his time, for he must be equally active in winter or summer, in
sunshine or sleet, in light or darkness, early or late--but,
choosing my own time, I shall for two or three moments start off
with the newsman on a fine May morning, and take a view of the
wonderful broadsheets which every day he scatters broadcast over
the country. Well, the first thing that occurs to me following the
newsman is, that every day we are born, that every day we are
married--some of us--and that every day we are dead; consequently,
the first thing the newsvendor's column informs me is, that Atkins
has been born, that Catkins has been married, and that Datkins is
dead. But the most remarkable thing I immediately discover in the
next column, is that Atkins has grown to be seventeen years old,
and that he has run away; for, at last, my eye lights on the fact
that William A., who is seventeen years old, is adjured immediately
to return to his disconsolate parents, and everything will be
arranged to the satisfaction of everyone. I am afraid he will
never return, simply because, if he had meant to come back, he
would never have gone away. Immediately below, I find a mysterious
character in such a mysterious difficulty that it is only to be
expressed by several disjointed letters, by several figures, and
several stars; and then I find the explanation in the intimation
that the writer has given his property over to his uncle, and that
the elephant is on the wing. Then, still glancing over the
shoulder of my industrious friend, the newsman, I find there are
great fleets of ships bound to all parts of the earth, that they
all want a little more stowage, a little more cargo, that they have
a few more berths to let, that they have all the most spacious
decks, that they are all built of teak, and copper-bottomed, that
they all carry surgeons of experience, and that they are all A1 at
Lloyds', and anywhere else. Still glancing over the shoulder of my