He threw the whole lot into the waste basket, filling it almost to the brim.

There was a rich, rumbling sound outside his door, a voice which said, “Ah, Miss Green, as charming as ever, I see. Nobody with the Chief, I presume?” and the door opened, admitting Mr Swithin Shillito.

Mr Shillito was seventy-eight years old, and frequently put people into a position where they had to tell him that he did not look it. His white hair, parted in the middle, swept back in two thick waves. His white moustache was enormous, and was shaped like the horns of a ram. Lesser moustaches, equally white, thick and sweeping, served him for eyebrows. His very large, handsome head appeared to be attached to his small, meagre body by a high stiff collar and a carefully knotted tie, in which a nugget of gold served as a pin. On his waistcoat hung a watch-chain with huge links, from one of which depended an elk’s tooth, mounted in gold. Other interesting elements in his dress were brightly shined high boots, an alpaca working coat, and wicker cuffguards on his sleeves. Gold pince-nez hung from a little reel on his waistcoat, ready to be hauled out and nipped on his large nose when needed. He carried some papers in his hand.

“Nothing strange or startling this morning, Chief,” said he, advancng with a jaunty step. “I thought I’d do my stint a little early. Nothing heavy: just one or two odds and ends that may prove amusing, and fill up a corner here and there. I wanted to get my day clear, in order to do some digging. I tell these young chaps in the news room, ‘Dig, dig, it’s the secret of the Newspaper Game. I’m seventy-eight and still digging,’ I say. Some of them won’t believe it. You’ll do the leader yourself, I suppose?”

“Yes Mr Shillito,” said Ridley. “I have two or three things I want to write about today.”

“And I dare swear you have them written in your head at this moment,” said Mr Shillito, wagging his own head in histrionic admiration. “Plan, plan; it’s the only way to get anything done on a newspaper. They won’t believe it, the young chaps won’t, but it’s the gospel truth.” “I have been reading one or two reports on the seaway scheme which suggested some ideas to me.”

“Ah, that’s it! Read, read. Dig, dig. Plan, plan. That’s what takes a journalist to the top. But the young chaps won’t listen. Time will weed ‘em out. The readers, the diggers, the planners will shoot to the top and the rest—well, we know what happens to them. Do you want to cast your eye over those things while I wait?”

I’m damned if I do, thought Ridley. Mr Shillito loved to watch people reading what he had written, and as he did so he would smile, grunt appreciatively, nod and in other ways indicate enjoyment and admiration until all but the strongest were forced by a kind of spiritual pressure to follow his lead. In his way, the old fellow was a bully; he was so keen in his appreciation of himself and his work that not to join him became a form of discourtesy.

“I am rather busy, at present,” said Ridley. “I’ll read them later.”

“Ah, you don’t have to tell me how busy you are,” said Mr Shillito; “I know, perhaps better than anyone, what the pressure is in your job. But if I may I’ll drop in again later in the morning, when you’ve had time to read those. I’ve noticed that a few of my things haven’t appeared in print yet, though you’ve had them in hand for a fortnight or more. Now, Chief, you know me. I’m the oldest man on the staff, perhaps the oldest working journalist in the country. If there’s any falling-off, any hint of weariness in my stuff, you’ve only to tell me. I know I’m not immortal. The old clock must run down some day, though I must say I feel in wonderful form at present. But be frank. Am I getting too old for my job?”

Oh God, thought Ridley, he’s beating me to it! He’s making me say it the meanest, dirtiest way. He’s putting me in the position of the Cruel Boss who throws the Faithful Old Employee into the street! I must seize the helm of this conversation from Mr Shillito’s skilled hand or all will be lost.

“You mustn’t think in those terms, Mr Shillito,” he said. “Your work seems to me to be on the same level as always. But it is not my wish or that of the publisher to rob you of the ease to which your seniority entitles you, and in the course of a few days I want to have a talk with you about the future. Meanwhile, I have some pressing matters to attend to, and if you will excuse me—”

“Of course, of course,” said Mr Shillito, in a voice which suggested movement, though he remained firmly in his chair. “But you understand how matters are with me. I don’t wish to be sentimental. Indeed, you know that any display of feeling is repugnant to me. An Englishman, and what I suppose must now be called an Englishman of the Old School, I will submit to anything rather than make a display of my feelings. But you know, Chief, that the Newspaper Game is all in all to me. When the Game becomes too rough for me, I don’t want to watch it from the sidelines. If I have a wish, it’s that I may drop in harness. I’m not a conventionally religious man; my creed, so far as I’ve had one, has been simple Decency. But I’ve prayed to whatever gods there be, many and many a time, “Let me drop in harness; let the old blade wear out, but not rust out!”“

Mr Shillito delivered this prayer in a voice which must have been audible in the news room, even though the presses had begun the morning’s run, and Ridley was sweating with embarrassment. This was becoming worse and worse. To his immense relief, Miss Green came in.

“An important long-distance call, if you can take it, Mr Ridley,” said she.

“Aha!” he cried. “You’ll excuse me, Mr Shillito? Confidential.” He hissed the last word, as though matters on the highest government level were involved. The lover of the Newspaper Game raised his great eyebrows conspiratorially, and tip-toed from the room.

“What is it, Miss Green?” asked Ridley, mopping his bald brow.

“Nothing, really, Mr Ridley,” said Miss Green. “I just thought you might like a change of atmosphere. There was a call a few minutes ago. Professor Vambrace wants to see you at eleven.”

“What about?”

“Wouldn’t say, but he was rather abrupt on the line. He said he had called earlier.”

“Professor Vambrace is always abrupt,” said Ridley. “Thank you, Miss Green. And I am always busy if Mr Shillito wants to see me, for the next few days.”

Miss Green nodded. She was too good a secretary to do more, but there was that in her nod which promised that even the gate-crashing talents of Mr Shillito would be unavailing against her in future.

Sighing, Ridley turned to his next task, which was a consideration of the editorial pages of thirty-eight contemporaries of The Bellman, which had been cut out and stacked ready to hand. He would have liked to take ten minutes to think about Mr Swithin Shillito and the problem which he presented, but he had not ten minutes to spare. People who form their opinions of what goes on in a daily newspaper office upon what they see at the movies imagine that the life of a journalist is one of exciting and unforeseen events; but as Ridley intended to say in his Wadsworth lecture, it was rooted deep in a stern routine; let the heavens fall and the earth consume in flames, the presses must not be late; if the reading public was to enjoy the riotous excess of the world’s news, the newspaperman must bend that excess to the demands of a mechanical routine and a staff of union workers. Before one o’clock he must read all that lay on his desk, talk to the news editor, plan and write at least one leading article, and see any visitors who could win past Miss Green. He could spare no ten minutes for pondering about Mr Shillito. He must read, read, dig, dig, and plan, plan as the Old Mess himself advised.