"Well, Quain," said Ferrol, as Humphrey came into the room.
Ferrol masked his sentiments behind the crisp, hard voice that he always cultivated in the office. Nobody could have guessed from his treatment of Humphrey that he regarded the boy with any particular favour. Ferrol knew well enough how to handle men: they must be made always to believe that they are firm and independent, and it does not do to let them see the props and supports that hold them up.
Humphrey was busily searching for the reason of this summons to Ferrol's room. It was only the third time that he had been in this broad red room, yet already his nervousness vanished, he no longer feared his greatness, or the comprehensive power of the man with the black moustache and the strong hands that held in their grip all the fortunes of The Day. He stood there, by Ferrol's desk, so changed, so different from the timid Humphrey who had felt the floor sinking beneath him when he faced, for the first time, this man whose potentiality he could not grasp. There was little outward difference, save, perhaps, the lips compressed a little tighter, and a frown that came and went, but inwardly the timid Humphrey had gone, and in its place there was a bolder Humphrey, whose mind was all the better for the bruises of battle.
"Well, Quain," said Ferrol, moving papers about his desk, and regarding Humphrey all the time with those penetrating grey eyes.
"You sent for me, sir?" Humphrey asked.
"Yes." Ferrol paused. "Getting on all right?" he blurted out.
Humphrey smiled—Getting on! The phrase had been on his lips on that day when he had first appeared in the red room. He thought of all the things that had been crowded into his life since then. Of all that he had seen; of all the people he had met; of the glimpses into the greatness and the pettiness; the worthiness and the unworthiness; the virtue and the vice and the vanity of it all. As he thought thus, he saw a blurred composite picture of the past months, figures flitting to and fro, men striving in the underworld of endeavour, work, work, and a little love, and, in the background, a whimsical picture of his aunt who preached the stern gospel of Getting On, without knowing what it really meant.
"I'm going to have you put on better work," Ferrol said. How the boy's eyes sparkled and lit up his face! "Mr Rivers is quite satisfied. You shall do some of the descriptive work. Think you'll be able to do as well as John K. Garton one day?"
John K. Garton!—he was the great descriptive writer of The Day, the man who signed every article he wrote, who was never seen in the reporters' room, except when he looked in for letters; a being who seemed to Humphrey to belong to quite another sphere, above Wratten, above Kenneth Carr, above all the reporters in salary and reputation. He was one of Ferrol's products: all England knew of him, and read his work as special correspondent, yet Ferrol could put a finger on a button, you know....
Humphrey laughed. "Oh, I don't know, Mr Ferrol," he said, awkwardly. "My work would probably be quite different, I couldn't write in his style."