as uplifted as the others, for the chance had come at last, with
what we all regarded as a prodigious salary, but I was wanted in
the beginning of the week, and it suddenly struck me that the
leaders were the one thing I had always skipped. Leaders! How
were they written? what were they about? My mother was already
sitting triumphant among my socks, and I durst not let her see me
quaking. I retired to ponder, and presently she came to me with
the daily paper. Which were the leaders? she wanted to know, so
evidently I could get no help from her. Had she any more
newspapers? I asked, and after rummaging, she produced a few with
which her boxes had been lined. Others, very dusty, came from
beneath carpets, and lastly a sooty bundle was dragged down the
chimney. Surrounded by these I sat down, and studied how to become
a journalist.




CHAPTER IV - AN EDITOR


A devout lady, to whom some friend had presented one of my books,
used to say when asked how she was getting on with it, 'Sal, it's
dreary, weary, uphill work, but I've wrastled through with tougher
jobs in my time, and, please God, I'll wrastle through with this
one.' It was in this spirit, I fear, though she never told me so,
that my mother wrestled for the next year or more with my leaders,
and indeed I was always genuinely sorry for the people I saw
reading them. In my spare hours I was trying journalism of another
kind and sending it to London, but nearly eighteen months elapsed