"Pshaw! What will you have? The public wants news, and somebody must furnish it. People nowadays are much the same as people ever were. Humanity must have something to talk about, or it could not exist. Humanity is a woman." "I agree with you there; that is why I have abandoned it." "Oh! I see what you would say. There are two sides to that. But what I mean is, we must talk, or the world will come to a stand-still. The newspaper man nowadays furnishes the staple commodity on which the world exercises its tongue." "Nowadays, yes. Well, it's a poor commodity. Somebody has well called it the 'cheap and nasty.'" "Always the same, George; always the same. What was the cry of the Athenians when S. Paul went amongst them? 'What news? _Quid novi?_'--and the Athenians were the intellect of their time. To-day we live too fast for the tongue; hence electricity, hence the daily." "Hence the Bohemian?" "Well, Bohemian is a much-misapplied word. It requires a sort of genius to be a true Bohemian; erratic genius, if you like, but still genius. Bohemianism is not all boots down at heel, crushed hat, and broken elbows, five-cent cigars and lager-beer that a friend pays for, with an occasional bottle of champagne when the pocket happens to be flush. Look at me, for instance, supplying the six or seven leading dailies with news. If I tell a lie one day, I contradict it the next. If I send a false account to the government organ, I send an extra true one to the opposition, and a trimmer to the free and independent. If the government is malicious, the opposition is ultra pious; and if the free and independent is scandalous, both unite in coming down on and crushing it. To be sure, things get mixed up a little sometimes; but, on the whole, matters are pretty evenly balanced, and in the end the truth comes uppermost. Then all along you are supported by the secret conviction that nobody ever believes a word you say." "Whose fault is that?" asked George. "The weakness of humanity, my dear fellow. You must not go too deeply into things, nor expect a daily newspaper, with its villanous printers, to be true as gospel. A newspaper correspondent is despatched to find news; and if he can't find it...." "He invents." "Well, what is the use of imagination, unless you exercise it a bit? But it is the greatest fun in the world to see yourself quoted by opposite parties for opposite purposes." "Yes, it must be amusing. Some people--old-fashioned people, to be sure--might consider it a trifle dishonest, perhaps; but then, they are behind the age." Ned rose, laughed, and took a turn round the room. Standing opposite his friend, he said: