Mr. Fortune went to sup at that one of his clubs used by certain journalists. There he sought and at last found Simon Winterbottom, the queerest mixture of scholarship, slang, and backstairs gossip to be found in London. “Winter,” said he, having stayed the man with flagons, “who runs the ‘Daily Watchman’?”
“My God!” Winterbottom was much affected. “Are you well, Reginald? Are you quite well? It’s the wonkiest print on the market. All newspapers are run by madmen, but the ‘Watchman’ merely dithers.”
“You said ‘on the market,’” Reggie repeated. “Corrupt?”
“Well, naturally. Too balmy to live honest. Why this moral fervour, Reginald? I know you’re officially a guardian of virtue, but you mustn’t let it weigh on your mind.”
“I want to know why the ‘Watchman’ changed sides on the Wilton case.”
Winterbottom grinned. “That was a giddy stunt, wasn’t it? The complete Gadarene. I don’t know, Reginald. Why ask for reasons? Let twenty pass and stone the twenty-first, loving not, hating not, just choosing so.”
“I wonder,” Reggie murmured. “It’s the change of mind. The sudden change of mind. This is rather a bad business, Winter.”
“Oh, simian,” Winterbottom agreed. His comical face was working. “You are taking it hard, Reginald.”
“I’m thinking of that poor devil Wilton. Who got at the Watchman, old thing? I could bear to know.”
On the next day but one Mr. Fortune received a letter.