exile.' Now at length had he set forth on a voyage of discovery, to
end perchance in some unknown land among his spiritual kith and kin.



Part II



CHAPTER I


In the spring of 1882 Mr. Jarvis Runcorn, editor and co-proprietor of
the London ~Weekly Post~, was looking about for a young man of
journalistic promise whom he might associate with himself in the
conduct of that long established Radical paper. The tale of his
years warned him that he could not hope to support much longer a
burden which necessarily increased with the growing range and
complexity of public affairs. Hitherto he had been the autocrat of
the office, but competing Sunday papers exacted an alertness, a
versatile vigour, such as only youth can supply; for there was felt
to be a danger that the ~Weekly Post~ might lose its prestige in
democratic journalism. Thus on the watch, Mr. Runcorn--a wary man
of business, who had gone through many trades before he reached that
of weekly literature--took counsel one day with a
fellow-campaigner, Malkin by name, who owned two or three country
newspapers, and had reaped from them a considerable fortune; in
consequence, his attention was directed to one John Earwaker, then
editing the ~Wattleborough Courier~. Mr. Malkin's eldest son had
recently stood as Liberal candidate for Wattleborough, and though