Haven't I?"
"Not a bit. Roused my curiosity: that's all. Why do you think it a
rotten business?"
"It's so--so mean. It's petty."
"As for example?" he pressed.
"See what Gurney did to me--to the play," she replied naively. "Just to
be smart."
"Whew! Talk about the feminine propensity for proving a generalization
by a specific instance! Gurney is an old man reared in an old tradition.
He isn't metropolitan journalism."
"He's dramatic criticism," she retorted.
"No. Only one phase of it."
"Anyway, a successful phase."
"He wants to produce his little sensation," ruminated Banneker,
recalling Edmonds's bitter diagnosis. "He does it by being clever. There
are worse ways, I suppose."
"He'd always rather say a clever thing than a true one."
Banneker gave her a quick look. "Is that the disease from which the
newspaper business is suffering?"
"I suppose so. Anyway, it's no good for you, Ban, if it won't let you be
yourself. And write as you think. This isn't new to me. I've known
newspaper men before, a lot of them, and all kinds."
"Weren't any of them honest?"
"Lots. But very few of them independent. They can't be. Not even the
owners, though they think they are."
"I'd like to try that."
"You'd only have a hundred thousand bosses instead of one," said she
wisely.
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