ather to his surprise, found that he liked the man very much.
They had parted, indeed, on hearty terms and the understanding that
there would be no further objection to the "coke-law" from the saloon
keepers. There wasn't. The liquor men kept faith.

Though aiming at independence in politics, the "Clarion" had been drawn
into a number of local political fights, and more than once had gone
wrong in advocating an apparently useful measure only to find itself
serving some hidden politician's selfish ends. These same politicians,
Hal came in time to learn, were not all bad, even the worst of them. The
toughest and crookedest of the grafting aldermen felt a genuine interest
and pride in his vice-sodden ward, and when the "Clarion" had helped to
abate a notorious nuisance there, dropped in to see the editor.

"Mr. Surtaine," said he, chewing his cigar with some violence, "you and
me ain't got much in common. You think I'm a grafter, and I think you're
a lily-finger. But I came to thank you just the same for helping us out
over there."

"Glad to help you out when I can," said Hal, with his disarming smile:
"or to fight you when I have to."

"Shake," said the heeler. "I guess we'll average down into pretty good
enemies. Lemme know whenever I can do you a turn."

Then there was the electric light fight. Since the memory of man
Worthington had paid the most exorbitant gas rate in the State. The
"Clarion" set out to inquire why. So insistent was its thirst for
information that the "Banner" and the "Telegram" took up the cudgels for
the public-spirited corporation which paid ten per cent dividends by
overcharging the local public. Thereupon the "Clarion" pointed out that
the president of the gas company was the second largest stockholder in
the "Telegram," and that the local editorial writer of the "Banner"
derived, for some unexplained reason, a small but steady income in the
form of salary, from the gas company. This exposure was regarded as
distinctly "not clubby" by the newspaper fraternity in general: but the
public rather enjoyed it, and made such a fuss over it that a
legislative investigation was ordered. Meantime, by one of those curious
by-products of the journalistic output, the local university preserved
to itself the services of its popular professor of political economy,
who was about to be discharged for _lese majeste_, in that he had held
up as an unsavory instance of corporate control, the Worthington Gas
Comp