Part 14 (1/2)

”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 doc.u.ment. ”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 sc.u.m 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.”