Fadge, a younger man, did reviewing for The Balance; he was in needy circumstances, and had wrought himself into Yule's good opinion by judicious flattery.

But with a clear eye for the main chance Mr Fadge soon perceived that Yule could only be of temporary use to him, and that the editor of a well-established weekly which lost no opportunity of throwing scorn upon Yule and all his works would be a much more profitable conquest.
He succeeded in transferring his services to the more flourishing paper, and struck out a special line of work by the free exercise of a malicious flippancy which was then without rival in the periodical press.

When he had thoroughly got his hand in, it fell to Mr Fadge, in the mere way of business, to review a volume of his old editor's, a rather pretentious and longwinded but far from worthless essay 'On Imagination as a National Characteristic.' The notice was a masterpiece; its exquisite virulence set the literary circles chuckling.

Concerning the authorship there was no mystery, and Alfred Yule had the indiscretion to make a violent reply, a savage assault upon Fadge, in the columns of The Balance.

Fadge desired nothing better; the uproar which arose--chaff, fury, grave comments, sneering spite--could only result in drawing universal attention to his anonymous cleverness, and throwing ridicule upon the heavy, conscientious man.