s a curse," I remarked. "Show me a clever
newspaper man and I'll show you a failure. There is nothing in it but
the glory--and little of that. We contrive and scheme and run about all
day getting a story. And then we write it at fever heat, searching our
souls for words that are cleancut and virile. And then we turn it in,
and what is it? What have we to show for our day's work? An ephemeral
thing, lacking the first breath of life; a thing that is dead before
it is born. Why, any cub reporter, if he were to put into some other
profession the same amount of nerve, and tact, and ingenuity and
finesse, and stick-to-it-iveness that he expends in prying a single
story out of some unwilling victim, could retire with a fortune in no
time."

Blackie blew down the stem of his pipe, preparatory to re-filling the
bowl. There was a quizzical light in his black eyes. The little heap of
burned matches at his elbow was growing to kindling wood proportions. It
was common knowledge that Blackie's trick of lighting pipe or cigarette
and then forgetting to puff at it caused his bill for matches to exceed
his tobacco expense account.

"You talk," chuckled Blackie, "like you meant it. But sa-a-ay, girl,
it's a lonesome game, this retirin' with a fortune. I've noticed that
them guys who retire with a barrel of money usually dies at the end of
the first year, of a kind of a lingerin' homesickness. You c'n see
their pictures in th' papers, with a pathetic story of how they was
just beginnin' t' enjoy life when along comes the grim reaper an' claims
'em."

Blackie slid down in his chair and blew a column of smoke ceilingward.

"I knew a guy once--newspaper man, too--who retired with a fortune.
He used to do the city hall for us. Well, he got in soft with the new
administration before election, and made quite a pile in stocks that was
tipped off to him by his political friends. His wife was crazy for
him to quit the newspaper game. He done it. An' say, that guy kept on
gettin' richer and richer till even his wife was almost satisfied. But
sa-a-ay, girl, was that chap lonesome! One day he come up here looking
like a dog that's run off with the steak. He was just dyin' for a kind
word, an' he sniffed the smell of the ink and the hot metal like it was
June roses. He kind of wanders over to his old desk and slumps down in
the chair, and tips it back, and puts his feet on the desk, with his hat
tipped back, and a bum stogie in his mouth. And alon