“Did you ever hear of one that wasn’t a music-hall?”
“Never. Maybe the temperance people give one of their new-fashioned coffee places the name to attract sinners on false pretences.”
“Did you ever hear of an Alhambra in Spain?”
“You don’t mean to say that they have music-halls in Spain? But why shouldn’t they? Spaniards are fond of dancing, I believe.”
“Why not indeed?” said I.
The next day he had an explanation to offer to the chief of the staff. In the evening he told me that he was going to leave the paper.
“How is that?” I inquired.
“I don’t like it,” he replied. “My ideas are cribbed, cabined, and confined here.”
“They are certainly cribbed,” said I. “Did you never hear of the Alhambra at Grenada?”
“Never; that’s what played the mischief with the article. You’ll see how the mistake arose. There was a capital article in the Telegraph about the Alhambra—I see now that it must have referred to the one in Spain—about four years ago; well, I cut it out and indexed it. A year ago, when the Alhambra in Leicester Square was about to re-open, there was an article in the Daily News. I found it in my index also, and incorporated the two articles in mine. How the mischief was I to know that one referred to Grenada and the other to London? These writer chaps should be more explicit. What do they get their salaries for, anyway?”