Norton smiled:
"You forgot part of the pass-word of your order, professor! The whole clause used to read, 'race, color or previous condition of servitude'——"
The sneer was lost on the professor. He was too intent on his mission.
"I have called, Major Norton," he went on glibly, "to inform you that my distinguished associates in the great Educational Movement in the South view with increasing alarm the tendency of your paper to continue the agitation of the so-called negro problem."
"And may I ask by whose authority your distinguished associates have been set up as the arbiters of the destiny of twenty millions of white citizens of the South?"
The professor flushed with amazement at the audacity of such a question:
"They have given millions to the cause of education, sir! These great Funds represent to-day a power that is becoming more and more resistless——"
Norton sprang to his feet and faced Magraw with eyes flashing:
"That's why I haven't minced matters in my references to you, professor. That's why I'm getting ready to strike a blow in the cause of racial purity for which my paper stands."
"But why continue to rouse the bitterness of racial feeling? The question will settle itself if let alone."