ty skunk!" he growled.

"Meaning our friend Pierce?" queried Hal.

"No. Meaning Parker, and the whole 'Telegram' outfit."

"Why?"

"Because they printed that interview."

"What's wrong with it? It's news."

"Don't be positively infantile, Boss. Newspapers don't print libel
actions brought against other newspapers. It's unprofessional. It's
unethical. It isn't straight."

"No: I don't see that at all," decided Hal, after some consideration.
"That amounts simply to this, that the newspapers are in a combination
to discourage libel actions, by suppressing all mention of them."

"Certainly. Why not? Libel suits are generally holdups."

"I think the 'Telegram' is right. Whatever Pierce says is news, and
interesting news."

"You bet Parker would never have carried that if his holding corporation
wasn't a heavy borrower in the Pierce banks."

"Maybe not. But I think we'll carry it."

"In the 'Clarion'?" almost shouted Ellis.

"Certainly. Let's have Wayne send a reporter around to Pierce. If
Pierce won't give us an interview, we'll reprint the 'Telegram's,' with
credit."

"We'd be cutting our own throats, and playing Pierce's game. Besides,
stuff about ourselves isn't news."

Hal's inexperience had this virtue, that it was free of the besetting
and prejudicial superstitions of the craft of print. "If it's
interesting, it's the 'Clarion' kind of news."

Ellis, about to protest further, met the younger man's level gaze, and
swallowed hard.

"All right," he said. "I'll tell Wayne."

So the "Clarion" violated another tradition of newspaperdom, to the
amused contempt of its rivals, who were, however, possibly not quite so
amused or so contemptuous as they appeared editorially to be. Also it
followed up the interview with an explicit statement of its own
intentions in the matter, which were not precisely music to the savage
breast of E.M. Pierce.

Evidences of that formidable person's hostilities became increasingly
manifest from day to day. One morning a fire marshal dropped casually in
upon the "Clarion" office, looked the premises over, and called the
owner's attention to several minor and unsuspected violations of the
law, the adjustment of which would involve no small inconvenience and
several hundred dollars outlay. By a curious coincidence, later in the
day, a factory inspector happened around,--a newspaper office being,
legally, within the definition of a factory,--and served a summons on
McGuire Ell