In the train Keller began to revise his copy, and every time that he looked at the trim little fields, the red villas, and the embankments of the line, the blue pencil plunged remorselessly through the slips. He appeared to have dredged the dictionary for adjectives. I could think of none that he had not used. Yet he was a perfectly sound poker-player and never showed more cards than were sufficient to take the pool.
'Aren't you going to leave him a single bellow?' I asked sympathetically. 'Remember, everything goes in the States, from a trouser-button to a double-eagle.'
'That's just the curse of it,' said Keller below his breath. 'We've played 'em for suckers so often that when it comes to the golden truth—I'd like to try this on a London paper. You have first call there, though.'
'Not in the least. I'm not touching the thing in our papers. I shall be happy to leave 'em all to you; but surely you'll cable it home?'
'No. Not if I can make the scoop here and see the Britishers sit up.'
'You won't do it with three columns of slushy headline, believe me.
They don't sit up as quickly as some people.'
'I'm beginning to think that too. Does nothing make any difference in this country?' he said, looking out of the window. 'How old is that farmhouse?'
'New. It can't be more than two hundred years at the most.'
'Urn. Fields, too?'
'That hedge there must have been clipped for about eighty years.'