Von Gerhard was here in August. I told him
that all my firm resolutions to forsake newspaperdom
forever were slipping away, one by one.

"I have heard of the fascination of the newspaper
office," he said, in his understanding way. "I believe
you have a heimweh for it, not?"

"Heimweh! That's the word," I had agreed. "After
you have been a newspaper writer for seven years--and
loved it--you will be a newspaper writer, at heart and by
instinct at least, until you die. There's no getting
away from it. It's in the blood. Newspaper men have
been known to inherit fortunes, to enter politics, to
write books and become famous, to degenerate into press
agents and become infamous, to blossom into personages,
to sink into nonentities, but their news-nose remained a
part of them, and the inky, smoky, stuffy smell of a
newspaper office was ever sweet in their nostrils."

But, "Not yet," Von Gerhard had said, "It unless you
want to have again this miserable business of the sick
nerfs. Wait yet a few months."

And so I have waited, saying nothing to Norah and
Max. But I want to be in the midst of things. I miss
the sensation of having my fingers at the pulse of the
big old world. I'm lonely for the noise and the rush and
the hard work; for a glimpse of the busy local room just