obably the finest piece of writing ever brought to
him, so I unrolled my story, flattening it out so he might read it the
more easily.

"By the balls of Benjamin Franklin and the little white fringe on Horace
Greeley's chin, this goddamned thing's been wrote by hand! Arent there
any typewriters anymore? Did Mister Remington commit suicide unbeknownst
to me?"

"I'm sorry," I said stiffly. "I didnt think youd have any difficulty in
reading my handwriting." And in fact the whole business was absurd, for
if there's anything I pride myself on it's the gracefulness and
legibility of my penmanship. Typewriters might well be mandatory for the
ephemeral news item, but I had been hired as a special correspondent and
someday my manuscript would be a valuable property.

The cityeditor eyed me in a most disagreeable fashion. "I'm an educated
man," he stated. "Groton, Harvard and the WPA. No doubt with time and
care I could decipher this bid for next year's Pulitzer prize. But I
must consider the more handicapped members of the staff: compositors,
layoutmen and proofreaders; without my advantages and broadmindedness
they might be so startled by this innovation as to have their usefulness
permanently crippled. No; I'm afraid, Mr Weener, I must ask you to put
this in more orthodox form and type it up."

Just another example of pettish bureaucracy, the officiousness of the
jack-in-office. Except for the nuisance, it didnt particularly matter.
When Mr Le ffacase read my contribution I knew there would be no concern
in future whether it was handwritten, typewritten, or engraved in
Babylonic cuneiform on a freshly baked brick.

Nevertheless I went over to one of the unoccupied desks and began to
copy what I had written on the machine. I must say I was favorably
impressed by the appearance of my words in this form, for they somehow
looked more important and enduring. While still engaged in this task I
was slapped so heartily on the back I was knocked forward against the
typewriter and Gootes perched himself on a corner of the desk.

"Working the jolly old mill, what? I say, the old bugger wants to know
where your stuff is. Fact of the matter, he wants to know with quite a
bit of deuced bad language. Not a softspoken chap, you know, W R."

"I'll be through in a minute or two."

He gathered his pipe apparently out of my left ear and his tobacco pouch
from the air and very rudely, without asking my permission, picked up
the top sheet