Little Green, the pink-cheeked reporter of the _'Varsity News_, was not
that at all, and on this occasion he gave his name the lie direct.
Little Green possessed a nasal organ keenly atuned to news. As he
hastened back down town after his summary dismissal from Catherwood's
room, he calculated accurately the latent story value in the assistant
professor's indefinite account of his pupil's case.
He glanced at his watch, snapped the case, thrust it back into his
pocket--and ran.
He estimated the time with reference to the publication hour of the
Detroit afternoon papers.
He saw before him, as plainly as he saw the snow banks, one hour and
thirty minutes. The period was material, tangible. Little Green, as he
turned into Main Street and sped on toward Huron Street, not only saw
it, but felt it; almost _tasted_ it.
"Here, you!" he cried, bursting in upon the indolent operator in the
little, box-like telegraph office.
He seized a block of blue-white paper that lay on the counter.
"What's up?" asked the operator dreamily.
By way of answer little Green thrust a sheet of the blue-white paper at
him.
"Get that on the wire--hurry--it's a scoop."
The operator smiled sadly and checked off the words. He glanced up at
the clock--regulated electrically from the observatory--and scribbled
the "filing time" at the bottom of the sheet.
Little Green fidgeted.
"Say, cancha hurry?" he asked anxiously.
"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 glass-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.