The German press ravened. The dailies howled for the blood of the dastardly and treacherous Robson. They called upon the authorities to suppress The Guardian, without troubling to specify upon what ground. They summoned the Governor to cut loose from a supporter so violent, so vicious, so filled with the spirit of hatred and contention. The German religious press backed up the attack, and even improved upon it. It declared The Guardian and its owner enemies to an all-wise, all-beneficent, and all-German Gott, and shrieked inquisitorially for a holy ban upon it. All of which, combined, failed to keep Jeremy awake o’ nights. Indeed, it had quite the reverse effect. For the first time in months he fell asleep at peace with his own soul, and awoke with untainted, new-found courage to face whatever the day might bring. One day brought Cassius Kimball, of The Bellair Journal. He was a slow, cautious, weary, high-minded, and plucky man of forty-five who looked sixty behind his lines and his glasses, and he eyed Jeremy, his devoted admirer, with a benign but puzzled expression as he sat in the office spare chair. “I wish I’d said it first,” was his opening remark. “I wish you had,” returned Jeremy, quite honestly. “I never say anything first. That’s why I’m really not much good.” Jeremy laughed. From the most independent and battle-scarred veteran of Middle Western journalism, this was funny. “It’s a fact, though,” continued the tired voice. “I always think too slow. What are you going to do next?” “Next?” “About the Lusitania issue. You’ve started it in Centralia. Nothing can put out that fire. It may die down and only smoulder. But the embers will be there. And nobody can tell when they’ll reach a powder magazine. Have you seen the recent Eastern papers?” “Some of them.” “A lot of them are yelling for war. It’s going to be put up to the President pretty stiff. What are you going to do about that?” The gravity of the tone, almost amounting to deference, made Jeremy tingle. Here was the greatest journalistic power in Centralia, a man whose clarity and courage of spirit had won for him an almost hierarchic ascendency in his profession, ascribing such importance to the course of The Guardian that he had taken the four-hour journey from Bellair to consult its owner. To do Jeremy justice, his pride was for the paper, semi-impersonal, rather than for himself. To the question he had no ready answer. “I had n’t thought it out yet. What’s your idea?” Kimball took off his glasses and wiped them carefully. His eyes, without them, seemed squinted and anxious. He drummed on the desk a moment before replying.