"What then?" asked Winthrop, with increasing defiance.
"I would suggest to you, if you will pardon the liberty, that you refrain. The Government, of which I am but a humble official, is sensitive, and it is, too, a critical time. Just now the Government needs all the support and confidence that it can possibly get. If you impair the public faith in us how can we accomplish anything?"
"But the newspapers of the North have entire freedom of criticism," burst out Winthrop. "We say that the North is not a free country and the South is. Are we to belie those words?"
"I think you miss the point," replied the Secretary, still speaking suavely. "The Government does not wish to repress the freedom of the press nor of any individual, nor in fact have I had any such matter in mind in giving you this intimation. I think that if you do as I hear you purpose to do, some rather extreme men will be disposed to make you trouble. Now there's Redfield."
"The trouble with Redfield," broke in Raymond, "is that he wants all the twenty-four hours of every day for his own talking."
"True! true in a sense," said the Secretary, "but he is a member of the House Committee on Military Affairs and is an influential man."
"I thank you, Mr. Secretary," said Winthrop, "but the article is already written."
A shade crossed the face of Mr. Sefton.
"And as you heard," continued Winthrop, "it attacks the Government with as much vigour as I am capable of putting into it. Here is the paper now; you can read for yourself what I have written."
The galley-boy had come in with a half-dozen papers still wet from the press. Winthrop handed one to the Secretary, indicated the editorial and waited while Sefton read it.