BEGINNING A NEW LIFE.
VAN CLEEF seemed to fall asleep at once, but the novel train of thought
whirling through Myles’ brain rendered it impossible for him to follow
this example immediately. As he lay, with wide-open eyes, recalling
the incidents of the day it seemed incredible that he had seen, and
learned, and gone through with what he had, all within the space of a
few hours. Could it be that he had left home prepared to give up his
college life only that morning? He must send them a long letter, for
they would be so anxious to hear every thing that had happened to him.
As he said this to himself his thoughts merged into dreams so gradually
that he had no knowledge of where the one ended and the other began.
“Wake up, old man, wake up! Here it is nine o’clock Tuesday morning and
the week’s work yet to be done.”
It was Van Cleef’s voice, and as Myles sprang to a sitting posture and
rubbed his eyes he saw his friend standing beside the bed fully dressed
and looking as bright as if sleep were something for which he had no
need.
“Yes,” he said, in answer to Myles’ inquiring glance, “I have been up
and out for an hour, and I’m sorry to say that I have bad news for you.”
Myles’ expression at once became anxious. Had the city editor sent word
that he had changed his mind and did not want him after all?
“You see,” continued Van Cleef, “I was worried about that dress-suit
business. So I just slipped out without waking you, and went up to old
Johnnie’s to get it; but I was too late. He sold it last evening; and
so—there we are!”
“Then I suppose there is no use of my going down to the _Phonograph_
office again,” said Myles, trying to speak with a cheerfulness that he
did not feel.
“No use!” exclaimed the other. “Why, of course there is. You are under
orders, you know, and must at least report for duty, whether you
are wanted or not. The only thing is that you will have to tell Mr.
Haxall.”
“Yes, I suppose I must,” answered Myles, soberly, as he began to dress,
“and then he will probably tell me that a dress-suit, and not Myles
Manning, was what he engaged, and that without it he has no use for its
late owner. I suppose I can stand it, though, as well as another, but
it will be a disappointment.”
“Of course it will if it comes,” replied Van Cleef, cheerfully; “but
I do not believe it will. At any rate there is no use making matters
worse by worrying in advance; so let’s brace up and go out for
breakfast. I’m as hungry as a boot-black. By the way, I spoke to my
landlady this morning and find that she has a vacant hall-bedroom that
you can have for three dollars a week if you want it. It’s small, but
it’s clean and airy, and this is a most respectable neighborhood. Above
all, it is cheap, which is the main thing with me, and also, I take it,
with you just at present.”
“Of course it is,” answered Myles, “and I shall be only too glad to be
in the same house with you. You are almost the only friend I own now;
at any rate, you are the most valuable one.”
As he spoke Myles found himself wondering if this valued friend could
be the same class “dig” with whom he had been barely on speaking terms
only the morning before.
At a small but tidy restaurant near by, they obtained an excellent
breakfast of coffee, rolls, and boiled eggs, for twenty-five cents
apiece. Van Cleef apologized for this unusual extravagance, saying that
he generally breakfasted on coffee and rolls alone for fifteen cents,
but that this was an occasion.
In the restaurant they found copies of the morning papers, and Myles,
paying no attention to those that he had been in the habit of reading,
eagerly seized the _Phonograph_. Yes, there it was; a half-column
account of the scene they had witnessed the night before in the Tenth
Avenue tenement-house. How interesting it was! How well expressed, and
what a pathetic picture it presented of that room and its occupants! As
Myles finished reading the story he turned to his companion with honest
admiration.
“You are a regular out-and-out genius, Van!” he exclaimed. “If I could
write a story like that and get it printed I’d be too proud to speak to
common folks, and I’d expect to have my salary raised to the top notch
at once.”
“Well, I fancy you’d have to take it out in expecting, then,” laughed
the other. “That may be a fair sort of a story, and I won’t say that it
isn’t, but at the same time I doubt if any one besides yourself gives
it a second thought. You wouldn’t if you’d been in the office a week or
two and studied the other fellows’ work. Why, the very brightest men
in the city are on the _Phonograph_, as you will soon discover. As for
a raise of salary—well, you will have to write many and many a story
better than this little screed of mine before that happy event takes
place.”
“Then mine will continue to be fifteen per week for the rest of my
natural life, or, rather, for as long as they will let me hang on down
there, I’m afraid,” sighed Myles.
“Not a bit of it, my dear fellow. A year from now you will be ’way up,
probably on space, and looking back with infinite pity upon yourself
as a salary man at fifteen dollars a week. There is just one bit of
advice, though, that, if you will let me, I should like ever so much
to give you as a starter. It is, never refuse an assignment. No matter
how hard or distasteful or insignificant the job promises to be, take
it without a word and go through with it to the best of your ability
without a murmur. Also, never hesitate to take hold of any piece of
work offered you for fear you may not be capable of performing it.
A reporter must be capable of any thing and must have the fullest
confidence in himself. If the city editor says some fine morning, ‘Mr.
Manning, the _Phonograph_ wishes to locate the North Pole; will you
be kind enough to go and discover it?’ you must answer, ‘Certainly,
sir,’ and set off at once. Such an undertaking might prove expensive;
but that is the city editor’s lookout, not yours. You are under orders
exactly as though you were in the army, and your responsibility ends
with obeying them to the letter. Now I must be off to recitation and
you must be getting downtown. So good-bye, and good-luck to you. I
shall probably see you again at the office this evening.”
All the way downtown the wheels of the elevated train seemed to rattle
out, “Under orders, under orders,” and Myles could think of nothing
else.
“How many people are ‘under orders!’” he said to himself as he
reflected that most of the best work of the world was accomplished
by those who obeyed orders. Thus thinking he finally decided that he
was proud of being “under orders,” and that if he could make a name in
no other way he would at least gain a reputation for strict obedience
to them. In reaching this conclusion he took a most important forward
step, for in learning to obey orders one also learns how to give them.
Myles reached the office a few minutes before eleven o’clock, and,
walking boldly past the boys who guarded its entrance, bowing to, and
receiving a pleasant “good-morning” from, Mr. Brown as he did so, he
entered the city-room, as that portion of the editorial offices devoted
to the use of reporters and news editors is called.
The great room was as clean, neat, and fresh as the office-boys, who
had been at work upon it for the past hour, could make it. Every desk
and chair was in its place, and not a scrap of paper littered the newly
swept floor. In the corner farthest from the entrance, beside a large
open window that overlooked the busy scene of Park Row, City Hall
Park, and Broadway beyond it, sat the city editor before a handsome
flat-topped desk. Other single desks occupied favorable positions
beside other windows, but their chairs were vacant at this early hour.
Down the middle of the floor ran two parallel rows of double desks,
each containing a locked drawer and each supplied with pens, ink,
writing-and blotting-paper. These were for the reporters. At one side
was a long reading-shelf, beneath which hung files of all the city
papers. At the back of the room was a row of lockers like those in a
gymnasium, in which were, kept overcoats, hats, umbrellas, and other
such articles belonging to the occupants of the office.
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 seemed an effort for him to talk. Myles remembered
to have seen him in the _Phonograph_ office that morning and to have
wondered what business that dude had there.
However, this was undoubtedly the Billings to whom Mr. Haxall had
ordered him to report, and he accordingly did so.
“Yes,” said Billings, with a gentle drawl, as he looked up from
his game and regarded Myles with a pair of the most brilliant and
penetrating eyes the latter had ever seen. “Just had a dispatch about
you from Joe (Mr. Joseph Haxall). New man. Name of Manning. Break you
in. Well, Manning, there’s a strike. No horse-cars all day. Railroad
officials about to send car out on B—— Avenue line. Leaves stable in
fifteen minutes. Probably be some fun. You may go and ride on this car.
Have a good time. Take it all in, then come back here.”
Myles could have choked the little fellow who coolly sat there telling
him to do thus and so. For the second time that day he was strongly
tempted to rebel and to maintain his dignity. The idea of that “little
absurdity,” as he mentally styled Billings, issuing commands to him!
Then for the second time came the words “under orders.” Had he not
been ordered to obey Billings? To be sure he had, and with an “All
right” he left the building.
As he made his way toward the car-stables he wondered why Billings had
not undertaken that ride himself, as he seemed to have nothing else to
do except play dominos. The more he thought of it the more he became
convinced that it was because Billings was afraid.