The Clarion

CHAPTER XIV

THE ROOK­ERIES

Two con­spic­uous or­na­ments of Wor­thing­ton's up­per world vis­it­ed Wor­thing­ton's un­der­world on a hot, misty morn­ing of ear­ly June. Both were there on busi­ness, Dr. L. An­dré Sur­taine in the ful­fill­ment of his agree­ment with his son--the ex­act pur­pose of the vis­it, by the way, would have in­spired Har­ring­ton Sur­taine with un­pleas­ant sur­prise, could he have known it; and Miss Es­mé El­liot on a tour of in­spec­tion for the Vis­it­ing Nurs­es' As­so­ci­ation, of which she was an en­er­get­ic of­fi­cial. What­ev­er faults or foibles might be as­cribed to Miss El­liot, she was no fad­dist. That which she un­der­took to do, she did thor­ough­ly and well; and for prac­ti­cal hy­giene she pos­sessed an in­born lik­ing and ap­ti­tude, far more so than, for ex­am­ple, her for­tu­itous fel­low slum­mer of the morn­ing, Dr. Sur­taine, whom she en­coun­tered at the cor­ner where the Rook­eries be­gin. The em­inent sa­vant re­moved his hat with a fine flour­ish, fur­ther re­flect­ed in his lan­guage as he said:--

“What does Beau­ty so far afield?”

“Thank you, if you mean me,” said Es­mé de­mure­ly.

“Do you see some­thing else around here that an­swers the de­scrip­tion?”

“No: I cer­tain­ly don't,” she replied, let­ting her eyes wan­der along the street where Sadler's Shacks rose in grime and gaunt­ness to of­fend the clean skies. “I am go­ing over there to see some sick peo­ple.”

“Ah! Char­ity as well as Beau­ty; the per­fect com­bi­na­tion.”

The Doc­tor's pom­pos­ity al­ways amused Es­mé. “And what does Sci­ence so far from its placid haunts?” she mocked. “Are you scat­ter­ing the bless­ings of Certi­na amongst a grate­ful pro­le­tari­at?”

“Not ex­act­ly. I'm down here on some oth­er busi­ness.”

“Well, I won't keep you from it, Dr. Sur­taine. Good-​bye.”

The swing­ing doors of a sa­loon opened al­most up­on her, and a short, broad-​shoul­dered for­eign­er, in a ruf­fled-​up silk hat, bumped in­to her light­ly and apol­ogized. He jogged up to Dr. Sur­taine.

“Hel­lo, De Vi­to,” said Dr. Sur­taine.

“At the ser­vice of my dis­tin­guish' con­frère,” said the squat Ital­ian. “Am I re­quire at the fac­to­ry?”

“No. I've come to look in­to this sick­ness. Where is it?”

“The op­po­site ee­me­di­ate block.”

Dr. Sur­taine eyed with dis­fa­vor the fes­ter­ing ten­ement in­di­cat­ed. “New cas­es?”

“Two, on­ly.”

“Who's treat­ing them?”

“I am in charge. Mr. O'Far­rell em­ploys my ser­vices: so the pip­ple have not to pay any­thing. All the time which I am not at the Certi­na fac­to­ry, I am here.”

“Just so. And no oth­er doc­tor gets in?”

“There is no call. They are quite sat­is­fied.”

“And is the Board of Health sat­is­fied?”

The em­ploy­ee shrugged his shoul­ders and spread his hands. “How is it you Amer­icans say? 'What he does not know can­not hurt some­body.'”

“Is O'Far­rell agent for all these bar­racks?” Dr. Sur­taine in­quired as they walked up the street.

“All. Many per­sons own, but Mr. O'Far­rell is boss of all. This Num­ber 4, Mr. Gibbs owns. He is of the great de­part­ment store. You know. A ver' fine man, Mr. Gibbs.”

“A very fine fool,” re­tort­ed the Doc­tor, “to let him­self get mixed up with such rot­ten prop­er­ty. Why, it's a re­flec­tion on all us men of stand­ing.”

“No­body knows he is own­er. And it pays twelve per cent,” said the Ital­ian mild­ly. He paused at the door. “Do we go in?” he asked.

An acrid-​soft odor as of pri­mor­dial slime sub­tly in­trud­ed up­on the sen­so­ry nerves of the vis­itor. The place breathed out de­cay; the de­cay of hu­man­ity, of clean­li­ness, of the hon­est de­cen­cies of life turned foul. Some­thing lethal ex­haled from that dim door­way. There was a stab of pesti­lence, reach­ing for the brain. But the old char­la­tan was no cow­ard.

“Show me the cas­es,” he said.

For an hour he moved through the black, stench­ful pas­sage­ways, up and down ramshack­le stairs, from hu­man war­ren to hu­man war­ren, paus­ing here to ques­tion, there to peer and sniff and poke with an ex­plor­ing cane. Out on the street again he drew full, heav­ing breath.

“O'Far­rell's got to clean up. That's all there is to that,” he said de­ci­sive­ly.

“The Doc­tor thinks?” queried the lit­tle physi­cian.

Dr. Sur­taine shook his head. “I don't know. But I'm sure of one thing. There's three of them ought to be got­ten out at once. The third-​floor wom­an, and that broth­er and sis­ter in the base­ment.”

“And the Ger­man fam­ily at the top?”

Dr. Sur­taine tapped his chest sig­nif­icant­ly. “Sure to be plen­ty of that in this kind of hole. Noth­ing to do but let 'em die.” He did not men­tion that he had left a twen­ty-​dol­lar bill and a word of cheer with the gasp­ing con­sump­tive and his wife. Out­side of the line of busi­ness Dr. Sur­taine's char­ities were silent. “How many of the _oth­er_ cas­es have you had here?”

“Eleven. Sev­en deaths. Four I take away.”

“And what is your di­ag­no­sis, Doc­tor?” in­quired the old quack pro­fes­sion­al­ly of the younger ig­no­ra­mus.

Again De Vi­to shrugged. “For pub­lic, ma­lig­nant malar­ia. How you call it? Per­ni­cious. For me, I do' know. Maybe--” he leaned for­ward and spoke a low word.

“Menin­gi­tis?” re­peat­ed the oth­er. “Pos­si­bly. I've nev­er seen much of the in­fec­tious kind. What are you giv­ing for it?”

“Certi­na, most­ly.”

Dr. Sur­taine looked at him sharply, but the Ital­ian's face was in­no­cent of any sar­don­ic ex­pres­sion.

“As well that as any­thing,” mut­tered its pro­pri­etor. “By the way, you might get tes­ti­mo­ni­als from any of 'em that get well. Can you find O'Far­rell?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell him I want to see him at my of­fice at two o'clock.”

“Ver' good. What do you think it is, Doc­tor?”

Dr. Sur­taine waved a pro­found hand. “Very ob­scure. De­mands con­sid­er­ation. But get those cas­es out of the city. There's no oc­ca­sion to risk the Board of Health see­ing them.”

At the cor­ner Dr. Sur­taine again met Miss El­liot and stopped her. “My dear young la­dy, ought you to be risk­ing your safe­ty in such places as these?”

“No one ev­er in­ter­feres. My badge pro­tects me.”

“But there's so much sick­ness.”

“That is what brings me,” she smiled.

“It might be con­ta­gious. In fact, I have rea­son to be­lieve that there is--er--measles in this block.”

“I've had it, thank you. May I give you a lift in my car?”

“No, thank you. But I think you should con­sult your un­cle be­fore com­ing here again.”

“The en­tire Sur­taine fam­ily seems set up­on bar­ring me from the Rook­eries. I won­der why.”

With which part­ing shot she left him. Go­ing home, he bathed and changed in­to his cus­tom­ary garb of smooth black, to which his ro­tund placid­ity of bear­ing im­part­ed an in­de­scrib­ably silky fin­ish. His dis­card­ed clothes he put, with his own hands, in­to an old grip, sprin­kled them plen­teous­ly with a pow­er­ful dis­in­fec­tant, and left or­ders that they be de­stroyed. It was a phase of Dr. Sur­taine's courage that he nev­er took use­less risks, ei­ther with his own life, or (out­side of busi­ness) with the lives of oth­ers.

Hav­ing lunched, he went to his of­fice where he found O'Far­rell wait­ing. The politi­cian greet­ed him with a mix­ture of def­er­ence and fa­mil­iar­ity. At one stage of their ac­quain­tance fa­mil­iar­ity had pre­dom­inat­ed, when hav­ing put through a pet­ty but par­tic­ular­ly ran­cid steal for the ben­efit of the Certi­na busi­ness, O'Far­rell had be­come in­spired with ef­fu­sive­ness to the ex­tent of ad­dress­ing his pa­tron as “Doc.” He nev­er made that par­tic­ular er­ror again. Yet, to the cred­it of Dr. Sur­taine's tact and knowl­edge of char­ac­ter be it said, O'Far­rell was still the old­er man's loy­al though more hum­ble friend, af­ter the in­ci­dent. To-​day he was plain­ly ap­pre­hen­sive.

“Them oth­er cas­es the same thing?” he asked.

“Yes, O'Far­rell.”

“What is it?”

“That I can't tell you.”

“You went in and saw 'em?”

Dr. Sur­taine nod­ded.

“By God, I wouldn't do it,” de­clared O'Far­rell, shiv­er­ing. “I wouldn't go in there, not to col­lect the rent! It's catch­ing, ain't it?”

“In all prob­abil­ity it is a con­ta­gious or zy­mot­ic dis­ease.”

The politi­cian shook his head, much im­pressed, as it was in­tend­ed he should be.

“Clean­ing-​up time for you, I guess, O'Far­rell,” pur­sued the oth­er.

“All right, if you say so. But I won't have any Board o' Health snitch­es boss­ing it. They'd want to pull the whole row down.”

“Ex­act­ly what ought to be done.”

“What! And it av­er­agin' bet­ter'n ten per cent,” cried the agent in so scan­dal­ized a tone that the Doc­tor could not but smile.

“How have you man­aged to keep them out, thus far?”

“Haven't. There's been a cou­ple of in­spec­tors around, but I stalled 'em off. And we got the sick cas­es out right from un­der 'em.”

“Dr. Mer­ritt is a hard man to han­dle if he once gets start­ed.”

“He's got his hands full. The pa­pers have been poundin' him be­cause his milk reg­ula­tions have put up the price. Per­se­cu­tion of the dairy­men, they call it. Well, per­se­cu­tion of an hon­est prop­er­ty own­er--with a pull--won't look pret­ty for Mr. Health Of­fi­cer if he don't find noth­ing there. And the pa­pers'll back me.”

“El­lis of the 'Clar­ion' has his eye on the place.”

“You can square that through your boy, can't you?”

The Doc­tor had his own pri­vate doubts, but didn't ex­press them. “Leave it to me,” he said. “Get some dis­in­fec­tants and clean up. Your own­ers can stand the bill--at ten per cent. Much obliged for com­ing in, O'Far­rell.”

As the politi­cian went out an of­fice girl en­tered and an­nounced:

“There's a man out in the re­cep­tion hall, Doc­tor, wait­ing to see you. He's asleep with his el­bow on the stand.”

“Wake him up and ask him for his berth-​check, Al­ice,” said Dr. Sur­taine, “and if he says his name is El­lis, send him in.”

El­lis it was who en­tered and dropped in­to the chair pushed for­ward by his host.

“Glad to see you, my boy,” Dr. Sur­taine greet­ed him. “I thought you were go­ing to send a re­porter.”

“Or­di­nar­ily we would have sent one. But I'm pret­ty well in­ter­est­ed in this my­self. I ex­pect­ed to hear from you long ago.”

“Busy, my boy, busy. It's on­ly been a week since I un­der­took the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. And these things take time.”

“Ap­par­ent­ly. What's the re­sult?”

“Noth­ing.” The quack spread his hands abroad in a blank ges­ture. “False alarm. Cou­ple of cas­es of ty­phoid and some se­vere ton­sil­li­tis, that looked like diph­the­ria.”

“Peo­ple die of ton­sil­li­tis, do they?”

“Some­times.”

“And are buried?”

“Nat­ural­ly.”

“What in?”

“Why, in coffins, I sup­pose.”

“Then why were these bod­ies buried in quick­lime?”

“What bod­ies?”

“Last week's lot.”

“You mean in Canada­ga Coun­ty? O'Far­rell said noth­ing about quick­lime.”

“That's what I mean. Ap­par­ent­ly O'Far­rell _did_ say some­thing about more corpses smug­gled out last week.”

“Mr. El­lis,” said the Doc­tor, an­noyed at his slip, “I am not on the wit­ness stand.”

“Dr. Sur­taine,” re­turned the oth­er in the same tone, “when you un­der­take an in­ves­ti­ga­tion for the 'Clar­ion,' you are one of my re­porters and I ex­pect a full and frank re­port from you.”

“Bull's-​eye for you, my boy. You win. They did run those cas­es out. Be­fore we're through with it they'll prob­ably run more out. You see, the Health Bu­reau has got it in for O'Far­rell, and if they knew there was any­thing up there, they'd raise a reg­ular row and queer things gen­er­al­ly.”

“What _is_ up?”

“Hon­est­ly, I don't know.”

“Nor even sus­pect?”

“Well, it might be scar­let fever. Or, per­haps diph­the­ria. You see strange types some­times.”

“If it's ei­ther, fail­ure to re­port is against the law.”

“Tech­ni­cal­ly, yes. But we've got it fixed to clean things up. The peo­ple will be looked af­ter. There's no re­al dan­ger of its spread­ing much. And you know how it is. The Rook­eries have got a bad name, any­way. Any­thing start­ing there is sure to be ex­ag­ger­at­ed. Why, look at that chick­en-​pox epi­dem­ic a few years ago.”

“I un­der­stand no­body who had been vac­ci­nat­ed got any of the chick­en-​pox, as you call it.”

“That's as may be. What did it amount to, any­way? Noth­ing. Yet it al­most ru­ined Old Home Week.”

“Nat­ural­ly you don't want the Cen­ten­ni­al Home Week en­dan­gered. But we don't want the health of the city en­dan­gered.”

“'We.' Who's we?”

“Well, the 'Clar­ion.'”

“Don't work the guardian-​of-​the-​peo­ple game on me, my boy. And don't wor­ry about the city's health. If this starts to spread we'll take mea­sures.”

By no means sat­is­fied with this in­ter­view, McGuire El­lis left the Certi­na plant, and al­most ran in­to Dr. El­liot, whom he hailed, for he had the fac­ul­ty of know­ing ev­ery­body.

“Not do­ing any doc­tor­ing nowa­days, are you?”

“No,” re­tort­ed the oth­er. “Do­ing any sick­en­ing, your­self?”

El­lis grinned. “It's de­spair­ing weari­ness that makes me look this way. I'm up against a tougher job than old Dio­genes. I'm look­ing for an hon­est doc­tor.”

“You fish in mud­dy wa­ters,” com­ment­ed his ac­quain­tance, glanc­ing up at the Certi­na Build­ing.

“There's some­thing very wrong down in the Twelfth Ward.”

“Not go­ing in for re­form pol­itics, are you?”

“This isn't po­lit­ical. Some kind of dis­ease has bro­ken out in O'Far­rell's Rook­eries.”

“Delir­ium tremens,” sug­gest­ed Dr. El­liot.

“Yes: that's a fun­ny joke,” re­turned the oth­er, un­moved; “but did you ev­er hear of any one sneak­ing D-T cas­es across the coun­ty line at night to a pest-​house run by a po­lit­ical friend of O'Far­rell's?”

“Can't say I have.”

“Or bury­ing the dead in quick­lime?”

“Quick­lime? What's this, 'Clar­ion' sen­sa­tion­al­ism?”

“Don't be young. I'm telling you. Quick­lime. Canada­ga Coun­ty.”

Not on­ly had Dr. El­liot served his coun­try in the navy, but he had done du­ty in that ef­fi­cient fight­ing force, which reaps less hon­or and fol­lows a more no­ble, self-​sac­ri­fic­ing and coura­geous ide­al than any army or navy, the Unit­ed States Pub­lic Health Ser­vice. Un­der that ban­ner he had fought famines, pan­ic, and pesti­lence, from the strick­en lum­ber-​camps of the North, to the pent-​in, quar­an­tined bay­ous of the South; and now, at the hint of dan­ger, there came a bat­tle-​glint in­to his sharp eyes.

“Tell me what you know.”

“Now you're talk­ing!” said the news­pa­per man. “It's lit­tle enough. But we've got it straight that they've been cov­er­ing up some dis­ease for weeks.”

“What do the cer­tifi­cates call it?”

“Malar­ia and sep­tic some­thing, I be­lieve.”

“Sep­ticæmia hem­or­rhag­ica?”

“That's it.”

“An alias. That's what they called bubon­ic plague in San Fran­cis­co and yel­low fever in Texas in the old days of con­ceal­ment.”

“It couldn't be ei­ther of those, could it?”

“No. But it might be any re­portable dis­ease: diph­the­ria, small­pox, any of 'em. Even that hard­ly ex­plains the quick­lime.”

“Could you look in­to it for us; for the 'Clar­ion'?”

“I? Work for the 'Clar­ion'?”

“Why not?”

“I don't like your pa­per.”

“But you'd be do­ing a pub­lic ser­vice.”

“Pos­si­bly. How do I know you'd print what I dis­cov­ered--sup­pos­ing I dis­cov­ered any­thing?”

“We're pub­lish­ing an hon­est pa­per, nowa­days.”

“_Are_ you? Got this morn­ing's?”

Like all good news­pa­per men, McGuire El­lis ha­bit­ual­ly went armed with a copy of his own pa­per. He pro­duced it from his coat pock­et.

“Hon­est, eh?” mut­tered the physi­cian grim­ly as he twist­ed the “Clar­ion” in­side out. “Hon­est! Well, not to go any far­ther, what about this for hon­esty?”

Top of col­umn, “next to read­ing,” as its con­tract spec­ified, the lure of the Nev­er­fail Com­pa­ny stood forth, bold and black. “Boon to Trou­bled Wom­an­hood” was the head­ing. Dr. El­liot read, with slow em­pha­sis, the ly­ing half-​promis­es, the specious pre­tens­es of the com­pa­ny's “Re­lief Pills.” “No Case too Ob­sti­nate”: “Sup­pres­sion from What­ev­er Cause”: “Thou­sands of Wom­en have Cause to Bless this Sovereign Rem­edy”: “Saved from Des­per­ation.”

“No doubt what that means, is there?” queried the read­er.

“It seems pret­ty plain.”

“What do you mean, then, by telling me you run an hon­est pa­per when you car­ry an abor­tion ad­ver­tise­ment ev­ery day?”

“Will that medicine cause abor­tion?”

“Cer­tain­ly it won't cause abor­tion!”

“Well, then.”

“Can't you see that makes it all the worse, in a way? It promis­es to bring on abor­tion. It en­cour­ages any fool girl who oth­er­wise might be with­held from vice by fear of con­se­quences. It puts a weapon of ar­gu­ment in­to the hands of ev­ery rake and ru­in­er; 'If you get in­to trou­ble, this stuff will fix you all right.' How many sui­cides do you sup­pose your 'Boon to Wom­an­hood' and its kind of hellish­ness caus­es in a year, thanks to the help of your hon­est jour­nal­ism?”

“When I said we were hon­est, I wasn't think­ing of the ad­ver­tis­ing.”

“But I am. Can you be hon­est on one page and a crook on an­oth­er? Can you bang the big drum of righ­teous­ness in one col­umn and promise false­ly in the next to com­mit mur­der? El­lis, why does the 'Clar­ion' car­ry such stuff as that?”

“Do you re­al­ly want to know?”

“Well, you're ask­ing me to help your sheet,” the ex-​sur­geon re­mind­ed him.

“Be­cause Dr. L. An­dré Sur­taine _is_ the Nev­er­fail Com­pa­ny.”

“Oh,” said the oth­er. “And I sup­pose Dr. L. An­dré Sur­taine _is_ the 'Clar­ion,' al­so. Well, I don't choose to be as­so­ci­at­ed with that hon­or­able and high-​mind­ed pole­cat, thank you.”

“Don't be too sure about the 'Clar­ion.' Har­ring­ton Sur­taine isn't his fa­ther.”

“The same rot­ten breed.”

“Plus an­oth­er strain. Where it comes from I don't know, but there's some­thing in the boy that may work out to big ends.”

Dr. Miles El­liot was an abrupt sort of per­son, as men of in­de­pen­dent lives and thought are prone to be. “Look here, El­lis,” he said: “are you try­ing to be hon­est, your­self? Now, don't an­swer till you've count­ed three.”

“One--two--three,” said McGuire El­lis solemn­ly. “I'm hon­est­ly try­ing to put the 'Clar­ion' on the lev­el. That's what you re­al­ly want to know, I sup­pose.”

“Against all the weight of in­flu­ence of Dr. Sur­taine?”

“Bless you; he doesn't half re­al­ize he's a crook. Thinks he's a pret­ty fine sort of chap. The worst of it is, he _is_, too, in some ways.”

“Good to his fam­ily, I sup­pose, in the in­ter­vals of dis­tribut­ing poi­son and lies.”

“He's all wrapped up in the boy. Which is go­ing to make it all the hard­er.”

“Make what all the hard­er?”

“Pry­ing 'em apart.”

“Have you set your­self that lit­tle job?”

“Since we're speak­ing out in meet­ing, I have.”

“Good. Why are you speak­ing out in meet­ing to me, par­tic­ular­ly?”

“On the the­ory that you may have rea­son for be­ing in­ter­est­ed in Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine.”

“Don't know him.”

“Your niece does.”

“Just how does that con­cern this dis­cus­sion?”

“What busi­ness is it of mine, you mean. Well, Dr. El­liot, I'm pret­ty much in­ter­est­ed in try­ing to make a re­al news­pa­per out of the 'Clar­ion.' My no­tion of a re­al news­pa­per is a de­cent, clean news­pa­per. If I can get my young boss to back me up, we'll have a try at my the­ory. To do this, I'll use any fair means. And if Miss El­liot's in­flu­ence is go­ing to be on my side, I'm glad to play it off against Dr. Sur­taine's.”

“Look here, El­lis, I don't like this as­so­ci­ation of my niece's name with young Sur­taine.”

“All right. I'll drop it, if you ob­ject. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know Miss El­liot, any­way. But soon­er or lat­er there's com­ing one big fight in the 'Clar­ion' of­fice, and it's go­ing to open two pairs of eyes. Old Doc Sur­taine is go­ing to dis­cov­er his son. Hal Sur­taine is go­ing to find out about the old man. Nei­ther of 'em is go­ing to be aw­ful­ly pleased. And in that ruc­tion the fate of the Nev­er­fail Com­pa­ny's ad. is go­ing to be de­cid­ed and with it the fate and char­ac­ter of the 'Clar­ion.' Now, Dr. El­liot, my cards are on the ta­ble. Will you help me in the Rook­eries mat­ter?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go cau­tious­ly, and find out what that dis­ease is.”

“I'll go there to-​mor­row.”

“They won't let you in.”

“Won't they?” Dr. El­liot's jaw set.

“Don't risk it. Some of O'Far­rell's thugs will pick a fight with you and the whole thing will be botched.”

“How about get­ting a Unit­ed States Pub­lic Health Sur­geon down here?”

“Fine! Can you do it?”

“I think so. It will take time, though.”

“That can't be helped. I'll look you up in a few days.”

“All right. And, El­lis, if I can help in the oth­er thing--the clean-​up--I'm your man.”

Mean­time from his of­fice Dr. Sur­taine had, af­ter sev­er­al at­tempts, suc­ceed­ed in get­ting the Med­ical Of­fice of Canada­ga Coun­ty on the tele­phone.

“Hel­lo! That you, Doc­tor Si­mons?--Seen O'Far­rell?--Yes; you ought to get in touch with him right away--Three more cas­es go­ing over to you.--Oh, they're there, are they? You're iso­lat­ing them, aren't you?--Pest-​house? That's all right.--All bills will be paid--lib­er­al­ly. You un­der­stand?--What are you call­ing it? Diph­the­ria?--Good enough for the present.--Ev­er see in­fec­tious menin­gi­tis? I thought it might be that, maybe--No? What do you think, then?--_What_! Good God, man! It can't be! Such a thing has nev­er been heard of in this part of the coun­try--What?--Yes: you're right. We can't talk over the 'phone. Come over to-​mor­row. Good-​bye.”

Putting up the re­ceiv­er, Dr. Sur­taine turned to his desk and sat im­mersed in thought. Present­ly he shook his head. He scratched a few notes on a pad, tore off the sheet and thrust it in­to the small safe at his el­bow. Proof of a half-​page Certi­na dis­play beck­oned him in buoy­ant, promis­so­ry type to his fa­vorite task. He glanced at the safe. Once again he shook his head, this time more de­ci­sive­ly, took the scrib­bled pa­per out and tore it in­to shreds. Turn­ing to the proof he bent over it, strik­ing out a word here, amend­ing there, jot­ting in a print­er's di­rec­tion on the mar­gin; los­ing him­self in the ma­jor in­ter­est.

The “spe­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tor” of the “Clar­ion” was com­mit­ting the un­par­don­able sin of jour­nal­ism. He was throw­ing his pa­per down.