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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 damned 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 passed 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,–nobody 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,–nobody 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.