on
the understanding that he would start as soon as he could possibly get
away from the _Leader_. The gentleman then assisting Mr. Pilkington was
a distinguished Oxford man, oozing learning at every pore, but as
incompetent a journalist as one would meet within the radius of
Newspaperland.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN LONDON TOWN

THE directors of the _Leader_ were more gracious about his resignation
than Henry had expected. Evidently, although quite satisfied with his
work, they did not apprehend any insurmountable difficulty in securing a
successor. The manager hinted (after Henry's going was certain) that
rather than have had the trouble of changing editors, they might even
have arranged to advance his salary--supreme proof that he had not been
without his merits in the eyes of his employers. Mr Jones, by virtue of
his superior years, took leave to warn him of the gravity of the step he
was taking, and assured him that at L350 a year in London he would be no
better off than he was with L100 less in Laysford. For one brief moment
Flo's desire that he should stay passed through his mind, but in his
heart he knew that it was not entirely a matter of money, and he set his
teeth to "Now or never."

When it had been arranged that he was to leave the _Leader_, the manager
exhibited almost indecent haste in appointing his successor, and was
careful to remind him that although, as events turned out, he would be
free to go in a month's time, the Company was entitled to at least three
months' notice, and possibly six. Mr. Jones had a habit of making
generosity fit in with business; he did not mention that he had secured
a successor who was to receive L50 a year less than Henry had been
getting. At one time an editor of the _Leader_ had been paid as much as
L750 a year, but that was in the days of a showy start, when money went
out more rapidly than it came in, and during the succeeding years the
pay-books would show a steady decline in the rate of editorial salaries.
By strict limitation of payments, Mr. Jones was steadily increasing the
dividends of the shareholders, and steadily depreciating the standard of
the staff. The day that Henry left, the literary touch which Adrian
Grant and a limited few had noticed in the _Leader_ under his editorship
disappeared, and the market and police intelligence again gave the tone
of the sheet.

The most serious feature of his r