“I wish you had,” returned Jeremy, quite honestly.
“I never say anything first. That’s why I’m really not much good.”
Jeremy laughed. From the most independent and battle-scarred veteran of Middle Western journalism, this was funny.
“It’s a fact, though,” continued the tired voice. “I always think too slow. What are you going to do next?”
“Next?”
“About the Lusitania issue. You’ve started it in Centralia. Nothing can put out that fire. It may die down and only smoulder. But the embers will be there. And nobody can tell when they’ll reach a powder magazine. Have you seen the recent Eastern papers?”
“Some of them.”
“A lot of them are yelling for war. It’s going to be put up to the President pretty stiff. What are you going to do about that?”
The gravity of the tone, almost amounting to deference, made Jeremy tingle. Here was the greatest journalistic power in Centralia, a man whose clarity and courage of spirit had won for him an almost hierarchic ascendency in his profession, ascribing such importance to the course of The Guardian that he had taken the four-hour journey from Bellair to consult its owner. To do Jeremy justice, his pride was for the paper, semi-impersonal, rather than for himself. To the question he had no ready answer.
“I had n’t thought it out yet. What’s your idea?” Kimball took off his glasses and wiped them carefully. His eyes, without them, seemed squinted and anxious. He drummed on the desk a moment before replying.