ere merely inherent
phases of a profitable business. Misgivings had indeed stirred, at
first. For these he had chided himself, as for an over-polite revulsion
from the necessary blatancy of a broadly advertised enterprise. More
searching questions, as they arose within him, he had met with the
counter-evidence of the internal humanism and fair-dealing of the
Certina shop, and of the position of its beloved chief in the commercial
world.

In the face of the Relief Pills exposure, Hal could no longer excuse his
father on the ground that Dr. Surtaine honestly credited his medicines
with impossible efficacies. Still, he had reasoned, the Doctor had been
willing instantly to abandon this nostrum when the harm done by it was
concretely brought home to him. Though this argument had fallen far
short of reconciling Hal to the Surtaine standards, nevertheless it had
served as a makeshift to justify in part his abandonment of the hard-won
principles of the "Clarion," a surrender necessary for the saving of a
loved and honored father in whose essential goodness he had still
believed.

Now the edifice of his faith was in ruins. If Certina itself, if the
tutelary genius of the House of Surtaine, were indeed but a monstrous
quackery cynically accepted as such by those in the secret, what shred
of defense remained to him who had so prospered by it? Through the
wreckage of his pride, his loyalty, his affection, Hal saw, in place of
the glowing and benign face of Dr. Surtaine, the simulacrum of Fraud,
sleek and crafty, bloated fat with the blood of tragically hopeful
dupes.

One great lesson of labor Hal had already learned, that work is an
anodyne. From his interview with Certina Charley he made straight for
the "Clarion" office. As he hurried up the stairs, the door of
Shearson's room opened upon him, and there emerged therefrom a
brick-red, agile man who greeted him with a hard cordiality.

"Your paper certainly turned the trick. I gotta hand it to you!"

"What trick?" asked Hal, not recognizing the stranger.

"Selling my stock. Streaky Mountain Copper Company. Don't you remember?"

Hal did remember now. It was L.P. McQuiggan.

"More of the same for me, _if_ you please," continued the visitor. "I've
just made the deal with Shearson. He's stuck me up on rates a little.
That's all right, though. The 'Clarion' fetches the dough. I want to
start the new campaign with an interview on our prospects. Is it O.K.?"

"Come up and see