tive hatred which he cherished for the city editor. He wanted revenge,—a chance to get even. The picture of the coach kept rising in his thoughts until at last he hunted through his newspaper and found what club it was he had seen upon it, and all about their outing. He got off the train at East New York, and made his way, through squalid streets, to an out-of-the-way Italian drug store, where there was a telephone.

Mr. Ernest Du Mond, the city editor of the New York Evening Courant, had just come in from the composing room, where he had been superintending the making-up of the so-called seven-thirty edition. The last form had been locked, and was now in the hands of the stereotypers, a floor below. Just as the office clock struck six, he heard the dull, steadily-growing rumble of the great roller presses, which, six floors below, in the basement, were embroidering clean sheets of paper in yellowness and filth. Du Mond leaned back in his chair, cocking his feet up on the desk before him, and wondered what would come in during the next hour. It was the policy of the Courant to publish (at six) a half-past-seven edition, which was, as a rule, the last of the afternoon, but if any really big story came in within an hour afterward, they would make up a late extra. At seven, the night city editor, who handled the news for the next morning's Courant, took full charge; then Mr. Ernest Du Mond, to use his own graphic phrase, "pulled up stakes and sloped."

On this particular day the city editor's cigar tasted especially good. Things had gone well during the day, except for the Globe's beat, which, Du Mond placidly assured himself, lacked the romance and sensationalism that make good Courant news. The story in question, a ferry-boat suicide off the Battery in the early afternoon, would, to the ordinary reader, have been dramatic enough, but Du Mond only cared to know that the shop-girl had drowned herself, not from romantic motives, but merely because she was sick of life. After all, too, it was not such a disgrace to be beaten by the Globe, for, though he would not have breathed it to a soul, Du Mond knew that the Globe published the best evening and morning paper in New York.

For all the Courant's pretenses and assertions that it, of all papers,

utilized in its office every modern improvement, the telephones were not in closets by themselves, as is most convenient, but were merely on the regulation telephone desks along the wall, not far from the city editor's desk. During the day there was always a boy at hand to answer the bell, but now that the day's work was practically over, there was no one near but Du Mond himself. When one of them rang accordingly, he was anything but pleased to be obliged to lift his feet down from the desk and go over to the instrument himself.

"Hello," he said brusquely.

"Hello, is Mr. Marston there?"

"Who?" asked Du Mond with a start.

"Mr. Marston, city editor."

"Why, what-"

"Oh, cut it out," broke in the voice, "its owner's patience evidently exhausted. I want Marston, M-a-r-s-t-o-n, the city editor. Don't you understand? Who are you, anyway? Say, this is the Globe office isn't it?"

Du Mond was really angry. He was on the point of making a reply which would, without doubt, have proved conclusive, when an old tradition of the Courant office suddenly came to his mind, and he hesitated. The tradition ran that once Du Mond's predecessor on the city desk had treacherously obtained an important beat from a Globe reporter who had asked for, or at least been given, 360 Cortlandt, the Courant's number, instead of 306 Cortlandt, the number of his own paper.

The city editor's hesitation was only momentary. He answered naturally: "Oh, yes, but Mr. Marston is very busy just now. You'd better tell me what you want, and let me tell him."

"Well, all right, but be quick. It's very important. Say, who did you say this was ?"

To Du Mond's mumbled "Jones," the man at the other end of the wire said "Oh," doubtfully. Then he went on: "Tell Marston that Backnallyou know I left the staff last night-has run across the biggest story of the day, and if you take it quick, it's a beat. Tell him I'm perfectly willing to

give him the whole story if I get my old job back. Ask him if it's a go, will you?"

"All right," Du Mond said, "just a moment." After waiting a reasonable length of time, he continued: "Mr. Marston is right here, by the 'phone. He wants to know what the story is. If it's as big as you say, he says you can have your position back, and welcome. What's the story?"

"Big smash up on the Manhattan Beach road. Train ran into a coachload of men on their way to Canarsie. Happened at a crossing near Flatlands."

The city editor gasped. "What I might have missed," he muttered under his breath. Then, into the mouthpiece: "Say, anyone killed?"

"Seven. Three more pretty badly hurt, the ambulance doctors says. The others-let's see, there are one, two, eight of them, I guess, I've got

it down here somewhere-they're all cut up a bit. Driver, poor devil, least hurt of any of them, was ranting round when I left, a moment ago; swears he is a murderer, and so on. Great story."

"You are perfectly certain it's straight, then?"

"I was on the train that ran 'em down; I ought to know."

Wait a minute while I get a man to take the story. Then dictate as much of it as you've got. Can you give us two columns ?"

"Easy. But get a man that can take it fast, for the report hasn't gotten in to the Brooklyn police yet, and you want to have it while it's a beat. The Globe will have the first extra by an hour if you hurry."

"Oh, the Globe will, eh?" chuckled Du Mond. "No doubt you think so, my boy." He called: "Here, Tom!"

A seedy-looking reporter came running up from the other end of the room, where, at tables separated by a rail from the editorial desks, a number of just such looking men as Tom were sitting, some talking, some writing, all smoking so that the air fairly reeked with the mingled fumes of pipes, cheap cigars, and still cheaper cigarettes. The atmosphere was stifling.

"Tom," said the city editor, "here's a big story coming in over the 'phone. You've got to take it fast as the devil. Pull up that typewriter, will you?"

"Hello," he called through the telephone. "Here's the best man in the office. Give him the story as fast as he'll take it." Then, grinning mellowly: "Report on Monday, and we'll make it O. K. with you."

Meanwhile Tom, having refilled his black pipe and seated himself before the telephone, adjusted the receiver over his head so that it fitted snugly against his ear. When all his preparations were complete, he growled into the mouthpiece: "All ready. Let 'er go."

Clack, clack, clackety, clack, went the instrument as the pliant fingers flew here and there over the keyboard with ceaseless accuracy. In the excited little group which had by this time gathered quietly about the typewriter, the only really unmoved figure appeared to be Du Mond, who stood somewhat apart, explaining to the managing editor his clever ruse. The managing editor, another of Du Mond's sort, rubbed his plump hands together, and at last patted his subordinate approvingly on the shoulder. “Good work, Ernest," said he. "Damn good work."

When the first paragraph was finished, Du Mond pulled it from the typewriter and ran over it rapidly at his desk, the managing editor reading over his shoulder. Their faces shone with pleasure.

"A crowded stage-coach," the story began, "on which were seventeen members of the James Daily Democratic Club of the Eleventh Ward, Brooklyn, was crashed into at the Hemlock Road crossing on the line of the Manhattan Beach branch of the Long Island Railroad, by the five o'clock train for Thirty-fourth Street this afternoon. Seven of the clubmen were instantly killed; in many cases their bodies were thrown for some distance from the actual spot of the collision. Three more are hurt, it is feared, beyond hope of recovery. The remaining seven of the clubmen, and the driver are all more or less scratched and shaken up. That the horses did not bolt after the accident is due to the bravery and readiness of the driver, Henry Kendall, of Keap Street, who insists on blaming himself for the disaster, though he was very evidently in no way at fault. The facts thus briefly stated show at a glance the gravity of the catastrophe."

"Give that out, quick," cried Du Mond, “and tell them to be ready in the composing room for more."

Sheet by sheet the manuscript of the great beat rolled out from beneath. the quick fingers of Tom. The breaks were infrequent: at the end of each page he was obliged to stop long enough to insert another sheet of the rough "copy" paper beneath the roller of his typewriter; sometimes the man at the other end of the wire had to spell out a name for him; often, toward the end of the story, he had to pause and growl: "Of course we're not through, Central. Keep away!"

After each page had received Du Mond's brief revision, it was carried out to the compositors and was in type usually before the next typewritten sheet came out. When the city editor saw that the end of the story was approaching, he sat down at his desk and wrote out the head, which would stretch, a broad conspicuous belt of type, across the whole upper half of the outside page. At last the whole tale was told, and the small double cross made at the end of the last sheet to show the men in the composing room that no more was coming. As a parting shot came from Flatbush the announcement that "a Courant man had just stumbled on the story by accident and was nosing around to beat hell, so they had better hustle their extra onto the street as soon as possible." Du Mond, of course, had no way of knowing that his correspondent, being three-quarters of a mile from the Hemlock Road crossing while he talked, could hardly have known whether a Courant man was there or not. He and the managing editor accordingly smiled at the absurdity of being warned that one of their own staff was at work on the story. "Good-bye," Tom called, and rang off.

Ten minutes later a gorgeous Courant extra was out along Park Row, to the great consternation of the rival offices. "There's something wrong about that," said Marston, running his pencil perplexedly through his hair, "but it's a great story." And for all his doubts, the newsboys with voices many toned and not altogether unmusical, were crying the extra, below at the approach to the bridge: "All about smash-up. Extray!"

It was after seven when Backnall reached the New York end of the bridge. He had bought a late edition of the Globe in Brooklyn, and was dis