Indeed, with a ruthless inconsiderateness, as I then thought, he piled on story after story, until I was a little infuriated at first, seeing how little I was being paid. When nothing of immediate importance was to be had, he proceeded to create news, studying out interesting phases of past romances or crimes which he thought might be worth while to work up and publish on Sunday, and handing them to me to do over. He even created stories when the general news was dull, throwing me into the most delicate and dangerous fields of arson, murder, theft, marital unhappiness, and tragedies of all kinds, things not public but which by clever detective work could be made so, and where libel and other suits and damages lurked on either hand. Without cessation, Sunday and every other day, he called upon me to display sentiment, humor or cold, hard, descriptive force, as the case might be, quoting now Hugo, now Balzac, now Dickens, and now Zola to me to show me just what was to be done. In a little while, despite my reduced salary and the fact that I had lost my previous place in disgrace and was not likely to get a raise here soon, I was as much your swaggering newspaper youth as ever, strolling about the city with the feeling that I was somebody and looking up all my old friends, with the idea of letting them know that I was by no means such a failure as they might imagine. Dick and Peter of course, seeing me ambling in on them late one hot night, received me with open arms. “Well, you’re a good one!” yelped Dick in his high, almost falsetto voice when I came in. I could see that he had been sitting before his open window, which commanded Broadway, where he had been no doubt meditating—your true romancer. “Where the hell have you been keeping yourself? You’re a dandy? We’ve been looking for you for weeks. We’ve been down to your place a dozen times, but you wouldn’t let us in. You’re a dandy, you are! McCord has some more of those opera cartoons done. Why didn’t you ever come around, anyhow?” “I’m working down on the _Republic_ now,” I replied, blushing, “and I’ve been busy.” “Oho!” laughed Dick, slapping his knees. “That’s a good one on you! I heard about it. Those shows written up, and not one in town! Oho! That’s good!” He coughed a consumptive cough or two and relaxed. I laughed with him. “It wasn’t really all my fault,” I said apologetically. “I know it wasn’t. Don’t I know the _Globe_? Didn’t Carmichael get me to work the same racket for him? Ask Hazard. It wasn’t your fault. Sit down. Peter’ll be here in a little while; then we’ll go out and get something.” We fell to discussing the attitude of the people on the _Globe_ after I had left. Wood insisted that he had not heard much. He knew instinctively that Mitchell was glad I was gone, as he might well have been. Hartung had reported to him that McCullagh had raised Cain with Mitchell and that two or three of the boys on the staff had manifested relief.