“It was years ago, in the days before a misguided public began to read my books and supply me with the necessary wherewithal to keep the wolf from the door. But I was young and full of hope, and Fleet Street seemed a very wonderful place. From which you can infer that I was a journalist, and candour compels me to admit—a jolly bad one. Not that I realised it at the time. I regarded my Editor’s complete lack of appreciation of my merits as being his misfortune, not my fault. However, I pottered around, doing odd jobs and having the felicity of seeing my carefully penned masterpieces completely obscured by blue pencil and reduced to two lines.
“Then one morning I was sent for to the inner sanctuary. Now, although I had the very lowest opinion of the Editor’s abilities, I knew sufficient of the office routine to realise that such a summons was unlikely to herald a rise of screw with parchment certificate of appreciation for services rendered. It was far more likely to herald the order of the boot—and the prospect was not very rosy. Even in those days Fleet Street was full of unemployed journalists who knew more than their editors.
“The news editor was in the office when I walked in, and he was a kindly man, was old Andrews. He looked at me from under his great bushy eyebrows for a few moments without speaking; then he pointed to a chair.
“ ‘Graham,’ he remarked in a deep bass voice, ‘are you aware that this paper has never yet possessed a man on its staff that writes such unutterable slush as you do?’
“I remained discreetly silent; to dissent seemed tactless, to agree, unnecessary.
“ ‘What do you propose to do about it?’ he continued after a while.
“I told him that I hadn’t realised I was as bad as all that, but that I would do my best to improve my style and give satisfaction in the future.
“ ‘It’s not so much your style,’ he conceded. ‘Years ago I knew a man whose style was worse. Only a little—but it was worse. But it’s your nose for news, my boy—that’s the worst thing that ever came into Fleet Street. Now, what were you doing yesterday?’
“ ‘I was reporting that wedding at the Brompton Oratory, sir,’ I told him.
“ ‘Just so,’ he answered. ‘And are you aware that in a back street not three hundred yards from the church a man died through eating a surfeit of winkles, as the result of a bet? Actually while you were there did that man die by the winkle-barrow—and you knew nothing about it. I’m not denying that your report on the wedding isn’t fair—but the public is entitled to know about the dangers of winkle-eating to excess. Not that the rights of the public matter in the least, but it’s the principle I want to impress on you—the necessity of keeping your eyes open for other things beside the actual job you’re on. That’s what makes the good journalist.’