f the _Swillingford Guide to Glory_; but those
were stirring days, when politics ran high and votes and corn commanded
good prices. The papers were never very prosperous concerns, as may be
supposed when we say that the circulation of the former at its best time
was barely seven hundred, while that of the latter never exceeded a
thousand.

They were both started at the reform times, when the reduction of the
stamp-duty brought so many aspiring candidates for literary fame into the
field, and for a time they were conducted with all the bitter hostility
that a contracted neighbourhood, and a constant crossing by the editors of
each other's path, could engender. The competition, too, for
advertisements, was keen, and the editors were continually taunting each
other with taking them for the duty alone. AEneas M'Quirter was the editor
of the _Patriot_, and Felix Grimes that of the _Guide to Glory_.

M'Quirter, we need hardly say, was a Scotsman--a big, broad-shouldered
Sawney--formidable in 'slacks,' as he called his trousers, and terrific in
kilts; while Grimes was a native of Swillingford, an ex-schoolmaster and
parish clerk, and now an auctioneer, a hatter, a dyer and bleacher, a
paper-hanger, to which the wits said when he set up his paper, he added the
trade of 'stainer.'

At first the rival editors carried on a 'war to the knife' sort of contest
with one another, each denouncing his adversary in terms of the most
unmeasured severity. In this they were warmly supported by a select knot of
admirers, to whom they read their weekly effusions at their respective
'houses of call' the evening before publication. Gradually the fire of
bitterness began to pale, and the excitement of friends to die out;
M'Quirter presently put forth a signal of distress. To accommodate 'a
large and influential number of its subscribers and patrons,' he determined
to publish on a Tuesday instead of on a Saturday as heretofore, whereupon
Mr. Grimes, who had never been able to fill a single sheet properly, now
doubled his paper, lowered his charge for advertisements, and hinted at his
intention of publishing an occasional supplement.

However exciting it may be for a time, parties soon tire of carrying on a
losing game for the mere sake of abusing each other, and AEneas M'Quirter
not being behind the generality of his countrymen in 'canniness' and
shrewdness of intellect, came to the conclusion that it was no use doing so
in this case, especiall