n't be so much ten years
from now. That's the hell of this game; there's no real chance in it."

"What about the editing jobs?"

"Desk-work? Chain yourself by the leg, with a blue pencil in your hand
to butcher better men's stuff? A managing editor, now, I'll grant you.
He gets his twenty or twenty-five thousand if he doesn't die of
overstrain, first. But there's only a few managing editors."

"There are more editorial writers."

"Hired pens. Dishing up other fellows' policies, whether you believe in
'em or not. No; I'm not of that profession, anyway." He specified the
profession, a highly ancient and dishonorable one. Mr. Burt, in his gray
moods, was neither discriminating nor quite just.

Banneker voiced the question which, at some point in his progress, every
thoughtful follower of journalism must meet and solve as best he can.
"When a man goes on a newspaper I suppose he more or less accepts that
paper's standards, doesn't he?"

"More or less? To what extent?" countered the expert.

"I haven't figured that out, yet."

"Don't be in a hurry about it," advised the other with a gleam of
malice. "The fellows that do figure it out to the end, and are honest
enough about it, usually quit."

"You haven't quit."

"Perhaps I'm not honest enough or perhaps I'm too cowardly," retorted
the gloomy Burt.

Banneker smiled. Though the other was nearly two years his senior, he
felt immeasurably the elder. There is about the true reporter type an
infinitely youthful quality; attractive and touching; the eternal
juvenile, which, being once outgrown with its facile and evanescent
enthusiasms, leaves the expert declining into the hack. Beside this
prematurely weary example of a swift and precarious success, Banneker
was mature of character and standard. Nevertheless, the seasoned
journalist was steeped in knowledge which the tyro craved.

"What would you do," Banneker asked, "if you were sent out to write a
story absolutely opposed to something you believed right; political, for
instance?"

"I don't write politics. That's a specialty."

"Who does?"

"'Parson' Gale."

"Does he believe in everything The Ledger stands for?"

"Certainly. In office hours. For and in consideration of one hundred and
twenty-five dollars weekly, duly and regularly paid."

"Outside of office hours, then."

"Ah; that's different. In Harlem where he lives, the Parson is quite a
figure among the reform Democrats. The Ledger, as you know, is