The Old Reporter
could see it in the columns of the paper, as plainly as though it were a photograph, and then, suddenly, the touch that they recognized as his had dropped out again, and they would say: "Too bad that fellow can't leave whiskey alone," for they knew that Billy had lost another job.
He would disappear from the Row entirely, and no one seemed to know certainly where he was until a week or so later he would turn up again, looking like a wreck, drop into an office and beg the city editor for a job or the loan of a dollar. Sometimes he would get the dollar, sometimes the job—perhaps because the city editor expected to get the latter back sooner.
Meanwhile he lived nobody knew how—how do you live, you ghosts of Printing House Square, that walk up and down the Row and stand around in certain hallways and bar-rooms, talking of the story of the day and trouble with The Times's policy—and the Lord knows what—most intelligently; how do you manage it, I wonder?
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