“No, no! I have my paper to look after, three services, two burials, one marriage, and five meetings all next week.”
“Well, we can easily get one or two more. Eight is Linden’s favourite number. So now, Malone, you have only to get the great man’s consent and the date.”
“And the spirit confirmation,” said Mason, seriously. “We must take our partners into consultation.”
“Of course we must, padre. That is the right note to strike. Well, that’s settled, Malone, and we can only await the event.”
As it chanced, a very different event was awaiting Malone that evening, and he came upon one of those chasms which unexpectedly open across the path of life. When, in his ordinary routine, he reached the office of the Gazette, he was informed by the commissionaire that Mr. Beaumont desired to see him. Malone’s immediate superior was the old Scotch subeditor, Mr. McArdle, and it was rare indeed for the supreme editor to cast a glimpse down from that peak whence he surveyed the kingdoms of the world, or to show any cognisance of his humble fellow-workers upon the slopes beneath him. The great man, clean-shaven, prosperous and capable, sat in his palatial sanctum amid a rich assortment of old oak furniture and sealing-wax-red leather. He continued his letter when Malone entered, and only raised his shrewd, grey eyes after some minutes interval.
“Ah, Mr. Malone, good evening! I have wanted to see you for some little time. Won’t you sit down? It is in reference to these articles on psychic matters which you have been writing. You opened them in a tone of healthy scepticism, tempered by humour, which was very acceptable both to me and to our public. I regret, however, to observe that your view changed as you proceeded, and that you have now assumed a position in which you really seem to condone some of these practises. That, I need not say, is not the policy of the Gazette, and we should have discontinued the articles had it not been that we had announced a series by an impartial investigator. We have had to continue, but the tone must change.”
“What do you wish me to do, sir?”
“You must get the funny side of it again. That is what our public loves. Poke fun at it all. Call up the maiden aunt and make her talk in an amusing fashion. You grasp my meaning?”
“I am afraid, sir, it has ceased to seem funny in my eyes. On the contrary, I take it more and more seriously.”
Beaumont shook his solemn head.