Marrineal had done the thing quite royally.  The room was superb with flowers; the menu the best devisable; the wines not wide of range, but choice of vintage.  The music was by professionals of the first grade, willing to give their favors to these powerful men of the press.  The platform table was arranged for Marrineal in the presiding chair, flanked by Banneker and the mayor:  Horace Vanney, Gaines, a judge of the Supreme Court, two city commissioners, and an eminent political boss.  The Masters, senior and junior, had been invited, but declined, the latter politely, the former quite otherwise.  Below were the small group tables, to be occupied by Banneker’s friends and contemporaries of local newspaperdom, and a few outsiders, literary, theatrical, and political.  When Banneker appeared in the reception-room where the crowd awaited, smiling, graceful, vigorous, and splendid as a Greek athlete, the whole assemblage rose in acclaim—­all but one.  Russell Edmonds, somber and thoughtful, kept his seat.  His leonine head drooped over his broad shirt-bosom.

Said Mallory of The Ledger, bending over him: 

“Look at Ban, Pop!”

“I’m looking,” gloomed Edmonds.

“What’s behind that smile?  Something frozen.  What’s the matter with him?” queried the observant Mallory.

“Too much success.”

“It’ll be too much dinner if he doesn’t look out,” remarked the other.  “He’s trying to match cocktails with every one that comes up.”

“Won’t make a bit of difference,” muttered the veteran.  “He’s all steel.  Cold steel.  Can’t touch him.”

Marrineal led the way out of the ante-room to the banquet, escorting Banneker.  Never had the editor of The Patriot seemed to be more completely master of himself.  The drink had brightened his eyes, brought a warm flush to the sun-bronze of his cheek, lent swiftness to his tongue.  He was talking brilliantly, matching epigrams with the Great Gaines, shrewdly poking good-natured fun at the stolid and stupid mayor, holding his and the near-by tables in spell with reminiscences in which so many of them shared.  Some wondered how he would have anything left for his speech.

While the game course was being served, Ely Ives was summoned outside.  Banneker, whose faculties had taken on a preternatural acuteness, saw, when he returned, that his face had whitened and sharpened; watched him write a note which he folded and pinned before sending it to Marrineal.  In the midst of a story, which he carried without interruption, the guest of honor perceived a sort of glaze settle over his chief’s immobile visage; the next moment he had very slightly shaken his head at Ives.  Banneker concluded his story.  Marrineal capped it with another.  Ives, usually abstemious as befits one who practices sleight-of-hand and brain, poured his empty goblet full of champagne and emptied it in long, eager draughts.  The dinner went on.