England Made Me by Graham Greene Page B

quickly into his pocket and got up, ‘business calls. Bread and butter. The squalid necessity of earning money.’
    â€˜The editor,’ Nils said, ‘wants to see you.’
    â€˜Trouble?’
    â€˜Yes, I think so.’
    â€˜I can face him,’ Minty said. ‘I have fifteen pounds in my pocket; I have heard from the Family.’ He walked boldly out and round the corner; his shortness, his long black coat made him ridiculous, people smiled at him and he knew why they smiled. It had been poison to him once, but that was many years ago. He had taken the poison so often in small doses, dodging between side street and side street, that now like Mithridates he was immune. He could come out into the main streets, he could stand and talk to himself and plume his dusty image in the windows of haberdashers, minding the smiles hardly at all; only a little malice stirred in his veins, moved with the blood stream.
    It stirred, after the long stairs, the machine-room, the opening and closing of glass doors, at sight of the editor. He resented the red military moustache, the curtness, the efficiency; one might as well work in a factory and have done with it. ‘Well, Herr Minty?’
    â€˜I was told you wanted to see me.’
    â€˜Where was Herr Krogh yesterday evening?’
    â€˜I just went to snatch a cup of tea. There was no reason why he should leave the Legation like that.’
    The editor said: ‘We are not receiving very much from you, Herr Minty. There are plenty of men we can employ for outside work. I think we may have to try someone else. You haven’t a trained eye for news.’ He blew out his chest and said suddenly: ‘Your health is not good enough, Herr Minty. That cup of tea. A Swede would not have needed a cup of tea. Poison. You probably take it strong.’
    â€˜Very weak, Herr Redakteur, cold, with lemon.’
    â€˜You should exercise yourself, Herr Minty. Have you a wireless set?’
    Minty shook his head. Patience, he thought with venom, patience.
    â€˜If you had a wireless set you could exercise as I do every morning under a first-class instructor. Do you take a cold bath?’
    â€˜A tepid bath, Herr Redakteur.’
    â€˜All my reporters take cold baths. You cannot be efficient, Herr Minty, with a bent back, an undeveloped chest, poor muscles.’
    But this was the familiar poison. He had been slowly broken in by parents, by schoolmasters, by strangers in the street. Crooked and yellow and pigeon-chested, he had his deep refuge, the inexhaustible ingenuity of his mind. He blinked his scorched eyes and said with brave perkiness: ‘So I’m discharged?’
    â€˜The next time you let slip an opportunity . . .’
    â€˜I would rather leave now,’ Minty said, ‘when I have something to sell.’
    â€˜What have you to sell?’
    â€˜A friend of mine, Miss Farrant’s brother, has joined the firm. A confidential position.’
    â€˜You know very well that you get the best price from us.’
    â€˜For that,’ Minty said, ‘but for this?’ and he snapped a visiting-card on to the desk. It was stained with mud. ‘She never got the flowers,’ Minty said. ‘They just fell in the road. That’s what comes of employing athletic reporters. They can’t throw straight. You ought to have come to Minty.’ He wagged his finger and left the room; he was quite drunk on two cups of coffee, his monthly cheque, on Aunt Ella’s letter. In the reporters’ room he saw Nils. ‘I put him in his place,’ he said. ‘He won’t trouble me again for a while. Has Krogh left the flat yet?’
    â€˜No. I’ve just rung up the porter.’
    â€˜He’s late,’ Minty said. ‘Re-union, eh, Nils? A Night of Love. We’re all human,’ he said, sucking in his cheeks, shivering in the draught from the wide window, seeking malevolently for a stray