"If Marrineal should declare in on the race for the governorship, next fall."

"Without any state organization? Is that probable?" asked Banneker.

"Only in case he should make a combination with the old ring crowd, who are, naturally, grateful for his aid in putting over Halloran for them.

It's quite within the possibilities."

"After the way The Patriot and Mr. Marrineal himself have flayed the ring?" exclaimed Io. "It isn't possible. How could he so go back on himself?"

Edmonds turned his fine and serious smile upon her. "Mr. Marrineal's guiding principle of politics _and_ journalism is that the public never remembers. If he persuades the ring to nominate him, Enderby is the logical candidate against him. In my belief he's the only man who could beat him."

"Do you really think, Mr. Edmonds, that Judge Enderby's help to the arrested women is a political move?"

"That's the way it would be interpreted by all the politicians.

Personally, I don't believe it."

"His sympathies, professional and personal, are naturally on the other side," pointed out Banneker.

"But not yours, surely Ban!" cried Io. "Yours ought to be with them. If you could have seen them as I did, helpless and panic-stricken, with the horses pressing in on them--"

"Of course I'm with them," warmly retorted Banneker. "If I controlled the news columns of the paper, I'd make another Sippiac Mills story of this." No sooner had he said it than he foresaw to what reply he had inevitably laid himself open. It came from Io's lips.

"You control the editorial column, Ban."

"It's a subject to be handled in the news, not the editorials," he said hastily.

The silence that fell was presently relieved by Edmonds. "It's also being handled in the advertising columns. Have you seen the series of announcements by the Garment Manufacturers' Association? There are four of 'em now in proof."

"No. I haven't seen them," answered Banneker.

"They're able. But on the whole they aren't as able as the strikers'

declaration in rebuttal, offered us to-day, one-third of a page at regular advertising rates, same as the manufacturers'."

"Enderby?" queried Banneker quickly.

"I seem to detect his fine legal hand in it."

Banneker's face became moody. "I suppose Haring refused to publish it."

"No. Haring's for taking it."

"How is that?" said the editor, astonished. "I thought Haring--"

"You think of Haring as if Haring thought as you and I think. That isn't fair," declared Edmonds. "Haring's got a business mind, straight within its limitations. He accepts this strike stuff just as he accepts blue-sky mine fakes and cancer cures in which he has no belief, because he considers that a newspaper is justified in taking any ad. that is offered--and let the reader beware. Besides, it goes against his grain to turn down real money."

"Will it appear in to-morrow's paper?" questioned Io.

"Probably, if it appears at all."

"Why the 'if'?" said Banneker. "Since Haring has passed it--"

"There is also Marrineal."

"Haring sent it to him?"

"Not at all. The useful and ubiquitous Ives, snooping as usual, came upon it. Hence it is now in Marrineal's hands. Likely to remain there, I should think."

"Mr. Marrineal won't let it be published?" asked Io.

"That's my guess," returned the veteran.

"And mine," added Banneker.

He felt her eyes of mute appeal fixed on him and read her meaning.

"All right, Io," he promised quietly. "If Mr. Marrineal won't print it in advertising, I'll print it as editorial."

"When?" Io and Edmonds spoke in one breath.

"Day after to-morrow."

"That's war," said Edmonds.

"In a good cause," declared Io proudly.

"The cause of the independence of Errol Banneker," said the veteran. "It was bound to come. Go in and win, son. I'll get you a proof of the ad."

"Ban!" said Io with brightened regard.

"Well?"

"Will you put something at the head of your column for me, if that editorial appears?"

"What? Wait! I know. The quotation from the Areopagitica. Is that it?"

"Yes."

"Fine! I'll do it."

On the following morning The Patriot appeared as usual. The first of the Manufacturers' Association arguments to the public was conspicuously displayed. Of the strikers' reply--not a syllable. Banneker went to Haring's office; found the business manager gloomy, but resigned.

"Mr. Marrineal turned it down. He's got the right. That's all there is to it," was his version.

"Not quite," remarked Banneker, and went home to prove it.

Into the editorial which was to constitute the declaration of Errol Banneker's independence went much thinking, and little writing. The pronunciamento of the strikers, prefaced by a few words of explanation, and followed by some ringing sentences as to the universal right to a fair field, was enough. At the top of the column the words of Milton, in small, bold print. Across the completed copy he wrote "Thursday. Must."

Never had Banneker felt in finer fettle for war than when he awoke that Thursday morning. Contrary to his usual custom, he did not even look at the copy of The Patriot brought to his breakfast table; he wanted to have that editorial fresh to eye and mind when Marrineal called him to account for it. For this was a challenge which Marrineal could not ignore. He breakfasted with a copy of "The Undying Voices" propped behind his coffee cup, refreshing himself before battle with the delights of allusive memory, bringing back the days when he and lo had read and discovered together. It was noon when he reached the office.