“‘Our’? Have you been writing us letters?”
“I have sent you letters.” Mr. Wanser’s face became red.
“Funny! I don’t recall any. Sign ’em?”
“They were signed,” returned the other, with an effort at loftiness.
“With what name?” demanded Galpin bluntly.
“I am not here to be cross-examined by you.”
“You started this. And now you want to duck it. Nothing doing! You let out what we’ve suspected; that a lot of those letters are machine-made, and sent in signed with fake names or with real names stuck on as a blind for some committee. That don’t go, in The Guardian. We’ve had too much stuff put over on us.”
The banker’s dignity dissolved in wrath. “Don’t you get fresh with me, young man. I guess you and your boss, too, are going to learn something one of these days! Going out of your way to insult the best citizens in the State every time your dirty, pro-English paper—”
“Oh, you make me sick!” said Galpin, and marched away, leaving Wanser brandishing a denunciatory fist at nothing.
The split between the Germans and The Guardian imperceptibly widened, as time went on, through minor incidents, arguments, and abortive attempts at influence. Seizing upon its opportunity, The Record accepted the whole programme of local German censorship, published nothing that could possibly offend, trimmed its news to the prejudices of the dominant element, and by these methods cut in upon its rival’s local circulation. Verrall, however, reported that as yet there was nothing to worry about, while at the same time earnestly advocating an inoffensive foreign news policy for The Guardian. So 1914 passed into 1915, and the paper held its own.