_Methods of Dr. L. Andre Surtaine_
The article was made up of excerpts from a religious weekly"s expose, interspersed with semi-editorial comment. As he skimmed it, Hal"s wrath and loyalty waxed in direct ratio. Malice was obvious in every line, to the incensed reader. But the cause and purpose were not so clear. As he looked up, brooding upon it, he caught his father"s eye.
"Been reading that slush, Hal?"
"Yes, sir. Of course it"s all a pack of lies. But what"s the reason for it?"
"Blackmail, son."
"Do they expect to get money out of you this way?"
"No. That isn"t it. I"ve always refused to have any business dealings with "em, and this is their way of revenge."
"But I didn"t know you advertised Certina in the local papers."
"We don"t. Proprietaries don"t usually advertise in their own towns.
We"re so well known at home that we don"t have to. But some of the side lines, like the Relief Pills, that go out under another trade name, use s.p.a.ce in the Worthington papers. The "Clarion" isn"t getting that copy, so they"re sore."
"Can"t you sue them for libel, Dad?"
"Hardly worth while. Decent people don"t read the "Clarion" anyway, so it can"t hurt much. It"s best just to ignore such things."
"Something ought to be done about it," declared Hal angrily.
Stuffing the paper into his pocket he took his wrath out into the open air. Hard and fast he walked, but the farther he went the hotter burned his ire.
There was in Harrington Surtaine a streak of the romantic. His inner world was partly made up of such chimerical notions as are bred in a lively mind, not in very close touch with the world of actualities, by a long course of novel-reading and theater-going. Deep within him stirred a conviction that there was a proper and suitable, nay, an almost obligatory, method made and provided for just such crises as this: something that a keen-spirited and high-bred youth ought to do about it.
Suddenly it came to him. Young Surtaine returned home with his resolve taken. In the morning he would fare forth, a modern knight redressing human wrongs, and lick the editor of the "Clarion."
Overnight young Mr. Surtaine revised his project. Horsewhipping would be no more than the offending editor deserved. However, he should have his chance. Let him repent and retract publicly, and the castigation should be remitted. Forthwith the avenger sat him down to a task of composition. The apology which, after sundry corrections and emendations, he finally produced in fair copy, was not alone complete and explicit: it was fairly abject. In such terms might a confessed and hopeless criminal cast himself desperately upon the mercy of the court.
Previsioning this masterly _apologium_ upon the first page of the morrow"s "Clarion,"--or perhaps at the top of the editorial columns,--its artificer thrilled with the combined pride of authorship and poetic justice.
On the walls of the commodious room which had been set aside in the Surtaine mansion for the young master"s study hung a plaited dog-whip.
The agent of just reprisals curled this neatly inside his overcoat pocket and set forth upon his errand. It was then ten o"clock in the morning.
Now, in hunting the larger fauna of the North American continent with a dog-whip, it is advantageous to have some knowledge of the game"s habits. Mr. Harrington Surtaine"s first error lay in expecting to find the editorial staff of a morning newspaper on duty in the early forenoon. So much a sweeper, emerging from a pile of dust, communicated to him across a railing, further volunteering that three o"clock would be a well-chosen hour for return, as the boss would be less pressed upon by engagements then, perhaps, than at other hours.
In the nature of things, the long delay might well have cooled the knightliest ardor. But as he departed from the office, Mr. Surtaine took with him a copy of that day"s "Clarion" for perusal, and in its pages discovered a "follow-up" of the previous day"s outrage. Back home he went, and added to his literary effort a few more paragraphs wherein the editorial "we" more profoundly cringed, cowered, and crawled in penitential abas.e.m.e.nt. Despite the relish of the words, Hal rather hoped that the editor would refuse to publish his masterpiece. He itched to use that whip.
CHAPTER VI
LAUNCHED
For purposes of vital statistics, the head office boy of the Worthington "Daily Clarion" was denominated Reginald Currier. As this chaste cognomen was artistically incompatible with his squint eye, his militant swagger, and a general bearing of unrepressed hostility toward all created beings, he was professionally known as "Bim." Journalism, for him, was comprised in a single tenet; that no visitor of whatsoever kind had or possibly could have any business of even remotely legitimate nature within the precincts of the "Clarion" office. Tradition of the place held that a dent in the wall back of his desk marked the termination of an argument in which Reginald, all unwitting, had essayed to maintain his thesis against the lightweight champion of the State who had come to call on the sporting editor.
There had been a lull in the activities of this minor Cerberus when the light and swinging footfall of one coming up the dim stairway several steps at a time aroused his ready suspicions. He bristled forth to the rail to meet a tall and rather elegant young man whom he greeted with a growl to this effect:
"Hoojer wanter see?"
"Is the editor in?"
"Whajjer want uvvum?"
The tall visitor stepped forward, holding out a card. "Take this to him, please, and say that I"d like to see him at once."
Unwisely, Reginald disregarded the card, which fluttered to the floor.
More unwisely, he ignored a certain tensity of expression upon the face of his interlocutor. Most unwisely he repeated, in his very savagest growl:
"Whajjer want uvvum, I said. Didn" chu hear me?"
Graceful and effortless as the mounting lark, Reginald Currier rose and soared. When he again touched earth, it was only to go spinning into a far corner where he first embraced, then strove with and was finally tripped and thrown by a large and lurking waste-basket. Somewhat perturbed, he extricated himself in time to see the decisive visitor disappear through an inner door. Retrieving the crumpled and rejected card from its resting-place, he examined it with interest. The legend upon it was "Mr. Harrington Surtaine."
"Huh!" grunted Reginald Currier; "I never seen _that_ in no sporting column."
Once within the sacred precincts, young Mr. Surtaine turned into an inner room, b.u.mped against a man trailing a kite-tail of proof, who had issued from a door to the right, asked a question, got a response, and entered the editor"s den. Two littered desks made up the princ.i.p.al furniture of the place. Impartially distributed between the further desk and a chair, the form of one lost in slumber sprawled. At the nearer one sat a dyspeptic man of middle age waving a heavy pencil above a galley proof.
"Are you the editor?" asked Hal.
"One editor. I"m Mr. Sterne. How the devil did you get in here?"
"Are you responsible for this?" Hal held up the morning"s clipping, headed "Surtaine Fakeries Explained."
"Who are you?" asked Sterne, nervously hitching in his chair.
"I am Harrington Surtaine."
The journalist whistled, a soft, long-drawn note. "Dr. Surtaine"s son?"
he inquired.
"Yes."
"That"s awkward." "Not half as awkward as it"s going to be unless you apologize privately and publicly."
Mr. Sterne looked at him estimatingly, at the same time wadding up a newspaper clipping from the desk in front of him. This he cast at the slumberer with felicitous accuracy.
"Hoong!" observed that gentleman, starting up and caressing his cheek.
"Wake up, Mac. Here"s a man from the Trouble Belt, with samples to show."
The individual thus addressed slowly rose out of his chair, exhibiting a squat, gnarly figure surmounted by a very large head.
Hal"s hand came up out of his pocket, with the dog-whip writhing unpleasantly after it. Simultaneously, the ex-sleeper projected himself, without any particular violence but with astonishing quickness, between the caller and his prey. Without at all knowing whence it was derived, Hal became aware of a large, black, k.n.o.bby stick, which it were inadequate to call a cane, in his new opponent"s grasp.
Of physical courage there was no lack in the scion of the Surtaine line.
Neither, however, was he wholly dest.i.tute of reasoning powers and caution. The figure before him was of an unquestionable athleticism; the weapon of obvious weight and fiber. The situation was embarra.s.sing.