ot, and it
looks as if we hadn't got the support even of our own party. Ta ra ra
ta! Now you must really let me have a 'birth.' I give you my word,
nobody'll suspect it isn't genuine. Come now. How's this?" He scribbled
on a piece of paper and handed it to Raphael, who read:

"BIRTH, on the 15th inst. at 17 East Stuart Lane, Kennington, the wife
of Joseph Samuels of a son."

"There!" said Sampson proudly, "Who would believe the little beggar had
no existence? Nobody lives in Kennington, and that East Stuart Lane is a
master-stroke. You might suspect Stuart Lane, but nobody would ever
dream there's no such place as _East_ Stuart Lane. Don't say the little
chap must die. I begin to take quite a paternal interest in him. May I
announce him? Don't be too scrupulous. Who'll be a penny the worse for
it?" He began to chirp, with bird-like trills of melody.

Raphael hesitated: his moral fibre had been weakened. It is impossible
to touch print and not be denied.

Suddenly Sampson ceased to whistle and smote his head with his chubby
fist. "Ass that I am!" he exclaimed.

"What new reasons have you discovered to think so?" said Raphael.

"Why, we dare not create boys. We shall be found out; boys must be
circumcised and some of the periphrastically styled 'Initiators into the
Abrahamic Covenant' may spot us. It was a girl that Mrs. Joseph Samuels
was guilty of." He amended the sex.

Raphael laughed heartily. "Put it by; there's another day yet; we shall
see."

"Very well," said Sampson resignedly. "Perhaps by to-morrow we shall be
in luck and able to sing 'unto us a child is born, unto us a son is
given.' By the way, did you see the letter complaining of our using that
quotation, on the ground it was from the New Testament?"

"Yes," said Raphael smiling. "Of course the man doesn't know his Old
Testament, but I trace his misconception to his having heard Handel's
Messiah. I wonder he doesn't find fault with the Morning Service for
containing the Lord's Prayer, or with Moses for saying 'Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself.'"

"Still, that's the sort of man newspapers have to cater for," said the
sub-editor. "And we don't. We have cut down our Provincial Notes to a
column. My idea would be to make two pages of them, not cutting out any
of the people's names and leaving in more of the adjectives. Every man's
name we mention means at least one copy sold. Why can't we drag in a
couple of thousand names every week?"

"Tha