The Clarion

CHAPTER XXIII

CREEP­ING FLAME

For sheer un­cer­tain­ty an epi­dem­ic is com­pa­ra­ble on­ly to fire on ship­board. The wis­est ex­pert can but guess at the time or place of its catas­troph­ic ex­plo­sion. It may thrust forth here and there a tongue of threat, on­ly to sub­side and smoul­der again. Some­times it “sulks” for so pro­tract­ed a pe­ri­od that dan­ger seems to be over. Then, with­out warn­ing, comes swift dis­as­ter with pan­ic in its train.

But one man in all Wor­thing­ton knew, ear­ly, the true na­ture of the dis­ease which qui­et­ly crept among the Rook­eries lick­ing up hu­man life, and he was well trained in keep­ing his own coun­sel. In this cri­sis, what­ev­er Dr. Sur­taine may have lacked in scrupu­los­ity of method, his in­ten­tions were good. He hon­est­ly be­lieved that he was do­ing well by his city in veil­ing the na­ture of the con­ta­gion. Sci­en­tif­ical­ly he knew lit­tle about it save in the most gen­er­al way; and his hap­py op­ti­mism bol­stered the be­lief that if on­ly se­cre­cy could be pre­served and the fair re­pute of the city for sound health saved, the trou­ble would present­ly die out of it­self. He looked to his com­mit­tee to man­age the se­cre­cy. Un­for­tu­nate­ly this par­tic­ular form of trou­ble hasn't the habit of dy­ing out qui­et­ly and of it­self. It has to be fought and slain in the open.

As Dr. Sur­taine's com­mit­tee hadn't the faintest no­tion of how to han­dle their five-​thou­sand-​dol­lar ap­pro­pri­ation, they nat­ural­ly con­sult­ed the Hon­or­able Tip O'Far­rell, agent for and boss of the Rook­eries. And as the Hon­or­able Tip had a very def­inite and even ea­ger no­tion of what might be done with that amount of ready cash, he nat­ural­ly vol­un­teered to han­dle the fund to the best ad­van­tage, which seemed quite rea­son­able, since he was fa­mil­iar with the sit­ua­tion. There­fore the dis­po­si­tion of the mon­ey was left to him. Do not, how­ev­er, oh high-​mind­ed and hon­or­able read­er, be too ready to sup­pose that this was the end of the five thou­sand dol­lars, so far as the Rook­eries are con­cerned. Politi­cians of the O'Far­rell type may not be metic­ulous on points of fi­nance. But they are quite like­ly to be hu­man. Tip O'Far­rell had seen re­cent­ly more mis­ery than even his tough­ened sen­si­bil­ities could un­com­plain­ing­ly en­dure. Some of the fund may have gone in­to the dis­burs­er's pock­et. A much greater por­tion of it, I am pre­pared to af­firm, was dis­tribut­ed in those in­ti­mate and ef­fec­tive forms of benef­icence which, skill­ful­ly enough man­aged, al­most lose the taint of char­ity. O'Far­rell was tact­ful and he knew his peo­ple. Many cas­es over which or­ga­nized phi­lan­thropy would have blun­dered sore­ly, were han­dled with a dis­cre­tion lit­tle short of in­spired. Much wretched­ness was re­lieved; much suf­fer­ing and per­haps some lives saved.

The main is­sue, nev­er­the­less, was un­touched. The epi­dem­ic con­tin­ued to spread be­neath the sur­face of si­lence. O'Far­rell wasn't in­ter­est­ed in that side of it. He didn't even know what was the mat­ter. What mon­ey he ex­pend­ed on that phase of the dif­fi­cul­ty was laid out in per­fect­ing his sys­tem of guards, so that unau­tho­rized doc­tors couldn't get in, or unau­tho­rized news leak out. Al­so he con­tin­ued to car­ry on an ir­reg­ular but cost­ly traf­fic in dead bod­ies. Mean­time, the Spe­cial Com­mit­tee of the Old Home Week Or­ga­ni­za­tion, thus com­fort­ably re­lieved of re­spon­si­bil­ity and the ap­pro­pri­ation, could now de­vote it­self sin­gle-​mind­ed­ly to wor­ry­ing over the “Clar­ion.”

Ac­cord­ing to Elias M. Pierce, no mean judge of men, there was noth­ing to wor­ry about in that di­rec­tion. That snake, he con­sid­ered, was scotched. It might take time for said snake, who was a young snake with a head full of poi­son (his un­com­pli­men­ta­ry metaphor re­ferred, I need hard­ly state, to Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine), to come to his ser­pen­tine sens­es; but in the end he must re­al­ize that he was caught. The com­mit­tee wasn't so smug­ly sat­is­fied. Time was go­ing on and there was no word, one way or the oth­er, from the “Clar­ion” of­fice.

In­side that of­fice more was stir­ring than the head of it knew about. On a warmish day, McGuire El­lis, seat­ed at his open win­dow, had per­mit­ted the bland air of ear­ly June to lull him to a nap, which was rude­ly in­ter­rupt­ed by the in­tru­sion of a harsh point amongst his waist­coat but­tons. Stum­bling hasti­ly to his feet he con­front­ed Dr. Miles El­liot.

“Was­samat­ter?” he de­mand­ed, in the thick tones of in­ter­rupt­ed sleep. “What are you pok­ing me in the ribs for?”

“McBur­ney's point,” ob­served the vis­itor agree­ably. “Now, if you had ap­pen­dici­tis, you'd have yelped. You haven't got ap­pen­dici­tis.”

“Much obliged,” grumped Mr. El­lis. “Couldn't you tell me that with­out a cane?”

“I spoke to you twice, but all you replied was 'Hoong!' As I speak on­ly the Man­darin di­alect of Chi­nese--”

“Sit down,” said El­lis, “and tell me what you're do­ing in this den of vice and crime.”

“Vice and crime is cor­rect,” con­firmed the physi­cian. “You're still cur­ing can­cer, con­sump­tion, corns, colds, and cramps in print, for blood mon­ey. I've come to re­port.”

McGuire El­lis stared. “What on?”

“The Rook­eries epi­dem­ic.”

“Quick work,” the jour­nal­ist con­grat­ulat­ed him sar­cas­ti­cal­ly. “The as­sign­ment is on­ly a lit­tle over two months old.”

“Well, I might have guessed, any time in those two months, but I want­ed to make cer­tain.”

“_Are_ you cer­tain?”

“Rea­son­ably.”

“What is it?”

“Ty­phus.”

“What's that? Some­thing like ty­phoid?”

“It bears about the same re­la­tion to ty­phoid,” said the Doc­tor, eye­ing the oth­er with solem­ni­ty, “as house­maid's knee does to sun­stroke.”

“Well, don't get fun­ny with me. I don't ap­pre­ci­ate it. Is it very se­ri­ous?”

“Not more so than cholera,” an­swered the Doc­tor grave­ly.

“Hey! Then why aren't we all dead?”

“Be­cause it doesn't spread so rapid­ly. Not at first, any­way.”

“How does it spread? Come on! Open up!”

“Prob­ably by ver­min. It's rare in this coun­try. There was a small epi­dem­ic in New York in the ear­ly nineties. It was dis­cov­ered ear­ly and con­fined to one ten­ement. There were six­ty-​three peo­ple in the ten­ement when they clapped on the quar­an­tine. Thir­ty-​two of 'em came out feet first. The on­ly out­side case was a re­porter who got in and wrote a de­scrip­tive ar­ti­cle. He died a week lat­er.”

“Sounds as if this lit­tle af­fair of the Rook­eries might be some sto­ry.”

“It is. There may have been fifty deaths to date; or maybe a hun­dred. We don't know.”

El­lis sat back in his chair with a bump. “Who's 'we'?”

“Dr. Mer­ritt and my­self.”

“The Health Bu­reau is on, then. What's Mer­ritt go­ing to do about it?”

“What can he do?”

“Give out the whole thing, and quar­an­tine the dis­trict.”

“The May­or will re­move him the in­stant he opens his mouth, and kill any quar­an­tine. Mer­ritt will be dis­cred­it­ed in all the pa­pers--un­less the 'Clar­ion' backs him. Will it?”

El­lis dropped his head in his hand. “I don't know,” he said fi­nal­ly.

“Not run­ning an hon­est pa­per this week?” sneered the physi­cian light­ly. “By the way, where's Young Hope­ful?”

“See here, Dr. El­liot,” said El­lis. “You're a good old scout. If you hadn't poked me in the stom­ach I be­lieve I'd tell you some­thing.”

“Try it,” en­cour­aged the oth­er.

“All right. Here it is. They've put it up to Hal Sur­taine pret­ty stiff, this gang of per­fect­ly hon­or­able busi­ness men, lead­ing cit­izens, pil­lars of the church, porch-​climbers, and pick­pock­ets who run the city. I guess you know who I mean.”

Dr. El­liot per­mit­ted him­self a re­served grin.

“All right. They've got him in a clove hitch. At least it looks so. And one of the con­di­tions for let­ting up on him is that he sup­press­es all news of the epi­dem­ic. Then they'll have the 'Clar­ion' right where they've got ev­ery oth­er lo­cal pa­per.”

“Nice town, Wor­thing­ton,” ob­served Dr. El­liot, with easy but ap­par­ent­ly ir­rel­evant af­fa­bil­ity.

But McGuire El­lis went red. “It's easy enough for you to sit there and be righ­teous,” he said. “But get this straight. If the young Boss plays straight and tells 'em all to go to hell, it'll be a close call of life or death for the pa­per.”

“And if he doesn't?”

“Easy go­ing. Ad­ver­tis­ing'll roll in on us. Mon­ey'll come so fast we can't dodge it. Are you so blame sure what _you'd_ do in those con­di­tions?”

“Mac,” said the brusque physi­cian, for the first time us­ing the fa­mil­iar name: “be­tween man and man, now: _what_ about the boy?”

From the an­cient loy­al­ty of his race sprang McGuire El­lis's swift word, “My hand in the fire for any that loves him.”

“But--stanch, do you think?” per­sist­ed the oth­er.

“I hope it.”

“Well, I wish it was you owned the 'Clar­ion.'”

“Do you, now? I don't. How do _I_ know what I'd do?”

“Hu­man lives, Mac: hu­man lives, on this is­sue.”

“Who else knows it's ty­phus, Doc?”

“No­body but Mer­ritt and me. You bound me in con­fi­dence, you know.”

“Good man!”

“There's one oth­er ought to know, though.”

“Who's that?”

“Nor­man Hale.”

“The Rev­erend Nor­man's all right. We could do with a few more min­is­ters like him around the place. But why, in par­tic­ular, should he know?”

“For one thing, he sus­pects, any­way. Then, he's down in the slums there most of the time, and he could help us. Be­sides, he's got some rights of safe­ty him­self. He's out in the re­cep­tion room now, un­der guard of that man-​eat­ing of­fice boy of yours.”

“All right, if you say so.”

Ac­cord­ing­ly the Rev­erend Nor­man Hale was sum­moned, sworn to con­fi­dence, and in­formed. He re­ceived the news with a quiver of his long, gaunt fea­tures. “I was afraid it was some­thing like that,” he said. “What's to be done?”

“I'll tell you my plan,” said El­lis, who had been do­ing some rapid think­ing. “I'll put the best man in the of­fice on the sto­ry, and give him a week on it if nec­es­sary. How soon is the epi­dem­ic like­ly to break, Doc­tor?”

“God knows,” said the physi­cian grave­ly.

“Well, we'll hur­ry him as much as we can. Our re­porter will work in­de­pen­dent­ly. No one else on the staff will know what he's do­ing. I'll ex­pect you two and Dr. Mer­ritt to give him ev­ery help. I'll han­dle the sto­ry my­self, at this end. And I'll see that it's set up in type by our fore­man, whom I can trust to keep qui­et. There­fore, on­ly six peo­ple will know about it. I think we can keep the se­cret. Then, when I've got it all in shape, two pages of it, maybe, with all the facts, I'll pull a proof and hit the Boss right be­tween the eyes with it. That'll fetch him, I _think_.”

The oth­ers sig­ni­fied their ap­proval. “But can't we do some­thing in the mean time?” asked Dr. El­liot. “A lit­tle clean­ing-​up, maybe? Who owns that pest-​hole?”

“Any num­ber of peo­ple,” said the cler­gy­man. “It's very com­pli­cat­ed, what with ground leas­es, agen­cies, and trustee­ships. I dare say some of the own­ers don't even know that the prop­er­ty be­longs to them.”

“One of the things we might find out,” said El­lis. “Might be in­ter­est­ing to pub­lish.”

“I'll send you a full state­ment of what I got about the buri­als in Canada­ga Coun­ty,” promised Dr. El­liot. “Com­ing along, Mr. Hale?”

“No. I want to speak to Mr. El­lis about an­oth­er mat­ter.” The cler­gy­man wait­ed un­til the physi­cian had left and then said, “It's about Mil­ly Neal.”

“Well, what about her?”

“I thought you could tell me. Or per­haps Mr. Sur­taine.”

Re­mem­ber­ing that en­counter out­side of the road house weeks be­fore, El­lis ex­pe­ri­enced a throb of mis­giv­ing.

“Why Mr. Sur­taine?” he de­mand­ed.

“Be­cause he's her em­ploy­er.”

El­lis gazed hard at the young min­is­ter. He met a straight and clear re­gard which re­as­sured him.

“He isn't, now,” said he.

“She's left?”

“Yes.”

“That's bad,” wor­ried the cler­gy­man, half to him­self.

“Bad for the pa­per. 'Kit­ty the Cutie' was a fea­ture.”

“Why did she leave?”

“Just quit. Sent in word about ten days ago that she was through. No ex­pla­na­tion.”

“Mr. El­lis, I'm in­ter­est­ed in Mil­ly Neal,” said the min­is­ter, af­ter some hes­ita­tion. “She's helped me quite a bit with our club down here. There's a lot in that girl. But there's a queer, un-​get-​at-​able streak, too. Do you know a man named Velt­man?”

“Max? Yes. He's fore­man of our com­pos­ing-​room.”

“She's been with him a great deal late­ly.”

“Why not? They're old friends. No harm in Velt­man.”

“He's a mar­ried man.”

“That so! I nev­er knew that. Well, 'Kit­ty the Cutie' ought to be keen enough to take care of her­self.”

“There's the dif­fi­cul­ty. She doesn't seem to want to take care of her­self. She's lost in­ter­est in the club. For a time she was drink­ing heav­ily at some of the all-​night places. And this news of her quit­ting here is worst of all. She seemed so en­thu­si­as­tic about the work.”

“Her job's open for her if she wants to come back.”

“Good! I'm glad to hear that. It gives me some­thing to work on.”

“By the way,” said McGuire El­lis, “how do you like the pa­per?” Soon­er or lat­er he put this ques­tion to ev­ery one with whom he came in con­tact. What he found out in this way helped to make him the jour­nal­is­tic ex­pert he was.

“Pret­ty well,” hes­itat­ed the oth­er.

“What's wrong with it?” in­quired El­lis.

“Well, frankly, some of your ad­ver­tis­ing.”

“We're the most in­de­pen­dent pa­per in this town on ad­ver­tis­ing,” stat­ed El­lis with con­vic­tion.

“I know you dropped the Sewing Aid So­ci­ety ad­ver­tise­ment,” ad­mit­ted Hale. “But you've got oth­ers as bad. Yes, worse.”

“Show 'em to me.”

Lean­ing for­ward to the pa­per on El­lis's desk, the vis­itor in­di­cat­ed the “copy” of Re­lief Pills. El­lis's brow puck­ered.

“You're the sec­ond man to kick on that,” he said. “The oth­er was a doc­tor.”

“It's a bad busi­ness, Mr. El­lis. It's the dev­il's own work. Isn't it hard enough for girls to keep straight, with all the temp­ta­tions around them, with­out promis­ing them im­mu­ni­ty from the nat­ural re­sults of im­moral­ity?”

“Those pills won't do the trick,” blurt­ed El­lis.

“They won't?” cried the oth­er in sur­prise.

“So doc­tors tell me.”

“Then the promise is all the worse,” said the cler­gy­man hot­ly, “for be­ing a lie.”

“Well, I have trou­bles enough over the news part of the pa­per, with­out cen­sor­ing the ads. When an ad­ver­tis­er tries to con­trol news or ed­ito­ri­al pol­icy, I step in. Oth­er­wise, I keep out. There's my plat­form.”

Hale nod­ded. “Let me know how I can help on the epi­dem­ic mat­ter,” said he, and took his leave.

“The trou­ble with re­al­ly good peo­ple,” mused McGuire El­lis, “is that they al­ways ex­pect oth­er peo­ple to be as good as they are. And _that's_ ex­pen­sive,” sighed the philoso­pher, turn­ing back to his desk.

While El­lis and his spe­cial­ly de­tailed re­porter were work­ing out the sto­ry of the Rook­eries epi­dem­ic in the light of Dr. El­liot's in­for­ma­tion, Hal Sur­taine, floun­der­ing blind­ly, sought a so­lu­tion to his prob­lem, which was the prob­lem of his news­pa­per. In­deed, it meant, as far as he could judge, the end of the “Clar­ion” in a few months, should he de­cide to de­fy Elias M. Pierce. Against the tes­ti­mo­ny of the in­jured nurse, he could scarce­ly hope to de­fend the li­bel suits suc­cess­ful­ly. Even though the as­sessed dam­ages were not heavy enough to wreck him, the loss of pres­tige in­ci­dent to de­feat would be dis­as­trous. More­over, there was the chance of im­pris­on­ment or a heavy fine on the crim­inal charge. Fur­ther­more, if he de­cid­ed to print the ac­count of the epi­dem­ic (al­ways sup­pos­ing that he could dis­cov­er what it re­al­ly was), prac­ti­cal­ly ev­ery lo­cal ad­ver­tis­er would desert him in high dud­geon over the con­se­quent ru­in of the cen­ten­ni­al cel­ebra­tion. Was it bet­ter to pub­lish an hon­est pa­per for the few months and die fight­ing, or com­pro­mise for the sake of life, and do what good he might through the agen­cy of a bound, con­trolled, and tremu­lous jour­nal­is­tic pol­icy?

For the first time, now that the cri­sis was up­on him, he re­al­ized to the full how pro­found­ly the “Clar­ion” had be­come part of his life. At the out­set, on­ly the tool of a ca­su­al though fas­ci­nat­ing pro­fes­sion, lat­er, the lever of an ex­pand­ing and in­creas­ing pow­er, the pa­per had in­sen­si­bly in­ter­twined with ev­ery fiber of his am­bi­tion. To a de­gree that star­tled him he had come to think, feel, and hope in terms of this thought-​ma­chine which he owned, which owned him. It had tak­en on for him a char­ac­ter; his own, yet more than his own and greater. For it spoke, not of his spir­it alone, but with a com­pos­ite voice; some­times con­fused, inar­tic­ulate, on­ly se­mi-​ex­pres­sive; again as with the tongues of prophe­cy. His ship was be­gin­ning to find her­self; to evolve, from the an­ar­chic clam­or of loose ef­fort, a har­mo­ny and a per­son­al­ity.

With the thought came a warm glow of loy­al­ty to his fel­low work­ers; to the men who, know­ing more than he knew, had yet ac­cept­ed his ide­als so ea­ger­ly and stood to them so loy­al­ly; to the spir­it that had flashed to meet his own at that first “Talk-​It-​Over” break­fast, and had nev­er since flagged; to El­lis, the harsh, dogged, un­couth evan­gel, preach­ing his strange mis­sion of hon­or; to Wayne, pa­tient, silent, la­bo­ri­ous, de­pend­able; to young Den­ton, a “gen­tle­man un­afraid,” fac­ing the threats of E.M. Pierce; even to port­ly Shear­son, strug­gling against such dis­mal odds for _his_ poor lit­tle prin­ci­ple of jour­nal­ism--to make the pa­per pay. How could he, their lead­er, re­cant his doc­trine be­fore these men?

Yet--and the qual­ify­ing thought dashed cold up­on his en­thu­si­asm--what did the al­ter­na­tive im­ply for them? The al­most cer­tain loss of their places. To be thrown in­to the street, a whole of­fice­ful of them, seek­ing jobs which didn't ex­ist, on the col­lapse of the “Clar­ion.” Could he do that to them? Did he not, at least, owe them a liv­ing? Some had come to the “Clar­ion” from oth­er pa­pers, even from oth­er cities, at­tract­ed by its en­ter­prise, by its “gin­ger,” by the ru­mor of a fresh and high­er stan­dard in jour­nal­ism. What of them? For him­self he had on­ly rep­uta­tion, eth­ical stan­dard, the in­tan­gi­ble mat­ter of ex­is­tence to con­sid­er. For them it might be hunger and want. Here, in­deed, was a con­flict­ing ide­al.

His mind re­vert­ed to the things he had been able to get done, in the few months of his ed­ito­ri­al tenure; the suc­cess of some of his cam­paigns, the ed­uca­tion­al ef­fect of them even where they had failed of their def­inite ob­ject, as had the fight for the Con­sumers' League. One ar­ti­cle had put the chief gam­bler of the city on the de­fen­sive to an ex­tent which se­ri­ous­ly crip­pled his busi­ness. An­oth­er had killed for­ev­er the vilest den in town, a sa­loon back-​room where vi­cious wom­en gath­ered in young boys and taught them to snuff co­caine, and had led to an an­ti-​co­caine or­di­nance, which the sa­loon el­ement, who in­stinc­tive­ly re­sent­ed any species of “re­form” as a threat against busi­ness, op­posed. Where­upon, Hal, in an ed­ito­ri­al on the pro­hi­bi­tion move­ment, had tart­ly point­ed out that where the sa­loons were open­ly vaunt­ing them­selves dis­dain­ful of pub­lic de­cen­cy, the pub­lic was in im­me­di­ate pro­cess of wip­ing out the sa­loons. Which ci­ta­tion of fact caused a cold chill to per­me­ate the spines of the liquor in­ter­ests, and led the large, sleek lead­er of that clan to make a sur­pass­ing­ly po­lite and friend­ly call up­on Hal, who, rather to his sur­prise, found that he liked the man very much. They had part­ed, in­deed, on hearty terms and the un­der­stand­ing that there would be no fur­ther ob­jec­tion to the “coke-​law” from the sa­loon keep­ers. There wasn't. The liquor men kept faith.

Though aim­ing at in­de­pen­dence in pol­itics, the “Clar­ion” had been drawn in­to a num­ber of lo­cal po­lit­ical fights, and more than once had gone wrong in ad­vo­cat­ing an ap­par­ent­ly use­ful mea­sure on­ly to find it­self serv­ing some hid­den politi­cian's self­ish ends. These same politi­cians, Hal came in time to learn, were not all bad, even the worst of them. The tough­est and crookedest of the graft­ing al­der­men felt a gen­uine in­ter­est and pride in his vice-​sod­den ward, and when the “Clar­ion” had helped to abate a no­to­ri­ous nui­sance there, dropped in to see the ed­itor.

“Mr. Sur­taine,” said he, chew­ing his cigar with some vi­olence, “you and me ain't got much in com­mon. You think I'm a grafter, and I think you're a lily-​fin­ger. But I came to thank you just the same for help­ing us out over there.”

“Glad to help you out when I can,” said Hal, with his dis­arm­ing smile: “or to fight you when I have to.”

“Shake,” said the heel­er. “I guess we'll av­er­age down in­to pret­ty good en­emies. Lemme know when­ev­er I can do you a turn.”

Then there was the elec­tric light fight. Since the mem­ory of man Wor­thing­ton had paid the most ex­or­bi­tant gas rate in the State. The “Clar­ion” set out to in­quire why. So in­sis­tent was its thirst for in­for­ma­tion that the “Ban­ner” and the “Tele­gram” took up the cud­gels for the pub­lic-​spir­it­ed cor­po­ra­tion which paid ten per cent div­idends by over­charg­ing the lo­cal pub­lic. There­upon the “Clar­ion” point­ed out that the pres­ident of the gas com­pa­ny was the sec­ond largest stock­hold­er in the “Tele­gram,” and that the lo­cal ed­ito­ri­al writ­er of the “Ban­ner” de­rived, for some un­ex­plained rea­son, a small but steady in­come in the form of salary, from the gas com­pa­ny. This ex­po­sure was re­gard­ed as dis­tinct­ly “not club­by” by the news­pa­per fra­ter­ni­ty in gen­er­al: but the pub­lic rather en­joyed it, and made such a fuss over it that a leg­isla­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion was or­dered. Mean­time, by one of those cu­ri­ous by-​prod­ucts of the jour­nal­is­tic out­put, the lo­cal uni­ver­si­ty pre­served to it­self the ser­vices of its pop­ular pro­fes­sor of po­lit­ical econ­omy, who was about to be dis­charged for _lèse ma­jesté_, in that he had held up as an un­sa­vory in­stance of cor­po­rate con­trol, the Wor­thing­ton Gas Com­pa­ny, sev­er­al of whose con­sid­er­able stock­hold­ers were mem­bers of the in­sti­tu­tion's board of trustees. The “Clar­ion” made loud and lamentable nois­es about this, and the board re­con­sid­ered hasti­ly. Loud­er and much more lamentable were the nois­es made by the pres­ident of the uni­ver­si­ty, the Rev­erend Dr. Knight, a lit­tle broth­er of one of the rich­est and great­est of the na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions, in de­nun­ci­ation of the “Clar­ion”: so much so, in­deed, that they were pub­lished abroad, there­by giv­ing the pa­per much ex­ten­sive free ad­ver­tis­ing.

Pleas­ant mem­ories, these, to Hal. Not al­ways pleas­ant, per­haps, but at least vivid­ly in­ter­est­ing, the wide­ly vary­ing types with whom his pro­fes­sion had brought him in­to con­tact: McGuire El­lis, “Tip” O'Far­rell, the Rev­erend Nor­man Hale, Dr. Mer­ritt, Elias M.--

The mech­anism of thought checked with a wrench. Pierce had it in his pow­er to put an end to all this. He must pur­chase the right to con­tin­ue, and at Pierce's own price. But was the price so se­vere? Af­ter all, he could con­trive to do much; to car­ry on many of his caus­es; to help build up a bet­ter and clean­er Wor­thing­ton; to pre­serve a moi­ety of his pow­er, at the sac­ri­fice of part of his in­de­pen­dence; and at the same time his pa­per would make mon­ey, be suc­cess­ful, take its place among the rec­og­nized busi­ness en­ter­pris­es of the town. As for the Rook­eries epi­dem­ic up­on which all this turned, what did he re­al­ly know of it, any­way? Very like­ly it had been ex­ag­ger­at­ed. Prob­ably it would die out of it­self. If lives were en­dan­gered, that was the com­mon chance of a slum.

Then, of a sud­den, mem­ory struck at his heart with the thrust of a more vi­tal, more per­son­al, dread. For one day, wan­der­ing about in the strick­en ter­ri­to­ry, he had seen Es­mé El­liot en­ter­ing a ten­ement door­way.