Deskmen and reporters, lifting weary eyes from copy paper, might have assessed his mood as one of self-imposed hypnosis, a kind of daydreaming. News aides turned their eyes away self-consciously, as though fearing their own curious gazes would be an intrusion on the executive editor. But while Nick's open eyes gazed into the cavernous room, the ninety-one clearly visible desks and typewriters, the clusters of nerve centers through which information had passed from brain to typewriter, from paper pile to paper pile, paragraph by paragraph, through each penciled checkpoint, the image was not registering. The mechanism of his mind was simply idling, lulled by the comforting vibrations of the big presses as they inked the awesome discharge of a Washington day, the distilled essence of a thousand minds. Cordovan brogues planted at either side of his typewriter table, hands clasped as a cradle for his peppered head, tie loose but still plumb in its buttoned-downed place, Nick kept at bay any irritant wisp of thought that might intrude on his self-imposed tranquility.
What do You think about The Henderson Equation (1976)?
