CHAPTER LXXII

After I had waited an hour or so, a boy came up and said: “The city editor wants to see you.” I hurried forward to the desk of that Poohbah, who merely handed me a small clipping from another paper giving an account of some extra-terrestrial manifestations that had been taking place in a graveyard near Elizabeth, and told me to “see what there is in that.” Unsophisticated as I was as to the ways of the metropolis, and assuming, Western-fashion, that I might ask a question of my new chief, I ventured a feeble “Where is that?” For my pains I received as contemptuous a look as it is possible for one human being to give another.

“Back of the directory! Back of the directory!” came the semi-savage reply, and not quite realizing what was meant by that I retired precipitately, trying to think it out.

Almost mechanically I went to the directory, but fumbling through that part of it which relates to streets and their numbers I began to realize that Elizabeth was a town and not a street. At a desk near the directory I noticed a stout man of perhaps forty, rotund and agreeable, who seemed to be less fierce and self-centered than some of the others. He had evidently only recently entered, for he had kicked off a pair of overshoes and laid a greatcoat over a chair beside him and was scribbling.

“Can you tell me how I can get to Elizabeth?” I inquired of him.

“Sure,” he said, looking up and beginning to chuckle. “I haven’t been in the city very long myself, but I know where that is. It’s on the Jersey Central, about twelve miles out. You’ll catch a local by going down to the Liberty Street ferry. I heard him tell you ‘Back of the directory,’” he added genially. “You mustn’t mind that—that’s what they always tell you here, these smart alecks,” and he chuckled, very much like my friend McCord. “They’re the most inconsiderate lot I ever went up against, but you have to get used to it. Out where I came from they’ll give you a civil answer once in a while, but here it’s ‘Back of the directory,’” and he chuckled again.

“And where do you come from?” I asked.

“Oh, Pittsburgh originally,” he said, which same gave me a spiritual lift, “but I haven’t been in the game for several years. I’ve been doing press agent work for a road show, one of my own,” and he chuckled again. “I’m not a stranger to New York exactly, but I am to this paper and this game down here.”

I wanted to stay longer and talk to him, but I had to hurry on this my first assignment in New York. “Is this your desk?” I asked.

“No; they haven’t deigned to give me one yet,” and he chuckled again. “But I suppose I will get one eventually—if they don’t throw me out.”

“I hope I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Oh, I’ll be around here, if I’m not out in the snow. It’s tough, isn’t it?” and he turned to his work again. I bustled out through that same anteroom where I had been restrained, and observed to my pestiferous opponents: “Now just take notice, Eddie. I belong here, see? I work here. And I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Oh, dat’s all right,” he replied with a grin. “We gotta do dat. We gotta keep mosta dese hams outa here, dough. Dat’s de orders we got.”

“Hams?” I thought. “They let these little snips speak of strangers as hams! That’s New York for you!”

I made the short dreary commuters’ trip to Elizabeth. When I found my graveyard and the caretaker thereof, he said there was no truth in the story. No man by the name of the dead man mentioned had ever been buried there. No noises or appearances of any kind had been recorded. “They’re always publishing things like that about New Jersey,” he said. “I wish they’d quit it. Some newspaper fellow just wanted to earn a little money, that’s all.”

I tramped back, caught a train and reached the office at eight. Already most of the assignments had been given out. The office was comparatively empty. The city editor had gone to dinner. At a desk along a wall was a long, lean, dyspeptic-looking man, his eyes shaded by a green shield, whom I took to be the night editor, so large was the pile of “copy” beside him, but when I ventured to approach him he merely glared sourly. “The city desk’s not closed yet,” he growled. “Wait’ll they come back.”

I retired, rebuffed again.

Presently one of the assistants reappeared and I reported to him. “Nothing to it, eh?” he observed. “But there ought to be some kind of a josh to it.” I did not get him. He told me to wait around, and I sought out an empty desk and sat down. The thing that was interesting me was how much I should be paid per week. In the meanwhile I contented myself with counting the desks and wondering about the men who occupied them, who they were, and what they were doing. To my right, against the north wall, were two roll-top desks, at one of which was seated a dapper actor-like man writing and posting. He was arrayed in a close-fitting gray suit, with a bright vest and an exceedingly high collar. Because of some theatrical programs which I saw him examining, I concluded that he must be connected with the dramatic department, probably the dramatic critic. I was interested and a little envious. The dramatic department of a great daily in New York seemed a wonderful thing to me.

After a time also there entered another man who opened the desk next the dramatic critic. He was medium tall and stocky, with a mass of loose wavy hair hanging impressively over his collar, not unlike the advance agent of a cure-all or a quack Messiah. His body was encased in a huge cape-coat which reached to his knees after the best manner of a tragedian. He wore a large, soft-brimmed felt, which he now doffed rather grandiosely, and stood a big cane in the corner. He had, the look and attitude of a famous musician, the stage-type, and evidently took himself very seriously. I put him down as the musical critic at least, some great authority of whom I should hear later.

Time went by, and I waited. Through the windows from where I was sitting I could see the tops of one or two buildings, one holding a clock-face lighted with a green light. Being weary of sitting, I ventured to leave my seat and look out to the south. Then for the first time I saw that great night panorama of the East River and the bay with its ships and docks, and the dark mass of buildings in between, many of them still lighted. It was a great scene, and a sense of awe came over me. New York was so vast, so varied, so rich, so hard. How was one to make one’s way here? I had so little to offer, merely a gift of scribbling; and money, as I could see, was not to be made in that way.

The city editor returned and told me to attend a meeting of some committee which looked to the better lighting and cleaning of a certain district. It was all but too late, as I knew, and if reported would be given no more than an inch of space. I took it rather dejectedly. Then fell the worst blow of all. “Wait a minute,” he said, as I moved to depart. “I wanted to tell you. I can’t make you a reporter yet—there is no vacancy on our regular staff. But I’ll put you on space, and you can charge up whatever you get in at seven-and-a-half a column. We allow fifty cents an hour for time. Show up tomorrow at eleven, and I’ll see if anything turns up.”

My heart sank to my shoes. No reportorial staff with which I had ever been connected had been paid by space. I went to the meeting and found that it was of no importance, and made but one inch, as I discovered next morning by a careful examination of the paper. And a column of the paper measured exactly twenty-one inches! So my efforts this day, allowing for time charged for my first trip, had resulted in a total of one dollar and eighty-six cents, or a little less than street-sweepers and snow-shovelers were receiving.

But this was not all. Returning about eleven with this item, I ventured to say to the night editor now in charge: “When does a man leave here?”

“You’re a new space man, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have the late watch tonight.”

“And how late is that?”

“Until after the first edition is on the press,” he growled.

Not knowing when that was I still did not venture to question him but returned to another reporter working near at hand, who told me I should have to stay until three. At that time my green-shaded mentor called, “You might as well go now,” and I made my way to the Sixth Avenue L and so home, having been here since one o’clock of the preceding day. The cheerful face of my sister sleepily admitting me was quite the best thing that this brisk day in the great city had provided.