s another red-hot
one on it. Here's the address.'

"I wadded up the paper and stuffed it in his mouth. His lips felt pulpy.
He hit me with a lead paper-weight and cut my head open. I don't know
that I even hit him; I didn't specially want to hit him. I wanted to
mark him. There was an extra-size open ink-well on his desk. I poured
that over him and rubbed it into his face. Some of it got into his eyes.
How he yelled! Of course he had me arrested. I didn't make any defense;
I couldn't without bringing in Marna Corcoran's name. The Judge thought
_I_ was crazy. I was, pretty near. Three months, he gave me. When I came
out Marna Corcoran was dead. I went to find Red McGraw and kill him. He
was gone. I think he suspected what I would do. I've never set eyes on
him since. Two local newspapers sent for me as soon as my term was up
and offered me jobs. I thought it was because of what I had done to
McGraw. It wasn't. It was on the strength of the Marna Corcoran
interview."

"Good God!"

"I needed a job, too. But I didn't take either of those. Later I got a
better one with a decent newspaper. The managing editor said when he
took me on: 'Mr. Edmonds, we don't approve of assaults on the city desk.
But if you ever receive in this office an assignment of the kind that
caused your outbreak, you may take it out on me.' There are pretty fine
people in the newspaper business, too."

Edmonds retrieved his pipe, discovering with a look of reproach and
dismay that it was out. He wiped away some tiny drops of sweat which had
come out upon the grayish skin beneath his eyes, while he was recounting
his tragedy.

"That makes my troubles seem petty," said Banneker, under his breath. "I
wonder--"

"You wonder why I told you all this," supplemented the veteran. "Since I
have, I'll tell you the rest; how I made atonement in a way. Ten years
ago I was on a city desk myself. Not very long; but long enough to find
I didn't like it. A story came to me through peculiar channels. It was a
scandal story; one of those things that New York society whispers about
all over the place, yet it's almost impossible to get anything to go on.
When I tell you that even The Searchlight, which lives on scandal, kept
off it, you can judge how dangerous it was. Well; I had it pat. It was
really big stuff of its kind. The woman was brilliant, a daughter of one
of the oldest and most noted New York families; and noted in her own
right. She had never married: pref