Outside I saw a sign which read: “The Sure Thing Mining and Milling Company, Capital Stock, $1,000,000.”
The next moment I stood in the outer office, saw a sign on a closed door: “F. I. Ketchum—Private.”
I opened a little wooden gate, stepped to the private entrance and knocked. A tall, good-looking man of thirty-five to forty, with soft gray hair, came out and closed the door quickly.
“Is this Mr. Ketchum?” I asked.
“Yes sir, what can I do for you?”
Now that was a sticker. It had not occurred to me that to call a man out of his private office one ought to have some business.
“I’m the editor of the Chronicle and I just dropped in to get acquainted. I have heard of your company.”
The man looked black. “We are not looking for newspaper notoriety,” he said, without offering me a seat. In short, he didn’t rave over me, as some of the real estate men did, and after asking how the property of the company was looking, I went away. Poor as I am, I would have given twenty to have seen into the “Private” room.
I write all this in detail, that you may know how hard I have tried to do my duty to you as a friend, and to the poor unfortunate girl, as a man. I shall have more time from now on, as I have for my superintendent and general master mechanic, Mr. J. D. Vaughan, who can make a newspaper, from the writing of the editorial page, to the mailing list. In the past, as now, he has always been with distinguished men. He was with Artemus Ward at Cleveland, Wallace Gruelle, at Louisville, Bartley Campbell, at New Orleans, Will L. Visscher when he ran the “Headlight,” on board the steamer Richmond running between Louisville and New Orleans, and with Field and Rothaker on the Denver Tribune.