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clubs huge quiet and graceful hotels such as the old and the long since destroyed and the very graceful cathedral of st all the cross streets in this area were lined uniformly with or red brick houses of the same height and general appearance a high flight of steps leading to the front door a side gate and door for servants under the steps nearly au of these houses were closely up for the there was scarcely a trace of life anywhere save here or there where a servant idly at a side gate or on the front steps talking to a policeman or a at street the great church on its platform was as empty as a drum at fifty ninth where stood the the and the as well as the great home of it was all bare as a desert lonely handsome to and fro and the father or mother of the present fifth avenue an overgrown carriage rolled between washington square and one hundred and tenth street central park had most of the lovely walks and lakes which grace it today but no distant central park west as such had not even appeared that huge wall that breaks the western sky now was wanting along this dismal there a dismal yellow horse car trailing up a paved street bare of save a hotel or two and some on rocks with their attendant but for all that keeping on as far north as the museum i was steadily more and more impressed it was not but perhaps as i thought it did not need to be the of the great city and the power of a number of great a book about myself names were to excuse it and ever and anon would come a something the home at sixty first the and at sixty sixth and sixty eighth the library at seventy second which it even the old red brick and white stone museum now but the central core of the much larger building with its attendant had charm and dignity so far i wandered then took the and returned to my sister s apartment in street if i have presented all this mildly it was by no means a mild for me sensitive to the of life and what one may do in a given span vastly interested in the city itself i was swiftly being by a charm more than real more of the mind than the eye perhaps which seized upon and held me so nevertheless that soon i was quite unable to judge of all this and saw its commonplace and even mean face in a most light the beauty the hope the possibilities that were here it was not a handsome city as i look back on it now there was much that was gross and and even repulsive about it it had too many hard and avenues and cross streets bare of anything save stone walls and stone or and wretched iron lamp posts there were regions that were painfully crowded with poverty dirt despair the buildings were too uniformly low compact squeezed outside the exclusive residence and commercial there was no sense of length or space but having seen and this barren section of fifth avenue i could not think of it in a hostile way the of large bodies over small ones holding me its did not now me nor its lack of beauty there was something else here a quality of life and zest and security and ease for some cheek by with poverty and longing and sacrifice which gives to life everywhere its keenest most pathetic edge here was none of that eager snap characteristic of many of our western cities which while it at first eventually no city that i had ever seen had exactly what this had as a boy of course i had a book about myself invested with immense and force and it there ignorant american semi seeking inspiring but new york was entirely different it had the feeling of gross and and self indulgence it was ai if self indulgence whispered to you that here was its true home as if for the most part it was here secure e here was harder perhaps for some more aware more cynical and and brazen and and yet more for these very reasons wherever one turned one felt a consciousness of ease and indifference to however low or high and coupled with a sense of power that had found itself and was not easily to be of that has little and is willing to yield for a price here as one could feel were huge dreams and and being gratified i wanted to know the worst and the best of it during the few days that i was permitted to remain here i certainly had an excellent my brother while associated with the other two as a partner was so small a so far as his firm s internal economy was concerned that he was not needed as more than a hand on one who went about among and stage singers and actors and song and advertised by his agreeable the existence of his firm and its value to them and it was that quality of in him which so speedily caused his firm to grow and prosper indeed he was its very breath and life i always think of him as along in the summer time seeing men and women who could sing and writers who could write them and them by the compelling charm of his personality to resort to his firm he had a way with people affectionate intimate he was a which drew the young and the old the and the to his house gradually and because of him and his fame it and yet i doubt if ever his partners understood how much he meant to them his house was young and unimportant yet within a year	43
or two it had its way to the front and this was due a book about myself to him and none other the rest was merely fair commercial management of what he provided in great abundance while he waited for his theatrical season to resume he was most prepared to entertain one who might be interested to see this night after dinner at my sister s he said come on sport and together after promising faithfully to be back by midnight we forth strolling across street to sixth avenue and then taking a car to thirty third street the real of all things theatrical at the time here at and thirty fifth opposite the herald building and the herald square stood the hotel a popular for actors and singers with whom my brother was most concerned and here they were in great number the on two sides of the building alive with them a world of glittering spinning flies i recall the agreeable summer evening air the bright comforting lights the open doors and windows the clothes the laughter the the the it was wonderful the spirit and the sense of happiness and ease men do at times attain to happiness paradise even in this shabby worthless make believe world i have seen it with mine own eyes and here as in that more institution at street the my brother was at ease his was by no means the trade way of a but rather that of one who like these others was merely up and down the street seeing what he might he drank told idle tales but all the while as he told me later he was really looking for certain individuals who could sing or play and whom in this and casual way he might interest in the particular song or composition he was then and you never can tell he said you might run into some fellow who would be just the one to write a song or sing one for you chapter thb next day i was left to myself and visited city bridge wall street and the financial and sections i having no skill for making money and intensely for the things that money would buy stared at wall street a kind of cloudy in which all the gods of with the eyes of one who hopes to extract something by mere observation physically it was not then as it is today the of a sky crowded world there were few if any high buildings below city hall few higher than ten stories wall street was curved low like oxford street in london it began as some one had already x d out at a and ended at a river the house of j p was just then being assailed for its with a government gold bond issue the offices of sage and the son as well as those of the standard oil company below wall in and those of a whole company of now forgotten could have been pointed out by any messenger boy or policeman what impressed me was that the street was with something which though far from pleasing craft cunning a smart ease on the part of some and hopeless or beaten aspect on part of others held my interest as might a tiger or a snake i had never seen such a world it was so busy and messenger and as to make one who had nothing to do there feel and commonplace one thought only of millions made in stocks over night of travels and what not else since that time street has become much less significant but then one had a feeling that if only one had a tip or a little skill one might become rich or that on the other hand one might be torn to bits and that here was no mercy u a book about myself i arrived a little before noon and the ways were alive with messenger boys and clerks and on the was a mess of papers torn and letters near broad and wall streets the air was filled with a hum o voices and issuing from open windows just then aa with the theatrical business later and still later with the motion picture industry it had come to be important to be in the street however thin one s connection to say i am in wall street suggested a world of prospects and possibilities the fact that at this time and for twenty years after the news columns were all but closed to and failures in street so common were they how and were the dreams of many bnt the end of wall street as the seat of american money might even then have been foretold the cities of the nation were growing new and by degrees more or less independent of being developed in the course of fifteen years it had become the boast of some cities that they could do without new york in the matter of and it was true they could and today many go west not east for their cash in the main wall street has into a second rate paradise what significant wall street figures are there today f on one of my morning walks in new york i had wandered up to the herald building and looked into its windows where were visible a number of great presses in full operation much larger than any i had seen in the west and my brother had recalled to me the fact that james owner and editor of the herald had once henry m at that time a on the paper to go to africa to find and my good brother who all things my supposed abilities and x included was inclined to think that if i came to new york some such great thing might happen to me on another day i went to house square where i stared at the sun and	43
and times and buildings all facing city hall park sighing for the opportunities that they represented but i did not act something about a book about myself them me especially the the editor of whidi had begun his career in st louis years before with the western papers with which i had been connected all new york papers seemed huge the tasks they represented and much more difficult true a brother of a famous with whom i had worked hi st louis had come east and connected himself with the world and i might have called upon him and out the land he had fortified with a most f record in the west as had i only i did not look upon none as so somehow again a city editor once of st louis was now here city editor of one of the city s great papers the and another man a sunday editor of had become the sunday editor of the press here but these appeared to me to be exceptional cases i these large and in the main rather dull institutions with the eye of one who seeks to take a fortress the pages of all of these papers as i had noticed in the west with cynical and remarks about that region and their voices representing great circulation and wealth gave them weight in my eyes although i knew what i knew about the of newspapers to financial interests their fear of and their shameful of the ordinary man at every point at which he could possibly be betrayed yet still having the power by weight of lies and and make believe to stir him up to his own and destruction i was frightened by this very power which in subsequent years i have come to look upon as the most deadly ar of all in nature the power to and b ay there was p ut these papers an air of assurance and and authority and superiority which and frightened me to work on the sun the herald the how many from how many angles of our national life were constantly and them from the very same or benches in city hall park as the ultimate solution of all their literary commercial social political problems and the thousands of pipe smoking a book about myself who have the sun alone the and i decided that it would be best for me to to and save a little money before i took one of these frowning by storm and i did return but in what a reduced mood after new york and all i liad seen there and in this darkly brooding and indifferent spirit i now resumed my work a sum of money sufficient to sustain me for a period in new york was all that i wished now and in the course of the next four months i did save two and forty dollars enduring which i marvel at even now breakfast consisting of a and a cup of coffee dinners that cost no more than a quarter sometimes no more than fifteen in the meantime i worked ss before only to greater advantage because i was now more sure of myself my study of and these recent adventures in the great city had so fired my ambition that nothing could have kept me in i lived on so little that i think i must have done myself some physical harm which told against me later in the struggle for existence in new york at this time i had the fortune to discover and and whose volume to his first principles quite blew me to bits hitherto until i had read i had some lingering of trailing about me faith in the existence of christ the of his moral and the brotherhood of man but on reading science and hebrew tradition and science and han and finding both the old and new to be not of revealed truth but mere records of religious experiences and very ones at that and then taking up first principles and discovering that all i deemed substantial s place in nature his importance in the universe this too too solid earth man s very identity save as an speck of energy or a suspended drawn or blown here and there by larger forces in which he a book about myself moved quite as an all questioned and dissolved into other and less things i was thrown down in my or non of life up to this time there had been in me a and desire to get on and the feeling tiiat in doing so we did get somewhere now in its place was the definite conviction that one got nowhere that there was no hereafter that one lived and had his being because one had to and that it was of no importance of one s struggles sorrows and joys it could only be said that they were something which for some inexplicable but unimportant reason responded to and resulted from the hope of pleasure and the fear of pain man was a and and a badly and carelessly driven one at that i fear that i cannot make you feel how these things came upon me in the course of a few weeks reading and left me my fears as to the disorder and of life i felt as low and hopeless at times as a beggar of the streets there was of course this other matter of necessity internal to which i had to respond whether i would or no i was daily facing a round of duties which now more than ever all that i had suspected and that these books proved with a gloomy eye i began to watch how the and their children the mechanical forces through man and outside him and this under my very eyes seemed since there was no care for them failures the same one	43
of those breaking out in connection with the care of prisoners in some local or state jail i saw how self interest the hope of pleasure or the fear of pain caused or or a to on prisoners feed them rotten meat torture them into silence and submission and then politics interfering the hope of pleasure again and the fear of pain on the part of some the whole thing hushed up no least measure of the sickening truth breaking out in the a book about myself papers life or would do nothing for those it so abused again there was a poor section one street in the east district shut off by a railroad at one end the latter a high fence to protect itself from and by ah property owner at the other end those within ere actually left without means of and yet of either or both the being so powerful and the citizen prosperous and within his rights i was told to write a humorous article but not to hurt anybody s feelings also before my eyes were always those regions of indescribable poverty and indescribable wealth previously mentioned which were always carefully kept separate by the local papers all the and compliments and commercial and social going to those who had all the and and going to those who had not and when i read i could only sigh all i could think of was that since nature would not or could not do anything for man he must if he could do something for himself and of this i saw no prospect he being a product of these accidental indifferent and bitterly cruel forces and so i went on from day to day reading thinking doing fairly acceptable work but always withdrawing more and more into myself as i saw it then the world could not understand me nor i it nor men each other very well then a little later i turned and said that since the whole thing was hopeless i might as well forget it and join the narrow heartless indifferent scramble but i could not do that either lacking the temperament and the skill all i could do was think and since no paper such as i knew was interested in any of the things about which i was thinking i was hopeless indeed finally in late november having two hundred and forty dollars saved i decided to leave this dismal scene and seek the charm of the great city beyond hoping that there i might at something be and rested by some important work of some chapter my departure was by a conversation i had one day with the political of whom i have spoken but whose name i have forgotten by now i had come to be on agreeable social terms with all the men on our staff and at midnight it was my custom to drift around to the press where might be found a goodly company of men who worked on the different papers i found this political man here one night he said i can t understand why you stay here i wouldn t say that to any one else in the game for fear he d think i was to get him out of his job but with you it s different there s no great chance here and yon have too much ability to waste your time on this town they won let you do anything the steel people have this town up tight the papers are all you can do is to write what the people at the top want you to write and that s very little with your talent you could go down to new york and make a place for yourself i ve been there myself but had to come back on account of my family the conditions were too uncertain for me and i have to have a regular income but with you it s different you re young and apparently you haven t any one dependent on you if you do strike it down there you ll make a lot of money and what s more you might make a name for yourself don t yon think it s foolish for you to stay here don t think it s anything to me whether you go or stay i haven t any ax to grind bnt i really wonder why you stay i explained that i had been drifting that i was really on my way to new york but taking my time about it only a few days before i had been reading of a certain english newspaper man fresh out of india with his books and short stories who was making a great stir his name was and the enthusiasm with which he was being received a book about myself made me not but for a career for myself the to his were so unanimous and he was a mere youth as yet not more than twenty seven or eight he was coming to america or was even then on his way and the wonder of such a success filled my mind i decided then and there that i would go must go and accordingly gave notice of my intention my city editor merely looked at me as much as to say well i thought so then said well i think you ll do better there myself but i m not glad to have you go you can refer to us any time you want to on saturday i drew my pay at noon and by four o clock had once more the express which deposited me in new york the following morning at seven my brother had long since left new york and would not be back until the following spring i had exchanged a word or two with my sister and found that she was not since paul had left she had been	43
with this great newspaper world to be conquered and i did not see how it was to be done at four in the afternoon i turned my steps northward along the great bustling commercial to street walking all the way and staring into the shops those who recall sister s wanderings may find a taste of it here in union square before s i stared at an immense christmas throng then in the darkness i wandered across to mj sister s apartment and in the warmth and light there set me down thinking what to do my sister noticed my mood and after a little while said you re worrying aren t oh no i m not i said rather oh yes you are too you re wondering how youve to get along i know how you are we re all that way but you mustn t worry paul says you can write wonderfully you ve only been here a day or two you must wait you ve tried a little while and then see you re sure to get along new york isn t so bad only you have to get started i decided that this was true enough and proposed to give myself time to think it it it chapter but the next day and the next and the next brought me no solution to the problem the weather had turned cold and for a time there was a snow on the ground which made the matter of job hunting all the worse those fierce youths in the were no more kindly on the second and fifth days than they had been on the first but by now in addition to becoming decidedly i was becoming a little angry it seemed to me to be the height of not to say rank for newspapers and especially those which boasted a social and of their fellows in american life to place such and and between themselves and the general public men and women of all shades and degrees of intelligence who might have to come in contact with them h l has written the average american newspaper especially the so called better sort has the intelligence of a the courage of a rat the of a the information of a high school the taste of a of and the honor of a police station lawyer judging by some of my experiences and observations i would be willing to to this the and unnecessary airs the grand assumption of wisdom the heartless and brutal nature of their internal their to the of all public instincts and tendencies in search of circulation after several days i made up my mind to see the city editor of these papers regardless of hall boys and so going one day at one o clock to the world i started to walk right in but being as usual lost my courage and retreated however as i have since thought perhaps this was fortunate for going downstairs i meditated most as to my failure my lack of skill and courage in carrying out my in a book about myself so thoroughly did i myself that i recovered my nerve and returned i the small c ee and finding two of the youths still on hand and waiting to me them both aside as one might flies opened the much guarded door and walked in to my satisfaction while they followed me and by threats and force attempted to persuade me to retreat i one of the most interesting city and rooms that i have ever beheld it was forty or fifty feet wide hy a hundred or more deep and lighted even by day in this weather by a blaze of lights the entire space from front to back was filled with a varied company of newspaper men most of them in shirt sleeves were hard at work in the forward part of the room near the door by which i had entered and upon a platform were several at which three or four men were seated the throne as i quickly learned of the city editor and his two of these as i could see were engaged in reading and marking papers a thirds who looked as though he might be the city editor was consulting with several men at his desk c boys were to and fro from somewhere came the constant click dick of telegraph instruments and the howl of i think i should have been forced to retire had it not been for the fact that as i was standing there threatened and pleaded with by my two a young man since distinguished in the world arthur who was passing through the room looked at me curiously and inquired what is it you want i want i said half by the spectacle i was making and that was being made of me a job where do you come from the west wait a moment he said and the youths seeing that i had attracted his attention immediately withdrew he went toward the man at the desk whom i had out as the city editor and turned and pointed to me this young man wants a job i wish you would give him one t a book about myself the man nodded and my remarkable turning me said just wait here and disappeared i did not know quite what to think so astonished was i b at with each succeeding moment my spirits rose and by the the city editor chose to motion me to him i was in a very exalted state indeed so much for courage i told myself surely i was fortunate for had i not been dreaming for years of coming to new york and after great and difficulty perhaps securing a position and of a sudden here i was thus swiftly into the very x o which of all others i had most surely this	43
must be the influence of a star of fortune surely now if i liad the least trace of ability i should be in a better position than i had ever been in before i looked about the great room as i waited patiently and and saw on the walls at intervals printed cards which read accuracy accuracy accuracy who what where t the the the facts i i knew what those signs meant the proper order for beginning a newspaper story another sign insisted upon courtesy most excellent traits i thought but not as easy to put into execution as comfortable and managing might suppose presently i was called over and told to take a seat after being told i u have an for you after a while that statement meant work an opportunity a salary i felt myself growing only the eye and the glance of my immediate superior was by no means cheering or genial this man was holding a difficult position one of the most difficult in in america at the time and under one of the most eccentric and difficult of joseph this same whom ireland subsequently in so brilliant a fashion as to make this brief sketch trivial and unimportant save for its service here as a link in this tale was a brilliant and eccentric jew long since famous for his genius at that time be must have been between fifty five and sixty years of age a book semi and half blind having almost wrecked physically or so i understood in a long and to ascend to in the american newspaper world he was the chief owner as i understood of not only the new york world but the st louis post the then paper of largest circulation and influence in that while i was in st louis the air of that newspaper world was or still with this remarkable s exploits how once when he was starting in the newspaper world as a he had been by some citizen for having published some item and having submitted to the had then rushed into his and given orders that an extra should be issued the attack in order that the news value might not be lost to the counting room one of his st louis or managing one colonel by name who at this very time or a very little later was still one of the managing of the new york world had after conducting some campaign of exposure against a local citizen by order of his chief and being confronted in his office by the same evidently come to punish him drawn a revolver and killed him that was a part of what might have been called the of this great newspaper figure here in new york after his arrival on the scene in at which time he had taken over a journal called the world he had literally succeeded in turning things down much as did william heart after him and as had charles a and others before him like all newspaper men worthy the name he had seized upon every possible vital issue and attacked attacked attacked hall wall street then defended by the sun and the herald the house of some phases of society and many other features and conditions of the great city for one thing he had cut the price of his paper to one cent a move which was reported to have his and rivals who were getting two three and five and who did not wish to be disturbed in their peaceful pursuits the sun in particular which had been made by the brilliant and daring a book about myself of and his earlier and the herald which ally owed its growth and fame to the fighting skill of were now both grown and attacked him as low vulgar and the like an jew whose nose was in every out for the consumption of the of society but is it not always so when any one arises who wishes to break through from or into the white light of power and influence do not the always those who have ceased growing or are at least comfortably and who do not wish to be disturbed the same this man because of his vital restless working mood and his ambition to be all that there was to be of force in america was making a veritable hell of his paper and the lives of those who worked for him and although he himself was not present at the time but was sailing around the world on a or living in a on the or at bar harbor or in his town house in new york or london you could feel the feverish and disturbing and distressing of his presence in this room as definitely as though he were there in the flesh air fairly with the rays of this black star of to this editor and with him at the time but coming back to nose about the paper and cause woe to others there were five of sons by no means in active charge but growing toward control two of managing all slipping about and as the newspaper men seemed to think on each other at one time as many as seven he had so little faith in his fellow man and especially such of his fellow men as were so unfortunate as to have to work for him that he played one against another as might have the council of the secret ten in or as did the devils who ruled in the in the middle ages every man s hand as i came to know in the course of time was turned against that of every other all were thoroughly of each other and feared the incessant that was going on each as i was told and as to a certain extent one could feel was made to believe that a book	43
about he was the important one or might be that lie prove that the others were f or in error proposed suggestions for news features as to policy and what not were coming in from him every hour cable or telegraph nearly every issue of any was being submitted to him by the same means he was as described by this same ireland undoubtedly a disease soul who could control himself in anything a man who was fighting an almost insane battle with life itself trying to be and what not else and never to die but in regard to the men working here how sharp a sword of disaster seemed suspended above them by a thread the sword of dismissal or of bitter or contempt they had a kind of nervous terror in their eyes as have animals when they are tortured all were either busily or hurrying in or out every man was for himself if you had asked a man a question as i ventured to do while sitting here not knowing anything of how things were done here he looked at you as though you were a fool or as thou you were trying to take something away from him or him trouble of some kind in the main they by or went on with their work without troubling to pay the slightest attention to you i had never encountered anything like it before and only twice afterwards in my life did i find anything which even partially it and both times in new york after the peace and ease of but it was immense just the same terrific chapter i had waited an hour or so a boy came up and said the city editor wants to see you i hurried forward to tlie desk of that who merely handed me a small from another paper giving an account of some extra that had been taking place in a near elizabeth and told me to see what there is in that as i was as to the ways of the metropolis and assuming western fashion that i might ask a question of my new chief i ventured a feeble where is l for my pains i received as contemptuous a look as it is possible for one human being to give another back of the i back of the came the semi savage reply and not quite what was meant by that i retired trying to think it out almost mechanically i went to the but through that part of it which relates to streets and their numbers i began to realize that elizabeth was a town and not a street at a desk near the i noticed a stout man of perhaps forty and agreeable who seemed to be less fierce and self than some of the others he had evidently only recently entered for he had kicked off a pair of and laid a over a chair beside him and was can you tell me how i can get to elizabeth f i inquired of him sure he said looking up and beginning to chuckle i haven t been in the city very long myself but i know where that is it s on the central about twelve miles out you ii catch a local by going down to the liberty street i heard him tell you back of the he added you mustn t mind that that s what they always tell you here these smart and he chuckled very much a book about myself like my friend they re the most i ever went up against but you have to get used to it out where i came from they give you a civil answer once in a while but here it s back of the and he again and where do you come i asked oh originally he said which same gave me a spiritual lift but i haven t been in the game for several years i ve been doing press agent work for a road show one of my own and he chuckled again i m not a stranger to new york exactly but i am to this paper and this game down here i wanted to stay longer and talk to him but i had to hurry on this my first in new york is this your desk i asked no they haven t to give me one yet and he chuckled again but i suppose i will get one eventually if they don t throw me out i hope i ll see you when i get back oh i ll be around here if i m not out in the snow it s tough isn t it f and he turned to his work again i out through that same where i had been restrained and observed to my now just take notice i belong here see t i work here and be back in a little while oh s au right he replied with a grin we do we keep here s de orders we got i thought they let these little speak of strangers as that s new york for you i made the short dreary trip to elizabeth when i found my and the thereof he said there was no truth in the story no man by the name of the dead man mentioned had ever been buried there no noises or appearances of any kind had been recorded they re always things like that about new he said i wish they d quit it some per just wanted to earn a little money that s all a book about myself i back caught a train and reached the office at eight already most of the had been given oat the office was comparatively empty the city editor had i ne to dinner at a desk along a wall was a long lean looking man his eyes shaded	43
by a green shield v i took to be the night editor so large was the pile of copy beside him but when i ventured to approach him he merely glared the city desk s not closed yet he growled wait they come back i retired again presently one of the reappeared and i reported to him nothing to it eh t he observed but there ought to be some kind of a to it i did not get him he told me to wait around and i sought out an empty desk and sat down the thing that was interesting me was how much i should be paid per week in the meanwhile i contented myself with counting the and wondering about the men who occupied them who they were and what they were doing to my right against the north wall were two roll top at one of which was seated a actor like man writing and he was arrayed in a close fitting gray suit with a bright and an exceedingly high collar because of some theatrical which i saw him examining i concluded that he must be connected with the dramatic department probably the dramatic critic i was interested and a little envious the dramatic department of a great daily in new york seemed a wonderful thing to me after a time also there entered another man who opened the desk next the dramatic critic he was medium tall and with a mass of loose hair hanging over his collar not unlike the advance agent of a cure all or a his body was in a huge cape coat which reached to his knees after the best manner of a he wore a large soft felt which he now rather and stood a big cane in the comer he had the look and attitude of a famous the and evidently took himself very seriously i put him a book about myself down as the musical critic at least some great authority of whom i should hear later time went by and i waited through the windows from where i was sitting i could see the tops of one or two one holding a clock face lighted with a green li t being weary of sitting i ventured to leave my seat and look out to the south then for the first time i saw that great night of the east river and the bay with its ships and and the dark mass of buildings in between many of them still lighted it was a great scene and a sense of awe came over me new york was so vast so varied so rich so hard how was one to make one s way i had so little to offer merely a gift of and money as i could see was not to be made in that way the city editor returned and told me to attend a meeting of some committee which looked to the better lighting and cleaning of a certain district it was au but too late as i knew and if reported would be given no more than an inch of space i took it rather then fell the worst blow of all wait a minute he said as i moved depart i wanted to tell you i can t make you a yet there is no on our staff but i ll put you on space and you can charge up whatever you get in at seven and a column we allow fifty cents an hour for time show up tomorrow at eleven and see if anything turns up my heart sank to my shoes no staff with which i had ever been connected had been paid by space i went to the meeting and found that it was of no importance and made but one inch as i discovered next morning by a careful examination of the paper and a column of the paper measured exactly twenty one inches so my efforts this day allowing for time charged for my first trip had resulted in a total of one dollar and eighty six cents or a little less than and snow were receiving but this was not all returning about eleven with this item i ventured to say to the night editor now in charge when does a man leave you re a new space man aren t a book about myself yes sir you have the late watch tonight and how late is until after the first edition is on the press he growled not knowing when that was i still did not venture to quest ion him but returned to another working near at who told me i should have to stay until three at that my green shaded called you might as well so now and i made my way to the sixth avenue l and so home having been here since one o clock of the preceding clay the cheerful face of my sister admitting me was the best thing that this brisk day in the great city had provided chapter the next morning coming down at eleven i encountered my friend of the day before whom i found looking through the paper and checking up such results as he had been able to achieve he to himself as he went over the pages looking high and low for a minute which he had managed to get in looking around and seeing me near at hand he said positively this is the worst paper in new york i ve always heard it was and now i know it this damned crowd plays they have an inside ring a few who get all the cream and fellows like you and me get the short ends take me yesterday i was sent out on four little stories and not one amounted to anything i and rode all over town in the snow listened to a lot of fools	43
very paper i read the noblest and most about duty character the need of a higher sense of and what not i used to frown at the shabby of it the cheap that would allow a great to and drive his a book about myself at one end of his house and deliver as to virtue duty industry honesty at the other however despite these little and i was not to be discouraged the fact that i had succeeded elsewhere made me feel that somehow i should succeed here nevertheless in spite of this sense of i was strangely and made more than ordinarily by the and force and of the great city its startling of wealth and poverty the air of and indifference and that everywhere prevailed only i there had been a disgusting exposure of the and and which the social structure of the city there had been the investigation with its sickening revelations of and corruption and the protection and encouragement of vice and crime in every walk of political and police life the most horrible types of had been proved to be not only winked at but upon by the police and the by a fixed and monthly tax in which the the the captain and the to say nothing of the district leader shared there was proof that the police and the even the officials of the city were closely connected with all sorts of gambling and wire tapping and and even the of murder to the door of every house of and transient the station police captain s man the came as regularly as the rent or the gas man and took more away had been murdered in cold blood for their a famous chief of police by name at that time far and wide for his supposed skill in mysteries being faced by a of crime which he could not solve had finally in self caused to be arrested tried convicted and all upon testimony an old helpless half bum known as old shakespeare whose only crime was that he was worthless and but the chief had thereby saved his reputation not far from the region in which my sister lived although it was respectable enough in its way count a book about myself girls by t and by day looking for men the great of new york and all upon by the police on several occasions coming home from work after midnight i found men lying trousers pockets pulled out possibly their so inadequate or indifferent or was the so called police protection nowhere before had i seen such a lavish show of wealth or such bitter poverty in my rounds i soon came upon the east side the with its endless line of degraded and impossible lodging houses a perfect of and failures the parts of it terrible in its degradation and then by way of contrast again the great hotels the along fifth avenue the smart shops and clubs and churches when i went into wall street the the fifth avenue district the east and west sides i seemed everywhere to sense either a desire for lust or pleasure or wealth accompanied by a which was to the soul or a dogged resignation to and misery never had i seen so many down men in the along the and in the which lined that pathetic street they slept over anywhere from which came a little warm air or in or cellar ways at a half dozen points in different parts of the city i came upon those strange which supply a free meal to a man or lodging for the night providing that he came at a given hour and waited long enough and never anywhere had i seen so much show and luxury nearly all of the houses along upper fifth avenue and its side streets boasted their wall street was a sea of financial and a realm so crowded with of that one s poor little intelligence was entirely and made ridiculous how was a to make his way in such a world nothing but chance and luck as i saw it could further the average man or lift him out of his and since when had it been proved that i was a favorite of fortune t a crushing sense of and general in a book about myself seemed to settle upon me and i could not shake it off whenever i went out on an and i was being sent upon those trivial shoe wearing affairs i carried with me this sense of my chapter it is entirely possible that due to some physical or mental defect of my own i was in way fitted to contemplate so huge and a spectacle as new york then presented or that i had too keen a conception of it at any rate after a few days of work here i came in tou eh with several newspaper men from the west a youth by the name of another by the name of both formerly of and a third individual who had once been in st louis thomas brother of the famous all were working on this paper two of them in the same capacity as myself the third a staff man at night we used to sit about doing the late watch and spin all sorts of newspaper tales these men had wandered from one place to another and had seen heavens what had they not seen they were completely here as in newspaper offices everywhere one could hear the most tales of human and cruelty i think that in the hours i spent with these men i learned as much about new york and its difficulties and opportunities its different social its figures social and political as i might have learned in months of and reading they seemed to know every one likely to figure in the public eye by they introduced	43
me to others and all confirmed the conclusions which i was reaching new york was difficult and the police and were a menace vice was wealth was cold and brutal in new york the or had scarcely any chance at all save as a servant the city was with hungry men of all descriptions newspaper writers included after a few weeks of however i had no need of confirmation from any source an or two having developed well under my handling and i having re a book about myself my success to the city editor i was allowed to begin to write it then given another and told to turn story over to the large gentleman with the gold headed this and discouraged me but i said nothing i thought it might be due to the city editor s conviction so far not disturbed by any opportunity i had had that i could not write but one night a small item about a fight in a having been given me to investigate i went to the place in question and found that it was a cheap beer drinking on the upper east side which had its origin in the objection of one neighbor to the noise made by another i constructed a ridiculous story of my own to the effect that the first irritated neighbor was a who had been attempting at midnight to a into which the and of his next door neighbor would not fit becoming irritated and unable by calls and knocking to arouse his friend and so bring him to silence he finally resorted to piano and glass breaking of such a terrible character as to arouse the entire neighborhood and cause the sending in of a riot call by a policeman who thought that a war had broken out result broken heads and an interesting parade to the nearest police station somewhere in the text i used the phrase wood finding no one in charge of the city editor s desk when i returned i handed my account to the night city editor the next morning lo and behold there it was on the first page at least a fourth of a column i to my further surprise and gratification once the city editor appeared i noticed a change of attitude in him while waiting for an i caught his eye on me and finally he came over paper in hand and pointing to the item said you wrote this didn t i began to think that i might have made a mistake in creating this bit of news and that it had been and found to be a fiction yes i replied instead of me he smiled and said weu it s rather well done i may be able to make a place for you after a a book about myself while ill see if i can t find an interesting story for somewhere and true to his word he gave me another story on tim order in the house bar one of the show of the city there had been a the day before a fight between a well known society youth of great wealth who owed the hotel money and would not pay as speedily as it wished and a manager or assistant manager who had sent him some form of disturbing letter all the details as i discovered on reading the item which had been from the herald had been fully covered by that paper and ail that remained for me twenty four hours later was to visit tiie and extract some comments or additions to the tale which plainly i was expected to in a humorous fashion as i have said humor had never been wholly in my line and in addition i had by no means overcome my awe of the city and its and much advertised four hundred now to be called upon to one of its main and beard the and lofty manager in his den to say nothing of this young or well i told myself that when i reached this hotel the manager would doubtless take a very lofty tone and refuse to discuss the matter which was exactly what happened he was to think that he had been reported as fighting should i succeed in finding this society youth s apartment i should probably be or off in some fashion which was exactly what happened i was told that my mr x was not there then as a conscientious newspaper man i knew i should return to the hotel and by or see if i could not induce some or waiter who had witnessed the fight to describe some phase of it that i might use but i was in no mood for this and besides i was afraid of these new york and and society people suppose they complained of my tale and me as a t i returned to the hotel but its and bar a book about myself and its heavy and took my courage away i lingered about but not begin my and finally walked out then i went back to the it house in which my youth lived but still he was not in and i could extract no news from the noble footman who kept the door i did not see how i was to up humor from the facts in hand finally i dropped it as unworthy of me and returned to the in doing so i had the feeling that i was turning aside an item by which had i chosen to i could have myself i knew now that what my city editor wanted was not merely accuracy accuracy accuracy but a kind of for the ridiculous or the remarkable even though it had to be invented so that the pages of the paper and life itself might not seem so dull also i realized that a more experienced man one used	43
to the ways of the city and acquainted with its interesting and eccentric might make something out of this and not come to grief but not i and so i let it go that i was losing an excellent opportunity and i think that my city editor thought so too when i returned and told him that i could not find anything new in connection with this he looked at me as much as to say well i ll be damned i and threw the on his desk i am satisfied that if any had succeeded in any aspect of this case not previously used i should have been dropped forthwith as it turned out however nothing more developed and for a little time anyhow i was permitted to drag on as before but with no further one day being given a part of a case to a man and woman working together to a hotel man of a check for five thousand dollars and i having the lady in the case then under arrest into making some interesting remarks as to her part in the affair and in general i was not allowed to write it but had to content myself with seeing my very good in another man s story while i took time another day having a book about myself another excellent tale of a marriage the of a family of some standing i was not allowed to write it i was beginning to see that i was a hopeless as a here i chapter the things which most contributed to my want of newspaper success in new york and eventually drove me though much against my will and understanding into an easier and more agreeable phase of life were first that awe of the and almost disgusting forces of life itself which i found in and and and which now persistently me and due possibly to a depressed physical condition at this time made it impossible for me to work with any of the zest that had my work in the west next there was that contrast between wealth and poverty here more sharply than anywhere else in america which gave the great city a gross and cruel and mechanical look and this was not only by the papers themselves with their various of and but also by my own contact with it a look so harsh and indifferent at times as to leave me a little again there was something in the sharp contrast between the professed and of such a constantly journal as the world and the heartless and savage aspect of its internal economy men such as myself were mere machines or in an ill paid army to be thrown into any breach there was no time off for the space men unless it was for all time one was expected to achieve the results desired or get out and if one did achieve them the reward was nothing one day i met an acquaintance and asked about an ex city editor from st louis who had come to new york and his answer staggered me h cliff didn t you hear why he committed suicide down here in a west street hotel what was the trouble i asked tired of the game i guess he replied he didn t a book about myself get along down here as well as he had out there i he felt that he was going i walked away meditating he had been an excellent newspaper man as brisk and self as one need be to prosper the last time i had seen him he was in good physical condition and yet after something like a year in new york he had himself however my mood was not that of one who away from a contest i had no notion of leaving new york whatever happened although i constantly as to what i should do when all my money was gone i had no trade or profession beyond this and jet i was convinced that there must be something else that i do come what might i was determined that i would ask no favor of my brother and as for my sister who was now a burden on my hands i was determined that as soon as this burden became too great would take up her case with my brother paul outline all that had been done and ask him to shoulder the difference until such time as i could find myself in whatever work i was destined to do but what was one of the things which oppressed me was the fact that on the world as well as on the other papers were men as as myself who were apparently of a very different texture mentally if not physically life and this fierce contest which i was taking so much to heart seemed in no wise to disturb them by reason of temperament and insight perhaps possibly the lack of it or what was more likely certain fortunate circumstances attending their youth and they were part of that host of professional and yea chorus like in character which for thirty years or more thereafter in american life was constantly engaged in the pleasing task of the possibilities of success progress strength and what not for all in america and elsewhere while at the same time they were humbly and before the strong the lucky the prosperous on the world alone at this time to say nothing of the other papers were at least a dozen about a book about myself in the best of clothes their manners those of a of or or their minds stuffed with all the noble of the there was nothing wrong with the world that could not be easily and quickly once the honest just true kind industrious turned their and selected brains to the task this type of young newspaper man was to have no traffic with	43
evil in any form he was to concern himself with the the true the beautiful many of these young men pretended to an intimate working knowledge of many things society politics and what not else several had evidently made themselves indispensable as ship of arriving and departing and these were now pointed out to me as men worthy of envy and one of them had at the of the world crossed the ocean more than once seeking to expose the in a growing and scandal there were those who were in the confidence of the mayor the governor and some of the lights in wall street one a of one of the best families was the paper s best adviser as to social events and the grand air with which they swung in and out of the office set me beside myself with envy and all the time the condition of my personal affairs tended to make me anything but i was in very serious financial straits i sometimes think that i was too new to the city too green to its and to be of any use to a great daily and yet seeing all i had seen i should have been worth something i was only five years distant from the composition of sister to say nothing of many short stories and magazine articles i was haunted by the thought that i was a that i might really have to give up and return to the west where in some pathetic task i should live out a barren and life with this probable end staring me in the face i began to think that i must not give up but must instead turn to letters the art of short story writing only just how to do this i could not see one of the things that prompted me to try this was a book about myself the fact that on the world at this time were several who had succeeded david james then a correspondent for the paper in the war which had broken out between china and to say nothing of george and de the latter on the staff hb chief musical critic there was another young man name i have forgotten who was pointed out to me as a rapidly growing favorite in the office of the century then there were those new in the world of letters richard and some others whose success fascinated me all this was but an to a which as yet had found no solution and was not likely to find one for some time to come my reading of and in no wise tended to and my mind in the direction of fiction or even philosophy but now in a kind of or fever due to my necessities and desperation i set to examining the current magazines and the fiction and articles to be found therein century cr s i was never more confounded than by the existing between my own observations and those displayed here the beauty and peace and charm to be found in ever the almost complete absence of any reference to the coarse and the vulgar and the cruel and the terrible how did it happen that these remarkable persons of course one and all saw life in this happy way was it so and was i all wrong love was almost invariably rewarded in these tales almost invariably one s dreams came true in the magazines most of these bits of fiction delicately flowed so easily with such an air of assurance and condescension that i was quite put out by my own and defects they seemed to deal with phases of sweetness and beauty and success and goodness such as i rarely encountered there were so many tales of the old south with a poetry which was poetry and little more george w cable thomas page in s i found such assured writers as william dean charles frank r mrs ward and a score of a book myself others all of whom wrote of nobility of character and sacrifice and the greatness of and joy in simple things but as i viewed the world about me all that i read seemed not to have so very much to do with it perhaps as i now thought life as i saw it the darker phases was never to be written about maybe such things were not the true province of fiction anyhow i read and read but all i could gather was that i had no such tales to tell and however much i tried i could not think of any the kind of thing i was witnessing no one would want as fiction these writers seemed far above the world of which i was a part indeed i began to picture them as creatures of the greatest luxury and culture gentlemen and ladies all comfortably masters of servants possessing estates or at least bachelor quarters having horses and carriages and received here there and everywhere with of recognition and miles of approval chapter and then after a little while being assigned to do work in connection with the east twenty seventh street police station hospital and the new york department which included branches that looked after the poor farm the an insane asylum or two a and what not else i was called upon daily to face as disagreeable and a series of scenes as it is for a human being to witness and which quite finished me i was compelled to inquire of fat red faced and door who reigned in police stations and hospital rooms what was new and by being as genial and agreeable as possible and so earning their favor to get an occasional tip as to the most unimportant of had i been in a different mental state the thickness and of some of these individuals would not have been proof against my arts i	43
could have devised or something but as it was the nature of this world depressed me so that i could not have written anything very much worth while if i had wanted to there was the for that horrible place daily from the ever flowing waters about new york there were or washed up in all stages and degrees of the and of the great city its its victims its what i came here often it stood at the foot of east twenty sixth street near hospital and invariably i found the same old brown in charge a creature so thick and so and so mentally generally that it was au i could do to extract a of recognition out of him yet if handed a cigar occasionally or a bag of tobacco he would trouble to get out of his chair and let you look over book or containing the roughly down police descriptions all done in an amazing of the height a book about myself color of clothes if any complexion of hair and eyes these were still probable length of time in water contents of pockets or money if any etc i hich same were to be noted in connection with any mystery or disappearance of a person and there was always some one turning up missing and i noticed with considerable that rarely if ever was there any money or reported as found by the police that would be too much to expect being further persuaded or tips of one kind and another this would lead the way to a shelf of drawers reaching from the floor to the chest height of a man or higher and running about two sides of the room and opening those containing the latest supposing you were interested to look would allow you to gaze upon the last of that strange which once as a human being here on earth the faces the decay the clothing i stared in sad horror and promised myself that i would never again look but duty to the paper compelled me so to do again and again and then there was itself that gray black collection of brick and stone with connecting bridges of iron which faced in winter time at least the gray icy waters of the east river i have never been able to forget it so and bleak was it all the of in their brown cotton suits to be seen wandering here and there or hovering over the large number of half well charity about in gray green their faces sunken and pinched their hair poorly and the and yet often coarse and vulgar and always young doctors and nurses and paid attendants generally one need but remember that it was the of the most corrupt period of hall s political control of new york mr being still in charge quite all of those old buildings have since been replaced and surrounded by a tall iron fence and bordered with an attractive lawn in those days it was a little different there was the hospital proper with its various wards its hospital for a book about myself the criminal or insane or both the and a world of smaller stretching along the and by walks or covered or iron bridges but the dignity and care of the later there was too the dark which any badly or managed institution that something which as a cloud over all and at that time had that air and that it more of a jail and a i combined than of a hospital and so it was i think at that time it was a world of medical and political and social a kind of human hell or poor fish who live in comfortable and protected homes and find their little theories and religious ready made for in some church or social atmosphere should be permitted to take an occasional peep into a world as this was then at this very time there was an investigation and an exposure on in connection with this institution which had revealed not only the murder of helpless bnt the usual in connection with food clothing etc furnished to the called charity officials and and brutes of nurses and attendants of course the number of and or complaining or troublesome or beaten or thrown out and even killed and the number and quality of operations conducted by or indifferent was known and shown to be large one need only return to the of that date to come upon the truth of this but the place was so huge and crowded that it was like a city in itself for one thing it was a ground for all the gathered by the x and the charity to say nothing of being a realm of soft for political of all kinds on such days as relatives and friends of charity or those detained by the police were permitted to call the i room fairly with people who were pushed and here and there like cattle and always like slaves i myself visiting as a stranger subsequently was often so treated a book about myself what s his talk a little louder can t matter with your tongue f over there over there out that door there so we came procured our little cards and passed in or out and the wretched creatures who were cured or written down enough to walk and so before a serious illness had been properly treated and because they were not able to pay were out into the world of the well and the strong with whom they were supposed to once more and make their way i used to see them coming and going and have talked to scores men and women who had never had a dollar above their needs and who once illness overtook them had been swept into this only to be turned out again at the end of a	43
few weeks or months to make their way as best they might and really worse off than when they came for now they were in a weak condition physically as well as and sometimes as i noticed on the day of their going the weather was most and the old wrinkled washed out clothing out to them in which they were to once more wander back to the to do there was a local charity organization at the time as there is today but if it acted in behalf of any of these i never saw it they wandered away west on twenty sixth street and along first and second avenue those dismal streets to where but by far the most of all the phases of this institution to me at least were the various officials and dancing young and nurses in their white the latter too often engaged in with one another or or reading in some warm room their feet planted upon a desk the while they smoked and the while the great institution with all its company of its indifferent way when not actually visiting their one could always find them so somewhere reading or smoking or talking or in spite of the world of misery that was about them they were as comfort able as may be and to me when bent upon the details of some particular case they always seemed heartless a book about myself oh that old what s interesting about you don t expect to dig up anything interesting about him do he s been here three weeks now no we don t know anything about him don t the records show f or supposing he had died i knew he couldn t live we couldn t give him the necessary attention here he didn t have any money and there s too many here as it is see an case and then one might be led in to some wretch who was out of his mind or had an illusion of some kind funny old duck but there s no hope hell be dead in a week or so i think the most sickening thing i ever saw was cash gambling among two young and a young nurse in charge of the receiving ward as to whether the next patient to be brought in by the which had been sent out on a hurry accident call would arrive alive or dead fifty that he s dead fifty that he isn t i say alive i say dead well hand me that i m not going to be by looks this time tearing in came the its bell the of the wheels barely missing the walls of the and as the was pulled out and set down on the stone step under the the three pushed about and hung over feeling the heart and looking at the eyes and lips now pale blue as in death quite as one might crowd about a curious specimen of plant or animal he s he s dead i say he s alive i look at his eyes to illustrate whidi one eye was forced open aw what s you listen to his heart i haven t i got the on it listen for yourself the man was dead but the lasted a laughing minute or more the while he lay there then he was removed to the a book about myself and the compelled to come across or fork over one of the who occasionally went out on the wagon as the was called told me that once having picked up a badly injured man who had been knocked down by a car this same on racing with this man to the hospital had knocked down another and all but killed him and what did you do about i asked stopped the boat and him into it of course on top of the other one side by side sure it was a little close though well did he diet but the other one was all right we couldn t help it though it was a life or death case for the first one a fine deal for the merry was all i could say the very worst of all in connection with this great hospital and i do not care to dwell on it at too great length since it has all been exposed before and the records are available was this about the hospital in the capacity of errand boys and what not were a number of down and out ex or of so old and feeble and generally mentally and physically as to be fit for little more than the scrap heap their main desire in so far as i could see was to sit in the sun or safely within the warmth of a room and do nothing at all if you asked them a question their first impulse and greatest delight was to say don t know or refer you to some one else they were accused by the half dozen who daily here to be of the lowest so low indeed that they could be persuaded to do anything for a little money and in of this theory there was one day by a little red headed irish police who used to hang about there that he would bet anybody five dollars that for the sum of fifteen dollars he could hire old who was one of the and looking of the hospital to kill a man according to him a book about myself and he had his information from one of the star in the hospital was an ex who had done ten years time for a similar crime now old and he was here finishing up a existence the of some to whom he had rendered a perhaps at any rate here he was and as one of several who heard the boast in the news	43
brilliant mission and returning somehow covered with i hurried to the of the in washington street near fifth avenue this same morning and asked to see the business after a short wait i was permitted a book about myself to enter the of this great person who to me of the splendor of the front office seemed to be the equal of a at least he was tall dark his fall black whiskers parted in the middle of his chin his vague pools of see what a wonderful thing it is to be connected with the newspaper i told i saw your ad in this morning s paper i said tea i did want a half dozen young men he replied beaming upon me but i think i have nearly enough most of the young men that come here seem to think they are to be connected with the herald direct but the fact is we want them only for clerks in our free christmas gift they have to judge whether or not the are and keep people from imposing on the paper the work will only be for a week or ten s but you win probably earn ten or twelve dollars in that time my heart sank after the first of the year if yon take it you may come around to see me i may have something for yon he spoke of the free christmas gift i vaguely understood what he meant for weeks past the herald had been conducting a campaign for gifts for the poorest children of the ci it had been the rich and the comfortable to give through the medium of its scheme which was a for the free distribution of all such things as could be gathered cash or direct of supplies toys clothing even food for children but i wanted to become a if i could i suggested well he said with a wave of his hand this is as good a way as any other when this is over i may be able to introduce you to our city editor the title city editor and me it sounded so big and significant this offer was far from what i anticipated but i took it joyfully thus to step from one job to another however brief and one with such prospects seemed the greatest luck a book about in the world for by now i waa on the subjects of poverty loneliness the want of the comforts and pleasures of life the mere thought of having enough to eat and to wear and to do had something of paradise about it some previous long and fruitless for wo had marked me with a horror of being without it i about to the herald s christmas as it was called a building standing in fifth avenue between son and and reported to a in of the out of these to the poor without a word he put me behind the single long counter which ran across the front of the room and over which were handled all those toys and christmas pleasure pieces which a concerning the dire need of the poor and the proper christmas spirit had produced life certainly offers some amusing at times and that with that gay which life alone can muster and achieve when it is at its worst here was i a victim of what would look upon as end robbery quite as worthy i am of gifts as any other and yet lined up with fifteen or twenty other victims souls like myself all ont of many of th n out at elbows and all of them out gifts from eight thirty in the morning until eleven and twelve at night to people no worse off than themselves i wish you might have seen this chamber as i saw it for eight or nine days just preceding and including christmas day yes we worked from eight a m to five thirty p m on christmas day and very glad to get the money thank you there poured in here from the day the opened which was the morning i called and until it closed christmas night as an of alleged souls as one would want to see i do not say that many of them were not deserving i am willing to believe that most of them were but deserving or no th were still worthy of all they received here indeed when i think of the many who came miles carrying slips of paper on which had been as per the advice of this paper all they a book about t wished to bring them or their children and then recall that for all their pains in having their minister or doctor or the herald itself v b their request they received only a of what they i am inclined to think that all were even more deserving than their reward indicated for the whole scheme as i soon found in talking with others and seeing for myself how it worked was most loosely managed varieties of toys and comforts had been talked about in the paper but only a few of the things promised or vaguely indicated were here to give for the very good reason that no one would give them for nothing to the herald nor had any sensible plan been devised for checking up either the gifts given or the persons who had received them and bo the same person as some of these soon discovered come over and over bearing different lists of toys and get them or at least a part of them until s clerk with a better eye for faces than another would chance to recognize the and point him or her out jews the fox like type of course and the poor irish were the worst in this respect the herald was supposed to have kept all written by children to but it had	43
not done so and so hundreds claimed that they had written letters and received no answer at the end of the or third day before christmas it was found necessary of the confusion and uncertainty to throw the doors wide open and give to all and sundry who looked worthy of whatever was left or handy we the clerks being the judges and now the clerks themselves seeing that no records were kept and how without plan the whole thing was poor relatives and friends and these descended upon us with baskets expecting of clothing and the like but receiving instead only toy toy baby s story books the of cheap things one could imagine for the newspaper true to that of commerce which demands the most for the least the c for the least money had gathered all the odds and ends and left of toy bargain and had a book about myself them into the lai above to be oat as best we could we could not give a desired to any one person it were there which was rarely the case we could not t at it or find it yet later another person might apply and receive the very thing the other had wanted and we clerks going out to lunch or dinner save the mark seek some little and eat ham and beans or and coffee or some other dish at ten or fifteen cents per head hard lack stories comments on what a the gift was on the strange characters that showed up the and with eyes too sunken and too dry for tears were the order of the day here i met a young newspaper man gloomy out at elbows who told me what a wretched pathetic e the newspaper world presented but i did not believe him although he had worked in st paul a poor i thought some one who cant write and who now and his substance in living when he has so much for the sympathy of the poor for the poor but the herald was doing very well daily it was filling its pages with the splendid results of its charity the poor relieved the homes restored to and bliss can yon beat it t bat it was good and that was all the wanted hey a hey a i chapter n on christmas eve there came to our home to spend the next two days which chanced to he saturday and sunday a friend and fellow clerk of one of my sisters in a department store because the store kept open ten thirty or eleven that christmas eve and my at the herald detained me the same hour we three arrived at the house at nearly the same time i say here that the previous year my mother having died and the home being in dissolution i had into the world on my own several sisters two brothers and my father were still together but it was a divided and somewhat home at best our mother was gone i was already wondering in great sadness how loi it could endure for she had made of it something as sweet as dreams bat temperament that charity and understanding and sympathy we who were left were like trying our wings but fearful of the world my practical experience was alight i was a of slow and uncertain response to anything practical having an eye single to color romance i was but a half baked poet roman r dreams as i was hurrying upstairs to take a bath and then see what pleasures were being arranged for the morrow i was by my sister with a hurry now and come down i have a friend here and i want yon to meet her she s awful nice at the mere thought of meeting a girl i brightened for my thoughts were always on the other sex and i was forever complaining to myself of my lack of opportunity and of lack of when i had the opportunity to do the one thing i most to do shine as a lover although at her suggestion of a girl i pretended to and be superior still to the task of myself on coming a book about myself into the general where a re was burning brightly i beheld a pretty dark haired girl of medium height and graceful who seemed and really was good natured and for a while after meeting her i felt stiff and awkward for the mere presence of so a girl was sufficient to make me nervous and self conscious my brother b had gone off early in the evening to join the family of some girl in whom he was interested another brother a was out on some christmas eve lark with a group of fellow so here i was alone with c and this stranger doing my best to appear gallant and clever i recall now the sense of sympathy and interest which i felt for this girl from the start it must have been clear to my sister for before the night was over she had explained by way of me that miss had a beau later i learned that was an orphan adopted by a fairly comfortable irish couple who loved her dearly and gave her as many pleasures and as much liberty as their circumstances would permit they had made the mistake however of telling her that she was only an adopted child this gave her a sense of and a longing for a closer and more enduring love such a mild and sweet little thing she was i i never knew a more attractive or clinging temperament she could play the and i remember at the dexterity of her fingers as they up and down the and across the strings she was wearing a dark green and brown skirt with a pale brown ribbon about her neck her hair	43
away she was in time for c came into the back and said oh there yon are i wondered where yon were i was looking over your said tea i added i was to her oh yea laughed my sister you and al i know what you two were trying to do yoa she exclaimed giving me a push and al the silly she has a beau already she laughed and went off but i satisfied with myself red into the adjoining beau or no beau belonged to me youthful vanity was swelling my cheat i was more of a personage for having had it once more proved to me that i was not to girls chapter ni when i asked when i see her she suggested the following or thursday asking me not to say anything to c i had not been calling on her more than a week or two before she confessed that there was another a telegraph to whom she was engaged and who was still calling on her r when she came to oar to spend christmas she said it was with no intention of seeking a serious in order not to the sense of opportunity we boys might feel she had taken off her engagement ring also she confessed to me she never wore it at the store for the reason that it would create talk and make it seem that she might leave soon when she was by no means sure that she would in short she had become engaged thus early being certain that she was in love never were happier hours than those i spent with her though at the time i was in that state of and change which most youths who are to discover what they want to do in life on christmas day my job was gone and the task of finding another was before me but this did not seem so grim now i felt more confident true the manager of the had told me to call after the first of the year and i did so but only to find that his suggestion of something important to come later had been merely a to secure eager and industrious service for his when i told him i wanted to become a he said but you see i have nothing whatsoever to do with that you must see the managing editor on the fourth floor to say this to me was about the same as to say you must see god nevertheless i made my way to that floor but at that hour of the i found no one at all another d going at three so complete was my ignorance of news a book about myself paper i found only a few at scattered in a room city boom cue of these after i had him how one secured a place as a looked at me and said ton want to see the city editor he isn t here now the best times to see him are at noon and six that s the only time he gives i so that s what work is called and i must come at either twelve or six so i away to return at six for i felt that i must get in this great and fascinating field when i came at six and was directed to a man who bent over a desk and was evidently veiy much about he exclaimed no nothing open sorry and turned away so i went out and more than ever who was i to attempt to venture into such a as this i a mere by trade t i doubt if any one ever the month of a cave with more feeling of it was all so new so wonderful so i looked at the polished doors and marble floors of this new and handsome newspaper building with a feeling as might have possessed an slave examining the and the doors of the temple of solomon how wonderful it must be to work is a place as this how shrewd and wise must be the men whom i saw working here able and and comfortable how great and interesting the work they did i today they were here writing at one of these fine tomorrow they be away on some important mission somewhere taking a train riding in a car entering some great home or office and some important citizen and when they returned they were congratulated upon having discovered some interesting fact or story on which having reported to their city editor or managing editor or having written it out they were permitted to retire in comfort with more compliments then they resorted to an excellent hotel or to refresh among interested and interesting friends before retiring a book about myself to rest some as this filled brain despite the reception of my first i other newspaper offices only to find the same and even colder conditions the is most cases were by no means so grand but the atmosphere was chill and the city editor was a difficult man to approach often i was stopped by an office boy who reported when i said i was looking for work no when i got in at all nearly all the city merely gave me a glance and said no i began to feel that the newspaper world most be controlled by a secret or order until one bony specimen with a pointed green shade over his eyes and red hair looked at me much as an ei le might look at a pigeon and asked ever worked on a paper before t no dr how do know you can write t i t but i think i could learn learn t learn t we haven t time to teach here ton better try one of the little papers a trade paper maybe until yon learn how then	43
come back and he walked off this gave me at least a definite idea as to how i might begin but just the same it did not get me a position meanwhile here and there and not finding anything i decided since i had had experience as a and must live while i was making my way into to return to this work and see if i might not in the meantime get a place as a having been previously employed by an easy payment i now sought out another the company in lake street not very far from the office of the firm for which i had worked from this firm having been hard pressed for a winter overcoat the preceding fall i had abstracted or held out five dollars intending to restore it but before i bad been able to manage that a slack up in the work occurred due to the fact that wandering street agents sold less in winter than in summer and a book about myself i was laid off and had to confess that i was short in account the manager and owner who had seemed to take a fancy to me said nothing other than that i was making a mistake taking the path that led to social hell i do not recall that he even requested that the money be bnt i was so that i was convinced that some day unless i the money i should be arrested and to avoid this i had written him a letter after leaving promising that i would pay up he never even to answer the letter and i believe that if i had returned in the spring paid the five dollars and asked for work he would have taken me on again but i had no such thought in mind i held myself disgraced forever and only wished to get clear of this sort of work it was a game at best selling to the ignorant for twelve and fourteen times its value now that i was out of it i hated to return i feared that the first thing my proposed employer would do would be to inquire of my previous employer and that being informed of my stealing he would refuse to me with fear and trembling i inquired of the firm in lake street and was told that there was a place awaiting some one the right party the manager wanted to know if i could give a bond for three hundred dollars they had just had one arrested for stealing sixty dollars i told him i thought i could and decided to explain the proportion to my father and obtain his advice since i knew little about how a bond was secured when i learned that the company one s past however i was my father an honest worthy and defiant german on being told that a bond waa required the idea with much vehemence why should any one want a bond from met he demanded to know hadn t i worked for mr m in the same couldn t they go there and find at thought of m i shook and rather than have an investigation dropped the whole matter deciding not to go near the place again but the manager taken by my look i presume a book about called at our he had taken a to me be said i looked to be honest and he liked the i lived in he proposed that i should go to one of the local companies and get a three hundred dollar bond for tea dollars a year his company paying for the bond out of my first week s salary which was to be only twelve dollars to start with this promised to involve explaining m bnt i decided to go to the company and refer only to two other men for whom i had worked and see what would happen for the rest i proposed to say that school and college life had filled my years before this if trouble came over m i planned to nm away but to my astonishment and delight my worked admirably the following sunday afternoon my new manager called and asked me to report the following morning for work oh those singing days in the streets and and of o those hours when in bright or thick weather i the and dreaming i bad all my to myself after one or two o clock the speed with which i worked and could walk would soon get me over the list of my customers and then i was free to go where i chose was coming i was only nineteen life was all before me and the feel of of money in my pocket even if it did not belong to me was comforting and then youth youth that and song in one s very blood i felt as if i were walking on tinted clouds among the of the dawn how shall i do justice to this period which for perfection of spirit ease of soul was the very best i had so far known f in the first place because of months of exercise in the open air my physical condition was good i was certain to get somewhere in the newspaper world or so i thought the condition of our family was better than it had ever been in my time for we four younger children were working steadily our home life in spite of among several of my brothers and sister was still pleasing altogether we were and my father was looking forward to a day when all a book about myself debts be paid and the soul of my mother as well as his own when it passed over be freed from too prolonged in for as a catholic he believed that until all one s foil debts here on earth were paid one s was	43
to a or to dinner when i arrived on the scene i must have all this for after a time because i manifested some opposition leaving her no choice indeed and sundays became my evenings and any others that i chose regardless of my numerous and no doubt defects she was in love with me and willing to accept me on my own terms yes saw something she wanted and thought she could hold she wanted to unite with me for this little span of existence to go with me hand in hand into the i think she was a poet in her way but when i called the first night she sat for a little while on one of her red chairs near the window while i occupied a i had np my coat and bat with a and bad stood about for a while examining everything with the purpose of it and her it all seemed and and curiously i felt more at ease on this my first visit than i ever did at my scotch maid s home there her cautious religious though genial and well meaning mother her irritable blind and her more attractive young sister disturbed and tended to ne here for weeks and weeks i never saw s foster parents when finally i was introduced to them they on me not at all this first night she played a little on her piano then on her aod because she seemed especially charming to me i went over and stood behind her chair deciding to take her face in my hands and kiss her perhaps a touch of remorse and in consequence a bit of now swayed ber for she got up before i could do it on the instant my assurance became less and yet my mood hardened a book about i thought she waa with me after the previous it seemed to me that she could do no less than permit me to embrace her i was deciding that the evening was about to be a failure when she came np behind me and said don t yon think it s rather nice across between those over the a gap between houses revealed a long stretch of now covered with snow gas lamps flickering in orderly rows an occasional frame house glowing in the distance yes i admitted this is a funny neighborhood she ventured people are always moving in and ont in that row of houses over there are i said not very much interested now that i felt myself defeated there was a silence and then she laid one hand on my arm you re not mad at me she asked using a name which my sister had given me the sound of it on her lips soft and pleading moved me oh no i replied ti why should i be i i waa thinking that maybe i t to be doing this there s been some one else up to now you know yes i guess i don t care for him any more or i wouldn t be doing what i am i you cared for me why did you invite me down oh i do she said placing both her hands on my folded arms and looking np into my face with a kind of i know it isn t right but i can t help it you have such nice hair and eyes and you re so tall do you care for me at all t yes i said smiling over my victory i think you re beautiful i smoothed her cheek with one hand while i held her about the waist with the other we went over to the red and i took her in my arms a book about and held her and kissed her mouth and and neck she done to me and laughed and told me bits about her work and her floor and her social companions and even her she danced for me when i asked her doing a to and fro her skirts lifted to her she was sweetly feminine in no wise or bold i stayed until nearly one in the morning i bad nine or ten miles to go by owl cars arriving home at nearly three but at this time i was not working and so my time was my own the thing that troubled me was what my scotch girl would think if she ont which she never and bow i myself from a which now that i had was not as interesting as it had been chapter v as spring approached this affair moved od the work of the company was no harder than that of the company and i had more time to myself of an sense of my personal importance and i thought it a wonderful thing to be a newspaper man and so very much less to be a i lied to as to what i was when should i be through with collecting and begin t i was e er to know all about painting and to be in those places where life is at its best i was now that i bad not made better of my school and college days and in my free hours i read visited the art gallery and library went to and the free intellectual or schools were my favorite places on mornings i would sometimes take or my scotch girl to the thomas which were just beginning at the or to see the best plays and actors mary joseph thinking of myself as a man with a future i assumed a kind of attitude toward my two finally breaking with n on the pretext that she was stubborn and superior and did not love me whereas i really wanted to assume privileges which she with her conventional notions could not permit and which i was not generous enough not to want as she was perfectly	43
and myself as the proper i got the money and returned it to her but either because of her increasing illness or because she still wanted to keep it a secret when paul mentioned it in another letter she said she had not received it then she died and the matter of the money came up it was proved by inquiry at the that the money had been paid to me i confirmed this and asserted which was true that i had given it to mother m alone of all the family felt called to question this she visited an at the general a friend of a s by the way and persuaded him to make inquiry with a view no doubt to me the result of this was a formal letter asking me to call at his when i went and found that he was charging me with the of this money and demanding its return on pain of my being sent to prison i blazed of course and told him to go to the devil when i reached home i was furious i called out my sister m and told well many things a book about myself d for weeks and even months i had a burning to strike her more was ever done or said concerning it for over fifteen years the memory of this one divided ns completely bat after that having risen as i to interests and i condescended to become friendly the first half of was the period of my greatest bitter ness toward her and in consequence when my sister c came to me with her complaints and charges we between ns a kind of revolution based on oar opposition to m and her airs bat on the inadequate distribution of the family means and the inability of the different to agree upon the details of the home management according to c who was most bitter in her both m and t were lazy and indifferent as a matter of fact i cared as little for c and her woes as i did for any of the others but the thought of this home by m and t and by us younger ones with father as a kind of pleading of the treasury weeping in his beard and moaning over the general of our lives was too indeed this matter of money not idleness or was the of the whole for if there had been plenty of money or if each of as could have retained his own there would have been little c was jealous of m and t and of the means with which their relations supplied them and although she was earning eight dollars a week she felt that the three or four which she contributed to the household were far too much a who earned ten and contributed five had no complaint to make and e who earned nine and supplied and a also had nothing to say i was earning twelve later fourteen and gave only six and very often i much of this so between us g and i a revolution which ended for us all late in march a crisis came of a bitter quarrel that sprung up between m and c c and i now proposed with the aid of a and e if we could a book about myself get it to drive m from the and take or rent a apartment somewhere pool onr funds and set up a rival home of our own leaving this one to as best it might it was a hard and cold thing to plan and i still wonder why i shared in it bat then it seemed plausible enough however that may be this was worked out to a definite conclusion with g as the whip and and myself as general a small apartment only a few blocks from our home was fixed upon prices of on time studied cost of food light entertainment gone into c in her eagerness to bring her rage to a conclusion volunteered to do the and housekeeping alone and still work as before if each five dollars a week as we said we would have a fund of over eighty dollars a month which should house and feed as and buy furniture on the plan a was consulted as to this and refused s ing which was the decent to say and characteristic of him that we ought to stay here and keep the home together for father s sake he being old and feeble e always a lover of adventure and eager to share in any new thing agreed to go with us we had to onr but even with only sixty dollars a month as a general fund we thought we could get along and so we three c being the had the cheek to announce to my father that either m should leave and allow ua to run the house as we wished or we would leave the was not given in any direct way charges and counter charges were first made long arguments and were indulged in by one side and the other finally seeing that there was no hope of m to leave c announced that she was going alone or with others i said i would follow e said he was coming and there you were i never saw a man more distressed than my father one more harassed by what be knew to be the final d of the family he pleaded but his fell on youthful ears i went and the flat bad a book about myself the gas on and some and then toward the end of march in weather we moved never was a man more than my father during these last two or three days of our stay having completed the details c e and i were bu marching to and fro at spare moments carrying clothes books	43
in germany and in england and what they stood for was in part at least within the e of my if not my exact in america washington the history of the civil war and the subsequent drift of the nation to and so to were all within my and private and now this national in regard to political and advancement the swelling tides of wealth and population in the upward soaring of names and stirred me like and i wanted to get np oh how eagerly i wanted to shake off the garments of the commonplace in which i seemed and step forth into the public where i should be seen and understood for what i was no common man am i i was constantly saying to myself and i would no longer be held down to this shabby world of collecting in which i found myself the newspapers the newspapers somehow by their with everything that was going on in the world seemed to be the approach to all this of which i was dreaming it seemed to me as if i understood already all the processes by which th were made i said to myself must certainly be easy something happened one car ran into another a man was shot a fire broke out the ran to the scene observed or inquired the details got the names and addresses of those immediately concerned and then described it all to myself on this point i went looking for a book about myself on own or them and then wrote what i saw or to me the result compared with what i found in the daily papers was satisfactory some paper moat give me a place chapter vn a dreamy of twenty one long a pair of gold framed spectacles on hia nose his hair d la a new spring suit consisting of light check and bright blue coat and a brown hat new yellow shoes starting oat to force hia way into the newspaper world of at that time h i did not know it was in the of its newspaper some of the nation s most remarkable and newspaper writers were at work there e stone afterward general manager of the associated press victor f of the daily news joseph editor and of the field managing editor of the morning record william editor and of the inter ocean george peter brand and a score of others to become well known having made ap my mind that i must be a newspaper man i made straight for the various offices at noon and at six clock each day to ask if there was anything i could do very soon i succeeded in making my way into the presence of the various city and managing of all the papers in with the result that they surveyed me with the cynical eye peculiar to newspaper men and and told me there was nothing one day in the office of the daily news a tall awkward looking man in a brown f shirt without coat or waistcoat down was pointed out to me by an boy who saw him slipping past the city door know who ist be asked yes i replied humbly grateful even for the attention of office boys well s field heard o him ain a book about i recalling the of ms which i once upon him i ed his retreating figure with envy and some fearing he might p detect that i was the of that and abuse me then and there in spite of my manifested for one solid week between the hours of twelve and two at noon and five thirty and seven at night i got nothing indeed it seemed to me as i went these newspaper offices that they were the strangest most and of places gone was that fine quality with which a few months before i had invested them these rooms as i now saw were crowded with commonplace and lamps the floors strewn with newspapers boys and gazed at you in the most manner asked what yon wanted and insisted that there was nothing the who knew nothing by office boys i was told to come after one or two in the afternoon or after seven at night when all had been given out and when i did so i was told that there was nothing and would be nothing i began to feel desperate just about this time i had an inspiration i determined that instead of trying to see all of the each day and missing most of them at the vital hour i would select one paper and see if in some way i could not worm myself into the good graces of its editor i now had the very sensible notion that a small paper would probably receive me with more consideration than one of the great ones and out of them all chose the daily a struggling affair by one of the for political purposes only ton have perhaps seen a cat hang a for days and to be taken in that was i the door in this case was a side door and opened upon an alley inside was a large bare room filled with a few rows of tables set end to end with a railing across the northern one fourth behind which sat the city editor the dramatic and sporting and one writer outside this railing near the one window sat a large round faced headed young man wearing gold spectacles a book about he had a hard keen cynical eye and at first glance seemed to be most opposed to me and everybody else as it ont he was the s copy reader nothing was said to me at first as i sat in my far comer for something to turn np by degrees some of the began to talk to me thinking i was	43
a member of the staff which my position a little during this time i noticed that as soon as all the bad gone the editor became most genial with the one writer who sat next him and the two often went oft together for a bite and yet hours although i felt all the time as though i were on the edge of some great change still no one seemed to want me the city editor when i approached after all the others had gone would shake his head and say nothing today there s not a thing in sight but not roughly or harshly and therein lay my hope so here i would sit reading the various papers or trying to write ont something i had seen i was always on the alert for some accident that i might report to this city editor in the hope that he had not seen it but i encountered nothing the w s of advancement are strange so often purely accidental i did not know it but my mere here in thia fashion eventually proved a card in my favor a number of the employed of whom there were eight or nine the b papers carried from twenty to thirty seeing me sit about from twelve to two and thinking i was employed here also struck up occasional genial and conversations with me rarely know the details of staff arrangements or changes some of them finding that i was only seeking work ignored me others gave me a bit of advice why didn t i see of the or of the it was that staff changes were to be made there one youth learning that i had never written a line for a newspaper suggested that i go to the editor of the city press association or the united press where the most inexperienced were put to work at the rate of eight dollars a week this did not suit me at all i felt that i could write a book about myself my mere sitting about in this brought me into contact with that copy reader i have described john who remarked one day ont of mere curiosity are you doing anything special for the no i replied looking for yes ever work on any paper no how do you know you can i don t i just feel that i can i want to see if i cant get a chance to try he looked at me don t you ever go around to the other yes after i find out there s nothing here he smiled how long have you been here like two every day every day he laughed now a genial rolling fat why do you pick the don t yon know it s the poorest paper in that s why i pick it i replied innocently i thought i might get a chance here oh you did he laughed well you may be right at that hang you may get something now tell you something this national will open in june they ll have to take on a few new men here then i can t see why they shouldn t give you a chance as well as anybody else but it s a hell of a business to he wanting to get into be added he began taking off his coat and waistcoat rolling up his sleeves his blue and taking up of copy the while i merely stared at him every now and then he would look at me through his round glasses as i were some strange animal i grew restless and went out a book about but after that he greeted me each day in a friendly way and because he seemed inclined to talk i stayed and talked with him what it was that finally drew ns together in a minor bond of friendship i have never been able to discover i am sore he considered me of little intellectual or import and yet also i gathered that he liked me a little he seemed to take a fancy to me from the moment of our first conversation and included me in what i might call the e family spirit he was interested in politics literature and the newspaper life of bit by bit be informed me as to the various who were the most successful newspaper men how some did police some politics and just general news from him i learned that every paper carried a sporting editor a society editor a dramatic editor a political man there were managing sunday news city copy readers and writers all of whom seemed to me men of the very greatest import and they earned which was more amazing still from e to thirty five and even sixty and seventy dollars a week from him i learned that this newspaper world was a in which clever men struggled and foi ht as elsewhere that some rose and many fell that there was a element among newspaper men that drifted from city to city many drinking themselves out of countenance others settling down somewhere into some fortunate berth before long he told me that only recently he had been copy reader on the times but due to what be as politics a term the meaning of which i in bo wise grasped he had been ont of his place he seemed to think that by and large newspaper men while and in some cases able were and and above all and almost of each other being young and inexperienced this point of view made no impression on me whatsoever if i thought anything i thought that he must be wrong or that at any rate this would never trouble me in any way being the live and industrious person that i was viii it made me happy to know that whether or not i waa taken on i had at least	43
achieved one friend at court advised me to stick get on he said a day or two later i believe you ve got the in yon maybe i can help yon probably be like every other damned newspaper man once yon get a start an hut help yon just the same hang that will begin in three or four weeks now i ll speak a good word for you unless you tie np with some other paper before then and to my astonishment really he was as good as his word he must have spoken to the city editor soon after this for the latter asked me what i had been doing and told me to hang around in case something should turn up but before a newspaper story appeared for me to do a new situation arose which tied me up closer with this prospect than i had hoped for the lone writer previously mentioned a friend and intimate of the city editor had just completed a small work of fiction which he and the city editor in combination had had privately printed and which they were very eager to sell it was as i recall it very badly done an imitation of tom without any real charm or human interest the author himself mr was a yellow haired person he spent all his working hours as i came to know writing those and which are required by purely journals i gathered as from conversations that were openly carried on before me between himself and the city editor the managing editor and an individual who i later learned was the political man they were out as i heard the managing editor say one day to get some one on orders from some individual of whom at that time i knew nothing a book about myself and mr was true or a or writer what he was ordered to pen once i i despised him but at first be me though i could not like him whenever he had some particularly malicious or line as i learned in time he would get up and dance about and in a way so for the first time i began to see how party and party tendencies were or twisted or and it still further reduced my estimate of humanity men as i was beginning to find all of us were small irritable nasty in their struggle for existence this little editor for instance was not interested in the party which this paper was supposed to represent or indeed in party principles of any kind he did not believe what he wrote but receiving forty dollars a week he was anxious to make a job of it just at this time he was engaged in throwing mad at the national republican administration the mayor and the governor as well as various local whom the owner of the paper wished him to attack what a pitiful thing or our alleged free press was i then and there began to gather dimly enough at first i must admit what a shabby compound of back room public professions all looking to public and which should lead again to public end financial i like politics as i was now soon to see was a of in which men were busily and for what their wretched might in the way of financial social political i looked at this dingy office and then at this little yellow haired rat of an editor one afternoon as he worked and it came to me what a desperately subtle and thing life was here he was this little busily and above him were strong dark men never appearing publicly perhaps but paying him his little salary privately it down to him through a and an editor in chief and a managing editor so that he might be kept busy a book about myself but tbe plan he had in regard to his book the of the park high school of which he had been a member a few years before had numbered three of these two hundred were girls one hundred and fifty of whom he claimed to have known personally one afternoon as i was preparing to leave after all the had been out the city editor called me over and with the help of this little writer began to explain to me a plan by which if i carried it out faithfully i could connect myself with the daily globe as a i was to take a certain list of names and addresses and as many copies of th of harry or some such name as i could carry and visit each of these of mr at their homes where i was to recall to their minds that he was an old of theirs that this his first book related to scenes with which they were all familiar and then persuade them if possible to a copy for one dollar my reward for this was to be ten cents a copy on all copies sold and in addition and this was the real bait i was to have a on the as a at fifteen dollars a week if i succeeded in selling one hundred and twenty copies within the next week or so i took tbe list and gathered up an of the thin volumes fired by the desire thus to make certain my entrance into the newspaper world i cannot say that i was very much pleased with my mission but my or was so great that i was glad to do it just the same i was nervous and as i approached the first home on my list and i suffered and pains in my vanity and my sense of the fitness of things the only i could find in the whole thing was that mr actually knew these people and that i could say i came personally from him as a friend	43
for a week or two anyhow and assigned to watch the committee rooms in the hotels pacific and there was another youth who was set to work with me on this and he gave me some slight instruction over us was the political man who other men in different hotels and whose presence i had only noted when the was nearly over if ever a youth was cast adrift and made to realize that he knew nothing at au about the thing he was so eager to do that youth was i cover the hotels for political news were my complete but what the devil was political what did they want me to do say write at once i was y terrified by this which i had so eagerly t for now that i had it i did not know how to make anything clear for the first day or two or three therefore i wandered like a lost soul about the and parlor floors and committee rooms of these hotels which i was supposed to cover trying to find out where the committee rooms were who and what were the men in them what they were trying to do no one seemed to want to tell me anything and as dull as it may seem i really could not guess i had no clear idea of what was meant by the word politics as used various country and brushed past me in a most manner when i hailed them with the tion that i was from the globe they waved me off with i a book about myself am only a can t get anything ont of me see the well what was a i didn t know i did not even know that there had been published in all the papers my own included giving the information which i was so anxiously seeking i had no real understanding of politics or party doings or oi i doubt if i knew how men came to be let alone elected i did not know who were the state leaders who the why one candidate might be preferred to another the of such an institution as hall or the s called property interests were as yet beyond me my mind was too much concerned with the poetry of life to itself with such minor things as politics however i did know that was a bitter on between david hill of new york and ex president of the united states both for on the ticket and that the organization of new york city was for hill and bitterly opposed to i also knew that the south was for any good as opposed to or and that a new element in the party was for richard bland better known as silver dick of i also knew by reputation many of the men who had been in the first administration imagine a raw youth with no knowledge of the political of america trying to gather even an of what was going on the nation and the city were full of dark political but of it all i was as innocent as a baby the bars and were full of who drank swore sang and at the top of their lungs swinging and in their long frock coats and wide hats amused me they were forever pulling their or smoking talking or looking solemn or desperate in many cases they knew no more of what was going on than i did i was told to watch the movements of from south and report any conclusions or of conclusions as to how his would vote i a book about myself liad a hard time finding where his committee waa and where and when if ever it bat once i identified my man i never left him i dogged hia steps so persistently that he on me one afternoon as he was going out of the fixed me with his one fiery eye and said man what do yon want of me well you re aren t yes dr i m well i m a from the i ve been told to learn what has reached as to how it will vote of the damned he replied and i want yoa to quit following me wherever i go just now i m going for my and i have some rights to privacy the committee will decide when it s good and ready and it won t tell the or any other paper now you let me alone follow somebody else i went back to the office the first evening at five thirty and sat down to write with the wild impression in my mind that i most describe the whole political situation not only in but in the nation i had no notion that there was a political man who in with the managing editor and editor in chief understood all about current political conditions the political pot i began was already beginning to yesterday about the and of the various hotels hundreds upon hundreds of the of american etc etc i had not more than eight or nine pages of this before the city editor curious as to what i had discovered and wondering why i had not reported it to him came over and picked up the many sheets which i bad turned face down no no no he exclaimed you mustn t write on both of the paper don t yon know that t for heaven s sake and all this stuff about the political pot boiling is as old as the hills why every country paper for thousands of miles east and west has used it for years and years you re not a book about myself to write the general stuff here see if yon can t find out what has discovered and show him what to do with it i haven t got time and he tamed me over to	43
gold who eyed me very severely he sat down and examined my copy with brows he had a round face which seemed all the more ominous he could fiercely and his eyes could blaze with a cold examining glance this is awful stuff he said as he read the first page he s quite r ht yon want to try and remember that you re not the editor of this paper and just yourself a plain sent out to cover some now where d you go today t i told him what d you j described as best i could the whirling world in which i had been no not i don t mean that that mi t be good for a book or something but it s not news did you see any particular man did you find out anything in connection with any particular committee i confessed that i had tried and failed very good he said you haven t to write and he tore np my precious nine pages and threw them into the waste basket you d better sit around here now until the city editor calls you he added he may have special he you to do if not watch the hotels for or committee meetings and if you find any try to find out what s going on the great is to discover beforehand who s going to be see t yon can t tell from talking to four or five people but what you find out may help some one else to piece out what is to happen when yon come back see me and unless you get other orders come back by eleven and call up two or three times between the time you go and eleven because of these specific instructions i felt somewhat encouraged although my first attempt at writing had been thrown into the waste basket i sat about until nearly seven a book about when i was given an address and told to find john q secretary of the treasury and see if i get an interview with him failing this i was to cover the grand pacific house and and report all important and even if i had secured the desired interview i am sure i should have made an awful of it but fortunately i could not get it only one thing of importance developed for me the evening and that was the presence of a united states supreme court justice at the grand pacific who upon being by me as he was going to his room for tbe night and told that i was from the eyed me and my boy he said you re just a young new i can see that otherwise yon wouldn t waste your time on me but i i was one myself years ago now this hotel and every other is fall of leaders and discussing this question of who s to be president i m not it first of all because it wouldn t become a justice of the united states court to do bo and in the next place because i don t have to my is tor life i m just stopping here for one day on my way to you d better go around to these committee rooms and see if they can t tell you something and smiling and laying one band on my shoulder in a way he dismissed me my i what a fine thing it is to be s all i have to do is to say i m from the and even a justice of the united states supreme court is smiling and agreeable to me i i burned to a to tell and be said he don t count write a stick of it if yon want to and look it over how much asked eagerly and curiously about a hundred and fifty words so much for a united states supreme court justice in days chapter x i o say that i discovered anything of import this ni ht or uie next or the next although i secured various which after much with my spirit and some hard intelligent statements from my friend were whipped into shape for the trouble with you said as i was to write oat what the supreme court justice had said to me is that you haven t any training and you re trying to get it now when we haven t the time over in the they have a sign which reads who ob all those things have to be answered in the first paragraph not in the last paragraph or the middle paragraph but in the first now come here that stuff and he cut and thick lines of blue lead my thoughts and in a line or two all that i thought required ten a smile played about his fat mouth and i saw by his twinkling eyes that he felt that it was good for me news is information he went on as he worked people want it quick sharp clear do you heart now you probably think i m a big stiff up your great stuff like this but if you live and hold this job you ll thank me as a matter of fact if it weren t for me you wouldn t have this job now not one copy reader out of a hundred would take the trouble to show you and he looked at me with hard cynical and yet warm gray eyes i was wretched with the thought that i be dropped the was over and so i here and there to find something of a morning from six o clock until noon i studied all the papers trying to discover what all this was about and just what was expected of me the one great thing to find out was who was to be a book about and which	43
or would the candidate where could i get the the third da i talked to about it and as a favor he oat a paper in which a rough was made which showed that the choice between david hill and with a third man as a dark horse sentiment seemed to be him and in case no agreement could be reached b the new york as to which of its two opposing it would their vote m ht be thrown to this third man of coarse this was all very to me i did my best to get it straight learning that the two thousand strong was to arrive om new york this same day and that the leaders were to be at the i made my way there determined to obtain an interview with no less a person than richard who along with and a hard faced individual by the name of john f seemed to be the brains and of the organization in honor of their presence the was decorated with and some of crossed with or indian feathers above the lined bar was a huge tiger with a stiff projecting tail when pulled downward as it was every few seconds by one and another caused the r n image to a deep growl this delighted the crowd and after each growl there was another round of drinks red faced men in silk hats and long each other on the back and out their joy or threats or on the first floor above the office of the hotel were richard his friend and adviser and they sat in the of a great room on a huge red receiving and talking as a representative of the a cheap star fastened to one of the of my waistcoat and concealed by my coat my soul stirred by being allowed to mingle in affairs of great import i finally made my way to the of this imposing group and to a for an interview with a book about myself the eat man carefully almost too carefully dressed his face the of that of a tiger looked at me in a genial way and said no i remember the patent leather button shoes with the gray e tops the heavy gold ring on one finger and the heavy watch chain across his chest yon won t say who is to be i persisted i wish i he grinned t wouldn t be sitting here trying to find oat he smiled again and repeated my question to one of his companions they all looked at me with condescension and i beat a swift retreat defeated though i was i decided to write out the little scene lai to prove to the city editor that i had actually seen and been refused an interview i went down to the bar to review the scene being there while i was standing at the bar drinking a there came a curious lull in the midst of it the voices of two men near me became audible as they argued who would be hill or some third man not the one i have mentioned bursting with my new political knowledge and longing to air it i at the place where one of the strangers mentioned the third man as the most likely choice solemnly shook my head as much as to say you are all wrong well then who do think inquired the stranger who was short red faced of south i replied feeling though i were an truth a tall fair dark haired in a white hat and paused at thi moment in his hurried passage through the room and looking at the group exclaimed who does me the to mention my name in connection with the i am of south no intrusion i hope i and the two others stared in confusion a book about myself none whatever i replied with an air thinking how interesting it was that thia man of all people be passing through the room at this time these gentlemen were that of be and i was going to sa that sentiment is more in favor well now that is most interesting my young friend and i m e ad to hear yon say it it s n to be even mentioned in connection with so great an office however small my and who are yon may i my name in i represent the e oh do that makes it doubly wont yon come along with me to my rooms for a moment f ton interest me man yon really do how loi t have yon been a oh for nearly a year now i replied and have yon ever worked for any other tea i was on the last fall he seemed elated by his he most have been one of those swelling flattered silly by this chance of his name in a national atmosphere an older newspaper man would have known that he had not the least chance of seriously considered somebody from the south bad to be mentioned as a compliment and this man was fixed upon as one least likely to prove disturbing later he out to a shady balcony overlooking the lake ordered two and wanted to know on what i based my calculation in order to not seem a fool i now went over my conversation with i spoke of different and their as though these conclusions were my own when as a matter of fact i was quoting my bearer seemed surprised at my intelligence tou seem to be very well informed he said but i know you re wrong the party will never go to the south for a candidate not for some years anyway the same since you ve been good enough to champion me in this public fashion i would like to do something for in return i suppose your paper is always for a book about advance news	43
i ever saw he said at one place out a great of my staff but you seem to know how to get the news just the same and you re going to be able to write if i could keep you under my thumb for four or five weeks i think i could make something out of you at this i ventured to lay one hand over his in an affectionate and yet appealing way bat he looked up and said cut the gentle con work i know yon you re just like all other newspaper men or will bet grateful when things are coming your way if i were out of a job or in your position you d do just like all the others pass me up i know you better than you know life is a god damned treacherous game and nine and ninety nine men out of every thousand are i don t know why i do this for yon and he cut some more of my fine writing but i like i don t expect to get anything back i never do people always trim me when i want anything there s nobody home if i m knocking but i m a fool that x like to do it bnt don t think i m not on or that i m a genial ass that can be worked by every tom dick and harry and after me with that fat superior smile he went on working i stared nervous restless sorrowful trying to justify myself to life and to him if i had a real chance i said i would soon show yon the opened its the next day and because of my seeming cleverness i was given a front seat in the press stand where i could hear all speeches observe the crowd trade ideas with the best newspaper men in the city and the country in a day if yon will believe it and in spite of the fact that i was getting only fifteen dollars a week my stock had risen so that in this one at least i was a newspaper man of rare talent an a book about myself bright boy sore to a for one to be made friends vith and helped here in this press stand i vas now being by one newspaper man and in the of life i was introduced to two other members of our e who were to be experienced men both of them small clever practical minded well adapted to the work in hand one of them l followed my fortunes for years a place through me in st louis and rising finally to be the confidential adviser of one of our william a not very remarkable president to be adviser to at that the other a small brown suited soul by name came into my life for a very little while and then vent i know not where but this how it thrilled me to be tossed into the of national politics at a time when the country was over the possible of the old party to strength and power was like living i listened to the speeches those conceived ta and word and whereby district leaders and personality followers seek to upon the attention of the country their own as well as those of the individuals whom they admire b it was generally known that was to be the money power of america having fixed upon him and it was useless to name any one else still as many as ten different great leaders were put in each man so mentioned was the beau ideal a nation s dream of a leader a a lover of liberty and of the people this in itself was a liberal i and slowly but surely opened my eyes i watched with amazement this love of and noise the way in which various and individual followers loved to shout and walk up and down waving and horns different states or cities had sent large new york a marching club two thousand strong all of whom bad seats in this hall and all were plainly instructed to yell and at the mention of a given name a book about the one thin i heard seemed rather important at the time because of a man s voice and gestures was a speech hj the to his candidate david hill and save the party m defeat indeed hia speech until later t heard william seemed to me the best i had ever heard clear forcible sensible he had something to say and he said it with art and seeming conviction he had presence too a sort of animal like he made his audience sit up and pay attention to him when as a matter of fact it was interested in talking privately one member to another i tried to take notes of what he was saying one of my associates told me that the full minutes of his speech could soon be secured from the bang in this great hall cheek by with the best of the newspaper world thrilled me now i said to myself i am truly a newspaper man if i can only get interesting things to write about n fortune is made at once as the different of the city were pointed out to me george peter charles d my neck as does a dog s when a rival appears on the scene already at mere s ht of them i was anxious to try with them on some important mission and so see which of us was the better man always up to the early i was so human as to conceive almost a deadly opposition to any one who even looked as thou be might be able to try conclusions with me ip anything at that time i was ready for a row believing now that i had got thus far	43
that i was destined to become one of the greatest newspaper men that ever lived but this brought me no additional glory i did write a description of the thing as a whole bat a portion of it was used i did get some details of committee work which were probably in the political man s general summary the next day being interest fell thousands packed their bags and departed a book about myself i was used for a day or two hotels gathering one bit of and another but i could see that there was no import to what i was doing and began to grow nervous lest i should be dropped i spoke to about it think they ll drop me i asked not by a damned he replied earned a show here it b been promised you you ve made good and they ought to give it to yon don t you say anything just leave it to me there s to be a conference here tomorrow as to who s to be dropped and o kept on and i ii have my say then you saved the day for on that stuff and that ought to get you a show leave it to me the conference took place the next day and of the five men had been taken tm to do extra work during the i and one other were the only ones retained and this at the expense of two former dropped at that i really believe i should have been sent off if it had not been for he had been present during most of the transactions concerning mr s book and thought i deserved work on that score alone to say nothing of my subsequent efforts i think he disliked the little writer very at any rate when this conference began according to who was there and reported to me sat back a look of contented on his face not unlike that of a fox about to a chicken the names of several of the new men were proposed as for the old ones when not hearing mine mentioned he inquired well what well what about him retorted the city he s a good man but he training these other fellows are experienced i thought you and sort of agreed to give him a show if he sold that book for no i didn i only promised to give him a around time i ve done that but he s the best man on the staff today insisted a book about myself veil he brought in the only piece of news having he s writing better every day he according to and and taking the that the quarrel mi t be carried higher ap or changed their attitude completely oh well said let him come on i d just as have him he may pan oat and so on i came at fifteen dollars a week and thus my newspaper career was begun in chapter xii this change from to being an newspaper man was for a very little while a year or it seemed to open np a clear straight course which if followed must lead me to great heights of course i found that were very badly paid ranged from to twenty five dollars for and as for those important about which i had always been reading they were not even thought of here the best i could learn of them in this was that they did exist on some papers young men were still sent abroad on mis or to the west or to africa as but they had to be men of proved merit or genius and connected with papers of the greatest importance how could one prove to be a salary or no salary however i was now a newspaper man with the opportunity eventually to make a name for myself having broken with the family and with my sister c i was now quite alone in the world and free to go anywhere and do as i pleased i a front room in place overlooking union park in which area i afterwards placed one of my i could walk from here to the office in a little over twenty my lay through either street or washington east to the river and morning and ni t i had ample opportunity to on the or ont at elbows character of that i saw both washington and from east to the river were lined with vile and yellow and gray frame houses and possibly misery and d whole streets of degraded dejected miserable souls why didn t society do better by i often asked of myself then why didn t they do better by themselves f did who as had been a book about myself into me np to tliat hour was all wise all merciful and make people so or did they themselves have something to do with it was government to blame or they themselves t always the miseries of the poor the and physical which trail folly weakness passion fascinated me i was never tired of looking at them but i had no and was not willing to accept any suspecting even then that man is the victim of forces over which he has no control as z walked here and there throng these truly terrible i peered through open doors and patched and broken windows at this wretchedness and much as a man may tread the poisonous paths of a and yet it was this and tendency however which helped me most as i soon even in was still in that stage which loved long upon almost any topic nearly all news stories were to make more of them than they deserved especially as to color and romance all were being written in imitation of the great particularly charles who was the ideal of all newspaper men and as well as magazine special	43
writers how often have i been told to imitate charles in thought and manner i the city wanted not so much bare facts as feature stories color romance and although i did not see it clearly at the time i was their man write t why i write npon any topic when at last i discovered that i could write at all one day some one i suppose hearing me speak of what i was seeing each day as i came to or went from the office to my room that i do an article on s which lay between and the river and twelfth streets for the next sunday issue and this was as good as meat and drink for me i visited this region a few times between one and four in the morning wandering its its dark its gloomy mire and atmosphere s wretchedness was never utterly tame dis a book about myself or bang dog else it might be it was savage bitter and at times and the vile and drag who this region all led a if or horrible life saloon lights and smells and lamps gleaming from behind broken and from below wooden gave it a and dangerous color jew s tin pan and were forever going always with a noisy life between twelve and four oaths foul phrases a and reconciliation to everywhere these were some of the things that it although there was a closing law there was none here as long as it was deemed worth while to keep open only at onr and five in the morning did a heavy peace seem to descend and this seemed as wretched as the heavier vice and degradation which preceded it in the face of such a scene or as this my mind invariably paused in question i had been reared on and moral theory or at least had been compelled to listen to it all my life here then was a part of the work of an ood who nevertheless apparently a most devil why did he do it t why did nature when left to itself devise and human heaps in or behind windows or under lamp posts in these and with the or most fox like expression and with heavily lips and cheeks and blackened eyebrows were ready to give themselves for one dollar or even fifty cents and this in the heart of this and prosperous west a land flowing with milk and honey t what had brought that about soon in a new rich healthy land god t devil or both working together toward a common near at hand were and rapidly the and trains morning and evening were crowded with earnest careful saving well dressed people who were anxious to work and lay aside a com a book about myself and own a home then why was it that these lived in a hell f was god to blame t or society i not solve it this matter of being with its differences is permanently above the understanding of man i fear i smiled as i thought of my father s to all this there he was out on the west side demanding that all creatures of the world return to christ and the catholic church see clearly whether they could or not its grave import to their immortal souls and here were these and wretched filthy and the men low ill soaked body mere bags of bones many of them blue scarlet if god should get them what would he do with on the other hand in the so called better walks of life there were so many self swine masters whose faces were maps of gross and whose clothes were almost a of sound i think i said a little something of au this in the first newspaper special i ever wrote it seemed to open the eyes of my ton know observed to me as he read my copy the next morning between one and three you have your faults but you do know how to observe ton bring a fresh mind to bear on this stuff anyhow i think maybe you re cut out to be a writer after all not just an ordinary newspaper he into silence and then at periods as he read he would exclaim christ or that s a hell of a world then he would fall fool of some english and with a kind of malicious glee would cut and hack and and shake bis head until i was convinced that i had written the rot in the world at the close however he arose bis lap lit a pipe and said well i think you re nut but i believe you re a writer just the same they ought to let you do more sunday and th i he talked to me about phases of the he knew it with a like in san where he had once worked a book about a hell of a fine novel is to be written some of these things one of these days he remarked and from now on he treated me with such equality that i thought i most indeed be a very remarkable man chapter this world of newspaper men who now received me on terms of social equality saw life from a purely and yet in the main imaginative me considerably and finally me from and so many of them were hard gallant without the slightest trace of the and terror of fortune which agitated me they had been here there everywhere san los new york london they knew the ways of the newspaper world and to a limited extent the workings of society at large the conventional minded have called them harsh impossible largely because they knew nothing of trade that great american standard of ability and force most of them as i soon found were like john free	43
from notions as to how people were to act and what they were to think to a certain extent they were confused by the general american passive acceptance of the sermon on the mount and the as governing principles but in the main they were all of these things and of conventional principles in general they did not believe as i still did that there was a fixed moral order in the world which one at his peril heaven only knows where they had been or what they bad seen but they the motives professed or secret of nearly every man no man apparently was and honest that is no man in a powerful or dominant position and but few were kind or generous or truly aa i sat in the office between or with them at dinner or at midnight in some one of the many small frequented by newspaper men i heard tales of all sorts of not only in low life but in our so a book about myself called high life most of these men looked life as a fierce grim le in no was either given or taken and in which all men laid traps lied through a conclusion with which i now moat heartily agree the one i would now add is that the of the world is in the main genial and that in our hour of success we are all inclined to be more or less liberal and warm hearted but at this time i was still about the sermon on the mount and the expecting ordinary human and blood to do and be those things hence the point of view of these men seemed at times a little at other times most people make laws for other people to live up to once said to me and in order to protect in what they have they never intend those laws to apply to themselves or to prevent them from doing anything they wish to do there was a youth whose wife believed that he did not drink on two occasions within six weeks i was sent as to inform his wife that he had been taken ill with and would soon be home then and would bundle him into a hack and send him off one or two of us goin along to help him into his house so solemnly was all this done and so well did we play our parts that his wife believed it for a while enough for him to pull himself together a year later and give up drinking entirely another youth boasted that he was and was himself with another there was whose joy it was to sleep in a house of every saturday night and so on i tell these things not because i rejoice in them but merely to indicate the atmosphere into which i was thrown neither nor virtue nor nor was either a compelling or of either success or failure or had anything to do with true newspaper ability rather men succeeded by virtue of something that was not intimately related to any of these if one do anything which the world really wanted it would not trouble itself ao much about one s private life a book about myself jl another change was being brought in me was that which to my personal opinion of myself the feeling i was now swiftly acquiring that after all i amounted to something was somebody a special or two that i wrote thanks largely to s careful brought me to the among those of the staff who were writing for the sunday a few news stories fell to my lot and i handled them with a freedom which won me praise on all sides not that i felt at the time that i was writing them well or differently as that i was most earnestly concerned to state what i saw or felt or believed i even d a few of my own mild poetic on i scarcely recall what which with a eye at first bat later to publish the signature of because he had decided to me this grieved me for i was dying to see my own name in print but when th appeared i had the audacity to call upon the family and show them of my rise in the world and saying that i had the name as a compliment to a nephew this time i was taking a rather lofty hand with because of my great success of the fact that i had been for months that i was connected with one of the best of the local papers and telling her that i did not think it so wonderful but now i began to think that i was to be called to much higher and solemnly asked myself if i should ever want to marry a of things helped to this question in me for one thing i had no sooner been launched into general than one afternoon in seeking for the pictures of a group of girls who had taken part in some summer night festival i encountered one who seemed to be interested in me a little of about my own age very sleek and dreamy she responded to my somewhat timid advances when i called on her and condescended to smile as she gave me her photograph i drew close to her and attempted a to which she was not averse and on parting i asked if i might call some afternoon or evening hoping to crowd it in with my work she agreed and a book about myself for several and week nights i was pat to my utmost resources to keep my engagements and do my work for the newspaper profession that i knew neither week nor sundays off i had to take an and it in part or that i was delayed and could not come at all thus	43
early even i began to adopt a toward this very work twice i took her to a once to an oi an recital and once for a stroll in park by which time she seemed inclined to yield to my to the extent of permitting me to put my arms about her and even to kiss her protesting always that i was wanton and forward and that she did not know whether she cared for me so much or not charming as she was i did not feel that i should care for her very much she was beautiful but too too carefully reared her mother upon hearing of mo looked into the fact of whether i was truly connected with the globe and then her daughter to be careful about making new friends i saw that i was not welcome at that house and thereafter met her i might have in this case had i been so minded and possessed of a little more courage but as i feared that i should have to undergo a long courtship with marriage at the end of it my cooled because she was new to me and comfortably stationed and better dressed than either or n had ever been i esteemed her more highly made from a material point of view and wished that i could marry some such well placed girl without all the stem obligations of matrimony during the second month of my work on the there arrived on the scene a man who was destined to have a very marked effect on my career he was a tall dark slender le d individual of about forty five or fifty with a shock of curly black hair and a burst of whiskers he was truly your gold type red eyed at times but intelligent and genial reminding me not a little of my brother borne in his best hours he wore a long dusty black and a pair of black trousers and worn by a book about myself tobacco food liquor and rough usage his feet were in wide shoes of the old boot leather and the of locks and beard was surmounted by a black hat such as were wont to affect his nose and cheeks were tinted a fiery red by much drinking the nose having a and texture this man was john t a well known middle west newspaper man of that day a truly brilliant writer whose sole fault was that he drank too much originally from st louis the son of a well known there he had taken up as the most direct avenue to fame and fortune at forty five he found himself a mere on in this profession tossed from job to job because of his weakness bis skill if not by that of younger men it was c said that he could drink more and stand it better than any other man in why he can t begin to work unless he s had three or four drinks to him up harry once said to me he has to have six or seven more to get through till evening he did not say how many were required to carry him on until t but i fancy he must have consumed at least a half dozen more he was in a constant state of semi which was often concealed during my second month on the was made editor in place of who had gone to a better paper later he was made managing editor i from that he was well known in newspaper circles for his wit his pen and that once he had been considered the most brilliant newspaper editor in st louis he had a small spare intellectual wife very homely and very who still adored him and had suffered god knows what to be permitted to live with him the first afternoon i saw him sitting in the city chair i was very much afraid of him and of my future he looked and uncouth and had told me that new usually brought in new men as it turned out however much to my astonishment he took an almost im a book about myself fancy to me into a kind of affection and even if you will permit me humbly to state a fact a kind of adoration deed he swelled my head by the genial and hearty manner in which almost at once he took me under his guidance and my career as rapidly as he the while he borrowed as much of my small salary as he please do not think that i b this then or that i do now i owe him more than a dozen such borrowed over a period of years could ever my one grief is that i had so little to give him in return for the very great deal he did for me the incident from which this burst of friendship seemed to take its rise was this one day shortly after he arrived he gave me a small concerning a girl on the south side who had run away or had been from one of the homes it has ever been my lot to see the girl was a hardy irish creature of about sixteen a neighborhood street boy had taken her to some wretched in south street and her her mother an old irish catholic woman whom i found bending over a when i called was greatly exercised as to what had become of her daughter of whom she had heard nothing since her disappearance the police had been informed and from picked up by a i learned the facts first mentioned the mother wept into her wash as she told me of the death of her husband a few years before o a boy who had been injured in such a way that he could not work and now this girl her last hope from a newspaper point	43
of view there was nothing to the story but i decided to follow it to the end i found the house to which the boy had taken the girl but they had just left i found the parents of the youth simple plain working people who knew nothing of his whereabouts something about the wretched little homes of both families the the poverty and which would ill become a pretty girl impelled me to write it out as i saw and felt it i hurried back to the office that afternoon and out a kind of romance which a book about myself in the of the ni t seemed to take the office by storm who read it at first then aud it was interesting and then fine he at one point as he read yon re letting romantic mood get the beat of yon i see this will never do read my boy read the city editor picked it up when he returned intending i presume to see if there was any sign of interest in the general introduction finding something in it to hold him he read on carefully to the end as i could see for i was not a dozen feet away and could see what he was reading when he finished he looked over at me and then called me to come to him i want to say to you he said that you have just done a fine piece of writing i don t go much on this kind of story don t believe in it as a rule for a daily paper but the way you have handled this is fine you re young yet and if you just keep yourself well in band yon have a future thereafter he became very friendly asked me out one time to have a drink borrowed a dollar and told me of some of the charms and wonders of work in st louis and elsewhere he thought the globe was too small a paper for me that i ought to get on a larger one in another city and suggested how valuable would be a period of work on the st louis of which he had once been city editor you haven t any idea how much you need all this he said you re young and inexperienced aod a great paper like the or the new york sun starts a boy off right i would like to see you go first to st louis and then to new york don t settle down anywhere yet don t drink and don t get married whatever you do a wife will be a big to you you have a future and i m going to you if i can then he borrowed another dollar and left me chapter xiv taken up by this man in this w and with as my literary and still i could not help bnt prosper to an extent at this task and i did i cannot recall now all the things that i was called to do hat one of the things that shortly after the arrival of was assigned to me and that eventually brought my newspaper career to a close in a sort of blaze of glory as i saw it at least was a series of articles or rather a campaign to close a group of shops which were daily hundreds by selling watches diamonds and the like yet which were by the city and from which the police were a very handsome although so new at this work the task was placed in my hands as a daily by mr with the comment that i must make something oat of it whether or not i thought i pot a news punch in it and close these places that would be a real newspaper victory and ought to do me some good with my chief the managing editor of this kind are undertaken not in a spirit of as a rule but because of public pressure or a wish to increase circulation and popularity yet in this case no such or intent could be alleged this paper was controlled by john b an irish of horses and the owner of a of local houses of and gambling all of which brought him a large income and made him influential he had fallen on comparatively days his reputation as a shady character had become too the and influential men generally who had formerly by his favor now found it expedient to pass by on the other side public sentiment against him had been aroused by political attacks on the part of one newspaper a book about myself and that did not belong to his party the last election having been lost to bim the police and other of the city were now supposed to work in harmony to root out his vile though profitable vice privileges everybody knows how these things work some administration attacks were made upon his privileges whereupon not finding suitable support in the papers of his own party in the city they having of their own to grind he had started a paper of his own the globe he had brought a capable newspaper man from new york who was doing his best to make of the paper something which would satisfy s desire for circulation and influence while he lined his own pockets against a rainy day for this reason no doubt our general staff was though fairly capable during my stay the police and other under the guidance of republican ib and newspapers were making an attack on mr s preserves to which he replied by attacking the medium of the globe anything and everything he thought would do his rivals harm among these were a lai number of these same mock shops in the section evidently the police were a direct from these places for they let them severely alone but since the	43
administration was now anti and these were not mr s nothing was left undone by ns to stop this traffic we d and it was true that though victims daily appeared before the police to complain that they had been and to ask for nothing was done by the i cannot now recall what it was about my treatment of these institutions that aroused so much interest in the office and made me into a kind of globe hero i was innocent of all knowledge of the above which i have just described when i started and almost as innocent when i nevertheless now daily at ten in the morning and again in the afternoon i went to one or another of these shops listened to the of the noisy saw tin gilt knocked down to from the south and who stood open mouthed watching the a book about myself movement of the s hands aa he waved a or watch in front of them and on the beauties and of the article he was compelled to part from for a song these places were not only and in what they pretended to sell bnt also gathering places for thieves pick pockets who finding some to be possessed of a watch pin or roll of money other than that from which he was parted by the or his associates either then and there by some robbed him or followed him into a dark street and knocked him down and did the same at this time was notorious for this sort of thing and it was openly charged in the and elsewhere that the police at and by the transactions my descriptions of what was going on innocent and matter of fact as they were at first and devoid of or make believe so pleased mr beyond anything i had done that he was actually and yet at the same time and in his compliments i have no desire to praise myself at this time such things and so much that seemed so important then have since become trivial beyond words but it is only fair to state that he was seemingly immensely pleased and amused as was upon my word i once heard him exclaim as he read one of my the who would think that such would be allowed to run at large in a city like this i they certainly ought to be in jail every one of them and the police along with them then he chuckled his knee and finally came over and made some inquiries in regard to a certain dealer whom i had chanced to picture i was against anything also against detection and being beaten up by those whom i waa offending for i noticed after the first day or two that the of some of the shops occasionally studied me curiously or ceased their more shameful in my presence and produced something of more value the facts which my articles presented however finally began to attract a little attention to the paper either because the paper sold better or because a book about this was an excellent club wherewith to his enemies the now decided to call the attention of the public the to what was going on in our columns and himself to frighten the police into action by swearing out against the different owners of the shops and thus compelling them to take action i became the of a semi semi public reform the principal members of the staff assured me that the articles were in fact and color and highly amusing one day by way of the license and with the aid of i secured the names of the alleged owners and of nearly all of these shops and thereafter attacked them by name describing them just as they were where they lived how they made their money etc in company with a private and several times with i personally served of arrest accompanied the sh to police where they were immediately released on and then ran to the office to write out my of all i had seen repeating conversations as nearly as i could remember describing uncouth faces and bodies of and and by sly indicating what a farce and sham was the whole seeming interest of the police one day and i called on the chief of police demanding to know why he was bo indifferent to our and the facts we put before him to my youthful amazement and he shook his fist in onr faces and exclaimed ton can go to the devil and so can the i know who s back of this campaign and why well go on and play your little game i shout all you want to who s going to listen to you haven t any circulation you re not going to make a mark of me and you re not going to get me fired out of here for not performing my duty tour paper is only a dirty political rag without any influence is iti well you just wait and see i think yon change your mind as to that and we stalked solemnly out and in the course of time he did change his mind some a book about myself of the had to be arrested and and places closed np and the er we talked and exposed the worse it became for them finally a dealer approached me one and offered me an e gold watch to be selected by me from any store in the city and paid for by him if i would let his store alone i refused another a dark dusty most little jew offered me a diamond pin sticking it in my and said go see see ask any what be thinks if that ain t a real stone if it ain t if he says no bring it back to me and give you a hundred dollars	43
in cash for it don t yon mention me no more now be a nice young now i m a bard man just like anybody else i run a honest place i carried the pin back to the office and gave it to he stared at me in amazement why did yon do this he exclaimed you t have taken this at all it may get the paper in trouble they may have had witnesses to this but maybe not perhaps this fellow is trying to protect himself anyway we re going to take this thing back to him and don t take more do you hear money or anything tou can t do that sort of thing if i didn t think you were honest i d fire you r ht now he took me into the office of the editor in chief who looked at me with still gray eyes and listened to my story he dismissed me and talked with for a while when the latter came out he exclaimed triumphantly he sees that you re honest all right and he s to death now well take this pin back and then yon write out the whole story just as it happened od t e way we went to a magistrate to swear out a charge of attempted against this man and later in the same day i went with the to serve the warrant to myself i seemed to be swimming in a delicious sea of life what a fine thing life is i thought here i am getting along because i can write soon i will get more money a book about myself aod some day people will begin to hear of me i will get a fine reputation is the newspaper world thanks to this campaign of which was the inspiration and spirit all these shops were closed in so much at least john b had achieved a revenge as for myself i felt that there must be some serious and favorable change impending for me and true enough within a fortnight after this the change came i had noticed that had become more and more friendly he introduced me to his wife one day when she was in the office and told her in m presence what splendid work i was doing often be would take me to lunch or to a saloon for drinks for which i would pay and would then borrow a dollar or two or three no part of which he ever he me on the subject of study urging me to give myself a general by reading attending lectures and the like he wanted me to look into painting as he talked the blood would in my head and i kept thinking what a brilliant career must be awaiting me one thing he did was to secure me a place on the st louis just at this time a man whose name i have forgotten i think the washington correspondent of the st louis globe came to to report the preliminary preparations for the great world s fair which was to open the following spring already the construction of a number of great buildings in park had been begun and the newspapers throughout the country were on the alert as to its progress as i may as well call him a cool capable observer and writer was an old friend of introduced me to him and made an impassioned plea in my behalf for an opportunity for me to do some writing for the in st louis under his direction the idea was to get this man to allow me to do some world s fair work for him on the side in addition to my work on the and then later to persuade joseph b of the former paper to make a place for me in st louis as you see he said when he introduced me he s a mere a book boy any experience bat be the of a first rate newspaper man i m sore of it now henry as a favor to me i want you to help him you re close to joseph b editor in chief of the st globe and he s just the man this boy ought to go to to get bis training has just completed a fine piece of work for me he s closed up the shops here and i want to reward him he only gets fifteen a week here and i can t do anything for him in just now you write and to take him on down there and write also and tell bim bow i feel about it the of this was that i was immediately taken into the of mr given some ea gossip writing to do me sixteen dollars the week for three weeks in addition to tbe fifteen i earned on tbe at the end of that time some correspondence having ensued between the editor of the and his two admirers i one day received a which read i stood in the dusty little office and stared at this wondering what so great an opportunity only months before i had been and hanging about this back door here i was tonight with as much as fifty dollars in my pocket a suit of good clothes on my back good shoes a good hat and overcoat i had learned how to write and was already here aa a star i felt as though life were going to do wonderful and beautiful things for me i thought of that now i should have to leave her and this familiar and now comfortable atmosphere and then i went over to to ask him what i ought to do when be read the he said this is the best chance that could possibly come to you yon will be working on one of the greatest papers and under one of	43
the greatest that ever lived make the most of chance of course go let s see it a tuesday our regular week ends friday you hand in your resignation now to take effect and go sunday give you some letters that will a book about myself yon and he at once to his desk and wrote a of and tliat ht and for days after until i took the train for st i walked on air i was ing away i was going ont in the world to make my withal i was touched by the pathos of the fact that life and youth and everything now about me so was for me as well as for every other living chapter xv this sudden to my newspaper life in involved the problem of what to do about i ing these spring and days i had been myself vith her imagining sometimes because of her pretty face and and her soft clinging ways that i was in love with her by the lakes and of s on the lake shore at park where the white sails were to be seen in s little room the windows open and the lights out or of a sunday morning when her parents were away visiting and she was preparing my breakfast and her nose and chin in the attempt how happy we were i how we and kissed and made promises to concerning the f we were like two children at times and for a while i half decided that i would marry her lo a little while we were going everywhere together and she was planning her wedding the little she would have when we were married we were to live on the south side near the lake in a tiny apartment she described to me the costume she would wear which was to be of satin of an ivory shade with slippers and stockings to match but as spring wore on and i grew so restless i began to think not so much less of as more of myself i never saw her as anything but beautiful tender a delicate almost perfect creature for some one to love and cherish once we went hand in hand over the of park of a sunday afternoon she was in a new white flannel dress and dark blue hat the day was warm and clear and a of was sailing about the little lake we sat down and watched them and the ducks the in green blue and white boats with the white in the a book about myself of the lake reflected in the all was gay oh she said at one place with a little gasping which moved me by its pathos isn t it lovely t ul we are so happy when we are together aren t tes oh i wish we were married if we just had a little place of oar own i yoa could come home to me and i make nice things i promised her happy days to come but even as i said it i knew it would not be i did not think i could a life on my salary i did not know that i wanted to life was too wide and full she seemed to sense something of this from the very beginning and clung close to me now as we walked looking np into my eyes smiling almost sadly as the slipped away into dusk and the hush of evening su change and the end of many things she sighed again oh she said as we reached her if we could just be together always and never part we will be i said but i did not believe own words it was on this spring night that she attempted to persuade me not by words or any great craft bat merely by a yielding pressure to take her and make her fully mine i fancy she thought that if she yielded to me physically and found herself with child my sympathy would cause me to marry her we in her own home threw some pillows on the floor and there in my arms she kissed and me begging me to love her bat i had not the wish i did not think that i to do that thing then it was after this that the upward turn of my fortunes began i was involved in the mock war for over three weeks and for two weeks following that with my dreams of in this rash of work and in pay ing some attentions to miss i neglected once for ten days not calling at her house or store or writing her a note one morning troubled about me and no doubt she attended the culture a book myself lecture in the grand i often went on e oat she met me and i greeted her affectionately but she only looked at me with sad and eyes and said oh yon don t really care any more do you re a little sorry when yon see me well yoa needn t come any more i m going back to harry i m only too glad that i she admitted that me she had never dropped him entirely bnt had kept him calling occasionally this me and i said to myself what is she that i should worry over imagine and this double dealing essential as it was then cut me to the quick i had been doing as much and more when i it out i knew that was entitled to protect herself against so a love as mine even then i could have taken her she practically asked me to but i offered reasons and for delay i went away both angry and sad and the following sunday having received the from st louis i left without her indeed i on this score with myself until night when asked	43
he to say see mr in the city room mr am tour salary will be am am twenty dollars to b with he was a cigar and his words and he tamed to his papers not a word not a sign that he knew i had ever written a line worth while i to the handsome city room and only empty i sat down and waited of an old papers and staring eat of the windows over the roofs until mr appeared like his employer he was thick set a bigger man physically bat less attractive he had a closely head and a severe and expression he reminded me of in a savage fat man can anything be worse t he went to his desk with a quick stride when he never f me when i approached and explained who i was and why i was there he scarcely gave me a glance the afternoon won t be ready till he commented better take a seat in the next room it was then only eleven thirty and i went into the next room and waited it was empty bat warm on this chilly day how different from i thought evidently being called to a newspaper by was not to be interpreted as that one was to lie on a bed of a little bit afraid to leave for this in case he might call i hang the two windows of this room staring at the new city how it seemed now this morning after the of the night before how strong and in this november air the streets and sky were fall of smoke there was a of street car below and the of endless a block or two away loomed ap a tall a book about myself of the order twelve stories at least most of the buildings were small old family dwellings turned into stores i wondered about the life of the city its its prospects what did it bold for how long i remain would this paper afford me any real advancement i could i make a great impression and as i was meditating newspaper men came in one was a short fellow with a golden brown and a shock of early brown hair whose name i learned was hazard a fitting name for a he wore a hat a short cream colored which had many wrinkles the skirts in the back and striped he came in with a brisk air slightly his feet as be walked and took a desk which was nothing more than a of one long desk fastened to the wall and divided by of light oak as soon as he was seated he opened s drawer and took ont a pipe which he briskly filled and lighted and then began to examine some papers he had in his pockets i liked his looks there in next a pale creature la a steel gray suit of not too new a look who took a seat directly opposite the first comer his left hand in a brown glove hung at his apparently it was of wood or stuffed leather later there arrived a negro of very intellectual bearing who took a seat next the second arrival then a looking with dark eyes dark hair and skin which gave me a feeling of something in his disposition the next arrival was a small man like a little and having somewhat of a look in his eyes who seemed to be attached to the main city room in some capacity a company gradually filed in fourteen or fifteen all told gave up trying to them and to look oat the window the little came through the room several times looked at me without to speak however and finally pat his head in at the door and to the attendant group the book s ready at this there was an immediate stir nearly all of the men got a book about myself np and one by they filed into the next room that they were going to consult the book i followed bat my name was not down in my editor called each individual to him in person here each man was supposed to bis from a written page i returned to the room when i found my name was not down wondering what i should be used for the others were not long gone before i was sought by the by name who whispered the city editor wants to see you and then for the second time i faced this gloomy man whom i had already began not only to dislike but to fear he was dark and savage in his mood to me at least whether so or not i do not know his broad face set with a straight full nose and a wide thin mouth gave him a frozen outline he seemed a queer type to be attached to so remarkable a as there s been some trouble down at this he said handing me a slip of paper on which an address was written a fight i think see if yon can find out anything about it i hurried out immensely relieved to get into t e fresh air of the city i finally made my way to the place only to find a vacant lot thinking there might be some mistake i went to the nearest police station and inquired nothing was known fearing to fall down on my first i returned to the lot but could learn nothing gradually it began to dawn upon me that this might be merely a trial a bright idea of the frowning fat man a bearings i had already conceived a vast contempt for him a in my path i thought no wonder he came to hate me as i learned afterward he did i wandered back through the city looking at the strange little low	43
houses it was the region between the river and north about a mile above the and at the character of the stores never in d life had i seen such old buildings all brick and all a book about crowded together with solid wood or iron shutters after those of france from whence its al came and having something of the of the poorer of paris them and windows composed of very small of glass evidences of the of france i am bore their seemed so dark so of an old time life the streets also appeared old fashioned with their their and turns and the very little that lay between the i felt as the people must be different from those in when i reached the i that the city editor mr bad gone the little was at one of the divisions of the wall desk near mr s big one into a mass of copy the while he scratched his ear or with his pencil or about in his seat is mr about i inquired no replied the other briskly be never gets in much before four o clock anything yon want to i m bis assistant he did not dare say assistant city editor his superior would not have one he sent me out to this place but it s only a vacant lot did you look all around the neighborhood sometimes you can get news of these things in the neighborhood you know when you can t get it right at the spot i often do that tea i answered i inquired all about there it would be just like to send you out there h he on and timidly just to break you in he does things like that you re the new man from aren t you t yes but how did you he said you were coming he replied his left thumb over my name s he was so respectful almost in bis m a book about to his that i could not help now that i had my bearings i did not feel so keenly mr he seemed i yon find st a little slower than he went on bnt we have some of the biggest newspaper stories here n ever saw yon remember the mystery don t yon and that big pacific train robbery last i recalled both distinctly is that i commented thinking of my career in and for a tion of it here heavy steps were heard in the hall outside and mr jumped to his work like a fr mouse on the instant his head was fairly pulled down between his shoulders and his nose pressed over his work he seemed to and shrink and i wondered why i went into the next room as mr entered when i explained that the address he had given me was a vacant lot he merely looked up at me suspiciously find it somebody must have given me the wrong tip wait in the next room ill call you when i want you i returned to that empty room from which i could hear the industrious pencil of mr and the occasional cough of mr brooding among hia papers chapter this room for all its handsome ever took on an agreeable atmosphere to me it was too gloomy and solely of the personality next door the room was empty when i entered bnt in a short while an old railroad with a red nose came in and sat down in a comer seat taking no notice of me i read the morning paper and waited the room gradually filled up and all went at once to their and began to write i felt very much ont of tone a s duty at this of the night was to write however i made the best of my time reading and finally went ont to alone returning as quickly as ble in case there should be an for me when i returned i found my name on the bo and i set out to interview a minister who was visiting in the city evidently this city editor thought it would be easier for me to interview a minister than any other i found my man after some knocking at doors and got nothing worth a stick mere religious and returned with my story which was never used while i was writing it up however the of the returned from an hung ap his little wrinkled overcoat and sat down in great comfort next me his evening s work was apparently futile for he took out his pipe it on his chair lighted it and then picked up an evening paper what s doing up at police t called the little man over bis shoulder nothing much bob replied the other without looking np by yon police have a the first all yon do is ut around up there at m a book about and get tlie news off the police while we poor devils are chasing all over town we have to earn our money his voice had a healthy gay and ring to it that s no joke pat in a long lean individual who was sitting in another comer i ve been all over st louis looking for a confounded robbery story well yoa ve got long retorted the jovial hazard ton can stand it now i m not so well fixed that there ought to be given a chance at that he t be getting so fat by the one called also answered to the name of ton people don t do so replied grinning cheerfully u yon bad my job yon wouldn t be sitting here reading a newspaper it takes work to be a police is that the little man you re of it i t why yon never did a good d s work in life i us a match bob and	43
shut up the other ton re too noisy i ve got a of work ahead of me yet tonight i got your work is she over sixteen f wish i had your job folded up some copy paper and put it into his pocket and walked into the room where the little assistant was toiling away over the night s of news i still sat there looking curiously on it s pretty tough said the spirited hazard turning to me to go out on an and then get nothing i d rather work bard over a good story any day wouldn t that s the way i feel about it i replied it s not much fun around by the way do yon know whose desk this ist i ve been sitting at it all evening it doesn t belong to anybody at present you might as well take it if you like it there s a vacant one over there next to s if you like that better he waved toward the tall awkward in the comer a book about myself this is good i replied take your choice there s no trouble about just now the staff s way down anyhow you re a stranger here aren t you t yes i only came do ni from yesterday paper d work on up the and i lying about the latter in order to give myself a better standing than otherwise i might have they re good papers aren t they yes pretty fair the news has the largest evening circulation we have some good papers here too this is one of the biggest the post is pretty good too it s the evening paper do you know how much circulation this paper has i inquired oh about fifty thousand i should say that s not so much compared to circulation but it s pretty big for down here we have the biggest circulation of any paper in the s one of the greatest in this country outside of in new york the greatest of any if were in new york he d be bigger than be is by do you run many big news stories sometimes not often the goes very light on local news they play up the telegraph on this paper because we go into and and and all these other states around here we use worth of telegraph news here every year and he said it as though he were part owner of the paper i liked him very much i opened my eyes at this news and thought of it in relation to my own work it did not promise much for a big feature on which i might spread myself we talked on becoming more and more friendly in spite of the city editor whom i did not like i now began to like this place although i could feel that these men were more or less held down and frozen the room was much too a book about quiet for a healthy western room the too chill talked of st louis its size its principal hotels the the and the la i learned that its oldest and best the had recently been torn down and was going to be some day what were the chief lines of it seemed that fires were here as elsewhere the great thin far most things of national and import a tremendous had and this new acquaintance of mine had been working on it had handled it alone as he said like all citizens of an american city be was pro st louis to say a good word for it the finest portion of it he told me was in the west end i see the wonderful new and places there was a great park here over fourteen hundred acres is size a wonderful thing a new bridge was in north st louis and would soon be completed one that would relieve traffic on the bridge and help st louis to grow there was a small city over the river in east st louis and a great railroad association which controlled all the local railroad and each trunk line ax dollars a ear to enter and each passenger twenty five cents it s a great and a damned shame but what can you dot was his comment traffic on the was not so much now owing to the that it but still it was the already familiar noise of a roll top desk broke in upon us from the next room and i noticed a bush fall on the room what an atmosphere i i thought after a few moments of silence my new friend turned to me and whispered very softly that s the city editor in he s a proper as you find he smiled wisely and began again he look so pleasant to me replied as i ve quit here twice he whispered the next time i go i won t come back i don t have to stay here and he knows it i can get a job any day on the chronicle and wouldn t have to a book about work bard that s an paper i here because i like a morning paper better that s all there s more to it everything s so and kicked together on an evening paper bat he doesn t say to me any more he doesn t like me yon d think we were a lot of and this place a he frowned we dropped into silence again i did not like this thought of thrust me what a pity a man like was not here he doesn t look like of a newspaper man to me i observed and be isn t either has bim here because he saved his life once in a somewhere down in i think or that s what tbey tell me we sat and read the sound	43
of sheer weariness i assume tired of an world it was not until long after when i was much better able to judge him and his that i understood what a really big thing he had done built up a journal of national and even significance in a region which one would have supposed could never have supported anything mc e than a to trade interests as hazard bad proudly informed me the annual bill for telegraph news alone was a which in the light of subsequent in america may seem insignificant but which at that time meant a great deal he seemed to have a to make tbe paper not only good as that word is used in connection with newspapers but great and from my own memory and impression i can testify that it was it had and in and news the whole of europe as well as america was and in order that his readers might be entertained and retained and each day one could read news of curious as well as of scientific interest from all over the world its were in the main wise and jovial often beautifully written by himself of assumed tendencies it was much more a party leader than both in national and in state affairs the of raw youths i barely this at the time and yet i felt something of the wonder and beauty of it au i knew bim to be a great man because i could feel it there was something of dignity and force about all that was connected with him later it became a fact of some importance to me that i had been called to a paper of so much true worth by a man so wise so truly able the only note at this time was my loneliness in in spite of the gradual up of a book about our home and the of the family i had managed to up that spiritual or support which to all of us from familiarity with material objects i had known its newspaper world its various sections its places of amusement some dozen or two of newspaper men here i knew no one at all and back in there had been and n and e whereas here whom had i f was a living pain for years for in my way i was really fond of her i am of that peculiar di which will not let memories of old ties and old pleasures die easily i suffer for s which might not give another a single ache or pain came very close to me and now she was gone without any reasonable complaint save that i was slightly weary did not care for her as much as i had and that my mind was full of the world and my future i bad left her it had not been more than four weeks since i had visited her in her little par in of those delights which only youth and imagination can now i was three hundred away from her kisses and the warmth of her hands at the same time there was this devil or angel of ambition which quite in of myself was me onward i fancied some vast ending for which of coarse was i could not have gone back to then if i had wished it was not possible something within kept on on besides it would have done no good the reaction would have been more than the pain it satisfied as it was i could only walk about the city in this november weather and about myself and and n and k and my own future what an odd beginning i often thought to myself perhaps iu one so young three in as many years two of them deeply and seriously wounded by me i shall write to her i thought i will ask ber to come down here i can t stand this she is too lovely and precious to me it is cruel to leave her so there ia this to be said for me in regard to my not writing to her i was uncertain as to the financial of it a book about myself in i had been telling her of my excellent that i was making more than i really was so loi as i was there and not married the easily be sustained here three hundred miles away where she would and not come i was prepared to support her it was a different matter to ask her now meant a financial burden which i did not feel able or at least willing to assume no doubt i could have starved her on twenty dollars a week had i been desperately swayed by love i would have done so i could even have had her had i so chosen on conditions which did not involve marriage bat i could not bring myself to do this i did not think it quite fair i felt that she would have a claim to my continuing the relation with her and was the wide world i told myself that i would marry her if i had money if she had not been of a soft yielding type she easily have me but she had not chosen to do so anyhow here i was and here i stayed meditating on the tragedy of it all by this time of it ia quite obvious that i was not an correct and moral youth but a sentimental boy of considerable range of feeling who facing the evidences of life was not prepared to accept anything as final i did not know then whether i believed that the morality and right conduct preached by the teachers of the world were important or not the religious and social of the day had been impressed npon me but they did not stick something whispered to me that apart from theory there was	43
another way the world took and which had little in common with the strait and narrow path of the not all men in little things or lie or cheat but how few fail to compromise in big ones perhaps i would not have deliberately lied about anything at least not in important matters and i would not now ordinary circumstances after the one experience in have stolen beyond this i could not have said how i would have acted under given women were not included in my moral speculations as among those who were to receive strict justice not women in that perhaps i was r ht they did not a book about myself always it i was anxious to meet with many of them as many as i and i have myself as their own would permit that i was to be in any w punished for this or that the world would severely censure me for it i did not yet believe other boys did it they were constantly talking about it the world the world of youth at least seemed to be concerned with why should not i bet chapter xix no picture of these my opening days in st would be of the slightest import if i could not give s fairly portrait of myself and of the blood moods or so called aspirations which were me at that time i had already attained my height six feet one and one half inches and only one hundred and thirty seven so you can imagine my figure aside from one eye the right which was tamed slightly outward from the line of vision and a set of upper teeth which because of their size were crowded and so stood out too much i had no particular except a general of feature it was a source of worry to me all the time because i imagined that it kept me from being interesting to women which apparently was not not to all women at least i was what might be called a poetic crossed with a vivid lust of life i doubt if any being however poetic or however material ever looked upon the scenes of this world material or spiritual bo called with a more eye my body was blazing with sex as well as with a desire for material and social to have wealth to be in society and yet i was too cowardly to make my way with women readily rather they made their way with me love of beauty as such feminine beauty first and foremost of course was the characteristic of all my moods joy in the arch of an the color of an eye the of a lip or cheek the romance of a situation spring trees flowers evening walks the moon the of an arm or a hip the delicate turn of an ankle or a foot moonlight under trees a lighted lamp over a dark lawn what have i not endured because of these i my mind was on what love could bring me once i had the prosperity and fame which somehow i foolishly a book about myself fancied commanded lore and at the same time i was horribly depressed by the thought that i never have them never and that thought for the most part has been fulfilled in addition to this i was filled with an intense sympathy for the woes of others life in all its helpless degradation and poverty the dreams of people their labors the things they were compelled to endure nameless curses the things they would never have their half formed dreams of pleasure their and beaten at the end i have sobbed dry sobs looking into what i deemed to be broken faces and the eyes of human failures a shabby district or doorway a drunken woman being before a magistrate a child dying in a hospital a man or injured in an accident the times tears have leaped to my eyes and my throat has become and painful over scenes of the streets the the i have cried so often that i have felt myself to be a at other times i have been proud of them and of my great against fate and the cruelty of life if there is a god and personal and he considers the state of man and the of his laws and his how he must smile at little insect man s estimate of him it is so bo that only a devil could it i was happy enough in my work although at times lest all the pleasures that can come to youth from health courage wealth and opportunity should fail me while i was working and trying to get somewhere i had health yet i imagined i had not because i was not a an and my stomach due to an gave me some trouble as to courage when i examined myself in that direction i fancied that i had none at all would i slip out if a dangerous were anywhere t certainly well then i was a coward could i stand up and defend myself against a man of my own height and weight i doubted it particularly if he were well trained in i was again a coward there was no hope for me a book among decently men i play no not i was a of the worst kind nearly do those and nearly all youths were far more in all the of life than was i manners dancing knowledge of dress and occasions hence x was a fool the of the least overcome me the most society man if correct was infinitely my superior hence what had i to hope fort and when it came to wealth and opportunity how poor i seemed i no girl of real and force hare anything to do a man	43
who was not a and so there i was a complete failure to begin with the and pains that went with all this uie amazing depression all but how often have i looked into comfortable homes and wished that some kindly family would give me shelter and yet half knowing that had it been ofl i would have refused it how often have i looked the windows of some successful business firm and wished i had achieved or a position similar to that of any of the officers and inside to be president or vice president or secretary of something some great of some kind great god how sublime it seemed t and yet if i had only known bow the tool of be it mattered not then that i was fairly well that most of my had been friendly and as to my welfare that the few girls i had approached had responded freely still i was a failure i rapidly became familiar with the city news department of the its needs aside from great were simple the doings of of various kinds men the plans of city when those could be discovered the news of the courts city police courts the deaths of well known people the in society special functions of one kind and another fires for the first few we nothing of im a book about myself happened i was given the task evenings of looking in at the north seventh street police station a district to see if had happened and was naturally able to add to my depression by contemplating the life there again i attended churches to hear sermons the irish of the city edward an amazing person with a head like that of a or who immediately took a great fancy to me and wanted me to come and see liim again which i did once he has always in my mind as one of the odd experiences of my life he lived in a small red brick family dwelling beyond the area of st which stretched out along chestnut street between twelfth and twenty second and was the city s sole out of which he was supposed to liave made countless as well as one of its principal horse having many shops and was incidentally its or republican i forget which a position he retained until his death i first saw him at a political meeting daring my first few weeks in st louis and the manner in which he arose the w in which he addressed his hearers the way in which they listened to him all impressed me subsequently being sent to his house i found him in his front parlor a yellow on the marble table horse hair furniture about the room a red carpet of of his mother and father but what force in the man what innate of manner and speech he seemed like a prince disguised as a blacksmith so ye ve come to interview me be said soothingly ye re from the well that paper s no particular friend of mine but ye can t help that can and then he told me whatever it was i wanted to know giving me no least true light yon may be sure at the conclusion he offered me a drink which i refused as i was about to leave be surveyed me pleasantly and te re a likely lad he said laying an immense hand on one of n lean shoulders and ye re jest out in life a book about myself i can see that well be a good boy ye re in the newspaper where ye can make friends or enemies as ye choose and if ye behave right ye can just as well make friends come an see me some time i like yer looks i m always here an when i m not a some kind right here in this little front room or in the kitchen with me wife i might be able to do something fer ye sometime remember that i ve a good influence here yell have to write what ye re told i know that so i won t be offended so come an see me an remember that i want ye and he gently me out and closed the door behind me bat i never went at least not for for myself the one time i asked him for a position for a friend who wanted to work on the local street cars as a conductor he wrote across the letter give this man what he wants it was the man ht it back to me before presenting it and was signed edward butler but the man was given the place at although butler was an earnest catholic he was supposed to control and tax the vice of the city which charge may or may not have been true one of his sons owned and managed the leading house in the city a vulgar at which the ticket was frank james brother of the amazing who and the as an at one time and enriched endless novel afterward as dramatic critic of the later i often saw him butler s son a more or type of popular with a certain element in st louis was later elected to i wrote up a labor meeting or two and at one of these saw for the first time v the head of the labor organization the knights of labor this meeting was held in a dingy hall at ninth or tenth and a dismal institution known as the s club or some such thing as that which had a single red light oat over its main entrance this long leader afterward so much discussed in the so called was a book about myself lu on s wretched platform by local labor leaders and in a none too brilliant way i ht the need of a	43
closer between all classes of labor in regard to all matters relating to the rights of labor and capital i was at this time perfectly ignorant although i was a myself in a fair sense of the word i was more or less ont of sympathy with not as a class for their rights i did not know what their rights or wrongs were bnt merely as i thought i suppose that they were not quite as nice as i was not as refined and superior in their aspirations and therefore not as worthy or at least not destined to succeed as well as i i even then dimly what subsequently after many rough i came to accept as a fact that some people are bom dull some some wise and some ignorant some tender and some savage ad some are silk and others ears and cannot be made the one into the other by any accident of either poverty or wealth at this tim however after listening to mr and taking notes of his speech i came to the conclusion that all had a just right to much better pay and living conditions and in consequence had a great cause and to stick together i saw that mr was a very shrewd man and something of a very simple seeming and yet not so something he said or did i believe it was a remark to the that i always say a little prayer whenever i have a in my side irritated me it was so so english like and he was an englishman as i recall it anyhow i came away him and his local labor group and yet liking his cause and believing in it and wrote as favorable a comment as i dared the was not pro exactly at least i did not understand so and yet it was by no means pro either if i recall correctly it merely gave the facts and let it go at that chapter xx ht connection with the bad many aspects chief among which was my rapidly developing of the significance of and its relation to the life of tee nation and the state my career had began only five months before and preceding that i had had no newspaper experience of any kind the most reader of a newspaper have been aa good as i in many respects but here i rather the significance of it all the power of a man for instance for good or evil the significance of a man like in this community i still bad a lot to learn the extent of in connection with politics in a city the power of a newspaper to make sentiment in a state and so help to carry it for a or a president the political talk i heard on the part of one newspaper man and another doing politics aa well as the leading in this and other papers which just at this time were concerned with a coming fight and a in the state between rival leaders of the party completely cleared up the situation for me i listened to all the gossip read the papers carefully wondered over the and of state in connection with our national government just over the river in everybody was concerned with the administration of john p governor of the state and whether be would pardon the whose death sentences recorded a few years before had been to life imprisonment on this side of the river everybody was interested in the administration of william stone who was the a man by the name of h was certain to be the next mayor if the won and according to the they ought to win because the city needed to be the local board of was supposed to be the a book about myself most in all america how many cities have yearly thought that each of its body since the nation began i i and edward the mayor was to be the lowest and that ever stood up in shoes the chief of the were frequently concerned with blazing of him as far as i could make ont he had joined with various and certain members of council to steal from the city sell its valuable for a song and the like he had also joined with the police in helping the and of and were never so as now so our good paper stated the good people of the city should join and help save the city from destruction how familiar it all sounds doesn t it well this was and i have heard the same song every year since in every american city in which i have ever been gambling et must be among our national weaknesses not just the same in so far as this particular office and the country about st louis were concerned joseph was of immense significance to his staff and the natives plainly he was like a god to many of them the farmers and in small towns in states like and in southern where bis paper chiefly for they came to the office whenever they were in the city merely to get a glimpse of him he was held in high esteem by his staff and was one of the few of his day who really deserved to be within his office he had an group of followers which included from the managing editor down the chief says the chief thinks the old man looks a little this morning what do you think f wait the old man hears about that hell be that ought to please the old man don t yon he likes a bit of good writing yet for all this chatter the old man never seemed to notice much of anything or have much to say to any one except possibly to one or two of his leading writers and bis telegraph editor if	43
and another and always i went with a and sinking sensation and always i came away from it breathing a sigh of relief to me it was a horrible place a hole of suffering and error and and yet enough i know chapter i was down the marble hall of our floor one day not long after i arrived when i noted on a door at its extreme end the words art department the in had no art department at least i never discovered it the mere word art i had no real understanding of it was fascinating to me was it not on eveiy a man who painted or drew was an artist was one for instance and i the two together in i had of known that each paper have an art and that interested me in this one what were artists i had never known one another day i was on my way to the when i discovered that i had come away without the key a of which every department possessed the art department door being nearest i entered to borrow theirs behold three if not looking at work upon drawings laid drawing boards two of these looked up the one nearest me with a look of criticism in his eye i thought the one who answered me when i asked for the key and who swiftly arose to get it for me was short and with tramp like hair and heard there was something that of opera about him and yet as i could see be took himself seriously h there was something pleasing in his voice too as he said certainly here it is and smiled the one who bad looked up at first and frowned but made no move was much less cheery recall the long thin sallow face the coal black hair long and coarse which was parted most carefully in the middle and down at the sides and back over the ears until it looked as though it had been and the eyes black and small and and as was the mouth with drawn lines at each comer as a book about myself he bad much pain that long loose flowing black tie i and that soft white or blue or green or brown linen shirt would any latin have been without he had thin pale bon hands long and graceful and an air of touch thou me not one the man appealed to and me at a glance appealing to me much more later and ever remained a human something to endure at surely dick wood or richard wood artist as his card read m ht safely be placed in any of the ridiculous and delicious this visit provided a mere glance however when i returned the key i was given no encouragement a little later my ability to write having been fairly established i was given a rather large order for one so new a double page spread with illustrations for the sunday issue relating to the new then under construction i was told to see that the art department supplied several drawings one in particular of a proposed iron and glass train shed which was to cover thirty two tracks also one of a clock tower two hundred and thirty two feet high this seemed a very honorable one since it was to carry drawings and i went about it with energy and enthusiasm it was who told me to look to the art department for suitable illustrations evidently the art department knew all about it before my arrival tor upon inquiry i found that p b he of the tramp like hair and whiskers was to make the pictures his manner pleased me he was so cordial so together we visited the and a few days later he called upon me in the room to ask me to come and see what he had done having in regard to most things the same point of view we were soon the best of friends a more or affectionate relationship was then and there established which endured until his death sixteen years later during all of that period we were scarcely out of touch with each other and through him i was destined to achieve some of my of life see peter twelve men and the wood i have never encountered another a book about myself like him possibly because for years i have not been associated with young people who are fall of a more romantic than wood never lived nor one with better sense in many ways in regard to newspaper he was only a respectable if ao but in other ways he was fascinating enough he and were compelled at that time to use the old chalk plate process for much of their hurried work a thing which required the artist to scratch with a steel upon a chalk covered surface blowing the chalk away from his outlines as he made this created a dust both d wood complained of as being disagreeable and hard on the lungs wood who pretended to be dying of consumption and did die of it sixteen years later within a month of his friend made aa awful row about it although he easily have done much to mend matters by taking a little exercise and keeping out of doors as much as possible but he preferred to over a or before a fire always on every occasion he was given to playing the of the martyr he was morbid as was i only he showed it much more in his manner he had much the same desire as i had at the time to share in the of marble halls and palaces and high places generally and like myself he had but little chance fresh from a commonplace american town be was by the commonplace dream of marrying rich and coming into the imaginary of that west	43
end life of st louis which was so interesting to both of us far more than myself i am sure he seemed to be with an inward rebellion against the fact that he was poor not included in the exclusive pleasures of the rich at the same time be was growing with a desire to make other people imagine that he was or soon would be of them what what shades of manner he like myself was forever dreaming of some gorgeous maiden rich beautiful elect who was to solve all his troubles for him but there was this difference between its or so i imagined at the time dick being an artist rather remote and in manner and handsome as well as poetic and a book about better than myself as i vas certain to this gilded and state whereas i not being bo handsome nor an artist nor sufficiently poetic could hardly to so gorgeous an end i might perchance arrive at some such goal if i t it eagerly enough but the were that i not unless i waited a long while and besides my dreams and plans varied so swiftly from day to day that i couldn t be sure what i wanted to do whereas wood being so stable in this that and the other all the things i was not was certain to arrive sometimes around dinner time when i would see him leaving the office arrayed in the latest mode as i assumed blue suit patent leather boots dark round soft felt hat loose tie blowing idly about his neck neat thin cane in his band i was fairly convinced that this much anticipated fortune had already arrived or was about to arrive this very evening perhaps and that i should never see him more never even be permitted to speak to him somewhere out in the west end of course was the girl wondrous rich beautiful with whom he was to and be forgiven by her wealthy parents even now he was on his way to her while i poor that i was was here over some task would my ship never come in my great day and wood was just the type of person who would take infinite delight in creating such an impression ten later when and i were in the east together and wood was still in st louis we were never weary of discussing this characteristic of bis laughing and at him later he married but i shall not anticipate fi at t time he was living a dream and in so far as acting it the part of some noble charles de heir to or to some maid with an immense fortune which was to make them both happy and allow him to travel pose as he chose a dream verily but i i that i was bitter with envy what never to shine never to be an never to have a book about myself in n for me there were other in with him sharp as teeth dick had a watch the envy of my days oh watch i also a pin made of some strange stone t from the and with a sign or word on it in itself to and that at he was never without them and along with all this that sad wan dying smile i and that something of manner which seemed to say my b l my the things yon will never know i and yet after a time dick condescended to receive me into his and into his a very affair situated in the heart of the district he condescended to bestow me some of his dreams as well as his friendly presence a thing which exalted me being bo new to this art world i was permitted note the word to gather dimly as from priest the faintest of these dreams of his and to share with him the hope that they mi t be realized i was so set np by this great favor that i felt certain great things flow from it we three do great things if only we would stick together bnt was i worthy there were already of books plays stories poems to come from a certain mighty pen as a matter of ct it was already hard npon the task of writing them which were to set the world by certain in new york were already receiving and sending back certain preliminary along with in regard to t but necessary changes which perfect them and bo the new era certain writers certain poets certain ts were already better than any that had ever been the best ever in short dick knew of and i was allowed to share this knowledge to be thrilled by it chapter the ice was broken in this way intimacy with these twain came fast enough although i never became as intimate with dick as i did with peter largely because i could not think him as important wood had some feminine he be very jealous of anybody s interest in peter as well as peter s interest in anybody else he was big enough at times to see the of this and try to rise above it bnt at other times it show years later confided to me in the most amused way how when i first appeared on the scene dick at once began to me and to resent my obvious desire to break in as he it these two according to dick having established some secret bat the union was not in so far as peter was concerned shortly after my arrival had b on into the art room so peter told me with amazing tales of the new man his exploits in i had been sent for to come to this p per that was the great thing i was for by no less a	43
person than john t one of the newspaper men of st louis and a former editor of this same paper also by a mr somebody the washington correspondent of the paper for whom i had worked in on the world s fair he had to the art department with bis tales of me wishing i fancy to be on friendly and happy terms there dick however considered s judgment as less than nothing himself an a mere office rat to have him endeavor to introduce anybody was too much at first he received me very coldly then finding me perhaps better than he thought he hastened to make friends with me the hours with these two that followed not peter and dick would dine at some down a book about town or if a of work on and the were compelled to linger they had a late in saloon it was peter who first invited me to one of these late and later wood did the bat this last was based on another development in with which i should here the office of the proved a bed for literary talent hazard had some fifteen or ei months before in company with another newspaper man of whom later i heard amazing things written a novel entitled which was plainly a fire kindled by those french and t e scene was laid in paris imagine two western newspaper men who had never been ont of america writing a novel of french life and l ing it in and bad much of the here of s the of s the mm from the never having read either of these at this time i did not see the bnt later i saw it plainly one or both of these men had fed ap on the french to an extent that they were able to create the illusion of france for me at least and at the same time to fire me with a to create something i a novel of this kind bnt a play it seemed intensely to me at the time this book with its frank pictures of raw greedy human nature and its open pictures of and vice the way this came about was interesting but i would not relate it save that it had such a marked effect on me i was sitting in the city room later one december afternoon having returned from a fruitless when a letter was handed me it was and addressed in the handwriting of to then i had allowed matters to drift having as i have said written but one letter in which i rather indifferently for hav ing come away without seeing her but my conscience had been me so much that when i saw her writing i started i tore the letter open and read with a sense of shame a book about i got tom letter d ir left bnt then it too late i know what ia boat being called and i don t ton i our there had been nm of m making didn t let to me before on left u that my f too i i t blame yon for that that isn t what i m writing for ton know that yon been uie to me how u feel i have felt it too i want to know if wont the i wrote tou ton wont want them now and i am aa ever friend then was a little blank space on the paper and then i br the window night and looked out on the the moon waa and dead over the w j were in the wind i a w the moon on that little pool of water o v in the it looked ob pool i i i as i read this i np and the letter the of it cot me to the to think i have left her to think i be here and she why hadn t i why had i these many of she wished to die and i what of met i went over the situation and tried to ont what i do i send for twenty dollars a week was very little for two my legitimate expenses made a total of eleven a week i wished to keep myself looking well to have a decent room to eat three fair meals a day and i was in no position to to where i had earned then my new with wood and as well with other newspaper men nearly all of whom liked to drink were me extra i not associate with them buying an occasional drink i did not bee where i was to save much or how i support a wife in addition there was the of my position here i not very well leave it now having just come from by nature where things material of were i was timid but little inclined to battle for my rights or desires and consequently not often them i was in a trying for i had as i have said let it appear to that money was no object with the vanity of youth i had always talked of my good salary and comfortable position and now that this salary and comfortable position were to a book about myself be pat to the i did not know what to do it would dictated a confession of but i made non instead i wavered between two horns of an ti with the pain was suffering and alive to my own loss of honor and still i hesitated to down the fine of myself which i had so np to reveal myself as i really was a man unable to many on his present salary if i had loved her more if i had really respected her if i had not looked upon her as one who might be so easily aside i would have done	43
to save him which resulted in her failure and his death on the a priest figured in it in some way grim to this day some of the scenes of this book come back to me as been done the fight between the two for one thing a t feast with several the gallows scene a confession i am not sure of the name of the newspaper man who with hazard on this bat the picture of his death in an joint later painted for me by hazard and the of his daily life stand ont now as like he must have been blessed or cursed with same such temperament as that of dark reckless for he was a and died of be that as it m this work never published bo far as i know was the opening for me into the realm of being distinctly of and the method was new and to me impressive it always struck me as curious that the first novel written by an american that i read in manuscript should have been one which by reason of its matter and the character of the american mind could never be published these two knew this hazard handed it to me with the statement of course a thing like this could never be published a book about ut over here we d to get it done abroad that me as odd at the tune the fact that if one wrote a fine thing because of an american standard i bad not even thought of before one might not get it published how i thou t these two artists had already encountered it they had been to the extent of it necessary to write of french not american life in terms of fact as they felt called upon to relate only in france never here or at least such things if done here were never spoken of think it nothing less than that these men or fresh with a desire to present life as th saw it were thus by the moral of the american mind and did not dare to think of sending their novel to an american hazard was deeply impressed with the of attempting to do anything with a book of that kind the wouldn t stand for it yon t write about life as it was yon had to write about it as somebody else thought it was the ministers and farmers and of the home here he was as was i in a profession that waa revealing the fact that this sweetness and ll t code this idea of a perfect world which contained neither sin nor shame for any save vile and was the lie that was ever upon an all too human world not a day not an hour but the pages of the very newspaper we were helping to fill with our observations were full of the most pictures of the lack of virtue honesty kindness even average human intelligence not on the part of a few but of nearly everybody not a business apparently not a home not a political or social oi or an individual but in the course of time was guilty of an of some kind of this seemingly perfect and unbroken social and moral code but in spite of au this judging by the page the pulpit and the noble of the averse citizen speaking for the benefit of his friends and all men were honest only th weren t j all women were virtuous and without evil intent or but they weren t all mothers were a book sweet pictures for and schools only they weren t all were kind affectionate saving only they weren t bat when describing actual facts for the news columns yon were not allowed to indicate these things side by side with the most amazing of crimes of every kind and description would be other amazing columns of sweet about love and about the perfection of the american man woman child his or her sweet deeds intentions and the s dose and all this last in the face of the other which was supposed to represent the false state of things merely passing accidental errors that did not count if a man like hazard or had ventured to a of facts from the news of the papers from onr own into a story or novel what a howl i would have followed much more swiftly in that day than in this for today at least some of the facts is fifteen y later hazard told me he still had his book buried in a somewhere bnt by then he had turned to adventurous fiction and a year later as i have said up blew his brains out same the book made a great impression on me i it gave me a great respect for hazard made me really fond of him and it fixed my mind definite on this matter of writing not a novel curiously bnt a play a form which from the first seemed easier for me and which i still consider so one in which i work with greater ease than i do in the novel i mentioned to wood and that hazard and another man had written a novel and that i had read it i must have over it for both were impressed and i myself seemed to gain standing especially with wood it was generally admitted then that hazard was one of the best in the city and my being taken into his confidence in this fashion seemed to wood to be a significant thing and not long after that i had something else to tell these two which carried great weight there was at that time on a book about the page of the paper a entitled heard in the which was nothing more than a series of imaginary with passing guests at	43
the various hotels or into short tales about six to the one at least being to a at each of the three hotels the others standing as things heard at the union station or npon the street previous to arrival this had been written by various men the last one having been the already famous w c then editor of the brilliant by the time i arrived however had departed and the had hazard was doing a part of it another but both were tired of it at first when i considered it a little work added to my daily i was not pleased indeed it seemed an all but impossible thing to do later however after a trial i discovered that it gave free rein to my wildest which was exactly what i wanted i write any sort of story i pleased romantic or lunatic and credit it to some imaginary guest at one of the hotels and if it not too improbable it was passed without comment at any rate when this was assigned to me i went forth to get names of personages stopping at the hotels i inquired for as a the clerks could give me no information or were indifferent and seemed to take very little interest in having the hotel advertised i returned and my brain decided that i could manufacture names as well as stories and forthwith ax names as came into my mind the next day these were all duly published and i was told to do the column r as well as my r my had won me a new task without any increase in pay however ii seemed an to have a whole column assigned to me and this honor i to and wood it was then that either wood or informed me that had done it previously and had written snake stories for the paper into the bargain this flattered me for th y pictured him for what he was a rare soul and i a book about mt growing peter had some of these tales for him for he said with mock dignity i am the official an ke artist of this paper that very t as a reward for mj i was invited by dick to come to his room the room the where he inflicted nine of horrible upon me i would not make so of this great honor if it were not for what it meant to me then the room was large and oo between market and with the cars below it contained one great white bed a long table covered with the papers and literary of mr wood and was decorated and with that gentleman s of what constituted literary in on the walls hung dusty representing the death of hamlet and the tempting of in one corner over a chest of drawers was the jagged blade of a word fish and in another a most curious display of oriental the top of the wardrobe waa surmounted by a head representing that somewhat known in england as ally a clear q ace at one comer of the table held a tin for carrying beer and the door like the walls was covered with some dusty brown material which might once have been a carpet owing to the darkness of the and the of the fire the had a very cheery look say dick did you see where one of s v had made a great hit in new york asked he a strike this time no replied dick solemnly among the coals of the grate and drawing up a chair sit down pull np a chair peter this confounded grate whenever the wind s from the south still there s nothing like a grate fire we drew ap chairs i was revolving in my mind the charm of the room and a vision of greatness in play writing these two men seemed with the perfection of the arts in this atmosphere with such companions i felt that i accomplish anything and a book about tell yon how it is the of ob served dick yon have to have gi nation and feeling and all that bnt what s more important than anything is a little sense to know how to get in with those fellows yon mi t have the finest play in the w in pocket bnt if yon didn t know how to dispose of it what good would it do yon none at all yon got to know that end first he reached over and pulled the coal into as a and then looked at the ceiling the play s the thing in peter if yon write a real good play yon need to worry getting it aw wouldn t it listen to that now commented dick i tell yon peter yon don t know anything about it yon only think you do that s all say did have a good play in his pocket or didn t you neck he did did he get it f no yon boots he didn t don t talk to me i know by his manner you would have thought he had a standing bone to pick with peter but this was only his way it made me laugh well the play s the first thing to worry an ow i observed i wish i were in a position to write one why don t yon try i suggested yon ought to be able to do something in that line i bet you could write a good one we fell to peter with bis eye for gorgeous effects and the like immediately began to describe the effects and scenery of a comic opera laid in which was then playing in st louis you ought to go and see that he oi d it s something wonderful the effect of the in the first act with the crying the prayers	43
from the towers in the distance is great then the harmony of the color work in the stones of the buildings is something exquisite you want to see it i myself growing this intimate conversation with men a book about of marked ability in a room too which was the of an artist s personality raised my sense of latent ability to the highest point not that i felt i wag fit to associate with these people i felt that i was more than fit their equal at every point conceal it as i might but it w g something to come in with own to find real to the manner bom who were and able to with and appreciate your every mood a man who had found friends as these bo sorely need never worry ill tell yon what i propose to do peter while yon people are talking observed dick i propose to go over to frank s and get a c n of beer then read yon that story this proposal to read a story was new to me i had not heard wood had one before i looked at him more keenly and a little flame of envy leaped to life in me to be able to write a short story or any kind of a story t he went to his wardrobe whence he extracted a black cape of which he threw hia and a soft hat which he drew over his then took the tin and a piece of money a plate after the best of the artistic of the day and went ont i gazed after him touched by the romance of it all that face drawn sensitive with deep burning eyes and that frail body that that hat i that plate of yes this was i i was now a part of that happy middle world which was to wealth and poverty i was in that serene realm where moved freely talent artistic ability noble t action by conventional and conduct a great man should so live an artist certainly these two could and did do as pleased they were not as others but wise sensitive delicately to all that was best in life and as yet the great world was not aware of their existence wood came back with the beer and then peter insisted that he read us the story i noticed that there was something in his manner he assured me that all of dick s a book about stories were every one that time was required for world wide dick picked up a single manuscript from a heap i don t want to inflict this on you he said sweetly and we had planned to do this h i knew you were coming that s the way he always talks put in peter dick loves to stage things but they re great stories the same i leaned hack prepared to be thrilled dick drew up his chair to the table and adjusted a green shaded lamp close to the table s edge he then unfolded his and began reading in a low well semi pathetic voice which seemed very effective in the more sentimental passages reverently i sat and listened the tale nothing a mere bat oh tiie wonder of was i not in the presence and of was not this had i not long heard and dreamed of well then what difference whether the tales were good or the y were by one whom i was compelled to admire an artist pale me who at the slightest show of or lack of appreciation might leave me and never see me more i listened to nine without dying declaring each and every cue to be the best i had ever heard perfect chapter xxiv on because of this my life in st took on a more cheerful aspect hitherto in spite of mj work and my interest in a strange city i bad had intensely gloomy moments my favorite when i was not ont on an or otherwise waa to streets and view the lives and of others not how i might advantage myself and my as how for some the lightning of chance waa always striking in somewhere and plans leaving and death in its wake for others luck or i never was blinded to the gross by nature and this i resented largely it may be because it was not or i thought it was not in my behalf later in life i began to that a gross in r ard to certain things at least was being in my behalf i was never without friends never without some one to do me a good turn at a critical moment never without love and the sacrifice of beauty on the part of some one in my behalf never without a certain amount of applause or waa i worthy of it t i knew i was not and i felt that the powers that make and control life did not care two whether i was or not life as i had seen and felt from my earliest period used people sometimes to their sometimes not occasionally as i could see i was used to my advantage well as to of some one or something else occasionally i waa used as i thought to my now and then when i imagined i was being used most it was not so at all as when for a period i found myself unable to write and so compelled to turn to other things a turning resulted in better material later on at this time however i felt that whatever the quality of the gifts handed a book about myself me or the done me were as compared to some and again i was honestly and interested in the horrible inflicted upon others their weaknesses of mind and body of all and sorts the help	43
or were by internal fires as in the case of the fascinating and minded john t to their own that great that warm heart the for indulging in these moods was to the act that i had plenty of time on my hands that just st this time i was more interested in seeing than in reading and that the three principal hotels here southern fashion were most hospitable their and even their with comfortable rocking chairs where might sit and dream or read or view the scene with idle or eye my hotel was the large and not bnt still and popular which stood at the comer of sixth and avenue here i would repair whenever i had a little time and rock in peace and watch the crowd of strangers to and fro the manager of this a brisk interesting and yet job american seeing me sit about every afternoon between thirty and six and knowing that i was from the finely began to greet me and ask if i did not want to go np to dinner how lonely and forlorn i have looked on and christmas of this my first season there seeing me idle and alone he asked me to be his i accepted not knowing what else to do to make it seem like a real invitation be came in after i was seated at the table and sat down with me for a few minutes he was so charming and the hotel so brisk and crowded that i soon felt at home the daily routine of work seemed to provide ample proof of my suspicions that life was grim and sad it be a a suicide a failure a which i would be to cover and on the same day there would be an important wedding a business or a a about ban or a entertainment of some kind which provide the necessary contrast to prove that life is and and to some lavish to others here money often inherited or made by shabby methods seemed to throw commonplace and even wretched into such glittering and in this world at least many of the men with i came in contact were their wives and daughters vain and coarse and was impressed by the airs of the prominent their craving for show and pleasure their insane for personal mention hear indifference to anything except money a keen wish to seem to despise it i remember going one afternoon to an where some function was in i was met by an who exclaimed moat my dear sir who sent you the we never give lists to newspaper men we never admit and then closed the door on me i reported as much to the city editor who remarked meekly well that s all right and gave me else to do bat the next day a list of the guests at this function was published and in thia paper i made inquiry of who said oh the editor must have turned that in these society send in their lists beforehand and then say th don t ve another time it was the residence of the catholic of st louis a very old but shrewd man whom so it was in newspaper circles the local priests were to make appear and in order that a favorite of theirs might be made i waa sent to inquire about his health to see him if at the door i was met by a sleek dark priest who inquired what i wished be assured me that the was too feeble to be seen that ia exactly why i am here i insisted the wishes to the public of his exact condition there to be a belief on the part of some that he ia not as ill as ia given ont a about ton accuse ns of something in connection with the i this is and he firmly shut me ont it seemed to me that the would have been to let me meet the he was a public official the state of whose health was of interest to thousands bat no official control regulated that shortly afterward he was declared too feeble to perform his and a was appointed again i was sent to a west end hotel to inter a visiting governor who was attending a reception of some kind and who as we understood was leaving the next day my dear fellow said a connected with e entertainment committee yon cannot do anything of the sort this is no time to be coming for anything of this kind bnt he is tomorrow i cannot help that ton cannot see him now how about taking him my card and asking hint tomorrow t no no not i cannot do anything of the sort see him and once again i was briskly forth t recall being sent one evening to attend a great ball of some kind the veiled which was held in the general selling room of the stock exchange at third and and which followed as a some huge parade the city editor sent me for a general view or or pen to be used as a lead to the story which was to be done by others for this occasion i was ordered to hire a dress suit the first i had ever worn which cost the paper three dollars i greatly disturbed by my appearance once i got in it and feeling very queer and conspicuous i was greatly troubled as to what sort of impression my would make on the various members of the staff as to the latter i was not long in doubt ay look at our friend in the will a book about this from he looks like a real man to met yon mean called who is i don t to remember him those come near being a fit don t this from some one had laid hold	43
of the side lines of the i could not make np my mind whether i wanted to fight or laugh or whether i was handsome or a howling but the thing that weighed on me most was the enough perhaps to those intimately connected with it which this ball presented contrasted with my o state after spending three ng examining flowers getting names details of and drinking with whose sole appeared to be to look after the press and see that they got all details straight i to the office and began to forth a glowing account of how it all was how how perfect the women how their how and the men how oriental or or i foi t which were the the nights or the of the who does not recognize this newspaper poured forth from one end of america to everything a or an i f ladies d to an or a as i was writing my head with the imaginary and impossible of the occasion i was informed by my city editor that when i was i should go to a number in south st louis where only an hour before a triple or murder had been committed i was to go ont on a street car and if i could not get back in time by street car i was to get a carriage and drive back at speed in order to get the story into the last edition the great fear that the rival paper the would get it or mi t already have it and we would not and so my head fall of pearls a world of flowers and a about limits i now out along the lonely of st louis to the of cottages in the of streets where among with lean at the back for was one which contained thia stray an irish policeman silent and indifferent trap already at the small dark gate in the dark and street it against another was inside the door which stood partially open and beyond in the in the their faces all bnt a few people a word of explanation and i y a admitted a faint glow from a small smoky lamp the front room darkly it tamed oat that a very honest simple and american of about fifty who bad been working by the day in this neighborhood had recently been taken ill with brain fever and had on this night arisen from his seized a crept into the front room where his wife and two little children slept and all three he had then to the rear room where a grown slept on a coach beside him and had first her with the iron and then cot her throat with a knife as the deed seemed and apparently it was the of fever the policeman at the gate informed me that the father had already been taken to the courts and that a hospital was any bat he s oat his mind he insisted he s sure or sick the fever no man in his right do that i tried to to him bat he couldn t say like after my grand ball this wretched front room presented a sad and ghastly contrast the and were very poor the dead wife and children homely and seemingly work worn i noticed the dim smoky flame cast by the lamp the cheap bed and stained red the mother and two children lying in limp and disorder the draped half off it was evident that a had taken place for a chair a book about myself and table were upset the board a and the bed pushed shocked beyond measure yet with an eye to color and to the zest of the for details i examined the three rooms with care the officer in the house following me together we looked at the in the kitchen what was in the to eat what in the closet to wear i made notes of the contents of the rooms their then went to the neighbors on either hand to learn if they had heard anything then in a stray owl car no carriages being available i to the four several miles to see the criminal i found him old pale sick thin walking up and down in his small iron cell plainly out of his mind a picture of hopeless unconscious misery his hands trembled idly about his mouth his shabby ba ed about his shoes he was and weak looking and all the while he to himself some unintelligible sounds i tried to talk with him but could get nothing he seemed not even to know that i was there so was he then i questioned the jail attendants those dull of the law had he talked t did they think he was with the usual and of this tribe they were inclined to f he was i through dark streets to the office it was an almost empty room in which i my picture with the of youth and curiosity and sorrow and wonder i told it all the terror the pity the as i wrote each pi e was taken up by and sent up then having done perhaps a column a half having arrived with various police theories i was allowed finally to out into a dark street and seek my miserable little room with its bed its dirty its ragged carpets and stained walls nevertheless i lay down with a kind of high pride and satisfaction in my story of the murder and my description of the ball and life in consequence i i w not so bad i w getting along i must be thought an exceptional man to be picked for two such tasks in the same evening life itself was a book about myself not so bad it was hi pi as that was au if one were m it was all right next when i reached	43
the office and and some my staff pretty good and i was beside with glee i strolled about as though i owned the earth pretending simplicity and humility but actually believing that i was the finest ever that no one could me at this game of chapter nearly as sharp and as well calculated to one to on the wonder the the uncertainty the indifference the and the rank of life were daily if not put before me now it would be some such murder as this or a social of some kind often of a and character in or a suicide of sad or grim character or again it be a fine piece of as when a certain board and feed stable owner of the west end to lose his property because f poor and anxious to save himself by seeming the set fire to the stable and destroyed seventeen healthy horses as well as one stable attendant and got away with it legal anyhow his plan had probably been to save the horses and the man but the plan i gathered as from him when i him i put some questions at him bat could get no on which to base a charge he vas a shrewd calculating commercial type vigorous and s ni savage he me and i bad to write the fire np as a sad accident there by him to get his the while i was convinced that he i as guilty a hard hearted scoundrel another thing i very at this time was the fact that the average newspaper was a far better in his way than the legitimate official and pot nearly bo weu paid the average so called man thing as low in his ideas and methods aa the lowest criminal he set to trap the criminal at least shrewd and enough to plot and execute a crime whereas the had no brains at all mere a low kind of cunning often red headed with big hands and feet store clothes why does a a book about myself of the come back to me t eyed vith a air of mystery and in matters requiring neither dirty eyed and the in different cases a grain of whereas the average was by contrast anyhow intelligent or shrewd y always if at times a little inclined to and sport perhaps bat genial often gentlemanly a fascinating story a keen nearly always one of the best frequently well read sympathetic or gloomy aa the case might be bnt generally to be r ed in for work naturally there was some enmity between the two a contempt on the part of the newspaper man for the a fear and dislike and secret opposition on the part of the the would go forth on a case and as a rule given time enough would solve it whereas the police would be about often trailing the reading the newspapers to discover what had been discovered and then when the work had been done and the true would step forward at the grand moment to do the and get their pictures and names in the papers the were constantly playing into the bands o the police in unimportant matters during periods between great cases doing them little helping them in small cases in order that when a big case came along they have done them the most important of all these of course was that of seeing that their names were mentioned in the papers as being engaged in a mystery or having done and so when in all some newspaper man had done it sometimes the tip as to where the criminal was likely to be found would be furnished by the papers and later to the police sometimes the new men lash the police sometimes flatter them but always they were seeking to make the police aid than to get various necessary things done and not always succeeding sometimes the police were hand in glove with certain or evil and you all bnt prove i bat until yoa did si and after a book about myself th were and defy a and the papers t not for long they loved too much offer them and they would act it was nearly b my experience that the newspapers which meant the of an city editor and possibly a managing editor would be the first to worm ont the of any given case and then point an almost finger at the criminal then the police or would come in and do the and get the credit another thing that impressed me greatly at this time was the character of newspaper work which in its personal significance to me cannot be too much as i have said one day it be a crime of a lurid or character that would arrest and compel me to and the same day within the hour perhaps it would be a or with some theory of life some who in passing st louis on a lecture tour would be at one of the best hotels usually the southern talking and again it would be some or of a low order a let us say of the or a like bishop or a third rate like the reverend sam jones who was then in his preaching hell or the arrival of a actor like john l then only recently defeated by or a of the order such as hall and there were distinguished individuals including such excellent as henry and henry m or a like or a of the standing of i was sent to interview my share of these to get their views on something anything or nothing really for my city editor mr seemed at times a little cloudy as to their significance and certainty i had no clear insight into what most of stood for i wondered guessed made vague at what i thought they represented and in the	43
main took them seriously enough my favorite question was what did they think of life its meaning since this was in my mind at the time and i think i asked it iso a book about of ver one of them from john l to and wh t a of doctrines i what a noble of ideas i in a room at the southern with flowers am ed in a cool silken gray dress informed me that the age was material that and show were an based on nothing at all i wrote that down understanding what she meant that the had long since solved all this seeming of madame being the most recent and the greatest of wisdom in this matter and that the great thing to do in this world or the next was to improve and so attain to a word i had to look np afterward when i told dick wood about her he seemed greatly impressed and said oh there s more to that stuff than a think you re just not np on all that yet these see more tha we think they do and he looked very wise and henry imagine me at the age of one trying to interview him when he was in the of his fame and mental powers short with a belly slightly gray hair and simple in his manner and secure in his fame be had just the preceding summer said that candidate of the hour and later elected was certain to walk up an alley to a slaughter house and an open grave and had of seen his fail he was convinced that the country was in bad bands not likely to go to the bow as yet but in for a bad spell and when i asked him what he thought of life my son when yon get as old as i am yon probably wont think bo much of it you won t be to blame it s good enough in its way but it s a damned business you may say that said that if you like do the best yon can and don t crowd the other fellow too hard and yon come out as well as anybody i suppose and then john l raw red faced big with gaudy waistcoat and tie and rings and pins set with enormous diamonds and what an a book about he made i hj local and of the t and degraded character he waa a great favorite with them he to me in hia at the to be the of the gross and and material cigar champagne beer bottles and the floor and back in the midst of it all in ease and his very great self a sort of prize fitting j p can hear him even now when i asked my favorite question about life bis plans the of exercise i etc he wants to know exercise you re all right young slim bat yon do sit down and have some champagne have a cigar give some cigars these young newspaper men are all all right to me i m for em exercise t what i think t i i write any damned thing please and say that john l said so that s good for me if they don t believe it bring it back here and sign it for bat i know it ll be all t and i won t stop to read it neither that suit well all right now have some more champagne and don t say i didn t treat right i did i m ex champion of the world defeated hy that little from bat i m still john l ain t that th can t take that aw from me can have some more champagne b i adored him i would have written anything he asked me to write i got up the very best article i and published it and was told afterward that it was fine another thing that interested me about newspaper work was its pagan or character as contrasted with the heavy and point of view prevailing in the proper the page of coarse as well as the world outside while the office mi t be preparing the most or r the worth of man the value of progress character religion morality the of the s a book and the the office and rooms were concerned with no such fine theories the office was all with little or no of anything save success and in the city news room the mask was off and life was handled in a and manner gloves and in a catch as catch can fashion did not go here innate honesty on the part of any one was not probable charity was a business with something in it for somebody morality was in the main for consumption get the t the that was the great cry in the don t worry over how yon get it bat get it and don t c it i don t fall down i don t let the other newspapers skin ns that is if yon job i and write and write well if any other paper writes it better than yon do yon re beaten and might as well resign the must be entertained by the writing of bat the methods and the and the necessary at times for the gathering of news what a shock even though one realized that it was with life itself i at most times one needed to be hard cold for instance one of the problems that ine most and to which there aa solution save to act or get ont was how to get the facts from a man or woman suspected of some or without letting him know that yon were so doing in the main if yon wanted facts of any kind especially	43
in connection with the you did not dare tell them that yon came as an enemy or were bent on exposing them one had to approach all even the worst and moat degraded as a friend and pretend an interest perhaps even a sympathy one did not feel to apply the oil of flattery to the to do less than this was to lose the news and while a city editor might readily forgive any form of he never forgive failure cheat and win and you were ail right be honest and lose and you were fired to appear wise when yon were ignorant doll when yon were not disinterested when yon were interested a book about or on might be the wore the tricks of the trade and i being seat ont da and the of the hotels at different times soon other newspaper men who were as shrewd and as who had apparently but one motive in life to trim their fellow newspaper men in the matter of news or the public which provided the news there only two morning papers here the globe and the the of each loved the others not even when personally th were inclined to be friendly they did not dare permit their personal likes to affect their work it was every man for himself meet a of the or the on a story he might be friendly but he would tell yon he wished either to yon or worm your facts ont of yon meet him in the of the la where i common consent winter or most seemed to gather or at the comer and each would be friendly with the other trading tales of life going together to a saloon for a drink or to the a famous eating place on chestnut between fourth and perhaps a a quarter or a dollar until pay day but never with news or tips quite the reverse as i soon found one had to keep an absolutely close mouth as to all one mi t at the of all of these men was to get the news in any way possibly by hook or by and to lose no time in it if a document was lying on an official s table for instance and you wanted to see it and not persuade him to give it to you well if he turned his back it was good business to take it or at least read it if a was desired and the one concerned would not give it and yon saw it somewhere take it of coarse and let complain afterward if they would your city editor was supposed to protect you in such matters you t know of certain conditions of which a public was not aware and the knowledge of which would cause him to talk in ne wi whereas lack of that knowledge would cause him im a book about to talk in another yon might think it to tell him bat aa a newspaper man a not it was your duty to paper to sacrifice him if yoa didn t some one else would i was not long in learning all this and more and i understood the necessity i sometimes resented having to do it there were times when i wanted to treat people better than i did or could sometimes i told that i was better in this respect than other newspaper men but when the test came i found that i was like the others as eager to get the news something akin to a dog s lust of the chase would in critical moments seize upon me and in my eagerness to win a battle i would forget or nearly every of and get it then victorious i might over the sadness of it all and decide that i was going to get out of the business as i eventually did and for very much this reason but at the time i was weak or practical enough one afternoon i was sent to interview the current candidate for mayor an amiable soul who a harness business aad who was supposed to have an excellent chance of being elected the city had long been of or so our office seemed to think when i entered his place he was in the front part of the tore discussing with several friends or the character of st louis its political and social it and the like and for some reason possibly to the personality of his friends he was very severe local among others came in for a good i did not know him but for some reason i at once that the man talking was the candidate again i instinctively knew that if what he was saying were published it would create a sensation the lust of the a wild animal immediately took possession of me what a beat to take down what this man was saying what a stir it would make i without seeming to want anything in particular i stood by a and examined the articles within soon he finished his and came to me well a book about myself i from the i want to yon and i im he heard that i waa from the he became visibly excited did yon hear what i saying now t tea air weu yon know that i was not speaking for i know and you re not to forget that i understand the i to the office and wrote np tiie incident just as it had my editor took it over it and departed for the front office i could tell by hia manner that he was excited the next day it was published in all its crude reality and the man waa there were furious in the rival papers a lying waa not only by ur the candidate but by all the other at i was called	43
to the front office to explain to ur which i did in detail he said it all did he asked and i insisted that he had i know it s true he said for other people have told me that he said the same things before day there was a defiant in the defending me my the fact that the truth of the interview waa by previous words and deeds of tiie on the paper came forward to congratulate me to tell me what a beat i had made but to tell the i felt unkind i waa an i had taken an unfair advantage and i knew it still something in me made me feel that was fortunate aa a i had the paper a great service my editor in aa i see appreciated it no other immediate personal reward came to me but i felt that i had strengthened my standing here a little yet for that i had killed that man youth seat life the love of the that ia all that explains it to me now xxvi mt as a local man seemed to hy leaps and i am certain almost how often they have occurred in my seemed to assist me far above my or even my dreams thus one morning i had come down to the city room to get something a paper or a book i had left before going to my late breakfast when a tall broad man wearing a hat and like the typical colonel into the and is the city editor he isn t down yet i replied ai thing i can do for z just stopped to tell you there s a big wreck on the road up here near i saw it the train as i passed coming down from a half dozen cars are if yon people get a man up there right away yon can get a big lead on this i a piece of paper for i felt instinctively that this was important some one ou t to attend to it right away i looked to see if there was any one to appeal to bnt there was no one what did you say the name of the place i inquired t ton can t miss it better get somebody np there quick i think it s something big i know how important these things are to you newspaper i used to be one myself and i owe the a few good turns anyhow he smiled and out i did not wait to see the editor i felt that i was taking a big risk going out without orders bnt i also felt that something terrible had happened and that the a book about myself it i had never seen a big wreck it mast be the newspapers always gave them so space i wrote a note to the city editor explaining that tiie wreck was reported to be a great one and added that i felt it to be my duty to go at once perhaps he had better send an artist after me imagine me him i the way to the i t of what i most do for an artist if the wreck waa real important and then get my and get hack it was over an hour s run i got off at the nearest station to the wreck and walked the remaining distance which was a little more than a mile as i it i saw a crowd of people gathered about what was evidently the embers of a train and on the same track not more than a feet away were three oil ears those evidently into which the passenger train had these cars were also by a crowd of towns as it proved who were staring at them as the fire blazed about them as i learned later a oil car had been smashed and the contents had poured ont about these others of the oil group as well as the passenger train itself the oil had taken fire and the train no people were killed the significance of the scene had not yet dawned upon me however when for the second time in my life i as privileged to behold one of those terrible which it is given to few of to see the oil cars which the crowd gathered having become by the burning oil beneath exploded all at once with a report which to me i was no more than fifteen hundred feet away like a deep breath by some powerful man the earth trembled the heavens instantly appeared to be with flame the crowd which only a moment before i had seen about the cars was now hurled back in and i beheld men some toward m some from me their bodies on fire or being ig i saw flames descending toward me long red things and the danger i and in a panic ran as fast as i never stopping until i deemed myself at a a book about distance then i halted and gazed back hearing at the time a of and which tore heart death is here i said to i am a real tragedy a horror the part of the great which makes and our scene is here and now but first of all i was a newspaper man i must report this mn to it not away i saw toward me a man whose face i could not make oat dearly for at times it was partially covered by his hands which seemed at other times the hands waved in the air like and were his body was being by a rosy which partially enveloped him his face whenever it became visible as he moved his hands to and fro was into a horrible of me as he ran he dashed like a fiery force to the low ditch the railroad where he and twisted like	43
a worm i scarcely believe my eyes or my senses my hair rose on end my hands i ran forward off my coat and threw it over him to the spots of bnt it was of no my coat began to bom with my bare hands i tore grass and from the ditch and piled them npon the sufferer for the moment i was beside myself with terror and misery and grief tears came to my and i choked with the sense of helpless misery when i saw my own coat burning i snatched it away and stamped the fire out the man was burned beyond recovery the oil had evidently fallen in a mass npon the back of his head and and back and legs it had burnt his clothes and hair and cooked the akin his hands were black as well as his neck and ears and face finally he ceased to le and lay still groaning heavily bnt unconscious he was alive but that was all oppressed by the horror of it i looked about for help but seeing others in the same plight i realized the of further labor here i could do nothing more i bad stopped a book tiie flames in part the man s rolling in tlie ditch had done the rest but to what end i hope of life was i could bee that plainly i turned like a soldier in battle and looked after the rest of the people to this i can see it all some over the fields in the distance away from the now entirely exploded others approaching the fallen victims a a little beyond the wreck was a small village not a thousand feet away was in spots bits of oil having fallen upon the roofs people were hither and thither like bending over and prostrate forms first idea of coarse when i recovered my senses was that i most get in with my newspaper and get it to send an wood if nd then get the news these people here would do as much for the in as i why waste newspaper s time on i ran to a little road telegraph station a few hundred feet farther on where i asked the agent what was being done i ve sent for a wreck train he replied excitedly i ve the hospital there oo t to be a train and doctor here soon any now he looked at his watch what more can i dot have yon any idea how many are i don t know ton can see for yourself can t io e send for an artist i can t be with anything like that now he replied roughly i felt that an instant and caution enveloped him he hurried away how am i to do t ran studying and with the victims where aid seemed of the test use w how i should ever be able to report all thia and awaiting the arrival of the hospital and train it was not long before the train arrived a thing of flat cars box cars and of an old pattern hospital made ready en and a of doctors and who scrambled ont the air and authority of those used to scenes of this kind meanwhile i had been wondering how long it would be before the wreck train would arrive and had set about getting my information before the doctors and were m the scene when it might not be so easy i knew that names of the injured and their condition were most important and i ran from one to another of the groups that had formed here and there over one dying or dead th em who it w as where lived what bis occupation was curiously there were no women and how he came to be at the scene of the wreck some i found were passengers some of the village of or who had hurried over to see the wreck most of the ers had gone on a train provided for them i had a hard enough time getting information even from those who were able to talk citizens from the town and those who had not been injured were too much frightened by the catastrophe or were a hand to do what they they were not interested in a or his needs a group carrying the injured to the platform resented my intrusion and others searching the meadows for those who had ran far away until they fell were too busy to bother with me stiu i pressed on i went from one to another who they were receiving in some cases replies in others merely groans with those laid ont on the platform awaiting the arrival of the wreck train i did not have so much trouble they were helpless and there were none to attend them oh can t you let me exclaimed one man a book about myself was a block can t you see i m there one who want to i asked it me all at once tliat this was a duty these people owed to their families and friends yon re t said the man with cracked lips after a long silence and he gave his name and an account of hia i went to others and to each who was able to i pat the same question it won me the of those who were watching me all except the station agent seemed to see that i was entitled to do this and he have been soothed with a bribe if i had thought of it as i have said however once the wreck train rolled in and nurses leaped down and men brought to carry away the in a moment the scene changed the of the road tamed a frowning face upon and i was only too glad that i had thought to make my early however i	43
account tou saw it that s right echoed got em licked that ll all right he to beat the other sunday papers it was saturday night s sick confided youve saved his bacon he hates a big story because he s always afraid he won t cover it right and it always him but he knows you ve got em beat give him credit for it all right oh that big stiff i i said to something always that big stiff said hazard bitterly he plays in luck by george he hasn t any brain i went in to report to my superior after a time and told him very humbly that i thought i had written all i could down here but that there was considerable more up there which i was sure should be personally covered by me and that i ought to go back very well he replied bat don t it the big stiff i i t as i went out that night i stayed at a hotel since i was now charging everything to the paper and wanted to be called early and after a feverish deep arose at six and started oat i was as excited and cheerful as though i had suddenly become a i stopped at the nearest comer and bought a a and a post and proceeded to contrast the accounts the to see bow much my stuff made and theirs and a book about ing the atmosphere and to me of mine infinitely the best there it was the front page and nearly all of the second page with i could hardly believe my eyes dick s a mess no spirit or meaning to them great of weird machinery and queer figures he had lost himself in an effort to make a of the original wreck and he had done it very badly at once and for the first time he began to as an artist in my estimation why this doesn t look ai like it at he hasn t drawn what i would have drawn and i began to see or suspect that art might mean something besides clothes and manner didn t he show those dead men that crowd the main entrance of the hospital r the illustrations in the papers seemed much better as for i saw no least saw in my work it was all all right especially the amount of space given me splendid i said to myself vain to think i have written all this and single handed between the hours of five and t it seemed astonishing a fine performance i picked out the most striking passages and read them my throat swelling and my heart beating proudly and then i went over the whole of the article word by word to me in my vain read y well i felt that it was full of fire and pathos and done in the t way with facts and color and to cap it all and fill my cup of satisfaction to the brim this same paper contained an calling attention to the facts that the had in the matter of this story and that the skill of the could always be counted npon in a like this to handle such things correctly and the other poor on their helplessness when faced by such trying the was best and first to this statement i felt that at last i had justified the opinion of the editor in chief in for me with i to despite the woes a book about myself of others i could not help g in the fact that the whole city a good part cl it most be my account of the wreck it was of course and they not know who had done it bnt gust the same i had done it whether they knew it or not and i this was the chance apparently that i bad been longing for and i had not failed this day at was not bo important as i had fancied it might be bat it had its phases on my i took one more look at the where by then l dead bodies were laid out in a row and then began to look after those who were likely to recover i visited some of the families of the afflicted who talked of damage suits at my i wrote a fall account of just how the case stood and it i felt that to finish the thing property i should stay until another di which really was not and decided to do so without consulting my editor but hj nightfall after my copy had been filed i realized my mistake for i received a to return the local correspondent could attend to the remaining details on the way back i began to feel a of conscience in regard to my c i had been taking a great deal for granted as i knew in thus attempting to act without orders hy city editor might think i was getting a swelled head as no i was and so complain to i knew be did not like me and this gave him a good excuse to besides my second day s story now that it was gone did not seem to be so important i might as well have carried it in and saved the expense of it i felt that i failed in this also that mature consideration might decide that i had failed on the first story also i began to think that by my own attitude i had worked up all the excitement in the office that saturday night and that my chief would realize it now and so be disappointed in me suppose i thought en i reached the office were dissatisfied and should fire me what f where would i go where get another job as good as this t i thought of my various	43
and my past work here with this a book ab t t myself last error m ana now to find me ont pride before i quoted and a ty spirit before by eight o clock i reached the i was depressed and in expecting the of the train had late had to be on this occasion t and i did not reach the office in time to take an evening oat which left me nothing to do but only was there and he seemed rather according to him had seemed d i i e d with my wishing to stay up there why had i been so bold i a ed myself so silly so self f i took ap an paper and retired gloomily to a comer to wait when arrived at nine he looked at me bnt nothing as i was to go out to get something to eat in and said mr wants to speak to yon sly heart sank i went in and stood before him ton called for met tea bit wants to see yon it s all i thought i can tell by his manner what a fool i was to high hopes on that i went out to the hall and walked to the office of the chief which waa at the end of the hall i waa bo depressed i have cried to think that all my fine dreams were to have an end that napoleon like creature waa sitting in his little his chin on bis chest a sea of papers about him he did not when i entered and my heart grew heavier he was angry with me i i see it i he kept his back to me which was to show me that i was not wanted done for i at last he t ton called for me mr i he in his thick way voice always as it were being by something or i wanted to say he added covering me with a single glance that i liked that story yon wrote indeed a fine piece a book about myself of work a piece of z like to recognize b good piece work when i see it i have raised your five dollars and i like to give you thia he reached in his et drew ont a roll and handed over a yellow i have dropped where i stood the reaction was after my great depression i felt as i should with joy hut instead i stood there awed by this generosity i m very much obliged to yon mr i finally managed to say i thank yon very ill do the best i can it was good piece of work he repeated a good piece of work and then slowly wheeled back to his desk i tamed and walked briskly out chapter tax fact that i had gained the notice of a man as important as a man whom a poet had a poem more than i stand i walked on air the next morning to work i found for only hotels and heard in uie my tasks and was why not great why not i had recovered from this i walked about the streets g my fingers into my palms and shaking myself with delight as i thought of saturday and monday that was worth talking now i was a real newspaper man i had beaten the whole town and in a new city a city strange to me i having practically nothing to do and my excitement some i to the art department this same day to report on what had happened by now i was so set np that i scarcely conceal my t and told both not only about my raise in salary hut also that i had been given a twenty dollar hill hy an a i g thing of course this waa received with feelings by the department was pleased of course bat dick naturally was inclined to be he was conscious of the fact that hia drawings were not good and had been him about them dick admitted it frankly that he had not been able to collect himself know i t do those things very weu and i shouldn t have been sent ont on it that s for you i perhaps it him to think that he should have been so unfortunate at the very time that i should have been so rewarded anyhow he did not anything save a generous to me at the time i felt that it was beginning of a renewal of that t based oa his a book about original opposition to me he me b ing done it this time i m f ad yoa ve made s bit old that n t z was not invited to his room as i hoped i be he and peter meat off somewhere to his room as i assumed i applied myself instead to heard in the then the days settled down into their old routine for me petty minor between one thing and another only one thing held me np and that was that hazard now urged me to do a novel with him a thing which flattered me so much that i f career as a great writer was at hand for had be not done a novel already f i considered it for a few days arguing the details of the plot with him at the and after bat it came to nothing plays rather than as i fancied for some reason were more in my line and poems things which i to do since writing that first poem a month or so before i was now from time to time down the most relative to my and dreams and them to be great verse i i was to be a great poet one of the very greatest and so nothing else really	43
controlled by a reckless eager impulse mr i said without further i want to know if you won t make me editor i bear that has and the position is open i t maybe yon t give it to me i and i will he replied simply and you re editor tell mr to let yon be it i started to thank him bnt the little figure moved in differently away i had only time to say i m veiy much obliged before he was gone i returned to the ci room to the to think that i have b en made dramatic editor and so quickly in such an easy this great man s consideration for me was certainly i thought plainly he liked me else why be do if only i could now bring myself seriously to this great labor what might i not dramatic editor of the of the great city of st louis and at the age of twenty one well now that was something by i and this great man liked me he really did he knew me at ne t honored my request and would no if i behaved myself make a great newspaper man of me it was something to be the favorite of a great editor in chief by a very great thing indeed chapter my to had happened he looked at me aa much as to sa what the devil is this now that this is telling then i that i must have some secret hold on mr or at least stand hi in his favor he gave me a very and said he would have made out for me a letter of introduction to the local an hour later this was laid on m desk by who congratulated me and there i was dramatic editor i exclaimed when he came in with the letter i bet you have knocked over with a straw i he doesn t yet i guess how w yon stand with the old man the chief most like see that my new honor made a considerable difference in his already excellent estimate of me armed with this letter i now the of the all of whom received me cordially i can still see myself very gay and sure that i was entering npon a great work of some kind and the dreams i had iu connection with the my future as a great popular perhaps it was all such a wonder world to me the stage such a that i with joy as i went about thinking that now certainly i should come in touch with actors beautiful women think of it dramatic critic a person of weight and there were seven or eight in st louis three or of them only that better sort of play known aa a first attraction the others giving and the manager of the grand a short sandy man of most jovial mien was mc father of the well known of a later period and the of hia most humorous character mr ji s he exclaimed npon seeing me a book about so you re the new dramatic editor are they change over there pretty swift don t happened to first it was then then hazard then then and now yon all in my time well mr i m ad to see yon you re always welcome here ill take yon ont and yon to onr and mr in the hell always yon well give yon the best seat in the house if it s empty when yon come he and i had to at the wi he rattled off this welcome an of and him quite the same as that which makes mr this was the first i had ever heard of having held this position and now i felt a little guilty as i had edged him out of something that ri belonged to him still i didn t really care aa i t i had won did bob hazard once have this position t i asked tes that was he was on the paper the last time he s been off and on the three or four times yon know he smiled i laughed yon and get along i he at the other i was received less but with uniform courtesy all assured me that i should be welcome at any time and that if i ever wished tickets for n or a friend or anybody on the paper i get them if they had them and well make it a point to have them said one i felt that this was quite an acquisition of influence it gave me considerable opportunity to be nice to any friends i mi t and then think of the privilege of seeing any show i chose to walk ri t into a without being stopped and to be pleasantly greeted en route i the character of the stage of that d in st and the rest of america at least as contrasted with what i know of its history in the world in general remains a curious and interesting thing to me aa i look back on it now it a book about myself bat then it was it is entirely that like or have to grow and obtain full development regardless of the store of wisdom and in other lands else how otherwise explain the vast level of which in some and many forms of effort and that after so much that has been important elsewhere f the stage in other lands had already seen a few periods even here in america the art was no mystery a few great thin been done in acting at least by mary to name but a few i was too at the time to know or judge of their art or the quality of the plays they interpreted aside from those of shakespeare perhaps bat certainly their fame	43
for a high form of was considerable and yet daring the few months that i was dramatic editor and the following year when i was a member of another staff and had to these same i saw only one or two actors worthy the name only one or two performances i ch i can now deem worth while and stand la my mind as excellent and smith and joseph as bat who comic and light opera with a heavy of straight and comedy were the things that ventured to essay occasionally a actor of the of sir henry or e s would appear on the scene bat many of their plays were of a more or less character highly sentimental and unreal in my stay here of about a year and a half i saw joseph smith junior e s b h and a score of others more or less important but too numerous to mention li singers and the like and although at the time i was entertained and moved by some of them i now realize that in the a book about mt tlie were pale li ts and at that america was but then entering its worst period of stage or the as such had not yet appeared bnt mr presents was npon oa master of middle class sweetness and i remember staring at the three sheet and thinking how and perfect th were and what a great thing it was to be of the stage to be an author an actor a a manager to have present i the and i with their groups of perfect lady and gentleman actors were then at their height the of stage art john drew for instance with his wooden face and manners mr miss miss this miss that such excellent actors as henry b or scarcely gain a hearing i recall sitting one night in s at ninth or tenth and pine streets and hearing order down the at one of the most critical points in his famous play baron or some such name and then come before it and de the in bat measured terms for what he considered its ignorance and lack of taste it had applauded it seems at the wrong time in that way which only an american audience can when it is there solely because it thinks it ou t to be by that time had already achieved a if not a real artistic following and was slowly but surely becoming a on this occasion he explained to that bland gathering that they were fools that american were usually composed of such animals or creatures and were in the main doll to the point of that they were not there to see a great actor act but to see a man called who was said to be a great actor he pointed out how uniformly american applauded at the wrong time how truly they were to all artistic how wooden and reputation following at this some of them arose and left others seemed to it a great joke and remained still others were angry bnt a about myself wanted to see the having his ha ordered op the curtain and proceeded with his act as nothing had happened aa though the were really not there i confess i rather liked him for his stand even i did not quite know whether he waa t or wrong bat i wrote it up as though he had insulted his audience a body of worthy and respectable t some one hazard i think that it would be good to do bo and i being green to my task did so the strength of the sentiment and we down at that time and still can and do to this d is to me beyond belief and i waa one of those who did the indeed i was one of the worst those perfect nights for instance when aa critic i strolled into one or another two or three in an evening possibly and observed as i t the work of those who were leaders in dramatic or composition and that of our leading actors i it may be that the spirit has no particular use for intelligence above s level or bet ter yet and far more likely intelligence works throng whose by which the mob is eventually entertained and made wise must contest them otherwise how explain the vast level of especially in connection with the stage the people s then today and forever i suppose until time shall be no i recall for instance that i thou t mr drew was really a superior actor and also that i thought that most of the plays of henry arthur jones arthur thomas and others many others were enduring of art i confess it i thought so or at least i heard so and let it go at that how sound i thought their of life to be i the cruel over lords of trade in those plays for instance how cruel they were and how the virtues of the lowly and the betrayed ter with her sad downcast expression the moral splendor of the young minister who heartless wealth and and cruelty in high places and a book about them then and there or made them confess their i i can see him yet slim simple perfect a good man the on the spot manner in which splendid were effected in an or a night the wrongs in yoa can still see them in any in america to this there is no thing as a reckless unmarried girl in any in america they are all married bnt bow those st louis applauded i here in america at least was always rewarded and left triumphant wrong was quite always proper out onr better selves invariably got the better of our lower selves and we went home cured saved and there was little of evil of	43
any description which went before in acts one and two which not be straightened out in the last act the spirit of these plays my fancy at that time and elevated me into a world of which unfortunately fell in with the wildest of my youthful love as i saw it here set forth in all those gorgeous or sentimental was the only kind of love worth while fortune also gilded as only the stage can d it and as shown nightly by mr everywhere in america was the only type of fortune worth while to be rich elegant exclusive as in the of and mr jones and mr according to what i saw here love and youth were the only things worth discussing or thinking about the splendor of the the social of new london and paris the sex of such minds as junior then in his and a number of other current seemed all to be built around youth and love the dreary of actual life was carefully shut out from these pieces the simple delights of ordinary living if they were used at all were exaggerated beyond sensible belief and elsewhere not here in st louis but in the new yo london paris st were all the that were worth while if i really wanted to be happy a book about i moat go to places of than were the fine clothes the and and vice and painted in that they were always sad or r existed on in those great chapter i to dream more than ever of perfect atmosphere for somehow somewhere bnt never in st of that was too common too western too far from the real wonders of the world love and and travel and romance the great things bnt tb were afar off in new york it was around this time that i was establishing the atmosphere of a in tenth street nothing be so as love in a mansion a palace in some oriental realm such as was indicated in the comic in which thomas q francis and frank were then appearing how often or wood as companion occasionally hazard or a new friend to me by wood and known as or body a most amazing person aa i will later relate i to these poetic stage scenes i with one or other of these i visited aa many aa i if for no more than an or an act at a time and with wonder and scenes as most appealed to me the scene for instance in the or the third act of nearly any of henry arthur jones s plays also all of the light of de and harry b smith as well as those of color and melody the the au the such as fox of long line of comic opera who somehow me of held me with delight and admiration here at last was tiie kind of maiden i was really craving an of this airy temperament i remember that one at the close of of mr wh laid s at the the t lave a book about story in which he appearing a popular leading woman a very one i waa hy the manager to wait for a few moments after the performance so that he mi introduce me why i know it seemed that he was taking them to supper and thought they might like to meet one of the local critics or that i might like to accompany them an honor which i declined out of fright or when they finally appeared in the of the however the young very and soft and clinging and dressed most after the manner of the stage i was beside myself with envy and despair for she appeared hanging most tenderly on her star s arm she was his mistress i understood and gazing about such beauty such vivacity i could anything be ao lovely think of having such a perfect creature love you hang on your arm i and here was i poor a mere a nobody upon wh n such a splendid creature would not bend a second glance mr was full of tlie heavy of the actor which made the scene all the more impressive to me i think most of us like to be up at on time or by some one i i at her pretending to be but little interested while i was really dying of envy finally after a few words and a few smiles cast in my direction i was urged to come with them but instead hurried away pleading and my stars and my fate think of being a mere at twenty five or thirty a week others earning thousands were thus in the sunshine of success and ah why might not i have been bom rich or famous and so able to command so lovely a woman i if i had been of an ordinary sensible turn of mind with a of that practical wisdom which puts moderate place and position first and sets great store by the saving of mon i might have succeeded fairly well here better than i did anywhere else for a long period after unquestionably mr liked me i think he may bare been fond of me in some amused way to keep such a bounding high flown about the a book place i might have held this place for a or two and made it a stepping stone to something better bat instead of rejoicing in the and t it the end and aim of my daily i looked npon it as a mere i had bnt might not have tomorrow and anyhow there were better things than working day by day and living in a small room e certainly to bring me better something truly splendid and soon i deserved it everything a great fine clothes women the respect and companionship of men indeed	43
all my pain and misery was plainly caused by just a lack or as thia had i these things all be well without them well i was very miserable i was ready to accept if by that i could get what i wanted while not ready to admit that all people were as deserving as i by ai the sad state of the poor was a constant with me bat near always i was the greatest and poorest and most deserving of all thia view tended to the of my work a of imagination and force still any limited as i was at that time has a i ig road to go even in that moat imaginative of all the literary the possessor of notions sa i then held is certainly from anything important he passes beyond them yet the or i have described appears to reign in too often it is a condition of many minds of the better sort and is retained in its worst form by experience it is knocked out of them or they are utterly in the process bat it cannot be got over with mine was a sad case one of the things which this point of view did for me was to give my writing at that time a and melancholy torn which not go in any newspaper of today i hope i me to paint the ideal as not only entirely probable before life be what it the as yon see i so twist and the most commonplace scenes as to make one think that i was writing of paradise indeed i my imagination to away a about me at and only the good sense of tlie or the indifference of a practical minded public the paper from appearing on one occasion for instance i went to report a of quality that was at the and was with a love scene which was a part of it that i was entirely blinded to all the faults of construction the remainder of the play showed and wrote it np in the moat glowing colors and the copy reader was too weary that ni t or too to capture it the next day some of the other newspaper men in the office noticed it and commented on it to me or to saying it was high and that the play itself was which was but did that core met not a bit i was for a day or two by it bnt not for long seeing other rs of the same and with much sweet love in them i as before a little later a negro singer a yoimg woman of considerable ability who was being as the black was to appear in st the of the that was presenting her called my attention by letter to her ability and by means of and notices of her work published elsewhere had endeavored to impress me i read these notices in the glowing phrases of the press agent and went forth on this to cover this myself to make it all the i invited and with him proceeded to the where we were assigned a box as it turned out or as i chanced to see or feel it the woman was a sweet and impressive singer engaging and agreed with me that she sing we listened to the of a dozen pieces including such old as and the bye and then i being greatly moved returned to the office and wrote an account that was fairly m with the which i was there i did not attempt to her art i not knowing nothing of even the of plunged at once into that wider realm which a book about the of nature itself what is so as the which the human voice is capable of i wrote in part especially when that is itself a of the things in nature here we hare a young black it is fresh from the woods and of her native country yet blessed by some strange chance with that thing a voice and all that we hold to he most lovely the of the waters the radiance of the moonlight the of sweet sunlight storm the voices and echoes of nature all are found here thrilling over lips which represent in their but a few of the which and skill would seem to require yes one may sit and in hearing miss sing entertain all these things because of them she is a compound youthful suggestive of the sweetness of nature itself to understand the significance of such a statement in st louis one have to look into the social and political conditions of the people who dwelt there to a certain extent they were southern in temperament representing the anti negro spirit which prevailed for so many years after the war again they were fairly illuminated where waa that a bit of such as this was sound it might get by but when it is remembered that thia was and written about a s ro a race more or less alien to their sympathy would it not naturally fall hard ears and appear somewhat ridiculous f a negro the compound of the elements in nature t and in their paper by chance it went through having come to lo upon most of my stuff as the of some ge who could do about as he pleased neither nor the editor in chief saw it perhaps or if they did they gave it no attention music the and the arts being of small import here but depend upon it the of the various rival papers that were being at by the globe saw it and knowing the of our editor in to of his own paper at once set to work to make some a book about thing oat of it and of all the in the middle west by reason of his	43
force and taste and care in his paper was a shining for a thing like this he was as a and extremely conspicuous whatever he did or said good bad or indifferent was invariably the of local newspaper comment and when any little or error appeared in the it was always charged to him personally and so it was with this over the it was too good a thing to be a of the editor of the observed the appears to have visited one of our principal concert halls last night it is not often that that ponderous intellect can be down from the heights of politics to contemplate so simple a as a singer of songs a black one at that bnt when art even he can be counted upon to answer apparently the black beckoned to him last evening and he was not deaf to her call as the following magnificent bit of from pen is here to show then followed the praise in full none but the editor of the ua d have looked into the of as represented by the person of miss jones and there discovered the wonders of music and poetry such as he openly to have done indeed we have here at last a measure of that great man s insight and feeling a love of art poetry and the like such as has not previously been indicated by him and we hasten to make representation of our admiration and great debt that others too m not be deprived of this great privilege after this came more of same gay with here and there a reference to the great patron of the black arts and the pure joy that must have been his at thus being able to enjoy within the of hall the of the waters bom a black throat it was a gentle satire not wholly for since the item had appeared m the globe and directed at the one who a book about stand that of thing ve as he to his dignity i vas that any comment had been made on my until about five in the afternoon by time the afternoon of the bad been ont hours i entered the office at five comfortable and at peace with myself in my new position excited comment was about the office as to what the old man would think and say and do now he had gone at two it appeared to the southern for luncheon and had not returned wait until he saw it i oh me i oh my wouldn t he be i who was reasonably nervous as to his own share in the matter was the first to approach and impress me with the of it all how savage the old man could be in any instance just wait oh but hell be hot i bet as he talked the old passed up the hall a grim and figure i saw my honors going a here i said to pretending a kind of innocence even at this late hour what s all this what s the row anyhow i see the in the inquired gloomily it was his own that was troubling him no why that criticism you wrote the black they ve made all sorts of fan of it the worst of it is that they ve charged it all np to the old man i smiled a sickly smile i felt as if i had committed some great crime why had i attempted to write anything fine anyhow f why couldn t i have been content and rested with a little praise t had i no sense at au t must i rs be trying to do something this would be the end of t me the post and sorrowfully and with falling i read it my curling my stomach seeming gradually to to why had i a book about as i was there n to the paper near the door which looked into the main room in waa away i heard and then saw enter and walk up to the stout city editor he had a of the in his hand and face was gathered what seemed to me a dark did see this mr i heard him say looked np then closely and respectfully at the paper tee he said i think a thing like that ought to appear in oar paper it s a little bit too hi flown for our reader have it i think so myself replied quietly the editor walked out waited for his footsteps to die aw and then growled at why the did let that stuff go through t haven t i warned you against that sort of thing t why can t you watch out i could have fallen throng the floor i had a of his head in his desk and mute after the evening had been given out and had gone to dinner crept up to me the old man was as mad as the devil he began gave me he won t say anything to you maybe but bell take it out on me he s a little afraid of your pull with the old man but he gives me the devil can t yon look out for chapter in spite of this little which did me no great there was a marked improvement in affairs in every i had a better room various friends wood hazard a new by the same of johnson another by the name of boot a of the and the growing consideration if not admiration of many of the newspaper men of the city among them i was beginning to be looked as a man of some and the proof of it was that from time to time i found being in no mild way from now on i noticed that my noble wood whom i had so looked np to at b an to	43
take me about with him to one or more of the most description in the of the section which same he had discovered and with the of which he was on the best of terms they were really hang for and thieves and characters generally was the beginning of the chinese in america bat not so to wood he had the happy faculty of himself that then waa something vastly mysterious and superior about the entire chinese race and after introducing me to many of hia new friends he proceeded to assure me of the of some huge chinese organization known as the six companies which so far as i could make out from hearing him talk was slowly bnt surely and secretly of getting control of the entire it had complete control of great financial and here there and everywhere and on order thousands of chinese to any one who desired them anywhere and this oi ruled them with a rod of iron cutting their throats and them head down in a of rice when they failed to perform their duties and m a book about their quietly to in made in china and t here for that the chinese who had worked for the of the union pacific had been supplied by this company so he said again there were the chinese free a society so ad and bo powerful and so that one might speak of it only in whispers for fear of getting into trouble this indeed was the great organization of the world in china and every where else songs and knew of it and before its power if it wished it sweep the chinese emperor and all european off their tomorrow there were rites mysteries within in this great organization he was as yet a mere bnt by degrees slowly and surely as i was given to understand was its secrets out of these chinese and its deepest mysteries whereby he hoped to profit in this wi he was going to study chinese then go to china there he would get into this organization through the influence of some of his chinese friends here then he was going to get next to some of e officials of the chinese government and being thus highly recommended and thought of would come back here eventually as an official chinese attached perhaps to the chinese at washington how he was to profit bo vastly by this i could not see but he seemed to think that he would again there was his literary world which he was always dreaming about and over his art into which i was now by d permitted to look he was ahead in that realm and since i doing fairly well as a daily it might be that i would be to perceive a little of all he was hoping to do his great dream or scheme was to study the life of st louis at first hand those horrible and lowest and south of market and east of eighth where listening to the of thieves and and and and and he was to extract from them aside from their stories a book about myself some of and scene that stand him in good stead in e composition of hia tales now bo he told me he content with making notes down scraps of conversation heard at bars in cheap dance and i know not what with a little more time and a little more of that slowly arriving which to most of as i am inclined to think that he might have made something out of all this he was ao much in earnest so patient only as i saw it he was filled with an almost impossible and romance which threw nearly thing ont of he naturally inclined to the and the grotesque bnt in no balanced way his dreams were too wild his mood at nearly all times too utterly romantic his far beyond what a sane contemplation of facts and relative to this period i could other tales he and peter long before i had arrived on the scene had surrounded themselves with a company of their own down and out english army and younger sons of good families a frenchman or two one of was a poet several struggling artists who on them and a few weird and characters so degraded and that i never make out just what their charm was at least two of these had suitable rooms where in addition to dick s and mine we were accustomed to meet there were parties sunday and evening walks or dinners poems on occasion were read original dick s stories as peter invariably insisted were inflicted the or duck a tin bucket of good size was rushed for beer and cheese and and hot sold by old on the after midnight were bought and consumed with captain captain these are names of figures that are now so dim as to be mere ranged a smoky dimly lighted room in some house both dick and peter had reached that state where they were the of attraction aa as and to these others and a book about myself between them got ap weird acts which they took down to some wretched and each doing a torn the glee over the of these things as they now them to wood wag so thin physically and so vigorous mentally that he fascinating to look at he had an idea that this and his story work of the importance and so they were if they bad been bat a to something more or if his dreams could only have been reduced to paper and print there was that i in his eye a ray there was an to his spirit which was delicious as i get him now he was a rather foe or de or and assuredly a of the was certainly there for at times the moods he	43
could ht me were and he saw beauty and romance in many and strange ways and places i have seen him enter a dirty horrible saloon in one of st louis s lowest regions with the air of a prince charming and there seat himself at some table his patent leather low quarters the or floor order beer and then smiling upon all begin to from memory whole sections of conversations he had heard somewhere in the street perhaps all the while his brain to recall the exact word and phrase unlike myself he had a of making friends with these shabby and characters blue mostly whom he picked up rom heaven knows where and how he to prize their vile language their lies and their thoughts and there was bless his enthusiastic heart who seemed to take fire this joint companionship and was determined to do something he scarcely knew what draw paint write collect anything his mind was so wrought up by the rich pattern which life was weaving before his eyes that he could scarcely sleep at nights he was for with us these winter and spring days looking at the dark city after work hours or these with dick and myself or the three of us a book about would take a a and a could perform on the and dick on the and go to park or one of the minor on the side and there proceed to make the night hideous with our some solid policeman that the had rights would interfere and bid ns depart oar invariable retort on all was that we were newspaper men and artists and as such entitled to from the police which the thick of the law would admit sometimes we would go to dick s room or mine and chatter and sing until dawn when somewhat subdued we would seek out some saloon keeper whom either peter or wood knew rouse him oat of his and demand that he come down and supply us with ham and eggs and beer my stage critical work having my desire to write a play or comic opera on the order of or the of champagne two of the of that day or the pleasing of de i set about this task as best i might scenes bits of humor phases of character in this idea i was aided and not only by wood and both of whom by now seemed to think i might do something bnt by the fact that the atmosphere of the globe office as well as of st louis itself was for me at least and i liked the world in which i now found myself there were about me and in the city many who seemed destined to do great things wood hazard a man by the name of who was engaged in of one kind and another william already the johnson a most brilliant who had preceding my coming resigned from the and gone over to the alfred of and one of whose was even then being given a local i have mentioned the wonderful w c who preceded me in writing heard in the and who later stirred america with the all this the fact that thomas bad come a about from here a on tlie and that i ma now one of his s in moved me to the point where i thought oat what i considered a fairly plot for a comic opera which was to be called i it was based on the idea of by reason of his accidentally a stone on his farm an old farmer of a most and from the era in which he then was back into that of the of where owing to a then being indulged in with a view to discovering a new he was to be the answer b as a cowardly in fear for his life he was slowly into an having at one time as many as three hundred ex or of state in one pen awaiting he was to be from carrying out this plan by his desire for a certain maiden was to avoid him until he repented of his crimes she eventually persuaded him to change the form of government from that of a to that of a republic himself as candidate for president there was nothing much to it its only humor lay in the thought or sight of a curious critical farmer upon ancient architecture and forms of worship having once t it out however and being pleased with it i worked at it nights when i was not on and in a week or less had a rough outline of it l and all i told and wood about it and so great was their youthful encouragement that at once i saw this as the way oat of my the path to that great future i desired i would become the author of comic opera books already i saw myself in new york rich famous but at that time i could not possibly write without constant encouragement and having out the opera i now burned for assistance in developing it in detail at last i went to peter and told him of my difficulty my inability to go ahead he seemed to relish the whole idea so much so that he made the thing seem far more plausible and easy for me to do and urged me to go ahead not to faint or a book about set cold of and he even vent so ar oa to aad then later work out in water color suggestions for and color schemes i wonderful i was lifted to the to think that i worked oat something which he interesting i later that evening at peter s i portions of it to wood he also seemed to believe that it was good he that there most be an evening	43
sands of my little life s down and was i so m the strength time the love time i the gay time of color and romance be gone and if i had not spent it folly richly what there be left for me then the joys of a heaven or hereafter ed no part in my wan ma one was dead for all time hence the reason for the over f the tragedy of a lore lost a never properly think of living and yet not living in so a world as this the best of one s hours passing or not properly think of seeing this of pain and and su its sweets go by and yet being compelled to be a a mere hot never in this mood i worked on doing sometimes good work because i was temporarily fascinated and entertained at other times and and moaning over what seemed to me the horrible of it all one day in such a mood as this i received the fc owing final letter from from i had not heard dear at my i know bow i word but i knew it t not to be tour letter showed me that z knew tliat too did not intend to and m i went to i had to i to look forward ton know how i am mj f now that a an p oh think me for thia i am of i wanted to let yon know and to mj good for have been indifferent i cannot bear toward i win make ur a good wife he i do not lore him but that z him i will ton not to have told a book about b that mo with me ton inn ma so but i ia tlie last latter i writ rob dost now them np it ia too oh u know hard it to bring to i sat and stared at the floor after reading this the pain i had was a heavy weight the that if i would come to before noon of thia or for her to delay too what if i go to and get her then to her it be a thing the height of romance saving her from a or dreary fate bnt of me t should i be t was my or my present restless and uncertain state of mind anything to base a marriage i it was not knew that in spite of my great sadness and affection for her was really nothing more to me than a passing bit of beau in itself bnt of no great import to me i was sad for her and for myself of that chief of mine and of life which will not let anything endure permanently love wealth fa i was too restless too there rose before me a picture of my as compared with what ought to be and of any future in marriage based on it actually aa i looked at it then it was more the fault of life than mine these thoughts with the wish i had for greater advancement caused me as usual to hesitate bnt i was in no danger of doing anything there was no great passion io this it was mere sentiment growing more and more and less and i groaned inwardly but night came and the next day and i had not an at noon had been married as she afterward told me years afterward when the fire all gone and thia romance waa ended forever chapter it that i about the city wondering what become of me my dramatic work interesting as it was still so trivial in bo far as the space given it and the public s interest in it were concerned as to make it all but worthless the great was not interested in the stage the proof of it was that he this interesting department to me but were bringing an onward if not upward step i was becoming so restless and unhappy that it have been strange if something had not happened to think that there was no more to this dramatic work for me than now appeared and that in addition mr was allowing mr to me afternoon and ni t or oat of town i had important theatrical performances to report i aa a matter of fact they were not important bnt had no consideration for my critical work he continued to give me two or three things to do on nights when as he knew or i thought he should i should spend the evening witnessing a single performance this was to pay me out so i thought for going over his head i grew more and more and finally a catastrophe occurred it happened that one sunday night late in april three were to arrive in the ci each performance being worthy of special attention nearly all new shows opened in st louis on sunday ni t and it was impossible for me to attend them all in one evening i might have given both dick and peter tickets and asked them to help me but i decided since this was a by my at times to write up the notices beforehand the being from press agent already in my hands and then comment more fully on the plays in some notes which z published mid week it hap a b about that on this particular evening mr had other plans for me consulting me or my theatrical duties he handed me at seven in the a slip of paper containing a notice of a street car hold ap in the far western of the city i was about to protest that my critical work demanded my presence elsewhere bat concluded to hold my he would merely advise me to write up the notices of the shows as i had planned or	43
and extreme perhaps and his own vigor and point of view a book in making a deep on me at once he was a queer little man so different from and restless with eyes so piercing that they reminded one of a hawk s and a skin so that it was italian in quality and made all the more emphatic by a large nose pierced by b nostrils his hands were and like and be had large teeth which showed rather folly when he laughed and that i i can hear it yet a cross between and a it always seemed to me to be a and yet also it had an element of in it he see a point at which others to laugh without apparently enjoying it himself he was at once a small and yet a large man wise and in many ways petty and even in others a man to and if you were to him one to avoid if yon were not but on the whole a man above tiie average in ability and he had the strangest love of great of any one i have ever known especially in the realm of the newspapers at this time was apparently his ideal of what a writer should be and after him and he seemed to know them well and to admire and even love them after his fashion he was calling npon me to imitate s vivid description of the and the gross and the horrible if i that i had read him which i had not bat i did not say so and s and s sore handling of the and the i how often have i heard him refer to them with admiration me tiie line and phrase of certain pictures and yet at the same time there was a bending of the knee to the middle west of which he was a part a kind of horror of having it known that he approved of these things he was a and very proud of it as he was of other local to which he belonged he had the reputation of being one of the best city in the far superior to my late master previously he had been editor of the itself for many and was still of in that office after i left st louis he re a book about tamed to the for a time aad once its guide id local news but that is neither here nor there as it what is a cardinal truth of the world that the best of newspaper men are to be on the poorest of and vice just at this time as i understood he was here because the was making a effort to itself up in popular esteem which it finally succeeded in doing after s death becoming once the leading morning paper as it had been the om under to power just now however in my mood it seemed an exceedingly sad as i now learned had heard of ma and my recent pas as well as some of the other thin i had been doing been working on the he commented when i approached him what did th pay i told him when did you leave a week ago why did you perhaps you saw those notices of three shows that didn t come to i m the man who wrote them up i ho and he began me and his knee i saw those ha ha ha ha i ha ha tes that was very funny very we had an on it and so fired yon did no sir z replied indignantly i quit i t he might want to and i put a letter on his desk and left ha ha ha quite right that s very i know how they do over there i was city editor there myself once they write them up in advance sometimes we do here where do you come i told him he meditated awhile aa h he were uncertain he needed any one ton say you got thirty dollars there i t p anybody that much here not to begin with we never give a book about myself more e to begin with i have a now and it s i might another man if eighteen be enough yon might think it over and come in and see me again some time ni spirits f at so great a drop in salary i hastened to explain that i would be glad to accept eighteen i needed to be at work again whatever u would c mi fair would suit me aid he smiled the market is low now if your work proves satisfactory i may raise yon a little later on he must have seen that he had a soft and more or boy to deal with suppose yon write me a little article about something just to show me what you can do be added i went away insulted by this last request in spite of all he i could feel that he wanted me but i had no skill iu my own affairs to drop from thirty dollars as dramatic editor to eighteen as a mere was terrible with a grain of philosophic melancholy i faced it however feeling that if i worked hard i might yet get a start in way or i must work and save some money and if i did not better myself i would leave st my ability must be worth something somewhere it had been on the i went home wrote the article a mere nothing about some street scene went back to the and left it next day i called all ri t he said yon can go to work i went back into that large shabby room and took a seat in a few minutes the place filled op with the staff most	43
down be here in a little while then well go out and get something we fell to discussing the attitude of the people on the after i had left wood insisted that he had not heard he knew that was glad i was gone as he might well have been had reported to him that had raised with and that two or three of the on the staff had manifested relief ton know who they d be continued wood the fellows who can t do what yon can but would like to i smiled i know about who they are i said we talked the world in general literature the drama the state of politics all seen through the medium of youth and and while we were talking came in he had been to his home in st where he preferred to in ite of his for bi and the ground had all to be gone over with him we settled down to an evening s enjoyment dick went for beer peter lit a rousing pipe ac short stories were produced and plans for new ones at one point peter claimed yon know what i m going to do i m going to study for the leading in that opera of yours i can that and i m going to if yon don t object do should i i replied doubtful however of the wisdom of this peter had never struck me as quite the actor pe i d like to see you do it if you can peter oh i can all ri t that old appeals to me i a book about myself bet that if i get on the stage i can get aw with that he eyed dick for ill bet a said dick peter makes a oh will yon ever the time we down to the old and did a peter f i later the three of as left for a bite and i see that i was as high in their favor as ever which restored me not a little peter seemed to think that my and with the attention and which my name among local newspaper men were doing me good making me an interesting figure i scarcely believe that but i was inclined to believe that i had not fallen as low as at i had imagined chapter thb aa i have indicated was the of all newspaper life at this time at least that part of h of which i knew anything here in during the coarse of a morning afternoon or evening might appear dick or peter hazard johnson boot a long company of newspaper men who worked on the different papers of the city from time to time and who of a desire for companionship in this world and the certainty of finding it here this corner here one get in on a highly or of one kind or another at almost any time so many of these men had come from distant cities and knew them much better than they did st as a rule being total strangers and here only for a short while they were inclined to at as they found them here and to boast of those elsewhere especially the men who came from new york boston san and i was one of those who knowing and st only and wishing to appear wise in these matters boasted of the importance of as a ci such men as boot of new york johnson of boston ware of new and a few others mere looked at me and all i have to say to yon fellow boot once observed to me y if after one of these heated and senseless arguments is wait till yon go to new york and see for i ve been to and it s a w station in comparison it s the only other city yon ve seen and that s why yon think it s so great there was a certain of kindly in his voice which me ah you re i replied you re like new a book about myself think yon know it all ton won t admit yon re beaten when yon are the proceeded all the different aspects of the two cities finally we called each other and left in a years later however having seen new york i wanted to if ever i met hint again the two cities as i then learned each and in its way were not to be contrasted bat how sore i was of my point of view then nearly all of these men as i now saw presented a sharp to those i had known in or perhaps the character of the work in this ci and my own changing made them seem different at that time had seemed to be fall of exceptional young men in the world men who in one way or another had already achieved considerable local as writers and coming men peter george brand king charles and many others of whom ev n in that day were already their names to some of their con whereas here in st few if any of us had achieved any local distinction of any kind no one of ns had as yet created a personal or literary following we could not here apparently the avenues were not the same and none of ns was as certain to attract attention in the larger world we f little more than a weak brotherhood or union each other enough as worthy fellow but not offering each other much consolation in our rough state beyond a mere class or professional recognition as working newspaper men yet at times this was a kind of bear garden or mental place where one were very guarded and sore of one might come by a quick and hard fall as when once in some argument in r ard to a political question and	43
without knowing really what i was talking about i made the statement that indicated so and so one of my sharp suddenly took me up with say what is anyhow t do you z was completely for i didn t it was a com a about mt new word outside the being used here and there in and and i had taken it over i about and finally had to confess that i did not know what it was whereupon i endured a for my i was thereafter wiser and more but this in my raw ignorant state was a very great help to me many of these men were intelligent and informed to the cutting point in regard to man facts of life of which i was extremely ignorant many of them had not only read more but seen more and took my local pretensions to being somebody with a very lai grain of salt at many of the casual meetings where at odd moments and sometimes were standing or sitting about and discussing one phase of life and another i received a back handed slap sometimes my pride but my horizon one of the moat interesting things in my life at this time was that same north seventh street police station mentioned to which i went daily and which was a for a certain kind of news at least fan family of all kinds so common to very poor and highly this particular station was the very of a mixed and negro life which even at this time was still appalling to me in some of its aspects it was all so so poor so so starve ling there were in it all sorts of streets negro and run down american or plain the first crowded with long bearded jews and their fat wives bo and generally offensive that they me rag and feather all in their streets the smell of these things picked or chickens many of them partially decayed decayed and v feathers and rags and i know not what else was sickening in hot weather in the negro streets or rather for they never seemed to occupy general were rows or one two three and story or of frame or brick crowded into back and with thousands of of the moat shuffling and idle character a book about about jn these hot of june and august they seemed to do little save or lie in the shade of in this vicinity and or contemplate the with or in silence occasionally there was a fight a or a low love affair among them which justified my time here in addition here were those other streets of decayed americans filled with as low and a of as one would find anywhere a type of animal dangerous to the police themselves for th riot and kill horribly and were at best invariably the police here in pairs and whenever an alarm from some policeman on his beat was in from this region a and all the officers in the station at the time would set forth to the rescue sometimes as many as eight or ten in a police wagon with orders as i myself have heard them given to club the heads off them or break their bones but bring them in here ill fix em in response to which all the stolid irish would go forth to battle returning frequently with a whole of or alleged all much the worse for the contest there was an old fat irish of about fifty or james king by name who used to amuse me greatly he ruled here like a the captain whom i rarely saw the latter had an office to himself in the front of the station and rarely came out seeming always to be busy with of one type and another with the however i became great friends his place was behind the central desk in the front of which were two li t standards and on the surface of which were his and reports of different kinds behind the desk was his big chair with himself in it his round head and fat neck with sweat his fat arms and hands moist and laid heavily over hia stomach according to him he had been at this work exactly ei t years and before that he had beat the ss he said or a beat ye yes he would begin whenever a book about i arrived and be was not he was not an there s for ye me lad but ye might just as veil take a chair an make comfortable it may be that something will happen an again maybe it won t te mast hope fer the beat as the is a bad time fer any to be oat in all this hot weather and then he a e which he kept near and begin to fan himself or from a of ice water then he would sit answering calls from or marking down reports from the men on their or answering the complaints of people who came in hour after to announce that they had been robbed or their homes had been broken into or that some neighbor was making a nuisance of himself or their wives or husbands or sons or daughters wouldn t obey them or stay in at night tea an what s the matter he would b in when one of these would put in an appearance it was a man who would be complaining that his wife or ter would not stay in at ni t or a woman complaining so of her husband son or daughter well me good woman i can t be ye with that this is no court if yer husband don t support ye er yer son don t come in nights an he s a minor ye can get an order from the at	43
the four courts him then if he don t mind ye and ye him arrested er locked up i can help ye that way but not otherwise go to the courts sometimes in the case of a parent complaining of a s or sou s he would a little and a see if ye can bring him around here tell him that the captain to see him then if be see what i can do fer ye maybe i can scare him a bit let os say they came a shabby mother or father leading a boy or girl king would assume a most ferocious air and after listening to the complaint ol the parent as if it were all news to him would demand what s yet why can t ye stay in what s a about the matter with ye that ye can t obey yer ye know it s the fer a minor to be oat ten at ni tf ye don tt well it is an i m ye now d ye there s a lot good iron back there fer ye if ye t ye goin t do about possibly the one in error a little and begin with the charging and the like here now don t ye be to yer mother like te that an what s more dim t let me ye ont on the streets er her to me again if ye do send one me men around to bring ye in this is the last now d ye to spend a few nights in a well then i now be ont here an don t let me hear any more ye not a word i ve had enough now oat with ye i and he would and grow red and pop eyed and roar them ont only after the victim had gone he would lean back in his chair and wipe his forehead and sigh tie the up a v especially te can t be them fer to be oat on the streets an yet ye can t let em ont exactly it s hard to tell what to do with em i ve been like that fer years now to one an another tis all the good it does te can t do much fer em it was daring this period this summer time and fall that i came in contact with some of the most interesting characters newspaper men e and who drifted in here from other newspaper and then drifted out again newspaper men so intelligent and definite in some respects that they seemed worthy of any position or station in life and yet so indifferent and or so poorly placed in spite of their efforts and as to cause me to despair for the reward of merit intellectual merit i mean for some of these men while fascinating were the kind of failures drag a book about mai of them liad stayed too long in the profession which is a young man s game at best and others had wasted their opportunities dreaming of a chance fortune no doubt and then had taken to drink or still others young men like myself and as to their future just finding out how table the newspaper game was and in were cynical and moody i am not familiar with many professions and so cannot bay whether any of the others abound in this same wealth of eccentric capacity and understanding or offer as little reward certainly all the newspaper offices i have ever known with exceptional men few of ever seemed to do very well and no paper i ever worked on i aid wages anywhere near equal to the services rendered or the hours it was always a hard driving game with the ash heap as the reward for the least of energy or ability and at the same time these newspapers were constantly about kindness justice charity a fall reward for labor and were getting np fresh air and on for those not half as deserving as their but and this is the point likely to bring them increased in the while i was in the newspaper i met men who seemed to be thoroughly sound quite free for the moat part from the narrow of their day and yet tbey never seemed to get on very well i remember one man in particular i think his name was who arrived on the scene just about this time and who fascinated me he waa so able and sure of touch mentally and from an point of view and yet and in every material wi he was such a failure he came from city or while i was on the republic and had worked in many many places before that he was a dark figure with something of the manager or owner or leader about him a most shrewd and capable looking per son and when he first came to the he seemed to rise rapidly and never to want for anything so much and force did he appear to have he was a hard a book and i had gained he revealed a tale of past position and comfort which as it was hy and was startling when contrasted with his present position he was not over he had been or tn a m g in p editor of several important papers in the west bat had lost them throng some disaster which had caused him to take to drink bis wife s i believe and bis inability in recent years to stay sober for more than three months at a stretch in other city he had been an important in politics here he was still clean and apparently when i first saw him at any rate going about his work with a great deal of writing the most newspaper stories and then once two or three months of labor	43
all that he had far been able to collect i saw him dead before me in no time at all or thought i did here johnson i called to another of onr friends who came np then help me with body he s drank and he s got a box of and he s trying to take them i knocked them oat of his hand and now he s eaten a lot of them here body he said him to his feet and holding him against the wall stop this what the hell s the matter with and then he to me maybe they re not why don t yon ask the if they are we d better be getting him to the hospital they re all right led the victim worry i know all right and i ll eat em all and he b ling with johnson at the latter s suggestion i hurried into the the proprietor and clerk of which were friends to all of us and they assured me that they were and when i told them that had swallowed about a they that we bring him in and then call an while they prepared an of some kind it happened that the head physician of the st louis city hospital dr marks was also a friend of all newspaper men what free we used to give and to him i now turned for aid calling him on the bring him out i bring him out he said then wait send the wagon book about by this time johnson with the aid of the clerk and the had inside and caused him to drink a quantity of something we gazed liim for signs of his b now he was pale and limp and seemed to grow more so to oar intense relief however the city soon came and a smart in white took charge then we saw hauled away to be out later and detained for days i was told afterward by the doctor that he had token enough of the to end him had he not been thoroughly oat and treated yet within a week or so he was once more up and fate in the shape of myself and johnson having and many a time thereafter he tamed np at thia comer as sound and smiling as ever once when i to reproach him for this and other follies he merely said all in the day s wash my boy all in the day s wash if i was so to go yoa have let me alone heaven only knows what trouble yon have stored up for me now by keeping me here when i wanted to go that may have been a divine call i bat is i let s go and have a and we to s bar where we were soon by ers who spent most of their time looking ont through the cool green of that rest room the hot street outside i may add that s end waa not such as mi t be expected by the ten years later he had his habits and entered the railroad having attained to a considerable position in one of the principal roads ont of st chapter years past daring the months the had been a summer charity of some kind a fresh air fund in support of which it attempted every summer to invent and foster some quick money raising scheme this year it had taken the form of that old a game to be played between two local the men of one called the and the of another known as the the hope of the republic was to work np interest in this startling novelty by a handling of it so as to draw a lai e crowd to the before i bad even beard of it this task bad been assigned to two or three others a new man each day in the hope of bits of humor but so far with but indifferent results one day then i was handed a dipping concerning this proposed game that bad been written the preceding day by another member of the staff and which was blood on the moon it to the preliminary and of those who were to take part in the contest it was not so much an amusing as a news item and i did not think very much of it but since i had been warned by that i was about to be called up m to produce the next day s burst and that it must be humorous i was by no means inclined to judge it too the efforts of one s always appear more as one s own threaten to prove inadequate a little later proceeded to outline to me most of the conditions which this contest see if you can t get some fun into it most do it some one has to i depend on you for this make us laugh and be smiled a dry almost frosty smile i thought good lord how am i to make anybody laugh t i never wrote anything funny in my life i a book m nevertheless being put to it for this he bad given me no other no that i t have a bard time with this and being the soul of duty i vent to my to think it over not an idea came to me it seemed to me that nothing could be than this a game between fat and lean men yet if i write something it would be a black mark against me and if i did and it proved a piece of i should sink equally low in the estimation of my i took my and began a possible introduction wondering how one achieved one had it not after writing for a half hour or so i finally re examined the of my of days	43
and then sought to take the same tack only instead of describing the aspirations and of the two rival in general terms i assumed a specific interest and on the part of certain of their chief officers who even now aa i proceeded to assert and with names and places given in different parts of the were spending days and nights ways and means of the enemy of rubber baskets and in which flies might be secret electric the diamond between the to put into the fat seemed to have some faint trace of humor in them and these i now introduced as being worked oat in various secret places in order that the great game might not be lost as i wrote building up purely imaginary characteristics lor each one involved i did not know any of them i myself began to grow interested and amused it all seemed so ridiculous such and yet the worse i made it the it seemed at last i finished it but upon re reading it i was disturbed by the coarse horse play of it all this will never get by i thought will think it s rotten but having by now come to a rather friendly understanding with i decided to take it over and him so that in case i had failed i might try again wearily he eyed me with his one eye for already he had been this for days then leaned back in his chair and began to read it over at first he did not seem to be much a interested but after the first paragraph which he examined with a blank he smiled and finally this is good yes yon needn t worry about it i think do leave it with me then he began to it later in the afternoon when had come in to give ont the evening i saw it np and go in to him after a time he came out smiling and in a little while called me in not bad not bad he said tapping the manuscript you ve got the right idea i think let you do that for a while we get up on it you needn t do anything else that if you do it well i was pleased for judging by the time it had taken to do this not more than two hours i should have most of my to myself i saw visions of a late breakfast in my room walks after i had done with my work and before i returned to the t ce curiously this trivial things undertaken at first in great doubt and with no sense of ability and with no real for it nevertheless proved for me the most fortunate thing i had thus far done it was not so much that it was brilliant or even especially well done as that what i did fell in with the idle summer mood of the city or with the and the readers of the letters began to arrive individuals whose names had been mentioned began to call up the city editor or the managing editor or even the editor in chief and voice their approval in a and almost before i knew it i was a personage especially in newspaper we ve got the stuff now all right most violently one at the same time me on the shoulder this do it i m sure a few weeks and well get a big crowd and a lot of just yon stick to the way you re doing this now don t change your style we ve got em coming now i was really amazed and to add to it s manner toward me changed hitherto despite his but poorly concealed efforts he had been a book about myself distant now of a he was softer more confidential i have a friend up the street here frank an awfully nice fellow he s the second assistant of this or that or the other such company in one of these comic of don t yon think him in in some w t he s an and i m sore the mention him to death i saw the point of mr s good nature he waa handing round some on hia own bnt since it waa easy for me to do it and not injure the text in any way and seemed to the paper and myself immensely i waa glad to do it each when at six or seven i chose to in spent the afternoon at d room or elsewhere my text all done in an hour as a my small chief would beam on me most cordially got another let s well go get dinner and if yon don t want to come back go and see a show there s not doing tonight anyhow and i d like to keep yon fresh don t stay np too late and torn me in another good one so it went in a and aa if by magic i was lifted into an different realm the ease of those hours t citizens of local distinction wanted to meet me i was asked by one afternoon to come to the southern bar in order that colonel so and so the head of this that or the other thing as well as some others might meet me i was told that this that and the other person here i most be clever a fool or a i was invited to a midnight at some country club the local newspaper men who gathered at the daily all knew and finding me in high favor with the of the hotel bar whose name i had once now laughed with me and drank at my expense or rather at that of the proprietor for i was told by him that i pay for no drinks there which kept me often from going there	43
at all as the days went on i was assured that owing to my efforts the game was certain to be a book about ht a big that it was tlie most the had ever and that it net the fund thousand dollars for four or five weeks then it seemed to me as though i were walking on air life was so different so pleasant these hot bright days with pleased with me and my name as a clever man a i being about some of my new admirers were so pleased with me that tb asked me to come to their homes to see them i was becoming a personage of the having asked me casually one day where i lived i was that night in my room by a large containing champagne and i transferred it to the office of the b for the staff with my compliments of the fat lean game having me aa a feature writer of some ability the decided to give me another feature there had been in progress a which embraced the whole state and which waa to decide which of many of teachers the out of how many in the state i cannot now recall were to be sent to to see the world s fair for two or more at the i expense in addition a or correspondent was to be sent with the party to report its duly doings and that s comments were to be made a daily feature and waa to be myself i waa not seeking it had not even heard of it but according to who was selecting the man for the management i was the one most likely to give a satisfactory picture of the life at the great fair as well as render the a service in the doings of these teachers an agent of the manager was also going along to look after the practical details and also the city of schools i welcomed this opportunity to see the world s fair which waa then in its and the newspapers i don t mind telling you observed to me a few di before the final account of the game was to be written that your work on thia ball game been good s a book about is pleased now there s a we re going to send np to and i m going to send a along on that for a rest mr our manager will tell a all it ton see him and expenses when am i to got i asked thursday thursday night then i don t have to see the hall game oh that s all right you re done the important part of that let some one else write it np i smiled at the compliment i went downstairs and had somebody explain to me what it was the paper was to do and congratulated myself now t was to have a chance to visit the world a fair which had not yet opened when i left i look np my father whom i had since my mother s death as well as other members of the family as were still living in bnt most important i go to the there and blow to my old about my present success ah i had to do was to go along and observe what the did and how they themselves and then write it up i went up the street and rejoicing and finally landed in the art department of my friends i m being sent to to the world s fair i said bully for you was the unanimous let s hope you have a good time aa the time drew near the of being s sort of literary to a lot of school teachers all of them home and was not as cheering as it might have been i wondered how i should manage to be and interesting to so many how i was to extract news out of yet the attitude of the business manager and the g g editor as well as the editor in chief or mr to whom i was now by my city editor waa to convince me that whatever i thought of it i was plainly rising in their esteem although no word was said about any increase in pay which i still consider the limit of policy these were most cordial smiled and congratulated me on my work and then turned me over to the man who had the of the trip in charge he reminded me a good deal of a banker or elder small dark full solemn and me that he was glad that i had been appointed that i was the ideal man for the place and that he would see to it that i needed to make my trip pleasant would be provided i scarcely believe that i was so important after asking me to go and see the of schools also of the party aa guest of the he said he would send to me a mr dean who would be his agent en route to look after everything baggage hotels meals the latter came and at once threw a wet blanket over me he was utterly dull and commonplace his clothes his shoes bis loud tie and his muddy commonplace intellect all irritated me beyond measure something he said now of w all want to do everything we can to please these ladies and make them happy irritated me the usual pastoral stuff i t and i at once decided that i did not want him to bother me in any w did this a book about horrible assume that he was n r my on this trip or that i vas going out ot my way to accommodate to him and hia theory of how the trip be or to accept bim as a social we indeed	43
i the well known writer of st louis the well he would get scant attention from me and the more he let me alone the better it be for him and all of and now w also began to me by attempting to give me instructions as to what was wanted and how i was to write it although as i understood it i was now working for the managing editor who was to have the material in the telegraph department besides i thought that i was now entitled to a little and discretion in the choice of what i report the idea of vi g it all for the and myself a literary wet to a school party was a little too however i down to the train that was waiting to carry this party of to and the world s fur a train which left st louis at dusk and ar in early the next morning the fifth of the was reserved to carry the school and their mr of schools mr dean the business manager representative and myself i entered the car wondering of course what the result of such a temporary with so many girls might be they were all popular hence beautiful prize as i had heard bnt my mind had a somewhat conception of the ordinary mistress and i did not expect much for once in my life i was agreeably disappointed these were young school teachers and as tire aa that profession will permit i was no sooner seated in a gaudy car than one of the end doors opened and there waa ushered in by the porter a pretty ro girl of perhaps twenty four this was a good beginning immediately thereafter there came in a tall fair girl with li t brown hair and blue eyes others now entered a book and slender with or instead of a contempt i b mn to from a sickening of to hold my own in the face of so many pretty girls what i do with twenty girls t how write maybe the manager representative or the not come on this train and i should be left to these girls to each other i should have to find out their names and i had to inquire at the office i fortunately for my peace of mind a large rather dressed man with big soft ruddy hands decorated with several rings and a oval face tinted with health now entered by the door and beamed cheerfully upon all ah here we are now he began with the air of one in authority going up to the first maiden he saw i see you have arrived safely miss ah c i m g ad to see yon again how are we w it on to another and here is miss w well i am glad i read in the that yon bad won i that this was the professor so earnestly recommended to me the of schools and one upon i was to i rather liked him an engine went and l on a neighboring track i out of the window it seemed essential for me to begin doing something but i did not know how to begin suddenly the large band was laid on my shoulder and the professor stood over me this must be mr of the tour business manner mr me this that you were coming yon must let me introduce yon to all these young ladies we want to get the over and be on easy terms i bowed heavily for i felt as though i were turning to stone the and sparkle of these girls au and had fairly done for me i followed the professor as one to the gallows and he began at one end of the ear and introduced me to one girl after another as though it were a state ot some kind i felt like a i was a book about myself and hj his and the that be was helping me a ver i envied him hia ease and he soon where leaving me to converse as best i mi t with a pretty black haired irish girl whose e es made me wish to be t and now idiot i struggled desperate for bright things to say how did one entertain a pretty girl the girl came to my by cm the nature of the contest and the she had had she hadn t tile would win at all some others joined in and before i knew it the train was out of the station and on its way the porter was closing the windows for the long the girls were sinking into comfortable attitudes and there was a general air of and good before st louis was reached a general conversation was in progress and by the time the train was a half out a party of had gathered in the little chamber was at the rear of the car laughing and but i was not of it nor was the girl with whom i was why don t you come back here called a voice having of fan np there t called another do come back for goodness sake i don t try to one whole man i felt my i going from under me could this be i now go back there and try to face six or i followed and at the door stopped and looked in it was full of pretty my partner of the moment before now chattering lightly among them i m gone i thought it s all off now for the grand and silence i which way shall i to there s room for one more here said a making a place for me i not this challenge i m the i said weakly and sank heavily beside her she looked at me as did the others and	43
at a vast expense of energy and will power i managed to achieve a smile it was pathetic isn t train riding just glorious t exclaimed one of these bright faced i bet i haven t been on a a book twice before in all my life and look at i do it all t don t it i d love to i wish i could travel all the time oh don t yon though i echoed the girl who was sitting beside me and whom np to now i had scarcely noticed do a think she bo nice i cannot recall what i answered it may have been witty if it was an accident what do yon call the proper pat in a new voice in answer to something that was said which same drew my attention to eyes a e bow month and s wealth of corn colored hair these i finally achieved gallantly the and at my companions a of followed i was coming to yet i was still bewildered by the of faces about me already the idea of the dreary d teachers had been dissipated these were prize look where i i seemed to see a new pe of me it was like being in the toils of those in the of the yet i had no to escape wishing to st r now and see how i could make oat as a indeed at this i worked hard i did my best to gaze and into pretty eyes of colors they all gazed back i was almost the only man they were oat for a lark what if i had my wishes now i d wish for one thing i expecting to which asked the girl with the brown eyes and little face who wished to travel forever her look was significant this one i said running my finger in a to include them all and yet stopping at none we re not won yet though said the girl yoa bet i asked not all at once anyhow could wet she asked speaking for the crowd i found myself poor at it will seem all at once when it happens won t i finally managed to a book about isn t it s so t i i myself aren t a smart s id e ed girl mo that s isn t said tbe girl with the hair i gazed in her direction beside her sat a maiden whom i had bnt noticed she was in white with a mass of red hair her eyes shaped liquid and ay her nose was straight and fine her lips sweetly she seemed and retiring at her bosom was a of pink roses bnt one had come loose oh your flowers i exclaimed me give yon one she replied laughing i had not heard her voice before and i liked it certainly i said then to the others yon see take anything i can get she drew a rose from her bosom and held it out toward me won t you put it i asked she leaned over and began to fasten it she worked a and then looked at me making as i thought a sheep s e at me ton may have my place said the next me to help her and she took it the conversation even after this although for me i felt that it had now taken a definite turn i was talking for her benefit we were still in the midst of this when the conductor passed through and after him mr dean middle aged dusty assured these are the people he said they are all in one he called me aside and we sat down he explaining cheerfully and the trouble he was having keeping everything in order i could have murdered him i m looking out for the baggage and the hotel bills and all he insisted in the morning well be met by a ho and ride out to the hotel i was of my splendid of girls and the delightful time i had been having a book about myself be fine won t i said ii oh we have it all planned oat he went on it s going to be a fine trip i did my best to show that i bad no desire to talk bat till he kept on he wanted to meet the teachers and i bad to him he became interested in one small and i away only to find my original group considerably reduced some had gone to the others were arranging their their the porter came in and began to make them up i looked about me well our little group has broken up i said at last to the girl of my choice as i came up to where she was sitting yes it s getting late but i m not sleepy yet we dropped into an easy and i learned that she was from and taught in a little town not far from st she explained to me how she had come to win and i told ber how ignorant i had been of the affair up to four days ago she said that friends had t hundreds of in order to get the it seemed a fine thing to me for a girl to be so popular yoa ve never been to i asked oh no i ve never been anywhere really i m a simple country girl you know i ve always wanted to go though she fascinated me she seemed so direct sympathetic you ll enjoy it i said it s worth seeing i was in when the fair was being built my home is there then you ll stay with your home folks won t she asked using a word for family to which i was not it touched a of sympathy i was not very much in touch with	43
went very against the grain being very of my dignity in the presence of others and knowing the american and middle west attitude toward all these new and persistently toys and pleasures of the east and england i was inclined to look upon this one as out of place in besides a canvas strip on the coach the of this expedition me and seemed involved with the character of mr dean that had done i was sure i wondered whether the and well of schools would lend himself to any when plainly it was to be written up in the bat he did not seem to mind it i was in fact he took it all with a charming and grace which eventually in putting my own silly and pride to he sat up in front with me and the driver discussing philosophy education the fair a things during which i made a great at wise and a wider reading than i had ever had once clear of the and into street m were off behind six good horses as interesting a section as one mi t to its a book about myself the and most in america and its mass tf traffic making a brisk summer morning scene i wm by that splendid with its brief vista of the lake which was whipped to this bright morning by a fresh wind and then the long residence lined to the with its wealth of new and homes its smart and lighting its of pleasure traffic or to the fair within an we were assigned rooms in a comfortable hotel near the fair one of those hastily and yet well constructed buildings which later were changed into fists or apartments one wall of this hotel as i now discovered the on which my room was faced a portion of the fair and from my windows i see some of its all at once and ont of nothing in t hia dingy ci of six or seven hundred thousand which but a few years before had been a wilderness of wet and mud and by this lake which but a hundred years be fore was a lone silent waste had now been reared this vast and harmonious collection of perfectly and snowy containing in their delightful the artistic mechanical and scientific achievements of the world italy india egypt germany south america the west and east indies the all represented i thought since how those who up to that time had im that nothing of any artistic or scientific import possibly be brought to in america especially in the middle west must have opened their eyes aa i did mine at the s ht of this realized dream of beauty this splendid picture of the world s own hope for itself i have long at it and do now as i recall it its splendid court of honor with its and simple grandeur the with its amazing grace of and figures the great central arch with its the dome of the administration building with its daring the splendid on the agricultural aa well as those on the and women s buildings it was not as if many had labored toward a book myself this great end or aa if the great raw city did not quite itself oa jet had endeavored to make a great show but rather as some brooding spirit of inherent po a ly is some directing over had waved a ma c quite as might have in the tempest or queen in a night s dream and lo this in the morning when i came down from my room i fell in with miss w in the and was by the contact she was so gay good natured smiling unaffected and with her now was a younger sister of whom i had not heard and who had come to by a different to join her i was promptly introduced and we sat down at the same table it was not loi before we were joined by the others and then i see by the exchange of glances that it was presumed that i had fallen a victim to this of the night before but already the personality of the younger sister was appealing to me quite as much as the elder she bo radiant of plump laughing and with such an easy and natural mode of address somehow she me as knowing more of life than her sister being more and yet quite as innocent after breakfast the company broke up into of two and three each had plans for the day and began talking them over we started off finally for the fair gate and on the had an opportunity to some of the other members of the party and make up my mind as to whether i really preferred her above all despite my leaning toward w i now discovered that there was a number whose charms if not superior to those of miss w were greater than i had imagined while some of those who had attracted me the night before were being modified by little traits of character or which i did not like among them was one rosy black haired girl whose solid beauty attracted me very she was and dark and robust with the air of a i looked at her quite taken by her snapping black eyes but nothing came of it for the moment we were all becoming interested in the fair a book about myself together then we drifted for on or more in this of sights n or more of dreaming over the arches the reflections in the water the the shadowy by the steps of the moving like in a dream was it real t i sometimes wonder for it is all gone gone the summer d a and ts the air the color the form the mood in its place is a green park by	43
you re out like that i know it s hard to think of the and your but you shouldn t neglect them oh lord i thought now he a off again i this is the same old story religion but i do go i you mustn t worry about me i know he said with a catch in his voice bnt a book about i can t help it yon know it is the children th don t rs do right in that respect paul is aw on the i don t know whether he goes to church any more a and e are here but they don t come here i haven t seen them in i don t know how long months i resolved to plead with b and a when i them he was sitting in a big facing a rear window and now he took my hand again and held it soon i felt hot tears on it pop i said his bead against me and it yon mustn t cry things aren t so bad as all that the children are all right well probably be able to do better and more for yon than we ve ever done i know i know he said after a little while his emotion bat i m getting so old and i don t sleep any more an or two i lie there and think in the morning i get np at four sometimes and make my coffee then the days are so long i cried too the long days the fading interests mother gone and the family broken np i know i said i haven t acted right none of ns have ill write you om now on when i m away and send yon some money once in a while i m going to get yon big overcoat for next winter and now i want yoa to come over with me to the fair i ve tickets and yoa enjoy it i m a press representative now a correspondent ill show you everything after persuasion he got his hat and stick and came with me we took a car and an elevated road which finally landed ns at the gate and then for as long as his strength would endure we wandered about looking at the enormous buildings the great wheel the and maria in which sailed to america the of la which because it related to the fascinated him and finally the village on the as and as ever a german would wish where we had coffee and little german cakes with a book about myself way seeds on them and some pot cheese with red and he was so interested and by the vast spectacle that he could do little save exclaim by this is now or that is now wonderful t in the he fell into a with a german who had a stand there and who hailed from some part of which he seemed to know and then all was well indeed it was long before i get him away these visits were repeated only four times my stay of two weeks when he admitted that it was and he had seen another morning when i had not too much to i looked np my brother e who was driving a wagon some where on the south side and got him to come oat evenings and as well as a who was connected with an electric plant as assistant of some kind i recall now with an odd feeling as to the significance of relationship and family ties generally how keenly important his and s interests were to me then and how i because i thought they were not getting along as well as th looking in a shoe window in a year or two later i actually choked with emotion because i t that maybe e did not earn h to keep himself looking well a always seemed more or less in his and whenever i saw him i felt sad because like so many millions of others in this grinding world he had never had a real chance life is so casual and l n k m to many i a nd i f i who tr y i always felt tbat advantageous circumstances a would have done well he was so wise if slightly cynical fall of a laughing humor his taste for literature and artistic things in general was high although entirely like myself he had a turn for the problems of nature constantly wondering as to the why of this or that and seeking the answer in a broader knowledge bnt long hours of work and poor pay seemed to him in his search i was sad words about his condition and urged him to come to st louis and try his luck there which he subsequently did s a book about myself another thing i did to visit the old in fifth avenue on to find things in a bad wa there although and i were still there tiie paper was not paying was in fact in danger of immediate john b its financial or having lost a fortune in to make it pay and win an election with it was ready to quit and the paper was on its last legs i get them in st had gone to the and was now a copy reader there in my new suit and straw hat and with my i felt myself to be quite a how better i had done than these men who had been in the longer than i had i certainly i see what i do they must write me they could find me now at and a hotel the sweets of t in the newspaper press association offices in the great administration building several of my friends from the press showed and here	43
we to talk daily in this building at eight or nine or ten at night i filed a report or message about one thousand words long and was pleased to bee by the papers that arrived that my text was used about as i wrote it loving the i grounds of the fair so much i there nearly all day long and all evening now one girl and now another bnt principally miss w and her sister almost i was being fascinated by these two with my miss w the more and yet i was not content to confine myself to her bnt was constantly looking here and there being by a number of the others thus one afternoon after i had visited the administration building and filed my rather early miss w having been unable to be with me at the fair i returned to the hotel a little weary of and finding an upper balcony which faced the fair sat there in a awaiting the return of some of the party presently as i was resting and humming to myself there came down to the parlor which this that rosy irish girl miss who had attracted me the very first morning she seemed a book myself to be that room in order to and play there being a piano here she was dressed in a close fitting of white linen which set off her robust little figure to perfection her heavy black hair was parted severely in the middle and heavily over her white temples she had a rich blooded healthy look not by desire i was looking through the window when she came in was wondering if she would discover me when she did she smiled and i waved to her to come out we talked the fair and my in connection with it when i explained the of my wanted to know if i had mentioned her name yet i her that i had and this pleased her i had the feeling that she liked me and that i could her if i chose what has become of friend miss w she finally asked with a touch of malice when i looked at her too kindly i know i haven t seen her since yesterday or the day before which was not what makes you oh i ht yon rather liked her she said boldly throwing up her chin and smiling and what made yon think i asked calmly it was in my mind that i could master and deceive her as to this and i proposed to try ob i so ton seemed to like her company not any more than i do that of others i insisted with great she s interesting that s all i was showing any preference oh i m joking she ed i really don t think anything about it one of the other girls made the r well she s wrong i said indifferently bnt i see that she wasn t joking i also see that i had relieved her mind my pose of indifference bad her that i was not wholly free we sat and talked dinner and then i asked her if she would like to go for a stroll in the park to which she agreed by now we were obviously drifting toward each other a book about and i thought how fine it would be to idle and dream with in the moonlight after dinner when we started out the air was soft and and the moon was just rising over the in the east a faint of fresh flowers and fresh leaves was abroad and the night seemed to rest in a soothing still from the came the of muffled and with the passion of the east before as were the wide stretches of the dark and of where groups of trees were gathered in silent motionless array in others by a fairy br which suggested a world of romance and feeling i walked silently on with her with a feeling of ecstasy now i was proving to myself that i was not entirely helpless in the presence of girls this time of idleness and moonlight was in such smooth with my most romantic wishes she was not so romantic bnt the ardent of her nature appeared to answer to the call of mine isn t this wonderful i said at last seeking to interest her tea she replied almost practically i ve been wondering why some of the girls don t come over here at night it s so wonderful but i suppose they re tired they re not as strong as you that s it you re so vigor i was thinking today how healthy yon look were and i was just thinking what my mother would say if she knew i was out here with a total stranger you told me you lived in st i think t i a id yes out in the north end near park well then i ll get to see you when you go back i oh will she returned how do yon well won t it the thought flashed across my mind that once i had been in this park with several years before we had sat under a tree not so veiy far from here near a a book about myself by the moon and bad listened to played in the distance i remembered how z had whispered sweet and her to my heart s content well you may if yon re good she replied i began with her now i deliberately descended from the ordinary reaches of my intelligence anxious to match her own interests with some which would seem allied i wanted her to like me although i felt au the while that we were by no means suited she was too commonplace and although so attractive physically we sat in silence for a time and i slipped my hand down	43
and laid hold of her fingers she did not stir pretending not to notice but i felt that she was also ton asked about miss w i said what made you do oh i thought you liked her why shouldn t it it never occurred to yon that i might like some one else certainly not why should it i pressed her fingers softly she turned on me all at once a face so white and tense that it showed fully the feeling that now her it was almost as if she were breaking under an intense nervous strain which she was attempting to conceal i thought you might i replied there is some one you know i was surprising myself is there t her voice sounded weak she did not to look at me now and i was wondering how far i would go you couldn t guess of no why should it look at me i said quietly all right she said with a little indifferent shrug ill look at you there now what of again that intense strained look her lips were parted in a shy frightened smile showing her pretty teeth her eyes were touched with points of light where the t falling over my shoulder shone npon them it gave her whole face an almost something a book about myself and spoke of the and of all these things she was far more wonderful here than ever she could have been in dear daylight yon have eyes i remarked oh she is that no you have teeth and hair such hair yon mustn t grow sentimental she commented not removing her hand i slipped my arm about her waist and she moved and you still can t guess i said finally no she replied her face from me then tell you and putting my free hand to her cheek i tamed her face to me i studied her closely and then in a moment the last of reluctance and in her seemed to at the touch of my hand on her cheek she seemed to change the whole power of her ardent nature was rising at last she seemed to be completely and i put my lips to hen and kissed her warmly then pressed her close and held her now do yoa i asked after a time yes she nodded and for a proffered kiss an ardent one of her own i was beside myself with astonishment and delight for the life of me i could not explain to myself how it was that i had achieved this result so swiftly something in the atmosphere something in our i fancied made this quick and material possible but i wanted to know how for a time we sat thus in the moonlight i holding her hand and pressing her waist yet i not feel that i liked her beyond the charm of her physical appearance but that was at present physical beauty with not too much was all i asked then youth a measure of innocence and beauty i pretended to have a real feeling for her and to be struck by her beauty which was not wholly my feelings however as i well knew were of so light and a character that it seemed almost a to her in this fashion why had i done it was decidedly unfortunate for her i now thought that we two a book about dow meet the roof with miss w and perhaps a third or fifth bnt i anticipated no results i t keep them apart anyhow if i not my relationship in either case had not earnest to cause me to worry i hoped however to make it so in the case of miss w i knew from the first to be only a momentary flame xl as i hoped there were no ill effects from little but by now i was so interested in miss w that i felt a little unfair to her as i look back on it i can imagine no greater error of mind or temperament than that which drew me to her considering ray own tend and my freedom loving point of view but since we are all blind victims of chance and given to far better hind flight than fore sight i have no complaint to make it is quite possible that this was all a part of my essential destiny or development one of those storm breeding mistakes by which one grows life seems thus often casually to upon one an experience which is to prove or to pick up the thread of my narrative i saw miss at breakfast bat she showed no sign that we had been ont together the previous evening instead she went on her w briskly ss though nothing had happened and this made her rather again in my eyes when miss w came down i a slight of feeling she was so fresh and innocent so and mentally above any quick and relationship as that which i and my new acquaintance had established the night before i planned to be more in my relations with miss and to pay more attention to miss w this plan was by the way in which the various members of the party now and adjusted themselves miss w and her sister seemed to prefer to go about ti ther with me as an occasional third and miss and several of her new acquaintances made a second company with whom i occasionally walked thus the distribution of my attentions was in no danger of immediate detection and i went on a book about myself a peculiar characteristic at this time and later was that i never really expected any of these to marriage might be well h for the average man bnt it never seemed to me that i endure in it that it would affect my present free relationship with the i	43
might be greatly grieved at times in a high way they not last bnt that was rising to heights of sentiment which even myself one of the things which troubled and astonished me was that i like two three and even more women at the same time like them very indeed it seemed strange that i over now one and now another a good man i told myself not do this the thought never occur to him or if it did he would repress it sternly obviously if not profoundly evil i was a and had best keep my peculiar thoughts and desires to myself if i wanted to have anything to do with good people i should be entirely alone perhaps even seized upon by the law during the next two weeks i saw much of both miss w and miss by day i usually accompanied miss w and her sister from place to place about the grounds and of an evening strolled with miss all the while wondering if miss w really liked me whether her present feeling was likely to turn to something deeper i felt a very definite point of view in her very different from mine in her was none of the that troubled me if ever a person was fixed in conventional views it was one life one love would have answered for her exactly she could have ac any condition however painful or even degrading providing she was up by what she considered the moral law to have and to hold in sickness and in health in poverty and in riches until death do us part i think the full force of these laws must have been with her mother s milk as for miss although she was conventional h i did feel that she mi t be persuaded to the moral rule in favor of one at least and so was myself upon having achieved an triumph she may a about not been deeply by my attraction but there was about me which seemed to hold her after a few d s she left the hotel to visit some friends or relatives to whom she had to pay considerable but in my box nights or mornings if by any chance i had not seen her i would find notes explaining where she be found in the evening at a near the park or her new apartment and we take a few minutes stroll in the park such a fever of emotion as she displayed at times oh she would exclaim in an intense hungry way upon seeing me oh i hardly wait i and once in the park she would throw her strong young arms about me and kiss me in a fiery hungry way there was one last transport the night before she left for for a visit when if i had been half the don i to be we might have passed the boundary line but lack of courage on my part and on hers kept apart when i saw her again in st louis but tliat is still another story thus these d s swiftly and by for once in my life i seemed to be and happy and that in this very where but a year or two before i had such keen toward the middle of the second week miss left for and then i had miss w all to myself by now i had come to an intense interest in her an over the mere thought of being with her in addition to this joy my mind and body seemed to be in fashion to and the fair aa a whole the romance and color of it all the quality of the air the raw fresh young force of the so vividly manifested in its sounding streets its new its far lines of and and by way of contrast vast r of middle and lower class poor when we lived here as a i had always thought that poverty was no great hardship the poor were poor in all bnt oh uie ing hope of the city itself up up and to work here were tasks for a million hands in spite of my attachment to the fair and miss and miss w i was still to visit the streets in which we had once lived or where i bad walked much in the old days mere journeys of remembrance bnt as i wandered i realized that the city was not my city any more that life was a thing its seeming ties and and that that which one day we held dear was tomorrow gone to come no more how plain it was i t and with some surprise so ignorant is that even y brisk inch as the here in and some others with which i had been connected or disappear completely one s commercial as well as one s family life be scattered to the winds this i now felt an intense of ass a book about myself loneliness and for what i scarce s for each and one of past pleasant i our abandoned home in street now to another my old desk at the now by another s former home on this side n a in street i was over having no fixed abode no worthy the name here who soothe and comfort me in such an as this at such moments i felt an intense leaning toward miss w who seemed to answer with stable and abiding i am at a loss even now to describe it bat so it was and it was more than anything else a sense of peace and support which i in her presence a b that and warmth possibly the whole closely knit family atmosphere which was behind her and npon which she relied she would listen apparently with interest to all my and no doubt of my former newspaper experiences here	43
in the eye and yon could not for life pat it there the apparently did not want it attacked or if it did there were forces sufficiently to keep it from obtaining its wishes the police were supposed to extract regular from one and all in this area as er in the little paper he ran charged but this paper had no weight the most social occasionally led directly to one or another of these as i had seen but no comment was ever made on the peculiarity of the area as a whole or its in the face of so much moral ment the vice never troubled it neither did the papers or the churches or anybody else but when it came to mr well here was an individual who could be easily and safely attacked and so mr had a large following and many whose or led them to look upon him as a personage of great import he was unquestionably a shrewd and able one of the finest i ever saw he would race up and down among the members of bis large audience in his church meetings his fat eyelids closed his immense white shirt front shining his dress flying like those of a bustling or the while he exclaimed is there any one here by the name of peter t is there any one here by the name of there is an old white bearded man here who says he has something to say to and peter peter your sister says not to marry that everything now troubling you will soon come out all right he would open these meetings with spiritual of one kind and another and pretend the and when as a matter of fact he was a of the most brazen stamp as afterward showed me by and police reports from other cities he had been driven from one city to cities usually very far apart a book myself that the news of his troubles might not spread too quickly his last resting place had been vii and before that he had been in widely scattered spots as liverpool san new wales always he had been immensely drawing large crowds np and doing a private which most have him a tidy indeed in private life as i soon found he was a a and a laughing in bis sleeve at all his and followers for some time i was unable to gather any evidence that would him of anything in a direct way once he found the to be be became and threatened to assault me if i ever came near him or bis place or attempted to write up anything about him which waa not true on tiie other hand being equally determined to catch him insisted upon my following him np and him my task was not easy i was compelled to hang about bis meetings trying to find some one who would tell me something definite against him doing to his rooms one day when he was absent i managed to meet his landlady who when i told her that i was from the and wanted to know something about s visitors his private conduct and so forth asked me to come in at once i something definite and important for i had been there before and had been turned away by this same w but today for some reason she escorted me very secretly to a room on the second floor where she closed and locked the door and then began a long story concerning the peculiar relations which existed between mr and some of his male and female especially the female ones she finally admitted that she had been watching mr s rooms through a for weeks past there had been various visitors whose and had meant little to her until they became so regular as she said and mr so particularly engaged with them then since mr s fame had been spreading and the republic had begun to attack him she had become most watchful and now as she told me he was carrying on a book about myself most vith one and another of his visitors male and female what these relations were she at first to state bnt when i pointed oat to her that she could me with other and more convincing proof than her mere word or charge it all be of small value she to fix on one woman whose card and a note addressed to mr she had evidently from hia room these she and tamed over to me with a rousing description of the nature of the visits armed with the card and note i proceeded to the west end where i soon found the of the lady determined to see whether she would admit this soft whether i make her admit it i was a little then as to how i was to go about it suppose i should ran into the lady s i thought or they should come down together when i sent in my card t or that i charged her with what i knew and she called some one to her aid and bad me thrown out or beaten nevertheless i went nervously up the steps and rang the bell a footman opened the door who is it you wish to i told bim have yon an appointment with no bnt i m from the and yon tell her that it is very important for her to see me we have an article about her and a certain mr which we propose to print in the morning and i think she will want to see me about it i stared at bim with a great deal of he finally closed the door leaving me outside bnt soon returned and said ton may come in i walked into a large heavily reception room representing the best western taste of the time	43
in which i about thinking how fine it all waa and wondering how i was to proceed about all this once she appeared suppose proved to be a fierce and soul well able to bold her own or suppose there was some mistake about this letter or the statement of the landlady i as i was walking up a book about myself and down quite as to what i should say i heard the of skirts i tamed just as a vigorous and well dressed woman of thirty odd swept into the room she was rather smart bronze haired pink not in the least or yon to met yes ma am about what please i am from the i began we have a rather startling story yon and mr it appears that his place has been watched and that yon a story about she with an sir of seeming to have no idea of what i was driving at and about a mr you what kind of a story is why do you come to ma ont why i don t even know the man t oh bnt i think yon do i replied thinking of the letter and card in my pocket as a matter of fact i know that yon do at the office right now we have a card and a letter of yours to mr which the to publish along with some other matter unless some satisfactory explanation as to why it should not be printed can be made we are conducting a campaign against mr as you probably know i have often ht of this scene as a fine illustration of the rough force of life its queer non moral i bluff lies make believe beginning by me of attempted and adding that she would inform her and that i must leave the house at once or be thrown out she glared until i replied that i would leave bnt that i had her letter to mr that there were witnesses who would testify as to what had happened between her and mr and that unless she proceeded to see my city editor at once the whole thing would be written np for the next day s paper then of a sudden she her face her body trembled and she a healthy vigorous woman dropped to her knees before me seized my hands and coat and be pleading with me in an voice a book about mt my social my my god you wouldn t me driven oat of my own home if he came here now oh my god tell me what i am to tell me that yon won t do that the won tl give yon yon want oh yon couldn t be so heartless i maybe i have done wrong bnt think of what will happen to me if yon do i stared at her in amazement never had i been the of an scene on the instant i felt a mingled sense of triumph and extreme pity thoughts as to whether i tell the b what i knew whether if i did it have the cruelty to expose this woman whether she would or could be made to pay by any one through my mind i was sorry and yet amused always this t of of which i heard considerable in newspaper work but of which i never had any proof troubled me if i exposed her what would hound if i did not would he discover that i was the news and discharge me f pity for her was plainly mingled with a sense of having achieved another newspaper beat now assuredly the make this move on to her i proceeded to make plain that i personally was helpless a mere who of himself do nothing if she wished she see mr who help her if he chose and i gave her his home address knowing that he would not be at his office at this time of day bat hoping to see him myself before she did weeping and moaning she upstairs leaving me to make my way oat as best i might once out i meditated on this and the hard cold work i was capable of doing surely this was a dreadful to have done had i the right was it suppose i had been the victim still i congratulated myself npon having done a very clever piece of work for which i be highly the lady most have proceeded at once to my city editor for when i returned to the be was there he called me to at once a book about myself what have a been doing now i have ever known you can get me into more in a half than any other man in a here i was sitting at borne and np my wife telling me there s a weeping woman in the parlor who had driven np to see me down i go and she my hands falls on her knees and begins me about some letters we have that her life will be if we them do yon want to get me for he went on and in his way what the hell are those letters anyhow t where are what s this story you ve dog np who is this woman t yon re the man i ever saw and he some i handed over the letter and he proceeded to look it over with as i see he pleased beyond i told my story and he was intensely interested bnt seemed to on its character for some time what happened after that between him and the woman i was never able to make oat but one thing is the story was never published not this incident an hour or two later seeing me enter the office after my dinner he called me in and began yon leave this with me now and drop the story	43
and o i m from the i began and we have a story r a chaise that has been made against you today in one of the police stations he eyed me with a nervous uncertainty that was almost he did not seem to be able to speak at first on something a bit of tobacco possibly not bo loud he said come out here i ll give you ten dollars if yoa won t say anything about this and he began to in one of his waistcoat pockets no no i said with an air of profound virtue i can t take money for anything like that i can t stop anything the paper may want to say have to see the editor all the while i was thinking how like an old fox he was and a book about m self that if one did have the power to a story of this kind here vas a fine opportunity for he might have been made to pay a thousand or more at the same time i could not help with him a little considering his age and his of late i had been getting a much clearer light on my own character and as well as on those of many others and was beginning to see how few there were who could afford to cast the stone of or superior worth nearly all were secretly doing one thing and another which they would and which if exposed cause them to be or punished sex were not as uncommon as the majority supposed and perhaps were not to be given too sharp a if strict were to be done to all yet here was i at this moment at the of this who had found ont at the same time i cannot say that i was very moved by the per of the man he looked to be narrow and close i wondered how a business man of any be connected with so shabby an affair or being caught could be so dull as to offer any newspaper man bo small a sum as ten dollars to bush it up and how about the other papers the other who might hear of it did he expect to them all off for ten dollars the fact that he had admitted the truth of the left nothing to say i felt myself grow nervous and and finally left rather and puzzled as to what i should do when i returned to the and told he seemed to be rather also and more or less disgusted you can t make out of a case of that kind he said we couldn t print it if you did the public wouldn t stand for it and if you attack the police for concealing it then they ll be down on us he ought to be exposed i suppose well write it out and see i therefore wrote it up in a wary and guarded way telling what had happened and how the police had not entered the change but the story never appeared somehow i was rather glad of it although i thought the man should be punished i was on the then a of race track amateur and political and n who was a of news not to oar police and political men but to the sporting and a sort of jack of all news or to me he was both and loud bold the kind of that begins as or and winds up as the president of a racing association or ball team he claimed to be irish having a face red hair gray and rather lai hands and feet in reality he was one of those south jews who looked so much like the irish as to be frequently for he had the wit to see that it would be of mu e advantage to him to be thought irish than and so had changed his name of to red one of the most offensive things him was that his clothes were loud just such clothes as and affect hard bright checked suits bright yellow shoes ties of the most radiant hues hats of a dashing and pins and links glistening with diamonds or the kind of man who is convinced that clothes and a little money make the man aa they quite do in such instances had the social and moral point of view of both the hawk and the to wood who early made friends with him as he did with the chinese and others for purposes of study he was identified with some houses of in which he had a small financial interest as well as various political schemes then being by one and group of low who were constantly getting up one scheme and another to the city in some way he was a species of political and social having all the high of a a book about myself ve lie b to mr who was a of an allied if higher e and the pair became good friends him as an assistant to hazard and myself he supplied the paper with stories which we i to at him more or less to his face as being a which of course only the of feelings between he always suggested to me the type of or plain man who would take money from street girls pr on them as indeed i suspected him of doing i wondered how he could make anything ont of this connection since as and others told me he not write it was necessary to his staff almost entirely but his great recommendation to and others was that he get news of things where other not among the police and with whom he was evidently hand in hand by reason of his connections many details as to one form and another of and social came to light which doubtless made	43
him invaluable to a city editor when some of his stories were given to me to we were thrown into immediate and contact because of his and when he knew he could not write two good sentences in order i frequently wanted to brain him but took it out in smiles and dry cynical comments his favorite were and i tub him or tub me always accompanied by a contemptuous wave of a hand or a chin one of the chief reasons why i hated him was that dick wood told me he had once remarked that newspaper work was a beggar s game at best and that writer grew on trees meaning that they were so numerous as to be and not worth considering i made the best of these trying situations when i had to do over a story of his all the information i could and then writing it out which resulted in some of his stories receiving excellent space in the day s news and made him all the more and sure of himself and at the same time these made bim of more to the paper a book ever in time i left the and one d greatly to ray and irritation he appeared at the north seventh street station as a having been given a regular position by and set to doing police oat of which task at tbe four courts if i remember rightly he finally who was given to too drinking to my surprise and i noticed at once that he was as if by reason of of which i had not the slightest idea far more en with the and tbe captain than i had ever dreamed of being it was here and gap there bat what me most was that he gave himself all the airs of a newspaper man about and talking of this that and the other story be had written i having done some of them myself the crowning blow was that he was soon with the captain in his room strolling in and out of that as if it were his private and giving me the impression of being in touch with and deeds of which i was never to have tbe slightest e this made me apprehensive lest in these tales and mysteries should be unfolded that would have their first light in the pages of the and bo leave me to be laughed at as one who could not get the news i watched the globe more closely than ever before for evidence of such treachery on the part of the police as would result in a for him at the same time my interest in such as might appear the consequence was that on more than one occasion i made good stories out of things which mr had evidently dismissed as worthless and now and then a case into which i had inquired at the appeared in the with details which i had not been able to obtain and concerning which the police had insisted they knew nothing for a long time by dint of energy and a rather plain indication to all concerned that i would not false dealing i managed not only to hold my own but occasionally to give my a good beating as when for one instance a negro girl in one of those was cut almost a book to hy an armed with a for reasons as my proved highly some or ai t months before this girl and her had been living together in and the lover who was wildly fond of her became and finally himself that she was set a trap to her he was a coal or working now on one boat and now on another the between new and st and one day when she t he was on a river steamer for a week or two he burst in upon her and her with another man death have been her portion as well as that of her lover had it not been for the of friends which permitted the pair to escape the man returned to his task as working his way from one river city to another when he came to new or st he disguised as a selling and charms and in this capacity walked the crowded negro sections of these cities calling bis wares one of these finally him to st and here on a late afternoon up thin stifling little alley calling ont his charms and he had finally her the girl pat her head out of the doorway dropping his tray he drew a and her cheeks and lips arms legs back and sides so that when i arrived at the city hospital she was and her life of the lover his tray of cheap which was later to the and exhibited had made good his escape and was not daring my st in st at least her present had also gone his way leaving her to suffer alone owing possibly to s of its romance this story received only a scant stick as a low in the while in the i had tamed it into a negro romance filled all of a into it i had tried to pat the hot river of the different cities which the lover had visited the crowded n ro of new the bold negro life which two as the false mistress and her a book myself lover might enjoy i tried to the of the the at their lai labors the idle dreamy of the dow moving boats even an old negro refrain appropriate to a had been introduced rings pins the character of the alley in which it occurred lined with and with the idle n ro life of the appealed to me an old with a yellow dotted over her head o kept talking of and sam and the girl moved me to a poetic	43
s sake that that name will do as well as any other an ex of the pacific had been arrested by for the road and express company for the crime and that npon searching his room they had found most of the stolen money also of other facts with which he had been confronted he had confessed that he and he alone had been guilty of the express robbery the added that he had shown the where the remainder of the money lay hidden and that this very afternoon he would be en route to st to arrive over the st san and that he be confined in the jail here imagine t e excitement the ar had not told how be had accomplished this great feat and here he was now en to st louis and might be met and on the train from a news point of view the story was immense when i came in exclaimed tell you what you do lord i thought you wouldn t come back in time here s a st louis san time table according to it you can take a local that leaves here at two fifteen and get as far as this place pacific where the express stops it s just possible that the globe and the other papers haven t got hold of this yet maybe they have but whatever happens we won t get licked and that s the main thing i down to the union station but when i asked for a ticket to pacific the ticket agent asked which are there pacific and st louis san to the same place a book about myself yea they meet there which train leaves st san it s now i to it but the thought of this other road in from pacific me suppose the should be on tho other train instead of on this t i consulted with the conductor when he came for my ticket and was told that pacific was the only place at which these two roads met one going west and the other from there good i thought then he is certain to be on this line but now another ht came to me supposing from other papers were aboard especially the i rose and walked forward to the and there to my great disgust and nervous dissatisfaction was red headed serene a cigar between his teeth low in his seat smoking and reading a paper as calmly as though he were bent upon the most unimportant task in the world how i asked myself the has sent that swine i here he is and these country and railroad men will be sure on the instant to make friends with him and do their best to serve him they like that sort of man they may even give him details which they will to give me i shall have to interview my man in front of him and he will get the benefit of all my questions at his request they may even refuse to let me interview him i returned to my seat nervous and much troubled all the more so because i now recalled s threat bat i was determined to give him the of his life now we would see whether he could beat me or not not if fair play were exercised of that i felt confident why he could not even write a decent line i why should i be afraid of but i was just the same as the dreary local drew near pacific i became more and more nervous when we drew up at the platform i jumped down all alive with the determination not to be i saw leap out and on the instant he me i never saw a face change more quickly from an expression of ease and assurance to one of opposition and distrust a book about myself how he hated me he looked to see else might then seeing no one he up to the to see when the train from the west was due i decided not to trail and information from the who me that the express would probably be on time five minutes later it always stops here does i inquired it always stops as we talked came hack to the platform and stood looking np the track our train now pulled oat and a few minutes later the whistle of the express was heard now for a real contest i thought somewhere in one of those cars would be the surrounded by and my duty was to get to him first to explain who i was and begin my perhaps with the ease with which i should take charge maybe the would not want to talk if so i must make him him or his or both no doubt since i was the better or so i thought i should have to do all the talking and this would make notes or make a deal with the while i was talking in a few moments the train was rolling into the station and then i saw my friend leap aboard and with that iron and which i hated in hi begin to race through the cars i was about to follow him when i saw the stepping down beside me is that train robber they are bringing in from bald on i m from the republic and i ve been sent out here to interview him you re on the road brother he smiled he s not on here they re bringing him in over the pacific they took him across from bald to and caught the train there but tell you and he consulted his watch you might be able to catch that yet if you run for it it s only across the field here you see that little yellow station over there t well that s the pacific i don	43
t know whether it stops here or not but it may it s due now but sometimes it s a little late have to run for it thou yon haven t a minute to spare a book about myself ton fool me about a thing like this would i not for anything i know how yon feel if yoa can get on that train yon find him they ve taken him off somewhere else i don t remember if i even stopped to thank him instead of following into the cars i now leaped to the little path which cut across this long field evidently well worn by human feet as i ran i looked back once or twice to see if my enemy was following me bat apparently he had not seen me i now looked forward eagerly toward this other station but as i ran i saw the arm which stood at right angles opposite the station lower for a clear track for some train at the same time i a mail bag hanging out on an express arm indicating that whatever this train was it was not going to stop here i turned still uncertain as to whether i bad made a mistake in not searching the other train after all supposing the conductor had me supposing the lar were on there and was already beginning to question him oh lord what a beat i and what would happen to me was it another case of three shows and no critic t i np in my running chill beads of sweat bursting through my bat as i did so i saw the st san train begin to move and from it as if shot oat of it leaped ha i ht then the robber is not on there has just discovered it he knows now that he is coming in on this line for i could see him running along the path oh kind heaven if i can beat him to it if i can only get on and leave him behind he has all of a thousand feet still to run and i am here desperately i ran into the station thrust my head in at the open window and called when is this st express due now he replied does it no it don t stop can it be stopped a book about myself it can ton mean that you have no ri t to stop i mean i won t stop iti even as be said this there came the of a whistle in the distance oh lord i thought here it comes and he won t let me on and will be here any for the moment i was even willing that should catch it too if only i could get on think of what would think if i missed it will five dollars stop it i asked desperately into my pocket no will tent it might he replied stop it i urged and over the bill the agent took it a of yellow order which lay before him something on the face of one and ran out to the track at the same time he called to me run on down the track after it she won t stop here she can t on shell go a thousand feet before she can slow np i ran while he stood there up this thin sheet of yellow paper as i ran i heard tbe express rushing np behind me on the instant it was alongside and past its wheels grinding and sparks it was l i should get on and oh glory be i would not fine i could hear the of the wheels against the as the train came to a full now i would make it and what a victory i came up to it and climbed aboard but looking back i saw to my horror that my rival had almost caught np and was now close at hand not a hundred feet behind he had seen the signal had seen me running and instead of running to the station had taken a tack and followed me i saw that he would make the train i tried to signal the agent behind to let the train go bat he a book about myself had already done so the conductor came out on hie rear platform and i appealed to him let her go i pleaded let her go it s all right go don t that other fellow want to get on be no no no don t let him on i pleaded i arranged to this train i m from the he s nobody he s no tight on here but even as i spoke np came breathless and and crawled eagerly on a of mingled triumph and joy at my written all over his face if i had bad more courage i would have beaten him off as it was i merely groaned to think that i should have done all this for him is that he sneered you think leave me behind do well i yon this trip it and his lip i was beaten it was an immensely moment for me to lose when i had everything in my own hands my spirits fell so for the moment that i did not even trouble to inquire whether the robber was on the train i in after my rival who had proceeded his eager way satisfied that i should have to beat him in the quality of the interview forward through the train i soon discovered the and their prisoner in one of the for ward cars the prisoner was a most specimen tor so a deed short broad heavy with a dull face gray eyes dark brown hair big rough hands the hands one would expect to find on a railroad or baggage and a and skin he had on the	43
cheap clothes of a a blue shirt gray trousers brown coat and a red handkerchief tied his neck on his head was a small round brown hat pulled down over his eyes he had the still indifferent expression of a captive bird and when i came np after and sat down be scarcely looked at me or at between him and the car window to foil any attempt at escape in that direction and fastened to him by a pair of was the of the in which he had been taken a big bland inexperienced creature whose sense of his own importance was plainly by his task facing him was one of the of the road or express company a short like person and opposite them across the aisle sat still another there may have been still others hut i failed to inquire i was at the mere presence of and his cheap and coarse methods of himself into any company and especially one like this that i scarcely speak what i i when the utmost would be required to get the true of all this to send a cheap pig like this to thrust himself forward and what might otherwise prove a fine story t why if it hadn t been for me and my luck and my mon be wouldn t be here h a book about myself at all and he as a the man of the he had the s habit of an interest and which he did not feel his face itself into a cheery smile the while his eyes followed one like those of a attempting all the while to discover whether his assumed friendship was being accepted at the he wished sport he began familiarly in my presence patting the on the knee and fixing him with tiiat gaze that was a great trick yon pulled off the be crazy to find out how yon did it my paper the wants a whole page of it it wants your picture too did you really do it all alone t well that s what i call swell eh and now he turned his on the and the other in a moment or two more be was telling the latter what an intimate friend he was of the chief of of st and mr o and o the chief of police as well as other and the dull i thought and this ia what he con place in this world i and be wants a whole page for the he d do well if he wrote a paragraph alone i still to my intense i could see that he was making not only with the and the hot with the himself the latter smiled a raw smile and looked at him as if he might possibly understand a person s good clothes always looking like new his bright yellow shoes sparkling rings and pins and gaudy tie seemed to impress them all so this was the sort of these people liked and they took him for a real newspaper man from a great newspaper i indeed the only time that seemed to obtain the least grip on this situation or to impress myself on the minds of the prisoner and his was when it came to those finer shades of questioning which concerned just why for what reasons he had attempted this deed alone and then i noticed that my was au ears and copious a book about myself notes he knew enough to take from others what lie not work out for himself in regard to the principal or general points i that my irish friend was as swift at oat facts as one aud as eager to know how and why and always to my astonishment and the prisoner as well as the paid more attention to him than to me they tamed to him as to a lamp and seemed to be immensely more impressed with him than with me although the main lines of fell to me all at once i him whispering to one or other of the while i was some but when i tamed up anything new or asked a question he had not thought of he was all ears again and back to resume the questioning on his own in truth he irritated me and appeared to be intensely happy in doing so my contemptuous looks and remarks did not disturb him in the least by now i was so and enraged that i could think of but one thing that would have really satisfied me and that was to attack him physically and give him a good beating although i questioned whether i could do that he was so cynical and savage however the story was finally extracted and a fine tale it made it appeared that up to seven or ei t months preceding the robbery this robber had been first a freight or yard hand on this road later being promoted to the position of superior and assistant ht previous to this he had been a livery stable in the town in which he was eventually taken and before that a farm hand in that neighborhood about a year before the crime this road along with many others had laid off a large number of men including himself and reduced the wages of all others by as much as ten per cent naturally a great deal of labor discontent ensued a number chained and traced to dismissed and dissatisfied ex now followed the methods of successful train were bo clearly set forth by the newspapers that nearly any one so inclined could follow them among other things while working as a freight had a book about myself heard of many money made by the express companies and the manner in which they were guarded the pacific for which he worked was a very popular route for money both west and east	43
and bills being in all the while between st louis and the east and city and the west and although express messengers even at this time owing to numerous train which had been in the west lately were always well armed still these had not been without success the death of messengers and even passengers who ventured to protest as well as the fact that much money bad recently been stolen and never recovered bad not only encouraged the growth of everywhere but had put such an fear into most of the road as well as its who had no occasion for their lives in of the roads that but few even of those especially picked guards to give the battle i myself during the short time i had been in st louis had helped report three such in its vicinity in all of which cases the had escaped but the motives which eventually resulted in the amazing attempt of this particular robber were not so much that he was a discharged and poor railroad hand unable to find any other form of employment as that in his idleness having wandered back to his native region he had fallen in love with a young girl here being hard pressed for cash and unable to make her such presents as be desired he bad first begun to think of some method of raising money and later another railroad band showing up and rob a train be had at first rejected it as not not wishing to tie himself up in a crime especially with others later his condition becoming more be bad begun to think of a train on his own account why alone that was the point we were all most anxious to find out and with all the odds against neither nor myself could induce him to make this point clear although once i raised it we were both most a book about eager to solve it didn t he know that be not expect to overcome and baggage man and to say nothing of the express messenger the conductor and the passengers t tes he knew only he had thought be do it other so few as three in one case of which te had read had held large trains why not shots fired a train easily all passengers as well as the apparently it was a life and death job either w and it would be better for him if he worked it out alone instead of with others often he said other men or they had is who told on them i looked at him intensely interested and moved to admiration by the sheer animal courage of it all the the or what yon will somewhere in this frame and how came he to fix on this train i asked well it was this way every thursday and friday a limited running west at midnight carried larger of money than on other days this was to being made between eastern and western banks but he did not know that having decided on one of these trains he proceeded by degrees to secure first a small from which he had scraped all evidence of the maker s name then later from other distant places so as to avoid all chance of detection six or seven sticks of giant powder such as farmers use to blow up and still later two holding six each some and cord and cloth out of which he proposed to make bundles the money placing all this in his bag he eventually visited a small town nearest the spot which because of its loneliness he had fixed on as the ideal place for his crime and then it and its possibilities finally arranged all his plans to a here as he now told us just at the outskirts of this stood a large water at which this express as well as nearly all other trains stopped for water beyond it about five miles was a wood with a marsh somewhere in its depths an ideal e to bury his quickly the express was due at a book about myself this at about one in the the nearest town beyond the wood was all of five miles away a mere hamlet like this one his plan was to conceal himself near this and when the train stopped and before it started again to slip in between the engine tender and the front baggage car which was blind at both ends another arrangement carefully beforehand was to take his without the and sticks of giant powder which he would carry and place it along the track just opposite that point in the wood where he wished the train to stop here once he bad concealed himself between the engine and the baggage car and the train having resumed its he would keep watch the of the engine revealed this bag lying beside the track when he would rise up and compel the engineer to stop the train so far so good however as it turned out two slight errors one of and one of caused him finally to lose the fruit of his plan on the night in question between eight and nine he arrived on the scene of action and did as be bad planned he put the bag in place and the train however on reaching the spot where he felt sure the bag should be he could not see it that he was where be wished to work he rose ap covered the two men in the cab drove them before him to the rear of the engine where they were made to it then conducted them to the express car door where he presented them with a stick of giant powder and ordered them to blow it open this they did the messenger within having first refused so to do they were driven into the car and made to	43
blow open the safe throwing ont the of and coin as he commanded bat this time the danger of either or passengers climbing down from the cars in the rear and coming forward he had fired a few shots toward the passenger calling fa imaginary companions to keep watch there at the same time to throw the fear of death into the minds of both engineer and he pre a book about tended to be to on tbe other side of the train to keep watch over there don t kill anybody yon have to boys he had said or that ll be all right frank stay over there watch that side ill take care of these two and then he would fire a few more shots once the express car door and safe had been blown open and the money handed out he had compelled the engineer and to come down the engine and away only after the train had safely disappeared did he venture to gather np the various rolling them in his coat since he bad lost his beg and with this over his shoulder he had staggered off into the night eventually in concealing it in the swamp and then making off for e himself the two things which finally caused his discovery were first the loss of the bag which after concealing the money he attempted to find but without success and second and this he did not even know at the time that in the bag which he had lost he had placed some time before and then forgotten apparently a small handkerchief the of his love in one comer why he might have wished te carry the handkerchief about with him was enough but why he should have put it into the bag and then forgot it was not clear even to himself from the we now learned that the next day at noon the bag was found by other and citizens just where he had placed it and that the handkerchief bad given them their first clue the wood was searched without success however save that were discovered in various places and again on the crime decided that owing to the hard times and the laying off and ing of some of these might have had a hand in it and so in due time the whereabouts and of each and every one of those who had worked for the road were gone into it was finally discovered that this particular ex had returned to his native town and had been going with a certain girl and was about to be married to her next it a book was that her to those on the handkerchief mr rolling was arrested a search of his room made and nearly all of the money recovered then being with the goods he confessed and here he was being hurried to st to be and while we of the press and the law were gathered about him to make capital of his error the only thing that consoled me however as i rode toward st louis and tried to piece the details of his crime tf ther was that if i had failed to make it impossible for to get the story at all still when it came to the of it i unquestionably write a better story for he would have to tell his story to some one else while i should be able to write my own putting in touches as i chose only one detail remained to be arranged for and that was the matter of a picture why neither nor myself nor the editor of the had thou t to include an artist on this expedition was more a fault of the time than anything else for news stories being by no means as numerous as they are today and the having not yet been invented aa we st louis began to see the import of this very clearly and suddenly began to comment on it saying he guessed we d have to send to the four courts afterward and have one made suddenly his eyes filled with a shrewd cunning and he turned to me and said how would it be old man if we took him up to the office and let the boys make a picture of him j our friends wood and then both of ns get one right away i d say take him to the republic only the is so much nearer and we have that new machine yon know which was true the being very poorly equipped in this respect he added a friendly aside to the effect that of course this depended on whether the prisoner and the officers in willing not on life i replied suspiciously and not to the anyhow if you want to bring him down a about myself to the all right well have them make pictures and yon can bare one bat why not the he went on wood and mc cord are friends more n they are mine think of the difference in the distance we want to save time don t wet here it is nearly six thirty and by the time we get down there and have a picture taken and i get back to the office be half past seven or eight it s all r ht for yon i because you can write faster bat look at me i d as go down there as not bat what s the difference t besides the globe s got a better plant and yoa know it either wood or make a fine picture and when we explain to em bow it is yon be sore to get one the same aa as the same picture ain t that all right f no it s not i replied and i won t do it that s all it s au right about dick and peter	43
i know what tbey ii do for me if the paper will let them but i know the paper won t let them and besides you re not going to be able to claim in the morning that this man was brought to tiie first i know you don t begin to try to pat anything over me i won t stand for it see t and if these people do it anyhow make a kick at that s au for a moment be appeared to be by this and to decide to abandon his project bat later he took it up again ly in the most spirit in the world at the same time and from now on he kept me with bis eyes a thing which i bad never known him to do before he was always too hang dog in looking at me but now of a sudden there was something bold and friendly as well as and cynical in his gaze aw come on be argued he was a r what s the use being small about it the globe s nearer think what a fine picture make if you don t well have to go clear to the office and send an artist down to the jail you can t take any good pictures down there ton ht cot it i replied i won t do it that s all but even as he talked a strange feeling of uncertainty or confusion a book began to creep over me for the first time knowing him in spite of au my opposition of this and before i found myself not quite him bnt feeling as he weren t such an bad sort after all what was bo wrong this u b idea anyhow i began to ask myself in the most insane and yet dreamy way imaginable why wouldn t it be all right to do inwardly or or within me something was telling me that it was all wrong and that i was making a big mistake even to think it i felt half asleep or by clouds which made everything he said seem all right still i wasn t asleep and now i didn t believe a word he said to the sore i found myself s ing to myself in spite of myself in a dumb half way that wouldn t be so bad it s nearer what s wrong with dick or peter will make a good picture and then i can take it only at the same time i was also thinking i shouldn t really do that hell claim the credit for having brought this man to the i ii be making a big mistake the or nothing let him come down to the in the meantime we were entering st louis and the station by then somehow he had not only convinced the and the other officers but the prisoner they liked him and were willing to do what he said i could even see the love of and parade gleaming in the es of the and the two plainly the office of the was the place in their estimation for such an at the same time between looking at me and the prisoner and the officers he had a fine mental net from which i seemed to escape even as i rose with these others to leave the train i cried no i won t come in on this i it s all right if you want to bring him down to the or you can take him to the four courts bnt i m not going to let you get away with this you hear now don t bnt then it was too late once laid hold of my arm in an genial fashion and hung on it in spite of me he seemed to a book be master of tlie and to realize it once more he began to plead and in front of me he seemed to do hia best to keep my attention from that point on and from that d to i have never been able to explain to myself what did happen all at once and more clearly than before i seemed to see that his plan in regard to the globe was the best it would save time and besides he kept repeating in an almost sing song way that we would go first to the and then to the yon come np with me to the and then go down with yon to the be kept saying well just let wood or take one picture and then well all go down to see i didn t see i went for the time nothing seemed important if he bad stayed by me i think he could have prevented my writing any story at all as it was he was so eager to achieve this splendid triumph of the celebrated into the rooms of the first and there having him and introduced to my old chief that he hailed a and the six of ns crowding into it we were off in a to the door of the where once i reached it and seeing him and the and the across the i suddenly awoke to the of it all i called say hold cut this i won t do it i i don t agree to this bat it was too late in a the prisoner and the rest of them were up the two or three low steps of the main entrance and into the hall and i was left outside to on the insanity of the thing had done god i suddenly exclaimed to myself what hare i let that fellow do to met i ve been that s what it is i i ve allowed him to a prisoner whom i had in my own hands at one time into the of oar great	43
rival to be he s put it all over me on this job and i had him beaten i had him where i could have him off the train and now i let him do this to me and tomorrow there be a long in the telling a book about how this fellow was there first and and his picture to prove it i i swore and groaned for i walked towards the republic wondering what i should do distinct as was my failure it was so easy even when practically admitting the whole truth to make it seem as the police had deliberately worked against the i did not even have to do that bat merely my admitting or upon which would not have believed anyhow on the instant he burst into a great rage against the police department seeing apparently no fault in anything i had done and vengeance they were always doing this they did it to the when he was on the globe wait he would get even with them yet a to the jail he had various pictures made all of which appeared with my story but to no purpose the bad us beaten although i had over the text given it the finest turns i could still there on the front page of the was a large picture of the seated in the of the great g d a portion of the figure although not the head of its great chief standing in the background and over it all in extra large type the lone visits office of globe to pat his respects and underneath in a full account of how he had ly and gladly come there i suffered not only for days but for weeks and months absolute whenever i thought of i wanted to kill him to think i said to myself that i had thought of the two trains and then run across the meadow and paid the agent for stopping the train which permitted to see the at all and then to be done in this way i and what was worse he was so and conscious of having done me when we met on the street day his lip curled with the old hatred and contempt these swell he sneered these high a book about myself ink s got the best of the train story and i replied but never mind what i replied no print it chapter things like these taught me not to depend too on my own skill i might propose and believe but there things above my planning or powers and creatures i might choose to despise were not so helpless after all it fixed my thoughts permanently on the weakness of th e mind as a directing organ one might think till in of human ideas bat apparently over and above ideas there were forces which or controlled them my own fine ideas might be or set at bt by the raw animal or force of a man like during the next few months a number of things happened which seemed to my horizon considerably for one thing my trip to having revived interest in me in the minds of a number of newspaper men there and having seemingly convinced them of my success here i was with letters from one and another wanting to know whether or not they could obtain work here and whether i could and would aid them at the close of the fair in in october hard times were expected in newspaper circles there many men being released from work i bad letters from at least four one of whom was a on by the name of of whom more anon who had attached himself to me largely because i was the stronger and he expected aid of me i have often thought how frequently this has happened to me one of my typical experiences as it is of every one who begins to get along it is so much easier for the strong to the weak than the strong strength we want only those who will swing the before our and or was a poor back who had been connected with a commercial agency where daily had to be written out aa to the a book about myself n c i al and social of john smith the butcher or jones the baker this led who was a to begin with to imagine that be could write and that he would like to mn a paper only he thought to get experience in the city first b some process of which i fo et the steps he fixed on me and through myself and who was then so friendly to me bad a on the globe in after i left tired of him and i heard of him next as working for the ci an oi which served all newspapers and paid next to nothing next i heard that he was married having succeeded so i and still later he began to me with for aid in a place in st louis also there were letters from much letter men h l afterwards chief press of president an excellent by the name of whom i have previously mentioned and a little later john meanwhile in of my great failure in connection with my standing with seemed to rise rather than sink believe it or no i became a privileged character about this institution or its city room a singular thing in the newspaper profession because of i was constantly writing for the paper i was taken up by the sporting editor who wanted my occasional help in his work the dramatic editor who wanted my help on his dramatic page asking me to see plays from time to time and the editor himself a small courteous soft spoken red headed man from city who b an to invite me to lunch or	43
and walking back to his chair i following ami i don t think you understand quite how i felt about that i was sorry to see you go and he cleared his throat it was an unfortunate mistake all around i want you to know that i did not blame yoa so much um you might have been relieved of other work i don t want to take you away from any other paper but um i want yon to know that if you are ever free and want to come back yoa can there is no prejudice in my mind against you i don t know of anything that ever moved me more it was thrilling i could have cried from sheer delight he my chief saying this to me i and after all those wretched hours i what a fool i was i now thought not to have gone to him personally then and asked his consideration however as i saw it it was too late why change now and go but i was so excited that i could scarcely speak and probably would not have known what to say if i had tried i stood there and finally out i m very sorry mr i didn t mean to do what i did it was a mistake i had that extra and oh that s all right that s all right he insisted and as if he wished to be done with it once and for all no harm done i didn t mind that so much but yon needn t have left that s what i wish you to understand you could have stayed if you had wanted to as i viewed it afterward my beat opportunity for a secure position in st louis was here if i had only known it or a book about myself knowing had been quick to take advantage of it i might mr s mood plainly warm toward me he probably looked upon me as a and but capable boy whom it would have been his pleasure to assist in the world he had brought me from perhaps he wished me to remain under his eye plainly a word and i could bare returned i am sure of it perhaps never to leave as it was however i was so nervous and excited that i took no advantage of it possibly he noticed my embarrassment and was pleased at any rate as i my thanks and gratitude for all be bad done for me that if i were doing over i should try to do differently he interrupted me with just a moment it may be that you have some young friend whom you want to help to a position here in st louis if you have send him to me do anything i can for him i m always glad to do i can for young men i smiled and flushed and thanked him but for the life of me i could think of nothing else to say it was so strange so tremendous that this man should want to do anything for me after all the ridiculous things i had done under him that i could only hurry away out of his sight once in the darkness outside i felt better but sad it seemed as if i had made a mistake as if i should have asked him to take me back why be as much as offered to i said to myself i can go back there any time i wish or hell give me a place for some one else think of it then he doesn t consider me a fool as i thought he did i days thereafter i went about my work trying to decide whether i should resign from the and return to him only now i seemed so very important here to myself at least that it did not seem wise wasn t i getting along t would returning to work be an advantage t i decided not also that i had no real excuse for leaving the b at present so i did nothing waiting to be absolutely sure what i wanted to do there was a feeling growing in me at this time that i really did not want to stay in a book about myself st at all that it would be better for me if i move on elsewhere aa i recalled had me to that effect another newspaper man writing me from and for a place a friend of a by the way i recommended him and he was put to work on the globe and so my reputation for influence in local newspaper grew and in the meantime still other things had been happening to me which seemed to my life here and make me almost a in st for one thing worrying over the well being of my two brothers e and a who were still in and wishing to do something to improve their condition i t that st would be as good a place for them aa any in which to try their fortunes anew both had seemed rather unhappy in and i waa getting along here i felt that it would be only decent in me to give them a helping hand it i could the blood tie was rather strong in me then i have always had a weakness for members of onr family of their deserts or mine or what i thought they had done to me i had a comfortable floor with ample room for them it i chose to invite them and i t that my advice and aid and enthusiasm might help them to do better there was in me then and remained though in a fading form i am sorry to say a sort of home longing the german no which made me look back on everything in	43
connection with our troubled lives with a sadness an ache a desire to remedy or repair if possible some of the ills and pains that had beset us au we bad not always been unhappy together what family ever has we had over trivial things but there had been many happy and now we were separated and these two brothers were not doing as well as i i say it in faint of all the many hard unkind things i have done in my time that at the of the possible misery some of my and sisters might be enduring the from which they might be hopelessly suffering my throat often and my heart ached life bears so hard on us all on many so terribly what e a book about or a for something and not being able to afford it i it hurt me far more than any lack of my own ever could it never to me that they might be wishing to help me it was always i hard op or otherwise wishing that i might do something for them and this longing in the face of no complaint on part and no means on mine to it into better than wishes and dreams made it all the more painful at times my plan was to bring them here and give them a little leisure to look about for some way to better themselves and then well then i should not need to worry about them so much with this in mind i wrote first to e and then a and the former younger and more restless and always more attracted to me than any of the others soon came on while a a little more time to however in the course of time he too appeared and then we three were in my rooms the of my brothers me five additional dollars here we kept bachelor s hall gay enough while it lasted but more or clouded over all the while by their need of finding work i had forgotten or did not know or the fact did not make a sufficiently sharp impression on me that this was a panic year and that there were hundreds of thousands of men out of work the country over indeed trade was at a or nearly so when i first went on the republic if i had only stopped to remember many were down or up men or issuing of their own wherewith to pay until times should be better and some shops and stores were failing entirely it had been my first experience of a panic and should have made a deep impression on me had i been of a practical turn for one of my earliest had been to visit some of the owners of and stores and shops and ask the cause of their decline and whether better times were in sight even then i read long in the or the on the subject yet i could take no interest in them they were too heavy as i thought yet i can remember the gloom hanging over streets and shops and how solemnly some of the a book about spoke of the and the hard times yet in store there were to be hard times for a year or more i recall one old man at thia time very pro y and stiff and al one of our best men who had had a large iron factory on the for fifty years and who now in his old age had to down for good being sent out to interview him i found him after a long search in one of the silent wings of his empty walking alone some machinery which also was still i him what the trouble was and if he would work soon again just say that i m done he replied this panic has finished me i could go on later i suppose but i m too old to begin all over again z any money now and that s all there is to it i left him meditating over some tool he was trying to in the face of this imagine my inviting my two brothers to this difficult scene and then expecting than to get along in some way persuading them to throw np whatever places or positions they had m in bo doing i satisfied an or longing to bare them near me and to do something for them and beyond that i did not in fact it took me years and years to get one thing straight in my poor brain and that was this that aside the or practical possibility of one s dreams into reality the less one over them the better here i was now the very inadequate of eighteen or it may have been twenty or two for i have a dim recollection of having been given at least one raise in pay yet with no more practical sense than to a burden which i could not possibly for despite my good ms i had no wherewith to sustain my brothers assuming tiiat their efforts proved even temporarily all this dream of something for them was based on good will and a totally inadequate income in consequence it could not bat fail as it did seeing that st a book about was far active than it waa not growing and there was an older and more european of and c in place and type of work p prevailed at that time in the work was really very hard to get especially in and lines and in my two after only a week or two of which was all i could afford were to here and there early and late finding anything to do true i tried to help them in one way and another with advice as to institutions lines of work and the like bat to no end	43
before and after they came how and no i painted the city ot st louis its large size opportunities etc and once they were here i pat myself to the task of showing them its charms but to no avail we went about together to places as long as it was new and they felt that there was some hope of finding work they were gay and interested and we spent a number of delightful horns together but as time wore on and fading summer days proved that their dreams and mine were hopeless and they could do no better here than in if as well their moods changed as did mine the burden of expense was considerable while paying enough for food and rent and even for the three i began to wonder whether i should be able to endure the strain much longer love them as i might in absence and happy as i was with them still it was not possible for me to keep up this pace i was myself of bare necessities and i think they saw it i said nothing of that i am positive but after a month or six weeks of trial and failure they themselves saw the point and became unhappy over it our morning and whenever i could see them in the evening became less and less gay finally a bis usual eye for the sensible announced that he was tired of searching here and was to return to he did not like st louis anyhow it was a hell ol a place a third rate city he waa going back where he get work and e a book ut past joys of which i knew nothing said he going also and so once more i was alone yet even this experience had no marked effect on me it me little if anything in regard to the e i know now that these two most have had a hard time themselves in at that time bat the of it did not get to me then as for e some years later i him to join me in new york where i managed to keep him by me that time until he became w lived some distance from the city and remain there her school season opened i neglected to write to her hot once september had come and the day of her return was near i began to think of her and soon was as keenly interested as ever her simplicity and charm came back to me with great force and i one day sat down and wrote her a brief letter recalling onr days and her how it would be before she be to st louis i waa rather now lest she not answer in time however a note came in which she told me that she expected to be at twenty or twenty five miles ont of st by september when her work would begin and that she be in st shortly afterward to visit an and hoped to see me there was something about the letter so simple direct and yet artful that it me deeply as i have said i really knew nothing of the conditions which surrounded her and yet from the time i received this letter i something that appealed to me a and a certain artful the power i suppose to pose under my glance and yet which held me as in a her all others seemed harder bolder or of it does not matter now but as i look back on it there seems to have been more of pure exalted or romance in this thing at first and even a year or so afterward than in any experience of which i have any recollection with the possible exception of unlike most of my other affairs this in the beginning at least seemed more a matter of pure romance or poetry a desire to see and be near her indeed i could only think of her as a part of some country scene of walking or riding with her along some a book about myself leafy country lane of a little boat on a stream of with her trees in a of watching her play of being with her where grass trees and a were in that world of the fair she bad seemed well placed this most be a perfect love i t here was truly sweet pore girl who inspired a man with a nobler passion than mere lost i began to picture myself with her in a home somewhere possibly here in st of going with her to even for i fancied she was of a strict bent of a baby carriage indeed of leading a thoroughly domestic life and being happy in it i we fell into a correspondence which swiftly took on a form and on my part in a most extended correspondence so long that they surprised even myself i myself in the grip of a letter writing fever as hitherto had never possessed me writing l personal intimate accounts of my own affairs my work my dreams what not as well as what i thought of her of the beauty of life as i had seen it with her in my theories and in regard to everything as i see it now this was perhaps my and easiest attempt at literary expression the form being and yet to and without difficulty all the and emotions and ideas which had hitherto been locked up in me and steaming to the explosion point indeed the newspaper forms to which i was daily compelled to confine myself offered no outlet and in addition in miss w i had found a seemingly sympathetic and understanding soul one which required and inspired all the best that was in me i was now as i told myself on the verge of something wonderful a new life	43
i work save advance myself and better my condition generally so as to be worthy of her at the very same time i was still able to lee beauty in other women and the delights of those who would never be able to be as good as she i they might be good for me bnt far beneath her whose eyes were too pure to evil a book about in the latter part of er she came to st and me my first delighted sight of her since we had left at this time i was at the toss of my in st louis i was as i now by now also i had found a new room in the very heart of the on near the and was leading a bachelor existence truly circumstances this room was on the third floor rear of a which looked ont over some music hall whose ass roof was below and from whence nightly and frequently in the afternoon issued all sorts of music hall clatter including music and singing and voices in or dialogue one block were the southern hotel s and the in the block north were the and dick s old room which by now he abandoned having in of all his fine dreams of a married a girl whom together we had met in the church some months before a rider thereafter he had removed to a on the side an which seemed to me bnt a crude and rather pathetic at worthless i like to report here that something over a year later this first marriage of his terminated in the death of his wife later some two or three years he indulged in a second most and romance wedding finally on this occasion the daughter of a carpenter and her name and a year or two after this she was to death by an oil stove and this was the man who was bent on an in my new room therefore because it was more of a i had already managed to set up a kind of garret which was by dick and peter and a number of other acquaintances no sooner was i settled here whose affairs i had straightened out by getting him a place on the republic put in an appearance and also john who because of conditions in bad come to st louis to bet ter bis fortunes bnt more of that later a about in spite of all these friends and labors and attempts at others it was my affair with w which now completely engrossed me so had i taken this new to heart that i was scarcely able to eat or sleep once i knew definitely that she was inclined to like me as her letters proved and the exact day of her arrival had been fixed i walked on air i had not been able to save much money i had been on the possibly a dollars all told and that since my brothers had left bnt of that i took forty or fifty and bo a new fall suit of a most pronounced if not startling pattern the coat being extra long and of no known relation to any current style an idea of my own to say nothing of as patent leather shoes ties a new pearl gray hat all in view of this expected visit for her especial although i had little money for what i considered the of boxes dinners and at the best flowers still i hoped to make an impression why t it being a newspaper man and an ex dramatic editor to say nothing of my rather close friendship with the present critic i easily obtain tickets although the of my work often prevented as i discovered afterward my accompanying her for more than an at a time chapter on the day of ber i arrayed myself in my best armed myself with flowers and two tickets for the and made my way oat to her s in one of the home streets in the west end i was so that my afternoon prove a barrier to my seeing her that day that i went to her as as ten thirty intending to offer her the tickets and arrange to stop for her afterwards at the or failing that to see her for a little in the evening if my permitted i was so tain of my standing in her eyes so anxious to make a good impression that i was ashamed to confess that my duties made it for me to see her at all after my free days in i wanted her to think tiiat i was more than a mere re a sort of correspondent and man which in a way i was only my were determined to keep me for some reason in the ordinary taking daily as usual instead of my difficulties i made a great show of freedom i found her in a small tree shaded cool looking brick with a brick before it and a space of grass on one side never did place seem more charming i stared at it as one might at a shrine here at last was the temporary home of my beloved and she was within i knocked and an attractive slip of a girl her niece as i learned answered i was shown into a long darkened parlor after giving me time to weigh the taste and of her relatives according to my standards she arrived the beloved the in view of many later things it seems that here at least i might attempt to do her full justice she seemed exquisite to me then a trim agreeable of a girl with a lovely oval face red hair and after the fashion of a head a about myself b dear pink akin long narrow hands a perfect small feet there was	43
of the wood or water her a seeking in her eyes a breath of wild win in her hair a to her month and yet she was so a simple and inexperienced country girl firm and fast in american and and with no hint in her mind of all the wild mad ways of the world sometimes i have grieved that she ever met me or that i so little myself as to have sought her ont i first saw her after this long time framed in a white doorway and she made a fascinating picture here as in she seemed shy innocent as one who might fly at the first sound i in admiration despite a certain something in her letters which had indirectly assured me of her or her desire for mine still she held aloof extending a cool hand and asking me to sit down ting tenderly and i felt odd out of place and yet wonderfully drawn to her passionately interested what followed by w of conversation i cannot remember now talk of the fair i suppose some of those we had known her mine she took my roses and pinned some of them on placing the rest in a jar there was a piano here and after a time she consented to play in a moment it seemed it was twelve thirty and i had to go i walked on air it seemed to me that i had seen any one more and i doubt now that i had there was no reason to be applied to the thing it was plain a desire for her if i had lost her then and there or any time within a year thereafter i should have deemed it the moat affair of my life i returned to the office and took some which i cut short at three thirty in order to get back to the grand opera house to sit beside her the play was an irish love drama with the singing in the title with her beside me i thought it perfect love i ah love i when the performance was ended i was ready a book about mt to weep over the beauty ot life we the crowds the carriages the sense of autumn and in the air a ice cream and store was crowded to young girls of the better families like bees because of my poverty and uncertain station i felt depressed at the same time pretending to a station which i felt to be most unreal the mixture of ambition and uncertainty pride a gay in the air added to the need to return to conventional toil how these tortured me i nothing surprises me now more than my driving emotions all through this period i was as one possessed we parted at a street car when wanted a carriage we met at her aunt s home at eight thirty because i saw an opportunity of deliberately an in this simple parlor i dreamed the wildest the most fantastic dreams she was the be all and the end all of my existence now i must work for her wait for her succeed for her i her piano seemed perfect her voice ideal never was such such color st louis took on a which it had never before possessed if only this love could have gone on to a swift it would have been perfect blinding but all the traditions of a and region were in the way love as it is in most places and despite its blaze was a slow process there must be many such visits i knew before i could even place an arm about her i was to be permitted to take her to church to the a occasionally but nothing more the next morning i went to church with her the next afternoon work kept me from her but that night i and stayed with her until eleven the next morning since she had to catch an early train for i slept late but daring the next two weeks she could not come having to spend one sunday with her folks as she referred to them i poured forth ny amazement and delight on of thin paper z wonder now where they are once was a trunk full a book about u self the most interesting effect of this fierce passion was the heightened color it lent to everything never before had i realized so clearly the charm of life as life its singing its intense appeal i remember witnessing a hanging this time standing beside the when the trap was and being to death yet when i returned to the and there was a letter from hei the world was perfect once more no evil or pain in it i i np the horrors of a political catastrophe in which a city shot himself to escape the law bat a letter from her and the world was a n ro in an a girl and i arrived in time to see him walking in the wood afterward away from the swinging body i t of and life contained not a e ill such is if i had been alive before now i was more than alive i all over with longing and to be an editor a a i know not what the simple homes i had dreamed over before as representing all that was charming and soothing and were now twice aa attractive love all its possibilities before my eyes a fantastic procession love i love i the charm of a home in it would find its most appropriate setting i the brooding tenderness of it i its force against the blows of ordinary to be married to have your beloved with to have a charming home to which to return of an evening or at any hour sick or well i was young in good health	43
and spirits in a few years i should be neither so young nor so vital age would descend cold gray thin this glorious glorious period of love desire would be gone and then what t ah and then what i if i did not achieve now and soon all that i desired in die way of tenderness fortune beauty now when i was young could enjoy it my chance would once and for all be over i should be helpless youth would come no more t love would come no man i but now now life was sounding singing ui ing but also it was running and what waa i doing what could i dot a book about tlie five months which followed were a period of such mood the richest period of rank i ever at times i could at others sigh the incidents of this period for there is as little in love as there is ont of it at least in my case if i had only known myself i might have seen and that plainly that it was not any of the conventional things which this represented but her charming physical self that i the world as i see it now has itself np too with too many strings of religion it has accepted too many rules all for the guidance of individuals in connection with the and of children the and development of this planet this all very well for those who are interested in that but what of those who are is it everybody s business to get married and accept all the of conventional society that is bear and rear children according to a given social or religious theory t cannot the world have too much of mere breeding f are two for instance more advantageous than one or one more than five million i or is an planet less interesting than a isn t the mere contact love if it produces ideas experience even as im as raising a few hundred thousand coal rail road hands or heroes destined to be eventually ground or shot in some contest with or classes and i am inclined to suspect that the standard to which the world has been too harshly for a thousand years or more now is entirely wrong i do not believe that it is nature s only or ultimate way of continuing or preserving itself nor am i inclined to accept the belief that it produces the highest pe of citizen the world knew little of strict and some countries today are still without it even in our religious or day we are beginning to see less and less of its strict fifty in one state in one year is but a straw it is a i suspect of intellectual or a mental for individuality what a book about ire have achieved is a vast for the of people far the s need even its capacity to decently in special cases where the strong find we see more of secret and than is suspected by the doll and the ignorant opportunity love or attraction all this all the laws to the contrary notwithstanding love or desire where conditions permit will and does find a way here i was dreaming of all the of which the in connection with home peace and the like anxious to put my neck under that yoke when in reality what i really wanted and the only thing that my peculiarly and individual disposition would permit was mental and personal freedom i did not really want any such girl at au and if i had clearly what it all meant i m ht have been only too glad to give her up what i wanted was the joy of possessing her without any of the or binding chains of and bat she would none of it this added to a huge world sorrow over life itself the richness and promise of the visible scene the sting and urge of its beauty the of our days the uncertainty of our hopes the of our capacity to achieve or where so much is produced an intense ache and urge which endured until i left st louis i was bo staggered by the promise and the possibilities of life at the same time growing more and more doubtful of my capacity to achieve anything that i was falling into a profound sadness yet i was only twenty two and between these thoughts would come intense waves of do and dare i was to be all that i fancied achieve all that i dreamed as a contrast to all these fancies and i indulged in a heavy military coat of the most disturbing length a wide hat style gloves a cane soft shirts a most for all occasions including those on which i could call ap m her or take her to a or i remember one morning when i was on my way to see a book about my lady lore and had stopped at the to two meeting a rather newspaper i had on the military coat and the hat a pair of ht yellow gloves narrow patent leather shoes a ring a pin a suit brighter than hia own a cane and i was carrying a of roses i was about to take a street car out to her place not being enough to hire a carriage well for sake old what s apt he called seizing me by the arm yon re not getting married are aw cut the comedy i replied or words to that effect can t a fellow put on any decent clothes in this town without exciting the natives t what s wrong f nothing he replied you look swell tou got on more dog than ever i see a newspaper man around here pull you must be getting along how are things at the republic anyhow	43
we now conversed more he touched the coat and with interest felt of the quality of the cloth looked me up and down seemingly with admiration more likely with amazement shook his head and said some class i must say you re right there sport with the and walked off it was in this style that i my for my ordinary day s labor i wore other clothes but sometimes when stealing a march on my city editor saturday or sundays or evenings i had to perform a lightning change act in order to get into my finery pay my visit and still get back to the office between eleven and twelve or before in my ordinary clothes sometimes i changed as many as three times in one afternoon or evening my room being near here this a little later when i was more experienced i aided myself to this speed by wearing all but the coat and hat an array in which i never presumed to enter the office even my impressive suit and my shoes shirts and ties attracted attention mr my pet office boy at the republic once remarked to me as i entered in this array yon certainly a book about myself look as yon ought to own the paper i the don t look like yon the sporting editor the editor the dramatic editor all eyed me with evident ton certainly are laying it on thick these days remarked beaming on me with his one eye as for my lady love i reached the place where i could hold her hand pat my arms her kiss her bnt never i induce her to sit upon my lap that was reserved for a later date chapter l ay love contain an element of the i presume but to each how very important i pass mine over with what i have already said save this that each little in her costume however slight in her or the way she looked or amid new all seemed to re the perfection that i had discovered and was so as to possess she gave me her photograph which i framed in silver and hung in my room i begged for a lock of her hair and finding a bit of ribbon that i knew belonged to her that she not allow me to visit at where she taught being this new but nevertheless on several sundays when she was at her home up the state i visited this glorious region by her presence and tried to decide for just where she lived and tf her sacred rooms i a little later an or state fair was held in the enormous building at and olive streets and here when the were first on and later when the gay began a sort of harvest rejoicing winding up with a great parade and ball i saw more o her than ever before it was during this time in a letter that she confessed that she me before this however seeing that i made no progress in any other way being allowed no intimacy beyond an stolen kiss i had proposed to her and been accepted with a kind of morbid i had had to ask her in the most definite way and be formally accepted as her husband thereafter i my last cent to purchase a diamond ring at secured through a friend on the and then indeed i felt myself set ap in the world as one who was destined to tread the conventional and peaceful wi of the majority a about in spite of my profound i vas still able to n beauty in other women and be moved by it the attractions and which draw oa away from one and to another are beginning to be more clearly understood in these days and to our more formal notions of and order bnt even at that time this in myself might have taught me to look with suspicion on my own emotions i i did imagine that i was a scoundrel in after other women when i waa so deeply involved with this one bat i told myself that i most be in this way that all men were not so that i myself and probably would hold myself in etc all of which merely proves how and non self can be the processes of the human mind not only do we fail to see ourselves as others see ns bnt we have not the faintest conception of as we really are an incident which might have proved to me how shallow was the depth of my supposed feeling and that it was nothing more than a strong sex desire was this one night twelve a message to the stated that on a branch extension of one of the car lines seven or eight miles from the city a had just been committed three entering a lone owl car which ran from the city to a small village had shot and killed the conductor and fired on the a young girl who had been on board the only passenger had escaped by the front door and had not since been heard of or so the message stated ab i happened to be in the office at the time the story was assigned to me by good luck i managed to catch a twelve o clock car and arrived at the end of the line at twelve forty where i learned that the body of the dead man had been transferred to his home at some point farther out and that a of male of the region had already been oi and were now helping the police to search this country round for the n toes when i about the girl who had been on board one of the men at the bam exclaimed sore she s a a book about wonder t yon want	43
to tell her she np a borrowed a horse and everybody along the route she s the one that first the news here was a story indeed midnight a dark woods lonely country a girl from three a horse and tells all the what more could a newspaper man i was all ears now if she were only good looking i i dow that my first duty was not so to see the body of the dead man and interview bis wife that aa an item not to be n or the who had escaped with his life although he was here and told me all that had happened quite accurately but this this heroine who they said was no more than seventeen or the car in which the murder had been committed was here in the bam the blood of the victim were still to be seen on the floor i took this car which was now a group of a doctor and some other officials to the dead man a house or to the house of the girl i et which when i arrived there i discovered that a comfortable some little distance beyond the home of the dead man the scene of all news and activity for here it that the body of the had been carried and from here the girl had taken a horse and ridden far and wide to call ot hers to her aid when i np to the door had returned and was holding a sort of the lai was crowded and in the under the of a hanging lamp was this maiden rather pretty with her hair brushed straight back from her forehead and her face alight with the intensity of her recent experiences and actions i drew near and surveyed her over the shoulders of the others as she talked finally close enough to engage her in direct conversation as was my she was very simple in manner and speech not quite the dashing heroine i had imagined yet attractive enough for my benefit and possibly for the time she all that had befallen her from the time she the car until she had leaped a book about from the front step after the shot and hid in the wood finding her way to this house eventually and a horse to others because for one thing there was no here and for another there was no man at home at the time who have gone for her with a kind of she explained to me that once the shot had been fired and the had fallen face down in the car he had come in to rebuke these who were addressing bold remarks to her she was cold with fright but that after she had left the car she felt calmer and determined to do something to aid in the capture of the hiding she had seen the dash oat of the rear door of the car and mn back along the track into the darkness and had then in the other direction coming to this and aid it was a fine story her ride in the darkness and how people rose to come oat and help her i made copious notes in my mind took her name and address visited the conductor s wife who was a little distance away and then hurried to the nearest to my news during this conversation with the girl i made an impression on her as we talked i had drawn quite dose and my for her deed had drawn forth various smiles and exclamations when i took her address i said i should like to know more of her and she smiled and said well you can see me any time tomorrow this was saturday night the at this time had what it called a reward for heroism to be given to should perform a truly heroic deed during the current year within the city or its immediate thinking over this girl s deed as i went along and wondering how i should proceed in the matter of retaining her interest i thought of this and asked myself why it should not be given to her she was certainly worthy of it plainly she was a hero riding in the da mess and in tiie face of such a crime and good looking tool and after i had reached the and written a most glowing of all this for the a about late i decided to speak to the next d and did he fell in witli the idea at once a fine idea he veil do that i have to go back and see whether shell accept it sometimes these people won t stand for all this staff know bnt if she does by the way v he asked is she good looking sore i replied she s very good looking a beauty i think well if that s the case all the better she must be made to give you a picture don t let her crawl out of that even if yon have to bring her down here or take her to a if she order the tomorrow and yon can write the whole thing up it ll make a fine sunday feature s girl hero this idea was just the thing to take me back to her the excuse i needed and one that oi ht to bring her close to me if anything could for the time being i had foi all about miss w and her charms she came into my mind bnt it was so all important for me to follow up this new interest one that i could manage quite as well as not along with the other i dressed to my very best clothes the next morning the amazing coat and forth to find my heroine after considerable difficulty i managed to place her in a very	43
simple home on what had once been a farm her father who opened the door was a german of the most rigid and austere mien a i think her mother a simple and pleasant looking fat in the noon ii t my heroine was neither so nor so as she had seemed the n ht before there was something less alive and less delicate in her composition mental and physical and yet she was by no means dull perhaps she lacked the excitement and the crowd she had a peculiar mouth a little wide but sweet and a most engaging smile incidentally it now developed that she had a younger sister darker more graceful almost more attractive than herself the two of them as i soon found upon entering into con a book about myself offered that same problem in american life that many children of foreign bom parents do hy no means poor they were restless if not unhappy in their state the old father was one of those stem and who plainly had held or tried to hold his two children in check at the same time aa was obvious this keen american life was calling to them as never had his to him they were both intensely alive and eager for adventure never before apparently had they seen a never been so close to a really thrilling tragedy and that waa my heroine s name had actually been a part of it how she now scarcely think her parents were not at all stirred by her or the that attached to it in spite of the fact that her father owned this proper and was well placed to maintain her in school or idleness american style was already a clerk in one of the great stores of the city and her sister was also preparing to go to work having just left school i cannot tell how but in a few we three were engaged in a most ardent conversation there waa an old fireplace in this house with some blazing wood in it and before this we and laughed and while i explained what was wanted their mother and father did not even remain in the room i could see that the younger sister for urging on to ai or and was herself eager to share in one it ended by my suggesting that they both come down to dinner with me some evening a suggestion which they welcomed with enthusiasm but explained that it would have to be done under the rose their father was so old fashioned that he would not allow them to take up with any one so swiftly would not even allow them to have any in the house but they could meet me and stay in town all night with friends laughed and the younger clapped her hands for joy i made a most solemn statement of what was wanted to the parents secured two photographs of and departed having arranged to see them the following wednesday at seven at one of the prominent comers of the ei chapter li these two girls and their odd daring point of view and love of fe i have always had the most confused feelings they were crazy and for something different from what they knew what had become of all the staid and doll of their parents in this american atmosphere t the old people had no interest in or patience with any restlessness as for their two girls it would have been as easy to one or both of them in the happy seeking mood in which they met me as to step off a car plainly they liked me both of them my conquest wag so easy that it from the charm the weaker in youth at least has to be sought to be worth while i began to question whether should proceed in this matter as fast as they seemed to wish now that th had made friends with me i liked them both when we met the following wednesday evening and i had taken them to a commonplace i was a little puzzled to know what to do with them rarely having a whole evening to n finally i invited them to my room wondering if they would come it seemed a great adventure to me most daring but i could not quite make up my mind which of the two i preferred just the same they came with me looking on the proceeding as a great and delicious adventure as we came along in the dark after dinner they hung on my arms laughing and at what their parents would think and when we went np the dimly lighted stair an old wide sight they over the fun and mystery of it all the room was nothing much the same old books and other trifles but it seemed to please them greatly what pleased them most was the fact that one could go and come without any attention they about at first and i never having been con a book about hj just this before and being still backward did little or nothing save the one i had most favored the heroine was more retiring less feverish hot still gay i only be with them from seven to ten thirty bnt they intimated that they come again when they stay as late as i chose the was too obvious and i lost interest soon i told them i had to go back to the and took them to a car a few days later i took th to at the store she received it with asking where i had been and when she was to see me again i made an appointment for another day which i never kept it meant as i reasoned it ont that i should have to go farther with her and her sister but	43
office with or that a day or a book about two would make no at the end of the second after spoke to me of big being here the latter said don t yon want to come along with me and see i was delighted at the invitation and tiiat same evening followed to john s hotel room it was a meeting fall of an odd on my part and i know not what on his from others he had gathered the idea that i was here and in a position to be i was really in a most and affectionate frame of mind toward him he met me with a moat cynical expression which by no means me at ease he seemed at once and well be began at once i hear yon re a big hit down here s coming way now ob not so good as that john i said i don t think i ve done so well i bear yon want to stay here have you found anything not a thing he smiled i haven t been trying very hard i guess i told him what i knew of st louis how things went generally and offered to give him letters or personal to a managing editor on the chronicle to and several others he thanked me and then i invited bim to come and live in my room which he declined at the time taking instead a room next door to mine on the same floor largely because it was and central and not i am sure because it was near me here he stayed nearly a month during which time he made efforts to find something to do which i also did suddenly he was gone and a little later and much to my astonishment informed me that be bad concluded that i bad been in keeping from obtaining work here this he had not so much from anything he knew or had heard but by some amazing process of since i was much to him and in a position to assist him i by some of nature would resent his coming and do everything in my power to keep him out i m no event in my life gave me a sense of bein and defeated of all the people i knew i would rather have aided than any one else because i felt so sore that i could not recommend him for anything good enough for him i felt ashamed to try i did the little i bat after a while he left without bidding me good l but before he went there were many in his room or mine and always he assumed the same and tone toward me that he had used in which made me feel as though he thought my present a little too good for me and yet at times in his more cheerful moods he seemed the same old john tender filled with a sincere desire for the welfare of any b and only so restless and irritable now because he was in financial difficulties at that he attempted to do me one more service f ch although i did not resent it very much i misunderstood this was in regard to miss w whose photograph he now saw and whose relation to me he gathered to be serious although what he said related more to mj whole future than to her one day he walked into my room and saw the picture of my love hanging on the wall he paused first to examine it who s he inquired curiously i can see him yet without coat or waistcoat down his fat stomach pulled in tightly by the of his trousers his fat face pink with health his hair on his fine round head that s the girl i m engaged to i announced proudly i m going to marry her one of these days when i get my feet then lover like i began to on her charms while he continued to study tbe photograph have you any idea how she is t he looking up with that queer cynical look of his oh about my age oh he said roughly she s older than that she s five or six years older than yon what do you want to get married for anyhow t too re just a kid yet everything s m a book about before you you re only now getting a start now you want to go and tie yourself up so yon can t move i he over to the window and stared out then he sank comfortably into one of my chairs while i uttered s fine romantic about love a home not wanting to wander around the world all my days alone as i talked he me with one of those audacious of his as and an expression as i have seen on any face oh hell he remarked finally as if to sweep away all i had said then after a time he added as if the world in general if there s a bigger damn fool than a young newspaper man in or out of love let me know here yon are just twenty one just starting out you come down here from and get a little start and the first thing you want to do is to load up with a wife and in a year or so two or three now i know damned well he went on no doubt noting the look of easy on my part that what i m to say won t make you like me any better but i m going to say it anyhow you re like all these young newspaper the moment yon get a start you think you know it all well you ve got a long time to live and a lot of things to learn i had something to do with	43

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