was
pretending to occupy himself over, and said, "Can't see him," in a
laconic tone, and dropped his eyes again.

"But why?" asked Jasmine, somewhat indignantly. "I have particular
business with him; it is most necessary that I should see him. Pray,
let him know that I am here."

"Very sorry," replied the boy, "but can't."

"Why not?"

"'Cause he ain't in town."

"Oh!"

Poor Jasmine fell back a pace or two; then she resumed in a different
tone--

"I am very much disappointed; there is a story of mine in _The
Joy-bell_, and I wanted to speak to him about it. It was very
important, indeed," she added, in so sad a voice that the red-haired
boy gazed at her in some astonishment.

"My word," he said, "then you do not know?"

"Don't know what?"

"Why, we has had a funeral here."

"A funeral--oh, dear! oh, dear! is the editor of _The Joy-bell_ dead?"

Here the red-haired boy burst into a peal of irrepressible laughter.

"Dead! he ain't dead, but _The Joy-bell_ is; we had her funeral last
week."

Poor Jasmine staggered against the wall, and her pretty face became
ghastly white.

"Oh, boy," she said, "do tell me about it; how can _The Joy-bell_ be
dead, and have a funeral? Oh, please, don't jest with me, for it's so
important."

The genuine distress in her tones touched at last some vulnerable
point in the facetious office-boy's breast.

"I'm real sorry for you, miss," he said, "particular as you seems so
cut up; but what I tell you is true, and you had better know it. That
editor has gone, and _The Joy-bell_ is decently interred. I was at her
birth, and I was at her funeral. She had a short life, and was never
up to much. I never guessed she'd hold out as long as she did; but the
editor was a cute one, and for a time he bamboozled his authors, and
managed to live on them. Yes, _The Joy-bell_ is in her quiet grave at
last, and can't do no more harm to nobody. Lor', miss, I wouldn't
take on if I was you, you'd soon get accustomed to it if you had a
desk at an office like this. In at the births, and in at the deaths am
I, and I don't make no count of one or t'other. Why, now, there was
_The Stranger_--which went in for pictorial get up, and was truly
elegant--it only lasted six months; and there was _The Ocean Wave_,
which did not even live as long. And there was _Merrie Lassie_--oh,
their names is legion. We'll have another started in no time. So you
must be going, miss? Well, good morning. If I was you,