Book Four The Bruising of the Wings Chapter 7 Letters and Science

May 29.

I've revised my opinion of the newspapers. The Star has done me a good turn, a great service.

I had tried to borrow money of Cadge, for the third time, and she told me she had none--which was true, or she would have let me have it. Then she said:-"Why don't you sell a story to some paper--either something very scientific, or else, 'Who's the Handsomest Man in New York?' or--"

"I think I ought to get something from them, after all the stuff they've printed; but how? To whom do I go?"

"Nobody! Heavens!" cried Cadge. "Want to create an earthquake on Park Row? You're a disturber of traffic. Let me manage. I know the ropes and it helps me at the office to bring in hot features. They might give you fifty for it, too."

And I actually did get $50 for digging out of the text books an essay on Rats as Disseminators of Bubonic Plague; they only used a little of it, but the pictures and the signature and the nonsense about me as a scientist were the real thing, Cadge said.

The money, the money, the money was the real thing to me! It has given me a breathing spell--. that and the hundred for signing a patent medicine testimonial; but I had to sacrifice more than half I got from both sources to pacify greedy creditors. And a month between remittances, and so little when they come! Father can't refuse to mortgage; why doesn't he write to me?