She it was that was taken aback.
“I—I don’t understand,” she said.
“No time to explain now. Looks like I’ve been all wrong about your father—perhaps a little wrong about you—and perhaps you’ve been a little wrong about me. Let it go at that. Now for the details. Quick!”
“But—but what are you going to do?”
“Going to get out an extra! It’s the hottest story that ever came down the pike! It’ll make the Express, and”—he seized her hand in his grimy ones, his eyes blazed, and an exultant laugh leaped from his deep chest—“and we’ll simply rip this old town wide open!”
Katherine stared at him in bewilderment.
“Oh, won’t this wake the old town up!” he murmured to himself.
He dropped into his chair, jerked some loose copy paper toward him, and seized a pencil.
“Now quick! The details!”