Uttering a silent prayer to nothing in particular, he pushes through the heavy door and into the editor's cheerless office - choked with cigar smoke, splattered with ink, and in a state of perpetual vibration, thanks to the presses and other machinery in the bowels of the building. Never pleasant, the office is made more hideous thanks to gaslight, which has replaced the evil-smelling moon-glow of tallow. Now every splash of dried ink on the Turkey carpet, every layer of dust, every greasy finger-spot, every chip and crack in the plaster bust of some worthy from a previous administration, stands out in macabre relief. The complexions of the occupants (even those who have drunk deep at luncheon) glow with a corpse-like pallor. Hunched over their desks beneath the monstrous, clattering clock, Algernon Sala and his sycophantic chorus of sub-editors and sub-sub editors appear as in a ghastly intaglio print, an allegorical representation of some death-dealing bureaucracy, charged with administering the mortal procedure of disease and decay.
Which, in a way, is not far from the fact.
Sala sits in the geographical centre of the room like the yolk of an egg, half-visible behind a bruised oaken desk piled high with the business of the day: competing publications to be slandered, novels to be butchered, characters to be assassinated, requests for employment to be ignored.
Presiding over this terminus of shattered hopes, the editor rests his bulk in a creaking, cane-bottomed armchair as he shuffles myopically through packets of telegraphs, newspaper clippings, hand-written reports, scribbled rumours and lies.
In a slow news period, it falls upon the editor to construct issues virtually out of whole cloth, to apply sensational lard to bare bones of facts. In this quest, Sala operates as both master and bird-dog, scanning his desk for meat, then barking a header, to be chewed into copy by his pack of hounds.
Whitty looks down upon his old friend with a mixture of fascination and disquiet. In particular, he wonders at the capacity of the editor to talk, even to think, in the form of newspaper headlines. This facility has enabled Sala to survive a remarkable ten years in this snake pit of intrigue, despite the unconcealed, patronizing scorn of his Proprietor, for whom it is axiomatic that one understands newspapers by reading them, and controls the news by owning it.
To Whitty, it is their shared impotence against powers beyond their control which accounts for their tacit alliance through feast and famine: hence, when on an upswing, Whitty refrains from snapping at competing offers, and when in defeat, Sala does not throw him down the drain. It is the nearest thing to security Whitty has ever known.
At the same time, The Falcon has taken a heavy toll on both men.
While at Oxford, Algernon Sala excelled in debate, wrote voluminously, even published an edition of presentable verse. Today, he is like a missionary who has spent too many years speaking pidgin:
"Fellow of King's College dies from anuris of the aorta during visit with prostitute! Header - His Last Seminar! Subhead, Dead in the Arms of a Fallen Woman!"
"Couple convicted of starving servant-Girl, weight 59 pounds, teeming with vermin! Header - Atrocious Abuse of Servant-Girl! Subhead, Beastly and Outrageous Treatment!"
Observing from the opposite side of the desk, as yet unnoticed, Whitty sees that his friend's eyes have become inflamed, as though by the language he is reduced to working with.
"Good-day to you, Algy. I say old chap, your hyperbole is worthy of the Gothics - absolutely top drawer."
"Edmund, dear fellow! Take a seat! I say, you look fecking hale and healthy - Weighty Matters Cast Aside, sort of thing?" The editor's monocle glints at the correspondent

like the spotlight of a distant search-party.
"Positively of the first water Algy. Flush with the bloom of cash and collateral."
"I wish The Falcon could say the same, Edmund. Crimea over and done with, cholera gone from the rookeries, royals relatively continent - we are scraping the bloody dregs for shocking outrages, old man. It’s a disaster, haven't been out of my clothes since Wednesday." Returning his attention to the raw meat splayed on his desk, Sala continues:
"Kansas Abolitionist Hacks 5 To Death! Header - Barbarity Reigns In America! No, better - Severed Heads on the Kansas Plain!"
"Student murders mistress, saws up body! Header - Student Dismembers Mistress! Bishop Cites Lack of Religious Instruction..."
"Stop, Algy, stop! Give us a moment, will you?"
At the sound of Whitty's voice, Sala's attention returns to the here-and-now. "Sorry, old chap. There is something obsessive about the writing of fiction.”
"This will be the death of you, Algy,” says Whitty. “There is more to life than journalism, as surely you know."
"I do not. But you, seemingly, do. Damn me. you’ve supplied not a scrap of copy in a fortnight!"
"Not my fault, old boy. The Falcon hasn't seen fit to publish."
"Your last item had already appeared in Dodd's. And the one before that."
"The point stands. You did not see fit to publish."
"How could I? To do otherwise would violate the Proprietor's fundamental policy - First In All, Second To None."
"What the devil is that supposed to mean?"
"That timing is everything - When to strike, when to draw back... "
"And when to play another game entirely." Whitty puffs his cigar while staring inscrutably into space.
A pause, while the monocle examines him for clues.
As happens often in these conversations, Whitty has no idea what he meant by that last retort. That is one of the difficulties in playing it by ear, in brassing it out: one can talk oneself into performing a face-plant upon the editor's Turkey carpet.
The monocle glitters in the narrow space that separates Sala's beard and brow. "You seem remarkably sanguine amid the prevailing drought, old man."
"Sanguine indeed." This last remark came from Mr. Cream, the sub-editor, seated behind Sala and to the side, a vole-shaped man with a spidery mustache and a squint. "Mr. Whitty is surprisingly sanguine amid the current infecundity." Receiving no reply other than a withering look from both men, Cream returns to the copy of Lloyd's on his desk.
"Other activities have sparked my interest," Whitty says.
"Well come out with it, old chap. Inheritance from a distant aunt? Cash Pours From Unlikely Source, sort of thing?" Sala removes his monocle and cleans it with his handkerchief, an indicator of concern.
"Other irons in the fire, Algy. Hunches Bear Fruit. Investments Accrue."
Sala's exposed eye narrows before the monocle returns to its position. "Congratulations, old boy, I must say. But surely you didn't undertake the journey to our office just to declare your disinterest in the profession."
"Quite so," contributes Cream, attempting a conspiratorial wink in the direction of his superior. "A paradoxical peregrination, surely."
While Cream dislikes correspondents as a general rule, his loathing for Whitty is closer to the bone. It is not just the envy of an homely man for a handsome one, nor the disdain of the prig for the bon vivant. It takes all of these and more to create a dislike as intense as this.