b between the eyes and tell it to go to hell."

"Yes; I've known that done, too," interpolated Mallory. "But in those
cases it isn't the job that goes." He pushed back his chair. "Don't let
Pop Edmonds corrupt you with his pessimism, Banneker," he warned. "He
doesn't mean half of it."

"Under the seal of the profession," said the veteran. "If there were
outsiders present, it would be different. I'd have to admit that ours is
the greatest, noblest, most high-minded and inspired business in the
world. Free and enlightened press. Fearless defender of the right.
Incorruptible agent of the people's will. Did I say 'people's will' or
'people's swill'? Don't ask me!"

The others paid their accounts and followed Mallory out, leaving
Banneker alone at the table with the saturnine elder. Edmonds put a
thumbful of tobacco in his pipe, and puffed silently.

"What will it get a man?" asked Banneker, setting down his coffee-cup.

"This game?" queried the other.

"Yes."

"'What shall it profit a man,'" quoted the veteran ruminatively. "You
know the rest."

"No," returned Banneker decidedly. "That won't do. These fellows here
haven't sold their souls."

"Or lost 'em. Maybe not," admitted the elder. "Though I wouldn't gamble
strong on some of 'em. But they've lost something."

"Well, what is it? That's what I'm trying to get at."

"Independence. They're merged in the paper they write for."

"Every man's got to subordinate himself to his business, if he's to do
justice to it and himself, hasn't he?"

"Yes. If you're buying or selling stocks or socks, it doesn't matter.
The principles you live by aren't involved. In the newspaper game they
are."

"Not in reporting, though."

"If reporting were just gathering facts and presenting them, it wouldn't
be so. But you're deep enough in by now to see that reporting of a lot
of things is a matter of coloring your version to the general policy of
your paper. Politics, for instance, or the liquor question, or labor
troubles. The best reporters get to doing it unconsciously. Chameleons."

"And you think it affects them?"

"How can it help? There's a slow poison in writing one way when you
believe another."

"And that's part of the dirt-eating?"

"Well, yes. Not so obvious as some of the other kinds. Those hurt your
pride, mostly. This kind hurts your self-respect."

"But where does it get you, all this business?" asked Banneker reverting
to his first query.

"I'm fifty-two