DOI Artikel:
Thompson, Charles Miner: In an American newspaper
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27805#0198
194 In an American Newspaper Office
shaped face, looking more than usually battered and worn, fairly
exuded melancholy. He mopped his bald head mechanically, and
then stared a moment with dull eyes at the crumpled handkerchief
in his pudgy fist. Finally pulling himself together, he began to
work—well and rapidly, but with entire unconsciousness.
The office grew livelier. Reporters came in, chatted among
themselves a while, or wrote busily^ in their closets, and departed
again into the night. The regular procession of disreputable-
looking boys began to file into the room with telegraphic
despatches from the Associated Press. “Copy” in ever-
increasing volume was flung upon the night-desk. Hunt, with a
calculating eye upon the space of the paper gave the order sharply
to “ carve hell out of everything.” Thereupon some one began
to chant a rhyme current in the office :
“ O’er the films Associated,
In a tone by no means bated,
Comes the cry reiterated.
Carve, Master, carve ! ”
The managing editor, emerging every now and then from his
den, like a bulldog from his kennel, swore viciously at Hunt, at
Master, at whatever reporters happened to be there. On all sides
rose the mingled noise of laughter, oaths, whistling, sharp question
and sharper answer, striking matches, scratching pens, grating
chairs, scuffling feet, the sharp snipping of shears through copy,
and their clatter when thrown down, the ringing of the bell of the
copy-box, the rattle of the box itself as it moved up and down in
its narrow passage-way to the composing-room, the tearing of
paper, the devil’s tattoo of a typewriter ; but though he heard it
Master was conscious of none of it. To the general hubbub,
the fire alarm added its deliberate strokes, like a clock. As it
ceased,
shaped face, looking more than usually battered and worn, fairly
exuded melancholy. He mopped his bald head mechanically, and
then stared a moment with dull eyes at the crumpled handkerchief
in his pudgy fist. Finally pulling himself together, he began to
work—well and rapidly, but with entire unconsciousness.
The office grew livelier. Reporters came in, chatted among
themselves a while, or wrote busily^ in their closets, and departed
again into the night. The regular procession of disreputable-
looking boys began to file into the room with telegraphic
despatches from the Associated Press. “Copy” in ever-
increasing volume was flung upon the night-desk. Hunt, with a
calculating eye upon the space of the paper gave the order sharply
to “ carve hell out of everything.” Thereupon some one began
to chant a rhyme current in the office :
“ O’er the films Associated,
In a tone by no means bated,
Comes the cry reiterated.
Carve, Master, carve ! ”
The managing editor, emerging every now and then from his
den, like a bulldog from his kennel, swore viciously at Hunt, at
Master, at whatever reporters happened to be there. On all sides
rose the mingled noise of laughter, oaths, whistling, sharp question
and sharper answer, striking matches, scratching pens, grating
chairs, scuffling feet, the sharp snipping of shears through copy,
and their clatter when thrown down, the ringing of the bell of the
copy-box, the rattle of the box itself as it moved up and down in
its narrow passage-way to the composing-room, the tearing of
paper, the devil’s tattoo of a typewriter ; but though he heard it
Master was conscious of none of it. To the general hubbub,
the fire alarm added its deliberate strokes, like a clock. As it
ceased,