At the office of the Dawn I was reticent and backward. I lacked the cleverness, the smartness and readiness of expression with which other members of the staff were gifted. I had come into a new world, utterly foreign to me, and often I longed to be back again with Moleskin Joe on some long road leading to nowhere.
For a while my stories were not successful, although I made a point of seeing the things of which I wrote. I came back to the office every evening full of my subject, whether a florist's exhibition, a cat show, or a police court case, and sat down seriously to write my story. When half-written I tore it up seriously and began again. When satisfied with the whole completed account I took it to the sub-editor, who read it seriously and seriously threw it into the waste-paper basket. At the end of the first week I found that only two articles of mine had appeared in the Dawn. I had written eight.
"You write in too serious a vein for a modern paper," said the sub-editor.
When the spring came round I could feel, even in Fleet Street, the spell of the old roving days come over me; those days when Moleskin and I tramped along the roads of Scotland, thanking God for the little scraps of tobacco which we found in our pockets, while wondering where the next pipeful could be obtained! My heart went out to the old mates and the old places. I had a longing for the little fire in the darkness, the smell of the wet earth, the first glimpse of the bend in the road, and the dream about the world of mystery lying round the corner. When I went across Blackfriars Bridge, or along the Strand, on a cold, bracing morning, I wanted to walk on ever so far, away—away. Where to—it didn't matter. The office choked me, smothered me; it felt so like a prison. I wanted to be with Moleskin Joe, and often I asked myself, "Where is he now? what is my old comrade doing at this moment? Is the old vagabond still happy in his wanderings and his hopes of a good time coming, or has he finished up his last shift and handed in his final check for good and all?" Often I longed to see him again and travel with him to new and strange places.
Of my salary, now three pounds a week, I sent a guinea home to my own people every Saturday. Of course, now, getting so much, they wanted more. Journalism to them implied some hazy kind of work where money was stint-less and to be had for the asking. My other brothers were going out into the world now, and my eldest sister had gone to America. "I wish that I could keep them at home," wrote my mother. "You are so long away now that we do not miss you."
"Will you go down to Cyfladd, Flynn, and write some 'stories' about the coal strike?" asked the news editor one morning. "I think that you have a natural bent for these labour affairs. Your navvy stories were undoubtedly good, and even a spicy bit of socialism added to their charm."
"Spicy bit of socialism, indeed!" broke in the irrepressible Barwell. "The day will come when the working men of England shall invade London and decorate Fleet Street with the gibbeted bodies of hireling editors. Have you a cigarette to spare, Manwell?"
"You go down to Cyfladd, Flynn," said the news editor, handing his cigarette-case to Barwell. "See what is doing there and write up good human stories dealing with the discontent of the workers. Do not be afraid to state things bluntly. Tell about their drinking and quarrelling, and if you come across miners who are in good circumstance don't fail to write about it."
"But suppose for a moment that he comes across men who are really poor, men who may not have had enough wages to make both ends meet, what is he to do?" asked loquacious Barwell, the socialistic Philistine, who played with ideas for the mere sake of the ideas. "For myself, I do not believe in the right to strike, and I admire the man who starves to death without making a fuss. Why should uncultured and uneducated miners create a fuss if they are starved to death in order to satisfy the needs of honourable and learned gentlemen? What right has a common worker to ask for higher wages? What right has he to take a wife and bring up children? The children of the poor should be fattened and served up on the tables of the rich, as advocated by Dean Swift in an age prior to the existence of the Dawn. The children of the poor who cannot become workers become wastrels; the rich wastrels wear eye-glasses and spats. We have no place in the scheme of things for the wastrels who wear neither eye-glasses nor spats, therefore I believe that it would be good for the nation if many of the children of the poor were fattened, killed, and eaten. But I am wandering from the point. Let us look at the highly improbable supposition of which I have spoken. It is highly improbable, of course, that there are poor people amongst the miners, for they have little time to spend the money which they take so long to earn. Now and again they die, leaving a week's wages lying at the pay-office. I have heard of cases like that several times. These men, who are out on strike, may leave a whole week's pay to their wives and children when they die, and for all that they grumble and go out on strike! But we cannot expect anything else from uneducated workmen. I am wandering from the point again, and the point is this: Suppose, for an instant, that Flynn doesn't find a rich, quarrelsome, and drunken miner in Cyfladd, what is he to do? Return again?"
"You're a fool, Barwell!" said the news editor.