A dozen or more bright-looking, well-dressed young men sat or stood about the room chatting, reading the morning papers, or holding short consultations with the city editor. While talking with them he hardly looked up from the paper that he was glancing over with practised eyes, and occasionally clipping a paragraph from with a pair of long, slim shears. He took these papers from a pile lying on his desk that contained a copy of every morning daily published in New York, Brooklyn, or Jersey City. The little slips that he cut from them were laid by themselves at one end of his desk.
It was a pleasant room. Its very air was inspiring, and Myles wished he were sure of being permanently established as one of its occupants. But the thought of the confession he had to make, and of its probable results, weighed heavily on his mind. He was impatient to have it over with and to know the worst at once.
Walking straight up to the city editor’s desk he said:
“Good-morning, Mr. Haxall. I – ”
“Ah, good-morning, Mr. Manning. Glad to see you so promptly on hand. If you will find a seat I’ll have time to talk with you in a few minutes.”
So Myles found a seat on a window-sill and amused himself by watching what was going on around him. He noticed that as each reporter entered the room he walked directly to a slate, that hung on the wall near the door, and read carefully a list of names written on it. He afterward found that this was a list of those for whom mail matter had come addressed to the office. Having received his letters from Mr. Brown, and taken one or more copies of the morning Phonograph from a pile on the janitor’s desk, each reporter occupied himself as he chose until summoned by Mr. Haxall and given an assignment.
Upon accepting this, his name and the nature of the duty he was about to undertake were entered on the page, for that day, of a large blank-book known as the “assignment book.” Myles also noticed that nearly every assignment was given in the form of one of the slips clipped from other papers by the city editor. The reporter generally walked slowly away, reading this slip, and studying the problem thus presented to him, as he went. When, some days afterward, Myles had a look at this famous assignment book he found that each of its pages was dated, and that in it clippings, referring to future events, were entered under their respective dates.
The young reporter sat so near the city editor’s desk that he could catch fragments of the conversation between Mr. Haxall and those whom he was dispatching to all parts of the city, its suburbs, and apparently to remote corners of the country as well He overheard one young man ordered to take a journey that would certainly occupy days and possibly weeks. Myles watched this reporter with curious eyes as, after taking a small hand-bag from his locker, he left the office as carelessly as though his journey was only to be across the Brooklyn Bridge instead of into a wilderness a thousand miles away, as it really was.
Myles envied this reporter, as he also did another who was sent out to the very New Jersey village in which his own home was located. How he did wish he might have that assignment.
At length when the others had been sent away on their respective errands Mr. Haxall called his name, and he stepped forward with a quickly-beating heart to receive his first assignment.
“I only wanted to know your city address, Mr. Manning,” said the city editor, looking up with a pleasant smile. “We find it necessary to know where our reporters live, so that in an emergency they may be reached out of office-hours.”
When Myles had given the required address he still remained standing before the desk. Noticing this Mr. Haxall again looked up and said:
“Is there any thing else?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Myles, hesitating and becoming very red in the face, like a school-boy before his master, “I wanted to say that I haven’t any dress-suit.”
“Haven’t what?” asked the city editor, in amazement.
“A dress-suit.”
“Haven’t a dress-suit?” repeated Mr. Haxall, with a perplexed air, and regarding Myles as though he feared for his mental condition. “Well, what of it?”
“Why, I thought the reason you engaged me was because I owned a dress-suit. Mr. Van Cleef told me so.”
“Oh,” laughed the city editor, tilting back in his chair for the fuller enjoyment of his merriment. “That’s a good one! And now it seems that you don’t own a dress-suit, after all. Well, I am sorry; but never mind, we will try to get along without it, and I will find something for you to do directly that won’t require one.”
So the confession was made and Myles had not lost his place, after all. He resumed his seat with a light heart and for another hour patiently awaited orders. In the meantime several men came in, wrote out their reports, handed them to the city editor, and were sent off again. Mr. Haxall filed most of these reports on a hook without even glancing over them.
At the end of an hour, when the office was completely deserted by all except the city editor and himself, Myles was again called by name.
“Now,” thought he, “I am surely to get an assignment.”
And so he did, though it was by no means such an one as he expected. Handing him a ten-cent piece, the city editor said:
“I find that I can’t take time to go out for lunch to-day, Mr. Manning, and as the office-boys seem to be absent, will you kindly run out to the nearest restaurant and get me a couple of sandwiches?”
It was disappointing and mortifying to be sent on such an errand, and for an instant Myles’ pride rebelled against it. Then the words “under orders,” together with Van Cleef’s advice, flashed into his mind, and with a cheerful “Certainly, sir,” he started off.
When he returned and laid the sandwiches, neatly done up in thin white paper, on Mr. Haxall’s desk, that gentleman said:
“I wish you would just step over to Brooklyn, Mr. Manning, and report to Billings at Police Head-quarters. He has charge of the horse-car strike over there, and telegraphs that he can use another man to advantage.”
“Is he a police captain, sir?” asked Myles, not knowing who Billings might be.
“A police captain? Of course not. What put that idea into your head?” replied Mr. Haxall, a little sharply. “Billings is one of our best reporters, and, as I said, is in charge of this street-car strike.”
“Oh, thank you, sir,” answered Myles, as he started off greatly enlightened by this explanation.
He had no difficulty in finding Brooklyn, because he had been there before; but he was obliged to inquire the way to Police Head-quarters. A few years ago he would have had a long walk before reaching it, for not one of the hundreds of horse-cars that usually throng the tracks on Fulton Street was to be seen. Their absence made that part of the city seem strangely silent and deserted; but fortunately the elevated trains were running, and Myles soon reached his destination.
The street in front of Police Head-quarters was blocked by a good-natured throng of strikers, through which Myles had some difficulty in forcing his way. At the door he was met by a policeman, who gruffly said: “No admittance, young man,” and immediately afterward, when Myles had stated his business, “Certainly, walk right in. You will find Mr. Billings in the inspector’s room.”
Now Myles had formed an impression of Billings, which was that he must be a man much older than himself, and probably larger and stronger, or else why should he be detailed for this especial work? He expected to find him busily engaged in writing, or dispatching other reporters hither and thither, and having the anxious, self-important air of one who occupied a delicate and responsible position.
The real Billings as he there appeared, seated at a table in the inspector’s room intent upon a game of dominos with the inspector himself, was about as different from this impression as it is possible to conceive. He was a slightly-built, delicate-looking young man, apparently not any older than Myles, and with a beardless face. He was exquisitely dressed, deliberate in his movements, and so languid of speech that it