It was about this time too that, having received the gift of twenty and the raise of five, I began to array myself in manner so ultra-smart, as I thought, but fantastic, really, that I grieve to think that I should ever have been such a fool. Yet to tell the truth, I do not know whether I do or not. A foolish boyhood is as delightful as any. I had now moved into Tenth Street, and fortunately or unfortunately for me (fortunately, I now think) a change in the personnel of the _Globe’s_ editorial staff occurred which had a direct bearing upon my ambitions. A man by the name of Carmichael who did the dramatics on the paper had been called to a better position in Chicago, and the position he had occupied here was therefore temporarily vacant. Hazard was the logical man for the place and should have had it because he had held this position before. He was older and a much better critic. But I, as may be imagined, was in a very appropriate mood for this, having recently been thinking of writing a play, and besides, I was crazy for advancement of any kind. Accordingly the moment I heard of it I was on the alert, eager to make a plea for myself and yet not dreaming that I should ever get it. My sole qualification, as I see it now, was that I was an ardent admirer of the stage and one who, because of his dramatic instincts (as I conceived mine to be), ought to make a good enough critic. I did not know that I was neither old nor cold nor experienced enough to do justice to the art of any one. Yet I should add in all fairness that for the work here required—to write a little two-stick announcement of each new play, mostly favorable, and to prepare a weekly announcement of all the new performances—I was perhaps not so poorly equipped. At any rate, my recent triumph had given me such an excellent opinion of myself, had made me think that I stood so well in the eyes of Mr. McCullagh, that I decided to try for it. It might not mean any more salary, but think of the honor of it! Dramatic Editor of the _Globe-Democrat_ of St. Louis! Ha!... I decided to try. There were two drawbacks to this position, as I learned later: one was that although I might be dramatic editor I should still be under the domination of Mr. Tobias Mitchell, who ruled this department; the other was that I should have to do general reporting along with this other work, a thing which irritated me very much and took much of the savor of the task away. The department was not deemed important enough to give any one man complete control of it. It seemed a poor sort of thing to try for, once I learned of this, but still there would be the fact that I could still say I was a dramatic editor. It would give me free entrance to the theaters also.