Chapter VIII. Being Editors It was Albert’s uncle who thought of our trying a newspaper. He said he thought we should not find the bandit business a paying industry, as a permanency, and that journalism might be. We had sold Noel’s poetry and that piece of information about Lord Tottenham to the good editor, so we thought it would not be a bad idea to have a newspaper of our own. We saw plainly that editors must be very rich and powerful, because of the grand office and the man in the glass case, like a museum, and the soft carpets and big writing-table. Besides our having seen a whole handful of money that the editor pulled out quite carelessly from his trousers pocket when he gave me my five bob. Dora wanted to be editor and so did Oswald, but he gave way to her because she is a girl, and afterwards he knew that it is true what it says in the copy-books about Virtue being its own Reward. Because you’ve no idea what a bother it is. Everybody wanted to put in everything just as they liked, no matter how much room there was on the page. It was simply awful! Dora put up with it as long as she could and then she said if she wasn’t let alone she wouldn’t go on being editor; they could be the paper’s editors themselves, so there. Then Oswald said, like a good brother: ‘I will help you if you like, Dora,’ and she said, ‘You’re more trouble than all the rest of them! Come and be editor and see how you like it. I give it up to you.’ But she didn’t, and we did it together. We let Albert-next-door be sub-editor, because he had hurt his foot with a nail in his boot that gathered. When it was done Albert-next-door’s uncle had it copied for us in typewriting, and we sent copies to all our friends, and then of course there was no one left that we could ask to buy it. We did not think of that until too late. We called the paper the Lewisham Recorder; Lewisham because we live there, and Recorder in memory of the good editor. I could write a better paper on my head, but an editor is not allowed to write all the paper. It is very hard, but he is not. You just have to fill up with what you can get from other writers. If I ever have time I will write a paper all by myself. It won’t be patchy. We had no time to make it an illustrated paper, but I drew the ship going down with all hands for the first copy. But the typewriter can’t draw ships, so it was left out in the other copies. The time the first paper took to write out no one would believe! This was the Newspaper: THE LEWISHAM RECORDER Chapter IX. The G. B. Being editors is not the best way to wealth. We all feel this now, and highwaymen are not respected any more like they used to be. I am sure we had tried our best to restore our fallen fortunes. We felt their fall very much, because we knew the Bastables had been rich once. Dora and Oswald can remember when Father was always bringing nice things home from London, and there used to be turkeys and geese and wine and cigars come by the carrier at Christmas-time, and boxes of candied fruit and French plums in ornamental boxes with silk and velvet and gilding on them. They were called prunes, but the prunes you buy at the grocer’s are quite different. But now there is seldom anything nice brought from London, and the turkey and the prune people have forgotten Father’s address. ‘How can we restore those beastly fallen fortunes?’ said Oswald. ‘We’ve tried digging and writing and princesses and being editors.’ ‘And being bandits,’ said H. O. ‘When did you try that?’ asked Dora quickly. ‘You know I told you it was wrong.’ ‘It wasn’t wrong the way we did it,’ said Alice, quicker still, before Oswald could say, ‘Who asked you to tell us anything about it?’ which would have been rude, and he is glad he didn’t. ‘We only caught Albert-next-door.’ ‘Oh, Albert-next-door!’ said Dora contemptuously, and I felt more comfortable; for even after I didn’t say, ‘Who asked you, and cetera,’ I was afraid Dora was going to come the good elder sister over us. She does that a jolly sight too often. Dicky looked up from the paper he was reading and said, ‘This sounds likely,’ and he read out — ‘L100 secures partnership in lucrative business for sale of useful patent. L10 weekly. No personal attendance necessary. Jobbins, 300, Old Street Road.’ ‘I wish we could secure that partnership,’ said Oswald. He is twelve, and a very thoughtful boy for his age. Alice looked up from her painting. She was trying to paint a fairy queen’s frock with green bice, and it wouldn’t rub. There is something funny about green bice. It never will rub off; no matter how expensive your paintbox is — and even boiling water is very little use. She said, ‘Bother the bice! And, Oswald, it’s no use thinking about that. Where are we to get a hundred pounds?’ ‘Ten pounds a week is five pounds to us,’ Oswald went on — he had done the sum in his head while Alice was talking —‘because partnership means halves. It would be A1.’ Noel sat sucking his pencil — he had been writing poetry as usual. I saw the first two lines — I wonder why Green Bice Is never very nice. Suddenly he said, ‘I wish a fairy would come down the chimney and drop a jewel on the table — a jewel worth just a hundred pounds.’ ‘She might as well give you the hundred pounds while she was about it,’ said Dora. ‘Or while she was about it she might as well give us five pounds a week,’ said Alice. ‘Or fifty,’ said I. ‘Or five hundred,’ said Dicky. I saw H. O. open his mouth, and I knew he was going to say, ‘Or five thousand,’ so I said — ‘Well, she won’t give us fivepence, but if you’d only do as I am always saying, and rescue a wealthy old gentleman from deadly peril he would give us a pot of money, and we could have the partnership and five pounds a week. Five pounds a week would buy a great many things.’ Then Dicky said, ‘Why shouldn’t we borrow it?’ So we said, ‘Who from?’ and then he read this out of the paper — MONEY PRIVATELY WITHOUT FEES THE BOND STREET BANK Manager, Z. Rosenbaum. Advances cash from L20 to L10,000 on ladies’ or gentlemen’s note of hand alone, without security. No fees. No inquiries. Absolute privacy guaranteed. ‘What does it all mean?’ asked H. O. ‘It means that there is a kind gentleman who has a lot of money, and he doesn’t know enough poor people to help, so he puts it in the paper that he will help them, by lending them his money — that’s it, isn’t it, Dicky?’ Dora explained this and Dicky said, ‘Yes.’ And H. O. said he was a Generous Benefactor, like in Miss Edgeworth. Then Noel wanted to know what a note of hand was, and Dicky knew that, because he had read it in a book, and it was just a letter saying you will pay the money when you can, and signed with your name. ‘No inquiries!’ said Alice. ‘Oh — Dicky — do you think he would?’ ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Dicky. ‘I wonder Father doesn’t
