Part 12 (2/2)

”Now then, boys, get me into a cab,” cried Hefty. They lifted him in and obligingly blew out the lights so that the police could not see its number, and Stuff drove Hefty proudly home. ”I guess I'm even with that cop now,” said Hefty as he stood at the door of the studio building perspiring and happy; ”but if them cops ever find out who the Black Knight was, I'll go away for six months on the Island. I guess,”

he added, thoughtfully, ”I'll have to give them two prizes up.”

OUTSIDE THE PRISON

It was about ten o'clock on the night before Christmas, and very cold.

Christmas Eve is a very-much-occupied evening everywhere, in a newspaper office especially so, and all of the twenty and odd reporters were out that night on a.s.signments, and Conway and Bronson were the only two remaining in the local room. They were the very best of friends, in the office and out of it; but as the city editor had given Conway the Christmas-eve story to write instead of Bronson, the latter was jealous, and their relations were strained. I use the word ”story” in the newspaper sense, where everything written for the paper is a story, whether it is an obituary, or a reading notice, or a dramatic criticism, or a descriptive account of the crowded streets and the lighted shop-windows of a Christmas Eve. Conway had finished his story quite half an hour before, and should have sent it out to be mutilated by the blue pencil of a copy editor; but as the city editor had twice appeared at the door of the local room, as though looking for some one to send out on another a.s.signment, both Conway and Bronson kept on steadily writing against time, to keep him off until some one else came in. Conway had written his concluding paragraph a dozen times, and Bronson had conscientiously polished and repolished a three-line ”personal” he was writing, concerning a gentleman unknown to fame, and who would remain unknown to fame until that paragraph appeared in print.

The city editor blocked the door for the third time, and looked at Bronson with a faint smile of sceptical appreciation.

”Is that very important?” he asked.

Bronson said, ”Not very,” doubtfully, as though he did not think his opinion should be trusted on such a matter, and eyed the paragraph with critical interest. Conway rushed his pencil over his paper, with the tip of his tongue showing between his teeth, and became suddenly absorbed.

”Well, then, if you are not _very_ busy,” said the city editor, ”I wish you would go down to Moyamensing. They release that bank-robber Quinn to-night, and it ought to make a good story. He was sentenced for six years, I think, but he has been commuted for good conduct and bad health. There was a preliminary story about it in the paper this morning, and you can get all the facts from that. It's Christmas Eve, and all that sort of thing, and you ought to be able to make something of it.”

There are certain stories written for a Philadelphia newspaper that circle into print with the regularity of the seasons. There is the ”First Sunday in the Park,” for example, which comes on the first warm Sunday in the spring, and which is made up of a talk with a park policeman who guesses at the number of people who have pa.s.sed through the gates that day, and announcements of the re-painting of the boat-houses and the near approach of the open-air concerts. You end this story with an allusion to the presence in the park of the ”wan-faced children of the tenement,” and the worthy workingmen (if it is a one-cent paper which the workingmen are likely to read), and tell how they wors.h.i.+pped nature in the open air, instead of saying that in place of going properly to church, they sat around in their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves and scattered egg-sh.e.l.ls and empty beer bottles and greasy Sunday newspapers over the green gra.s.s for which the worthy men who do not work pay taxes. Then there is the ”Hottest Sunday in the Park,” which comes up a month later, when you increase the park policeman's former guess by fifteen thousand, and give it a news value by adding a list of the small boys drowned in bathing.

The ”First Haul of Shad” in the Delaware is another reliable story, as is also the first ice fit for skating in the park; and then there is always the Thanksgiving story, when you ask the theatrical managers what they have to be thankful for, and have them tell you, ”For the best season that this theatre has ever known, sir,” and offer you a pa.s.s for two; and there is the New Year's story when you interview the local celebrities as to what they most want for the new year, and turn their commonplace replies into something clever. There is also a story on Christmas Day, and the one Conway had just written on the street scenes of Christmas Eve. After you have written one of these stories two or three times, you find it just as easy to write it in the office as anywhere else. One gentleman of my acquaintance did this most unsuccessfully. He wrote his Christmas-day story with the aid of a directory and the file of a last year's paper. From the year-old file he obtained the names of all the charitable inst.i.tutions which made a practice of giving their charges presents and Christmas trees, and from the directory he drew the names of their presidents and boards of directors; but as he was unfortunately lacking in religious knowledge and a sense of humor, he included all the Jewish inst.i.tutions on the list, and they wrote to the paper and rather objected to being represented as decorating Christmas trees, or in any way celebrating that particular day. But of all stale, flat, and unprofitable stories, this releasing of prisoners from Moyamensing was the worst. It seemed to Bronson that they were always releasing prisoners; he wondered how they possibly left themselves enough to make a county prison worth while. And the city editor for some reason always chose him to go down and see them come out. As they were released at midnight, and never did anything of moment when they were released but to immediately cross over to the nearest saloon with all their disreputable friends who had gathered to meet them, it was trying to one whose regard for the truth was at first unshaken, and whose imagination at the last became exhausted. So, when Bronson heard he had to release another prisoner in pathetic descriptive prose, he lost heart and patience, and rebelled.

”Andy,” he said, sadly and impressively, ”if I have written that story once, I have written it twenty times. I have described Moyamensing with the moonlight falling on its walls; I have described it with the walls s.h.i.+ning in the rain; I have described it covered with the pure white snow that falls on the just as well as on the criminal; and I have made the bloodhounds in the jail-yard howl dismally--and there are no bloodhounds, as you very well know; and I have made released convicts declare their intention to lead a better and a purer life, when they only said, 'If youse put anything in the paper about me, I'll lay for you;' and I have made them fall on the necks of their weeping wives, when they only asked, 'Did you bring me some tobacco?

I'm sick for a pipe;' and I will not write any more about it; and if I do, I will do it here in the office, and that is all there is to it.”

”Oh yes, I think you will,” said the city editor, easily.

”Let some one else do it,” Bronson pleaded--”some one who hasn't done the thing to death, who will get a new point of view--” Conway, who had stopped writing, and had been grinning at Bronson over the city editor's back, grew suddenly grave and absorbed, and began to write again with feverish industry. ”Conway, now, he's great at that sort of thing. He's--”

The city editor laid a clipping from the morning paper on the desk, and took a roll of bills from his pocket.

”There's the preliminary story,” he said. ”Conway wrote it, and it moved several good people to stop at the business office on their way down-town and leave something for the released convict's Christmas dinner. The story is a very good story, and impressed them,” he went on, counting out the bills as he spoke, ”to the extent of fifty five dollars. You take that and give it to him, and tell him to forget the past, and keep to the narrow road, and leave jointed jimmies alone.

That money will give you an excuse for talking to him, and he may say something grateful to the paper, and comment on its enterprise. Come, now, get up. I've spoiled you two boys. You've been sulking all the evening because Conway got that story, and now you are sulking because you have got a better one. Think of it--getting out of prison after four years, and on Christmas Eve! It's a beautiful story just as it is. But,” he added, grimly, ”you'll try to improve on it, and grow maudlin. I believe sometimes you'd turn a red light on the dying gladiator.”

The conscientiously industrious Conway, now that his fear of being sent out again was at rest, laughed at this with conciliatory mirth, and Bronson smiled sheepishly, and peace was restored between them.

But as Bronson capitulated, he tried to make conditions. ”Can I take a cab?” he asked.

The city editor looked at his watch. ”Yes,” he said; ”you'd better; it's late, and we go to press early to-night, remember.”

”And can I send my stuff down by the driver and go home?” Bronson went on. ”I can write it up there, and leave the cab at Fifteenth Street, near our house. I don't want to come all the way down-town again.”

”No,” said the chief; ”the driver might lose it, or get drunk, or something.”

”Then can I take Gallegher with me to bring it back?” asked Bronson.

Gallegher was one of the office-boys.

<script>