In Salonika, the American consul, the Standard Oil man, and the
war correspondents formed the American colony. The correspondents
were waiting to go to the front. Incidentally, as we waited, the
front was coming rapidly toward us. There was "Uncle" Jim, the
veteran of many wars, and of all the correspondents, in experience
the oldest and in spirit the youngest, and there was the Kid, and
the Artist. The Kid jeered at us, and proudly described himself as
the only Boy Reporter who jumped from a City Hall assignment to
cover a European War. "I don't know strategy," he would boast;
"neither does the Man at Home. He wants 'human interest' stuff,
and I give him what he wants. I write exclusively for the subway
guard and the farmers in the wheat belt. When you fellows write
about the 'Situation,' they don't understand it. Neither do you.
Neither does Venizelos or the King. I don't understand it myself.
So, I write my people heart-to-heart talks about refugees and
wounded, and what kind of ploughs the Servian peasants use, and
that St. Paul wrote his letters to the Thessalonians from the same
hotel where I write mine; and I tell 'em to pronounce Salonika
'eeka,' and _not_ put the accent on the 'on.' This morning at the
refugee camp I found all the little Servians of the Frothingham
unit in American Boy Scout uniforms. That's my meat. That's 'home
week' stuff. You fellows write for the editorial page; and nobody
reads it. I write for the man that turns first to Mutt and Jeff,
and then looks to see where they are running the new Charlie
Chaplin release. When that man has to choose between 'our military
correspondent' and the City Hall Reporter, he chooses me!"
The third man was John, "Our Special Artist." John could write a
news story, too, but it was the cartoons that had made him famous.
They were not comic page, but front page cartoons, and before
making up their minds what they thought, people waited to see what
their Artist thought. So, it was fortunate his thoughts were as
brave and clean as they were clever. He was the original Little
Brother to the Poor. He was always giving away money. When we
caught him, he would prevaricate. He would say the man was a
college chum, that he had borrowed the money from him, and that
this was the first chance he had had to pay it back. The Kid
suggested it was strange that so many of his college chums should
at the same moment turn up, dead broke, in Salonika, and that half
of them should be women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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