" Betty Raleigh, looking up from a seat where
she sat talking to a squat and sensual-looking man, a dweller in the
high places and cool serenities of advanced mathematics whom
jocular-minded Nature had misdowered with the face of a satyr,
interposed the suave candor of her voice. "I actually lick my lips over
your editorials even where I least agree with them. But the rest of the
paper--Oh, dear! It screeches."
"Modern life is such a din that one has to screech to be heard above
it," said Banneker pleasantly.
"Isn't it the newspapers which make most of the din, though?" suggested
the mathematician.
"Shouting against each other," said Gaines.
"Like Coney Island barkers for rival shows," put in Junior Masters.
"Just for variety how would it do to try the other tack and practice a
careful but significant restraint?" inquired Betty.
"Wouldn't sell a ticket," declared Banneker.
"Still, if we all keep on yelling in the biggest type and hottest words
we can find," pointed out Edmonds, "the effect will pall."
"Perhaps the measure of success is in finding something constantly more
strident and startling than the other fellow's war whoop," surmised
Masters.
"I have never particularly admired the steam calliope as a form of
expression," observed Miss Van Arsdale.
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