"Well, O'Byrn!" Harkins' voice crackled with acrid authority. "Where's your story?"
The tone had the effect of a whip lash, awakening the habit of swift obedience born of long training. Micky had stood dumb with blank eyes, to which the scene and the actors seemed strangely remote, like a vague dream. But his chief's question pierced his numbed brain like sharp steel. There was an instinctive attempt to gather his deadened forces. His hand swiftly sought an outer pocket and produced a few penciled fragments which he threw upon a table. "There," he said.
"These!" exclaimed Harkins, hastily scanning them. "Well, where are the rest? Did you lose them?"
Dick interposed. "You forget, Mr. Harkins," he suggested. "He doesn't have to carry a notebook. Micky, where's the rest of it?"
"Why," he answered confusedly, "I remembered it."
"Well, do you remember it now?" persisted Harkins.
"No," wearily, "not just now." Then, again with that strange gathering of struggling forces, though the words came as if he talked in his sleep, "I'll remember it—after I get started." And he walked straight to his desk, eyes dead ahead like a somnambulist's, unheedful of the men who watched him silently with drawn, anxious faces. It is doubtful if he saw them. Dropping limply into his chair he reached mechanically for his copy paper.
"Not that way, Micky," said Dick softly, interposing his hand. "There isn't time. You must dictate it. Here's a man waiting for you."
Micky turned dull eyes toward the stenographer who sat nearby in readiness, pencil in hand. An expression of helplessness replaced the apathy in O'Byrn's face, as his gaze shifted to Dick. In his trance-like state he could not comprehend. They wanted the story, yet would not let him write it. There was a pathetic questioning in his look.
"Listen, Micky," said Dick very distinctly, bending over him. "It's not far from press-time. We've got to hurry. There's a relay of stenographers waiting for you. Now you go ahead and dictate your story just as if you were writing it yourself. Get your mind right on it. Talk your introduction, covering the main points, then start at the beginning and go through to the finish. Get everything in and talk it as it comes to you, but have it right. Don't be afraid of going too fast. They'll get it all. Talk it just as you'd talk it to me and get it all. You understand? Now, boy, _get into it_!" He placed the packet of Shaughnessy's papers, which O'Byrn had entrusted to him, in his hand.