about midnight
He begged for the bottom lines of the final columns of the newspapers , and inserted articles for which he asked no pay from the editors . Wily as a supernumerary who wants to be an actor , wide-awake as an errand-boy who earns sixty francs a month , he wrote wheedling letters , flattered the self-love of editors-in-chief , and did them base services to get his articles inserted . Money , dinners , platitudes , all served the purpose of his eager activity . With tickets for the theatre , he bribed the printers who about midnight are finishing up the columns of a newspaper with little facts and ready-made items kept on hand . At that hour Finot hovered around printing-presses , busy , apparently , with proofs to be corrected . Keeping friends with everybody , he brought Cephalic Oil to a triumphant success over Pate de Regnauld , and Brazilian Mixture , and all the other inventions which had the genius to comprehend journalistic influence and the suction power that reiterated newspaper articles have upon the public mind . In these early days of their innocence many journalists were like cattle ; they were unaware of their inborn power ; their heads were full of actresses , -- Florine , Tullia , Mariette , etc. .