Success, A Novel

Politics began to bubble in The Patriot office with promise of hotter upheavals to come.  The Laird administration had shown its intention of diverting city advertising, and Marrineal had countered in the news columns by several minor but not ineffective exposures of weak spots in the city government.  Banneker, who had on the whole continued to support the administration in its reform plans, decided that a talk with Willis Enderby might clarify the position and accordingly made an evening appointment with him at his house.  Judge Enderby opened proceedings with typical directness of attack.

“When are you going to turn on us, Banneker?”

“That’s a cheerful question,” retorted the young man good-humoredly, “considering that it is you people who have gone back on The Patriot.”

“Were any pledges made on our part?” queried Enderby.

Banneker replied with some spirit:  “Am I talking with counsel under retainer or with a personal friend?”

“Quite right.  I apologize,” said the imperturbable Enderby.  “Go on.”

“It isn’t the money loss that counts, so much as the slap in the face to the paper.  It’s a direct repudiation.  You must realize that.”

“I’m not wholly a novice in politics.”

“But I am, practically.”

“Not so much that you can’t see what Marrineal would be at.”

“Mr. Marrineal has not confided in me.”

“Nor in me,” stated the lawyer grimly.  “I don’t need his confidence to perceive his plans.”

“What do you believe them to be?”

No glimmer of a smile appeared on the visage of Judge Enderby as he countered, “Am I talking with a representative of The Patriot or—­”

“All right,” laughed Banneker. “Touche! Assume that Marrineal has political ambitions.  Surely that lies within the bounds of propriety.”

“Depends on how he pushes them.  Do you read The Patriot, Banneker?”

The editor of The Patriot smiled.

“Do you approve its methods in, let us say, the political articles?”

“I have no control over the news columns.”

“Don’t answer my question,” said the lawyer with a fine effect of patience, long-suffering and milky-mild, “if it in any way discommodes you.”

“It all comes to this,” disclosed Banneker.  “If the mayor turns on us, we can’t lie down under the whip and we won’t.  We’ll hit back.”

“Of course.”

“Editorially, I mean.”

“I understand.  At least the editorials will be a direct method of attack, and an honest one.  I may assume that much?”

“Have you ever seen anything in the editorial columns of The Patriot that would lead you to assume otherwise?”

“Answering categorically I would have to say ‘No.’

“Answer as you please.”

“Then I will say,” observed the other, speaking with marked deliberation, “that on one occasion I have failed to see matter which I thought might logically appear there and the absence of which afforded me food for thought.  Do you know Peter McClintick?”

“Yes.  Has he been talking to you about the Veridian killings?”

Enderby nodded.  “One could not but contrast your silence on that subject with your eloquence against the Steel Trust persecutions, consisting, if I recall, in putting agitators in jail for six months.  Quite wrongly, I concede.  But hardly as bad as shooting them down as they sleep, and their families with them.”

“Tell me what you would have done in my place, then.”  Banneker stated the case of the Veridian Mills strike simply and fairly.  “Could I turn the columns of his own paper on Marrineal for what was not even his fault?”

“Impossible.  Absurd, as well,” acknowledged the other

“Can you even criticize Marrineal?”

The jurist reared his gaunt, straight form up from his chair and walked across to the window, peering out into the darkness before he answered with a sort of restrained passion.

“God o’ mercies, Banneker!  Do you ask me to judge other men’s acts, outside the rules of law?  Haven’t I enough problems in reconciling my own conscience to conserving the interests of my clients, as I must, in honor, do?  No; no!  Don’t expect me to judge, in any matter of greater responsibilities.  I’m answerable to a small handful of people.  You—­your Patriot is answerable to a million.  Everything you print, everything you withhold, may have incalculable influence on the minds of men.  You can corrupt or enlighten them with a word.  Think of it!  Under such a weight Atlas would be crushed.  There was a time long ago—­about the time when you were born—­when I thought that I might be a journalist; thought it lightly.  To-day, knowing what I know, I should be terrified to attempt it for a week, a day!  I tell you, Banneker, one who moulds the people’s beliefs ought to have the wisdom of a sage and the inspiration of a prophet and the selflessness of a martyr.”

A somber depression veiled Banneker.  “One must have the sense of authority, too,” he said at length with an effort.  “If that is undermined, you lose everything.  I’ll fight for that.”

With an abrupt motion his host reached up and drew the window shade, as it might be to shut out a darkness too deep for human penetration.

“What does your public care about whether The Patriot loses the city advertising; or even know about it?”

“Not the public.  But the other newspapers.  They’ll know, and they’ll use it against us….  Enderby, we can beat Bob Laird for reelection.”

“If that’s a threat,” returned the lawyer equably, “it is made to the wrong person.  I couldn’t control Laird in this matter if I wanted to.  He’s an obstinate young mule—­for which Heaven be praised!”

“No; it isn’t a threat.  It’s a declaration of war, if you like.”

“You think you can beat us?  With Marrineal?”

“Mr. Marrineal isn’t an avowed candidate, is he?” evaded Banneker.

“I fancy that you’ll see some rapidly evolving activity in that quarter.”

“Is it true that Laird has developed social tendencies, and is using the mayoralty to climb?”

“A silly story of his enemies,” answered Enderby contemptuously.  “Just the sort of thing that Marrineal would naturally get hold of and use.  In so far as Laird has any social relations, they are and always have been with that element which your society reporters call ’the most exclusive circles,’ because that is where he belongs by birth and association.”

“Russell Edmonds says that social ambition is the only road on which one climbs painfully downhill.”

The other paid the tribute of a controlled smile to this.  “Edmonds?  A Socialist.  He has a gnarled mind.  Good, hard-grained wood, though.  I suppose no man more thoroughly hates and despises what I represent—­or what he thinks I represent, the conservative force of moneyed power—­than he does.  Yet in any question of professional principles, I would trust him far; yes, and of professional perceptions, too, I think; which is more difficult.  A crack-brained sage; but wise.  Have you talked over the Laird matter with him?”

“Yes.  He’s for Laird.”

“Stick to Edmonds, Banneker.  You can’t find a better guide.”

There was desultory talk until the caller got up to go.  As they shook hands, Enderby said: 

“Has any one been tracking you lately?”

“No.  Not that I’ve noticed.”

“There was a fellow lurking suspiciously outside; heavy-set, dark clothes, soft hat.  I thought that he might be watching you.”

For a man of Banneker’s experience of the open, to detect the cleverest of trailing was easy.  Although this watcher was sly and careful in his pursuit, which took him all the way to Chelsea Village, his every move was clear to the quarry, until the door of The House With Three Eyes closed upon its owner.  Banneker went to bed very uneasy.  On whose behoof was he being shadowed?  Should he warn Io?...  In the morning there was no trace of the man, nor, though Banneker trained every sharpened faculty to watchfulness, did he see him again….  While he was mentally engrossed in wholly alien considerations, the solution materialized out of nothing to his inner vision.  It was Willis Enderby who was being watched, and, as a side issue, any caller upon him.  That evening a taxi, occupied by a leisurely young man in evening clothes, drove through East 68th Street, where stood the Enderby house, dim, proud, and stiff.  The taxi stopped before a mansion not far away, and the young man addressed a heavy-bodied individual who stood, with vacant face uplifted to the high moon, as if about to bay it.  Said the young man: 

“Mr. Ives wishes you to report to him at once.”

“Huh?” ejaculated the other, lowering his gaze.

“At the usual place,” pursued the young man.

“Oh!  Aw-right.”

His suspicions fully confirmed, Banneker drove away.  It was now Ives’s move, he remarked to himself, smiling.  Or perhaps Marrineal’s.  He would wait.  Within a few days he had his opportunity.  Returning to his office after luncheon, he found a penciled note from Ives on his desk, notifying him that Miss Raleigh had called him on the ’phone.

Inquiring for the useful Ives, Banneker learned that he was closeted with Marrineal.  Such conferences were regarded in the office as inviolable; but Banneker was in uncompromising mood.  He entered with no more of preliminary than a knock.  After giving his employer good-day he addressed Ives.

“I found a note from you on my desk.”

“Yes.  The message came half an hour ago.”

“Through the office?”

“No.  On your ’phone.”

“How did you get into my room?”

“The door was open.”

Banneker reflected.  This was possible, though usually he left his door locked.  He decided to accept the explanation.  Later he had occasion to revise it.

“Much obliged.  By the way, on whose authority did you put a shadow on Judge Enderby?”

“On mine,” interposed Marrineal.  “Mr. Ives has full discretion in these matters.”

“But what is the idea?”

Ives delivered himself of his pet theory.  “They’ll all bear watching.  It may come in handy some day.”

“What may?”

“Anything we can get.”

“What on earth could any but an insane man expect to get on Enderby?” contemptuously asked Banneker.

Shooting a covert look at his principal, Ives either received or assumed a permission.  “Well, there was some kind of an old scandal, you know.”

“Was there?” Banneker’s voice was negligent.  “That would be hard to believe.”

“Hard to get hold of in any detail.  I’ve dug some of it out through my Searchlight connection.  Very useful line, that.”

Ives ventured a direct look at Banneker, but diverted it from the cold stare it encountered.

“Some woman scrape,” he explicated with an effort at airiness.

Banneker turned a humiliating back on him.  “The Patriot is beginning to get a bad name on Park Row for this sort of thing,” he informed Marrineal.

“This isn’t a Patriot matter.  It is private.”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Banneker in disgust.  “After all, it doesn’t matter.  You’ll have your trouble for your pains,” he prophesied, and returned to ’phone Betty Raleigh.

What had become of Banneker, Betty’s gay and pure-toned voice demanded over the wire.  Had he eschewed the theater and all its works for good?  Too busy?  Was that a reason also for eschewing his friends?  He’d never meant to do that?  Let him prove it then by coming up to see her….  Yes; at once.  Something special to be talked over.

It was a genuine surprise to Banneker to find that he had not seen the actress for nearly two months.  Certainly he had not specially missed her, yet it was keenly pleasurable to be brought into contact again with that restless, vital, outgiving personality.  She looked tired and a little dispirited and—­for she was of that rare type in which weariness does not dim, but rather qualifies and differentiates its beauty—­quite as lovely as he had ever seen her.  The query which gave him his clue to her special and immediate interest was: 

“Why is Haslett leaving The Patriot?” Haslett was the Chicago critic transplanted to take Gurney’s place.

“Is he?  I didn’t know.  You ought not to mourn his loss, Betty.”

“But I do.  At least, I’m afraid I’m going to.  Do you know who the new critic is?”

“No.  Do you?  And how do you?  Oh, I suppose I ought to understand that, though,” he added, annoyed that so important a change should have been kept secret from him.

With characteristic directness she replied, “You mean Tertius Marrineal?”

“Naturally.”

“That’s all off.”

“Betty!  Your engagement to him?”

“So far as there ever was any.”

“Is it really off?  Or have you only quarreled?”

“Oh, no.  I can’t imagine myself quarreling with Tertius.  He’s too impersonal.  For the same reason, and others, I can’t see myself marrying him.”

“But you must have considered it, for a time.”

“Not very profoundly.  I don’t want to marry a newspaper.  Particularly such a newspaper as The Patriot.  For that matter, I don’t want to marry anybody, and I won’t!”

“That being disposed of, what’s the matter with The Patriot?  It’s been treating you with distinguished courtesy ever since Marrineal took over charge.”

“It has.  That’s part of his newspaperishness.”

“From our review of your new play I judge that it was written by the shade of Shakespeare in collaboration with the ghost of Moliere, and that your acting in it combines all the genius of Rachel, Kean, Booth, Mrs. Siddons, and the Divine Sarah.”

“This is no laughing matter,” she protested.  “Have you seen the play?”

“No.  I’ll go to-night.”

“Don’t.  It’s rotten.”

“Heavens!” he cried in mock dismay.  “What does this mean?  Our most brilliant young—­”

“And I’m as bad as the play—­almost.  The part doesn’t fit me.  It’s a fool part.”

“Are you quarreling with The Patriot because it has tempered justice with mercy in your case?”

“Mercy?  With slush.  Slathering slush.”

“Come to my aid, Memory!  Was it not a certain Miss Raleigh who aforetime denounced the ruffian Gurney for that he vented his wit upon a play in which she appeared.  And now, because—­”

“Yes; it was.  I’ve no use for the smart-aleck school of criticism.  But, at least, what Gurney wrote was his own.  And Haslett, even if he is an old grouch, was honest.  You couldn’t buy their opinions over the counter.”

Banneker frowned.  “I think you’d better explain, Betty.”

“Do you know Gene Zucker?”

“Never heard of him.”

“He’s a worm.  A fat, wiggly, soft worm from Boston.  But he’s got an idea.”

“And that is?”

“I’ll tell you in a moment.”  She leaned forward fixing him with the honest clarity of her eyes.  “Ban, if I tell you that I’m really devoted to my art, that I believe in it as—­as a mission, that the theater is as big a thing to me as The Patriot is to you, you won’t think me an affected little prig, will you?”

“Of course not, Betty.  I know you.”

“Yes.  I think you do.  But you don’t know your own paper.  Zucker’s big idea, which he sold to Tertius Marrineal together with his precious self, is that the dramatic critic should be the same identical person as the assistant advertising manager in charge of theater advertising, and that Zucker should be both.”

“Hell!” snapped Banneker.  “I beg your pardon, Betty.”

“Don’t.  I quite agree with you.  Isn’t it complete and perfect?  Zucker gets his percentage of the advertising revenue which he brings in from the theaters.  Therefore, will he be kind to those attractions which advertise liberally?  And less kind to those which fail to appreciate The Patriot as a medium?  I know that he will!  Pay your dollar and get your puff.  Dramatic criticism strictly up to date.”

Banneker looked at her searchingly.  “Is that why you broke with Marrineal, Betty?”

“Not exactly.  No.  This Zucker deal came afterward.  But I think I had begun to see what sort of principles Tertius represented.  You and I aren’t children, Ban:  I can talk straight talk to you.  Well, there’s prostitution on the stage, of course.  Not so much of it as outsiders think, but more than enough.  I’ve kept myself free of any contact with it.  That being so, I’m certainly not going to associate myself with that sort of thing in another field.  Ban, I’ve made the management refuse Zucker admittance to the theater.  And he gave the play a wonderful send-off, as you know.  Of course, Tertius would have him do that.”

Rising, Banneker walked over and soberly shook the girl’s hand.  “Betty, you’re a fine and straight and big little person.  I’m proud to know you.  And I’m ashamed of myself that I can do nothing.  Not now, anyway.  Later, perhaps….”

“No, I suppose you can’t,” she said listlessly.  “But you’ll be interested in seeing how the Zucker system works out; a half-page ad. in the Sunday edition gets a special signed and illustrated feature article, a quarter-page only a column of ordinary press stuff.  A full page—­I don’t know what he’ll offer for that.  An editorial by E.B. perhaps.”

“Betty!”

“Forgive me, Ban.  I’m sick at heart over it all.  Of course, I know you wouldn’t.”

Going back in his car, Banneker reflected with profound distaste that the plan upon which he was hired was not essentially different from the Zucker scheme, in Marrineal’s intent.  He, too, was—­if Marrineal’s idea worked out—­to draw down a percentage varying in direct ratio to his suppleness in accommodating his writings to “the best interests of the paper.”  He swore that he would see The Patriot and its proprietor eternally damned before he would again alter jot or tittle of his editorial expression with reference to any future benefit.

It did not take long for Mr. Zucker to manifest his presence to Banneker through a line asking for an interview, written in a neat, small hand upon a card reading: 

The Patriot—­Special Theatrical Features E. Zucker, Representative.

Mr. Zucker, being sent for, materialized as a buoyant little person, richly ornamented with his own initials in such carefully chosen locations as his belt-buckle, his cane, and his cigarettes.  He was, he explained, injecting some new and profitable novelties into the department of dramatic criticism.

“Just a moment,” quoth Banneker.  “I thought that Allan Haslett had come on from Chicago to be our dramatic critic.”

“Oh, he and the business office didn’t hit it off very well,” said little Zucker carelessly.

“Oh!  And do you hit it off pretty well with the business office?”

“Naturally.  It was Mr. Haring brought me on here; I’m a special departmental manager in the advertising department.”

“Your card would hardly give the impression.  It suggests the news rather than the advertising side.”

“I’m both,” stated Mr. Zucker, brightly beaming.  “I handle the criticism and the feature stuff on salary, and solicit the advertising, on a percentage.  It works out fine.”

“So one might suppose.”  Banneker looked at him hard.  “The idea being, if I get it correctly, that a manager who gives you a good, big line of advertising can rely on considerate treatment in the dramatic column of The Patriot.”

“Well, there’s no bargain to that effect.  That wouldn’t be classy for a big paper like ours,” replied the high-if somewhat naive-minded Mr. Zucker.  “Of course, the managers understand that one good turn deserves another, and I ain’t the man to roast a friend that helps me out.  I started the scheme in Boston and doubled the theater revenue of my paper there in a year.”

“I’m immensely interested,” confessed Banneker.  “But what is your idea in coming to me about this?”

“Big stuff, Mr. Banneker,” answered the earnest Zucker.  He laid a jeweled hand upon the other’s knee, and removed it because some vestige of self-protective instinct warned him that that was not the proper place for it.  “You may have noticed that we’ve been running a lot of special theater stuff in the Sunday.”  Banneker nodded.  “That’s all per schedule, as worked out by me.  An eighth of a page ad. gets an article.  A quarter page ad. gets a signed special by me.  Haffa page wins a grand little send-off by Bess Breezely with her own illustrations.  Now, I’m figuring on full pages.  If I could go to a manager and say:  ’Gimme a full-page ad. for next Sunday and I’ll see if I can’t get Mr. Banneker to do an editorial on the show’—­if I could say that, why, nothin’ to it!  Nothin’ at-tall!  Of course,” he added ruminatively, “I’d have to pick the shows pretty careful.”

“Perhaps you’d like to write the editorials, too,” suggested Banneker with baleful mildness.

“I thought of that,” admitted the other.  “But I don’t know as I could get the swing of your style.  You certainly got a style, Mr. Banneker.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, what do you say?”

“Why, this.  I’ll look over next Sunday’s advertising, particularly the large ads., and if there is a good subject in any of the shows, I’ll try to do something about it.”

“Fine!” enthused the unsuspecting pioneer of business-dramatic criticism.  “It’s a pleasure to work with a gentleman like you, Mr. Banneker.”

Withdrawing, even more pleased with himself than was his wont, Mr. Zucker confided to Haring that the latter was totally mistaken in attributing a stand-offish attitude to Banneker.  Why, you couldn’t ask for a more reasonable man.  Saw the point at once.

“Don’t you go making any fool promises on the strength of what Banneker said to you,” commented Haring.

With malign relish, Banneker looked up in the Sunday advertising the leading theater display, went to the musical comedy there exploited, and presently devoted a column to giving it a terrific and only half-merited slashing for vapid and gratuitous indecency.  The play, which had been going none too well, straightway sold out a fortnight in advance, thereby attesting the power of the press as well as the appeal of pruriency to an eager and jaded public.  Zucker left a note on the editorial desk warmly thanking his confrere for this evidence of cooeperation.

Life was practicing its lesser ironies upon Banneker whilst maturing its greater ones.