it interesting. There isn't a page in town that the
average man-in-the-street-car can read without a painful effort at
thought."

"Editorials are supposed to be for thinking men," put in Edmonds.

"Make the thinking easy, then. Don't make it hard, with heavy words and
a didactic manner. Talk to 'em. You're trying to reach for their brain
mechanism. Wrong idea. Reach for their coat-lapels. Hook a finger in the
buttonholes and tell 'em something about common things they never
stopped to consider. Our editorializers are always tucking their hands
into their oratorical bosoms and discoursing in a sonorous voice about
freight differentials as an element in stabilizing the market. How does
that affect Jim Jones? Why, Jim turns to the sporting page. But if you
say to him casually, in print, 'Do you realize that every woman who
brings a child into the world shows more heroism than Teddy Roosevelt
when he charged up San Juan Hill?'--what'll Jim do about that? Turn to
the sporting page just the same, maybe. But after he's absorbed the
ball-scores, he'll turn back to the editorial. You see, he never thought
about Mrs. Jones just that way before."

"Sentimentalism," observed Marrineal. "Not altogether original, either."
But he did not speak as a critic. Rather as one pondering upon new
vistas of thought.

"Why shouldn't an editorial be sentimental about something besides the
starry flag and the boyhood of its party's candidate? Original? I
shouldn't worry overmuch about that. All my time would be occupied in
trying to be interesting. After I got 'em interested, I could perhaps be
instructive. Very cautiously, though. But always man to man: that's the
editorial trick, as I see it. Not preacher to congregation."

"Where are your editorials, son?" asked the veteran Edmonds abruptly.

"Locked up." Banneker tapped his forehead.

"In the place of their birth?" smiled Marrineal.

"Oh, I don't want too much credit for my idea. A fair share of it
belongs to a bald-headed and snarling old nondescript whom I met one day
in the Public Library and shall probably never meet again anywhere.
Somebody had pointed me out--it was after that shooting mess--and the
old fellow came up to me and growled out, 'Employed on a newspaper?' I
admitted it. 'What do you know about news?' was his next question. Well,
I'm always open to any fresh slants on the business, so I asked him
politely what he knew. He put on an expression like a prayerful owl and