Slowly the printer turned his fine, serious face from one to the other.  “Ah,” he said presently.  “So it is arranged.  We do not print this paragraph.  Good!”

Impossible to take offense at the tone.  Yet the smile which accompanied it was so plainly a sneer that Hal’s color rose.

“Mr. Surtaine is the new owner of the ‘Clarion,’” explained Ellis.

“In that case, of course,” said Veltman quietly.  “Good-night, gentlemen.”

“Good-looking chap,” remarked Hal.  “But what a curious expression.”

“Veltman’s a thinker and a crank,” said Ellis.  “If he had a little more balance he’d make his mark.  But he’s a sort of melancholiac.  Ill-health, nerves, and a fixed belief in the general wrongness of creation.”

“Well.  I’ll get to know more about the shop to-morrow,” said Hal.  “I’m for home and sleep just now.  See you at—­what time, by the way?”

“Noon,” said Sterne.  “If that suits you.”

“Perfectly.  Good-night.”

Arrived at home, Hal went straight to the big ground-floor library where, as the light suggested, his father sat reading.

“Dad, do you want a retraction printed?”

“Of the ‘Clarion’ article?”

“Yes.”

“From ‘Want’ to ‘Get’ the road runs rocky,” said the senior Surtaine whimsically.

“I’ve just come from removing a few of the rocks at the ‘Clarion’ office.”

“Go down to lick the editor?” Dr. Surtaine’s eyes twinkled.

“There may have been some such notion in the back of my head.”

“Expensive exercise.  Did you do it?”

“No.  He had a club.”

“If I were running a slander-machine like the ‘Clarion’ I’d want six-inch armor-plate and a quick-fire battery.  Well, what did you do?”

“Bought the paper.”

“You needn’t have gone down town to do that.  It comes to the office.”

“You don’t understand.  I’ve bought the ‘Clarion,’ presses, plant, circulation, franchise, good-will, ill-will, high, low, jack, and the game.”

“You!  What for?”

“Why,” said Hal thoughtfully; “mainly because I lost my temper, I believe.”

“Sounds like a pretty heavy loss, Boy-ee.”

“Two hundred and thirty thousand dollars.  Oh, the prodigal son hasn’t got anything on me, Dad, when it comes to scattering patrimonies,” he concluded a little ruefully.

“What are you going to do with it, now you’ve got it?”

“Run it.  I’ve bought a career.”

“Now you’re talking.”  The big man jumped up and set both hands on Hal’s shoulders.  “That’s the kind of thing I like to hear, and in the kind of way it ought to be said.  You go to it, Hal.  I’ll back you, as far as you like.”

“No, sir.  I thank you just the same:  this is my game.”

“Want to play it alone, do you?”

“How else can I make a career of it?”

“Right you are, Boyee.  But it takes something behind money to build up a newspaper.  And the ‘Clarion’ ’ll take some building up.”