“No.  Meaning Parker, and the whole ‘Telegram’ outfit.”

“Why?”

“Because they printed that interview.”

“What’s wrong with it?  It’s news.”

“Don’t be positively infantile, Boss.  Newspapers don’t print libel actions brought against other newspapers.  It’s unprofessional.  It’s unethical.  It isn’t straight.”

“No:  I don’t see that at all,” decided Hal, after some consideration.  “That amounts simply to this, that the newspapers are in a combination to discourage libel actions, by suppressing all mention of them.”

“Certainly.  Why not?  Libel suits are generally holdups.”

“I think the ‘Telegram’ is right.  Whatever Pierce says is news, and interesting news.”

“You bet Parker would never have carried that if his holding corporation wasn’t a heavy borrower in the Pierce banks.”

“Maybe not.  But I think we’ll carry it.”

“In the ’Clarion’?” almost shouted Ellis.

“Certainly.  Let’s have Wayne send a reporter around to Pierce.  If Pierce won’t give us an interview, we’ll reprint the ‘Telegram’s,’ with credit.”

“We’d be cutting our own throats, and playing Pierce’s game.  Besides, stuff about ourselves isn’t news.”

Hal’s inexperience had this virtue, that it was free of the besetting and prejudicial superstitions of the craft of print.  “If it’s interesting, it’s the ‘Clarion’ kind of news.”

Ellis, about to protest further, met the younger man’s level gaze, and swallowed hard.

“All right,” he said.  “I’ll tell Wayne.”

So the “Clarion” violated another tradition of newspaperdom, to the amused contempt of its rivals, who were, however, possibly not quite so amused or so contemptuous as they appeared editorially to be.  Also it followed up the interview with an explicit statement of its own intentions in the matter, which were not precisely music to the savage breast of E.M.  Pierce.

Evidences of that formidable person’s hostilities became increasingly manifest from day to day.  One morning a fire marshal dropped casually in upon the “Clarion” office, looked the premises over, and called the owner’s attention to several minor and unsuspected violations of the law, the adjustment of which would involve no small inconvenience and several hundred dollars outlay.  By a curious coincidence, later in the day, a factory inspector happened around,—­a newspaper office being, legally, within the definition of a factory,—­and served a summons on McGuire Ellis as publisher, for permitting smoking in the city room.  From time immemorial every edition of every newspaper in the United States of America has evolved out of rolling clouds of tobacco smoke:  but the “Clarion” alone, apparently, had come within the purview of the law.  Subsequently, Hal learned, to his amusement, that all the other newspaper offices were placarded with notices of the law in Yiddish, so that none might be unduly disturbed thereby!  To give point to the discrimination, down on the street, a zealous policeman arrested one of the “Clarion’s” bulk-paper handlers for obstructing the sidewalk.