“Fun! Do you mean to say that you could get any fun out of a situation of that sort?”
“Why, of course,” Hawley replied simply. “Think of the sport of taking snapshots in the face of such difficulties! Think of the fun of dodging those fellows! The greater the danger, you know, Fred, the more fascination there is to the picture game. There’s nothing in taking snapshots which require no risk.”
To some men who did not know Frank Hawley, these words might have sounded suspiciously like bombast; but Carroll knew well that the New York Sentinel’s star camera man was no braggart, and that what he had just said simply and truly expressed his viewpoint regarding “the picture game.”
“But, apart from the good time I shall have, think what a great thing this snapshot campaign of mine will be for the Bulletin,” the Camera Chap continued earnestly. “I predict a big boom in your paper’s circulation, Fred, as soon as I get started. The more I’m denounced by the police and the Chronicle, the more eager people will be to see the pictures taken by ‘the desperate camera bandit.’ Bulletins will sell like hot cakes, Fred, and your coffers will be full of real money. For Miss Melba’s sake, as well as your own, you’ve got to accept my proposition.”
In spite of himself, a wistful expression came to Carroll’s face. He realized the truth of what Hawley said. He had every reason to believe that snapshots taken under such conditions and published daily on the front page of the Bulletin would greatly increase the sale of that paper.
He had been furnished a striking proof of this a few days earlier when he had published those snapshots showing Chief of Police Hodgins asleep at his desk. There had been a big rise in circulation that day. Papers had sold as fast as the newsboys could hand them out. Everybody in Oldham had appreciated the joke on the fat chief of police and rushed to procure copies of those amusing pictures. And the very next day the sale of the Bulletin had fallen off, showing Carroll conclusively that it was Hawley’s snapshots alone which had brought about that sudden and all too transient wave of prosperity.
Therefore the proprietor of the Bulletin was sorely tempted now by the Camera Chap’s offer; but, putting his own interests aside, he shook his head in emphatic negation.
“I admit that it might help our circulation along, old man,” he began; “but you see——”
“It would probably bring you a lot of advertising, too,” Hawley broke in. “Really, Fred, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if this camera campaign resulted in a bunch of nice, fat advertising contracts for the Bulletin.”
“I doubt that,” said Carroll. “It is true that increased advertising generally follows increased circulation; but it wouldn’t in my case. As I told you the other day, most of the big advertisers of this town are connected in some way or other with that bunch of grafters the Bulletin is fighting, and they wouldn’t advertise in our columns no matter what figures our circulation books might show.”