Furthermore,
Banneker heartily despised about half of the advertising which the paper
carried; dubious financial proffers, flamboyant mercantile copy of
diamond dealers, cheap tailors, installment furniture profiteers, the
lure of loan sharks and race-track tipsters, and the specious and deadly
fallacies of the medical quacks. Appealing as it did to an ignorant and
"easy" class of the public ("Banneker's First-Readers," Russell Edmonds
was wont to call them), The Patriot offered a profitable field for all
the pitfall-setters of print. The less that Banneker knew about them the
more comfortable would he be. So he turned his face away from those
columns.
The negative which he returned to Marrineal's question was no more or
less than that astute gentleman expected.
"We carried an editorial last week on cigarettes, 'There's a Yellow
Stain on Your Boy's Fingers--Is There Another on his Character?'"
"Yes. It is still bringing in letters."
"It is. Letters of protest."
"From the tobacco people?"
"Exactly. Mr. Banneker, don't you regard tobacco as a legitimate article
of use?"
"Oh, entirely. Couldn't do without it, myself."
"Why attack it, then, in your column?"
"Because my column," answered Banneker with perceptible emphasis on the
possessive, "doesn't believe that cigarettes are good for boys.
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