"
"Naturally. I like their editorial policy. Their news policy makes me
seasick."
"I'm not so strong for the editorials. They're always for reform and
never for progress."
"Ah, but that's epigram."
"It's true, nevertheless. The Sphere is always tiptoeing up to the edge
of some decisive policy, and then running back in alarm. What of The
Observer? They're looking for new blood."
"The Observer! O Lord! Preaches the eternal banalities and believes them
the eternal verities."
"Epigram, yourself," grinned Edmonds. "Well, The Monitor?"
"The three-card Monitor, and marked cards at that."
"Yes; you'd have to watch the play. The Graphic then?"
"Nothing but an ornamental ghost. The ghost of a once handsomely kept
lady. I don't aspire to write daily epitaphs."
"And The Messenger I suppose you wouldn't even call a kept lady. Too
common. Babylonian stuff. But The Express is respectable enough for
anybody."
"And conscious of it in every issue. One long and pious scold, after a
high-minded, bad-tempered formula of its own."
"Then I'll give you a motto for your Ledger." Edmonds puffed it out
enjoyably,--decorated with bluish and delicate whorls. "'_Meliora video
proboque, deleriora sequor_.'"
"No; I won't have that.
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