At noon of the next day I gave Fox his look in at his own flat. He was
stretched upon a sofa--it was evident that I was to take such of his
duties as were takeable. He greeted me with words to that effect.
"Don't go filling the paper with your unbreeched geniuses," he said,
genially, "and don't overwork yourself. There's really nothing to do,
but you're being there will keep that little beast Evans from getting
too cock-a-hoop. He'd like to jerk me out altogether; thinks they'd get
on just as well without me."
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 to-day. If Callan's contrived to get his flood-gates 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 sub-acid
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.