“Possibly. But it’s more keeping a watch on publicity and politics. He gives himself out as a man-about-town, and is supposed to make a good thing out of the market. Maybe he does, though I notice that generally the market makes a good thing out of the smart guy who tries to beat it.”
“Not a particularly desirable person for a colleague.”
“I doubt if he’d be Marrineal’s colleague exactly. The inside of the newspaper isn’t his game. More likely he’s making himself attractive and useful to Marrineal just to find out what he’s up to with his paper.”
“I’ll show him something interesting if I get hold of that editorial page.”
“Son, are you up to it, d’you think?” asked Edmonds with affectionate solicitude. “It takes a lot of experience to handle policies.”
“I’ll have you with me, won’t I, Pop? Besides, if my little scheme works, I’m going out to gather experience like a bee after honey.”
“We’ll make a queer team, we three,” mused the veteran, shaking his bony head, as he leaned forward over his tiny pipe. His protuberant forehead seemed to overhang the idea protectively. Or perhaps threateningly. “None of us looks at a newspaper from the same angle or as the same kind of a machine as the others view it.”
“Never mind our views. They’ll assimilate. What about his?”
“Ah! I wish I knew. But he wants something. Like all of us.” A shade passed across the clearly modeled severity of the face. Edmonds sighed. “I don’t know but that I’m too old for this kind of experiment. Yet I’ve fallen for the temptation.”
“Pop,” said Banneker with abrupt irrelevance, “there’s a line from Emerson that you make me think of when you look like that. ‘His sad lucidity of soul.’”