“We-ell; say it’s because I foresee that the paper is going to have plenty of troubles of its own without our adding to them.” “You haven’t always been so solicitous as to The Guardian’s welfare.” “Meaning that you would like to understand the reason for my present solicitude?” “_Timeo Danaos_,’” quoted Jem. “I fear the Danas bearing gifts.” The lawyer smiled his appreciation. “I’ve given you the best reason I know.” “Did Montrose Clark send you here?” “You don’t like Mr. Clark much, do you?” “Not particularly.” “Nor me, either, perhaps?” “I blush to say that I rather do.” “But you don’t trust me.” “Oh, come, Dana! What would you expect!” “Just for relaxation of the mind, my young friend, what do you think of me?” “Straight?” “Straight.” “I think you’re a slippery old legal crook,” returned Jeremy without hesitation. “And I think you’re a flitter-witted young fool--ninety-nine times out of a hundred!” “And the hundredth?” “That’s what I’m looking at now. By God, you’re an American, anyway! Here, Jem,” he leaned across the table, extending a bony and argumentative forefinger; “if you and I were in the trenches, fighting shoulder to shoulder, it would n’t make a pickle’s worth of difference whether you were a sapheaded loon or not, or whether I was a crook or a thief or a murderer, or not. All we’d have to ask of each other would be that we were fighting in the same cause, and with the last drop of our blood, and to the finish! Am I right?” “I guess you’re right.” “Well, then! What’s this we’re up against right here in Fenchester? Are we fighting? Or playing tiddledy-winks?” “There’s very little tiddledywinks in it, so far as The Guardian is concerned,” confessed Jeremy with a wry face. “So far as any of us are concerned. It’s coming to the place where it’s a case of get together and stick together for us Americans. Seen Magnus Laurens since the Governor’s little soirée?” “No,” answered Jem, flushing. “Laurens thought you were in on Embree’s deal. Why don’t you put him right?” “He can put himself right,” returned the editor shortly. “Hardly that; but he can be put right. There are a lot of things that ought to be put right for you, my boy. Things that have been wrong for a long time.” He leaned to Jeremy again, his long face alight with an eager and innocent candor. “Jem, there’s no use fighting your friends. The people that can help you, the people that are the real Americans of your kind, you’ve always opposed. Come in with us now. There’s nothing that won’t be done for you and The Guardian. I’m going to talk plain talk. Isn’t it about time you made up your mind to be good?” “How be good? What’s on the carpet now?” “Why, this fight against the pacifists and pro-Germans.” “You don’t have to tell me to be good for that. Something else is up.” He eyed the lawyer with a bitter grin. “I might have known you had something up your sleeve. What is it, the Blanket Franchise Bill again?”