“How can I remember who mobbed me! I do recall that Arndt, of the furniture shop, knocked me down and dragged me into an alley; and when I came to there was a signed agreement to restore all the space they lifted from us, and twenty-five per cent over and above. And, by the way, I saw the Governor hiking into Bausch’s office and looking about as cheerful as a banshee with a bellyache. Oh, there’s big doings of some kind, you bet! All the morning the ’phone has been buzzing and—Who’s that having hysterics in the hall?”
He threw open the door, and Mr. Adolph Ahrens, of The Great Northwestern Stores, bounded in, uttering a wild, low wail, the burden of which seemed to be something about a “misunderstanding.” He also mentioned the word “blackmail,” and hastily retracted it. He had always, he asserted passionately, been friendly to The Guardian. He admired it for its lofty courage, its unfailing fair-mindedness, its patriotism; and as an advertising medium he considered it without parallel or equal.
In token of which he had brought his copy for a full page in that day’s issue. And would Mr. Robson kindly note that he had taken a box for the Loyalty Rally on Saturday, being as good an American as anybody, even if he did bear a German name? And so, exit Mr. Ahrens, stringing out deprecatory statements about a misunderstanding as he went.
“For Heaven’s sake, Andy, what does it all mean?” The general manager shook his disheveled head.
“Search me!” he said gravely. “Except for this: It means that The Guardian wins.”
“Have you reckoned it up?”
“Don’t need to. Outside a few of the Old Prussian Guard in the Deutscher Club we’ve got everything back that we lost, and a heap more on top of it.”
“But who’s been doing it? And what have they been doing?” cried the bewildered Jeremy.
“Not guilty on either count. Somebody’s been impressing our friends, the enemy, that there’s just one way to be saved, and that the only A1, guaranteed salvation is via The Guardian. Watch ’em crowd to the mourners’ seat.”
“What’s the paper been doing since I—”