Fifteen minutes after peace had been declared McClintock and Jimmy, both
thoroughly soaked and decidedly uncomfortable, foregathered in the
latter’s office for a comparison of notes and a general consultation.
“That’d make a pippin’ of a story if you’d dare to let it get out,”
ventured the press agent as he wrung out the corner of his saturated
coat into a waste-basket.
“Well, I don’t take the dare,” returned the manager peevishly. “That’s
one story that the censor isn’t going to let get through if he can stop
it.”
“What’s the harm?” inquired Jimmy innocently.
McClintock looked him over carefully before replying.
“What’s the idea?” he remarked scornfully. “Is your reason tottering on
its throne? Don’t you know that if this thing got out it’d scare away
the family parties that are the backbone of our patronage? You couldn’t
induce women to come within half a mile of the park if they heard about
this rumpus. They’d think it might happen again any minute and they’d
remain away in a body—and they’d keep father and the boys away too. Get
that straight.”
“There’s something in it, I guess,” opined Jimmy slowly.
“You put your money three ways on that. You’ve got a new job tonight,
mister man. You’ve got to forget about putting things in the papers.
It’s up to you to keep something out for a change.”
“Maybe somebody’ll blab the whole thing.”
“I’ve issued orders to have everyone instructed to give an imitation of
a tongue-tied clam, but so dog-goned many people were in on this that
it’s pretty certain there’ll be a leak somewhere. That’s where you come
in.”
“What can I do?” inquired the press agent ruefully. He was plainly
displeased with the vista opened up by his superior.
“You can do every little thing there is to do,” returned McClintock
firmly. “I want you to make a personal matter of this. I want you to
drop into town and make the rounds of all the morning papers. I want you
to see every city editor and make a special plea to have the thing
hushed up. Tell ’em it’ll ruin us for the summer if it gets out. Make it
strong. It’s going to be the acid test of how useful you really are
around here. String ’em along. Let ’em understand that you won’t take
‘no’ for an answer. I’m going to dust over home in my car for a clean-up
and a long, dreamy nap. Goodnight.”
Jimmy started to expostulate, but he stopped short when the office door
slammed in his face. He stood irresolutely as the chug-chug of
McClintock’s machine died away in the distance. Then he dropped into a
chair, reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table, lit one and
indulged himself in painful cogitation. Under ordinary circumstances he
would have experienced profound physical discomfort from his
water-soaked clothes and the general feeling of stickiness that
enveloped him from head to feet, but physical feelings were matters of
slight importance to him at the moment. The distress which was
registered upon his face was purely mental in its origin, but it was
intense and singularly disturbing. He felt that he was up against the
hardest job of his life and he could see no way to hurdle what seemed to
be the insurmountable barriers that confronted him.
In the language of journalism Jimmy “knew news.” He knew precisely what
sort of an incident or happening or bit of romancing, for that matter,
would appeal to the trained newspaper executive as worth playing up and
precisely the sort of stuff that would be passed up. By all the tests he
was familiar with, by all the general rules and regulations of the game,
the story of the jamboree of the savage gentlemen from the far-flung
isles of the Pacific, of their attempt to raid the park, of the battle
between them and the guards and of their final defeat was one of the
biggest bits of “feature news” that had transpired in or about New York
that summer.
If it had “leaked” into any newspaper office he knew there was about as
much chance of his keeping it out of print by making a personal plea, as
there would be of suppressing the announcement of the engagement of a
daughter of the president of the United States to the Prince of Wales.
If it hadn’t “leaked”—and there was a fair chance that it hadn’t—because
of the state of the weather—he was painfully aware of the fact that by
calling on the city editors in person and asking them not to use it he
would simply be handing them a tip on which they would base an
investigation. The story was decidedly too good to be hushed up by any
plaintive wail about “ruining our business.”
He would have mentioned all of these things to McClintock if the latter
hadn’t made such an abrupt departure. He told himself now that even if
he had been able to voice them the manager wouldn’t have comprehended
the impossible nature of the task he had so casually mapped out. Folks
who haven’t smelt the smell of the paste-pot and heard the presses roar
usually have the weirdest sort of naive notions concerning just what and
just what cannot be done in the way of either inserting news in the
columns of a great metropolitan daily or keeping it out.
“The acid test”—Jimmy kept remembering these three words and the oftener
they recurred to him the more distressed he became. He sat hunched up in
his chair looking out into the pouring rain and consuming cigarettes at
a most alarming rate. At about the middle of the sixth cigarette he
straightened up; at the beginning of the seventh he arose and began to
pace the floor while a new idea slowly unfolded in his active mind; when
he was two puffs into the eighth he flung it into a corner with a
resolute sweep of his arm, dived for the telephone, called up “Beekman
4,000,” and impatiently joggled the hook until a response came.
“Hello, World?” he said jerkily, “give me the city desk ... hello ...
city desk?... Who is that? McCarthy?... Say, Mr. McCarthy, this is
Martin of Jollyland—Martin—M-A-R-T-I-N—publicity director of
Jollyland—raining here? You betcha—say, I’ve got something pretty good
for you ... hot stuff.... Be on the lookout for it, will you?—Dope?—No,
sir, this is the real goods. No fooling—on the level—you can expect it
before midnight. Good-bye.”
In the next ten minutes Jimmy, in a frenzy of feverish haste, called up
the city desks of all the other morning papers and repeated practically
the same message to each. Then he ordered three messenger boys to report
to him in half an hour, stuck six sheets of carbon between seven long
sheets of copy paper, inserted the numerous layers in his typewriter and
began to pound out, with ever increasing speed, a narrative that was to
either make or break him.
* * * * *
It was nearly midnight when an office boy dropped a long manila envelope
marked “NEWS—RUSH” on the desk in front of Larry McCarthy, night city
editor of the World. The early mail edition had gone to press ten
minutes before and McCarthy had just come up for air for a brief
interval before plunging into the final activities of the night. The
tension had relaxed and he was joking with the managing editor who had
stopped to give a few parting instructions on his way home.
McCarthy tore the envelope open almost unconsciously as he went on
talking and unfolded the four long sheets of paper which it contained,
sheets covered with closely written typewritten matter. His gaze drifted
carelessly to the top page where it lingered as something seemed
immediately to interest him. A cynical smile began to play over his
features as he read. Presently it broadened into something more mellow
and human. Then he burst into hearty laughter.
“Shades of Tody Hamilton,” he chortled. “Here’s the last word in
hysterical romance. This fellow makes ’em all look like pikers. He
called me up on the phone to tell it was hot stuff. Well, it certainly
is. It certainly is.”
“What is it?” questioned the managing editor.
“It’s a pipe dream by a bright young gentleman who seems to be trying to
make a living by getting pieces in the paper for Jollyland. He must come
from some place in the tall, tall grass if he labors under the delusion
that he can put anything as raw as this over on a New York paper. I’ll
give him credit, though. It’s a masterpiece of its kind. If someone ever
starts a press agent’s school this could be used verbatim as a horrible
example of the kind of a contribution _not_ to send out.
Just listen to this heading:
BLOODY UPRISING BY
SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS
AT JOLLYLAND QUELLED
––––
BELIEVED TO BE RESULT
OF BOLSHEVIK PLOT
––––
Maddened Savages Armed With
Spears and War Clubs Run
Amuck and Attempt to Take
Possession of Park.
––––
WHISKERED RUSSIAN SEEN
ACTING SUSPICIOUSLY
––––
“Isn’t that immense?” went on McCarthy. “Can you tie the colossal nerve
of that fellow sending a thing like that out? Get his opening paragraph:
“‘Maddened with a thirst for human blood and believed to be acting under
instructions from a Bolshevik agitator who was seen prowling about in
the early evening 186 naked savages from the South Sea Islands made a
desperate attempt last night to massacre all the whites in Jollyland,
the gigantic summer park on Coney Island. Giving utterance to
blood-curdling cries of vengeance and undaunted by the driving rain
which was falling at the time they made an attempt to break out of the
village, where they give daily exhibitions of their quaint and curious
native customs, and were held in check by the park attendants only after
a wild and furious struggle lasting for nearly half an hour!...’”
The managing editor laughed uproariously.
“The poor old Bolsheviki,” he chuckled. “Even the press agents are using
’em. That story’s certainly a gem of purest ray serene. I’d like to meet
that young fellow. He’d make an interesting study.”
The telephone bell on McCarthy’s desk rang just then and the city editor
reached for the receiver.
“Hello,” he shouted. “Yes—McCarthy—yes, I got one, too—it’s a bird—we’ve
just had the best laugh of the month over it—most sublime imagination
uncovered since Dante—you bet!”
“That’s Carlton of the Gazette—night desk man,” he said as he hung up.
“He’s got a great sense of humor. Wanted to know if I’d had this and
offered to send me his copy if I’d been forgotten.”
He crumpled Jimmy’s composition up in a ball and tossed it in the big
waste-basket at his side as a boy slipped him a first copy of the mail
edition wet from the press.
------------------------------------------------------------------------