Griffith smiled so that all his teeth, including a gold tooth in front and several gold-filled ones, shone.
“That’s just some o’ his bull. Don’t you pay any attention to him,” he laughed.
“No, that’s the whole truth. You know, Captain, while you were fighting for civilization on Flanders Fields, Griffith was one of the men who was fighting the good fight over here through the most potent weapon that man has ever devised.” Griffith grinned as though Pinkney were quoting a phrase with which he was familiar, or, perhaps, had even coined himself. “That weapon is nothing else than publicity!”
Hamilton nodded. Since his return he had learned that cotton, that wood, that conservation of coal and food, that the county councils of defense, that the women, that the Y. M. C. A., that a hundred different things had won the war, and he was not surprised to hear now that publicity was the most potent weapon of mankind.
“Griffith here is an old newspaper man.”
“Oh, I know a newspaper man,” said Hamilton, to make talk. “One of my best friends in the army was correspondent for the Chicago Times.”
“What’s his name?”
“McCall.”
“Sure. I’ve read his stuff. So he was over with your outfit. Gee, he could have cleaned up if he’d been home.”
Pinkney resumed charge of the conversation and employed it in briefly sketching the more recent portion of Griffith’s biography. He had been connected with some newspaper when the war broke out, what connection, was evidently unimportant, Pinkney casting all newspaper men in one huge category as he might walnut logs or hardwood. At the outbreak of the World War he had foreseen the tremendous importance of publicity and had offered his services to various organizations in raising funds, recruiting members, and so forth. He had been secretary of the first drive ever held in Corinth to raise money for the Belgian war sufferers. Later when the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., the Salvation Army, the Near East, the Chinese, the French and several local and state organizations had started their drives Griffith’s services had been in demand.