We chose it because it has such a glorious office, and a clock outside lighted up.
'Oh, news,' said he, 'and dull articles, and things about Celebrities. If you know any Celebrities, now?'
Noel asked him what Celebrities were.
'Oh, the Queen and the Princes, and people with titles, and people who write, or sing, or act - or do something clever or wicked.'
'I don't know anybody wicked,' said Oswald, wishing he had known Dick Turpin, or Claude Duval, so as to be able to tell the Editor things about them. 'But I know some one with a title - Lord Tottenham.'
'The mad old Protectionist, eh? How did you come to know him?'
'We don't know him to speak to. But he goes over the Heath every day at three, and he strides along like a giant - with a black cloak like Lord Tennyson's flying behind him, and he talks to himself like one o'clock.'
'What does he say?' The Editor had sat down again, and he was fiddling with a blue pencil.
'We only heard him once, close enough to understand, and then he said, "The curse of the country, sir - ruin and desolation!" And then he went striding along again, hitting at the furze-bushes as if they were the heads of his enemies.'
'Excellent descriptive touch,' said the Editor. 'Well, go on.'
'That's all I know about him, except that he stops in the middle of the Heath every day, and he looks all round to see if there's any one about, and if there isn't, he takes his collar off.'
The Editor interrupted - which is considered rude - and said -'You're not romancing?'
'I beg your pardon?' said Oswald.
'Drawing the long bow, I mean,' said the Editor.
Oswald drew himself up, and said he wasn't a liar.
The Editor only laughed, and said romancing and lying were not at all the same; only it was important to know what you were playing at. So Oswald accepted his apology, and went on.
'We were hiding among the furze-bushes one day, and we saw him do it. He took off his collar, and he put on a clean one, and he threw the other among the furze-bushes. We picked it up afterwards, and it was a beastly paper one!'