ack saw everything on a stupendous scale. "There are
ten thousand things to do that haven't been done, and I'm going to do
them. The society-news of every quarter of the globe, furnished by the
prominent members themselves--oh THEY can be fixed, you'll see!--from
day to day and from hour to hour and served up hot at every
breakfast-table in the United States: that's what the American people
want and that's what the American people are going to have. I wouldn't
say it to every one, but I don't mind telling you, that I consider my
guess as good as the next man's on what's going to be required in
future over there. I'm going for the inside view, the choice bits, the
chronique intime, as they say here; what the people want's just what
ain't told, and I'm going to tell it. Oh they're bound to have the
plums! That's about played out, anyway, the idea of sticking up a sign
of 'private' and 'hands off' and 'no thoroughfare' and thinking you can
keep the place to yourself. You ain't going to be able any longer to
monopolise any fact of general interest, and it ain't going to be
right you should; it ain't going to continue to be possible to keep out
anywhere the light of the Press. Now what I'm going to do is to set up
the biggest lamp yet made and make it shine all over the place. We'll
see who's private then, and whose hands are off, and who'll frustrate
the People--the People THAT WANTS TO KNOW. That's a sign of the American
people that they DO want to know, and it's the sign of George P. Flack,"
the young man pursued with a rising spirit, "that he's going to help
them. But I'll make the touchy folks crowd in THEMSELVES with their
information, and as I tell you, Miss Francie, it's a job in which you
can give me a lovely lift."

"Well, I don't see how," said Francie candidly. "I haven't got any
choice bits or any facts of general interest." She spoke gaily because
she was relieved; she thought she had in truth a glimpse of what he
wanted of her. It was something better than she had feared. Since he
didn't own the great newspaper--her view of such possibilities was of
the dimmest--he desired to possess himself of it, and she sufficiently
grasped the idea that money was needed for that. She further seemed to
make out that he presented himself to her, that he hovered about her
and pressed on her, as moneyless, and that this brought them round by
a vague but comfortable transition to a helpful remembrance that her
father was not. T