CHAPTER VII.
Terror At Dippleford Admiral.
I.
“Impress your client,” was the maxim of Mr. David Brunger. “Make a splash and keep splashing,” was that of Mr. Henry T. Bitt, editor of Fleet Street's new organ, the Daily.
Muddy pools were Mr. Bitt's speciality. His idea of the greatest possible splash was some stream, pure and beautiful to the casual eye, into which he could force his young men and set them trampling the bottom till the thick, unpleasant mud came clouding up whence it had long lain unsuspected. There was his splash, and then he would start to keep splashing. By every art and device the pool would be flogged till the muddy water went flying broadcast, staining this, that, and the other fair name to the nasty delight of Mr. Bitt's readers. Scandal was Mr. Bitt's chief quest. Army scandal, navy scandal, political scandal, social scandal—these were the courses that Mr. Bitt continuously strove to serve up to his readers. Failing them—if disappointingly in evidence on every side was the integrity and the honour for which Mr. Bitt raved and bawled when in the thick of splashing a muddy pool,—then, argued Mr. Bitt, catch hold of something trivial and splash it, flog it, placard it, into a sensational and semi-mysterious bait that would set the halfpennies rising like trout in an evening stream.
Bringing these principles-indeed they won him his appointment—to the editorship of the Daily, Mr. Bitt was set moody and irritable by the fact that he had no opportunity to exercise them over the first issue of the paper.
But while preparing for press upon the second night the chance came. There was no scandal, no effective news; but there was matter for a sensational, semi-mysterious “leading story” in a tiny little scrap of news dictated by Mr. David Brunger, laboriously copied out a dozen times by Mr. Issy Jago and left by that gentleman at the offices of as many newspapers.
Seven sub-editors “spiked” it, three made of it a “fill-par.,” one gave it a headline and sent it up as an eight-line “news-par.”; one, in the offices of the Daily, read it, laughed; spoke to the news-editor; finally carried it up to Mr. Bitt.
Mr. Bitt's journalistic nose gave one sniff. The thing was done. Some old idiot was actually offering the ridiculously large sum of one hundred pounds for the recovery of a cat. Here, out of the barren, un-newsy world, suddenly had sprung a seed that should grow to a forest. The very thing. The Daily was saved.
Away sped a reporter; and upon the following morning, bawling from the leading position of the principal page of the Daily, introducing a column and a quarter of leaded type, these headlines appeared:
COUNTRY HOUSE OUTRAGE.
VALUABLE CAT STOLEN.
SENSATIONAL STORY.
HUGE REWARD.
CHANCE FOR AMATEUR DETECTIVES.
All out of Mr. Issy Jago's tiny little paragraph.
Daily readers revelled in it. It appeared that a gang of between five and a dozen men had surrounded the lonely but picturesque and beautiful country residence of Mr. Christopher Marrapit at Herons' Holt, Paltley Hill, Surrey. Mr. Marrapit was an immensely wealthy retired merchant now leading a secluded life in the evening of his days. First among the costly art and other treasures of his house he placed a magnificent orange cat, “The Rose of Sharon,” a winner whenever exhibited. The gang, bursting their way into the house, had stolen this cat, despite Mr. Marrapit's heroic defence, leaving the unfortunate gentleman senseless and bleeding on the hearth-rug. Mr. Marrapit had offered 100 pounds reward for the recovery of his pet; and the Daily, under the heading “Catchy Clues,” proceeded to tell its readers all over the country how best they might win this sum.
All out of Mr. Issy Jago's tiny little paragraph.