“Probably Billings took your stuff and worked it over,” suggested the other. “You see it all counts as space for him, and he thought, as you are on salary, it wouldn’t make any difference to you.”
“What do you mean by ‘space’?” asked Myles. “I heard the word several times yesterday, but didn’t understand it.”
“Why, most New York reporters are ‘space men’—that is, they do not receive a regular sum of money every week, without regard to how much or how little they have in the paper, but are paid so much per column for what they get printed. The Phonograph and one or two other papers, for instance, pay eight dollars per column, while others pay seven, six, and so on down to three dollars per column.”
“Do the space men generally make more than fifteen dollars a week?”
“Well I should say they did! Why, on the Phonograph they will average five dollars a day right along, and in good weeks some of them make sixty, seventy, and even as high as a hundred dollars a week. There is Billings, for instance. If this three-column story is all his, as it probably is, there is twenty-four dollars for him for a single day’s work.”
“It seems to me I should prefer to be on space,” said Myles.
“So would most fellows. There is not only more money in it, but it is more exciting, and more like regular business. On the Phonograph, though, all new men have to serve an apprenticeship at a small salary for a long time before they are entitled to go on space.”
“How long?” asked Myles.
“It depends entirely on the fellow himself. Some have to wait years. Others make their stories so interesting and prove such valuable reporters that they can demand to be put on space within a few months. Billings, I believe, was only three months on salary.”
“Who is this Billings, any way?”