Anderson got several pencils ready, arranged his typewriter with a long roll of paper in it, to avoid the necessity of changing sheets when he began to write, and sat down in front of a telephone that was in a booth, where a small table offered a chance to write out the notes he would take when the story began coming in. “Jackson, call someone on the ’phone near the gas works, and see if you can get a line on how bad it is. We’ll issue a bulletin. Sneadly, get ready to call up the City and St. Elmo’s hospitals as soon as the victims have had a chance to get there. There’s where they’ll probably take ’em, because they are the nearest places.” In a few minutes what had been a quiet office was transformed into a hive of activity. The reporters were assigned to their tasks, and those in the city room stood with tense nerves waiting for the first news that might tell of a frightful disaster. Mr. Emberg, like a general planning for battle, had posted all his forces where they could do the best and quickest work. Suddenly Jackson, who had gone to the ’phone to call up someone near the scene, cried out: “It’s a bad one, all right!” “Who are you talking with?” asked Mr. Emberg. “I’ve got a party on the wire who lives about a block away. He says all the windows in the neighborhood are broken.” “I don’t care for the windows!” broke in Mr. Emberg. “What do they amount to? Is anyone killed? Find that out, if you can, and tell what happened.” Jackson listened to what the man at the other end of the wire was saying. Then he called out: “Some men were cleaning out a tank that had been emptied of gas! Some gas leaked in, and the thing went up! He says he saw a number of bodies thrown away up into the air, and the report is that seven men are killed.” Before Jackson had ceased speaking Mr. Emberg was writing out a bulletin to be posted outside the office, giving a mere statement of the accident, and announcing that details would be found in the next issue of the _Leader_. An instant later the telephone rang again. “Answer that, Anderson!” the city editor exclaimed. “That’s probably Newton on the wire. Write fast, tell him to talk fast, and make short sentences. We only have a few minutes for the second edition.” The city editor proved to be a good guesser. It was Mr. Newton at the other end of the wire, and he had a partial story. Briefly told, the accident was that a dozen men went into one of the big gas-holders to clean from the bottom an accumulation of oil that prevented a free flow of the vapor from the outlet pipe. Before the men entered through a small manhole in the top, all the gas had been drawn off.