His thanks were premature; and the gentle, somewhat mournful atheism which was his only creed received excellent support when he saw among certain items of news which were laid upon his table every morning, two cuttings from foreign papers which told at great length and in the plainest details the whole story of the dreadful episode in the City, and connected it in so many words with the scandalous scene in the House of Commons. He could only comfort himself by reflecting that news which leaked out abroad was rarely if ever permitted to enter the Island. He reflected that time is a remedy for all evils, and he made ready for the duties of the day.
Meanwhile his secretary, Edward,—to give him his full title, Teddy Evans—had come to the first of the two offices which it was his business to visit. It was not yet nine o’clock and there was still time to cut on the machine.
At the Treasury Evans had written regularly for a large evening paper,—he knew his way about such an organism. He betrayed no undue haste, well knowing the subtle delight the menials would have before such a display of retarding his every effort, and when the fat man, Mr. Cerberus, who keeps the door of the Capon offices, had pushed to him a dirty scrap of paper on which he was to write his name and business, he quietly asked for an envelope as well. It was given him with some grumbling.
He wrote his message: “If you have begun machining, stop. I’ve been sent up here urgently.—E. E.”
He closed it, gummed it down, and waited. He had not ten seconds to wait. A young man who looked and was underfed, a gaunt tall young man with hair as long and as dank as the waving weeds of the sea, received him with immense solemnity. It was not often that affairs of State came his way. One such had come earlier in that very year. It had been the occasion of his lunching with the exalted individual who now sat before him, and he had never forgotten it.
“Mr. Evans,” he said rather pompously, lifting his left hand and fixing two large burning, feverish eyes upon the secretary, “this place is the confessional. Anything you say shall be sacred ... absolutely sacred!”
But Evans was cheery enough.
“It’s nothing of any importance,” he said, “but, well, I’m a great friend of the Reptons.”
“I know,” said the editor sympathetically, which was odd, for Evans only just knew the Reptons’ address from having to write them letters, and the Reptons only just knew the look of Evans’ face from having once had to ask him to a dinner of an official sort.