The legal gentleman looked very sharply and earnestly at his watch,—when the landlady withdrew, and Mr. Mortimer again mentioned the wine. He, the "legal gentleman," really could not stay at that particular time: he had acted thus promptly in order to serve Mr. Mortimer, for he was aware of the vast importance of promptitude in national affairs, and Mr. Mortimer's particular business might most emphatically be termed a national affair, when its ultimate purpose was considered.
Mr. Mortimer could not press the gentleman under such circumstances, so began to write out a cheque for the amount of the bill. A sudden thought struck him, however, just as he had handed it to the gentleman.
"We must talk one point over, my dear sir," he said, "and that is, where must the paper be published? for you observed that there were already several small papers of an insignificant character in the county, and that they were published at different towns. Now where must my new paper be published, so as best to compete with one of them?"
The legal gentleman looked as if taken aback for a moment, but speedily answered, "Why not in London?"
"Hum!" replied Mr. Mortimer, musingly: "would not that be rather out of character? Might not the Kentish people deny that the paper was a Kentish paper at all, then?"
"Your plan, sir, is this," answered the solicitor, with the same air of unanswerable decision and discernment which he wore in the steamer;—"take a trip of observation through the whole county for yourself: it will cost you little, if you go shrewdly to work; and you will learn much, by the way, that will be of immense service to you, in the great undertaking itself: that's the likeliest way to find your fulcrum, as a clever mechanical friend of mine always says, and then plant your intellectual lever; and may it prove successful, sir, is my heart's best wish, in raising you speedily to the House of Commons!"
The legal gentleman rounded with a smile; but his speech needed no gilding for Mr. Mortimer: it went to the inmost chamber of his brain, with the speed and power of instant and undisturbable conviction; and he shook his adviser most fervently by the hand, and regretted, again and again, that the gentleman could not stay and spend the evening, but hoped he would have the pleasure of his company again, when he, Mr. Mortimer, had completed the little projected tour. The legal gentleman assured Mr. Mortimer he would feel honoured in accepting the invitation, and, with great politeness, withdrew.
Mr. Mortimer's Kentish tour was commenced the very next morning. He was in the street at Greenwich, as soon as the first train could arrive there, in its fifteen minutes' journey from the foot of London Bridge. Mr. Mortimer could, of course, think of no step so likely to be taken with a view to obtaining information, as calling at a respectable business-like inn. He had made a little inquiry in the railway carriage; and "The Mitre" and "The Greyhound" were recommended as highly respectable resorts of company. Mr. Mortimer bent his steps towards the Greyhound. He found the landlord to be a person of very frank and pleasing appearance, and of very courteous manners; but it was too early for company, so the tourist intimated that he would require dinner at such an hour, and went out to saunter a few hours about the Hospital and the Park. There seemed to be much that a person might be pleased with, he thought, amidst all that he saw; but his mind was fixed on obtaining information, and he could see no one walking in the Park, nor about the Hospital colonnades, that was at all likely, in his judgment, to tell him any thing about the desirableness or propriety of starting a newspaper at Greenwich. He passed several old pensioners, while in this discontented mood, sitting under the shade of the noble chestnut trees, some recounting their naval adventures while turning the quid, or smoking, and others reading. Suddenly, he observed that a veteran who was reclining alone was reading a newspaper; and the whim seized him to make a little inquiry in the line of his own pursuit, though he thought it a somewhat unlikely quarter from whence to obtain the information he was seeking.
"You are busy, I see, my friend," said Mr. Mortimer: "any particular news, just now?"
"Why no, sir?" answered the veteran, looking through his spectacles at the person who asked him the question: "every thing seems very dull, but you know they always fill the newspapers up with something,—what with things that happen and things that never did happen, and what with things that they invent, and things that they borrow."