t make much difference. I'm not really in need of anybody, but
I could use you. Would you be satisfied with five a week?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, come in when you are ready. I'll see what I can do."

He waved the prospective type-setter away with a movement of his fat
hand, and turned to his black walnut desk, dingy, covered with
newspapers, and lit by a green shaded electric light. Eugene went out,
the smell of fresh printing ink in his nose, and the equally aggressive
smell of damp newspapers. It was going to be an interesting experience,
he thought, but perhaps a waste of time. He did not think so much of
Alexandria. Some time he was going to get out of it.

The office of the _Appeal_ was not different from that of any other
country newspaper office within the confines of our two hemispheres. On
the ground floor in front was the business office, and in the rear the
one large flat bed press and the job presses. On the second floor was
the composing room with its rows of type cases on their high racks--for
this newspaper was, like most other country newspapers, still set by
hand; and in front was the one dingy office of the so-called editor, or
managing editor, or city editor--for all three were the same person, a
Mr. Caleb Williams whom Burgess had picked up in times past from heaven
knows where. Williams was a small, lean, wiry man, with a black pointed
beard and a glass eye which fixed you oddly with its black pupil. He was
talkative, skipped about from duty to duty, wore most of the time a
green shade pulled low over his forehead, and smoked a brown briar pipe.
He had a fund of knowledge, piled up in metropolitan journalistic
experience, but he was anchored here with a wife and three children,
after sailing, no doubt, a chartless sea of troubles, and was glad to
talk life and experiences after office hours with almost anybody. It
took him from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon to gather
what local news there was, and either write it or edit it. He seemed to
have a number of correspondents who sent him weekly batches of news from
surrounding points. The Associated Press furnished him with a few minor
items by telegraph, and there was a "patent insides," two pages of
fiction, household hints, medicine ads. and what not, which saved him
considerable time and stress. Most of the news which came to him
received short shrift in the matter of editing. "In Chicago we used to
give a lot of attention to this so