Choking it back, he said, succinctly, 'Publishing, journalism, and
writing. At least, I am.'

'He means,' Mr. Potter interpolated, in his small, nasal voice, 'that
he has obtained a small and subordinate job with a firm of publishers,
and hopes also to contribute to an obscure weekly paper run by a
friend of his.'

'Oh,' said Mrs. Frank. 'Not one of _your_ papers, pater? Can't be, if
it's obscure, can it?'

'No, not one of my papers. A periodical called, I believe, the _Weekly
Comment_, with which you may or may not be familiar.'

'Never heard of it, I'm afraid,' Mrs. Frank confessed, truly. 'Why don't
you go on to one of the family concerns, Johnny? You'd get on much
quicker there, with pater to shove you.'

'Probably,' Johnny agreed.

'My papers,' said Mr. Potter dryly, 'are not quite up to Johnny's
intellectual level. Nor Jane's. Neither do they accord with their
political sympathies.'

'Oh, I forgot you two were silly old Socialists. Never mind, that'll pass
when they grow up, won't it, Frank?'

Secretly, Mrs. Frank thought that the twins had the disease because the
Potter family, however respectable now, wasn't really 'top-drawer.'