“Shades of Tody Hamilton,” he chortled. “Here’s the last word in hysterical romance. This fellow makes ’em all look like pikers. He called me up on the phone to tell it was hot stuff. Well, it certainly is. It certainly is.”
“What is it?” questioned the managing editor.
“It’s a pipe dream by a bright young gentleman who seems to be trying to make a living by getting pieces in the paper for Jollyland. He must come from some place in the tall, tall grass if he labors under the delusion that he can put anything as raw as this over on a New York paper. I’ll give him credit, though. It’s a masterpiece of its kind. If someone ever starts a press agent’s school this could be used verbatim as a horrible example of the kind of a contribution not to send out.
Just listen to this heading:
“Isn’t that immense?” went on McCarthy. “Can you tie the colossal nerve of that fellow sending a thing like that out? Get his opening paragraph:
“‘Maddened with a thirst for human blood and believed to be acting under instructions from a Bolshevik agitator who was seen prowling about in the early evening 186 naked savages from the South Sea Islands made a desperate attempt last night to massacre all the whites in Jollyland, the gigantic summer park on Coney Island. Giving utterance to blood-curdling cries of vengeance and undaunted by the driving rain which was falling at the time they made an attempt to break out of the village, where they give daily exhibitions of their quaint and curious native customs, and were held in check by the park attendants only after a wild and furious struggle lasting for nearly half an hour!...’”
The managing editor laughed uproariously.
“The poor old Bolsheviki,” he chuckled. “Even the press agents are using ’em. That story’s certainly a gem of purest ray serene. I’d like to meet that young fellow. He’d make an interesting study.”
The telephone bell on McCarthy’s desk rang just then and the city editor reached for the receiver.