We cannot, perhaps, convey a better idea of the manner in which business is conducted by these wholesale houses in the “Row,” than by giving a description of “Magazine day,”--by far the busiest time in each month. Very quiet is Paternoster Row generally, and its solitude is broken only by the fitful and fleeting appearance of publishers, their agents, and literary men--the latter, as a rule, in clerical costume, with white neckties which betray their avocation as lying in “the religious publication line of business;” while its silence is broken by some venturous barrel-organ player, or by an old blind fiddler, whose music is appreciated and encouraged by the young shop-boys, lurking behind each alley corner to enjoy the furtive pipe. But on “Magazine day” all this is changed, the street is now a struggling scene of bustle and confusion; now every house is in a thrill of agitation from the garret to the cellar, and now every business nerve is strained. Owing to the inconvenient innovation of magazine proprietors, in publishing their periodicals on different days, “Magazine day” has lost much of its pristine glory, but even now the work commences on the eve of the chief day of publication, which is known consequently as “late night,” for the assistants are generally kept busily engaged till twelve or one o’clock. By the morning’s post of this preceding day the country orders arrive, and the invoices have to be made out from the lists received. Every regular customer has his allotted pigeon-hole, into which the invoices are put as soon as copied, together with such of the books he has ordered as are on the premises; for the majority of the smaller country booksellers take advantage of their monthly parcels, and to save expense of frequent railway carriage, include also in their orders such recent books as they may require. Early in the morning, or sometimes on the night before, the magazines arrive, and it is on this morning that the real work begins, for though as large a stock of current literature is kept in each warehouse as is possible, there are still many publishers to be sent to. While the assistants are busily engaged sorting out the books, and supplying each order with the works they have in hand, the “collectors” are furnished with lists of the books required from other houses. The “collector” is by no means an unimportant person in a publisher’s establishment; though “seedy” in attire and suspicious in general appearance, he is entrusted with large sums of money, for the cheaper publications are all paid for in ready cash. Bag in hand he rushes in hot haste all over London, and with an impudent tongue and a pair of brawny shoulders, thrusts himself to the front place before each publisher’s counter. As we listen for a moment to the reply he receives as to the price of a cheap periodical, we may gain an insight into the middleman’s system of profit. “Sixes are fours and twelves