the other six in the bosom of the human race. Not only
that, I'm going to write about it. Writing's my job,
really. At least, it's the thing I like best."

"Nature?"

"Human nature. I went out to Colorado just a lonesome
little kid with a bum lung. The lung's all right, but I
never did quite get over the other. Two years ago, in the
mountains, I met Carl Lasker, who owns the New York Star.
It's said to be the greatest morning paper in the country.
Lasker's a genius. And he fries the best bacon I ever
tasted. I took him on a four-weeks' horseback trip through
the mountains. We got pretty well acquainted. At the end
of it he offered me a job. You see, I'd never seen a chorus
girl, or the Woolworth building, or a cabaret, or a broiled
lobster, or a subway. But I was interested and curious
about all of them. And Lasker said, `A man who can humanize
a rock, or a tree, or a chipmunk ought to be able to make
even those things seem human. You've got what they call the
fresh viewpoint. New York's full of people with a scum over
their eyes, but a lot of them came to New York from
Winnebago, or towns just like it, and you'd be surprised at
the number of them who still get their home town paper. One
day, when I came into Lee Kohl's office, with stars, and
leading men, and all that waiting outside to see him, he was
sitting with his feet on the desk reading the Sheffield,
Illinois, Gazette.' You see, the thing he thinks I can do
is to give them a picture of New York as they used to see
it, before they got color blind. A column or so a day,