But there was no sign of workmen anywhere, and, to his disgust, he ascertained from a passing boy that the compositors' dinner-hour did not begin till he was due back at his work.
Everything seemed to conspire to sever the two brothers, and Horace dejectedly took a solitary and frugal repast.

He determined, at all hazards, to wait a minute after the bell summoning him back to work had ceased pealing, and was rewarded by a hasty glimpse of his brother, and the exchange of a few hurried sentences.

It was better than nothing, and he rushed back to his room just in time to save his reputation for punctuality.
The afternoon passed scarcely less busily than the morning.

They sat-- and Booms had contrived to raise a third chair somewhere--with a pile of work in front of them which at first seemed hopeless to expect to overtake.
There were effusions to "decline with thanks," and others to enter in a book and send up to the composing-room; there were some letters to write and others to answer; there were reporters' notes to string together and telegrams to transcribe.

And all the while a dropping fire of proofs and revises and messages was kept up at them from without, which they had to carry to their chief and deal with according to his orders.
Horace, being inexperienced, was only able to take up the simpler portions of this miscellaneous work, but these kept him busy, "hammer and tongs," with scarcely time to sneeze till well on in the afternoon.
The _Rocket_, unlike most evening papers, waited till the evening before it appeared, and did not go to press till five o'clock.