Beneath its veneer of cheerful irresponsibility, the character of Michael Mont had deepened during two years of anchorage and continuity. He had been obliged to think of others; and his time was occupied. Conscious, from the fall of the flag, that he was on sufferance with Fleur, admitting as whole the half-truth: ‘Il y a toujours un qui baise, et l’autre qui tend la joue,’ he had developed real powers of domestic consideration; and yet he did not seem to redress the balance in his public or publishing existence. He found the human side of his business too strong for the monetary. Danby and Winter, however, were bearing up against him, and showed, so far, no signs of the bankruptcy prophesied for them by Soames on being told of the principles which his son-inlaw intended to introduce. No more in publishing than in any other walk of life was Michael finding it possible to work too much on principle. The field of action was so strewn with facts—human, vegetable and mineral.

On this same Tuesday afternoon, having long tussled with the price of those vegetable facts, paper and linen, he was listening with his pointed ears to the plaint of a packer discovered with five copies of ‘Copper Coin’ in his overcoat pocket, and the too obvious intention of converting them to his own use.

Mr. Danby had ‘given him the sack’—he didn’t deny that he was going to sell them, but what would Mr. Mont have done? He owed rent—and his wife wanted nourishing after pneumonia—wanted it bad. ‘Dash it!’ thought Michael, ‘I’d snoop an edition to nourish Fleur after pneumonia!’

“And I can’t live on my wages with prices what they are. I can’t, Mr. Mont, so help me!”

Michael swivelled. “But look here, Bicket, if we let you snoop copies, all the packers will snoop copies; and if they do, where are Danby and Winter? In the cart. And, if they’re in the cart, where are all of you? In the street. It’s better that one of you should be in the street than that all of you should, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, I quite see your point—it’s reason; but I can’t live on reason, the least thing knocks you out, when you’re on the bread line. Ask Mr. Danby to give me another chance.”

“Mr. Danby always says that a packer’s work is particularly confidential, because it’s almost impossible to keep a check on it.”

“Yes, sir, I should feel that in future; but with all this unemployment and no reference, I’ll never get another job. What about my wife?”

To Michael it was as if he had said “What about Fleur?” He began to pace the room; and the young man Bicket looked at him with large dolorous eyes. Presently he came to a standstill, with his hands deep plunged into his pockets and his shoulders hunched.

“I’ll ask him,” he said; “but I don’t believe he will; he’ll say it isn’t fair on the others. You had five copies; it’s pretty stiff, you know—means you’ve had ’em before, doesn’t it? What?”

“Well, Mr. Mont, anything that’ll give me a chance, I don’t mind confessin’. I have ‘ad a few previous, and it’s just about kept my wife alive. You’ve no idea what that pneumonia’s like for poor people.”

Michael pushed his fingers through his hair.

“How old’s your wife?”

“Only a girl—twenty.”

Twenty! Just Fleur’s age!

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Bicket; I’ll put it up to Mr. Desert; if he speaks for you, perhaps it may move Mr. Danby.”

“Well, Mr. Mont, thank you—you’re a gentleman, we all sy that.”

“Oh! hang it! But look here, Bicket, you were reckoning on those five copies. Take this to make up, and get your wife what’s necessary. Only for goodness’ sake don’t tell Mr. Danby.”

“Mr. Mont, I wouldn’t deceive you for the world—I won’t sy a word, sir. And my wife—well!”

A sniff, a shuffle—Michael was alone, with his hands plunged deeper, his shoulders hunched higher. And suddenly he laughed. Pity! Pity was pop! It was all dam’ funny. Here he was rewarding Bicket for snooping ‘Copper Coin!’ A sudden longing possessed him to follow the little packer and see what he did with the two pounds—see whether ‘the pneumonia’ was real or a figment of the brain behind those dolorous eyes. Impossible, though! Instead he must ring up Wilfrid and ask him to put in a word with old Danby. His own word was no earthly. He had put it in too often! Bicket! Little one knew of anybody, life was deep and dark, and upside down! What was honesty? Pressure of life versus power of resistance—the result of that fight, when the latter won, was honesty! But why resist? Love thy neighbour as thyself—but not more! And wasn’t it a darned sight harder for Bicket on two pounds a week to love him, than for him on twenty-four pounds a week to love Bicket?…

“Hallo!… That you, Wilfrid?… Michael speaking… One of our packers has been sneaking copies of ‘Copper Coin.’ He’s ‘got the sack’—poor devil! I wondered if you’d mind putting in a word for him—old Dan won’t listen to me… yes, got a wife—Fleur’s age; pneumonia, so he says. Won’t do it again with yours anyway, insurance by common gratitude—what!… Thanks, old man, awfully good of you—will you bob in, then? We can go round home together… Oh! Well! You’ll bob in anyway. Aurev!”

Good chap, old Wilfrid! Real good chap—underneath! Underneath—what?

Replacing the receiver, Michael saw a sudden great cloud of sights and scents and sounds, so foreign to the principles of his firm that he was in the habit of rejecting instantaneously every manuscript which dealt with them. The war might be ‘off ‘; but it was still ‘on’ within Wilfrid, and himself. Taking up a tube, he spoke:

“Mr. Danby in his room? Right! If he shows any signs of flitting, let me know at once.”…

Between Michael and his senior partner a gulf was fixed, not less deep than that between two epochs, though partially filled in by Winter’s middle-age and accommodating temperament. Michael had almost nothing against Mr. Danby except that he was always right—Philip Norman Danby, of Sky House, Campden Hill, a man of sixty and some family, with a tall forehead, a preponderance of body to leg, and an expression both steady and reflective. His eyes were perhaps rather close together, and his nose rather thin, but he looked a handsome piece in his well-proportioned room. He glanced up from the formation of a correct judgment on a matter of advertisement when Wilfrid Desert came in.

“Well, Mr. Desert, what can I do for you? Sit down!”

Desert did not sit down, but looked at the engravings, at his fingers, at Mr. Danby, and said:

“Fact is, I want you to let that packer chap off, Mr. Danby.”

“Packer chap. Oh! Ah! Bicket. Mont told you, I suppose?”

“Yes; he’s got a young wife down with pneumonia.”

“They all go to our friend Mont with some tale or other, Mr. Desert—he has a very soft heart. But I’m afraid I can’t keep this man. It’s a most insidious thing. We’ve been trying to trace a leak for some time.”

Desert leaned against the mantelpiece and stared into the fire.

“Well, Mr. Danby,” he said, “your generation may like the soft in literature, but you’re precious hard in life. Ours won’t look at softness in literature, but we’re a deuced sight less hard in life.”

“I don’t think it’s hard,” said Mr. Danby, “only just.”

“Are you a judge of justice?”

“I hope so.”

“Try four years’ hell, and have another go.”

“I really don’t see the connection. The experience you’ve been through, Mr. Desert, was bound to be warping.”

Wilfrid turned and stared at him.

“Forgive my saying so, but sitting here and being just is much more warping. Life is pretty good purgatory, to all except about thirty per cent. of grown-up people.”

Mr. Danby smiled.

“We simply couldn’t conduct our business, my dear young man, without scrupulous honesty in everybody. To make no distinction between honesty and dishonesty would be quite unfair. You know that perfectly well.”