rom a correspondent whose repute is the worst.

A place is still vacant at the tables. The marine dispatches are
piling high.

"Where is the sea-dog?" asks the night editor, who is in command of the
paper.

"Good evening, Corkey," says the telegraph editor. "I trust we are
spared for another day of usefulness," says the night editor, with an
unction which is famous in the office.

"How is the ooze of the salt deep, commodore?" asks the night editor.

"How is the coral and green amber?" asks the telegraph editor.

"Green nothing!" mutters Corkey. He feels weary.

"How did you leave great Neptune?" asks the assistant telegraph editor.

These questions are wholly perfunctory. The telegraph editor has
dedicated five minutes to the history and diary of the triple alliance.

When Corkey is happy this inquisition flatters him. When he is black
in the face there is an inclination to deal harshly with these wits. A
thousand clever things flash into his black eyes but escape his tongue.

He struggles to say something that will put the laugh on the telegraph
editor, and begins choking. The head vibrates, the little tongue plays
about the black tobacco, the mouth grows square.

"Run for your lives, gentlemen," cries the assistant telegraph editor,
making believe to hold down his shears. There is an explosion. It is
accompanied with many distinguishable noises--the hissing of steam, the
routing of hogs from their wallow, the screech of tug whistles and the
yell of Indians.

The door stands open to the great composing-room, where eighty
typesetters--eighty cynics--eighty nervous, high-strung, well-paid
workmen--stand at their intellectual toil. They are all in a hurry,
but each rasps his iron type-stick across a thin partition of his type
case. It is a small horse-fiddle. The combined effect is impressive,
chaotic.

The night foreman rages internally. He stalks about with baleful eye.
"Buck in, you fellows," he says. "The paper is behind."

"I wish it would kill him," the night foreman says of Corkey.

There is silence in the telegraph-room. The tinkle of the horse-cars
comes up audibly from the street. The night editor knows what has
happened, to the slightest detail. He mentally sees the night foreman
standing in the shadows of the parlor (wash-place) laughing to kill.
The night editor grows still more unctuous.

"From earthquakes, hailstorms and early frosts," he prays, "good Lord,
deliver us."