The Project Gutenberg EBook of By Proxy, by Gordon Randall Garrett

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Title: By Proxy

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Illustrator: H. R. van Dongen

Release Date: February 27, 2008 [EBook #24707]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

BY
PROXY

By DAVID GORDON

_It's been said that the act of
creation is a solitary thing--that
teams never create; only individuals.
But sometimes a team may be needed
to make creation effective...._

Illustrated by Van Dongen

Mr. Terrence Elshawe did not conform to the mental picture that pops
into the average person's mind when he hears the words "news reporter."
Automatically, one thinks of the general run of earnest, handsome,
firm-jawed, level-eyed, smooth-voiced gentlemen one sees on one's TV
screen. No matter which news service one subscribes to, the reporters
are all pretty much of a type. And Terrence Elshawe simply wasn't the
type.

The confusion arises because thirty-odd years of television has resulted
in specialization. If you run up much Magnum Telenews time on your
meter, you're familiar with the cultured voice and rugged good looks of
Brett Maxon, "your Magnum reporter," but Maxon is a reporter only in the
very literal sense of the word. He's an actor, whose sole job is to make
Magnum news sound more interesting than some other telenews service,
even though he's giving you exactly the same facts. But he doesn't go
out and dig up those stories.

The actual leg work of getting the news into Maxon's hands so that he
can report it to you is done by research reporters--men like Terrence
Elshawe.

Elshawe was a small, lean man with a large, round head on which grew
close-cropped, light brown hair. His mouth was wide and full-lipped, and
had a distinct tendency to grin impishly, even when he was trying to
look serious. His eyes were large, blue, and innocent; only when the
light hit them at just the right angle was it possible to detect the
contact lenses which corr