Why worry the dear old fellow, he had said
to himself a dozen times, since nothing would ever come of it.
While all this had been going on in the house of MacFarlane, much
more astonishing things had been developing in the house of Breen.
The second Mukton Lode scoop,--the one so deftly handled the night
of Arthur Breen's dinner to the directors,--had somehow struck a
snag in the scooping with the result that most of the "scoopings"
had been spilled over the edge there to be gathered up by the
gamins of the Street, instead of being hived in the strong boxes
of the scoopers. Some of the habitues in the orchestra chairs in
Breen's office had cursed loud and deep when they saw their
margins melt away; and one or two of the directors had broken out
into open revolt, charging Breen with the fiasco, but most of the
others had held their peace. It was better to crawl away into the
tall grass there to nurse their wounds than to give the enemy a
list of the killed and wounded. Now and then an outsider--one who
had watched the battle from afar--saw more of the fight than the
contestants themselves.
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