It's all up, Sir, with the great Foot-Race at Fulham.

Tinkler has gone stale." The three gentlemen dropped solemnly back into their three chairs, and repeated the dreadful intelligence, in chorus--"Tinkler has gone stale." A man who stands face to face with a great national disaster, and who doesn't understand it, is a man who will do wisely to hold his tongue and enlighten his mind without asking other people to help him.

Julius accepted the waiter's newspaper, and sat down to make (if possible) two discoveries: First, as to whether "Tinkler" did, or did not, mean a man.
Second, as to what particular form of human affliction you implied when you described that man as "gone stale." There was no difficulty in finding the news.

It was printed in the largest type, and was followed by a personal statement of the facts, taken one way--which was followed, in its turn, by another personal statement of the facts, taken in another way.

More particulars, and further personal statements, were promised in later editions.