"What would it fetch at a sale? And apartments would cost us more than the house! No ... we'll make ourselves welcome here for a week or so. And—well, let's hope the advertisements will turn up trumps! Then we shall be independent."
One of the advertisements was to appear on Monday.
[CHAPTER XX]
It was slightly disheartening to perceive how many other assistant-editors were open to offers, and he had the uncomfortable consciousness that his competitors' experience was probably a great deal wider than his own. He knew that a daily was out of the question for him, and his chance of securing a post on a periodical seemed scarcely better on Monday morning, when he saw the "Wanted" columns. Cynthia declared that his own advertisement "read nicer than any in the list" and that if she were an editor it would certainly be the one to attract her attention; but Cynthia was his wife and not an editor, and her view encouraged him no more than Sam Walford's supposition at the breakfast table, that he might "obtain the management of a sound magazine."
He went in the evening to Soho, and Cornelia's successor, in opening the door, told him that Turquand had returned. The journalist was at the table, writing furiously, and Kent declined to interrupt him more than he had already done by entering. Turquand indicated the cupboard where the whisky was kept; and, picking up a special edition, Kent sat silent until the other laid down his pen.
"That's off my chest!" said Turquand, looking up after twenty minutes. "Well, my Parisian, how do you carry yourself? Do you still speak English?"
"I can still say 'thanks' in English," answered Kent. "I was devilish obliged to you, old chap. Here's your oof."
"Rot!" said Turquand. "Have you been popping anything to get it?"
"The popping took place before I wrote you. Don't be an ass; I couldn't take the things out, even if I kept it. Go on; don't play the fool! Well, I've had some bad quarters of an hour in the pleasant land of France, I can tell you."