“I’d rather run a trolley car.  There’s more life in it.”

“Do you see life, in your work, Mr. Banneker?”

“See it?  I feel it.  Sometimes I think it’s going to flatten me out like a steam-roller.”

“Then why not write it?”

“It isn’t news:  not what I see.”

“Perhaps not.  Perhaps it’s something else.  But if it’s there and we can get a gleam of it into the paper, we’ll crowd news out to make a place for it.  You haven’t been reading The Ledger I’m afraid.”

“Like a Bible.”

“Not to good purpose, then.  What do you think of Tommy Burt’s stuff?”

“It’s funny; some of it.  But I couldn’t do it to save my job.”

“Nobody can do it but Burt, himself.  Possibly you could learn something from it, though.”

“Burt doesn’t like it, himself.  He told me it was all formula; that you could always get a laugh out of people about something they’d been taught to consider funny, like a red nose or a smashed hat.  He’s got a list of Sign Posts on the Road to Humor.”

“The cynicism of twenty-eight,” smiled the tolerant Mr. Gordon.  “Don’t let yourself be inoculated.”

“Mr. Gordon,” said Banneker doggedly; “I’m not doing the kind of work I expected to do here.”

“You can hardly expect the star jobs until you’ve made yourself a star man.”

Banneker flushed.  “I’m not complaining of the way I’ve been treated.  I’ve had a square enough deal.  The trouble is with me.  I want to know whether I ought to stick or quit.”

“If you quit, what would you do?”

“I haven’t a notion,” replied the other with an indifference which testified to a superb, instinctive self-confidence.  “Something.”

“Do it here.  I think you’ll come along all right.”

“But what’s wrong with me?” persisted Banneker.

“Too much restraint.  A rare fault.  You haven’t let yourself out.”  For a space he drummed and mused.  Suddenly a knuckle cracked loudly.  Mr. Gordon flinched and glared at it, startled as if it had offended him by interrupting a train of thought.  “Here!” said he brusquely.  “There’s a Sewer-Cleaners’ Association picnic to-morrow.  They’re going to put in half their day inspecting the Stimson Tunnel under the North River.  Pretty idea; isn’t it?  Suppose I ask Mr. Greenough to send you out on the story.  And I’d like a look at it when you turn it in.”

Banneker worked hard on his report of the picnic; hard and self-consciously.  Tommy Burt would, he knew, have made a “scream” of it, for tired business men to chuckle over on their way downtown.  Pursuant to what he believed Mr. Gordon wanted, Banneker strove conscientiously to be funny with these human moles, who, having twelve hours of freedom for sunshine and air, elected to spend half of it in a hole bigger, deeper, and more oppressive than any to which their noisome job called them.  The result was five painfully mangled sheets which presently went to the floor, torn in strips.  After that Banneker reported the picnic as he saw, felt, and smelt it.  It was a somber bit of writing, not without its subtleties and shrewd perceptions; quite unsuitable to the columns of The Ledger, in which it failed to appear.  But Mr. Gordon read it twice.  He advised Banneker not to be discouraged.