The tempo was increasing to its highest pitch for the day. That
highly complicated organism, a daily newspaper, which is
apparently conceived in the wildest disorder, was about to "go to
bed." Twenty typewriters were hammering out their finishing
touches and concluding paragraphs to new stories. New leads were
being written to old stories.
News machines, telegraph machines, two tickers were adding their
quota to the infernal din. Male and female voices were punctuating
the grimy air with yells of "copy boy". The men at the horseshoe
shaped copy desk were echoing the cry. Boys rushed up to some of
the typewriters, and, almost before the type bars ceased their
clicking on the last words of a sentence, snatched out the sheet
of copy paper from the machine.
The floor, tables, desks, chairs presented an appearance that
would have made the owner of a respectable junk shop blush.
Discarded copy paper and newspapers, cigarette stubs, burnt
matches, strewed the floors. Coats and hats dumped anywhere,
littered the desks and battered chairs.
As an obligato to the din, there came from deep in the bowels of
the building the rumbling of the huge presses that were throwing
out the papers of an earlier edition; a rumble that was felt as
well as heard.
Suddenly, as if by magic, the din ceased; "dead line" had been
reached. One lone typewriter came to a chattering halt. Men and
women rose from their machines, where they had been sitting tense.
Cigarettes were lit; the workers relaxed. There began a subdued
chatter. Chaff and banter were exchanged, freely, good humoredly.
Only the visible evidence of a former disorder remained. The room
was still untidy and grimy. Papers in unbelievable profusion
heaped the floors and desks. The rumble in the basement ceased. In
a few moments it began again. It was running off the final
edition.
James Hale, star reporter on the New York Eagle, who had a few
minutes ago been the personification of dynamic activity, was now
trying to get a rise out of Marie LaBelle, editor of the Heart
Balm column.
Marie was sitting slumped in the chair in front of the typewriter,
trying to ignore his jibes. At the side of Marie's desk were the
literary effusions from love sick males and females that were the
daily grist of "her" department.
Marie glowered at Jimmy, perspiring profusely over Jimmy's
witticisms. On the night before, there had been a crap game in
which Pop Fosdick, head of the Eagle morgue, had participated. Pop
had been a cub when Greeley, Bennett and Dana had been names to
conjure with in the newspaper field. Pop still lived in his youth.
He had an encyclopedic memory for names, places and dates, which
made him so valuable in the morgue.
When a reporter was too lazy to look up some needed information
himself, he would ask Pop. Pop would glower, growl, swear--and to
hear him was a treat--and get the necessary data. On the night
before, in the crap game, Pop had cleaned up the entire gang and
broken up the game.
Marie LaBelle was cursing fluently the luck that on that occasion
had seemed to run all in one direction--with Pop Fosdick. Marie
hitched up the left half of his suspenders and began his old
plaint:
"Think of that old geezer, old enough to--"
"Oh, I don't know," broke in one of the listeners. "It doesn't
take much to see sevens--, and elevens. Even Pop--"
"I don't mean that," lied Marie. "I wasn't thinking of his luck
last night. I was thinking of the remarkable manner in which a man
of his age conducts that morgue. It isn't just memory either. He
seems to have an uncanny intelligence about--"
"A man of his age," scoffed Jimmy. "He isn't the only one. I know
one man who is, I believe, older than Pop--"
"We all know who that is, of course," jeered Roy Heath, the
rewrite man, with his soft southern drawl. "Jimmy is now going to
effuse about Professor Herman Brierly. Now, down South, in God's
own country there are really remarkable old men. I grant that
Professor Brierly is quite a chap for a Yankee; one would think he
was a Southerner, but must we listen to--"
Pat Collins, a newcomer to the staff of the Eagle, interrupted.
"Shut up, Roy. I've heard a lot about this Brierly, but I know
very little about him. Does Jimmy know him personally?"
"Know him?" drawled Heath. "Pat, to hear Jimmy talk, you'd think
he created Brierly. Go on Jimmy, you got an audience."
Jimmy bristled. Roy had touched a sensitive spot, but he saw that
this was just the superficial cynicism of the newspaperman. He saw
the respectful interest that even these hardened reporters could
not disguise. They shared his genuine admiration for the
remarkable old scientist.
"Come on, Jimmy," urged Pat. "Tell me."
"You yellow journalists, with your minds running on lurid
headlines, can hardly appreciate a man of his kind. Professor
Herman Brierly is one of the four foremost scientists in the world
today. He shuns publicity, really shuns it, and it is only because
of his participation in several remarkable criminal cases that he
has become generally known.
"He's nearly eighty years old. He doesn't wear glasses and I
believe he still has all his teeth. He is little more than five
feel tall, but built like a miniature Apollo; bushy white hair;
deeply sunken blue eyes that seem to dissect one with sharp
knives, and bushy black eyebrows.
"He has a passion for pure thought and has the finest analytical
faculty of any man I know. He can truly be said to 'specialize' in
a great many subjects. To him the distance from cause to effect or
from effect to cause is a short and a simple one. He has not a
superior in physics, chemistry, anatomy, physiology and the
sciences generally. He is as familiar with the microscope as the
ordinary man is with a pencil.
"It was some years ago that I got him interested in criminology.
To his mind each crime is merely a scientific problem which he
goes about solving as if it were any other scientific problem. It
is only recently that he has begun to take an active interest in
the human phases of criminology.
"He hates newspapers, newspapermen and loose thinking. He connects
the last, loose thinking, with newspapers and reporters. I got in
with him because his chief assistant and adopted son, John
Matthews, was a classmate of mine in the university. John, if he
lives long enough, will be as great a scientist as his chief.
John, or Jack as I call him, is over six feet tall and would have
made any professional heavyweight step some if he had taken to the
ring as a profession.
"To see and hear the two of them is a treat. It reminds one of a
battleship being convoyed by a clean cut little motor launch. And
to hear them! The old man is constantly deploring--"
At this moment there cut through the abnormal quiet of the smoky
city room the deep growl of its autocrat, "Iron Man" Hite. Jimmy
stopped. Hite was calling his name. No one who was not deaf ever
let Hite call him twice.
"Hey, Hale," roared the voice.
Jimmy reached the dais of the man who was said to be the best and
the cruellest city editor in the newspaper game.
"Jimmy, your vacation begins next week, doesn't it?"
Jimmy nodded and looked at his superior expectantly. Hite
continued:
"Your little tin god, Professor Herman Brierly, is spending the
summer up in Canada, isn't he?"
Jimmy nodded again.
"Howdje like to spend your vacation up there with Brierly at the
paper's expense?"
Jimmy made no effort to hide the suspicion in his eyes. He had
heard of Greeks bearing gifts, particularly when the Greek took
the shape of his city editor.
"What do you mean, my vacation at the paper's expense? I get my
pay during my two weeks' vacation, don't I?"
"Yes, but the paper is willing to pay all the expenses of your
vacation besides. What do you think of that?"
The suspicion in Jimmy's eyes grew deeper. He knew his city
editor. There was--Hite cut in on his reflections.
"A swell chance for you to spend part or all of your vacation with
Professor Brierly and your friend, Matthews. District Attorney
McCall is up there too. Brierly is in McCall's shack." He was
becoming enthusiastic. "Just think of a vacation at the paper's
expense in--"
"I was planning to spend my vacation elsewhere," said Jimmy
coldly. "Besides, Professor Brierly doesn't want any visitors. He
needs a rest. Jack consented to go up there with the Professor
only on condition that McCall doesn't talk shop. I've got my
vacation all planned."
"But Jimmy, up there where Brierly is you can get the best ale in
the world--and beer--say, just thinking of it makes my mouth water.
If you must drink you ought to go up there for a spell instead of
drinking this needled beer and the lousy hootch you get in the
speakeasies. And that lake up there, Lake Memphremagog, is one of
the most beautiful in the world. Just the thing for a newspaperman.
Why Jimmy--"
"All right, I'll bite. What do you want me to do up in Canada--on
my vacation."
"Who the hell said I want you to do anything on your vacation?
That's the chief trouble with this newspaper game; it makes people
so damn suspicious."
"Oh, yeah. Tomorrow, Friday, I draw three weeks' pay and my two
weeks' vacation begins. You want me to go up to Canada and spend
my vacation with Professor Brierly, where the air of Lake
Men--whatever the name is, is salubrious and where they have delicious,
wholesome beer and ale. I go up there, get healthy and strong,
recuperate from this hectic newspaper life and return. When I
return, I submit a bill for the fare, and other expenses and the
beer and ale. And you pay this expense account. And it ends there,
does it? During this two weeks you don't want me to see anybody or
do anything or dig up any story for the paper, do you. Is that the
program?"
"Sure, that's the program exactly. But you won't
object, will you, Jimmy, if I ask you to drop in on someone in a
camp near Brierly's. Just drop in once, that's all, and file a
little story. It's right near Lentone, Vermont Is that too much to
ask?"
"I knew it! There _is_ a joker somewhere. Just drop in once
and file a little story. You've got a correspondent up there, for
a little story. If it's a big story, the A.P. will get it or the
paper can send a man up there. What the hell do you want to spoil
my vacation for?"
"But this isn't a story, Jimmy. It's got _point_ about it that makes
it a swell feature story, mebbe a fine human interest yarn, see.
And it won't interfere with you at all."
"But--"
Hite's strong teeth clenched his corn cob pipe, his jaw jutted out
like a crag; his eyebrows bristled.
"Say, what the hell is all this yappin' about. You pampered pets
give me a large pain. I'm askin' you to do somethin'. Either you
do it or you don't. Somebody told you you're a star reporter and
you believe it. You're developin' a temperament, like a prima
donna. I'm payin' you a compliment by giving you a swell feature
story; I'm sendin' you where you'd probably like to go anyway; I'm
payin' your expenses for your vacation. I'm payin' for all the
beer and ale you can guzzle and you balk. What the--"
Jimmy mentally ducked under the gathering storm. Hite was the only
human being of whom he was afraid. A vacation up in Canada at the
paper's expense wasn't so bad after all. As for the story, he
could probably clean it up in a couple of hours, whatever it was.
What could possibly happen up there that would take too much of
his time? He interjected soothingly.
"Oh, all right, all right, I suppose I'll _have_ to go. What's it
all about?"
"No, you don't _have_ to go. This is your vacation.
This paper," virtuously, "doesn't impose on its men. I wouldn't
dream of--"
"All right, chief, all right, I'll go. I don't have to go. But I'm
just aching, just yearning to go. What is it?"
Hite glowered at him for a moment. His joke wasn't working out
quite as planned. Still it would be swell to have Jimmy up there.
There ought to be a great feature story in it anyway, particularly
on July Fourth, and perhaps a swell follow-up the next day.
His ugly, rugged features returned to normal. He put away his
pipe. He said, holding up the clipping:
"There's gonna be a reunion of fourteen men in the camp of Isaac
Higginbotham, in Quebec, a few miles north of Lentone, Vermont.
The fourteen are all that remain of a group of two hundred and
thirty-seven, all of them veterans of the Civil War. Most of the
two hundred and thirty-seven were Confederates, but there were a
few Union men among them.
"They have a reunion every July 4th. They're mostly northern
Confederates. There have been hints for the past twenty years or
so that there's something in the group that's strange. It's never
got out, because newspapermen never really got after it and
covered their reunions. The reasons that first got them together
are obscure, but one thing that holds them together is a Tontine
insurance policy. It--"
"Tontine?" broke in Jimmy.
"Yeah, Tontine. Don't you know what Tontine insurance is?" he
asked with mild surprise. "In Tontine insurance a group of persons
get together, pay a lump sum or periodically, with the understanding
that the sole survivor takes the whole pot. Understand?"
Jimmy nodded. He repressed a grin. His eyes had caught on Hite's
desk a volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume XXIII,
TAB-UPS. He would look at that volume himself later and learn all
about Tontine insurance.
Hite continued:
"Well, Jimmy, among these fourteen survivors are some of the
foremost men in the country, men who have served their country in
various capacities, a few of them just ordinary poor men. Can't
you see what a swell feature story this can be for the Fourth.
Patriots all of them: Northern and Southern Confederates, Union
men from the North and the South. Why Jimmy--"
Jimmy nodded. His eyes took on the gleam they always held when
there was a good story in sight. Canada, with Professor Brierly
available, with Jack Matthews, with good beer and ale and the
possibility of a good story, with all expenses paid, might be a
good idea after all.