SOURCE: Introduction to The Third Circle, A Deal in Wheat, and Other Stories of the New and Old West, Doubleday, Doran, & Co., 1928, pp. vii-ix.

In the following essay, Irwin discusses Norris's literary apprentice work on The Wave.

I succeeded Frank Norris as sub-editor of the San Francisco Wave, a weekly periodical with more lives than a cat. My duties included "putting the paper to bed." This ceremony began on Tuesday night. We were working short-handed, as all unprosperous weeklies do; and that Tuesday usually stretched itself out into Wednesday. Most often, indeed, the foreman did not pound the last quoin into place and draw the last page-proof until four or five o'clock on Wednesday morning. Then home with the milk wagons.

To Yelton, most patient and cheerful of foremen, those Tuesday-night sessions meant steady work. For my part, I had only to write a "caption" now and then...