One of the anomalous superstitions of newspaperdom is that nothing which
happens to a reporter in the line of his work is or can be "big news."
The mere fact that he is a reporter is enough to blight the story.
"What was Banneker doing down there?" queried Mr. Greenough.
"Visiting on a yacht."
"Is that so?" There was a ray of hope in the other's face. The glamour
of yachting association might be made to cast a radiance about the
event, in which the damnatory fact that the principal figure was a mere
reporter could be thrown into low relief. Such is the view which
journalistic snobbery takes of the general public's snobbery. "Whose
yacht?"
Again the spiteful little smile appealed on Burt's lips as he dashed the
rising hope. "Fentriss Smith's."
And again the expletive of disillusion burst from between Mallory's
teeth as he saw the front-page double-column spread, a type-specialty of
the usually conservative Ledger upon which it prided itself, dwindle to
a carefully handled inside-page three-quarter of a column.
"You say that Mr. Banneker is in the police station?" asked the city
editor.
"Or at headquarters. They're probably working the third degree on him."
"That won't do," declared the city desk incumbent, with conviction.
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