Passing the city desk he tickled the man sitting there, on his round, shiny, bald spot, and as he looked up with a scowl, asked blandly:
"Anything doing?"
The city editor growled and resumed reading the typewritten page that lay before him.
The agent wandered into the office of the state editor, where a man with long hair sat, fidgeting in a swivel chair and mumbling to himself under his breath.
"Anything?" asked the agent, tersely, at the same time reaching for the proofs that dangled from a hook at the side of the desk.
The state editor looked up, scowling. He disliked being annoyed when talking to himself.
"Pretty good one from Ann Arbor," he snapped. "Find it there."
The agent ran hastily through the proofs and retained one. The others he hung back on the hook.
"Much obliged," he said, and strolled out of the office.
At six o'clock that night the story was "on the A. P. wire," and being ticked off in every newspaper telegraph room from Portland to Portland, for the night manager at Chicago had called it "bully good stuff."