CHAPTER XI
I
“S he looks fine to-day,” said Jimmy proudly, as he spread on the desk in front of Valerie the first copy of the inside sheet of the News to come off the machine. He always made the most of this little ceremony and it never became any less important to him. It was now his job, after Ryder had hammered the last wedge into the make-up frame, to start the mysterious business that sucked in the sheets of paper, already printed on one side, and turned them over on the other ready to be folded. He made a fine art of grabbing the first one over, doubling it for rapid inspection, rushing with it into the office and spreading it out with a flourish. Then he stood by as if the whole world were waiting, while Valerie hunted for the kind of mistake that might halt the machine. That mistake was seldom found, but she always looked for it and Jimmy always stood as if it were an ominous probability. And with them this afternoon, fully conscious of all there was in the little drama, stood Dane, looking over her shoulder.
“By Jove, Ryder got that in,” he said admiringly, pointing to a paragraph at the bottom of a column.
“He gets everything in,” she answered.
At that moment there came an untoward sound from the composing-room, then a few creaks, and then a sad silence.
Jimmy’s face set in righteous indignation. “Well, if that isn’t the dizzy limit?” he demanded of the air. “I went over that confisticated thing this morning and there
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