“I don’t know that it’ll lose us any, right away.”
“Ahrens, surely.”
“Don’t believe it. He’ll be afraid to drop out. He don’t understand your go-to-hell attitude.”
“Was I as bad as that, Andy?”
“I’m taking his point of view. He don’t understand it, and probably he don’t believe it. Thinks it’s bluff. But he’s scared and he’s cautious. So he’ll stay in—for a while, anyway. What we’ve got to do in the long run, is to keep ’em all scared.”
“Going in for blackmail, Andy?” smiled his boss.
“Keep ’em scared, by making the paper so strong that they dassent do without it.”
“That means more circulation.”
“It means more circulation, a lot of it, and pretty darn quick. That’s my job.”
Arrived at the office, Jeremy got his final glimpse of the day into the ramifications of advertising. In his editorial sanctum waited a mild, self-possessed, and profoundly laconic Chinaman.