Indeed, Grimes strutted and swaggered as if the fate of the nation rested with him.
The papers themselves were not very flourishing-looking concerns, the wide-spread paragraphs, the staring type, the catching advertisements, forming a curious contrast to the close packing of _The Times_.

The 'Gutta Percha Company,' 'Locock's Female Pills,' 'Keating's Cough Lozenges,' and the 'Triumphs of Medicine,' all with staring woodcuts and royal arms, occupied conspicuous places in every paper.

A new advertisement was a novelty.

However, the two papers answered a great deal better than either did singly, and any lack of matter was easily supplied from the magazines and new books.

In this department, indeed, in the department of elegant light literature generally, Mr.Grimes was ably assisted by his eldest daughter, Lucy, a young lady of a certain age--say liberal thirty--an ardent Bloomer--with a considerable taste for sentimental poetry, with which she generally filled the poet's corner.