“But it isn’t at all what I wanted,” wailed the Sea Lady, with the Daily Gunfire in her hand. “Can’t it be stopped?”
“You don’t know our journalists,” said Fred.
The tact of my cousin Melville saved the situation. He had dabbled in journalism and talked with literary fellows like myself. And literary fellows like myself are apt at times to be very free and outspoken about the press. He heard of the Buntings’ shrinking terror of publicity as soon as he arrived, a perfect clamour—an almost exultant clamour indeed, of shrinking terror, and he caught the Sea Lady’s eye and took his line there and then.
“It’s not an occasion for sticking at trifles, Mrs. Bunting,” he said. “But I think we can save the situation all the same. You’re too hopeless. We must put our foot down at once; that’s all.
