"We could not. That is to say, we would not," Henry admitted. "But we lie about points of fact because our principles are true. They're so true that everything has to be made to square with them. If you notice, our principles affect _all_ our facts. Yours don't, quite all. You'd report the bus accident from pure love of sensation. We, in reporting it, would prove that it happened because buses aren't nationalised, or because the driver was underpaid, or the fares too high, or because coal has gone up more than wages, or something true of that sort. We waste nothing; we use all that happens. We're propagandists all the time, you're only propagandists part of the time; and commercialists the rest." "Oh, certainly no one would accuse you of being commercialists," agreed the _Sale_ man kindly. "Hallo, what's up?" Henry had stiffened suddenly, and sat straight and rigid, like a dog who dislikes another dog. His companion followed his tense gaze, and saw a very neat, agreeable-looking and gentlemanly fellow, exquisitely cleaned, shaved, and what novelists call _groomed_ (one supposes this to be a kind of rubbing-down process, to make the skin glossy), with gray spats, a malacca cane, and a refined gray suit with a faint stripe and creases like knife-blades. This gentleman was strolling by in company with the senior British delegate, who had what foreigners considered a curious and morbid fad for walking rather than driving, even for short distances. "Which troubles you?" inquired the representative of the _Daily Sale_. "Our only Lord B., or that Secretariat fellow?" "That Secretariat fellow," Henry replied rather faintly. The other put on his glasses, the better to observe the neat, supercilious figure. He laughed a little. "Charles Wilbraham. Our Gilbert. The perfect knut. The type that does us credit abroad. Makes up for the seedy delegates and journalists, what?... He is said to have immense and offensive private wealth. In fact, it is obvious that he could scarcely present that unobtrusively opulent appearance on his official salary. They don't really get much, you know, poor fellows; not for an expensive place like this.... The queer thing is that no one seems to know where Wilbraham gets his money from; he never says. A very close, discreet chap; a regular civil servant. Do you know him, then?" Henry hesitated for a moment, appearing to think. He then replied, in the pained and reserved tone in which Mr. Wickham might have commented upon Mr. Darcy, "Slightly. Very slightly. As well as I wish. In fact, rather better. He wouldn't remember me. But I'll tell you one thing. But for a series of trivial circumstances, I too might have been ... oh, well, never mind. Not, of course, that for any consideration I would serve in this ludicrous and impotent machine set up by the corrupt states of the world. Wilbraham can: I could not. My soul, at least, is my own."