Part 6 (1/2)

”I had it from a Fellow of the Royal Society----”

”I don't care if you had it from--anybody. Stuff that the public won't believe aren't facts. Being true only makes 'em worse. They buy our paper to swallow it and it's got to go down easy. When I printed you that note and headline I thought you was up to a lark. I thought you was on to a mixed bathing scandal or something of that sort--with juice in it. The sort of thing that _all_ understand. You know when you went down to Folkestone you were going to describe what Salisbury and all the rest of them wear upon the Leas. And start a discussion on the acclimatisation of the cafe. And all that. And then you get on to this (unprintable epithet) nonsense!”

”But Lord Salisbury--he doesn't go to Folkestone.”

Banghurst shrugged his shoulders over a hopeless case. ”What the deuce,”

he said, addressing his inkpot in plaintive tones, ”does _that_ matter?”

The young man reflected. He addressed Banghurst's back after a pause.

His voice had flattened a little. ”I might go over this and do it up as a lark perhaps. Make it a comic dialogue sketch with a man who really believed in it--or something like that. It's a beastly lot of copy to get slumped, you know.”

”Nohow,” said Banghurst. ”Not in any shape. No! Why! They'd think it clever. They'd think you was making game of them. They hate things they think are clever!”

The young man made as if to reply, but Banghurst's back expressed quite clearly that the interview was at an end.

”Nohow,” repeated Banghurst just when it seemed he had finished altogether.

”I may take it to the _Gunfire_ then?”

Banghurst suggested an alternative.

”Very well,” said the young man, heated, ”the _Gunfire_ it is.”

But in that he was reckoning without the editor of the _Gunfire_.

III

It must have been quite soon after that, that I myself heard the first mention of the mermaid, little recking that at last it would fall to me to write her history. I was on one of my rare visits to London, and Micklethwaite was giving me lunch at the Penwiper Club, certainly one of the best dozen literary clubs in London. I noted the rising young journalist at a table near the door, lunching alone. All about him tables were vacant, though the other parts of the room were crowded. He sat with his face towards the door, and he kept looking up whenever any one came in, as if he expected some one who never came. Once distinctly I saw him beckon to a man, but the man did not respond.

”Look here, Micklethwaite,” I said, ”why is everybody avoiding that man over there? I noticed just now in the smoking-room that he seemed to be trying to get into conversation with some one and that a kind of taboo----”

Micklethwaite stared over his fork. ”Ra-ther,” he said.

”But what's he done?”

”He's a fool,” said Micklethwaite with his mouth full, evidently annoyed. ”Ugh,” he said as soon as he was free to do so.

I waited a little while.

”What's he done?” I ventured.

Micklethwaite did not answer for a moment and crammed things into his mouth vindictively, bread and all sorts of things. Then leaning towards me in a confidential manner he made indignant noises which I could not clearly distinguish as words.

”Oh!” I said, when he had done.

”Yes,” said Micklethwaite. He swallowed and then poured himself wine--splas.h.i.+ng the tablecloth.

”He had _me_ for an hour very nearly the other day.”