I hope I shall not bore you."
"Glad to help you, I'm sure. I had to go through this two years ago when I
came here from Princeton."
Kittredge "turned in" his copy and returned to his seat beside Howard.
"What were you writing about, if I may ask?" inquired Howard.
"About some snakes that came this morning in a 'tramp' from South America.
One of them, a boa constrictor, got loose and coiled around a windlass. The
cook was passing and it caught him. He fainted with fright and the beast
squeezed him to death. It's a fine story--lots of amusing and dramatic
details. I wrote it for a column and I think they won't cut it. I hope not,
anyhow. I need the money."
"You are paid by the column?"
"Yes. I'm on space--what they call a space writer. If a man is of any
account here they gradually raise him to twenty-five dollars a week and
then put him on space. That means that he will make anywhere from forty to
a hundred a week, or perhaps more at times. The average for the best is
about eighty."
"Eighty dollars a week," thought Howard. "Fifty-two times eighty is
forty-one hundred and sixty. Four thousand a year, counting out two weeks
for vacation." To Howard it seemed wealth at the limit of imagination. If
he could make so much as that!--he who had grave doubts whether, no matter
how hard he worked, he would ever wrench a living from the world.
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