzied tumult so familiar and so agreeable to patrons of plays purporting to deal with newspaper life. As usually depicted upon the stage, a city room near press time is something like a skating rink, something like the recreation hall of a madhouse, something like a munitions factory working overtime [306] on war orders, and nothing at all like a city room. Even when its manifold activities are in full swing the actual city room, save for the click of typewriter keys, is apt to be as sedately quiet as—let’s see now! What would make a suitable comparison? Well—as sedately quiet, say, as the reading room of the average Carnegie Library.
Six-thirty-four—enter the villain.
The practical door at the right opened and Mr. Foxman came in. In just what he stood in he might have posed for the typical picture of the typical New York business man; not the tired business man for whom the musical shows are supposed to be written but the kind of business man who does not tire so easily. A close-cropped, greyish moustache, a pair of nose glasses riding a short, pugnacious nose in front of two keen eyes, a well-knit middle-age shape inside of a smart-fitting suit, a positive jaw, an air of efficiency and a square shoulder—that briefly would be Mr. Hobart Foxman, managing editor of The Clarion.
His nod included the city-hall reporter and the ship-news man. Passing by Hemburg without speaking, he halted a minute alongside the desk where the head copy boy speared his shearings upon his battery of spindles.
“Singlebury come in yet?” asked Mr. Foxman.
“No, sir; not yet, sir,” said the head copy boy. “But he’s due any minute now, I guess. [307] I phoned him you wanted to see him at a quarter to seven.”
“When he comes tell him to come right into my office.”
“Yes, sir; I’ll tell him, sir.”
“Did you get those envelopes out of the morgue that I telephoned you about?”
“Yes, sir; they’re all four of ’em on your desk, sir,” said the boy, and he made as though to get up from his seat.