“But how about meetings?” urged Raphael.  “I find that sometimes two take place at once.  I can go to one, but I can’t be at both.”

“Oh, that will be all right,” said De Haan airily.  “We will leave out one and people will think it is unimportant.  We are bringing out a paper for our own ends, not to report the speeches of busybodies.”

Raphael was already exhibiting a conscientiousness which must be nipped in the bud.  Seeing him silenced, Ebenezer burst forth anxiously: 

“But Mr. Leon is right.  There must be a sub-editor.”

“Certainly there must be a sub-editor,” cried Pinchas eagerly.

“Very well, then,” said De Haan, struck with a sudden thought.  “It is true Mr. Leon cannot do all the work.  I know a young fellow who’ll be just the very thing.  He’ll come for a pound a week.”

“But I’ll come for a pound a week,” said Ebenezer.

“Yes, but you won’t get it,” said Schlesinger impatiently.

“Sha, Ebenezer,” said old Sugarman imperiously.

De Haan thereupon hunted up a young gentleman, who dwelt in his mind as “Little Sampson,” and straightway secured him at the price named.  He was a lively young Bohemian born in Australia, who had served an apprenticeship on the Anglo-Jewish press, worked his way up into the larger journalistic world without, and was now engaged in organizing a comic-opera touring company, and in drifting back again into Jewish journalism.  This young gentleman, who always wore long curling locks, an eye-glass and a romantic cloak which covered a multitude of shabbinesses, fully allayed Raphael’s fears as to the difficulties of editorship.

“Obituaries!” he said scornfully.  “You rely on me for that!  The people who are worth chronicling are sure to have lived in the back numbers of our contemporaries, and I can always hunt them up in the Museum.  As for the people who are not, their families will send them in, and your only trouble will be to conciliate the families of those you ignore.”

“But about all those meetings?” said Raphael.

“I’ll go to some,” said the sub-editor good-naturedly, “whenever they don’t interfere with the rehearsals of my opera.  You know of course I am bringing out a comic-opera, composed by myself, some lovely tunes in it; one goes like this:  Ta ra ra ta, ta dee dum dee—­that’ll knock ’em.  Well, as I was saying, I’ll help you as much as I can find time for.  You rely on me for that.”

“Yes,” said poor Raphael with a sickly smile, “but suppose neither of us goes to some important meeting.”

“No harm done.  God bless you, I know the styles of all our chief speakers—­ahem—­ha!—­pauperization of the East End, ha!—­I would emphatically say that this scheme—­ahem!—­his lordship’s untiring zeal for hum!—­the welfare of—­and so on.  Ta dee dum da, ta, ra, rum dee.  They always send on the agenda beforehand.  That’s all I want, and I’ll lay you twenty to one I’ll turn out as good a report as any of our rivals.  You rely on me for that!  I know exactly how debates go.  At the worst I can always swop with another reporter—­a prize distribution for an obituary, or a funeral for a concert.”