Pebblewick boasted an enterprising evening paper of its own, called “The Pebblewick Globe,” and it was the great vaunt of the editor’s life that he had got out an edition announcing the mystery of the vanishing sign-board, almost simultaneously¹ with its vanishing. In the rows that followed sandwich men found no little protection from the blows indiscriminately given them behind and before, in the large wooden boards they carried inscribed²:  
THE VANISHING PUB
PEBBLEWICK’S FAIRY TALE
SPECIAL
And the paper contained a categorical and mainly correct account of what had happened, or what seemed to have happened, to the eyes of the amazed Garge and his crowd of sympathisers. “George Burn, carpenter of this town, with Samuel Gripes, drayman in the service of Messrs. Jay and Gubbins, brewers, together with a number of other well-known residents, passed by the new building erected³ on the West Beach for various forms of entertainment and popularly called the small Universal Hall. Seeing outside it one of the old inn-signs now so rare, they drew the quite proper inference that the place retained the license⁴ to sell alcoholic⁵ liquors, which so many other places in this neighborhood have recently lost. The persons inside, however, appear to have denied all knowledge of the fact, and when the party (after some regrettable scenes in which no life was lost) came out on the beach again, it was found that the inn-sign had been destroyed or stolen. All parties were quite sober, and had indeed obtained no opportunity to be anything else. The mystery is underlying⁶ inquiry⁷.”
 
But this comparatively realistic record was local and spontaneous, and owed not a little to the accidental honesty of the editor. Moreover, evening papers are often more honest than morning papers, because they are written by ill-paid and hardworked underlings in a great hurry, and there is no time for more timid people to correct them. By the time the morning papers came out next day a faint but perceptible change had passed over the story of the vanishing sign-board. In the daily paper which had the largest circulation and the most influence in that part of the world, the problem was committed to a gentleman known by what seemed to the non-journalistic world the singular name of Hibbs However. It had been affixed⁸ to him in jest in connection with the almost complicated caution with which all his public criticisms were qualified⁹ at every turn; so that everything came to depend upon the conjunctions; upon “but” and “yet” and “though” and similar words. As his salary grew larger (for editors and proprietors¹⁰ like that sort of thing) and his old friends fewer (for the most generous of friends cannot but feel faintly acid at a success which has in it nothing of the infectious flavour of glory) he grew more and more to value himself as a diplomatist; a man who always said the right thing. But he was not without his intellectual nemesis¹¹; for at last he became so very diplomatic as to be darkly and densely¹² unintelligible¹³. People who knew him had no difficulty in believing that what he had said was the right thing, the tactful thing, the thing that should save the situation; but they had great difficulty in discovering what it was. In his early days he had had a great talent for one of the worst tricks of modern journalism¹⁵, the trick of dismissing the important part of a question as if it could wait, and appearing to get to business on the unimportant part of it. Thus, he would say, “Whatever we may think of the rights and wrongs of the vivisection of pauper¹⁶ children, we shall all agree that it should only be done, in any event, by fully¹⁷ qualified practitioners¹⁸.” But in the later and darker days of his diplomacy¹⁹, he seemed rather to dismiss the important part of a subject, and get to grips with some totally different subject, following some timid and elusive²⁰ train of associations of his own. In his late bad manner, as they say of painters, he was just as likely to say, “Whatever we may think of the rights and wrongs of the vivisection of pauper children, no progressive mind can doubt that the influence of the Vatican is on the decline.” His nickname had stuck to him in honour of a paragraph he was alleged²¹ to have written when the American President was wounded by a bullet fired by a lunatic in New Orleans, and which was said to have run, “The President passed a good night and his condition is greatly improved. The assassin is not, however, a German, as was at first supposed.” Men stared at that mysterious conjunction till they wanted to go mad and to shoot somebody themselves.
 
Hibbs However was a long, lank²² man, with straight, yellowish hair and a manner that was externally soft and mild but secretly supercilious²³. He had been, when at Cambridge, a friend of Leveson, and they had both prided themselves on being moderate politicians. But if you have had your hat smashed over your nose by one who has very recently described himself as a “law-abidin’ man,” and if you have had to run for your life with one coat-tail, and encouraged to further bodily activity by having irregular pieces of a corrugated²⁴ iron roof thrown after you by men more energetic than yourself, you will find you emerge with emotions which are not solely²⁵ those of a moderate politician. Hibbs However had already composed a leaderette on the Pebblewick incident, which rather pointed²⁶ to the truth of the story, so far as his articles ever pointed to anything. His motives²⁸ for veering²⁹ vaguely³⁰ in this direction were, as usual, complex. He knew the millionaire who owned the paper had a hobby of Spiritualism, and something might always come out of not suppressing a marvellous story. He knew that two at least of the prosperous artisans or small tradesmen who had attested³¹ the tale were staunch supporters of The Party. He knew that Lord Ivywood must be mildly but not effectually checked; for Lord Ivywood was of The Other Party. And there could be no milder or less effectual way of checking him than by allowing the paper to lend at least a temporary credit to a well-supported story that came from outside, and certainly had not been (like so many stories) created in the office. Amid all these considerations had Hibbs However steered³² his way to a more or less confirmatory article, when the sudden apparition³³ of J. Leveson, Secretary, in the sub-editor’s room with a burst collar and broken eye-glasses, led Mr. Hibbs into a long, private conversation with him and a comparative reversal of his plans. But of course he did not write a new article; he was not of that divine order who make all things new. He chopped and changed his original article in such a way that it was something quite beyond the most bewildering article he had written in the past; and is still prized by those highly cultured persons who collect the worst literature of the world.
 
It began, indeed, with the comparatively familiar formula, “Whether we take the more lax or the more advanced view of the old disputed problem of the morality or immorality³⁵ of the wooden sign-board as such, we shall all agree that the scenes enacted³⁶ at Pebblewick were very discreditable, to most, though not all, concerned.” After that, tact¹⁴ degenerated³⁷ into a riot of irrelevance³⁸. It was a wonderful article. The reader could get from it a faint glimpse of Mr. Hibbs’s opinion on almost every other subject except the subject of the article. The first half of the next sentence made it quite clear that Mr. Hibbs (had he been present) would not have lent his active assistance to the Massacre³⁹ of St. Bartholomew or the Massacres⁴⁰ of September. But the second half of the sentence suggested with equal clearness that, since these two acts were no longer, as it were, in contemplation, and all attempts to prevent them would probably arrive a little late, he felt the warmest friendship for the French nation. He merely insisted that his friendship should never be mentioned except in the French language. It must be called an “entente” in the language taught to tourists by waiters. It must on no account be called an “understanding,” in a language understanded of the people. From the first half of the sentence following it might safely be inferred that Mr. Hibbs had read Milton, or at least the passage about sons of Belial; from the second half that he knew nothing about bad wine, let alone good. The next sentence began with the corruption⁴³ of the Roman Empire and contrived⁴⁴ to end with Dr. Clifford. Then there was a weak plea for Eugenics; and a warm plea against Conscription, which was not True Eugenics. That was all; and it was headed “The Riot at Pebblewick.”
 
Yet some injustice⁴⁵ would be done to Hibbs However if we concealed⁴⁶ the fact that this chaotic⁴⁷ leader was followed by quite a considerable mass of public correspondence. The people who write to newspapers are, it may be supposed, a small, eccentric body, like most of those that sway a modern state. But at least, unlike the lawyers, or the financiers, or the members of Parliament, or the men of science, they are people of all kinds scattered⁴⁸ all over the country, of all classes, counties, ages, sects⁴⁹, sexes, and stages of insanity⁵⁰. The letters that followed Hibbs’s article are still worth looking up in the dusty old files of his paper.
 
A dear old lady in the densest⁵¹ part of the Midlands wrote to suggest that there might really have been an old ship wrecked⁵² on the shore, during the proceedings⁵³. “Mr. Leveson may have omitted to notice it, or, at that late hour of the evening, it may have been mistaken for a sign-board, especially by a person of defective⁵⁴ sight. My own sight has been failing for some time; but I am still a diligent⁵⁵ reader of your paper.” If Mr. Hibbs’s diplomacy had left one nerve in his soul undrugged, he would have laughed, or burst into tears, or got drunk, or gone into a monastery⁵⁶ over a letter like that. As it was, he measured it with a pencil, and decided⁵⁷ that it was just too long to get into the column.
 
Then there was a letter from a theorist, and a theorist of the worst sort. There is no great harm in the theorist who makes up a new theory to fit a new event. But the theorist who starts with a false theory and then sees everything as making it come true is the most dangerous enemy of human reason. The letter began like a bullet let loose by the trigger. “Is not the whole question met by Ex. iv. 3? I enclose pamphlets in which I have proved the point quite plainly, and which none of the Bishops⁵⁸ or the so-called Free Church Ministers have attempted to answer. The connection between the rod or pole and the snake so clearly indicated in Scripture⁵⁹ is no less clear in this case. It is well known that those who follow after strong drink often announce themselves as having seen a snake. Is it not clear that those unhappy revellers beheld⁶⁰ it in its transformed state as a pole; see also Deut. xviii. 2. If our so-called religious leaders,” etc. The letter went on for thirty-three pages and Hibbs was perhaps justified⁶¹ in this case in thinking the letter rather too long.
 
Then there was the scientific ............