Opportunity was not lacking to Marrineal for objections to a policy which made powerful enemies for the paper; Banneker, once assured of his following, had hit out right and left.  From being a weak-kneed and rather apologetic defender of the “common people,” The Patriot had become, logically, under Banneker’s vigorous and outspoken policy, a proponent of the side of labor against capital.  It had hotly supported two important and righteous local strikes and been the chief agent in winning one.  With equal fervor it had advocated a third strike whose justice was at best dubious and had made itself anathema, though the strike was lost, to an industrial group which was honestly striving to live up to honorable standards.  It had offended a powerful ring of bankers and for a time embarrassed Marrineal in his loans.  It had threatened editorial reprisals upon a combination of those feared and arrogant advertisers, the department stores, for endeavoring, with signal lack of success, to procure the suppression of certain market news.  It became known as independent, honest, unafraid, radical (in Wall Street circles “socialistic” or even “anarchistic"), and, to the profession, as dangerous to provoke.  Advertisers were, from time to time, alienated; public men, often of The Patriot’s own trend of thought, opposed.  Commercial associations even passed resolutions, until Banneker took to publishing them with such comment as seemed to him good and appropriate.  Marrineal uttered no protest, though the unlucky Haring beat his elegantly waistcoated breast and uttered profane if subdued threats of resigning, which were for effect only; for The Patriot’s circulation continued to grow and the fact to which every advertising expert clings as to the one solid hope in a vaporous calling, is that advertising follows circulation.

Seldom did Banneker see his employer in the office, but Marrineal often came to the Saturday nights of The House With Three Eyes, which had already attained the fame of a local institution.  As the numbers drawn to it increased, it closed its welcoming orbs earlier and earlier, and, once they were darkened, there was admittance only for the chosen few.

It was a first Saturday in October, New York’s homing month for its indigenous social birds and butterflies, when The House triply blinked itself into darkness at the untimely hour of eleven-forty-five.  There was the usual heterogeneous crowd there, alike in one particular alone, that every guest represented, if not necessarily distinction, at least achievement in his own line.  Judge Willis Enderby, many times invited, had for the first time come.  At five minutes after midnight, the incorruptible doorkeeper sent an urgent message requesting Mr. Banneker’s personal attention to a party who declined politely but firmly to be turned away.  The host, answering the summons, found Io.  She held out both hands to him.

“Say you’re glad to see me,” she said imperatively.