The Fiend in Human by John MacLachlan Gray Page B

upon whose awful precipice they sit. You may take my word on it, Sir, Mr Owler shines as a beacon of integrity. Mr Owler has been a steadfast friend to me, Sir – indeed, more than a friend …’
    Aware that he is not out of danger and with no escape in sight, Whitty chooses an aspect of judicious, measured dignity.
    ‘I accept your estimation, Sir, that the issues of which you speak are of unexampled gravity.’
    The poet laughs ruefully. ‘I fear that the damage to your reputation will put you in the manure business yourself, Henry.’
    ‘If not the workhouse, Jeremy. And what’s to become of the young women in my care? As I am known to say, Sir, life goes on – whether we like it or not. You what has noted those wretched female carcasses in the courtyard, I leave you to your conclusions as to my fears.’
    Thinks Whitty: Clearly for wretches such as these, the great fear is not death so much as the cruelty of survival, the consequent suffering when ‘life goes on’.
    Cautions the poet: ‘While your agitation is not without reason, Henry, reason also suggests that you give thought to the disposition of your daughter. A girl of exceptional character if I may say so, I who know her as well as if she were my own.’
    ‘That is true, Jeremy. Both Phoebe and Dorcas will endure cold and wet and starvation before applying to the Union and winding up in the workhouse.’

    ‘It is not right, young girls breaking stones and picking oakum like convicts.’
    ‘Not to mention the attentions of the porter. It don’t bear thinking, Sir.’
    ‘The workhouse is for girls who have only their virginity to sell.’
    ‘True for you, Jeremy. Do you agree, Mr Whitty?’
    The correspondent nods back and forth, wearing an agreeable, serious expression. It is not a pleasant business to encounter someone who faces ruin as a result of a thing one has written, and is now in a position to do the writer harm in return.
    ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Owler, but I hope you will accord me the assumption of honest intent. I had no wish to do you harm.’
    ‘I assume so, Sir, and in that spirit I shall therefore undertake to prove you wrong. Should I be successful, I trust that you will do the honourable thing and return a man’s reputation to him. Does that seem the right course, Sir?’
    ‘Indeed, Mr Owler. Wholeheartedly. If I were proven to be in error, professional ethics require a prompt correction.’ Not necessarily true, thinks Whitty, but this is no time for hair-splitting.
    ‘May I have your word on that, Sir? As a gentleman?’ Owler puts out his hand, which the correspondent grasps as required. The patterer’s palm is like wood to the touch.
    ‘Indeed, Sir, you have my word as a gentleman.’
    (In actual fact, the correspondent has reason to doubt both his status as a gentleman and the likelihood of persuading The Falcon to retract, it being general policy not to do so unless under threat of a lawsuit, a parliamentary hearing or the imminent removal of the correspondent’s kneecaps.)
    Owler’s face reassumes that open aspect which Whitty finds so troublesome, for there is nothing more mortifying than honest gullibility. ‘Now that we have resolved the measure to our mutual satisfaction, Mr Whitty, I propose some wictuals. Well, Gentlemen? Some material sustenance to sustain the wital organs?’
    ‘With pleasure, Henry,’ replies Mr Hollow, nearly in tears at the prospect.
    ‘Absolutely delighted,’ adds the correspondent, relighting his stub of a cigar against the smells to come.
    Appropriating three of the correspondent’s coppers, the patterer approaches the stove at the far end of the room and places them into the open hand of the keeper of the stove, a sharp-eyed crone in a brown
night-gown, who ladles out three bowls of a thick, steaming substance from an enormous iron pot. Now Whitty stares into the battered tin vessel before him, as blackened and grease-encrusted as the stove itself, wherein lies a thick grey