Peter, who was fond of his joke.
Peter poured out half a tumblerful, and drank--some of it.

"Like it?" demanded Clodd, with a savage grin.

"You are sure--you are sure it was the right bottle?" gasped Peter.

"Bottle's all right," Clodd assured him. "Try some more. Judge it
fairly."

Peter ventured on another sip. "You don't think they would be satisfied
if I recommended it as a medicine?" insinuated Peter--"something to have
about the house in case of accidental poisoning?"

"Better go round and suggest the idea to them yourself. I've done with
it." Clodd took up his hat.

"I'm sorry--I'm very sorry," sighed Peter. "But I couldn't
conscientiously--"

Clodd put down his hat again with a bang. "Oh! confound that conscience
of yours! Don't it ever think of your creditors? What's the use of my
working out my lungs for you, when all you do is to hamper me at every
step?"

"Wouldn't it be better policy," urged Peter, "to go for the better class
of advertiser, who doesn't ask you for this sort of thing?"

"Go for him!" snorted Clodd. "Do you think I don't go for him? They are
just sheep. Get one, you get the lot. Until you've got the one, the
others won't listen to you."

"That's true," mused Peter. "I spoke to Wilkinson, of Kingsley's,
myself. He advised me to try and get Landor's. He thought that if I
could get an advertisement out of Landor, he might persuade his people to
give us theirs."

"And if you had gone to Landor, he would have promised you theirs
provided you got Kingsley's."

"They will come," thought hopeful Peter. "We are going up steadily. They
will come with a rush."

"They had better come soon," thought Clodd. "The only things coming with
a rush just now are bills."

"Those articles of young McTear's attracted a good deal of attention,"
expounded Peter. "He has promised to write me another series."

"Jowett is the one to get hold of," mused Clodd. "Jowett, all the others
follow like a flock of geese waddling after the old gander. If only we
could get hold of Jowett, the rest would be easy."

Jowett was the proprietor of the famous Marble Soap. Jowett spent on
advertising every year a quarter of a million, it was said. Jowett was
the stay and prop of periodical literature. New papers that secured the
Marble Soap advertisement lived and prospered; the new paper to which it
was denied languished and died. Jowett, and how to get hold of him;
Jowett, and how to get