“Even so,” said Nicholas.
“I see,” said the Master, “he payeth us. We advert the goods. Forthwith all men buy them. Then hath he more money. He payeth us again. We advert the goods more and still he payeth us. That would seem to me, friend Nick, a mighty good busyness for us.”
“So it is,” rejoined Nicholas, “and after him others will come to advert other wares until belike a large part of our news sheet,—who knows? the whole of it, perhaps, shall be made up in the merry guise of advertisements.”
Caxton sat silent in deep thought.
“But Master Caxton”—cried the voice of a young apprentice, a mere child, as he seemed, with fair hair and blue eyes filled with the native candour of unsullied youth,—“is this tale true!”
“What sayest thou, Warwick?” said the master printer, almost sternly.
“Good master, is the tale of the wonderous balm true?”
“Boy,” said Caxton, “Master Nicholas, hath even said, we know not if it is true.”
“But didst thou not charge us,” pleaded the boy, “that all that went under our hand into the press should be truth and truth alone?”
“I did,” said Caxton thoughtfully, “but I spoke perhaps somewhat in overhaste. I see that we must here distinguish. Whether this is true or not we cannot tell. But it is PAID FOR, and that lifts it, as who should say, out of the domain of truth. The very fact that it is paid for giveth it, as it were, a new form of merit, a verity altogether its own.”