Part 19 (1/2)

”Plenty time,” replied the operator calmly; and so there was, but little Green was enveloped in a haze of zeal that set perspectives all awry.

Presently the little machine on the gla.s.s-topped table began to click.

Little Green, standing at the counter, counted the clicks.

_Clickety--click--click--clickety--click--clickety._

”You got 'em?” he asked eagerly.

”Yep.” Calmly.

Little Green emitted a sigh of relief and proceeded, carefully but hastily, to fill sheet after sheet torn from the block of blue-white paper. He scratched out, wrote in, amplified, condensed. He wrote in many tiny paragraphs; for little Green was wise beyond his years.

And while he wrote, oblivious of the _clickety--click--click_ of the little machine on the table, of the droning tick of the electrically regulated clock, of the rasp of his pencil on the paper, the indolent operator looked up.

”Rush three hundred,” he called with a yawn.

Little Green grinned. Another page and he brought his ”story” to a snappy end with a tiny, quick little sentence.

He knew the run of his own ”copy.”

He was conscious that he had exceeded the order by sixty words, approximately, and he hesitated an instant. Then thrusting the numbered sheets at the operator, he exclaimed: ”Here, take it; I'll wait for another order.”

In half an hour it came. It was for a photograph of Catherwood.

How little Green procured that photograph even after Catherwood's threat that he'd kill him if he used it, is a story in itself--a story for another time. But in less than an hour after the receipt of the telegraphic request it was in the post-office bearing on its plain wrapper a special delivery stamp.

It has been suggested that little Green was wise beyond his years. He was just wise enough not to tell _all_ his story to an afternoon paper at so late an hour.

So, with a confidence born of a short but crowded experience, he sent out by wire eight queries to as many morning papers in the middle- and the further-west.

Meanwhile that occurred which little Green had been far-sighted enough to expect would occur.

The tall, angular, boy-faced agent of the a.s.sociated Press in Detroit wandered into the office of the _Journal_ shortly after one o'clock.

Pa.s.sing the city desk he tickled the man sitting there, on his round, s.h.i.+ny, bald spot, and as he looked up with a scowl, asked blandly:

”Anything doing?”

The city editor growled and resumed reading the typewritten page that lay before him.

The agent wandered into the office of the state editor, where a man with long hair sat, fidgeting in a swivel chair and mumbling to himself under his breath.

”Anything?” asked the agent, tersely, at the same time reaching for the proofs that dangled from a hook at the side of the desk.

The state editor looked up, scowling. He disliked being annoyed when talking to himself.

”Pretty good one from Ann Arbor,” he snapped. ”Find it there.”

The agent ran hastily through the proofs and retained one. The others he hung back on the hook.