My own princely emolument as a prop of
piety is thirty-five dollars a week."
"Would you come here at that figure?"
"I should prefer forty. For a period of six weeks, on trial."
"As Mr. Edmonds seems to think it worth the gamble, I'll take you on.
From to-day, if you wish. Go out and look around."
"Wait a minute," interposed Edmonds. "What's his title? How is his job
to be defined?"
"Call him my representative in the news department. I'll pay his salary
myself. If he makes good, I'll more than get it back."
Mr. Severance's first concern appeared to be to make himself popular. In
the anomalous position which he occupied as representative between two
mutually jealous departments, this was no easy matter. But his quiet,
contained courtesy, his tentative, almost timid, way of offering
suggestions or throwing out hints which subsequently proved to have
definite and often surprising value, his retiring willingness to waive
any credit in favor of whosoever might choose to claim it, soon gave him
an assured if inconspicuous position. His advice was widely sought. As
an immediate corollary a new impress made itself felt in the daily
columns. With his quick sensitiveness Banneker apprehended the change.
It seemed to him that the paper was becoming feminized in a curious
manner.
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