'You think Hutchmeyer is going to be impressed?' said Sonia. 'What the hell have Corkadales got to offer?'
'Distinction,' said Frensic, 'a most distinguished past. The mantel-piece against which Shelley leant, the chair Mrs Gaskell was pregnant in, the carpet Tennyson was sick on. The incunabula of, if not The Great Tradition, at least a very important strand of literary history. By accepting this novel for free Corkadales will confer cultural sanctity on it.'
'And you think the author will be satisfied with that? You don't think he'll want money too?'
'He'll get the money from Hutchmeyer. We're going to sting Mr Hutchmeyer for a fortune. Anyhow, this author is unique.'
'I got that from the book,' said Sonia. 'How else is he unique?'
'He doesn't have a name, for one thing,' said Frensic and explained his instructions from Mr Cadwalladine. 'Which leaves us with an entirely free hand,' he said when he finished.
'And the little matter of a pseudonym,' said Sonia. 'I suppose we could kill two birds with one stone and say it was by Peter Piper. That way he'd see his name on the cover of a novel.'
'True,' said Frensic sadly, 'I'm afraid poor Piper is never going to make it any other way.'
'Besides, it would save the expense of his annual lunch and you wouldn't have to go through yet another version of his Search for a Lost Childhood. By the way, who is the model this year?'
'Thomas Mann,' said Frensic. 'One dreads the thought of sentences two pages long. You really think it would put an end to his illusions of literary grandeur?'
'Who knows?' said Sonia. 'The very fact of seeing his name on the cover of a novel and being taken for the author...'
'It's the only way he's ever going to get into print, I'll stake my reputation on that,' said Frensic.
'So we'll be doing him a favour.'
That afternoon Frensic took the manuscript to Corkadales. On the front under the title Sonia had added 'by Peter Piper'. Frensic spoke long and persuasively to Geoffrey Corkadale and left the office that night well pleased with himself.
A week later the editorial board of Corkadales considered Pause O Men for the Virgin in the presence of that past upon which the vestige of their reputation depended. Portraits of dead authors lined the panelled walls of the editorial room. Shelley was not there, nor Mrs Gaskell, but there were lesser notables to take their place. Ranged in glass-covered bookshelves there were first editions, and in some exhibition cases relics of the trade. Quills, Waverley pens, pocket-knives, an ink-bottle Trollope was said to have left in a train, a sandbox used by Southey, and even a scrap of blotting paper which, held up to a mirror, revealed that Henry James had once inexplicably written 'darling'.
In the centre of this museum the Literary Director, Mr Wilberforce, and the Senior Editor, Mr Tate, sat at an oval walnut table observing the weekly rite. They sipped Madeira and nibbled seedcake and looked disapprovingly at the manuscript before them and then at Geoffrey Corkadale. It was difficult to tell which they disliked most. Certainly Geoffrey's suede suit and floral shirt did not fit the atmosphere. Sir Clarence would not have approved. Mr Wilberforce helped himself to some more Madeira and shook his head.
'I cannot agree,' he said. 'I find it wholly incomprehensible that we should even consider lending our name, our great name, to the publication of this...thing.'
'You didn't like the book?' said Geoffrey.
'Like it? I could hardly bring myself to finish it.'
'Well, we can't hope to please everyone.'
'But we've never touched a book like this before. We have our reputation to consider.'
