Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/264

 220 THE WINTER TROUBLES. JiiAP. ' your time you are a crouching tiger, waiting, ' ' waiting, to make your spring.' To be lord of these ' crouching tigers,' and — before two o'clock in the morning — say which should spring, and at whom — this was one of the midnight tasks devolving on the editor. But only one out of many. If liigh organisa- tion averted a too-anxious hurry, it could not dispense with the strain put on numbers of men who by concert must achieve great and varied labours within a fast narrowing space of hours, and finally, minutes. And, of course, labours fraught with great consequences to numbers of mortals could not long go on uninterrupted by molestation from without. Because of some insistaut below, great in name, or miglity in earnestness, the janitors charged to protect a great editor's too j)recious moments would from time to time be impor- tuned to take in a card with eager words written in pencil ; and amongst the missives thus pressed, there used to be now and then one which could not be safely despised, nor even indeed withstood. Which of any appeals such as these might drive its way through all barriers, would depend upon the vigilance of the outposts, and the dis- criminating sagacity exercised by an inner line of sentries on guard ; but meanwhile comes a time when the editor sees laid before him a strip of newly-printed paper, and understands at a glance that one of the ' crouching tigers ' has now made his spring; for what he holds in