The hostility of other reviewers was awkward and ineffectual compared with this venomous banter, which entertained by showing that in the book under notice there was neither entertainment nor any other kind of interest.

To assail an author without increasing the number of his readers is the perfection of journalistic skill, and The Current, had it stood alone, would fully have achieved this end.

As it was, silence might have been better tactics.

But Mr Fadge knew that his enemy would smart under the poisoned pin-points, and that was something gained.
On the day that The Current appeared, its treatment of Alfred Yule was discussed in Mr Jedwood's private office.

Mr Quarmby, who had intimate relations with the publisher, happened to look in just as a young man (one of Mr Jedwood's 'readers') was expressing a doubt whether Fadge himself was the author of the review.
'But there's Fadge's thumb-mark all down the page,' cried Mr Quarmby.
'He inspired the thing, of course; but I rather think it was written by that fellow Milvain.' 'Think so ?' asked the publisher.
'Well, I know with certainty that the notice of Markland's novel is his writing, and I have reasons for suspecting that he did Yule's book as well.' 'Smart youngster, that,' remarked Mr Jedwood.