"There are none going begging on _The Planet_. But" (this soothingly by way of sugaring a dismissal) "you have only to get hold of something good and bring it to me. For instance, some nice, spicy little item as to the truth of the rumoured alliance between Russia and Japan. We would pay you quite well for that, you know, provided you gave it to us in time to publish ahead of any other paper." "How much would you pay me?" asked Joan, nettled at this chaffing tone of the famous man. "Enough to buy a new frock and perhaps a few hairpins; say a hundred pounds." "That isn’t enough," said Joan; "I should want a thousand." Sir Edmund turned a sudden, keen gaze upon the girl; then his face relaxed. "We might rise to that. At all events, I’m safe in promising it." "It _is_ a promise, then?" "Oh, certainly." "Thank you. Let me see if I understand clearly. I’m not quite the baby you think, Sir Edmund. I read the papers--yours especially--and take, I trust, an intelligent interest in the political situation. Now, the latest rumour is that Russia is secretly planning an understanding with Japan and China. What you would like to know is whether there is truth in the rumour, and what, in that event, England would do." "Exactly. That is what all the papers are dying to find out." "If you could get the official news before any of them, you would give the person who obtained it for you a thousand pounds. If, in addition, they, or one of them--let us say _The Daily Beacon_--got the _wrong_ news on the same day, you would no doubt add five hundred to the original thousand; for revenge is sweet, even to an editor, I suppose, and _The Beacon_ has, I have heard, contrived to be first in the field on one or two important occasions within the last few years." This allusion was a pin-prick in a sensitive place, for Joan was aware that _The Daily Beacon_ and _The Planet_ were deadly rivals as well as political opponents. Mainbridge had told her the tale of _The Planet’s_ humiliation by the enemy, and she had not forgotten. _The Beacon_ had been able, at the very time when _The Planet_ was arguing against their probability, to assert that certain political events would take place, and in time these statements had been justified, to the discomfiture of _The Planet_. Sir Edmund frowned slightly. "_The Daily Beacon_ possesses exceptional advantages," he sneered. "It is difficult for less favoured journals to compete with it for political information." "I believe I can guess what you refer to," answered Joan. "I hear things, you know, from my cousin, Miss Milton." (This to shield Mainbridge.) "Lord Henry Borrowdaile, an Under Secretary of State, is a distant relative of Mr. Portheous, the proprietor of _The Daily Beacon_, and it is said that there has been a curious leakage of diplomatic secrets, once or twice, by which _The Beacon_ profited." "You are a well-informed young lady."