Lennox Mark, the owner of "The Daily Legion", was brought up in the (fictitious) African country of Zinariya, where he got to know, and was taught to distinguish right from wrong, by Father Vivyan, a man 15 years his senior. Although he had discovered his spirituality there, after moving to England and taking over "The Daily Legion", Mark's faith was superseded by greed, gluttony, and other signs of a thoroughly capitalistic view of the world. His wealth is based on the exploitation of the native Zinariyans who work in the local copper mines. Having forged a successful alliance with General Bindiga, the dictator of Zinariya, and publicly supporting him through his paper in spite of blatant human rights violations in that country, Mark has seemingly stopped listening to his conscience altogether. Now in his mid-fifties, the only ambition he has is a peerage: He wants "nothing more than to drape himself with dead animal skins and […] make obeisance to his tribal chieftainess".