Things came to a crisis at last, and, as it happened, over the very article which Arthur had written on Vickars. This article had remained in Legion's hands, and what was Arthur's astonishment when he found it duly head-lined in a sensational journal, and accompanied by a portrait which was certainly not that of Vickars. Here and there he could distinguish some remnants of his own handiwork, but the whole was overlaid by the most extraordinary flamboyant ornament, and abounded in passages which he recognised as pure Legionese. The things which he had said about Vickars in unsuspicious confidence were all remembered, but were twisted with such amazing ingenuity into novel forms that he blushed to recognise them. Vickars was described as living in a garret, existing upon the most exiguous of earnings, finding his comrades among all kinds of social outcasts, a hero, a saint, and a socialist, assisted in his sacrifice by a lovely daughter, whose personal charms were touched in with the bold hand of a police-court journalist. Arthur's heart flamed as he read the article. He could imagine what Vickars would think of it; what he would think of the pathetic fiction that he had nearly died of a fever caught in nursing a diseased outcast (this was the Legionese improvement on the drain-story), and with what feelings he would regard the exploitation of Elizabeth. It seemed to him that the world must ring with the infamous business; that Vickars would become the laughing-stock of London; and that since the article could be attributed to no one but himself, he would henceforth stand pilloried as a false friend, a liar, and a fool.
The moment Legion appeared in the office, he flung the article upon his desk, and cried in a voice shaken with anger, "Did you write that?"
"Why, what's the matter?" he replied, slowly adjusting his spectacles. "Oh! I see—the Vickars article. I meant to tell you about that. What you wrote was too good to waste, so I worked over it a bit, and I've got quite a satisfactory price for it. I wouldn't wonder if it created quite a demand for Vickars' books, and we ought to communicate with him at once about his new book."
He was going on, in the innocence of his heart, to explain how a Vickars boom might be worked, when Arthur interrupted him with a furious gesture.
"What I wrote was truth, and what you have written is lies. Why, even the portrait you have used isn't Vickars!"
"And who cares about that? No one knows any better. It's a good enough portrait, any way."
"I can't argue about it, Mr. Legion. You have done me incalculable harm. You have ruined me with Vickars. As for his ever allowing you to handle his books, let me tell you he wouldn't touch a dirty dog like you with a ten-foot pole."
"What's that?" cried Legion, his face pale with astonishment and indignation. "What was that you said?"
"I say you are a scoundrel, Mr. Legion—a mercenary, lying scoundrel!"
"Oh! come now, you're excited. I can make allowances—you don't know what you're saying."