“Well,” said Sam, “thank you. Now I won’t mince matters: When I came along with my—tract, I enabled you to postpone filing your petition, but it was only a postponement, and if you’ll look facts in the face the one big fact for you is bankruptcy.”
“The Lord will provide.” Carter had lived from hand to mouth for many months in that belief.
“If you like to look at it that way. He has provided: He has provided me. I will make you a good offer, Mr. Carter. I will introduce five him dred pounds capital into the business for a halfshare in the plant, goodwill and future profits of this concern. That is, the printing business. What I, as publisher, do has nothing to do with you.”
“... I must think it over,” said Carter; but they both knew that he had already decided to accept.
“The Lord,” Carter was thinking, “has provided.” Sam, on the contrary, was thinking, “I may or may not be a fool to go into this without getting an accountant’s report on the books, but I believe in rapid action, and if I’d offered too high a price I’m certain that he’s imbecile enough to have told me.”
It remained to find something to print, and he wanted Stewart’s advice, but, with the idea of being first on the side of the angels, went to see Peter Struggles. The battle which had raged round the pamphlet had left Peter untouched, even though more than one of the clergy who received it from Sam had thought it their duty to write to Peter’s bishop. The bishop failed to see a case for disciplinary measures: Peter might have been sinned against but he had not sinned. And the Sunday Judge was read by neither Peter nor his bishop. (The Church is notoriously out of touch with modern life, but, after all, it is hardly reasonable to expect the Church to compliment its rival, the Sunday Press, by reading it.)
Nevertheless, Peter had, on reflection, felt some wavering doubts about the pamphlet. His intermittent shrewdness threw a flickering light through the haze of his charity and gave him moments of discomfort.
Sam’s attitude during this call was admirably calculated to resolve his doubt. He wanted, with an eye to the future, to make sure of Peter, whose name he might require another day, and was ready, even if it were not immediately profitable, to placate Peter now. He explained that he had joined forces with Mr. Carter, and at once acquired merit in Peter’s eyes. Carter was irreproachable. He did not explain by what means he had been able to join Carter and it did not occur to Peter to ask. Sam was not going to tell Peter, who would tell Ada, of his legacy. If she found out, as Anne had found out, he could not help it, but, meantime, it was his secret. Ada, like Anne, belonged to the sex which had no understanding of business.
“And the point,” said Sam, “with a business like Mr. Carter’s, is to use it for good. I take it that the texts do good, but perhaps they are only for the simple-minded. I hope I don’t despise people for their simplicity, but my own taste runs rather to books and I think you will agree with me.”
Peter agreed, with a quotation which rather dashed Sam; he had an idea that poetry did not sell.