CHAPTER IX 



MY FIRST NEWSPAPER 



Finding a Printer — First Number of The Referee — Fancy Founts of Type 

 — The Freak Weekly — Advertisers Kick — Pied by Fire 



There was a little printing office — it was really a shed 

 — in a weather-board structure up near where I lived. 

 It was on a piece of waste land, had a corrugated-iron 

 roof, and the names of the two partners were painted 

 on the shingle outside. I had given them a few odd 

 jobs and one of them came to see me. He was a little 

 chap, long arms, hooked nose and red-headed — a Quilp, 

 yet the most benevolent little man possible. He said 

 " sir " every other sentence and was really after the 

 job. I offered him a cigar and he nearly said " my 

 lord." His partner was a tall lean Scotsman, and I 

 knew his country well — he was mine : but they sought 

 me ; still, as luck would have it, they were paid — see it 

 wet, see it dry I 



It was my intention, as I have said, to make the 

 paper a weekly, and to charge threepence — it was as 

 easy to get this price as a penny. The size was to be 

 four pages of about the same size as that little paper 

 the Racehorse. The front page I proposed to produce 

 on the lines of the Sporting Times, with bright para- 

 graphs ; and inside, racing articles, short stories and 

 bits of odd sport and personal stuff. That was all right 

 so far as it went : the " scenario " was excellent. 

 The amicable Quilp's eyes glistened ; he said it had been 

 the " dream of his life to print a newspaper." The 

 Scotsman, who could have held up the little man with 



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