t I have the queer feeling that I
could trust the inmost secret of my life to his honor. Probably I'm an
old fool, eh?"

Io devoted a moment's study to the lined and worn face of the veteran.
"No. I think you're right," she pronounced.

"In any case, he isn't responsible for The Patriot. He can't help it."

"Don't be so cryptic, Cousin Billy. Can't help what? What is wrong with
the paper?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"But I want to understand," said imperious Io.

"As a basis to understanding, you'd have to read the paper."

"I have. Everyday. All of it."

He gave her a quick, reckoning look which she sustained with a slight
deepening of color. "The advertisements, too?" She nodded. "What do you
think of them?"

"Some of them are too disgusting to discuss."

"Did it occur to you to compare them with the lofty standards of our
young friend's editorials?"

"What has he to do with the advertisements?" she countered.

"Assume, for the sake of the argument, that he has nothing to do with
them. You may have noticed a recent editorial against race-track
gambling, with the suicide of a young bank messenger who had robbed his
employer to pay his losses as text."

"Well? Surely that kind of editorial makes for good."

"Being counsel for that bank, I happen to know the circumstances of the
suicide. The boy had pinned his faith to one of the race-track tipsters
who advertise in The Patriot to furnish a list of sure winners for so
much a week."

"Do you suppose that Mr. Banneker knew that?"

"Probably not. But he knows that his paper takes money for publishing
those vicious advertisements."

"Suppose he couldn't help it?"

"Probably he can't."

"Well, what would you have him do? Stop writing the editorials? I think
it is evidence of his courage that he should dare to attack the evils
which his own paper fosters."

"That's one view of it, certainly," replied Enderby dryly. "A convenient
view. But there are other details. Banneker is an ardent advocate of
abstinence, 'Down with the Demon Rum!' The columns of The Patriot reek
with whiskey ads. The same with tobacco."

"But, Cousin Billy, you don't believe that a newspaper should shut out
liquor and tobacco advertisements, do you?"

The lawyer smiled patiently. "Come back on the track, Io," he invited.
"That isn't the point. If a newspaper preaches the harm in these habits,
it shouldn't accept money for exploiting them. Look further. What of the
loan-shark