"Forty thousand men, women, and children. Not half enough, of course."
"Not a tenth enough, I would say, if I owned the paper. Nor are they the
right kind of readers."
"How would you define them, then?" asked Marrineal, still in that smooth
voice.
"Small clerks. Race-track followers. People living in that class of
tenements which call themselves flats. The more intelligent servants.
Totally unimportant people."
"Therefore a totally unimportant paper?"
"A paper can be important only through what it makes people believe and
think. What possible difference can it make what The Patriot's readers
think?"
"If there were enough of them?" suggested Marrineal.
"No. Besides, you'll never get enough of them, in the way you're running
the paper now."
"Don't say 'you,' please," besought Marrineal. "I've been keeping my
hands off. Watching."
"And now you're going to take hold?" queried Edmonds. "Personally?"
"As soon as I can find my formula--and the men to help me work it out,"
he added, after a pause so nicely emphasized that both his hearers had a
simultaneous inkling of the reason for his being at their table.
"I've seen newspapers run on formula before," muttered Edmonds.
"Onto the rocks?"
"Invariably.
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