absurd fairy story, and all the sane, intelligent people laugh at it, and
then it turns out to have been right. Look at the way it used to say that
Germany was planning war; it was mostly the stupid people who believed
it, and the intelligent people who didn't; but all the time Germany was.'

'Partly because people like daddy kept saying so, and planning to get
in first.'

'Not much. Germany was really planning: we were only talking.... I
believe in the Pinkerton press, and the other absurd presses. They have
the unthinking rightness of the fool. Of course they have. Because the
happenings of the world are caused by people--the mass of people--and the
Pinkerton press knows them and represents them. Intellectual people are
always thinking above the heads of the people who make movements, so
they're nearly always out. The Pinkerton press _is_ the people, so it
gets there every time. Potterism will outlive all the reformers and
idealists. If Potterism says we're going to have a war, we have it; if it
says we're going to win a war, we shall win it. "If you see it in _John
Bull_, it _is_ so."'

It was not often that Katherine spoke of Potterism, but when she did it
was with conviction.


8

Gideon was home, wounded. He had nearly died, but not quite. He had lost
his right foot, and would have another when the time was ripe. He was
discharged, and became, later on, assistant editor of a new weekly paper
that was started.