I expressed in my manner general contempt for Evans, and was taking my leave.
“Oh, and—” Fox called after me. I turned back. “The Greenland mail ought to be in today. If Callan’s contrived to get his floodgates open, run his stuff in, there’s a good chap. It’s a feature and all that, you know.”
“I suppose Soane’s to have a look at it,” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” he answered; “but tell him to keep strictly to old Cal’s lines—rub that into him. If he were to get drunk and run in some of his own tips it’d be awkward. People are expecting Cal’s stuff. Tell you what: you take him out to lunch, eh? Keep an eye on the supplies, and ram it into him that he’s got to stick to Cal’s line of argument.”
“Soane’s as bad as ever, then?” I asked.
“Oh,” Fox answered, “he’ll be all right for the stuff if you get that one idea into him.” A prolonged and acute fit of pain seized him. I fetched his man and left him to his rest.
At the office of the Hour I was greeted by the handing to me of a proof of Callan’s manuscript. Evans, the man across the screen, was the immediate agent.
“I suppose it’s got to go in, so I had it set up,” he said.
“Oh, of course it’s got to go in,” I answered. “It’s to go to Soane first, though.”
“Soane’s not here yet,” he answered. I noted the tone of subacid pleasure in his voice. Evans would have enjoyed a fiasco.
“Oh, well,” I answered, nonchalantly, “there’s plenty of time. You allow space on those lines. I’ll send round to hunt Soane up.”
I felt called to be upon my mettle. I didn’t much care about the paper, but I had a definite antipathy to being done by Evans—by a mad Welshman in a stubborn fit. I knew what was going to happen; knew that Evans would feign inconceivable stupidity, the sort of black stupidity that is at command of individuals of his primitive race. I was in for a day of petty worries. In the circumstances it was a thing to be thankful for; it dragged my mind away from larger issues. One has no time for brooding when one is driving a horse in a jibbing fit.
Evans was grimly conscious that I was moderately ignorant of technical details; he kept them well before my eyes all day long.
At odd moments I tried to read Callan’s article. It was impossible. It opened with a description of the squalor of the Greenlander’s life, and contained tawdry passages of local colour.
I knew what was coming. This was the view of the Greenlanders of pre-Merschian Greenland, elaborated, after the manner of Callan—the Special Commissioner—so as to bring out the glory and virtue of the work of regeneration. Then in a gush of superlatives the work itself would be described. I knew quite well what was coming, and was temperamentally unable to read more than the first ten lines.
Everything was going wrong. The printers developed one of their sudden crazes for asking idiotic questions. Their messengers came to Evans, Evans sent them round the pitch-pine screen to me. “Mr. Jackson wants to know—”
The fourth of the messengers that I had despatched to Soane returned with the news that Soane would arrive at half-past nine. I sent out in search of the strongest coffee that the city afforded. Soane arrived. He had been ill, he said, very ill. He desired to be fortified with champagne. I produced the coffee.
Soane was the son of an Irish peer. He had magnificent features—a little blurred nowadays—and a remainder of the grand manner. His nose was a marvel of classic workmanship, but the floods of time had reddened and speckled it—not offensively, but ironically; his hair was turning grey, his eyes were bloodshot, his heavy moustache rather ragged. He inspired one with the respect that one feels for a man who has lived and does not care a curse. He had a weird intermittent genius that made it worth Fox’s while to put up with his lapses and his brutal snubs.
I produced the coffee and pointed to the sofa of the night before.
“Damn it,” he said, “I’m ill, I tell you; I want …”
“Exactly!” I cut in. “You want a rest, old fellow. Here’s Cal’s article. We want something special about it. If you don’t feel up to it I’ll send round to Jenkins.”
“Damn Jenkins,” he said; “I’m up to it.”
“You understand,” I said, “you’re to write strictly on Callan’s lines. Don’t insert any information from extraneous sources. And make it as slashing as you like—on those lines.”
He grunted in acquiescence. I left him lying on the sofa, drinking the coffee. I had tenderly arranged the lights for him as Fox had arranged them the night before. As I went out to get my dinner I was comfortably aware of him, holding the slips close to his muddled eyes and philosophically damning the nature of things.
When I returned, Soane, from his sofa, said something that I did not catch—something about Callan and his article.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I answered, “don’t worry me. Have some more coffee and stick to Cal’s line of argument. That’s what Fox said. I’m not responsible.”
“Deuced queer,” Soane muttered. He began to scribble with a pencil. From the tone of his voice I knew that he had reached the precise stage at which something brilliant—the real thing of its kind—might be expected.
Very late Soane finished his leader. He looked up as he wrote the last word.
“I’ve got it written,” he said. “But … I say, what the deuce is up? It’s like being a tall clock with the mainspring breaking, this.”
I rang the bell for someone to take the copy down.
“Your metaphor’s too much for me, Soane,” I said.
“It’s
