The Lash

by Olin L. Lyman

COLONEL WESTLAKE, the principal owner of the Courier and the man who actively dictated its policy, sat in the library of his home that night with a look upon his face different than he had worn of late. As the leader of the Fusion movement, for which he had expended much labor and time, things had looked black to him until today, and his face had worn the expression that belongs to him who is fighting a grim, losing battle. He saw the opposition forging ahead with a resistless sweep which he and his co-workers could not stop, and it had been maddening.

But tonight a bright gleam of hope had dispelled the gloom of the Colonel's face. He had visited the office that afternoon and had a talk with the managing editor, who had told him of the effort that was in progress to checkmate the plans of the ring. He could tell the Colonel but few particulars, for Micky had not confided many of them to his superiors as yet. Indeed, he had had no time to do so. But the information was cheering enough to cause the Colonel to smoke his cigar that evening with an easier mind. "That fellow can get it if anybody can," he had been told, and the assurance fanned his dying hope into renewed flame.

The Courier's editorial rooms were unusually replete of life that night. To be sure, it was an old story, that record of life and death and the things that go between, called news; ground out there three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year. One night, generally speaking, was very like another to the various cogs in the human machine. Most of them were past cubhood, and the shifts of scene entailed by succeeding assignments, that once held a fresh charm of novelty, now spelled grim duty. Most men have illusions, but the jaded newsgetter loses them first of all. Most men may dream of what they may become; the newsgetter only of what he did not become. However, there is a compensation. The newsgetter has acquired philosophy, the real salt of the earth. It is better to watch one's Rome burning with philosophy than to collect the insurance thereon without it.

However, on this night there was a brooding excitement in the air. The big room fairly throbbed with it; the sense of an impending something whose significance but few of the force divined, but which they all felt. The harassed, anxious expressions on the faces of Harkins and a few others of the editorial force; their frequent glances at the big clock, their nervous onslaughts upon the mass of work, for it was a teeming night, revealed to every rushed reporter in the great room that there was something on and that it was something big. They stole covert glances at their chiefs and at each other, wondering what it was.

Time wore on while the tension grew. The big calm clock reeled off the flying minutes with exasperating insistence. The clock is the merciless monitor of the newspaper office. Men watch it, fear it, serve it as they must. They hurl the forces of head and hand, when the need calls, in a desperate fight against it, till its tickings are drowned in the roar of the presses that hold the dearly bought triumph; while the toiler sits spent and worn, body and brain full of the numb weariness of the reaction. Even as the roar of the presses dies in silence, there is again audible the eternal ticking of the clock, unresting through it all; registering in one breath the death of a day of labor, the birth of another in the next. Always the grim spectre with the scythe stands at the elbows of the men who write the news.

So the Courier's clock ticked on, while the hidden undercurrent of unrest, so patent even to those ignorant of the reason for it, grew in a fierce, irritating tug that was made manifest in disagreeable ways. Harkins' nerves were worn to shreds. His usual urbanity withered like dry grass in the fire of his hot impatience. The office fairly throbbed now, for it was an extraordinarily busy night. Election was close at hand, the entire city was wrought up over it, everything else had seemingly happened and was all coming in at once. Still there was that hungry gap, waiting to be filled with the story of a lifetime. Where was the story?

It was exasperating. Everywhere men were rushing like mad and Harkins helped them rush the more. His orders were snapped with the venom of a cracking whip lash, accompanied by black frowns that caused backs to bend and fingers to fly the more, or legs to hurry the faster, as his behest might be. It became a drive, a dizzy whirl of effort, torn with conflicting sights and sounds. There materialized hurrying figures, sharp orders, the jingle of telephone bells, the slamming of doors, the sleet-like rattle of typewriters, the soft rush of many pencils and the crackle of paper; the hundred and one distractions that contribute in the compilation of the record of a day of news. And constantly, as the whirl gained in volume like a rising wind, Harkins' tortured eyes re-sought the clock, and they held all the miserable apprehension of a miser for precious, fleeting gold.

"Gee!" exclaimed Kirk to Peters, as he passed that worthy at the end of the room, and paused a moment to wipe his moist forehead, "it's fierce, ain't it? Harkins is getting crazy. There's something up. What is it?"

"No," replied Peters, with an apprehensive glance toward Harkins, "there's nothing up, I guess. I think there's something ought to be up that isn't. That's the rub. Never saw Hark' so worked up in my life."

"Yes, but what is it?" reiterated Kirk. "It's something big, that's sure."