Hungry, dirty, hopeless, his
linen gone, his shoes torn, something inside his beaten frame remained
still intact. There was no future. But he had a past to live up to.
He was asking for a job. What kind of job he didn't know. But he could
write. He had been around the world. He was a cosmopolite and a rhymester
and a press agent and a journalist. He pulled himself together and his
eyes struggled hard to forget the hunger of his stomach.
"In the old days," he said, enunciating in the oracular manner of a day
gone by--"ah, I was talking with Jack London about it before he died. Dear
Jack! A great soul. A marvelous spirit. We were in the south seas
together. Yes, the old days were different. Erudition counted for
something. I was Buffalo Bill's first press agent. Also I worked for dear
P. T. Barnum. I was his publicity man.
"Doesn't the world seem to have changed, to you?" he asked. "I was talking
to George Ade about this very thing. Strange, isn't it? George and I are
old friends. Who? Dickie Davis of the Sun? Certainly--a charming fellow.
Stephen Crane? Genius, my friend, genius was his. That was the day when O.
Henry was in New York. There was quite a crowd of us. We used to
foregather in some comfortable grog shop and discuss.
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