Malcolm Dorr got up and stretched himself slowly. The sharp, clean lines of his face suddenly stood out again under the creasy flesh.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do to Mr. Ross,” he said, “but I want to see him first.”
“I’m not going to do anything to him,” returned Average Jones, “because, in the first place, I suspect that he is far, far away, having noted, doubtless, the plugged keyhole and suffered a crisis of the nerves. It’s strange how nervous your scientific murderer is. Anyway, Ross is only an agent. I’m going to aim higher.”
“As how?”
“Well, I expect to do three things. First, I expect to scare a peaceful but murderous trust multimillionaire almost out of his senses; second, I expect to dispatch a costly yacht to unknown seas; and third, I expect to raise the street selling price of the evening ‘yellow’ journals, temporarily, about one thousand per cent. What’s the answer? The answer is ‘Buy to-night’s papers.’”
New York, that afternoon, saw something new in advertising. That it really was advertising was shown by the “Adv.” sign, large and plain, in both the papers which carried it. The favored journals were the only two which indulged in “fudge” editions; that is, editions with glaring red-typed inserts of “special” news. On the front page of each, stretching narrowly across three columns, was a device showing a tiny mapped outline in black marked Bridgeport, Conn., and a large skeleton draft of Manhattan Island showing the principal streets. From the Connecticut city downward ran a line of dots in red. The dots entered New York from the north, passed down Fourth Avenue to the south side of Union Square, turned west and terminated. Beneath this map was the legend, also in red:
WATCH THE LINE ADVANCE IN LATER EDITIONS
It was the first time in the records of journalism that the “fudge” device had been used in advertising.
Great was the rejoicing of the “newsies” when public curiosity made a “run” upon these papers. Greater it grew when the “afternoon edition” appeared, and with their keen business instinct, the urchins saw that they could run the price upward, which they promptly did, in some cases even to a nickel. This edition carried the same “fudge” advertisement, but now the red dots crossed over to Fifth Avenue and turned northward as far as Twenty-third Street. The inscription was:
UPWARD AND ONWARD SEE NEXT EXTRA