Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/16

 and experiences it frequently included, and the strange characters among whom it often led her. Neither the experiences nor the characters were always wholly agreeable, but she never complained. Even the managing editor acknowledged this. He had been heard to remark, in an expansive moment, that Ruth Herrick was a very superior woman, with no nerves or nonsense about her. The gracious opinion was promptly repeated to the girl, and the memory of it had cheered her during several assignments in which nerves and a woman were equally out of place.

But to-night she almost rebelled. Strangely enough, she was not ready for the work before her. Her thoughts flew from the bent heads and hurrying pens around her to a dining-room up-town, even now alight and flower-trimmed for the little supper which had been planned to celebrate one of her greatest "beats." "The Searchlight" of that morning had contained her story; the chief and her fellow-reporters had complimented her; there were pleasant rumors that a more substantial evidence of appreciation would be forthcoming.