David picked up the proof slips and reread them.

He compared them with the paragraphs in the newspaper brought by Bulmer, and thrown by him on the table after his first outburst of helpless wrath.

They were identical in wording, of course, but, somehow, their meaning was clearer in the printed page: and David, despite his uncouth diction, was a clever man.
He wrinkled his forehead now in analysis of each line.

Soon he hit on something that puzzled him.
"Dickey," he said.
There was no answer.

The old man peering through the window seemed to have bent and whitened even since he came into the room.
"Look 'ere, Dickey," went on David, "this dashed fairy-tale won't hold water.