“Yes, I did want a half dozen young men,” he replied, beaming upon me reassuringly, “but I think I have nearly enough. Most of the young men that come here seem to think they are to be connected with the _Herald_ direct, but the fact is we want them only for clerks in our free Christmas gift bureau. They have to judge whether or not the applicants are impostors and keep people from imposing on the paper. The work will only be for a week or ten days, but you will probably earn ten or twelve dollars in that time——” My heart sank. “After the first of the year, if you take it, you may come around to see me. I may have something for you.” When he spoke of the free Christmas gift bureau I vaguely understood what he meant. For weeks past, the _Herald_ had been conducting a campaign for gifts for the poorest children of the city. It had been importuning the rich and the moderately comfortable to give, through the medium of its scheme, which was a bureau for the free distribution of all such things as could be gathered via cash or direct donation of supplies: toys, clothing, even food, for children. “But I wanted to become a reporter if I could,” I suggested. “Well,” he said, with a wave of his hand, “this is as good a way as any other. When this is over I may be able to introduce you to our city editor.” The title, “city editor,” mystified and intrigued me. It sounded so big and significant. This offer was far from what I anticipated, but I took it joyfully. Thus to step from one job to another, however brief, and one with such prospects, seemed the greatest luck in the world. For by now I was nearly hypochondriacal on the subjects of poverty, loneliness, the want of the creature comforts and pleasures of life. The mere thought of having enough to eat and to wear and to do had something of paradise about it. Some previous long and fruitless searches for work had marked me with a horror of being without it. I bustled about to the _Herald’s_ Christmas Annex, as it was called, a building standing in Fifth Avenue between Madison and Monroe, and reported to a brisk underling in charge of the doling out of these pittances to the poor. Without a word he put me behind the single long counter which ran across the front of the room and over which were handled all those toys and Christmas pleasure pieces which a loud tomtoming concerning the dire need of the poor and the proper Christmas spirit had produced.