She smiled. "I was thinking it would be a good place to curl up with a book." Her chin lifted. "Or establish a newspaper."
He didn't answer. He took another roll and buttered it.
Mrs. Klein said, "Martha's too young to know what a newspaper is—or a book. And so are you, Mr. Parker. I say we're not missing much."
He grinned at her. "Bad, were they?"
"There was a paper in Chicago so bad you'd think I was lying if I tried to describe it to you. And all the books seemed to be concerned with four-letter words."
He carefully put a piece of ham between the broken halves of the roll. "Even Bobbie Burns? From what my mother told me he was quite a lad."
"He was dead before your mother was born," Mrs. Klein said. "All the good ones were, all the ones who tried to entertain instead of shock or corrupt."
Martha said lightly, "Mama's an admirer of Senator Arnold, the way it sounds."
"I'll thank you not to mention his name while I'm eating," Mrs. Klein said acidly. "And I'm not forgetting why he hated the printed word. But that's looking a gift horse in the mouth."
Doak sipped his coffee. His voice was casual. "Why did he hate the printed word?"