ng pages. The
weekly loss on the paper weighed upon his conscience.

"We shall never succeed," said the sub-editor, shaking his romantic
hair, "till we run it for the Upper Ten. These ten people can make the
paper, just as they are now killing it by refusing their countenance."

"But they must surely reckon with us sooner or later," said Raphael.

"It will he a long reckoning. I fear: you take my advice and put in more
butter. It'll be _kosher_ butter, coming from us." The little Bohemian
laughed as heartily as his eyeglass permitted.

"No; we must stick to our guns. After all, we have had some very good
things lately. Those articles of Pinchas's are not bad either."

"They're so beastly egotistical. Still his theories are ingenious and
far more interesting than those terribly dull long letters of Henry
Goldsmith, which you will put in."

Raphael flushed a little and began to walk up and down the new and
superior sanctum with his ungainly strides, puffing furiously at his
pipe The appearance of the room was less bare; the floor was carpeted
with old newspapers and scraps of letters. A huge picture of an Atlantic
Liner, the gift of a Steamship Company, leaned cumbrously against a
wall.

"Still, all our literary excellencies," pursued Sampson, "are outweighed
by our shortcomings in getting births, marriages and deaths. We are
gravelled for lack of that sort of matter What is the use of your
elaborate essay on the Septuagint, when the public is dying to hear
who's dead?"

"Yes, I am afraid it is so." said Raphael, emitting a huge volume of
smoke.

"I'm sure it is so. If you would only give me a freer hand, I feel sure
I could work up that column. We can at least make a better show: I would
avoid the danger of discovery by shifting the scene to foreign parts. I
could marry some people in Born-bay and kill some in Cape Town,
redressing the balance by bringing others into existence at Cairo and
Cincinnati. Our contemporaries would score off us in local interest, but
we should take the shine out of them in cosmopolitanism."

"No, no; remember that _Meshumad_" said Raphael, smiling.

"He was real; if you had allowed me to invent a corpse, we should have
been saved that _contretemps_. We have one 'death' this week
fortunately, and I am sure to fish out another in the daily papers. But
we haven't had a 'birth' for three weeks running; it's just ruining our
reputation. Everybody knows that the orthodox are a fertile l