Under Orders: The story of a young reporter

As Van Cleef touched the kneeling woman on the shoulder and spoke to her, she ceased her moaning and lifted the most pitiful, haggard, and altogether hopeless face Myles Manning thought he had ever seen.

“Go away!” she cried, “and leave me alone to die with him! O Jim, my Jim! why couldn’t you take me with you? Why did you leave me, Jim – Jim – my Jim, the best husband that ever a woman had?” Then she again buried her face, and again began her heart-rending moaning.

It was a long time before Van Cleef, using infinite patience, tact, and soothing words could learn her story. It was an old one of a husband and father broken down in health, thrown out of employment, too proud to seek public charity, and finally plunging into the river to escape the piteous cries of his starving little ones. He had gone out that evening to seek food, saying that he would either bring it or never come back alive. He knew that if he were dead his family would stand a better chance of being cared for than while he was living.

As Myles and Van Cleef left this place of sorrow and suffering, the latter slipped a dollar into the woman’s hand and promised further aid on the morrow. Myles, poor fellow, was so affected by what he saw that he would have given her his sole bit of wealth – a five-dollar bill, – but his companion restrained him.

They had to hurry through with the half-dozen police-stations and two hospitals remaining on their route to make up for lost time.

Trinity bells were chiming a quarter to one o’clock as they reached the Phonograph office. The editorial rooms were ablaze with electric lights. Reporters and messenger-boys were dashing in and out. Men in their shirt-sleeves were writing or editing copy at the long desks. The whole scene was the one of breathless haste and well ordered confusion that always immediately precedes the going to press of a great daily.

Van Cleef made his report to the night city editor, and was ordered to write out his story in full. While he was doing this, Myles sat and watched him, wondering if he could possibly compose a readable description of what they had just seen amid such surroundings. At last Van Cleef finished, handed in his copy, and at half-past two o’clock the two weary fellows turned into bed, Myles sharing his companion’s humble lodgings for the night.

CHAPTER IV.

BEGINNING A NEW LIFE

VAN CLEEF seemed to fall asleep at once, but the novel train of thought whirling through Myles’ brain rendered it impossible for him to follow this example immediately. As he lay, with wide-open eyes, recalling the incidents of the day it seemed incredible that he had seen, and learned, and gone through with what he had, all within the space of a few hours. Could it be that he had left home prepared to give up his college life only that morning? He must send them a long letter, for they would be so anxious to hear every thing that had happened to him. As he said this to himself his thoughts merged into dreams so gradually that he had no knowledge of where the one ended and the other began.

“Wake up, old man, wake up! Here it is nine o’clock Tuesday morning and the week’s work yet to be done.”

It was Van Cleef’s voice, and as Myles sprang to a sitting posture and rubbed his eyes he saw his friend standing beside the bed fully dressed and looking as bright as if sleep were something for which he had no need.

“Yes,” he said, in answer to Myles’ inquiring glance, “I have been up and out for an hour, and I’m sorry to say that I have bad news for you.”

Myles’ expression at once became anxious. Had the city editor sent word that he had changed his mind and did not want him after all?

“You see,” continued Van Cleef, “I was worried about that dress-suit business. So I just slipped out without waking you, and went up to old Johnnie’s to get it; but I was too late. He sold it last evening; and so – there we are!”

“Then I suppose there is no use of my going down to the Phonograph office again,” said Myles, trying to speak with a cheerfulness that he did not feel.

“No use!” exclaimed the other. “Why, of course there is. You are under orders, you know, and must at least report for duty, whether you are wanted or not. The only thing is that you will have to tell Mr. Haxall.”

“Yes, I suppose I must,” answered Myles, soberly, as he began to dress, “and then he will probably tell me that a dress-suit, and not Myles Manning, was what he engaged, and that without it he has no use for its late owner. I suppose I can stand it, though, as well as another, but it will be a disappointment.”

“Of course it will if it comes,” replied Van Cleef, cheerfully; “but I do not believe it will. At any rate there is no use making matters worse by worrying in advance; so let’s brace up and go out for breakfast. I’m as hungry as a boot-black. By the way, I spoke to my landlady this morning and find that she has a vacant hall-bedroom that you can have for three dollars a week if you want it. It’s small, but it’s clean and airy, and this is a most respectable neighborhood. Above all, it is cheap, which is the main thing with me, and also, I take it, with you just at present.”

“Of course it is,” answered Myles, “and I shall be only too glad to be in the same house with you. You are almost the only friend I own now; at any rate, you are the most valuable one.”

As he spoke Myles found himself wondering if this valued friend could be the same class “dig” with whom he had been barely on speaking terms only the morning before.

At a small but tidy restaurant near by, they obtained an excellent breakfast of coffee, rolls, and boiled eggs, for twenty-five cents apiece. Van Cleef apologized for this unusual extravagance, saying that he generally breakfasted on coffee and rolls alone for fifteen cents, but that this was an occasion.

In the restaurant they found copies of the morning papers, and Myles, paying no attention to those that he had been in the habit of reading, eagerly seized the Phonograph. Yes, there it was; a half-column account of the scene they had witnessed the night before in the Tenth Avenue tenement-house. How interesting it was! How well expressed, and what a pathetic picture it presented of that room and its occupants! As Myles finished reading the story he turned to his companion with honest admiration.

“You are a regular out-and-out genius, Van!” he exclaimed. “If I could write a story like that and get it printed I’d be too proud to speak to common folks, and I’d expect to have my salary raised to the top notch at once.”

“Well, I fancy you’d have to take it out in expecting, then,” laughed the other. “That may be a fair sort of a story, and I won’t say that it isn’t, but at the same time I doubt if any one besides yourself gives it a second thought. You wouldn’t if you’d been in the office a week or two and studied the other fellows’ work. Why, the very brightest men in the city are on the Phonograph, as you will soon discover. As for a raise of salary – well, you will have to write many and many a story better than this little screed of mine before that happy event takes place.”

“Then mine will continue to be fifteen per week for the rest of my natural life, or, rather, for as long as they will let me hang on down there, I’m afraid,” sighed Myles.

“Not a bit of it, my dear fellow. A year from now you will be ’way up, probably on space, and looking back with infinite pity upon yourself as a salary man at fifteen dollars a week. There is just one bit of advice, though, that, if you will let me, I should like ever so much to give you as a starter. It is, never refuse an assignment. No matter how hard or distasteful or insignificant the job promises to be, take it without a word and go through with it to the best of your ability without a murmur. Also, never hesitate to take hold of any piece of work offered you for fear you may not be capable of performing it. A reporter must be capable of any thing and must have the fullest confidence in himself. If the city editor says some fine morning, ‘Mr. Manning, the Phonograph wishes to locate the North Pole; will you be kind enough to go and discover it?’ you must answer, ‘Certainly, sir,’ and set off at once. Such an undertaking might prove expensive; but that is the city editor’s lookout, not yours. You are under orders exactly as though you were in the army, and your responsibility ends with obeying them to the letter. Now I must be off to recitation and you must be getting downtown. So good-bye, and good-luck to you. I shall probably see you again at the office this evening.”

All the way downtown the wheels of the elevated train seemed to rattle out, “Under orders, under orders,” and Myles could think of nothing else.

“How many people are ‘under orders!’” he said to himself as he reflected that most of the best work of the world was accomplished by those who obeyed orders. Thus thinking he finally decided that he was proud of being “under orders,” and that if he could make a name in no other way he would at least gain a reputation for strict obedience to them. In reaching this conclusion he took a most important forward step, for in learning to obey orders one also learns how to give them.

Myles reached the office a few minutes before eleven o’clock, and, walking boldly past the boys who guarded its entrance, bowing to, and receiving a pleasant “good-morning” from, Mr. Brown as he did so, he entered the city-room, as that portion of the editorial offices devoted to the use of reporters and news editors is called.

The great room was as clean, neat, and fresh as the office-boys, who had been at work upon it for the past hour, could make it. Every desk and chair was in its place, and not a scrap of paper littered the newly swept floor. In the corner farthest from the entrance, beside a large open window that overlooked the busy scene of Park Row, City Hall Park, and Broadway beyond it, sat the city editor before a handsome flat-topped desk. Other single desks occupied favorable positions beside other windows, but their chairs were vacant at this early hour. Down the middle of the floor ran two parallel rows of double desks, each containing a locked drawer and each supplied with pens, ink, writing-and blotting-paper. These were for the reporters. At one side was a long reading-shelf, beneath which hung files of all the city papers. At the back of the room was a row of lockers like those in a gymnasium, in which were, kept overcoats, hats, umbrellas, and other such articles belonging to the occupants of the office.

A dozen or more bright-looking, well-dressed young men sat or stood about the room chatting, reading the morning papers, or holding short consultations with the city editor. While talking with them he hardly looked up from the paper that he was glancing over with practised eyes, and occasionally clipping a paragraph from with a pair of long, slim shears. He took these papers from a pile lying on his desk that contained a copy of every morning daily published in New York, Brooklyn, or Jersey City. The little slips that he cut from them were laid by themselves at one end of his desk.

It was a pleasant room. Its very air was inspiring, and Myles wished he were sure of being permanently established as one of its occupants. But the thought of the confession he had to make, and of its probable results, weighed heavily on his mind. He was impatient to have it over with and to know the worst at once.

Walking straight up to the city editor’s desk he said:

“Good-morning, Mr. Haxall. I – ”

“Ah, good-morning, Mr. Manning. Glad to see you so promptly on hand. If you will find a seat I’ll have time to talk with you in a few minutes.”

So Myles found a seat on a window-sill and amused himself by watching what was going on around him. He noticed that as each reporter entered the room he walked directly to a slate, that hung on the wall near the door, and read carefully a list of names written on it. He afterward found that this was a list of those for whom mail matter had come addressed to the office. Having received his letters from Mr. Brown, and taken one or more copies of the morning Phonograph from a pile on the janitor’s desk, each reporter occupied himself as he chose until summoned by Mr. Haxall and given an assignment.

Upon accepting this, his name and the nature of the duty he was about to undertake were entered on the page, for that day, of a large blank-book known as the “assignment book.” Myles also noticed that nearly every assignment was given in the form of one of the slips clipped from other papers by the city editor. The reporter generally walked slowly away, reading this slip, and studying the problem thus presented to him, as he went. When, some days afterward, Myles had a look at this famous assignment book he found that each of its pages was dated, and that in it clippings, referring to future events, were entered under their respective dates.

The young reporter sat so near the city editor’s desk that he could catch fragments of the conversation between Mr. Haxall and those whom he was dispatching to all parts of the city, its suburbs, and apparently to remote corners of the country as well He overheard one young man ordered to take a journey that would certainly occupy days and possibly weeks. Myles watched this reporter with curious eyes as, after taking a small hand-bag from his locker, he left the office as carelessly as though his journey was only to be across the Brooklyn Bridge instead of into a wilderness a thousand miles away, as it really was.

Myles envied this reporter, as he also did another who was sent out to the very New Jersey village in which his own home was located. How he did wish he might have that assignment.

At length when the others had been sent away on their respective errands Mr. Haxall called his name, and he stepped forward with a quickly-beating heart to receive his first assignment.

“I only wanted to know your city address, Mr. Manning,” said the city editor, looking up with a pleasant smile. “We find it necessary to know where our reporters live, so that in an emergency they may be reached out of office-hours.”

When Myles had given the required address he still remained standing before the desk. Noticing this Mr. Haxall again looked up and said:

“Is there any thing else?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Myles, hesitating and becoming very red in the face, like a school-boy before his master, “I wanted to say that I haven’t any dress-suit.”

“Haven’t what?” asked the city editor, in amazement.

“A dress-suit.”

“Haven’t a dress-suit?” repeated Mr. Haxall, with a perplexed air, and regarding Myles as though he feared for his mental condition. “Well, what of it?”

“Why, I thought the reason you engaged me was because I owned a dress-suit. Mr. Van Cleef told me so.”

“Oh,” laughed the city editor, tilting back in his chair for the fuller enjoyment of his merriment. “That’s a good one! And now it seems that you don’t own a dress-suit, after all. Well, I am sorry; but never mind, we will try to get along without it, and I will find something for you to do directly that won’t require one.”

So the confession was made and Myles had not lost his place, after all. He resumed his seat with a light heart and for another hour patiently awaited orders. In the meantime several men came in, wrote out their reports, handed them to the city editor, and were sent off again. Mr. Haxall filed most of these reports on a hook without even glancing over them.

At the end of an hour, when the office was completely deserted by all except the city editor and himself, Myles was again called by name.

“Now,” thought he, “I am surely to get an assignment.”

And so he did, though it was by no means such an one as he expected. Handing him a ten-cent piece, the city editor said:

“I find that I can’t take time to go out for lunch to-day, Mr. Manning, and as the office-boys seem to be absent, will you kindly run out to the nearest restaurant and get me a couple of sandwiches?”

It was disappointing and mortifying to be sent on such an errand, and for an instant Myles’ pride rebelled against it. Then the words “under orders,” together with Van Cleef’s advice, flashed into his mind, and with a cheerful “Certainly, sir,” he started off.

When he returned and laid the sandwiches, neatly done up in thin white paper, on Mr. Haxall’s desk, that gentleman said:

“I wish you would just step over to Brooklyn, Mr. Manning, and report to Billings at Police Head-quarters. He has charge of the horse-car strike over there, and telegraphs that he can use another man to advantage.”

“Is he a police captain, sir?” asked Myles, not knowing who Billings might be.

“A police captain? Of course not. What put that idea into your head?” replied Mr. Haxall, a little sharply. “Billings is one of our best reporters, and, as I said, is in charge of this street-car strike.”

“Oh, thank you, sir,” answered Myles, as he started off greatly enlightened by this explanation.

He had no difficulty in finding Brooklyn, because he had been there before; but he was obliged to inquire the way to Police Head-quarters. A few years ago he would have had a long walk before reaching it, for not one of the hundreds of horse-cars that usually throng the tracks on Fulton Street was to be seen. Their absence made that part of the city seem strangely silent and deserted; but fortunately the elevated trains were running, and Myles soon reached his destination.

The street in front of Police Head-quarters was blocked by a good-natured throng of strikers, through which Myles had some difficulty in forcing his way. At the door he was met by a policeman, who gruffly said: “No admittance, young man,” and immediately afterward, when Myles had stated his business, “Certainly, walk right in. You will find Mr. Billings in the inspector’s room.”

Now Myles had formed an impression of Billings, which was that he must be a man much older than himself, and probably larger and stronger, or else why should he be detailed for this especial work? He expected to find him busily engaged in writing, or dispatching other reporters hither and thither, and having the anxious, self-important air of one who occupied a delicate and responsible position.

The real Billings as he there appeared, seated at a table in the inspector’s room intent upon a game of dominos with the inspector himself, was about as different from this impression as it is possible to conceive. He was a slightly-built, delicate-looking young man, apparently not any older than Myles, and with a beardless face. He was exquisitely dressed, deliberate in his movements, and so languid of speech that it seemed an effort for him to talk. Myles remembered to have seen him in the Phonograph office that morning and to have wondered what business that dude had there.

However, this was undoubtedly the Billings to whom Mr. Haxall had ordered him to report, and he accordingly did so.

“Yes,” said Billings, with a gentle drawl, as he looked up from his game and regarded Myles with a pair of the most brilliant and penetrating eyes the latter had ever seen. “Just had a dispatch about you from Joe (Mr. Joseph Haxall). New man. Name of Manning. Break you in. Well, Manning, there’s a strike. No horse-cars all day. Railroad officials about to send car out on B – Avenue line. Leaves stable in fifteen minutes. Probably be some fun. You may go and ride on this car. Have a good time. Take it all in, then come back here.”

Myles could have choked the little fellow who coolly sat there telling him to do thus and so. For the second time that day he was strongly tempted to rebel and to maintain his dignity. The idea of that “little absurdity,” as he mentally styled Billings, issuing commands to him! Then for the second time came the words “under orders.” Had he not been ordered to obey Billings? To be sure he had, and with an “All right” he left the building.

As he made his way toward the car-stables he wondered why Billings had not undertaken that ride himself, as he seemed to have nothing else to do except play dominos. The more he thought of it the more he became convinced that it was because Billings was afraid.

CHAPTER V.

THE KIND OF A FELLOW BILLINGS WAS

“YES, Billings must be afraid,” said Myles, to himself, “and I don’t know but what I would be, too, if I were such a white-faced little chap as he is.” Here Myles threw back his own broad shoulders, held his head a trifle higher than usual, and rejoiced in the stalwart frame that had been such an ornament in the X – “‘Varsity” boat. “I wonder what Mr. Haxall meant,” he continued to himself, “by speaking of him as one of the best reporters on the Phonograph. If he should see him at this moment I rather think he would call him something else. How little a city editor can really know of his men any way!”

While thus thinking Myles was threading the unfamiliar streets of a city as strange to him as though it had been a hundred miles from New York, in search of the car-stables of the B – Avenue line.

It took him so long to find them that, when he finally did so, the car on which he was ordered to ride had been gone some ten minutes. There was nothing to do but overtake it if possible, and the young reporter started down the track at the same pace he was accustomed to set for his crew when they were out for a “sweater,” as they called their training runs.

After running half-a-dozen blocks he began to meet signs of the strike. Here was a broken and overturned market-wagon that had evidently been placed across the track as a barricade, and there a place from which some paving-stones had been torn up. Now he began to be joined by others running in the same direction with himself, and to hear a noise different from the ordinary sounds of the city. As he rounded a corner this noise resolved itself into the shouts, cheers, and yells of an angry mob, and above all rang out sharply an occasional pistol-shot.

The street was filled with hundreds of excited men and boys, whose number was constantly increasing. They were all crowding toward some object of common interest which, when he got close enough to make it out, Myles saw was the very car in which he had been ordered to ride. It was occupied by a dozen or so of policemen, and was slowly urging its way forward with frequent halts, while another squad of policemen cleared a passage for it through the crowd. Every now and then a paving-stone crashed through a window or splintered the woodwork of the car. A throng of reckless men surged alongside of it, trying in every way they could think of to impede its progress. The company had declared this car should go through. The strikers declared it should not. They tried to lift it from the rails, to overturn it, to drag the driver from his platform, to kill the horses, or in some other way to stop that car.

By a steady use of their long, powerful night-clubs, the police who guarded the car had thus far kept the mob at bay, and prevented them from accomplishing their purpose.

Through this angry throng Myles now began to make his way, for he had been sent to ride with those policemen, and he was determined to do so if it were a possible thing. At first he had comparatively little trouble; but as he approached the thick of the crowd he was obliged to push so roughly, and make such decided efforts to get ahead, as to draw attention upon himself. At first he was only shoved, and his way was purposely blocked. Then the looks of those about him began to grow black and threatening. A hoarse voice shouted the ominous word, “spotter.” The cry was taken up and repeated by a hundred throats. Then Myles received a savage blow from behind. The crowd had recognized that he was not of them, and blindly argued that he must therefore be against them. The situation was a critical one, and Myles realized it.

He was now hemmed in so closely on all sides that to retreat would be impossible even had he thought of such a thing, but he did not. His one idea was still to get to the car, and under a shower of blows, that he warded to the best of his ability, or bore unflinchingly, he struggled forward. All of his strength, pluck, and skill, however, could not save him, and within two minutes he was borne to the ground by the sheer force of numbers, while some of his enemies fell on top of him.

At that moment there came a quick measured tramp of feet, a backward movement of the mob, and the crash of tough locust clubs. The police were charging to the rescue of the brave young fellow. He struggled to his feet bruised, breathless, hatless, with clothing torn and covered with dust, but with unbroken bones and undaunted spirit.