Somebody at the office must have heard about the flight of Maria
Algarez, for when Peter returned from Goldfield he had found at his flat
a telegram which said, "Lay off a couple of weeks. Longer if you
like--Miles, managing editor." That was an extraordinary thing because
the material for Peter's column--"Looking Them Over with Peter
Neale"--was only up one week ahead. A two weeks' vacation would mean not
only that there would be no Peter Neale in the Bulletin, but that in
thirty-one other papers throughout the country the feature would be
missing. Peter wondered how Miles could suggest a thing like that so
calmly. Maria's running away ought not to wrench a whole chain of
newspapers in that fashion. In daydreams Peter had often pictured
himself dying from flood, or earthquake or a stray bullet in some great
riot. When the rescuers picked him up and bent over to hear what he
might say his lips framed the words, "Send a story to the Bulletin!"
The Bulletin couldn't be bothered about people's dying or running away.
The Bulletin was bigger than that. The newspaper yarn of Rusk's which
had impressed Peter the most was about a man named O'Brale in San
Francisco. O'Brale was secretly engaged to a girl in Alameda and then a
week or so before they were to be married she had eloped with a man who
said he was a Polish Count. According to Rusk by some strange
coincidence O'Brale received the assignment to cover the story. He
didn't beg off. He sat down to write it and he finished up his story
with: "And when the news of Miss Lee's elopement drifted into the office
of the Chronicle a reporter on the city staff sighed and said, 'Scooped
again.'"
Miles must be a fool not to know that even after Peter Neale had been
smashed that part of him which was the Bulletin would go on. A picture
suddenly came to Peter. That was the way he did his thinking. "I can go
on wriggling," he said to himself, "until the first edition."
Peter felt that it was up to him to go down to the office and show them
that. He would have to show Miles. Miles was new to him. The managing
editor traffic through the office of the Bulletin was prodigious. After
all Peter had been away for two weeks and it was only natural that there
should be a new man in charge. Peter wasn't a veteran, but he had seen
five managing editors in his time and probably a couple of hundred copy
readers. "Looking Them Over" was different. That was something vital and
rooted in the Bulletin. It wasn't so much that Peter Neale was a part of
the Bulletin as that the Bulletin was a part of Peter Neale. "This other
thing," thought Peter, "is just my private life."
He felt pretty rocky when he got up. During the night the bandages had
turned bloody. It made him shaky to look at himself. Something of the
rhythm of the buildings as they swung in the long arc and turned over
was still in the pulse of Peter. All right, but he had seen Gans get up
when his legs would barely hold him. Not only get up but walk
deliberately across the ring to meet the charge of Battling Nelson.
Neale went down town. There was no one else in the elevator when he went
up to the ninth floor to the office of the Bulletin, but Sykes, the head
office boy, was in the hall outside the city room. He looked up and
said, "Hello, Mr. Neale."
So far it was all right. Nelson had knocked out Gans and Maria had run
away since Peter and Sykes had last seen each other. Sykes had been able
to take all that in his stride. Peter wondered if Miles would be as
smart. There was a man at the desk, a fat placid man, in the office of
the managing editor. Peter knocked at the door and went in before the
man looked up. "My name's Peter Neale," he said. "You're Mr. Miles,
aren't you? I got your telegram. It was nice of you, but I don't want
any time off. There's a whole batch of stuff due for the syndicate
tomorrow."
Miles nodded. He tilted his chair back three times without saying
anything. It was like a pitcher's wind-up. Peter found Miles always
spoke just after the third tilt. "Have a cigarette," he said. He also
provided a match. Then letting the chair rest on the floor he sat
looking at Peter. There wasn't any surprise or inquiry in his face.
Peter felt acutely conscious of his bloody bandages. He sat waiting to
hear, "Have an accident?" or something like that, but Miles seemed to
take it as a matter of course that Peter was all cut up. Apparently the
managing editor accepted it as something inevitable in an out-of-town
assignment. Peter dreaded the question so long that he would have felt
easier if Miles had asked him about the bandages. He was prepared to
say something about a taxicab. After all it wasn't fair that Miles
should assume that he had been drunk just because he had. Presently the
tilting began again. One, two, three, Peter counted to himself. "I want
you to do baseball in addition to your column," said Miles. "Monday
isn't too soon to start in, is it?"
"Monday's all right," said Peter.
"All right," said Miles. "You need a match," he added. "Your cigarette's
gone out."
Neither of them said anything then for a minute. Miles continued to look
at him and ignore the bandages.
"All right on Monday," said Peter and went across the hall to his own
office. Putting the catch on, he closed the door. Miles hadn't talked
about his private life, but Peter felt that he must know about it.
Probably he was thinking about it every time he quit tilting. That was
the trouble.
Out there in the City Room they were talking about it too. They must be.
Nothing happened to anybody on the Bulletin that didn't get talked about
in the City Room. No district in the town was covered so perfectly as
the reporters covered the lives of each other. When Woolstone, the
Sunday editor, started living with that little girl, Miss Gray, the one
who wrote the piece about the Haymarket, it was common gossip within a
week. Woolstone hadn't told anybody. Indeed he hadn't said a word except
that the Haymarket story was the finest piece of English prose since De
Quincey. But somehow after that everybody knew that Woolstone was living
with Miss Gray.
Peter put a sheet of paper into his typewriter and rapidly wrote at the
top of the upper right-hand corner Neale--Sports--Syndicate. Then he
turned half of the sheet through the machine and wrote "Looking Them
Over With Peter Neale--(Copyright)." There he stuck.
The sheet of paper had not been blemished but after a while Peter took
it out and wrote the same thing on another. After that he sharpened a
pencil. He wanted to get a drink of water but that was out in the City
Room. It was foolish of him not to have brought cigarettes. Miles had
cigarettes, but Peter didn't want to face that scrutiny any more.
"Gans," he wrote, "was not outboxed but he was outfought." That wouldn't
do. There had been a line almost like that in his fight story. Of course
he might do some sort of prediction story about how long Battling
Nelson would hold the title. A man who took all that punishment couldn't
last so very long. But suddenly Peter realized that he didn't give a
damn about Gans or about Nelson. The Bulletin didn't make so much
difference either. Maria was more than all this. He'd ask Miles to send
him to Africa or China or some place. Sedition seeped in. Baseball
wasn't exciting enough to make him forget. He tried to make his mind do
him a picture of Matty bending back and then shooting over his fast one.
Instead he saw Maria Algarez standing in the middle of the big stage.
That wouldn't do. Peter gripped the edge of his desk. If his mind was
only something that would stand up to him and fight like a man. He could
heave it back all right if only he could get a hand on it. Instead he
pushed against the desk. Very slowly the picture began to fade. Maria
was taller and broader. Now it was Matty. Dim but unmistakably Matty.
But the figure stood in the centre of the big stage. He must get him out
of there. If he was to hold the thing it would have to move and take on
life. Suddenly Peter realized the trick. The picture ought not to be
Matty throwing his fast one. The fadeway! That was the thing which
marked Matty in his mind above all others. He closed his eyes in order
to help. The figure bent back. The arms came up over the head. The left
leg kicked. No, it was not Maria kicking. This was a huge clumsy leg
which moved slowly, ever so slowly, grinding power for the swing of back
and shoulders which was to come. Then there was the lunge forward. Matty
had thrown the ball straight at his head. He conquered the impulse to
duck. This was the slow ball. He could see the seams. Now it was slower
and growing bigger and bigger all the time. It would walk past him
shoulder high. Peter swung at it and the ball wasn't there. A sudden
decision had come upon it. Down it swooped and out. It had passed him.
Peter opened his eyes. He didn't want to go to China or Africa after
all. Honus Wagner and the Pirates would be at the Polo Grounds on
Monday.
Peter got up and started for his drink of water. There were only three
men in the City Room. Charlie Hall was sitting at his desk right beside
the ice cooler. Perhaps Charlie had had a lot of fun out of that story
of Maria Algarez running away. Women didn't run away from Charlie. Peter
remembered the time Charlie was marooned in the Press Club. He stuck in
the poker game for two days not daring to leave the building. The
elevator man had told him of the woman who kept coming in every half an
hour or so and asking for Mr. Hall. According to the elevator man she
was very much excited. Charlie said it sounded a lot like Ethel. He
wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to shoot him. She had often
threatened to do that. Twice during those two days Peter had volunteered
to go down and scout around. Both times he had seen a woman pacing the
sidewalk just across the street from the Press Club. It looked like the
same woman. Charlie said probably it was. Ethel was very determined.
Finally they had to get a policeman to come and tell Ethel to go away.
Nobody ever seemed so glamorous to Peter as Charlie during those two
days. Peter wondered if any woman would ever want to shoot him.
There was no way of getting to the ice cooler without passing Charlie.
Peter did it slowly. Charlie looked up. "Have any fun at the fight?" he
asked.
"No, it was too hot. Anyhow I wanted to see Gans win."
"It was a great story you wrote."
"I'm glad you liked it."
"Too bad about the nigger--he was the smartest of the lot, wasn't he?"
"Yes, and don't forget he could hit too. Nelson wouldn't have had a
chance with him five years ago."
Peter was turning to go back to his office when Charlie Hall thrust out
a hand and slapped him on the shoulder. "I hear you've had some hard
luck," he said. "I'm sorry."
Peter couldn't answer for a second. "I guess nobody ever is happy so
very much," Charlie continued, sensing that Peter was stumped for the
moment. "Now you take me. I suppose you'd say I was happily married.
I've been married fifteen years and I've got five children. Well,
sometimes when I sit down at home I wonder, 'What's the use of all this
anyway?' There ought to be a law that reporters can't get married. It's
bad for them and it's bad for the paper."
"I guess you're right," said Peter.
"The thing to do is not to take women seriously. They'll bust hell out
of you if you do."
Peter brightened perceptibly. "Do you remember that time you got stuck
up in the Press Club and the girl was waiting downstairs to shoot you?"
he inquired with a certain eagerness.
"Oh yes, sure, Gracie."
"No, that wasn't the name. It was Ethel."
"Ethel?--I remember now. I had it mixed up with a business in Chicago.
Ethel! Oh yes, indeed. She was a wild one. She was just about the most
dangerous woman south of Fifty-ninth Street. That was a couple of years
ago. I can't stand so much excitement now."
"Go on," said Peter, "I suppose you'll be telling me you've reformed."
"That wouldn't be so far off the truth. Anyhow where do you get off. Who
beaned you?"
Another burden of reticence was snatched away. At last Peter had a
chance to tell somebody about the bandages.
"I was with a woman up at the Eldorado. You know the Eldorado. And a big
fellow comes over and tries to butt in. I bawled him out and we went up
on the sidewalk. I made a couple of passes at him and he hauled off and
clipped me with a bottle--a champagne bottle. I guess I was pretty
drunk."
Charlie Hall nodded his head. "You're all right. I'm glad. Some of the
boys around here have been telling me that you were all busted up about
that girl you married. I'm glad it's not so. I knew you had too much
sense for that. There isn't a one of them in the whole world that's
worth getting busted up over. Don't take 'em seriously. That's what I
say. I ought to know. I've been married fifteen years. Well, almost
fifteen years. It'll be fifteen years in October."
"I'm all right, Charlie. You tell that to the rest. I'm back on the job,
you know."
"That's good. It wouldn't seem like the Bulletin without you."
Charlie turned to the story in front of him and put one second of energy
into pounding the space bar before coming back to conversation.
"Where is this Eldorado?" he asked.
"Fiftieth Street and Seventh Avenue."
"Does it stay open all night?"
"Well, it's open all night but after one there's a man on the door and
he won't let you in unless he knows you."
"Are they strict about it?"
"Pretty strict, lately," said Peter, "but that's all right, Charlie.
Any time you want to go up late you let me know. I'll be glad to show
you round. I'm always free nights. Any night at all--That is any night
except Sunday."