ourt-house
and in the city hall."

"Go after them."

"I suppose you know the men who will be involved in this," said
Jolter.

"Some of my best friends, I expect," said Bobby.

"And some of the most influential citizens in this town," retorted
Jolter. "They can ruin the _Bulletin_. They could ruin any business."

"The thing's crooked, isn't it?" demanded Bobby.

"As a dog's hind leg."

"Go after them, Jolter!" Bobby reiterated. Then he laughed aloud. "De
Graff just telephoned me that 'the conservatism of his position
forbids him to take part in any sensational publicity whatsoever.'"

Comment other than a chuckle was superfluous from either one of them,
and Jolter departed to the city editor's room, to bring joy to the
heart of the staff.

It was "Bugs" Roach who scented the far-reaching odor of this move
with the greatest joy.

"You know what this means, don't you?" he delightedly commented. "A
grand jury investigation. Oh, listen to the band!"

Before noon the Merchants' and the Planters' and Traders' Banks had
withdrawn their advertisements.

At about the same hour a particularly atrocious murder was committed
in one of the suburbs. Up in the reporters' room of the police
station, Thomas, of the _Bulletin_, and Graham, of the _Chronicle_,
were indulging in a quiet game of whist with two of the morning
newspaper boys, when a roundsman stepped to the door and called Graham
out. Graham came back a moment later after his coat, with such studied
nonchalance that the other boys, eternally suspicious as police
reporters grow to be, looked at him narrowly, and Thomas asked him,
also with studied nonchalance:

"The candy-store girl, or the one in the laundry office?"

"Business, young fellow, business," returned Graham loftily. "I guess
the _Chronicle_ knows when it has a good man. I'm called into the
office to save the paper. They're sending a cub down to cover the
afternoon. Don't scoop him, old man."

"Not unless I get a chance," promised Thomas, but after Graham had
gone he went down to the desk and, still unsatisfied, asked:

"Anything doing, Lieut.?"

"Dead as a door-nail," replied the lieutenant, and Thomas, still with
an instinct that something was wrong, still sensitive to a certain
suppressed tingling excitement about the very atmosphere of the place,
went slowly back to the reporters' room, where he spent a worried
half-hour.

The noonday edition of the _Chronicle_ carried, in the identical