Unsatisfactory though this might be to the mercantile element, it was more so to the newspaper. For The Guardian simply could not make a living at the reduced rates. There was but one thing to be done: increase circulation, thereby giving the paper augmented advertising value, and raise the advertising rates proportionately. It had been agreed between the Retailers’ Association committee and Jeremy that in view of his reduction of tariff, there would be no opposition to an increase when the circulation should warrant it. Ellison and the other committeemen did not believe that The Guardian could add to its circulation materially. Jeremy and his general manager did. They did n’t know just how. They only knew that it had to, or pass ignominiously out of existence! So they took the customary business-man’s gamble. In the hope of making money they spent money. The paper began to swell out and look lively and prosperous. But Jeremy’s bank account evidenced the ravages of a galloping consumption. And though the public talked about The Guardian and speculated interestedly upon its future, it did not fall over itself to subscribe. It waited to see and be convinced. The public has that habit. Meanwhile two able gentlemen with no ostensible interest in journalism were quietly watching and estimating the course of The Guardian. President Montrose Clark, of the Fenchester Public Utilities Corporation, and his legal aide-de-camp Judge Selden Dana, a pair far more potent in Fenchester’s political affairs than Fenchester’s undisceming citizenry ever dreamed, were concerned with the newspapers as affecting their own plans, and were specially concerned with Jeremy Robson’s newspaper because they possessed no reliable data on young Mr. Robson. “Do you know him?” asked Judge Dana. “No,” replied Montrose Clark, whose interview with the “rippawtah” of The Record had failed to leave any memory of the young man’s name. “What do you think of The Guardian since he got it?” “It’s silly,” pronounced Mr. Clark loftily. “Silly? Would you call it silly?” “I _have_ called it silly. It is beginning to show leanings toward a half-baked radicalism.” “Robson is very young.” “Even socialistic tendencies,” pursued the other. “Socialism is anything that holds up our programme,” grinned the lawyer, who occasionally permitted himself the private luxury of frankness. The public utilitarian frowned. “Have you been reading the articles on tax-dodgers?” “I have.” “What is the purpose of them, if not to stir up socialistic unrest?” “Sensation, I should say. The series has been popular. When Mr. Average Citizen reads in his paper that he is being taxed twice as heavily as Mr. Rich Man next door, he’s interested. He begins to think the paper is a devil of a paper. He talks about it. That helps.” “Suppose The Guardian should attack Us on the tax issue?”