atry; and these we adore:
Plain living and high thinking are no more:
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws."

WORDSWORTH.

Acting on the instructions I had received overnight, I presented myself
at the office of the _Daily Gazette_ in good time on the morning after
my interview with the editor. A pert boy showed me into the
news-editor's room, after an interval of waiting, and I found myself
confronting the man who controlled my immediate destiny. He was
dictating telegrams to a shorthand writer, and, for the moment, took no
notice whatever of me. I stood at the end of his table, hat in hand,
wondering how so young-looking a man came to be occupying his chair.

He looked about my age, but was a few years older. His face was as
smooth as the head of a new axe, and had something else chopper-like
about it. He reminded me of pictures I had seen in the advertisement
pages of American magazines; pictures showing a wedge-like human face,
from the lips of which some such an assertion as "It's _you_ I want!"
was supposed to be issuing. I subsequently learned that this Mr.
Charles N. Pierce had spent several years in New York, and that he was
credited with having largely increased the circulation of the _Daily
Gazette_ since taking over his present position. He suddenly raised the
even, mechanical tone in which he dictated, and snapped out the words:

"Right. Get on with those now, and come back in five minutes."

Then he switched his gaze on to me, like a searchlight.

"Mr. Mordan, I believe?"

I admitted the charge with my best smile. Mr. Pierce ignored the smile,
and said:

"University man?"

Accepting his cue as to brevity, I said: "Yes. Corpus Christi,
Cambridge."

He pursed his thin lips. "Ah well," he said, "you'll get over that."

In his way he was perfectly right; but his way was as coldly offensive
as any I had ever met with.

"Well, Mr. Mordan, I've only three things to say. Reports for this paper
must be sound English; they must be live stories; they must be short.
You might ask a boy to show you the reporters' room. You'll get your
assignment presently. As a day man, you'll be here from ten to six.
That's all."

And his blade of a face descended into the heart of a sheaf of papers.
As I reached the door the blade rose again, to emit a kind of thin b