I went to my room and studied this paper—then slept, thinking of my coming introduction in the morning. I was awakened by the clangor of countless cars. Going to the stationary washstand I was struck at once by the yellowness of the water, a dark yellowish-brown, which deposited a yellow sediment in the glass. Was that the best St. Louis could afford? I asked myself in youthful derision. I drank it just the same, went down to breakfast and then out into the city to see what I should see. I bought a _Globe-Democrat_ (a Republican party paper, by the way: an anachronism of age and change of ownership) and a _Republic_, the one morning Democratic paper, and then walked to Sixth and Pine to have another look at the building in which I was to work. I wandered along Broadway and Fourth Street, the street of the old courthouse; sought out the Mississippi River and stared at it, that vast river lying between banks of yellow mud; then I went back to the office of the _Globe-Democrat_, for it was nearing the time when its editor-in-chief might choose to put in an appearance. Joseph B. McCullagh (“Little Mac” of Eugene Field’s verse) was a short, thick, aggressive, rather pugnacious and defensive person of Irish extraction. He was short, sturdy, Napoleonic, ursine rather than leonine. I was instantly drawn and thrown back by his stiff reserve. A negro elevator boy had waved me along a marble hall on the seventh floor to a room at the end, where I was met by an office boy who took in my name and then ushered me into the great man’s presence. I found him at a roll-top desk in a minute office, and he was almost buried in discarded newspapers. I learned afterward that he would never allow these to be removed until he was all but crowded out. I was racked with nervousness. Whatever high estimate I had conceived of myself had oozed out by the time I reached his door. I was now surveyed by keen gray Irish eyes from under bushy brows. “Um, yuss! Um, yuss!” was all he deigned to say. “See Mr. Mitchell in the city room, Mr. Mitchell—um, yuss. Your salary will be—um—um—twenty dollars to begin with” (he was chewing a cigar and mumbled his words), and he turned to his papers. Not a word, not a sign, that he knew I had ever written a line worth while. I returned to the handsome city room, and found only empty desks. I sat down and waited fully three-quarters of an hour, examining old papers and staring out of the windows over the roofs until Mr. Mitchell appeared. Like his employer, he was thick-set, a bigger man physically but less attractive. He had a round, closely-cropped head and a severe and scowling expression. He reminded me of Squeers in _Nicholas Nickleby_. A savage fat man—can anything be worse? He went to his desk with a quick stride when he entered, never noticing me. When I approached and explained who I was and why I was there he scarcely gave me a glance.