Banter

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ Bannister, “what is the use of trying to do some people a service? Here have I been scheming as to how I could manage to avail myself of this chance, and now this ungrateful girl turns round and tells me she doesn’t want the situation. Do you know what you are refusing, Eleanor Vane? Have you learnt your father’s habit of pauperism, that you prefer to be a burden upon this penniless music-teacher and her son, or nephew, or whatever he is, rather than make an honest effort to get your own living?” ”

“ For the man in the street they held no message. No; nor for the woman in the home. Banneker thought of young Smith of the yacht and the coming millions, with a newspaper waiting to drop into his hands. He wished he could have that newspaper—any newspaper, for a year. He’d make the man in the street sit up and read his editorials. Yes, and the woman in the home. Why not the boy and the girl in school, also? Any writer, really master of his pen, ought to be able to make even a problem in algebra editorially interesting! ”

“ We were all hard at work upon our hands and knees, when we were surprised by the sound of a rifle-shot, fired at no great distance in the Wood, in a northerly direction.
Bannister got slowly to his feet, and stood listening; and then, although he turned in my direction, it was as if he spoke quietly to himself.
"One shot," said he. "And one shot only."
That was all he said.
"Trust was never armed," said I.
"That signifies nothing," answered Bannister. "Amos is loaded down by gold. If he carried a rifle, Trust may have wrenched it from his hands." ”

“ I won't forget that, Bantry."
"It's only right for you to believe me, Miss."
"I always believe you!"
Bantry's answer was inaudible; she bent low over the clothes on the lounge to allow Rachel to pass without seeing that she was still crying, for Bantry was storming in her heart against Mrs. Astry. It had always been so, she told herself. Eva had always traded on her sister's generosity and abused her affection.
"Jealous little cat!" the grim old Scotchwoman said to herself, "selfish isn't the name for her; she's like an Angora when it's got all the cream." ”

“ But when an actor comes, and instead of the delightful phantom—the creature dear to half-belief—which Bannister exhibited—displays before our eyes a downright concretion of a Wapping sailor—a jolly warm-hearted Jack Tar—and nothing else—when instead of investing it with a delicious confusedness of the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose—he gives to it a downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness of its actions ”

“ 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. ”

“ You should see the black look Lioney gave at me, and the white smile I gave at him.
Now, I will take myself and my readers to Bantry Bay for a while.
In discharge of my duty of attending to the taking of contracts for my employer, I went to see the Guardians of the Bantry poorhouse one day, with some samples of wool and cotton. I had to wait a while, till they were ready to receive the tenders. In the waiting room was Alexander M. Sullivan, who became so active in Irish politics, some years after, as Editor of the Dublin Nation. He was then a Relieving-officer of the Bantry Union. ”

“ Don’t make it any fixed engagement,’ said Banford. ‘Leave yourself free to go or not after he’s got back and found you a place, Nellie. Anything else is madness, madness.’
‘Don’t you think,’ said the youth, ‘we ought to get married before I go — and then go together, or separate, according to how it happens?’
‘I think it’s a terrible idea,’ cried Banford.
But the boy was watching March. ”

“ She was breathing quickly.
"Are you busy, father? I—I want to tell you something."
John Bannister smiled. He had a wintry smile, a sort of muscular affection of the mouth, to which his eyes contributed nothing. ”

“ Bannister was drafted, failed to respond, and was apprehended by the provost-guard. On his way to join the regiment to which he had been assigned he accidentally ran across me. It appears that he has a son, not yet eighteen years of age, who recently enlisted, without his father’s knowledge, and is now in your army, Col. Gordon’s regiment of Penn. Volunteers, Co. M. Bannister wants to take his son’s place, and have the boy discharged and sent home to his mother, who is back there alone. ”

“ I shall never forget that moment, for it was the only occasion upon which I saw John Bannister afraid, and Mr. Forsyth alive--a living, sentient being--in every fibre of his body.
"This madman must not live!" he shouted.
Bannister answered slowly, in the same quiet voice in which he had spoken before.
"I am inclined to think you right," said he. "His very existence upon the face of the earth is a blot upon Creation. The sound of that hideous laughter robs the wilderness of all its beauty." ”

“ Bantling, who was of rather a slow and a discursive habit, relished a prompt, keen, positive woman, who charmed him by the influence of a shining, challenging eye and a kind of bandbox freshness, and who kindled a perception of raciness in a mind to which the usual fare of life seemed unsalted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He knew society was on top of him, and he must scheme. So with his teeth bitten together, and his nose curiously slightly lifted, like some creature that is vicious, and his eyes fixed and staring, he went through the morning’s affairs drunk with anger and suppression. In his mind was one thing — Banford. He took no heed of all March’s outpouring: none. One thorn rankled, stuck in his mind. Banford. In his mind, in his soul, in his whole being, one thorn rankling to insanity. And he would have to get it out. He would have to get the thorn of Banford out of his life, if he died for it. ”

“ Banneker must have admitted that to himself. Too much a man of the world in many strata not to be adjustable to any of them, nevertheless he felt more attuned to and at one with his environment amidst the suave formalism of Sherry’s than in the more uneasy and precarious elegancies of an East-Side Tammany Association promenade and ball.
Some of the youngsters of The Ledger said that he was climbing.
He was not climbing. To climb one must be conscious of an ascent to be surmounted. Banneker was serenely unaware of anything above him, in that sense. ”

“ Bannister is spare-made, slim, with an interesting cast of countenance, quick in his walk, and easy in his manners. He is a lover of poetry and the classics, and is always hunting up some new model for his gifted pencil and brush. ”

“ A child can weave romance into any condition of life in which fate places him; and William Bannister had managed to interest himself in his present existence with a considerable gusto. Scraps of conversation between Mrs. Porter and Mamie, overheard and digested, had given him a good working knowledge of the system of hygiene of which he was the centre. ”

“ Presently Marrineal consulted his watch.
“You’re not going up to the After-Theater Club to-night?” he asked Banneker, and, on receiving a negative reply, made his adieus and went out with Ives to his waiting car.
Banneker and Edmonds looked at each other. “Don’t both speak at once,” chuckled Banneker. “What do you?”
“Think of him? He’s a smooth article. Very smooth. But I’ve seen ’em before that were straight as well as smooth.”
“Bland,” said Banneker. “Bland with a surpassing blandness. A blandness amounting to blandeur, as grandness in the highest degree becomes grandeur. ”

“ Are you?”
“You’ve had your raise, and fairly early. Unless you had been worth it, you wouldn’t have had it.”
“Am I doing what you expected of me?”
“Not exactly. But you’re developing into a sure, reliable reporter.”
“A routine man,” commented Banneker.
“After all, the routine man is the backbone of the office.” Mr. Gordon executed a fantasia on his thumb. “Would you care to try a desk job?” he asked, peering at Banneker over his glasses.
“I’d rather run a trolley car. There’s more life in it.”
“Do you see life, in your work, Mr. Banneker?” ”

“ No one ever spoke of him as Mr. Bannister; they always said the Miss Bannisters' Brother. If you could see the Miss Bannisters, especially Miss Selina, you would understand this; but although they had deep, gruff voices, they were really very kind.
As time went on, and the Miss Bannisters' Brother did not seem to grow any better, or to be likely to take up his gardening and his pigeons again, the Miss Bannisters had racked their brains to think of some employment for him other than reading, which is not good for anyone all day long. ”

“ ADVENTURE I ALL the time, under that motivating anger and determination not to go back, ran the two threads of thought—one quickly sifting the practicalities of a situation for a bare headed young girl in the streets of a city at two o’clock in the morning, the other analyzing, jeering at the melodrama of her position.
“It’s a warm night,” she thought, “I’ll probably get nothing but a terrific cold in my head if I do sit in Lincoln Park all night. That young devil! She planned all that. She deliberately didn’t tell Ted they were not coming straight home. There’s no way of proving it. ”

“ There were sounds which suggested a row at the station-door, but the agent, called at that moment to the wire, could not investigate. The train came and went, and he saw nothing more of the ex-railroader from the West.
Although Mr. Horace Vanney smiled pleasantly enough when Banneker presented himself at the office to make his report, the nature of the smile suggested a background more uncertain.
“Well, what have you found, my boy?” the financier began.
“A good many things that ought to be changed,” answered Banneker bluntly.
“Quite probably. No institution is perfect.” ”

“ At their side were large glasses filled with ale, and they glittered in the light of the lamp. Then Mr. Bannister, sitting silently in his dark corner, overheard their conversation.
“They are all asleep. There is no one here.”
"No—the man is alone—we are the only travelers.”
"The box is under the bed. You know your directions. I will be waiting for you at the bottom of the passage—”
"One blow will be sufficient. When I strike I strike hard.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ There is about the true reporter type an infinitely youthful quality; attractive and touching; the eternal juvenile, which, being once outgrown with its facile and evanescent enthusiasms, leaves the expert declining into the hack. Beside this prematurely weary example of a swift and precarious success, Banneker was mature of character and standard. Nevertheless, the seasoned journalist was steeped in knowledge which the tyro craved. ”