"The Sears-Roebuck catalogue? I get a copy every season, to renew the old thrill."

"What a romanticist you are!" said she softly. "Couldn't you write an editorial about it?"

"Couldn't I? Try me. Come up to the den."

He led the way to the remote austerities of the work-room. From a shelf he took down the fat, ornate pamphlet, now much increased in bulk over its prototype of the earlier years. With random finger he parted the leaves, here, there, again and still again, seeking auguries.

"Ready?" he said. "Now, I shut my eyes--and we're in the shack again--the clean air of desert spaces--the click of the transmitter in the office that I won't answer, being more importantly engaged--the faint fragrance of _you_ permeating everything--youth--the unknown splendor of life--Now! Go!"

Of that editorial, composed upon the unpromising theme of mail-order merchandising, the Great Gaines afterward said that it was a kaleidoscopic panorama set moving to the harmonic undertones of a song of winds and waters, of passion and the inner meanings of life, as if Shelley had rhapsodized a catalogue into poetic being and glorious significance. He said it was foolish to edit a magazine when one couldn't trust a cheap newspaper not to come flaming forth into literature which turned one's most conscientious and aspiring efforts into tinsel. He also said "Damn!"

Io Welland (for it was Io Welland and not Io Eyre whom the soothsayer saw before him as he declaimed), instrument and inspiration of the achievement, said no word of direct praise. But as she wrote, her fingers felt as if they were dripping electric sparks. When, at the close, he asked, quite humbly, "Is that what you wanted?" she caught her breath on something like a sob.

"I'll give you a title," she said, recovering herself. "Call it 'If there were Dreams to Sell.'"

"Ah, that's good!" he cried. "My readers won't get it. Pinheads! They get nothing that isn't plain as the nose on their silly faces. Never mind. It's good for 'em to be puzzled once in a while. Teaches 'em their place.... I'll tell you who will understand it, though," he continued, and laughed queerly.

"All the people who really matter will."

"Some who matter a lot to The Patriot will. The local merchants who advertise with us. They'll be wild."

"Why?"

"They hate the mail-order houses with a deadly fear, because the cataloguers undersell them in a lot of lines. Won't Rome howl the day after this appears!"

"Tell me about the relation between advertising and policy, Ban,"

invited Io, and summarized Willis Enderby's views.

Banneker had formulated for his own use and comfort the fallacy which has since become standard for all journalists unwilling or unable to face the issue of their own responsibility to the public. He now gave it forth confidently.

"A newspaper, Io, is like a billboard. Any one has a right to hire it for purposes of exploiting and selling whatever he has to sell. In accepting the advertisement, provided it is legal and decent, the publisher accepts no more responsibility than the owner of the land on which a billboard stands. Advertising space is a free forum."

"But when it affects the editorial attitude--"

"That's the test," he put in quickly. "That's why I'm glad to print this editorial of ours. It's a declaration of independence."

"Yes," she acquiesced eagerly.

"If ever I use the power of my editorials for any cause that I don't believe in--yes, or for my own advantage or the advantage of my employer--that will be the beginning of surrender. But as long as I keep a free pen and speak as I believe for what I hold as right and against what I hold as wrong, I can afford to leave the advertising policy to those who control it. It isn't my responsibility.... It's an omen, Io; I was waiting for it. Marrineal and I are at a deadlock on the question of my control of the editorial page. This ought to furnish a fighting issue. I'm glad it came from you."

"Oh, but if it's going to make trouble for you, I shall be sorry. And I was going to propose that we write one every Saturday."

"Io!" he cried. "Does that mean--"

"It means that I shall become a regular attendant at Mr. Errol Banneker's famous Saturday nights. Don't ask me what more it means." She rose and delivered the typed sheets into his hands. "I--I don't know, myself. Take me back to the others, Ban."

To Banneker, wakened next morning to a life of new vigor and sweetness, the outcome of the mail-order editorial was worth not one troubled thought. All his mind was centered on Io.

CHAPTER VII

Explosions of a powerful and resonant nature followed the publication of the fantastic, imaginative, and delightful mail-order catalogue editorial. In none of these senses, except the first, did it appeal to the advertising managers of the various department stores. They looked upon it as an outrage, an affront, a deliberate slap in the face for an established, vested, and prodigal support of the newspaper press. What the devil did The Patriot mean by it; The Patriot which sorely needed just their class of reputable patronage, and, after sundry contortions of rate-cutting, truckling, and offers of news items to back the advertising, was beginning to get it? They asked themselves, and, failing of any satisfactory answer, they asked The Patriot in no uncertain terms. Receiving vague and pained replies, they even went to the length of holding a meeting and sending a committee to wait upon the desperate Haring, passing over the advertising manager who was a mere figurehead in The Patriot office.

Then began one of those scenes of bullying and browbeating to which every newspaper, not at once powerful and honest enough to command the fear and respect of its advertisers, is at some time subjected. Haring, the victim personifying the offending organ, was stretched upon the rack and put to the question. What explanation had he to offer of The Patriot's breach of faith?

He had none, had the miserable business manager. No one could regret it more than he. But, really, gentlemen, to call it a breach of faith--

What else was it? Wasn't the paper turning on its own advertisers?

Well; in a sense. But not--

But nothing! Wasn't it trying to undermine their legitimate business?

Not intentionally, Mr. Haring was (piteously) sure.

Intentionally be damned! Did he expect to carry their advertising on one page and ruin their business on another? Did he think they were putting money into The Patriot--a doubtful medium for their business, at best--to cut their own throats? They'd put it to him reasonably, now; who, after all, paid for the getting out of The Patriot? Wasn't it the advertisers?

Certainly, certainly, gentlemen. Granted.

Could the paper run a month, a fortnight, a week without advertising?

No; no! It couldn't. No newspaper could.

Then if the advertisers paid the paper's way, weren't they entitled to some say about it? Didn't it have a right to give 'em at least a fair show?

Indeed, gentlemen, if he, Haring, were in control of the paper--

Then, why; why the _hell_ was a cub of an editor allowed to cut loose and jump their game that way? They could find other places to spend their money; yes, and get a better return for it. They'd see The Patriot, and so on, and so forth.

Mr. Haring understood their feelings, sympathized, even shared them.

Unfortunately the editorial page was quite out of his province.

Whose province was it, then? Mr. Banneker's, eh? And to whom was Mr.

Banneker responsible? Mr. Marrineal, alone? All right! They would see Mr. Marrineal.

Mr. Haring was sorry, but Mr. Marrineal was out of town. (Fiction.)

Well, in that case, Banneker. They'd trust themselves to show him which foot he got off on. They'd teach (two of them, in their stress of emotion, said "learn"; they were performing this in chorus) Banneker--

Oh, Mr. Banneker wasn't there, either. (Haring, very terrified, and having built up an early conception of the Wild West Banneker from the clean-up of the dock gang, beheld in his imagination dejected members of the committee issuing piecemeal from the doors and windows of the editorial office, the process being followed by an even more regrettable exodus of advertising from the pages of The Patriot.)

Striving to be at once explanatory and propitiatory to all and sundry, Haring was reduced to inarticulate, choking interjections and paralytic motions of the hands, when a member of the delegation, hitherto silent, spoke up.

He was the representative of McLean & Swazey, a college graduate of a type then new, though now much commoner, in the developing profession of advertising. He had read the peccant editorial with a genuine relish of its charm and skill, and had justly estimated it for what it was, an intellectual _jeu d'esprit_, the expression of a passing fancy for a tempting subject, not of a policy to be further pursued.

"Enough has been said, I think, to define our position," said he. "All that we need is some assurance that Mr. Banneker's wit and skill will not be turned again to the profit of our competitors who, by the way, do _not_ advertise in The Patriot."