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Show HEiAS HAD EXPERIENCE p IN THE REPORTING LINE . - . - . .-'.'.- : "I once spent three days " In the -reportorial arena, said Wlnslow Brooks, chief recorder of the Improved Order of Red Men at the Knutsford today, "but unlike the famous young equestrienne who spent 6lx weeks In the circus -'and never lost a spangle,' t . . I lost all of mine. vf- .It waa about eighteen years ago and t '? ... . ' the paper which didn't blase forth with my sclntillant brilliancy wag the staid old New Tork Times. , "My first assignment was to interview inter-view some world-famed notable. The city editor made the slight mistake-of sending me to his hotel a day after he had sailed for Europe. Of course the interview with the world-famed notable was brief. So was my interview with the city editor. " 'We never forgive a reporter who falls down on an assignment, Mr. Brooks, he said patronizingly, 'but aa . you are a new man we will overlook j this lapse.' "I murmured 'How very kl-nd? under un-der my breath and thought the city editor had a mighty cute way of sidestepping side-stepping his own shortcomings. Next day he sent me to get another Interview, Inter-view, this time with 'Jimmy' Husted, a prominent politician whom I had never met. I was to catch him as he passed to bis train In the Grand Central Cen-tral dapot en route for Albany. Of course mj' success In failing to pick him out of a million of people who surge, through the depot every afternoon after-noon was entirely satisfactory. "Too bad: too bad; you seem to be unlucky, Mr. Brooks,' said the chief with a sneer that made me hate him clear through. 'Your faculty for not doing things would be remarkable even in Philadelphia.' "I mentally resolved to kill him if I ever got blm off in a lonely spot. " 'Now, Mr. Brooks, we never overlook over-look such lapses as this, but I will give you one more chance.' He took up the phone and soon I heard him say: "'All right, I hive a young man here who will soon be down to see you about that matter we were talking about; give him a good story.' "Turning to. me he said : 'Mr. B will be at his office an hour; you will get a nice little talk about his proposed' , etc. 'You cannot miss him if you go to his office." " 'Ah, Mr. Brooks. I see you have it,' said the city editor thirty minutes lafer as I came in. I imagined he ' knew what had occurred had even a guilty part in the matter. " 'No.' I rejoined., "'And why not. pray? I told him that just as I reached the office the man I was to see had started to walk across the floor, had grown purple in the face, fallen prostrate and before the physician summoned could reach his side he had dfed. "Assigning another reporter to get all the facts concerning the tragic death which I had already carefully gathered that city editor dismissed me with the remark that it would 'be contrary to good discipline to retain In the employ of a paper so great as the Times a man whose subjects avoided his interviewer's interview-er's pencil even to the extent of dying of apoplexy. "Convinced that the simple life was too strenuous for me I took up accountancy account-ancy instead. But I always try not to sidestep the newspaper boys. Their lot is not an easy one." |