that what was burned. And last
of all we shall give the time since that is of least importance to the
average reader. This would be the result:

| Fire of unknown origin wrecked the top |
|of the six-story warehouse at 393-395 |
|Washington street, used by the United |
|States army as a medical supply |
|store-room for the Department of the |
|East, destroying a large number of tents, |
|blankets, cots, and other bedding, today. |

We might as well have put the _what_ before the _where_ or altered the
lead in any other way. But we would always begin with the word "fire"
and answer all the questions that the reader might ask--in one short
simple sentence. This constitutes our lead. We have told the casual
reader what he wants to know about the fire. We give him more details
about the fire if he wants to read them, but after we have stated the
case clearly in the lead we no longer reckon his time so carefully and
allow ourselves some latitude in the telling. After the lead we begin
the story from the beginning and tell it in its logical order from start
to finish, always bearing in mind that the editor may chop off a
paragraph or two at the end.

Hence the second paragraph of the story as it appeared in _The Mail_
begins:

| John Smith, a man employed in the |
|stock-room on the sixth floor, saw smoke |
|rolling out of one corner and notified |
|other employees in the building, while |
|Patrolman Hogan turned in an alarm. |

We are back at the beginning now and telling things as they came. The
next paragraph of the story tells us how they fought the fire, and the
third tells us how they finally brought it under control. The last
paragraph of the story reads:

| There are three such warehouses in the |
|country, one at St. Louis, another at San |
|Francisco, but the one in this city is by |
|far the largest. In it are kept supplies |
|for the Departments of the East, Gulf, |
|Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. |

The editor of _The Mail_ had plenty of space that day and saw fit to run
this last paragraph, but we should not have lost much had he chopped it
off. Perhaps the reporter's copy contained still another paragraph
telling a