He apprehended that The Ledger office was in some sort
an institution.
None of his new acquaintances volunteered information as to the
mechanism of his new job. Apparently he was expected to figure that out
for himself. By nature reticent, and trained in an environment which
still retained enough of frontier etiquette to make a scrupulous
incuriosity the touchstone of good manners and perhaps the essence of
self-preservation, Banneker asked no questions. He sat and waited.
One by one the other reporters were summoned by name to the city desk,
and dispatched with a few brief words upon the various items of the
news. Presently Banneker found himself alone, in the long files of
desks. For an hour he sat there and for a second hour. It seemed a
curious way in which to be earning fifteen dollars a week. He wondered
whether he was expected to sit tight at his desk. Or had he the freedom
of the office? Characteristically choosing the more active assumption,
he found his way to the current newspaper files. They were like old
friends.
"Mr. Banneker." An office boy was at his elbow. "Mr. Greenough wants
you."
Conscious of a quickened pulse, and annoyed at himself because of it,
the tyro advanced to receive his maiden assignment.
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