"And I thought you were hardly the sort of person a lady like Miss King would want in her home, you know," the Englishman continued. "But I find you really a delightful fellow, you know, and quite a gentleman."
"Sir," said Homer, rising with his hand upon his heart, "language fails me before a compliment like this. It is a new and trying position for me to hear such words spoken of myself, and I hope you will excuse me while I walk to another part of the room and unobserved wipe away a tear of gratitude."
Then, suddenly dropping his tone of levity, the young man continued:
"But, seriously speaking, you are justified in your opinion of us as a class, Mr. Elliott, and it is to be regretted. As Mr. Durand will testify, our American eagle flaps his wings often with too much freedom."
Percy, when appealed to, was glad to express his opinion upon a subject to which he had recently given much thought.
"It is a question," he said, "which must before many years be decided—just where the freedom of the press should end and where the rights of individuals should begin. It seems to me that even our so-called best newspapers take unnecessary and unlicensed liberties in these days."
"But the public appetite demands such a varied and highly-spiced diet that we are obliged to gratify it in every legitimate manner possible. If we do not, our rival sheet will," explained Homer Orton.
"That is all very well when you keep to legitimate means. But I call the invasion of homes, and the cruel, and often untruthful, assertions concerning the private life, of unoffending individuals, illegitimate means of feeding a depraved appetite. The average newspaper humorist, who utterly disregards the truth, in his anxiety to concoct a taking item, I do not consider a necessary feature of high journalism—do you? If he only succeeds in raising a laugh, he considers his object in life attained. He reminds me of the tribe of the Damaras, who are described as so utterly heartless that they roar with laughter on beholding one of their number torn to pieces by a wild beast."
"Still it is not so much heartlessness, as insensibility and thoughtlessness, and a desire to be bright and witty, which causes a good many of these things to be written," Homer responded.