Joseph Conrad

Within the Tides Joseph Conrad

His friend the Editor turned to him squarely. "Willie took me into consultation, and since he seemsto have let you in I may just as well tell you what is up. I shall try to be as short as I can. But inconfidence-mind!"He waited. Renouard, his uneasiness growing on him unreasonably, assented by a nod, and theother lost no time in beginning. Professor Moorsom-physicist and philosopher-fine head ofwhite hair, to judge from the photographs-plenty of brains in the head too-all these famousbooks-surely even Renouard would know. . . . Renouard muttered moodily that it wasn't his sort of reading, and his friend hastened to assure himearnestly that neither was it his sort-except as a matter of business and duty, for the literary page ofthat newspaper which was his property (and the pride of his life). The only literary newspaper in theAntipodes could not ignore the fashionable philosopher of the age. Not that anybody readMoorsom at the Antipodes, but everybody had heard of him-women, children, dock labourers, cabmen. The only person (besides himself) who had read Moorsom, as far as he knew, was oldDunster, who used to call himself a Moorsomian (or was it Moorsomite) years and years ago, longbefore Moorsom had worked himself up into the great swell he was now, in every way. . . Sociallytoo. Quite the fashion in the highest world. Renouard listened with profoundly concealed attention. "A charlatan," he muttered languidly