Читать книгу A Book About Myself онлайн

118 страница из 148

“Is Mr. Mitchell about?” I inquired.

“No,” replied the other briskly; “he never gets in much before four o’clock. Anything you want to know? I’m his assistant.”

He did not dare say “assistant city editor”; his superior would not have tolerated one.

“He sent me out to this place, but it’s only a vacant lot.”

“Did you look all around the neighborhood? Sometimes you can get news of these things in the neighborhood, you know, when you can’t get it right at the spot. I often do that.”

“Yes,” I answered. “I inquired all about there.”

“It would be just like Tobe to send you out there, though,” he went on feverishly and timidly, “just to break you in. He does things like that. You’re the new man from Chicago, aren’t you—Dreiser?”

“Yes, but how did you know?”

“He said you were coming,” he replied, jerking his left thumb over his shoulder. “My name’s Hartung, Hugh Keller Hartung.”

He was so respectful, almost fearsome in his references to his superior that I could not help smiling. Now that I had my bearings, I did not feel so keenly about Mr. Mitchell. He seemed dull.