orld-wide symbolistic finger-shuffle of
money-handling. "Legislative?" he inquired.

"Possibly. But it's more keeping a watch on publicity and politics. He
gives himself out as a man-about-town, and is supposed to make a good
thing out of the market. Maybe he does, though I notice that generally
the market makes a good thing out of the smart guy who tries to beat
it."

"Not a particularly desirable person for a colleague."

"I doubt if he'd be Marrineal's colleague exactly. The inside of the
newspaper isn't his game. More likely he's making himself attractive and
useful to Marrineal just to find out what he's up to with his paper."

"I'll show him something interesting if I get hold of that editorial
page."

"Son, are you up to it, d'you think?" asked Edmonds with affectionate
solicitude. "It takes a lot of experience to handle policies."

"I'll have you with me, won't I, Pop? Besides, if my little scheme
works, I'm going out to gather experience like a bee after honey."

"We'll make a queer team, we three," mused the veteran, shaking his bony
head, as he leaned forward over his tiny pipe. His protuberant forehead
seemed to overhang the idea protectively. Or perhaps threateningly.
"None of us looks at a newspaper from the same angle or as the same kind
of a machine as the others view it."

"Never mind our views. They'll assimilate. What about his?"

"Ah! I wish I knew. But he wants something. Like all of us." A shade
passed across the clearly modeled severity of the face. Edmonds sighed.
"I don't know but that I'm too old for this kind of experiment. Yet I've
fallen for the temptation."

"Pop," said Banneker with abrupt irrelevance, "there's a line from
Emerson that you make me think of when you look like that. 'His sad
lucidity of soul.'"

"Do I? But it isn't Emerson. It's Matthew Arnold."

"Where do you find time for poetry, you old wheelhorse! Never mind; you
ought to be painted as the living embodiment of that line."

"Or as a wooden automaton, jumping at the end of a special wire from
'our correspondent.' Ban, can you see Marrineal's hand on a wire?"

"If it's plain enough to be visible, I'm underestimating his tact. I'd
like to have a lock of his hair to dream on to-night. I'm off to think
things over, Pop. Good-night."

Banneker walked uptown, through dimmed streets humming with the harmonic
echoes of the city's never-ending life, faint and delicate. He stopped
at Sherry's, and at a small table