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In its place he read, from the top of the column: "And though all the winds of doctrine blow" and so on, to the close of Milton's proud challenge, followed by: "Would You Let Your Baby Drink Carbolic?" For the strike editorial had been substituted one of Banneker's typical "mother-fetchers," as he termed them, very useful in their way, and highly approved by the local health authorities.
As he spoke a huge, silent car crept swiftly to the entry, which opened to swallow up two bareheaded, luxuriously befurred women, with their escorts. The curious wayfarer promptly amended his query, though not for the better. "Naw!" replied the policeman with scorn. "That's Mr. Banneker's house." "Banneker? Who's Banneker?"
In that moment Banneker felt a surge of the first real liking he had ever known for his employer. Marrineal had been purely human for a flash. Nevertheless, in the first revulsion after the proprietor had left, Banneker's unconquered independence rose within him, jealous and clamant.
Banneker could imagine one of these females straying into Mr. Gaines's editorial ken, and that gentleman's bland greeting as to his own sprightly second maid arrayed and perfumed, unexpectedly encountered at a charity bazar. Too rarefied for Banneker's healthy and virile young tastes, the atmosphere in which The New Era lived and moved and had its consistently successful editorial being!
Horace Vanney, chief owner of the International Cloth Mills, had given to Banneker a reprint of an address by himself, before some philosophical and inquiring society, wherein he had set forth some of his simpler economic theories. A quotation, admirably apropos to Banneker's present purposes, flashed forth clear and pregnant, to his journalistic memory.
"It means that I shall become a regular attendant at Mr. Errol Banneker's famous Saturday nights. Don't ask me what more it means." She rose and delivered the typed sheets into his hands. "I I don't know, myself. Take me back to the others, Ban." To Banneker, wakened next morning to a life of new vigor and sweetness, the outcome of the mail-order editorial was worth not one troubled thought.
He was adroit, well-spoken, smooth of surface, easy of purse, untiring, supple, and of an inexhaustible good-humor. It was from the ex-medical student that Marrineal had learned of Banneker's offer from the Syndicate, also of his over-prodigal hand in money matters. "He's got to have the cash," was the expert's opinion upon Banneker. "There's your hold on him.... Quit? No danger.
Banneker's voice, regular, mechanical, desensitized as the voices of those who dictate habitually are prone to become, floated out: "Quote where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise end quote comma said a poet who was also a cynic period. Many poets are comma but not the greatest period. Because of their turn back to the beginning of the paragraph, please, Miss Westlake."
"He's a friend of mine," put in Cressey, in a tone which ended that particular objection. "But I don't think he'd come." Instantly there was a chorus of demand for him. "All right, I'll try," yielded Cressey, rising. "Put him next to me," directed Miss Forbes. The emissary visited Banneker's table, was observed to be in brief colloquy with him, and returned, alone.
Gordon put an end by remarking that the evening papers would doubtless give them a lead; meantime they could get Banneker's version. First to come in was The Evening New Yorker, the most vapid of all the local prints, catering chiefly to the uptown and shopping element. Its heading half-crossed the page proclaiming "Guest of Yachtsman Shoots Down Thugs."
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