“Quite right.  I apologize,” said the imperturbable Enderby.  “Go on.”

“It isn’t the money loss that counts, so much as the slap in the face to the paper.  It’s a direct repudiation.  You must realize that.”

“I’m not wholly a novice in politics.”

“But I am, practically.”

“Not so much that you can’t see what Marrineal would be at.”

“Mr. Marrineal has not confided in me.”

“Nor in me,” stated the lawyer grimly.  “I don’t need his confidence to perceive his plans.”

“What do you believe them to be?”

No glimmer of a smile appeared on the visage of Judge Enderby as he countered, “Am I talking with a representative of The Patriot or—­”

“All right,” laughed Banneker. “Touche! Assume that Marrineal has political ambitions.  Surely that lies within the bounds of propriety.”

“Depends on how he pushes them.  Do you read The Patriot, Banneker?”

The editor of The Patriot smiled.

“Do you approve its methods in, let us say, the political articles?”

“I have no control over the news columns.”

“Don’t answer my question,” said the lawyer with a fine effect of patience, long-suffering and milky-mild, “if it in any way discommodes you.”

“It all comes to this,” disclosed Banneker.  “If the mayor turns on us, we can’t lie down under the whip and we won’t.  We’ll hit back.”

“Of course.”

“Editorially, I mean.”

“I understand.  At least the editorials will be a direct method of attack, and an honest one.  I may assume that much?”

“Have you ever seen anything in the editorial columns of The Patriot that would lead you to assume otherwise?”

“Answering categorically I would have to say ‘No.’

“Answer as you please.”

“Then I will say,” observed the other, speaking with marked deliberation, “that on one occasion I have failed to see matter which I thought might logically appear there and the absence of which afforded me food for thought.  Do you know Peter McClintick?”

“Yes.  Has he been talking to you about the Veridian killings?”

Enderby nodded.  “One could not but contrast your silence on that subject with your eloquence against the Steel Trust persecutions, consisting, if I recall, in putting agitators in jail for six months.  Quite wrongly, I concede.  But hardly as bad as shooting them down as they sleep, and their families with them.”

“Tell me what you would have done in my place, then.”  Banneker stated the case of the Veridian Mills strike simply and fairly.  “Could I turn the columns of his own paper on Marrineal for what was not even his fault?”

“Impossible.  Absurd, as well,” acknowledged the other

“Can you even criticize Marrineal?”

The jurist reared his gaunt, straight form up from his chair and walked across to the window, peering out into the darkness before he answered with a sort of restrained passion.