arantee a circulation of seventy thousand. He
sat and chuckled over it until we got to Bow."

"But--"

"You wait a minute. I'm coming to the explanation. That boy represents
the reading public. I talked to him. The papers he likes best are the
papers that have the largest sales. He never made a single mistake. The
others--those of them he had seen--he dismissed as 'rot.' What he likes
is what the great mass of the journal-buying public likes. Please him--I
took his name and address, and he is willing to come to us for eight
shillings a week--and you please the people that buy. Not the people
that glance through a paper when it is lying on the smoking-room table,
and tell you it is damned good, but the people that plank down their
penny. That's the sort we want."

Peter Hope, able editor, with ideals, was shocked--indignant. William
Clodd, business man, without ideals, talked figures.

"There's the advertiser to be thought of," persisted Clodd. "I don't
pretend to be a George Washington, but what's the use of telling lies
that sound like lies, even to one's self while one's telling them? Give
me a genuine sale of twenty thousand, and I'll undertake, without
committing myself, to convey an impression of forty. But when the actual
figures are under eight thousand--well, it hampers you, if you happen to
have a conscience.

"Give them every week a dozen columns of good, sound literature,"
continued Clodd insinuatingly, "but wrap it up in twenty-four columns of
jam. It's the only way they'll take it, and you will be doing them
good--educating them without their knowing it. All powder and no jam!
Well, they don't open their mouths, that's all."

Clodd was a man who knew how to get his way. Flipp--spelled
Philip--Tweetel arrived in due course of time at 23, Crane Court,
ostensibly to take up the position of _Good Humour's_ office-boy; in
reality, and without his being aware of it, to act as its literary
taster. Stories in which Flipp became absorbed were accepted. Peter
groaned, but contented himself with correcting only their grosser
grammatical blunders; the experiment should be tried in all good faith.
Humour at which Flipp laughed was printed. Peter tried to ease his
conscience by increasing his subscription to the fund for destitute
compositors, but only partially succeeded. Poetry that brought a tear to
the eye of Flipp was given leaded type. People of taste and judgment
said _Good Humour_ ha