4
And then one afternoon when he dropped in at the Chronicle office, Clive asked him if he was ready to go to work Monday morning: he had been taken on as a reporter.... He would get, Clive told him, twenty dollars a week to start with. Clive told him this in a pleased but casual way, as though it were something long arranged between Felix and himself which had just been ratified by the higher powers. So Clive had been working for him all along!
“Go and tell Harris you’ll be on deck,” said Clive. Harris was the city editor. “And better speak to the Old Man, too.” The Old Man was the managing editor, Mr. Devoe. Felix had never supposed for a moment that these personages had him under consideration.
He presented himself before both of them, not knowing what to say. Apparently it was not necessary to say anything. Both of them were busy—too busy, Felix hoped, for them to notice how dazed he was.
“All right, Fay, you’ll be here Monday morning at eight o’clock,” said the city editor.
“I suppose Mr. Bangs told you that we’re going to start you off at twenty dollars?” said Mr. Devoe. “We can do a little better later, perhaps. It’s up to you.” Mr. Devoe looked at him severely—or kindly, Felix was not sure which—over his glasses, and turned back to his desk.
“Yes, sir,” said Felix.
Willie Smith patted him on the back. “Glad you’ve got it,” he said.
“Take it easy,” Clive told him. “A newspaper job in Chicago is just like a newspaper job anywhere else.”
Well! So at last, somehow, the devil only knew how, he had gained a foothold in Chicago.
He discussed the event with Rose-Ann that evening. She laughed at his surprise. “How do you suppose people get jobs?” she demanded. “You were going at it in precisely the right way. I knew from what you told me they were going to take you.”
Felix had already begun to worry about the future. “I don’t know where any place is,” he said. “I must dig up my street-map.”
“Oh, throw that street-map away,” said Rose-Ann. “I’ll give you a guide to Chicago that’s much more useful.” She went to her shelf and took down a little book. “Here!”
It was the “Bab Ballads.” Felix looked puzzled.
“If you can write a play that will please children, you can write to please the people of Chicago. They’re children, too,” she said.
Felix slipped the book in his pocket and went to his room and his street-map. She had too much confidence in him. Only he himself knew what a fool he was. He had got this job under false pretences.