Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/34

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The Stolen Story

Make one of your artistic stories of it. Don't try to round it up by to-night. Take two days to it. The Commissioner's out of town, so none of the other papers will——"

But Woods was half way down the room, and his head was tipped back. It was less than an hour since he had stalked out of The Day office with the same gait, but he had forgotten all about that now. He had forgotten how he had intended to make himself forget. He was keenly and joyously alive, and every faculty was hot for work and glowing with the delicious excitement of one hurrying to perform a big feat that he is confident of doing well. This thing is a form of intoxication, too, though it is not usually called that.

First he ran across to the City Hall and sauntered into the Mayor's office and had a talk with the Mayor's private secretary, who called him Billy, and asked what he could do for him to-day. Here Woods talked arrogantly and found out what had been the Mayor's attitude at a certain hearing a month before. Then he jumped on a Broadway cable-car and went down to Wall

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