“Humph!” grunted Ames. Then he began to reflect. An example, backed by absolute fearlessness––and he knew from experience that the publishers of the Express were without fear––well, it could not be wholly ignored, even if the new paper had no circulation worth the name.
“Mr. Ames,” resumed the brewer, “the Express is in every newsstand in the city. All the boys are selling it. It’s in every hotel, in every saloon, in every store and business house here. It’s in the dives. It isn’t sold, it’s given away! Where do they get their money?”
Ames himself wondered. And he determined to find out.
“Leave it to me, Claus,” he said at length, dismissing the brewer. “I’ll send for you in a day or so.”
It was well after midnight when the little group assembled in the dining room of the Beaubien cottage to resume their interrupted discussions. Hitt and Haynerd were the last to arrive. They found Doctor Morton eagerly awaiting them. With him had come, not without some reluctance, his prickly disputant, Reverend Patterson Moore, and another friend and colleague, Doctor Siler, whose interest in these unique gatherings had been aroused by Morton.
“I’ve tried to give him a résumé of our previous deductions,” the latter explained, as Hitt prepared to open the discussion. “And he says he has conscientious scruples––if you know what that means.”
“He’s a Philistine, that’s all, eh?” offered Haynerd.
Doctor Siler nodded genially. “I am like my friend, Reverend Edward Hull, who says––”
“There!” interrupted Morton. “Your friend has a life job molding the plastic minds of prospective preachers, and he doesn’t want to lose the sinecure. I don’t blame him. Got a wife and babies depending on him. He still preaches hell-fire and the resurrection of the flesh, doesn’t he? Well, in that case 95 we can dispense with his views, for we’ve sent that sort of doctrine to the ash heap.”