ulation of greenbacks with the cashier, and
"guessed," ere I had opened my mouth to explain my presence, that I had
come about that "vacancy up-stairs."

"Been in the newspapering line before?" was his next interrogatory--a
very pertinent one; for, Transatlantic journalists, as a rule, manage to
try every trade and calling previously to sinking down to "literature"--
similarly to some of those bookseller's "hacks" over here who mortgage
themselves to flash publishers when all other means of livelihood have
failed them.

When I answered "Yes" to this question, he did not wait to hear anything
further.

"Go up-stairs and try your hand," said he--"we'll soon see what you'll
amount to, I reckon. We don't want any references here. We take a man
as we find him. Guess I'll give you twenty-five dollars a week, anyhow,
for one week sartain; and then, if we suit each other, we can raise the
pile bimeby. Say, are you on?"

I "guessed" I _was_ "on;" and, went up-stairs to the paste-and-scissors
purlieus with much gusto.

It was a very good commencement for me--I who had nothing to bless
myself with before, for, the salary would pay my board and lodging twice
over. It was a beginning, at any rate; and, as we subsequently did
"suit each other," my down-east friend behaved very fairly, keeping to
his promise of "raising my pile"--a synonym for increasing the weekly
sum of "greenbacks" he allowed me for my labours. I had never any
reason to repent the bargain--nor did I.

The work I had to do was by no means arduous, although, in many
respects, of a novel character. From the fact that my residence in
America had not been yet sufficiently extended to enable me to master
the ins and outs of Transatlantic politics, the leading articles--or
"editorials" as they are there styled--which I had to write were but few
in number, and entirely referring to social subjects of local interest;
notwithstanding that I was occasionally allowed to enlighten the
Manhattan mind in the matter of European affairs. If my special
"editor's" duties were thus light, I made up, however, for their
deficiency, by enlarging upon the skeleton telegrams that came every
night across the ocean--"expanding news," so to speak--and by also
writing, on the arrival of every steamer, while seated in the back
parlour of the journal's office in New York, the most graphic special
correspondent's letters from Paris and London!

With regard to the telegrams. Half