"What about her?" interrogated Marrineal. "Do you really think--" His uplifted brows, sparse on his broad and candid forehead, consummated the question.

For reply the factotum gave him a succinct if distorted version of the romance in the desert.

"She dished him for Eyre," he concluded, "and now she's dishing Eyre for him."

"Bussey's got all this?" inquired Marrineal, and upon the other's careless "I suppose so," added, "It must grind his soul not to be able to use it."

"Or not to get paid for suppressing it," grinned Ives.

"But does Banneker understand that it's fear of his pen, and not of being killed, that binds Bussey?"

Ives nodded. "I've taken care to rub that in. Told him of other cases where the old Major was threatened with all sorts of manhandling; scared out of his wits at first, but always got over it and came back in The Searchlight, taking his chance of being killed. The old vulture really isn't a coward, though he's a wary bird."

"Would Banneker really kill him, do you think?"

"I wouldn't insure his life for five cents," returned the other with conviction. "Your editor is crazy-mad over this Mrs. Eyre. So there you have him delivered, shorn and helpless, and Delilah doesn't even suspect that she's acting as our agent."

Marrineal's eyes fixed themselves in a lifeless sort of stare upon a far corner of the ceiling. Recognizing this as a sign of inward cogitation, the vizier of his more private interests sat waiting. Without changing the direction of his gaze, the proprietor indicated a check in his ratiocination by saying incompletely:

"Now, if she divorced Eyre and married Banneker--"

Ives completed it for him. "That would spike The Searchlight's guns, you think? Perhaps. But if she were going to divorce Eyre, she'd have done it long ago, wouldn't she? I think she'll wait. He won't last long."

"Then our hold on Banneker, through his ability to intimidate The Searchlight, depends on the life of a paretic."

"Paretic is too strong a word--yet. But it comes to about that.

Except--he'll want a lot of money to marry Io Eyre."

"He wants a lot, anyway," smiled Marrineal.

"He'll want more. She's an expensive luxury."

"He can get more. Any time when he chooses to handle The Patriot so that it attracts instead of offends the big advertisers."

"Why don't you put the screws on him now, Mr. Marrineal?" smirked Ives with thin-lipped malignancy.

Marrineal frowned. His cold blood inclined him to be deliberate; the ophidian habit, slow-moving until ready to strike. He saw no reason for risking a venture which became safer the further it progressed.

Furthermore, he disliked direct, unsolicited advice. Ignoring Ives's remark he asked:

"How are his investments going?"

Ives grinned again. "Down. Who put him into United Thread? Do you know, sir?"

"Horace Vanney. He has been tipping it off quietly to the club lot.

Wants to get out from under, himself."

"There's one thing about it, though, that puzzles me. If he took old Vanney's tip to buy for a rise, why did he go after the Sippiac Mills with those savage editorials? They're mainly responsible for the legislative investigation that knocked eight points off of United Thread."

"Probably to prove his editorial independence."

"To whom? You?"

"To himself," said Marrineal with an acumen quite above the shrewdness of an Ives to grasp.

But the latter nodded intelligently, and remarked: "If he's money-crazy you've got him, anyway, sooner or later. And now that he's woman-crazy, too--"

"You'll never understand just how sane Mr. Banneker is," broke in Marrineal coldly. He was a very sane man, himself.

"Well, a lot of the sane ones get stung on the Street," moralized Ives.

"I guess the only way to beat that game is to get crazy and take all the chances. Mr. Banneker stands to drop half a year's salary in U.T. alone unless there's a turn."

Marrineal delivered another well-thought-out bit of wisdom. "If I'm any judge, he wants a paper of his own. Well ... give me three years more of him and he can have it. But I don't think it'll make much headway against The Patriot, then."

"Three years? Bussey and The Searchlight ought to hold him that long.

Unless, of course, he gets over his infatuation in the meantime."

"In that case," surmised Marrineal, eyeing him with distaste, "I suppose you think that he would equally lose interest in protecting her from The Searchlight."

"Well, what's a woman to expect!" said Ives blandly, and took his dismissal for the day.

It was only recently that Ives had taken to coming to The Patriot office. No small interest and conjecture were aroused among the editorial staff as to his exact status, stimulus to gossip being afforded by the rumor that he had been, from Marrineal's privy purse, shifted to the office payroll. Russell Edmonds solved and imparted the secret to Banneker.

"Ives? Oh, he's the office sandbag."

"Translate, Pop. I don't understand."

"It's an invention of Marrineal's. Very ingenious. It was devised as a weapon against libel suits. Suppose some local correspondent from Hohokus or Painted Post sends in a story on the Honorable Aminadab Quince that looks to be O.K., but is actually full of bad breaks. The Honorable Aminadab smells money in it and likes the smell. Starts a libel suit. On the facts, he's got us: the fellow that got pickled and broke up the Methodist revival wasn't Aminadab at all, but his tough brother. If it gets into court we're stung. Well, up goes little Weaselfoot Ives to Hohokus. Sniffs around and spooks around and is a good fellow at the hotel, and possibly spends a little money where it's most needed, and one day turns up at the Quince mansion. 'Senator, I represent The Patriot.' 'Don't want to see you at all. Talk to my lawyer.' 'But he might not understand my errand. It relates to an indictment handed down in 1884 for malversasion of school funds.' 'Young man, do you dare to intimate--' and so forth and so on; bluster and bluff and threat. Says Ives, very cool: 'Let me have your denial in writing and we'll print it opposite the certified copy of the indictment.' The old boy begins to whimper; 'That's outlawed. It was all wrong, anyway.' Ives is sympathetic, but stands pat. Drop the suit and The Patriot will be considerate and settle the legal fees. Aminadab drops, ten times out of ten. The sandbag has put him away."

"But there must be an eleventh case where there's nothing on the man that's suing."

"Say a ninety-ninth. One libel suit in a hundred may be brought in good faith. But we never settle until after Ives has done his little prowl."

"It sounds bad, Pop. But is it so bad, after all? We've got to protect ourselves against a hold-up."

"Dirty work, but somebody's got to do it: ay--yes? I agree with you. As a means of self-defense it is excusable. But the operations of the sandbag have gone far beyond libel in Ives's hands."

"Have they? To what extent?"

"Any. His little private detective agency--he's got a couple of our porch-climbing, keyhole reporters secretly assigned to him at call for 'special work'--looks after any man we've got or are likely to have trouble with; advertisers who don't come across properly, city officials who play in with the other papers too much, politicians--"

"But that's rank blackmail!" exclaimed Banneker.

"Carried far enough it is. So far it's only private information for the private archives."

"Marrineal's?"

"Yes. He and his private counsel, old Mark Stecklin, are the keepers of them. Now, suppose Judge Enderby runs afoul of our interests, as he is bound to do sooner or later. Little Weaselfoot gets on his trail--probably is on it already--and he'll spend a year if necessary watching, waiting, sniffing out something that he can use as a threat or a bludgeon or a bargain."

"What quarrel have we got with Enderby?" inquired Banneker with lively interest.