Read Online The Scribe by Matthew Guinn - Free Book Online

that.”
    H ENRY G RADY looked up from the stenographer’s pad his reporter had handed him before hurrying on into the newsroom. He stared across the desk at Vernon, then down at the pad again, rubbing his smooth brow with one hand. Then hetossed the pad on the desk and looked again at Vernon. “I can’t print this,” he said.
    â€œI realize it is graphic.”
    â€œI don’t mean the grisly stuff. I mean the thing itself.”
    â€œHenry, you have a duty.”
    â€œI have many duties, Vernon,” Grady shot back, “but none higher than my duty to Atlanta. Another horror story is not in her interest.”
    Vernon sat back, breathed in the air of the Constitution offices, the overwhelming odor of ink that pervaded the place, that seemed to have soaked into the very timbers of the building. “Not in the interest of the exposition, you mean,” he said.
    â€œI admit that another story like this runs counter to the spirit of the fair.”
    â€œIs that your opinion? Or what you’ve been told?”
    Grady raised a hand full of telegram papers.“I hardly have room enough for the good news, Vernon.”
    â€œRun it on page four, then. Bury it in the back, at least. If Canby is right, our man will find it.”
    Grady shook his head. Vernon realized he had leaned forward in his chair. He sat back and took a deep breath. This feeling of being thwarted by the Ring was new to him. It, and the pungent odor of ink, was making his head light.
    After a long moment, Grady said, “What about your black boy?”
    â€œHe’s awfully suspicious.”
    â€œGiving him a badge couldn’t have helped.”
    â€œIt keeps him close.”
    â€œAnd this Canby. Why is it you insisted on him?”
    â€œWe did wrong by him in ’77. We made a mistake.”
    â€œMistakes are for my competitors to make. Bring me evidence and I’ll print a retraction.”
    â€œHe deserves another chance.”
    Grady had opened his mouth to reply when Joel Chandler Harris, one of the Constitution reporters, walked into the room and handed Grady a telegram. Grady scanned it quickly, then rose and retrieved his jacket from the coat tree in the room’s corner. He was beaming.
    Vernon returned the nod Harris had given him, studying the compactly built man. Harris’s face was nearly as red as his hair.
    â€œWhen will we have the next Uncle Remus story?” Grady asked, working an arm into his jacket.
    â€œIn time, Henry. Don’t want to pump the well dry.” Harris sighed. “I’m afraid that old slave is becoming the master of me.”
    Grady adjusted the rose that he kept in his lapel whenever the flowers were in bloom, a fresh one each morning. “Nonsense,” he said. “Six thousand subscribers hang on his every word. How about another one with Brer Rabbit?”
    â€œI’m sick of that damned rabbit,” Harris said, turning back into the typesetting room. Vernon saw a silver flask protruding from his back pocket.
    Grady frowned. Vernon knew how much he despised profanity. Knew, too, that the teetotaler hated liquor just as badly. In Harris, he tolerated the one and ignored the other. Harris was the best writer he had.
    â€œYou’ll excuse me, I hope, Vernon. Pressing business.”
    â€œYou’ll consider running the story, won’t you, Henry?” Vernon said, standing. “Right?”
    Grady glanced into the next room, where the typesetters were at work, their fingers moving over the great banks of type like spiders, picking letters swiftly, silently, and slotting them into the press that would begin rolling out tomorrow’s edition sometime after ten this evening. At midnight the paperboys would arrive, jostling like monkeys for their allotment of copies. The pace of the newspaper’s day made Vernon weary; Grady thrived on it.
    â€œHow much control do you have over that man?” Grady asked from