The Hi, this is Randy Stone. I cover the nightbeat for the Chicago Star. Stories start in many different ways. This one began when I bumped into a wonderful legend out of the past and watched that legend die before my eyes.

Nightbeat starring Frank Lovejoy as Randy Stone. You know, I guess the one thing that makes a newspaper guy like me different from any other working stiff

is that while a bookkeeper works with numbers, carpenter deals and wood, and the miner sweats over coal,

a newspaper man, well, all he works with is people. What makes them laugh

and dance in the street? What makes them cry in the night? But just the same like most kinds of work, this has its occupational hazards too.

Being a newspaper man doesn't give you painters, colic, or housemaids knee.

But sometimes it can sure do some lousy things to your heart.

It was my night off.

I had a date with a little blonde at the information desk.

You know, the girl who tells you where to go after you tell her what you're looking for.

I finally talked her into going dancing.

I was supposed to pick her up at 9 o'clock.

Only here it was 8.30 and I was still trying to find a flower shop to buy her a corsage.

I'd walk to the edge of Skid Row when I finally spotted this place, a little flourish shop in the center of a shabby office building.

Looking through the window I saw a gray-haired old lady pinning a boot and a lapel of a chunky fellow in a shiny blue search.

As I came through the front door the

fellow spun around like he was expecting the worst.

Oh, you hold kill so I can get the flower in place.

I'm expecting somebody I thought maybe this fellow might be the one.

All right now you just stay quiet I'll be with you in a moment there.

There's no hurry you know hurry at all.

There now isn't that beautiful? My husband set it aside especially for you.

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