Banneker was annoyed at himself for flushing.  “They disseminate news.  We’ve got to have news, to carry on the world.  Only a small fraction of it is—­well, malodorous.  Would you destroy the whole system because of one flaw?  You’re not fair.”

“Fair?  Of course I’m not.  How should I be?  No; I would not destroy the system.  Merely deodorize it a bit.  But I suppose the public likes the odors.  It sniffs ’em up like—­like Cyrano in the bake-shop.  A marvelous institution, the public which you and I serve.  Have you ever thought of magazine work, Mr. Banneker?”

“A little.”

“There might be a considerable future there for you.  I say ‘might.’  Nothing is more uncertain.  But you have certain—­er—­stigmata of the writer—­That article, now, about the funereal eulogies over the old builder; did you report that talk as it was?”

“Approximately.”

“How approximately?”

“Well; the basic idea was there.  The old fellows gave me that, and I fitted it up with talk.  Surely there’s nothing dishonest in that,” protested Banneker.

“Surely not,” agreed the other.  “You gave the essence of the thing.  That is a higher veracity than any literal reporting which would be dull and unreadable.  I thought I recognized the fictional quality in the dialogue.”

“But it wasn’t fiction,” denied Banneker eagerly.

The Great Gaines gave forth one of his oracles.  “But it was.  Good dialogue is talk as it should be talked, just as good fiction is life as it should be lived—­logically and consecutively.  Why don’t you try something for The New Era?”

“I have.”

“When?”

“Before I got your note.”

“It never reached me.”

“It never reached anybody.  It’s in my desk, ripening.”

“Send it along, green, won’t you?  It may give more indications that way.  And first work is likely to be valuable chiefly as indication.”

“I’ll mail it to you.  Before I go, would you mind telling me more definitely why you advise me against the newspaper business?”

“I advise?  I never advise as to questions of morals or ethics.  I have too much concern with keeping my own straight.”

“Then it is a question of morals?”

“Or ethics.  I think so.  For example, have you tried your hand at editorials?”

“Yes.”

“Successfully?”

“As far as I’ve gone.”

“Then you are in accord with the editorial policy of The Ledger?”

“Not in everything.”

“In its underlying, unexpressed, and immanent theory that this country can best be managed by an aristocracy, a chosen few, working under the guise of democracy?”

“No; I don’t believe that, of course.”

“I do, as it happens.  But I fail to see how Christian Banneker’s son and eleve could.  Yet you write editorials for The Ledger.”

“Not on those topics.”