THE LaClede, as I have indicated, was the center of all gossiping newspaper life at this time, at least that part of it of which I knew anything. Here, in idling groups, during the course of a morning, afternoon or evening, might appear Dick or Peter, Body, Clark, Hazard, Johnson, Root, Johns Daws, a long company of excellent newspaper men who worked on the different papers of the city from time to time and who, because of a desire for companionship in this helter-skelter world and the certainty of finding it here, hung about this corner. Here one could get in on a highly intellectual or diverting conversation of one kind or another at almost any time. So many of these men had come from distant cities and knew them much better than they did St. Louis. As a rule, being total strangers and here only for a short while, they were inclined to sniff at conditions as they found them here and to boast of those elsewhere, especially the men who came from New York, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago. I was one of those who, knowing Chicago and St. Louis only and wishing to appear wise in these matters, boasted vigorously of the superlative importance of Chicago as a city, whereas such men as Root of New York, Johnson of Boston, Ware of New Orleans, and a few others, merely looked at me and smiled. “All I have to say to you, young fellow,” young Root once observed to me genially if roughly after one of these heated and senseless arguments, “is wait till you go to New York and see for yourself. I’ve been to Chicago, and it’s a way-station in comparison. It’s the only other city you’ve seen, and that’s why you think it’s so great.” There was a certain amount of kindly toleration in his voice which infuriated me. “Ah, you’re crazy,” I replied. “You’re like all New Yorkers: you think you know it all. You won’t admit you’re beaten when you are.” The argument proceeded through all the different aspects of the two cities until finally we called each other damned fools and left in a huff. Years later, however, having seen New York, I wanted to apologize if ever I met him again. The two cities, as I then learned, each individual and wonderful in its way, were not to be contrasted. But how sure I was of my point of view then!