Yes, an' no, an' mebbe, an' mebbe not.
--Edward Noyes Westcott, _David Harum_
It was an ordinary July morning. July 22d, to be exact. A Tuesday.
Already hot at 8:20 A.M., which is when I got off the long-distance bus
at the Port Authority terminal and walked the few blocks to my office
in the Times Building on 43d Street.
I work for a wire service called World Wide, and my job is to edit
American news and send it to London for relay to clients around
the world. Actually, wire service is a misnomer, because we use
radioteletype, called RTT. My name is Sam Kent.
I hung up my coat, which I had been carrying, rolled up my sleeves and
sat down at the big news desk opposite the overnight editor, Charlie
Price. WW operates 24 hours a day.
"'Morning, Charlie," I said. "Anything happening?"
"Not a thing."
"Good." I started to read the copies of the news stories which had been
filed to London since I'd left late the previous afternoon. This is
called reading in.
A copy boy automatically brought me a cup of coffee, heavy on the milk,
and I lit a cigarette and read the stories on the torn-off yellow
teletype paper attached to the clipboard.
At a quarter to nine I was up to date. I got up and took Charlie's
place in the slot. "Good night," he said, and went home.
"'Morning Nan," I said to Nancy Corelli, the teletype operator. "Ready
for a big day?"
"Hi, Sam." She put down the _Daily News_ and gestured at the teletype
to London. "It's dead as a tomb."
The belt was on. A belt is a length of perforated tape, glued into a
circle, which goes through the transmitter and sends on the RTT, over
and over, a series of lines that look like this: