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"Boy-ee, I don't know what's come over you lately. Journalism seems to have got into your blood." "Blame Ellis. He's been my preceptor." "Both of you have got your lesson to learn." "Well, I've learned one," asserted Hal: "that it's the business of a newspaper to print the news." "There's only one sound business principle, success.
You've cost me the respect of the men I work with, and the faith of the best friend I've got in the world." "The best friend, Boy-ee?" questioned the Doctor gently. "The best friend: McGuire Ellis." Hal's gaze met his father's. And what he saw there all but unmanned him.
Surtaine, proprietor of Certina, will be the principal figure in the campaign. What's that worth in advertising to the year's business? Not that I'm doing it for that. I'm doing it to save Old Home Week." "With a little profit on the side." Dr. Surtaine deemed it politic to ignore the tone of the commentary. "Why not? Nobody's hurt by it. You'll be on the Central Committee, Boy-ee."
"Boy-ee," he began diffidently, "there's been a pretty bad mistake." "There's been worse than that," said Hal sadly. "About Milly Neal. I thought I thought it was you that got her into trouble." "Why? For God's sake, why?" "Don't be too hard on me," pleaded the other. "I'd heard about the road-house. And then, what she said to you. It all fitted in. Hale put me right.
So they gazed darkly at each other across the chasm, each seeing his opponent in the blackest colors. "You hold me to that?" demanded Hal, half choked. "I have to, Boy-ee." To Dr. Surtaine the issue which he had raised was but the distasteful means to a necessary end. To Hal it meant the final capitulation to the forces against which he had been fighting since his first enlightenment.
"Hasn't there been enough judging of each other between you and me, Boy-ee?" he asked sorrowfully. In wretched uncertainty how to meet this appeal, Hal hesitated. He was saved from decision by the return of McGuire Ellis. "No movement yet from the enemy's camp," he reported. "I just had a telephone from Hale's club." "Perhaps they won't come, after all," surmised Hal.
"Apparently not," taunted the other good-humoredly. "You should know. Hers is generally considered a face not difficult to remember." "Impossible to forget!" "In that case it must be that you haven't seen her before. But you will again. And, then look out, Boy-ee. Danger ahead!" "How's that, sir?" "You'll see for yourself when you meet her. Half of the boys in town are crazy over her.
Merritt would turn the city upside down if he had his way. Was it him that told you it was typhus?" "No. We've got a two-page story in proof now, giving the whole facts of the epidemic." "You can't publish it, Boy-ee," said his father firmly. "Can't? That sounds like an order." Adroitly Dr. Surtaine caught at the word. "An order drawn on your word of honor."
One such instance as the running-down of Miss Cleary bears within it far more than the extremest demagoguery the potentialities of an unleashed hate. It is a lesson in lawlessness." Still in the afterglow of composition, Hal, tinkering lightly with the proofs, felt a hand on his shoulder. "Well, Boy-ee," said the voice of Dr. Surtaine. "Hello, father," returned Hal. "Sit down. What's up?"
For the first time since the tragedy he anticipated a meeting with his son without embarrassment, for now he had a definite topic to talk about, difficult though it might be. Finding Hal at the editorial desk he went direct to the point. "Boy-ee, the epidemic is spreading." "I know it." "I'm going to take hold of the matter personally, from now on." "In what way?"
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