"No time for details now," he muttered. "Just the flash. I’ll get the details later."
Behind him the little knot of correspondents became alarmed.
"The little man knows something," said one of them. "Don’t suppose the armistice could have been signed, do you?"
"Not a chance," said another. "We’d have the word."
"Well, Stubbs was in a terrible hurry about something," said a third. "We’d better get busy and find out what it’s all about."
"I’ll go after him," said Jennings of The World. "The rest of you fellows get busy on the ’phone. Call every man in authority in the city. Some of them will know something. Doesn’t matter whether they kick about being called at this hour or not. Get busy."
In the cable office Stubbs grabbed a blank and wrote, in code:
"Armistice signed this a.m. at eleven o’clock at Hirson. Stubbs."
The message he handed to the clerk with instructions to rush it.
"That’ll be enough," said Stubbs. "They’ll know at the office what to do with it. They’ll probably write columns at that end describing the scenes at Hirson between Marshal Foch and the German delegates. There’ll be pictures and everything. Now I’ll go and learn a few of the details."
He encountered Jennings of The World as he moved toward the door.
"Look here, Stubbs," said Jennings, "why all this rush. You’re not going to leave the rest of us out in the cold, are you?"
"I’m not working for you fellows," he replied. "The New York Gazette is paying me my weekly stipend, but I don’t mind saying I’ve landed a big piece of news."
Jennings attempted to minimize the matter.
"Oh, I guess it’s not so terribly big," he said.
"Well, all right," said Jennings, "but you’ll be sorry."
"Not half as sorry as the rest of you’ll be when you hear from home after The Gazette is on the street," declared Stubbs.
Jennings looked at Stubbs closely. The latter was clearly excited.
"By Jove! He must know something," Jennings decided. "I can’t waste time here."
An hour later, after Stubbs had made ineffectual efforts to learn from Admiral W— details of the signing of the armistice, he gave it up for the night.
"I know no more than I have told you," said the admiral. "I should have the details in the morning. Call me then."
Stubbs returned to his hotel. Again he was surrounded by the other correspondents who, after trying all their channels of news, had failed to learn anything of importance.