I celebrated the bad luck in my characteristic manner, and finished with just sense enough to wish to clear my head with black coffee. So, trusting to my slight acquaintance with Coffee John, and more to his well-known generosity, I entered his place, and for the first time in my life requested what I could not pay for. I was not disappointed. A cup of coffee and a plate of doughnuts were handed me without comment or advice. As I was making my meal in the back part of the little restaurant, three men, one after the other, came and sat down at my table. In the general conversation that ensued I found that one was a tramp printer, whose boast it was to have worked and jumped his board-bill in nearly every State in the Union; one was a book-agent, who had been attempting to dispose of “The Life of U. S. Grant,” and the third was an insurance solicitor, who had failed to make good the trade’s reputation for acumen. A little talk developed the fact that all four of us were out of funds, and ready for anything that promised to keep the wolf from the door. Then, with a journalist’s instinct for putting three and one together, an idea came to me by which we could all find a way out of the dilemma. For it so happened that one of the _Herald’s_ periodical upheavals had occurred that very day, and a general clean-up was being effected in the office. The city editor, after a stormy interview with his chief, had resigned, and had carried with him four of the best men on the staff. Other reporters who had taken his part had also been let go, and the city room of the _Herald_ was badly in need of assistance. It was very likely that any man who could put up any kind of a pretence to knowing the ropes would stand a fair chance of obtaining a situation without any trouble. My plan was this: Each of the three men was to apply for a situation as reporter on the _Herald_, and, if accepted, was to report the next day for his assignment, and then come immediately to me for instructions. I was to give them all the necessary information as to obtaining the material, and, when they had brought me the facts, write out the story for them to hand in. The three men agreed enthusiastically to the venture, and I spent the evening in coaching them in the shop-talk and professional terms they would need. You cannot teach a man what “news” is in one sitting—a man has to have a nose trained to smell it, and a special gift for determining its value, but I described the technical meaning of “a story” and “covering” a detail. I told them to keep their eyes open, and gave many examples of how it often happened that a reporter, when sent out on a little “single-head” story, would, if he were sharp, get a hint that could be worked up into a front page “seven-column scare-head.”