Scoop-Evelyn-Waugh [7]
� I've often wondered � do you keep a machine of your own or send out to the printers?" "We have machines of our own." "Do you? They must work jolly fast." "Yes." "I mean, you have to get it written and printed and corrected and everything, all on the same day, otherwise the news would become stale. People would have heard it on the wireless, I mean." "Yes." "D'you do much of the printing yourself?" "No. You see I'm the Foreign Editor." "I suppose that's why you wanted to find Reykjavik." "Yes." "Jolly difficult knowing where all these places are." "Yes." "So many of them I mean." "Yes." "Never been abroad myself." This seemed too good an opening to be missed. "Would you like to go to Ishmaelia?" "No." "Not at all?" "Not at all. For one thing I couldn't afford the fare." "Oh, we would pay the fare," said Mr. Salter, laughing indulgently. So that was it. Transportation. The sense of persecution which had haunted William for the last three hours took palpable and grotesque shape before him. It was too much. Conscious of a just cause and a free soul, he rose and defied the nightmare. "Really," he said, in ringing tones, "I call that a bit thick. I admit I slipped up on the great crested grebe, slipped up badly. As it happened it was not my fault. I came here prepared to explain, apologize and, if need be, make reparation. You refused to listen to me. 'Good God, no!' you said, when I offered to explain. And now you calmly propose to ship me out of the country because of a trifling and, in my opinion, justifiable error. Who does Lord Copper think he is? The mind boggles at the vanity of the man. If he chooses to forget my eighteen months� devoted and unremitting labour in his service, he is, I admit, entitled to dismiss me ..." "Boot, Boot old man," cried Mr. Salter. "You've got this all wrong. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, you have no more ardent admirer than Lord Copper. He wants you to work for him in Ishmaelia." "Would he pay my fare back?" "Yes, of course." "Oh, that's rather different... Even so, it seems a silly sort of scheme. I mean, how will it look in Lush Places when I start writing about sandstorms and lions and whatever they have in Ishmaelia? Not lush, I mean." "Let me tell you about it at dinner." They took a taxicab down Fleet Street and the Strand to the grillroom where the Beast staff always entertained when they were doing so at the paper's expense. "Do you really want tinned salmon?" "No." "Sure?" "Quite sure." Mr. Salter regarded his guest with renewed approval and handed him the menu. The esteem William had won, by his distaste for cider and tinned salmon, survived the ordering of dinner. William did not, as had seemed only too likely, demand pickled walnuts and Cornish pasties; nor did he, like the Budapest correspondent whom Mr. Salter had last entertained in this room, draw attention to himself by calling for exotic Magyar dishes and, on finding no one qualified to make them, insist on preparing for himself, with chafing dish and spirit lamp, before a congregation of puzzled waiters, a nauseous sauce of sweet peppers, honey and almonds. He ordered a mixed grill and while he was eating Mr. Salter attempted, artfully, to kindle his enthusiasm for the new project. "See that man there, that's Pappenhacker." William looked, and saw. "Yes?" "The cleverest man in Fleet Street." William looked again. Pappenhacker was young and swarthy, with great horn goggles and a receding, stubbly chin. He was having an altercation with some waiters. "Yes?" "He's going to Ishmaelia for the Daily Twopence" "He seems to be in a very bad temper." "Not really. He's always like that to waiters. You see he's a communist. Most of the staff at the Twopence are � they're University men, you see. Pappenhacker says that every time you are polite to a proletarian you are helping bolster up the capitalist system. He's very clever of course, but he gets rather unpopular." "He looks as if he were going to hit them." "Yes, he does sometimes. Quite a lot of restaurants won't have him in. You see, you'll meet a lot of interesting people when you go to Ishmaelia." "Mightn't it be rather dangerous?" Mr. Salter smiled; to him, it was as though an Arctic explorer had expressed a fear that the weather might turn cold. "Nothing to what you are used to in the country," he said. "You'll be surprised to find how far the war correspondents keep from the fighting. Why, Hitchcock reported the whole Abyssinia campaign from Asmara and gave us some of the most colourful eye-witness stuff we ever printed. In any case your life will be insured by the paper for five thousand pounds. No, no, Boot, I don't think you need worry about risk." "And you'd go on paying me my wages?" "Certainly." "And my fare there and back, and my expenses?" "Yes." William thought the matter over carefully. At length he said: "No." "No?" "No. It's very kind of you, but I think I would sooner not go. I don't like the idea at all." He looked at his watch. "I must be going to Paddington soon to catch my train." "Listen," said Mr. Salter. "I don't think you have fully understood the situation. Lord Copper is particularly interested in your work and, to be frank, he insists on your going. We are willing to pay a very fair salary. Fifty pounds a month was the sum suggested." "Fifty pounds a month!" said William, goggling. "A week," said Mr. Salter hastily. "Gosh," said William. "And think what you can make on your expenses," urged Mr. Salter. "At least another twenty. I had happened to see Hitchcock's expense sheet when he was working for us in Shanghai. He charged three hundred pounds for camels alone." "But I don't think I shall know what to do with a camel." Mr. Salter saw he was not making his point clear. "Take a single example," he said. "Supposing you want to have dinner. Well you go to a restaurant and do yourself proud, best of everything. Bill perhaps may be two pounds. Well you put down five pounds for entertainment on your expenses. You had a slap-up dinner, you're three pounds to the good, and everyone is satisfied." "But you see I don't like restaurants and no one pays for dinner at home anyway. The servants just bring it in." "Or supposing you want to send flowers to your girl. You just go to a shop, send a great spray of orchids and put them down as 'information.' " "But I haven't got a girl and there are heaps of flowers at home." He looked at his watch again. "Well, I'm afraid I must be going. You see I have a day-return-ticket. I tell you what I'll do. I'll consult my family and let you know in a week or two." "Lord Copper wants you to leave tomorrow." "Oh. I couldn't do that anyway, you know. I haven't packed or anything. And I daresay I should need some new clothes. Oh, no, that's out of the question." "We might offer a larger salary." "Oh, no thank you. It isn't that. It's just that I don't want to go." "Is there nothing you want?" "D'you know, I don't believe there is. Except to keep my job in Lush Places and go on living at home." It was a familiar cry; during his fifteen years of service with the Megalopolitan Company Mr. Salter had heard it upon the lips of countless, distressed colleagues; upon his own. In a moment of compassion he remembered the morning when he had been called from his desk in Clean Fun, never to return to it. The post had been his delight and pride; one for which he believed he had a particular aptitude ... First he would open the morning mail and sort the jokes sent him by the private contributors (one man sent him thirty or forty a week) into those that were familiar, those that were indecent, and those that deserved the half-crown postal order payable upon publication. Then he would spend an hour or two with the bound Punches, noting whatever seemed topical. Then the ingenious game began of fitting these legends to the funny illustrations previously chosen for him by the Art Editor. Serene and delicate sunrise on a day of tempest! From this task of ordered discrimination he had been thrown into the ruthless, cut-throat, rough-and-tumble of the Beast Woman's Page. From there, crushed and bedraggled, he had been tossed into the editorial chair of the Imperial and Foreign News.... His heart bled for William, but he was true to the austere traditions of his service. He made the reply that had silenced so many resentful novices in the past. "Oh, but Lord Copper expects his staff to work wherever the best interests of the paper call them. I don't think he would employ anyone of whose loyalty he was doubtful, in any capacity." "You mean if I don't go to Ishrnaelia I get the sack?" "Yes," said Mr. Salter. "In so many words that is exactly what I