rion."

"I wouldn't have thought it possible," said the dictator, angrily, to
his associates. "The thing is getting dangerous. The damned paper is out
for the truth."

"And the public is finding it out," supplemented Gibbs, his
brother-in-law.

"Wait till my libel suit comes on," said Pierce grimly. "I don't believe
young Mr. Surtaine will have enough money left to indulge in the luxury
of muckraking, after that."

"Won't the old man back him up?"

"Tells me that the boy is playing a lone hand," said Pierce with
satisfaction.

Herein he spoke the fact. While the "Clarion's" various campaigns were
still in mid-career, Dr. Surtaine had made his final appeal to his son
in vain, ringing one last change upon his Paean of Policy.

"What good does it all do you or anybody else? You're stirring up muck,
and you're getting the only thing you ever get by that kind of activity,
a bad smell." He paused for his effect; then delivered himself of a
characteristically vigorous and gross aphorism:

"Boyee, you can't sell a stink, in this town."

"Perhaps I can help to get rid of it," said Hal.

"Not you! Nobody thanks you for your pains. They take notice for a
while, because their noses compel 'em to. Then they forget. What thanks
does the public give a newspaper? But the man you've roasted--he's after
you, all the time. A sore toe doesn't forget. Look at Pierce."

"Pierce has bothered me," confessed Hal. "He's shut me off from the
banks. None of them will loan the 'Clarion' a cent. I have to go out of
town for my money."

"Can you blame him? I'd have done the same if he'd roasted you as you
roasted his girl."

"News, Dad," said Hal wearily. "It was news."

"Let's not go over that again. You'll stick to your policy, I suppose,
till it ruins you. About finances, by the way, where do you stand?"

"Stand?" repeated Hal. "I wish we did. We slip. Downhill; and pretty
fast."

"Why wouldn't you? Fighting your own advertisers."

"Some advertising has come in, though. Mostly from out of town."

"Foreign proprietary," said Dr. Surtaine, using the technical term for
patent-medicine advertising from out of town, "isn't it? I've been doing
a little missionary work among my friends in the trade, Hal; persuaded
them to give the 'Clarion' a try-out. The best of it is, they're getting
results."

"They ought to. Do you know we're putting on circulation at the rate of
nearly a thousand a week?"

"Expensive, though, isn't it?"