o enjoy a smoke,
this stranger interrogated me in the most offensive way. When he had
paused for breath I gave him a dose of his own medicine. "The deadly
parallel" column will tell the story.

WHAT HE ASKED. WHAT I ASKED.

I hear you are an editor? I am told you are a hatter?

Do most newspapers pay? Is hat-making profitable?

How much do editors earn? How much does your business net
you yearly?

You began as a reporter? Grew up in the trade?

Does it require any You can "block a hat while I wait"?
education to be a reporter?

Do you write shorthand? You can handle a hot goose?

Eh? used to? Could once?

Please write some: let's Please take this hat and show me how
see how it looks? it is put together.

Curious-looking Have seen a great many queerly shaped
characters, aren't they? hats in your time, no doubt?

How many columns can you How many hats can you make in a day?
write a day?

Do you write by the column? Do you work by the piece?

What? Don't write at all? Ah? Don't work any longer? Supposed every
How strange!--and so on. hatter made his own hats!--and so on.

The editor may be to blame for this state of things; but if so, his
good-nature is responsible. He endures more than other men. He is often
worried by the troubles of other people; but he never has been weaned
from the milk of human kindness. He may be over-persuaded, he may be
deceived, and editors have been fooled, like judge and jurors, by the
perjured affidavit of apparently honorable men--but he still continues
to believe in mankind.

The chivalry of the politician toward the press is comprehended to a
nicety by every man who has served as a newspaper correspondent at
Washington.

The average congressman thinks it clever to deceive a newspaper editor
or correspondent. He believes they are to be "used," whenever possible,
for the congressman's advantage. A correspondent is to be tricked or
cajoled into praising the statesman, revising the bad English in his
speeches, "saving the country and--the appropriations." All the
charities require and demand his aid, and, I am ashamed to say (knowing
as I do what a hollow mockery some of the alleged charities really are),
generally get the assistance they ask.

The chivalry of the press toward the publi