The Cow Puncher - Robert J. C. Stead (best reads .TXT) 📗

sticks—about four inches," said the editor, when Dave had given him the main facts. "Write your story to fit."

Dave suddenly realized that, although he had been a persistent reader of newspapers during the recent months, he had scarcely the remotest idea of how many words went to a column, or to an inch. It was a piece of information needed at once, so he set about to count the words in a column. Then he wrote his story to fit. He had already learned that everything in a newspaper office, from a wedding to a ball game, is "a story." When he turned his in it looked like this:

The fire bell was heard ringing this morning about ten o'clock, and soon after crowds were seen wending their way to the Great West Clothing Store. There was a heavy black smoke coming from the back end of the store. The firemen were late in getting there, and before they arrived a man had got badly choked by trying to go into the store. Presently the engine came up and before long water was being applied in great quantities, and soon the fire was under control. Part of the roof fell in, and the building is pretty badly ruined. Some of the contents may be fit for sale. It seems too bad that the fire engine should have been so long in coming, as without doubt if it had got there promptly the fire could have been put out before much damage occurred. However, it might have been worse, as it was a frame building, in a row of other frame buildings, and if the fire had once got beyond control much damage might have been done. Nobody seems to know how the fire started.

It was with much quiet excitement that he awaited the appearance of the evening edition. He had a strange eagerness to see his contribution in print; a manifestation, no doubt, of that peculiar trait in human nature which fills the editorial waste basket with unaccepted contributions. At last he found it, but it read like this:

Fire this morning gutted the Great West Clothing Store with a loss of $8,000.00 of which $4,000.00 is covered by insurance in the Occidental. Frank Beecher, proprietor of the store, was overcome by smoke, and is in the city hospital.

Smoke was first seen issuing from the back of the store by Fred Grant, a delivery man for the Imperial Laundry, who turned in an alarm at 10.08. Owing to the fire team colliding with a dray owned by Sheppard & Co. some minutes of delay occurred. During this period the building, which was of frame, burned fiercely. It was almost completely destroyed, although some of the stock may be salable.

Beecher rushed into the back room for certain papers, where he was found by Fireman Carey in an unconscious condition. He is recovering, and is already planning to rebuild.

Dave read the account with a sinking heart. By the time he reached the end it seemed his heart could sink no further. He found that the editor had not left the office, so he approached him with as much spirit as he could command.

"I guess you won't need me any more," he said. "I'm sorry I made a mess of that fire story."

There was a kind twinkle in the chief's eye as he answered, "Nonsense. Of course we need you. You have merely made the mistake every one else makes, in supposing you could write for a newspaper without training. We will give you the training—and pay you while you learn. The only man we can't use is the man who won't learn. Now let me give you a few pointers," and the editor got up from his desk and held the paper with the fire story before him. "In the first place, don't start a story with 'the,' at least, not more than once or twice a week. In the second place, get the meat into the first paragraph. Seventy-five per cent. of the readers never go further than the first paragraph; give them the raw facts there; if they want the trimmings they will go down for them. That is where a magazine story is exactly opposite to a newspaper story; a newspaper story shows its hand in the first paragraph, a magazine story in the last.

"Then, get the facts. Nobody cares whether the fire bell rang or not, but they do care about the man who was suffocated; who he was, what he was doing there, what became of him. Revel in names. Get the names of everybody, and get them right. The closest tight-wad in the town will buy a paper if it has his name in it. Every story, no matter how short, is good for a number of names. In your copy as you turned it in"—the editor picked it up from his desk; he had evidently saved it for such an occasion as this—"the only name you had was that of the clothing store. I had one of the other boys get to work on the telephone, and you see he got the name of the proprietor; of the insurance company, with the amount of the insurance; of the man who turned in the alarm; of the owner of the dray team that obstructed the engine, and of the firemen who carried Beecher to safety. Every one of these people, with their families, their cousins, and their aunts, become especially interested in the story the moment their names are introduced.

"Next, remember that it is not the business of a reporter to pass editorial comment. It may have been too bad that the fire engine was delayed, but that is a matter for the editor to decide. The business of the reporter is to find out why it was delayed, and state the facts, without regrets or opinions. You must learn to hold the mirror up to nature without making faces in it. You know what I mean—keep your own reflection out of the picture. If you think the incident calls for an expression of opinion by the paper, write an editorial and submit it to me. But remember that the editorial and news columns of a paper should be as distinct as the two sides of a fence."

"Thank you very much," said Dave, slowly, when it was plain the editor had finished. "I think I begin to see. But there's one thing I don't understand. Why did you not mention the origin of the fire?"

A flicker of amusement—or was it confession?—ran across the chief's face as he answered, "Because we don't know what started it—and Beecher is one of our best advertisers. To say the origin of the fire is unknown always leaves a smack of suspicion. It is like the almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulder at the mention of a woman's name. You can't get away from it. And it is the advertiser who keeps the paper alive… I know it's not idealism, but idealism doesn't pay wages and paper bills, and as long as readers demand papers for less than it costs to print them they will have to take second place to the advertiser."

"Then all reports are to be coloured to suit the advertiser?" demanded Dave.

"No. Where a principle is involved—and we have principles, even in these degenerate days—we stand by the principle, even if we lose the patronage. Our notions of what is for the public good have cost us a lot of money at times. You see, the exploiter is always ready to pay his servants, which is more than can be said of the public. But where no real principle is involved we try to be friendly to our friends."

With these fresh viewpoints on his profession Dave entered upon his work the following day chastened but determined. Almost immediately he found the need of acquaintanceships. The isolation of his boyhood had bred in him qualities of aloofness which had now to be overcome. He was not naturally a good "mixer;" he preferred his own company, but his own company would not bring him much news. So he set about deliberately to cultivate acquaintance with the members of the police force and the fire brigade, and the clerks in the hotels. And he had in his character a quality of sincerity which gave him almost instant admission into their friendships. He had not suspected the charm of his own personality, and its discovery, feeding upon his new-born enthusiasm for friendships, still further enriched the charm.

As his acquaintance with the work of the police force increased Dave found his attitude toward moral principles in need of frequent re-adjustment. By no means a Puritan, he had, nevertheless, two sterling qualities which so far had saved him from any very serious misstep. He practised absolute honesty in all his relationships. His father, drunken although he was in his later years, had never quite lost his sense of commercial uprightness, and Dave had inherited the quality in full degree. And Reenie Hardy had come into his life just when he needed a girl like Reenie Hardy to come into his life … He often thought of Reenie Hardy, and of her compact with him, and wondered what the end would be. And meanwhile he found the need of frequent readjustments. He became aware of the fact that in every community there are two communities; one on the surface, respectable, discreet, conventional; and one beneath the surface, to which these terms would not apply. He found that the province of the police was not to enforce morality, but to prevent immorality becoming obnoxious. Anything, almost, might go on so long as its effects were confined to the voluntary participants. Underneath the sham of good behaviour was a world, known to the police and the newspaper men and a few others, which refused to accept standard conventions and lived according to its own impulse. And this world included so-called best citizens, of both sexes. And they were good citizens. It seemed the community had two natures; a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a community basis. Splendid qualities; large heartedness, generosity, were mingled and streaked through degrees of selfishness and lust running down into positive crime… And the wonder was not what the papers printed, but what they left untold… And he was glad he had met Reenie Hardy. She was an anchor about his soul… And Edith Duncan.

One morning, as he sat with Carson of The Times at the reporters' table in the police court, listening absently to the clerk calling a list of names, his companion, with a grimace, intimated that there was something beneath the surface. "Pure fiction," he whispered, as the list was completed. "It would do you good to know who they are. Shining lights, every one of them. And when they are lit up they can't be kept under a bushel. The police just had to do something. They won't be here—not one of them. Their lawyer will plead guilty, and pay the fines, and every one will be sorry—they were caught. Even his nibs on the bench isn't twice as happy. It was by good luck he wasn't with the bunch himself."

It turned out as Carson predicted. One of the leading lawyers of the city addressed the Court, expressing the regret of his clients that their behaviour had necessitated interference by the police. He was full of suave assurances that no disrespect to the law, nor annoyance to any member of the community, was intended, and he pleaded feelingly for as great leniency as the court might consider consistent with the offence. The minimum fine was imposed, and the lawyer withdrew, bearing with him the double happiness of having earned a good fee and having saved a number of his personal friends from a public exposure which would have been, at least, embarrassing. As the lawyer passed the reporters' table Dave felt something pressed into his