UNDER the far shock of declared war, the sovereign State of Centralia, unready and unrealizing, was rent and seamed from border to border with seismic chasms across which brother bandied threats with brother, and lifelong friends clamored for each other’s blood. Politicians and newspapers, who live chiefly (and uneasily) by grace of public favor, stepped warily among racial pitfalls set with envenomed stakes. Having so befooled the public, and in thus doing lulled themselves to a false security, they were now in a parlous state, not daring to affront a nation in arms, fearful of the unmeasured power of their alien supporters, afraid alike of truth, falsehood, and silence.
But it was the dear-bought privilege and luxury of The Guardian in these great days to speak that which was in its owner’s soul. Straight and clear it spoke, while for the first fortnight after the declaration the editor hurried about the State organizing the trustworthy newspapers into a compact league of patriotism, meantime living, sleeping, and writing on trains, in automobiles, in country hotels, those editorial battle-cries that variously rasped, enthused, infuriated, or inspired, but always stirred and roused, the divided and doubting people of Centralia.
After the first stunned inaction and uncertainty of surprise, there crept through the German communities of the United States a waif word of strange import.
“Deutschtum is bent, but not broken.”
From mouth to mouth it passed. It was spoken in German clubs and societies. It was proclaimed in lodge-rooms. Presently it appeared in print. Bauer’s alien-hearted Herold und Zeitung published it once and again; first, cautiously, tentatively; the second time, building upon its own impunity, and the incredible tolerance of the stupid Yankees, repeating it as the text of an editorial word of good cheer for struggling Germany—with whom the United States was at war! The Reverend Theo Gunst’s religious weekly spread the rallying cry; and fervent theologians preached it in its own tongue from their pulpits. Soon it had permeated the whole German fabric of Centralia, with its message of aid and comfort to the enemy: “Deutschtum is bent, but not broken!”
And the Deutschtum of Centralia, unbroken and scarcely bent, set about fulfilling its vengeance upon The Guardian and Jeremy Robson.
The first attack was a blast of letters, signed and anonymous. Correspondence enough was daily piled upon the editorial desk of The Guardian to have occupied all of Jeremy’s time had he undertaken to answer it. Most of it was denunciation, protest, warning, threat. Several weak-kneed politicians, followers of “Smiling Mart” Embree’s political fortunes, had written pressingly for appointments, evincing in every line their perturbation lest The Guardian’s course might compromise them in one way or another. One correspondent had contented himself with a spirited but unsigned free-hand drawing of a noose overhanging a skull and crossbones.
In the middle of the heap was a brief and simple note of commendation for The Guardian’s course, from the hardest-worked, most sorely pressed and anxious man in America. It was headed: “The White House.” All but this Jeremy shoveled into the waste-basket; then plunged into his work with renewed spirit. The anonymous threats had cheered him only less than the President’s word. They showed that his work was striking home.
Uncertainty was what Jeremy found hardest to endure in those days. And the local advertising situation seemed to be about fifty-one per cent uncertainty, and the other forty-nine probable loss. Contracts both yearly and half-yearly were renewable on May 1st. There appeared to be an almost universal indisposition on the part of the local stores to commit themselves to any definite figures or estimates in advance. In the case of the German advertisers, or of the few which still maintained rancor against The Guardian because of its independence in business matters, this was quite explicable. But no such reasons applied in the case of the large majority which were holding off. Nothing in the way of enlightenment could be elicited from Verrall. He “did n’t understand it at all.” He’d “done his best.” Business was “very uncertain.” Probably that was it. They were waiting to see the effect of the war. If any one should be in a position to make a guess, Verrall was the man; for he was spending enough of his time among the stores. At least he was certainly not spending it at his desk.
Extra work was thus thrown upon the overworked Galpin. No dependence could be placed upon Jeremy from day to day now. At any hour, the demands of State-wide newspaper organization were likely to call him away from town, and relegate to Galpin all of his duties other than the actual writing of editorials. There were mornings when the general manager would arrive at the office before eight o’clock to find three hours’ work by his chief already completed and on his desk with a note: “Meetings at Fairborn and Rocola to-day and to-morrow. Back Thursday.” To be obliged to handle part of Verrall’s desk job also, in these circumstances, struck the patient and dogged Galpin as excessive. Besides, there were matters in Verrall’s department which puzzled his tired mind.
After one of Jeremy’s flying trips into the country, he returned to find Andrew sitting at Max Verrall’s desk. Instead of responding to his employer’s greeting, the general manager asked abruptly:
“Verrall was a sort of political pet of ‘Smiling Mart’s’ when we got him, was n’t he?”
“Yes. Embree recommended him to me.”
“He’s quit.”
“No great loss; he’s been laying down on his job lately.”
“He’s been doing worse than that. He’s been tying us up in a double bowknot. Boss, did he have authority to make print-paper contracts?”
“Yes; all supplies.”
“Then God help The Guardian!”
“What’s wrong?”
“He’s contracted for our next year’s paper at four cents and a quarter.”
“Four and a quarter! That’s half a cent above the market, is n’t it?”
“All of that.”
“What concern did he buy of?”
“Oak Lodge Pulp Company.”
“Magnus Laurens’s outfit! They never tried anything of the kind on us before. It looks queer, does n’t it!”
“Worse than that.”
“But, see here, Andy. They can’t make that stick. Half a cent above market for that grade of paper—”
“Which grade? There’s the kink. Verrall’s tied us up on a special quality.”
“Good God!” said Jeremy.
He sat down heavily. A clean blotter on the desk offered him a field for calculations. For a few moments he busied himself with a pencil. When he looked up, his face was queer and drawn. Andrew Galpin waited.
“It’ll be a pull, Andy,” said Jeremy. “It’ll be a hell of a pull! It’ll suck the yolk right out of my surplus. But we can pull through yet if—”
“If what?” demanded the general manager, for his chief had stopped.
“If we can hold the big local advertisers.”
Galpin looked down on his employer with sorrowful eyes. He cleared his throat, scratched his head, spat upon the floor, and was apologetic about it; hummed, hawed, and glowered. Jeremy regarded these maneuvers with surprise.
“Baby got a pin stickin’ into ums?” he inquired solicitously.
“Oh, hell, Boss!” broke out the other. “I hate to tell you. They’re on our trail now. The Botches’ game is working. Ellison, of Ellison Brothers, is in your office waiting to see you.”
Jeremy left for his own den and the interview.
Visibly ill at ease, the head of Fenchester’s oldest department store rose to greet Jeremy, resumed his seat and proceeded volubly to say a great deal of nothing in particular, about the uncertainty of the business outlook and the necessity, apparent to every thoughtful merchant, of retrenchment. Adjured to get down to details, he painfully brought himself to the point of announcing that Ellison Brothers felt it best to drop out of The Guardian’s columns.
“Just temporary, Mr. Robson, you understand,” he said in a tone which assured his auditor that it was nothing of the sort. “We hope to resume soon.”
“But, Mr. Ellison,” said Jeremy in dismay, “there must be some reason for this. Is it our editorial course that you object to?”
The visitor began to babble unhappily.
“No, no, Mr. Robson! You must n’t think that. I—I quite approve of your editorial course. Quite! Personally, I mean to say.... As a merchant—Well, of course, you have been a little hard on our German fellow-citizens. Have n’t you, now? You must admit that, yourself.... Oh, it’s all right, of course! Very praiseworthy, and all that. Loyalty; yes, indeed; loyalty above everything.... But for a business man—We can’t afford—”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Ellison. How many of your German customers have given notice to quit you unless you quit The Guardian?”
“Oh, none, Mr. Robson,” disclaimed the tremulous Ellison. “None—not in those terms.”
“I understand, Mr. Ellison. And I’m rather sorry for you. Who are the boy cotters?”
“Oh, really, Mr. Robson, I could n’t—”
“No. Of course, you could n’t. By the way, you’re an American, are you, Mr. Ellison?”
The merchant drew himself up. “My folks have been in this country for seven generations. Why do you ask?”
“Just to be disagreeable,” replied the other softly, and left Ellison to make what he could out of it.
Bad though this was, the owner of The Guardian comforted himself with one assurance. No store in Fenchester could do business by advertising in The Record alone, against other stores which advertised in both papers. Therefore, Ellison Brothers would soon discover, in the harsh light of decreasing trade, that they could not afford to ignore The Guardian. Unless, indeed, the other stores also—Before the thought was fairly concluded, Jeremy had seized his hat and set out to obtain instant confirmation or refutation of his fears. His natural source of enlightenment was the loyal Betts, of Kelter & Betts, but Betts was out of town. The next store was The Great Northwestern. There could hardly have been a worse choice from one point of view, for the Ahrenses had from the first resented The Guardian’s independence, and, moreover, were members of the Deutscher Club in good and regular standing. But Jeremy was in a hurry. Friend or enemy, it made no great difference, if he could arrive at the facts. In the seclusion of his inner office, Adolph Ahrens bade his visitor sit down, with an anticipative smile.
“I ain’t seen you,” he said slowly, “since that elegant hyphen editorial, to congrach’late you on it.”
This was Refined Sarcasm, according to the Ahrensian standard.
“The events since have backed it up,” said Jeremy shortly.
“Must be great,” surmised the other, “to be a big enough Smart-Allick to rough up decent folks’ feelings whenever you want to.”
“There was nothing in what I wrote to offend any good American.”
“I guess you ain’t the only good American in Fenchester! I guess I’m as good an American as you are, if I have got a German name. You ain’t an American! You’re a England-lover and a German-hater.”
“Perhaps you have n’t heard that we are at war with Germany, Mr. Ahrens,” said Jeremy with rising color. “We’ve been at war for three weeks.”
“Never mind your funny jokes with me! I know about the war. Does that make you right to insult every German—German-American, I mean? You think you got us merchants where you want us with your verfluchter—your be-dammt paper. Well, you ain’t! Not any more. I got somethin’ to tell you about next year’s contract.”
“Tell it.”
“I’ll tell it, all right,” jeered the other. “I’ll tell you where you get off. Half of last year’s contract. Not a line more.”
“That’s less than The Guardian’s fair share.”
“Surprisin’, ain’t it?” snarled the other.
“Yes, it is. Unless on the theory that you expect a decrease in your trade.”
Ahrens flushed.
“Not in our trade,” he asserted; “in yours. The Guardian’s a losing proposition.”
“You know why it’s losing—temporarily,” replied its owner, keeping his temper.
“It’s losing because it steps on too many folks’ toes. From now on we don’t need but half as much Guardian in our business. That’s all.”
“I see. This is our punishment, this half-space allowance.”
“You can call it that if you like.”
“Then, just to make it even, I’ll throw out the other half.”
“Wha-at?” gasped the thunderstruck merchant.
“You understand me, Ahrens. You’re out—every line of you.”
Ahrens became suddenly timorous. “Wh-wh-why?” he stammered.
“Because I don’t take punishment lying down. Not from you, Ahrens. You’re going to find out whether you can do business without The Guardian, losing proposition or not!”
He left the worried store-keeper and continued his rounds. Nearly everywhere he found the same prospect; appropriations cut from a third to a half, but mostly a third. Something definite was back of it. Of that he felt sure. But what it was he could not discover.
Enlightenment was waiting for him at his office, through the medium of Galpin. That usually self-contained person looked haggard. “Verrall has been here since you left, Boss.”
“What did he want? His job back?”
“No. He’s got another.”
“Good riddance. What is it?”
“Boss, the cat’s out of the bag. I don’t know how they ever kept her in so long. Her name is The Fair Dealer; morning paper with Amalgamated Wire Franchise; scheduled to start next month. And she ain’t a cat. She’s a skunk.”
“Who’s back of it?”
“Can’t you tell from the sniveling, canting, hypocritical name? ‘Smiling Mart’ Embree—damn his soul.”
“So that’s it,” said Jeremy slowly. “That explains Ahrens’s attitude. Of course they can get along with less space. And Ellison’s. Wants to try out the new, and save money on the old. We might have known! Embree has to have a paper here for his senatorial campaign. If he gets us, on the side, so much the better.”
“But does he get us?”
“It does n’t look pretty, Andy. I can’t pretend I like the scenery. There is n’t room for three papers in Fenchester. Somebody’s going to get bumped.”
“Maybe it’ll be The Fair Dealer.”
“All the Germans and the anti-war crowd will get in back of it. I should n’t be surprised if Montrose Clark and his gang were financing it—to kill us off. If we can pull through this next year—But there’s that print-paper contract pinching us. Any details about the new paper?”
“Verrall claims it’ll start with twenty-five thousand circulation all over the State. He was in here this morning to see me about—well, about something else; and to give us the news of the new paper. I told him we’d print it when released; would n’t give him the satisfaction of thinking we were afraid to.”
“Right! If we’ve got to die we’ll die game.”
“It makes me sick!” growled Galpin. “Oh, I ain’t kicking, Boss! Only it’ll be a tough game if, after all our scrapping, right and wrong—and we haven’t always been a hundred per cent right, you know—we get ours from a bunch of half-breeds and double-facers, like the Governor and his crowd, because we would n’t straddle a hyphen.”
There followed a thoughtful silence between the two. Then the owner spoke:
“Did Verrall make you an offer, Andy?”
“Kind of hinted round.”
“How much did he hint? In dollars?”
“Oh, a little raise. Nothing much.”
“I can’t honestly say”—Jeremy spoke with an effort—“but what the new paper’s a better prospect than this, as things stand. I think you ought to consider it carefully.”
“That’s your best advice, is it?”
“I guess it is, Andy.”
Galpin wandered about the room, arriving by a devious and irresolute route at the door. He opened it, shut it, opened it again, stood swinging it with a smudged hand. “Boss,” he said insinuatingly.
“Well?”
“Speaking as man to man, and not as employee to employer—”
“Don’t bleat like a goat, Andy.”
“—you can take your advice and go to hell with it. I stick!”
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. Heiscrazy, 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 notobligedto 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? Youarefeeling 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.