“Excellent! I tell you what to do. Go back to The Daily Mail and say I’ve sacked you. Then go to the South of France with your wife, for three months. I’ll pay expenses. After that, return to Fleet Street, where you’ll find an office waiting for you, called ‘the British Empire Syndicate, Limited.’ Nobody must know that I’m behind it.... How’s that for a scheme?”
It seemed to me a pretty good scheme, although I was doubtful whether I could work it. I temporized, and suggested drawing out the scheme on paper, more in detail. That disappointed him. He wanted me to say, “Rather! The chance of a life time!” My hesitation put me into the class he called, “Yes, but——” I drew up the scheme, but he went for a visit to Germany, and on his return did not give another thought to the “British Empire Syndicate, Limited.” Other ideas had absorbed his interest.
At the end of a year I saw I was losing favor. An incident happened which forewarned me of approaching doom. He had returned from another visit to Germany, and was in a bad temper, believing, as he always did, that The Daily Mail had gone to the dogs in his absence. He reproved me sharply for the miserable stuff I had been publishing in Page Four, and demanded to see what I had got in hand.
I took down some “plums”—special articles by brilliant and distinguished men. He glanced through them, and laid them down angrily.
“Dull as ditchwater! Send them all back!”
I protested that it was impossible to send them back, as they were all commissioned. My own honor and honesty were at stake.
“Send them all back!” he said, with increasing anger.
I did not send them back, but gave them “snappier” titles. The next day he sent for me again, and demanded to see what else I proposed to publish—“not that trash you showed me yesterday!”
I took down the same articles, with some others. He had more leisure, read them while he smoked a cigar, and at intervals said, “Good!” ... “Excellent!” ... “Why didn’t you show these to me yesterday?”