y_, the offices of the new paper at Hanbridge gave proof of their
excellent organisation, working in all details with an admirable
smoothness. In the basement a Marinoni machine thundered like a sucking
dove to produce fifteen thousand copies an hour. On the ground floor
ingenious arrangements had been made for publishing the paper; in
particular, the iron railings to keep the boys in order in front of the
publishing counter had been imitated from the _Signal_. On the
first floor was the editor and founder with his staff, and above that
the composing department. The number of stairs that separated the
composing department from the machine-room was not a positive advantage,
but bricks and mortar are inelastic, and one does what one can. The
offices looked very well from the outside, and they compared passably
with the offices of the _Signal_ close by. The posters were duly in
the ground-floor windows, and gold signs, one above another to the roof,
produced an air of lucrative success.

Denry happened to be in the _Daily_ offices that afternoon. He had
had nothing to do with the details of organisation, for details of
organisation were not his speciality. His speciality was large, leading
ideas. He knew almost nothing of the agreements with correspondents and
Press Association and Central News, and the racing services and the
fiction syndicates, nor of the difficulties with the Compositors' Union,
nor of the struggle to lower the price of paper by the twentieth of a
penny per pound, nor of the awful discounts allowed to certain
advertisers, nor of the friction with the railway company, nor of the
sickening adulation that had been lavished on quite unimportant
newsagents, nor--worst of all--of the dearth of newsboys. These matters
did not attract him. He could not stoop to them. But when Mr Myson, calm
and proud, escorted him down to the machine-room, and the Marinoni threw
a folded pink _Daily_ almost into his hands, and it looked exactly
like a real newspaper, and he saw one of his own descriptive articles in
it, and he reflected that he was an owner of it--then Denry was
attracted and delighted, and his heart beat. For this pink thing was the
symbol and result of the whole affair, and had the effect of a miracle
on him.

And he said to himself, never guessing how many thousands of men had
said it before him, that a newspaper was the finest toy in the world.

About four o'clock the publisher, in shirt sleeves and an ap