"Maybe I don"t and then again maybe I do. It won"t be as good as your copy, p"r"aps. But it"ll get _some_ coin, I reckon. Take a look," he taunted, and tossed his proofs to the other.
The quack broke forth at the first glance. "Look here! You claim fifty thousand tons of copper in sight."
"So there is."
"With a telescope, I suppose."
"Well, telescope"s sight, ain"t it? You wouldn"t try to hear through one, would you?"
"And $200,000.00 worth, ready for milling," continued the critic.
"Printer"s error in the decimal point," returned the other, with airy impudence. "Move it two to the left. Keno! There you have it: $2000.00."
"Very ingenious, Mr. McQuiggan," said Hal. "But you"re practically admitting that your ads. are faked."
"Admittin" nothin"! I offer you the ads. and I"ve got the ready stuff to pay for "em."
"And you think that is all that"s necessary?"
"Sure do I!"
"Mr. McQuiggan," remarked Ellis, "has probably been reading our able editorial on the reformed and chastened policy of the "Clarion.""
Hal turned an angry red. "That doesn"t commit us to accepting swindles."
"Don"t it?" queried McQuiggan. "Since when did you get so pick-an"-choosy?"
"Straight advertising," announced Dr. Surtaine, "has been the unvarying policy of this paper since my son took it over."
"Straight!" vociferated McQuiggan. "_Straight?_ Ladies and gents: the well-known Surtaine Family will now put on their screamin" farce ent.i.tled "Honesty is the Best Policy.""
"When you"re through playing the clown--" began Hal.
"Straight advertising," pursued the other. "Did I really hear them sweet words in Andy Certain"s voice? No! Say, somebody ring an alarm-clock on me. I can"t wake up."
"I think we"ve heard enough from you, McQuiggan," warned Hal.
"Do you!" The promoter sprang from his chair and all the latent venom of his temper fumed and stung in the words he poured out. "Well, take another think. I"ve got some things to tell you, young feller. Don"t you come the high-and-holy on me. You and your smooth, big, phony stuffed-shirt of a father."
"Here, you!" shouted the leading citizen thus injuriously designated, but the other"s voice slashed through his protest like a blade through pulp.
"Certina! Ho-oh! Warranted to cure consumption, warts, heart-disease, softening of the brain, and the b.l.o.o.d.y pip! And what is it? Morphine and booze."
"You"re a liar," thundered the outraged proprietor: "Ten thousand dollars to any one who can show a grain of morphine in it."
"Changed the formula, have you? Pure Food Law scared you out of the dope, eh? Well, even at that it"s the same old bunk. What about your testimonials? Fake "em, and forge "em, and bribe and blackmail for "em and then stand up to me and pull the pious plate-pusher stuff about being straight. Oh, my Gawd! It"d make a straddle-bug spit at the sun, to hear you. Why, I"m no saint, but the medical line was too strong for my stomach. I got out of it."
"Yes, you did, you dirty little dollar-s.n.a.t.c.her! You got put of it into jail for peddling raw gin--."
"Don"t you go raking up old muck with me, you rotten big poisoner!"
roared McQuiggan: "or you"ll get the hot end of it. How about that girl that went batty after taking Cert--"
"Wait a moment! Father! Please!" Hal broke in, aghast at this display.
"We"re not discussing the medical business. We"re talking advertising.
McQuiggan, yours is refused. We don"t run that cla.s.s of matter in the "Clarion.""
"No? Since when? You"d better consult an oculist, young Surtaine."
"If ever this paper carried such a glaring fake as your Streaky Mountain--"
"Stop right there! Stop! look! and listen!" He caught up the day"s issue from the floor and flaunted it, riddling the flimsy surface with the stiffened finger of indictment. "Look at it! Look at this ad.--and this--and this." The paper was rent with the vehemence of his indication. "Put my copy next to that, and it"d come to life and squirm to get away."
"Nothing there but what every paper takes," defended Ellis.
"Every paper"d be glad to take my stuff, too. Why, Streaky Mountain copy is the Holy Bible compared to what you"ve got here. Take a slant at this: "Consumption Cured in Three Months."--"Cancer Cured or your Money Back."--Catarrh dopes, headache cures, germ-killers, baby-soothers, nerve-builders,--the whole stinkin" lot. Don"t I know "em! Either sugar pills that couldn"t cure a belly-ache, or h.e.l.l"s-brew of morphine and booze. Certina ain"t the worst of "em, any more than it"s the best. I may squeeze a few dollars out of easy b.o.o.bs, but you, Andy Certain, you and your young whelp here, you"re playin" the poor suckers for their lives. And then you"re too lily-fingered to touch a mining proposition because there"s a gamble in it!"
He crumpled the paper in his sinewy hands, hurled it to the floor, kicked it high over Dr. Surtaine"s head, and stalking across to Hal"s desk, slapped down his proofs on it with a violence that jarred the whole structure.
"You run that," he snarled, "or I"ll hire the biggest hall in Worthington and tell the whole town what I"ve just been telling you."
His face, furrowed and threatening, was thrust down close to Hal"s. Thus lowered, the eyes came level with a strip of print, pasted across the inner angle of the desk.
""Whose Bread I Eat, his Song I Sing,"" he read. "What"s that?"
"A motto," said McGuire Ellis. "The complete guide to correct journalistic conduct. Put there, lest we forget."
"H"m!" said McQuiggan, puzzled. "It"s in the right place, all right, all right. Well, does my ad. go?"
"No," said Hal. "But I"m much obliged to you, McQuiggan."
"You go to h.e.l.l. What"re you obliged to me for?" said the visitor suspiciously.
"For the truth. I think you"ve told it to me. Anyway you"ve made me tell it to myself."
"I guess I ain"t told you much you don"t know about your snide business."
"You have, though. Go ahead and hire your hall. But--take a look at to-morrow"s "Clarion" before you make your speech. Now, good-day to you."
McQuiggan, wondering and a little subdued by a certain quiet resolution in Hal"s speech, went, beckoning Ellis after him for explication. Hal turned to his father.
"I don"t suppose," he began haltingly, "that you could have told me all this yourself."
"What?" asked Dr. Surtaine, consciously on the defensive.
"About the medical ads."
"McQuiggan"s a sore-head"--began the Doctor.
"But you might have told me about Certina, as I"ve been living on Certina money."