CHAPTER VI.
A REPORTER AT HOME.
WHEN Myles reached the office, on the second morning of his new life,and entered the city-room, it struck him as so cool, clean, and quiet,as contrasted with its glare, heat, and bustle of a few hours before,when he left it tired out and discouraged, that he could hardly realizeit was the same place. Although he had not yet been given a desk or alocker he felt very much at home, and ventured to say “Good-morning” toseveral of the reporters who were already at their desks. Some of themanswered him pleasantly, while one or two simply stared at him, as muchas to say: “Who is this fellow, any way?”
More out of curiosity than any thing else Myles glanced at the mailslate, and to his surprise found his name among those for whom letterswere waiting. Mr. Brown handed him two. The first was from his mother,expressing surprise and disappointment at the line of business intowhich he had gone, and begging him to come home and talk it over withthem before committing himself to it. Myles smiled as he finished thisletter, and thought: “Poor mother! she regards reporters about as I didbefore I knew any thing of them; but perhaps I shall be able to makeher think differently.”
The other note was in a strange handwriting, and ran as follows:
MY DEAR PROXY:
If you will call some time to-day during business hours at room Q, Mills Building, and inquire for Mr. Leigh, he will give you a bit of news that you may consider worthy of publication in the _Phonograph_.
YOUR FRIEND OF THE OXYGEN.
“Here’s a mystery,” thought Myles; “I wonder what it means. I guessI’ll run down there if I have a chance; there may be something in it.”
Just then a pleasant-faced young man, who had been chatting with agroup of reporters, and whom Myles had noticed as one that everybody inthe office seemed glad of a chance to talk with, stepped up to him andheld out his hand, saying:
“You are the new reporter, I believe, and your name is Manning. Mine isRolfe, and I am glad to welcome to the office a fellow who can hold hisown in a street row as pluckily as you did yesterday.”
“I am much obliged,” said Myles, taking the other’s offered hand, “andvery glad indeed to make your acquaintance, Mr. Rolfe, for it does seemrather lonely here when you don’t know anybody. But how did you hearany thing about yesterday?”
“Why, there is a full account of your little scrimmage in one of theBrooklyn papers of last evening, though of course your name isn’tmentioned. You are only spoken of as a New York reporter; but Billingstold us who it was. Yesterday was your first day, was it not?”
“Yes,” replied Myles, “and when I saw that I didn’t have any thing inthe paper this morning I was afraid it would be my last. Isn’t everyreporter expected to have something in every number?”
“No, indeed,” laughed Rolfe. “If they did their number would have tobe reduced at least one half, or else the paper increased to doubleits present size. Why, a large part of the matter written goes intothe waste-basket, which in old times, when the _Phonograph_ was onlya four-page paper, we used to call the ‘fifth page.’ There are severaleditors employed in this office merely to throw away all the copy theypossibly can and to condense the rest to its most compact form. Don’tyou worry about not getting any thing in. It may be a week or morebefore a word of what you write gets printed. I believe it was a monthbefore my first article got into type, and I was twice warned by Mr.Haxall to brace up.”
“How is it with your articles now?” asked Myles, curiously.
“Oh, I’m doing fairly well, and get something into the paper every nowand then,” answered the other, carelessly. “I happened to make a luckyhit with a story one day, and since then I’ve had nothing to complainof. You’ll do the same if you only peg away at it, and then you will beall right. You have already succeeded in getting yourself talked about,and that is half the battle with all literary workers, even includingreporters.”
All this was very consoling to Myles. It gave him a happier feelingthan he had known since he learned of the family troubles that causedhim to leave college and take up this business of reporting. Of theunassuming, pleasant-faced fellow who thus made friendly advancestoward him he soon discovered that he was the leading reporter on thepaper, and that there was rarely a number of it issued that did notcontain a column of interesting matter furnished by him.
At the conclusion of their little chat, Rolfe, who was evidentlypleased with Myles, introduced him to several of the other fellows,and the young reporter felt that at last he was really started on hiscareer.
On this day he had an experience of the curious contrasts that makeup a reporter’s life. He was first sent to find out if it were truethat two sets of triplets had been born the night before in a greateast-side tenement-house. Then he attended a brilliant wedding in GraceChurch, and soon afterward a large funeral. All of these assignmentswere given him by Mr. Haxall with many injunctions as to theirimportance, and charges to obtain and write out every possible itemof interesting information concerning them. Myles worked faithfullyand prepared what he considered a remarkably full and good report ofeach case. To the wedding and funeral he gave particular attention,procuring a full list of the guests at one, the mourners at the other,and an elaborate description of the floral displays at both.
For all this, in the next day’s paper the interesting triplets were notmentioned, the wedding was disposed of in a paragraph, and the thirdreport was condensed to “The funeral of Mr. Blank took place yesterdayfrom the Church of the Apostles.”
So Myles remarked to Van Cleef: “I can’t see the use of putting afellow to all the trouble of getting these stories and then notprinting them. I could have written the three lines they did furnishwithout leaving the office.”
Van Cleef answered: “That is the editor’s lookout, and not yours. Solong as they pay you for your trouble you have no right to complain.”
Myles did get one item into the paper, though, and it was printed infull just as he wrote it, at which he was greatly pleased. During theday he had found time to run down to the Mills Building and see theMr. Leigh mentioned in his note of that morning. This gentleman gavehim a bit of news regarding certain important railway changes that wasof the greatest interest to all Wall Street men, and the _Phonograph_was the only paper in which it appeared the next morning. Thus it waswhat is known to reporters as a “beat” on all the other papers, andfor obtaining it Myles received great credit. He afterward obtained anumber of just such “beats” from the same source, and gained quite areputation by them; but he was wise enough to say nothing of how he gothold of them.
So the week passed quickly and busily, and at its end, though he hadgot but one item of any account into the paper, Myles felt that he hadlearned more than during any ten preceding weeks of his life, and hewas already a most enthusiastic reporter.
On Saturday morning he received from the cashier a little brownenvelope containing ten dollars, which, as it was the first money hehad ever earned, gave him a feeling of manly independence such as hehad never before felt. That evening he went home to spend Sunday, for,as every _Phonograph_ reporter was entitled to have for his own one dayout of the week, Myles had chosen that as his “day off.”
The boy had felt manly and self-important the week before, when he wenthome as a college student and captain of the “‘Varsity” crew; but hefelt doubly so now as a self-supporting man of business, even if hewas only a reporter.
His mother knew his step as he approached the house, and was waitingfor him at the open door.
“How could you, Myles!” she exclaimed, between kisses and hugs. “Howcould you become a horrid, common reporter?”
“I couldn’t, mother. I mean to be a most uncommon reporter, and nothorrid in any sense of the word.”
“But what shall I tell people, when they find out that you have leftcollege and ask what business you have gone into?”
“Tell them the truth, mother, and I’ll back you up in it,” repliedMyles, laughing.
As he
made his way to the big chair in which his father sat, the blindman said:
“It is good to hear your voice again, my boy, and a great relief tohear you speak so cheerfully of your new business. I was afraid you hadgone into it in a fit of desperation, and not from choice.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I did go into it in somewhat that way,father, but now I mean to stay in it from a real liking for it, andbecause I can already see that it may lead to many much better things.But you are not ashamed to have me a reporter, as mother seems to be,are you, sir?”
“Not a bit of it, my son; I am not ashamed to have you in any honestbusiness; only reporters always seemed to me an annoying and somewhatmischievous set of fellows.”
Here Mrs. Manning broke in with:
“Oh, Myles, how can you say that I could ever be ashamed of any thingyou did? You know I couldn’t; but then some things are so differentfrom others.”
“So they are, mother,” replied Myles, soberly; “you never said a truerthing in your life.” Then, turning again to his father, he added:“That’s just it, sir. You never knew much about reporters, any morethan the rest of us did. I am beginning to learn something about them,though, and to see them as they really are, and I shall try to open thefamily eyes to look at them as I do. Oh, father, I forgot! I didn’tmean to use those words. We really do mean to open your eyes, though,some time, so that you will see reporters as well as all the other goodfellows who come in your way; see if we don’t. But where is Kate?”
“Getting your supper ready,” replied Mrs. Manning.
“Good for her! She appreciates the needs of a fellow who has beenmealing in restaurants and at lunch-counters for a week.”
Just then Kate Manning entered the room with a warm welcome for herbrother and the announcement that his supper waited.
“Well, it sha’n’t get tired waiting for me,” exclaimed Myles; “but,Kate, what is your opinion of reporters?”
“I never knew much about any except one reporter,” was the smilingreply; “but if they all turn out as well as he did I should think itwas the most splendid business a young man could go into.”
“Who was that?” asked Mrs. Manning and Myles together.
“Charles Dickens,” answered the Vassar girl, “who is said to havecollected most of the material he afterward used so wonderfully whilehe was only a reporter.”
“Good for you, Kate!” shouted Myles. “I always said you were a brick;but now I know that you are a gold brick, and solid right through.Let’s go to supper.”
After supper Myles sat down to convince his family that reporters werea generally misunderstood and unappreciated race, and that, having theopportunity to become one, he would have been worse than foolish had hethrown it away. He repeated all of Van Cleef’s arguments, and added tothem the small items of personal experience that he had already gained.In short, he was so enthusiastic, and waxed so eloquent over his theme,that he succeeded in completely reversing the opinions formerly held byhis parents. As for Kate, she needed no convincing, and long before hefinished she exclaimed:
“If I were not a girl I believe I would rather be a literary man thanany thing else in the world, except an artist, and I’d begin by being areporter too.”
Mrs. Manning was most pleased by what Myles told her about thenewspapers making of their reporters agents for the distribution ofcharity to the people in distress whom they discovered and wrote about.
Mr. Manning said:
“Well, Myles, any business that can so arouse your enthusiasm mustpossess merit, and I only hope you will stick to this one until youwin success from it. By the way, what is your present ambition? Is itstill to enter politics?”
“I think my present ambition is to get on space,” replied Myles,laughing. “Then I should like to be a special or foreign correspondent.If ever I get that far, then I will look ahead and see what comes next.”
The next day, as on the preceding Sunday, Myles accompanied his sisterKate to church. Somehow or other his changed conditions of life hadbecome known throughout the little community, and many of those who hadgazed admiringly at Myles Manning, the captain of the “‘Varsity” crew,the Sunday before, now looked at him with curiosity as a reporter.The former they could understand, but the latter was something to bewondered at as though it belonged to a strange and uncommon species ofbeing.
As brother and sister left the church several of their acquaintancesspoke to them, and one young woman said with a simper: “Oh, Mr.Manning, now that you are a reporter I hope you aren’t going to writeus all up.”
Another asked: “Won’t you put a piece in your paper about mysewing-class, Mr. Manning? It would do so much good!” While stillanother, with a warning shake of her head: “Take care, Mr. Manning. Weall know what naughty people you newspaper men are.”
To all these idiotic speeches Myles smiled and tried to return politeanswers, but inwardly he fumed at their silliness. He was thankfulenough to reach home and escape from this petty persecution. Heafterward learned that all reporters are subject to the same sort ofannoyance when in company with weak-minded people.
There was one bit of home news at which Myles hardly knew whether tobe glad or sorry. It was that the house had been well rented for theseason, and that the family was to remove at once to the gardener’scottage. As he philosophically remarked, however: “If the rest couldbear it cheerfully he certainly ought to be able to.”
Kate said:
“Perhaps some time, Myles, I’ll find a way to earn money as well asyou, and then we’ll get the old house back again; won’t we, dear? I’mgiving every spare minute to my drawing, and by the time you get towriting books perhaps I may be able to illustrate them.”
“So we will, my brick of gold!” answered Myles, drawing the girl to himand kissing her. “But you are doing your full share now, and if youbecome any more useful than you are, the first thing I know you will betaking care of me as well as of the rest of the family.”
“No fear of that,” laughed Kate. “Your wife will have that to do, ifyou ever get one. But you won’t ever, will you, dear?”
“Not if I know myself,” answered Myles.
The next morning he left for the city by the same early train that hehad taken a week before, but this time it was not to leave a college.It was to re-enter a school of real life in which he was already aneager and promising student.
In glancing over the morning paper while on his way to town Myles reada description of the boat crews that were to race at New London thefollowing week, and were already in their quarters on the Thames. Hisown name was not mentioned, but all the praise that should have beenhis for selecting and training the X—— College crew was given to BenWatkins, the new captain.
This omission made Myles feel very sore and bitter against the hardfate that compelled him to resign all the glory that had been so nearlywithin his grasp. For a few minutes he rebelled fiercely against it.Then, with a thought of the dear ones he had just left, his moodchanged, and he inwardly exclaimed: “No, I wouldn’t go back again ifI could. Those fellows will get their names into the papers for a fewdays, but what will it all amount to in the end? Just nothing. I, onthe other hand, am helping make the papers themselves, and am on my wayto a position in which I can put names in or leave them out, as I thinkbest. No, I’d rather be a reporter than captain of the crew. I shouldlike to see that race, though. I wonder if Mr. Haxall would let mereport it if I asked him, and told him what I knew about it. I’ll askhim, anyhow.”