The Rasp

Excerpt: The Owl shows its blue and gilt cover on the bookstalls every Saturday morning. Thursday nights are therefore nights of turmoil in the offices in Fleet Street. They are always wearing nights; more so, of course, in hot weather than in cold. They are nights of discomfort for the office-boy and of something worse for the editor. Spencer Hastings edited The Owl, and owned a third of it; and the little paper?s success showed him to possess both brains and capacity for hard work. For a man of thirty-three he had achieved much; but that capacity for work was hard tested?especially on Thursday nights. As to the brains, there was really no doubt of their quality. Take, for instance, The Owl ?specials.? After he had thought of them and given birth to the first, The Owl, really a weekly review, was enabled to reap harvests in the way of ?scoops? without in any way degenerating into a mere purveyor of news.