NEW YORK, May 4,1906.
[DEAR NORA:]
I left Providence Tuesday night and came on to New York
yesterday. Savage and Williams and all were very nice about
the help they said I had given them, and I had as much fun as
though it had been a success I had made myself, and I didn't
have to make a speech, either.
Yesterday I spent in the newspaper offices gathering
material from their envelopes on Winston Churchill, M. P. who
is to be one of my real Soldiers of Fortune. He will make a
splendid one, in four wars, twice made a question; before he
was 21 years old, in Parliament, and a leader in both
parties before he was 36. In the newspaper offices they had a
lot of fun with me. When I came into the city room of The
Eve. Sun, McCloy was at his desk in his shirt spiking copy.
He just raised his eyes and went on with his blue pencil. I
said "There's nothing in that story, sir, the man will get
well, and the woman is his wife."
"Make two sticks of it," said McCloy, "and then go back
to the Jefferson police court."
When I sat down at my old desk, and began to write the
copy boy came and stood beside me and when I had finished the
first page, snatched it. I had to explain I was only taking
notes.
At The Journal, Sam Chamberlain who used to pay me
$500
a story, touched me on the shoulder as I was scribbling down
notes, and said "Hearst says to take you back at $17 a week."
I said "I'm worth $18 and I can't come for less."
So he brought up the business manager and had a long wrangle
with him as to whether I should get $18. The business
manager, a Jew gentleman, didn't know me from Adam, and
seriously tried to save the paper a dollar a week. When the
reporters and typewriter girls began to laugh, he got very
mad. It was very funny how soothing was the noise of the
presses, and the bells and typewriters and men yelling "Copy!"
and "Damn the boy!" I could write better than if I had been in
the silence of the farm. It was like being able to sleep as
soon as the screw starts.
DICK.
