dustry, as a
permanency, and that journalism might be.

We had sold Noel's poetry and that piece of information about Lord
Tottenham to the good editor, so we thought it would not be a bad idea
to have a newspaper of our own. We saw plainly that editors must be very
rich and powerful, because of the grand office and the man in the glass
case, like a museum, and the soft carpets and big writing-table. Besides
our having seen a whole handful of money that the editor pulled out
quite carelessly from his trousers pocket when he gave me my five bob.

Dora wanted to be editor and so did Oswald, but he gave way to her
because she is a girl, and afterwards he knew that it is true what it
says in the copy-books about Virtue being its own Reward. Because you've
no idea what a bother it is. Everybody wanted to put in everything just
as they liked, no matter how much room there was on the page. It was
simply awful! Dora put up with it as long as she could and then she said
if she wasn't let alone she wouldn't go on being editor; they could be
the paper's editors themselves, so there.

Then Oswald said, like a good brother: 'I will help you if you like,
Dora,' and she said, 'You're more trouble than all the rest of them!
Come and be editor and see how you like it. I give it up to you.'
But she didn't, and we did it together. We let Albert-next-door be
sub-editor, because he had hurt his foot with a nail in his boot that
gathered.

When it was done Albert-next-door's uncle had it copied for us in
typewriting, and we sent copies to all our friends, and then of course
there was no one left that we could ask to buy it. We did not think of
that until too late. We called the paper the Lewisham Recorder; Lewisham
because we live there, and Recorder in memory of the good editor. I
could write a better paper on my head, but an editor is not allowed to
write all the paper. It is very hard, but he is not. You just have to
fill up with what you can get from other writers. If I ever have time I
will write a paper all by myself. It won't be patchy. We had no time to
make it an illustrated paper, but I drew the ship going down with all
hands for the first copy. But the typewriter can't draw ships, so it was
left out in the other copies. The time the first paper took to write out
no one would believe! This was the Newspaper:

THE LEWISHAM RECORDER

EDITORS: DORA AND OSWALD BASTABLE

------------ EDITO