The Call of the Town Part 5

Yes, only the opportunity was awanting. And how to get it?

"Look at me," Mr. Trevor Smith continued, "I was only a common clerk in the _Guardian_ office--a common clerk, mind you--but I had the sense to learn shorthand, and got the first opening as a reporter--and here I am!"

He helped himself to a luscious pear from the stock which Henry had just received from home that day.

Indeed, these little bursts of confidence usually took place on the evening Henry's weekly hamper arrived, but he had never noticed the coincidence. A year or two later, perhaps, he might suspect there had been some connection between the events; meanwhile, his b.u.mp of observation had not been abnormally developed.

To-night the reporter appeared especially concerned for the welfare of his young friend, and it occurred to him to ask if Henry had been trying his hand at something more ambitious than mere paragraphs. He blushingly admitted that he had.

"Then trot it out, my boy, and I'll tell you what it's worth in a couple of ticks," said Trevor, quite unconcerned as to the length or character of Henry's "something."

It is Nature's way that the rawest youths and maidens who desire to follow a literary career invariably commence by writing essays on aspects of life which world-worn men of fifty find impossible to discuss with any approach to ripened knowledge. Henry's unpublished ma.n.u.script now brought forth of his trunk proved to be a very long and absurdly grandiloquent essay on "Liberty."

Neither the subject nor the wordiness of the ma.n.u.script dismayed the hopeful Trevor, who took it in his hand and ran his eyes with lightning rapidity over page after page.

"Ripping, my boy, ripping! That's the sort of stuff to make the critics sit up."

Henry thrilled and reddened, but winced a little when he heard his handiwork described as "stuff."

"Really? Do you think anybody would care to publish it?" he asked.

"Just the sort o' thing for the _Nineteenth Century_ or the _Quarterly_," Trevor a.s.sured him gaily, although the rascal had never set eyes on either of these reviews. "But I should hold it back a bit until you have made your name, for the editors of these things never give an unknown man a chance."

"Still, you think I ought to persevere?"

"Don't I just! I couldn't have written stuff like that at your age for a mint of money. Take my tip, young 'un, you've got it in you to make a name; and when you're riding down Fleet Street in your carriage and pair, don't forget your humble servant who gave you the first leg-up.

That phrase of yours on the last page about liberty being born among the stars and flying earthward to brighten all mankind is worthy of Carlyle at his best."

"I always liked Carlyle; but I'll try very hard to do something even better--I mean better than what I've written."

"And, by-the-by, my dear Henry, do you think you could stretch me another half-crown? I'm rather rocky just now, but am expecting a tidy sum for lineage next week," said Trevor, in an off-hand way, and ignoring his friend's confusion, as he lifted his hat and prepared to go out.

Henry stretched the half-crown--with difficulty, for it meant a week's pocket-money--and when his companion had left he executed a wild dance round the table. Ambition had been fired within him again. He determined that not even the Slough of Despond, to which he likened the shop of Mr.

Griggs, would discourage him for a day in his onward march to that City Beautiful where one's life was spent in writing fine thoughts for mankind to read and remember.

The difficulty remained: how to get the opportunity? All the copy-book maxims of his boyhood availed him nothing; all the stories of brave men who seized opportunity instead of waiting for it to turn up, inspired, encouraged, whispered of hope, but did not bring the situation to a simpler issue.

Soon after this evening he determined to induce Trevor to come down from his gorgeous generalisings to plain facts.

"It is all very well to say my essay is so good, but do you honestly think I should go on writing things like that if I wish to become a journalist?"

It took something out of Henry to put it so bluntly. Despite the familiar manner in which Trevor addressed him, the youth, who was naturally reticent, always spoke of him with deference due to one of older years, and especially to one who was a real live journalist.

Henry, however, was gradually losing his country shyness, and the fact that Mr. Trevor Smith continued in his debt to the extent of seven-and-sixpence encouraged him to greater boldness in his dealings with that slippery gentleman.

"I confess that I have had enough of old Griggs. There is nothing to learn from him, and I do think I should like to get work on a newspaper.

Is there any chance of an opening on the _Guardian_ at Wheelton? I have been pegging in at my shorthand for the last three weeks, you know."

"Well, since you put it that way, and since you seem to be dead set on giving old Griggs the slip, there is one thing you could do," Trevor admitted, now that he had been asked to come down to hard facts.

"What is that?" asked Henry eagerly.

"Get your gov'nor to sh.e.l.l out to old Spring, and he'll take you on like a shot."

"Sh.e.l.l out?" said Henry, evidently not alive to Trevor's slang. "What do you mean?"

"Why," returned his professional adviser, with a smile at the rustic ignorance, "haven't you seen advertis.e.m.e.nts in the daily papers something like this: 'The editor of a well-known provincial weekly has an opening for journalistic pupil. Moderate premium. Small salary after first six months'? There's your opportunity."

"Ah, I see the idea," said Henry, upon whom a light had dawned.

"What do you say to that?" Trevor pursued.

"Yes, that might do, and no doubt dad would 'sh.e.l.l out,' as you call it.

But is there any such vacancy at present?"

"If there isn't, the Balmy One--that's another of our pet names for Old Springthorpe, the editor--will jolly soon make one, provided your pater is ready with the dibs. Write your gov'nor about it, and if he's open to spring twenty-five golden quid, leave the rest to me."

To Henry the suggestion seemed a good one, and he wondered that he had waited so long before getting Trevor to bring the situation to so practical an issue. The fact was, Mr. Smith rather liked the fun of patronising the youth, to say nothing of his share in the weekly hamper, and Henry's willingness to render slight but useful a.s.sistance by attending an occasional meeting on his behalf. Accordingly, he had not been anxious to lose his company too soon.

To Edward John Charles his son's letter, with its bold proposal, came with somewhat of surprise. It had never occurred to him to couple the Press with "Literatoor," but he said at once that if Henry felt journalism was good enough for him, why, he would help him to become an editor with as much pleasure as he would have set him up in the egg-and-b.u.t.ter trade, had he been so minded.

Within a week the postmaster took another journey to Stratford, and thence by train to Wheelton, together with Henry, to interview Mr.

Martin Springthorpe, editor of the _Wheelton Guardian_, to whom Mr.

Charles carried a letter of introduction from Trevor Smith, wherein that gentleman averred he had taken great personal interest in the literary work of Henry Charles, and had even been able to make use of sundry items from his pen. He commended him to Mr. Springthorpe's best consideration.

Trevor had also taken the trouble to write privily to his chief, saying that he thought Mr. Charles would come down to the tune of five-and-twenty pounds, and not to frighten him off by asking more.

CHAPTER VI

WHICH INTRODUCES AN EDITOR

WHEELTON, an industrial town of some importance, lies less than an hour's journey by rail from Stratford. It is not exactly a home of learning, nor has it given any distinguished men to literature or science, but it boasts four weekly newspapers and a small daily sheet, which would appear to be more than the inhabitants require in the shape of local reading matter, for, with one exception, the newspapers of the town have a hard struggle for existence.

At the time when Henry Charles and his father made their first journey thither the journalistic conditions were not quite so straitened, as the evening paper and one of the weeklies had not come to increase compet.i.tion; but even then the _Guardian_ was the least successful of the three.

The office of Mr. Springthorpe's journal was situated up a flight of narrow stairs, the shop on the street front having been let to a pork-butcher for the sake of the rent. On the first floor were the editor's room, the reporters' room, and another small apartment that served as the general office, and contained a staff of one weedy young man with downy side-whiskers, and a perky little office boy.

Up a further crazy stair the composing-room was reached, and here five men and several boys put into type what was sent from the rooms below.

The printing was done in premises on the ground floor behind the pork-butcher's, extended by the addition of a rather rickety wooden outbuilding. By no means an establishment to impress a visitor with the importance of the journal here produced, or to give a beginner any exaggerated idea of the dignity of journalism. Still, the ma.s.sive gilt letters proclaiming THE GUARDIAN above the pork-butcher's had the power to make Henry's blood tingle when first he saw them.

Up the stair he followed his father, with much fluttering of the heart, but rea.s.sured by the confident and cheerful look on the face of Edward John, who went about the business as outwardly calm as if he were buying a fresh stock of stationery.

The office-boy showed the visitors into a room to the left of the counter, on the door of which the pregnant word EDITOR, printed in bold letters on a slip of paper, had been pasted but recently, judging by its cleanness, as contrasted with the soiled appearance of everything else.

The editor's room was plainly furnished, not to say shabbily, despite the fact that it figured frequently in the _Guardian_ gossip columns under the attractive t.i.tle of "The Sanctum." In the middle of the floor stood a large writing-table, from which the leather covering had peeled off, exposing the wood beneath like a plane tree with its bark half-shed. On the table lay, in picturesque confusion, bundles of galley-slips, clippings from newspapers, sheets of "copy" paper, all partially secured in their positions by small slabs of lead as paper-weights.