The Argosy — page 364: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Lady Valena. 343 day for an interview. May I count on your help? I suppose he will expect you to be present. ‘Will you tell me what you think it means ?” (L. Stannard to O. Meynell.) “It means extortion. Will Saturday, the 18th, suit you? I am going away to-morrow for a few days. I see the Royal Denbigh are coming home.” CHAPTER <r Fir “ cEE THE CONQUERING HEROES COME!” THe morning of the eighteenth November dawned with a chill yellow fog, through which Mr. Paramount groped his way to his office, welcoming it, miserable and cheerless as it was, as a promise of screen and protection on the errand he had in view. Nobody would see him, and he didn’t want to be seen. Not that he was ashamed of what he was going to do. Anybody might have business in Picca- dilly or at Charing Cross. It was only that his presence there might be misconstrued by anybody who might meet him there about eleven o'clock. Anybody like our Mr. Ebden for instance; a flippant youth, who smoked and read sporting papers all office hours, and whom he was disgusted to find in old Mr. Lovibond’s office when he went in to ask permission to depart for the rest of the day. The grave senior partner had given it without asking questions, like a gentleman, but young Ebden must needs wink and grin, and enquire whether Trafalgar Square wasn’t the nearest way to everywhere that morning, and whether he had secured a reserved seat on one of the lions? “Hullo! Don’t go!” as Mr. Paramount was about to withdraw without pursuing the subject. ‘‘ We've got to congratulate you on the last lustre shed on the name of Paramount. Not seen the Penny Pictorial, No? I bought it on purpose for you. Look here! Here’s fame. Something like a British warrior, eh?” and he unfolded and displayed an exciting woodcut, one of a series, ‘‘ Heroes of the Rank and File.” This one in particular represented ‘‘ Private Sampson Paramount at Tel-el-Kebir,” as he appeared in a cloud of dust and smoke, his foot on a pile of turbaned corpses, warding off a flight of cannon-balls with his naked sword, and with his other arm supporting a very limp general officer. In the left foreground, a bursting shell, a cataract of shattered limbs and masonry, and the special artist of the Pictorial sketching him. Even old Mr. Lovibond, who seldom encouraged his nephew’s sportiveness in office hours, rubbed his glasses and requested to be allowed to see, returning it with the dry remark “that the young man had apparently found a vocation more to his taste than office work.” By this time the poor old father, utterly miserable, could only murmur indistinct protests and depart, care- fully pocketing the journal, however. Conmicboooks (CO)