Local Color Part 27

"Perhaps so," said Mr. Foxman; "let's see if making a change won't work a cure. Do you see this?" and he put his hand on the sheaf of Singlebury's copy lying on his desk, under the captions he himself had done. "Well, this may turn out to be the biggest beat and the most important story that we've put over in a year. It's all ready to go to the type-setting machines--I just finished reading copy on it myself.

But if it leaks out--if a single word about this story gets out of this building before we're ready to turn it loose on the street--the man responsible for that leak is going to lose his job no matter who or what he is. Understand?

"Now, then, excepting you and me and the man who wrote it, n.o.body employed inside this building knows there is such a story. I want you to take it upstairs with you now. Don't let 'em cut it up into regular takes for the machines. Tell the composing-room foreman--it'll be Riordan, I guess--that he's to take his two best machine operators off of whatever they're doing and put 'em to work setting this story up, and nothing else. Those two men are to keep right at it until it's done. I want a good, safe-mouthed man to set the head. I want the fastest proofreader up there, whoever that may be, to read the galley proofs, holding copy on it himself. Impress it on Riordan to tell the proofreader, the head setter and the two machine men that they are not to gab to anyone about what they're doing. When the story is corrected I want you to put it inside a chase with a hold-for-release line on it, and cover it up with print paper, sealed and pasted on, and roll it aside. We've already got one hold-for-release yarn in type upstairs; it's a Washington dispatch dealing with the Mexican situation. Better put the two stories close together somewhere out of the way. Riordan will know where to hide them. Then you bring a set of clean proofs of this story down here to me--to-night. I'll wait right here for you.

"I'd like to run the thing to-morrow morning, leading with two columns on the front page and a two-column turnover on page two. But I can't.

There's just one point to be cleared up before it'll be safe to print it. I expect to clear up that point myself to-morrow. Then if everything is all right I'll let you know and we'll probably go to the bat with the story Friday morning; that'll be day after to-morrow. If it should turn out that we can't use it I want you to dump the whole thing, head and all, and melt up the lead and forget that such a story ever pa.s.sed through your hands. Because if it is safe--if we have got all our facts on straight--it'll be a great beat. But if we haven't it'll be about the most dangerous chunk of potential libel that we could have knocking about that composing room. Do you get the point?"

Hemburg said he got it. His instructions were unusual; but, then, from Mr. Foxman's words and manner, he realised that the story must be a most unusual one too. He carried out the injunctions that had been put upon him, literally and painstakingly. And while so engaged he solemnly pledged himself never again to touch another drop of rum so long as he lived. He had made the same promise a hundred times before. But this time was different--this time he meant it. He was tired of being a hack and a drudge. This was a real opportunity which Mr. Foxman had thrown in his way. It opened up a vista of advancement and betterment before him.

He would be a fool not to make the most of it, and a bigger fool still ever to drink again.

Oh, but he meant it! It would be the straight and narrow path for him hereafter; the good old water-wagon for his, world without end, amen.

Noticeably more tremulous as to his fingers and his lips, but borne up with his high resolve, he put the clean proofs of the completed story into Mr. Foxman's hands about midnight, and then hurried back upstairs to shape the layout for the first mail edition.

As Mr. Foxman read the proofs through he smiled under his moustache, and it was not a particularly pleasant smile, either. Printer's ink gave to Singlebury's masterpiece a sinister emphasis it had lacked in the typewritten copy; it made it more forceful and more forcible. Its allegations stuck out from the column-wide lines like naked lance tips.

And in the top deck of the flaring scare head the name of John W. Blake stood forth in heavy black letters to catch the eye and focus the attention. Mr. Foxman rolled up the proof sheets, bestowed them carefully in the inside breast pocket of his coat, and shortly thereafter went home and to bed.

But not to sleep. Pleasing thoughts, all trimmed up with dollar marks, ran through his head, chasing away drowsiness. All the same he was up at eight o'clock that morning--two hours ahead of his usual rising time.

Mrs. Foxman was away paying a visit to her people up-state--another fortunate thing. He breakfasted alone and, as he sipped his coffee, he glanced about him with a sudden contempt for the simple furnishings of his dining room. Well, there was some consolation--this time next year, if things went well, he wouldn't be slaving his life out for an unappreciative taskmaster, and he wouldn't be living in this cheap, twelve-hundred-dollar-a-year flat, either. His conscience did not trouble him; from the moment the big notion came to him it had not.

Greed had drugged it to death practically instantaneously.

No lees of remorse, no dreggy and bitterish reflections, touching upon the treachery he contemplated and the disloyalty to which he had committed himself, bothered him through that busy day. In his brain was no room for such things, but only for a high cheerfulness and exaltation. To be sure, he was counting his chickens before they were hatched, but the eggs were laid, and he didn't see how they could possibly addle between now and the tallying time of achieved incubation.

So, with him in this frame of mind, the day started. And it was a busy day.

His first errand was to visit the safety-deposit vaults of a bank on lower Broadway. In a box here, in good stable securities of a total value of about sixteen thousand dollars, he had the bulk of his savings.

He got them out and took them upstairs, and on a demand note the president of the bank loaned him twelve thousand dollars, taking Mr.

Foxman's stocks and bonds as collateral. In the bank he had as a checking account a deposit somewhat in excess of two thousand dollars.

Lying to Mrs. Foxman's credit was the sum of exactly ten thousand dollars, a legacy from an aunt recently dead, for which as yet Mrs.

Foxman and her husband had found no desirable form of investment.

Fortunately he held her power of attorney. He transferred the ten thousand from her name to his, which, with what he had just borrowed and what he himself had on deposit, gave him an available working capital of a trifle above twenty-four thousand dollars. He wrote a check payable to bearer for the whole stake and had it certified, and then, tucking it away in his pocket, he went round the corner into Broad Street to call upon John W. Blake at the Blake Bank. The supreme moment toward which he had been advancing was at hand.

As a man of multifarious and varied interests, and all of them important, Mr. Blake was a reasonably busy man. Before now ordinary newspaper men had found it extremely hard to see Mr. Blake. But Mr.

Foxman was no ordinary newspaper man; he was the managing editor of _The Clarion_, a paper of standing and influence, even if it didn't happen to be a money-maker at present. Across a marble-pillared, bra.s.s-grilled barrier Mr. Foxman sent in his card to Mr. Blake and, with the card, the word that Mr. Foxman desired to see Mr. Blake upon pressing and immediate business. He was not kept waiting for long. An office boy turned him over to a clerk and the clerk in turn turned him over to a secretary, and presently, having been ushered through two outer rooms, Mr. Foxman, quite at his ease, was sitting in Mr. Blake's private office, while Mr. Blake read through the galley proofs of Singlebury's story to which the caller had invited his attention.

The gentleman's face, as he read on, gave no index to the feelings of the gentleman. Anyhow, Mr. Blake's face was more of a manifest than an index; its expression summed up conclusions rather than surmises. As a veteran player--and a highly successful one--in the biggest and most chancy game in the world, Mr. Blake was fortunate in having what lesser gamesters call a poker face. Betraying neither surprise, chagrin nor indignation, he read the article through to the last paragraph of the last column. Then carefully he put the crumpled sheets down on his big desk, leaned back in his chair, made a wedge of his two hands by matching finger tip to finger tip, aimed the point of the wedge directly at Mr. Foxman, and looked with a steadfast eye at his visitor. His visitor looked back at him quite as steadily, and for a moment or two nothing was said.

"Well, Mr. Foxman?" remarked Mr. Blake at length. There was a mild speculation in his inflection--nothing more.

"Well, Mr. Blake?" replied the other in the same casual tone.

"I suppose we needn't waste any time sparring about," said Mr. Blake. "I gather that your idea is to publish this--this attack, in your paper?"

"That, Mr. Blake, is exactly my idea, unless"--and for just a moment Mr.

Foxman paused--"unless something should transpire to cause me to change my mind."

"I believe you told me when you came in that at this moment you are in absolute control of the columns and the policy of _The Clarion_?"

"I am--absolutely."

"And might it be proper for me to ask when you contemplate printing this article--in what issue?" Mr. Blake was very polite, but no more so than Mr. Foxman. Each was taking the cue for his pose from the other.

"It is a perfectly proper question, Mr. Blake," said Mr. Foxman. "I may decide to print it day after to-morrow morning. In the event of certain contingencies I might print it to-morrow morning, and again on the other hand"--once more he spoke with deliberate slowness--"I might see my way clear to suppressing it altogether. It all depends, Mr. Blake."

"Did it ever occur to you that with this warning which you have so kindly given me, I have ample opportunity to enjoin you in the courts from printing all or any part of this article on to-morrow or any subsequent day?"

"You are at perfect liberty to try to enjoin us, Mr. Blake. But did it ever occur to you that such a step wouldn't help your case in the least? Go ahead and enjoin, Mr. Blake, if you care to, and see what would happen to you in the matter of--well, let us say, undesirable publicity. Instead of one paper printing these facts--for they are facts, Mr. Blake--you would have all the papers printing them in one shape or another."

"Without arguing that point further just now, might I be allowed to mention that I fail to understand your motive in coming to me, Mr.

Foxman, at this time?" said the banker.

"Mr. Blake," said Mr. Foxman, contemplating the tip of his cigar, "I'll give you two guesses as to my motive, and your first guess will be the correct one."

"I see," stated the other meditatively, almost gently. Then, still with no evidences of heat or annoyance: "Mr. Foxman, there is a reasonably short and rather ugly word to describe what you are driving at. Here in this part of town we call it blackmail."

"Mr. Blake," answered the editor evenly, "there is a much shorter and even uglier word which describes your intentions. You will find that word in the second--or possibly it is the third--line of the first paragraph of the matter you have just been reading. The word is 'steal.'"

"Possibly you are right, Mr. Foxman," said Mr. Blake dryly. He drew the proof sheets to him, adjusted his gla.s.ses and looked at the topmost sheet. "Yes, you are right, Mr. Foxman--I mean about the word in question. It appears in the second line." He shoved the proofs aside.

"It would appear you are a reasonable man--with a business instinct. I flatter myself that I am reasonable and I have been in business a good many years. Now, then, since we appear to be on the point of thoroughly understanding each other, may I ask you another question?"

"You may."

"What is your price for continuing to be--ahem--reasonable?"

"I can state it briefly, Mr. Blake. Being a newspaper man, I am not a wealthy man. I have an ambition to become wealthy. I look to you to aid me in the accomplishment of that desire. You stand in a fair way to make a great deal of money, though you already have a great deal. I stand in the position not only of being able to prevent you from making that money, but of being able to make a great deal of trouble for you, besides. Or, looking at the other side of the proposition, I have the power to permit you to go ahead with your plans. Whether or not I exercise that power rests entirely with you. Is that quite plain?"

"Very. Pray proceed, Mr. Foxman. You were going to say----"

"I was going to say that since you hope to make a great deal of money I wish by cooperation with you, as it were, to make for myself a sum which I regard as ample for my present needs."

"And by ample--you mean what?"

"I mean this: You are to carry me with your brokers for ten thousand shares of the common stock of the Pearl Street trolley line on a ten-point margin. The account may be opened in the name of Mr. X; I, of course, being Mr. X. I apprehend that the party known as X will see his way clear to closing out the account very shortly after the formal announcement of your plans for the East Side transit merger--certainly within a few days. If there should be any losses you will stand them up to and including the ten-point margin. If there should be any profits they go, of course, to Mr. X. I do not antic.i.p.ate that there will be any losses, and I do antic.i.p.ate that there will be some profits. In payment for this friendly accommodation on your part, I for my part will engage to prevent the publication in _The Clarion_, or elsewhere, of the statements contained in those proofs and now standing in type in our composing room, subject to my order to print the story forthwith, or to withhold it, or to kill it outright."

"Anything else, Mr. Foxman?" inquired Mr. Blake blandly.

"Yes, one other thing: You are to give the necessary order now, in my presence, over the telephone to your brokers. After that you are to go with me to their offices to complete the transaction and to identify me properly as the Mr. X who is to be the owner of this particular account; also you are to explain to them that thereafter the account is subject to my orders and mine alone. I think that will be sufficient."

"It would seem, Mr. Foxman, that you do not trust me to deal fairly with you in this matter?"

"I do not have to trust you, Mr. Blake. And so I choose not to."

"Exactly. And what guaranty have I that you will do your part?"

"Only my word, Mr. Blake. You will observe now that the shoe is on the other foot. I do not have to trust you--whereas you do have to trust me.

But if you need any guaranty other than the thought of where my self-interest lies in the matter I may tell you that in addition to the stocks which you are to carry for me I intend to invest in Pearl Street common to the full extent of my available cash resources, also on a ten-point margin. Here is the best proof of that." He hauled out his certified check for twenty-four thousand and some odd dollars and handed it over to Mr. Blake.

Mr. Blake barely glanced at it and handed it back, at the same time reaching for his desk telephone.

"Mr. Foxman," he said, "there may be some pain but there is also considerable pleasure to me in dealing with a reasonable man. I see that your mind is made up. Why then should we quibble? You win, Mr.

Foxman--you win in a walk. Whatever opinions I may entertain as to your private character and whatever opinions you may entertain as to my private character, I may at least venture to congratulate you upon your intelligence. ... Oh, yes, while I think of it, there is one other thing, Mr. Foxman: I don't suppose you would care to tell me just how you came into possession of the information contained in your article?"