Promotion? I think not.

My address to the group of social workers went much better than i thought it would. There was a loud, angry applause in response to my speech and when I asked for questions there were of course, none. Since then though Alvah has decided that I should be promoted. He said I deserved some recognition and a promotion for all my hard work. He wants to open a new department called the Women's Welfare Department and he wants me to run it. I told him no thanks. Sure, it'd be nice to step out from my back page column on "home decorations" and take on something worth two cents but for now I am happy right where I am. It is amusing and I can write anything I want to there and no one notices or cares because I'm writing for a tiny column on the back page. Of course this was all before he found out exactly what was in my speech. What can I say? It was way more fun to make the social workers angry than it was to tell them what they already know.

Life in the Slums

The papers have found a new crusade. That is how Gail keeps the papers selling. He finds a crusade and then squeezes it for all it is worth. The new crusade is living conditions in the`slums and "Landlord Sharks". As part of this crusade my editor, Alvah Scarret, asked me to do some investigative reporting. For two weeks I have lived in the hall bedroom of an East-Side tenement. It wasn't easy to live there at all. There were no windows in my apartment and all of my meals had to be cooked in the downstairs neighbors kitchen. There wasn't a shower so I had to bathe with cold water from a tin pan. My story on my two weeks there was brilliant. Probably one of the best pieces I have written in a long time. It was fun to tear apart the people who run these buildings, especially because I do know a few of the people who own them.

Since my articles on life in the slums have appeared in the papers I have been asked to a number of different dinner parties. Everyone asks me disbelievingly if I actually lived there. It is much fun to spit back at them a perfect account of the horrible conditions in their own buildings. I have now also been asked to give a speech to a group of social workers. I'm sure I'll do the Wynand Papers proud.

Mrs. Holcombe's Party

Tonight I went to a party hosted by the very... enthusiastic Mrs. Holcombe. I don't get invited to her parties often because she hates having me so when I got the invite to go I could not resist going and irritating her. Her dislike in having me is much too obvious. I wasn't there long before my father introduced me to a Mr. Peter Keating. He introduced him to me as his "right hand man" and I knew right away that meant that Mr. Keating was ambitious and really only wanted to meet me to try and win over my father. I laughed at this on the inside. He obviously knew nothing about my relationship with my father. Our relationship was strained at best. I was happy to inform Mr. Keating that my father would rather he be nasty to me which I am sure went against everything he had originally intended.

We talked for quite a while at the party. He was fairly honest to me and I of course was just as blunt with him. Unlike most people though, my bluntness didn't seem to turn him off nearly as much. At first he praised the Wynand papers and my column but when I reminded him that that wasn't interesting at all he quickly changed track. Maybe with a little bit of help he will be an interesting friend.