finally end
up, what would happen if the people ever really learned, or ever
listened to the clever ones who tried to sneak the truth into print
somewhere. But people couldn't be told the truth, they had to be
coddled, urged, pushed along. They had to be kept somehow happy, somehow
hopeful, they had to be kept whipped up to fever pitch, because the
long, long years of war and near war had exhausted them, wearied them
beyond natural resiliency. No, they had to be spiked, urged and
goaded--what would happen if they learned?

He sighed. No one, it seemed, could do it as well as he. No one could
take a story of bitter diplomatic fighting in Berlin and simmer it down
to a public-palatable "peaceful and progressive meeting;" no one could
quite so skillfully reduce the bloody fighting in India to a mild "enemy
losses topping American losses twenty to one, and our boys are fighting
staunchly, bravely,"-- No one could write out the lies quite so neatly,
so smoothly as Tom Shandor--

The cab swung in to his house, and he stepped out, tipped the driver,
and walked up the walk, eager for the warm dry room. Coffee helped
sometimes when he felt this way, but other things helped even more. He
didn't even take his coat off before mixing and downing a stiff
rye-and-ginger, and he was almost forgetting his unhappy conscience by
the time the video began blinking.

He flipped the receiver switch and sat down groggily, blinked at John
Hart's heavy face as it materialized on the screen. Hart's eyes were
wide, his voice tight and nervous as he leaned forward. "You'd better
get into the office pronto," he said, his eyes bright. "You've _really_
got a story to work on now--"

Shandor blinked. "The War--"

Hart took a deep breath. "Worse," he said. "David Ingersoll is dead."

* * * * *

Tom Shandor shouldered his way through the crowd of men in the anteroom,
and went into the inner office. Closing the door behind him coolly, he
faced the man at the desk, and threw a thumb over his shoulder. "Who're
the goons?" he growled. "You haven't released a story yet--?"

John Hart sighed, his pinkish face drawn. "The press. I don't know how
they got the word--there hasn't been a word released, but--" He shrugged
and motioned Shandor to a seat. "You know how it goes."

Shandor sat down, his face blank, eyeing the Information chief
woodenly. The room was silent for a moment, a tense, anticipatory
silence. Then Hart s