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RESTful Web API Design with Node.js 10
Third Edition

Learn to create robust RESTful web services with Node.js,

MongoDB, and Express.js
Valentin Bojinov

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
RESTful Web API Design
with Node.js 10 Third
Edition
Copyright © 2018 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information
presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express
or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable
for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and
products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing
cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Commissioning Editor: Amarabha Banerjee

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First published: October 2016

Second edition: October 2017
Third edition: April 2018

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Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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35 Livery Street
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B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78862-332-2

www.packtpub.com
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Contributors
About the author
Valentin Bojinov studied computer science at the
Technological School of Electronic Systems in Sofia, Bulgaria, a
college within the Technical University of Sofia. He holds a
B.Sc. in telecommunication and information engineering.
Valentin is an expert in Java, SOAP, RESTful web services, and
B2B integration. He specializes B2B Integration and Service
Oriented Architecture and currently works as an Senior
Integration Consultant in an UK consultancy company Estafet
Limited.

I would like thank my my dad Emil, for encouraging me to study programming almost 20 years
ago, and to mummy Anka, for always being there for me! Special thanks to all my mentors from
school for showing me how to learn efficiently and to never give up. I also have to mention my
extraordinary schoolmates I had the chance to study with!
About the reviewers
Amit Kothari is a full-stack developer based in Melbourne,
Australia. He has more than 12 years experience in designing
and developing software systems and has worked on a wide
range of projects across various domains including
telecommunication, retails, banking and finance.
Amit is also the co-author of the book - Chatbots for
eCommerce: Learn how to build a virtual shopping assistant.

Erina has completed her master's and proactively working as

an assistant professor in the
computer science department of Thakur college, Mumbai. Her
enthusiasm in web
technologies inspires her to contribute for freelance JavaScript
projects, especially on
Node.js. Her research topics were SDN and IoT, which
according to her create amazing
solutions for various web technologies when they are used
together. Nowadays, she focuses on blockchain and enjoys
fiddling with its concepts in JavaScript.
What this book covers
Chapter 1 , REST – What You Did Not Know, gives you a brief
introduction to the history of REST and how it couples with the
HTTP protocol.

Chapter 2 , Getting Started with Node.js, teaches you how to

install Node.js and how to work with its package manager to
install modules. You'll also develop your first HTTP server
application and write automated unit tests for HTTP handler
using mock request objects.

Chapter 3 , Building a Typical Web API, takes you through

structuring your application using human-readable URL and
URI parameters. You will get to develop a read-only RESTful
service application, using the filesystem for storage.

Chapter 4 , Using NoSQL Databases, showcases how to use the

MongoDB NoSQL database, and explains the foundation of
document data stores.

Chapter 5 , Restful API Design Guidelines, explains that there are

a number of prerequisites that a RESTful API should meet.

Chapter 6 , Implementing a Full-Fledged RESTful Service,

focuses on implementing a production-ready RESTful service
that uses NoSQL to store its data. You will get to learn how to
handle binary data and how to version an API while it evolves.

Chapter 7 , Preparing a RESTful API for Production, explains

that feature complete and full-fledged implementations aren't
necessarily production-ready.

Chapter 8 , Consuming a RESTful API, showcases a sample

frontend client that serves as a consumption reference
implementation.

Chapter 9 , Securing the Application, covers restricting access to

your data by choosing an appropriate authentication approach.
You'll then be able to protect data leakage with transport layer
security.
Packt is searching for
authors like you
If you're interested in becoming an author for Packt, please
visit authors.packtpub.com and apply today. We have worked with
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help them share their insight with the global tech community.
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topic that we are recruiting an author for, or submit your own
idea.
Table of Contents
Title Page

Copyright and Credits

RESTful Web API Design with Node.js 10 Third Edition

Packt Upsell

Why subscribe?

PacktPub.com

Contributors

About the author

About the reviewers

Packt is searching for authors like you

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

 Download the example code files

Conventions used

Get in touch

Reviews

1. REST – What You Did Not Know

REST fundamentals

Principle 1 – Everything is a resource

Principle 2 – Each resource is

identifiable by a unique identifier

Principle 3 – Manipulate resources via

standard HTTP methods

Principle 4 – Resources can have

multiple representations

Principle 5 – Communicate with

resources in a stateless manner

The REST goals

Separation of the representation and the resource

Visibility

Reliability

Scalability and performance

Working with WADL

Documenting RESTful APIs with Swagger

 Taking advantage of the existing infrastructure

Summary

2. Getting Started with Node.js

Installing Node.js

Npm

Installing the Express framework and other modules

Setting up a development environment

Handling HTTP requests

Modularizing code

Testing Node.js

Working with mock objects

Deploying an application

Nodejitsu

Microsoft Azure

Heroku

Self-test questions

Summary

3. Building a Typical Web API

 Specifying the API

Implementing routes

Querying the API using test data

Content negotiation

API versioning

Self-test questions

Summary

4. Using NoSQL Databases

MongoDB – a document store database

Database modeling with Mongoose

Testing a Mongoose model with Mocha

Creating a user-defined model around a Mongoose model

Wiring up a NoSQL database module to Express

Self-test questions

Summary

5. Restful API Design Guidelines

Endpoint URLs and HTTP status codes best practices

Extensibility and versioning

Linked data

Summary

6. Implementing a Full Fledged RESTful Service

Working with arbitrary data

Linking
 Implementing paging and filtering

Caching

Supplying the Cache-Control header in Express

applications

Discovering and exploring RESTful services

Summary

7. Preparing a RESTful API for Production

Documenting RESTful APIs

Testing RESTful APIs with Mocha

The microservices revolution

Summary

8. Consuming a RESTful API

Consuming RESTful services with jQuery

Troubleshooting and identifying problems on the wire

Cross Origin Resource Sharing

Content Delivery Networks

Handling HTTP status codes on the client side

Summary

9. Securing the Application

Authentication
 Basic authentication

Passport

Passport's basic authentication strategy

Passport's OAuth Strategy

Passport's third-party authentication

strategies

Authorization

Transport layer security

Self-test questions

Summary

Other Books You May Enjoy

Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Preface
RESTful services have become the de facto standard data feed
providers for social services, news feeds, and mobile devices.
They deliver a large amount of data to millions of users. Thus,
they need to address high-availability requirements, such as
reliability and scalability. This book will show you how to
utilize the Node.js platform to implement a robust and
performant data service. By the end of this book, you will have
learned how to implement a real-life RESTful service, taking
advantage of the modern NoSQL database to serve both JSON
and binary content.
Important topics, such as correct URI structuring and security
features, are also covered, with detailed examples, showing you
everything you need to know to start implementing the robust
RESTful APIs that serve content to your applications.
Who this book is for
This book targets developers who want to enrich their
development skills by learning how to develop scalable, server-
side, RESTful applications based on the Node.js platform. You
also need to be aware of HTTP communication concepts and
should have a working knowledge of the JavaScript language.
Keep in mind that this is not a book that will teach you how to
program in JavaScript. Knowledge of REST will be an added
advantage but is definitely not a necessity.
To get the most out of this
book
1. Inform the reader of the things that they need to know
before they start, and spell out what knowledge you are
assuming
2. Any additional installation instructions and information
they need for getting set up
Download the example
code files
You can download the example code files for this book from
your account at www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book
elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to
have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packtpub.com.

2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow
the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or
extract the folder using the latest version of:

WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows

Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac

7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub
at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/RESTful-Web-API-Design-with-Node.js-10-
Third-Edition . In case there's an update to the code, it will be
updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books
and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check
them out!
Conventions used
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that
distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are
some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their
meaning.

Code words in text, database tale names, folder names,

filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user
input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows:
"This tells npm that our package depends on the URL and express
modules."

A block of code is set as follows:

router.get('/v1/item/:itemId', function(request,
response, next) {
console.log(request.url + ' : querying for ' +
request.params.itemId);
catalogV1.findItemById(request.params.itemId,
response);
});

router.get('/v1/:categoryId', function(request,
response, next) {
console.log(request.url + ' : querying for ' +
request.params.categoryId);
 catalogV1.findItemsByCategory(request.params.categoryId,
response);
});

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a

code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

router.get('/v1/:categoryId', function(request,
response, next) {
console.log(request.url + ' : querying for ' +
request.params.categoryId);

catalogV1.findItemsByCategory(request.params.categoryId,
response);
});

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

$ npm install -g express

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that

you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes
appear in the text like this. Here is an example:

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
attempted this deed alone; and then I noticed that my confrère was
all ears and making copious notes. He knew enough to take from
others what he could not work out for himself. In regard to the
principal or general points, I found that my Irish-Jewish friend was
as swift at ferreting out facts as any one, and as eager to know how
and why. And always, to my astonishment and chagrin, the prisoner
as well as the detectives paid more attention to him than to me.
They turned to him as to a lamp and seemed to be immensely more
impressed with him than with me, although the main lines of
questioning fell to me. All at once I found him whispering to one or
other of the detectives while I was developing some thought, but
when I turned up anything new, or asked a question he had not
thought of, he was all ears again and back to resume the
questioning on his own account. In truth, he irritated me frightfully,
and appeared to be intensely happy in doing so. My contemptuous
looks and remarks did not disturb him in the least. By now I was so
dour and enraged that I could think of but one thing that would
have really satisfied me, and that was to attack him physically and
give him a good beating—although I seriously questioned whether I
could do that, he was so contentious, cynical and savage.
However the story was finally extracted, and a fine tale it made. It
appeared that up to seven or eight months preceding the robbery,
this robber had been first a freight brakeman or yard hand on this
road, later being promoted to the position of superior switchman
and assistant freight handler. Previous to this he had been a livery
stable helper in the town in which he was eventually taken, and
before that a farm hand in that neighborhood. About a year before
the crime this road, along with many others, had laid off a large
number of men, including himself, and reduced the wages of all
others by as much as ten per cent. Naturally a great deal of labor
discontent ensued. A number of train robberies, charged and traced
to dismissed and dissatisfied ex-employees, now followed. The
methods of successful train robbing were so clearly set forth by the
newspapers that nearly any one so inclined could follow them.
Among other things, while working as a freight handler, Lem Rollins
had heard of the many money shipments made by the express
companies and the manner in which they were guarded. The
Missouri Pacific, for which he worked, was a very popular route for
money shipments, both West and East, bullion and bills being in
transit all the while between St. Louis and the East, and Kansas City
and the West, and although express messengers even at this time,
owing to numerous train robberies which had been occurring in the
West lately were always well armed, still these assaults had not been
without success. The death of firemen, engineers, messengers,
conductors and even passengers who ventured to protest, as well as
the fact that much money had recently been stolen and never
recovered, had not only encouraged the growth of banditry
everywhere but had put such an unreasoning fear into most
employees of the road as well as its passengers, who had no
occasion for risking their lives in defense of the roads, that but few
even of those especially picked guards ventured to give the
marauders battle. I myself during the short time I had been in St.
Louis had helped report three such robberies in its immediate
vicinity, in all of which cases the bandits had escaped unharmed.
But the motives which eventually resulted in the amazing
singlehanded attempt of this particular robber were not so much
that he was a discharged and poor railroad hand unable to find any
other form of employment as that in his idleness, having wandered
back to his native region, he had fallen in love with a young girl.
Here, being hard pressed for cash and unable to make her such
presents as he desired, he had first begun to think seriously of some
method of raising money, and later, another ex—railroad hand
showing up and proposing to rob a train, he had at first rejected it
as not feasible, not wishing to tie himself up in a crime, especially
with others; still later, his condition becoming more pressing, he had
begun to think of robbing a train on his own account.
Why alone—that was the point we were all most anxious to find
out—singlehanded, and with all the odds against him? Neither Galvin
nor myself could induce him to make this point clear, although, once
I raised it, we were both most eager to solve it. “Didn’t he know that
he could not expect to overcome engineer and fireman, baggage-
man and mail-man, to say nothing of the express messenger, the
conductor and the passengers?”
Yes, he knew, only he had thought he could do it. Other bandits
(so few as three in one case of which he had read) had held up
large trains; why not one? Revolver shots fired about a train easily
overawed all passengers, as well as the trainmen apparently. It was
a life and death job either way, and it would be better for him if he
worked it out alone instead of with others. Often, he said, other men
“squealed” or they had girls who told on them. I looked at him,
intensely interested and moved to admiration by the sheer animal
courage of it all, the “gall,” the grit, or what you will, imbedded
somewhere in this stocky frame.
And how came he to fix on this particular train? I asked. Well, it
was this way: Every Thursday and Friday a limited running west at
midnight carried larger shipments of money than on other days. This
was due to exchanges being made between Eastern and Western
banks; but he did not know that. Having decided on one of these
trains, he proceeded by degrees to secure first a small handbag,
from which he had scraped all evidence of the maker’s name, then
later, from other distant places, so as to avoid all chance of
detection, six or seven fused sticks of giant powder such as farmers
use to blow up stumps, and still later, two revolvers holding six
cartridges each, some cartridges, and cord and cloth out of which he
proposed to make bundles of the money. Placing all this in his bag,
he eventually visited a small town nearest the spot which, because
of its loneliness, he had fixed on as the ideal place for his crime, and
then, reconnoitering it and its possibilities, finally arranged all his
plans to a nicety.
Here, as he now told us, just at the outskirts of this hamlet, stood
a large water-tank at which this express as well as nearly all other
trains stopped for water. Beyond it, about five miles, was a wood
with a marsh somewhere in its depths, an ideal place to bury his
booty quickly. The express was due at this tank at about one in the
morning. The nearest town beyond the wood was all of five miles
away, a mere hamlet like this one. His plan was to conceal himself
near this tank and when the train stopped, and just before it started
again, to slip in between the engine tender and the front baggage
car, which was “blind” at both ends. Another arrangement, carefully
executed beforehand, was to take his handbag (without the
revolvers and sticks of giant powder, which he would carry), and
place it along the track just opposite that point in the wood where
he wished the train to stop. Here, once he had concealed himself
between the engine and the baggage car, and the train having
resumed its journey, he would keep watch until the headlight of the
engine revealed this bag lying beside the track, when he would rise
up and compel the engineer to stop the train. So far, so good.
However, as it turned out, two slight errors, one of forgetfulness
and one of eyesight, caused him finally to lose the fruit of his plan.
On the night in question, between eight and nine, he arrived on the
scene of action and did as he had planned. He put the bag in place
and boarded the train. However, on reaching the spot where he felt
sure the bag should be, he could not see it. Realizing that he was
where he wished to work he rose up, covered the two men in the
cab, drove them before him to the rear of the engine, where under
duress they were made to uncouple it, then conducted them to the
express car door, where he presented them with a stick of giant
powder and, ordered them to blow it open. This they did, the
messenger within having first refused so to do. They were driven
into the car and made to ‘blow open the safe, throwing out the
packages of bills and coin as he commanded. But during this time,
realizing the danger of either trainmen or passengers climbing down
from the cars in the rear and coming forward, he had fired a few
shots toward the passenger coaches, calling to imaginary
companions to keep watch there. At the same time, to throw the
fear of death into the minds of both engineer and fireman, he
pretended to be calling to imaginary confrères on the other side of
the train to “keep watch over there.”
 “Don’t kill anybody unless you have to, boys,” he had said, or
“That’ll be all right, Frank. Stay over there. Watch that side. I’ll take
care of these two.” And then he would fire a few more shots.
Once the express car door and safe had been blown open and the
money handed out, he had compelled the engineer and fireman to
come down, recouple the engine, and pull away. Only after the train
had safely disappeared did he venture to gather up the various
packages, rolling them in his coat, since he had lost his bag, and
with this over his shoulder he had staggered off into the night,
eventually succeeding in concealing it in the swamp, and then
making off for safety himself.
The two things which finally caused his discovery were, first, the
loss of the bag, which, after concealing the money, he attempted to
find but without success; and, second (and this he did not even
know at the time), that in the bag which he had lost he had placed
some time before and then forgotten apparently a small
handkerchief containing the initials of his love in one corner. Why he
might have wished to carry the handkerchief about with him was
understandable enough, but why he should have put it into the bag
and then forgot it was not clear, even to himself. From the detectives
we now learned that the next day at noon the bag was found by
other detectives and citizens just where he had placed it, and that
the handkerchief had given them their first clue. The Wood was
searched, without success however, save that foot-prints were
discovered in various places and measured. Again, experts
meditating on the crime decided that, owing to the hard times and
the laying-off and discharging of employees, some of these might
have had a hand in it; and so in due time the whereabouts and
movements of each and every one of those who had worked for the
road were gone into. It was finally discovered that this particular ex-
helper had returned to his native town and had been going with a
certain girl, and was about to be married to her. Next, it was
discovered that her initials corresponded to those on the
handkerchief. Presto, Mr. Rollins was arrested, a search of his room
made, and nearly all of the money recovered. Then, being “caught
with the goods,” he confessed, and here he was being hurried to St.
Louis to be jailed and sentenced, while we harpies of the press and
the law were gathered about him to make capital of his error.
The only thing that consoled me, however, as I rode toward St.
Louis and tried to piece the details of his crime together, was that if I
had failed to make it impossible for Galvin to get the story at all, still,
when it came to the narration of it, I should unquestionably write a
better story, for he would have to tell his story to some one else,
while I should be able to write my own, putting in such touches as I
chose. Only one detail remained to be arranged for, and that was the
matter of a picture. Why neither Wandell nor myself, nor the editor
of the Globe, had thought to include an artist on this expedition was
more a fault of the time than anything else, illustrations for news
stories being by no means as numerous as they are today, and the
peripatetic photographer having not yet been invented. As we
neared St. Louis Galvin began to see the import of this very clearly,
and suddenly began to comment on it, saying he “guessed” we’d
have to send to the Four Courts afterward and have one made.
Suddenly his eyes filled with a shrewd cunning, and he turned to me
and said:
“How would it be, old man, if we took him up to the Globe office
and let the boys make a picture of him—your friends, Wood and
McCord? Then both of us could get one right away. I’d say take him
to the Republic, only the Globe is so much nearer, and we have that
new flashlight machine, you know” (which was true, the Republic
being very poorly equipped in this respect). He added a friendly
aside to the effect that of course this depended on whether the
prisoner and the officers in charge were willing.
“Not on your life,” I replied suspiciously and resentfully, “not to the
Globe, anyhow. If you want to bring him down to the Republic, all
right; we’ll have them make pictures and you can have one.”
“But why not the Globe?” he went on. “Wood and McCord are your
friends more’n they are mine. Think of the difference in the distance.
We want to save time, don’t we? Here it is nearly six-thirty, and by
the time we get down there and have a picture taken and I get back
to the office it’ll be half past seven or eight. It’s all right for you, I
suppose, because you can write faster, but look at me. I’d just as lief
go down there as not, but what’s the difference? Besides, the
Globe’s got a much better plant, and you know it. Either Wood or
McCord’ll make a fine picture, and when we explain to ’em how it is
you’ll be sure to get one, the same as us—just the same picture.
Ain’t that all right?”
“No it’s not,” I replied truculently, “and I won’t do it, that’s all. It’s
all right about Dick and Peter—I know what they’ll do for me if the
paper will let them, but I know the paper won’t let them, and
besides, you’re not going to be able to claim in the morning that this
man was brought to the Globe first. I know you. Don’t begin to try
to put anything over on me, because I won’t stand for it, see? And if
these people do it anyhow I’ll make a kick at headquarters, that’s
all.”
For a moment he appeared to be quieted by this and to decide to
abandon his project, but later he took it up again, seemingly in the
most conciliatory spirit in the world. At the same time, and from now
on, he kept boring me with his eyes, a thing which I had never
known him to do before. He was always too hang-dog in looking at
me; but now of a sudden there was something bold and friendly as
well as tolerant and cynical in his gaze.
“Aw, come on,” he argued. He was amazingly aggressive. “What’s
the use being small about it? The Globe’s nearer. Think what a fine
picture it’ll make. If you don’t we’ll have to go clear to the office and
send an artist down to the jail. You can’t take any good pictures
down there tonight.”
“Cut it,” I replied. “I won’t do it, that’s all,” but even as he talked a
strange feeling of uncertainty or confusion began to creep over me.
For the first time since knowing him, in spite of all my opposition of
this afternoon and before, I found myself not quite hating him but
feeling as though he weren’t such an utterly bad sort after all. What
was so wrong about this Globe idea anyhow, I began suddenly to
ask myself, in the most insane and yet dreamy way imaginable. Why
wouldn’t it be all right to do that? Inwardly or downwardly, or
somewhere within me, something was telling me that it was all
wrong and that I was making a big mistake even to think about it. I
felt half asleep or surrounded by clouds which made everything he
said seem all right. Still, I wasn’t asleep, and now I didn’t believe a
word he said, but——
“To the Globe, sure,” I found myself saying to myself in spite of
myself, in a dumb, half-numb way. “That wouldn’t be so bad. It’s
nearer. What’s wrong with that? Dick or Peter will make a good
picture, and then I can take it along,” only at the same time I was
also thinking, “I shouldn’t really do that. He’ll claim the credit for
having brought this man to the Globe office. I’ll be making a big
mistake. The Republic or nothing. Let him come down to the
Republic.”
In the meantime we were entering St. Louis and the station. By
then, somehow, he had not only convinced the sheriff and the other
officers, but the prisoner. They liked him and were willing to do what
he said. I could even see the rural love of show and parade
gleaming in the eyes of the sheriff and the two detectives. Plainly,
the office of the Globe was the great place in their estimation for
such an exhibition. At the same time, between looking at me and the
prisoner and the officers, he had knitted a fine mental net from
which I seemed unable to escape. Even as I rose with these others
to leave the train I cried: “No, I won’t come in on this! It’s all right if
you want to bring him down to the Republic, or you can take him to
the Four Courts, but I’m not going to let you get away with this. You
hear now, don’t you?” But then it was too late.
Once outside, Galvin laid hold of my arm in an amazingly genial
fashion and hung on it. In spite of me, he seemed to be master of
the situation and to realize it. Once more he began to plead, and
getting in front of me he seemed to do his best to keep my optical
attention. From that point on and from that day to this, I have never
been able to explain to myself what did happen. All at once, and
much more clearly than before, I seemed to see that his plan in
regard to the Globe was the best. It would save time, and besides,
he kept repeating in an almost sing-song way that we would go first
to the Globe and then to the Republic. “You come up with me to the
Globe, and then I’ll go down with you to the Republic,” he kept
saying. “We’ll just let Wood or McCord take one picture, and then
we’ll all go down to your place—see?”
Although I didn’t see I went. For the time, nothing seemed
important. If he had stayed by me I think he could have prevented
my writing any story at all. As it was he was so eager to achieve this
splendid triumph of introducing the celebrated bandit into the
editorial rooms of the Globe first and there having him photographed
and introduced to my old chief, that he hailed a carriage, and, the
six of us crowding into it, we were bustled off in a trice to the door
of the Globe, where, once I reached it, and seeing him and the
detectives and the bandit hurrying across the sidewalk, I suddenly
awoke to the asininity of it all.
“Wait!” I called. “Say, hold on! Cut this! I won’t do it! I don’t agree
to this!” but it was too late. In a trice the prisoner and the rest of
them were up the two or three low steps of the main entrance and
into the hall, and I was left outside to meditate on the insanity of the
thing I had done.
“Great God!” I suddenly exclaimed to myself. “What have I let that
fellow do to me? I’ve been hypnotized, that’s what it is! I’ve allowed
him to take a prisoner whom I had in my own hands at one time into
the office of our great rival to be photographed! He’s put it all over
me on this job—and I had him beaten! I had him where I could have
shoved him off the train—and now I let him do this to me, and
tomorrow there’ll be a long editorial in the Globe telling how this
fellow was brought there first and photographed, and his picture to
prove it!” I swore and groaned for blocks as I walked towards the
Republic, wondering what I should do.
Distinct as was my failure, it was so easy, even when practically
admitting the whole truth, to make it seem as though the police had
deliberately worked against the Republic. I did not even have to do
that but merely recited my protests, without admitting or insisting
upon hypnotism, which Wandell would not have believed anyhow.
On the instant he burst into a great rage against the police
department, seeing apparently no fault in anything I had done, and
vowing vengeance. They were always doing this; they did it to the
Republic when he was on the Globe. Wait—he would get even with
them yet! Rushing a photographer to the jail, he had various
pictures made, all of which appeared with my story, but to no
purpose. The Globe had us beaten. Although I had slaved over the
text, given it the finest turns I could, still there on the front page of
the Globe was a large picture of the bandit, seated in the sanctum
sanctorum of the great G-D, a portion of the figure, although not the
head, of its great chief standing in the background, and over it all, in
extra large type, the caption:
“LONE TRAIN ROBBER VISITS OFFICE OF GLOBE
TO PAY HIS RESPECTS”
and underneath in italics a full account of how he had willingly and
gladly come there.
I suffered tortures, not only for days but for weeks and months,
absolute tortures. Whenever I thought of Galvin I wanted to kill him.
To think, I said to myself, that I had thought of the two trains and
then run across the meadow and paid the agent for stopping the
train, which permitted Galvin to see the burglar at all, and then to be
done in this way! And, what was worse, he was so gayly and
cynically conscious of having done me. When we met on the street
one day, his lip curled with the old undying hatred and contempt.
“These swell reporters!” he sneered. “These high-priced ink-
slingers! Say, who got the best of the train robber story, eh?”
And I replied——
But never mind what I replied. No publisher would print it.
 CHAPTER XLVII

Things like these taught me not to depend too utterly on my own

skill. I might propose and believe, but there were things above my
planning or powers, and creatures I might choose to despise were
not so helpless after all. It fixed my thoughts permanently on the
weakness of the human mind as a directing organ. One might think
till doomsday in terms of human ideas, but apparently over and
above ideas there were forces which superseded or controlled
them.... My own fine contemptuous ideas might be superseded or
set at naught by the raw animal or psychic force of a man like
Galvin.
During the next few months a number of things happened which
seemed to broaden my horizon considerably. For one thing, my trip
to Chicago having revived interest in me in the minds of a number of
newspaper men there, and having seemingly convinced them of my
success here, I was bombarded with letters from one and another
wanting to know whether or not they could obtain work here and
whether I could and would aid them. At the close of the Fair in
Chicago in October hard times were expected in newspaper circles
there, so many men being released from work. I had letters from at
least four, one of whom was a hanger-on by the name of
Michaelson, of whom more anon, who had attached himself to me
largely because I was the stronger and he expected aid of me. I
have often thought how frequently this has happened to me—one of
my typical experiences, as it is of every one who begins to get along.
It is so much easier for the strong to tolerate the weak than the
strong. Strength craves sycophancy. We want only those who will
swing the censer before our ambitions and desires. Michaelson, or
“Mich,” was a poor hack who had been connected with a commercial
agency where daily reports had to be written out as to the financial
and social condition of John Smith the butcher, or George Jones the
baker. This led Mich, who was a farm-boy to begin with, to imagine
that he could write and that he would like to run a country paper,
only he thought to get some experience in the city first. By some
process, of which I forget the steps, he fixed on me; and through
myself and McEnnis, who was then so friendly to me, had secured a
tryout on the Globe in Chicago. After I left McEnnis quickly tired of
him, and I heard of him next as working for the City Press, an
organization which served all newspapers, and paid next to nothing.
Next I heard that he was married (having succeeded so well!), and
still later he began to bombard me with pleas for aid in getting a
place in St. Louis. Also there were letters from much better men: H.
L. Dunlap, afterwards chief press advisor of President Taft; an
excellent reporter by the name of Brady, whom I have previously
mentioned; and a little later, John Maxwell.
Meanwhile, in spite of my great failure in connection with Galvin,
my standing with Wandell seemed to rise rather than sink. Believe it
or no, I became a privileged character about this institution or its
city room, a singular thing in the newspaper profession. Because of
specials I was constantly writing for the Sunday paper, I was taken
up by the sporting editor, who wanted my occasional help in his
work; the dramatic editor, who wanted my help on his dramatic
page, asking me to see plays from time to time; and the managing
editor himself, a small, courteous, soft-spoken, red-headed man
from Kansas City, who began to invite me to lunch or dinner and talk
to me as though I knew much (or ought to) about the world he
represented. I was so unfitted for all this intellectually, my hour of
stability and feeling for organization and control having not yet
arrived, that I scarcely knew how to manage it. I was nervous, shy,
poorly spoken, at least in their presence, while inwardly I was
blazing with ambition, vanity and self-confidence. I wanted nothing
so much as to be alone with my own desires and labors even though
I believed all the while that I did not and that I was lonely and
neglected!
Unsophisticated as I really was, I began to see Wandell as but a
minor figure in this journalistic world, or but one of many, likely to
be here and gone tomorrow, and I swaggered about, taking liberties
which months before I should never have dreamed of taking. He
talked to me too freely and showed me that he relied on my advice
and judgment and admired my work. All out-of-town assignments of
any importance were given to me. Occasionally at seven in the
evening he would say that he would buy me a drink if I would wait a
minute, a not very wise thing to do. Later, after completing one big
assignment or another, I would stroll out of the office at, say, eight-
thirty or nine without a word or a by-your-leave, and so respectful
had he become that instead of calling me down in person he began
writing me monitory letters, couched in the most diplomatic
language but insisting that I abide by the rules which governed
other reporters. But by now I had grown so in my own estimation
that I smiled confidently, knowing very well that he would not fire
me; my salary was too small. Besides, I knew that he really needed
me or some one like me and I saw no immediate rival anywhere,
one who would work as hard and for as little. Still I would reform for
a time, or would plead that the managing or the dramatic editor had
asked me to do thus and so.
“To hell with the managing editor!” he one day exclaimed in a
rage. “This is my department. If he wants you to sit around with him
let him come to me, or else you first see that you have my consent.”
At the same time he remained most friendly and would sit and
chat over proposed stories, getting my advice as to how to do them,
and as one man after another left him or he wanted to enlarge his
staff he would ask me if I knew any one who would make a
satisfactory addition. Having had these appeals from Dunlap, Brady
and several others still in Chicago, I named first Dunlap (because I
felt so sure of his merit), and then these others. To my surprise, he
had me write Dunlap to come to work, and when he came and made
good, Wandell asked me to bring still others to him. This flattered
me very much. I felt myself becoming a power. The result was that
after a time five men, three from Chicago and two from other papers
in St. Louis, were transferred to the staff of the Republic by reason
of my recommendation, and that with full knowledge of the fact that
I was the one to whom they owed their opportunity. You may
imagine the airs which I assumed.
About this time still another thing occurred which lifted me still
more in my own esteem. Strolling into the Southern Hotel one
evening I chanced to see my old chief, McCullagh, sitting as was his
custom near one of the pillars of the lobby reading his evening
paper. It had always been such a pleasing and homelike thing in my
days at the Globe to walk into the lobby around dinner time and see
this great chief in his low shoes and white socks sitting and reading
here as though he were in his own home. It took away a bit of the
loneliness of the city for me for he appeared to have no other home
than this and he was my chief. And now, for the first time since I
had so ignominiously retired from the Globe, I saw him as before,
smoking and reading. Hitherto I had carefully avoided this and every
other place at such hours as I was likely to encounter him. But now I
had grown so conceited that I was not quite so much afraid of him;
he was still wonderful to me but I was beginning to feel that I had a
future of my own and that I could achieve it, regardless perhaps of
the error that had so pained me then. Still I felt to the full all that
old allegiance, respect and affection which had dominated me while
I was on the Globe. He was my big editor, my chief, and there was
none other like him anywhere for me, and there never was
afterward. Nearing the newsstand, for which I made at sight of him
in the hope that I should escape unseen, I saw him get up and come
forward, perhaps to secure a cigar or another paper. I flushed guiltily
and looked wildly about for some place to hide. It was not to be.
“Good evening, Mr. McCullagh,” I said politely as he neared me.
“How d’ do?” he returned gutturally but with such an air of
sociability as I had never noticed in him before. “How d’ do? Well,
you’re still about, I see. You’re on the Republic, I believe?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I was so pleased and flattered to think that he
should trouble to talk to me at all or to indicate that he knew where
I was that I could scarcely contain myself. I wanted to thank him, to
apologize, to tell him how wonderful he was to me and what a fool I
was in my own estimation, but I couldn’t. My tongue was thick.
“You like it over there?”
“Yes, sir. Fairly well, sir.” I was as humble in his presence as a
jackie is before an officer. He seemed always so forceful and
commanding.
“That little matter of those theaters,” he began after a pause,
turning and walking back to his chair, I following, “—Um! um! I don’t
think you understand quite how I felt about that. I was sorry to see
you go. Um! um!” and he cleared his throat. “It was an unfortunate
mistake all around. I want you to know that I did not blame you so
much. Um! You might have been relieved of other work. I don’t want
to take you away from any other paper, but—um!—I want you to
know that if you are ever free and want to come back you can.
There is no prejudice in my mind against you.”
I don’t know of anything that ever moved me more. It was
wonderful, thrilling. I could have cried from sheer delight. He, my
chief, saying this to me! And after all those wretched hours! What a
fool I was, I now thought, not to have gone to him personally then
and asked his consideration. However, as I saw it, it was too late.
Why change now and go back? But I was so excited that I could
scarcely speak, and probably would not have known what to say if I
had tried. I stood there, and finally blurted out:
“I’m very sorry, Mr. McCullagh. I didn’t mean to do what I did. It
was a mistake. I had that extra assignment and—”
“O-oh, that’s all right—that’s all right,” he insisted gruffly and as if
he wished to be done with it once and for all. “No harm done. I
didn’t mind that so much. But you needn’t have left—that’s what I
wish you to understand. You could have stayed if you had wanted
to.”
As I viewed it afterward, my best opportunity for a secure position
in St. Louis was here. If I had only known it, or, knowing, had been
quick to take advantage of it, I might have profited greatly. Mr.
McCullagh’s mood was plainly warm toward me; he probably looked
upon me as a foolish and excitable but fairly capable boy whom it
would have been his pleasure to assist in the world. He had brought
me from Chicago; perhaps he wished me to remain under his eye....
Plainly, a word, and I could have returned, I am sure of it, perhaps
never to leave. As it was, however, I was so nervous and excited
that I took no advantage of it. Possibly he noticed my
embarrassment and was pleased. At any rate, as I mumbled my
thanks and gratitude for all he had done for me, saying that if I were
doing things over I should try to do differently, he interrupted me
with:
“Just a moment. It may be that you have some young friend
whom you want to help to a position here in St. Louis. If you have,
send him to me. I’ll do anything I can for him. I’m always glad to do
anything I can for young men.”
I smiled and flushed and thanked him, but for the life of me I
could think of nothing else to say. It was so strange, so tremendous,
that this man should want to do anything for me after all the
ridiculous things I had done under him that I could only hurry away,
out of his sight. Once in the shielding darkness outside I felt better
but sad. It seemed as if I had made a mistake, as if I should have
asked him to take me back.
“Why, he as much as offered to!” I said to myself. “I can go back
there any time I wish, or he’ll give me a place for some one else—
think of it! Then he doesn’t consider me a fool, as I thought he did!”
For days thereafter I went about my work trying to decide
whether I should resign from the Republic and return to him, only
now I seemed so very important here, to myself at least, that it did
not seem wise. Wasn’t I getting along? Would returning to work
under Mitchell be an advantage? I decided not. Also, that I had no
real excuse for leaving the Republic at present; so I did nothing,
waiting to be absolutely sure what I wanted to do. There was a
feeling growing in me at this time that I really did not want to stay in
St. Louis at all, that perhaps it would be better for me if I should
move on elsewhere. McEnnis, as I recalled, had cautioned me to that
effect. Another newspaper man writing me from Chicago and asking
for a place (a friend of Dunlap’s, by the way), I recommended him
and he was put to work on the Globe-Democrat. And so my
reputation for influence in local newspaper affairs grew.
And in the meantime still other things had been happening to me
which seemed to complicate my life here and make me almost a
fixture in St. Louis. For one thing, worrying over the well-being of
my two brothers, E—— and A——, who were still in Chicago, and
wishing to do something to improve their condition, I thought that
St. Louis would be as good a place for them as any in which to try
their fortunes anew. Both had seemed rather unhappy in Chicago
and since I was getting along here I felt that it would be only decent
in me to give them a helping hand if I could. The blood-tie was
rather strong in me then. I have always had a weakness for
members of our family regardless of their deserts or mine or what I
thought they had done to me. I had a comfortable floor with ample
room for them if I chose to invite them, and I thought that my
advice and aid and enthusiasm might help them to do better. There
was in me then, and has remained (though in a fading form, I am
sorry to say), a sort of home-longing (the German Heimweh, no
doubt) which made me look back on everything in connection with
our troubled lives with a sadness, an ache, a desire to remedy or
repair if possible some of the ills and pains that had beset us all. We
had not always been unhappy together; what family ever has been?
We had quarreled over trivial things, but there had been many
happy hours. And now we were separated, and these two brothers
were not doing as well as I.
 I say it in faint extenuation of all the many hard unkind things I
have done in my time, that at the thought of the possible misery
some of my brothers and sisters might be enduring, the lacks from
which they might be hopelessly suffering, my throat often tightened
and my heart ached. Life bears so hard on us all, on many so
terribly. What, E—— or A—— longing for something and not being
able to afford it! It hurt me far more than any lack of my own ever
could. It never occurred to me that they might be wishing to help
me; it was always I, hard up or otherwise, wishing that I might do
something for them. And this longing in the face of no complaint on
their part and no means on mine to translate it into anything much
better than wishes and dreams made it all the more painful at times.
My plan was to bring them here and give them a little leisure to
look about for some way to better themselves, and then—well, then
I should not need to worry about them so much. With this in mind I
wrote first to E—— and then A——, and the former, younger and
more restless and always more attracted to me than any of the
others, soon came on; while A—— required a little more time to
think. However, in the course of time he too appeared, and then we
three were installed in my rooms, the harboring of my brothers
costing me five additional dollars. Here we kept bachelor’s hall, gay
enough while it lasted but more or less clouded over all the while by
their need of finding work.
I had forgotten, or did not know, or the fact did not make a
sufficiently sharp impression on me, that this was a panic year
(1893) and that there were hundreds of thousands of men out of
work, the country over. Indeed, trade was at a standstill, or nearly
so. When I first went on the Republic, if I had only stopped to
remember, many factories were closing down or slowing up,
discharging men or issuing scrip of their own wherewith to pay them
until times should be better, and some shops and stores were failing
entirely. It had been my first experience of a panic and should have
made a deep impression on me had I been of a practical turn, for
one of my earliest assignments had been to visit some of the owners
of factories and stores and shops and ask the cause of their decline
and whether better times were in sight. Occasionally even then I
read long editorials in the Republic or the Globe on the subject, yet I
could take no interest in them. They were too heavy, as I thought.
Yet I can remember the gloom hanging over streets and shops and
how solemnly some of the manufacturers spoke of the crisis and the
hard times yet in store. There were to be hard times for a year or
more.
I recall one old man at this time, very prosy and stiff and
conventional, “one of our best business men,” who had had a large
iron factory on the south side for fifty years and who now in his old
age had to shut down for good. Being sent out to interview him, I
found him after a long search in one of the silent wings of his empty
foundry, walking about alone examining some machinery which also
was still. I asked him what the trouble was and if he would resume
work soon again.
“Just say that I’m done,” he replied. “This panic has finished me. I
could go on later, I suppose, but I’m too old to begin all over again.
I haven’t any money now, and that’s all there is to it.”
I left him meditating over some tool he was trying to adjust.
In the face of this imagine my gayly inviting my two brothers to
this difficult scene and then expecting them to get along in some
way, persuading them to throw up whatever places or positions they
had in Chicago! Yet in so doing I satisfied an emotional or psychic
longing to have them near me and to do something for them, and
beyond that I did not think.
In fact it took me years and years to get one thing straight in my
poor brain, and that was this: that aside from the economic or
practical possibility of translating one’s dreams into reality, the less
one broods over them the better. Here I was now, earning the very
inadequate stipend of eighteen dollars—or it may have been twenty
or twenty-two, for I have a dim recollection of having been given at
least one raise in pay—yet with no more practical sense than to
undertake a burden which I could not possibly sustain. For despite
my good intentions I had no surplus wherewith to sustain my
brothers, assuming that their efforts proved even temporarily
unavailing. All this dream of doing something for them was based on
good will and a totally inadequate income. In consequence it could
not but fail, as it did, seeing that St. Louis was far less commercially
active than Chicago. It was not growing much and there was an
older and much more European theory of apprenticeship and
continuity in place and type of work than prevailed at that time in
the windy city. Work was really very hard to get, especially in
manufacturing and commercial lines, and in consequence my two
brothers, after only a week or two of pleasuring, which was all I
could afford, were compelled to hunt here and there, early and late,
without finding anything to do. True, I tried to help them in one way
and another with advice as to institutions, lines of work and the like,
but to no end.
But before and after they came, how enthusiastically and no doubt
falsely I painted the city of St. Louis, its large size, opportunities,
beauties, etc., and once they were here I put myself to the task of
showing them its charms; but to no avail. We went about together
to restaurants, parks, theaters, outlying places. As long as it was
new and they felt that there was some hope of finding work they
were gay enough and interested and we spent a number of
delightful hours together. But as time wore on and fading summer
days proved that their dreams and mine were hopeless and they
could do no better here than in Chicago if as well, their moods
changed, as did mine. The burden of expense was considerable.
While paying gayly enough for food and rent, and even laundry, for
the three, I began to wonder whether I should be able to endure the
strain much longer. Love them as I might in their absence, and
happy as I was with them, still it was not possible for me to keep up
this pace. I was depriving myself of bare necessities, and I think
they saw it. I said nothing, of that I am positive, but after a month
or six weeks of trial and failure they themselves saw the point and
became unhappy over it. Our morning and evening hours, whenever
I could see them in the evening, became less and less gay. Finally A
——, with his usual eye for the sensible, announced that he was
tired of searching here and was about to return to Chicago. He did
not like St. Louis anyhow; it was a “hell of a place,” a third-rate city.
He was going back where he could get work. And E——, perhaps
recalling past joys of which I knew nothing, said he was going also.
And so once more I was alone.
Yet even this rough experience had no marked effect on me. It
taught me little if anything in regard to the economic struggle. I
know now that these two must have had a hard time replacing
themselves in Chicago at that time, but the meaning of it did not get
to me then. As for E——, some years later I persuaded him to join
me in New York, where I managed to keep him by me that time until
he became self-supporting.
 CHAPTER XLVIII

Because Miss W—— lived some distance from the city and would
remain there until her school season opened, I neglected to write to
her; but once September had come and the day of her return was
near I began to think of her and soon was as keenly interested as
ever. Her simplicity and charm came back to me with great force,
and I one day sat down and wrote her a brief letter recalling our
Chicago days and asking her how long it would be before she would
be returning to St. Louis. I was rather nervous now lest she should
not answer.
In due time, however, a note came in which she told me that she
expected to be at Florissant, about twenty or twenty-five miles out
of St. Louis, by September fifteenth, when her school work would
begin, and that she would be in St. Louis shortly afterward to visit
an aunt and hoped to see me. There was something about the letter
so simple, direct and yet artful that it touched me deeply. As I have
said, I really knew nothing of the conditions which surrounded her,
and yet from the time I received this letter I sensed something that
appealed to me: a rurality and simplicity plus a certain artful
daintiness—the power, I suppose, to pose under my glance and yet
evade—which held me as in a vise. Beside her, all others seemed
harder, holder, or of coarser fiber.
It does not matter now but as I look back on it there seems to
have been more of pure, exalted or frenetic romance in this thing (at
first, and even a year or so afterward), than in any mating
experience of which I have any recollection, with the possible
exception of Alice. Unlike most of my other affairs, this (in the
beginning at least) seemed more a matter of pure romance or
poetry, a desire to see and be near her. Indeed I could only think of
her as a part of some idyllic country scene, of walking or riding with
her along some leafy country lane, of rowing a little boat on a
stream, of sitting with her under trees in a hammock, of watching
her play tennis, of being with her where grass, flowers, trees and a
blue sky were. In that idyllic world of the Fair she had seemed well-
placed. This must be a perfect love, I thought. Here was your truly
sweet, pure girl who inspired a man with a nobler passion than mere
lust. I began to picture myself with her in a home somewhere,
possibly here in St. Louis, of going with her to church even, for I
fancied she was of a strict religious bent, of pushing a baby carriage
—indeed, of leading a thoroughly domestic life, and being happy in
it!
We fell into a correspondence which swiftly took on a regular form
and resulted, on my part, in a most extended correspondence,
letters so long that they surprised even myself. I found myself in the
grip of a letter-writing fever such as hitherto had never possessed
me, writing long, personal, intimate accounts of my own affairs, my
work, my dreams, what not, as well as what I thought of her, of the
beauty of life as I had seen it with her in Chicago, my theories and
imaginings in regard to everything. As I see it now, this was perhaps
my first and easiest attempt at literary expression, the form being
negligible and yet sufficient to encompass and embody without
difficulty all the surging and seething emotions and ideas which had
hitherto been locked up in me, bubbling and steaming to the
explosion point. Indeed the newspaper forms to which I was daily
compelled to confine myself offered no outlet, and in addition, in
Miss W—— I had found a seemingly sympathetic and understanding
soul, one which required and inspired all the best that was in me. I
was now, as I told myself, on the verge of something wonderful, a
new life. I must work, save, advance myself and better my condition
generally, so as to be worthy of her.... At the very same time I was
still able to see beauty in other women and the cloying delights of
those who would never be able to be as good as she! They might be
good enough for me but far beneath her whose eyes were “too pure
to behold evil.”
In the latter part of September she came to St. Louis and gave me
my first delighted sight of her since we had left Chicago. At this time
I was at the topmost toss of my adventures in St. Louis. I was, as I
now assumed, somebody. By now also I had found a new room in
the very heart of the city, on Broadway near the Southern, and was
leading a bachelor existence under truly metropolitan circumstances.
This room was on the third floor rear of a building which looked out
over some nondescript music hall whose glass roof was just below
and from whence nightly, and frequently in the afternoon, issued all
sorts of garish music hall clatter, including music and singing and
voices in monologue or dialogue. One block south were the Southern
Hotel, Faust’s Restaurant, and the Olympic Theater. In the block
north were the courthouse and Dick’s old room, which by now he
had abandoned, having in spite of all his fine dreams of a
resplendent heiress married a girl whom together we had met in the
church some months before—a circus-rider! Thereafter he had
removed to a prosaic flat on the south side, an institution which
seemed to me but a crude and rather pathetic attempt at worthless
domesticity.
I should like to report here that something over a year later this
first marriage of his terminated in the death of his wife. Later—some
two or three years—he indulged in a second most prosaic and
inartistic romance—wedding finally, on this occasion, the daughter of
a carpenter. And her name—Sopheronisby Boanerga Watkins. And a
year or two after this she was burned to death by an exploding oil
stove. And this was the man who was bent on capturing an heiress.
In my new room therefore, because it was more of a center, I had
already managed to set up a kind of garret salon, which was
patronized by Dick and Peter, Rodenberger, Dunlap, Brady and a
number of other acquaintances. No sooner was I settled here than
Michaelson, whose affairs I had straightened out by getting him a
place on the Republic, put in an appearance, and also John Maxwell,
who because of untoward conditions in Chicago had come to St.
Louis to better his fortunes. But more of that later.
In spite of all these friends and labors and attempts at aiding
others, it was my affair with Miss W—— which now completely
engrossed me. So seriously had I taken this new adventure to heart
that I was scarcely able to eat or sleep. Once I knew definitely that
she was inclined to like me, as her letters proved, and the exact day
of her arrival had been fixed, I walked on air. I had not been able to
save much money since I had been on the Republic (possibly a
hundred dollars all told, and that since my brothers had left), but of
that I took forty or fifty and bought a new fall suit of a most
pronounced if not startling pattern, the coat being extra long and of
no known relation to any current style (an idea of my own), to say
nothing of such extras as patent leather shoes, ties, collars, a new
pearl-gray hat—all purchased in view of this expected visit for her
especial delectation! Although I had little money for what I
considered the essentials of courtship—theater boxes, dinners and
suppers at the best restaurants, flowers, candy—still I hoped to
make an impression. Why shouldn’t I? Being a newspaper man and
an ex-dramatic editor, to say nothing of my rather close friendship
with the present Republic critic, I could easily obtain theater tickets,
although the exigencies of my work often prevented, as I discovered
afterward, my accompanying her for more than an hour at a time.
 CHAPTER XLIX

On the day of her arrival I arrayed myself in my best, armed

myself with flowers, candy and two tickets for the theater, and made
my way out to her aunt’s in one of the simpler home streets in the
west end. I was so fearful that my afternoon assignment should
prove a barrier to my seeing her that day that I went to her as early
as ten-thirty, intending to offer her the tickets and arrange to stop
for her afterwards at the theater; or, failing that, to see her for a
little while in the evening if my assignments permitted. I was so vain
of my standing in her eyes, so anxious to make a good impression,
that I was ashamed to confess that my reportorial duties made it
difficult for me to see her at all. After my free days in Chicago I
wanted her to think that I was more than a mere reporter, a sort of
traveling correspondent and feature man, which in a way I was, only
my superiors were determined to keep me for some reason in the
ordinary reportorial class taking daily assignments as usual. Instead
of confessing my difficulties I made a great show of freedom.
I found her in a small tree-shaded, cool-looking brick house, with
a brick sidewalk before it and a space of grass on one side. Never
did place seem more charming. I stared at it as one might at a
shrine. Here at last was the temporary home of my beloved, and she
was within!
I knocked, and an attractive slip of a girl (her niece, as I learned)
answered. I was shown into a long, dustless, darkened parlor. After
giving me time to weigh the taste and affluence of her relatives
according to my standards, she arrived, the beloved, the beautiful.
In view of many later sadder things, it seems that here at least I
might attempt to do her full justice. She seemed exquisite to me
then, a trim, agreeable sylph of a girl, with a lovely oval face, stark
red hair braided and coiled after the fashion of a Greek head, a clear
pink skin, long, narrow, almond-shaped, gray-blue eyes, delicate,
graceful hands, a perfect figure, small well-formed feet. There was
something of the wood or water nymph about her, a seeking in her
eyes, a breath of wild winds in her hair, a scarlet glory to her mouth.
And yet she was so obviously a simple and inexperienced country
girl, caught firm and fast in American religious and puritanic
traditions and with no hint in her mind of all the wild, mad ways of
the world. Sometimes I have grieved that she ever met me, or that I
so little understood myself as to have sought her out.
I first saw her, after this long time, framed in a white doorway,
and she made a fascinating picture. Here, as in Chicago, she seemed
shy, innocent, questioning, as one who might fly at the first sound. I
gazed in admiration. Despite a certain something in her letters which
had indirectly assured me of her affection or her desire for mine, still
she held aloof, extending a cool hand and asking me to sit down,
smiling tenderly and graciously. I felt odd, out of place, and yet
wonderfully drawn to her, passionately interested. What followed by
way of conversation I cannot remember now—talk of the Fair, I
suppose, some of those we had known, her summer, mine. She took
my roses and pinned some of them on, placing the rest in a jar.
There was a piano here, and after a time she consented to play. In a
moment, it seemed, it was twelve-thirty, and I had to go.
I walked on air. It seemed to me that I had never seen any one
more beautiful—and I doubt now that I had. There was no reason to
be applied to the thing: it was plain infatuation, a burning,
consuming desire for her. If I had lost her then and there, or any
time within a year thereafter, I should have deemed it the most
amazing affair of my life.
I returned to the office and took some assignment, which I cut
short at three-thirty in order to get back to the Grand Opera House
to sit beside her. The play was an Irish love drama, with Chauncey
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