ton and his like; and just so far as they
allow his influence to permeate beyond the platform," answered Greyson.

"But they report his speeches. They are bound to," explained Joan.

"It doesn't read quite the same," he answered. "Phillips goes home under
the impression that he has made a great success and has roused the
country. He and millions of other readers learn from the next morning's
headlines that it was 'A Tame Speech' that he made. What sounded to him
'Loud Cheers' have sunk to mild 'Hear, Hears.' That five minutes'
hurricane of applause, during which wildly excited men and women leapt
upon the benches and roared themselves hoarse, and which he felt had
settled the whole question, he searches for in vain. A few silly
interjections, probably pre-arranged by Carleton's young lions, become
'renewed interruptions.' The report is strictly truthful; but the
impression produced is that Robert Phillips has failed to carry even his
own people with him. And then follow leaders in fourteen
widely-circulated Dailies, stretching from the Clyde to the Severn,
foretelling how Mr. Robert Phillips could regain his waning popularity by
the simple process of adopting Tariff Reform: or whatever the pet panacea
of Carleton and Co. may, at the moment, happen to be."

"Don't make us out all alike," pleaded his sister with a laugh. "There
are still a few old-fashioned papers that do give their opponents fair
play."

"They are not increasing in numbers," he answered, "and the Carleton
group is. There is no reason why in another ten years he should not
control the entire popular press of the country. He's got the genius and
he's got the means."

"The cleverest thing he has done," he continued, turning to Joan, "is
your _Sunday Post_. Up till then, the working classes had escaped him.
With the _Sunday Post_, he has solved the problem. They open their
mouths; and he gives them their politics wrapped up in pictures and
gossipy pars."

Miss Greyson rose and put away her embroidery. "But what's his object?"
she said. "He must have more money than he can spend; and he works like
a horse. I could understand it, if he had any beliefs."

"Oh, we can all persuade ourselves that we are the Heaven-ordained
dictator of the human race," he answered. "Love of power is at the
bottom of it. Why do our Rockefellers and our Carnegies condemn
themselves to the existence of galley slaves, ruining their digestions so
that they nev