r had been in New York then, and had wished to
buy a copy of the saucy little paper, which every morning amused and
offended the decorous people of that day, he would have gone down into
this underground office, and there he would have found its single chair
occupied by a tall and vigorous-looking man about forty years of age,
with a slight defect in one of his eyes, dressed in a clean, but
inexpensive suit of summer clothes.

This was James Gordon Bennett, proprietor, editor, reporter,
book-keeper, clerk, office-boy, and everything else there was
appertaining to the control and management of the New York "Herald,"
price one cent. The reader would perhaps have said to him, "I want
to-day's 'Herald.'" Bennett would have looked up from his writing, and
pointed, without speaking, to the pile of papers at the end of the
board. The visitor would have taken one and added a cent to the pile of
copper coin adjacent. If he had lingered a few minutes, the busy writer
would not have regarded him, and he could have watched the subsequent
proceedings without disturbing him. In a few moments a woman might have
come down the steps into the subterranean office, who answered the
editor's inquiring look by telling him that she wanted a place as cook,
and wished him to write an advertisement for her. This Would have been
entirely a matter of course, for in the prospectus of the paper it was
expressly stated that persons could have their advertisements written
for them at the office.

The editor himself would have written the advertisement for her with the
velocity of a practiced hand, then read it over to her, taking
particular pains to get the name spelled right, and the address
correctly stated.

"How much is it, sir?"

"Twenty-five cents."

The money paid, the editor would instantly have resumed his writing.
Such visitors, however, were not numerous, for the early numbers of the
paper show very few advertisements, and the paper itself was little
larger than a sheet of foolscap. Small as it was, it was with difficulty
kept alive from week to week, and it was never too certain as the week
drew to a close whether the proprietor would be able to pay the
printer's bill on Saturday night, and thus secure its reappearance on
Monday morning.

There were times when, after paying all the unpostponable claims, he had
twenty-five cents left, or less, as the net result of his week's toil.
He worked sixteen, seventeen, eighteen hours a day,