Читать книгу Jennie Baxter, Journalist - Robert Barr - Страница 4

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Mr. Hardwick was a determined-looking young man of about thirty-five, with a bullet head and closely-cropped black hair. He looked like a stubborn, strong-willed person, and Miss Baxter’s summing up of him was that he had not the appearance of one who could be coaxed or driven into doing anything he did not wish to do. He held her card between his fingers, and glanced from it to her, then down to the card again.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hardwick,” began Miss Baxter. “I don’t know that you have seen any of my work, but I have written a good deal for some of the evening papers and for several of the magazines.”

“Yes,” said Hardwick, who was standing up preparatory to leaving his office, and who had not asked the young woman to sit down; “your name is familiar to me. You wrote, some months since, an account of a personal visit to the German Emperor; I forget now where it appeared.”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Baxter; “that was written for the Summer Magazine, and was illustrated by photographs.”

“It struck me,” continued Hardwick, without looking at her, “that it was an article written by a person who had never seen the German Emperor, but who had collected and assimilated material from whatever source presented itself.”

The young woman, in nowise abashed, laughed; but still the editor did not look up.

“Yes,” she admitted, “that is precisely how it was written. I never have had the pleasure of meeting William II. myself.”

“What I have always insisted upon in work submitted to me,” growled the editor in a deep voice, “is absolute accuracy. I take it that you have called to see me because you wish to do some work for this paper.”

“You are quite right in that surmise also,” answered Miss Jennie. “Still, if I may say so, there was nothing inaccurate in my article about the German Emperor. My compilation was from thoroughly authentic sources, so I maintain it was as truthfully exact as anything that has ever appeared in the Bugle.”

“Perhaps our definitions of truth might not quite coincide. However, if you will write your address on this card I will wire you if I have any work—that is, any outside work—which I think a woman can do. The woman’s column of the Bugle, as you are probably aware, is already in good hands.”

Miss Jennie seemed annoyed that all her elaborate preparations were thrown away on this man, who never raised his eyes nor glanced at her, except once, during their conversation.

“I do not aspire,” she said, rather shortly, “to the position of editor of a woman’s column. I never read a woman’s column myself, and, unlike Mr. Grant Allen, I never met a woman who did.”

She succeeded in making the editor lift his eyes towards her for the second time.

“Neither do I intend to leave you my address so that you may send a wire to me if you have anything that you think I can do. What I wish is a salaried position on your staff.”

“My good woman,” said the editor brusquely, “that is utterly impossible. I may tell you frankly that I don’t believe in women journalists. The articles we publish by women are sent to this office from their own homes. Anything that a woman can do for a newspaper I have men who will do quite as well, if not better; and there are many things that women can’t do at all which men must do. I am perfectly satisfied with my staff as it stands, Miss Baxter.”

“I think it is generally admitted,” said the young woman, “that your staff is an exceptionally good one, and is most capably led. Still, I should imagine that there are many things happening in London, society functions, for instance, where a woman would describe more accurately what she saw than any man you could send. You have no idea how full of blunders a man’s account of women’s dress is as a general rule, and if you admire accuracy as much as you say, I should think you would not care to have your paper made a laughing-stock among society ladies, who never take the trouble to write you a letter and show you where you are wrong, as men usually do when some mistake regarding their affairs is made.”

“There is probably something in what you say,” replied the editor, with an air of bringing the discussion to a close. “I don’t insist that I am right, but these are my ideas, and while I am editor of this paper I shall stand by them, so it is useless for us to discuss the matter any further, Miss Baxter. I will not have a woman as a member of the permanent staff of the Bugle.”

For the third time he looked up at her, and there was dismissal in his glance.

Miss Baxter said indignantly to herself, “This brute of a man hasn’t the slightest idea that I am one of the best dressed women he has ever met.”

But there was no trace of indignation in her voice when she said to him sweetly, “We will take that as settled. But if upon some other paper, Mr. Hardwick, I should show evidence of being as good a newspaper reporter as any member of your staff, may I come up here, and, without being kept waiting too long, tell you of my triumph?”

“You would not shake my decision,” he said.

“Oh, don’t say that,” she murmured, with a smile. “I am sure you wouldn’t like it if anyone called you a fool.”

“Called me a fool?” said the editor sharply, drawing down his dark brows. “I shouldn’t mind it in the least.”

“What, not if it were true? You know it would be true, if I could do something that all your clever men hadn’t accomplished. An editor may be a very talented man, but, after all, his mission is to see that his paper is an interesting one, and that it contains, as often as possible, something which no other sheet does.”

“Oh, I’ll see to that,” Mr. Hardwick assured her with resolute confidence.

“I am certain you will,” said Miss Baxter very sweetly; “but now you won’t refuse to let me in whenever I send up my card? I promise you that I shall not send it until I have done something which will make the whole staff of the Daily Bugle feel very doleful indeed.”

For the first time Mr. Hardwick gave utterance to a somewhat harsh and mirthless laugh.

“Oh, very well,” he said, “I’ll promise that.”

“Thank you! And good afternoon, Mr. Hardwick. I am so much obliged to you for consenting to see me. I shall call upon you at this hour to-morrow afternoon.”

There was something of triumph in her smiling bow to him, and as she left she heard a long whistle of astonishment in Mr. Hardwick’s room. She hurried down the stairs, threw a bewitching glance at the Irish porter, who came out of his den and whispered to her,—

“It’s all right, is it, mum?”

“More than all right,” she answered. “Thank you very much indeed for your kindness.”

The porter preceded her out to the waiting hansom and held his arm so that her skirt would not touch the wheel.

“Drive quickly to the Cafe Royal,” she said to the cabman.

When the hansom drew up in front of the Cafe Royal, Miss Jennie Baxter did not step put of it, but waited until the stalwart servitor in gold lace, who ornamented the entrance, hurried from the door to the vehicle. “Do you know Mr. Stoneham?” she asked with suppressed excitement, “the editor of the Evening Graphite? He is usually here playing dominoes with somebody about this hour.”

“Oh yes, I know him,” was the reply. “I think he is inside at this moment, but I will make certain.”

In a short time Mr. Stoneham himself appeared, looking perhaps a trifle disconcerted at having his whereabouts so accurately ascertained.

“What a blessing it is,” said Miss Jennie, with a laugh, “that we poor reporters know where to find our editors in a case of emergency.”

“This is no case of emergency, Miss Baxter,” grumbled Stoneham. “If it’s news, you ought to know that it is too late to be of any use for us to-day.”

“Ah, yes,” was the quick reply, “but what excellent time I am in with news for to-morrow!”

“If a man is to live a long life,” growled the disturbed editor, “he must allow to-morrow’s news to look after itself. Sufficient for the day are the worries thereof.”

“As a general rule that is true,” assented the girl, “but I have a most important piece of information for you that wouldn’t wait, and in half an hour from now you will be writing your to-morrow’s leader, showing forth in terse and forcible language the many iniquities of the Board of Public Construction.”

“Oh,” cried the editor, brightening, “if it is anything to the discredit of the Board of Public Construction, I am glad you came.”

“Well, that’s not a bit complimentary to me. You should be glad in any case; but I’ll forgive your bad manners, as I wish you to help me. Please step into this hansom, because I have most startling intelligence to impart—news that must not be overheard; and there is no place so safe for a confidential conference as in a hansom driving through the streets of London. Drive slowly towards the Evening Graphite office,” she said to the cabman, pushing up the trap-door in the roof of the vehicle. Mr. Stoneham took his place beside her, and the cabman turned his horse in the direction indicated.

“There is little use in going to the office of the paper,” said Stoneham; “there won’t be anybody there but the watchman.”

“I know, but we must go in some direction. We can’t talk in front of the Café Royal, you know. Now, Mr. Stoneham, in the first place, I want fifty golden sovereigns. How am I to get them within half an hour?”

“Good gracious! I don’t know; the banks are all closed, but there is a man at Charing Cross who would perhaps change a cheque for me; there is a cheque-book at the office.”

“Then that’s all right and settled. Mr. Stoneham, there’s been some juggling with the accounts in the office of the Board of Public Construction.”

“What! a defalcation?” cried Stoneham eagerly.

“No; merely a shifting round.”

“Ah,” said the editor, in a disappointed tone.

“Oh, you needn’t say ‘Ah.’ It’s very serious; it is indeed. The accounts are calculated to deceive the dear and confiding public, to whose interests all the daily papers, morning and evening, pretend to be devoted. The very fact of such deception being attempted, Mr. Stoneham, ought to call forth the anger of any virtuous editor.”

“Oh, it does, it does; but then it would be a difficult matter to prove. If some money were gone, now——”

“My dear sir, the matter is already proved, and quite ripe for your energetic handling of it; that’s what the fifty pounds are for. This sum will secure for you—to-night, mind, not to-morrow—a statement bristling with figures which the Board of Construction cannot deny. You will be able, in a stirring leading article, to express the horror you undoubtedly feel at the falsification of the figures, and your stern delight in doing so will probably not be mitigated by the fact that no other paper in London will have the news, while the matter will be so important that next day all your beloved contemporaries will be compelled to allude to it in some shape or other.”

“I see,” said the editor, his eyes glistening as the magnitude of the idea began to appeal more strongly to his imagination. “Who makes this statement, and how are we to know that it is absolutely correct?”

“Well, there is a point on which I wish to inform you before going any further. The statement is not to be absolutely correct; two or three errors have been purposely put in, the object being to throw investigators off the track if they try to discover who gave the news to the Press; for the man who will sell me this document is a clerk in the office of the Board of Public Construction. So, you see, you are getting the facts from the inside.”

“Is he so accustomed to falsifying accounts that he cannot get over the habit even when preparing an article for the truthful Press?”

“He wants to save his own situation, and quite rightly too, so he has put a number of errors in the figures of the department over which he has direct control. He has a reputation for such accuracy that he imagines the Board will never think he did it, if the figures pertaining to his department are wrong even in the slightest degree.”

“Quite so. Then we cannot have the pleasure of mentioning his name, and saying that this honest man has been corrupted by his association with the scoundrels who form the Board of Public Construction?”

“Oh, dear, no; his name must not be mentioned in any circumstances, and that is why payment is to be made in sovereigns rather than by bank cheque or notes.”

“Well, the traitor seems to be covering up his tracks rather effectually. How did you come to know him?”

“I don’t know him. I’ve never met him in my life; but it came to my knowledge that one of the morning papers had already made all its plans for getting this information. The clerk was to receive fifty pounds for the document, but the editor and he are at present negotiating, because the editor insists upon absolute accuracy, while, as I said, the man wishes to protect himself, to cover his tracks, as you remarked.”

“Good gracious!” cried Stoneham, “I didn’t think the editor of any morning paper in London was so particular about the accuracy of what he printed. The pages of the morning sheets do not seem to reflect that anxiety.”

“So, you see,” continued Miss Jennie, unheeding his satirical comment, “there is no time to be lost; in fact, I should be on my way now to where this man lives.”

“Here we are at the office, and I shall just run in and write a cheque for fifty pounds, which we can perhaps get cashed somewhere,” cried the editor, calling the hansom to a halt and stepping out.

“Tell the watchman to bring me a London Directory,” said the girl, and presently that useful guardian came out with the huge red volume, which Miss Baxter placed on her knees, and, with a celerity that comes of long practice, turned over the leaves rapidly, running her finger quickly down the H column, in which the name “Hazel” was to be found. At last she came to one designated as being a clerk in the office of the Board of Public Construction, and his residence was 17, Rupert Square, Brixton. She put this address down in her notebook and handed back the volume to the waiting watchman, as the editor came out with the cheque in his hand.

The shrewd and energetic dealer in coins, whose little office stands at the exit from Charing Cross Station, proved quite willing to oblige the editor of the Evening Graphite with fifty sovereigns in exchange for the bit of paper, and the editor, handing to Miss Jennie the envelope containing the gold, saw her drive off for Brixton, while he turned, not to resume his game of dominoes at the café, but to his office, to write the leader which would express in good set terms the horror he felt at the action of the Board of Public Construction.