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 THE 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF A 
 
 "NEWSPAPER GIRL 
 
 55 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH L. BANKS 
 
 author of 
 "Campaigns of Curiosity." 
 
 u 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1902 
 
THE USRAfifY OF 
 CONGRESS, 
 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 OCT, 2 |902 
 
 .Copyright entry 
 
 CLASS 0U XXo. No 
 U-I vA 4T 
 
 COPY 8. 
 
 ^27 
 
 Copyright, 1902, 
 By Dodd, Mead & Company. 
 
 First Edition Published October, 1902. 
 
TO THAT MODEL EDITOR 
 
 WHO COMBINES ENGLISH COURTEOUSNESS WITH AMERICAN 
 ENTERPRISE, WHO ACCEPTS MY ARTICLES BEFORE READING 
 THEM, PAYS FOR THEM BEFORE PRINTING THEM, WHOSE 
 CHECKS HAVE THESE SEVERAL YEARS HELPED ME TO KEEP 
 THE POT A-BOILING, YET, WHO, BEING MODEST AND RE- 
 TIRING IN HIS DISPOSITION, WOULD NOT WISH ME TO 
 NAME HIM, THESE REMINISCENCES ARE DEDICATED BY 
 
 HIS CONSTANT CONTRIBUTOR. 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OHAPTBK PAGE 
 
 I. I am Committed to the Charge of the 
 
 Angels 1 
 
 II. The "Angels," and What They were Like 8 
 
 III. I Go to Peru as a " Girl Diplomat " . 22 
 
 IY. Into the Wide, Wide World of Journalism 37 
 
 V. In London Town 52 
 
 VI. When I Began to Starve in London . 65 
 
 VII. I Become a Maidservant . . . . 79 
 
 VIII. When I Found Myself a " Heroine " . 92 
 
 IX. Why I Did Not Become a Salvation Army 
 
 "Lassie" . . . . . .107 
 
 X. A Deal in Ancestors 116 
 
 XI. A Midnight Holocaust . . . .132 
 
 XII. On the Bringing Out of a First Book . 141 
 
 XIII. An American Millionaire Hunts Me Up 145 
 
 XIV. The Departure of Dinah .... 157 
 XV. Economy for Two 165 
 
 XVI. An Encounter with Mrs. Lynn Linton . 180 
 
 XVII. Home Again and in '■ the Way of Life " 193 
 
 XVIII. In the Kingdom of the " Yellow " . . 207 
 
 XIX. ««, . . . and Have not Charity " . 220 
 
 XX. A Little Joyousness and Some Tragedy 224 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXI. The Love Story of Miss Johnstone, Jour- 
 nalist 235 
 
 XXII. The Story of a "Failure" . . .249 
 
 XXIII. Some Proposals and Some Love-letters 261 
 
 XXIY. An " Editorial Bouquet " . . .271 
 
 XXV. On Interviewing and Some Interviews 283 
 
 XX VI. About My Enemies, and the Meanest Man 
 
 I ever Met ., . . . . 296 
 
 XXVII. Looking Backward — and Forward . 307 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 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 that was brokenly spoken 
 over me, by my venerable relative and guardian, when 
 one day I left my Wisconsin farm home, full of youth 
 and health and confidence, 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 wagonettes 
 and hard-seated lumber-wagons, many farmers and 
 their families who stood up high and waved their 
 handkerchiefs to me as the train moved away. 
 
 Another time, 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 
 female seminary, where I was told I must study hard 
 and learn my lessons and finally graduate with 
 
2 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 honors, to show my appreciation of all the sacrifices 
 that were being made in my farm home to give me 
 the advantages of a college education. 
 
 "Now, remember/' my relative had said to me at 
 that time, "yon are going away to school so yon can 
 make yonrself capable of taking care of yourself when 
 yon are four years older. You are a poor girl, with- 
 out 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 remem- 
 bered it, and though at school I never got the name 
 of being a "book-worm" or a "goodey" — indeed, 
 though I even became a member of a select set known 
 as the "Society of the Ten Imps" — I did study hard, 
 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 happen 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 around 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 the summer of my 
 graduation, and my sheepskin diploma had been 
 framed and hung in the parlor to be proudly ex- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 3 
 
 hibited to every caller, I set myself to learning ste- 
 nography and typewriting, with the idea of at once 
 becoming a newspaper reporter. Then I wrote to 
 the editors of all the newspapers I had ever heard of, 
 and offered them my valuable services. Never an 
 answer came back, though I had inclosed 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 pub- 
 lished, 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, or shops, that I saw adver- 
 tised in the semi-weekly newspaper that came to the 
 farm, asking for a position as stenographer and type- 
 writer, at any wages they liked to offer. Out of 
 thirty letters I got one reply offering me a situation. 
 It was from a wholesale grocer in a large Western 
 city, who offered me eight dollars per week to write 
 his letters and keep account of his cash. The situa- 
 tion was accepted, and then came my second leave- 
 taking at the village station, and it was then that I 
 went out into the wide world, happy and 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 dol- 
 lars 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 first 
 situation, I saw that out of my eight dollars weekly 
 
4 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 salary, I should have left over for clothes and sun- 
 dries, just two and a half dollars. 
 
 For several months I wrote the grocer's letters, 
 kept his cash accounts and made myself, as he fre- 
 quently 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 type- 
 writing 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, 
 tears of embarrassment would roll down my cheeks 
 and my fingers trembled as they flew over the type- 
 writer 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. Samson, 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 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 car- 
 ried my typewriter and table over to an obscure 
 corner, where I could no longer serve as an advertise- 
 ment for the shop. 
 
 But just at that time 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, head- 
 ing it "All About Typewriter Girls," and sent it to 
 the editor of the Daily Hustler, the principal news- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 5 
 
 paper in the city, saying in my note to him, "Please 
 publish this in your next Sunday's paper. It is all 
 true." 
 
 Remarkable as it may seem, the next Sunday the 
 article was published on the front page of the paper. 
 
 On Monday morning I said to my employer, the 
 wholesale grocer : — 
 
 "I shall be leaving you on Saturday night. I am 
 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 referred to 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 an- 
 swered "Come in," and then I confronted an elderly, 
 white-whiskered man with a kind face. 
 
 "Do you own the paper?" I asked. 
 
 "I'm inclined to think I do !" he answered, looking 
 rather amused and surprised. 
 
 "Then, will you please give me a situation on it? 
 I had an article on the first page yesterday," I went 
 on. "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 
 
6 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 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 any- 
 thing, but don't be a newspaper girl. Go back to 
 your wholesale grocer and tell him you made a mis- 
 take." 
 
 He passed his hand over his brow as though try- 
 ing 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 deter- 
 mined to be a newspaper girl. If you won't give me 
 a place on your paper, I will go to Chicago and gei 
 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 towards the door through 
 which I was making my indignant exit. "Come here 
 to my office next Monday morning at nine o'clock.j 
 You are so little, I will see if I can find a hole to, 
 stow you away in." 
 
 The next Monday morning I appeared, smiling 
 and radiant. The old man showed me a beautiful 
 new typewriter with a wonderfully convenient desk. 
 
 "I bought it 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 7 
 
 may try your hand at writing pieces for the editors 
 upstairs. I'll pay you ten dollars 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 in 
 my dreams I heard again the old familiar voice say- 
 ing, "He shall give his angels charge concerning 
 thee," and I was comforted. 
 
 So it was that I became a "newspaper girl." 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE "ANGELS," AND WHAT THEY WERE LIKE. 
 
 For about two months I was a sort of private sec- 
 retary and confidential typist to the proprietor of the 
 Daily Hustler, whose office, though in the same 
 building, was far away and removed from the excite- 
 ment and din of the editorial and reportorial rooms. 
 
 During the long intervals between letter-writing, 
 letter-filing, indexing and the straightening of pa- 
 pers on my employer's desk, I would be bidden by 
 the proprietor of the bustling Western paper 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 poor and discover their joys and 
 sorrows, to ride on the cable cars that traversed the 
 principal streets of the town, and then to return and 
 write about the things I had seen and heard, on my 
 typewriting machine. 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 par- 
 ticularly unpromising literary effort. Or again, 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 9 
 
 "Well, well, that's not so bad. You might try it 
 on the city editor, but, mind you, I can't promise 
 you that he'll print it. I never interfere with the 
 editorial department." So into his waste-basket 
 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 Murrill 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, gayly illustrated 
 and signed by a new pen name, "Polly Pollock." A 
 few days after that, appearing at the office one morn- 
 ing a little later than usual, I discovered that the 
 corner which had been taken up with my desk and 
 typewriter was empty. The old man sat busily writ- 
 ing at his desk, and wheeled about to look at me 
 when I shrieked out in tearful and terrified ac- 
 cents : — 
 
 "Where's my machine, oh, where's my machine? 
 Is it stolen or have you dismissed me ?" 
 
 "Yes, I've dismissed you, Miss Polly Pollock," he 
 said, half smiling, half frowning, "but you've got 
 another situation. My managing editor has engaged 
 you as a 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 
 
10 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 assistants. 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 nothing happened before 
 three o'clock in the afternoon, and then things kept 
 on happening till one or two o'clock the next morn- 
 ing. I was told I need not arrive at the office until 
 the middle of the afternoon, and I must expect to 
 stay every night until my work was ready for the next 
 morning's 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 gained my first introduction 
 to the world of snobs and snobbery as well as to a 
 world where there was much tenderness and sympa- 
 thy and charity, — all under the guise of fashion. 
 Shall I ever forget how I was once left on a hat-rack 
 seat in the 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." 
 
OF A "JSTEWSPAPEK GIKL" 11 
 
 How the hot tears dropped on to that polished 
 hat-rack seat, 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 the city 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. 
 
 But one night a silver lining appeared to my 
 journalistic cloud, when I went to the Governor's 
 great mansion on the hill to report the state 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 a great many society events that were coming 
 off, and that after that 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 that was 
 worth knowing about. Then she introduced me to 
 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 state balls," I answered. 
 "And besides, I'm 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, which I felt that news- 
 paper etiquette bade me refuse. 
 
 "Oh, just throw the coat and hat off ! Say, mother, 
 
12 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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. 
 "Your dress is as pretty and stylish as possible." 
 
 So I danced with the Governor's son, and during 
 the dance I forgot 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 de- 
 scription 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 look unconcerned, and when I was moving 
 away from his desk, I heard him say 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 governors' 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 Inde- 
 pendence, that all men were born 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEE GIEL" 13 
 
 British aristocrats, and that in her boudoir she treas- 
 ured 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-great-grandfathers in 
 the times of old England. Then I would think in- 
 dignantly of the hat-rack experience with the daugh- 
 ter 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 
 very many kind hands stretched out to me by the 
 members of my own sex with whom my reportorial 
 duties brought me in contact. 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 — won- 
 derfully costly roses and orchids, tied with ribbons — 
 and there were boxes of candies and presents of 
 books. Along with such attentions, however, came 
 photographs of aspiring society belles and matrons, 
 with very crudely written notices to the effect that 
 Mrs. or Miss So and So, whose photograph was in- 
 closed, was giving a ball or a reception or was going 
 to Europe, so that I early learned not to over-value 
 the flowers and the bonbons. 
 
 Once I was sent to a hotel at a summer resort, and 
 a society woman, shaking hands with me, said, "I'm 
 
14 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 all alone, if you like to have dinner with me to-mor- 
 row night. I have no such silly notions, as some 
 persons have, about associating with newspaper 
 women, though, of course, I wouldn't want you to 
 repeat that you had dined with me." 
 
 "Don't fear that I shall repeat it, since I will never 
 dine with you!" I replied. 
 
 During the winter, only occasionally, when I 
 tramped through the snow on late nights to the vari- 
 ous society "functions" to get descriptions of dresses, 
 decorations and people, would the fact that I was 
 cold — so cold sometimes that I could scarcely move 
 my fingers to write the necessary notes — appear to 
 be taken into consideration by society women. They 
 seemed to regard me as a machine to make notes, to 
 hurry away and write them up for my paper. Once, 
 near midnight, I was going my round of evening 
 parties, when, on the piazza of a grand stone 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 chat- 
 tering 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 wait- 
 ing on the porch for a cab which she had ordered to 
 call there 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 for me and would have to wait, and 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 15 
 
 I was ushered out of the door, the lady of the house 
 saying, 'Very well, I suppose it will be along in a 
 minute/ Oh, how cruel everybody is !" went on the 
 girl, bitterly. "How I hate them all, how I hate 
 them, and won't I get even with them all, one day !" 
 
 Had it not been for the kindness of the mankind, 
 with what I may charitably term the "thoughtless- 
 ness" of the womankind, I met in those early days, 
 I should have been in danger of becoming a pessimist 
 and a cynic as regarded humanity; but somehow the 
 "angels," — who turned out to be just plain, practical, 
 ordinary Western American men, — kept my foot 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? Obliged to have a report for Sunday's paper? 
 Well, now, let me think." 
 
16 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 This was the way I got my news of many an im- 
 portant 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 business man in that town, who, taking no 
 interest in the fashionable world himself, 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 could go 
 home as late as one or two o'clock in the morning. 
 At that hour the cable cars had ceased running, and 
 the question 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 subject discussed among the editors and re- 
 porters the first time my work had kept me at the 
 office till after midnight. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 17 
 
 "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 between fifteen and twenty men were 
 writing 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 
 of us one night, another the next, and so on, don't 
 you know." 
 
 "Well, / can't do it to-night, 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 ! You've 
 got to take the little girl home to-night, do you hear ? 
 You haven't a thing to do now, and you're just hang- 
 ing 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'll ask the young lady to marry me, 
 and that'll put an end to all our troubles." 
 
 I did not wait to hear any more. In consterna- 
 tion, 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 newspaper staff 
 
18 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 de- 
 serted streets which led to my boarding house. My 
 indignant bravery soon gave way to fright and hys- 
 terical tears. All the horrible stories I had read and 
 heard of wicked, prowling city ruffians came vividly 
 to my mind. I began to run, when I heard footsteps 
 behind me. Some one 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 goin', and 
 where ye been to, all alone at this time o' night? 
 What ye makin' all this noise about ? I've been chasin' 
 ye f er five minutes !" 
 
 When the upholder of the city's laws thus ad- 
 dressed 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, fleein' from justice !" 
 
 The policeman began to laugh, then suddenly 
 sobering, he said: "Come along with me. I'll see 
 ye get home safe to-night." 
 
 For several blocks he walked by my side, giving it 
 as his humble opinion that somebody ought to intro- 
 duce a law into the legislature forbidding young 
 ladies to do newspaper work. At a corner, he stopped. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 19 
 
 "Now, I can't go any farther with ye, because this 
 is the end of my beat, but Fll put ye in charge of 
 the officer in the next beat, and hell 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 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 over you at the 
 office, the city editor raising Cain 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 minds will be at rest, 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. 
 
20 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 Right here in the midst of writing my memoirs, 
 thousands of miles away from the town where the 
 Daily Hustler is published, I pause to send greet- 
 ing 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 valu- 
 able acquisition to the staff of the Hustler, was 
 ever with me after that first exciting night of my 
 home-going; so 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 come the answer, and 
 always during my stay in that city, I felt it no dis- 
 honor and not derogatory to my dignity to be known 
 among the police only by that name, — "the little re- 
 porter." 
 
 "It's a bad night for ye to be out, little reporter," 
 said one of my custodians to me on a night when the 
 western winter was at its worst. "It's not fit work 
 for a girl like you, this reportin' business — writin' 
 up their crazy sociables and describin' the dresses and 
 the gimcracks the society folks wear. I've been 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 21 
 
 thinkin' these several nights when I've been takin' 
 ye home and protectin' ye like, that ye'd onghter have 
 a protector all the time and a good home, 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." 
 
22 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 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 months after the police officer so chiv- 
 alrously offered me his lifelong protection, he con- 
 tinued to be my friend and champion during my 
 midnight walks from the office to my boarding house, 
 and I never missed his cheery "Good evening little 
 reporter!" till I left the city 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 writing my society notes on 
 my typewriter I received a letter from a Wisconsin 
 editor saying that sometime before he had received a 
 letter from me asking for a position on the staff of 
 his newspaper. This, I should state, was while I was 
 employed in the wholesale grocer's establishment, 
 and before I had had my first article published in the 
 Daily Hustler. The editor of the Wisconsin paper 
 informed me that he had been appointed to go to 
 Peru as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipo- 
 tentiary, and he begged to know if I would accept the 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 23 
 
 post of secretary, and I immediately telegraphed 
 back "yes." 
 
 Loud and hearty indeed were the congratulations 
 showered upon me by my co-workers, and what write- 
 ups they gave me, to be sure ! "Our Girl Diplomat !" 
 "The Administration Takes the Pick of Our Staff !" 
 Thus they headed the columns they published about 
 me, along with my photograph. Then many other 
 papers, in the East and West and the North and 
 South, sounded my fame and praises; so it was with 
 a great nourish of newspaper trumpets that I started 
 off on my journey to the Land of the Incas, eight 
 thousand miles away from home. 
 
 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 started 
 in for "school-girl 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 "diplo- 
 mat," though, on the other hand, I have no reason to 
 believe that I ever did it any particular good. My 
 position, I should here state, was not a strictly "offi- 
 cial" one, for I was not to be Secretary of Legation, 
 but only "secretary to the Minister." Still, I was 
 looked upon somewhat in the light of a heroine and 
 I 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 Lega- 
 tions. 
 
 After a three weeks' voyage I arrived in Lima, the 
 Peruvian capital, the place which, in the olden time, 
 
24 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 when Pizarro, its founder, held high carnival with 
 the golden plates and goblets of the ill-fated Inca 
 King Atahualpa, was given the name of "the City 
 of the Kings." 
 
 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 "Legacion de los 
 Estados Unidos" I took up my residence with the 
 members of the American Minister's family, the only 
 American girl in that whole large city, and a curios- 
 ity, as I soon learned, to all the inhabitants. 
 
 The second day after my arrival there, wishing to 
 go to a shop to buy a spool of cotton, I looked in my 
 Anglo-Spanish dictionary to find the Spanish term 
 for that article. I found it was "algodon" so I wrote 
 it down on a slip of paper that I might not forget it, 
 and, donning my light covert jacket and gayly- 
 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 — "algodon — cotton 
 to sew with." In and out among strange-looking 
 women, all wearing a 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 thing in the somber throng, till, looking back, 
 I saw the Jamaican negro major domo of the Lega- 
 tion rushing after me, wildly gesticulating and with 
 a look of horror on his ebony face. 
 
 "Senorita, Senorita," he cried, in the good Eng- 
 lish he had learned as an old servant to previous 
 American Ministers. "You must not go to shop 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 25 
 
 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 will not take you out shop- 
 ping with me. I'm just going to buy a spool of 
 cotton. I know the Spanish word for it. It is 
 'algo&onl'" 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. "The Peruvian ladies, either 
 young or old, never do, and if you go out alone the 
 Peruvian gentlemen 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 round 
 after me." 
 
 The head of the domestic staff said nothing in 
 reply, and, having bought my "algodon" 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 Inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 After that I wandered where I would throughout 
 the city. It was at first suggested that I don the 
 "manta" the national female garment of Peru, which 
 I have already described and which I wore for a day 
 or two. 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-caste Peru- 
 vian ladies would be horrified and give me a wide 
 berth, and the chivalrous Peruvian gentlemen would 
 
26 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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, wear- 
 ing his full regimentals, stopped in the street, looked 
 at me in astonishment, swept the ground with his 
 military hat and said in musical Castilian, "Ah! 
 Senorita- bonita!" Now, this form of salutation, 
 which I had learned meant in English "Oh! pretty 
 girl P was the Peruvian gentleman's method of at- 
 tracting the attention of a woman whose acquaint- 
 ance 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 to- 
 gether all my spirit and all my Spanish forces, I said 
 angrily and rapidly: "Senorita Americana, Legacion 
 de los Estados Unidos!" 
 
 I think he understood then that I was a "girl- 
 diplomat" at the American Legation, for he sped 
 down the street and never after that was 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 diplo- 
 matic life as one of exciting experiences where there 
 would always be dispatches to send off to the home 
 government concerning war or rumors of war, ac- 
 counts of double dealings with the heads of the coun- 
 try to which one was accredited and a continual 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 27 
 
 plotting and counter-plotting with underhand meth- 
 ods 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/' the only 
 relaxation and change from eating, sleeping and 
 doing nothing, which was the Peruvian method of 
 spending the time, being 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, as though an attempt were being made to 
 "temper the wind to the shorn lamb," just when I 
 thought I should actually die of pure ennui, some- 
 thing 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 excited 
 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, out into the hall, 
 then across the court -yard or patio, as it was called, to 
 the Legation offices in the same building, I rushed, 
 while up from the streets there rose the cries and 
 shouts of the multitude. 
 
 "Save us ! Save us !" came the shrieks in Spanish. 
 
28 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 who 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 threw 
 the tin cover off my typewriter on to 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, U. S. A. From the Ameri- 
 can 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. The Presi- 
 dent 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. 
 Will 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 tear- 
 fully:- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 29 
 
 "Senorita! 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 Excel- 
 lency, and she does not go to the Legation rooms until 
 eleven o'clock," returned the servant. 
 
 Another scuffling, other shouts, but not from the 
 street now; only from the Legation rooms came evi- 
 dences of excitement. I started towards the door 
 and called out across the court-yard: — 
 
 "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 court-yard accom- 
 panied by the scared-looking major domo. 
 
 "The dispatch to Washington about the revolu- 
 tion. Please see if it's all right, so 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 earth- 
 quakes send people crazy?" 
 
 "I'm 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, Senorita," said the major 
 domo, respectfully. 
 
 "An earthquake!" I repeated, half dazed. Then 
 I turned to the Minister. 
 
30 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 "I'm sure there's a revolution, though it's quieter 
 now. They always calm down a minute and then 
 they 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 uproari- 
 ously as he read my dispatch. 
 
 "It was just an earthquake, Senorita," said the 
 major do mo, trying hard to keep a solemn and re- 
 spectful 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 was not either bloodthirsty or war- 
 loving in my disposition, but my chagrin at discover- 
 ing that my "revolution" was nothing but an earth- 
 quake 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 laugh- 
 ter 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 object of a great deal of atten- 
 tion from the congregation and that the minds of 
 the worshipers were much distracted. However, I 
 had become accustomed to creating a sensation 
 wherever I went, because I was the only American 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIEL" 31 
 
 girl in the town and also because of my, to them, 
 peculiar style of dressing; so 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 with the finest and most richly 
 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 "Si! Si!" 
 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 and 
 my hat, walked along the pavement towards the Lega- 
 tion. 
 
 "Si! Si! Ah! Senorita!" 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 afterward 
 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 of the hat was re- 
 peated by the Peruvian lady to all her friends, and 
 the fact that I had not even attempted to replace my 
 hat 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 
 
32 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 me on the streets, would take from the bouquets, 
 which the servants, never the ladies, carried, wonder- 
 ful sprigs of tuberoses and other flowers and smik 
 ingly place them in my hand, saying "Sefiorita 
 Americana! Si! Si!" 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 curiosity to the inhabitants 
 palled upon me. I was always finding new barriers 
 known as "customs of the country/' over which I 
 must leap, if I would not give up my native-born 
 independence. 
 
 When I accepted the position of secretary to the 
 American Minister, I was not well acquainted with 
 him; 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 pecu- 
 liarities or fads or fancies any more than he could 
 know mine, and I had been in Peru only 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 and I was not prepared for any develop- 
 ments 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. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 33 
 
 "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 stamp- 
 ing with his feet, after which he executed a hornpipe 
 dance. 
 
 I stared at him. Was this the way diplomats of 
 all nations carried on, or was it a peculiar and dis- 
 tinct phase of American diplomacy? Was the Min- 
 ister 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 polka of the two-step order and a sort of 
 a shake-down such as I had seen done at the end of 
 a country dance, the Minister seemed to "come to," 
 and walking over to his desk, went on with his in- 
 structions, 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 con- 
 firmed ! He was "not right !" 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 "eccentric- 
 
34 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 ity," even then I didn't see how I could stand it if 
 he were taken that way often, which, I gathered from 
 the way he spoke, must be the case. 
 
 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 Secre- 
 tary about it and ask him what was the name of the 
 Ministers peculiar physical trouble, but this gentle- 
 man, I knew, 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, and then I would 
 think joyously that perhaps the peculiar air and 
 climate of Peru were doing something for my unfor- 
 tunate 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 aforesaid diplomat would topple over 
 his ink-bottle, clench his fists, beat his breast, dance 
 out into the middle of the floor and then run into 
 the room where the First Secretary sat. What puz- 
 zled 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 terri- 
 fied to do aught but wonder and I sometimes, in my 
 heart, blamed the United States Government for 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 35 
 
 sending so very eccentric a gentleman abroad to rep- 
 resent his country. 
 
 Things went on like this for about two weeks when 
 one day a Peruvian gentleman, one of the great dig- 
 nitaries of the state, dropped in, and having been in- 
 troduced, I tried to take part in conversation with him 
 by means of what little Spanish I had then learned 
 and numerous gesticulations. In the midst of the 
 conversation up jumped the Minister and began his 
 St. Vitus' dance actions. I really thought it was too 
 bad he could not have contained himself till the 
 Peruvian gentleman had taken his leave. A pretty 
 story this statesman would go back and tell at the 
 executive mansion! I thought he might get fright- 
 ened and leave without ceremony, but to my astonish- 
 ment he only smiled slightly and said, "Ah! Pulga!" 
 
 "Si! Si! Pulga!" answered the Minister, giving a 
 kick against the desk and then starting off again on 
 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 Legation interpreter. 
 
 "Pulga! Pulga!" I repeated to myself, "what does 
 that 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. Fran- 
 tically turning the leaves I finally found the follow- 
 ing: "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 
 
36 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 then I laughed again, thinking of his antics and his 
 evident desire that I should be kept in ignorance of 
 the cause. Human fleas! 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 and 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 the year which was necessary for 
 my acclimatization in Peru. Not only the fleas, but 
 loneliness and the longing for the companionship of 
 girls of my own age who spoke my own language, 
 contributed to my unhappiness; for I had not, in 
 those days, many resources within my own self. Be- 
 sides attending to my secretarial duties I did some 
 newspaper correspondence, which included a weekly 
 letter to the OsKkosh Northwestern. 
 
 When I ended my career as a "diplomat," I re- 
 turned to my native land. Then again I took up 
 secretarial duties, this time to an astronomer and 
 inventor, but not for long. A journalist I was de- 
 termined to be, and when I was offered a position as 
 society editor on a Southern paper, I left astronomy 
 and invention behind me and traveled to the sunny 
 South, again to take up my interrupted career as a 
 "newspaper girl." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 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, as far as my 
 first editors and my 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 over-ruled by the decision of the 
 proprietor that a woman was needed on the paper, 
 and he set to work to make my surroundings so alto- 
 gether 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 re- 
 porters, by a half -partition. In, this big room, when 
 
38 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 
 extended only three or four feet in height. In that 
 corner, with a brand-new desk of wonderful manu- 
 facture, 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 re- 
 porters and editors, "Oh, all we fellows clubbed to- 
 gether and got it !" It was thus that I was supplied 
 with a gilt-framed looking-glass, a tumbler, a foot- 
 stool, 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 ap- 
 paratus for making lemonade in the hot summer- 
 time. One morning I arrived to find that my corner 
 had been further walled in by the addition of a skill- 
 fully 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 inves- 
 tigated 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. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 39 
 
 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 that 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 eleven 
 o'clock I chased that "hint," but the people who 
 were in the "know" refused 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 ." 
 
 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 terrible state of excitement I went 
 back to my own 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 
 
40 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 the worst, Miss Jackson across the way has got it, 
 and she's going to print it in to-morrow's paper and 
 I shall be "scooped." 
 
 The terrible word escaped me with a groan, and 
 every man in the room 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 
 paper's girl!" 
 
 It was after midnight when I went home, and as 
 I jumped into the cab which a thoughtful manage- 
 ment provided for me when I was kept late, a little 
 knot 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, believing that I should awake 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. Who had dared 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 41 
 
 in the place of one I had written — and, wonder of 
 wonders ! I discovered it to be an extended and glow- 
 ing account of the great society event, the informa- 
 tion 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 in- 
 quire 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 patch-work, but it was all 
 there, just the same, and you didn't get scooped." 
 
 "But how did you get the information? Did the 
 man 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." 
 
 "You 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 
 
42 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 in 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 men who 
 had come to my assistance and kept me from getting 
 "scooped." I was never let into the secret, but I 
 have always been of the opinion that they 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 should 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 underhand, 
 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 the office hours. I was told that I 
 might come and go as I liked, as long as my work was 
 done in time. Such privileges in a newspaper office 
 have, I am sorry to admit, a tendency to spoil a 
 woman, and I was no exception to the rule. Once 
 when I had got my report of a certain women'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 reach- 
 ing the city editor's desk and the first edition of the 
 paper was late in coming out. Now, that city editor 
 was a Northern man, and straightway he went to the 
 managing editor with the suggestion that I be ad- 
 monished to work first and play afterwards. Over 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL 5 ' 43 
 
 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 doughty Southern 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 wom- 
 an's work, and now you've got her I guess you'll have 
 to put up with any little fads and fancies and short- 
 comings 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 
 hearing what you and 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 thunder storm 
 was raging and I had crawled under my desk for 
 safety from the lightning, I was bidden to the man- 
 aging 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 low- 
 ering his feet. 
 
 "But how can I?" I objected. "It's thundering 
 
44 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 and lightning 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 till the light- 
 ning stops. I suppose we shall have to put up with 
 that along with other fads and fancies. I'll send one 
 of the men to do this woman'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 for my woman's page was scarce, I 
 begged the city editor, who was one of the most enter- 
 prising 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. So 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 45 
 
 ways. I began to do interviewing, and thus I got 
 just a little peep into the wide, wide world of jour- 
 nalism. 
 
 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 away out in Wisconsin, had always 
 seemed to be about and around me to help me over 
 the stones. Now, I elected to walk alone, for whither 
 I went they could not always follow. 
 
 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 could not have been half an hour after that 
 remark was made, when 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 through." 
 
 Then he explained that a certain well-known ac- 
 tress, 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 
 
46 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 leader and had got 
 stage struck. When she had given up her home for 
 the foot-lights a very disagreeable scandal had fol- 
 lowed her. 
 
 "Now/' continued the city editor, "I've sent four 
 different men to see that woman to-day, trying to get 
 an interview and her version of last night's affair on 
 the stage, but she sends down word she's ill and con- 
 fined 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 we'll 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 fifteen minutes I made my way to the hotel 
 where the actress was stopping, sent up my card and 
 was admitted to her bedroom. 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 
 disagreeable start. 
 
 "I'm glad a woman has come to me at last," she 
 said, as she tossed her head from 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 47 
 
 you how I did it and about last night at the theater 
 too." 
 
 Then, without my having asked her a single ques- 
 tion, the woman poured into my astonished ears a 
 story of such pathos and horror as made me start 
 back and cry: "Hush! hush! Don't talk to me any 
 more. You will be sorry to-morrow; 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 some one 
 of my troubles. Your face does not look hard and 
 cold. Though you are a stranger, something tells 
 me you are 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 yellow 
 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 ex- 
 claimed : — 
 
 "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 vainly to snatch my hands from her grasp 
 that was now like iron. "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 
 
48 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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." 
 
 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 faith- 
 ful 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 hurt me in the 
 beginning of my newspaper career ? An outcast ! A 
 woman disgraced and spurned and disowned ! 
 
 "Let me go ! Let me go ! You talked to a reporter, 
 knowing she was a reporter. Now take the conse- 
 quences !" 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 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'm sorry for you." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 49 
 
 I was turning the handle of the door. "Come 
 back, just one minute/' said the woman. "I will not 
 touch you, I won't take your hands again." 
 
 "You said just now that the world was hard on 
 women. So it is. And women are also very hard on 
 women. I've kid 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, "1 
 cannot hurt you." 
 
 "You will send me to hell and others with me. 
 You will make my name a by- word in the gutters. 
 By making a public character of me again 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 and I stood transfixed. "I will not print 
 a word you have told me, now or ever. I promise." 
 The woman had conquered. 
 
 "You have promised! Oh, you have promised!" 
 she exclaimed, a glad look flooding her poor, thin 
 face. "Will you promise me something else?" 
 
 "Perhaps," I answered. I was crying now. I 
 r was not a journalist. I was only a woman. 
 
 "Promise me that in your work, as long as you live, 
 
50 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 yon will never try to get fame or money by writing 
 things that will hnrt women like me. Promise that 
 you will never for the sake of your own success tread 
 on another woman and try to crush her." 
 
 "I promise !" I answered simply. 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 pos- 
 session of me. I seemed to have bound myself in 
 chains of iron 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 sort of mortgage on my whole future life. 
 I had promised always to refrain from writing any- 
 thing that would hurt women like the one I had been 
 talking to. I promised never to crush any other 
 woman in my climbing of the ladder to success. 
 Again I shook myself, but the chains still clung, and, 
 thinking that I could really 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, an angry light in his 
 eyes. "You promised ! What do you mean ? Have 
 you a story, the story I sent you after, and do yon 
 say you will not write it?" 
 
 "That's it, yes," I answered. "She forgot I was 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 51 
 
 a reporter and told me everything, and then I 
 promised I would not write it." 
 
 His face grew first red, then white. He was angry 
 and justly so, 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 jour- 
 nalist. The fact is, you're all woman and no jour- 
 nalist." 
 
 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. 
 
52 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IN LONDON TOWN. 
 MY ARRIVAL, MY DOG, MY FLAT. AND DINAH. 
 
 I arrived in London with four hundred dollars, 
 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 reminis- 
 cences. 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 some time before I 
 came to London. He came to me on a very dark 
 night to keep me from getting too lonely and think- 
 ing 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 nearly as large as a Newfoundland. In the win- 
 ter 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 ; he is a dog of some literary 
 ability, and knows the difference between the various 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 53 
 
 London newspapers. If I have left the London 
 Star or The Times on a chair or the floor together, 
 I have only to say, "Judge, go and bring me The 
 Times/' and he does it; or, if I want the Star, 
 I have but to tell him so. Some of my friends, 
 however, insist that he distinguishes only on account 
 of the difference in weight. 
 
 It was very expensive for me to bring Judge to 
 London and keep him here for the first few days. 
 He occupied the stateroom 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 him covered with an Astrakhan 
 cape when the officers passed our steamer chairs, and 
 when they would take a notion to come over and talk 
 with me, though I was always in terror lest the cape 
 should get 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 gruff-look- 
 ing seaman were a typical middle-aged Englishman, 
 so susceptible to smiles and flattery and so thoroughly 
 "manageable" was he. Without definitely commit- 
 ting myself right here, I will say, after a larger and 
 longer experience than I then had of middle-aged 
 Englishmen, that he was not exactly what I would 
 call im-typical. 
 
 The English ship servants were also very manage- 
 able and blind, — the effect of a mixture of smiles and 
 sixpences. So were the railway guards of the train 
 
54 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 that brought me up to London. So were they at the 
 hotel — the very, very expensive hotel, where the cab- 
 man 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 rail- 
 way I find you have a 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 any- 
 body to be troubled with him? I shall take 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 fifteen shillings extra a day not 
 to see your dog." 
 
 "Oh, Judge, Judge !" I cried, when we had got up 
 to our room. "Four hundred dollars in our inside 
 pocket, and fifteen shillings a day for you, to say 
 nothing about me and my expenses ! We can't stand 
 this, do you hear? The first thing to-morrow morn- 
 ing we must go out and take a walk and see what 
 turns up." 
 
 So in the morning we both went out for a walk on 
 Regent street and something did turn up. It was 
 Dinah. After Dinah came the flat, and after that 
 the deluge — but that belongs not to this but to 
 another chapter. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 55 
 
 Judge was wearing a necktie of American flag 
 ribbon. 
 
 "Oh, my! Yo' niggah dog, an' from Ameriky, I 
 do 'clare! Come heah, honey, an' let ole Dinah pat 
 yo'head!" 
 
 I felt a jerk of the chain by which I held Judge, 
 and turning, beheld, there on Regent street, the 
 United States of America in the shape of a stout, 
 middle-aged negro woman showering pats and en- 
 dearments on the head of my dog. 
 
 " 'Scuse me, ma'am, but I knowed he was from my 
 country by de ribbon bow, an' so's yo', ain't yo', 
 honey ?" 
 
 "Yes, I am," I answered, "and I'd know you were 
 from there, too. How in the world did y&u get 
 here?" 
 
 "It's not a question ob how I come, but how I'se 
 to git away from heah ! If I could only git back to 
 ole Baltimoah, I'd neber ask anyt'ing agin ob de 
 good Lord! I'm Dinah Mooh, from Baltimoah, 
 ma'am." 
 
 Now, though I myself had once lived in Baltimore, 
 I had never had the pleasure of Dinah Moore's ac- 
 quaintance; but I found she had been in service with 
 people I knew, so I considered her properly intro- 
 duced. 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 
 
56 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 American lady, in whose family she had once been 
 a servant. The lady had taken a small flat, fur- 
 nished it and set np housekeeping with Dinah as 
 maid 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 
 hab no luck." 
 
 "Is it very expensive?" I asked. 
 
 "No, ma'am," answered Dinah. "I reckon Mis' 
 Saxon 'ud sell de furniture fer a hundred an' fifty 
 dollars an' de flat rents fer what dey calls sixty 
 poun's a year, an' I heah her say yo' don't hab to 
 keep it on moah dan six months longah." 
 
 I made a quick calculation and found I could get 
 flat-rent for about six dollars a week. It seemed very 
 cheap to me compared even with what I was paying 
 for Judge's right to exist in London. 
 
 "Dinah Moore," I said, "we're strangers, but we're 
 both from the same country and must take each other 
 on trust. I'll buy the furniture and rent 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 in the 
 world to buy that furniture, but I've got to have a 
 home and live as cheaply as possible. Now, will you 
 come for say two dollars and a half a week as wages ?" 
 
 "Yes, I'll come, ma'am ! What's yo' name, please ?" 
 
 I properly introduced myself, but when we went to 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 57 
 
 housekeeping together, Dinah, happening to see a 
 newspaper letter of mine signed "Polly Pollock," 
 took a great fancy to it and from that time after- 
 wards she always addressed me as "Miss Polly," de- 
 claring it was more homelike and reminded her of 
 the young ladies of the family she used to live with 
 in "Baltimoah." 
 
 Within three days of my arrival in London, I 
 moved into the flat, and did my best to make it look 
 as American as possible, using the Stars and Stripes 
 for a couch cover, and hanging a picture of George 
 Washington over my writing desk. With Dinah to 
 keep Judge company while I was out, I was able to 
 go about by myself to see the Tower of London, St. 
 Paul's, Madame Tussaud's, Westminster Abbey, and 
 then I thought I knew all about England. I de- 
 scribed my first "impressions" for several American 
 papers, and in that way earned enough money to keep 
 the flat going. Dinah and I lived together in per- 
 fect harmony. She would do anything in the world 
 for me except to put on a cap I had bought her, 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 un-Ameri- 
 can and unbecoming. Dinah, even after living in 
 England ten months, was the most American Ameri- 
 can 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 "f ambly," 
 as she denominated ourselves, with whom she had an 
 opportunity to talk. So things went on till Christ- 
 
58 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 mas, the first Christmas that either of us had ever 
 spent in England. 
 
 The day after Christmas I went on top of an omni- 
 bus 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 was a sound of barking 
 and growling from Judge and whenever there came 
 a lull in it Dinah would clap her hands and say, "Sic 
 'em, darlin' ! Sic 'em an' skeer 'em off !" 
 
 I burst into the flat with my latchkey and tum- 
 bled 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 
 bandanna cap tilted to one side, her big black eyes 
 showing fire. 
 
 "Mattah! mattah!" she returned, stamping her 
 foot on the carpet, "Fse goin' back to 'Meriky dis 
 werry day! I neber did b'leeve in monarkshal gov- 
 ernments ! I neber did 'prove ob dis yere country, 
 as I hab often told yo', Miss Polly, but now I'se had 
 'nuff — yes, plenty 'nuff, an' I done wash my han's 
 obit all!" 
 
 "But what is it? What's happened?" I asked, be- 
 wildered. 
 
 "What's happened! Why, I'se been insulted, an' 
 I neber was used to it. I'm 'cused ob keepin' people's 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 59 
 
 things what doesn't b'long to me, an' I ain't goin' to 
 stan' it nohow!" 
 
 "Oh, Dinah, you must be crazy, for I never accused 
 you of anything!" 
 
 "No, not yo', Miss Polly. It's other people what's 
 been comin' heah dis afternoon." 
 
 "Now, Dinah," said I finally, "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?" 
 
 Dinah got out her handkerchief and, fanning her- 
 self with it, began: "W T ell, Miss Polly, soon as yo' 
 lef dis afternoon, de doah sounded wid de rat-tat 
 what means de pos'man. I opens de doah, an' he 
 says kinder saucy, 'Has yo' got my Chris'mas box?' 
 'Why, no,' I says, 'I hasn't got it ! How should I hab 
 it ? I didn't know as we carries on a express office in 
 dis yere flat. I reckon yo' be off yo' base.' Then 
 he says, 'I specs yo' missus has got it. Is she in?' 
 'No, she hain't in,' I says, 'an' she hain't got no box 
 o' yourn neither,' says I. Den as I slammed de doah 
 on him, he jes' grinned and 'lowed he stop again this 
 ebenin' or to-morrer mornin' cause he knowed yo' 
 had it. 
 
 "Then, Miss Polly, he hadn't been gone so much as 
 ten minutes, when I see de baker's boy an' I asks what 
 fer he come so late wid de bread. 'I didn't bring no 
 bread,' says he, 'I come fer my Christmas box!' I 
 was dat mad, thinkin' de pos'man had sent him round 
 to bother me, dat I gave him one hard slap on de 
 face he'll 'member awhile, an' pushed him out 
 de do' befo' I thought what 1 was doin\ Well, 
 honey, in about half a hour de laundryman come 
 
60 THE AUTOBIOGBAPHY 
 
 an' says, 'Ain't yo' got my Chris'mas box?' Says I, 
 'No, I hain't ! Go 'long wid ye ! Did dat debil ob a 
 pos'man send yo' heah, too?' Dat's de way I an- 
 swered him, an' I tol' him not to dare show his ugly 
 face here again f er our washin' work ! De las' thing 
 I heard as he went away was dat he'd 'form yo' of my 
 'havior ! 
 
 "An' he wasn't de las' ob dem imps. De milkman 
 an' de paper boy was bof heah sayin', 'Has yo' got my 
 Chris'mas box?' an' a man which say he was licensed 
 to sweep de street, come too, askin' me to give him 
 his box, an^ de fust thing I knows ef I stays here I'll 
 be in a court house an' arrested fer something I neber 
 done, so I'se goin' home, an' ef yo' knows what's safe, 
 yo'll come, too, Miss Polly !" 
 
 Before I had time to collect my senses and come 
 to any reasonable comprehension of Dinah's remark- 
 able 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' imperent rascal! What yo' mean, comin' 
 here insultin' me an' my missus ? Does I look like a 
 forwardin' agency, carryin' on a Chris'mas-box busi- 
 ness? Is we delegated to run a express office? De 
 only box I'se got fer yo' 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. Before I 
 could interpose, she had pushed him out, banged the 
 door after him, and gone back to the kitchen, using 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 61 
 
 such a string of negro epithets as I had never heard 
 before. 
 
 What it was all about, I could not understand. I 
 knew nothing more about the boxes than did Dinah. 
 I thought at first that perhaps an express company 
 had once occupied the flat, and then I concluded that 
 some one 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, Lor', it's the policeman, Miss Polly, says he's 
 after dat box ! They'll put us in one ob dem prisons 
 when we's innocent, like Mis' Maybrick, 'cause we'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 emer- 
 gency, 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 — stood there, half smiling, 
 half embarrassed. 
 
 "I have called for a Christmas box, please, Miss, or 
 rather you know about the policemen's ball. You 
 see, Miss " 
 
 "No, I don't see!" I interrupted. "We haven't 
 anybody's box, nor anybody's ball, either! My serv- 
 ant says a dozen persons have been calling here this 
 
62 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 afternoon asking about some box they said she 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" I repeated. "I never heard of such 
 a day. Is it a day similar to our April fool day?" 
 I was 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, ex- 
 plaining 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 policemen'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 dey wants money, .why doesn't dey say so, or 
 why doesn't dey say dey wants a present? How is 
 I to know a Chris'mas box means a shillin' or 
 fi'pence ? In 'Meriky a Chris'mas box is a box which 
 comes by express. It ain't money, nohow. An' 
 they's nothin' but beggahs to ask fer presents. In 
 'Meriky dese w'ite trash is given a dollah or so on 
 New Year's day w'en dey comes 'bout reg'lar busi- 
 ness, an' dey don't need to ask, but heah dey takes 
 time by de fo'lock an' fly to de doah. It's de fust time 
 I eber see anybody hurry in dis country. My ! Dey 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 63 
 
 does rush when dey wants a Chris'mas box, sho' 
 'nufi!" 
 
 After the Boxing Day episode, we again settled 
 down in tranquillity for a while. 
 
 Then I thought I would try to write for the Eng- 
 lish papers. I could see no reason why I shouldn't 
 do my humble part towards lightening the burden 
 they seemed to be carrying. I bought a lot of Lon- 
 don newspapers aiid, 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 shortly afterwards 
 I got a check. I did not know then, as I do now, 
 that, in that editorial stronghold, the 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 several of the 
 London editors. I had a sort of triumphal progress 
 from one office to another. Not a single editor re- 
 fused 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 say- 
 ing, "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 
 
64 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 with me ; but I got accustomed to that' habit of theirs, 
 and it was not till a long time afterwards that I sus- 
 pected why they had laughed when I said, "You see, 
 I'm an American." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 65 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHEN I BEGAN TO STARVE IN LONDON. 
 
 I have a conscientious objection to fulfilling peo- 
 ple's prophecies about myself, when they take it upon 
 themselves to foretell unpleasant happenings. 
 
 When I was a freckle-faced, red-headed little girl 
 in Wisconsin, I remember that one of our neighbors, 
 a Methodist deacon, calling at my home and witness- 
 ing 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 defi- 
 antly, "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 
 
66 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 sud- 
 denly informed him that I was going to London. 
 
 I had just twopence, 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 ha'penny" wouH 
 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 head- 
 ache 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 intervened 
 since Deacon Jones, all unwittingly, had started me 
 out in life with a very good weapon against its pit- 
 falls — I determined that it should fare with the 
 prophecy of my dear good friend, the colonel, as it 
 had fared with my old-time enemy, the deacon, and 
 as I looked at myself in the mirror of my dressing- 
 table I exclaimed: — 
 
 "That, too, shall be a lie! I will not starve in 
 London !" 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 67 
 
 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 and was not hungry. I thanked God for 
 that. If I had ever suspected Judge of being hun- 
 gry, I might 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 con- 
 tents of his wooden meat-trough; or, failing that, I 
 might have attempted to forge a check or have com- 
 mitted any other crime which seemed to promise 
 something for Judge to eat. 
 
 About ten o'clock that morning, I put on my hat 
 and fastening Judge's chain to his collar, I called out 
 to Dinah: — 
 
 "Good-by, Dinah; Judge and I are going out for 
 a walk." 
 
 As I went out of the flat door, there came from 
 the kitchen sounds of scrubbing and the scouring of 
 tins, and Dinah's singing, in her sweet, melodious 
 voice, an old-time darky camp-meeting tune: — 
 
68 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 "Oh! de Judgmen' Day am rollin' roun', 
 
 Rollin', yes, a-rollin'; 
 I hear de trumpet's awful soun', 
 
 Rollin', yes, a-rollin'! 
 Oh! Some seeks de Lawd, but dey don't seek him right, 
 
 Rollin', yes, a-rollin'! 
 Dey prays in de daytime, but not in de night, 
 
 Rollin', yes, a-rollin'!" 
 
 I laughed as I shut the door on Dinah and her 
 ecstasy. I had managed my experience of hard-up- 
 ed-ness 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 got outside the building. I had then, as I have 
 now, a fancy for holding on to Judge's chain and let- 
 ting 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 the very low state 
 of my finances. To those children, Judge and I were 
 "quality folk" from the West End, walking about to 
 gratify our curiosity concerning the doings of the 
 poor and the East End folk. One little girl, pretty, 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 69 
 
 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 yer ever want any sewing done, laidy, the plain 
 kind, me sister 5 !! do it fer ye," said the child. 
 
 "How much money can your sister earn by sew- 
 ing?" I asked. 
 
 "About one an' sixpence every day," returned the 
 child. 
 
 I was about to walk on when Judge, hearing me 
 say "good-by" automatically put out his right paw 
 to the child to shake, whereupon she seized it, ex- 
 claiming : — 
 
 "Oh, laidy! Please lemme show yer dawg to me 
 sister! She ain't never seen no such hanimal, an' 
 Vs so cunnin' !" 
 
 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 twenty-two or twenty- 
 three 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 tuppence ha'penny, confronting the problem 
 of how to keep from starving in London ! The sew- 
 
70 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 ing girl took her apron and dusted a chair, bidding 
 me be seated. The little sister begged that I would 
 make my dog "do tricks for Sister Molly." 
 
 "Your little sister tells me you do sewing," I said, 
 for the sake of starting conversation. "She says 
 you earn only one and 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, re- 
 membered that I myself was not earning one and 
 sixpence a day. 
 
 "No, miss, I can't do anything else," answered 
 the girl. 
 
 "There's domestic service," I said, innocently. 
 
 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 lib- 
 erty, 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 struck me. I, to 
 suggest to others a way to earn their living, when I 
 was in such difficulty concerning my own ! "Now," 
 I thought to myself, "if I were that girl instead of 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 71 
 
 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 eighteen 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. 
 
 "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 in the way of it. I mustn't 
 put it in the newspapers just how the thing came 
 about — how I determined I wouldn't fulfill the 
 colonel's prophecy, and how my dear doggie was com- 
 missioned of Heaven to save me. We can't put it in 
 print like that just 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 neck- 
 ties. It's got to give us rides in hansoms, — eh, 
 
72 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 Judge ? — and once in awhile 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're going to work for Old London, hon- 
 estly 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 over 
 the bridge. When we were nearly across it, I took 
 a final look at Father Thames, and a sudden inspira- 
 tion seized me. 
 
 "Father Thames," I said, leaning far over to gaze 
 into his very depths, "here's tuppence ha'penny for 
 you. With it, I'm what they call i broke.' Without 
 it, I'll be penniless and 'dead broke,' and, as I'm 
 taking a new start in life to-day, 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 threw all my financial resources into 
 the Thames, taking defiant aim three times in suc- 
 cession. 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 latchkey, I called 
 out: — 
 
 "Dinah, come and take Judge. He must be hun- 
 gry by this time, so give him the bone and the milk 
 he left from breakfast. And, oh, Dinah, I've had an 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 73 
 
 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 done got seven shillings, an' 
 I ain't got no use fer it, an' I len' it to yo' and wel- 
 come, but oh, Miss Polly, yo' done drop all de money 
 yo' hab into de ribber ? Did you take it all out when 
 yo'lef deflat?" 
 
 "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, ob all de 
 misfortunes what happen to us, it am de werry wust 
 fer yo' to drop yo' money into de ribber !" 
 
 But I was off, leaving Dinah to make her lamenta- 
 tions 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 all the way to 
 
74 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 Fleet street, then turned into Whitefriars 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 editors, 
 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; an- 
 other 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 atten- 
 tion 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 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. Every- 
 body 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 gentlewomen as 
 well as working girls. Now, shall I go out as a 
 servant for your paper?" 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 75 
 
 "What, you? Why, you couldn't get a place, to 
 begin with, and, if you did, you couldnU 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 expe- 
 riences, 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 serial for you, 
 say in six installments of two columns each, how 
 much would it be worth?" 
 
 "But we can't agree to take things we've never seep 
 and you've never written." 
 
 "No, that would be unbusiness-like, I confess," I 
 returned. "But let me put it to you in this way : If 
 I get a place as domestic servant in London or in 
 the country near London, and write up my expe- 
 riences 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 housemaid. 
 I'll write to you from my situation and tell you how 
 I'm getting on." 
 
76 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 So the "bargain/' if bargain it could be termed, 
 was sealed. Twenty pounds seemed a great sum of 
 money to me in those days, especially when I multi- 
 plied it by five and thought of it as one hundred 
 dollars. 
 
 That evening, at the flat, I summed up the situa- 
 tion 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 twenty 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 aprons, 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 in 
 my mind, and the next morning I knew what I must 
 do — sell my typewriter ! The furniture was mort- 
 gaged. 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, oiling and dusting and polishing 
 it every morning, and at night time had sometimes 
 lovingly patted it when it had earned for me a five 
 dollar bill or a sovereign. When I knew I must sell 
 it, small wonder that I cried over its keyboard. Then, 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 77 
 
 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 capa- 
 ble 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 pecul- 
 iar sort of business transaction, I sat down and 
 admired my own cleverness. I remembered my diffi- 
 culties at college with even the simplest of mathe- 
 matical problems, and the prophecy of my teachers 
 that whatever else I might do I would never become 
 a good business woman. Here again was a prophecy 
 unfulfilled. How little did those instructors know 
 of my capabilities in a business way when the emer- 
 gency should arise ! I woke up that morning with- 
 out 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 ? Buoyant 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 paws. Dinah hesi- 
 tated over the laying of the supper table and looked 
 at the new typewriter in the corner 
 
78 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 "Done got machine fixed werry quick fo' dis coun- 
 try, w'ich am alius mighty slow, didn't dey, Miss 
 Polly?" she observed. 
 
 "Yes, Dinah," I answered; "it was done in some- 
 thing of a hurry and I got some money to-day, and 
 things are looking up." 
 
 "Glad o* dat!" returned Dinah, 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 one 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 London Daily Telegraph. It was 
 a peculiar sort of advertisement, and brought me one 
 hundred and fifty 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 of 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 kept in touch with my little home circle while 
 I essayed to play the part of maidservant. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 79 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I BECOME A MAIDSERVANT. 
 
 I had resided in England something less than a 
 year when I donned a cap and apron with the purpose 
 of getting experience as a London servant and turn- 
 ing that "experience" into newspaper copy. During 
 those few months 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 
 Englishwomen, and, with the exception of such per- 
 sons of art and letters as were celebrated in my own 
 country as well as in England, I had then been given 
 no opportunity of discovering "who was who" in 
 London. 
 
 It is therefore not at all strange that, when I 
 became a housemaid in the metropolis, I happened, 
 all unwittingly, to enter the service of a family, sev- 
 eral members of which were rather well known in 
 certain circles of society. When I made this dis- 
 covery, 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 
 
80 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 another, leaving the first experience entirely out of 
 my newspaper write-up. But my time was limited, 
 my health and nerves not in the state which war- 
 ranted my beginning all over again, and my necessi- 
 ties 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 stat- 
 ure and my far from robust appearance had all stood 
 in my way. I had been refused a situation by over 
 one hundred 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 follow- 
 ing 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 colonel's prophecy by starving in London?" 
 
 Both my common sense and my conscience an- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 81 
 
 swered, "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 any others, you can be true, to yourself and 
 therefore not false to anyone." 
 
 Then, on that second morning, I hurriedly pulled 
 on my stockings, buttoned my boots, donned my print 
 dress and my 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 the four flights of stairs that morning 
 before breakfast. I do remember, however, that 
 what 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 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 maid, surprisedly. 
 
 "The meat for our breakfast," I returned, still 
 more innocently. 
 
 Then I was informed that the regular kitchen 
 breakfast was bread and butter and coffee, or tea, if 
 one preferred it. 
 
 As the household was somewhat upset, and the 
 regular number of servants had not been engaged, we 
 were on board-wages for a time — one and sixpence a 
 day. I had some money with me, a part of the pro- 
 
82 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 ceeds 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 econo- 
 mize and "do without things" when the state of my 
 finances demanded it, but I did not know then, as 
 I have since learned, that one and sixpence a day was 
 the regular rate of board-wages usually paid to Lon- 
 don servants, nor did I know what one and sixpence 
 was capable of buying in the way of eatables. I 
 therefore looked upon the sum as inadequate and con- 
 sidered that allowance a rather mean one. I said to 
 the parlor maid: — 
 
 "How can one get proper food on one and sixpence 
 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 was I more 
 than ever surprised to find that bread and butter and 
 coffee still figured as the only breakfast for the serv- 
 ants, and, when I was informed that such was the 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 83 
 
 regular morning diet, I was overcome with astonish- 
 ment, which finally led me to ask the mistress herself 
 if it were true. Yes, it was true, 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 dis- 
 missed 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 and ample. What most aston- 
 ished 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 bread and butter 
 they ate, and I do not think any of them were ever 
 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. 
 
84 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 bed- 
 time 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 of 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 notion 
 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 and noting that a bronze 
 Minerva among them was badly mottled 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 scraping off the grease with a 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 85 
 
 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 house- 
 maid ?" 
 
 "Oh, I didn't use a hairpin! I used my finger 
 nails," 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 guile- 
 less face. 
 
 "Bake a candlestick?" exclaimed Annie. "Any- 
 body 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 Ameri- 
 can 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 "dumb-waiter" 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, 
 
86 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 — was the most tiresome and wearing of all my tasks. 
 TTp and down, up and down, always up and down, I 
 seemed to be going from morning till night. The 
 helplessness, too, of Englishwomen, as compared with 
 the activity of my own countrywomen, was also a 
 thing of which I took note. In America the woman 
 who has not a personal lady's maid, has a habit of 
 waiting upon herself. In England I learned by my 
 own experience, and by gossiping with the servants, 
 that no woman who kept even so much as a "general" 
 attempted to brush her own skirts, rub off her boots, 
 or put coal on her 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 by 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 nothin' but a spy and houtsider, 
 any'ow ! 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 interest- 
 ing things about the family, and you pertend 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 dealin's and spyin' about, 
 and you're a spy," continued the cook. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 87 
 
 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 amang them 
 takin' 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 informa- 
 tion was forced upon me I kept to myself and made 
 absolutely no use of in the "write-up" which I subse- 
 quently 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 Ken- 
 sington, a situation I obtained by calling on a lady 
 when the time for my Sunday afternoon out came 
 round. There I found a kinder, more considerate 
 mistress with most 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 equaled, if it did not 
 exceed, that which I felt for London 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 
 the 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 past and nothing more is required of 
 her. I burst into the flat and sprang upon Judge 
 
88 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 and Dinah like something wild and 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 days spent mostly in bed 
 and an occasional visit from a doctor, whose subse- 
 quent 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 tol' yo' so ! I say many de time 
 when yo' talk 'bout dat sarvant bus'ness, lemme go 
 an' do de work an' tol' yo' all about it an' yo' write 
 'em for de paper, 'cause scrubbin' am for niggahs an' 
 w'ite 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 jour- 
 nalism 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 that way diplomacy did not lie. 
 I reasoned it out that if London knew that the ama- 
 teur housemaid, who essayed 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 housemaid who ever applied to a 
 London mistress for a situation, then London might 
 not be so much interested in the story of her ups and 
 downs, on the principle that the poor it had ever 
 with it. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 89 
 
 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 Apron" series. 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. The fact of my being an American girl 
 I kept to myself, although it very comically leaked 
 out, when my articles appeared in print, through 
 some "Americanisms" such as "wash bowls and 
 pitchers" instead of "basins and jugs" and my 
 demand for a meat breakfast. 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 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 candle- 
 stick cleaning in a too serious manner. The fact 
 is that I was then and am now, like the major- 
 ity of my countrywomen, a very good house- 
 worker, and what I did not know by experience I 
 knew by instinct, and if, as was afterwards poetically 
 asserted by Sir Walter Besant, 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 fur- 
 nishing somewhat more interesting "cop/' than I 
 otherwise could have done. All work and no play is 
 bound to make one a dull journalist. 
 
90 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 The names of my employers, the neighborhoods in 
 which they lived, their professions and the position 
 which they occupied in London society, I carefully 
 concealed in my write-up, substituting names, ad- 
 dresses, and occupations as different as possible from 
 the real ones, and if ever in the years that followed 
 it became known in what particular London families 
 I had acted the part of maidservant, 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 adven- 
 tures began to appear in print, it not being considered 
 necessary to wait until I had finished the whole. 
 
 In the midst of the publication and of my writing, 
 I was sent 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 sympathies were not all 
 with the miners and their wives, though they abided 
 always with the innocent children. Beer and waste- 
 fulness and filth I found everywhere among them, 
 and in the midst of their drunkenness they described 
 to me their "wrongs" and told of children "clem- 
 min" 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 91 
 
 when it seemed to me that justice and right were 
 partly with 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 
 the strikers." 
 
 "I thought so," he laughed. "But your servant 
 girl series has caught on, 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 press. 
 
92 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 «# * * gkg ^ j n y^qj. 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 con- 
 tend 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 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 Minerva candlestick 
 with a hairpin! * * * An ivory ornament was 
 resolved into its component parts, under her incom- 
 petent hands, in a pail of hot water, and, contrary 
 to her fellow servant's advice,, she insisted on con- 
 fessing to having broken it. * * *" 
 
 Thus ran a part of a column article in the Pall 
 Mall Gazette, of November 22, 1893, and I was the 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 93 
 
 "heroine." I did not, however, see it on November 
 22&. I could not afford the luxury of buying news- 
 papers in those days, and so it happened that for 
 several days, though I was a "heroine," I was entirely 
 ignorant of that encouraging fact. Think of it ! In 
 those days, there stood only a penny between sadness 
 and gladness for me, and I could not spend that 
 penny. 
 
 It was several days after the 22d of November that, 
 walking along Piccadilly, I met an American news- 
 paper 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 'em up and show 'em 
 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 canvasback 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 now." 
 
 "Stay till you do something! Got a 'series' run- 
 ning now ! Why, you seem to have a series running 
 in all the papers, or something mighty like it, as 
 far as I can make out ! I haven't picked up a Lon- 
 don paper since I've been over that didn't have some- 
 thing 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, — a regular right-down heroine?" 
 
94 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 non- 
 progressive and w?i-energetic American girl I ever 
 knew ! Why, even 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. 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 foregather, 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 Lon- 
 don papers were saying about "the American girl," 
 to be sure, even the most staid 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 bond- 
 age. Other papers viewed the whole proceeding as 
 a "lark," and declared 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 95 
 
 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 "busybody" 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 ques- 
 tions asked me in hundreds upon hundreds of letters. 
 
 To those letters I could not reply, first, because the 
 writers neglected the formality of inclosing postage 
 stamps, and : second, because I had neither the time 
 nor the physical strength for entering upon so ardu- 
 ous a task. I remember that shortly after that there 
 came to me an invitation to 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." 
 
 I shall never forget the shocked expression on that 
 woman's face, nor fail to remember her exclamation 
 of surprise and disgust, as she replied: — 
 
 " 'Copy !' You mean to confess you had no phil- 
 
96 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 anthropic 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 pub- 
 lished experience helps others to earn theirs, 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 I have just done. Would you scrub floors 
 and carry water up five flights of stairs and make 
 yourself ill in mind and body, doing work to which 
 you were not accustomed, from motives of philan- 
 thropy ?" 
 
 I got only a disgusted "Oh, what a motive \" in 
 answer to my question. I left the place soon after- 
 wards. The atmosphere seemed not congenial. My 
 unblushing confession of my "motive" in going out 
 to service was repeated in London's female journal- 
 istic 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 97 
 
 upon in certain quarters as a sort of journalistic 
 pariah, outcast from some circles of the truly good 
 and worthy female 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 occa- 
 sions since that time of struggle against hunger 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' sake/' and have been able to 
 donate 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 of Heaven 
 — the Kingdom after which the rest of us ever strive 
 with hard work and longing. 
 
 But it is not for them to sneer at us who work 
 honestly and conscientiously at our trade. Rather 
 let them follow the command of the Man of God and 
 sell all that they have and give to the poor, and start 
 out 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 
 
98 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 on Saturday nights at the newspaper offices; let 
 them know the pain that hunger can give and the 
 aches and diseases that tireless 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, ten thou- 
 sand times more, and then, if they do not fall upon 
 their knees crying out, "Money! money! Oh, 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 dead!" — then, why then, they are not 
 human, but only monstrosities. 
 
 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, stay! 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 99 
 
 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, say- 
 ing we might use it at our own discretion, as 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 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, Missus, is ye an angel, bringin' us ice all 
 fer nothin', when we's so hot and it's so 'spensive?" 
 asked a tiny, ragged tot, 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 enjoyed that 
 ice fairly does me good !" 
 
 "The feeling does you credit," I laughed, "and I've 
 got it too, so I take it we're both in what they call 
 a 'state of grace.' " 
 L.cfC. 
 
100 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 illus- 
 trate what is my conception of the attitude that may 
 be rightly taken by the honest working woman jour- 
 nalist 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 ad- 
 dress, and, in order "to get the situations I obtained, 
 though I told a 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 a dressmaker's apprentice, and 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" with my "In Cap 
 and Apron" series, the London editors, many of 
 whom were known as belonging formerly to the con- 
 servative class of journalists, wrote to me and "asked 
 for more." In vain did I visit many of them per- 
 sonally, suggesting subjects which seemed more suit- 
 able to the particular style of newspapers which they 
 published and were certainly more to my own taste 
 and inclination, and required less of physical strength 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 101 
 
 and nervous energy which I knew, even without con- 
 sulting 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 writ- 
 ing 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 among the sweat shops. 
 
 "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 all ready 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 cried and felt I never could do it, and then 
 I went back and bathed my eyes and 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 ac- 
 count" 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 maga- 
 zine. 
 
 One day, having heard that Mr. A. Gibbons, the 
 then editor of The Lady's Pictorial, had spoken 
 kindly of my work, I went to his office, and, intro- 
 ducing myself to him, said, "Would you care to have 
 me write something for The Lady's Pictorial?" 
 
102 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 "Nothing would please me better !" he exclaimed. 
 "Why, I've been going to send for yon to come and 
 see me these many weeks ! I expect yon're fnll of 
 suggestions and ideas, so let me hear some of them." 
 
 "I will write yon 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 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 after I had thought of some other subjects. I 
 was moving towards the door when Mr. Gibbons 
 jumped up. "No, indeed, you won't go home ! Sit 
 you down there on 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 Lady's Pictorial with- 
 out an idea in your head, you're not going to leave 
 it till you get one." 
 
 I am bound to state that I began to get a bit 
 nervous, so altogether different was Mr. A. Gibbons 
 from any other London editor I had met. Certainly, 
 I decided that he was 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, fitted up more after the manner of a drawing- 
 room than an office, till four o'clock. 
 
 Then spoke Mr. Gibbons. "Have you any ideas 
 yet?" he asked. 
 
 "No," I answered. 
 
 "H'um ! I've heard of American cuteness, but I 
 don't know, I don't know !" 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 103 
 
 "I think I'll go now/' I said, beginning to rue the 
 fancy that had made me think I could write for the 
 fashionable Lady's Pictorial. "I've got an engage- 
 ment." 
 
 "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 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 Lon- 
 don work. I went to Kent one night and engaged 
 lodgings with a quaint little lodging-house keeper 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 
 
104 THE ATJTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 in the 
 meantime, notwithstanding, a week went by, and Mr. 
 Gibbons heard nothing from me except a hastily 
 scribbled note to the effect that I had done the straw- 
 berry picking and would send him the manuscript as 
 soon as possible. The following week I wrote up an 
 account of my experiences, telling of the rainy day, 
 and a few rheumatic twinges, but keeping back a 
 part 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 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?" 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 105 
 
 "Yes," I answered. 
 
 "Then why didn't you stay there in the boarding 
 house till a fine day came and then go and pick the 
 berries? I say, why didn't you wait and take a rest 
 and behave like a sensible, reasoning human being? 
 Instead of that, you've got me talked about as a slave 
 driver. Why, 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," I answered. 
 
 "Have you been ill and had a doctor's bill on 
 account of it?" 
 
 "Oh, no, of course not!" I replied, for I thought 
 that here was a place where the truth need not be 
 told. 
 
 "I was going to say that of course 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 
 
106 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 char- 
 acteristic: "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 acuteness 
 win the contest over my American. 
 
 One day when my first article had appeared in the 
 Nineteenth Century, I called at his office and was 
 greeted at the door with "Good afternoon! You've 
 got a new name. Hereafter you will have dropped 
 the title of The American Girl in London' and 
 shall be known as 'The Frivolous Contributor of the 
 Nineteenth Century!'" 
 
 Then there was another day that 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 anteroom. 
 
 "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 con- 
 siderate editor but a good friend — one of the earliest 
 of my editorial friends in London. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 107 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WHY I DID NOT BECOME A SALVATION ARMY 
 
 One of the last situations I entered in London, 
 during my search for "working-girl copy," was a 
 large steam laundry where I became a laundry girl. 
 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 had ever undertaken in that line. 
 The laundry was called a "sanitary" one, but it was 
 in many ways the most insanitary sort of establish- 
 ment I ever saw. Upon the floor of the wash-house 
 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 rose to the height of several inches. 
 Whenever I stood or walked about, my feet slipped 
 up and down in the water that penetrated into my 
 boots, and so my feet, all day long, were wet far above 
 my ankles. I had every reason to believe that my 
 lungs were of the strongest and would allow of 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 atmos- 
 phere of soapsuds. 
 
 While engaged at work, however, I was constantly 
 
108 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 in terror of getting 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 be- 
 fall 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 type- 
 writer 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 dif- 
 ferent nature from that with which I had started 
 my career in English journalism. The editors were 
 kind, but 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 then 
 talked about and written about as "one of the most 
 successful women journalists in the world," I would 
 gladly have accepted a weekly salary of three or four 
 pounds, and I even offered my services at that price 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 109 
 
 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 journal- 
 ism into London and are Americanizing our papers. 
 Keep it up, and you should, without the slightest 
 difficulty, earn an income of at least fifteen hundred 
 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 to Mr. 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 five hundred pound 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, I 
 understood, 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 
 finally decided that I was to write up the Salvation 
 Army "from the inside," which meant that I was to 
 become an Army "lassie." 
 
110 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 "Don't go into it with the idea of an 'expose/" 
 said the editor, "but join the Army just as you be- 
 came a housemaid, and write up your experiences." 
 
 Then we arranged terms, which were, if I remem- 
 ber rightly, nearly four times the ordinary rates he 
 paid to contributors. 
 
 "I shall, of course," I said, "need a small amount 
 of money over and above the column rate, for ex- 
 penses." 
 
 "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 an 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 seemed suitable for a humble 
 Salvation Army girl, keeping intact an amount suffi- 
 cient 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 Salvation 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 en- 
 couragement to do a different sort of work from that 
 by which I had made my name, he having even gone 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 111 
 
 so far as to take two anonymous articles from me, 
 paying me at his regular rate. 
 
 I explained that I had called to see if there were 
 anything else of the sort 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 will probably 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 in a poke bonnet." 
 
 I saw a look of horror come over the kind, 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, and 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. He will pay me well for it," I answered. 
 
112 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 "Pay you well ! He cannot pay yon well, no mat- 
 ter what he offers yon! I don't ask yon who this 
 editor is, bnt I do ask yon in yonr own interest, for 
 your own good, to go back to him and tell him yon 
 find it impossible to do this work." 
 
 He began walking up and down his 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 career, that I would prejudice 
 all the religions people of England and even of my 
 own country against me, and, as he exclaimed, "I tell 
 yon 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 popped out of my head. I was almost 
 tempted to give it up, when I suddenly remembered 
 the money that had been advanced to me for ex- 
 penses, a good part of which I had spent and had no 
 means of replacing. 
 
 "You don't understand," I said, faintly, tff but I am 
 in honor bound to do it !" 
 
 "How, in honor bound?" 
 
 "Oh! because I promised the editor," I answered, 
 evasively. 
 
 "Go and ask him to release you. That is quite a 
 permissible and honorable thing to do." 
 
 I was passing out of the door, afraid, bewildered, 
 sick at heart. 
 
 "Promise me you will not do this thing ! Promise 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 113 
 
 you will go to that editor, whoever he is, and ask to 
 be released from this commission !" he said, solemnly, 
 looking me full in the face, as he shook hands. 
 "Remember, you have now come to the parting of the 
 ways, and your whole future depends upon your 
 giving up this Salvation Army scheme ! Up to now, 
 you have amused, but never shocked, us staid Brit- 
 ishers. But this thing! Well, you are not going 
 to do it, are you?" 
 
 "No, I am not going to do it," I answered. "I 
 will run all the way to the editor to ask him to release 
 me." I turned and new down the stairs, lest he dis- 
 cover 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 I 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 
 straits ? Borrow ? 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 periodicals 
 in London at that time for which I had done some 
 work which had been accepted and of 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 necessities and ask for payment before, 
 
114 THE ATTTOBIOGBAPHY 
 
 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 sped down to the pavement. 
 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 suddenly remem- 
 bered 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 strikers' families. He had been very kind to me 
 in those days, and on parting, had said : — 
 
 "Kemember, my child, if you ever get into any 
 trouble and need a helping hand, just write to me 
 and tell me all about it. And, see here ! I'm a poor 
 man, but I sometimes have a few pounds put by, so 
 if you're ever in need of a little money, just write 
 and tell me." 
 
 So I wrote to the good father all about my troubles, 
 keeping back nothing, and in the end, informing him 
 that I wrote as "under the seal of the confessional," 
 asked him if he would lend me four pounds till the 
 magazines paid up. By return of post the money 
 came, and with it in my hand, I went to the office of 
 the editor who wanted the Salvation Army written 
 up, gave it to him 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 
 exactly say why, but I'm glad." 
 
 Two months later I sent four pounds and ten 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 115 
 
 shillings to my good friend, the priest, in Lancashire, 
 four pounds in return for the loan, and ten shillings 
 for one of his pet charities. In reply, came this 
 specimen of his ready, Irish wit: — 
 
 "Money received. Shall be glad to lend you some 
 more on the same terms ! Little Mary O^Flannagan 
 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/' 
 
116 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 A DEAL IN ANCESTORS. 
 
 I came to England with the knowledge that I had 
 no pedigree worth speaking of on one side of me — 
 the English side, that is. 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, 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 fares running about 
 investigating how my ancestors earned theirs, or 
 whether they got it in some much 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 
 something of a resentment towards them, and it was 
 my own private opinion that if I ever found out any- 
 thing about them I should 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 117 
 
 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 among 
 the B's 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 "clew" 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; one 
 had been a sort of pirate captain as far as I could 
 make out; one had fought against George Washing- 
 ton; concerning one there was but this simple record, 
 
 "Born , Dyed , not worth a groat." One of 
 
 my far-away removed grandmothers, 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 
 "husbande," my far-away and removed grandfather, 
 had compelled her to sit upon the steps of the meet- 
 ing house from midday till the going down of the 
 sun, publicly confessing her fault, which was, indeed, 
 a most grievous one, "and the ladye," so the record 
 ran, "did confesse." 
 
 I slammed together with a bang the book that gave 
 me this scandalous bit of information, and started 
 back to the flat, not altogether pleased with my after- 
 noon's work. I had in my purse two pounds, two 
 shillings and seven pence, 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 
 
118 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 walk and save the pennies. Passing an old 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 
 back of them, in a mass of dirt and rubbish, with the 
 dust of ages, as well as more modern secondhand 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, and an aristocratic ex- 
 pression 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 over 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?" 
 
 "Eighteen pence !" he answered. 
 
 I was astonished. Eighteen 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 eighteen pence ! Do 
 buy me !" 
 
 "I'll have it," I said to the secondhand man. I 
 took the painting home and washed it with soap and 
 then greased it and hung it on the wall, and the old 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 119 
 
 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 a 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 fallen quite in love with the 
 dear old gentleman and had named him "Grand- 
 father." The next morning when I went to look at 
 him he was still smiling, and I smiled back, and 
 Dinah remarked : — 
 
 "I do clah, Miss Polly! Dat's de same kin' o' 
 pixcher w'ich dey done hab in my ole massa's house 
 in Virginny !" 
 
 When I went out that day I passed again the old 
 secondhand 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 salable," returned the shop- 
 man, "as there be'nt no pictur for it! It's sca'cely 
 wuth 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 
 
120 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 "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 must 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 had 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 dis- 
 trict where pawn shops, antique and secondhand 
 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've found 
 out about at the British Museum! I don't believe 
 he died mot worth a groat' or fought against George 
 Washington, or went pirating, and I don't believe his 
 wife ever had to sit on meeting house steps and con- 
 fess unutterable things ! Poor old man ! I wonder 
 how he got into that dirty secondhand shop, anyway, 
 and got sold to me for a beggarly eighteen pence ! 
 Nice old man ! If I could have had him for a great- 
 great-great-grandfather, it would have been worth 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 121 
 
 while!" After all, I thought, why not? Why not 
 imagine it? Why not adopt him as a great-great- 
 great-grandfather? Indeed, why not adopt a lot of 
 ancestors who seemed to be a decent sort, rather than 
 claim descent from those apologies for ancestors 
 which I had found in the British Museum records? 
 I knew plenty of my country-people adopted ances- 
 tors, ancestors that weren't half so nice, in appear- 
 ance, 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 ancestors at eighteen 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 usually spent before it was got, 
 "booked ahead," as it were. The installment on my 
 typewriter was nearly due, and most of what I had 
 on hand I had intended to use for that. But all 
 ideas of economy, sense, or 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 mat- 
 ter what happened in consequence. It became a 
 passion, an over-mastering 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 anything 
 so badly as this, I ought to have it !" 
 
 "Have you got any old oil paintings?" I asked, 
 looking in at one of the shop doors. 
 
122 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 "I don't think so, Miss. Everything I've got that's 
 worth selling yon see right here exposed for view." 
 
 "But yon might have some old things stored away. 
 Won't you just look?" I answered. 
 
 "But I know I got nothing. There were a laidy 
 'ere 'arf an hour ago inquiring for frames, whether 
 they 'ad pictures in 'em or not, but I didn't 'ave." 
 
 "But I don't want frames. You might have some 
 pictures without them." 
 
 "I got an old roll o' pictures somewhere, but they're 
 stuffed awiy and I don't know just where." 
 
 "Paintings?" I asked. 
 
 "I think they was engravings and some in what 
 they call ile, too. If I tikes a lot o' trouble to find 
 'em I'd want you to buy 'em." 
 
 "Of course," I answered. 
 
 He moved away to the back of the old shop and I 
 sat myself down on a rickety stool. It was one of 
 the worst and dirtiest of the secondhand 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 seven in all, — three men, three women and a 
 child, as far as I could make out through the dirt 
 that covered them. 
 
 "How much for these?" I asked, holding up the 
 seven. 
 
 "'Arf a crown." 
 
 I handed him a sovereign, but he declared his 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 123 
 
 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 re- 
 turned 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 shil- 
 lings; for some small ones I paid sixpence and ten- 
 pence, for others two shillings. Finally, I had col- 
 lected twenty and spent thirty-six 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 face, for there was a hole on 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 my room all embellished 
 with them, removing all the other pictures from the 
 sitting room, with the exception, of course, of the 
 
124 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 original "ancestor" I had bought at first, I must say 
 I was pleased and even surprised at the effect. My 
 room, that had been merely pretty before, now looked 
 grand and stately, 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 sort of 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 gen- 
 tlemen on the wall, my almost empty purse fell to 
 the floor, and Dinah, to whom I always allowed the 
 privilege of a latchkey, walked into the sitting room 
 with Judge. 
 
 "Miss Polly, what am de mattah?" exclaimed 
 Dinah, looking about in amazement at the walls. 
 
 "These are my ancestors, Dinah," I answered. 
 
 "You don' mean dey is yo' gran'paps and gran'- 
 mams f'om way back, like old Massa had in Vir- 
 ginny ?" 
 
 "Yes, Dinah," I said. 
 
 "W'y, Miss Polly, how you done fin' 'em? Whar 
 dey been ?" demanded Dinah, aghast, going up to the 
 gentleman with one eye and sticking her finger in 
 the hole that served for the other. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 125 
 
 "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 gittin' gran' dese days V went to her 
 kitchen with more dignity and self-importance than 
 I had ever seen her assume before, saying, "I 'spec' 
 we's quality, ain't we, Miss Polly?" 
 
 That night I amused myself with naming my an- 
 cestors, and before I went to bed I made out a cata- 
 logue 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 in 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 
 even real ancestors for purposes of paying install- 
 ments 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 revolving 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 
 
126 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 myself for a fool and the rest of the world as knaves. 
 I cursed my relation over in America for having been 
 the original cause of my foolhardiness and improvi- 
 dence. Thirty-six 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 is therefore 
 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 127 
 
 remedy is to go and "walk it off." It was so in those 
 days, and I passed on to Charing Cross, along the 
 Strand and to 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 the world, and here was 
 the office of the paper that was always giving me 
 unkind, or, at least, cutting notices ! It was one of 
 the few London papers that I thought had not treated 
 me fairly. It had once laughed in print because 
 The Times had published my "American Girl's Reply 
 to Mr. Rudyard Kipling." It had said: "The lady 
 is very vague and shadowy. It is indeed very like 
 reading Mr. W. D. Howells." Now, in saying this 
 last, I considered The St. James's had added insult 
 to injury — insult not to me, I hasten to add, but to 
 Mr. Howells, whose works I had read and loved from 
 my childhood up, and at whose feet I felt I could sit 
 as did Saul 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 ; a boy came down. 
 
 "Mr. Low will be happy to see you, Miss. Will 
 you step this way ?" said the boy. 
 
128 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 "What did you say the editor's name was?" I 
 asked, sharply. 
 
 "Mr. Sidney Low/' he returned, and then I was 
 ushered into the editorial sanctum. A pleasant- 
 faced gentleman arose 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 work, 
 you can't say something pleasant like the other 
 papers 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 favoring 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 won- 
 der! Truly, if so, I never heard of it. And yet, I 
 had heard that Englishmen were devoid of chivalry 
 as compared to 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. Low, 
 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIEL" 129 
 
 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 " 
 
 Great Heavens! where was my American inge- 
 nuity, my quickness in an emergency, even the good, 
 common, ordinary sense that I had thought I pos- 
 sessed before I went out and spent all my money on 
 ancestors? What was that — ancestors? A sudden 
 inspiration came ! 
 
 "I was going to ask you 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. Low, looking interested. 
 
 "If s astonishing," I continued, "how cheap 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 have proofs !" 
 
 "I like that idea. It ought to make not only one, 
 but several articles," said Mr. Low, when I had told 
 him of some of the proofs I had ready 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 to write the series which de- 
 scribed the power of the Almighty Dollar in London. 
 
130 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 It took me some days 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 com- 
 pany of adopted forefathers and foremothers, till one 
 afternoon some American friends called upon me. 
 
 "Why, this room is quite a picture gallery, and the 
 paintings are not bad, I vow!" one of them ex- 
 claimed, 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 ?" nodding to the ancient-looking 
 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 the olden times — the Duke of Banks !" 
 
 "Duke of Banks !" he repeated, incredulously. "I 
 don't know much about the English dukedoms, but 
 I know there never was 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 Doon/ 
 don't you? Well, you see " 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 131 
 
 I was not allowed to finish my enlightening expla- 
 nation 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 twenty 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. 
 
132 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A MIDNIGHT HOLOCAUST. 
 
 "A gentlum is waitin' to see yo', Miss Polly ! He 
 done been a waitin' dese two hours an' a half, an* I 
 done say yo' be late, but he say nebber min', an' so 
 he settin' down." 
 
 Thus was I greeted by Dinah one winter evening 
 when, returning from some business that had kept 
 me late, she answered my knock at the flat door. 
 
 "What is his name, Dinah ?" I asked. 
 
 "I dunno, Miss Polly." 
 
 "Didn't you ask his name?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I ax him two, tree time, an' he say nebber 
 min', no mattah 'bout 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 said, 
 looking at the name on the pasteboard. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 133 
 
 "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 , 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 would probably try to make his arrangements with 
 you in person, and, as this is a matter he wishes hur- 
 ried up, he has delegated me to act as his representa- 
 tive. I have a letter with me that will prove to you 
 that I come from him, and I am also authorized to 
 act for him financially in this matter." 
 
 "I don't think I understand you. I have never 
 had any business dealings with the person 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 propo- 
 sition 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 con- 
 versation ?" 
 
 "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 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 
 
134 THE ATTTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 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 adver- 
 tised, as a rich American girl, for a chaperon of 
 social distinction, to take you in charge, and that you 
 received in answer to your advertisement a large 
 number of letters from very well-known persons 
 offering to chaperon 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 with those letters?" 
 
 "Some I returned to the writers, who wrote re- 
 questing 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 pur- 
 chaser comes." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 135 
 
 "What interest has the man who sent yon here got 
 in those letters?" I asked. 
 
 "I can't explain to yon the interest he has, bnt it 
 is a 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 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 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. I will put the 
 amount in this check, get it cashed, and pay you in 
 gold." 
 
 "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 ex- 
 claimed, jumping up in astonishment. 
 
 "I count myself an honest and honorable woman, 
 so naturally I don't 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 
 
136 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 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 to Dinah. 
 
 "Dinah, show the gentleman out." 
 
 "Just one minute !" he said, hurriedly, as Dinah 
 made her appearance. "Will you give me this infor- 
 mation? Have you got among those letters one 
 from ?" 
 
 When he mentioned the name, I answered, "No; 
 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 recognized the name immediately 
 as the signature to a letter which I received in an- 
 swer to my advertisement. I hold that there are 
 times when to tell the truth is to commit a dishonor- 
 able act, and to tell a lie is to act righteously. It is 
 when the truth will betray the innocent and the lie 
 will save. This was one of the cases where I justi- 
 fied a lie. Had I simply refused to answer, the man 
 would have believed there was such a letter, but in 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 137 
 
 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 had passed through a tempta- 
 tion, 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 black- 
 mailing scheme. There was no hesitation nor ques- 
 tion 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 
 two, with a cry of horror, and then a prayer of grati- 
 tude. "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 missiqn, fiendish and hellish in its intention, 
 and always in the dream was the face of the man who 
 
138 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 had called on me that evening. In his hands he held 
 the letters, and I, looking on, knew not how he had 
 got them, but in my dream I thought, "If I had only 
 burnt them, he never would have found them !" And 
 as I awoke, the cry I made was, "Burnt ! burnt ! they 
 should have been burnt!" 
 
 I am not a particularly superstitious person, but 
 I am a believer in my own premonitions, in the in- 
 stincts of my dog and in warnings that come to me 
 in dreams. Most of my dreams are like other peo- 
 ple's dreams — without rhyme or reason; but occa- 
 sionally 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 
 those 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 
 eighty-three in all, four having been returned to the 
 writers by request. 
 
 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 ordi- 
 nary fuel. It was my mood, too, that Judge should 
 officiate at the holocaust, so when I had lighted one 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 139 
 
 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 caller 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 the letters now without my call- 
 ing 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 demands 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 rooms became illumined with glory; vari-colored 
 flames shot 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 
 
140 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 and then showed not at all in the greater illumina- 
 tion that enveloped them. 
 
 When the letters were all burnt, I dropped in the 
 envelopes, and again the pretty-colored flames darted 
 from about the seals. 
 
 Three o'clock struck, then three-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 war a col' night, 
 las' night, and de win' it do howl fit to wake de dead, 
 an' I do clah," she exclaimed, going over towards the 
 fireplace, "yo' whole grate an' tiles is dat frill ob black 
 specks an' sootses, w'ich mus' hab come down by de 
 win' from other chimbleys, an' I got to go to work 
 now an' cleah it up. Dis yer town am a wicious 
 town, an' as full ob dirt as it am full ob sin." 
 
 "That's true, Dinah," I said, as I drank my coffee. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER "GIRL" 141 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ON" THE BRINGING OUT OF A FIRST BOOK. 
 SOME LEAVES FROM A DIARY KEPT IN THOSE DAYS. 
 
 September lJ+tli, 1891+ — 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 till I got two dozen copies to- 
 night from the 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 exam- 
 ined every one over and over again. I have given 
 Dinah one, and written my name in it. I told Judge 
 to pick out whichever one he wanted and bring it to 
 me and Fd 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 eight 
 o'clock to see if my book was prominently displayed 
 on all the stalls of the underground and in the shop 
 
142 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 windows. It was too early, and none of the stalls 
 and shops were open. I went out again at nine 
 o'clock and it was still too early. At ten 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 to 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 if s a failure and nobody will 
 buy it. I never have known such unhappiness in 
 my life, it seems to me. 
 
 September 16th — I have been to all the stalls and 
 book-shops 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 
 shops again to-day 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 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 . 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 143 
 
 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 is in Mudie'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 getting a glimmer of the mean- 
 ing 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, 
 
144 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 cos- 
 tume and making gestures as though scrubbing, hold- 
 ing out flowers, wielding a crossing broom, and so 
 forth, I'd make a great hit. He said that after sev- 
 eral 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- jour- 
 nalist and her poodle. He said I had some talent for 
 acting — that I must have a great deal, else I couldn't 
 have done the real things in life that I've done. He 
 suggested a beginning in the halls and then going 
 into comedy as a soubrette. I considered his propo- 
 sition very seriously, for I'm very much in need of 
 money just now, but I have decided against it. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 145 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AN AMERICAN - MILLIONAIRE HUNTS ME UP. 
 
 "Deer Miss: will You plese be so good as to let 
 me Com and see You as I am Interest in A Magazin 
 and would like to Talk to You about Working for It. 
 I will Call when it is Most convenent 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 wastebasket and with 
 an exclamation of anger and disgust gave my type- 
 writer such a loud-sounding bang as made Dinah, 
 who was dusting in the same room, turn round anx- 
 iously and say: — 
 
 "I hopes, Miss Polly, dey ain't no bad noos ?" 
 
 "No, Dinah," I answered, "only an impertinent, 
 illiterate man who has read my book, wants to get 
 acquainted with me, and he's written to find out 
 where I live, so he can call." 
 
 "Lemme see dat lettah, Miss Polly, an' ef he give 
 his directions, I hab a min' to go callin' on him an' 
 ax a explanation of his conduc' !" 
 
 "It's there in the basket, Dinah. Pick it up and 
 read it, if you want to," I returned indifferently. 
 
146 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 Dinah picked up the objectionable missive and 
 proceeded laboriously to read it. 
 
 "I don' see nothin' wrong wid dat lettah, Miss 
 Polly/' she remarked, when she had got about half 
 through it. "He do seem to live at a right quality- 
 like hotel, an' he say he hab a magzeen w'ich he want 
 yo' to work fer ! Ain't yo' open to magzeen work, 
 Miss Polly ? Ain't yo' done tol' me w'en yo' got lots 
 dat kin' of work to do, yo'd make moah money an' 
 pay me fl' dollars a week?" 
 
 "But, Dinah, you don't understand, because you 
 are not an educated person," I said, with dignity. 
 "No man who writes like that can have anything to 
 do with a magazine." 
 
 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 : — 
 
 "Ebenezah Emmett, Ebenezah Emmett ! 'Spec' I 
 seen dat name befoah !" 
 
 "Miss Polly," she said finally, "don't yo' reckon 
 dat name seem f amiliah-like ?" 
 
 "I don't think so, Dinah," I replied. 
 
 "But I be sho' I know dat name !" she insisted. 
 "Seems like it hab somet'ing to do wid cookin'." 
 
 With that she started for the kitchen. There came 
 the sound of rattling among dishes, saucepans and 
 tins, and Dinah saying several times, "I 'low it mus' 
 beheah!" 
 
 Suddenly a scream of delight came from the 
 kitchen. 
 
 "Oh, honey, I done foun' it! Heah it am on de 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 147 
 
 tin can! Ebenezah Emmett, packer! It am de cod- 
 fish man in 'Meriky !" 
 
 I rushed out to find the kitchen in an uproar. All 
 the contents of the cupboard were spread, out in con- 
 fusion on the table and floor, and in the midst, doing 
 an amateur "cake-walk," 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. U. S. A." 
 
 "Didn't I tol' yo' it was f amiliah-like ?" exclaimed 
 Dinah. "Ain't I used dis goods fo' picked-up codfish 
 an' Sunday mo'ning breakfas' fish-balls, evah sence 
 I was cookin' f er a livin' ? W'y, Miss Polly, dat Mis- 
 tah Emmett mus' be wuf millyuns of dollahs, cause 
 ev'ybody uses his codfish!" 
 
 Sure enough, now that I saw the name in print, 
 I knew Ebenezer Emmett's codfish as a household 
 necessary, 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 to write for him. 
 No, it is somebody else of the same name, or some- 
 body has used the name to attract my attention and 
 make me answer." 
 
 "Miss Polly!" said Dinah, solemnly, "I'se older 
 dan yo', I is, an' done hearn tell in 'Meriky of rich 
 men w'ich couldn't write dey names ! Dey is called 
 selfmadem !" 
 
148 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 Dinah'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 Magazin " 
 
 "He doesn't say he's going to edit it/' I reflected. 
 "Perhaps some one else is the editor, and Ebenezer 
 Emmett only owns it." 
 
 "I'll answer the letter, Dinah," I said, as I left 
 the kitchen. "I'll tell him he may call to-morrow 
 afternoon, and if he's not the codfish man at all, I'll 
 cough very loud and you must ring the messenger 
 call for a policeman to arrest him." 
 
 So I wrote a dignified letter, which could not pos- 
 sibly be misconstrued by any bold adventurer seek- 
 ing 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 to-morrow afternoon, when 
 we can talk the matter over. 
 
 "Very truly yours." 
 
 "Mistah Ebenezah Emmett !" 
 
 Dinah was looking her very best and trimmest the 
 next afternoon when she announced the millionaire. 
 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 140 
 
 than usual, and was as smart, haughty, and dignified 
 in her demeanor as any British parlor maid could 
 possibly have been. Nevertheless there was on her 
 face a self-satisfied, "I done tol' yo' so" look as, with 
 what appeared to be a much-practiced bow and 
 courtesy, 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 sixty-five or seventy, with kindly blue 
 eyes that shone through his spectacles, and a long 
 white beard. 
 
 He was a very agreeable surprise to me, this mil- 
 lionaire, 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. 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 sugges- 
 tion of the "down-East" drawl often noted among 
 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 sec- 
 retary about with me to attend to letters and things, 
 but two weeks ago he was taken sick and had to go 
 
150 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 away from London, so that's how it was I had to do 
 my own writing." 
 
 I felt myself growing red for shame when I thought 
 of the way I had first received his letter, and I won- 
 dered if the good man could possibly have an instinc- 
 tive 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 news- 
 papers ; 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 sub- 
 ject, but this article 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 Tower article, I happened to 
 see a book with a picture cover on it, and your name ! 
 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 writ- 
 ten 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 all through the book I'd seem to read between 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 151 
 
 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 some- 
 thing she can make money out of?' I made up my 
 mind I'd hunt her up when I went to England, and 
 that's what I've done, you see." 
 
 My brain 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 unpleas- 
 ant thought came into my head — was he going to 
 propose to me — this rich man who might almost have 
 been my grandfather ? Dear me ! What could I 
 possibly say if he should turn suddenly and remark, 
 "Will you marry me?" Then I remembered that he 
 had spoken of a magazine in his letter. Yes, that 
 was it ! He wanted me to do some magazine work — 
 just exactly what he said. 
 
 He pulled from his pocket a package of notices 
 and spread them before me. 
 
 "You see how I've kept track of you," he said. 
 "These are things I've read in the papers about you. 
 I took a sort of interest, you know." 
 
 "It is very kind in a great man like you to be inter- 
 ested in me and my work," I said lamely. I really 
 was at a loss for words, and began to wish the con- 
 versation would take a more businesslike turn. It 
 did, for his next remark was : — 
 
152 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 "You've noticed these sidewalk artists over here in 
 London, I suppose? Well, now, we don't have any- 
 thing 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 to-morrow," 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 just going to start one 
 and I haven't got the staff picked out yet." 
 
 Mr. Emmett began looking about the room, exam- 
 ining 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. At least I want to live in Eng- 
 land for several years yet, and I want to travel and 
 go all over Europe and then to Palestine and Egypt, 
 when I have made enough money, writing." 
 
 "Yes," he resumed, as though he had not been ask- 
 ing 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?" 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 153 
 
 "No, I never did, but I edited a society page once 
 in America. I suppose yon will have a very eminent 
 literary man for yonr 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 twenty-five dollars 
 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 getting paid in advance 
 for something I had not done, and at first I de- 
 murred, 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. "Keceived from Ebenezer Emmett, Esq., 
 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 good-bye, "and if you want to ask any ques- 
 tions, write to me at my factory and mark it 'per- 
 sonal.' But I'll be back in England before many 
 weeks and then I'm going to fix up the magazine." 
 
154 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 He was gone, and I, joyous, elated, full of hope, 
 with happiness in my heart and a five-pound note in 
 my hand, stood trembling and smiling when Dinah 
 rushed in to hear the news, with her eyes shining and 
 her streamers flying. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Polly! He war de millyunaire man, 
 wa'n't he? He do put up codfish, don't he? He do 
 hab a magzeen, don't he?" cried she. 
 
 "Oh, 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 !" 
 
 "Hurray! Hurray! Shout de Jubilee," cried 
 Dinah, dancing about the room with her hands on 
 her hips. "I done tol' yo' so, Miss Polly ! Hi, yi ! I 
 see de money bein' used fer to kindle kitchen fires 
 wid ! I see I bein' yo' perfessed cook wid a w'ite trash 
 kitchen-maid underneaf me ! Oh ! de time o' Jubilee 
 am come !" 
 
 How we danced for joy, 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 dis- 
 port himself in a homemade one cut out and stitched 
 by his loving mistress. Dinah was to have the purple 
 hat she coveted on the Kensington 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 ride through 
 Hyde Park in a victoria, with Judge on the seat 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 155 
 
 beside me, resplendent in a necktie he need not share 
 with anybody, and Dinah might go too, sometimes, 
 and sit with her back to the horses, and everybody 
 would say, "There goes the editress of the Thingymy- 
 gig Magazine r 
 
 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 investi- 
 gation of how the artists lived and where. How 
 much money they took in and all about them. I 
 wondered if I should not engage an eminent artist to 
 illustrate my article for me, and wrote to Mr. Em- 
 mett 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, as 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 should run, I made up my mind to 
 give a position on the staff to a little English jour- 
 nalist I often saw walking on Fleet street, looking 
 so 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 I read a headline — "Death of Ebenezer Emmett, 
 
156 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 the great millionaire." He had died two weeks after 
 I saw him. 
 
 My little dream was over. I was again a strug- 
 gling journalist in London. The romance of the 
 philanthropic millionaire and the poor working girl 
 was, after all, only a story book occurrence, and I 
 had no right to expect my life to be like a story book. 
 I would not be the popular, much sought-after "girl- 
 editor" of a magazine ! I must work my way up 
 steadily, 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 could not wear the bright-hued gowns from Paris 
 and the gauzy hats to match — why then, perhaps, 
 who knew? Might there not possibly come the edi- 
 torship of a magazine? 
 
 I sobbed, and my dog came over and licked my 
 hand. 
 
 "Miss Polly, de doughnuts am done, an' — oh, I do 
 clah to goodness ! Somet'ing hab happened ! Ain't 
 de millyunaire man writ j^et?" Dinah stood in the 
 doorway with a dish of American doughnuts in her 
 hands. 
 
 "He is dead, Dinah, and we are poor again!" I 
 answered. 
 
 I said "poor again," for truly I had been rich the 
 hour before! 
 
 "We ain't rich no moah? Oh, Miss Polly, but he 
 war a good man, I reckon, but o' course ef he die " 
 
 "Yes, Dinah, he was a good man. He was one of 
 God's gentlemen," I said. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 157 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE DEPARTURE OF DINAH. 
 
 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 ambitions 
 must reach their goal, when Dinah got a letter 
 through the American mail. She had threepence to 
 pay on it, because only a common two-cent stamp 
 had been stuck to it when it had left the little Ala- 
 bama post office where it had been postmarked. 
 
 I was in the kitchen when Dinah got it and, 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 
 there 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 strains of the "Dixie Song." 
 
158 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 Dinah's voice rolled and swelled, though it seemed 
 to me there were times when it almost choked. 
 
 "I'se gwine back to Dixie, — 
 No more I'se gwine to wander, 
 
 My heart's turned back to Dixie, — 
 I can't stay here no longer. 
 
 I miss de ole plantation, 
 
 My home an' my relation, 
 
 My heart's turned back to Dixie, 
 An' I mus' 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 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'se gwine back to Dixie, 
 I'se gwine back to Dixie, 
 I'se gwine where de orange blossoms grow, 
 For I hear de chillun callin', 
 I see de sad tears fallin', — 
 My heart's turned back to Dixie, 
 An' I mus' 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, numn, Miss Polly, I war jes' goin' to ax ef 
 yo' like de look o' dat pie? Seems how I done got 
 too much shortenin' in it. I don't seem to be meas- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 159 
 
 urin' right dis mo'nin', an' done put salt 'stead o' 
 sugar in de co'nsta'ch." 
 
 "The pie's perfect, Dinah, and don't bother about 
 the cornstarch. Throw it away. I'm rich to-day. 
 I earned ten pounds this morning." 
 
 She went to the kitchen, shaking her head sorrow- 
 fully, and bemoaning the "was'eness ob de co'n- 
 sta'ch." 
 
 Something was the matter with Dinah! That I 
 knew, yet how question her, how probe 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. 
 
 In the afternoon again there came to me the 
 strains of the "Dixie Song." With one of the verses 
 the voice broke many times — 
 
 "I see de sad tears fallin', 
 My heart's turned back to Dixie, 
 An' I mus' go!" 
 
 Somehow I knew that Dinah's tears were falling 
 while she sang it. Even Judge noticed there was 
 something wrong with the singing of Dinah, and he 
 looked up at me, inquiringly. 
 
 "Go out to the kitchen, Judge," I said. "Go and 
 comfort Dinah. Dinah cries." 
 
 He went — the sweet comforter! I knew he would 
 put out his paw to Dinah and that then he would 
 
160 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 type- 
 writer 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 mus' go home !" 
 
 "To America, Dinah?" I asked, aghast at this new 
 misfortune. 
 
 Dinah nodded, and wiped away her tears with her 
 sleeve. "It am dat debil Jim!" 
 
 "Jim ! You mean your husband !" 
 
 "Yes, Miss Polly, I mus' go home to Jim. He 
 needin' me." 
 
 "Now, Dinah, you know very well that's all non- 
 sense, 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 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 war a debil an' he beated 
 me an' struck me 'cross de forrad till de blood come, 
 an' he drink up all my sabins in de s'loon, but he are 
 refo'med now an' he done break he leg, an' he say 
 in de lettah I got dis mo'nin' dat he needin' me fur 
 to nuss him, and he not be bad husban' no moah !" 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 161 
 
 "I tell you, Dinah, this is nonsense ! I'm sure he'll 
 never reform. Mrs. Saxon 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 done think he refo'm dis time, Miss Polly. He 
 say he done got 'ligion, an' he speak and pray in de 
 camp meetin' an' get de power and holler hallelujah 
 when de revivals come on." 
 
 "Fiddlesticks ! He tells you that 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. 
 Dinah, 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 hair- 
 dresser 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, supporting him in his 
 laziness." 
 
 "He lub me, Miss Polly! He done say so in de 
 lettah, an' I his lawfu' wife, an' I mus' go." 
 
162 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 "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 curi- 
 osity, a sort of heroine. There's Mrs. Brown's white 
 cook had you in to 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's invited you to the 
 ball she's going to give her servants when they go 
 to the country! You'll be the belle 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 washerwoman in Alabama !" 
 
 Dinah shook her head, sadly. "Yes, Miss Polly, 
 I puffickly 'preciate I done got a position in s'eiety 
 heah, an' I like de way eve'ybody notice me w'en I go 
 out, an' dey ain't no s'eiety fer niggahs 'cept niggahs 
 in Baltimoah or Al'bamy, but I mus' go back to Jim, 
 Miss Polly. Oh, Miss Polly, I lubs dat niggah !" 
 
 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 163 
 
 own and 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 "de Ian' ob libe'ty," 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 walked with Judge. She 
 had been growing happy and contented and was look- 
 ing 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 clothes- 
 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 object. The 
 
164 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 love that draws all women, whether they be black or 
 white, great or lowly, rich or poor, intellectual or 
 ignorant, to the sacrificial altar, now drew Dinah 
 away from me ! 'Twas 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 home-going, 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 legs was laziness, and that Dinah was now 
 called back to act as a crutch upon which it might 
 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 heart's turned back to Dixie, 
 An' I mus' go!" 
 
 Poor Dinah ! I wept at her departure and mourn 
 her still, for I have lost her. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 165 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 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 ont 
 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 morn- 
 ing 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, ex- 
 claiming, "Oh, a big black dog ! Will he bite, Miss ?" 
 
 "There's no use for yon 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 with 
 bad consciences are afraid of dogs." 
 
 That girl went her way, and others followed, till 
 
166 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 finally two young women called at the same time. 
 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 harks which mean "Happy 
 to see youl" 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 wonder- 
 ful eyes of his, and bringing from the girl the excla- 
 mation, "Oh, Miss, but isn't he beautiful !" 
 
 I engaged her then, hunted up her character that 
 day, and the next Monday the place of Dinah was 
 filled. 
 
 Did I say "filled"? Forgive me, Dinah! How 
 often hath my very soul yearned for your fried 
 chicken, Maryland style, — your doughnuts, fit eating 
 for the gods, — your coffee, nectar for the same, — 
 jout 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 thirty-seven different 
 ways, the variety of which made my modest little 
 table ever provide for me the spice of life ! 
 
 Candor compels me to state that though Judge 
 picked out for me a strictly honest, kind, and respect- 
 ful servant, he chose one whose so-called "cooking" 
 made me weep and waste away. I lent her Dinah's 
 cookbook, I tried to teach her to mash potatoes with- 
 out lumps, to make a cake that would be light enough 
 for a person of ordinary strength to lift without 
 groaning. I explained to her the way to open Ameri- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 167 
 
 can tinned vegetables and tried my best to convince 
 her that I could not live on cabbage, cauliflower and 
 Brussels sprouts alone, and that therefore I must 
 have tinned 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 the 
 flavor in my consomme, and that it was not her privi- 
 lege 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 impos- 
 sible to keep my mind in condition for journalistic 
 work. 
 
 So one day I advertised for a situation for Judge's 
 protegee, 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 
 British 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 
 sixty pounds, and then Judge and I went and took 
 up our abode in a fashionable hotel, and I started a 
 bank account with the sixty pounds, though I knew 
 I must draw it all out the next week, with the excep- 
 tion of the five pounds I had promised always to 
 leave as the very lowest balance that could be allowed. 
 
 I went to the fashionable hotel because it seemed 
 to be the most economical way I could live. I knew 
 
168 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 there were cheap houses in Pimlico where board and 
 lodging were offered at the remarkably low terms of 
 eighteen shillings a week, but I did not see how I, 
 the "heroine of London/ 7 "the most successful woman 
 journalist living," the "girl who had made her little 
 pile by introducing American journalism into Eng- 
 land," 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 lodging 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 man- 
 ager, when he saw Judge and had patted him, said 
 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 didn't 
 "allow" dogs as guests, they, of course, could not 
 make any charge for them, and that there were 
 twenty-seven dogs at present in the hotel, though 
 there had been as many as forty-nine. 
 
 I must say that if there is any particular charac- 
 teristic of the typical Englishman that I admire 
 more than another, it is his smiling and utter dis- 
 regard 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 and govern- 
 ment, it is of a sort that I never weary of admiring 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 169 
 
 and taking advantage of. If it be true that England 
 is a land of "red tape," then that tape is made of 
 rubber 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, pass- 
 ing calmly by the sign "No dogs allowed." An offi- 
 cial stopped me. "Dogs are not allowed in here, 
 madam," 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. "Madam," 
 he exclaimed, "I tell you 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 writ- 
 ten rule," he replied, as Judge and I indignantly 
 went out the door. 
 
 Now, at the doors of Mudie's Library in London, 
 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 the world where such 
 a fine collection of handsome, well-behaved, thorough- 
 bred dogs can be seen as at Mudie's Library in the 
 Brompton Road almost any morning or afternoon. 
 
 I told the manager of the hotel, when I took pos- 
 session of my apartments, that much of the time I 
 should probably take only one meal a day, my break- 
 fast, as I went out a great deal to luncheon and 
 dinner. He took occasion to recommend to me the 
 
170 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 laundry which the hotel had just started, and I re- 
 plied 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 bath room with its excel- 
 lent supply of hot and cold water would enable me 
 to economize in the direction of laundry bills, for 1 
 could do all my own washing right there in the bath 
 tub, and I bought a supply of starch and bluing and 
 two flatirons with patent American wooden remov- 
 able handles, and a spirit stove and fuel wherewith 
 to make it burn ; so 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 then, as 
 I do now, that needs must when necessity for econ- 
 omy drives, I got up many a nice little luncheon and 
 dinner for myself and Judge. For tenpence 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. 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. I even 
 found that I could get up a dainty course dinner 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 171 
 
 over the spirit stove, ending with a sweet, dessert, 
 finger bowls and all, for the low price of one shilling 
 and threepence, 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 in those days. My cape was smart and expen- 
 sive looking, and as I had to go out shopping every 
 day, it covered a multitude of groceries and provi- 
 sions. Judge always carried the most genteel and 
 unsuspicious-looking parcels in his mouth, but the 
 potatoes, mustard-and-cress, chops, bread, and eggs, 
 went under my cape. 
 
 One Saturday evening I was returning from my 
 shopping expedition, having got in double stores on 
 account of the next day's being Sunday, and both 
 my hands underneath my cape were absolutely full. 
 Among other things, in a paper bag, I had three 
 ha'pence worth of potatoes. I was feeling rather 
 rich and happy, for the week had been exceedingly 
 prosperous, two magazine articles having been pub- 
 lished that month for which I had got my checks. 
 I was wearing my new Paris hat, which, as it was 
 mid-season, I had bought for eighteen shillings and 
 sixpence. It was the delight of my heart, and I am 
 sure that no woman could have desired a lovelier bit 
 of head gear than that hat. I had on a model dress, 
 too. That also was very cheap — mid-season price, 
 so cheap that no American woman would believe me 
 
172 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 if I told the price, so I won't name the figure. The 
 skirt was just as long and sweeping as style de- 
 manded, and though I generally held up my trains 
 to save them from wearing out, I could not do it that 
 night, because both my hands were so full. 
 
 Just as I was about to turn into the street where 
 stood my hotel home, 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 just 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 that bright, original style 
 which will make it instructive as well as enter- 
 taining !" 
 
 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 hand- 
 shaking. What could I do? Eefuse that proffered 
 hand ! How dared 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 173 
 
 the potatoes would fall, held out my well-gloved 
 hand. 
 
 Truly, Heaven helps those who help themselves! 
 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 leaped for joy, right up against the eggs, so 
 close on my left. Harder and harder pressed my 
 right elbow against those potatoes. "Now, I must 
 hasten ! So glad to have had a little chat ! So much 
 more satisfactory than letter-writing !" said the edi- 
 tor, and then again the outstretched hand at parting. 
 "Ah, surely the potatoes will take a tumble this 
 time \" I said in my terrified heart. "Why, why, 
 why, need this delightful Englishman shake my hand 
 again 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, and up the stairs and to my apart- 
 ments. 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. 
 
174 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 Judge was of the greatest possible assistance to me 
 in keeping up appearances. Though he was a dog 
 with a pedigree of wondrous dimensions and had all 
 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 ordi- 
 nary ribbon, I found the most inexpensive in the 
 end — without a bark of dissatisfaction. He sub- 
 mitted to my dismissal of his barber, who charged 
 ten shillings and sixpence to shave him after the 
 latest poodle fashion, without a whine, 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 tak- 
 ing his promenades abroad, Judge never had cause 
 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- 
 priced poodle barber in London. What is more, I 
 wrote a magazine article about a new employment 
 for gentlewomen — 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, egg shells, bread crusts and bits 
 of bone that Judge left over. I dared not put them 
 in my waste-basket for fear of discovery by the cham- 
 bermaid, and, as I had a gas grate instead of coal, 
 I had no way of burning them. The only way seemed 
 to go out in a quiet street or the park and "lose" 
 them. One day I dropped my paper bag of shells 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 175 
 
 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 
 Clarges street he picked it up again. At the third 
 dropping he picked it up and 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 lady, 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 egg shells went all over the floor. 
 
 "Oh ! you droll doggie !" 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 sixpence 
 to brush up at once. 
 
 I am very fond of onions, prepared in the Ameri- 
 
176 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 can 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 objec- 
 tionable. 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," re- 
 turned the manager with a most unbelieving look on 
 his face. 
 
 "Neverthless," I answered, "Judge has been or- 
 dered 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 fare. Yet, when I 
 saw that the manager did not believe me, I grew des- 
 perate 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 commu- 
 nication was to be made to him. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 177 
 
 "Judge shall go walking," I said, and his tail be- 
 gan to wag. I placed his silver collar and his largest 
 ribbon-bow on a chair and pointed to them, saying, 
 "Yes! Jndge shall wear these and out a dash along 
 Piccadilly!" His tail went a little faster and I 
 walked over to the onions. "Jndge shall ran in the 
 park and scamper and eat grass." His eyes beamed, 
 his ears went back and his tail went ronnd in a circle. 
 "But, attention! Judge must first take his medi- 
 cine," 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 "Medi- 
 cine, 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 my motions to the words) 
 
178 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 tremble 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! 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- 
 steppers 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, 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 179 
 
 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 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 that amount. 
 
180 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 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, sym- 
 pathetic 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 oppor- 
 tunity to speak her mind about you. She views you 
 in the light of the 'scarlet woman' journalist, I be- 
 lieve." 
 
 "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 in- 
 jure me." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 181 
 
 "Oh! she wouldn't injure yon, except with her 
 tongue ! When people ask her what she thinks of the 
 new kind of journalism you've been doing in Eng- 
 land, she tosses her head and says, 'Oh! that crea- 
 ture ! 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 begs that they 
 will arrange things so she and you won't come into 
 contact. Some of the adjectives she uses to describe 
 you are really interesting. 'Brassy' is one of the 
 words she applies to you. She's 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 all so 
 very strange that I should 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 her years 
 and years of 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 absurd 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 denounce 
 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 
 
182 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 had any 
 particular dislike of 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 ac- 
 cordingly, 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. It ran: — 
 
 "Dear Madam : 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 be so kind as to do so, give me certain infor- 
 mation which would be of great assistance to me, and 
 I write to ask if you would allow me to call upon you 
 some time in the near future at any hour you will 
 name. I have, of course, long known you by name, 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 183 
 
 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:— 
 
 "Madam: If you will call to-morrow morning at 
 eleven o'clock, I can see you a few minutes. 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "E. Lynn Linton." 
 
 When I stood before Mrs. Lynn Linton at the time 
 she had appointed, my heart almost failed me, so 
 sternly, so aggressively, so uncompromisingly did she 
 look at me as I stood in the doorway. She did not 
 offer to shake hands nor ask me to sit down, she her- 
 self standing the while. 
 
 "Y^ou wished to see me. What can I do for you ?" 
 was her greeting. 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Lynn Linton," I said, for although I 
 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 Englishwomen, 
 especially educated Englishwomen, and comparing 
 self-supporting Englishwomen with self-supporting 
 
184 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 American women. Now, take for instance, journal- 
 ism. You have been a journalist so long that I feel 
 sure you know about the very beginnings of the Eng- 
 lishwoman's work in journalism. It is somewhat 
 different for women journalists in England from 
 what it is in America." 
 
 We were both still standing near the door of the 
 sitting room where Mrs. Linton received me. I was 
 looking squarely into her face, while she was exam- 
 ining every detail of my appearance and apparel. 
 Finally, she said, as though she had not heard a word 
 of what I had been saying : — 
 
 "Your hair is rather pretty and of the fashionable 
 shade. 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 
 bleached, 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. I didn't 
 think it was when I saw it, but I wanted to make 
 sure. 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 well." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 185 
 
 "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 Englishwomen journalists' mouths?" 
 
 "Surely, Mrs. Linton, I have not done that !" 
 
 "Yes ! you have done that ! You, with your hor- 
 rible, 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 lit- 
 erature! Now they have a craving for the sensa- 
 tional, 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 staid and solid 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 cause to be ashamed. I have never stooped to 
 a thing that was indelicate, unwomanly, or dishon- 
 orable." 
 
 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?" 
 
186 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 "I don't drink brandy and soda," I answered. 
 
 "I supposed, 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 
 Englishwoman 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 ! Englishwomen have been taking 
 it up so lately. They got it from Americans." 
 
 "No ! not from Americans ! Drinking and smoking 
 are things from which my countrywomen, 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 should 
 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 Englishwomen'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 
 sharply. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 187 
 
 "Did 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 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 for- 
 gotten that I was a woman, nor allowed anyone else 
 to forget it." 
 
 I looked at Mrs. Lynn Linton, as though I chal- 
 lenged her. 
 
 "It is all very strange," she said, half reminis- 
 
188 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 cently, "how I could have made such a mistake, for 
 you seem 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, 
 adventuresome 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 a wrong? Oh! the 
 things I have said about you have not been nice 
 things, I assure you ! You've been the talk of Lon- 
 don, 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 sup- 
 pose 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, once, after writing some- 
 thing against you, I was advised that it was too harsh, 
 and was asked to take it out. I, an old woman, have 
 been trying to prejudice 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." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 189 
 
 "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 unjust and almost wicked preju- 
 dice against me. It did not seem possible 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 to 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 teacher and I 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. Lintou 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 treas- 
 ured books, she told me of her lonely life, of her re- 
 
190 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 ligious beliefs, of her girlhood, of her unhappy mar- 
 riage and of many of the things that made her life 
 a not too happy one. I told her about my own 
 countrywomen, their schools, their universities, their 
 means of helping themselves and their position in 
 the workaday 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 "college cow" was turned into butter to be sold 
 at a village store and the proceeds added to a 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 policemen 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 to the country, she told me, 
 and we agreed that when she had returned, and I 
 had got back from the American trip that I was 
 about to make, I should run in often to see her and 
 not be formal. 
 
 "You have done missionary work to-day," she said, 
 when I was going. "You've converted a cantanker- 
 ous 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 191 
 
 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 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 those 
 things ! Oh ! I used to feel contempt at your 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 laun- 
 dry machinery any more, 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 awhile." 
 
 She laughed and bent over me as I went out the 
 door. Through the years that have passed I remember 
 her words, a kindly benediction, a friendly warning 
 from one who was 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 bade me good-bye that afternoon, for soon after- 
 
192 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 wards it was necessary for me to return to my own 
 country, and just as I returned from a somewhat 
 prolonged stay in America, Mrs. Lynn Linton died. 
 It is with a conviction that she would be glad to have 
 me tell this little story of her that I include it in 
 these reminiscences. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 193 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HOME AGAIN" AND "iN THE WAT OE LIFE."" 
 
 There are three kinds of workers on the New 
 York press. They are the "regulars," the "space- 
 writers" and the "free-lances." The "regulars" re- 
 ceive 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, accord- 
 ing 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 very large, though variable. Among the "space- 
 writers" there are two kinds, the ordinary and th? 
 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 
 
194 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 be a third more than the ordinary, or may be double, 
 triple, or quadruple. 
 
 The "free-lances" are not engaged to work for any 
 particular paper for 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 writ- 
 ten ; and of the "free-lances" also there are two kinds. 
 There are the stragglers, who form what may be called 
 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 courte- 
 ousness or the time, or both, to write and tell an 
 unknown outside "free-lance" 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 inclosed, will 
 write, returning the article, or saying he finds it suit- 
 able 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 inclosed. If the article is useless he 
 throws it into his waste basket, 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 pigeon-hole. 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. If the "free-lance" has 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 195 
 
 neglected or been too poor to buy every copy of the 
 paper to which the article has been sent, it may ap- 
 pear and the sender know nothing of it. In London, 
 the "free-lance" at least knows of the article's publi- 
 cation 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 an 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 in- 
 tended does not call, the money remains in the office. 
 Now this system of payment is as stupid and as sense- 
 less as it is unkind and unfair; but before going on 
 to tell the extent of its senselessness and unfairness, 
 I will explain what is the second kind of "free- 
 lance," after which I can tell my own experience with 
 what I found to be the system of paying outside con- 
 tributors. 
 
 As the one kind of "free-lance" is made up of the 
 stragglers and beginners, so the second division of 
 "free-lances" is made up of the well-to-do, or the 
 supposedly well-to-do, the experienced and success- 
 ful. In a word, the second division of "free-lances" 
 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 
 
196 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 edi- 
 tors, 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 
 as does a merchant who shows a possible customer a 
 sample of ribbon or lace or cloth. 
 
 "You like the sample ?" asks the merchant. 
 
 "Yes," answers the customer, "I will take ten 
 yards of it." 
 
 Says the "free-lance" 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 "free-lance" of the 
 second, and, sometimes thought mueh-to-be-envied, 
 sort, that I at first took up journalism in Few 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 appear- 
 ance, in the press of my native land. I returned 
 home a "heroine" as I had been a "heroine" in Lon- 
 don, and was met at the dock by reporters to inter- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 197 
 
 view me and telegrams from editors asking me to 
 send them some special articles at the earliest pos- 
 sible moment; and I was in no way averse to com- 
 plying with the requests of both the interviewers and 
 the editors. 
 
 With the interviewers, being myself an inter- 
 viewer, I was as good-natured and tactful as only an 
 interviewer can fully appreciate the necessity of 
 being, and they, in turn, treated me with such kind- 
 ness and consideration as all American interviewers 
 show to interviewees who treat them properly. 
 Having been, and being still, myself, upon occasion, 
 frequently called to take first one part and then the 
 other in the interviewing business, I have had every 
 opportunity of arriving at an impartial judgment 
 upon the subject. With those persons, be they Amer- 
 icans, Englishmen, or foreigners, who have only un- 
 pleasant things to say of American interviewers, I 
 have no patience, and if they find themselves written 
 up by the American interviewers in a distinctly un- 
 pleasant way, I have little sympathy with them, for 
 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 
 actor treats an interviewer with unkindness, discour- 
 tesy, tactlessness, and hypocrisy, the young woman 
 reporter must be an angel, indeed, if she heaps coals 
 of fire upon that head when she writes up the account 
 
198 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 of her visit. I have used the word "hypocrisy/' for 
 it is frequently that and nothing else that makes a 
 public person say to the interviewer, "I object to 
 being noticed in the newspapers." Public persons 
 may object to having their private affairs aired in 
 the newspapers, but they neither object, nor can they 
 afford to object, to newspaper notice in a general 
 way. The statesman, the author, the artist or 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 every one's right; to speak in terms of 
 contempt and independence of the American press 
 and the American interviewers, is quite another. 
 
 To persons about to be interviewed, I would here 
 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 also 
 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 to your hotel, and says, "I want to inter- 
 view 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?" may be a "space-writer" 
 or a "free-lance" on one of New York's papers, whose 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 199 
 
 very life may depend upon her getting that inter- 
 view 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 five or ten dollars, if she succeeds. By discover- 
 ing 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 
 straggler 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 un- 
 interesting you really are. 
 
 But to return to my own experience as a "free- 
 lance." I began it under most auspicious circum- 
 stances. Photographed, written about, and inter- 
 viewed 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 
 
200 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 exceedingly, for whatever money I could earn was 
 needed. 
 
 I was greatly surprised, however, when many days 
 and weeks passed after my articles appeared in print, 
 and no checks came to me through the post. Some 
 of the articles I had seen in the papers, others I had 
 not happened to see, though I knew they must have 
 been printed. 
 
 "Have you used any of my articles yet?" I asked 
 of an editor who had given me a large number of 
 orders, but from whom as yet I had 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 why you didn't use them," I an- 
 swered. 
 
 "Now, see here! You can't collect twice, even if 
 you are 'the American girl from London' !" he re- 
 torted. "We only pay once for articles this side the 
 water, and you needn't tell me they 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 pub- 
 lish them, and that's the last I hear of them. The 
 papers in London send out checks once a week or 
 once a month. In this country you are slower. I 
 judge you send them out once in six months or once 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 201 
 
 a year, and I don't mind telling you that I've got 
 down to my last fifty 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 have 
 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 intro- 
 duction. It 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 inquired. 
 
 "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 out- 
 
202 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 side 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 as soon as 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 Ameri- 
 can 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 mem- 
 bers 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 Eow, spending 
 two hours time and ten cents car fare, to collect the 
 two dollars and seventy-five cents that is coming to 
 him. I am not sure of just the exact number of 
 miles residence away from Newspaper Eow that en- 
 titles a contributor to have his payment sent to him 
 by check or money order. London is, however, "out- 
 side the circuit" and therefore contributors residing 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 203 
 
 in London are not expected to call for their en- 
 velopes ! 
 
 "Free-lancing," even of the most successful kind, 
 is but an unsatisfactory and irregular way of earning 
 a living, unless one has an income aside from jour- 
 nalistic work, and I had not been back in my native 
 land more than a few months, when a financial catas- 
 trophe befell me, from the effects of which, I knew, no 
 amount of "free-lance" work could deliver me. I 
 looked from my high window one morning at the 
 spires and the sky-scrapers of 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 be a 'free-lance' 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. 
 
 "Ridiculous ! ridiculous !" he exclaimed. "Remain 
 a 'free-lance' and you'll make a great deal more than 
 you would get on salary." 
 
204 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 "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 the 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 know I'm always 
 glad of special articles from you. Must you have 
 the forty sure every week?" 
 
 "I must have that positively, and as much more as 
 I can make. I've got obligations to meet which de- 
 mand it. If I don't get a 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 forty, waiting for you. I happen to 
 know that you have but to ask, or rather to hint that 
 you are open to an 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 
 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 205 
 
 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 coun- 
 try, and have been ashamed. I could not be asso- 
 ciated, 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 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 million- 
 aires would use their money to start high-class maga- 
 zines, 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 an effect 
 upon the prices paid in England. By paying high 
 fees and large salaries to their people, the 'yellow 
 journals' have forced the other papers to increase 
 their rates, or lose all their best men and women. 
 
206 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 That's one good thing they've done, and, as a news- 
 paper man, I thank them for it. 
 
 "Why, what sort of writers do yon think are work- 
 ing over yonder? They are writers of the highest 
 talents. Some of the most brilliant, most honest, 
 most pnre 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 whim- 
 per. Some of them can write things worthy to be 
 handed down to the coming generations, poems and 
 prose 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're honest women." 
 
 "I also will be an honest woman. I will go," I 
 said. 
 
 So I went, and became a "yellow journalist." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 207 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IN THE KINGDOM OF THE "YELLOW." 
 
 I started my career as "yellow journalist" on a 
 salary of fifty dollars a 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 sum 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 "guarantee-space" staff writer to make between 
 one hundred and one hundred and fifty dollars per 
 week. 
 
 Out of my income I laid aside fifteen dollars each 
 week for living expenses. By practicing strict econ- 
 omy, 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 
 
208 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 fifteen dollars a week, but these 
 women to whom fifteen dollars 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 none 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 pro- 
 motion, or even to retaining the position she has. 
 
 Now, the most important and necessary expendi- 
 ture 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 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 lodging 
 expenses, on fifteen dollars a week, must be pos- 
 sessed 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 
 smaHer amount per week, would never dream of. 
 
 On the staff of a great New York daily there are 
 numerous "plums" to be plucked, prizes to be won, by 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 209 
 
 the women workers, and all other things being equal 
 — indeed all other things, such as intellectual bril- 
 liancy, etc., being very unequal, at times — these 
 plums and prizes fall to the lot of those women who 
 best know how to "dress their part." 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" will soon find the editors with "no- 
 work-on-hand-to-day-sorry — hope - something- will - 
 turn-up-to-morrow" 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 journal- 
 ism when I heard two of the leading members of the 
 staff discussing the probabilities of obtaining an in- 
 terview with a very great and eminent personage, 
 and a man very difficult of access to the newspapers. 
 
 "Better send Miss ," 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 ?" re- 
 turned the other. "She's absolutely useless in an 
 emergency like this. She's such a dowdy in dress 
 that she couldn't get beyond the office boy. No ! The 
 
210 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 only woman who can haul this thing off is Miss X. 
 Shell get through the outer offices of clerks straight 
 into the holy of holies, 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 'f our hundred' when it comes to dress- 
 ing. I'm going to send her." 
 
 Now, Miss X. went to the personage and, in news- 
 paper parlance, "brought off" the interview. In dis- 
 cussing 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 rig-out, silk 
 foundations and all, cost me sixty dollars, and I was 
 paid one hundred for bringing off this interview. I 
 therefore say I have made forty dollars to-day, and 
 it's not a bad taking-in." 
 
 Miss X. was a "space-writer." She lived in a little 
 flat away up-town with her mother, who was slowly 
 dying of an incurable disease. The forty dollars she 
 made that day went to a physician, who was trying, 
 not to save the mother's life, since that was impos- 
 sible, but only to lessen for the coming weeks the 
 pain of dying. 
 
 It was very early in my career that I learned how 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 211 
 
 truly my editorial friend had spoken when he told 
 me that the path which I chose, though perforce and 
 so protestingly, would prove to be, 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. Better far 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 lose 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 reason- 
 ing power that helped me to distinguish between 
 what I could and could not do, as a "yellow journal- 
 ist," 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 
 to recognize my rights and then to fight to the death, 
 
212 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 if necessary, to maintain them. These things, com- 
 bined 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 in other circum- 
 stances. 
 
 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 lock-up 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 reputa- 
 tion, and your name signed to an article exposing 
 this great wrong would add 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 add 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?" 
 N "Other work ? You mean to say that you refuse V 
 
 "Certainly. It is indecent, and I refuse to do any- 
 thing that I consider indecent." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 213 
 
 "Well!" exclaimed the editor, tilting back his 
 chair, and eyeing me with great curiosity. "We took 
 yon on this paper to help ns make things hnm. I 
 understood yon made things hnm over in England." 
 
 I laughed. "Perhaps it doesn't need such an im- 
 petus to 'make things hum' in London as it does in 
 New York. At any rate I never did any work there 
 of which I am ashamed. 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 unpleas- 
 ant. Now, what is there for me to start on to-day, 
 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,' and I demand from you the respectful 
 chivalry that every American man is bound to show 
 his countrywomen. The fact that you are my editor 
 and I your subordinate in a business sense, makes no 
 difference. I will modify what I said about the sis- 
 ter. 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 phy- 
 
214 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 sically. You needn't think about that in my case. 
 Ill 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 objectionable." 
 
 "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 
 that will suggest subjects to you." 
 
 "I'll refuse them the way I have refused you," I 
 answered, and went back to my desk. 
 
 For the next few days I was kept rather busy refus- 
 ing, 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 commis- 
 sion. You are to take charge of the Holland Boat." 
 
 It was a little while before the beginning of the 
 war with Spain, and all New York, indeed all 
 America, was greatly interested in the little sub- 
 marine 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 experi- 
 mental 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPEK GIKL" 215 
 
 the subject. Then, make your arrangements to be 
 inside that boat the first time she goes under the 
 water." 
 
 "You mean to sneak in?" I asked. "I don't be- 
 lieve 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 rather a hard one to find assign- 
 ments for, with your English notions of what's cor- 
 rect and ladylike in journalism," he said, medita- 
 tively. 
 
 "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 dan- 
 gerous." 
 
 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 
 
216 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 suddenly what course I should pursue, and I only 
 answered quietly : — 
 
 "I'll go and see Mr. Holland." 
 
 That was the only time in my journalistic career 
 that I started out on a mission with the full deter- 
 mination 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 ex- 
 perimenting. 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 my 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 Feels 
 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 worth while to refuse again. Eather, I deter- 
 mined, 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 217 
 
 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 home 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 would 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 ap- 
 pear, 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 aston- 
 ishment. "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, turn- 
 ing a frightened-looking face upon him. 
 
218 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 "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 in- 
 ventor. 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 fear. You would be actually and literally fright- 
 ened to death." 
 
 Mr. Holland 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 journal- 
 ist in the world would get my refusal for many rea- 
 sons, 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 in the boat 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 thing 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." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 219 
 
 "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 that night, when I had 
 returned to the office, after again donning my working 
 costume. 
 
 "You don't mean to say you've failed? You'd 
 better try it again to-morrow. It isn't likely he'll 
 make his 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 !" 
 
220 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 "... AND HAVE NOT CHARITY." 
 
 The days and the weeks and the months dragged 
 on, and, first on one paper, then on another, I grad- 
 ually 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 climb- 
 ing were laborious, unpleasant, and painful. 
 
 Most 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 
 sweat shops, writing up the lives they led and the life 
 I led among them. I picked over refuse with the 
 ragpickers; made artificial flowers for the adornment 
 of the hats of the working girls ; I worked as a dress- 
 maker's apprentice; applied myself to the tailoring 
 business; I visited the public schools, especially 
 where the poorer children predominated, and made 
 house-to-house visitations among New York's most 
 squalid and lawless inhabitants. For some time I 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 221 
 
 hired a room in one of the poorer districts, and, fur- 
 nishing it up cheaply, started out to live on three 
 dollars 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 these bodies, told by the keepers. 
 Among the hospitals, too, I went, and 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 that 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 cam- 
 phor 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 with fear. I remember . that this was par- 
 ticularly 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 dormitory where some thirty or forty 
 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 mad woman 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 
 
222 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 grow- 
 ing, growing in grace, growing in charity, putting 
 aside such narrow creeds and prejudices as had been 
 a part of my up-bringing, 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 sin, its virtue, 
 its sorrows, it 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, after all, 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 did not want to go to 
 her, to see her, to speak to her. There was blood 
 upon her hands, and to me there was something ter- 
 rible in the thought of the shedding of blood. I had 
 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 akin to the horror I would have felt at allowing 
 my hand to touch that of a vivisector, and that horror 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 223 
 
 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 
 placed 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 pain- 
 lessly put to sleep ; I who would not fish though the 
 brooks ran with trout ; I 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 V she said, "I am not a bad woman. If any- 
 body had told me a year ago that I should do murder, 
 I would have laughed. Believe me, none of us know 
 what we can or will do until the temptation comes. 
 Why !" she exclaimed, looking into my face scrutiniz- 
 ingly, "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 had not been sent by an 
 editor. I had gone of my own accord, or, rather, of 
 my own impelling. 
 
 There came a time 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 anew the Lesson of Charity. 
 
224 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 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 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 news- 
 paper 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 young men and women at mixed col- 
 leges, 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 may in the next generation, 
 when the conditions of the education and the up- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 225 
 
 bringing of English girls have become similar to 
 those which form a part of the average American 
 girl's surroundings. 
 
 Most especially was the spirit of American chiv- 
 alry exhibited by the men space-writers towards the 
 women space-writers, and many a noble act of self- 
 sacrifice among the men to help the women along was 
 done quietly and unobtrusively away up at the top of 
 a many-storied newspaper building where I was em- 
 ployed during my stay in Few 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 Twenty- 
 third street that'd suit you to a T ! It's exactly made 
 for you, turn-up on the side and all ! Marked down, 
 too, cheap as dirt! Seven dollars and ninety-eight 
 cents!" 
 
 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 house-boat 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- 
 boat women 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 
 
226 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 dollar bill at space-rates, sure, which'd 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 asked, suspiciously, 
 for this same young man was not above playing a 
 mild practical joke occasionally. 
 
 "Oh! Fve done well this week, and besides that's 
 a girl's story. I can't write up housekeeping mat- 
 ters." 
 
 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 head gear as that which my co- 
 worker so enthusiastically described, but he was be- 
 hind me when I got my pay the next Saturday after- 
 noon, and he smiled good-naturedly. 
 
 There was another time when an American man- 
 o'-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-o'-war 
 and got my two columns. These men were not edi- 
 tors 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 expe- 
 riences 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" '227 
 
 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 permit- 
 ted to know. 
 
 I was present one day at the great trial of a noto- 
 rious 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 you're literary, you know. What are you doing ?" 
 
 "I'm writing 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 card- 
 board and pencil from his pocket and when he had 
 taken a few rapid strokes I saw that the vicious-look- 
 ing countenance of the woman in front of us was be- 
 ginning to appear, strangely real and lifelike, upon 
 the cardboard. In ten minutes it was done and, rising 
 to leave the court room, he handed it to me. 
 
 "There ! I'll make you a present ! Four dollars ! 
 Double-column cut, you know!" 
 
 "It's perfect !" I answered. "But what shall I do 
 with it?" 
 
 "Why, hand it to the city editor with your stuff 
 
228 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 and it'll make your story worth four dollars 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 illus- 
 trating my story he would make four dollars 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 Lunnon, 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 
 two dollars a single-column cut. This'll go in as a 
 double one, and that's four dollars added to the value 
 of your story. What's your length ?" 
 
 "A column," I replied. 
 
 "At seven dollars and a half?" 
 
 "Yes !" 
 
 "Well, then, instead of your bill for this thing 
 being seven dollars and a half, you make it eleven 
 fifty ! 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 hand it in just as you would a 
 photograph with a story, and say 'Four dollars for 
 the photograph.' See ? Good-bye ! 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 fasci- 
 nating, vivacious, and well-educated, but the Ameri- 
 can men give 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- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 229 
 
 sleeves in that newspaper office; they did have em- 
 phatic, 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 overtime, making many extra dollars over and 
 above what they actually needed for the necessaries 
 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 differ- 
 ent from many of the eminent London journalists 
 with whom I had then and have since been thrown 
 in contact. But then, perhaps one needs to be an 
 American working woman, thrown upon her own re- 
 sources, engaged in a terrible struggle against fearful 
 odds, eating bread one day only because she had 
 earned it the day before, working side by side with 
 American newspaper men, in order to understand 
 them thoroughly and to know that America is indeed 
 a land of chivalry ! 
 
 It was while I was engaged in New York journal- 
 ism that the Spanish-American war came on. Dur- 
 ing 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 could not take part in the great enthu- 
 siasm that was generally felt 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 or laugh at 
 anything connected with the war, and yet one day 
 
230 THE AUTOBIOGBAPHY 
 
 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 
 wholly and purely American premises, with your 
 neck bound in 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, substi- 
 tuting for it the necktie herewith presented. Other- 
 wise— — " 
 
 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 "Sic semper traitor ess!" 
 
 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. I speedily 
 replaced the red and yellow thing with the one of 
 the male reporters' choosing. It was one of the 
 "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 conspicuous; it looked like an ordinary pretty 
 fringed tie. As an evidence of good faith, I sent the 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 231 
 
 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 news- 
 paper office, as well as in many others throughout 
 the country, when the prolongation of the war be- 
 came 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 incomes, 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 and murder, they may starve, they may steal, 
 they may corrupt and be corrupted and be betrayed 
 and blackmailed, but let you these things alone and 
 write about the war !" would be 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's 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 
 
232 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 ! Great ! Column and 
 a half and pictures of the boy captains and colonels ! 
 Oh ! did you ever ! Mrs. Yere de Vere doing a turn 
 at a society function as a skirt dancer with the legend 
 'To Hell with Spain V pinned on her skirt ! Yes ! 
 Head it 'Petticoat Warfare' and send it up !" 
 
 Thus went the day and the 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 fifteen cents. 
 Oh ! the scramble after inspirations that had in them 
 the hint of blood and war ! The religious editor be- 
 came a war poet and rhymed "battle" with "cattle" 
 and "gore" with "bore." The sports editor devoted 
 his hitherto undiscovered talents to evolving allitera- 
 tive 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 newsboys were selling it, all printed •• 
 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 ap- 
 pertaining to the war, that nobody else had thought 
 of. Originality and quick thinking were at a pre- 
 mium, and God pity those who could not at command 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 233 
 
 turn their thoughts warward and dip their pens into 
 blood ! While battles were being waged 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 they 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 walk with you if you dilly-dally along likp, 
 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 guar- 
 antee, 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 free-lance on 
 space. This week I've made seven dollars. Last 
 week I got three dollars and a half for a joke. My 
 God! and you know I got married just before the 
 'Maine' went down. I'd volunteer, but the little girl 
 won't hear of it. Oh ! this war is hell on us !" 
 
234 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 "All war is hell," I answered, hurrying into the 
 office, leaving him standing at the door. What need 
 for him to enter? 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 this 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 mis- 
 eries brought in its train. 
 
 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 who live the newspaper life — because, per- 
 haps, their experience is wider and broader and takes 
 in more than does that of the average woman — 
 are sometimes called upon to bear a little more 
 heartache and show it less, than does that aver- 
 age woman. I have heard some of these women 
 described as "icicles," "heartless," knowing not 
 what it means to suffer, caring only for their 
 work, their ambition, becoming 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 will 
 call her "Miss Johnstone." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 235 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE LOVE STORY OF MISS JOHNSTONE, 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, besplashed with ink, 
 and with blue pencils continually rolling from them 
 to the floor, were surrounded by young men, turning 
 out page after page of manuscript, and smoking their 
 pipes the while. The office boys were running hither 
 and thither, as the cry of "Copy !" "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 nobby 
 hat with a green velvet bow and a red feather, a spot- 
 
236 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 ted 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, Bobbie !" 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/ 7 of twenty-two or possibly twenty-five. The 
 men in the office spoke of her as being "something on 
 looks/ 7 meaning thereby that she was not unattrac- 
 tive, that she carried herself well, and dressed in a 
 style that they denominated "smooth/ 7 She was not 
 tall, so she wore her hair done high to keep her from 
 appearing too insignificant. 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 fashion- 
 able mode, which appeared to give a ruddiness 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 abun- 
 dance of the heart dared the mouth or the face of 
 this woman speak! 
 
 Her long green skirts, with their silky rustle, swept 
 over the floor among the pieces of waste-paper, 
 "flimsy 77 and broken lead pencils. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 237 
 
 "Bobbie 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 pages of typewrit- 
 ten 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, Bobbie! 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 on the East 
 Side 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? 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 com- 
 plaining. 
 
 "John Black, the young politician, died suddenly 
 last nigh|. He was one of our particular proteges, 
 you might say, so we want to give the poor chap a 
 good send-off, now he's gone. You know of him, of 
 
238 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 course ? Sharp as a whip, but good as gold. Eising 
 young fellow ! If he'd lived, he'd have been senator, 
 governor and even president, or Fd have 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 under- 
 stand, and then " 
 
 "Yes, I understand exactly what you want," inter- 
 rupted 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 }^ou? 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 diplomacies. 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, and a 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. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 239 
 
 "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! How can I get it?" 
 
 Suddenly she pulled out some copy paper and 
 began to write. "This is the only way," she mur- 
 mured; "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 
 >ame proprietor as the Daily Bugle, though, of 
 course, under altogether different editorial manage- 
 ment. 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 mate- 
 rially 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 Humorist's 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 en- 
 tered 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 
 
240 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 pleased smile of the editor who finds himself in pos- 
 session 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 statesman, 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 
 when she had stopped at the cashier's office, the doors 
 of the great building swung behind her, and she 
 passed into the street, which was rapidly filling with 
 men and women going to luncheon from the various 
 offices. She was passed by numerous street cars, but 
 neglected to hail them. As she walked rapidly along, 
 her shoulders back, her head erect, a woman whis- 
 pered to a companion in the crowd : "Look ! There 
 goes that Miss Johnstone, of the Bugle. They say 
 her salary's something immense. Of all the unsym- 
 pathetic, cold-looking faces I ever saw, hers 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 
 wreaths," she said, when she 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, did you say?" 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 241 
 
 She passed over the ten-dollar bill, and taking the 
 two dollars change and the parcels of flowers and 
 wire, turned again into the street, then round a cor- 
 ner, 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 brought from the florist's, were on the tables 
 and the mantel. 
 
 The room was heated with pipes, after the Ameri- 
 can fashion, but as she seated herself upon the velvet 
 carpet, with the roses and the wire frame, she shiv- 
 ered 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 ! Proof sheet ! 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, Bobbie, 
 
242 THE AUTOBIOGBAPHY 
 
 take the headline and this part of the stuff up to- 
 gether, and say the rest will be done in ten minutes." 
 
 Miss Johnstone bent over her desk, writing, her 
 face white, but as immobile and incomprehensible as 
 ever. 
 
 "Miss Johnstone, the night editor wants to know if 
 you brought back from the village a photograph of 
 John Black? He thinks they'd better use a picture, 
 even if you 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 trem- 
 bling 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 
 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 243 
 
 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" on to 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 seventeen 
 who goes to boarding school, to support, besides her- 
 self 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 John- 
 stone was walking home to her flat, the black dog at 
 her side. 
 
 "Here, Comfort, we are home now," she said, as 
 
244 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 
 which is a few miles out from the largest of 
 
 our American cities, was looking through the beau- 
 tiful 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 cem'try 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 in- 
 tellec'. See that there grave over there with the red 
 roses on it? They're ruther faded now, it bein' the 
 last o' the week, but on a Sunday there'll be another 
 one bright an' fresh. Oh, I could tell ye a tale o' 
 them roses !" 
 
 "What tale ?" asked the visitor, "and who is buried 
 there?" 
 
 "Well, ye see, we had a young townsman by the 
 name o' Black — John Black, to speak by the book, — 
 an' he war a great orator an' politician an' a member 
 o' the state legislater. He was brought up amongst 
 us, an' he was that anxious after larnin' that he 
 sawed wood in the summer time to get money to pay 
 fer schoolin' in the winter, an' he got through the 
 State University that way an' supported his old 
 mother into the bargain. He tuk to law an' then to 
 politics, an' long afore he war thirty he'd made a 
 stir, an' there warn't nobody what didn't believe he'd 
 be sent to the Senate, an' after awhile git to be presi- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 245 
 
 dent jest as soon as he got old enough. Well, the 
 campaign of 18 — , you remember what a tough thing 
 
 that was over in , of course ? John Black tuk 
 
 a great interest in that, an' he tuk off his coat an' 
 went to work to defeat the other fellers, an' he made 
 ten an' twelve speeches a day. He rushed first from 
 one meetin' an' then to another, an' always with his 
 big dog along with him, w'ich war a mighty in- 
 telligent beast, an' used to set on the platform with 
 Black an' bark fit to kill when his master got through 
 an' the folks was a cheerin' him. He tuk great stock 
 in that dog, did Black, an' called him by the name o' 
 'Comfort.' Well, poor John Black, he fell down 
 with a stroke of apoplexy an' died just as he was 
 goin' to a meetin' of his party, an' that was a hard 
 day for this village, an' he had such a funeral an' 
 layin'-out as a governor might be proud of. 
 
 "Flowers was sent from all over an' delegations 
 from all the big towns came on, an' John Black was 
 buried as befitted the great man he was and the great 
 man he would ha' been. 
 
 "0' course, there war lots o' reporters from the big 
 papers sent down to write about the funeral, an' as 
 we afterwards larned there war a young woman re- 
 porter from the Daily Bugle, a paper that set great 
 stock by John Black an' him by it, too, that went to 
 the house an' 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 war alone an' 
 she wanted to write down names and make a picture 
 of all the flowers, or something. They let her do as 
 she liked, an' besides the rest of the reporters hadn't 
 
246 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 begun to come yet, an' 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, who let the young woman into the 
 room, said the dog was under the trestle where the 
 coffin was, when she went in, an' she couldn't get him 
 to go out, an' his howlin' was that pitiful when they 
 tried to drag him away, they hadn't the heart to do 
 it. They found a wreath o' red roses pushed way 
 down to the foot inside the coffin, an' they didn't 
 know how it got there, an' some was for takin' it out, 
 as red flowers wasn't suitable for the dead, but only 
 white, but nobody seemed to dast take it out, an' 
 John Black was buried with 'em on his feet the same 
 as they was left. 
 
 "Black's mother went out of her head an' died in 
 a few days, an' 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, an' 
 they was waitin' to get some more money afore they 
 could get married, Black havin' his mother to sup- 
 port, an' so they kep' the matter quiet. Some o' the 
 villagers said they remembered seein' her an' John 
 Black goin' ridin' in a sleigh in the winter-time, an' 
 they always tuk the dog along, an' another man said 
 he see Black an' the gal an' the dog eatin' 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 grave-tender, "but the 
 sorrowful thing to my mind is this: They say the 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 247 
 
 young woman she seed Black at her office the very- 
 afternoon before he died, an* she never knowed a 
 thing about his death till her editor told her to go 
 out and report a funeral, tellin' her John Black had 
 died sudden like, an' the editor he didn't know neither 
 that John Black was anything to the young woman, 
 an' she was a quiet, close-mouthed sort o' woman, so 
 she never so much as cried out when she heard it, an' 
 she went an' made a wreath an' brought it with her, 
 an' she wrote up the laying-out for her paper, jest 
 the same as if her heart wasn't a breakin', an' never 
 told nobody at the newspaper office a word about it. 
 The dog, he knowed her, and followed her out o' the 
 French winder that opened on to the piazzar, an' 
 when Black's cousin went to see if the young woman 
 war through with her writin' and drawing, her an' 
 the dog war gone, as I said. 
 
 "It's a couple o' years now an' more, but every 
 Sunday the young woman comes out to the cem'try 
 with a lot o' roses an' puts 'em on the grave, an' she 
 brings the dog along of her, an' they sits by the 
 grave a while, an' then goes away. The village florist 
 he says the roses is what you call { Jack roses,' an' a 
 kind John Black always bought plenty of every week 
 when he was alive, an' carried 'em to the city with 
 him. I s'pose he tuk 'em to the young woman. 
 
 "I used to think the young woman had a hard face 
 w'ich warn't exactly lovin' when I see her come on a 
 Sundays, but once about ten o'clock at night I come 
 through the graveyard as the short cut home, an' the 
 moon was up an' I see her and the dog settin' by 
 Black's grave. I watched awhile, an' she put her 
 
248 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 head down on the grave an' clawed at it with her 
 fingers, an' then the dog he scratched an' whined, an' 
 the young woman kep' a sayin', f Oh, Jack, Jack ! If 
 it wasn't for the rest of 'em that I have to look after, 
 I'd come to you with Comfort. But I must stay 
 here, Jack, to take care of 'em all !' 
 
 "They say as how she's got a sick mother an' other 
 folks to support, an' when I see that an' heard her 
 a crying so pitiful, I knowed how it war. It's what 
 you'd call a sorrowful tale, this here, ain't it ?" 
 
 And the old grave-tender went his way. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 249 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE STORY OF A "FAILURE." 
 
 "Remember ! Let no obstacle stand in your way. 
 You are to move heaven and earth to get this infor- 
 mation. 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, dis- 
 cretion, and, above all, you are absolutely feminine, 
 and you haven't got 'newspaper woman' and 'inter- 
 viewer' placarded all over you. I want this informa- 
 tion, 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 pene- 
 trate into a secret of State, to get certain most valu- 
 able information from a very eminent personage who 
 resided at the nation's capital. It was at a time 
 
250 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 when the getting of money was a matter of very great 
 importance to me, and I went upon the mission as a 
 sort of "free lance" — 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 "ex- 
 penses." 
 
 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 infor- 
 mation 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 monarchical 
 governments, had become possessed of valuable infor- 
 mation concerning affairs of State. Now, what those 
 hampered women under monarchical rule could ac- 
 complish, should not I, an American woman, in free- 
 and-easy Washington, with its ready access to gov- 
 ernment buildings and government officials, do? 
 
 I arrived in Washington, took residence at one of 
 the best hotels, ordered whatever I wanted for com- 
 fort 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 251 
 
 pencil across the name of the London paper. It 
 showed quite plainly, however, and the word "Lon- 
 don" looked large and important. 
 
 In one of the luxurious waiting-rooms of the Cap- 
 itol 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 could 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 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 
 
252 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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, "be- 
 cause, 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 sec- 
 retary 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 Capitol, 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 won- 
 dered 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 pene- 
 trate 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 igno- 
 rance, and youth, which I knew I had left behind me, 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 253 
 
 and then I liked not his reference to "State secrets." 
 It annoyed me, because for the moment I had for- 
 gotten 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 indifferent 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 Res- 
 taurant? Till then, good-bye." 
 
 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 
 
254 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 interested in certain English affairs which I, because 
 of my late residence in London, could give him in- 
 formation 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 in- 
 formation 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 would discover, and I learned things I had 
 not tried to learn, but valuable things, from the news- 
 paper point of view, nevertheless. 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 depre- 
 cated the cruelty that war brought about, the hard- 
 ness 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, un- 
 tended 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." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 255 
 
 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 diplo- 
 mat with some of the information I have given to 
 you to-night. 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 dis- 
 turbing 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 sup- 
 plied by the telegraph office for newspaper corre- 
 spondents. 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 
 
256 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 man had said to me ought 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" 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 judg- 
 ment." 
 
 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 papers? 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 impor- 
 tant things to a reporter? Had he not rather talked 
 to the woman who was in accord with his sympa- 
 thies, his views, his aims? When a woman was a 
 newspaper reporter, where was the dividing line be- 
 tween herself as woman and as reporter ? Should she 
 govern her womanhood and her honor by her jour- 
 nalistic instinct, or should she govern that jour- 
 nalistic instinct by that honor and that womanhood? 
 Honor? Yes. But what about the duty she owed 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 257 
 
 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 remem- 
 bered 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 'person- 
 ally. We both desired peace, therefore he did not 
 expect me to write anything that might help to bring 
 about war. 
 
 I went to the telegraph forms, tore off one, and 
 wrote : — 
 
 "Absolutely impossible. 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 min- 
 ute!" He turned back to come to me, and I said, 
 "No ! Go on ! Nothing ! Send it off instantly ! Don't 
 
258 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 let anything delay yon ! Get away with it ! Get away 
 with itr 
 
 I went back to my room. Two minntes had gone. 
 I rang the bell. The boy was delayed in answering. 
 
 "That telegram I gave yon ! Quick ! Has it been 
 sent? Can't yon 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 influ- 
 ence certain events which quickly followed. At the 
 instant when I called the boy back I would have re- 
 called 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 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 mite 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 de- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 259 
 
 cided it was not best to send anything of our conver- 
 sation 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 any- 
 one before but Gladstone, so don't be too hard on me. 
 You said if I couldn't get 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 
 
260 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 would have been worth a pretty sum. But make out 
 your expense account, so I can send it in, and Fll 
 add ten dollars for your trouble; that's the best I 
 can do." 
 
 "I shall pay my own expenses, and I don't want 
 the ten dollars. 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 twenty dollars, 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 cheat- 
 ed, and I lost thirty dollars by that "failure." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 261 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 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 
 three dollars 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 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 
 thirty and I make three dollars every day at carpen- 
 try and sometimes as high as three dollars and a half, 
 so you see I have plenty of money to support a wife, 
 
262 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 besides having four hundred dollars in the Dime 
 Savings Bank. Will you let me know when I can 
 come to see you, and give me the address, or maybe 
 you would like to meet me at my sister's, 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 men- 
 tioned 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 privation, 
 on those wages. Before the series began, an expla- 
 nation 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 read- 
 ing the opening chapter in which I stated that I had 
 three dollars a week, and proposed to tell people how 
 I lived upon it. Then, from day to day, there ap- 
 peared 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 photog- 
 rapher from the paper was sent to the room to make 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 263 
 
 pictures of me and it as we progressed. One picture 
 represented me peeling potatoes, another sweeping 
 up my tiny room, another grouped my cooking uten- 
 sils together, most of which I had bought at a "five 
 cent store." The series was an interesting and a 
 very successful one, and for doing it I received lib- 
 eral space rates, so that I counted some of the priva- 
 tions I suffered as of small account. 
 1 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 three dollars a 
 week to live on, and that she was writing to the 
 papers about it, in order, perhaps, to gain the sym- 
 pathy 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 great 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 hunt- 
 ed the man up, posing as the unhappy, ill-paid work- 
 ing 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 
 
264 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 and beautiful and noble in the letter, and I could not 
 use the writer as the 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 ten dollars 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 experi- 
 ence as a housemaid. It was published at the time, 
 but I here repeat it to show that kind and sympa- 
 thetic hearts are to be found among the young me- 
 chanics 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 it 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 a year. If so, 
 give me your address and I will come and see you 
 with all honorable intentions. It is much better for 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 265 
 
 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 Englishmen 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 ad- 
 dressed. 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 3 r ou 
 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 
 
266 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 like not the New York women — only yon. 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, 
 
 According to the card inclosed my admirer was 
 "le Comte," and had at one time served his country 
 as*a diplomat. I did not answer the letter, and two 
 days later there came another love-lorn epistle, along 
 with a huge 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 be- 
 came a burden, for a dapper little dark-eyed, mus- 
 tachioed 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 to. I knew, of course, that the man 
 who followed me so persistently must be the writer of 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 267 
 
 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 
 doffed his hat and said, "Ah, mademoiselle, you are 
 too cruel!" and I rushed up a flight of brown stone 
 steps and rang the bell violently, inquiring for some- 
 one 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 then 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 en- 
 gaged. 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 "le Comte" again! 
 
 I once went to interview a large landowner and 
 wealthy cattleman 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 
 forty, tall, athletic, tanned brown by the sun. There 
 was no pretence 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, 
 
268 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 bluff, brusque, 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 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 sech 
 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, fur I've got no idee about 
 you but what's just right. I've been living out West 
 all my life, grubbing away for 'the stuff,' and I 
 haven't had time to think about fallin' in love, and, 
 of course, you needn't think I'm goin' 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 
 round quick enough to pick up a woman's handker- 
 cher 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 mil- 
 lion, it's so near it there ain't any use calculatin' how 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 269 
 
 much less it is. Now, I took a notion to yon because 
 you set about your work, quiet-like to interview me, 
 and I says to myself 'Here's a hard-workin' 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 pianny 
 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'n three 
 months in a year, anyway. We'd travel around the 
 country and go see furrin 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, gentle- 
 men, boors, men who openly insulted me, men who 
 tried to cover up their insults in the polished phrases 
 
270 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 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, 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 an honor I shall never forget. 
 Don't ever say again you are not a gentleman. You 
 are. Good-bye." 
 
 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 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 goin' 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. 
 
OF A " NEWSPAPER GIRL" 271 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 It is four years ago now since back again to Lon- 
 don 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 denomi- 
 nated my determination to be a "regular, right-down 
 Johnnie 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 heart's turned back to Lunnon, 
 And she must go." 
 
 Nevertheless, to show their good will, and to pre- 
 vent 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. 
 
272 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 alma- 
 nac, a paste-pot and brush, snatched up from one of 
 the reportorial 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 flash- 
 light 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 on to the sofa in 
 my state room, 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 maga- 
 zines. I have sung the praises of my American 
 editors 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. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 273 
 
 I keep always upon my desk what I call "My Edi- 
 torial 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-up-ed-ness. 
 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' con- 
 nection 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- 
 
274 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 renowned editor for whose pages I sometimes con- 
 tribute. 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 abso- 
 lutely 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 in 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 
 before submitting them to any other editor. The 
 first article of mine that he rejected he kept for sev- 
 eral 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 ap- 
 preciative man had it all paragraphed, newly punc- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 275 
 
 tuated, 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 manu- 
 script. 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 manu- 
 script. 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 on 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 ar- 
 ticle. If he had not, he would not have been brought 
 into my editorial bouquet. But that does not make 
 
276 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 par- 
 ticular 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 con- 
 tributor 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 till 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 con- 
 siderately 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. Never- 
 theless he declared he must obey orders. 
 
 "It is now," I said, "twelve o'clock. Will you go 
 away and let me use the typewriter till six o'clock, or 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 277 
 
 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 work for the news- 
 papers. She could not pay the last installment, there- 
 fore 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 car- 
 ried 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 type- 
 writer will be gone then." 
 
 "What typewriter?" he asked surprisedly. 
 
 "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 sank 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 
 
278 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 earnest. I went to his office shortly after my return 
 from America. 
 
 "Where have you been all this time?" he asked, 
 "and what are yon 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 journal- 
 ism/ 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 Briton, 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 sub- 
 ject a most difficult one to manage. I was to have 
 condemned certain American things, certain Ameri- 
 can customs. I had not been in England very long 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 279 
 
 at that time, and I found it more hard than I had 
 imagined it would be to criticise with a sharp-pointed 
 pen any institution, however bad, that was a part of 
 my own country. I feared also to offend certain per- 
 sons 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 some- 
 thing 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 mis- 
 takes, 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 
 
280 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 what you want. I'll re-write 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 criticising 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 publish the article I so desired, even if you write 
 it for me." 
 
 I started back in_ horror. "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 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 se- 
 cure myself for the good, strong, non-hedging article 
 you are going to write for me on this subject some 
 time in the future, perhaps within the next five or 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 281 
 
 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 01 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 an 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 " 
 
 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 
 
282 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 pages on which she might express her feelings, so I 
 dispatched the following answer: — 
 
 "I'm afraid I cannot. Your request is altogether 
 too sndden. I had no idea that you would desire 
 anything of this sort. Even if I attempted it, I 
 greatly fear I could 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 require- 
 ments, than an independent American woman. 
 Faithfully yours " 
 
 Of course, a somewhat more lucid and enlighten- 
 ing epistle followed. It seemed that people of all 
 nations were writing love-letters for publication, and 
 he desired to print some samples of American litera- 
 ture 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 type-written 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." 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 283 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 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, bnt 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 edi- 
 fying 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 nat- 
 ural 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 turn- 
 ing small and apparently unimportant things into 
 interesting "copy," then she should never attempt 
 
284 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 Eng- 
 lish woman 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 arid 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 Fve 
 got domestic duties !" 
 
 The young woman journalist took out a note-book, 
 and when she was seated asked 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 alto- 
 gether 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 kit- 
 tens from after-dinner coffee-spoons, and Judge's 
 carrying them about in mother-cat-like fashion! 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 285 
 
 There was that young woman's story, but she failed 
 to grasp it. 
 
 Some time later another English woman journalist 
 came to write me up. She had no note-book, and 
 when I discovered that fact I made up my mind that 
 she was a good interviewer, for the best interviewers 
 do not carry note-books. 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 returned. "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 ac- 
 count 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 
 
286 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 "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 uninter- 
 esting interviewees into interesting "copy." 
 
 One of the great disappointments of my journal- 
 istic 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 
 Hawarden 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 Hawarden Castle I sat on 
 a chair in the hall. It was quite near another chair 
 which, I fancied, had served as a 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 re- 
 turned 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 car- 
 riage drove up to the Castle, and there alighted from 
 it a woman, whom, from the portraits I had seen of 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 287 
 
 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 re- 
 grets 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 
 ever interviewed that wily 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 to-morrow 
 
288 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 admit- 
 tance to Li Hung Chang, for in ten minutes the 
 attendant had returned, saying: — 
 
 "His Excellency will be delighted to see the Ameri- 
 can 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 memory of the Old Man of China. Not- 
 withstanding all the things the Powers credited, or 
 rather discredited, him with during the later 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 rep- 
 resentative 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 intro- 
 duced 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 289 
 
 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 "one-hundred 
 dollar 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 twenty dollars. 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 hundred-dollar clause, 
 but he was smiling adamant. However, I remember 
 him as most kind, pleasant, and helpful, so far as 
 giving me "copy" was concerned, and none laughed 
 more heartily than did he, when my terrible arraign- 
 ment of him as "The Enemy of American Woman- 
 kind" appeared in the paper. When he died, four 
 years ago, the little "In Memoriam" I wrote came 
 from my heart. A kind, good man, and the typical 
 American gentleman, was Mr. Dingley, of Dingley 
 Tariff fame. 
 
290 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 I have also the most pleasant recollection of an 
 interview with the late Henry George. "What will 
 yon say about me? 7 ' 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 after- 
 wards 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 en- 
 tered 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 291 
 
 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, 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 mis- 
 understanding 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. 
 
292 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 "Well, Sir Thomas," I said, "good-bye. 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 
 adien, and I cried out — 
 
 "Oh, Shamrock! Shamrock!" 
 
 "That's right!" shouted Sir Thomas as I drove 
 away, "I knew you would wish me luck !" 
 
 And what did Sir Thomas Lipton do but after- 
 wards tell a story of an American woman journalist 
 who had interviewed him, and when she was going 
 away said to him — 
 
 "Good-bye. 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 Gib eon. I'm an American, and I 
 want to interview you on the subject of woman's 
 sphere, so I can put it in the paper." 
 
 The kind-faced man rose, extended his hand in 
 welcome, and laughed right heartily, as he said — 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 293 
 
 "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 
 "woman'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 critics 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 determination to do my 
 best than I had ever felt before, and the next day 
 there came a note from him, saying, "Don't get dis- 
 couraged, but do your best, and read the next number 
 of The Queen." 
 
 So I read the next number of The Queen, and I 
 
294 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 found there a jolly, jingling little poem entitled, 
 "The Lady Housemaid/ 7 by Walter Besant. 
 
 "The house and all about it, within 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 thanks." 
 
 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. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 295 
 
 "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 Cana- 
 dian 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 the 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 be- 
 tween 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 Besant. He was the friend 
 of all members of his craft, but most especially of 
 beginners. 
 
296 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 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 event- 
 ful 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 pleas- 
 ant happenings in my career, of kindnesses done to 
 me, of helping hands held out, of struggles with diffi- 
 culties, 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 297 
 
 this principle, and said little or nothing abont people 
 who have done me "mean turns" during my journal- 
 istic 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 did 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 still have, more of them 
 than I could "shake a stick at." But I do not con- 
 sider 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 is 
 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. 
 
298 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 half-way. 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 pass-book 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 pass-book 
 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 would get that pass, for I had once given 
 that gentleman a "write-up," and he had over- 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 299 
 
 whelmed me with thanks, and had told me that when- 
 ever 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 inclose the pass, which you will 
 see is made out for my daughter, as I am not sup- 
 posed 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 pass- 
 book 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 Blanketty 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 
 three dollars. 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 penniless did not trouble me, for my week's 
 salary would be due and waiting for me in the cash- 
 ier's desk when I got back. 
 
 "Ticket, please," said the conductor, when I was 
 seated in the train for the return journey. 
 
 "Pass !" I answered mechanically, handing him the 
 
300 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 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 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 num- 
 ber and the duplicate words, "Pass Miss Blanketty 
 Blank, New York to Philadelphia and return," but 
 no signature, no official stamp. I saw what had hap- 
 pened. My pass had said "New York to Philadel- 
 phia 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 home- 
 ward journey. 
 
 "That may be 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 fare ! Great heavens ! I had only ninety 
 cents, for I had already paid for my Pullman seat and 
 for my dinner. 
 
 "I can't pay the fare!" 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 301 
 
 me to be turned off there at night, and in the thunder- 
 storm which was raging. If I could only get to 
 Philadelphia I knew I would be safe, for a new con- 
 ductor would take 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 Blanketty 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 over night while I tele- 
 graphed home for money/ 
 
 "Can't do that," he replied; "but HI 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 
 Blanketty 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, 
 
302 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 for we two 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; 
 <f but if I accept it, I must take you into my confi- 
 dence 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 Blanketty Blank at all, but only myself. I gave 
 him my proper card and showed him my newspaper 
 pass-book, 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 and ninety- 
 five cents?" 
 
 I answered that this was the fact, though I won- 
 dered how I was to get home from the station when 
 I arrived at the end of my journey. 
 
 Cf Yery 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 303 
 
 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 adventuress 
 trying to get a railway journey for nothing?" 
 
 He looked serious enough, but I judged he was 
 one of our dry American humorists, and I laughed. 
 There was, however, no answering laugh, and I was 
 puzzled. 
 
 "I will lend you the dollar and ninety-five 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 and 
 ninety-five cents to-morrow 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 and 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 
 
304 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 I am to know you are not a highwayman trying to 
 rob me?" 
 
 "Here is my card," he replied, handing me a paste- 
 board. "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 lend money to anyone without security." 
 
 My brain was in a whirl, and I was getting fright- 
 ened. "I accept your offer," I answered. "Please 
 give me a receipt for it and the money to pay my 
 fare. I will send you 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 pass-book, 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 one dollar 
 and ninety-five cents 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 confreres 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 305 
 
 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 be- 
 came 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 : — 
 
 "Madam — The heading of the paper on which I 
 write will show you the responsible position I hold 
 
 as superintendent of the Sunday School, and a 
 
 worker among the poor and the erring 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 pretenses 
 again. I knew who you were from the moment I 
 saw you, even before you had your trouble with the 
 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. 
 
306 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 I hope the lesson will not be without good results 
 and an effect on your future life and character. 
 
 "Yours very truly, " 
 
 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. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 307 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 LOOKING BACKWARD — AND FORWARD. 
 
 As I come to the final 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 his 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 at the threshold. He 
 peered into the future, he saw the struggles, the hard 
 tasks to be performed, the tears, the tragedies, 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 
 
308 THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY 
 
 on and gave me my start — a better start, a kinder 
 start, a more helpful start, it has often seemed to me, 
 than 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 ex- 
 perience 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 that 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 hap- 
 pen." 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 here- 
 after 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 A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 309 
 
 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 a-boiling, while I press towards the prize 
 of the mark of my high calling. 
 
 For it is a high calling. Shame to those journal- 
 ists who write to aspirants who would enter a jour- 
 nalistic 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 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, nor more tremblingly fearful, 
 not more hopeful than was I at the beginning, can 
 
310 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 be- 
 long, perhaps, to the Guild of the Sorrowing. Some- 
 thing 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 enter also 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 surrounded 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 forgery, 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 charac- 
 ter, while making your heart more tender. 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIKL" 311 
 
 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 Autobiog- 
 raphy, and am not to be disturbed, the house parlor- 
 maid 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 there- 
 fore 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 insure 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 finish- 
 ing up a book by such commonplace, unromantic, 
 and altogether inartistic announcements as that with 
 which the house parlormaid just broke in upon my 
 work. 
 
 However, there are far worse things in life than to 
 
312 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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 re- 
 turned with editorial regrets after they were sent out. 
 My "hard-up editor" tells me that the "pot-boilers" 
 I send him are among my best contributions to Eng- 
 lish 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 parlormaid 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 inclose, stamped and self-addressed, for their 
 return, if unsuitable. It has an American fifteen 
 cent stamp on it. It is a magazine article returned 
 from my native land, and here is the editorial note 
 that is inclosed 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 
 Americans 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 'em. 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 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 313 
 
 apparatus with it, and note that 'favor' is not spelt 
 with a u in it, and please correct various other of 
 your English-spelt words, for I will not have our com- 
 positors losing their wits over what they call 'furrin 
 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 re-write those Anglo-maniac para- 
 graphs, 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 countryman. Then I note his postscript: "In- 
 closed, find encourager !" 
 
 The "encourager" is a check for sixty dollars. 
 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 re-writing it I feel sure you will note 
 several things you can greatly improve, without my 
 
3H THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 telling you what those things are. I have a feeling 
 that yon have hurried it, just a little, probably be- 
 cause 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 re- 
 jected, but to be re-written. My American editor 
 wants "good hot stuff" written more from the Ameri- 
 can 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 too "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 till 
 it shines 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, 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 315 
 
 is a black mother-cat with five coal-black kittens. I 
 call them my "lucky literary kittens." They were 
 born in my waste-paper basket in my study. Their 
 mothe 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 intro- 
 ducing 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 atmos- 
 phere I wish them to continue to live in that atmos- 
 phere 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 on to 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 
 
316 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 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, blink- 
 ing their little blue eyes in mischief, opening them 
 wide with wonder and curiosity? 
 
 ****** 
 
 Where's Judge ? 
 
 "Judge ! Judge V 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 end them, Judge ? Happily ? 
 Well, let's try, for happy endings are much desired. 
 People want to feel glad, not sad, in the remem- 
 brance 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 
 deserts. 
 
 "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,' 
 
OF A "NEWSPAPER GIRL" 317 
 
 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 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 wash- 
 ing and ironing and going to camp-meetings, and, 
 as she writes us, 'getting ready to go to heaben 
 by-em-by. ? 
 
 "Just you and I together, Judge, left here to tell 
 our story, as far as it has gone, I the 'heroine/ you 
 the 'hero/ 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, too, Judge, you and I? 
 
 "What's that you're saying, with those speaking 
 eyes of yours? Getting to be an old dog now — 
 thirteen 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." 
 
 THE END