braced himself for the attack as
Northcliffe beckoned him forward. "What is this I hear? You have had
your leg pulled, have you? Don't take it too much to heart. We all
get deceived sometimes. I have had my leg pulled often before now.
It's annoying, but don't worry about it."

He was frequently through the departments, making the acquaintance of
new men, and exchanging a few sentences of conversation with the
established members of the staff. Once he stopped at the desk of a
junior sub-editor, whom he had not seen before, and said, "How long
have you been with me?"

"About three months," was the reply.

"How are you getting on? Do you like the work? Do you find it easy to
get into our ways?"

"I like it very much!"

"How much money are you getting?"

"Five pounds a week."

"Are you quite satisfied?"

"Perfectly satisfied, thank you."

"Well, you must remember this, that I want no one on my staff who is a
perfectly satisfied man with a salary of five pounds a week."

A subordinate who had been a couple of years on the staff died as a
result of an operation for appendicitis. He had a wife and one little
child who were not very well provided for. On the day after the
funeral, Northcliffe sent down and told her he had invested 1,000
pounds for her. Members of his staff who break down in health are sent
for a prolonged rest on full salary, and, when necessary, are
despatched abroad to recuperative climates with all their expenses
paid. He is not, however, a man who suffers fools gladly, and those
who come to him expecting, not only big salaries, but soft jobs, are
quickly swept out in a cascade of hard words. He has a sense of humor.
Once he turned the paper on to a search for an automobile which had run
over a village child and then disappeared. He found it after a time,
and it proved to be the car of his brother, Hildebrand, which, unknown
to the owner, had been taken out for a joy ride by the chauffeur.
There was something more than a chuckle among the other newspapers
because Northcliffe in his enthusiasm had publicly offered 100 pounds
reward for the discovery of the automobile and its owner. A few weeks
later Fleet Street was busy trying to disentangle the mystery of the
death of a young girl who had fallen from a railway carriage in a
tunnel on the Brighton line. Various plans for the elucidation of the
mystery were discussed between Northcliffe and the staff. In the
course of the disc