errand, that if
he had pulled my nose, I am sure I should have commended the spirit with
which he did it.

It was in vain I represented to him that to withhold this matter of
public interest was to show an unpardonable disregard of the rights of
others, which, as contrary to public policy, could easily be construed
into an act of overt disloyalty. He did not seem to be interested in the
rights of others, and entirely refused to see the matter in the proper
light. He was not a rational man. When I attempted to argue the case
with him, he became violent, and roared at me until, I am sure, had the
bulls of Bashan heard him, they would have been tempted to "hide their
diminished heads." I decided that discretion was the better part of
valor, and left him to fight it out alone. I returned to the office,
rendered an account of the manner in which I had failed, and was the
recipient of a scathing rebuke from the city editor. It was in vain I
tried to get angry. Even to myself I could not simulate proper
indignation, so thoroughly had the starch been taken out of me by my
seance with an excusably irritated man, knowing the while that I was
trespassing on the bounds of courtesy.

That experience was enough for me. While I might become a successful
reporter, in doing so I fear I should lose that regard for the rights of
others, the petty conscience of every-day life, that is conspicuously
absent in so many of the men we meet.

While this incident has not altered my liking for newspaper work, it has
very materially modified my ideas concerning certain branches of it.
From the reporter's desk to the editor's chair is a natural and easy
transition; and the outsider, unless he possesses the genius of George
Kennan and his companions, must go through this stage of preliminary
training. Those of us who have no influence, no startling genius, and a
decided dislike to becoming inquisitive nuisances feel that we are
overweighted in the journalistic handicap.

What course shall we pursue, that what few merits we possess shall not
be overshadowed by the lack of one quality, which may be a useful one to
the reporter, but is usually known and avoided in the ordinary man under
the vulgar name of "gall"?

_Herbert Corey._

CINCINNATI, Ohio.

A PLEA FOR THE NOM DE PLUME.

Once upon a time there lived a good little girl whom everybody loved.
She had six aunts, four uncles, and twenty-seven cousins, besides a
brother and tw