He smote his chest hard with a muffled hand, and coughed in that rather hollow fashion, adding: "Without vanity, I may consider myself as belonging to the latter class! Eh?"
P. C. Breagh agreed that the speaker might be considered as belonging to the latter class.
"For at this moment I am as fresh as paint," said the little man proudly, "and as lively as a kitten, yet I have been up and about and on my legs all night! I left our place of business at 3.20 a.m., reached Charing Cross by 3.30, was on the platform when the Dover Boat Train steamed in—bringing mails and passengers that have crossed in the Night Boat from Cally—took over a shorthand report from a Special Correspondent—who has been to Paris to gather details of a political murder," he tapped the breast of his black frock-coat, which showed the bulging outline of a thick notebook. "And in the absence of our News Editor—who's been sent to Brummagem to report Mr. Bright's speech on Popular Education, Irish Amelioration, and Free Trade,—Parliamentary affairs being at a standstill this holiday season,—I shall hand 'em to the Senior Sub., who'll distribute the stuff and have it set up by the time the Chief drops in from Putney at eleven. It's for to-morrow's issue, following the ten-line telegram we publish this morning. A column-and-a-half of Latest Intelligence!" the little man screwed up his eyes and licked his lips as though reveling in the flavor of some rare gastronomic delicacy. "And if I had the say as to the setting of it—which I haven't!—and was free to indulge my predilection for showy printing—which I never shall be!—it should be headed with caps an inch high—and spaced and leaded all the way down."
His black eyes snapped: his hectic cheeks grew fiery.
"Headed with inch-high caps, ah! and spaced and leaded from the top to the bottom. Fancy how it 'ud lay siege to the Public Eye, and draw the Public's coppers! When I shut my eyes I can fair see the editions running out."
He recited, marking out the lines and spaces with a finger encased in white woolen:
A PRINCE MURDERS
ONE MAN AND
FIRES AT ANOTHER
IN HIS OWN
GILDED DRAWING-ROOM.
PARIS SENSATION.
COUSIN OF
THE FRENCH EMPEROR KILLS
A JOURNALIST
ON THE VERY DAY WHEN
THE FRENCH LEGISLATIVE
BODY
MEET TO INAUGURATE THE NEW ERA
OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT
UNDER NAPOLEON III.
His eyes snapped, his hectic cheeks flamed, he was evidently launched on a subject that was near the heart beating beneath the bulgy pocket-book. He talked fast; and as he talked he waved his arms, and gesticulated with the large hands encased in the woolly boxing-gloves.
"I cherish ambitions, perhaps you'll say, above my calling, which I don't mind owning is that of Newspaper Publishers' Warehouseman. Perhaps I do—perhaps I don't! My own opinion is I'm before my time, a kind of Anachronism the wrong way round," said the little man rather ruefully, "and rightly belong to—say forty years hence. As the poet Shakespeare says, and if it wasn't him it ought to have been! 'Sweet are the uses of Advertisement.' I'm a believer in Advertisement, always have been and always shall be!"
His garrulity was an individual and not unpleasant trait, implying confidence in others' sympathy. He went on: