ts that my own troubles and
grievances were pushed into a neglected corner of my mind and made to
languish there, unfed by tears or sighs.

News comes in cycles. There are weeks when a city editor tears his
hair in vain as he bellows for a first-page story. There follow days so
bristling with real, live copy that perfectly good stuff which, in the
ordinary course of events might be used to grace the front sheet, is
sandwiched away between the marine intelligence and the Elgin butter
reports.

Such a week was this. I interviewed everything from a red-handed
murderer to an incubator baby. The town seemed to be running over with
celebrities. Norberg, the city editor, adores celebrities. He never
allows one to escape uninterviewed. On Friday there fell to my lot a
world-famous prima donna, an infamous prize-fighter, and a charming old
maid. Norberg cared not whether the celebrity in question was noted
for a magnificent high C, or a left half-scissors hook, so long as the
interview was dished up hot and juicy, with plenty of quotation marks,
a liberal sprinkling of adjectives and adverbs, and a cut of the victim
gracing the top of the column.

It was long past the lunch hour when the prima donna and the
prize-fighter, properly embellished, were snapped on the copy hook. The
prima donna had chattered in French; the prize-fighter had jabbered in
slang; but the charming old maid, who spoke Milwaukee English, was to
make better copy than a whole chorus of prima donnas, or a ring full of
fighters. Copy! It was such wonderful stuff that I couldn't use it.

It was with the charming old maid in mind that Norberg summoned me.

"Another special story for you," he cheerfully announced.

No answering cheer appeared upon my lunchless features. "A prize-fighter
at ten-thirty, and a prima donna at twelve. What's the next choice
morsel? An aeronaut with another successful airship? or a cash girl who
has inherited a million?"

Norberg's plump cheeks dimpled. "Neither. This time it is a nice German
old maid."

"Eloped with the coachman, no doubt?"

"I said a nice old maid. And she hasn't done anything yet. You are to
find out how she'll feel when she does it."

"Charmingly lucid," commented I, made savage by the pangs of hunger.

Norberg proceeded to outline the story with characteristic vigor, a
cigarette waggling from the corner of his mouth.

"Name and address on this slip. Take a Greenfield car. Nice old maid
has lived in n