Edgar Severance, ten years older
than Banneker, impressed the guiding spirit of The Patriot at first
sight with a sense of inner certitude and serenity not in the least
impaired by his shabbiness which had the redeeming merit of being clean.
"You're not a newspaper man?" said Banneker after the introduction.
"What are you?"
"I'm a prostitute," answered the other equably.
Banneker smiled. "Where have you practiced your profession?"
"As assistant editor of Guidance. I write the blasphemous editorials
which are so highly regarded by the sweetly simple souls that make up
our _clientele_; the ones which weekly give gratuitous advice to God."
"Did Mr. Edmonds find you there?"
"No," put in the veteran; "I traced him down through some popular
scientific stuff in the Boston Sunday Star."
"Fake, all of it," proffered Severance. "Otherwise it wouldn't be
popular."
"Is that your creed of journalism?" asked Banneker curiously.
"Largely."
"Why come to The Patriot, then? It isn't ours."
Severance raised his fine eyebrows, but contented himself with saying:
"Isn't it? However, I didn't come. I was brought." He indicated Edmonds.
"He gave me more ideas on news-dressing," said the veteran, "than I'd
pick up in a century on the Row.
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