"That's it exactly. Then, besides, we run a little news-bureau at the Gazette, you know—sell special stuff, whenever there's anything doing, to papers all over the country. The bureau didn't touch this story last night—why, I thought it was too 'it-is-understood' and 'rumor-has-it' and all that, to go even with the Daily—in your old own town. It'll be different to-night, all right. We'll query our whole string on it now—unless," he added with frank despondency, "the darned old Associated Press decides to pinch it."
"Query them, Mr. Hammerton?"
"Yes, wire them a brief, kind of piquant outline of the story, you know, and ask them if they don't want it. And I sort of guess they'll all want it, all right!"
"We'll see about that in a minute," laughed Varney. "There's lots of time. Tell me about that brilliant young editor of yours, Mr. Smith. The men in the office all like him and sympathize with his policies, I suppose?"
Hammerton laughed, doubtfully. "Well, they all look up to him and respect him as one of the cleverest newspaper men in the country. Personally, I like old Smith fine, though nobody ever gets close to him a bit. He's mighty good to me—lets me write little editorials two or three times a week, and says I'm not so awful at it. As for sympathizing with his policies—well, you know I'm not sure Smith sympathizes with 'em much himself. I have a kind of private hunch that he's gotten sore on his job and would sell out if somebody—well, suppose we say our friend Ryan—would offer him his price. No, I'm not so keen for these indirect methods, Mr. Varney. At the same time, it's part of the game, I suppose, and I always believe in playing a game right out to the end, for everything there is in it."
At the unmistakable significance in his tone, Varney looked up and found the reporter's eyes fixed upon him in an odd gaze which made him look all at once ten years older and infinitely difficult to baffle: a gaze which made it plain, in fact, that the wearer of it was not to be put off with anything short of the whole truth. The next second that look broke into an easy laugh, and Hammerton was a chattering boy again.
But Varney's mood rose instantly to meet the antagonism of the reporter's look, and hung there. He pulled a silver case from his pocket, selected a cigarette with care and lit it with deliberation. He had learned everything that he wanted to know; the conversation was beginning to grow tiresome; and he found the boy's careless self-confidence increasingly exasperating.
"But as for undercutting Hare," laughed Hammerton, "I don't like it a—"
"Tell me this," Varney interrupted coolly. "When the Gazette prepared its story about me last night, did it believe for one moment that I was this man Stanhope?"
"Why, I'm not the Gazette, of course," said Hammerton, a little taken aback by the cool change of both topic and manner, "but my private suspicion is that it entertained a few doubts on the subject. What do we think now? Look here, Mr. Varney," the boy said amiably, "you've been white about this business, and I do really want to show that I appreciate it."