The very next week he came to me in confidence, telling me that he had just received the proofs of his usual political article in the Quarterly, and that the editor had taken the trouble to telegraph to him to return the proofs for press without fail the next day. Now, the only question with him was, should he chuck up the Quarterly, for which he had written for many years, or the humble daily paper in the office of which he was standing.
I did not venture to suggest a solution of the problem.
He did.
“Maybe you wouldn’t mind taking a squint”—his phraseology was that of the rough genius—“through the telegrams for to-night,” said he. “I don’t like to impose on a good-natured sonny like you, but you see how I’m situated. Confound that Quarterly!”
“Do you do the political article for the Quarterly?” I asked.
“Man, I’ve done it for the past eleven years,” said he. “I thought every one knew that. It’s editor of the Quarterly that I should be to-day if William Smith hadn’t cut me out of the job. But I bear him no malice—bless your soul, not I. You’ll go over the flimsies?”
I said I would, and he wiped a bath sponge of porter-froth off his beard in order to thank me.
I knew that he was telling me a lie about the Quarterly, but I did his work.
Less than a week after, he entered my room to express the hope that I would be able to make arrangements to have his work done for him once again, the fact being that he had just received a message from Mrs. Thompson—the wife of young Thompson, the manager for Messrs. Gibson, the shippers—to ask him for heaven’s sake to help her to look after her husband that night. Young Thompson had been behaving rather wildly of late, it appeared, and was suffering from an attack of that form of heredity known as delirium tremens. He had been held down in the bed by three men and Mrs. Thompson the previous night, my informant said, and added that he himself would probably be one of a fresh batch on whom a similar duty would devolve inside an hour or so.
He had scarcely left the office—after refreshing himself by the artificial aid of Guinness—before a knock came to my door, and the next moment Mr. Thompson himself quietly entered. I saw that the poker was within easy reach, and then asked him how he was.