"I don't quite understand," said I. "We? Who are we?"
"The Lang Manuscript-Manufacturing Company," explained the young woman. "You are aware, of course, that Andrew Lang is not an individual, but a corporation?"
"I certainly never dreamed it," said I, with a half-smile.
"How could it be otherwise?" asked Miss Phipps-Phipps. "No human being could alone turn out an average of 647,000,000 words a year, Miss Witherup, not even if he could run two type-writers at once, and write with his feet while dictating to a stenographer. It would be a physical impossibility."
"Dear me!" I cried in amazement. "I know that there were thousands of articles from Lang every year, but 647,000,000 words! Why, it is incredible!"
"That is only the average, you know," said Miss Phipps-Phipps, proudly. "In good years we have run as high as 716,000,346 words; and this year, if all goes well and our operatives do not strike, we expect to turn out over 800,000,000. We have signed contracts to deliver 111,383,000 words in the month of June alone—mostly Christmas stuff, you know, to be published next November. Last month we turned out 39,000 lines of poetry a day for twenty-five working-days, and our essay-mill has been running over-time for sixteen weeks."
"Well, I am surprised!" said I. "Yet, when I come to think of it, there is no reason why I should be. This is an age of corporations."
"Precisely," said Miss Phipps-Phipps. "Furthermore, ours had a philanthropic motive at the bottom of it all. Here was Mr. Lang simply killing himself with work, and some 700 young men and women of an aspiring turn of mind absolutely out of employment. The burdens of the one, we believed, could be made to relieve the necessities of the other, and we made the proposition to Mr. Lang to make himself over to us, promising to fill his contracts and relieve him of the necessity of doing any further literary work for the rest of his life. We incorporated him on a basis of £2,000,000, giving him £1,000,000 in shares. The rest was advertised as for sale, and was oversubscribed ten to one. Workshops were built at Woking, and as a starter 600 operatives were employed. Working night and day, at the end of the first year we were just three months behind our orders. We immediately doubled our force to 1200, and so it has gone until to-day, and the business is constantly increasing. Our stock is at a premium of 117%, and we keep 3750 people, with a capacity of 10,000 words a day each, constantly employed."
"I am astonished!" I cried. "The magnitude of the work is appalling. Are your shops open to visitors?"
"Certainly. I shall be pleased if you will come out to Woking to-morrow, and I will show you over the establishment," replied Miss Phipps-Phipps, courteously. And then for the moment the conversation stopped.