"Фредерик Браун. Night of the Jabberwock (англ) " - читать интересную книгу автора

those cruelty charges were a bunch of hokum. He never laid a hand on her.
But the woman was such hell on wheels that Bonney'd have admitted to
anything to get free of her. And give her a settlement of a hundred grand on
top of it. Carl was worried about the case because the cruelty charges were
so damn silly on the face of them."
"Hell," I said, "that's not the way it's going to sound in the
Clarion."
"Carl was saying he knew you couldn't tell the truth about the story,
but he hoped you'd play it down. Just saying Mrs. B. had been granted a
divorce and that a settlement had been made, and not putting in anything
about the charges."
I thought of my one real story of the week, and how carefully I'd
enumerated all those charges Bonney's wife bad made against him, and I
groaned at the thought of having to rewrite or cut the story. And cut it I'd
have to, now that I knew the facts.
I said, "Damn Carl, why didn't he come and tell me about it before I
wrote the story and put the paper to bed?"
"He thought about doing that, Doc. And then he decided he didn't want
to use his friendship with you to influence the way you reported news."
"The damn fool," I said. "And all he had to do was walk across the
street."
"But Carl did say that Bonney's a swell guy and it would be a bad break
for him if you listed those charges because none of them were really true
and"
"Don't rub it in," I interrupted him. "I'll change the story. If Carl
says it's that way, I'll believe him. I can't say that the charges weren't
true, but at least I can leave them out."
"That'd be swell of you, Doc."
"Sure it would. All right, give me one more drink, Smiley, and I'll go
over and catch it before Pete leaves."
I had the one more drink, cussing myself for being sap enough to spoil
the only mentionable story I had, but knowing I had to do it. I didn't know
Bonney personally, except just to say hello to on the street, but I did know
Carl Trenholm well enough to be damn sure that if he said Bonney was in the
right, the story wasn't fair the way I'd written it. And I knew Smiley well
enough to be sure he hadn't given me a bum steer on what Carl had really
said.
So I grumbled my way back across the street and upstairs to the Clarion
office. Pete was just tightening the chase around the front page.
He loosened the quoins when I told him what we had to do, and I walked
around the stone so I could read the story again, upside down, of course, as
type is always read.
The first paragraph could stand as written and could constitute the
entire story. I told Pete to put the rest of the type in the hell-box and I
went over to the case and set a short head in tenpoint, "Bonney Divorce
Granted," to replace the twenty-four point head that had been on the longer
story. I handed Pete the stick and watched while he switched heads.
"Leaves about a nine-inch hole in the page," he said. "What'll we stick
in it?"
I sighed. "Have to use filler," I told him. "Not on the front page, but