Captain Shannon by Coulson Kernahan

Ten A. M. is a comparatively quiet hour in Fleet Street. The sale of morning papers has practically dropped, and as the second edition of those afternoon journals, of which no one ever sees a first, has not yet been served out to the clamouring and hustling mob at the distributing centres, no vociferating newsboys, aproned with placards of "Sun," "News," "Echo" or "Star," have as yet taken possession of the street corners and pavement kerbs.

On the morning of which I am writing, the newspaper world was sadly in want of a sensation. A royal personage had, it is true, put off the crown corruptible for one which would press less heavily on his brow; but he had, as a pressman phrased it, "given away the entire situation" by allowing himself for a fortnight to be announced as "dying. " This, Fleet Street resented as unartistic, and partaking of the nature of an anti-climax. Better things, it considered, might have been expected from so eminent an individual; and as such a way of making an end was not to be encouraged, the Press had, as a warning to other royal personages, passed by the event as comparatively unimportant.