The making of a newspaper man
Book Description
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1912. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER The morose night clerk showed me up to my room. It was cold and cheerless. I crawled into bed, but I didn't sleep any that night. I was homesick. All my ideas of becoming a great ...
MoreThis historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1912. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER The morose night clerk showed me up to my room. It was cold and cheerless. I crawled into bed, but I didn't sleep any that night. I was homesick. All my ideas of becoming a great editor had vanished. I wished I was back on the local staff. I could see the boys reading proof and hear them roasting everybody on the sheet. I could smell the scorched matrices from the stereotyping room; see the foreman cutting the copy into short takes to hurry up the last local and telegraph; could hear the city editor fighting for space and see the foreman grimly shoving galleys of type into the left-over rack. I smelt the hot, inky odor from the pressroom and could hear the whirring of the presses. I was the most homesick young man in the United States! Next morning, before I had breakfast, the man who was selling the paper came around to the hotel. He was a tall, cadaverous man, with a sweeping black mustache and a furtive eye. He was very cordial. He sat with me at breakfast and told me how great the opportunity was. The only thing that led him to sell was his love for Tad, whom he wanted to see started in life, and the fact that his profession--the law--was calling for him. He was anxious to close the deal and--did I have the two hundred and fifty dollars with me? I cheered up a lot under his talk and gave him the money, signing some kind of a paper he had prepared. Apparently it made no difference to him that I was a minor and that my signature was of no consequence legally, and I never thought of that phase of the transaction. What he wanted was the two-fifty. He told me how to get to the office, and excused himself. Later, I learned that he took the first train out of town, leaving me to introduce myself to the employes as one of the new "sole editors and p...
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