(1) The cost of printing of the two issues by the job printer, in addition to the cost of the paper.
(2) The cost of a fair distribution of ten thousand copies daily, in order to keep faith with the advertisers.
(3) Our rent of the offices for three months, plus the cost of the office accessories, lighting, etc.
These were all chargeable to the debit side. On the credit side, nil. No matter how clever my sporting confrères might be in spotting winners, we could add not one penny to the credit side. I summoned my two partners to a conference that afternoon. Somewhat to my surprise they seemed cheerful. "Things are not so bad as they look," they said. "We have a real 'dead bird' for the Melbourne Cup. We are going to borrow every penny we can, pledge any credit we have with the bookmakers, and on Tuesday evening, after the race, we shall have enough to pay our liabilities on the _Tissue_ and plenty more besides. So cheer up; just raise as much money as you can, and we shall put it all on on Monday evening. On the Tuesday, the morning of the race, we will print twenty thousand copies of the _Tissue_ with the name of the winner. We will scatter the _Tissue_ all over the city and the race-course. The public will back him for all they are worth, for he is a good horse. He may shorten in price. If so we can lay off and stand on velvet."
This cheered me up a good deal. Their confidence in their plan was catching. So we went to Scott's, after all, had a bottle, and I went home, calculating what my third share of our losses in the _Tissue_ would amount to, and how much ready cash I could lay my hands on to back our tip so as to balance the account. I was not the least ambitious to make a fortune. All I wanted was to get clean clear of my journalistic enterprise and cease to be the proprietor, editor and publisher of a newspaper.
I put aside my worries for the week-end. As a matter of fact, three of our tips out of six races came off on the Saturday, which gave the public considerable confidence in our selection for the winner of the Cup on the Tuesday. Then, casting sorrows to the winds, I arranged for a quiet week-end down at Sorrento. The weather was hot; Sorrento beach was delightful. The lapping waves on the beach were fresh and briny; Nature smiled, and I put worries away.