ANNOUNCEMENT of the new paper was not to be formally made as yet.
Its projectors had other possible plans in mind. Already, however, its
competition bade fair to be fatal to The Guardian. Simple mathematics
proved to the complete dissatisfaction of Jeremy and Andrew Galpin that
a store’s advertising appropriation of twelve hundred dollars yearly,
say, divided between two papers would give to each six hundred dollars
revenue; whereas divided among three papers it would afford only four
hundred dollars apiece. Therefore, quite apart from German boycott, The
Guardian might expect a loss of thirty-three and a third per cent of
the income from such advertisers as the department stores, which would
naturally use all local mediums.
But in this case, the purity of mathematics was corrupted by
complicating human elements not all of them adverse. Reports of the
Ahrens interview had drifted through the mercantile world. It became
known, too, that Ellison Brothers had dropped out of The Guardian; been
“bluffed” out, rumor said, by pressure of Deutscher Club threats. The
Germans, so the word passed, were now openly out to “get” The Guardian.
As a gleam in the gloom Galpin was able to report one morning a cheering
sign:
“We’re beginning to get a little reaction from the Botches’ attack.
Remember the Laundry Association who lifted their contracts in a bunch
early in the game?”
“Because we took Wong Kee’s ad? I remember.”
“They’re back with the American flag over their copy. Lamp this, Boss.”
The note he tendered was written in the most approved style of
business-college condensation, and read as follows:
_To the Pub’r of the Guardian. D’r Sir: A Chink may not be White but he
is a Long Sight better American than any Kaiser-hound. Inclosed please
find contract renewals.
Resp’y, for the Com’tee,
The Spotless Laundry.
J. Corby, Prop’r._
“At least we’re making a few friends,” Jeremy commented.
“The trouble is, they’re not organized. Our enemies are. It’s
organization that counts.”
Friends counted, too, however, in practical as well as in moral support,
and they materialized in the least expected quarters. The Emporium,
which since the early quarrel had withheld all but occasional
special-sale advertising, now came in with a full contract. “And I take
off my hat to The Guardian,” said the obstinate and combative Peter
Turnbull. “I’ve learned to do that when I see the flag passing by, no
matter who carries it!”
Barclay & Bull restored their full original space and added to it. No
comment accompanied the order. But Galpin went around to the store to
explain that The Guardian understood and appreciated. Then there was
Aaron Levy, of The Fashion, who had never forgiven The Guardian’s
attitude toward his installment trade. The dogged, hard-bitted, driving
Jew came to The Guardian office and was received by Andrew Galpin.
“Mr. Galpin, I hear Ellison Brothers is out.”
“Ay-ah. They are.”
“What for?”
“Did n’t you hear that, too?”
“I heard something.”
“What you heard is right.”
“Mr. Galpin,” said Levy slowly. “I been running a two-inch three-time
card in The Guardian.”
“Yep.”
“It ain’t that I want to; but it brings trade. It’s small; but it’d have
been smaller if I could afford to make it. You know why.”
“Sure.”
“Now I hear there’s a new paper coming in. I gotta go into that. That’s
business.”
“Ay-ah.”
“But I’m going to stay with you. That’s business too. And I’m going to
double my space and go in daily. That ain’t business; but--but you know
why?”
“I do not.”
“Mr. Galpin, I’m a Jew. I was raised on kicks and crusts in Mitteldorf.
I came here a boy and got a living chance. I’m worth fifty thousand
dollars to-day. I can’t fight, myself; but I’ll help any man who fights
the Germans, at home or over there. You have, maybe, all the fight you
can handle, and more. Yes? Well, that’s my help. No; you don’t have to
thank me. It ain’t for that. I don’t like you or your paper any more
after the war is over.”
He stumped out, leaving in The Guardian office a vivid contrast in
practical patriotism between an Ellison seven generations in the United
States, and a Levy, German-born and American-hearted.
Even among the Germans of a certain type the strange reactions of the
war dissolved old enmities. Coming out of the Post-Office one evening,
Jeremy found himself approaching Blasius, the little German-born hatter,
who had withdrawn his thrice-a-week announcement from The Guardian,
after the Lusitania editorial. Upon sighting the editor, Blasius
squared his shoulders to a Prussian stiffness, set his lips, and all but
goose-stepped up to the other.
“I wish to say a word to you,” he announced precisely.
“Say it.”
“Those Deutscher Clubbers; they are after you--not?”
“They are. Are you?”
“Mr. Robson,” said the hatter gravely, “while we are at peace I think of
my good people in Germany and I hope we remain at peace. When we are at
war once, I think of myself, a citizen of this United States; and I am
at war too. As you are,” he added. “And I want my advertisement back in
your paper, double space.”
“I’ll be mighty glad to have it there, Mr. Blasius,” answered Jeremy
heartily.
“I thank you. This that I have told you I say to the Deutscher Club at
their meeting. And what do they do? They fire me out! That is, I think,
strainch,” reflected the sturdy little hatter.
To Jeremy it did not seem “strainch.” Men like Professor Brender and
Blasius would find no fellowship in the Deutscher Club now. He knew too
much, however, of the retentive power of Deutschtum to believe that the
schism in the club would be important.
But for every patriot who came to the aid of the sorely beset Guardian
with financial support there were ten who were swayed adversely by
resentment or fear. Meantime expenses went merrily on, increasing as
they went. The Guardian’s surplus was already enlisted in the fight.
Jeremy’s small reserve was compromised. Even Andrew Galpin, against his
chief’s protest, had scraped up two thousand dollars which he insisted
on putting in, as he blithely observed, “just for the hell of it.” That,
Jeremy prophesied discouragingly, was about all that he might expect to
get out of it!
With true Teutonic effrontery, the propagandists of Deutschtum continued
their attempts to use the paper whose ruin they were encompassing, until
the inutility of this procedure was at length borne in upon them by
the adverse experience of Henry Vogt, florist and heavy advertiser, who
personally approached Jeremy with a long and thoughtful screed in the
best Teutonic-pacifist style of reasoning. This, Mr. Vogt argued, with
the assurance of an old-time patron, would well beseem the editorial
columns of The Guardian. The editor thought otherwise. As a result
of that difference of opinion the remnants of the Vogt advertising
disappeared from The Guardian’s pages just one degree less promptly than
Mr. Vogt himself disappeared from its precincts. In a rather testily
conceived editorial entitled “Local Dummkopfheit” Jeremy set forth the
principles of his paper regarding propaganda. In response to this
he received three threats of extinction, eleven of ruin, and two of
unprintable language, which served to restore the level of his overtried
temper.
While he was perusing this mail, his general manager came rambling in,
with a queer light in his eye.
“Want to sell, Boss?”
“Sell what?”
“Sell out. Sell the paper.”
“Tell me the rest of the joke, Andy, and get out. I’m busy.”
“Joke nothing! We got a buyer. He’s in my office.”
“Is he violent?”
“Boss, it’s A. M. Wymett.”
Jeremy straightened in his chair. “Wymett! What’s he doing here?”
“Wearing lovely clothes and looking prosperous. He _is_ crazy, Boss. He
wants to get back into the game.” Two minutes later, the ex-proprietor
of The Guardian was confirming this latter statement.
“Yes,” he said. “The crave is in my blood. It’s worse than drink. I’ve
quit drink. But not the other.”
“You’ve been back in it?”
“Mining journal in California. I made a little money at it. But there’s
no life in that. You’re in a back-water. I want to get into the main
current again.”
“What made you suppose The Guardian was for sale?” Wymett lifted the
heavy brows above his weary, cynical eyes, as if with an effort. “Aren’t
you going into the service?”
“I may,” said Jeremy shortly.
“Oh! I beg your pardon. I thought you were under thirty.” The tone was
courteous but indifferent. It stung.
“I’m over. A little.”
“In that case you’re not _obliged_ to go, of course. Then you won’t
consider an offer for The Guardian?”
“I did n’t say that.” Jeremy’s mind revolved many things swiftly. The
Guardian’s days were probably numbered anyway. If he could sell at a
decent price now, he could retrieve part of his own fortunes and make a
fresh start after the war. Besides, there was Andy and his hard-scraped
two thousand dollars. No one could criticize him for selling out with a
view to making the larger sacrifice and going into the army. But in
his heart he knew it was the lesser sacrifice. He knew it would be a
surrender, with a salve to his conscience; knew it and would not confess
the knowledge to himself.
“Ah, well!” said Wymett’s even, tired voice. “I wish I were young enough
to get in.”
Jeremy’s head lifted. “When do you want an answer?”
“You gave me one hour,” Wymett reminded him.
“So I did.” Jeremy smiled. “Times have changed since then. Or you would
n’t be back in Fenchester,” he added rather brutally.
“Tactful of you to remind me,” returned the other, unperturbed.
“People’s memories are charitable--and short. Suppose we say to-morrow?”
“Three days,” amended Jeremy. “That will be Monday. By the way, whom do
you represent?”
“Myself.”
“Of course. But who’s behind you?”
“Ah! Is that wise?” drawled the other. “In the interests of your own
unprejudiced decision?”
It was on Jeremy’s lips to return a definite refusal then and there.
But, after all, what harm in considering?
“The money will be forthcoming,” Wymett assured him. “Shall we discuss
terms?”
“Let that wait.”
The other assented, and took his leave. By a roundabout course he made
his way to The Record office, and there consulted Farley. The result
of the conference was that A. M. Wymett contributed a trenchant and
bitingly worded editorial to that evening’s issue of The Record entitled
“Lip and Pen Patriotism.” It was conceived in the old and waning style
of personal and allusive journalism, and contained pointed references to
young men of means and sound physique who preferred staying at home and
preaching the patriotic duty of others, to shouldering a gun and doing
their own part. The shrewd, tired eyes had seen Jeremy wince under the
sting of the war-query. Their owner judged that a little impetus might
decide the matter. And Farley, for reasons of his own and The Record’s,
was only too glad to lend a hand toward getting Jeremy out of the way.
He knew, what Jeremy only suspected, that Wymett in nominal control
of The Guardian meant Embree in actual control, and hence two papers
instead of three in Fenchester, as The Fair Dealer would then be
dropped.
Had the writer of the editorial been present to mark the effect upon its
unnamed subject, he would have been gratified. Jeremy cursed fervently.
He then summoned Andrew Galpin.
“Andy, I’m going into the army.”
“Ay-ah?”
“What do you think?”
“Going to sell the paper?”
“Might as well sell it as wreck it.”
“Ay-ah?”
“For God’s sake, Andy,” broke out his chief; “can’t you say anything but
‘Ay-ah’?”
“I’ve said my say once.”
“That was before we were surely down and out.”
“I have n’t changed my mind.”
“I’m sick of a losing fight.”
“Good thing there’s folks in the world that aren’t. The French, for
instance.”
Jeremy cursed again, wildly and extravagantly. “You’re trying to make me
out yellow!”
“Boss, your nerves are n’t all they ought to be. Why don’t you drop in
on your doc?”
“I’m going right from here to Doc Summerfield’s.”
“Ay-ah? You _are_ feeling shaky, eh?”
“No. I’m not. But I want to be sure that I’ll get through all right on
the physical examination.”
“Ay-ah. I guess you’ll do--physically.” Andrew Galpin turned and left.
His head was hanging. He looked like a man ashamed. Jeremy knew for
whom he was ashamed. Again he cursed, and this time, himself. All the
catchwords in the vocabulary of patriotism could not now exorcise that
inner feeling of surrender, of desertion.
A figure emerged from a forgotten corner. It was Buddy Higman.
“I heard you,” said the boy in a lifeless voice. “Are you goin’ to
quit?”
The final word flicked Jeremy on the raw. “I’m going to fight.”
“What’s goin’ to become of us?” said Buddy simply. Jeremy stared at him
without consciously seeing the open, freckled face of the boy. What he
saw was the letter of Marcia Ames in which she had committed Buddy to
his care.
“Become of you, Buddy?” he said.
“Of us. The paper. It won’t be us any more with you out of it.”
“No. It won’t be,” sighed Jeremy. “But I’ll arrange to have you kept
on.”
The boy shook his head. “Nothin’ doin’. She wanted me to have a job
with you.” Suddenly he brightened up. “Boss, could I have a half-day off
to-morrow?”
“Take it all if you like. Looking for another place?” The boy thanked
him without replying. Jeremy went to Dr. Summerfield’s office where
he was duly stripped, prodded, poked, flexed, and stethoscoped by that
slim, dry, brief-spoken physician. When it was over the doctor leaned
back in his chair and contemplated his caller. “Want to get into the
army, eh?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“To fight, of course.”
“Is n’t there enough fight right here?”
“It is n’t the same.”
“Certainly it is n’t. No flags. No ta-rum-ta-ra. No khaki, brave
soldier-boy, hero-stuff. Eh?”
“I notice you went, fast enough. And you’re going again, are n’t you?”
“Different matter. I don’t own a trouble-making newspaper. What are you
going to do with it?”
“The Guardian? Sell it.”
“To whom?”
“A. M. Wymett.”
“He’s a figurehead. What’s behind him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nor want to, I guess.”
“I don’t care.”
“‘I don’t care,’” mimicked the physician. “You talk like a spoiled kid.
Are you going to act like one?”
“I want to get in it! I want to get in it!” cried Jeremy. “Or out of it?
Which?”
“Doc, if you were n’t an old friend--”
“You’d punch my nose. I know. You’ll do ’most anything to prove to
yourself that you’ll fight ’most anything. Except the enemy that most
needs your kind of fighting.”
“I’ve been doing nothing but fight,” said Jeremy wearily.
“And now you want to quit.”
“I’ve had about enough of that word, quit.”
“Somebody else been using it to you? Ugly little whippet of a word,
ain’t it! Well, you’re not going to profit by it, at least not with any
nice, little, heroic, ready-made excuse to comfort yourself with. That
much I’ve just heard over the telephone.”
“Telephone?”
“This one.” He tapped his stethoscope. “Straight from Central. Were you
in athletics in college?”
“Yes. Golf. Some football. Cross-country run.”
“That’s it; the distance run. Been under some nervous strain, lately,
too?”
“Try to run The Guardian for a month and see!”
“Well, the college athletics began it, and overwork and worry have
brought it out. Those endurance tests will get a boy’s heart--”
“Heart! Have I got heart-disease? What kind?”
“Never mind the big names. Nothing to worry over. You’ll live a hundred
years for all of it. But it’s there all right.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Try another physician, then, my spoiled child.”
“I beg your pardon, doc. Of course, I know it’s right if you say so. But
it--it’s--”
“Rather a soaker, eh? Don’t let it worry you. You’re sound enough to go
ahead and raise any amount of Hades here, so far as your heart goes. I
won’t say so much for your nerves.”
“It is n’t that.”
“No. I know. It’s the being counted out.” He wrote a prescription,
looked up from it to study the silent and downcast patient, then tore
it up and flung the pieces in the air. “I’m not going to coddle you with
minor dopes,” he declared vigorously. “Jem, I read The Record editorial
this evening. How much did that have to do with your warlike ambitions.”
“It hurt,” confessed Jeremy.
“It was meant to. Know who wrote it?”
“Farley, I suppose.”
“And you call yourself a newspaperman! Farley’s got the malice, but not
the sting.”
“Who did, then?”
“Wymett.”
“Wymett?”
“I’d spot his style across the continent even if I did n’t know he was
here. Don’t you see the game?”
“No.”
“Wymett has come on at Embree’s call. Embree is behind his bid for The
Guardian. He’d rather buy The Guardian than start his new paper. Quicker
and cheaper. Farley’d rather have him buy The Guardian than start the
new paper; only one competitor in the field instead of two. Wymett sees
he has you going; but he is n’t certain. He borrows The Record’s columns
to force your hand. And you want to run away and play soldier!”
“I’ve got to! I’ve got to!” cried Jeremy, beating the arms of his chair
with violent hands. “And now you tell me I can’t.”
“Steady! I never said you could n’t play soldier.”
“My heart--”
“You’re a border-land case.”
Jeremy’s face lighted with hope.
“You can get in all right. I’ve passed cases like yours. But let me tell
you what it means. It means that you’ll never see active service.
It means they’ll make use of your brains somewhere, in a perfectly
honorable, perfectly safe office job where the only gunpowder you can
ever smell is by getting to leeward of the sunset gun. Mind you; you’ll
get all the credit. You’ll go marching away in uniform with Committees
handing out flowers and tears and embossed resolutions, and everybody
will regard you as a hero, except perhaps me--and yourself. You’ve got
to reckon it out with yourself whether you’ll put on uniform and shirk
or stay home and fight.” Strangely enough, at this bald summons there
stood forth in Jeremy’s working mind two incongruous figures, each
summoning him to judgment; Marcia of the clear, instinctive courage,
and Andrew Galpin. Were they ranged in opposition to each other? Or were
they not, rather, united in impelling him to the simple and difficult
course? More strangely still, it was the thought of Andrew Galpin which
predominated at the last; Galpin who, facing disaster and the ruin
of his dearest projects with an alternative clear and easy and not
dishonorable, had made his choice of the hard path and the forlorn hope,
without so much as a quiver of indecision.
“I stick” he had said.
Jeremy lifted his head. He rose and held out a hand as steady as a
rock in farewell, to Dr. Summerfield who bestowed a passing and
self-gratulatory thought upon the stimulant effect of psychologic
suggestion properly administered. The physician took the hand.
“Well,” he said. “Which?”
“I stick,” plagiarized Jeremy.
Andrew Galpin’s relief when the decision was reported to him was almost
pathetic. “Boss, if you’d laid down on this I was about through with
human nature,” was his comment. “And now, what’s to come?”
Jeremy’s lined face puckered into a cherubic smile. “The last trench,
and a damned good fight in it,” he said softly.