It had not been easy to interview the editor of the _Daily
Sensation_. A deprecating commissionaire, eyeing him suspiciously,
had cross-examined him in the entrance hall of the newspaper office,
and then had compelled him to fill in a form with particulars of
himself ... his name and his address ... and of his business. "I
suppose," John said sarcastically to the commissionaire, "you don't
want me to swear an affidavit about it?"
The commissionaire regarded him contemptuously, but did not reply to
the sarcasm.
After a lengthy wait and much whistling and talking through rubber
speaking-tubes, John was conducted to a lift, given into the charge of
a small boy in uniform who treated him as a nuisance, and taken to the
office of the editor. Here he had to wait in the society of the
editor's secretary for another lengthy period. He had almost resolved
to come away from the office without seeing the editor, when a bell
rang and the secretary rising from her desk, bade him to follow her. He
was led into an inner room where he saw a man seated at a large desk.
The editor glared at him for a moment or two as if he were accusing him
of an attempt to commit a fraud. Then he said "Sit down" and began to
speak on the telephone. John glanced interestedly about him. There was
a portrait of Napoleon ... _The Last Phase_ ... on one wall, and,
on the wall opposite to it, a portrait of the proprietor of the
_Daily Sensation_ in what might fairly be described as the first
phase. On the editor's desk was a framed card bearing the legend: SAY
IT QUICK....
The telephonic conversation ended, and Mr. Clotworthy ... the
editor ... put down the receiver and turned to John, frowning heavily at
him. "Well?" he said so shortly that the word was almost unintelligible.
"I can give you two minutes," he added, pulling out his watch and placing
it on the desk.
"That'll be enough," John, replied. "I want a job on this paper!"
"Everybody wants a job on this paper. The people who are most anxious
to get on our staff are the people who are never tired of running us
down!..."
"I daresay," said John.
"Ever done any newspaper work before?" the editor demanded.
"No!"
"Then what qualifications have you for the work?..."
"I've written a novel!..."
"That's not a qualification!" Mr. Clotworthy exclaimed.
"But it's not been published yet," John replied.
"Oh, well!... Anything else?"
"I've written several articles which have not been printed, but they're
as good as the stuff that's printed in any paper in London.."
"Quite so!"
"And I come from Ulster where all the good men come from," John
concluded.
"I've seen some poor specimens from Ulster," Mr. Clotworthy said.
"Mebbe you have, but I'm not one of them."
The editor remained silent for a few moments. He tapped on his desk
with an ivory paper-knife and glanced quickly now and then at John.
"What part of Ulster do you come from?" he demanded.
"Ballyards."
"I've heard of it," Mr. Clotworthy continued. "It's not much of a
place, is it?"
John flared up angrily. "It's better than Cookstown any day," he said.
"Who told you I came from Cookstown?"
"Never mind who told me. If you don't want to give me a job on your
paper, you needn't. There's plenty of other papers in this town!..."
"That temper of yours'll get you into serious bother one of these days,
young fellow," said Mr. Clotworthy. "I'm willing to give you work on
the paper if you're fit to do it, but don't run away with the notion
that you've only to walk in here and say you're an Ulsterman, and
you'll immediately get a position. What sort of work do you want to do?
You know our paper, I suppose? Well, how would you improve it?"
John opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word, the
editor stopped him.
"Don't," he exclaimed, "say it doesn't need improvement. A lot of
third-rate fellows have tried that tack with me, as if they'd flatter me
into giving them a job. The fools never seemed to realise that when
they said the paper didn't need improvement they were giving the best
reason that could be given why they shouldn't be employed on it. If you
weren't a plain-spoken and direct young fellow I wouldn't give you that
warning. Go on!"
"In my opinion," John replied, "what's wrong with your paper is that it
doesn't tell the truth. It tells lies to its readers. My idea is to
tell them the truth instead!"
Mr. Clotworthy laughed at him. "You won't do it on this paper," he
said.
"Why not?"
"Because it can't be done. There's no such thing as truth. There
never was, and there never will be such a thing as truth. There's only
point-of-view!..."
"Well, I've got my point-of-view," John interrupted.
"Yes, but on this paper we express the point-of-view of the man that
owns it. That's him there!" He pointed to the companion picture to
the portrait of Napoleon. "If you imagine that we spend hundreds
of thousands of pounds every year to express your point-of-view,
you're making a big mistake, young fellow my lad. What you want is
a soap-box in Hyde Park. You can express your own point-of-view there
if you can get anybody to listen to you. Or you can start a paper
of your own. But this paper is the soap-box of that chap, and his
is the only point-of-view that'll be expressed in it. Do you understand
me?"
"I do," said John "All the same, I believe in telling the people the
truth!"
The editor touched the bell on his desk. "Are you quite sure," said he,
"that you know what the truth is?"
"Of course I'm sure." John began, but before he could finish his
sentence, the door of the editor's room was opened by the lady-secretary.
"Good-morning, Mr. MacDermott!" said the editor, reaching for the
telephone receiver.
"But I haven't finished yet," John protested.
"I have." He tapped the handle of the telephone.
"You can come and see me again when you've learned sense," he added,
after he had given an instruction to the telephone operator. "Good
morning!"
"Ah, but wait a minute!..."
"We've no use for John the Baptists here. Good morning!"
"All the same!..."
The editor impatiently waved him aside.
"This way, please!" the lady secretary commanded.
John glared at her, half in the mood to ask her what she meant by
interrupting him and half in the mood to tell her that it little became
a woman to intrude herself into the conversation of men, but the moods
did not become complete, and, sulkily calling "Good morning!" to Mr.
Clotworthy, he left the office.
"One of these days," he said to the lady secretary when they were in
the outer office, "I'll be your boss. And his, too. And I'll sack the
pair of you!"
"You'll find the lift at the end of the passage," she replied.
V
Hinde mocked him for his failure to make the editor of the _Daily
Sensation_ accept his view of the universe.
"That man sized you up the minute he clapped his eyes on you," he said.
"He's seen hundreds of young fellows like you. We've all seen them.
They come down from Oxford and Cambridge with their heads stuffed with
ideas pinched from Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, and they try to
stampede old Clotworthy. 'By God, I'm a superman!' is their cry, and
they say that night and morning and before and after every meal until
even they get sick of listening to it. Then they say 'Oh, damn!' and go
into the Civil Service, and in three years' time an earthquake wouldn't
rouse them. All you youngsters want to go about telling the truth,
especially when it's disagreeable, but there isn't one in a million of
you is fit to be let loose with the truth, and there isn't one in ten
million of men or women wants to be bothered by the truth. Lord alive,
Mac, can't you young fellows leave us a few decent lies to comfort
ourselves with?..."
"You'll get no lies from me," John replied.
"I can see very well you're going to be a nice cheerful chum to have in
the house," Hinde said. "However, I'll bear it. The Haverstocks' 'At
Home' is to-night. I don't suppose you have a dress suit?"
"No, I haven't!"
"It doesn't matter. Half the people who go to the Haverstocks don't
wear evening dress on principle. That's their way of showing their
contempt for conventionality. I suppose you'll come with me?" John
nodded his head. "Good! We'll start off immediately after we've had our
dinner. You'll get a good dose of Truth to-night, my son. There was a
couple went there once ... the rummest couple I ever saw in my life.
They thought they must do something for Progress and Advanced Thought,
so they pretended they weren't married, but were living in sin!..."
"Like the two downstairs?" said John.
"Aye, only they were legally married all right. You'll observe in time,
Mac, that the people who make changes are never the advanced people who
talk about them, but the ordinary, conventional people who have no
theories about things, but just alter them when they become
inconvenient. Butter wouldn't melt in the mouth of the man who is a
devil of a fellow in print. This couple went to live at a Garden City
and made an enormous impression on the Nut-eaters; and every Sunday
evening crowds went to see them, living in sin. I went myself one
night: it was terribly dull, and I thought if that's the best sin can
do for a man, I'm going to join the Salvation Army. The woman took off
her wedding-ring and hid it in the clock, and the man made a point of
snorting every time he passed a parson. They had a grand time, as I
tell you, until a terrible thing happened. A jealous nut-eater ... and
I can tell you there's nothing on earth so fearful and vindictive as a
jealous vegetarian ... discovered that these two were really married
all the time, and he exposed them to their admirers. He produced a copy
of their marriage-certificate at a public meeting which the man was
addressing on the subject of Intolerable Bonds, and the meeting broke
up in disorder. They had to leave the Garden City after that, and
they're now hiding somewhere in the north of England and leading a life
of shameful matrimony!..."
John giggled. "Are there really people like that?" he asked.
"Lots of them. You'll see some of them, mebbe, at the Haverstocks the
night. I think there's to be some sort of a discussion, but I'm not
sure. Mrs. Haverstock is a great woman for discussions, but I will say
this for her, she doesn't humbug herself over them. She told me once
that it was better to talk about adultery than to commit it!..."
John blushed frightfully. He felt the hot blood running all over his
body. This casual way of speaking of things that were only acknowledged
in the Ten Commandments had a very disturbing effect upon him. He hoped
that Hinde would not observe his confusion, and he put his hand in
front of his eyes so that he might conceal his red cheeks. If Hinde
noticed that John was embarrassed, he did not make any comment about
the matter.
"And I daresay it is," he went on. "As long as you're letting off
steam, there's no danger of the engine bursting. I've often noticed
that there's less misbehaviour in places where people are always
chattering as if they had never conducted themselves with decency in
their lives than there is in places where they never say a word about
it. _You'll_ notice that too, when you've learned to use your eyes
better!..."