"Of course we shall believe what you say," Semphill rather nervously intercalated. "I'm sure we believe it unsaid. We take it as said, you know. But if you could see your way to give us details, say on half a dozen points, that would be quite enough."
"The Daily Anagraph has not apologized for its latest slander," Carvale put in.
"Why should it?" George inquired.
"Well, I sent an authenticated account of what happened in the last consistory. The other papers printed it; and I should have thought the least the Daily Anagraph could have done would be——"
"Carvale, you're making a mistake. The Daily Anagraph has no personal grudge against me: although the last editor had, because I once innocently asked him whether historical accuracy came within the scope of a Radical periodical. That was years ago, at the time of the second Dreyfus case. I know that he was furious; because Bertram Blighter, the novel-man, told me that that editor in revenge was going to put me on the newspaper black-list, whatever that may be. No, it is not a personal matter, a matter in which an apology is customary. It's simply an example of the ethics of commercial journalism. The man wanted to increase the sale of his paper. I happened by chance to be before the world just then. And he took the liberty of increasing his circulation at my expense. Actually that is all. You can't (at least I don't), expect an editor, who is capable of doing such a thing, to apologize for doing it. The case of the other papers is verisimilar: except of course the Catholic Hour. That simply exists on sycophanty by sycophants for sycophantophagists, as Semphill knows."
"Yes I know," said Semphill. "And I don't allow the thing to enter my house."
"But the others—in their case it's not lurid malignance, but legal malfeasance. Did you say that they apologized?"
"No. None of those, which printed the calumnies, apologized. They just kept silence. But all the respectable papers, which had not calumniated you, printed my refutation of the Daily Anagraph."
George made a gesture of scorn, of satisfaction, of dismissal. "Then the Pope is clear;" he said. "Now I will try to tell you, as briefly as possible, what you want to know about the other person." He produced a sheaf of newspaper-cuts. He was in such a white rage at having to do what he was about to do, that he wreaked his anger on those who listened to him, piercingly eyeing them, speaking with swift fury as one would speak to foes. "The Catholic Hour states that in 1886 I was under an under-master at Grandholme School: that I had to leave my master-ship because I became Catholic. That is true in substance and absolutely false in connotation. I was an under-master: but as I also had charge of the school-house, I was called the house-master. You also perhaps may be aware that there is only one head-master in a school; and that all the rest are under-masters. But, when slander is your object, 'under-master' is a nice disgraceful dab of mud to sling at your victim for a beginning. Well: I resigned my house-mastership of my own free and unaided will for the reason alleged; and I have yet to learn that the becoming Catholic is an extraordinarily slimy deed. Further, note this, far from my resignation being the dishonourable affair which the Catholic Hour implies, the head-master of Grandholme School remained my dear and intimate and honoured friend through thick and thin, for more than twenty years, and is my only dear and intimate friend at this moment."
Semphill and Carvale looked up, and then down. Sterling looked down, down. Van Kristen looked up. The others, anywhere. Talacryn looked annoyed. The taunt was flung out; and the flying voice went-on. "The Catholic Hour thus casts its diatribe in a key of depreciation. Next, I am said to have gone to a school for outcasts, to have quarrelled with the two priest-chaplains; and presently to have been 'again out.' The idea being to infer evil, it is rather cleverly done in that statement of the case. But here are the facts. The school perhaps might be called a school for outcasts. But I, a young inexperienced Catholic of six months, was lured by innumerable false pretences, on the part of the eccentric party who offered me the post, to accept what he called the Head-mastership of a Cathedral Choir School. He did not tell me that he was forcing the establishment on the bishop of the diocese, nor that the Head-mastership had been refused by several distinguished priests simply on account of the impossible conditions. I bought my experience. That I quarrelled with the chaplains is quite true. I did not quarrel effectually though. They were a Belgian and a Frenchman. They drank themselves drunk on beer, out of decanters, chased each other round the refectory tables in a tipsy fight, defied my authority and compelled the ragamuffins of the school to do the same. I naturally resigned that post as quickly as possible. Then follows a pseudo-history of the beginning of my ecclesiastical career at Maryvale. Talacryn knows all about that; and can tell you at your leisure. Afterwards, I came across, (I am quoting), 'came across a certain Pictish lairdie, and was maintained by him for three or four months——'"