Part 23 (2/2)

”a.s.suming that you are?” queried he.

”a.s.suming that,” said Varney, ”I'll say that I have come to buy this paper. And to discharge you from the editors.h.i.+p.”

Smith drew in his feet, and swung slowly around. The two men measured each other in an interval of intelligent silence. On the whole, upon this close view, Varney found it harder to think of Smith as a contemptible cur who circulated lying slanders for profit than as the young man who wrote the famous editorials.

”And still they come,” said Smith, enigmatically. ”Three of them in one day--well, well!” And he added musingly: ”So I have stung you as hard as that, have I?”

”Let us say rather,” said Varney, whose present tack was diplomacy, ”that I have some loose money which I want to stow away in a paying little enterprise.”

”I am the last man in the world to boast of a kindness,” continued Smith, in his faintly mocking manner, ”but I gave you fair warning to leave town.”

”Instead I stayed. And an exceedingly interesting town I have found it.

Something doing every minute. But, as I just remarked, I have looked in to buy your paper.”

”If I were like some I know,” meditated Smith, ”I'd be thinking: 'The Lord has delivered him into my hand, aye, delivered dear old Beany.' I'd embarra.s.s you with questions, make you blush with catechisms. But I am a merciful man, and observe that I ask you nothing. You want to buy the _Gazette_ for an investment. Let it stand at that. So you're the money-grubbing sort that supposes that everything on G.o.d's ha.s.sock has its price?”

”I believe it's street knowledge that the _Gazette_ has its. But I called really not so much to discuss ethics, as to ascertain your figure.”

Smith gave a sigh which was not without its trace of mockery.

”'Fortunately, I am hardened to insults. Editors are expected to stand anything. Times are dull--nothing much to do--drop around and kick the editor. You've no idea what we have to put up with from spring poets alone. Rejoice, B----, that is, Mr.--er--Blank, that the _Gazette_ is never to be yours.”

”You can't mean that you decline to sell?”

”When I implied to you just now that I was sole owner of the _Gazette_, I was, of course, speaking rather reminiscently than in the strict light of present facts.”

”What do you mean by that?”

”That I sold the _Gazette_ at four o'clock this afternoon.”

For an instant the room whirled and Varney saw nothing in it but the odd eyes of Coligny Smith steadily fixing him. By the shock of that blow, he realized that, after all, he had wholly counted upon succeeding in this. From the moment when he had turned his stateroom key on unconscious Charlie Hammerton, he had recognized it as his one chance.

And now he was too late. Clever Ryan, who missed nothing, doubtless suspecting that the faithless editor who had sold out once to him might now be planning to do it again to a higher bidder, had outstripped him.

And the _Gazette_ to-morrow would d.a.m.n him utterly.

But Varney's face, as these thoughts came to him, wore a faint, non-committal smile. ”That is final, I suppose?”

”As death, so far as I am concerned. I leave Hunston permanently to-morrow morning.”

”Who was the buyer?”

”There is really no reason why I should divulge his confidence that I know of; but, curses on me, I'll do it if you'll tell me this: Where is Charles Hammerton?”

Varney laid his hat and stick on the table, to rid his hands of them, and faced Mr. Smith, leaning lightly against it.

”I came here, Smith, to ask questions, not to answer them. On second thoughts, I withdraw my last one, for I can guess the answer. But before we proceed further, I want you to tell me this: what made you sell?”

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