spread in the
Amalgamated Wire dispatches, by a quick divorce and a hair-trigger
marriage, puff goes his piety--and his hold on his readers. We just
quietly dropped him."

"But his serial was just as good or as bad as before, wasn't it?"

"Certainly not! Not for our purposes. He was a dead wolf with his
sheep's wool all smeared and spotted. You'll never quite understand the
newspaper game, I'm afraid, lady of my heart."

"How brown your eyes are, Ban!" said Io.

CHAPTER XII

Politics began to bubble in The Patriot office with promise of hotter
upheavals to come. The Laird administration had shown its intention of
diverting city advertising, and Marrineal had countered in the news
columns by several minor but not ineffective exposures of weak spots in
the city government. Banneker, who had on the whole continued to support
the administration in its reform plans, decided that a talk with Willis
Enderby might clarify the position and accordingly made an evening
appointment with him at his house. Judge Enderby opened proceedings with
typical directness of attack.

"When are _you_ going to turn on us, Banneker?"

"That's a cheerful question," retorted the young man good-humoredly,
"considering that it is you people who have gone back on The Patriot."

"Were any pledges made on our part?" queried Enderby.

Banneker replied with some spirit: "Am I talking with counsel under
retainer or with a personal friend?"

"Quite right. I apologize," said the imperturbable Enderby. "Go on."

"It isn't the money loss that counts, so much as the slap in the face to
the paper. It's a direct repudiation. You must realize that."

"I'm not wholly a novice in politics."

"But I am, practically."

"Not so much that you can't see what Marrineal would be at."

"Mr. Marrineal has not confided in me."

"Nor in me," stated the lawyer grimly. "I don't need his confidence to
perceive his plans."

"What do you believe them to be?"

No glimmer of a smile appeared on the visage of Judge Enderby as he
countered, "Am I talking with a representative of The Patriot or--"

"All right," laughed Banneker. "_Touche!_ Assume that Marrineal has
political ambitions. Surely that lies within the bounds of propriety."

"Depends on how he pushes them. Do you read The Patriot, Banneker?"

The editor of The Patriot smiled.

"Do you approve its methods in, let us say, the political articles?"

"I have no control over the news columns."