"Better drop in on him."

"He might try to give me another yellow-back," smiled the ex-agent.

"Don't take Uncle Van for a fool. Once is plenty for him to be hit on the nose."

"Has he still got a green whisker?"

"Go and see. He's asked about you two or three times in the last coupla months."

"But I've no errand with him."

"How can you tell? He might start something for you. It isn't often that he keeps a man in mind like he has you. Anyway, he's a wise old bird and may hand you a pointer or two about what's what in New York. Shall I 'phone him you're in town?"

"Yes. I'll get in to see him some time to-morrow."

Having made an appointment, in the vital matter of shirts and shoes, for the morning, they parted. Banneker set to his browsing in the library until hunger drove him forth. After dinner he returned to his room, cumbered with the accumulation of evening papers, for study.

Beyond the thin partition he could hear Miss Westlake moving about and humming happily to herself. The sound struck dismay to his soul. The prospect of work from him was doubtless the insecure foundation of that cheerfulness. "Soon" he had said; the implication was that the matter was pressing. Probably she was counting on it for the morrow. Well, he must furnish something, anything, to feed the maw of her hungry typewriter; to fulfill that wistful hope which had sprung in her eyes when he spoke to her.

Sweeping his table bare of the lore and lure of journalism as typified in the bulky, black-faced editions, he set out clean paper, cleansed his fountain pen, and stared at the ceiling. What should he write about? His mental retina teemed with impressions. But they were confused, unresolved, distorted for all that he knew, since he lacked experience and knowledge of the environment, and therefore perspective. Groping, he recalled a saying of Gardner's as that wearied enthusiast descanted upon the glories of past great names in metropolitan journalism.

"They used to say of Julian Ralph that he was always discovering City Hall Park and getting excited over it; and when he got excited enough, he wrote about it so that the public just ate it up."

Well, he, Banneker, hadn't discovered City Hall Park; not consciously.

But he had gleaned wonder and delight from other and more remote spots, and now one of them began to stand forth upon the blank ceiling at which he stared, seeking guidance. A crowded corner of Essex Street, stewing in the hard sunshine. The teeming, shrill crowd. The stench and gleam of a fish-stall offering bargains. The eager games of the children, snatched between onsets of imminent peril as cart or truck came whirling through and scattering the players. Finally the episode of the trade fracas over the remains of a small and dubious weakfish, terminating when the dissatisfied customer cast the delicacy at the head of the stall-man and missed him, the _corpus delicti_ falling into the gutter where it was at once appropriated and rapt away by an incredulous, delighted, and mangy cat. A crude, commonplace, malodorous little street row, the sort of thing that happens, in varying phases, on a dozen East-Side corners seven days in the week.

Banneker approached and treated the matter from the viewpoint of the cat, predatory, philosophic, ecstatic. One o'clock in the morning saw the final revision, for he had become enthralled with the handling of his subject. It was only a scant five pages; less than a thousand words.

But as he wrote and rewrote, other schemata rose to the surface of his consciousness, and he made brief notes of them on random ends of paper; half a dozen of them, one crowding upon another. Some day, perhaps, when there were enough of them, when he had become known, had achieved the distinction of a signature like Gardner, there might be a real series.... His vague expectancies were dimmed in weariness.

Such was the genesis of the "Local Vagrancies" which later were to set Park Row speculating upon the signature "Eban."

CHAPTER IV

Accessibility was one of Mr. Horace Vanney's fads. He aspired to be a publicist, while sharing fallible humanity's ignorance of just what the vague and imposing term signifies; and, as a publicist, he conceived it in character to be readily available to the public. Almost anybody could get to see Mr. Vanney in his tasteful and dignified lower Broadway offices, upon almost any reasonable or plausible errand. Especially was he hospitable to the newspaper world, the agents of publicity; and, such is the ingratitude of the fallen soul of man, every newspaper office in the city fully comprehended his attitude, made use of him as convenient, and professionally regarded him as a bit of a joke, albeit a useful and amiable joke. Of this he had no inkling. Enough for him that he was frequently, even habitually quoted, upon a wide range of windy topics, often with his picture appended.

With far less difficulty than he had found in winning the notice of Mr.

Gordon, Banneker attained the sanctum of the capitalist.

"Well, well!" was the important man's greeting as he shook hands. "Our young friend from the desert! How do we find New York?"

From Banneker's reply, there grew out a pleasantly purposeless conversation, which afforded the newcomer opportunity to decide that he did not like this Mr. Vanney, sleek, smiling, gentle, and courteous, as well as he had the brusque old tyrant of the wreck. That green-whiskered autocrat had been at least natural, direct, and unselfish in his grim emergency work. This manifestation seemed wary, cautious, on its guard to defend itself against some probable tax upon its good nature. All this unconscious, instinctive reckoning of the other man's characteristics gave to the young fellow an effect of poise, of judicious balance and quiet confidence. It was one of Banneker's elements of strength, which subsequently won for him his unique place, that he was always too much interested in estimating the man to whom he was talking, to consider even what the other might think of him. It was at once a form of egoism, and the total negation of egotism. It made him the least self-conscious of human beings. And old Horace Vanney, pompous, vain, the most self-conscious of his genus, felt, though he could not analyze, the charm of it.

A chance word indicated that Banneker was already "placed." At once, though almost insensibly, the attitude of Mr. Vanney eased; obviously there was no fear of his being "boned" for a job. At the same time he experienced a mild misgiving lest he might be forfeiting the services of one who could be really useful to him. Banneker's energy and decisiveness at the wreck had made a definite impression upon him. But there was the matter of the rejected hundred-dollar tip. Unpliant, evidently, this young fellow. Probably it was just as well that he should be broken in to life and new standards elsewhere than in the Vanney interests. Later, if he developed, watchfulness might show it to be worth while to....

"What is it that you have in mind, my boy?" inquired the benign Mr.

Vanney.

"I start in on The Ledger next month."

"The Ledger! Indeed! I did not know that you had any journalistic experience."

"I haven't."

"Well. Er--hum! Journalism, eh? A--er--brilliant profession!"

"You think well of it?"

"I have many friends among the journalists. Fine fellows! Very fine fellows."

The instinctive tone of patronage was not lost upon Banneker. He felt annoyed at Mr. Vanney. Unreasonably annoyed. "What's the matter with journalism?" he asked bluntly.

"The matter?" Mr. Vanney was blandly surprised. "Haven't I just said--"

"Yes; you have. Would you let your son go into a newspaper office?"

"My son? My son chose the profession of law."

"But if he had wanted to be a journalist?"

"Journalism does not perhaps offer the same opportunities for personal advancement as some other lines," said the financier cautiously.

"Why shouldn't it?"

"It is largely anonymous." Mr. Vanney gave the impression of feeling carefully for his words. "One may go far in journalism and yet be comparatively unknown to the public. Still, he might be of great usefulness," added the sage, brightening, "very great usefulness. A sound, conservative, self-respecting newspaper such as The Ledger, is a public benefactor."

"And the editor of it?"

"That's right, my boy," approved the other. "Aim high! Aim high! The great prizes in journalism are few. They are, in any line of endeavor.

And the apprenticeship is hard."

Herbert Cressey's clumsy but involuntary protest reasserted itself in Banneker's mind. "I wish you would tell me frankly, Mr. Vanney, whether reporting is considered undignified and that sort of thing?"

"Reporters can be a nuisance," replied Mr. Vanney fervently. "But they can also be very useful."

"But on the whole--"

"On the whole it is a necessary apprenticeship. Very suitable for a young man. Not a final career, in my judgment."

"A reporter on The Ledger, then, is nothing but a reporter on The Ledger."

"Isn't that enough, for a start?" smiled the other. "The station-agent at--what was the name of your station? Yes, Manzanita. The station-agent at Manzanita--"

"Was E. Banneker," interposed the owner of that name positively. "A small puddle, but the inhabitant was an individual toad, at least. To keep one's individuality in New York isn't so easy, of course."