We'd lose
that."

"Speaking of advertising,"--now it was Lynch, a young reporter who had
risen from being an office boy,--"I guess it spoils some pretty good
stories from the down-town district. Look at that accident at Scheffer
and Mintz's; worth three columns of anybody's space. Tank on the roof
broke, and drowned out a couple of hundred customers. Panic, and broken
bones, and all kinds of things. How much did we give it? One stick! And
we didn't name the place: just called it 'a Washington Street store.'
There were facts behind _that_ news, all right. But I guess Mr.
Shearson wouldn't have been pleased if we'd printed 'em."

In fact, Shearson, the advertising manager, looked far from pleased at
the mention.

"If you think a one-day story would pay for the loss of five thousand a
year in advertising, you've got another guess, young man," he growled.

"He's right, there," said Dr. Surtaine, on one side of Hal; and from the
other, McGuire Ellis chirped:--

"Things are beginning to open up, all right, Mr. Editor."

Two aspirants were now vying for the floor, the winner being the
political reporter for the paper.

"Would you like to hear some facts about the news we don't print?" he
asked.

"Go ahead," replied Hal. "You have the floor."

"You recall a big suffrage meeting here recently, at which Mrs. Barkerly
from London spoke. Well, the chairman of that meeting didn't get a line
of his speech in the papers: didn't even get his name mentioned. Do you
know why?"

"I can't even imagine," said Hal.

"Because he's the Socialist candidate for Governor of this State. He's
blackballed from publication in every newspaper here."

"By whom?" inquired Hal.

"By the hinted wish of the Chamber of Commerce. They're so afraid of the
Socialist movement that they daren't even admit it's alive."

"Not at all!" Dr. Surtaine's rotund bass boomed out the denial. "There
are some movements that it's wisest to disregard. They'll die of
themselves. Socialism is a destructive force. Why should the papers help
spread it by noticing it in their columns?"

"Well, I'm no Socialist," said the political reporter, "but I'm a
newspaper man, and I say it's news when a Socialist does a thing just as
much as when any one else does it. Yet if I tried to print it, they'd
give me the laugh on the copy-desk."

"It's a fact that we're all tied down on the news in this town,"
corroborated Wayne; "what between the Chamber of Commerce and the Dr