"Carvale, you're making a mistake. The _Daily Anagraph_ has no personal grudge against me: although the last editor had, because I once innocently asked him whether historical accuracy came within the scope of a Radical periodical. That was years ago, at the time of the second Dreyfus case. I know that he was furious; because Bertram Blighter, the novel-man, told me that that editor in revenge was going to put me on the newspaper black-list, whatever that may be. No, it is not a personal matter, a matter in which an apology is customary. It's simply an example of the ethics of commercial journalism. The man wanted to increase the sale of his paper. I happened by chance to be before the world just then. And he took the liberty of increasing his circulation at my expense. Actually that is all. You can't (at least I don't), expect an editor, who is capable of doing such a thing, to apologize for doing it. The case of the other papers is verisimilar: except of course the _Catholic Hour_. That simply exists on sycophanty by sycophants for sycophantophagists, as Semphill knows." "Yes I know," said Semphill. "And I don't allow the thing to enter my house." "But the others--in their case it's not lurid malignance, but legal malfeasance. Did you say that they apologized?" "No. None of those, which printed the calumnies, apologized. They just kept silence. But all the respectable papers, which had not calumniated you, printed my refutation of the _Daily Anagraph_." George made a gesture of scorn, of satisfaction, of dismissal. "Then the Pope is clear;" he said. "Now I will try to tell you, as briefly as possible, what you want to know about the other person." He produced a sheaf of newspaper-cuts. He was in such a white rage at having to do what he was about to do, that he wreaked his anger on those who listened to him, piercingly eyeing them, speaking with swift fury as one would speak to foes. "The _Catholic Hour_ states that in 1886 I was under an under-master at Grandholme School: that I had to leave my master-ship because I became Catholic. That is true in substance and absolutely false in connotation. I was an under-master: but as I also had charge of the school-house, I was called the house-master. You also perhaps may be aware that there is only one head-master in a school; and that all the rest are under-masters. But, when slander is your object, 'under-master' is a nice disgraceful dab of mud to sling at your victim for a beginning. Well: I resigned my house-mastership of my own free and unaided will for the reason alleged; and I have yet to learn that the becoming Catholic is an extraordinarily slimy deed. Further, note this, far from my resignation being the dishonourable affair which the _Catholic Hour_ implies, the head-master of Grandholme School remained my dear and intimate and honoured friend through thick and thin, for more than twenty years, and is my only dear and intimate friend at this moment."