The office of the Evening Times was a queer old curiosity shop. I set
to and turned it inside out. I had very pronounced journalistic notions
of my own and applied them in every department of the sleepy old
money-maker. One afternoon a week later I put forth a paper whose
oldest reader could not have recognized it. The next morning’s
Cincinnati Commercial contained a flock of paragraphs to which the
Chattanooga-Cincinnati-Rebel Evening Times furnished the keynote.
They made funny reading, but they threw a dangerous flare upon my
“past” and put me at a serious disadvantage. It happened that when
Artemus Ward had been in town a fortnight before he gave me a dinner
and had some of his friends to meet me. Among these was a young fellow
of the name of Halstead, who, I was told, was the coming man on the
Commercial.
Round to the Commercial office I sped, and being conducted to this
person, who received me very blandly, I said: “Mr. Halstead, I am a
journeyman day laborer in your city—the merest bird of passage, with my
watch at the pawnbroker’s. As soon as I am able to get out of town I
mean to go—and I came to ask if you can think the personal allusions to
me in to-day’s paper, which may lose me my job but can nowise hurt the
Times, are quite fair—even—since I am without defense—quite manly.”
He looked at me with that quizzical, serio-comic stare which so became
him, and with great heartiness replied: “No—they were damned
mean—though I did not realize how mean. The mark was so obvious and
tempting I could not resist, but—there shall be no more of them. Come,
let us go and have a drink.”
That was the beginning of a friendship which brought happiness to both
of us and lasted nearly half a century, to the hour of his death, when,
going from Louisville to Cincinnati, I helped to lay him away in Spring
Grove Cemetery.
I had no thought of remaining in Cincinnati. My objective was
Nashville, where the young woman who was to become my wife, and whom I
had not seen for nearly two years, was living with her family. During
the summer Mr. Francisco, the business manager of the Evening Times,
had a scheme to buy the Toledo Commercial, in conjunction with Mr.
Comly, of Columbus, and to engage me as editor conjointly with Mr.
Harrison Gray Otis as publisher. It looked very good. Toledo threatened
Cleveland and Detroit as a lake port. But nothing could divert me. As
soon as Parson Brownlow, who was governor of Tennessee and making
things lively for the returning rebels, would allow, I was going to
Nashville.
About the time the way was cleared my two pals, or bunkies, of the
Confederacy, Albert Roberts and George Purvis, friends from boyhood,
put in an appearance. They were on their way to the capital of
Tennessee. The father of Albert Roberts was chief owner of the
Republican Banner, an old and highly respectable newspaper, which had
for nearly four years lain in a state of suspension. Their plan now was
to revive its publication, Purvis to be business manager, and Albert
and I to be editors. We had no cash. Nobody on our side of the line had
any cash. But John Roberts owned a farm he could mortgage for money
enough to start us. What had I to say?
Less than a week later saw us back at home winnowing the town for
subscribers and advertising. We divided it into districts, each taking
a specified territory. The way we boys hustled was a sight to see. But
the way the community warmed to us was another. When the familiar
headline, The Republican Banner, made its appearance there was a
popular hallelujah, albeit there were five other dailies ahead of us. A
year later there was only one, and it was nowise a competitor.
Albert Roberts had left his girl, Edith Scott, the niece of Huxley,
whom I have before mentioned, in Montgomery, Alabama. Purvis’ girl,
Sophie Searcy, was in Selma. Their hope was to have enough money by
Christmas each to pay a visit to those distant places. My girl was on
the spot, and we had resolved, money or no money, to be married without
delay. Before New Year’s the three of us were wedded and comfortably
settled, with funds galore, for the paper had thrived consumingly. It
had thrived so consumingly that after a little I was able to achieve
the wish of my heart and to go to London, taking my wife and my “great
American novel” with me. I have related elsewhere what came of this and
what happened to me.