huge success."

"I'm glad you agree with us there," said Lalage. "We've gone into the
matter minutely. Selby-Harrison worked it out and we don't see how we
could possibly make less than 12 per cent. Not that we want to make
money out of it. Our efforts are purely--what's that word, Hilda? You
found it in a book, but I always forget it."

"Altruistic," said Hilda.

"You understand that, I suppose?" said Lalage to me.

"Yes," I said, "I do. But I wasn't thinking of the financial side of the
enterprise when I spoke of its being an immense success. What I had in
mind----"

"Finance," said Lalage severely, "cannot possibly be ignored."

"All we want," said Hilda, "is some one to guarantee the working
expenses for the first three months."

"And I said," added Lalage, "that you'd do it if we came out here and
asked you."

I recollected hearing of an Englishman who started a daily paper which
afterward failed and it was said that he lost L300,000 by the venture. I
hesitated.

"What we ask," said Lalage, "is not money, but a guarantee, and we are
willing to pay 8 per cent, to whoever does it. The difference between
a guarantee and actual money is that in the one case you will probably
never have to pay at all, while in the other you will have to fork out
at once."

"Am I," I asked, "to get 8 per cent, on what I don't give, but merely
promise?"

"That's what it comes to," said Lalage. "I call it a good offer."

"It's one of the most generous I ever heard," I said. "May I ask if
Selby-Harrison----?"

"It was his suggestion," said Hilda. "Neither Lalage nor I are any good
at sums, specially decimals."

"And," said Lalage, "you'll get a copy of each number post free just the
same as if you were a regular subscriber!"

"We've got one advertiser already," said Hilda.

"And," said Lalage, "advertisments pay the whole cost of newspapers
nowadays. Any one who knows anything about the business side of the
press knows that. Selby-Harrison met a man the other day who reports
football matches and he said so."

"Is it cocoa," I asked, "or soap, or hair restorer?"

"No. It's a man who wants to buy second-hand feather beds. I can't
imagine what he means to do with them when he gets them, but that's his
business. We needn't worry ourselves so long as he pays us."

"Lalage," I said, "and Hilda, I am so thoroughly convinced of your
energy and enterprise, I feel so sure of Selby-Harrison's financial
ability and I am so dee