“As a matter of fact, there are really—” And he increased my estimate by four hundred per cent. “Of course,” he continued, “I have the right figures. They were furnished me by the Defense League before I left home. They naturally wouldn’t give them to a writer because they don’t want them published.”
“And naturally,” says I, “whenever they tell a writer anything in strict confidence, he rushes to the nearest Local and Long Distance Telephone Booth and gets Wilhelmstrasse on the wire.”
“Oh, no,” said The Doctor. “But a writer might think it was his duty to send the correct information to his paper.”
“Did you ever hear of the censorship?” I asked him.
“There are ways of eluding it.”
“And do you think all writers are that kind?”
He shrugged a fat shoulder.
“Not all, possibly a very few. But one never can tell the right kind from the wrong.”
His guard was down, and I took careful aim:
“Do you think the Defense League used good judgment in entrusting that secret to you, when you spill it to the first irresponsible reporter you happen to run across?”