Being a man of some humour the editor relaxed, and laughed exuberantly.
“Go to it then,” he said. “I’m off to tea, and I shall clear you out when I come back.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind. I’ll be on the permanent staff by nightfall.”
In writing upon damn nuisances Wynne took for his subject such widely divergent national symbols as the Albert Memorial and The Oracle. Of the two The Oracle fared worst, and came in for the most complete defamation in its heartily criticized career. The article was iconoclastic, spirited and intensely funny. The entire office staff read it, and the editor volunteered to take Wynne out and make him drunk then and there. This offer Wynne declined, but he accepted the post of a casual article writer at a penny a line, and returned home with a greater feeling of satisfaction than he had known for some time.
The satisfaction, however, was short-lived, for in a very little while he was heartily ashamed of subscribing his signature to scurrilous paragraphs deprecating the private lives of parsons, and hinting darkly at dirty doings in Downing Street.
He perceived that by such means greatness was not to be achieved, and sought to ease his conscience by spending nearly all his earnings on reputable books, and most of his spare time in the reading-room at the British Museum. In the matter of food he was most provident, scarcely, if ever, standing himself a good meal. He acquired the habit of munching chocolate and of making tea at all hours of the day and night. By this means, although he staved off actual hunger, he was never properly satisfied, and his physical side became ill-nourished and gaunt. The hours he kept were as irregular as could well be conceived, and he frequently worked all night without a thought of going to bed.
IV
The days of his employment on the staff of The Oracle were far from happy, and the material he was asked to write soured his style and embittered his outlook. Of this circumstance he was painfully aware, and tried to combat it by writing of simple, gentle matters for his own education. But the canker of cynicism overran and corrupted his better thoughts like deadly nightshade twining in the brambles of a hedgerow.
Always his own severest critic, he would tear up the sheets of close-written manuscript and scatter them over the room, stamp his feet or throw up the window and hurl imprecation at the dying night.
Sometimes he sent articles or stories to the press, but from them he received no encouragement. The Oracle had an unsavoury reputation in Fleet Street, and no self-respecting editor desired to employ the journalists who wrote for this vicious little rag.