‘I always tell My people there’s a limit to the size of the lettering,’ he said.  ‘Overdo that and the ret’na doesn’t take it in.  Advertisin’ is the most delicate of all the sciences.’

’There’s one man in the world who is going to get a little of it if I live for the next twenty-four hours,’ said Woodhouse, and explained how this would come about.

Masquerier stared at him lengthily with gunmetal-blue eyes.

‘You mean it?’ he drawled; the voice was as magnetic as the look.

‘I do,’ said Ollyett.  ’That business of the horn alone ought to have him off the Bench in three months.’  Masquerier looked at him even longer than he had looked at Woodhouse.

‘He told me,’ he said suddenly, ’that my home-address was Jerusalem.  You heard that?’

‘But it was the tone—­the tone,’ Ollyett cried.

‘You noticed that, too, did you?’ said Masquerier.  ’That’s the artistic temperament.  You can do a lot with it.  And I’m Bat Masquerier,’ he went on.  He dropped his chin in his fists and scowled straight in front of him....  ’I made the Silhouettes—­I made the Trefoil and the Jocunda.  I made ‘Dal Benzaguen.’  Here Ollyett sat straight up, for in common with the youth of that year he worshipped Miss Vidal Benzaguen of the Trefoil immensely and unreservedly. ’"Is that a dressing-gown or an ulster you’re supposed to be wearing?” You heard that?...  “And I suppose you hadn’t time to brush your hair either?” You heard that?...  Now, you hear me!’ His voice filled the coffee-room, then dropped to a whisper as dreadful as a surgeon’s before an operation.  He spoke for several minutes.  Pallant muttered ‘Hear! hear!’ I saw Ollyett’s eye flash—­it was to Ollyett that Masquerier addressed himself chiefly,—­and Woodhouse leaned forward with joined hands.

‘Are you with me?’ he went on, gathering us all up in one sweep of the arm.  ’When I begin a thing I see it through, gentlemen.  What Bat can’t break, breaks him!  But I haven’t struck that thing yet.  This is no one-turn turn-it-down show.  This is business to the dead finish.  Are you with me, gentlemen?  Good!  Now, we’ll pool our assets.  One London morning, and one provincial daily, didn’t you say?  One weekly commercial ditto and one M.P.’

‘Not much use, I’m afraid,’ Pallant smirked.

‘But privileged. But privileged,’ he returned.  ’And we have also my little team—­London, Blackburn, Liverpool, Leeds—­I’ll tell you about Manchester later—­and Me!  Bat Masquerier.’  He breathed the name reverently into his tankard.  ’Gentlemen, when our combination has finished with Sir Thomas Ingell, Bart., M.P., and everything else that is his, Sodom and Gomorrah will be a winsome bit of Merrie England beside ’em.  I must go back to town now, but I trust you gentlemen will give me the pleasure of your company at dinner to-night at the Chop Suey—­the Red Amber Room—­and we’ll block out the scenario.’  He laid his hand on young Ollyett’s shoulder and added:  ‘It’s your brains I want.’  Then he left, in a good deal of astrachan collar and nickel-plated limousine, and the place felt less crowded.