"Honestly?" said Mr. Petheram. "You aren't pulling my leg?"

Roland nodded. Mr. Petheram appeared to struggle with his conscience,
and finally to be worsted by it, for his next remarks were limpidly
honest.

"Don't you be an ass," he said. "You don't know what you're letting
yourself in for. Did you see that blighter who went out just now? Do
you know who he is? That's the fellow we've got to pay five pounds a
week to for life."

"Why?"

"We can't get rid of him. When the paper started, the proprietors--not
the present ones--thought it would give the thing a boom if they had a
football competition with a first prize of a fiver a week for life.
Well, that's the man who won it. He's been handed down as a legacy from
proprietor to proprietor, till now we've got him. Ages ago they tried
to get him to compromise for a lump sum down, but he wouldn't. Said he
would only spend it, and preferred to get it by the week. Well, by the
time we've paid that vampire, there isn't much left out of our profits.
That's why we are at the present moment a little understaffed."

A frown clouded Mr. Petheram's brow. Roland wondered if he was thinking
of Bessie March.

"I know all about that," he said.

"And you still want to buy the thing?"