“What in the world is the matter with Harvey and Mack?” asked Mr. Emberg, restlessly pacing the floor.  Every one in the city room felt the strain.  Every time the telephone bell rang, the city editor jumped to answer it, without waiting for one of the boys or a reporter to get to the instrument.

Finally, after several false alarms, the bell rang and the city editor, grabbing up the portable telephone, cried out: 

“Yes?  Oh, it’s you, Newton.  Where in the world have you been?  We only have time for the last edition.  Talk fast!  What’s that?  The Potter family home, and you can’t see Mr. Potter?  Why not?  Tell them you’ve got to see him.  Send in a message you have something of importance to tell him.  You say you have?  And you can’t see him?  But you must!  Go back and try again.  This is the biggest story we’ve had in a long while and we can’t fall down on it this way!”

He hung up the receiver on the hook with a bang, and once more began pacing the floor.

“That’s queer,” he murmured.  “There’s something strange back of all this.  Potter is up to some game, and so is Sullivan.  Come here, Larry.”

Mr. Emberg closely questioned the young reporter as to every detail of his interview with Sullivan.

“I’m going to write something myself,” the city editor announced.  “We’ve got to have more of this story.  I can guess at part of it, and I’ll make it general enough, and with sufficient ‘understoods’ in it to save us in case I’m wrong.”

He began to write, nervously and hurriedly, handing the sheets over to his assistant to edit as fast as he was done with them.  They were rushed upstairs, one at a time, as Larry’s copy had been.

The last edition went to press without the much-desired interview with Mr. Potter.  The city editor wrote a story, full of glittering generalities, telling how it was believed that certain forces were at work in the interest of getting a new line of the subway through the eighth district, and that Assemblyman Reilly was concerned in the matter, as was also a certain well-known financier, whose name was not mentioned, but whom the readers of the Leader would have little difficulty in recognizing as Mr. Potter.

To show that it was Mr. Potter to whom he was referring Mr. Emberg added at the bottom of the story, and under a separate single-line head, a note to the effect that all efforts were unavailing to get an interview with Hamden Potter, the financier, who that day had returned from Europe with his family, as Mr. Potter would see no reporters.  It was added that Mr. Potter’s connection with the subway interests might throw some light on the reason for the declaration of Sullivan for Reilly.

In all this there was no direct statement made, but the inferences were almost as strong as though the paper had come out boldly and stated as facts what Mr. Emberg believed to be true, but which he dared not assert boldly.  But as long as they were not made direct and positive there was no chance for a libel suit, which is something all newspapers dread.