Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/190

 gift he made me on my twenty-first birthday, and he was to consent to my going abroad at the end of the experiment for a post-graduate course in German universities."

She stopped for breath, while her hearers closed about her with enthusiastic comments and questions.

"I have succeeded," she told them, with shining eyes. "The six months ended last night, and I sent my father a telegram. I also sent him a telegraphic copy of the amounts of my weekly earnings, which 'The Searchlight's' auditor gave me when I asked for it. I have not been a brilliant journalistic success, but I have supported myself in comparative comfort. Working on space, I have averaged twenty dollars a week for six months. My brothers did not earn more than fifteen when they began to 'make their living.'

"I told the city editor last night that I was going to resign, and he asked me to reconsider the matter, and said he'd put me on a weekly salary of twenty-five dollars if I would stay. Of course he has n't the faintest idea who I am. I got him to write out the offer,