"Assuming that," said Varney, "I'll say that I have come to buy this paper. And to discharge you from the editorship."
Smith drew in his feet, and swung slowly around. The two men measured each other in an interval of intelligent silence. On the whole, upon this close view, Varney found it harder to think of Smith as a contemptible cur who circulated lying slanders for profit than as the young man who wrote the famous editorials.
"And still they come," said Smith, enigmatically. "Three of them in one day—well, well!" And he added musingly: "So I have stung you as hard as that, have I?"
"Let us say rather," said Varney, whose present tack was diplomacy, "that I have some loose money which I want to stow away in a paying little enterprise."
"I am the last man in the world to boast of a kindness," continued Smith, in his faintly mocking manner, "but I gave you fair warning to leave town."
"Instead I stayed. And an exceedingly interesting town I have found it. Something doing every minute. But, as I just remarked, I have looked in to buy your paper."
"If I were like some I know," meditated Smith, "I'd be thinking: 'The Lord has delivered him into my hand, aye, delivered dear old Beany.' I'd embarrass you with questions, make you blush with catechisms. But I am a merciful man, and observe that I ask you nothing. You want to buy the Gazette for an investment. Let it stand at that. So you're the money-grubbing sort that supposes that everything on God's hassock has its price?"
"I believe it's street knowledge that the Gazette has its. But I called really not so much to discuss ethics, as to ascertain your figure."
Smith gave a sigh which was not without its trace of mockery. "'Fortunately, I am hardened to insults. Editors are expected to stand anything. Times are dull—nothing much to do—drop around and kick the editor. You've no idea what we have to put up with from spring poets alone. Rejoice, B——, that is, Mr.—er—Blank, that the Gazette is never to be yours."
"You can't mean that you decline to sell?"