“Good enough!” cried Myles; “that’s an immense plan, and we will carry it out to the letter. You won’t mind if I say there are one or two papers that I’d rather become connected with than with the Phonograph. That seem just a little more respectable and high-toned, don’t you know.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” laughed Van Cleef, “and my feelings are not in the slightest ruffled by your prejudice, which is quite a popular one. I attribute it wholly to your ignorance, and know that you will outgrow it before you have been many days a reporter.”
“And, by the way,” said Myles, as the other was about to leave the room, “you must dine with me at the Oxygen to-night. It may be the last time I am ever able to take anybody there, you know.”
“All right,” answered Van Cleef. “Good-bye till this evening.”
The sale, to a dealer in such things, of the furniture, pictures, and costly but useless knick-knacks with which his room was crowded, enabled Myles to pay his debts and left him about ten dollars with which to make a start in the business world. It was after two o’clock when he completed his arrangements for leaving college. He was strongly tempted to go to the river and take a look at the crew in their practice spin; but “business before pleasure,” the motto that he had already used once that day, flashed into his mind, and he resolutely turned his face toward downtown and the newspaper offices.
Arrived at the office of the paper which, for some unexplainable reason, he considered the most respectable of all, he naturally turned into the counting-room that was located on the ground floor and inquired for the city editor.
“Editorial rooms up-stairs,” was the curt answer of a busy clerk, who did not even look up from the work upon which he was engaged.
When an elevator had lifted Myles to the very top of the tall building, he found himself in a small, bare room provided with two or three chairs, and a bench upon which two small boys were playing at jackstones. One of them, leaving his game and stepping smartly up to Myles, asked what he wanted there.
“I want to see the city editor,” was the answer.
“What’s your business with him?” asked the boy.
“None of your business what my business is, you impudent young rascal,” answered Myles, angrily. “Go at once and tell the city editor that I wish to see him.”
“And who are you, anyway?” demanded the boy, assuming an aggressive attitude, with arms akimbo and head cocked to one side. The other boy, whose interest was now aroused, came and stood beside his companion in a similar attitude, and they both gazed defiantly at the young man.
The situation was becoming ridiculous, and, to relieve himself from it as quickly as possible, Myles produced his card-case, thrust a card into the hand of the first boy, and said, in a tone of suppressed rage:
“Take that to the city editor this instant, you imp, and say that the gentleman wishes to see him on business, or I’ll throw you out of that window.”
Somewhat frightened by Myles’ tone the boy left the room muttering:
“A fine gentleman he is, ain’t he! A-threatening of a chap not half his size.”
In less than a minute he returned with a renewed stock of impudence. Offering the card back to Myles he said:
“The city editor says that he don’t know you, and you’ll have to send word what your business is with him.”
It was too humiliating. Myles could not confide to the grinning figures before him that he was seeking a reporter’s position, and so, muttering some unintelligible words, he turned to leave. He had to wait several minutes for the elevator, and while he did so he could not help overhearing the jeering comments of the two young rascals upon himself. One of them said:
“He’s out of a job, that feller is, and he came here to offer hisself as boss editor.”
“Naw, he didn’t neither,” drawled the other. “He ain’t after no such common posish as that. What he wants is your place or mine. But he’s too young, and fresh, he is. He wouldn’t suit. No, sir-e-e.” And then the two little wretches exploded with laughter at their own wit.
Myles walked about the City Hall Park for some time before he could summon up sufficient courage for a second venture. When at last he found his way to another editorial waiting-room it was only to be informed that the city editor was out and would not be back until six o’clock.
A third attempt resulted in his being ushered into the presence of a brisk young man, apparently not much older than himself. This self-important individual listened impatiently while Myles hesitatingly made known his desires, and promptly answered:
“Very sorry, sir, but absolutely no vacancy in our staff. Five hundred applicants ahead of you. No chance at all. Good-day.”
Thus dismissed Myles got out of the office somehow, though how he could not have told. His mind was filled with mortification, disappointment, and anger at everybody in general and himself in particular for being so foolish as to imagine that it was an easy thing to obtain a position as reporter on a great daily.
It was after the appointed hour before he was sufficiently calmed down to visit the office of the Phonograph, and he found Van Cleef anxiously awaiting him.
“Well,” he said, questioningly, after he had passed Myles through a boy-guarded entrance into a large, brilliantly lighted room in which a number of young men sat at a long desk busily writing. “How have you got on?”
“Not at all,” answered Myles, “and I don’t believe I am ever likely to.”
“Nonsense! You mustn’t be so easily discouraged. Come and let me introduce you to Mr. Haxall, our city editor. He is a far different kind of a man from any of the others, I can tell you.”
Mr. Haxall was kindly polite, almost cordial in his manner, and listened attentively to Myles’ brief explanation of his position and hopes. When it was finished he, too, was beginning to say, “I am very sorry, Mr. Manning, but we have already more men than we know what to do with,” when Van Cleef said something to him in so low a tone that Myles did not catch what it was.
“Is that so?” said Mr, Haxall, reflectively, and looking at Myles with renewed interest. “It might be made very useful, that’s a fact. Well, I’ll strain a point and try him.”
Then to Myles he said:
“Still, we are always on the lookout for bright, steady young fellows who mean business. So if you want to come, and will report here at sharp eleven o’clock to-morrow morning, I will take you on trial till next Saturday and pay you at the rate of fifteen dollars per week.”
CHAPTER III.
THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE OXYGEN
POOR Myles had met with so many rebuffs and disappointments, and his own opinion of himself had been so decidedly lowered that afternoon, that he was fully prepared to have his offer of service refused by the city editor of the Phonograph. He was therefore not at all surprised when Mr. Haxall began in his kindly but unmistakable way to tell him that there was no vacancy. He had already made up his mind to give up trying for a reporter’s position and make an effort in some other direction, when, to his amazement, he found himself accepted and ordered to report for duty the following day. It was incomprehensible. What had Van Cleef said to influence the city editor so remarkably?
There was no chance to ask just then, for Mr. Haxall had already resumed his reading of the evening papers, a great pile of which lay on his desk, and Myles realized that the short interview, by which the whole course of his life was to be affected, was at an end. So he merely said: “Thank you, sir, I’ll be on hand,” and turned to follow Van Cleef, who had already started toward the door.
The boy’s mind was in a conflicting whirl of thoughts, and he was conscious of a decided sense of exaltation.