poser. All of them were paying court to her charm and
intelligence. She made a place beside herself for Banneker.

"We've been discussing The Patriot, Ban," she said, "and Mr. Gaines has
embalmed you, as an editorial writer, in the amber of one of his best
epigrams."

The Great Gaines made a deprecating gesture. "My little efforts always
sound better when I'm not present," he protested.

"To be the subject of any Gaines epigram, however stinging, is fame in
itself," said Banneker.

"And no sting in this one. 'Attic salt and American pep,'" she quoted.
"Isn't it truly spicy?"

Banneker bowed with half-mocking appreciation. "I fancy, though, that
Mr. Gaines prefers his journalistic egg more _au naturel_."

"Sometimes," admitted the most famous of magazine editors, "I could
dispense with some of the pep."

"I like the pep, too, Ban." Betty Raleigh, looking up from a seat where
she sat talking to a squat and sensual-looking man, a dweller in the
high places and cool serenities of advanced mathematics whom
jocular-minded Nature had misdowered with the face of a satyr,
interposed the suave candor of her voice. "I actually lick my lips over
your editorials even where I least agree with them. But the rest of the
paper--Oh, dear! It screeches."

"Modern life is such a din that one has to screech to be heard above
it," said Banneker pleasantly.

"Isn't it the newspapers which make most of the din, though?" suggested
the mathematician.

"Shouting against each other," said Gaines.

"Like Coney Island barkers for rival shows," put in Junior Masters.

"Just for variety how would it do to try the other tack and practice a
careful but significant restraint?" inquired Betty.

"Wouldn't sell a ticket," declared Banneker.

"Still, if we all keep on yelling in the biggest type and hottest words
we can find," pointed out Edmonds, "the effect will pall."

"Perhaps the measure of success is in finding something constantly more
strident and startling than the other fellow's war whoop," surmised
Masters.

"I have never particularly admired the steam calliope as a form of
expression," observed Miss Van Arsdale.

"Ah!" said the actress, smiling, "but Royce Melvin doesn't make music
for circuses."

"And a modern newspaper is a circus," pronounced the satyr-like scholar.

"Three-ring variety; all the latest stunts; list to the voice of the
ballyhoo," said Masters.

"_Panem et circenses_" pursued the mathematician, pleased