“It’s mutual. I think he’s one. To hell with all laws and rights that discommode Me and My interests. That’s the Vanney platform.”
“He thinks he ought to have advertised.”
“Wise guy! So he ought.”
“To secure immunity?”
It required six long, hard puffs to elicit from Edmonds the opinion: “He’d have got it. Partly. Not all he paid for.”
“Not from The Ledger,” said Banneker jealously. “We’re independent in that respect.”
Edmonds laughed. “You don’t have to bribe your own heeler. The Ledger believes in Vanney’s kind of anarchism, as in a religion.”
“Could he have bought off The Courier?”
“Nothing as raw as that. But it’s quite possible that if the Sippiac Mills had been a heavy advertiser, the paper wouldn’t have sent me to the riots. Some one more sympathetic, maybe.”
“Didn’t they kick on your story?”