Eden climbed in and the little car clattered down Main Street. “This is mighty kind of you,” the boy said.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Holley answered. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Old P.J. never gives an interview, but you can’t tell—I might be able to persuade him. These famous men sometimes let down a little when they get out here. It would be a big feather in my cap. They’d hear of me on Park Row again.”
“I’ll do all I can to help,” Bob Eden promised.
“That’s good of you,” Holley answered. The faint yellow lights of Eldorado grew even fainter behind them. They ascended a rough road between two small hills—barren, unlovely piles of badly assorted rocks. “Well, I’m going to try it,” the editor added. “But I hope I have more luck than the last time.”
“Oh—then you’ve seen Madden before?” Eden asked with interest.
“Just once,” Holley replied. “Twelve years ago, when I was a reporter in New York. I’d managed to get into a gambling house on Forty-fourth Street, a few doors east of Delmonico’s. It didn’t have a very good reputation, that joint, but there was the great P.J. Madden himself, all dolled up in evening clothes, betting his head off. They said that after he’d gambled all day in Wall Street, he couldn’t let it alone—hung round the roulette wheels in that house every night.”
“And you tried to interview him?”
“I did. I was a fool kid, with lots of nerve. He had a big railroad merger in the air at the time, and I decided to ask him about it. So I went up to him during a lull in the betting. I told him I was on a newspaper—and that was as far as I got.’Get the hell out of here,’he roared.’You know I never give interviews.’”
