, girding at Laird as a fake
reformer secretly committed to Wall Street through Judge Enderby,
corporation lawyer, as intermediary.

Herein Banneker had refrained from following him. Ever the cat at the
hole's mouth, the patient lurker, the hopeful waiter upon the event, the
proprietor of The Patriot forbore to press his editorial chief. He still
mistrusted the strength of his hold upon Banneker; feared a defiance
when he could ill afford to meet it. What he most hoped was some
development which would turn Banneker's heavy guns upon Laird so that,
with the defeat of the fusion ticket candidate, the public would say,
"The Patriot made him and The Patriot broke him."

Laird played into Marrineal's hands. Indignant at what he regarded as a
desertion of principles by The Patriot, the fusion nominee, in one of
his most important addresses, devoted a stinging ten minutes to a
consideration of that paper, its proprietor, and its editorial writer,
in its chosen role of "friend of labor." His text was the Veridian
strike, his information the version which McClintick furnished him; he
cited Banneker by name, and challenged him as a prostituted mind and a
corrupted pen. Though Laird had spoken as he honestly believed, he did
not have the whole story; McClintick, in his account, had ignored the
important fact that Marrineal, upon being informed of conditions, had
actually (no matter what his motive) remedied them. Banneker, believing
that Laird was fully apprised, as he knew Enderby to be, was outraged.
This alleged reformer, this purist in politics, this apostle of honor
and truth, was holding him up to contumely, through half-truths, for a
course which any decent man must, in conscience, have followed. He
composed a seething editorial, tore it up, substituted another wherein
he made reply to the charges, in a spirit of ingenuity rather than
ingenuousness, for The Patriot case, while sound, was one which could
not well be thrown open to The Patriot's public; and planned vengeance
when the time should come.

Io, on a brief trip from Philadelphia, lunched with him that week, and
found him distrait.

"It's only politics," he said. "You're not interested in politics," and,
as usual, "Let's talk about you."

She gave him that look which was like a smile deep in the shadows of her
eyes. "Ban, do you know the famous saying of Terence?"

He quoted the "Homo sum." "That one?" he asked.

She nodded. "Now, hear my version: 'I am a wo