Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

292 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
number. But I am prosing needlessly. Spenser cannot be
less than thirty pages—ten of extracts,^ and twenty of my own
writing. The printers have a Spenser, and thus no delay will
occur when they get my manuscript. Till Tuesday morning I
shall occupy myself with my class ; after that I shall work
for 'Maga.'
Six articles seem a liberal allowance from one hand,
but we wonder whether they all came to port in peace ;
for if they did, there must have been halcyon times in
Princes Street, where so often the publisher's office
was occupied by troubled men, emissaries from the
printer added to the already excited staff, gnashing
their teeth, probably using improper language, worn
to the last thread of their patience before the lagging
manuscript came. The poor little printer's devil, who
had to cool his heels for hours in the hall in Wilson's
house at Ann Street, came in sometimes, it appears,
for blame, as will be seen in the solemnity of the
following appeal. " I shall be up at three," says the
culpable Professor
—
but have done nothing. I remember to-morrow. I hope to
be able to begin fairly this evening. I have tried, but fallen
through everything.
I request you to call John, the bearer of this, and your boy
into the back -shop. John denies keeping him above five
minutes; and he himself declared to me in John's presence
that it certainly was not a quarter of an hour. I told him you
had yourself told me that he said he was detained three-quarters
of an hour, and he declared he had not said so, and must
have been misunderstood. I wish you, then, to ascertain from
the parties how this was—that the boy may never again have
^ There seems to have been a rule that extracts, which often were long,
should not count for remuneration—at least, at the same rate. Wilson
was unmerciful in this respect, and occasionally sent articles which were
made up of quotations.