"Well, I should say so. A big one too!"
"How do you know it is true?"
"_In vino veritas_," whispered Katherine. "Besides, Carleton told one
of our night men the other day, that promotion was in store for the
fellow who 'got on to' any of the schemes of this new syndicate." She
had heard so much newspaper slang that her lapse from the grammatical
standard was perhaps pardonable.
Until nearly three o'clock she wrote hurriedly a description of the
wreck, and also of the new "combine," Robert dozing in an easy
chair meanwhile. She woke him up to give him her manuscript. "To the
telegraph office, quick! It'll be in time for the city edition."
The Honourable Mr. Marchand slept late the next morning, and Katharine
sent word to the office that she could not come until the next day.
About noon, however, their guest took his departure, apparently but
little the worse for his vivid night's experience. At a corner he
bought a copy of the morning's _Express_ and shortly thereafter leaned
up against a wall for support. "Gee whiz!" The Honourable Mr. Marchand
mopped his brow and read the startling headlines again. "Might as well
go back to Cincinnati and Cleveland and Toronto, and all them towns
I've just come from! Wonder how in thunder the thing ever got out!"
He strolled down Wabash Avenue to collect his scattered thoughts, and
stopped half mechanically, to look into Stanley & Brown's window.
Carroll's painting stared him full in the face, and a great light broke
in upon him.
"That's her! That's the girl what done it! Blamed if I don't like her
for it!"
That afternoon a messenger boy rapped at the studio door with a letter
from the _Express_ office for Katherine.
"Dear Mrs. Carroll," it ran, "we think you deserve a two weeks'
vacation at full salary which is now double the former sum, and we
beg you to accept the enclosed check as a slight testimonial of our
gratitude for the biggest scoop of the year. Please report for duty on
the eighteenth, and be ready to take the exchange editor's desk."