Harkins resumed the massacre and Mead, poor innocent, walked disconsolately to his desk to digest the bitter pill that must invariably be administered to the newspaper novice. At Mead's age the simultaneous discovery that there are things to learn and things to unlearn is disconcerting. He sat discouraged, his pinions drooping, and stared gloomily at some gyrating millers about the electric bulb over his desk. Presently he tried to catch them, with a half-acknowledged desire to pluck off their wings in a little game of "pass it on." But they were elusive and evaded him.
Several men came in from assignments, and removing their coats, for a hot wave was grilling the late days of June, set to work. Smallwood and Lynn, back from the convention, left thick wads of copy on the city editor's desk and went out for a late lunch. More reporters entered hurriedly and fell to. The dramatic editor entered with deliberation, as became the great, and leisurely set about the roasting of a "first night." Copy boys scurried like scampering ants. The editors bent to their tasks, the reporters' fingers rushed over the pads or jingled the typewriter keys. Everybody hit up the pace but the dramatic critic. He sat, pencil poised like a poniard, deliberating whether he should slay the piece and principals by slow torture, like an Indian, or perform the deed with one murderous lunge. The proprietors of this particular theatre had fallen out with the business office of the Courier. They did not advertise in the Courier now, so when the dramatic critic attended their house he paid for his seat and charged it to expense account. Naturally, what the Courier said about the attractions at that house, during the season in question, was not what it would have said had the brethren been dwelling together in amity.
This was a particularly auspicious occasion. The other houses had been closed for several weeks, owing to the advent of warm weather. This theatre had opened to accommodate a troupe which, in stage parlance, was trying it on the dog before venturing to launch a new summer attraction in the metropolis. After due reflection the Courier's dramatic critic savagely gripped his pencil and proceeded to use it as a bowie in the interest of the suffering dog.
There had been nothing more for Mead to do and he sat at his desk, sucking disconsolately at a short pipe. It being a new accomplishment, he found difficulty in keeping it lighted. He viewed the moths with malice, their fluttering wings fanning his resentment. He was again reaching cautiously for them when a voice sounded at his elbow; an odd voice, unlike other voices.
"Say, kid," it inquired, "where's the head push?"
Mead turned, somewhat confused by the unexpected interruption. "Huh?" he asked.
"Why, the main squeeze, the first fiddle!" was the impatient rejoinder. Then, as an afterthought, "the city editor."
Mead indicated. "Over there," he said. "His name's Harkins." He turned in his chair to watch the stranger, who shuffled over to Harkins' desk.
"Say, Mr. Harkins, I need a job. And that's no lie," was how he put it.
Harkins whirled in his chair. His keen glance swept the visitor from head to foot. "No, I guess it isn't," was his quiet verdict. "You need a lot of things, don't you?"