Chapter IV

It had not been easy to interview the editor of the _Daily Sensation_. A deprecating commissionaire, eyeing him suspiciously, had cross-examined him in the entrance hall of the newspaper office, and then had compelled him to fill in a form with particulars of himself ... his name and his address ... and of his business. "I suppose," John said sarcastically to the commissionaire, "you don't want me to swear an affidavit about it?"

The commissionaire regarded him contemptuously, but did not reply to the sarcasm.

After a lengthy wait and much whistling and talking through rubber speaking-tubes, John was conducted to a lift, given into the charge of a small boy in uniform who treated him as a nuisance, and taken to the office of the editor. Here he had to wait in the society of the editor's secretary for another lengthy period. He had almost resolved to come away from the office without seeing the editor, when a bell rang and the secretary rising from her desk, bade him to follow her. He was led into an inner room where he saw a man seated at a large desk. The editor glared at him for a moment or two as if he were accusing him of an attempt to commit a fraud. Then he said "Sit down" and began to speak on the telephone. John glanced interestedly about him. There was a portrait of Napoleon ... _The Last Phase_ ... on one wall, and, on the wall opposite to it, a portrait of the proprietor of the _Daily Sensation_ in what might fairly be described as the first phase. On the editor's desk was a framed card bearing the legend: SAY IT QUICK....

The telephonic conversation ended, and Mr. Clotworthy ... the editor ... put down the receiver and turned to John, frowning heavily at him. "Well?" he said so shortly that the word was almost unintelligible. "I can give you two minutes," he added, pulling out his watch and placing it on the desk.

"That'll be enough," John, replied. "I want a job on this paper!"

"Everybody wants a job on this paper. The people who are most anxious to get on our staff are the people who are never tired of running us down!..."

"I daresay," said John.

"Ever done any newspaper work before?" the editor demanded.

"No!"

"Then what qualifications have you for the work?..."

"I've written a novel!..."

"That's not a qualification!" Mr. Clotworthy exclaimed.

"But it's not been published yet," John replied.

"Oh, well!... Anything else?"

"I've written several articles which have not been printed, but they're as good as the stuff that's printed in any paper in London.."

"Quite so!"

"And I come from Ulster where all the good men come from," John concluded.

"I've seen some poor specimens from Ulster," Mr. Clotworthy said.

"Mebbe you have, but I'm not one of them."

The editor remained silent for a few moments. He tapped on his desk with an ivory paper-knife and glanced quickly now and then at John.

"What part of Ulster do you come from?" he demanded.

"Ballyards."

"I've heard of it," Mr. Clotworthy continued. "It's not much of a place, is it?"

John flared up angrily. "It's better than Cookstown any day," he said.

"Who told you I came from Cookstown?"

"Never mind who told me. If you don't want to give me a job on your paper, you needn't. There's plenty of other papers in this town!..."

"That temper of yours'll get you into serious bother one of these days, young fellow," said Mr. Clotworthy. "I'm willing to give you work on the paper if you're fit to do it, but don't run away with the notion that you've only to walk in here and say you're an Ulsterman, and you'll immediately get a position. What sort of work do you want to do? You know our paper, I suppose? Well, how would you improve it?"

John opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word, the editor stopped him.

"Don't," he exclaimed, "say it doesn't need improvement. A lot of third-rate fellows have tried that tack with me, as if they'd flatter me into giving them a job. The fools never seemed to realise that when they said the paper didn't need improvement they were giving the best reason that could be given why they shouldn't be employed on it. If you weren't a plain-spoken and direct young fellow I wouldn't give you that warning. Go on!"

"In my opinion," John replied, "what's wrong with your paper is that it doesn't tell the truth. It tells lies to its readers. My idea is to tell them the truth instead!"

Mr. Clotworthy laughed at him. "You won't do it on this paper," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because it can't be done. There's no such thing as truth. There never was, and there never will be such a thing as truth. There's only point-of-view!..."

"Well, I've got my point-of-view," John interrupted.

"Yes, but on this paper we express the point-of-view of the man that owns it. That's him there!" He pointed to the companion picture to the portrait of Napoleon. "If you imagine that we spend hundreds of thousands of pounds every year to express your point-of-view, you're making a big mistake, young fellow my lad. What you want is a soap-box in Hyde Park. You can express your own point-of-view there if you can get anybody to listen to you. Or you can start a paper of your own. But this paper is the soap-box of that chap, and his is the only point-of-view that'll be expressed in it. Do you understand me?"

"I do," said John "All the same, I believe in telling the people the truth!"

The editor touched the bell on his desk. "Are you quite sure," said he, "that you know what the truth is?"

"Of course I'm sure." John began, but before he could finish his sentence, the door of the editor's room was opened by the lady-secretary.

"Good-morning, Mr. MacDermott!" said the editor, reaching for the telephone receiver.

"But I haven't finished yet," John protested.

"I have." He tapped the handle of the telephone.

"You can come and see me again when you've learned sense," he added, after he had given an instruction to the telephone operator. "Good morning!"

"Ah, but wait a minute!..."

"We've no use for John the Baptists here. Good morning!"

"All the same!..."

The editor impatiently waved him aside.

"This way, please!" the lady secretary commanded.

John glared at her, half in the mood to ask her what she meant by interrupting him and half in the mood to tell her that it little became a woman to intrude herself into the conversation of men, but the moods did not become complete, and, sulkily calling "Good morning!" to Mr. Clotworthy, he left the office.

"One of these days," he said to the lady secretary when they were in the outer office, "I'll be your boss. And his, too. And I'll sack the pair of you!"

"You'll find the lift at the end of the passage," she replied.