“Are, you? They’re semi-legitimate. Compared with some of the stuff we’ve carried they’re so high-principled they’re almost holy.” “Well, what, for instance?” “Paid editorials. Paid political articles. Paid puffs and roasts. Brewery checks. Railroad checks. P.-U. checks. Paving and other contractors’ checks. You can read it all in the back files, if you’re newspaper man enough to read between the lines.” “I never saw any of that on The Record.” “It ain’t there. The Record don’t do it that way; a little more decent. The Record’s a kept-lady. We’re on the street--or were.” “‘Were’ is right.” Jeremy ran his hands through his hair and regarded his companion anxiously. “Andy?” he said. “Ay-ah?” “Were you--Did you--Never mind. It does n’t matter.” “Ay-ah; it matters all right. You were going to ask me whether I had to write any of that bought-and-paid-for stuff. And you were afraid to. Is that right?” Jeremy turned red. “It’s right,” confirmed the other. “Well, I never did. I would n’t. I gave ’em notice that I was fired the noon of the morning I got one of those jobs. They were decent about it. But I had to do the next worse thing. I had to let myself be called off a story so that some other guy could write it, and write it crooked.” “Have we had any--any offers since we took hold of the paper?” “Give ’em time, Boss. It’s only a month, and in the slack period at that. But I’ll tell you one thing. If you’re going to change the entire advertising policy, you’ll have to change your advertising manager, for Perley don’t know anything different from the news-selling and rebate game.” “Perley’s fired.” “So far, so good. Who ’ve you got to take his place?” “Nobody, yet. Could you manage it, Andy?” “Temporarily, I might. But I’m going to have my hands too full re-making the old sheet on the news side to give much time to advertising, in the next year or so.” “Temporarily will do. I’m going to get the principal merchants together and talk it out with them. And I want to show ’em a change in the advertising managership that’ll convince ’em the change of policy is real.” “Ay-ah,” assented Galpin. “It sounds like the rumble of distant thunder to me.” “Not at all. All I want is a decent, living rate for the paper. Every merchant expects a living profit on his merchandise. Why should n’t a newspaper get the same?” “Logical. Perfectly logical. But can you get ’em to see it that way?” Andrew Galpin paused and then delivered himself of a characteristic bit of shrewdness. “The average storekeeper regards advertising outlay as a sort of accepted blackmail which he pays under protest; he don’t know exactly why, and he don’t know exactly for what. If you made him reason it out, he’d probably say that he don’t believe it pays, but everybody does it. Of course, he don’t know whether it pays or not. Nobody does, really.” “Then why does he do it?”