“Now you see why I told you to study him,” Bertrand chuckled, when I announced that I would resign my editorship before I submitted to another spell of Dainton’s political conversation. In despair, I asked how our little office in Fetter Lane was to overtake and undo the work of Saltash and his forebears of the popular press. To this, however, my uncle had no answer. Though he continued to speak of us as a chosen people, our mission of enlightenment was established on a paying basis by the success of our literary editors, who made of _Peace_ the most feared and least loved review in London. As Hancock confined his criticism to novels and Mattrick to poetry, they could not be charged with rolling their own logs or obstructing a rival, though I noticed that Mattrick’s sweeping condemnations stopped short of “Mr. Hancock’s true lyrical genius” and Hancock’s devastating onslaughts on modern fiction made an exception in favour of Mr. Mattrick. My conscience became unquiet when books were sent out for review and I heard Hancock choosing critics who could be trusted to “sit on this sort of rot”; but, as the “rot” was usually written by men who seemed to be making a substantial income, I hoped that they could afford an occasional attack and console themselves with the knowledge that, in the Penmen’s Club, fifty yards away, a league of disgruntled novelists and poets was plotting the destruction of “the Hancock-Mattrick gang”. “All the same,” Bertrand expostulated after a month or two, “we’re not running this paper so that one ill-tempered young gentleman can read what another ill-tempered young gentleman has said about a book he hasn’t troubled to finish. We’re not in touch yet with opinion. You don’t mix with enough people, George: it’s all the office, or the club, or Barbara’s parties.” “But where am I to find your new men?,” I asked. “You say politics are no longer manufactured over a week-end party at Woburn. The political clubs only harbour your Tapers and Tadpoles. Where do men like Saltash and Wister and Foreditch do their work?” “They take their pleasure at the Turf and Stage,” Bertrand answered sourly. “I’m dining there with the O’Ranes to-night,” I said, as we began to walk home.