George and Mr. Aix have different publishers, but the same literary agent. A publisher once took them both to the top of a high hill in Surrey and tempted them--to sell him the rights of every novel they did for ten years, and be kept in luxury by him. But they both shook their heads and said, "You must go to Middleman!" Then he took them to a London restaurant and made them drunk, and still they shook their heads and sent him to Middleman, who makes all their bargains for them, but he can't control all the reviews. One morning Mr. Aix came in to see George, with a blue press-cutting in his hand; I was in the study then, as it happened, and I did not go. George never minds our hearing everything, he says it is too much of an effort to be a hero to one's typewriter, or one's daughter. "I am in a rage!" Mr. Aix said, and so I suppose he was, though he looked more like a white gooseberry than ever. "Just let me get hold of this fellow they have got on _The Bittern_, and see if I don't wring his neck for him!" George didn't say anything, and so I asked--somebody had to--"What has _The Bittern_ man done, please?" "Done! He has dammed me with faint praise, that's all! I'd have the fellow know that I'm read in every pothouse, every kitchen in England! Here, George, take it, and read it, the infamous thing!" George read it--at least he ran his eyes over it. He didn't seem to want to see it particularly, and gave it back as if it bit him, saying-- "Well, my dear fellow, you must take the rough with the smooth--one can always learn something from criticism, or so I find!" "What the devil do you suppose I am to learn from an incompetent paste-and-scissors understrapper like that? He wants a good hiding, that's what he wants, and I for one would have no objection to giving it him!" "Well, it wasn't me wrote it, Mr. Aix," I said, "nor Ariadne!" He isn't supposed to know that George farms out his reviews. Mr. Aix laughed, and left off being cross. The odd thing was, that it had only just missed being Ariadne or me, for the book certainly came in for review. Most likely George wrote it, or else why didn't he trouble to read it, when it was given him to read? It looks as if he were growing a little tiny bit of a conscience, for he knows he ought to have said to _The Bittern_ editor, "Avaunt! Don't tempt an author to review his friend's book, when he knows he cannot speak well of it for so many reasons!" That is my idea of literary morality. CHAPTER XI George came back from his yachting tour with the Scillys very brown and cheerful, having collected enough sunshine for a new book, and Christina is typing it at his dictation.