He glanced over the headings of the several papers he had purchased, and noted that a story he had written the day before for his own publication, had been used in a number of the rival sheets. This is always a gratification to a reporter.
“Guess they found I hadn’t missed much on that yarn,” said Larry to himself. “I was up against some hard work, too. Pshaw, I wish I hadn’t missed that express. I’ll be late if I wait for the next one, and if I take a local, that stops at all the stations, I’ll be worse off than ever. I’d like to see that fellow, and give him a bit of my mind. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry to get past me, we could have both made the express.”
Almost as Larry formed this thought he looked down the platform again, and, to his surprise, he saw the same young man step from behind a big iron pillar. He was eagerly looking over a paper, and did not seem to notice our hero.
“Humph!” mused Larry. “He didn’t get the express, after all. He had his trouble for his pains. I’m glad of it. He’s a regular bully, I guess,” and the young reporter looked closely at the individual who had caused the trouble. True, Larry might have been a bit at fault himself, for he had stood in the subway entrance as he was buying his papers, though, as he thought of it afterward, he knew there was plenty of room for the bully to have passed.
The fellow on whom Larry’s eyes were fixed was about the young reporter’s own age. He was well dressed, but there was a nervous, hurried manner in all his movements, and two or three times he looked up from the paper he held, glancing about the platform, as though he feared he might see some one whom he did not want to encounter.
All at once his eyes fell upon Larry, and he started visibly. Then he stepped back behind the pillar, as though to hide.
“Guess he thought I might try to make trouble for him,” mused Larry. “Well, he deserves it, but I’m not fond of rows, though he did give my shoulder a hard bang. It’ll be black and blue, I guess.”
The platform was beginning to be thronged with persons now, for the passengers who had accumulated just before Larry arrived had been whirled on their way downtown, and now a second crowd was on hand. This would be repeated several times, until the busy workers had all been transported to their stores or offices.
“I wonder what his object could have been, to rush down here, in plenty of time to have taken the express, and then wait?” thought Larry. “He’s a queer one.”
“City Hall Express!” suddenly called one of the subway guards, as the distant rumble of a train was heard. “Fourteenth street the first stop! City Hall Express!”