“Oh, well,” I answered, nonchalantly, “there’s plenty of time.  You allow space on those lines.  I’ll send round to hunt Soane up.”

I felt called to be upon my mettle.  I didn’t much care about the paper, but I had a definite antipathy to being done by Evans—­by a mad Welshman in a stubborn fit.  I knew what was going to happen; knew that Evans would feign inconceivable stupidity, the sort of black stupidity that is at command of individuals of his primitive race.  I was in for a day of petty worries.  In the circumstances it was a thing to be thankful for; it dragged my mind away from larger issues.  One has no time for brooding when one is driving a horse in a jibbing fit.

Evans was grimly conscious that I was moderately ignorant of technical details; he kept them well before my eyes all day long.

At odd moments I tried to read Callan’s article.  It was impossible.  It opened with a description of the squalor of the Greenlander’s life, and contained tawdry passages of local colour.

I knew what was coming.  This was the view of the Greenlanders of pre-Merschian Greenland, elaborated, after the manner of Callan—­the Special Commissioner—­so as to bring out the glory and virtue of the work of regeneration.  Then in a gush of superlatives the work itself would be described.  I knew quite well what was coming, and was temperamentally unable to read more than the first ten lines.

Everything was going wrong.  The printers developed one of their sudden crazes for asking idiotic questions.  Their messengers came to Evans, Evans sent them round the pitch-pine screen to me.  “Mr. Jackson wants to know——­”

The fourth of the messengers that I had despatched to Soane returned with the news that Soane would arrive at half-past nine.  I sent out in search of the strongest coffee that the city afforded.  Soane arrived.  He had been ill, he said, very ill.  He desired to be fortified with champagne.  I produced the coffee.

Soane was the son of an Irish peer.  He had magnificent features—­a little blurred nowadays—­and a remainder of the grand manner.  His nose was a marvel of classic workmanship, but the floods of time had reddened and speckled it—­not offensively, but ironically; his hair was turning grey, his eyes were bloodshot, his heavy moustache rather ragged.  He inspired one with the respect that one feels for a man who has lived and does not care a curse.  He had a weird intermittent genius that made it worth Fox’s while to put up with his lapses and his brutal snubs.

I produced the coffee and pointed to the sofa of the night before.

“Damn it,” he said, “I’m ill, I tell you; I want ...”

“Exactly!” I cut in.  “You want a rest, old fellow.  Here’s Cal’s article.  We want something special about it.  If you don’t feel up to it I’ll send round to Jenkins.”

“Damn Jenkins,” he said; “I’m up to it.”

“You understand,” I said, “you’re to write strictly on Callan’s lines.  Don’t insert any information from extraneous sources.  And make it as slashing as you like—­on those lines.”