She had listed the newspapers with their addresses. There were four and it was quite within possibility that one of them would want her. She had several courses in journalism to her credit at the university and if there was a vacancy in any office she meant to press her claims hard. The mere idea of working stimulated her and as the train stopped at the city station she pushed out with the hurrying crowd, almost feeling already that she was one of those to whom being “on time” was a necessity.
The newspaper offices were down near the water-front. Below the main street of big shops and glittering restaurants, the streets became grey and businesslike. Wholesale houses, impassive and undecorated, with great trucks backed up before their entrances, dingy employment offices, the repair shops of garages that fronted gaily on the other street, and straggly buildings, without elevators, housing a multitude of little businesses, lived on this street. A block above, the streets were already filled with shoppers, looking in windows, loitering along, wondering what they would do next. But on Market Street everyone seemed to know where he was going and to be going there quickly. Horatia hastened her own footsteps, though her time was all her own. It made her feel less conspicuous.
The Times was the morning paper and the presence of it on the breakfast table all her life made Horatia feel more acquainted with it than with the others. Besides her picture had appeared in it three times after she had done something worth newspaper notice at the University, and while she was vaguely amused at those reasons for going there first she argued further that as it was the paper with the largest circulation there might be more opportunities open. Its dinginess surprised her. The offices were housed in a nondescript wooden building and the manager’s office to which Horatia found herself referred by the boy in the general office was reached by a worn stairway.
“He’s probably not in yet,” said the boy, “doesn’t get here until eleven o’clock, usually.”
But Horatia’s luck was working. A stout, shirt-sleeved man looked her over without getting up from his desk.
“We don’t take on women reporters except in the society department,” he told her. “There’s to be a change there shortly. What experience have you had?”
“No experience except journalism courses at the University.”
“They can’t teach newspaper work at any university,” growled the man. “Can teach them more here in a week than they’d get in ten years at any school, don’t care where it is. Leave your name and if anything does turn up, or Miss Eliot—she’s society editor—needs help—I’ll have her take it up with you. Of course you understand she wants hack work. We’ve no room for essays, you know.”
Horatia looked him over without a blush at his semi-insolence.
“No—I don’t suppose you have,” she said, and her stock went up with her tone. She left her name on the pad he pushed towards her and went out.