But the next day, and the next, and the next brought me no solution to the problem. The weather had turned cold and for a time there was a slushy snow on the ground, which made the matter of job-hunting all the worse. Those fierce youths in the anterooms were no more kindly¹ on the second and fifth days than they had been on the first. But by now, in addition to becoming decidedly dour², I was becoming a little angry. It seemed to me to be the height of discourtesy, not to say rank brutality³, for newspapers, and especially those which boasted a social and humanitarian⁵ leadership of their fellows in American life, to place such unsophisticated and blatant⁶ and ill-trained upstarts between themselves and the general public, men and women of all shades and degrees of intelligence who might have to come in contact with them. H. L. Mencken has written: “The average American newspaper, especially the so-called better sort, has the intelligence of a Baptist evangelist, the courage of a rat, the fairness of a prohibitionist⁷ boob-bumper, the information of a high-school janitor⁸, the taste of a designer of celluloid valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer.” Judging by some of my experiences and observations, I would be willing to subscribe⁹ to this. The unwarranted and unnecessary airs! The grand assumption of wisdom! The heartless and brutal⁴ nature of their internal economies, their pandering¹⁰ to the cheapest of all public instincts and tendencies in search of circulation!