He crossed out the paragraph. That word again--must keep it from buzzing senselessly round his brain like this! He was only devilling; hold on to ‘devilling’; it was his living to devil--more or less--just earning his living--getting nothing out of it! Neither was Georgie Grebe--only the Ad.! Then who was getting something out of it? ‘Conglomerated Journals’! Out of Georgie Grebe’s name; out of the chief’s name below the devilled leaders--a pretty penny! Well, what harm in making the most of a big name? Taggart frowned. Suppose a man went into a shop and bought a box of pills, marked ‘Holloway,’ made up from a recipe of ‘Tompkins’--did it matter that the man thought they were Holloway’s, if they were just as good pills, perhaps better? Taggart laid down his pen and took his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Gosh!’ he thought, ‘never looked at it this way before! I believe it does matter. A man ought to get the exact article he pays for. If not, any fraud is possible. New Zealand mutton can be sold as English. Jaeger stuffs can have cotton in them. This Grebe article’s a fraud.’ He relit his pipe. With the first puff his English hatred of a moral attitude or ‘swank’ of any sort beset him. Who was he to take stand against a custom? Didn’t secretaries write the speeches of Parliamentary ‘big-bugs’? Weren’t the opinions of eminent lawyers often written by their juniors, read over and signed? Weren’t briefs and pleadings devilled? Yes; but all that was different. In such cases the Public weren’t paying for expression, they were paying for knowledge; the big lawyer put his imprimatur on the knowledge, not on the expression of it; the Cabinet Minister endorsed his views, whether he had written them out or not, and it was his views the Public paid for, not the expression of them. But in this Grebe article the Public would not be paying for any knowledge it contained, nor for any serious views; it would pay for a peep into the mind of their idol. ‘And his mind will be mine!’ thought Taggart; ‘but who’d pay a penny to peep into that?’ He got up, and sat down again. With a Public so gullible--what did it matter? They lapped up anything and asked for more. Yes! But weren’t the gullible the very people who oughtn’t to be gulled? He rose again, and toured the dishevelled room. The man at the other table raised his head. “You seem a bit on your toes.” Taggart stared down at him. “I’ve got to write some drivel in the _Lighthouse_ for Georgie Grebe to sign. It’s just struck me that it’s a fraud on the Public. What do you say, Jimmy?” “In a way. What about it?” “If it is, I don’t want to do it--that’s all.” His colleague whistled. “My dear chap, here am I writing a racing article ‘From the Man in the Paddock’--I haven’t been on a racecourse for years.” “Oh! well--that’s venial.” “All’s venial in our game. Shut your eyes, and swallow. You’re only devilling.” “Ga!” said Taggart. “Give a thing a decent label, and it is decent.”