Mr. Ingleby arrived, cool and insolent as ever. Mr. Armstrong, half speechless with joy, thrust the original pull of the advertisement at him, with a comment so barbarically outspoken that Mr. Copley blushed.

Mr. Ingleby, unabashed, capped the comment with a remark still more immodest, and Miss Parton, lingering, notebook in hand, gave a refined snigger.

“Well, sir,” said Ingleby, “it’s not my fault. My original rough was illustrated with a very handsome sketch of a gentleman overwhelmed with business cares. If the innocents in the Studio choose to turn down my refined suggestion in favour of a (male epithet) and a (female epithet) who look as though they’d been making a night of it, I refuse to be responsible.”

“Ha, ha!” said Mr. Armstrong. “That’s Barrow all over. I don’t suppose Barrow-”

The end of the sentence was more complimentary to the Studio-chief’s virtue than to his virility. Mr. Hankin suddenly exploded into a loud snicker of laughter.

“Mr. Barrow is rather fond of cashiering any suggestion put forward by the Copy Department,” said Mr. Copley. “I hardly like to suggest that there is any inter-departmental jealousy behind it, but the fact remains-”

But Mr. Armstrong was feeling hilarious, and paid no attention. He recited a limerick, amid applause.

“Well, it’s all right, Mr. Copley,” he said, when he had partially recovered himself. “You did quite right. I’ll send an explanation to Mr. Jollop. He’ll have a fit.”

“He’ll be surprised that you passed it,” said Mr. Hankin.

“Well, he may be,” agreed Mr. Armstrong, pleasantly. “It isn’t often I overlook anything indecent. I must have been off-colour that day. So must you, Tallboy, Oh, dear! Mr. Pym will have something to say about it. I shall enjoy seeing his face. I only wish it had gone through. He’d have sacked the whole department.”

“It would have been very serious,” said Mr. Copley.

“Of course it would. I’m very glad the Morning Star spotted it. All right. Now that’s settled. Mr. Hankin, about that whole page for Sopo-”

“I hope,” said Mr. Copley, “you are satisfied with what I did. There wasn’t much time-”

“Quite all right, quite all right,” said Mr. Armstrong. “Very much obliged to you. But, by the way, you might have let somebody know. I was left rather up in the air this morning.”

Mr. Copley explained that he had endeavoured to get into touch with Mr. Pym, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Tallboy and Mr. Wedderburn, but without success.

“Yes, yes, I see,” said Mr. Armstrong. “But why didn’t you ring up Mr. Hankin?”

“I am always at home by six,” added Mr. Hankin, “and it is very seldom that I go out. When I do, I always leave directions where I am to be found.” (This was a dig at Mr. Armstrong.)

Dismay seized upon Mr. Copley. He had clean forgotten Mr. Hankin, and he knew well enough that Mr. Hankin, mild as were his manners, was quick to resent anything in the nature of a slight.

“Of course,” he stammered. “Of course, yes, I might have done that. But Nutrax being your client, Mr. Armstrong-I thought-it never occurred to me that Mr. Hankin-”

This was a bad tactical error. It was, to begin with, contrary to the great Pym Principle that any member of the Copy Department was supposed to be ready to carry on with any part of the work at any time, if called upon. And it also suggested that Mr. Hankin was, in that respect, less versatile than Mr. Copley himself.

“Nutrax,” said Mr. Hankin, in a thin manner, “is certainly not a favourite account of mine. But I have coped with it in my time.” (This was another side-blow at Mr. Armstrong, who had temperamental periods when he was apt to hand all his clients over to Mr. Hankin, pleading nervous exhaustion.) “It is really no further outside my scope than that of the junior copy-writers.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Armstrong, perceiving that Mr. Hankin was on the point of doing the undesirable thing, and ticking off a member of the department before a member of another department, “it’s not of any great consequence, and you did your best in an awkward crisis. Nobody can think of everything. Now, Mr. Hankin”-he dismissed the small fry with a nod-“let’s get this Sopo question settled once and for all. Don’t go, Miss Parton, I want you to take a note. I’ll see to Nutrax, Mr. Tallboy. Don’t worry.”

The door closed behind Mr. Copley, Mr. Ingleby and Mr. Tallboy.

“My God!” said Ingleby, “what a howl! Went with a bang from start to finish. It only wanted Barrow to make it complete. That reminds me, I’ll have to go and pull his leg. This’ll teach him to turn down my intelligent suggestions. Hullo! there’s the Meteyard. I must tell her what Armstrong said about old Barrow.”

He dived into Miss Meteyard’s room, from which unladylike shouts of mirth were soon heard to proceed. Mr. Copley, feeling as though his head were filled with hard knobs of spinning granite that crashed with sickening thuds against his brainpan, walked stiffly away to his own quarters. As he passed the Dispatching, he had a vision of Mrs. Crump, in tears, standing before Mrs. Johnson’s desk, but he paid no attention. His one agonized yearning was to shake off Mr. Tallboy, who padded grimly at his heels.

“Oh, Mr. Tallboy!”

Mrs. Johnson’s rather shrill voice came to Mr. Copley like an order of release. He shot home like a bolting rabbit. He must try phenacetin and chance the consequences. Hastily he swallowed three tablets without even troubling to fetch a glass of water, sat down in his revolving chair and closed his eyes.

Crash, crash, crash, went the lumps of granite in his brain. If only he could remain where he was, quite quietly, for half an hour-

The door was flung violently open.

“Look here, Copley,” said Mr. Tallboy, in a voice like a pneumatic drill, “when you were hugger-muggering round with my desk last night did you have the unprintable bloody impertinence to interfere with my private belongings?”

“For heaven’s sake,” moaned Mr. Copley, “don’t make such a row. I’ve got a splitting headache.”

“I don’t care a highly-coloured damn if you’ve got a headache or not,” retorted Mr. Tallboy, flinging the door to behind him with a slam like the report of an 11-inch gun. “There was an envelope in my desk last night with fifty pounds in it, and it’s gone, and that old (epithet) Mrs. Crump says she saw you (vulgar word)-ing about among my papers.”

“I have your fifty pounds here,” replied Mr. Copley, with as much dignity as he could muster. “I put it away safely for you, and I must say, Tallboy, that I consider it extremely thoughtless of you to leave your property about for the charwomen to find. It’s not fair. You should have more consideration. And I did not rummage about in your desk as you suggest. I merely looked for the pull of the Nutrax half-double, and when I was closing the desk, this envelope fell out upon the floor.”

He stooped to unlock the drawer, experiencing a ghastly qualm as he did so.

“You mean to tell me,” said Mr. Tallboy, “that you had the all-fired cheek to take my money away to your own damned room-”

“In your own interests,” said Mr. Copley.

“Interests be damned! Why the devil couldn’t you leave it in a pigeon-hole and not be so blasted interfering?”

“You do not realize-”

“I realize this,” said Mr. Tallboy, “that you’re an expurgated superannuated interfering idiot. What you wanted to come poking your blasted nose in for-”

“Really, Mr. Tallboy-”

“What business was it of yours, anyway?”

“It was anybody’s business,” said Mr. Copley-so angry that he almost forgot his headache-“who had the welfare of the firm at heart. I am considerably older than you, Tallboy, and in my day, a group-manager would have been ashamed to leave the building before ascertaining that all was well with his advertisement for the next day’s paper. How you came to let such an advertisement pass in the first place is beyond my understanding. You were then late with the block. Perhaps you do not know that it was not received by the Morning Star till five minutes past six-five minutes past six. And instead of being at your post to consider any necessary corrections-”