IX
IN WHICH YELLOW JOURNALISM CREEPS IN
The applause which followed the reading of the Dooley Dialogue showed very clearly that, among the diners at least, neither Dooley nor Dolly had waned in popularity. If the dilution, the faint echo of the originals, evoked such applause, how potent must have been the genius of the men who first gave life to Dooley and the fair Dolly!
“That’s good stuff, Greenwich,” said Billie Jones. “You must have eaten a particularly digestible meal. Now for the tenth ball. Who has it?”
“I,” said Dick Snobbe, rising majestically from his chair. “And I can tell you what it is; I had a tough time of it in my dream, as you will perceive when I recite to you the story of my experiences at the battle of Manila.”
“Great Scott, Dick!” cried Bedford Parke. “You weren’t in that, were you?”
“Sir,” returned Dick, “I was not only in it, I was the thing itself. I was the war correspondent of the Sunday Whirnal, attached to Dewey’s fleet.”
Whereupon the talented Mr. Snobbe proceeded to read the following cable despatch from the special correspondent of the Whirnal:
MANILA FALLS
THE SPANISH FLEET DESTROYED
THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE WHIRNAL
Aided by Commodore Dewey and his Fleet
CAPTURES THE PHILIPPINES