"No," I replied, "I have taken
service with the 'Tribune' for the campaign, and I cannot desert
them." (My recompense was a curt dismissal from the "Tribune" as soon
as the urgent work of the reporting of the opening was done.) Mr.
Whitelaw Reid's nerve had failed him when it came to the question of
the expense of cabling, and the 6000 words had gone by steamer from
Queenstown. I had given the "Tribune" the best beat it had ever had
except the Sedan report, if the editor had had the courage to profit
by it. The "Herald" received 150 words of its report in time for the
press the next morning, and had to make up its page of dispatches
from matter sent by post in advance and by expansion of the 150 words
received. Edmund Yates, in his autobiography, tells a story of the
affair which is in every important detail untrue, and he probably knew
nothing of it except what Young had admitted, and that was certainly
very little, for Young was a very reticent man, and not likely to tell
his defeat even to his staff.
Bennett was too fickle and whimsical an employer to suit me, and I had
no disposition to expose myself to his whims. With Young I was always
on the best terms, and he was disposed to employ me when a momentary
service was required, but I had had one experience with his chief,
which was sufficient. He had offered me the London agency of the
"Herald" at a time when any constant occupation would have been
acceptable, and we had come to terms, when suddenly he was taken with
the notion that Edmund Yates, in addition to the service to the paper,
would be of use to him in social ways, and he dropped me and appointed
Yates, to drop him a little later, paying him a year's salary to break
the contract.
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