The Roaring City
Even in the red centre of the stampede (Fleet Street is within the City boundaries) men in the race took time for the exercise of human kindliness, when opportunity was brought close enough to them. The letter I took to the editor of the Daily Gazette was from an old friend of his who knew, and told him, of my exact circumstances. This gentleman received me kindly and courteously. He and his like were among the most furiously hurried in the race, but their handling of great masses of diffuse information gave them, in many cases, a wide outlook, and where, as often happened, they were well balanced as well as honest, I think they served their age as truly as any of their contemporaries, and with more effect than most.
This gentleman talked to me for ten minutes, during 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.