“What else is worrying you, Ban?” she asked.

Banneker did not want to talk about that.  He wanted to talk about Io, about themselves.  He said so.  She shook her head.

“Tell me about the paper.”

“Oh, just the usual complications.  There’s nothing to interest you in them.”

“Everything,” she maintained ardently.

Banneker caught his breath.  Had she given him her lips, it could hardly have meant more—­perhaps not meant so much as this tranquil assumption of her right to share in the major concerns of his life.

“If you’ve been reading the paper,” he began, and waited for her silent nod before going on, “you know our attitude toward organized labor.”

“Yes.  You are for it when it is right and not always against it when it is wrong.”

“One can’t split hairs in a matter of editorial policy.  I’ve made The Patriot practically the mouthpiece of labor in this city; much more so than the official organ, which has no influence and a small following.  Just now I’m specially anxious to hold them in line for the mayoralty campaign.  We’ve got to elect Robert Laird.  Otherwise we’ll have such an orgy of graft and rottenness as the city has never seen.”

“Isn’t the labor element for Laird?”

“It isn’t against him, except that he is naturally regarded as a silk-stocking.  The difficulty isn’t politics.  There’s some new influence in local labor circles that is working against me; against The Patriot.  I think it’s a fellow named McClintick, a new man from the West.”

“Perhaps he wants to be bought off.”

“You’re thinking of the old style of labor leader,” returned Banneker.  “It isn’t as simple as that.  No; from what I hear, he’s a fanatic.  And he has great influence.”

“Get hold of him and talk it out with him,” advised Io.

“I intend to.”  He brooded for a moment.  “There isn’t a man in New York,” he said fretfully, “that has stood for the interests of the masses and against the power of money as I have.  Why, Io, before we cut loose in The Patriot, a banker or a railroad president was sacrosanct.  His words were received with awe.  Wall Street was the holy of holies, not to be profaned by the slightest hint of impiety.  Well, we’ve changed all that!  Not I, alone.  Our cartoons have done more than the editorials.  Every other paper in town has had to follow our lead.  Even The Ledger.”

“I like The Ledger,” declared Io.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.  It has a sort of dignity; the dignity of self-respect.”

“Hasn’t The Patriot?” demanded the jealous Banneker.

“Not a bit,” she answered frankly, “except for your editorials.  They have the dignity of good workmanship, and honesty, and courage, even when you’re wrong.”

“Are we so often wrong, Io?” he said wistfully.

“Dear boy, you can’t expect a girl, brought up as I have been, to believe that society is upside down, and would be better if it were tipped over the other way and run by a lot of hod-carriers and ditch-diggers and cooks.  Can you, now?”