CHAPTER NINE
LADY POMFRET INTERVENESLet us now visit calmer scenes.
In the Polyanthus Club Mr. Johns was having lunch with two acquaintances. One was the brother publisher, Mr. Bungay, whom we have heard Mrs. Rivers mention as a rival to Mr. Johns for her best-sellers. Mr. Bungay is the present representative of the house in Paternoster Row founded some hundred years ago by his great-grandfather. In the middle of last century their most serious rival was the house of Bacon, who made a great hit with three-volume novels by people of fashion, but in 1887 an amalgamation took place, Messrs. Bungay taking over all the assets and liabilities of Messrs. Bacon, together with their copyright in the works of Arthur Pendennis Esq. and other well-known novelists of the day, works for which there is
