III
THE GIRL IN GRAY
Nine typewriters were stuttering over nine news stories; four electricfans were singing their siren songs of coolness; two telephone bellswere ringing; one office boy, new to his job, was hurtling through theair on his way to the night city editor's desk, and the night cityeditor was discharging him because he was not coming faster; themanaging editor was "calling down" a copy-reader; the editor-in-chiefwas telling the foreign editor he wished he could find an intelligentman to take the foreign desk; Mr. Nestor Hurd was swearing at Mr.Godfrey Morris. In other words, it was nearly midnight in the officesof the _Searchlight_.
I was sitting at my desk, feeling very low in my mind. That day, forthe first time in my three weeks' experience as a reporter, Mr. Hurdhad not given me an assignment. This was neither his fault nor mine. Ihad written a dozen good stories for him, besides many more that wereat least up to the average. My assignments had taken me to all sortsof places strangely unlike the convent from which I had graduated onlya month before--morgues, hospitals, police stations, the Tombs, theChinese quarter--and I had always brought back something, even, asMr. Gibson had once muttered, if it were merely a few typhoid germs.Mr. Gibson did not approve of sending me to all those places. Onlythat morning I had heard my chief tell Mr. Morris the Iverson kid washolding down her job so hard that the job was yelling for help. Thiswas a compliment, for Mr. Hurd never joked about any one who workedless than eighteen hours a day.
I knew he hated to see me idle now, even for a few hours, and I didnot like it myself. But we both had to bear it, for this had been oneof the July days when nothing happened in New York. Individuals wereborn, and married, and died, and were run over by automobiles, asusual; but, as Mr. Hurd said, "the element of human interest waslacking." At such times the newspapers fill their space withsymposiums on "Can a Couple Live on Eight Dollars a Week?" or "IsSuicide a Sin?" Or they have a moral spasm over some play and send thepolice to suppress it. The night before Mr. Hurd had sent Gibson, hisstar reporter, with a police inspector, to see a play he hoped the_Searchlight_ could have a moral spasm over. Mr. Gibson reported thatthe police inspector had left the theater wiping his eyes and sayinghe meant to look after his daughters better hereafter; so the_Searchlight_ could not have a spasm that time, and Mr. Hurd swore forfive minutes without repeating once. He was wonderful that way, butnot so gifted as Col. John Cartwell, the editor-in-chief, who used tocheck himself between the syllables of his words to drop little oathsin. Such conversation was new and terrible to me. I had never heardany one swear before, and at first it deeply offended me. I thought aconvent girl should not hear such things, especially a girl whointended to be a nun when she was twenty-one. But after a week or twoI discovered that the editors never meant anything by their rudewords; they were merely part of their breath.
To kill time that evening I wrote a letter to my mother--the firstlong one I had sent her since I left my Western home. I wrote it onone side of my copy paper, underlining my "u's" and overlining my"n's," and putting little circles around all my periods, to show thefamily I was a real newspaper woman at last. When I finished theletter I put it in an office envelope with a picture of the_Searchlight_ building on the outside, and began to think of goinghome. But I did not feel happy. I realized by this time that innewspaper work what one did yesterday does not matter at all; it iswhat one does to-day that counts. In the convent we could bask for afortnight in the afterglow of a good recitation, and the memory of abrilliant essay would abide, as it were, for months. But full well Iknew that if I gave Mr. Hurd the biggest "story" of the week onThursday, and did nothing on Friday, he would go to bed Friday nightwith hurt, grieved feelings in his heart. This was Friday.
However, there was no sense in waiting round the office any longer, soI put on my hat and left the _Searchlight_ building, walking acrossCity Hall Park to Broadway, where I took an open car up-town. I wasgetting used to being out alone late at night; but I had not ceased tofeel an exultant thrill whenever I realized that I, May Iverson, justout of the convent and only eighteen, was actually part of the nightlife of great, wonderful, mysterious New York. Almost every man andwoman I saw interested me because of the story I knew was hidden ineach human heart; so to-night, as usual, I studied closely thosearound me. But my three fellow-passengers did not look as if they hadany stories in them. They were merely tired, sleepy, perspiring mengoing home after a day of hard work. I envied them. I had not done aday's work, and I felt that I hardly deserved to rest. This thoughtwas still in my mind when I left the car at Twenty-fifth Street andwalked across Madison Square toward the house where I had rooms.
It was after midnight and very hot. The benches in the park still heldmany men--most of them the kind that stay there because they have noplace else to go. There were a dozen tramps, some stretched at fulllength and sound asleep, others talking together. There were men outof work, trying to read the newspaper advertisements by the electriclight from the globes far above them. Over the park hung a yellow mistthat looked like fog but was merely heat, and from every side camethe deep mutter of a great city on a summer night. The men around mewere the types I had seen every time I crossed the Square, and, thoughI was always sorry for them, they no longer made me feel sick withsympathy, as they did at first.
But on a bench a little apart from the rest sat a girl who interestedme at once. I noticed her first because she was young and alone, andthen because she seemed to be in trouble. She was drooping forward inher seat, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands,staring hard at a spot on the ground in front of her. I could not seewhat it was. It looked like an ordinary brown stain. I usually walkedvery fast when I was alone at night, but now I slackened my pace andstrolled toward the girl as slowly as I dared, studying her as I went.I could not see much of her face, which was in the hollow of herjoined hands, but the way she was sitting--all bunched up--showed methat she was sick or discouraged, or both. She wore a gray dress witha very narrow skirt, and a wide, plain lace collar on the jacket. Thesuit had a discouraged air, as if it had started out to be smart andknew it had failed. Her hat was a cheap straw with a quill on it thathad once been stiff but was now limp as an unstarched collar, and thecoil of hair under it was neat and brown and wavy. Her plain lingerieblouse was cut low at the neck and fastened with a big black bow, andwhen I was closer to her I saw that both her shoes were broken at thesides. Altogether, she looked very sick and very poor, and when shechanged her position a little to glance at a man who was passing,something about her profile made me think of one of my classmates atSt. Catharine's.
I had tried to pass her, but now my feet would not take me. It wassimply impossible to ignore a girl who looked like Janet Trelawney andwho seemed to be in trouble. I saw when I got nearer that she was notJanet, but she might have been--and, anyway, she was a young girl likemyself. We were taught at the convent that to intrude on anotherperson's grief, uninvited, is worse than to intrude at any other time.Mere sympathy does not excuse it. But this looked like a special case,for there was no one else around to do anything for the girl in grayif she needed help. However, I did not speak to her at once. I merelysat down on the bench beside her and waited to see if she would speakto me.
She raised her head the minute she felt me there, and sat up andstared at me with eyes that were big and dark and had a queer,desperate expression in them. It seemed to startle her to know thatsome one was so near her, but after she had looked at me her surprisechanged to annoyance, and she moved as if she meant to get up and goaway. That full glance at her had shown me what she was like. She wasnot pretty. Her face was dreadfully pale, her nose was ordinary inshape, and her firmly set, thin lips made her mouth look like astraight line. I did not see how I could have thought of JanetTrelawney in connection with her. However, I felt that I could notdrive her away from her seat, so I stopped her and begged her pardonand asked if she was ill or had hurt herself in any way, and if Icould help her.
At first she did not answer me. She mere
ly sat still and looked meover slowly, as if she were trying to make up her mind about me. Thelonger she looked the more puzzled she seemed to be. It had beenraining when I left home in the morning, so I had on a mackintosh anda little soft rainy-day hat. I knew I did not look impressive, and itwas plain that the girl in gray did not think much of me. At last sheasked what I wanted, and her voice sounded hard and indifferent--evenrude. I was disappointed in that, too, as well as in her face. Itwould have been more interesting, of course, to help a refined,educated girl. There was no doubt, however, that she needed help ofsome kind, so I merely repeated in different words what I had said toher at first. She laughed then--a laugh I did not like at all--andstared at me again in her queer way, as if she could not make me out.She seemed to be more puzzled over me than I was over her.
She kept on staring at me a long time with her singular eyes, that haddark circles under them. At last she asked me if I was a "societyagent" or anything of that sort, and when I said I was not she askedhow I happened to be out so late, and what I was doing. Her voice wasas queer as her eyes--low and husky. I did not like her manner. Italmost seemed as if she thought I had no right to be there, so I toldher rather coldly that I was a reporter on the _Searchlight_ and thatI was on my way home from the office. As soon as I said that her wholemanner changed. I have noticed this quick change in others when theyhear that I am a newspaper woman. Some are pleased and some are not,but few remain cold and detached. The girl in gray actually lookedrelieved about something. She laughed again, a husky, throaty laughthat sounded, however, much nicer and more human than before, and gaveme a good-natured little push.
"Oh," she said, "all right. Better beat it now. So-long." And shewaved me away as if she owned the park bench. I hesitated. I was sorrynow that I had stopped, and I wanted to go; but it seemed impossibleto leave her there. I sat still for a moment, thinking it over, andsuddenly she leaned toward me and advised me very earnestly not tolinger till the roundsman came to take my pedigree. She said he wasletting her alone because he knew she was only out of the hospital twodays and up against it, but the healthy thing for me was to move onwhile the walking was good.
I was sorry she used so much slang, but of course the fact that shewas unrefined and uneducated made her situation harder, and demandedeven more sympathy from those better off. What she had said about thehospital and being "up against it" proved that I had done right tostop.
I told her I was going home in a few minutes, but that I wanted totalk to her first if she did not mind, and that there was no reasonwhy I could not sit in the park if she could. She looked at me andlaughed again as if I had made a joke, and the laugh brought on anattack of coughing which kept her busy for a full minute. When she hadstopped I pointed out my home to her. It was on the opposite side ofthe Square, but we could see it quite plainly from where we sat. Wecould even see the windows of my rooms, which faced the park. The girlin gray looked up at them a long time.
"Gee!" she said, "you're lucky. Think of havin' a joint to fall into,and not knowin' enough to go to it when you got a chance." She added,"It wouldn't take me long to hop there if I owned the latch-key."
I asked her where she lived, and she laughed again and swung one kneeover the other as we were taught in the convent not to do, andmuttered that her present address was Madison Square Park, but shehoped it would not be permanent. Then she got up and said, "So-long,"and started to go. I got up, too, and caught her arm. Her last wordshad simply thrilled me. I had read about girls being sick and out ofwork and being dismissed from the hospital with no money and no placeto go to. But to read of them in books is one thing, and to see onewith your own eyes, to have one actually beside you, is anotherthing--and very different. My heart swelled till it hurt; so did mythroat. The girl shook off my hand.
"Say," she said, and her voice was rude and cross again--"say, kid,what's the matter with you? You ain't got nothin' on me. Beat it, willyou, or let me beat it. I can't set here and chin."
I held her arm. I knew what was the matter. She was too proud to askfor help. I knew another thing, too. There was a story in her, thestory of what happens to the penniless girl in New York; and I couldget it from her and write it and put the matter on a business basisthat would mean as much to her as to me. Then I would have my story,the story I had not got to-day, and she would have a room and shelter,for of course I would give her some money in advance. My mind workedlike lightning. I saw exactly how the thing could be done.
"Wait a minute," I said. "Forgive me--but you're hungry, aren't you?"
She stared at me again with that queer look of hers. Then she answeredwith simple truth. "You bet I am," she muttered.
"Very well," I said, and I put all the will-power I had in my voice."Come with me and get something to eat. Then tell me what has happenedto you. Perhaps I can make a newspaper story of it. If I can, we'lldivide the space rates."
The girl in gray hung back. I could see that she wanted to go withme, but that for some reason she was afraid.
"Say," she said at last, "you're kidding ain't you? You don't looklike a reporter nor act like one. Honest, you got me guessin'."
I did not like that very much, but I could not blame her. I knew itrequired more than three weeks to make one look like a real newspaperwoman. I opened my hand-bag and took out one of the new cards I hadhad engraved, with _The New York Searchlight_ down in the left-handcorner. It looked beautiful. I could see that at last the girl in graywas impressed. She stood with the card in her hand, staring down at itand thinking. Finally she shrugged her shoulders and clapped me on theback with a force that hurt me.
"Al-l-l _right_!" she said, drawling out the first word and shootingthe second at me like a bullet from a pistol. "I got the goods. I'mjust out of Bellevue. I'll give you a spiel about the way those guystreated me. I'll tell you about the House of Detention, too, and thejudges and the police. Oh, I got a story, all right, all right. I'llgive it to you straight."
She was pulling me along the street as she talked. She seemed to be ina great hurry all of a sudden, and in good spirits, but I realized howweak she was when I saw that even to walk half a block made her breathcome in little gasps.
"It's the eats first, ain't it?" she asked; and I told her itcertainly was. Then I asked her where we were going, for it was clearthat she was headed for some definite place.
"Owl-wagon," she told me, and saved her breath for the walk. I said wewould take a car, but she pointed to the "owl-wagon" standing againstthe curb only a square away. The sight of it seemed to give her freshstrength. She made for it like a carrier-pigeon going home. When wereached it she sat down on the curbstone and nodded affably to the maninside the wagon. He nodded back at her and then came through the doorand down the wagon steps to stare at me.
"Hello," he said to the girl in gray. "Heard you was sick. Glad to seeyou round again. What'll you eat?"
She did not waste breath on him, but made a gesture toward me. For amoment I think she could not speak.
"Give her a large glass of milk first," I told the man--"not toocold." When I handed it to her I advised her to drink it slowly, butshe did not. It vanished in one long gulp. While the man was fillinganother glass for her I asked her what she wanted for supper. Eatingat the "owl" was a new experience to me. I began to enjoy it, and toexamine the different kinds of food that stood on the little shelvesaround the sides of the wagon. The girl in gray looked at me over therim of her glass.
"What'll you stand for?" she asked.
I laughed and told her to choose for herself; she could haveeverything in the wagon if she wanted it. Before the words were pastmy lips she was on the top step, selecting sandwiches and pie andordering the man around as if she owned the outfit. She took threesandwiches, one of every kind he had, and two pieces of pie, and somedoughnuts. When she had all she wanted she got down from the wagon andbacked carefully to the curb, balancing the food in her hands. Thenshe sat down again and smiled at me for the first time. Somethingabout that smile made me want to cr
y; but she seemed almost happy.
"Ain't this a bit of all right?" she asked, with her mouth full. Shetold the proprietor that his pies had less sawdust in them than lastyear and that he must have put some real lemon in one of them bymistake. While they talked I continued to inspect the inside of thewagon, but I heard the owl-man ask her a question in a whisper thatmust have reached across the street. "Say, Mollie, who's your friend?"he wanted to know.
The girl in gray told him it was none of his business. Her speechsounded strangely like that of Mr. Hurd. There were several of hisfavorite words in it. I sighed. She was a dreadfully disappointinggirl, but she had been starving, and I had only to look at her faceand her poor torn shoes to feel sympathy surge up in me again. Whenshe was finishing her last piece of pie she beckoned to me to come andsit beside her on the curb.
"Now for the spiel," she said, and her husky voice sounded actuallygay. "You got the key. Wind me up. I'll run 's long's I can."
I looked around. The street was deserted except for two men who stoodbeside the owl-wagon munching sandwiches. They stared hard at us, butdid not come near us. There was a light in the wagon, too, by which Imight have made some notes. But I did not want to get my story at oneo'clock in the morning out on a public avenue. I wanted a room and areading-lamp and chairs and a table. Six months later I could writeany story on the side of a steam-engine while the engine was inmotion, but this was not then. Besides, while the girl was eating Ihad had an inspiration. I asked her if she had really meant what shesaid about having no place to go but the park; and when she answeredthat she had, I asked her where she would have gone that night if Ihad not come along. She looked at me, hesitated a moment, and thenturned sulky.
"Aw, what's the use?" she said. "Get busy. Do I give you the story, ordon't I?"
I told her she did. Then I produced my inspiration. "Aren't therehomes for the friendless," I asked her, "where girls are taken in fora night when they have no money?"
The girl in gray said there were, and sat eyeing me with her lower jawlax and a weary, discouraged air.
"All right," I said, briskly; "let's go to one."
It took her a long time to understand what I meant. I had to explainover and over that I wanted to go with her and see exactly how girlswere received and treated in such places and what sort of rooms andfood they got, and that I must play the part of a penniless andfriendless girl myself to get the facts; for of course if the peoplein the "refuge" knew I was a reporter everything would be colored forme. At last my companion seemed to grasp my meaning. She got up,wabbling a little on her weak knees, and started toward Twenty-thirdStreet.
"Come on, then," she muttered, and added something about a "funeral"and some one being "crazy." She said the place we were going to was onFirst Avenue, not very far away, but I stopped a car and made her getinto it. As we rode across town she told me the little she knew aboutthe refuge. She said girls who went there paid a few cents for theirrooms if they had money, but if not they were sometimes taken inwithout charge. She said breakfast was five cents and dinner ten ormore, according to what one ate. The house closed at midnight, and shewas afraid we could not get in; but she had been there twice before,and the matron knew she was sick, so perhaps she would admit us. I wasto be Kittie Smith, a friend of hers from Denver.
I did not like the appearance of the place very much when we finallyreached it. It was like a prison, I thought, and its black windowsseemed to glower at us menacingly as we looked at them. We climbedthe worn steps that led to the front door; there were only a few ofthem, but I had to help the girl in gray. When we reached the lastone, she rang the bell labeled "Night bell." Beside it a brass signthat needed polishing told us the institution was a "Home forFriendless Girls." We could hear the bell jangling feebly far insidethe house, as if it hung at the end of a loose wire, but for a longtime no one answered it. The girl in gray sat down on the top stepwhile I rang the bell again. Then at last steps came along the hall,the door opened an inch, and an old woman peered out at us. We couldsee nothing of her but her eyes and a bit of white hair. The eyeslooked very cross, and the old woman's voice matched them when shespoke to us. She asked what we wanted and explained in the same breaththat the house was closed and that it was too late to get in. The girlin gray leaned back against the door so the old woman could not closeit, and said in a faint voice that she was sick.
"You remember me, Mrs. Catlin," she added, coaxingly. "Sure you do.I'm Mollie Clark. I been here before."
Mrs. Catlin opened the door another inch, grudgingly, and surveyedMollie Clark.
"Humph!" she said. "It's you again, is it?"
She hesitated a moment and again looked Mollie Clark over. Then sheflung the door wide without a word and let us into a long hall with abare floor, whitewashed walls, and a flight of stairs at the end ofit. A gas-light, turned very low, burned at the rear, and the wholehouse smelled of carbolic acid. It seemed to me that no girl'ssituation anywhere could be as forlorn as that place looked. The oldwoman picked up a candle which stood on a table near the door and litit at the solitary gas-jet. Then she motioned to us to follow her andstarted rheumatically up-stairs, grumbling under her breath all theway. She said it was against the rules to let us in at that hour, andshe didn't know what the superintendent would say in the morning, andthat there was only one room empty, anyhow, and we would have to becontent with it. She led us up three flights of stairs and into alittle hall-room at the front of the house. It had one window, whichwas open. Its furniture was a small bed, a wash-stand with a whitebowl and pitcher, one towel, a table, and two chairs. My eyes musthave lit up when they saw the table. That was what I wanted, and I didnot care much about anything else.
Mrs. Catlin set the candle down on the table, whispered somethingabout taking our "records" in the morning, warned us not to talk anddisturb others, and went away without saying good night. The minutethe door closed behind her I sat down at the table and got out mypencil and a fat note-book. I did not even stop to take off my hat,but Mollie Clark removed hers and threw it in a corner. Her hair, as Ihad suspected, was very pretty--soft and brown and wavy. She came andsat down opposite me at the table and waited for me to begin.
At first when we got into the room I had felt rather queer--almostnervous. But the minute I had my pencil in my hand and saw mynote-book open before me I forgot the place we were in and wascomfortable and happy. I smiled at Mollie Clark and told her to tellme all about herself--the whole story of her life, so that I could useas much or as little of it as I wanted to. Of course, she did not knowhow to begin. People never do. She rested her elbows on the table andher chin on her hands, which seemed to be her favorite attitude, andsat quite still, thinking. To help her I asked a few questions. Thatstarted her, and at last she grew interested and more at ease andbegan to talk.
I will admit right here that before fifteen minutes had passed I wasin an abyss of black despair. Someway I simply could not get hold ofthat story, and when I did begin to get hold of it I was frightened.It was not because she used so much slang. I understood that, or mostof it. But some of the things she said I did not understand at all,and when I showed I did not, or asked her what they meant, she was notable to explain them. She put them in a different way, but I did notget them that way, either; and she looked so surprised at first, andso discouraged herself toward the end, that at last I stopped askingher questions and simply wrote down what she told me, whether I knewwhat it meant or not. After a time I began to feel as if some one ina strange world was talking to me in an unknown tongue--which littleby little I began to comprehend. It seemed a horrible sort of world,and the words suggested unspeakable things. Once or twice I felt sickand giddy--as if something awful was coming toward me in a dark roomand would soon take hold of me. Occasionally the girl leaned acrossthe table to look at my notes and see what I was putting down, and Ikept pushing my chair farther and farther away from her. I hoped itwould not hurt her feelings, but I could not endure her near me.
For five minutes the st
ory went beautifully. She had run away fromhome when she was only sixteen--three years before; and the home hadbeen a farm, just as it is in books. She had gone to Denver--the farmwas thirty miles from Denver, but not large enough to be a ranch--andshe had worked for a while in a big shop and afterward in an office.She had never learned typewriting or shorthand or expert filing, noranything of that kind, so she folded circulars and addressedenvelopes, and got five dollars a week for doing it. She said it wasimpossible to live on five dollars a week, and that this was thebeginning of all her trouble.
After that she talked about her life in Chicago and Detroit andBuffalo and Boston and New York, and about men who had helped her andwomen who had robbed her, and police graft, and a great many things Ihad never even heard of.
For a long time I wrote as fast as my hand could write. My head seemedto be spinning round on my shoulders. I felt queerer and queerer, andmore and more certain I was in a nightmare; the worst part of thenightmare was the steady husky whisper of the girl's voice--for ofcourse she had to whisper. At moments it seemed like the hissing of asnake, and the girl looked like a snake, too, with her set straightmouth and her strange, brilliant eyes. At last, after a long time, Istopped writing and leaned back in my chair and looked at her. At thesame time she stopped talking and looked back at me, and for a minuteneither of us spoke. Then she bunched forward in her chair and satstaring at the floor, exactly the way she had done in the park.
"It's no go," she said, in a queer, flat voice. "You ain't gettin' it,are you?"
For a moment I did not answer her. It seemed someway that I could not.I saw by her face how she felt--sick with disappointment. She mutteredsome words to herself. They sounded like unpleasant words; I was gladI did not hear them clearly. She had counted on her share of the spacerates for my story. She sat still for quite a long time. Once or twiceshe looked at me as if she did not understand why I was allowed toencumber the earth when I was so stupid. Then she shrugged hershoulders, and finally she smiled at me in a sick kind of way. Isuppose she remembered that, after all, I had given her a supper. Atlast she rose and picked up her hat and put it on.
"I'll blow out of here," she said. "Sorry you're out a meal fornothin'."
She turned to go, and I felt more emotions in that moment than I hadever felt before. There were dozens of them, but confusion and horrorand pity seemed to be the principal ones. I asked her to wait aminute, and I went to my hand-bag and took out my purse. There was notvery much in it. I had been paid on Saturday, and this was Friday, soof course I had spent most of my money. But there were six dollarsleft, and I gave her five of them.
"What for?" she asked, and stared at me as she had done in the park.
"For the story," I said. "On account. I'll give you the rest when it'sprinted."
She took the bill and stood still, looking down at it as it lay in herhand. Then suddenly she threw it on the floor.
"Aw, say," she muttered, "what's the use? It's like takin' candy froma kid. You'll need that money," she added, touching the bill with thetoe of her ragged shoe as she spoke. "You'll sure need it to get backwhere you come from. You didn't get that story. You didn't get a wordof it."
The look of the ragged shoe as she put it out and pushed the moneyaway, and the look on her face as she spoke, made my heart turn overwith pity for her. I picked up my note-book and held it toward her.
"Didn't I get it?" I asked. "Look at this."
She took the note-book and turned the pages, at first slowly andwithout hope, then with interest. Finally, without raising her eyes,she sat down by the flickering candle and read them all. While sheread I watched her, and as I looked I realized that there was anotherWatcher in the little room with us--one who stood close beside her,waiting, and who would wait only a few weeks. I knew now what hercough meant, and her husky voice, and the stain in the park, and thered spots that came and went on her thin cheeks.
When she had finished reading the notes she laid down the book andsmiled at me. "Kiddin' me again, wasn't you?" she said, quietly. "Yougot it all here, ain't you?"
"Yes," I said. "I've got the story."
"Sure you have," she corroborated. "That Bellevue stuff's great. Andtake it from me, your editor will eat up the story about Holohan, withthe names _an'_ the dates _an'_ the places. Here's six girls willswear to what I told you. And Miss Bates, the probation officer,she'll stand for it, too. I'd have give it to a paper long ago if I'dknown who to go to."
An attack of coughing stopped her words. After it she leaned againstthe table for a moment, exhausted. Then she bent and picked up thebill from the floor. Last of all she took my pencil out of my hand,wrote a name and address in my note-book, and laid the book back onthe table.
"Me for the outer darkness," she said. "That's where I'll be. I'llstay in till four to-morrow afternoon, if your editor wants anythingelse."
She hesitated a moment, as if struggling with words that wouldn'tcome. "Thanks for the banquet," she got out, at last. "So-long."
I looked straight into her strange eyes. There were many things Iwanted to say to her, but I didn't know how. I felt younger than I hadever felt before, and ignorant and tongue-tied.
"You stay here," I said. "I'll go home."
The girl's eyes looked big and round as she stared at me. She held upthe five-dollar bill in her hand.
"Stay here," she gasped, "when I got money to go somewhere else? D'yethink I'm crazy? _You_ got to stay an' get the rest of yer story. _I_ain't! See?"
I saw.
"You'll go right to that address," I asked, "and rest?"
"Sure I will," she told me, cheerfully.
"I'll bring your half of the money to you as soon as I get it," Iended. "Probably in two or three days. And I'm going to send a doctorto see you to-morrow."
She was on her way to the door as I spoke, but she stopped and lookedback at me. "Say, kid," she said, "take my advice. Don't bring themoney. _Send_ it. Get me?"
I nodded. The door closed very softly behind her. I heard the oldstairs creak once or twice as she crept down them. Then I went to theopen window and leaned out. She was leaving the house, and I watchedher until she turned into a side street. She walked very slowly,looking to the right and to the left and behind her, as if she feltafraid.
Two mornings later when I entered the city room of the _Searchlight_Mr. Gibson rose and bowed low before me. Then he backed away, stillbowing, and beckoning to me at the same time. His actions weremysterious, but I followed him across the room, and several reportersrose from their desks and followed us both. Near the city editor'sdesk Mr. Gibson stopped, made another salaam, and pointed impressivelyto the wall. Tacked on it very conspicuously was a "model story" ofthe day--the sort of thing the city editor occasionally clipped fromthe _Searchlight_ or some other newspaper and hung there as "aninspiration to the staff." We were always interested in his "modelstories," for they were always good; I had read some of them till Iknew them by heart. But this particular morning it was _my_ storywhich was tacked there--my story of the girl in gray!
For a full minute I could not speak. I merely stood and stared whilethe reporters congratulated me and joked around me. While I was stilltrying to take in the stupendous fact that the "model story of theday" was really mine the city editor, Mr. Farrell, came and stoodbeside me. He was a fat man, with a face like a sad full moon, but hewas smiling now.
"Nice story," he said, kindly. "But don't get a swelled head over it.You'll probably write a rotten one to-morrow."
I nodded. Full well I knew I probably would.
"Besides," continued Mr. Farrell, "the best thing in your story wasthe tip it gave us for Gibson's big beat. That was a cub reporter'sluck. Thanks to it, we've got Holohan with the goods on. If you listenyou'll hear him squeal. And oh, by the way," he added, as he wasturning back to his desk, "we have a dozen messages already frompeople who want to give care and nursing and country homes to your'girl in gray.'"
I was glad of that. Also I was interested in something else, and
Imentioned it to Mr. Farrell. I told him I had felt sure my story wasspoiled because I had left so much out of it. The city editor lookedat me, and then jerked his head toward the story on the wall.
"It's what you left out of it," he said, "that makes that a modelstory."