Turquand laughed, as nearly as he could be said ever to approach a laugh.
"The assistant-editor of The World and his Wife will have to cut pars nimbly out of the English society journals and the Paris dailies, and 'put 'em all in different language—the more indifferent, the better!' He must handle the scissors without fatigue, and arrange with someone on this side to supply a column of London theatrical news every week—out of The Daily Telegraph. Say with me! It's worth a guinea, and I may as well have it as anybody else."
"You're appointed our London dramatic critic," said Kent. "Won't you have thirty bob?"
"A guinea's the market price; and I can have some cards printed and go to the theatres for nothing, you see, when I feel like it; they don't take any stock in The Outpost. He must attend the répétitions générales himself—if he can get in—and make all the acquaintances he can, against the time when the rag dies."
"'Dies'?" echoed Kent. "Is it going to die?"
"Oh, it won't live, my boy! If it had been a permanent job, I shouldn't have handed it over to you—I'm not a philanthropist. But it will give you a chance to turn round, and an enlightened publisher may discern the merits of The Eye of the Beholder in the meanwhile. You'd better go on looking for something while you are on the thing; perhaps you'll be able to get the Paris Correspondence for a paper, if you try."
"What more? What besides the scissors—nothing?"
"There's the paste; I don't imagine you'll need much else."
"You're a trump!" repeated Kent gratefully. "I feel an awful fraud taking such a berth, Turk; but in this world one has to do what one——"
"Can't!"