Page:The council of seven.djvu/187

 reasoning. "Evidently," he said in his husky whisper, "your precious Society has not condescended to read the article in yesterday's Planet which I myself dictated."

"Let me assure you, sir," said Lien Weng, "that it has done so and marked it carefully. But such admirable sentiments, of which your newspapers have an inexhaustible supply, is no more than dust for the eyes of fools. The Universal Press has taken for its motto the famous saying of our own Lao-tsze, the prophet of Taoism, 'Learn to throw dust in order to cast it." Or in words which the western brain may find easier to understand, 'Learn to defile the wells of truth behind a curtain of poison gas.'"

"One has heard all this so often," said the Colossus, plaintively. "Can't you tell us something new?" And he yawned cavernously in the face of the others.

Lien Weng paid no regard to the interruption. He went quietly on, "Much of the political news the Universal Press transmits so diligently from America to England is willfully distorted; much of the political news it transmits from England to America is equally false."

"So you say," laughed the Colossus.

"Let us take one example. The report of the speech in Congress of Senator Larcom which you print on page 8 of yesterday's Planet is quite inaccurate."

"How do you know that?"

"Senator Larcom has already sent by cable his own