"Look at me. I'm twenty-eight and making a good income. When I was
twenty-three, I was making nearly as much. When I'm thirty-eight, where
shall I be?"

"Can't you keep on making it?" asked Banneker.

"Doubtful. A fellow goes stale on the kind of stuff I do. And if I do
keep on? Five to six thousand is fine now. It won't be so much ten years
from now. That's the hell of this game; there's no real chance in it."

"What about the editing jobs?"

"Desk-work? Chain yourself by the leg, with a blue pencil in your hand
to butcher better men's stuff? A managing editor, now, I'll grant you.
He gets his twenty or twenty-five thousand if he doesn't die of
overstrain, first. But there's only a few managing editors."

"There are more editorial writers."

"Hired pens. Dishing up other fellows' policies, whether you believe in
'em or not. No; I'm not of that profession, anyway." He specified the
profession, a highly ancient and dishonorable one. Mr. Burt, in his gray
moods, was neither discriminating nor quite just.

Banneker voiced the question which, at some point in his progress, every
thoughtful follower of journalism must meet and solve as best he can.
"When a man goes on a newspaper I suppose he more or less accepts that
paper's standards, doesn't he?"