FullReads

Peter Pitchin, Editor, to Henry Inxling, Bookkeeper.

40 DUNTIONER’S ALLEY, Wednesday, 10 A.M.

I should have come down to the office last evening, but you see I have been moving. My landlady was too filthy dirty for anything! I stood it as long as I could; then I left. I’m coming directly I get your answer to this; but I want to know, first, if my blotter has been changed and my ink-well refilled. This house is a good way out, but the boy can take the car at the corner of Cobble and Slush streets.

O!–about that man? Of course you have not seen him since.

William Quoin, Foreman, to Peter Pitchin, Editor.

“STINGER” OFFICE, Wednesday, 12 M.

I’ve got your note to Inxling; he ain’t come down this morning. I haven’t a line of copy on the hooks; the boys are all throwing in dead ads. There’s a man and a dog in the proprietor’s office; I don’t believe they ought to be there, all alone, but they were here all Monday and yesterday, and may be connected with the business management of the paper; so I don’t like to order them out. Perhaps you will come down and speak to them. We shall have to go away if you don’t send copy.

Peter Pitchin, Editor, to William Quoin, Foreman.

40 DUNTIONER’S ALLEY, Wednesday, 3 P.M.

Your note astonishes me. The man you describe is a notorious thief. Get the compositors all together, and make a rush at him. Don’t try to keep him, but hustle him out of town, and I’ll be down as soon as I can get a button sewn on my collar.

P.S.–Give it him good!–don’t mention my address and he can’t complain to me how you treat him. Bust his bugle!

J. Munniglut, Proprietor, to Peter Pitchin, Editor.

“STINGER” OFFICE, Friday, 2 P.M.

Business has detained me from the office until now, and what do I find? Not a soul about the place, no copy, not a stickful of live matter on the galleys! There can be no paper this week. What you have all done with yourselves I am sure I don’t know; one would suppose there had been smallpox about the place. You will please come down and explain this Hegira at once–at once, if you please!

P.S.–That troublesome Muskler–you may remember he dropped in on Monday to inquire about something or other–has taken a sort of shop exactly opposite here, and seems, at this distance, to be doing something to a shotgun. I presume he is a gunsmith. So we are precious well rid of him.

Peter Pitchin, Editor to J. Munniglut, Proprietor.

PIER NO. 3, Friday Evening.

Just a line or two to say I am suddenly called away to bury my sick mother. When that is off my mind I’ll write you what I know about the Hegira, the Flight into Egypt, the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and whatever else you would like to learn. There is nothing mean about me! I don’t think there has been any wilful desertion. You may engage an editor for, say, fifty years, with the privilege of keeping him regularly, if, at the end of that time, I should break my neck hastening back.

P.S.–I hope that poor fellow Muskier will make a fair profit in the gunsmithing line. Jump him for an ad!