Of loudly publishing owr neighbor's shame!"
This intelligent crack was originally whinnied eighteen hundred years ago by a snappy young Eyetalian limerick writer who I've decided to refer to as Juvenal, as that's how he referred to himself. By a strange freak of circumstances, I didn't have the pleasure of knowing Juvy personally, mainly because in the fiscal annum of 124 A.D. I was far too immature to go out with the boys. I absorbed the above poetry from a novel called "Satires", presented to me as an Arbor Day gift by one of my countless admirers at the Hotel St. Moe.
Really, giving me a book of poems is about five-eighths as sensible as sending passes for the Follies to the blind men's home. I'm not too ignorant to appreciate poetry, simply too busy. The only bound volume I get a chance to peruse in the day time is gotten out by the telephone company and when the shades of night begin to fall—well, I generally have plenty other places to browse around in besides the pages of somebody's book, you know that!
Before I lost my literary complex I used to be crazy about reading, though—Honest to McAdoo, I was a regular addict! For no reason whatsoever, I bought whole armfuls of best sellers, encyclopedias and what-not, including those pamphlets on first-class etiquette containing the answers to such burning questions as "Should she have asked him in?" and "Does your face flame with shame when you can't figure out which fork to use on the salad?" Honestly, I even read history and similar dizzy fiction till I got all cultured up—and all fed up, too!
I get no more thrill anymore out of an evening with the classics than Noah would get out of an April shower. I think they're all blah, no fooling! You can figure me a total loss if you like, but I know plenty of people who don't say "ain't" or raucously gargle their consomme and yet suspect that Mr. Woolworth wrote "Nicholas Nickleby" and that Boccaccio is an Eyetalian pastry.
Then again, gentle customers, why should I fritter away my sparse spare moments trying to get synthetic experience and a second-hand kick out of antique books? From my perch on the hotel switchboard I see a little more life daily than a judge and a little less than a taxi driver. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, lawyer, doctor, merchant-chief—they all pass in constant review before me in the gorgeous lobby of the St. Moe.
But to get back to the topic of reading; magazines and newspapers are my favorite brain massagers, really. If you crave descriptions of life as it should be, the magazines will give you lots of service. If you want life as it is, the daily papers are on the job with drama, comedy, tragedy, romance and thrills—practically fresh every hour! The heroes and heroines are real people, even as you and I. The ambitions, success, griefs, adventures and mistakes of billionaire and bootblack are served up piping hot to feed your hungry curiosity. Especially the mistakes. How we do love to see each other slip on the banana peel Chance and fall in the mud puddle Disgrace. Monsier Juvenal had the right dope—the average human is a fool for scandal!
For instance, let's take Tommy Brown, née reporter for the Evening Wow. I say let's take him, "but it really borders on the brutal to pick on the boy further, for he spoke out of turn and New York took him plenty! However, Tom has one distinction that makes him stand out from the mob. He's absolutely the only living male in captivity that Hazel ever did anything for without a return—and she did that for me!
Hazel Killian is still in pictures, but Mr. Daft swears by his puttees and megaphone that she cannot troupe, as she can only think for about ten feet of film, but Hazel has two wonderful reasons for believing she'll sooner or later click on the screen—both reasons are usually encased in the modish champagne-colored silk stockings. In fact, Hazel's last heavy boy friend, broke in heart and in pocket trying to make her see matters his way, once dolefully remarked as he thoughtfully watched Hazel climb a Fifth Avenue bus that she should be arrested for carrying concealed weapons. My fascinating chum lays her failure to goal Mr. Daft to the fact that she once committed the mortal sin of uttering the adverb "No" in the projection room, the "Yes" men's paradise!
Well, nobody but a visitor from dear old Gehenn: can properly appreciate mid-summer in New York. Honestly, when Mr. Sun gets the proper range and bears down on Gotham along around August, you can light a cigarette from the pavements and get a coat of tan in the subways! So one torrid day when our jovial mayor had given Hon. Humidity the freedom of the city, I decided to stake myself to an afternoon off. Really, I just had to abandon that switchboard, for one more "Is it hot enough for you, girlie?" would have driven me twelve feet past insanity!
When I arrived at our fashionable uptown apartment—ahem!—I found friend Hazel in a tantrum. We usually keep several tantrums handy, it's a well-appointed place.
Being temporarily fluent with money, we had advertised for a maid to do the cleaning, answer the bulk of Hazel's lavish phone calls and otherwise give us a fair break for about seventy-five a month. We should be annoyed about hoarding jack—you can't take it with you when you decease, because there's no pockets in a shroud!
Hazel leaped up in alarm when I let myself into our domicile.
"My Gawd! What are you doing home this early—did the St. Moe give you the air?" she gasps.
Wouldn't Hazel be a panic on a welcoming committee?
"Sit down and don't be so boisterous!" I says, throwing a twenty-dollar chapeau on what would be a chaise longue if it wasn't a sofa, "Haven't I got as much right to a holiday as you have? You act as if you were a guest here, or something!"
"I'm resting between pictures" remarks Hazel haughtily, striking a Ritzy pose.
"Listen, Hazel" I says, "Don't try to high-hat me—I knew you when you thought Caviar was a tenor! Did you manage to sign up a slavey this morning?"
This innocent question seemed to have the same effect on our heroine that a sedlitz powder has on a glass of water. Honestly, she wheeled around on me in a young fury.
"Don't talk to me about maids!" she says angrily, "I've had all the charwomen this morning that I can take. If any more of 'em show up, you can entertain 'em!"
"There, there, little girl" I smiled, patting her on the shoulder soothingly. "Tell me your story—perhaps I can right the wrong and"
"Oh, cut the comedy!" Hazel rudely interrupts, wrenching away from me, "I'm in no mood for that applesauce now. I'm so steamed up I feel like kicking a few window-panes out, just to be nasty!"
"You're dizzy!" I says. "If you wish to confirm the neighbors' suspicions, there's much less costlier ways than that. Stop squawking and tell me what happened to you this morning—you've got me tantalized to death!"
"Well," says Hazel. "When no candidates appeared up to ten o'clock in answer to our ad, I decided to give this drum of ours a thorough cleaning myself—you needn't laugh, me and labor have met before! So I put on that old brown smock you insist should go to the Salvation Army, rolled up my sleeves and tied in. I was busy saying it with the vacuum cleaner when the first volunteer stabbed the doorbell. This entry, who looked like she stepped right out of somebody's nightmare, was a gayly caparisoned importation from either Latvia or the one next to it. Her English wasn't much better than ours and"
"I love that!" I butted in, "Speak for yourself—there ain't a thing the matter with my grammar!"
"Yeah?" sneers Hazel, "Well, see if you can find 'ain't' in the dictionary! Anyhow, when I opened the door that schoolgirl complexion was still in the cans on the dressing table, the skin they love to touch was covered with soot, my hair was in an uproar and you know how that old torn smock looks. I admit I was exactly assembled for a dinner party at the Ambassador. Well, this immigrant takes one long, lingering look at me, sticks up her nose and before I can proposition her she flounces out, remarking that she's not going to work for nobody that looked worse than she did herself!"
Oo la la! I can imagine how that crack ruined the highly self-satisfied Hazel!
"Well, don't cry," I says, "As Congress tells the Japanese, it's all in fun! Suppose we go down to one of the beaches and see if we can foil this heat. It must be all of a hundred and eighty in the shade, really!"
"We'll never have any decent weather as long as the forecaster's job is a political appointment!" says Hazel, "But that beach idea of yours is the elephant's brassiere. Let's go down and teach the fishes how to swim. Warm puppy! I'm full of pep and no control! I just bought a bathing suit that"
"I saw it" I interrupted, "And you'd better take along enough change to pay your fine. All that costume conceals is your religion!"
"Is that so?" says Hazel, curling her lip, "Well, that sea-going negligee of yours is one garment that calls for beauty—and courage—on the part of its wearer, believe me!"
"What of it?" I asked her "Haven't I got enough of both?"
"Don't let's fight" yawns Hazel, "It's too hot."
Well, as we can each dress as fast as any firemen in the world, we're motoring to Long Beach within the hour to find out for ourselves just what the wild waves were saying. Honestly, had I known what was going to happen to me, I'd have stayed home and listened to the rollers over the radio!
Leaving the bath house, dressed to thrill, we found the beach just littered with likely young men and that coincidence immediately removed Hazel's desire to plunge into the briny. Even I had to admit that my beauteous room-mate was something to think about in a bathing suit, especially, in that lo and behold one she was wearing. As far as that part of it goes, the boys didn't seem disposed to laugh me off either. Several masculine gasps of admiration—which we divided evenly between us—strengthened Hazel's resolve to strut her stuff and leave the ocean to its proper inhabitants, the fish. However, I came down to the sea to swim, a gift I was very agile at in my beauty-contest-winner days, two or three years ago.
Hazel by no means got hysterical with grief when I told her I was going to leave her flat and do a piece of bathing. She was busy dazzling the handsome lifeguard with her charms. So I waded bravely in, ducked under to get that first horrible chill over with and struck out boldly for the diving float, tethered some distance from the beach.
Then the fun began!
For some time I'd achieved the bulk of my swimming in a bath tub and with a wildly palpitating heart I soon discovered that I'd more than misjudged both my strength and the distance to the float. A treacherous undertow made things more thrilling and regardless of what the record may be, I know I was averaging fifty-five waves swallowed with each frightened gulp. I was satisfied that as a mermaid I was a first-class telephone operator and this was one time I'd have been double willing to change my name—to Annette Kellermann, for instance!
Thoroughly scared and as weak as seven days, I was seriously in need of one standard-sized, regulation full-blooded hero, when a young man filed his application. At least, I thought thankfully, as I saw him dive gracefully off the float and swim towards me, if he wasn't a hero he'd certainly do till one came along!
Well, to prune a long story, it turned out that the stranger negotiated a wicked wave and he towed me to the diving platform in safety. Barring the laughing seagulls we were alone there and as soon as I got back my breath and my dignity, introductions were served.
My brave rescuer made a clean breast of being Thomas Brown, a newspaper man, and while he would never be mistaken for Valentino he had lots of stuff, really. He was a nice, clean-cut looking kid and I wasn't a bit burnt up when his searching, candidly admiring gaze swept my shivering and not exactly hidden form. Honestly, he was a pleasing change from those cake addicts at the St. Moe, who disrobe you with a glance! He had powder-blue eyes, a weakness of mine, and of course I didn't hold his dare-devil rescue of me against him, either.
"Well," I says, smiling sweetly on Thomas, "I'm certainly glad to check out of the bounding main! If it hadn't been for you, I might be down kidding Mr. Neptune, now. It was nice of you to go overboard for me and I won't forget it!"
"I've gone overboard for you in more ways than one!" says Thomas enthusiastically, "I think you're the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life and I've looked at plenty! No fooling, you've got more curves than a French Horn and"
"That's out!" I interrupted severely, moving toward the edge of the float. "Be yourself, you're not at home now!"
"But I don't mean anything wrong," he says quickly. "I just like you and you're going to like me, too, when you know me better. Let's see—this is Monday, isn't it? Well, tonight we'll have dinner together and see a show, tcmorrow I'll take you to the ball game, Wednesday we'll go to the races and dance somewhere at night, Thursday we'll have tea at the Ritz, Friday we'll take a nice long auto ride, Saturday we'll watch a good movie and Sunday we can stay home in your parlor—because by that time, I'll be down to my last friend's last dime!"
Don't you love that?
"Tommy," I smiled. "You're all wet!"
But, really, that didn't even slow him up. I guess he thought my remark applied to his water-soaked bathing suit! He persisted in trying to build himself up with me for the next half hour or more and sold himself so successfully that at last I agreed to one dinner engagement. Ladies must eat!
When, apropos of nothing, I casually mentioned the fact that I was created at Bountiful, Utah, Thomas delightedly rose to remark that we were the same as neighbors, as he first became a problem to his parents in the metropolis of Panquitch—a paltry three hundred miles away from my home town. According to Tommy's confession, he toiled and spun on the Panquitch Weekly Whine, till he found out that he, one of the outstanding members of the great white-collar class, was paying rent to a greasy laborer who got three dollars a day more than Thomas did. That discovery gave my new found friend the hibby jibbys. It likewise fired him with a burning ambition to leave the great open spaces where a man's a man and come to New York, where there's less landscape and more opportunity. No sooner said than done! Tom dashed into Manhattan a month before and had since been doing his stuff on the staff of the Evening Wow. But alas, ah me and alackaday! That newspaper was sheering off expenses and as my vis-à-vis was the last man to join the payroll, he's due to be the first to leave it.
As we delved further into the life and struggles of Thomas Brown, he told me he was madly infatuated with the newspaper game and also with food. For that reason, he wants to do everything else in the world but lose his job. Incidentally, the Evening Wow is for sale and Tommy is sure he'll be solid for life with whoever the buyer may be, if he can only excavate some exclusive news "beat" that will dumfound New York.
How to accomplish this difficult feat is beyond Thomas at the moment. While I listened in sympathetic silence, he told me bitterly that when anything new or startling happens in Gotham, ten minutes later the story is about as exclusive as Central Park! Dramas, novels and movies to the contrary, says Thomas, cub reporters on metropolitan dailies get scant opportunities to save the day and likewise the paper by rushing in to the overjoyed city editor with the news beat of the year. His particular city editor happens to be a scandal hound, claiming that it's those kind of stories which sell the newspapers, so Tom has been trying manfully to dish up some dirt for Mr. Constant Reader. So far, however, the most important happening Thomas has been assigned to "cover" was the Ninety-Eighth Annual Banquet of the Surgeon's & Steamfitter's Union—and that, sighs Tommy, was postponed!
Well, really, me and Tom became so interested in each other that it took the combined efforts of a chill breeze, a rising, choppy tide and gathering dusk to—remind us that we were still on the float. I couldn't get Thomas to listen to the idea of me swimming ashore—he was already at the masterful and protective stage, you know. By some extremely unmodulated shouting and arm waving, my tête-à-tête managed to attract the attention of Hazel and her boy friend, the lifeguard, on the now uncrowded beach. They watched us curiously at first and then in alarm. After a brief conference with Hazel, Mr. Lifeguard reluctantly broke out a boat and with Hazel acting as coxswain he rowed out to us and ferried us back. So that was that.
When me and Hazel got into our habitation that evening, she at once turned on the line I've learned to expect from her whenever a John sees me first.
"You're always bawling me out for my innocent flirtations" she says, "Yet the minute we hit that beach you jumped right into the ocean after a man!"
"Here kitty, kitty, kitty!" I says, proceeding calmly about the business of disrobing.
"I'm no more catty than you are!" says Hazel peevishly, "Speaking of mushrooms, what's that big blonde's racket?"
"He's a reporter" I told her, "And he's taking me out to dinner tomorrow night."
"A reporter, eh?" sneers Hazel, "What's he going to use for money?"
Honestly, I'm more sorry for Hazel than angry with her. Poor dear, she means well, but she just doesn't know! You see, the only kind of drawing rooms Hazel's ever been in were artists' studios, when she was once a model young lady—or a young lady model, I should say. However, she was pleasant enough to Tommy when he began haunting our apartment to call on me. She tried neither competition or sarcasm.
Mr. Thomas Brown swiftly became a daily obstruction at my switchboard in the St. Moe, to the great disgust and alarm of Jerry Murphy and Pete Kift.
"Who is 'at big egg which aces around here all the time?" growls Jerry one day, glaring at Tommy's disappearing back.
"That's as much of your business as Coolidge's diary is!" I says.
"Don't get sore" says Jerry, "I'm only lookin' out for your best interests, Cutey. What's he want?"
"We haven't taken that up yet" I snapped, "So long, Jerry—I'll see you in the comic supplement, Sunday!"
"Well, if 'at John gets giddy, tip me off" says Jerry, ignoring the compliment, "I'll smack him for a loop! How come these gils can get your kind attention day in and day out and you won't give me a tumble?"
"I'm no good at riddles, Jerry," I says, carelessly.
"I wish you'd come up to my flat with me sometime and meet my sister" says Jerry, wistfully, "She's first-class company and so am I and we'd have lots of giggles. Speakin' of entertainment, I got Siam on my radio last night and"
"And you got soup on your tie this morning!" I finished for him, "You better change that neckwear before the manager pegs you, or he'll about broadcast you out of here!"
That sent him scurrying.
Well, the Evening Wow was still on the market and as the proprietors were swinging the axe daily so the overhead would look attractive to prospective purchasers, Tommy Brown's job dangled by the thinnest of threads. The boy's earnestness and ambition had made a big hit with me—I wanted to see him smash over a fast one, really I did! So I made up my mind I'd furnish him with a scoop of the century for his paper, by ferreting out one if possible—if not, by creating a nation-wide sensation myself!
I commandeered Hazel, Jerry and Pete to assist me and although none of 'em went wild with eagerness at first, they all finally and as usual succumbed to my blandishments. I'm merely using that last word to show you I speak English, too. Each of my little playmates figured in some spectacular incident worthy of front page display in any man's newspaper and the details and photographs were given to Thomas Brown exclusively, by yours in the faith.
For example, I had Pete organize all the bellhops in the city into a union and then call a strike that tied up all the hotels. Believe me, those inns were fit to be tied when the boys walked out, don't think they weren't! Well, from this little incident, Tommy Brown got a colorful bed-time story for the Evening Wow of the guests carrying their own baggage, ice water, etc. and so forth. Jerry Murphy came nobly to bat next by pinching forty-three sightseers in the St. Moe lobby in an enthusiastic drive against mashers. Hazel's effort was to be found bound and gagged in our flat by a couple of obliging coppers, ex-colleagues of Jerry's. Naturally, Hazel's twenty-five thousand-dollar diamond key ring was missing and of course the foul deed was did by a "mysterious masked man". Hazel photographs like a billion and Tommy's paper ate this hokum up hungrily. Really, he looked like a cinch for a lengthy stay on the Evening Wow. In fact, he boasted that one morning when he reported for the day's chores, the city editor actually nodded to him!
However, about the only successes in New York who can rest on their laurels and still rate attention from the populace are those who have been done in bronze and placed at park entrances and city squares. This was brought home hard to Thomas when the "beats" I furnished him had their brief flicker and died out. To have seriously upset Broadway's cynical calm, Colombus would have had to discover a new continent daily, perhaps two on Sundays. So one fatal day Tommy's city editor told him cold turkey that in two weeks Tom might be president of Porto Rico, Duke of Nebraska or head of the Steel Trust, but what he won't be is on the payroll of the Evening Wow!
Honestly, this unpleasant news disturbed me greatly and while I was cudgelling my brain for some scheme to make the unfortunate youth a permanent attraction in Park Row, the way was clearly shown to me at my switchboard through a conversation I happened to eavesdrop over the wires.
Amongst the more or less guests at the St. Moe was John Temple Manning, also a newspaper man like Tommy Brown, only different. The difference between 'em was about ten million dollars. Manning owned the Morning Malaprop and a face containing two more wrinkles than there is in any prune that's come to my notice, really. As this greedy-eyed old fool never passed the switchboard without trying to arrange things with me, I liked him the same way I like appendicitis! I understood from Tommy that I shared this distaste for Monsieur Manning with the owners of the Evening Wow, which enterprising paper allowed no day to pass without lambasting him to a fare-thee-well. Manning, who's own news columns knew no brother, had recently printed in the Morning Malaprop a sensational story about a bosom friend of the Evening Wow's proprietors, hence the bad feeling.
One day Tommy Brown breezed into the St. Moe with an excited sparkle in his eye. He waited until I'd dealt out a bevy of numbers to the customers and then he leaned over close to me.
"What d'ye know about John T. Manning, Gladys?" he asks me, mysteriously.
"Nothing good!" I answered, promptly and truthfully.
"Ever hear of Jackson Young?" says Tommy.
"What am I being examined for?" I ask him, curiously, "Do you mean Jackson Young, the big oil man?"
"Absolutely!" says Tommy, "Big oil man is right! That baby's got an income of about half a million a year"
"Not counting tips" I butt in, impatiently, "Get to the point, Tommy, I've got a lot of hot wires this morning!"
"Well, listen heavy, then!" says Tommy, with serious features, "I've got the chance of a lifetime staring me right in the face! The story of the year is in my hands—if you'll throw in with me. There's a rumor floating around the Evening Wow office that John T. Manning is paying a little more than courteous attention to a relative of Jackson Young's by marriage—to put it plainly, his wife!"
"Torrid Rover!" I says, "A fool and his honey are soon parted, eh? But where do I come in on that newsy tidbit?"
"Gladys" says Thomas, "My paper would give its linotypes for proof that Manning and Young's wife are in love with each other but as no proofs are available, we can't print a hint about the impending scandal through fear of the great god Libel. However, Manning lives at this hotel—he must make and receive telephone calls—eh—maybe you"
"That's enough" I cut him off, "Let me think!"
I knew, of course, what Tommy was driving at and there were certain—er—ethics to be considered, if you know what I mean. I've never done anything yet that smacks of sneakiness and I wasn't crazy about beginning then, Tommy or no Tommy! Still, this Manning was a married man and I thought him an unspeakable cur who should at least get slapped in the face for contemplating bounding off with another man's wife. He was as popular as a blizzard with me—why show him any favors? The more I thought it over the more I devoutly wished to see Manning punished and made to like it! In the well known and popular jiffy I decided to be the Miss Fix-It through which Manning would be foiled in trying to break up his own and another's home and Thomas Brown made eternally famous as a star reporter!
If Hades is paved with good intentions, then I'd be a knockout down there as a contractor, no kidding!
About ten days later I held Mr. Manning's fate in the hollow of what has been called my lily white hand. Jerry Murphy and his copper pals had shadowed Manning day and night, Pete Kift got chummy with the millionaire rotter's scofflaw chauffeur and under my careful directions, Peter also engineered a little entertainment at which the talkative maid of the faithless Mrs. Jackson Young was the guest of honor. As for myself—well, the lady and gentleman were a bit reckless over the phone about their illegal affair of the heart. I had a cinch, really. All I had to do, was listen!
When matters were all set, I phoned Tommy Brown to simply hurl himself up to the St. Moe and gave him a slight inkling of why speed was necessary. Honestly, he arrived as if he'd been shot from a cannon!
"Well, what d'ye know?" he asks, breathlessly.
"A library full!" I whispered, "Manning and Jackson Young's wife are going to elope!"
"Leaping Tuna!" pants Thomas, "How did you"
"Shut up!" I hissed, "Time fugits! Manning's yacht is laid up and they're sailing for South America today on one of the little known steamship lines—Jerry Murphy will go with you and show you the pier. They're booked as 'Mr. and Mrs. Shields'. Now grab a taxi and do your worst!"
"I took a chance and brought a staff photographer along like you told me to" says Tommy, fairly foaming at the mouth with delight, "But I didn't tip them a thing at the office—I want to knock 'em dead with amazement. Creeping Mackerel! This will goal 'em! Hating Manning's ears, my paper will pounce on this story of stories like puss pounces on little mousie. They'll smear it all over the sheet. I'll scoop the world and whoever does buy the Evening Wow will give me a life job at some delirious salary! I"
"Get in motion, will you?" I almost screamed, "They'll be off Sandy Hook before you"
But Thomas had shot through the lobby and out the revolving doors, scattering innocent bystanders hither and you in his mad flight.
There isn't much more to tell, but what there is will ruin you! Accompanied by his photographer, Tommy boarded the lugger on which John Temple Manning and Mrs. Jackson Young were starting their unlawful voyage. Tom spotted the pair hiding back of a life-boat and his camera man used his police lines badge to set up his camera on the ship's bridge, getting a peach of a picture showing Manning with his arm around Mrs. Young's slender waist. Tom's next imitation was to get a copy of the ship's register and scramble ashore, all without the guilty couple's knowledge. Our heroic reporter made no attempt to interview his victims, being more or less sensibly afraid that Manning would have him shanghaied or something to prevent the publication of that photo and story.
Once on dry land, Tommy rushed to the office of the Evening Wow and feverishly typed out his yarn for his overjoyed city editor, just like they do in a book. Within the hour, newsboys were shouting the extras that trumpeted Manning's disgrace to an eager city. So far—perfect!
Still flushed with the lavish praise of his boss and the congratulations of an envious staff, Thomas came right back to me to try and express his heartfelt gratitude. He tossed an extra, hot off the press, in front of me.
"We've simply flayed Manning alive, Gladys!" he laughs, a bit hysterically, "I've stood this town on its head! The Evening Wow was to change hands today, but that makes no difference to me now. I'm sitting pretty! My city editor says that if the new owners keep him on I'll get boosted to seventy-five per and be turned loose on nothing but big stuff. Why, I've already been assigned to cover that million-dollar Maiden Lane robbery and"
"Wait—here's a call for you!" I interrupted.
"Probably my city editor," says Tommy, loftily, "I left word where I'd be. Something big must have broken, if he wants me!"
And he dashed smilingly into the booth I waved him to. Oh, Thomas Brown was a big fellow, right then!
I guess it was ten minutes later when Thomas Brown of the Evening Wow staggered out of that phone booth. Honestly, his appearance almost stopped my wildly palpitating heart! His hair was all mussed up, his eyes bulged from his head and his face was the color of skimmed milk in a dairy where they make an art of skimming. He couldn't talk—he just panted and gulped at me!
"What on earth's the matter?" I gasped, "What's happened to you?"
"I—I've just been talking to a representative of the Evening Wow's new owners," he breathes, "It's—it was about that Manning story. . . ."
"Didn't they like it?" I asked, astounded.
Tommy gives me a ghastly grin.
"No, Gladys" he says, "They didn't like it!"
"Why the idea!" I says, angrily, "After all the trouble we went to—can you imagine that? I should think that no matter how conservative the new owners of the Evening Wow are, they should realize that it's those kind of stories that sell papers. You told me your city editor said that himself!"
"Listen!" says Thomas, leaning heavily on the switchboard, "You're a great kid—a wonderful girl and I like you. I hope we'll meet again sometime. Just now the panic is on! I've got to get out of this man's burg a little bit faster than swiftly. The Evening Wow was sold to John Temple Manning, just two hours before it got out that extra telling the world its owner was eloping with another man's wife! My, God, just think—the only newspaper in town that printed it was the one he had just bought. That noise you hear is the laughter of the gods. Goodbye!"