Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/179



Evening, August 1st. T last I am home again after a tedious, tiresome day of work; home in my new quarters. Quite a nice bachelor apartment! Of course it is in the sixth story and in reality, a garret, but such a habitation is extremely healthy. Not very spacious, but sufficient for my furniture. Bed, table, trunk, a chair, and a box for the books I steal from the editorial room, don’t need much space. I never receive visitors, but if one should come, he is welcome to the chair and I could have my choice between the trunk and the table. I think I’ll be quite happy here. I shall made [sic] a few dashes now and take off my shoes Ha! How free I am! In taking off my boots I feel that I am shaking off the reporter; as long as I keep them on my feet I am obsessed by a secret fear that I may have to run somewhere to interview somebody. Oh what a dreadful running about it has been today! But even at that ,the life of a reporter is most beautiful and luring. Today, for instance, I already know the news of tomorrow. In such a manner I am always ahead of time of my fellow citizens. Quite funny, the kind of thing that is fit for a news item! People may do whatever they please but a news item will be the final result! The most bitterly opposed political parties will unite in the reporter’s pocket and he will think that party right which gives him the most material to write the most lines—“at a penny the line”. I have to think of Heine: Heine was a born reporter. It’s too bad that he didn’t try his luck at reporting. He would have earned heaps of money. And then again think of the fun, if we get hold of somebody and drag him into the limelight of publicity where he finds a place as suitable as perhaps Pilate could find in the Credo. Then he gets mad and curses newspaper writers! We don’t bother about it. The respect of our readers? Do we wish the asses upon whose backs we are riding to bray?

Jan! Jan! I am afraid you are plagiarizing Bulwer. But what of it? Plagiarized stories are the main nourishment of a reporter. As such I am undoubtedly an authority: people read me more and laud me less. I am yawning! It is time to get to bed. And “nihil humani a me alienum puto”.

Morning, 2nd August. So then, I passed my first night in my new quarters; it was anything but quiet. Some-