But since it was easy for me to do it and could not injure the text in any way, and seemed to popularize the paper and myself immensely, I was glad to do it. Each evening, when at six or seven I chose to amble in, having spent the afternoon at my room or elsewhere idling, my text all done in an hour as a rule, my small chief would beam on me most cordially.
“Whatcha got there? Another rib-tickler? Let’s see. Well, go get your dinner, and if you don’t want to come back go and see a show. There’s not much doing tonight anyhow, and I’d like to keep you fresh. Don’t stay up too late, and turn me in another good one tomorrow.”
So it went.
In a trice and as if by magic I was lifted into an entirely different realm. The ease of those hours! Citizens of local distinction wanted to meet me. I was asked by Wandell one afternoon to come to the Southern bar in order that Colonel So-and-So, the head of this, that or the other thing, as well as some others, might meet me. I was told that this, that and the other person here thought I must be clever, a fool, or a genius. I was invited to a midnight smoker at some country club. The local newspaper men who gathered at the LaClede daily all knew, and finding me in high favor with Phil Hackett, the lessee of the hotel bar whose name I had mentioned once, now laughed with me and drank at my expense—or rather at that of the proprietor, for I was grandly told by him that I “could pay for no drinks there,” which kept me often from going there at all. As the days went on I was assured that owing to my efforts the game was certain to be a big success, that it was the most successful stunt the Republic had ever pulled and that it would net the fund several thousand dollars.
For four or five weeks then it seemed to me as though I were walking on air. Life was so different, so pleasant these hot, bright days, with everybody pleased with me and my name as a clever man—a humorist!—being bandied about. Some of my new admirers were so pleased with me that they asked me to come to their homes to see them. I was becoming a personage. Hackett of the LaClede having asked me casually one day where I lived, I was surprised that night in my room by a large wicker hamper containing champagne, whiskey and cordials. I transferred it to the office of the Republic for the reportorial staff, with my compliments.
My handling of the fat-lean baseball game having established me as a feature writer of some ability, the Republic decided to give me another feature assignment. There had been in progress a voting contest which embraced the whole State and which was to decide which of many hundreds of school-teachers, the favorites out of how many districts in the State I cannot now recall, were to be sent to Chicago to see the World’s Fair for two or more weeks at the Republic’s expense. In addition, a reporter or traveling correspondent was to be sent with the party to report its daily doings and that reporter’s comments were to be made a daily news feature; and that reporter was to be myself. I was not seeking it, had not even heard of it, but according to Wandell, who was selecting the man for the management, I was the one most likely to give a satisfactory picture of the life at the great Fair as well as render the Republic a service in picturing the doings of these teachers. An agent of the business manager was also going along to look after the practical details, and also the city superintendent of schools. I welcomed this opportunity to see the World’s Fair, which was then in its heyday and filling the newspapers.
“I don’t mind telling you,” Wandell observed to me a few days before the final account of the baseball game was to be written, “that your work on this ball game has been good. Everybody is pleased. Now, there’s a little excursion we’re going to send up to Chicago, and I’m going to send you along on that for a rest. Mr. ——, our business manager, will tell you all about it. You see him about transportation and expenses.”
“When am I to go?” I asked.
“Thursday. Thursday night.”
“Then I don’t have to see the ball game?”