Henry descended to asphalt, and was presently putting on his slippers in his small sitting-room in a Bloomsbury boarding-house.
CHAPTER XX
THREE LETTERS, AND SOME OTHERS
On the mantelpiece of his room, set on end against the little marble clock which ignored the flight of time, Henry found three letters. He examined the addresses and postmarks of each, and saw at a glance that one was from his sister Dora, another from Flo, and the third from Edgar Winton. For a moment he hesitated, undecided which to open first. Home for him had a far-off call by now, and it was with the vague sense of a dream that was past that he read Dora's fortnightly letters. Flo—hers was a more recent influence—and from a fascinating it had come to be an irksome one: the more real by that token. He burst open Edgar's letter with his forefinger, and read:
"Dear Henry,—I've been going to write you any time these last six weeks, but—well, old man, I'm no hand at correspondence unless it's a penny a line. Besides, I hear about you through Flo, who is quite reconciled to your absence, which the poet tells us makes the heart grow fonder. I wonder!
"But first of all, you'll want an inside view of the dear old rickety old Leader. Your successor is a daisy, and no mistake. Walks into the office in knickers and a cloth cap, and shaves once a week when his beard is ready for clipping. Even Dodge, the newest junior, sneers at him, and refuses to recognise 'that josser' as editor. It's hard cheese on a youngster to run up against a weed like Steel for his first editor. Gives a low idea of our noble profession, don't you know.
"Steel's greatest feat has been to assault his wife in the street while drunk (that's Steel, not the wife, I mean, who was lushing), and get run in; but a word from 'Puggie' [Mr. Albert Scriven, the chief reporter, so called by reason of his physical appearance], who happened to be at the police station at the time, put the matter right, and 'Puggie' took our warrior to his ''appy little 'ome.' It fell to my lot to vamp up the usual editorial cackle myself that night, but I've got to help the beauty most nights, as he doesn't like work. Jones knows of his little exploits, but does nothing. He's got him cheap, and that's enough for him. Besides, nobody outside the office—and nobody in it, for that matter—would believe that Steel was editor of the paper, so Jones swaggers about the town, and has taken to describing himself as 'managing editor.' Oh, we enjoy life here! there's a lot of fun in the game. Steel wonders how the paper lived through the editorship of 'a literary ass.' He isn't nuts on literature; but with a pair of scissors, some gum, and a pencil, the Johnnie can knock out leaders while you cough, and the joke is nobody seems to be a bit the worse. Hope you don't mind my telling you this; but really, do you think anybody reads leaders? I hope they don't read mine.
"The Leader appeared four hours late yesterday. What do you think of that? Jones again. He's a treat. A cog-wheel of the Hoe machine burst, and there wasn't a spare one in stock, nor in the town. Though he had been warned months ago, when a similar accident happened, that the last spare wheel had been used, he would not spend the money to stock one or two. We had to borrow one from the Milton Daily Post. You are well out of the hole, I can tell you.