ark:

"Ah!"

I turned on my heel, waiting.

"Do you know anything about spelling?"

I tried to look pleasant, as I said I thought I was to be relied on in
this.

"Well, ask my secretary for tickets for the meeting at Memorial Hall
to-day; something to do with spelling. Don't do more than thirty or
forty lines. Right."

And the blade fell once more, leaving me free to make my escape, which I
did with a considerable sense of relief. I found the secretary a meek
little clerk, with a curious hidden vein of timid facetiousness. He
supplied me with the necessary ticket and a hand-bill of particulars.
Then he said:

"Mr. Pierce is quite bright and pleasant this morning."

"Oh, is he?" I said.

"Yes, very--for him. He's all right, you know, when you get into his
way. Of course, he's a real hustler--cleverest journalist in London,
they say."

"Really!" I think I introduced the right note of admiration. At all
events, it seemed to please this little pale-eyed rabbit of a man, who,
as I found later, was reverentially devoted to his bullying chief, and
positively took a kind of fearful joy in being more savagely browbeaten
by Pierce than any other man in the building. A queer taste, but a
fortunate one for a man in his particular position.

For myself, I was at once repelled and gagged by Pierce's manner. I
believe the man had ability, though I think this was a good deal
overrated by himself, and by others, at his dictation; and I dare say he
was a good enough fellow at heart. His manner was aggressive and
feverish enough to be called a symptom of the disease of the period. If
the blood in his veins sang any song at all to Mr. Pierce, the refrain
of that song must have been, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" He and his like
never stopped to ask "Whither?" or "Why?" They had not time. And
further, if pressed for reasons, destination, and so forth, they would
have admitted, to themselves at all events, that there could be no other
goal than success; and that success could mean no other thing than the
acquisition of money; and that the man who thought otherwise must be a
fool--a fool who would soon drop out altogether, to go under, among
those who were broken by the way.

My general aim and purpose in journalistic work, at the outset, was the
serving of social reform in everything that I did. As I saw it, society
was in a parlous state indeed, and needed awaking to recognition of the
fact, to the crying need for reforms in every