Raphael did not find the editing by committee feasible. The friction was incessant, the waste of time monstrous. The second number cost him even more headaches than the first, and this although the gallant Gluck, abandoning his single-handed emprise, fortified himself with a real live compositor and had arranged for the paper to be printed by machinery. The position was intolerable. It put a touch of acid into his dulciferous mildness. Just before going to press he was positively rude to Pinchas. It would seem that Little Sampson, sheltering himself behind his capitalists, had refused to give the poet a commission for a comic opera, and Pinchas raved at Gideon, M.P., who he was sure was Sampson's financial backer, and threatened to shoot him, and danced maniacally about the office. 'I have written an attack on the Member for Vitechapel,' he said, growing calmer, 'to hand him down to the execration of posterity, and I have brought it to the _Flag_. It must go in this veek.' 'We have already your poem,' said Raphael. 'I know, but I do not grudge my work; I am not like your money-making English Jews.' 'There is no room. The paper is full.' 'Leave out Ebenezer's tale--with the blue spectacles.' 'There is none. It was complete in one number.' 'Well, must you put in your leader?' 'Absolutely; please go away. I have this page to read.' 'But you can leave out some advertisements.' 'I must not. We have too few as it is.' The poet put his finger alongside his nose, but Raphael was adamant. 'Do me this one favour,' he pleaded. 'I love you like a brother--just this one little thing! I vill never ask another favour of you all my life.' 'I would not put it in even if there was room. Go away,' said Raphael, almost roughly. The unaccustomed accents gave Pinchas a salutary shock. He borrowed two shillings and left, and Raphael was afraid to look up lest he should see his head wedged in the doorway. Soon after, Gluck and his one compositor carried out the formes to be machined. Little Sampson, arriving with a gay air on his lips, met them at the door. On the Friday Raphael sat in the editorial chair utterly dispirited--a battered wreck. The committee had just left him. A heresy had crept into a bit of late news not inspected by them, and they declared that the paper was not worth twopence and had better be stopped. The demand for this second number was, moreover, rather poor, and each man felt his ten pound share melting away, and resolved not to pay up the half yet unpaid. It was Raphael's first real experience of men--after the enchanted towers of Oxford, where he had foregathered with dreamers.