It seemed to him that the newspaper managers didn't want genius, but mere plodding and grubbing.

Philip therefore read diligently in the Astor library, planned literary works that should compel attention, and nursed his genius.

He had no friend wise enough to tell him to step into the Dorking Convention, then in session, make a sketch of the men and women on the platform, and take it to the editor of the Daily Grapevine, and see what he could get a line for it.
One day he had an offer from some country friends, who believed in him, to take charge of a provincial daily newspaper, and he went to consult Mr.Gringo--Gringo who years ago managed the Atlas--about taking the situation.
"Take it of course," says Gringo, take anything that offers, why not ?" "But they want me to make it an opposition paper." "Well, make it that.

That party is going to succeed, it's going to elect the next president." "I don't believe it," said Philip, stoutly, "its wrong in principle, and it ought not to succeed, but I don't see how I can go for a thing I don't believe in." "O, very well," said Gringo, turning away with a shade of contempt, "you'll find if you are going into literature and newspaper work that you can't afford a conscience like that." But Philip did afford it, and he wrote, thanking his friends, and declining because he said the political scheme would fail, and ought to fail.

And he went back to his books and to his waiting for an opening large enough for his dignified entrance into the literary world.
It was in this time of rather impatient waiting that Philip was one morning walking down Broadway with Henry Brierly.