Bill hurried to the rescue. “Like this, sir. Let me tell you. This gentleman was at Paltley Hill, a place on the South-Western. He used to live there. He found the cat in a deserted kind of hut, took charge of it. I happened to meet him and brought him along. By Jove, sir, only published this morning and found within a few hours! It's pretty good, isn't it?”
Mr. Bitt spoke with great disgust. “Pretty good!” he cried bitterly. “Pretty good!” He had no fit words in which to express his feeling. “Kindly step in there a moment,” he addressed George.
George trembled into the adjoining room indicated; closed the door.
Mr. Bitt turned to Mr. Vivian Howard. “It will always be a great pleasure to me,” he told the great novelist, “to think that the Daily was the means of restoring your cat.”
“I never shall forget it,” Mr. Vivian Howard assured him. The famous author placed himself upon the couch, caressed Abishag the Shunamite upon his lap. “Never shall forget it. It was more than good of you, Mr. Bitt, to take up the matter and offer so handsome a reward. It was public-spirited.”
Mr. Bitt's deprecatory little laugh had a rueful note.
He nerved himself to step upon the delicate ground that lay between him and his purpose. This man had not known Mr. Vivian Howard sufficiently long to put to him directly that the reward was offered, and gladly agreed to by Mr. Howard, for purposes of respective self-advertisement agreeable at once to the paper and to the man who stood for English literature. He nerved himself:
“When you say public-spirited, Mr. Howard, you use the right term. I do not attempt to deny that I fully appreciated that this reward for your cat, and the interview you agreed to give us, would greatly benefit our paper. Why should I deny it? We editors must be business men first, nowadays; journalists afterwards. But I do ask you to believe me, Mr. Howard, that in offering this reward, in arousing this interest, I had in view also a matter that has been my aim since I was at College.”
Mr. Bitt's college was Rosa Glen College, 156 Farmer Road, Peckham; but he preferred the briefer designation.
“The aim,” he continued, gathering courage as he detected in Mr. Vivian Howard's face a look which seemed to show that the famous author was advancing upon the delicate ground to meet him, “the aim of attracting the people to good literature.”