CHAPTER II.
HIS FIRST INTERVUE.—WILL THEY BE CONSINED TO A PLACE THAT
IS HOTTER THAN THIS.—A LABER-SAVTN' MASHEEN.—BEER,
GASSERLIN AND PROHIBISHUN.
I've jest got my supper, so I guess I'll tell you 'bout my first day's xperience on the Dailey “Buster.” I was down to the offis at 7 'clock, and the mannergin edittur, he detaled me to intervue, the old papers and dust, on the floor. By the ade of a broom, wot was so old, it was most bald-hedded, I suckceeded in completely ridden the floor of its surplus stock of litterature, and terbackhey balls, wot them printers spit out, wen they warnted to use there mouths, to consine sum feller, wot rote orful to Hallyfax, or sum other mild climat.
I wunder if everybodie, wot them printers dam, goes to Hades, cos, if they do, and all printin' offisses is like ourn, I guess us fellers wont have much compenny in Heaven wen we get there. They all ap-pare to have a pertickler spite 'gainst a Mister Copy, cos I hearn him bein' dammed, more an a hundred times to-day. I guess the poor feller ain't got no sho a tall.
I never seen the wurkins of a edithers sanktuary before. I useter wonder, how they rote all them long artickels wot everybodie sed show'd the grate geneyus of the edittur, but I never knowed till this mornin' bout the laber-savin' masheen, wot is maid of two peeces of steal, with sharp points on one end, and two rings on the other, wot slip over the editturs fingers. Wen he's got them on, he takes off his shoes and stockins, and waids inter a lot of old noosepapers, clippin' out littel bits here and there, and pastin' 'em on a sheet of wite paper. The masheen wurked splendid, and Mister Gilley sez its a sure anty-dote agin skribler's parallysis, wot all great riters is trubbelled with.
Jest 'fore dinner the edit-her begun to get orful dry ritin a artickel hedded, “Pernisshus Pizen; or, Holesail Slaughter,” caused by the adulterashun of beer with arsernic, so he sent me down to the barroom next door to get him a bottle of beer on thirty days time. I'd jest got back to the sanktum, and was takin' out the cork, wen the Metherdist minnysteer cum in to arrange 'bout a big prohibishun rally wot comes off next week. He looked orful suspishus at the bottle, till the edit-her told me to take that bottel of gasserline, to the forman, and tell him to wash the forms with it, and be sure not to get it neer a lite, cos gasserline was orful 'xplosive.
I guess it got 'xploded cos, wen the minnyster was gone, I went out to get it, and I culdn't even find a smell of it, so I had ter go round to the next block for another, cos the edittur's face wasn't good for morean one, in the same place, in one day.
Say, Mister Diry, did you ever get a whiff of the smell, throne out by the paste-pot, in an edittur's offis, wot was 'stablished in '49? Cos, if you never did, you can't apreshiate how deliteful the consentrated 'xtract of half a dozen glew factorys would be, in comparyson. This afternoon the edit-her perlitely requested me to consine the contents of ours to their last restin' place in the ash-heep, in our back-yard. Menny a silent teer did I shed over the cold and clammy remanes of hundreds of cockroaches, whose young and usefull lives came to such a sad and untimely end, in there brave efferts to 'xplore the mystear-ious and fathemless depths of the “Buster's” paste-pot.
I guess I muster forgot to wash my hands 'fore supper, cos pa's down in the sellar settin' a trap for a polecat, and ma she swares she's goin' to have a carpinter take up the dinin'-room flure tomorrer mornin', and hunt up the rat wot crawled under there and died.