Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/198

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The City Editor's Conscience

here all day, and you're the last to leave at night. You don't even go out to lunch. Why don't you go out to lunch?" Henderson began to grin. "The staff wants to know why in thunder you don't go out to lunch?" He now brought his right hand out from behind his back, "And they want me to ask you to wear this thing" (there was a watch in Henderson's hand with a chain dangling from it). "They have come to the conclusion that it's because you don't keep track of the time. They say you are about the squarest city editor in Park Row, even though you do flare up occasionally and get red in the face. And you see" (he was sticking the watch up under Maguire's face) "we were afraid that unless you went out to lunch your health would go to pieces and you'd lose your job, and then we'd get a city editor that we couldn't work so easily for days off and—and, well, I had a lot more to say only I'm rattled now—Here, Maguire, take it; and after this, see that you don't forget your lunch when the time comes. Pardon me, boys, for falling down on that speech."

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