The Great God Success | Page 5

he might go as there would be nothing more that night.
He was in the street at seven the next morning. As he walked along with a News-Record, bought at the first news-stand, he searched every page: first, the larger "heads"--such a long story would call for a "big head;" then the smaller "heads"--they may have been crowded and have had to cut it down; then the single-line "heads"--surely they found a "stickful" or so worth printing.
At last he found it. A dozen items in the smallest type, agate, were grouped under the general heading "City Jottings" at the end of an inside column of an inside page. The first of these City Jottings was two lines in length:
"The millions were in the Central Park yesterday, lazily drinking at that vast trough of country air in the heart of the city."
As he entered the office Howard looked appealingly and apologetically at the boy on guard at the railing and braced himself to receive the sneering frown of the City Editor and to bear the covert smiles of his fellow reporters. But he soon saw that no one had observed his mighty spring for a foothold and his ludicrous miss and fall.
"Had anything in yet?" Kittredge inquired casually, late in the afternoon.
"I wrote a column and a half yesterday and I found two lines among the City Jottings," replied Howard, reddening but laughing.
"The first story I wrote was cut to three lines but they got a libel suit on it."

II.
THE CITY EDITOR RECONSIDERS.
At the end of six weeks, the City Editor called Howard up to the desk and asked him to seat himself. He talked in a low tone so that the Assistant City Editor, reading the newspapers at a nearby desk, could not hear.
"We like you, Mr. Howard." Mr. Bowring spoke slowly and with a carefulness in selecting words that indicated embarrassment. "And we have been impressed by your earnestness. But we greatly fear that you are not fitted for this profession. You write well enough, but you do not seem to get the newspaper--the news--idea. So we feel that in justice to you and to ourselves we ought to let you know where you stand. If you wish, we shall be glad to have you remain with us two weeks longer. Meanwhile you can be looking about you. I am certain that you will succeed somewhere, in some line, sooner or later. But I think that the newspaper profession is a waste of your time."
Howard had expected this. Failure after failure, his articles thrown away or rewritten by the copyreaders, had prepared him for the blow. Yet it crushed him for the moment. His voice was not steady as he replied:
"No doubt you are right. Thank you for taking the trouble to study my case and tell me so soon."
"Don't hesitate to stay on for the two weeks," Mr. Bowring continued. "We can make you useful to us. And you can look about to much better advantage than if you were out of a place."
"I'll stay the two weeks," Howard said, "unless I find something sooner."
"Don't be more discouraged than you can help," said Mr. Bowring. "You may be very grateful before long for finding out so early what many of us--I myself, I fear--find out after years and--when it is too late."
Always that note of despair; always that pointing to the motto over the door of the profession: "Abandon hope, ye who enter here." What was the explanation? Were these men right? Was he wrong in thinking that journalism offered the most splendid of careers--the development of the mind and the character; the sharpening of all the faculties; the service of truth and right and human betterment, in daily combat with injustice and error and falsehood; the arousing and stimulating of the drowsy minds of the masses of mankind?
Howard looked about at the men who held on where he was slipping. "Can it be," he thought, "that I cannot survive in a profession where the poorest are so poor in intellect and equipment? Why am I so dull that I cannot catch the trick?"
He set himself to study newspapers, reading them line by line, noting the modes of presenting facts, the arrangement of headlines, the order in which the editors put the several hundred items before the eyes of the reader--what they displayed on each page and why; how they apportioned the space. With the energy of unconquerable resolution he applied himself to solving for himself the puzzle of the press--the science and art of catching the eye and holding the attention of the hurrying, impatient public.
He learned much. He began to develop the news-instinct, that subtle instant realisation of what is interesting and what is not interesting to the public mind. But the time was short; a sense