two o'clock in the morning
So he turned into the little bare box devoted to his temporary use , and began writing with perfectly unexampled and extraordinary rapidity at his leader and his article about the injured and martyred apostle of the slighted communistic religion . It was only a few months since Ernest had , with vast toil and forethought , spun slowly out his maiden newspaper article on the Italian organ-boy , and now he found himself , to his own immense surprise , covering sheet after sheet of paper in feverish haste with a long account of Max Schurz 's splendid life and labours , and with a really fervid and eloquent appeal to the English people not to suffer such a man as he to go helplessly and hopelessly to an English prison , at the bare bidding of a foreign despot . He never stopped for one moment to take thought , or to correct what he had written ; in the excitement of the moment his pen travelled along over the paper as if inspired , and he found the words and thoughts thronging his brain almost faster than his lagging hand could suffice to give them visible embodiment . As each page was thrown off hurriedly , he sent it down , still pale and wet , to the printers in the office ; and before two o'clock in the morning , he had full proofs of all he had written sent up to him for final correction . It was a stirring and vigorous leader , he felt quite certain himself as he read it over ; and he thought with a swelling breast that it would appear next day , with all the impersonal authority of the ` Morning Intelligence ' stamped upon its face , at ten thousand English breakfast tables , where it might rouse the people in their millions to protest sternly before it was too late against this horrid violation of our cherished and boasted national hospitality . Meanwhile , Arthur Berkeley had stopped at the office , and run in hastily for five minutes ' talk with the terrible editor . ` Do n't say anything to shock Le Breton , I beg of you , Lancaster , ' he said , ` about this poor man Schurz who has just been sent for a year to prison .