d Hite enough in four sentences to
furnish material for a headline. Then, with malicious satisfaction,
he said:

"There's a New York end on this, chief."

This he knew would have the effect of keeping in the office
everybody who had not yet gone home and might even cause a
scurrying about that would call in others, thus spoiling whatever
plans they had made for the rest of the day. Newspaper men have no
union hours. He added as an afterthought: "I got a swell head for
this, chief. DEATH POINTS A FINGER."

The answer to this was a grunt. There was a click and Roy Heath's
soft southern drawl came floating over the miles of wire. There
was a stream of invective. Jimmy's past, present and future were
depicted in pointed billingsgate, all done in good English. Roy
had planned a pleasant afternoon and evening with a lady who had
just finished a triumphant musical comedy engagement. And now--Jimmy
wickedly cut in on this by saying:

"This is a swell obit, Roy." There is nothing the newspaper man
hates to do as much as an obituary. The cub's early training is
obtained on the obituary column. Roy took a fresh start, but he
was cut short, evidently by Hite, whose desk was near the rewrite
man's.

"All right, shoot if you got anything to say."

Jimmy, for the next thirty minutes, sketched the vivid story, so
fresh in his mind over the miles of wires between them,
interrupted from time to time by the growing excited ejaculations
from Roy Heath, as he sensed the "scoop" qualities of the story.
He ended:

"Tontine is spelt--"

"I know how to spell it and I know what it is. I got some
education. I ain't a damn ignorant Yankee."

"One of the members of this group is Lorenzo Tonti, a direct
Descendant of the man who devised this insurance. The fund now
amounts to about several million dollars. During all this time,
whenever there was an accident, injury or death to a member of
this group, each of the survivors received in an envelope a sheet
of paper with the number '14' on it.

"This bunch had an annual reunion on the Fourth of July, a gesture
to show the real patriotism of Southerners--"

"What do you mean 'gesture'? They are the only real patriots in
the country."

"Fourteen survivors were to have met at the camp of Isaac
Higginbotham, former justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Eleven came. At eight o'clock this morning a telephone message
came telling of the suicide of one of them, August Schurman,
retire