“Swelled head, sure,” diagnosed Decker, the financial reporter of The Ledger.  “Well, watch the great Chinese joss, Greenough, pull the props from under him when the time comes.”

“As how?” inquired Glidden.

“By handing him a nawsty one out of the assignment book, just to show him where his hat fits too tight.”

“A run of four-line obits,” suggested Van Cleve, who had passed a painful apprenticeship of death-notices in which is neither profitable space nor hopeful opportunity, “for a few days, will do it.”

“Or the job of asking an indignant millionaire papa why his pet daughter ran away with the second footman and where.”

“Or interviewing old frozen-faced Willis Enderby on his political intentions, honorable or dishonorable.”

“If I know Banneker,” said Mallory, “he’s game.  He’ll take what’s handed him and put it over.”

“Once, maybe,” contributed Tommy Burt.  “Twice, perhaps.  But I wouldn’t want to crowd too much on him.”

“Greenough won’t.  He’s wise in the ways of marvelous and unlicked cubs,” said Decker.

“Why?  What do you think Banneker would do?” asked Mallory curiously, addressing Burt.

“If he got an assignment too rich for his stomach?  Well, speaking unofficially and without special knowledge, I’d guess that he’d handle it to a finish, and then take his very smart and up-to-date hat and perform a polite adieu to Mr. Greenough and all the works of The Ledger city room.”

A thin, gray, somnolent elder at the end of the table, whose nobly cut face was seared with lines of physical pain endured and outlived, withdrew a very small pipe from his mouth and grunted.

“The Venerable Russell Edmonds has the floor,” said Tommy Burt in a voice whose open raillery subtly suggested an underlying affection and respect.  “He snorts, and in that snort is sublimated the wisdom and experience of a ripe ninety years on Park Row.  Speak, O Compendium of all the—­”

“Shut up, Tommy,” interrupted Edmonds.  He resumed his pipe, gave it two anxious puffs, and, satisfied of its continued vitality, said: 

“Banneker, uh?  Resign, uh?  You think he would?”

“I think so.”

“Does he think so?”

“That’s my belief.”

“He won’t,” pronounced the veteran with finality.  “They never do.  They chafe.  They strain.  They curse out the job and themselves.  They say it isn’t fit for any white man.  So it isn’t, the worst of it.  But they stick.  If they’re marked for it, they stick.”

“Marked for it?” murmured Glidden.

“The ink-spot.  The mark of the beast.  I’ve got it.  You’ve got it, Glidden, and you, McHale.  Mallory’s smudged with it.  Tommy thinks it’s all over him, but it isn’t.  He’ll end between covers.  Fiction, like as not,” he added with a mildly contemptuous smile.  “But this young Banneker; it’s eaten into him like acid.”