so far as his salary was concerned, of 300%. I would have proceeded against him, but for one thing. I found that to bring him back to Fogborough would be dangerous, for Mary Cuttle had fallen desperately in love with him. I wished the girl no harm, and so I let the villain go, and a good riddance he was. Of course I soon found that all his plausible tales and testimonials were mere shams. I ought to have found that out at first; but I didn't; so I need say nothing more about it.

We agreed to make Tom Kitt editor, temporarily, until we could fill Legrand's place. But Tom was no more the man for the work than I was. He could write stinging paragraphs, and he didn't need to use his scissors when he was writing a leader, for I promise you he could spin out yarns to any length; but the stuff he wrote was so full of bad English, and worse Latin, and was besides so coarse and violent, that he would have ruined the paper in no time, if we had allowed him to go on. He got us into about two actions for libel every week, and one of them having gone for trial, we had to pay 400/. damages, and as much more costs. Then he offended some of our best supporters; he quarrelled with the reporters and the foreman, and very soon the place became so hot that I felt we couldn't get on with him at all.

We resolved to give him notice to leave. What did the rascal do but insist that he had been appointed editor of the paper, when he was temporarily placed in charge after Legrand left us, and he demanded a year's salary at the rate of a thousand pounds, as the only condition on which he would leave us. I laughed at him as an impudent scoundrel, when he made the claim. He heard me laugh, but said nothing. Next day, however, I had a letter from his attorney, offering to submit his case to arbitration. I was so sure of a decision in our favour that I agreed; the case went before an arbitrator, and we lost! Tom had brought about fifty vagabonds from all the papers in the neighbourhood to prove what they called 'the custom of the profession,' and the arbitrator ruled against us on that point.

So I was once more on my beam-ends with neither editor nor sub-editor-the reporters were now doing the work temporarily and with a balance against us for the six months during which the paper had existed, of nearly 4,000l. This was not all, however. Between Legrand and Tom Kitt, the 'Englishman' had become the laughing-stock of Fogborongh; and the very shareholders were constantly abusing the unhappy directors, and myself especially, for the way in which we were man

aging the paper. Nothing but a sense of one's duty to one's party could have made me persevere. As for old Cuttle, ever since the affair between Legrand and his daughter, he had done nothing but rave against 'the organ,' and everybody connected with it. I shouldn't have minded all this, if the circulation and advertisements had

been keeping up. But they weren't. Every day they seemed to be declining, and I can tell you that commercially our prospects were about as bad as they could be.

However, I stuck to my post, and advertised again for editor and sub-editor. I got even more answers than I did on the former occasion, and -would you believe it ?-nearly all the applications which I received then came back again. I had to read the same old testimonials, the same old letters, the same old specimens of literary work, by the same parsons, doctors, and barristers, the same priest, and the same refugee, as on the former oceasion. Was it not sickening work?

I was in the middle of the blessed business one night, sitting at home, where I had taken the letters in order that I might read them as much at my ease as possible, when I was suddenly called by my wife who happened to be upstairs.

Tom,' said she. There's a big fire in the town!'

I ran upstairs, and there I saw the reflection of a great blaze in the skies, and began to wonder whose place it was that was burning in that way-just like a heap of matchwood. At that moment the door-bell was rung violently. I ran downstairs before the servant could open it, and found a lad standing on the door-steps breathless. 'It's on fire, sir!' he gasped out. 'What is?' 'The office, sir.' The office?' said I. 'Yes, sir, the "English

man" office, and it's a-goin' off like a lot of old sticks.'

It was quite true. When I got down to the place, there was nothing but the four walls standing. The type was all melted; the hoe machines were buried beneath the blazing rubbish; the editor's room no longer existed—the whole place was a wreck! Next morning the 'Sentinel' had a long account of the fire, in which it spoke of the Englishman' as though it had been in the habit of referring to it every day during the last six months. The concluding words of the account were as follows: 'Although our contemporary cannot be said to have been fortunate in the manner in which its editorial columns were conducted, we

believe that it was not unappreciated by a small and somewhat select circle of readers. We learn on good authority, that after the disaster of last night, no attempt will be made to resume its publication, and we may therefore, in the name of the inhabitants of Fogborough, bid it, and its conductors, a last farewell. Vale! vale!'

I don't know what the 'good authority' of the 'Sentinel' might be; but I do know that we resolved unanimously at a meeting held almost before the ruins of the office were cold, to wind up the company, and to make no further attempt to establish an organ' of our own. So it came to pass that the paragraph I have quoted was the epitaph of the 'Fogborough Englishman.' And a dear bargain it was!

The above narrative is founded upon fact.