For himself, he never could bear made-up dishes; they were, he thought, usually rich, and he had a poor-enough digestion, so that he could not afford to trifle with it.
Just then the foreman loomed through the dense smoke, and, being confronted with the hydra-headed smell, he boldly grappled with it, and after a fierce contest, he succeeded in strangling one of the heads and then set his foot on it. He hurriedly explained to the subeditor that all the hands who had lifted the copy that had been sent out were setting it up with bowls of water beside them to save themselves the trouble of going to the water-tap for a drink.
The next day the clerks in the mercantile department were working with bottles of carbolic under their noses, and every now and again a note would be brought in from a subscriber ordering his paper to be stopped until a new consignment of printers’ ink should arrive, in which the chief ingredient was not so pungent.
At the end of a week the sub-editor was given a month’s salary and an excellent testimonial, and was dismissed. The proprietor of the journal had the sub-editors’ room freshly painted and papered, and made the assistant-editor a present of two pounds to buy a new coat to replace the one which, having hung in the room for an entire night, had to be burnt, no cleaner being found who would accept the risk of purifying it. The cleaners all said that they would not run the chance of having all the contents of their vats left on their hands. They weren’t as a rule squeamish in the matter of smells; they only drew the line at creosote, and the coat was a long way on the other side.
Seven years have passed since that sub-editor partook of that simple supper, and yet I hear that every night drag-hounds howl at the door of the room, and strangers on entering sniff, saying,—
“Whew! there’s a barrel of red herrings somewhere about.”
CHAPTER IX.—ON THE HUMAN IMAGINATION.
Mr. Henry Irving and the Stag’s Head—The sense of smell—A personal recollection—Caught “tripping”—The German band—In the pre-Wagnerian days—Another illustration of a too-sensitive imagination—The doctor’s letter—Its effects—A sudden recovery—The burial service is postponed indefinitely.