The day after this troy-weight function had taken place in Vienna, long telegraphic accounts of it appeared in the English press, and several solemn leading articles were put forward in the editorial columns, which, without mentioning the name of the _Daily Bugle_, deplored the voracity of the sensational editor, who respected neither the amity which should exist between friendly nations, nor the good name of the honoured and respected dead, in his wolfish hunt for the daily scandal. Nothing was too high-spiced or improbable for him to print. He traded on the supposed gullibility of a fickle public. But, fortunately, in the long run, these staid sheets asserted, such actions recoiled upon the head of him who promulgated them. Sensational journals merited and received the scathing contempt of all honest men. Later on, one of the reviews had an article entitled "Some Aspects of Modern Journalism," which battered in the head of the _Daily Bugle_ as with a sledge hammer, and in one of the quarterlies a professor at Cambridge showed the absurdity of the alleged invention from a scientific point of view.
"I swear," cried Mr. Hardwick, as he paced up and down his room, "that I shall be more careful after this in the handling of truth; it is a most dangerous thing to meddle with. If you tell the truth about a man, you are mulcted in a libel suit, and if you tell the truth about a nation, the united Press of the country are down upon you. Ah, well, it makes the battle of life all the more interesting, and we are baffled to fight better, as Browning says."
The editor had sent for Miss Baxter, and she now sat by his desk while he paced nervously to and fro. The doors were closed and locked so that they might not be interrupted, and she knew by the editor's manner that something important was on hand. Jennie had returned to London after a month's stay in Vienna, and had been occupied for a week at her old routine work in the office.
"Now, Miss Baxter," said the editor, when he had proclaimed his distrust of the truth as a workable material in journalism, "I have a plan to set before you, and when you know what it is, I am quite prepared to hear you refuse to have anything to do with it. And, remember, if you _do_ undertake it, there is but one chance in a million of your succeeding. It is on this one chance that I propose now to send you to St. Petersburg--"