CHESTERTON-FOUR FAULLESS - VI THE SPEAKING OF THE WORD
THE Thief, the Quack, the Murderer and the Traitor, had made their confessions of crime to Mr. Pinion of the Comet somewhat more briefly and personally than the same tales have been recorded here. Nevertheless, they took a tolerably long time from start to finish, and throughout the whole of that time Mr. Pinion had preserved an air of polite attention and had not interrupted by so much as a word.
When they were over, he coughed slightly and said: "Well, gentlemen, I'm sure I've been very much interested in your remarkable narratives. But I suppose most of us get misrepresented a bit from time to time. I hope you'll do me the honour, gentlemen, of allowing that I haven't pumped you, or prompted you, or stuck my oar in anyway, but have enjoyed your hospitality without taking advantage of it."
"I am sure," said the doctor heartily, "nobody could possibly have been more patient and considerate."
"I only ask," proceeded Mr. Pinion, in his gentle tones, "because in the newspaper world of my own country I am known as the Bloody Battering-Ram, also the Home-Wrecker, the Heart-Searcher and occasionally as Jack the Ripper, because of my unscrupulous ripping-up of the most sacred secrets of private life. Headlines such as 'Bull-Dog Pinion Pins President', or 'Home-Wrecker Has Scalp of Screaming Secretary', are common on the brighter news-pages of my native state. The story is still told of how I hung on to Judge Grogan by one leg, when he was climbing into the aeroplane."
"Well," said the doctor, "I own I never should have guessed it of you. Nobody would think you'd ever done a thing like that."
"I never did," replied Mr. Pinion calmly. "Judge Grogan and I had a perfectly friendly conversation at his own country residence at his own request. But each of us has got to keep up his own professional reputation, whether it's as a Murderer, a Robber or a Reporter."
"Do you mean," asked the big man intervening, "that you didn't really batter or wreck or rip anything or anybody?"
"Well, not quite so much as you murdered anybody," answered the American in his guarded tone. "But I have to let on that I've been horribly rude to everybody, or I'd lose my professional prestige and perhaps my job. As a matter of fact, I generally find I can get anything I want by being polite. My experience is," he added mildly and gravely, "that most folks are only too ready to talk about themselves."
The four men around him looked at each other and then broke into a laugh.
"That's certainly one for us," said the doctor. "You've certainly got our stories out of us and done it by being perfectly polite. Do you really mean to say that if you publish them, you'd have to pretend you could only do it by being rude?"
"I guess so," said Mr. Pinion, nodding gravely. "If I publish your story, I'd have to say I broke down the door of Dr. Judson's surgery as he was bandaging somebody with his throat cut, and just wouldn't let him finish till he'd told me his life-story. I'd have to pretend Mr. Nadoway was just off to his dying mother, when I boarded his car and got his views on Capital versus Labour. I'd be obliged to burgle the third gentleman's house or wreck the fourth gentleman's train, or do something to show my editor I'm a real live wire of a reporter. Of course you never need to do it really, you can do most things by decent manners and talking to people at appropriate times. Or rather," and he again suppressed a smile, "letting them talk to you."
"Do you think," asked the big man thoughtfully, "that that sort of sensationalism really impresses the public?"
"I don't know," said the journalist. "I should rather think not. It impresses the editor, and that's what I've got to think about."
"But, if you'll excuse me, don't you mind yourself," pursued the other. "Don't you mind everybody from Maine to Mexico calling you a Bloody Battering-Ram when you're really a perfectly normal and well-educated gentleman?"
"Well," said the journalist, "I suppose, as I say, that most of us are misunderstood one way or another."
There was a momentary silence at the table, and then Dr. Judson turned in his chair with a sort of jerk and said: "Gentlemen, I beg to propose Mr. Lee Pinion as a member of the Club."
End of this Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
Four Faultless Felons by G.K. Chesterton
CHESTERTON-FOUR FAULLESS - VI THE SPEAKING OF THE WORD