Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/144

134 George Flack hesitated a moment; the air of the question was so candid, suggested so complete an exemption from prejudice. "Oh, I'm very careful about what I put in the paper. I want everything, as I told you: don't you remember the sketch I gave you of my ideals? But I want it in a certain particular way. If I can't get it in the shape I like it I don't want it at all; genuine, first-hand information, straight from the tap, is what I'm after. I don't want to hear what some one or other thinks that some one or other was told that some one or other repeated; and above all I don't want to print it. There's plenty of that flowing in, and the best part of the job is to keep it out. People just yearn to come in; they're dying to, all over the place; there's the biggest crowd at the door. But I say to them: 'You've got to do something first, then I'll see; or at any rate you've got to be something!'"

"We sometimes see the Reverberator; you have some fine pieces," Francie replied.

"Sometimes, only? Don't they send it to your father—the weekly edition? I thought I had fixed that," said George Flack.

"I don't know; it's usually lying round. But Delia reads it more than I; she reads pieces aloud. I like to read books; I read as many as I can."

"Well, it's all literature," said Mr. Flack; "it's all the press, the great institution of our time.