“Sit down, Mr. Banneker,” he said.

Banneker compiled.

“We can’t use that Sippiac story.”

Banneker sat silent and attentive.

“Why did you write it that way?”

“I wrote it as I got it.”

“It is not a fair story.”

“Every fact—­”

“It is a most unfair story.”

“Do you know Sippiac, Mr. Gordon?” inquired Banneker equably.

“I do not.  Nor can I believe it possible that you could acquire the knowledge of it implied in your article, in a few hours.”

“I spent some time investigating conditions there before I came on the paper.”

Mr. Gordon was taken aback.  Shifting his stylus to his left hand, he assailed severally the knuckles of his right therewith before he spoke.  “You know the principles of The Ledger, Mr. Banneker.”

“To get the facts and print them, so I have understood.”

“These are not facts.”  The managing editor rapped sharply upon the proof.  “This is editorial matter, hardly disguised.”

“Descriptive, I should call it,” returned the writer amiably.

“Editorial.  You have pictured Sippiac as a hell on earth.”

“It is.”

“Sentimentalism!” snapped the other.  His heavy visage wore a disturbed and peevish expression that rendered it quite plaintive.  “You have been with us long enough, Mr. Banneker, to know that we do not cater to the uplift-social trade, nor are we after the labor vote.”

“Yes, sir.  I understand that.”

“Yet you present here, what is, in effect, a damning indictment of the Sippiac Mills.”

“The facts do that; not I.”

“But you have selected your facts, cleverly—­oh, very cleverly—­to produce that effect, while ignoring facts on the other side.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the presence and influence of agitators.  The evening editions have the names, and some of the speeches.”

“That is merely clouding the main issue.  Conditions are such there that no outside agitation is necessary to make trouble.”

“But the agitators are there.  They’re an element and you have ignored it.  Mr. Banneker, do you consider that you are dealing fairly with this paper, in attempting to commit it to an inflammatory, pro-strike course?”

“Certainly, if the facts constitute that kind of an argument.”

“What of that picture of Horace Vanney?  Is that news?”

“Why not?  It goes to the root of the whole trouble.”

“To print that kind of stuff,” said Mr. Gordon forcibly, “would make The Ledger a betrayer of its own cause.  What you personally believe is not the point.”

“I believe in facts.”

“It is what The Ledger believes that is important here.  You must appreciate that, as long as you remain on the staff, your only honorable course is to conform to the standards of the paper.  When you write an article, it appears to our public, not as what Mr. Banneker says, but as what The Ledger says.”