“News, Dad,” said Hal wearily.  “It was news.”

“Let’s not go over that again.  You’ll stick to your policy, I suppose, till it ruins you.  About finances, by the way, where do you stand?”

“Stand?” repeated Hal.  “I wish we did.  We slip.  Downhill; and pretty fast.”

“Why wouldn’t you?  Fighting your own advertisers.”

“Some advertising has come in, though.  Mostly from out of town.”

“Foreign proprietary,” said Dr. Surtaine, using the technical term for patent-medicine advertising from out of town, “isn’t it?  I’ve been doing a little missionary work among my friends in the trade, Hal; persuaded them to give the ‘Clarion’ a try-out.  The best of it is, they’re getting results.”

“They ought to.  Do you know we’re putting on circulation at the rate of nearly a thousand a week?”

“Expensive, though, isn’t it?”

“Pretty bad.  The paper costs a lot more to get out.  We’ve enlarged our staff.  Now we need a new press.  There’s thirty-odd thousand dollars, in one lump.”

“How long can you go on at this rate?”

“Without any more advertising?”

“You certainly aren’t gaining, by your present policy.”

“Well, I can stick it out through the year.  By that time the advertising will be coming in.  It’s got to come to the paper that has the circulation, Dad.”

“Hum!” droned the big doctor, dubiously.  “Have you reckoned the Pierce libel suits in?”

“He can’t win them.”

“Can’t he?  I don’t know.  He intends to try.  And he feels pretty cocky about it.  E.M.  Pierce has something up his sleeve, Boyee.”

“That would be a body-blow.  But he can’t win,” repeated Hal.  “Why, I saw the whole thing myself.”

“Just the same you ought to have the best libel lawyer you can get from New York.  All the good local men are tied up with Pierce or afraid of him.”

“Can’t afford it.”

To this point the big man had been leading up.  “I’ve been thinking over this Pierce matter, Hal, and I’ve made up my mind.  Pierce is getting to think he’s the whole thing around here.  He’s bullied this town all his life, just as he’s bullied his employees until they hate him like poison.  But now he’s gone up against the wrong game.  Roast Certina, will he?  The pup!  Why, if he’d ever run his factories or his store or his Consolidated Employees’ Organization one hundredth part as decently as I’ve run our business, he wouldn’t have to stay in nights for fear some one might sneak a knife into him out of the dark.”

This was something less than just to Elias M. Pierce, who, whatever his other faults, had never been a fearful man.