The windows were filthy with the stains of a thousand showers; the paint had blistered and peeled off the heavy old door, and round the gaping chasm of the letter-box; and in the daytime the place looked woebegone and deserted. Nobody came there till about two in the afternoon, when three or four quiet-looking gentlemen would drop in one by one, and after remaining an hour or two, depart as they had come. But at night the old house woke up with a roar; its windows blazed with light; its old sides echoed to the creaking throes of a huge steam-engine; its querulous bell was perpetually being tugged; boys in paper caps and smeary faces and shirt-sleeves were perpetually issuing from its portals, and returning, now with fluttering slips of paper, now with bibulous refreshment. Messengers from the Electric Telegraph Companies were there about every half-hour; and cabs that had dashed up with a stout gentleman in spectacles dashed away with a slim gentleman in a white hat, returning with a little man in a red beard, and flying off with the stout gentleman again. Blinds were down all round the neighbourhood; porters of the Worshipful Companies, sextons of the congregationless churches, agents for printing-ink and Cumberland black-lead, wood-engravers, box-block sellers, and the proprietors of the Never-say-die or Health-restoring Drops, who held the corner premises,--were all sleeping the sleep of the just, or at least doing the best they could towards it, in spite of the reverberation of the steam-engine at the office of the _Statesman_ daily journal. On a hot night in September Mr. Churchill sat in a large room on the first-floor of the _Statesman_ office. On the desk before him stood a huge battered old despatch-box, overflowing with papers--some in manuscript, neatly folded and docketed; others long printed slips, scored and marked all over with ink-corrections. Immediately in front of him hung an almanac and a packet of half-sheets of note-paper, strung together on a large hook. A huge waste-paper basket by his side was filled, while the floor was littered with envelopes of all sizes and colours, fragments cut from newspapers, ink-splashes, and piles of books in paper parcels waiting for review. A solemn old clock, pointing to midnight, ticked gravely on the mantelpiece; a small library of grim old books of reference, in solemn brown bindings, with the flaming cover of the Post-Office Directory like a star in the midst of them, was ranged against the wall; three or four speaking tubes, with ivory mouthpieces, were curling round Mr. Churchill's feet; and Mr. Churchill himself was reading the last number of the _Revue de Deux Mondes_ by the light of a shaded lamp, when a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and a cheery voice said, "Still at the mill, Churchill? still at the mill?" "Ah, Harding, my dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you!"