“Finally, my star rose on the horizon. I went to San Francisco, and was
taken on trial on the ‘Examiner.’ I remember the day well,—February 2,
1892. For one mortal week, I simply hung around the office. Then I was
put to work at ten dollars a week. But I proved unsatisfactory. I drew
the man over me aside.
“‘Look here,’ I said, ‘I can’t draw. I want you to write to my father
and tell him what a failure I am, and that his belief that I am an
artist is the delusive mistake of a fond parent.’ He sat down to write,
and, as he was doing so, my fingers, always itching to draw, were at
work with a pencil in sketching horses, on a piece of paper on the
table.
“‘When did you do that?’ he asked, picking up the paper.
“‘I did it just now,’ I replied, sheepishly.
“‘What? Do it again.’
“I did so. He looked at me curiously.
“‘Wait a bit,’ he said. He took the paper into the office. ‘Come in
here,’ he said, ‘the boys won’t believe it. Do some more.’
“‘Davenport,’ said the manager, ‘you are too old to strike a path for
yourself. You must put yourself in my hands. Do nothing original, not
one line.’ If the manager caught me doing so, he tore it up.
“I remember one time, Ned Hamilton, a star writer on the ‘Examiner,’
some others, and myself, were sent to a Sacramento convention. I drew
what I considered very good likenesses, and that night, when I retired,
with a fire burning brightly in the room where we all bunked, I fairly
kicked my heels in delight, in anticipation of the compliments of the
‘Examiner.’ I was awakened by the tearing of a paper, that sent the
cold shivers up and down my back. Ned Hamilton was grumbling, and
throwing my labor into the fire.
“‘If you can’t do better than that,’ he said, ‘you ought to give up.’
“I almost wept, but it took any conceit I might have had out of me, and
the next day I did some work that was up to the mark.”