“We didn’t go on the Mayflower,” Earl reminded him. “We’re still here.”

“And they’re still probably using the same damn one! I swear I saw a pen with a quill. I’m surprised there’s a telephone.”

“There wasn’t,” Earl said cheerfully, “last time I was there.”

“When was that?” Gabe wanted to know. “Last week?”

“Tut-tut,” Earl admonished. “Sarcasm won’t get you anywhere with these people. They are fixtures-”

“You can say that again.” Made of stone, if Gabe’s first impression was accurate.

They had all assembled in the main room when he arrived-two reporters, a receptionist-cum-tea-lady, the printer and the office manager all lined up in a row and bowed and scraped and tugged their forelocks when he’d come in.

He’d been appalled, but, taking a page from Randall’s book, had very firmly told them that things were about to change, that they were going to make a profitable paper out of the Gazette and he was going to tell them exactly how to do it.

“Yes, Mr. McBride.”

“Quite so, Mr. McBride.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. McBride.”

“We need a computer,” he told the office manager, Percy Pomfret-Mumphrey, a man as pompous and fussy as his name.

“A computer?” Percy squeaked.

“Software,” Gabe went on relentlessly. “We’ll need a database. A spreadsheet. We’ll want to enter the subscription list. The advertisers. We can look into offset printing,” he told John the printer. “And we need an answering machine,” he told Beatrice the receptionist who let the phone ring fifteen times-he’d counted-while she poured everyone a cup of tea.

“Offset printing?” John the printer wrinkled his nose.

“An answering machine?” Beatrice didn’t look as if she’d ever heard of one.