This air is horrible."
They returned in the elevator to his lofty office. Even there a slight
vibration from the press-room could be felt. But it was calm and still, a
fit place from which to view the panorama of sleeping city and drowsy
harbour tranquil in the moonlight.
"Look." Howard was leaning over the railing just outside his window.
They looked straight down three hundred feet to the street made bright by
electric lights. Scores of wagons loaded with newspapers were rushing away
from the several newspaper buildings. The shouts, the clash of hoofs and
heavy tires on the granite blocks, the whirr of automobiles, were borne
faintly upward.
"It is the race to the railway stations to catch the mail-trains," Howard
explained. "The first editions go to the country. These wagons are hurrying
in order that tens of thousands of people hundreds of miles away, at
Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and scores on scores of towns between and
beyond, may find the New York newspapers on their breakfast-tables."
The office-boy came with a bundle of papers, warm, moist, the ink
brilliant.
"And now for the inquest," said Howard.
"The inquest?" Marian looked at him inquiringly.
"Yes--viewing the corpse. It was to give birth to this that there was all
that intensity and fury--that and a thousand times more.
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