"Soane's as bad as ever, then?" I asked.

"Oh," Fox answered, "he'll be all right for the stuff if you get that
one idea into him." A prolonged and acute fit of pain seized him. I
fetched his man and left him to his rest.

At the office of the _Hour_ I was greeted by the handing to me of a
proof of Callan's manuscript. Evans, the man across the screen, was the
immediate agent.

"I suppose it's got to go in, so I had it set up," he said.

"Oh, of course it's got to go in," I answered. "It's to go to Soane
first, though."

"Soane's not here yet," he answered. I noted the tone of sub-acid
pleasure in his voice. Evans would have enjoyed a fiasco.

"Oh, well," I answered, nonchalantly, "there's plenty of time. You
allow space on those lines. I'll send round to hunt Soane up."

I felt called to be upon my mettle. I didn't much care about the paper,
but I had a definite antipathy to being done by Evans--by a mad Welshman
in a stubborn fit. I knew what was going to happen; knew that Evans
would feign inconceivable stupidity, the sort of black stupidity that is
at command of individuals of his primitive race. I was in for a day of
petty worries. In the circumstances it was a thing to be thankful for;
it dragged my mind away from larger issues. One has no time for brooding
when one is driving a horse in a jibbing fit.