f myself hunting anything so commonplace as a job,
but as I listened to him and looked past him into the editorial room my
ideas of my chosen profession were rapidly readjusting themselves and I
was casting about for a way in which to continue my quest without the
influence on which I had counted so heavily. I protested that I had
never dreamed of him giving me a job; I had come to him simply for
advice, and perhaps an introduction to the real powers.

Mr. Carmody gave an uneasy glance over his shoulders to a large desk in
the corner, where sat a tall, thin man who seemed absorbed in a game of
checkers played with newspaper clippings. Mr. Hanks, the city editor,
he explained; nothing that he could say would have any influence on Mr.
Hanks. On my insisting, however, he at last consented to sound Mr.
Hanks on my behalf; he approached him with something of the caution he
would have used in confronting a tiger; he waved his hand to me to
assure me that all was well, and when I stood by the big desk he
disappeared, and it was many days before I saw him again.

There was nothing repelling in Mr. Hanks. Indeed, he seemed rather a
mild man, but when he turned on me a pair of large spectacles I felt
suddenly as though I were a curious insect being examined under
magnifying-glasses. Mr. Hanks, with his thin, pale face and
dishevelled hair, appeared more an entomologist than a militant editor.
In a moment, however, I saw him in action. He shot his bare arm across
the littered desk, he seemed to try to destroy his brass bell, and with
every ring he shouted, "Copy--copy!" Office-boys sprang from the floor
and dropped from the ceiling; they tumbled over one another in their
hurry to answer the summons. He reprimanded them for being asleep. I
thought that they would be ordered to bring Mr. Malcolm a chair, but
instead one received from a waving hand a bunch of paper, and they
retired as they had come, into the floor and the ceiling. I was under
the magnifying-glasses again.

"Well, Mr. Malcolm," said Mr. Hanks, leaning back in his chair and
clasping his hands behind his head, "ever done any newspaper work?"

"No, sir," I answered boldly. "I have just graduated from McGraw."

"And where in the devil is McGraw?" he asked in a slow, wondering voice.

How I wished for Doctor Todd! In five minutes this self-confident
journalist would blush for his own ignorance. But Doctor Todd not
being here to confound him with facts, t