Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis Part 3

Richard's stay on The Record, however, was short-lived. His excuse for the brevity of the experience was given in an interview some years later. "My City Editor didn't like me because on cold days I wore gloves. But he was determined to make me work, and gave me about eighteen a.s.signments a day, and paid me $7. a week. At the end of three months he discharged me as incompetent."

From The Record Richard went to The Press, which was much more to his liking, and, indeed it was here that he did his first real work and showed his first promise. For nearly three years he did general reporting and during this time gained a great deal more personal success than comes to most members of that usually anonymous profession. His big chance came with the Johnstown flood, and the news stories he wired to his paper showed the first glimpse of his ability as a correspondent. Later on, disguised as a crook, he joined a gang of yeggmen, lived with them in the worst dives of the city, and eventually gained their good opinion to the extent of being allowed to a.s.sist in planning a burglary. But before the actual robbery took place, Richard had obtained enough evidence against his crook companions to turn them over to the police and eventually land them in prison. It was during these days that he wrote his first story for a magazine, and the following letter shows that it was something of a milestone in his career.

PHILADELPHIA.

August, 1888.

DEAR FAMILY:

The St. Nicholas people sent me a check for $50 for the "pirate" story.

It would be insupportable affectation to say that I was not delighted.

Jennings Crute and I were waiting for breakfast when I found the letter. I opened it very slowly, for I feared they would bluff me with some letter about ill.u.s.trations or revision, or offering me a reduced subscription to the magazine. There was a letter inside and a check.

I read the letter before I looked at the check, which I supposed would be for $30, as the other story was valued at $20. The note said that a perfect gentleman named Chichester would be pleased if I would find enclosed a check for $50. I looked at Jenny helplessly, and said, "It's for fifty, Jenny." Crute had an insane look in his eyes as he murmured "half a hundred dollars, and on your day off, too." Then I sat down suddenly and wondered what I would buy first, and Crute sat in a dazed condition, and abstractedly took a handful of segars out of the box dear old Dad gave me. As I didn't say anything, he took another handful, and then sat down and gazed at the check for five minutes in awe. After breakfast I calculated how much I would have after I paid my debts. I still owe say $23, and I have some shoes to pay for and my hair to cut. I had a wild idea of going over to New York and buying some stocks, but I guess I'll go to Bond's and Baker's instead.

I'm going down street now to see if Drexel wants to borrow any ready money-on the way down I will make purchases and pay bills so that my march will be a triumphal procession.

I got a story on the front page this morning about an explosion at Columbia Avenue Station--I went out on it with another man my senior in years and experience, whom Watrous expected to write the story while I hustled for facts. When we got back I had all the facts, and what little he had was incorrect--so I said I would dispense with his services and write the story myself. I did it very politely, but it queered the man before the men, and Watrous grew very sarcastic at his expense. Next time Andy will know better and let me get my own stories alone.

Your Millionaire Son,

d.i.c.k.

I'm still the "same old d.i.c.k"; not proud a bit.

This was my mother's reply:

Thursday.

August 1888.

DEAR d.i.c.k:

Your letter has just come and we are all delighted. Well done for old St. Nicholas! I thought they meant to wait till the story was published. It took me back to the day when I got $50. for "Life in the Iron Mills." I carried the letter half a day before opening it, being so sure that it was a refusal.

I had a great mind to read the letter to Davis and Cecile who were on the porch but was afraid you would not like it.

I did read them an extremely impertinent enclosure which was so like the letter I sent yesterday. That I think you got it before writing this.

... Well I am glad about that cheque! Have you done anything on Gallagher? That is by far the best work you've done--oh, by far--Send that to Gilder. In old times The Century would not print the word "brandy." But those days are over.

Two more days--dear boy--

MOTHER.

In addition to his work on The Press, Richard also found time to a.s.sist his friend, Morton McMichael, 3d, in the editing of a weekly publication called The Stage. In fact with the exception of the services of an office boy, McMichael and Richard were The Stage.

Between them they wrote the editorials, criticisms, the London and Paris special correspondence, solicited the advertis.e.m.e.nts, and frequently a.s.sisted in the wrapping and mailing of the copies sent to their extremely limited list of subscribers. During this time, however, Richard was establishing himself as a star reporter on The Press, and was already known as a clever news-gatherer and interviewer.

It was in reply to a letter that Richard wrote to Robert Louis Stevenson enclosing an interview he had had with Walt Whitman, that Stevenson wrote the following letter--which my brother always regarded as one of his greatest treasures:

Why, thank you so much for your frank, agreeable and natural letter.

It is certainly very pleasant that all you young fellows should enjoy my work and get some good out of it and it was very kind in you to write and tell me so. The tale of the suicide is excellently droll, and your letter, you may be sure, will be preserved. If you are to escape unhurt out of your present business you must be very careful, and you must find in your heart much constancy. The swiftly done work of the journalist and the cheap finish and ready made methods to which it leads, you must try to counteract in private by writing with the most considerate slowness and on the most ambitious models. And when I say "writing"--O, believe me, it is rewriting that I have chiefly in mind. If you will do this I hope to hear of you some day.

Please excuse this sermon from

Your obliged

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

In the spring of 1889 Richard as the correspondent of the Philadelphia Telegraph, accompanied a team of Philadelphia cricketers on a tour of Ireland and England, but as it was necessary for him to spend most of his time reporting the matches played in small university towns, he saw only enough of London to give him a great longing to return as soon as the chance offered. Late that summer he resumed his work on The Press, but Richard was not at all satisfied with his journalistic progress, and for long his eyes had been turned toward New York. There he knew that there was not only a broader field for such talent as he might possess, but that the chance for adventure was much greater, and it was this hope and love of adventure that kept Richard moving on all of his life.

On a morning late in September, 1889, he started for New York to look for a position as reporter on one of the metropolitan newspapers. I do not know whether he carried with him any letters or that he had any acquaintances in the journalistic world on whose influence he counted, but, in any case, he visited a number of offices without any success whatever. Indeed, he had given up the day as wasted, and was on his way to take the train back to Philadelphia. Tired and discouraged, he sat down on a bench in City Hall Park, and mentally shook his fist at the newspaper offices on Park Row that had given him so cold a reception. At this all-important moment along came Arthur Brisbane, whom Richard had met in London when the former was the English correspondent of The Sun. Brisbane had recently been appointed editor of The Evening Sun, and had already met with a rather spectacular success. On hearing the object of Richard's visit to New York, he promptly offered him a position on his staff and Richard as promptly accepted. I remember that the joyous telegram he sent to my mother, telling of his success, and demanding that the fatted calf be killed for dinner that night was not received with unalloyed happiness. To my mother and father it meant that their first-born was leaving home to seek his fortune, and that without Richard's love and sympathy the home could never be quite the same. But the fatted calf was killed, every one pretended to be just as elated as Richard was over his good fortune, and in two days he left us for his first adventure.

The following note to his mother Richard scribbled off in pencil at the railway-station on his way to New York:

I am not surprised that you were sad if you thought I was going away for good. I could not think of it myself. I am only going to make a little reputation and to learn enough of the business to enable me to live at home in the centre of the universe with you. That is truth.

G.o.d bless you.

d.i.c.k.

CHAPTER IV

NEW YORK

Of the many completely happy periods of Richard's life there were few more joyous than the first years he spent as a reporter in New York.

For the first time he was completely his own master and paying his own way--a condition which afforded him infinite satisfaction. He was greatly attached to Brisbane and as devoted to the interests of The Evening Sun as if he had been the editor and publisher. In return Brisbane gave him a free rein and allowed him to write very much what and as he chose. The two men were constantly together, in and out of office hours, and planned many of the leading features of the paper which on account of the brilliancy of its news stories and special articles was at that time attracting an extraordinary amount of attention. Richard divided his working hours between reporting important news events, writing specials (princ.i.p.ally about theatrical people), and the Van Bibber stories, nearly all of which were published for the first time in The Evening Sun. These short tales of New York life soon made a distinct hit, and, while they appeared anonymously, it was generally known that Richard was their author. In addition to his newspaper work my brother was also working on short stories for the magazines, and in 1890 scored his first real success in this field, with "Gallegher," which appeared in Scribner's. This was shortly followed by "The Other Woman," "Miss Catherwaite's Understudy," "A Walk up the Avenue," "My Disreputable Friend, Mr. Raegen," "An Unfinished Story," and other stories that soon gave him an established reputation as a writer of fiction. But while Richard's success was attained in a remarkably short s.p.a.ce of time and at an extremely early age, it was not accomplished without an enormous amount of hard work and considerable privation. When he first went to New York his salary was but thirty dollars a week, and while he remained on The Evening Sun never over fifty dollars, and the prices he received for his first short stories were extremely meagre. During the early days on The Evening Sun he had a room in a little house at 108 Waverly Place, and took his meals in the neighborhood where he happened to find himself and where they were cheapest. He usually spent his week-ends in Philadelphia, but his greatest pleasure was when he could induce some member of his family to visit him in New York. I fear I was the one who most often accepted his hospitality, and wonderful visits they were, certainly to me, and I think to Richard as well. The great event was our Sat.u.r.day-night dinner, when we always went to a little restaurant on Sixth Avenue. I do not imagine the fifty-cent table d'hote (vin compris) the genial Mr. Jauss served us was any better than most fifty-cent table-d'hote dinners, but the place was quaint and redolent of strange smells of cooking as well as of a true bohemian atmosphere. Those were the days when the Broadway Theatre was given over to the comic operas in which Francis Wilson and De Wolfe Hopper were the stars, and as both of the comedians were firm friends of Richard, we invariably ended our evening at the Broadway. Sometimes we occupied a box as the guests of the management, and at other times we went behind the scenes and sat in the star's dressing-room. I think I liked it best when Hopper was playing, because during Wilson's regime the big dressing-room was a rather solemn sort of place, but when Hopper ruled, the room was filled with pretty girls and he treated us to fine cigars and champagne.

Halcyon nights those, and then on Sunday morning we always breakfasted at old Martin's on University Place eggs a la Martin and that wonderful coffee and pain de menage. And what a wrench it was when I tore myself away from the delights of the great city and scurried back to my desk in sleepy Philadelphia. Had I been a prince royal Richard could not have planned more carefully than he did for these visits, and to meet the expense was no easy matter for him. Indeed, I know that to pay for all our gayeties he usually had to carry his guitar to a neighboring p.a.w.n-broker where the instrument was always good for an eight-dollar loan. But from the time Richard first began to make his own living one of the great pleasures of his life was to celebrate, or as he called it, to "have a party." Whenever he had finished a short story he had a party, and when the story had been accepted there was another party, and, of course, the real party was when he received the check. And so it was throughout his life, giving a party to some one whom a party would help, buying a picture for which he had no use to help a struggling artist, sending a few tons of coal to an old lady who was not quite warm enough, always writing a letter or a check for some one of his own craft who had been less fortunate than he--giving to every beggar that he met, fearing that among all the thousand fakers he might refuse one worthy case. I think this habit of giving Richard must have inherited from his father, who gave out of all proportion to his means, and with never too close a scrutiny to the worthiness of the cause.

Both men were too intensely human to do that, but if this great desire on the part of my father and brother to help others gave the recipients pleasure I'm sure that it caused in the hearts of the givers an even greater happiness. The following letters were chosen from a great number which Richard wrote to his family, telling of his first days on The Evening Sun, and of his life in New York.

YORK Evening Sun--1890

DEAR MOTHER:

Today is as lovely and fresh as the morning, a real spring day, and I feel good in consequence. I have just come from a couple of raids, where we had a very lively time, and some of them had to pull their guns. I found it necessary to punch a few sports myself. The old sergeant from headquarters treats me like a son and takes the greatest pride in whatever I do or write. He regularly a.s.signs me now to certain doors, and I always obey orders like the little gentleman that I am. Instead of making me unpopular, I find it helps me with the sports, though it hurts my chances professionally, as so many of them know me now that I am no use in some districts. For instance, in Mott and Pell streets, or in the Bowery, I am as safe as any precinct detective. I tell you this to keep you from worrying. They won't touch a man whom they think is an agent or an officer. Only it spoils my chances of doing reportorial-detective work. For instance, the captain of the Bowery district refused me a detective the other morning to take the Shippens around the Chinese and the tougher quarters because he said they were as safe with me as with any of the other men whose faces are as well known. To-night I am going to take a party to the headquarters of the fire department, where I have a cinch on the captain, a very nice fellow, who is unusually grateful for something I wrote about him and his men. They are going to do the Still Alarm act for me.

These clippings all came out in to-day's paper. The ladies in the Tombs were the Shippens, of course; and Mamie Blake is a real girl, and the story is true from start to finish. I think it is a pathetic little history.

Give my love to all. I will bring on the story I have finished and get you to make some suggestions. It is quite short. Since Scribner's have been so civil, I think I will give them a chance at the great prize. I am writing a comic guide book and a history of the Haymarket for the paper; both are rich in opportunities. This weather makes me feel like another person. I will be so glad to get home. With lots of love and kisses for you and Nora.

d.i.c.k-O.