Scoop-Evelyn-Waugh [2]
Half an hour later Mrs. Stitch rang up to say "O.K., John. I think it's fixed. Don't take a penny less than fifty pounds a week." "God bless you, Julia. You've saved my life." "It's just the Stitch Service," said Mrs. Stitch cheerfully.
That evening Mr. Salter, Foreign Editor of the Beast, was summoned to dinner at his chief�s country seat at East Finchley. It was a highly unwelcome invitation; Mr. Salter normally worked at the office until nine o'clock. That evening he had planned a holiday at the opera; he and his wife had been looking forward to it with keen enjoyment for some weeks. As he drove out to Lord Copper's frightful mansion he thought sadly of those carefree days when he had edited the Woman's Page, or, better still, when he had chosen the jokes for one of Lord Copper's comic weeklies. It was the policy of the Megalopolitan to keep the staff alert by constant changes of occupation. Mr. Salter's ultimate ambition was to take charge of the Competitions. Meanwhile he was Foreign Editor and found it a dog's life. The two men dined alone. They ate parsley soup, whiting, roast veal, cabinet pudding; they drank whisky-and-soda. Lord Copper explained Nazism, Fascism and Communism; later, in his ghastly library, he outlined the situation in the Far East. "The Beast stands for strong mutually antagonistic governments everywhere," he said. "Self-sufficiency at home, self-assertion abroad." Mr. Salter's side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper was right he said, "Definitely, Lord Copper"; when he was wrong, "Up to a point." "Let me see, what's the name of the place I mean? Capital of Japan? Yokohama, isn't it?" "Up to a point, Lord Copper." "And Hong Kong belongs to us, doesn't it?" "Definitely, Lord Copper." After a time: "Then there's this civil war in Ishmaelia. I propose to feature it. Who did you think of sending?" "Well, Lord Copper, the choice seems between sending a staff reporter who will get the news but whose name the public doesn't know, or to get someone from outside with a name as a military expert. You see since we lost Hitchcock ..." "Yes, yes. He was our only man with a European reputation. I know. Zinc will be sending him. I know. But he was wrong about the Battle of Hastings. It was 1066. I looked it up. I won't employ a man who isn't big enough to admit when he's wrong." "We might share one of the Americans?" "No, I tell you who I want; Boot." "Boot?" "Yes, Boot. He's a young man whose work I'm very much interested in. He has the most remarkable style and he's been in Patagonia and the Prime Minister keeps his books by his bed. Do you read him?" "Up to a point, Lord Copper." "Well, get onto him tomorrow. Have him up to see you. Be cordial. Take him out to dinner. Get him at any price. Well, at any reasonable price," he added, for there had lately been a painful occurrence when instructions of this kind, given in an expansive mood, had been too literally observed and a trick cyclist, who had momentarily attracted Lord Copper's attention, had been engaged to edit the Sports Page on a five years' contract at five thousand a year.
Mr. Salter went to work at midday. He found the Managing Editor cast in gloom. "It's a terrible paper this morning," he said. "We paid Professor Jellaby thirty guineas for the feature article and there's not a word in it one can understand. Beaten by the Brute in every edition on the Zoo Mercy Slaying story. And look at the Sports Page." Together, in shame, the two men read the trick cyclist's Sports Page. "Who's Boot?" asked Mr. Salter at last. "I know the name," said the Managing Editor. "The chief wants to send him to Ishmaelia. He's the Prime Minister's favourite writer." "Not the chap I was thinking of," said the Managing Editor. "He was in the Monotype Company and come to think of it he wasn't called Boot." "Well, I've got to find him." He listlessly turned the pages of the morning paper. "Boot," he said. "Boot. Boot. Boot. Why! Boot � here he is. Why didn't the chief say he was a staff man?" At the back of the paper, ignominiously sandwiched between Pip and Pop, the Bedtime Pets, and the recipe for a dish named "Waffle Scramble," lay the bi-weekly half-column devoted to Nature: