Republican; and anything in the way of reform is its favorite butt. So
Gale spends his working day poking fun at his political friends and
associates."

"Out West we'd call that kind of fellow a yellow pup."

"Well, don't call the Parson that; not to me," warned the other
indignantly. "He's as square a man as you'll find on Park Row. Why, you
were just saying, yourself, that a reporter is bound to accept his
paper's standards when he takes the job."

"Then I suppose the answer is that a man ought to work only on a
newspaper in whose policies he believes."

"Which policies? A newspaper has a hundred different ones about a
hundred different things. Here in this office we're dead against the
split infinitive and the Honest Laboring Man. We don't believe he's
honest and we've got our grave doubts as to his laboring. Yet one of our
editorial writers is an out-and-out Socialist and makes fiery speeches
advising the proletariat to rise and grab the reins of government. But
he'd rather split his own head than an infinitive."

"Does he write anti-labor editorials?" asked the bewildered Banneker.

"Not as bad as that. He confines himself to European politics and
popular scientific matters. But, of course, wherever there is necessity
for an expression of opinion, he's anti-socialist in his writing, as
he's bound to be."

"Just a moment ago you were talking of hired pens. Now you seem to be
defending that sort of thing. I don't understand your point of view."

"Don't you? Neither do I, I guess," admitted the expositor with great
candor. "I can argue it either way and convince myself, so far as the
other fellow's work is concerned. But not for my own."

"How do you figure it out for yourself, then?"

"I don't. I dodge. It's a kind of tacit arrangement between the desk and
me. In minor matters I go with the paper. That's easy, because I agree
with it in most questions of taste and the way of doing things. After
all The Ledger _has_ got certain standards of professional conduct and
of decent manners; it's a gentleman's paper. The other things, the
things where my beliefs conflict with the paper's standards, political
or ethical, don't come my way. You see, I'm a specialist; I do mostly
the fluffy stuff."

"If that's the way to keep out of embarrassing decisions, I'd like to
become a specialist myself."

"You can do it, all right," the other assured him earnestly. "That story
of yours shows it. You've got The Ledger touc