The Veiled Lady, and Other Men and Women Part 8

When she came in she would be out of breath, and perhaps hungry,--then he'd take her over to Cobb's for a cup of coffee.

During the interim Joe's legs had been kept busy. Not only had he rushed downstairs and up again half a dozen times, springing to the night city editor's curse, or pound, or shout, whichever had come handiest, but he had also been twice to the corner for frankfurters for reporters who hadn't had a crumb to eat for hours. He was unwrapping the second one when Katie burst in.

Her hat and coat were dripping wet and her hair hung in disorder about her pale face. Her notes were nearly completed; she had worked them out on the elevated on her way downtown. Joe absorbed her with a look, and slid to her side. Something in her face told him of her errand; something of the suffering, and perhaps horror,--and he wanted to get close to her. The girl had reached the editor's desk now, and was waiting until he had finished the paragraph his pen was inditing.

"Well," he said, laying down his pen,--"What have you got?" He was running his cat eyes over the girl's notes as he spoke,--taking in at a glance the "meat" of her report. Then he added,--"Get any snaps?"

"No, sir, I--"

"Didn't I tell you I must have 'em?"

"Yes, but I couldn't do it. The mother was half crazy and the two little children would have broken your heart. She was the only one who could earn anything--"

"And you got into the house and had the whole bunch right in your fist and never snapped a shutter! See here, Miss Murdock I ain't running a Bible cla.s.s and you're not working in the slums,--you can keep that gush for some other place. You had your camera and flash,--I saw you go out with them. I wanted everything: corpse of girl, the mother, children; where she was hauled out,--who hauled her out,--her lover,--she went overboard for some fellow, you remember,--I told you all that. Well, you're the limit!"

Joe had moved up closer, now. He was formulating in his mind what would happen to Katie if he caught the night city editor under his chin and slammed his head against the wall. He knew what would happen to the editor and to himself, but it was Katie's fate that kept his hands flat to his sides.

"I would rather throw up my position than have done it, sir," Katie pleaded. "There are some things never ought to be printed. This drowned girl--"

The night city editor sprang from his chair, brushed the pile of notes aside with his hand, and shouted

"Say, you! Find that d.a.m.ned boy, somebody, if he isn't asleep!"

Joe, who was not ten feet away, stepped up and faced him,--stepped so quickly that the man backed away as if for more room.

"Get a move on and send Miss Parker here. Hunt for her,--if she isn't downstairs she may be at Cobb's getting something to eat. Quick, now!"

Then he turned to Katie

"You better go home, Miss Murdock. You're tired, maybe: anyhow, you're way off. Miss Parker'll get what we want,--she isn't so thin-skinned.

Here, take that stuff with you,--it's no use to me."

The girl reached across the desk, gathered up the scattered notes, and without a word left the room. On the way downstairs she met Miss Parker coming up, Joe at her heels. She was older than Katie,--and harder; a woman of thirty-five, whose experience had ranged from nurse in a reformatory to a night reporter on a "Yellow." The two women pa.s.sed each other without even a nod. Joe turned and followed Katie Murdock downstairs and into the night air. Miss Parker kept on her way. As she glided through the room to the city editor's office, she had the air of a sleuth tracking a criminal.

Once outside in the night air, Joe drew Katie from under the glare of the street lamp. Her eyes were running tears,--at the man's cruelty and injustice, she who had worked to any hour of the night to please him.

Joe was boiling.

"I'll go back and punch him, if you'll let me. I heard it all."

"No, it'll do no good,--both of us would get into trouble, then."

"Well, then, I'll chuck my job. This ain't no place for any decent girl nor man. Was it pretty bad where you went, Katie?"

"Bad! Oh, Joe, you don't know. I said, last week, when I forced my way into the room of that poor mother whose son was arrested, that I'd never report another case like it. But you ought to have seen what I saw to-night. The poor girl worked in a box factory, they told me, and this man hounded her, and in despair she threw herself overboard. The room was full when I got there,--policemen,--one or two other reporters,--no woman but me. They had brought her in dripping wet and I found her on the floor,--just a child, Joe,--hardly sixteen,--her hair filled with dirt from the water,--the old mother wringing her hands.

Oh, it was pitiful! I could have flashed a picture,--n.o.body would have cared nor stopped me,--but I couldn't. Don't you see I couldn't, Joe?

He has no right to ask me to do these things,--n.o.body has,--it's awful.

It's horrible! What would that poor mother have said when she saw it in the paper? I'll go home now. No, you needn't come,--they'll want you.

Go back upstairs. Good-night."

Joe watched her until she caught an uptown car, and then turned into the side door opening on the narrow street. A truck had arrived while they were talking, and the men were unloading some great rolls of paper,--enormous spools. "What would dad say if he saw what his trees had come to?" Joe thought, as he stood for a moment looking them over,--his mind going back to his father's letter. One roll of wood pulp had already been jacked up and was now feeding the mighty press.

The world would be devouring it in the morning; the drowned girl would have her place in its columns,--so would every other item that told of the roar and crash, the crime, infamy, and cruelty of the preceding hours. Then the issues would be thrown away to make room for a fresher record;--some to stop a hole in a broken window; some to be trampled under foot of horse and man; many to light the fires the city over.

"My poor trees!" sighed Joe, as he slowly mounted the steps to the top floor. "There ain't no common sense in it, I know. Got to make sumpin'

out o' the timber once they're cut down, but it gits me hot all the same when I think what they've come to. Gol-darn-shame to serve ye so!

Trees has feelin's, same's men,--that's what dad says, and that's true!"

Miss Parker had done her work. Joe saw that when he opened the paper the next morning: saw it at a glance, and with a big lump in his throat and a tightening of his huge fists. Flaring headlines marked the first page; under them was a picture of the girl in a sailor hat,--she had found the original on the mantel and had slipped it in her pocket. Then followed a flash photo of the dead girl lying on the floor,--her poor, thin, battered and bruised body straight out, the knees and feet stretching the wet drapery,--nothing had been left out. Most of the details were untrue,--the story of the lover being a pure invention, but the effect was all right. Then, again, no other morning journal had more than a few lines.

Everybody congratulated her. "Square beat," one man said, at which her gray, cold face lightened up.

"Glad you liked it," she answered with a nod of her head,--"I generally 'get there.'"

When the night city editor arrived--the city editor was ill and he had taken his place for the day--he reached out and caught her hand. Then he drew her inside the office. When she pa.s.sed Joe again on her way out, her smile had broadened.

"Got her pay shoved up," one of the younger men whispered to another.

When Katie came in an hour later, no one in the room but Joe caught the dark lines under her eyes and the reddened lids,--as if she had pa.s.sed a sleepless night,--one full of terror. She walked straight to where the boy stood at work.

"I've just seen that poor mother, Joe. I saw the paper and what Miss Parker had said and I went straight to her. I did not want her to think I had been so cruel. When I got to her house this morning there was a patrol wagon at the door and all the neighbors outside. A woman told me she was all right until somebody showed her the morning paper with the picture of her drowned daughter; then she began to scream and went stark mad, and they were getting ready to take her to Ward's Island when I walked in. You've seen the picture, haven't you?"

Joe nodded. He had seen the picture,--had it in his hand. He dare not trust himself to speak,--everybody was around and he didn't want to appear green and countrified. Then again, he didn't want to make it harder for Katie. She had had nothing to do with it, thank G.o.d!

The door of the office swung open. The editor this time caught sight of Katie, called her by name, and, with a "Like to see you about a little matter," beckoned her inside and shut the door upon them both.

A moment later she was out again, a blue envelope in her hand.

"He's got me discharged, Joe. Here's a note from the city editor," she said. Her voice quivered and the tears stood in her eyes.

"Fired you!"

"Yes,--he says I'm too thin-skinned."

Joe stood for a moment with the front page of the paper still in his hand. Something of Jonathan came into his face,--the same firm lines about his mouth that his father had when he crawled under the floor timbers of the mill to save Baker's girl, pinned down and drowning, the night of the freshet.

Crus.h.i.+ng the sheet in his hand Joe walked straight into the city editor's office, a swing in his movement and a look in his eye that roused everybody in the room.

"You've got Katie Murdock fired, she says," he hissed between his teeth. "What fur?" He was standing over the night city editor now, his eyes blazing, his fists tightly closed.

"What business have you to ask?" growled the editor.

"Every business!" There was something in the boy's face that made the man move his hand toward a paper weight.

"She's fired because she wouldn't do your dirty work. Look at this!"--he had straightened out the crumpled sheet now: "Look at it!

That's your work!--ain't a dog would a-done it, let alone a man. Do you know what's happened? That girl's mother went crazy when she saw that picture! You sent that catamount, Miss Parker, to do it, and she done it fine, and filled it full o' lies and dirt! Ye didn't care who ye hurt, you--"

The man sprang to his feet.

"Here!--put yourself outside that door! Get out or I'll--"