'em and stood 'em in a corner to be good,"
returned the other simply. "What would you expect my opinion to be?"

"The Sphere, among them?" queried the lawyer.

"Damn The Sphere!" exploded the other. "A dirty, muck-grubbing, lying,
crooked rag."

"Your actual grudge against it is not for those latter qualities,
though," pointed out Enderby. "On questions where it conflicts with your
enterprises, it's straight enough. That's it's defect. Upright equals
dangerous. You perceive?"

Masters shrugged the problem away with a thick and ponderous jerk of his
shoulders. "What's young Banneker after?" he demanded.

"You ought to know him as well as I. He's a sort of protege of yours,
isn't he?"

"At The Retreat, you mean? I put him in because he looked to be polo
stuff. Now the young squirt won't practice enough to be certain team
material."

"Found a bigger game."

"Umph! But what's in back of it?"

"It's the game for the game's sake with him, I suspect. I can only tell
you that, wherever I've had contact with him, he has been perfectly
straightforward."

"Maybe. But what about this anarchistic stuff of his?"

"Oh, anarchistic! You mean his attacks on Wall Street? The Stock
Exchange isn't synonymous with the Constitution of the United States,
you know, Masters. Do moderate your language."

"Now you're laughing at me, damn you, Enderby."

"It's good for you. You ought to laugh at yourself more. Ask Banneker
what he's at. Very probably he'll laugh at you inside. But he'll answer
you."

"That reminds me. He had an editorial last week that stuck to me.
'It is the bitter laughter of the people that shakes thrones. Have
a care, you money kings, not to become too ridiculous!' Isn't that
socialist-anarchist stuff?"

"It's very young stuff. But it's got a quality, hasn't it?"

"Oh, hell, yes; quality!" rumbled the profane old man. "Well, I will
tackle your young prodigy one of these days."

Which, accordingly, he did, encountering, some days later, Banneker in
the reading-room at The Retreat.

"What are you up to; making trouble with that editorial screed of
yours?" he growled at the younger man.

Banneker smiled. He accepted that growl from Poultney Masters, not
because Masters was a great and formidable figure in the big world, but
because beneath the snarl there was a quality of--no, not of
friendliness, but of man-to-man approach.

"No. I'm trying to cure trouble, not make it."

"Umph! Queer idea of curing