"Ah!" said the actress, smiling, "but Royce Melvin doesn't make music
for circuses."
"And a modern newspaper is a circus," pronounced the satyr-like scholar.
"Three-ring variety; all the latest stunts; list to the voice of the
ballyhoo," said Masters.
"_Panem et circenses_" pursued the mathematician, pleased with his
simile, "to appease the howling rabble. But it is mostly circus, and
very little bread that our emperors of the news give us."
"We've got to feed what the animal eats," defended Banneker lightly.
"After having stimulated an artificial appetite," said Edmonds.
As the talk flowed on, Betty Raleigh adroitly drew Banneker out of the
current of it. "Your Patriot needn't have screeched at me, Ban," she
murmured in an injured tone.
"Did it, Betty? How, when, and where?"
"I thought you were horridly patronizing about the new piece, and quite
unkind to me, for a friend."
"It wasn't my criticism, you know," he reminded her patiently. "I don't
write the whole paper, though most of my acquaintances seem to think
that I do. Any and all of it to which they take exception, at least."
"Of course, I know you didn't write it, or it wouldn't have been so
stupid. I could stand anything except the charge that I've lost my
naturalness and become conventional.
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