ms, travels, or leading
articles, begad. Anything or everything--only let Bungay pay me, and I'm
ready--I am now my dear Mrs. Bungay, begad now."

"It's to be called the Small Beer Chronicle," growled Wagg, "and little
Popjoy is to be engaged for the infantine department."

"It is to be called the Pall Mall Gazette, sir, and we shall be very
happy to have you with us," Shandon said.

"Pall Mall Gazette--why Pall Mall Gazette?" asked Wagg.

"Because the editor was born at Dublin, the sub-editor at Cork, because
the proprietor lives in Paternoster Row;--and the paper is published in
Catherine Street, Strand. Won't that reason suffice you, Wagg?" Shandon
said; he was getting rather angry. "Everything must have a name. My dog
Ponto has got a namee. You've got a name, and a name which you deserve,
more or less, indeed. Why d'ye grudge the name to our paper?"

"By any other name it would smell as sweet," said Wagg.

"I'll have ye remember its name's not what-d'ye-call-'em, Mr. Wagg,"
said Shandon. "You know its name well enough, and--and you know mine."

"And I know your address too," said Wagg; but this was spoken in an
undertone, and the good-natured Irishman was appeased almost in an
instant after his ebullition of spleen, and asked Wagg to drink wine
with him in a friendly voice.

When the ladies retired from the table, the talk grew louder still; and
presently Wenham, in a courtly speech, proposed that everybody should
drink to the health of the new Journal, eulogising highly the talents,
wit, and learning of its editor, Captain Shandon. It was his maxim
never to lose the support of a newspaper man, and in the course of that
evening he went round and saluted every literary gentleman present with
a privy compliment specially addressed to him; informing this one how
great an impression had been made in Downing Street by his last article,
and telling that one how profoundly his good friend, the Duke of
So-and-So, had been struck by the ability of the late numbers.

The evening came to a close, and in spite of all the precautions to
the contrary, poor Shandon reeled in his walk, and went home to his new
lodgings, with his faithful wife by his side, and the cabman on his
box jeering at him. Wenham had a chariot of his own, which he put at
Popjoy's seat; and the timid Miss Bunion seeing Mr. Wagg, who was her
neighbour, about to depart, insisted upon a seat in his carriage, much
to that gentleman's discomfiture.

Pen