In those days Humphrey, trained in the school of experience, took his place in the ranks of Fleet Street, that very narrow community, where each man knows the value of his brother's work.

He was being shaped in the mould. The characteristics of the journalist were more strongly marked in him than they had ever been. He was self-reliant and resourceful, he had acquired the magic faculty of making instant friendships; he had developed his personality, and there was about him a certain charm, a youthful ingenuousness of expression that stood him in good stead when he was at work. People liked Humphrey; among his colleagues in the Street, he was not great enough for jealousy, nor small enough to be ignored. He steered the middle course of popularity.

He had been long enough now on The Day for Ferrol to perceive his limitations. Humphrey did not know—nobody knew—that Ferrol from his red room was watching his work, noting each failure and each success, watching and weighing his value. And it was with something of regret that Ferrol realized that in Humphrey he had found not a genius, but merely a plodding conscientious worker, perhaps a little above the average. For, in spite of Rivers, who found that genius and reporting do not go hand in hand, Ferrol was always searching alertly for the miraculous writer whose style was individual; whose writing would be discussed in those broad circles where The Day was read.

One sees Ferrol hoping for that spark of genius to glow in Humphrey, dreaming, whenever his thoughts[226] took him back, of days now so dim that they seem never to have existed, and faced only with disappointment. Up to a certain point he could make Humphrey—but no further. Perhaps, after all, the boy might show his worth in work of broader scope.... Ferrol plans, and plans, rearranging the men in his employ, moving a man here, and a man there, a god with life for a chessboard and human lives as the men.... One sees Humphrey, young and vigorous, doing his daily work....

It was an extraordinary life, full of uncertainties and sudden surprises ... a life of never-ending energy, with l............