This man was paid three pounds a week by our editor. Three times out of four he was ahead of every other paper in his news, and I was not in the least surprised when one day, after he had been in London only two months, he came to me and said: “Next week I am leaving you. I am going to The Morning Trumpet; they’re giving me five hundred pounds a year.” Five months later he was getting a thousand pounds a year from a paper that never hesitates to pay handsomely for “stunts.”
I caught fire from my friend’s enthusiasm, and late one night, just when I had finished a long notice of a new play, I overheard the night editor regretting to one of the sub-editors that news of a particularly horrible murder in [112] ]Stepney had just reached the office when all the reporters were out on duty. “Let me go!” I urged. “But you are in evening dress,” he objected. “Never mind; send me off.” And ten minutes later I was being rushed in a taxi-cab at full speed to Stepney. I found the scene of the murder—a mean little house in a mean little street. Outside the house was a crowd of eager loafers, a score of reporters, and as many policemen, who, refusing to be bribed, kept us all in the street without news. However, such was my enthusiasm that I alone of all the reporters got into the house and into the cellar where the wretched woman had been butchered to death three hours earlier. I drew a hasty plan of the underground floor, interviewed a sister of the murdered woman, obtained full particulars, and then jumped into the taxi-cab to return to the office. Within an hour of leaving my desk I was back again, and in another twenty minutes I had ready as vivid and thrilling a “story” as ever I hope to write. Knowing that the paper was on the point of going to press, I did not, as I ought to have done, hand my copy to one of the sub-editors, but took it straight to the machines. Whilst I was waiting for a proof, I was summoned to my editor’s room. He was frowning, and he looked very much perturbed.
“By the merest chance, Cumberland,” he said, sternly, “I have been the means of saving the paper from heavy penalties for contempt of court.” He paused and bit his lip. “I suppose you think your murder story a most brilliant piece of work.”
“Well, I certainly was under that impression, sir,” I began, “but it would seem——”
“Seem!” he thundered. “You’ve got the facts, it’s true, but then all my reporters have to get the facts. The gross blunder you’ve made is, first of all, in saying that the suspected man has spent practically all his life in prison—contempt of court of the vilest description. Secondly, [113] ]you’ve said——” He enumerated no fewer than five blunders I had made. “But, worst of all,” he concluded, “you took it upon yourself to give your copy direct to the printers after midnight, thus breaking the strictest rule of this office.”
It was true. In my exciting enthusiasm I had forgotten this Persian rule.
“Fortunately, I came in just in time to stop your stuff. You’d better, I think, confine yourself exclusively to your dramatic criticism.”
Nevertheless, he offered me, two days later, ten pounds a week to give up my dramatic criticism and general articles (for which I was at that time getting only five pounds) and devote myself to reporting—an offer which I refused, as the work would have exhausted all my time.
. . . . . . . .
It was at about this time that the idea occurred to me that a certain monthly magazine for which I had been writing regularly might, if asked, pay me at a higher rate than that which, till then, they had been giving me. So I dressed myself very carefully (clothes do help, don’t they?) and drove up to the office in a smart hansom.