four o'clock
The office boys adore him . The Old Man takes his advice in selecting a new motor car ; the managing editor arranges his lunch hour to suit Blackie 's and they go off to the Press club together , arm in arm . It is Blackie who lends a sympathetic ear to the society editor 's tale of woe . He hires and fires the office boys ; boldly he criticizes the news editor 's makeup ; he receives delegations of tan-coated , red-faced prizefighting-looking persons ; he gently explains to the photographer why that last batch of cuts make their subjects look as if afflicted with the German measles ; he arbitrates any row that the newspaper may have with such dignitaries as the mayor or the chief of police ; he manages boxing shows ; he skims about in a smart little roadster ; he edits the best sporting page in the city ; and at four o'clock of an afternoon he likes to send around the corner for a chunk of devil 's food cake with butter filling from the Woman 's Exchange . Blackie never went to school to speak of . He does n't know was from were . But he can `` see '' a story quicker , and farther and clearer than any newspaper man I ever knew -- excepting Peter Orme .