The Clarion

CHAPTER XXXII

THE WARN­ING

Tra­di­tion of the “Clar­ion” of­fice em­balms “the evening the ty­phus sto­ry broke” as a night­mare out of which was born his­to­ry. Chrono­log­ical­ly, ac­cord­ing to the ve­ra­cious records of Bim the Guardian of Por­tals, the tu­mult be­gan at ex­act­ly 10.47, with the ar­rival of Mr. McGuire El­lis, trav­el­ing up the stair­case five steps at a jump and call­ing in a stran­gled voice for Wayne. That usu­al­ly con­trolled jour­nal­ist rushed out of an in­ner room in alarm, de­mand­ing to know whether New York City had been whelmed with a tidal wave or the King of Eng­land mur­dered in his bed, and in an in­stant was strug­gling in the grasp of his fel­low ed­itor.

“What's left of the epi­dem­ic spread?” de­mand­ed the new ar­rival breath­less­ly.

“The killed sto­ry?”

“What's left of it?” clam­ored El­lis, danc­ing all over his col­league's feet. “Can you find the copy? Notes? Any­thing?”

“Proofs,” said Wayne. “I saved a set.”

El­lis sat down in a chair and re­gard­ed his un­der­ling with an ex­pres­sion of stu­pe­fied benev­olence.

“Wayne,” he said, “you're a ge­nius. You're the fine flow­er and per­fect blos­som of Amer­ican jour­nal­ism. I love you, Wayne. With pas­sion­ate fer­vor, I love you. Now, _git­ta move on_!!!” His voice soared and ex­plod­ed. “We're go­ing to run it to-​mor­row!”

“To-​mor­row? How? It isn't up to date. No­body's touched it since--”

“Bring it up to date! Fire ev­ery man in the of­fice out on it. Tear the hide off the old pa­per and smear the sto­ry all over the front page. Haul in your eyes and _start_!”

The whirl of what en­sued swamped even Bim's cyn­ic and philo­soph­ic calm. Amidst a buzz of tele­phones and a mighty scur­ry­ing of mes­sen­gers the staff of the “Clar­ion” was gath­ered in­to the fold, on a “drop-​ev­ery­thing” emer­gen­cy call, and in­stant­ly dis­persed again to the hos­pi­tals, the homes of the health of­fi­cials, the un­der­tak­ers' es­tab­lish­ments, the ceme­ter­ies, and all oth­er pos­si­ble sources of in­for­ma­tion. The com­pos­ing-​room seethed and clanged. Copy-​read­ers yelled fran­ti­cal­ly through tubes, and re­ceived columns of proofs which, un­der the ruth­less slaugh­ter of their blue pen­cils, re­turned as “stick­fuls,” that room might be made for the great sto­ry. Ca­ble news was slashed right and left. Tele­graph “skele­tons” wait­ed in vain for their bones to be clothed with the flesh of print. The Home Ad­vice De­part­ment sank with all on board, and the most pop­ular sen­sa­tion­al preach­er in town, who had that evening made a stir­ring an­ti-​suf­frage speech full of the most un­fail­ing jokes, fell out of the pa­per and broke his heart. The car­nage in news was gen­er­al and fright­ful. Two pages plus of a sto­ry that “breaks” af­ter 10 P.M. calls for hero­ic mea­sures.

At 10.53 Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine ar­rived, hard­ly less tem­pes­tu­ous­ly than his pre­de­ces­sor. He did not even greet Bim as he passed through the gate, which was un­usu­al; but went di­rect to El­lis.

“Can we do it, Mac?”

“The epi­dem­ic sto­ry? Yes. There was a proof saved.”

“Good. Can you do the sto­ry of the meet­ing?”

El­lis hes­itat­ed. “All of it?”

“Ev­ery bit. Leave out noth­ing.”

“Hadn't you bet­ter think it over?”

“I've thought.”

“It'll hit the old--your fa­ther pret­ty hard.”

“I can't help it.”

A surge of hu­man pity over­swept El­lis's stim­ulat­ed jour­nal­is­tic keen­ness. “You don't _have_ to do this, Hal,” he sug­gest­ed. “No oth­er pa­per--”

“I do have to do it,” re­tort­ed the oth­er. “And worse.”

El­lis stared.

“I've got to print the sto­ry of Mil­ly's death: the facts just as they hap­pened. And I've got to write it my­self.”

The pro­fes­sion­al zest surged up again in McGuire El­lis. “My Lord!” he ex­claimed. “_What a pa­per to-​mor­row's 'Clar­ion' will be!_ But why? Why? Why the Neal sto­ry--now?”

“Be­cause I can't print the epi­dem­ic spread un­less I print the oth­er. I've giv­en my word. I told my fa­ther if ev­er I sup­pressed news for my own pro­tec­tion, I'd give up the fight and play the game like all the oth­er pa­pers. I've tried it. Mac, it isn't my game.”

“No,” replied his sub­or­di­nate in a cu­ri­ous tone, “it isn't your game.”

“You'll write the meet­ing?”

“Yes.”

“Save out a col­umn for my sto­ry.”

El­lis re­turned to Wayne at the news desk. “Hell's broke loose at the Emer­gen­cy Health meet­ing,” he re­marked, em­ploy­ing the con­ven­tion­al phras­ing of his craft.

And Wayne, in the same lan­guage, in­quired:

“How much?”

“Two columns. And a col­umn from the Boss on an­oth­er sto­ry.”

“Whew!” whis­tled Wayne. “We _shall_ have some pa­per.”

From mid­night un­til 2.30 in the morn­ing the re­porters on the great sto­ry drib­bled in. Each, as he ar­rived, said a brief word to Wayne, got a curt di­rec­tion, slumped in­to his seat, and silent­ly wrote. It was all very me­thod­ical and qui­et and or­der­ly. A re­al­ly big news event al­ways is af­ter the first dis­tur­bance of ad­just­ment. News­pa­per of­fices work smoothest when the ten­sion is high­est.

At 12.03 A.M. Bim re­ceived two flur­ried Al­der­men and the head of a city de­part­ment. At 12.35 he held spir­it­ed de­bate with the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Health. Just as the clock struck one, two ad­ver­tis­ing man­agers, ar­riv­ing neck and neck, merged their ap­peals in an in­ef­fec­tu­al at­tempt to ob­tain in­for­ma­tion from the youth­ful Cer­berus, which he lofti­ly de­clined to fur­nish, as to the where­abouts of any­one with pow­er to ban or bind, on the “Clar­ion.” At 1.30 the Guardian of the Gate had the hon­or and plea­sure of meet­ing, for the first time, his Hon­or the May­or of the City. Fi­nal­ly, at 1.59 he “took a chance,” as he would have put it, and, mis­lik­ing the au­to­crat­ic de­port­ment of a mes­sen­ger from E.M. Pierce, told that emis­sary that he could tell Mr. Pierce ex­act­ly where to go to--and go there him­self. All the while, un­moved amidst protes­ta­tion, ap­peal, and threat, the steady news-​ma­chine went on grind­ing out un­sup­press­ible his­to­ry for it­self and its city.

Sharp to the reg­ular hour, the press­es clanged, and the build­ing thrilled through its ev­ery joint to the pulse of print. Hal Sur­taine rose from his desk and walked to the win­dow. McGuire El­lis al­so rose, walked over and stood near him.

“Three pret­ty big beats to-​mor­row,” he said awk­ward­ly, at length.

“The Mil­ly Neal sto­ry won't be a beat,” replied Hal.

“No? How's that?”

“I've sent our proofs to all the oth­er pa­pers.”

"Well, I'm--What's the idea?

“We lied to them about the sto­ry in the first in­stance. They played fair, ac­cord­ing to the rules, and took our lie. We can't beat 'em on our own sto­ry, now.”

“Right you are. Bet none of 'em prints it, though.” Where­in he was a true prophet.

There was a long, un­easy pause.

“Hal,” said El­lis hes­itant­ly.

“Well?”

“I'm a fool.”

The white weari­ness of Hal's face lit up with a smile. “Why, Mac--” he be­gan.

“A pin-​head,” per­sist­ed the oth­er stub­born­ly. “A block of sol­id ivory from the col­lar up. I'm--I'm _young_ in the head,” he con­clud­ed, with supreme ef­fort of self-​con­dem­na­tion.

“It's all right,” said his chief, per­fect­ly know­ing what El­lis meant.

“Have I said enough?”

“Plen­ty.”

“You didn't put Velt­man in your sto­ry?”

“No. What was the good?”

“That's right, too.”

“Good-​night, Mac, I'm for the ho­tel.”

“Good-​night, Hal. See you in the morn­ing.”

“Yes. I'll be around ear­ly.”

El­lis's eyes fol­lowed his chief out through the door. He re­turned to his desk and sat think­ing. He saw, with piti­less clear­ness, the storm gath­er­ing over the “Clar­ion”: the out­burst of pub­lic hos­til­ity, the de­ple­tion of ad­ver­tis­ers and sub­scribers, the of­fi­cial op­po­si­tion clos­ing av­enues of in­for­ma­tion, the dis­as­trous prob­abil­ities of the Pierce li­bel suits, now soon to be pushed; and his un­daunt­ed spir­it of a cru­sad­er rose and lust­ed for the bat­tle.

“They may lick us,” he said to his paste-​pot, the re­cip­ient of many a bit­ter con­fi­dence and thwart­ed hope in the past; “but we'll show 'em what a re­al news­pa­per is, for once. And”--his eyes sought the door through which Hal Sur­taine had passed--“I've got this much out of it, any­way: I've helped a boy make him­self a Man.”

Ten thou­sand ex­tra copies sped from the new and won­der-​work­ing press of the “Clar­ion” that night, to be ab­sorbed, swal­lowed, en­gulfed by a mazed pop­ulace. In all the city there was per­haps not a man, wom­an, or child who, by the fol­low­ing evening, had not read or heard of the “Clar­ion's” ex­po­sure of the epi­dem­ic--ex­cept one. Max Velt­man lay, sense­less to all this, be­tween stu­por and a fevered delir­ium in which the spir­it of Mil­ly Neal called on him for de­layed vengeance.