Miss Murdock, -- "Special"

A row of gas jets hooded by green paper shades lighting a long table at which sit half a dozen men in their shirt sleeves writing like mad; against the wall other men, -- one drawing Easter lilies, another blocking in the background around a photograph, a third pasting clippings on sheets of brown paper. Every few minutes a bare-headed boy in a dirty apron, with smudged face and ink-stained fingers, bounds into the stifling, smoke-laden room, skirts the long table, dives through a door labelled "City Editor," remains an instant and bounds out again, his hands filled with long streamers of proof.

In the opening and shutting of the swinging door a round-bodied, round-headed man in his shirt sleeves comes into view. Covering his forehead, shielding his eyes from the glare of the overhead gas jet, is a half-moon of green leather held in place by strings tied behind his ears. The line of shadow caused by this shade makes a blank space about his eyes and brings into relief his pale, flabby cheeks, hard, straight mouth, and coarse chin. Only when he lifts his head to give some order, or holds the receiver of the telephone to his ear, can his eyes be exactly located. Then they shine like a cat's in a cellar, -- gray, white, gray again, with a glint of metallic green, -- always the same distance apart, never wavering, never blinking. Overstrung, overworked, nervous men, working at high pressure, spurred by the merciless lash of passing minutes, have these eyes. So do cornered beasts fighting for air and space.