els. Have you had time to see the paper since you got back? No?
Then you haven't seen our new Scandal Page--'We Just Want to Know, You
Know.' It's a corker, and it's sent the circulation up like a rocket.
Everybody reads 'Squibs' now. I was hoping you would come back soon. I
wanted to ask you about taking new offices. We're a bit above this sort
of thing now."

Roland, meanwhile, was reading with horrified eyes the alleged corking
Scandal Page. It seemed to him without exception the most frightful
production he had ever seen. It appalled him.

"This is awful," he moaned. "We shall have a hundred libel actions."

"Oh, no, that's all right. It's all fake stuff, tho the public doesn't
know it. If you stuck to real scandals you wouldn't get a par. a week.
A more moral set of blameless wasters than the blighters who constitute
modern society you never struck. But it reads all right, doesn't it? Of
course, every now and then one does hear something genuine, and then it
goes in. For instance, have you ever heard of Percy Pook, the bookie? I
have got a real ripe thing in about Percy this week, the absolute limpid
truth. It will make him sit up a bit. There, just under your thumb."

Roland removed his thumb, and, having read the paragraph in question,
started as if he had removed it from a snake.

"But this is bound to mean a libel action!" he cried.

"Not a bit of it," said Mr. Petheram comfortably. "You don't know Percy.
I won't bore you with his life-history, but take it from me he doesn't
rush into a court of law from sheer love of it. You're safe enough."

* * * * *

But it appeared that Mr. Pook, tho coy in the matter of cleansing his
scutcheon before a judge and jury, was not wholly without weapons of
defense and offense. Arriving at the office next day, Roland found a
scene of desolation, in the middle of which, like Marius among the ruins
of Carthage, sat Jimmy, the vacant-faced office boy. Jimmy was
reading an illustrated comic paper, and appeared undisturbed by his
surroundings.

"He's gorn," he observed, looking up as Roland entered.

"What do you mean?" Roland snapped at him. "Who's gone and where did he
go? And besides that, when you speak to your superiors you will rise and
stop chewing that infernal gum. It gets on my nerves."

Jimmy neither rose nor relinquished his gum. He took his time and
answered.

"Mr. Petheram. A couple of fellers come in and went through, and th