languishing condition to a state of financial
prosperity, and Sir Henry Field, the chairman of directors, and the
other shareholders, were now enjoying an annual return for their money,
it was only natural that the general manager was a more important person
than the editor in their estimation. He was certainly so in his own
opinion, and although a man of no intellectual attainments, he did not
hesitate on various occasions to dispute with the editor about the
quality of his leaders. One of Duncan Macgregor's favourite stories of
these disputes related to his humorous use of the phrase, "A nice
derangement of epitaphs," which Mr. Jones pointed out was sheer
nonsense, as there was not another word about epitaphs in the leader!
The manager had a suspicion that the editor had been looking on the
whisky when it was golden, else he could not have written such twaddle.
But when it happened, as it did during Henry's absence, that the leading
articles were largely made up of clippings from London newspapers,
linked together by a few words from the editor, Mr. Jones's criticism
was based on sounder grounds.

Edgar accompanied Henry to his rooms, where the news was discussed in
all its aspects, and at length Edgar gave him a jerky and stumbling
invitation to spend the evening at his home, on the ground that Henry
had always been a great favourite of "the mater's," and she would like
to see him after his holiday.

Now, the journalist who is engaged on a daily paper has to turn the day
upside down. He is generally starting to his work when ordinary folk are
enjoying their hours of ease. Like the baker, he sallies forth to his
factory when the lamps are glimmering; for the newspaper must accompany
the morning roll; but of the two, the printed sheet is the less
essential to life, and at a pinch would be the first to go. To that
extent the baker's business is the more important. This was often a
saddening thought to Henry, when his eye caught the dusty figures at
work in an underground bakery which he passed every evening on his way
to the office. The result of the daily journalist's topsy-turvy life is
practically to cut him off from social intercourse with his fellow-men
who are not engaged in the same profession, and consequently he moves in
a narrow groove. Even his Sundays are not sacred to him. There was a
time when Henry used to hurry from evening service to his desk at the
office, and set to work on a leader or some editoria