Ch. 9: Jennie Realizes That Great Events Cast Their Shadows Behind - Page 2

you understand?"

"Yes, my lady." A few moments later Jennie was in the cab, driving through the nearly deserted streets. She dismissed her vehicle at Charing Cross, walked down the Strand until she got another, then proceeded direct to the office of the Daily Bugle, whose upper windows formed a row of lights, all the more brilliant because of the intense darkness below.

She found the shorthand writers waiting for her. The editor met her at the door of the room reserved for her, and said, with visible anxiety on his brow, "Well, what success?"

"Complete success," she answered shortly.

"Good!" he replied emphatically. "Now I propose to read the typewritten sheets as they come from the machine, correct them for obvious clerical errors, and send them right away to the compositors. You can, perhaps, glance over the final proofs, which will be ready almost as soon as you have finished."

"Very well. Look closely to the spelling of proper names and verify titles. There won't be much time for me to go carefully over the last proofs."

"All right. You furnish the material, and I'll see that it's used to the best advantage."

Jennie entered the room, and there at a desk sat the waiting stenographer; over his head hung the bulb of an electric light, its green circular shade throwing the white rays directly down on his open notebook. The girl was once more in the working world, and its bracing air acted as a tonic to her overwrought nerves. All longings and regrets had been put off with the Paris-made gown which the maid at that moment was carefully packing away. The order of nature seemed reversed; the butterfly had abandoned its gorgeous wings of gauze, and was habited in the sombre working garb of the grub. With her hands clasped behind her, the girl paced up and down the room, pouring forth words, two hundred to the minute, and sometimes more. Silently one stenographer, tiptoeing in, replaced another, who as silently departed; and from the adjoining room, the subdued, nervous, rapid click, click, click of the typewriting machine invaded, without disturbing, her consciousness. Towards three o'clock the low drone of the rotaries in the cellar made itself felt rather than heard; the early edition for the country was being run off. Time was flying--danced away by nimble feet in the West End, worked away by nimble fingers in Fleet Street (well-named thoroughfare); play and work, work and play, each supplementing the other; the acts of the frivolous recorded by the industrious.

When a little more than three hours' dictating was finished, the voice of the girl, now as hoarse as formerly it had been musical, ceased; she dropped into a chair and rested her tired head on the deserted desk, closing her wearied eyes. She knew she had spoken between 15,000 and 20,000 words, a number almost equal in quantity