The editor of the second newspaper, after a considerable interval, wrote and asked me to call on him, for all the world as though I were the impossible hero of a journalistic novel. The interview between us was one of these plagiarisms of fiction which real life is sometimes guilty of. The editor informed me that he had read my sinister serial with deep interest, and felt convinced, his refusal of it notwithstanding, that I was marked out for the literary vocation. He offered me a post on his powerful organ as a regular weekly contributor, without salary. He said that he was sure I could write the sort of stuff he wanted, and I entirely agreed with him. My serene confidence in my ability, pen in hand, to do anything that I wished to do, was thus manifest in the beginning. Glory shone around as I left the editorial office. The romantic quality of this episode is somewhat impaired by the fact, which I shall nevertheless mention, that the editor was a friend of the family, and that my father was one of several optimistic persons who were dropping money on the powerful organ every week. The interview, however, was indeed that peculiar phenomenon (so well-known to all readers of biography) styled the "turning-point in one's career." But I lacked the wit to perceive this for several years. The esteemed newspaper to which I was now attached served several fairly large municipalities which lay so close together as to form in reality one very large town divided against itself. Each wilful cell in this organism was represented by its own special correspondent on the newspaper, and I was to be the correspondent for my native town. I had nothing to do with the news department; menial reporters attended to that. My task was to comment weekly upon the town's affairs to the extent of half a column of paragraphic notes. "Whatever you do, you must make your pars bright," said the editor, and he repeated the word--"Bright!" Now I was entirely ignorant of my town's affairs. I had no suspicion of the incessant comedy of municipal life. For two days I traversed our stately thoroughfares in search of material, wondering what, in the names of Horace Greeley, James Gordon Bennett, and Mr. Delane, my first contribution was going to consist of. Law went to the devil, its natural home. Then I happened to think of tram-lines. The tram-lines, under the blessing of Heaven, were badly laid, and constituted a menace to all wheeled traffic save trams; also the steam-engines of the trams were offensive. I wrote sundry paragraphs on that topic, and having thus acquired momentum, I arrived safely at the end of my half column by the aid of one or two minor trifles.