“It’s an invention of Marrineal’s. Very ingenious. It was devised as a weapon against libel suits. Suppose some local correspondent from Hohokus or Painted Post sends in a story on the Honorable Aminadab Quince that looks to be O.K., but is actually full of bad breaks. The Honorable Aminadab smells money in it and likes the smell. Starts a libel suit. On the facts, he’s got us: the fellow that got pickled and broke up the Methodist revival wasn’t Aminadab at all, but his tough brother. If it gets into court we’re stung. Well, up goes little Weaselfoot Ives to Hohokus. Sniffs around and spooks around and is a good fellow at the hotel, and possibly spends a little money where it’s most needed, and one day turns up at the Quince mansion. ‘Senator, I represent The Patriot.’ ‘Don’t want to see you at all. Talk to my lawyer.’ ‘But he might not understand my errand. It relates to an indictment handed down in 1884 for malversasion of school funds.’ ‘Young man, do you dare to intimate—’ and so forth and so on; bluster and bluff and threat. Says Ives, very cool: ‘Let me have your denial in writing and we’ll print it opposite the certified copy of the indictment.’ The old boy begins to whimper; ‘That’s outlawed. It was all wrong, anyway.’ Ives is sympathetic, but stands pat. Drop the suit and The Patriot will be considerate and settle the legal fees. Aminadab drops, ten times out of ten. The sandbag has put him away.”
“But there must be an eleventh case where there’s nothing on the man that’s suing.”
“Say a ninety-ninth. One libel suit in a hundred may be brought in good faith. But we never settle until after Ives has done his little prowl.”
“It sounds bad, Pop. But is it so bad, after all? We’ve got to protect ourselves against a hold-up.”
“Dirty work, but somebody’s got to do it: ay—yes? I agree with you. As a means of self-defense it is excusable. But the operations of the sandbag have gone far beyond libel in Ives’s hands.”
“Have they? To what extent?”
“Any. His little private detective agency—he’s got a couple of our porch-climbing, keyhole reporters secretly assigned to him at call for special work’—looks after any man we’ve got or are likely to have trouble with; advertisers who don’t come across properly, city officials who play in with the other papers too much, politicians—”
“But that’s rank blackmail!” exclaimed Banneker.
“Carried far enough it is. So far it’s only private information for the private archives.”
“Marrineal’s?”