As the summer wore on Myles Manning steadily increased his list of friends. His fellow-reporters on the Phonograph liked him because he was good-natured, obliging, and of a happy disposition. Those on the other papers liked him because, while he was keen in pursuit of news and would use every honest method to obtain a “beat” on them, he never forgot that he was a gentleman or descended to dishonorable means to accomplish his purpose. Mr. Haxall liked him because he did not shirk his work nor show the slightest disinclination to accept any assignment, no matter how unpleasant its nature.
When Van Cleef was given the enviable summer job of visiting the principal watering-places and resorts of the country, for the purpose of writing letters from them to the paper, Myles was assigned to his night station-work. He particularly hated this, but he attended to it as well and thoroughly as though he had chosen it, and only Mr. Haxall suspected, from a chance remark, how distasteful it was to him.
He studied the best models of newspaper-writing carefully, and before the summer was over developed an easy and pleasant style of his own. He was becoming recognized on the paper as a valuable man, but his salary still continued to be what it was at the first, and there was no intimation that it would ever be raised. The boy tried to send five dollars of it home every week, for family affairs were becoming worse and more discouraging with each day, but he found it very hard to keep up his neat personal appearance and also pay his weekly board-bills with the small sum that remained.
It would seem from all this that our hero must be a paragon of virtue; and, as some of those who have followed his fortunes thus far would say, “Altogether too good to live.” If this were the case this story might as well end right here, leaving the reader to imagine how Myles rose from one position to another until he finally became proprietor of the great paper on which he was now but one of the humblest workers. That it does not thus end was because the young reporter was possessed of two grave faults, either one of which, if unchecked, would eventually lead him to disgrace and ruin. He was in danger of becoming both a drunkard and a gambler.
Myles would have been terribly shocked if any one had said this to him, and would have indignantly denied it. At the same time he could not have denied that he was fond of all sorts of games of chance, nor that he rarely refused an offered glass of wine. He had fallen into the habit of drinking, now and then, while in college, because he was too good-natured to refuse an offered “treat,” and too generous not to “stand treat” in turn. Now, as a reporter, he found the temptation to do these same things increased a hundred-fold. It seemed as though almost every assignment on which he was sent led to accepting or offering drinks of some kind of liquor. He began to think that the gaining of interesting items of news depended largely upon his willingness to “stand treat” for, or be “treated” by, those from whom he sought it. Several times he had returned to the office flushed and noisy with wine, and once or twice Mr. Haxall’s keen eye had detected him in this condition. It was for this reason that the city editor had decided to wait a little longer and test him a little further before advancing his salary. He liked the young fellow and was watching him anxiously. He even went so far as to warn him of the dangers and temptations that beset a reporter’s path, though he did not make his allusions personal.
Thus matters stood with Myles Manning when one day, toward the end of September, Mr. Haxall called him to his desk and said,
“Mr. Manning, it now looks as though the most general and serious railroad strike this country has ever seen were about to break out. If it does it will be a very different thing from the horse-car strike in which you received your first lessons at reporting. That was only a local affair, while this will be of interest to the whole country. Of course the Phonograph wants the earliest news of it, and I am sending out half a dozen of our best reporters to important railroad points that seem likely to become centres from which the strikers will operate. At these points we must have our steadiest and most reliable men, of whom I count you as one. You will, therefore, start at once for Mountain Junction, the terminus of the Central and Western Divisions of the A. & B. Road. Send us full dispatches of all that happens, and remain there until relieved or recalled. Here is an order on the cashier for your expenses, and if you find yourself in need of more money you can telegraph for it. Remember that the Phonograph expects to receive the news—and all the news—from its reporters, but that it has no use for their individual opinions. Those are formed for it by its editors.”
With the promptness that Mr. Haxall liked so well Myles answered, “All right, sir. I think I understand,” left the office at once, and the next train westward bound over the A. & B. Road carried him as a passenger.
As Mr. Haxall turned again to his desk, after having started Myles on this important and perhaps dangerous mission, he said to himself: