Classic Audiobook Collection - The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks ~ Full Audiobook [comedy]

Episode Date: July 6, 2023

The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks audiobook. Genre: comedy Elizabeth Banks was an American journalist and author. She grew up in Wisconsin, then lived in England the last forty years of her life. She became a regular contributor to English publications such as The Daily News, Punch, St James' Gazette, and London Illustrated. She created a sensation by recording her observations on the plight of the lower classes, which she researched posing as a housemaid, street sweeper, and Covent Garden flower girl. Her later journalistic writings promoted women's right to vote and denounced prison conditions for jailed suffragettes. This memoir was written about 10 years into her career, when she was better known but was not financially secure. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:11:01) Chapter 02 (00:33:54) Chapter 03 (01:00:45) Chapter 04 (01:26:34) Chapter 05 (01:47:23) Chapter 06 (02:11:51) Chapter 07 (02:34:10) Chapter 08 (03:00:24) Chapter 09 (03:14:16) Chapter 10 (03:42:00) Chapter 11 (03:57:19) Chapter 12 (04:03:39) Chapter 13 (04:24:22) Chapter 14 (04:38:15) Chapter 15 (05:04:20) Chapter 16 (05:24:30) Chapter 17 (05:50:00) Chapter 18 (06:12:57) Chapter 19 (06:20:21) Chapter 20 (06:42:42) Chapter 21 (07:02:33) Chapter 22 (07:25:48) Chapter 23 (07:46:22) Chapter 24 (08:03:46) Chapter 25 (08:24:57) Chapter 26 (08:48:06) Chapter 27 (09:05:45) Chapter 28 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks Chapter 1 I am committed to the charge of the angels He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. This was the benediction of my venerable relative and guardian, when one day I left my Wisconsin farm home, all full of youth and health and conscience,

to earn my own living and make a career. My going away was an important event in that quiet neighborhood, and there were gathered about the little village station in spring-seated wagon nets and hard-seated lumber wagons, many farmers in their families who stood up high and waved their handkerchiefs to me as the train moved away. A few years before, there had also been a little stir in the place over a leave-taking of mine. Then I had gone away to boarding school, a girls' seminary, where I was told I must study hard and learn my lessons and finally graduate with honors to show my appreciation of all the sacrifices that were being made at the farm to give me the advantages of a college education.

Now remember, my relative had said to me on that occasion when parting, you are going away to school so you can become capable of taking care of yourself when you are old. older. You are a poor girl without a penny you can call your own in all the world. Think of that when you are tempted to have a good time instead of studying hard. So, during the four years at the seminary, I remembered it, and though at school I never got the name of being a bookworm or a goody, indeed, though I even became a member of a select set known among the faculty as the Society of the Ten Imps, I did study hard and partly worked my way through college, always with the end in view of preparing to support myself. As it seemed to me I should like best to earn my living

by writing for the newspapers, I paid particular attention to such studies as I thought would help me in that way, and my compositions, in which I never described anything that did not really happened to myself or some of my schoolmates gained for me a sort of local fame. Then in four years, I graduated in a white frock with a piece of embroidery round the bottom, a frock that, I was informed by my relative on the farm, must be especially well taken care of, it having been procured at the village store in exchange for ten pounds of butter and eight dozen eggs. When I had returned home in the summer of my graduation, and my sheepskin diploma had been framed and hung in the parlor, to be proudly exhibited to every collar, I set myself to learning stenography

and typewriting with the idea of at once becoming a newspaper reporter. Then I wrote to the editors of all the newspapers of which I had ever heard and offered them my valuable services. Never an answer came back, though I had enclosed a stamped envelope for reply in every letter. I decided that editors must be approached personally and not by letter, and I concluded that in order to get to the places where editors lived and newspapers were published, I must obtain some sort of situation in a large town. Then I sent out another batch of letters, this time to all the large stores that I saw advertised in the semi-weekly newspaper that came to the farm, asking for a position as stenographer and

typewriter at any wages they liked to offer. From my 30 letters, I got one reply, offering me a situation. It was from a wholesale grocer in a large western city, who offered me $8 a week to write his letters and keep a count of his cash. The situation was accepted. Then came my second leave-taking at the village station, and then I went out into the world, confident, though all alone, committed to the charge of the angels. When I arrived in the city, I hunted up a boarding house where I was to be fed and lodged for five dollars a week. The landlady found me a washerwoman who would do my laundry work for fifty cents a week, and when the next morning I began work in my situation, I saw that out of my $8 weekly salary, I would have left over for clothes and sundries just $2.5 each week.

For several months I wrote the grocer's letters, kept his cash accounts, and made myself, as he frequently told me, his valuable assistant. The grocer's desk was near a very large window, over which the curtain was never drawn. The table with my typewriting machine upon it was also placed near this window, and there, among the tastefully displayed exhibits of sugars, coffees, teas, soaps, and canned goods, I sat all day and wrote on the machine. People stopped and looked at me, along with the specimen goods in the window, till my face would grow red, and tears of embarrassment would roll down my cheeks, and my fingers trembled and stumbled as they flew over the typewriter keys. I knew that the grocer had no intention of making an advertisement of me, yet nevertheless I said to him rather bitterly one day,

Mr. Sampson, don't you think you had better mark me Exhibit A, so those people out there will know just where to place me among your other goods? I pointed to the pavement outside where half a dozen men stood looking into the window. The grocer pulled down the curtain with a bang and carried my machine over to an obscure corner, where I could no longer serve as an advertisement for the store. In a few months I began to grow tired of the grocery business, and decided it was time to start out in newspaper work, so I wrote a long article, heading it, all about typewriter girls, and sent it to the editor of the Daily Hustler, the principal newspaper in the same,

city, saying in my note to him, please publish this in your next Sunday's paper. It is all true. The next Sunday, the article was published on the front page of the paper. On Monday morning, I said to the wholesale grocer, I shall be leaving you on Saturday night. I'm going to be a newspaper reporter. My reason for thus summarily resigning was that I had seen my article in print, and I doubted not that all I had to do was to go and ask for a situation and find it ready to hand. During the noon hour I went to the man I had heard spoken of as the owner of the paper. His office was on the fifth floor of the great newspaper building. To my knock at his office door he answered, come in,

and then I confronted an elderly man, white-whiskered and with a kind face. Do you own the paper, I ask. I'm inclined to think I do, he answered, looking somewhat amused and surprised. Then, will you please give me a situation on it? I had an article on the first page yesterday. I concluded, it was about typewriter girls. Now that I know I can write well enough to be published, I would like a regular salaried position. I read your article, he said, and I thought the editor was giving too much prominence to the first effort of a beginner. Why, wasn't it good? I exclaimed, amazed at such heartless criticism, and terrified at the thought

that I had resigned my situation at the grocer's. I thought you'd give me a place right away, and I told my employer, Mr. Sampson, the big grocer, that I wouldn't work for him after Saturday night because I was going to be a newspaper girl. A newspaper girl, a newspaper girl. The old man repeated to himself, musingly. Then he exclaimed suddenly, Don't think of it, my poor child. Be anything, but don't be a newspaper girl.

Go back to your grocer and tell him you made a mistake. He passed his hand over his brow, as though trying to smooth out the wrinkles and collect thoughts concerning something that had happened in a time gone by. I won't go back, I replied, planting my feet firmly before his desk and looking at him defiantly.

I won't have the grocer laugh at me, and I'm determined to be a newspaper reporter. If you won't give me a chance on your paper, I will go to Chicago and get a place. There are lots of papers there, you know. Don't go to Chicago, no, no, he called out, as he jumped up and rushed toward the door through which I was making my indignant exit. Come here to my office next Monday morning at 9 o'clock. You are so little, I will see if I can find a hole to stow you a way in.

The next Monday morning when I appeared, the old man showed me a beautiful new typewriter with a wonderfully convenient desk. I bought it last Saturday, especially for you to write on, he said, you will be my confidential clerk and secretary in the mornings, and in the afternoons you may try your hand at writing pieces for the editors upstairs. I'll pay you $10 a week to start on. It isn't much, but it's all my conscience tells me you'll be worth for the first two or three months. When I returned to my boarding house one night, I found there a letter announcing the death of my Wisconsin relative. I cried myself to sleep, and I cried myself to sleep, and in my dreams the old familiar voice whispered again,

He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and I was comforted. So it was that I became a newspaper girl. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2. The Angels and what they were like. For about two months, I was a sort of private secretary and confidential typist to the proprietor

of the Daily Hustler, whose office, though in the same building, was far away and removed from the excitement and din of the editorial and reportorial rooms. During the long intervals between letter writing, letter filing, indexing, and the straightening of papers on my employer's desk, I would be bidden by the proprietor of the bustling Western newspaper to think up things for newspaper stories, to go out and walk about the town and see what was happening, to look into shop windows and observe all the new fashions, to go among the city's poor and discover their joys and their sorrows, to ride on the cable cars that traversed the principal streets of the town, and then to return and write on my typewriting machine,

all about the things I had seen and heard. Then, seated in his great office armchair, he would critically adjust his gold-rimmed spectacles and read over my first attempts at journalism before they were sent upstairs for the editors to pronounce judgment upon. "'That's very bad. Don't send that up!' He would sometimes say,

as he sadly shook his head over a particularly unpromising literary effort. Or again, well, well, that's not so bad. You might try it on the city editor. But, mind you, I can't promise that he'll print it. I never interfere with the editorial department. So into my waistbasket went some of my writings, up to the editorial offices went others, till one day my employer said, I hear they have a great fashion opening round at the Merle stores this afternoon. Suppose you go and see if you can write a funny piece about funny fashions. I don't know if they want anything like that upstairs, but if they do, and your piece is up to the mark, they might use it on Sunday. The funny piece about funny fashions made its way to the

editorial rooms, and to my great delight it appeared the following Sunday, gaily illustrated and signed by a pen name Polly Pollock. A few days afterwards, appearing at the office one morning, I discovered that the corner which had been taken up with my desk and typewriter was empty. The old man sat busily writing at his desk and wheeled about to look at me when I shrieked out in tearful and terrified accents, Where is my machine? Oh, where is my machine? Is it stolen or have you dismissed me? Yes, I've dismissed you, Miss Polly Pollock. He's said, half smiling, half frowning, but you've got another situation. My managing editor has engaged you as society reporter and requires you and your typewriter upstairs in his domains. Go up now and see your new office and your new employer, but don't forget your old one. You're a full-fledged newspaper girl now and must take your chances with the rest. So I graduated to the top floor of the newspaper building

and was turned over to what proved to be the very tender mercies of the managing editor and his assistance. When I worked in the proprietor's office, I had always gone to my duties at nine in the morning and left off at five or six. Now different hours were required, for I was to be a society reporter, and in the world of society, little happened before three o'clock in the afternoon, and then things kept happening till one or two o'clock the next morning. I was told I need not arrive at the office until the middle of the afternoon, and I must expect to remain every night until my work was ready for the morning paper. In the pursuit of news, I flitted hither and thither among the leaders and would-be leaders of fashion, taking notes,

of how Mrs. Brown was giving a pink tea, and how Mrs. Green was going to pay a thousand dollars for a dress to be worn at a ball. It was as a society reporter that I first gained my introduction to the world of snobs and snobbery, as well as to a world where there was some tenderness and sympathy and charity, all under the guise of fashion. Shall I ever forget how I was once left on a hat-rack seat in the front hall of an aspiring social leader, whose father was a blacksmith and whose mother was a washerwoman, while I heard the lady say to the servant, a reporter did you say, well, I suppose I must see her, she may be of use to me. How the hot tears dropped onto that polished hat-rack, as I reflected upon the vulgarity and common origin of the woman who thought I might be of use to her. And did I not on my return

from that interview burst in upon my editor with denunciations of the lady in question, demanding that I be allowed in my own special column to do her up. It was then that I received my first lesson in the art of returning good for evil in the newspaper profession, for instead of being allowed to do her up, I was instructed to give her a good send-off, her husband being a large advertiser. The following night, a silver lining appeared to my journalistic cloud when I went to the governor's mansion on the hill to report a great ball. The governor's wife told me to come in the next day and have luncheon with her when she would give me notes of the society events that were coming off, and that thereafter I might call on her once a week, when she would make a point of keeping me well

informed of all that society was doing. Then she introduced her son, who was home for the holidays from Yale, and he said, will you give me the pleasure of the next waltz? I am sure reporters are not expected to dance when they go to report balls, I answered, and besides, I am not properly dressed. Why, I've even got a coat and hat on. But I showed in my face a great longing for the waltz that I felt newspaper etiquette bade me refuse. Oh, just throw the coat and hat off. Say, mother, do you object to your son's dancing with a girl in a high-necked dress?

He said banteringly, turning to the First Lady of the State. Do dance with him, said the lady, entreatingly, and your dress is as pretty and as stylish as possible. So I danced with the governor's son, and during the waltz I forgot that I was only a newspaper girl all alone in the world, with nobody but the angels to take charge of me. The governor's son put me in a cab and told the driver to, drive like lightning, back to the hustler office, and I wrote a very glowing description of that particular society function.

The city editor praised it, and I said, Oh, but the ball was lovely. I took off my coat and hat and waltzed with the governor's son. He looked hard at me, then whistled, then tried to smile and appear unconcerned, and when I was moving away from his desk, I heard him remarked to another editor who sat near him. Poor little girl, I didn't have the heart to tell her that she was hired to report balls and not to dance at them with governor's sons. Then I knew for certain that I had broken a rule of newspaper etiquette, but I could not make myself feel more than half sorry. I thought I was a very good American in those days, believing, according to the Declaration of Independence, that all men were created free and equal, and that birth and pedigree were not to be considered in the land of freedom. But many times after that ball, I meditated upon the fact that the governor's

lady was said to be descended from a long line of British aristocrats, and that in her boudoir she treasured a certain book that told all about her family tree and her coat of arms, and what mighty deeds were done by her great-great-grandfathers in the times of old England. Then I would think indignantly of the hat-rack experience with the daughter of the washerwoman, and I pondered all those things in my heart. Shall I impress the readers of my memoirs as being altogether un-American, if I confess that even now, over here in England, I am pondering them still? Honesty compels me to say that during those first few months of my journalistic career,

there were not many kind hands stretched out to me by the members of my own sex. A great many doors were slammed in my face at times, patronizing airs were shown me at other times, and there were also cringings to me because of the power I was. supposed to possess in a newspaper way. So many people used me. Flowers were often sent to me, wonderfully costly roses and orchids, tied with ribbons, and there were boxes of candies and presence of books. Along with such attentions, however, came photographs of aspiring society bells and matrons, with crudely written notices to the effect that Mrs. or Miss So-and-so, whose photograph was enclosed, was giving a ball or a reception, or was going to Europe, and I soon learned not to overvalue

the flowers and the bonbons. Once I was sent to a summer resort hotel, and a society woman, shaking hands with me, said, I'm all alone if you like to have dinner with me tonight. I have no such silly notions as some persons have about associating with newspaper women, though of course I would not want you to repeat that you had dined with me. Don't fear that I shall repeat it, since I shall never dine with you, I replied. During the winter, only occasionally, when I tramped through the snow late at night to the various society affairs, to get descriptions of the dresses, decorations, and people, with the fact that I was cold, so cold sometimes that I could hardly move my fingers to write the necessary notes,

appear to be taken into consideration by society women. Most of them seemed to regard me only as a machine to take notes of their doings. Once, near midnight, I was going my round of evening parties, when on the piazza of a Grandstone Mansion, from which issued sounds of the revelry of the town's best society, I met a young woman crouched under one of the porch pillars, a newspaper reporter like myself. She was nearly frozen, her teeth were chattering, and she could scarcely speak. After a while she succeeded in explaining to me that she had got her report of the doings at that house and was waiting on the porch for a cab which she had ordered to call for her. But why didn't you stay inside the house till it came, instead of waiting here in the snow and wind, I asked.

Oh, because when I got my report, I told them I had a cab coming from, me, and I would like to wait, and I was ushered out of the door, the lady of the house, saying, Very well, she supposed it would be along in a minute. Oh, how cruel everybody is to me, went on the girl, bitterly. How I hate them all! How I hate them! And won't I get even with them one day? Had it not been for the goodness of mankind, compared with what I shall charitably term, the thoughtlessness of the womankind I met in those early days, I would have been in danger of becoming a pessimist and a cynic as regarded all humanity, but somehow the angels, who turned out to be

just plain, practical, ordinary Western American men, kept my feet from dashing against the stone of unbelief. Frequently I found difficulty in filling my allotted space, yet notes for that society column I needs must have. So one day it occurred to me that I would call upon the husbands and fathers of the women and girls who gave balls and parties. Into the offices of lawyers, doctors, merchants, bankers, and brokers I made my way. Your wife gave a party last night, but I couldn't find anyone who would bother to tell me about it. Please tell me what sort of dress she wore, what people were there, and everything. Thus I, would accost the busy merchant at his desk or the much-engaged lawyer among his briefs.

Why, bless my soul, I'm not a society man. I leave all that to the women folks. Half the time I'm not even present at their goings-on. What's that, you say? Oblige to have a report for Sunday's paper? Well, now, let me think. This was the way I got my news of many an important event. I would be confidentially informed of things that were coming off in the future, so that I could go and see about them, and there was more than one businessman in that town, who, himself taking no interest in the fashionable world, yet took the pains to jot down little society notes and send them to me at the office. Other news, besides that relating to society affairs, would also come to me in the same way, so that I was often able to go to the city editor and tell

him that although such and such a thing was not in my line, I could put him on to great happenings in the political and commercial world, and he became my firm friend and advocate, prophesying a brilliant future for the latest addition to his staff. The most unpleasant thing about my work was the late hours which society reporting made it necessary for me to keep. Balls were only in full swing at midnight, and they must be personally attended in order to be described in all their glory. To go to a ball at midnight, get notes, and return to the office to write them out for publication in the morning paper, very frequently made the hour at which I would go home as late as one or two o'clock in the morning. At that hour, the cable cars had ceased to run, and the subject of my getting

home from the office was at first one that gave me many a bad half hour. I had, without intentional eavesdropping, heard this very question discussed among the editors and reporters the first time my work had kept me at the office till after midnight. Wait here in my room till I see how you are to get home, the city editor said, when I handed him my copy, and then he went into the big reportorial room, where 15 or 20 men were riding away for dear life. Of course we'll have to look after her when the cars are stopped. I heard one of the men say, One fellow one night, another the next, and so on, don't you know?

Well, I can't do it tonight anyway. Shan't be finished more than a minute before the paper goes to press. Two hours steady work at this blamed stump speech. See here, old stick in the mud over there. got to take this girl home tonight, do you hear? You haven't a thing to do now, and you're just hanging round to watch the rest of us work. All right, I heard a voice say, and there was a scraping of a chair over the floor. But I tell you what, it's an all-fired shame for girls to be working in newspaper offices at night, and I don't care how nice they are as girls. They're nothing but

nuisances in a place like this at midnight. While I'm walking home with her, I'm walking home with her, I'll just ask the young lady to marry me, and that'll put an end to all our troubles. I did not wait to hear more. In consternation, indignation, and self-pity, I rushed out of the office, jumped on to the elevator, and, descending from the top to the ground floor, made my way out alone and sorrowful into the midnight street. Never, I vowed, would any member of that staff again feel obliged to ask me to marry him in order to rid the office of a nuisance. At first, I walked rapidly along the dark and deserted streets, which led to my boarding-house. My indignant bravery soon gave way to fright and hysterical tears. All the horrible stories I had ever heard of wicked, prowling city ruffians

came vividly to my mind. I began to run when I heard footsteps behind me. Some people were was following me. Yes, as I ran faster, the footsteps behind me seemed to turn into long and mighty strides. I ran on, sobbing aloud, and by this time, almost crazed with fear of I knew not what. Suddenly I felt my arm clutched. I was caught, and by a policeman. What's the matter with ye, where ye going, and where ye been to while alone at this time of night? I've been chasing ye for five minutes. When the upholder of law and order thus addressed me, I sobbed out, Oh, I'm so scared. I'm a society reporter at the hustler office, and I started to go home alone, and I ran because I was afraid. A reporter! Great Scott! Why, I thought ye was a criminal,

fleeing from justice! The policeman began to laugh, then suddenly sobering, he said, come along with me, I'll see ye get home safe tonight. For several blocks he walked at my side, giving it as his humble opinion that somebody ought to introduce a law into the legislature forbidding young ladies to do newspaper work. At a corner he stopped. Now I can't go any farther with ye, because this is the end of my beat, but I'll put ye in charge of the officer on the next beat, and he'll go as far as he can, and give ye to another officer till the first thing ye know ye'll be safe home. A low whistle brought another policeman to the corner.

What have you got there? asked the newcomer. A little reporter scared out of her senses. I've brought her this far, and I wish ye'd see her as far as ye can, and then give her over to the officer of the beat where she lives, and tell him to take her home. So I was handed over on that eventful night, from the first officer to the second and from the second to the third, who delivered me safe and sound at my own door. I had no sooner closed it behind me than there was a violent pull at the bell. Opening it,

I saw standing on the step one of the chief editors of the hustler's staff. Thank God you're safe, he exclaimed. I just came to wake up your landlady to ask her if you'd got home, and if not we were going to search the town for you. There's a fine row at the office, the city editor raising Kane generally, and every man blaming every other fellow for allowing you to go home alone. Now I'll go back and tell them you're all right, so their hands will be easy, but you mustn't do this again. There's not one of us but would consider it a personal insult for you to think you had to go home alone.

He trudged back to the office to report my safety to the anxious staff. Right here, in the midst of writing my reminiscences, thousands of miles away from the town where the Daily Hustler is published, I send greeting to the members of that staff. God bless them. Here's to them from an American newspaper woman to those American newspaper men. The fear of becoming a burden instead of a valuable action, acquisition to the staff of the hustler, was ever with me after that first exciting night of my

home going, and when my work was done, I got into the habit of stealing quietly out of the office by myself. But I was no longer afraid to walk from the office to my home, for I was well looked after by my friends, the police officers. The one who had first protected me from my fears convinced himself that he must always see that I was safely escorted. So night after night, there sounded the low whistle of himself and his brother officers as I passed from one to the other on my homeward route. What is it, would come the question. The little reporter would be the answer, and always during my stay in that city, I felt it no dishonor and not derogatory to my dignity to be known among the police only by that name, the little reporter.

It's a bad night for ye to be out, little reporter, said one of my custodians on a night when the Western winter was at its worst. It's not fit work for a girl like you, this report in business, writing up the crazy sociables, and describing the dresses and the gym cracks the society folks wear. I've been thinking these several nights when I've been taking these several nights when I've been taking ye home and protectin ye like, that ye'd utter have a protector all the time, and a good home with a big fire to sit by on winter nights, and it worries me. Now if ye'll marry me, I'll just see that ye don't have no more of this unwomanlike work to do. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks.

This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3. I go to Peru as a girl diplomat. I have always thought that my refusal to become Mrs. Policeman must have been an exceedingly tactful one, for though I remained in the western town for some time, after the police officer so chivalrously offered me his lifelong protection, he continued to be my friend and champion during my midnight walks from the office to my police. my boarding house, and I never missed his cheery, good-evenin little reporter, till I left the city to travel thousands of miles away, to become what the members of the staff were pleased to call a girl diplomat. This was during the administration of President Harrison. One day when I was

getting up my society notes, I received a letter from a Wisconsin editor saying that some months before he had got a note from me asking for a position of any sort on the staff of his newspaper. This, I should state, was written to him while I was employed in the wholesale grocer's establishment, and before I had got my first article published in the Daily Hustler. The Wisconsin gentleman now informed me that though he had been unable to give me a place on his paper, he had kept me in mind, and that having been appointed to go to Peru as envoy extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, he wished to know if I would accept a post as secretary. I immediately telegraphed back, yes.

Loud and hearty indeed were the congratulations showered upon me by the editors and reporters, and what write-ups they gave me to be sure. Our girl diplomat! The administration takes the pick of our staff. That was the way they headed the columns they published about me, along with my photograph. Then hundreds of other papers throughout the east and the west and the north and the south sounded my fame and praises. So it was with a great flourish of newspaper trumpets that I started off on my journey to the land of the Incas. I have since heard that Mr. Blaine, who was then Secretary of State in the President's Cabinet,

smiled dubiously and made a rather discouraging remark about what might happen. if the United States went in for schoolgirl diplomacy. He is dead now, and I bear him not the least malice. I am sure that I never did my country any harm while I was a diplomat, though on the other hand I have no reason to believe that I ever did it any particular good. My position, I should state here, was not strictly an official one, for I was not to be capital letters, secretary of legation, only secretary to the capital M. Minister. Still, I was looked upon somewhat in the light of a heroine and became a sort of nine days wonder, for I was, I believe, the only American woman who had ever been employed in a clerical capacity at any of our legations. After a three-week's

voyage on the Atlantic and the Pacific, I arrived in Lima, the Peruvian capital. In a strange-looking house built of mud or adobe, as it was more elegantly called, over the portal of which was a shield bearing a picture of the American Eagle and the inscription, Legation de los Estados Unidos, I took up my residence with the members of the minister's family, the only American girl in that whole large city, and a curiosity, as I soon learned, to all the inhabitants. The second day after my arrival there, wishing to go by a shop to buy a reel of cotton, I looked in my Anglo-Spanish dictionary to find the Spanish term for that article. I found it was, I'll go thone, so I wrote it down on a slip of paper that I might not forget it,

and then donning my light-covered jacket and gaily trimmed white straw hat, I left the legation to go shopping in a town where I knew but one word of the language of its inhabitants, algadone, cotton to sew with. In and out among strange, weird-looking women, each wearing a peculiar black garment, which draped the head, neck, shoulders, and hips, and fell gracefully over the black skirt, I made my way, the one bright-looking object in the somber throng, till, looking back, I saw the Jamaican Negro majordomo of the legation rushing after me, wildly gesticulating and with a look of horror on his ebony face. "'Señorita! Seorita!' he cried,

in the good English he had learned as an old servant to previous American ministers. "'You must not go to shop alone. His Excellency sent me after you. It is not the custom of this country. I will go with you.' "'Go back, go back!' I answered, with severity and dignity. I will not take you out shopping with me. I'm just going to buy a spool of cotton. I know the Spanish word for it. It is Algodon. I made this last announcement rather proudly, but nevertheless, the Major Domo insisted on accompanying me. You cannot go out here without a servant with you, he explained entreatingly. The Peruvian ladies, either young or old, never do. And if you go out

alone, the Peruvian gentleman will speak to you. But I will go out alone in broad daylight, I answered. I'm an American girl and can take care of myself, and I won't have anybody tagging around after me. The head of our domestic staff said nothing in reply, and having bought my Algadon with him standing by my side, I went back to the legation, where, under the outstretched wings of our emblem bird, there took place a new declaration of independence. After that, I wandered where I would throughout the city. It was at first suggested that I should don the Manta, the national female garment of Peru, which I have already described. But finally, I decided this would never do. Since, robed in that garment, I might be mistaken for a Peruvian girl who dared to be unconventional

and go out alone, in which case the high-cast Peruvian ladies would be horrified and give me a wide berth, and the chivalrous Peruvian gentleman would insult me. Therefore, when I took my walks abroad, I dressed just as I would have dressed for a morning or afternoon stroll in New York or London, and my Anglo-Saxon costume proved to be my shield and protection. Once it is true, a Peruvian officer, wearing his full regimentals, stopped in the street, looked at me in astonishment, swept the ground with his military hat, and said in his musical Castilian, Ah, seorita bonita! Now this form of salutation, which I had learned meant in English,

Oh, pretty girl, was the Peruvian gentleman's method of attracting the attention of a woman whose acquaintance he wished to make. I drew myself up haughtily, looked him full, in the face and said defiantly, Senorita Americana, for I had learned the Spanish for American girl. Then, gathering together all my spirit and all my Spanish forces, I said angrily and rapidly, Senorita Americana, legation de los Estados Unidos. I think he understood then that I belonged to the American legation, for he incontinently

sped away, and never after that was I, I, addressed in the street by male Peruvians who had not been properly introduced to me at the legation. The first few weeks of my experience as a diplomat were very disappointing to me, because nothing seemed to happen. I had always thought of a diplomatic life as one of exciting experiences, where there would be dispatches to send off to the home government concerning wars or rumors of war, accounts of double dealings with the heads of the country to which one was accredited, and a continual plotting and counterplotting with underhand methods, and possibly a sort of secret service. But the days went calmly by, and I did not seem to be doing much in the way

of experiencing things. In fact, the only relaxation and change from the eating, sleeping, and doing nothing, which was the Peruvian method of spending the time, was the assistance I could render the minister in the daily writing of his diary, which we both thought would be interesting for friends and relatives in America to read. But just when I thought I would actually die from Pure-on-Wi, something happened. One morning, between five and six, I was awakened from my sound sleep by so violent a rocking of my bed that I was tumbled out upon the floor, from which I hastily tried to rise, rubbing my eyes in wonder and terror. From the streets there came sounds of terrible groanings and rumblings

and hoarse cries and shouts as of thousands of people. It's one of those South American revolutions which they are always having down here, I thought, as I dressed myself in short order, though I tumbled down and reeled round and round in my efforts to do so. I was really glad of the revolution, because I thought it was going to break up the almost unbearable monotony of my diplomatic career. Through the door of my bedroom, I rushed out into the hall, then across the courtyard, or patio, as it was called, to the legation offices in the same building, while up from the streets there rose the cries and shouts of the multitude. Save us, save us, came the shrieks in Spanish. I doubted not that these cries came from the hapless victims who were being mowed down by

the soldiery and the mob. I felt very sorry for them, but being a diplomat, and apparently the only member of the American legation that was awake, I felt I must do my duty. For myself, I had no fear. I knew that no one would dare to harm those who lived under the protecting wings of the American Eagle. I fairly threw the tin cover off my typewriter onto the floor, and sitting down began to pound out a dispatch to the Washington Department of State, my idea being to finish it up and then give it to the minister to send by cable. To the Honorable James G. Blaine, Secretary of State, Washington, USA, from the American Minister in Lima, Peru. A revolution broke out at five this morning, and nobody knows what it is about. The streets run with blood, the populace cry,

save us, save us, while the soldiers run them through with bayonets. It is likely the president of Peru will be beheaded, and his head stuck up on the top of a pole in front of the cathedral, as it is customary to treat presidents during revolutions. All the staff and family of this legation are safe. We'll wire you again later. Thus ran the first dispatch which I, as a diplomat, ever wrote for the Department of State. Just as I was pulling it out of my typewriter, loud and excited noises were heard in the legation itself. Then I heard a scuffling and a banging of doors, and the Black Major Domo's voice calling loudly, almost tearfully, "'Señorita! Senorita! Where are you?'

"'Have you searched in every room?' came the voice of the minister. surely she cannot have gone out on one of those rambles of hers at this time in the morning i have searched in all the house part your excellency and she does not go to the office rooms until eleven o'clock returned the servant another scuffling more shouts but not from the street now only from the legation came evidences of excitement i started towards the door and shouted across the patio i'm all right nothing's happened to me, and I've got it all ready for you to cable." "'What ready! What cable!' shouted the minister, as he came running around the courtyard, accompanied by the scared-looking Major Domo. "'The dispatch to Washington about the revolution! Please see if it's all right, so that we can get it off.' "'What dispatch? What revolution?' exclaimed the minister.

"'Great heavens! Has the poor girl gone mad?' Then turning to the Major Domo, he asked, in a terrified sort of way, William, do earthquakes send people crazy? I am not mad, I said indignantly. They've got a revolution down in the streets, and I've written a dispatch about it. Haven't we been waiting for a revolution these many weeks? There's an earthquake, signorita, said the Major Domo respectfully. An earthquake? I repeated, half-executive.

dazed, then I turned to the minister. I'm sure there's a revolution, though it's quieter now. They always calm down one minute and then break out again. My first intimation of it was when my bed rocked, and I heard the rumble of the cannons. Come here to the window, and I'll prove to you there's a revolution. We looked out of the window. Not a soul was in the street, and the minister began laughing uproariously as he read my dispatch. It was just an earthquake, Signorita, said the Major Domo, trying hard to maintain a solemn and respectful look on his face. When the earthquakes come, all the people run into the streets and shout and pray save us, and when the earthquake goes away, they go back to their houses again and go to

sleep. I am sure I am not now, and was not then, either bloodthirsty or war-loving in my disposition, yet my chagrin at discovering that my revolution was nothing but an earthquake was many a day in passing off, and it certainly was rather annoying to have the minister occasionally repeat, the streets run with blood, the populace cry, save us, while the soldiers run them through with bayonets, after which he would shake with laughter and declare that being a diplomat in Peru was not so devoid of excitement as he had thought. The first time I went to church in Lima, I noticed that I seemed to be the center of a great deal of attention from the congregation, and that the minds of the worshippers were very much distracted.

However, as I had by that time become accustomed to creating a sensation wherever I went, because I was the only American girl in the town, and also because of my, to them, peculiar style of dressing, I sat down quietly with the other women. Suddenly I felt someone meddling with my hat, and looking up I saw a lady with a beautiful face and wearing the finest and most embroidered manta I had ever seen. She pulled the hat-pins from my hat and placed them in my hand, then took my hat off, and, putting it on the seat beside me, smiled, patted me on the shoulder, said, see, see, and went back to her kneeling stool. I was very much astonished at this strange procedure, but I said never a word. Indeed, how could I,

not knowing the language of the country? The service over, I left the church, and, still carrying my hat-pins in my hat, walked along the pavement towards the legation. "'Si, see, ah, signorita!' I heard a melodious voice say behind me, and with that the same beautiful lady took the hat pins and hat from my hand, placed my hat on my head, pinned it tightly, and, patting me again on the shoulder, glided away. I afterwards learned that by going to church wearing a hat, I had broken one of the strictest rules of Peruvian etiquette, and that had it not been known that I was a member of the American legation, I might have lost my hat altogether. This little incident was repeated by the Peruvian lady to all her friends, and the fact that I had not even

attempted to replace my hat of my own will after I had got outside the church, redounded, it seemed, very much to my credit, and I became, in a sort of way, what one might term the fashion. Unknown ladies, walking with their servants, passing me in the street, would take from the bouquets from which the servants, never the ladies, carried wonderful sprigs of tube roses and other flowers, and smilingly placed them in my hand, saying, Senorita Americana, si, see, forcing them upon me, and then bowing go on their way. It was all very sweet and pretty, but this being a continual heroine and a curiosity to the inhabitants soon palled upon me. I was always finding new barriers, no.

known as Customs of the Country, over which I must leap if I would not give up altogether my native-born independence. When I accepted the position of Secretary to the American Minister, I was not well acquainted with that gentleman. Indeed, I had only seen him once, and that was when we drew up our contract. I could not, of course, be expected to know anything about his peculiarities or fads and fancies any more than he could know mine, and I had been in Peru but a very few days when I came to the conclusion that he certainly had a very strange and eccentric way of dictating his dispatches and his diary. We only worked two or three hours each day, but those hours soon became to me times of terror. I had traveled on the same ship with the minister, and had noticed nothing

peculiar about him, so I was not prepared for any developments of eccentricity when we got started in our diplomatic career. On the third day after our arrival, there being an American mail going out, the minister sat down to go over some dispatches which the first secretary of legation handed to him. Now, about this note to the State Department, great Scott, this is enough. And with that, the minister, red in the face, jumped off his chair like an automaton, landed on the floor, and began stamping with his feet, after which he executed a hornpipe dance. I stared at him in amazement. Was this the way diplomats of all nations carried on, or was it a peculiar and distinct phase of American diplomacy? Was the minister in a temper, and had I possibly offended him all unwittingly?

I hope I haven't done anything to offend you, I said meekly and quietly. No, not a thing, answered the minister, doing a reversible waltz over towards the window. Can I do anything for you? I again asked solicitously. No, no, no, shouted the minister. You can't do a thing. Nobody can do anything. I wish they could. after a poca of the two-step order and a kind of a shakedown, such as I had seen them do at the end of a country dance, the minister seemed to come too, and, walking over to his desk, went on with his instructions quite sanely and pleasantly. You must not mind me when I get to taking on like that, he said smilingly. Not mind him. Then my worst fears were confirmed. He was a madman. He was a madman. He was a madman. He said, smilingly. He said, smilingly. He said, mind him. Then my worst fears were confirmed. He was a madman. Or, stay, was he subject to fits? Whatever it was, there surely was

not a very pleasant outlook for me. If it were neither madness nor fits, but only a new kind of eccentricity, even then I didn't see how I could stand it if he were taken that way often, and I gathered from the way he spoke that he was. The days passed on, and the poor man was seized daily, sometimes hourly, with his strange convulsions. At first, I thought I would speak to the first secretary about it, and ask him what was the name of the minister's peculiar physical trouble. But this gentleman had not met the minister till he came to Peru, and so could not know any more than I. There was the minister's wife, but it is not etiquette to speak of the peculiarities of a man to the members of his immediate family.

Occasionally a day would pass and no symptoms of the disease would show themselves, when I would think joyously that perhaps the air and climate of Peru were doing something for my unfortunate chief. But the next day, the jumping and stamping and strange, almost profane exclamations, would come on again. We would sit down quite calmly to work on the diary of a diplomat, when suddenly, the aforementioned diplomat would topple over his ink bottle, clench his fists, beat his breast, dance out into the middle of the floor, and then perhaps run into the room where the first secretary sat.

What puzzled me most was that, on such occasions, the first secretary laughed long and loudly when the minister descended upon him in these paroxysms, and I called it very rude and unkind of the first secretary to do this. As for me, I never laughed. I was too terrified to do aught but wonder, and I sometimes, in my heart, blamed the United States government for sending so very eccentric a gentleman abroad to represent our country. Things went on like this for about two weeks, when one day, while the minister and I were in the office, a Peruvian gentleman, one of the great dignitaries of the state, dropped in, and, being introduced to me, we began to try to carry on a conversation in the little Spanish I had then learned, and also by numerous gesticulations. In the midst of the conversation, up jumped the

minister and began his St. Vitus's dance actions. I really thought it was too bad that he could not have contained himself until the Peruvian gentleman had taken his leave. A pretty story this statesman would go back and tell it the Peruvian State Department. I thought he might get frightened and leave without ceremony, but to my astonishment, he only smiled slightly and said laconically, ah, pulga. See, see, pulga, answered the minister, giving a kick against the desk, and then starting off again in a prance about the room. The Peruvian gentleman began to talk excitedly in Spanish, which I knew the minister did

not understand any more than I did, and I left the room to call in the allegation interpreter. Pulga, Pulga, I repeated to myself. What does this mean, and what has that got to do with the minister's peculiar affection? I repeated it several times, so as not to forget it, while I made my way to my room to get my Anglo-Spanish dictionary. Frantically turning the leaves, I finally found the following. Pulga, a peculiar kind of flea which infests South American countries in great numbers and is more troublesome to human beings than to animals. The poor minister! I laughed until I cried, and then I laughed again, thinking of his antics and his evident

desire that I should be kept in ignorance of the cause. Human flees! Had they not been the bane of my own existence ever since I had landed in that terrible country? Had I not talked the matter over with the chambermaid, and tried all sorts of homemade remedies she recommended for the curing of their bites? Truly, the minister was not the only member of the family who had suffered in silence, if silence his actions could be called. This estimable Jamaica Negress, later on, told me that no foreigner could hope to get rid of fleas or become indifferent to their attentions under, at the least, a year's residence in Peru. I did not remain in Peru for the

year that was necessary for my acclimatization. Not only fleas, but loneliness, loneliness for the companionship of girls of my own age who spoke my own language, contributed greatly to my unhappiness in that far-off country. It was during the years when I had not many resources within my own self. One day I said, I am homesick and I can't stand the fleas, and I returned to my native land. Arrived in New York, I secured a pleasant position as secretary to an astronomer and inventor, which I filled for several months, but a journalist I was determined to be, and when an opportunity offered for me to get a situation as society editor on a prominent southern paper, I left New York and traveled southward to again take up my interrupted career as a newspaper girl.

End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4. Into the Wide Wide World of Journalism Certainly, no woman could ever have entered upon a journalistic career under pleasanter and more encouraging circumstances than did I, so far as my first editors and co-workers were concerned. Just as I shall never forget the Western heartiness and kindness shown by the men on the staff of the Daily Hustler, so shall I always remember the Southern thoughtfulness and chivalry

that took me in charge when I became the only woman member of the staff of that Southern paper. The managing editor was an ex-Confederate Colonel, who had very exact and old-fashioned notions on the subject of woman's sphere, and he was of a very decided opinion that a newspaper office could not possibly be included in the said sphere. Nevertheless, his opinion on that subject had been overruled by the decision that a woman was needed on the paper, and he set to work to make my surroundings so altogether pleasant and agreeable, that if I really was out of my proper sphere, it never occurred to me to suspect it. The Colonel's office was separated from the main room

in which worked all the other editors and reporters by a half partition. In this big room, when I arrived on the scene, an attempt was made to give me a little privacy by boarding off a corner with what might be called a quarter partition since it only extended three or four feet in height. In that corner, with a brand new desk of one manufacture, a revolving chair, and some nails in the wall, in lieu of a hanging cupboard,

I was installed as a sort of reigning queen. Frequently on a morning, I would find some new convenience or luxury added to the furnishings of my little den, and on inquiring the name of the donor, would be informed by the reporters and editors, oh, all we fellows clubbed together and got it. It was thus that I was supplied with a gilt-framed looking-glass, a tumbler, a footstool, a box of lead pencils, all carefully sharpened, new-fashioned kinds of blotters, a variegated flower vase, which was always kept filled with flowers, apples, big as pumpkins, boxes of candy, and an apparatus for making lemonade in the hot summertime. One morning I arrived to find that my corner had been further walled in by the addition of a skillfully twisted wire, whereon hung, all unhemmed, a rainbow-hued print curtain. This being placed over the partition made a wall fully six feet high. We fellows did it, I was informed, when I investigated the matter, and it turned out that the real cause of my barricade was that, as the hot southern summer came

on, the question of the propriety of working in shirt-sleeves with a lady in the office had been mooted, and the high-print curtain, which would prevent my noting this breach of etiquette, was the result. Several other newspapers in the town had also solitary women reporters on their staffs, and great was the rivalry between myself and those other women. I had been engaged to do what was known as society and woman's work on the paper, and my constant ambition was to obtain for the page of which I had entire charge, scoops of various kinds, news of events which the women on the other papers would be unable to get. It was for the Sunday edition that I made especially strong attempts in the scoop line,

and Saturday afternoon and evening was a very busy time for me. One Saturday I got wind of a great social event that was to be expected in the near future. I had only a hint and no positive information whatever. All day long and all the evening up to 11 o'clock, I chased that hint, but the people who were in the know refused to give me the information, one of them going so far as to say, I don't like your paper nor your paper's politics, and you must expect no information from me.

I have told all I know about the affair to the young lady who represents the daily blank. It was the last straw. Instead of scooping the other newspaper girls in that town, as was my wont, I was going to get scooped by one of them on the morrow. In a tragic state of excitement, I went back to the office, and the city editor, who knew of the mission on which I had gone, called out, Hello, have you got it? You'd better hurry up writing it, or your page will be late going to press. No, I haven't got it, I cried. But that isn't the worst. Miss Jackson across the way has got it, and she's going to print it in tomorrow's paper, and I shall be scooped. The terrible word escaped me with a groan, and every man in

the office turned from his work to look at me, and take in the meaning of what I said. Scooped, scooped, I murmured falteringly, as I passed on to my desk to get my page in form for the composing room, and after me there followed. like an echo the sympathetic voices of the men. Scooped, scooped, our girl is going to be scooped by the other papers, girl. It was after midnight when I went home, and as I jumped into the cab, which a thoughtful management provided for me when I was kept late, a little group of the men reporters came rushing down the stairs, and one of them called out after me, say, don't you worry about that scoop because it'll be all right. Now be sure you don't worry. But I was not to be comforted,

and I went sorrowing home and to bed, expecting that I should wake in the morning to find myself scooped. The next morning, in looking over the paper and glancing at my own page, I was struck with a certain strangeness about its appearance, though I had, as usual, seen a final proof of it before leaving the office. I discovered that a special article I had written to fill up space had been taken out, and another article was in its place, and I wondered who had presumed to meddle with my own special particular page, the page of which I alone was the editor. I looked again at the article which I had not written, the one which was inserted in the place of the one I had written, and I discovered it to be an extended and glowing account of the great society event,

the information of which I had striven so hard to obtain. I wept for joy. I was not scooped after all, but how in the world had that article got there? I did not do Sunday work, but I could not resist the temptation to go to the office that night to inquire about the wonderful thing that had happened. At the office door stood the very coterie. of reporters who had cautioned me not to worry when I got into the cab the night before. They were apparently enjoying a tremendous joke, for they were laughing uproariously. Who did it? Who got the information?

Who put it on my page? I exclaimed, breathlessly. We fellows did it, they replied in unison. There were five of us had a hand in it, for it was terribly late, and we had to get it into press in short order, so maybe it sounded like patchwork, but it was all there just the same, and you didn't get scooped. But how did you get the information? Did the men that refused to tell me, tell you, I asked. Oh no, oh no, we didn't have time to fool around much. We just went and took it. Took it? I repeated, bewildered. Yes, didn't you say they had it over at the other newspaper office? Well, we took it. mean you took Miss Jackson's manuscript? Stole it from her and printed what she wrote on my page?

And she hasn't got it in her own paper at all? No, Miss Jackson's got it in her paper, and what's on your page isn't written like hers a bit. But the facts are all there. That was all the information I was ever able to obtain from the chivalrous young Southern gentlemen who had come to my assistance and kept me from getting scooped. I was never led into the secret, but I have always been of the opinion that they had in some way made a raid on the composing room of the rival paper, got their information by word of mouth from one of the printers who suspected nothing, and thus saved me from what I would have felt was disgrace. As I have said, I am not sure just how we fellows did it, but if, as I suspect, they used some method which might have

been the least little bit underhanded, I hope the recording angel has neglected to note down in his book that part of the proceeding. There were no hard and fast rules laid down for me as regarded office hours. I was told that I might come and go as I liked so long as my work was done in time. Such privileges in a newspaper office have a tendency to spoil a woman, and I was no exception to the rule. Once, when I had got my report of a certain woman's meeting, which I was to write up, I stopped in at a theater instead of returning directly to the office, with the result that my copy was very late in reaching the city editor's desk, and the first edition of the paper was late in coming out. Now, that city editor was a hustling northern man, and straightway he went to the

managing editor with the suggestion that I be admonished to work first and play afterwards. Over the partition came the sound of his indignant voice, saying, In some ways, she ought to be treated the same as the men. Now don't you think so? Whereat the Dowdy Colonel replied, See here, I wasn't the one who started this female journalism racket on this paper. I never approved of having a woman on the paper, but the rest of you wanted a woman, as you said to do woman's work, and now you've got her, I guess you'll have to put up with any little fads and fancies and shortcomings she may have. I never knew of a newspaper office

that wasn't upset with a solitary woman in it. Where they keep a couple of dozen, as they do in Chicago and New York, it's different, but one woman's bound to get spoiled in an office of men. The next day I said to the colonel, I couldn't help overhear. I couldn't help overhear. hearing what you in the city editor said yesterday. Hereafter, you are to treat me just like a man, else I'll resign. All right, so be it, was his laconic reply. A day or two afterwards, when a thunderstorm was raging and I had crawled under my desk for safety from the lightning, I was bidden to the managing editor's office. There sat that chivalrous southern gentleman on the only chair in the room, his hat on the back of his head, a cigar in his mouth, his feet on the table.

I want you to go out at once and report that three o'clock meeting at the Methodist Church. He said, without so much as removing his cigar or lowering his feet. But how can I? I objected. It's thundering and the rain is like a torrent. Why can't one of the men go? Because I tell you to go, was his answer. I stood speechless in my surprise, for I was his subordinate and he was my chief. "'How do you like it being treated like a man?' he suddenly asked, a grim smile illuminating his face. "'I don't like it at all,' I confessed. "'I thought you wouldn't. Now you may go to your corner and get under your desk until the thunder stops.

I suppose we shall have to put up with that along with your other fads and fancies. I'll send one of the men to do this women's temperance meeting, though, as you know, he added half-banteringly, it's a part of your regular work to attend to the women's meetings. So I was restored to my former happy state of mind, but the incident taught me a lesson. I had conscience enough to know that the city editor was right in his suggestion that work should come before play, and I was never again late with my copy. When material from my woman's page was scarce, I begged the city editor, who was one of the most enterprising of journalists, to put me on to other and broader kinds of work, so that I might

be able to deal with subjects other than those of interest to women only. I was frequently asked to do specials for the news department, such as the writing up of political meetings, and then I was sometimes sent over to Washington for a day to take a look at the lawmakers of my country and examine into their ways. I began to do interviewing, and thus I got just a little peep into the wide, wide world of journalism. That peep was the beginning of ambitions, and also the beginning of sorrows. When I ceased to be merely the editor of the woman's page, and started to become what might be fitly described as a general in newspaper work, my experience was very like that of a girl who suddenly goes out from the shelter of home and into the world to

fight her own battles. Up to then, the angels, into whose charge I had been committed a way out in Wisconsin, had always seemed to be about and around me to help me over the stones. Now I elected to walk alone. One day a stranger entered the office, and seeing me in my corner, said, "'Ah, I see you've got a lady editor in your office.' "'Well, yes,' responded the city editor. "'But besides being the lady editor, "'she's one of the best all-round reporters I've got on my staff.' "'It would not have been half an hour after making that remark

"'that the city editor came over to me "'with the air of having an important commission for me. "'I've got a fine thing for you,' said he, "'if you can pull it off.' Then he explained that a certain well-known actress, who had appeared in a play the night before at one of the theaters, had suddenly forgotten her part, put her hand to her head, and gone off the stage as though in a dream. The play was almost brought to a standstill, but her understudy had managed to take her place till the fall of the curtain. It was thought the actress was intoxicated.

In former days she had been an American society beauty and had got stage struck, and when she had given up her home for the footlights, a very disagreeable scandal had followed her. Now, continued the city editor, I've sent four different men to see that woman today, trying to get her version of last night's affair on the stage, but she sends down word she's ill and confined to her room and unable to see anyone. but I believe she'd see you because you're a woman and can go right up to her room. Go and interview her. It'll be a great story and will even scoop the New York papers. Find out if she was drunk last night. Find out everything you can from her. Make a big special of it. You can have all the space you want. If you manage it, well, I'll just say you won't be sorry you tried to please me. In 15 minutes I made my way to the hotel where the actress was stopping, sent up my card, and was admitted to her room. So beautiful had been the pictures I had seen of this woman that the wan, thin face, actually ugly from dissipation, that looked up at me from among the pillows, gave me a most unpleasant start. I'm glad a woman has come to me at last, she said as she tossed her head from side to side to side. I'm in disgrace, alone, forsaken even by my own parents. I've made a mess of my life. Listen,

and I'll tell you how I did it, and about last night at the theater, too. Then, without my so much as having asked her a single question, the woman poured into my astonished ears, a story of such pathos and such horror as made me start back and cry, hush, hush, don't talk to me anymore. You will be sorry tomorrow, but then it will be too late. No, I shall not be sorry, she exclaimed. I must talk, or I shall lose my reason. I must tell someone of my troubles. Your face does not look hard and cold.

Though you are a stranger, something tells me you will be my friend. I am a newspaper reporter, I said simply. You knew it from my card, and I told you I had come from a newspaper as soon as I got to your room. The woman rose up on her elbows. Her hair lay scattered over the pillows, and with her bloodshot eyes gazing intently into my face and clutching my hands tightly in her own, she exclaimed, "'Yes, yes, I knew you were a reporter, but you are also a woman, and I know you will not write a word of what I have told you. I have told you my story in confidence, and you will keep it.'

"'No, no, not that, not in confidence,' I cried, trying to snatch my hands from her grasp. "'You have talked not to me but to my paper. Oh, you knew it, you knew it. I must print it. I am helpless to keep it out. Why, I'm a woman with a living to earn. I have no one in all the world but myself to depend on. I must do what my editor tells me. He has sent me to get an interview with you, and you have given it to me. I owe a duty to him, to my paper. It would be cheating to hold it back. As I stood there by that bed, the woman's eyes burned into me, her nails dug into the palms of my hands as she tightened her grasp. She had told me of her own free will a story for my newspaper, a story for other newspapers, a plot for a novel, and now, she said, I have told you in confidence,

and you will keep it. I thought of my city editor waiting at the office for my return. I could see him smile the, well done, good and faithful servant, smile upon me, when I should walk in and stop at his desk to say, yes, I've got a great story from her. She talked and told me everything. This woman who clutched my wrists so hard and said to me, you will keep it. Who was she that she should cheat me out of what was mine, should block the way to my future success, should hinder me in the beginning of my career. Let me go, let me go, I exclaimed. You talked to a reporter, knowing she was a reporter. Now take the consequences. I made another effort and got my hands free from her, while she sank exhausted on the bed. I must go now, I continued. I am sorry I cannot see things the way you seem to

to see them. I am a working woman with a hard struggle before me. When my editor tells me to do a thing, I have no choice but to obey. The world is very hard on women. I am sorry for you. I was turning the handle of the door. Come back, just one minute, said the actress. I will not touch you. I won't take your hands again. I went back to the bed and stood looking at her. You said just now that the world was hard on women, so it is, and women are also very hard on women. I've had more experience than you have had. I know the world. Let me tell you that very seldom has a woman gone to destruction, but another woman has had a hand in sending her there. By printing what I have said to you this afternoon, you will ruin me. You are ruined already, I said doggedly. I said, doggedly.

I cannot hurt you. You will send me to hell and others with me. You will make my name a byword in the gutters. By again making a public character of me, you will bring renewed shame to my parents. You will make my little sister, who has all her beautiful life before her, hang her head in the presence of all her companions.

I say you will do this. I mean that you can do it. Are you going to do it? Tell me, are you going to do it? I will not do it, I said. My hands fell limply at my side. I will not print a word you have told me, I promise. You have promised.

Oh, you have promised! She exclaimed, will you promise me something else? Perhaps, I answered. I was crying and I was not a journalist. I was only a woman. Promise me that, in your work, as long as you live, you will never try to get fame or money by writing things that will hurt women like me. Promise that you will never in any way, for the sake of your own success,

tread on another woman and try to crush her. I promise, I answered. Then I slipped out and closed the door. Once outside the stifling air of the room and away from the woman's presence, a strange, unaccountable feeling of terror took possession of me. I seemed by my promises to have bound myself in chains, and when I reached the street, I gave myself a shake under the impression that perhaps the fresh air and the blue sky and the sunlight would make them drop from me, but the chains still seemed to bind me. What had I done?

I had entered into a compact, which at that moment it seemed to me would be a mortgage on my whole future life. I had promised always to refrain from writing anything that would hurt women like the one I had been talking to. I had promised never to crush any other woman in my climbing of the ladder to success or happiness. Again, I shook myself, but the chains still clung, and thinking that I could hear them clatter as I walked along the street, I returned to the office. I passed by the city editor's desk. Hello, it took a long time, he exclaimed. Did she talk?

Yes, I answered. She talked a great deal, but I promised her I would not write a word she said. He jumped from his chair, a surprised light in his eyes. You promised, what do you mean? Have you the story, the story I sent you after? And do you say you will not write it? That's it, yes, I answered. She forgot I was a reporter and told me everything, and then I promised I would not write it. His face grew red, then white. He was angry, but he made a tremendous effort to control himself.

If you were a man, he said quietly, I would dismiss you from the staff instantly for rank disregard of the interests of your paper. as you are a woman, I will say that you have not the journalistic instinct. You will never be able to do big things in journalism. You can edit your own page, but you'll never be a really successful journalist. The fact is, you're all woman and no journalist. I remained on the Southern paper for some time after that and attended conscientiously to my woman's page. The city editor grew friendly again, but he gave me no more special features to do, for special features could only be worked up by real live journalists, as he frequently explained to me. One day I went into the managing editor's room and said to him, I am going to London. The colonel looked up from the editorial he was writing,

You will starve in London, he said. Then I came to London. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5 In London Town. My Arrival, My Dog, My Flat, and Dinah. I arrived in London with $400, my typewriter, and my dog. I have not referred to my dog before, because it did not seem

necessary, but now he must take his proper place, which is a large one, in my reminiscences, for I cannot even begin to tell about the flat and dinah, unless I first tell about Judge, for it was on his account that I took them both. He and I became great friends and pals sometime before I came to London. He came to me on a very dark night to keep me from getting too lonely and thinking too much about myself. Indeed, to save me from myself. Judge is a beautiful black French poodle, not of the stringy variety,

but covered with silky curls, and he is nearly as large as a Newfoundland. In the winter he goes unshaven, but in the summer I have him clipped to keep him from suffering with the heat. He usually wears a necktie of blue or pink or yellow. He is even more clever than the majority of French poodles are known to be,

and he is a dog of some literary ability, and knows the difference between the various London newspapers. If I have left the Star and the Times on a chair or the floor together, I have only to say, Judge, go and bring me the Times, and he brings it. Or if I want the Star, I have but to tell him so, and he brings that. Some of my friends, however, insist he distinguishes only on account of the difference in weight. It was very expensive for me to bring Judge to London and to keep him here for the first few days. He occupied the same state room with me on the ship, and I got an extra steamer chair for him on deck. All this was, of course, against the rules and regulations of the ship, but there is no law or rule in existence that I would not break for Judge's sweet sake.

On the ship, I kept Judge covered with an Astrakhan cape that the officer's pay. me, and when they took a notion to come over and talk with me, though I always was in terror of the cape getting too animated, I gave them my best smiles and compliments. Once, when the captain made a remark about none being so blind as those who would not see, I found myself wondering if this stolid, almost gruff-looking sea-captain, was a typical middle-aged Englishman, so susceptible to smiles and flattery and so thoroughly manageable was he. Without definitely committing myself right there, I will say that after a larger and longer experience than I then had of Englishmen, he was not exactly what I would call untypical. The English ship servants were also very manageable and

blind, the effect of a mixture of smiles and six pences. So were the railway guards of the train that brought me up to London. So were they at the hotel, the very, very expensive hotel where the cabman took me. We don't allow dogs, said the manager. No, I know you don't, I answered. But from my experience on an English ship and an English railway, I find you have a perfectly delightful system over here of making all sorts of rules and regulations, and then not seeing the people who break them. I must say, I do think Englishmen are very nice and kind to American women traveling in their country. Now, how much would you charge a day for not seeing my dog if I'm very careful of him and don't allow anybody to be troubled with him? I shall eat all my meals in my own room and take him out wherever I go.

We really don't want dogs. We don't allow them, but we will charge 15 shillings extra a day not to see your dog. Oh, judge, judge, I cried when we had got up to our room. $400 in our inside pocket and 15 shillings a day for you to say nothing about me and my expenses. We can't stand this more than three days at the most, do you hear? The first thing tomorrow morning, we must go out and take a walk and see what turns up. So in the morning we both went out for a walk in Regent Street, and something did turn up. It was Dinah. After Dinah came the flat, and after that the deluge. But that does not belong to this chapter.

Judge was wearing a necktie of American flag ribbon. Oh my, you niggad dog, and from Merricky I do, Claire. Come here, honey, and let old Dinah pat your head. I felt a jerk of the chain by which I held judge, and looking, beheld there in Regent Street, the United States of America, in the shape of a stout, middle-aged Negro woman, showering pats and endearments onto the head of my dog. "'Excuse me, ma'am, but I knowed he was from my country by de Ribbonbow, and so's yo, ain't you, honey?' "'Yes, I am,' I answered,

"'and I'd know you were from there, too. How in the world did you get here? It's not a question of how I come, but how eyes to get away from here. If I could only get back to old Baltimore, I'd never ask anything again of de good Lord. I'm Dinahmore from Baltimore, ma'am. Now, though I had myself once lived in Baltimore, I had never the pleasure of Dinah Moore's acquaintance, but I found she had done washing for people I knew, so I considered her properly introduced to me. I wanted a place where Judge could take a run without his chain and get a taste of London grass, and Dinah conducted me back to Piccadilly and then to Hyde Park, where we both sat down while Judge joyously kicked up his heels. Dinah told me all about herself. It seemed she had

come to London a few months before with an American lady, in whose family she had once been a servant. The lady had taken a small flat, furnished it, and set up housekeeping with Dinah as made of all work. Now the lady was ill and poor. She wanted to get rid of her flat and the furniture and go to Germany to some relations. If she could sublet the flat and sell the furniture, she could pay Dinah's wages and her second-class passage back to America, since she could not take her to Germany with her. But, as Dinah said, she didn't seem to have no luck. Is it very expensive? I asked. No, ma'am, answered Dinah.

I reckon Miss Saxon had sell de furniture for $150, and a flat rents for what day calls 60 pounds a year, and I hear her say you don't have to keep it on more than six months longer. I made a quick calculation. I could rent a flat for about $6 a week. It seemed very cheap to me compared even with what I was paying for judges' right to exist in London. Dinah Moore, I said,

You're a stranger to me, and I'm one to you. We are both from the same country, and we must take each other on trust. I'll buy that furniture and hire that flat if you'll live with me and do my work and take the very best care of my dog. I'm a poor American girl, and it'll take nearly half of all the money I have. have in the world to buy the furniture, but I've got to have a home and live as cheaply as possible,

especially till I can get some work to do over here. Now, will you come for, say, $2 a week wages? Yes, I'll come, ma'am. So the bargain was struck there in the park, and in a few days, Judge and I moved into the flat. We made the place look as home-like as possible, using an American flag for a couch cover and hanging a picture of George Washington over the mantelpiece. With Dinah to keep Judge Company while I was out, I was able to go about by myself to see the Tower, St. Paul's, Madame Tussauds, Westminster Abbey,

and then I thought I knew all about England. I described my first impressions for American papers, and in that way earned enough money to keep the flat going. Dinah and I lived together in perfect harmony. For name, she elected to call me Miss Polly, after having seen and admired my pen name in an American paper. She would do anything in the world for me except to put on a cap. I bought her one with long, wide streamers, such as I had seen the London servants wear. I begged her only to try it on, but she refused on the ground that it was both unbecoming and un-American. Dina, even after living in England ten months, was the most

American-American I ever knew. She never hesitated to air her hatred of England and its backwardness to the tradespeople and the boys who delivered goods at the flat, they being the only people outside the family with whom she had opportunity to talk. So things went on till Christmas, that either of us had ever spent in England. The day after Christmas, I went on top of an omnibus and remained out nearly all day, getting notes for a special American letter I was writing. When I returned, late in the afternoon, I knew something had happened. Dinah and Judge were in a terrific state of excitement. There were sounds of growling and barking from Judge, and whenever there was a lull in them,

Dinah would clap her hands and say, Sick em, darling, sick them and skier them off. I burst into the flat with my latch key and tumbled over Dinah's trunk, all strapped, as if ready for traveling. Dinah, Dinah, what's the matter? Whose trunk is this? Why are you making Judge Bark?

We'll be put out of the flat. I exclaimed, as I picked myself up off the floor. Dinah appeared with her sleeves rolled up, her red bandana cap tilted to one side, her big black eyes showing fire. "'Madda, madda!' she returned, stamping her foot on the carpet. "'Eyes going back to Merrikey diswary day. "'I never did believe in monarchical governments. "'I never did prove of this year country, as I have often told you, Miss Polly.

"'But now I's had enough, yes, plenty enough, and I done wash my hands up at all.' "'But what is it? What's happened?' I asked, bewildered. "'What's happened? Why, I's been insulted, and I never was used to it. I'm accused of keeping people's things what don't belong to me, and I ain't going to stand it no how.' "'Oh, Dinah, you must be crazy, for I never accused you of anything.' "'No, not you, Miss Polly. It's other people what's been coming here this afternoon.' "'Now, Dinah,' said I firmly, "'if you are not crazy, tell me what you mean.

"'Who's been here? "'Who's accused you, and what did they accuse you of?' "'Dina got out her handkerchief, "'and fanning herself with it began. "'Well, Miss Polly, soon as you left this morning, "'de-doux sounded wild, derat, "'which means de postman. "'I opens de Doe, and he says,

"'Kinder saucy, "'has yo got my car.' Christmas box? Why, no, I says, I hasn't got it. How should I have it? I didn't know as we carries on an express office in disheer flat. I reckon you'll be off your base. Then says he, I specks your missus has got it. Is she in? No, she ain't in, I says, and she ain't got no box of yorn, neither, says I. Then as I slammed de-do on him, he just grinned and loud he'd stop begin this evening or tomorrow morning, because he knowed you had it. Then, Miss Polly, he hadn't been gone so much as ten minutes, when I see de baker's boy, and I ask what, for he come so late

with the bread. I didn't bring no bread, says he, I came for my Christmas box. I was dat mad, thinking de postman had sent him round to bother me, that I give him one hard slap on the face he'll remember a while, and pushed him out de dough before I thought what I was doing. Well, honey, in about half an hour, the laundryman came and says, ain't yo got my Christmas box? Says I, no, I ain't go long with ye. Did that double of a postman send you here too? That's the way I answered him, and I told him not to dare to show his ugly face here again for our washing work. The last thing I heard as he went away is that he'd foam you a little. my behavior. And he wasn't the last of them imps. The milkman and the paper boy was both here

saying, has you got my Christmas box? And a man which say he was licensed to sweep the street come, too, asking me to give him his box. And the first thing I knows, if I stays here, I'll be in a courthouse and arrested for something I never done, so I's going home, and if you knows what's safe, you'll come to, Miss Polly. Before I had time, to collect my senses and come to any reasonable comprehension of Dinah's remarkable tale, a double rat tat at the door was heard, and she started off to get what I supposed might be a telegram clearing up the mystery. I heard the word box, and then came the sound of Dinah's voice. Yo, impotn't it, rascal! What you mean coming here insulting me and my missus? Does I look like

a forwarding agency, carrying on a Christmas box business? Is we delegate, to run an express office? The only box eyes got for you is a box on de ears. I rushed to the hall to find a little telegraph boy in the arms of Dinah getting such a shaking as he must have remembered for a long time. Ere I could interpose, she had pushed him out, banged the door after him, and gone back to the kitchen, using such a string of negro epithets as I never heard before. What it was all about, I could not.

understand. I knew nothing more about the boxes than did Dinah. At first, I thought that perhaps an express company had once occupied the flat, and then I concluded that someone was playing a practical joke on poor old Dinah. Then the knocker sounded again, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I prevailed upon Dinah to go to the door. Immediately there came a blood-curdling cry, and Dinah tumbled back into the sitting-room screaming. oh lord it's the policeman miss polly says he's after dat box they'll put us in one o dem prisons when wee's innocent like mrs maybrick cause wee's mericans by this time i too was thoroughly frightened even with all my consciousness of innocence but thinking it well to be as calm as possible in an emergency i marched bravely into the hall with judge following me the policeman from the corner the one who had always been so polite to me and judge, who held up his hand many times a day to keep me from getting run over by the traffic, stood there, half smiling, half embarrassed.

I have called for a Christmas box, please, Miss, or rather you know about the policeman's ball? You see, miss. No, I don't see, I interrupted. We haven't got anybody's box, nor anybody's ball, either. My servant says a dozen persons have been calling here this afternoon, afternoon, asking about some box they said we had. Will you please clear up this mystery for me? Why, miss, didn't you know this was Boxing Day? asked the policeman. Boxing Day? I repeated. I never heard of such a day. Is it a day similar to our April Fool Day? I felt suddenly enlightened. Yes, the day after Christmas was England's silly day when practical jokes were played on people. especially unsuspecting and uninitiated Americans. But the policeman further enlightened me,

explaining the full meaning of boxing day, the reason of poor Dinah's misunderstanding, and he also told me that he had some tickets for a policeman's ball that he would leave with me to be paid for when I had the change handy. Then he departed, and I went to the kitchen to explain to Dinah the reason for the strange happenings of the day. She unpacked her trunk, meanwhile expressing her opinion of English as spoken in England. If they wants money, why doesn't they say so? Or why doesn't they say they wants a present?

How is I to know a Christmas box means a shillin'er fivepence? In Merricky, a Christmas box is a box which comes by Express. It ain't money no-how, and there's nothing but beggas to ask for presents. In Merricky, these white trash is given a dollar a so on New Year's Day when they comes about regular business, and they don't need to ask. But here, they takes time by to Follock and fly to do. It's the first time I ever see anybody hurry in this country. My, day does rush when they wants a Christmas box, show enough. After the Boxing Day episode, we again settled down in tranquility for a while, and I thought I would try to write for the English papers. I could see no reason why I should not do my humble part towards lightning the burden they seemed to be carrying. I bought a lot of London newspapers, and in Dinah's vernacular, I hefted them one by one. Then I tossed off a light and airy production on my typewriter, and selecting the heaviest paper, sent there my maiden effort. Two days later it appeared in print, and short a little

Shortly afterwards, I got a check for three guineas. I did not know, as I do now, that in that editorial stronghold, the very audacity of an American girl in daring to attack it, had so amused the editors that they decided to let me in. That first success gave me an unlimited amount of confidence. I proceeded to call on many of the London editors. I had a sort of triumphal progress from one office to another. Not a single editor refused to see me. I was very much surprised to find them all so pleasant and chatty. I thought them much nicer than any American editors I had ever met. They all shook hands with me in the most friendly fashion, and one of them accepted a subject right off when I told him some of my ideas for articles. At first I was rather taken aback when on my

saying, Good morning, I'd like to do some work for you. You see, I'm an American. Each individual editor laughed very heartily while shaking hands with me, but I got accustomed to that habit of theirs, and it was not till a long time afterwards that I suspected why they had laughed when I said, You see, I am an American. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth Al Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 6. When I Began to Starve in London I have a conscientious objection to fulfilling people's prophecies about myself when they take it upon themselves to foretell unpleasant happenings. When I was a freckled-faced, red-headed little girl in

Wisconsin, one of our neighbors, a Methodist deacon, calling it my home and witnessing an exhibition of the fact that I had a temper to correspond with my hair, put his hand upon my fiery locks, and said portentously, this child will come to some bad end. That's a story lie, I retorted hotly, shaking my mane free from his hand, and eyeing him defiantly. I won't, I won't! I have a very keen and lively recollection of the shock and commotion which thereupon ensued upon my showing such behavior before company of the early supper that was hastily provided for me of being escorted to bed ere the sun had gone down and how i added a rider to my evening prayer

god bless me and make me a good girl i prayed fervently just to spite old deacon jones when i had lived in london several months, I woke up one summer morning with another prophecy that had been made concerning me ringing in my ears. You will starve in London. It was the half-pitying, half-threatening prophecy made by the colonel when, less than a year before I had walked into the managing editor's office and suddenly informed him that I was going to London. I had just two pence and a half-penny that morning when I so vividly recalled the colonel's prophecy. It was all the money I had in the world, and I could see no prospect of getting any more. How I finally got down to a beggarly tuppence-haepenny would make too long a story. Suffice it to say that, doing the best I could, I had spent what money I had

brought with me and all that I had earned, and had mortgaged the furniture of the flat besides, and that every day I was having a headache, the kind of headache that comes from irregularity in the matter of meals. Then on that particular morning, I suddenly remembered that it had been prophesied I would starve in London. So while I brushed my hair that had grown darker to match the temper that had become calmer during the years that had started me out in life with a very good weapon against its pitfalls, I determined that it should fare with the prophecy of my dear, friend the colonel as it had fared with that of my old-time enemy the deacon. And as I looked at myself in the mirror of the mortgaged dressing-table, I exclaimed, that too shall be a lie. I will not starve in

London. The sun came streaming through my bedroom window with its pretty white dimity curtains tied back with blue ribbons. There, on an easy chair, sunning himself, watching the people and traffic in the street below, sat Judge, my dog, a golden crown of light upon his shaggy head, a highly polished silver collar round his neck, topped by a huge bow of yellow ribbon. On a chair beside him lay the half of a puppy biscuit. On the floor, with towel for tablecloth, were a saucer of milk and a bone, with gristle and meat on both ends of it, by which signs I knew that Judge had eaten what breakfast he wanted, was not hungry. I thanked God for that. If I had ever suspected judge of being hungry,

I would have been capable of going into the street and knocking down any little butcher's boy who refused peaceably to deliver up to me the contents of his wooden meat trough. Or, failing that, I might have attempted to forge a check, or have committed any other crime which seemed to promise something for Judge to eat. About 10 o'clock that morning I put on my hat, and fastening Judge's chain to his collar, I called out to Dinah, Goodbye, Dina, Judge and I are going out for a walk. As I went out the flat door, there came from the kitchen, sounds of the scrubbing and scouring of tins, and Dinah's singing, in her sweet, melodious voice, an old-time darky camp-meeting tune. Oh, to judgment day am rolling round, rolling, yes, a rolling. I hear the trumpets awful sound,

rolling, yes, a rolling. Oh, some seeks to load, but they don't seek him right. Rolling, yes, rolling. They prays in de daytime, but not in de night. "'Rollin, yes, rolling. "'I laughed as I shut the door upon Dinah and her ecstasy. "'I had managed my experience of hard-upedness "'very well indeed so far, "'and had tactfully kept the state of my finances from Dinah. "'How I was to continue the deception longer, I did not know,

"'but I had an abiding faith that there must be some way. "'Which way, Judge?' "'I said to my dog, when we had gone, got outside the building. I had then, as I have now, a fancy for holding onto Judge's chain and letting him lead me at his will. Judge headed towards the houses of Parliament, and I followed. Then he turned towards Westminster Bridge, and finally we crossed it. Then we wandered among the streets of Camberwell, where children were playing in front of the small houses. Judge, in all his beauty and splendor attracted the attention of a group of tiny tots who immediately gathered round us.

I was dressed rather well and stylishly on that occasion, and my appearance did not betray my poverty-stricken condition. To these children, Judge and I were quality folk from the West End, walking about Camberwell to gratify our curiosity concerning the doings of the East End folk. One little girl, pretty, though ragged and dirty, interested me greatly. I asked her name and where she lived, and found that her home was in a lodging house with an older sister who did sewing. If you ever want any sewing done, lady, the plain kind, me sister'll do it for ye, said the child. How much money can your sister earn by sewing, I asked.

About one in sixpence every day. Return the child. I was about to walk on when Judge, hearing me say goodbye, automatically put out his right paw to the child to shake, whereupon she seized it, exclaiming, Oh, lady, please let me show your dog to me, sister. She ain't never seen no such animal, and he's so cunning. So to please the child, Judge and I climbed up several flights of stairs

and into a room where I saw poverty of a different kind from that which I myself was experiencing, different from any that I had ever seen before. A girl of perhaps 22 or 23 sat sewing, and rose to meet her little sister with an exclamation of horror as she saw her visitors. It was a rather absurd situation, and the humorous aspect of it appealed to me. I had been dragged up those stairs by a ragged little London girl to be shown off to her sister as a rich West End lady with a beautiful dog to amuse a tired working girl. I, with Tuppin's heypenny, confronting the problem of how to keep from starving in London. The sewing girl dusted off a chair with her apron, bidding me to be seated. The little sister begged that I would make my dog do tricks for Sister Molly. Our little sister tells me you do sewing, I said, for the sake of starting conversation. She says you earn only one in sixpence a day. Can't you engage in some employment that pays better? It seems so little. I stopped suddenly, and in a half-dazed way, remembered that I myself was not

earning one in sixpence a day. No, miss, I can't do anything else, answered the girl. There's domestic service, I said, innocent. just why I happened to think of domestic service in connection with the girl I do not know. I talked only for the sake of saying something. I took no particular interest in her, but her face blazed up at the mention of domestic service, and then and there she gave me to understand that she was no menial. She would rather sew and have her liberty, she said, than be a servant and have none, and as for caps and aprons, Did I expect a self-respecting girl to put them on? After that I had nothing to say, and bidding her a hasty good morning, Judge and I descended the creaking stairs. When I got out in the open air, the humorous side of the thing again appealed to me, I, to suggest to others, a way of earning their living,

when I was in such difficulty concerning my own. Now, I thought, if I were that girl instead of myself, I would have an easier time of it. The thing for her to do is to become a housemaid. Why, if I were a sewing girl, earning only 18 pence a day, I'd jump at the chance of being a servant, and—' Then I did jump as though I were struck. I was struck, struck with an idea. Judge and I had been walking back from Camberwell the way we had gone, and again we were on the edge of Westminster Bridge. I went over to the railing and looked down at Father Thames. Then I stooped down lovingly to pat the head of my pedigreed poodle. He it was, who had led me in the way of that idea, which was to prevent my

fulfilling the colonel's prophecy that I would starve in London. Judge, I said, looking him full in the eyes, and taking his paw there on Westminster Bridge, I'll go out as a housemaid and write it up for the papers, and so I shall get my start in London. and there are better times ahead. And it's your idea, Judge, not mine, for you led me into the way of it. I mustn't put it in the papers just how the thing came about, how I determined I wouldn't fulfill the colonel's prophecy, and how my dear doggy was commissioned to save me. We can't put it in print just like that yet, old fellow, but one of these days, yes, one of these days, my dog story shall be written. Ha ha, Judge, we've got it, haven't we? The idea!

London's got to give us a living, a decent, comfortable, satisfying one. It's got to give us three square meals a day and afternoon tea besides. It's got to give me hats and dresses and theater tickets. And you, great wide, all silk ribbons for neckties. It's got to give us rides in handsoms, eh, Judge? And once in a while a drive in the park in a Victoria. You'll like that, Judge, and so will I. Why, Judge, you and I are young, and we love the follies and vanities of the world, and we're going to have some of them. Why shouldn't we if we earn them?

We are going to work for Old London honestly and honorably, and Old London has got to pay us our wages. I released Judge's paw. He wagged his tail in agreement with me, and trotted along beside me on the bridge. When we were nearly across it, I thought I would take a final look at Father Thames, and a sudden inspiration seized me. Father Thames, I said, leaning far over to look into his very depths. Here's tuppin's hey penny for you. With it, I'm what they call broke. Without it, I'll be penniless and dead broke, and as I'm taking a new start in life today, I think I'll start even. Here's to your next century's scraping Father Thames and treasure trove to the monarch then on the English throne.

With that I flung all my financial resources into the Thames, taking defiant aim three times in succession. One penny dropped upon the water, then another, then a half penny. Holding tight to judge, I left Westminster Bridge, a dead broke American girl in London, and when I opened the flat door with my latch key, I called out, Dinah, come and take, Judge. He must be hungry by this time, so give him the bone and the milk he left from breakfast.

And, oh, Dinah, I've had an accident. I was standing on Westminster Bridge, looking into the water, and I dropped all my money into the river. Have you got any money left from your last month's wages, Dinah? Oh, Miss Polly, I've done got seven shillins, and I ain't got no use for it, and I can lend it to you and welcome. But, oh, Miss Polly, you done drop all de money you have into de river? Did you take it all out when you left de flat?

Yes, Dinah, I took every penny out with me, and I dropped it all into the river. I answered, turning my own eyes, in which shone the light of truth, to her affrighted ones. But don't worry, Dinah, there's always something to be thankful, for. If the amount had been larger, it would have been worse, you see, though perhaps if there had been more of it, I wouldn't have dropped it. Anyway, I've got to go right out again to a newspaper office. You can use your seven shillings to buy stores for the kitchen, and I'll pay you back in a day or two. Yes, Miss Polly, but oh, Miss Polly, about all the misfortunes that happened to us, it am de where we wist for you to drop your money into de ribber.

but I was off, leaving Dinah to make her lamentations to herself and judge, who, I was thankful to remember, could not talk English, and tell her the truth about the exact amount of the money I had dropped into the river, and the particular method I took to drop it. I did not borrow bus fare from Dinah because it suited my whim to start even and dead broke with that idea of mine. So I walked to Fleet Street, then turned into White Friar Street, and with another turn went into the office of a newspaper that had published three short articles of mine at the rate of a pound apiece. I found one of the assistants and asked to see the editor-in-chief. He can't see you, I know, was the answer. Why, he's writing four articles this very

minute. He can't write four articles at once. Even an American editor couldn't do that, I retorted. But he can, and he's the only man in London that can do it. He's dictating one article to a young woman typist, another to a young man typist, another to a telegraph operator, and the fourth one he's writing himself. Dear me, I replied, if he's a man of so many ideas, perhaps, after all, he wouldn't pay any attention to me, for I'm only a woman with one idea. I wanted to tell him about it. I know it's a good one. What is it? Tell me. I'm acting editor. And if it's anything important, I'll lay it out before him and give you an answer. My idea is to go out as a servant and write up my experiences

as a serial for your paper. Everybody is interested in the servant question. Lots of people want servants and can't get them, and lots of girls are starving in London. Now, I propose to advertise and get a situation, and then write my true experiences, without giving any names or addresses, of course, and tell whether or not, in my opinion, it would be a suitable employment for gentle women as well as working girls. Now, shall I go out as a servant of your paper? What, you? Why, you couldn't get a place?

to begin with, and if you did, you couldn't do the work. Your idea is not practicable. Well, I'm going anyway, I answered. Going where? Going out to service, and going to write my experiences. And if you don't want it, I'll find some other editor who does. As a matter of fact, I intend to find such an editor this afternoon. Wait a minute, will you? He said, as he left the room. He returned in about ten minutes. I've talked your matter over with the editor-in-chief, and he thinks the idea all right, but says you can't do it. He agrees with me that it would make interesting copy if you could do it, but you couldn't get a place. But if I get a place and write the cereal for you, say in six installments of two columns each, how much will it be worth?

but we can't guarantee to take things we've never seen and you've never written. No, that would be unbusiness-like, I confess, I returned. But let me put it to you this way. If I get a place as domestic servant in London or in the country near London and write up my experiences and you like them and think them suitable for your paper, how much would you pay me? Twenty pounds. All right, I'll do it.

You won't hear from me again till I'm somebody's parlor-maid or house-maid. I'll write to you from my situation and tell you how I'm getting on. So the bargain, if bargain it could be termed, was sealed. Twenty pounds seemed a large sum of money to me in those days, especially when I multiplied it by five and thought of it as $100. That evening at the flat, I summed up the situation thus. I have found a newspaper editor who says that if I can do a thing which he knows I can't do, and then write a series about it in such a way as shall please him,

he will publish it and pay me 20 pounds. To do the thing I must have enough money to live on for at least a month, and must have cash at once for advertising, buying caps and ribbons, print dress, black dress, collars and cuffs. There is no money in the flat, but enough food. on hand, bought with Dinah's money, to last three or four days, if used very economically. Puzzle, how to get some cash. Then I went to bed with the unsolved puzzle on my mind, and the next morning I knew what I must do,

sell my typewriter. The furniture was mortgaged, the old tin pan which was called a piano, was hired, but the typewriter was my own. I had brought it with me to London as a necessary adjunct to my proposed newspaper work. I had grown to love my machine. To me, it was not an inanimate, but a sentient, living thing. I had dealt tenderly and carefully by it, had oiled and dusted and polished it every morning, and at nighttime had sometimes lovingly patted it when it had earned for me a $5 bill or a sovereign. When I knew I must sell it, small wonder that I cried over its keyboard. Then, when I had cried, I washed my face, donned my hat, and went out and made a bargain, selling the thing for twelve pounds, though it was as bright and

capable as when I had bought it for twenty. I sent a man to look at it, and he bought it and took it away. Then I was rich, that is, passing rich with twelve pounds. I paid Dinah what I owed her, and went out again and negotiated for another typewriter to be bought on the installment plan, paying three pounds down and signing an agreement to pay two pounds a month afterwards. When I had got through with this somewhat peculiar sort of business transaction, I sat down and admired my own cleverness. I remembered my difficulties at the seminary with even the simplest of mathematical problems, and the prophecy of my teachers that whatever else I might do,

I would never become a good businesswoman. Here again was a prophecy unfulfilled. How little did these instructors know of my capabilities in a business way when the emergency should arise. I woke up that morning without a penny, though I had a typewriter. I went to bed, the proud possessor of another typewriter, just as good, and nearly nine pounds. What a deal to be sure. In the morning, a typewriter and no money, then money and no typewriter, and then money and typewriter both. Given my circumstances, who could have done better than I? Boyant and full of hope and faith that evening, I sat at the old tin pan and played and sang gleefully, while Judge danced about the room with his ruffled pause. Dina hesitated over the laying of the supper table and looked at the new typewriter

over in the corner. Dun got machine fixed very quick for this country, which am all is mighty slow, didn't dame Miss Polly, she observed. Yes, Dina, I answered. It was done in something of a hurry, and I got some money today, and things are looking up. Glad a dat, returned Dina, bustling back to the kitchen. She was under the impression that I had sent the machine out to be repaired and had got it back. I found that a very easy and plausible explanation to make to her when a man had come to take the first machine away and another had come, apparently, to bring it back. I wrote out my advertisement for a situation on the new machine that night, and on August 23, 1893, it appeared in the Daily Telegraph.

It was a novel kind of advertisement and brought me 150 answers. In reply to them, I spent about two weeks tramping over London, and then came my reward in the shape of an engagement, or rather two engagements. Shall I ever forget that starting out into service? How several times I went out the flat door, then flew back again to give Judge just one more pat, and make Dinah renew her oath of allegiance to my dog during my absence. It was agreed that she and Judge were to meet me every evening near a certain pillar-box at about ten o'clock, where I would go

nightly to post the letters of the family with whom I had engaged as housemaid. It was in this way that I intended to keep in touch with my little home circle while I essayed to play the part of maid-servant. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 7. I become a maidservant. I had resided in England something less than a year when I donned a cap in apron with the purpose of getting experience as a London servant and turning that experience into newspaper copy. During the few months I had lived there, I had gained but little knowledge of English home life, English customs, and English manners. My English

acquaintances, too, were few, and my friends, using that term in its proper sense, were none. I had not at that time ever visited any of the women's clubs or the houses of any prominent English women, and, with the exception of those persons of art and letters who were celebrated in my own country as well as in England, I knew nothing. of who was who in London. It is therefore not at all strange that, when I became a house made in the world's metropolis, I happened, all unwittingly, to enter the service of a family, several members of which were rather well known in certain circles of society. When I made this discovery, I was extremely sorry for the chance that had led me in that particular direction, and had

my circumstances permitted me to do so, I would have given up that situation at once and started out in another, leaving the first experience entirely out of my newspaper right up. But my time was limited. My health and nerves were not in a state which warranted my beginning all over again, and my necessities were great. I have a keen recollection of how, on the second day of my experience in service, I sat upon the edge of the bed in the room that was assigned to myself and my fellow servants as a sleeping apartment, and argued the whole question out with my mind and my conscience, and how, applying the rule by which I tried to guide all my actions, this above all, to thine own self be true, to the situation in which I then found myself, I decided that I was justified in

taking advantage of the means for helping myself that seemed to have been thrown in my way. It had been very difficult for me to obtain any situation at all. My lack of a character from a former mistress, my suspicious American accent, my diminutive stature and my far-from-robust appearance had all stood in my way. I had been refused a situation by over 100 London mistresses. Only one other woman had given me encouragement to hope that she might engage me. She had half promised to take me, but could not let me know until the following week. In the meantime, a sure thing had been offered to me, and I had accepted it. As I sat on the bed, I kept asking myself over and over again,

Shall I give up what may be my only chance? Shall I give it up, and perhaps, after all, fulfill the current? Prophysy by starving in London? Both my common sense and my conscience answered, No, a thousand times no. You have got your chance. If you throw it away, you may never get another one. Under these circumstances, as well as under others, you can be true to yourself, and therefore not false to anyone. Then, on that second morning, I hurriedly pulled on my stockings, but in my boots, my print dress and morning cap and apron, and started out to do my work to the best of my ability. I have forgotten just how many times I went up and down four flights of stairs that morning

before breakfast. I do remember, however, that with the carrying of hot water, the preparing of baths, the sweeping and dusting, and the shaking and brushing of the family skirts and trousers, I was more tired physically when I sat down to the kitchen breakfast than I had ever ever. I had ever before been in my life. Along with my weariness had come an appetite for solid substantial food. When bread and butter and coffee were placed before me, I created a diversion in the kitchen by asking innocently, where's the meat? What meat? asked the parlor made, surprisingly. The meat for our breakfast. I returned, still more innocently. Then I was informed that the regular kitchen breakfast in that household, was bread and butter and coffee or tea if one preferred it.

As the house was somewhat upset and the regular number of servants had not been engaged, we were on board wages for a time, one in sixpence a day. I had some money with me, a part of the proceeds from the sale of my typewriter, so I added what seemed to me to be a necessary sum to the board wages and went out that day and purchased certain kinds of food, substantial and nourishing, which I thought would help to keep me in proper condition for the task I had undertaken.

As I have said, I knew little of London in those days. I had, in the flat, known what it was to economize and do without things when a light pocket book demanded it, but I did not know then, as I have since learned, that one in six pence a day was the regular rate of board wages usually paid to London servants. Nor did I know what one in six pence was capable of buying in the way of eatables. I therefore looked upon the sum as inadequate, and I considered that the allowance was a rather

mean one. I said to the parlor maid, How can one get proper food on one in six pence a day? Well, you'll have to, was the answer. It's all she gives. I suppose it is not necessary for me to state that the she referred to was the mistress of the house, who, except upon very rare occasions, was known in the kitchen only by that title. When the regular staff of servants was made up, which happened within two or three days, the board wages were withdrawn, and the servants had their meals provided by the mistress. then I was more than ever surprised to find that bread and butter and coffee still figured as the

only breakfast for the servants, and when I was informed that such was the regular morning diet, I was overcome with astonishment, which finally led me to ask the mistress herself if it were true. Yes, it was true, so she told me, and she further informed me that I was not likely to suit her. as I had gone to the place only for a week on trial to see whether or not I was likely to suit, the ordinary notice was not deemed necessary on either side, and as I had no intention of remaining, in any case, longer than a week, I was very glad to be dismissed by my mistress instead of being obliged to offer her my resignation. But I had still several days before the end of my week,

and I applied myself to the business I had undertaken. To keep up my strength, I daily used a part of my own money for the supplementing of the breakfast and supper allowed to the servants. The dinners I found were wholesome ennampal. What most astonished me was that the rest of the servants seemed not particularly discontented with the bread and coffee breakfast and the bread and cheese supper which were provided for them. What they lacked in variety,

they made up in the quantity of the bread and butter they ate, and I do not think they ever went hungry. I have since learned that such breakfasts and suppers are very often the only kind allowed to many of the London servants, though I am still of the opinion that it is neither good sense nor economy for mistresses to allow so large a consumption of bread and butter in their kitchens to the exclusion of other food. I have noticed that some servants are capable of eating enough butter, at one meal to pay for a good substantial bit of meat or bacon or a couple of eggs. One of the pleasant things I have to remember of that week in service is the good, sound, healthy sleep I enjoyed. The bed was hard and springless, and all the appointments of the room

which I shared with two other servants were as different as possible from those of the dainty bedroom with its mortgaged furniture at the flat. But so tired was I when, bedtime came that no such thing as insomnia ever troubled me, and every morning at six o'clock, I rose with a prayer of thankfulness for the blessing of sleep. Nearly all the tasks I was given to perform, I did well and conscientiously. I say nearly all, for there were certain kinds of work I thought it well to attempt in peculiar and original ways, in order to draw out observations from my fellow servants and occasionally to note the effect upon my mistress. I did not allow myself for one instant to forget that I was a journalist seeking copy,

and I had no intention of letting any opportunities for getting that all-important article slip by me. Thus it was that one day, when I had a lot of candlesticks to clean off, and noting that a bronze minerva among them was badly modeled with grease, I innocently remarked in the presence of the other servants. It's an awful job to clean the candle grease off that female figure. I wonder if there's any way to get it off quickly. It do take time for that sort of thing, observed one of the servants. I began carefully to scrape off the grease with a hairpin.

It took nearly an hour. When I had finished, I remarked to the parlor maid. It seems as if there ought to be a way of getting that candle grease off, without spending so much time. How did you get it off when you were housemaid? Oh, I didn't use a hairpin. I used my fingernails, was the reply. But don't you think if we put her in the oven and baked her well, the grease would come off on a paper or something? I asked, with serious eyes and guileless face. Bake a candlestick, exclaimed Annie. Anybody could tell you never was taught how to work.

Or boiled her in some hot water. Don't you think that would do it? I continued. Did you ever see such a fool? I heard one ask the other as I left the kitchen with Minerva, and when the door was shut, I laughed softly, and then fell to wondering why somebody did not start a school for would-be housemaids and parlor-maids in London.

The thing that most impressed me during my career as a housemaid, was the need of many American housekeeping conveniences in typical English homes. When I assisted the parlor-maid in carrying food and dishes from the kitchen to the dining-room, I sighed for the dumbwaiter, or lift, of which we make use in our modern-built American houses. The continual running up and down many flights of stairs with hot and cold water, instead of having it laid on, if not in each bedroom, at least on each floor, was the most tiresome and wearying of all my tasks. Up and down, up and down, always up and down, I seemed to be going from morning till night. The helplessness, too, of English women, as compared with

the activity of my own country women, was also a thing of which I took note. In New York, the woman who has not a personal ladies' maid has a habit of waiting upon herself. In England, I learned from the gossiping of the servants, that many women who kept only a general never attempted to brush their own skirts, clean their boots, or put coal in the fire. But of all the things that worked most wear and tear upon my nervous system, the constant dread in which I lived of being found out was the worst. Once my heart almost stopped beating when the cook, exasperated at my contention that no servant had a right to hold letters written by her mistress over a candle in order to attempt to read the contents of them, exclaimed,

"'Oh, you, you're nothing but a spy and hout-sider anyhow. You ain't no proper servant.' "'I don't understand,' I answered faintly. "'Easy enough to understand,' she returned. "'You breaks a dish, and you goes and tells. You don't want the parlor maid to tell me any of the interesting things about the family, and you pretend you don't read any of her letters when you dust her desk. I must again explain that the her referred to was the mistress of the house. I just hates underhand dealings and spying about, and you're a spy, continued the cook. I breathed freely again. All right, I answered, as I went upstairs with a can of hot water.

It was true that, although a chiel among them taking notes, I endeavored in every possible way to avoid obtaining or imparting knowledge concerning the private personal affairs of the family in whose service I was engaged, and whatever of such information was forced upon me, I kept to myself and made absolutely no use of it in the write-up, which I subsequently made of my housemaid experience. My first place I left at the end of one week, going from there to take a situation as parlor-maid in Kensington, a situation I obtained by calling on a lady when the time for my Sunday afternoon out came round. There I found a kind, considerate mistress with incompetent, unaccommodating servants. The more privileges given them, the greater and more unfair were the advantages taken, so that when at the end of another week I went back to the flat, I was not by any means an advocate of increased liberty for London servants, and my sympathy for London mistresses if it did not exceed that which I felt for the servants.

That return to Dinah and the Flat, after two weeks spent in domestic service, was a stirring event. I remember that when it was all over, I proved myself a typical, ordinary, woman, who, having held her own, and exhibited surprising strength and fortitude in an emergency, falls down in a faint when the emergency is passed, and nothing more is required of her. I burst into the flat and sprang upon Judge and Dinah like something wild or crazy, crying, Dinah, Dinah, put me to bed, I'm going to pieces. There's something snapped in my back and in my head. After that, there were ten times. There were ten times. There were ten times. There were days mostly spent in bed and an occasional visit from a doctor whose subsequent fees needed no

microscope to be seen largely. There was rest and sleep and sympathy from Judge interspersed with murmurs from Dinah of, Oh, Miss Polly, I done tell you so. I say many de time when you talk about dat servant business, let me go and do de work and tell you all about it, and you'll write em for to paper because scrubbing am finiggas and white trash. But, like truth, crushed to earth, I rose again, and soon the flat resounded with the noise of my typewriter, as I wrote out the true account of my experiences under the title of, in cap and apron. I use the word true in almost, if not quite, its strictest sense. My real reason for going into service, which was that I might get a start in English journalism and thus put myself in a fair way of earning my

own living in London, I did not state in so many words, believing that way diplomacy did not lie. I reasoned it out that if London knew that the amateur housemaid who was said to put her experiences into print was quite as much compelled by necessity to go into domestic service in order to earn her living, as was any real housemate, whoever applied to a London mistress for a situation, then London might not be so much interested in the story of my ups and downs on the principle that the poor it had ever with it, and was rather longing for a change. So whatever was sad, whatever was tragic, and, to a certain extent, whatever was serious, I determined to leave out of my in-cap-and-ap-and-ap-atail. I knew there were plenty to write fiction, plenty to write

tragedy, so I chose what afterwards proved to be the better and more popular part of trying to write brightly and entertainingly of my brief experience as a servant girl. The fact of my being an American girl I kept to myself, although it very comically leaked out through some of the Americanisms, such as wash bowls and pitchers, and my demand for a meat breakfast when my articles appeared in print. I also did what might possibly be termed a little posing during the course of my narrative by letting it appear that I was not well up in the art of housework and was unacquainted with the proper method of scrubbing, cleaning bronze candlesticks, etc., and thereby brought down upon my head the ire of many a British housewife, who took the relation of my attempts at scrubbing and

candlestick cleaning in a too serious manner. The fact of the matter is that I was then and am now, like the majority of my country women, a very good houseworker, and what I did not know by experience I knew by instinct, and if, as was afterwards poetically asserted by Sir Walter Basant, I, housemaided it with zeal and also pranks, I acted thuswise for the purpose of trying to break up the monotony of the daily life of myself and my fellow servants, thus furnishing somewhat more interesting copy than I otherwise could have done. All work and no play is bound to make one a dull journalist. The names of my employers, the neighborhoods in which they lived, their professions, and the position in which they occupied in London society,

I carefully concealed in my write-up, substituting names, addresses, and occupations as different as possible from the real ones, and if it ever in the years that followed became known in what particular London families I had acted the part of maid-servant, it was not through any information that came from me, either in my writing or my conversation.

When two chapters of the In Cap and Apron series were written and handed to the editor to whom I had first carried my idea, the story of my adventures began to appear in print, it not being considered necessary to wait until I had finished the hall. In the midst of the publication and of my writing, I was asked by the same editor to go touring through the mining towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, where the great coal strike of 1893 was in progress. I was commissioned to write about the distress of the miners and their wives and children, but I had no sooner arrived in the mining towns than my own distress became greater than any I witnessed among the colliers, for my sympathy was not all with the miners and their wives, though it abided always with the innocent children.

Beer and wastefulness and filth I found everywhere among them, and in the midst of their drunkenness, they described to me their wrongs, and told of children Clemon at home, while both parents caroused in the public houses. Thus my own distress, the distress I felt at having to apparently side with the colliers, when it seemed to me that Justice and Wright were partly on the side of the mine owners, doubtless showed itself in the reports I daily sent on to the London paper that was upholding the cause of the strikers. and before the end of the week, a pertinent telegram, come back, brought me to London. Your reports were not exactly the thing, said the editor, when I again stood before him.

You seemed to lack sympathy. Not at all, I responded. I can't tell you how much I sympathized with the mine owners, as well as with the strikers. I thought so, he laughed, but your servant girl experiences are all. right, and we shall want the third installment at once. So I returned to the flat, and during the next three weeks I wrote six more chapters of in cap and apron, making eight in all, I having discovered that six, as originally agreed upon, would not hold all I had to tell. Then for eight weeks ran the story of my adventures in the paper. End of chapter seven. Chapter eight of

the autobiography of a newspaper girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 8 When I Found Myself a Heroin She is, in her highly becoming cap and apron, the heroine of the town. Her strange, wild, and curious adventures are the common theme of conversation in thousands of English homes, where the pros and cons of the case are eagerly discussed by both the parties concerned. Indeed, mistress and maid, should a good understanding subsist between them, exchange views on the position taken by the author. That position is really untenable. We contend that she, in her confessed ignorance of the duties of the profession, which, for journalistic purposes she undertook,

was not properly equipped for her essay in Servanthood. She announces at the very outset of her voyage of discovery her inability to darn a sock. Does there actually breathe a woman in whom the domestic instinct is so dead as this? She cleans a bronze candlestick with a hairpin. An ivory ornament is resolved into its component parts under her incompetent hands in a pail of hot water, and contrary to her fellow servant's advice, she insists on confessing to having broken it. Thus ran a part of a column article in the Paul Mal Gazette of November 22, 1893, and I was the heroine. I did not, however, see it on November 22nd. I could not afford the luxury of buying many newspapers, and so it happened that for several days, though I was a heroine, I was entirely ignorant of that

encouraging fact. In those days there stood only a few pennies between sadness and gladness for me, and I could not spend those pennies. It was a few days after the 22nd of November that, walking along Piccadilly, I met an American newspaper man whom I had not seen since I left my native land. Lo, the conquering heroine comes, he exclaimed, taking off his hat and making a low obeisance. It took an American girl to stir him up and show them what's what in journalism. You didn't starve in London after all, did you? No, I didn't starve, I answered, but I haven't lived on canvas-back duck nor lobsters and things. But I've got a little start now, and I'm going to stay in London till I do something.

I've got a series running in one of the papers. Stay till you do something. Got a series running now. Why, you seem to have a series running in all the papers or something muddy like it as far as I can make out. I haven't picked up a London paper since I've been over that didn't have something about you in it. Why, the papers are full of you,

and the London correspondents are cabling over home about you. You've done us all proud. You don't mean to say that you don't know you're the talk of London and America, a regular write-down heroin? My compatriot looked at me suspiciously, and I returned his look, quite honestly, as I replied, No, I didn't know it. I've scarcely seen a paper, and I haven't been up to much since I got out of service. Well, you're the most indifferent, not to say unprogressive and unenergetic American girl I ever knew. why i have got my pocket stuffed full of you that is things about you that i've cut from the papers i'm going to write a great story about you to send over to my paper come on in here and have lunch and while we're eating you can read all about how you're the greatest show on earth With that, he conducted me into a restaurant where Americans in London largely forgather,

and as the meal progressed, there were spread before my astonished, though delighted eyes, the evidences of the success which my in cap and apron series was achieving. What kind encouraging things the London papers were saying about the American girl, to be sure, even the most stayed and conservative of them. some took my journalistic exploit as a far more serious affair than it was. They opined that I was a reformer and a philanthropist, bent upon solving the domestic servant question, and delivering both servants and mistresses in England out of bondage. Other papers viewed the whole proceeding as a lark, and declared that I had entered upon it in a spirit of mischief, and was writing it all up for the

fun of the thing. Both surmises were kindly meant, but both were wrong. It was just about this time that letters from all parts of Great Britain began pouring in upon me, letters addressed in care of the paper in which the series was appearing, asking me to tell my real object in going out to domestic service. Servants begged me to become president of their leagues, mistresses wanted to know what good I expected to accomplish. I was accused of being a busy body, trying to set the English servants against their employers and putting false notions of equality into their heads. Why did you do it? What was your aim, and what do you expect to accomplish by it? Were the questions asked me in hundreds of letters? To those letters I could not reply.

first, because the writers neglected the formality of enclosing postage stamps, and second, because I had neither the time nor the physical strength for entering upon so arduous a task. I remember that shortly after that, there came to me an invitation to attend a gathering of women, which I thought it might be well for me to accept. At that meeting, a woman writer came over to me and said, now tell me exactly what was your aim and object your serious one i mean in going out to service and writing about it it is a question we are all asking i did it for copy i answered to earn my living you know i knew it was a subject that would interest everybody how shall i ever forget the shocked expression on that woman's face how failed to remember her exclamation of surprise and disgust as she replied, Copy? You mean to confess you had no philanthropic aim,

that you did it for mercenary reasons, merely to earn your living? Yes, I returned, looking her squarely in the face. I'm not a hypocrite, and I won't pose as a reformer. I did it to earn my living, but of course, if my published experience helps anyone else to earn hers, I shall be very glad. I have done my best with this series and have been absolutely honest and impartial.

I have taken no sides. I have simply told the truth. Oh, I really never thought any journalist would sink to such a level, or make such a confession even though it were true. I must say that I have never written anything except with the object of benefiting somebody by it. Perhaps you have an income aside from your writing, which I have not, I answered.

And then, I am sure you have never undertaken the hard kind of work which I have just done. Would you scrub floors and carry water up four flights of stairs, and make yourself ill in mind and body, doing work to which you were not accustomed, from motives of philanthropy? I got only a disgusted, oh, what a motive, in answer to my question. I left the place soon afterwards. The atmosphere seemed not congenial. My unblushing confession of my motive in going out to service was repeated in other female journalistic and club circles, and it was never accounted unto me for righteousness. It seems now a very long time ago,

since, trying to be honest by answering honestly a simple question that was put to me, I suddenly found myself looked upon in certain quarters as a sort of journalistic pariah, outcast from some circles of the truly good and worthy writers for the press. Tell the truth and shame the devil, said somebody once upon a time, but tell the truth and shame yourself was the way it seemed to me the saying should run in those early London days. There have been occasions since that time of struggling against poverty, when I, too, thank God, have been able to write from pure love of and interest in my subject, when I have seen the weak and helpless abused, the right downtrodden,

and the wrong rising triumphant, and have said, I will wield my pen in the cause of righteousness for mere righteousness's sake, and I have been able to contribute the fees I received to the upbuilding of the cause I have championed. Happy those writers who can always do this, who know not what it is to write merely as a means of money-getting, who have needed never to write the pot-boiling article or the pot-boiling book. Happy are they and blessed, for truly they have entered into the kingdom, the kingdom after which the rest of us strive with hard work and longing. But it is not for them to sneer at us who work honestly and conscientiously as,

our trade. Rather let them follow the command of the man of God and sell all they have and give to the poor and start out even penniless and learn the lesson of working for a living. Let them have to report a Sunday night's sermon in order to pay for their Monday night's dinner. Or rather, let them have to go without their Monday night's dinner because payment is only made on Saturday nights at the newspaper offices. Let them know the pain that hunger can give, and the aches and the diseases that fireless grates bring on. Let them see their dear ones dying for lack of medicine, the dead bodies of those they love waiting in one room for a shroud, while in the next room they must write a comic story for a comic paper in order to buy it. Let them experience all this, and more,

10,000 times more, and then if they do not fall upon their knees crying out, Money, money, good God, give me ideas which I can turn into money, money to satisfy hunger, to build a fire, to save my dying, to bury my dad. Then, why then, they are not human. Who that is breakfastless and dinnerless can write an article on the need of a Christmas feast for the poor, merely and solely for the sake of those who are known as the poor. To that feast, the hungry journalist is not invited. For who suspects that she may be hungry and far poorer than the very poor of the east end of London or the east side of New York?

The journalist writes of the need of the feast and receives as payment two guineas or ten dollars. That is what the hungry journalist writes it for, the fee, and if she is honest, she will admit it. But along with the fee and the satisfaction of having earned some food for herself, there comes the added satisfaction of having helped to fill other empty stomachs than her own. This is one of the compensations of the working pot-boiling journalist's life. A few years ago, when I was engaged as reporter on a New York paper, a girl artist and I were told by our editor to go out and get up a true story on the hottest day among the New York poor, for which we were to be paid at space rates.

The editor gave us an order on the cashier for some money, saying we might use it at our own discretion so long as we expended it in getting him a good story and some good sketches, all true and no fiction. We decided to spend this money in by buying a small load of ice to distribute free among the poor who lived in the worst section of the city. An illustrated story of how the poor children scrambled after the ice, would we thought be sure to please the editor? So we went with our ice on to the east side. Please, Mrs. Is ye an angel bringing us ice all for nothing?

When we's so hot and it's so expensive? Asked a tiny, ragged, tot of me, her great eyes, staring with delighted wonder. No little girl, I said. I'm only a reporter. I'm writing a story about you for my paper, and the other lady is making pictures for it. Stand still with your ice pail like that, and let her put you into the picture. I declare, said the artist to me at the office, when at midnight we were just finishing our work, having had no time for either luncheon or dinner that day. I'm horribly tired and ravenously hungry, but the memory of how those youngsters enjoy that

ice fairly makes me good. I bring in this little New York episode here, where it may seem to be a digression in a chapter devoted to a part of my London experiences, in order to illustrate what is my conception of the attitude that may be rightly taken by the honest working woman journalist whose income must be derived from her pen. I had a code by which I justified and do now justify my entry into domestic service, entry even under what some of my critics rightly called false pretenses, for I gave a false name and a false address, and in order to get the situations I obtained, though I told part of the truth, I kept back a part of it. Again, I justified myself when I became a flower girl and sold flowers in the West End streets and in Piccadilly Circus. Again, when I became a

laundry girl and pretended to be what I was not. Also as a dressmaker's apprentice, a crossing sweeper, and when I assumed the role of American heiress trying to buy a pedigree and a presentation at court. These experiences came the one after the other in as quick succession as I could bring them to pass. For, once having made my name as the exponent of the newer and American journalism, the London editors, many of whom were known as belonging formerly to the conservative class of journalists, wrote to me and asked for more. In vain did I visit many of them personally, suggesting subjects which seemed more suitable to the particular style of newspapers which they published, and were certainly more to my own taste and inclination, and required less of the

physical strength and nervous energy, which I knew, even without consulting a wise old British doctor who was continually shaking his head at me, were being all too rapidly used up. Oh, but we do not want the ordinary sort of writing from you, the editors would say, you've started this newer and more entertaining kind of journalism over here, and you must keep it up. Then I would be offered three times the regular rates of the papers to tell how I went up in a balloon or worked in the sweatshops. But I ask only your regular rates, and I really can write on ordinary subjects, I would answer, but vainly, vainly. So I prepared to go out as a flower girl, and when I was already, with my queer-looking costume and my basket of blossoms hanging about my neck, I sat down on the stairs

that led from the flat, and felt I never could do it, and then I started out again and became a flower girl for a day. The next day I was worn out and remained in bed, also the next. On the third day, I got up and wrote what the critics said was a vivacious and entertaining account of my experiences. Another day was spent sweeping crossings, two more days in bed, a day in writing it, and so two articles were done for a magazine. One day, having heard that Mr. A. Gibbons, the then editor of the ladies' pictorial, had spoken kindly of my work, I went to his office and introducing myself to he him said, would you care to have me write something for the ladies pictorial?

Nothing would please me better, he exclaimed. Why, I've been going to send for you to come and see me these many weeks. I expect you're full of suggestions and ideas, so let me hear some of them. I will write you an article about girls boarding school life in America, I said. No, you won't. I wouldn't look at it, he replied. I suggested, I suggest, suggested a dozen other subjects, none of which met the approval of Mr. Gibbons. Finally, I said I would return home and communicate with him by letter. I was moving towards the door when Mr. Gibbons jumped up. No, indeed, you won't go home. Sit you down there in that chair and put your wits to work, and I'll put mine to work, too. If you've had the effrontery to come to the ladies pictorial

without an idea in your head, you're not going to leave it to work. you get one. I am bound to state that I began to get a bit nervous of Mr. A. Gibbons, so altogether different was he from any other London editor I had met. Certainly, I decided that he must be a character in the literary world of London. It was about two o'clock when I went into his office. He sat at his desk thinking. I sat at the other end of the handsomely furnished room till four o'clock. Then spoke Mr. Gibbons. Have you any ideas yet? He asked. No, I answered. Hmm, I've heard of American cuteness, but I don't know. I don't know. I think I'll go now, I said, beginning to rue the fancy that had made me think I could write for the fashionable ladies pictorial. I've got an engagement. You've got no engagement that's more important than this one. Do you have to earn your living writing for the papers? Yes, I said.

Very well. Just sit there till you think or I think of a subject. Of course, one of us is bound to hit upon something. The hands of the clock went round, and when the hour of five had arrived and I had sat waiting three hours for an inspiration, Mr. Gibbons exclaimed, I've beaten you.

British wit is quicker than American. Go down to you. Kent and pick strawberries with the common pickers, and then write all about it. It will be too awful. I can't, I answered. You said you had a living to earn. This will help you. Good afternoon. I'll write you a letter stating the terms and telling you how many columns. He shook hands with me brusquely, yet kindly. In the morning, there was a letter offering me the most liberal terms I had ever received for any London work. I went to Kent one night, and engaged lodging with a quaint little lodging housekeeper to whom Mr. Gibbons gave me a letter

of introduction. The next morning at three o'clock I was gathering fruit with the strawberry pickers of Kent. The rain poured all day, but I kept at my work till eight that night, wet through, of course, to the very skin and my shoes full of water. The next morning, waking with the pangs of rheumatism in every bone, a kind friend got me back to London, and with Judge and Dinah attending me with all love and sympathy, and my one-time mild-mannered, but now infuriated doctor, declaring that he washed his hands forever of so idiotic a patient, and writing prescriptions the while, some days went by, and Mr. Gibbons heard nothing from me except a hastily scribbled note to the effect that I had done the strawberry picking,

and would send him the manuscript as soon as possible. The following week I wrote an account of my experiences, telling of the rainy day and a few rheumatic twinges, but keeping back some of the more serious results. After a part of the story had appeared in print, I received a peremptory summons to call on Mr. Gibbons. He eyed me fiercely as I entered the office, and exclaimed,

I want to say that I consider you've treated me very shabbily about that strawberry-picking affair. I don't understand, I said, amazed. If you did not like the manuscript, you ought to have told me so. I did like it. It's exactly what I wanted. But I ask you, in the name of all that's honest, did I tell you to go out and pick strawberries in the rain

and run the danger of killing yourself? No, you did. didn't, but it rained the morning after I got to Kent, and as I had engaged to go to work, I went. Didn't I tell you I'd pay all your expenses while you were down there? Yes. Then why didn't you stay there in the lodging house till a fine day came, and then go and pick the berries? I say, why didn't you wait and take her rest and behave like a sensible, reasoning human being? Instead of that, you've got me talked about as a slave driver. Why? Why? You've got me talked about as a slave driver. yesterday an old friend of mine, a doctor, called here flourishing the last copy of the pictorial in my face

and screaming, Gibbons, you're a brute. If that girl had died from the effects of picking berries in the rain, you'd have been tried for murder and quite right, too. I told him I didn't know what day you had picked strawberries, but I knew you were not so foolish as to pick in the rain. When I read your manuscript, I thought you brought in the rain to make the thing dramatic. My friend faced me up and down that it did rain, and I said it didn't. Now I ask you, did it rain? Yes, it rained. Have you been ill and had a doctor's bill on account of it?

Oh, no, of course not, I answered, for I thought that here was a place where the truth need not be told. I was going to say that you could add the doctor's bill to your expense account if you had one. He returned, with a relieved expression on his face. But I'm sorry you picked in the rain. Take better care of yourself and hoard your strength. You'll need it.

The next day I found that in order to finish the strawberry-picking series with satisfaction to myself and justice to my subject, I required a column more space than Mr. Gibbons had agreed to pay for, and I wrote asking if I might be allowed to add this column without extra charge. His reply was characteristic. Of course, do the extra column, and of course you will be paid for it, herewith the check for all. Mr. Gibbons was known as the gruffest editor in London, so I was afterwards told. To me, he was one of the kindest, and I have often laughed over my first experience with him,

waiting three hours for an inspiration and then having his British wit win the contest over my American. One day, when my first article had appeared in the 19th century, I called at his office and was greeted at the door with, Good afternoon, you've got a new name. Hereafter you have dropped the title of the American girl in London, and shall be known as the frivolous contributor of the 19th century. Then there was another day when I called to see him. I had been in America for a long time, and had brought back a head full of ideas that I thought would please him. I handed my card to the office boy in the little ante-room.

For Mr. Gibbons, I said, and ask him if he's busy now to please make an appointment for another time. Mr. Gibbons is dead, said the boy. Then I turned away, half-chokingly, as I went down. the stairs. I had lost not only a kind and considerate editor, but a good friend, one of the earliest of my editorial friends in London. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 9. Why I did not become a Salvation Army Lassie. One of the

The last situations I entered in London during my search for Working Girl copy was that of Laundry Girl in a large steam laundry. It was not only the beginning of the end of the peculiar kind of work I had taken up, but was also the hardest task I ever attempted. The laundry was called a sanitary one, but it was in many ways a most insanitary sort of establishment. Upon the floor of the washhouse part of the laundry, where numbers of the girls, including myself, were obliged to walk up and down dozens of times a day, water, dirty, slimy, and ill-smelling, always stood to the height of several inches. Whenever I stood or walked in it, my feet slipped up and down in the water that penetrated into my boots, and so my feet, all day long, were always wet far above my ankles.

I had every reason to believe that my lungs were of the strongest. and would stand any reasonable amount of carelessness on my part, but I contracted a hacking cough, which, happily, did not last long after I made my final exit from the atmosphere of soap suds. While engaged in the work, however, I was constantly in terror of being maimed or killed with the machinery, and so, as I had given a false name and false address to the manageress of the laundry, I wore always in the locket round my neck, a thin slip of paper upon which I had written particulars of what was to be done with me, should any accident befall me. But at the end of a little over a week's work, I left the laundry quite whole, and as sound

in mind and body, as one could have reason to expect after such an experience. The writing up of the story of my career as a laundry girl was all done in bed, my typewriter being placed on a tea tray in front of me. That task accomplished, I was up again, and as it was not to be published for some time, and I would not receive any money for it till after publication, I looked about me for another way to earn some ready money. Again, I made a tour of the London editors, with whom I had by that time become pretty well acquainted, suggesting subjects for articles of a different nature from that with which I had started my career in English journalism. They were kind, but they were firm in expressing their opinion

that it was foolish for me to think of doing ordinary things in journalism when I had proved myself so capable of doing the extraordinary things. Then I attempted to get a position on some one of the daily or weekly papers at a stipulated salary, and though I was even then talked about and written about as one of the most successful women journalists in the world, I would gladly have accepted a salary of three or four pounds a week, and I offered my services at that price to several editors in turn, each of them laughing at what he termed such nonsense.

Why, said one of these editors to me, you have introduced a bright, new, attractive kind of journalism into London. Keep at it, and you should, without the slightest difficulty, earn an income of, at the very least, 1,500 pounds a year. I was very discouraged when I left that editor's office, and at the bottom of the stairs I met a young Englishwoman writer. Oh, if you've been up there, I suppose it's no use for me to go and talk with Mr. Blank

about one of the ordinary articles I want to do for him, she said laughingly. I expect you came away with an order for a 500-pounder, series, didn't you? I laughed. No, I said, not quite so much as that, but you'd better go up, and I hope you'll sell your article. She did sell it. I found that out the next week. Meantime, I walked over to the office of a paper that had recently been started, the editor of which wanted me to do some of my new kind of journalism for him. Take some work from you, certainly, he said.

when I had introduced myself. Now, what haven't you done in London? I want something quite fresh and startling. We went over ideas and suggestions, and it was decided that I was to write up the Salvation Army from the inside, which meant that I was to become an Army lassie. Don't go into it with the idea of an expose, said the editor, but join the Army just as you became a housemaid and write up your experiences. Then we arranged terms, which were, if I remember rightly, nearly four times the ordinary rate he paid to other contributors. I will, of course, I said, need a small amount of money over and above the column rate for expenses. How much? he asked. Oh, not more than three or four pounds, I answered. Very well, I will pay you four pounds down now.

handing me in order for that amount on the cashier and bidding me buy a uniform with it, and anything else I needed for the adventure, he bade me farewell till I should bring him my copy. Then I went out shopping, buying thick boots, such as I thought I should need for marching, and such other belongings as I thought should go with a humble Salvation Army girl, keeping intact an amount that I thought would be sufficient for the purchase of the poke bonnet and dark blue dress, which I thought I would not get until I

had spent a few days investigating what was the best way to join the army. The next day I stopped in at the office of the editor of one of the most prominent and conservative of London's papers, and who, by the way, up to that time, was the only editor who had given me any encouragement to do a different sort of work from that by which I had made my name. He, having a even gone so far as to take two anonymous articles from me, paying me at his ordinary rate per column. I explained that I had called to see if there were anything else that I could do for him, but there happened to be nothing on hand just then. I hope you are not doing any more of that new journalism now, he said. Yes, I answered, I am. In fact, I am just about to start on what

I suppose will be the biggest thing I have ever attempted, and perhaps create the greatest sensation. What is it? he asked. I can't tell you. I wish you would tell me. Perhaps you ought not to do it, and if so, I might persuade you to give it up. Yes, I ought to do it, I answered, half defiantly, and it would not be right for you to persuade me to give it up, but I will tell you what it is in the strictest confidence

though I will not tell you the name of the paper I am going to do it for. I am going to join the Salvation Army and write an account of my experiences. I saw a look of horror come over the good man's face. He jumped up from his desk. No, no, you must never do that. It would be a terrible thing. Promise me you will give up that scheme. It is not nice.

It is not dignified. It will create a prejudice against you, which you will never be able to. live down. But I must do it. I have engaged with an editor to do it, I answered. He will pay me well for it. Pay you well. He cannot pay you well, no matter what he offers you. I don't ask you who this editor is, but I do ask you, in your own interest, for your own good, to go back to him and tell him you find it impossible to do this work. The great man began walking up and down his eyes. The office, and as he walked, he explained to me the enormity of the task I had undertaken. He told me I would

ruin my whole future literary and social career, that I would prejudice all the religious people of England, and even of my own country against me, and as he exclaimed, I tell you, you will be ruined, ruined, ruined, if you do this thing. I began to get as thoroughly frightened as though I had been about to commit a crime, and as I listened to all the dire consequences which he prophesied would follow in the wake of my proposed undertaking, my hair almost stood on end, and my eyes fairly started from my head. I was almost tempted to give it up, when I suddenly remembered the money that had been advanced to me for expenses, a good part of which I had spent and had no means of replacing. You don't understand. I don't understand. I don't. I don't understand. I

I said faintly, that I am in honor bound to do it. How in honor bound, he asked. Oh, because I promised the editor, I answered. Go and ask him to release you. That is quite a permissible and honorable thing to do. I was passing out of the door, frightened, bewildered, sick at heart. Promise me you will not do this thing. Promise you will go to that newspaper editor, whoever he is,

and asked to be released from this commission. He said, looking me full in the face as he shook hands. Remember, you have come to the parting of the ways, and your whole future depends upon your giving up this Salvation Army scheme. I promise I will give it up, and ask the editor to release me, I answered, and then turned and fled down the stairs, lest he should discover the tears I knew I was ready to shed. Then, out in the open air, I thought of the promise I had made with a sort of shock, and felt like a criminal who had taken a newspaper's money and spent it and could not return it, though failing, yes, refusing, to keep my engagement. How dared I go and say, I have spent the money you advanced me for Salvation Army expenses, and I have no way of paying it back, but I will not do the work for you. What did other people do when they were in such terrible straits? Barrow? Yes, I knew they did

that, but I had never borrowed any money since I came to London, except the seven shillings from Dinah, and I never intended to borrow. There were magazines in London at that time, for which I had done some work, which had been accepted, and for which I had corrected the proofs. I knew my articles would be published some time in the future, and that then I should get paid for them. Should I go to the editors, explain my necessity, and ask for payment before, instead of after publication? Yes, that seemed the sensible thing to do. I started for one of the offices, climbed the stairs to the editor's room, was about to walk in, then turned and went down the stairs. I found I could not do it. I had courage for many things but not for that. Then I went home and slept not through the live-long night.

But in the morning I remembered a good Irish Catholic priest whom I had met in one of the mining towns of Lancashire when I had been sent there to write up the distress among the striker's families. He had been very kind to me in those days, and on parting had said, remember my child, if you ever get into any trouble and need any helping hand stretched out to you, just write to me, and see, here, my child, I'm a poor man, but I sometimes have a few pounds put by, so if you're ever in need, just write and tell me. I wrote to the good father all about my troubles, keeping back nothing, and in the end informed him that I wrote as

under the seal of the confessional and wanted to know if he would lend me four pounds till the magazines paid up. By return of post the money came and then, with it in my hand, I went to the office of the editor who wanted the Salvation Army written up, handed it over, and begged to be released

from my undertaking. It's all right, he said when I began to make excuses, I'm glad you've given it up. I can't say exactly why, but I'm glad. Two months later, I sent four pounds ten shillings to my good friend, the priest in Lancashire, four pounds in return of the loan, and ten shillings for one of his pet charities. And for reply came this specimen of ready Irish wit. Money received, shall be glad to lend you some more on the same terms. Little Merrill Flanagan, is the better for that loan to you by a new pair of boots,

and I have instructed two other poor little girls to say a prayer every night for you. End of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 10. A Deal in Ancestors. I came to England with the knowledge that I had no pedigree were speaking of on one side of me, the English side. Perhaps I should correct that statement,

for, of course, if I thought about the matter at all, I knew I did have a pedigree of some sort or other, but I did not know what sort it was, whether honorable or dishonorable, plebeian or aristocratic. The fact troubled me but little for a time. I was altogether too busy trying to earn my own living to spend time and trouble and bus fare running about investigating how my ancestors earned theirs, or whether they got it in some less respectable way than earning it. I knew, however, that they could not have been rich, or if they were, that they must have been selfish spendthrifts, since nothing in the way of legacies in English land or bonds had been handed down to me. On this account I always felt a resentment towards them, and it was

was my own private opinion that if I ever found out anything about them, I would discover that not only financially, but socially and morally, they were a pretty poor lot, and I had no notion of claiming them. When I had been in England something over a year, a relation in America, whose grandfather was my grandfather as well, wrote and begged me to go to the British Museum and hunt up some data in the records of the Harleian Society. I would there find, he said, that we had among our common ancestors some knights, baronets, and things.

With the clue that my relation sent me, I went to the British Museum, and, though I found the knights and baronets, I found also confirmation of even more than my worst suspicions concerning my ancestors. One had died in an almshouse, house. One had been a sort of pirate captain so far as I could make out. One had fought against George Washington, concerning one, there was but this simple record. Born blank, died blank,

not worth a groat. One of my far-away removed ancestruses, who, horror of horrors, bore the very name which was bestowed upon me at my christening, had conducted herself in so shameful and disreputable a manner that her husband, my far away and removed ancestor, had ordered her to sit upon the steps of the meeting-house from midday till the going down of the sun, with a shawl over her head, and publicly confess her fault, which was indeed a most grievous one, and the lady, so the record ran, did confess. I slammed together with a bang, the book that gave me this bit of scandalous information, and started back to the flat, not altogether pleased with my afternoon's work. I had in my purse two pounds, two shillings, and sevenpence,

money for which I had many and very urgent uses. The distance to the flat was great, but I did not take a bus, thinking to walk and save the pennies. Passing a second-hand shop, I noticed some old and curious-looking objects in a corner near the door, and I stopped to examine them. They themselves proved useless, but behind them, in a mass of dirt and rubbish, with the dust of ages as well as modern second-hand iron kettles and tin saucepans piled upon it, I discovered a good-sized oil painting without a frame. When I had got the things off of it and dusted it,

I discovered it to be the portrait of a kind-faced old gentleman with brown eyes, gray hair, aristocratic expression of disgust at his squalid surroundings. At least that was the way he seemed to look, and one couldn't blame him. From the fashion of his clothes, I fancied he had lived about a century ago and had been something of a swell. "'Want that, miss?' asked the man who kept the shop, noticing me at the door. "'Oh, I don't know,' I answered. "'How much is it?' "'18 pence,' he replied. I was astonished, 18 pence for a fine old oil painting. I looked at the portrait again, and it seemed to me the old gentleman had a pleading look in his eyes, as though appealing to me

to take him away from so horrible a place. Why, you must see this is no place for a gentleman, he seemed to be saying, and so cheap, only 18 pence, do buy me. I'll have it, I said to the second-hand man, I took the painting home and washed it with soap, and then greased it and hung it on the wall, and the old gentleman smiled upon me and looked pleased and happy. The room was really a very pretty and dainty little place, and though perhaps in the bygone times he had lived in the grand old mansion, yet he must have felt that in becoming a part of the furnishings of my abode, he was coming to his own again.

before I hung the oil painting up the room had been merely pretty now it took on an air of grandeur when I looked in that particular direction and before I went to bed that night I had quite fallen in love with the dear old gentleman and had named him grandfather the next morning when I went to look at him he was still smiling and I smiled back and Dinah remarked I do clam miss Polly that's the same kind of picture which they done have in my old Mass's house in Virginia. When I went out that day, I passed again the second-hand shop, and I stopped and peered again into the dark corners and on the walls, though of course I knew I must not buy anything. Hanging on the wall was an empty gilt frame that seemed to be about the size of Grandfather.

How much is that, I asked, pointing to it. Well, it really aren't saleable. returned the shopman, as there being no picture for it. It's scarcely worth sixpence. I'll buy it, I said quickly, and the bargain was consummated. I afterwards discovered it was too large for the oil painting, so I set to work with hammer and saw to reduce it in size, with the result that in the evening grandfather was framed, elegantly and properly as befitted him, for the frame turned out to be a really fine thing after a washing and polishing, the sort of frame one might pay at least thirty shillings for if purchasing new. Grandfather seemed to smile more broadly than ever, even when Judge, coming upon him unexpectedly, stood before him in amazement and barked a full five minutes at him.

I hung the old gentleman's portrait directly over my typewriter, and all the next morning he smiled down upon me, while I wrote my London letter to an American paper. His smile seemed to follow me out of the room and out of the flat as I went with my letter to the post, and after I had dropped it in the box, I took a walk among some of the curious, dingy, old-fashioned streets of the West Central District, where pawn-chops, antique, and second-hand shops abound. As I walked about and peered into the doors and windows, I kept thinking of the pleased old gentleman who hung over, my typewriter, and I said to myself, What a pity he couldn't have been one of my ancestors

instead of those horrid creatures I found out about at the British Museum. I didn't believe he died not worth a groat, or fought against George Washington, or went pirating, and I didn't believe his wife ever had to sit on meeting-house steps and confess unspeakable things. Poor old man! I wondered how he got into that dirty second-year-old. hand shop anyway, and got sold to me for a beggarly 18 pence. Nice old man. If I could have had him for a

great-great-great-grandfather, it would have been worthwhile. After all, why not? Why not imagine it? Why not adopt him as great-great-great-grandfather? Indeed, why not adopt a lot of ancestors, who seem to be of a decent sort, rather than claim dissent from those apologies for ancestors which I had found in the British Museum records. I knew plenty of my country people adopted ancestors, ancestors that weren't half so nice, in appearance at least, as was my old gentleman. I'll do it, I exclaimed, half aloud, as I stood before one of the curiosity shop windows. I'll see if I can buy some more cheap. I'll fill the whole flat with it. I'll fill the whole flat with ancestors at 18 pence apiece. I looked in my purse. There were still my two gold sovereigns and a few

coppers. The money I had in those days was the kind of money that was spent before it was got, booked ahead as it were. The installment on my typewriter was nearly due, and most of what I then had I had intended to use for that. But all ideas of economy, sense, and reason took flight from my head. The desire for ancestors swallowed up all other desires. It became a sort of intoxication, or rather it became like what I fancy might be the desire and determination of a man to have a drink, no matter what happened in consequence. It became a passion, an overmastering one, and the only bit of reasoning I did was to say, It must be I ought to do it, else I wouldn't feel like this, if I want to,

anything so badly as this, I ought to have it. Have you got any old paintings? I asked, looking in at one of the shop doors. I don't think so, miss. Everything I've got that's worth selling, you see right here exposed to view. But you might have some old things stored away, won't you just look? I answered. But I know I got nothing. There were a lady ear arph an hour ago, inquiring for frames, whether they add pictures in them or not, but I didn't have. But I don't want frames. You might have some pictures without them.

I got an old roll of pictures somewhere, but they're stuffed away, and I don't know just where. Paintings, I asked. I think they was engravings, and some in what they call aisle, too. If I tikes a lot of trouble to find them, I'd want you to buy them. Of course, I answered. he moved away to the back of the shop and i sat myself on a rickety stool it was one of the worst and dirtiest of the second-hand shops and there seemed to be less than five pounds worth of goods in the whole place it must have been three-quarters of an hour before he returned with a dirty roll which he handed to me to untie and inspect sure enough there were some oil paintings faded wrinkled and torn among the collection there were some oil paintings faded wrinkled and torn among the collection there were some

seven in all, three men, three women, and a child, so far as I could make out through the dirt that covered them. How much for these? I asked, holding up the seven. Ar for crown. I handed him a sovereign, but he declared his inability to change it, and asked if I would wait while he went to the public house with it. I fancied I would rather get it changed myself, so I went to the post office and bought some stamps and then returned to pay over the half crown. All the afternoon I kept at my task of buying remarkable-looking oil paintings. For one that was stretched and in a frame, I paid as high as five shillings. For some small ones, I paid sixpence and ten pence, for others two shillings. Finally, I had collected twenty, and spent 37 shillings for them, and I called a cab because my

burden was greater than I could bear. I was glad Dinah had gone for a walk with Judge when I returned to the flat, so that I had three hours for scrubbing and greasing the really disreputable looking lot I had brought with me to my home. There were, in some of them, the most terrible creases. One gentleman, with a ruffle round his neck and a sword in his hand, seemed to have been attacked in the eyes, for there was a hole in one side of his face, where an eye should have been. The nose of an aristocratic lady I found was only half there, it having been washed and scrubbed, I supposed, many times before. Yet, when I had them all clean and had polished them up with salad oil, I was immensely pleased with them. For some I made frames of

pasteboard, covered with old black silk and velvet. Others, after trimming the edges, I tacked directly on the wall, and when I got the room embellished with them, removing all the other pictures from the sitting-room, with the exception, of course, of the original ancestor, I must say I was pleased and even surprised at the effect. My room, which had been merely pretty before, now looked anciently grand, and the old gentleman over the typewriter smiled and smiled, and some of the rest of the company seemed to be smiling too. Then I smiled in unison with them, and stretched out my hands in a solemn benediction, and said, I adopt you all as my ancestors. I hope you appreciate what I've done for you, rescuing you from the

dirtiest second-hand shops in London, and washing you and putting you in a clean, nice room. I hope you don't mind being adopted by me. I'm a very decent sort of person, and it may be you've got real descendants you've just as much reason to be ashamed of as I have to be ashamed of my real ancestors. And while I was declaiming to the ladies and gentlemen on the wall, my almost empty purse fell to the floor, and Dinah, to whom I always allowed the privilege of a latch-key, walked into the sitting-room with Judge. "'Miss Polly, what am de matter?' exclaimed Dinah, looking about in amazement at the walls. These are my ancestors, Dinah, I answered.

You don't mean day as your grandpaps and grandmams from way back, like old Massa had in Virginia? Yes, Dinah, I said. Why, Miss Polly, how you done fine'em? Where'd they been? demanded Dinah aghast, going up to the gentleman with one eye and sticking her finger in the hole that served for the other. In an old dirty shop, Dinah, I think they were. stolen and sold you know, and it's lucky I came across them. Dinah was not too skeptical. Poor thing.

She was always willing to take my word for even more than it was sometimes worth, and when she had examined each one in turn and had several times exclaimed, I guess we's getting grand these days! Went to her kitchen with more dignity and self-importance than I had ever seen her assume before, saying, I spect we's quality, ain't we Miss Polly? That night I amused myself with naming my ancestors, and before I went to bed, made out a catalogue of them,

as one might do for a picture gallery. I awoke the next morning with a start, and ran into the sitting room to see if I had been dreaming that I had spent all my money on ancestors. I received a shock to find it was no dream, a shock that brought me back to the realities of life and the uselessness of ancestors for purposes of paying installments on typewriters and buying bread and meat and potatoes and postage stamps. Had I been mad the day before, and was I now coming to?

That was the question I was resolving in my mind, when Dinah, with a new dignity added to her step and a new look of satisfaction on her face, came in with my breakfast. That over, I dressed and went into my ancestral gallery and sat down at my typewriter, trying to think of something to write about. I could not. My brain seemed to have lost its cunning. My wits had gone a visiting. All joy in existence had fled. I hated myself for a fool, and the rest of the world for knaves. I cursed my relation over in America for having been the original cause of my full-heartedness and improvidence. Thirty-seven shillings worth of ancestors and nothing for the morrow's dinner. Who had brought me to that? Who but the relation with his

nagging letters that finally resulted in my going a pedigree hunting at the British Museum, finding ancestors, discarding them as unworthy, and then spending my little all in buying for myself a more reputable lot? Were they a more reputable lot, after all? I looked around at them and fell a-thinking. They seemed not to smile so sweetly as they had done the day before. Some of them, especially the gentleman with one eye, looked vicious. Some greeted me with cynical, some with, I now thought, idiotic smiles. Even the old gentleman looked grave, as he watched my listless fingers move over my typewriter keys, bringing out upon the paper nothing more inspiring than the sentence I practiced

when I wanted to get up speed for something that must be written in a hurry. John quickly extemporized five tow bags. Over and over again I wrote it, the sentence that contains every letter in the alphabet, and therefore is bound to bring a quick mechanical action to the fingers if practiced sufficiently. I filled three sheets of paper with it. Then I got carbon and manifolded it, and flung the pages about the room, and at eleven o'clock I put on my coat and hat and went out for a walk, at loggerheads with myself and all the world. When I get into an excited state of mind, my only remedy is to go and walk it off. It was so in those days, and I passed to Charing Cross along the Strand into Fleet Street,

with no object in view except to walk myself into a state of reasonableness. I turned into one of the streets that went towards the embankment, then I turned about again and got into a street I had never seen before, Dorset Street, and I saw hanging suspended over a door, the sign, the St. James's Gazette. As I have said, I was at loggerheads with myself and all the world, and here was the office of the paper that was always a little. giving me unkind, or at least cutting notices. It was one of the few London papers that I considered had not treated me fairly. It had once laughed in print because the Times had published my

American girls' reply to Mr. Redyard Kipling. It had said, The Lady is very vague and shadowy. It is indeed very like reading Mr. W. D. Howells. Now, in asserting this last, I consider, considered the St. James's had added insult to injury. Insult not to me, I hastened to say, but to Mr. Howells, whose works I had read and loved from my childhood up, and at whose feet I would ever sit, as did Paul at the feet of Gamaliel. As I was about to pass under the swinging sign, a sudden resolution took possession of me. The St. James's had treated me cruelly, and I would go and tell the editor what I thought of him. I knew not the editor's name,

so as I handed in my card at the waiting room, I merely said, I would like to see the editor. The card went up, and a boy came down. Mr. Lowe will be happy to see you, Miss. Will you step this way? said the boy. What did you say the editor's name was? I asked sharply.

Mr. Sidney Lowe, he returned, and then I was ushered into the editorial sanctum. A pleasant-faced gentleman rose and extended his hand, but I did not take it. Neither did I deign to be seated in the proffered chair. I came, I said, trying to wither him with scorn and dignity, to inquire why your paper is always pitching into me. Why, if you must notice my articles which appear in other papers,

you can't say something pleasant as the rest do. "'What objections have you got to me?' "'None whatever, my dear young lady, "'except that you take all your clever things to other papers "'instead of favouring the St. James's with them,' "'answered the editor, still standing and smiling. "'Did ever American man have so apt and gallant an answer "'for blustering American maiden, I wonder?

"'Truly, if so, I never heard of it. "'And yet I had heard that Englishmen were devoid of chivalry as compared with American men, that they had no pretty speeches at their tongues ends as had my own countrymen. I was astonished and nonplussed into answering with wide-open eyes, is that it? Is that really the reason? I give you my word it is, returned Mr. Lowe, again offering me his hand and then a seat, both of which I then took. Now, I hope you have come with some brilliant suggestion for an article for the St. James's? Oh, yes, oh yes. I returned, trying to be as ready-witted and save myself as well as he himself had done. Let me see. I was going to ask you,

I was going to ask you. Dear me, where was my American ingenuity, my quickness in an emergency, even the good, ordinary common sense that I thought I had possessed before I went out and spent all my money on ancestors. What was that? Ancestors? A sudden inspiration came. I was going to ask if you would care for an article telling how easy it is for Americans to buy ancestors and pedigrees in London and pass them off for their own. What? asked Mr. Lowe, looking interested. It's astonishing, I continued, how cheaply old oil paintings can be bought, and how Americans can go to certain people who will manufacture pedigrees for them. And then you know American heiresses buy their way to court and kiss the queen's hand. American money can do anything in England.

How do you know that? he asked. Oh, I can prove it, I answered readily. Why, I know it's so, but I can get still further proofs. I like that idea. It ought to make not only one but several articles, said Mr. Lowe, when I had told him of some of the proofs I had already at hand. I went home in the best of humor with myself and all the world, and I kissed every ancestor in the flat, and they all smiled as they had done on the evening before. The old gentleman looked down beamingly upon me as I began pounding out upon my typewriter the first chapter of a series which described the power of the almighty dollar in London society. It took me some time to finish it, but when it was written and

published, and all London was talking about it, and wondering whether it could possibly be true, I was able to think quite calmly over the sum I had expended for my ancestors. For several weeks I continued to work, surrounded by that noble company of adopted forefathers and four mothers, till one afternoon some American friends called upon me. Why, this room is quite a picture gallery, and the paintings are not so bad I vow. One of them exclaimed, examining them critically. Rather ancient in more ways than one, some of them look. Who are they?

My ancestors, I answered. "'What?' "'Yes, my ancestors,' I returned, "'going over to one of the most ancient-looking gentlemen among them. "'I'll name them one by one as you point them out.' "'Well, who's this?' "'Notting at one with a sword in his hand "'and a seal-ring on his finger.

"'That,' I said, "'is, or rather was, "'for, as you can see, he lived in very ancient times, "'the Duke of Banks.' "'Duke of Banks,' he repeated incredulously. "'I don't know much about the English dukedoms, "'but I know there has never been such a person as the Duke of Banks.' "'And Braes,' I went on, appearing not to notice his interruption.

"'He was a Scotchman, was my ancestor, the Duke of Banks and Braes. "'You know the song about the Banks and Braes of Bonnie Dune, don't you? "'Well, you see—' "'I was not allowed to finish my... enlightening explanation of the origin of my surname, for I was again interrupted with shouts of derisive laughter from the whole company. Then I told the truthful account of my search after ancestors, which had ended in my buying at a bargain, I did not tell how cheaply, a job lot, and adopting them. What will you take for them, said one of my visitors? A hundred dollars, I answered

in jest. All right, I'll buy them at that price and take them back to New York as a speculation. And the next day, my walls were cleared of oil paintings, and the other and daintier pictures put back in their places, and with 20 pounds in my hand, besides the check for my articles in the St. James's, I felt that I had made rather a profitable deal in ancestors. End of Chapter 10. Chapter 11 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Librovox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 11 A Midnight Holocaust

A Gentleman is waiting to see you, Miss Polly. He'd done been a waitin'ees two hours and a half, and I done say you'll be late, but he say, never mind, and so he's setting down. Thus was I greeted by Dinah one winter evening, when, returning from business that had kept me late, she answered my knock at the flat door. "'What is his name, Dinah?' I asked. "'I don't know, Miss Polly. Didn't you ask his name? "'Oh, yes, I ask him two-tree time, and he say, never mind, no mad about de name.' i stepped into the sitting-room and immediately there rose a tall commanding-looking man with a face that immediately i hated though i did not know why you have waited to see me i inquired you are miss elizabeth banks the american journalist he asked answering my question by a question yes and you he handed me a card i don't think i am acquainted with you i don't think i am acquainted with you i am

I said, looking at the name on the pasteboard. Perhaps not, but that does not matter. I am but an emissary from one whose name at least you may know very well. You know blank, or rather you know of him, and would perhaps know his signature if you saw it. He mentioned the name of a very prominent and wealthy person, and I answered, yes. Very well. He is not in London at present, else he is not in London at present, else he is. he would probably try to make his arrangements with you in person, and as this is a matter he wishes

hurried up, he has delegated me to act as his representative. I have a letter with me that will prove to you that I act for him, and I am also authorized to make financial arrangements with you. I don't think I understand you. I have never had any business dealings with the gentleman you speak of. I do not know him personally, and he does not owe me any money. certainly not but he now has a business proposition to make to you something very advantageous to both you and himself would you mind if i closed the door so that your servant may not hear our conversation i don't think it matters but you may close it if you wish i replied the door was closed and the man continued i take it that you are a hard-working struggling american girl trying to make your way in life London by newspaper work, that your income is derived wholly from your work, that you are just getting your start and are not too rich and prosperous? I don't know why you should trouble yourself to

think about it at all, but as the situation you describe is not one of which any woman need be ashamed, I will admit it is the true one. I did not mean to be rude, or even to try to pry into your affairs, but I wanted to be sure that you were in need of money, because I was in need of money, before I told you the means of obtaining it. Now, you have written for one of the English papers, a description of your posing as an American heiress, telling how much you discovered it would cost a rich American girl to get introduced into the highest circles of society and presented to the queen. You say in your articles that you advertised as a rich American girl for a chaperone of social distinction to take you in charge, and that you received,

in answer to your advertisement, a very large number of letters from very well-known persons offering to chaperone you and introduce you at court, giving their terms. Also, letters from aristocratic Englishmen, who offered to marry you if you had a large enough fortune. Yes, I said. The letters bore the names, the crests, and the addresses of the distinguished persons themselves. Yes. What have you done? done with those letters. Some I returned to the writers who wrote requesting them. Many of them I still have. I came to buy those letters. They are not for sale, I said, laughing. Plenty of things are not for sale until a purchaser comes. What interest has the man who sent you here got in those letters,

I asked. I can't explain to you the interest he has, but it is a very important. It is a very much. I very large one, especially if they have among them letters that he has good reason to suspect are there. Anyway, he's willing to take the risk, and he authorized me, as you see by this note, to offer you a reasonable, I may even say, a large sum for them. What does he want to do with the letters, I asked? That is something I can't tell you, and it ought not to interest you, but I can assure you that it will be a matter of, are kept strictly private, and your name will not be brought into it. Now, will you name your terms, and if they are anywhere within the bounds of reason, they shall be complied with.

You have told me all you have to tell me, I asked, rising. I think that is about all. Now, will you name your terms? I have no terms, and I will now have to bid you good evening, I answered, and I went towards the door to call Dinah to show him out. You mean to say you refuse to sell those letters that are not of the slightest use to you? He exclaimed, jumping up in astonishment. I count myself an honest and honorable woman, so naturally I do not stoop to this kind of negotiation. As soon as you began to speak of the letters, I felt instinctively what you wanted, and I would have told you to go at once,

only I wished to find out what your scheme was. You are too poor and too much of a beginner to be so scrupulous. Don't think because you've made a name in London that you will have no more troubles in life. The time may come when you'll get hungry in this big city. A thousand dollars or so doesn't drop into a woman journalist's hands very often. Oh, I don't know. A thousand dollars or so, as you call it, can very often.

often fall into the hands of the woman journalist who is willing to sell her honor for it. As for getting hungry in London, I've had that experience already, and I suppose, if necessary, I can have it again. I went to the door and called Dinah. Dina, show the gentleman out. Just one minute, he said hurriedly, as Dina made her appearance. Will you give me this information? Have you got among those? letters one from blank? No, I answered. I will assure you that I have no letter and never so much as heard of the person you mention. It was a lie, for I remembered the name as a signature to a letter

which I received in answer to my advertisement. I hold that there are times when to tell the truth is to commit a dishonorable act, and to tell a lie is to act righteously. It is when the the truth will betray the innocent, and the lie will save. This was one of the cases where I justified a lie. Had I simply refused to answer, the man would have believed there was such a letter, but in looking him squarely in the face and telling him there was not, I think he believed me. He left me, saying, if you change your mind, you have my address. I cannot say that I passed through a temptation, nor that it could be in any way accounted to me for righteousness that I had refused to become a blackmailer or assist in what was doubtless a blackmailing scheme. There was no

hesitation nor question in my mind as to what one could do in such a case if one possessed only the most ordinary ideas of honor and decency. So, with the exception of a feeling of indignation that such a proposal should have been made to me, I went to bed, calmly enough that night and to sleep. I awoke just as the clock out in the kitchen struck one, with a cry of horror, and then a prayer of gratitude. Thank God it was a dream, only a dream, I said, as I jumped from my bed and made my way in the dark to light the candles on my dressing table. Judge sprang from the couch where he had been sleeping, to inquire the meaning of my striking of matches and lighting the room at so solemn and ghostly an hour. There was not a sound in the

street, and none in the flat, except that which I made with my bare feet on the rugs as I ran to my desk, drew out a tin box, and took from it a bundle of letters, all securely tied together. "'We must burn them, Judge,' I said, every one. For I had seen in a dream a vision of those letters on a mission, fiendish and hellish in its intention, and always in the dream was the face of the man who had called on me that evening. In his hands he held the letters, and I, looking on, knew not how he had gotten them. But in my dream I thought, if I had only burnt them, he never would have found them. And as I woke the cry I made was, burnt, burnt, they should have been burned. I am not a particularly superstitious person,

but I am a believer in my own premonitions, in the instincts of my dog, and in some warnings that come to me in dreams. Most of my dreams are like other people's dreams, without rhyme or reason, but occasionally I have had dreams which I have felt sure were intended as messages to give me happiness or success or to save me great trouble or regret, and such dreams I never disregard. Therefore, when I awoke from my dream horror that night, I doubted not that I must immediately burn the letters which I had been asked to sell. I sat down on the floor and untied them. There were 83 in all, for having been returned by request to the writers. I took them all out of the envelopes and put the envelopes in a pile.

Then I spread each letter out upon the floor, one after another, row upon row, in a sort of semicircle before the fireplace. The room was cold, and I shivered, but having recovered from the horror of my dream and accepting it merely as a suggestion as to the course I should pursue in regard to the letters, I had no notion to dump them all into the grate together and burn them like ordinary fuel. It was my mood, too, that Judge should officiate at the Holocaust. So when I had lighted one letter and it had blazed up and turned to black,

I said, Now, Judge, number one, pointing to the letter farthest away. Judge trotted over to the letter which I designated, brought it in his mouth, wagged his tail, and dropped it into my lap. I threw it into the fire. Number two, I called out, and again, Judge, obedient, though bewildered, brought me the second one. Number three, aha, I looked at it and laughed. It was from a very distinguished personage indeed, the letter which my collar had asked if I had got, and I had said I had not. It blazed beautifully, and I warmed my hands,

over the pretty colored flame. Judge brought me letters now without my calling out or pointing. He had heard me laugh when I burnt number three, and, concluding that we were in for a joke on somebody, and being always a jolly dog when the occasion demanded it, he entered into the spirit of the thing right heartily, trotting back and forth with the letters faster than I could burn them. One after another, tenderly, carefully,

I dropped the dainty missives into the blaze, which sprang up renewed and more brilliant as I added to the fuel. The room became illumined with glory, very colored flames shown forth from the tops of the letters as their many shaded crests and coats of arms were caught by the fire. So bright was the room with the burning that the light from my two candles first grew dim and then showed not at all in the greater illumination that enveloped them. when the letters were all burnt i dropped in the envelopes and again the pretty coloured flames darted from about the seals two o'clock struck then two thirty and there remained of the letters upon which so high a price had been set nothing but black sheets which i took in my hands and crumbled to ashes again the light of the candles shone forth dimly compared with the greater glory that had passed and judge and i sat before the fireplace till i fell asleep to dream only the commonplace dreams brought by health and an unburdened mind

so perished those strangely confiding letters which certain members of the british aristocracy wrote to an unknown american woman advertising her desire for an entrance into the highest society of england for a consideration when dinah came in at eight o'clock i was in bed and ready for my breakfast oh miss polly she said it were a cold night last night and de when it do howl fit to wake de day "'And I do clare,' she exclaimed, "'going over towards the fireplace, "'you'll hold great in tiles "'is dat full of black specks and sootses, "'which must have come down by the wind "'from other chimbleys,

"'and I got to go to work now and clear it up. "'Diss here town am a wishes town, "'and as full of dirt as I'm full of sin.' "'That's true, Dinah,' I said as I drank my coffee. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 12 On the Bringing Out of a First Book

Some leaves from a diary kept in those days. September 14, 1894 My book is published and I have not been so happy since I came to London. I never quite realized how lovely a thing it was to be the author of a book until I got two dozen copies tonight from my publishers. I've been so happy I have cried and laughed alternately all the evening. I spread the whole two dozen on the floor and examined every one over and over again. I have given Dina one and written my name in it. I told Judge to pick out whichever one he wanted and bring it to me, and I'd write his name in it.

He grabbed one by a cover and brought it over and laid it in my lap, and I have written his name in it and sewed linen over it so he won't get the coloring from the picture cover in his mouth. I have spent all the evening reading the book through again, though of course I knew everything in it by heart. I shall take one to bed with me and read by the candle till I go to sleep. September 15th I went out this morning at 8 o'clock to see if my book, was prominently displayed on all the stalls of the underground and in the shop windows. It was too early, and none of the stalls and shops were open. I went out again at 9 o'clock, and it was still too early. At 10, I bought a ticket at the underground that would take me round the circle, and I got out at every station and looked for my book on the stalls. It was nowhere to be seen. I spent six shillings

cab fare and two shillings bus fare going about the shops to look for the book, but there wasn't a sign of it. At several of the shops I asked if they had it, and they said they hadn't heard of it. I suppose it's a failure, and nobody will buy it. I never have known such disappointment in my life, it seems to me. September 16th, I have been to all the stalls and bookshops again, and no signs of the book. I went this afternoon to see the publisher and asked him what was the matter that none of the shops had my book. He said it was only published on the 15th and it wasn't time yet. September 17th. The book was not at the stalls or in the shops today and I went to the publisher again. I burst out crying when I got to his office. The publisher

explained that it was all right and that books were sometimes not displayed till several days after publication. He told me I could not expect things to move along in England the way they did in the United States. September 18th, there's nearly a column review of my book in the blank. I've been out again, and the book is nowhere to be seen. September 20th, the book is everywhere. I saw it at the underground station when I took my ticket for Round the Circle. I got out at every station and found it prominently displayed except in two stalls. At both places there were other books in front of it. One of the books in front of mine was six shillings. I bought it so mine would show. I couldn't afford it, but I didn't know of any other way to get mine a front place. At the next station,

where I could not see my book, I asked the boy for it. He handed it to me, so of course I had to buy it. But when he wasn't looking, I pulled out a second one of my books from the back row and placed it right in front of all the others. September 25th. The book is now at all the shops, and it's in Moody's front window. The papers are treating me well. October. What the difficulty is in America I cannot understand. I expect to make more money there than in England. December. The book is out in America. but there is no copyright on it. I have tried my best to understand what all the trouble has been about, but I've been all this time without getting a glimmer of the meaning of the copyright law.

All I can say is that it is unjust and cruel, especially to me an American woman. I expected to make plenty of money in my own country by the publication of my experiences in England. I thought I would make as much as a thousand dollars. January. I've just lost a chance of earning a lot of money. A man called this afternoon to ask if I would go into the music halls and do a turn as he called it. He said I was now the talk of London, and if I would sing a song about the American Lady journalist, telling about my experiences as a servant, flower girl, crossing sweeper, and all the other things,

illustrating each kind of work with a change of costume, and making gestures as though scrubbing, holding out flowers, I'd make a crossing broom and so forth, I'd make a great hit. He said that after several weeks in London I could go over and do America. He tried my voice, sitting down at the tin pan, and asking me to sing something. I sang one of Dinah's Negro songs, and Judge joined in the way he always does when there's any music. He said I had the sort of voice that would take in the halls, and that I could take Judge on the stage with me. He would advertise us as the American Lady Journalist and her poodle. He said I had some talent for acting, that I must have had a great deal, else I couldn't have done all the things in real life that I've

done. He suggested a beginning in the halls, and then going into comedy as a soubret. I considered his proposition very seriously, for I'm very much in need of money just now, but I have decided against it. End of Chapter 12. Chapter 13 of the autobiography of a newspaper girl by Elizabeth Al Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 13, An American Millionaire Hunts Me Up. Dear Miss, will you please be so good as to let me come and see you as I am

interest in a magazine and would like to talk to you about words. for it. I will call when it is most convenient for you to see me if you will write me where you reside. I send this to the publishers of your book to be forwarded as I do not know where you reside. I am most respectfully Ebenezer Emmett. I tossed the letter into my waist-basket, and with an exclamation of anger and disgust, gave my typewriter such a loud sounding bang as made Dina, who was dusting in the same room, turn round anxiously and say, I hopes Miss Polly, de ain't no bad news?

No, Dinah, I answered. Only an impertinent, illiterate man who has read my book wants to get acquainted with me, and he's trying to find out where I live so he can call. Let me see that letter, Miss Polly, and if he give his directions, I have a mind to go calling on him and acts an explanation of his conduct.

"'It's there in the basket, Dinah. "'Pick it up and read it if you want to.' "'I returned indifferently.' "'Dina picked up the objectionable missive "'and proceeded laboriously to read it. "'I don't see nothing wrong with that letter, Miss Polly.' "'She remarked when she had got about half through it. "'He do seem to live at a right quality-like hotel,

"'and he say he have a magazine which he want yo to work for. "'Ain't you open to magazine work, Miss Polly?' "'Ally, ain't you done told me when you got lost that kind of work to do, you'd make more money and pay me five dollars a week?' "'But Dinah, you don't understand because you are not an educated person,' I said. "'No man who writes like that can have anything to do with a magazine. It is not a properly written letter.' Dinah did not heed me.

She had evidently got to the bottom of the letter, for I heard her muttering to herself over and over again, "'Abeniza Emmett, Ebenezer Emmett, "'speck I seen dat name before.' "'Miss Polly,' she said finally, "'don't you reckon that name seem familiar like?' "'I don't think so, Dinah,' I replied. "'But I be sure I know dat name,' she insisted.

"'Seems like it has something to do with cookin.' "'And with that she started for the kitchen. "'There came the sound of rattling among dishes, sauce pans and tins, and dinah saying several times, I l'all must be here. Suddenly a scream of delight came from the kitchen. Oh, honey, I done found it. Here it am on to tin can, Ebeneza Emmett Packer.

It am to codfish man in Merricky. I rushed out to find the kitchen in an uproar. All the contents of the cupboard were spread out in confusion on the table and floor, and in the midst, doing an amateur cakewalk, was Dinah, hugging a blue tin can, on which ran the legend, printed in gay colors, salt codfish, ready for immediate use, price 25 cents, Ebenezer Emmett, Packer, USA. Didn't I told you it was familiar like? exclaimed Dinah, ain't I used this goods for picked up codfish and Sunday morning breakfast fishballs

ever since I was cooking for a living? Why, Miss Polly, that Missa Emmett must be woof millions of dollars, because everybody uses his codfish. Sure enough, now that I saw the name in print, I knew Ebenezer Emmett's codfish as a household necessity, but I could not believe that the man who packed those tins and the man who wrote the letter to me could possibly be the same. I'm sure they can't be the same, Dinah, I said discouragingly. the man who wrote that letter couldn't have anything to do with a magazine, and the rich codfish man would know how to write a proper letter or have a secretary write for him. No, it is somebody else of the same name, or somebody has used the name to attract my attention and make me answer. "'Miss Polly,' said Dinah solemnly, "'I's older than you, I is, and done hern tellenimeriki of rich men which could

write day names. Day is called self-made'em. Dina's method of reasoning was beginning to have an effect on me. Might not Ebenezer Emmett, the great millionaire, be a self-made man? Dinah, let me see that letter again, I said. She passed it over, and I read aloud, musingly, as I am interest in a magazine. He doesn't say he's going to edit it, I reflected. Perhaps someone else's the editor, and Ebenezer Emmett only owns it. He only owns it, I repeated. Why, he's rich enough to own a hundred magazines, and if he wants any particular person to write for them, who can say him nay?

I'll answer the letter, Dinah, I said as I left the kitchen. I'll tell him he may call tomorrow afternoon, and if he's not the codfish man at all, I'll cough very loud, and you must ring the messenger box for a policeman to arrest him. So I wrote a dignified letter which could not possibly be misconstrued by any bold adventurer seeking the acquaintance of a defenseless American girl in London. Dear sir, if you wish me to do some work for your magazine, I shall be pleased to see you at this address at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon

when we can talk the matter over. Very truly yours. Mr. Ebeneza Amit! Dinah was looking her very best and trimest the next afternoon when she announced my visitor. To my utter amazement and delight, she had secretly donned the despised streamered cap, which always before she had steadfastly refused to wear. She had also squeezed herself into a much tighter fitting dress than usual, and was as smart, haughty, and dignified in her demeanor as any British parlour-maid could possibly have been. Nevertheless, there was on her face a self-satisfied, I done told you so, look, as, with what appeared to be a much-practiced bow and curtsy, she ushered into our little sitting-room a well-dressed elderly American man,

who carried his silk hat not quite familiarly, yet not awkwardly. He was, perhaps, 65 or 70, with kindly blue eyes that shone through his spectacles, and a long white beard. All suspicion and prejudice melted away from my thoughts, and I doubted not that I now shook hands with the great Ebenezer Emmett of tinned codfish fame. He was a very agreeable surprise to me, this millionaire, who had written so grotesque a letter. There was no sign of commonness or vulgarity in his appearance, and his bearing and manner were those of the hearty, whole-souled gentleman, and even when he talked there was only occasionally to be detected a slight deviation from the strictly grammatical. His voice was pleasant, though there was in it a suggestion of the down-east drawl often noted among the New Englanders.

I've been going to write to you for some time, he said, when I had given him a real American rocking-chair to sit on. but I'm not much at letter writing, so I put it off and off, and as I'm going to leave England next week, I made up my mind I'd do it, and hoped you'd excuse all the mistakes of an old man that didn't have the school advantages he'd ought to when he was young. I always take my secretary about with me to attend to letters and things, but two weeks ago he was taken sick and had to go away from London, so that's how it was I had to do my own writing. I felt myself growing red, for shame of the way I had first received his letter, and I wondered if the good man could possibly have an instinctive knowledge of the whole affair. But he went on. Though I'm not much on writing, I'm great on reading, and I always keep a lookout in the newspapers. So once I read a letter in an American paper giving a description of the Tower of London.

I'd never been to London then, but I'd read a great deal about that old tower, and it was all such prosy, dry-bone reading, that I was very much surprised to find this letter so bright and funny. I hadn't supposed there was anything for comic writing in that subject, but this letter made the tears come into my old eyes for laughing. Oh, oh, I exclaimed. Was it really funny, Mr. Emmett? I was very unhappy when I wrote that, letter. The old man chuckled. It was a good one, he said. But what do you suppose? The very next day after I read that article, I happened to see a book with a picture cover on it, and I saw it was by the same writer. I bought that book at once, and as soon as I began to read it, I knew it was by the same girl who had written about the tower. There was a picture of you in the front of it, too, and I didn't think you was quite such a happy-looking little girl as you ought to be, though you did write such bright and

happy things. Then through the book I'd seem to read between the lines, and what I read between the lines worried me. Yes, it did. I said to myself, there's a little American girl over in England working night and day to earn a living. I wonder if she made plenty of money out of that book. If she didn't, she'd ought to, and what's the matter with me putting her on to something she can make money out of? I made up my mind I'd hunt her up while I went over to England, and that's what I've done, you see. My head was beginning to whirl in anticipation of what this man of millions was intending to do for me. Was he going to adopt me and make me the heiress of the codfish factory? Once a more unpleasant thought came into my head.

Perhaps he was going to propose to me. Horrors! He was almost old enough to be my grandfather. Then I remembered that he had spoken of a magazine in his letter. Yes, that was it. He wanted me to do some literary work just exactly what he said. He pulled out from his pocket a package of notices from a newspaper-cutting agency and spread them before me. You see how I've kept track of you, he said. I sent to one of these agencies and told them to cut out everything they saw about you. I took a sort of interest, you know. It is very kind in a great man like you to be interested in me and my work, I said lamely. I really was at a loss for words, and I began to wish the conversation would take a more business-like turn.

It did, for his reply was, You've noticed these sidewalk artists over here in London, I suppose? Well, now we don't have anything. like that in America. Have you ever written an article about them? No, I never did, I answered. That's where I'm ahead of you, he laughed, for as soon as I saw them, I thought they ought to be written about. I'd like you to write me a magazine article about them, if you will. I'll do it tomorrow, I returned, but I forgot to ask you which magazine it was that you wished me to work for. What is the name of it, and who is the editor?

Oh, my magazine. I'm going to start one, and I haven't got the staff picked out yet. Mr. Emmett began looking about the room, examining the pictures and the furniture. Do you like to live in England better than in America? He asked. You wouldn't rather live in your own country, I suppose. You're quite settled down here? Yes, I think so.

least I want to live in England for several years yet. Yes, he resumed, as though he had not been asking a question. I was speaking about the magazine I expect to start in London. There's a great field for it, I'm told, and I shan't lose any money, I know. There's the staff to be picked out and the name to be decided on, and then the editor and all that. Did you ever edit a magazine? No, I never did, but I edited a society page in America, I suppose you will have a very eminent literary man for your editor, and I hope he will like my article about the sidewalk artists. Suddenly, an intuition of what this millionaire intended to do came to me like a flash. He was going to start a magazine, and I was to be the editor. He had not said so, but I knew it. I'll have to write some long letters to

you when I go back to America, and I'll get these things about the magazine Ship Shape, when I can find a man for business manager who'll look after my interests all right. Now, about that article you are to do for the first number. You'll need cab fares and have other expenses, so I'll just pay you this $25 now as a little advance on account of expenses. He laid a five-pound note on the table and rose to go. I was not accustomed to the customer. I was not a customed to getting paid in advance for something I had not done, and at first I demurred. But he insisted that five pounds would not pay nearly all the expenses connected with the article. And finally, much to his amusement, I wrote out a receipt which I had difficulty in getting him to

accept. Received from Ebenezer Emmett Esquire five pounds, the same being some advance money on account of expenses for article about sidewalk artists to be done for his magazine. I'll write to you from America, he said, as he bade me goodbye, and if you want to ask any questions, write to me at my factory and market personal, but I'll be back in England before many weeks, and then I'm going to fix up the magazine. He was gone, and I, joyous, elated, full of hope, with happiness in my heart, heart and a five-pound note in my hand, stood trembling and laughing when Dinah rushed in to hear the news, with her eyes shining and her streamers flying.

Oh, Miss Polly, he word a millionaire man, wasn't he? He do put up codfish, don't he? He do have a magazine, don't he? cried she. Yes, Dinah, I screamed, laughing and crying at the same time. He is the codfish man, and he gave me five pounds on account for an article about sidewalk artists, and he's coming back to London to start a new magazine, and I'm to be the editor of it, and we shall be very rich. Hooray! Hurray! Shout to Jubilee! cried Dinah, dancing around the room with her hands on her hips.

I done told you so, Miss Polly! Hi, y! I see the money being used for her to start the kitchen fires with. I see I be in your professed cook With a white trash kitchen made underneath me O to time a jubilee am come How we danced about the flat We three Judge and old Dinah and I

What promises I made to them both Judge was to have a winter poodle coat Made to order by a French dog tailor And need no longer to sport himself In the homemade one cut out and stitched By his loving mistress Dinah was to have the purple hat she coveted in the high street if she would promise not to wear it when she went out with me. I was to wear wonderful gowns from Paris and have a hat for each gown.

I would drive through Hyde Park in a Victoria, with Judge on the seat beside me, resplendent in a glowing necktie, and Dinah might go to sometimes and sit with her back to the horses, and everybody would say, there goes the editress of the thing, him a jig magazine. We all three went out that evening and spent the five pounds in the most absurd purchases, and Dinah cooked a nine-course dinner. The day following, I began immediately on the pavement artist article, interviewing all those who made pictures along the curb, diving deep into the history of the industry. I spent days in the investigation of how the artists lived and where, how much money they took in and all about them. I wondered if I should engage an eminent artist to illustrate my

article for me and wrote to Mr. Emmett for his opinion on the subject. I also asked whether I should send my article, when completed, to him, or wait for him to come to London. Three weeks, then a month, then five weeks passed, and no reply came. I decided that Mr. Ebenezer Emmett was coming to London, and so did not write. I worked hard on other articles. I planned the kind of magazine I would have. I made up my mind to give a position on the staff to a little English journalist I often saw walking in Fleet Street looking very shabby and forlorn. One day, I opened a package of American papers several weeks old. They had somehow been delayed in reaching me from the other side. On the first page, read a headline, Death of Ebenezer Emmett, the Great Millionaire. He had died soon after I saw him.

My little dream was over. I was again a struggling journalist in London. The romance of the philanthropic millionaire and the poor working girl was, after all, only a storybook occurrence, and I had no right to expect my life to be like a storybook. I would not be the popular, much sought after girl editor of a magazine. I must work my way up steadily and gradually, day by day, week by week, year by year, and when youth had gone and middle age had set in, and I wore glasses and had streaks of gray in my hair, and wouldn't want to wear the bright-hued gowns from Paris, with the gauzy hats to match, why then, perhaps, who knew, might there not possibly come the editorship of a magazine? I sobbed and put my hand on my poodle's head.

Miss Polly, the donuts am done, and, oh, I do clad of goodness, something have happened. Ain't de millionaire man writ yet? Dinah stood in the door with a dish of American donuts in her hand. He is dead, Dinah, and we are poor again, I answered. I said, poor again, as one who had first been poor, then rich, then gone back again to poverty. We ain't rich no more? Oh, Miss Polly! But he were a good man, I reckon, and he'd done mean what he said, but, of course, if he'd die—' Yes, Dinah, he was a good man, he was one of God's gentlemen, I said. End of Chapter 13. Chapter 14 of the autobiography of a newspaper girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. The Sliberbox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 14, The Departure of Dina.

It was several weeks after the news of the death of the American millionaire reached me, and I had settled down again to the quiet working and hoping, by which, after all, the vast majority of the ambitious must reach their goal, when Dinah got a letter through the American mail. She had five pence to pay on it, because only a common two-cent stamp had been stuck on it when it had left the little Alabama post office where it had been postmarked. I was in the kitchen when Dinah got it. When she read it, I noticed only a slight rolling of her eyes, which showed some sort of repressed feeling, and that was all. She went about her work that day as usual, cooking and sweeping and dusting, and frequently their burst from her snatches of half-tearful, half-joyous negro melodies. At first I thought that,

in her quaint phraseology, religion had got hold of her, for she sang of the judgment day, chariots of fire, and the demand by Moses of Pharaoh that he should let my people go. Towards luncheon time the religious songs had ceased, and from the kitchen, drowning the clatter of pots and pans and kettles, there came the sweet strain, of the Dixie song. Dina's voice rolled and swelled, though it seemed to me there were times when it almost choked. I's going back to Dixie, no more I's gone to wander, my heart's turned back to Dixie, I can't stay here no longer, I missed the old plantation, my home and my relation, my hearts turned back to Dixie and I must go

There was something strangely sweet and pathetic and sad in the words and the music And I let my fingers drop for an instant from my typewriter keys In order that I might the better hear it I had never heard Dinah sing in that way before Except when in an ecstasy of religious fervor She sang the camp meeting hymns I's going back to Dixie I's going back to Dixie

I go in where the orange blossoms grow For I hear to chill and calling I see their sad tears fallen My heart's turned back to Dixie And I must go She served the luncheon dutifully and solemnly and once I thought I saw a tear on her cheek, as she stooped to lay Judge's tablecloth on the floor and give him his plate of bread and meat. Miss Polly, she began, as she placed before me one of her wonderful apple pies.

Yes, Dinah, I answered. Oh, nothing, Miss Polly, I were just going to ax if you like to look o dat pie. Seems how I done got too much shortening in it. I don't seem to be measuring right this morning, and done, put salt instead of sugar into cornstarch. The pie's perfect, Dinah, and don't bother about the cornstarch. Throw it away. I'm rich today.

I earned ten pounds this morning. She went to the kitchen, shaking her head sorrowfully, and bemoaning the wasteness of de cornstarch. Something was the matter with Dinah, that I knew, yet how to question her, how to probe to the cause of her sorrow. I did not like to ask her, for it has always seemed to me an unholy thing to demand that others should confide their sorrows to us. I fancied there was something in the Alabama letter that troubled her. Dinah knew me for a friend, and I took it that if she wanted me to know her troubles, she would tell me without the asking.

Late in the afternoon, there came to me the strains of the Dixie song. With one of the verses, the voice broke many times. I see their sad tears fallen. My hearts turned back to Dixie, and I must go. Somehow I knew that Dina's tears were falling while she sang it. Even Judge noticed there was something wrong with the singing of Dina, and he looked up at me inquiringly. Go out to the kitchen, Judge, I said. Go and comfort Dina. Dina cries. He went, the sweet comforter. I knew he would put out his paw to Dinah and that then he would put his head in her lap and tell her with his amber eyes that he loved her. Judge stayed in the kitchen half an hour. The singing had ceased and there was quiet. Finally I felt that I must make an excuse, so I took my typewriter brush out as though to wash it in the kitchen sink, and there by the deal table sat Dinah with her arms round Judge's neck, sobbing softly.

Oh, Dinah! I exclaimed. You must be ill or in trouble. You needn't tell me what it is, only tell me if I can do something for you. Oh, Miss Polly, I must go home. To America, Dinah? I asked, aghast at this new misfortune. Dinah nodded and wiped away her tears with her sleeve. It am that devil, Jim. Jim, you mean your husband? "'Yes, Miss Polly, I must go home to Jim. He needn't me.' "'Now, Dinah, you know very well that's all nonsense, and I won't listen to it. He hasn't been a good husband to you, and you've told me how you used to work for him, and how he beat you and treated you shamefully. You said that he was a devil, that you hated him,

as you had good reason to do, and that was why you came away to London with the American lady.' "'Yes, Miss Polly, Jim, he wore a devil, "'and he beaded me and struck me cross the forehead till the blood come, "'and he drink up all my sabins in the saloon. "'But he are reformed now, and he done break his leg, "'and he's saying de letter I got dis a-morning "'that he needn me for to nurse him, "'and he'd not be bad husband no more.'

"'I tell you, Dinah, this is nonsense. "'I'm sure he'll never reform. Mrs. Saxton told me how badly he had treated you, and that he was one of the kind that would make all sorts of promises, never intending to keep them. He's lazy, he drinks, he's cruel. He only wants you to come home and support him again after these three years of shifting for himself. I don't think he reformed this time, Miss Polly. He say he done got lidgeon, and he speak and pray into camp-meeting, and get de power and holler, hallelujah, when he to revivals come on. Fiddlesticks. He tells you that just to get you home because you're so religious. That's just the sort of trick a mean man would play on a religious woman. Dina, don't you pay any attention to him. He wants you to come home and support him. I know what it will be. You'll have to take in washing and ironing and go out doing day's work and wear your life away. See what a nice, pleasant place you have here with me. And things are

looking up, Dinah, and I shouldn't wonder if in a few years we could move into a beautiful little house with a garden, and I'll get another servant to do all the harder work, and you can be chef and confidential maid and hairdresser to her majesty. That's me. I'll pay you the five dollars a week, then, sure. Now, Dinah, you burn up Jim's letter and don't answer it. He's a bad man, and he doesn't care a bit about you except what you can do for him. Support you. him in his laziness. He loved me, Miss Polly. He done say so in Deletta, and I his lawful wife, and I must go. See here, Dinah, I exclaimed, trying to think of still stronger arguments. Do you realize that when you get back to America, it'll be altogether different from what it is in

England? You've got a social position here. You associate with white people in England, but in America you'll have to go altogether with the Negroes. America is not a land of equality for the Negroes, Dinah. You and I know that. Down in Alabama, where your husband wants you to come, the darkies are as thick as flies. In London there's only an occasional Negro, and here you are a curiosity and a novelty.

There's Mrs. Brown's White Cook, had you into tea with her the other afternoon, and she took you out shopping with her on her last day out, and you rode on the top of a bus with Mrs. Green's parlor-maid, and she invited you to the ball she's going to give her servants when they go to the country. You'll be the bell of that ball, Dinah. All the butlers and grooms will be crazy to be introduced to you and dance with you. Think, Dinah, how different it will be when you get back to America.

Why, you couldn't sit down to eat at the table with a white trash-washer woman in Alabama. Dinah shook her head sadly. "'Yes, Miss Polly, I perfectly appreciate I done got a position in society here, and I liked the way everybody notice me when I go out, and they ain't no society for niggas, set niggas, in Baltimore or Albamy. But I must go back to Jim, Miss Polly. Oh, Miss Polly, I loves dat, nigger.' "'Ah, the truth was out at last.

Dinah loved the man who had ill-treated her, who had beaten her, struck her on the forehead, made her work for her own in his living, and spent her savings for rum at the saloon. Love, in spite of all the brutal black man had done to kill it, had survived, and now it rose uppermost in the heart of this lonely woman of a despised race. She had been happy with me. She loved me and judge, as only those of her skin and nature can love those they serve. She had outgrown her first prejudice against England and no longer referred to America as

Delanna Liberty, finding that English freedom was more than sufficient for all her needs. She had made friends among a few white servants whom she had met in the flat building and in the park when she had walked with Judge. She had been growing happy and contented and was looking forward to the time when we should take a house

out somewhere with a beautiful garden wherein she could hang clothes on a line to dry, clothes washed by her own hands on an American washboard in a big wooden tub. Neither Dinah nor I ever could approve of the laundry work that was done for us in London laundries, and Dinah sighed for conveniences to do the washing and ironing herself,

vowing that in those happy days to come, she would get up at five o'clock and have all the clothes washed and dried before nine o'clock, so the neighbors would not see the closed lines of muslins and flannels hanging over the lawn. But now nothing counted with Dinah but love, foolish, unreasoning, mistaken, undeserved love, yet love. Why argue with her? Why try to dissuade her? She was but a simple soul, and yet she was a woman, and the woman loved a man, and was ready to sacrifice herself for the unworthy obvious. object. The love that draws all women, whether they be white or black, great or lowly, rich or poor,

intellectual or ignorant, to the sacrificial altar, now drew Dinah away from me. It was not for me to blame her or argue with her, but only to pity. It was on a Thursday that the letter came, and on the Saturday, so near at hand, Dinah determined to sail. She served me faithfully till the very last, packing her humble belongings in between times. Never a song except the Dixie song escaped her during the time that remained. She was not happy at her homegoing, at the thought of reunion with the rascal who awaited her on the other side, with a broken leg maybe, though I myself felt very strongly inclined to the belief that the only thing the matter with his leg was laziness, and that

Dinah was now called back to act as a crutch upon which it must depend. Often the tears stood in Dinah's eyes. Often she grabbed Judge and buried her black face in his blacker coat during the Friday that preceded the day of sailing. She sang the song of Dixie sorrowfully, wailingly. My hearts turned back to Dixie, and I must go. Poor Dinah! I I wept at her departure and mourn her still, for she was my friend and I have lost her. End of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth Al Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 15. Economy for two When Dinah had taken her second cabin passage for New York, I advertised for a general servant to live in a flat with one lady, and finally picked out from among the applicants one to whom judge took a particular fancy. I have an implicit belief in Judge's instinct, for he is a far better student of human nature than am I. I trust no one whom he does not trust, and I suspect all those persons who, on being introduced to him, do not give him a friendly pat and tell me he is beautiful. Therefore, on the morning when the aspirants after the position left vacant by Dinah called to see me,

I kept Judge close at hand to inspect them and pass his opinion upon them. Whenever there was a rat tat at the door, Judge went with me to open it. One young woman I turned away at the threshold because, seeing Judge, she started back with a frightened look on her face, exclaiming, oh, a big black dog, will he bite miss? There is no use for you to come in, I said. You wouldn't suit me because you're afraid of dogs, and you must have a bad conscience,

for only people who have bad consciences are afraid of dogs. That girl went her way, and others followed, till finally two young women called at once. I liked them both, and was wondering which one to take, when Judge went up to the shorter girl, saluted her with his three little barks, which meant, happy to see you, took her umbrella in his mouth, put it on the floor, and stretched himself out with his head upon it, looking up into her face with those wonderful eyes of his, and bringing from the girl the exclamation of, Oh, miss, but isn't he beautiful? I engaged her then, and hunted up

her character that day, and the next Monday, the place of diners, was filled. Did I say filled? Forgive me, Dinah. How often hath my very soul yearned for your fried chicken, Maryland style, your donuts fit eating for the gods, your coffee, nectar for the same, your Boston beans done in an earthen pot with the middle piece pork just rightly browned, your cakes of the buckwheat and flannel variety, and your picked up codfish made from the tins of our dear dead Ebenezer Emmett's packing house, and, oh, your potatoes cooked in the 37 different ways, the variety of which made my modest little table ever to provide for me the spice of life. Candor compels me to state that, though Judge picked out for me a strictly honest, kind, and

respectful servant, he selected one whose so-called cooking made me weep and waste away. I lent her Dina's cookbook. I tried to teach her to mash potatoes without lumps to make a cake light enough for a person of ordinary strength to lift without groaning. I explained to her the way to open American tinned vegetables and tried my best to convince her that, man, that is to say, I, could not live on cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts alone, but by every vegetable that proceeded from the fertile earth, and that therefore I must have tin corn and tinned tomatoes and tinned lima beans. In vain, in vain did I explain to her that I could not approve of her method of boiling her clothes in the soup kettle, that I liked not such flavor in my consomme, and that it was not her privilege to put in the post-office savings bank

the two shillings a week wash money I gave her and treat my soup kettle thus. my life became a perpetual worry over the trials of housekeeping, my intellect grew small, my wit got scarce, and I found it impossible to keep my mind in condition for journalistic work. So one day I advertised for a situation for judge's protege, recommended her highly to the lady who came to take up her character, paid her a month's wages, gave her one of my hats and a photograph of myself in housemaid's costume,

and one of Judge's portraits, besides a lock of his hair, and I defied English etiquette by shaking hands with her and wishing her well. I got rid of the flat, sold off the furniture, which was now free of its mortgage, for 60 pounds, and then Judge and I went and took up our abode in a fashionable hotel, and I started a bank account with the 60 pounds, though I knew I must draw it all out the next week, with the exception of the five pounds I had promised always to leave as the very lowest balance that could be allowed.

I went to live at the fashionable hotel because it seemed to me the most economical way I could live. I knew there were cheap places in Pimlico where board and lodging were offered at the remarkably low terms of 18 shillings a week. But I did not see how I, the heroine of London, the most successful woman journalist living, the, the, girl who had made her little pile by introducing American journalism into England, as the newspapers in several countries were pleased to describe me, could afford to live in a cheap boarding or lodging house. Besides, there was judge. At the cheap places, they wouldn't have him, and at the expensive apartment houses, where they would have taken him for a consideration, I found my bills would amount to more than they would at the fashionable hotel. At the latter place,

the manager said when he saw judge and had patted him that they never allowed dogs in the hotel and couldn't take them at any price. One of the hotel guests passed the office door just at that minute with three dogs following in his wake, and the manager laughed and I laughed, and he admitted that as they couldn't allow dogs as guests, they of course could not make any charge for them, and that there were 27 dogs at present in the hotel, though there had been as many as 49. I must say that if there is any particular characteristic of the typical Englishman that I admire more than another, it is his smiling and utter disregard for such rules and laws as he considers unjust and unnecessary, and as for his liberality towards other persons who choose to break the rules,

that he himself lays down for their guidance in government, it is of a sort that I never weary of admiring and taking advantage of. If it be true that England is a land of red tape, then that tape is made of rubber elastic that stretches and stretches out until it is so fine that you really can't see it, and so it does not trouble anybody very much. Would that we had some of the same stretchy kind in America? I tried one day to take Judge into a New York library, passing calmly by the sign no dogs allowed.

An official stopped me. Dogs are not allowed in here, madame, he said, frowning. So I have heard, I retorted smilingly, but I went right on. The official came after me, looking as ugly as fiery red anger could make him. Madame, he exclaimed, I say you can't take that dog. in, can't you read the sign at the door? He took hold of Judge's chain. Drop that, I said. You might be courteous at least. I'll report you for impudence. And I'll report you for breaking a plainly written rule, he replied, as Judge and I indignantly

went out the door. Now, at the doors of Moody's Library in the Brompton Road, there is also the sign no dogs admitted. Yet Judge and I have gone there regularly twice a week for years, and I know of no place in London where such a fine collection of fashionable and thoroughbred dogs can be seen as at Moody's Library almost any morning or afternoon. I told the manager of the hotel when I took possession of my apartments that much of the time I should probably take only one meal a day, my breakfast, as I went out a great deal to luncheon and dinner. He took occasion to recommend to me the laundry which the hotel had just started, and I replied that I would have been glad to patronize it, but I had a laundress, a poor,

struggling young woman who did my washing at odd moments when she could snatch the time from her other duties, and she was really dependent upon me for her living. It was true. When I engaged the suite of apartments, I saw at once that the private bathroom, with its excellent supply of hot and cold water would enable me to economize in the direction of laundry bills, for I could do all my own washing right there in the bathtub, and I bought a supply of starch and bluing, and two flat irons with patent American wooden removable handles, and a spirit stove and fuel wherewith to make it burn, so that I became my own laundress, and boiled my starch on this convenient little stove placed on a box directly under the hotel rules, among which

was a prohibition against washing and ironing in one's rooms. There was also among the rules a prohibition against cooking in the rooms, yet believing that needs must, when necessity for economy drives, I got up many a nice little luncheon and dinner for myself and judge. For ten pence, I got a new laid egg to boil for myself. I generally bought two at a time, as I did not like to ask for only one at the shop where I dealt, a mutton chop for judge, two half-penny rolls, an ounce of butter, and pepper and salt, all for ten pence. Three shillings was the lowest price at which I could get any sort of luncheon at the hotel, and the dinners were still more expensive, of course. I even found that I could get up a dainty dinner over the spirit stove, ending with a sweet, dessert, finger-bowls,

and all, for the low price of one shilling in three-pence, and many indeed were the times that I stayed away from the hotel dining-room, faring thus cheaply, though plentifully, in my own sitting-room. In this way, I kept my monthly hotel bill down to about as low a figure as that for which I had previously lived at the flat with dinah. I found a cape, the most convenient sort of outdoor wrap for me to wear in those days. My cape was smart and expensive looking, and as I had to go out shopping every day, it covered a multitude of groceries and provisions. Judge always carried the most genteel and unsuspicious-looking parcels in his mouth, but my potatoes, mustard and crass, chops, bread, and eggs went under my cape.

One Saturday I was returning from a shopping expedition, having got in double stores on account of the next day being Sunday, and both my hands underneath my cape were absolutely full. Among other things, in a paper bag, I had three halfpence worth of potatoes. I was feeling rather rich and happy. For the week had been exceedingly prosperous, two magazine articles having been published for which I had got my checks. I was wearing my new Paris hat, which, as it was mid-season, I had bought for 18 shillings and

sixpence. It was the delight of my heart, and I am sure that no woman could have desired a lovelier bit of headgear than that hat. I had on a model dress, too. That also was very cheap mid-season price. The skirt was just as long and sweeping as style demanded, and though I generally held up my trains to save them from wearing out, I could not do it that afternoon because both my hands were full, so my skirts swept the ground. Just as I was about to turn into the street where stood my hotel, I saw coming towards me, with outstretched hand and smiling countenance, the well-known and distinguished editor of one of London's high-class periodicals, in the pages of which an article of mine had lately appeared,

and for which I had received a most liberal check, and such a kind and encouraging letter of thanks as only an English editor knows how to write. "'Ah, I am fortunate!' he exclaimed, hastening towards me, "'I am saved the trouble of writing a letter to you to suggest a subject which I feel sure that only you can treat in your bright original style, which will make it instructive as well as entertaining.

Great heavens! There was outstretched to me the hand that held a part of my future literary success in its palm. Yet how could I take it with my own left hand full of eggs and my right hand grasping a bag of potatoes? Consternation seized me, and I thought how utterly stupid was this English custom of handshaking. What could I do? Refuse that proffered hand? How dare I? I felt something give. It was the potato bag bursting, and I looked for the potatoes to roll down at the great man's feet, though I pressed hard against them, then got my elbow outside my cape, pressed against that, and, doubting not that now the potatoes would fall, held out my well-gloved hand. truly heaven helps those who help themselves the crisis passed the great man explained what he wanted me to do for him he required it at once he said would i now put aside everything else i had on hand and do him that article ah would i not rather my heart leapt for joy right up against the eggs that were pressed so close on my left harder and harder pressed my right elbow against those

potatoes. Now I must hasten, so glad to have a little chat, so much more satisfactory than letter-writing, said the editor, and then again the outstretched hand at parting. Surely the potatoes will take a tumble this time, I said in my terrified heart, Why, why, why needs this delightful Englishman shake my hand thus heartily? With a pat upon Judge's head and a final farewell nod to me, the editor was gone. And lo, not one potato had fallen to the ground. Then I grabbed my cape tighter about me, and rushed breathlessly into my hotel, up the stairs, and to my apartments. On to the floor of my sitting room, I let them all drop, and, regardless of my clean new gloves,

I played a game of ball with those potatoes, and Judge rushed about, grabbing them in his mouth as I threw them. Then, when the daylight had faded and I heard the guests in my part of the hotel passing down the corridor to the dining room, I washed and peeled a half dozen and fried them French style and cooked my chops, and Judge and I fared sumptuously and joyously. Judge was of the greatest possible assistance to me in those days of trying to keep up appearances, though he was a dog with a pedigree of wondrous dimensions, and had all my own love of my own love, of the things that money could buy, he had a delightful way of accommodating himself to his circumstances. He wore neckties of wash ribbon, which, though it cost more per yard than the ordinary ribbon, I found the most inexpensive in the end, without a bark of dissatisfaction. He submitted to my

dismissal of his barber, who charged ten shillings and sixpence to shave him after the latest poodle fashion, without a wine, and kicked his legs in glee when, having purchased a pair of poodle clippers and studied the directions for using them, I myself became his barber. I became an expert in the wielding of those clippers, and in taking his promenades abroad, judge had never caused to be ashamed of his appearance, for there wasn't a suspicion of the homemade about him. I shaved him just as well as the most experienced and high-pressed. poodle barber in London. What is more, I wrote a magazine article about a new employment for gentle women, poodle clipping, explaining the whole matter fully, and I got five guineas for it.

One of my greatest difficulties was the disposing of my potato skins, eggshells, bread crusts, and bits of bone that judge left over. I dared not put them in my waist basket, for fear of discovery by the chambermaid, and as I had a gas grate instead of coal, I had no way of burning them. The only way was to go out in a quiet street or the park and lose them. One day I dropped my paper bag of shells and peelings in Hyde Park, and Judge, noticing this, went back and fetched it in his mouth. I explained that it had been done a purpose, but he refused to believe me, and when I dropped it a second time near to, Clark's street, he picked it up again. At the third dropping, he picked it up and then refused to

deliver it to me. Try as I would, reason and argue with him as I did, I could not make him relax his hold on that parcel, and as I never scold him, I finally allowed him to return with me to the hotel carrying it in his mouth, thinking to take it out the next time I went alone. In the front corridor stood a handsomely dressed woman, one of the hotel guests, though a stranger. Oh, you beauty, she said to Judge. Will you shake hands with me? Now, Judge is as French as French can be as regards gallantry to the ladies. He held out his right paw, dropped the paper bag out of his mouth, so he could bark his, happy to meet you, and the potato skins and eggshells went all over the floor. Oh, you do. You don't. You don't. You

droll doggy, the lady cried, where in the world did you get those ridiculous things? He picked them up in the street, I answered, hurriedly and truthfully. I have taught him to pick up parcels and deliver them to their owners. Then Judge and I flew up the stairs, he grabbing his burst and empty paper bag, and casting a look of aristocratic disgust at the plebeian contents spread on the tiling, which I paid the Hall-Porter six-penes, to brush up at once. I am very fond of onions prepared in the American fashion

with butter and cream and pepper and salt, and one day I thought I'd cook some over my spirit stove. The odor escaped to the halls, went down the corridors, and penetrated into the manager's office. He went investigating and located the source of the aroma at my hall door. He knocked, said good morning, and asked if he were mistaken in thinking I was cooking in my rooms,

which, as I knew, was not allowed, onions being especially objectionable. It was useless to deny it, but not wishing to confess that I was only a poor journalist trying to live economically at a fashionable hotel, I said, I'm very sorry, but I am cooking onions for my dog. I have never heard of a dog eating onions,

returned the manager, with a most unbelieving look on his face. Nevertheless, I answered, Judge has been ordered by his vet to eat onions, and he eats them. The truth was that a noted dog doctor had once told me that onions mixed with soup or meat or other food were good for dogs, especially poodles. I had often tried to induce Judge to eat them, and he had always indignantly refused such fair.

Yet, when I saw that the manager did not believe me, I grew desperate and decided that Judge must help me out of my dilemma and save my reputation for veracity. I cooled some of the onions and put them on a plate. Attention, Judge, I called out. Judge jumped to the middle of the room and gazed earnestly at me, knowing that an important communication was to be made to him. Judge shall go walking, I said, and his tail began to wag.

I placed his silver collar and his largest ribbon bow on a chair and pointed to them, saying, Yes, judge shall wear these and cut a dash along Piccadilly. His tail went a little faster, and I walked over to the onions. Judge shall run in the park and scamper and eat grass. His eyes beamed, his ears went back, and his tail went round in a circle. But attention. Judge must first take his medicine. And I pointed to the onion plate. His tail stopped wagging. He walked over to the plate, gave an indignant sniff, and jumped back on the sofa, burying his head among the cushions. Three times I called him to attention, promising him pleasures in which his soul delighted. But when I said, medicine first, he sadly drooped his tail and walked away. There were two ways left, two sure ways, to induce Judge to eat those onions and save my reputation. If I pretended to sob and weep, he would do anything I asked of him, but I never resorted to that but once,

when he was dangerously ill and needed to take some very nasty medicine to save his life. It would nearly break his little heart to see me cry, and I could not perpetrate that cruelty on him to make him eat onions, which, though they might be good for him, were not, I knew, an essential part of his diet. As the case was desperate, I tried the other method. Attention, Judge, I said again, and he jumped to the middle of the floor. Judge shall go for a drive in a carriage with horses. They shall prance and prance. Here I suited gestures to my words, along Piccadilly and in the park. Horse, "'Yes, two horses!'

His tail wagged as though it would come off, and he rushed up and down with such delighted barks and antics as made the manager roar with laughter, and me trembled to think of the consequences of my rash promise. Again I went over to the onions and said, "'But first, medicine!' pointing to the floor. He bounded over, and without so much as a sniff, ate up those onions with two licks of his tongue.

and the manager departed in high good humor, though from the curious twinkle in his eye, I doubted whether even then he was thoroughly convinced of my strict veracity. I touched my bell, and buttons appeared. I will have a Victoria at three this afternoon, I said. Yes, miss, one horse? I looked at Judge appealingly, and the look he gave back said most plainly, don't cheat you promised two two horses i said turning to the boy and from judge there came a joyous jump and bark yes miss and the boy was gone in the park that afternoon judge was admired by all the occupants of the smart carriages that passed us he sat beside me with his yellow ribbons flying in the breeze his black silk curls shining in the sun his amber eyes

Beaming. Frequently, when the high-stepers which drew our carriage gave an extra prance and toss of their heads, Judge would turn to me and laugh, showing his white teeth. Sweet little rascal, he has a highly developed sense of humor, and he knew quite well to what straits I might be put to pay that carriage bill. Even after we got home, and I was at work on my typewriter, trying to earn an extra a bit in view of my reckless extravagance, he would run over to me, look up, show his teeth, and when I would say, did Judge have a good time? Did Judge cut a dash? His tail would thump the floor most vigorously in reply. Ah, well, as I have said before, I love the follies and vanities of the world, and so does Judge. I earned two guineas for the dog story I wrote that night,

and the drive cost less than half of that. End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of the autobiography of a newspaper girl by Elizabeth Al Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 16. An Encounter with Mrs. Lynn Linton. There goes your enemy. I was out walking one afternoon with a friend in the vicinity of St. James's Park, and as an elderly woman with what seemed to me to be a kind, sympathetic face passed us,

my friend thus addressed me. My enemy, I exclaimed in surprise, who is my enemy? The lady that just passed. But I don't know her. Who is she? Mrs. Lynn Linton. You mean the author? Yes, now don't tell me you didn't know you were her particular, well, I'll call it objection.

You are a subject upon which she can grow extremely eloquent. Your name comes up rather often, you know, these days, and she never misses an opportunity to speak her mind about you. She views you in the light of the Scarlet Woman journalist, I believe. That's ridiculous, I exclaimed. I don't know her, and she doesn't know me. I never did anything to her, and it is impossible she should want to injure me. Oh, she wouldn't injure you, except with her tongue. When people ask her what she thinks of the new kind of journalism you've been doing in England, she tosses her head and says, Oh, that creature, do you call that journalism? Then she goes on to express her opinion of your work and you in no very amiable terms. She thinks you are a very shocking person, a vulgar creature seeking notoriety, and when she hears of your having been invited to the homes of any of her friends,

she hopes that they will arrange things so she and you won't come into contact. Some of the interesting adjectives she used to describe you are really interesting. Brassy is one of the words she applies to you. She is your very dearest enemy, I assure you. I went back to my hotel in a very bewildered, not to say, highly agitated state of mind. It was also very strange that I could have gained the enmity of a woman like Mrs. Lynn Linton, a well-known author, a highly successful journalist, who had made her way, as I had heard, through many hardships to the eminence she had attained.

She, with all her experience, who had lived past the three-score years and ten, she to be the enemy of one who was young and poor and struggling like myself. The more I thought it over, the more absurdly, it seemed that a woman like Mrs. Lynn Linton, whom I knew only by reputation, and who, so far as I knew, had never seen me, should take the trouble to berate me in this manner, and I concluded that perhaps my friend was either trying to tax my credulity with a rather cruel sort of joke, or that she was repeating things she had heard which had no foundation in fact. I remembered that I knew a number of people who were well acquainted with Mrs. Lynn Linton, so I made it my business to see them and put to them the

question, have you ever heard that Mrs. Linton has any particular dislike for me? With the result that I got the same information I had from my first friend, and my bewilderment was increased. Indeed, anger took the place of bewilderment after a time, for it seemed to me particularly unjust and cruel that a woman in the position of Mrs. Lynn Linton should hold me up to contempt and give an impression of my personality to strangers who might judge me accordingly, an impression that was as silly as it was unjust. I must meet Mrs. Lynn Linton, I said to myself. If she were a man, I'd find another man to take up my cause and fight her to a finish, but as she's a woman, I'll have to see her myself. Thereupon I wrote her a letter.

Dear Madame, it ran, I am writing a magazine article on the subject of certain aspects of woman's position in England as compared with that in the United States. I have a feeling that you might, if you would, give me certain information which would be of great assistance to me, and I write to ask if you will allow me to call upon you some time in the near future, at any hour you wish to appoint. I have, of course, long known you by name and read and loved some of your books when I was at boarding school. I should like very much to know you personally. You perhaps know of me through my work in London during the past three years. Faithfully yours.

The letter went, and in the evening came the stiff reply. Madame, if you will call tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock, I can see you a few minutes. Yours truly, E. Lin Linton. When I called upon Mrs. Lynn Linton, at the time she appointed, my heart almost failed me. So stern, so aggressive, so uncompromising did she look as I stood in the doorway. She did not at first offer to shake hands, nor ask me to sit down, she herself, standing the while. You wished to see me, what can I do for you, was her greeting? Yes, Mrs. Lynn Linton, I said, for although I had, for although I had,

had written the letter on the spur of the moment, with no particular questions to ask her in mind, I had, after receiving her note, formulated a sort of skeleton upon which to build up an article upon the position of working women in England and America. Yes, I said, I am writing an article concerning the different occupations pursued by English women, especially educated English women, and comparing self-supporting English women with self-supporting with self-supporting American women. Now take, for instance, journalism. You have been a journalist so long that I feel sure you know the very beginnings of the English woman's work in journalism. Life is somewhat different for American journalists in England from what it is in America.

We were both standing near the door of the sitting room where Mrs. Lynn Linton received me. I was looking squarely into her face while she was examining every detail of the my appearance and apparel. Finally she murmured, as though she had not heard a word of what I had been saying, your hair is rather pretty and of the fashionable shade, and it is not bleached. I don't understand you, Mrs. Linton, I said, with a face that I knew must show both my anger and amusement at this observation, which seemed to be not exactly apropos to the subject which I had hoped to put under discussion. But my hair is not bleak, but my hair is not bleak. and I can't see any reason why you should mention it.

But surely you can't consider it an insult to have it thought your hair might be bleached. Of course, you can't blame me for thinking you would be apt to bleach your hair and paint your face, too. I did not answer. I merely looked at this strange woman who, I had been told, was my enemy. I think I did not ask you to sit down. I must also sit down. I am not willing. I am not well. Thank you, I answered, and I took the sofa to which she pointed. Why did you come here? she asked. Do you mean why did I come to see you? No, why did you come to England and take the bread out of young English women journalists' mouths? Surely, Mrs. Linton, I have not done that. Yes, you have done that. You, with your horrible, unwomanly kind of work,

have demoralized the taste of London editors, who at one time were content to fill their papers with good, decent, legitimate literature. Now they have a craving for the sensational, horrible kind of thing you have introduced to them. I say you have ruined the English editors. You are responsible for their downfall. I knew I must not laugh, that is, out loud,

at the thought of poor little me, having created such havoc among the hitherto stayed and stolid British editors. So I made a tremendous effort at self-control and said, I deny that I have ever taken bread from any woman's mouth, and I also deny having had any such influence as you say I have had upon English editors. Furthermore, I have never done any work of which I have caused to be ashamed. I have never stooped to a thing that was indelicate, unwomanly, or dishonorable. Mrs. Lynn Linton did not answer. She, however, looked her contempt. I do not wish to appear inhospitable, though I disapprove of you and your work.

Will you have a brandy and soda? I don't drink brandy and soda, I answered. I suppose, of course, you did, but you smoke cigarettes, do you not? No, I never saw a woman smoke a cigarette till I came to London. The first time I ever saw a woman smoke was when I called at the office of a young English woman journalist. She was sitting on her table smoking. I also never saw a woman drink brandy and soda till I came to England. I find that very nice women do it in England, but in my country it is different. What? You mean to say you do not smoke or drink brandy and soda. English women have been taking it up so lately. They got it from Americans.

No, not from Americans. Drinking and smoking are things from which my country women, as a whole, are free. Some of them learn these things when they come to England, but as for me, I have not been an apt scholar. We will let that pass, she replied, I would like to know why you went out as a servant, why you stood at Piccadilly Circus and sold flowers, why by misrepresentations you got into a laundry, why you swept a crossing and did all the other disgusting things you did. Couldn't you have fun in some other way? As I said before, you took bread from needy English women's mouths.

I did all these things, Mrs. Linton, to put some bread into my own mouth. What, are you poor? She asked, turning round sharp. Do you think I would do that hard work if I were not poor? I asked. But do you mean that you earn your livelihood by doing that kind of work? I did earn it that way for a time. I am not doing so much of it now because I've made a name and am getting on better. I had noted that during the last few minutes, Mrs. Linton's voice had grown more gentle, her face less stern, yet she spoke again like the

accusing judge. You got into people's houses as a servant by false representations. Not very false, I returned. I said that I was an American woman, though of English descent, that I had come to England for personal reasons, and suddenly found myself penniless with no way of earning my living except by going out to service. I did my work to the best of my ability. I wrote it up in a way to make people laugh, for though I was sad, myself, I knew there was no market for sad stories, so I made things funny, which were, in reality, very horrible and pathetic. When I had done that work, it turned out so successful that a number of editors asked me to do other work of the same sort for them, and I did it, but never for a moment

have I lost my self-respect. I am not ashamed of any of my actions since I came to England. I have never once forgotten that I was a woman, nor allowed anyone else to forget it. I looked at Mrs. Lynn Linton as though I challenged her. It is all very strange, she said, half-remonisantly. How I could have made such a mistake, for you seemed to be a gentlewoman. Yet, how could a gentlewoman do the work that you have done? I thought you were a brazen creature, a sort of wild, adventurousome female, worse even than the shrieking women of England, and they are bad enough.

She came to the sofa. Have you ever heard that I am a very uncompromising, set, determined, old woman, and that I seldom change my opinions? No, I answered, smiling. Yes, it is true. I am that. It is very hard for me to say I have made a mistake. Do you know that I fear I have done you many are wrong. Oh, the things I have said about you have not been nice things, I assure you. You have been the talk of London, you know. My neighbors at dinners and teas have asked me what I thought of your work, and I have not spoken too kindly of you. I have called you brazen, unspeakable. People have laughed and said I was prejudiced, but I would not admit it. I suppose I have read nearly everything you have written out of merest curiosity, and so that I could condemn you the more.

I have never written anything about you for the papers, because, because once after writing something against you, I was advised that it was too harsh and was asked to take it out. I, an old woman, have perhaps prejudiced people against you, a young woman, trying to make your way in the world. I want you to forgive me for the injury I may have or might have done you. Of course, you did not know till I told you, and you might never have known. Yes, I did know it, Mrs. Linton, I replied. I have been told, and I determined to come and see you under some pretext so that I could disabuse your mind of your prejudice against me.

It did not seem possible for me that you could go on misunderstanding and feeling as I had heard you felt, and especially speaking as you have done, when once you had an opportunity of realizing my position. Though you are so much older and wiser than I, and it may sound almost disrespectful for me to say it to you, I am going to tell you that I came to teach you something, a lesson I knew you ought to learn. I have come to you not only for myself, but for all women who must work and earn their bread, to ask you, not for kindness, not for benevolence, nor assistance in any way, but only for justice. Are you angry that I speak like this?

No, my child, she said, taking my hand. I shall always be glad you came. I am old and you are young, but you have been the teacher and I the pupil. Did you say you forgave me? I could not now turn hypocrite and say in the casual, untruthful, way that one often does, oh, there's nothing to forgive. There was something. I knew it. Mrs. Linton knew it. And so I said, yes, I forgive you. Mrs. Linton had written me that she could spare me a few minutes, but it was hours before I left her that day. She invited me to stay with her to luncheon.

She showed me some of her most treasured books. She told me of her lonely life of her religious, beliefs, of her girlhood, of her marriage, and of many of the things that made her life a not-too-happy one. I told her about my own country women, their schools, their universities, their means of helping themselves, and their position in the work-a-day world. She laughed over my recitals of my childhood days on the Wisconsin farm when I told her about the college cow and the college hen, how all the cream that rose on the milk of the one college cow was turned into butter to be sold at a village store, and the proceeds added to the fund called the college fund, and how the eggs of the college hen were put to the same use, and helped materially to send me to boarding school.

I told her about the policeman who called me the little reporter, and how kind were the editors and reporters on the western and southern papers where I worked just before I came to England. And the dear old lady laughed, sometimes with the tears rolling down her cheeks, exclaiming, Very American, very American! She was about to go into the country, she told me, and we agreed that when she had come back, and I had returned from the American trip that I was about to make,

I should run in often to see her, and not be formed. You have done missionary work today, she said, when I was going. You've converted a cantankerous old woman, and made her see the necessity of reading between the lines when she picks up books and papers that do not seem to be according to her old-fashioned notions. Don't think I approve of all your work even yet. It's not my idea of journalism. I do not think it ought to be encouraged, and I think it was a very dreadful thing for a gentlewoman to have to sweep a crossing and sell flowers and work among laundry girls, even to write about these things. Don't tell me you came into contact with the kind of people

you'd like to associate with when you did these things. Oh, I used to feel contempt at you're doing it, and now it worries me to think you had to do it. Was there no other way? It was the only way, Mrs. Linton, I said. But you've stopped it now? You do not run the danger of having your fingers cut off with the laundry machinery anymore, or of dying from picking strawberries in the rain? No, I said laughing. I'm getting on now. I write for the magazines and the reviews, and I expect I shall become a really proper person, and perhaps a stately journalist after a while. She laughed and bent over me as I went out of the door. through the years that have passed I remember her words a kindly benediction a friendly warning from one who is about to finish her career to one who had but begun

guard against bitterness and cynicism have faith and hope and charity especially charity the charity in which perhaps i have sometimes failed it was not my privilege to learn to know mrs. Lynn Linton very much better than I knew her when she was she bade me goodbye that afternoon. I went almost immediately to America, and just as I returned from my somewhat prolonged stay there, Mrs. Lynn Linton died. It was with a conviction that she would be glad to have me tell this little story of her that I include it in these reminiscences. End of Chapter 16 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 17. Home again and in The Way of Life. There are three kinds of workers on the New York Press. They are the regulars, the space writers, and the freelances. The regulars are engaged on salary and receive their weekly salaries every

Saturday night. They always know exactly the amount of money that will be put into their hands when they walk up to the cashier's little window. The space writers, though they are engaged to work for one particular paper and are expected to report every day for orders, are paid according to the amount of space they fill up in the paper, so much per column or so much per thousand words. They live by their wits, and the state in which they live is good or poor according to the state of their wits. If they are especially brilliant and fertile of imagination, inventive, quick at seeing through stone walls, and last but not least, in good favor with the editors, under whose direction they are expected to work, they prosper exceedingly, and their takings in at the end of the week

are apt to be large, though variable. Among the space writers there are two kinds, the ordinary and the special. The ordinary ones are paid what are known as the ordinary or regular rates. The special ones receive the extraordinary or special rates, which may be a third more than the ordinary, or maybe double, triple, or quadruple. The freelances are not engaged to work for any particular paper or any particular length of time. They flit hither and thither with ideas and articles, getting an acceptance here, a rejection there, or they work entirely on order, which means having their articles ordered and accepted before they are written. Of the freelances, there are also two kinds. There are the strugglers, the beginners, who form the one class. They write on spec, as it is called. They carry

or send their articles to the various papers, and then they wait and watch the papers to see if their contributions appear, for the average New York newspaper editor lacks either the courteousness or the time or both to write and tell an unknown outside freelance whether or not his or her article is useful or useless. In that he differs from the average London editor, who in many cases, even though stamps have not been enclosed, will write returning the article or saying he finds it suitable and expects to use it. As for the New York editor, he is apt to pay no attention to the stamps, even if they are enclosed. If the article is useless, he throws it into his waistbasket, and, quite as likely as not, the stamps along with it. If he wants the article, he puts it on a spindle or in a pigeonhole.

In either case, the sender of the manuscript watches and waits, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, Although it is only the beginner, the inexperienced one who waits and hopes after two or three weeks have passed. In London, the freelance, at least, knows of the article's publication in the course of time by the check that is received in payment for it. In New York, the system of payment to outside contributors who do not go regularly to the office is very different, and most unpleasantly different at that. The editor sends down to the cashier in order for a certain amount of money to be paid to a certain person. The cashier picks out the exact amount of money, puts it in a small envelope, seals it up, writes the name of the person to whom it is due and the amount on the outside,

and puts it away to remain until called for. If the person for whom it is intended does not call, the money remains in the office. Now, this system of payment is as stupid and as senseless as it is unkind and unfair, but before going on to explain the extent of its senselessness and unfairness, I will describe the second kind of freelance, after which I can tell my own experience with what I found to be the system of paying outside contributors. As the one kind of freelances is made up of the strugglers and beginners, So the second division of freelances is made up of the well-to-do, or the supposedly well-to-do, the experienced and successful. In a word, the second division of freelances takes in writers who are

prominent, whose names are well known among all editors and to the public, and who, to a very great extent, are able to command their own prices because of the recognized value of their work, especially if it appears under their names, which is generally the case. They are the ones who work on order and whose work is accepted before it is written. They suggest their subjects to the editors, or have subjects suggested to them by the paper which desires their work, and the subject being agreed upon, also the price, they write with the knowledge that what they are writing will appear in print. They carry on their business in the same way. They carry on their business in the same way. as does a merchant who shows a possible customer a sample of ribbon or lace or cloth.

You like the sample, says the merchant. Yes, answers the customer, I will take ten yards of it. Says the freelance to the New York editor, you like this idea? Yes, returns the editor, write me two columns on that subject at such and such price per column, and the transaction is settled. Now, it was in such wise. as a freelance of the second, and sometimes much to be envied sort, that I at first took up journalism in New York after my four years stay in England. I had made a stir and a name in London. The notices

I had received in the English papers had been copied and commented upon in the American papers. Even much of the work I had done in London papers had been reproduced two weeks after its first appearance in the press of my native land. I returned home a heroine, as I had been a heroin in London, and was met at the dock by reporters to interview me, and telegrams from editors asking me to send them some special articles at the earliest possible moment, and I was in no way averse to complying with the requests of both the interviewers and the editors. With the interviewers, being myself an interviewer, I was as good-natured and as tactful as only an interviewer can fully appreciate the necessity of being, and they, in turn, treated me with such kindness and consideration as all American

interviewers show to interviewees who treat their interviewers in a proper manner. Having been, and being still, myself, upon occasion, frequently called to take first one part and then the other in the interviewing business, I feel that I have had every opportunity of arriving at an impartial judgment upon this subject. With those persons, be they Americans, Englishmen, or foreigners, who have only unpleasant things to say of American interviewers,

I have no patience, and if they find themselves written up by the American interviewers in a distinctly unpleasant way, I have little sympathy for them. Four, they have, in nine cases out of ten, brought on their own troubles by their disagreeableness and lack of tact. If a distinguished foreigner, visiting America, kicks an interviewer downstairs, he has only himself to blame if he is not described in the next morning's paper as being a polite, gentlemanly, and altogether kind and considerate man. If an author, artist, or actress,

treats the young American reporter who comes to interview her with unkindness, discurtesy, tactlessness, and hypocrisy. The reporter must be an angel indeed if she heaps coals of fire upon her head when she writes up the account of her visit. I have used the word hypocrisy, for it is frequently that, and nothing else that makes a public character say to the interviewer, I object to being noticed in the newspapers. Public characters may object to having their private affairs aired in the newspapers, object to being interviewed on certain subjects, but they never object, nor can they afford to object, to newspaper notice in a general way. The statesman, the author, the artist, the actress who says, I don't care anything about the newspapers,

and don't want ever to be written up in the press is either lacking in common sense or is hypocritical. To object, courteously and decently, to being interviewed on certain subjects, is one thing and within everyone's right. To speak in terms of contempt and independence of all the American press and all the American interviewers is quite another.

To persons about to be interviewed, I would hear Venture to give some advice, It is not the well-known advice of punch, don't. It is this. Remember the golden rule, and do unto the interviewer as you would like him or her to do unto you if your places were exchanged, and don't be too sure that they won't be exchanged sometime, too. Remember that the interviewer is, after all, working for a living. The young, bright, smart-looking girl who meets you at the steamer as you arrive in New York, or flies after you at your hotel and says, I want to interview you for my paper. What do you think of America? Are you in the habit of eating bacon and eggs, or only eggs without bacon,

or bacon without eggs, for your breakfast? Maybe a space writer or a freelance on one of New York's papers, whose very life may depend upon her getting that interview with you. She does not interview you for fun. She does not take any particular interest in you. She would rather be somewhere else than waiting at the dock for your steamer to come in. You are perhaps nothing but a stupid, uninteresting, ugly old thing, who happens to be a public character, and her editor has told her to go and interview you and will pay her $5 or $10 if she succeeds. By discovering the kind of breakfast you eat, she will be able to provide wholesome food for herself for the coming week. Tell her in heaven's name about the bacon. Tell her if she asks you whether you take one,

two, or three lumps of sugar in your tea, and what you think of, our great country, as far as you have seen it. It can't hurt you, and it will help her. And then, even if you are stupid and uninteresting and ugly, you will at least have been kind and helped an honest struggler on her way. And besides, if you are kind and courteous, she will do you up in the next day's paper in such a way that nobody on the American side will suspect how very stupid and ugly and uninteresting you really are. But to return to my own experience as a freelance, I began it under the most auspicious circumstances, photographs, written about and interviewed right and left, I began myself to write and interview for various

papers, thus gaining my first experience in New York journalism. Orders and requests for special articles followed one another in quick succession, and terms considerably higher than those ordinarily paid were offered me, and I rejoiced exceedingly for whatever money I could earn was much needed. I was, however, greatly surprised when many days and weeks passed that no checks came to me through the post. Some of my articles I had seen in the papers, others I had not happened to see, though I knew they must have been printed since they had been ordered for certain days. Have you used such and such an article yet? I asked of an editor who had given me a large number of orders, and from whom I had as yet received no checks.

Of course, he replied, I've used all your stuff, and I'm ready for more suggestions from you for subjects. You must have known they were used anyway when you got your pay, for we never pay till after publication. I haven't got any pay, and that's the reason I've been wondering

if you didn't use them, I answered. Now see here, you can't collect twice, even if you are the American girl from London. He retorted, We pay only once for articles on this side of the water, and you needn't tell me they'd do any better by you on the other side. I haven't got paid once, I declared, and it's not only your paper. I've had the same experience with several papers. They order articles and publish them, after offering me special terms, and that's the last I hear of them. The papers in London send out checks once a week or twice a month. In this country, you are slower.

I judge you send them out once in six months or once a year, and I don't mind telling you that I've got down to my last 50 cents waiting for my various returns from the newspapers. I wasn't talking about checks, said the editor. I asked you if you'd got your pay, and do you mean to say you haven't got your money for any of the articles you've done for me? If they didn't give it to you the first Saturday, why didn't you let me know? If who didn't give it to me? Why, the cashier? What did he say when you asked him?

I never asked the cashier. I'm not on your staff and have no acquaintance with the cashier. That's just it. If he'd known you, he'd handed it out to you on sight, but as he didn't know you, I don't see that it would have been such a breach of etiquette for you to speak to him without an introduction. That may be English, but it isn't American. Do you mean to say I'm expected to call at the cashier's office and ask for my money? I asked. Yes, you can't expect him to call on you with it. If you go to the cashier now and tell him who you are and that you want your pay, you'll get it.

Sure enough, when I went to the cashier and asked for my pay, he handed me out various little envelopes, which he had kept stored away for several weeks. I've been wondering when you'd call for it, he said good-naturedly, thought you couldn't need it as much as the rest of them do. It was in this way that I learned the system by which many of the American papers pay their outside contributors. Again, I say it is unkind, unfair, and absolutely senseless. One's first thought would be that the system obtained favor among newspaper proprietors because it gave them the use of the money until the contributor called for it, that the money was drawing interest while it waited to be called for.

Not so. If that were the case, it would be unfair, though not stupid. The money owing to each contributor is put in an envelope, it is due. The contributor may not call, yet the money remains in the envelope, no matter if it is for three or four or five or six weeks. For the next article that contributor sends, another bit of money goes into another envelope and so on for any number of weeks and months. I do not say that every American or every New York paper is managed in this way, but I know from my own experience that many of them are, and that it is a system that should be abolished in every newspaper office.

For the members of the staff, employed in the office, the little envelope method of payment is quite satisfactory, but certainly it is not right to expect the occasional contributor, who lives in the uppermost parts of Harlem, to go down to newspaper row, spending two hours time and 10 cents car fare to collect the $2.75 that is coming to him for the last joke he sent to the paper. I am not sure what is the exact number of miles residents away from newspaper Roe that entitles a contributor to have his payment sent to him by check or money order, though I believe that London is outside the circuit. And therefore, contributors residing in London are not expected to call and get their envelopes. Freelancing, even of the most successful kind, is but an unsatisfactory and

irregular way of earning a living, unless one has an income aside from journalistic work. I had not been back in my native land more than a few months when a financial catastrophe came, which I knew no amount of freelance work could tide me over. I looked from my high window one morning at the spires and the skyscrapers of great New York, with eyes full of terror and a heart full of despair. So great and urgent was my need of money that the days of hard-upedness that I had known in London counted as nothing in their insignificance. There was, to be sure, some money waiting for me at various offices in little envelopes, but when I had spent a morning in collecting it, that was but a drop in the bucket of my needs.

I can't freelance any longer, I said to myself. I must get a place as a regular, so that I can count on a certain amount of money every week. Nothing else can save me. I called on the editor of one of New York's high-class newspapers. He had taken work from me and called it Good Stuff. Give me a position on your paper at a regular weekly salary, I said to him. Ridulous, ridiculous. he exclaimed remain a freelance and you'll make a great deal more than you would get on salary but i want something regular something sure to come every saturday you say you want a salary how big a one i must have at least forty dollars a week i replied i don't say you're not worth it but i do say i couldn't engage you at half that amount i couldn't even take you on space though you You know I'm always glad of special articles from you. Must you have the forty, sure, every week? I must make that positively, and as much more as I can make. I've got obligations to meet which demand it. If I don't get regular salary, I shall go under.

He looked at me in a half surprise that was wholly kind, and, going over to the window, said, See here, I'll show you the way. and pointing to some buildings in the distance went on. There, in one of those buildings, you will find a salary bigger than 40 waiting for you. I happen to know that you have but to ask, or rather to hint that you are open to engagement, and your difficulties will be over. I looked, and the sunlight sparkling on a dome of gold almost blinded my eyes.

You mean, I said in amazement, that I must be able to be. become a yellow journalist? Yes, he returned. Why not? Oh, I couldn't. You don't know how hard I've worked over in London to get up the few rungs of the ladder I've already climbed. Why, I write for the best magazines and reviews. I look forward to a career in the literary world, even to the time when I may be able to stop writing pot boilers. I've heard of this terrible yellow journalism of my own country and have been ashamed. I could not be associated, even anonymously, with a yellow journal. It would ruin my whole future career. No, you couldn't anonymously. Of that, I can assure you. They'll want your name. But let me tell you that your attitude is not that of a sensible or even an honest woman. I gather that if you don't get

this money you need, others will suffer as well as yourself. I have told you, you, you have told you the way to get it, and you will not take that way. Therefore, I say, you are not acting the part of an honest woman. Yes, you have shown me a way, but it is the way of death, death to all my ambitions. No, it is the way of life. Listen, I have no liking for sensational journalism. I'm sorry we have so much of it in this country. I wish great millionaires would use their money to start high-class magazines, academies of literature and art, and things of that sort. But I can't govern the millionaires, and neither can you. In starting these yellow journals, however, they haven't done all evil. For one thing, they have raised the price of all newspaper work, not only in New York, but in other large

cities of America, and I'm not sure they haven't had any effect upon the prices paid in England and on the continent. By paying high fees and large salaries to their people, these yellow journals have forced the other papers to increase their rates, or lose all their best men and women. That's one good thing they've done, and as a newspaper man, I thank them for it. Why, what sort of writers do you think are working over yonder? They are writers of the highest talents. Some of the most brilliant, most honest, most pure and upright women I have ever known, have been employed on the yellow journals. Some of them left papers like this to join the yellow ranks. They were like you. They needed more money than we could afford to pay them. But unlike you, they went and did their duty without so much as a

whimper. Some of them can write things worthy to be handed down to the coming generations, pros that should be bound in fine leather and kept among the standard works. They have brilliancy and wit and humor. But they've got to have money just now. I expect they've got obligations to meet, and they are honest women. It does an American woman good sometimes to be talked to by one of her own countrymen, write out, as they say, straight from the shoulder. No English editor, though he were a good sometimes, to be talked to by one of her own countrymen, write out, as they say, straight from the shoulder.

No English editor, though he were a friend of many years standing, would have talked in that manner to me or any other woman towards whom he had no special responsibility. This man was only a business acquaintance, an editor who had published some of my work, but there was that honest, blunt brotherliness in him, so common among American men, that made him,

seeing one of his own country women starting in the wrong way to write things, immediately became the comrade, the good fellow, to put her on the right track. I have a fancy that in the eternal scheme of things, that was perhaps what American men were made for in the very beginning, to be brothers to all women. I will go, I said. That's right, he exclaimed heartily. My sister, these are the things you must do to be saved. That way lies your salvation.

salvation, salvation from pride and self-sufficiency and narrowness, salvation from a stunted heart and a stunted intellect. As I have told you, it is for you the way of life. So it was that I entered into the kingdom of the yellow. End of Chapter 17. Chapter 18 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 18. Some Questions of Journalistic Ethics. I started my career as yellow journalist on a salary of $50 per week, and some months afterwards, changing from one paper to another, I took a position on what is known as the guarantee space system, by which means a member of the staff is guaranteed a stipulated some of money every week, and as much over that amount as he or she can make by writing at ordinary

or special space rates. This latter is probably the most profitable way of working on the staff of a newspaper. For though one's income may, indeed must fluctuate, it fluctuates never below the guaranteed amount, which in my case was in itself a liberal salary, and during weeks when news and happenings are plentiful, and one's wits are at their best, it is by no means an uncommon thing for a smart, guarantee space staff writer to make between $100 and $150 per week. Out of my income, I laid aside $15 each week for living expenses. By practicing strict economy, I made that sum suffice for all my personal needs, and the rest of my income went into the bank, and so week by week, as I worked and saved, I saw my financial troubles gradually disappearing.

There are, I know, both in England and America, many working women who would laugh at the idea of one having to practice very great economy in order to live comfortably on $15 a week. But these women, to whom $15 a week, would seem a fortune, know nothing of the life which the average New York woman journalist, engaged on the staff of a paper, must lead, and of the constant calls upon her purse. What are known as expenses are, of course, always paid by the paper, but there are many necessary outlays which the management of the paper would not pay, and could not be expected to pay, that the woman journalist must continually take into account if she aspires to success and promotion or even to retaining the position she has. Now, the most important and necessary expenditure

of the ambitious woman journalist is for clothes. One of the great requisites of the newspaper woman is that she shall dress well. When I say well, I do not mean mere neatness of dress. The newspaper woman, if she would be successful, needs not only to be neat. She must be stylish and stylish. smart. It is also as necessary for her to understand dressing her part as it is for the actress on the stage. And the woman who can do this, besides paying her board and other expenses on $15 a week, must be possessed of no little ingenuity and cleverness, besides practicing economy in such ways as many another woman, or man either for that matter, with a much smaller amount per week, would never dream of. On the staff of a great American daily, there are numerous

plums to be plucked, prizes to be won by the women workers, and all other things being equal, indeed all other things, such as intellectual brilliancy, etc., being very unequal at times, many of these plums and prizes fall to the lot of those women who best know how to dress their parts. Now, the editor who thus distributes the great prizes shows neither injustice nor partiality in doing so. He shows only that he understands good business methods. The woman who is dressed smartly, and, of course, in good taste, can gain admittance, get a hearing and obtain an interview where her intellectual superior, dressed only neatly and looking sternly prim, will fail. The woman who continually fails to get what she is sent for will, if she is on salary, either lose her

position or never get her salary raised, and if she is on space, we'll soon find the editors with, no work on hand today, sorry, hope something will turn up tomorrow, attitudes. Therefore, it is good business for the newspaper woman to establish the reputation of being a good dresser. I had not been long engaged in American journalism when I heard two of the leading members of the staff discussing the probabilities of obtaining an interview with a very great and eminent personage, and a man very difficult of access to the newspapers. Better send Miss Blank, said one of the men. She's got the style of writing that'll do him up to perfection. Great heavens, what are you thinking of? Returned the other. She's absolutely useless in an emergency like this. She's such a

doubty in dress that she couldn't get beyond the office boy. No, the only woman who can haul this thing off is Miss X. She'll get through the three outer offices of clerks straight into the Holy of Holies and into the presence of the old man himself, just on her appearance. I'd like to see one of the clerks try to turn her down. She's got a new Knox and a tailor-made on this morning that'll beat the whole 400 when it comes to dressing. I'm going to send her. Miss X went to the personage, and in newspaper parlance, brought off the interview. In discussing the affair afterwards with some of her women friends, she said, Girls, I couldn't have done it if it hadn't been for the clothes. I had that confidence in myself that only comes when I know I've got a stunning costume on.

I carried my alligator card case and my ivory-handled umbrella, and with them I waved aside the office boys and the clerks and got to the door of the great man's office. I tell you what, if clothes don't make the interviewer, they give her a vast amount of confidence. Now my rigout, silk foundations and doll, cost me $60.00. and I was paid 100 for bringing off this interview. I therefore say I have made $40 today, and that's not a bad taking in. Miss X was a space writer. She lived in a little flat with her mother, who was slowly dying of an incurable disease.

The $40 she made that day went to a physician, who was trying, not to save the mother's life, since that was impossible, but only to lesson for the coming week. the pain of dying. It was very early in my career as yellow journalist that I learned how truly my editorial friend had spoken when he told me that the path which I chose, though perforce and so protestingly, would prove to me the way of life, and that there I should find salvation from faults and failings and much short-sightedness, which, if unarrested, would be but stumbling blocks to progress. Not for all women could the career I then entered upon have become a means of grace, nor did I find it a school which I could indiscriminately recommend all aspiring young women

journalists to attend. Far better it would be for some young women to struggle always, never succeeding to suffer cold and hunger, and in the end to die, failures, than to become part and parcel of American sensational journalism. All women must go to school, it is true, but the same school is not good for all women. There are varieties of schools as there are varieties of women, and the teachers from whom one woman learns what will save her soul may be the means only of showing another how to damn hers. For myself, I can thank the fate that sent me back to my native land after my four years residence in England, and made it absolutely necessary for me to become a yellow journalist. But I also thank the fate that endowed me with a certain kind of reasoning power

that helped me to distinguish between what I could and could not do as a yellow journalist, and still retain my womanhood and self-respect, and I can especially thank the fate that endowed me at my birth with a particularly prominent, self-assertive, and combative disposition that enabled me always to recognize my rights, and then to fight to the death if necessary, to maintain them. These things, combined with the very important fact that I had made for myself something of a name in England, and had returned to my own country as a heroine, made my position a far more independent and endurable one, than it could possibly have been under other circumstances. The very first thing I was asked to do in the line of yellow work was to walk along Broadway at

midnight and allow myself to be arrested and sent to the lockup as a disreputable character. All this in order to bring about a reform in certain laws that were obnoxious to many New Yorkers, and to prove, without a doubt, that a respectable woman walking quietly to her home late at night was liable to be pounced upon and arrested. I can't do that sort of work, I said to the editor, who had suggested this brilliant scoop. You can't do it? He exclaimed in surprise. It's something that ought to be done, and you're the woman to do it.

You've got a name and a reputation, and your name to an article. exposing this great wrong would lend prestige. I'm afraid I think rather too much of my name to make use of it for that purpose. I returned. If my name would lend prestige to your scheme, I'm sure the scheme wouldn't lend prestige to my name. Now, what other work have you got on hand which you would like me to do? Other work? You mean to say that you refuse? Certainly, it is indecent, and, I refuse to do anything that I consider indecent. Well, exclaimed the editor, tilting back in his chair and eyeing me with great curiosity. We took you on this paper to help us make things hum.

I understood you made things hum over in England. I laughed. Perhaps it doesn't need such an impetus to make things hum in London as it does in New York. At any rate, I never did any work there, of which I need be assured. I'm ready to do any work for you that an editor has a right to ask of a woman, and I don't mind if it is very hard and even unpleasant. Now, what is there for me to start on today, or do you want me to think up a subject? Why, you're a puzzle. I'd like to know what kind of work you are willing to do. I don't exactly know where to place you. I'll tell you then, I answered. I'll do any work on this paper

that you would be willing to ask your sister to do if she were employed on it. What? he exclaimed, turning round with an amused look of astonishment on his face. Yes, that's the only kind of work I'm willing to do, I said, laughing, for I was not to be outdone by him in good nature. You're an American man, and I'm an American woman, though we are both yellow journalists. I demand from you the respect for you the respect chivalry that every American man is bound to show his country women. The fact that you are my editor, and I your subordinate, in a business sense, makes no difference. I am not sure, though, but I must modify what I said about the sister. If your sister were employed here,

you would try not to send her out on assignments that would be apt to endanger her health and break her up physically. You needn't think about that in my case. I'll take whatever risks are necessary in that respect, but I look to you to see that I am not asked to do any work that's immoral, or what is worse than immoral, disgusting. Well, speaking for myself, I won't ask you to do any work that you can object to hereafter, but of course you know there are other editors on the paper who will suggest subjects to you. I'll refuse them the way I have refused you, I answered, and I went back to my own desk. For the next few days, I was kept rather busy refusing,

until the nickname of the Great Objector was given to me in a good-natured sort of banter by the editors and reporters. Finally, one afternoon, I was sent for by one of the leading editors who said, I'm going to give you a very important commission. You are to take charge of the Holland boat. It was just before the beginning. of the war with Spain, and all New York, indeed All-America, was greatly interested in the little submarine to which the inventor had given his name. How take charge, I asked. You know where it's

stationed? inquired the editor. Yes, I returned, naming the little village a few miles outside of New York, which Mr. Holland had chosen as the place from which to make his experimental trips. I want you to go there every day or a dozen times a day and discover exactly when the first trip is to be made, for Holland has been very close-mouthed on the subject. Then make your arrangements to be inside the boat the first time she goes under the water. You mean to sneak in? I asked. I don't believe it's possible to get in there as a stowaway. There's nothing but a little funnel that you've got to climb down to get into the boat. Of course you'll have to get Holland's consent, for there's no other way, but you must get it. He is not much of a talker about his intentions, and the men we've sent to

him can't get anything out of him. But you understand, you are not only to find out when that boat's going under water, but you're to go under with it. Very well, I answered, and then I noted that he was looking at me curiously. You know you're a rather hard one to find assignments for, with your English notions of what's correct and ladylike in journalism. He said meditatively, I've only demanded decent work that a decent woman might do, I answered. That's what I thought, he said musingly, that you'd rather do the dangerous than the, well, we'll say unladylike work. still I don't say this is dangerous. I looked quickly at his face and saw there an expression that startled me,

and I knew at once that this commission was, if not a dangerous, at least a very risky one. But I pretended not to have noticed either his words or his face, for I determined very suddenly what course I should pursue, and I only answered quietly, I'll go and see Mr. Holland. That was the only time that I ever started out on a mission with the full determination to make a failure of it. I had been asked by my editor to climb down a funnel into a boat not much larger than a big fish that was going out experimenting. If it did what its inventor intended it to do, it would rush through the water and come up in good time on the surface. Otherwise, it would not come to the surface at all, but go down to the bottom.

If I were in it, I too would go to the bottom. I valued my life, not so much for its own sake as for the sake of others, and I argued it out with my conscience that I was not, according to the eternal fitness of things, justly called upon to run the risk of losing it, or even of incapacitating myself for future work, merely for the sake of trying to get an article on how it felt to go down in a submarine boat. I had become rather tired of refusing to do so many things that I had been asked to do since I had taken my position on the paper, and I decided it was not worthwhile again to refuse. Rather, I determined, Mr. Holland must refuse to let me go in the boat. Had the occasion been an ordinary one, I would have gone off on my commission wearing the cloth skirt, striped shirt-waist, Eton jacket, and sailor hat I was wearing at the time. I was called to the editor's room. It was the proper costume for a working journalist under ordinary conditions, knocking about among docks and boats, getting news for her paper. It also, so I fancied, helped to give me a strong, healthy, athletic, don't care what happens to me, look. That was the reason I would not wear it, for I did not want to impress Mr. Holland as a journalist worth my salt. I went to

my room and put on a light dress with ruffles and ribbons all white at the neck. I donned a hat with a particular shade of green facing that gave my already pale face an unhealthy, ghastly hue, and then I looked in the glass and smiled at my frail, delicate, feminine appearance. If Mr. John Holland will allow a poor little thing like me to risk her life in his submarine boat, why, then he's a brute, that's all. I said to myself, I had dressed my part, that of the small, delicate, nervous, half-frightened woman that I wished to appear, and, as I am not, I believe, without a saving sense of humor, I could not help laughing over the ludicrous aspect of my position, when, an hour later, I had seated myself on a plank near the tiny iron boat, waiting for Mr. Holland to come and

make one of his daily visits of inspection. What? exclaimed Mr. Holland, when, having arrived and listened to my explanation of what I had been sent down to do, he looked me over with astonishment. You go down in my boat, climb down a funnel. It's ridiculous. But my paper says I must. It's useless to talk about it. I wouldn't allow the risk. Is there a risk? Is it dangerous? I asked, turning a frightened-looking face upon him? For me, no. For you, yes.

Are you afraid the boat will never come up again? I asked. No, I know it will come up again. I'm the inventor. I love it. I know all about it. I am going down in it without fear because I understand. You would have fear because you do not understand. You'd not die of the going down, but you would die of the fear. You would be actually and literally frightened to death. Mr. Holland ceased speaking and looked at me curiously. You are not the sort of newspaper reporter I would expect to come and ask for such an experience anyway. Even the most strong-minded and healthy woman journalist in the world would get my refusal for many reasons, but it certainly would be criminal to allow anyone like you to try the experiment.

A horrible thought crossed my mind. Suppose he were only refusing me on the ground of my apparent unfitness for the task, and suppose another woman journalist, of the big, fearless, athletic kind, should demand to go down and be permitted to do so. Mr. Holland, I said, since you will not allow me to go in your boat, will you promise that you will not allow any other reporter, man or woman, to take that trial trip? It would be a serious thing for me if any other reporter should be allowed to do this for another paper when I have failed.

Yes, I'll promise you that, upon my honor. I wouldn't let any reporter take the trial trip anyway. Be assured you won't be beaten by anybody else. I'm much obliged to you. I shall tell my editor that you absolutely. and finally refuse and insist that the matter be dropped. That's it, and if he wants me to put it stronger, I can do it. I went away with a sense of relief. You'll have to give up that scheme about the Holland, I said to the editor, when I had returned to the office, after again donning my working costume.

You don't mean to say you've failed. You better try it again tomorrow. It isn't likely he'll make this trip for several days. It is useless to approach him again on the subject. He was very indignant and said he wouldn't allow any reporter, man or woman, inside the boat. I got him to promise that, of course, when he so positively refused me, for I didn't want any other woman to get for another paper what I couldn't get for mine. That settles it, then.

He bent over some copy paper and looked up again. You had grit to try anyway. Were you shaky at the idea? I, shaky? My cheeks burnt angrily as I faced him, and then I was sorry, for he again bent over his copy paper, and as I went out of the door I thought I heard him mutter, thank God. End of Chapter 18. Chapter 19 of the autobiography of a newspaper girl by Elizabeth Al Banks

This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 19 And Have Not Charity The days and the weeks and the months passed on, and first on one paper, then on another, I gradually made a particular and individual place for myself in New York journalism. That place was, I think I may say, a somewhat important one, for when it finally became understood what work I would and what work I would not undertake to do in the interest of the paper, the kind of work that I had neither the cause nor the

right to refuse seemed to rise like a mountain before me, a mountain over the summit of which I must climb, though the climbing were laborious, unpleasant, and painful. More especially, my duties took me among the lower class of working girls on the east side of New York. I worked among the Polish and Russian Jews in the sweatshops, writing up the lives they led and the life I led among them. I picked over refuse with the rag pickers, made artificial flowers for the adornment of the hats of the working girls. I worked as a dressmaker's apprentice, applied myself to the tailoring business. I visited those public schools where the poorer children. predominated, and made house-to-house visitations among New York's most squalid and lawless inhabitants.

For some time I hired a room in one of the poorer districts, and, furnishing it up cheaply, started out to live on $3 per week, telling each day in the paper just what I had to eat, and describing all my comforts and discomforts. There were times, too, when I was obliged to visit the morgue, looking at the bodies of the unfortunate unknowns and listening to the stories of the finding of their bodies told by the keepers. Among the hospitals too I went, sometimes to the jails. A great deal of my work was very horrible, very loathsome to me. I was obliged to run risks and encounter dangers, which, even now that they are long past, make me shudder and wonder how I got through them. I had always to carry with me spirits of camphor and smelling salts, for I was continually feeling ill and faint from

the foul odors that assailed me, and there were times when my heart almost stopped beating from fear. I remember that this was especially the case one night when, in order to write up what the cheap women's lodging houses of the city were like, I slept in one where I gained admission for the price of fifteen cents. The sleeping room was a sort of dorm, where some 30 or 40 women slept, each having a cot of her own. I awoke in the night and saw a woman sitting on the edge of her bed not far from mine. She was looking at me in a strangely staring way, and my first thought was that she was a madwoman who was going to kill me. Of course she was not mad. She was only sitting up and thinking of her troubles, poor thing. But that made no difference

so far as my state of mind was concerned. I worked myself into a frenzy of fear, and early the next morning I left the place to write up my experience a day or two later. The way of life. Truly I now began to walk in that way. Truly I began to grow. As the days and the weeks went on, I could even feel myself growing, growing in grace, growing in charity, putting aside such narrow creeds, and prejudices as had been a part of my upbringing, and were perhaps in their place and time, good and wholesome for the girl, but cramping, distorting, warping to the woman. Life, life, seething life was all about me, the life of a great city, its riches, its poverty, its sins, its virtues, its joyousness, there it was, and I was in it. This life was no longer

like a panorama spread out for me to look at simply, to smile or weep over, and then to turn away my eyes from beholding it. I entered it, and, while I studied, became a part of it, learning how akin was all humanity, and how large a place had environment and circumstance in the making of character and the molding of destiny. One day I talked with a murderess. The woman had killed a man. At first I felt I could not go to her, see her, speak to her. There was blood upon her hands, and to me there was something terrible in the thought of the shedding of blood. I had then, and have now, so great a horror of inflicting physical pain upon any creature, that the thought

of coming into contact with a woman who had sent a soul into the unknown was somewhat akin to the horror I would have at allowing my hand to touch that of a vivisector. and that horror is one I have never attempted nor desired to control. I was going to see a woman who had killed. I, who stooped and picked up worms from my path and put them in secluded places that they might not be trod upon. I, who daily carried wounded kittens and lame dogs to the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, to have them healed or painlessly put to sleep. I, who would not go fishing. who would not cage a bird, I, to go and talk with a murderess. Yet I went. I looked into her face. I took her hand, the right hand that had killed.

I talked with her, and while we talked, my tears fell upon that right hand of hers, as I said, You are not a bad woman. Oh, how could you kill? How could you kill? No, she said, I am not a bad woman. If anybody, had told me a year ago that I would do murder, I would have laughed. Believe me, none of us can know what we can or will do until the temptation comes. Why, she exclaimed, looking into my face scrutinizingly, even you might kill under provocation. I? Her eyes met mine as I made the exclamation, and then I went away and wrote never a word concerning my visit to the woman. I have had not been sent by an editor, I had gone of my own accord, or rather of my own impelling.

There was a time in after years when suddenly those terrible, warning words of the woman came back to me, when they rang in my ears and in their ringing made me humble, teaching me and knew the lesson of charity. End of Chapter 19 Chapter 20 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth Al Banks. The Slibervok's recording is in the public domain. Chapter 20, In the Name of Christ. One day, during my career as a New York journalist,

I made the acquaintance of a young English woman who had brought to me from London a letter of introduction from a mutual friend. I want you to know and take an interest in my good friend, the letter ran. She is an English gentlewoman, the daughter of blank. She is not happy in England, and for personal reasons she desires to make her home in your country, and it will be necessary for her to earn a livelihood there. She is very intellectual, very bright and clever. When I tell you that she has won my friendship, you will understand that she is worthy of yours. How delightfully English, pretty, stately, yet gentle, was the bearer of this note. She came into my office one afternoon when I was

quite alone, and sitting at my desk preparing a synopsis for a new series I wished to begin. The girl was perhaps 24 or 25, with wonderful eyes, and that beautiful English complexion one so often hears about but so seldom sees. She was smartly dressed, but with that unmistakable air of gentility that one learns to know when one has lived some time in London. I knew she was English and belonged to the ranks of gentle women when I saw her standing in the office door, and before I heard her speak in her low, musical voice. We shook hands and became friends, and during the week that followed, we lunched together at the restaurants in the neighborhood of newspaper row. We went to a matinee. She accompanied me on some of my journalistic johns.

and several times stopped for me at the office when I was kept there late. For a time she said nothing in relation to the subject of gaining a livelihood, and I, thinking she would speak in her own good time, waited for her to approach the subject. I've had a rest now, she said laughingly one day, when she had been in New York about two weeks, and now comes work. Did not Mrs. Blank tell you in her letter, that I was poor and must go to work to earn my daily bread in a new country? Yes, I answered. She said something like that. Now let us go into the subject. What are your assets? I mean, what can you do? I've got some talent for writing, and I had thought of

journalism, she answered. I have been watching you at your work and wondering whether I could not go into it. Can you not help me on this paper? You think. You think. You. You think. You. You think you would like to be a journalist and on this paper? I asked, looking at her in bewilderment. No, I expect I should hate it, but I must try something. If there's anything else, you mustn't try it, I said. I cannot conceive of you as being able to make headway against the fearful odds. I can't explain myself perhaps clearly, but somehow I feel I ought to warn you not to attempt it. Don't think it is for any personal, selfish reasons. I am going back to London soon, and you would have a clear field so far as I am concerned. But sensational journalism is no calling for you. It has been proving a good thing for me. I needed it. You don't need it. Or rather, you can't stand it. Now journalism, or let me say writing for the newspapers of a different kind than this, is something of another name. But with the newspapers at present, there's no chance for you to make even the smallest kind of salary,

because you have no reputation, no experience, and are English, which will be not at all in your favor as a beginner. The only way to get a start in writing for the papers is first to have a position of some other sort, by which you are assured of a salary to live on. Then, as I know you are brilliant and have a clever pen, you could write for the American, papers from the point of view of an English girl, and after a while you would get your start. Yes, of course, that is the ideal way, but what could I do to get the sure salary? You know what my education has been, how I play the piano, speak French and Italian, and have the usual accomplishments of the Englishwoman of my class. I have it, I cried, though English journalistic

beginners are not at a premium in New York, English governesses are all the rage. The fashionable New York mothers like to have their daughters under the care of English gentle women. They pay them good salaries and treat them as members of the family, treat them even deferentially. Why, I believe I know of a place for you to step right into. A prominent churchwoman, interested in charities and all that sort of thing, you know, was telling me that she intended to go to England this summer to find a suitable governess for her two daughters. They are 15 and 17. She knew I'd lived in England, and she asked my advice as to how to proceed to get what she wanted. I'll recommend you. She'll pay $60 a month and board at the family table, where I understand they haven't as gentle manners as they might have,

but perhaps you can teach them something in that line too. The girl's face was radiant. Oh, if you could get it for me, she said. It is very necessary that I earn something very, very soon. It is not so hard for me, but you see, I have a child. I did not know you had been married, I said. I have not been married, but I have a child. The girl looked at me steadily, defiance,

in her eyes and in her voice. Then she added, half bitterly, "'This will make a difference, will it not?' "'Yes,' I replied, turning to my pen and paper. "'It will make a difference, because if you have a child to support, it is all the more necessary you should have this place.' "'What?' she exclaimed. The bitterness gave way to a pleased surprise. Her eyes filled with tears, and her hands trembled. Then I turned to my desk and wrote,

Madame, a little over two weeks ago, you told me of your intention of taking an English governess for your daughters, and asked if I could give you any advice or assistance in the matter. I now find I am able to do that. My friend, Miss Blank, lately arrived in New York, is desirous of securing a position as governess in an American family. She is highly educated and accomplished, and, besides being fitted in every way to act as teacher to your daughters, she is, because of her

birth, breeding, and manner, suitable to act in the capacity of companion to them. Her father and mother, both dead, were English gentle people, and when I say to you that she herself is a thorough, typical English gentlewoman, I feel I can say nothing higher in her praise. I am mailing this letter to you this evening to say that my friend will call upon you tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock. This letter and the visit of the English girl on the following morning resulted in her engagement as governess to the daughters of the New York woman, whom, for convenience's sake, I will designate as Mrs. Smith-Jones. The place she had obtained was in easy and in the a pleasant one, including among its many enjoyments the Wednesday and Saturday matinees every week

in company with her charges, who were bright, good-hearted, though slightly vulgar, young American girls, whose manners began gradually to improve under the example of the Englishwoman's always-perfect address and deportment. We saw one another frequently. She began to write delightful little stories of English life, which she submitted to me for criticism and advice as to the best methods of trying to dispose of them. I knew most of the American newspapers and periodicals, and so was able to put her in the way of those for which her contributions seemed most suitable. There came a time when she told me her story, the sad, commonplace story of innocence betrayed, different only from those stories which are more frequently made public by the fact that she, instead of being a peasant girl, or one of

lowly origin, was a girl of gentle birth who loved not wisely. Once, during the first month of the girl's engagement, I had a letter from Mrs. Smith-Jones, thanking me most enthusiastically for having sent my friend to her, and describing her success, not only as governess to her daughters, but in a social way. She helps me so much in entertaining my guests, wrote Mrs. Smith-Jones, and she is quite the rage with her beautiful English ways. She seems a little sad sometimes, but that I think will wear off as she becomes accustomed to America and American ways. Mrs. Smith-Jones was one of our enthusiastic women philanthropists. She was interested in many charities, and being prosperous in this world's goods, was able, as she once informed me, to give a tenth of her income as tithes to the

Lord. She subscribed liberally to Newsboys and Boot Blacks' funds, gave of her money to the hospitals and the various homes for the poor and the aged, and was particularly interested in what she denominated rescue work among New York's unfortunate women. She paid a large subscription every year to several institutions founded for the object of helping the class known as fallen women. Mrs. Smith-Jones used often to tell me about the institutions in which she was interested, in order that I might give them write-ups. Besides all this, Mrs. Smith-Jones was a member of a fashionable church. For her life and for all her actions, so she once told me she had a motto. It was this, in the name of Christ. Such was the woman with whom I sent my friend to reside as governess.

One afternoon I looked up from the special feature article I was writing upon my typewriter to see Mrs. Smith Jones entering my office door. One glance at her face almost took my breath away, red, distorted, fiendish. Her hand trembled as she held it out to me, not for a friendly greeting, as had hitherto been her custom, but menacingly, threateningly. Did you know? Did you know? I say, did you know? She almost shrieked as she came towards me. Did I know what? I asked in astonishment. Did you know that you sent to me a disreputable character, a woman of loose morals, to live in my house, to teach my daughters, to associate with them, to contaminate them?

I sprang from my desk and confronted her. How dare you speak to me like that, I cried. The woman I sent to your house was my friend, and I do not make my friends among disreputable characters. Oh, I don't believe you, screamed Mrs. Smith Jones. You must have known it. Do you mean to say you didn't know why she left England, that you didn't know she had a child?

Yes, I knew she had a child. What then? What then? repeated Mrs. Smith-Jones. Do you consider that nothing? Do you consider that no reason why you should not recommend her as a tutor for young girls? I consider it a very unhappy circumstance, I replied. Yet you recommended her to me as a lady, a gentlewoman, as they say in England, fit not only to be a governess, but a companion to my daughters. Certainly I did. She is all that I said.

Oh, there should be a law to prosecute you for so endangering the morals of pure young girls like mine. It might have gone on for years had I not found out last night and sent her away, the wicked creature. My heart gave a throb of terror, as I mechanically repeated the words after her. last night sent her away. Then I clutched Mrs. Smith-Jones's shoulder. Do you tell me that you sent her away and at night? I exclaimed hoarsely. I am her only intimate friend in New York,

and she did not come to me. Where did she go? How do I know? Why should I care where she went, so long as I got the terrible creature out of my house and away from my darlings? I noticed her crying over a picture, one day when she didn't know I was looking. I supposed it was a picture of her father or her mother. Yesterday I got hold of the picture. It was that of a child, a little girl that looked the image of her. It was suspicious, but still I was charitable, and desiring to give her the benefit of the doubt,

I thought it might possibly be the picture of a little sister who was dead. Last evening, I went to her room when she was out, and found lying on the floor a letter which she had dropped. It seemed to be from someone who was taking care of the child for her. I knew the whole disgraceful tale then. When she returned, I confronted her, and what did she do? Weep, repent? Say she was sorry for having deceived me? Confide in me?

No, she brazened it out, admitted the existence of the child, but when I reproached her, she begged me to remember that although I was not a lady myself, I was speaking to one, and would I kindly lower my voice and use proper language? It was half past ten. I gave her just half an hour to pack her trunk and told her to go. Told her to go, I cried, at eleven o'clock at night, an English woman who doesn't know New York. How much money did you pay her? I did not owe her anything. Her last month's wages were paid to her two days ago.

You mean you did not pay her a month's salary in advance when you turned her out? I exclaimed. Certainly not. Then she hadn't more than two or three dollars, for she sent her last month's salary to the child. I went with her to the post office when she got the money orders. A faintness and a horror were coming over me. Where do you think a young woman, alone in New York without any money could go at 11 o'clock at night, I asked.

She could go to a rescue house, replied Mrs. Smith Jones. Unrepentant as she was, they would have taken her in there. She knows the addresses of several, as she has written letters for me in regard to them. Rescue home, I cried. Rescue home. She, an English gentlewoman, to go to a rescue home with the picked women of the streets and the east side joints and wear a plaid dress, or is it a brown and gray stripe, with a scarlet letter A upon her bosom? I had forgotten that you were interested in those pathetically funny institutions, those places where they heard women together and tell them the story of Mary Magdalene, and pray over them, giving them to understand that the crime they have committed

is the one that takes the largest amount of the blood of Christ to wash out if it can be washed out at all, and they teach them to sew and scrub and iron, and then branding them with a mark, send them out to work against such odds as few women can combat. They take pains to tell the employers that the women have sinned and to keep a watch on them. The last state of the poor things is worse than the first. Oh, for sending girls to hell, commend me to a Christian woman like yourself interested in rescue work. Oh, you are a terrible person. Why did I ever take anyone upon your recommendation? Why did I allow myself to forget that you were employed on this sort of newspaper?

How could I even allow myself to come here this morning to a woman like you, surrounded probably by dozens of others of your sort, forgetting that you were not of my kind. No, we are not of your kind. We are all decent women here. You are the only disreputable person on these premises. An exclamation of horror escaped from Mrs. Smith-Jones as she moved toward the door. "'Don't go yet,' I said,

"'going to the door before her. "'I have a little more to say to you, "'and as it is early, there will be no one here to disturb. bus for an hour or so. She stared in anger, yet said nothing. You call yourself a Christian, do you not? I asked. What impertinence. Certainly I am a Christian. Well, I'll just tell you what, as a Christian, you have done. You have turned a young woman who was honorably supporting herself and her child out into the street of a strange city at 11 o'clock at night. Had she come to my boarding-house she could have stopped with me, but she was too proud to do that. What do you suppose

has become of that young woman, Mrs. Smith-Jones? I have already told you I do not know, and care less, for she left me unrepentant and brazen to the last. No, not brazen. She couldn't be that, for she was a lady to the tips of her fingers, possibly unrepentant because she had nothing to repent of. that pass. Have you ever heard Mrs. Smith-Jones that in this city of New York there are places where such girls are always made welcome at any hour of the day or night? Now it is sad, but it is strangely true that into the mind of almost every woman who knows herself to possess the attractions of youth and beauty, and finds herself in such a position as that in which my friend found herself last night, there comes suddenly the devil-inspired thought that her body is an asset,

and there are not wanting those who can direct her to Mart's where it may be sold. Sometimes, just as the dreadful thought comes to her, there is a hand stretched out to help her and snatch her as a brand from the burning. It is usually the hand of a man, Mrs. Smith-Jones, a man of the world, a man of honor, a man who knows life, and so feels pity in his heart. Not often, Mrs. Smith-Jones, do women engage in this work of salvation. Many of them, like yourself, are too much interested in rescue homes to pay any attention to tragedies like this that are occurring all around them. But often, often, Mrs. Smith-Jones, there is no one near with the will or the power to save them. And then, and then—'

I was on the verge of breaking down, but I rallied and turned to her with bitter hatred in my face and in my heart. And this is what I, knowing women and life as I do know them, believe that you have done to my friend. I do not believe I shall ever find her, though I shall try. You who say you live by the motto in the name of Christ, you have done this. Now you may go. I moved away from the door, and Mrs. Smith-Jones passed out of the office. I went to my desk, trying to again compose my thoughts for my work, but it was not easy. I had been preaching a sermon, and sermons were not in my line. Two rot up for ordinary occupation, I closed my desk,

put on my hat, and went out into the street. The great skyscrapers, the clouds of people, the loud jingle of the cable cars greeted me and seemed to laugh in all their bigness at me in my littleness and powerlessness. I suddenly realized the futility of searching, and I went back to the office despairing, baffled, defeated. "'Just been inquiring for you,' said one of the editors as I returned to my desk. "'See what there is in this charity entertainment for next week, will you? something to do with providing homes for orphan children, I believe. Go and see some of the women that are interested in it. Here's the list. I looked it over, and prominent among the names was that of Mrs. Smith Jones. End of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks.

This Liberbox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 21. a little joyousness and some tragedy. It has always been my fortune, when employed upon American newspapers, to be associated with men as co-workers who could be aptly described by the term Jolly Good Fellows. As they were so out west and down south, so I found them in New York. There existed between the men and the women who worked together on the staff, a spirit of comradeship and good fellowship that was altogether delightful. I know of no profession in which men and women can work together side by side, so pleasantly, and I may add, beneficially, one to the other, as in that of journalism. At least this can be said of America, where no newspaper staff is complete without its quota of women

reporters and editorial workers. It says much for the American method of bringing up boys and girls and educating them at mixed colleges, that when they are thrown together in such work as that known as yellow journalism, the women can retain their womanliness, the men, their manliness and attitude of free and easy comradeship, yet respectful deference towards them. I am not sure whether such a state of things could exist in England. Probably it could in the next generation, when the conditions of the education and the upbringing of English girls have become similar to those which form part of the average American girls' surroundings. Most especially was the spirit of American chivalry exhibited by the men spacewriters toward the

women's space writers, and many a noble act of self-sacrifice among the men to help the women along, was done quietly and unobtrusively a way up at the top of a many-storied newspaper building, where I was employed during my stay in New York. Such a kind, tactful, jolly way, too, had the men of performing these little deeds of kindness to us women. "'Say,' said one of the men reporters, "'coming over to me one afternoon, "'I saw a hat up on 23rd Street

"'that'd suit you to a tea. "'It's exactly made for you, "'turn up on the side and all, "'marked down, too, cheap as dirt, $7.98. I laughed. I don't see anything very original in that remark, I said. I've seen lots of hats I knew would suit me, which were cheap as dirt, but I couldn't afford to buy them. But I can tell you how to get that hat. How? I asked. Why, down at the canal, there are a lot of canal boats that are just getting ready to put out for the spring trip. the houseboat kind you know where the families live all the time year in and year out a story made up of a description of how those canal boatwomen keep house and how they stow away things in the little bits of rooms they have would be good stuff i know

you could work it into a ten dollar bill at space rates sure which had more than buy the hat you'd better go and do that canal boat story the city editor would just jump at it See here, why don't you do that story yourself and make the ten dollars, I said suspiciously, for this same young man was not above playing a mild practical joke occasionally. Oh, I've done well this week, and besides, that's a girl's story. I can't write up housekeeping matters. I could do very well with an extra ten dollars that week, so I went to the canal and got my story in for one of the evening editions of the next day's paper. I didn't get the wonderful hat. I do not fancy there was such a bit of headgear as that which my co-worker so enthusiastically described, but he was behind me when I got my pay the next Saturday afternoon, and he smiled good-naturedly. There was another time when an American

man of war was in New York Harbor, and one of the reporters informed me that, the way those sailors of Uncle Sam's scrubbed and cooked and did their own washing and ironing was worth two columns if it was worth a stick. And I went to the man-of-war and got my two columns. These men were not editors suggesting subjects, but reporters who might have done the extra work themselves, but the desire to help along the girls came as natural to them as breathing. There were always pleasant little experiences of this sort coming up, so that while my plunge into yellow journalism gave me a greater knowledge of the seamy side of life than comes to the ordinary woman, it also gave me an insight into the lovelier, kinder, more human characteristics of mankind, especially the mankind of my own country,

which I shall always thank God I have been permitted to know. I was present one day at the great trial of a notorious female criminal, having been sent there by my editor to make a character sketch of the prisoner as she stood at the bar. Aren't you, Miss Banks? I heard a man's voice from behind me asking. Yes, I answered, turning round to a smart-looking young fellow. We're on the same paper, he whispered, handing me his card. We haven't met yet, though. I'm art and your literary, you know. What are you doing? I'm making a character sketch of the woman, I answered. You ought to have a picture of her, he said. It would add a lot to your word sketch. Before I could answer, he had pulled a bit of cardboard and pencil from his pocket,

and when he had taken a few rapid strokes, I saw that the vicious-looking countenance of the woman in front of us was beginning to appear, strangely real and lifelike, upon the cardboard. In ten minutes it was done, and, rising to leave the courtroom, he handed it to me. There, I'll make you a present, $4,000, double column cut, you know. It's perfect, I answered, but what shall I do with it? Why, handed to the city editor with your stuff, and it'll make your story worth $4 more than it would be without it. Oh, all right, I answered, my impression being that the young man was

on space, and that by illustrating my story, he would make $4 extra. I'll tell the city editor we did it together. No, you don't catch on at all. That's because you're from Lennon, I suppose. I'm on salary, and all the work I hand in is paid for by the salary, and the story I came here to illustrate has nothing to do with the one you're writing. Space artists get paid $2 a single column cut. This will go in as a double one, and that's $4 added to the value of your story. What's your length? A column, I replied. At $7.5? Yes.

Well, then, instead of your bill for this thing being $7.5, you make it $11.50. Be sure you get it now. It's got nothing to do with my salary. I didn't do it for the paper. I did it for you. You handed in, just as you would have photographed. with a story, and say, $4 for the photograph, see? Goodbye, I'm off to the art room now, three sketches to finish up in no time. What is it they say in England about the American men?

The American women are altogether fascinating, vivacious, and well-educated, but the American men gives so much thought to pursuing the Almighty dollar that they haven't time to put on culture and polish. That is the way the description runs, I believe. Well, they did work in their shirt sleeves in that newspaper office. They did take emphatic, not to say occasionally profane, methods of expressing themselves to politicians and others who refused to be interviewed, or went out of their way to give the newspapers false information. They did often work over time, making many extra dollars over and above what they usually needed for the necessities of life. They did consider it an unpardonable sin to get left or get scooped or be in any way behind the times. They were, indeed, in many ways different from many of the eminent London journalists, with whom I had then and have since been thrown into contact. But then, perhaps one needs to be an American working woman, thrown upon her own resources, engaged in a terrible struggle against fearful odds, eating bread one day only because she has earned it the day before, working side

by side with American newspaper men in order to thoroughly understand them and to know that America is indeed a land of chivalry. It was while I was engaged in New York journalism that the Spanish-American war came on. During the lives of most of us on the paper, our country had never known a war. I was one of the few on the paper who, because of my horror of war, could not take part in the great enthusiasm that was felt by the members of the staff at the thought of smashing Spain to a jelly. I was very sorrowful during those days, and could not contemplate the monstrous headlines that our paper was continually getting out, telling of victory, sickness, and slaughter without a shudder.

I could not rejoice nor laugh at anything connected with the war, till one day a warlike message I found on my desk sent me into such a fit of merriment as I had not known for many a week. Notice to quit, wearing that red and yellow necktie. It having been observed by the male members of the staff that you did yesterday appear upon these whole lestown. and purely American premises, with your neck-bounding colors red and yellow, like unto the style of the hated flag of Spain, it is hereby ordered that you take it off, and that right quickly,

substituting for it the necktie herewith presented, otherwise. Here followed a pen and ink sketch of a woman, looking remarkably like myself, stabbed through the throat with the stars and stripes, underneath which was written, Six Semper Traitoress Heaven knows that the compromising colors of the new necktie I had worn the day before and which I had on the morning when I found this notice upon my desk were the result of accident. It was a really beautiful and artistic bit of neckwear,

which I had bought at a very high price on Broadway, but I speedily replaced the red and yellow thing with that of the mail reporter's choosing. It was one of the paper's choosing. It was one of the paper, patriotic neckties so popular at that time, and so cleverly and artistically designed, that though it had in it the colors red, white, and blue, they were not made to appear conspicuous, it looking like an ordinary pretty fringed tie. As an evidence of good faith, I sent the objectionable and discarded necktie to the reportorial room, and the office boy who carried it

there reported that it was turned into a huge lighter for pipes. I have spoken of the enthusiasm that attended the beginning of this the first war of our generation. There came a time a few weeks later in that newspaper office, as well as in many others throughout the country, when the prolongation of the war became a tragedy in the lives of many of the writers for the press, and especially was this so among the space writers, who had no fixed income, taking in money only according to the amount of acceptable work they did. Those who, like myself, had a certain guarantee in lieu of salary every week, did not feel

the tragic effects, as did those who were but ordinary space writers. War, war, war! Get up something about the war, no use writing about other subjects. People may be born and married and buried may commit suicide or murder, they may starve, they may steal, they may corrupt and be corrupted and betrayed and blackmailed. But let you these things alone and write about the war, was the cry of the editors. What's that? A baby found dead in the East River, thrown there by the mother, you say? What? A new hospital scandal? Strike? Did you say a thousand men were on strike at the mills? Oh, but I tell you there is no room. Give every one of those subjects a stick, and not a bit over a stick apiece. That's it. Now you're talking sense.

That's the ticket. Write a column telling how all the society girls are going in for studying at the first aid to the injured classes. Certainly, that's another good subject. All the boys in the public schools forming into companies and regiments and being drilled by the teachers to keep the spirit of patriotism and love of the flag in their little souls, column into half, and pictures of the boy captains and colonels. Oh, did you ever, Mrs. Verde-ver doing a turn-to-sa-society-function as a skirt dancer with the legend, to hell with Spain pinned on her skirt. Yes, head it, petticoat warfare, and send it up. Thus went the day and night, and those who could not do war stories fared not sumptuously, but sneaked around the corner to the restaurants where they got a stand-up luncheon for

ten cents. Oh, the scramble after inspirations that had in them the hint of blood and war. The religious editor became a war poet, and rhymed battle with cattle and gore with boar. The sports editor devoted his hitherto undiscovered talents to evolving alliterative headlines, wherein the public were informed that, hell haunts Hispano. Special editions followed one after the other every three or four minutes, and five minutes after a bit of news came from the front, the boys were selling it, all printed and headlined in the street. More than ever in those days, space writers lived by their,

wits, for it was no easy matter for men and women living in New York, far away from the actual war, to get up a column or two or three columns every day on some subject appertaining to the war that nobody else had thought of. Originality and quick thinking were at a premium, and God pity those who could not, at command, turn their thoughts warward and dip their pens into blood. While battles were being raged in Cuba and the Philippines, battles also were fought in the New York newspaper offices, battles in which, if blood was not shed, hands trembled, hearts and heads ached,

with the fearful strain put upon them of thinking, always thinking, how to get the means of living, since live one must. In Cuba they died, in New York they lived, and how much more painful and horrible was the living than the dying could possibly have been, none but those who struggled through that time can tell. One day I met a brilliant young newspaper man near the City Hall Park. He was loitering as one who had no aim in life, no object in view.

I can't talk with you if you dilly-dally along like that, I said. I'm in a hurry and I've got to hustle. I've got work to do. Then you're lucky, and I'll bet you're not on space, he answered. Well, I suppose I am lucky, for I've got a guarantee, and I just earn that and nothing more. Some of the girls that only do space are in awful straits these war times, so I feel as if I were one of the elect to have a guarantee. I should say so. I used to make a hundred and fifty a week, just hopping about

as a freelance on space. This week I've made $7. Last week, I got $3.5.5 for a joke. My God, and you know I got married just before the main went down. I'd volunteer, but the little girl won't hear of it. Oh, war is hell on us. Yes, war is hell, I answered, hurrying into the office, leaving him standing at the door. What need for him to enter? Or, over it was the warning. All hope abandon ye who enter here without the wit to write of war. There seemed to be nobody in particular to blame for the state of things, least of all the editors of the different departments of the different papers, who were mostly kind, big-hearted men, feeling sorry for the contributors who could not write of war, yet not daring to take anything

that did not deal with it, because their readers wanted. war, and war they must have. Only war itself was to blame for all the miseries brought in its train. War was hell. Some of the joyousness and some of the tragedy of the newspaper office I have told here, for we of the press are glad and sorry like unto the rest of the world, and in respect of this, our lot is the common lot of all. Yet, sometimes it has seemed to me that women have, who live the newspaper life, because perhaps their experience is wider and broader and takes in more than does that of the average woman, are often called upon to bear a little more heartache, and to show it less than the average woman. I have heard some women of my profession described as

icicles, heartless, knowing not what it means to suffer, caring only for their work, their ambition, being almost sexless. To the ranks of the women so described belonged a young woman journalist whom I once knew. I will tell her love story in the following chapter, and we'll call her Miss John Stone. End of Chapter 21. Chapter 22 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 22, the love story of Miss John Stone Journalist. In the first corner, facing the entrance door of the city room sat the city editor of the Daily Bugle, his desk piled high with telegrams, proof sheets, and first editions of the rival

papers. At the sides and in the middle of the room were arranged other desks, somewhat smaller and less important-looking, as became the subordinate positions of the men behind them. Long tables, be splashed with ink and with blue pencils continually rolling from them to the floor, were surrounded by young men, turning out page after page of manuscripts and smoking their pipes the while. The office boys were running hither and thither as the cry of, Copy, rang out from different parts of the room, grabbing from the writers a page here and a page there, darting upstairs to the press room, then back again, with hands full of proof sheets to be distributed over desks and tables.

At the farthest corner from the door, where there was an attempt at separation from the rest of the room by a couple of Japanese screens, there were signs of femininity in the shape of a smart fur cape hanging on the wall beside a cheap little looking glass, depending from a nail by a string, a knobby hat with a green velvet bow and a red feather, a spotted veil, in a high heap, a pair of gloves and a silver-handled umbrella, had been thrown carelessly down upon the back part of the roll-top desk. Miss Johnstone, the city editor wants you quick, called out one of the small boys, stopping on his way to the press room with his hands full of corrected proofs. All right, Bobby, came the answer from behind the screens, and then the occupant of the exclusive corner could be seen as she rose from

behind the high desk. She was what would be called a tailor-made girl of 22 or possibly 25. The men in the office spoke of her as being something on looks, meaning thereby that she was not unattractive, that she carried herself well and dressed in a style that they denominated smooth. She was not tall, so she wore her hair done high to keep from appearing too insignificant. end. She had a good figure, so she affected tailor-made gowns, which showed it off. She had not much color in her cheeks, therefore she wore a bright red necktie, knotted in the fashionable mode, which appeared to give a ruddyness to her face. It was not exactly what could be called a sympathetic face. Once it might have been, but now it was rather one that had been schooled to stolidity and

concealment by a necessity which knew no sentimental law. Surely not out of the abundance of the heart dared the mouth nor the face of this woman speak. Her long green cloth skirts, with their silky rustle, swept over the floor among the pieces of waste paper, flimsy, and broken lead pencils. Bobby said you wanted me, she said to the city editor when she had reached his desk. Oh, yes, I do. He responded without looking up. He was critically examining some typewritten copy and drawing his blue pencil mercilessly through words, sentences, and sometimes whole pages of it. Yes, I want you. He repeated, as the girl stood waiting,

Hello, Bobby, here, fire this upstairs and tell them it's to go into the early edition, he called out, throwing the bundle of sheets into the outstretched hands of the boy who hurried towards him. Then the editor continued blue-penciling other pages, as he said, still without looking up from his work, it's not in your line, I know, but I've got to ask you to do a funeral, a lying-in-state, floral tributes, and so on. What with that murder over in the East, and being head over ears in political work, and that city corruption expose, I haven't a man I can spare for this thing. So, do your best with it, Will you? you, and don't try to get anything humorous or even bright and catchy into your account of the

affair, as you are wont to do in everything you handle, though, of course, I've never tried you on funerals. He added this, half bantering, half kindly, as though to let the girl know he was not complaining. John Black, the young politician, died suddenly last night. He was one of our particular protégés, you might say, so we want to give the poor chap a good send-off, now he's gone. You know of him, of course? Sharp as a whip, but good as gold. Rising young fellow. If he'd lived, he'd been senator, governor, and even president, or I'd missed my guess. Just go to his mother's house this afternoon. Take a train. It's out in the suburbs, and here's the address. About seven o'clock would be a good time, I should say. There ought to be.

plenty of floral tributes by that time. Get all the names you understand, and then, Yes, I understand exactly what you want, interrupted the young woman, as though in a hurry to conclude the interview, and I have no idea that I shall see anything humorous in the situation. If I should happen to, I promise you I shall not put it into the paper. As she said this, she was leaving the editor's desk when he resumed. Oh, say, Miss Johnstone, will you allow a mere man to make a suggestion to you? Would you mind changing that flaring red necktie for something a little more somber when you go to Poor Black's house this afternoon?

I've always found it paid for women reporters, and men too, for that matter, to bear in mind these little diplomasies. Look as quiet and unobtrusive as you can when you go. You may run across his mother or some of his relations who will talk, for publication. A slight nod, Anna murmured, very well, was the answer. Once back at her desk, Miss Johnstone dived deep into her cape pocket for her purse and emptied its contents in front of her. Eighty-seven cents, she said to herself, and it's Thursday. I've already drawn ten dollars on account of this week's salary, and I dare not ask for any more in advance. Money, money, money.

money, how can I get it? Suddenly she pulled out some copy paper and began to write. This is the only way, she murmured, a column for the humorist, and collect on delivery. Page after page passed from under her pen. Then, clipping a dozen sheets together, she read them over, made a correction here, an addition or an omission there, laughed grimly, as though pleased with her work, pushed back her chair and left the room. The humorist was a weekly paper published by the same proprietor as the Daily Bugle,

though of course under altogether different editorial management. A number of the regular members of the bugle staff were among the contributors to the weekly periodical and were paid for that work at space rates, so that they were thus able to add materially to their weekly salaries. Miss Johnstone was among the funny paper's most valued contributors, and often, when work was slack in the city room of the bugle, she occupied herself with turning out tales for the delectation of the humorists' readers. A little private arrangement existed between her and the editor, by which she was paid immediately on the delivery of her manuscript, and when she now entered his office with a parcel of paper in her hand, he exclaimed, What, broke again? Well, let's read your stuff. Throughout the reading, the man smiled the pleased smile of the editor who finds himself in the possession of a scoop that no hated rival has any means of obtaining. It's great, he exclaimed, when he had finished.

I like it better than any political caricature you've ever done for me. I declare, he went on, with an insinuating grin on his face. you must have a pull with some garrulous statesmen, or you wouldn't be able to get hold of these stories. An order for ten dollars passed from the editor to Miss Johnstone, who, with a hurried, thank you, you're a friend in need, left the office. She had donned her hat and cape before leaving her desk, and after stopping at the cashier's office,

the doors of the great building swung behind her, and she passed into the street, which was very, rapidly filling with men and women going to luncheon from the various offices. She was passed by numerous streetcars, but neglected to hail them. As she walked rapidly along, her shoulders back, her head erect, a woman whispered to a companion in the crowd, look, there goes that Miss Johnstone of the bugle. They say her salaries something immense. Of all the unsympathetic, cold-looking faces I ever saw, her is the worst. I wouldn't be surprised to know that ice water, and never a drop of blood, ran in

her veins. Miss Johnstone halted before a florist's window. I want a wire frame the kind they use for making reeds, she said when she had entered the shop. Now some jack roses. Give me some buds as well as full-blown roses. No, I don't want any green except the rose leaves. Eight dollars you say? She passed over the $10 bill, and taking the $2 change and the parcels of flowers and wire, turned again into the street, then round a corner, then into a lofty red brick building made up of flats. It was a pretty, dainty, feminine-looking room into which the girl entered, bright draperies, soft cushions, pictures on the walls, easy chairs, books, and magazines, a small piano with specimens of the latest popular music scattered about it,

all proclaimed the artistic, well-paid American professional woman. Flower vases filled with roses, such as the girl had just bought from the florists, were on the tables and the mantel. The room was heated by pipes after the American fashion, but as she seated herself upon the velvet carpet, with the roses and the wire frame, she shivered. and sharply shut her teeth together to keep them from chattering. Then among the roses deftly flew her fingers,

carrying them to the wire frame one by one, till only a circlet of crimson loveliness lay finally in her lap. Copy, copy, proofsheet, proof sheet, rang out upon the smoky midnight air of the Daily Bugle Office. Where's that headline I just wrote? Here, take it upstairs and tell them it's to be used with Miss Johnstone's account of John Black's death, which she'll have ready to send up in a few minutes. What's that, Miss Johnstone? Oh, you've got the first five pages done already? Good. Here then, Bobby, take the headline in this part of the

stuff up together and say the rest will be done in ten minutes. Miss Johnstone bent over her desk, writing, her face white, but as immobile and as incomprehensible, as ever. Miss Johnstone, the Knight Editor wants to know if you brought back from the village a photograph of John Black. He thinks we better use a picture, even if we have to cut down the write-up to make room for it. One of the copy readers stood at her desk speaking. What did you say? Oh, a photograph? Yes, I did. Or at least I think I brought it away with me. It was a little picture. Go away a minute, so I'll have room to move about and hunt for it among my papers." Miss Johnstone took out her purse, and with trembling fingers felt among the compartments, till she pulled forth a small photograph evidently cut down to make it go into the purse. It was somewhat soiled, as though from much handling. Here is the photograph, she said, handing it over to the copy-reader.

I have written on the back that it's to be returned to me without fail, as I am am responsible for it, and here is the rest of the copy, and I think my day's work is done. She got up slowly, donned her hat and cape, and as she left the desk, a large black Newfoundland dog crawled from under it and followed her from the room. I never saw that dog before, said one of the men to the night editor, but he went after her as though he'd belonged to her all his life. He looks like a knowing and valuable animal, and it's queer she never spoke of him, even as she went out. Speak, reiterated the night editor, throwing a bundle of flimsy onto the floor.

Miss Johnstone isn't one of the speaking kind. She's been here four years, and nobody but myself ever so much as knew she had a family to support. You don't mean to say she's married, exclaimed the other editor in surprise. Married, certainly. not. She's got an invalid mother, a little brother, and a sister about 17 who goes to boarding school to support, besides herself to keep. How the devil could a girl like that get married if she wanted to? Well, her salary and all the extra she makes on the humorist wouldn't be too much to do all that on, returned the other. But what puzzles me is where that animal came from, how he got into the office. Oh, I can enlighten you that much, said the night editor.

I saw him come in with her when she came back to do her writing, and he went under the desk and waited till she got through. As they passed my desk I said, Fine dog that, is he yours? And she said, certainly, with such a fierce look in her eyes that I didn't think I was expected to say anything more. While this conversation was going on, Miss Johnstone was walking home to her flat, the dog at her side.

Here, comfort, we are home now, she said, as she turned into the lighted entrance to the flat building, and the dog followed her in. A few years ago, a visitor to the little village of Blank, which is a few miles out from one of the largest of our American cities, was looking through the beautiful little cemetery attached to the newly painted wooden church. yes said the old man who tended the graves and kept the grass cut as he showed the visitor through it's as pretty a little cemetery as i ever see and there's folks buried here as this town not only loved and respected but as was more than common in intellect See that their grave over there with the red roses on it? They're rather faded now, it be in the last of the week, but on a Sunday there'll be another bunch bright and fresh. Oh, I could tell you the tale of them roses. What tale, said the visitor, and who is buried there? Well, you see, we had a young townsman by the name of Black, John Black, to speak by the book, and he were a great orator and politician, and a member of the state legislator. He was brought up amongst us, and he was that anxious after

Larnon that he sawed wood in the summertime to get money to pay for schooling in the winter, and he got through the state university that way, and supported his old mother into the bargain. He tucked to law, and then to politics, and afore he wore thirty, he'd made a stir, and there weren't nobody that didn't believe he'd be sent to Congress, and after a while, to be president just as soon as he got old enough. Well, the campaign of 18 blank, you remember what a tough thing that was over in blank, of course? John Black took a great interest in that, and he took off his coat and went to work to defeat the other fellers, and he made ten and twelve speeches a day. He rushed first from one meeten and then to another, and always with his black dog along with him,

which were a mighty intelligent beast, and used to set on the platform with Black, and bark fit to kill when his master got through, and the folks was a cheer in him. He took great stock in that dog, did Black, and called him by the name of Comfort. Well, poor John Black, he fell down with a stroke of apoplexy, and died just as he was going to a meeting of his party, and that were a hard day for this village, and he had such a funeral in laying out as a governor might be proud of. Flowers was sent from all over, and delegations from all the big towns came on, and John Black was buried as befitted the great man he was, and the greater man that he could have been. Of course, there were lots of reporters from the big papers sent down to write about the funeral,

and as we afterwards learned, there were a young woman reporter from the Daily Bugle, a paper that set great stock by John Black and him by It too, that went to the house and made a particular request to go into the front room alone where the corpse was, as she said she could do her work better if she were alone, and she wanted to write down names and make a picture of all the flowers or something. They let her do as she liked, and besides, the rest of the reporters hadn't begun to come yet, and she was in the room something about three-quarters of an hour. Late that night, they couldn't find the dog nowhere, though John Black's cousin, what let the young woman into the room, said the dog was under the trestle where the coffin was when she went in,

and she couldn't get him to go out, and his howling was that pitiful when they tried to drag him away, they hadn't the heart to do it. They found Aretha Red Roses pushed way down to the foot inside the coffin, and they didn't know how it got there, and some was for taking it out, as red flowers wasn't suitable for the dead, but only white. But nobody seemed to dust take it out, and John Black was buried with him on his feet, the same as they was left. Black's mother went out of her head and died in a few days, and after that the story got round, I don't know exactly how, that the young woman reporter from the Daily Bugle, was Black's sweetheart, and they was waiting to get some more money afore they could get married.

agreed, Black having his mother to support, and so they kept the matter quiet. Some of the villagers said they remembered seeing her and John Black going riding in a sleigh in the wintertime, and they always tuck the dog along, and another man said he see Black and the gal and the dog eaten dinner in a restaurant. It was the young woman reporter that put the wreath in the coffin and took the dog then? asked the visitor. Yes, returned the old girl. grave tender. But the sorrowful thing, to my mind, is this. They say the young woman she seen Black at her office the very afternoon before he died, and she never known a thing about his death till her editor told her to go out and report a funeral, telling her John Black had died

sudden-like, and the editor, he didn't know neither that John Black was anything to the young woman, and she was a quiet, closed-mouthed sort of woman, so she never so much as cry. And she never so much cried out when she heard it. And she went and made a wreath and brought it with her, and she wrote up the laying out for her paper just the same as if her heart wasn't a break-in, and never told nobody at the newspaper office a word about it. The dog, he knowed her, and followed her out of the French window that opened onto the piazza. And when Black's cousin went to see if the young woman were through with her writing and drawing, her and the dog were gone, as I said. It's a couple of years now and more, but every Sunday the young woman comes out to the cemetery

with a lot of roses and puts them on the grave, and she brings the dog along of her, and they sits by the grave a while and then goes away. The village florist, he says the roses is what you call jack roses, and a kind John Black always bought plenty of every week when he was alive and carried him to the city with him. I suppose he took him to the young woman. I used to think the young woman had a hard face, which weren't exactly loving when I seen her come on a sundays, but once, about ten o'clock at night, I come through the graveyard as a short cut home, and the moon was up, and I see her and the dog set in by Black's grave. I watched a while, and she put her head down on the grave and clawed at it with her fingers, and then the dog, he scratched and whined, and the young woman

kept us saying, oh, Jack, Jack, if it wasn't for the rest of them that I have to look after, I'd come to you with comfort, but I must stay here, Jack, to take care of them all. They say as how she's got a sick mother and other folks to support, and when I see that and heard her a cry in so pitiful, I note how it were. It's what you'd call a sorrowful tale this here, ain't it? And the old gravetender went his way. End of Chapter 22. Chapter 23 of the autobiography of a newspaper girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Liberbox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 23 The Story of a Failure Remember, let no obstacle stand in your way. You are to move heaven and earth to get this information. Don't let anything like trouble, time, or expense be taken into consideration. If you need ten times the amount of money you have with you, telegraph for it. Put forth every effort. Expend all your energy to make this thing succeed. And if I should fail? Don't think of it. Don't use the word. You must not fail.

I've picked you out for this delicate job, because it has seemed to me you had in you all the qualities that were needed to bring the thing to pass. You've got diplomacy, tact, shrewdness, discretion, and above all, you are absolutely feminine, and you haven't got newspaper woman and interviewer placarded all over you. I want this information, and I believe the man I am sending you to is the only one who can or will give it, and I believe, you are the only person who can get him to give it. Don't you dare to fail. Thus was I sent one day to Washington to penetrate into a secret of state to get certain most valuable information from a very eminent personage who resided at the nation's capital. It was at a time when the getting of money

was a matter of very great importance to me, and I went upon the mission as a sort of freelance. That is, I was to be paid all expenses and have a handsome fee if I succeeded, which it was impressed upon me by the editor that I must do. If I failed, well, I would not get the fee, but I would be allowed what was known as expenses. It was with a large amount of self-confidence that I set out upon that mission. The editor had declared that I had all the elements of success in my own person. Why then should I not succeed? Why should not the eminent personage give me the information I sought? Why should I not get hold of a state secret? I had heard that other women, in present days and in days gone by, under monarchial governments, had become possessed of valuable

information concerning affairs of state. Now, what those hampered women under monarchical rule could accomplish, should not I, an American woman in free and easy Washington, with its ready access to government buildings and government officials do. I arrived in Washington, took residence at one of the best hotels, ordered whatever I wanted for comfort and even luxury without having to take expense into consideration, changed my traveling costume for one more smart and fashionable looking, and took a cable car for Capitol Hill. I had learned that at the Capitol I would find the eminent personage. My card bore the name of a London paper, as well as that of the American paper, in the interests of which I had gone on the mission, but I drew my pencil across the name

of the London paper. It showed quite plainly, however, and the word London looked large and important. In one of the luxurious waiting rooms of the Capitol, I waited while a boy hunted up the great man with whom I desired speech. It took three quarters of an hour to find him, and another half-hour before he would come to me. When he finally came, and I saw him, I experienced a feeling of pleasure that the man I had been sent to interview was a gentleman of more than ordinary refinement and culture, for I always hated coming into contact with vulgar common politicians. This man, who approached me with my card in one hand and holding out the other, was the polished gentleman, with dignified yet pleasant face of easy yet irreproachable manner.

He shook hands with me. You've been in London, I see, he said, turning to my card. Yes, I replied, but, as you see, I have not. not come from the London paper to you, but from the... He took one of the upholstered chairs near me. Of course, you want to interview me, and I have no notion for being interviewed, he said. But first, before we come to that, I can't help telling you that your name and face are very familiar to me.

I seem to know you, and now, where did I know you? It must have been in the other world during our previous existence. I laughed. Perhaps we were great friends in that other existence. Brothers, I shouldn't wonder, for in the other existence I'm sure I was a man, and in punishment for some crime was condemned to be a woman in this. No, that's not it, exclaimed he, laughing. Because you see, I don't remember you as a man at all. Oh, I think I know now. Did you not some years ago get an appointment to go to Peru as private secretary to the American minister?

Yes, I replied. I remember now, he went on. You were in Washington just before you left your country. You were doing the capital, and somebody pointed you out to me and said, There's the little girl that's going to be a diplomat. I had heard about you, of course, for it was so extraordinary for a young woman to get a place in any of our legations, or any other legation for that matter. I was curious to see what sort of person was going to start us in for female diplomacy. I particularly noticed you, and the whole thing struck me as ludicrous. You seemed very young, very ignorant,

and innocent looking, and very bright and happy looking, too. I vaguely wondered what was going to become of you, whether you would ever come back to your own country again, and whether you would become a woman with a career. How did you make out as a diplomat? Did you make out as a diplomat? Did you penetrate into state secrets, learn all about Peruvian affairs, and serve your country well and nobly? He sat back in his chair and laughed softly, and I laughed too, but I felt more sad than gay, because this man's remembrance of me brought back to me the memory of something of happiness and ignorance and youth, which I knew I had left behind me, and then I liked not his reference to state secrets. It annoyed me.

because for the moment I had forgotten why I had come to Washington. However, for a few minutes, we talked over Peru. I told him, much to his amusement, about the earthquake and the fleas, and we chatted about in different subjects till he said, But you have come to interview me, and I haven't another minute to spare now till dinner time. Since we are such old friends, suppose we dine together this evening, and while dining, we will get down to the business of interviewing, which, if not nearly so pleasant to me as chatting about England and Peru, will be, I suppose, more profitable to you. Now, what do you say to seven o'clock at the blank restaurant? Till then, goodbye. This easy meeting, easy approach, and this getting upon a footing of

such pleasant acquaintanceship, not to say friendship, was something I had not counted upon. It was, I knew a very advantageous beginning, one that my editor would look upon as a great piece of luck. I felt assured of success as I walked all the way back to my hotel, walked because I wanted to think out the whole interview carefully, and lay all my plans for getting the scoop that was to delight the editor, astonish the public, not only in my own country but in other countries, and bring me in a goodly sum of money. That evening, as I sat opposite the statesman at dinner, our conversation took in many subjects.

He was widely traveled and talked most entertainingly and instructively of all that he had seen. He was interested in certain English affairs, which I, because of my late residence in London, could give him information upon. He knew all the embassies and legations of foreign countries, and talked familiarly of the different diplomats accredited to Washington. I asked an occasional question,

and suddenly the information I wanted came to me in the most natural, informal way in the world. Not only that, I was told far more than any editor could dare to hope any reporter could discover, and I learned things I had not tried to learn, but valuable things from the newspaper point of view nevertheless. less. Both this man and I were interested in the great subject of peace, peace not only in our own country, but in all the countries of the world. We talked of the necessity for an international

court of arbitration. We deprecated the cruelty that war brought about, the hardness of heart, the deadening of sympathy for human and animal suffering. We shuddered at the thought of horses left wounded and dying in slow agony, untended and lonely. on the battlefields. I am glad to find that our opinions are in perfect accord upon this subject, he said, for the present I am obliged to keep quiet upon certain matters of my belief. It is policy for me to do so. I would not have talked to you as I have done if you had been the ordinary newspaper woman.

One cannot speak frankly to many representatives of the press. Now you are a woman of discretion, and I expect you, in writing up your interview with me, to use your own judgment, and of course your judgment will tell you what must not go into the paper. He walked with me back to my hotel. Good night, he said. Good luck to you, and be careful with your interview. I wouldn't have trusted that innocent little girl that went to Peru as a diplomat with some of the information I have given to you tonight. I am inclined to think you are more of a diplomat now than you were in those days. He laughed again, half sadly. Remember, he said, you and I might be the cause of

somewhat disturbing peace if we talked too much. Good night again. He was gone, and I took the elevator to my rooms. I turned on all the electric lights and made the place a brilliant blaze. I put my hand dazedly to my head, I looked blankly at the great pads of copy paper supplied by the telegraph office for newspaper correspondence. There was a knock at my door. Come in, I said. Telegram, said the boy, thrusting a silver tray out towards me. Any answer? He asked, as I read the message. Now the message was this. Any news yet? Urge every effort. Yes, there's an answer. I said to the boy, and on a telegraph form I wrote one word, wait, and handed it to him to dispatch to the paper from which the telegram had come. It gained me time, that was all. Then up and down the room, up and down for over two hours I walked, fighting such a battle with myself as I had never before been given to fight. I knew that not one single word of what the great man had said to me, to be put in print. It might do harm. Harm to him, harm to the country, harm to another country,

harm perhaps to a cause in which we both were interested, the cause of peace. I must not write it, I must not write it, I said again and again, as I continued my journey up and down the room, I will not let journalistic instinct get the better of my discretion, my honor, my judgment. But there was another side to the question. There was a duty one owed to one's paper to one's editor. To be sent after a thing, to get it, then to refuse to deliver it up, was not that a sort of theft on my part, a dishonorable act,

a trifling with the best interests of my paper, and my own best interests as well? Why did not great men keep silence if they did not wish their remarks, their fears, their hopes, their aims to get into the paper? Why had not this man refused to talk with me? Ah, you and I might be the cause of disturbing peace if we talked too much. That was what he had said. Then why had he talked to me a reporter? But had he said the more important things to a reporter? Had he not rather talked to the woman who was in accord with his sympathies, his views, his aims? When a woman was a newspaper reporter, where was was the dividing line between herself as woman and as reporter? Should she govern her womanhood and her honor by her journalistic instinct? Or should she govern that journalistic instinct by that honor and that womanhood? Honor? Yes. But what about the duty she owed to her employers? What about withholding that which they would consider theirs by right? And there was the money I was to receive. I am glad to remember that

when at first I began to fight that battle, I did not take the large fee I was to have into consideration. Not until I had nearly decided what to do did this phase of the matter occur to me. I needed that money. I had earned it. No, I had not earned it. I had not worked hard to obtain it. The success of my mission was due to an accident. The man had first become interested because he saw by my card that I was from London. Then he remembered having seen me in what now seemed to me that long ago time when I was a nine days wonder, going away to a far country as a member of the American legation. He had not cared anything about the paper I represented. He had talked to me personally. We both desired peace. Therefore, he did not expect me to write up anything that might help

to bring about war. I went to the telegraph forms, tore off one, and wrote, "'Absolutely, refuses even to see me, useless to try, E.B.' It was past midnight, but I was known to be a newspaper woman, and there was nothing surprising in the fact of my ringing the bell and asking the boy to send this telegraphic message at once. He started down the hall with it. I stepped out, and as I saw him disappearing, I called after.

him wait a minute he turned back to come to me and I said no go on nothing send it off instantly don't let anything delay you get away with it get away with it I went back to my room two minutes had gone I rang the bell the boy was delayed in answering that telegram I gave you quick has it been sent can't you get it back I asked no it's just gone. I saw the telegraph operator tick it off. All right, it doesn't make any difference, I said. But it did make a difference. What difference I knew not, but I have sometimes since thought it might have made a very important difference, that perhaps it was given unto me at that time to influence certain events which quickly followed. At the instant when I called the boy back, I would have

recalled the telegram. When I rang the bell, again I would have recalled it, but I could not, for it was on its way to the editor of the paper. When it was fairly gone, I knew I was safe. I had lied, saying I could not see the man, and I did not intend to confess myself a liar. I laughed over the way I had caught myself in my own snare. I had told a good lie, and I was going to stick to it. I argued that if all was, as they said, fair in love and war, I had a right to say to my belief that some things also were fair in peace. There was lying in war. Indeed, it was often brought about by lies. Why then, should not I add my little might in the way of a lie for the sake of peace? Very early the next morning,

I wrote a note to the man I had interviewed. After leaving you, I decided it was best not to send anything of our conversation to the paper. You told me to use my own judgment and discretion, and they have warned me that much harm may be done by the repetition of any of the important statements you made. I have telegraphed to the paper that you absolutely refused to see me, because if I said I saw you, I would be required to explain how I had been so stupid as not to make you talk, and I cannot bear to be thought stupid. I am sure that if it should ever become necessary for you to bear me out in my statement that I know not the man, you will do so by insisting that you know not this woman, because for me to be caught in a lie would be almost as

embarrassing as for me to be thought stupid. I sent this note by special messenger and took the first train out of Washington. You mean to say that you, you with all your heralded originality of resource. Couldn't so much as get a look at that man? asked the editor when I had returned from my trip. Yes, I mean to say it. I never failed to see anyone before but Gladstone, so don't be too hard on me. You said if I couldn't get to him, nobody could. I don't know when I swore so hard as I did last night when your telegram came saying you had failed. I felt so sure you would succeed when I got your first telegram of wait, that I had my headlines ready. What did you say wait for? Oh, that was before I entirely gave it up. I was trying to see what I could do. Well, I'm sorry for your sake as well as ours.

It would have been worth a pretty sum, but make out your expense account so I can send it in, and I'll add $10 for your trouble. That's the best I can do. I shall pay my own expenses and I don't want the $10. I got nothing. You owe me nothing. Oh, say, that's nonsense. We always pay the expenses and time rates when you go off on a job like that. Don't you go to doing anything of that sort and establishing a dangerous precedent for the other poor devils that fail. Your expenses must have been $20, weren't they? Make them out now. But I did not make out any bill of expenses, and I took no time rates on that occasion of failure. The lie I had told rested easy upon my conscience. I did not regret it. I never shall. But I had, in a way, cheated that paper out of something, and I was not going to make it pay for the privilege of being cheated, and I lost $30 by that failure. End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of the autobiography of a newspaper girl by Elizabeth L. Banks.

This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 24, some proposals and some love letters. My dear young lady, I am reading all your letters to the paper telling how you try to live on $3 a week. Sometimes I dream about your being cold and hungry. You do not say where you are employed at that price, and I suppose you dare not, for fear you will lose your place. You must have suffered very much before you was willing to write to the paper all about it, and tell what you have to eat, and how you have to cook it, to make it last. It makes me feel bad

that an American woman should have to do that. I hope you will not think I am impudent, but I wish we could keep company together, and if we liked each other, as I think I think we would, we could get married, and you would have a nice home. I have looked at your picture in the paper, and was very sorry you should have let them put it in. I cannot tell much how you look, and I would like you to get a tin type taken if you could afford it, but I know you cannot, and so I would like to come and see you. Tell me how you look, and if you are light or dark, and how old you are. I am 30, and I make three dollars every day at carpentry. and sometimes as high as $3.5. So you see, I have plenty of money to support a wife,

besides being $400 in the dime savings bank. Will you let me know when I can come and see you and give me the address, or maybe you would like to meet me at my sisters who lives in New York? I have to send this to you care of the paper, and I hope they will send it to you. Your sincere friend and admirer, J.T. This was one of the many hundreds of letters of all kinds that came to me while I was engaged on a series of articles in New York entitled How I Live on Three dollars a Week. I have already mentioned this experiment in a former chapter. I was making the experiment with the idea of telling New York's working girls how to live as economically as possible, and to discover whether or not a working woman could live without suffering and. and privation on those wages. Before the series began, an explanation of who I was, what I had done in England, and why I now proposed to do this thing in New York, was published in the paper.

This issue of the paper I fancy did not fall into the hands of the writer of the above letter. He probably began reading the opening chapter, in which I stated that I had $3 a week, and proposed to tell people how I lived upon it. Then, from day to day, there appeared installments of my story from real life, telling what I had for breakfast, for dinner, for supper, how my room was furnished, how I cooked my food over my little oil stove, and every day an artist or photographer from the paper was sent to the room to make pictures of me and it as we progressed. One picture represented me peeling potatoes, another sweeping up my tiny room, another grouped my cooking utensils together, most of which I had bought at a five-cent store. The series was an interesting and very successful one,

and for doing it I received liberal space rates, so that I counted some of the privations I suffered as of small account. Not so the young man who wrote to me from Brooklyn and signed his full name, as I have said he had not read the introduction to the series, and he did not understand that a woman journalist was making the experiment. He understood that the writer of the sometimes bright, sometimes pathetic tale, was really a girl who had only $3 a week to live on, and that she was writing to the papers about it, in order perhaps to gain the sympathy of the public, and by telling of her own troubles to help others to bear theirs, and the pathos of it all had touched his big heart. He had dreamed of me, dreamed that I was cold and hungry, and determined if

agreeable to me, and if, after going through that period of courtship known in England as walking out, and in America as keeping company, we loved each other to marry me. many another woman journalist would have hunted the man up, posing as the unhappy, ill-paid working girl he imagined her to be, and perhaps have got material for another series far more interesting and strikingly sensational than the one that was then appearing. But to me, there was something sweet and beautiful and noble in the letter, and I could not use the writer as a subject for a joke. I answered the letter to be, sure. I thought it well that his mind should be eased, that he should not worry over the trouble of an

imaginary person, so when the series was finished, I wrote to him that my letters to the paper had helped me to get a nice position, where I had $10 a week out west, and that I was going out there to live with an aunt. This letter was very similar to one I received in London just before I began publishing my experience as a housemaid. It was published at the time, but I here repeat it, to show that kind and sympathetic hearts are to be found among the young mechanics of England, as well as those of America. It came in answer to the advertisement I inserted in the daily telegraph for a situation as housemaid, and ran as follows. Dear Miss, seeing your advertisement, I am moved to write and say that I admire

your pluck, and am glad to know there is at least one young woman with sense enough to see that there is no disgrace in domestic labor. I would like to marry a girl like you, if you are not too old or ugly, which I do not believe you are. Please state age, complexion, height, temperament, and personal appearance, and tell me if you would accept for a husband an honest mechanic, aged 28 and earning 200 pounds a year. If so, give me your address and I will come and see you with all honorable intentions. It is much better for a girl like you to be married and have a protector than to be a housemaid. But these proposals, like some I got during my masquerade as an American heiress, when, had I possessed the bank account I was imagined to have, there was no reason why I should

not have become my lady several times over, were gained under what may be called false pretenses. The young English mechanic desired to marry a housemaid. The young American aspired to the hand of a factory girl who was starving and freezing on three dollars a week, and the Englishman of noble lineage paid their courtly devotions to a supposed Miss Moneybags who had dollars to burn. I take no credit to myself on account of them. They were not intended for me, but for the person I misrepresented myself to be. It was to myself, in my own proper person, in my humble capacity as journalist, that the following highly inflammatory and amorous epistle was addressed. I found it on my desk one morning when I was a yellow journalist in New York. Adored Mademoiselle.

I read always what you write in the papers with vivacity, and I watch you sometimes when you go from the door and see that you are chic. I follow you in the cable car when you do not know, and I walk before your home up and down, up and down on the sidewalk. I know you not, but I would your friendship be glad to make when I would love you and have the felicity to hold you in my arms. I am in a strange country, and like not the New York women, only you. I read the paper always, and watch for your name, but you have not traveled enough, and I would take you to my dear France. I am a gentleman and noble, as you see by the card. I have been in diplomatics, but not now. My name you may have heard, for we are very proud. I do implore you, mademoiselle, to let me pay my

respects at your residence and tell my adoration, adieu, most respectfully, blank. According to the card enclosed, my admirer was Lecomte, and had at one time served his country as a diplomat. I did not answer the letter, and two days later there came another lovelorn epistle, along with a large bouquet. I send you the roses, it ran, they are La France, and American beauty. Will you not wear them and let me know that you return my devotion? I will marry with you and take you to France, and you shall be La Belle American. I had no thought to insult you, which you may think. I love you for the vivacity. The roses adorned my desk for many a day, but I wrote not to my would-be wooer until my life became a burden, for a dapper little, dark-eyed, mustachioed Frenchman haunted my footsteps,

and jumped on to cable and elevated cars after me, on one occasion, losing his balance at the Park Place Station, and being pushed back violently by the Iron Gate as it swung too. I knew, of course, that the man who followed me so persistently must be the writer of the letters and the donor of the beautiful flowers. but whenever I saw him, I tried to appear as though I did not know it, and put on as unconcerned an air as possible. Once I met him on Fifth Avenue, and he daft his hat and said, Ah, mademoiselle, you are too cruel. And I rushed up a flight of brownstone steps and rang the bell violently, inquiring for someone I knew did not reside there to get rid of him. But the next day,

a letter, more violently lover-like than ever, came to me, all scented with heliotrope, and along with it a box of bonbons. I was heartless enough to eat them up, and when I wrote presenting my compliments and expressing thanks for the honor he doubtless desired to do me, but begging him to cease his attentions as my heart was otherwise engaged. In reply to this, there came a passionately protesting letter, to which I replied that any further letters he wrote me would be turned over to my editor for insertion in the paper. I never saw nor heard from Lecompt again. I once went to interview a large landowner and wealthy cattlemen from the far west. I wanted his opinion on the subject of girls being employed to herd cattle in the west.

A very interesting and unique American was this man. He was possibly 40, tall, athletic, tanned brown by the sun. There was no pretense of polish about him, and his speech showed him to be a man of little book learning. He had been a cowboy in his youth, and now he was worth an immense fortune. I had never lived so far west as the state from which he came, and I had never met this manner of man before. He was blunt, bluff, brusk, yet underneath it all, there seemed a kindness and respect for women which could not but put me at my ease. Say, he exclaimed, stretching out his long legs from his chair and pushing back his large, broad-brimmed hat from his face, do you know that I like you, and I've got a notion that you and I ought to be hitched? What, I exclaimed in amazement.

See here, do you like money? I mean, do you like to spend it on flummeries and silks and such like? I certainly do, I answered frankly, but what of it? I thought so. Now, you listen to me, and don't you interrupt or get scared, for I've got no idea about you but what's just right. I've been living out west all my life, grubbing away for the stuff, and haven't had time to think about fallen in love. and of course you needn't think I'm going to make love to you for I've just met you but I want to make an honorable business proposition to you I'm not a gentleman that is on the outside because I haven't had time to learn when to bow and scrape and take off my hat and when not to and don't get around quick enough to pick up a woman's handkercher when she drops it and things of that sort

you're educated and I'm not I didn't have no chance when I was a kid, and as I said, I've been grubbing ever since. I always thought I'd like to have money, and now I've got it. If it ain't a million, it's so near it, there ain't any use calculating how much less it is. Now, I took a notion to you, because you said about your work quiet like to interview me, and I says to myself, here's a hard-working girl, she'd make money fly if she had it, and wear satin dresses with ruffles and flutings every day, if she could afford it. She'd appreciate playing a piano, and she'd know how to help a fellow improve and make something of himself. She'd know an honest man when she laid eyes on him, even if he wasn't a dude.

My proposition to you is this. Will you marry me, and if we fall in love afterwards, all right, and if we don't, we'll be good friends anyway. I'll treat you on. the square. I'm no fool, and I learn things quick enough when I set my mind to it. You could teach me, and I'd be a good scholar. I'm a young man yet. I want to rub myself up now, stop the money grubbing, and be a congressman. Oh, I'd get there right enough if you'd help me. I wouldn't expect you to live on the ranch, not more than three months a year anyway. We'd travel around the country and go see fur and parts. You wouldn't have to do any more work, but just have a good time. I'd be good to you, I would, little woman. What do you say to it?

I caught my breath. I had had many a strange encounter with men in my career as an interviewer. I had thought I had met all kinds and varieties, and that my experience was wide enough to take in every sort. I had met honest men, dishonest ones, gentlemen, boers, men who openly insulted me, men who tried to cover up their insults in the polished phrases of the courtier. Here was a new sort, a man pathetic in his honesty, yet grand and noble of character, the kind of man one would fancy God might make when he put forth every effort to do his best. I shrank from hurting his feelings. I wanted to let him know that I felt he had honored me, and that I did not see anything ridiculous in the situation, that I would

not go away and laugh about it. I thank you more than I can tell you, I said. You have done me in honor I shall never forget. Don't ever say again you are not a gentleman. You are. Goodbye. I put out my hand. I suppose it's no go then, he asked. I smiled. I believe that would be the short way of expressing it, I said. Well, I'm glad I spoke to you about. I said, I'm glad I spoke to you about it anyway. I couldn't know until I mentioned it, could I? Say, if you ever come out my way, you just send me a line, and if I'm there, I'll see you don't want for nothing. But I'm going traveling I am. You may hear of me in Congress or governor or something yet. You wouldn't be sorry then? No, I answered. I wouldn't be sorry then. I left him standing on the rug. A kitten had come

into the room while he was talking, and he had stooped and picked it up, allowing it to play with his watch chain. One of nature's noblemen in the rough, I thought him. End of Chapter 24. Chapter 25 of the autobiography of a newspaper girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. The Slibrovox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 25, an editorial bouquet. It was four years ago now since back again to London I came, having finished up my work as yellow journalist. I have already told what good fellows were those members of the different staffs upon which I was employed, helping me over the rough places and making easy, many a road that would otherwise have been hard to travel. They were good fellows to the end, up to the hour of my

sailing away from my native land. Loud and severe indeed were their comments of disapproval upon what they denominated my determination to be a regular write-down Johnny Bull. And when I was about to take my farewell of the office where I was last employed, they sang out sonorously and in unison a paraphrase of dear old Dinah's Dixie song. Her hearts turn back to London, and she must go. Nevertheless, to show their good will and to prevent my forgetting them, as they declared I would surely do, writing for dry, high-toned English papers, they took up a collection of various knick-knacks among themselves, which one of their number brought to the steamer, just as it was about to sail. Each member of the staff had contributed something from his own personal effects at the office to such a

farewell testimonial for remembrance, as I fancy no other woman ever brought with her to London. One contributed his pen, one his brand new pipe, one a band from his straw hat, one a necktie, one his pencil, one a half-used blotting pad. There was a Japanese doll known as the Office Baby, an almanac, a paste-pot and brush, snatched up from one of the ripatorial tables in all its state of much-used stickiness, a jack-knife, a pair of scissors, a ball of twine, a box of pins, a box of cigarettes, an empty ink bottle that was far from clear and clean, a flashlight photograph of several members of the staff taken in their shirt-sleeves, a French novel, a box of candies, one orange and a bouquet of flowers. These things were piled in great confusion onto the sofa in my

stateroom, and on the top of the miscellaneous heap was a wire spindle stuck through a paper on which was written, You'll miss us when you're gone. Miss them, certainly. Good friends they were, and yet, not to a foreign land, nor to strangers did I return when I came back to London to work for English editors upon English newspapers and magazines. I have sung the praises of my American editor, and journalistic co-workers, and shall I not now sing those of the English members of the Fourth Estate, with whom my work has brought me into contact? Most conscientiously and most truly, let now this chapter tell of the virtues of London editors I have known and still do know. I keep always upon my desk what I call my editorial bouquet. It is a book containing the names of those

English editors that I love best. On the pages devoted to each individual name, I jot down notes of subjects for contributions that I have in mind to offer them. I turn over those pages now as I write this chapter. Ah, here among the first, I find the name of him whom I have named my hard-up editor. By this, I do not mean that the gentleman in question himself is hard up, for such is not the case. I mean that he has a predilection for stories of hard-upidness. Whenever I am particularly hard up, I write a story about it and send it to this editor, and he always sends a check back by return of post. He says that he depends upon me to keep him supplied with articles and stories of this description, and I have always been able to let him have as many as he could use. Only once during my several years' connection

with his periodical, has he been under the necessity of writing to ask me for a contribution. That was when I was writing a book. Which book does not matter? I had not sent him any story for the space of two months, when there came a short note from him, saying, I have not had anything from you for some time now. I take it you are very prosperous. these days. I immediately responded with a story of a man in possession, for which I received the next day a check with this injunction. Get him out. I turn over a page or two and come to the name of one eminent, venerable, highly honored and widely renowned editor for whose pages I sometimes contribute. I went to his office one foggy winter day to consult him upon a most

important subject. I have said the day was foggy, but it was not an ordinary fog of the half-light, half-dark variety. It was absolutely thick and absolutely black. I fell over myself several times, stumbling up the stairs to the great man's office. When I walked in, the fog had no way dispersed. Yet, when he rose from the leader he was writing to shake hands with me, he exclaimed, ah, the sun has come out. And yet they say that Englishmen are lacking in gallantry and the art of saying pretty things to women. A few more pages, and I see the name of a smart young editor, whose acceptances from me are many, and whose checks are liberal. He would be such a perfect editor, were it not for one habit, that of marking up the manuscripts of rejected articles in such a way that I have to write them all over again. again before submitting them to any other editor. The first article of mine that he rejected he kept for several weeks, finally returning it to me with this note. You cannot feel as much regret as I do at my finally having to return this article. I like it better than anything of yours I have

read, and I tried to make up my mind to use it, but I know it is not in our line, and now, therefore, I am obliged against my will to send it back. I assure you I did intend to use it up to the last minute. Intend to use it, I should say so. Why, the appreciative man had it all paragraphed, newly punctuated, and marked with a blue pencil with such observations as, Excellent, a little tall. Doesn't have the ring of truth here. Write her about this. Not so good. might be improved. That's it. Now, it happened I did not see any of these pertinent, blue-penciled remarks until my attention was called to them by another editor who helps to make up my editorial bouquet, and to whom I sent the article off post-haste, when it had been returned by the first editor.

The second editor wrote me to come and see him, and then held that queer-looking manuscript before my eyes. now said he i don't agree with the remarks you have been to the trouble of putting on this manuscript in the first place i don't call that particular paragraph excellent nor do i think that there is anything tall in this statement where you have written might be improved i find your construction altogether blameless and i rather like the whole article but now tell the truth about this manuscript what does it mean I saw a twinkle of large suspicion in the second editor's eye, and so, without any hedging, I said, I expect it means it went to another editor before it came to you, and the other editor intended to use it and changed his mind. But I didn't know the marks were in it. The first page was quite clean, and as I thought it was just in your line, I sent it as soon as it was returned. The second editor accepted and published the article.

If he had not, he would not have been brought into my editorial bouquet. But that does not make the offense of the first editor any the less serious. He has rejected three of my articles after marking them up in the same manner, and I have had to copy them over, as I have informed him. I now make duplicate copies of everything submitted to that particular editor. Again to the book of names I turn, and I see the name of an editor. who is always asking me to try a little fiction for him. He says he believes I would succeed with fiction, although I have never yet got out of the habit of writing only of things that really happened. For several years, this editor has been urging me to make up things for his paper, and I have never

yet done so, though I am a frequent contributor to his pages. Now, I have mentioned that in the earlier part of my career in London, I purchased a typewriter on the installment plan. Well, as the months went by, I managed with much economy and trouble to get the succeeding installments paid until I got to the last one, and for that installment, which was to make the machine my very own, I could not get the money. The people from whom I bought it waited most considerably for some time after the payment was due, but finally they sent a man to take it away. That was in the days of Dinah and the flat. The man was a very nice sort of person, and truly sympathized with me, I think, when I told him I could not make my living if he took the typewriter away. Nevertheless, he declared

that he must obey orders. It is now, I said, 12 o'clock. Will you go away and let me use the typewriter? till six o'clock, or even five? I promise you that you shall then have the machine or the money. Certainly, he answered, and he left the flat. I sat down and rattled off a story of a young woman who bought a typewriter on the installment plan. She earned her living by doing her work for the newspapers. She could not pay the last installment. Therefore, she wrote a story about her troubles and took the story to an editor, and he paid her for it on the spot, and so she saved her typewriter. I had my story finished at two o'clock, and I carried it to the editor who is always asking me to try fiction. He was very busy, but I insisted that the story was of a kind that must be read on

the spot. He read it. That is a capital story, he exclaimed when he had finished. I always knew you could do fiction. I'll send you a check next week for it. But that will be too late, I said. The typewriter will be gone then. What typewriter? He asked surprisingly. Why, the typewriter that the story tells about. The man's waiting for the money, and if I don't carry it back to him, he'll take the machine. The editor sat back in his chair, gave me one stare, and then laughed long and heartily. I don't know if I'd advise you to try fiction after all, he said, and then he took his pen and wrote a check, and I went back and paid off the final installment on the typewriter. Another editor on my list is one I call my serious editor. He is a very busy man, and always in deadly

earnest. I went to his office shortly after my return from America. Where have you been all this time, he asked, and what are you going to do for me now? Some really good work you ought to do. Yes, I answered, taking a seat. I've been on the music hall stage, but now I shall try to get into high-class drama and play Shakespeare. What, he exclaimed, frowning terribly, You've been on at the halls. He looked very pained, very serious. He is one of those who have always encouraged me to do better things. I only meant I have been doing yellow journalism, and now I want to write for your high-class magazine, I answered. Then why didn't you say so? Why mention the halls? Why frighten your friends? He is the typically serious Britain, this editor.

There is one editor on my list, whose great kindness to me at a very trying time in my London career, will always be one of my happiest recollections. He had asked me to write on a certain American subject for his periodical, and I had asked him whether on the completion of the article it would be convenient for him to pay me before publication. Certainly, he said, I will do it with the greatest pleasure. When I was writing the article, I found the subject a most difficult one to manage. I was to have condemned certain American things, certain American customs. I had not been in England very long at that time, and I found it more hard than I had imagined it would be to criticize with a sharp-pointed pen, any institution, however bad, that was a part of my own country. I feared also to offend certain

persons in my native land. As a result, the article I wrote was useless for the purpose for which the editor had intended it. It was deplorably weak. I had hedged, and in hedging I had spoiled my article. Yet, when I handed it to the editor, I did not know of these faults. He sent me a check immediately, and then several weeks and a few months went by, and I heard nothing of it, though I knew he had expected to make early use of it. Finally, I wrote, asking if anything were the matter with the article, and he asked, me to call on him. Was ever a great and distinguished editor so kind to a struggling contributor? I found it would not do at all. He said, ever so gently, I wanted something very strong and

condemnatory, and you have written a bright article, but you have been afraid to say what you thought. You have hedged terribly. It has seemed as though you were afraid to offend some of your countrymen. Now let us read over some of these pages and see if you don't agree with me. We read it over together. He pointed out the mistakes, the weaknesses, the truly awful hedging. Yes, I see it all now, I said. I was afraid, as you say. I was afraid some of the papers in my country would pitch into me and hurt me in some ways. But I shan't mind it now. I'll take the article now I see the mistakes, and I know I can make it what you want. I'll rewrite and revise it all. You have paid for a certain kind of article, and you have the right to demand it.

I think I will not let you do that, though you offer. He returned, smiling. I believe the kind of article I want is not the kind of one you ought to write in your present circumstances. You write for some of the American papers. You will not want to gain their enmity by criticizing your own country's institutions. It may do you irreparable injury for this article to be printed. I hope the time will come when you will be independent enough to use your pen for principle for the sake of principle, whether or not it offend certain classes. But the time is not yet. You are not old enough, nor advanced far enough in your career to take such a stand. I will not published the article I so desired, even if you write it for me.

I started back in horror. But, oh, but you have paid for it, I exclaimed. I did not add that I had used the money to pay a very pressing debt, and that I had no means of giving it back to him, but I think he suspected it. He answered, laughingly, That money is safe, well invested. Never fear. You will one day write for me, me such an article on this subject as will make us both glad that this one was a failure. I want you to feel that I have paid you that money as one pays a lawyer a retaining fee. To secure myself for the good,

strong, non-hedging article, you are going to write for me on this subject sometime in the future, perhaps within the next five or six years when you are in such a position that you can and ought to write it. Three or four years afterwards, I wrote the article he desired. I did others on different subjects for him in the meantime, for which I was paid as though I were not largely in his debt. I now pay you my debt, I wrote to him when I finally felt that I was able to do what he wanted. Thank you, thank you, he wrote back. I find in reading your manuscript that you have paid me a very good rate of interest on my little loan. Good friends indeed I left in America, and good friends I came back to in England. Would that all struggling, half-discouraged women journalists might fall into the

hands of such whole-souled Anglo-American editors as many of those for whom it has been my good fortune to work? Again I turn over some of the pages of the Book of Remembrance on my desk. I can only mention a few of them out of the many. Here is the editor who always writes to me in a hurry. His letters are somewhat like telegrams, so brief and so to the point are they when he sends me in order for a rush contribution. Can you not write me some typical American love letters? I would not wish them to run to more than four or five pages, faithfully yours, blank. This was the startling communication that came to me from the editor in a hurry about a year ago. I considered it altogether too terse and abrupt, not to say brutal, even for an editor

to write thus on such a subject, even limiting one to the number of pages on which she might express her feelings, so I dispatched the following answer. I'm afraid I cannot. Your request is altogether too sudden. I had no idea that you would desire anything of this sort. Even if I attempted it, I greatly fear I would not suit you, and I certainly would not wish to be limited in this peremptory way. I would advise you to try an Englishwoman who would be more apt to meet your peculiar requirements than an independent American woman. Faithfully yours, blank. Of course, a somewhat more lucid and enlightening epistle followed. It seemed that people of all nations were writing love

letters for publication, and he desired to print some samples of American literature of that sort. He added, of course, you see, I'm rather pressed for space, but if you can't manage it in four or five of your typewritten pages, I could grant you a little more, perhaps, but do be as brief as possible. Certainly, but, as my serious editor asked in regard to the music halls, why didn't the editor in a hurry say what he meant in the beginning? There are many others. These are but sample blossoms from my editorial bouquet. End of Chapter 25. Chapter 26 of the autobiography of a newspaper girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 26 On Interviewing and Some Interviews It is one of my chief ambitions as a journalist to become a really excellent interviewer. That goal I have not yet reached, but it is one towards which I strive. Interviewing, or doing what in newspaper parlance is known as personal write-ups, is, it seems to me, the most pleasant,

interesting and edifying branch of journalistic work that can be taken up by a woman. It throws her into contact with the great, the extraordinary, and the interesting people of the world. I consider that, other things being equal, women make much better interviewers than men, for the reason that they are usually more tactful, and have, well, yes, I feel that candor compels me to admit it, a far greater amount of adroitness among their natural characteristics. They are also quicker and more apt at observing and taking account of the little things of life, and more capable of making much ado about nothing, when they return to their offices after having been in conversation with a prominent personage.

If a woman knows herself to have no tact, no adroitness, and has not the talent for turning small and apparently unimportant things into interesting copy, then she should never attempt the personal write-up department of journalism, for she cannot succeed in doing anything but boring her readers. In the days when I was a heroine, a young Englishwoman journalist called to write me up after I had several times been interviewed by other papers. She found me sitting at my typewriter, but not writing, for there were four kittens three weeks old in my lap whose mother had forsaken them, and I was warming milk for them over a spirit stove, and feeding them with the milk, each in its turn, from an after-dinner coffee spoon. Judge stood beside me, eyeing the proceedings with great interest,

and as each kitten was sufficiently fed, he would take it gently from my lap and carry it in his mouth across the room to the sofa, just as he had seen its mother do. I can't rise and shake hands with you properly, I said laughing to the young woman as she entered, because you see, I'm a woman of family, and I've got domestic duties. The young woman journalist took out a notebook, and when she was seated, asked me where I was born, where I was educated, what I had done in American journalism, and what was my opinion of the woman's movement, all of which things had appeared in the papers dozens of times before. How dry, how altogether uninteresting, were the facts relating to my birth, my education,

and even my opinion of the woman's movement, if I had any, which I hadn't, compared with my feeding of the motherless kittens from after-dinner coffee spoons, and judges carrying them about in mother-cat-like fashion. There was that, you know, young woman's story, but she failed to grasp it. Some time later, another Englishwoman journalist came to write me up. She had no notebook, and when I discovered that fact, I made up my mind that she was a good interviewer, for the best interviewers do not carry notebooks. They are the signs of an out-of-date, dry as dust, journalism. Judge had met her at the door and conducted her to my sitting room. She patted him, inquired his name, and said it was so singular for a dog she could not

possibly forget it. We talked on all sorts of subjects. I told her the story of how I had once demanded to be treated like a man on the southern paper, and some of my experiences in Peru. We had tea together, just like two women friends, and when she was leaving, I said, of course, we've been talking informally, but I know you understand what I'd like to have go in print and what I wouldn't. Oh, yes, it will be all right, she said, but if you wish, I could send you a proof of my article. Never mind about the proof, I answered, I believe you to be the model interviewer, and I leave myself in your hands. I could not have done better than to have left it all to her judgment, for such a bright, entertaining account of her visit to me, did she write as to confirm my opinion

that she was the model interviewer. She had the tact, the adroitness, the art of turning little incidents into entertaining copy, and, being a student of character and human nature, she had sized me up most wonderfully well. That was several years ago, and she is now one of the finest interviewers in England. Many are the newspapers and magazines I pick up to find in them her bright little personal sketches of people of the day, and I always know that she can turn even the most uninteresting interviewees into interesting copy. One of the greatest disappointments of my journalistic career has been that I was not able to interview Mr. Gladstone. It was my desire to write a character sketch of him for both an English and an American paper. And one day about six years ago,

I went to Howarden Castle for that purpose. I carried with me a letter I had previously written, telling him that I was an American, that I desired not to interview him on any particular subject, but only to see him that I might put my visit to him in my journalistic book of remembrance. at Howardon Castle I sat on a chair in the hall. It was quite near another chair, which I fancied, had served as tea-table for little Dorothy Drew, for on it was an apple-core and a bit of a broken dolly. The servant carried my letter to Mr. Gladstone while I waited in the hall, and he returned presently, saying that he had delivered it, and that his master would send his reply in a minute or two. my heart beat high with anticipation, for I believed that the grand old man would see me.

He could not, I thought, turn away an American woman who had gone so very far to see him. I had waited perhaps ten minutes when a carriage drove up to the castle, and there alighted from it a woman, whom, from the portraits I had seen of her, I recognized as Mrs. Gladstone. She had with her a little girl, doubtless Dorothy Drew. When she got into the hall, she looked at me in amazement, then came towards me very near, and observed me again, but she said not a word. She went a few steps and called to a servant. I thought I heard her ask, who is that young person? He made some explanations, which I knew referred to me and my motive for calling upon Mr. Gladstone, and she hurriedly went up the stairs. In two minutes there came to me the message by the servant. Mr. Gladstone's compliments, Miss, and he regrets he cannot see you. Was Mrs. Gladstone the lady who passed me just now? I asked. Yes, Miss, he answered. Had she prevented it? I do not know.

I was, I believe, the first woman journalist who interviewed that old Whitewater. lily old celestial Li Hung Chang, and the first woman to whom he talked after he arrived in England. I had heard he was an early riser, so I got up very early one morning to call on him before I had my breakfast. When I asked for him at Lord Lonsdale's residence, they told me I had got there too late that his excellency was about to go driving. Please go and say to his excellency that an American woman journalist called to see him before she had her breakfast, knowing that he was an early riser, and that she is sorry she got here too late. Tell him that the Americans are also early risers, and that the American woman will call on him tomorrow morning at seven o'clock, and if that is too

late, she will call the next day at six, and if that's still too late, she will come the next morning at five, but that she must see him. This was the message that gained for me admittance to Li Hung Chang, for in ten minutes the attendant had returned, saying, His Excellency will be delighted to see the American Lady. He was very nice and polite, in his way, was Li Hung Chang, though instead of my being allowed to interview him, he interviewed me. When he asked me my age and my yearly income, I thought he was getting too personal and did not deserve to know the truth,

so I added to my income all that I subtracted from my age, and when he demanded to know why I did not get married, I hedged as best I could. He gave me a medallion portrait of himself in a purple Morocco jewel box and told me always to keep it in memory of the old man of China. Notwithstanding all the things the powers credited, or rather discredited him with, during the latter days of the Chinese question, how could I feel but kindly towards Li Hung Chang? for from England he went to America, and being interviewed by the representative of a Chicago paper,

he referred in a most complimentary way to an American woman who had interviewed him in London, and asked to be introduced to some more just like her. The gold might wear off of that medallion he gave me. Indeed, when I look at it these days, I have sometimes thought it was not quite so shiny as it was the day he gave it. And no matter what happened in China, I have always felt down in my heart a sneaking liking for the wily old man. When I was employed on a New York paper, I went to Lewiston, Maine, to see Mr. Dingley, and tell him what, as an American woman, I thought about his outrageous tariff bill and $100 clause. I took along with me a lot of ribbons and laces that I had bought in London and some that I had bought in New York in order to give him an object lesson in the difference of prices in the two countries.

I called his attention to the hat I had bought for a guinea in London and explained that in New York it would have cost $20. I told him how he was the cause of turning honest American women into smugglers. Mr. Dingley was about the most unreasonable and unconvincible man I ever interviewed. I did my best to get him to change his mind on the tariff question, and especially to have repealed the obnoxious $100 clause, but he was smiling adamant. However, I remember him as the most kind, pleasant, and helpful,

so far as giving me copy was concerned, and none laughed more heartily than did he, when my terrible arraignment of him as the enemy of American womankind appeared in the paper. When he died four years ago, the little in-memorium I wrote came from my heart, a kind good man, and the typical American gentleman was Mr. Dingley of Dingley-Tarriff fame. I have also the most pleasant recollection of an interview with the late Henry George, "'What will you say about me?' he asked laughingly, after we had had a chat during the days when he was running for mayor of New York. "'I will say, Mr. George,' I replied, "'that I have interviewed an honest man, and that man was Henry George.

"'Ah, thank you. Success to you, my friend,' he said as he shook hands. It was but a few days afterward that I was sent to get some of the details of his sudden death, which came just at the end of that hard-fought municipal campaign, and I was very glad I had met him and had been able to write my story of the honest man. One of the pleasantest interviews I have ever had was with Sir Thomas Lipton, a little while before he made his attempt to lift the America Cup. very chivalrous, very observing, very intent upon making his interviewer enjoy the process as much as he seemed to be enjoying it, did I find the great tea merchant. I went to his place at New Southgate, was met at the station by his carriage, and as I entered his door, he shook hands and said, let me thank you for the compliment.

Compliment, I answered, which one? The wearing of the green, he replied, bowing gallantly. Then I remembered that I was wearing a green dress and a hat with three green feathers. Oh, yes, I returned promptly. I wore my green clothes purposely in honor of my visit to the owner of the shamrock. To be sure it was not true. I regret to say that my wearing of the green that day was an accident. But what woman would not stretch a point with her conscience

when a man was so tactful, so diplomatic, and so observant, as to notice and speak about the color of her dress and ostrich plumes? With such an auspicious beginning, the interview could not help proving a success, especially as my genial host went on to explain how he had taken his two favorite thoroughbred Kentucky horses from the stable, and sent them to meet his American visitor by way of paying a most especial compliment. He gave me tea of his own very best, and as we were about to drink it, he said, Now, about that cup. Naturally, I thought he referred to the cup of tea I held in my hand, so I said, Sir Thomas, it is yours, what more can I say? That is very kind. That is very kind.

though almost unpatriotic of you, an American woman, to prophesy that I shall win the America Cup, returned Sir Thomas. Then I laughed, for it seemed we had been referring to two different cups altogether. But when the afternoon had passed, and the Kentucky horses were again brought out to take me to the station, we had another misunderstanding of the same sort. I had become great friends with Sir Thomas's little Pomeranian dog, which he had named Shamrock in honor of his boat, and the little dog was, of course, at the door when I took my leave. Well, Sir Thomas, I said, goodbye, may the best boat win, and may the best boat be—I was springing into the carriage when I felt a tugging at my skirts and a gentle snapping at my heels. It was the sweet little shamrock bidding me adieu,

and I cried out, oh, Shamrock, Shamrock! That's right, shouted Sir Thomas, as I drove away. I knew you would wish me, Locke. And what did Sir Thomas Lipton do, but afterwards tell a story of an American woman journalist who had interviewed him, and when she was going away, said to him, Goodbye, may the best boat win,

and may the best boat be Shamrock. From gay to sad, from smiles to tears. This is the way of life, and this is the way of my reminiscences of some that I have interviewed. For only recently, there came to me news of the death of the first person I interviewed after I came to London nine years ago, the man who afterwards became my good friend, Sir Walter Besant. He was not Sir Walter then. I entered his office, one day with all the self-confidence and assurance of the newly arrived American girl in London. And going up to him as he sat at his desk, I said, I know you must be Mr. Besant. I just loved your children of Gibbon. I'm an American, and I want to interview you on the subject of women's fear, so I can put it in the paper. The kind-faced man rose, extended his hand in welcome, and laughed right-heartedly as he said,

I'm glad to see you, but you needed not to mention the fact of your being an American. Then I interviewed him and got his opinion of women's sphere and was surprised to find him so very old-fashioned in his views of it. I earned a pound with that interview,

and Mr. Besant wrote and complimented me. Another time I went to him, it was while my serial, describing my experience as a housemaid was appearing in one of the London papers. He had written, telling me how glad he was that I had started out in that work. Most of the cities were treating me very kindly indeed, but that day I had seen a notice which I thought was unjust, not to say cruel. I carried it with me to Mr. Besant, and as I talked to him of the troubles of my career as a housemaid, I grew very tearful.

never mind never mind said he why you have started out on a great work it will do you good and all the working girls of london you are going to do in real life what my heroines do in fiction i shall take the greatest interest in watching what you do in london for now you are one of my heroines so kind so good so encouraging was he that i went away with a greater deterrentia to do my best than I had ever felt before, and the next day there came a note from him saying, Don't get discouraged, but do your best, and read the next number of the queen. So I read the next number of the queen, and I found there a jolly, jingling little poem entitled The Lady Housemaid by Walter Besant. The house and all about it, within it and without it, its manners and its residents, we know. Lines of houses, miles and miles, from the ground floor to the tiles, how they live and how they carry on their show. But the mysteries begin, deep and dark and black as sin, when you ask about

the cap and apron ranks. How they spend their busy days, what they think of fashion's ways. Let me clear this mystery up, said Miss Banks. So an apron white she made, and a cap for which she paid, and she humbly entered down the area stair, and behold a transformation, a fairy tale in variation, a housemaid meek and mild once Lady Fair. On through several stanzas went the little poem, telling how she had a little book and observations took, and how now the lady housemaid was going to tell the world all about it, and receive the world's approval and its thing. Was there ever a kindlier thing done by a busy author for the sake of encouraging a struggling young woman just entering on her career? And in the years that followed, when Mr. Besant had become

Sir Walter, I went to him and wrote to him often, telling of my work, my successes, my failures, and received from him such kind words and letters of advice as helped me over many a rough place. Are you very busy, Sir Walter? I used to ask when I went to his office to ask his advice, or tell him of things that happened in my career or the careers of others in which I thought he would take an interest. Very, very busy, he would reply, smiling through his glasses, but not too busy. The last time I saw him a few months before his death, he told me how great was his interest in the Atlantic. Union as a means of drawing together the United States and England. He explained how American and Canadian men of note, visiting England, were to be taken in hand when they arrived and be given a real good time

and shown all the sights by their English brothers. Be sure you give my Atlantic Union a puff whenever you can in your letters over to the American papers. He said, in that same sort of simple, refreshing way that a young writer would ask for a newspaper notice. That was the very last thing he said to me, as I was going out of the door. It is a pleasant memory that he should, for what proved to be his farewell message to me, admonish me to do what I could towards cementing the friendship between my country and his. I am only one of the many belonging to the younger generation of writers who have much for which to thank Sir Walter Besand. He was the friend of all members of his craft,

but most especially of beginners. End of Chapter 26. Chapter 27 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. The Slibrovox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 27, About My Enemies and the Meanest Man I Ever Met. When I started out to write my memoirs, I took for my motto, the advice which Mrs. Lynn Linton gave me a few years ago, on the occasion of my eventful interview with her. Guard against bitterness and cynicism, have faith and hope and charity, especially charity. It has been my desire, in the main, to tell of pleasant happenings in my career, of kindnesses done to me, of helping hands held out, of struggles with

difficulties finally overcome, of silver linings discovered to my clouds. It was only the other day that, on my remarking that I had nearly finished the writing of my autobiography, one of my editors said to me, Ah, now I suppose we must look out for squalls. I suppose in this book you have written up all your enemies and are going to pay off old scores. On the contrary, I replied, I have been writing up my friends and letting my enemies alone. I love my friends and despise my enemies, and I wouldn't give the latter the satisfaction of thinking that they or their doings were important enough to be put into a book. I am just wondering now whether, having gone on this principle, and said little or nothing about people who have done me mean turns during my journalistic career, I may not have

given my readers the impression that I have only been brought into contact with good-natured, kind, amiable persons, who have done their best to make things pleasant for me, that I have not known what it was to be harassed about with foes who talked about me, tried to pull me down when I have been trying to climb, laid snares and traps for me, and done their best to compass my downfall. It may be thought that, in short, I can always truthfully be singing, Oh, everybody's awfully good to me. But this is entirely a misconception. Why, during my career at earning a livelihood,

it has sometimes seemed to me that I have met more disagreeable, mean, wicked, and positively vicious people to the square mile than anybody else could possibly have met. The mean turns they have done me and tried to do me are without number. Enemies? Of course I have had, and probably say, still have more of them than I could shake a stick at. But I do not consider it my business to go about chastising them. I let them chastise themselves, which I have noticed they generally seem bound to do in the end. And then I triumphantly exclaim with David, he, or she, made a pit and

digged it, and has fallen into the ditch which he, or she, made. This much, or rather this little, about my enemies, and now I will tell the story of the meanest man I ever met. I am sorry to say that the meanest man I ever met was an American, though I hasten to add that he was the meanest man not because, but in spite of his nationality. It is about ten years since I made his acquaintance, and it happened in this wise. Just before I came to London, I was, as I have related in one of the earlier chapters of this book, employed as society editor on a prominent paper in one of our southern towns, and one day, wishing to take a run over to New York, I said to the colonel, the managing editor,

I want to go to New York, may I use the pass book? Certainly, he replied, but it will not pass you beyond Philadelphia, which is only halfway. You can go there and back on it, but from there to New York and from New York back again to Philadelphia, you will have to pay. Inside the passbook, the managing editor slipped a little note, which read, To the conductor, this certifies that Miss Elizabeth Banks is society editor of this paper, and is entitled to use this passbook between Philadelphia. and this city either way.

Now, if I had gone to New York contented with that, all would have been well with me. But, having got that help which stood for the remittance of half my railway fare, I determined, after the manner of Oliver Twist, to ask for more. So I wired on to a friendly politician in New York, saying, Please send pass both ways, New York, Philadelphia. I felt sure I felt sure I. would get that pass, for I had once given that gentleman a write-up, and he had overwhelmed me

with thanks, and had told me that whenever I wanted to travel on a particular railroad, I was to inform him so that he could send me a pass. The next morning came a letter from him. I am only too glad to do this little service for you, he wrote, I enclose the pass, which you will see is made out for my daughter, as I am not supposed to get passes for anybody except myself and the members of my own family. That, however, is all right. My daughter is about your age, and you can travel as my daughter. When I started on that journey, I used my passbook to Philadelphia. There, though I remained on the same train, a new conductor took charge because the train traveled to New York by a different road. I handed him my other pass, a paper on which was written,

pass Miss Blankety Blank, New York to Philadelphia, and return. That conductor took the paper, tore it along the perforated line, handed me back a part of it, and I put it in my purse for the return journey. On the last day of my stay in New York, I went shopping and spent all the money I had except about $3. I saved that amount to pay my parlor car fee, for which no pass could ever be secured, and a late dinner on the train. The thought of arriving home penny list did not trouble me, for my week's salary would be due and waiting for me at the cashier's desk when I got back. Ticket, please, said the conductor, when I was seated in the train for the return journey. Pass, I said mechanically, handing him the slip of paper which the conductor on the outgoing journey had returned to me when he took up my pass. This is no pass. It's a close, coupon torn off a pass, said the conductor when he had examined it. I was astonished, but as soon as he handed it back to me for examination, I saw that he spoke the truth.

It was just such a voucher as one leaves in a check-book after tearing out a check. It had on it, a number and the duplicate words, past Miss Blankety-Blank, New York to Philadelphia and return, but no signature, no official stamp. I saw, and saw what had happened. My pass had said, New York to Philadelphia and return, when it should have been made out the other way, Philadelphia to New York and return. In going to New York, the conductor had taken it for granted that I was returning there from Philadelphia, had kept my pass and given me back the voucher, which was nothing but a receipt for it. I explained all this to the conductor on the homeward journey. That may be true.

true, he answered, but that does not alter the fact that you will have to pay me the fare from New York to Philadelphia. Pay the fair! Great heavens! I had only 90 cents, for I had already paid for my Pullman's seat and for my dinner. I can't pay the fair, I answered. I haven't got it. Then I'll have to put you off the train at the next depot. Now, the next depot was little more than a log cabin in the wilderness. A pretty plight, indeed, for me to be turned off there at night, and in the thunderstorm which was raging. If I could only get to Philadelphia, I knew I would be safe, for a new conductor would be on the train. I would give him my proper newspaper pass-book, and I would be myself again.

This, however, I could not admit to the present conductor, for to do so would be to confess that I had been traveling to Philadelphia under false pretences. The trouble this would cause me would be slight compared with what would ensue for my friend, Senator Blankety Blank, who had given me a pass made out for his daughter. "'I wish you would let me go on to Philadelphia,' I said persuasively to the conductor. "'I have friends there with whom I could stop overnight while I telegraphed home for money.' "'Can't do that,' he replied. "'But I'll tell you what I can do.

I will telegraph to your father if you will give me his address. My father! It suddenly occurred to me that the conductor was referring to the eminent senator, Blankety Blank. He's not in New York, I answered. He is on the road to Chicago, so you could not reach him. Let me think a minute. Let me think. You'll have just twenty minutes to think in, Miss Blank, replied the conductor, sneeringly,

and then off the train at the next depot you go. You seem to be in trouble. Can I assist you in any way? I heard a voice saying as the conductor moved down the corridor. I knew it must be the voice of the man who sat in the chair opposite me, for we too were the only occupants of the car. My heart leaped for joy as I looked into his face. Here was my deliverer. I would give him my card and tell him my story, and he would laugh after the manner of a gallant American knight rescuing an American maiden in distress. I liked his face. It seemed kind and benevolent, though in his dress and manner he looked a veritable man of the world. Have you heard the conversation between me and the conductor? I asked. Yes, he answered.

You can render me great assistance, I returned. but if I accept it, I must take you into my confidence and tell you the whole truth which I dare not tell the conductor. May I confide in you?' "'Most certainly you may,' he replied. Thereupon I told him everything, how I was not Miss Blankety Blank at all, but only myself. I gave him my proper card and showed him my newspaper passbook and my editor's letter of identification. have you no money at all he asked ninety cents i said laughing the fare to philadelphia is two dollars and eighty-five cents is it not he asked and i take it you would like to borrow one dollar in ninety-five cents i answered that this was the fact though i wondered how i was to get home from the station when i arrived at the end of my journey very well i am able to make you this loan of which you seem to stand greatly in need. But you are a stranger to me, and how do I know I shall ever get it back again? A few minutes ago you were passing yourself off as the daughter of Senator Blank. Now you show me papers that would go to prove you to be some other person. How do I know you are

that person either, instead of an adventurous trying to get a railway journey for nothing? He looked serious enough, but I judged he was one of our dry American huge. and I laughed. There was, however, no answering laugh, and I was puzzled. I will lend you the dollar in 95 cents if you can give me collateral, something of equal value which I can keep in case you cheat me. I cheat you, I exclaimed angrily. Have I not shown you a letter testifying that I hold a responsible position on a prominent paper? My salary awaits me in the office, and you will receive your dollar in 95 cents tomorrow by registered letter. Excuse me, but as I said before, you have been traveling in a dishonest manner,

and I am not willing to trust you without collateral. I notice that you have a ring on your finger. I am willing to take that as collateral and give you a receipt for it. It will, I presume, cover the amount of your indebtedness to me. my ring worth one dollar in ninety-five cents my ring with its diamonds surrounding a turquoise dared i pawn it for my fare to philadelphia you say you do not know but i am intending to cheat you i said may i remind you that this ring is worth a goodly sum of money and ask how i am to know you are not a highwayman trying to rob me here is my card he replied handing me a pasteboard. I am quite indifferent as to whether you accept my offer or refuse it. If you do not accept it, you will be put off at the next depot, and if you do accept, it must be on the terms I have mentioned. I never lent money to anyone without security. My brain was in a whirl, and I was getting frightened.

I accept your offer, I answered, please give me a receipt for it and the money to pay my fare. the money as soon as I arrive home, and I suppose I shall have my ring back at once. Certainly, he replied, handing me a pencil written receipt and the money. Then I paid the conductor. At Philadelphia, the man with my ring got out. The old conductor also left the train, and to the new one I gave my passbook, which took me on. From the station to the office, I walked through the pouring rain and found the editors and reporters still at work. To them, I told the story of my

return trip, and how I had pawned my ring for $1.95 to a man of whom I had never before heard. A man who had given me in return a pencil receipt written on the back of a card, which gave a name and an address in Philadelphia. At first my confreras laughed, but suddenly they grew serious. They supplied me with the money that was needed, but declared that I had better keep it,

for I had no doubt been made the victim of a swindler. We got the money off to Philadelphia that morning, and I waited two days for my ring. The ring I valued, not because of its monetary worth, but because of its associations, and when the second day passed, I became a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. On the third day I sent four telegrams after it, and numerous members of the staff offered to go to Philadelphia to try to trace it and the swindler. But when they considered that it must become publicly known that I had traveled as somebody else, and that the eminent politician must be placed in a predicament, that plan was abandoned. On the morning of the fourth day, my ring arrived, and with it a letter which read as follows. madame the heading of the paper on which i write will show you the responsible position i hold as superintendent of the blank sunday school and a worker among the poor and the airing ones of this great town as well as the business firm of which i am the head The principle which governs all my actions is that of trying to do good and teach lessons of righteousness.

I took your ring and have kept you waiting thus long for it, in order to give you a lifelong lesson never to travel under false pretences again. I knew who you were from the moment I saw you, even before you had your trouble with a conductor, having seen you at a reception in your city, and had you pointed out to me by a friend. I knew, of course, you would send me back the money you borrowed, but I took your ring to make you worry, and so punish you for the sin you committed by traveling with a pass made out for another person. I hope the lesson will not be without good results and an effect on your future life and career. Yours very truly blank. I could, if I would, give the name of a man well known in the city of Philadelphia as the writer of the above letter. But I am not too cruel, and I content myself by putting him in this

book as the meanest man I ever met. End of Chapter 27. Chapter 28 of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 28, Looking Backward and Forward. As I come to the final chapter chapter, of my reminiscences, which take in a journalistic career of something over a decade, I find there is a tendency to retrospection, a looking backward. Again, I see myself as I stood in the door of the proprietor's office in that newspaper building out west, asking the white-haired man who sat at the desk, do you own the paper? Again I hear him say, a newspaper girl a newspaper girl don't think of it be anything but don't be a newspaper girl yet i did think of it i became a newspaper girl and i am not sorry still i can appreciate the kindly motive of the wise old man in thus warning me off the threshold he peered into the future he saw the struggles the hard tasks to be performed the tears the tragedies the

the plucking at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the learning somewhat of the mysteries of life, the sins, the sadnesses which must come into my experience once I had started on the way, so in pity he said to me, go back to the grocer and tell him you made a mistake when you said you were going to be a newspaper girl. Then, as I was not to be turned back, he took me on and gave me my start, a better start, a kinder start, a more than. A more, and a more, and a more, helpful start, it has often seemed to me, then falls to the lot of many girls who begin the life journalistic. However, I do not think it can be said by those who read this description of the part of my career through which I have already passed, that my experience has been an altogether easy one,

or that whatever of the beginnings of success I have already attained has been the result of luck rather than of hard work. I speak of the beginnings of success, for that is all I yet can claim. I am far from the point in my career where it could be truly said of me that I had arrived in the proper sense of the term, though in one way I have arrived, arrived at the parting of the ways. Up to the present time I have always been engaged in writing about facts, when I have longed to try my hand at something in the way of fiction. My editors and the public have constantly demanded of me that I should go out and make things happen. They have kept saying to me, write about yourself, write about yourself. So, up to the present, I have been engaged mostly

in writing about myself, and have perforce been my own heroine, till finally I decided to write this, my journalistic autobiography, down to date, and tell all about myself in one book at one writing. And hereafter, it is my intention to begin to make up things, and write stories with other heroines than myself, and heroes, too. Most writers would, I suppose, have waited till the far-off future before telling the story of their lives and their experiences to the public. Then they would have written a book of memoirs that would extend over a much longer period than do these, my reminiscences, which I publish while I am a struggling, working woman journalist, to help to keep the pot of boiling while I press towards the prize of the mark of my high calling. For it is a high calling. Shame to those

journalists who write to aspirants who would enter a journalistic career, if you have enough money to buy a broom with which to sweep a crossing, then become a crossing sweeper rather than a journalist. Who has not read this sort of advice from men, and some women, too, who themselves are successful journalists, yet who try to belittle their profession by speaking thus meanly of it? No, it is not better to be a crossing sweeper than to be a journalist. I, perhaps, can speak more authoritatively in this matter than can most persons. For, for you, for a crossing sweeper, for I have been a crossing sweeper as well as a journalist. To any young woman who asks me whether she shall enter upon a journalistic career,

I say, yes, if you are ready. I do not say that you should come by all means under every circumstance. I say, come if you are ready. The yoke is not always easy, the burden is not always light, but neither are they so in any other profession. If you are ready to work and ready to live, why not become a journalist? Not more ignorant of the world and of life, not more tremblingly fearful, not more hopeful than was I at the beginning, can you be now? So let not your heart be too much troubled at the outset.

Come and learn, learn better than you can in any other profession open to our sex, what life, great, wide, teeming life out in the world of men and women, is like. It will do you good. You belong, perhaps, to the guilt of the sorrowing. Something of sadness has already come to you, and you think your heart will break unless you can work and forget. Come out with me, then, and look upon the sorrows of your sister women, you who hug your little tragedy to your breast, as though no woman but you ever had a tragedy. Look you, see how others suffer and yet live, yet smile, and talk no more of your breaking heart. Why, in this work-a-day world, hearts do not break, they sting and ache. Nor is that all, not only into haunts of the sorrowful

must you go, you must also enter into some of the haunts of sin, and even this will not harm you. It will do you good. It will but teach you charity. It will show you how much are we all the creatures of circumstance. You will learn that you might have been as others, had the circumstances, the temptations, the trials, the hereditary influences which surround those others confronted you. Your work may take you to talk through prison bars to men and women condemned, perhaps to death for murder, or to years of servitude for for for for for robbery, and it will not hurt you to talk with them, to learn something of their former lives. As I have said, it will do you good, for it will strengthen your character while making your

heart more tender. Shall you enter upon the journalistic career? Yes, if you are ready. Why not? Ah, there is a knock at my door. Though I have written a sign upon it, keep off the grass, by which everyone is supposed to understand that I am engaged in writing the last chapter of my autobiography, and am not to be disturbed, the house part of my house.

maids walks in and says, Miss, the man has brought the gas bill, he says if it is not paid by Friday. I could not finish this chapter until after I had stopped, right in the midst of it, to hurry off a pot boiler to bring in the price of gas consumed. As I have already said, I have not yet arrived, and therefore I must still call myself a writer of pot boilers. One of the pleasant things to contemplate just at this stage of my career is the fact that I have got to the point where I can rattle off a pot boiler very quickly, and I generally have a pretty good idea of where to send it to ensure its acceptance. That I count as one of my greatest blessings, one of the encouraging aspects of my present position. I look forward to a time when I shall not have to write pot boilers, and need not be disturbed when I am. am finishing up a book by such commonplace on romantic and altogether inartistic announcements

as that with which the house parlor made just broke in upon my work. However, there are far worse things in life than to be obliged to write pot boilers. A very much more worrying thing would be not to know what to do with them when they were written, and to have them returned with editorial regrets after they were sent out. my hard-up editor tells me that the pot-boilers I send him are among the best contributions to English literature, and that he looks forward with dread to the time when I shall have become so prosperous that I need not write any more of them. The house parlour-maid has disturbed me again. She has brought a long, large envelope, the sort in which I send out my contributions, and the sort also, which I enclose, stamped and self-addressed, for their return if unsuitable.

It has an American 15-cent stamp on it. It is a magazine article returned from my native land, and here is the editorial note that is enclosed with it. This thing won't do, that is, in its present British shape. Lend me your ears, my countrywoman, while I tell you that my circulation is entirely among American, who want good hot stuff. I don't exactly want you to twist the lion's tail, but I do want you, as an American woman over there right on the spot, to pitch into them. Try those pages over again where you see I have put the words too tame. Give it to John Bull, for he's all wrong there, and it will do him good to be shown what's what. And by the way, I send you by this mail an American spelling book, the kind you and I used to study when we went to the district school.

Kindly refresh your spelling apparatus with it, and note that favor is not spelled with a you in it. And please correct various other of your English-spelled words, for I will not have our compositors losing their wits over what they call fur in tongues whenever they have anything of yours to set up. And why in the world have you got into that abominable English habit of writing I fancy. I guess you mean that you think, and why don't you say so? Don't go to losing your Americanism over there, and for heaven's sake, hang on to your accent if you've got any left. Remember you are a citizen of the United States Empire, and don't go to losing any of the visible signs and symbols to that effect, which you have been wont to carry about you.

And hurry up and rewrite those anglomaniac paragraphs, and and send back your stuff by the next mail. I put my head on my typewriter and laugh as I finish the reading of this characteristic epistle from my countrymen. Then I note his postscript, Enclosed, find Encourager. The Encourager is a check for $60. After all, I really do find myself singing, Oh, everybody's awfully good to me.

That is, I mean, almost everybody. in the shape of editors and such. Did I not get another article back this morning from one of my favorite English editors? Yes, and this is what he wrote. I consider this article the best thing you ever submitted to me. Nevertheless, I want you to write it all over. By rewriting it, I feel sure you will note several things

you can greatly improve without my telling you what those things are. I have a feeling that you have hurried it just a little. probably because you have that autobiography of yours on hand, and as I wish this to be of your very best, I am taking the liberty of putting you to this trouble. I do this as your friend, not as your editor, for, were I but a hard-hearted editor, I should run it into my next number,

which I very much desired to do, even though I knew it did not do you justice. Do not rush it, but take your time over it, And may I suggest that you make some of the passages a little less American in their point of view? So here I am, with two articles returned, not rejected, but to be rewritten. My American editor wants Good Hot Stuff, written more from the American point of view, pitching into the British, and hurried up to be sent by the next mail. Well, he shall have it.

How can I take his encouragers and not give him what he considers their value? And besides, the British do need pitching into upon certain subjects. My English editor wants my article to be of my very best from a literary point of view, and I expect I was a little to spread eagle-like in certain of my paragraphs. He shall have what he wants, too. I will take my time over it and revise and polish until it shine. and shines, and perhaps after a while I shall become what they call a stylist. And here, brought up to my study, for Company to Tea, in a flannel-lined, straw-upholstered

basket, is a black mother cat with five coal-black kittens. I call them my lucky literary kittens. They were born in my waist-paper basket in my study. Their mother was a stray. That is, I found her sitting on the front step one afternoon, and I invited her to come in. That was several months ago, and one morning she repaid me for my hospitality by introducing me to her five black kittens as I was sitting down at my desk and happened to look into the waste paper basket. I have great ambitions for these kittens. As they were born into a journalistic atmosphere, I wish them to continue to live in that atmosphere all their lives, so I am trying to dispose of them among various London newspapers as office cats. I have called upon and written to

several editors in their behalf, and, as soon as they are old enough to leave their mother, I have no doubt I shall have them all well placed. Three are already bespoke, and although one of my editors yesterday declined one with thanks when I offered it to him, along with a manuscript, he has very kindly written a story about them, in which he has called upon his contemporaries to come to the rescue and take them off my hands. They are really lucky kittens to me personally, for I have just got a check for a story I wrote about them and their mother, which I have entitled The Luck of the Black Cat. Meanwhile, I have the kittens on my hands for several weeks, and very glad I am of their company. Now they jump out onto the floor, joyous, full of life and spirit.

They perform wonderful feats at boxing and tail-chasing, and sometimes they climb up to my desk and upset the ink bottle and create havoc among my papers. How could one be utterly cast down or remain long in a fit of the blues, with five kittens having such a glorious time of it, blinking their little blue eyes in mischief, opening them wide with wonder and curiosity. Where's Judge? Judge, Judge, I cry out. Where are you, Judge? Ah, here you are, trotting over to my desk, putting your beautiful, silky black head into my lap, looking up at me with your love-lit eyes. How could I think for one instant that you would fail to be here close by me, my dearest, sweetest, most faithful friend, when I add the last touch to these memoirs of ours? How shall we send them, Judge, happily?

Well, let's try, for happy endings are much desired. People want to feel glad, not sad, in the remembrance of a book. But our difficulty is that we have been treating of facts, not fiction. If it were a story we had made up, we would now pull the strings and bring all our puppets together in the last chapter, give apples and peanuts to the good ones, make the bad ones fall over a precipice and good riddance to them. But we haven't any puppets in this book. We've been writing only about real people and real dogs, and we can't pull the strings and bring them all together and deal with them according to their desserts. Some of them came into our life and went out of it just like ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing. Then out on the ocean of life they went, toward what distant shore we know not.

Ah, would we not call some of them back, Judge, if we could? For instance, now, would we not like to have our dear old dinah back with us? You prick up your ears at her name, don't you? She was one of our very greatest friends, wasn't she? But even she had to pass on after speaking to us for a little while. She thinks she's doing right, poor old Dinah, taking in washing and ironing and going to camp meetings, and as she writes us, getting ready to go to heaven by and by. Just you and I together, Judge, left here to tell our story as far as it has gone. I, the heroine, you the heroine, you the hear. In most books, they somehow manage that the hero and the heroine shall be left together at the end, living happily ever after. Shall we not manage that to, Judge, you and I? What's that you're saying with those speaking eyes of yours? Getting to be an old dog now, 13 years old last birthday? Why, Judge, what of that? You make me laugh, laugh through my tears,

as I stroke your dear head, and note the gray that mingles with the black about your ears. Listen, sweet, Judge. You and I are not of those who dare to measure the love and power of our creator in such a way that we'd make him the God only of the two-legged. No, indeed, you and I are going to live happily together ever after. End of Chapter 28. End of The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl by Elizabeth L. Banks. Thanks for listening.