CHAPTER I.
In the spring of 1882 Mr.Jarvis Runcorn, editor and co-proprietor of the London _Weekly Post_, was looking about for a young man of journalistic promise whom he might associate with himself in the conduct of that long established Radical paper.

The tale of his years warned him that he could not hope to support much longer a burden which necessarily increased with the growing range and complexity of public affairs.

Hitherto he had been the autocrat of the office, but competing Sunday papers exacted an alertness, a versatile vigour, such as only youth can supply; for there was felt to be a danger that the _Weekly Post_ might lose its prestige in democratic journalism.

Thus on the watch, Mr.Runcorn--a wary man of business, who had gone through many trades before he reached that of weekly literature--took counsel one day with a fellow-campaigner, Malkin by name, who owned two or three country newspapers, and had reaped from them a considerable fortune; in consequence, his attention was directed to one John Earwaker, then editing the _Wattleborough Courier_.

Mr.Malkin's eldest son had recently stood as Liberal candidate for Wattleborough, and though defeated was loud in his praise of the _Courier_; with its editor he had come to be on terms of intimate friendship.