Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/60

 of which printers will readily appreciate. It was a sultry summer's night, the heat from the gas increasing the natural heat, and the men had opened the windows to let in a little fresh air. When in full swing a compositor came to me with a melancholy countenance and apologetic air, and informed me that a leaf of his 'copy' had been blown out of the window. It used to be a jocular instruction, by the way, when an author desired his punctuation to be observed, 'Follow your copy, even if it goes out of the window.' Scouts were immediately sent out to search the neighbourhood round the Times office, in the hope that the truant paper might have escaped the roofs and fluttered down into the adjacent courts, but they returned without finding it. The only remedy was obvious. I travelled to West Hill Lodge, Highgate, fortunately found Mr. Howitt at home, explained the nature of the accident, and handed him the preceding and following pages of the MS. He naturally felt annoyed, but sat down and filled up the gap."

Of the first version of the "History of England" more than a quarter of a million copies were sold. The book was re-issued time after time, but was so altered in each edition that at last very little of the original work was left.

At length the time came when it was decided that an entirely new work should be prepared—letterpress and illustrations. Specialists in history were commissioned to deal with different periods, and museums and galleries were searched for the most attractive pictures—an enterprise in complete accord with the traditional Cassell policy.