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Page 27
"Truly yours, J.G."
(Mr. G. was clerk in the Argus counting-room.)
No 6.
"7-1/2 o'clock, P.M.
"Dear Sir:--The papers by the Ville de Lyon, from Havre, which I
have just received, mention the reported escape of M. Bonpland
from Paraguay, the presumed death of Dr. Francia, the probable
overthrow of the government, the possible establishment of a
republic, and a great deal more than I understand in the least.
"These papers had not come to hand when I wrote you this
afternoon. I have left them on your desk at the office.
"In haste, J.F."
I was taken all aback by this mass of odd-looking little notes. I had
spent the afternoon in drilling Singelton, the kindest of friends, as to
what he should do in any probable contingency of news of the next
forty-eight hours, for I did not intend to be absent on a wedding tour
even longer than that time; but I felt that Singleton was entirely
unequal to such a storm of intelligence as this; and, as I hurried down
to the office, my chief sensation was that of gratitude that the cloud
had broken before I was out of the way; for I knew I could do a great
deal in an hour, and I had faith that I might slur over my digest as
quickly as possible, and be at Mrs. Pollexfen's within the time
arranged.
I rushed into the office in that state of zeal in which a man may do
anything in almost no time. But first, I had to go into the
conversation-room, and get the oral news from my sailor; then Mr. H.;
from one of the little news-boats, came to me in high glee, with some
Venezuela Gazettes, which he had just extorted from a skipper, who, with
great plausibility, told him that he knew his vessel had brought no
news, for she never had before. (N.B. In this instance she was the only
vessel to sail, after a three months' blockade.) And then I had handed
to me by Mr. J., one of the commercial gentlemen, a private letter from
Rio Janeiro, which had been lent him. After these delays, with full
materials, I sprang to work--read, read, read; wonder, wonder, wonder;
guess, guess, guess; scratch, scratch, scratch; and scribble, scribble,
scribble, make the only transcript I can give of the operations which
followed. At first, several of the other gentlemen in the room sat
around me; but soon Mr. C., having settled the deaths and marriages, and
the police and municipal reporters immediately after him, screwed out
their lamps and went home; then the editor himself, then the legislative
reporters, then the commercial editors, then the ship-news conductor,
and left me alone.
I envied them that they got through so much earlier than usual, but
scratched on, only interrupted by the compositors coming in for the
pages of my copy as I finished them; and finally, having made my last
translation from the last _Boletin Extraordinario_, sprang up, shouting,
"Now for Mrs. P.'s," and looked at my watch. It was half past one![G] I
thought of course it had stopped,--no; and my last manuscript page was
numbered twenty-eight! Had I been writing there five hours? Yes!
Reader, when you are an editor, with a continent's explosions to
describe, you will understand how one may be unconscious of the passage
of time.
I walked home, sad at heart. There was no light in all Mr. Wentworth's
house; there was none in any of Mrs. Pollexfen's windows;[H] and the
last carriage of her last relation had left her door. I stumbled up
stairs in the dark, and threw myself on my bed. What should I say, what
could I say, to Julia? Thus pondering, I fell asleep.
If I were writing a novel, I should say that, at a late hour the next
day, I listlessly drew aside the azure curtains of my couch, and
languidly rang a silver bell which stood on my dressing-table, and
received from a page dressed in an Oriental costume the notes and
letters which had been left for me since morning, and the newspapers of
the day.
I am not writing a novel.
The next morning, about ten o'clock, I arose and went down to
breakfast. As I sat at the littered table which every one else had left,
dreading to attack my cold coffee and toast, I caught sight of the
morning papers, and received some little consolation from them. There
was the Argus with its three columns and a half of "Important from South
America," while none of the other papers had a square of any
intelligibility excepting what they had copied from the Argus the day
before. I felt a grim smile creeping over my face as I observed this
signal triumph of our paper, and ventured to take a sip of the black
broth as I glanced down my own article to see if there were any glaring
misprints in it. Before I took the second sip, however, a loud peal at
the door-bell announced a stranger, and, immediately after, a note was
brought in for me which I knew was in Julia's hand-writing.
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