“You want to see the owner of the paper?” he asked softly, the sudden thumping of his heart sounding in his voice. “Come with me.”
He grasped the visitor’s arm and hurried him out of the local room into the hall, and thence into an elevator.
“This way,” he coaxed, when they reached the street level. He led the man out into the crowded thoroughfare, cleverly sheering away from points of danger, as a battleship might convoy a treasure bark.
In the empty local room time dragged. The city editor busied himself in his little office, glaring at his assignment book, studying clippings from afternoon newspapers, and answering calls on his telephone. Once he was interrupted by a woman who laid two tickets for a church fair on his desk and asked to have a paragraph about the entertainment published.
“Johnson!” shouted the city editor arrogantly. His voice merely lost itself in the hollow local room. He rose from his chair irritably and peered through the door of his office, but there was no Johnson on whom to break his wrath.
As evening came on reporters and copy readers straggled in. No one brought startling news in the bank story. The cashier was still missing and there was no trace of him.
The local room burst into nervous life, emphasized by erratic volleys from pounding typewriters and hoarse yells for copy-boys. More than once as the night wore away the city editor stepped from his office to look toward the corner where Johnson usually sat. Each time a vacant chair aggravated his anger.
It was nearly eleven o’clock when the ringing telephone bell called his attention from the proof before him. He jerked the receiver from its hook.
“Johnson, eh? I wanted you half a dozen times this afternoon and evening, but now you needn’t come in at all. You’re through.”
He jammed the receiver back with a glow of satisfaction in having good reason to discharge an incompetent.