"But that's all he would say," poor Bill had expostulated.
"All he would say!" the news-editor sneered. "Here, Mathers, take this
stuff and make a quarter-col. interview out of it."
Thus it was in depressed mood that Bill on the following morning
opened his _Daily._
The flaring "Country House Outrage" hit his eye; he read; in two
minutes his mood was changed. A sensation at Paltley Hill! At Mr.
Marrapit's! Here was his chance! Who better fitted than he to work up
this story? Fortunately he knew Mr. Henry T. Bitt's private address;
had the good sense to go straight to his chief.
A cab took him to the editor's flat in Victoria Street. Mr. Bitt was
equally enthusiastic.
"Hot stuff," said Mr. Bitt. "You've got your chance; make a splash. Go
to the office and tell Lang I've put you on to it. Cut away down to
the scene of the outrage and stay there as our Special Commissioner
till I wire you back. Serve it up hot. Make clues if you can't find
'em. Hot, mind. H-O-T."
III.
Professor Wyvern was the second reader upon whom the sensational story
had particular effect.
Through breakfast the Professor eyed with loving eagerness the copy of
the _Daily_ that lay folded beside his plate.
At intervals, "I have made a very good breakfast, now," he would say.
"Now I will try to find what Bill has written in this terrible paper.
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