"Then ye'll please jist give the copy into my own hands, sirr. I'll do the lino and the case warrk mysel' and pull a galley proof for ye too. No one shall see the copy but me."
"Thank you, Burness," said the editor. "I'm very much obliged. I shall be here till morning. I shall go out in an hour and be back by the time the machines are running down-stairs. Then the composing-room will be empty and you can get to work."
"I'll start directly the plates have gone down to the foundry and the men are off, just keeping one hand to see to the gas-engine."
"And, Burness, lock up the galley safely when you come down with the proof."
"I'll do it, sir," and the great man—indispensable, and earning his six hundred a year—went away with the precious papers.
"That is perfectly safe with Burness," said Spence, as the foreman compositor retired. "He will make no mistakes either. He is a capital Greek scholar, corrects the proof-readers themselves often."
"Yes," answered Ommaney, "I know. I shall leave everything in his hands. Then late to-morrow night, just before the forms go to the foundry, I shall shove the whole thing in before any one knows anything about it, and nothing can get round to any other office. Burness will know about it beforehand, and he'll be ready to break up a whole page for this stuff. Of course, as far as leaders go and comment, I shall be guided very much by the result of my interview to-night and others to-morrow morning. I shall send off several cables before dawn to Palestine and elsewhere."
Once more the editor began to pace up and down the room, thinking rapidly, decisively, deeply. The slim, fragile body was informed with power by the splendid brain which animated it.
The rather languid, silent man was utterly changed. Here one could see the strength and force of the personality which directed and controlled the second, perhaps the first, most powerful engine of public opinion in the world. The millionaires who paid this frail-looking, youthful man an enormous sum to direct their paper for them knew what they were about. They had bought one of the finest living executive brains and made it a potentate among its fellows. This man who, when he was not at the office, or holding some hurried colloquy with one of the rulers of the world, was asleep in a solitary flat at Kensington, knew that he had an accepted right to send a message to Downing Street, such as he had lately done. No one knew his face—no one of the great outside public; his was hardly even a name to be recognised in passing, yet he, and Spence, and Folliott Farmer could shake a continent with their words. And though all knew it, or would at least have realised it had they ever given it a thought, the absolute self-effacement of journalism made it a matter of no moment to any of them.
While Englishmen read their dicta, and unconsciously incorporated them into their own pronouncements, mouthing them in street, market, and forum, these men slept till the busy day was over, and once more with the setting of the sun stole out to their almost furtive and yet tremendous task.