ing him as they say Newmarket Heath cows a young horse unused to
open courses.

'I want to retouch my stuff. Suppose we wait till we get to London?'
he said.

Zuyland, by the way, had torn up his account and thrown it overboard
that morning early. His reasons were my reasons.

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.'

'Labour cheap--eh?'

'Pretty much. Well, I suppose you'd like to try the _Times_, wouldn't
you?'

'No,' said Keller, looking at Winchester Cathedral. ''Might as well
try to electrify a haystack. And to think that the _World_ would take
three columns and ask for more--with illustrations too! It's
sickening.'

'But the _Times_ might,' I began.

Keller flung his paper across the carriage, and it opened in its
austere majesty of solid type--opened with the crackle of an
encyclopaedia.

'Might! You _might_ work your way through the bow-plates of a
cruiser. Look at that first page!'

'It strikes you that way, does it?' I said. 'Then I'd recommend you
to try a light and frivolous journal.'

'With a thing like this of mine--of ou