“All about the robbery. The mystery is yet to be solved,” answered Larry breathlessly.
“Good! We can string it along for a week, maybe!” said the editor gleefully. “Pound it out for all you’re worth. Here, boy, go down to the ‘morgue’ and get me out pictures of the Consolidated Bank and all the officials. We’ll spread on this!”
Larry was soon at his typewriter, clicking off the big story—the biggest story of the day. In order to catch the first extra edition, Mr. Emberg handled Larry’s copy himself, taking it page by page as it came from the machine.
It was rushed up to the composing room through the pneumatic tubes, and there it was cut into small sections, or “takes,” so that several printers could work on it at once.
Rapidly the type-setting machines were putting into solid form Larry’s big, million-dollar robbery story. Mr. Emberg wrote a “scare” head for it, and the printers began setting that up. Down in the art department a “layout” of several pictures was being gotten ready, showing the looted bank, and portraits of its officers.
Soon enough of Larry’s story for one edition was finished, and he could take his time on the more unimportant details. Meanwhile other reporters had been sent out to get interviews as to the possible effect on the financial market by the loss of a million dollars from one bank. Some reporters looked up the big robberies of past years, to compare them with the present million-dollar one.
Then the paper came out. The immense presses down in the basement thundered away, fairly showering out the folded copies of the Leader, ready for the boys to sell on the street.
“Extra! Extra!” the lads cried, as they sped through the streets. “Extra! Full account of de great bank myst’ry! Million dollars stole! Extra! Extra!”
Larry sat back in his chair for a moment’s rest. He was tired from his morning’s task, and the pounding of the typewriter keys. But he was happy.
“If only the other papers haven’t got the story!” he said to himself. “If I have a scoop! If I have beaten Peter Manton!”