Mightier than the Sword

nts that the Special News Agency "covered" with its Beavers, and supplied at a fixed annual rate to the newspapers. The Special News Agency were, so to speak, wholesale dealers in n

gination or fantasy or style in these Special News Agency reports, and it was because of their rather stilted writing that the reporters on papers like The Day and The Sentinel and The Herald were sent sometimes over the same ground that the News Agency men had covered, to see i

ularly pretty girl, but there was a quality in her hair and eyes[111] and in the expression of her face that lifted it out of the commonplace. The mere f

n shadow and gleaming with golden threads in the sunlight, and the eyes, that were

ak and bubble-and-squeak for a shilling, and all through the

eaver, "got ov

rey answered. ("I won

ked, contemplating his inky thumbs. "The trouble is that

and occasionally Humphrey, catching the sense of his last few words, agreed with a mechanical "Yes," or a nod ("Why did she smi

d Beaver; "I've got other things to thi

knew in Easterham," H

ut for you,

er. It doesn't

1

. Now, she was close to him, and he found himself praying to God that she would look at him, and smile again; and the next moment he felt that the ground would sink beneath him if she did so, and he longed to look the other way, but could not. The people passing to and fro knew nothing of the terrific disturbance that was going on in the mind of the young man walking down Fleet Street. Now they were level—he raised his hat—it was over, and the memory of her smile had sunk yet deeper within him. Yes, she had re

mehow or other, they were different. He felt, suddenly, as if years had been added to his age; he felt that he had met something r

nd because of that, they thought he was morose. Humphrey had a tremendous admiration for him, since the night when Wratten had helped him. He seemed so very splendid: he did daring things, and he never fa

ratten, "where

Humphrey; "wh

I live at the Hampden

you come up, Wratten, and have a dri

ng stronger than lem

logized for the bulrushes. Wratten laughed: "Why don't you suggest to Rivers that you should write a story about the dangers of bulrushes in sitting-room

ng-room bulrush; you remember, perhaps, the correspondence, and the symposium of doctors' views that followed, and The Day's leading article on the mighty matter. Humphrey Quain set the ba

Humphrey said, "for the way y

y had referred to the mat

enough as it is, a little help goes a long way. But you steer clea

dn't he

m in Fleet Street for a man who drinks too much. They used to think it was fine Bohemianism in the old days, when a man wa

hat you mean by

we've all got different ideas and ideals.

n't marr

. the knowledge that whatever happens, however hard the[115] work may be, we come home ... and there's a wife waiting. I know plenty of journalists who would have gone under if it were not for the wives.

this was the man the

the misery of the day goes away with the magic of their fingers. They make little dinners for us, that we never eat, and they never let us see how unhappy they are, too

he said. "It must be rather fine to have some one pegging away at you always to do your bes

d we can't even rule our lives. Time, that precious heritage of every one else, doesn't belong to us. We're supposed to have no hearts, we're jus

o-night, of all nights...." He was thinking again[116] of

t know," he said. "Nothing funny when you come to think about it. I thought you might have heard it in the office. I'm being