“Oh, I don’t want too much credit for my idea.  A fair share of it belongs to a bald-headed and snarling old nondescript whom I met one day in the Public Library and shall probably never meet again anywhere.  Somebody had pointed me out—­it was after that shooting mess—­and the old fellow came up to me and growled out, ‘Employed on a newspaper?’ I admitted it.  ‘What do you know about news?’ was his next question.  Well, I’m always open to any fresh slants on the business, so I asked him politely what he knew.  He put on an expression like a prayerful owl and said, ’Suppose I came into your office with the information that a destructive plague was killing off the earthworms?’ Naturally, I thought one of the librarians had put up a joke on me; so I said, ’Refer you to the Anglers’ Department of the All-Outdoors Monthly.’  ’That is as far as you could see into the information?’ he said severely.  I had to confess that it was.  ‘And you are supposed to be a judge of news!’ he snarled.  Well, he seemed so upset about it that I tried to be soothing by asking him if there was an earthworm pestilence in progress.  ‘No,’ answers he, ’and lucky for you.  For if the earthworms all died, so would you and the rest of us, including your accursed brood of newspapers, which would be some compensation.  Read Darwin,’ croaks the old bird, and calls me a callow fool, and flits.”

“Who was he?  Did you find out?” asked Edmonds.

“Some scientific grubber from the museum.  I looked up the Darwin book and decided that he was right; not Darwin; the old croaker.”

“Still, that was not precisely news,” pointed out Marrineal.

“Theoretical news.  I’m not sure,” pursued Banneker, struck with a new idea, “that that isn’t the formula for editorial writing; theoretical news.  Supplemented by analytical news, of course.”

“Philosophizing over Darwin and dead worms would hardly inspire half a million readers to follow your editorial output, day after day.”  Marrineal delivered his opinion suavely.

“Not if written in the usual style, suggesting a conscientious rehash of the encyclopedia.  But suppose it were done differently, and with a caption like this, ‘Why Does an Angle-Worm Wriggle?’ Set that in irregular type that weaved and squirmed across the column, and Jones-in-the-street-car would at least look at it.”

“Good Heavens!  I should think so,” assented Marrineal.  “And call for the police.”

“Or, if that is too sensational,” continued Banneker, warming up, “we could head it ‘Charles Darwin Would Never Go Fishing, Because’ and a heavy dash after ‘because.’”

“Fakey,” pronounced Edmonds.  “Still, I don’t know that there’s any harm in that kind of faking.”

“Merely a trick to catch the eye.  I don’t know whether Darwin ever went fishing or not.  Probably he did if only for his researches.  But, in essentials, I’m giving ’em a truth; a big truth.”

“What?” inquired Marrineal.