You see a shareholder in a paper has a good deal of influence, especially if he has as much as a hundred thousand shares.

You'd be surprised if I told you the real names of some of the fellows who control newspaper syndicates!--you wouldn't believe it! Or at any rate, if you _did_ believe it, you'd never believe the newspapers!" "I don't believe them now,"-- said Helmsley--"They say one thing to-day and contradict it to-morrow." "Oh, but that's like all news!" said Mary, placidly--"Even in our little village here, you never know quite what to believe.

One morning you are told that Mrs.Badge's baby has fallen downstairs and broken its neck, and you've scarcely done being sorry for Mrs.Badge, when in comes Mrs.
Badge herself, baby and all, quite well and smiling, and she says she 'never did hear such tales as there are in Wiercombe'!" They all laughed.
"Well, there's the end of my story,"-- said Angus--"I worked on the syndicate for two years, and then was given the sack.

The cause of my dismissal was, as I told you, that I published a leading article exposing a mean and dirty financial trick on the part of a man who publicly assumed to be a world's benefactor--and he turned out to be a shareholder in the paper under an 'alias.' There was no hope for me after that--it was a worse affair than that of Mrs.Mushroom Ketchup.

So I marched out of the office, and out of London--I meant to make for Exmoor, which is wild and solitary, because I thought I might find some cheap room in a cottage there, where I might live quietly on almost nothing and write my book--but I stumbled by chance on this place instead--and I rather like being so close to the sea." "You are writing a book ?" said Mary, her eyes resting upon him thoughtfully.
"Yes.