“‘Davenport,’ said the manager, ‘you are too old to strike a path for yourself. You must put yourself in my hands. Do nothing original, not one line.’ If the manager caught me doing so, he tore it up.
“I remember one time, Ned Hamilton, a star writer on the ‘Examiner,’ some others, and myself, were sent to a Sacramento convention. I drew what I considered very good likenesses, and that night, when I retired, with a fire burning brightly in the room where we all bunked, I fairly kicked my heels in delight, in anticipation of the compliments of the ‘Examiner.’ I was awakened by the tearing of a paper, that sent the cold shivers up and down my back. Ned Hamilton was grumbling, and throwing my labor into the fire.
“‘If you can’t do better than that,’ he said, ‘you ought to give up.’
“I almost wept, but it took any conceit I might have had out of me, and the next day I did some work that was up to the mark.”
HE WAS DISCHARGED IN CHICAGO.
“But my walking papers came in due time, and I went to the ‘Chronicle.’ It almost took my breath away when they offered me twenty dollars a week. Before I was discharged from there, I had risen to a higher salary. I went to Chicago, and got on the Chicago ‘Herald,’ at thirty-five dollars a week. I was there during the World’s Fair. It seemed to me the principal thing I did was to draw horses. But the greatest blow of all was when the Chicago ‘Herald’ discharged me. It seemed as if everything were slipping from beneath my feet. I went back to San Francisco and got on the ‘Chronicle’ again. It was then, and not till then,—1894,—that I was allowed any freedom. All that I had been asking an outlet for found vent, and my cartoons began to attract attention.
“William R. Hearst, of the ‘Examiner,’ asked, in one of his editorial rooms: ‘Who is that Davenport, on the ”Chronicle,“ who is doing us up all the time?’
“‘Oh, we bounced him; he’s no good,’ was the reply.
“‘Send for him!’ said Mr. Hearst.