Part 51 (1/2)

”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 superst.i.tions 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 coa.r.s.e 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 hara.s.sing: 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 a.s.sistant 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 inst.i.tutions.”

”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, banis.h.i.+ng rest.