; the old man has the
bug to make _you_ a special correspondent--on my advice
yunderstand--always looking out for my pals."

Well, why not? The wheel of Fortune had been a long time turning before
stopping at the proper spot. I had never had any doubt I'd someday be in
a position to prove my writing ability. Now all those who had sneered at
me years before--my English teachers and editors who had been too
jealous to recognize my existence by anything more courteous than a
printed rejection--would have to acknowledge their injustice. And in the
meantime all my accumulated experience had been added to enhance my
original talent. I'd sold everything that could be sold doortodoor and a
man acquires not only an ease with words but a wide knowledge of human
nature this way. Certainly I was better equipped all around than many of
these highly advertised magazine or newspaper authors.

"Well ... I don't know if I could spare the time...."

"O K, bigshot. Let me know if the market goes down and I'll come around
and put up more margin."

"How much will Mr Le ffacase--"

"How the hell do I know? More than youre worth--more than I'm getting,
because youre a ninetyday wonder, the guy who put the crap on the grass
and sent it nuts. Less than he'd have given Minerva-Medusa. Come and get
it straight from the horse's mouth."

My only previous visits to newspaper offices had been to place
advertisements, but I was prepared to find the _Daily Intelligencer_ a
veritable hive of activity. Perhaps some part of the big building which
housed the paper did hum, but not the floor devoted to the editorial
staff. That simply dozed. Gootes led me from the elevator through an
enormous room where men and an occasional woman sat indolently before
typewriters, stared druggedly into space or flew paper airplanes out of
open windows. The only sign of animation I saw as we walked what might
well have been a quartermile was one reporter (I judged him such by the
undersized hat on the back of his head) who enthusiastically munched a
sandwich while perusing a magazine containing photographs of women with
uncovered breasts. Even the nipples showed.

Beyond the cityroom was a battery of private offices. I will certainly
not conceal the existence of my extreme nervousness as we neared the
proximity of the famous editor. I hung back from the groundglass door
inscribed in shabby, peeling letters--in distinction to its neighbors,
newly and brightly painted