midnight
`` You remind me , '' he said , `` of a scene I once witnessed in the office of _ The Daily _ -- well , in the office of a certain daily newspaper . It was the dead season , and things were somewhat slow . An endeavour had been made to launch a discussion on the question ` Are Babies a Blessing ? ' The youngest reporter on the staff , writing over the simple but touching signature of ` Mother of Six , ' had led off with a scathing , though somewhat irrelevant , attack upon husbands , as a class ; the Sporting Editor , signing himself ` Working Man , ' and garnishing his contribution with painfully elaborated orthographical lapses , arranged to give an air of verisimilitude to the correspondence , while , at the same time , not to offend the susceptibilities of the democracy -LRB- from whom the paper derived its chief support -RRB- , had replied , vindicating the British father , and giving what purported to be stirring midnight experiences of his own . The Gallery Man , calling himself , with a burst of imagination , ` Gentleman and Christian , ' wrote indignantly that he considered the agitation of the subject to be both impious and indelicate , and added he was surprised that a paper holding the exalted , and deservedly popular , position of _ The _ -- should have opened its columns to the brainless vapourings of ` Mother of Six ' and ` Working Man . ' `` The topic had , however , fallen flat . With the exception of one man who had invented a new feeding-bottle , and thought he was going to advertise it for nothing , the outside public did not respond , and over the editorial department gloom had settled down .