Howard had expected this. Failure after failure, his articles thrown away or rewritten by the copyreaders, had prepared him for the blow. Yet it crushed him for the moment. His voice was not steady as he replied: “No doubt you are right. Thank you for taking the trouble to study my case and tell me so soon.” “Don’t hesitate to stay on for the two weeks,” Mr. Bowring continued. “We can make you useful to us. And you can look about to much better advantage than if you were out of a place.” “I’ll stay the two weeks,” Howard said, “unless I find something sooner.” “Don’t be more discouraged than you can help,” said Mr. Bowring. “You may be very grateful before long for finding out so early what many of us--I myself, I fear--find out after years and--when it is too late.” Always that note of despair; always that pointing to the motto over the door of the profession: “Abandon hope, ye who enter here.” What was the explanation? Were these men right? Was he wrong in thinking that journalism offered the most splendid of careers--the development of the mind and the character; the sharpening of all the faculties; the service of truth and right and human betterment, in daily combat with injustice and error and falsehood; the arousing and stimulating of the drowsy minds of the masses of mankind? Howard looked about at the men who held on where he was slipping. “Can it be,” he thought, “that I cannot survive in a profession where the poorest are so poor in intellect and equipment? Why am I so dull that I cannot catch the trick?” He set himself to study newspapers, reading them line by line, noting the modes of presenting facts, the arrangement of headlines, the order in which the editors put the several hundred items before the eyes of the reader--what they displayed on each page and why; how they apportioned the space. With the energy of unconquerable resolution he applied himself to solving for himself the puzzle of the press--the science and art of catching the eye and holding the attention of the hurrying, impatient public.