Without warning he switched on the electric lamp that stood upon the desk, causing her to draw back with a start.
“All right,” he said. “Go ahead. You shall have your tub, and a weekly audience of a million readers for as long as you can keep them interested. Up with anything you like, and down with everything you don’t. Be careful not to land me in a libel suit. Call the whole Bench of Bishops hypocrites, and all the ground landlords thieves, if you will: but don’t mention names. And don’t get me into trouble with the police. Beyond that, I shan’t interfere with you.”
She was about to speak.
“One stipulation,” he went on, “that every article is headed with your photograph.”
He read the sudden dismay in her eyes.
“How else do you think you are going to attract their attention?” he asked her. “By your eloquence! Hundreds of men and women as eloquent as you could ever be are shouting to them every day. Who takes any notice of them? Why should they listen any the more to you—another cranky highbrow: some old maid, most likely, with a bony throat and a beaky nose. If Woman is going to come into the fight she will have to use her own weapons. If she is prepared to do that she’ll make things hum with a vengeance. She’s the biggest force going, if she only knew it.”
He had risen and was pacing the room.
“The advertiser has found that out, and is showing the way.” He snatched at an illustrated magazine, fresh from the press, that had been placed upon his desk, and opened it at the first page. “Johnson’s Blacking,” he read out, “advertised by a dainty little minx, showing her ankles. Who’s going to stop for a moment to read about somebody’s blacking? If a saucy little minx isn’t there to trip him up with her ankles!”
He turned another page. “Do you suffer from gout? Classical lady preparing to take a bath and very nearly ready. The old Johnny in the train stops to look at her. Reads the advertisement because she seems to want him to. Rubber heels. Save your boot leather! Lady in evening dress—jolly pretty shoulders—waves them in front of your eyes. Otherwise you’d never think of them.”
He fluttered the pages. Then flung the thing across to her.