“That’s my belief.”
“He won’t,” pronounced the veteran with finality. “They never do. They chafe. They strain. They curse out the job and themselves. They say it isn’t fit for any white man. So it isn’t, the worst of it. But they stick. If they’re marked for it, they stick.”
“Marked for it?” murmured Glidden.
“The ink-spot. The mark of the beast. I’ve got it. You’ve got it, Glidden, and you, McHale. Mallory’s smudged with it. Tommy thinks it’s all over him, but it isn’t. He’ll end between covers. Fiction, like as not,” he added with a mildly contemptuous smile. “But this young Banneker; it’s eaten into him like acid.”
“Do you know him, Pop?” inquired McHale.
“Never saw him. Don’t have to. I’ve read his stuff.”
“And you see it there?”
“Plain as Brooklyn Bridge. He’ll eat mud like the rest of us.”
“Come off, Pop! Where do you come in to eat mud? You’ve got the creamiest job on Park Row. You never have to do anything that a railroad president need shy at.”
This was nearly true. Edmonds, who in his thirty years of service had filled almost every conceivable position from police headquarters reporter to managing editor, had now reverted to the phase for which the ink-spot had marked him, and was again a reporter; a sort of super-reporter, spending much of his time out around the country on important projects either of news, or of that special information necessary to a great daily, which does not always appear as news, but which may define, determine, or alter news and editorial policies.