"Do you know him, Pop?" inquired McHale.

"Never saw him. Don't have to. I've read his stuff."

"And you see it there?"

"Plain as Brooklyn Bridge. He'll eat mud like the rest of us."

"Come off, Pop! Where do you come in to eat mud? You've got the
creamiest job on Park Row. You never have to do anything that a railroad
president need shy at."

This was nearly true. Edmonds, who in his thirty years of service had
filled almost every conceivable position from police headquarters
reporter to managing editor, had now reverted to the phase for which the
ink-spot had marked him, and was again a reporter; a sort of
super-reporter, spending much of his time out around the country on
important projects either of news, or of that special information
necessary to a great daily, which does not always appear as news, but
which may define, determine, or alter news and editorial policies.

Of him it was said on Park Row, and not without reason, that he was
bigger than his paper, which screened him behind a traditional principle
of anonymity, for The Courier was of the second rank in metropolitan
journalism and wavered between an indigenous Bourbonism and a desire to
be thought progressive. The veteran's own creed was frankly socialistic;
but in the Fabian phase. His was a patient philosophy, content with slow
progress; but upon one point he was a passionate enthusiast. He believed
in the widest possible scope of education, and in the fundamental duty