story when I see it. Suppose you were traveling in
Germany, and should come across a sign over a shop,
saying: `Hier wird Deutsch gesprochen.' Wouldn't you
think you were dreaming?"

Norberg waved an explanatory hand. "This isn't
America. This is Milwaukee. After you've lived here a
year or so you'll understand what I mean. If we should
run a story of that sign, with a two-column cut,
Milwaukee wouldn't even see the joke."

But it was not necessary that I live in Milwaukee a
year or so in order to understand its peculiarities, for
I had a personal conductor and efficient guide in the new
friend that had come into my life with the first day of
my work on the Post. Surely no woman ever had a stronger
friend than little "Blackie" Griffith, sporting editor of
the Milwaukee Post. We became friends, not step by
step, but in one gigantic leap such as sometimes triumphs
over the gap between acquaintance and liking.

I never shall forget my first glimpse of him. He
strolled into the city room from his little domicile
across the hall. A shabby, disreputable, out-at-elbows
office coat was worn over his ultra-smart street clothes,
and he was puffing at a freakish little pipe in the shape
of a miniature automobile. He eyed me a moment from the
doorway, a fantastic, elfin little figure. I thought
that I had never seen so strange and so ugly a face as
that of this little brown Welshman with his lank, black