If
you're ready to read about the affairs of others, you should not resent
the activity of the newspaper that attempts to present yours. I'm merely
advancing a theory."
"Damned ingenious," admitted the polo-player. "Make a reporter a sort of
public agent, eh? Only, you see, he isn't. He hasn't any right to my
private affairs."
"Then you shouldn't take advantage of his efforts, as you do when you
read about your friends."
"Oh, that's too fine-spun for me. Now, I'll tell you; just because I
take a drink at a bar I don't make a pal of the bartender. It comes to
about the same thing, I fancy. You're trying to justify your profession.
Let me ask _you_; do you feel that you're within your decent rights when
you come to a stranger with such a question as you put up to me?"
"No; I don't," replied Banneker ruefully. "I feel like a man trying to
hold up a bigger man with a toy pistol."
"Then you'd better get into some other line."
But whatever hopes Banneker may have had of the magazine line suffered a
set-back when, a few days later, he called upon the Great Gaines at his
office, and was greeted with a cheery though quizzical smile.
"Yes; I've read it," said the editor at once, not waiting for the
question. "It's clever.
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