"Where do you go now?" he asked.
"Back to the country."
"When shall I see you again?"
"I wonder," said Io.
CHAPTER IV
Panem et Circenses; bread and the Big Show. The diagnosis of the
satyr-like mathematician had been accurate. That same method whereby the
tyrants of Rome had sought to beguile the restless and unthinking
multitude, Banneker adopted to capture and lead the sensation-avid
metropolitan public through his newspaper. As a facture, a creation made
to the mind of the creator, The Patriot was Banneker's own. True,
Marrineal reserved full control. But Marrineal, after a few months spent
in anxious observation of his editor's headlong and revolutionary
method, had taken the sales reports for his determinative guide and
decided to give the new man full sway.
Circulation had gone up as water rises in a tube under irresistible
pressure from beneath. Nothing like it had ever been known in local
journalism. Barring some set-back, within four years of the time when
Banneker's introductory editorial appeared, the paper would have
eclipsed all former records. In less than two years it had climbed to
third place, and already Banneker's salary, under the percentage
agreement, was, in the words of the alliterative Gardner, whose article
describing The House With Three Eyes and its owner had gone forth on the
wings of a far-spreading syndicate, "a stupendous stipend.
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