Part 22 (1/2)

”Not until July. You must come to see us at Newport.”

”Nothing could please me better--if I can get away.”

”I'll send you an invitation, although you have treated me very badly of late. But I suppose you are busy.”

”Busy? Isn't a galley slave always busy?”

”Are you still writing editorials?”

”Yes--and on the fallen _News-Record_. In fact----”

”Well--what?”

Howard laughed. ”Don't faint,” he said. ”I'll leave you at once if you wish me to, and I'll never give it away that you once knew me. I'm the editor--the responsible devil for the depravity.”

”How interesting!” Mrs. Carnarvon was evidently not disturbed. Then the American adoration of success came out. ”I'm so glad you're getting on.

I always knew you would. Really, you must come to dinner. I'll invite some of the people you've been attacking. They'll like to look at you, and you will be amused by them. And I don't in the least mind your giving it to them if they bait you, as I did this morning. Will you come?”

”If I may leave by ten o'clock. I go down town every night.”

”Why, when do you sleep?”

”Not much, these days. Life's too interesting to permit of much sleep.

I'll make up when it slackens a bit.”

As he was turning his horse, she said: ”Marian's address is Claridge's, Brooke Street, Mayfair. If she isn't there, they forward her mail.”

Howard was puzzled. ”What made her give me that address?” he thought.

”I know she didn't like my seeing so much of Marian. And here she is practically inviting me to write to her.” He could not understand it.

”If I were not a 'yellow' editor and if Marian were not engaged to one of the richest men in New York, I'd say that this lady was encouraging me.” He smiled. ”Not yet--not just yet.” And he cheerfully urged his horse into a canter.

Mrs. Carnarvon's opinion of the _News-Record_ and its recent performances fairly represented that of the fas.h.i.+onable and the very rich. They read it, as they never did before, because it interested them. They could not deny that what it said was true; that is, they could not deny it to their own minds, although they did vigorously deny it publicly. Those who were attacked directly or indirectly, or expected to be attacked, denounced the paper as an ”outrage,” a ”disgrace to the city,” a ”specimen of the journalism of the gutter.” Many who were not in sympathy with the men or the methods a.s.sailed thought that its course was ”inexpedient,” ”tended to increase discontent among the lower cla.s.ses,” ”weakened the influence of the better cla.s.ses.” Only a few of the ”triumphant cla.s.ses” saw the real value and benefit of the _News-Record's_ frank attacks upon greed and hypocrisy, saw that these attacks were not dangerous or demagogical because they were just and were combined with a careful avoidance of encouragement to the lazy, the envious, the incompetent and the ignorant.

Fortunately for Howard's peace, that eminent New York ”multi,” Samuel Jocelyn, for whom Coulter had the highest respect, was of this last cla.s.s. When Howard began, Coulter was at Aiken where Jocelyn had a cottage. He had never been able to make headway with Jocelyn, and Mrs.

Jocelyn deigned to give him and Mrs. Coulter only the coldest of cold nods. Just as Coulter had become so agitated by Howard's radical course that he was preparing to go to New York to remonstrate with him, Jocelyn called.

”I came to thank you for what you are doing with your paper,” he said cordially. ”It seems to me that all intelligent men who are not blind to their own ultimate interests ought to stand by you. I can't tell you how much I admire your frankness and honesty. And you draw the line just right. You attack plunder, you defend property. Will your wife and you dine with us this evening?”

Coulter postponed his trip to New York.

On the last day of the first three months the circulation of the _News-Record_ was 147,253--an increase of 42,150 over what it was on the day Howard took charge; its advertising had increased twelve per cent; its net profits for the quarter were seventy-five thousand dollars as against fifty-seven thousand for the preceding quarter.

”Very good indeed,” was Stokely's comment.

”Another quarter like this,” said Howard, ”and I'm going to ask you to let me increase expenses a thousand dollars a week to ill.u.s.trate the paper.”

”We'll talk that over with Coulter. Personally I like this 'yellow-journalism'--when it's done intelligently. I always told Coulter we'd have to come to it. It's only common sense to make a paper easy reading. Then, too, we can have a great deal more influence--in fact, we have already. I'm getting what I want up at Albany this winter much cheaper.”