“Tragedy be hanged!” said he. “My dear Gomme, you’ve got to recognise that the world never takes its humorists seriously. It’s always looking for the joke in their tragedies.... Which reminds me, Gomme, I’m afraid to-morrow must see us out of this.” Gomme’s face lost its mask: “But, sir!” he faltered--fidgeting nervously with the papers by his hand--“what are _you_ going to do? and Noll?--and Mrs. Baddlesmere--when the blinds are pulled down?” Baddlesmere strode over to the window, and, gazing down into the dusk of the chilly street below, made no answer. He stood so for a long while, and wondered. He wondered if he _had_ given the public vital things! His mind ran rapidly over the failure of his scheme--a scheme that, as he now saw, had been inherent with failure at its very inception. He saw now, as he stood there ruined by it, that it was folly to expect a public to buy literature built up on the mere brilliant literary exercises in technical skill of a smart group of young fellows who had really had no claim upon the consideration of the world, nothing to say, no gift but a capacity to use the machinery of letters prettily; who had had positively nothing to offer to the world but old idioms freshly arrayed in pretty clothes--make-believe kings at a calico-ball. These had been but smart mediocrities--not an ounce of wisdom amongst them all. It came to him now with grim irony, as he stood there in confession to the clear-eyed judge of Self, that for all their cackle of literary style and their contempt for everyone else, these men had uttered no single thought worth preserving--that they had left their youth behind and were growing bald a-top, and full-blown and ordinary--except---- Yes, the work of this Netherby Gomme. He knew now as he ran over the years, that all the best work had come from this youth’s pen--about the only one of them all who had not given himself airs, who had put down the absolute truth as he whimsically saw it, who had worked and wrought amid bare walls and in hours snatched from toil-won leisure, whilst they all sat and prated of what they intended to do, and of how it should be done. He turned from the window into the lighted office, and his glance fell on his son Noll’s desk. It was the only artistic corner in the room--the prints, mounted on brown paper, which the boy had tacked to the wall, had a decorative effect that showed rare artistic taste in one so young. A touch of pride came into the man’s eyes, and went out in a frown. Netherby Gomme, watching him in alert silence, with delicate tact uttered no word. As Baddlesmere moved towards the editor’s room he asked abruptly: “Where’s Noll?” “Heaven knows, sir,” said Netherby Gomme airily. The door closed on the editor, and Gomme heard the slam of the outer door, which told that Baddlesmere had begun to descend the stair. “Heaven knows!” Gomme shook his head. “Playing with a sewer, most like.... But God is very good to boys.” CHAPTER II