Banneker

“ Banneker was annoyed at himself for flushing. “They disseminate news. We’ve got to have news, to carry on the world. Only a small fraction of it is—well, malodorous. Would you destroy the whole system because of one flaw? You’re not fair.”
“Fair? Of course I’m not. How should I be? No; I would not destroy the system. Merely deodorize it a bit. But I suppose the public likes the odors. It sniffs ’em up like—like Cyrano in the bake-shop. A marvelous institution, the public which you and I serve. Have you ever thought of magazine work, Mr. Banneker?” ”

“ The smoke of his minute pipe went up, tenuous and graceful, incense devoted to the unseen God behind the strangely patterned curtain of print; to Baal who was perhaps even then grinning down upon his unsuspecting worshipers.
But Banneker, moving purposefully amidst that vast phantasmagoria of pulsing print, wherein all was magnified, distorted, perverted to the claims of a gross and rabid public appetite, dreamed his pure, untainted dream; the conception of his newspaper as a voice potent enough to reach and move all; dominant enough to impose its underlying ideal ”

“ 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. ”

“ Banneker sat silent so long that his host began: “Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked that—”
“I’m going to tell you exactly what occurred,” said Banneker quietly, and outlined the episode of the editorial, suppressing, however, Marrineal’s covert threat as to Io and The Searchlight. “And I haven’t resigned. So you see what manner of man I am,” he concluded defiantly.
“You mean a coward? I don’t think it.”
“I wish I were sure!” burst out Banneker.
“Ah? That’s hard, when the soul doesn’t know itself. Is it money?” The crisp, clear voice had softened to a great kindliness. ”

“ Banneker’s last sight of the wreck, as he paused at the curve, was the helpful young man perched on the rear heap of wreckage which had been the observation car, peering anxiously into its depths (“Looking for I. O. W. probably,” surmised the agent) , and two commercial gentlemen from the smoker whiling away a commercially unproductive hiatus by playing pinochle on a suitcase held across their knees. Glancing at the vast, swollen, blue-black billows rolling up the sky, Banneker guessed that their game would be shortly interrupted.
He hoped that the dead would not get wet. ”

“ Infinitely high, infinitely potent sounded the imminent tumult of the invisible Powers of the night, on whose sufferance they moved, tiny, obscure, and unharmed. It filled all the distances.
Debouching upon the open desert, they found their range of vision slightly expanded. They could dimly perceive each other. The horses drew closer together. With his flash covered by his poncho, Banneker consulted a compass and altered their course, for he wished to give the station, to which Gardner might have returned, a wide berth. Io moved up abreast of him as he stood, studying the needle. ”

“ Banneker laughed. “Oh, Io! It’s such a relief to get a clear view and an honest one from some one else. There’s no one in the office except Russell Edmonds, and he’s away now.... You think McClintick is right? So do I.”
“But so are you. You had to do as you did about the story. If any one is to blame, it is Mr. Marrineal. Yet how can one blame him? He had to protect his mother. It’s a fearfully complicated phenomenon, a newspaper, isn’t it, Ban?”
“Io, the soul of man is simple and clear compared with the soul of a newspaper.” ”

“ It isn’t as sporty as all that.” He rose to shake hands with a short, angular young man, dressed to a perfection as accurate as Banneker’s own, and excelling him in one distinctive touch, a coat-flower of gold-and-white such as no other in New York could wear, since only in one conservatory was that special orchid successfully grown. By it Banneker recognized Poultney Masters, Jr., the son and heir of the tyrannous old financier who had for years bullied and browbeaten New York to his wayward old heart’s content. ”

“ Banneker played well that afternoon because he played recklessly. Lack of practice sometimes works out that way; as if luck took charge of a man’s play and carried him through. Three of the five goals made by the second team fell to his mallet, and he left the field heartily cursed on all sides for his recalcitrancy in throwing himself away on work when the sport of sports called him. ”

“ Akely sighed again, gave Banneker a glance which proclaimed an utter lack of interest, and plunged his shears into the editorial vitals of the Springfield Republican. Tommy Burt led the surprised Banneker away.
“Dried up, played out, and given a measly thirty-five a week as hopper-feeder for the editorial room,” he announced. “And he was the star man of his time.”
“That’s pretty rotten treatment for him, then,” said Banneker indignantly.
“Not a bit of it. He isn’t worth what he gets. Most offices would have chucked him out on the street.” ”

“ Beneath, at his routine, Banneker also set himself to think; confused, bewildered, impossibly conjectural thoughts not unmingled with semi-official anxiety. Harboring a woman on company property, even though she were, in some sense, a charge of the company, might be open to misconceptions. He wished that the mysterious Io would declare herself. ”

“ Twice the telegraph instrument broke in on him; but these matters claimed only the outer shell; the soul of the man was concerned with committing its impressions of other souls to the secrecy of white paper, destined to personal and inviolable archives.
Some one entered the waiting-room. There was a tap on his door. Raising his head impatiently, Banneker saw, through the window already dimming with the gathering dusk, a large roan horse, droopy and disconsolate in the downpour. He jumped up and threw open his retreat. A tall woman, slipping out of a streaming poncho, entered. ”

“ Sighting Banneker at luncheon a few days later, Horace Vanney went so far as to cross the room to greet and congratulate him.
“A master-stroke,” he said, pressing Banneker’s hand with his soft palm. “We’re glad to have you with us. Won’t you call me up and lunch with me soon?”
At The Retreat, after polo, that Saturday, the senior Masters met Banneker face to face in a hallway, and held him up.
“Politics is politics. Eh?” he grunted.
“It’s a great game,” returned the journalist. ”

“ It’s an off day and we probably won’t have two full teams. Let me rig you out, and you try it.”
Banneker shook his head. “I’m here on business. I’m a reporter with a story to get.”
“All right; it’s up to a reporter to stick until he gets his news,” agreed the other. “You dismiss your taxi, and stay out here and dine, and I’ll run you back to town myself. And at nine o’clock I’ll answer your question and answer it straight.”
Banneker, gazing longingly at the bright turf of the field, accepted.
Polo is to The Retreat what golf is to the average country club. ”

“ Well, I’m off for the theater.”
Between acts, Banneker, walking out to get air, was conscious of being the object of comment and demonstration. He heard his name spoken in half whispers; saw nods and jerks of the head; was an involuntary eavesdropper upon a heated discussion; “That’s the man.”—“No; it ain’t. The paper says he’s a big feller.”—“This guy ain’t a reporter. Pipe his clothes.”—“Well, he’s big if you size him right. Look at his shoulders.”—“I’ll betcha ten he ain’t the man.” And an apologetic young fellow ran after him to ask if he was not, in truth, Mr. Banneker of The Ledger. ”

“ But there is about a man, singly and selflessly intent upon his job in hand, an inner potency impossible to obstruct. Banneker recognized it; inwardly admitted, too, the unsoundness of the swift, protective rage rising within, himself.
“I don’t propose to make trouble for you or to have trouble with you,” said the reporter evenly. “But I’m going to Miss Van Arsdale’s unless I’m shot on the way there.”
“That’s all right,” returned the agent, mastering himself. “I beg your pardon for threatening you. But you’ll have to find your own way. Will you put up here for the night, again?” ”

“ I could stand anything except the charge that I’ve lost my naturalness and become conventional.”
“You’re like the man who could resist anything except temptation, my dear: you can stand anything except criticism,” returned Banneker with a smile so friendly that there was no sting in the words. “You’ve never had enough of that. You’re the spoiled pet of the critics.”
“Not of this new one of yours. He’s worse than Gurney. Who is he and where does he come from?”
“An inconsiderable hamlet known as Chicago. Name, Allan Haslett. ”

“ Banneker flushed angrily, though he said, coolly enough: “I think perhaps you would make an enterprising reporter, yourself, Miss Forbes.”
“I’m sure I should. Well, I’ll apologize. And if you won’t come for Io—she’s still abroad, by the way and won’t be back for a month—perhaps you’ll come for me. Just to show that you forgive my impertinences. Everybody does. I’m going to tell Bertie Cressey he must bring you.... All right, Bertie! I wish you wouldn’t follow me up like—like a paper-chase. Good-night, Mr. Banneker.” ”

“ Only one person sat in all the long files of the work-tables, littered with copy-paper and disarranged newspapers; a dark young giant with the discouraged and hurt look of a boy kept in after school. All this Banneker took in while the managing editor was disposing, usually with a single penciled word or number, of a sheaf of telegraphic “queries” left upon his desk. Having finished, he swiveled in his chair, to face Banneker, and, as he spoke, kept bouncing the thin point of a letter-opener from the knuckles of his left hand. ”

“ Gordon, Banneker attained the sanctum of the capitalist.
“Well, well!” was the important man’s greeting as he shook hands. “Our young friend from the desert! How do we find New York?”
From Banneker’s reply, there grew out a pleasantly purposeless conversation, which afforded the newcomer opportunity to decide that he did not like this Mr. Vanney, sleek, smiling, gentle, and courteous, as well as he had the brusque old tyrant of the wreck. That green-whiskered autocrat had been at least natural, direct, and unselfish in his grim emergency work. ”

“ It was the sort of generalized, picturesque “fluff-stuff” matter which Banneker could handle better than his compeers by sheer imaginative grasp and deftness of presentation. Being now a writer on space, paid at the rate of eight dollars a column of from thirteen to nineteen hundred words, he found the assignment profitable and the test of skill quite to his taste. Soft job though it was in a way, however, the unrelenting pressure of the heat and the task of finding, day after day, new phases and fresh phrases in which to deal with it, made inroads upon his nerves. ”

“ It gave no inkling of its unique exclusiveness, and equally unique expensiveness. As for Cressey, that simple, direct, and confident soul took not the smallest account of Banneker’s standardized clothing, which made him almost as conspicuous in that environment as if he had entered clad in a wooden packing-case. Cressey’s creed in such matters was complete; any friend of his was good enough for any environment to which he might introduce him, and any other friend who took exceptions might go farther! ”

“ Densmore’s bearing had become that of a man to his equal. “I’ll tell you, let’s go up to the clubhouse and have a drink, shan’t we? D’ you mind just waiting here while I give this nag a little run to supple him up?”
He was off, leaving Banneker with brain awhirl. To steady himself against this sudden flood of memory and circumstance, Banneker strove to focus his attention upon the technique of the horse and his rider. ”

“ Once embarked upon this primrose path, which is always an imperceptible but easy down-slope, Io went farther than she had intended. “Why not?” she challenged.
“Brass buttons,” said Banneker concisely.
She flushed angrily. “You can be rather a beast, can’t you!”
“A beast? Just for reminding you that the Atkinson and St. Philip station-agent at Manzanita does not include in his official duties that of presuming to fall in love with chance passengers who happen to be more or less in his care.” ”

“ Truth! There’s your religion for you. Go to it.”
“And serve a public that I’ll despise as soon as I get strong enough to disregard it’s contempt for me,” smiled Banneker.
“You’ll find a public that you can’t afford to despise,” retorted the veteran. “There is such a public. It’s waiting.”
“Well; I’ll know in a couple of weeks,” said Banneker. “But I think I’m about through.”
For Edmonds’s bitter wisdom had gone far toward confirming his resolution to follow up his first incursion into the magazine field if it met with the success which he confidently expected of it. ”

“ Oh, my God!” whispered Banneker.
“And she cares. I know she cared when she was here. Io isn’t the kind of woman to forget easily. She tried once, you know.” Miss Van Arsdale smiled wanly. “Why doesn’t she ever say anything of you in her letters?”
“She does.”
“Very little.” (Io’s letters, passing through Banneker’s hands were carefully censored, of necessity, to forefend any allusion to the tragedy of Willis Enderby, often to the extent of being rewritten complete. It now occurred to Banneker that he had perhaps overdone the matter of keeping his own name out of them.) ”