ring which time he
learned most of all there was to know about my little journalistic and
debating experience at Cambridge, and the general trend of my views and
purposes. I do not think he particularly desired my services; but, on
the other hand, I was not an absolute ignoramus. I had written for
publication; I had enthusiasm; and there was my Cambridge friend's
letter.

"Well, Mr. Mordan," he said, turning toward a table littered deep with
papers, and cumbered with telephones and bells, "I cannot offer you
anything very brilliant at the moment; but I see no reason why you
should not make a niche for yourself. We all have to do that, you
know--or drop out to make way for others. You probably know that in
Fleet Street, more perhaps than elsewhere, the race is to the swift.
There are no reserved seats. The best I can do for you now is to enter
you on the reporting staff. It is stretching a point somewhat to make
the pay fifty shillings a week for a beginning. That is the best I can
do. Would you care to take that?"

"Certainly," I told him; "and I'm very much obliged to you for the
chance."

"Right. Then you might come in to-morrow. I will arrange with the
news-editor. And now----" He looked up, and I took my hat. Then he
looked down again, as though seeking something on the floor. "Well, I
think that's all. Of course, it rests with you to make your own place,
or--or lose it. I sympathize with what you have told me of your
views--of course. You know the policy of the paper. But you must
remember that running a newspaper is a complex business. One's methods
cannot always be direct. Life is made up of compromises, and--er--at
times a turn to the left is the shortest way to the right--er--Good
night!"

Thus I was given my chance within a few hours of my descent upon the
great roaring City. I was spared much. Even then I knew by hearsay, as I
subsequently learned for myself, that hundreds of men of far wider
experience and greater ability than mine were wearily tramping London's
pavements at that moment, longing, questing bitterly for work that would
bring them half the small salary I was to earn.

I wrote to Sylvia that night, from my little room among the cat-infested
chimney-pots of Bloomsbury; and I am sure my letter did not suggest that
London was a very gloomy place. My hopes ran high.

[Illustration: THE ROARING CITY]

V

A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT

"... Rapine, avarice, expense,
This is idol