The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-09-19
EVENING STORY
When Billy Etched.
BY WILL 7. AMES.

he'll have the new high school cub re-
write it. You're sure going strong
with the old man, Itchy"
"Oh, you go chase yourself!" Billy
Harbury wasn't very much stronger
on repartee than he was in the con-
struction of his laboriously written
news stories But there was consider
able feeling in the glance that he bent
on the grinning Jones, the city hall
man. There was no need of Jones
piling it on. Billy was sensitive
enough about his failing. and the blue
penciled message scrawled across the
whole first page of the copy on his
desk-'R -e-w-r-f-t-ei" = required no
Interpretation by outsiders.
Harbury's nickname alone would
have served to spoil a worse temper
than his, ITCHY" Somehow sugges-
tive of indifference to the cleanliness
next to goodness, of some kind of per-
sonal, physical faint, of slum origin.
it was deuce of a name, Billy often
thought, to have wished onto a fresh
faced, immaculate, daily bathed boy
who had been brought up in a good
home and never forgotten the ways
thereof!
But one day, in the first weeks of
his cubdom, Billy had dug up a peach
of a story along the docks about a
schooner then in port which turned
out to have had most amazing but
authentic history of blockade run
ming. gun smuggling and the like.
Billy wrote the story, and therein he.
referred to the schooner, interchange
ably as "it' and as she" just as the
words happened to come off his type
writer The copy desk on the Her
aid" was a bit of a joke, and Sander
son, the city editor, was in the midst
of a first edition rush, so the story got
by as written.
1t was an awful mess of pronouns,
with it's conflicting repetitions of lit
and "she." The staff needed but about
forty seconds to evolve "it-she" into
'Itchy'-and Billy Harbury was
dubbed.
But If Billy's nickname reflected
paucity in the gift of expression, the
reputation he had gained in his two
years on the Herald" was far from
being one for stupidity. He was the
papers very best natural sleuth,
born digger after evasive facts, an en-
gineer gifted with resourcefulness in
following the merest color of elusive
news back to the mother lode of glor-
ious Scoops" The boys in the office
rallied at his bungling use of the pres
ident's American, but they took off
their hats to him when it came to
getting the stuff"
Having rewritten the story and
turned it in to Sanderson, who grunt-
ed something to the effect of the re-
write being not quite so horrible,
Billy hurried away to his police
beat"
Besides headquarters, he had to
cover three precincts, and it was half
past nine when he dropped off an East
side car in front of the Hard Boiled"
station house Medley, the lieutenant
in charge, was questioning a girl as
the reporter entered the station.
The girl was not an unusual type.
Thin, cheaply dressed, of no particular
complexion, the only noticeable things
about her were her uncommonly fine
gray eyes and her clean, neatly cared
for hair, which was almost black. She
looked chronically worried and
harassed
Billy had a vague impression that
he had seen her before-but that gen.
orally means that you have just hap
pened to notice the person in a street
car.
Presently the lieutenant dismissed
the girl, who departed. Billy looked
inquiringly at the policeman.
mo story there" cautioned Medley.
mo charge against her; not even a
suspect. Mrs. Shanahan, around the
corner on Grove. came in here and
asked me to have talk with the girl;
she lodges there. Said the girl lost
her job in one of those north end
garment shops two weeks ago and
hasn't hardly been out of her room
since. The old lady thinks she hasn't
had anything to eat but crackers and
milk this week and she's worried.
1T sent Briggs around to ask her to
step in here. thinking she might be
nutty; but she talks straight enough.
Secretive as the devil, tho. Calls her
self Swain. Guess she's got good edu-
| cation. 1 didn't get anything out of
| her"
Billy knew the lieutenant we'll
enough to be sure that he was keep
ing nothing up his sleeve. 1t was
probably merely a case of we'll
| brought up but incapable girl, fallen
on ill times. who had lost her nerve
but not her pride. Young as he was,
J the boy had run across more than
one such case in his police station ex-
| perience.
But as he hoped a car for the
| fourth precinct Billy was still think
| ing about that girl and the haunting
resem blance. Ten seconds after that
he had hoped off the car again in
the middle of the block and was on
his way to Grove street on a run.
Billy had remembered something: a
newspaper photograph of many weeks
ago.
Mrs. Shanahan's was easy to find,
and the persuasive Billy induced that
reluctant lady to take him up to her
| dodgers room and introduce him to
| her in his correct character as a rep
resentative of the Herald" The
| ledger. whom they found sitting at
the window of her stuffy room, hadn't
opened up the instant Mrs. Shanahan
was gone
you are Beatrice orion" 1t was
a statement. not a question.
The girl looked at Billy stoniIy.
| For three months the police of the