The barbaric character of the alley in which it occurred, lined with rickety curtain-hung shacks and swarming with the idle, crooning, shuffling negro life of the South, appealed to me. An old black mammy with a yellow-dotted kerchief over her head, who kept talking of “disha Gawge” and “disha Sam” and “disha Maquatia” (the girl), moved me to a poetic frenzy. From a crowd of blacks that hung about the vacated shack of the lovers after the girl had been taken away I picked up the main thread of the story, the varying characteristics of the girl and her lover, and then having visited the hospital and seen the victim I hurried to the office and endeavored to convince Wandell that I had an important story. At first he was not inclined to think so, negro life being a little too low for local consumption, but after I had entered upon some of the details he told me to go ahead. I wrote it out as well as I could, and it went in on the second page. The next day, meeting Galvin, having first examined the _Globe_ to see what had been done there, I beamed on him cheerfully and was met with a snarl of rage.
“You think you’re a hell of a feller, dontcha, because yuh can sling a little ink? Yuh think yuh’ve pulled off sompin swell. Well, say, yuh’re not near as much as yuh think yuh are. Wait an’ see. I’ve been up against wordy boys like yuh before, an’ I can work all around ’em. All you guys do is to get a few facts an’ then pad ’em up. Yuh never get the real stuff, never,” and he snapped his fingers under my nose. “Wait’ll we get a real case sometime, you an’ me, an’ I’ll show yuh sompin.”
He glared at me with hard, revengeful eyes, and he then and there put a fear into me from which I never recovered, although at the time I merely smiled.
“Is that so? That’s easy enough to say, now that you’re trimmed, but I guess I’ll be right there when the time comes.”
“Aw, go to hell!” he snarled, and I walked off smiling but beginning to wonder nervously just what it was he was going to do to me, and how soon.
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SOME time before this (when I was still working for the _Globe-Democrat_), there had occurred on the Missouri Pacific, about one hundred and fifty miles west of St. Louis a hold-up, the story of which interested me, although I had nothing to do with it. According to the reports, seven lusty and daring bandits, all heavily armed and desperate, had held up an eight-car Pullman and baggage express train between one and two of the morning at a lonely spot, and after overawing the passengers, had compelled the engineer and fireman to dismount, uncouple the engine and run it a hundred paces ahead, then return and help break open the door of the express car. This they did, using a stick of dynamite or giant powder handed them by one of the bandits. And then both were made to enter the express car, where, under the eye of one of the bandits and despite the presence of the express messenger, who was armed yet overawed, they were compelled to blow open the safe and carry forth between twenty and thirty thousand dollars in bills and coin, which they deposited on the ground in sacks and packages for the bandits. Then, if you please, they were compelled to re-enter their engine, back it up and couple it to the train and proceed upon their journey, leaving the bandits to gather up their booty and depart.