"Who? The mill people? Howled!"

"But it didn't get them anything?"

"Didn't it! You know how difficult it is to get anything for publication out of old Rockface Enderby. Well, I had a brilliant idea that this was something he'd talk about. Law Enforcement stuff, you know. And he did.

Gave me a hummer of an interview. Tore the guts out of the mill-owners for violating all sorts of laws, and put it up that the mill-guards were themselves a lawless organization. There's nothing timid about Enderby.

Why, we'd have started a controversy that would be going yet."

"Well, why didn't you?"

"Interview was killed," replied Edmonds, grinning ruefully. "For the best interests of the paper. That's what the Vanney crowd's kick got them."

"Pop, what do you make of Willis Enderby?"

"Oh, he's plodding along only a couple of decades behind his time."

"A reactionary?"

"Didn't I say he was plodding along? A reactionary is immovable except in the wrong direction. Enderby's a conservative."

"As a socialist you're against any one who isn't as radical as you are."

"I'm not against Willis Enderby. I'm for him," grunted the veteran.

"Why; if he's a conservative?"

"Oh, as for that, I can bring a long indictment against him. He's a firm believer in the capitalistic system. He's enslaved to the old economic theories, supply and demand, and all that rubbish from the ruins of ancient Rome. He believes that gold is the only sound material for pillars of society. The aristocratic idea is in his bones." Edmonds, by a feat of virtuosity, sent a thin, straight column of smoke, as it might have been an allegorical and sardonic pillar itself, almost to the ceiling. "But he believes in fair play. Free speech. Open field. The rigor of the game. He's a sportsman in life and affairs. That's why he's dangerous."

"Dangerous? To whom?"

"To the established order. To the present system. Why, son, all we Socialists ask is fair play. Give us an even chance for labor, for the proletariat; an even show before the courts, an open forum in the newspapers, the right to organize as capital organizes, and we'll win.

If we can't win, we deserve to lose. I say that men like Willis Enderby are our strongest supporters."

"Probably he thinks his side will win, under the strict rules of the game."

"Of course. But if he didn't, he'd still be for fair play, to the last inch."

"That's a pretty fine thing to say of a man, Pop."

"It's a pretty fine man," said Edmonds.

"What does Enderby want? What is he after?"

"For himself? Nothing. It's something to be known as the ablest honest lawyer in New York. Or, you can turn it around and say he's the honestest able lawyer in New York. I think, myself, you wouldn't be far astray if you said the ablest and honestest. No; he doesn't want anything more than what he's got: his position, his money, his reputation. Why should he? But it's going to be forced on him one of these days."

"Politically?"

"Yes. Whatever there is of leadership in the reform element here centers in him. It's only a question of time when he'll have to carry the standard."

"I'd like to be able to fall in behind him when the time comes."

"On The Ledger?" grunted Edmonds.

"But I shan't be on The Ledger when the time comes. Not if I can find any other place to go."

"Plenty of places," affirmed Edmonds positively.

"Yes; but will they give me the chance I want?"

"Not unless you make it for yourself. But let's canvass 'em. You want a morning paper."

"Yes. Not enough salary in the evening field."

"Well: you've thought of The Sphere first, I suppose."

"Naturally. I like their editorial policy. Their news policy makes me seasick."

"I'm not so strong for the editorials. They're always for reform and never for progress."

"Ah, but that's epigram."

"It's true, nevertheless. The Sphere is always tiptoeing up to the edge of some decisive policy, and then running back in alarm. What of The Observer? They're looking for new blood."

"The Observer! O Lord! Preaches the eternal banalities and believes them the eternal verities."

"Epigram, yourself," grinned Edmonds. "Well, The Monitor?"

"The three-card Monitor, and marked cards at that."

"Yes; you'd have to watch the play. The Graphic then?"

"Nothing but an ornamental ghost. The ghost of a once handsomely kept lady. I don't aspire to write daily epitaphs."

"And The Messenger I suppose you wouldn't even call a kept lady. Too common. Babylonian stuff. But The Express is respectable enough for anybody."

"And conscious of it in every issue. One long and pious scold, after a high-minded, bad-tempered formula of its own."

"Then I'll give you a motto for your Ledger." Edmonds puffed it out enjoyably,--decorated with bluish and delicate whorls. "'_Meliora video proboque, deleriora sequor_.'"

"No; I won't have that. The last part will do; we do follow the worser way; but if we see the better, we don't approve it. We don't even recognize it as the better. We're honestly convinced in our advocacy of the devil."

"I don't know that we're honestly convinced of anything on The Courier, except of the desirability of keeping friendly with everybody. But such as we are, we'd grab at you."

"No; thanks, Pop. You yourself are enough in the troubled-water duckling line for one old hen like The Courier."

"Then there remains only The Patriot, friend of the Pee-pul."

"Skimmed scum," was Banneker's prompt definition. "And nothing in the soup underneath."