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"Ned Deering, old man, where did you blow in from?" And he seized him by both hands.

Then he rose so suddenly that his chair little masterpiece. That picture of the nearly tipped over. drunken man who got astray there seemed as funny as ever; how the man fancied himself Stanley at Ujiji and said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume !' to a brick chimney. Only think of it, at that time Stanley was only just back from his wonderful explorations in mid-Africa. And a few months ago I went to the great Victoria Falls by rail."

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Only across a few continents and five or six oceans," replied Deering.

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'Well, you have managed to assist at a few stirring occasions. I am beginning to feel as if I would like to see something of the world on my own account. Here, you know, I am a distributer of events, as it were. I manage to keep men going in a local-transit sort of way-now and then giving them an impetus that carries them far and wide out of their usual course."

"Like myself, for instance."

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Hooker and his assistant continued discussing the assignment book. Suddenly a sharp stroke sounded from a gong in the corridor, followed by three others in harsh reverberation. Then a pause, and two more strokes. The two stopped and counted. Nobody else paid any attention; the coming and going went on as before. Forty-two," said the assistant.

"That's the old Hoodoo box," said Hooker. "You and I have good cause to remember that number, haven't we, Ned?" he continued, turning to Deering. 'Eighty-seven million dollars went up in smoke that Saturday night and the next day."

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"I got my fill of fires that time," said Deering. "I never wanted to see another one. Conflagrations' and 'Holocausts' were words that lost their connections for me after that. By the way, I ran across Charlie Setchell out in 'Frisco. He is leader-writer for the Scrutinizer, and gets big pay, In my oldest scrapbook I still have Setchell's sketch of 'The Burnt District by Moonlight.' I came across it lately. Really, it was a

The young assistant listened to such reminiscences with a respectfulness that was almost awe for the remoteness to which they referred. They antedated his birth by some years, and meant so much ancient history to him. Yet Deering and Hooker were by no means old men. Deering went on about Setchell: "You remember what a slender, handsome young dare-devil he was when we three were cubs together? Well, now he is portly, gray-bearded, and goldspectacled-a man of weight and dignity; actually, he looks old enough to be my father. At least so said Dick Hardie, who met him with me at the Bohemian Club."

A ring at the desk telephone was answered by the assistant. "The Chief would like to see you a few minutes, Mr. Hooker," he said.

"Well, Alden," said Deering, turning to the assistant as Hooker left them, "I'm glad to see you have gone up a step. How do you like it?"

"In some ways better than running around outside all the time. That was interesting in many ways, but after three or four years the novelty wears off and it all becomes so much routine. Here I don't get much chance to do things myself.

But I like the organizing, the planning to have things done. It is something of an education in itself to be with Mr. Hooker like this. He is a master at it. To take a bird's-eye view of the life of a great city, with all the shifting and changing fresh every twenty-four hours there's something inspiring about it, looking at it in that way."

A boyish-looking young man came in from outside, his eyes kindling enthusiastically. "Say, Mr. Alden, I'm down only for half a column, but I wish you could let me have a whole one. This National Convention of Photographers

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is a big thing, and Winterholder's address was a corker. I'm sure I can make a good story of it."

Alden thought a moment. “All right, go ahead with it. If need be, we'll take a reef in the Common Council report. But you fellows must remember that the old Planet hasn't got any rubber chases." The young fellow laughed at the venerable joke as if it were something new. "Wait a minute, Sherrill," said Alden. "I want you to meet Mr. Deering. He was one of us here, not so very long ago."

"I am tremendously glad to see you, Mr. Deering," said the youth. "I want eto tell you how much I like those artiabcles you are doing for To-Day and

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To-Morrow. I am studying them for their style. I look for them every week."

"He's one of the best," remarked Alden, as Sherrill left them to write out his story. "If we could only have a dozen men like him on the city staff, what a paper we might get out! He was graduated at Harvard last June, and came to us at once. I tell you, Mr. Deering, there is nothing better than a college training for a newspaper man. Of course there are good ones without it, but they are better with it. It never harms a good man. Only they have to learn the difference between a newspaper story and a class-room essay."

"And still newspaper work is good ha training for literature."

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"Indeed it is. It teaches conciseness, directness, clean-cut expression. It is remarkable how many men of letters began with newspaper work. At least half a dozen of our young fellows here are in training for authorship, just as in your day. We might get up a very respectable Authors' Club here in the Planet office. There is young Graymer; two months ago he got the fifteen-hundred-dollar short-story prize from Monday Morning. And now he has so many orders for his work he is thinking of giving himself to fiction entirely. But I tell him he had better think it over a little more."

As Deering sat there the coming and going was continuous. Persons dropped in to ask questions about things that had appeared in the paper; others with

information about happenings or things to happen these were occasionally valuable tips, and reporters were started promptly on the trail; there were messenger-boys; reporters just in from their assignments, and others just starting out. Some of the reporters recognized Deering and greeted him heartily, with the fraternal air that belongs to the newspaper calling; others were new men and strangers to him. He had become one of the traditions of the office; when it had been noised around the building that he was present, the young men looked curiously at him as they passed, and some sought introductions. Reporters have not much awe for reputations; they are wont to stand on a familiar footing with "greatness." But they have a frank admiration for good work in their own vocation.

Deering looked up to a large photograph on the wall above Hooker's deska shrewd-featured man with quizzical

eyes and a drooping mustache-the

portrait of Hooker's predecessor. "Good old Dan Tedforth !" said he. 66 'Alden, I suppose that photograph up there comes no nearer to you than the portraits of Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, or Benjamin Franklin do."

"I must allow that's about it," replied Alden, with a little laugh.

"But he comes very near to me-as near as Hooker to you. Of course you know some of the funny stories about him. His methods would be old-fashioned now, for he belonged to the pretelephone era. But he was 'A No. 1' in his day, and it was his training that made Hooker."

Just then Hooker came back. "The Chief wants Blanie and Hargill on some special service," he said to Alden"Blanie to work up some stories about new industrial developments in the Middle West, and Hargill to study the situation in Santo Domingo. I am sorry to let them go; you know the things we had laid out for them. But that's what

we are here for. What do you say to Sherrill and Eltie for taking up their work? You may as well pick out four of the best availables from the waitinglist. Richland has taken up that business offer and drops out next week, and I've just learned from Graymer that after

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Think of the incessant changes in our force! By the way, did you know that Tom Hadley died last summer? But old Joe Rodlin still comes round for his pay every Saturday noon."

"Old Uncle Joe! He's the last of the old-timers-the generation when

Well, Ned, I'm with you now for reporting was little more than item-gathlunch," said Hooker.

In a quiet corner at Maloni's the two old friends had much to tell each other about-Deering of his experiences far and wide in the world, Hooker of what had been passing at home.

"What a human river is always flowing through a newspaper office!" remarked Deering. "Take the officeboys, for instance. The generations of them we have seen come and go! That is where the changes in the masculine being are most marked and rapid, in that lively corner by the door. A new kid in knee-breeches is taken on, and in a couple of years he is in 'long pants,' tall and manly, and one of us. There is Frank Hatmead of your staff-he was junior office-boy ten years after I came on to the paper; such a pretty little fellow, with a wide collar; he looked as if his mother washed his face for him the last thing before he came away in the morning. I saw him in the city room this morning, bald-headed and graywhiskered, and weighing easy a hundred pounds more than me. Walter Northley is now dean of a college. Jerry Halloran is a prominent lawyer with a big practice. Poor Jim Lennon, the little acrobat, adorns a different sort of a bar, I should say, from the way he looked the last time I saw him on the street. But his chum in the office, Harry Southman, I found a junior partner in the firm when I last went to take out a letter of credit at Dorr & Grayson's. You could probably tell me some interesting histories from the later grades. Wouldn't a reunion, or rather assembly, of former Planet office-boys be a pretty interesting and significant affair?"

Providing we could make a judicious selection for the occasion," said Hooker. "But the history of the reporters would make a more remarkable showing," he added. People wonder what becomes of all the reporters.

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ering, pure and simple. When I saw him last he looked precisely as he did to me the day of my first assignment. He struck me as old as the hills even then, though I suppose he wasn't over fifty." "Uncle Joe is an exception," said Hooker. Reporters are short-lived, as such. We have only five or six old stand-bys who stick to the routine and keep plugging on at the same thingsjust the same fellows that you knew: Droller, Melding, and the rest. They are almost invaluable in their places, for they do the things that demand long experience. Dear old plodders, perfectly contented with what they do; so devoted to it it would about break their hearts to turn to anything else. They are like the old drill-sergeants in the army. But isn't it lucky there are not so very many more of them? To be sure, it comes hard every time one of our bright young chaps drop out of the force. But it's really the best thing all round; they usually better themselves, and the current of new blood constantly coming in to the office keeps things from stagnating. Still, some of the boys are such delightful personalities I can't bear to see them go. I wonder if you saw a handsome young fellow with wavy brown hair around the office the last time you were here-- Phil Stanbush? It was like champagne to have him round. Sometimes, when there was nothing doing, along about four or five o'clock, he would get out his banjo and sing divinely. There was a fortune in his voice, if he had only cared to take it. Gerlitz happened in one day when he was singing, and made him a handsome offer on the spot. But Stanbush cared only for what his pen could do. He had an eye for the drollest side of things, and his humorous verse caught on so with the maga zines that now he's doing nothing else. His first volume made a tremendous hit."

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"It would be interesting to trace out what becomes of all of us reportersold ones and young ones," said Deering. "There are not a few of us in literature, or semi-literature. Think of the fortune Rossmorton has coined out of his novels! They have the human touch, whatever else may be said of them. And of the still bigger pile MacSinnot has made by his plays! The Planet is only one of the big newspapers of the country. What a grist of authors of all kinds they all must be turning out between them! If we analyzed the magazines, the publishers' catalogues, the theater programmes, what proportion of the titles might not be traced to journalism?"

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"Leaving the other sex out of account, I should say at least twenty per cent.,' responded Hooker. "It is quite natural. It is here they come into touch with life of all sorts; experinces large and various. How the daily columns teem with the raw material for literature! No wonder the imagination is stimulated in working such leads."

"Literature offers the most natural and conspicuous destination for us," said Deering. "If we could only have an 'Authors' Union,' now-or, better still, a 'Writers' Union' that would take everybody in from reporter up, and make it hot for the scab scribblers-how we might have things our own way! But the trouble is, almost anybody can write. Paper, pen, and ink are cheap. So it takes little capital to start in the business. In journalism itself there is a constant passing on into the higher ranks. Besides promotions in the big city offices where we begin, so many of us, a lot of the younger newspaper men manage to better themselves by way of the country press, the suburban press, and the provincial press. And is there not a lot of good, sound editorial thinking on the part of the minor newspapers? As to rewards, it seems rather curious that in England and France, where in ordinary pursuits rates of compensation are much lower than here, the compensation for newspaper work in the upper grades is very much higher than with us. fact, over there such writers can live commensurately with their tastes, while here there are few of us who do not have

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to scrimp. Altogether, I suppose that in our journalism the direct prizes are fewer and more meager in proportion to energy expended than in any other profession. It is the going outside that counts best."

"What quantities of our reporters get into all sorts of outside occupations !" remarked Hooker. "The wide acquaintances they make do it for them. They come into contact with all sorts of people. And when, combined with capacity, they have attractive or aggressive personalities, they are likely to get their chance. The business world is full of ex-reporters. Some of our old friends have struck it rich in that way. They are particularly appreciated in positions that keep up their contact with numerous people. Then what a lot of them make their way in politics-all through their getting about in the world and knowing people. Now and then they get into the learned professions--the law most frequently; very rarely, even a minister, and occasionally a doctor."

"That was a plucky thing in Edgar Merry," observed Deering. "He was a good writer, higher than the average. But at thirty-eight he made up his mind that journalism had no special future for him, and so he took a special course in medicine, keeping up his newspaper work all the time. And now he is called one of the best doctors in town."

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"Literature and journalism are both writing, after all," said Hooker, reflectively. Occasionally we even get some pretty good literary quality into a newspaper-a sort of flavoring that now and then scents up an issue of the old Planet as violets sent by mail saturate with their odor a newspaper they are folded into. After all, the average book is about as ephemeral as every newspaper is. Think of the immense amount of work that goes into every number of the Planet! Not only the mechanical exertion, the routine tasks, but the elaborate scheming out of things, all the thinking and the careful writing with reference to that particular issue. And after a few hours it is gone, like a dinner digested. It has served its uses and has passed on. Nobody ever thinks of it again. What's the use? "But now take Graymer's brilliant

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little stories; who reads even them again after the magazine's month is over? Perhaps he does something 'between covers.' It is read and admired-a' quick seller.' But after a year or two? Copyrights might be limited to three years for all that nine authors out of ten ever profit by them afterwards. A Kipling may perhaps be read for a century or more. But he will pass at last. Even Shakespeare will sometime pass. The author primarily addresses the people of his day and hour, just as the leader-writer and the reporter do. Secondarily, perhaps the author's words may also make appeal to posterity. But what we newspaper fellows are doing is certain to tell upon posterity in thou

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sands of untraceable ways. Did you ever consider how there is scarcely a paragraph in any day's news-even the little things that i ardly anybody heedsthat is not of intimate concern, perhaps of vital moment, to some one? There is no little satisfaction in the sense of sitting at the center of things, part and parcel of the huge mechanism of traffic and intercourse that is urging the world of mankind to its vast and unimaginable ends, sitting where the converging wires-"

Just then the waiter came up: "A 'phone from your office, Mr. Hooker! They wanted me to tell you something very important has just come in."

LANDOR'S " "COMMENTARY"

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T is not often that a reviewer is called upon to deal with a book that is nearly one hundred years old as though it were a work fresh from its author's pen, but this is precisely the case with Walter Savage Landor's "Commentary" on John Bernard Trotter's "Memoirs of the Latter Years of the Right Honorable Charles James Fox." Written in 1811, printed early in 1812, the "Commentary now finds publication for practically the first time, having been so rigorously suppressed that exceedingly few copies of which only one is known to exist to-day-got into circulation. Just why its reprinting was not undertaken before is difficult to say, for as long ago as 1819 Monckton Milnes, then the owner of the single copy in question, called attention to its noteworthy qualities and urged its inclusion in any collected edition of Landor's works. original suppression is easy to understand. Written for the avowed purpose of destroying the flattering picture drawn of Fox by the grateful Trotter, it abounds in characteristic and distinctly "actionable" animadversions against not only Fox and his illustrious rival Pitt, but also certain of their surviving followers; is caustically outspoken in its championship of unpopular causes; and opens

Its

1 Charles James Fox: A Commentary on his Life and Character. By Walter Savage Landor. Edited by Stephen Wheeler. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $2.75, net.

with nothing less than a dedication to the President of the United States, with which England was then on the brink of war. Of this dedication the celebrated Gifford, at that time editor of the Quarterly Review, exclaimed: "I never read so rascally a thing. It shows Landor to have a most rancorous and malicious heart. Nothing but a rooted hatred of his country could have made him dedicate his jacobinical book to the most contemptible wretch that ever crept into authority"-this pleasing reference being to James Madison. Obviously, there was only one course open to the publisher, John Murray, to whom Landor sent his manuscript. But before definitely refusing to bring it out, Murray submitted proof-sheets to Landor's closest friend, the poet Southey, in the hope that Southey might persuade him to eliminate all obnoxious passages. This failing, the book seemed, in Landor's bitter phrase, "condemned to eternal night." For a time he talked wildly of establishing a printing-press of his own in his remote Welsh valley, but in the end he submitted to the inevitable, and contented himself with privately issuing a small edition in pamphlet form, almost the whole of which, however, was immediately "wasted," to use Monckton Milnes's phrase.

Such, in bald outline, is the history of a work whose value it would be difficult

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