"As you please," said Conquest.
Shortly afterwards, the first notices were sent to him by the Press Clipping Agency to which he had become a subscriber. Mark was told that his work showed extraordinary promise, that he would take high rank, when he had found himself, that he was a master of dialogue and dialect, the author of a powerful and convincing study of conditions which challenged the attention of every thinking man and woman, and so on and so forth. He rushed up to town, showed the clippings to Betty, who seemed to be more excited and pleased than he was himself, went on to Wisden and Evercreech, and thence to his club, where he found Tommy Greatorex, whiter and more nervous than usual, sitting alone by the fire in the library. To him the clippings were presently submitted with an apology. Tommy took them with an ironical smile.
"They're always kind to a new man if he shows any ability." He glanced at the clippings, flipping them with his lean delicately shaped fingers. "You are subtle, I see, and daring, and brilliant—and strong! By Jove, Samphire, I'll bet a new umbrella, which I want badly, that you didn't know you were such a ring-tailed squealer—hey? Don't blush, my dear fellow. Wait till your stuff sells, and then read what they'll say about it. Ha—ha! Listen to this! One of 'em says: 'Mr. Samphire is evidently at home in some of the sordid scenes which he describes with such power and pathos; we take it that he has spent many years in the slums.' So far—so good. It's more than likely that the fellow who wrote that is a member of this club and in the know. Here's another, next to it, egad! 'This story reveals imaginative powers of a high order, for it is plain that the author has never set foot in Stepney....' Ha—ha—ha! Now sit down, stand me a drink, and tell me how many copies have been sold."
"A hundred copies were sold the day before yesterday," said Mark.
"Now, that's a little bit of all right, and no mistake. I'm delighted to hear it. I congratulate you—con fuoco! That means business. One—hundred—copies in one day! Whew-w-w! Hang it, why don't you rejoice?"
"Because," said Mark, "I found out that the hundred copies were bought by one man for one man. A friend of mine on the Stock Exchange took the lot. The book is not selling."
"Sorry," said Tommy quietly. "I've read it. I've reviewed it. This," he tapped one of the clippings which he still held in his hand, "is mine. I got for it a few shillings, already spent, and the book which I shall keep, because it is written by a good fellow. It's not what's in the book which appeals to me, but what's in the writer, and which will come out—some day."
"Thank you," said Mark.
He returned to luncheon at Cadogan Place, humbled, and therefore, in a woman's eyes, meet for sympathy and encouragement.
"In any case," said Betty, "you have had the delight of writing the book. And it is strong and subtle; but, Mark, few people are interested in slums. Your book made me cry, and I want to laugh. Life is so sad, why make it sadder?"