Sally Read Free

desks and scrawling his signature on the bottom. “Wait for me here, Miss Blane, and we will go over this together later. Ah, Lady Farringer! Step this way!”
    They vanished into his office, and Sally seized the precious letter, which, of course, was one authorizing her to draw two hundred pounds, and fled.
    Ten-thirty already! And what an age they took at the bank. She stuffed the notes haphazardly into her reticule, causing the teller to shake his head mournfully, and then ran all the way to the railway station, her suitcase bumping against her legs.
    She was just in time for the 11:15 train to London, Victoria.
    She sank wearily into a third-class compartment just as the train began to chug its way out of the station. It was only then that she realized the compartment was shared by a tired, jaded mother and her three children who were returning home after their annual holiday. The compartment seemed to be bulging with buckets and spades, seaweed and shells, parasols, and jammy, sticky fingers.
    “I don’t like you,” said the imp opposite Sally with an ingratiating leer.
    “Now, Freddie,” said its mother with an indulgent smile, “don’t be so forward.”
    Sally simply closed her eyes and pretended to go to sleep. The children, after trying shouting in her ear pulling her hair, and kicking her shins eventually gave up and left her in peace so that at last, overcome by the stuffy heat, she actually did fall asleep, not awakening until the train was running in over the houses of London. Over the river it roared with a long, wailing whistle and plunged headlong into the sooty depths of Victoria Station, like a great iron animal returning to its burrow.
    Sally felt quite shaky and groggy. The noise and bustle of the great station made her feel very small. Surely it would be better to go back, back to Emily, back to Sussex. Already distance was lending her sister’s home enchantment. But her companions of the journey surged past her, whining and moaning and kicking and reminding her vividly of what she had left behind, so Sally stiffened her small spine, picked up her suitcase, and marched to the cab rank.
    “The
Daily Bugle
,” she said, climbing into one and settling herself with a sigh of relief in the musty interior of the hansom.
    Fleet Street was, and is, the home of British newspapers. A narrow, crowded street crammed with newspaper and magazine offices, it runs from the Law Courts at the Temple down to Ludgate Circus. Of course, some newspapers may have their headquarters outside this magic canyon, but for a budding newspaperwoman there is nothing like the Street itself.
    On this hot day as Sally paid off the hansom and picked up her suitcase, it seemed to be full of people bustling to and fro importantly.
    There was an exotic smell of hot paper, and the pavement beneath her feet trembled slightly to the thud of the great printing presses. Sally looked up at the great gilt clock over the ornate offices of the
Daily Bugle
. One o’clock. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her it was lunchtime. The editor would surely be out for lunch. Drat! And Sally wanted only the editor. No one else would do.
    She took herself off across the road to a cafeteria and sat for two miserable hours in its hot, flyblown interior over two cups of tea and a currant bun. George once said that business executives always took two hours for lunch.
    At precisely three o’clock Sally pushed her damp hair out of her eyes, pressed her now crumpled sailor hat firmly on her head, and made her way through the press of horse traffic to the offices of the
Daily Bugle
.
    But the uniformed man in the front hall quickly disabused her of any idea of marching up the marble stairs and into the lift and on to the editor’s office. “You ’as to ’ave an appointment, miss,” he said, sneering, and then returned to his crossword, obviously dismissing her from his mind.
    Sally gazed at the oiled top of his bent head in a baffled way. And then she said