The Great God Success | Page 4

pointing to a grimed
oil-painting, the only relief to the stretch of cracked and streaked white
wall except a few ragged maps.
"That--oh, that is old man Stone--the 'great condenser.' He's there for a
double purpose, as an example of what a journalist should be and as a
warning of what a journalist comes to. After twenty years of fine work
at crowding more news in good English into one column than any other
editor could get in bad English into four columns, he was discharged
for drunkenness. Soon afterwards he walked off the end of a dock one
night in a fog. At least it was said that there was a fog and that he was
drunk. I have my doubts."

"Cheerful! I have not been in the profession an hour but I have already
learned something very valuable."
"What's that?" asked Kittredge, "that it's a good profession to get out
of?"
"No. But that bad habits will not help a man to a career in journalism
any more than in any other profession."
"Career?" smiled Kittredge, resenting Howard's good-humoured irony
and putting on a supercilious look that brought out more strongly the
insignificance of his face. "Journalism is not a career. It is either a
school or a cemetery. A man may use it as a stepping-stone to
something else. But if he sticks to it, he finds himself an old man, dead
and done for to all intents and purposes years before he's buried."
"I wonder if it doesn't attract a great many men who have a little talent
and fancy that they have much. I wonder if it does not disappoint their
vanity rather than their merit."
"That sounds well," replied Kittredge, "and there's some truth in it. But,
believe me, journalism is the dragon that demands the annual sacrifice
of youth. It will have only youth. Why am I here? Why are you here?
Because we are young, have a fresh, a new point of view. As soon as
we get a little older, we shall be stale and, though still young in years,
we must step aside for young fellows with new ideas and a new point
of view."
"But why should not one have always new ideas, always a new point of
view? Why should one expect to escape the penalties of stagnation in
journalism when one can't escape them in any other profession?"
"But who has new ideas all the time? The average successful man has
at most one idea and makes a whole career out of it. Then there are the
temptations."
"How do you mean?"

Kittredge flushed slightly and answered in a more serious tone:
"We must work while others amuse themselves or sleep. We must sleep
while others are at work. That throws us out of touch with the whole
world of respectability and regularity. When we get done at night,
wrought up by the afternoon and evening of this gambling with our
brains and nerves as the stake, what is open to us?"
"That is true," said Howard. "There are the all-night saloons and--the
like."
"And if we wish society, what society is open to us? What sort of
young women are waiting to entertain us at one, two, three o'clock in
the morning? Why, I have not made a call in a year. And I have not
seen a respectable girl of my acquaintance in at least that time, except
once or twice when I happened to have assignments that took me near
Fifth Avenue in the afternoon."
"Mr. Kittredge, Mr. Bowring wishes to speak to you," an office boy
said and Kittredge rose. As he went, he put his hand on Howard's
shoulder and said: "No, I am getting out of it as fast as ever I can. I'm
writing books."
"Kittredge," thought Howard, "I wonder, is this Henry Jennings
Kittredge, whose stories are on all the news stands?" He saw an
envelope on the floor at his feet. The address was "Henry Jennings
Kittredge, Esq."
When Kittredge came back for his coat, Howard said in a tone of frank
admiration: "Why, I didn't know you were the Kittredge that everybody
is talking about. You certainly have no cause for complaint."
Kittredge shrugged his shoulders. "At fifteen cents a copy, I have to sell
ten thousand copies before I get enough to live on for four months. And
you'd be surprised how much reputation and how little money a man
can make out of a book. Don't be distressed because they keep you here
with nothing to do but wonder how you'll have the courage to face the
cashier on pay day. It's the system. Your chance will come."

It was three days before Howard had a chance. On a Sunday afternoon
the Assistant City Editor who was in