“Who? Hazel?”
“Certainly. Does he imagine that he could get more than fifty pounds elsewhere?”
“Oh, no; I’m sure the money doesn’t come into the matter at all. Of course he wants the fifty pounds, but he doesn’t want to lose his situation on the Board of Public Construction in the getting of it.”
“Where do you meet this man, at his own house, or in his office at the Board?”
“Oh, in his own house, of course.”
“You haven’t seen the books, then?”
“No; but he has the accounts all made out, tabulated beautifully, and has written a very clear statement of the whole transaction. You understand, of course, that there has been no defalcation, no embezzlement, or anything of that sort. The accounts as a whole balance perfectly, and there isn’t a penny of the public funds wrongly appropriated. All the Board has done is to juggle with figures so that each department seems to have come out all right, whereas the truth is that some departments have been carried on at a great profit, while with others there has been a loss. The object obviously has been to deceive the public and make it think that all the departments are economically conducted.”
“I am sorry money hasn’t been stolen,” said the editor generously, “then we would have had them on the hip; but, even as it is, the Bugle will make a great sensation. What I fear is that the opposition press will seize on those very inaccuracies, and thus try to throw doubt on the whole affair. Don’t you think that you can persuade this person to let us have the information intact, without the inclusion of those blunders he seems to insist on? I wouldn’t mind paying him a little more money, if that is what he is after.”
“I don’t think that is his object. The truth is, the man is frightened, and grows more and more so as the day for publication approaches. He is so anxious about his position that he insisted he was not to be paid by cheque, but that I should collect the money and hand it over to him in sovereigns.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what to do, Alder. We mustn’t seem too eager. Let the matter rest where it is until Monday. I suppose he expects you to call upon him again to-day?”