ning to bring both him and the paper into
notice; he had taken pains with the organisation and improvement of the
staff; above all, he had spent a great deal more money upon it, in the
way of premises and appliances, than he had been, as it turned out, in
any way justified in spending.

Hence, indeed, these tears. Rather more than a year before, while the
_Clarion_ was still enjoying a first spurt of success and notoriety, he
had, with a certain recklessness which belonged to his character,
invested in new and costly machinery, and had transferred the paper to
larger offices. All this had been done on borrowed money.

Then, for some reason or other, the _Clarion_ had ceased to answer to
the spur--had, indeed, during the past eight months been flagging
heavily. The outside world was beginning to regard the _Clarion_ as an
important paper. Wharton knew all the time that its advertisements were
falling off, and its circulation declining. Why? Who can say? If it is
true that books have their fates, it is still more true of newspapers.
Was it that a collectivist paper--the rival organ mentioned by
Wilkins--recently started by a group of young and outrageously clever
Venturists and more closely in touch than the _Clarion_ with two or
three of the great unions, had filched the _Clarion's_ ground? Or was it
simply that, as Wharton put it to himself in moments of rage and
despondency, the majority of working men "are either sots or
block-heads, and will read and support _nothing_ but the low racing or
police-court news, which is all their intelligences deserve?" Few people
had at the bottom of their souls a more scornful distrust of the
"masses" than the man whose one ambition at the present moment was to be
the accepted leader of English labour.

Finally, his private expenditure had always been luxurious; and he was
liable, it will be seen, to a kind of debt that is not easily kept
waiting. On the whole, his bankers had behaved to him with great
indulgence.

He fretted and fumed, turning over plan after plan as he walked, his
curly head sunk in his shoulders, his hands behind his back. Presently
he stopped--absently--in front of the inner wall of the room, where,
above a heavy rosewood bookcase, brought from his Lincolnshire house, a
number of large framed photographs were hung close together.

His eye caught one and brightened. With an impatient gesture, like that
of a reckless boy, he flung his thoughts away from him.