“So that’s it,” said Jeremy slowly. “That explains Ahrens’s attitude. Of course they can get along with less space. And Ellison’s. Wants to try out the new, and save money on the old. We might have known! Embree has to have a paper here for his senatorial campaign. If he gets us, on the side, so much the better.”
“But does he get us?”
“It does n’t look pretty, Andy. I can’t pretend I like the scenery. There is n’t room for three papers in Fenchester. Somebody’s going to get bumped.”
“Maybe it’ll be The Fair Dealer.”
“All the Germans and the anti-war crowd will get in back of it. I should n’t be surprised if Montrose Clark and his gang were financing it—to kill us off. If we can pull through this next year—But there’s that print-paper contract pinching us. Any details about the new paper?”
“Verrall claims it’ll start with twenty-five thousand circulation all over the State. He was in here this morning to see me about—well, about something else; and to give us the news of the new paper. I told him we’d print it when released; would n’t give him the satisfaction of thinking we were afraid to.”
“Right! If we’ve got to die we’ll die game.”
“It makes me sick!” growled Galpin. “Oh, I ain’t kicking, Boss! Only it’ll be a tough game if, after all our scrapping, right and wrong—and we haven’t always been a hundred per cent right, you know—we get ours from a bunch of half-breeds and double-facers, like the Governor and his crowd, because we would n’t straddle a hyphen.”
There followed a thoughtful silence between the two. Then the owner spoke:
“Did Verrall make you an offer, Andy?”