I've got your note to Inxling; he ain't come down this morning. I haven't a line of copy on the hooks; the boys are all throwing in dead ads. There's a man and a dog in the proprietor's office; I don't believe they ought to be there, all alone, but they were here all Monday and yesterday, and may be connected with the business management of the paper; so I don't like to order them out. Perhaps you will come down and speak to them. We shall have to go away if you don't send copy. _Peter Pitchin, Editor, to William Quoin, Foreman._ 40 DUNTIONER'S ALLEY, Wednesday, 3 P.M. Your note astonishes me. The man you describe is a notorious thief. Get the compositors all together, and make a rush at him. Don't try to keep him, but hustle him out of town, and I'll be down as soon as I can get a button sewn on my collar. P.S.--Give it him good!--don't mention my address and he can't complain to me how you treat him. Bust his bugle! _J. Munniglut, Proprietor, to Peter Pitchin, Editor._ "STINGER" OFFICE, Friday, 2 P.M. Business has detained me from the office until now, and what do I find? Not a soul about the place, no copy, not a stickful of live matter on the galleys! There can be no paper this week. What you have all done with yourselves I am sure I don't know; one would suppose there had been smallpox about the place. You will please come down and explain this Hegira at once--at once, if you please! P.S.--That troublesome Muskler--you may remember he dropped in on Monday to inquire about something or other--has taken a sort of shop exactly opposite here, and seems, at this distance, to be doing something to a shotgun. I presume he is a gunsmith. So we are precious well rid of _him_. _Peter Pitchin, Editor to J. Munniglut, Proprietor_. PIER NO. 3, Friday Evening. Just a line or two to say I am suddenly called away to bury my sick mother. When that is off my mind I'll write you what I know about the Hegira, the Flight into Egypt, the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and whatever else you would like to learn. There is nothing mean about _me!_ I don't think there has been any wilful desertion. You may engage an editor for, say, fifty years, with the privilege of keeping him regularly, if, at the end of that time, I should break my neck hastening back. P.S.--I hope that poor fellow Muskier will make a fair profit in the gunsmithing line. Jump him for an ad! CORRUPTING THE PRESS