His plan for news collecting will be something like this: He will have his secretary keep two great journals, with a page in each devoted to each day. One of these, the "blotter," will be to write things in which are going to happen. Everything that is going to happen to-morrow, the next day, the next, and so on, the secretary will make a memorandum of or paste a paragraph in about upon the page for the day on which the event will happen. Whatever he, or the City Editor, hears or reads of, that is going to happen, they thus put down in advance, until by and by, the book gets fairly fat and stout with slips which have been pasted in. But, this morning, the City Editor wants to lay out to-day's work. So his secretary turns to the "blotter," at to-day's page, and copies from it into to-day's page in the second book all the things to happen to-day--a dozen, or twenty, or thirty--a ship to be launched, a race to come off, a law-case to be opened, a criminal to be executed, such and such important meetings to be held, and so on. By this plan, nothing escapes the eye of the City Editor who, at the side of each thing to happen, writes the name of the reporter whom he wishes to have write the event up. This second book is called the "assignment book;" and, when it is made out, the reporters come in, find their orders upon it, and go out for their day's work, returning again at evening for any new assignments. Besides this, they, and the City Editor, keep sharp ears and eyes for anything new; and so, amongst them, the city and suburbs are ransacked for every item of news of any importance. The City Editor is a sort of general. He keeps a close eye on his men. He finds out what they can best do, and sets them at that. He gives the good workers better and better work; the poor ones he gradually works out of the office. Those who make bad mistakes, or fail to get the news, which some other paper gets, are frequently "suspended," or else discharged out-and-out. Failing to get news which other papers get, is called being "beaten," and no reporter can expect to get badly "beaten" many times without losing his position. [Illustration: HOW SOME OF THE NEWS IS GATHERED] And now, Tom, and Jonathan, and even little Nell, we'll all be magicians to-night, like the father of Miranda, in "The Tempest," and transport ourselves in an instant right to one of those great newspaper offices. [Illustration: TYPE-SETTER'S CASE IN PI.] It is six o'clock. The streets are dark. The gaslights are glaring from hundreds of lamp-posts. Do you see the highest stories of all those buildings brilliant with lights? Those are the type-setters' rooms of as many great newspapers. In a twinkling we are several stories up toward the top of one of these buildings. These are the Editorial Rooms. We'll make ourselves invisible, so that they'll not suspect our presence, and will do to-night just as they always do. [Illustration: TYPE-SETTERS' ROOM.]