A couple of centuries ago," stated Banneker
nike air maxpositively. "Forty a week wouldn't keep me alive now."
"You could write a lot of specials. Or do outside work."
"Perhaps. But what would a desk lead to?
"City editor. Night city editor. Night editor. Managing editor at fifteen thou."
"After ten years. If one has the patience. I haven't. Besides, what chance would _I_ have?'
"None, with the present lot in the Inside Room. You're a heretic. You're unsound. You've got dangerous ideas--accent on the dangerous. I doubt if they'd even trust you with a blue pencil. You might inject something radical into a thirty-head."
"Tommy," said Banneker, "I'm still new at this game. What becomes of star reporters?"
"Drink," replied Tommy brusquely.
"Rats!" retorted
Louis Vuitton Bag Banneker. "That's guff. There aren't three heavy drinkers in this office."
"A lot of the best men go that way," persisted Burt. "It's the late hours and the irregular life, I suppose. Some drift out into other lines. This office has trained a lot of playwrights and authors and ad-men."
"But some must stick."
"They play out early. The game is too hard. They get to be hacks. _Or_ permanent desk-men. D'you know Philander Akely?"
"Who is he?"
"Ask me who he _was_ and I'll tell you. He was the brilliant youngster, the coruscating firework, the--the Banneker of ten years ago. Come into the den and meet him."
In one of the inner rooms Banneker was introduced to a fragile, desiccated-looking man languidly engaged in scissoring newspaper after newspaper which he took from a pile and cast upon the floor after operation. The
burberry saleclippings he filed in envelopes. A checkerboard lay on the table beside him.
"Do you play draughts, Mr. Banneker?" he asked in a rumbling bass.
"Very little and very poorly."
The other sighed. "It is pure logic, in the form of contest. Far more so than chess, which is merely sustained effort of concentration. Are you interested in emblemology?"
"I'm afraid I know almost nothing of it," confessed Banneker.
Akely sighed again, gave Banneker a glance which proclaimed an utter lack of interest, and plunged his shears into the editorial vitals of the Springfield Republican. Tommy Burt led the surprised Banneker away.
"Dried up, played out, and given a measly thirty-five a week as hopper-feeder for the editorial room," he announced. "And he was the star man of his time."
"That's pretty rotten treatment
www.usalouisvuittonoutlet1854.com for him, then," said Banneker indignantly.
"Not a bit of it. He isn't worth what he gets. Most offices would have chucked him out on the street."
"What was his trouble?"
"Nothing in particular. Just wore his machine out. Everything going out, nothing coming in. He spun out enough high-class copy to keep the ordinary reporter going for a life-time; but he spun it out too fast. Nothing left. The tragedy of it is that he's quite happy."
"Then it isn't a tragedy at all."
"Depends on whether you take the Christian or the Buddhist point of view. He's found his Nirvana in checker problems and collecting literature about insignia. Write? I don't suppose he'd want to if he
Louis Vuitton Neverfull could. 'There but for the grace of God goes'--you or I. _I_ think the _facilis descensus_ to the gutter is almost preferable."
"So you've shown him to me as a dreadful warning, have you, Tommy?" mused Banneker aloud.
"Get out of it, Ban; get out of it."
"Why don't you get out of it yourself?"
"Inertia. Or cowardice. And then, I haven't come to the turning-point yet. When I do reach it, perhaps it'll be too late."
"What do you reckon the turning-point?"
"As long as you feel the excitement of the game," explained this veteran of thirty, "you're all right. That will keep you going; the sense of adventure, of change, of being in the thick of
Louis Vuitton Beltthings. But there's an underlying monotony, so they tell me: the monotony of seeing things by glimpses, of never really completing a job, of being inside important things, but never of them. That gets into your veins like a clogging poison. Then you're through. Quit it, Ban, before it's too late."
"No. I'm not going to quit the game. It's my game. I'm going to beat it."
"Maybe. You've got the brains. But I think you're too stiff in the backbone. Go-to-hell-if-you-don't-like-the-way-I-do-it may be all right for a hundred-dollar-a-week job; but it doesn't get you a managing editorship at fifteen to twenty thousand. Even if it did, you'd give up the go-to-hell attitude as soon as you landed, for fear it would cost you your job and be too dear a luxury."
"All right,
Louis Vuitton Monogram CanvasMr. Walpole," laughed Banneker. "When I find what my price is, I'll let you know. Meantime I'll think over your well-meant advice."
If the normal way of advancement were closed to him in The Ledger office because of his unsound and rebellious attitude on social and labor questions, there might be better opportunities in other offices, Banneker reflected.
Before taking any step he decided to talk over the general situation with that experienced campaigner, Russell Edmonds. Him and his diminutive pipe he found at Katie's, after most of the diners had left. The veteran nodded when Banneker told him of his having reached what appeared to be a _cul-de-sac_.