“Hurt!  It draws blood, that does.  That Sewing Aid Association is Gibbs’s scheme to supply the children’s department of his store.  Why couldn’t you find out who you were hitting, Mr. Surtaine?” demanded Shearson pathetically, “before you went and mucksed everything up this way?  See what comes of all this reform guff.”

“Are you sure that John M. Gibbs is back of that sewing-girl ad?”

“Sure?  Didn’t he call me up this morning and raise the devil?”

“Thank you, Mr. Shearson.  That’s all.”

To his editorial galley-proof Hal added two lines.

“What’s that, Mr. Surtaine?” asked the advertising manager curiously.

“That’s outside of your department.  But since you ask, I’ll tell you.  It’s an editorial on the kind of swindle that causes tragedies like Maggie Breen’s.  And the sentence which I have just added, thanks to you, is this: 

“’The proprietor of this scheme which drives penniless women to the street or to suicide is John M. Gibbs, principal owner of the Boston Store.’”

Words failed Shearson; also motive power, almost.  For reckonable seconds he stood stricken.  Then slowly he got under way and rolled through the door.  Once, on the stairs, they heard from him a protracted rumbling groan.  “Ruin,” was the one distinguishable word.

It left an echo in Hal’s brain, an echo which rang hollowly amongst misgivings.

“Is it ruin to try and run a newspaper without taking a percentage of that kind of profits, Mac?” he asked.

“Well, a newspaper can’t be too squeamish about its ads.” was the cautious answer.

“Do all newspapers carry that kind of stuff?”

“Not quite.  Most of them, though.  They need the money.”

“What’s the matter with business in this town?  Everything seems to be rotten.”

Ellis took refuge in a proverb.  “Business is business,” he stated succinctly.

“And it’s as bad everywhere as here?  This is all new to me, you know.  I rather expected to find every concern as decently and humanly run as Certina.”

One swift, suspicious glance Ellis cast upon his superior, but Hal’s face was candor itself.  “Well, no,” he admitted.  “Perhaps it isn’t as bad in some cities.  The trouble here is that all the papers are terrorized or bribed into silence.  Until we began hitting out with our little shillalah, nobody had ever dared venture a peep of disapproval.  So, business got to thinking it could do as it pleased.  You can’t really blame business much.  Immunity from criticism isn’t ever good for the well-known human race.”

Hal took the matter of the “Sewing Aid” swindle home with him for consideration.  Hitherto he had considered advertising only as it affected or influenced news.  Now he began to see it in another light, as a factor in itself of immense moral moment and responsibility.  It was dimly outlined to his conscience that, as a partner in the profit, he became also a partner in the enterprise.  Thus he faced the question of the honesty or dishonesty of the advertising in his paper.  And this is a question fraught with financial portent for the honorable journalist.