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MISS MURDOCK,--"SPECIAL"

A row of gas jets hooded by green paper shades lighting a long table at
which sit half a dozen men in their shirt sleeves writing like mad;
against the wall other men,--one drawing Easter lilies, another
blocking in the background around a photograph, a third pasting
clippings on sheets of brown paper. Every few minutes a bare-headed boy
in a dirty apron, with smudged face and ink-stained fingers, bounds
into the stifling, smoke-laden room, skirts the long table, dives
through a door labelled "City Editor," remains an instant and bounds
out again, his hands filled with long streamers of proof.

In the opening and shutting of the swinging door a round-bodied,
round-headed man in his shirt sleeves comes into view. Covering his
forehead, shielding his eyes from the glare of the overhead gas jet, is
a half-moon of green leather held in place by strings tied behind his
ears. The line of shadow caused by this shade makes a blank space about
his eyes and brings into relief his pale, flabby cheeks, hard, straight
mouth, and coarse chin. Only when he lifts his head to give some order,
or holds the receiver of the telephone to his ear, can his eyes be
exactly located. Then they shine like a cat's in a cellar,--gray,
white, gray again, with a glint of metallic green,--always the same
distance apart, never wavering, never blinking. Overstrung, overworked,
nervous men, working at high pressure, spurred by the merciless lash of
passing minutes, have these eyes. So do cornered beasts fighting for
air and space. Eleven-thirty had just been tolled by the neighboring
clock; deliverance would come when the last form of the morning edition
was made up. Until then safety could only be found in constant attack.

Outside the city editor's office, sprawled over a pile of mail sacks,
between the long table and the swinging door, lay Joe Quinn,
man-of-all-work,--boy, in fact, for he was but nineteen, big for his
age, with arms and legs like cordwood and a back straight and hard as a
plank. Joe's duty was to keep his eyes peeled, his ears open, and his
legs in working order. If a reporter wanted a fresh pad, a cup of
water, or a file of papers, Joe brought them; sometimes he foraged for
sandwiches and beer,--down four pair of stairs, across the street into
a cellar and up again; sometimes he carried messages; oftener he made
an elevator of himself, running between the presses in the basement and
the desk