He had been four years a reporter and was almost twenty-six years old. He was known throughout his profession in New York, although he had never signed an article. One remarkable “human interest” story after another had forced the knowledge of his abilities upon the reporters and editors of other newspapers. And he was spoken of as one of the best and in some respects the best “all round reporter” in the city. This meant that he was capable to any emergency--that, whatever the subject, he could write an accurate, graphic, consecutive and sustained story and could get it into the editor’s hands quickly. Indeed he possessed facility to the perilous degree. What others achieved only after long toil, he achieved without effort. This was due chiefly to the fact that he never relaxed but was at all times the journalist, reading voraciously newspapers, magazines and the best books, and using what he read; observing constantly and ever trying to see something that would make “good copy”; turning over phrases in his mind to test the value of words both as to sound and as to meaning. He was an incessantly active man. His great weakness was the common weakness--failure to concentrate. In Park Row they regarded him as a brilliant success. Brilliant he was. But a success he was not. He knew that he was a brilliant failure--and not very brilliant. “Why is it?” he asked himself again and again in periods of reaction from the nervous strain of some exciting experience. “Shall I never seize any of these chances that are always thrusting themselves at me? Shall I always act like a Neapolitan beggar? Will the stimulus to ambition never come?” IV. IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA. Howard lived in Washington Square, South. He had gone to a “furnished-room house” there because it was cheap. He staid because he was comfortable and was without a motive for moving.