I went out and in the doorway below stood and meditated. What was I to do? If I delayed too long my friend in Toledo would not be able to do anything for me, and if I showed this message it would fix my salary at a place below that which I felt I deserved. I finally hit upon the idea of changing the eighteen to twenty-five and went to a telegraph office to find some girl to rewrite it for me. Not seeing a girl I would be willing to approach, I worked over it myself, carefully erasing and changing until the twenty-five, while a little forced and scraggly, looked fairly natural. With this in my pocket I returned to the _Dispatch_ this same afternoon, and told the city editor with as great an air of assurance as I could achieve that I had just received this message and was a little uncertain as to what to do about it. “The fact is,” I said, “I have started from the West to go East. New York is my eventual goal, unless I find a good place this side of it. But I’m up against it now and unless I can do something here I might as well go back there for the present. I wouldn’t show you this except that I must answer it tonight.” He read it and looked at me uncertainly. Finally he got up, told me to wait a minute, and went through a nearby door. In a minute or two he returned and said: “Well, that’s all right. We can do as well as that, anyhow, if you want to stay at that rate.” “All right,” I replied as nonchalantly as I could. “When do I start?” “Come around tomorrow at twelve. I may not have anything for you, but I’ll carry you for a day or two until I have.”