It was with much less certainty that she spread before Bobby the facts and figures which Uncle Dan had secured about the condition and prospects of the Bulletin. She did not urge the project upon him. Instead, though in considerable anxiety, she left the proposition open to his own judgment. He pondered the question more soberly and seriously than he had yet considered anything. There were but two chances left to redeem himself now, and he felt much like a gambler who has been reduced to his last desperate stake. He grew almost haggard over the proposition, and he spent two solid weeks in investigation. He went to Washington to see Jack Starlett, who knew three or four newspaper proprietors in Philadelphia and elsewhere. He obtained introductions to these people and consulted with them, inspected their plants and listened to all they would say; as they liked him, they said much. Ripened considerably by what he had found out he came back home and bought the Bulletin. Moreover, he had very definitely made up his mind precisely what to do with it.
On the first morning that he walked into the office of that paper as its sole owner and proprietor, he called the managing editor to him and asked:
“What, heretofore, has been the politics of this paper?”
“Pale yellow jelly,” snapped Ben Jolter wrathfully.
“Supposed to be anti-Stone, hasn’t it been?” Bobby smilingly inquired.
“But always perfectly ladylike in what it said about him.”
“And what are the politics of the employees?”
At this Mr. Jolter snorted.
“They are good newspaper men, Mr. Burnit,” he stated in quick defense; “and a good newspaper man has no politics.”
Bobby eyed Mr. Jolter with contemplative favor. He was a stout, stockily-built man, with a square head and sparse gray hair that would persist in tangling and curling at the ends; and he perpetually kept his sleeves rolled up over his big arms.