"I'll take the profits," said Edgar.
"Suppose they turn out to be losses?"
"Then the quicker I find out my unfitness the better. I don't want you to pay me a salary for losing your money."
"You've good grit, Edgar," exclaimed the elder man, admiringly, "and you've got 'go'! I'll stand by you and see you win. You'll need money for a little while to pay running expenses, and you can have it on your own notes till you get the old hulk afloat again. I'll back you. Go in and win!"
That was all there was of contract between these two. Obviously the education Edgar Braine had received at Hanover College was deficient in certain particulars.
The change in the Enterprise was immediate. Everybody bought it at first to see what more the young editor would have to say in scarification of Jack Summers, and everybody continued to buy it, because the young editor at once ceased to scarify Summers, flinging him contemptuously aside as something done for, and turning his attention to a more important aspect of the same matter.
He wanted to know why Jack Summers had been allowed to maintain a gambling house in Thebes, without disguise and without molestation. He called the public prosecutor by name, and asked him what excuse he had to make for his neglect of his sworn duty. He named the respectable men who had served on the last Grand Jury, and requested them to say why they had omitted to indict so flagrant an offender.
By this time—and it was within the first week of Braine's editorship—the languid contempt hitherto felt for the lifeless newspaper had changed to an eager impatience throughout the town for its appearance each day.
At first there was anger everywhere. Two libel suits were brought, but nothing was ever done about them; they were meant to intimidate, and they failed to do it.
After awhile the community caught something of the editor's enthusiasm. Clergymen preached from the pulpit on the duties of citizens as Grand Jurors and public officers. Finally, a new Grand Jury was assembled, and its first act was to indict Jack Summers, who promptly fled the city.