years old," replied Edmonds quietly.

Banneker stared. "Oh, I see!" he said presently. "And you're considered
a success. Of course you _are_ a success."

"On Park Row. Would you like to be me? At fifty-two?"

"No, I wouldn't," said Banneker with a frankness which brought a faint
smile to the other man's tired face. "Yet you've got where you started
for, haven't you?"

"Perhaps I could answer that if I knew where I started for or where I've
got to."

"Put it that you've got what you were after, then."

"No's the answer. Upper-case No. I want to get certain things over to
the public intelligence. Maybe I've got one per cent of them over. Not
more."

"That's something. To have a public that will follow you even part
way--"

"Follow me? Bless you; they don't know me except as a lot of print that
they occasionally read. I'm as anonymous as an editorial writer. And
that's the most anonymous thing there is."

"That doesn't suit me at all," declared Banneker. "If I have got
anything in me--and I think I have--I don't want it to make a noise like
a part of a big machine. I'd rather make a small noise of my own."

"Buy a paper, then. Or write fluffy criticisms about art or theaters. Or
get into the magazine field. You can write; O Lord! yes, you can write.
But unless you've got the devotion of a fanatic like McHale, or a born
servant of the machine like 'Parson' Gale, or an old fool like me,
willing to sink your identity in your work, you'll never be content as a
reporter."

"Tell me something. Why do none of the men, talking among themselves,
ever refer to themselves as reporters. It's always 'newspaper men.'"

Edmonds shot a swift glance at him. "What do you think?"

"I think," he decided slowly, "it's because there is a sort of stigma
attached to reporting."

"Damn you, you're right!" snapped the veteran. "Though it's the rankest
heresy to admit it. There's a taint about it. There's a touch of the
pariah. We try to fool ourselves into thinking there isn't. But it's
there, and we admit it when we use a clumsy, misfit term like 'newspaper
man.'"

"Whose fault is it?"

"The public's. The public is a snob. It likes to look down on brains.
Particularly the business man. That's why I'm a Socialist. I'm ag'in the
bourgeoisie."

"Aren't the newspapers to blame, in the kind of stuff they print?"

"And why do they print it?" demanded the other fiercely. "Because the
public wants all the filth and scandal and inv