meet me properly, then for the next few days we can control public opinion. If not, then it is my duty to publish, and if I'm not officially backed up there may be war in a week. Macedonia would be flaming, Turkish fanatics would embroil Europe. But that will be seen at once in Downing Street, unless I'm very much mistaken."
"It's an awful, horrible risk we are running," said Spence. He was forgetting all personal impressions in the excitement of the work; the journalist was alive in him. "Hands's letter and diagrams seem so flawless; he has exhausted every means of disproving what he says; but still supposing that it is all untrue!"
"I look at it this way," said Ommaney. "It's perfectly obvious, at any rate, that the discovery is of the first importance, regarded as news. Hands has the reputation of being a thoroughly safe man, and now he is supported by Schmöulder. Schmöulder is, of course, a man of world-wide reputation. As these two are certain, even if later opinion or discovery proves the thing to be untrue, the paper can't suffer. Our attitude will, of course, be non-committal, until certainty one way or the other comes. At any rate, it seems to me that you have brought in the greatest newspaper 'scoop' that has ever been known or thought of. For my part, I have little doubt of the truth of this. Can't go into it now, but it seems so very, very probable. It explains and even corroborates, and that's the wonderful thing, so much of the Gospel narrative. We shall see what Llwellyn says. I've more to go into, but, meanwhile, I must make arrangements for setting up Hands's papers. Then there are the inscriptions, too. Of course they must be reproduced in facsimile. As we can't print in half-tone, I must have the photograph turned into an absolutely correct line drawing, and have line blocks made. I shall
