"Of course it is. Here's how the matter stands. A newspaper syndicate is like any other trading company, composed for the sole end and object of making as much profit out of the public as possible. The lion's portion naturally goes to the heads of the concern—then come the shareholders' dividends. The actual workers in the business, such as the 'editors,' are paid as little as their self-respect will allow them to take, and as for the other fellows under the editors—well!—you can just imagine they get much less than the little their self-respect would claim, if they were not, most of them, so desperately poor, and so anxious for a foothold somewhere as to be ready to take anything. I took the first chance I could get, and hung on to it, not for the wretched pay, but for the experience, and for the insight it gave me into men and things. I witnessed the whole business;—the 'doctoring up' of social scandals,—the tampering with the news in order that certain items might not affect certain shares on the Stock Exchange,—the way 'discussions' of the most idiotic kind were started in the office just to fill up space, such as what was best to make the hair grow; what a baby ought to weigh at six months; what food authors write best on; and whether modern girls make as good wives as their mothers did, and so on. These things were generally got up by 'the fool of the office' as we called him—a man with a perpetual grin and an undyingly good opinion of himself. He was always put into harness when for some state or financial reason the actual facts had to be euphonised or even suppressed and the public 'let down gently.' For a time I was drafted off on the 'social' business—ugh?—how I hated it?"
"What did you have to do?" asked Mary, amused.
"Oh, I had to deal with a motley crowd of court flunkeys, Jews, tailors and dressmakers, and fearful-looking women catering for 'fashion,' who came with what they called 'news,' which was generally that 'Mrs. "Bunny" Bumpkin looked sweet in grey'—or that 'Miss "Toby" Tosspot was among the loveliest of the débutantes at Court.' Sometimes a son of Israel came along, all in a mortal funk, and said he 'didn't want it mentioned' that Mrs. So-and-So had dined with him at a certain public restaurant last night. Generally, he was a shareholder, and his orders had to be obeyed. The shareholders in fact had most to do with the 'society' news,—and they bored me nearly to death. The trifles they wanted 'mentioned' were innumerable—the other trifles they didn't want mentioned, were quite as endless. One day there was a regular row—a sort of earthquake in the place. Somebody had presumed to mention that the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup had smoked several cigarettes with infinite gusto at a certain garden party,—now what are you laughing at, Miss Deane?"
"At the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup!" and Mary's clear laughter rippled out in a silvery peal of purest merriment—"That's not her name surely!"
"Oh no, that's not her name!" and Angus laughed too—"It wouldn't do to give her real name!—but Ketchup's quite as good and high-sounding as the one she's got. And as I tell you, the whole 'staff' was convulsed. Three shareholders came down post haste to the office—one at full speed in a motor,—and said how dare I mention Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup at all? It was like my presumption to notice that she had smoked! Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup's name must be kept out of the papers—she was a 'lady'! Oh, by Jove!—how I laughed!—I couldn't help myself! I just roared with laughter in the very faces of those shareholders! 'A lady!' said I—'Why, she's—— ' But I wasn't allowed to say what she was, for the shareholder who had arrived in the motor, fixed a deadly glance upon me and said—'If you value your po-seetion'—he was a Lowland Scot, with the Lowland accent—'if you value your po-seetion on this paper, you'll hold your tongue!' So I did hold my tongue then—but only because I meant to wag it more violently afterwards. I always devote Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup to the blue blazes, because I'm sure it was through her I lost my post. You see a shareholder in a paper has a good deal of influence, especially if he has as much as a hundred thousand shares. You'd be surprised if I told you the real names of some of the fellows who control newspaper syndicates!—you wouldn't believe it! Or at any rate, if you did believe it, you'd never believe the newspapers!"
"I don't believe them now,"—said Helmsley—"They say one thing to-day and contradict it to-morrow."
"Oh, but that's like all news!" said Mary, placidly—"Even in our little village here, you never know quite what to believe. One morning you are told that Mrs. Badge's baby has fallen downstairs and broken its neck, and you've scarcely done being sorry for Mrs. Badge, when in comes Mrs. Badge herself, baby and all, quite well and smiling, and she says she 'never did hear such tales as there are in Wiercombe'!"
They all laughed.
"Well, there's the end of my story,"—said Angus—"I worked on the syndicate for two years, and then was given the sack. The cause of my dismissal was, as I told you, that I published a leading article exposing a mean and dirty financial trick on the part of a man who publicly assumed to be a world's benefactor—and he turned out to be a shareholder in the paper under an 'alias.' There was no hope for me after that—it was a worse affair than that of Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup. So I marched out of the office, and out of London—I meant to make for Exmoor, which is wild and solitary, because I thought I might find some cheap room in a cottage there, where I might live quietly on almost nothing and write my book—but I stumbled by chance on this place instead—and I rather like being so close to the sea."
"You are writing a book?" said Mary, her eyes resting upon him thoughtfully.