"But Overman must have been furious, anyway. Poor Cripp."
"Overman'll get over it. Cripp's a good man."
Tracy shook her head slowly. "Thanks for saying it, but Cripp isn't cut out for the newspaper racket and you know it. A couple more flubs and Overman will begin to think Cripp belongs to the Anti-Newspaper League or something."
"Very funny," McLeod told her. "I can just see it now: Cripp a subversive."
"Shh!" said Tracy, raising a finger to her lips. "We shouldn't even talk about things like that. Mentioning the Anti-Newspaper League in here is like eating beefsteak in Delhi."
A figure approached their table and sat down at the empty chair without receiving an invitation. "Did I hear something about the Anti-Newspaper League?" the man demanded, chuckling softly. He was tall and gaunt but well-tanned, the whites of his eyes very bright against the skin of his face. He had a long, sad nose which drooped mournfully almost to his upper lip, mitigating the effect of his smile.
He was Weaver Wainwright, ace reporter of the World.
"We're just a couple of subversives, Mr. Wainwright," Tracy said.
"So that's why the Star-Times is filling its pages with wrongos these days. How do you do, McLeod?"