Io devoted a moment’s study to the lined and worn face of the veteran.  “No.  I think you’re right,” she pronounced.

“In any case, he isn’t responsible for The Patriot.  He can’t help it.”

“Don’t be so cryptic, Cousin Billy.  Can’t help what?  What is wrong with the paper?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“But I want to understand,” said imperious Io.

“As a basis to understanding, you’d have to read the paper.”

“I have.  Everyday.  All of it.”

He gave her a quick, reckoning look which she sustained with a slight deepening of color.  “The advertisements, too?” She nodded.  “What do you think of them?”

“Some of them are too disgusting to discuss.”

“Did it occur to you to compare them with the lofty standards of our young friend’s editorials?”

“What has he to do with the advertisements?” she countered.

“Assume, for the sake of the argument, that he has nothing to do with them.  You may have noticed a recent editorial against race-track gambling, with the suicide of a young bank messenger who had robbed his employer to pay his losses as text.”

“Well?  Surely that kind of editorial makes for good.”

“Being counsel for that bank, I happen to know the circumstances of the suicide.  The boy had pinned his faith to one of the race-track tipsters who advertise in The Patriot to furnish a list of sure winners for so much a week.”

“Do you suppose that Mr. Banneker knew that?”

“Probably not.  But he knows that his paper takes money for publishing those vicious advertisements.”

“Suppose he couldn’t help it?”

“Probably he can’t.”

“Well, what would you have him do?  Stop writing the editorials?  I think it is evidence of his courage that he should dare to attack the evils which his own paper fosters.”

“That’s one view of it, certainly,” replied Enderby dryly.  “A convenient view.  But there are other details.  Banneker is an ardent advocate of abstinence, ‘Down with the Demon Rum!’ The columns of The Patriot reek with whiskey ads.  The same with tobacco.”

“But, Cousin Billy, you don’t believe that a newspaper should shut out liquor and tobacco advertisements, do you?”

The lawyer smiled patiently.  “Come back on the track, Io,” he invited.  “That isn’t the point.  If a newspaper preaches the harm in these habits, it shouldn’t accept money for exploiting them.  Look further.  What of the loan-shark offers, and the blue-sky stock propositions, and the damnable promises of the consumption and cancer quacks?  You can’t turn a page of The Patriot without stumbling on them.  There’s a smell of death about that money.”

“Don’t all the newspapers publish the same kind of advertisements?” argued the girl.

“Certainly not.  Some won’t publish an advertisement without being satisfied of its good faith.  Others discriminate less carefully.  But there are few as bad as The Patriot.”