"What do you think of him?" began the magnate.
"Able," grunted the other.
"If he weren't, I wouldn't be troubling my head about him. What else?
Dangerous?"
"As dangerous as he is upright. Exactly."
"Now, I wonder what the devil you mean by that, Enderby," said the
financier testily. "Dangerous as long as he's upright? Eh? And dangerous
to what?"
"To anything he goes after. He's got a following. I might almost say a
blind following."
"Got a boss, too, hasn't he?"
"Marrineal? Ah, I don't know how far Marrineal interferes. And I don't
know Marrineal."
"Upright, too; that one?" The sneer in Masters's heavy voice was
palpable.
"You consider that no newspaper can be upright," the lawyer interpreted.
"I've bought 'em and bluffed 'em and stood 'em in a corner to be good,"
returned the other simply. "What would you expect my opinion to be?"
"The Sphere, among them?" queried the lawyer.
"Damn The Sphere!" exploded the other. "A dirty, muck-grubbing, lying,
crooked rag."
"Your actual grudge against it is not for those latter qualities,
though," pointed out Enderby. "On questions where it conflicts with your
enterprises, it's straight enough. That's it's defect. Upright equals
dangerous. You perceive?"
Masters shrugged the problem away with a thick and ponderous jerk of his
shoulders.
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