“Do the best you can,” said Billy.
He started at the dictation again. Then he broke off and called sharply to the foreman:
“Hold on, Jake. D’you suppose Grant slipped out to give the story away?”
“I don’t know. But Grant was a Blake man.”
Billy swore under his breath.
“But he hadn’t seen the best part of the story,” said the foreman. “I’d given him only that part about Blake and Peck.”
“Well, anyhow, it’s too late for him to hurt us any,” said Billy, and once more plunged into the dictation.
Fifteen minutes later the story was finished, and Katherine leaned back in her chair with aching arms, while Billy wrote a lurid headline across the entire front page. With this he rushed down into the composing-room to give orders about the make-up. When he returned he carried a bunch of long strips.
“These are the proofs of the whole thing, documents and all, except the last part of the story,” he said. “Let’s see if they’ve got it all straight.”
He laid the proofs on Katherine’s desk and was drawing a chair up beside her, when the telephone rang.