A FOREIGN INVASION


Thus was the question of the new paper and its quarters settled. The
shop, as I had hoped, did well enough for our purposes. True, the district
in which it lay was neither salubrious nor beautiful, and the constant and
inevitable encounters with loquacious Mrs. Wattles and her satellites
something of a trial; but we were absorbed in our work, absorbed in our
enthusiasms, utterly engrossed in the thought of the coming revolution
which by our efforts we were speeding on.

During the first months, besides writing and editing the _Tocsin_, I
was very busily employed in learning how to set type, and print, and the
various arts connected with printing--and as I grew more proficient at the
work my share of it grew in proportion.

The original staff of the _Tocsin_ consisted of Armitage, Kosinksi,
and myself, with Short occupying the well-nigh honorary post of printer,
aided by occasional assistance or hindrance from his hangers-on. But our
staff gradually increased in number if not in efficiency; old M'Dermott
was a frequent and not unwelcome visitor, and as time went on he gradually
settled down into an inmate of the office, helping where he could with the
work, stirring up lagging enthusiasms, doing odd cobbling jobs whenever he
had the chance, and varying the proceedings with occasional outbursts of
Shakespearian recitation. These recitations were remarkable performances,
and made up in vigour for what they perhaps lacked in elegance and
_finesse_. Carter would at times put in an appearance, mostly with a
view to leaning up against a type-rack or other suitable article of
furniture, and there between one puff and another at his pipe would
grumble at the constitution of the universe and the impertinent exactions