“The Bulletin? You mean the Chronicle, don’t you, Mr. Mayor?” he inquired.
“I mean the Bulletin. It will be published in the Chronicle, also—I want it to have as much publicity as possible—but to get it on the front page of the Bulletin is the main thing. I want everybody who saw those pictures to-day to learn that they are fakes when they see the paper to-morrow.”
Hawley was so amused by this amazing proposal that he forgot to be indignant. “And may I ask how you propose to get it into the Bulletin, Mr. Mayor?” he inquired, with an ironical smile. “Are you going to request my friend Carroll to print it as a personal favor to you?”
“Yes, I am,” was the astonishing reply. “And I guess your friend Carroll will be ready enough to do me the favor when he hears my proposition. I’m going to offer to bury the hatchet. He’s gone pretty far with that confounded sheet of his. There are some things he’s done that lots of men in public life would never forgive or forget. But, as you have remarked, Mr. Hawley, I’m broad-minded. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. You can go and tell Carroll that if he wants to come over to the city hall and shake hands with me, he’ll find me ready.”
“I’ll tell him,” said the Camera Chap dryly, “but I doubt very much if he’ll come, Mr. Mayor. My friend Carroll is a peculiar fellow.”
“Oh, he’ll come, all right!” the Honorable Martin Henkle declared confidently. “You just whisper in his ear that as soon as the Bulletin makes itself right with the administration, that bunch of advertising goes back into its columns, and I’ll bet my bank roll he’ll hurry over. You can tell him, too, that as soon as we’re friends, the Bulletin will get all the news at police headquarters and the other public departments, same as it used to before the scrap.”
“All right; I’ll tell him,” said the Camera Chap, taking a step toward the door. “But I still doubt very much if he’ll come, Mr. Mayor. The Bulletin is going to have so very much big advertising that he probably wouldn’t be able to find room for that piker bunch of ads you caused to be taken out, and which you are now offering to put back again.
“And as for the news at police headquarters, and the other public departments,” Hawley went on, taking another step toward the door, “why, I’m afraid he won’t have much room for that, either. You see, Mr. Mayor, the[Pg 50] Bulletin’s columns are going to be so taken up the next few months booming the People’s Party candidate for mayor, that there won’t be space for much else.”
Mayor Henkle frowned. “The People’s Party candidate for mayor, eh? Who is he?”
“Fred Carroll,” Hawley answered solemnly. “After much persuasion, my friend Carroll has consented to run at the coming election. He is going to announce it in to-morrow’s Bulletin.”