“Yes; and that’s what I can’t understand about the youngster. He has money of his own. Why doesn’t he travel and study instead of tying himself to such a merciless mill-wheel as a daily newspaper?”
How magnificent is man’s blind egotism! Percy-Bartlett, a millionnaire, was devoting his whole time and nervous energy to adding to his wealth, and still he censured a youth, by no means rich, for following a line of life that insured him a living. It is so easy to demand of our neighbor that he lead an ideal existence!
“You look very pale, my dear,” remarked his wife after a long silence, with more concern in her voice than it often held in his hearing.
“I am not feeling especially well,” he returned gratefully, and throwing away his cigar, “I must give up smoking, Harriet. The doctor says it is imperative.”
CHAPTER XX.
John Fenton had once called Mr. Robinson, of the Trumpet, an argus-eyed editor. But Fenton did not fully realize how searching and far-reaching was his superior’s gaze. The managing editor of a New York newspaper is seldom appreciated at his true worth by his subordinates. They are too closely in touch with the methods by which he produces his effects to grant him that admiration that the readers of his newspaper feel for him. It is enough if the navigator of a journalistic craft obtains the respect and loyalty of his crew. He must not expect to be the object of hero-worship in the forecastle. It depends upon which end of the telescope you place before your eye, the impression that the moon makes on your mind. The public looks at a famous editor through the large end of the instrument, while his subordinates view him through the small end. Rare and precious is the newspaper potentate who can stand both tests.
Editor Robinson of the Trumpet was not a great man,—a creature that the end of the century seems disinclined to produce in any line of human endeavor,—but he possessed ripe experience, a wide range of vision, and a keen appreciation of the merits and demerits of the material at his disposal. In judging the availability of a piece of news or the advisability of a certain line of editorial policy his mind worked with great rapidity and acuteness. When it came to rendering a final verdict regarding any man with whom he came in contact he was hesitating and conservative. He had learned by experience that it is dangerous to admire Dr. Jekyll too much until you have proved conclusively that he is not a Mr. Hyde.
There were two men in the office who had, of late, been under Mr. Robinson’s close inspection. He was making a thorough study of John Fenton and Richard Stoughton for a cherished purpose that he had long had at heart. Many circumstances had combined to lead him to the conclusion that slowly but surely these two men had rendered themselves eligible for a post that neither of them had ever dreamed of filling.
A man is always going up or coming down in a newspaper office,—a fact that proves how like the world at large a journalistic sanctum is. In Mr. Robinson’s eyes, Fenton and Stoughton were on the up-grade. Regarding Fenton he had long been in doubt. He had grown to look upon him as a man of ability who had lost all ambition, and whose questionable habits and iconoclastic tendencies of thought had unfitted him for any higher place than he already held. Fenton’s long service in the city department and his thorough knowledge of men and affairs in the metropolis had rendered him a valuable assistant, in spite of his peccadilloes and theories; but that he would ever become fitted for a higher line of journalistic achievement Mr. Robinson had never imagined. For some months, however, the managing editor’s keen eye had observed a great change in Fenton’s demeanor and appearance. Much to Mr. Robinson’s astonishment, he saw that his subordinate was inclined to refrain from alcoholic stimulants, that he had grown very particular about his attire and that he seemed fond of the society of young Stoughton.