“You’d laugh,” this artist in emotions went on, after a little pause, “at some of my assignments.  There was a run awhile ago on elopements, and my assignment was to have one every Monday morning.  The girl must always be lovely and refined and moving in the best society; elopement with the coachman preferred, varied with a teacher in a Sunday-school.  Invented?  Not always.  It was surprising how many you could find ready made, if you were on the watch.  I got into the habit of locating them in the interior of Pennsylvania as the safest place, though Jersey seemed equally probable to the public.  Did I never get caught?  That made it all the more lively and interesting.  Denials, affidavits, elaborate explanations, two sides to any question; if it was too hot, I could change the name and shift the scene to a still more obscure town.  Or it could be laid to the zeal of a local reporter, who could give the most ingenious reasons for his story.  Once I worked one of those imaginary reporters up into such prominence for his clever astuteness that my boss was taken in, and asked me to send for him and give him a show on the paper.

“Oh, yes, we have to keep up the domestic side.  A paper will not go unless the women like it.  One of the assignments I liked was ’Sayings of Our Little Ones.’  This was for every Tuesday morning.  Not more than half a column.  These always got copied by the country press solid.  It is really surprising how many bright things you can make children of five and six years say if you give your mind to it.  The boss said that I overdid it sometimes and made them too bright instead of ‘just cunning.’

“‘Psychological Study of Children’ had a great run.  This is the age of science.  Same with animals, astronomy—­anything.  If the public wants science, the papers will give it science.

“After all, the best hold for a lasting sensation is an attack upon some charity or public institution; show up the abuses, and get all the sentimentalists on your side.  The paper gets sympathy for its fearlessness in serving the public interests.  It is always easy to find plenty of testimony from ill-used convicts and grumbling pensioners.”

Undoubtedly Olin Brad was a clever fellow, uncommonly well read in the surface literatures of foreign origin, and had a keen interest in what he called the metaphysics of his own time.  He had many good qualities, among them friendliness towards men and women struggling like himself to get up the ladder, and he laid aside all jealousy when he advised Philip to try his hand at some practical work on the Spectrum.  What puzzled Philip was that this fabricator of “stories” for the newspaper should call himself a “realist.”  The “story,” it need hardly be explained, is newspaper slang for any incident, true or invented, that is worked up for dramatic effect.  To state the plain facts as they occurred, or might have occurred, and as they could actually be seen by a competent