r? This
is the day of the Formal Feed."

"Hoong!" grunted Ellis, arousing himself. "Speech? I can't make a
speech. Make it yourself."

"I'm going to."

"What are you going to talk about?"

"Well, I might borrow your text and preach them a sermon on honesty in
journalism. Seriously, I think the whole paper has degenerated to low
ideals, and if I put it to them straight, that every man of them,
reporter, copy-reader, or editor, has got to measure up to an absolutely
straight standard of honesty--"

"They'll throw the tableware at you," said McGuire Ellis quietly: "at
least they ought to, if they don't."

The two Surtaines stared at him in surprise.

"Who are you," continued the journalist, "to talk standards of honesty
in journalism to those boys?"

"He's their boss: that's all he is," said Dr. Surtaine weightily.

"Let him set the example, then, jack the paper up where it belongs, and
there'll be no difficulty with the men who write it."

"But, Mac, you've been hammering at me about the crookedness of
journalism in Worthington from the first."

"All right. Crookedness there is. Where does it come from? From the men
in control, mostly. Let me tell you something, you two: there's hardly a
reporter in this city who isn't more honest than the paper he works
for."

"Hifalutin nonsense," said Dr. Surtaine.

"From your point of view. You're an outsider. It's outsiders that make
the newspaper game as bad as it is. Look at 'em in this town. Who owns
the 'Banner'? A political boss. Who owns the 'News'? A brewer. The
'Star'? A promoter, and a pretty scaly one at that. The 'Observer'
belongs body and soul to an advertising agency, and the 'Telegraph' is
controlled by the banks. And one and all of 'em take their orders from
the Dry Goods Union, which means Elias M. Pierce, because they live on
its advertising."

"Why not? That's business," said Dr. Surtaine.

"Are we talking about business? I thought it was standards. What do
those men know about the ethics of journalism? If you put the thing up
to him, like as not E.M. Pierce would tell you that an ethic is
something a doctor gives you to make you sleep."

"How about the 'Clarion,' Mac?" said Hal, smiling. "It's run by an
outsider, too, isn't it?"

"That's what I want to know." There was no answering smile on Ellis's
somber and earnest face. "I've thought there was hope for you. You've
had no sound business training, thank God, so your sense of decency may
no