Ferrol was back in his room, among his buttons, after a long holiday abroad. There was always a subtle difference in the office when he returned after these occasional absences; and not only in the office, but in the whole Street, where men would say to each other, "Ferrol's back, I hear ... wonder what The Day will do next." For Ferrol always returned to his paper with some new scheme, some new idea that he had planned while he was away—he seemed to be able to see weeks ahead, to know what people would be talking about, or, if he could not be certain as to that, he would "boom" something in The Day, and its mighty circulation would make people talk about anything he wanted them to discuss. They were doing nearly a million a day—think of it! Ferrol, sitting in his office, could touch a button, give some instructions, and send his influence into nearly a million homes. He could move the thoughts of hundreds of thousands; throw the weight of The Day into a cause and carry it through into success. He could order the lives of his readers, in large matters or small matters. That famous Batter Pudding campaign, for instance, is not forgotten, when The Day found a crank of a doctor, who declared that our national ill-health was due to eating Batter Pudding with roast beef. Batter Pudding was on every one's lips, and in no one's mouth. People stopped cooking Batter Pudding. Ferrol touched a button and they obeyed. Nor must we forget the wonderful campaign on the "Bulrush Throat," by which Humphrey was able to oust the bulrushes from Mrs Wayzgoose's sitting-room.

[178]

Yet, sometimes, in The Day campaigns, there was a spark of greatness and a hint of nobler things, that seemed to reflect the complex personality of Ferrol himself; Ferrol groping through the web of commercial opportunism which was weaving round him, striving after something ideal and worthy. A man has been wrongly arrested and condemned—Ferrol stands for justice; the columns of The Day are opened to powerful pens; the nation is inflamed, there are questions in the House, the case is re-opened and the conviction quashed. Nameless injustices and cruel dishonesty would flourish if The Day were not there to expose such things. You must balance the good against the evil, and perhaps the good will outweigh the evil, for Ferrol, when he touched the buttons, did many good things, and the nearest approach to evil he made was in doing those few things that were transparently foolish....

Something in The Day had arrested his attention that morning. (He always read the paper through, page by page, from the city quotations to the last word on the sporting page.) The article in question was not an important one: it was a few hundred words about a party of American girls who were being hustled through London in one day—the quickest sight-seeing tour on record. The account of their doings was brightly written, with a flash of humour here and there; and, you know, it had the "human touch."

Who wrote it? The button moves; pink-faced Trinder starts nervously from his desk in the ante-room, and appears shiny, and halting in speech. He is sent on a mission of investigation, while Ferrol turns to other matters: the circulation department wants waking up. Ferrol actually travelled in his car all the way from his house in Kensington, and for every contents bill of The Day he saw three of The Sentinel. Gammon, the manager of the circulation department, appears, produced[179] magically by touching a button. "This won't do, you know." There are explanations, though Ferrol doesn't want explanations—he wants results; which Gammon, retiring in a mood for perspiration, promises. There has been a slight drop in advertisement revenue—Ferrol has a finger in every pie. "Dull season be damned," says Ferrol to the advertisement manager—a very great person, drawing five thousand a year, commissions and salary, and with it all dependent on Ferrol. In two minutes Ferrol has produced a "scheme"—an idea that may be worth thousands of pounds to the paper. "Splendid," says the advertisement manager. "Get ahead with it," says Ferrol....

In ten minutes it is as if there had been an eruption in every department of the grey building. The fault-finding words in the red room with the buttons drop like stones in a pool, making widening rings, until they reach the humblest junior in every department—Ferrol is back, and the office knows it!...

Trinder reappears. Mr Quain wrote the article ... and Ferrol suddenly remembers.

So the boy has been doing well. Both Neckinger and Rivers approve of Humphrey. "Not a brilliant genius, thank God!" says Rivers, "but a good straightforward man. Very sound."

Thus is Ferrol justified once more in his perception for the right man. His thoughts travelled back once more to Easterham, to the days when he himself was Humphrey's age, to the days of Margaret, and the white memories of his only romance. Strange that the vision of her should always stand out against the thousand complexities of his life after all these years. He saw her just as he had last seen her, eyes of a deep darkness, and black hair that seemed by contrast to heighten the dusky pallor of her skin. A child that was too frail to live, and yet she had inspired him in these long distant days.

[180]

It was astonishing to think that she............