1
AND yet it seemed that Rose-Ann knew him better than he knew himself.
On Monday morning the city editor gruffly assigned him a desk. He hated
to sit there idle, and he had thrown away his morning paper. Finding
that he still had Rose-Ann’s little book in his pocket, he took it out
and read in that. Presently the city editor called his name. He rose,
putting the book back into his pocket. His first test had come.
“Go over to the Annex and see if you can get something about the
Taft-Roosevelt situation from—” and he named a distinguished political
personage.
“Where?” Felix asked.
“At the Annex.”
(But what in the world was the Annex? From the tone in which its name
had been uttered by the city editor, Felix was aware that it was some
place that he ought to know all about. Some place that anybody who had
ever dreamed of being a reporter on a Chicago paper would of _course_
know all about! But what was it? The Annex to what?... By a violent
mental effort he came to the conclusion that it must be a hotel;
probably one of Chicago’s most famous hotels! and here he had been in
Chicago a month, and didn’t know where it was. Idiot!)
“Yes, sir,” said Felix to the city editor, and went out and asked the
policeman on the nearest corner.... It was horribly obvious to him, at
that moment, that he was too ignorant of plain everyday reality ever to
hold this job.
2
He came back, having failed to get the interview.... He had been given
half an hour by a delightful old gentleman at the Annex; half an hour in
which to try to get some kind of quotable political comment on a
situation in which everybody was interested, from a man who, if any one,
knew what the situation really was. And every question had been turned
aside so cleverly, so smoothly, so genially, that under other
circumstances it would have been a pleasure to see it done. The old
gentleman had been the soul of courtesy; he seemed to enjoy talking to
his young questioner; doubtless because it was so easy to put him off
the track.
At first Felix’s questions had been straightforward; and the evasiveness
of the replies had disconcerted him. He framed his questions more
shrewdly; but the old gentleman answered them with the same bland
courtesy and to precisely the same effect. Felix kept on for a while,
doggedly. And then gradually he realized—what, he told himself
scornfully, he should have known from the very start, that he had been
sent out on a futile quest. If there had been the slightest chance of
getting anything out of this old gentleman, the best reporter on the
staff would have been sent—not the newest and greenest cub.
He was angry—at himself, for having tried so naïvely to do the
impossible; at the city editor, for not giving him a real assignment; at
the tradition of “news,” which, having attached a fictitious importance
to the subject of politics, was wasting his time and the old gentleman’s
in this solemnly idiotic fashion.
“Is there anything else I could tell you about?” the old gentleman asked
blandly.
“You have been very kind—” said Felix.
“Oh, not at all,” said the old gentleman. “Nothing pleases me more than
to give information to a young seeker after truth.”
“There _is_ one thing I would like to know,” said Felix. “Who struck
Billy Patterson?”
This insulting question—insulting precisely because it was silly,
because it threw the whole earnest interview suddenly into the key of
farce—did not for an instant shake the old gentleman’s aplomb. He
appeared to reflect gravely, with finger-tips delicately joined and head
cocked on one side, in his characteristic gesture. He smiled faintly,
and spoke.
“You have trenched,” he said, “upon an important public issue, and one
not lightly to be discussed—a question of deep interest to hundreds of
thousands of our fellow-countrymen. In fact, I have seldom been in any
gathering of true Americans, when this question has not been raised.
_Who struck Billy Patterson?_ Again and again have I heard men ask each
other that question. And how seldom, if ever, has the reply been
satisfactory! No, I say frankly to you, the reply has not been
satisfactory. And so the question remains—like Banquo’s ghost, it will
not down. Careless and unthinking statesmen may try to lead the people
astray with talk of minor issues, such as the tariff, imperialism, and
the conservation of natural resources, but the heart of the American
people remains true. When the shouting and the tumult dies, and the
senators go back to Washington, common men look at each other and ask,
_Who struck Billy Patterson?_ It is a question that searches to the very
vitals of our polity. We boast of our unexampled freedom, our
magnificent opportunities; and rightly so. But justice, even-handed and
sure, is the true foundation of a lasting prosperity. We know this, and
we are humble before the Muse of History. Be it said in our behalf that
others have not had to prod at our sleeping consciences. It is not
because of outside criticism that we trouble ourselves over this matter.
The Frenchman and the Turk do not point the finger of scorn at us; and
even our brothers across the sea, speaking our own language, are
probably ignorant of William Patterson’s very name. But we do not
forget. And whatever happens, so long as this question remains
unanswered, I venture to predict that no other issue will usurp its
place; and on the heart of the last American will be written the solemn
words: _Who struck Billy Patterson?_ Is there anything else?”
So the old gentleman could play that game, too!
“Well,” said Felix, “I _was_ going to ask you if—if you thought
McPhairson Conglocketty Angus McClan got a square deal, but—”
The old gentleman shook his head, still smiling.
“I really don’t think it would be proper,” he said, “for me to discuss
the internal affairs of the British Empire.”
“And Noah’s Ark,” said Felix. “If you could express an opinion—”
“It might be construed as a reflection upon the naval policy of the new
administration.”
“And as to what became of little Charley Ross?”
“That,” said the old gentleman, “is something the national committee
would prefer to remain, for the present, a secret.”
Felix was beaten.
“Thank you,” he said, and went away.
“Got anything?” the city editor asked, when Felix came up to his desk to
report.
“Not a thing.” Felix said.
The city editor grunted, reached out for a typewritten sheet on the
hook, and seemed to dismiss the matter from his mind.
Felix went back to his desk and sat there idly. He took out Rose-Ann’s
little book from his pocket, and read in it. And then suddenly he put a
sheet of paper in his machine and commenced to write.
Confound it, if what Rose-Ann said about the people of Chicago was so,
they would enjoy the true story of that interview. It _was_ funny. Funny
just because it was silly. But it was so preposterously the opposite of
what he had been sent to find out—it seemed a deliberate mockery of the
traditional and legitimate curiosity of the public. If he ventured to
show it to the city editor, it would probably be his last assignment.
Recklessly, he wrote it.
The city editor strolled to the water-tank, and back, wiping his lips.
He saw Felix writing, came over, put a hand on his shoulder, and asked,
“What are you writing?”
Well, he was lost. There was no backing out now. He handed over the
first sheets.
“Thought you didn’t get anything,” the city editor remarked.
“I—didn’t,” said Felix.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
Felix wrote the last sentence, and surrendered the page.
“He said this?” asked the city editor, pausing for a moment. Felix
nodded. “Just like the old bird, too,” the city editor muttered, and
went on reading. He read to the end, and then read the first page again,
and then smiled amiably. “And you didn’t know you had a story!” he said.
“Well,” said Felix, still incredulous. “I didn’t think—”
“You’re sure you’ve got it right?” the city editor asked, rubbing his
chin.
“Every word,” said Felix, earnest in behalf of his veracity.
“H’m,” said the city editor. “With a little fixing up, I think we’ve got
a nice little story here.” He carried it into the managing editor’s
room.
And to Felix’s great astonishment the story, with a few changes, was
printed on the first page, under a solemnly ironic heading.... They were
laughing about it in the editorial room when he ventured in that
afternoon to see Clive. “So you had a story and didn’t know it!” Willie
said delightedly.
“Never mind,” Clive told him, “you’ve made a hit with Harris by letting
him discover the story for himself.” Clive really seemed to think he had
played a kind of trick on Harris. “The regular cub trick,” said Clive.
Felix showed the story to Rose-Ann that night.
She was pleased, but not surprised. “It’s exactly the sort of thing I
expected you to do,” she said.
He was tempted to tell Rose-Ann the truth about it; but he decided not
to. Let her keep on believing in him—while she could!
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