"Oh," said Mallory, "I suppose that comes from his being assigned to a tea given by the Thatcher Forbes for some foreign celebrity, and asking to be let off because he'd already been invited there and declined."

"Hello!" exclaimed McHale. "Where does our young bird come in to fly as high as the Thatcher Forbes? He may look like a million dollars, but is he?"

"All I know," said Tommy Burt, "is that every Monday, which is his day off, he dines at Sherry's, and goes in lonely glory to a first-night, if there is one, afterward. It must have been costing him half of his week's salary."

"Swelled head, sure," diagnosed Decker, the financial reporter of The Ledger. "Well, watch the great Chinese joss, Greenough, pull the props from under him when the time comes."

"As how?" inquired Glidden.

"By handing him a nawsty one out of the assignment book, just to show him where his hat fits too tight."

"A run of four-line obits," suggested Van Cleve, who had passed a painful apprenticeship of death-notices in which is neither profitable space nor hopeful opportunity, "for a few days, will do it."

"Or the job of asking an indignant millionaire papa why his pet daughter ran away with the second footman and where."

"Or interviewing old frozen-faced Willis Enderby on his political intentions, honorable or dishonorable."

"If I know Banneker," said Mallory, "he's game. He'll take what's handed him and put it over."

"Once, maybe," contributed Tommy Burt. "Twice, perhaps. But I wouldn't want to crowd too much on him."

"Greenough won't. He's wise in the ways of marvelous and unlicked cubs,"

said Decker.

"Why? What do you think Banneker would do?" asked Mallory curiously, addressing Burt.

"If he got an assignment too rich for his stomach? Well, speaking unofficially and without special knowledge, I'd guess that he'd handle it to a finish, and then take his very smart and up-to-date hat and perform a polite adieu to Mr. Greenough and all the works of The Ledger city room."

A thin, gray, somnolent elder at the end of the table, whose nobly cut face was seared with lines of physical pain endured and outlived, withdrew a very small pipe from his mouth and grunted.

"The Venerable Russell Edmonds has the floor," said Tommy Burt in a voice whose open raillery subtly suggested an underlying affection and respect. "He snorts, and in that snort is sublimated the wisdom and experience of a ripe ninety years on Park Row. Speak, O Compendium of all the--"

"Shut up, Tommy," interrupted Edmonds. He resumed his pipe, gave it two anxious puffs, and, satisfied of its continued vitality, said:

"Banneker, uh? Resign, uh? You think he would?"

"I think so."

"Does _he_ think so?"

"That's my belief."

"He won't," pronounced the veteran with finality. "They never do. They chafe. They strain. They curse out the job and themselves. They say it isn't fit for any white man. So it isn't, the worst of it. But they stick. If they're marked for it, they stick."

"Marked for it?" murmured Glidden.

"The ink-spot. The mark of the beast. I've got it. You've got it, Glidden, and you, McHale. Mallory's smudged with it. Tommy thinks it's all over him, but it isn't. He'll end between covers. Fiction, like as not," he added with a mildly contemptuous smile. "But this young Banneker; it's eaten into him like acid."

"Do you know him, Pop?" inquired McHale.

"Never saw him. Don't have to. I've read his stuff."

"And you see it there?"

"Plain as Brooklyn Bridge. He'll eat mud like the rest of us."

"Come off, Pop! Where do you come in to eat mud? You've got the creamiest job on Park Row. You never have to do anything that a railroad president need shy at."

This was nearly true. Edmonds, who in his thirty years of service had filled almost every conceivable position from police headquarters reporter to managing editor, had now reverted to the phase for which the ink-spot had marked him, and was again a reporter; a sort of super-reporter, spending much of his time out around the country on important projects either of news, or of that special information necessary to a great daily, which does not always appear as news, but which may define, determine, or alter news and editorial policies.

Of him it was said on Park Row, and not without reason, that he was bigger than his paper, which screened him behind a traditional principle of anonymity, for The Courier was of the second rank in metropolitan journalism and wavered between an indigenous Bourbonism and a desire to be thought progressive. The veteran's own creed was frankly socialistic; but in the Fabian phase. His was a patient philosophy, content with slow progress; but upon one point he was a passionate enthusiast. He believed in the widest possible scope of education, and in the fundamental duty of the press to stimulate it.

"We'll get the Social Revolution just as soon as we're educated up to it," he was wont to declare. "If we get it before then, it'll be a worse hash than capitalism. So let's go slow and learn."

For such a mind to be contributing to an organ of The Courier type might seem anomalous. Often Edmonds accused himself of shameful compromise; the kind of compromise constantly necessary to hold his place. Yet it was not any consideration of self-interest that bound him. He could have commanded higher pay in half a dozen open positions. Or, he could have afforded to retire, and write as he chose, for he had been a shrewd investor with wide opportunities. What really held him was his ability to forward almost imperceptibly through the kind of news political and industrial, which he, above all other journalists of his day, was able to determine and analyze, the radical projects dear to his heart.

Nothing could have had a more titillating appeal to his sardonic humor than the furious editorial refutations in The Courier, of facts and tendencies plainly enunciated by him in the news columns.

Nevertheless, his impotency to speak out openly and individually the faith that was in him, left always a bitter residue in his mind. It now informed his answer to Van Cleve's characterization of his job.

"If I can sneak a tenth of the truth past the copy-desk," he said, "I'm doing well. And what sort of man am I when I go up against these big-bugs of industry at their conventions, and conferences, appearing as representative of The Courier which represents their interests? A damned hypocrite, I'd say! If they had brains enough to read between the lines of my stuff, they'd see it."

"Why don't you tell 'em?" asked Mallory lazily.

"I did, once. I told the President of the United Manufacturers'

Association what I really thought of their attitude toward labor."

"With what result?"

"He ordered The Courier to fire me."

"You're still there."

"Yes. But he isn't. I went after him on his record."

"All of which doesn't sound much like mud-eating, Pop."

"I've done my bit of that in my time, too. I've had jobs to do that a self-respecting swill-hustler wouldn't touch. I've sworn I wouldn't do 'em. And I've done 'em, rather than lose my job. Just as young Banneker will, when the test comes."

"I'll bet he won't," said Tommy Burt.

Mallory, who had been called away, returned in time to hear this. "You might ask him to settle the bet," he suggested. "I've just had him on the 'phone. He's coming around."

"I will," said Edmonds.

On his arrival Banneker was introduced to those of the men whom he did not know, and seated next to Edmonds.

"We've been talking about you, young fellow," said the veteran.

From most men Banneker would have found the form of address patronizing.