to do, when he was simple "Lord John;" and, as a
civilian First Lord of the Admirality has since done, although he
possessed so little nautical knowledge that he might not have been able
to tell you the difference between a cathead and a capstan bar, or, how
to distinguish a "dinghy" from the "second cutter." I suppose he
thought, like Mr Toots, that, "it didn't matter!"

Conceit, you say?

Not at all.--Only self-reliance, one of the most available qualities for
getting on in the world; for, if a man does not believe in himself, how
on earth can he expect other people to believe in him?

"Guess" I posed you there!--to use one of my patent Americanisms.

Besides, an American "editor," if you please, is of a very different
stamp to an English one. The "learned lexicographer"--and pedantic old
bore, by the way--Doctor Johnson, defined the individual in question to
be "one who prepares or revises any literary work for publication;" and,
we generally associate the name with the supreme head of a journalistic
staff--he who is addressed indignantly as "sir" by those weak-minded
persons who write letters to newspapers, and who signs himself
familiarly "Ed." But, at the other side of the Atlantic, the term bears
a much wider application, extending to all "connected with the press"--
from the "head cook and bottle-washer," down, nearly, to that bottle
imp, the printer's "devil."

Political writers; correspondents, "special" and "local;" reviewers;
reporters; stenographers, or "gallery" men; dramatic and musical
critics; "paragraphists"--the new name for fire and murder manifolders,
and other "flimsy" compilers; and, penny-a-liners:--each and all, are,
severally and collectively, "editors," beneath the star-spangled banner
of equality and freedom.

Hence, there was not so much effrontery after all in my applying for the
position, eh?

The proprietor of the paper whom I now canvassed did not think so, at
least; and _he_ was the party chiefly concerned in the affair besides
myself; so, I should like to know what _you've_ got to do with it?

He was a "Down-easter," a class of American I had already learnt
specially to dislike--the ideal and real, "Yankee" of the States; but,
he spoke to the point, as most of them do, without any waste of words or
travelling round the subject--more than can be said for some
"Britishers" I know!

He was leaning over the counter of the advertisement office as I
entered, settling some calc