The Clarion

CHAPTER XV

JUG­GER­NAUT

Mis­for­tunes nev­er come singly--to the reck­less. The first mis­chance breeds the sec­ond, ap­par­ent­ly by ill luck, but in re­al­ity through the in­flu­ence of ir­ri­tant nerves. Thus de­scend­ed Neme­sis up­on Miss Kath­leen Pierce. Not that Miss Pierce was of a mis­giv­ing tem­per­ament: she had too calm and su­perb a con­vic­tion of her own in­con­tro­vert­ible priv­ilege in ev­ery de­part­ment of life for that. But Es­mé El­liot had giv­en her a hint of her nar­row es­cape from the “Clar­ion,” and she was an­gry. To the Pierce type of dis­po­si­tion, anger is a spur. Kath­leen's large green car in­creased its ac­cus­tomed twen­ty-​miles-​an-​hour pace, from which the po­lice of the busi­ness sec­tion thought­ful­ly avert­ed their faces, to some­thing near­er twen­ty-​five. Three days af­ter the wreck of the ap­ple cart, she got re­sults.

Har­ring­ton Sur­taine was cross­ing di­ag­onal­ly to the “Clar­ion” of­fice when the moan of a siren warned him for his life, and he jumped back from the Pierce jug­ger­naut. As it swept by he saw Kath­leen at the wheel. Be­side her sat her twelve-​year-​old broth­er. A mis­cel­la­neous ar­ray of small lug­gage was heaped be­hind them.

“Nev­er mind the speed laws,” mur­mured Hal soft­ly. “_Sauve qui peut_. There, by Heav­ens, she's done it!”

The car had swerved at the cor­ner, but not quite quick­ly enough. There was a snort of the horn, a scream that grit­ted on the ear like the clam­or of tor­tured met­als, and a hud­dle of black and white was flung al­most at Hal's feet. Equal­ly quick with him, a mid­dle-​aged man, ev­ident­ly of the pros­per­ous work­ing-​class­es, helped him to pick the wom­an up. She was a trained nurse. The white band on her uni­form was splotched with blood. She groaned once and lapsed, in­ert, in their arms.

“Help me get her to the au­to­mo­bile,” said Hal. “This is a hos­pi­tal case.”

“What au­to­mo­bile?” said the oth­er.

Hal glanced up the street. He saw the green car turn­ing a cor­ner, a full block away.

“She didn't even stop,” he mut­tered, in a paral­ysis of sur­prise.

“Stop?” said the oth­er. “Her? That's E.M. Pierce's she-​whelp. True to the breed. She don't care no more for a workin'-wom­an's life than her fa­ther does for a workin'-man's.”

A po­lice­man hur­ried up, glanced at the wom­an and sent in an am­bu­lance call.

“I want your name,” said Hal to the stranger.

“What for?”

“Pub­li­ca­tion now. Lat­er, pros­ecu­tion. I'm the ed­itor of the 'Clar­ion.'”

The man took off his hat and scratched his head. “Leave me out of it,” he said.

“You won't help me to get jus­tice for this wom­an?'” cried Hal.

“What can you do to E.M. Pierce's girl in this town?” re­tort­ed the man fierce­ly. “Don't he own the town?”

“He doesn't own the 'Clar­ion.'”

“Let the 'Clar­ion' go up against him, then. I daresn't.”

“You'll nev­er get him,” said a voice close to Hal's ear. It was Velt­man, the fore­man of the 'Clar­ion' com­pos­ing-​room. “He's a street-​car em­ploy­ee. It's as much as his job is worth to go up against Pierce.”

They were pressed back, as the clang­ing am­bu­lance ar­rived with its white-​coat­ed com­man­der.

“No; not dead,” he said. “Help me get her in.”

This be­ing ac­com­plished, Hal hur­ried up to the city room of the pa­per. He re­mem­bered the pile of suit-​cas­es in the Pierce car, and made his de­duc­tions.

“Send a re­porter to the Union Sta­tion to find Kath­leen Pierce. She's in a green tour­ing-​car. She's just run down a trained nurse. Have him in­ter­view her; ask her why she didn't turn back af­ter she struck the wom­an; whether she doesn't know the law. Find out if she's go­ing to the hos­pi­tal. Get her es­ti­mate of how fast she was go­ing. We'll print any­thing she says. Then he's to go to St. James Hos­pi­tal, and ask about the nurse. I'll give him the de­tails of the ac­ci­dent.”

News of a cer­tain kind, of the kind im­por­tant to the in­ner ma­chin­ery of a news­pa­per, spreads swift­ly in­side an of­fice. With­in an hour, Shear­son, the ad­ver­tis­ing man­ag­er, was at his chief's desk.

“About that sto­ry of Miss Pierce run­ning over the trained nurse,” he be­gan.

“What is your sug­ges­tion?” asked Hal cu­ri­ous­ly.

“E.M. Pierce is a pow­er in this town, and out of it. He's the re­al head of the Re­tail Dry Goods Union. He's a di­rec­tor in the Se­cu­ri­ty Pow­er Prod­ucts Com­pa­ny. He's the big boss of the Na­tion­al Con­sol­idat­ed Em­ploy­ers' As­so­ci­ation. He prac­ti­cal­ly runs the Re­tail Dry Goods Union. Gibbs, of the Boston Store, is his broth­er-​in-​law, and the girl's un­cle. Mr. Pierce has got a hand in pret­ty much ev­ery­thing in Wor­thing­ton. And he's a bad man in a fight.”

“So I have heard.”

“If we print this sto­ry--”

“We're go­ing to print the sto­ry, Mr. Shear­son.”

“It's full of dy­na­mite.”

“It was a bru­tal thing. If she hadn't driv­en right on--”

“But she's on­ly a kid.”

“The more rea­son why she shouldn't be driv­ing a car.”

“Why have you got it in for her, Mr. Sur­taine?” ven­tured the oth­er.

“I haven't got it in for her. But we've let her off once. And this is too fla­grant a case.”

“It means a loss of thou­sands of dol­lars in ad­ver­tis­ing, just as like as not.”

“That can't be helped.”

Shear­son did the on­ly thing he could think of in so un­heard-​of an emer­gen­cy. He went out to call up the of­fice of E.M. Pierce.

Left to his own thoughts, the ed­itor-​in-​chief re­con­struct­ed the scene of the out­rage. None too strong did that term seem to him. The in­cred­ible cal­lous­ness of the daugh­ter of mil­lions, speed­ing away with­out a back­ward glance at the hud­dled form in the gut­ter, set a flame of wrath to heat­ing his brain. He built up a few sting­ing head­lines, and se­lect­ed one which he set aside. “GIRL PLAYS JUG­GER­NAUT. ELIAS M. PIERCE'S DAUGH­TER SE­RI­OUS­LY IN­JURES NURSE AND LEAVES HER LY­ING IN GUT­TER.” Not long af­ter he had con­clud­ed, McGuire El­lis en­tered, slumped in­to his chair, and eyed his em­ploy­er from un­der bent brows.

“Got a grip on your tem­per?” he asked present­ly.

“What's the oc­ca­sion?” coun­tered Hal.

“I think you're go­ing to have an in­ter­view with Elias M. Pierce.”

“Where and when?”

“In his of­fice. As soon as you can get there.”

“I think not.”

“Not?” re­peat­ed El­lis, con­ning the oth­er with his cu­ri­ous air.

“Why should I go to Elias M. Pierce's of­fice?”

“Be­cause he's sent for you.”

“Don't be ab­surd, Mac.”

“And don't _you_ be young. In all Wor­thing­ton there aren't ten men that don't jump when Elias M. Pierce crooks his fin­ger. Who are you, to join that no­ble com­pa­ny of mar­tyrs?” Achiev­ing no nib­ble on this bait, the speak­er con­tin­ued: “Jer­ry Saun­ders has been keep­ing Wayne's tele­phone on the buzz, or­der­ing the sto­ry stopped.”

“Who is Jer­ry Saun­ders?”

“Pierce's man, and mas­ter of our fates. So he thinks, any­way. In oth­er words, gen­er­al fac­to­tum of the Boston Store. Wayne told him the mat­ter was in your hands. All storm sig­nals set, and E.M.'s sec­re­tary tele­phon­ing that the Great Man wants to see you at once. _Don't_ you think it would be safer to go?”

Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine swung full around on his chair, looked at his as­sis­tant with that set and lev­el gaze of which Es­mé El­liot had afore­time com­plained, and turned back again. A pro­found chuck­le sound­ed from be­hind him.

“This'll be a shock to Mr. Pierce,” said El­lis. “I'll break it diplo­mat­ical­ly to his sec­re­tary.” And thus was the man­ner of the Celt's diplo­ma­cy. “Hel­lo,--Mr. Pierce's sec­re­tary?--Tell Mr. Pierce--get this _ver­ba­tim_, please,--that Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine is busy at present, but will try to find time to see him here--_here_, mind you, at the 'Clar­ion' of­fice, at 4.30 this af­ter­noon--What? Oh, yes; you un­der­stood, all right. Don't be young.--What? Do _not_ sput­ter in­to the 'phone.--Just give him the mes­sage.--No; Mr. Sur­taine will not speak with you.--Nor with Mr. Pierce. He's busy.--_Good_-bye.”

“Two hours lee­way be­fore the storm,” said Hal. “Why de­lib­er­ate­ly stir him up, Mac?”

“No one ev­er saw Pierce lose his tem­per. I've a cu­rios­ity in that di­rec­tion. Be­sides, he'll be eas­ier to han­dle, mad. Do you know Pierce?”

“I've lunched with him, and been there to the house to din­ner once or twice. Wish I hadn't.”

“Let me give you a lit­tle out­line of him. Elias M. is the hard-​shell New Eng­land type. He was brought up in the fear of God and the Poor-​House. God was a good way off, I guess; but there stood the Poor-​House on the hill, where you couldn't help but see it. The way of sal­va­tion from it was through the dol­lar. Elias M. worked hard for his first dol­lar, and for his mil­lionth. He's still work­ing hard. He still finds the fear of God use­ful: he puts it in­to ev­ery­body that goes up against his game. The fear of the Poor-​House is with him yet, though he doesn't re­al­ize it. It's the main­spring of his re­li­gion. There's noth­ing so mean as fear; and Elias M.'s fear is back of all his mean­ness, his despo­tism in busi­ness, his tyran­ny as an em­ploy­er. I tell you, Boss, if you ev­er saw a hel­lion in a cut­away coat, Elias M. Pierce is it, and you're go­ing to smell sul­phur when he gets here. Bet­ter let him do the talk­ing, by the way.”

Prompt to the minute, Elias M. Pierce ar­rived. With him came William Dou­glas, his per­son­al coun­sel. Hav­ing risen to greet them, Hal stood lean­ing against his desk, af­ter they were seat­ed. The lawyer dis­posed him­self on the far edge of his chair, as if fear­ing that a more com­fort­able pose might com­mit him to some­thing. Mr. Pierce sat sol­id and square, a stat­ic force neat­ly but­toned in­to a crease­less suit. His face was im­mo­bile, but un­der the heavy lids the eyes smoul­dered, dul­ly. The tone of his voice was life­less­ly lev­el: yet with an im­ma­nent men­ace.

“I do not make ap­point­ments out­side my own of­fice--” he be­gan, look­ing straight ahead of him.

Mind­ful of El­lis's ad­vice, Hal stood silent, in an at­ti­tude of cour­te­ous at­ten­tion.

“But this is a case of sav­ing time. My vis­it has to do with the ac­ci­dent of which you know.”

Whether or not Hal knew was un­de­ter­minable from sign or speech of his.

“It was whol­ly the in­jured wom­an's fault,” pur­sued Mr. Pierce, and turned a slow, chal­leng­ing eye up­on Hal.

Over his shoul­der the ed­itor-​in-​chief caught sight of McGuire El­lis lay­ing fin­ger on lip, and fol­low­ing up this ad­mo­ni­tion by a ges­ture of arms and hands as of one who pays out line to a fish. Dou­glas fid­get­ed on his des­per­ate edge.

“You sent a re­porter to in­ter­view my daugh­ter. He was im­per­ti­nent. He should be dis­charged.”

Still Mr. Pierce was fir­ing in­to si­lence. Some­thing rat­tled and flopped in a chute at his el­bow. He turned, ir­ri­ta­bly. That Mr. Pierce's at­ten­tion should have been di­vert­ed even for a mo­ment by this was suf­fi­cient ev­idence that he was dis­con­cert­ed by the im­mo­bil­ity of the foe. But his glance quick­ly re­vert­ed and with added weight. Heav­ily he stared, then de­liv­ered his ul­ti­ma­tum.

“The 'Clar­ion' will print noth­ing about the ac­ci­dent.”

The ed­itor of the “Clar­ion” smiled. At sight of that smile some de­mon-​artist in faces blocked in with light­ning swift­ness par­al­lel lines of wrath at right an­gles to the cor­ners of the Pierce mouth. Through the lips shone a thin glint of white.

“You find me amus­ing?” Men had found Elias M. Pierce im­pla­ca­ble, formidable, in­scrutable, even amenable, in some cir­cum­stances, with a con­scious and god­like con­de­scen­sion; but no op­po­nent had ev­er smiled at his com­mands as this stripling of jour­nal­ism was do­ing.

Still there was no re­ply. In his chair McGuire El­lis leaned back with an ex­pres­sion of beat­itude. The lawyer, shrewd enough to un­der­stand that his prin­ci­pal was be­ing bait­ed, now took a hand.

“You may re­ly on Mr. Pierce to have the wom­an suit­ably cared for.”

Now the ed­ito­ri­al smile turned up­on William Dou­glas. It was gen­tle, but un­sat­is­fy­ing.

“_And_ the re­porter will be dis­charged at once,” con­tin­ued Elias M. Pierce, ex­act­ly as if Dou­glas had not spo­ken at all.

“Mr. El­lis,” said Hal, “will you 'phone Mr. Wayne to send up the man who cov­ered the Pierce sto­ry?”

The sum­moned re­porter en­tered the room. He was a youth named Den­ton, one year out of col­lege, ea­ger and high-​spir­it­ed, an en­thu­si­ast of his pro­fes­sion, lov­ing it for its ad­ven­tur­ous­ness and its sense of re­spon­si­bil­ity and pow­er. These are the qual­ities that make the re­al news­pa­per man. They die soon, and that is why there are no good, old re­porters. Elias M. Pierce turned up­on him like a pon­der­ous ma­chine of vengeance.

“What have you to say for your­self?” he de­mand­ed.

Up un­der Den­ton's fair skin ran a flush of pink. “Who are you?” he blurt­ed.

“You are speak­ing to Mr. Elias M. Pierce,” said Dou­glas hasti­ly.

Six weeks be­fore, young Den­ton would per­haps have mod­er­at­ed his at­ti­tude in the in­ter­ests of his job. But now through the sen­si­tive or­gan­ism of the news­pa­per of­fice had passed the new vig­or; the feel­ing of in­de­pen­dence and of the high­er re­spon­si­bil­ity to the facts of the news on­ly. The men be­lieved that they would be up­held with­in their own rights and those of the pa­per. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine's stan­dards had been not on­ly ab­sorbed: they had been mag­ni­fied and clar­ified by minds more ex­pert than his own. Sub­con­scious­ly, Den­ton felt that his em­ploy­er was back of him, must be back of him in any ques­tion of pro­fes­sion­al hon­or.

“What I've got to say, I've said in writ­ing.”

“Show it to me.” The in­so­lence of the com­mand was quite un­con­scious.

The re­porter turned to Hal.

“Mr. Den­ton,” said Hal, “did Miss Pierce ex­plain why she didn't re­turn af­ter run­ning the nurse down?”

“She said she was in a hur­ry: that she had a train to catch.”

“Did you ask her if she was ex­ceed­ing the speed lim­it?”

“She was not,” in­ter­ject­ed Elias M. Pierce.

“She said she didn't know; that no­body ev­er paid any at­ten­tion to speed laws.”

“What about her li­cense?”

“I asked her and she said it was none of my busi­ness.”

“Quite right,” ap­proved Mr. Pierce curt­ly.

“Tell the desk to run the in­ter­view _ver­ba­tim_, un­der a sep­arate head. Will the nurse die?”

Mr. Pierce snort­ed con­temp­tu­ous­ly. “Die! She's hard­ly hurt.”

“Dis­lo­cat­ed shoul­der, two ribs bro­ken, and scalp wounds. She'll get well,” said the re­porter.

“Now, see here, Sur­taine,” said Dou­glas smooth­ly, “be rea­son­able. It won't do the 'Clar­ion' any good to print a lot of yel­low sen­sa­tion­al­ism about this. There are half a dozen wit­ness­es who say it was the nurse's fault.”

“We have ev­idence on the oth­er side.”

“From whom?”

“Max Velt­man, of our com­pos­ing-​room.”

“Velt­man? Velt­man?” re­peat­ed Elias M. Pierce, who pos­sessed a won­der­ful mem­ory for men and events. “He's that an­ar­chist fel­low. Hates ev­ery man with a dol­lar. Stirred up the la­bor trou­bles two years ago. I told my men to smash his head if they ev­er caught him with­in two blocks of our place.”

“Speak­ing of an­ar­chy,” said McGuire El­lis soft­ly.

“A prej­udiced wit­ness; one of your own em­ploy­ees,” point­ed out the lawyer.

“I wouldn't be­lieve him un­der oath,” said Pierce.

“Per­haps you wouldn't be­lieve me, ei­ther. I saw the whole thing my­self,” said Hal qui­et­ly.

“And you in­tend to print it?” de­mand­ed Pierce.

“It's news. The 'Clar­ion's' busi­ness is to print the news.”

“Then there re­mains on­ly to warn you,” said Dou­glas, “that you will be held to full li­abil­ity for any­thing you may pub­lish, civ­il _and_ crim­inal.”

“Take that down, Mr. Den­ton,” said Hal.

“I've got it,” said the re­porter.

“That isn't all.” Elias M. Pierce rose and his eyes were wells of somber fury. “You print that sto­ry--one word of it--and I'll smash your pa­per.”

“Take that down, Mr. Den­ton.” Hal's voice was even.

“I've got it,” said Den­ton in the same tone.

“You don't know what I am in this city.” Ev­ery word of the great man's voice rang with the ruth­less ar­ro­gance of his pow­er. “I can make or mar any man or any busi­ness. I've fought the dem­agogues of la­bor and driv­en 'em out of town. I've fought the dem­agogues of pol­itics and killed them off. And you think with your lit­tle spew­ing dem­agoguery of news­pa­per filth, you can over­ride me? You think be­cause you've got your fa­ther's quack mil­lions be­hind you, that you can stand up to me?”

“Take that down, Mr. Den­ton.”

“I've got it.”

“Then take this, too,” cried Elias M. Pierce, los­ing all con­trol, un­der the qui­et re­morse­less­ness of this goad­ing: “peo­ple like my daugh­ter and me aren't at the mer­cy of scum like you. We've got rights that aren't re­spon­si­ble to ev­ery lit­tle pet­ty law. By God, I've made and un­made judges in this town: and I'll show you what the law can do be­fore I'm through with you. I'll gut your damned pa­per.”

“Not miss­ing any­thing, are you, Mr. Den­ton?”

“I've got it all.”

Through­out, Dou­glas, with a strained face, had been pluck­ing at his prin­ci­pal's arm. Now Elias M. Pierce turned to him.

“Go to Judge Ran­some,” he said sharply, “and get an in­junc­tion against the 'Clar­ion.'”

McGuire El­lis saun­tered over. “I wouldn't,” he drawled.

“I'm not ask­ing your ad­vice.”

“And I'm not look­ing for grat­itude. But just let me sug­gest this: Ran­some may be one of the judges you brag of own­ing. But if he grants an in­junc­tion I'll ad­vise Mr. Sur­taine to pub­lish a spread on the front page, stat­ing that we have the facts, that we're en­joined from print­ing them at present, but that now or a year from now we'll tell the whole sto­ry in ev­ery phase. With that hang­ing over him, I don't be­lieve Judge Ran­some will care to is­sue any fake in­junc­tion.”

“There's such a thing as con­tempt of court,” warned Dou­glas.

“Mak­ing and un­mak­ing judges, for ex­am­ple?” sug­gest­ed El­lis.

“Just one fi­nal word to you.” The Pierce face was thrust close to Hal's. “You keep your hands off my daugh­ter if you ex­pect to live in this town.”

“My one re­gret for Miss Pierce is that she is your daugh­ter,” re­tort­ed Hal. “You have giv­en me the ma­te­ri­al for a lead­ing ed­ito­ri­al in to-​mor­row's is­sue. I rec­om­mend you to buy the pa­per.”

The oth­er glared at him speech­less.

“It will be called,” said Hal, “'A Study in Hered­ity.' Good-​day.”

And he gave the re­tir­ing mag­nate a full view of his back as he sat down to write it.