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than three hundred visits to a dentist rolled into one.
Appalling prospect! said Tom. I can exactly picture what it
will be. BIRCHAM! Such a forbidding name for an editor. He'll be
a sort of editorial Mr. Squeers; he'll talk in a loud, blustering
way, and you'll feel exactly like a journalistic Smike.
No, said Erica, laughing. He'll be a neat little dapper man,
very smooth and bland, and he'll talk patronizingly and raise my
hopes, and then, in a few days' time will send me a polite
refusal.
Tell him at once that you heroworship Sir Michael Cunningham, the
statesman of the age, the most renowned 'Sly Bacon!'
Tom, do be quiet! said Erica. I wish you had never thought of
that horrid name.
Horrid! I mean to make my fortune out of it. If you like, you
can offer the pun on reasonable terms to Mr. Bircham.
Why, this is Fleet Street! Doesn't it lead out of this? said
Erica, with an indescribable feeling in the back of her neck. We
must be quite near.
Nearer than near, said Tom. Now then, left wheel! Here we are,
you see. It's a mercy that you turn pink with fright, not green
like the seagreen Robespierre. Go in looking as pretty as that,
and Mr. Squeers will graciously accept your services, unless he's
sandblind.
What a tease you are. Do be quiet! implored Erica. And then, in
what seemed to her an alarmingly short time she was actually left
by herself to beard the lion, and a clerk was assuring her that Mr.
Bircham was in, and would she walk upstairs.
For reasons best known to himself, the editor of the Daily Review
had his private room at the very top of the house. A sedate clerk
led the way up a dingy staircase, and Erica toiled after him,
wondering how much breath she should have left by the time she
reached the end. On one of the landings she caught sight of a
sandy cat and felt a little reassured at meeting such an everyday
creature in this grim abode; she gave it a furtive stroke as she
passed, and would have felt it a protection if she could have
picked it up and taken it with her. That would have been
undignified, however, and by the time she reached the editor's room
only a very observant person could have discovered in her frank,
selfpossessed manner any trace of nervousness.
So different was Mr Bircham from their preconceived notions that
she could almost have laughed at the contrast. He was very tall
and pompous, he wore a lank brown wig which looked as if it might
come off at any moment, he had little keen gray eyes which
twinkled, and a broad mouth which shut very closely; whether it was

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