“Indeed! I thought you had an idea perhaps of offering a bribe....”
“Bribe! Good Heavens! Bribe a critic! Impossible, my good Geoffrey!—such a thing was never heard of—never, never, never!” and he shook his head and rolled up his eyes with infinite solemnity—“No no! Press people never take money for anything—not even for ‘booming’ a new gold-mining company,—not even for putting a notice of a fashionable concert into the Morning Post. Everything in the English press is the just expression of pure and lofty sentiment, believe me! This little cheque is for a charity of which Mr McWhing is chief patron,—you see the Civil List pensions all go by favour to the wrong persons nowadays; to the keeping of lunatic versifiers and retired actresses who never could act—the actual bona-fide ‘genius’ never gets anything out of Government, and moreover would scorn to take a farthing from that penurious body, which grudges him anything higher than a money-recognition. It is as great an insult to offer a beggarly pension of fifty or a hundred pounds a year to a really great writer as to give him a knighthood,—and we cannot fall much lower than to be a knight, as knights go. The present five hundred pounds will help to relieve certain ‘poor and proud’ but pressing literary cases known to McWhing alone!” His expression at this moment was so extraordinary, that I entirely failed to fathom it. “I have no doubt I shall be able to represent the benevolent and respectable literary agent to perfection—of course I shall insist on my ten per cent.!”—and he began laughing again. “But I can’t stop to discuss the matter now with you—I’m off. I promised McWhing [p 170] to be with him at twelve o’clock precisely, and it’s now half-past-eleven. I shall probably lunch with him, so don’t wait for me. And concerning the five hundred, you needn’t be in my debt an hour longer than you like—I’ll take a cheque for the money back from you this evening.”
“All right”—I said—“But perhaps the great oracle of the cliques will reject your proposals with scorn.”
“If he does, then is Utopia realized!”—replied Lucio, carefully drawing on his gloves as he spoke—“Where’s a copy of your book? Ah—here’s one—smelling newly of the press,” and he slipped the volume into his overcoat pocket; “Allow me, before departure, to express the opinion that you are a singularly ungrateful fellow, Geoffrey! Here am I, perfectly devoted to your interests,—and despite my princedom actually prepared to ‘pose’ to McWhing as your ‘acting manager’ pro tem, and you haven’t so much as a thank-you to throw at me!”
He stood before me smiling, the personification of kindness and good humour. I laughed a little.
“McWhing will never take you for an acting manager or literary agent,”—I said—“You don’t look it. If I seem churlish I’m sorry—but the fact is I am disgusted ...”
“At what?” he inquired, still smiling.
“Oh, at the humbug of everything,”—I answered impatiently; “The stupid farce of it all. Why shouldn’t a book get noticed on its own merits without any appeal to cliquism
and influential wire-pulling on the press?”
“Exactly!” and he delicately flicked a grain of dust off his coat while speaking—“And why shouldn’t a man get received in society on his own merits, without any money to recommend him or any influential friend to back him up?”