We had been with him buying the largest-sized scribbling paper in the market; we had heard him muttering to himself as if in pain: and we had seen him correcting proof-sheets.

When we caught him at them he always thrust the proofs into a drawer which he locked by putting his leg on it--for the ordinary lock was broken--and remaining in that position till we had retired.

Though he rather shunned the subject as a rule, he admitted to us that the work was journalism and not a sarcastic history of the nineteenth century, on which we felt he would come out strong.

Lastly, Jimmy had lost the brightness of his youth, and was become silent and moody, which is well known to be the result of writing satire.
[Illustration] Were it not so notorious that the thousands who write regularly for the _Saturday_ have reasons of their own for keeping it dark and merely admitting the impeachment with a nod or smile, we might have marvelled at Jimmy's reticence.

There were, however, moments when he thawed so far as practically to allow, and every one knows what that means, that the _Saturday_ was his chief source of income.