Arrived at the Argus office and duly seated at his own particular table, Triffitt, instead of proceeding to write out his report of the funeral ceremony of the late Jacob Herapath, M.P., wrote a note to his proprietor, which note he carefully sealed and marked “Private.” He carried this off to the great man’s confidential secretary, who stared at it and him.
“I suppose this really is of a private nature?” he asked suspiciously. “You know as well as I do that Mr. Markledew’ll make me suffer if it isn’t.”
“Soul and honour, it’s of the most private!” affirmed Triffitt, laying a hand on his heart. “And of the highest importance, too, and I’ll be eternally grateful if you’ll put it before him as soon as you can.”
The confidential secretary took another look at Triffitt, and allowed himself to be reluctantly convinced of his earnestness.
“All right!” he said. “I’ll shove it under his nose when he comes in at four o’clock.”
Triffitt went back to his work, excited, yet elated. It was no easy job to get speech of Markledew. Markledew, as everybody in Fleet Street knew, was a man in ten thousand. He was not only sole proprietor of his paper, but its editor and manager, and he ruled his office and his employees with a rod of iron—chiefly by silence. It was usually said of him that he never spoke to anybody unless he was absolutely obliged to do so—certain it was that all his orders to the various heads were given out pretty much after the fashion of a drill sergeant’s commands to a squad of well-trained, five-month recruits, and that monosyllables were much more in his mouth than even brief admonitions and explanations. If anybody ever did manage to approach Markledew, it was always with fear and trembling. A big, heavy, lumbering man, with a face that might have been carved out of granite, eyes that bored through an opposing brain, and a constant expression of absolute, yet watchful immobility, he was a trying person to tackle, and most men, when they did tackle him, felt as if they might be talking to the Sphinx and wondered if the tightly-locked lips were ever going to open. But all men who ever had anything to do with Markledew were well aware that, difficult as he was of access, you had only got to approach him with something good to be rewarded for your pains in full measure.
At ten minutes past four Triffitt, who had just finished his work, lifted his head to see a messenger-boy fling open the door of the reporter’s room and cast his eyes round. A shiver shot through Triffitt’s spine and went out of his toes with a final sting.
“Mr. Markledew wants Mr. Triffitt!”
Two or three other junior reporters who were scribbling in the room glanced at Triffitt as he leapt to obey the summons. They hastened to make kindly comments on this unheard-of episode in the day’s dull routine.
“Pale as a fair young bride!” sighed one. “Buck up, Triff!—he won’t eat you.”