take a mount on your day off."

"I'm thinking of another job where I'll have more time to myself than
one day a week," confessed Banneker, having in mind possible magazine
work. He thought of the pleasant remoteness of The Retreat. It was
expensive; it would involve frequent taxi charges. But, as ever,
Banneker had an unreasoning faith in a financial providence of supply.
"Yes: I'll come in," he said. "That is, if I can get in."

"You'll get in, with Poultney Masters for a backer. Otherwise, I'll tell
you frankly, I think your business would keep you out, in spite of your
polo."

"Densmore, there's something I've been wanting to put up to you."

Densmore's heavy brows came to attention. "Fire ahead."

"You were ready to beat me up when I came here to ask you certain
questions."

"I was. Any fellow would be. You would."

"Perhaps. But suppose, through the work of some other reporter, a
divorce story involving the sister and brother-in-law of some chap in
your set had appeared in the papers."

"No concern of mine."

"But you'd read it, wouldn't you?"

"Probably."

"And if your paper didn't have it in and another paper did, you'd buy
the other paper to find out about it."

"If I was interested in the people, I might."

"Then what kind of a sport are you, when you're keen to read about other
people's scandals, but sore on any one who inquires about yours?"

"That's the other fellow's bad luck. If he--"

"You don't get my point. A newspaper is simply a news exchange. If
you're ready to read about the affairs of others, you should not resent
the activity of the newspaper that attempts to present yours. I'm merely
advancing a theory."

"Damned ingenious," admitted the polo-player. "Make a reporter a sort of
public agent, eh? Only, you see, he isn't. He hasn't any right to my
private affairs."

"Then you shouldn't take advantage of his efforts, as you do when you
read about your friends."

"Oh, that's too fine-spun for me. Now, I'll tell you; just because I
take a drink at a bar I don't make a pal of the bartender. It comes to
about the same thing, I fancy. You're trying to justify your profession.
Let me ask _you_; do you feel that you're within your decent rights when
you come to a stranger with such a question as you put up to me?"

"No; I don't," replied Banneker ruefully. "I feel like a man trying to
hold up a bigger man with a toy pistol."

"Then you'd better get into some other line."

But wh