Bennet Gage had delivered an ultimatum. The Colossus was far from
expecting it. He had come to look upon the staunch, the tried, the
absolutely dependable Gage as a segment of his other self. Saul Hartz
would have been the first to own, for he was fundamentally generous,
that much of the _Planet’s_ success was due to the ability of its
editor-in-chief; and for himself there was no man on whose services he
set a higher value. At the same time he must follow his star. No member
of his staff was ever allowed to oppose his will. Advice was sometimes
sought, it was sometimes taken, but even a man of Gage’s quality could
not be permitted to offer it, much less to insist upon it, uninvited.
“You are talking like a fool, Gage, aren’t you?” The Colossus was too
primitive to weigh his words overmuch at any time; in a crisis his
bluntness of phrase seemed to add to his power. “Why go off at half
cock, my friend?”
The editor of the _Planet_ folded his arms, a little after the fashion
of Napoleon, although he had too balanced a mind ever to feel in the
least Napoleonic. “I don’t know why,” he said after a moment’s pause.
“It may not be very logical and I daresay I shall live to regret it,
but there is something there that tells me”--he pointed a finger
ruefully whimsical at the pit of his own stomach--“that at all hazards
we have to keep out of this.”
“Not ‘we,’ my friend.” The voice of Saul Hartz took him up sharply.
“Confine yourself to the first person singular.”
“When I say ‘we’, I mean the _Planet_ newspaper, a thing over and
beyond myself.”
“Be it so. And for that reason you must stand to your guns. We can
carry on, of course, without you. No man is indispensable. But you are
by far the ablest person in this office with one exception ... put that
in your pipe and smoke it! ... and you mustn’t think of leaving the
ship at such a crisis.”
As the Colossus spoke he rose from his chair and with the gesture of an
elder brother laid a hand on Gage’s shoulder. The elemental simplicity
of the man was hard to resist. Bennet Gage had always been susceptible
to it. Never had Saul Hartz been more compelling than at this moment.
But the issue at stake transcended the personal equation.
A great effort was called for but Gage mustered the tenacity to stand
his ground. He idolized the _Planet_ and in spite of headstrong,
domineering ways he idolized its owner; but he was face to face
now with a very grave decision. “I beg you--I beg you”--his voice
shook--“to keep us out of this.”
“Bah--you old woman!”
Scarcely had the words been uttered, when Saul Hartz was troubled to
perceive the look of horror in the eyes of his lieutenant. “Forgive me,
Gage!” It was almost the air of a schoolboy. “You’re not thinking of
yourself, I know that of course, but you must, you simply must, trust
the man at the wheel, as you always have trusted him, eh?”
For both, the silence that followed was full of pain. And of a sudden
it was ended by half audible words. “I offer my resignation not because
I want to, not because I ought to, but because a power not myself....”
Unable to complete a sentence that grew more lame as it went on, the
editor of the _Planet_ lurched awkwardly out of the room.