“Don’t let me,” began Mr. Lavender.

The editor’s eye became unveiled for the Moment.  “You’ll be wanting to take it somewhere else if we——­Quite!  Well, I think we could run them together.  See here, Mr. Crackamup”—­Mr. Lavender saw a small man like Beethoven frowning from behind spectacles—­“could we run this German prisoner stunt alongside the British, or d’you think it would kill it?”

Mr. Lavender almost rose from his chair in surprise.  “Are you——­” he said; “is it——­”

The small man hiccoughed, and said in a raw voice: 

“The letters are falling off.”

“Ah!” murmured the editor, “I thought we should be through by Thursday.  We’ll start this new stunt Thursday.  Give it all prominence, Crackamup.  It’ll focus fury.  All to the good—­all to the good.  Opinion’s ripe.”  Then for a moment he seemed to hesitate, and his chin sank back on his chest.  “I don’t know,” he murmured of course it may——­”

“Please,” began Mr. Lavender, rising, while the small man hiccoughed again.  The two motions seemed to determine the editor.

“That’s all right, sir,” he said, rising also; “that’s quite all right.  We’ll say Thursday, and risk it.  Thursday, Crackamup.”  And he held out his hand to Mr. Lavender.  “Good morning, sir, good morning.  Delighted to have seen you.  You wouldn’t put your name to it?  Well, well, it doesn’t matter; only you could have written it.  The turn of phrase —­immense!  They’ll tumble all right!” And Mr. Lavender found himself, with Mr. Crackamup, in the lobby.  “It’s bewildering,” he thought, “how quickly he settled that.  And yet he had such repose.  But is there some mistake?” He was about to ask his companion, but with a distant hiccough the small man had vanished.  Thus deserted, Mr. Lavender was in two minds whether to ask to be readmitted, when the four gentlemen with notebooks repassed him in single file into the editor’s room.

“My name is Lavender,” he said resolutely to the young woman.  “Is that all right?”

“Quite,” she answered, without looking up.

Mr. Lavender went out slowly, thinking, “I may perhaps have said more in that interview than I remember.  Next time I really will insist on having a proof.  Or have they taken me for some other public man?” This notion was so disagreeable, however, that he dismissed it, and passed into the street.

On Thursday, the day fixed for his fresh tour of public speaking, he opened the great journal eagerly.  Above the third column was the headline:  Our vital duty:  By A great public man.  “That must be it,” he thought.  The article, which occupied just a column of precious space, began with an appeal so moving that before he had read twenty lines Mr. Lavender had identified himself completely with the writer; and if anyone had told him that he had not uttered these sentiments, he would have given him the lie direct.  Working from heat to heat the article finished in a glorious outburst with a passionate appeal to the country to starve all German prisoners.