第3章

The education the New York streets gave him was a liberal one.He became accustomed to heat and cold and wet weather, but having sound lungs and a tough little body combined with the normal tendencies already mentioned, he suffered no more physical deterioration than a young Indian would suffer.After selling newspapers for two years he got a place as "boy" in a small store.The advance signified by steady employment was inspiring to his energies.He forged ahead, and got a better job and better pay as he grew older.By the time he was fifteen he shared a small bedroom with another boy.In whatsoever quarter he lived, friends seemed sporadic.Other boy's congregated about him.He did not know he had any effect at all, but his effect, in fact, was rather like that of a fire in winter or a cool breeze in summer.It was natural to gather where it prevailed.

There came a time when he went to a night class to learn stenography.

Great excitement had been aroused among the boys he knew best by a rumor that there were "fellows" who could earn a hundred dollars a week "writing short." Boyhood could not resist the florid splendor of the idea.Four of them entered the class confidently looking forward to becoming the recipients of four hundred a month in the course of six weeks.One by one they dropped off, until only Tembarom remained, slowly forging ahead.He had never meant anything else but to get on in the world--to get as far as he could.He kept at his "short," and by the time he was nineteen it helped him to a place in a newspaper office.He took dictation from a nervous and harried editor, who, when he was driven to frenzy by overwork and incompetencies, found that the long-legged, clean youth with the grin never added fuel to the flame of his wrath.He was a common young man, who was not marked by special brilliancy of intelligence, but he had a clear head and a good temper, and a queer aptitude for being able to see himself in the other man's shoes--his difficulties and moods.This ended in his being tried with bits of new work now and then.In an emergency he was once sent out to report the details of a fire.What he brought back was usable, and his elation when he found he had actually "made good" was ingenuous enough to spur Galton, the editor, into trying him again.

To Tembarom this was a magnificent experience.The literary suggestion implied by being "on a newspaper" was more than he had hoped for.If you have sold newspapers, and slept in a barrel or behind a pile of lumber in a wood-yard, to report a fire in a street-car shed seems a flight of literature.He applied himself to the careful study of newspapers--their points of view, their style of phrasing.He believed them to be perfect.To attain ease in expressing himself in their elevated language he felt to be the summit of lofty ambition.He had no doubts of the exaltation of his ideal.His respect and confidence almost made Galton cry at times, because they recalled to him days when he had been nineteen and had regarded New York journalists with reverence.He liked Tembarom more and more.It actually soothed him to have him about, and he fell into giving him one absurd little chance after another.When he brought in "stuff" which bore too evident marks of utter ignorance, he actually touched it up and used it, giving him an enlightening, ironical hint or so.Tembarom always took the hints with gratitude.He had no mistaken ideas of his own powers.Galton loomed up before him a sort of god, and though the editor was a man with a keen, though wearied, brain and a sense of humor, the situation was one naturally productive of harmonious relations.He was of the many who unknowingly came in out of the cold and stood in the glow of Tembarom's warm fire, or took refuge from the heat in his cool breeze.

He did not know of the private, arduous study of journalistic style, and it was not unpleasing to see that the nice young cub was gradually improving.Through pure modest fear or ridicule, Tembarom kept to himself his vaulting ambition.He practised reports of fires, weddings, and accidents in his hall bedroom.

A hall bedroom in a third-rate boarding-house is not a cheerful place, but when Tembarom vaguely felt this, he recalled the nights spent in empty trucks and behind lumber-piles, and thought he was getting spoiled by luxury.He told himself that he was a fellow who always had luck.He did not know, neither did any one else, that his luck would have followed him if he had lived in a coal-hole.It was the concomitant of his normal build and outlook on life.Mrs.Bowse, his hard-worked landlady, began by being calmed down by his mere bearing when he came to apply for his room and board.She had a touch of grippe, and had just emerged from a heated affray with a dirty cook, and was inclined to battle when he presented himself.In a few minutes she was inclined to battle no longer.She let him have the room.Cantankerous restrictions did not ruffle him.

"Of course what you say GOES," he said, giving her his friendly grin.

"Any one that takes boarders has GOT to be careful.You're in for a bad cold, ain't you?""I've got grippe again, that's what I've got," she almost snapped.

"Did you ever try Payson's 'G.Destroyer'? G stands for grippe, you know.Catchy name, ain't it? They say the man that invented it got ten thousand dollars for it.'G.Destroyer.' You feel like you have to find out what it means when you see it up on a boarding.I'm just over grippe myself, and I've got half a bottle in my pocket.You carry it about with you, and swallow one every half-hour.You just try it.It set me right in no time."He took the bottle out of his waistcoat pocket and handed it to her.

She took it and turned it over.

"You're awful good-natured,"--She hesitated,--"but I ain't going to take your medicine.I ought to go and get some for myself.How much does it cost?""It's on the bottle; but it's having to get it for yourself that's the matter.You won't have time, and you'll forget it.""That's true enough," said Mrs.Bowse, looking at him sharply."Iguess you know something about boarding-houses.""I guess I know something about trying to earn three meals a day--or two of them.It's no merry jest, whichever way you do it."