“It doesn’t do to invite Gregory anywhere.  You can’t tell what stuff he might pull.”

“A legitimate question—­” egged on Travers at my side, “bump the old boy again, Johnnie.”

But I was not given another chance.  After a short but painful silence the Secretary rose and put a suave and stereotyped query ... and others filled the breach in rapid succession.  And the prestige of the great theologian was salvaged.

Commencement day approached.  There came to deliver the address for the day, George Harvey, then editor of Harper’s Weekly.  Travers was assigned to interview Harvey....

“The fellow’s a pompous big stiff,” complained Jack, “the kind that makes a fetish of morning and evening dress ... wears kid gloves ... and a top hat ... he has both valet and secretary with him.”

“That’s no disgrace.  Don’t you think, Jack, that we Middle-Westerners only make fun of such people and their habits for the reason that we’re either unable to do the same, or do not dare do it because of our jealousy of each other—­our so-called hick democratic spirit?”

“There’s a lot of truth in that.  But fundamentally I would say that the newspaper editors who are here this week, holding a conference and tendering Harvey a banquet, mean their plainness of dress and life ... and do not hanker after the clubman’s way of life as Harvey represents it to their eyes ... you just watch for what Ed. Lowe and Billy Dorgan do to our Eastern chap at the banquet ... they’ll kid him till he’s sick.”

That banquet will live in the memory of Kansas newspapermen.

Harvey, when he entered the hall where the journalists were already seated, first snapped his top hat sidewise to his attending valet.  Then he sat down grandly.

Billy Dorgan and Ed. Lowe “rode Harvey around,” as Jack phrased it.  The distinguished editor, with his solemnity, invited thrusts.  Besides, most of those present were what was denominated as “progressive” ...  Jarvis Alexander Mackworth was there ... and Alden ... and Tobbs, afterward governor.

* * * * *

The next day Travers printed a supposititious interview with Harvey’s English valet on how it felt to be a valet of a great man.  Both the valet and Harvey waxed furious, it was said.

* * * * *

Arthur Brisbane visited us.  He ran down from Kansas City over night.  This man was Jack Travers’ God ... and we of the Press or Scoop Club—­a student newspaper club of which I had recently been made a member—­also looked up to him as a sort of deity.

Travers informed me reverentially that Brisbane was so busy he always carried his stenographer with him, even when he rode to the Hill in an auto ... dictating an editorial as he drove along.

“A great man ... a very great man.”

I won merit with Travers by reciting an incident of my factory life.  Every afternoon the men in my father’s department would bring in Brisbane’s latest editorial to me ... and listen to me as I read it aloud.  To have the common man buy a newspaper for its editorials—­that was a triumph.