In due course the dialogues of Mr Nutts and his customers were brought to a close. The sage reflections of Mr Tickle were left unreported, albeit at the very last he was at his best. “How often,” he remarked to loyal Mr Slowgoe, “has Fortune crowned where she ought to have bonneted.” Other series were essayed in the newspaper. In 1848 my father went to Paris, well furnished with letters of introduction to Lamartine and the prominent men of the Republican Government, to write a number of papers on the aspects of the French capital. He would never speak about that journey afterwards. He was not at home by the banks of the Seine. He hated turmoil. He could never write in a hurry, nor under uncomfortable circumstances. He felt directly he had reached the hotel that he had made a mistake, and that descriptive reporting was no gift of his. His secretary was sent abroad to gather bits of information, and brought back a budget of peculiar and exclusive news in the evening--but it was left unused. Even the letters of introduction remained upon the writing-table; and they were never delivered. Only a few columns of writing ever reached the newspaper; and “Douglas Jerrold in Paris” had been advertised far and wide! In brief, Douglas Jerrold had tired of his newspaper. He could not work up against the tide. The break in the “Barber’s Chair,” and the consequent loss of circulation, had never been recovered; whereas the Currency series, signed Aladdin, was interminable, and its dulness provoked protests and wearied out subscribers. The papers were perhaps admirable. They were written by a very clever man. But they should have been in the _Banker’s Magazine_, or the _Economist_, and not in the columns of a popular newspaper. The end was a heavy loss, which might have been substantial fortune. It was a bitter result, brought about by the editor’s inability to sustain a continuous effort; and by his easy-going friendship, that led him to open his columns to incompetent writers. This latter editorial defect harmed the _Illuminated Magazine_, and hastened the death of the _Shilling Magazine_. Both were suffocated by importunate dullards, who would besiege the editor in his study, and never leave him till they had obtained his consent to print a score of articles from their fatally facile pens. Of Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper there remains only--“The Barber’s Chair.” It is a bright remnant, however; and this, I trust, the reader will fully admit. BLANCHARD JERROLD. REFORM CLUB, _June 1874_. [Illustration] _THE BARBER’S CHAIR._ CHAPTER I. SCENE.--_A Barber’s Shop in Seven Dials. =Nutts= (the Barber) shaving =Nosebag=. =Pucker=, =Bleak=, =Tickle=, =Slowgoe=, =Nightflit=, =Limpy=, and other customers, come in and go out._ _Nightflit._ Any news, Mr Nutts? Nothin’ in the paper? _Nutts._ Nothing.