Chapter Two
About half an hour later they were all running down the street towards the distribution centre. They were messing around, pretending to fight each other, Race was talking to an obviously oblivious Skittery about whether 'lucky seven' or 'ace of hearts' would be a better horse for him to put his money on. He used to use the tips to get 'The Weasel' to give him papes but the new guy wasn't so easy, sure he was a nicer guy but he was against gambling, and that definitely didn't make Race one of his fans. Bumlets and Specs were at the back of the group of boys; they hummed 'Carrying the Banner' as they went, trying desperately to keep warm. All of the newsboys were wrapped up in every piece of clothing they could find, it was November and winter was definitely catching New York in its grasp.
As it turned out, Jack was selling with Race; Mush was going with Bumlets and Skittery. When the three of them had got their papes they sat on the edge of the Horace Greeley monument and skimmed the stories. There were a few things on the front two pages about some crazy maniac who'd murdered a few people in Brooklyn, and then there were some stories about politicians and what they were saying at the moment. Then there was a mass of other rumours about the private lives of various important people. Mush flicked back through the first couple of pages and then saw an article that he'd missed on page two. For a few minutes he couldn't make his voice work because of the shock, then he finally caught his breath and his voice and said in little more than a whisper to Bumlets
"Here, have a look at this" Bumlets stared at the spot that Mush's finger was gesturing to. His response was pretty much identical to Mush's. After a few seconds he said in a whisper
"Well I guess that money ain't everything then, why such a small article though? That should be front page, he owns the stupid pape!"
"Well I guess that maybe they thought it wouldn't sell as many, maybe the words weren't catchy enough" said Mush, remembering what Jack and he had discussed about 'catchy' words only a couple of nights before.
They sat up and Mush opened his mouth and shouted to a group of men in suits
"Pulitzer in hospital, doc give'im a week".
It was a hard day, not just cold but each of the newsies felt a pang of guilt, it was well known that the old boss of the 'World' newspaper had had a hard time of things since the strike. People weren't happy at all about the treatment that the boys had had and they all blamed him. To some extent that wasn't fair, not everything was his fault but that was the way those things worked.