To this Jeremy found no reply.
“Remember that apology I was going to make on demand? Do I hear any demand? I guess the apology’s the other way around.”
“I’ve made it. Not to you, though. I’m going on. Eli! Once more I’m sorry and I’m ashamed.”
“Until next time,” added the irrepressible malice of the white-haired Socialist.
Not trusting himself to reply, the reporter walked out. Within a few strides Milliken was at his side.
“He’s bad hurt, the old boy,” he confided in a wholly altered and wholly sincere tone.
“I’m sorry—”
‘“Oh, your story is only part of it. Clever! Vur-ree clever. But they’d have got his place on the Board anyway. They needed it.”
“What can I do?”
“Nothing. Unless,” added the other on reflection, “you could slip something pleasant about him over some time. That’d please him. He’s like a child, about print.”