Evening star., 1935-02-03

typewriter over In the corner where ne
had his desk. McDade usually wrote fast
and furiously, but now he was pounding
the keys like stenographer gone
berserk.
Others in the office took notice then
and looked up. They saw McDade lean
ing over his machine with face deathly
white. his fingers working like pistons.
Not once did he glance up from his copy,
not even to light the pipe lying on the
pulled-out board of his desk.
Lafferty probably was the first to
realize something was wrong. He missed
very little that went on in the Office,
on outside of it. He's still a hellion
for details, is Lafferty. And, like an
elephant, he never forgets.
He said McDade seemed to grow thin
ner as he watched; that the poor chaps
very blood seemed to be draining from
his veins as If to moisten the type chat
tering madly across the pages of copy.
That's the way Lafferty put 1t. He
studied journalism at a university and
hasn't yet been able to rid himself of
such things.
IT WAS close to midnight when McDade
handed his copy to ogden, together
with the cut lines for the photograph
he'd already sent in to the art depart
ment.
Ogden fell upon the copy voraciously.
Time and time again he poised his mur-
derous blue pencil as though to slash
out a word or phrase, only to nod a
grudging approval and then read ON.
And well he might approve, for
McDade had written story that was to
burn itself upon the minds of its readers
forever. Never before had Ogden read
copy on story that ran so relentlessly
onward to its close, trailing OF at last
reluctantly, like the last sob at grave
There was something insistent and
imperative about it all. The words at
times sparkled and cracked with jeering
irony. They scared aloft, wildly and
fie-cely derisive before dropping sud-
denly to note of quiet grief. Then the
words would cry aloud once again in
an agony of descriptive pain. (This Is
LafYerty's, too. might as well blame
everything on Lafferty)
McDade even had reproduced a letter
which apparently prompted the girl to
commit suicide. Ogden let it stand.
though his brow wrinkled with puzzle
ment when he read this:
". and all the color fled from
her face as she finished reading her
s~eetheart's letter. With bloodless lips
and staring eyes she stood motionless-
like a marble goddess--in the center of
the room. For fully a minute she stood
thus before moving, wraith-like, out
upon the veranda.
Leaning over the low balustrade, she
slowly tore the letter into tiny frag-
ments. They dropped from her hands
and fluttered like snowf1akeS to the court
be.cw.
with moan of indescribable anguish
she covered her face with her initiated
handkerchief. Her body swayed forward
against the railing and toppled over it.
She made no outcry as she fell and her
white evening gown glinted like silver in
the beams of Mortified moon. >"
Not until he had sucked in the last
morsel did Ogden raise his head
"McDade!" he beloved. "That's the
best"
But McDade was no longer standing
at the city desk. Lafferty had looked up
from his plugs in time to see the reporter
amble listlessly from the room.
Some time later copy boy tossed the
city edition of the Chronicle upon
ogden's desk. He pounced upon it like
a hawk on chick, ready to gloat over