in figure. The others took seats and
laughed whenever Lord Muchross spoke.

"Here we are, old chappie, just in time to drink to the health of the
number. Ha, ha, ha! What damned libel have you in this week? Ha, ha!"

"Awful bad head, a heavy day yesterday," said Dicky--"drunk blind."

"Had to put him in a wheelbarrow, wheeled him into a greengrocer's
shop, put a carrot in his mouth, and rang the bell," shouted
Muchross.

"Ha, ha, ha!" shouted the others.

"Had a rippin' day all the same, didn't we, old Dicky? Went up the
river in Snowdown's launch. Had lunch by Tag's Island, went as far as
Datchet. There we met Dicky; he tooted us round by Staines. There we
got in a fresh team, galloped all the way to Houndslow. Laura brought
her sister. Kitty was with us. Made us die with a story she told us
of a fellow she was spoony on. Had to put him under the bed....
Ghastly joke, dear boy!"

Amid roars of laughter Dicky's voice was heard--

"She calls him Love's martyr; he nearly died of bronchitis, and
became a priest. Kitty swears she'll go to confession to him one of
these days."

"By Jove, if she does I'll publish it in the _Pilgrim_."

"Too late this week," Mike said to Frank.

"We got to town by half past six, went round to the Cri. to have a
sherry-and-bitters, dined at the Royal, went on to the Pav., and on
with all the girls in hansoms, four in each, to Snowdown's."

"See me dance the polka, dear boy," cried the languid lord, awaking
suddenly from his indolence, and as he pranced across the room most
of his drink went over Drake's neck; and amid oaths and laughter
Escott besought of the revellers to retire.

"We are still four columns short, we must get on." And for an hour
and a half the scratching of the pens was only interrupted by the
striking of a match and an occasional damn. At six they adjourned to
the office. They walked along the Strand swinging their sticks, full
of consciousness of a day's work done. Drake and Platt, who had
avenged some private wrongs in their paragraphs, were disturbed by
the fear of libel; Harding gnawed the end of his moustache, and
reconsidered his attack on a contemporary writer, pointing his gibes
afresh.

They trooped up-stairs, the door was thrown open. It was a small
office, and at the end of the partitioned space a clerk sat in front
of a ledger on a high stool, his face against the window. Lounging on
the counter, turning over the leaves of back numbers, they discu