LAUNCHED
For purposes of vital statistics, the head office boy of the Worthington
"Daily Clarion" was denominated Reginald Currier. As this chaste
cognomen was artistically incompatible with his squint eye, his militant
swagger, and a general bearing of unrepressed hostility toward all
created beings, he was professionally known as "Bim." Journalism, for
him, was comprised in a single tenet; that no visitor of whatsoever kind
had or possibly could have any business of even remotely legitimate
nature within the precincts of the "Clarion" office. Tradition of the
place held that a dent in the wall back of his desk marked the
termination of an argument in which Reginald, all unwitting, had essayed
to maintain his thesis against the lightweight champion of the State who
had come to call on the sporting editor.
There had been a lull in the activities of this minor Cerberus when the
light and swinging footfall of one coming up the dim stairway several
steps at a time aroused his ready suspicions. He bristled forth to the
rail to meet a tall and rather elegant young man whom he greeted with a
growl to this effect:
"Hoojer wanter see?"
"Is the editor in?"
"Whajjer want uvvum?"
The tall visitor stepped forward, holding out a card. "Take this to him,
please, and say that I'd like to see him at once."
Unwisely, Reginald disregarded the card, which fluttered to the floor.
More unwisely, he ignored a certain tensity of expression upon the face
of his interlocutor. Most unwisely he repeated, in his very savagest
growl:
"Whajjer want uvvum, I said. Didn' chu hear me?"
Graceful and effortless as the mounting lark, Reginald Currier rose and
soared. When he again touched earth, it was only to go spinning into a
far corner where he first embraced, then strove with and was finally
tripped and thrown by a large and lurking waste-basket. Somewhat
perturbed, he extricated himself in time to see the decisive visitor
disappear through an inner door. Retrieving the crumpled and rejected
card from its resting-place, he examined it with interest. The legend
upon it was "Mr. Harrington Surtaine."
"Huh!" grunted Reginald Currier; "I never seen _that_ in no sporting
column."
Once within the sacred precincts, young Mr. Surtaine turned into an
inner room, bumped against a man trailing a kite-tail of proof, who had
issued from a door to the right, asked a question, got a response, and
entered the editor's den. Two littered desks made up the principal
furniture of the place. Impartially distributed between the further desk
and a chair, the form of one lost in slumber sprawled. At the nearer one
sat a dyspeptic man of middle age waving a heavy pencil above a galley
proof.
"Are you the editor?" asked Hal.
"One editor. I'm Mr. Sterne. How the devil did you get in here?"
"Are you responsible for this?" Hal held up the morning's clipping,
headed "Surtaine Fakeries Explained."
"Who are you?" asked Sterne, nervously hitching in his chair.
"I am Harrington Surtaine."
The journalist whistled, a soft, long-drawn note. "Dr. Surtaine's son?"
he inquired.
"Yes."
"That's awkward." "Not half as awkward as it's going to be unless you
apologize privately and publicly."
Mr. Sterne looked at him estimatingly, at the same time wadding up a
newspaper clipping from the desk in front of him. This he cast at the
slumberer with felicitous accuracy.
"Hoong!" observed that gentleman, starting up and caressing his cheek.
"Wake up, Mac. Here's a man from the Trouble Belt, with samples to
show."
The individual thus addressed slowly rose out of his chair, exhibiting a
squat, gnarly figure surmounted by a very large head.
Hal's hand came up out of his pocket, with the dog-whip writhing
unpleasantly after it. Simultaneously, the ex-sleeper projected himself,
without any particular violence but with astonishing quickness, between
the caller and his prey. Without at all knowing whence it was derived,
Hal became aware of a large, black, knobby stick, which it were
inadequate to call a cane, in his new opponent's grasp.
Of physical courage there was no lack in the scion of the Surtaine line.
Neither, however, was he wholly destitute of reasoning powers and
caution. The figure before him was of an unquestionable athleticism; the
weapon of obvious weight and fiber. The situation was embarrassing.
"Please don't lick the editor," said the interrupter of poetic justice
good-humoredly. "Appropriately framed and hung upon the wall, fifteen
cents apiece. Yah-ah-ah-oo!" he yawned prodigiously. "Calm down," he
added.
Hal stared at the squat and agile figure. "You're the office bully and
bouncer, I suppose," he said.
"McGuire Ellis, _at_ your service. Bounce only when compelled. Otherwise
peaceful. _And_ sleepy."
"My business is with this man," said Hal, indicating Sterne. "Put up
your toy, then, and state it in words of one syllable."
For a moment the visitor pondered, drawing the whip through his hands,
uncertainly. "I'm not fool enough to go up against that war-club," he
remarked.
Mr. McGuire Ellis nodded approval. "First sensible thing I've heard you
say," he remarked.
"But neither"--here Hal's jaw projected a little--"am I going to let
this thing drop."
"Law?" inquired Sterne. "If you think there's any libel in what the
'Clarion' has said, ask your lawyer. What do you want, anyway?"
Thus recalled to the more pacific phase of his errand, Hal produced his
document. "If you've got an iota of decency or fairness about you,
you'll print that," he said.
Sterne glanced through it swiftly. "Nothing doing," he stated
succinctly. "Did Dr. Surtaine send you here with that thing?"
"My father doesn't know that I'm here."
"Oho! So that's it. Knight-errantry, eh? Now, let me put this thing to
you straight, Mr. Harrington Surtaine. If your father wants to make a
fair and decent statement, without abuse or calling names, over his own
signature, the 'Clarion' will run it, at fifty cents a word."
"You dirty blackmailer!" said Hal slowly.
"Hard names go with this business, my young friend," said the other
coolly.
"At present you've got me checked. But you don't always keep your paid
bully with you, I suppose. One of these days you and I will meet--"
"And you'll land in jail."
"He talks awfully young, doesn't he?" said Mr. Ellis, shaking a solemn
head.
"As for blackmail," continued Sterne, a bit eagerly, "there's nothing in
that. We've never asked Dr. Surtaine for a dollar. He hasn't got a thing
on us." "You never asked him for advertising either, I suppose," said
Hal bitterly.
"Only in the way of business. Just as we go out after any other
advertising."
"If he had given you his ads.--"
"Oh, I don't say that we'd have gone after him if he'd been one of our
regular advertisers. Every other paper in town gets his copy; why
shouldn't we? We have to look out for ourselves. We look out for our
patrons, too. Naturally, we aren't going to knock one of our
advertisers. Others have got to take their chances."
"And that's modern journalism!"
"It's the newspaper business," cried Sterne. "No different from any
other business."
"No wonder decent people consider newspaper men the scum of the earth,"
said Hal, with rather ineffectual generalization.
"Don't be young!" besought McGuire Ellis wearily. "Pretend you're a
grown-up man, anyway. You look as if you might have some sense about you
somewhere, if you'd only give it a chance to filter through."
Some not unpleasant quirk of speech and manner in the man worked upon
Hal's humor.
"Why, I believe you're right about the youngness," he admitted, with a
smile. "Perhaps there are other ways of getting at this thing. Just for
a test,--for the last time will you or will you not, Mr. Sterne, publish
this apology?"
"We will not. There's just one person can give me orders."
"Who is that?"
"The owner."
"I think you'll be sorry."
McGuire Ellis turned upon him a look that was a silent reproach to
immaturity.
"Anything more?" queried Sterne. "Nothing," said Hal, with an effort at
courtesy. "Good-day to you both."
"Well, what about it?" asked McGuire Ellis of his chief, as the
visitor's footsteps died away.
"Nothing about it. When'll the next Surtaine roast be ready?"
"Ought to be finished to-morrow."
"Schedule it for Thursday. We'll make the old boy squeal yet. Do you
believe the boy when he says that his father didn't send him?"
"Sounded straight. Pretty straight boy he looked like to me, anyway."
"Pretty fresh kid, _I_ think. And a good deal of a pin-head.
Distributing agency for the old man's money, I guess. He won't get
anywhere."
"Well, I'm not so sure," said Ellis contemplatively. "Of course he acts
gosh-awful young. But did you notice him when he went?"
"Not particularly."
"He was smiling."
"Well?"
"Always look out for a guy that smiles when he's licked. He's got a
come-back to him."
Eleven o'clock that night saw McGuire Ellis lift his head from the
five-minute nap which he allowed himself on evenings of light pressure
after the Washington copy was run off, and blink rapidly. At the same
moment Mr. David Sterne gave utterance to an exclamation, partly of
annoyance, partly of surprise. Mr. Harrington Surtaine, wearing an
expression both businesslike and urbane stood in the doorway.
"Good-evening, gentlemen," he remarked.
Mr. Sterne snorted. Mr. Ellis's lips seemed about to form the
reproachful monosyllable "young." Without further greeting the visitor
took off his hat and overcoat and hung them on a peg. "You make
yourself at home," growled Sterne.
"I do," agreed Hal, and, discarding his coat, hung that on another peg.
"I've got a right to."
Tilting a slumber-burdened head, McGuire Ellis released his adjuration
against youthfulness.
"What's the answer?" demanded Sterne.
"I've just bought out the 'Clarion,'" said Hal.