He would have smiled at this wild resolution had he been in a less distracted state of mind or had he been dealing with any other than a matter of love. But in the circumstances it gave him heart and set him to work with an energy and effectiveness which still further increased Mr. Malcolm’s esteem for him.
“Will you dine with me at the Union Club on Wednesday?” Mr. Malcolm asked one morning in mid-February. “Mr. Coulter and Mr. Stokely are coming. I want you to know them better.”
Howard accepted and wondered that he took so little interest. For Stokely and Coulter were the principal stockholders of the News-Record, and with Malcolm formed the triumvirate which directed it in all its departments. Mr. Malcolm held only a few shares of stock, but received what was in the newspaper-world an immense salary—thirty thousand a year. He was at once an able editor and an able diplomatist. He knew how to make the plans of his two associates conform to conditions of news and policy—when to let them use the paper, or, rather, when to use the paper himself for their personal interests; when and how to induce them to let the paper alone. Through a quarter of a century of changing ownerships Malcolm had persisted, chiefly because he had but one conviction—that the post of editor of the News-Record exactly suited him and must remain his at any sacrifice of personal character.
Howard had met Stokely and Coulter. He liked Stokely who was owner of a few shares more than one-third; he disliked Coulter who owned just under one-half.
Stokely was a frank, coarse, dollar-hunter, cheerfully unscrupulous in a large way, acute, caring not at all for principles of any kind, letting the paper alone most of the time because he was astute enough to know that in his ignorance of journalism he would surely injure it as a property.
Coulter was a hypocrite and a snob. Also he fancied he knew how to conduct a newspaper. He was as unscrupulous as Stokely but tried to mask it.
When Stokely wished the News-Record to advocate a “job,” or steal, or the election of some disreputable who would work in his interest, he told Malcolm precisely what he wanted and left the details of the stultification to his experienced adroitness. When Coulter wished to “poison the fountain of publicity,” as Malcolm called the paper’s departures from honesty and right, he approached the subject by stealth, trying to convince Malcolm that the wrong was not really wrong, but was right unfortunately disguised.
He would take Malcolm into his confidence by slow and roundabout steps, thus multiplying his difficulties in discharging his “duty.” If Coulter’s son had not been married to Malcolm’s daughter, it is probable that not even his complete subserviency would have enabled him to keep his place.
“If you had told me frankly what you wanted in the first place, Mr. Coulter,” he said after an exasperating episode in which Coulter’s Pharisaic sensitiveness had resulted in Malcolm’s having to “flop” the paper both editorially and in its news columns twice in three days, “we would not have made ourselves ridiculous and contemptible. The public is an ass, but it is an ass with a memory at least three days long. Your stealthiness has made the ass bray at us instead of with and for us. And that is dangerous when you consider that running a newspaper is like running a restaurant—you must please your customers every day afresh.”
Coulter was further difficult because of his anxieties about social position for himself and his family. He was disturbed whenever the News-Record published an item that might offend any of the people whose acquaintance he had gained with so much difficulty, and for whose good will he was willing to sacrifice even considerable money. Personally, but very privately, he edited the News-Record’s “fashionable intelligence” columns on Sunday and made them an exhibit of his own sycophancy and snobbishness which excited the amused disgust of all who were in the secret.