“To see three shows at once,” observed the Post-Dispatch, “and those three widely separated by miles of country and washed-out sections of railroad in three different States (Illinois, Iowa and Missouri), is indeed a triumph; but also to see them as having arrived, or as they would have been had they arrived, and displaying their individual delights to three separate audiences of varying proportions assembled for that purpose is truly amazing, one of the finest demonstrations of mediumship—or perhaps we had better say materialization—yet known to science. Great, indeed, is McCullagh. Great the G.-D. Indeed, now that we think of it, it is an achievement so astounding that even the Globe may well be proud of it—one of the finest flights of which the human mind or the great editor’s psychic strength is capable. We venture to say that no spiritualist or materializing medium has ever outrivaled it. We have always known that Mr. McCullagh is a great man. The illuminating charm of his editorial page is sufficient proof of that. But this latest essay of his into the realm of combined dramatic criticism, supernatural insight, and materialization, is one of the most perfect things of its kind and can only be attributed to genius in the purest form. It is psychic, supernatural, spooky.”
The Evening Chronicle for its part troubled to explain how ably and interestedly the spirit audiences and actors, although they might as well have been resting, the actors at least not having any contract which compelled their subconscious or psychic selves to work, had conducted themselves, doing their parts without a murmur. It was also here hinted that in future it would not be necessary for the Globe to carry a dramatic critic, seeing that the psychic mind of its chief was sufficient. Anyhow it was plain that the race was fast reaching that place where it could perceive in advance that which was about to take place; in proof of this it pointed of course to the noble mind which now occupied the editorial chair of the Globe-Democrat, seeing all this without moving from his office.
I was agonized. Sweat rolled from my forehead; my nerves twitched. And to think that this was the second time within no more than a month that I had made my great benefactor the laughing-stock of the city! What must he think of me? I could see him at that moment reading these editorials.... He would discharge me....
Not knowing what to do, I sat and brooded. Gone were all my fine dreams, my great future, my standing in the eyes of men and of this paper! What was to become of me now? I saw myself returning to Chicago—to do what? What would Peter, Dick, Hazard, Johnson, Bellairs, all my new found friends, think? Instead of going boldly to the office and seeing my friends, who were still fond of me if laughing at my break, or Mr. McCullagh, I slipped about the city meditating on my fate and wondering what I was to do.
For at least a week, during the idlest hours of the morning and evening, I would slip out and get a little something to eat or loiter in an old but little-frequented book-store in Walnut Street, hoping to keep myself out of sight and out of mind. In a spirit of intense depression I picked up a few old books, deciding to read more, to make myself more fit for life. I also decided to leave St. Louis, since no one would have me here, and began to think of Chicago, whether I could stand it to return there, or whether I had better drift on to a strange place. But how should I live or travel, since I had very little money—having wasted it, as I now thought, on riotous living! The unhappy end of a spendthrift!
Finally, after mooning about for a day or two more I concluded that I should have to leave my fine room and try to earn some money here so as to be able to leave. And so one morning, without venturing near the Globe and giving the principal meeting-places of reporters and friends a wide berth, I went into the office of the St. Louis Republic, then thriving fairly well in an old building at Third and Chestnut streets. Here with a heavy heart, I awaited the coming of the city editor, H. B. Wandell, of whom I had heard a great deal but whom I had never seen.
CHAPTER XXXIV
The Republic was in a tumbledown old building in a fairly deserted neighborhood in that region near the waterfront from which the city proper had been steadily growing away for years. This paper, if I am not mistaken, was founded in 1808.
The office was so old and rattletrap that it was discouraging. The elevator was a slow and wheezy box, bumping and creaking and suggesting immediate collapse. The boards of the entrance-hall and the city editorial room squeaked under one’s feet. The city reportorial room, where I should work if I secured a place, was larger than that of the Globe and higher-ceiled, but beyond that it had no advantage. The windows were tall but cracked and patched with faded yellow copy-paper; the desks, some fifteen or twenty all told, were old, dusty, knife-marked, smeared with endless ages of paste and ink. There was waste paper and rubbish on the floor. There was no sign of either paint or wallpaper. The windows facing east looked out upon a business court or alley where trucks and vans creaked all day but which at night was silent as the grave, as was this entire wholesale neighborhood. The buildings directly opposite were decayed wholesale houses of some unimportant kind where in slimsy rags of dresses or messy trousers and shirts girls and boys of from fourteen to twenty worked all day, the girls’ necks in summer time open to their breasts and their sleeves rolled to their shoulders, the boys in sleeveless undershirts and tight-belted trousers and with tousled hair. What their work was I forget, but flirting with each other or with the reporters and printers of this paper occupied a great deal of their time.