Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/443

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 203 being mentioned. Quite as often as once a week, his jour nal had some such elegant article as this, viz : "Our esteemed friend, Peter Snooks" perhaps it was Peter Snooks, Esquire " has just brought us a fair specimen of his cocoa-nuts, which we do not hesitate in recommending to the housekeepers of the crater, as among the choicest of the group." Of course, Squire Snooks was grateful for this puff, and often brought more cocoa-nuts. The same great supervision was extended to the bananas, the bread fruit, the cucumbers, the melons, and even the squashes, and always with the same results to the editorial larder. Once, however, this worthy did get himself in a quandary with his use of the imperial pronoun. A mate of one of the vessels inflicted personal chastisement on him, for some impertinent comments he saw fit to make on the honest tar s vessel ; and, this being matter of intense interest to the public mind, he went into a detail of all the evolutions of the combat. Other men may pull each other s noses, and inflict kicks and blows, without the world s caring a straw about it; but the editorial interest is too intense to be overlooked in this manner. A bulletin of the battle was published; the editor speaking of himself always in the plural, out of excess of modesty, and to avoid ego tism (!) in three columns which were all about himself, using such expressions as these: "We now struck our antagonist a blow with our fist, and followed this up with a kick of our foot, and otherwise we made an assault on him that he will have reason to remember to his dying day." Now, these expressions, for a time, set all the old women in the colony against the editor, until he went into an ela borate explanation, showing that his modesty was so pain fully sensitive that he could not say I on any account, though he occupied three more columns of his paper in explaining the state of our feelings. But, at first, the cry went forth that the battle had been of two against one; and that even the simple-minded colonists set down as somewhat cowardly. So much for talking about we in the bulletin of a single combat ! The political effects produced by this paper, however, were much the most material part of its results. When ever it offended and disgusted its readers by its dishonesty,