wonderful feat of making a pint bottle hold a
quart. Woe is me! he has already half a dozen columns in excess. What
is to be done? Well, the literature must stand over, that's very clear,
then those translations from the French will do to-morrow, and this
report will also not hurt by delay--as to the rest, that must be cut down
and still further condensed; but quickly, for time is passing, and we
must be on the machine at three. Quickly fly the minutes--hotter becomes
the gas-lit room--wearier the editorial staff. But the hours bring
relief. The principal editor has done his leader and departed--the
assistants have done the same--so have the reporters, only the sub-editor
remains, and as daylight is glimmering in the east, and even fast London
is asleep, he quietly lights a cigar, and likewise departs; the printers
will follow as soon as the forms have gone down, and the movements below
indicate that the machine, by the aid of steam, is printing.

We have thus seen most of the newspaper people off the premises. As we
go out into the open air, we may yet find a few of them scorning an
ignoble repose. For instance, there is a penny-a-liner--literally he is
not a penny-a-liner, as he is generally paid three-farthings a line, and
very good pay that is, as the same account, written on very thin paper,
called flimsy, is left at all the newspaper-offices, which, if they all
insert, they all pay for, and one short tale may put the penny-a-liner in
funds for a week. The penny-a-liner has long been the butt of a
heartless world. He ought to be a cynic, and I fear is but an
indifferent Christian, and very so-so as head of a family. His
appearance is somewhat against him, and his antecedents are eccentric;
his face has a beery appearance; his clothes are worn in defiance of
fashion; neither his hat nor his boots would be considered by a swell as
the correct stilton; you would scarce take him as the representative of
the potent fourth estate. Yet penny-a-liner's rise; one of them is now
the editor of a morning paper; another is the manager of a commercial
establishment, with a salary of almost a thousand a year; but chiefly, I
imagine, they are jolly good fellows going down the hill. Charles Lamb
said he never greatly cared for the society of what are called good
people. The penny-a-liners have a similar weakness; they are true
Bohemians, and are prone to hear the chimes at midnight. Literally, they
take no thought fo