Paul Douglas-journalist

Chapter I

The city editor of the Milton Daily News whirled around in his chair and said to a young man who had just come into his room in the News building, ‘'Well, what do you want?”

The young man to whom the question was put showed neither embarrassment nor confusion at the abrupt question. He sat down on a chair near the city editor’s desk and with a slow and deliberate motion drew a letter from his inside coat pocket and without a word handed it over to the editor.

Mr. Albert Darcy almost snatched the letter out of the young man’s hand. He picked up a letter knife off his desk and ripped open the envelope savagely. The moment his eye fell on the writing his whole manner changed. As he began to read, he looked up at the youth sitting near him, and noted with interest his strong and self-possessed face. The letter to Mr. Darcy is public property. Hence we will read it with him.

“My Dear Darcy:

“This will introduce to you my oldest son, Paul, whose mind is bent on becoming a journalist. I send him to you to lick into shape. The boy is nineteen years old and is old for his age. He is a graduate of Westville

High school. I wanted him to go to college but a number of unfortunate things came last year to get in the way. Mrs. Douglas had a long and painful illness. My business ventures in the northwest turned out disastrously and I lost very heavily. No need to dwell on all that. Paul insisted on getting into line as a bread winner. He has always been literary, I believe that is what you call it, though I don’t know a poem from a gas meter. He has been editor of the high school paper three years running and I believe he has even broken into one or two magazines with his efforts. He is bound to be a newspaper man and I don’t know any one anywhere who could give him better training than yourself. He is willing, of course, to begin at the bottom and work up. You will find him, if I do say it, a very modest, teachable, and at the same time original sort of a fellow, who has ideas of his own, but is not too proud or big headed to learn. Give him a trial, won’t you, Darcy, for the sake of old acquaintance and old times ? I believe you will if you can.

“Regards to Mrs. Darcy and the boys and Esther.

“Very truly your old friend,

“Robert Douglas,

“Westville.”

Mr. Albert Darcy finished reading the letter from his old friend and laid it down on his desk.

“Glad to see you,” he said, holding out his hand to Paul without rising. Paul shook hands, but he did not get up to do so.

“Father told me he thought you wouldn’t object to my coming.”

“So you want to be a newspaper man, eh ?”

“I not only want to be, I am going to be.”

“I don’t know whether we have anything in the News at present.”

“If you don’t have any place for me here, could you give me a note to the Gazette or the Press?”

Darcy stared at the boy and then laughed.

“I could perhaps for your father’s sake, but look here, I haven’t time to spare this morning. I’ll give you a trial; one of our boys is going to leave in a couple of weeks. I’ll put you on the Churches and the Police Court. How is that for a starter?” Mr. Albert Darcy chuckled grimly as he eyed the new reporter.

“It’s all right. But I won’t work on Sunday.”

“You won’t!” Mr. Albert Darcy had a temper that was proverbial in the News office. “No reporter says he ‘won’t’ in this office. How are you going to do the Churches, without working on Sunday?”

“I don’t know. But I do know I won’t work on Sunday for any newspaper on earth. I need Sunday for rest.”

“Good for you !” said Mr. Albert Darcy, sarcastically. “You have mistaken your calling. What you ought to do is to apply for a position digging canals in Mars. I am sorry we haven’t any place for you here.”

The boy got up slowly. “So am I. Would you mind giving me the note of introduction you spoke of to the Gazette and Press?”

Darcy laughed again.

“Sit down,” he said abruptly. “It’s no use for you to go to the Gazette or Press. They would make you work on Sunday.”

“No paper can make me work on Sunday,” said Paul Douglas, as he sat down again, and Darcy, looking at him even more keenly, said to himself, “I’m sure it couldn’t.” Then he added, “You can go on for the Police Court at present and anything else you can pick up on the way. When can you begin?”

“Now.”

“Where are you staying?”

“At the Y. M. C. A.”

“How much do you expect the News to pay you the first month ?”

“Whatever I’m worth.”

“Who will determine that?”

“You will.”

“Well, begin on $10 a week. Is that fair?”

“It’s three dollars more than I expected.”

Darcy laughed again. He was getting good humored. Robert Douglas’ boy interested him. His eye fell on the open letter and caught the sentence, “I believe he has even broken into one or two magazines with his efforts.” He looked up and asked with some uncertainty, as if he did not know how the question would be received, “Your father says you have succeeded in getting into one or two magazines. Would you mind telling me what magazines ?”

“No sir,” for the first time Paul Douglas blushed.

Darcy waited, but Paul was silent.

“Well, you said you wouldn’t mind telling me ”

“No sir, I wouldn’t.”

“Well, what are they then?”

“I was waiting for you to ask me. I had something in McClure’s last month.”

“McClure’s!”

“Yes, and last year Harper’s took a little article of mine.”

“Under your own name?” Darcy asked.

“No, I write under the nom de plume of 'Robert Cheviot/ My father’s first name is Robert, and my mother was a Cheviot of Aberdeen, Scotland.”

“What was the name of the story?”

“The Missing Word.”

“Ah! I remember it. So that was yours!” Mr. Albert Darcy stared at Robert Douglas’ boy with a feeling of mingled jealousy and admiration. Here it must be said that it was a deep ambition with Mr. Darcy to get into the best magazines. To his intense personal disappointment, even mortification, he had so far been unable. He was a clever writer, editorially. He had a style which was known and often quoted in other papers. But for years Mr. Darcy had been writing stories and seeking publication for them in the well known publications like McClure’s, Harper’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Ladies’ Home Journal. Once he had succeeded in getting a short story into The Youth’s Companion. The event had encouraged him immensely and if truth be told had made him vain. But his vanity soon had a severe shock. He at once wrote several short stories and submitted them to the Companion, only to receive them all back again. On one or two of these manuscripts the readers had scribbled “Not up to the mark.” The five monosyllables cut into Mr. Darcy’s self esteem deeper than he ever dared acknowledge to any one. He had tried again and again and failed. The one real ambition of his literary life was to get into the big magazines. He was fifty- two years old. He had a daughter and one son in Hope College and one boy in the High School. Ha had been writing for thirty years and his ambition was not gratified. The newspaper work was bread and butter, but the other would be fame, and that was his secret craving. And here sat this youth, not yet arrived at man’s estate, who had already succeeded in getting the work of his brain into two of the big publications. To Mr. Albert Darcy, city editor of the Milton Daily News, the fact was embittering. It might be safe to say that from this moment he thought of the son of his old friend with more or less unmanly jealousy. It was as if a personal resentment had sprung up in his mind against the boy, as if in some way the boy had come between him and his own ambition. It was absurd on the face of it and Albert Darcy knew it, but nevertheless he entertained his resentment and let it grow.

“What was your story in Harper’s ?” he asked abruptly. It was torture to his own defeated ambition to ask the question, but he seemed impelled to ask it.

“It wasn’t a story. It was a poem.”

“Write poetry too, eh? Suppose you knew we kill all attempts at that on the part of the force here!” Mr. Darcy said, savagely.

“The editor of Harper’s said my poem came very near being verse,” Paul smiled as he said it. Darcy laughed again. But it was not a pleasant laugh.

“Well, you can get to work any time. Here’s the style board. And here are my directions. Expect you to live up to them.”

He handed Paul two printed folders. Paul knew enough about newspaper offices to understand the style board. The other was not so familiar. Darcy did what some- city editors of dailies sometimes do, he printed a brief list of rules for the working force, including, especially, any new hands like Douglas. Paul went out of the room without any more questions, as Darcy turned abruptly to his desk. As he went back to his room at the Y. M. C. A. to leave word about his staying permanently, he read Darcy’s rules with interest. They were characteristic of Darcy’s management of the News, which, in the judgment of newspaper men, had been eminently successful.

RULES E OR NEWS REPORTERS.

( 1 ) Get the news. Get it quickly.

(2) Verify.

(3) Personal feelings and opinions of reporters don’t count. Those belong to the editor.

(4) Definition of news ; whatever happens.

(5) Make friends with the political enemies of the newspaper.

(6) Read newspapers to find out how to do things.

(7) Don’t be afraid of going anywhere. Go on the principle that the press is the all powerful thing in the community.

(8) Beat the other papers in getting on the inner side.

(9) The News does not want details of scandals, divorce suits or prize fights except in special cases, which will be designated in this office.

(10) In case of suicides and murders, always give cause and sensational developments likely to grow out of event.

(11) The principal thing is to get the news and get it in a hurry.

(12) After getting it, write it in the best English you know. Avoid fine writing and stereotyped phrases like “The hall was crowded to its fullest capacity”; “When he reached the climax the audience burst into a furor of applause,” etc.

(13) Get the news.

Paul went up to his room at the Y. M. C. A. building to take a few things out of his trunk and while there he read the city editor’s rules over again. He faced his new work with some degree of excitement. Boy though he was, he had a confidence in his own ability which was tempered by a natural modesty of feeling. He foresaw that Darcy would be a hard man to please and vaguely felt as if he were going to have trouble, but as he went out of the Association building to get the Police Court news he was so pleasantly excited over the prospect of his future that he did not dwell on the subject of the city editor’s attitude towards him.

The News was an evening paper. It was now nine o’clock in the morning. The Police Court held its session at nine, as Paul found out by making inquiry in the office. He hurried on down to the court room and was just in time to hear the court summon the first case.

There was a miscellaneous gathering of white and black people in the court room and Paul studied the faces as he listened to the disposition of the cases. Summed up as “news” at the end of half an hour, it consisted of four “drunks,” two “assaults,” one case of “petty thieving,” two cases of “disturbing the peace,” and one neighborhood quarrel over the ownership of a dog. The whole thing was saturated with the dirty, dismal atmosphere of human degradation and sin. Paul was too young to realize it all, but he was quick to catch the spirit of the room full of dulled, apathetic, machine-like acceptance of the daily grind of sin. It was a half hour of tragedy that heaven was weeping over, but an occasion that lent itself to coarse laughter and brutal remark on the part of earth, personified in the lawyers and the spectators, aided by the black and white offenders themselves. One white girl clad in a torn silk dress, wearing a gorgeous hat trimmed with red, white and blue rosettes, laughed drunkenly when the court fined her $10 and added 30 days in jail. No one paid much attention to it. The occurrence was too common. A policeman laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, spoke her first name and, without further ceremony, pushed her through the door leading to the jail quarters, and the trials proceeded.

When the court had finished the morning work, judge, lawyers, spectators and criminals hurried out.

At the door Paul introduced himself to the judge as a representative of the News and asked a few questions. The judge seemed surprised at the nature of the questions but answered him as best he could, and at his request put the clerk’s record before him. Paul spent half an hour going over the books and the clerk helped him, in answer to a variety of questions. For the first time in his life Paul felt a certain sense of power that seemed to go with his position. It was not overpowering, but it was real and definite. When he finally came out of the court room it was after eleven o’clock. He recalled Darcy’s directions that he was on the Police Court and whatever else he could pick up on the way. Going up the main street with all his senses alert, and remembering Darcy’s definition of news, he saw one or two things that he jotted down as possible stories. As he was doing this, some one called his name. He looked up in astonishment, for he did not know that any one in Milton knew him.

“Paul Douglas, isn’t it?” A middle aged man spoke and stopped directly in front of him.

“Yes sir.”

“Well, I’m Freeman, Clark Freeman. Your father is one of my best friends. I’ve seen you at Westville when you were younger. Don’t you remember me now ?”

“Yes, and I’ve heard father speak of you often.”

“He has reason to. I owe him money,” Mr. Freeman laughed, and eyed Paul somewhat keenly.

“I never heard father say anything bad of you.”

“No?” Mr. Freeman’s eyes softened. “Well, I hope to square up with him some day. But what are you doing here in Milton?”

“I’m on the News.”

“No? In what capacity?”

“I’m reporting the Police Court and anything else I can pick up.”

“Thought your father wanted you to go to college.”

“He did— but ”

Paul was not ready to confide in a comparative stranger the fact that financial reasons at home had made him a bread winner. Mr. Freeman seemed to understand the reason for the unfinished sentence.

“What success are you having?”

“I’ve only just begun.”

“Want a scoop?” Freeman asked suddenly.

“A scoop ?”

“On the Gazette?”

“Why — yes, if it’s fair.” Paul betrayed both his modesty and his lack of familiarity with newspaper ethics.

Freeman laughed. “Anything is fair, my boy, in journalism, that gets ahead of the other fellow. Besides, it will do me a lot of good to even up with the Gazette for several little reading notices of theirs. And it is a scoop, too. Darcy would give his chances of getting into the Ladies’ Home Journal for it.” Freeman chuckled and eyed Paul wistfully. Paul’s excitement began to rise in him.

“Pm acting secretary for the governor during Pool’s absence in Europe, and the governor has sent me down here to see Captain Williams.”

Paul looked as blank as he felt. What had Captain Williams to do with a scoop on the Gazette?

“Of course you know something about the guesses the politicians have been making about the governor’s appointment of a Senator to fill out the unexpired term of Senator Andrews, who was killed in the A. L. and F wreck ?”

Paul knew of that and had kept somewhat close track of the interest created by the public uncertainty as to what the governor would do.

“Well, the governor decided yesterday to appoint Captain Williams if Williams would accept. There isn’t a politician in the state ever dreamed of Williams for the position. He lives here in Milton and the governor has sent me down here to interview him. I have the appointment in my pocket and I am instructed to give it to the Captain if he accepts, as I am sure he will. It’s the governor’s policy to keep on good terms with all the papers in giving out important news impartially, but I can explain to him that an enterprising reporter on the News got onto this appointment before the Gazette or the Press heard of it.” Mr. Clark Freeman chuckled again, and again eyed Paul with kindly interest. Paul turned red. His excitement was steadily rising. He had the newspaper temperament and realized now what this unexpected scoop might mean to him.

“Pm on my way to see Williams now. Might as well come on with me. Maybe the Captain will give you an interview,” Freeman said, and almost before he knew it Paul found himself with the Governor’s acting secretary in Captain Williams’ office waiting the result of the meeting between him and Mr. Freeman, who had gone into an adjoining room.

Paul sitting there by himself could not avoid hearing the voices, although he could not distinguish the words. Freeman’s quick abrupt statement was followed by a deep ejaculation and then a significant silence followed. After that, both men spoke in short, quick sentences. Ten minutes went by. The clock out on the public building on the main street struck twelve. Then the door opened and Clark Freeman appeared with a smile on his face. He beckoned to Paul to come in.

“The Captain says he will see you. Senator, this is Paul Douglas, son of an old friend of mine, and a reporter on the News. You can trust him to get things straight.” The newly appointed Senator shook Paul’s hand in democratic fashion and during the next few minutes Paul tingled over the interview granted him. When he finally went away he carried with him something which he knew even Darcy would consider real news. Mr. Freeman said good bye heartily and his last words were, “When you write home, tell your father I can pay him that money soon. This appointment means something for me politically.”

It was now half past twelve and Paul hurried to the News office to write out his copy. He took the machine assigned him in the reporters' room and was soon pounding away at a great rate. He had not even remembered that he was hungry. The paper went to press for its first edition at 3 o'clock and by half past one he had nearly finished his scoop. He wrote out his Police Court news last. The loose typewritten sheets were scattered over the little table, when, to the great surprise of the boys who were at work in the room, Darcy entered and walked over to Paul.

“Let me see your stuff,” he said abruptly.

There were several impulses affecting Darcy. He wanted to make Paul feel uncomfortable and he had also a mean and narrow curiosity to see for himself if there was not some opportunity for sarcastic comment. He found it in Paul's story of the Police Court which was the first thing to take up.

“That's no go here. We don't warn that. This is not a Sunday-school. Didn't you read the rules ? Moralizing isn't your business.”

“I didn't moralize!” said Paul, with spirit. “I’ve simply given the causes for those Police Court cases. And the causes are just as I’ve written, the saloon at the bottom of most of them.”

“Leave the saloon alone,” said Darcy, with contempt. He was a high license man and never attacked that policy in Milton. “You've nothing to do with causes. All the News wants is facts. Here! This is the way to get them.”

The city editor pulled a copy of the News out from under a disordered heap of papers on a table near by and thrust a page of it under Paul’s face. Paul saw under the heading Police Court , an item as follows.

“Jake Thompson showed up this morning with his usual jag, frayed a little on the edges from overwear. His Honor told Jake that he might as well cancel his engagements on the Kerosene Circuit for thirty days and send out cards 'at home in the city bastile after June 3/ Jake did not appeal the case and will put his nose into cold storage until the next time.”

Paul wanted to say he did not consider this at all funny but Darcy had gone on with the reading of his “stuff, ” and had now reached his scoop on the appointment of Captain Williams.

He had not read two lines when he stopped and looked up at Paul. “What’s this? A fake?”

Paul’s sense of his own honesty rose up at once with indignation. He got up from his seat and said loud enough for every listening reporter in the room to hear :

“Mr. Darcy, you apologize to me for that, or you’re no gentleman.”

Mr. Albert Darcy glared at Paul in amazement. Then without a word he went back to the reading of the interview with Williams. He finished the account with growing excitement. Then he looked up again at Paul. The boy was still standing at the table his hands clenched and his face pale with anger. Darcy looked amazed. Then he said with a laugh, “Of course I apologize. I acknowledge it was mean of me to question it,” he said in a tone of frankness that disarmed Paul in great measure although his anger could not subside at once. “Come, my boy,” Darcy continued, kindly. “I was simply taken back by this. Have the Gazette or the Press got this?”

“It’s the real stuff, I won’t forget it,” Darcy said, hurriedly. He went out of the room leaving Paul still standing by the table^ the other boys looking at him curiously.

“First time ever heard the old man apologize,” said one. “What’s the scoop? President assassinated?”

Paul briefly and with some pride told of the appointment. The new reporter came in for a large share of envy and considerable admiration. He rose in estimation with the reportorial force of the News at a bound.

“Think you can keep it up?” said one.

Paul did not reply. He walked out and went over to a restaurant to get some lunch. As he went out of the building he noticed a crowd already gathering in front of the News building reading the statement Darcy had put out.

“The Governor appoints Captain Williams as Senator. Interesting interview in News.” Paul felt a certain pride at the sight of the crowd and the knowledge that when the News came out that evening the city would be reading as the most important of all, his own account of this appointment.

He went back to the reporters’ room to write out the other stories which he had noted before his meeting with Mr. Freeman. On his way past Darcy’s door the city editor called him in.

Paul entered with some reluctance. He realized that there was something about Darcy that ruffled him. He was too frank and open-hearted himself to be able to realize that a grown man like Darcy could be jealous of him on account of his literary skill, but he felt that there was an antagonism of some sort between them, and he found his dislike to Darcy was already growing into a positive thing.

Darcy seemed to feel something of the antagonism, and his first words showed an effort to lessen it.

“I want to apologize again, Paul, for what I said. It’s a fine scoop, and I give you credit.”

Paul was silent and Darcy showed by his manner that he was still seeking some way to close the incident with satisfaction to himself.

“Your account of the whole thing was finely written up. Couldn’t have done better myself.”

If Paul could have realized how much it cost Darcy to say that he would have dismissed most of his feeling against the city editor. But not having the slightest inkling of Darcy’s real feelings he simply replied,

“Thank you.”

Darcy shrugged his shoulders.

“Mrs. Darcy would like to have you come up and take tea with us tonight. I phoned her you were at the Y. M. C. A. Your mother and Mrs. Darcy were very good friends in Abbot Academy years ago.”

“Thank you. I’ll be glad to come,” replied Paul, thawing out quickly.

“Report at the house at 6 o’clock, 1127 North street,” Darcy said briefly. And Paul thanked him again and went into the reporters’ room to finish his stories.

Promptly at six he rung the bell at Darcy’s house. While waiting for the door to open he remembered that Darcy’s family consisted of Mrs. Darcy, one daughter,

Esther, and two boys whose names he had forgotten.

The servant showed him into a reception room and said Mrs. Darcy would be there in a few minutes. He had hardly sat down when he heard voices speaking excitedly in an adjoining room. The door was ajar and he could see a library room, and the voices were so near that if he had wished to avoid hearing it- would not have been possible.

“O come now, Esther, when a fellow’s in a pinch I think you might help him out. Father gives you twice as much as he gives me and your expenses are not half as much.”

Paul could hear the sister’s reply as she spoke in earnest fashion but as if guarding a temptation to lose her temper.

“You’ve no reason to say that, Louis. A girl’s expenses are always more than a boy’s. But in any case I will not give you any of my allowance.”

“I don’t ask you to give it to me. I only want to borrow it a little while. I’ll pay it back.”

“You’ve said that twice before. But you don’t keep your word, Louis. I can’t trust you.”

The boy broke out into a passionate remonstrance and appeal. He seemed in great fear of something. Paul started to his feet exceedingly embarrassed by the situa-’ tion. He felt as if he ought to let his presence be known, but he hardly knew how to introduce himself.

“Come, Esther, help me just this once, won’t you? Father won’t let me have a cent until my month is up. And you know what a fuss he made last time when he found out about that hack. Of course I had to have a hack to the class party. All the other fellows have hacks.

I can’t help it, can I, if the hackmen have gone up to three dollars? And then you know what a fuss he made when he found the party cost us eight dollars apiece. I don’t dare ask him for a cent. And I owe Kane five dollars for flowers, and Bruce over six dollars for candy, and a lot of other bills ”

The boy’s voice was tense and high and had a note of tears in it. The girl’s in reply was firm, and Paul, still hearing it all with a sense of deepening shame, could detect a note of scorn in it.

“I’m sorry, Louis. But I can’t give you a cent. We have our class party next week, and I’ve pledged nearly all my allowance* We entertain the boys from the University and it’s going to be the most expensive ”

“Yes, you blow in twice as much for functions as I ever do and father never says anything to you. You know you could go to him tonight and wheedle him out of a lot of money. Say, Esther, won’t you do it and — then — let me have it? You don’t know how much I need it. I must have it, somehow. I tell you, I must.”

“What, Louis Darcy ! Lie to father about it ? I know you’ve done it more than once, but you ought not to expect me to do it for you. And the last time I begged you to give up your dirty cigarette habit you promised me you would, and went right on.”

The brother interrupted with a cry that revealed his weakness and his fear.

“I can’t help it. All the other fellows in the fraternity smoke. I can’t hold out and keep my standing. It’s one of the rules that you have to smoke or get out. You’ll be sorry. If I get into trouble you’ll be to blame!”