CHAPTER XXXIII.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

The reporter makes gossip a business. He knows all the news of the city that is published, and he knows a good deal more that is never published. He asks you when he meets you, “Well, is there anything new?” and expects that you will disgorge all that you have heard that day, even if it concerns a matter that for your own interest had better not obtain publicity. He will think you a very mean man if you conceal from him the fact that your daughter has run away with the milkman, that you yourself have had a quarrel with your wife because she preferred the society of a man who carried a blue bag over his shoulder to that of her husband, or that you are short in your accounts and intend emigrating that night to a land of more salubrious climate than this. If you have had the misfortune to undergo any of these unpleasantnesses, or even others of lesser moment, the inquiring man of letters will feel utterly disgusted and aggrieved if you refuse to let him pluck the heart out of your mystery. If, however, you get the start of him and put the inquiry, “anything fresh?” you have got him. He will probably betray his chagrin by replying that the freshest thing he has seen that day is yourself, or employ some other threadbare witticism to cover his defeat. He will do anything but disclose to you his budget of facts. He probably has in his notebook things that will make the hair on the scalp of the great-headed public stand on end when his paper is issued and strewn broadcast among the people, but no word will he breathe to you of them. He knows that you would tell the first person you met, and thus

SET THE NEWS FLYING

until a rival journalist “got on to it.” When the news is actually made public through his paper, he has no further interest in it. It is a lemon that has been sucked, and has now no piquancy for him. This is his attitude towards the information he gleans that is published, but still more reticent is he in regard to what he does not publish. The reporter, bit by bit, loses, like the doctor and the lawyer, his faith in human nature. Like them he often gets glimpses in the back corners of people’s characters, which back corners are as guiltily hidden from the eye of man as the favorite sultana of an eastern monarch. As he goes along the street he sees many men who know him not, but whom he knows well. He knows of certain facts concerning them which the rest of the world knows nothing of. He sees them in places of honor and trust, in the mart, and in the church, and in the ball-room, and yet he knows that were those little damaging occurrences “learned by rote and cast into his teeth,” the trader, the deacon and the partner in the dance would shun them like lepers and pass by on the other side. Many a reputation is saved by his leniency. One of his commonest experiences, next to requests to put in certain names in his paper, is requests to keep others out. Gentlemen who have had the misfortune to appear before the Magistrate in the morning are the most frequent attenders in reportorial rooms for this purpose. They have first made application to the reporter in the Police court, and he has referred them to the city editor. That gentleman generally asks, Why should the report be mutilated for the purpose of keeping your name out of the paper? He points out that the public pay their money for a paper with the understanding that all the city happenings that came under

THE REPORTER’S EYE

should be found recorded therein. The fact that you were discovered at two in the morning seated on a wood-pile, rocking a loose plank and singing hush-a-by-baby, evidently suffering from the hallucination that you were performing a sweet domestic duty, would be a very interesting item to serve up for the delectation of the people who live next door to you, and indeed to all those who know you. Now why should I rob them of that pleasure. Then the supplicant is heard as to why. If it is a first offence the city editor, following the Magistrate’s rule, in all probability grants the prayer. This is the case of a man who has substantial standing in the community. But all kinds turn up on the same errand. A York street tough came in one day, and in a manner which was a curious blending of promises and threats, asked to have his name suppressed.

“You want your name kept out? Why it’s been in our paper a dozen times for worse things than fighting. Go away boy, go away.”

“Say, nobsy, I’ve got a new girl and she’ll give me the shake if she sees that.”

“Can’t do it sir.”

“Well, say, just make it read that I knocked the tar out o’ Mulligan will you, and that’ll make it all right.”

Sometimes a clerk in an office or store creeks up the stairs and implores you for God’s sake not to insert his name. He’ll lose his situation, and when you agree to do so the gratitude that looks out of his watery eyes is unmistakable. The poor fellow, in spending a five dollar bill on his drunk, probably swallowed a whole week’s salary, and has been thereby sufficiently punished. To this specimen the whole business possesses a ghastly seriousness, but there is another class who treat it as a huge joke. It has been noticed that men of this sort are usually Englishmen, and their desire to have their name omitted from the Police court roster has its rise in their fear of the ridicule of their fellows rather than any loss of character or position in consequence of its being made public.

THESE FELLOWS WILL LAUGH

and say they have been on “a bit of a spree and got lugged by a bobby,” and ask in an off-hand way, “keep it hout will you, mistah,” and sometimes “mistah” does.

Not quite a hundred years ago a man came into the presence of the city editor—tall, distinguished-looking man, clothed in the best West of England tweed. City editor very small person compared with man. Man takes chair offered him, and says, “I’ve got into a little scrape which you can help me out of if you would.” City editor ought to feel flattered, that man would condescend to use him to help him out of a scrape. But he is very ungrateful and answers coldly: “How can I help you?”

“My wife,” says the man “is one of the most unreasonable creatures in the world when she gets into a passion. I came home the night before last after having done a hard day’s work in the store, and when I asked for a little supper she started to abuse me. She said a lot of mean things. I asked her to shut up for God’s sake, and she wouldn’t, and then, getting a little hot I tried to stop her tongue by putting the pillow on her head. That wouldn’t have hurt a lamb, but she struggled so that she struck her head against the corner of the bed post and cut it. Then she ran out on the street, and she has disgraced me. A policeman got her, and as there was some blood on my wife’s face he arrested me. I was bailed out immediately afterwards, but heavens, I had to appear in the court this morning. I don’t care so much myself as for my wife and family. I am a subscriber and advertiser in your paper, and I hope you’ll not say anything about it.”

“Yes,” said the city editor, “I have heard something about the case. You got home at half-past one and wanted your wife to get out of bed and cook you a steak. Some women are very unreasonable! After your working from ten in the morning until five at night, with only an hour for dinner! It was a shame. If she had only thought of the long time it took you to get home she would have had some idea how tired you were!”

“Well, sir, I didn’t come here to be made a target for your humor. Where is the editor in chief?”

“You will find him down stairs, sir.”

But the editor was out.

He is always “out” when cowardly cattle who beat their wives are around.