It is Blackie who lends a sympathetic ear to the society
editor's tale of woe. He hires and fires the office boys;
boldly he criticizes the news editor's makeup; he receives
delegations of tan-coated, red-faced prizefighting-looking
persons; he gently explains to the photographer why that
last batch of cuts make their subjects look as if afflicted
with the German measles; he arbitrates any row that the
newspaper may have with such dignitaries as the mayor or the
chief of police; he manages boxing shows; he skims about in a
smart little roadster; he edits the best sporting page in
the city; and at four o'clock of an afternoon he likes to
send around the corner for a chunk of devil's food cake
with butter filling from the Woman's Exchange. Blackie
never went to school to speak of. He doesn't know was
from were. But he can "see" a story quicker, and farther
and clearer than any newspaper man I ever knew--excepting
Peter Orme.
There is a legend about to the effect that one day
the managing editor, who is Scotch and without a sense of
humor, ordered that Blackie should henceforth be
addressed by his surname of Griffith, as being a more
dignified appellation for the use of fellow reporters,
hangers-on, copy kids, office boys and others about the
big building.
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