“Both mine and yours, or neither yours or mine. There is no such thing as exclusive possession. You have just told us so.”
“Critchett!” says Bertram, and points with stony gaze to the printer’s devil, “turn that boy out of the room.”
Critchett, reluctantly touching anything so sooty, takes him by the collar and drives him before him out of the room.
Marlow picks up the torn proofs. “Who’ll pay for the setting-up? asks this dear child. Unused proofs are, I suppose, first cousins to spilt milk and spoilt powder. Mayn’t we read this article? The title is immensely suggestive—‘Fist-right and Brain-divinity.’ Are you feloniously sympathetic with the Tooting bomb?”
Bertram takes the torn proofs from him in irritation and throws them into the open drawer of a cabinet.
“The essay is addressed to persons of intelligence and with principle,” he says, significantly.
“But it seems that Fanshawe has neither, if he fail to appreciate it?”
“Fanshawe has both; but there are occasional moments in which he recollects that he has some subscribers in Philistia.”
“Fanshawe knows where his bread is buttered,” chuckles the duke; “knows where his bread is buttered.”
“If Fanshawe don’t publish it he won’t pay for it, will he?” asks Marlow, with some want of tact.