le of hours in _The Binnacle_
before three tinkers tried to steal his horse.

I have heard people speak well of the editorials in our chief London
rival, but they are not thought much of in Ballybun; they haven't the
flavour. Our paper used to be strongly political, but the increase in
the number of subscribers did not pay for the libel actions, and so of
late we have been cultivating an open mind and advertisements. It is
true that even so it was impossible for Casey, our editor, to steer
wholly clear of vexed political questions, but his latest manner was
admirably statesmanlike. He would summarise the opposing views of our
eight or nine parties and then state boldly that he agreed with most
of them, and as for the rest he would not shrink to declare, in the
face of the world if necessary, that they were full of an intellectual
Zeitgeist, unfortunately only too sporadic. He would then sum up by
drawing attention to the bargain sale of white goods at the Ballybun
Emporium. Everybody liked this, and the Ballybun Bon Marche would send
in its advertisement for our next week's issue.

_The Binnacle_ has ceased publication, of course, before. When the
editor took his summer holiday or went to a friend's wedding in the
country he would often leave the bringing of it out to his staff. The
latter used normally to edit the sporting and fashionable columns and
was called Flannagan, but had only one eye and was somewhat eccentric.
Flannagan couldn't be bothered sometimes and sometimes he would go
fishing. Still, although the paper would not come out just when we
expected, Flannagan might relent and bring it out two or three days
later, and at all events he always told us the news whenever he met us
in the street.

Thus we could not strictly say that we had no local newspaper. But
now, I fear, the case is altered, and _The Binnacle_ has been killed
solely by its own popularity.

It doesn't do for an editor to be too popular. People used to drop in
on Casey at all hours of the day and lend a hand and smoke his tobacco
and try to borrow money. His sanctum became the fashionable lounge
of the Ballybun _elite_. A great gap was caused in the front of the
paper amongst the best paying advertisements by Kelly's trying to
clean his pipe with part of the linotype machine. Casey noticed
this, and further attributed the matter to the Censor, whom he
attacked vigorously in a leading article for trying to throttle the
safety-valve of trad