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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Clarion, by Samuel Hopkins Adams
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Clarion
+
+Author: Samuel Hopkins Adams
+
+Illustrator: W. D. Stevens
+
+Release Date: August 5, 2005 [EBook #16447]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CLARION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Shimmin, Robert Ledger and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "THEN IT'S ALL LIES! LIES AND MURDER!"]
+
+
+
+THE CLARION
+
+
+BY
+
+SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY W.D. STEVENS
+
+
+
+_Published October 1914_
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER MYRON ADAMS WHO LIVED AND DIED A SOLDIER OF
+IDEALS THIS BOOK IS REVERENTLY INSCRIBED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+        I. THE ITINERANT
+
+       II. OUR LEADING CITIZEN
+
+      III. ESME
+
+       IV. THE SHOP
+
+        V. THE SCION
+
+       VI. LAUNCHED
+
+      VII. THE OWNER
+
+     VIII. A PARTNERSHIP
+
+       IX. GLIMMERINGS
+
+        X. IN THE WAY OF TRADE
+
+       XI. THE INITIATE
+
+      XII. THE THIN EDGE
+
+     XIII. NEW BLOOD
+
+      XIV. THE ROOKERIES
+
+       XV. JUGGERNAUT
+
+      XVI. THE STRATEGIST
+
+     XVII. REPRISALS
+
+    XVIII. MILLY
+
+      XIX. DONNYBROOK
+
+       XX. THE LESSER TEMPTING
+
+      XXI. THE POWER OF PRINT
+
+     XXII. PATRIOTS
+
+    XXIII. CREEPING FLAME
+
+     XXIV. A FAILURE IN TACTICS
+
+      XXV. STERN LOGIC
+
+     XXVI. THE PARTING
+
+    XXVII. THE GREATER TEMPTING
+
+   XXVIII. "WHOSE BREAD I EAT"
+
+     XXIX. CERTINA CHARLEY
+
+      XXX. ILLUMINATION
+
+     XXXI. THE VOICE OF THE PROPHET
+
+    XXXII. THE WARNING
+
+   XXXIII. THE GOOD FIGHT
+
+    XXXIV. VOX POPULI
+
+     XXXV. TEMPERED METAL
+
+    XXXVI. THE VICTORY
+
+   XXXVII. MCGUIRE ELLIS WAKES UP
+
+  XXXVIII. THE CONVERT
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  "THEN IT'S ALL LIES! LIES AND MURDER!"
+
+  HELP AND CURE ARE AT THEIR BECK AND CALL
+
+  "KILL IT," SHE URGED SOFTLY
+
+  "DON'T GO NEAR HIM. DON'T LOOK"
+
+
+
+THE CLARION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE ITINERANT
+
+
+Between two flames the man stood, overlooking the crowd. A soft breeze,
+playing about the torches, sent shadows billowing across the massed folk
+on the ground. Shrewdly set with an eye to theatrical effect, these
+phares of a night threw out from the darkness the square bulk of the
+man's figure, and, reflecting garishly upward from the naked hemlock of
+the platform, accentuated, as in bronze, the bosses of the face, and
+gleamed deeply in the dark, bold eyes. Half of Marysville buzzed and
+chattered in the park-space below, together with many representatives of
+the farming country near by, for the event had been advertised with
+skilled appeal: cf. the "Canoga County Palladium," April 15, 1897, page
+4.
+
+The occupant of the platform, having paused, after a self-introductory
+trumpeting of professional claims, was slowly and with an eye to
+oratorical effect moistening lips and throat from a goblet at his elbow.
+Now, ready to resume, he raised a slow hand in an indescribable gesture
+of mingled command and benevolence. The clamor subsided to a murmur,
+over which his voice flowed and spread like oil subduing vexed waters.
+
+"Pain. Pain. Pain. The primal curse, the dominant tragedy of life. Who
+among you, dear friends, but has felt it? You men, slowly torn upon the
+rack of rheumatism; you women, with the hidden agony gnawing at your
+breast" (his roving regard was swift, like a hawk, to mark down the
+sudden, involuntary quiver of a faded slattern under one of the
+torches); "all you who have known burning nights and pallid mornings, I
+offer you r-r-r-release!"
+
+On the final word his face lighted up as from an inner fire of
+inspiration, and he flung his arms wide in an embracing benediction. The
+crowd, heavy-eyed, sodden, wondering, bent to him as the torch-fires
+bent to the breath of summer. With the subtle sense of the man who
+wrings his livelihood from human emotions, he felt the moment of his
+mastery approaching. Was it fully come yet? Were his fish securely in
+the net? Betwixt hovering hands he studied his audience.
+
+His eyes stopped with a sense of being checked by the steady regard of
+one who stood directly in front of him only a few feet away; a
+solid-built, crisply outlined man of forty, carrying himself with a
+practical erectness, upon whose face there was a rather disturbing
+half-smile. The stranger's hand was clasped in that of a little girl,
+wide-eyed, elfin, and lovely.
+
+"Release," repeated the man of the torches. "Blessed release from your
+torments. Peace out of pain."
+
+The voice was of wonderful quality, rich and unctuous, the labials
+dropping, honeyed, from the lips. It wooed the crowd, lured it, enmeshed
+it. But the magician had, a little, lost confidence in the power of his
+spell. His mind dwelt uneasily upon his well-garbed auditor. What was he
+doing there, with his keen face and worldly, confident carriage, amidst
+those clodhoppers? Was there peril in his presence? Your predatory
+creature hunts ever with fear in his heart.
+
+"Guardy," the voice of the elfin child rang silvery in the silence, as
+she pressed close to her companion. "Guardy, is he preaching?"
+
+"Yes, my dear little child." The orator saw his opportunity and swooped
+upon it, with a flash of dazzling teeth from under his pliant lips.
+"This sweet little girl asks if I am preaching. I thank her for the
+word. Preaching, indeed! Preaching a blessed gospel, for this world of
+pain and suffering; a gospel of hope and happiness and joy. I offer you,
+here, now, this moment of blessed opportunity, the priceless boon of
+health. It is within reach of the humblest and poorest as well as the
+millionaire. The blessing falls on all like the gentle rain from
+heaven."
+
+His hands, outstretched, quivering as if to shed the promised balm,
+slowly descended below the level of the platform railing. Behind the
+tricolored cheesecloth which screened him from the waist down something
+stirred. The hands ascended again into the light. In each was a bottle.
+The speaker's words came now sharp, decisive, compelling.
+
+"Here it is! Look at it, my friends. The wonder of the scientific world,
+the never-failing panacea, the despair of the doctors. All diseases
+yield to it. It revivifies the blood, reconstructs the nerves, drives
+out the poisons which corrupt the human frame. It banishes pain,
+sickness, weakness, and cheats death of his prey. Oh, grave, where is
+thy victory? Oh, death, where is thy power? Overcome by my marvelous
+discovery! Harmless as water! Sweet on the tongue as honey! Potent as a
+miracle! By the grace of Heaven, which has bestowed this secret upon me,
+I have saved five thousand men, women, and children from sure doom, in
+the last three years, through my swift and infallible remedy, Professor
+Certain's Vitalizing Mixture; as witness my undenied affidavit, sworn to
+before Almighty God and a notary public and published in every newspaper
+in the State."
+
+Wonder and hope exhaled in a sigh from the assemblage. People began to
+stir, to shift from one foot to another, to glance about them nervously.
+Professor Certain had them. It needed but the first thrust of hand into
+pocket to set the avalanche of coin rolling toward the platform. From
+near the speaker a voice piped thinly:--
+
+"Will it ease my cough?"
+
+The orator bent over, and his voice was like a benign hand upon the brow
+of suffering.
+
+"Ease it? You'll never know you had a cough after one bottle."
+
+"We-ell, gimme--"
+
+"Just a moment, my friend." The Professor was not yet ready. "Put your
+dollar back. There's enough to go around. Oh, Uncle Cal! Step up here,
+please."
+
+An old negro, very pompous and upright, made his way to the steps and
+mounted.
+
+"You all know old Uncle Cal Parks, my friends. You've seen him hobbling
+and hunching around for years, all twisted up with rheumatics. He came
+to me yesterday, begging for relief, and we began treatment with the
+Vitalizing Mixture right off. Look at him now. Show them what you can
+do, uncle."
+
+Wild-eyed, the old fellow gazed about at the people. "Glory!
+Hallelujah!" Emotional explosives left over from the previous year's
+revival burst from his lips. He broke into a stiff, but prankish
+double-shuffle.
+
+"I'd like to try some o' that on my old mare," remarked a
+facetious-minded rustic, below, and a titter followed.
+
+"Good for man or beast," retorted the Professor with smiling amiability.
+"You've seen what the Vitalizing Mixture has done for this poor old
+colored man. It will do as much or more for any of you. And the price is
+Only One Dollar!" The voice double-capitalized the words. "Don't, for
+the sake of one hundred little cents, put off the day of cure. Don't
+waste your chance. Don't let a miserable little dollar stand between you
+and death. Come, now. Who's first?"
+
+The victim of the "cough" was first, closely followed by the mare-owning
+wit. Then the whole mass seemed to be pressing forward, at once. Like
+those of a conjurer, the deft hands of the Professor pushed in and out
+of the light, snatching from below the bottles handed up to him, and
+taking in the clinking silver and fluttering greenbacks. And still they
+came, that line of grotesques, hobbling, limping, sprawling their way to
+the golden promise. Never did Pied Piper flute to creatures more
+bemused. Only once was there pause, when the dispenser of balm held
+aloft between thumb and finger a cart-wheel dollar.
+
+"Phony!" he said curtly, and flipped it far into the darkness. "Don't
+any more of you try it on," he warned, as the thwarted profferer of the
+counterfeit sidled away, and there was, in his tone, a dominant
+ferocity.
+
+Presently the line of purchasers thinned out. The Vitalizing Mixture had
+exhausted its market. But only part of the crowd had contributed to the
+levy. Mainly it was the men, whom the "spiel" had lured. Now for the
+women. The voice, the organ of a genuine artist, took on a new cadence,
+limpid and tender.
+
+"And now, we come to the sufferings of those who bear pain with the
+fortitude of the angels. Our women-folk! How many here are hiding that
+dreadful malady, cancer? Hiding it, when help and cure are at their beck
+and call. Lady," he bent swiftly to the slattern under the torch and his
+accents were a healing effluence, "with my soothing, balmy oils, you can
+cure yourself in three weeks, or your money back."
+
+"I do' know haow you knew," faltered the woman. "I ain't told no one
+yet. Kinder hoped it wa'n't thet, after all."
+
+He brooded over her compassionately. "You've suffered needlessly. Soon
+it would have been too late. The Vitalizing Mixture will keep up your
+strength, while the soothing, balmy oils drive out the poison, and heal
+up the sore. Three and a half for the two. Thank you. And is there some
+suffering friend who you can lead to the light?"
+
+The woman hesitated. She moved out to the edge of the crowd, and spoke
+earnestly to a younger woman, whose comely face was scarred with the
+chiseling of sleeplessness.
+
+"Joe, he wouldn't let me," protested the younger woman. "He'd say 't was
+a waste."
+
+"But ye'll be cured," cried the other in exaltation. "Think of it. Ye'll
+sleep again o' nights."
+
+The woman's hand went to her breast, with a piteous gesture. "Oh, my
+God! D'yeh think it could be true?" she cried.
+
+"Accourse it's true! Didn't yeh hear whut he sayed? Would he dast swear
+to it if it wasn't true?"
+
+Tremulously the younger woman moved forward, clutching her shawl about
+her.
+
+"Could yeh sell me half a bottle to try it, sir?" she asked.
+
+The vender shook his head. "Impossible, my dear madam. Contrary to my
+fixed professional rule. But, I'll tell you what I will do. If, in three
+days you're not better, you can have your money back."
+
+She began painfully to count out her coins. Reaching impatiently for his
+price, the Professor found himself looking straight into the eyes of the
+well-dressed stranger.
+
+"Are you going to take that woman's money?"
+
+The question was low-toned but quite clear. An uneasy twitching beset
+the corners of the professional brow. For just the fraction of a second,
+the outstretched hand was stayed. Then:--
+
+"That's what I am. And all the others I can get. Can I sell _you_ a
+bottle?"
+
+Behind the suavity there was the impudence of the man who is a little
+alarmed, and a little angry because of the alarm.
+
+"Why, yes," said the other coolly. "Some day I might like to know what's
+in the stuff."
+
+"Hand up your cash then. And here you are--Doctor. It _is_ 'Doctor,'
+ain't it?"
+
+"You've guessed it," returned the stranger.
+
+[Illustration: HELP AND CURE ARE AT THEIR BECK AND CALL.]
+
+At once the platform peddler became the opportunist orator again.
+
+"A fellow practitioner, in my audience, ladies and gentlemen; and doing
+me the honor of purchasing my cure. Sir," the splendid voice rose and
+soared as he addressed his newest client, "you follow the noblest of
+callings. My friends, I would rather heal a people's ills than determine
+their destinies."
+
+Giving them a moment to absorb that noble sentiment, he passed on to his
+next source of revenue: Dyspepsia. He enlarged and expatiated upon its
+symptoms until his subjects could fairly feel the grilling at the pit of
+their collective stomach. One by one they came forward, the yellow-eyed,
+the pasty-faced feeders on fried breakfasts, snatchers of hasty
+noon-meals, sleepers on gorged stomachs. About them he wove the glamour
+of his words, the arch-seducer, until the dollars fidgeted in their
+pockets.
+
+"Just one dollar the bottle, and pain is banished. Eat? You can eat a
+cord of hickory for breakfast, knots and all, and digest it in an hour.
+The Vitalizing Mixture does it."
+
+Assorted ills came next. In earlier spring it would have been pneumonia
+and coughs. Now it was the ailments that we have always with us:
+backache, headache, indigestion and always the magnificent promise. So
+he picked up the final harvest, gleaning his field.
+
+"Now,"--the rotund voice sunk into the confidential, sympathetic
+register, yet with a tone of saddened rebuke,--"there are topics that
+the lips shrink from when ladies are present. But I have a word for you
+young men. Young blood! Ah, young blood, and the fire of life! For that
+we pay a penalty. Yet we must not overpay the debt. To such as wish my
+private advice--_private_, I say, and sacredly confidential--" He broke
+off and leaned out over the railing. "Thousands have lived to bless the
+name of Professor Certain, and his friendship, at such a crisis;
+thousands, my friends. To such, I shall be available for consultation
+from nine to twelve to-morrow, at the Moscow Hotel. Remember the time
+and place. Men only. Nine to twelve. And all under the inviolable seal
+of my profession."
+
+Some quality of unexpressed insistence in the stranger--or was it the
+speaker's own uneasiness of spirit?--brought back the roving, brilliant
+eyes to the square face below.
+
+"A little blackmail on the side, eh?"
+
+The words were spoken low, but with a peculiar, abrupt crispness. This,
+then, was direct challenge. Professor Certain tautened. Should he accept
+it, or was it safer to ignore this pestilent disturber? Craft and anger
+thrust opposing counsels upon him. But determination of the issue came
+from outside.
+
+"Lemme through."
+
+From the outskirts of the crowd a rawboned giant forced his way inward.
+He was gaunt and unkempt as a weed in winter.
+
+"Here's trouble," remarked a man at the front. "Allus comes with a
+Hardscrabbler."
+
+"What's a Hardscrabbler?" queried the well-dressed man.
+
+"Feller from the Hardscrabble Settlement over on Corsica Lake. Tough
+lot, they are. Make their own laws, when they want any; run their place
+to suit themselves. Ain't much they ain't up to. Hoss-stealin',
+barn-burnin', boot-leggin', an' murder thrown in when--"
+
+"Be you the doctor was to Corsica Village two years ago?" The newcomer's
+high, droning voice cut short the explanation.
+
+"I was there, my friend. Testimonials and letters from some of your
+leading citizens attest the work--"
+
+"You give my woman morpheean." There was a hideous edged intonation in
+the word, like the whine of some plaintive and dangerous animal.
+
+"My friend!" The Professor's hand went forth in repressive deprecation.
+"We physicians give what seems to us best, in these cases."
+
+"A reg'lar doctor from Burnham seen her," pursued the Hardscrabbler, in
+the same thin wail, moving nearer, but not again raising his eyes to the
+other's face. Instead, his gaze seemed fixed upon the man's shining
+expanse of waistcoat. "He said you doped her with the morpheean you give
+her."
+
+"So your chickens come home to roost, Professor," said the stranger, in
+a half-voice.
+
+"Impossible," declared the Professor, addressing the Hardscrabbler. "You
+misunderstood him."
+
+"They took my woman away. They took her to the 'sylum."
+
+Foreboding peril, the people nearest the uncouth visitor had drawn away.
+Only the stranger held his ground; more than held it, indeed, for he
+edged almost imperceptibly nearer. He had noticed a fleck of red on the
+matted beard, where the lip had been bitten into. Also he saw that the
+Professor, whose gaze had so timorously shifted from his, was intent,
+recognizing danger; intent, and unafraid before the threat.
+
+"She used to cry fer it, my woman. Cry fer the morpheean like a baby."
+He sagged a step forward. "She don't haff to cry no more. She's dead."
+
+Whence had the knife leapt, to gleam so viciously in his hand? Almost as
+swiftly as it was drawn, the healer had snatched one of the heavy
+torch-poles from its socket. Almost, not quite. The fury leapt and
+struck; struck for that shining waistcoat, upon which his regard had
+concentrated, with an upward lunge, the most surely deadly blow known to
+the knife-fighter. Two other movements coincided, to the instant. From
+the curtain of cheesecloth the slight form of a boy shot upward, with
+brandished arms; and the square-built man reached the Hardscrabbler's
+jaw with a powerful and accurate swing. There was a scream of pain, a
+roar from the crowd, and an answering bellow from the quack in midair,
+for he had launched his formidable bulk over the rail, to plunge, a
+crushing weight, upon the would-be murderer, who lay stunned on the
+grass. For a moment the avenger ground him, with knees and fists; then
+was up and back on the platform. Already the city man had gained the
+flooring, and was bending above the child. There was a sprinkle of blood
+on the bright, rough boards.
+
+"Oh, my God! Boy-ee! Has he killed you?"
+
+"No: he isn't killed," said the stranger curtly. "Keep the people back.
+Lift down that torch."
+
+The Professor wavered on his legs, grasping at the rail for support.
+
+"You _are_ a doctor?" he gasped.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can you save him? Any money--"
+
+"Set the torch here."
+
+"Oh, Boyee, Boyee!" The great, dark man had dropped to his knees, his
+face a mask of agony.
+
+"Oh, the devil!" said the physician disgustedly. "You're no help. Clear
+a way there, some of you, so that I can get him to the hotel." Then, to
+the other. "Keep quiet. There's no danger. Only a flesh wound, but he's
+fainted."
+
+Carefully he swung the small form to his shoulder, and forced a way
+through the crowd, the little girl, who had followed him to the
+platform, composedly trotting along in his wake, while the
+Hardscrabbler, moaning from the pain of two broken ribs, was led away by
+a constable. Some distance behind, the itinerant wallowed like a drunken
+man, muttering brilliant bargain offers of good conduct to Almighty God,
+if "Boyee" were saved to him.
+
+Once in the little hotel room, the physician went about his business
+with swift decisiveness, aided by the mite of a girl, who seemed to know
+by instinct where to be and what to do in the way of handling towels,
+wash-basin, and the other simple paraphernalia required. Professor
+Certain was unceremoniously packed off to the drug store for bandages.
+When he returned the patient had recovered consciousness.
+
+"Where's Dad?" he asked eagerly. "Did he hurt Dad?"
+
+"No, Boyee." The big man was at the bedside in two long, velvety-footed
+steps. Struck by the extenuation of the final "y" in the term, the
+physician for the first time noted a very faint foreign accent, the
+merest echo of some alien tongue. "Are you in pain, Boyee?"
+
+"Not very much. It doesn't matter. Why did he want to kill you?"
+
+"Never mind that, now," interrupted the physician. "We'll get that
+scratch bound up, and then, young man, you'll go to sleep."
+
+Pallid as a ghost, the itinerant held the little hand during the process
+of binding the wound. "Boyee" essayed to smile, at the end, and closed
+his eyes.
+
+"Now we can leave him," said the physician. "Poppet, curl up in that
+chair and keep watch on our patient while this gentleman and I have a
+little talk in the outer room."
+
+With a brisk nod of obedience and comprehension, the elfin girl took her
+place, while the two men went out.
+
+"What do I owe you?" asked Professor Certain, as soon as the door had
+closed.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Oh, that won't do."
+
+"It will have to do."
+
+"Courtesy of the profession? But--"
+
+The other laughed grimly, cutting him short. "So you call yourself an
+M.D., do you?"
+
+"Call myself? I am. Regular degree from the Dayton Medical College." He
+sleeked down his heavy hair with a complacent hand.
+
+The physician snorted. "A diploma-mill. What did you pay for your M.D.?"
+
+"One hundred dollars, and it's as good as your four-year P. and S.
+course or any other, for my purposes," retorted the other, with
+hardihood. "What's more, I'm a member of the American Academy of
+Surgeons, with a special diploma from St. Luke's Hospital of Niles,
+Michigan, and a certificate of fellowship in the National Medical
+Scientific Fraternity. Pleased to meet a brother practitioner." The
+sneer was as palpable as it was cynical.
+
+"You've got all the fake trimmings, haven't you? Do those things pay?"
+
+"Do they! Better than your game, I'll bet. Name your own fee, now, and
+don't be afraid to make it strong."
+
+"I'm not in regular practice. I'm a naval surgeon on leave. Give your
+money to those poor devils you swindled to-night. I don't like the smell
+of it."
+
+"Oh, you can't rile me," returned the quack. "I don't blame you regulars
+for getting sore when you see us fellows culling out coin from under
+your very noses, that you can't touch."
+
+"Cull it, and welcome. But don't try to pass it on to me."
+
+"Well, I'd like to do something for you in return for what you did for
+my son."
+
+"Would you? Pay me in words, then, if you will and dare. What is your
+Vitalizing Mixture?"
+
+"That's my secret."
+
+"Liquor? Eh?"
+
+"Some."
+
+"Morphine?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"And the rest syrup and coloring matter, I suppose. A fine vitalizer!"
+
+"It gets the money," retorted the other.
+
+"And your soothing, balmy oils for cancer? Arsenious acid, I suppose, to
+eat it out?"
+
+"What if it is? As well that as anything else--for cancer."
+
+"Humph! I happened to see a patient you'd treated, two years ago, by
+that mild method. It wasn't cancer at all; only a benign tumor. Your
+soothing oils burned her breast off, like so much fire. She's dead now."
+
+"Oh, we all make mistakes."
+
+"But we don't all commit murder."
+
+"Rub it in, if you like to. You can't make me mad. Just the same, if it
+wasn't for what you've done for Boyee--"
+
+"Well, what about 'Boyee'?" broke in his persecutor quite undisturbed.
+"He seems a perfectly decent sort of human integer."
+
+The bold eyes shifted and softened abruptly. "He's the big thing in my
+life."
+
+"Bringing him up to the trade, eh?"
+
+"No, damn you!"
+
+"Damn me, if you like. But don't damn him. He seems to be a bit too good
+for this sort of thing."
+
+"To tell you the truth," said the other gloomily, "I was going to quit
+at the end of this year, anyway. But I guess this ends it now. Accidents
+like this hurt business. I guess this closes my tour."
+
+"Is the game playing out?"
+
+"Not exactly! Do you know what I took out of this town last night? One
+hundred and ten good dollars. And to-morrow's consultation is good for
+fifty more. That 'spiel' of mine is the best high-pitch in the
+business."
+
+"High-pitch?"
+
+"High-pitching," explained the quack, "is our term for the talk, the
+patter. You can sell sugar pills to raise the dead with a good-enough
+high-pitch. I've done it myself--pretty near. With a voice like mine,
+it's a shame to drop it. But I'm getting tired. And Boyee ought to have
+schooling. So, I'll settle down and try a regular proprietary trade with
+the Mixture and some other stuff I've got. I guess I can make printer's
+ink do the work. And there's millions in it if you once get a start.
+More than you can say of regular practice. I tried that, too, before I
+took up itinerating." He grinned. "A midge couldn't have lived on my
+receipts. By the way," he added, becoming grave, "what was your game in
+cutting in on my 'spiel'?"
+
+"Just curiosity."
+
+"You ain't a government agent or a medical society investigator?"
+
+The physician pulled out a card and handed it over. It read, "Mark
+Elliot, Surgeon, U.S.N."
+
+"Don't lose any sleep over me," he advised, then went to open the outer
+door, in response to a knock.
+
+A spectacled young man appeared. "They told me Professor Certain was
+here," he said.
+
+"What is it?" asked the quack.
+
+"About that stabbing. I'm the editor of the weekly 'Palladium.'"
+
+"Glad to see you, Mr. Editor. Always glad to see the Press. Of course
+you won't print anything about this affair?"
+
+The visitor blinked. "You wouldn't hardly expect me to kill the story."
+
+"Not? Does anybody else but me give you page ads.?"
+
+"Well, of course, we try to favor our advertisers," said the spectacled
+one nervously.
+
+"That's business! I'll be coming around again next year, if this thing
+is handled right, and I think my increased business might warrant a
+double page, then."
+
+"But the paper will have to carry something about it. Too many folks saw
+it happen."
+
+"Just say that a crazy man tried to interrupt the lecture of Professor
+Andrew Leon Certain, the distinguished medical savant, and was locked up
+by the authorities."
+
+"But the knifing. How is the boy?"
+
+"Somebody's been giving you the wrong tip. There wasn't any knife,"
+replied the Professor with a wink. "You may send me two hundred and
+fifty copies of the paper. And, by the way, do what you can to get that
+poor lunatic off easy, and I'll square the bills--with commission."
+
+"I'll see the Justice first thing in the morning," said the editor with
+enthusiasm. "Much obliged, Professor Certain. And the article will be
+all right. I'll show you a proof. It mightn't be a bad notion for you to
+drop in at the jail with me, and see Neal, the man that stab--that
+interrupted the meeting, before he gets talking with any one else."
+
+"So it mightn't. But what about my leaving, now?" Professor Certain
+asked of the physician.
+
+"Go ahead. I'll keep watch."
+
+Shortly after the itinerant had gone out with the exponent of free and
+untrammeled journalism, the boy awoke and looked about with fevered
+anxiety for his father. The little nurse was beside him at once.
+
+"You mustn't wiggle around," she commanded. "Do you want a drink?"
+
+Gratefully he drank the water which she held to his lips.
+
+"Where's my Dad?" he asked.
+
+"He's gone out. He'll come back pretty soon. Lie down."
+
+He sank back, fixing his eyes upon her. "Will you stay with me till he
+comes?"
+
+She nodded. "Does it hurt you much?" Her cool and tiny fingers touched
+his forehead, soothingly. "You're very hot. I think you've got a little
+fever."
+
+"Don't take your hand away." His eyes closed, but presently opened
+again. "I think you're very pretty," he said shyly.
+
+"Do you? I like to have people think I'm pretty. Uncle Guardy scolds me
+for it. Not really, you know, but just pretending. He says I'm vain."
+
+"Is that your uncle, the gentleman that fixed my arm?"
+
+"Yes. I call him Uncle Guardy because he's my guardian, too."
+
+"I like him. He looks good. But I like you better. I like you a lot."
+
+"Everybody does," replied the girl with dimpling complacency. "They
+can't help it. It's because I'm me!"
+
+For a moment he brooded. "Am I going to die?" he asked quite suddenly.
+
+"Die? Of course not."
+
+"Would you be sorry if I did?"
+
+"Yes. If you died you couldn't like me any more. And I want everybody to
+like me and think me pretty."
+
+"I'm glad I'm not. It would be tough on Dad."
+
+"My Uncle Guardy thinks your father is a bad man," said the fairy, not
+without a spice of malice.
+
+Up rose the patient from his pillow. "Then I hate him. He's a liar. My
+Dad is the best man in the world." A brighter hue than fever burnt in
+his cheeks, and his hand went to his shoulder. "I won't have his
+bandages on me," he cried.
+
+But she had thrown herself upon his arm, and pushed him back. "Oh,
+don't! Please don't," she besought. "Uncle Guardy told me to keep you
+perfectly quiet. And I've made you sit up--"
+
+"What's all this commotion?" demanded Dr. Elliot brusquely, from the
+door.
+
+"You said my father was a bad man," cried the outraged patient.
+
+"Lie back, youngster." The physician's hand was gentle, but very firm.
+"I don't recall saying any such thing. Where did you get it?"
+
+"I said you _thought_ he was a bad man," declared the midget girl. "I
+know you do. You wouldn't have spoken back to him down in the square if
+you hadn't."
+
+Her uncle turned upon her a slow, cool, silent regard. "Esme, you talk
+too much," he said finally. "I'm a little ashamed of you, as a nurse.
+Take your place there by the bedside. And you, young man, shut your ears
+and eyes and go to sleep."
+
+Hardly had the door closed behind the autocrat of the sick-room, when
+his patient turned softly.
+
+"You're crying," he accused.
+
+"I'm not!" The denial was the merest gasp. The long lashes quivered with
+tears.
+
+"Yes, you are. He was mean to you."
+
+"He's _never_ mean to me." The words came in a sobbing rush. "But
+he--he--stopped loving me just for that minute. And when anybody I love
+stops loving me I want to die!"
+
+The boy's brown hands crept timidly to her arm. "I like you awfully," he
+said. "And I'll never stop, not even for a minute!"
+
+"Won't you?" Again she was the child coquette. "But we're going away
+to-night. Perhaps you won't see me any more."
+
+"Oh, yes, I shall. I'll look for you until I find you."
+
+"I'll hide," she teased.
+
+"That won't matter, little girl." He repeated the form softly and
+drowsily. "Little girl; little girl; I'd do anything in the world for
+you, little girl, if ever you asked me. Only don't go away while I'm
+asleep."
+
+Back of them the door had opened quietly and Professor Certain, who,
+with Dr. Elliot, had been a silent spectator of the little drama, now
+closed it again, withdrawing, on the further side, with his companion.
+
+"He'll sleep now," said the physician. "That's all he needs. Hello!
+What's this?"
+
+In a corner of the sofa was a tiny huddle, outlined vaguely as human,
+under a faded shawl. Drawing aside the folds, the quack disclosed a wild
+little face, framed in a mass of glowing red hair.
+
+"That Hardscrabbler's young 'un," he said. "She was crying quietly to
+herself, in the darkness outside the jail, poor little tyke. So I picked
+her up, and" (with a sort of tender awkwardness) "she was glad to come
+with me. Seemed to kind of take to me. Kiddies generally do."
+
+"Do they? That's curious."
+
+"I suppose you think so," replied the quack, without rancor.
+
+"What are you going to do with her?"
+
+"I'll see, later. At present I'm going to keep her here with us. She's
+only seven, and her mother's dead. Are you staying here to-night?"
+
+"Got to. Missed my connection."
+
+"Then at least you'll let me pay your hotel bill, if you won't take my
+money."
+
+"Why, yes: I suppose so," said the other grudgingly. "I'll look at the
+boy in the morning. But he'll be all right. Only, don't take up your
+itinerating again for a few days."
+
+"I'm through, I tell you. Give me a growing city to settle in and I'll
+go in for the regular proprietary manufacturing game. Know anything
+about Worthington?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Pretty good, live town?"
+
+"First-class, and not too critical, I suppose, to accept your business,"
+said Dr. Elliot dryly. "I'm on my way there now for a visit. Well, I
+must get my little girl."
+
+The itinerant opened the door, looked, and beckoned. The boy lay on his
+pillow, the girl was curled in her chair, both fast asleep. Their hands
+were lightly clasped.
+
+Dr. Elliot lifted his ward and carried her away. The itinerant,
+returning to the Hardscrabbler girl, took her out to arrange the night's
+accommodation for her. So, there slept that night under one roof and at
+the charge of Professor Andrew L. Certain, five human beings who, long
+years after, were destined to meet and mingle their fates, intricate,
+intimate strands in the pattern of human weal and woe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+OUR LEADING CITIZEN
+
+
+The year of grace, 1913, commended itself to Dr. L. Andre Surtaine as an
+excellent time in which to be alive, rich, and sixty years old.
+Thoroughly, keenly, ebulliently alive he was. Thoroughly rich, also; and
+if the truth be told, rather ebulliently conscious of his wealth. You
+could see at a glance that he had paid no usurious interest to Fate on
+his success; that his vigor and zest in life remained to him
+undiminished. Vitality and a high satisfaction with his environment and
+with himself as well placed in it, radiated from his bulky and handsome
+person; but it was the vitality that impressed you first: impressed and
+warmed you; perhaps warned you, too, on shrewder observation. A gleaming
+personality, this. But behind the radiance one surmised fire. Occasion
+given, Dr. Surtaine might well be formidable.
+
+The world had been his oyster to open. He had cleaved it wide.
+Ill-natured persons hinted, in reference to his business, that he had
+used poison rather than the knife wherewith to loosen the stubborn
+hinges of the bivalve. Money gives back small echo to the cries of
+calumny, however. And Dr. Surtaine's Certina, that infallible and
+guaranteed blood-cure, eradicator of all known human ills, "famous
+across the map of the world," to use one of its advertising phrases,
+under the catchword of "Professor Certain's Certina, the Sure-Cure" (for
+he preserved the old name as a trade-mark), had made a vast deal of
+money for its proprietor. Worthington estimated his fortune at fifteen
+millions, growing at the rate of a million yearly, and was not
+preposterously far afield. In a city of two hundred thousand
+inhabitants, claimed (one hundred and seventy-five thousand allowed by a
+niggling and suspicious census), this is all that the most needy of
+millionaires needs. It was all that Dr. Surtaine needed. He enjoyed his
+high satisfaction as a hard-earned increment.
+
+Something more than satisfaction beamed from his face this blustery
+March noon as he awaited the Worthington train at a small station an
+hour up the line. He fidgeted like an eager boy when the whistle
+sounded, and before the cars had fairly come to a stop he was up the
+steps of the sleeper and inside the door. There rose to meet him a tall,
+carefully dressed and pressed youth, whose exclamation was evenly
+apportioned between welcome and surprise.
+
+"Dad!"
+
+"Boy-ee!"
+
+To the amusement of the other passengers, the two seized each other in a
+bear-hug.
+
+"Oof!" panted the big man, releasing his son. "That's the best thing
+that's happened to me this year. George" (to the porter), "get me a
+seat. Get us two seats together. Aren't any? Perhaps this gentleman,"
+turning to the chair back of him, "wouldn't mind moving across the aisle
+until we get to Worthington."
+
+"Certainly not. Glad to oblige," said the stranger, smiling. People
+usually were "glad to oblige" Dr. Surtaine whether they knew him or not.
+The man inspired good will in others.
+
+"It's nearly a year since I've set eyes on my son," he added in a voice
+which took the whole car into his friendly confidence; "and it seems
+like ten. How are you feeling, Hal? You look chirp as a cricket."
+
+"Couldn't possibly feel better, sir. Where did you get on?"
+
+"Here at State Crossing. Thought I'd come up and meet you. The office
+got on my nerves this morning. Work didn't hold me worth a cent. I kept
+figuring you coming nearer and nearer until I couldn't stand it, so I
+banged down my desk, told my secretary that I was going to California on
+the night boat and mightn't be back till evening, hung the scrap-basket
+on the stenographer's ear when she tried to hold me up to sign some
+letters, jumped out of the fifth-story window, and here I am. I hope
+you're as tickled to see me as I am to see you."
+
+The young man's hand went out, fell with a swift movement, to touch his
+father's, and was as swiftly withdrawn again.
+
+"Worthington's just waiting for you," the Doctor rattled on. "You're put
+up at all the clubs. People you've never heard of are laying out dinners
+and dances for you. You're a distinguished stranger; that's what you
+are. Welcome to our city and all that sort of thing. I'd like to have a
+brass band at the station to meet you, only I thought it might jar your
+quiet European tastes. Eh? At that, I had to put the boys under bonds to
+keep 'em from decorating the factory for you."
+
+"You don't seem to have lost any of your spirit, Dad," said the junior,
+smiling.
+
+"Noticed that already, have you? Well, I'm holding my own, Boyee. Up to
+date, old age hasn't scratched me with his claws to any noticeable
+extent--is that the way it goes?--see 'Familiar Quotations.' I'm getting
+to be a regular book-worm, Hal. Shakespeare, R.L.S., Kipling, Arnold
+Bennett, Hall Caine--all the high-brows. And I _get_ 'em, too. Soak 'em
+right in. I love it! Tell me, who's this Balzac? An agent was in
+yesterday trying to make me believe that he invented culture. What about
+him? I'm pretty hot on the culture trail. Look out, or I'll overhaul
+you."
+
+"You won't have to go very far or fast. I've got only smatterings." But
+the boy spoke with a subdued complacency not wholly lost upon the shrewd
+father.
+
+"Not so much that you'll think Worthington dull and provincial?"
+
+"Oh, I dare say I shall find it a very decent little place."
+
+But here Hal touched another pride and loyalty, quite as genuine as that
+which Dr. Surtaine felt for his son.
+
+"Little place!" he cried. "Two hundred thousand of the livest people on
+God's earth. A gen-u-wine American city if there ever was one."
+
+"Evidently it suits you, sir."
+
+"Couldn't suit better if I'd had it made to order," chuckled the Doctor.
+"And I did pretty near make it over to order. It was a dead-and-alive
+town when we opened up here. Didn't care much about my business, either.
+Now we're the biggest thing in town. Why Certina is the cross-mark that
+shows where Worthington is on the map. The business is sim-plee
+BOOMING." The word exploded in rapture. "Nothing like it ever known in
+the proprietary trade. Wait till you see the shop."
+
+"That will be soon, won't it, sir? I think I've loafed quite long
+enough."
+
+"You're only twenty-five," his father defended him. "It isn't as if
+you'd been idling. Your four years abroad have been just so much
+capital. Educational capital, I mean. I've got plenty of the other kind,
+for both of us. You don't need to go into the business unless you want
+to."
+
+"Being an American, I suppose I've got to go to work at something."
+
+"Not necessarily."
+
+"You don't want me to live on you all my life, though, I suppose."
+
+"Well, I don't want you to want me to want you to," returned the other,
+laughing. "But there's no hurry."
+
+"To tell the truth, I'm rather bored with doing nothing. And if I can be
+of any use to you in the business--"
+
+"You're ready to resume the partnership," his father concluded the
+sentence for him. "That was the foundation of it all; the old days when
+I did the 'spieling' and you took in the dollars. How quick your little
+hands were! Can you remember it? The smelly smoke of the torches, and
+the shadows chasing each other across the crowds below. And to think
+what has grown out of it. God, Boyee! It's a miracle," he exulted.
+
+"It isn't very clear in my memory. I used to get pretty sleepy, I
+remember," said the son, smiling.
+
+"Poor Boyee! Sometimes I hated the life, for you. But there was nobody
+to leave you with; and you were all I had. Anyway, it's turned out well,
+hasn't it?"
+
+"That remains to be seen for me, doesn't it? I'm rather at the start of
+things."
+
+"Most youngsters would be content with an unlimited allowance, and the
+world for a playground."
+
+"One gets tired of playing. _And_ of globe-trotting."
+
+"Good! Do you think you can make Worthington feel like home?"
+
+"How can I tell, sir? I haven't spent two weeks altogether in the place
+since I entered college eight years ago."
+
+"Did it ever strike you that I'd carefully planned to keep you away from
+here, and that our periods of companionship have all been abroad or at
+summer places?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You've never spoken of it."
+
+"No."
+
+"Good boy! Now I'll tell you why. I wanted to be absolutely established
+before I brought you back here. Not in business, alone. That came long
+ago. There have been obstacles, in other ways. They're all overcome.
+To-day we come pretty near to being king-pins in this town, you and I,
+Hal. Do you feel like a prince entering into his realm?"
+
+"Rather more like a freshman entering college," said the other,
+laughing. "It isn't the town, it's the business that I have misgivings
+about."
+
+"Misgivings? How's that?" asked the father quickly.
+
+"What I can do in it."
+
+"Oh, that. My doubts are whether it's the best thing for you."
+
+"Don't you want me to go into it, Dad?"
+
+"Of course I want you with me, Boyee. But--well, frank and flat, I don't
+know whether it's genteel enough for you."
+
+"Genteel?" The younger Surtaine repeated the distasteful adjective with
+surprise.
+
+"Some folks make fun of it, you know. It's the advertising that makes it
+a fair mark. 'Certina,' they say. 'That's where he made his money.
+Patent-medicine millions.' I don't mind it. But for you it's different."
+
+"If the money is good enough for me to spend, it's good enough for me to
+earn," said Hal Surtaine a little grandiloquently.
+
+"Humph! Well, the business is a big success, and I want you to be a big
+success. But that doesn't mean that I want to combine the two. Isn't
+there anything else you've ever thought of turning to?"
+
+"I've got something of a leaning toward your profession, Dad."
+
+"My prof--oh, you mean medicine."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Nothing in it. Doctors are a lot of prejudiced pedants and hypocrites.
+Not one in a thousand is more than an inch wide. What started you on
+that?"
+
+"I hardly know. It was just a notion. I think the scientific and
+sociological side is what appeals to me. But my interest is only
+theoretical."
+
+"That's very well for a hobby. Not as a profession. Here we are, half an
+hour late, as usual."
+
+The sudden and violent bite of the brakes, a characteristic operation of
+that mummy among railroads, the Mid-State and Great Muddy River,
+commonly known as the "Mid-and-Mud," flung forward in an involuntary
+plunge the incautious who had arisen to look after their things. Hal
+Surtaine found himself supporting the weight of a fortuitous citizen who
+had just made his way up the aisle.
+
+"Thank you," said the stranger in a dry voice. "You're the prodigal son
+of whom we've heard such glowing forecast, I presume."
+
+"Well met, Mr. Pierce," called Dr. Surtaine's jovial voice. "Yes, that's
+my son, Harrington, you're hanging to. Hal, this is Mr. Elias M. Pierce,
+one of the men who run Worthington."
+
+Releasing his burden Hal acknowledged the introduction. Elias M. Pierce,
+receding a yard or so into perspective, revealed himself as a spare,
+middle-aged man who looked as if he had been hewn out of a block,
+square, and glued into a permanent black suit. Under his palely sardonic
+eye Hal felt that he was being appraised, and in none too amiable a
+spirit.
+
+"A favorite pleasantry of your father's, Mr. Surtaine," said Pierce.
+"What became of Douglas? Oh, here he is."
+
+A clean-shaven, rather floridly dressed man came forward, was introduced
+to Hal, and inquired courteously whether he was going to settle down in
+Worthington.
+
+"Probably depends on how well he likes it," cut in the dry Mr. Pierce.
+"You might help him decide. I'm sure William would be glad to have you
+lunch with him one day this week at the Huron Club, Mr. Surtaine."
+
+Somewhat surprised and a little annoyed at this curiously vicarious
+suggestion of hospitality, the newcomer hesitated, although Douglas
+promptly supported the offer. Before he had decided what to reply, his
+father eagerly broke in.
+
+"Yes, yes. You must go, Hal," he said, apparently oblivious of the fact
+that he had not been included in the invitation.
+
+"I'll try to be there, myself," continued Pierce, in a flat tone of
+condescension. "Douglas represents me, however, not only legally but in
+other matters that I'm too busy to attend to."
+
+"Mr. Pierce is president of the Huron Club," explained Dr. Surtaine.
+"It's our leading social organization. You'll meet our best business men
+there." And Hal had no alternative but to accept.
+
+Here William Douglas turned to speak to Dr. Surtaine. "The Reverend
+Norman Hale has been looking for you. It is some minor hitch about
+that Mission matter, I believe. Just a little diplomacy wanted. He
+said he'd call to see you day after to-morrow."
+
+"Meaning more money, I suppose," said Dr. Surtaine. Then, more loudly:
+"Well, the business can stand it. All right. Send him along."
+
+With Hal close on his heels he stepped from the car. But Douglas,
+having the cue from his patron, took the younger man by the arm and
+drew him aside.
+
+"Come over and meet some of our fair citizens," he said. "Nothing like
+starting right."
+
+The Pierce motor car, very large, very quietly complete and elegant,
+was waiting near at hand, and in it a prematurely elderly, subdued
+nondescript of a woman, and a pretty, sensitive, sensuous type of
+brunette, almost too well dressed. To Mrs. Pierce and Miss Kathleen
+Pierce, Hal was duly presented, and by them graciously received. As
+he stood there, bareheaded, gracefully at ease, smiling up into the
+interested faces of the two ladies, Dr. Surtaine, passing to his own
+car to await him, looked back and was warmed with pride and gratitude
+for this further honorarium to his capital stock of happiness, for he
+saw already in his son the assurance of social success, and, on the
+hour's reckoning, summed him up. And since we are to see much of
+Harrington Surtaine, in evil chance and good, and see him at times
+through the eyes of that shrewd observer and capitalizer of men, his
+father, the summing-up is worth our present heed, for all that it is
+to be considerably modified in the mind of its proponent, as events
+develop. This, then, is Dr. Surtaine's estimate of his beloved
+"Boyee," after a year of separation.
+
+"A little bit of a prig. A little bit of a cub. Just a _little_ mite
+of a snob, too, maybe. But the right, solid, clean stuff underneath.
+And my son, thank God! _My_ son all through."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ESME
+
+
+Hal saw her first, vivid against the lifeless gray of the cement wall,
+as he turned away from the Pierce car. A little apart from the human
+current she stood, still and expectant. As if to point her out as the
+chosen of gods and men, the questing sun, bursting in triumph through a
+cloud-rift, sent a long shaft of gold to encompass and irradiate her. To
+the end, whether with aching heart or glad, Hal was to see her thus, in
+flashing, recurrent visions; a slight, poised figure, all gracious
+curves and tender consonances, with a cluster of the trailing arbutus,
+that first-love of the springtide, clinging at her breast. The breeze
+bore to him the faint, wild, appealing fragrance which is the very
+breath and soul of the blossom's fairy-pink.
+
+Half-turning, she had leaned a little, as a flower leans, to the warmth
+of the sunlight, uplifting her face for its kiss. She was not beautiful
+in any sense of regularity of outline or perfection of feature, so much
+as lovely, with the lustrous loveliness which defiantly overrides the
+lapse of line and proportion, and imperiously demands the homage of
+every man born of woman. Chill analysis might have judged the mouth,
+with its delicate, humorous quirk at the corners, too large; the chin
+too broad, for all its adorable baby dimple; the line of the nose too
+abrupt, the wider contours lacking something of classic exactitude. But
+the chillest analysis must have warmed to enthusiasm at the eyes;
+wide-set, level, and of a tawny hazel, with strange, wine-brown lights
+in their depths, to match the brownish-golden sheen of the hair, where
+the sun glinted from it. As it were a higher power of her physical
+splendor, there emanated from the girl an intensity and radiance of joy
+in being alive and lovely.
+
+Involuntarily Hal Surtaine paused as he approached her. Her glance fell
+upon him, not with the impersonal regard bestowed upon a casual
+passer-by, but with an intent and brightening interest,--the thrill of
+the chase, had he but known it,--and passed beyond him again. But in
+that brief moment, the conviction was borne in upon him that sometime,
+somewhere, he had looked into those eyes before. Puzzled and eager he
+still stared, until, with a slight flush, she moved forward and passed
+him. At the head of the stairs he saw her greet a strongly built,
+grizzled man; and then became aware of his father beckoning to him from
+the automobile.
+
+"Bewitched, Hal?" said Dr. Surtaine as his son came to him.
+
+"Was I staring very outrageously, sir?"
+
+"Why, you certainly looked interested," returned the older man,
+laughing. "But I don't think you need apologize to the young lady. She's
+used to attention. Rather lives on it, I guess."
+
+The tone jarred on Hal. "I had a queer, momentary feeling that I'd seen
+her before," he said.
+
+"Don't you recall where?"
+
+"No," said Hal, startled. "_Do_ I know her?"
+
+"Apparently not," taunted the other good-humoredly. "You should know.
+Hers is generally considered a face not difficult to remember."
+
+"Impossible to forget!"
+
+"In that case it must be that you haven't seen her before. But you will
+again. And, then look out, Boy-ee. Danger ahead!"
+
+"How's that, sir?"
+
+"You'll see for yourself when you meet her. Half of the boys in town are
+crazy over her. She eats 'em alive. Can't you tell the man-killer type
+when you see it?"
+
+"Oh, that's all in the game, isn't it?" returned Hal lightly. "So long
+as she plays fair. And she looks like a girl of breeding and standards."
+
+"All of that. Esme Elliot is a lady, so far as that goes. But--well, I'm
+not going to prejudice you. Here she comes now."
+
+"Who is it with her?"
+
+"Her uncle, Dr. Elliot. He doesn't altogether approve of us--me, I
+mean."
+
+Uncle and niece were coming directly toward them now, and Hal watched
+her approach with a thrill of delight in her motion. It was a study in
+harmonies. She moved like a cloud before the wind; like a ship upon the
+high seas; like the swirl of swift waters above hidden depths. As the
+pair passed to their car, which stood next to Dr. Surtaine's, the girl
+glanced up and nodded, with a brilliant smile, to the doctor, who
+returned to the salutation an extra-gallant bow.
+
+"You seem to be friends," commented Hal, somewhat amused.
+
+"That was more for you than for me. But the fair Esme can always spare
+one of those smiles for anything that wears trousers."
+
+Hal moved uneasily. He felt a sense of discord. As he cast about for a
+topic to shift to, the Elliot car rolled ahead slowly, and once more he
+caught the woodsy perfume of the pink bloom. Strangely and satisfyingly
+to his quickened perceptions, it seemed to express the quality of the
+wearer. Despite her bearing of worldly self-assurance, despite the
+atmosphere of modishness about her, there was in her charm something
+wild and vivid, vernal and remote, like the arbutus which, alone among
+flowers, keeps its life-secret virgin and inviolate, resisting all
+endeavors to make it bloom except in its own way and in its own chosen
+places.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE SHOP
+
+
+Certina had found its first modest home in Worthington on a side street.
+As the business grew, the staid tenement which housed it expanded and
+drew to itself neighboring buildings, until it eventually gave way to
+the largest, finest, and most up-to-date office edifice in the city.
+None too large, fine, or modern was this last word in architecture for
+the triumphant nostrum and the minor medical enterprises allied to it.
+For though Certina alone bore the name and spread the fame and features
+of its inventor abroad in the land, many lesser experiments had bloomed
+into success under the fertilizing genius of the master-quack.
+
+Inanimate machinery, when it runs sweetly, gives forth a definite
+tone, the bee-song of work happily consummated. So this great human
+mechanism seemed, to Harrington Surtaine as he entered the realm of
+its activities, moving to music personal to itself. Through its wide
+halls he wandered, past humming workrooms, up spacious stairways,
+resonant to the tread of brisk feet, until he reached the fifth floor
+where cluster the main offices. Here through a succession of open
+doors he caught a glimpse of the engineer who controlled all these
+lively processes, leaning easily back from his desk, fresh, suavely
+groomed, smiling, an embodiment of perfect satisfaction. Before Dr.
+Surtaine lay many sheaves of paper, in rigid order. A stenographer sat
+in a far corner, making notes. From beyond a side door came the
+precise, faint clicking of a typewriter. The room possessed an
+atmosphere of calm and poise; but not of restfulness. At once and
+emphatically it impressed the visitor with a sense that it was a place
+where things were done, and done efficiently.
+
+Upon his son's greeting, Dr. Surtaine whirled in his chair.
+
+"Come down to see the old slave at work, eh?" he said.
+
+"Yes, sir." Hal's hand fell on the other's shoulder, and the Doctor's
+fingers went up to it for a quick pressure. "I thought I'd like to see
+the wheels go 'round."
+
+"You've come to the right spot. This is the good old cash-factory, and
+yours truly is the man behind the engine. The State, I'm It, as Napoleon
+said to Louis the Quince. Where McBeth sits is the head of the table."
+
+"In other words, a one-man business."
+
+"That's the secret. There's nothing in this shop that I can't do, and
+don't do, every now and then, just to keep my hand in. I can put more
+pull into an ad. to-day than the next best man in the business. Modesty
+isn't my besetting sin, you see, Hal."
+
+"Why should it be? Every brick in this building would give the lie to
+it."
+
+"Say every frame on these four walls," suggested Dr. Surtaine with an
+expansive gesture.
+
+Following this indication, Hal examined the decorations. On every side
+were ordinary newspaper advertisements, handsomely mounted, most of them
+bearing dates on brass plates. Here and there appeared a circular, or a
+typed letter, similarly designated.
+
+Above Dr. Surtaine's desk was a triple setting, a small advertisement, a
+larger one, and a huge full-newspaper-page size, each embodying the same
+figure, that of a man half-bent over, with his hand to his back and a
+lamentable expression on his face.
+
+Certain strongly typed words fairly thrust themselves out of the
+surrounding print: "Pain--Back--Take Care--Means Something--Your
+Kidneys." And then in dominant presentment--
+
+  CERTINA
+  CURES.
+
+"What do you think of Old Lame-Boy?" asked Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"From an aesthetic point of view?"
+
+"Never mind the aesthetics of it. 'Handsome is as handsome does.'"
+
+"What has that faded beauty done, then?"
+
+"Carried many a thousand of our money to bank for us, Boyee. That's the
+ad. that made the business."
+
+"Did you design it?"
+
+"Every word and every line, except that I got a cheap artist to touch up
+the drawing a little. Then I plunged. When that copy went out, we had
+just fifty thousand dollars in the world, you and I. Before it had been
+running three months, I'd spent one hundred thousand dollars more than
+we owned, in the newspapers, and had to borrow money right and left to
+keep the manufacturing and bottling plant up to the orders. It was a
+year before we could see clear sailing, and by that time we were pretty
+near quarter of a million to the good. Talk about ads. that pull! It
+pulled like a mule-team and a traction engine and a fifty-cent painless
+dentist all in one. I'm still using that copy, in the kidney season."
+
+"Do kidneys have seasons?"
+
+"Kidney troubles do."
+
+"I'd have thought such diseases wouldn't depend on the time of year."
+
+"Maybe they don't, actually," admitted the other. "Maybe they're just
+crowded out of the public mind by the pressure of other sickness in
+season, like rheumatism in the early winter, and pneumonia in the late.
+But there's no doubt that the kidney season comes in with the changes
+of the spring. That's one of my discoveries, too. I tell you, Boyee,
+I've built my success on things like that. It's psychology: that's what
+it is. That's what you've got to learn, if you're going into the
+concern."
+
+"I'm ready, Dad. It sounds interesting. More so than I'd have thought."
+
+"Interesting! It's the very heart and core of the trade." Dr. Surtaine
+leaned forward, to tap with an earnest finger on his son's knee, a
+picture of expository enthusiasm. "Here's the theory. You see, along
+about March or April people begin to get slack-nerved and out-of-sortsy.
+They don't know what ails 'em, but they think there's something. Well,
+one look at that ad. sets 'em wondering if it isn't their kidneys. After
+wonder comes worry. He's the best little worrier in the trade, Old
+Lame-Boy is. He just pesters folks into taking proper care of
+themselves. They get Certina, and we get their dollars. And they get
+their money's worth, too," he added as an afterthought for Hal's
+benefit, "for it's a mighty good thing to have your kidneys tonicked up
+at this time of year."
+
+"But, Dad," queried Hal, with an effort of puzzled reminiscence, "in the
+old days Certina wasn't a kidney remedy, was it?"
+
+"Not specially. It's always been _good_ for the kidneys. Good for
+everything, for that matter. Besides, the formula's been changed."
+
+"Changed? But the formula's the vital thing, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, yes. Of course. Certainly it's the vital thing: certainly. But,
+you see,--well,--new discoveries in medicine and that sort of thing."
+
+"You've put new drugs in?"
+
+"Yes: I've done that. Buchu, for instance. That's supposed to be good
+for the kidneys. Dropped some things out, too. Morphine got sort of a
+bad name. The muckrakers did that with their magazine articles."
+
+"Of course I don't pretend to know about such things, Dad. But morphine
+seems a pretty dangerous thing for people to take indiscriminately."
+
+"Well, it's out. There ain't a grain of it in Certina to-day."
+
+"I'm glad of it."
+
+"Oh, I don't know. It's useful in its place. For instance, you can't run
+a soothing-syrup without it. But when the Pure Food Law compelled us to
+print the amount of morphine on the label, I just made up my mind that
+I'd have no government interference in the Certina business, so I
+dropped the drug."
+
+"Did the law hurt our trade much?"
+
+"Not so far as Certina goes. I'm not even sure it didn't help. You see,
+now we can print 'Guaranteed under the U.S. Food and Drugs Act' on every
+bottle. In fact we're required to."
+
+"What does the guaranty mean?"
+
+"That whatever statement may be on the label is accurate. That's all.
+But the public takes it to mean that the Government officially
+guarantees Certina to do everything we claim for it," chuckled Dr.
+Surtaine. "It's a great card. We've done more business under the new
+formula than we ever did under the old."
+
+"What is the formula now?"
+
+"Prying into the secrets of the trade?" chuckled the elder man.
+
+"But if I'm coming into the shop, to learn--"
+
+"Right you are, Boyee," interrupted his father buoyantly. "There's the
+formula for making profits." He swept his hand about in a spacious
+circle, grandly indicating the advertisement-bedecked walls. "There's
+where the brains count. Come along," he added, jumping up; "let's take a
+turn around the joint."
+
+Every day, Dr. Surtaine explained to his son, he made it a practice to
+go through the entire plant.
+
+"It's the only way to keep a business up to mark. Besides, I like to
+know my people."
+
+Evidently he did know his people and his people knew and strongly liked
+him. So much Hal gathered from the offhand and cheerily friendly
+greetings which were exchanged between the head of the vast concern and
+such employees, important or humble, as they chanced to meet in their
+wanderings. First they went to the printing-plant, the Certina Company
+doing all its own printing; then to what Dr. Surtaine called "the
+literary bureau."
+
+"Three men get out all our circulars and advertising copy," he explained
+in an aside. "One of 'em gets five thousand a year; but even so I have
+to go over all his stuff. If I could teach him to write ads. like I do
+it myself, I'd pay him ten thousand--yes, twenty thousand. I'd have to,
+to keep him. The circulars they do better; but I edit those, too. What
+about that name for the new laxative pills, Con? Hal, I want you to meet
+Mr. Conover, our chief ad.-man."
+
+Conover, a dapper young man with heavy eye-glasses, greeted Hal with
+some interest, and then turned to the business in hand.
+
+"What'd you think of 'Anti-Pellets'?" he asked. "Anti, opposed to, you
+know. In the sub-line, tell what they're opposed to: indigestion,
+appendicitis, and so on."
+
+"Don't like it," returned Dr. Surtaine abruptly. "Anti-Ralgia's played
+that to death. Lemme think, for a moment."
+
+Down he plumped into Conover's chair, seized a pencil and made tentative
+jabs at a sheet of paper. "Pellets, pellets," he muttered. Then, in a
+kind of subdued roar, "I've got it! I've got it, Con! 'Pro-Pellets.'
+Tell people what they're for, not what they're against. Besides, the
+name has got the idea of pro-pulsion. See? Pro-Pellets, pro-pel!" His
+big fist shot forward like a piston-rod. "Just the idea for a laxative.
+Eh?"
+
+"Fine!" agreed Conover, a little ruefully, but with genuine
+appreciation of the fitness of the name. "I wish I'd thought of it."
+
+"You did--pretty near. Anyway, you made me think of it. Anti-Pellets,
+Pro-Pellets: it's just one step. Like as not you'd have seen it yourself
+if I hadn't butted in. Now, go to it, and figure out your series on
+that."
+
+With kindly hands he pushed Conover back into his chair, gave him a
+hearty pat on the shoulder, and passed on. Hal began to have an inkling
+of the reasons for his father's popularity.
+
+"Have we got other medicines besides Certina?" he asked.
+
+"Bless you, yes! This little laxative pills business I took over from a
+concern that didn't have the capital to advertise it. Across the hall
+there is the Sure Soother department. That's a teething syrup: does
+wonders for restless babies. On the floor below is the Cranicure Mixture
+for headaches, Rub-it-in Balm for rheumatism and bruises, and a couple
+of small side issues that we're not trying to push much. We're handling
+Stomachine and Relief Pills from here, but the pills are made in
+Cincinnati, and we market 'em under another trade name."
+
+"Stomachine is for stomach troubles, I assume," said Hal. "What are the
+Relief Pills?"
+
+"Oh, a female remedy," replied his father carelessly. "Quite a booming
+little trade, too. Take a look at the Certina collection of
+testimonials."
+
+In a room like a bank vault were great masses of testimonial letters,
+all listed and double-catalogued by name and by disease.
+
+"Genuine. Provably genuine, every one. There's romance in some of 'em.
+And gratitude; good Lord! Sometimes when I look 'em over, I wonder I
+don't run for President of the United States on a Certina platform."
+
+From the testimonial room they went to the art department where Dr.
+Surtaine had some suggestions to make as to bill-board designs.
+
+"You'll never get another puller like Old Lame-Boy," Hal heard the head
+designer say with a chuckle, and his father reply: "If I could I'd start
+another proprietary as big as Certina."
+
+"Where does that lead to?" inquired Hal, as they approached a side
+passage sloping slightly down, and barred by a steel door.
+
+"The old building. The manufacturing department is over there."
+
+"Compounding the medicine, you mean?"
+
+"Yes. Bottling and shipping, too."
+
+"Aren't we going through?"
+
+"Why, yes: if you like. You won't find much to interest you, though."
+
+Nor, to Hal's surprise, did Dr. Surtaine himself seem much concerned
+with this phase of the business. Apparently his hand was not so close in
+control here as in the other building. The men seemed to know him less
+well.
+
+"All this pretty well runs itself," he explained negligently.
+
+"Don't you have to keep a check on the mixing, to make sure it's right?"
+
+"Oh, they follow the formula. No chance for error."
+
+They walked amidst chinking trucks, some filled with empty, some with
+filled and labeled bottles, until they reached the carton room where
+scores of girls were busily inserting the bottles, together with folded
+circulars and advertising cards, into pasteboard boxes. At the far end
+of this room a pungent, high-spiced scent, as of a pickle-kitchen with a
+fortified odor underlying it, greeted the unaccustomed nose of the
+neophyte.
+
+"Good!" he sniffed. "How clean and appetizing it smells!"
+
+Enthusiasm warmed the big man's voice once more.
+
+"Just what it is, too!" he exclaimed. "Now you've hit on the second big
+point in Certina's success. It's easy to take. What's the worst thing
+about doctors' doses? They're nasty. The very thought of 'em would gag a
+cat. Tell people that here's a remedy better than the old medicine and
+pleasant to the taste, and they'll take to it like ducks to water.
+Certina is the first proprietary that ever tasted good. Next to Old
+Lame-Boy, it's my biggest idea."
+
+"Are we going into the mixing-room?" asked his son.
+
+"If you like. But you'll see less than you smell."
+
+So it proved. A heavy, wet, rich vapor shrouded the space about a huge
+cauldron, from which came a sound of steady plashing. Presently an
+attendant gnome, stripped to the waist, appeared, nodded to Dr.
+Surtaine, called to some one back in the mist, and shortly brought Hal a
+small glass brimming with a pale-brown liquid.
+
+"Just fresh," he said. "Try it."
+
+"My kidneys are all right," protested Hal. "I don't need any medicine."
+
+"Take it for a bracer. It won't hurt you," urged the gnome.
+
+Hal looked at his father, and, at his nod, put his lips to the glass.
+
+"Why, it tastes like spiced whiskey!" he cried.
+
+"Not so far out of the way. Columbian spirits, caramel, cinnamon and
+cardamom, and a touch of the buchu. Good for the blues. Finish it."
+
+Hal did so and was aware of an almost instantaneous glow.
+
+"Strong stuff, sir," he said to his father as they emerged into a
+clearer atmosphere.
+
+"They like it strong," replied the other curtly. "I give 'em what they
+like."
+
+The attendant gnome followed. "Mr. Dixon was looking for you, Dr.
+Surtaine. Here he comes, now."
+
+"Dixon's our chief chemist," explained Dr. Surtaine as a shabby,
+anxious-looking man ambled forward.
+
+"We're having trouble with that last lot of cascara, sir," said he
+lugubriously.
+
+"In the Number Four?"
+
+"Yes, sir. It don't seem to have any strength."
+
+"Substitute senna." So offhand was the tone that it sounded like a
+suggestion rather than an order.
+
+As the latter, however, the chemist contentedly took it.
+
+"It'll cost less," he observed; "and I guess it'll do the work just as
+well."
+
+To Hal it seemed a somewhat cavalier method of altering a medical
+formula. But his mind, accustomed to easy acceptance of the business
+which so luxuriously supplied his wants, passed the matter over lightly.
+
+"First-rate man, Dixon," remarked Dr. Surtaine as they passed along.
+"College-bred, and all that. Boozes, though. I only pay him twenty-five
+a week, and he's mighty glad to get it."
+
+On the way back to the offices, they traversed the checking and
+accounting rooms, the agency department, the great rows of desks whereat
+the shipping and mailing were looked after, and at length stopped before
+the door of a small office occupied by a dozen women. One of these, a
+full-bosomed, slender, warm-skinned girl with a wealth of deep-hued,
+rippling red hair crowning her small, well-poised head, rose and came to
+speak to Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"Did you get the message I sent you about Letter Number Seven?" she
+asked.
+
+"Hello, Milly," greeted the presiding genius, pleasantly. "Just what was
+that about Number Seven?"
+
+"It isn't getting results."
+
+"No? Let's see it." Dr. Surtaine was as interested in this as he had
+been casual about the drug alteration.
+
+"I don't think it's personal enough," pursued the girl, handing him a
+sheet of imitation typewriter print.
+
+"Oh, you don't," said her employer, amused. "Maybe you could better it."
+
+"I have," said the girl calmly. "You always tell us to make
+suggestions. Mine are on the back of the paper."
+
+"Good for you! Hal, here's the prettiest girl in the shop, and about the
+smartest. Milly, this is my boy."
+
+The girl looked up at Hal with a smile and brightened color. He was
+suddenly interested and appreciative to see to what a vivid prettiness
+her face was lighted by the raised glance of her swift, gray-green eyes.
+
+"Are you coming into the business, Mr. Surtaine?" she asked composedly,
+and with almost as proprietary an air as if she had said "our business."
+
+"I don't know. Is it the sort of business you would advise a rather lazy
+person to embark in, Miss--"
+
+"Neal," she supplied; adding, with an illustrative glance around, upon
+her busy roomful, all sorting and marking correspondence, "You see, I
+only give advice by letter."
+
+She turned away to answer one of the subordinates, and, at the same
+time, Dr. Surtaine was called aside by a man with a shipping-bill.
+Looking down the line of workers, Hal saw that each one was simply
+opening, reading, and marking with a single stroke, the letters from a
+distributing groove. To her questioner Milly Neal was saying, briskly:
+
+"That's Three and Seven. Can't you see, she says she has spots before
+her eyes. That's stomach. And the lameness in the side is kidneys. Mark
+it 'Three pass to Seven.' There's a combination form for that."
+
+"What branch of the work is this?" asked Hal, as she lifted her eyes to
+his again.
+
+"Symptom correspondence. This is the sorting-room."
+
+"Please explain. I'm a perfect greenhorn, you know."
+
+"You've seen the ads. of course. Nobody could help seeing them. They all
+say, 'Write to Professor Certain'--the trade name, you know. It's the
+regular stock line, but it does bring in the queries. Here's the
+afternoon mail, now."
+
+Hundreds upon hundreds of letters came tumbling from a bag upon the
+receiving-table. All were addressed to "Prof." or "Dr." Certain.
+
+"How can my father hope to answer all those?" cried Hal.
+
+The girl surveyed him with a quaint and delicious derision. "He? You
+don't suppose he ever sees them! What are _we_ here for?"
+
+"You do the answering?"
+
+"Practically all of it, by form-letters turned out in the printing
+department. For instance, Letter One is coughs and colds; Two,
+headaches; Three, stomach; and so on. As soon as a symp-letter is read
+the girl marks it with the form-letter number, underscores the address,
+and it goes across to the letter room where the right answer is mailed,
+advising the prospect to take Certina. Orders with cash go direct to the
+shipping department. If the symp-writer wants personal advice that the
+form-letters don't give, I send the inquiry upstairs to Dr. De Vito.
+He's a regular graduate physician who puts in half his time as our
+Medical Adviser. We can clear up three thousand letters a day, here."
+
+"I can readily see that my father couldn't attend to them personally,"
+said Hal, smiling.
+
+"And it's just as good this way. Certina is what the prospects want and
+need. It makes no difference who prescribes it. This is the Chief's own
+device for handling the correspondence."
+
+"The Chief?"
+
+"Your father. We all call him that, all the old hands."
+
+Hal's glance skimmed over the fresh young face, and the brilliant eyes.
+"You wouldn't call yourself a very old hand, Miss Neal."
+
+"Seven years I've worked for the Chief, and I never want to work in a
+better place. He's been more than good to me."
+
+"Because you've deserved it, young woman," came the Doctor's voice from
+behind Hal. "That's the one and only reason. I'm a flint-livered old
+divvle to folks that don't earn every cent of their wages."
+
+"Don't you believe him, Mr. Surtaine," controverted the girl, earnestly.
+"When one of my girls came down last year with tuber--"
+
+"Whoof! Whoof! Whoof!" interrupted the big man, waving his hands in the
+air. "Stop it! This is no experience meeting. Milly, you're right about
+this letter. It's the confidential note that's lacking. It'll work up
+all right along the line of your suggestion. I'll have to send Hal to
+you for lessons in the business."
+
+"Miss Neal would have to be very patient with my stupidity."
+
+"I don't think it would be hard to be patient with you," she said
+softly; and though her look was steady he saw the full color rise in her
+cheeks, and, startled, felt an answering throb in his pulses.
+
+"But you mustn't flirt with her, Hal," warned the old quack, with a
+joviality that jarred.
+
+Uncomfortably conscious of himself and of the girl's altered expression,
+Hal spoke a hasty word or two of farewell, and followed his father out
+into the hallway. But the blithe and vivid femininity of the young
+expert plucked at his mind. At the bend of the hall, he turned with half
+a hope and saw her standing at the door. Her look was upon him, and it
+seemed to him to be both troubled and wistful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE SCION
+
+
+To Harrington Surtaine, life had been a game with easy rules. Certain
+things one must not do. Decent people didn't do them. That's all there
+was to that. In matters of morals and conduct, he was guided by a
+natural temperance and an innate sense of responsibility to himself.
+Difficult questions had not come up in his life. Consequently he had not
+found the exercise of judgment troublesome. His tendency, as regarded
+his own affairs, was to a definite promptness of decision, and there was
+an end of the matter. Others he seldom felt called upon to judge, but if
+the instance were ineluctable, he was prone to an amiable generosity.
+Ease of living does not breed in the mind a strongly defined philosophy.
+All that young Mr. Surtaine required of his fellow beings was that they
+should behave themselves with a due and respectable regard to the rights
+of all in general and of himself in particular--and he would do the same
+by them. Rather a pallid attenuation of the Golden Rule; but he had thus
+far found it sufficient to his existence.
+
+Into this peaceful world-scheme intruded, now, a disorganizing factor.
+He had brought it home with him from his visit to the "shop." An
+undefined but pervasive distaste for the vast, bustling, profitable
+Certina business formed the nucleus of it. As he thought it over that
+night, amidst the heavily ornate elegance of the great bedroom, which,
+with its dressing-room and bath, his father had set aside for his use in
+the Surtaine mansion, he felt in the whole scheme of the thing a vague
+offense. The air which he had breathed in those spacious halls of trade
+had left a faintly malodorous reminiscence in his nostrils.
+
+One feature of his visit returned insistently to his mind: the contrast
+between the semi-contemptuous carelessness exhibited by his father
+toward the processes of compounding the cure and the minute and
+insistent attention given to the methods of expounding it. Was the
+advertising really of so much more import than the medicine itself? If
+so, wasn't the whole affair a matter of selling shadow rather than
+substance?
+
+But it is not in human nature to view with too stern a scrutiny a
+business which furnishes one's easeful self with all the requisites of
+luxury, and that by processes of almost magic simplicity. Hal reflected
+that all big businesses doubtless had their discomforting phases. He had
+once heard a lecturing philosopher express a doubt as to whether it were
+possible to defend, ethically, that prevalent modern phenomenon, the
+millionaire, in any of his manifestations. By the counsel of perfection
+this might well be true. But who was he to judge his father by such
+rigorous standards? Of the medical aspect of the question he could form
+no clear judgment. To him the patent medicine trade was simply a part of
+the world's business, like railroading, banking, or any other form of
+merchandising. His own precocious commercial experience, when, as a boy,
+he had played his little part in the barter and trade, had blinded him
+on that side. Nevertheless, his mind was not impregnably fortified. Old
+Lame-Boy, bearer of dollars to the bank, loomed up, a disturbing figure.
+
+Then, from a recess in his memory, there popped out the word "genteel."
+His father had characterized the Certina business as being, possibly,
+not sufficiently "genteel" for him. He caught at the saving suggestion.
+Doubtless that was the trouble. It was the blatancy of the business, not
+any evil quality inherent in it, which had offended him. Kindest and
+gentlest of men and best of fathers as Dr. Surtaine was, he was not a
+paragon of good taste; and his business naturally reflected his
+personality. Even this was further than Hal had ever gone before in
+critical judgment. But he seized upon the theory as a defense against
+further thought, and, having satisfied his self-questionings with this
+sop, he let his mind revert to his trip through the factory. It paused
+on the correspondence room and its attractive forewoman.
+
+"She seemed a practical little thing," he reflected. "I'll talk to her
+again and get her point of view." And then he wondered, rather amusedly,
+how much of this self-suggestion arose from a desire for information,
+and how much was inspired by a memory of her haunting, hungry eyes.
+
+On the following morning he kept away from the factory, lunched at the
+Huron Club with William Douglas, Elias M. Pierce, who had found time to
+be present, and several prominent citizens whom he thought quite dully
+similar to each other; and afterward walked to the Certina Building to
+keep an appointment with its official head.
+
+"Been feeding with our representative citizens, eh?" his father greeted
+him. "Good! Meantime the Old Man grubbed along on a bowl of milk and a
+piece of apple pie, at a hurry-up lunch-joint. Good working diet, for
+young or old. Besides, it saves time."
+
+"Are you as busy as all that, Dad?"
+
+"Pretty busy this morning, because I've had to save an hour for you out
+of this afternoon. We'll take it right now if you're ready."
+
+"Quite ready, sir."
+
+"Hal, where's Europe?"
+
+"Europe? In the usual place on the map, I suppose."
+
+"You didn't bring it back with you, then?"
+
+"Not a great deal of it. They mightn't have let it through the customs."
+
+Dr. Surtaine snapped a rubber band from a packet of papers lying on his
+desk. "Considering that you seem to have bought it outright," he said,
+twinkling, "I thought you might tell me what you intend doing with it.
+There are the bills."
+
+"Have I gone too heavy, sir?" asked Hal. "You've never limited me, and I
+supposed that the business--"
+
+"The business," interrupted his father arrogantly, "could pay those
+bills three times over in any month. That isn't the point. The point is
+that you've spent something more than forty-eight thousand dollars this
+last year."
+
+Hal whistled ruefully. "Call it an even fifty," he said. "I've made a
+little, myself."
+
+"No! Have you? How's that?"
+
+"While I was in London I did a bit of writing; sketches of queer places
+and people and that sort of thing, and had pretty good luck selling 'em.
+One fellow I know there even offered me a job paragraphing. That's like
+our editorial writing, you know."
+
+"Fine! That makes me feel easier. I was afraid you might be going soft,
+with so much money to spend."
+
+"How I ever spent that much--"
+
+"Never mind that. It's gone. However, we'll try another basis. I'd
+thought of an allowance, but I don't quite like the notion. Hal, I'm
+going to give you your own money."
+
+"My own money? I didn't know that I had any."
+
+"Well, you have."
+
+"Where did I get it?"
+
+"From our partnership. From the old days on the road."
+
+"Rather an intangible fortune, isn't it?"
+
+"That old itinerant business was the nucleus of the Certina of to-day.
+You had a profit-sharing right in that. You've still got it--in this.
+Hal, I'm turning over to you to-day half a million dollars."
+
+"That's a lot of money, Dad," said the younger man soberly.
+
+"The interest doesn't come to fifty thousand dollars a year, though."
+
+"More than half; and that's more than plenty."
+
+"Well, I don't know. We'll try it. At any rate, it's your own. Plenty
+more where it comes from, if you need extra."
+
+"I shan't. It's more than generous of you--"
+
+"Not a bit of it. No more than just, Boyee. So let the thanks go."
+
+"All right, sir. But--you know how I feel about it."
+
+"I guess I know just about how you and I feel toward each other on
+anything that comes up between us, Boyee." There was a grave gentleness
+in Dr. Surtaine's tone. "Well, there are the papers," he added, more
+briskly. "I haven't put all your eggs in one basket, you see."
+
+Going over the certificates Hal found himself possessed of fifty
+thousand dollars in the stock of the Mid-State and Great Muddy Railroad:
+an equal sum in the Security Power Products Company; twenty-five
+thousand each in the stock of the Worthington Trust Company and the
+Remsen Savings Bank; one hundred thousand in the Certina Company, and
+fifty thousand in three of its subsidiary enterprises. Besides this, he
+found five check-books in the large envelope which contained his riches.
+
+"What are these, Dad?" he asked.
+
+"Cash on deposit in local and New York banks. You might want to do some
+investing of your own. Or possibly you might see some business
+proposition you wanted to buy into."
+
+"I see some Security Power Products Company certificates. What is that?"
+
+"The local light, heat, and power corporation. It pays ten per cent.
+Certina never pays less than twenty. The rest is all good for six, at
+least and the Mid-and-Mud averages eight. You've got upwards of
+thirty-seven thousand income there, not counting your deposits. While
+you're looking about, deciding what you're going to do, it'll be your
+own money and nobody else's that you're spending."
+
+"Do you think many fathers would do this sort of thing, Dad?" said Hal
+warmly.
+
+"Any sensible one would. I don't want to own you, Boyee. I want you to
+own yourself. And to make yourself," he added slowly.
+
+"If I can make myself like you, Dad--"
+
+"Oh, I'm a good-enough piece of work, for my day and time," laughed the
+father. "But I want a fine finish on you. While you're looking around
+for your life-work, how about doing a little unpaid job for me?"
+
+"Anything," cried Hal. "Just try me."
+
+"Do you know what an Old Home Week is?"
+
+"Only what I read in to-day's paper announcing the preliminary
+committee."
+
+"That gave you enough idea. We make a big thing of Old Home Week in
+Worthington. This year it will be particularly big because it's the
+hundredth anniversary of the city. The President of the United States
+will be here. I'm to be chairman of the general committee, and I want
+you for my secretary."
+
+"Nothing I'd like better, sir."
+
+"Good! All the moneyed men in town will be on the committee. The work
+will put you in touch with the people who count. Well, that settles our
+business. Good luck to you in your independence, Boyee." He touched a
+bell. "Any one waiting to see me, Jim?" he asked the attendant.
+
+"Yes, sir. The Reverend Norman Hale."
+
+"Send him in."
+
+"Shall I go, Dad?" asked Hal.
+
+"Oh, you might take a little ramble around the shop. Go anywhere. Ask
+any questions of anybody. They all know you."
+
+At the door, Hal passed a tall, sinewy young man with heavy brows and
+rebellious hair. A slight, humorous uptilt to his mouth relieved the
+face of impassivity and saved it from a too formal clericalism. The
+visitor was too deeply concerned with some consideration of his inner
+self to more than glance at Hal, who heard Dr. Surtaine's hearty
+greeting through the closing door.
+
+"Glad to see you, Mr. Hale. Take a chair."
+
+The visitor bowed gravely and sat down.
+
+"You've come to see me about--?"
+
+"Your subscription to the East End Church Club Fund."
+
+"I am heartily in sympathy with the splendid work your church is doing
+in the--er--less salubrious parts of our city," said Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"Doubtless," returned the young clergyman dryly.
+
+"Seems to be saving his wind," thought Dr. Surtaine, a little uneasily.
+"I suppose it's a question," he continued, aloud, "of the disposition of
+the sum--"
+
+"No: it is not."
+
+If this bald statement required elucidation or expansion, its proponent
+didn't seem to realize the fact. He contemplated with minute scrutiny a
+fly which at that moment was alighting (in about the proportion of the
+great American eagle) upon the pained countenance of Old Lame-Boy.
+
+"Well?" queried the other, adding to himself, "What the devil ails the
+man!"
+
+The scrutinized fly rose, after the manner of its kind, and (now reduced
+to normal scale) touched lightly in its exploratory tour upon Dr.
+Surtaine's domed forehead. Following it thus far, the visitor's gaze
+rested. Dr. Surtaine brushed off the insect. He could not brush off the
+regard. Under it and his caller's continued silence he grew fidgety.
+
+"While I'm very glad," he suggested, "to give you what time you need--"
+
+"I've come here because I wanted to have this thing out with you face to
+face."
+
+"Well, have it out," returned the other, smiling but wary.
+
+The young clergyman drew from his pocket a folded newspaper page to
+which was pinned an oblong of paper. This he detached and extended to
+the other.
+
+"What's that?" asked the doctor, making no motion to receive it, for he
+instantly recognized it.
+
+"Your check."
+
+"You're returning it?"
+
+"Without thanks."
+
+"You mean to turn down two thousand dollars!" demanded the other in slow
+incredulity.
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Is that question asked in good faith?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Then you haven't seen the letter written by the superintendent of our
+Sunday School to the Certina Company."
+
+"What kind of a letter?"
+
+"A testimonial letter--for which your two thousand dollars is payment, I
+suppose."
+
+"Two thousand for a church testimonial!" Dr. Surtaine chuckled at his
+caller's innocence. "Why, I wouldn't pay that for a United States
+Senator. Besides," he added virtuously, "Certina doesn't buy its
+testimonials."
+
+"Then it's an unfortunate coincidence that your check should have come
+right on top of Mr. Smithson's very ill-advised letter."
+
+By a regular follow-up mechanism devised by himself, every donation by
+Dr. Surtaine was made the basis of a shrewd attempt to extract from the
+beneficiary an indorsement of Certina's virtues, or, if not that, of the
+personal character and professional probity of its proprietor. This is
+what had happened in the instance of the check to Mr. Hale's church,
+Smithson being the medium through whom the attempt was made.
+
+The quack saw no occasion to explain this to his inquisitor. So he
+merely said: "I never saw any such letter," which was, in a literal
+sense, true.
+
+"Nor will you know anything about it, I suppose, until the name of the
+church is spread broadcast through your newspaper advertising."
+
+Now, it is a rule of the patent medicine trade never to advertise an
+unwilling testimonial because that kind always has a kick-back. Hence:--
+
+"Oh, if you feel that way about it," said Dr. Surtaine disdainfully,
+"I'll keep it out of print."
+
+"And return it to me," continued the other, in a tone of calm
+sequentiality, which might represent either appeal, suggestion, or
+demand.
+
+"Don't see the point," said the quack shortly.
+
+"Since you do not intend to use it in your business, it can't be of any
+value to you," countered the other.
+
+"What's its value to you?"
+
+"In plain words, the honor of my church is involved. The check is a
+bribe. The letter is the graft."
+
+"Nothing of the sort. You come here, a minister of the gospel," Dr.
+Surtaine reproached him sorrowfully, "and use hard words about a
+transaction that is perfectly straight business and happens every day."
+
+"Not in my church."
+
+"It isn't your letter, anyhow. You didn't write it."
+
+"It is written on the official paper of the church. Smithson told me so.
+He didn't understand what use would be made of it when he wrote it. Take
+your check back, Dr. Surtaine, and give me the letter."
+
+"Persistency, thy name is a jewel," said Dr. Surtaine with an air of
+scholarliness. "You win. The letter will be returned to-morrow. You'll
+take my word, I suppose?"
+
+"Certainly; and thank you."
+
+"And now, suppose I offered to leave the check in your hands?" asked the
+Doctor curiously.
+
+"I couldn't take it," came the decisive reply.
+
+"Do you mind telling me why?"
+
+The visitor spread out upon the table the newspaper page which he had
+taken from his pocket. "This morning's 'Clarion,'" he said.
+
+"So that's the trouble! You've been reading that blackmailing sheet.
+Why, what's the 'Clarion,' anyway? A scandal-mongering, yellow
+blatherskite, on its last legs financially. It's for sale to any bidder
+who'd be fool enough to put up money. The 'Clarion' went after me
+because it couldn't get our business. It ain't any straighter than a
+corkscrew's shadow."
+
+"Do I understand you to say that this attack is due to your refusal to
+advertise in the 'Clarion'?"
+
+"That's it, to a T. And now, you see, Mr. Hale," continued Dr. Surtaine
+in a tone of long-suffering and dignified injury, "how believing all you
+see in print lures you into chasing after strange dogs."
+
+The visitor's mouth quivered a little at this remarkable paraphrase of
+the Scripture passage; but he said gravely enough:
+
+"Then we get back to the original charges, which the 'Clarion' quotes
+from the 'Church Standard.'"
+
+"And there you are! Up to three years ago the 'Standard' took all the
+advertising we'd give them, and glad to get it. Then it went daffy over
+the muckraking magazine exposures, and threw out all the proprietary
+copy. Now nothing will do but it must roast its old patrons to show off
+its new virtue."
+
+"Do you deny what the editor of the 'Standard' said about Certina?"
+
+Dr. Surtaine employed the stock answer of medical quackery when
+challenged on incontrovertible facts. "Why, my friend," he said with
+elaborate carelessness, "if I tried to deny everything that
+irresponsible parties say about me, I wouldn't have any time left for
+business. Well, well; plenty of other people will be glad of that two
+thousand. Turn in the check at the cashier's window, please. Good-day
+to you."
+
+The Reverend Norman Hale retired, leaving the "Clarion's" denunciation
+lying outspread on the table.
+
+Meantime, wandering in the hallway, Hal had encountered Milly Neal.
+
+"Are you very busy, Miss Neal?" he asked.
+
+"Not more than usual," she answered, regarding him with bright and
+kindly eyes. "Did you want me?"
+
+"Yes. I want to know some things about this business."
+
+"Outside of my own department, I don't know much."
+
+"Well; inside your own department, then. May I ask some questions?"
+
+With a businesslike air she consulted a tiny watch, then glanced toward
+a settee at the end of the hall. "I'll give you ten minutes," she
+announced. "Suppose we sit down over there."
+
+"Do the writers of those letters--symp-letters, I believe, you call
+them--" he began; "do they seem to get benefit out of the advice
+returned?"
+
+"What advice? To take Certina? Why, yes. Most of 'em come back for
+more."
+
+"You think it good medicine for all that long list of troubles?"
+
+The girl's eyes opened wide. "Of course it's a good medicine!" she
+cried. "Do you think the Chief would make any other kind?"
+
+"No; certainly not," he hastened to disclaim. "But it seems like a wide
+range of diseases to be cured by one and the same prescription."
+
+"Oh, we've got other proprietaries, too," she assured him with her
+pretty air of partnership. "There's the Stomachine, and the headache
+powders and the Relief Pills and the liniment; Dr. Surtaine runs 'em
+all, and every one's a winner. Not that I keep much track of 'em. We
+only handle the Certina correspondence in our room. I know what that
+can do. Why, I take Certina myself when there's anything the matter with
+me."
+
+"Do you?" said Hal, much interested. "Well, you're certainly a living
+testimonial to its efficacy."
+
+"All the people in the shop take it. It's a good tonic, even when you're
+all right."
+
+The listener felt his vague uneasiness soothed. If those who were
+actually in the business had faith in the patent medicine's worth, it
+must be all that was claimed for it.
+
+"I firmly believe," continued the little loyalist, "that the Chief has
+done more good and saved more lives than all the doctors in the country.
+I'd trust him further than any regular doctor I know, even if he doesn't
+belong to their medical societies and all that. They're jealous of him;
+that's what's the matter with them."
+
+"Good for you!" laughed Hal, feeling his doubts melt at the fire of her
+enthusiasm. "You're a good rooter for the business."
+
+"So's the whole shop. I guess your father is the most popular employer
+in Worthington. Have you decided to come into the business, Mr.
+Surtaine?"
+
+"Do you think I'd make a valuable employee, Miss Milly?" he bantered.
+
+But to Milly Neal the subject of the Certina factory admitted of no
+jocularity. She took him under advisement with a grave and quaint
+dubiety.
+
+"Have you ever worked?"
+
+"Oh, yes; I'm not wholly a loafer."
+
+"For a living, I mean."
+
+"Unfortunately I've never had to."
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Twenty-five."
+
+"I don't believe I'd want you in my department, if it was up to me," she
+pronounced.
+
+"Do you think I wouldn't be amenable to your stern discipline?"
+
+Still she refused to meet him on his ground of badinage. "It isn't
+that. But I don't think you'd be interested enough to start in at the
+bottom and work up."
+
+"Perhaps you're right, Miss Neal," said Hal, a little startled by the
+acuteness of her judgment, and a little piqued as well. "Though you
+condemn me to a life of uselessness on scant evidence."
+
+She went scarlet. "Oh, please! You know I didn't mean that. But you seem
+too--too easy-going, too--"
+
+"Too ornamental to be useful?"
+
+Suddenly she stamped her foot at him, flaming into a swift exasperation.
+"You're laughing at me!" she accused. "I'm going back to my work. I
+won't stay and be made fun of." Then, in another and rather a dismayed
+tone, "Oh, I'm forgetting about your being the Chief's son."
+
+Hal jumped to his feet. "Please promise to forget it when next we meet,"
+he besought her with winning courtesy. "You've been a kind little friend
+and adviser. And I thank you for what you have said."
+
+"Not at all," she returned lamely, and walked away, her face still
+crimson.
+
+Returning to the executive suite, the young scion found his father
+immersed in technicalities of copy with the second advertising writer.
+
+"Sit down, Boyee," said he. "I'll be through in a few minutes." And he
+resumed his discussion of "black-face," "36-point," "indents," "boxes,"
+and so on.
+
+Left to his own devices Hal turned idly to the long table. From the
+newspaper which the Reverend Norman Hale had left, there glared up at
+him in savage black type this heading:--
+
+  CERTINA A FAKE
+
+  _Religious Editor Shows Up Business and Professional_
+
+  _Methods of Dr. L. Andre Surtaine_
+
+The article was made up of excerpts from a religious weekly's expose,
+interspersed with semi-editorial comment. As he skimmed it, Hal's wrath
+and loyalty waxed in direct ratio. Malice was obvious in every line, to
+the incensed reader. But the cause and purpose were not so clear. As he
+looked up, brooding upon it, he caught his father's eye.
+
+"Been reading that slush, Hal?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Of course it's all a pack of lies. But what's the reason for
+it?"
+
+"Blackmail, son."
+
+"Do they expect to get money out of you this way?"
+
+"No. That isn't it. I've always refused to have any business dealings
+with 'em, and this is their way of revenge."
+
+"But I didn't know you advertised Certina in the local papers."
+
+"We don't. Proprietaries don't usually advertise in their own towns.
+We're so well known at home that we don't have to. But some of the side
+lines, like the Relief Pills, that go out under another trade name, use
+space in the Worthington papers. The 'Clarion' isn't getting that copy,
+so they're sore."
+
+"Can't you sue them for libel, Dad?"
+
+"Hardly worth while. Decent people don't read the 'Clarion' anyway, so
+it can't hurt much. It's best just to ignore such things."
+
+"Something ought to be done about it," declared Hal angrily.
+
+Stuffing the paper into his pocket he took his wrath out into the open
+air. Hard and fast he walked, but the farther he went the hotter burned
+his ire.
+
+There was in Harrington Surtaine a streak of the romantic. His inner
+world was partly made up of such chimerical notions as are bred in a
+lively mind, not in very close touch with the world of actualities, by a
+long course of novel-reading and theater-going. Deep within him stirred
+a conviction that there was a proper and suitable, nay, an almost
+obligatory, method made and provided for just such crises as this:
+something that a keen-spirited and high-bred youth ought to do about it.
+Suddenly it came to him. Young Surtaine returned home with his resolve
+taken. In the morning he would fare forth, a modern knight redressing
+human wrongs, and lick the editor of the "Clarion."
+
+Overnight young Mr. Surtaine revised his project. Horsewhipping would be
+no more than the offending editor deserved. However, he should have his
+chance. Let him repent and retract publicly, and the castigation should
+be remitted. Forthwith the avenger sat him down to a task of
+composition. The apology which, after sundry corrections and
+emendations, he finally produced in fair copy, was not alone complete
+and explicit: it was fairly abject. In such terms might a confessed and
+hopeless criminal cast himself desperately upon the mercy of the court.
+Previsioning this masterly _apologium_ upon the first page of the
+morrow's "Clarion,"--or perhaps at the top of the editorial
+columns,--its artificer thrilled with the combined pride of authorship
+and poetic justice.
+
+On the walls of the commodious room which had been set aside in the
+Surtaine mansion for the young master's study hung a plaited dog-whip.
+The agent of just reprisals curled this neatly inside his overcoat
+pocket and set forth upon his errand. It was then ten o'clock in the
+morning.
+
+Now, in hunting the larger fauna of the North American continent with a
+dog-whip, it is advantageous to have some knowledge of the game's
+habits. Mr. Harrington Surtaine's first error lay in expecting to find
+the editorial staff of a morning newspaper on duty in the early
+forenoon. So much a sweeper, emerging from a pile of dust, communicated
+to him across a railing, further volunteering that three o'clock would
+be a well-chosen hour for return, as the boss would be less pressed upon
+by engagements then, perhaps, than at other hours.
+
+In the nature of things, the long delay might well have cooled the
+knightliest ardor. But as he departed from the office, Mr. Surtaine took
+with him a copy of that day's "Clarion" for perusal, and in its pages
+discovered a "follow-up" of the previous day's outrage. Back home he
+went, and added to his literary effort a few more paragraphs wherein the
+editorial "we" more profoundly cringed, cowered, and crawled in
+penitential abasement. Despite the relish of the words, Hal rather hoped
+that the editor would refuse to publish his masterpiece. He itched to
+use that whip.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LAUNCHED
+
+
+For purposes of vital statistics, the head office boy of the Worthington
+"Daily Clarion" was denominated Reginald Currier. As this chaste
+cognomen was artistically incompatible with his squint eye, his militant
+swagger, and a general bearing of unrepressed hostility toward all
+created beings, he was professionally known as "Bim." Journalism, for
+him, was comprised in a single tenet; that no visitor of whatsoever kind
+had or possibly could have any business of even remotely legitimate
+nature within the precincts of the "Clarion" office. Tradition of the
+place held that a dent in the wall back of his desk marked the
+termination of an argument in which Reginald, all unwitting, had essayed
+to maintain his thesis against the lightweight champion of the State who
+had come to call on the sporting editor.
+
+There had been a lull in the activities of this minor Cerberus when the
+light and swinging footfall of one coming up the dim stairway several
+steps at a time aroused his ready suspicions. He bristled forth to the
+rail to meet a tall and rather elegant young man whom he greeted with a
+growl to this effect:
+
+"Hoojer wanter see?"
+
+"Is the editor in?"
+
+"Whajjer want uvvum?"
+
+The tall visitor stepped forward, holding out a card. "Take this to him,
+please, and say that I'd like to see him at once."
+
+Unwisely, Reginald disregarded the card, which fluttered to the floor.
+More unwisely, he ignored a certain tensity of expression upon the face
+of his interlocutor. Most unwisely he repeated, in his very savagest
+growl:
+
+"Whajjer want uvvum, I said. Didn' chu hear me?"
+
+Graceful and effortless as the mounting lark, Reginald Currier rose and
+soared. When he again touched earth, it was only to go spinning into a
+far corner where he first embraced, then strove with and was finally
+tripped and thrown by a large and lurking waste-basket. Somewhat
+perturbed, he extricated himself in time to see the decisive visitor
+disappear through an inner door. Retrieving the crumpled and rejected
+card from its resting-place, he examined it with interest. The legend
+upon it was "Mr. Harrington Surtaine."
+
+"Huh!" grunted Reginald Currier; "I never seen _that_ in no sporting
+column."
+
+Once within the sacred precincts, young Mr. Surtaine turned into an
+inner room, bumped against a man trailing a kite-tail of proof, who had
+issued from a door to the right, asked a question, got a response, and
+entered the editor's den. Two littered desks made up the principal
+furniture of the place. Impartially distributed between the further desk
+and a chair, the form of one lost in slumber sprawled. At the nearer one
+sat a dyspeptic man of middle age waving a heavy pencil above a galley
+proof.
+
+"Are you the editor?" asked Hal.
+
+"One editor. I'm Mr. Sterne. How the devil did you get in here?"
+
+"Are you responsible for this?" Hal held up the morning's clipping,
+headed "Surtaine Fakeries Explained."
+
+"Who are you?" asked Sterne, nervously hitching in his chair.
+
+"I am Harrington Surtaine."
+
+The journalist whistled, a soft, long-drawn note. "Dr. Surtaine's son?"
+he inquired.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's awkward." "Not half as awkward as it's going to be unless you
+apologize privately and publicly."
+
+Mr. Sterne looked at him estimatingly, at the same time wadding up a
+newspaper clipping from the desk in front of him. This he cast at the
+slumberer with felicitous accuracy.
+
+"Hoong!" observed that gentleman, starting up and caressing his cheek.
+
+"Wake up, Mac. Here's a man from the Trouble Belt, with samples to
+show."
+
+The individual thus addressed slowly rose out of his chair, exhibiting a
+squat, gnarly figure surmounted by a very large head.
+
+Hal's hand came up out of his pocket, with the dog-whip writhing
+unpleasantly after it. Simultaneously, the ex-sleeper projected himself,
+without any particular violence but with astonishing quickness, between
+the caller and his prey. Without at all knowing whence it was derived,
+Hal became aware of a large, black, knobby stick, which it were
+inadequate to call a cane, in his new opponent's grasp.
+
+Of physical courage there was no lack in the scion of the Surtaine line.
+Neither, however, was he wholly destitute of reasoning powers and
+caution. The figure before him was of an unquestionable athleticism; the
+weapon of obvious weight and fiber. The situation was embarrassing.
+
+"Please don't lick the editor," said the interrupter of poetic justice
+good-humoredly. "Appropriately framed and hung upon the wall, fifteen
+cents apiece. Yah-ah-ah-oo!" he yawned prodigiously. "Calm down," he
+added.
+
+Hal stared at the squat and agile figure. "You're the office bully and
+bouncer, I suppose," he said.
+
+"McGuire Ellis, _at_ your service. Bounce only when compelled. Otherwise
+peaceful. _And_ sleepy."
+
+"My business is with this man," said Hal, indicating Sterne. "Put up
+your toy, then, and state it in words of one syllable."
+
+For a moment the visitor pondered, drawing the whip through his hands,
+uncertainly. "I'm not fool enough to go up against that war-club," he
+remarked.
+
+Mr. McGuire Ellis nodded approval. "First sensible thing I've heard you
+say," he remarked.
+
+"But neither"--here Hal's jaw projected a little--"am I going to let
+this thing drop."
+
+"Law?" inquired Sterne. "If you think there's any libel in what the
+'Clarion' has said, ask your lawyer. What do you want, anyway?"
+
+Thus recalled to the more pacific phase of his errand, Hal produced his
+document. "If you've got an iota of decency or fairness about you,
+you'll print that," he said.
+
+Sterne glanced through it swiftly. "Nothing doing," he stated
+succinctly. "Did Dr. Surtaine send you here with that thing?"
+
+"My father doesn't know that I'm here."
+
+"Oho! So that's it. Knight-errantry, eh? Now, let me put this thing to
+you straight, Mr. Harrington Surtaine. If your father wants to make a
+fair and decent statement, without abuse or calling names, over his own
+signature, the 'Clarion' will run it, at fifty cents a word."
+
+"You dirty blackmailer!" said Hal slowly.
+
+"Hard names go with this business, my young friend," said the other
+coolly.
+
+"At present you've got me checked. But you don't always keep your paid
+bully with you, I suppose. One of these days you and I will meet--"
+
+"And you'll land in jail."
+
+"He talks awfully young, doesn't he?" said Mr. Ellis, shaking a solemn
+head.
+
+"As for blackmail," continued Sterne, a bit eagerly, "there's nothing in
+that. We've never asked Dr. Surtaine for a dollar. He hasn't got a thing
+on us." "You never asked him for advertising either, I suppose," said
+Hal bitterly.
+
+"Only in the way of business. Just as we go out after any other
+advertising."
+
+"If he had given you his ads.--"
+
+"Oh, I don't say that we'd have gone after him if he'd been one of our
+regular advertisers. Every other paper in town gets his copy; why
+shouldn't we? We have to look out for ourselves. We look out for our
+patrons, too. Naturally, we aren't going to knock one of our
+advertisers. Others have got to take their chances."
+
+"And that's modern journalism!"
+
+"It's the newspaper business," cried Sterne. "No different from any
+other business."
+
+"No wonder decent people consider newspaper men the scum of the earth,"
+said Hal, with rather ineffectual generalization.
+
+"Don't be young!" besought McGuire Ellis wearily. "Pretend you're a
+grown-up man, anyway. You look as if you might have some sense about you
+somewhere, if you'd only give it a chance to filter through."
+
+Some not unpleasant quirk of speech and manner in the man worked upon
+Hal's humor.
+
+"Why, I believe you're right about the youngness," he admitted, with a
+smile. "Perhaps there are other ways of getting at this thing. Just for
+a test,--for the last time will you or will you not, Mr. Sterne, publish
+this apology?"
+
+"We will not. There's just one person can give me orders."
+
+"Who is that?"
+
+"The owner."
+
+"I think you'll be sorry."
+
+McGuire Ellis turned upon him a look that was a silent reproach to
+immaturity.
+
+"Anything more?" queried Sterne. "Nothing," said Hal, with an effort at
+courtesy. "Good-day to you both."
+
+"Well, what about it?" asked McGuire Ellis of his chief, as the
+visitor's footsteps died away.
+
+"Nothing about it. When'll the next Surtaine roast be ready?"
+
+"Ought to be finished to-morrow."
+
+"Schedule it for Thursday. We'll make the old boy squeal yet. Do you
+believe the boy when he says that his father didn't send him?"
+
+"Sounded straight. Pretty straight boy he looked like to me, anyway."
+
+"Pretty fresh kid, _I_ think. And a good deal of a pin-head.
+Distributing agency for the old man's money, I guess. He won't get
+anywhere."
+
+"Well, I'm not so sure," said Ellis contemplatively. "Of course he acts
+gosh-awful young. But did you notice him when he went?"
+
+"Not particularly."
+
+"He was smiling."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Always look out for a guy that smiles when he's licked. He's got a
+come-back to him."
+
+Eleven o'clock that night saw McGuire Ellis lift his head from the
+five-minute nap which he allowed himself on evenings of light pressure
+after the Washington copy was run off, and blink rapidly. At the same
+moment Mr. David Sterne gave utterance to an exclamation, partly of
+annoyance, partly of surprise. Mr. Harrington Surtaine, wearing an
+expression both businesslike and urbane stood in the doorway.
+
+"Good-evening, gentlemen," he remarked.
+
+Mr. Sterne snorted. Mr. Ellis's lips seemed about to form the
+reproachful monosyllable "young." Without further greeting the visitor
+took off his hat and overcoat and hung them on a peg. "You make
+yourself at home," growled Sterne.
+
+"I do," agreed Hal, and, discarding his coat, hung that on another peg.
+"I've got a right to."
+
+Tilting a slumber-burdened head, McGuire Ellis released his adjuration
+against youthfulness.
+
+"What's the answer?" demanded Sterne.
+
+"I've just bought out the 'Clarion,'" said Hal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE OWNER
+
+
+Some degree of triumph would perhaps have been excusable in the new
+owner. Most signally had he turned the tables on his enemies. Yet it was
+with no undue swagger that he seated himself upon a chair of
+problematical stability, and began to study the pages of the morning's
+issue. Sterne regarded him dubiously.
+
+"This isn't a bluff, I suppose?" he asked.
+
+"Ask your lawyers."
+
+"Mac, get Rockwell's house on the 'phone, will you, and find out if
+we've been sold."
+
+Presently the drawl of Mr. Ellis was heard, pleading with a fair and
+anonymous Central, whom he addressed with that charming impersonality
+employed toward babies, pet dogs, and telephone girls, as "Tootsie," to
+abjure juvenility, and give him 322 Vincent, in a hurry.
+
+"You'll excuse me, Mr. Surtaine," said Sterne, in a new and ingratiating
+tone, for which Hal liked him none the better, "but verifying news has
+come to be an instinct with me."
+
+"It's straight," said Ellis, turning his heavy face to his principal,
+after a moment's talk over the wire. "Bought _and_ sold, lock, stock,
+and barrel."
+
+"Have you had any newspaper experience, Mr. Surtaine?" inquired Sterne.
+
+"Not on the practical side."
+
+"As owner I suppose you'll want to make changes."
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"They all do," sighed Sterne. "But my contract has several months--"
+"Yes: I've been over the contracts with a lawyer. Yours and Mr.
+Ellis's. He says they won't hold."
+
+"All newspaper contracts are on the cheese," observed McGuire Ellis
+philosophically. "Swiss cheese, at that. Full of holes."
+
+"I don't admit it," protested Sterne. "Even so, to turn a man out--"
+
+A snort of disgust from Ellis interrupted the plea. The glare with which
+that employee favored his boss fairly convicted the seamed and graying
+editor of willful and captious immaturity.
+
+"Contract or no contract, you'll both be fairly treated," said the new
+owner shortly.
+
+"Who, me?" inquired Ellis. "You can go rapidly to hell and take my
+contract with you. I know when I'm fired."
+
+"Who fired you?"
+
+"I did. To save you the satisfaction."
+
+"Very good of you, I'm sure," drawled Hal in a tone of lofty
+superiority, turning away. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he
+could see McGuire Ellis making pantomime as of one spanking a baby with
+fervor. Amusement helped him to the recovery of his temper.
+
+"Working under an amateur journalist will just suit Sterne," observed
+Ellis, in a tone quite as offensive as Hal's.
+
+"Cut it out, Mac," suggested his principal. "There's no occasion for
+hard words."
+
+"Amateur isn't the hardest word in the dictionary," said Hal quietly.
+"Perhaps I'll become a professional in time."
+
+"Buying a newspaper doesn't make a newspaper man."
+
+"Well, I'm not too old to learn. But see here, Mr. Ellis, doesn't your
+contract hold you?"
+
+"The contract that you said was no good? Do you expect it to work all
+one way?"
+
+"Well, professional honor, then, I should suppose--"
+
+"Professional honor!" cut in Ellis, with scathing contempt. "You step
+in here and buy a paper out of a freak of revenge--"
+
+"Hold on, there! How can you know my motive?"
+
+"What else could it be?"
+
+Hal was silent, finding no answer.
+
+"You see! To feed your mean little spite, you've taken over control of
+the biggest responsibility, for any one with any decent sense of
+responsibility, that a man could take on his shoulders. And what will
+you make of it? A toy! A rich kid's plaything."
+
+"Well, what would you make of it, yourself?" asked Hal.
+
+"A teacher and a preacher. A force to tear down and to build up. To rip
+this old town wide open, and remould it nearer to the heart's desire!
+That's what a newspaper might be, and ought to be, and could be, by God
+in Heaven, if the right man ever had a free hand at it."
+
+"Don't get profane, my boy," tittered Sterne.
+
+"You think that's swearing?" retorted Ellis. "Yes; _you_ would. But I
+was nearer praying then than I've ever been since I came to this office.
+We'll never live to see that prayer answered, you and I."
+
+"Perhaps," began Hal.
+
+"Oh, perhaps!" Ellis snatched the word from his lips. "Perhaps you're
+the boy to do it, eh? Why, it's your kind that's made journalism the
+sewer of the professions, full of the scum and drainings of every other
+trade's failures. What chance have we got to develop ideals when you
+outsiders control the whole business?"
+
+"Hullo!" observed Sterne with a grin. "Where do you come in on the
+idealist business, Mac? This is new talk from you."
+
+"New? Why wouldn't it be new? Would I waste it on you, Dave Sterne?"
+
+"You certainly never have since I've known you."
+
+"Call it easing up my mind if you like. I can afford that luxury, now
+that you 're not my boss any longer. Not but what it's all Greek to
+you."
+
+"Had a drink to-day, Mac?"
+
+"No, damn you. But I'm going out of here and take a hundred. First,
+though, I'm going to tell young Bib-and-Tucker over there a thing or two
+about his new toy. Oh, yes: you can listen, too, Sterne, but it won't
+get to your shelled-in soul."
+
+"You in'trust muh, strangely," said Sterne, and looked over to Hal for
+countenance of his uneasy amusement.
+
+But the new owner did not appear amused. He had faced around in his
+chair and now sat regarding the glooming and exalted Ellis with an
+intent surprise.
+
+"A plaything! That's what you think you've bought, young Mr. Harrington
+Surtaine. One of two things you'll do with it: either you'll try to run
+it yourself, and you'll dip deeper and deeper into Poppa's medicine-bag
+till he gets sick of it and closes you up; or you'll hire some practical
+man to manage it, and insist on dividends that'll keep it just where it
+is now. And that's pretty low, even for a Worthington paper."
+
+"It won't live on blackmail, at any rate," said Hal, his mind reverting
+to its original grievance.
+
+"Maybe it will. You won't know it if it does. Anyhow, it'll live on
+suppression and distortion and manipulation of news, because it'll have
+to, if it's going to live at all."
+
+"You mean that is the basis of the newspaper business as it is to-day?"
+
+"Generally speaking. It certainly is in Worthington."
+
+"You're frank, at any rate. Where's all your glowing idealism now?"
+
+"Vanished into mist. All idealism goes that way, doesn't it?"
+
+"Not if you back it up with work. You see, Mr. Ellis, I'm something of
+an idealist myself."
+
+"The Certina brand of idealism. Guaranteed under the Pure Thought and
+Deed Act."
+
+"Our money may have been made a little--well, blatantly," said Hal,
+flushing. "But at least it's made honestly." He was too intent on his
+subject to note either Sterne's half-wink or Ellis's stare of blank
+amazement. "And I'm going to run this newspaper on the same high
+principles. I don't quite reconcile your standards with the practices of
+this paper, Mr. Ellis--"
+
+"Mac has nothing to do with the policy of the paper, Mr. Surtaine," put
+in Sterne. "He's only an employee."
+
+"Then why don't you get work on some paper that practices your
+principles?"
+
+"Hard to find. Not having been born with a silver spoon, full of
+Certina, in my mouth, I have to earn my own living. It isn't profitable
+to make a religion of one's profession, Mr. Surtaine. Not that I think
+you need the warning. But I've tried it, and I know."
+
+"Do you know, it's rather a pity you don't like me," said Hal, with
+ruminative frankness. "I think I could use some of that religion of
+yours."
+
+"Not on the market," returned Ellis shortly.
+
+"You see," pursued the other, "it's really my own money I've put into
+this paper: half of all I've got."
+
+"How much did you pay for it?" inquired Ellis: "since we're telling each
+other our real names."
+
+"Two hundred and thirty thousand dollars."
+
+"Whee-ee-ee-ew!" Both his auditors joined in the whistle.
+
+"They asked two-fifty."
+
+"Half of that would have bought," said Sterne.
+
+Hal digested that information in silence for a minute. "I suppose I was
+easy. Hurry never yet made a good bargain. But, now that I've got this
+paper I'm going to run it myself."
+
+"On the rocks," prophesied McGuire Ellis. "Utter and complete shipwreck.
+I'm glad I'm off."
+
+"Is it your habit, Mr. Ellis, to run at the first suggestion of
+disaster?"
+
+Ellis looked his questioner up and down. "Say the rest of it," he
+barked.
+
+"Why, it seems to me you're still an officer of this ship. Doesn't it
+enter into your ethics somewhere that you ought to stick by her until
+the new captain can fill your place, and not quit in the face of the
+shipwreck you foresee?"
+
+"Humph," grunted McGuire Ellis, "I guess you're not quite as young as I
+thought you were. How long would you want me to stay?"
+
+"About a year."
+
+"What!"
+
+"On an unbreakable contract. To be editorial manager. You see, I'm
+prepared to buy ideals."
+
+"What about my opinion of amateur journalism?"
+
+"You'll just have to do the best you can about that."
+
+"Give me till to-morrow to think it over."
+
+"All right."
+
+Ellis put down the hat and cane which he had picked up preparatory to
+his departure.
+
+"Not going out after those hundred drinks, eh, Mac?" laughed Sterne.
+
+"Indefinitely postponed," replied the other.
+
+"The first thing to do," said Hal decisively, "is to make amends. Mr.
+Sterne, the 'Clarion' is to print a full retraction of the attacks upon
+my father, at once."
+
+"Yes, sir," assented Sterne, slavishly responsive to the new authority.
+
+Not so McGuire Ellis. "If you do that you'll make a fool of your own
+paper," he said bluntly.
+
+"Make a fool of the paper by righting a rank injustice?"
+
+"Just the point. It isn't a rank injustice."
+
+"See here, Mr. Sterne: isn't it a fact that this attack was made because
+my father doesn't advertise with you?"
+
+The editor twisted uneasily in his chair. "A newspaper's got to look
+out for its own interests," he asserted defensively.
+
+"Please answer my question."
+
+"Well--yes; I suppose it is so."
+
+"Then you're simply operating a blackmailing scheme to get the Certina
+advertising for the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"The Certina advertising?" repeated Sterne in obvious surprise.
+
+"Certina doesn't advertise locally. Most patent medicines don't. It's a
+sort of fashion of the trade not to," explained Ellis.
+
+"What on earth is all this about, then?"
+
+The two newspaper men exchanged a glance. Obviously the new boss
+understood little of his progenitor's extensive business interests.
+"Might as well know sooner as later," decided Ellis, aloud. "It's the
+Neverfail Company of Cincinnati that we got turned down on."
+
+"What is the Neverfail Company?"
+
+"One of Dr. Surtaine's alia--one of the names he does business under.
+Every other paper in town gets their copy. We don't. Hence the roast."
+
+"What sort of business is it?"
+
+"Relief Pills. Here's the ad. in this morning's 'Banner.'"
+
+The name struck chill on Hal's memory. He stared at the sinister oblong
+of type, vaguely sensing in its covert promises the taint, yet failing
+to apprehend the full villainy of the lure.
+
+"Whatever the advertising is," said he, "the principle is the same."
+
+"Precisely," chirped Ellis.
+
+"And you call that decent journalism?"
+
+"No: my extremely youthful friend, I do not. What's more, I never did."
+
+"If you want a retraction published," said Sterne, spreading wide his
+hands as one offering fealty, "wouldn't it be just as well to preface
+it with an announcement of the taking-over of the paper by yourself?"
+
+"That itself would be tantamount to an announced reversal of policy,"
+mused Hal.
+
+Again Sterne and Ellis glanced at each other, but with a different
+expression this time. The look meant that they had recognized in the
+intruder a flash of that mysterious sense vaguely known as "the
+newspaper instinct," with which a few are born, but which most men
+acquire by giving mortgages on the blest illusions of youth.
+
+"Cor-_rect_," said Ellis.
+
+"Let the retraction rest for the present. I'll decide it later."
+
+The door was pushed open, and a dark man of perhaps thirty, with a
+begrimed and handsome face, entered. In one hand he held a proof.
+
+"About this paragraph," he said to Sterne in a slightly foreign accent.
+"Is it to run to-morrow?"
+
+"What paragraph is that?"
+
+"The one-stick editorial guying Dr. Surtaine."
+
+"Kill it," said Sterne hastily. "This is Mr. Harrington Surtaine. Mr.
+Surtaine, this is Max Veltman, foreman of our composing-room."
+
+Slowly the printer turned his fine, serious face from one to the other.
+"Ah," he said presently. "So it is arranged. We do not print this
+paragraph. Good!"
+
+Impossible to take offense at the tone. Yet the smile which accompanied
+it was so plainly a sneer that Hal's color rose.
+
+"Mr. Surtaine is the new owner of the 'Clarion,'" explained Ellis.
+
+"In that case, of course," said Veltman quietly. "Good-night,
+gentlemen."
+
+"Good-looking chap," remarked Hal. "But what a curious expression."
+
+"Veltman's a thinker and a crank," said Ellis. "If he had a little more
+balance he'd make his mark. But he's a sort of melancholiac. Ill-health,
+nerves, and a fixed belief in the general wrongness of creation."
+
+"Well. I'll get to know more about the shop to-morrow," said Hal. "I'm
+for home and sleep just now. See you at--what time, by the way?"
+
+"Noon," said Sterne. "If that suits you."
+
+"Perfectly. Good-night."
+
+Arrived at home, Hal went straight to the big ground-floor library
+where, as the light suggested, his father sat reading.
+
+"Dad, do you want a retraction printed?"
+
+"Of the 'Clarion' article?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"From 'Want' to 'Get' the road runs rocky," said the senior Surtaine
+whimsically.
+
+"I've just come from removing a few of the rocks at the 'Clarion'
+office."
+
+"Go down to lick the editor?" Dr. Surtaine's eyes twinkled.
+
+"There may have been some such notion in the back of my head."
+
+"Expensive exercise. Did you do it?"
+
+"No. He had a club."
+
+"If I were running a slander-machine like the 'Clarion' I'd want
+six-inch armor-plate and a quick-fire battery. Well, what did you do?"
+
+"Bought the paper."
+
+"You needn't have gone down town to do that. It comes to the office."
+
+"You don't understand. I've bought the 'Clarion,' presses, plant,
+circulation, franchise, good-will, ill-will, high, low, jack, and
+the game."
+
+"You! What for?"
+
+"Why," said Hal thoughtfully; "mainly because I lost my temper, I
+believe."
+
+"Sounds like a pretty heavy loss, Boy-ee."
+
+"Two hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Oh, the prodigal son hasn't
+got anything on me, Dad, when it comes to scattering patrimonies," he
+concluded a little ruefully.
+
+"What are you going to do with it, now you've got it?"
+
+"Run it. I've bought a career."
+
+"Now you're talking." The big man jumped up and set both hands on Hal's
+shoulders. "That's the kind of thing I like to hear, and in the kind of
+way it ought to be said. You go to it, Hal. I'll back you, as far as you
+like."
+
+"No, sir. I thank you just the same: this is my game."
+
+"Want to play it alone, do you?"
+
+"How else can I make a career of it?"
+
+"Right you are, Boyee. But it takes something behind money to build up a
+newspaper. And the 'Clarion' 'll take some building up."
+
+"Well, I've got aspiration enough, if it comes to that," smiled Hal.
+
+"Aspiration's a good starter: but it's perspiration that makes a
+business go. Are you ready to take off your coat and work?"
+
+"I certainly am. There's a lot for me to learn."
+
+"There is. Everything. Want some advice from the Old Man?"
+
+"I most surely do, Dad."
+
+"Listen here, then. A newspaper is a business proposition. Never forget
+that. All these hifalutin' notions about its being a palladium and the
+voice of the people and the guardian of public interests are good enough
+to talk about on the editorial page. Gives a paper a following, that
+kind of guff does. But the duty of a newspaper is the duty of any other
+business, to make money. There's the principle, the policy, the
+politics, ethics, and religion of the newspaper in a nutshell. Now, how
+are you going to make money with the 'Clarion'?"
+
+"By making it a better paper than the others."
+
+"Hm! Better. Yes: that's all right, so long as you mean the right thing
+by 'better.' Better for the people that want to use it and can pay for
+using it."
+
+"The readers, you mean?"
+
+"The advertisers. It's the advertisers that pay for the paper, not the
+readers. You've got to have circulation, of course, to get the
+advertising. But remember this, always: circulation is only a means to
+an end. It never yet paid the cost of getting out a daily, and it never
+will."
+
+"I know enough of the business to understand that."
+
+"Good! Look at the 'Clarion,' as it is. It's got a good circulation. And
+that lets it out. It can't get the advertising. So it's losing money,
+hand over fist."
+
+"Why can't it?"
+
+"It's yellow. It doesn't treat the business interests right."
+
+"Sterne says they always look after their own advertisers."
+
+"Oh, that! Naturally they have to. Any newspaper will do that. But they
+print a lot of stuff about strikes and they're always playing up to the
+laboring man and running articles about abuses and pretending to be the
+friend of the poor and all that slush, and the better class of business
+won't stand for it. Once a paper gets yellow, it has to keep on.
+Otherwise it loses what circulation it's got. No advertiser wants to use
+it then. The department stores do go into the 'Clarion' because it gets
+to a public they can't reach any other way. But they give it just as
+little space as they can. It isn't popular."
+
+"Well, I don't intend to make the paper yellow."
+
+"Of course you don't. Keep your mind on it as a business proposition and
+you won't go wrong. Remember, it's the advertiser that pays. Think of
+that when you write an editorial. Frame it and hang it where every
+sub-editor and reporter can't help but see it. Ask of every bit of news,
+'Is this going to get me an advertiser? Is that going to lose me an
+advertiser?' Be on the lookout to do your advertisers favors. They
+appreciate little things like special notices and seeing their names in
+print, in personals, and that kind of thing. And keep the paper
+optimistic. Don't knock. Boost. Business men warm up to that. Why,
+Boy-ee, if you'll just stick to the policy I've outlined, you'll not
+only make a big success, but you'll have a model paper that'll make a
+new era in local journalism; a paper that every business man in town
+will swear by and that'll be the pride of Worthington before you're
+through."
+
+Fired by the enthusiasm of his fair vision of a higher journalism, Dr.
+Surtaine had been walking up and down, enlivening, with swinging arms,
+the chief points of his Paean of Policy. Now he dropped into his chair
+and with a change of voice said:
+
+"Never mind about that retraction, Hal."
+
+"No?"
+
+"No. Forget it. When do you start in work?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+"You must save to-morrow evening."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"You're invited to the Festus Willards'. Mrs. Willard was particularly
+anxious you should come."
+
+"But I don't know them, Dad."
+
+"Doesn't matter. It's about the most exclusive house in town. A cut
+above me, I can tell you. I've never so much as set foot in it."
+
+"Then I won't go," declared his son, flushing.
+
+"Yes: you must," insisted his father anxiously. "Don't mind about me.
+I'm not ambitious socially. I told you some folks don't like the
+business. It's too noisy. But you won't throw out any echoes. You'll go,
+Boyee?"
+
+"Since you want me to, of course, sir. But I shan't find much time for
+play if I'm to learn my new trade."
+
+"Oh, you can hire good teachers," laughed his father. "Well, I'm
+sleepy. Good-night, Mr. Editor."
+
+"Good-night, Dad. I could use some sleep myself." But thought shared the
+pillow with Hal Surtaine's head. Try as he would to banish the
+contestants, Dr. Surtaine's Paean of Policy and McGuire Ellis's
+impassioned declaration of faith did battle for the upper hand in his
+formulating professional standards. The Doctor's theory was the
+clean-cut, comprehensible, and plausible one. But something within Hal
+responded to the hot idealism of the fighting journalist. He wanted
+Ellis for a fellow workman. And his last waking notion was that he
+wanted and needed Ellis mainly because Ellis had told him to go to hell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A PARTNERSHIP
+
+
+All the adjectives in the social register were exhausted by the daily
+papers in describing Mrs. Festus Willard's dance. Without following them
+into that verbal borderland wherein "recherche" vies with "exclusive,"
+and "chic" disputes precedence with "distingue," it is sufficient for
+the purposes of this narrative to chronicle the fact that the pick of
+Worthington society was there, and not much else. Also, if I may borrow
+from the Society Editor's convenient phrase-book, "Among those present"
+was Mr. Harrington Surtaine.
+
+For reasons connected with his new venture, Hal had come late. He was
+standing near the doorway wondering by what path to attain to an
+unidentified hostess, when Miss Esme Elliot, at the moment engaged with
+that very hostess on some matter of feminine strategy with which we have
+no concern, spied him.
+
+"Who is the young Greek godling, hopelessly lost in the impenetrable
+depths of your drawing-room?" she propounded suddenly.
+
+"Who? What? Where?" queried Mrs. Willard, thus abruptly recalled to her
+duties.
+
+"Yonder by the doorway, looking as if he didn't know a soul."
+
+"It's some stranger," said the hostess, trying to peer around an
+intervening palm. "I must go and speak to him."
+
+"Wait. Festus has got him."
+
+For the host, a powerful, high-colored man in his early forties, with a
+slight limp, had noticed the newcomer and was now introducing himself.
+Miss Elliot watched the process with interest.
+
+"Jinny," she announced presently, "I want that to play with."
+
+The stranger turned a little, so that his full face was shown. "It's Hal
+Surtaine!" exclaimed Mrs. Willard.
+
+"I don't care who it is. It looks nice. Please, mayn't I have it to play
+with?"
+
+"Will you promise not to break it? It used to be a particular pet of
+mine."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Oh, years ago. When you were in your cradle."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"On the St. Lawrence. Several summers. He was my boy-knight, and
+chaperon, and protector. Such a dear, chivalrous boy!"
+
+"Was he in love with you?" demanded Miss Elliot with lively interest.
+
+"Of course he wasn't. He was a boy of fifteen, and I a mature young
+woman of twenty-one."
+
+"He _was_ in love with you," accused the girl, noting a brightness in
+her friend's color.
+
+"There was a sort of knightly devotion," admitted the other demurely.
+"There always is, isn't there, in a boy of that age, for a woman years
+older?"
+
+"And you didn't know him at first?"
+
+"It's ten years since I've set eyes on him. He doesn't even know that I
+am the Mrs. Festus Willard who is giving this party."
+
+"Festus is looking around for you. They'll be over here in a minute. No!
+Don't get up yet. I want you to do something for me."
+
+"What is it, Norrie?"
+
+"I'm not going to feel well, about supper-time."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Would _you_ feel well if you'd been in to dinner three times in the
+last week with Will Douglas, and then had to go in to supper with him,
+too?"
+
+"But I thought you and Will--"
+
+"I'm tired of having people think," said Miss Elliot plaintively. "Too
+much Douglas! Yes; I shall be quite indisposed, about one dance before
+supper."
+
+"I'll send you home."
+
+"No, you won't, Jinny, dear. Because I shall suddenly recover, about two
+minutes before the oysters arrive."
+
+"Norrie!"
+
+"Truly I shall. Quite miraculously. And you're to see that the young
+Greek godling doesn't get any other partner for supper--"
+
+"Esme!!"
+
+"--because I'm sure he'd rather have me," she concluded superbly.
+
+"Eleanor Stanley Maxwell Elliot!"
+
+"Oh, you may call me _all_ my names. I'm accustomed to abuse from you.
+But you'll arrange it, _dear_ Jinny, won't you!"
+
+"Did you ever fail of anything when you put on that wheedling face and
+tone?"
+
+"Never," said Miss Elliot with composure, but giving her friend a little
+hug. "Here they come. I fly. Bring him to me later."
+
+Piloted by Festus Willard, Hal crossed the floor, and beheld, moving to
+meet him with outstretched hands, a little woman with an elfin face and
+the smile of a happy child.
+
+"Have you forgotten me, Hal?"
+
+"Lady Jeannette!" he cried, the old boyhood name springing to his lips.
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Didn't Festus tell you?" She looked fondly up at her big husband. "I
+didn't know that the surprise would last up to the final moment."
+
+"It's the very best surprise that has happened to me in Worthington,"
+declared Hal emphatically.
+
+"We're quite prepared to adopt you, Surtaine," said Willard pleasantly.
+"Jinny has never ceased to wonder why she heard nothing from you in
+reply to her note telling of our engagement."
+
+"Never got it," said Hal promptly. "And I've wondered why she dropped me
+so unaccountably. It's rather luck for me, you know," he added, smiling,
+"to find friends ready-made in a strange town."
+
+"Oh, you'll make friends enough," declared Mrs. Willard. "The present
+matter is to make acquaintances. Come and dance this dance out with me
+and then I'll take you about and introduce you. Are you as good a dancer
+as you used to be?"
+
+Hal was, and something more. And in his hostess he had one of the best
+partners in Worthington. Cleverly she had judged that the "Boston" with
+her, if he were proficient, would be the strongest recommendation to the
+buds of the place. And, indeed, before they had gone twice about the
+floor, many curious and interested eyes were turned upon them. Not the
+least interested were those of Miss Elliot, who privately decided, over
+a full and overflowing programme, that she would advance her recovery to
+one dance before the supper announcement.
+
+"You're going to be a social success, Hal," whispered his partner. "I
+feel it. And _where_ did you learn that delightful swing after the dip?"
+
+"Picked it up on shipboard. But I shan't have much time for gayeties.
+You see, I've become a workingman."
+
+"Tell me about it to-morrow. You're to dine with us; quite _en famille_.
+You _must_ like Festus, Hal."
+
+"I should think that would be easy."
+
+"It is. He is just the finest, cleanest, straightest human being in the
+world," she said soberly. "Now, come away and meet a million people."
+
+So late was it that most of the girls had no vacancies on their
+programmes. But Jeannette Willard was both a diplomat and a bit of a
+despot, socially, and several of the young eligibles relinquished, with
+surprisingly good grace, so Hal felt, their partners, in favor of the
+newcomer. He did not then know the tradition of Worthington's best set,
+that hospitality to a stranger well vouched for should be the common
+concern of all. Very pleasant and warming he found this atmosphere,
+after his years abroad, with its happy, well-bred frankness, its open
+comradeship, and obvious, "first-name" intimacies. But though every one
+he met seemed ready to extend to him, as a friend of the Willards, a
+ready welcome, he could not but feel himself an outsider, and at the
+conclusion of a dance he drew back into a side passage, to watch for a
+time.
+
+Borne on a draught of air from some invisibly opening door behind him
+there came to his nostrils the fairy-spice of the arbutus-scent. He
+turned quickly, and saw her almost at his shoulder, the girl of the
+lustrous face. Behind her was Festus Willard.
+
+"Ah, there you are, Surtaine," he said. "I've been looking for you to
+present you to Miss Elliot. Esme, this is Mr. Harrington Surtaine."
+
+She neither bowed nor moved in acknowledgment of Hal's greeting, but
+looked at him with still, questioning eyes. The springtide hue of the
+wild flower at her breast was matched in her cheek. Her head was held
+high, bringing out the pure and lovely line of chin and throat. To Hal
+it seemed that he had never seen anything so beautiful and desirable.
+
+"Is it a bet?" Festus Willard's quiet voice was full of amusement. "Have
+you laid a wager as to which will keep silent longest?"
+
+At this, Hal recovered himself, though stumblingly.
+
+"'Fain would I speak,'" he paraphrased, "'but that I fear to--to--to--'"
+
+"Stutter," suggested Willard, with solicitous helpfulness. The girl
+broke into a little trill of mirth, too liquid for laughter; being
+rather the sound of a brooklet chuckling musically over its private
+delectations.
+
+"If I could have a dance with you," suggested Hal, "I'm sure it would
+help my aphasia."
+
+"I'm afraid," she began dubiously, "that--No; here's one just before
+supper. If you haven't that--"
+
+"No: I haven't," said Hal hastily. "It's awfully good of you--and lucky
+for me."
+
+"I'll be with Mrs. Willard," said the girl, nodding him a cheerful
+farewell.
+
+Just what or who his partners for the next few dances were, Hal could
+not by any effort recall the next day. He was conscious, on the floor,
+only of an occasional glimpse of her, a fugitive savor of the wildwood
+fragrance, and then she had disappeared.
+
+Later, as he returned from a talk with Festus Willard outside, he became
+aware of the challenge of deep-hued, velvety eyes, regarding him with a
+somewhat petulant expression, and recognized his acquaintance of the
+motor car and the railroad terminal.
+
+"You'd forgotten me," accused Miss Kathleen Pierce, pouting, as he came
+to greet her.
+
+Hal's disclaimer had sufficient diplomatic warmth to banish her
+displeasure. She introduced to him as Dr. Merritt a striking-looking,
+gray-haired young man, who had come up at the same time with an
+anticipatory expression. This promptly vanished when she said
+offhandedly to him:
+
+"You've had three dances with me already, Hugh. I'm going to give this
+one to Mr. Surtaine if he wants it."
+
+"Of course I want it," said Hal.
+
+"Not that you deserve it," she went on. "You should have come around
+earlier. I'm not in the habit of giving dances this late in the
+evening."
+
+"How could I break through the solid phalanx of supplicating admirers?"
+
+"At least, you might have tried. I want to try that new step I saw you
+doing with Mrs. Willard. And I always get what I want."
+
+"Unfortunate young lady!"
+
+"Why unfortunate?"
+
+"To have nothing seem unattainable. Life must pall on you terribly."
+
+"Indeed, it doesn't. I like being a spoiled child, don't you? Don't you
+think it's fun having everything you want to buy, and having a leading
+citizen for a father?"
+
+"Is your father a leading citizen?" asked Hal, amused.
+
+"Of course. So's yours. Neither of them quite knows which is the most
+leading. Dr. Surtaine is the most popular, but I suppose Pop is the most
+influential. Between the two of them they pretty much run this little
+old burg. Of course," she added with careless insolence, "Pop has got it
+all over Dr. Surtaine socially.
+
+"I humbly feel that I am addressing local royalty," said Hal, smiling
+sardonically.
+
+"Who? Me? Oh, I'm only the irresponsible child of wealth and power. Dr.
+Merritt called me that once--before I got him tamed." Turning to look at
+the gray young man who stood not far off, and noting the quiet force and
+competence of the face, Hal hazarded a guess to himself that the very
+frank young barbarian with whom he was talking was none too modest in
+her estimate of her own capacities. "Mrs. Willard is our local queen,"
+she continued. "And Esme Elliot is the princess. Have you met Esme yet?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, of course, nobody else has a chance--so long as you're the newest
+toy. Still, you might find a spare hour between-times to come and call
+on us. Come on; let's dance."
+
+"Pert" was the mildest term to which Hal reduced his characterization of
+Miss Pierce, by the time the one-step ended. Nevertheless, he admitted
+to himself that he had been amused. His one chief concern now, however,
+was the engagement with Miss Elliot.
+
+When finally his number came around, he found her calmly explaining to a
+well-favored young fellow with a pained expression that he must have
+made a mistake about the number, while Mrs. Willard regarded her with
+mingled amusement and disfavor.
+
+"Don't expect me to dance," she said as Hal approached. "I've twisted my
+foot."
+
+"I'm sorry," said he blankly.
+
+"Let's find a quiet place where we can sit. And then you may get me some
+supper."
+
+His face lighted up. Esme Elliot remarked to herself that she had seldom
+seen a more pleasing specimen of the youth of the species.
+
+"This is rather like a fairy-gift," he began eagerly, as they made their
+way to a nook under the stairway, specially adapted to two people of
+hermit tastes. "I shouldn't have dared to expect such good fortune."
+
+"You'll find me quite a fairy-godmother if you're good. Besides," she
+added with calm audacity, "I wanted you to myself."
+
+"Why?" he asked, amused and intrigued.
+
+"Curiosity. My besetting sin. You're a phenomenon."
+
+"An ambiguous term. It may mean merely a freak."
+
+"A new young man in Worthington," she informed him, "is a phenomenon, a
+social phenomenon. Of course he may be a freak, also," she added
+judicially.
+
+"Newness is a charm that soon wears off."
+
+"Then you're going to settle down here?"
+
+"Yes. I've joined the laboring classes."
+
+"What kind of labor?"
+
+"Journalism. I've just started in, to-day."
+
+"Really! Which paper?"
+
+"The 'Clarion.'"
+
+Her expressive face changed. "Oh," she said, a little blankly.
+
+"You don't like the 'Clarion'?"
+
+"I almost never see it. So I don't know. And you're going to begin at
+the bottom? That's quite brave of you."
+
+"No; I'm going to begin at the top. That's braver. Anyway, it's more
+reckless. I've bought the paper."
+
+"Have you! I hadn't heard of it."
+
+"Nobody's heard of it yet. No outsider. You're the first."
+
+"How delightful!" She leaned closer and looked into his face with
+shining eyes. "Tell me more. What are you going to do with it?"
+
+"Learn something about it, first."
+
+"It's rather yellow, isn't it?"
+
+"Putting it mildly, yes. That's one of the things I want to change."
+
+"Oh, I wish I owned a newspaper!"
+
+"Do you? Why?"
+
+"For the power of it. To say what you please and make thousands listen."
+The pink in her cheeks deepened. "There's nothing in the world like the
+thrill of that sense of power. It's the one reason why I'd be almost
+willing to be a man."
+
+"Perhaps you wouldn't need to be. Couldn't you exert the power without
+actually owning the newspaper?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"By exercising your potent influence upon the obliging proprietor," he
+suggested smiling.
+
+There came a dancing light in her eyes. "Do you think I'd make a good
+Goddess-Outside-the-Machine, to the 'Daily Clarion'?"
+
+"Charming! For a two-cent stamp--no, for a spray of your arbutus, I'll
+sell you an editorial sphere of influence."
+
+"Generous!" she cried. "What would my duties be?"
+
+"To advise the editor and proprietor on all possible points," he
+laughed.
+
+"And my privileges?"
+
+"The right of a queen over a slave."
+
+"We move fast," she said. Her fingers went to the cluster of
+delicate-hued bells in her bodice. But it was a false gesture. Esme
+Elliot was far too practiced in her chosen game to compromise herself to
+comment by allowing a man whom she had just met to display her favor in
+his coat.
+
+"Am I to have my price?" His voice was eager now. She looked very lovely
+and childlike, with her head drooping, consideringly, above the flowers.
+
+"Give me a little time," she said. "To undertake a partnership on five
+minutes' notice--that isn't business, is it?"
+
+"Nor is this--wholly," he said, quite low.
+
+Esme straightened up. "I'm starved," she said lightly. "Are you not
+going to get me any supper?"
+
+After his return she held the talk to more impersonal topics, advising
+him, with an adorable assumption of protectiveness, whom he was to meet
+and dance with, and what men were best worth his while. At parting, she
+gave him her hand.
+
+"I will let you know," she said, "about the--the sphere of influence."
+
+Hal danced several more numbers, with more politeness than enjoyment,
+then sought out his hostess to say good-night.
+
+"I'll see you to-morrow, then," she said: "and you shall tell me all
+your news."
+
+"You're awfully good to me, Lady Jeannette," said he gratefully.
+"Without you I'd be a lost soul in this town."
+
+"Most people are good to you, I fancy, Hal," said she, looking him over
+with approval. "As for being a lost soul, you don't look it. In fact
+you look like a very well-found soul, indeed."
+
+"It _is_ rather a cheerful world to live in," said Hal with apparent
+irrelevance.
+
+"I hope they haven't spoiled you," she said anxiously. "Are you vain,
+Hal? No: you don't look it."
+
+"What on earth should I be vain about? I've never done anything in the
+world."
+
+"No? Yet you've improved. You've solidified. What have you been doing to
+yourself? Not falling in love?"
+
+"Not that, certainly," he replied, smiling. "Nothing much but
+traveling."
+
+"How did you like Esme Elliot?" she asked abruptly.
+
+"Quite attractive," said Hal in a flat tone.
+
+"Quite attractive, indeed!" repeated his friend indignantly. "In all
+your travelings, I don't believe you've ever seen any one else half as
+lovely and lovable."
+
+"Local pride carries you far, Lady Jeannette," laughed Hal.
+
+"And I _had_ intended to have her here to dine to-morrow; but as you're
+so indifferent--"
+
+"Oh, don't leave her out on my account," said Hal magnanimously.
+
+"I believe you're more than half in love with her already."
+
+"Well, you ought to be a good judge unless you've wholly forgotten the
+old days," retorted Hal audaciously.
+
+Jeannette Willard laughed up at him. "Don't try to flirt with a
+middle-aged lady who is most old-fashionedly in love with her husband,"
+she advised. "Keep your bravo speeches for Esme! She's used to them."
+
+"Rather goes in for that sort of thing, doesn't she?"
+
+"You mean flirtation? Someone's been talking to you about her," said
+Mrs. Willard quickly. "What did they say?"
+
+"Nothing in particular. I just gathered the impression."
+
+"Don't jump to any conclusions about Esme," advised his friend. "Most
+men think her a desperate flirt. She does like attention and admiration.
+What woman doesn't? And Esme is very much a woman."
+
+"Evidently!"
+
+"If she seems heartless, it's because she doesn't understand. She enjoys
+her own power without comprehending it. Esme has never been really
+interested in any man. If she had ever been hurt, herself, she would be
+more careful about hurting others. Yet the very men who have been
+hardest hit remain her loyal friends."
+
+"A tribute to her strategy."
+
+"A finer quality than that. It is her own loyalty, I think, that makes
+others loyal to her. But the men here aren't up to her standard. She is
+complex, and she is ambitious, without knowing it. Fine and clean as our
+Worthington boys are, there isn't one of them who could appeal to the
+imagination and idealism of a girl like Esme Elliot. For Esme, under all
+that lightness, is an idealist; the idealist who hasn't found her
+ideal."
+
+"And therefore hasn't found herself."
+
+She flashed a glance of inquiry and appraisal at him. "That's rather
+subtle of you," she said. "I hope you don't know _too_ much about women,
+Hal."
+
+"Not I! Just a shot in the dark."
+
+"I said there wasn't a man here up to her standard. That isn't quite
+true. There is one,--you met him to-night,--but he has troubles of his
+own, elsewhere," she added, smiling. "I had hoped--but there has always
+been a friendship too strong for the other kind of sentiment between him
+and Esme."
+
+"For a guess, that might be Dr. Merritt," said Hal.
+
+"How did you know?" she cried.
+
+"I didn't. Only, he seems, at a glance, different and of a broader gauge
+than the others."
+
+"You're a judge of men, at least. As for Esme, I suppose she'll marry
+some man much older than herself. Heaven grant he's the right one! For
+when she gives, she will give royally, and if the man does not meet her
+on her own plane--well, there will be tragedy enough for two!"
+
+"Deep waters," said Hal. The talk had changed to a graver tone.
+
+"Deep and dangerous. Shipwreck for the wrong adventurer. But El Dorado
+for the right. Such a golden El Dorado, Hal! The man I want for Esme
+Elliot must have in him something of woman for understanding, and
+something of genius for guidance, and, I'm afraid, something of the
+angel for patience, and he must be, with all this, wholly a man."
+
+"A pretty large order, Lady Jeannette. Well, I've had my warning.
+Good-night."
+
+"Perhaps it wasn't so much warning as counsel," she returned, a little
+wistfully. "How poor Esme's ears must be burning. There she goes now.
+What a picture! Come early to-morrow."
+
+Hal's last impression of the ballroom, as he turned away, was summed up
+in one glance from Esme Elliot's lustrous eyes, as they met his across
+her partner's shoulder, smiling him a farewell and a remembrance of
+their friendly pact.
+
+"Honey-Jinny," said Mrs. Willard's husband, after the last guest had
+gone; "I don't understand about young Surtaine. Where did he get it?"
+
+"Get what, dear? One might suppose he was a corrupt politician."
+
+"One might suppose he might be anything crooked or wrong, knowing his
+old, black quack of a father. But he seems to be clean stuff all
+through. He looks it. He acts it. He carries himself like it. And he
+talks it. I had a little confab with him out in the smoking-room, and I
+tell you, Jinny-wife, I believe he's a real youngster."
+
+"Well, he had a mother, you know."
+
+"Did he? What about her?"
+
+"She was an old friend of my mother's. Dr. Surtaine eloped with her out
+of her father's country place in Midvale. He was an itinerant peddler of
+some cure-all then. She was a gently born and bred girl, but a mere
+child, unworldly and very romantic, and she was carried away by the
+man's personal beauty and magnetism."
+
+"I can't imagine it in a girl of any sort of family."
+
+"Mother has told me that he had a personal force that was almost
+hypnotic. There must have been something else to him, too, for they say
+that Hal's mother died, as desperately in love as she had been when she
+ran away with him, and that he was almost crushed by her loss and never
+wholly got over it. He transferred his devotion to the child, who was
+only three years old when the mother died. When Hal was a mere child my
+mother saw him once taking in dollars at a country fair booth,--just
+think of it, dearest,--and she said he was the picture of his
+girl-mother then. Later, when Professor Certain, as he called himself
+then, got rich, he gave Hal the best of education. But he never let him
+have anything to do with the Ellersleys--that was Mrs. Surtaine's name.
+All the family are dead now."
+
+"Well, there must be some good in the old boy," admitted Willard. "But I
+don't happen to like him. I do like the boy. Blood does tell, Jinny. But
+if he's really as much of an Ellersley as he looks, there's a bitter
+enlightenment before him when he comes to see Dr. Surtaine as he really
+is."
+
+Meantime Hal, home at a reasonable hour, in the interest of his new
+profession, had taken with him the pleasantest impressions of the
+Willards' hospitality. He slept soundly and awoke in buoyant spirits for
+the dawning enterprise. On the breakfast table he found, in front of his
+plate, a bunchy envelope addressed in a small, strong, unfamiliar hand.
+Within was no written word; only a spray of the trailing arbutus, still
+unwithered of its fairy-pink, still eloquent, in its wayward, woodland
+fragrance, of her who had worn it the night before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GLIMMERINGS
+
+
+Ignorance within one's self is a mist which, upon closer approach,
+proves a mountain. To the new editor of the "Clarion" the things he did
+not know about this enterprise of which he had suddenly become the
+master loomed to the skies. Together with the rest of the outer world,
+he had comfortably and vaguely regarded a newspaper as a sort of
+automatic mill which, by virtue of having a certain amount of grain in
+the shape of information dumped into it, worked upon this with an
+esoteric type-mechanism, and, in due and exact time, delivered a
+definite grist of news. Of the refined and articulated processes of
+acquisition, selection, and elimination which went to the turning-out of
+the final product, he was wholly unwitting. He could as well have
+manipulated a linotype machine as have given out a quiet Sunday's
+assignment list: as readily have built a multiple press as made up an
+edition.
+
+So much he admitted to McGuire Ellis late in the afternoon of the day
+after the Willard party. Fascinated, he had watched that expert
+journalist go through page after page of copy, with what seemed
+superhuman rapidity and address, distribute the finished product
+variously upon hooks, boxes, and copy-boys, and, the immediate task
+being finished, lapse upon his desk and fall asleep. Meantime, the owner
+himself faced the unpleasant prospect of being smothered under the
+downfall of proofs, queries, and scribbled sheets which descended upon
+his desk from all sides. For a time he struggled manfully: for a time
+thereafter he wallowed desperately. Then he sent out a far cry for help.
+The cry smote upon the ear of McGuire Ellis, "Hoong!" ejaculated that
+somnolent toiler, coming up out of deep waters. "Did you speak?"
+
+"I want to know what I'm to do with all of these things," replied his
+boss, indicating the augmenting drifts.
+
+"Throw 'em on the floor, is _my_ advice," said the employee drowsily.
+"The more stuff you throw away, the better paper you get out. That's a
+proverb of the business."
+
+"In other words, you think the paper would get along better without me
+than with me?"
+
+"But you're enjoying yourself, aren't you?" queried his employee.
+Heaving himself out of his chair, he ambled over to Hal's desk and
+evolved out of the chaos some semblance of order. "Don't find it as easy
+as your enthusiasm painted it," he suggested.
+
+"Oh, I've still got the enthusiasm. If only I knew where to begin."
+
+Ellis rubbed his ear thoughtfully and remarked: "Once I knew a man from
+Phoenix, Arizona, who was so excited the first time he saw the ocean
+that he borrowed a uniform from an absent friend, shinned aboard a
+five-thousand-ton brigantine, and ordered all hands to put out to sea
+immediately in the teeth of a whooping gale. But he," added the narrator
+in the judicial tone of one who cites mitigating circumstances, "was
+drunk at the time."
+
+"Thanks for the parallel. I don't like it. But never mind that. The
+question is, What am I going to do?"
+
+"That's the question all right. Are you putting it to me?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"Well, I was just going to put it to you."
+
+"No use. I don't know."
+
+The two men looked each other in the eye, long and steadily. Ellis's
+harsh face relaxed to a sort of grin.
+
+"You want me to tell you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What do you think you're hiring, a Professor of Journalism in the
+infant class?" The tone of the question offset any apparent ill-nature
+in the wording.
+
+"It might be made worth your while."
+
+"All right; I'm hired."
+
+"That's good," said Hal heartily. "I think you'll find I'm not hard to
+get along with."
+
+"I think _you'll_ find _I_ am," replied the other with some grimness.
+"But I know the game. Well, let's get down to cases. What do you want to
+do with the 'Clarion'?"
+
+"Make it the cleanest, decentest newspaper in the city."
+
+"Then you don't think it's that, now."
+
+"No. I know it isn't."
+
+"Did you get that from Dr. Surtaine?"
+
+"Partly."
+
+"What's the other part?"
+
+"First-hand impressions. I've been going through the files."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Since nine o'clock this morning."
+
+"With what idea?"
+
+"Why, having bought a piece of property, I naturally want to know about
+it."
+
+"Been through the plant yet? That's your property, too."
+
+"No. I thought I'd find out more from the files. I've bought a
+newspaper, not a building."
+
+The characteristic grunt with which Ellis favored his employer in reply
+to this seemed to have a note of approval in it.
+
+"Well; now that you own the 'Clarion,'" he said after a pause, "what do
+you think of it?"
+
+"It's yellow, and it's sensational, and--it's vulgar."
+
+There was nothing complimentary in the other's snort this time.
+
+"Of course it's vulgar. You can't sell a sweet-scented, prim old-maidy
+newspaper to enough people to pay for the z's in one font of type.
+People are vulgar. Don't forget that. And you've got to make a
+newspaper to suit them. Lesson Number One."
+
+"It needn't be a muckraking paper, need it, forever smelling out
+something rotten, and exploiting it in big headlines?"
+
+"Oh, that's all bluff," replied the journalist easily. "We never turn
+loose on anything but the surface of things. Why, if any one started in
+really to muckrake this old respectable burg, the smell would drive most
+of our best citizens to the woods."
+
+"Frankly, Mr. Ellis, I don't like cheap cynicism."
+
+"Prefer to be fed up on pleasant lies?" queried his employee, unmoved.
+
+"Not that either. I can take an unpleasant truth as well as the next
+man. But it's got to be the truth."
+
+"Do you know the nickname of this paper?"
+
+"Yes. My father told me of it."
+
+"It was his set that pinned it on us. 'The Daily Carrion,' they call us,
+and they said that our triumphal roosters ought to be vultures. Do you
+know why?"
+
+"In plain English because of the paper's lies and blackguardism."
+
+"In plainer English, because of its truth. Wait a minute, now. I'm not
+saying that the 'Clarion' doesn't lie. All papers do, I guess. They have
+to. But it's when we've cut loose on straight facts that we've got in
+wrong."
+
+"Give me an instance."
+
+"Well, the sewing-girls' strike."
+
+"Engineered by a crooked labor leader and a notoriety-seeking woman."
+
+"I see the bunch have got to you already, and have filled you up with
+their dope. Never mind that, now. We're supposed to be a sort of tribune
+of the common people. Rights of the ordinary citizen, and that sort of
+thing. So we took up the strike and printed the news pretty straight. No
+other paper touched it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Didn't dare. We had to drop it, ourselves. Not until we'd lost ten
+thousand dollars in advertising, though, and gained an extra blot on our
+reputation as being socialistic and an enemy to capital and all that
+kind of rot."
+
+"Wasn't it simply a case of currying favor with the working-classes?"
+
+"According as you look at it." Apparently weary of looking at it at all,
+McGuire Ellis tipped back in his chair and contemplated the ceiling.
+When he spoke his voice floated up as softly as a ring of smoke. "How
+honest are you going to be, Mr. Surtaine?"
+
+"What!"
+
+"I asked you how honest you are going to be."
+
+"It's a question I don't think you need to ask me."
+
+"I do. How else will I find out?"
+
+"I intend the 'Clarion' to be strictly and absolutely honest. That's all
+there is to that."
+
+"Don't be so young," said McGuire Ellis wearily. "'Strictly and
+absol'--see here, did you ever read 'The Wrecker'?"
+
+"More than once."
+
+"Remember the chap who says, 'You seem to think honesty as simple as
+blindman's-buff. I don't. It's some difference of definition, I
+suppose'? Now, there's meat in that."
+
+"Difference of definition be hanged. Honesty is honesty."
+
+"And policy is policy. And bankruptcy is bankruptcy."
+
+"I don't see the connection."
+
+"It's there. Honesty for a newspaper isn't just a matter of good
+intentions. It's a matter of eternal watchfulness and care and expert
+figuring-out of things."
+
+"You mean that we're likely to make mistakes about facts--"
+
+"We're certain to. But that isn't what I mean at all. I mean that it's
+harder for a newspaper to be honest than it is for the pastor of a rich
+church."
+
+"You can't make me believe that."
+
+"Facts can. But I'm not doing my job. You want to learn the details of
+the business, and I'm wasting time trying to throw light into the deep
+places where it keeps what it has of conscience. That'll come later. Now
+where shall I begin?"
+
+"With the structure of the business."
+
+"All right. A newspaper is divided into three parts. News is the
+merchandise which it has to sell. Advertising is the by-product that
+pays the bills. The editorial page is a survival. At its best it
+analyzes and points out the significance of important news. At its
+worst, it is a mouthpiece for the prejudices or the projects of whoever
+runs it. Few people are influenced by it. Many are amused by it. It
+isn't very important nowadays."
+
+"I intend to make it so on the 'Clarion.'"
+
+Ellis turned upon him a regard which carried with it a verdict of the
+most abandoned juvenility, but made no comment. "News sways people more
+than editorials," he continued. "That's why there's so much tinkering
+with it. I'd like to give you a definition of news, but there isn't any.
+News is conventional. It's anything that interests the community. It
+isn't the same in any two places. In Arizona a shower is news. In New
+Orleans the boll-weevil is news. In Worthington anything about your
+father is news: in Denver they don't care a hoot about your father; so,
+unless he elopes or dies, or buys a fake Titian, or breaks the
+flying-machine record, or lectures on medical quackery, he isn't news
+away from home. If Mrs. Festus Willard is bitten by a mad dog, every
+dog-chase for the week following is news. When a martyred suffragette
+chews a chunk out of the King of England, the local meetings of the
+Votes-for-Women Sorority become a live topic. If ever you get to the
+point where you can say with certainty, 'This is news; that isn't,'
+you'll have no further need for me. You'll be graduated."
+
+"Where does a paper get its news?"
+
+"Through mechanical channels, mostly. If you read all the papers in
+town,--and you'll have to do it,--you'll see that they've got just about
+the same stuff. Why shouldn't they have? The big, clumsy news-mill
+grinds pretty impartially for all of them. There's one news source at
+Police Headquarters, another at the City Hall, another in the financial
+department, another at the political headquarters, another in the
+railroad offices, another at the theaters, another in society, and so
+on. At each of these a reporter is stationed. He knows his own kind of
+news as it comes to him, ready-made, and, usually, not much else. Then
+there's the general, unclassified news of the city that drifts in partly
+by luck, partly by favor, partly through the personal connections of the
+staff. One paper is differentiated from another principally by getting
+or missing this sort of stuff. For instance, the 'Banner' yesterday had
+a 'beat' about you. It said that you had come back and were going to
+settle down and go into your father's business."
+
+"That's not true."
+
+"Glad to hear it. Your hands will be full with this job. But it was
+news. Everybody is interested in the son of our leading citizen. The
+'Banner' is strong on that sort of local stuff. I think I'll jack up our
+boys in the city room by hinting that there may be a shake-up coming
+under the new owner. Knowing they're on probation will make 'em
+ambitious."
+
+"And the news of the outside world?"
+
+"Much the same principle as the local matter and just as machine-like.
+The 'Clarion' is a unit in a big system, the National News Exchange
+Bureau. Not only has the bureau its correspondents in every city and
+town of any size, but it covers the national sources of news with
+special reporters. Also the international. Theoretically it gives only
+the plainest facts, uncolored by any bias. As a matter of fact, it's
+pretty crooked. It suppresses news, and even distorts it. It's got a
+secret financial propaganda dictated by Wall Street, and its policies
+are always open to suspicion."
+
+"Why doesn't it get honest reporters?"
+
+"Oh, its reporters are honest enough. The funny business is done higher
+up, in the executive offices."
+
+"Isn't there some other association we can get into?"
+
+"Not very well, just now. The Exchange franchise is worth a lot of
+money. Besides," he concluded, yawning, "I don't know that they're any
+worse than we are."
+
+Hal got to his feet and walked the length of the office and back, five
+times. At the end of this exercise he stood, looking down at his
+assistant.
+
+"Ellis, are you trying to plant an impression in my mind?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're doing it."
+
+"Of what sort?"
+
+"I hardly know. Something subtle, and lurking and underhanded in the
+business. I feel as if you had your hands on a curtain that you might
+pull aside if you would, but that you don't want to shock my--my
+youthfulness."
+
+"Plain facts are what you want, aren't they?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Well, I'm giving them to you as plain as you can understand them. I
+don't want to tell you more than you're ready to believe."
+
+"Try it, as an experiment."
+
+"Who do you suppose runs the newspapers of this town?"
+
+"Why, Mr. Vane runs the 'Banner.' Mr. Ford owns the 'Press.' The
+'Telegram'--let me see--"
+
+"No; no; no," cried Ellis, waving his hands in front of his face. "I
+don't mean the different papers. I mean all of 'em. The 'Clarion,' with
+the others."
+
+"Nobody runs them all, surely."
+
+"Three men run them all; Pierce, Gibbs, and Hollenbeck."
+
+"E.M. Pierce?"
+
+"Elias Middleton Pierce."
+
+"I had luncheon with him yesterday, and with Mr. Gibbs--"
+
+"Ah! That's where you got your notions about the strike."
+
+"--and neither of them spoke of any newspaper interests."
+
+"Catch them at it! They're the Publication Committee of the Retail Dry
+Goods Union."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"The combination of local department stores. And, as such, they can
+dictate to every Worthington newspaper what it shall or shall not
+print."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Including the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"There you're wrong, anyway."
+
+"The department stores are the biggest users of advertising space in the
+city. No paper in town could get along without them. If they want a
+piece of news kept out of print, they tell the editor so, and you bet
+it's kept out. Otherwise that paper loses the advertising."
+
+"Has it ever been done here?"
+
+"Has it? Get Veltman down to tell you about the Store Employees'
+Federation."
+
+"Veltman? What does he know of it? He's in the printing-department,
+isn't he?"
+
+"Composing-room; yes. Outside he's a labor agitator and organizer. A bit
+of a fanatic, too. But an A1 man all right. Get the composing-room," he
+directed through the telephone, "and ask Mr. Veltman to come to Mr.
+Surtaine's office."
+
+As the printer entered, Hal was struck again with his physical beauty.
+
+"Did you want to see me?" he asked, looking at the "new boss" with
+somber eyes.
+
+"Tell Mr. Surtaine about the newspapers and the Store Federation, Max,"
+said Ellis.
+
+The German shook his head. "Nothing new in that," he said, with the very
+slightest of accents. "We can't organize them unless the newspapers give
+us a little publicity."
+
+"Explain it to me, please. I know nothing about it," said Hal.
+
+"For years we've been trying to organize a union of department store
+employees."
+
+"Aren't they well treated?"
+
+"Not quite as well as hogs," returned the other in an impassive voice.
+"The girls wanted shorter hours and extra pay for overtime at holiday
+time and Old Home Week. Every time we've tried it the stores fire the
+organizers among their employees."
+
+"Hardly fair, that."
+
+"This year we tried to get up a public meeting. Reverend Norman Hale
+helped us, and Dr. Merritt, the health officer, and a number of women.
+It was a good news feature, and that was what we wanted, to get the
+movement started. But do you think any paper in town touched it? Not
+one."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"E.M. Pierce's orders. He and his crowd."
+
+"Even the 'Clarion,' which is supposed to have labor sympathies?"
+
+"The 'Clarion'!" There was a profundity of contempt in Veltman's voice;
+and a deeper bitterness when he snapped his teeth upon a word which
+sounded to Hal suspiciously like the Biblical characterization of an
+undesirable citizeness of Babylon.
+
+"In any case, they won't give the 'Clarion' any more orders."
+
+"Oh, yes, they will," said Veltman stolidly.
+
+"Then they'll learn something distinctly to their disadvantage."
+
+The splendid, animal-like eyes of the compositor gleamed suddenly. "Do
+you mean you're going to run the paper honestly?"
+
+Hal almost recoiled before the impassioned and incredulous surprise in
+the question.
+
+"What is 'honestly'?"
+
+"Give the people who buy your paper the straight news they pay for?"
+
+"Certainly, the paper will be run that way."
+
+"As easy as rolling off a log," put in McGuire Ellis, with suspicious
+smoothness.
+
+Veltman looked from one to the other. "Yes," he said: and again
+"Yes-s-s." But the life had gone from his voice. "Anything more?"
+
+"Nothing, thank you," answered Hal.
+
+"Brains, fire, ambition, energy, skill, everything but balance," said
+Ellis, as the door closed. "He's the stuff that martyrs are made of--or
+lunatics. Same thing, I guess."
+
+"Isn't he a trouble-maker among the men?"
+
+"No. He's a good workman. Something more, too. Sometimes he writes
+paragraphs for the editorial page; and when they're not too radical, I
+use 'em. He's brought us in one good feature, that 'Kitty the Cutie'
+stuff."
+
+"I'd thought of dropping that. It's so cheap and chewing-gummy."
+
+"Catches on, though. We really ought to run it every day. But the girl
+hasn't got time to do it."
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+"Some kid in your father's factory, I understand. Protegee of Veltman's,
+He brought her stuff in and we took it right off the bat."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you one thing that is going."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The 'Clarion's motto. 'We Lead: Let Those Who Can Follow.'" Hal
+pointed to the "black-face" legend at the top of the first editorial
+column.
+
+"Got anything in its place?"
+
+"I thought of 'With Malice Toward None: With Charity for All.'"
+
+"Worked to death. But I've never seen it on a newspaper. Shall I tell
+Veltman to set it up in several styles so you may take your pick?"
+
+"Yes. Let's start it in to-morrow."
+
+That night Harrington Surtaine went to bed pondering on the strange
+attitude of the newspaper mind toward so matter-of-fact a quality as
+honesty; and he dreamed of a roomful of advertisers listening in sodden
+silence to his own grandiloquent announcement, "Gentlemen: honesty is
+the best policy," while, in a corner, McGuire Ellis and Max Veltman
+clasped each other in an apoplectic agony of laughter.
+
+On the following day the blatant cocks of the shrill "Clarion" stood
+guard at either end of the paper's new golden text.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IN THE WAY OF TRADE
+
+
+Dr. Surtaine sat in Little George's best chair, beaming upon the world.
+By habit, the big man was out of his seat with his dime and nickel in
+the bootblack's ready hand, almost coincidently with the final clip-clap
+of the rhythmic process. But this morning he lingered, contemplating
+with an unobtrusive scrutiny the occupant of the adjoining chair, a
+small, angular, hard man, whose brick-red face was cut off in the
+segment of an abrupt circle, formed by a low-jammed green hat. This
+individual had just briskly bidden his bootblack "hurry it up" in a tone
+which meant precisely what it said. The youth was doing so.
+
+"George," said Dr. Surtaine, to the proprietor of the stand.
+
+"Yas, suh."
+
+"Were you ever in St. Jo, Missouri?"
+
+"Yas, suh, Doctah Suhtaine; oncet."
+
+"For long?"
+
+"No, suh."
+
+"Didn't live there, did you?"
+
+"No, suh."
+
+"George," said his interlocutor impressively, "you're lucky."
+
+"Yas, suh," agreed the negro with a noncommittal grin.
+
+"While you can buy accommodations in a graveyard or break into a
+penitentiary, don't you ever live in St. Jo Missouri, George."
+
+The man in the adjacent seat half turned toward Dr. Surtaine and looked
+him up and down, with a freezing regard.
+
+"It's the sink-hole and sewer-pipe of creation, George. They once
+elected a chicken-thief mayor, and he resigned because the town was too
+mean to live in. Ever know any folks there, George?"
+
+"Don't have no mem'ry for 'em, Doctah."
+
+"You're lucky again. They're the orneriest, lowest-down, minchin',
+pinchin', pizen trash that ever tainted the sweet air of Heaven by
+breathing it, George."
+
+"You don' sesso, Doctah Suhtaine, suh."
+
+"I do sess precisely so, George. Does the name McQuiggan mean anything
+to you?"
+
+"Don' mean nothin' at-tall to me, Doctah."
+
+"You got away from St. Jo in time, then. Otherwise you might have met
+the McQuiggan family, and never been the same afterward."
+
+"Ef you don' stop youah feet a-fidgittin', Boss," interpolated the
+neighboring bootblack, addressing the green-hatted man in aggrieved
+tones, "I cain't do no good wif this job."
+
+"McQuiggan was the name," continued the volunteer biographer. "The best
+you could say of the McQuiggans, George, was that one wasn't much
+cusseder than the others, because he couldn't be. Human nature has its
+limitations, George."
+
+"It suttinly have, suh."
+
+"But if you had to allow a shade to any of 'em, it would probably have
+gone to the oldest brother, L.P. McQuiggan. Barring a scorpion I once
+sat down on while in swimming, he was the worst outrage upon the scheme
+of creation ever perpetrated by a short-sighted Providence."
+
+"Get out of that chair!"
+
+The little man had shot from his own and was dancing upon the pavement.
+
+"What for?" Dr. Surtaine's tone was that of inquiring innocence.
+
+"To have your fat head knocked off."
+
+With impressive agility for one of his size and years, the challenged
+one descended. He advanced, "squared," and suddenly held out a muscular
+and plump hand.
+
+"Hullo, Elpy."
+
+"Huh?"
+
+The other glared at him, baleful and baffled.
+
+"Hullo, I said. Don't you know me?"
+
+"No, I don't. Neither will your own family after I get through with
+you."
+
+"Come off, Elpy; come off. I licked you once in the old days, and I
+guess I could do it now, but I don't want to. Come and have a drink with
+old Andy."
+
+"Andy? Andy the Spieler? Andy Certain?"
+
+"Dr. L. Andre Surtaine, at your service. _Now_, will you shake?"
+
+Still surly, Mr. McQuiggan hung back. "What about that roast?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Wasn't sure of you. Twenty years is a long time. But I knew if it was
+you you'd want to fight, and I knew if you didn't want to fight it
+wasn't you. I'll buy you one in honor of the best little city west of
+the Mississip, and the best bunch of sports that ever came out of it,
+the McQuiggans of St. Jo, Missouri. Does that go?"
+
+"It goes," replied the representative of the family concisely.
+
+Across the cafe table Dr. Surtaine contemplated his old acquaintance
+with friendly interest.
+
+"The same old scrappy Elpy," he observed. "What's happened to you, since
+you used to itinerate with the Iroquois Extract of Life?"
+
+"Plenty."
+
+"You're looking pretty prosperous."
+
+"Have to, in my line."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+Mr. McQuiggan produced a card, with the legend:--
+
+ +-----------------------------------------+
+ |                                         |
+ |          McQuiggan & Straight           |
+ |     STREAKY MOUNTAIN COPPER COMPANY     |
+ |        Orsten, Palas County, Nev.       |
+ |                                         |
+ |                                         |
+ | L.P. MCQUIGGAN       ARTHUR STRAIGHT    |
+ |   _President_     _Vice-Pres. & Treas._ |
+ |                                         |
+ +-----------------------------------------+
+
+"Any good?" queried the Doctor.
+
+"Best undeveloped property in the State."
+
+"Why don't you develop it?"
+
+"Capital."
+
+"Get the capital."
+
+"Will you help me?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Advertise."
+
+"Advertising costs money."
+
+"And brings two dollars for every one you spend."
+
+"Maybe," retorted the other, with a skeptical air. "But my game is still
+talk."
+
+"Talk gets dimes; print gets dollars," said his friend sententiously.
+
+"You have to show me."
+
+"Show you!" cried the Doctor. "I'll write your copy myself."
+
+"_You_ will? What do you know about mining?"
+
+"Not a thing. But there isn't much I don't know about advertising. I've
+built up a little twelve millions, plus, on it. And I can sell your
+stock like hot cakes through the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"What's the 'Clarion'?"
+
+"My son's newspaper."
+
+"Thereby keeping the graft in the family, eh?"
+
+"Don't be a fool, Elpy. I'm showing you profits. Besides doing you a
+good turn, I'd like to bring in some new business to the boy. Now you
+take half-pages every other day for a week and a full page Sunday--"
+
+"Pages!" almost squalled the little man. "D'you think I'm made of
+money?"
+
+"Elpy," said Dr. Surtaine, abruptly, "do you remember my platform
+patter?"
+
+"Like the multiplication table."
+
+"Was it good?"
+
+"Best ever!"
+
+"Well, I'm a slicker proposition with a pen than I ever was with a
+spiel. And you're securing my services for nothing. Come around to the
+office, man, and let me show you."
+
+Still suspicious, Mr. McQuiggan permitted himself to be led away,
+expatiating as he went, upon the unrivaled location and glorious future
+of his mining property. From time to time, Dr. Surtaine jotted down an
+unostentatious note.
+
+The first view of the Certina building dashed Mr. McQuiggan's
+suspicions; his inspection of his old friend's superb office slew them
+painlessly.
+
+"Is this all yours, Andy? On the level? Did you do it all on your own?"
+
+"Every bit of it! With my little pen-and-ink. Take a look around the
+walls and you'll see how."
+
+He seated himself at his desk and proceeded to jot down, with apparent
+carelessness, but in broad, sweeping lines, a type lay-out, while his
+guest passed from advertisement to advertisement, in increasing
+admiration. Before Old Lame-Boy he paused, absolutely fascinated.
+
+"I thought that'd get you," exulted the host, who, between strokes of
+the creative pen had been watching him.
+
+"I've seen it in the newspaper, but never connected it with you. Being
+out of the medical line I lost interest. Say, it's a wonder! Did it
+fetch 'em?"
+
+"Fetch 'em? It knocked 'em flat. That picture's the foundation of this
+business. Talk about suggestion in advertising! He's a regular
+hypnotist, Old Lame-Boy is. Plants the suggestion right in the small of
+your back, where we want it. Why, Elpy, I've seen a man walk up to that
+picture on a bill-board as straight as you or me, take one good, long
+look, and go away hanging onto his kidneys, and squirming like a lizard.
+Fact! What do you think of that? Genius, I call it: just flat genius, to
+produce an effect like that with a few lines and a daub or two of
+color."
+
+"Some pull!" agreed Mr. McQuiggan, with professional approval. "And
+then--'Try Certina,' eh?"
+
+"For a starter and, for a finisher 'Certina _Cures_.' Shoves the bottle
+right into their hands. The first bottle braces 'em. They take another.
+By the time they've had half a dozen, they love it."
+
+"Booze?"
+
+"Sure! Flavored and spiced up, nice and tasty. Great for the temperance
+trade. _And_ the best little repeater on the market. Now take a look,
+Elpy."
+
+He tapped the end of his pen upon the rough sketch of the mining
+advertisement, which he had drafted. Mr. McQuiggan bent over it in
+study, and fell a swift victim to the magic of the art.
+
+"Why, that would make a wad of bills squirm out of the toe of a
+stockin'! It's new game to me. I've always worked the personal touch.
+But I'll sure give it a try-out, Andy."
+
+"I guess it's bad!" exulted the other. "I guess I've lost the trick of
+tolling the good old dollars in! Take this home and try it on your cash
+register! Now, come around and meet the boy."
+
+Thus it was that Editor-in-Chief Harrington Surtaine, in the third week
+of his incumbency received a professional call from his father, and a
+companion from whose pockets bulged several sheets of paper.
+
+"Shake hands with Mr. McQuiggan, Hal," said the Doctor. "Make a bow when
+you meet him, too. He's your first new business for the reformed
+'Clarion.'"
+
+"In what way?" asked Hal, meeting a grip like iron from the stranger.
+"News?"
+
+"News! I guess not. Business, I said. Real money. Advertising."
+
+"It's like this, Mr. Surtaine," said L.P. McQuiggan, turning his spare,
+hard visage toward Hal. "I've got some copper stock to sell--an A1
+under-developed proposition; and your father, who's an old pal, tells me
+the 'Clarion' can do the business for me. Now, if I can get a good rate
+from you, it's a go."
+
+"Mr. Shearson, the advertising manager, is your man. I don't know
+anything about advertising rates."
+
+"Then you'd best get busy and learn," cried Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"I'm learning other things."
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"What news is and isn't."
+
+"Look here, Boyee." Dr. Surtaine's voice was surcharged with a
+disappointed earnestness. "Put yourself right on this. News is news; any
+paper can get it. But advertising is _Money_. Let your editors run the
+news part, till you can work into it. _You get next to the door where
+the cash comes in._"
+
+In the fervor of his advice he thumped Hal's desk. The thump woke
+McGuire Ellis, who had been devoting a spare five minutes to his
+favorite pastime. For his behoof, the exponent of policy repeated his
+peroration. "Isn't that right, Ellis?" he cried. "You're a practical
+newspaper man."
+
+"It's true to type, anyway," grunted Ellis.
+
+"Sure it is!" cried the other, too bent on his own notions to interpret
+this comment correctly. "And now, what about a little reading notice for
+McQuiggan's proposition?"
+
+"Yes: an interview with me on the copper situation and prospects might
+help," put in McQuiggan.
+
+Hal hesitated, looking to Ellis for counsel.
+
+"You've got to do something for an advertiser on a big order like this,
+Boyee," urged his father.
+
+"Let's see the copy," put in Ellis. The trained journalistic eye ran
+over the sheets. "Lot of gaudy slush about copper mines in general," he
+observed, "and not much information on Streaky Mountain."
+
+"It's an undeveloped property," said McQuiggan.
+
+"Strong on geography," continued Ellis. "'In the immediate vicinity,'"
+he read from one sheet, "'lie the Copper Monarch Mine paying 40 per cent
+dividends, the Deep Gulch Mine, paying 35 per cent, the Three Sisters,
+Last Chance, Alkali Spring Mines, all returning upwards of 25 per cent
+per annum: and immediately adjacent is the famous Strike-for-the-West
+property which enriches its fortunate stockholders to the tune of 75 per
+cent a year!' Are you on the same range as the Strike-for-the-West, Mr.
+McQuiggan?"
+
+"It's an adjacent property," growled the mining man. "What d'you know
+about copper?"
+
+"Oh, I've seen a little mining, myself. And a bit of mining advertising.
+That's quite an ad. of yours, McQuiggan."
+
+"I wrote that ad.," said Dr. Surtaine blandly: "and I challenge anybody
+to find a single misstatement in it."
+
+"You're safe. There isn't any. And scarcely a single statement. But if
+you wrote it, I suppose it goes."
+
+"And the interview, too," rasped McQuiggan.
+
+"It's usual," said Ellis to Hal. "The tail with the hide: the soul with
+the body, when you're selling."
+
+"But we're not selling interviews," said Hal uneasily.
+
+"You're getting nearly a thousand dollars' worth of copy, and giving a
+bonus that don't cost you anything," said his father. "The papers have
+done it for me ever since I've been in business."
+
+"I guess that's right, too," agreed Ellis.
+
+"Why don't you take McQuiggan down to meet your Mr. Shearson, Hal?"
+suggested the Doctor. "I'll stay here and round out a couple of other
+ideas for his campaign."
+
+Hal had risen from his desk when there was a light knock at the door and
+Milly Neal's bright head appeared.
+
+"Hullo!" said Dr. Surtaine. "What's up? Anything wrong at the shop,
+Milly?"
+
+The girl walked into the room and stood trimly at ease before the four
+men.
+
+"No, Chief," said she. "I understood Mr. Surtaine wanted to see me."
+
+"I?" said Hal blankly, pushing a chair toward her.
+
+"Yes. Didn't you? They told me you left word for me in the city room, to
+see you when I came in again. Sometimes I send my copy, so I only just
+got the message."
+
+"Miss Neal is 'Kitty the Cutie,'" explained McGuire Ellis.
+
+"Looks it, too," observed L.P. McQuiggan jauntily, addressing the upper
+far corner of the room.
+
+Miss Neal looked at him, met a knowing and conscious smile, looked right
+through the smile, and looked away again, all with the air of one who
+gazes out into nothingness.
+
+"Guess I'll go look up this Shearson person," said Mr. McQuiggan, a
+trifle less jauntily. "See you all later."
+
+"I'd no notion you were the writer of the Cutie paragraphs, Milly," said
+Dr. Surtaine. "They're lively stuff."
+
+"Nobody has. I'm keeping it dark. It's only a try-out. You _did_ send
+for me, didn't you?" she added, turning to Hal.
+
+"Yes. What I had in mind to say to you--that is, to the author--the
+writer of the paragraphs," stumbled Hal, "is that they're a little
+too--too--"
+
+"Too flip?" queried his father. "That's what makes 'em go."
+
+"If they could be done in a manner not quite so undignified," suggested
+the editor-in-chief.
+
+Color rose in the girl's smooth cheek. "You think they're vulgar," she
+charged.
+
+"That's rather too harsh a word," he protested.
+
+"You do! I can see it." She flushed an angry red. "I'd rather stop
+altogether than have you think that."
+
+"Don't be young," put in McGuire Ellis, with vigor. "Kitty has caught
+on. It's a good feature. The paper can't afford to drop it."
+
+"That's right," supplemented Dr. Surtaine. "People are beginning to talk
+about those items. They read 'em. I read 'em myself. They've got the go,
+the pep. They're different. But, Milly, I didn't even know you could
+write."
+
+"Neither did I," said the girl staidly, "till I got to putting down some
+of the things I heard the girls say, and stringing them together with
+nonsense of my own. One evening I showed some of it to Mr. Veltman, and
+he took it here and had it printed."
+
+"I was going to suggest, Mr. Surtaine," said McGuire Ellis formally,
+"that we put Miss Kitty on the five-dollar-a-column basis and make her
+an every-other-day editorial page feature. I think the stuff's worth
+it."
+
+"We can give it a trial," said his principal, a little dubiously, "since
+you think so well of it."
+
+"Then, Milly, I suppose you'll be quitting the shop to become a
+full-fledged writer," remarked Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"No, indeed, Chief." The girl smiled at him with that frank
+friendliness which Hal had noted as informing every relationship between
+Dr. Surtaine and the employees of the Certina plant. "I'll stick. The
+regular pay envelope looks good to me. And I can do this work after
+hours."
+
+"How would it be if I was to put you on half-time, Milly?" suggested her
+employer. "You can keep your department going by being there in the
+mornings and have your afternoons for the writing."
+
+The girl thanked him demurely but with genuine gratitude.
+
+"Then we'll look for your copy here on alternate days," said Hal. "And I
+think I'll give you a desk. As this develops into an editorial feature I
+shall want to keep an eye on it and to be in touch with you. Perhaps I
+could make suggestions sometimes."
+
+She rose, thanking him, and Hal held open the door for her. Once again
+he felt, with a strange sensation, her eyes take hold on his as she
+passed him.
+
+"Pretty kid," observed Ellis. "Veltman is crazy about her, they say."
+
+"_Good_ kid, too," added Dr. Surtaine, emphasizing the adjective. "You
+might tell Veltman that, whoever he is."
+
+"Tell him, yourself," retorted Ellis with entire good nature. "He isn't
+the sort to offer gratuitous information to."
+
+Upon this advice, L.P. McQuiggan reentered. "All fixed," said he, with
+evident satisfaction. "We went to the mat on rates, but Shearson agreed
+to give me some good reading notices. Now, I'll beat it. See you
+to-night, Andy?"
+
+Dr. Surtaine nodded. "You owe me a commission, Boyee," said he, smiling
+at Hal as McQuiggan made his exit. "But I'll let you off this time. I
+guess it won't be the last business I bring in to you. Only, don't you
+and Ellis go looking every gift horse too hard in the teeth. You might
+get bit."
+
+"Shut your eyes and swallow it and ask no questions, if it's good, eh,
+Doctor?" said McGuire Ellis. "That's the motto for your practice."
+
+"Right you are, my boy. And it's the motto of sound business. What is
+business?" he continued, soaring aloft upon the wings of a Paean of
+Policy. "Why, business is a deal between you and me in which I give you
+my goods and a pleasant word, and you give me your dollar and a polite
+reply. Some folks always want to know where the dollar came from. Not
+me! I'm satisfied to know that its coming to me. Money has wings, and if
+you throw stones at it, it'll fly away fast. And you want to remember,"
+he concluded with the fervor of honest conviction, "that a newspaper
+can't be quite right, any more than a man can, unless it makes its own
+living. Well. I'm not going to preach any more. So long, boys."
+
+"What do you think of it, Mr. Surtaine?" inquired McGuire Ellis, after
+the lecturer had gone his way. "Pretty sound sense, eh?"
+
+"I wonder just what you mean by that, Ellis. Not what you say,
+certainly."
+
+But Ellis only laughed and turned to his "flimsy."
+
+Meantime the editor of the "Clarion" was being quietly but persistently
+beset by another sermonizer, less cocksure of text than the Sweet Singer
+of Policy, but more subtle in influence. This was Miss Esme Elliot.
+Already, the half-jocular partnership undertaken at the outset of their
+acquaintance had developed into a real, if somewhat indeterminate
+connection. Esme found her new acquaintance interesting both for himself
+and for his career. Her set in general considered the ripening
+friendship merely "another of Esme's flirtations," and variously
+prophesied the denouement. To the girl's own mind it was not a
+flirtation at all. She was (she assured herself) genuinely absorbed in
+the development of a new mission in which she aspired to be influential.
+That she already exercised a strong sway of personality over Hal
+Surtaine, she realized. Indeed, in the superb confidence of her charm,
+she would have been astonished had it been otherwise. Just where her
+interest in the newly adventured professional field ended, and in
+Harrington Surtaine, the man, began, she would have been puzzled to say.
+Kathleen Pierce had bluntly questioned her on the subject.
+
+"Yes, of course I like him," said Esme frankly. "He's interesting and
+he's a gentleman, and he has a certain force about him, and he's"--she
+paused, groping for a characterization--"he's unexpected."
+
+"What gets me," said Kathleen, in her easy slang, "is that he never
+pulls any knighthood-in-flower stuff, yet you somehow feel it's there.
+Know what I mean? There's a scrapper behind that nice-boy smile."
+
+"He hasn't scrapped with me, yet, Kathie," smiled the beauty.
+
+"Don't let him," advised the other. "It mightn't be safe. Still, I
+suppose you understand him by now, down to the ground."
+
+"Indeed I do not. Didn't I tell you he was unexpected? He has an
+uncomfortable trick," complained Miss Elliot, "just when everything is
+smooth and lovely, of suddenly leveling those gray-blue eyes of his at
+you, like two pistols. 'Throw up your hands and tell me what you really
+mean!' One doesn't always want to tell what one really means."
+
+"Bet you have to with him, sooner or later," returned her friend.
+
+This conversation took place at the Vanes' _al fresco_ tea, to which Hal
+came for a few minutes, late in the afternoon of his father's visit with
+McQuiggan, mainly in the hope of seeing Esme Elliot. Within five minutes
+after his arrival, Worthington society was frowning, or smiling,
+according as it was masculine or feminine, at their backs, as they
+strolled away toward the garden. Miss Esme was feeling a bit petulant,
+perhaps because of Kathie Pierce's final taunt.
+
+"I think you aren't living up to our partnership," she accused.
+
+"Is it a partnership, where one party is absolute slave to the other's
+slightest wish?" he smiled.
+
+"There! That is exactly it. You treat me like a child."
+
+"I don't think of you as a child, I assure you."
+
+"You listen to all I say with pretended deference, and smile and--and go
+your own way with inevitable motion."
+
+"Wherein have I failed in my allegiance?" asked Hal, courteously
+concerned. "Haven't we published everything about all the charities that
+you're interested in?"
+
+"Oh, yes. So far as that goes. But the paper itself doesn't seem to
+change any. It's got the same tone it always had."
+
+"What's wrong with its tone?" The eyes were leveled at her now.
+
+"Speaking frankly, it's tawdry. It's lurid. It's--well, yellow."
+
+"A matter of method. You're really more interested, then, in the way we
+present news than in the news we present."
+
+"I don't know anything about news, itself. But I don't see why a
+newspaper run by a gentleman shouldn't be in good taste."
+
+"Nor do I. Except that those things take time. I suppose I've got to get
+in touch with my staff before I can reform their way of writing the
+paper."
+
+"Haven't you done that yet?"
+
+"I simply haven't had time."
+
+"Then I'll make you a nice present of a very valuable suggestion. Give a
+luncheon to your employees, and invite all the editors and reporters.
+Make a little speech to them and tell them what you intend to do, and
+get them to talk it over and express opinions. That's the way to get
+things done. I do it with my mission class. And, by the way, don't make
+it a grand banquet at one of the big hotels. Have it in some place where
+the men are used to eating. They'll feel more at home and you'll get
+more out of them."
+
+"Will you come?"
+
+"No. But you shall come up to the house and report fully on it."
+
+Had Miss Esme Elliot, experimentalist in human motives, foreseen to what
+purpose her ingenious suggestion was to work out, she might well have
+retracted her complaint of lack of real influence; for this casual
+conversation was the genesis of the Talk-it-Over Breakfast, an
+institution which potently affected the future of the "Clarion" and its
+young owner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE INITIATE
+
+
+Within a month after Hal's acquisition of the "Clarion," Dr. Surtaine
+had become a daily caller at the office. "Just to talk things over," was
+his explanation of these incursions, which Hal always welcomed, no
+matter how busy he might be. Advice was generally the form which the
+visitor's talk took; sometimes warning; not infrequently suggestions of
+greater or less value. Always his counsel was for peace and policy.
+
+"Keep in with the business element, Boyee. Remember all the time that
+Worthington is a business city, the liveliest little business city
+between New York and Chicago. Business made it. Business runs it.
+Business is going to keep on running it. Anybody who works on a
+different principle, I don't care whether it's in politics or journalism
+or the pulpit, is going to get hurt. I don't deny you've braced up the
+'Clarion.' People are beginning to talk about it already. But the best
+men, the moneyed men, are holding off. They aren't sure of you yet.
+Sometimes I'm not sure myself. Every now and then the paper takes a
+stand I don't like. It goes too far. You've put ginger into it. I have
+to admit that. And ginger's a good thing, but sugar catches more flies."
+
+The notion of a breakfast to the staff met with the Doctor's instant
+approval.
+
+"That's the idea!" said he "I'll come to it, myself. Lay down your
+general scheme and policy to 'em. Get 'em in sympathy with it. If any of
+'em aren't in sympathy with it, get rid of those. Kickers never did any
+business any good. You'll get plenty of kicks from outside. Then, when
+the office gets used to your way of doing things, you can quit wasting
+so much time on the news and editorial end."
+
+"But that's what makes the paper, Dad."
+
+"Get over that idea. You hire men to get out the paper. Let 'em earn
+their pay while you watch the door where the dollars come in.
+Advertising, my son: that's the point to work at. In a way I'm sorry you
+let Sterne out."
+
+The ex-editor had left, a fortnight before, on a basis agreeable to
+himself and Hal, and McGuire Ellis had taken over his duties.
+
+"Certainly you had no reason to like Sterne, Dad."
+
+"For all that, he knew his job. Everything Sterne did had a dollar
+somewhere in the background. Even his blackmailing game. He worked with
+the business office, and he took his orders on that basis. Now if you
+had some man whom you could turn over this news end to while you're
+building up a sound advertising policy--"
+
+"How about McGuire Ellis?"
+
+Dr. Surtaine glanced over to the window corner where the associate
+editor was somnambulantly fighting a fly for the privilege of continuing
+a nap.
+
+"Too much of a theorist: too much of a knocker."
+
+"He's taught me what little I know about this business," said Hal. "Hi!
+Wake up, Ellis. Do you know you've got to make a speech in an hour? This
+is the day of the Formal Feed."
+
+"Hoong!" grunted Ellis, arousing himself. "Speech? I can't make a
+speech. Make it yourself."
+
+"I'm going to."
+
+"What are you going to talk about?"
+
+"Well, I might borrow your text and preach them a sermon on honesty in
+journalism. Seriously, I think the whole paper has degenerated to low
+ideals, and if I put it to them straight, that every man of them,
+reporter, copy-reader, or editor, has got to measure up to an absolutely
+straight standard of honesty--"
+
+"They'll throw the tableware at you," said McGuire Ellis quietly: "at
+least they ought to, if they don't."
+
+The two Surtaines stared at him in surprise.
+
+"Who are you," continued the journalist, "to talk standards of honesty
+in journalism to those boys?"
+
+"He's their boss: that's all he is," said Dr. Surtaine weightily.
+
+"Let him set the example, then, jack the paper up where it belongs, and
+there'll be no difficulty with the men who write it."
+
+"But, Mac, you've been hammering at me about the crookedness of
+journalism in Worthington from the first."
+
+"All right. Crookedness there is. Where does it come from? From the men
+in control, mostly. Let me tell you something, you two: there's hardly a
+reporter in this city who isn't more honest than the paper he works
+for."
+
+"Hifalutin nonsense," said Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"From your point of view. You're an outsider. It's outsiders that make
+the newspaper game as bad as it is. Look at 'em in this town. Who owns
+the 'Banner'? A political boss. Who owns the 'News'? A brewer. The
+'Star'? A promoter, and a pretty scaly one at that. The 'Observer'
+belongs body and soul to an advertising agency, and the 'Telegraph' is
+controlled by the banks. And one and all of 'em take their orders from
+the Dry Goods Union, which means Elias M. Pierce, because they live on
+its advertising."
+
+"Why not? That's business," said Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"Are we talking about business? I thought it was standards. What do
+those men know about the ethics of journalism? If you put the thing up
+to him, like as not E.M. Pierce would tell you that an ethic is
+something a doctor gives you to make you sleep."
+
+"How about the 'Clarion,' Mac?" said Hal, smiling. "It's run by an
+outsider, too, isn't it?"
+
+"That's what I want to know." There was no answering smile on Ellis's
+somber and earnest face. "I've thought there was hope for you. You've
+had no sound business training, thank God, so your sense of decency may
+not have been spoiled."
+
+"You don't seem to think much of business standards," said the Doctor
+tolerantly.
+
+"Not a great deal. I've bumped into 'em too hard. Not so long ago I was
+publisher of a paying daily in an Eastern city. The directors were all
+high-class business men, and the chairman of the board was one of those
+philanthropist-charity-donator-pillar-of-the-church chaps with a
+permanent crease of high respectability down his front. Well, one day
+there turned up a double murder in the den of one of these venereal
+quacks that infest every city. It set me on the trail, and I had my best
+reporter get up a series about that gang of vampires. Naturally that
+necessitated throwing out their ads. The advertising manager put up a
+howl, and we took the thing to the board of directors. In those days I
+had all my enthusiasm on tap. I had an array of facts, too, and I went
+at that board like a revivalist, telling 'em just the kind of devil-work
+the 'men's specialists' did. At the finish I sat down feeling pretty
+good. Nobody said anything for quite a while. Then the chairman dropped
+the pencil he'd been puttering with, and said, in a kind of purry voice:
+'Gentlemen: I thought Mr. Ellis's job on this paper was to make it pay
+dividends, and not to censor the morals of the community.'"
+
+"And, by crikey, he was right!" cried Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"From the business point of view."
+
+"Oh, you theorists! You theorists!" Dr. Surtaine threw out his hands in
+a gesture of pleasant despair. "You want to run the world like a
+Sunday-school class."
+
+"Instead of like a three-card-monte game."
+
+"With your lofty notions, Ellis, how did you ever come to work on a
+sheet like the 'Clarion'?"
+
+"A man's got to eat. When I walked out of that directors' meeting I
+walked out of my job and into a saloon; and from that saloon I walked
+into a good many other saloons. Luckily for me, booze knocked me out
+early. I broke down, went West, got my health and some sense back again,
+drifted to this town, found an opening on the 'Clarion,' and took it, to
+make a living."
+
+"You won't continue to do that," advised Dr. Surtaine bluntly, "if you
+keep on trying to reform your bosses."
+
+"But what makes me sick," continued Ellis, disregarding this hint, "is
+to have people assume that newspaper men are a lot of semi-crooks and
+shysters. What does the petty grafting that a few reporters do--and,
+mind you, there's mighty little of it done--amount to, compared with the
+rottenness of a paper run by my church-going reformer with the business
+standards?"
+
+A call from the business office took Hal away. At once Ellis turned to
+the older man.
+
+"Are you going to run the paper, Doc?"
+
+"No: no, my boy. Hal owns it, on his own money."
+
+"Because if you are, I quit."
+
+"That's no way to talk," said the magnate, aggrieved. "There isn't a man
+in Worthington treats his employees better or gets along with 'em
+smoother than me."
+
+"That's right, too, I guess. Only I don't happen to want to be your
+employee."
+
+"You're frank, at least, Mr. Ellis."
+
+"Why not? I've laid my cards on the table. You know me for what I am, a
+disgruntled dreamer. I know you for what you are, a hard-headed business
+man. We don't have to quarrel about it. Tell you what I'll do: I'll
+match you, horse-and-horse, for the soul of your boy."
+
+"You're a queer Dick, Ellis."
+
+"Don't want to match? Then I suppose I've got to fight you for him,"
+sighed the editor.
+
+The big man laughed whole-heartedly. "Not a chance, my friend! Not a
+chance on earth. I don't believe even a woman could come between Hal
+and me, let alone a man."
+
+"_Or_ a principle?"
+
+"Ah--ah! Dealing in abstractions again. Look out for this fellow,
+Boyee," he called jovially as Hal came back to his desk. "He'll make
+your paper the official organ of the Muckrakers' Union."
+
+"I'll watch him," promised Hal. "Meantime I'll take your advice about my
+speech, Mac, and blue-pencil the how-to-be-good stuff."
+
+"Now you're talking! I'll tell you, Boss: why not get some of the
+fellows to speak up. You might learn a few things about your own paper
+that would interest you."
+
+"Good idea! But, Mac, I wish you wouldn't call me 'Boss.' It makes me
+feel absurdly young."
+
+"All right, Hal," returned Ellis, with a grin. "But you've still got
+some youngness to overcome, you know."
+
+An hour later, looking down the long luncheon table, the editor-owner
+felt his own inexperience more poignantly. With a very few exceptions,
+these men, his employees, were his seniors in years. More than that, he
+thought to see in the faces an air of capability, of assurance, of
+preparedness, a sort of work-worthiness like the seaworthiness of a
+vessel which has passed the high test of wind and wave. And to him,
+untried, unformed, ignorant, the light amateur, all this human mechanism
+must look for guidance. Humility clouded him at the recollection of the
+spirit in which he had taken on the responsibility so vividly
+personified before him, a spirit of headlong wrath and revenge, and he
+came fervently to a realization and a resolve. He saw himself as part of
+a close-knit whole; he visioned, sharply, the Institution, complex,
+delicate, almost infinitely powerful for good or evil, not alone to
+those who composed it, but to the community to which it bore so subtle a
+relationship. And he resolved, with a determination that partook of the
+nature of prayer and yet was more than prayer, to give himself loyally,
+unsparingly, devotedly to the common task. In this spirit he rose, at
+the close of the luncheon, to speak.
+
+No newspaper reported the maiden speech of Mr. Harrington Surtaine to
+the staff of the Worthington "Clarion." Newspapers are reticent about
+their own affairs. In this case it is rather a pity, for the effort is
+said to have been an eminently successful one. Estimated by its effect,
+it certainly was, for it materialized with quite spiritistic suddenness,
+from out the murk of uncertainty and suspicion, the form and substance
+of a new _esprit de corps_, among the "Clarion" men, and established the
+system of Talk-it-Over Breakfasts which made a close-knit, jealously
+guarded corporation and club out of the staff. Free of all ostentation
+or self-assertiveness was Hal's talk; simple, and, above all virtues,
+brief. He didn't tell his employees what he expected of them. He told
+them what they might expect of him. The frankness of his manner, the
+self-respecting modesty of his attitude toward an audience of more
+experienced subordinates, his shining faith and belief in the profession
+which he had adopted; all this eked out by his ease of address and his
+dominant physical charm, won them from the first. Only at the close did
+he venture upon an assertion of his own ideas or theories.
+
+"It is the Sydney 'Bulletin,' I think, which preserves as its motto the
+proposition that every man has at least one good story in him. I have
+been studying newspaper files since I took this job,--all the files of
+all the papers I could get,--and I'm almost ready to believe that much
+news which the papers publish has got realer facts up its sleeve: that
+the news is only the shadow of the facts. I'd like to get at the Why of
+the day's news. Do you remember Sherlock Holmes's 'commonplace' divorce
+suit, where the real cause was that the husband used to remove his front
+teeth and hurl 'em at the wife whenever her breakfast-table conversation
+wasn't sprightly enough to suit him? Once out of a hundred times, I
+suppose, the everyday processes of our courts hide something picturesque
+or perhaps important in the background. Any paper that could get and
+present that sort of news would liven up its columns a good deal. And it
+would strike a new note in Worthington. I'll give you a motto for the
+'Clarion,' gentlemen: 'The Facts Behind the News.' And now I've said my
+say, and I want to hear from you."
+
+Here for the first time Hal struck a false note. Newspaper men, as a
+class, abhor public speaking. So much are they compelled to hear from
+"those bores who prate intolerably over dinner tables," that they regard
+the man who speaks when he isn't manifestly obliged to, as an enemy to
+the public weal, and are themselves most loath thus to add to the sum of
+human suffering. Merely by way of saving the situation, Wayne, the city
+editor, arose and said a few words complimentary to the new owner. He
+was followed by the head copy-reader in the same strain. Two of the
+older sub-editors perpetrated some meaningless but well-meant remarks,
+and the current of events bade fair to end in complete stagnation, when
+from out of the ruck, midway of the table, there rose the fringed and
+candid head of one William S. Marchmont, the railroad and markets
+reporter.
+
+Marchmont was an elderly man, of a journalistic type fast disappearing.
+There is little room in the latter-day pressure of newspaper life for
+the man who works on "booze." But though a steady drinker, and
+occasionally an unsteady one, Marchmont had his value. He was an expert
+in his specialty. He had a wide acquaintance, and he seldom became
+unprofessionally drunk in working hours. To offset the unwonted strain
+of rising before noon, however, he had fortified himself for this
+occasion by several cocktails which were manifest in his beaming smile
+and his expansive flourish in welcoming Mr. Surtaine to the goodly
+fellowship of the pen.
+
+"Very good, all that about the facts behind the news," he said
+genially. "Very instructive and--and illuminating. But what I wanta ask
+you is this: We fellows who have to _write_ the facts behind the news;
+where do we get off?"
+
+"I don't understand you," said Hal.
+
+"Lemme explain. Last week we had an accident on the Mid-and-Mud.
+Engineer ran by his signals. Rear end collision. Seven people killed.
+Coroner's inquest put all the blame on the engineer. Engineer wasn't
+tending to his duty. That's news, isn't it, Mr. Surtaine?"
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"Yes: but here's the facts. That engineer had been kept on duty
+forty-eight hours with only five hours off. He was asleep when he ran
+past the block and killed those people."
+
+"Is he telling the truth, Mac?" asked Hal in a swift aside to Ellis.
+
+"If he says so, it's right," replied Ellis.
+
+"What do you call that?" pursued the speaker.
+
+"Murder. I call it murder." Max Veltman, who sat just beyond the
+speaker, half rose from his chair. "The men who run the road ought to be
+tried for murder."
+
+"Oh, _you_ can call it that, all right, in one of your Socialist
+meetings," returned the reporter genially. "But I can't."
+
+"Why can't you?" demanded Hal.
+
+"The railroad people would shut down on news to the 'Clarion.' I
+couldn't get a word out of them on anything. What good's a reporter who
+can't get news? You'd fire me in a week."
+
+"Can you prove the facts?"
+
+"I can."
+
+"Write it for to-morrow's paper. I'll see that you don't lose your
+place."
+
+Marchmont sat down, blinking. Again there was silence around the table,
+but this time it was electric, with the sense of flashes to come. The
+slow drawl of Lindsay, the theater reporter, seemed anti-climatic as he
+spoke up, slouched deep in his seat.
+
+"How much do you know of dramatic criticism in this town, Mr. Surtaine?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Maybe, then, you'll be pained to learn that we're a set of liars--I
+might even go further--myself among the number. There hasn't been honest
+dramatic criticism written in Worthington for years."
+
+"That is hard to believe, Mr. Lindsay."
+
+"Not if you understand the situation. Suppose I roast a show like 'The
+Nymph in the Nightie' that played here last week. It's vapid and silly,
+and rotten with suggestiveness. I wouldn't let my kid sister go within
+gunshot of it. But I've got to tell everybody else's kid sister, through
+our columns, that it's a delightful and enlivening _melange_ of high
+class fun and frolic. To be sure, I can praise a fine performance like
+'Kindling' or 'The Servant in the House,' but I've got to give just as
+clean a bill of health to a gutter-and-brothel farce. Otherwise, the
+high-minded gentlemen that run our theaters will cut off my tickets."
+
+"Buy them at the box-office," said Hal.
+
+"No use. They wouldn't let me in. The courts have killed honest
+criticism by deciding that a manager can keep a critic out on any
+pretext or without any. Besides, there's the advertising. We'd lose
+that."
+
+"Speaking of advertising,"--now it was Lynch, a young reporter who had
+risen from being an office boy,--"I guess it spoils some pretty good
+stories from the down-town district. Look at that accident at Scheffer
+and Mintz's; worth three columns of anybody's space. Tank on the roof
+broke, and drowned out a couple of hundred customers. Panic, and broken
+bones, and all kinds of things. How much did we give it? One stick! And
+we didn't name the place: just called it 'a Washington Street store.'
+There were facts behind _that_ news, all right. But I guess Mr.
+Shearson wouldn't have been pleased if we'd printed 'em."
+
+In fact, Shearson, the advertising manager, looked far from pleased at
+the mention.
+
+"If you think a one-day story would pay for the loss of five thousand a
+year in advertising, you've got another guess, young man," he growled.
+
+"He's right, there," said Dr. Surtaine, on one side of Hal; and from the
+other, McGuire Ellis chirped:--
+
+"Things are beginning to open up, all right, Mr. Editor."
+
+Two aspirants were now vying for the floor, the winner being the
+political reporter for the paper.
+
+"Would you like to hear some facts about the news we don't print?" he
+asked.
+
+"Go ahead," replied Hal. "You have the floor."
+
+"You recall a big suffrage meeting here recently, at which Mrs. Barkerly
+from London spoke. Well, the chairman of that meeting didn't get a line
+of his speech in the papers: didn't even get his name mentioned. Do you
+know why?"
+
+"I can't even imagine," said Hal.
+
+"Because he's the Socialist candidate for Governor of this State. He's
+blackballed from publication in every newspaper here."
+
+"By whom?" inquired Hal.
+
+"By the hinted wish of the Chamber of Commerce. They're so afraid of the
+Socialist movement that they daren't even admit it's alive."
+
+"Not at all!" Dr. Surtaine's rotund bass boomed out the denial. "There
+are some movements that it's wisest to disregard. They'll die of
+themselves. Socialism is a destructive force. Why should the papers help
+spread it by noticing it in their columns?"
+
+"Well, I'm no Socialist," said the political reporter, "but I'm a
+newspaper man, and I say it's news when a Socialist does a thing just as
+much as when any one else does it. Yet if I tried to print it, they'd
+give me the laugh on the copy-desk."
+
+"It's a fact that we're all tied down on the news in this town,"
+corroborated Wayne; "what between the Chamber of Commerce and the Dry
+Goods Union and the theaters and the other steady advertisers. You must
+have noticed, Mr. Surtaine, that if there's a shoplifting case or
+anything of that kind you never see the name of the store in print. It's
+always 'A State Street Department Store' or 'A Warburton Avenue Shop.'
+Ask Ellis if that isn't so."
+
+"Correct," said Ellis.
+
+"Why shouldn't it be so?" cried Shearson. "You fellows make me tired.
+You're always thinking of the news and never of the advertising. Who is
+it pays your salaries, do you think? The men who advertise in the
+'Clarion.'"
+
+"Hear! Hear!" from Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"And what earthly good does it do to print stuff like those shoplifting
+cases? Where's the harm in protecting the store?"
+
+"I'll tell you where," said Ellis. "That McBurney girl case. They got
+the wrong girl, and, to cover themselves, they tried to railroad her. It
+was a clear case. Every paper in town had the facts. Yet they gave that
+girl the reputation of a thief and never printed a correction for fear
+of letting in the store for a damage suit."
+
+"Did the 'Clarion' do that?" asked Hal.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Get me a full report of the facts."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Shearson.
+
+"Print them."
+
+"Oh, my Lord!" groaned Shearson.
+
+The circle was now drawing in and the talk became brisker, more
+detailed, more intimate. To his overwhelming amazement Hal learned some
+of the major facts of that subterranean journalistic history which never
+gets into print; the ugly story of the blackmail of a President of the
+United States by a patent medicine concern (Dr. Surtaine verified this
+with a nod); the inside facts of the failure of an important senatorial
+investigation which came to nothing because of the drunken debauchery of
+the chief senatorial investigator; the dreadful details of the death of
+a leading merchant in a great Eastern city, which were so glossed over
+by the local press that few of his fellow citizens ever had an inkling
+of the truth; the obtainable and morally provable facts of the
+conspiracy on the part of a mighty financier which had plunged a nation
+into panic; these and many other strange narratives of the news, known
+to every old newspaper man, which made the neophyte's head whirl. Then,
+in a pause, a young voice said:
+
+"Well, to bring the subject up to date, what about the deaths in the
+Rookeries?"
+
+"Shut up," said Wayne sharply.
+
+There followed a general murmur of question and answer. "What about the
+Rookeries?"--"Don't know."--"They say the death-rate is a terror."--"Are
+they concealing it at the City Hall?"--"No; Merritt can't find
+out."--"Bet Tip O'Farrell can."--"Oh, he's in on the game."--"Just
+another fake, I guess."
+
+In vain Hal strove to catch a clue from the confused voices. He had made
+a note of it for future inquiry, when some one called out: "Mac Ellis
+hasn't said anything yet." The others caught it up. "Speech from
+Mac!"--"Don't let him out."--"If you can't speak, sing a song."--"Play a
+tune on the _bazoo_."--"Hike him up there, somebody."--"Silence for the
+MacGuire!!"
+
+"I've never made a speech in my life," said Ellis, glowering about him,
+"and you fellows know it. But last night I read this in Plutarch:
+'Themistocles said that he certainly could not make use of any stringed
+instrument; could only, were a small and obscure city put into his
+hands, make it great and glorious.'"
+
+Ellis paused, lifting one hand. "Fellows," he said, and he turned
+sharply to face Hal Surtaine, "I don't know how the devil old
+Themistocles ever could do it--unless he owned a newspaper!"
+
+Silence followed, and then a quick acclaiming shout, as they grasped the
+implicit challenge of the corollary. Then again silence, tense with
+curiosity. No doubt of what they awaited. Their expectancy drew Hal to
+his feet.
+
+"I had intended to speak but once," he said, in a constrained voice,
+"but I've learned more here this afternoon--more than--than I could have
+thought--" He broke off and threw up his hand. "I'm no newspaper man,"
+he cried. "I'm only an amateur, a freshman at this business. But one
+thing I believe; it's the business of a newspaper to give the news
+without fear or favor, and that's what the 'Clarion' is going to do from
+this day. On that platform I'll stand by any man who'll stand by me.
+Will you help?"
+
+The answer rose and rang like a cheer. The gathering broke into little,
+excited, chattering groups, sure symptom of the success of a meeting.
+Much conjecture was expressed and not a little cynicism. "Compared to us
+Ishmael would be a society favorite if Surtaine carries this through,"
+said one. "It means suspension in six months," prophesied Shearson. But
+most of the men were excitedly enthusiastic. Your newspaper man is by
+nature a romantic; otherwise he would not choose the most adventurous of
+callings. And the fighting tone of the new boss stimulated in them the
+spirit of chance and change.
+
+Slowly and reluctantly they drifted away to the day's task. At the close
+Hal sat, thoughtful and spent, in a far corner when Ellis walked heavily
+over to him. The associate editor gazed down at his bemused principal
+for a time. From his pocket he drew the thick blue pencil of his craft,
+and with it tapped Hal thrice on the shoulder.
+
+"Rise up, Sir Newspaper Man," he pronounced solemnly. "I hereby dub thee
+Knight-Editor."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE THIN EDGE
+
+
+Across the fresh and dainty breakfast table, Dr. Miles Elliot surveyed
+his even more fresh and dainty niece and ward with an expression of
+sternest disapproval. Not that it affected in any perceptible degree
+that attractive young person's healthy appetite. It was the habit of the
+two to breakfast together early, while their elderly widowed cousin, who
+played the part of Feminine Propriety in the household in a highly
+self-effacing and satisfactory manner, took her tea and toast in her own
+rooms. It was further Dr. Elliot's custom to begin the day by
+reprehending everything (so far as he could find it out) which Miss Esme
+had done, said, or thought in the previous twenty-four hours. This, as
+he frequently observed to her, was designed to give her a suitably
+humble attitude toward the scheme of creation, but didn't.
+
+"Out all night again?" he growled.
+
+"Pretty nearly," said Esme cheerfully, setting a very even row of very
+white teeth into an apple.
+
+"Humph! What was it this time?"
+
+"A dinner-dance at the Norris's."
+
+"Have a good time?"
+
+"Beautiful! My frock was pretty. And I was pretty. And everybody was
+nice to me. And I wish it were going to happen right over again
+to-night."
+
+"Whom did you dance with mostly?"
+
+"Anybody that asked me."
+
+"Dare say. How many new victims?" he demanded.
+
+"Don't be a silly Guardy. I'm not a man-eating tiger or tigress, or the
+Great American Puma--or pumess. Don't you think 'pumess' is a nice
+lady-word, Guardy?"
+
+"Did you dance with Will Douglas?" catechised the grizzled doctor,
+declining to be shunted off on a philological discussion. Next to acting
+as legal major domo to E.M. Pierce, Douglas's most important function in
+life was apparently to fetch and carry for the reigning belle of
+Worthington. His devotion to Esme Elliot had become stock gossip of the
+town, since three seasons previous.
+
+"Almost half as often as he asked me," said the girl. "That was eight
+times, I think."
+
+"Nice boy, Will."
+
+"Boy!" There was a world of expressiveness in the monosyllable.
+
+"Not a day over forty," observed the uncle. "And you are twenty-two. Not
+that you look it"--judicially--"like thirty-five, after all this
+dissipation."
+
+Esme rose from her seat, walked with great dignity past her guardian,
+and suddenly whirling, pounced upon his ear.
+
+"Do I? Do I?" she cried. "Do I look thirty-five? Quick! Take it back."
+
+"Ouch! Oh! No. Not more'n thirty. Oo! All right; twenty-five, then.
+Fifteen! Three!!!"
+
+She kissed the assaulted ear, and pirouetted over to the broad
+window-seat, looking in her simple morning gown like a school-girl.
+
+"Wonder how you do it," grumbled Dr. Elliot. "Up all night roistering
+like a sophomore--"
+
+"I was in bed at three."
+
+"Down next morning, fresh as a--a--"
+
+"Rose," she supplied tritely.
+
+"--cake o' soap," concluded her uncle. "Now, as for you and Will
+Douglas, as between Will's forty--"
+
+"Marked down from forty-five," she interjected.
+
+"And your twenty-two--"
+
+"Looking like thirty-something."
+
+"Never mind," said Dr. Elliot in martyred tones. "_I_ don't want to
+finish _any_ sentence. Why should I? Got a niece to do it for me."
+
+"Nobody wants you to finish that one. You're a matchmaking old maid,"
+declared Esme, wrinkling her delicate nose at him, "and if you're ever
+put up for our sewing-circle I shall blackball you. Gossip!"
+
+"Oh, if I wanted to gossip, I'd begin to hint about the name of
+Surtaine."
+
+The girl's color did not change. "As other people have evidently been
+doing to you."
+
+"A little. Did you dance with him last night?"
+
+"He wasn't there. He's working very hard on his newspaper."
+
+"You seem to know a good deal about it."
+
+"Naturally, since I've bought into the paper myself. I believe that's
+the proper business phrase, isn't it?"
+
+"Bought in? What do you mean? You haven't been making investments
+without my advice?"
+
+"Don't worry, Guardy, dear. It isn't strictly a business transaction.
+I've been--ahem--establishing a sphere of influence."
+
+"Over Harrington Surtaine?"
+
+"Over his newspaper."
+
+"Look here, Esme! How serious is this Surtaine matter?" Dr. Elliot's
+tone had a distinct suggestion of concern.
+
+"For me? Not serious at all."
+
+"But for him?"
+
+"How can I tell? Isn't it likely to be serious for any of the
+unprotected young of your species when a Great American Pumess gets
+after him?" she queried demurely.
+
+"But you can't know him very well. He's been here only a few weeks,
+hasn't he?"
+
+"More than a month. And from the first he's gone everywhere."
+
+"That's quite unusual for your set, isn't it? I thought you rather
+prided yourselves on being careful about outsiders."
+
+"No one's an outsider whom Jinny Willard vouches for. Besides every one
+likes Hal Surtaine for himself."
+
+"You among the number?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," she responded frankly. "He's attractive. And he seems
+older and more--well--interesting than most of the boys of my set."
+
+"And that appeals to you?"
+
+"Yes: it does. I get awfully bored with the just-out-of-college chatter
+of the boys. I want to see the wheels go round, Guardy. Real wheels,
+that make up real machinery and get real things done. I'm not quite an
+_ingenue_, you know."
+
+"Thirty-five, thirty, twenty-five, fifteen, three," murmured her uncle,
+rubbing his ear. "And does young Surtaine give you inside glimpses of
+the machinery of his business?"
+
+"Sometimes. He doesn't know very much about it himself, yet."
+
+"It's a pretty dirty business, Honey. And, I'm afraid, he's a pretty bad
+breed."
+
+"The father _is_ rather impossible, isn't he?" she said, laughing. "But
+they say he's very kindly, and well-meaning, and public-spirited, and
+that kind of thing."
+
+"He's a scoundrelly old quack. It's a bad inheritance for the boy. Where
+are you off to this morning?"
+
+"To the 'Clarion' office."
+
+"What! Well, but, see here, dear, does Cousin Clarice approve of that
+sort of thing?"
+
+"Wholly," Esme assured him, dimpling. "It's on behalf of the Recreation
+Club. That's the Reverend Norman Hale's club for working-girls, you
+know. We're going to give a play. And, as I'm on the Press Committee,
+it's quite proper for me to go to the newspapers and get things
+printed."
+
+"Humph!" grunted Dr. Elliot. "Well: good hunting--Pumess."
+
+After the girl had gone, he sat thinking. He knew well the swift
+intimacies, frank and clean and fine, which spring up in the small,
+close-knit social circles of a city like Worthington. And he knew, too,
+and trusted and respected the judgment of Mrs. Festus Willard, whose
+friendship was tantamount to a certificate of character and eligibility.
+As against that, he set the unforgotten picture of the itinerant quack,
+vending his poison across the countryside, playing on desperate fears
+and tragic hopes, coining his dollars from the grimmest of false dies;
+and now that same quack,--powerful, rich, generous, popular, master of
+the good things of life,--still draining out his millions from the
+populace, through just such deadly swindling as that which had been
+lighted up by the flaring exploitation of the oil torches fifteen years
+before. Could any good come from such a stock? He decided to talk it out
+with Esme, sure that her fastidiousness would turn away from the ugly
+truth.
+
+Meantime, the girl was making a toilet of vast and artful simplicity
+wherewith to enrapture the eye of the beholder. The first profound
+effect thereof was wrought upon Reginald Currier, alias "Bim," some
+fifteen minutes later, at the outer portals of the "Clarion" office.
+
+"Hoojer wanter--" he began, and then glanced up. Almost as swiftly as he
+had aforetime risen under Hal's irate and athletic impulsion, the
+redoubtable Bim was lifted from his seat by the power of Miss Elliot's
+glance. "Gee!" he murmured.
+
+The Great American Pumess, looking much more like a very innocent, soft,
+and demurely playful kitten, accepted this ingenuous tribute to her
+charms with a smile. "Good-morning," she said. "Is Mr. Surtaine in?"
+
+"Same t'you," responded the courteous Mr. Currier. "Sure he is. Walk
+this way, maddim!"
+
+They found the editor at his desk. His absorbed expression brightened
+as he jumped up to greet his visitor.
+
+"You!" he cried.
+
+Esme let her hand rest in his and her glance linger in his eyes, perhaps
+just a little longer than might have comported with safety in one less
+adept.
+
+"How is the paper going?" she inquired, taking the chair which he pulled
+out for her.
+
+"Completely to the dogs," said Hal.
+
+"No! Why I thought--"
+
+"You haven't given any advice to the editor for six whole days," he
+complained. "How can you expect an institution to run, bereft of its
+presiding genius? Is it your notion of a fair partnership to stay away
+and let your fellow toilers wither on the bough? I only wonder that the
+presses haven't stopped."
+
+"Would this help at all?" The visitor produced from her shopping-bag the
+written announcement of the Recreation Club play.
+
+"Undoubtedly it will save the day. Lost Atlantis will thrill to hear,
+and deep-sea cables bear the good news to unborn generations. What is
+it?"
+
+She frowned upon his levity. "It is an interesting item, a _very_
+interesting item of news," she said impressively.
+
+"Bring one in every day," he directed: "in person. We can't trust the
+mails in matters of such vital import." And scrawling across the copy a
+single hasty word in pencil, he thrust it into a wire box.
+
+"What's that you've written on it?"
+
+"The mystic word 'Must.'"
+
+"Does it mean that it must be printed?"
+
+"Precisely, O Fountain of Intuition. It is one of the proud privileges
+which an editor-in-chief has. Otherwise he does exactly what the city
+desk or the advertising manager or the head proof-reader or the fourth
+assistant office boy tells him. That's because he's new to his job and
+everybody in the place knows it."
+
+"Yet I don't think it would be easy for any one to make you do a thing
+you really didn't want to do," she observed, regarding him thoughtfully.
+
+"When you lift your eyebrows like that--"
+
+"I thought you weren't to make pretty speeches to me in business hours,"
+she reproached him.
+
+"Such a stern and rock-bound partner! Very well. How does the paper suit
+your tastes?"
+
+"You've got an awfully funny society column."
+
+"We strive to amuse. But I thought only people outside of society ever
+read society columns--except to see if their names were there."
+
+"I read _all_ the paper," she answered severely. "And I'd like to know
+who Mrs. Wolf Tone Maher is."
+
+"Ring up 'Information,'" he suggested.
+
+"Don't be flippant. Also Mr. and Mrs. B. Kirschofer, and Miss Amelia
+Sproule. All of which give teas in the society columns of the 'Clarion.'
+_Or_ dances. _Or_ dinners. And I notice they're always sandwiched in
+between the Willards or the Vanes or the Ellisons or the Pierces, or
+some of our own crowd. I'm curious."
+
+"So am I. Let's ask Wayne."
+
+Accordingly the city editor was summoned and duly presented to Miss
+Elliot. But when she put the question to him, he looked uncomfortable.
+Like a good city editor, however, he defended his subordinate.
+
+"It isn't the society reporter's fault," he said. "He knows those people
+don't belong."
+
+"How do they get in there, then?" asked Hal.
+
+"Mr. Shearson's orders."
+
+"Is Mr. Shearson the society editor?" asked Esme.
+
+"No. He's the advertising manager."
+
+"Forgive my stupidity, but what has the advertising manager to do with
+social news?"
+
+"A big heap lot," explained Wayne. "It's the most important feature of
+the paper to him. Wolf Tone Maher is general manager of the Bee Hive
+Department Store. We get all their advertising, and when Mrs. Maher
+wants to see her name along with the 'swells,' as she would say, Mr.
+Shearson is glad to oblige. B. Kirschofer is senior partner in the firm
+of Kirschofer & Kraus, of the Bargain Emporium. Miss Sproule is the
+daughter of Alexander Sproule, proprietor of the Agony Parlors, three
+floors up."
+
+"Agony Parlors?" queried the visitor.
+
+"Painless dentistry," explained Wayne. "Mr. Shearson handles all that
+matter and sends it down to us."
+
+"Marked 'Must,' I suppose," remarked Miss Elliot, not without malice.
+"So the mystic 'Must' is not exclusively a chief-editorial prerogative?"
+
+The editor-in-chief looked annoyed, thereby satisfying his visitor's
+momentary ambition. "Hereafter, Mr. Wayne, all copy indorsed 'Must' is
+to be referred to me," he directed.
+
+"That kills the 'Must' thing," commented the city editor cheerfully.
+"What about 'Must not'?"
+
+"Another complication," laughed Esme. "I fear I'm peering into the dark
+and secret places of journalism."
+
+"For example, a story came in last night that was a hummer," said Wayne;
+"about E.M. Pierce's daughter running down an apple-cart in her
+sixty-horse-power car, and scattering dago, fruit, and all to the four
+winds of Heaven. Robbins saw it, and he's the best reporter we have for
+really funny stuff."
+
+"Kathleen drives that car like a demon out on a spree," said Esme. "But
+of course you wouldn't print anything unpleasant about it."
+
+"Why not?" asked Wayne.
+
+"Well, she belongs to our crowd,--Mr. Surtaine's friends, I mean,--and
+it was accidental, I suppose, and so long as the man wasn't hurt--"
+
+"Only a sprained shoulder."
+
+"--and I'm sure Agnes would be more than willing to pay for the damage."
+
+"Oh, yes. She asked the worth of his stock and then doubled it, gave him
+the money, and drove off with her mud guards coquettishly festooned with
+grapes. That's what made it such a good story."
+
+"But, Mr. Wayne"--Esme's eyes were turned up to his pleadingly: "those
+things are funny to tell. But they're so vulgar, in the paper. Think, if
+it were your sister."
+
+"If my sister went tearing through crowded streets at forty miles an
+hour, I'd have her examined for homicidal mania. That Pierce girl will
+kill some one yet. Even then, I suppose we won't print a word of it."
+
+"What would stop us?" asked Hal.
+
+"The fear of Elias M. Pierce. His 'Must not' is what kills this story."
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+"Oh, it isn't visible. But every editor in town knows too much to offend
+the President of the Consolidated Employers' Organization, let alone his
+practical control of the Dry Goods Union."
+
+"You were at the staff breakfast yesterday, I believe, Mr. Wayne."
+
+"What? Yes; of course I was."
+
+"And you heard what I said?"
+
+"Yes. But you can't do that sort of thing all at once," replied the city
+editor uneasily.
+
+"We certainly never shall do it without making a beginning. Please hold
+the Pierce story until you hear from me."
+
+"Tell me all about the breakfast," commanded Esme, as the door closed
+upon Wayne.
+
+Briefly Hal reported the exchange of ideas between himself and his
+staff, skeletonizing his own speech.
+
+"Splendid!" she cried. "And isn't it exciting! I love a good fight.
+What fun you'll have. Oh, the luxury of saying exactly what you think!
+Even I can't do that."
+
+"What limits are there to the boundless privileges of royalty?" asked
+Hal, smiling.
+
+"Conventions. For instance, I'd love to tell you just how fine I think
+all this is that you're doing, and just how much I like and admire you.
+We've come to be real friends, haven't we? And, you see, I can be of
+some actual help. The breakfast was my suggestion, wasn't it? So you owe
+me something for that. Are you properly grateful?"
+
+"Try me."
+
+"Then, august and terrible sovereign, spare the life of my little friend
+Kathie."
+
+Hal drew back a bit. "I'm afraid you don't realize the situation."
+
+The Great American Pumess shot forth a little paw--such a soft, shapely,
+hesitant, dainty, appealing little paw--and laid it on Hal's hand.
+
+"Please," she said.
+
+"But, Esme,"--he began. It was the first time he had used that intimacy
+with her. Her eyes dropped.
+
+"We're partners, aren't we?" she said.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Then you won't let them print it!"
+
+"If Miss Pierce goes rampaging around the streets--"
+
+"Please. For me,--partner."
+
+"One would have to be more than human, to say no to you," he returned,
+laughing a little unsteadily. "You're corrupting my upright professional
+sense of duty."
+
+"It can't be a duty to hold a friend up to ridicule, just for a little
+accident."
+
+"I'm not so sure," said Hal, again. "However, for the sake of our
+partnership, and if you'll promise to come again soon to tell us how to
+run the paper--"
+
+"I knew you'd be kind!" There was just the faintest pressure of the
+delicate paw, before it was withdrawn. The Great American Pumess was
+feeling the thrill of power over men and events. "I think I like the
+newspaper business. But I've got to be at my other trade now."
+
+"What trade is that?"
+
+"Didn't you know I was a little sister of the poor? When you've lost all
+your money and are ill, I'll come and lay my cooling hand on your
+fevered brow and bring wine jelly to your tenement."
+
+"Aren't you afraid of contagious diseases?" he asked anxiously. "Such
+places are always full of them."
+
+"Oh, they placard for contagion. It's safe enough. And I'm really
+interested. It's my only excuse to myself for living."
+
+"If bringing happiness wherever you go isn't enough--"
+
+"No! No!" She smiled up into his eyes. "This is still a business visit.
+But you may take me to my car."
+
+On his way back Hal stopped to tell Wayne that perhaps the Pierce story
+wasn't worth running, after all. Unease of conscience disturbed his work
+for a time thereafter. He appeased it by the excuse that it was no
+threat or pressure from without which had influenced his action. He had
+killed the item out of consideration for the friend of his friend. What
+did it matter, anyway, a bit of news like that? Who was harmed by
+leaving it out? As yet he was too little the journalist to comprehend
+that the influences which corrupt the news are likely to be dangerous in
+proportion as they are subtle.
+
+Wayne understood better, and smiled with a cynical wryness of mouth upon
+McGuire Ellis, who, having passed Hal and Esme on the stairs, had
+lingered at the city desk and heard the editor-in-chief's half-hearted
+order.
+
+"Still worrying about Dr. Surtaine's influence over the paper?" asked
+the city editor, after Hal's departure.
+
+"Yes," said Ellis.
+
+"Don't."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Did you happen to notice about the prettiest thing that ever used eyes
+for weapons, in the hall?"
+
+"Something of that description."
+
+"Let me present you, in advance, to Miss Esme Elliot, the new boss of
+our new boss," said Wayne, with a flourish.
+
+"God save the Irish!" said McGuire Ellis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+NEW BLOOD
+
+
+Echoes of the Talk-it-Over Breakfast rang briskly in the "Clarion"
+office. It was suggested to Hal that the success of the function
+warranted its being established as a regular feature of the shop. Later
+this was done. One of the participants, however, was very ill-pleased
+with the morning's entertainment. Dr. Surtaine saw, in retrospect and in
+prospect, his son being led astray into various radical and harebrained
+vagaries of journalism. None of those at the breakfast had foreseen more
+clearly than the wise and sharpened quack what serious difficulties
+beset the course which Hal had laid out for himself.
+
+Trouble was what Dr. Surtaine hated above all things. Whatever taste for
+the adventurous he may have possessed had been sated by his career as an
+itinerant. Now he asked only to be allowed to hatch his golden dollars
+peacefully, afar from all harsh winds of controversy. That his own son
+should feel a more stirring ambition left him clucking, a bewildered hen
+on the brink of perilous waters.
+
+But he clucked cunningly. And before he undertook his appeal to bring
+the errant one back to shore he gave himself two days to think it over.
+To this extent Dr. Surtaine had become a partisan of the new enterprise;
+that he, too, previsioned an ideal newspaper, a newspaper which, day by
+day, should uphold and defend the Best Interests of the Community, and,
+as an inevitable corollary, nourish itself on their bounty. By the Best
+Interests of the Community--he visualized the phrase in large print, as
+a creed for any journal--Dr. Surtaine meant, of course, business in the
+great sense. Gloriously looming in the future of his fancy was the day
+when the "Clarion" should develop into the perfect newspaper, the fine
+flower of journalism, an organ in which every item of news, every line
+of editorial, every word of advertisement, should subserve the one vital
+purpose, Business; should aid in some manner, direct or indirect, in
+making a dollar for the "Clarion's" patrons and a dime for the
+"Clarion's" till. But how to introduce these noble and fortifying ideals
+into the mind of that flighty young bird, Hal?
+
+Dr. Surtaine, after studying the problem, decided to employ the instance
+of the Mid-State and Great Muddy River Railroad as the entering wedge of
+his argument. Hal owned a considerable block of stock, earning the
+handsome dividend of eight per cent. Under attacks possibly leading to
+adverse legislation, this return might well be reduced and Hal's own
+income suffer a shrinkage. Therefore, in the interests of all concerned,
+Hal ought to keep his hands off the subject. Could anything be clearer?
+
+Obviously not, the senior Surtaine thought, and so laid it before the
+junior, one morning as they were walking down town together. Hal
+admitted the assault upon the Mid-and-Mud; defended it, even; added that
+there would be another phase of it presently in the way of an attempt on
+the part of the paper to force a better passenger service for
+Worthington. Dr. Surtaine confessed a melancholious inability to see
+what the devil business it was of Hal's.
+
+"It isn't I that's making the fight, Dad. It's the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"The same thing."
+
+"Not at all the same thing. Something very much bigger than I or any
+other one man. I found that out at the breakfast."
+
+That breakfast! Socialistic, anarchistic, anti-Christian, were the
+climactic adjectives employed by Dr. Surtaine to signify his disapproval
+of the occasion.
+
+"Sorry you didn't like it, Dad. You heard nothing but plain facts."
+
+"Plain slush! Just look at this railroad accident article
+broad-mindedly, Boyee. You own some Mid-and-Mud stock."
+
+"Thanks to you, Dad."
+
+"Paying eight per cent. How long will it go on paying that if the
+newspapers keep stirring up trouble for it? Anti-railroad sentiment is
+fostered by just such stuff as the 'Clarion' printed. What if the
+engineer _was_ worked overtime? He got paid for it."
+
+"And seven people got killed for it. I understand the legislature is
+going to ask why, mainly because of our story and editorial."
+
+"There you are! Sicking a pack of demagogues onto the Mid-and-Mud. How
+can it make profits and pay your dividends if that kind of thing keeps
+up?"
+
+"I don't know that I need dividends earned by slaughtering people," said
+Hal slowly.
+
+"Maybe you don't need the dividends, but there's plenty of people that
+do, people that depend on 'em. Widows and orphans, too."
+
+"Oh, that widow-and-orphan dummy!" cried Hal. "What would the poor,
+struggling railroads ever do without it to hide behind!"
+
+"You talk like Ellis," reproved his father. "Boyee, I don't want you to
+get too much under his influence. He's an impractical will-o'-the-wisp
+chaser. Just like all the writing fellows."
+
+By this time they had reached the "Clarion" Building.
+
+"Come in, Dad," invited Hal, "and we'll talk to Ellis about Old Home
+Week. He's with you there, anyway."
+
+"Oh, he's all right aside from his fanatical notions," said the other as
+they mounted the stairs.
+
+The associate editor nodded his greetings from above a pile of left-over
+copy.
+
+"Old Home Week?" he queried. "Let's see, when does it come?"
+
+"In less than six months. It isn't too early to give it a start, is it?"
+asked Hal Surtaine.
+
+"No. It's news any time, now."
+
+"More than that," said Dr. Surtaine. "It's advertising. I can turn every
+ad. that goes out to the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"Last year we got only the pickings," remarked Ellis.
+
+"Last year your owner wasn't the son of the committee's chairman."
+
+"By the way, Dad, I'll have to resign that secretaryship. Every minute
+of my spare time I'm going to put in around this office."
+
+"I guess you're right. But I'm sorry to lose you."
+
+"Think how much more I can do for the celebration with this paper than I
+could as secretary."
+
+"Right, again."
+
+"Some one at the breakfast," observed Hal, "mentioned the Rookeries, and
+Wayne shut him up. What are the Rookeries? I've been trying to remember
+to ask."
+
+The other two looked at each other with raised eyebrows. As well might
+one have asked, "What is the City Hall?" in Worthington. Ellis was the
+one to answer.
+
+"Hell's hole and contamination. The worst nest of tenements in the
+State. Two blocks of 'em, owned by our best citizens. Run by a political
+pull. So there's no touching 'em."
+
+"What's up there now; more murders?" asked the Doctor.
+
+"Somebody'll be calling it that if it goes much further," replied the
+newspaper man. "I don't know what the official _alias_ of the trouble
+is. If you want details, get Wayne."
+
+In response to a telephone call the city editor presented his lank form
+and bearded face at the door of the sanctum. "The Rookeries deaths?" he
+said. "Oh, malaria--for convenience."
+
+"Malaria?" repeated Dr. Surtaine. "Why, there aren't any mosquitoes in
+that locality now."
+
+"So the health officer, Dr. Merritt, says. But the certificates keep
+coming in. He's pretty worried. There have been over twenty cases in No.
+7 and No. 9 alone. Three deaths in the last two days."
+
+"Is it some sort of epidemic starting?" asked Hal. "That would be news,
+wouldn't it?"
+
+At the word "epidemic," Dr. Surtaine had risen, and now came forward
+flapping his hand like a seal.
+
+"The kind of news that never ought to get into print," he exclaimed.
+"That's the sort of thing that hurts a whole city."
+
+"So does an epidemic if it gets a fair start," suggested Ellis.
+
+"Epidemic! Epidemic!" cried the Doctor. "Ten years ago they started a
+scare about smallpox in those same Rookeries. The smallpox didn't amount
+to shucks. But look what the sensationalism did to us. It choked off Old
+Home Week, and lost us hundreds of thousands of dollars."
+
+"I was a cub on the 'News' then," said Wayne. "And I remember there were
+a lot of deaths from chicken-pox that year. I didn't suppose
+people--that is, grown people--died of chicken-pox very often: not more
+often, say, than they die of malaria where there are no mosquitoes."
+
+"Suspicion is one thing. Fact is another," said Dr. Surtaine decisively.
+"Hal, I hope you aren't going to take up with this nonsense, and risk
+the success of the Centennial Old Home Week."
+
+"I can't see what good we should be doing," said the new editor.
+
+"It's big news, if it's true," suggested Wayne, rather wistfully.
+"Suppression of a real epidemic."
+
+"Ghost-tales and goblin-shine," laughed the big doctor, recovering his
+good humor. "Who's the physician down there?"
+
+"Dr. De Vito, an Italian. Nobody else can get into the Rookeries to see
+a case. O'Farrell's the agent, and he sees to that."
+
+"Tip O'Farrell, the labor politician? I know him. And I know De Vito
+well. In fact, he does part-time work in the Certina plant. I'll tell
+you what, Hal. I'll just make a little expert investigation of my own
+down there, and report to you."
+
+"The 'Clarion's Special Commissioner, Dr. L. Andre Surtaine," said
+Ellis sonorously.
+
+"No publicity, boys. This is a secret commission. And here's your chance
+right now to make the 'Clarion' useful to the committee, Hal, by keeping
+all scare-stuff out of the paper."
+
+"If it really does amount to anything, wouldn't it be better," said Hal,
+"to establish a quarantine and go in there and stamp the thing out?
+We've plenty of time before Old Home Week."
+
+"No; no!" cried the Doctor. "Think of the publicity that would mean. It
+would be a year before the fear of it would die out. Every other city
+that's jealous of Worthington would make capital of it and thousands of
+people whose money we want would be scared away."
+
+Ellis drew Wayne aside. "What does Dr. Merritt really think? Smallpox?"
+
+"No. The place has been too well vaccinated. It might be scarlet fever,
+or diphtheria, or even meningitis. Merritt wants to go in there and open
+it up, but the Mayor won't let him. He doesn't dare take the
+responsibility without any newspaper backing. And none of the other
+papers dares tackle the ownership of the Rookeries."
+
+"Then we ought to. A good, rousing sensation of that sort is just what
+the paper needs."
+
+"We won't get it. There's too many ropes on the Boy Boss. First the girl
+and now the old man."
+
+"Wait and see. He's got good stuff in him and he's being educated every
+day. Give him time."
+
+"Mr. Wayne, I'd like to see the health office reports," called Hal, and
+the two went out.
+
+Selecting one of his pet cigars, Dr. Surtaine advanced upon McGuire
+Ellis, extending it. "Mac, you're a good fellow at bottom," he said
+persuasively.
+
+"What's the price," asked Ellis, "of the cigar and the compliment
+together? In other words, what do you want of me?"
+
+"Keep your hands off the boy."
+
+"Didn't I offer fair and square to match you for his soul? You insisted
+on fight."
+
+"If you'd just let him alone," pursued the quack, "he'd come around
+right side up with care. He's sound and sensible at bottom. He's got a
+lot of me in him. But you keep feeding him up on your yellow journal
+ideas. What'll they ever get him? Trouble; nothing but trouble. Even if
+you should make a sort of success of the paper with your wild
+sensationalism it wouldn't be any real good to Hal. It wouldn't get him
+anywhere with the real people. It'd be a sheet he'd always have to be a
+little ashamed of. I tell you what, Mac, in order to respect himself a
+man has got to respect his business."
+
+"Just so," said McGuire Ellis. "Do you respect your business, Doc?"
+
+"Do I!! It makes half a million a year clear profit."
+
+The associate editor turned to his work whistling softly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE ROOKERIES
+
+
+Two conspicuous ornaments of Worthington's upper world visited
+Worthington's underworld on a hot, misty morning of early June. Both
+were there on business, Dr. L. Andre Surtaine in the fulfillment of his
+agreement with his son--the exact purpose of the visit, by the way,
+would have inspired Harrington Surtaine with unpleasant surprise, could
+he have known it; and Miss Esme Elliot on a tour of inspection for the
+Visiting Nurses' Association, of which she was an energetic official.
+Whatever faults or foibles might be ascribed to Miss Elliot, she was no
+faddist. That which she undertook to do, she did thoroughly and well;
+and for practical hygiene she possessed an inborn liking and aptitude,
+far more so than, for example, her fortuitous fellow slummer of the
+morning, Dr. Surtaine, whom she encountered at the corner where the
+Rookeries begin. The eminent savant removed his hat with a fine
+flourish, further reflected in his language as he said:--
+
+"What does Beauty so far afield?"
+
+"Thank you, if you mean me," said Esme demurely.
+
+"Do you see something else around here that answers the description?"
+
+"No: I certainly don't," she replied, letting her eyes wander along the
+street where Sadler's Shacks rose in grime and gauntness to offend the
+clean skies. "I am going over there to see some sick people."
+
+"Ah! Charity as well as Beauty; the perfect combination."
+
+The Doctor's pomposity always amused Esme. "And what does Science so far
+from its placid haunts?" she mocked. "Are you scattering the blessings
+of Certina amongst a grateful proletariat?"
+
+"Not exactly. I'm down here on some other business."
+
+"Well, I won't keep you from it, Dr. Surtaine. Good-bye."
+
+The swinging doors of a saloon opened almost upon her, and a short,
+broad-shouldered foreigner, in a ruffled-up silk hat, bumped into her
+lightly and apologized. He jogged up to Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"Hello, De Vito," said Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"At the service of my distinguish' confrere," said the squat Italian.
+"Am I require at the factory?"
+
+"No. I've come to look into this sickness. Where is it?"
+
+"The opposite eemediate block."
+
+Dr. Surtaine eyed with disfavor the festering tenement indicated. "New
+cases?"
+
+"Two, only."
+
+"Who's treating them?"
+
+"I am in charge. Mr. O'Farrell employs my services: so the pipple have
+not to pay anything. All the time which I am not at the Certina factory,
+I am here."
+
+"Just so. And no other doctor gets in?"
+
+"There is no call. They are quite satisfied."
+
+"And is the Board of Health satisfied?"
+
+The employee shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands. "How is it you
+Americans say? 'What he does not know cannot hurt somebody.'"
+
+"Is O'Farrell agent for all these barracks?" Dr. Surtaine inquired as
+they walked up the street.
+
+"All. Many persons own, but Mr. O'Farrell is boss of all. This Number 4,
+Mr. Gibbs owns. He is of the great department store. You know. A ver'
+fine man, Mr. Gibbs."
+
+"A very fine fool," retorted the Doctor, "to let himself get mixed up
+with such rotten property. Why, it's a reflection on all us men of
+standing."
+
+"Nobody knows he is owner. And it pays twelve per cent," said the
+Italian mildly. He paused at the door. "Do we go in?" he asked.
+
+An acrid-soft odor as of primordial slime subtly intruded upon the
+sensory nerves of the visitor. The place breathed out decay; the decay
+of humanity, of cleanliness, of the honest decencies of life turned
+foul. Something lethal exhaled from that dim doorway. There was a stab
+of pestilence, reaching for the brain. But the old charlatan was no
+coward.
+
+"Show me the cases," he said.
+
+For an hour he moved through the black, stenchful passageways, up and
+down ramshackle stairs, from human warren to human warren, pausing here
+to question, there to peer and sniff and poke with an exploring cane.
+Out on the street again he drew full, heaving breath.
+
+"O'Farrell's got to clean up. That's all there is to that," he said
+decisively.
+
+"The Doctor thinks?" queried the little physician.
+
+Dr. Surtaine shook his head. "I don't know. But I'm sure of one thing.
+There's three of them ought to be gotten out at once. The third-floor
+woman, and that brother and sister in the basement."
+
+"And the German family at the top?"
+
+Dr. Surtaine tapped his chest significantly. "Sure to be plenty of that
+in this kind of hole. Nothing to do but let 'em die." He did not mention
+that he had left a twenty-dollar bill and a word of cheer with the
+gasping consumptive and his wife. Outside of the line of business Dr.
+Surtaine's charities were silent. "How many of the _other_ cases have
+you had here?"
+
+"Eleven. Seven deaths. Four I take away."
+
+"And what is your diagnosis, Doctor?" inquired the old quack
+professionally of the younger ignoramus.
+
+Again De Vito shrugged. "For public, malignant malaria. How you call it?
+Pernicious. For me, I do' know. Maybe--" he leaned forward and spoke a
+low word.
+
+"Meningitis?" repeated the other. "Possibly. I've never seen much of
+the infectious kind. What are you giving for it?"
+
+"Certina, mostly."
+
+Dr. Surtaine looked at him sharply, but the Italian's face was innocent
+of any sardonic expression.
+
+"As well that as anything," muttered its proprietor. "By the way, you
+might get testimonials from any of 'em that get well. Can you find
+O'Farrell?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Tell him I want to see him at my office at two o'clock."
+
+"Ver' good. What do you think it is, Doctor?"
+
+Dr. Surtaine waved a profound hand. "Very obscure. Demands
+consideration. But get those cases out of the city. There's no occasion
+to risk the Board of Health seeing them."
+
+At the corner Dr. Surtaine again met Miss Elliot and stopped her. "My
+dear young lady, ought you to be risking your safety in such places as
+these?"
+
+"No one ever interferes. My badge protects me."
+
+"But there's so much sickness."
+
+"That is what brings me," she smiled.
+
+"It might be contagious. In fact, I have reason to believe that there
+is--er--measles in this block."
+
+"I've had it, thank you. May I give you a lift in my car?"
+
+"No, thank you. But I think you should consult your uncle before coming
+here again."
+
+"The entire Surtaine family seems set upon barring me from the
+Rookeries. I wonder why."
+
+With which parting shot she left him. Going home, he bathed and changed
+into his customary garb of smooth black, to which his rotund placidity
+of bearing imparted an indescribably silky finish. His discarded clothes
+he put, with his own hands, into an old grip, sprinkled them plenteously
+with a powerful disinfectant, and left orders that they be destroyed.
+It was a phase of Dr. Surtaine's courage that he never took useless
+risks, either with his own life, or (outside of business) with the lives
+of others.
+
+Having lunched, he went to his office where he found O'Farrell waiting.
+The politician greeted him with a mixture of deference and familiarity.
+At one stage of their acquaintance familiarity had predominated, when
+having put through a petty but particularly rancid steal for the benefit
+of the Certina business, O'Farrell had become inspired with effusiveness
+to the extent of addressing his patron as "Doc." He never made that
+particular error again. Yet, to the credit of Dr. Surtaine's tact and
+knowledge of character be it said, O'Farrell was still the older man's
+loyal though more humble friend, after the incident. To-day he was
+plainly apprehensive.
+
+"Them other cases the same thing?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, O'Farrell."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That I can't tell you."
+
+"You went in and saw 'em?"
+
+Dr. Surtaine nodded.
+
+"By God, I wouldn't do it," declared O'Farrell, shivering. "I wouldn't
+go in there, not to collect the rent! It's catching, ain't it?"
+
+"In all probability it is a contagious or zymotic disease."
+
+The politician shook his head, much impressed, as it was intended he
+should be.
+
+"Cleaning-up time for you, I guess, O'Farrell," pursued the other.
+
+"All right, if you say so. But I won't have any Board o' Health snitches
+bossing it. They'd want to pull the whole row down."
+
+"Exactly what ought to be done."
+
+"What! And it averagin' better'n ten per cent," cried the agent in so
+scandalized a tone that the Doctor could not but smile.
+
+"How have you managed to keep them out, thus far?"
+
+"Haven't. There's been a couple of inspectors around, but I stalled 'em
+off. And we got the sick cases out right from under 'em."
+
+"Dr. Merritt is a hard man to handle if he once gets started."
+
+"He's got his hands full. The papers have been poundin' him because his
+milk regulations have put up the price. Persecution of the dairymen,
+they call it. Well, persecution of an honest property owner--with a
+pull--won't look pretty for Mr. Health Officer if he don't find nothing
+there. And the papers'll back me."
+
+"Ellis of the 'Clarion' has his eye on the place."
+
+"You can square that through your boy, can't you?"
+
+The Doctor had his own private doubts, but didn't express them. "Leave
+it to me," he said. "Get some disinfectants and clean up. Your owners
+can stand the bill--at ten per cent. Much obliged for coming in,
+O'Farrell."
+
+As the politician went out an office girl entered and announced:
+
+"There's a man out in the reception hall, Doctor, waiting to see you.
+He's asleep with his elbow on the stand."
+
+"Wake him up and ask him for his berth-check, Alice," said Dr. Surtaine,
+"and if he says his name is Ellis, send him in."
+
+Ellis it was who entered and dropped into the chair pushed forward by
+his host.
+
+"Glad to see you, my boy," Dr. Surtaine greeted him. "I thought you were
+going to send a reporter."
+
+"Ordinarily we would have sent one. But I'm pretty well interested in
+this myself. I expected to hear from you long ago."
+
+"Busy, my boy, busy. It's only been a week since I undertook the
+investigation. And these things take time."
+
+"Apparently. What's the result?"
+
+"Nothing." The quack spread his hands abroad in a blank gesture. "False
+alarm. Couple of cases of typhoid and some severe tonsillitis, that
+looked like diphtheria."
+
+"People die of tonsillitis, do they?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"And are buried?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"What in?"
+
+"Why, in coffins, I suppose."
+
+"Then why were these bodies buried in quicklime?"
+
+"What bodies?"
+
+"Last week's lot."
+
+"You mean in Canadaga County? O'Farrell said nothing about quicklime."
+
+"That's what I mean. Apparently O'Farrell _did_ say something about more
+corpses smuggled out last week."
+
+"Mr. Ellis," said the Doctor, annoyed at his slip, "I am not on the
+witness stand."
+
+"Dr. Surtaine," returned the other in the same tone, "when you undertake
+an investigation for the 'Clarion,' you are one of my reporters and I
+expect a full and frank report from you."
+
+"Bull's-eye for you, my boy. You win. They did run those cases out.
+Before we're through with it they'll probably run more out. You see, the
+Health Bureau has got it in for O'Farrell, and if they knew there was
+anything up there, they'd raise a regular row and queer things
+generally."
+
+"What _is_ up?"
+
+"Honestly, I don't know."
+
+"Nor even suspect?"
+
+"Well, it might be scarlet fever. Or, perhaps diphtheria. You see
+strange types sometimes."
+
+"If it's either, failure to report is against the law."
+
+"Technically, yes. But we've got it fixed to clean things up. The people
+will be looked after. There's no real danger of its spreading much. And
+you know how it is. The Rookeries have got a bad name, anyway. Anything
+starting there is sure to be exaggerated. Why, look at that chicken-pox
+epidemic a few years ago."
+
+"I understand nobody who had been vaccinated got any of the chicken-pox,
+as you call it."
+
+"That's as may be. What did it amount to, anyway? Nothing. Yet it almost
+ruined Old Home Week."
+
+"Naturally you don't want the Centennial Home Week endangered. But we
+don't want the health of the city endangered."
+
+"'We.' Who's we?"
+
+"Well, the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"Don't work the guardian-of-the-people game on me, my boy. And don't
+worry about the city's health. If this starts to spread we'll take
+measures."
+
+By no means satisfied with this interview, McGuire Ellis left the
+Certina plant, and almost ran into Dr. Elliot, whom he hailed, for he
+had the faculty of knowing everybody.
+
+"Not doing any doctoring nowadays, are you?"
+
+"No," retorted the other. "Doing any sickening, yourself?"
+
+Ellis grinned. "It's despairing weariness that makes me look this way.
+I'm up against a tougher job than old Diogenes. I'm looking for an
+honest doctor."
+
+"You fish in muddy waters," commented his acquaintance, glancing up at
+the Certina Building.
+
+"There's something very wrong down in the Twelfth Ward."
+
+"Not going in for reform politics, are you?"
+
+"This isn't political. Some kind of disease has broken out in
+O'Farrell's Rookeries."
+
+"Delirium tremens," suggested Dr. Elliot.
+
+"Yes: that's a funny joke," returned the other, unmoved; "but did you
+ever hear of any one sneaking D-T cases across the county line at night
+to a pest-house run by a political friend of O'Farrell's?"
+
+"Can't say I have."
+
+"Or burying the dead in quicklime?"
+
+"Quicklime? What's this, 'Clarion' sensationalism?"
+
+"Don't be young. I'm telling you. Quicklime. Canadaga County."
+
+Not only had Dr. Elliot served his country in the navy, but he had done
+duty in that efficient fighting force, which reaps less honor and
+follows a more noble, self-sacrificing and courageous ideal than any
+army or navy, the United States Public Health Service. Under that banner
+he had fought famines, panic, and pestilence, from the stricken
+lumber-camps of the North, to the pent-in, quarantined bayous of the
+South; and now, at the hint of danger, there came a battle-glint into
+his sharp eyes.
+
+"Tell me what you know."
+
+"Now you're talking!" said the newspaper man. "It's little enough. But
+we've got it straight that they've been covering up some disease for
+weeks."
+
+"What do the certificates call it?"
+
+"Malaria and septic something, I believe."
+
+"Septicaemia hemorrhagica?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"An alias. That's what they called bubonic plague in San Francisco and
+yellow fever in Texas in the old days of concealment."
+
+"It couldn't be either of those, could it?"
+
+"No. But it might be any reportable disease: diphtheria, smallpox, any
+of 'em. Even that hardly explains the quicklime."
+
+"Could you look into it for us; for the 'Clarion'?"
+
+"I? Work for the 'Clarion'?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I don't like your paper."
+
+"But you'd be doing a public service."
+
+"Possibly. How do I know you'd print what I discovered--supposing I
+discovered anything?"
+
+"We're publishing an honest paper, nowadays."
+
+"_Are_ you? Got this morning's?"
+
+Like all good newspaper men, McGuire Ellis habitually went armed with a
+copy of his own paper. He produced it from his coat pocket.
+
+"Honest, eh?" muttered the physician grimly as he twisted the "Clarion"
+inside out. "Honest! Well, not to go any farther, what about this for
+honesty?"
+
+Top of column, "next to reading," as its contract specified, the lure of
+the Neverfail Company stood forth, bold and black. "Boon to Troubled
+Womanhood" was the heading. Dr. Elliot read, with slow emphasis, the
+lying half-promises, the specious pretenses of the company's "Relief
+Pills." "No Case too Obstinate": "Suppression from Whatever Cause":
+"Thousands of Women have Cause to Bless this Sovereign Remedy": "Saved
+from Desperation."
+
+"No doubt what that means, is there?" queried the reader.
+
+"It seems pretty plain."
+
+"What do you mean, then, by telling me you run an honest paper when you
+carry an abortion advertisement every day?"
+
+"Will that medicine cause abortion?"
+
+"Certainly it won't cause abortion!"
+
+"Well, then."
+
+"Can't you see that makes it all the worse, in a way? It promises to
+bring on abortion. It encourages any fool girl who otherwise might be
+withheld from vice by fear of consequences. It puts a weapon of argument
+into the hands of every rake and ruiner; 'If you get into trouble, this
+stuff will fix you all right.' How many suicides do you suppose your
+'Boon to Womanhood' and its kind of hellishness causes in a year, thanks
+to the help of your honest journalism?"
+
+"When I said we were honest, I wasn't thinking of the advertising."
+
+"But I am. Can you be honest on one page and a crook on another? Can
+you bang the big drum of righteousness in one column and promise falsely
+in the next to commit murder? Ellis, why does the 'Clarion' carry such
+stuff as that?"
+
+"Do you really want to know?"
+
+"Well, you're asking me to help your sheet," the ex-surgeon reminded
+him.
+
+"Because Dr. L. Andre Surtaine _is_ the Neverfail Company."
+
+"Oh," said the other. "And I suppose Dr. L. Andre Surtaine _is_ the
+'Clarion,' also. Well, I don't choose to be associated with that
+honorable and high-minded polecat, thank you."
+
+"Don't be too sure about the 'Clarion.' Harrington Surtaine isn't his
+father."
+
+"The same rotten breed."
+
+"Plus another strain. Where it comes from I don't know, but there's
+something in the boy that may work out to big ends."
+
+Dr. Miles Elliot was an abrupt sort of person, as men of independent
+lives and thought are prone to be. "Look here, Ellis," he said: "are you
+trying to be honest, yourself? Now, don't answer till you've counted
+three."
+
+"One--two--three," said McGuire Ellis solemnly. "I'm honestly trying to
+put the 'Clarion' on the level. That's what you really want to know, I
+suppose."
+
+"Against all the weight of influence of Dr. Surtaine?"
+
+"Bless you; he doesn't half realize he's a crook. Thinks he's a pretty
+fine sort of chap. The worst of it is, he _is_, too, in some ways."
+
+"Good to his family, I suppose, in the intervals of distributing poison
+and lies."
+
+"He's all wrapped up in the boy. Which is going to make it all the
+harder."
+
+"Make what all the harder?"
+
+"Prying 'em apart."
+
+"Have you set yourself that little job?"
+
+"Since we're speaking out in meeting, I have."
+
+"Good. Why are you speaking out in meeting to me, particularly?"
+
+"On the theory that you may have reason for being interested in Mr.
+Harrington Surtaine."
+
+"Don't know him."
+
+"Your niece does."
+
+"Just how does that concern this discussion?"
+
+"What business is it of mine, you mean. Well, Dr. Elliot, I'm pretty
+much interested in trying to make a real newspaper out of the 'Clarion.'
+My notion of a real newspaper is a decent, clean newspaper. If I can get
+my young boss to back me up, we'll have a try at my theory. To do this,
+I'll use any fair means. And if Miss Elliot's influence is going to be
+on my side, I'm glad to play it off against Dr. Surtaine's."
+
+"Look here, Ellis, I don't like this association of my niece's name with
+young Surtaine."
+
+"All right. I'll drop it, if you object. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know
+Miss Elliot, anyway. But sooner or later there's coming one big fight in
+the 'Clarion' office, and it's going to open two pairs of eyes. Old Doc
+Surtaine is going to discover his son. Hal Surtaine is going to find out
+about the old man. Neither of 'em is going to be awfully pleased. And in
+that ruction the fate of the Neverfail Company's ad. is going to be
+decided and with it the fate and character of the 'Clarion.' Now, Dr.
+Elliot, my cards are on the table. Will you help me in the Rookeries
+matter?"
+
+"What do you want me to do?"
+
+"Go cautiously, and find out what that disease is."
+
+"I'll go there to-morrow."
+
+"They won't let you in."
+
+"Won't they?" Dr. Elliot's jaw set.
+
+"Don't risk it. Some of O'Farrell's thugs will pick a fight with you and
+the whole thing will be botched."
+
+"How about getting a United States Public Health Surgeon down here?"
+
+"Fine! Can you do it?"
+
+"I think so. It will take time, though."
+
+"That can't be helped. I'll look you up in a few days."
+
+"All right. And, Ellis, if I can help in the other thing--the
+clean-up--I'm your man."
+
+Meantime from his office Dr. Surtaine had, after several attempts,
+succeeded in getting the Medical Office of Canadaga County on the
+telephone.
+
+"Hello! That you, Doctor Simons?--Seen O'Farrell?--Yes; you ought to get
+in touch with him right away--Three more cases going over to you.--Oh,
+they're there, are they? You're isolating them, aren't you?--Pest-house?
+That's all right.--All bills will be paid--liberally. You
+understand?--What are you calling it? Diphtheria?--Good enough for the
+present.--Ever see infectious meningitis? I thought it might be that,
+maybe--No? What do you think, then?--_What_! Good God, man! It can't be!
+Such a thing has never been heard of in this part of the
+country--What?--Yes: you're right. We can't talk over the 'phone. Come
+over to-morrow. Good-bye."
+
+Putting up the receiver, Dr. Surtaine turned to his desk and sat
+immersed in thought. Presently he shook his head. He scratched a few
+notes on a pad, tore off the sheet and thrust it into the small safe at
+his elbow. Proof of a half-page Certina display beckoned him in buoyant,
+promissory type to his favorite task. He glanced at the safe. Once again
+he shook his head, this time more decisively, took the scribbled paper
+out and tore it into shreds. Turning to the proof he bent over it,
+striking out a word here, amending there, jotting in a printer's
+direction on the margin; losing himself in the major interest.
+
+The "special investigator" of the "Clarion" was committing the
+unpardonable sin of journalism. He was throwing his paper down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+JUGGERNAUT
+
+
+Misfortunes never come singly--to the reckless. The first mischance
+breeds the second, apparently by ill luck, but in reality through the
+influence of irritant nerves. Thus descended Nemesis upon Miss Kathleen
+Pierce. Not that Miss Pierce was of a misgiving temperament: she had too
+calm and superb a conviction of her own incontrovertible privilege in
+every department of life for that. But Esme Elliot had given her a hint
+of her narrow escape from the "Clarion," and she was angry. To the
+Pierce type of disposition, anger is a spur. Kathleen's large green car
+increased its accustomed twenty-miles-an-hour pace, from which the
+police of the business section thoughtfully averted their faces, to
+something nearer twenty-five. Three days after the wreck of the apple
+cart, she got results.
+
+Harrington Surtaine was crossing diagonally to the "Clarion" office when
+the moan of a siren warned him for his life, and he jumped back from the
+Pierce juggernaut. As it swept by he saw Kathleen at the wheel. Beside
+her sat her twelve-year-old brother. A miscellaneous array of small
+luggage was heaped behind them.
+
+"Never mind the speed laws," murmured Hal softly. "_Sauve qui peut_.
+There, by Heavens, she's done it!"
+
+The car had swerved at the corner, but not quite quickly enough. There
+was a snort of the horn, a scream that gritted on the ear like the
+clamor of tortured metals, and a huddle of black and white was flung
+almost at Hal's feet. Equally quick with him, a middle-aged man,
+evidently of the prosperous working-classes, helped him to pick the
+woman up. She was a trained nurse. The white band on her uniform was
+splotched with blood. She groaned once and lapsed, inert, in their arms.
+
+"Help me get her to the automobile," said Hal. "This is a hospital
+case."
+
+"What automobile?" said the other.
+
+Hal glanced up the street. He saw the green car turning a corner, a full
+block away.
+
+"She didn't even stop," he muttered, in a paralysis of surprise.
+
+"Stop?" said the other. "Her? That's E.M. Pierce's she-whelp. True to
+the breed. She don't care no more for a workin'-woman's life than her
+father does for a workin'-man's."
+
+A policeman hurried up, glanced at the woman and sent in an ambulance
+call.
+
+"I want your name," said Hal to the stranger.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Publication now. Later, prosecution. I'm the editor of the 'Clarion.'"
+
+The man took off his hat and scratched his head. "Leave me out of it,"
+he said.
+
+"You won't help me to get justice for this woman?'" cried Hal.
+
+"What can you do to E.M. Pierce's girl in this town?" retorted the man
+fiercely. "Don't he own the town?"
+
+"He doesn't own the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"Let the 'Clarion' go up against him, then. I daresn't."
+
+"You'll never get him," said a voice close to Hal's ear. It was Veltman,
+the foreman of the 'Clarion' composing-room. "He's a street-car
+employee. It's as much as his job is worth to go up against Pierce."
+
+They were pressed back, as the clanging ambulance arrived with its
+white-coated commander.
+
+"No; not dead," he said. "Help me get her in."
+
+This being accomplished, Hal hurried up to the city room of the paper.
+He remembered the pile of suit-cases in the Pierce car, and made his
+deductions.
+
+"Send a reporter to the Union Station to find Kathleen Pierce. She's in
+a green touring-car. She's just run down a trained nurse. Have him
+interview her; ask her why she didn't turn back after she struck the
+woman; whether she doesn't know the law. Find out if she's going to the
+hospital. Get her estimate of how fast she was going. We'll print
+anything she says. Then he's to go to St. James Hospital, and ask about
+the nurse. I'll give him the details of the accident."
+
+News of a certain kind, of the kind important to the inner machinery of
+a newspaper, spreads swiftly inside an office. Within an hour, Shearson,
+the advertising manager, was at his chief's desk.
+
+"About that story of Miss Pierce running over the trained nurse," he
+began.
+
+"What is your suggestion?" asked Hal curiously.
+
+"E.M. Pierce is a power in this town, and out of it. He's the real head
+of the Retail Dry Goods Union. He's a director in the Security Power
+Products Company. He's the big boss of the National Consolidated
+Employers' Association. He practically runs the Retail Dry Goods Union.
+Gibbs, of the Boston Store, is his brother-in-law, and the girl's uncle.
+Mr. Pierce has got a hand in pretty much everything in Worthington. And
+he's a bad man in a fight."
+
+"So I have heard."
+
+"If we print this story--"
+
+"We're going to print the story, Mr. Shearson."
+
+"It's full of dynamite."
+
+"It was a brutal thing. If she hadn't driven right on--"
+
+"But she's only a kid."
+
+"The more reason why she shouldn't be driving a car."
+
+"Why have you got it in for her, Mr. Surtaine?" ventured the other.
+
+"I haven't got it in for her. But we've let her off once. And this is
+too flagrant a case."
+
+"It means a loss of thousands of dollars in advertising, just as like as
+not."
+
+"That can't be helped."
+
+Shearson did the only thing he could think of in so unheard-of an
+emergency. He went out to call up the office of E.M. Pierce.
+
+Left to his own thoughts, the editor-in-chief reconstructed the scene of
+the outrage. None too strong did that term seem to him. The incredible
+callousness of the daughter of millions, speeding away without a
+backward glance at the huddled form in the gutter, set a flame of wrath
+to heating his brain. He built up a few stinging headlines, and selected
+one which he set aside. "GIRL PLAYS JUGGERNAUT. ELIAS M. PIERCE'S
+DAUGHTER SERIOUSLY INJURES NURSE AND LEAVES HER LYING IN GUTTER." Not
+long after he had concluded, McGuire Ellis entered, slumped into his
+chair, and eyed his employer from under bent brows.
+
+"Got a grip on your temper?" he asked presently.
+
+"What's the occasion?" countered Hal.
+
+"I think you're going to have an interview with Elias M. Pierce."
+
+"Where and when?"
+
+"In his office. As soon as you can get there."
+
+"I think not."
+
+"Not?" repeated Ellis, conning the other with his curious air.
+
+"Why should I go to Elias M. Pierce's office?"
+
+"Because he's sent for you."
+
+"Don't be absurd, Mac."
+
+"And don't _you_ be young. In all Worthington there aren't ten men that
+don't jump when Elias M. Pierce crooks his finger. Who are you, to join
+that noble company of martyrs?" Achieving no nibble on this bait, the
+speaker continued: "Jerry Saunders has been keeping Wayne's telephone
+on the buzz, ordering the story stopped."
+
+"Who is Jerry Saunders?"
+
+"Pierce's man, and master of our fates. So he thinks, anyway. In other
+words, general factotum of the Boston Store. Wayne told him the matter
+was in your hands. All storm signals set, and E.M.'s secretary
+telephoning that the Great Man wants to see you at once. _Don't_ you
+think it would be safer to go?"
+
+Mr. Harrington Surtaine swung full around on his chair, looked at his
+assistant with that set and level gaze of which Esme Elliot had
+aforetime complained, and turned back again. A profound chuckle sounded
+from behind him.
+
+"This'll be a shock to Mr. Pierce," said Ellis. "I'll break it
+diplomatically to his secretary." And thus was the manner of the Celt's
+diplomacy. "Hello,--Mr. Pierce's secretary?--Tell Mr. Pierce--get this
+_verbatim_, please,--that Mr. Harrington Surtaine is busy at present,
+but will try to find time to see him here--_here_, mind you, at the
+'Clarion' office, at 4.30 this afternoon--What? Oh, yes; you understood,
+all right. Don't be young.--What? Do _not_ sputter into the
+'phone.--Just give him the message.--No; Mr. Surtaine will not speak
+with you.--Nor with Mr. Pierce. He's busy.--_Good_-bye."
+
+"Two hours leeway before the storm," said Hal. "Why deliberately stir
+him up, Mac?"
+
+"No one ever saw Pierce lose his temper. I've a curiosity in that
+direction. Besides, he'll be easier to handle, mad. Do you know Pierce?"
+
+"I've lunched with him, and been there to the house to dinner once or
+twice. Wish I hadn't."
+
+"Let me give you a little outline of him. Elias M. is the hard-shell New
+England type. He was brought up in the fear of God and the Poor-House.
+God was a good way off, I guess; but there stood the Poor-House on the
+hill, where you couldn't help but see it. The way of salvation from it
+was through the dollar. Elias M. worked hard for his first dollar, and
+for his millionth. He's still working hard. He still finds the fear of
+God useful: he puts it into everybody that goes up against his game. The
+fear of the Poor-House is with him yet, though he doesn't realize it.
+It's the mainspring of his religion. There's nothing so mean as fear;
+and Elias M.'s fear is back of all his meanness, his despotism in
+business, his tyranny as an employer. I tell you, Boss, if you ever saw
+a hellion in a cutaway coat, Elias M. Pierce is it, and you're going to
+smell sulphur when he gets here. Better let him do the talking, by the
+way."
+
+Prompt to the minute, Elias M. Pierce arrived. With him came William
+Douglas, his personal counsel. Having risen to greet them, Hal stood
+leaning against his desk, after they were seated. The lawyer disposed
+himself on the far edge of his chair, as if fearing that a more
+comfortable pose might commit him to something. Mr. Pierce sat solid and
+square, a static force neatly buttoned into a creaseless suit. His face
+was immobile, but under the heavy lids the eyes smouldered, dully. The
+tone of his voice was lifelessly level: yet with an immanent menace.
+
+"I do not make appointments outside my own office--" he began, looking
+straight ahead of him.
+
+Mindful of Ellis's advice, Hal stood silent, in an attitude of courteous
+attention.
+
+"But this is a case of saving time. My visit has to do with the accident
+of which you know."
+
+Whether or not Hal knew was undeterminable from sign or speech of his.
+
+"It was wholly the injured woman's fault," pursued Mr. Pierce, and
+turned a slow, challenging eye upon Hal.
+
+Over his shoulder the editor-in-chief caught sight of McGuire Ellis
+laying finger on lip, and following up this admonition by a gesture of
+arms and hands as of one who pays out line to a fish. Douglas fidgeted
+on his desperate edge.
+
+"You sent a reporter to interview my daughter. He was impertinent. He
+should be discharged."
+
+Still Mr. Pierce was firing into silence. Something rattled and flopped
+in a chute at his elbow. He turned, irritably. That Mr. Pierce's
+attention should have been diverted even for a moment by this was
+sufficient evidence that he was disconcerted by the immobility of the
+foe. But his glance quickly reverted and with added weight. Heavily he
+stared, then delivered his ultimatum.
+
+"The 'Clarion' will print nothing about the accident."
+
+The editor of the "Clarion" smiled. At sight of that smile some
+demon-artist in faces blocked in with lightning swiftness parallel lines
+of wrath at right angles to the corners of the Pierce mouth. Through the
+lips shone a thin glint of white.
+
+"You find me amusing?" Men had found Elias M. Pierce implacable,
+formidable, inscrutable, even amenable, in some circumstances, with a
+conscious and godlike condescension; but no opponent had ever smiled at
+his commands as this stripling of journalism was doing.
+
+Still there was no reply. In his chair McGuire Ellis leaned back with an
+expression of beatitude. The lawyer, shrewd enough to understand that
+his principal was being baited, now took a hand.
+
+"You may rely on Mr. Pierce to have the woman suitably cared for."
+
+Now the editorial smile turned upon William Douglas. It was gentle, but
+unsatisfying.
+
+"_And_ the reporter will be discharged at once," continued Elias M.
+Pierce, exactly as if Douglas had not spoken at all.
+
+"Mr. Ellis," said Hal, "will you 'phone Mr. Wayne to send up the man who
+covered the Pierce story?"
+
+The summoned reporter entered the room. He was a youth named Denton, one
+year out of college, eager and high-spirited, an enthusiast of his
+profession, loving it for its adventurousness and its sense of
+responsibility and power. These are the qualities that make the real
+newspaper man. They die soon, and that is why there are no good, old
+reporters. Elias M. Pierce turned upon him like a ponderous machine of
+vengeance.
+
+"What have you to say for yourself?" he demanded.
+
+Up under Denton's fair skin ran a flush of pink. "Who are you?" he
+blurted.
+
+"You are speaking to Mr. Elias M. Pierce," said Douglas hastily.
+
+Six weeks before, young Denton would perhaps have moderated his attitude
+in the interests of his job. But now through the sensitive organism of
+the newspaper office had passed the new vigor; the feeling of
+independence and of the higher responsibility to the facts of the news
+only. The men believed that they would be upheld within their own rights
+and those of the paper. Harrington Surtaine's standards had been not
+only absorbed: they had been magnified and clarified by minds more
+expert than his own. Subconsciously, Denton felt that his employer was
+back of him, must be back of him in any question of professional honor.
+
+"What I've got to say, I've said in writing."
+
+"Show it to me." The insolence of the command was quite unconscious.
+
+The reporter turned to Hal.
+
+"Mr. Denton," said Hal, "did Miss Pierce explain why she didn't return
+after running the nurse down?"
+
+"She said she was in a hurry: that she had a train to catch."
+
+"Did you ask her if she was exceeding the speed limit?"
+
+"She was not," interjected Elias M. Pierce.
+
+"She said she didn't know; that nobody ever paid any attention to speed
+laws."
+
+"What about her license?"
+
+"I asked her and she said it was none of my business."
+
+"Quite right," approved Mr. Pierce curtly.
+
+"Tell the desk to run the interview _verbatim_, under a separate head.
+Will the nurse die?"
+
+Mr. Pierce snorted contemptuously. "Die! She's hardly hurt."
+
+"Dislocated shoulder, two ribs broken, and scalp wounds. She'll get
+well," said the reporter.
+
+"Now, see here, Surtaine," said Douglas smoothly, "be reasonable. It
+won't do the 'Clarion' any good to print a lot of yellow sensationalism
+about this. There are half a dozen witnesses who say it was the nurse's
+fault."
+
+"We have evidence on the other side."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"Max Veltman, of our composing-room."
+
+"Veltman? Veltman?" repeated Elias M. Pierce, who possessed a wonderful
+memory for men and events. "He's that anarchist fellow. Hates every man
+with a dollar. Stirred up the labor troubles two years ago. I told my
+men to smash his head if they ever caught him within two blocks of our
+place."
+
+"Speaking of anarchy," said McGuire Ellis softly.
+
+"A prejudiced witness; one of your own employees," pointed out the
+lawyer.
+
+"I wouldn't believe him under oath," said Pierce.
+
+"Perhaps you wouldn't believe me, either. I saw the whole thing myself,"
+said Hal quietly.
+
+"And you intend to print it?" demanded Pierce.
+
+"It's news. The 'Clarion's business is to print the news."
+
+"Then there remains only to warn you," said Douglas, "that you will be
+held to full liability for anything you may publish, civil _and_
+criminal."
+
+"Take that down, Mr. Denton," said Hal.
+
+"I've got it," said the reporter.
+
+"That isn't all." Elias M. Pierce rose and his eyes were wells of somber
+fury. "You print that story--one word of it--and I'll smash your paper."
+
+"Take that down, Mr. Denton." Hal's voice was even.
+
+"I've got it," said Denton in the same tone.
+
+"You don't know what I am in this city." Every word of the great man's
+voice rang with the ruthless arrogance of his power. "I can make or mar
+any man or any business. I've fought the demagogues of labor and driven
+'em out of town. I've fought the demagogues of politics and killed them
+off. And you think with your little spewing demagoguery of newspaper
+filth, you can override me? You think because you've got your father's
+quack millions behind you, that you can stand up to me?"
+
+"Take that down, Mr. Denton."
+
+"I've got it."
+
+"Then take this, too," cried Elias M. Pierce, losing all control, under
+the quiet remorselessness of this goading: "people like my daughter and
+me aren't at the mercy of scum like you. We've got rights that aren't
+responsible to every little petty law. By God, I've made and unmade
+judges in this town: and I'll show you what the law can do before I'm
+through with you. I'll gut your damned paper."
+
+"Not missing anything, are you, Mr. Denton?"
+
+"I've got it all."
+
+Throughout, Douglas, with a strained face, had been plucking at his
+principal's arm. Now Elias M. Pierce turned to him.
+
+"Go to Judge Ransome," he said sharply, "and get an injunction against
+the 'Clarion.'"
+
+McGuire Ellis sauntered over. "I wouldn't," he drawled.
+
+"I'm not asking your advice."
+
+"And I'm not looking for gratitude. But just let me suggest this:
+Ransome may be one of the judges you brag of owning. But if he grants an
+injunction I'll advise Mr. Surtaine to publish a spread on the front
+page, stating that we have the facts, that we're enjoined from printing
+them at present, but that now or a year from now we'll tell the whole
+story in every phase. With that hanging over him, I don't believe Judge
+Ransome will care to issue any fake injunction."
+
+"There's such a thing as contempt of court," warned Douglas.
+
+"Making and unmaking judges, for example?" suggested Ellis.
+
+"Just one final word to you." The Pierce face was thrust close to Hal's.
+"You keep your hands off my daughter if you expect to live in this
+town."
+
+"My one regret for Miss Pierce is that she is your daughter," retorted
+Hal. "You have given me the material for a leading editorial in
+to-morrow's issue. I recommend you to buy the paper."
+
+The other glared at him speechless.
+
+"It will be called," said Hal, "'A Study in Heredity.' Good-day."
+
+And he gave the retiring magnate a full view of his back as he sat down
+to write it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE STRATEGIST
+
+
+"Never write with a hot pen." Thus runs one of McGuire Ellis's golden
+rules of journalism. Had his employer better comprehended, in those
+early days, the Ellisonian philosophy, perhaps the "Heredity" editorial
+might never have appeared. Now, as it lay before him in proof, it seemed
+but the natural expression of a righteous wrath.
+
+"Neither Kathleen Pierce nor her father can claim exemption or
+consideration in this instance," Hal had written, in what he chose to
+consider his most telling passage. "Were it the girl's first offense of
+temerity, allowance might be made. But the city streets have long been
+the more perilous because of her defiance of the rights of others. Here
+she runs true to type. She is her father's own daughter. In the light of
+his character and career, of his use of the bludgeon in business, of his
+resort to foul means when fair would not serve, of his brutal disregard
+of human rights in order that his own power might be enhanced, of his
+ruthless and crushing tyranny, not alone toward his employees, but
+toward all labor in its struggle for better conditions, we can but
+regard the girl who left her victim crushed and senseless in the gutter
+and sped on because, in the words of her own bravado, she 'had a train
+to catch,' as a striking example of the influence of heredity. If the
+law which she so contemptuously brushed aside is to be aborted by the
+influence and position of her family, the precept will be a bitter and
+dangerous one. Much arrant nonsense is vented concerning the
+'class-hatred' stirred up by any criticism of the rich. One such
+instance as the running-down of Miss Cleary bears within it far more
+than the extremest demagoguery the potentialities of an unleashed hate.
+It is a lesson in lawlessness."
+
+Still in the afterglow of composition, Hal, tinkering lightly with the
+proofs, felt a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Well, Boy-ee," said the voice of Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"Hello, father," returned Hal. "Sit down. What's up?"
+
+"I've just had a message from E.M. Pierce."
+
+"Did you obey a royal command and go to his office?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Neither did I."
+
+"With you it's different. You're a younger man. And Elias M. Pierce is
+the most powerful--um--er--well, _as_ powerful as any man in
+Worthington."
+
+"Outside of this office, possibly."
+
+"Don't you be foolish, Boy-ee. You can't fight him."
+
+"Nor do I want to," said Hal, a little chilled, nevertheless, by the
+gravity of the paternal tone. "But when he comes in here and dictates
+what the 'Clarion' shall and shall not print--"
+
+"About his own daughter."
+
+"News, father. It's news."
+
+"News is what you print. If you don't print it, it isn't news. Isn't
+that right? Well, then!"
+
+"Not quite. News is what happens. If no paper published this, it would
+be current by word of mouth just the same. A hundred people saw it."
+
+"Anyway, tone your article down, won't you, Boy-ee?"
+
+"I'm afraid I can't, Dad."
+
+"Of course you can. Here, let me see it."
+
+McGuire Ellis looked up sharply, his face wrinkled into an anxious
+query. It relaxed when Hal handed the editorial proof to the Doctor,
+saying, "Look at this, instead."
+
+Dr. Surtaine read slowly and carefully. "Do you know what you're doing?"
+he said, replacing the strip of paper.
+
+"I think so."
+
+"That editorial will line up every important business man in Worthington
+against you."
+
+"I don't see why it should."
+
+"Because they'll see that none of 'em are safe if a newspaper can do
+that sort of thing. It's never been done here. The papers have always
+respected men of position, and their business and their families, too.
+Worthington won't stand for that sort of thing."
+
+"It's true, isn't it?"
+
+"All the more harm if it is," retorted Dr. Surtaine, thus codifying the
+sum and essence of the outsider's creed of journalism. "Do you know what
+they'll call you if you print that? They'll call you an anarchist."
+
+"Will they?"
+
+"Ask Ellis."
+
+"Probably," agreed the journalist.
+
+"Every friend and business associate of Pierce's will be down on you."
+
+"The whole angry hive of capital and privilege," confirmed Ellis.
+
+"You see," cried the pleader; "you can't print it. Publishing an article
+about Kathleen Pierce will be bad enough, but it's nothing to what this
+other roast would be. One would make Pierce hate you as long as he
+lives. The other will make the whole Business Interests of the city your
+enemy. How can you live without business?"
+
+"Business isn't as rotten as that," averred Hal. "If it is, I'm going to
+fight it."
+
+"Fight business!" It was almost a groan. "Tell him, Ellis, what a
+serious thing this is. You agree with me in that, don't you?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+"And that the 'Clarion' can't afford to touch the thing at all? You're
+with me there, too, aren't you?"
+
+"Absolutely not."
+
+"You're going to stand by and see my boy turn traitor to his class?"
+
+"Damn his class," said McGuire Ellis, in mild, conversational tones.
+
+"As much as you like," agreed the other, "in talk. But when it comes to
+print, remember, it's our class that's got the money."
+
+"Wouldn't it be a refreshing change," suggested Ellis, "to have one
+paper in Worthington that money won't buy?"
+
+"All very well, if you were strong enough." The wily old charlatan
+shifted his ground. "Wait until you've built up to it. Then, when you've
+got the public, you can afford to be independent."
+
+"Get your price and then reform. Is that the idea, Father?" said Hal.
+
+"Boy-ee, I don't know what's come over you lately. Journalism seems to
+have got into your blood."
+
+"Blame Ellis. He's been my preceptor."
+
+"Both of you have got your lesson to learn."
+
+"Well, I've learned one," asserted Hal: "that it's the business of a
+newspaper to print the news."
+
+"There's only one sound business principle, success. When it costs you
+more to print a thing than not to print it, it's bad business to print
+it."
+
+"I'm sorry, Dad, but the 'Clarion' is going to carry this to-morrow."
+
+"In case you're nervous about Mr. Pierce," put in McGuire Ellis with
+Machiavellian innuendo, "I can pass it on to him that you're in no way
+responsible for the 'Clarion's policy."
+
+"Me, afraid of Elias M. Pierce?" Our Leading Citizen's prickly vanity
+was up in arms at once. "I'll match him or fight him dollar for dollar,
+as long as my weasel-skin lasts. No, sir: if Hal's going to fight, I'll
+stick by him as long as there's a dollar in the till."
+
+"It's mighty good of you, Dad, and I know you'd do it. But I've made up
+my mind to win out or lose out on the capital you gave me. And I won't
+take a cent more."
+
+"That's business, too, son. I like that. But I hate to see you lose. By
+publishing your editorial you're committing your paper absolutely to a
+policy, and a fatal one. Well, I won't argue any more. But I haven't
+given up yet."
+
+"Well, that's over," said Hal, as his father departed, gently smoothing
+down his silk hat. "And I hope that ends it."
+
+"Do you?" McGuire Ellis raised a tuneful baritone in song:--
+
+  'You may think you've got 'em going,' said the bar-keep to the bum.
+                            'But cheer up
+                             And beer up.
+                      The worst is yet to come!'
+
+"Unless my estimate of E.M. Pierce is wrong," he continued, "you'll
+begin to hear from the other newspapers soon."
+
+So it proved. Advertising managers called up and talked interminably
+over the telephone. Editors-in-chief wrote polite notes. One fellow
+proprietor called. By all the canons of editorial courtesy they exhorted
+Mr. Surtaine to hold his hand from the contemplated sacrilege against
+their friend and patron, Elias M. Pierce. Equally polite, Mr. Surtaine
+replied that the "Clarion" would print the news. How much of the news
+would he print? All the news, now and forever, one and inseparable, or
+words to that effect. Painfully and protestingly the noble fellowship of
+the free and untrammeled press pointed out that if the "Clarion"
+insisted on informing the public, they too, in self-defense, must supply
+something in the way of information to cover themselves, loth though
+they were so to do. But the burden of sin and vengeance would rest upon
+the paper which forced them into such a course. Still patient, Hal found
+refuge in truism: to wit, that what his fellow editors chose to do was
+wholly and specifically their business. From the corollary, he
+courteously refrained.
+
+Meantime, the object of Editor Surtaine's scathing had not been idle. To
+the indignant journalist, Miss Kathleen Pierce had appeared a brutal and
+hardened scion of wealth and injustice. This was hardly a just view.
+Careless she was, and unmindful of standards; but not cruel. In this
+instance, panic, not callousness, had been the mainspring of her
+apparent cruelty. She was badly scared; and when her angry father told
+her what she might expect at the hands of a "yellow newspaper," she
+became still more badly scared. In this frame of mind she fled for
+refuge to Miss Esme Elliot.
+
+"I didn't mean to run over her," she wailed. "You know I didn't, Esme.
+She ran out just like a m-m-mouse, and I felt the car hit her, and then
+she was all crumpled up in the gutter. Oh, I was so frightened! I wanted
+to go back, but I was afraid, and Phil began to cry and say we'd killed
+her, and I lost my head and put on speed. I didn't mean to, Esme!"
+
+"Of course you didn't, dear. Who says you did?"
+
+"The newspaper is going to say so. That awful reporter! He caught me at
+the station and asked me a lot of questions. I just shook my head and
+wouldn't say a word," lied the frightened girl. "But they're going to
+print an awful interview with me, father says. He's furious at me."
+
+"In what paper, Kathie?"
+
+"The 'Clarion.' Father says the other papers won't publish anything
+about it, but he can't stop the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"I can," said Miss Esme Elliot confidently.
+
+The heiress to the Pierce millions lifted her woe-begone face. "You?"
+she cried incredulously. "How?"
+
+"I've got a pull," said Esme, dimpling.
+
+A light broke in upon her suppliant. "Of course! Hal Surtaine! But
+father has been to see him and he won't promise a thing. I don't see
+what he's got against me."
+
+"Don't worry, dear. Perhaps your father doesn't understand how to go
+about it."
+
+"No," said the other thoughtfully. "Father would try to bully and
+threaten. He tried to bully me!" Miss Pierce stamped a well-shod foot in
+memory of her manifold wrongs. Then feminine curiosity interposed a
+check. "Esme! Are you engaged to Hal Surtaine?"
+
+"No, indeed!" The girl's laughter rang silvery and true.
+
+"Are you going to be?"
+
+"I'm not going to be engaged to anybody. Not for a long time, anyway.
+Life is too good as it is."
+
+"Is he in love with you?" persisted Kathleen.
+
+Esme lifted up a very clear and sweet mezzo-soprano in a mocking lilt of
+song:--
+
+  "How should my heart know
+   What love may be?"
+
+The visitor regarded her admiringly. "Of course he is. What man wouldn't
+be! And you've seen a lot of him lately, haven't you?"
+
+"I'm helping him run his paper--with good advice."
+
+"Oh-h-h!" Miss Pierce's soft mouth and big eyes formed three circles.
+"And you're going to advise him--"
+
+"I'm going to advise him ver-ree earnestly not to say a word about you
+in the paper, if you'll promise never, never to do it again."
+
+The other clasped her in a bear-hug. "You duck! I'll just crawl through
+the streets after this. You watch me! The police will have to call time
+on me to make sure I'm not obstructing the traffic. But, Esme--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+Kathleen caught her hand and snuggled it up to her childishly. "How
+often do you see Hal Surtaine?"
+
+"You ought to know. There's something going on every evening now. And he
+goes everywhere."
+
+"Yes: but outside of that?"
+
+Esme laughed. "How hard you're working to make a romance that isn't
+there. I go to his office once in a while, just to see the wheels go
+'round."
+
+"And are you going to the office now?"
+
+"No," said Esme, after consideration. "Hal Surtaine is coming here. This
+evening."
+
+"You have an appointment with him?"
+
+"Not yet. I'll telephone him."
+
+"Father telephoned him, but he wouldn't come to see father. So father
+had to go to see him."
+
+"Mahomet! Well, I'm the mountain in this case. Go in peace, my child."
+Esme patted the other's head with an absurd and delightful affectation
+of maternalism. "And look in the 'Clarion' to-morrow with a clear
+assurance. You shan't find your name there--unless in the Social Doings
+column. Good-bye, dear."
+
+Having thus engaged her honor, the advisor to the editor sat her down to
+plan. At the conclusion of a period of silent thought, she sent a
+telephone message which made the heart of young Mr. Surtaine accelerate
+its pace perceptibly. Was he too busy to come up to Greenvale, Dr.
+Elliot's place, at 8.30 sharp?
+
+Busy he certainly was, but not too busy to obey any behest of his
+partner.
+
+That was very nice of him. It would take but a few minutes.
+
+As many minutes as she could use, she might have, or hours.
+
+Then he was to consider himself gratefully thanked and profoundly
+curtsied to, over the wire. By the way, if he had a galley proof of
+anything that had been written about Kathleen Pierce's motor accident,
+would he bring that along? And didn't he think it quite professional of
+her to remember all about galleys and things?
+
+Highly professional and clever (albeit in a somewhat altered tone, not
+unnoted by the acute listener). Yes, he would bring the proof. At 8.30,
+then, sharp.
+
+"The new boss of our new boss," Wayne had styled the charming
+interloper, on the occasion of her first visit to the "Clarion" office.
+Had she heard, Esme would have approved. More, she would have believed,
+though not without misgivings. Well she knew that she had not yet proved
+her power over her partner. Many and various as were the men upon whom,
+in the assay of her golden charm, she had exercised the arts of
+coquetry, this test was on a larger scale. This was the potential
+conquest of an institution. Could she make a newspaper change its hue,
+as she could make men change color, with the power of a word or the
+incitement of a glance? The very dubiety of the issue gave a new zest to
+the game.
+
+Behold, now, Miss Esme Elliot, snarer of men's eyes and hearts,
+sharpening her wits and weapons for the fray; aye, even preparing her
+pitfall. Cunningly she made a bower of one end of the broad living-room
+at Greenvale with great sprays of apple blossoms from the orchard,
+ravishing untold spoilage of her mother and forerunner, Eve, for the
+bedecking of the quiet, cozy nook. Pink was ever her color; the hue of
+the flushing of spring, of the rising blood in the cheek of maidenhood,
+and the tenderest of the fruit-blooms was not more downy-soft of tint
+than the face it bent to brush. At the close of the task, a heavy voice
+startled her.
+
+"What's all this about?"
+
+"Uncle Guardy! You mustn't, you really mustn't come in on tiptoe that
+way."
+
+"Stamped like an elephant," asserted Dr. Elliot. "But you were so
+immersed in your floral designs--What kind of a play is it?"
+
+She turned upon him the sparkle of golden lights in wine-brown eyes.
+"It's a fairy bower. I'm going to do a bewitchment."
+
+"Upon what victim?"
+
+"Upon a newspaper. I'm going to be a fairy godmother sort of witch and
+save my foster-child by--by arointing something out of print."
+
+"Doing _what_?"
+
+"Arointing it. Don't you know, you say, 'Aroint thee, witch,' when you
+want to get rid of her? Well, if a witch can be arointed, why shouldn't
+she aroint other things?"
+
+"All very well, if you understand the process. Do you?"
+
+"Of course. It's done 'with woven paces and with waving arms.' 'Beware,
+beware; her flashing eyes, her float--'"
+
+"Stop it! You shall not make a poetry cocktail out of Tennyson and
+Coleridge, and jam it down my throat; or I'll aroint myself. Besides,
+you're not a witch, at all. I know you for all your big cap, and your
+cloak, and the basket on your arm. 'Grandmother, what makes your teeth
+so white?'"
+
+"No, no. I'm not that kind of a beastie, at all. Wrong guess, Guardy."
+
+"Yet there's a gleam of the hunt about you. Is it, oh, is it, the Great
+American Pumess that I have the honor to address?"
+
+She made him a sweeping bow. "In a good cause."
+
+"About which I shall doubtless hear to-morrow?"
+
+"Don't I always confess my good actions?"
+
+"At what hour does the victim's dying shriek rend the quivering air?"
+
+"Mr. Surtaine is due here at half past eight."
+
+"Humph! Young Surtaine, eh? Shy bird, if it has taken all this time to
+bring him down. Well, run and dress. It's after five and that gives you
+less than three hours for prinking up, counting dinner in."
+
+Whatever time and effort may have gone to the making of the Great
+American Pumess's toilet, Hal thought, as he came down the long room to
+where she stood embowered in pink, that he had never beheld anything so
+freshly lovely. She gave him a warm and yielding hand in welcome, and
+drew away a bit, surveying him up and down with friendly eyes.
+
+"You're looking unusually smart to-night," she approved. "London clothes
+don't set so well on many Americans. But your tie is askew. Wait. Let me
+do it."
+
+With deft fingers she twitched and patted the bow into submission. The
+touch of intimacy represented the key in which she had chosen to pitch
+her play. Sinking back into a cushioned corner of the settee, she curled
+up cozily, and motioned him to a chair.
+
+"Draw it around," she directed. "I want you where you can't get away,
+for I'm going to cast a spell over you."
+
+"_Going_ to?" The accent on the first word was stronger than the reply
+necessitated.
+
+"Do many people ask favors of an editor?"
+
+"More than enough."
+
+"And is the editor often kind and obliging?"
+
+"That depends on the favor."
+
+"Not a little bit on the asker?"
+
+"Naturally, that, too."
+
+"Your tone isn't very encouraging." She searched his face with her
+limpid, lingering regard. "Did you bring the proofs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Still holding his eyes to hers, she stretched out her hand to receive
+the strip of print, "Do you think I'd better read it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I will."
+
+Studying her face, as she read, Hal saw it change from gay to grave, saw
+her quiver and wince with a swiftly indrawn breath, and straightened his
+spine to what he knew was coming.
+
+"Oh, it's cruel," she said in a low tone, letting the paper fall on her
+knee.
+
+"It's true," said Hal.
+
+"Oh, no! Even if it were, it ought not to be published."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--" The girl hesitated.
+
+"Because she's one of us?"
+
+"No. Yes. It has something to do with my feeling, I suppose. Why, you've
+been a guest at her house."
+
+"Suppose I have. The 'Clarion' hasn't."
+
+"Isn't that rather a fine distinction?"
+
+"On the contrary. Personally, I might refrain from saying anything about
+it. Journalistically, how can I? It's the business of the 'Clarion' to
+give the news. More than that: it's the honor of the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"But what possible good will it do?"
+
+"If it did no other good, it would warn other reckless drivers."
+
+"Let the police look to that. It's their business."
+
+"You know that the police dare do nothing to the daughter of Elias M.
+Pierce. See here, Partner,"--Hal's tone grew gentle,--"don't you recall,
+in that long talk we had about the paper, one afternoon, how you backed
+me up when I told you what I meant to do in the way of making the
+'Clarion' honest and clean and strong enough to be straight in its
+attitude toward the public? Why, you've been the inspiration of all that
+I've been trying to do. I thought that was the true Esme. Wasn't it? Was
+I wrong? You're not going back on me, now?"
+
+"But she's so young," pleaded Esme, shifting her ground before this
+attack. "She doesn't think. She's never had to think. Your article makes
+her look a--a murderess. It isn't fair. It isn't true, really. If you
+could have seen her here, so frightened, so broken. She cried in my
+arms. I told her it shouldn't be printed. I promised."
+
+Here was the Great American Pumess at bay, and suddenly splendid in her
+attitude of protectiveness. In that moment, she had all but broken Hal's
+resolution. He rose and walked over to the window, to clear his thought
+of the overpowering appeal of her loveliness.
+
+"How can I--" he began, coming back: but paused because she was holding
+out to him the proof. Across it, in pencil, was written, "Must not," and
+the initials, E.S.M.E.
+
+"Kill it," she urged softly.
+
+"And my honesty with it."
+
+"Oh, no. It can't be so fatal, to be kind for once. Let her off, poor
+child."
+
+Hal stood irresolute.
+
+"If it were I?" she insisted softly.
+
+"If it were you, would you ask it?"
+
+"I shouldn't have to. I'd trust you."
+
+The sweetness of it shook him. But he still spoke steadily.
+
+"Others trust me, now. The men in the office. Trust me to be honest."
+
+Again she felt the solid wall of character blocking her design, and
+within herself raged and marveled, and more deeply, admired. Resentment
+was uppermost, however. Find a way through that barrier she must and
+would. Whatever scruples may have been aroused by his appeal to her she
+banished. No integer of the impressionable sex had ever yet won from her
+such a battle. None ever should: and assuredly not this one. The Great
+American Pumess was now all feline.
+
+She leaned forward to him. "You promised."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Have you forgotten?"
+
+"I have never forgotten one word that has passed between us since I
+first saw you."
+
+"Ah; but when was that?"
+
+"Seven weeks ago to-day, at the station."
+
+[Illustration: "KILL IT," SHE URGED SOFTLY.]
+
+"Fifteen years ago this summer," she corrected. "You _have_ forgotten,"
+She laughed gayly at the amazement in his face. "And the promise." Up
+went a pink-tipped finger in admonition. "Listen and be ashamed, O
+faithless knight. 'Little girl, little girl: I'd do anything in the
+world for you, little girl. Anything in the world, if ever you asked
+me.' Think, and remember. Have you a scar on your left shoulder?"
+
+The effort of recollection dimmed Hal's face. "Wait! I'm beginning to
+see. The light of the torches across the square, and the man with the
+knife.--Then darkness.--was unconscious, wasn't I?--Then the fairy child
+with the soft eyes, looking down at me. Little girl, little girl, it was
+you! That is why I seemed to remember, that day at the station, before I
+knew you."
+
+"Yes," she said, smiling up at him.
+
+"How wonderful! And you remembered. How more than wonderful!"
+
+"Yes, I remembered." It was no part of her plan--quite relentless,
+now--to tell him that her uncle had recounted to her the events of that
+far-distant night, and that she had been holding them in reserve for
+some hitherto undetermined purpose of coquetry. So she spoke the lie
+without a tremor. What he would say next, she almost knew. Nor did he
+disappoint her expectation.
+
+"And so you've come back into my life after all these years!"
+
+"You haven't taken back your proof." She slipped it into his hand. "What
+have you done with my subscription-flower?"
+
+"The arbutus? It stands always on my desk."
+
+"Do you see the rest of it anywhere?"
+
+Her eyes rested on a tiny vase set in a hanging window-box of flowers,
+and holding a brown and withered wisp. "I tend those flowers myself,"
+she continued. "And I leave the dead arbutus there to remind me of the
+responsibilities of journalism--and of the hold I have over the
+incorruptible editor."
+
+"Does it weigh upon you?" He answered the tender laughter in her eyes.
+
+"Only the uncertainty of it."
+
+"Do you realize how strong it is, Esme?"
+
+"Not so strong, apparently, as certain foolish scruples." A soft color
+rose in her face, as she half-buried it in a great mass of apple
+blossom. From the mass she chose a spray, and set it in the bosom of her
+dress, then got to her feet and moved slowly toward him. "You're not
+wearing my colors to-night." This was directed to the white rose in his
+buttonhole. He took it out and tossed it into the fireplace.
+
+"Pink's the only wear," declared the girl gayly. With delicate fingers
+she detached a little luxuriant twig of the bloom from her breast, and
+set it in the place where the rose had been. Her face was close to his.
+He could feel her hands above his heart.
+
+"Please," she breathed.
+
+"What?" He was playing for time and reason.
+
+"For Kathleen Pierce. Please."
+
+His hand closed over hers. "You are bribing me."
+
+If she said it again, she knew that he would kiss her. So she spoke,
+with lifted face and eyes of uttermost supplication. "For me. Please."
+
+Men had kissed Esme Elliot before; for she had played every turn of the
+game of coquetry. Some she had laughed to scorn and dismissed; some she
+had sweetly rebuked, and held to their adoring fealty. She had known the
+kiss of headlong passion, of love's humility, of desperation, even of
+hot anger; but none had ever visited her lips twice. The game, for her,
+was ended with the surrender and the avowal; and she protected herself
+the more easily in that her pulses had never been stirred to more than
+the thrill of triumph.
+
+In Hal Surtaine's arms she was playing for another stake. So intent had
+she been upon her purpose that the guerdon of the modern Venus Victrix,
+the declaration of the lover, was held in the background of her mind.
+For a swift, bewildering moment, she felt his lips upon hers, the
+gentlest, the tenderest pressure, instantly relaxed: then the sudden
+knowledge of him for what he was, a loyal and chivalrous gentleman thus
+beguiled, burned her with a withering and intolerable shame.
+Simultaneously she felt her heart go out to him as never yet had it gone
+to any man, and in that secret shock to her maidenhood, the coquette in
+her waned and the woman waxed.
+
+She drew back, quivering, aghast. With all the force of this new and
+tumultuous emotion, she hoped for her own defeat: yearned over him that
+he should refuse that for which she had unworthily pressed. Yet, such is
+the perversity of that strange struggle against the great surrender,
+that she gathered every power of her sex to gain the dreaded victory. By
+an effort she commanded her voice, releasing herself from his arms.
+
+"Wait. Don't speak to me for a minute," she said hoarsely.
+
+"But I must speak, now,--dear, dearest."
+
+"Am--am I that to you?" The feline in her caught desperately at the
+opportunity.
+
+"Always. From the first."
+
+"But--you forgot."
+
+"Let me atone with the rest of my life for that treason." He laughed
+happily.
+
+"You keep your promise, then, to the little girl?" At her feet lay the
+galley proof. Birdlike she darted down upon it, seized, and tore it half
+across. "No: you do it," she commanded, thrusting it into his hand.
+
+No longer was he master of himself. The kiss had undermined him. "Must
+I?" he said.
+
+Victorious and aghast, she yet smiled into his face. "I knew I could
+believe in you," she cried. "You're a true knight, after all. I declare
+you my Knight-Editor. No well-equipped journalistic partnership should
+be without one."
+
+Perhaps had the phrase been different, Hal might have yielded. So
+narrow a margin of chance divides the paths of honor and dishonor, to
+mortals groping dimly through the human maze. But the words were an echo
+to wake memory. Rugged, harsh, and fine the face of McGuire Ellis rose
+before Hal. He heard the rough voice, with its undertone of affection
+beneath the jocularity of the rather feeble pun, and it called him back
+like a trumpet summons to the loyalty which he had promised to the men
+of the "Clarion." He slipped the half-torn paper into his pocket.
+
+"I can't do it, Esme."
+
+"You--can't--do--it?"
+
+"No." Finality was in the monosyllable.
+
+She looked into his leveled and quiet eyes, and knew that she had lost.
+And the demon of perversity, raging, stung her to its purposes.
+
+"After this, you tell me that you can't, you won't?"
+
+"Dearest! You're not going to let it make a difference in our love for
+each other."
+
+"_Our_ love! You go far, and fast."
+
+"Do I go too far, since you have let me kiss you?"
+
+"I didn't," she cried.
+
+"Then you meant nothing by it?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "You are trying to take advantage of a
+position which you forced," she said coldly.
+
+"Let me understand this clearly." He had turned white. "You let me make
+love to you, in order to entrap me and save your friend. Is that it?"
+
+No reply came from her other than what he could read in compressed lips
+and smouldering eyes.
+
+"So that is the kind of woman you are." There were both wonder and
+distress in his voice. "That is the kind of woman for whose promise to
+be my wife I would have given the heart out of my body."
+
+At this the tumult and catastrophe of her emotion fused into a white
+hot, illogical anger against this man who was suffering, and by his
+suffering made her suffer.
+
+"Your wife? Yours?" She smiled hatefully. "The wife of the son of a
+quack? You do yourself too much honor, Hal Surtaine."
+
+"I fear that I did you too much honor," he replied quietly.
+
+Suffocation pressed upon her throat as she saw him go to the door. For a
+moment the wild desire to hold him, to justify herself, to explain, even
+to ask forgiveness, seized her. Bitterly she fought it down, and so
+stood, with wide eyes and smiling lips. At the door he turned to look,
+with a glance less of appeal than of incredulity that she, so lovely, so
+alluring, so desirable beyond all the world, a creature of springtime
+and promise embowered amidst the springtime and promise of the
+apple-bloom, could be such as her speech and action proclaimed her.
+
+Hal carried from her house, like a barbed arrow, the memory of that
+still and desperate smile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+REPRISALS
+
+
+Working on an empty heart is almost as severe a strain as the less
+poetic process of working on an empty stomach. On the morning after the
+failure of Esme's strategy and the wrecking of Hal's hopes, the young
+editor went to his office with a languid but bitter distaste for its
+demands. The first item in the late afternoon mail stung him to a fitter
+spirit, as a sharp blow will spur to his best efforts a courageous
+boxer. This was a packet, containing the crumbled fragments of a spray
+of arbutus, and a note in handwriting now stirringly familiar.
+
+    I have read your editorial. From a man dishonest enough to print
+    deliberate lies and cowardly enough to attack a woman, it is just
+    such an answer as I might have expected.
+
+    ELEANOR S.M. ELLIOT.
+
+At first the reference to the editorial bewildered Hal. Then he
+remembered. Esme had known nothing of the editorial until she read it in
+the paper. She had inferred that he wrote it after leaving her, thus
+revenging himself upon her by further scarification of the friend for
+whom she had pleaded. To the charge of deliberate mendacity he had no
+specific clue, not knowing that Kathleen Pierce had denied the
+authenticity of the interview. He mused somberly upon the venomed
+injustice of womankind. The note and its symbol of withered sweetness he
+buried in his waste-basket. If he could but discard as readily the
+vision of a face, strangely lovely in its anger and chagrin, and wearing
+that set and desperate smile! Well, there was but one answer to her
+note. That was to make the "Clarion" all that she would have it not be!
+
+No phantoms of lost loveliness came between McGuire Ellis and his
+satisfaction over the Pierce _coup_. Characteristically, however, he
+presented the disadvantageous as well as the favorable aspects of the
+matter to his employer.
+
+"Some paper this morning!" he began. "The town is humming like a hive."
+
+"Over the Pierce story?" asked Hal.
+
+"Nothing else talked of. We were sold out before nine this morning."
+
+"Selling papers is our line of business," observed the owner-editor.
+
+"You won't think so when you hear Shad Shearson. He's an avalanche of
+woe, waiting to sweep down upon you."
+
+"What's his trouble? The department store advertising?"
+
+"The Boston Store advertising is gone. Others are threatening to follow.
+Pierce has called a meeting of the Publications Committee of the Dry
+Goods Union. Discipline is in the air, Boss. Have you seen the evening
+papers?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What did you think of their stories of the accident?"
+
+"I seemed to notice a suspicious similarity."
+
+"You can bet every one of those stories came straight from E.M. Pierce's
+own office. You'll see, they'll be the same in to-morrow morning's
+papers. Now that we've opened up, they all have to cover the news, so
+they've thoughtfully sent around to inquire what Elias M. would like to
+have printed."
+
+"From what they say," remarked Hal flippantly, "the nurse ought to be
+arrested for trying to bump a sixty-horsepower car out of the roadway."
+
+"We strive to please, in the local newspaper shops."
+
+Ellis turned to answer the buzzing telephone. "Get on your life
+preserver," he advised his principal. "Shearson's coming up to weep all
+over you."
+
+The advertising manager entered, his plump cheeks sagging into
+lugubrious and reproachful lines, speaking witnesses to a sentiment not
+wholly unjustifiable in his case. To see circulation steadily going up
+and advertising as steadily going down, is an irritant experience to the
+official responsible for the main income of a daily paper, advertising
+revenue.
+
+"Advertisers have some rights," he boomed, in his heavy voice.
+
+"Including that of homicide?" asked Hal.
+
+"Let the law take care of that. It ain't our affair."
+
+"Would it be our affair if Pierce didn't control advertising?"
+
+Shearson's fat hands went to his fat neck in a gesture of desperation.
+"That's different," he cried. "I can't seem to make you see my point.
+Why looka here, Mr. Surtaine. Who pays for the running of a newspaper?
+The advertisers. Where do your profits come from? Advertising. There
+never was a paper could last six months on circulation alone. It's the
+ads. that keep every paper going. Well, then: how's a paper going to
+live that turns against its own support? Tell me that. If you were
+running a business, and a big buyer came in, would you roast him and
+knock his methods, and criticize his family, and then expect to sell him
+a bill of goods? Or would you take him out to the theater and feed him a
+fat cigar, and treat him the best you know how? You might have your own
+private opinion of him--"
+
+"A newspaper doesn't deal in private opinions," put in Hal.
+
+"Well, it can keep 'em private for its own good, can't it? How many
+readers care whether E.M. Pierce's daughter ran over a woman or not?
+What difference does it make to them? They'd be just as well satisfied
+to read about the latest kick-up in Mexico, or the scandal at
+Washington, or Mrs. Whoopdoodle's Newport dinner to the troupe of
+educated fleas. But it makes a lot of difference to E.M. Pierce, and he
+can make it a lot of difference to us. So long as he pays us good money,
+he's got a right to expect us to look out for his interests."
+
+"So have our readers who pay us good money, Mr. Shearson."
+
+"What are their interests?" asked the advertising manager, staring.
+
+"To get the news straight. You've given me your theory of journalism;
+now let me give you mine. As I look at it, there's a contract of honor
+between a newspaper and its subscribers. Tacitly the newspaper says to
+the subscriber, 'For two cents a day, I agree to furnish you with the
+news of your town, state, nation, and the outside world, selected to the
+best of my ability, and presented without fear or favor.' On this basis,
+if the newspaper fakes its news, if it distorts facts, or if it
+suppresses them, it is playing false with its subscribers. It is sanding
+its sugar, and selling shoddy for all-wool. Isn't that true?"
+
+"Every newspaper does it," grumbled Shearson. "And the public knows it."
+
+"Doubted. The public knows that newspapers make mistakes and do a lot of
+exaggerating and sensationalizing. But you once get it into their heads
+that a certain newspaper is concealing and suppressing news, and see how
+long that paper will last. The circulation will drop and the very men
+like Pierce will be the first to withdraw their advertising patronage.
+Your keen advertiser doesn't waste time fishing in dead pools. So even
+as a matter of policy the straight way may be the best, in the long run.
+Whether it is or not, get this firmly into your mind, Mr. Shearson. From
+now on the first consideration of the 'Clarion' will be news and not
+advertising."
+
+"Then, good-_night_ 'Clarion,'" pronounced Shearson with entire
+solemnity.
+
+"Is that your resignation, Mr. Shearson?"
+
+"Do you want me to quit?"
+
+"No; I don't. I believe you're an efficient man, if you can adjust
+yourself to new conditions. Do you think you can?"
+
+"Well, I ain't much on the high-brow stuff, Mr. Surtaine, but I can take
+orders, I guess. I'm used to the old 'Clarion,' and I kinda like you,
+even if we don't agree. Maybe this virtuous jag'll get us some business
+for what it loses us. But, say, Mr. Surtaine, you ain't going to get
+virtuous in your advertising columns, too, are you?"
+
+"I hadn't considered it," said Hal. "One of these days I'll look into
+it."
+
+"For God's sake, don't!" pleaded Shearson, with such a shaken flabbiness
+of vehemence that both Hal and Ellis laughed, though the former felt an
+uneasy puzzlement.
+
+The article and editorial on the Pierce accident had appeared in a
+Thursday's "Clarion." In their issues of the following day, the other
+morning papers dealt with the subject most delicately. The "Banner"
+published, without obvious occasion, a long and rather fulsome editorial
+on E.M. Pierce as a model of high-minded commercial emprise and an
+exemplar for youth: also, on the same page in its "Pointed Paragraphs,"
+the following, with a point quite too palpably aimed:--
+
+"It is said, on plausible if not direct authority, that one of our
+morning contemporaries will appropriately alter its motto to read, 'With
+Malice toward All: with Charity for None.'"
+
+But it remained for that evening's "Telegram" to bring up the heavy
+guns. From its first edition these headlines stood out, black and
+bold:--
+
+          E.M. PIERCE DEFENDS DAUGHTER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+       MAGNATE INCENSED AT UNJUST ATTACKS
+          WILL PUSH CASE AGAINST HER
+            TRADUCERS TO A FINISH
+
+There followed an interview in which the great man announced his
+intention of bringing both civil and criminal action for libel against
+the "Clarion." McGuire Ellis frowned savagely at the sheet.
+
+"Dirty skunk!" he growled.
+
+"Meaning our friend Pierce?" queried Hal.
+
+"No. Meaning Parker, and the whole 'Telegram' outfit."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because they printed that interview."
+
+"What's wrong with it? It's news."
+
+"Don't be positively infantile, Boss. Newspapers don't print libel
+actions brought against other newspapers. It's unprofessional. It's
+unethical. It isn't straight."
+
+"No: I don't see that at all," decided Hal, after some consideration.
+"That amounts simply to this, that the newspapers are in a combination
+to discourage libel actions, by suppressing all mention of them."
+
+"Certainly. Why not? Libel suits are generally holdups."
+
+"I think the 'Telegram' is right. Whatever Pierce says is news, and
+interesting news."
+
+"You bet Parker would never have carried that if his holding corporation
+wasn't a heavy borrower in the Pierce banks."
+
+"Maybe not. But I think we'll carry it."
+
+"In the 'Clarion'?" almost shouted Ellis.
+
+"Certainly. Let's have Wayne send a reporter around to Pierce. If
+Pierce won't give us an interview, we'll reprint the 'Telegram's,' with
+credit."
+
+"We'd be cutting our own throats, and playing Pierce's game. Besides,
+stuff about ourselves isn't news."
+
+Hal's inexperience had this virtue, that it was free of the besetting
+and prejudicial superstitions of the craft of print. "If it's
+interesting, it's the 'Clarion' kind of news."
+
+Ellis, about to protest further, met the younger man's level gaze, and
+swallowed hard.
+
+"All right," he said. "I'll tell Wayne."
+
+So the "Clarion" violated another tradition of newspaperdom, to the
+amused contempt of its rivals, who were, however, possibly not quite so
+amused or so contemptuous as they appeared editorially to be. Also it
+followed up the interview with an explicit statement of its own
+intentions in the matter, which were not precisely music to the savage
+breast of E.M. Pierce.
+
+Evidences of that formidable person's hostilities became increasingly
+manifest from day to day. One morning a fire marshal dropped casually in
+upon the "Clarion" office, looked the premises over, and called the
+owner's attention to several minor and unsuspected violations of the
+law, the adjustment of which would involve no small inconvenience and
+several hundred dollars outlay. By a curious coincidence, later in the
+day, a factory inspector happened around,--a newspaper office being,
+legally, within the definition of a factory,--and served a summons on
+McGuire Ellis as publisher, for permitting smoking in the city room.
+From time immemorial every edition of every newspaper in the United
+States of America has evolved out of rolling clouds of tobacco smoke:
+but the "Clarion" alone, apparently, had come within the purview of the
+law. Subsequently, Hal learned, to his amusement, that all the other
+newspaper offices were placarded with notices of the law in Yiddish, so
+that none might be unduly disturbed thereby! To give point to the
+discrimination, down on the street, a zealous policeman arrested one of
+the "Clarion's" bulk-paper handlers for obstructing the sidewalk.
+
+"Pierce's political pull is certainly working," observed Ellis, "but
+it's coarse work."
+
+Finer was to come. Two libel suits mushroomed into view in as many days,
+provoked, as it were, out of conscious nothing; unimportant but
+harassing: one, brought by a ne'er-do-well who had broken a leg while
+engaged in a drunken prank months before, the other the outcome of a
+paragraph on a little, semi-fraudulent charity.
+
+"I'll bet that eminent legal light, Mr. William Douglas, could tell
+something about these," said Ellis, "though his name doesn't appeal on
+the papers."
+
+"We'll print these, too,--and we'll tell the reason for them," said Hal.
+
+But on this last point his assistant dissuaded him. The efficient
+argument was that it would look like whining, and the one thing which a
+newspaper must not do was to lament its own ill-treatment.
+
+On top of the libel suits came a letter from the Midland National Bank,
+stating with perfect courtesy that, under its present organization, a
+complicated account like that of the "Clarion" was inconvenient to
+handle; wherefore the bank was reluctantly obliged to request its
+withdrawal.
+
+"Bottling us up financially," remarked Ellis. "I expected this, before."
+
+"There are other banks than the Midland that'll be glad of our
+business," replied Hal.
+
+"Probably not."
+
+"No? Then they're curious institutions."
+
+"There isn't one of 'em in which Elias M. Pierce isn't a controlling
+factor. Ask your father."
+
+On the following day when Dr. Surtaine, who had been out of town for
+several days, dropped in at the office, Hal had a memorandum ready on
+the point. The old quack eased himself into a chair with his fine air
+of ample leisure, creating for himself a fragrant halo of cigar smoke.
+
+"Well, Boyee." The tone was a mingling of warm affection and
+semi-humorous reproach. "You went and did it to Elias M., didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, sir. We went and did it."
+
+The Doctor shook his head, looking at the other through narrowing eyes.
+"And it's worrying you. You're not looking right."
+
+"Oh, I'm well enough: a little sleeplessness, that's all."
+
+He did not deem it necessary to tell his father that upon his white
+nights the unforgettable face of Esme Elliot had gleamed persistently
+from out the darkness, banishing rest.
+
+"Suppose you let me do some of the worrying, Boyee."
+
+"Haven't you enough troubles in your own business, Dad?" smiled Hal.
+
+"Machinery, son. Automatic, at that. Runs itself and turns out the
+dollars, regular, for breakfast. Very different from the newspaper
+game."
+
+"I _should_ like your advice."
+
+"On the take-it-or-leave-it principle, I suppose," answered Dr.
+Surtaine, with entire good humor. "In the Pierce matter you left it. How
+do you like the results?"
+
+"Not very much."
+
+Dr. Surtaine spread out upturned hands, in dumb, oracular illustration
+of his own sagacity.
+
+"But I'd do the same thing over again if it came up for decision."
+
+"That's exactly what you mustn't do, Hal. Banging around the shop like
+that, cracking people on the knuckles may give you a temporary feeling
+of power and importance" (Hal flushed boyishly), "but it don't pay. Now,
+if I get you out of this scrape, I want you to go more carefully."
+
+"How are you going to get me out of it?"
+
+"Square it with E.M. Pierce. He's a good friend of mine."
+
+"Do you really like Mr. Pierce, Dad?"
+
+"Hm! Ah--er--well, Boyee, as for that, that's another tail on a cat. In
+a business way, I meant."
+
+"In a business way he's trying to be a pretty efficient enemy of mine.
+How would you like it if he undertook to interfere with Certina?"
+
+By perceptible inches Dr. Surtaine's chest rounded in slow expansion.
+"Legislatures and government bureaus have tried that. They never got
+away with it yet. Elias Pierce is a pretty big man in this town, but I
+guess he knows enough to keep hands and tongue off me."
+
+"If not off your line of business," amended Ellis. "Did you see his
+interview in the 'Telegram'?"
+
+He tossed over a copy of the paper folded to a column wherein Mr.
+Pierce, with more temper than tact, had possessed himself of his
+adversary's editorial text, "Heredity," and proceeded to perform a
+variant thereon.
+
+"If this young whippersnapper," Mr. Pierce had said, "this fledgling
+thug of journalism, had stopped to think of the source of his unearned
+money, perhaps he wouldn't talk so glibly about heredity."
+
+Thence the interview pursued a course of indirect reflection upon the
+matter and method of the patent medicine trade, as exemplified in
+Certina and its allied industries. The top button of Dr. Surtaine's
+glossy morning coat, as he read, seemed in danger of flying off into
+infinite space. His powerful hands opened and closed slowly. Leaning
+forward he reached for the telephone, but checked himself.
+
+"Mr. Pierce seems to have let go both barrels at once," he said with a
+strong effort of control.
+
+"Pretty little exhibition of temper, isn't it?" said Hal, smiling.
+
+"Temper's expensive. Perhaps we'll teach Elias M. Pierce that lesson
+before we're through. You remember it, too, next time you start in on a
+muckraking jag."
+
+"Our muckraking, as you call it, isn't a question of temper, Dad," said
+Hal earnestly. "It's a question of policy. What the 'Clarion' is doing,
+is done because we're trying to be a newspaper. We've got to stick to
+that. I've given my word."
+
+"Who to?"
+
+"To the men on the staff."
+
+"What's more," put in McGuire Ellis, turning at the door on his way out
+to see a caller, "the fellows have got hold of the idea. That's what
+gives the 'Clarion' the go it's got. We're all rowing one stroke."
+
+"And the captain can't very well quit in mid-race." Hal took up the
+other's metaphor, as the door closed behind him. "So you see, Dad, I've
+got to see it through, no matter what it costs me."
+
+The father's rich voice dropped to a murmur. "Hasn't it cost you
+something more than money, already, Boyee? I understand Miss Esme is a
+pretty warm friend of Pierce's girl."
+
+Hal winced.
+
+"All right, Boyee. I don't want to pry. But lots of things come quietly
+to the old man's ear. You've got a right to your secrets."
+
+"It isn't any secret, Dad. In fact, it isn't anything any more," said
+Hal, smiling wanly. "Yes, the price was pretty high. I don't think any
+other will ever be so high."
+
+Dr. Surtaine heaved his bulk out of the chair and laid a heavy arm
+across his son's shoulder.
+
+"Boyee, you and I don't agree on a lot of things. We're going to keep on
+not agreeing about a lot of things. You think I'm an old fogy with
+low-brow standards. I think you've got a touch of that prevalent disease
+of youth, fool-in-the-head. But, I guess, as father and son, pal and
+pal, we're pretty well suited,--eh?"
+
+"Yes," said Hal. There was that in the monosyllable which wholly
+contented the older man.
+
+"Go ahead with your 'Clarion,' Boyee. Blow your fool head off. Deave us
+all deaf. Play any tune you want, and pay yourself for your piping. I
+won't interfere--any more'n I can help, being an old meddler by taste.
+Blood's thicker than water, they say. I guess it's thicker than
+printer's ink, too. Remember this, right or wrong, win or lose, Boyee,
+I'm with you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+MILLY
+
+
+All Hal's days now seemed filled with Pierce. Pierce's friends,
+dependents, employees, associates wrote in, denouncing the "Clarion,"
+canceling subscriptions, withdrawing advertisements. Pierce's club, the
+Huron, compelled the abandonment of Mr. Harrington Surtaine's candidacy.
+Pierce's clergyman bewailed the low and vindictive tone of modern
+journalism. The Pierce newspapers kept harassing the "Clarion"; the
+Pierce banks evinced their financial disapproval; the Pierce lawyers
+diligently sought new causes of offense against the foe; while Pierce's
+mayor persecuted the newspaper office with further petty enforcements
+and exactions. Pierce's daughter, however, fled the town. With her went
+Miss Esme Elliot. According to the society columns, including that of
+the "Clarion," they were bound for a restful voyage on the Pierce yacht.
+
+From time to time Editor Surtaine retaliated upon the foe, employing the
+news of the slow progress of Miss Cleary, the nurse, to maintain
+interest in the topic. Protests invariably followed, sometimes from
+sources which puzzled the "Clarion." One of the protestants was Hugh
+Merritt, the young health officer of the city, who expressed his views
+to McGuire Ellis one day.
+
+"No," Ellis reported to his employer, on the interview, "he didn't
+exactly ask that we let up entirely. But he seemed to think we were
+going too strong. I couldn't quite get his reasons, except that he
+thought it was a terrible thing for the Pierce girl, and she so young.
+Queer thing from Merritt. They don't make 'em any straighter than he
+is."
+
+Alone of the lot of protests, that of Mrs. Festus Willard gained a
+response from Hal.
+
+"You're treating her very harshly, Hal."
+
+"We're giving the facts, Lady Jinny."
+
+"_Are_ they the facts? _All_ the facts?"
+
+"So far as human eyes could see them."
+
+"Men's eyes don't see very far where a woman is concerned. She's very
+young and headstrong, and, Hal, she hasn't had much chance, you know.
+She's Elias Pierce's daughter."
+
+"Thus having every chance, one would suppose."
+
+"Every chance of having everything. Very little chance of being
+anything."
+
+There was a pause. Then: "Very well, Hal, I know I can trust you to do
+what you believe right, at least. That's a good deal. Festus tells me to
+let you alone. He says that you must fight your own fight in your own
+way. That's the whole principle of salvation in Festus's creed."
+
+"Not a bad one," said Hal. "I'm not particularly liking to do this, you
+know, Lady Jinny."
+
+"So I can understand. Have you heard anything from Esme Elliot since she
+left?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You mustn't drop out of the set, Hal," said the little woman anxiously.
+"You've made good so quickly. And our crowd doesn't take up with the
+first comer, you know."
+
+Since Esme Elliot had passed out of his life, as he told himself, Hal
+found no incentive to social amusements. Hence he scarcely noticed a
+slow but widening ostracism which shut him out from house after house,
+under the pressure of the Pierce influence. But Mrs. Festus Willard had
+perceived and resented it. That any one for whom she had stood sponsor
+should fail socially in Worthington was both irritating and incredible
+to her. Hence she made more of Hal than she might otherwise have found
+time to do, and he was much with her and Festus Willard, deriving, on
+the one hand, recreation and amusement from her sparkling
+_camaraderie_, and on the other, support and encouragement from her
+husband's strong, outspoken, and ruggedly honest common sense. Neither
+of them fully approved of his attack on Kathleen Pierce, whom they
+understood better than he did. But they both--and more particularly
+Festus Willard--appreciated the courage and honor of the "Clarion's" new
+standards.
+
+Except for an occasional dinner at their house, and a more frequent hour
+late in the afternoon or early in the evening, with one or both of them,
+Hal saw almost nothing of the people into whose social environment he
+had so readily slipped. Because of his exclusion, there prospered the
+more naturally a casual but swiftly developing intimacy which had sprung
+up between himself and Milly Neal.
+
+It began with her coming to Hal for his counsel about her copy. From the
+first she assumed an attitude of unquestioning confidence in his wisdom
+and taste. This flattered the pedagogue which is inherent in all of us.
+He was wise enough to see promptly that he must be delicately careful in
+his criticism, since here he was dealing out not opinion, but gospel.
+Poised and self-confident the girl was in her attitude toward herself:
+the natural consequence of early success and responsibility. But about
+her writing she exhibited an almost morbid timidity lest it be thought
+"vulgar" or "common" by the editor-in-chief; and once McGuire Ellis felt
+called upon to warn Hal that he was "taking all the gimp out of the
+'Kitty the Cutie' stuff by trying to sewing-circularize it." Of
+literature the girl knew scarcely anything; but she had an eager
+ambition for better standards, and one day asked Hal to advise her in
+her reading.
+
+Not without misgivings he tried her with Stevenson's "Virginibus
+Puerisque" and was delighted with the swiftness and eagerness of her
+appreciation. Then he introduced her by careful selection to the poets,
+beginning with Tennyson, through Wordsworth, to Browning, and thence to
+the golden-voiced singers of the sonnet, and all of it she drank in with
+a wistful and wondering delight. Soon her visits came to be of almost
+daily occurrence. She would dart in of an evening, to claim or return a
+book, and sit perched on the corner of the big work-table, like a
+little, flashing, friendly bird; always exquisitely neat, always vividly
+pretty and vividly alive. Sometimes the talk wandered from the status of
+instructor and instructed, and touched upon the progress of the
+"Clarion," the view which Milly's little world took of it, possible ways
+of making it more interesting to the women readers to whom the "Cutie"
+column was supposed to cater particularly. More than once the more
+personal note was touched, and the girl spoke of her coming to the
+Certina factory, a raw slip of a country creature tied up in calico, and
+of Dr. Surtaine's kindness and watchfulness over her.
+
+"He wanted to do well by me because of the old man--my father, I mean,"
+she caught herself up, blushing. "They knew each other when I was a
+kid."
+
+"Where?" asked Hal.
+
+"Oh, out east of here," she answered evasively.
+
+Again she said to him once, "What I like about the 'Clarion' is that
+it's trying to do something for _folks_. That's all the religion I could
+ever get into my head: that human beings are mostly worth treating
+decently. That counts for more than all your laws and rules and church
+regulations. I don't like rules much," she added, twinkling up at him.
+"I always want to kick 'em over, just as I always want to break through
+the police lines at a fire."
+
+"But rules and police lines are necessary for keeping life orderly,"
+said Hal.
+
+"I suppose so. But I don't know that I like things too orderly. My
+teacher called me a lawless little demon, once, and I guess I still am.
+Suppose I should break all the rules of the office? Would you fire me?"
+And before he could answer she was up and had flashed away.
+
+As the intimacy grew, Hal found himself looking forward to these
+swift-winged little visits. They made a welcome break in the detailed
+drudgery; added to the day a glint of color, bright like the ripple of
+half-hidden flame that crowned Milly's head. Once Veltman, intruding on
+their talk, had glared blackly and, withdrawing, had waited for the girl
+in the hallway outside from whence, as she left, Hal could hear the
+foreman's deep voice in anger and her clear replies tauntingly
+stimulating his chagrin.
+
+Having neglected the Willards for several days, Hal received a telephone
+message, about a month after Esme Elliot's departure, asking him to stop
+in. He found Mrs. Willard waiting him in the conservatory. His old
+friend looked up as he entered, with a smile which did not hide the
+trouble in her eyes.
+
+"Aren't you a lily-of-the-field!" admired the visitor, contemplating her
+green and white costume.
+
+"It's the Vanes' dance. Not going?"
+
+"Not asked. Besides, I'm a workingman these days."
+
+"So one might infer from your neglect of your friends. Hal, I've had a
+letter from Esme Elliot."
+
+"Any message?" he asked lightly, but with startled blood.
+
+There was no answering lightness in her tones. "Yes. One I hate to give.
+Hal, she's engaged herself to Will Douglas. It must have been by letter,
+for she wasn't engaged when she left. 'Tell Hal Surtaine' she says in
+her letter to me."
+
+"Thank you, Lady Jinny," said Hal.
+
+The diminutive lady looked at him and then looked away, and suddenly a
+righteous flush rose on her cheeks.
+
+"I'm fond of Esme," she declared. "One can't help but be. She compels
+it. But where men are concerned she seems to have no sense of her power
+to hurt. I could _kill_ her for making me her messenger. Hal, boy," she
+rose, slipping an arm through his caressingly, "I do hope you're not
+badly hurt."
+
+"I'll get over it, Lady Jinny. There's the job, you know."
+
+He started for the office. Then, abruptly, as he went, "the job" seemed
+purposeless. Unrealized, hope had still persisted in his heart--the hope
+that, by some possible turn of circumstance, the shattered ideal of Esme
+Elliot would be revivified. The blighting of his love for her had been
+no more bitter, perhaps less so, than the realization which she had
+compelled in him of her lightness and unworthiness. Still, he had wanted
+her, longed for her, hoped for her. Now that hope was gone. There seemed
+nothing left to work for, no adequate good beyond the striving. He
+looked with dulled vision out upon blank days. With a sudden weakening
+of fiber he turned into a hotel and telephoned McGuire Ellis that he
+wouldn't be at the office that evening. To the other's anxious query was
+he ill, he replied that he was tired out and was going home to bed.
+
+Meantime, far across the map at a famous Florida hostelry, the Great
+American Pumess, in the first flush and pride of her engagement which
+all commentators agree upon as characteristic of maidenhood's vital
+resolution, lay curled up in a little fluffy coil of misery and tears,
+repeating between sobs, "I hate him! I _hate_ him!" Meaning her
+_fiance_, Mr. William Douglas, with whom her mind and emotions should
+properly have been concerned? Not so, perspicacious reader. Meaning Mr.
+Harrington Surtaine.
+
+Upon _his_ small portion of the map, that gentleman wooed sleep in vain
+for hours. Presently he arose from his tossed bed, dressed quietly,
+slipped out of the big door and walked with long, swinging steps down to
+the "Clarion" Building. There it stood, a plexus of energies, in the
+midst of darkness and sleep. Eye-like, its windows peered vigilantly out
+into the city. A door opened to emit a voice that bawled across the way
+some profane demand for haste in the delivery of "that grub"; and
+through the shaft of light Hal could see brisk figures moving, and hear
+the roar and thrill of the press sealing its irrevocable message.
+
+Again he felt, with a pride so profound that its roots struck down into
+the depths of humility, his own responsibility to all that straining
+life and energy and endeavor. He, the small atom, alone in the night,
+_was_ the "Clarion." Those men, the fighting fellowship of the office,
+were rushing and toiling and coordinating their powers to carry out some
+ideal still dimly inchoate in his brain. What mattered his little pangs?
+There was a man's test to meet, and the man within him stretched
+spiritual muscles for the trial.
+
+"If I could only be sure what's right," he said within himself, voicing
+the doubt of every high-minded adventurer upon unbeaten paths. Sharply,
+and, as it seemed to him, incongruously, he wondered that he had never
+learned to pray; not knowing that, in the unfinished phrase he had
+uttered true prayer. A chill breeze swept down upon him. Looking up into
+the jeweled heavens he recalled from the far distance of memory, the
+prayer of a great and simple soul,--
+
+  "Make thou my spirit pure and clear
+   As are the frosty skies."
+
+Hal set out for home, ready now for a few hours' sleep. At a blind
+corner he all but collided with a man and a woman, walking at high
+speed. The woman half turned, flinging him a quick and silvery
+"Good-evening." It was Milly Neal. The man with her was Max Veltman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+DONNYBROOK
+
+
+Worthington began to find the "Clarion" amusing. It blared a new note.
+Common matter of everyday acceptance which no other paper in town had
+ever considered as news, became, when trumpeted from between the rampant
+roosters, vital with interest. And whithersoever it directed the public
+attention, some highly respectable private privilege winced and snarled.
+Worthington did not particularly love the "Clarion" for the enemies it
+made. But it read it.
+
+Now, a newspaper makes its enemies overnight. Friends take months or
+years in the making. Hence the "Clarion," whilst rapidly broadening its
+circle of readers, owed its success to the curiosity rather than to the
+confidence which it inspired. Meantime the effect upon its advertising
+income was disastrous. If credence could be placed in the lamenting
+Shearson, wherever it attacked an abuse, whether by denunciation or
+ridicule, it lost an advertiser. Moreover the public, not yet ready to
+credit any journal with honest intentions, was inclined to regard the
+"Clarion" as "a chronic kicker." The "Banner's" gibing suggestion of a
+reversal of the editorial motto between the triumphant birds to read
+"With malice toward all," stuck.
+
+But there were compensations. The blatant cocks had occasional
+opportunity for crowing. With no small justification did they shrill
+their triumph over the Midland & Big Muddy Railroad. The "Mid and Mud"
+had declared war upon the "Clarion," following the paper's statement of
+the true cause of the Walkersville wreck, as suggested by Marchmont, the
+reporter, at the breakfast. Marchmont himself had been banished from
+the railroad offices. All sources of regular news were closed to him.
+Therefore, backed by the "Clarion," he proceeded to open up a line of
+irregular news which stirred the town. For years the "Mid and Mud" had
+given to Worthington a passenger service so bad that no community less
+enslaved to a _laissez-faire_ policy would have endured it. Through
+trains drifted in anywhere from one to four hours late. Local trains,
+drawn by wheezy, tin-pot locomotives of outworn pattern, arrived and
+departed with such casualness as to render schedules a joke, and not
+infrequently "bogged down" between stations until some antediluvian
+engine could be resuscitated and sent out to the rescue. The day coaches
+were of the old, dangerous, wooden type. The Pullman service was utterly
+unreliable, and the station in which the traveling populace of
+Worthington spent much of its time, a draft-ridden barn. Yet Worthington
+suffered all this because it was accustomed to it and lacked any means
+of making protest vocal.
+
+Then the "Clarion" started in publishing its "Yesterday's Time-Table of
+the Midland & Big Muddy R.R. Co." to this general effect:
+
+
+ Day Express      Due 10 A.M.  Arrived 11.43 A.M.  Late 1 hour 43 min.
+ Noon Local       Due 12 A.M.  Arrived  2.10 P.M.  Late 2 hrs. 10 min.
+ Sunrise Limited  Due  3 P.M.  Arrived  3.27 P.M.  Late 0 hrs. 27 min.
+
+And so on. From time to time there would appear, underneath, a special
+item, of which the following is an example:
+
+"The Eastern States Through Express of the Midland & Big Muddy Railroad
+arrived and departed on time yesterday. When asked for an explanation of
+this phenomenon, the officials declined to be interviewed."
+
+Against this "persecution," the "Mid and Mud" authorities at first
+maintained a sullen silence. The "Clarion" then went into statistics. It
+gave the number of passengers arriving and departing on each delayed
+train, estimated the value of their time, and constructed tables of the
+money value of time lost in this way to the city of Worthington, per
+day, per month, and per year. The figures were not the less inspiring of
+thought, for being highly amusing.
+
+People began to take an interest. They brought or sent in personal
+experiences. A commercial traveler, on the 7.50 train (arriving at
+10.01, that day), having lost a big order through missing an
+appointment, told the "Clarion" about it. A contractor's agent, gazing
+from the windows of the stalled "Limited" out upon "fresh woods and
+pastures new" twenty miles short of Worthington, what time he should
+have been at a committee meeting of the Council, forfeited a $10,000
+contract and rushed violently into "Clarion" print, breathing slaughter
+and law-suits. Judge Abner Halloway and family, arriving at the New York
+pier in a speeding taxi from the Eastern Express (five hours late out of
+Worthington), just in time to see the Lusitania take his forwarded
+baggage for a pleasant outing in Europe, hired a stenographer (male) to
+tell the "Clarion" what he thought of the matter, in words of seven
+syllables. Professor Beeton Trachs, the globe-trotting lecturer, who
+arrived via the "M. and M." for an eight o'clock appearance, at 9.54,
+gave the "Clarion" an interview proper to the occasion of having to
+abjure a $200 guaranty, wherein the mildest and most judicial opinion
+expressed by Professor Trachs was that crawling through a tropical
+jungle on all fours was speed, and being hurtled down a mountain on the
+bosom of a landslide, comfort, compared to travel on the "Mid and Mud."
+
+All these and many similar experiences, the "Clarion" published in its
+"News of the M. and M." column. It headed them, "Stories of Survivors."
+For six weeks the railroad endured the proddings of ridicule. Then the
+Fourth Vice-President of the road appeared in Mr. Harrington Surtaine's
+sanctum. He was bland and hinted at advertising. Two weeks later the
+Third Vice-President arrived. He was vague and hinted at reprisals. The
+Second Vice-President presented himself within ten days thereafter,
+departed after five unsatisfactory minutes, and reported at
+headquarters, with every symptom of an elderly gentleman suffering from
+shock, that young Mr. Surtaine had seemed bored. The First
+Vice-President then arrived on a special train.
+
+"What do you want, anyway?" he asked.
+
+"Decent passenger service for Worthington," said the editor. "Just what
+I've told every other species _and_ number of Vice-President on your
+list."
+
+"You get it," said the First Vice-President.
+
+Thus was afforded another example of that super-efficiency which, we are
+assured, marks the caste of the American railroad as superior to all
+others, and which consists in sending four men and spending several
+weeks to do what one could do better in a single day. In the course of a
+few weeks the Midland & Big Muddy did bring its service up to a
+reasonable standard, and the owner of the "Clarion" savored his first
+pleasant proof of the power of the press.
+
+Vastly less important, but swifter and more definite in results and more
+popular in effect, was the "Clarion's" anti-hat-check campaign. The
+Stickler, Worthington's newest hotel, had established a coat-room with
+the usual corps of girl-bandits, waiting to strip every patron of his
+outer garments before admitting him to the restaurant, and returning
+them only upon the blackmail of a tip. All the other good restaurants
+had followed suit. Worthington resented it, as it resented most
+innovations; but endured the imposition, for lack of solidarity, until
+the "Clarion" took up the subject in a series of paragraphs.
+
+"Do you think," blandly inquired the editorial roosters, "that when you
+tip the hat-check girl she gets the tip? She doesn't. It goes to a man
+who rents from the restaurant the privilege of bullying you out of a
+dime or a quarter. The girl holds you up, because if she doesn't extort
+fifteen dollars a week, she loses her job and her own munificent wages
+of seven dollars. The 'Clarion' takes pleasure in announcing a series of
+portraits of the high-minded pirates of finance whom you support in
+luxury, when you 'give up' to the check-girl. Our first portrait, ladies
+and gentlemen, is that of Mr. Abe Hotzenmuller, race-track bookmaker and
+whiskey agent, who, in the intervals of these more reputable
+occupations, extracts alms from the patrons of the Hotel Stickler."
+
+Next in line was "Shirty" MacDonough, a minor politician, "appropriately
+framed in silver dimes," as the "Clarion" put it. He was followed by
+Eddie Perkins, proprietor of a dubious resort on Mail Street. By this
+time coat-room franchises had suffered a severe depreciation. They
+dropped almost to zero when the newspaper, having clinched the lesson
+home with its "Photo-graft Gallery of Leading Dime-Hunters," exhorted
+its readers: "If you think you need your change as much as these men do,
+watch for the coupon in to-morrow's 'Clarion,' and Stick it in Your
+Hat." The coupon was as follows:
+
+     I READ THE CLARION. I WILL NOT GIVE ONE CENT IN TIPS TO ANY
+     COAT-ROOM GRAFTER. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
+
+The enterprise hit upon the psychological moment. Every check-room
+bristled with hats proclaiming defiance, and, incidentally, advertising
+the "Clarion." The "cut-out coupon" ran for three weeks. In one month
+the Stickler check-room, last to surrender, gave up the ghost, and Mr.
+Hotzenmuller sued the proprietor for his money back!
+
+Over the theatrical managers the paper's victory was decisive in this,
+that it established honest dramatic criticism in Worthington. But only
+at a high cost. Not a line of theater advertising appeared in the
+columns after the editorial announcement of independence. Press tickets
+were cut off. The "Clarion's" dramatic reporter was turned back from the
+gate of the various theaters, after paying for admittance. Nevertheless,
+the "Clarion" continued to publish frank criticism of current drama,
+through a carefully guarded secret arrangement with the critic of the
+"Evening News." About this time a famous star, opening a three days'
+engagement, got into difficulties with the scene-shifters' union over an
+unjust demand for extra payment, refused to be blackmailed, and canceled
+the second performance. One paper only gave the facts, and that was the
+"Clarion," generally regarded as the defender and mouthpiece of the
+laboring as against the capitalistic interests. Great was the wrath of
+the unions. Boycott was threatened; even a strike in the office. In
+response, the editorial page announced briefly that its policy of giving
+the news accurately and commenting upon it freely exempted no man or
+organization. The trouble soon died out, but, while making new enemies
+amongst the rabid organization men, strengthened the "Clarion's" growing
+repute for independence. One of the most violent objectors was Max
+Veltman, whose protest, delivered to Hal and McGuire Ellis, was so
+vehement that he was advised curtly and emphatically to confine his
+activities and opinions to his own department.
+
+"Look out for that fellow," advised Ellis, as the foreman went away
+fuming. "He hates you."
+
+"Only his fanaticism," said Hal.
+
+"More than that. It's personal. I think," added the associate editor
+after some hesitancy, "it's 'Kitty the Cutie.' He's jealous, Hal. And I
+think he's right. That girl's getting too much interested in you."
+
+Hal flushed sharply. "Nonsense!" he said, and the subject lapsed.
+
+Meantime the manager of the Ralston Opera House, where the labor
+trouble had occurred, made tentative proffer of peace in the form of
+sending in the theater advertising again. Hal promptly refused to accept
+it, by way of an object-lesson, despite the almost tearful protest of
+his own business office. This blow almost killed Shearson.
+
+In fact, the unfortunate advertising manager now lived in an atmosphere
+of Stygian gloom. Two of the most extensive purchasers of newspaper
+space, the Boston Store and the Triangle Store, had canceled their
+contracts immediately after the attack on the Pierces, through a "joker"
+clause inserted to afford such an opportunity. All the other department
+stores threatened to follow suit when the "Clarion" took up the cause of
+the Consumers' League.
+
+Mrs. Festus Willard was president of the organization, which had been
+practically moribund since its inception, for the sufficient reason that
+no mention of its activities, designs, or purposed reforms could gain
+admission to any newspaper in Worthington. The Retail Union saw to that
+through its all-potent Publication Committee. Perceiving the crescent
+emancipation of the "Clarion," Mrs. Willard, after due consultation with
+her husband, appealed to Hal. Would he help the League to obtain certain
+reforms? Specifically, seats for shopgirls, and extra pay for extra
+work, as during Old Home Week, when the stores kept open until 10 P.M.?
+Hal agreed, and, in the face of the dismalest forecasts from Shearson,
+prepared several editorials. Moreover, "Kitty the Cutie" took up the
+campaign in her column, and her series of "Lunch-Time Chats," with their
+slangy, pungent, workaday flavor, presented the case of the overworked
+saleswomen in a way to stir the dullest sympathies. The event fully
+justified Shearson in his role of Cassandra. Half of the remaining
+stores represented in the Retail Union notified the "Clarion" of the
+withdrawal of their advertising. Thus some twelve hundred dollars a week
+of income vanished. Moreover, the Union, it was hinted, would probably
+blacklist the "Clarion" officially. And the shop-folk gained nothing by
+the campaign. The merchants were strong enough to defeat the League and
+its sole backer at every point. This was one of the "Clarion's"
+failures.
+
+Coincident with the ebb of the store advertising occurred a lapse in
+circulation, inexplicable to the staff until an analysis indicated that
+the women readers were losing interest. It was young Mr. Surtaine who
+solved the mystery, by a flash of that newspaper instinct with which
+Ellis had early credited him.
+
+"Department store advertising is news," he decided, in a talk with Ellis
+and Shearson.
+
+"How can advertising be news?" objected the manager.
+
+"Anything that interests the public is news, on the authority of no less
+an expert than Mr. McGuire Ellis. Shopping is the main interest in life
+of thousands of women. They read the papers to find out where the
+bargains are. Watch 'em on the cars any morning and you'll see them
+studying the ads. The information in those ads. is what they most want.
+Now that we don't give it to them, they are dropping the paper. So we've
+got to give it to them."
+
+"Now you're talking," cried Shearson. "Cut out this Consumers' League
+slush and I'll get the stores back."
+
+"We'll cut out nothing. But we'll put in something. We'll print news of
+the department stores as news, not as advertising."
+
+"Well, if that ain't the limit!" lamented Shearson. "If you give 'em
+advertising matter free, how can you ever expect 'em to pay for it?"
+
+"We're not giving it to the stores. We're giving it to our readers."
+
+"In which case," remarked McGuire Ellis with a grin, "we can afford to
+furnish the real facts."
+
+"Exactly," said Hal.
+
+From this talk developed a unique department in the "Clarion." An
+expert woman shopper collected the facts and presented them daily under
+the caption, "Where to Find Real Bargains," and with the prefatory note,
+"No paid matter is accepted for this column." The expert had an
+allowance for purchasing, where necessary, and the utmost freedom of
+opinion was granted her. Thus, in the midst of a series of items, such
+as--"The Boston Store is offering a special sale of linens at
+advantageous prices"; "The necktie sale at the Emporium contains some
+good bargains"; and "Scheffler and Mintz's 'furniture week' is worth
+attention, particularly in the rocking-chair and dining-set
+lines"--might appear some such information as this: "In the special
+bargain sale of ribbons at the Emporium the prices are slightly higher
+than the same lines sold for last week, on the regular counter"; or,
+"The heavily advertised antique rug collection at the Triangle is mostly
+fraudulent. With a dozen exceptions the rugs are modern and of poor
+quality"; or, "The Boston Shop's special sale of rain coats are mostly
+damaged goods. Accept none without guarantee."
+
+Never before had mercantile Worthington known anything like this.
+Something not unlike panic was created in commercial circles. Lawyers
+were hopefully consulted, but ascertained in the first stages of
+investigation, that wherever a charge of fraud was brought, the
+"Clarion" office actually had the goods, by purchase. All this was
+costly to the "Clarion." But it added nearly four thousand solid
+circulation, of the buying class, a class of the highest value to any
+advertiser. Only with difficulty and by exercise of pressure on the part
+of E.M. Pierce, were the weaker members among the withdrawing
+advertisers dissuaded from resuming their patronage of the "Clarion."
+
+"I wouldn't have thought it possible," said the dictator, angrily, to
+his associates. "The thing is getting dangerous. The damned paper is out
+for the truth."
+
+"And the public is finding it out," supplemented Gibbs, his
+brother-in-law.
+
+"Wait till my libel suit comes on," said Pierce grimly. "I don't believe
+young Mr. Surtaine will have enough money left to indulge in the luxury
+of muckraking, after that."
+
+"Won't the old man back him up?"
+
+"Tells me that the boy is playing a lone hand," said Pierce with
+satisfaction.
+
+Herein he spoke the fact. While the "Clarion's" various campaigns were
+still in mid-career, Dr. Surtaine had made his final appeal to his son
+in vain, ringing one last change upon his Paean of Policy.
+
+"What good does it all do you or anybody else? You're stirring up muck,
+and you're getting the only thing you ever get by that kind of activity,
+a bad smell." He paused for his effect; then delivered himself of a
+characteristically vigorous and gross aphorism:
+
+"Boyee, you can't sell a stink, in this town."
+
+"Perhaps I can help to get rid of it," said Hal.
+
+"Not you! Nobody thanks you for your pains. They take notice for a
+while, because their noses compel 'em to. Then they forget. What thanks
+does the public give a newspaper? But the man you've roasted--he's after
+you, all the time. A sore toe doesn't forget. Look at Pierce."
+
+"Pierce has bothered me," confessed Hal. "He's shut me off from the
+banks. None of them will loan the 'Clarion' a cent. I have to go out of
+town for my money."
+
+"Can you blame him? I'd have done the same if he'd roasted you as you
+roasted his girl."
+
+"News, Dad," said Hal wearily. "It was news."
+
+"Let's not go over that again. You'll stick to your policy, I suppose,
+till it ruins you. About finances, by the way, where do you stand?"
+
+"Stand?" repeated Hal. "I wish we did. We slip. Downhill; and pretty
+fast."
+
+"Why wouldn't you? Fighting your own advertisers."
+
+"Some advertising has come in, though. Mostly from out of town."
+
+"Foreign proprietary," said Dr. Surtaine, using the technical term for
+patent-medicine advertising from out of town, "isn't it? I've been doing
+a little missionary work among my friends in the trade, Hal; persuaded
+them to give the 'Clarion' a try-out. The best of it is, they're getting
+results."
+
+"They ought to. Do you know we're putting on circulation at the rate of
+nearly a thousand a week?"
+
+"Expensive, though, isn't it?"
+
+"Pretty bad. The paper costs a lot more to get out. We've enlarged our
+staff. Now we need a new press. There's thirty-odd thousand dollars, in
+one lump."
+
+"How long can you go on at this rate?"
+
+"Without any more advertising?"
+
+"You certainly aren't gaining, by your present policy."
+
+"Well, I can stick it out through the year. By that time the advertising
+will be coming in. It's _got_ to come to the paper that has the
+circulation, Dad."
+
+"Hum!" droned the big doctor, dubiously. "Have you reckoned the Pierce
+libel suits in?"
+
+"He can't win them."
+
+"Can't he? I don't know. He intends to try. And he feels pretty cocky
+about it. E.M. Pierce has something up his sleeve, Boyee."
+
+"That would be a body-blow. But he can't win," repeated Hal. "Why, I saw
+the whole thing myself."
+
+"Just the same you ought to have the best libel lawyer you can get from
+New York. All the good local men are tied up with Pierce or afraid of
+him."
+
+"Can't afford it."
+
+To this point the big man had been leading up. "I've been thinking over
+this Pierce matter, Hal, and I've made up my mind. Pierce is getting to
+think he's the whole thing around here. He's bullied this town all his
+life, just as he's bullied his employees until they hate him like
+poison. But now he's gone up against the wrong game. Roast Certina, will
+he? The pup! Why, if he'd ever run his factories or his store or his
+Consolidated Employees' Organization one hundredth part as decently as
+I've run our business, he wouldn't have to stay in nights for fear some
+one might sneak a knife into him out of the dark."
+
+This was something less than just to Elias M. Pierce, who, whatever his
+other faults, had never been a fearful man.
+
+"Libel, eh?" continued the genius of Certina, quietly but formidably.
+"We'll teach him a few things about libel, before he's through. Here's
+my proposition, Boyee. You can fight Pierce, but you can't fight all
+Worthington. Every enemy you make for the 'Clarion' becomes an ally of
+Pierce. Quit all these other campaigns. Stop roasting the business men
+and advertisers. Drop your attack on the Mid and Mud: you've got 'em
+licked, anyway. Let up on the street railway: I notice you're taking a
+fall out of them on their overcrowding. Treat the theaters decently:
+they're entitled to a fair chance for their money. Cut out this
+Consumers' League foolishness (I'm surprised at Milly Neal--the way
+she's lost her head over that). Make friends instead of foes. And go
+after Elias M. Pierce, to the finish. Do this, and I'll back you with
+the whole Certina income. Come on, now, Boyee. Be sensible."
+
+Hal's reply came without hesitation. "I'm sorry, Dad: but I can't do it.
+I've told you I'd stand or fall on what you've already given me. If I
+can't pull through on that, I can't pull through at all. Let's
+understand each other once and for all, Dad. I've got to try this thing
+out to the end. And I won't ask or take one cent from you or any one
+else, win or lose."
+
+"All right, Boyee," returned his father sorrowfully. "You're wrong, dead
+wrong. But I like your nerve. Only, let me tell you this. You think
+you're going to keep on printing the news and the whole news and all
+that sort of thing. I tell you, it can't be done."
+
+"Why can't it be done?"
+
+"Because, sooner or later, you'll bump up against your own interests so
+hard that you'll have to quit."
+
+"I don't see that at all, sir."
+
+"No, you don't. But one of these days something in the news line will
+come up that'll hit you right between the eyes, if ever it gets into
+print. Then see what you'll do."
+
+"I'll print it."
+
+"No, you won't, Boyee. Human nature ain't built that way. You'll smother
+it, and be glad you've got the power to."
+
+"Dad, you believe I'm honest, don't you?"
+
+"Too blamed honest in some ways."
+
+"But you'd take my word?"
+
+"Oh, that! Yes. For anything."
+
+"Then I put my honor on this. If ever the time comes that I have to
+suppress legitimate news to protect or aid my own interests, I'll own up
+I'm beaten: I'll quit fighting, and I'll make the 'Clarion' a very
+sucking dove of journalism. Is that plain?"
+
+"Shake, Boyee. You've bought a horse. Just the same, I hate to let up on
+Pierce. Sure you won't let me hire a New York lawyer for the libel
+suit?"
+
+"No. Thank you just as much, Dad. That's a 'Clarion' fight, and the
+'Clarion's money has got to back it."
+
+It was the gist of this decision which, some days later, had reached
+E.M. Pierce, and caused him such satisfaction. With the "Clarion"
+depending upon its own resources, unbacked by the great reserve wealth
+of Certina's proprietor, he confidently expected to wreck it and force
+its suspension by an overwhelming verdict of damages. For, as Dr.
+Surtaine had surmised, he held a card up his sleeve.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE LESSER TEMPTING
+
+
+Seven days of the week did Mr. Harrington Surtaine labor, without by any
+means doing all his work. For to the toil which goes to the making of
+many newspapers there is no end; only ever a fresh beginning. Had he
+brought to the enterprise a less eager appetite for the changeful
+adventure of it, the unremitting demand must soon have dulled his
+spirit. Abounding vitality he possessed, but even this flagged at times.
+One soft spring Sunday, while the various campaigns of the newspaper
+were still in mid-conflict, he decided to treat himself to a day off.
+So, after a luxurious morning in bed, he embarked in his runabout for an
+exploration around the adjacent country.
+
+Having filled his lungs with two hours of swift air, he lunched, none
+too delicately, at a village fifty miles distant, and, on coming out of
+the hotel, was warned by a sky shaded from blue to the murkiest gray,
+into having the top of his car put up. The rain chased him for thirty
+miles and whelmed him in a wild swirl at the thirty-first. Driving
+through this with some caution, he saw ahead of him a woman's figure, as
+supple as a willow withe, as gallant as a ship, beating through the fury
+of the elements. Hal slowed down, debating whether to offer conveyance,
+when he caught a glint of ruddy waves beneath the drenched hat, and the
+next instant he was out and looking into the flushed face and dancing
+eyes of Milly Neal.
+
+"What on earth are you doing here?" he cried.
+
+"Can't you see?" she retorted merrily. "I'm a fish."
+
+"You need to be. Get in. You're soaked to the skin," he continued,
+dismayed, as she began to shiver under the wrappings he drew around her.
+"Never mind. I'll have you home in a few minutes."
+
+But the demon of mischance was abroad in the storm. Before they had
+covered half a mile the rear tire went. Milly was now shaking dismally,
+for all her brave attempts to conceal it. A few rods away a sign
+announced "Markby's Road-House." Concerned solely to get the girl into a
+warm and dry place, Hal turned in, bundled her out, ordered a private
+room with a fireplace, and induced the proprietor's wife by the
+persuasions of a ten-dollar bill to provide a change of clothing for the
+outer, and hot drinks for the inner, woman.
+
+Half an hour later when he had affixed a new tire to the wheel, he and
+Milly sat, warmed and comforted before blazing logs, waiting for her
+clothes to dry out.
+
+"I know I look a fright," she mourned. "That Mrs. Markby must buy her
+dresses by the pound."
+
+She gazed at him comically from above a quaint and nondescript garment,
+to which she had given a certain daintiness with a cleverly placed
+ribbon or two and an adroit use of pins. Privately, Hal considered that
+she looked delightfully pretty, with her provocative eyes and the deep
+gleam of red in her hair like flame seen through smoke.
+
+"Do you often go out wading, ten miles from home?" he asked.
+
+"Not very. I was running away."
+
+"I didn't see any one in pursuit."
+
+"They knew too much." Her firm little chin set rather grimly. "Do you
+want to hear about it?"
+
+"Yes. I'm curious," confessed Hal.
+
+"I went to lunch with another girl and a couple of drummers, out at
+Callender's Pond Hotel. She said she knew the men and they were all
+right. They weren't. They got too fresh altogether. So I told Florence
+she could do as she pleased, but I was for home and the trolley. I
+guess I could have made it with a life-preserver," she laughed.
+
+Hal was surprisedly conscious of a rasp of anger within him. "You ought
+not to put yourself into such a position," he declared.
+
+She threw him a covert glance from the corner of her sparkling eyes.
+"Oh, I guess I can take care of myself," she decided calmly. "I always
+have. When fresh drummers begin to talk private dining-room and cold
+bottles, I spread my little wings and flit."
+
+"To another private room," mocked Hal. "Aren't you afraid?"
+
+"With you? You're different." There sounded in her voice the purring
+note of utter content which is the subtlest because the most unconscious
+flattery of womankind.
+
+A silence fell between them. Hal stared into the fire.
+
+"Are you warm enough?" he asked presently.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you want something to eat? Or drink? What did you have to drink?" he
+added, glancing at the empty glass on the table.
+
+"Certina."
+
+"Certina?" he queried, uncertain at first whether she was joking. "How
+could you get Certina here?"
+
+"Why not? They keep it at all these places. There's quite a bar-trade in
+it."
+
+"Is that so?" said Hal, with a vague feeling of disturbance of ideas.
+"Which job do you like best: the Certina or the newspaper, Miss Neal?"
+
+"My other boss calls me Milly," she suggested.
+
+"Very well,--Milly, then."
+
+"Oh, I'm for the office. It's more exciting, a lot."
+
+"Your stuff," said Hal, in the language of the cult, "is catching on."
+
+"You don't like it, though," she countered quickly.
+
+"Yes, I do. Much better than I did, anyway. But the point is that it's
+a success. Editorially I _have_ to like it."
+
+"I'd rather you liked it personally."
+
+"Some of it I do. The 'Lunch-Time Chats'--"
+
+"And some of it you think is vulgar."
+
+"One has to suit one's style to the matter," propounded Hal. "'Kitty the
+Cutie' isn't supposed to be a college professor."
+
+"I hate to have you think me vulgar," she insisted.
+
+"Oh, come!" he protested; "that isn't fair. I don't think _you_ vulgar,
+Milly."
+
+"I like to have you call me Milly," she said.
+
+"It seems quite natural to," he answered lightly.
+
+"I've thought sometimes I'd like to try my hand at a regular news
+story," she went on, in a changed tone. "I think I've got one, if I
+could only do it right; one of those facts-behind-the-news stories that
+you talked to us about. Do you remember meeting me with Max Veltman the
+other night?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you think it was queer?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"A girl I used to know back in the country tried to kill herself. She
+wrote me a letter, but it didn't get to me till after midnight, so I
+called up Max and got him to go with me down to the Rookeries district
+where she lives. Poor little Maggie! She got caught in one of those
+sewing-girl traps."
+
+"Some kind of machinery?"
+
+"Machinery? You don't know much about what goes on in your town, do
+you?"
+
+"Not as much as an editor ought to know--which is everything."
+
+"I'll bring you Maggie's letter. That tells it better than I can. And I
+want to write it up, too. Let me write it up for the paper." She leaned
+forward and her eyes besought him. "I want to prove I can do something
+besides being a vulgar little 'Kitty the Cutie.'"
+
+"Oh, my dear," he said, half paternally, but only half, "I'm sorry I
+hurt you with that word."
+
+"You didn't mean to." Her smile forgave him. "Maggie's story means
+another fight for the paper. Can we stand another?"
+
+He warmed to the possessive "we." "So you know about our warfare," he
+said.
+
+"More than you think, perhaps. The books you gave me aren't the only
+things I study. I study the 'Clarion,' too."
+
+"Why?" he asked, interested.
+
+"Because it's yours." She looked at him straightly now. "Can you pull it
+through, Boss?"
+
+"I think so. I hope so."
+
+"We've lost a lot of ads. I can reckon that up, because I had some
+experience in the advertising department of the Certina shop, and I know
+rates." She pursed her lips with a dainty effect of careful computation.
+"Somewhere about four thousand a week out, isn't it?"
+
+"Four thousand, three hundred and seventy in store business last week."
+
+The talk settled down and confined itself to the financial and editorial
+policies of the paper, Milly asking a hundred eager and shrewd
+questions, now and again proffering some tentative counsel or caution.
+Impersonal though it seemed, through it Hal felt a growing tensity of
+intercourse; a sense of pregnant and perilous intimacy drawing them
+together.
+
+"Since you're taking such an interest, I might get you to help Mr. Ellis
+run the paper when I go away," he suggested jocularly.
+
+"You're not going away?" The query came in a sort of gasp.
+
+"Next week."
+
+"For long?" Her hand, as if in protest against the dreaded answer, went
+out to the arm of his chair. His own met and covered it reassuringly.
+
+"Not very. It's the new press."
+
+"We're going to have a new press?"
+
+"Hadn't you heard? You seem to know so much about the office. We're
+going to build up the basement and set the press just inside the front
+wall and then cut a big window through so that the world and his wife
+can see the 'Clarion' in the very act of making them better."
+
+Both fell silent. Their hands still clung. Their eyes were fixed upon
+the fire. Suddenly a log, half-consumed, crashed down, sending abroad a
+shower of sparks. The girl darted swiftly up to stamp out a tiny flame
+at her feet. Standing, she half turned toward Hal.
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked.
+
+"To New York."
+
+"Take me with you."
+
+So quietly had the crisis come that he scarcely realized it. For a
+measured space of heart-beats he gazed into the fireplace. As he stared,
+she slipped to the arm of his chair. He felt the alluring warmth of her
+body against his shoulder. Then he would have turned to search her eyes,
+but, divining him, she denied, pressing her cheek close against his own.
+
+"No; no! Don't look at me," she breathed.
+
+"You don't know what you mean," he whispered.
+
+"I do! I'm not a child. Take me with you."
+
+"It means ruin for you."
+
+"Ruin! That's a word! Words don't frighten me."
+
+"They do me. They're the most terrible things in the world."
+
+She laughed at that. "Is it the word you're afraid of, or is it me?"
+she challenged. "I'm not asking you anything. I don't want you to marry
+me. Oh!" she cried with a sinking break of the voice, "do you think I'm
+_bad_?"
+
+Freeing himself, he caught her face between his hands.
+
+"Are you--have you been 'bad,' as you call it?"
+
+"I don't blame you for asking--after what I've said. But I haven't."
+
+"And now?"
+
+"Now, I care. I never cared before. It was that, I suppose, kept me
+straight. Don't you care for me--a little, Hal?"
+
+He rose and strode to the window. When he turned from his long look out
+into the burgeoning spring she was standing silent, expectant. Like
+stone she stood as he came back, but her arms went up to receive him.
+Her lips melted into his, and the fire of her face flashed through every
+vein.
+
+"And afterward?" he said hoarsely.
+
+There was triumph in her answering laughter, passion-shaken though it
+was.
+
+"Then you'll take me with you."
+
+"But afterward?" he repeated.
+
+Lingeringly she released herself. "Let that take care of itself. I don't
+care for afterward. We're free, you and I. What's to hinder us from
+doing as we please? Who's going to be any the worse for it? Oh, I told
+you I was lawless. It's the Hardscrabbler blood in me, I guess."
+
+Deep in Hal's memory a response to that name stirred.
+
+"Somewhere," he said, "I have run across a Hardscrabbler before."
+
+"Me. But you've forgotten."
+
+"Have I? Let me see. It was in the old days when Dad and I were
+traveling. You were the child with the wonderful red hair, the night I
+was hurt. _Were_ you?"
+
+"And next day I tried to bite you because you wanted to play with a
+prettier little girl in beautiful clothes."
+
+Esme! The electric spark of thought leaped the long space of years from
+the child, Esme, to the girl, in the vain love of whom he had eaten his
+heart hollow. For the moment, passion for the vivid woman-creature
+before him had dulled that profounder feeling almost to obliteration.
+Perhaps--so the thought came to him--he might find forgetfulness,
+anodyne in Milly Neal's arms. But what of Milly, taken on such poor
+terms?
+
+The bitter love within him gave answer. Not loyalty to Esme Elliot whom
+he knew unworthy, but to Milly herself, bound him to honor and
+restraint; so strangely does the human soul make its dim and perilous
+way through the maze of motives. Even though the girl, now questing his
+face with puzzled, frightened eyes, asked nothing but to belong to him;
+demanded no bond of fealty or troth, held him free as she held herself
+free, content with the immediate happiness of a relation that, must end
+in sorrow for one or the other, yet he could not take what she so
+prodigally, so gallantly proffered, with the image of another woman
+smiling through his every thought. That, indeed, were to be unworthy,
+not of Esme, not of himself, but of Milly.
+
+He made a step toward her, and her glad hands went out to him again.
+Very gently he took them; very gently he bent and kissed her cheek.
+
+"That's for good-bye," he said. The voice in which he spoke seemed alien
+to his ears, so calm it was, so at variance with his inner turmoil.
+
+"You won't take me with you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You promised."
+
+"I know." He was not concerned now with verbal differentiations. Truly,
+he had promised, wordlessly though it had been. "But I can't."
+
+"You don't care?" she said piteously.
+
+"I care very much. If I cared less--"
+
+"There's some other woman."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Flame leaped in her eyes. "I hope she poisons your life."
+
+"I hope I haven't poisoned yours," he returned, lamely enough.
+
+"Oh, I'll manage to live on," she gibed. "I guess there are other men
+in the world besides you."
+
+"Don't make it too hard, Milly."
+
+"You're pitying me! Don't you dare pity me!" A sob rose, and burst from
+her. Then abruptly she seized command over herself. "What does it all
+matter?" she said. "Go away now and let me change my clothes."
+
+"Are they dry?"
+
+"I don't care whether they're dry or not. I don't care what becomes of
+me now." All the sullen revolt of generations of lawlessness was vocal
+in her words. "You wait and see!"
+
+Somehow Hal got out of the room, his mind awhirl, to await her
+downstairs. In a few moments she came, and with eyes somberly averted
+got into the runabout without a word. As they swung into the road, they
+met McGuire Ellis and Wayne, who bowed with a look of irrepressible
+surprise. During the ride homeward Hal made several essays at
+conversation. But the girl sat frozen in a white silence. Only when they
+pulled up at her door did she speak.
+
+"I'm going to try to forget this," she said in a dry, hard voice. "You
+do the same. I won't quit my job unless you want me to."
+
+"Don't," said Hal.
+
+"But you won't be bothered with seeing me any more. I'll send you Maggie
+Breen's letter and the story. I guess I understand a little better now
+how she felt when she took the poison."
+
+With that rankling in his brain, Hal Surtaine sat and pondered in his
+private study at home. His musings arraigned before him for judgment and
+contrast the two women who had so stormily wrought upon his new life.
+Esme Elliot had played with his love, had exploited it, made of it a
+tinsel ornament for vanity, sought, through it, to corrupt him from the
+hard-won honor of his calling. She had given him her lips for a lure;
+she had played, soul and body, the petty cheat with a high and ennobling
+passion. Yet, because she played within the rules by the world's
+measure, there was no stain upon her honor. By that same measure, what
+of Milly Neal? In her was no trickery of sex; only the ungrudging,
+wide-armed offer of all her womanhood, reckless of aught else but love.
+Debating within himself the phrase, "an honest woman," Hal laughed
+aloud. His laughter lacked much of being mirthful, and something of
+being just. For he had reckoned two daughters of Eve by the same
+standard, which is perhaps the oldest and most disastrous error
+hereditary to all the sons of Adam.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE POWER OF PRINT
+
+
+Hal paid thirty-two thousand dollars for the new press. It was a
+delicate giant of mechanism, able not only to act, but also to think
+with stupendous accuracy and swiftness; lacking only articulate speech
+to be wholly superhuman. But in signing the check for it, Hal, for the
+first time in his luxurious life experienced a financial qualm. Always
+before there had been an inexhaustible source wherefrom to draw. Now
+that he had issued his declaration of pecuniary independence, he began
+to appreciate the perishable nature of money. He came back from his
+week's journey to New York feeling distinctly poorer.
+
+Moreover there was an uncomfortable paradox connected with his purchase.
+That he should be put to so severe an expenditure merely for the purpose
+of incurring an increased current expense, struck him as a rather
+sardonic joke. Yet so it was. Circulation does not mean direct profit to
+a newspaper. On the contrary, it implies loss in many cases. For some
+weeks it had been costing the "Clarion," to print the extra papers
+necessitated by the increased demand, more than the money received from
+their sale. Until the status of the journal should justify a higher
+advertising charge, every added paper sold would involve a loss. True,
+an augmented circulation logically commands a higher advertising rate;
+it is thus that a newspaper reaps its harvest; and soon Hal hoped to be
+able to raise his advertising rate from fifteen to twenty-five cents a
+line. At that return his books would show a profit on a normal volume of
+advertising. Meantime he performed an act of involuntary philanthropy
+with every increase of issue, Nevertheless, Hal felt for his mechanical
+giant something of the new-toy thrill. To him it was a symbol of
+productive power. It made appeal to his imagination, typifying the
+reborn "Clarion." He saw it as a master-loom weaving fresh patterns, day
+by day, into the fabric of the city's life and thought. That all might
+view the process, he had it mounted high from the basement, behind a
+broad plate-glass show window set in the front wall, a highly
+unstrategic position, as McGuire Ellis pointed out.
+
+"Suppose," said he, "a horse runs wild and makes a dive through that
+window? Or a couple of bums get shooting at each other, and a stray
+bullet comes whiffling through the glass and catches young Mr. Press in
+his delikit insides. We're out of business for a week, maybe, mending
+him up."
+
+Shearson, however, was in favor of it. It suggested prosperity and
+aroused public interest. On Hal's return from New York, the fat and
+melancholious advertising manager had exhibited a somewhat mollified
+pessimism.
+
+"The Boston Store is coming back," he visited Hal's sanctum to announce.
+
+"Why, that's John M. Gibbs's store, isn't it?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"And he's E.M. Pierce's brother-in-law. I thought he'd stick by his
+family in fighting the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"Family is all right, but Grinder Gibbs is for business first and
+everything else afterwards. Our rates look good to him, with the
+circulation we're showing. And he knows we bring results. He's been
+using us on the quiet for a little side issue of his own."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Some sewing-girls' employment thing. It's in the 'Classified'
+department. Don't amount to much; but it's proved to him that the
+'Clarion' ad does the business. I've been on his trail for two weeks. So
+the store starts in Sunday with half-pages. They say Pierce is crazy
+mad."
+
+"No wonder."
+
+"The best of it is that now the Retail Union won't fight us, as a body,
+for taking up the Consumers' League fight. They can't very well, with
+their second biggest store using the 'Clarion's columns."
+
+McGuire Ellis, too, was feeling quite cheerful over the matter.
+
+"It shows that you can be independent and get away with it," he
+declared, "if you get out an interesting enough paper. By the way,
+that's a hot little story 'Kitty the Cutie' turned in on the Breen
+girl's suicide."
+
+"It was only attempted suicide, wasn't it?"
+
+"The first time. She had a second trial at it day before yesterday and
+turned the trick. You'll find Neal's copy on your desk. I held it for
+you."
+
+From out of a waiting heap of mail, proof, and manuscript, Hal selected
+the sheets covered with Milly Neal's neat business chirography. She had
+written her account briefly and with restraint, building her "story"
+around the girl's letter. It set forth the tragedy of a petty swindle.
+
+The scheme was as simple as it was cruel. A concern calling itself "The
+Sewing Aid Association" advertised for sewing-women, offering from ten
+to fifteen dollars a week to workers; experience not necessary. Maggie
+Breen answered the advertisement. The manager explained to her that the
+job was making children's underclothing from pattern. She would be
+required to come daily to the factory and sew on a machine which she
+would purchase from the company, the price, thirty dollars, being
+reckoned as her first three weeks' wages. To all this, duly set forth in
+a specious contract, the girl affixed her signature.
+
+She was set to work at once. The labor was hard, the forewoman a driver,
+but ten dollars a week is good pay. Hoping for a possible raise Maggie
+turned out more garments than any of her fellow workers. For two weeks
+and a half all went well. In another few days the machine would be paid
+for, the money would begin to come in, and Maggie would get a really
+square meal, which she had come to long for with a persistent and severe
+hankering. Then the trap was sprung. Maggie's work was found
+"unsatisfactory." She was summarily discharged. In vain did she protest.
+She would try again; she would do better. No use; "the house" found her
+garments unmarketable. Sorrowfully she asked for her money. No money was
+due her. Again she protested. The manager thrust a copy of her contract
+under her nose and turned her into the street. Thus the "Sewing Aid
+Association" had realized upon fifteen days' labor for which they had
+not paid one cent, and the "installment" sewing-machine was ready for
+its next victim. This is a very pleasant and profitable policy and is in
+use, in one form or another, in nearly every American city. Proof of
+which the sufficiently discerning eye may find in the advertising
+columns of many of our leading newspapers and magazines.
+
+To Maggie Breen it was small consolation that she was but one of many.
+Even her simple mind grasped the "joker" in the contract. She tore up
+that precious document, went home, reflected that she was rather hungry
+and likely to be hungrier, quite wretched and likely to be wretcheder;
+and so made a decoction of sulphur matches and drank it. An ambulance
+surgeon disobligingly arrived in time to save her life for once; but the
+second time she borrowed some carbolic acid, which is more expeditious
+than any ambulance surgeon.
+
+This was the story which "Kitty the Cutie," while sticking close to the
+facts, had contrived to inform with a woman's wrath and a woman's pity.
+Reading it, Hal took fire. He determined to back it up with an
+editorial. But first he would look into the matter for himself. With
+this end in view he set out for Number 65 Sperry Street, where Maggie
+Breen's younger sister and bedridden mother lived. It was his maiden
+essay at reporting.
+
+Sperry Street shocked Hal. He could not have conceived that a carefully
+regulated and well-kept city such as Worthington (he knew it, be it
+remembered, chiefly from above the wheels of an automobile) would permit
+such a slum to exist. On either side of the street, gaunt wooden
+barracks, fire-traps at a glance, reared themselves five rackety stories
+upward, for the length of a block. Across intersecting Grant Street the
+sky-line dropped a few yards, showing ragged through the metal cornice
+and sickly brick chimneys of a tenement row only a degree less
+forbidding than the first. The street itself was a mere refuse patch
+smeared out over bumpy cobbles. The visitor entered the tenement at 65,
+between reeking barrels which had waited overlong for the garbage cart.
+
+He was received without question, as a reporter for the "Clarion." At
+first Sadie Breen, anaemic, hopeless-eyed, timorous, was reluctant to
+speak. But the mother proved Hal's ally.
+
+"Let 'im put it in the paper," she exhorted. "Maybe it'll keep some
+other girl away from them sharks."
+
+"Why didn't your sister sue the company?" asked Hal.
+
+"Where'd we get the money for a lawyer?" whined Sadie.
+
+"It's no use, anyway," said Mrs. Breen. "They've tried it in Municipal
+Court. The sharks always wins. Somebody ought to shoot that manager,"
+she added fiercely.
+
+"Yes; that's great to say," jeered Sadie, in a whine. "But look what
+happened to that Mason girl from Hoppers Hollow. She hit at him with a
+pair of scissors, an' they sent her up for a year."
+
+"Better that than Cissy Green's way. You know what become of her. Went
+on the street," explained Mrs. Breen to Hal.
+
+They poured out story after story of poor women entrapped by one or
+another of those lures which wring the final drop of blood from the
+bleakest poverty. In the midst of the recital there was a knock at the
+door, and a tall young man in black entered. He at once introduced
+himself to Hal as the Reverend Norman Hale, and went into conference
+with the two women about a place for Sadie. This being settled, Hal's
+mission was explained to him.
+
+"A reporter?" said the Reverend Norman. "I wish the papers _would_ take
+this thing up. A little publicity would kill it off, I believe."
+
+"Won't the courts do anything?"
+
+"They can't. I've talked to the judge. The concern's contract is
+water-tight."
+
+The two young men went down together through the black hallways, and
+stood talking at the outer door.
+
+"How do people live in places like this?" exclaimed Hal.
+
+"Not very successfully. The death-rate is pretty high. Particularly of
+late. There's what a friend of mine around the corner--he happens to be
+a barkeeper, by the way--calls a lively trade in funerals around here."
+
+"Is your church in this district?"
+
+"My club is. People call it a mission, but I don't like the word. It's
+got too much the flavor of reaching down from above to dispense
+condescending charity."
+
+"Charity certainly seems to be needed here."
+
+"Help and decent fairness are needed; not charity. What's your paper, by
+the way?"
+
+"The 'Clarion.'"
+
+"Oh!" said the other, in an altered tone. "I shouldn't suppose that the
+'Clarion' would go in much for any kind of reform."
+
+"Do you read it?"
+
+"No. But I know Dr. Surtaine."
+
+"Dr. Surtaine doesn't own the 'Clarion.' I do."
+
+"You're Harrington Surtaine? I thought I had seen you somewhere before.
+But you said you were a reporter."
+
+"Pardon me, I didn't. Mrs. Breen said that. However, it's true; I'm
+doing a bit of reporting on this case. And I'm going to do some writing
+on it before I'm through."
+
+"As for Dr. Surtaine--" began the young clergyman, then checked himself,
+pondering.
+
+What further he might have had to say was cut off by a startling
+occurrence. A door on the floor above opened; there was a swift patter
+of feet, and then from overhead, a long-drawn, terrible cry. Immediately
+a young girl, her shawl drawn about her face, ran from the darkness into
+the half-light of the lower hall and would have passed between them but
+that Norman Hale caught her by the arm.
+
+"Lemme go! Lemme go!" she shrieked, pawing at him.
+
+"Quiet," he bade her. "What is it, Emily?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Hale!" she cried, recognizing him and clutching at his
+shoulder. "Don't let it get me!"
+
+"Nothing's going to hurt you. Tell me about it."
+
+"It's the Death," she shuddered.
+
+The man's face changed. "Here?" he said. "In this block?"
+
+"Don't you go," she besought. "Don't you go, Mr. Hale. You'll get it."
+
+"Where is it? Answer me at once."
+
+"First-floor front," sobbed the girl. "Mrs. Schwarz."
+
+"Don't wait for me," said the minister to Hal. "In fact you'd better
+leave the place. Good-day."
+
+Thus abruptly discarded from consideration, Hal turned to the fugitive.
+
+"Is some one dead?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Dying, then?"
+
+"As good as. It's the Death," said the girl with a strong shudder.
+
+"You said that before. What do you mean by the Death?"
+
+"Don't keep me here talkin'," she shivered. "I wanta go home."
+
+Hal walked along with her, wondering. "I wish you would tell me," he
+said gently.
+
+"All I know is, they never get well."
+
+"What sort of sickness is it?"
+
+"Search me." The petty slang made a grim medium for the uncertainty of
+terror which it sought to express. "They've had it over in the Rookeries
+since winter. There ain't no name for it. They just call it the Death."
+
+"The Rookeries?" said Hal, caught by the word. "Where are they?"
+
+"Don't you know the Rookeries?" The girl pointed to the long double row
+of grisly wooden edifices down the street. "Them's Sadler's Shacks on
+this side, and Tammany Barracks on the other. They go all the way around
+the block."
+
+"You say the sickness has been in there?"
+
+"Yes. Now it's broken out an' we'll all get it an' die," she wailed.
+
+A little, squat, dark man hurried past them. He nodded, but did not
+pause.
+
+"I know him," said Hal. "Who is he?"
+
+"Doc De Vito. He tends to all the cases. But it's no good. They all
+die."
+
+"You keep your head," advised Hal. "Don't be scared. And wash your hands
+and face thoroughly as soon as you get home."
+
+"A lot o' good that'll do against the Death," she said scornfully, and
+left him.
+
+Back at the office, Hal, settling down to write his editorial, put the
+matter of the Rookeries temporarily out of mind, but made a note to
+question his father about it.
+
+Milly Neal's article, touched up and amplified by Hal's pen, appeared
+the following morning. The editorial was to be a follow-up in the next
+day's paper. Coming down early to put the finishing touches to this, Hal
+found the article torn out and pasted on a sheet of paper. Across the
+top of the paper was written in pencil:
+
+    "_Clipped from the Clarion; a Deadly Parallel_."
+
+The penciled legend ran across the sheet to include, under its caption
+a second excerpt, also in "Clarion" print, but of the advertisement
+style:
+
+    WANTED--Sewing-girls for simple machine work. Experience not
+    necessary. $10 to $15 a week guaranteed. Apply in person at 14
+    Manning Street.
+    THE SEWING AID ASSOCIATION.
+
+Below, in the same hand writing was the query:
+
+"_What's your percentage of the blood-money, Mr. Harrington Surtaine?"_
+
+Hal threw it over to Ellis. "Whose writing is that?" he asked. "It looks
+familiar to me."
+
+"Max Veltman's," said Ellis. He took in the meaning of it. "The insolent
+whelp!" he said.
+
+"Insolent? Yes; he's that. But the worst of it is, I'm afraid he's
+right." And he telephoned for Shearson.
+
+The advertising manager came up, puffing.
+
+Hal held out the clipping to him.
+
+"How long has that been running?"
+
+"On and off for six months."
+
+"Throw it out."
+
+"Throw it out!" repeated the other bitterly. "That's easy enough said."
+
+"And easily enough done."
+
+"It's out already. Taken out by early notice this morning."
+
+"That's all right, then."
+
+"_Is_ it all right!" boomed Shearson. "_Is_ it! You won't think so when
+you hear the rest of it."
+
+"Try me."
+
+"Do you know _who_ the Sewing Aid Association is?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It's John M. Gibbs! That's who it is!"
+
+"Yell louder, Shearson. It may save you from apoplexy," advised McGuire
+Ellis with tender solicitude.
+
+"And we lose every line of the Boston Store advertising, that I worked
+so hard to get back."
+
+"That'll hurt," allowed Ellis.
+
+"Hurt! It draws blood, that does. That Sewing Aid Association is Gibbs's
+scheme to supply the children's department of his store. Why couldn't
+you find out who you were hitting, Mr. Surtaine?" demanded Shearson
+pathetically, "before you went and mucksed everything up this way? See
+what comes of all this reform guff."
+
+"Are you sure that John M. Gibbs is back of that sewing-girl ad?"
+
+"Sure? Didn't he call me up this morning and raise the devil?"
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Shearson. That's all."
+
+To his editorial galley-proof Hal added two lines.
+
+"What's that, Mr. Surtaine?" asked the advertising manager curiously.
+
+"That's outside of your department. But since you ask, I'll tell you.
+It's an editorial on the kind of swindle that causes tragedies like
+Maggie Breen's. And the sentence which I have just added, thanks to you,
+is this:
+
+"'The proprietor of this scheme which drives penniless women to the
+street or to suicide is John M. Gibbs, principal owner of the Boston
+Store.'"
+
+Words failed Shearson; also motive power, almost. For reckonable seconds
+he stood stricken. Then slowly he got under way and rolled through the
+door. Once, on the stairs, they heard from him a protracted rumbling
+groan. "Ruin," was the one distinguishable word.
+
+It left an echo in Hal's brain, an echo which rang hollowly amongst
+misgivings.
+
+"_Is_ it ruin to try and run a newspaper without taking a percentage of
+that kind of profits, Mac?" he asked.
+
+"Well, a newspaper can't be too squeamish about its ads." was the
+cautious answer.
+
+"Do all newspapers carry that kind of stuff?"
+
+"Not quite. Most of them, though. They need the money."
+
+"What's the matter with business in this town? Everything seems to be
+rotten."
+
+Ellis took refuge in a proverb. "Business is business," he stated
+succinctly.
+
+"And it's as bad everywhere as here? This is all new to me, you know. I
+rather expected to find every concern as decently and humanly run as
+Certina."
+
+One swift, suspicious glance Ellis cast upon his superior, but Hal's
+face was candor itself. "Well, no," he admitted. "Perhaps it isn't as
+bad in some cities. The trouble here is that all the papers are
+terrorized or bribed into silence. Until we began hitting out with our
+little shillalah, nobody had ever dared venture a peep of disapproval.
+So, business got to thinking it could do as it pleased. You can't really
+blame business much. Immunity from criticism isn't ever good for the
+well-known human race."
+
+Hal took the matter of the "Sewing Aid" swindle home with him for
+consideration. Hitherto he had considered advertising only as it
+affected or influenced news. Now he began to see it in another light, as
+a factor in itself of immense moral moment and responsibility. It was
+dimly outlined to his conscience that, as a partner in the profit, he
+became also a partner in the enterprise. Thus he faced the question of
+the honesty or dishonesty of the advertising in his paper. And this is a
+question fraught with financial portent for the honorable journalist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+PATRIOTS
+
+
+Worthington's Old Home Week is a gay, gaudy, and profitable institution.
+During the six days of its course the city habitually maintains the
+atmosphere of a three-ringed circus, the bustle of a county fair, and
+the business ethics of the Bowery. Allured by widespread advertising and
+encouraged by special rates on the railroads, the countryside for a
+radius of one hundred miles pours its inhabitants into the local
+metropolis, their pockets filled with greased dollars. Upon them
+Worthington lavishes its left-over and shelf-cluttering merchandise, at
+fifty per cent more than its value, amidst general rejoicings. As Festus
+Willard once put it, "There is a sound of revelry by night and larceny
+by day." But then Mr. Willard, being a manufacturer and not a retailer,
+lacks the subtler sympathy which makes lovely the spirit of Old Home
+hospitality.
+
+This year the celebration was to outdo itself. Because of the centennial
+feature, no less a person than the President of the United States, who
+had spent a year of his boyhood at a local school, was pledged to
+attend. In itself this meant a record crowd. Crops had been good locally
+and the toil-worn agriculturist had surplus money wherewith to purchase
+phonographs, gold teeth, crayon enlargements of self and family, home
+instruction outfits for hand-painting sofa cushions, and similar prime
+necessities of farm life. To transform his static savings into dynamic
+assets for itself was Worthington's basic purpose in holding its gala
+week. And now this beneficent plan was threatened by one individual, and
+he young, inexperienced, and a new Worthingtonian, Mr. Harrington
+Surtaine. This unforeseen cloud upon the horizon of peace, prosperity,
+and happiness rose into the ken of Dr. Surtaine the day after the
+appearance of the sewing-girl editorial.
+
+Dr. Surtaine hadn't liked that editorial. With his customary air of
+long-suffering good nature he had told Hal so over his home-made apple
+pie and rich milk, at the cheap and clean little luncheon place which he
+patronized. Hal had no defense or excuse to offer. Indeed, his reference
+to the topic was of the most casual order and was immediately followed
+by this disconcerting question:
+
+"What about the Rookeries epidemic, Dad?"
+
+"Epidemic? There's no epidemic, Boyee."
+
+"Well, there's something. People are dying down there faster than they
+ought to. It's spread beyond the Rookeries now."
+
+This was no news to the big doctor. But it was news to him that Hal knew
+it.
+
+"How do you know?" he asked.
+
+"I've been down there and ran right upon it."
+
+The father's affection and alarm outleapt his caution at this. "You
+better keep away from there, Boyee," he warned anxiously.
+
+"If there's no epidemic, why should I keep away?"
+
+"There's always a lot of infection down in those tenements," said Dr.
+Surtaine lamely.
+
+"Dad, when you made your report for the 'Clarion' did you tell us all
+you knew?"
+
+"All except some medical technicalities," said the Doctor, who never
+told a lie when a half-lie would serve.
+
+"I've just had a talk with the health officer, Dr. Merritt."
+
+"Merritt's an alarmist."
+
+"He's alarmed this time, certainly."
+
+"What does he think it is?"
+
+"It?" said Hal, a trifle maliciously. "The epidemic?"
+
+"Epidemic's a big word. The sickness."
+
+"How can he tell? He's had no chance to see the cases. They still
+mysteriously disappear before he can get to them. By the way, your Dr.
+De Vito seems to have a hand in that."
+
+"Hal, I wish you'd get over your trick of seeing a mystery in
+everything," said his father with a mild and tempered melancholy. "It's
+a queer slant to your brain."
+
+"There's a queer slant to this business of the Rookeries somewhere, but
+I don't think it's in my brain. Merritt says the Mayor is holding him
+off, and he believes that Tip O'Farrell, agent for the Rookeries, has
+got the Mayor's ear. He wants to force the issue by quarantining the
+whole locality."
+
+"And advertise to the world that there's some sort of contagion there!"
+cried Dr. Surtaine in dismay.
+
+"Well, if there is--"
+
+"Think of Old Home Week," adjured his father.
+
+"The whole thing would be stamped out long before then."
+
+"But not the panic and the fear of it. Hal, I do hope you aren't going
+to take this up in the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"Not at present. There isn't enough to go on. But we're going to watch,
+and if things get any worse I intend to do something. So much I've
+promised Merritt."
+
+The result of this conversation was that Dr. Surtaine called a special
+meeting of the Committee on Arrangements for Old Home Week. In
+conformity with the laws of its genus, the committee was made up of the
+representative business men of the city, with a clergyman or two for
+compliment to the Church, and most of the newspaper owners or editors,
+to enlist the "services of the press."
+
+Its chairman was thoroughly typical of the mental and ethical attitude
+of the committee. He felt comfortably assured that as he thought upon
+any question of local public import, so would they think. Nevertheless,
+he didn't intend to tell them all he knew. Such was not the purpose of
+the meeting. Its real purpose, not to put too fine a point on it, was to
+intimidate the newspapers, lest, if the "Clarion" broke the politic
+silence, others might follow; and, as a secondary step, to furnish funds
+for the handling of the Rookeries situation. Since Dr. Surtaine designed
+to reveal as little as possible to his colleagues, he naturally began
+his speech with the statement that he would be perfectly frank with
+them.
+
+"There's more sickness than there ought to be in the Rookeries
+district," he proceeded. "It isn't dangerous, but it may prove
+obstinate. Some sort of malarious affection, apparently. Perhaps it may
+be necessary to do some cleaning up down there. In that case, money may
+be needed."
+
+"How much?" somebody asked.
+
+"Five thousand dollars ought to do it."
+
+"That's a considerable sum," another pointed out.
+
+"And this is a serious matter," retorted the chairman. "Many of us
+remember the disastrous effect that rumors of smallpox had on Old Home
+Week, some years back. We can't afford to have anything of that sort
+this time. An epidemic scare might ruin the whole show."
+
+Now, an epidemic to these hard-headed business men was something that
+kept people away from their stores. And the rumor of an epidemic might
+accomplish that as thoroughly as the epidemic itself. Therefore, without
+questioning too far, they were quite willing to spend money to avert
+such disaster. The sum suggested was voted into the hands of a committee
+of three to be appointed by the chair.
+
+"In the mean time," continued Dr. Surtaine, "I think we should go on
+record to the effect that any newspaper which shall publish or any
+individual who shall circulate any report calculated to inspire distrust
+or alarm is hostile to the best interests of the city."
+
+"Well, what newspaper is likely to do that?" demanded Leroy Vane, of
+the "Banner."
+
+"If it's any it'll be the 'Clarion,'" growled Colonel Parker, editor of
+the "Telegram."
+
+"The newspaper business in this town is going to the dogs since the
+'Clarion' changed hands," said Carney Ford, of the "Press," savagely.
+"Nobody can tell what they're going to do next over there. They're
+keeping the decent papers on the jump all the time, with their
+yellowness and scarehead muckraking."
+
+"A big sensational story about an epidemic would be great meat for the
+'Clarion,'" said Vane. "What does it care for the best interests of the
+town?"
+
+"As an editor," observed Dr. Surtaine blandly, "my son don't appear to
+be over-popular with his confreres."
+
+"Why should he be?" cried Parker. "He's forever publishing stuff that
+we've always let alone. Then the public wants to know why we don't get
+the news. Get it? Of course we get it. But we don't always want to print
+it. There's such a thing as a gentleman's understanding in the newspaper
+business."
+
+"So I've heard," replied the chairman. "Well, gentlemen, the boy's
+young. Give him time."
+
+"I'll give him six months, not longer, to go on the way he's been
+going," said John M. Gibbs, with a vicious snap of his teeth.
+
+"Does the 'Clarion' really intend to publish anything about an
+epidemic?" asked Stickler, of the Hotel Stickler.
+
+"Nothing is decided yet, so far as I know. But I may safely say that
+there's a probability of their getting up some kind of a sensational
+story."
+
+"Can't you control your own son?" asked some one bluntly.
+
+"Understand this, if you please, gentlemen. Over the Worthington
+'Clarion' I have no control whatsoever."
+
+"Well, there's where the danger lies," said Vane. "If the 'Clarion'
+comes out with a big story, the rest of us have got to publish something
+to save our face."
+
+"What's to be done, then?" cried Stickler. "This means a big loss to the
+hotel business."
+
+"To all of us," amended the chairman. "My suggestion is that our special
+committee be empowered to wait upon the editor of the 'Clarion' and talk
+the matter over with him."
+
+Embodied in the form of a motion this was passed, and the chair
+appointed as that committee three merchants, all of whom were members of
+the Publication Committee of the Retail Union; and, as such, exercised
+the most powerful advertising control in Worthington. Dr. Surtaine still
+pinned his hopes to the dollar and its editorial potency.
+
+Unofficially and privately these men invited to go with them to the
+"Clarion" office Elias M. Pierce, who had not been at the meeting. At
+first he angrily refused. He wished to meet that young whelp Surtaine
+nowhere but in a court of law, he announced. But after Bertram
+Hollenbeck, of the Emporium, the chairman of the subcommittee, had
+outlined his plan, Pierce took a night to think it over, and in the
+morning accepted the invitation with a grim smile.
+
+Forewarned by his father, who had begged that he consider carefully and
+with due regard to his own future the proposals to be set before him,
+Hal was ready to receive the deputation in form. Pierce's presence
+surprised him. He greeted all four men with equally punctilious
+politeness, however, and gave courteous attention while Hollenbeck spoke
+for his colleagues. The merchant explained the purpose of the visit; set
+forth the importance to the city of the centennial Old Home Week, and
+urged the inadvisability of any sensationalism which might alarm the
+public.
+
+"We have sufficient assurance that there's nothing dangerous in the
+present situation," he said.
+
+"I haven't," said Hal. "If I had, there would be nothing further to be
+said. The 'Clarion' is not seeking to manufacture a sensation."
+
+"What is the 'Clarion' seeking to do?" asked Stensland, another of the
+committee.
+
+"Discover and print the news."
+
+"Well, it isn't news until it's printed," Hollenbeck pointed out
+comfortably. "And what's the use of printing that sort of thing, anyway?
+It does a lot of people a lot of harm; but I don't see how it can
+possibly do any one any good."
+
+"Oh, put things straight," said Stensland. "Here, Mr. Editor; you've
+stirred up a lot of trouble and lost a lot of advertising by it. Now,
+you start an epidemic scare and kill off the biggest retail business of
+the year, and you won't find an advertiser in town to stand by you. Is
+that plain?"
+
+"Plain coercion," said Hal.
+
+"Call it what you like," began the apostle of frankness, when Hollenbeck
+cut in on him.
+
+"No use getting excited," he said. "Let's hear Mr. Surtaine's views.
+What do you think ought to be done about the Rookeries?"
+
+In anticipation of some such question Hal had been in consultation with
+Dr. Elliot and the health officer that morning.
+
+"Open up the Rookeries to the health authorities and to private
+physicians other than Dr. De Vito. Call Tip O'Farrell's blockade off.
+Clean out and disinfect the tenements. If necessary, quarantine every
+building that's suspected."
+
+"Why, what do you think the disease is?" cried Hollenbeck, taken aback
+by the positiveness of Hal's speech.
+
+"Do _you_ tell _me_. You've come here to give directions."
+
+"Something in the nature of malaria," said Hollenbeck, recovering
+himself. "So there's no call for extreme measures. The Old Home Week
+Committee will look after the cleaning-up. As for quarantine, that would
+be a confession. And we want to do the thing as quietly as possible."
+
+"You've come to the wrong shop to buy quiet," said Hal mildly.
+
+"Now listen to _me_." Elias M. Pierce sat forward in his chair and
+fixed his stony gaze on Hal's face. "This is what you'll do with the
+'Clarion.' You'll agree here and now to print nothing about this alleged
+epidemic."
+
+Hal turned upon him a silent but benign regard. The recollection of that
+contained smile lent an acid edge to the magnate's next speech.
+
+"You will further promise," continued Pierce, "to quit all your
+muckraking of the business interests and business men of this town."
+
+Still Hal smiled.
+
+"And you will publish to-morrow a full retraction of the article about
+my daughter and an ample apology for the attack upon me."
+
+The editorial expression did not change.
+
+"On those conditions," Pierce concluded, "I will withdraw the criminal
+proceedings against you, but not the civil suit. The indictment will be
+handed down to-morrow."
+
+"I'm ready for it."
+
+"Are you ready for this? We have two unbiased witnesses--unbiased, mind
+you--who will swear that the accident was Miss Cleary's own fault.
+And--" there was the hint of an evil smile on the thin lips, as they
+released the final words very slowly--"and Miss Cleary's own affidavit
+to that effect."
+
+For the moment the words seemed a jumble to Hal. Meaning, dire and
+disastrous, informed them, as he repeated them to himself.
+Providentially his telephone rang, giving him an excuse to go out. He
+hurried over to McGuire Ellis.
+
+"I'm afraid it's right, Boss," said the associate editor, after hearing
+Hal's report.
+
+"But how can it be? I saw the whole thing."
+
+"E.M. Pierce is rich. The nurse is poor. That is, she has been poor.
+Lately I've had a man keeping tabs on her. Since leaving the hospital,
+she's moved into an expensive flat, and has splurged out into good
+clothes. Whence the wherewithal?"
+
+"Bribery!"
+
+"Without a doubt."
+
+"Then Pierce has got us."
+
+"It looks so," admitted Ellis sorrowfully.
+
+"But we can't give in," groaned Hal. "It means the end of the 'Clarion.'
+What is there to do?"
+
+"Play for time," advised the other. "Go back there with a stiff upper
+lip and tell 'em you won't be bulldozed or hurried. Then we'll have a
+council."
+
+"Suppose they demand an answer."
+
+"Refuse. See here, Hal. I know Pierce. He'd never give up his revenge,
+for any good he could do to the cause of the city by holding off the
+'Clarion' on this Old Home Week business if there weren't something
+else. Pierce isn't built that way. That bargain offer is mighty
+suspicious. There's a weak spot in his case somewhere. Hold him off, and
+we'll hunt for it."
+
+None could have guessed, from the young editor's bearing, on his return,
+that he knew himself to be facing a crucial situation. With the utmost
+nonchalance he insisted that he must have time for consideration.
+Influenced by Pierce, who was sure he had Hal beaten, the committee
+insisted on an immediate reply to their ultimatum.
+
+"You go up against this bunch," advised Stensland, "and it's dollars to
+doughnuts the receiver'll have your 'Clarion' inside of six months."
+
+Hal leaned indolently against the door. "Speaking of dollars and
+doughnuts," he said, "I'd like to tell you gentlemen a little story. You
+all know who Babson is, the biggest stock-market advertiser in the
+country. Well, Babson's vanity is to be a great man outside of his own
+line. He owns a big country place down East, near the old town of
+Singatuck; one of the oldest towns on the coast. Babson is as new as
+Singatuck is old. The people didn't care much about his patronizing
+ways. Nevertheless, he kept doing things to 'brace the town up,' as he
+put it. The town needed it. It was about bankrupt. The fire department
+was a joke, the waterworks a farce, and the town hall a ruin. Babson
+thought this gave him a chance to put his name on the map. So he said to
+his local factotum, 'You go down to the meeting of the selectmen next
+week, shake a bagful of dollars in front of those old doughnuts, and
+make 'em this proposition: I'll give five thousand dollars to the fire
+department, establish a water system, rebuild the town hall, pay off the
+town debt and put ten thousand dollars into the treasury if they'll
+change the name of the town from Singatuck to Babson.'
+
+"The factotum went to the meeting and presented the proposition. Now
+Singatuck is proud of its age and character with a local pride that is
+quite beyond the Babson dollars or the Babson type of imagination. His
+proposition aroused no debate. There was a long silence. Then an old
+moss-farmer who hadn't had money enough to buy himself a new tooth for
+twenty years arose and said: 'I move you, Mister Chairman, that this
+body thank Mr. Babson kindly for his offer and tell him to go to hell.'
+
+"The motion was carried unanimously, and the meeting proceeded to the
+consideration of other business. I cite this, gentlemen, merely as
+evidence that the disparity between the dollar and the doughnut isn't as
+great as some suppose."
+
+The third member of the committee, who had thus far spoken no word,
+peered curiously at Hal from above a hooked nose. He was Mintz, of
+Sheffler and Mintz.
+
+"Do I get you righd?" he observed mildly; "you're telling us to go where
+the selectmen sent Misder Babson."
+
+"Plumb," replied Hal, with his most amiable expression. "So far as any
+immediate decision is concerned."
+
+"Less ged oud," said Mr. Mintz to his colleagues. They got out. Mintz
+was last to go. He came over to Hal.
+
+"I lyg your story," he said. "I lyg to see a feller stand up for his
+bizniz against the vorlt. I'm a Jew. I hope you lose--but--goot luck!"
+
+He held out his hand. Hal took it. "Mr. Mintz, I'm glad to know you,"
+said he earnestly.
+
+Nothing now remained for the committee to do but to expend their
+allotted fund to the best purpose. Their notion of the proper method was
+typically commercial. They thought to buy off an epidemic. Many times
+this has been tried. Never yet has it succeeded. It embodies one of the
+most dangerous of popular hygienic fallacies, that the dollar can
+overtake and swallow the germ.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CREEPING FLAME
+
+
+For sheer uncertainty an epidemic is comparable only to fire on
+shipboard. The wisest expert can but guess at the time or place of its
+catastrophic explosion. It may thrust forth here and there a tongue of
+threat, only to subside and smoulder again. Sometimes it "sulks" for so
+protracted a period that danger seems to be over. Then, without warning,
+comes swift disaster with panic in its train.
+
+But one man in all Worthington knew, early, the true nature of the
+disease which quietly crept among the Rookeries licking up human life,
+and he was well trained in keeping his own counsel. In this crisis,
+whatever Dr. Surtaine may have lacked in scrupulosity of method, his
+intentions were good. He honestly believed that he was doing well by his
+city in veiling the nature of the contagion. Scientifically he knew
+little about it save in the most general way; and his happy optimism
+bolstered the belief that if only secrecy could be preserved and the
+fair repute of the city for sound health saved, the trouble would
+presently die out of itself. He looked to his committee to manage the
+secrecy. Unfortunately this particular form of trouble hasn't the habit
+of dying out quietly and of itself. It has to be fought and slain in the
+open.
+
+As Dr. Surtaine's committee hadn't the faintest notion of how to handle
+their five-thousand-dollar appropriation, they naturally consulted the
+Honorable Tip O'Farrell, agent for and boss of the Rookeries. And as the
+Honorable Tip had a very definite and even eager notion of what might be
+done with that amount of ready cash, he naturally volunteered to handle
+the fund to the best advantage, which seemed quite reasonable, since he
+was familiar with the situation. Therefore the disposition of the money
+was left to him. Do not, however, oh high-minded and honorable reader,
+be too ready to suppose that this was the end of the five thousand
+dollars, so far as the Rookeries are concerned. Politicians of the
+O'Farrell type may not be meticulous on points of finance. But they are
+quite likely to be human. Tip O'Farrell had seen recently more misery
+than even his toughened sensibilities could uncomplainingly endure. Some
+of the fund may have gone into the disburser's pocket. A much greater
+portion of it, I am prepared to affirm, was distributed in those
+intimate and effective forms of beneficence which, skillfully enough
+managed, almost lose the taint of charity. O'Farrell was tactful and he
+knew his people. Many cases over which organized philanthropy would have
+blundered sorely, were handled with a discretion little short of
+inspired. Much wretchedness was relieved; much suffering and perhaps
+some lives saved.
+
+The main issue, nevertheless, was untouched. The epidemic continued to
+spread beneath the surface of silence. O'Farrell wasn't interested in
+that side of it. He didn't even know what was the matter. What money he
+expended on that phase of the difficulty was laid out in perfecting his
+system of guards, so that unauthorized doctors couldn't get in, or
+unauthorized news leak out. Also he continued to carry on an irregular
+but costly traffic in dead bodies. Meantime, the Special Committee of
+the Old Home Week Organization, thus comfortably relieved of
+responsibility and the appropriation, could now devote itself
+single-mindedly to worrying over the "Clarion."
+
+According to Elias M. Pierce, no mean judge of men, there was nothing to
+worry about in that direction. That snake, he considered, was scotched.
+It might take time for said snake, who was a young snake with a head
+full of poison (his uncomplimentary metaphor referred, I need hardly
+state, to Mr. Harrington Surtaine), to come to his serpentine senses;
+but in the end he must realize that he was caught. The committee wasn't
+so smugly satisfied. Time was going on and there was no word, one way or
+the other, from the "Clarion" office.
+
+Inside that office more was stirring than the head of it knew about. On
+a warmish day, McGuire Ellis, seated at his open window, had permitted
+the bland air of early June to lull him to a nap, which was rudely
+interrupted by the intrusion of a harsh point amongst his waistcoat
+buttons. Stumbling hastily to his feet he confronted Dr. Miles Elliot.
+
+"Wassamatter?" he demanded, in the thick tones of interrupted sleep.
+"What are you poking me in the ribs for?"
+
+"McBurney's point," observed the visitor agreeably. "Now, if you had
+appendicitis, you'd have yelped. You haven't got appendicitis."
+
+"Much obliged," grumped Mr. Ellis. "Couldn't you tell me that without a
+cane?"
+
+"I spoke to you twice, but all you replied was 'Hoong!' As I speak only
+the Mandarin dialect of Chinese--"
+
+"Sit down," said Ellis, "and tell me what you're doing in this den of
+vice and crime."
+
+"Vice and crime is correct," confirmed the physician. "You're still
+curing cancer, consumption, corns, colds, and cramps in print, for blood
+money. I've come to report."
+
+McGuire Ellis stared. "What on?"
+
+"The Rookeries epidemic."
+
+"Quick work," the journalist congratulated him sarcastically. "The
+assignment is only a little over two months old."
+
+"Well, I might have guessed, any time in those two months, but I wanted
+to make certain."
+
+"_Are_ you certain?"
+
+"Reasonably."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Typhus."
+
+"What's that? Something like typhoid?"
+
+"It bears about the same relation to typhoid," said the Doctor, eyeing
+the other with solemnity, "as housemaid's knee does to sunstroke."
+
+"Well, don't get funny with me. I don't appreciate it. Is it very
+serious?"
+
+"Not more so than cholera," answered the Doctor gravely.
+
+"Hey! Then why aren't we all dead?"
+
+"Because it doesn't spread so rapidly. Not at first, anyway."
+
+"How does it spread? Come on! Open up!"
+
+"Probably by vermin. It's rare in this country. There was a small
+epidemic in New York in the early nineties. It was discovered early and
+confined to one tenement. There were sixty-three people in the tenement
+when they clapped on the quarantine. Thirty-two of 'em came out feet
+first. The only outside case was a reporter who got in and wrote a
+descriptive article. He died a week later."
+
+"Sounds as if this little affair of the Rookeries might be some story."
+
+"It is. There may have been fifty deaths to date; or maybe a hundred. We
+don't know."
+
+Ellis sat back in his chair with a bump. "Who's 'we'?"
+
+"Dr. Merritt and myself."
+
+"The Health Bureau is on, then. What's Merritt going to do about it?"
+
+"What can he do?"
+
+"Give out the whole thing, and quarantine the district."
+
+"The Mayor will remove him the instant he opens his mouth, and kill any
+quarantine. Merritt will be discredited in all the papers--unless the
+'Clarion' backs him. Will it?"
+
+Ellis dropped his head in his hand. "I don't know," he said finally.
+
+"Not running an honest paper this week?" sneered the physician lightly.
+"By the way, where's Young Hopeful?"
+
+"See here, Dr. Elliot," said Ellis. "You're a good old scout. If you
+hadn't poked me in the stomach I believe I'd tell you something."
+
+"Try it," encouraged the other.
+
+"All right. Here it is. They've put it up to Hal Surtaine pretty stiff,
+this gang of perfectly honorable business men, leading citizens, pillars
+of the church, porch-climbers, and pickpockets who run the city. I guess
+you know who I mean."
+
+Dr. Elliot permitted himself a reserved grin.
+
+"All right. They've got him in a clove hitch. At least it looks so. And
+one of the conditions for letting up on him is that he suppresses all
+news of the epidemic. Then they'll have the 'Clarion' right where
+they've got every other local paper."
+
+"Nice town, Worthington," observed Dr. Elliot, with easy but apparently
+irrelevant affability.
+
+But McGuire Ellis went red. "It's easy enough for you to sit there and
+be righteous," he said. "But get this straight. If the young Boss plays
+straight and tells 'em all to go to hell, it'll be a close call of life
+or death for the paper."
+
+"And if he doesn't?"
+
+"Easy going. Advertising'll roll in on us. Money'll come so fast we
+can't dodge it. Are you so blame sure what _you'd_ do in those
+conditions?"
+
+"Mac," said the brusque physician, for the first time using the familiar
+name: "between man and man, now: _what_ about the boy?"
+
+From the ancient loyalty of his race sprang McGuire Ellis's swift word,
+"My hand in the fire for any that loves him."
+
+"But--stanch, do you think?" persisted the other.
+
+"I hope it."
+
+"Well, I wish it was you owned the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"Do you, now? I don't. How do _I_ know what I'd do?"
+
+"Human lives, Mac: human lives, on this issue."
+
+"Who else knows it's typhus, Doc?"
+
+"Nobody but Merritt and me. You bound me in confidence, you know."
+
+"Good man!"
+
+"There's one other ought to know, though."
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"Norman Hale."
+
+"The Reverend Norman's all right. We could do with a few more ministers
+like him around the place. But why, in particular, should he know?"
+
+"For one thing, he suspects, anyway. Then, he's down in the slums there
+most of the time, and he could help us. Besides, he's got some rights of
+safety himself. He's out in the reception room now, under guard of that
+man-eating office boy of yours."
+
+"All right, if you say so."
+
+Accordingly the Reverend Norman Hale was summoned, sworn to confidence,
+and informed. He received the news with a quiver of his long, gaunt
+features. "I was afraid it was something like that," he said. "What's to
+be done?"
+
+"I'll tell you my plan," said Ellis, who had been doing some rapid
+thinking. "I'll put the best man in the office on the story, and give
+him a week on it if necessary. How soon is the epidemic likely to break,
+Doctor?"
+
+"God knows," said the physician gravely.
+
+"Well, we'll hurry him as much as we can. Our reporter will work
+independently. No one else on the staff will know what he's doing. I'll
+expect you two and Dr. Merritt to give him every help. I'll handle the
+story myself, at this end. And I'll see that it's set up in type by our
+foreman, whom I can trust to keep quiet. Therefore, only six people will
+know about it. I think we can keep the secret. Then, when I've got it
+all in shape, two pages of it, maybe, with all the facts, I'll pull a
+proof and hit the Boss right between the eyes with it. That'll fetch
+him, I _think_."
+
+The others signified their approval. "But can't we do something in the
+mean time?" asked Dr. Elliot. "A little cleaning-up, maybe? Who owns
+that pest-hole?"
+
+"Any number of people," said the clergyman. "It's very complicated, what
+with ground leases, agencies, and trusteeships. I dare say some of the
+owners don't even know that the property belongs to them."
+
+"One of the things we might find out," said Ellis. "Might be interesting
+to publish."
+
+"I'll send you a full statement of what I got about the burials in
+Canadaga County," promised Dr. Elliot. "Coming along, Mr. Hale?"
+
+"No. I want to speak to Mr. Ellis about another matter." The clergyman
+waited until the physician had left and then said, "It's about Milly
+Neal."
+
+"Well, what about her?"
+
+"I thought you could tell me. Or perhaps Mr. Surtaine."
+
+Remembering that encounter outside of the road house weeks before, Ellis
+experienced a throb of misgiving.
+
+"Why Mr. Surtaine?" he demanded.
+
+"Because he's her employer."
+
+Ellis gazed hard at the young minister. He met a straight and clear
+regard which reassured him.
+
+"He isn't, now," said he.
+
+"She's left?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's bad," worried the clergyman, half to himself.
+
+"Bad for the paper. 'Kitty the Cutie' was a feature."
+
+"Why did she leave?"
+
+"Just quit. Sent in word about ten days ago that she was through. No
+explanation."
+
+"Mr. Ellis, I'm interested in Milly Neal," said the minister, after some
+hesitation. "She's helped me quite a bit with our club down here.
+There's a lot in that girl. But there's a queer, un-get-at-able streak,
+too. Do you know a man named Veltman?"
+
+"Max? Yes. He's foreman of our composing-room."
+
+"She's been with him a great deal lately."
+
+"Why not? They're old friends. No harm in Veltman."
+
+"He's a married man."
+
+"That so! I never knew that. Well, 'Kitty the Cutie' ought to be keen
+enough to take care of herself."
+
+"There's the difficulty. She doesn't seem to want to take care of
+herself. She's lost interest in the club. For a time she was drinking
+heavily at some of the all-night places. And this news of her quitting
+here is worst of all. She seemed so enthusiastic about the work."
+
+"Her job's open for her if she wants to come back."
+
+"Good! I'm glad to hear that. It gives me something to work on."
+
+"By the way," said McGuire Ellis, "how do you like the paper?" Sooner or
+later he put this question to every one with whom he came in contact.
+What he found out in this way helped to make him the journalistic expert
+he was.
+
+"Pretty well," hesitated the other.
+
+"What's wrong with it?" inquired Ellis.
+
+"Well, frankly, some of your advertising."
+
+"We're the most independent paper in this town on advertising," stated
+Ellis with conviction.
+
+"I know you dropped the Sewing Aid Society advertisement," admitted
+Hale. "But you've got others as bad. Yes, worse."
+
+"Show 'em to me."
+
+Leaning forward to the paper on Ellis's desk, the visitor indicated the
+"copy" of Relief Pills. Ellis's brow puckered.
+
+"You're the second man to kick on that," he said. "The other was a
+doctor."
+
+"It's a bad business, Mr. Ellis. It's the devil's own work. Isn't it
+hard enough for girls to keep straight, with all the temptations around
+them, without promising them immunity from the natural results of
+immorality?"
+
+"Those pills won't do the trick," blurted Ellis.
+
+"They won't?" cried the other in surprise.
+
+"So doctors tell me."
+
+"Then the promise is all the worse," said the clergyman hotly, "for
+being a lie."
+
+"Well, I have troubles enough over the news part of the paper, without
+censoring the ads. When an advertiser tries to control news or editorial
+policy, I step in. Otherwise, I keep out. There's my platform."
+
+Hale nodded. "Let me know how I can help on the epidemic matter," said
+he, and took his leave.
+
+"The trouble with really good people," mused McGuire Ellis, "is that
+they always expect other people to be as good as they are. And _that's_
+expensive," sighed the philosopher, turning back to his desk.
+
+While Ellis and his specially detailed reporter were working out the
+story of the Rookeries epidemic in the light of Dr. Elliot's
+information, Hal Surtaine, floundering blindly, sought a solution to his
+problem, which was the problem of his newspaper. Indeed, it meant, as
+far as he could judge, the end of the "Clarion" in a few months, should
+he decide to defy Elias M. Pierce. Against the testimony of the injured
+nurse, he could scarcely hope to defend the libel suits successfully.
+Even though the assessed damages were not heavy enough to wreck him, the
+loss of prestige incident to defeat would be disastrous. Moreover,
+there was the chance of imprisonment or a heavy fine on the criminal
+charge. Furthermore, if he decided to print the account of the epidemic
+(always supposing that he could discover what it really was),
+practically every local advertiser would desert him in high dudgeon over
+the consequent ruin of the centennial celebration. Was it better to
+publish an honest paper for the few months and die fighting, or
+compromise for the sake of life, and do what good he might through the
+agency of a bound, controlled, and tremulous journalistic policy?
+
+For the first time, now that the crisis was upon him, he realized to the
+full how profoundly the "Clarion" had become part of his life. At the
+outset, only the tool of a casual though fascinating profession, later,
+the lever of an expanding and increasing power, the paper had insensibly
+intertwined with every fiber of his ambition. To a degree that startled
+him he had come to think, feel, and hope in terms of this
+thought-machine which he owned, which owned him. It had taken on for him
+a character; his own, yet more than his own and greater. For it spoke,
+not of his spirit alone, but with a composite voice; sometimes confused,
+inarticulate, only semi-expressive; again as with the tongues of
+prophecy. His ship was beginning to find herself; to evolve, from the
+anarchic clamor of loose effort, a harmony and a personality.
+
+With the thought came a warm glow of loyalty to his fellow workers; to
+the men who, knowing more than he knew, had yet accepted his ideals so
+eagerly and stood to them so loyally; to the spirit that had flashed to
+meet his own at that first "Talk-It-Over" breakfast, and had never since
+flagged; to Ellis, the harsh, dogged, uncouth evangel, preaching his
+strange mission of honor; to Wayne, patient, silent, laborious,
+dependable; to young Denton, a "gentleman unafraid," facing the threats
+of E.M. Pierce; even to portly Shearson, struggling against such dismal
+odds for _his_ poor little principle of journalism--to make the paper
+pay. How could he, their leader, recant his doctrine before these men?
+
+Yet--and the qualifying thought dashed cold upon his enthusiasm--what
+did the alternative imply for them? The almost certain loss of their
+places. To be thrown into the street, a whole officeful of them, seeking
+jobs which didn't exist, on the collapse of the "Clarion." Could he do
+that to them? Did he not, at least, owe them a living? Some had come to
+the "Clarion" from other papers, even from other cities, attracted by
+its enterprise, by its "ginger," by the rumor of a fresh and higher
+standard in journalism. What of them? For himself he had only
+reputation, ethical standard, the intangible matter of existence to
+consider. For them it might be hunger and want. Here, indeed, was a
+conflicting ideal.
+
+His mind reverted to the things he had been able to get done, in the few
+months of his editorial tenure; the success of some of his campaigns,
+the educational effect of them even where they had failed of their
+definite object, as had the fight for the Consumers' League. One article
+had put the chief gambler of the city on the defensive to an extent
+which seriously crippled his business. Another had killed forever the
+vilest den in town, a saloon back-room where vicious women gathered in
+young boys and taught them to snuff cocaine, and had led to an
+anti-cocaine ordinance, which the saloon element, who instinctively
+resented any species of "reform" as a threat against business, opposed.
+Whereupon, Hal, in an editorial on the prohibition movement, had tartly
+pointed out that where the saloons were openly vaunting themselves
+disdainful of public decency, the public was in immediate process of
+wiping out the saloons. Which citation of fact caused a cold chill to
+permeate the spines of the liquor interests, and led the large, sleek
+leader of that clan to make a surpassingly polite and friendly call upon
+Hal, who, rather to his surprise, found that he liked the man very much.
+They had parted, indeed, on hearty terms and the understanding that
+there would be no further objection to the "coke-law" from the saloon
+keepers. There wasn't. The liquor men kept faith.
+
+Though aiming at independence in politics, the "Clarion" had been drawn
+into a number of local political fights, and more than once had gone
+wrong in advocating an apparently useful measure only to find itself
+serving some hidden politician's selfish ends. These same politicians,
+Hal came in time to learn, were not all bad, even the worst of them. The
+toughest and crookedest of the grafting aldermen felt a genuine interest
+and pride in his vice-sodden ward, and when the "Clarion" had helped to
+abate a notorious nuisance there, dropped in to see the editor.
+
+"Mr. Surtaine," said he, chewing his cigar with some violence, "you and
+me ain't got much in common. You think I'm a grafter, and I think you're
+a lily-finger. But I came to thank you just the same for helping us out
+over there."
+
+"Glad to help you out when I can," said Hal, with his disarming smile:
+"or to fight you when I have to."
+
+"Shake," said the heeler. "I guess we'll average down into pretty good
+enemies. Lemme know whenever I can do you a turn."
+
+Then there was the electric light fight. Since the memory of man
+Worthington had paid the most exorbitant gas rate in the State. The
+"Clarion" set out to inquire why. So insistent was its thirst for
+information that the "Banner" and the "Telegram" took up the cudgels for
+the public-spirited corporation which paid ten per cent dividends by
+overcharging the local public. Thereupon the "Clarion" pointed out that
+the president of the gas company was the second largest stockholder in
+the "Telegram," and that the local editorial writer of the "Banner"
+derived, for some unexplained reason, a small but steady income in the
+form of salary, from the gas company. This exposure was regarded as
+distinctly "not clubby" by the newspaper fraternity in general: but the
+public rather enjoyed it, and made such a fuss over it that a
+legislative investigation was ordered. Meantime, by one of those curious
+by-products of the journalistic output, the local university preserved
+to itself the services of its popular professor of political economy,
+who was about to be discharged for _lese majeste_, in that he had held
+up as an unsavory instance of corporate control, the Worthington Gas
+Company, several of whose considerable stockholders were members of the
+institution's board of trustees. The "Clarion" made loud and lamentable
+noises about this, and the board reconsidered hastily. Louder and much
+more lamentable were the noises made by the president of the university,
+the Reverend Dr. Knight, a little brother of one of the richest and
+greatest of the national corporations, in denunciation of the "Clarion":
+so much so, indeed, that they were published abroad, thereby giving the
+paper much extensive free advertising.
+
+Pleasant memories, these, to Hal. Not always pleasant, perhaps, but at
+least vividly interesting, the widely varying types with whom his
+profession had brought him into contact: McGuire Ellis, "Tip" O'Farrell,
+the Reverend Norman Hale, Dr. Merritt, Elias M.--
+
+The mechanism of thought checked with a wrench. Pierce had it in his
+power to put an end to all this. He must purchase the right to continue,
+and at Pierce's own price. But was the price so severe? After all, he
+could contrive to do much; to carry on many of his causes; to help build
+up a better and cleaner Worthington; to preserve a moiety of his power,
+at the sacrifice of part of his independence; and at the same time his
+paper would make money, be successful, take its place among the
+recognized business enterprises of the town. As for the Rookeries
+epidemic upon which all this turned, what did he really know of it,
+anyway? Very likely it had been exaggerated. Probably it would die out
+of itself. If lives were endangered, that was the common chance of a
+slum.
+
+Then, of a sudden, memory struck at his heart with the thrust of a more
+vital, more personal, dread. For one day, wandering about in the
+stricken territory, he had seen Esme Elliot entering a tenement doorway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A FAILURE IN TACTICS
+
+
+Miss Eleanor Stanley Maxwell Elliot, home from her wanderings, stretched
+her hammock and herself in it between two trees in a rose-sweet nook at
+Greenvale, and gave herself up to a reckoning of assets and liabilities.
+Decidedly the balance was on the wrong side. Miss Esme could not dodge
+the unseemly conclusion that she was far from pleased with herself. This
+was perhaps a salutary frame of mind, but not a pleasant one. If
+possible, she was even less pleased with the world in which she lived.
+And this was neither salutary nor pleasant. Furthermore, it was unique
+in her experience. Hitherto she had been accustomed to a universe made
+to her order and conducted on much the same principle. Now it no longer
+ran with oiled smoothness.
+
+Her trip on the Pierce yacht had been much less restful than she had
+anticipated. For this she blamed that sturdy knight of the law, Mr.
+William Douglas. Mr. Douglas's offense was that he had inveigled her
+into an engagement. (I am employing her own term descriptive of the
+transaction.) It was a crime of brief duration and swift penalty. The
+relation had endured just four weeks. Possibly its tenure of life might
+have been longer had not the young-middle-aged lawyer accepted, quite
+naturally, an invitation to join the cruise of the Pierce family and
+_his fiancee_. The lawyer's super-respectful attitude toward his
+principal client disgusted Esme. She called it servile.
+
+For contrast she had the memory of another who had not been servile,
+even to his dearest hope. There were more personal contrasts of memory,
+too; subtler, more poignant, that flushed in her blood and made the
+mere presence of her lover repellent to her. The status became
+unbearable. Esme ended it. In plain English, she jilted the highly
+eligible Mr. William Douglas. To herself she made the defense that he
+was not what she had thought, that he had changed. This was unjust. He
+had not changed in the least; he probably never would change from being
+the private-secretary type of lawyer. Toward her, in his time of trial,
+he behaved not ill. Justifiably, he protested against her decision.
+Finding her immovable, he accepted the prevailing Worthingtonian theory
+of Miss Elliot's royal prerogative as regards the male sex, and
+returned, miserably enough, to his home and his practice.
+
+Another difficulty had arisen to make distasteful the Pierce
+hospitality. Kathleen Pierce, in a fit of depression foreign to her
+usually blithe and easy-going nature, had become confidential and had
+blurted out certain truths which threw a new and, to Esme, disconcerting
+light upon the episode of the motor accident. In her first appeal to
+Esme, it now appeared, the girl had been decidedly less than frank.
+Therefore, in her own judgment of Hal and the "Clarion," Esme had been
+decidedly less than just. In her resentment, Esme had almost quarreled
+with her friend. Common honesty, she pointed out, required a statement
+to Harrington Surtaine upon the point. Would Kathleen write such a
+letter? No! Kathleen would not. In fact, Kathleen would be d-a-m-n-e-d,
+darned, if she would. Very well; then it remained only (this rather
+loftily) for Esme herself to explain to Mr. Surtaine. Later, she decided
+to explain by word of mouth. This would involve her return to
+Worthington, which she had come to long for. She had become sensible of
+a species of homesickness.
+
+In some ill-defined way Harrington Surtaine was involved in that
+nostalgia. Not that she had any desire to see him! But she felt a
+certain justifiable curiosity--she was satisfied that it was
+justifiable--to know what he was doing with the "Clarion," since her
+established sphere of influence had ceased to be influential. Was he
+really as unyielding in other tests of principle as he had shown himself
+with her? Already she had altered her attitude to the extent of
+admitting that it _was_ principle, even though mistaken. Esme had been
+subscribing to the "Clarion," and studying it; also she had written,
+withal rather guardedly, to sundry people who might throw light on the
+subject; to her uncle, to Dr. Hugh Merritt, her old and loyal friend
+largely by virtue of being one of the few young men of the place who
+never had been in love with her (he had other preoccupations), to young
+Denton the reporter, who was a sort of cousin, and to Mrs. Festus
+Willard, who, alone of the correspondents, suspected the underlying
+motive. From these sundry informants she garnered diverse opinions; the
+sum and substance of which was that, on the whole, Hal was fighting the
+good fight and with some success. Thereupon Esme hated him harder than
+before--and with considerably more difficulty.
+
+On a late May day she had slipped quietly back into Worthington. That
+small portion of the populace which constituted Worthington society was
+ready to welcome her joyously. But she had no wish to be joyously
+welcomed. She didn't feel particularly joyous, herself. And society
+meant going to places where she would undoubtedly meet Will Douglas and
+would probably not meet Hal Surtaine. Esme confessed to herself that
+Douglas was rather on her conscience, a fact which, in itself, marked
+some change of nature in the Great American Pumess. She decided that
+society was a bore. For refuge she turned to her interest in the slums,
+where the Reverend Norman Hale, for whom she had a healthy, honest
+respect and liking, was, so she learned, finding his hands rather more
+than full. Always an enthusiast in her pursuits, she now threw herself
+into this to the total exclusion of all other interests.
+
+To herself she explained this on the theory that she needed something
+to occupy her mind. Something _else_ she really meant, for Mr.
+Harrington Surtaine was now occupying it to an inexcusable extent. She
+wished very much to see Harrington Surtaine, and, for the first time in
+her life, she feared what she wished. What she had so loftily announced
+to Kathleen Pierce as her unalterable determination toward the editor of
+the "Clarion" wasn't as easy to perform as to promise. Yet, the
+explanation of the partial error, into which the self-excusatory Miss
+Pierce had led her, was certainly due him, according to her notions of
+fair play. If she sent for him to come, he would, she shrewdly judged,
+decline. The alternative was to beard him in his office. In the
+strengthening and self-revealing solitude of her garden, this glowing
+summer day, Esme sat trying to make up her mind. A daring brown
+thrasher, his wings a fair match for the ruddy-golden glow in the girl's
+eyes, hopped into her haunt, and twittered his counsel of courage.
+
+"I'll do it NOW," said Esme, and the bird, with a triumphant chirp of
+congratulation, swooped off to tell the news to the world of wings and
+flowers.
+
+To the consequent interview there was no witness. So it may best be
+chronicled in the report made by the interviewer to her friend Mrs.
+Festus Willard, who, in the cool seclusion of her sewing-room, was
+overwhelmed by a rush of Esme to the heart, as she put it. Not having
+been apprised of Miss Elliot's conflicting emotions since her departure,
+Mrs. Willard's mind was as a page blank for impressions when her visitor
+burst in upon her, pirouetted around the room, appropriated the softest
+corner of the divan, and announced spiritedly:
+
+"You needn't ask me where I've been, for I won't tell you; or what I've
+been doing, for it's my own affair; anyway, you wouldn't be interested.
+And if you insist on knowing, I've been revisiting the pale glimpses of
+the moon--at three o'clock P.M."
+
+"What do you mean, moon?" inquired Mrs. Willard, unconsciously falling
+into a pit of slang.
+
+"The moon we all cry for and don't get. In this case a haughty young
+editor."
+
+"You've been to see Hal Surtaine," deduced Mrs. Willard.
+
+"You have guessed it--with considerable aid and assistance."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"On a matter of journalistic import," said Miss Elliot solemnly.
+
+"But you don't cry for Hal Surtaine," objected her friend, reverting to
+the lunar metaphor.
+
+"Don't I? I'd have cried--I'd have burst into a perfect storm of
+tears--for him--or you--or anybody who so much as pointed a finger at
+me, I was so scared."
+
+"Scared? You! I don't believe it."
+
+"I don't believe it myself--now," confessed Esme, candidly. "But it felt
+most extremely like it at the time."
+
+"You know I don't at all approve of--"
+
+"Of me. I know you don't, Jinny. Neither does he."
+
+"What did you do to him?"
+
+"Me? I cooed at him like a dove of peace.
+
+  "But he was very stiff and proud
+       He said, 'You needn't talk so loud,'"
+
+chanted Miss Esme mellifluously.
+
+"He didn't!"
+
+"Well, if he didn't, he meant it. He wanted to know what the big, big
+D-e-v, dev, I was doing there, anyway."
+
+"Norrie Elliot! Tell me the truth."
+
+"Very well," said Miss Elliot, aggrieved. "_You_ report the
+conversation, then, since you won't accept my version."
+
+"If you would give me a start--"
+
+"Just what he wouldn't do for me," interrupted Esme. "I went in there
+to explain something and he pointed the finger of scorn at me and
+accused me of frequenting low and disreputable localities."
+
+"Norrie!"
+
+"Well," replied the girl brazenly, "he said he'd seen me about the
+Rookeries district; and if that isn't a low--"
+
+"Had he?"
+
+"Nothing more probable, though I didn't happen to see him there."
+
+"What were you doing there?"
+
+"Precisely what he wanted to know. He said it rather as if he owned the
+place. So I explained in words of one syllable that I went there to pick
+edelweiss from the fire escapes. Jinny, dear, you don't know how hard it
+is to crowd 'edelweiss' into one syllable until you've tried. It
+splutters."
+
+"So do you," said the indignant Mrs. Willard. "You do worse; you gibber.
+If you weren't just the prettiest thing that Heaven ever made, some one
+would have slain you long ago for your sins."
+
+"Pretty, yourself," retorted Esme. "My real charm lies in my rigid
+adherence to the spirit of truth. Your young friend Mr. Surtaine scorned
+my floral jest. He indicated that I ought not to be about the tenements.
+He said there was a great deal of sickness there. That was why I was
+there, I explained politely. Then he said that the sickness might be
+contagious, and he muttered something about an epidemic and then looked
+as if he wished he hadn't."
+
+"I've heard some talk of sickness in the Rookeries. Ought you to be
+going there?" asked the other anxiously.
+
+"Mr. Surtaine thinks not. Quite severely. And in elderly tones.
+Naturally I asked him what kind of an epidemic it was. He said he didn't
+know, but he was sure the place was dangerous, and he was surprised that
+Uncle Guardy hadn't warned me. Uncle Guardy _had_, but I don't do
+everything I'm warned about. So then I asked young Mr. Editor why, as he
+knew there was a dangerous epidemic about, he should warn little me
+privately instead of warning the big public, publicly."
+
+"Meddlesome child! Can you never learn to keep your hands off?"
+
+"I was spurring him to his editorial duties.
+
+  "But he was very proud and stiff ...
+   He said that he would tell me, if--"
+
+lilted Miss Esme, rising to do a _pas seul_ upon the Willards' priceless
+Anatolian rug.
+
+"Sit down," commanded her hostess. "If--what?"
+
+"If nothing. Just if. That's the end of the song. Don't you know your
+Lewis Carroll?
+
+  "I sent a message to the fish,
+   I told them, 'This is what I wish.'
+   The little fishes of the sea,
+   They sent an answer--"
+
+"I don't want to know about the fish," disclaimed Mrs. Willard
+vehemently. "I want to know what happened between you and Hal Surtaine."
+
+"And you the Vice-President of the Poetry Club!" reproached Esme. "Very
+well. He was very proud and--Oh, I said that before. But he really was,
+this time. He said, 'Our last discussion of the policy of the "Clarion"
+closed that topic between us.' Somebody called him away before I could
+think of anything mean and superior enough to answer, and when he came
+back--always supposing he isn't still hiding in the cellar--I was no
+longer present."
+
+"Then you didn't give him the message you went for."
+
+"No. Didn't I say I was scared?"
+
+Mrs. Willard excused herself, ostensibly to speak to a maid; in reality
+to speak to a telephone. On her return she made a frontal attack:--
+
+"Norrie, what made you break your engagement to Will Douglas?"
+
+"Why? Don't you approve?"
+
+"Did you break it for the same reason that drove you into it?"
+
+"What reason do you think drove me into it?"
+
+"Hal Surtaine."
+
+"He didn't!" she denied furiously.
+
+"And you didn't break it because of him?"
+
+"No! I broke it because I don't want to get married," cried the girl in
+a rush of words. "Not to Will Douglas. Or to--to anybody. Why should I?
+I don't want to--I won't," she continued, half laughing, half sobbing,
+"go and have to bother about running a house and have a lot of babies
+and lose my pretty figure--and get fat--and dowdy--and slow-poky--and
+old. Look at Molly Vane: twins already. She's a horrible example. Why do
+people always have to have children--"
+
+She stopped, abruptly, herself stricken at the stricken look in the
+other's face. "Oh, Jinny, darling Jinny," she gasped; "I forgot! Your
+baby. Your little, dead baby! I'm a fool; a poor little silly fool,
+chattering of realities that I know nothing about."
+
+"You will know some day, my dear," said the other woman, smiling
+valiantly. "Don't deny the greatest reality of all, when it comes. Are
+you sure you're not denying it now?"
+
+The sunbeams crept and sparkled, like light upon ruffled waters, across
+Esme's obstinately shaken head.
+
+"Perhaps you couldn't help hurting him. But be sure you aren't hurting
+yourself, too."
+
+"That's the worst of it," said the girl, with one of her sudden accesses
+of sweet candor. "I needn't have hurt him at all. I was stupid." She
+paused in her revelation. "But he was stupider," she declared
+vindictively; "so it serves him right."
+
+"How was he stupider?"
+
+"He thought," said Esme with sorrowful solemnity, "that I was just as
+bad as I seemed. He ought to have known me better."
+
+The older woman bent and laid a cheek against the sunny hair. "And
+weren't you just as bad as you seemed?"
+
+"Worse! Anyway, I'm afraid so," said the confessional voice, rather
+muffled in tone. "But I--I just got led into it. Oh, Jinny, I'm not
+awfully happy."
+
+Mrs. Willard's head went up and she cocked an attentive ear, like an
+expectant robin. "Some one outside," said she. "I'll be back in a
+moment. You sit there and think it over."
+
+Esme curled back on the divan. A minute later she heard the curtains
+part at the end of the dim room, and glanced up with a smile, to face,
+not Jeannette Willard, but Hal Surtaine.
+
+"You 'phoned for me, Lady Jinny," he began: and then, with a start,
+"Esme! I--I didn't expect to find you here."
+
+"Nor I to see you," she said, with a calmness that belied her beating
+heart. "Sit down, please. I have something to tell you. It's what I
+really came to the office to say."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"About Kathleen Pierce."
+
+Hal frowned. "Do you think there can be any use--"
+
+"Please," she begged, with uplifted eyes of entreaty. "She--she didn't
+tell me the truth about that interview with your reporter. It was true;
+but she made me think it wasn't. She confessed to me, and she feels very
+badly. So do I. I believed that you had deliberately made that up, about
+her saying that she didn't turn back because she wanted to catch a
+train. I believed, too, that the editorial was written after our--our
+talk. I'm sorry."
+
+Hal stood above her, looking rather stern, and a little old and worn,
+she thought.
+
+"If that is an apology, it is accepted," he said with surface
+politeness.
+
+To him she was, in that moment, a light-minded woman apologizing for the
+petty misdeed, and paying no heed to the graver wrong that she had done
+him. Jeannette Willard could have set him right in a word; could have
+shown him what the girl felt, unavowedly to herself but with underlying
+conviction, that for so great an offense no apology could suffice;
+nothing short of complete surrender. But Mrs. Willard was not there to
+help out. She was waiting hopefully, outside.
+
+"And that is all?" he said, after a pause, with just a shade of contempt
+in his voice.
+
+"All," she said lightly, "unless you choose to tell me how the 'Clarion'
+is getting on."
+
+"As well as could be expected. We pay high for our principles. But thus
+far we've held to them. You should read the paper."
+
+"I do."
+
+"To expect your approval would be too much, I suppose."
+
+"No. In many ways I like it. In fact, I think I'll renew my
+subscription."
+
+It was innocently said, without thought of the old playful bargain
+between them, which had terminated with the mailing of the withered
+arbutus. But to Hal it seemed merely a brazen essay in coquetry; an
+attempt to reconstitute the former relation, for her amusement.
+
+"The subscription lists are closed, on the old terms," he said crisply.
+
+"Oh, you couldn't have thought I meant that!" she whispered; but he was
+already halfway down the room, on the echo of his "Good-afternoon, Miss
+Elliot."
+
+As before, he turned at the door. And he carried with him, to muse over
+in the depths of his outraged heart once more, the mystery of that still
+and desperate smile. Any woman could have solved it for him. Any,
+except, possibly, Esme Elliot.
+
+"It didn't come out as I hoped, Festus," said the sorrowful little Mrs.
+Willard to her husband that evening. "I don't know that Hal will ever
+believe in her again. How can he be so--so stupidly unforgiving!"
+
+"Always the man's fault, of course," said her big husband comfortably.
+
+"No. She's to blame. But it's the fault of men in general that Norrie is
+what she is; the men of this town, I mean. No man has ever been a man
+with Norrie Elliot."
+
+"What have they been?"
+
+"Mice. It's a tradition of the place. They lie down in rows for her to
+trample on. So of course she tramples on them."
+
+"Well, I never trampled on mice myself," observed Festus Willard. "It
+sounds like uncertain footing. But I'll bet you five pounds of your
+favorite candy against one of your very best kisses, that if she
+undertakes to make a footpath of Hal Surtaine she'll get her feet hurt."
+
+"Or her heart," said his wife. "And, oh, Festus dear, it's such a real,
+warm, dear heart, under all the spoiled-childness of her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+STERN LOGIC
+
+
+Between Dr. Surtaine and his son had risen a barrier built up of
+reticences. At the outset of their reunion, they had chattered like a
+pair of schoolboy friends, who, after long separation, must rehearse to
+each other the whole roster of experiences. The Doctor was an enthusiast
+of speech, glowingly loquacious above knife and fork, and the dinner
+hours were enlivened for his son by his fund of far-gathered business
+incidents and adventures, pointed with his crude but apt philosophy, and
+irradiated with his centripetal optimism. He possessed and was conscious
+of this prime virtue of talk, that he was never tiresome. Yet recently
+he had noted a restlessness verging to actual distaste on Hal's part,
+whenever he turned the conversation upon his favorite topic, the
+greatness of Certina and the commercial romance of the proprietary
+medicine business.
+
+In his one close fellowship, the old quack cultivated even the minor and
+finer virtues. With Hal he was scrupulously tactful. If the boy found
+_his_ business an irksome subject, he would talk about the boy's
+business. And he did, sounding the Paean of Policy across the Surtaine
+mahogany in a hundred variations supported by a thousand instances. But
+here, also, Hal grew restive. He responded no more willingly to leads on
+journalism than to encomiums of Certina. Again the affectionate diplomat
+changed his ground. He dropped into the lighter personalities; chatted
+to Hal of his new friends, and was met halfway. But in secret he puzzled
+and grieved over the waning of frankness and freedom in their
+intercourse. Dinner, once eagerly looked forward to by both as the best
+hour of the day, was now something of an ordeal, a contact in which
+each must move warily, lest, all unknowing, he bruise the other.
+
+Of the underlying truth of the situation Dr. Surtaine had no inkling.
+Had any one told him that his son dared neither speak nor hear
+unreservedly, lest the gathering suspicions about his father, against
+which he was fighting while denying to himself their very existence,
+should take form and substance of unescapable facts, the Doctor would
+have failed utterly of comprehension. He ascribed Hal's unease and
+preoccupation to a more definite cause. Sedulous in everything which
+concerned his "Boyee," he had learned something of the affair with Esme
+Elliot, and had surmised distressfully how hard the blow had been: but
+what worried him much more were rumors connecting Hal's name with Milly
+Neal. Several people had seen the two on the day of the road-house
+adventure. Milly, with her vivid femininity was a natural mark for
+gossip. The mere fact that she had been in Hal's runabout was enough to
+set tongues wagging. Then, sometime thereafter, she had resigned her
+position in the "Clarion" office without giving any reason, so Dr.
+Surtaine understood. The whole matter looked ugly. Not that the
+charlatan would have been particularly shocked had Hal exhibited a
+certain laxity of morals in the matter of women. For this sort of
+offense Dr. Surtaine had an easy toleration, so long as it was kept
+decently under cover. But that his son should become entangled with one
+of his--Dr. Surtaine's--employees, a woman under the protection of his
+roof, even though it were but the factory roof--that, indeed, would be a
+shock to his feudal conception of business honor.
+
+Such dismal considerations the Doctor had suppressed during an unusually
+uncomfortable dinner, on a hot and thunder-breeding evening when both of
+the Surtaines had painfully talked against time. Immediately after the
+meal, Hal, on pretext of beating the storm to the office, left. His
+father took his forebodings to the club and attempted to lose them
+along with several rubbers of absent-minded bridge. Meantime the woman
+for whom his loyalty was concerned as well as for his son, was
+stimulating a resolution with the slow poison of liquor around the
+corner from the "Clarion" office.
+
+Nine P.M. is slack tide in a morning newspaper office. The afternoon
+news is cleared up; the night wires have not yet begun to buzz with
+outer-world tidings of importance; the reporters are still afield on the
+evening's assignments. As the champion short-distance sleeper of his
+craft, which distinction he claimed for himself without fear of
+successful contradiction, McGuire Ellis was wont to devote half an hour
+or more, beginning on the ninth stroke of the clock, to the cultivation
+of Morpheus. Intruders were not popular at that hour.
+
+To respect for this habitude, Reginald Currier, known to mortals as Bim,
+Guardian of the Sacred Gates, had been rigorously educated. But Bim had
+a creed of his own which mollified the rigidity of specific standards,
+and one tenet thereof was the apothegm, "Once a 'Clarion' man, always a
+'Clarion' man," the same applying to women. Therefore, when Milly Neal
+appeared at the gate at 9.05 in the evening, the Cerberus greeted her
+professionally with a "How goes it, Miss Cutie?" and passed her in
+without question. She went straight to the inner office.
+
+"Hoong!" grunted McGuire Ellis, rubbing his eyes in a desperate endeavor
+to disentangle dreams from actualities. "What are _you_ doing here?"
+
+"I want to see Mr. Surtaine."
+
+Something in the girl's aspect put Ellis on his guard. "What do you want
+to see him about?" he asked.
+
+"I don't see any Examination Bureau license pinned to you, Ellis," she
+retorted hardily.
+
+"The Boss is out."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"All right," said McGuire Ellis equably. "I'm a liar."
+
+"Then you're the proper man for a 'Clarion' job," came the savage
+retort.
+
+"Come off, Kitty. Don't be young!"
+
+"I want to see Hal Surtaine," she said with sullen insistence.
+
+Shaking himself out of his chair, the associate editor started across
+the room to the telephone at Hal's desk, but halted sharply in front of
+the girl.
+
+"You've been drinking," he said.
+
+"What's it to you if I have?"
+
+The man's hand fell on her shoulder. There was no familiarity in the
+act; only comradeship. Comradeship in the voice, also, and concern, as
+he said, "Cut it, Neal, cut it. There's nothing in it. You're too good
+stuff to throw yourself away on that."
+
+"Don't you worry about me." She shook off his hand, and seated herself.
+
+"Still working at the Certina joint?"
+
+"No. I'm not working."
+
+"See here, Neal: what made you quit us?"
+
+The girl withheld speech back of tight-pressed lips.
+
+"Oh, well, never mind that. The point is, we miss you. We miss the
+'Cutie' column. It was good stuff. We want you back."
+
+Still silence.
+
+"And I guess you miss us. You liked the job, didn't you?"
+
+The girl gazed past him with ashen eyes. "Oh, my God!" she said under
+her breath.
+
+"Your job back and no questions asked," pursued Ellis, with an outer
+cheerfulness which cost him no small effort in the face of his growing
+conviction of some tragic issue pending.
+
+Now she looked directly at him, and there was a flicker of flame in her
+regard.
+
+"Do you know what a Hardscrabbler is, Ellis?" she asked.
+
+The other rubbed his head in puzzlement. "I don't believe I do," he
+confessed.
+
+"Then you won't understand when I tell you that I'm one and that I'd see
+your 'Clarion' blazing in hell before I'd take another cent of your
+money." The fire died from her face, and in her former tone of dulled
+stolidity she repeated, "I want to see Mr. Surtaine."
+
+With every word uttered, McGuire Ellis's forebodings had grown darker.
+That Hal Surtaine, carried away by the girl's vividness and allure,
+might have involved himself in a _liaison_ with her was credible enough.
+He recalled the episode of the road-house, on that stormy spring day.
+That Hal would have deserted her afterward, Ellis could not believe. And
+yet--and yet--why otherwise should she come with the marks of fierce
+misery in her face, demanding an interview at this time? On one point
+Ellis's mind was swiftly made up: she should not see Hal.
+
+"Miss Neal," he said quietly, "you can sit there all night, but you
+can't see the Boss unless you tell me your errand."
+
+The girl rose, slowly. "Oh, I guess you all stand together here," she
+said. "Well, remember: I gave him his chance to square himself."
+
+When Hal came up from a visit to the new press half an hour later, Ellis
+had decided to say nothing of the call. Later, he must have it out with
+his employer, for the sake of both of them and of the "Clarion." But it
+was an ordeal which he was glad to postpone. Nothing more, he judged,
+was to be feared that night, from Milly Neal; he could safely sleep over
+the problem. Having a certain sufficient religion of his own, McGuire
+Ellis still believes that a merciful Heaven forgives us our sins; but,
+looking back on that evening's decision, he sometimes wonders whether it
+ever fully pardons our mistakes.
+
+While he sat reading proof on the status of a flickering foreign war,
+the Hardscrabbler's daughter, in a quiet back room farther down the
+block, slowly sipped more gin; and gin is fire and fury to the
+Hardscrabbler blood.
+
+At eleven o'clock that evening, Dr. Surtaine, returning to that massive
+hybrid of architecture which he called home, found Milly Neal waiting in
+his study.
+
+"Well, Milly: what's up?" he asked, cheerfully enough in tone, but with
+a sinking heart.
+
+"I want to know what you're going to do for me?"
+
+"Something wrong?"
+
+"You've got a right to know. I'm in trouble."
+
+"What kind of trouble?"
+
+"The kind you make money out of with your Relief Pills."
+
+"Milly! Milly!" cried the quack, in honest distress. "I wouldn't have
+believed it of you."
+
+"Yes: it's terrible, isn't it!" mocked the girl. "What are you going to
+do about it? It's up to you."
+
+"Up to me?" queried the Doctor, bracing himself for what was coming.
+
+"Don't you promise, with your Relief Pills to get women out of trouble?"
+
+Dr. Surtaine's breath came a little easier. Perhaps she was not going to
+force the issue upon him by mentioning Hal. If this were diplomacy, he
+would play the game.
+
+"Certainly not! Certainly not!" he protested with a scandalized air.
+"We've never made such a claim. It would be against the law."
+
+"Look at this." She held up in her left hand a clipping, showing a
+line-cut of a smiling woman, over the caption "A Happy Lady"; and
+announcing in wide print, "Every form of suppression relieved. The most
+obstinate cases yield at once. Thousands of once desperate women bless
+the name of Relief Pills."
+
+"I don't want to look at it," said the Doctor.
+
+"No, I guess you don't! It's from the 'Clarion,' that clipping. And the
+Neverfail Company that makes the fake abortion pills is _you_."
+
+"It doesn't mean--that. You've misread it."
+
+"It _does_ mean just that to every poor, silly fool of a girl that reads
+it. What else can it mean? 'The most obstinate cases'--"
+
+"Don't! Don't!" There was a pause, then:
+
+"Of course, you can't stay in the Certina factory after this."
+
+A bitter access of mirth seized the girl. The sound of it
+
+      "rang cracked and thin,
+  Like a fiend's laughter, heard in Hell,
+  Far down."
+
+"Of course!" she mocked. "The pious and holy Dr. Surtaine couldn't have
+an employee who went wrong. Not even though it was his lies that helped
+tempt her."
+
+"Don't try to put it off on me. You are suffering for your own sin, my
+girl," accused the quack.
+
+"I'll stand my share of it; the suffering and the disgrace, if there is
+any. But you've got to stand your share. You promised to get me out of
+this and I believed you."
+
+"_I_! Promised to--"
+
+"In plain print." She tossed the clipping at him with her left hand. The
+other she held in her lap, under a light wrap which she carried. "And I
+believed you. I thought you were square. Then when the pills didn't
+help, I went to a doctor, and he laughed and said they were nothing but
+sugar and flavoring. He wouldn't help me. He said no decent doctor
+would. _You_ ain't a decent doctor. You're a lying devil. Are you going
+to help me out?"
+
+"If you had come in a proper spirit--"
+
+"That's enough. I've got my answer." She rose slowly to her feet. "After
+I found out what was wrong with me, I went home to my father. I didn't
+tell him about myself. But I told him I was quitting the Certina
+business. And he told me about my mother, how you sent her to her death.
+One word from me would have brought him here after you. _This_ time he
+wouldn't have missed you. Then they'd have hung him, I suppose. That's
+why I held my tongue. You killed my mother, you and your quack
+medicines; and now you've done this to me." Her hand jerked up out of
+the wrap. "I don't see where you come in to live any longer," said Milly
+Neal deliberately.
+
+Dr. Surtaine looked into the muzzle of a revolver.
+
+There was a step on the soft rug outside, the curtain of the door to Dr.
+Surtaine's right parted, and Hal appeared. He carried a light stick.
+
+"I thought I heard--" he began. Then, seeing the revolver, "What's this!
+Put that down!"
+
+"Don't move, either of you," warned the girl. "I haven't said my say
+out. You're a fine-matched pair, you two! Him with his sugar-pills and
+you, Hal Surtaine, with your lying promises."
+
+Lying promises! The phrase, thus used in the girl's mouth against the
+son, struck to the father's heart, confirming his dread. It _was_ Hal,
+then. For the moment he forgot his instant peril, in his sorrow and
+shame.
+
+"I don't know why I shouldn't kill you both," went on the half-crazed
+girl. "That'd even the score. Two Surtaines against two Neals, my mother
+and me."
+
+The light of slaying was in her eyes, as she stiffened her arm. Just a
+fraction of an inch the arm swerved, for a streak of light was darting
+toward her. Hal had taken the only chance. He had flung his cane,
+whirling, in the hope of diverting her aim, and had followed it at a
+leap.
+
+The two shots were almost instantaneous. At the second, the quack reeled
+back against the wall. The girl turned swiftly upon Hal, and as he
+seized her he felt the cold steel against his neck. The touch seemed to
+paralyze him. Strangely enough, the thought of death was summed up in a
+vast, regretful curiosity to know why all this was happening. Then the
+weapon fell.
+
+"I can't kill _you_!" cried the girl, in a bursting sob, and fell, face
+down, upon the floor.
+
+Hal, snatching up the revolver, ran to his father.
+
+"I'm all right," declared the quack. "Only the shoulder. Just winged.
+Get me a drink from that decanter."
+
+His son obeyed. With swift, careful hands he got the coat off the
+bulky-muscled arm, and saw, with a heart-lifting relief, that the bullet
+had hardly more than grazed the flesh. Meantime the girl had crawled,
+still sobbing, to a chair.
+
+"Did I kill him?" she asked, covering her eyes against what she might
+see.
+
+"No," said Hal.
+
+"Listen," commanded Dr. Surtaine. "Some one's coming. Keep quiet." He
+walked steadily to the door and called out, "It's nothing. Just
+experimenting with a new pistol. Go back to your bed."
+
+"Who was it?" asked Hal.
+
+"The housekeeper. There's just one thing to do for the sake of all of
+us. This has _got_ to be hushed up. I'm going out to telephone. Don't
+let her get away, Hal."
+
+"Get away! Oh, my God!" breathed the girl.
+
+Hal walked over to her, his heart wrung with pity.
+
+"Why did you come here to kill my father, Milly?" he asked.
+
+She stooped to pick up the "Happy Lady" clipping from the floor.
+
+"That's why," she said.
+
+"Good God!" said Hal. "Have you been taking that--those pills?"
+
+"Taking 'em? Yes, and believing in 'em, till I found out it was all
+damned lies. And your fine and noble and honest 'Clarion' advertises the
+lies just as your fine and noble and honest father makes the pills.
+They're no good. Do you get that? And when I came here and told your
+father he'd got to help me out of my trouble, what do you think he told
+me? That I'd lost my job at the factory!"
+
+"Who is the man, Milly?"
+
+"What business is that of yours?"
+
+"I'll go after him and see that he marries you if it takes--"
+
+"Oh, he'd be only too glad to marry me if he could. He can't. Poor Max
+has got a wife somewhere--"
+
+"Max? It's Veltman!" cried Hal. "The dirty scoundrel."
+
+"Oh, don't blame Max," said the girl wearily. "It isn't his fault. After
+you threw me down"--Hal winced--"I started to run wild. It's the
+Hardscrabbler in me. I took to drinking and running around, and Max
+pulled me out of it, and I went to live with him. I didn't care. Nothing
+mattered, anyway. And I wasn't afraid of anything like this happening,
+because I thought the pills made it all safe."
+
+Here Dr. Surtaine reappeared. "I've got a detective coming that I can
+trust."
+
+"A detective?" cried Hal. "Oh, Dad--"
+
+"You keep out of this," retorted his father, in a tone such as his son
+had never heard from him before. "I guess you've done enough. The
+question is"--he continued as regardless of Milly as if she had been
+deaf--"how to hush her up."
+
+"You've had your chance to hush me up," said the girl sullenly.
+
+"Any money within reason--"
+
+"I don't want your money."
+
+"Listen here, then. You tried to murder me. That's ten years in State's
+prison. Now, if ever I hear of you opening your mouth about this, I'll
+send you up. I guess that will keep you quiet. Now, then, what's your
+answer?"
+
+"Give me a glass of whiskey, and I'll tell you."
+
+Hal poured her out a glass. She passed a swift hand above it.
+
+"Here's peace and quiet in the proprietary medicine business," she said,
+and drank. "I guess that'll--make--some--stir," she added, with an
+effect of carefully timing her words.
+
+Her body lapsed quite gently back into the chair. The two men ran and
+bent over her as the glass tinkled and rolled on the floor. There was an
+acrid, bitter scent in the air. They lifted their heads, and their eyes
+met in a haggard realization. No longer was there any need of hushing up
+Milly Neal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE PARTING
+
+
+The doorbell buzzed.
+
+"That's the detective," said Dr. Surtaine to Hal. "Stay here."
+
+He wormed himself painfully into an overcoat which concealed his
+scarified shoulder, and went out. In a few moments he and the officer
+reappeared. The latter glanced at the body.
+
+"Heart disease, you say?" he asked.
+
+"Yes: valvular lesion."
+
+"Better 'phone the coroner's office, eh?"
+
+"Not necessary. I can give a certificate. The coroner will be all
+right," said Dr. Surtaine, with an assurance derived from the fact that
+a year before he had given that functionary five hundred dollars for not
+finding morphine in the stomach of a baby who had been dosed to death on
+the "Sure Soother" powders.
+
+"That goes," agreed the detective. "What undertaker?"
+
+"Any. And, Murtha, while you're at the 'phone, call up the 'Clarion'
+office and tell McGuire Ellis to come up here on the jump, will you?"
+
+Left to themselves, with the body between them, father and son fell into
+a silence, instinct with the dread of estranging speech. Hal made the
+first effort.
+
+"Your shoulder?" he said.
+
+"Nothing," declared the Doctor. "Later on will do for that." He brooded
+for a time. "You can trust Ellis, can you?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"It's the newspapers we have to look out for. Everything else is easy."
+
+He conducted the detective, who had finished telephoning, into the
+library, set out drinks and cigars for him and returned. Nothing further
+was said until Ellis arrived. The associate editor's face, as he looked
+from the dead girl to Hal, was both sorrowful and stern. But he was
+there to act; not to judge or comment. He consulted his watch.
+
+"Eleven forty-five," he said. "Better give out the story to-night."
+
+"Why not wait till to-morrow?" asked Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"The longer you wait, the more it will look like suppressing it."
+
+"But we _want_ to suppress it."
+
+"Certainly," agreed Ellis. "I'm telling you the best way. Fix the story
+up for the 'Clarion' and the other papers will follow our lead."
+
+"If we can arrange a story that they'll believe--" began Hal.
+
+"Oh, they won't believe it! Not the kind of story we want to print. They
+aren't fools. But that won't make any difference."
+
+"I should think it would be just the sort of possible scandal our
+enemies would catch at."
+
+"You've still got a lot to learn about the newspaper game," replied his
+subordinate contemptuously. "One newspaper doesn't print a scandal about
+the owner of another. It's an unwritten law. They'll publish just what
+we tell 'em to--as we would if it was their dis--I mean misfortune.
+Come, now," he added, in a hard, businesslike voice, "what are we going
+to call the cause of death?"
+
+"Miss Neal died of heart disease."
+
+"Call it heart disease," confirmed the other. "Circumstances?"
+
+This was a poser. Dr. Surtaine and Hal looked at each other and looked
+away again.
+
+"How would this do?" suggested Ellis briskly. "Miss Neal came here to
+consult Dr. Surtaine on an emergency in her department at the factory,
+was taken ill while waiting, and was dead when he--No; that don't fit.
+If she died without medical attendance, the coroner would have to give a
+permit for removal. Died shortly after Dr. Surtaine's arrival in spite
+of his efforts to revive her; that's it!"
+
+"Just about how it happened," said Dr. Surtaine gratefully.
+
+"For publication. Now give me the real facts--under that overcoat of
+yours."
+
+Dr. Surtaine started, and winced as the movement tweaked the raw nerves
+of his wound. "There's nothing else to tell," he said.
+
+"You brought me here to lie for you," said the journalist. "All right,
+I'm ready. But if I'm to lie and not get caught at it, I must know the
+truth. Now, when I see a man wearing an overcoat over a painful arm, and
+discover what looks like a new bullet hole in the wall of the room, I
+think a dead body may mean something more than heart disease."
+
+"I don't see--" began the charlatan.
+
+But Hal cut him short. "For God's sake," he cried in a voice which
+seemed to gouge its way through his straining throat, "let's have done
+with lies for once." And he blurted out the whole story, eking out what
+he lacked in detail, by insistent questioning of his father.
+
+When they came to the part about the Relief Pills, Ellis looked up with
+a bitter grin.
+
+"Works out quite logically, doesn't it?" he observed. Then, walking over
+to the body, he looked down into the face, with a changed expression.
+"Poor little girl!" he muttered. "Poor little Kitty!" He whirled swiftly
+upon the Surtaines. "By God, _I'd_ like to write her story!" he cried.
+The outburst was but momentary. Instantly he was his cool, capable self
+again.
+
+"You've had experience in this sort of thing before, I suppose?" he
+inquired of Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"Yes. No! Whaddye mean?" blustered the quack.
+
+"Only that you'll know how to fix the police and the coroner."
+
+"No call for any fixing."
+
+"So all that I have to do is to handle the newspapers," pursued the
+other imperturbably. "All right. There'll be no more than a paragraph in
+any paper to-morrow. 'Working-Girl Drops Dead,' or something like that.
+You can sleep easy, gentlemen."
+
+So obvious was the taunt that Hal stared at his friend, astounded. Upon
+the Doctor it made no impression.
+
+"Say, Ellis. Do something for me, will you?" he requested. "Wire to
+Belford Couch, the Willard, Washington, to come on here by first train."
+
+"Couch? Oh, that's Certina Charley, isn't it? Your professional fixer?"
+
+"Never mind what he is. You'll be sure to do it, won't you?"
+
+"No. Do it yourself," said Ellis curtly, and walked out without a
+good-night.
+
+"Well, whaddye think of that!" spluttered Dr. Surtaine. "That fellow's
+getting the big-head."
+
+Hal made no reply. He had dropped into a chair and now sat with his head
+between his hands. When he raised his face it was haggard as if with
+famine.
+
+"Dad, I'm going away."
+
+"Where?" demanded his father, startled.
+
+"Anywhere, away from this house."
+
+"No wonder you're shaken, Boyee," said the other soothingly. "We'll talk
+about it in the morning. After a night's rest--"
+
+"In this house? I couldn't close my eyes for fear of what I'd see!"
+
+"It's been a tough business. I'll give you a sleeping powder."
+
+"No; I've got to think this out: this whole business of the Relief
+Pills."
+
+Dr. Surtaine was instantly on the defensive. "Don't go getting any
+sentimental notions now, Hal. It's a perfectly legal business."
+
+"So much the worse for the law, then."
+
+"You talk like an anarchist!" returned his father, shocked. "Do you want
+to be better than the law?"
+
+"If the law permits murder--I do," said Hal, very low.
+
+Indignation rose up within Dr. Surtaine: not wholly unjustified,
+considering his belief that Hal was primarily responsible for the
+tragedy. "Are your hands so clean, then?" he asked significantly.
+
+"God knows, they're not!" cried the son, with passion. "I didn't know. I
+didn't realize."
+
+"Yet you turn on me--"
+
+"Oh, Dad, I don't want to quarrel with you. All I know is, I can't stay
+in this house any more."
+
+Dr. Surtaine pondered for a few minutes. Perhaps it was better that the
+boy should go for a time, until his conscience worked out a more
+satisfactory state of mind. His own conscience was clear. He was doing
+business within the limits set for him by the law and the Post Office
+authorities, which had once investigated the "Pills" and given them a
+clean bill. Milly Neal should not put the onus of her own recklessness
+and immorality upon him. Nevertheless, he was glad that Belford Couch
+was coming on; and, by the way, he must telephone a dispatch to him.
+Rising, he addressed his son.
+
+"Where shall you go?"
+
+"I don't know. Some hotel. The Dunstan."
+
+"Very well. I'll see you at the office soon, I suppose. Good-night."
+
+All Hal's world whirled about him as he saw his father leave the room.
+What seemed to him a monstrous manifestation of chance had overwhelmed
+and swept him from all moorings. But was it chance? Was it not, rather,
+as McGuire Ellis had suggested, the exemplification of an exact logic?
+
+The closing of the door behind his father sent a current of air across
+the room in which a bit of paper on the floor wavered and turned. Hal
+picked it up. It was the clipping from the "Clarion"--his
+newspaper--which Milly Neal had brought as her justification. One line
+of print stood out, writhing as if in an uncontrollable access of
+diabolic glee: "Only $1 A Box: Satisfaction Guaranteed"; and above it
+the face of the Happy Lady, distorted by the crumpling of the paper,
+smirked up at him with a taunt. He thought to interpret that taunt in
+the words which Veltman had used, aforetime:--
+
+"What's _your_ percentage?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE GREATER TEMPTING
+
+
+Journalistic Worthington ran true to type in the Milly Neal affair. No
+newspaper published more than a paragraph about the "sudden death."
+Suicide was not even hinted at in print. But newspaperdom had its own
+opinion, magnified and colored by the processes of gossip, over which
+professional courtesy exercised no control. That the girl had killed
+herself was generally understood: that there had been a shooting,
+previous to her death, was also current. Eager report recalled and
+exaggerated the fact that she had been seen with Hal Surtaine at a
+dubious road-house some months previous. The popular "inside knowledge"
+of the tragedy was that Milly had gone to the Surtaine mansion to force
+Hal's hand, failing in which she had shot him, inflicting an
+inconsiderable wound, and then killed herself; and that Dr. Surtaine had
+thereupon turned his son out of the house. Hal's removal to the hotel
+served to bear out this surmise, and the Doctor's strategic effort to
+cover the situation by giving it out that his son's part of the mansion
+was being remodeled--even going to the lengths of actually setting a
+force of men to work there--failed to convince the gossips.
+
+Between the two men, the situation was now most difficult. Quite
+instinctively Hal had fallen in with his father's theory that the primal
+necessity, after the tragedy, was to keep everything out of print. That
+by so doing he wholly subverted his own hard-won policy did not, in the
+stress of the crisis, occur to him. Later he realized it. Yet he could
+see no other course of action as having been possible to him. The mere
+plain facts of the case constituted an accusation against Dr. Surtaine,
+unthinkable for a son to publish against his father. And Hal still
+cozened himself into a belief in the quack's essential innocence,
+persuading his own reason that there was a blind side to the man which
+rendered it impossible for him to see through the legal into the ethical
+phases of the question. By this method he was saving his loyalty and
+affection. But so profound had been the shock that he could not, for a
+time, endure the constant companionship of former days. Consequently the
+frequent calls which Dr. Surtaine deemed it expedient to make for the
+sake of appearances, at Hal's hotel, resulted in painful, rambling,
+topic-shifting talks, devoid of any human touch other than the pitiful
+and thwarted affection of two personalities at hopeless odds. "Least
+said soonest mended" was a favorite aphorism of the experienced quack.
+But in this tangle it failed him. It was he who first touched on the
+poisoned theme.
+
+"Look here, Boy-ee," said he, a week after the burial. "We're both
+scared to death of what each of us is thinking. Let's agree to forget
+this until you are ready to talk it out with me."
+
+"What good will talk do?" said Hal drearily.
+
+"None at present." His father sighed. He had hoped for a clean breast of
+it, a confession of the intrigue that should leave the way open to a
+readjustment of relations. "So let's put the whole thing aside."
+
+"All right," agreed Hal listlessly. "I suppose you know," he added,
+"before we close the subject, that I've ordered the Relief Pills
+advertising out of the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"You needn't have bothered. It won't be offered again."
+
+Silence fell between them. "I've about decided to quit that line," the
+charlatan resumed with an obvious effort. "Not that it isn't strictly
+legal," he added, falling back upon his reserve defense. "But it's too
+troublesome. The copy is ticklish; I've had to write all those ads.
+myself. And, at that, there's some newspapers won't accept 'em and
+others that want to edit 'em. Belford Couch and I have been going over
+the whole matter. He's the diplomat of the concern. And we've about
+decided to sell out. Anyway," he added, brightening, "there ain't hardly
+money enough in a side-line like the Pills to pay for the trouble of
+running it separate."
+
+If Dr. Surtaine had looked for explicit approval of his virtuous
+resolution, he was disappointed. Yet Hal experienced, or tried to
+believe that he experienced, a certain factitious glow of satisfaction
+at this proof that his father was ready to give up an evil thing even
+without being fully convinced of its wrongfulness. This helped the son
+to feel that, at least, his sacrifice had been made for a worthy
+affection. Still, he had no word to say except that he must get to the
+office. The Doctor left with gloom upon his handsome face.
+
+With McGuire Ellis, Hal's association had become even more difficult
+than with the Doctor. Since his abrupt and unceremonious departure from
+the room of death, in the belief in Hal's guilt, Ellis had maintained a
+purely professional attitude toward his employer. For a time, in his
+wretchedness and turmoil of spirit, Hal had scarcely noticed Ellis's
+withdrawal of fellowship, vaguely attributing his silence to unexpressed
+sympathy. But later, when he broached the subject of Milly's death, he
+was met with a stony avoidance which inspired both astonishment and
+resentment. Sub-normal as he now was in nervous strength and tension, he
+shrank from having it out with Ellis. But he felt, for the first time in
+his life, forlorn and friendless.
+
+On his part McGuire Ellis brooded over a deep anger. He was not a man to
+yield lightly of his best; but he had given to Hal, first a fine
+loyalty, and later, as they grew into closer association, a warm if
+rather reticent affection. For the rough idealist had found in his
+employer an idealism not always as clear and intelligent as his own, yet
+often higher and finer; and along with the professional protectiveness
+which he had assumed over the younger man's inexperience had come an
+honest admiration and far-reaching hopes. Now he saw in his chief one
+who had betrayed his cause through a weak and selfish indulgence. The
+clear-sighted journalist knew that the newspaper owner with a shameful
+secret binds his own power in the coils of that secret. And fatally in
+error as he was as to the nature of the entanglement in which Hal was
+involved, he foresaw the inevitable effect of the situation upon the
+"Clarion." Moreover, he was bitterly disappointed in Hal as a man. Had
+his superior "gone on the loose" and contracted a _liaison_ with some
+woman of the outer world, Ellis would have passed over the abstract
+morality of the question. But to take advantage of a girl in his own
+employ, and then so cruelly to leave her to her fate,--there was rot at
+the heart of the man who could do that. The excision of the offending
+"Relief Pills" ad. after the culmination of the tragedy, was simply a
+sop to hypocrisy.
+
+Only once had Ellis made any reference to Milly's death. On the day of
+her funeral Max Veltman had disappeared, without notice. A week later he
+reported for duty, shaken and pallid.
+
+"Do you want to take him back?" Ellis inquired of Hal.
+
+Hal's first impulse was to say "No"; but he conquered it, remembering
+Milly Neal's pitiful generosity toward her lover.
+
+"Where has he been?" he asked.
+
+"Drunk, I guess."
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+"I think yes."
+
+"All right, if he's sobered up. Tell him it mustn't happen again."
+
+There was a gleam in McGuire Ellis's eye. "Suppose _you_ tell him that
+it mustn't happen again. It would come with more force from you."
+
+Hal whirled in his chair. "Mac, what's the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothing. I was just thinking of 'Kitty the Cutie.'"
+
+"What were you thinking of her?"
+
+"Only that Max Veltman would have gone through hell-fire for her. And,
+from his looks, he's been through and had the heart burned out of him."
+
+With that he resumed his proof-reading in a dogged silence.
+
+To Hal's great relief Veltman kept out of his way. The man seemed dazed
+with misery, but did his work well enough. Rumors reached the office
+that he was striving to gain a refuge from his sufferings by giving all
+his leisure hours to work in the Rookeries district, under the direction
+of the Reverend Norman Hale. Ellis was of the opinion that his mind was
+somewhat affected, and that he would bear watching a bit; and was the
+more disturbed in that Veltman shared the secret of the great epidemic
+"spread," now practically completed for the "Clarion's" publishing or
+suppressing. Ellis held the belief that, now, Hal would order it
+suppressed. The man who had shirked his responsibility to Milly Neal
+could hardly be relied on for the stamina necessary to such an
+exploitation.
+
+The time was at hand for the decision to be made. The two physicians,
+Elliot and Merritt, pressed for publication. Every day, they pointed
+out, not only meant a further risk of life, but also increased the
+impending danger of a general outburst which would find the city wholly
+unprepared. On the other hand, the journalists, Ellis and Wayne, held
+out for delay. They perceived the one weak point in their case, that
+neither a dead body nor a living patient had as yet come to the hands of
+the constituted authorities for diagnosis. The sole determination had
+been made on corpses carried across the line and now probably impossible
+of identification. The committee fund was doing its work of concealment
+effectually. But Fate tripped the strategy board at last, using the
+Reverend Norman Hale as its agent.
+
+Since Milly Neal's death, the Reverend Norman had tried to find time to
+call on Hal Surtaine, and had failed. He wished to talk with him about
+Veltman. Three days after the funeral he had hauled the "Clarion's"
+foreman out of the gutter, stood between him and suicide for one savage
+night of struggle, and listened to the remorse of a haunted soul. Being
+a man and a brother, the Reverend Norman forbore blame or admonition;
+being a physician of the inner being, he devised work for the wreck in
+his slums, and had driven him relentlessly that he might find peace in
+the service of others. Slowly the man won back to sanity. One obsession
+persisted, however, disturbing to the clergyman. Veltman was willing to
+do penance himself, in any possible way, but he insisted that, since the
+Surtaines shared his guilt, they, too, must make amends, before his dead
+mistress could rest in her grave. Apprised by Veltman of the whole
+wretched story, Hale secretly sympathized with this view of the
+Surtaines' responsibility. But he was concerned lest, in Veltman, it
+take some form of direct vengeance. When he learned that Veltman had
+returned to the "Clarion" composing-room to work, the minister, unable
+to spare time for a call from his almost sleepless activities, sent an
+urgent request to Hal to meet him at the Recreation Club. Hal being out,
+Ellis got the note, observed the "Immediate and Important" on the
+envelope, read the contents, and set out for the rendezvous.
+
+He never got there. For at the corner of Sperry Street he was met by a
+messenger who knew him.
+
+"The back room at McManey's," said the urchin. "He's in there, waitin'."
+
+Ellis entered the place. At a table sat the Reverend Norman Hale, with
+an expression of radiant happiness on his gaunt face. The barkeeper,
+who, on his own initiative, had just brought in a steaming hot drink,
+stood watching him with unfeigned concern. Hale welcomed Ellis warmly,
+and drew a chair close for him.
+
+"You sent for Mr. Surtaine," said Ellis.
+
+"Did I?" asked the other vaguely. "I forget. It doesn't matter. Nothing
+matters, now. Ellis, I've found out the secret."
+
+"What secret?"
+
+"The great secret. The solution," replied the young minister, buoyantly.
+"All that is necessary is to get the bodies."
+
+"Yes, of course," agreed the other, with rising uneasiness. "But they
+smuggle them out as fast--"
+
+"They won't when I've told them. McGuire Ellis,"--he gripped his
+companion suddenly with fingers that clamped like a burning vise,--"_I
+can bring the dead back to life_."
+
+"Tell me about it. But take a swallow of this first." Ellis pushed the
+hot drink toward him. "You're cold."
+
+"Nothing but excitement. The glory of it! All this suffering and grief
+and death--"
+
+"Wait a minute. I want a drink myself."
+
+He turned to the bartender. "Get an auto," he whispered. "Quick!"
+
+"There's a rig outside," said the man. "I seen he was sick when he came
+in, so I sent for it."
+
+"Good man!" said Ellis. "Telephone to Dr. Merritt at the Health Office
+to meet me instantly at the hospital. Tell him why. Now, Mr. Hale," he
+added, "come on. Let's get along. You can tell me on the way."
+
+Still rapt with his vision the minister rose, and permitted himself to
+be guided to the carriage. Once inside he fell into a semi-stupor. Only
+at the hospital, where Dr. Merritt was waiting to see him safe within
+the isolation ward, did he come to his rightful senses, cool, and, as
+ever, thoughtful of everything but himself.
+
+"You've got your chance for a diagnosis at last, Doctor," he whispered
+to the health officer.
+
+Half an hour later, Dr. Merritt came out to the waiting journalist.
+
+"Typhus," he said, with grievous exultation. "Unmistakably and
+officially typhus. We've got our case. Only, I wish to God it had been
+any of the rest of us."
+
+"Will he die?" queried Ellis.
+
+"God knows. I should say his chance was worse than even. He's worn out
+from overwork."
+
+For assurance, Dr. Elliot was sent for and added his diagnosis. Ellis
+got authoritative interviews with both men, and the "Clarion's" great,
+potential sensation was now fully ripe for print. Denton the reporter
+had done the previous work well. His "story," leaded out and with
+subheads, ran flush to two pages of the paper, and every paragraph of it
+struck fire. It would, as Ellis said, set off a ton of dynamite beneath
+sleepy Worthington. That night Veltman "pulled" a proof, and Ellis
+stayed far into the morning, pasting up a dummy of the article for Hal's
+inspection and final judgment.
+
+It was on Thursday that Norman Hale was taken to the hospital. Friday
+noon McGuire Ellis laid before his principal the carefully constructed
+dummy with the brief comment:
+
+"There's the epidemic story."
+
+Hal accepted and read it in silence. Once or twice he made a note. When
+he had finished, he turned to find Ellis's gaze fixed upon him.
+
+"We ought to run it Monday," said Ellis. "We can round it all up by
+then."
+
+Monday is the dead day of journalism, the day for which news articles
+which do not demand instant production are reserved, both to liven up a
+dull paper and because the sensation produced is greater. However, the
+sensation inevitable to the publishing of this article, as Hal instantly
+realized, would be enormous on any day.
+
+"It's big stuff," said he, with a long breath.
+
+Ellis nodded. "Shall I release it for Monday?"
+
+"N-n-no," came the dubious reply.
+
+"It's been held already for ten days."
+
+"Then what does it matter if we hold it a little longer?"
+
+"Human lives, maybe. Isn't that matter enough?"
+
+"That's only a guess. I've got to have time on this," insisted Hal.
+"It's the most vital question of policy that the paper has had to face."
+
+"Policy!" grunted Ellis savagely.
+
+"Besides, I've given my word to the Chamber of Commerce Committee that
+we wouldn't publish any epidemic news without due warning to them."
+
+"Then it's to be killed?"
+
+"'Wait for orders' proof," said Hal stonily.
+
+"I might have known," sneered Ellis, with an infinite depth of scorn,
+and went to bear the bitter message to Wayne.
+
+While the "Clarion" policy trembled in the balance, Dr. Surtaine's
+Committee on Suppression was facing a new crisis brought about by the
+striking down of Norman Hale, of which they received early information.
+Should he die, as was believed probable, the news, whether or not the
+full facts got into print, would surely become a focus for the
+propagation of alarmist rumors. In their distress, the patriots of
+commerce paid a hasty visit to their chief, craving counsel. Having
+foreseen the possibility of some such contingency, Dr. Surtaine was
+ready with a plan. The committee would enlarge itself, call a meeting of
+the representative men of the town, organize an Emergency Health
+Committee of One Hundred, and take the field against the onset of
+pernicious malaria. This show of fighting force would allay public
+alarm, a large fund would be raised, the newspapers would be kept in
+thorough subjection, and the disease could be wiped out without undue
+publicity or the imperiling of Old Home Week.
+
+"What about the 'Clarion'?" inquired Hollenbeck, of the committee.
+"They're still holding off."
+
+"Safe as your hat," Dr. Surtaine assured the questioner with a smile.
+
+"At the meeting you told us you couldn't answer for your son's paper,"
+Stensland recalled.
+
+"I can now," said the confident quack. "Just you leave it to me."
+
+He went direct to the "Clarion" office, revolving in his mind the
+impending interview. For the first time since the tragedy he anticipated
+a meeting with his son without embarrassment, for now he had a definite
+topic to talk about, difficult though it might be.
+
+Finding Hal at the editorial desk he went direct to the point.
+
+"Boy-ee, the epidemic is spreading."
+
+"I know it."
+
+"I'm going to take hold of the matter personally, from now on."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"By organizing a committee of one hundred to cover the city and make a
+scientific campaign."
+
+"Are you going to let people know that it's typhus?"
+
+"Sh-sh-sh! So you know, do you? Well, the important thing now is to see
+that others don't find out. Don't even whisper the word. Malaria's our
+cue; pernicious malaria. What's the use of scaring every one to death?
+We'll call a public meeting for next week--"
+
+"Publicity is the last thing you want, I should think."
+
+"Semi-public, I should have said. The epidemic has gone so far that
+people are beginning to take notice. We've got to reassure them and the
+right kind of an Emergency Health Committee is the way to do it, Belford
+Couch is working up the meeting now. I've kept him over on purpose for
+it. He's the best little diplomat in the proprietary business. And Yours
+Truly will be elected Chairman of the Committee. It'll cost us a
+ten-thousand-dollar donation to the fund, but it's worth it to the
+business."
+
+"To the business? I don't quite see how."
+
+"Simple as a pin! When it's all over and we're ready to let the account
+of it get into print, Dr. Surtaine, proprietor of Certina, will be the
+principal figure in the campaign. What's that worth in advertising to
+the year's business? Not that I'm doing it for that. I'm doing it to
+save Old Home Week."
+
+"With a little profit on the side."
+
+Dr. Surtaine deemed it politic to ignore the tone of the commentary.
+
+"Why not? Nobody's hurt by it. You'll be on the Central Committee,
+Boy-ee."
+
+"No; I don't think so."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I think I'd better keep out of the movement, Dad."
+
+"As you like. And you'll see that the 'Clarion' keeps out of it, too?"
+
+"So that's it."
+
+"Yes, Boy-ee: that's it. You can see, for yourself, that a newspaper
+sensation would ruin everything just now--and also ruin the paper that
+sprung it."
+
+"So I heard from Elias M. Pierce sometime since."
+
+"For once Pierce is right."
+
+"Are you asking me to suppress the epidemic story?"
+
+"To let us handle it our own way," substituted the Doctor. "We've got
+our campaign all figured out and ready to start. Do you know what the
+great danger is now?"
+
+"Letting the infection go on without taking open measures to stop it."
+
+"You're way wrong! Starting a panic that will scatter it all over the
+place is the real danger. Have you heard of a single case outside of the
+Rookeries district, so far?"
+
+Hal strove to recall the death-list on the proof. "No," he admitted.
+
+"You see! It's confined to one locality. Now, what happens if you turn
+loose a newspaper scare? Why, those poor, ignorant people will swarm out
+of the Rookeries and go anywhere to escape the quarantine that they know
+will come. You'll have an epidemic not localized, but general. The
+situation will be ten times as difficult and dangerous as it is now."
+
+Struck with the plausibility of this reasoning, Hal hesitated. "That's
+up to the authorities," he said.
+
+"The authorities!" cried the charlatan, in disdain. "What could they do?
+The damage would be done before they got ready to move. You see, we've
+got to handle this situation diplomatically. Look here, Boyee; what's
+the worst feature of an epidemic? Panic. You know the Bible parable. The
+seven plagues came to Egypt and ten thousand people died. The Grand
+Vizier said to the plagues, 'How many of my people have you slain?' The
+plagues said, 'A thousand.' 'What about the other nine thousand?' said
+the Grand Vizier. 'Not guilty!' said the plagues. 'They were slain by
+Fear.' Maybe it was in 'Paradise Lost' and not the Bible. But the
+lesson's the same. Panic is the killer."
+
+"But the disease is increasing all the time," objected Hal. "Are we to
+sit still and--"
+
+"Is it?" broke in the wily controversialist. "How do you account for
+this, then?" He drew from his pocket a printed leaflet. "Take a peek at
+those figures. Fewer deaths in the Rookeries this last week than in any
+week since March."
+
+This was true. Not infrequently there comes an inexplicable subsidence
+of mortality in mid-epidemic. No competent hygienist is deceived into
+mistaking this phenomenon for an indication of the end. Not being a
+hygienist Hal was again impressed.
+
+"The Health Bureau's own statistics," continued the argumentator,
+pushing his advantage. "With Dr. Merritt's signature at the bottom."
+
+"Dr. Merritt says that the epidemic is being fostered by secrecy,
+suppression, and lying."
+
+"All sentimentalism. Merritt would turn the city upside down if he had
+his way. Was it him that told you it was typhus?"
+
+"No. We've got a two-page story in proof now, giving the whole facts of
+the epidemic."
+
+"You can't publish it, Boy-ee," said his father firmly.
+
+"Can't? That sounds like an order."
+
+Adroitly Dr. Surtaine caught at the word. "An order drawn on your word
+of honor."
+
+"If there's any question of honor to the 'Clarion,' it's to tell the
+truth plainly and take the consequences."
+
+"Who said anything about the 'Clarion's honor? This is between you and
+me."
+
+"You'll have to speak more plainly," said Hal with a dawning dread.
+
+"Boyee, I hate to do this, but I've got to, to save the city. You gave
+me your word that the day you had to suppress news for your own sake,
+you'd quit this Don Quixotic business and treat others as decently and
+considerately as you treated yourself."
+
+"Go on," said Hal, in a half whisper.
+
+"Well--Milly Neal." Dr. Surtaine wet his lips nervously. "You saved
+yourself there by keeping the story out of the papers. Of course you
+were right. You were dead right. You'd have been a fool to do anything
+else. But there you are. And there's your promise."
+
+A nausea of the soul sickened Hal. That his father, whom he had so loved
+and honored, should make of the loyalty which had, at the cost of
+principle, protected the name of Surtaine against open disgrace, a tool
+wherewith to tear down his professional standards--it was like some
+incredible and malign jocosity of a devilish logic. Of what was going on
+in the quack's mind he had no inkling. He could not know that his father
+saw in the suppression of the suicide news, only a natural and
+successful effort on the part of Hal to conceal his own guilt in Milly's
+death. No more could Dr. Surtaine comprehend that it was the dreadful
+responsibility of the Surtaine quackery for which Hal had unhesitantly
+sacrificed the declared principle of the "Clarion." So they gazed darkly
+at each other across the chasm, each seeing his opponent in the blackest
+colors.
+
+"You hold me to that?" demanded Hal, half choked.
+
+"I have to, Boy-ee."
+
+To Dr. Surtaine the issue which he had raised was but the distasteful
+means to a necessary end. To Hal it meant the final capitulation to the
+forces against which he had been fighting since his first enlightenment.
+
+"I might as well sell the 'Clarion' now, and be done with it," he
+declared bitterly.
+
+"Nonsense! If you stuck to this foolishness you'd have to sell it or
+lose it. You'd be ruined, both in influence and in money. How would you
+feel when Mac Ellis, and Wayne, and all the fellows that stuck by you
+found themselves out of a job because of your pig-headedness? And what
+harm are you doing by dropping the story, anyway? We've got this thing
+beaten, right now. It isn't spreading. It's dropping off. What'll the
+'Clarion' look like when its great sensation peters out into thin air?
+But by that time the harm'll be done and the whole country will think
+we're a plague-stricken city. Don't do all that damage and spoil
+everything just for a false delusion, Boyee."
+
+But Hal's mind was brooding on the fatal promise which he had so
+confidently made his father. One way out there was.
+
+"Since it's a question of my word to you," he said, "I could still
+publish the truth about Milly Neal."
+
+"No. You couldn't do that, Boyee," said his father in a tone, half
+sorrowful, half shamed.
+
+"No. You're right. I couldn't--God help me!"
+
+To proclaim his own father a moral criminal in his own paper was the
+one test which Hal lacked the power to meet. It was the world-old
+conflict between loyalty and principle--in which loyalty so often and so
+tragically wins the first combat.
+
+After all, Hal forced himself to consider, he was not serving his public
+ill by this particular sacrifice of principle. The official mortality
+figures helped him to persuade himself that the typhus was indeed
+ebbing. For himself, as the price of silence, there was easy sailing
+under the flag of local patriotism, and with every success in prospect.
+Yet it was with sunken eyes that he turned to the tempter.
+
+"All right," he said, with a half groan, "I give in. We won't print it."
+
+Dr. Surtaine heaved a great sigh of relief. "That's horse sense!" he
+cried jovially. "Now, you go ahead on those lines and you'll make the
+'Clarion' the best-paying proposition in Worthington. I'll drop a few
+hints where they'll do the most good, and you'll see the advertisers
+breaking their necks to come in. Journalism is no different from any
+other business, Boy-ee. Live and let live. Bear and forbear. There's the
+rule for you. The trouble with you, Boy-ee, has been that you've been
+trying to run a business on pink-tea principles."
+
+"The trouble with me," said his son bitterly, "is that I've been trying
+to reform a city when I ought to have been reforming myself."
+
+"Oh, you're all right, Boy-ee," his affectionate and admiring father
+reassured him. "You're just finding yourself. As for this reform--" And
+he was launched upon the second measure of the Paean of Policy when Hal
+cut him short by ringing a bell and ordering the boy to send McGuire
+Ellis to him. Ellis came up from the city room.
+
+"Kill the epidemic story, Mr. Ellis," he ordered.
+
+Red passion surged up into Ellis's face.
+
+"Kill--" he began, in a strangled voice.
+
+"Kill it. You understand?" The associate editor's color receded. He
+looked with slow contempt from father to son.
+
+"Oh, yes, I understand," he said. "Any other orders to-day?"
+
+Hal made no reply. His father, divining that this was no time for
+further speech, took his departure. McGuire Ellis went out with black
+despair at his heart, a soldier betrayed by his captain. And the
+proprietor of the "Clarion," his feet now set in the path of success and
+profit, turned back to his work in sodden disenchantment, sighing as
+youth alone sighs, and as youth sighs only when it foregoes the dream of
+ideals which is its immortal birthright.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+"WHOSE BREAD I EAT"
+
+
+Having yielded, Hal proposed to take profit by his surrender. With a
+cynicism born of his bitter disappointment and self-contempt, he took a
+certain savage and painful satisfaction in stating the new policy
+editorially.
+
+"As the 'Clarion' is going to be a journalistic prostitute," said he to
+his father, across the luncheon table, where they were consulting on
+details of the new policy, "I'm going to go after the business on that
+basis."
+
+Dr. Surtaine was pained. Every effort of his own convenient logic he put
+forth to prove that, in this instance, the path of duty and of glory
+(financial) was one and the same. Hal refused the proffered gloss. "At
+least you and I can call things by their right names now," said he.
+
+But however Hal might talk, what he wrote met his elder's unqualified
+approval, as it appeared in the proof sent him by his son. It was a
+cunningly worded leading editorial, headed "Standards," and it dealt
+appreciatively, not to say reverently, with the commercial greatness of
+Worthington. Business, the editor stated, might have to adjust itself to
+new conditions and opinions in Worthington as elsewhere, but nobody who
+understood the character of the city's leading men could doubt their
+good purpose or ability to effect the change with the least damage to
+material prosperity. Meantime the fitting attitude for the public was
+one not of criticism but of forbearance and assistance. This was equally
+true of journalism. The "Clarion" admitted seeing a new light.
+Constructive rather than destructive effort was called for. And so
+forth, and so on. No intelligent reader could have failed, reading it,
+to understand that the "Clarion" had hauled down its flag.
+
+Yet the capitulation must not, for business reasons, be too obvious. Hal
+spent some toilful hours over the proof, inserting plausible phrases,
+covering his tracks with qualifying clauses, putting the best front on
+the shameful matter, with a sick but determined heart, and was about to
+send it up with the final "O.K." when he came out of his absorption to
+realize that some one was standing waiting, had been standing waiting,
+for some minutes at his elbow. He looked around and met the intent gaze
+of the foreman of the composing-room.
+
+"What is it, Veltman?" he asked sharply.
+
+"That epidemic story."
+
+"Well? What about it?"
+
+"Did you order it killed?"
+
+"Certainly. Haven't you thrown it down?"
+
+"No. It's still in type."
+
+"Throw it down at once."
+
+"Mr. Surtaine, have you thought what you are doing?"
+
+"It is no part of your job to catechize me, Veltman."
+
+"Between man and man." He stepped close to Hal, his face blazing with
+exaltation. "I must speak now or forever hold my peace."
+
+"Speak fast, then."
+
+"It's your last chance, this epidemic spread. Your last chance to save
+the 'Clarion' and yourself."
+
+"That will do, Velt--"
+
+"No, no! Listen to me. I didn't say a word when you kept Milly's suicide
+out of print."
+
+"I should think not, indeed!" retorted Hal angrily.
+
+"That's my shame. I ought to have seen that published if I had to set it
+up myself."
+
+"Perhaps you're not aware, Veltman, that I know your part in the Neal
+affair."
+
+"I'd have confessed to you, if you hadn't. But do you know your own?
+Yours and your father's?"
+
+"Keep my father out of this!"
+
+"Your own, then. Do you know that the money that bought this paper for
+you was coined out of the blood of deceived girls? Do you know that you
+and I are paid with the proceeds of the ad. that led Milly Neal to her
+death? Do you know that?"
+
+"And if I do, what then?" asked Hal, overborne by the man's conviction
+and vehemence.
+
+"Tell it!" cried the other, beating his fist upon the desk until the
+blood oozed from the knuckles. "Tell it in print. Confess, man, and warn
+others!"
+
+"Veltman, suppose we were to print that whole wretched story to-morrow,
+including the truth about your relations with her."
+
+"Do it! Do it!" cried the other, choked with eagerness. "I'd thank you
+on my knees. Penance! Give me my chance to do penance! I'll make my own
+confession in writing. I'll write it in my own blood if need be."
+
+"Steady, Veltman. Keep cool."
+
+"You think I'm crazy? Perhaps I am. There's a fire at my brain since she
+died. I loved her, Mr. Surtaine."
+
+"But you sacrificed her, Veltman," returned Hal in a gentler tone, for
+the man's face was livid with agony.
+
+"Don't I know it! My God, don't I know it! But _you_ can't escape the
+responsibility because of my sin. It was your paper that helped fool
+her. She believed in the paper, and in your father."
+
+"The Relief Pills advertising is out. That much I'll tell you."
+
+"Now that it's done its work. Not enough! You and I can't bring Milly
+back to life, Mr. Surtaine, but we can save other lives in peril. God
+has given you your chance, in this epidemic."
+
+"How do you know about the epidemic?"
+
+"Hasn't it taken Mr. Hale, the only friend I've got in the world? And
+won't it take its hundreds of other lives unless warning is given? Why
+doesn't the 'Clarion' speak out, Mr. Surtaine? _Why is that story
+ordered killed?_"
+
+"Consideration of policy which--"
+
+"Policy! Oh, my God! And the people dying! Harrington Surtaine,"--his
+eyes blazed into the other's with the flame of fanaticism,--"I tell you,
+if you don't accept this opportunity that the Lord gives you, you and
+your paper are damned. Do you know what it means to damn the soul of a
+paper? Why, man, there are people who believe in the 'Clarion' like
+gospel."
+
+Hal got to his feet. "Veltman, I dare say you mean well. But you don't
+understand this."
+
+"Don't I!" The face took on a sudden appalling savagery. "Don't I know
+you're bought and paid for! Sold out! That's what you've done. A
+bargain! A bargain! Pay my little price and I'll do your meanest
+bidding. I'd rather have hell burning at my heart as it burns now than
+what you've got rotting at yours, young Surtaine."
+
+The tensity of Hal's restraint broke. With one powerful effort he sent
+the foreman whirling through the open door into the hall, slammed the
+door after him, and stood shaking. He heard and felt the jar of
+Veltman's body as it struck the wall, and slumped to the floor; then the
+slow limp of his retreating footsteps. With a seething brain he returned
+to his proof--and shuddered away from it. There was blood spattered over
+the print. Hurriedly he thrust it aside and rang for a fresh galley. But
+the red spots rose between his eyes and the work, like an accusation,
+like a prophecy. Of a sudden he beheld this great engine of print which
+had been, first, the caprice of his last flicker of irresponsible and
+headlong youth, then the very mould in which his eager and ambitious
+manhood was to form and fulfill itself--he beheld this vast mechanism
+blazingly illumined as with some inner fire, and now become a terrific
+genius, potent beyond the powers of humanity, working out the dire
+complications of men, and the tragic destruction of women. And he beheld
+himself, fast in its grip.
+
+He thrust the proof into the tube, scrawled the "O.K." order on it for
+the morrow, and hurried away from the office as from a place accursed.
+
+That night conscience struck at him once more, making a weapon of words
+from the book of a dead master. He had been reading "Beauchamp's
+Career"; and, seeking refuge from the torture of thought in its magic,
+he came upon the novelist-philosopher's damning indictment of modern
+journalism:
+
+     _"And this Press, declaring itself independent, can hardly walk for
+     fear of treading on an interest here, an interest there. It cannot
+     have a conscience. It is a bad guide, a false guardian; its abject
+     claim to be our national and popular interpreter--even that is
+     hollow and a mockery. It is powerful only when subservient. An
+     engine of money, appealing to the sensitiveness of money, it has no
+     connection with the mind of the nation. And that it is not of, but
+     apart from the people, may be seen when great crises come--in
+     strong gales the power of the Press collapses; it wheezes like a
+     pricked pigskin of a piper."_
+
+Hal flung the book from him. But its accusations pursued him through the
+gates of sleep, and poisoned his rest.
+
+In the morning he had recovered his balance, and with it his dogged
+determination to see the matter through. He forced himself to read the
+leading editorial, finding spirit even to admire the dexterity with
+which he had held out the promise of good behavior to the business
+interests, whilst pretending to a sturdy independence. Shearson met him
+at the entrance to the building, beaming.
+
+"That'll bring business," said the advertising manager. "I've had half a
+dozen telephones already about it."
+
+"That's good," replied Hal half-heartedly.
+
+"Yes, _sir_," pursued the advertising manager: "I can smell money in
+the air to-day. And, by the way, I've got a tip that, for a little mild
+apology, E.M. Pierce will withdraw both his suits."
+
+"I'll think about it," promised Hal. He was rather surprised at the
+intensity of his own relief from the prospect of the court ordeal. At
+least, he was getting his price.
+
+McGuire Ellis was, for once, not asleep, though there was no work on his
+desk when Hal entered the sanctum.
+
+"Veltman's quit," was his greeting.
+
+"I'm not surprised," said Hal.
+
+"Then you've seen the editorial page this morning?"
+
+"Yes. But what has that to do with Veltman's resignation?"
+
+"Everything, I should think. Notice anything queer about the page?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Look it over again."
+
+Hal took up the paper and scrutinized the sheet. "I don't see a thing
+wrong," he said.
+
+"That lets me out," said Ellis grimly. "If you can't see it when you're
+told it's there, I guess I can't be blamed for not catching it in proof.
+Of course the last thing one notices is a stock line that's always been
+there unchanged. Look at the motto of the paper. Veltman must have
+chiseled out the old one, and set this in, himself, the last thing
+before we went to press. How do you like it? Looks to me to go pretty
+well with our leading editorial this morning."
+
+There between the triumphal cocks, where formerly had flaunted the
+braggart boast of the old "Clarion," and more latterly had appeared the
+gentle legend of the martyred President, was spread in letters of shame
+to the eyes of the "Clarion's" owner, the cynic profession of the led
+captain, of the prostituted pen, of all those who have or shall sell
+mind and soul and honor for hire;--
+
+     _"Whose Bread I Eat, his Song I Sing."_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+CERTINA CHARLEY
+
+
+Mr. Belford Couch was a man of note. You might search vainly for the
+name among the massed thousands of "Who's Who in America," or even in
+those biographical compilations which embalm one's fame and picture for
+a ten-dollar consideration. Shout the cognomen the length of Fifth
+Avenue, bellow it up Walnut and down Chestnut Street, lend it vocal
+currency along the Lake Shore Drive, toss it to the winds that storm in
+from the Golden Gate to assault Nob Hill, and no answering echo would
+you awake. But give to its illustrious bearer his familiar title; speak
+but the words "Certina Charley" within the precincts of the nation's
+capital and the very asphalt would find a viscid voice wherewith to
+acclaim the joke, while Senate would answer House, and Department reply
+to Bureau with the curses of the stung ones. For Mr. Belford Couch was
+least loved where most laughed at.
+
+From the nature of his profession this arose. His was a singular career.
+He pursued the fleeting testimonial through the mazy symptoms of disease
+(largely imaginary) and cure (wholly mythical). To extract from the
+great and shining ones of political life commendations of Certina; to
+beguile statesmen who had never tasted that strange concoction into
+asseverating their faith in the nostrum's infallibility for any and all
+ailments; to persuade into fulsome print solemnly asinine Senators and
+unwarily flattered Congressmen--that was the touchstone of his living.
+Some the Demon Rum betrayed into his hands. Others he won by sheer
+personal persuasiveness, for he was a master of the suave plea. Again,
+political favors or "inside information" made those his debtors from
+whom he exacted and extracted the honor of their names for Dr.
+Surtaine's upholding. Blackmail, even, was hinted at. "What does it
+matter?" thought the deluded or oppressed victim. "Merely a line of
+meaningless indorsement to sign my name to." And within a fortnight
+advertising print, black and looming, would inform the reading populace
+of the whole country that "United States Senator Gull says of Certina:
+'It is, in my opinion, unrivaled as a never-failing remedy for coughs
+and colds,'" with a picture, coarse-screen, libelously recognizable.
+
+Certina Charley was not a testimonial-chaser alone. Had he been, Dr.
+Surtaine would not have retained him at a generous salary, but would
+have paid him, as others of his strange species are paid, by the piece;
+one hundred dollars for a Representative, two hundred and fifty dollars
+for a Senator, and as high as five hundred for a hero conspicuous in the
+popular eye. The special employee of Certina was a person of diverse
+information and judicious counsel. His chief had not incorrectly
+described him as the diplomat of the trade.
+
+No small diplomacy had been required for the planning of the Emergency
+Committee scheme, the details of which Mr. Couch had worked out,
+himself. It was, as he boasted to Dr. Surtaine, "a clincher."
+
+"Look out for the medicos," he had said to Dr. Surtaine in outlining his
+great idea. "They're mean to handle. You can always buy or bluff a
+newspaper, but a doctor is different. Some of 'em you can grease, but
+they're the scrubs. The real fellers won't touch money, and the worst of
+'em just seem to love trouble. Merritt's that kind. But we can fix
+Merritt by raising twenty or thirty thousand dollars and handing it over
+to him to organize his campaign against the epidemic. From all I can
+learn, Merritt has got the goods as a health officer. He knows his
+business. There's no man in town could handle the thing better, unless
+it's you, Chief, and you don't want to mix up in the active part of it.
+Merritt'll be crazy to do it, too. That's where we'll have him roped.
+You say to him, 'Take this money and do the work, but do it on the
+quiet. That's the condition. If you can't keep our secret, we'll have
+you fired and get some man that can.' The Mayor will chuck him if the
+committee says so. But it won't be necessary, if I've got Merritt sized
+up. He wants to get into this fight so bad that he'll agree to almost
+anything. His assistants we can square.
+
+"So much for the official end of it. But what about the run of the
+medical profession? If they go around diagnosing typhus, the news'll
+spread almost as fast as through the papers. So here's how we'll fix
+them. Recommend the City Council to pass an ordinance making it a
+misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment, and revocation of license
+to practice, for a physician to make a diagnosis of any case as a
+pestilential disease. The Council will do it on the committee's say-so."
+
+"Whew!" whistled the old charlatan. "That's going pretty strong, Bel.
+The doctors won't stand for that."
+
+"Believe me, they will. It's been tried and it worked fine, on the
+Coast, when they had the plague there. That's where I got the notion:
+but the revocation of the license is my own scheme. That'll scare 'em
+out of their wits. You'll find they don't dare peep about typhus.
+Especially as there aren't a dozen doctors in town that ever saw a case
+of it."
+
+"That's so," agreed his principal. "I guess you're right after all,
+Bel."
+
+"Sure, am I! You say you've got the newspapers fixed."
+
+"Sewed up tight."
+
+"Keno! Our programme's complete. You and Mr. Pierce and the Mayor see
+Merritt and get him. Call the meeting for next week. Make some
+good-natured, diplomatic feller chairman. Send out the call to about
+three hundred of your solidest men. Then we'll elect you permanent
+chairman, you can pick your Emergency Committee, put the resolution
+about pest-diagnosis up to the City Council--and there you are. My job's
+done. I shall _not_ be among those present."
+
+"Done, and mighty well done, Bel. You'll be going back to Washington?"
+
+"No, I guess I better stick around for a while--in case. Besides, I want
+a little rest."
+
+Like so many persons of the artistic temperament, Certina Charley was
+subject to periods of relaxation. With him these assumed the phase of
+strong drink, evenly and rather thickly spread over several days. On the
+afternoon before the carefully planned meeting, ten days after Norman
+Hale was taken to the hospital, the diplomat of quackery, his shoulders
+eased of all responsibility, sat lunching early at the Hotel Dunston.
+His repast consisted of a sandwich and a small bottle of well-frapped
+champagne. To him, lunching, came a drummer of the patent medicine
+trade; a blatant and boastful fellow, from whose methods the diplomat in
+Mr. Belford Couch revolted. Nevertheless, the newcomer was a forceful
+person, and when, over two ponies of brandy ordered by the luncher in
+the way of inevitable hospitality, he launched upon a criticism of some
+of the recent Certina legislative strategy as lacking vigor (a reproach
+by no means to be laid to the speaker's language), Mr. Couch's tenderest
+feelings were lacerated. With considerable dignity for one in his
+condition, he bade his guest go farther and fare worse, and in
+mitigation of the latter's Parthian taunt, "Kid-glove fussing, 'bo,"
+called Heaven and earth and the whole cafe to witness that, abhorrent
+though self-trumpeting was to him, no man had ever handled more
+delicately a prickly proposition than he had handled the Certina
+legislative interests. Gazing about him for sympathy he espied the son
+of his chief passing between the tables, and hailed him.
+
+Two casual meetings with Certina Charley had inspired in Hal a mildly
+amused curiosity. Therefore, he readily enough accepted an invitation to
+sit down, while declining a coincident one to have a drink, on the plea
+that he was going to work.
+
+"Say," appealed Charley, "did you hear that cough-lozenge-peddling boob
+trying to tell me where to get off, in the proprietary game? Me!"
+
+"Perhaps he didn't know who you are," suggested Hal tactfully.
+
+"Perhaps he don't know the way from his hand to his face with a glass of
+booze, either," retorted the offended one, with elaborate sarcasm.
+"Everybody in the trade knows me. Sure you won't have a drink?"
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"Don't drink much myself," announced the testimonial-chaser. "Just once
+in a while. Weak kidneys."
+
+"That's a poor tribute from a Certina man."
+
+"Oh, Certina's all right--for those that want it. The best doctor is
+none too good for me when I'm off my feed."
+
+"Well, they call Certina 'the People's Doctor,'" said Hal, quoting an
+argument his father had employed.
+
+"One of the Chief's catchwords. And ain't it a corker! He's the best old
+boy in the business, on the bunk."
+
+"Just what do you mean by that?" asked Hal coldly.
+
+But Certina Charley was in an expansive mood. It never occurred to him
+that the heir of the Certina millions was not in the Certina secrets:
+that he did not wholly understand the nature of his father's trade, and
+view it with the same jovial cynicism that inspired the old quack.
+
+"Who's to match him?" he challenged argumentatively. "I tell you, they
+all go to school to him. There ain't one of our advertising tricks, from
+Old Lame-Boy down to the money-back guarantee, that the others haven't
+crabbed. Take that 'People's Doctor' racket. Schwarzman copied it for
+his Marovian Mixture. Vollmer ran his 'Poor Man's Physician' copy six
+months, on Marsh-Weed. 'Poor Man's Doctor'! It's pretty dear treatment,
+I tell you."
+
+"Surely not," said Hal.
+
+"Sure _is_ it! What's a doctor's fee? Three dollars, probably."
+
+"And Certina is a dollar a bottle. If one bottle cures--"
+
+"Does _what_? Quit your jollying," laughed Certina Charley unsteadily.
+
+"Cures the disease," said Hal, his suspicions beginning to congeal into
+a cold dread that the revelation which he had been unconfessedly
+avoiding for weeks past was about to be made.
+
+"If it did, we'd go broke. Do you know how many bottles must be sold to
+any one patron before the profits begin to come in? Six! Count them,
+six."
+
+"Nonsense! It can't cost so much to make as--"
+
+"Make? Of course it don't. But what does it cost to advertise? You think
+I'm a little drink-taken, but I ain't. I'm giving you the straight
+figures. It costs just the return on six bottles to get Certina into Mr.
+E.Z. Mark's hands, and until he's paid his seventh dollar for his
+seventh bottle our profits don't come in. Advertising is expensive,
+these days."
+
+"How many bottles does it take to cure?" asked Hal, clinging desperately
+to the word.
+
+"Nix on the cure thing, 'bo. You don't have to put up any bluff with me.
+I'm on the inside, right down to the bottom."
+
+"Very well. Maybe you know more than I do, then," said Hal, with a grim
+determination, now that matters had gone thus far, to accept this
+opportunity of knowledge, at whatever cost of disillusionment. "Go
+ahead. Open up."
+
+"A real cure couldn't make office-rent," declared the expert with
+conviction. "What you want in the proprietary game is a jollier.
+Certina's that. The booze does it. You ought to see the farmers in a
+no-license district lick it up. Three or four bottles will give a guy a
+pretty strong hunch for it. And after the sixth bottle it's all velvet
+to us, except the nine cents for manufacture and delivery."
+
+"But it must be some good or people wouldn't keep on buying it," pursued
+Hal desperately.
+
+"You've got all the old stuff, haven't you! The good ol' stock
+arguments," said Certina Charley, giggling. "The Chief has taught you
+the lesson all right. Must be studyin' up to go before a legislative
+committee. Well, here's the straight of it. Folks keep on buying Certina
+for the kick there is in it. It's a bracer. And it's a repeater, the
+best repeater in the trade."
+
+"But it must cure lots of them. Look at the testimonials. Surely they're
+genuine."
+
+"So's a rhinestone genuine--as a rhinestone. The testimonials that ain't
+bought, or given as a favor, are from rubes who want to see their names
+in print."
+
+"At least I suppose it isn't harmful," said Hal desperately.
+
+"No more than any other good ol' booze. It won't hurt a well man. I used
+to soak up quite a bit of it myself till my doc gave me an option on
+dyin' of Bright's disease or quittin'."
+
+"Bright's disease!" exclaimed Hal.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know: we cure Bright's disease, don't we? Well, if there's
+anything worse for old George W. Bright's favorite ailment than raw
+alcohol, then my high-priced physizzian don't know his business."
+
+"Let me get this straight," said Hal with a white face. "Do I understand
+that Certina--"
+
+"Say, wassa matter?" broke in Certina Charley, in concern; "you look
+sick."
+
+"Never mind me. You go on and tell me the truth about this thing."
+
+"I guess I been talkin' too much," muttered Certina Charley, dismayed.
+He gulped down the last of his champagne with a tremulous hand. "This's
+my second bottle," he explained. "An' brandy in between. Say, I thought
+you knew all about the business."
+
+"I know enough about it now so that I've got to know the rest."
+
+"You--you won't gimme away to the Chief? I didn't mean to show up his
+game. I'm--I'm pretty strong for the old boy, myself."
+
+"I won't give you away. Go on."
+
+"Whaddye want to know, else?"
+
+"Is there _anything_ that Certina is good for?"
+
+"Sure! Didn't I tell you? It's the finest bracer--"
+
+"As a cure?"
+
+"It's just as good as any other prup-proprietary."
+
+"That isn't the question. You say it is harmful in Bright's disease."
+
+"Why, looka here, Mr. Surtaine, you know yourself that booze is poison
+to any feller with kidney trouble. Rheumatism, too, for that matter. But
+they get the brace, and they think they're better, and that helps push
+the trade, too."
+
+"And that's where my money came from," said Hal, half to himself.
+
+"It's all in the trade," cried Certina Charley, summoning his powers to
+a defense. "There's lots that's worse. There's the cocaine dopes for
+catarrh; they'll send a well man straight to hell in six months. There's
+the baby dopes; and the G-U cures that keep the disease going when right
+treatment could cure it; and the methylene blue--"
+
+"Stop it! Stop it!" cried Hal. "I've heard enough."
+
+Alcohol, the juggler with men's thoughts, abruptly pressed upon a new
+center of ideation in Certina Charley's brain.
+
+"D'you think I like it?" he sniveled, with lachrymose sentimentality.
+"I gotta make a living, haven't I? Here's you and me, two pretty decent
+young fellers, having to live on a fake. Well," he added with solacing
+philosophy, "if we didn't get it, somebody else would."
+
+"Tell me one thing," said Hal, getting to his feet. "Does my father know
+all this that you've been telling me?"
+
+"Does the Chief _know_ it? _Does_ he? Why, say, my boy, Ol' Doc
+Surtaine, he _wrote_ the proprietary medicine business!"
+
+Misgivings beset the optimistic soul of Certina Charley as his guest
+faded from his vision; faded and vanished without so much as a word of
+excuse or farewell. For once Hal had been forgetful of courtesy. Gazing
+after him his host addressed the hovering waiter:--
+
+"Say, Bill, I guess I been talkin' too much with my face. Bring's
+another of those li'l bo'ls."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+ILLUMINATION
+
+
+Certina Charley, plus an indeterminate quantity of alcohol, had acted
+upon Hal's mind as a chemical precipitant. All the young man's hitherto
+suppressed or unacknowledged doubts of the Certina trade and its head
+were now violently crystallized. Hal hurried out of the hotel, the wrath
+in his heart for the deception so long wrought upon him chilled by a
+profounder feeling, a feeling of irreparable loss. He thought in that
+moment that his love for his father was dead. It was not. It was only
+his trust that was dying, and dying hard.
+
+Since that day of his first visit to the Certina factory, Hal's
+standards had undergone an intrinsic but unconscious alteration. Brought
+up to the patent medicine trade, though at a distance, he thought of it,
+by habit, as on a par with other big businesses. One whose childhood is
+spent in a glue factory is not prone to be supersensitive to odors. So,
+to Harrington Surtaine, those ethical and moral difficulties which would
+have bulked huge to one of a different training, were merely inherent
+phases of a profitable business. Misgivings had indeed stirred, at
+first. For these he had chided himself, as for an over-polite revulsion
+from the necessary blatancy of a broadly advertised enterprise. More
+searching questions, as they arose within him, he had met with the
+counter-evidence of the internal humanism and fair-dealing of the
+Certina shop, and of the position of its beloved chief in the commercial
+world.
+
+In the face of the Relief Pills exposure, Hal could no longer excuse his
+father on the ground that Dr. Surtaine honestly credited his medicines
+with impossible efficacies. Still, he had reasoned, the Doctor had been
+willing instantly to abandon this nostrum when the harm done by it was
+concretely brought home to him. Though this argument had fallen far
+short of reconciling Hal to the Surtaine standards, nevertheless it had
+served as a makeshift to justify in part his abandonment of the hard-won
+principles of the "Clarion," a surrender necessary for the saving of a
+loved and honored father in whose essential goodness he had still
+believed.
+
+Now the edifice of his faith was in ruins. If Certina itself, if the
+tutelary genius of the House of Surtaine, were indeed but a monstrous
+quackery cynically accepted as such by those in the secret, what shred
+of defense remained to him who had so prospered by it? Through the
+wreckage of his pride, his loyalty, his affection, Hal saw, in place of
+the glowing and benign face of Dr. Surtaine, the simulacrum of Fraud,
+sleek and crafty, bloated fat with the blood of tragically hopeful
+dupes.
+
+One great lesson of labor Hal had already learned, that work is an
+anodyne. From his interview with Certina Charley he made straight for
+the "Clarion" office. As he hurried up the stairs, the door of
+Shearson's room opened upon him, and there emerged therefrom a
+brick-red, agile man who greeted him with a hard cordiality.
+
+"Your paper certainly turned the trick. I gotta hand it to you!"
+
+"What trick?" asked Hal, not recognizing the stranger.
+
+"Selling my stock. Streaky Mountain Copper Company. Don't you remember?"
+
+Hal did remember now. It was L.P. McQuiggan.
+
+"More of the same for me, _if_ you please," continued the visitor. "I've
+just made the deal with Shearson. He's stuck me up on rates a little.
+That's all right, though. The 'Clarion' fetches the dough. I want to
+start the new campaign with an interview on our prospects. Is it O.K.?"
+
+"Come up and see Mr. Ellis," said Hal.
+
+Having led him to the editorial office, Hal sat down to work, but found
+no escape from his thoughts. There was but one thing to do: he must have
+it out at once with Dr. Surtaine. He telephoned the factory for an
+appointment. Sharp-eared McQuiggan caught the call.
+
+"That my old pal, Andy?" said he. "Gimme a shot at him while you've got
+him on the wire, will you?"
+
+Cheery, not to say chirpy, was the mining promoter's greeting projected
+into the transmitter which Hal turned over to him. Straightway, however,
+a change came o'er his blithe spirit.
+
+"Something's biting the old geezer," he informed Hal and Ellis. "Seems
+to have a grouch. Says he's coming over, pronto--right quick."
+
+Five minutes later, while Mr. McQuiggan was running over some proofs
+which he had brought with him, Dr. Surtaine walked into the office.
+There was about him a formidable smoothness, as of polished metal. He
+greeted his old friend with a nod and a cool "Back again, I see, Elpy."
+
+"And doing business at the old stand," rejoined his friend.
+"Worthington's the place where the dollars grow, all right."
+
+"Grow, _and_ stay," said Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"Meaning?" inquired McQuiggan solicitously.
+
+"That you've over-medicated this field."
+
+"Have I got any dollars away from you, Andy?"
+
+"No. But you have from my people."
+
+"Well, their money's as good to buy booze with as anybody else's, I
+reckon."
+
+Dr. Surtaine had sat down, directly opposite the visitor, fronting him
+eye-to-eye. Nothing loath, McQuiggan accepted the challenge. His hard,
+brisk voice, with a sub-tone of the snarl, crossed the Doctor's strong,
+heavy utterance like a rapier engaging a battle-axe. Both assumed a
+suavity of manner felt to be just at the breaking point. The two
+spectators sat, surprised and expectant.
+
+"I don't suppose," said Dr. Surtaine, after a pause, "there's any use
+trying to get you to refund."
+
+"Still sticking out for the money-back-if-not-satisfied racket--in the
+other fellow's business, eh, Andy? Better practice it in your own."
+
+"Hal,"--Dr. Surtaine turned to his son,--"has McQuiggan brought in a new
+batch of copy?"
+
+"So I understand."
+
+"The 'Clarion' mustn't run it."
+
+"The hell it mustn't!" said McQuiggan.
+
+"It's crooked," said the quack bluntly.
+
+The promoter laughed. "A hot one, you are, to talk about crookedness."
+
+"He's paying his advertising bills out of my people's pay envelopes!"
+accused Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"How's that, Doc?" asked Ellis.
+
+"Why, when he was here before, he spent some time around the Certina
+plant and got acquainted with the department managers and a lot of the
+others, and damn me!" cried Dr. Surtaine, grinning in spite of his
+wrath, "if he didn't sting 'em all for stock."
+
+"How do you know they're stung?" inquired Ellis.
+
+"From an expert on the ground. I got anxious when I found my own people
+were in it, and had a man go out there from Phoenix. He reports that the
+Streaky Mountain hasn't got a thing but expectations and hardly that."
+
+"Well, you didn't say there was anything more, did you?" inquired the
+bland McQuiggan.
+
+"I? I didn't say?"
+
+"Yes, _you_. You got up the ads."
+
+"Well--well--well, of all the nerve!" cried Dr. Surtaine, grievously
+appealing to the universe at large. "I got 'em up! You gave me the
+material, didn't you?"
+
+"Sure, did I. Hot stuff it was, too."
+
+"Hot bunk! And to flim-flam my own people with it, too!"
+
+"Anybody that works in your joint ought to be wise to the bunk game,"
+suggested McQuiggan.
+
+"I'll tell you one thing: you don't run any more of it in this town."
+
+"Maybe I don't and then again maybe I do. It won't be as good as your
+copy, p'r'aps. But it'll get _some_ coin, I reckon. Take a look," he
+taunted, and tossed his proofs to the other.
+
+The quack broke forth at the first glance. "Look here! You claim fifty
+thousand tons of copper in sight."
+
+"So there is."
+
+"With a telescope, I suppose."
+
+"Well, telescope's sight, ain't it? You wouldn't try to hear through
+one, would you?"
+
+"And $200,000.00 worth, ready for milling," continued the critic.
+
+"Printer's error in the decimal point," returned the other, with airy
+impudence. "Move it two to the left. Keno! There you have it: $2000.00."
+
+"Very ingenious, Mr. McQuiggan," said Hal. "But you're practically
+admitting that your ads. are faked."
+
+"Admittin' nothin'! I offer you the ads. and I've got the ready stuff to
+pay for 'em."
+
+"And you think that is all that's necessary?"
+
+"Sure do I!"
+
+"Mr. McQuiggan," remarked Ellis, "has probably been reading our able
+editorial on the reformed and chastened policy of the 'Clarion.'"
+
+Hal turned an angry red. "That doesn't commit us to accepting swindles."
+
+"Don't it?" queried McQuiggan. "Since when did you get so
+pick-an'-choosy?"
+
+"Straight advertising," announced Dr. Surtaine, "has been the unvarying
+policy of this paper since my son took it over."
+
+"Straight!" vociferated McQuiggan. "_Straight?_ Ladies and gents: the
+well-known Surtaine Family will now put on their screamin' farce
+entitled 'Honesty is the Best Policy.'"
+
+"When you're through playing the clown--" began Hal.
+
+"Straight advertising," pursued the other. "Did I really hear them sweet
+words in Andy Certain's voice? No! Say, somebody ring an alarm-clock on
+me. I can't wake up."
+
+"I think we've heard enough from you, McQuiggan," warned Hal.
+
+"Do you!" The promoter sprang from his chair and all the latent venom of
+his temper fumed and stung in the words he poured out. "Well, take
+another think. I've got some things to tell you, young feller. Don't you
+come the high-and-holy on me. You and your smooth, big, phony
+stuffed-shirt of a father."
+
+"Here, you!" shouted the leading citizen thus injuriously designated,
+but the other's voice slashed through his protest like a blade through
+pulp.
+
+"Certina! Ho-oh! Warranted to cure consumption, warts, heart-disease,
+softening of the brain, and the bloody pip! And what is it? Morphine and
+booze."
+
+"You're a liar," thundered the outraged proprietor: "Ten thousand
+dollars to any one who can show a grain of morphine in it."
+
+"Changed the formula, have you? Pure Food Law scared you out of the
+dope, eh? Well, even at that it's the same old bunk. What about your
+testimonials? Fake 'em, and forge 'em, and bribe and blackmail for 'em
+and then stand up to me and pull the pious plate-pusher stuff about
+being straight. Oh, my Gawd! It'd make a straddle-bug spit at the sun,
+to hear you. Why, I'm no saint, but the medical line was too strong for
+my stomach. I got out of it."
+
+"Yes, you did, you dirty little dollar-snatcher! You got put of it into
+jail for peddling raw gin--."
+
+"Don't you go raking up old muck with me, you rotten big poisoner!"
+roared McQuiggan: "or you'll get the hot end of it. How about that girl
+that went batty after taking Cert--"
+
+"Wait a moment! Father! Please!" Hal broke in, aghast at this display.
+"We're not discussing the medical business. We're talking advertising.
+McQuiggan, yours is refused. We don't run that class of matter in the
+'Clarion.'"
+
+"No? Since when? You'd better consult an oculist, young Surtaine."
+
+"If ever this paper carried such a glaring fake as your Streaky
+Mountain--"
+
+"Stop right there! Stop! look! and listen!" He caught up the day's issue
+from the floor and flaunted it, riddling the flimsy surface with the
+stiffened finger of indictment. "Look at it! Look at this ad.--and
+this--and this." The paper was rent with the vehemence of his
+indication. "Put my copy next to that, and it'd come to life and squirm
+to get away."
+
+"Nothing there but what every paper takes," defended Ellis.
+
+"Every paper'd be glad to take my stuff, too. Why, Streaky Mountain copy
+is the Holy Bible compared to what you've got here. Take a slant at
+this: 'Consumption Cured in Three Months.'--'Cancer Cured or your Money
+Back.'--Catarrh dopes, headache cures, germ-killers, baby-soothers,
+nerve-builders,--the whole stinkin' lot. Don't I know 'em! Either sugar
+pills that couldn't cure a belly-ache, or hell's-brew of morphine and
+booze. Certina ain't the worst of 'em, any more than it's the best. I
+may squeeze a few dollars out of easy boobs, but you, Andy Certain, you
+and your young whelp here, you're playin' the poor suckers for their
+lives. And then you're too lily-fingered to touch a mining proposition
+because there's a gamble in it!"
+
+He crumpled the paper in his sinewy hands, hurled it to the floor,
+kicked it high over Dr. Surtaine's head, and stalking across to Hal's
+desk, slapped down his proofs on it with a violence that jarred the
+whole structure.
+
+"You run that," he snarled, "or I'll hire the biggest hall in
+Worthington and tell the whole town what I've just been telling you."
+
+His face, furrowed and threatening, was thrust down close to Hal's. Thus
+lowered, the eyes came level with a strip of print, pasted across the
+inner angle of the desk.
+
+"'Whose Bread I Eat, his Song I Sing,'" he read. "What's that?"
+
+"A motto," said McGuire Ellis. "The complete guide to correct
+journalistic conduct. Put there, lest we forget."
+
+"H'm!" said McQuiggan, puzzled. "It's in the right place, all right, all
+right. Well, does my ad. go?"
+
+"No," said Hal. "But I'm much obliged to you, McQuiggan."
+
+"You go to hell. What're you obliged to me for?" said the visitor
+suspiciously.
+
+"For the truth. I think you've told it to me. Anyway you've made me tell
+it to myself."
+
+"I guess I ain't told you much you don't know about your snide
+business."
+
+"You have, though. Go ahead and hire your hall. But--take a look at
+to-morrow's 'Clarion' before you make your speech. Now, good-day to
+you."
+
+McQuiggan, wondering and a little subdued by a certain quiet resolution
+in Hal's speech, went, beckoning Ellis after him for explication. Hal
+turned to his father.
+
+"I don't suppose," he began haltingly, "that you could have told me all
+this yourself."
+
+"What?" asked Dr. Surtaine, consciously on the defensive.
+
+"About the medical ads."
+
+"McQuiggan's a sore-head"--began the Doctor.
+
+"But you might have told me about Certina, as I've been living on
+Certina money."
+
+"There's nothing to tell." All the self-assurance had gone out of the
+quack's voice.
+
+"Father, does Certina cure Bright's disease?"
+
+"Cure? Why, Boyee, what _is_ a cure?"
+
+"Does it cure it?" insisted Hal.
+
+"Sit down and cool off. You've let that skunk, McQuiggan, get you all
+excited."
+
+"This began before McQuiggan."
+
+"Then you've been talking to some jealous doctor-crank."
+
+"For God's sake, Father, answer my plain question."
+
+"Why, there's no such thing as an actual cure for Bright's disease."
+
+"Don't you say in the advertisements that Certina will cure it?"
+
+"Oh, advertisements!" returned the quack with an uneasy smile. "Nobody
+takes an advertisement for gospel."
+
+"I'm answered. Will it cure diabetes?"
+
+"No medicine will. No doctor can. They're incurable diseases. Certina
+will do as much--"
+
+"Is it true that alcohol simply hastens the course of the disease?"
+
+"Authorities differ," said the quack warily. "But as the disease is
+incurable--"
+
+"Then it's all lies! Lies and murder!"
+
+"You're excited, Boy-ee," said the charlatan with haggard forbearance.
+"Let me explain for a moment."
+
+"Isn't it pretty late for explanations between you and me?"
+
+"This is the gist of the proprietary trade," said the Doctor, picking
+his words carefully. "Most diseases cure themselves. Medicine isn't much
+good. Doctors don't know a great deal. Now, if a patent medicine braces
+a patient up and gives him courage, it does all that can be done. Then,
+the advertising inspires confidence in the cure and that's half the
+battle. There's a lot in Christian Science, and a lot in common between
+Christian Science and the proprietary business. Both work on the mind
+and help it to cure the body. But the proprietary trade throws in a few
+drugs to brace up the system, allay symptoms, and push along the good
+work. There you have Certina."
+
+Hal shook his head in dogged misery. "It can't cure. You admit it can't
+cure. And it may kill, in the very cases where it promises to cure. How
+could you take money made that way?"
+
+A flash of cynicism hardened the handsome old face. "Somebody's going to
+make a living off the great American sucker. If it wasn't us, it'd be
+somebody else." He paused, sighed, and in a phrase summed up and
+crystallized the whole philosophy of the medical quack: "Life's a
+cut-throat game, anyway."
+
+"And we're living on the blood," said Hal. "It's a good thing," he added
+slowly, "that I didn't know you as you are before Milly Neal's death."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because," cried the son fiercely, "I'd have published the whole truth
+of how she died and why, in the 'Clarion.'"
+
+"It isn't too late yet," retorted Dr. Surtaine with pained dignity, "if
+you wish to strike at the father who hasn't been such a bad father to
+you. But would you have told the truth of your part in it?"
+
+"My part in it?" repeated Hal, in dull puzzlement. "You mean the ad?"
+
+"You know well enough what I mean. Boy-ee, Boy-ee,"--there was an edge
+of genuine agony in the sonorous voice,--"we've drawn far apart, you and
+I. Is all the wrong on my side? Can you judge me so harshly, with your
+own conscience to answer?"
+
+"What I've got on my conscience you've put there. You've made me turn
+back on every principle I have. I've dishonored myself and my office
+for you. You've cost me the respect of the men I work with, and the
+faith of the best friend I've got in the world."
+
+"The _best_ friend, Boy-ee?" questioned the Doctor gently.
+
+"The best friend: McGuire Ellis."
+
+Hal's gaze met his father's. And what he saw there all but unmanned him.
+From the liquid depths of the old quack's eyes, big and soft like an
+animal's, there welled two great tears, to trickle slowly down the set
+face.
+
+Hal turned and stumbled from the office.
+
+Hardly knowing whither he went, he turned in at the first open door,
+which chanced to be Shearson's. There he sat until his self-control
+returned. As the aftermath of his anger there remained with him a grim
+determination. It was implicit in his voice, as he addressed Shearson,
+who walked in upon him.
+
+"Cut out every line of medical from the paper."
+
+"When?" gasped Shearson.
+
+"Now. For to-morrow's paper."
+
+"But, Mr. Surtaine--"
+
+"Every--damned--line. And if any of it ever gets back, the man
+responsible loses his job."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the cowed and amazed Shearson.
+
+Hal returned to his sanctum, to find Ellis in his own place and Dr.
+Surtaine gone.
+
+"Ellis, you put that motto on my desk."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Lest we forget," repeated Ellis.
+
+"Not much danger of that," replied his employer bitterly. "Now, I want
+you to take it down."
+
+"Is that an order?"
+
+"Would you obey it if it were?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You'd resign first?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I'll take it down myself."
+
+With his letter-opener he pried the offensive strip loose, tore it
+across thrice, and scattered the pieces on the floor.
+
+"Mr. Ellis," said he formally, "hereafter no medical advertising will be
+accepted for or published in the 'Clarion.' The same rule applies to
+fraudulent advertising of any kind. I wish you and the other members of
+the staff to act as censors for the advertising."
+
+"Yes, sir," said McGuire Ellis.
+
+He turned back to his desk, and sprawled his elbows on it. His head
+lapsed lower and lower until it attained the familiar posture of rest.
+But McGuire Ellis was not sleeping. He was thinking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE VOICE OF THE PROPHET
+
+
+Two hundred and fifty representative citizens, mostly of the business
+type, with a sprinkling of other occupations not including physicians,
+sat fanning themselves into a perspiration in the Chamber of Commerce
+assembly rooms, and wondering what on earth an Emergency Health Meeting
+might be. Congressman Brett Harkins, a respectable nonentity, who was
+presiding, had refrained from telling them: deliberately, it would
+appear, as his speech had dealt vaguely with the greatness of
+Worthington's material prosperity, now threatened--if one might credit
+his theory--by a combination of senseless panic and reckless tongues;
+and had concluded by stating that Mr. William Douglas, one of the
+leaders of our bar, as all the chairman's hearers well knew, would
+explain the situation and formulate a plan for the meeting's
+consideration.
+
+Explanation, however, did not prove to be Mr. William Douglas's forte.
+Coached by that practiced diplomat, Certina Charley, he made a speech
+memorable chiefly for what it did not say. The one bright, definite
+gleam, amidst rolling columns of oratory, was the proposal that an
+Emergency Committee of One Hundred be appointed to cope with the
+situation, that the initial sum of twenty-five thousand dollars be
+pledged by subscription, and that their distinguished fellow citizen,
+Dr. L. Andre Surtaine, be permanent chairman of said committee, with
+power to appoint. Dr. Surtaine had generously offered to subscribe ten
+thousand dollars to the fund. (Loud and prolonged applause; the word
+"thousand" preceding the word "dollars" and itself preceded by any
+numeral from one to one million, inclusive, being invariably
+provocative of acclaim in a subscription meeting of representative
+citizens.) Mr. Douglas took pride in nominating that Midas of Medicine,
+Dr. Surtaine. (More and louder applause.) The Reverend Dr. Wales, of Dr.
+Surtaine's church, sonorously seconded the nomination. So did Hollis
+Myers, of the Security Power Products Company. So, a trifle grumpily,
+did Elias M. Pierce. Also Col. Parker, editor of the "Telegram," Aaron
+Scheffler, of Scheffler and Mintz, and Councilman Carlin. The presiding
+officer inquired with the bland indifference of the assured whether
+there were any further nominations. There were not. But turning in his
+second-row seat, Festus Willard, who was too important a figure
+commercially to leave out, though Dr. Surtaine had entertained doubts of
+his "soundness," demanded of McGuire Ellis, seated just behind him, what
+it was all about.
+
+"Ask the chairman," suggested Ellis.
+
+"I will," said Willard. He got up and did.
+
+The Honorable Brett Harkins looked uncomfortable. He didn't really know
+what it was all about. Moreover, it had been intimated to him that he'd
+perhaps better not know. He cast an appealing glance at Douglas.
+
+"That is not exactly the question before the meeting," began Douglas
+hastily.
+
+"It is the question I asked," persisted Willard. "Before we elect Dr.
+Surtaine or any one else chairman of a committee with a fund to spend, I
+want to know what the committee is for."
+
+"To cope with the health situation of the city."
+
+"Very well. Now we're getting somewhere. Where's Dr. Merritt? I think we
+ought to hear from him on that point."
+
+Murmurs of assent were heard about the room. Dr. Surtaine rose to his
+feet.
+
+"If I may be pardoned for speaking to a motion of which I am a part," he
+said in his profound and mellow voice.
+
+"I think I can throw light upon the situation. Quite a number of us
+have observed with uneasiness the increase of sickness in Worthington.
+Sensationalists have gone so far as to whisper that there is an
+epidemic. I have myself made a rigid investigation. More than this, my
+son, Mr. Harrington Surtaine, has placed the resources of the 'Clarion'
+staff at our disposal, and on the strength of both inquiries, I am
+prepared to assure this gathering that nothing like an epidemic exists."
+
+"Well, I _am_ damned!" was McGuire Ellis's astounded and none too
+low-voiced comment upon this bold perversion of the "Clarion"
+enterprise. Stretching upward from his seat he looked about for Hal. The
+young editor sat in a far corner, his regard somberly intent upon the
+speaker.
+
+"Alarm there has undoubtedly been, and is," pursued Dr. Surtaine. "To
+find means to allay it is the purpose of the meeting. We must remove the
+cause. Both our morbidity and our mortality rate, though now
+retrograding, have been excessive for several weeks, especially in the
+Rookeries district. There has been a prevalence of malaria of a severe
+type, which, following last winter's epidemic of grip, has proven
+unusually fatal. Dr. Merritt believes that he can wipe out the disease
+quietly if a sufficient sum is put at his disposal."
+
+This was not authoritative. Merritt had declined to commit himself, but
+Dr. Surtaine was making facts of his hopes.
+
+"In this gathering it is hardly necessary for me to refer to the
+municipal importance of Old Home Week and to the damage to its prospects
+which would be occasioned by any suspicion of epidemic," continued the
+speaker. "Whatever may be the division of opinion as to methods, we are
+surely unanimous in wishing to protect the interests of the centennial
+celebration. And this can best be done through a committee of
+representative men, backing the constituted health authorities, without
+commotion or disturbance. Have I answered your doubts, Mr. Willard?" he
+concluded, turning a brow of benign inquiry upon that gentleman.
+
+"Not wholly," said Festus Willard. "I've heard it stated on medical
+authority that there is some sort of plague in the Rookeries."
+
+A murmur of inquiry rose. "Plague? What kind of plague?"--"Who says
+so?"--"Does he mean bubonic?"--"No doctor that knows his
+business--"--"They say doctors are shut out of the Rookeries."--"Order!
+Order!"
+
+Through the confusion cleaved the edged voice of E.M. Pierce, directed
+to the chairman:
+
+"Shut that off."
+
+A score took the cue. "Question! Question!" they cried.
+
+"Do I get an answer to my question?" persisted Willard.
+
+"What is your question?" asked the harassed chairman.
+
+"Is there a pestilence in the Rookeries? If so, what is its nature?"
+
+"There is not," stated Dr. Surtaine from his seat. "Who ever says there
+is, is an enemy to our fair and healthy city."
+
+This noble sentiment, delivered with all the impressiveness of which the
+old charlatan was master, roused a burst of applause. To its rhythm
+there stalked down the side aisle and out upon the rostrum the gaunt
+figure of the Reverend Norman Hale.
+
+"Mr. Chairman," he said.
+
+"How did that fellow get here?" Dr. Surtaine asked of Douglas.
+
+"We invited all the ministers," was the low response. "I understood he
+was seriously ill."
+
+"He is a trouble-maker. Tell Harkins not to let him talk."
+
+Douglas spoke a word in the chairman's ear.
+
+"There's a motion before the house--I mean the meeting," began
+Congressman Harkins, when the voice behind him cut in again, hollow and
+resonant:
+
+"Mr. Chairman."
+
+"Do you wish to speak to the question?" asked the chairman uncertainly.
+
+"I do."
+
+"No, no!" called Douglas. "Out of order. Question!"
+
+Voices from the seats below supported him. But there were other calls
+for a hearing for the newcomer. Curiosity was his ally. The meeting
+anticipated a sensation. The chairman, lacking a gavel, hammered on the
+stand with a tumbler, and presently produced a modified silence, through
+which the voice of the Reverend Norman Hale could be heard saying that
+he wished but three minutes.
+
+He stepped to the edge of the platform, and the men below noticed for
+the first time that he carried in his right hand a wreath of
+metal-mounted, withered flowers. There was no mistaking the nature of
+the wreath. It was such as is left lying above the dead for wind and
+rain to dissipate. Hale raised it slowly above his head. The silence in
+the hall became absolute.
+
+"I brought these flowers from a girl's grave," said the Reverend Norman
+Hale. "The girl had sinned. Death was the wage of her sin. She died by
+her own hand. So her offense is punished. That account is closed."
+
+"What has all this to do--" began the chairman; but he stopped, checked
+by a wave of sibilant remonstrance from the audience.
+
+The speaker went on, with relentless simplicity, still holding the
+mortuary symbol aloft:--
+
+"But there is another account not yet closed. The girl was deceived. Not
+by the father of her unborn child. That is a different guilt, to be
+reckoned with in God's own time. The deception for which she has paid
+with her life was not the deception of hot passion, but of cold greed.
+A man betrayed her, as he has betrayed thousands of other unfortunates,
+to put money into his own pockets. He promised her immunity. He said to
+her and to all women, in print, that she need not fear motherhood if she
+would buy his medicine. She believed the promise. She paid her dollar.
+And she found, too late, that it was a lie.
+
+"So she went to the man. She knew him. And she determined either that he
+should help her or that she would be revenged on him. All this she told
+me in a note, to be opened in case of her death. He must have refused to
+help. He had not the criminal courage to produce the abortion which he
+falsely promised in his advertisements. What passed between them I do
+not know. But I believe that she attempted to kill him and failed. She
+attempted to kill herself and succeeded. The blood of Camilla Neal is on
+every cent of Dr. Surtaine's ten-thousand-dollar subscription."
+
+He tossed the wreath aside. It rolled, clattering and clinking, and
+settled down at the feet of the Midas of Medicine who stared at it with
+a contorted face.
+
+The meeting sat stricken into immovability. It seemed incredible that
+the tensity of the silence should not snap. Yet it held.
+
+"I shall vote 'No' on the motion," said the Reverend Norman Hale, still
+with that quiet and appalling simplicity. "I came here from a
+hand-to-hand struggle with death to vote 'No.' I have strength for only
+a word more. The city is stricken with typhus. It is no time for
+concealment or evasion. We are at death-grips with a very dreadful
+plague. It has broken out of the Rookeries district. There are half a
+dozen new foci of infection. In the face of this, silence is deadly. If
+you elect Dr. Surtaine and adopt his plan, you commit yourself to an
+alliance with fraud and death. You deceive and betray the people who
+look to you for leadership. And there will be a terrible price to pay
+in human lives. I thank you for hearing me patiently."
+
+No man spoke for long seconds after the young minister sat down,
+wavering a little as he walked to a chair at the rear. But through the
+representative citizenship of Worthington, in that place gathered,
+passed a quiver of sound, indeterminate, obscure, yet having all the
+passion of a quelled sob. Eyes furtively sought the face of Dr.
+Surtaine. But the master-quack remained frozen by the same bewilderment
+as his fellows. Perhaps alone in that crowd, Elias M. Pierce remained
+untouched emotionally. He rose, and his square granite face was cold as
+abstract reason. There was not even feeling enough in his voice to give
+the semblance of a sneer to his words as he said:
+
+"All this is very well in its place, and doubtless does credit to the
+sentimental qualities of the speaker. But it is not evidence. It is an
+unsupported statement, part of which is admittedly conjecture. Allowing
+the alleged facts to be true, are we to hold a citizen of Dr. Surtaine's
+standing and repute responsible for the death of a woman caused by her
+own immorality? The woman whose death Mr. Hale has turned to such
+oratorical account was, I take it, a prostitute--"
+
+"That is a damned lie!"
+
+Hal Surtaine came down the aisle in long strides, speaking as he came.
+
+"Milly Neal was my employee and my father's employee. If she went astray
+once, who are you to judge her? Who are any of us to judge her? I took
+part of that blood-money. The advertisement was in my paper, paid for
+with Surtaine money. What Mr. Hale says is the living truth. No man
+shall foul her memory in my hearing."
+
+"And what was she to you? You haven't told us that yet?" There was a
+rancid sneer in Pierce's insinuation.
+
+Hal turned from the aisle and went straight for him. A little man rose
+in his way. It was Mintz, who had given him the heartening word after
+the committee meeting. In his blind fury Hal struck him a staggering
+blow. But the little Jew was plucky. He closed with the younger man, and
+clinging to him panted out his good advice.
+
+"Don'd fighd 'im, nod here. It's no good. Go to the pladform an' say
+your say. We'll hear you."
+
+But it was impossible to hear any one now. Uproar broke loose. Men
+shouted, stormed, cursed; the meeting was become a rabble. Above the din
+could be distinguished at intervals the voice of the Honorable Brett
+Harkins, who, in frantic but not illogical reversion to the idea of a
+political convention, squalled for the services of the sergeant-at-arms.
+There was no sergeant-at-arms.
+
+Mintz's pudgy but clogging arms could restrain an athlete of Hal's power
+only a brief moment; but in that moment sanity returned to the
+fury-heated brain.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mintz," he said; "you're quite right. I thank you
+for stopping me."
+
+He returned to the aisle, pressing forward, with what purpose he could
+hardly have said, when he felt the sinewy grasp of McGuire Ellis on his
+shoulder.
+
+"Tell 'em the whole thing," fiercely urged Ellis. "Be a man. Own up to
+the whole business, between you and the girl."
+
+"I don't know what you mean!" cried Hal.
+
+"Don't be young," groaned Ellis; "you've gone halfway. Clean it up. Then
+we can face the situation with the 'Clarion.' Tell 'em you were her
+lover."
+
+"Milly's? I wasn't. It was Veltman."
+
+"Good God of Mercy!"
+
+"Did you think--"
+
+"Yes;--Lord forgive me! Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"How could I tell you suspected--"
+
+"All right! I know. We'll talk it out later. The big thing now is,
+what's the paper going to do about this meeting?"
+
+"Print it."
+
+Into Ellis's face flashed the fervor of the warrior who sees victory
+loom through the clouds of hopeless defeat.
+
+"You mean that?"
+
+"Every word of it. And run the epidemic spread--"
+
+Before he could finish, Ellis was fighting his way to a telephone.
+
+Hal met his father's eyes, and turned away with a heartsick sense that,
+in the one glance, had passed indictment, conviction, a hopeless
+acquiescence, and the dumb reproach of the trapped criminal against
+avenging justice. He turned and made for the nearest exit, conscious of
+only two emotions, a burning desire to be away from that place and a
+profound gladness that, without definite expression of the change, the
+bitter alienation of McGuire Ellis was past.
+
+As Hal left, there arose, out of the turmoil, one clear voice of reason:
+the thundering baritone of Festus Willard moving an adjournment. It
+passed, and the gathering slowly dispersed. Avoiding the offered
+companionship of Congressman Harkins and Douglas, Dr. Surtaine took
+himself off by a side passage. At the end of it, alone, stood the
+Reverend Norman Hale, leaning against the sill of an open window. The
+old quack rushed upon him.
+
+"Keep off!" warned the young minister, throwing himself into an attitude
+of defense.
+
+"No, no," protested Dr. Surtaine: "don't think I meant _that_. I--I want
+to thank you."
+
+"Thank _me_?" The minister put his hand to his head. "I don't
+understand."
+
+"For leaving my boy out of it."
+
+"Oh! That. I didn't see the necessity of dragging him in."
+
+"That was kind. You handled me pretty rough. Well, I'm used to rough
+work. But the boy--look here, you knew all about this Milly Neal
+business, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Maybe you could tell me," went on the old quack miserably. "I can
+understand Hal's getting into a--an affair with the girl--being kinda
+carried away and losing his head. What I can't get is his--his quittin'
+her when she was in trouble."
+
+"I still don't understand," protested the minister. "My head isn't very
+good. I've been ill, you know."
+
+"You let him off without telling his name to-night. And that made me
+think maybe he wasn't in wrong so far as I thought. Maybe there
+were--what-ye-call-'em?--mitigating circumstances. Were there?"
+
+A light broke in upon the Reverend Norman Hale. "Did you think your son
+was Milly Neal's lover? He wasn't."
+
+"Are you sure?" gasped the father.
+
+"As sure as of my faith in Heaven."
+
+The old man straightened up, drawing a breath so profound that it seemed
+to raise his stature.
+
+"I wouldn't take a million dollars for that word," he declared.
+
+"But your own part in this?" queried the other in wonderment. "I hated
+to have to say--"
+
+"What does it matter?"
+
+"You have no concern for yourself?" puzzled the minister.
+
+"Oh, I'll come out on top. I always come out on top. What got to my
+heart was my boy. I thought he'd gone wrong. And now I know he hasn't."
+
+The old charlatan's strong hand fell on his assailant's shoulder, then
+slipped down supportingly under his arm.
+
+"You look pretty shaky," said he with winning solicitude. "Let me take
+you home in my car. It's waiting outside."
+
+The Reverend Norman Hale accepted, marveling greatly over the complex
+miracle of the soul of man--who is formed in the image of his Maker.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE WARNING
+
+
+Tradition of the "Clarion" office embalms "the evening the typhus story
+broke" as a nightmare out of which was born history. Chronologically,
+according to the veracious records of Bim the Guardian of Portals, the
+tumult began at exactly 10.47, with the arrival of Mr. McGuire Ellis,
+traveling up the staircase five steps at a jump and calling in a
+strangled voice for Wayne. That usually controlled journalist rushed out
+of an inner room in alarm, demanding to know whether New York City had
+been whelmed with a tidal wave or the King of England murdered in his
+bed, and in an instant was struggling in the grasp of his fellow editor.
+
+"What's left of the epidemic spread?" demanded the new arrival
+breathlessly.
+
+"The killed story?"
+
+"What's left of it?" clamored Ellis, dancing all over his colleague's
+feet. "Can you find the copy? Notes? Anything?"
+
+"Proofs," said Wayne. "I saved a set."
+
+Ellis sat down in a chair and regarded his underling with an expression
+of stupefied benevolence.
+
+"Wayne," he said, "you're a genius. You're the fine flower and perfect
+blossom of American journalism. I love you, Wayne. With passionate
+fervor, I love you. Now, _gitta move on_!!!" His voice soared and
+exploded. "We're going to run it to-morrow!"
+
+"To-morrow? How? It isn't up to date. Nobody's touched it since--"
+
+"Bring it up to date! Fire every man in the office out on it. Tear the
+hide off the old paper and smear the story all over the front page. Haul
+in your eyes and _start_!"
+
+The whirl of what ensued swamped even Bim's cynic and philosophic calm.
+Amidst a buzz of telephones and a mighty scurrying of messengers the
+staff of the "Clarion" was gathered into the fold, on a
+"drop-everything" emergency call, and instantly dispersed again to the
+hospitals, the homes of the health officials, the undertakers'
+establishments, the cemeteries, and all other possible sources of
+information. The composing-room seethed and clanged. Copy-readers yelled
+frantically through tubes, and received columns of proofs which, under
+the ruthless slaughter of their blue pencils, returned as "stickfuls,"
+that room might be made for the great story. Cable news was slashed
+right and left. Telegraph "skeletons" waited in vain for their bones to
+be clothed with the flesh of print. The Home Advice Department sank with
+all on board, and the most popular sensational preacher in town, who had
+that evening made a stirring anti-suffrage speech full of the most
+unfailing jokes, fell out of the paper and broke his heart. The carnage
+in news was general and frightful. Two pages plus of a story that
+"breaks" after 10 P.M. calls for heroic measures.
+
+At 10.53 Mr. Harrington Surtaine arrived, hardly less tempestuously than
+his predecessor. He did not even greet Bim as he passed through the
+gate, which was unusual; but went direct to Ellis.
+
+"Can we do it, Mac?"
+
+"The epidemic story? Yes. There was a proof saved."
+
+"Good. Can you do the story of the meeting?"
+
+Ellis hesitated. "All of it?"
+
+"Every bit. Leave out nothing."
+
+"Hadn't you better think it over?"
+
+"I've thought."
+
+"It'll hit the old--your father pretty hard."
+
+"I can't help it."
+
+A surge of human pity overswept Ellis's stimulated journalistic
+keenness. "You don't _have_ to do this, Hal," he suggested. "No other
+paper--"
+
+"I do have to do it," retorted the other. "And worse."
+
+Ellis stared.
+
+"I've got to print the story of Milly's death: the facts just as they
+happened. And I've got to write it myself."
+
+The professional zest surged up again in McGuire Ellis. "My Lord!" he
+exclaimed. "_What a paper to-morrow's 'Clarion' will be!_ But why? Why?
+Why the Neal story--now?"
+
+"Because I can't print the epidemic spread unless I print the other.
+I've given my word. I told my father if ever I suppressed news for my
+own protection, I'd give up the fight and play the game like all the
+other papers. I've tried it. Mac, it isn't my game."
+
+"No," replied his subordinate in a curious tone, "it isn't your game."
+
+"You'll write the meeting?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Save out a column for my story."
+
+Ellis returned to Wayne at the news desk. "Hell's broke loose at the
+Emergency Health meeting," he remarked, employing the conventional
+phrasing of his craft.
+
+And Wayne, in the same language, inquired:
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Two columns. And a column from the Boss on another story."
+
+"Whew!" whistled Wayne. "We _shall_ have some paper."
+
+From midnight until 2.30 in the morning the reporters on the great story
+dribbled in. Each, as he arrived, said a brief word to Wayne, got a curt
+direction, slumped into his seat, and silently wrote. It was all very
+methodical and quiet and orderly. A really big news event always is
+after the first disturbance of adjustment. Newspaper offices work
+smoothest when the tension is highest.
+
+At 12.03 A.M. Bim received two flurried Aldermen and the head of a city
+department. At 12.35 he held spirited debate with the Deputy
+Commissioner of Health. Just as the clock struck one, two advertising
+managers, arriving neck and neck, merged their appeals in an ineffectual
+attempt to obtain information from the youthful Cerberus, which he
+loftily declined to furnish, as to the whereabouts of anyone with power
+to ban or bind, on the "Clarion." At 1.30 the Guardian of the Gate had
+the honor and pleasure of meeting, for the first time, his Honor the
+Mayor of the City. Finally, at 1.59 he "took a chance," as he would have
+put it, and, misliking the autocratic deportment of a messenger from
+E.M. Pierce, told that emissary that he could tell Mr. Pierce exactly
+where to go to--and go there himself. All the while, unmoved amidst
+protestation, appeal, and threat, the steady news-machine went on
+grinding out unsuppressible history for itself and its city.
+
+Sharp to the regular hour, the presses clanged, and the building
+thrilled through its every joint to the pulse of print. Hal Surtaine
+rose from his desk and walked to the window. McGuire Ellis also rose,
+walked over and stood near him.
+
+"Three pretty big beats to-morrow," he said awkwardly, at length.
+
+"The Milly Neal story won't be a beat," replied Hal.
+
+"No? How's that?"
+
+"I've sent our proofs to all the other papers."
+
+"Well, I'm--What's the idea?
+
+"We lied to them about the story in the first instance. They played
+fair, according to the rules, and took our lie. We can't beat 'em on our
+own story, now."
+
+"Right you are. Bet none of 'em prints it, though." Wherein he was a
+true prophet.
+
+There was a long, uneasy pause.
+
+"Hal," said Ellis hesitantly.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'm a fool."
+
+The white weariness of Hal's face lit up with a smile. "Why, Mac--" he
+began.
+
+"A pin-head," persisted the other stubbornly. "A block of solid ivory
+from the collar up. I'm--I'm _young_ in the head," he concluded, with
+supreme effort of self-condemnation.
+
+"It's all right," said his chief, perfectly knowing what Ellis meant.
+
+"Have I said enough?"
+
+"Plenty."
+
+"You didn't put Veltman in your story?"
+
+"No. What was the good?"
+
+"That's right, too."
+
+"Good-night, Mac, I'm for the hotel."
+
+"Good-night, Hal. See you in the morning."
+
+"Yes. I'll be around early."
+
+Ellis's eyes followed his chief out through the door. He returned to his
+desk and sat thinking. He saw, with pitiless clearness, the storm
+gathering over the "Clarion": the outburst of public hostility, the
+depletion of advertisers and subscribers, the official opposition
+closing avenues of information, the disastrous probabilities of the
+Pierce libel suits, now soon to be pushed; and his undaunted spirit of a
+crusader rose and lusted for the battle.
+
+"They may lick us," he said to his paste-pot, the recipient of many a
+bitter confidence and thwarted hope in the past; "but we'll show 'em
+what a real newspaper is, for once. And"--his eyes sought the door
+through which Hal Surtaine had passed--"I've got this much out of it,
+anyway: I've helped a boy make himself a Man."
+
+Ten thousand extra copies sped from the new and wonder-working press of
+the "Clarion" that night, to be absorbed, swallowed, engulfed by a
+mazed populace. In all the city there was perhaps not a man, woman, or
+child who, by the following evening, had not read or heard of the
+"Clarion's" exposure of the epidemic--except one. Max Veltman lay,
+senseless to all this, between stupor and a fevered delirium in which
+the spirit of Milly Neal called on him for delayed vengeance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE GOOD FIGHT
+
+
+Earthquake or armed invasion could scarce have shocked staid Worthington
+more profoundly than did the "Clarion's" exposure. Of the facts there
+could be no reasonable doubt. The newspaper's figures were specific, and
+its map of infection showed no locality exempt. The city had wakened
+from an untroubled sleep to find itself poisoned.
+
+As an immediate result of the journalistic tocsin, the forebodings of
+Dr. Surtaine and his associates as to the effects of publicity bade fair
+to be justified. Undeniably there was danger of the disease scattering,
+through the medium of runaways from the stricken houses. But the
+"Clarion" had its retort pat for the tribe of "I-told-you-so," admitting
+the prospect of some primary harm to save a great disaster later. More
+than one hundred lives, it pointed out, giving names and dates, had
+already been sacrificed to the shibboleth of secrecy; the whole city had
+been imperiled; the disease had set up its foci of infection in a score
+of places, and there were some three hundred cases, in all, known or
+suspected. One method only could cope with the situation: the fullest
+public information followed by radical hygienic measures.
+
+Of information there was no lack. So tremendous a news feature could not
+be kept out of print by the other dailies, all of whom now admitted the
+presence of the pestilence, while insisting that its scope had been
+greatly exaggerated, and piously deprecating the "sensationalism" of
+their contemporary. Thus the city administration was forced to action.
+An appropriation was voted to the Health Bureau. Dr. Merritt, seizing
+his opportunity, organized a quarantine army, established a detention
+camp and isolation hospital, and descended upon the tenement districts,
+as terrible (to the imagination of the frantic inhabitants) as a
+malevolent god. The Emergency Health Committee, meantime, died and was
+forgotten overnight.
+
+Something not unlike panic swept the Rookeries. Wild rumors passed from
+mouth to mouth, growing as they went. A military cordon, it was said,
+was to be cast about the whole ward and the people pent up inside to
+die. Refugees were to be shot on sight. The infected buildings were to
+be burned to the ground, and the tenants left homeless. The water-supply
+was to be poisoned, to get rid of the exposed--had already been
+poisoned, some said, and cited sudden mysterious deaths. Such savage
+imaginings of suspicion as could spring only from the ignorant fears of
+a populace beset by a secret and deadly pest, roused the district to a
+rat-like defiance. Such of the residents as were not home-bound by the
+authorities, growled in saloon back rooms and muttered in the streets.
+Hatred of the "Clarion" was the burden of their bitterness. Two of its
+reporters were mobbed in the hard-hit ward, the day after the
+publication of the first article.
+
+Nor was the paper much better liked elsewhere. It was held responsible
+for all the troubles. Though the actuality of the quarantine fell far
+short of the expectant fears, still there was a mighty turmoil. Families
+were separated, fugitives were chased down and arrested, and close upon
+the heels of the primary harassment came the threat of economic
+complications, as factories and stores all over the city, for their own
+protection, dismissed employees known to live within the near range of
+the pestilence. In the minds of the sufferers from these measures and of
+their friends, the "Clarion" was an enemy to the public. But it was read
+with avid impatience, for Wayne, working on the principle that "it is
+news and not evil that stirs men," contrived to find some new
+sensational development for every issue. Do what the rival papers might,
+the "Clarion" had and held the windward course.
+
+Representative Business, that Great Mogul of Worthington, was, of
+course, outraged by the publication. Hal Surtaine was an ill bird who
+had fouled his own nest. The wires had carried the epidemic news to
+every paper in the country, and Worthington was proclaimed "unclean" to
+the ears of all. The Old Home Week Committee on Arrangements held a
+hasty meeting to decide whether the celebration should be abandoned or
+postponed, but could come to no conclusion. Denunciation of the
+"Clarion" for its course was the sole point upon which all the speakers
+agreed. Also there was considerable incidental criticism of its editor,
+as an ingrate, for publishing the article on Milly Neal's death which
+reflected so severely upon Dr. Surtaine. As the paper had been bought
+with Dr. Surtaine's hard cash, the least Hal could have done, in
+decency, was to refrain from "roasting" the source of the money. Such
+was the general opinion. The representative business intellect of
+Worthington failed to consider that the article had been confined
+rigidly to a statement of facts, and that any moral or ethical inference
+must be purely a derivative of those facts as interpreted by the reader.
+Several of those present at the meeting declared vehemently that they
+would never again either advertise in or read the "Clarion." There was
+even talk of a boycott. One member was so incautious as to condole with
+Dr. Surtaine upon his son's disloyalty. The old quack's regard fell upon
+his tactless comforter, dull and heavy as lead.
+
+"My son is my son," said he; "and what's between us is our own business.
+Now, as to Old Home Week, it'll be time enough to give up when we're
+licked." And, adroit opportunist that he was, he urged upon the meeting
+that they support the Health Bureau as the best hope of clearing up the
+situation.
+
+Amongst the panic-stricken, meanwhile, moved and worked the volunteer
+forces of hygiene, led by the Reverend Norman Hale. Weakened and unfit
+though he was, he could not be kept from the battle-ground,
+notwithstanding that Dr. Merritt, fearing for his life, had threatened
+him with kidnaping and imprisonment in the hospital. At Hale's right
+hand were Esme Elliot and Kathleen Pierce. There had been one scene at
+Greenvale approaching violence on Dr. Elliot's part and defiance on that
+of his niece when her guardian had flatly forbidden the continuance of
+her slum work. It had ended when the girl, creeping up under the guns of
+his angry eyes, had dropped her head on his shoulder, and said in
+unsteady tones:--
+
+"I--I'm not a very happy Esme, Uncle Guardy. If I don't have something
+to do--something real--I'll--I'll c-c-cry and get my pretty nose all
+red."
+
+"Quit it!" cried the gruff doctor desperately. "What d'ye mean by acting
+that way! Go on. Do as you like. But if Merritt lets anything happen to
+you--"
+
+"Nothing will happen, Guardy. I'll be careful," promised the girl.
+
+"Well, I don't know whatever's come over you, lately," retorted her
+uncle, troubled.
+
+"Neither do I," said Esme.
+
+She went forth and enlisted Kathleen Pierce, whose energetic and
+restless mind was ensnared at once by what she regarded as the romantic
+possibilities of the work, and the two gathered unto themselves half a
+dozen of the young males of the species, who readily volunteered, partly
+for love and loyalty to the chieftainesses of their clan, partly out of
+the blithe and adventurous spirit of youth, and of them formed an
+automobile corps, for scouting, messenger service, and emergency
+transportation, as auxiliary to Hale and Merritt; an enterprise which
+subsequently did yeoman work and taught several of the gilded youth
+something about the responsibilities of citizenship which they would
+never have learned in any other school.
+
+Tip O'Farrell was another invaluable aide. He had one brief encounter,
+on enlistment, with the health officer.
+
+"You ought to be in jail," said Dr. Merritt.
+
+"What fer?" demanded O'Farrell.
+
+"Smuggling out bodies without a permit."
+
+"Ferget it," advised the politician. "I tried my way, an' it wasn't good
+enough. Now I'll try yours. You can't afford to jug me."
+
+"Why can't I?"
+
+"I'm too much use to you."
+
+"So far you've been just the other thing."
+
+"Ain't I tellin' you I'm through with that game? On the level! Doc,
+these poor boobs down here _know_ me. They'll do as I tell 'em. Gimme a
+chance."
+
+So O'Farrell, making his chance, did his work faithfully and well
+through the dismal weeks to follow. It takes all kinds of soldiers to
+fight an epidemic.
+
+Those two sturdy volunteers, Miss Elliot and Miss Pierce, were driving
+slowly along the fringe of the Rookeries,--yes, slowly, notwithstanding
+that Kathleen Pierce was acting as her own chauffeur,--having just
+delivered a consignment of emergency nurses from a neighboring city to
+Dr. Merritt, when the car slowed down.
+
+"Did you see that?" inquired Miss Pierce, indicating, with a jerk of her
+head, the general topography off to starboard.
+
+"See what?" inquired her companion. "I didn't notice anything except a
+hokey-pokey seller, adding his mite to the infant mortality of the
+district."
+
+"Esme, you talk like nothing human lately!" accused her friend. "You're
+a--a--regular health leaflet! I meant that man going into the corner
+tenement. I believe it was Hal Surtaine."
+
+"Was it?"
+
+"And you needn't say, 'Was it?' in that lofty, superior tone, like an
+angel with a new halo, either," pursued her aggrieved friend. "You know
+it was. What do you suppose he's doing down here?"
+
+"The epidemic is the 'Clarion's special news. He spends quite a little
+time in this district, I believe."
+
+"Oh, you believe! Then you've seen him lately?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Miss Pierce stared rigidly in front of her and made a detour of
+magnificent distance to avoid a push-cart which wasn't in her way
+anyhow. "Esme," she said.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Did you give me away to him?"
+
+"No. He didn't give me an opportunity."
+
+"Oh!" There was more silence. Then, "Esme, I was pretty rotten about
+that, wasn't I?"
+
+"Why, Kathie, I think you ought to have written to him."
+
+"I meant to write and own up, no matter if I did tell you I wouldn't.
+But I kept putting it off. Esme, did you notice how thin and worn he
+looks?"
+
+The other winced. "He's had a great deal to worry him."
+
+"Well, he hasn't got our lawsuit to worry him any more. That's off."
+
+"Off?" A light flashed into Esme's face. "Your father has dropped it?"
+
+"Yes. He had to. I told him the accident was my fault, and if I was put
+on the stand I'd say so. I'm not so popular with Pop as I might be, just
+now. But, Esme, I _didn't_ mean to run away and leave her in the gutter.
+I got rattled, and Brother was crying and I lost my head."
+
+"That will save the 'Clarion,'" said Esme, with a deep breath.
+
+Kathleen looked at her curiously, and then made a singular remark. "Yes;
+that's what I did it for."
+
+"But what interest have you in saving the 'Clarion'?" demanded Esme,
+bewildered.
+
+"The failure of the 'Clarion' would be a disaster to the city," observed
+Miss Pierce in copy-book style.
+
+"Kathie! You should make two jabs in the air with your forefinger when
+you quote. Otherwise you're a plagiarist. Let me see." Esme pondered.
+"Hugh Merritt," she decided.
+
+Kathleen kept her eyes steady ahead, but a flood of color rose in her
+face.
+
+"I had an awful fight over it with him before--before I gave in," she
+said.
+
+"Are you going to marry Hugh?" demanded Esme bluntly.
+
+The color deepened until even the velvety eyes seemed tinged with it. "I
+don't know. _He_ isn't exactly popular with Pop, either."
+
+Esme reached over and gave her friend a surreptitious little hug, which
+might have cost a crossing pedestrian his life if he hadn't been a brisk
+dodger.
+
+"Hugh Merritt is a _man_," said she in a low voice: "He's brave and he's
+straight and he's fine. And oh, Kathie, dearest, if a man of that kind
+loves you, don't you ever, ever let anything come between you."
+
+"Hello!" said Kathleen in surprise. "That don't sound much like the
+Great American Man-eating Pumess of yore. There's been a big change in
+you since you sidetracked Will Douglas, Esme. Did you really care? No,
+of course, you didn't," she answered herself. "He's a nice chap, but he
+isn't particularly brave or fine, I guess."
+
+A light broke in upon her:
+
+"Esme! Is it, after all--"
+
+"No, no, no, no, NO!" cried the victim of this highly feminine
+deduction, in panic. "It isn't any one."
+
+"No, of course it isn't, dear. I didn't mean to tease you. Hello! what
+have we here?"
+
+The car stopped with a jar on a side street, some distance from the
+quarantined section. Seated on the curb a woman was wailing over the
+stiffened form of a young child. The boy's teeth were clenched and his
+face darkly suffused.
+
+"Convulsions," said Esme.
+
+The two girls were out of the car simultaneously. The agonized mother,
+an Italian, was deaf to Esme's persuasions that the child be turned over
+to them.
+
+"What shall we do?" she asked, turning to Kathleen in dismay. "I think
+he's dying, and I can't make the woman listen."
+
+Something of her father's stern decisiveness of character was in
+Kathleen Pierce.
+
+"Don't be a fool!" she said briskly to the mother, and she plucked the
+child away from her. "Start the car, Esme."
+
+The woman began to shriek. A crowd gathered. O'Farrell providentially
+appeared from around a corner. "Grab her, you," she directed O'Farrell.
+
+The politician hesitated. "What's the game?" he began. Then he caught
+sight of Esme. "Oh, it's you, Miss Elliot. Sure. Hi! Can it!" he
+shouted, fending off the distracted mother. "They'll take the kid to the
+hospital. See? You go along quiet, now."
+
+Speeding beyond all laws, but under protection of their red cross, they
+all but ran down Dr. Merritt and stopped to take him in. He confirmed
+Esme's diagnosis.
+
+"It'll be touch and go whether we save him," said he.
+
+Esme carried the stricken child into the hospital ward. The two
+volunteers waited outside for word. In an hour it came. The boy would
+probably live, thanks to their promptitude.
+
+"But you ought not to be picking up chance infants around the district,"
+he protested. "It isn't safe."
+
+"Oh, we belong to the St. Bernard tribe," retorted Miss Pierce. "We
+take 'em as we find 'em. Hugh, come and lunch with us."
+
+The grayish young man looked at her wistfully. "Haven't time," he said.
+
+"No: I didn't suppose you'd step aside from the thorny path, even to
+eat," she retorted; and Esme, hearing the new tone under the flippant
+words, knew that all was well with the girl, and envied her with a great
+and gentle envy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+VOX POPULI
+
+
+These were the days when Hal Surtaine worked with a sense of wild
+freedom from all personal bonds. He had definitely broken with his
+father. He had challenged every interest in Worthington from which there
+was anything to expect commercially. He had peremptorily banished Esme
+Elliot from his heart and his hopes, though she still forced entrance to
+his thoughts and would not be denied, there, the precarious rights of an
+undesired guest. He was now simply and solely a journalist with a mind
+single to his purpose, to go down fighting the best fight there was in
+him. Defeat, he believed, was practically certain. He would make it a
+defeat of which no man need be ashamed.
+
+The handling of the epidemic news, Hal left to his colleagues, devoting
+his own pen to a vigorous defense of the "Clarion's" position and
+assertion of its policy, in the editorial columns. Concealment and
+suppression, he pointed out, had been the chief factor in the disastrous
+spread of the contagion. Early recognition of the danger and a frank
+fighting policy would have saved most of the sacrificed lives. The blame
+lay, not with those who had disclosed the peril, but with those who had
+fostered it by secrecy; probing deeper into it, with those who had
+blocked such reform of housing and sanitation as would have checked a
+filth disease like typhus. In time this would be indicated more
+specifically. Tenements which netted twelve per cent to their owners and
+bred plagues, the "Clarion" observed editorially, were good private but
+poor public investments. Whereupon a number of highly regarded
+Christian citizens began to refer to the editor as an anarchist.
+
+The "Clarion" principle of ascertaining "the facts behind the news" had
+led naturally to an inquiry into ownership of the Rookeries. Wayne had
+this specifically in charge and reported sensational results from the
+first.
+
+"It'll be a corking follow-up feature," he said. "Later we can hitch it
+up to the Housing Reform Bill."
+
+"Make a fifth page full spread of it for Monday."
+
+"With pictures of the owners," suggested Wayne.
+
+"Why not this way? Make a triple lay-out for each one. First, a picture
+of the tenement with the number of deaths and cases underneath. Then the
+half-tone of the owner. And, beyond, the picture of the house he lives
+in. That'll give contrast."
+
+"Good!" said Wayne. "Fine and yellow."
+
+By Sunday, four days after the opening story, all the material for the
+second big spread was ready except for one complication. Some involution
+of trusteeship in the case of two freeholds in Sadler's Shacks, at the
+heart of the Rookeries, had delayed access to the records. These two
+were Number 3 and Number 9 Sperry Street, the latter dubbed "the
+Pest-Egg" by the "Clarion," as being the tenement in which the
+pestilence was supposed to have originated. These two last clues, Wayne
+was sure, would be run down before evening. Already the net of publicity
+had dragged in, among other owners of the dangerous property, a high
+city official, an important merchant, a lady much given to blatant
+platform philanthropies, and the Reverend Dr. Wales's fashionable
+church. It was, indeed, a noble company of which the "Clarion" proposed
+to make martyrs on the morrow.
+
+One man quite unconnected with any twelve per cent ownership, however,
+had sworn within his ravaged soul that there should be no morrow's
+"Clarion." Max Veltman, four days previously, had crawled home to his
+apartment after a visit to the drug store where he had purchased
+certain acids. With these he worked cunningly and with complete
+absorption in his pursuit, neither stirring out of his own place nor
+communicating with any fellow being. Consequently he knew nothing of the
+sensation which had convulsed Worthington, nor of the "Clarion's" change
+of policy. To his inflamed mind the Surtaine organ was a noxious thing,
+and Harrington Surtaine the guilty partner in the profits of Milly's
+death who had rejected the one chance to make amends.
+
+Carrying a carefully wrapped bundle, he went forth into the streets on
+Sunday evening, and wandered into the Rookeries district. A red-necked
+man, standing on a barrel, was making a speech to a big crowd gathered
+at one of the corners. Dimly-heard, the word "Clarion" came to Veltman's
+ears.
+
+"What's he saying?" he asked a neighbor.
+
+"He's roastin' the ---- ---- 'Clarion,'" replied the man. "We ought to go
+up there an' tear the buildin' down."
+
+To Veltman it seemed quite natural that popular rage should be directed
+toward the object of his hatred. He sat down weakly upon the curb and
+waited to see what would happen.
+
+Another chance auditor of that speech did not wait. McGuire Ellis stayed
+just long enough to scent danger, and hurried back to the office.
+
+"Trouble brewing down in the Rookeries," he told Hal.
+
+"More than usual?"
+
+"Different from the usual. There's a mob considering paying us a visit."
+
+"The new press!" exclaimed Hal.
+
+"Just what I was thinking. A rock or a bullet in its pretty little
+insides would cost money."
+
+"We'd better notify Police Headquarters."
+
+"I have. They gave me the laugh. Told me it was a pipe-dream. They're
+sore on us because of our attack on the department for dodging saloon
+law enforcement."
+
+"I don't like this, Mac," said Hal. "What a fool I was to put the press
+in the most exposed place."
+
+"Fortify it."
+
+"With what?"
+
+"The rolls."
+
+Print-paper comes from the pulp-mills in huge cylinders, seven feet long
+by four in diameter. The highest-powered small arm could not send a
+bullet through the close-wrapped fabric. Ellis's plan offered perfect
+protection if there was enough material to build the fortification. The
+entire pressroom force was at once set to work, and in half an hour the
+delicate and costly mechanism was protected behind an impenetrable
+barrier which shut it off from view except at the south end. The supply
+of rolls had fallen a little short.
+
+"Let 'em smash the window if they like," said Ellis. "Plate-glass
+insurance covers that. I wish we had something for that corner."
+
+"With a couple of revolvers we could guard it from these windows," said
+Hal. "But where are we to get revolvers on a Sunday night?"
+
+"Leave that to me," said Ellis, and went out.
+
+Hal, standing at the open second-story window, surveyed the strategic
+possibilities of the situation. His outer office jutting out into a
+narrow L overlooked, from a broad window, the empty space of the street.
+From the front he could just see the press, behind its plate-glass. This
+was set back some ten feet from the sidewalk line proper, and marking
+the outer boundary stood a row of iron posts of old and dubious origin,
+formerly connected by chains. Hal had a wish that they were still so
+joined. They would have served, at least, as a hypothetical guard-line.
+The flagged and slightly depressed space between these and the front of
+the building, while actually of private ownership, had long been
+regarded as part of the thoroughfare. Overlooking it from the north end,
+opposite Hal's office, was another window, in the reference room. Any
+kind of gunnery from those vantage-spots would guard the press. But
+would the mere threat of firing suffice? That is what Hal wished to
+know. He had no desire to pump bullets into a close-packed crowd. On the
+other hand, he did not propose to let any mob ruin his property without
+a fight. His military reverie was interrupted by the entrance of Bim
+Currier, followed by Dr. Elliot.
+
+"Why the fortification?" asked the latter.
+
+"We've heard rumors of a mob attack."
+
+"So've I. That's why I'm here. Want any help?"
+
+"Why, you're very kind," began Hal dubiously; "but--"
+
+"Rope off that space," cut in the brisk doctor, seizing, with a
+practiced eye, upon the natural advantage of the sentinel posts. "Got
+any rope?"
+
+"Yes. There's some in the pressroom. It isn't very strong."
+
+"No matter. Moral effect. Mobs always stop to think, at a line. I know.
+I've fought 'em before."
+
+"This is very good of you, to come--"
+
+"Not a bit of it. I noticed what the 'Clarion' did to its medical
+advertisers. I like your nerve. And I like a fight, in a good cause.
+Have 'em paint up some signs to put along the ropes. 'Danger.'--'Keep
+Out.'--'Trespassers Enter Here at their Peril'; and that sort of thing."
+
+"I'll do it," said Hal, going to the telephone to give the orders.
+
+While he was thus engaged, McGuire Ellis entered.
+
+"Hello!" the physician greeted him. "What have you got there?
+Revolvers?"
+
+"Count 'em; two," answered Ellis.
+
+"Gimme one," said the visitor, helping himself to a long-barreled .45.
+
+"Here! That's for Hal Surtaine," protested Ellis.
+
+"Not by a jug-ful! He's too hot-headed. Besides, can he afford to be in
+it if there _should_ be any serious trouble? Think of the paper!"
+
+"You're right there," agreed Ellis, struck by the keen sense of this
+view. "If they could lay a killing at his door, even in self-defense--"
+
+"Pree-cisely! Whereas, I don't intend to shoot unless I have to, and
+probably not then."
+
+They explained the wisdom of this procedure to Hal, who reluctantly
+admitted it, agreeing to leave the weapons in the hands of Dr. Elliot
+and McGuire Ellis.
+
+"Put Ellis here in this window. I'll hold the fort yonder." He pointed
+across the space to the reference room in the opposite L. "Nine times
+out of ten a mob don't really--" He stopped abruptly, his face
+stiffening with surprise, and some other emotion, which Hal for the
+moment failed to interpret. Following the direction of his glance, the
+two other men turned. Dr. Surtaine, suave and smiling, was advancing
+across the floor.
+
+"Ellis, how are you? Good-evening, Dr. Elliot. Ah! Pistols?"
+
+"Yes. Have one?" invited Ellis smoothly.
+
+"I brought one with me." He tugged at his pocket, whence emerged a cheap
+and shiny weapon. Hal shuddered, recognizing it. It was the revolver
+which Milly Neal had carried.
+
+"So you've heard?" asked Ellis.
+
+"Ten minutes ago. I haven't any idea it will amount to much, but I
+thought I ought to be here in case of danger."
+
+Dr. Elliot grunted. Ellis, suggesting that they take a look at the other
+defense, tactfully led him away, leaving father and son together. They
+had not seen each other since the Emergency Health Committee meeting.
+Something of the quack's glossy jauntiness faded out of his bearing as
+he turned to Hal.
+
+"Boy-ee," he began diffidently, "there's been a pretty bad mistake."
+
+"There's been worse than that," said Hal sadly.
+
+"About Milly Neal. I thought--I thought it was you that got her into
+trouble."
+
+"Why? For God's sake, why?"
+
+"Don't be too hard on me," pleaded the other. "I'd heard about the
+road-house. And then, what she said to you. It all fitted in. Hale put
+me right. Boy-ee, I can sleep again, now that I know it wasn't you."
+
+The implication caught at Hal's throat.
+
+"Why, Dad," he said lamely, "if you'd only come to me and asked--"
+
+"Somehow I couldn't. I was waiting for you to tell me." He slid his big
+hand over Hal's shoulder, and clutched him in a sudden, jerky squeeze,
+his face averted.
+
+"Now, that's off our minds," he said, in a loud and hearty voice. "We
+can--"
+
+"Wait a minute. Father, you saw the story in the 'Clarion,'--the story
+of Milly's death?"
+
+"Yes, I saw that."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I suppose you did what you thought was right, Boy-ee."
+
+"I did what I had to do. I hated it."
+
+"I'm glad to know that much, anyway."
+
+"But I'd do it again, exactly the same."
+
+The Doctor turned troubled eyes on his son. "Hasn't there been enough
+judging of each other between you and me, Boy-ee?" he asked sorrowfully.
+
+In wretched uncertainty how to meet this appeal, Hal hesitated. He was
+saved from decision by the return of McGuire Ellis.
+
+"No movement yet from the enemy's camp," he reported. "I just had a
+telephone from Hale's club."
+
+"Perhaps they won't come, after all," surmised Hal.
+
+"There's pretty hot talk going. Somebody's been helping along by
+serving free drinks."
+
+"Now who could that be, I wonder?"
+
+"Maybe some of our tenement-owning politician friends who aren't keen
+about having to-morrow's 'Clarion' appear."
+
+"We ought to have a reporter down there, Mac."
+
+"Denton's there. Well, as there's nothing doing, I'll tackle a little
+work." And seating himself at his desk beside the broad window Ellis
+proceeded to annihilate some telegraph copy, fresh off the wire. With
+the big tenement story spread, the morrow's paper would be straitened
+for space. Excusing himself to his father, Hal stepped into his private
+office--and recoiled in uttermost amazement. There, standing in the
+further doorway, lovely, palpitant, with the color flushing in her
+cheeks and the breath fluttering in her throat, stood Esme Elliot.
+
+"Oh!" she gasped, stretching out her hands to him. "I've tried so to get
+you by 'phone. There's a mob coming--"
+
+"Yes, I know," said Hal gently. He led her to a chair. "We're ready for
+them."
+
+"Are you? I'm so glad. I was afraid you wouldn't know in time."
+
+"How did you find out?"
+
+"I've been working with Mr. Hale down in the district. I heard rumors of
+it. Then I listened to what the people said, and I hurried here in my
+car to warn you. They're drunk, and mean trouble."
+
+"That was good of you! I appreciate it."
+
+"No. It was a debt. I owed it to the 'Clarion.' You've been--splendid
+about the typhus."
+
+"Worthington doesn't look at it that way," returned Hal, with a rather
+grim smile.
+
+"When they understand, they will."
+
+"Perhaps. But, see here, you can't stay. There may be danger. It's
+awfully good of you to come. But you must get away."
+
+She looked at him sidelong. In her coming she had been the new Esme, the
+Esme who was Norman Hale's most unselfish and unsparing worker, the Esme
+who thought for others, all womanly. But, now that the strain had
+relaxed, she reverted, just a little, to her other self. It was, for the
+moment, the Great American Pumess who spoke:--
+
+"Won't you even say you're glad to see me?"
+
+"Glad!" The echo leaped to his lips and the fire to his eyes as the old
+unconquered longing and passion surged over him. "I don't think I've
+known what gladness is since that night at your house."
+
+Her eyes faltered away from his. "I don't think I quite understand," she
+said weakly; then, with a change to quick resolution:--
+
+"There is something I must tell you. You have a right to know it. It's
+about the paper. Will you come to see me to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes. But go now. No! Wait!"
+
+From without sounded a dull murmur pierced through with an occasional
+whoop, jubilant rather than threatening.
+
+"Too late," said Hal quietly. "They're coming."
+
+"I'm not afraid."
+
+"But I am--for you. Stay in this room. If they should break into the
+building, go up those stairs and get to the roof. They won't come
+there."
+
+He went into the outer room, closing the door behind him.
+
+From both directions and down a side street as well the dwellers in the
+slums straggled into the open space in front of the "Clarion" office. To
+Hal they seemed casual, purposeless; rather prankish, too, like a lot of
+urchins out on a lark. Several bore improvised signs, uncomplimentary to
+the "Clarion." They seemed surprised when they encountered the rope
+barrier with its warning placards. There were mutterings and queries.
+
+"No serious harm in them," opined Dr. Elliot, to whom Hal had gone to
+see whether he wanted anything. "Just mischief. A few rocks maybe, and
+then they'll go home. Look at old Mac."
+
+Opposite them, at his brilliantly lighted window desk, sat McGuire
+Ellis, in full view of the crowd below, conscientiously blue-penciling
+telegraph copy.
+
+"Hey, Mac!" yelled an acquaintance in the street. "Come down and have a
+drink."
+
+The associate editor lifted his head. "Don't be young," he retorted. "Go
+home and sleep it off." And reverted to his task.
+
+"What are we doin' here, anyway?" roared some thirster for information.
+
+Nobody answered. But, thus recalled to a purpose, the mob pressed
+against the ropes.
+
+"Ladies _and_ gentlemen!" A great, rounded voice boomed out above them,
+drawing every eye to the farthermost window where stood Dr. Surtaine,
+his chest swelling with ready oratory.
+
+"Hooray!" yelled the crowd. "Good Old Doc!"--"He pays the
+freight."--"Speech!"
+
+"Say, Doc," bawled a waggish soul, "I gotta corn, marchin' up here. Will
+Certina cure it?"
+
+And another burst into the final lines of a song then popular; in which
+he was joined by several of his fellows:
+
+  "Father, he drinks Seltzer.
+   Redoes, like hell!
+   (_Crescendo_.) He drinks Cer-tee-nah!"
+
+"Ladies _and_ gentlemen," boomed the wily charlatan. "Unaccustomed as I
+am to _extempore_ speaking, I cannot let pass this opportunity to
+welcome you. We appreciate this testimonial of your regard for the
+'Clarion.' We appreciate, also, that it is a warm night and a thirsty
+one. Therefore, I suggest that we all adjourn back to the Old Twelfth
+Ward, where, if the authorities will kindly look the other way, I shall
+be delighted to provide liquid refreshments for one and all in which to
+drink to the health and prosperity of an enlightened free press."
+
+The crowd rose to him with laughter. "Good old Sport!"--"Mine's
+Certina."--"Come down and make good."--"Free booze, free speech, free
+press!"--"You're on, Doc! You're on."
+
+"He's turned the trick," growled Dr. Elliot to Hal. "He's a smooth one!"
+
+Indeed, the crowd wavered, with that peculiar swaying which presages a
+general movement. At the south end there was a particularly dense
+gathering, and there some minor struggle seemed to be in progress. Cries
+rose: "Let him through."--"What's he want?"
+
+"It's Max Veltman," said Hal, catching sight of a wild, strained face.
+"What is he up to?"
+
+The former "Clarion" man squirmed through the front rank and crawled
+slowly under the ropes. Above the murmur of confused tones, a voice of
+terror shrilled out:
+
+"He's got a bomb."
+
+The mass surged back from the spot. Veltman, moving forward upon the
+unprotected south end of the press, was fumbling at his pocket. "I'll
+fix your free and enlightened press," he screamed.
+
+Dr. Elliot turned on Hal with an imperative question.
+
+"Is it true, do you think? Will he do it? Quick!"
+
+"Crazy," said Hal.
+
+"God forgive me!" prayed the ex-navy man as his arm whipped up.
+
+There were two quick reports. At the second, Veltman stopped, half
+turned, threw his arms widely outward, and vanished in a blinding glare,
+accompanied by a gigantic _snap!_ as if a mountain of rock had been
+riven in twain.
+
+To Hal it seemed that the universe had disintegrated in that
+concussion. Blackness surrounded him. He was on the floor, half
+crouching, and, to his surprise, unhurt. Groping his way to the window
+he leaned out above an appalling silence. It endured only a moment. Then
+rose the terrible clamor of a mob in panic-stricken flight, above an
+insistent undertone of groans, sobs, and prayers.
+
+"I had to kill him," muttered Dr. Elliot's shaking voice at Hal's ear.
+"There was just the one chance before he could throw his bomb."
+
+Every light in the building had gone out. Guiding himself by the light
+of matches, Hal hurried across to his den. He heard Esme's voice before
+he could make her out, standing near the door. "Is any one hurt?"
+
+Hal breathed a great sigh. "You're all right, then! We don't know how
+bad it is."
+
+"An explosion?"
+
+"Veltman threw a bomb. He's killed."
+
+"Boy-ee!" called Dr. Surtaine.
+
+"Here, Dad. You're safe?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Thank God! Careful with that match! The place is strewn with papers."
+
+Men from below came hurrying in with candles, which are part of every
+newspaper's emergency equipment. They reported no serious injuries to
+the staff or the equipment. Although the plate-glass window had been
+shattered into a million fragments and the inner fortification toppled
+over, the precious press had miraculously escaped injury. But in a
+strewn circle, outside, lay rent corpses, and the wounded pitifully
+striving to crawl from that shambles.
+
+With the steadiness which comes to nerves racked to the point of
+collapse, Hal made the rounds of the building. Two men in the pressroom
+were slightly hurt. Their fellows would look after them. Wayne, with his
+men, was already in the street, combining professional duty with first
+aid. The scattered and stricken mob had begun to sift back, only a
+subdued and curious crowd now. Then came the ambulances and the belated
+police, systematizing the work.
+
+Quarter of an hour had passed when Dr. Surtaine, Esme Elliot, her
+uncle--much surprised at finding her there--and Hal stood in the
+editorial office, hardly able yet to get their bearings.
+
+"I shall give myself up to the authorities," decided Dr. Elliot. He was
+deadly pale, but of unshaken nerve.
+
+"Why?" cried Hal. "It was no fault of yours."
+
+"Rules of the game. Well, young man, you have a paper to get out for
+to-morrow, though the heavens fall. Good-night."
+
+Hal gripped at his hand. "I don't know how to thank you--" he began.
+
+"Don't try, then," was the gruff retort. "Where's Mac?"
+
+He turned to McGuire Ellis's desk to bid that sturdy toiler good-night.
+There, dimly seen through the flickering candlelight, the undisputed
+Short-Distance Slumber Champion of the World sat, his head on his arms,
+in his familiar and favorite attitude of snatching a few moments'
+respite from a laborious existence.
+
+"Will you _look_ at _that!_" cried the physician in utmost amazement.
+
+At the sight a wild surge of mirth overwhelmed Hal's hair-trigger
+nerves. He began to laugh, with strange, quick catchings of the breath:
+to laugh tumultuously, rackingly, unendurably.
+
+"Stop it!" shouted Dr. Elliot, and smote him a sledge-blow between the
+shoulders.
+
+For the moment the hysteria was jarred out of Hal. He gasped, gurgled,
+and took a step toward his assistant.
+
+"Hey, Mac! Wake up! You've spilled your ink."
+
+[Illustration: "DON'T GO NEAR HIM. DON'T LOOK"]
+
+Before he could speak or move further, Esme Elliot's arms were about
+him. Her face was close to his. He could feel the strong pressure of
+her breast against him as she forced him back.
+
+"No, no!" she was pleading, in a swift half-whisper. "Don't go near him.
+Don't look. _Please_ don't. Come away."
+
+He set her aside. A candlelight flared high. From Ellis's desk trickled
+a little stream. Dr. Elliot was already bending over the slackened form.
+
+"So it wasn't ink," said Hal slowly. "Is he dead, Dr. Elliot?"
+
+"No," snapped the other. "Esme, bandages! Quick! Your petticoat! That'll
+do. Get another candle. Dr. Surtaine, help me lift him. There! Surtaine,
+bring water. _Do you hear?_ Hurry!"
+
+When Hal returned, uncle and niece were working with silent deftness
+over Ellis, who lay on the floor. The wounded man opened his eyes upon
+his employer's agonized face.
+
+"Did he get the press?" he gasped.
+
+"Keep quiet," ordered the Doctor. "Don't speak."
+
+"Did he get the press?" insisted Ellis obstinately.
+
+"Mac! Mac!" half sobbed Hal, bending over him. "I thought you were
+dead." And his tears fell on the blood-streaked face.
+
+"Don't be young," growled Ellis faintly. "Did--he--get--the--press?"
+
+"No."
+
+The wounded man's eyes closed. "All right," he murmured.
+
+Up to the time that the ambulance surgeons came to carry Ellis away, Dr.
+Elliot was too busy with him even to be questioned. Only after the still
+burden had passed through the door did he turn to Hal.
+
+"A piece of metal carried away half the back of his neck," he said. "And
+we let him sit there, bleeding his life away!"
+
+"Is there any chance?" demanded Hal.
+
+"I doubt if they'll get him to the hospital alive."
+
+"The best man in Worthington!" said Hal passionately. "Oh!" He shook his
+clenched fists at the outer darkness. "I'll make somebody pay for this."
+
+Esme's hand fell upon his arm. "Do you want me to stay?" she asked.
+
+"No. You must go home. It's been a terrible thing for you."
+
+"I'll go to the hospital," she said, "and I'll 'phone you as soon as
+there is any news."
+
+"Better come home with me, Hal," said his father gently.
+
+The younger man turned with an involuntary motion toward the desk, still
+wet with his friend's blood.
+
+"I'll stay on the job," he said.
+
+Understanding, the father nodded his sympathy. "Yes; I guess that would
+have been Mac's way," said he.
+
+Work pressing upon the editor from all sides came as a boon. The paper
+had to be made over for the catastrophe which, momentarily, overshadowed
+the typhus epidemic in importance. In hasty consultation, it was decided
+that the "special" on the ownership of the infected tenements should be
+set aside for a day, to make space. Hal had to make his own statement,
+not alone for the "Clarion," but for the other newspapers, whose
+representatives came seeking news and also--what both surprised and
+touched him--bearing messages of sympathy and congratulation, and offers
+of any help which they could extend from men to pressroom
+accommodations. Not until nearly two o'clock in the morning did Hal find
+time to draw breath over an early proof, which stated the casualties as
+seven killed outright, including Veltman who was literally torn to
+pieces, and twenty-two seriously wounded.
+
+From his reading Hal was called to the 'phone. Esme's voice came to him
+with a note of hope and happiness.
+
+"Oh, Hal, they say there's a chance! Even a good chance! They've
+operated, and it isn't as bad as it looked at first. I'm so glad for
+you."
+
+"Thank you," said Hal huskily. "And--bless you! You've been an angel
+to-night."
+
+There was a pause: then, "You'll come to see me--when you can?"
+
+"To-morrow," said he. "No--to-day. I forgot."
+
+They both laughed uncertainly, and bade each other good-night.
+
+Hal stayed through until the last proof. In the hallway a heavy figure
+lifted itself from a chair in a corner as he came out.
+
+"Dad!" exclaimed Hal.
+
+"I thought I'd wait," said the charlatan wistfully.
+
+No other word was necessary. "I'll be glad to be home again," said Hal.
+"You can lend me some pajamas?"
+
+"They're laid out on your bed. Every night."
+
+The two men passed down the stairs, arm in arm. At the door they paused.
+Through the building ran a low tremor, waxing to a steady thrill. The
+presses were throwing out to the world once again their irrevocable
+message of fact and fate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+TEMPERED METAL
+
+
+Monday's newspapers startled Hal Surtaine. Despite the sympathetic
+attitude expressed after the riot by the other newspaper men, he had not
+counted upon the unanimous vigor with which the local press took up the
+cudgels for the "Clarion." That potent and profound guild-fellowship of
+newspaperdom, which, when once aroused, overrides all individual rivalry
+and jealousy, had never before come into the young editor's experience.
+
+To his fellow editors the issue was quite clear. Here was an attack, not
+upon one newspaper alone, but upon the principle of journalistic
+independence. Little as the "Banner," the "Press," the "Telegram," and
+their like had practiced independence of thought or writing, they could
+both admire and uphold it in another. Their support was as genuine as it
+was generous. The police department, and, indeed, the whole city
+administration of Worthington, came in for scathing and universal
+denunciation, in that they had failed to protect the "Clarion" against
+the mob's advance.
+
+The evening papers got out special bulletins on McGuire Ellis. None too
+hopeful they were, for the fighting journalist, after a brief rally, had
+sunk into a condition where life was the merest flicker. Always a
+picturesque and well-liked personality, Ellis now became a species of
+popular hero. Sympathy centralized on him, and through him attached
+temporarily to the "Clarion" itself, which he now typified in the public
+imagination. His condition, indeed, was just so much sentimental capital
+to the paper, as the Honorable E.M. Pierce savagely put it to William
+Douglas. Nevertheless, the two called at the hospital to make polite
+inquiries, as did scores of their fellow leading citizens. Ellis,
+stricken down, was serving his employer well.
+
+Not that Hal knew this, nor, had he known it, would have cared. Sick at
+heart, he waited about the hospital reception room for such meager hopes
+as the surgeons could give him, until an urgent summons compelled him to
+go to the office. Wayne had telephoned for him half a dozen times,
+finally leaving a message that he must see him on a point in the
+tenement-ownership story, to be run on the morrow.
+
+Wayne, at the moment of Hal's arrival, was outside the rail talking to a
+visitor. On the copy-book beside his desk was stuck an illustration
+proof, inverted. Idly Hal turned it, and stood facing his final and
+worst ordeal of principle. The half-tone picture, lovely, suave,
+alluring, smiled up into his eyes from above its caption:--
+
+  "_Miss Esme Elliot, Society Belle and Owner of
+   No. 9 Sadler's Shacks, Known as the Pest-Egg."_
+
+"You've seen it," said Wayne's voice at his elbow.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well; it was that I wanted to ask you about."
+
+"Ask it," said Hal, dry-lipped.
+
+"I knew you were a--a friend of Miss Elliot's. We can kill it out yet.
+It--it isn't absolutely necessary to the story," he added, pityingly.
+
+He turned and looked away from a face that had grown swiftly old under
+his eyes. In Hal's heart there was a choking rush of memories: the
+conquering loveliness of Esme; her sweet and loyal womanliness and
+comradeship of the night before; the half-promise in her tones as she
+had bid him come to her; the warm pressure of her arms fending him from
+the sight of his friend's blood; and, far back, her voice saying so
+confidently, "I'd trust you," in answer to her own supposititious test
+as to what he would do if a news issue came up, involving her
+happiness.
+
+Blotting these out came another picture, a swathed head, quiet upon a
+pillow. In that moment Hal knew that he was forever done with
+suppressions and evasions. Nevertheless, he intended to be as fair to
+Esme as he would have been to any other person under attack.
+
+"You're sure of the facts?" he asked Wayne.
+
+"Certain."
+
+"How long has she owned it?"
+
+"Oh, years. It's one of those complicated trusteeships."
+
+Hope sprang up in Hal's soul. "Perhaps she doesn't know about it."
+
+"Isn't she morally bound to know? We've assumed moral responsibility in
+the other trusteeships. Of course, if you want to make a difference--"
+Wayne, again wholly the journalist, jealous for the standards of his
+craft, awaited his chief's decision.
+
+"No. Have you sent a man to see her?"
+
+"Yes. She's away."
+
+"Away? Impossible!"
+
+"That's what they said at the house. The reporter got the notion that
+there was something queer about her going. Scared out, perhaps."
+
+Hal thought of the proud, frank eyes, and dismissed that hypothesis.
+Whatever Esme's responsibility, he did not believe that she would shirk
+the onus of it.
+
+"Dr. Elliot?" he enquired.
+
+"Refused all information and told the reporter to go to the devil."
+
+Hal sighed. "Run the story," he said.
+
+"And the picture?"
+
+"And the picture."
+
+Going out he left directions with the telephone girl to try to get Miss
+Elliot and tell her that it would be impossible for him to call that
+day.
+
+"She will understand when she sees the paper in the morning," he
+thought. "Or think she understands," he amended ruefully.
+
+The telephone girl did not get Miss Elliot, for good and sufficient
+reasons, but succeeded in extracting a promise from the maiden cousin at
+Greenvale that the message would be transmitted.
+
+Through the day and far into the night Hal worked unsparingly, finding
+time somehow to visit or call up the hospital every hour. At midnight
+they told him that Ellis was barely holding his own. Hal put the
+"Clarion" to bed that night, before going to the Surtaine mansion,
+hopeless of sleep, yet, nevertheless, so worn out that he sank into
+instant slumber as soon as he had drawn the sheets over him. On his way
+to the office in the morning, he ran full upon Dr. Elliot. For a moment
+Hal thought that the ex-officer meant to strike him with the cane which
+he raised. It sank.
+
+"You miserable hound!" said Dr. Elliot.
+
+Hal stood, silent.
+
+"What have you to say for yourself?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"My niece came to your office to save your rag of a sheet. I shot down a
+poor crazy devil in your defense. And this is how you repay us."
+
+Hal faced him, steadfast, wretched, determined upon only one thing: to
+endure whatever he might say or do.
+
+"Do you know who's really responsible for that tenement? Answer me!"
+
+"No."
+
+"I! I! I!" shouted the infuriated man.
+
+"You? The records show--"
+
+"Damn the records, sir! The property was trusteed years ago. I should
+have looked after it, but I never even thought of its being what it is.
+And my niece didn't know till this morning that she owned it."
+
+"Why didn't you say so to our reporter, then?" cried Hal eagerly. "Let
+us print a statement from you, from her--"
+
+"In your sheet? If you so much as publish her name again--By Heavens, I
+wish it were the old days, I'd call you out and kill you."
+
+"Dr. Elliot," said Hal quietly, "did you think I wanted to print that
+about Esme?"
+
+"Wanted to? Of course you wanted to. You didn't have to, did you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What compelled you?" demanded the other.
+
+"You won't understand, but I'll tell you. The 'Clarion' compelled me. It
+was news."
+
+"News! To blackguard a young girl, ignorant of the very thing you've
+held her up to shame for! The power of the press! A power to smirch the
+names of decent people. And do you know where my girl is now, on this
+day when your sheet is smearing her name all over the town?" demanded
+the physician, his voice shaking with wrath and grief. "Do you know
+that--you who know everybody's business?"
+
+Chill fear took hold upon Hal. "No," he said.
+
+"In quarantine for typhus. Here! Keep off me!"
+
+For Hal, stricken with his first experience of that black, descending
+mist which is just short of unconsciousness, had clutched at the other's
+shoulder to steady himself.
+
+"Where?" he gasped.
+
+"I won't tell you," retorted the Doctor viciously. "You might make
+another article out of that, of the kind you enjoy so much."
+
+But this was too ghastly a joke. Hal straightened, and lifted his head
+to an eye-level with his denouncer. "Enjoy!" he said, in a low tone.
+"You may guess how much when I tell you that I've loved Esme with every
+drop of my blood since the first time I ever spoke with her."
+
+The Doctor's grim regard softened a little. "If I tell you, you won't
+publish it? Or give it away? Or try to communicate with her? I won't
+have her pestered."
+
+"My word of honor."
+
+"She's at the typhus hospital."
+
+"And she's got typhus?" groaned Hal.
+
+"No. Who said she had it? She's been exposed to it."
+
+Hardly was the last word out of his mouth when he was alone. Hal had
+made a dash for a taxi. "Health Bureau," he cried.
+
+By good fortune he found Dr. Merritt in.
+
+"You've got Esme Elliot at the typhus hospital," he said breathlessly.
+
+"Yes. In the isolation ward."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"She's been exposed. She carried a child, in convulsions, into the
+hospital. The child developed typhus late Saturday night; must have been
+infected at the time. As soon as I knew, I sent for her, and she came
+like the brave girl she is, yesterday morning."
+
+"Will she get the fever?"
+
+"God forbid! Every precaution has been taken."
+
+"Merritt, that's an awful place for a girl like Miss Elliot. Get her
+out."
+
+"Don't ask me! I've got to treat all exposed cases alike."
+
+"But, Merritt," pleaded Hal, "in this case an exception can't injure any
+one. She can be completely quarantined at home. You told Wayne you owed
+the 'Clarion' and me a big debt. I wouldn't ask it if it were anything
+else; but--"
+
+"Would you do it yourself?" said the young health officer steadily.
+"Have you done it in your paper?"
+
+"But this may be her life," argued the advocate desperately. "Think! If
+it were your sister, or--or the woman you cared for."
+
+Dr. Merritt's fine mouth quivered and set. "Kathleen Pierce is
+quarantined with Esme," he said quietly.
+
+The pair looked each other through the eyes into the soul and knew one
+another for men.
+
+"You're right, Merritt," said Hal. "I'm sorry I asked."
+
+"I'll keep you posted," said the official, as his visitor turned away.
+
+Meantime, Esme had volunteered as an emergency nurse, and been gladly
+accepted. In the intervals of her new duties she had received from her
+distracted cousin, who had been calling up every half-hour to find out
+whether she "had it yet," Hal's message that he would not be able to see
+her that day, and, not having seen the "Clarion," was at a loss to
+understand it.
+
+Chance, by all the truly romantic, is supposed to be a sort of
+matrimonial agency, concerned chiefly in bringing lovers together. In
+the rougher realm of actuality it operates quite as often, perhaps, to
+keep them apart. Certainly it was no friend to Esme Elliot on this day.
+For when later she learned from her guardian of his attack upon Hal
+(though he took the liberty of editing out the _finale_ of the encounter
+as he related it), she tried five separate times to reach Hal by 'phone,
+and each time Chance, the Frustrator, saw to it that Hal was engaged.
+The inference, to Esme's perturbed heart, was obvious; he did not wish
+to speak to her. And to a woman of her spirit there was but one course.
+She would dismiss him from her mind. Which she did, every night,
+conscientiously, for many weary days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+THE VICTORY
+
+
+Nation-wide sped the news, branding Worthington as a pest-ridden city.
+Every newspaper in the country had a conspicuous dispatch about it. The
+bulletin of the United States Public Health Service, as in duty bound,
+gave official and statistical currency to the town's misfortune. Other
+cities in the State threatened a quarantine against Worthington.
+Commercial travelers and buyers postponed their local visits. The hotel
+registers thinned out notably. Business drooped. For all of which the
+"Clarion" was vehemently blamed by those most concerned.
+
+Conversely, the paper should have received part credit for the extremely
+vigorous campaign which the health authorities, under Dr. Merritt, set
+on foot at once. Using the "Clarion" exposure as a lever, the health
+officer pried open the Council-guarded city tills for an initial
+appropriation of ten thousand dollars, got a hasty ordinance passed
+penalizing, not the diagnosing of typhus, but failure to diagnose and
+report it,--not a man from the Surtaine army of suppression had the
+temerity to oppose the measure,--organized a medical inspection and
+detection corps, threw a contagion-proof quarantine about every infected
+building, hunted down and isolated the fugitives from the danger-points
+who had scattered at the first alarm, inspired the county medical
+society to an enthusiastic support, bullied the police into a state of
+reasonable efficiency, and with a combined volunteer and regular force
+faced the epidemic in military form. Not least conspicuous among the
+volunteers were Miss Esme Elliot and Miss Kathleen Pierce, who had been
+released from quarantine quite as early as the law allowed, because of
+the need for them at the front.
+
+"We could never have done our job without you," said Dr. Merritt to Hal,
+meeting him by chance one morning ten days after the publication of the
+"spread." "If the city is saved from a regular pestilence, it'll be the
+Clarion's doing."
+
+"That doesn't seem to be the opinion of the business men of the place,"
+said Hal, with a rather dreary smile. He had just been going over with
+the lugubrious Shearson a batch of advertising cancellations.
+
+"Oh, don't look for any credit from this town," retorted the health
+officer. "I'm practically ostracized, already, for my share in it."
+
+"But are you beating it out?"
+
+"God knows," answered the other. "I thought we'd traced all the foci of
+infection. But two new localities broke out to-day. That's the way an
+epidemic goes."
+
+And that is the way the Worthington typhus went for more than a month.
+Throughout that month the "Clarion" was carrying on an anti-epidemic
+campaign of its own, with the slogan "Don't Give up Old Home Week." Wise
+strategy this, in a double sense. It rallied public effort for victory
+by a definite date, for the Committee on Arrangements, despite the
+arguments of the weak-kneed among its number, and largely by virtue of
+the militant optimism of its chairman, had decided to go on with the
+centennial celebration if the city could show a clean bill of health by
+August 30, thus giving six weeks' leeway.
+
+Furthermore, it put the "Clarion" in the position of champion of the
+city's commercial interests and daily bade defiance to those who
+declared the paper an enemy and a traitor to business. In editorials, in
+interviews, in educational articles on hygiene and sanitation, in a
+course of free lectures covering the whole city and financed by the
+paper itself, the "Clarion" carried on the fight with unflagging zeal.
+Slowly it began to win back general confidence and much of the
+popularity which it had lost. One of its reporters in the course of his
+work contracted the fever and barely pulled through alive, thereby
+lending a flavor of possible martyrdom to the cause. McGuire Ellis's
+desperate fight for life also added to the romantic element which is so
+potent an asset with the sentimental American public. Business, however,
+still sulked. The defiance to its principles was too flagrant to be
+passed over. If the "Clarion" pulled through, the press would lose
+respect for the best interests and the vested privileges of commercial
+Worthington. Indeed, others of the papers, since the "Clarion's"
+declaration of independence, had exhibited a deplorable tendency to
+disregard hints hitherto having the authority of absolutism over them.
+
+In withholding advertising patronage from the Surtaine daily, the
+business men were not only seeking reprisals, but also following a sound
+business principle. For according to information sedulously spread
+abroad, it was doubtful whether the "Clarion" would long survive. Elias
+M. Pierce's boast that he would put it out of business gained literal
+interpretation, as he had intended that it should. Contrary to his
+accustomed habit of reticence, he had sought occasion to inform his
+friends that he expected verdicts against the libeler of his daughter
+which would throw the concern into bankruptcy, and, perhaps, its
+proprietor into jail. No advertiser cares to put money into a
+publication which may fail next week. Hence, though the circulation of
+the "Clarion" went up pretty steadily, the advertising patronage did not
+keep pace. Hal found himself hard put to it, at times, to cling to his
+dogged hopes. But it was worth while fighting it out to the last dollar.
+So much he was assured of by the messages of praise and support which
+began to come in to him, not from "representative citizens," but from
+the earnest, thoughtful, and often obscure toilers and thinkers of the
+city: clergymen, physicians, laboring-men, working-women, sociological
+workers--his peers.
+
+Then, too, there was the profound satisfaction of promised victory over
+the pest. For at the end of six weeks the battle was practically won; by
+what heroisms, at the cost of what sacrifices, through what
+disappointments, reversals, and set-backs, against the subtleties of
+what underground opposition of political influence and twelve per cent
+finance, is not to be set down here. The government publications tell,
+in their brief and pregnant records, this story of one of the most
+complete and brilliant victories in the history of American hygiene. My
+concern is with the story, not of the typhus epidemic, but of a man who
+fought for and surrendered and finally retrieved his own manhood and the
+honor of the paper which was his honor. His share, no small one, in the
+wiping-out of the pestilence was, to him, but part of the war for which
+he had enlisted.
+
+But though the newspapers, with one joyous voice, were able to announce
+early in August, on the authority of the federal reports, "No new case
+in a week," the success of Old Home Week still swayed in the balance.
+Outside newspapers, which had not forgotten the scandal of the smallpox
+suppression years before, hinted that the record might not be as clear
+as it appeared. The President of the United States, they pointed out,
+who was to be the guest of honor and the chief feature of the
+celebration, would not be justified in going to a city over which any
+suspicion of pestilence still hovered. In fact, the success or failure
+of the event practically hung upon the Chief Executive's action. If,
+now, he decided to withdraw his acceptance, on whatever ground, the
+country would impute it to a justified caution, and would maintain
+against the city that intangible moral quarantine which is so disastrous
+to its victim. Throughout, Hal Surtaine in his editorial columns had
+vigorously maintained that the President would come. It was mostly
+"bluff." He had nothing but hope to build on.
+
+Two more "clean" weeks passed. At the close of the second, Hal stopped
+one day at the hospital to see McGuire Ellis, who was finally
+convalescent and was to be discharged on the following week. At the door
+of Ellis's room he met Dr. Elliot. Somewhat embarrassed, he stepped
+aside. The physician stopped.
+
+"Er--Surtaine," he said hesitantly.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I've had time to think things over. And I've had some talks with Mac.
+I--I guess I was wrong."
+
+"You were right enough from your point of view."
+
+"Think so?" said the other, surprised.
+
+"Yes. And I know I was right, from mine."
+
+"Humph!" There was an uncomfortable pause. Then: "I called names. I
+apologize."
+
+"That's all right, then," returned Hal heartily.
+
+"Woof!" exhaled the physician. "That's off my chest. Now, I've got an
+item for you."
+
+"For the 'Clarion'?"
+
+"Yep. The President's coming."
+
+"Coming? To Old Home Week?"
+
+"To Old Home Week."
+
+"An item! Great Caesar! A spread! A splurge!! A blurb!!! Where did you
+get it?"
+
+"From Washington. Just been there."
+
+"Tell me all of it."
+
+"Know Redding? He and I saw some tough service together in the old
+M.H.S. That's the United States Public Health Service now. Redding's the
+head of it; Surgeon-General. First-class man, every way. So I went to
+see him and told him we had to have the President, and why. He saw it in
+a minute. Knew all about the 'Clarion's fight, too. He went to the
+White House and explained the whole business. The President said that a
+clean bill of health from the Service was good enough for him, and he'd
+come, sure. Here's his letter to the Surgeon-General. It goes out for
+publication to-morrow. There's a line in it speaking of the 'Clarion's
+good work."
+
+"Great Caesar!" said Hal again, rather weakly.
+
+"Does that square accounts between us?"
+
+"More! A hundred times more! That's the biggest indorsement any paper in
+this town ever had. Old Home Week's safe. Did you tell Mac?"
+
+"Yes. He's up there cursing now because they won't let him go to the
+office to plan out the article."
+
+To the "Clarion," the presidential encomium was a tremendous boom
+professionally. Financially, however, it was of no immediate avail. It
+did not bring local advertising, and advertising was what the paper
+sorely needed. Still, it did call attention to the paper from outside. A
+few good contracts for "foreign" advertising, a department which had
+fallen off to almost nothing when Hal discarded all medical "copy," came
+in. With these, and a reasonable increase in local support which could
+be counted upon, now that commercial bitterness against the paper was
+somewhat mollified, Hal reckoned that he could pull through--if it were
+not for the Pierce suits. There was the crux of the situation. Nothing
+was being done about them. They had been postponed more than once, on
+motion of Pierce's counsel. Now they hung over Hal's head in a suspense
+fast becoming unbearable. At length he decided that, in fairness to his
+staff, he should warn them of the situation.
+
+He chose, for the explanation, one of the Talk-It-Over Breakfasts, the
+first one which McGuire Ellis, released temporarily from the hospital
+for the occasion, had attended since his wound. He sat at Hal's right,
+still pale and thin, but with his look of bulldog obstinacy
+undiminished; enhanced, rather, by the fact that one ear had been
+sharpened to a canine pointedness by the missile which had so narrowly
+grazed his life. Ellis had been goaded to a pitch of high exasperation
+by the solicitude and attentions of his fellows. It was his emphatically
+expressed opinion that the whole gathering lay under a blight of
+superlative youthfulness. In his mind he exempted Hal, over whose
+silence and distraction he was secretly worried. The cause was explained
+when the chairman rose to close the meeting.
+
+"There is something I have to say," he said. "I've put it off longer
+than I should. I may have to give up the 'Clarion.' It depends upon the
+outcome of the libel suits brought by E.M. Pierce. If, as we fear, Miss
+Cleary, the nurse who was run over, testifies for the prosecution, we
+can't win. Then it's only a question of the size of the damages. A big
+verdict would mean the ruin of the paper, I'm telling you this so that
+you may have time to look for new jobs."
+
+There was a long silence. Then a melancholy, musing voice said: "Gee!
+That's tough! Just as the paper pulled off the Home Week stunt, too."
+
+"How much of a verdict would bust us?" asked another.
+
+"Twenty-five thousand dollars," said Hal, "together with lawyers' fees.
+I couldn't go on."
+
+"Say, I know that old hen of a nurse," said one of the sporting writers,
+with entire seriousness. "Wonder if it'd do any good to marry her?"
+
+A roar went up from the table at this, somewhat relieving the tension of
+the atmosphere.
+
+Shearson, the advertising manager, lolling deep in his chair, spoke up
+diffidently, as soon as he could be heard:
+
+"I ain't rich. But I've put a little wad aside. I could chip in three
+thou' if that'd help."
+
+"I've got five hundred that isn't doing a stitch of work," declared
+Wainwright.
+
+"Some of my relations have wads of money," suggested young Denton. "I
+wouldn't wonder if--"
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Hal, in a shaken voice. "I know how well you
+fellows mean it. But--"
+
+"As a loan," said Wainwright hopefully. "The paper's good enough
+security."
+
+"_Not_ good enough," replied Hal firmly. "I can't take it, boys.
+You--you're a mighty good lot, to offer. Now, about looking for other
+places--"
+
+"All those that want to quit the 'Clarion,' stand up," shouted McGuire
+Ellis.
+
+Not a man moved.
+
+"Unanimous," observed the convalescent. "I thought nobody'd rise to
+that. If anybody had," he added, "I'd have punched him in the eye."
+
+The gathering adjourned in gloom.
+
+"All this only makes it harder, Mac," said Hal to his right-hand man
+afterward. "They can't afford to stick till we sink."
+
+"If a sailor can do it, I guess a newspaper man can," retorted the other
+resentfully. "I wish I could poison Pierce."
+
+At dinner that night Hal found his father distrait. Since the younger
+man's return, the old relations had been resumed, though there were
+still, of necessity, difficult restraints and reservations in their
+talk. The "Clarion," however, had ceased to be one of the tabooed
+subjects. Since the publication of the President's letter and the saving
+of Old Home Week, Dr. Surtaine had become an avowed Clarionite. Also he
+kept in personal touch with the office. This evening, however, it was
+with an obvious effort that he asked how affairs were going. Hal
+answered listlessly that matters were going well enough.
+
+"No, they aren't, Boy-ee. I heard about your talk to-day."
+
+"Did you? I'm sorry. I don't want to worry you."
+
+"Boy-ee, let me back you."
+
+"I can't, Dad."
+
+"Because of that old agreement?"
+
+"Partly."
+
+"Call it a loan, then. I can't stand by and see the paper licked by
+Pierce. Fifty thousand won't touch me. And it'll save you."
+
+"Please, Dad, I can't do it."
+
+"Is it because it's Certina money?"
+
+Hal turned miserable eyes on his father. "Hadn't we better keep away
+from that?"
+
+"I don't get you at all on that," cried the charlatan. "Why, it's
+business. It's legal. If I didn't sell 'em the stuff, somebody else
+would. Why shouldn't I take the money, when it's there?"
+
+"There's no use in my trying to argue it with you, Dad. We're miles
+apart."
+
+"That's just it," sighed the older man. "Oh, well! You couldn't help my
+paying the damages if Pierce wins," he suggested hopefully.
+
+"Yes. I could even do that."
+
+"What do you want me to do, Boy-ee?" cried his father, in desperation.
+"Give up a business worth half a million a year, net?"
+
+"I'm not asking anything, sir. Only let me do the best I can, in the way
+that looks right to me. I've got to go back to the office now.
+Good-night, Dad."
+
+The arch-quack looked after his son's retreating figure, and his big,
+animal-like eyes were very tender.
+
+"I don't know," he said to himself uncertainly,--"I don't know but what
+he's worth it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+McGUIRE ELLIS WAKES UP
+
+
+On implication of the Highest Authority we have it that the leopard
+cannot change his spots. The Great American Pumess is a feline of
+another stripe. Stress of experience and emotion has been known to
+modify sensibly her predatory characteristics. In the very beautiful
+specimen of the genus which, from time to time, we have had occasion to
+study in these pages, there had taken place, in a few short months, an
+alteration so considerable as to be almost revolutionary.
+
+Many factors had contributed to the result. No woman of inherent
+fineness can live close to human suffering, as Esme had lived in her
+slum work, without losing something of that centripetal self-concern
+which is the blemish of the present-day American girl. Constant
+association with such men as Hugh Merritt and Norman Hale, men who saw
+in her not a beautiful and worshipful maiden, but a useful agency in the
+work which made up their lives, gave her a new angle from which to
+consider herself. Then, too, her brief engagement to Will Douglas had
+sobered her. For Douglas, whatever his lack of independence and
+manliness in his professional relations, had endured the jilting with
+quiet dignity. But he had suffered sharply, for he had been genuinely in
+love with Esme. She felt his pain the more in that there was the same
+tooth gnawing at her own heart, though she would not acknowledge it to
+herself. And this taught her humility and consideration. The Pumess was
+not become a Saint, by any means. She still walked, a lovely peril to
+every susceptible male heart. But she no longer thirsted with
+unquenchable ardor for conquests.
+
+Meek though a reformed pumess may be, there are limits to meekness.
+When Miss Eleanor Stanley Maxwell Elliot woke up to find herself
+pilloried as an enemy to society, in the very paper which she had tried
+to save, she experienced mingled emotions shot through with fiery
+streaks of wrath. Presently these simmered down to a residue of angry
+amazement and curiosity. If you have been accustomed all your life to
+regard yourself as an empress of absolute dominance over slavish
+masculinity, and are suddenly subjected to a violent slap across the
+face from the hand of the most highly favored slave, some allowance is
+due you of outraged sensibilities. Chiefly, however Esme wondered WHY.
+WHY, in large capitals, and with an intensely ascendant inflection.
+
+Her first impulse had been to telephone Hal a withering message. More
+deliberate thought suggested the wisdom of making sure of her ground,
+first. The result was a shock. From her still infuriated guardian she
+had learned that, technically, she was the owner, with full moral
+responsibility for the "Pest-Egg." The information came like a dash of
+extremely cold water, which no pumess, reformed or otherwise, likes.
+Miss Elliot sat her down to a thoughtful consideration of the "Clarion."
+She found she was in good company. Several other bright and shining
+lights of the local firmament, social, financial, and commercial, shared
+the photographic notoriety. Slowly it was borne in upon her open mind
+that she had not been singled out for reprehension; that she was simply
+a part of the news, as Hal regarded news--no, as the "Clarion" regarded
+news. That Hal would deliberately have let this happen, she declined to
+believe. Unconsciously she clung to her belief in the natural
+inviolability of her privilege. It must have been a mistake. Hal would
+tell her so when he saw her. Yet if that were so, why had he sent word,
+the day after, that he couldn't keep his appointment? Would he come at
+all, now?
+
+Doubt upon this point was ended when Dr. Elliot, admitted on the
+strength of his profession to the typhus ward, and still exhibiting
+mottlings of wrath on his square face, had repeated his somewhat
+censored account of his encounter with "that puppy." Esme haughtily
+advised her dear Uncle Guardy that the "puppy" was her friend. Uncle
+Guardy acidulously counseled his beloved Esme not to be every species of
+a mildly qualified idiot at one and the same time. Esme elevated her
+nose in the air and marched out of the room to telephone Hal Surtaine
+forthwith. What she intended to telephone him (very distantly, of
+course) was that her uncle had no authority to speak for her, that she
+was quite capable of speaking for herself, and that she was ready to
+hear any explanation tending to mitigate his crime--not in those words
+precisely, but in a tone perfectly indicative of her meaning.
+Furthermore, that the matter on which she had wished to speak to him was
+a business matter, and that she would expect him to keep the broken
+appointment later. None of which was ever transmitted. Fate, playing the
+role of Miching Mallecho, prevented once again. Hal was out.
+
+In the course of time, Esme's quarantine (a little accelerated, though
+not at any risk of public safety) was lifted and she returned to the
+world. The battle of hygiene _vs_. infection was now at its height. Esme
+threw herself into the work, heart and soul. For weeks she did not set
+eyes on Hal Surtaine, except as they might pass on the street. Twice she
+narrowly missed him at the hospital where she found time to make an
+occasional visit to Ellis. A quick and lively friendship had sprung up
+between the spoiled beauty and the old soldier of the print-columns, and
+from him, as soon as he was convalescent, she learned something of the
+deeper meanings of the "Clarion" fight and of the higher standards which
+had cost its owner so dear.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "the hardest thing he ever had to do in his life
+was to print your picture."
+
+"Did he _have_ to print it?"
+
+"Didn't he? It was news."
+
+"And that's your god, isn't it, Mr. Mac?" said his visitor, smiling.
+
+"It's only a small name for Truth. Good men have died for that."
+
+"Or killed others for their ideal of it."
+
+"Miss Esme," said the invalid, "Hal Surtaine has had to face two tests.
+He had to show up his own father in his paper."
+
+"Yes. I read it. But I've only begun to understand it since our talks."
+
+"And he had to print that about you. Wayne told me he almost killed the
+story himself to save Hal. 'I couldn't bear to look at the boy's face
+when he told me to run it,' Wayne said. And he's no sentimentalist.
+Newspapermen generally ain't."
+
+"_Aren't_ you?" said Esme, with a catch in her breath. "I should think
+you were, pretty much, at the 'Clarion' office."
+
+From that day she knew that she must talk it out with Hal. Yet at every
+thought of that encounter, her maidenhood shrank, affrighted, with a
+sweet and tremulous fear. Inevitable as was the end, it might have been
+long postponed had it not been for a word that Ellis let drop the day
+when he left the hospital. Mrs. Festus Willard, out of friendship for
+Hal, had insisted that the convalescent should come to her house until
+his strength was quite returned, instead of returning to his small and
+stuffy hotel quarters, and Esme had come in her car to transfer him. It
+was the day after the Talk-It-Over Breakfast at which Hal had announced
+the prospective fall of the "Clarion."
+
+"I'll be glad to get back to the office," said Ellis to Esme. "They
+certainly need me."
+
+"You aren't fit yet," protested the girl.
+
+"Fitter than the Boss. He's worrying himself sick."
+
+"Isn't everything all right?"
+
+"All wrong! It's this cussed Pierce libel case that's taking the heart
+out of him."
+
+"Oh!" cried Esme, on a note of utter dismay. "Why didn't you tell me,
+Mr. Mac?"
+
+"Tell you? What do you know about it?"
+
+"Lots! Everything." She fell into silent thoughtfulness. "I supposed
+that you had heard from Mr. Pierce, or his lawyer, at the office. I
+_must_ see Hal--Mr. Surtaine--now. Does he still come to see you?"
+
+"Everyday."
+
+"Send word to him to be at the Willards' at two to-morrow. And--and,
+please, Mr. Mac, don't tell him why."
+
+"Now, what kind of a little game is this?" began Ellis, teasingly. "Am I
+an amateur Cupid, or what's my cue?" He looked into the girl's face and
+saw tears in the great brown eyes. "Hello!" he said with a change of
+voice. "What's wrong, Esme? I'm sorry."
+
+"Oh, _I'm_ wrong!" she cried. "I ought to have spoken long ago. No, no!
+I'm all right now!" She smiled gloriously through her tears. "Here we
+are. You'll be sure that he's there?"
+
+  "Fear not, but lean on Dollinger
+   And he will fetch you through"--
+
+quoted the other in oratorical assurance, and turned to Mrs. Willard's
+greeting.
+
+At one-thirty on the following day, Mr. McGuire Ellis was where he
+shouldn't have been, asleep in a curtained alcove window-seat of the big
+Willard library. At one minute past two he was where he should have been
+still less; that is, in the same place and condition. Now Mr. Ellis is
+not only the readiest hair-trigger sleeper known to history, but he is
+also one of the most profound and persistent. Entrances and exits
+disturb him not, nor does the human voice penetrate to the region of
+his dreams. To everything short of earthquake, explosion, or physical
+contact, his slumber is immune. Therefore he took no note when Miss Esme
+Elliot came in, nor when, a moment later, Mr. Harrington Surtaine
+arrived, unannounced. Nor, since he was thoroughly shut in by the
+draperies, was either of them aware of his presence.
+
+Esme rose slowly to her feet as Hal entered. She had planned a
+leading-up to her subject, but at sight of him she was startled out of
+any greeting, even.
+
+"Oh, how thin you look, and tired!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Strenuous days, these," he answered. "I didn't expect to see you here.
+Where's Ellis?"
+
+"Upstairs. Don't go. I want to speak to you. Sit down there."
+
+At her direction Hal drew up a chair. She took the corner of the lounge
+near by and regarded him silently from under puckered brows.
+
+"Is it about Ellis?" said Hal, alarmed at her hesitation.
+
+"No. It is about Mr. Pierce. There won't be any libel suit."
+
+"What!"
+
+"No." She shook her head in reassurance of his evident incredulity.
+"You've nothing to worry about, there."
+
+"How can you know?"
+
+"From Kathie."
+
+"Did her father tell her?"
+
+"She told her father. There's a dreadful quarrel."
+
+"I don't understand at all."
+
+"Kathie absolutely refuses to testify for her father. She says that the
+accident was her own fault, and if there's a trial she will tell the
+truth."
+
+Before she had finished, Hal was on his feet. Her heart smote her as she
+saw the gray worry pass from his face and his shoulders square as from
+the relief of a burden lifted, "Has it lain so heavy on your mind?" she
+asked pitifully.
+
+"If you knew!" He walked half the length of the long room, then turned
+abruptly. "You did that," he said. "You persuaded her."
+
+"No. I didn't, indeed."
+
+The eager light faded in his face. "Of course not. Why should you
+after--Do you mind telling me how it happened?"
+
+"It isn't my secret. But--but she has come to care very much for some
+one, and it is his influence."
+
+"Wonderful!" He laughed boyishly. "I want to go out and run around and
+howl. Would you mind joining me in the college yell? Does Mac know?"
+
+"Nobody knows but you."
+
+"That's why Pierce kept postponing. And I, living under the shadow of
+this! How can I thank you!"
+
+"Don't thank me," she said with an effort. "I--I've known it for weeks.
+I meant to tell you long ago, but I thought you'd have learned it before
+now--and--and it was made hard for me."
+
+"Was that what you had to tell me about the paper, when you asked me to
+come to see you?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"But how could I come?" he burst out. "I suppose there's no use--I must
+go and tell Mac about this."
+
+"Wait," she said.
+
+He stopped, gazing at her doubtfully.
+
+"I'm tearing down the tenement at Number 9."
+
+"Tearing it down?"
+
+"As a confession that--that you were right. But I didn't know I owned
+it. Truly I didn't. You'll believe that, won't you?"
+
+"Of course," he cried eagerly. "I did know it, but too late."
+
+"If you'd known in time would you have--"
+
+"Left that out of the paper?" he finished, all the life gone from his
+voice. "No, Esme. I couldn't have done that. But I could have said in
+the paper that you didn't know."
+
+"I thought so," she said very quietly.
+
+He misinterpreted this. "I can't lie to you, Esme," he said with a sad
+sincerity. "I've lived with lies too long. I can't do it, not for any
+hope of happiness. Do I seem false and disloyal to you? Sometimes I do
+to myself. I can't help it. All a man can do is to follow his own light.
+Or a woman either, I suppose. And your light and mine are worlds apart."
+
+Again, with a stab of memory, he saw that desperate smile on her lips.
+Then she spoke with the clear courage of her new-found womanliness.
+
+"There is no light for me where you are not."
+
+He took a swift step toward her. And at the call, sweetly and
+straightly, she came to meet his arms and lips.
+
+"Poor boy!" she said, a few minutes later, pushing a lock of hair from
+his forehead. "I've let you carry that burden when a word from me would
+have lifted it."
+
+"Has there ever been such a thing as unhappiness in the world,
+sweetheart?" he said. "I can't remember it. So I don't believe it."
+
+"I'm afraid I've cost you more than I can ever repay you for," she said.
+"Hal, tell me I've been a little beast!--Oh, no! That's no way to tell
+it. Aren't you sorry, sir, that you ever saw this room?"
+
+"Finest example of interior architecture I know of. Exact replica of the
+plumb center of Paradise."
+
+"It's where all your troubles began. You first met me here in this very
+room."
+
+"Oh, no! My troubles began from the minute I set eyes on you, that day
+at the station."
+
+"Don't contradict me." She laid an admonitory finger on his lips, then,
+catching at his hand, gently drew him with her. "Right in that very
+window-seat there--" She whisked the hangings aside, and brushed McGuire
+Ellis's nose in so doing.
+
+"Hoong!" snorted McGuire Ellis.
+
+"Oh!" cried Esme. "Were you there all the time? We--I--didn't know--Have
+you been asleep?"
+
+"I have been just that," replied the dormant one, yawning.
+
+"I hope we haven't disturbed--" began Esme in the same breath with Hal's
+awkward "Sorry we waked you up, Mac."
+
+"Don't be--" Ellis checked his familiar growl, looked with growing
+suspicion from Esme's flushed loveliness to Hal's self conscious
+confusion, leaped to his feet, gathered the pair into a sudden, violent,
+impartial embrace, and roared out:--
+
+"Go ahead! _Be_ young! You can only be it once in a lifetime."
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+THE CONVERT
+
+
+Old Home Week passed in a burst of glory and profit. True to its
+troublous type, the "Clarion" had interfered with the profit, in two
+brief, lively, and effective campaigns. It had published a roster of
+hotels which, after agreeing not to raise rates for the week, had
+reverted to the old, tried and true principle of "all the traffic can
+bear," with comparative tables, thereby causing great distress of mind
+and pocket among the piratical. Backed by the Consumers' League, it had
+again taken up the cudgels for the store employees, demanding that they
+receive pay for overtime during the celebration and winning a partial
+victory. No little rancor was, of course, stirred up among the
+advertisers. The usual threats were made. But the business interests of
+Worthington had begun to learn that threatening the "Clarion" was a
+futile procedure, while advertisers were coming to a realization of the
+fact that they couldn't afford to stay out of so strong a medium, even
+at increased rates.
+
+The raise in the advertising schedule had been partly Esme Elliot's
+doing. As a condition of her engagement to Hal, she demanded a
+resumption of the old partnership. Entered into lightly, it soon became
+of serious moment, for the girl had a natural gift for affairs. When she
+learned that on the basis of circulation the "Clarion" would be
+justified in increasing its advertising card by forty per cent, but
+dared not do so because of the narrow margin upon which it was working,
+she insisted upon the measure, supporting her argument with a
+considerable sum of money of her own. Hal revolted at this, but she
+pleaded so sweetly that he finally consented to regard it as a reserve
+fund. It was never called for. The turn of the tide had come for the
+paper. It lost few old advertisers and put on new ones. It was a
+success.
+
+No one was more delighted than Dr. Surtaine. Forgetting his own
+prophecies of disaster he exalted Hal to the skies as a chip of the old
+block, an inheritor of his own genius for business.
+
+"Knew all along he had the stuff in him," he would declare buoyantly.
+"Look at the 'Clarion' now! Most independent, you-be-damned sheet in the
+country. And what about the chaps that were going to put it out of
+business? Eating out of its hand!"
+
+Of Esme the old quack was quite as proud as of Hal. To him she embodied
+and typified, in its extreme form, those things which all his money
+could not buy. That she disliked the Certina business and made no secret
+of the fact did not in the least interfere with a genuine liking between
+herself and its proprietor. Dr. Surtaine could not discuss Certina with
+Hal: there were too many wounds still open between them. But with Esme
+he could, and often did. Her attitude struck him as nicely philosophic
+and impersonal, if a bit disdainful. And in these days he had to talk to
+some one, for he was swollen with a great and glorious purpose.
+
+He announced it one resplendent fall day, having gone out to Greenvale
+with that particular object in view, at an hour when he was sure that
+Hal would be at the office.
+
+"Esme, I'm going to make you a wedding present of Certina," he said.
+
+"Never take it, Doctor," she replied, smiling up at him in friendly
+recognition of what had come to be a subject of stock joke between them.
+
+"I'm serious. I'm going to make you a wedding present of the Certina
+business. I guess there aren't many brides get a gift of half a million
+a year. Too bad I can't give it out to the newspapers, but it wouldn't
+do."
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" cried the astonished girl. "I couldn't take
+it. Hal wouldn't let me."
+
+"I'm going to give it up, for you. You think it ain't genteel and
+high-toned, don't you?"
+
+"I think it isn't honest."
+
+"Not discussing business principles, to-day," retorted the Doctor
+good-humoredly. "It's a question of taste now. You're ashamed of the
+proprietary medicine game, aren't you, my dear?"
+
+Esme laughed. Embarrassment with Dr. Surtaine was impossible. He was too
+childlike. "A little," she confessed.
+
+"You'd be glad if I quit it."
+
+"Of course I would. I suppose you can afford it."
+
+As if responding to the touch of a concealed spring, the Surtaine chest
+protruded. "You find me something I can't afford, and I'll buy it!" he
+declared. "But this won't even cost me anything in the long run. Esme,
+did I ever tell you my creed?"
+
+"'Certina Cures,'" suggested the girl mischievously.
+
+"That's for business. I mean for everyday life. My creed is to let
+Providence take care of folks in general while I look after me and
+mine."
+
+"It's practical, at least, if not altruistic."
+
+"Me, and mine," repeated the charlatan. "Do you get that 'and mine'?
+That means the employees of the Certina factory. Now, if I quit making
+Certina, what about them? Shall I turn them out on the street?"
+
+"I hadn't thought of that," admitted the girl blankly.
+
+"Business can be altruistic as well as practical, you see," he observed.
+"Well, I've worked out a scheme to take care of that. Been working on it
+for months. Certina is going to die painlessly. And I'm going to preach
+its funeral oration at the factory on Monday. Will you come, and make
+Hal come, too?"
+
+In vain did Esme employ her most winning arts of persuasion to get more
+from the wily charlatan. He enjoyed being teased, but he was obdurate.
+Accordingly she promised for herself and Hal.
+
+But Hal was not as easily persuaded. He shrank from the thought of ever
+again setting foot in the Certina premises. Only Esme's most artful
+pleading that he should not so sorely disappoint his father finally won
+him over.
+
+At the Certina "shop," on the appointed day, the fiances were ushered in
+with unaccustomed formality. They found gathered in the magnificent
+executive offices all the heads of departments of the vast concern, a
+quiet, expectant crowd. There were no outsiders other than Hal and Esme.
+Dr. Surtaine, glossy, grave, a figure to fill the eye roundly, sat at
+his glass-topped table facing his audience. Above him hung Old Lame-Boy,
+eternally hobbling amidst his fervid implications.
+
+Waving the newcomers to seats directly in front of him, the presiding
+genius lifted a benign hand for silence.
+
+"My friends," he said, in his unctuous, rolling voice, "I have an
+important announcement to make. The Certina business is finished."
+
+There was a silence of stunned surprise as the speaker paused to enjoy
+his effect.
+
+"Certina," he pursued, "has been the great triumph of my career. I might
+almost say it has been my career. But it has not been my life, my
+friends. The whole is greater than the part: the creator is greater than
+the thing he creates. They say, 'Surtaine of Certina.' It should be,
+'Certina of Surtaine.' There's more to come of Surtaine."
+
+His voice dropped to the old, pleading, confidential tone of the
+itinerant; as if he were beguiling them now to accept the philosophy
+which he was to set forth.
+
+"What is life, my dear friends? Life is a paper-chase. We rush from one
+thing to another, Little Daisy Happiness just one jump ahead of us and
+Old Man Death grabbing at our coat-tails. Well, before he catches hold
+of mine,"--the splendid bulk and vitality of the man gave refutation to
+the hint of pathos in the voice,--"I want to run my race out so that my
+children and my children's children can point to me and say, 'One
+crowded hour of glorious life is worth a cycle of Cathay.'"
+
+With a superb gesture he indicated Hal and Esme, who, he observed with
+gratification, seemed quite overcome with emotion.
+
+"That is why, my friends, I am withdrawing certina, and turning to fresh
+fields; if I may say so, fields of more genteel endeavor. Certina has
+made millions. It could still make millions. I could sell out for
+millions to-day. But, in the words of the sweet singer, I come to bury
+it, not to praise it. Certina has done its grand work. The day of
+medicine is almost over. Interfering laws are being passed. The public
+is getting suspicious of drugs. Whether this is just or unjust is not
+the question which I am considering. I've always wanted my business to
+be high-class. You can't run a high-class business when the public is on
+to you.
+
+"Don't think, any of you, that I'm going to retire and leave you in the
+lurch. No. I'm looking ahead, for you as well as for me. What's the
+newest thing in science? Foods! Specific foods, to build up the system.
+That's the big thing of the future here in America. We're a tired
+nation, a nerve-wracked nation, a brain-fagged nation. Suppose a man
+could say to the public, 'Get as tired as you like. Work to your limit.
+Play to your limit. Go the pace. When you're worn out, come to us and
+we'll repair the waste for a few dollars. We've got a food--no drugs, no
+medicines--that builds up brain and nerve as good as new. The greatest
+authorities in the world agree on it.' Is there any limit to the
+business that food could do?
+
+"Well, I've got it! And I've got the backing for it. Mr. Belford Couch
+will tell you of our testimonials. Tell 'em the whole thing, Bel: we're
+all one family here."
+
+"I've been huntin' in Europe," said Certina Charley, rising, in accents
+of pardonable pride: "and I've got the hottest bunch of signed stuff
+ever. You all know how hard it is to get any medical testimonials here.
+They're all afraid, except a few down-and-outers. Well, there's none of
+that in Europe. They'll stand for any kind of advertising, so long as
+it's published only in the United States--provided they get their price.
+And it ain't such an awful price either. _I got the Emperor's own
+physician for one thousand five hundred dollars cash_. And a line of
+court doctors and swell university professors anywhere from one thousand
+dollars way down to one hundred. It's the biggest testimonial stunt ever
+pulled."
+
+"And every mother's son of 'em," put in Dr. Surtaine, "staking a
+high-toned scientific reputation that the one sure, unfailing, reliable
+upbuilder for brain-workers, nervous folks, tired-out, or broken-down
+folks of any kind at all is"--here Dr. Surtaine paused, looked about his
+entranced audience, and delivered himself of his climax in a voice of
+thunder:
+
+"CEREBREAD!"
+
+The word passed from mouth to mouth, in accents of experimentation,
+admiration, and acceptance.
+
+"Cere, from cerebellum, the brain, and bread the universal food. I doped
+it out myself, and as soon as I hit on it I shipped Belford Couch
+straight to Europe to get the backing. I wouldn't take a million for
+that name, to-day.
+
+"See what you can do with a proposition of that sort! It hasn't got any
+drugs in it, so we won't have to label it under the law. It ain't
+medical; so the most particular newspaper and magazines won't kick on
+the advertising. Yet, with the copy I'm getting up on it, we can put it
+over to cure more troubles than Certina ever thought of curing. Only we
+won't use the word 'cure,' of course. All we have to do is to ram it
+into the public that all its troubles are nervous and brain troubles.
+'Cerebread' restores the brain and rebuilds the nerves, and there you
+are, as good as new. Is that some plan? Or isn't it!"
+
+There was a ripple of applausive comment.
+
+"What's in it?" inquired Lauder, the factory superintendent.
+
+"Millions in it, my boy," cried the other jubilantly. "We'll be
+manufacturing by New Year's."
+
+"That's the point. _What'll_ we be manufacturing?"
+
+"By crikey! That reminds me. Haven't settled that yet. Might as well do
+it right now," said the presiding genius of the place with Olympian
+decision. "Dr. De Vito, what's the newest wrinkle in brain-food?"
+
+"Brain-food?" hesitated the little physician. "Something new?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried the charlatan impatiently. "What's the fad now? It
+used to be phosphorus."
+
+"Ye-es. Phosphorus, maybe. Maybe some kind of hypophosphite, eh?"
+
+"Sounds all right. Could you get up a preparation of it that looks tasty
+and tastes good?"
+
+"Sure. Easy."
+
+"Fine! I'll send you down the advertising copy, so you'll have that to
+go by. And now, gentlemen, we're the Cerebread factory from now on. Keep
+all your help; we'll need 'em. Go on with Certina till we're sold out;
+but no more advertising on it. And, all of you, from now on, think,
+dream, and _live_ Cerebread. Meeting's adjourned."
+
+The staff filed out, chattering excitedly. "He'll put it over."--"You
+can't beat the Chief."--"Is'n't he a wonder!"--"Cerebread; it's a great
+name to advertise."--"No come-back to it, either. Nobody can kick on a
+_food_."--"It's a sure-enough classy proposition, with those swell
+European names to it!"--"Wish he'd let us in on the stock."
+
+Success was in the air. It centered in and beamed from the happy eyes
+of the reformed enthusiast, as, crossing over the room with hands
+extended to Esme and Hal, he cried in a burst of generous emotion:
+
+"It was you two that converted me."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Clarion, by Samuel Hopkins Adams
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