Chapter 11

Ferrol was back in his room, among his buttons, after a long holiday abroad. There was always a subtle difference in the office when he returned after these occasional absences; and not only in the office, but in the whole Street, where men would say to each other, "Ferrol's back, I hear ... wonder what The Day will do next." For Ferrol always returned to his paper with some new scheme, some new idea that he had planned while he was away—he seemed to be able to see weeks ahead, to know what people would be talking about, or, if he could not be certain as to that, he would "boom" something in The Day, and its mighty¹ circulation would make people talk about anything he wanted them to discuss. They were doing nearly a million a day—think of it! Ferrol, sitting in his office, could touch a button, give some instructions, and send his influence into nearly a million homes. He could move the thoughts of hundreds of thousands; throw the weight of The Day into a cause and carry it through into success. He could order the lives of his readers, in large matters or small matters. That famous Batter² Pudding campaign, for instance, is not forgotten, when The Day found a crank of a doctor, who declared that our national ill-health was due to eating Batter Pudding with roast beef. Batter Pudding was on every one's lips, and in no one's mouth. People stopped cooking Batter Pudding. Ferrol touched a button and they obeyed. Nor must we forget the wonderful campaign on the "Bulrush Throat," by which Humphrey was able to oust³ the bulrushes from Mrs Wayzgoose's sitting-room⁴.

[178]

Yet, sometimes, in The Day campaigns, there was a spark of greatness and a hint of nobler things, that seemed to reflect the complex personality of Ferrol himself; Ferrol groping through the web of commercial opportunism which was weaving round him, striving after something ideal and worthy⁵. A man has been wrongly arrested and condemned—Ferrol stands for justice; the columns of The Day are opened to powerful pens; the nation is inflamed⁶, there are questions in the House, the case is re-opened and the conviction quashed. Nameless injustices⁷ and cruel dishonesty would flourish if The Day were not there to expose such things. You must balance the good against the evil, and perhaps the good will outweigh⁸ the evil, for Ferrol, when he touched the buttons, did many good things, and the nearest approach to evil he made was in doing those few things that were transparently⁹ foolish....

Something in The Day had arrested his attention that morning. (He always read the paper through, page by page, from the city quotations¹⁰ to the last word on the sporting page.) The article in question was not an important one: it was a few hundred words about a party of American girls who were being hustled¹¹ through London in one day—the quickest sight-seeing tour on record. The account of their doings was brightly written, with a flash of humour here and there; and, you know, it had the "human touch."

Who wrote it? The button moves; pink-faced Trinder starts nervously¹² from his desk in the ante-room, and appears shiny, and halting in speech. He is sent on a mission of investigation¹³, while Ferrol turns to other matters: the circulation department wants waking up. Ferrol actually travelled in his car all the way from his house in Kensington, and for every contents bill of The Day he saw three of The Sentinel. Gammon, the manager of the circulation department, appears, produced[179] magically by touching¹⁴ a button. "This won't do, you know." There are explanations, though Ferrol doesn't want explanations—he wants results; which Gammon, retiring in a mood for perspiration¹⁵, promises. There has been a slight drop in advertisement revenue—Ferrol has a finger in every pie. "Dull season be damned," says Ferrol to the advertisement manager—a very great person, drawing five thousand a year, commissions and salary, and with it all dependent on Ferrol. In two minutes Ferrol has produced a "scheme"—an idea that may be worth thousands of pounds to the paper. "Splendid," says the advertisement manager. "Get ahead with it," says Ferrol....

In ten minutes it is as if there had been an eruption¹⁶ in every department of the grey building. The fault-finding words in the red room with the buttons drop like stones in a pool, making widening rings, until they reach the humblest junior in every department—Ferrol is back, and the office knows it!...

Trinder reappears. Mr Quain wrote the article ... and Ferrol suddenly remembers.

So the boy has been doing well. Both Neckinger and Rivers approve of Humphrey. "Not a brilliant genius, thank God!" says Rivers, "but a good straightforward¹⁷ man. Very sound."

Thus is Ferrol justified¹⁸ once more in his perception for the right man. His thoughts travelled back once more to Easterham, to the days when he himself was Humphrey's age, to the days of Margaret, and the white memories of his only romance. Strange that the vision of her should always stand out against the thousand complexities¹⁹ of his life after all these years. He saw her just as he had last seen her, eyes of a deep darkness, and black hair that seemed by contrast to heighten the dusky pallor of her skin. A child that was too frail²⁰ to live, and yet she had inspired him in these long distant days.

[180]

It was astonishing to think that she had had a separate life of her own; that she had married and passed out of the scheme of things. She was dead, and yet she came knocking like this at queer, irregular intervals²¹, at the door of his life.

And Ferrol was drawn²² with a strange attraction towards this boy who was her son; he came as if he were a message from Margaret, holding out her hands to him, across the unfathomable abyss of Space and Time. "Now you can repay," she seemed to say.

"Well, Quain," said Ferrol, as Humphrey came into the room.

Ferrol masked his sentiments behind the crisp, hard voice that he always cultivated in the office. Nobody could have guessed from his treatment of Humphrey that he regarded the boy with any particular favour. Ferrol knew well enough how to handle men: they must be made always to believe that they are firm and independent, and it does not do to let them see the props²³ and supports that hold them up.

Humphrey was busily searching for the reason of this summons to Ferrol's room. It was only the third time that he had been in this broad red room, yet already his nervousness vanished, he no longer feared his greatness, or the comprehensive power of the man with the black moustache and the strong hands that held in their grip all the fortunes of The Day. He stood there, by Ferrol's desk, so changed, so different from the timid Humphrey who had felt the floor sinking beneath him when he faced, for the first time, this man whose potentiality he could not grasp. There was little outward difference, save, perhaps, the lips compressed a little tighter, and a frown that came and went, but inwardly the timid Humphrey had gone, and in its[181] place there was a bolder Humphrey, whose mind was all the better for the bruises²⁴ of battle.

"Well, Quain," said Ferrol, moving papers about his desk, and regarding Humphrey all the time with those penetrating²⁵ grey eyes.

"You sent for me, sir?" Humphrey asked.

"Yes." Ferrol paused. "Getting on all right?" he blurted²⁶ out.

Humphrey smiled—Getting on! The phrase had been on his lips on that day when he had first appeared in the red room. He thought of all the things that had been crowded into his life since then. Of all that he had seen; of all the people he had met; of the glimpses into the greatness and the pettiness; the worthiness²⁷ and the unworthiness; the virtue²⁸ and the vice²⁹ and the vanity of it all. As he thought thus, he saw a blurred³⁰ composite picture of the past months, figures flitting to and fro, men striving in the underworld of endeavour, work, work, and a little love, and, in the background, a whimsical picture of his aunt who preached the stern gospel of Getting On, without knowing what it really meant.

"I'm going to have you put on better work," Ferrol said. How the boy's eyes sparkled and lit up his face! "Mr Rivers is quite satisfied. You shall do some of the descriptive work. Think you'll be able to do as well as John K. Garton one day?"

John K. Garton!—he was the great descriptive writer of The Day, the man who signed every article he wrote, who was never seen in the reporters' room, except when he looked in for letters; a being who seemed to Humphrey to belong to quite another sphere, above Wratten, above Kenneth Carr, above all the reporters in salary and reputation. He was one of Ferrol's products: all England knew of him, and read his work as special correspondent, yet Ferrol could put a finger on a button, you know....

Humphrey laughed. "Oh, I don't know, Mr Ferrol,"[182] he said, awkwardly. "My work would probably be quite different, I couldn't write in his style."

"That's right," said Ferrol. "Try and find an individual style of your own. No room for imitators here. Still, there's plenty of time to talk about that. I just wanted to let you know I've had my eye on you." Ferrol nodded, Humphrey turned to go.

Then he remembered he was going to ask Ferrol for a rise in salary. He came back to the desk.

"Oh, Mr Ferrol," he said, "I ought to tell you, I'm going to be married."

Ferrol pushed his pad aside. What a fool he had been to think he could constitute himself the only influence in this boy's career. How was it he had overlooked the one important factor—a woman. It came so suddenly, this revelation of Humphrey's intimate life, and all at once Ferrol found himself swayed with an unreasoning dislike of this unknown woman—it was an absurd feeling of jealousy³¹.—Yes, he was jealous that anybody should exercise a greater influence than himself over Humphrey, now that he had decided³² to push him forward to success.

"Married!" he said, harshly, "you damned young fool!"

The words came as a blow in the face. Humphrey flushed, and found that he could not speak. He thought of Ferrol's soft words that had opened up such illimitable visions of the future, and then, quite unexpectedly—this.

"Somebody in Easterham?" asked Ferrol.

"Oh no! Nobody in Easterham. She lives in London. She's in Fleet Street."

"A woman journalist?"

"No—she's a typist."

"You damned young fool!" Ferrol repeated. "What do you want to get married for?"

1 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

2 batter   

v.接连重击；磨损；n.牛奶面糊；击球员

参考例句：

• The batter skied to the center fielder.击球手打出一个高飞球到中外野手。
• Put a small quantity of sugar into the batter.在面糊里放少量的糖。

3 oust   

vt.剥夺，取代，驱逐

参考例句：

• The committee wanted to oust him from the union.委员会想把他从工会中驱逐出去。
• The leaders have been ousted from power by nationalists.这些领导人被民族主义者赶下了台。

4 sitting-room   

n.（BrE）客厅，起居室

参考例句：

• The sitting-room is clean.起居室很清洁。
• Each villa has a separate sitting-room.每栋别墅都有一间独立的起居室。

5 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

6 inflamed   

adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His comments have inflamed teachers all over the country. 他的评论激怒了全国教师。
• Her joints are severely inflamed. 她的关节严重发炎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 injustices   

不公平( injustice的名词复数 )； 非正义； 待…不公正； 冤枉

参考例句：

• One who committed many injustices is doomed to failure. 多行不义必自毙。
• He felt confident that his injustices would be righted. 他相信他的冤屈会受到昭雪的。

8 outweigh   

vt.比...更重，...更重要

参考例句：

• The merits of your plan outweigh the defects.你制定的计划其优点胜过缺点。
• One's merits outweigh one's short-comings.功大于过。

9 transparently   

明亮地，显然地，易觉察地

参考例句：

• "Clearly plots,'said Jacques Three. "Transparently!" “显然是搞阴谋，”雅克三号说，“再清楚不过了。” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• All design transparently, convenient for the file identification inside the bag. 全透明设计，方便袋内文件识别。

10 quotations   

n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价

参考例句：

• The insurance company requires three quotations for repairs to the car. 保险公司要修理这辆汽车的三家修理厂的报价单。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These quotations cannot readily be traced to their sources. 这些引语很难查出出自何处。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 hustled   

催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He grabbed her arm and hustled her out of the room. 他抓住她的胳膊把她推出房间。
• The secret service agents hustled the speaker out of the amphitheater. 特务机关的代理人把演讲者驱逐出竞技场。

12 nervously   

adv.神情激动地，不安地

参考例句：

• He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇，努力忍着不哭出来。
• He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。

13 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

14 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

15 perspiration   

n.汗水；出汗

参考例句：

• It is so hot that my clothes are wet with perspiration.天太热了，我的衣服被汗水湿透了。
• The perspiration was running down my back.汗从我背上淌下来。

16 eruption   

n.火山爆发；（战争等）爆发；（疾病等）发作

参考例句：

• The temple was destroyed in the violent eruption of 1470 BC.庙宇在公元前1470年猛烈的火山爆发中摧毁了。
• The eruption of a volcano is spontaneous.火山的爆发是自发的。

17 straightforward   

adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的

参考例句：

• A straightforward talk is better than a flowery speech.巧言不如直说。
• I must insist on your giving me a straightforward answer.我一定要你给我一个直截了当的回答。

18 justified   

a.正当的，有理的

参考例句：

• She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
• The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。

19 complexities   

复杂性(complexity的名词复数)； 复杂的事物

参考例句：

• The complexities of life bothered him. 生活的复杂使他困惑。
• The complexities of life bothered me. 生活的杂乱事儿使我心烦。

20 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。

21 intervals   

n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息

参考例句：

• The forecast said there would be sunny intervals and showers. 预报间晴，有阵雨。
• Meetings take place at fortnightly intervals. 每两周开一次会。

22 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

23 props   

小道具； 支柱( prop的名词复数 )； 支持者； 道具； （橄榄球中的）支柱前锋

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The government props up the prices of farm products to support farmers' incomes. 政府保持农产品价格不变以保障农民们的收入。

24 bruises   

n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was covered with bruises after falling off his bicycle. 他从自行车上摔了下来，摔得浑身伤痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The pear had bruises of dark spots. 这个梨子有碰伤的黑斑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

25 penetrating   

adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的

参考例句：

• He had an extraordinarily penetrating gaze. 他的目光有股异乎寻常的洞察力。
• He examined the man with a penetrating gaze. 他以锐利的目光仔细观察了那个人。

26 blurted   

v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She blurted it out before I could stop her. 我还没来得及制止，她已脱口而出。
• He blurted out the truth, that he committed the crime. 他不慎说出了真相，说是他犯了那个罪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

27 worthiness   

价值，值得

参考例句：

• It'satisfies the spraying robot's function requirement and has practical worthiness. " 运行试验表明，系统工作稳定可靠，满足了喷雾机器人的功能要求，具有实用价值。
• The judge will evaluate the worthiness of these claims. 法官会评估这些索赔的价值。

28 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

29 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

30 blurred   

v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离

参考例句：

• She suffered from dizziness and blurred vision. 她饱受头晕目眩之苦。
• Their lazy, blurred voices fell pleasantly on his ears. 他们那种慢吞吞、含糊不清的声音在他听起来却很悦耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》

31 jealousy   

n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌

参考例句：

• Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
• I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。

32 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。