I think a
notion of the purpose of it all crept into the office, even while
I was only half aware of it myself, for when, after a year's service
at the police office, I was taken with a longing for the open, as
it were, and went to the city editor who had succeeded Mr. Shanks
with the request that I be transferred to general work, he refused
flatly. I had made a good record as a police reporter, but it was
not that.
"Go back and stay," he said. "Unless I am much mistaken, you are
finding something up there that needs you. Wait and see."
And so for the second time I was turned back to the task I wanted
to shirk. Jonah was one of us sure enough. Those who see only the
whale fail to catch the point in the most human story ever told--a
point, I am afraid, that has a special application to most of us.
I have often been asked if such slumming is not full of peril.
No, not if you are there on business. Mere sightseeing at such
unseasonable hours might easily be. But the man who is sober and
minds his own business--which presupposes that he has business to
mind there--runs no risk anywhere in New York, by night or by day.
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