"It might be worth, to a moribund paper, almost anything." The tone was significant.

"Then you are prepared to join our staff?"

"On suitable terms."

"I had thought of offering you," Marrineal paused for better effect, "one hundred and fifty dollars a week."

Banneker was annoyed. That was no more than he could earn, with a little outside work, on The Ledger. He had thought of asking two hundred and fifty. Now he said promptly:

"Those editorials are worth three hundred a week to any paper. As a starter," he added.

A pained and patient smile overspread Marrineal's regular features. "The Patriot's leader-writer draws a hundred at present."

"I dare say."

"The whole page costs barely three hundred."

"It is overpaid."

"For a comparative novice," observed Marrineal without rancor, "you do not lack self-confidence."

"There are the goods," said Banneker evenly. "It is for you to decide whether they are worth the price asked."

"And there's where the trouble is," confessed Marrineal. "I don't know.

They might be."

Banneker made his proposition. "You spoke of my being a novice. I admit the weak spot. I want more experience. You can afford to try this out for six months. In fact, you can't afford not to. Something has got to be done with The Patriot, and soon. It's losing ground daily."

"You are mistaken," returned Marrineal.

"Then the news-stands and circulation lists are mistaken, too," retorted the other. "Would you care to see my figures?"

Marrineal waved away the suggestion with an easy gesture which surrendered the point.

"Very well. I'm backing the new editorial idea to get circulation."

"With my money," pointed out Marrineal.

"I can't save you the money. But I can spread it for you, that three hundred dollars."

"How, spread it?"

"Charge half to editorial page: half to the news department."

"On account of what services to the news department?"

"General. That is where I expect to get my finishing experience. I've had enough reporting. Now I'm after the special work; a little politics, a little dramatic criticism; a touch of sports; perhaps some book-reviewing and financial writing. And, of course, an apprenticeship in the Washington office."

"Haven't you forgotten the London correspondence?"

Whether or not this was sardonic, Banneker did not trouble to determine.

"Too far away, and not time enough," he answered. "Later, perhaps, I can try that."

"And while you are doing all these things who is to carry out the editorial idea?"

"I am."

Marrineal stared. "Both? At the same time?"

"Yes."

"No living man could do it."

"I can do it. I've proved it to myself."

"How and where?"

"Since I last saw you. Now that I've got the hang of it, I can do an editorial in the morning, another in the afternoon, a third in the evening. Two and a half days a week will turn the trick. That leaves the rest of the time for the other special jobs."

"You won't live out the six months."

"Insure my life if you like," laughed Banneker. "Work will never kill me."

Marrineal, sitting with inscrutable face turned half away from his visitor, was beginning, "If I meet you on the salary," when Banneker broke in:

"Wait until you hear the rest. I'm asking that for six months only.

Thereafter I propose to drop the non-editorial work and with it the salary."

"With what substitute?"

"A salary based upon one cent a week for every unit of circulation put on from the time the editorials begin publication."

"It sounds innocent," remarked Marrineal. "It isn't as innocent as it sounds," he added after a penciled reckoning on the back of an envelope.

"In case we increase fifty thousand, you will be drawing twenty-five thousand a year."

"Well? Won't it be worth the money?"

"I suppose it would," admitted Marrineal dubiously. "Of course fifty thousand in six months is an extreme assumption. Suppose the circulation stands still?"

"Then I starve. It's a gamble. But it strikes me that I'm giving the odds."

"Can you amuse yourself for an hour?" asked Marrineal abruptly.

"Why, yes," answered Banneker hesitantly. "Perhaps you'd turn me loose in your library. I'd find something to put in the time on there."

"Not very much, I'm afraid," replied his host apologetically. "I'm of the low-brow species in my reading tastes, or else rather severely practical. You'll find some advertising data that may interest you, however."

From the hour--which grew to an hour and a half--spent in the library, Banneker sought to improve his uncertain conception of his prospective employer's habit and trend of mind. The hope of revelation was not borne out by the reading matter at hand. Most of it proved to be technical.