Don opened his mouth, and then closed it. He hadn’t expected that response.

Adam raised his eyebrows and nodded. He looked at Don’s printout of the story. “You know,” Adam said after a short time, “I think you may be right about this top.”

“The nut graph, I really think it needs to be punched up,” Don said, still wanting to talk about Mabel, but willing to be agreed with on ROADSI.

“It really does,” Adam said, still reading. “This is going to take a lot more time than I’d realized,” he continued, tapping the printout. “I’m going to talk to Hank, put this into the hopper for next weekend.”

“I think we could get it in shape by tomorrow.”

“We could, but we don’t have to. This has been in the works for seven months. No sense in rushing it in at this stage.”

“I tend to agree,” Don said, although he didn’t. Adam was always trying to push him away from the paper. You’re the big shot. I’m the real guy. That was the message.

“Good. And on the other thing, why don’t you have Mabel give me a call, and we’ll get rolling.” Adam needed to get Don away from the series. Five or more editors had edited the reporting team. Some had wanted contrary approaches, ordered rewrites, seen the rewrites, and then realized the rewrite was not quite right. The top of the first day had been written more ways than Adam could recall. In the end, to keep the peace, Adam had typed out a lede that was serviceable.