steady employment was inspiring to his energies. He forged ahead, and
got a better job and better pay as he grew older. By the time he was
fifteen he shared a small bedroom with another boy. In whatsoever
quarter he lived, friends seemed sporadic. Other boy's congregated
about him. He did not know he had any effect at all, but his effect,
in fact, was rather like that of a fire in winter or a cool breeze in
summer. It was natural to gather where it prevailed.

There came a time when he went to a night class to learn stenography.
Great excitement had been aroused among the boys he knew best by a
rumor that there were "fellows" who could earn a hundred dollars a
week "writing short." Boyhood could not resist the florid splendor of
the idea. Four of them entered the class confidently looking forward
to becoming the recipients of four hundred a month in the course of
six weeks. One by one they dropped off, until only Tembarom remained,
slowly forging ahead. He had never meant anything else but to get on
in the world--to get as far as he could. He kept at his "short," and
by the time he was nineteen it helped him to a place in a newspaper
office. He took dictation from a nervous and harried editor, who,
when he was driven to frenzy by overwork and incompetencies, found
that the long-legged, clean youth with the grin never added fuel to
the flame of his wrath. He was a common young man, who was not marked
by special brilliancy of intelligence, but he had a clear head and a
good temper, and a queer aptitude for being able to see himself in
the other man's shoes--his difficulties and moods. This ended in his
being tried with bits of new work now and then. In an emergency he
was once sent out to report the details of a fire. What he brought
back was usable, and his elation when he found he had actually "made
good" was ingenuous enough to spur Galton, the editor, into trying
him again.