"Arnold, H F - Night Wire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Arnold H F)

second wire, and then Morgan would do his stuff. He was a wizard, a
mechanical automatic wizard which functioned marvelously but was without
imagination.

On the night of the sixteenth he complained of feeling tired. It was the
first and last time I had ever heard him say a word about himself, and I
had known him for three years.

It was just three o'clock and we were running only one wire. I was nodding
over the reports at my desk and not paying much attention to him, when he
spoke.

"Jim," he said, "does it feel close in here to you?"

"Why, no, John," I answered, "but I'll open a window if you like."

"Never mind," he said. "I reckon I'm just a little tired."

That was all that was said, and I went on working. Every ten minutes or so
I would walk over and take a pile of copy that had stacked up neatly beside
the typewriter as the messages were printed out in triplicate.

It must have been twenty minutes after he spoke that I noticed he had
opened up the other wire and was using both typewriters. I thought it was a
little unusual, as there was nothing very "hot" coming in. On my next trip
I picked up the copy from both machines and took it back to my desk to sort
out the duplicates.

The first wire was running out the usual sort of stuff and I just looked
over it hurridly. Then I turned to the second pile of copy. I remembered it
particularly because the story was from a town I had never heard of:
"Xebico." Here is the dispatch. I saved a duplicate of it from our files:

"Xebico, Sept 16 CP BULLETIN

"The heaviest mist in the history of the city settled over
the town at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon. All traffic has
stopped and the mist hangs like a pall over everything. Lights
of ordinary intensity fail to pierce the fog, which is
constantly growing heavier.

"Scientists here are unable to agree as to the cause, and
the local weather bureau states that the like has never occurred
before in the history of the city.

"At 7 P.M. last night the municipal authorities...

(more)

That was all there was. Nothing out of the ordinary at a bureau