The next step was that somebody who was paying for the boy’s doctor’s bills paid also for the publication of his poems.  They arrived (this of course was only to be expected) at the office of Metropolis (the slender sheaf grown slenderer by some omissions which Rickman had advised).  But it was Fate that contrived that they should arrive in the same week with a volume (by no means slender), a volume of Poems issued by the publishers of Metropolis and written by a friend (and an influential friend) of the editor.  Therein were the last sweet pipings of the pastoral Fulcher.  No other hand but Jewdwine’s, as Jewdwine sorrowfully owned, could have done anything for this work, and he meant to have devoted a flattering article to it in the next number.  But in the arrangements of the unforeseen it was further provided that Jewdwine should be disabled, at what he playfully called the “critical moment,” by an attack of influenza.  The two volumes, the slender and the stout, were forwarded to Rickman in the same parcel, and Jewdwine in a note discreetly worded threw himself and the poems of his influential friend on Rickman’s mercy.  Would Rickman deal with the big book?  He would see for himself that it was a big book.  He gave him as usual a perfectly free hand as to space, but he thought it might be well to mention that the book was to have had a two-page article all to itself.  He drew Rickman’s attention to the fact that it was published by So and So, and hoped that he might for once at least rely on his discretion.  Perhaps as he was reviewing the work of a “brother bard” it would be better to keep the article anonymous.

There was nothing coarse about Jewdwine’s methods.  Through all his career he remained refined and fastidious, and his natural instincts forbade him to give a stronger hint.  Unfortunately, in this instance, refinement had led him into a certain ambiguity of phrase!

On this ambiguity Rickman leapt, with a grin of diabolical delight.  He may have had some dim idea that it would be his shelter in the day of rebuke; but all he could clearly think of as he held the boy’s frail palpitating volume in his hand, was that he had but that moment in which to praise him.  This was his unique and perfect opportunity, the only sort of opportunity that he was not likely to let slip.

Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat; and it really looked as if madness had come upon Rickman in the loneliness and intoxication of his power.  With those two volumes of poetry before him, a small one by a rank outsider, unknown, unkempt and unprotected; a boy from whom no more was to be expected, seeing that he was about to depart out of the world where editors are powerful; and one, a large, considerable volume by a person eminent already in that world and with many years of poetry and influence before him, he gave (reckless of all proportion) the two-page article to the slender volume and the paragraph to the stout.  That was what he did—­he, the sub-editor.