The Great God Success

lege paper,

te even a letter

izes for

wrote if I co

like to

to learn

o months out of col

al

aw or banking or railroads. 'Leave hope of fortune behind

he money-mak

dollars a week

you make i

ate for the staff. He lowered his florid face slowly until his double chin swelled out over his low "stick-up" collar. Then he

sked. "Why

moothly parted in the middle. "Well-you see-the fact is-I need twenty a week. My expenses are arran

rted here at fifteen dollars a week. And I

woman. She stood right beside you and

ner were simple and sincere. And they happened to bring into Mr. King's mind a rush of memories of his youth and his wife. She had married him on faith. They had come to New York fifteen years before, he to get a place as reporter on the

ps are held up for him to kiss; she shows no trace of a day that began hours before his and has been a succession of exasperations and humiliations against which her sensitive nature, trained in the home of her father, a

onds. "Well, let it be twenty-though just why I'm sure I don't k

room. "And I shall try to show that I appreciate

ll-top desk was at the first window. Under each of the other windows was a broad flat table desk-for copy-readers. At the farthest of these sat the City Editor-thin, precise-looking, with yellow skin, hollow

you to teach him how to write. Mr. Howard, Mr. Bowring

me see, where shall we put you?" And his glance wandered along the rows of sloping table-desks-those nearer the windows lighted by daylight; t

iful fair moustache," said Mr. Bowring,

ailing at t

ton on his desk and presently an office boy-a mop of auburn curls, a pe

ke to speak to him and-please scrape your

ittredge and Howard were made acquainted and went toward their desks together. "A few moments-if you will excuse m

intelligent. He was rapidly covering sheet after sheet of soft white paper with bold, loose hand-writing. Howard noticed that at the end of each sentence he made a little cross with a circle about it, and that he began each paragraph

to be put in typ

be turned over to one of them. He reads it, cuts it down if necessary, and writes headlines for it. Then it goes upstairs to the composing room-see

"I hope you'll not mind my trying to find

d to go through this two years ag

is copy and returned to

ng about, if I may a

nd a windlass. The cook was passing and it caught him. He fainted with fright and the beast squeezed him to death. It's a fine story

paid by t

se him to twenty-five dollars a week and then put him on space. That means that he will make anywher

counting out two weeks for vacation." To Howard it seemed wealth at the limit of imagination. If he could make so muc

ame through the gate in the railing, nodded to Kittredge an

ed-frightful bust. A month afterward they found him under an assumed name over on Blackwell's Island, doing three months for disorderly conduct. He wrote a Christmas carol while his wife was dying. It began "Merrily over the Snow" a

hem. Kittredge called out:

with its hands folded on its chest-suppose the mother did that; and each little throat was cut from ear to ear-suppose the father did that. Then he dipped his paint brush in the blood and daubed on the wall in big scrawling letter

Howard-"a Yale man-ju

st the reverse. The room is all at the bottom-easy to enter, hard to achieve, impossible to leave. It is all bottom, no

out of hearing, "so his story is pretty s

ng men as to the tragedies of life. He had shuddered at Kittredge's story of the man squeezed to death by the snake.

ee a lot of frightful

eel in order to write. But you must not feel so keenly that you can't write. You have to remember always that you're not there to cheer or sympathise or have

to a grimed oil-painting, the only relief to the stretch

mes to. After twenty years of fine work at crowding more news in good English into one column than any other editor could get in bad English into four columns, he was discha

rofession an hour but I have alread

redge, "that it's a good

lp a man to a career in journalism a

insignificance of his face. "Journalism is not a career. It is either a school or a cemetery. A man may use it as a stepping-stone to som

little talent and fancy that they have much. I wonder if i

e of youth. It will have only youth. Why am I here? Why are you here? Because we are young, have a fresh, a new point of view. As soon as we get

f view? Why should one expect to escape the penalties of stagnation

ccessful man has at most one idea and makes a whole

o you

ghtly and answered in

s out of touch with the whole world of respectability and regularity. When we get done at night, wrought up

rd. "There are the all-ni

o'clock in the morning? Why, I have not made a call in a year. And I have not seen a respectable girl of my acquaintance in a

nd Kittredge rose. As he went, he put his hand on Howard's shoulder and s

ge, whose stories are on all the news stands?" He saw an envelope on t

nk admiration: "Why, I didn't know you were the Kittredge that ever

ths. And you'd be surprised how much reputation and how little money a man can make out of a book. Don't be distressed because they keep y

ge of the City Desk for the day sent him up to the Park to write a descriptive story of the crowds. "Try to g

ily drinking at a vast trough of country air in the heart of the city. He planned an article carefully as he dined alone at the Casino. He went down to the office e

ched every page: first, the larger "heads"-such a long story would call for a "big head;" then the smaller "heads"-they may ha

d under the general heading "City Jottings" at the end of an inside column

terday, lazily drinking at that vast troug

aced himself to receive the sneering frown of the City Editor and to bear the covert smiles of his fellow repor

ittredge inquired casual

I found two lines among the City Jottings

s cut to three lines but th