“You didn’t tell me that Charles smoked at the Post Office,” exclaimed Mrs. Puffle,--“which he swears that he never does, and that he would be dismissed at once if he attempted it?” Mr. Brown was driven to a smile. “I declare I don’t understand you, Mr. Brown.” “It was his little Roland for our little Oliver,” said Miss Puffle. Mr. Brown felt that his Roland had been very small, whereas the Oliver by which he had been taken in was not small at all. But he was forced to accept the bargain. What is a man against a woman in such a matter? What can he be against two women, both young, of whom one was pretty and the other an invalid? Of course he gave way, and of course he undertook the mission to X., Y., and Z. We have not ourselves read “Not so Black as he’s Painted,” but we can say that it came out in due course under the hands of those enterprising publishers, and that it made what many of the reviews called quite a success. [Illustration] THE PANJANDRUM. [Illustration] THE PANJANDRUM. PART I.--HOPE. We hardly feel certain that we are justified in giving the following little story to the public as an Editor’s Tale, because at the time to which it refers, and during the circumstances with which it deals, no editorial power was, in fact, within our grasp. As the reader will perceive, the ambition and the hopes, and something of a promise of the privileges, were there; but the absolute chair was not mounted for us. The great WE was not, in truth, ours to use. And, indeed, the interval between the thing we then so cordially desired, and the thing as it has since come to exist, was one of so many years, that there can be no right on our part to connect the two periods. We shall, therefore, tell our story, as might any ordinary individual, in the first person singular, and speak of such sparks of editorship as did fly up around us as having created but a dim coruscation, and as having been quite insufficient to justify the delicious plural. * * * * *