Читать книгу Spring Street - James Hugh Richardson - Страница 5

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He looked up into the whimsically comic face of Charlie Murray, famous in film farces—with funny features and gruff ways, but a heart as soft as a mother's. With no idea to whom he was speaking, John Gallant blurted:

"Please, not now—I can't."

"Just a word with you, son; come along, let's get back to your dressing room," said the other without taking his arm from his shoulder.

As they left the arena they heard the gong sound for the opening round of another bout. It brought back to John the bitterness of his loss in defeat and his chagrin. He had made a mess of things. How could he go back to his mother with his face battered and swollen and without the $200 he had expected to take to her to pay for his father's funeral?

He flung himself on a bench in his dressing room and buried his face in his hands. He sat for a time until he had choked back his hysterical crying and when he looked up he saw the stranger who had stopped him in the aisle gazing at him intently. He saw something in the mild blue eyes of this man that overcame the momentary feeling of shame he felt for having given way to his bitterness and despair.

"What's your trouble, son?" the stranger asked.

He sat silent.

"Out with it, son, something's wrong somewhere and I may be able to help you."

"Who are you?" John asked.

"I'm Charlie Murray—if that means anything to you. And, believe me, son, I know that something beside the licking you got out there is worrying you. That's why I followed you here. Let's have it; come on, tell me what's wrong. It'll make you feel better."

Before he really knew it, John was telling him his story.

"That's the reason I made a fool of myself," he said. "I couldn't help crying like that. I guess I was too far gone. I don't know what to do now. It will break my mother's heart when she sees me in this condition. It would have helped if I could have handed her enough to pay the funeral expenses.

"I don't know why I've told you all this. Making more of a fool of myself, I suppose."

Murray listened to it all, silently. Then he rose and went to the door.

"Oh, Murphy," he called, putting his head out the dressing room door.

The youth with the twisted nose whom John remembered as his second answered Murray's call.

"Fix this boy up, Murphy," said Murray. "Patch up his face the best you can and keep him here until I get back. Understand, keep him here until I get back. Don't let him out of your sight."

"I heardja, boss, I heardja," said Murphy.

And Murray hurried out, leaving John wondering, in Murphy's hands.

* * * * *

It was just before the main event that Murray came down the aisle and climbed into the ring, brushing the referee announcer, seconds and others into the corners. He stood in the center of the ring and held up his hand for silence. The crowd quieted.

"What is it, Charlie?" someone shouted.

"It's this, boys," he said. "I've just had a talk with the Gallant kid, who was knocked kicking a few minutes ago by Battling Rodriguez. You saw the fight he put up and you know it's only a good, game kid that can fight like that.

"I don't know how many of you saw it, but the Gallant kid—that's his real name, John Gallant—was crying when he went out of this ring and he wasn't bawling because he got licked, either.

"I'll tell you what he told me back there in the dressing rooms. Do you know why he was here fighting, tonight? He was here to get enough money to pay for his father's funeral. He had to have the money given to the winner and he lost. He didn't tell his poor little mother he was coming out here. He wanted to surprise her.

"Now, boys, the only surprise he'll take home to her is a battered face unless you want to surprise him with—"

A silver dollar spun through the smoke-filled air and hit the canvas at Murray's feet. That started it. For a full two minutes the air was thick with flying coins. They clinked and rolled around in the ring. Bills weighted with coins caromed along the canvas floor.

Murray and a few others collected the money and counted it, standing in the ring.

"Is it enough?" asked a voice from the crowd.

Murray looked up with a broad smile. His hat, held in his hands, was brimming with the money picked from the floor of the ring.

"Five hundred and fifty-six dollars and sixty cents," he said.

"Where's the kid?" someone demanded.

"That's the idea, show us the kid," shouted the crowd.

* * * * *

When John was brought back into the ring, embarrassed, awkward, trying to smile through his swollen lips, the "house" was quiet. Murphy pushed him to the center, where Murray was waiting for him.

"That's for you, Mr. Gallant, with the compliments of the boys out here who know a good, game kid when they see one and whose hearts are always in the right place," he said, handing him the hat full of money.

He felt the tears coming back in his eyes.

"I don't—I can't——" he said hoarsely.

"Oh, yes, you can," interrupted Murray. "You take it and forget about it."

The crowd cheered. A thick-shouldered individual pushed himself through the ropes into the ring.

"For the keed, Meester Murray," said the newcomer, handing him a $20 bill. "Hee's a gude keed, maybe I help."

It was Battling Rodriguez. He crossed over and taking John's hand grinned out at the crowd.

John felt the tears coming again and was thankful when Murray led him to a corner and helped him down out of the ring.

"One of the newspaper men wants to speak to you," he said. "Here's your man, Morton."

He shook hands with the newspaper man.

"You're not a fighter by profession, though you're game enough to be a champion. How are you fixed for a job?" asked Morton.

"I need one," John replied.

"Tell you what you do, then," said the other, who seemed to take John's answer for granted. "You come down and see me tomorrow and I'll see if I can't find something for you to do. How would you like to get into newspaper work?"

How would he like it? John felt that nothing in the world would he like better.

"Tomorrow, then, ask for me," said Morton, turning to watch the two boxers who entered the ring to fight the main event.

As he went up the aisle men reached out and shook hands with him. Some of them dropped money into the hat brimming with bills and coins that he still held in his hand. He filled his pockets with the money and handed the hat to Murphy to be returned to that prince of men, Charlie Murray.

* * * * *

With the money given him by the crowd, the $20 bill Battling Rodriguez added to it and the $50 he received as the loser's end of the purse in his bout, he had more than $625 as he boarded the car from Vernon to the city to return home. His happiness was dimmed, however, by the thought of facing his mother, who, he knew, would be waiting up for him.

When he transferred at Seventh and Spring streets and boarded another car a woman gasped at the sight of his face. Murphy had used every trick known to a professional second to doctor his battered features, but nothing could hide the swollen lips, the cut over his eye and the eye that was puffed so that there was only a thin slit between the lids to see through.

He decided that it would be easier upon his mother for him to tell her everything. Then it would be over and done with. She would not worry then as she would if he told her some impossible story.

She was in her chair in the living room when he returned home. He threw himself at her feet.

"Mother," he said, "please."

"My boy," she said, waiting for him to lift his face from her lap.

He felt he could not raise his head. They sat silent for a while and then she put her hands on each side of his head and lifted his face to hers. He shut his eyes. He could not stand to see her look as she saw his condition.

He waited, his battered face upturned. It seemed hours that she held his face, without a word. Then she leaned forward and her lips touched his forehead gently in a kiss.

"My boy," she said and her arms went around his neck.

They rose at last and she bathed his wounds, smiling through her tears. When he kissed her goodnight she whispered again, "My boy." He knew he was forgiven and he went to his room thinking of the adventure waiting for him in the morning when he would meet Morton and begin work in a newspaper office.

* * * * *

He was bewildered when he entered the editorial department of the afternoon newspaper of which Morton was sporting editor. Never had he seen such a busy place.

Telegraph instruments and typewriters clicked and clattered incessantly. Although it was broad day outside, electric lights burned brightly over desks. The floor was covered with discarded newspapers and scraps and balls of copy paper.

Men and boys hurried from desk to desk, back and forth, in and out of swinging doors. As he watched them, wondering if they really knew what they were doing themselves, they reminded him of ants around an ant hill. He was thrilled by the life and energy of the place, the speed and earnestness of the workers.

At a flat-topped desk over which was a sign with the words "City Editor" sat a fat, bald-headed man wearing a green eye-shade, who spoke over his shoulder to a younger man at another desk close to his. This younger man wore a telephone headgear, receivers over both ears, and punched at the typewriter before him with the first finger of each hand. John saw he was writing what someone was dictating to him over the telephone.

"T, like in Thomas; I like in Isaac; P like in Peter," the man with the headgear shouted into the mouthpiece of an extension close to his face.

John tried to fathom what the man with the headgear was talking about and it finally dawned on him that he was making certain of the spelling of the word "tip," dictated to him, by repeating the letters as they appeared in other words.

He caught sight of Morton at a desk on the far side of the big, high-ceilinged room and crossed over, weaving his way through a labyrinth of desks, chairs and tables. Morton, who had been glancing over a newspaper, looked up as he approached.

"Well, if it isn't the Gallant kid!" he exclaimed. "I'd almost forgotten all about you. Sit down."

John sat down while Morton questioned him. No, he had never done any writing except a little for his school paper. Yes, he'd like to start in as a reporter. It didn't make much difference how much he was paid as long as he could get started.

"All right, then," said Morton, rising. "We'll go over and see P. Q., but don't you ever blame him for getting you started in this game."

The sporting editor led him to the fat, bald-headed man with the green eye-shade.

"P. Q.," he said.

The city editor looked up.

"Here's the young fellow I was telling you about this morning; name's John Gallant."

"P. Q."—John afterward learned that those were his initials, uniquely symbolical of his perpetual order to reporters to be "pretty quick" in their work—looked at the marks on John's face left by the fists of Battling Rodriguez.

"Fighting face, all right," he said. "Well, suppose you go to work."

He reached back to his desk and brought up a handful of clippings from a newspaper from which he selected a few short ones.

"Grab a typewriter and rewrite these," he said, handing the clippings to John. "Keep 'em short. Twenty-five words each. Remember that always. Keep everything short. Keep your eyes and ears open and read the papers. Read everything in them. Now get over there and start writing and I'll call you when I need you."

John knew that as long as he lived he would never forget that first day in newspaper work. He rewrote the clippings carefully, counting the words to make certain that they did not exceed the twenty-five ordered by P. Q. He had done some typewriting at school and practiced more by filling page after page of copy paper with the old favorite beginner's sentence, "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party," and its twin, "The quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

He watched in open-mouthed wonder at the speed with which the other reporters—he counted himself one of them—wrote their stories. He learned that everything written for a newspaper is a "story," everything from a three-line item about a meeting of the Colorado State society to a banner-line murder.

He was fascinated by a reporter whom P. Q. called Brennan and who worked at a typewriter close to where he was sitting. Brennan, thin-faced, about thirty, John judged, turned out page after page of typewritten copy, stopping at the completion of each page to throw back his head and shout: "Boy! Oh, BOY!" at the ceiling. In response to this call a copy boy appeared and carried the page to P. Q. As he worked he smoked cigarettes, lighting each fresh one from the stub of the one that preceded it. These cigarettes he carefully stood on end on the desk as his fingers pounded at the typewriter.

When he took a deep inhalation of tobacco smoke during his writing Brennan paused and gazed, dreamy-eyed, out into space. Then suddenly, he stood his cigarette on end again and attacked the typewriter keys furiously. John noticed that Brennan, like the man with the headgear, used only one finger of each hand in typewriting.

Along in the afternoon, when he had stopped hammering at his machine, he turned to find John staring at him. Stretching out his arms, yawning, he asked:

"New man?"

John said he was.

"First time?"

John said it was.

From Brennan, John learned many things. He learned that P. Q. had an unswerving prejudice against reporters who used the touch system in typewriting.

"He says they use a typewriter like it was a piano and get into the habit of not looking at what they are writing," Brennan explained. "He says the touch system has ruined more reporters than shorthand."

"Why shorthand?" asked John. "I thought——"

"I know, you thought every good reporter should write shorthand," said Brennan. "Well, that's one thing P. Q. and I agree on. I've seen a lot of them in my time and I've never seen a reporter who wrote shorthand who was a real star man. Writing shorthand kills your imagination. All you write is what other people tell you and exactly as they said it. Somehow, a shorthand man doesn't get pep into his stuff, take it from me."

John thought he understood.

"You work hard and long in this game and it makes an old man of you before your time," Brennan continued. "But it's a great game. Once it gets into your blood you're a newspaper man for life.

"Generally speaking, there are two kinds of reporters. One is the kind with a nose for news and without any particular ability to write. The other is the kind that can write without being able to get the news for themselves. When you get the two in one, a man who can write and get the news himself, you've got a star, but they are few and far between.

"P. Q. says once in a while that I can write and I think I'm a demon news-getter and there you are—that's me.

"Let me tell you how it is about writing a story. Suppose Mary Jones, aged 18, of 1559 Fifty-Ump street, shop girl, kills herself and leaves a note saying she did it because the man she loved threw her over. It's no story to write it that 'Mary Jones, 18 years old, a shop girl, who resided at 1559 Fifty-Ump street, ended her life today because of an unhappy affair with an unnamed man.'

"Plain 'Mary Jones' isn't the story. Probably only fifty people in the city know her. What do the others care? Not much. This is your story—'An 18-year-old girl who dreamed of a Prince Charming to come and carry her away from a monotonous life behind a store counter and a dreary third-floor-back room, took her life in Los Angeles today.'

"Get the idea? 'Mary Jones' isn't the story. What she did, how she lived, what made her do it, that's what the story is. That brings a throb of sympathy, a tear perhaps, for her from someone who never heard of her and it helps to make better folks and a better world."

Brennan's way of talking entranced John. He realized there was more in reporting than he had ever imagined. P. Q. seemed to have forgotten him completely during the next few days. In the mornings he was given a few short clippings to rewrite and that was all.

"Don't worry, he's got an eye on you," Brennan told him. "And let me tell you something. Perhaps you've read stories about the cub reporter scooping the town, landing the big exclusive story and all that. Well, that's bunk. No cub reporter ever did it, not unless he was working against a bunch of other cubs. Why, he's lucky if he knows what to do with a big story when he's got one, let alone put it over on the star men of the other sheets."

A really first-class newspaper man, Brennan told him, was born and not made.

"You can make them up to a certain point, but no further," he said. "And take it from me, the ones that are born newspaper men aren't born every minute for Mr. Barnum or anyone else to get."

It was at noon of the third day he had been at work when John was given his first assignment. He saw P. Q. rise from his chair and look over the reporters at their desks and he heard him call his name.

"Here, Gallant, I want you to do something," the city editor said. "Lawn fete—charity stuff—out at palatial home of the Barton Randolphs. Society affair. Must have representative there. No story. Society editor takes care of that. Just get list of names and how much money they take in. Here's admission card. Beat it."

John was disappointed. He had hoped for something with a touch of adventure. Not until he left the office did he fully realize where he was going. Society lawn fete! He looked down at his well worn suit and remembered the patch on his trousers beneath his coat tail.