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 To return and take up the ordinary routine of reporting after these crystal days of beauty and romance was anything but satisfactory. Gone was the White City with its towers and pinnacles¹ and the wide blue wash of lake at its feet. After the Fair and the greater city, St. Louis seemed prosaic² indeed. Still, I argued, I was getting along here better than I had in Chicago. When I went down to the office I found Wandell poring as usual over current papers. He was always scribbling³ and snipping⁴, like a little old leathery Punch, in his mussy office. The mere⁵ sight of him made me wish that I were through with the newspaper business forever: it brought back all the regularity⁶ of the old days. When should I get out of it? I now began to ask myself for the first time. What was my real calling in life? Should I ever again have my evenings to myself? When should I be able to idle and dawdle⁷ as I had seen other people doing? I did not then realize how few the leisure class really comprises; I was always taking the evidence of one or two passing before my gaze as indicating a vast company. I was one of the unfortunates who were shut out; I was one whose life was to be a wretched tragedy for want of means to enjoy it now when I had youth and health!

I recall, however, taking on a strange murder mystery over in Illinois which kept me stationed in a small countyseat for days, and all the time there was nothing save a sense of hard work about it all. Again, there was a train robbery that took me into the heart of a rural region where were nothing but farmers and small towns. Again there was a change of train service which permitted the distribution of St. Louis newspapers earlier than the Chicago papers in territory which was somehow disputed between them and because of which I was called upon to make a trip between midnight and dawn, riding for hours in the mailcar, and then describing fully⁸ this supposedly wonderful special newspaper service which was to make all the inhabitants of this region wiser, kinder, richer because they could get the St. Louis papers before they could those of Chicago! I really did not think much of it, although I was congratulated upon having penned a fine picture.One thing really did interest me: A famous mindreader having come to town and wishing to advertise his skill, he requested the Republic to appoint a man or a committee to ride with him in a carriage through the crowded downtown streets while he,