“I’m sorry—I’m very sorry,” sighed Peter. “But I couldn’t conscientiously—”
Clodd put down his hat again with a bang. “Oh! confound that conscience of yours! Don’t it ever think of your creditors? What’s the use of my working out my lungs for you, when all you do is to hamper me at every step?”
“Wouldn’t it be better policy,” urged Peter, “to go for the better class of advertiser, who doesn’t ask you for this sort of thing?”
“Go for him!” snorted Clodd. “Do you think I don’t go for him? They are just sheep. Get one, you get the lot. Until you’ve got the one, the others won’t listen to you.”
“That’s true,” mused Peter. “I spoke to Wilkinson, of Kingsley’s, myself. He advised me to try and get Landor’s. He thought that if I could get an advertisement out of Landor, he might persuade his people to give us theirs.”
“And if you had gone to Landor, he would have promised you theirs provided you got Kingsley’s.”
“They will come,” thought hopeful Peter. “We are going up steadily. They will come with a rush.”
“They had better come soon,” thought Clodd. “The only things coming with a rush just now are bills.”
“Those articles of young McTear’s attracted a good deal of attention,” expounded Peter. “He has promised to write me another series.”
“Jowett is the one to get hold of,” mused Clodd. “Jowett, all the others follow like a flock of geese waddling after the old gander. If only we could get hold of Jowett, the rest would be easy.”