But this, he was to discover almost immediately, was a trifling
disaster. It distressed him, but it did not affect his material
welfare. Tragedy really began when he turned to the magazine
section. Scarcely had he started to glance at it when this
headline struck him like a bullet:
PICCADILLY JIM AT IT AGAIN
And beneath it his own name.
Nothing is so capable of diversity as the emotion we feel on
seeing our name unexpectedly in print. We may soar to the heights
or we may sink to the depths. Jimmy did the latter. A mere
cursory first inspection of the article revealed the fact that it
was no eulogy. With an unsparing hand the writer had muck-raked
his eventful past, the text on which he hung his remarks being
that ill-fated encounter with Lord Percy Whipple at the Six
Hundred Club. This the scribe had recounted at a length and with
a boisterous vim which outdid even Bill Blake's effort in the
London _Daily Sun_. Bill Blake had been handicapped by
consideration of space and the fact that he had turned in his
copy at an advanced hour when the paper was almost made up. The
present writer was shackled by no restrictions. He had plenty of
room to spread himself in, and he had spread himself. So liberal
had been the editor's views in the respect that, in addition to
the letter-press, the pages contained an unspeakably offensive
picture of a burly young man in an obviously advanced condition
of alcoholism raising his fist to strike a monocled youth in
evening dress who had so little chin that Jimmy was surprised
that he had ever been able to hit it.
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