Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/376

Rh situation all the same. You're too hopeless. We must put our foot down at once; that's all. Let me see these reporter fellows and write to the London dailies. I think I can take a line that will settle them."

"Eh?" said Fred.

"I can take a line that will stop it, trust me."

"What, altogether?"

"Altogether."

"How?" said Fred and Mrs. Bunting. "You're not going to bribe them!"

"Bribe!" said Mr. Bunting. "We're not in France. You can't bribe a British paper."

(A sort of subdued cheer went around from the assembled Buntings.)

"You leave it to me," said Melville, in his element.

And with earnestly expressed but not very confident wishes for his success, they did.

He managed the thing admirably.

"What's this about a mermaid?" he demanded of the local journalists when they returned. They travelled together for company, being, so to speak, emergency journalists, compositors in their milder moments, and unaccustomed to these higher aspects of journalism. "What's this about a mermaid?" repeated my cousin, while they waived precedence dumbly one to another.

"I believe some one's been letting you in," said my cousin Melville. "Just imagine!—a mermaid!"

"That's what we thought," said the younger of the two emergency journalists. "We knew it was some sort of hoax, you know. Only the New Paper giving it a headline"