Horace Vanney, Chairman of the Board of the International Cloth Company, Who declares that if working-women are paid more than a bare living wage, The surplus goes into finery and vanities which tempt them to ruin, Mr. Vanney's mills pay girls four dollars a week. Ravenously hungry, Banneker went out to order a long-delayed dinner at Katie's. Hardly had he swallowed his first mouthful of soup, when an office boy appeared. "Mr. Gordon wants to know if you can come back to the office at once." On the theory that two minutes, while important to his stomach, would not greatly matter to the managing editor, Banneker consumed the rest of his soup and returned. He found Mr. Gordon visibly disturbed. "Sit down, Mr. Banneker," he said. Banneker compiled. "We can't use that Sippiac story." Banneker sat silent and attentive. "Why did you write it that way?" "I wrote it as I got it." "It is not a fair story." "Every fact--" "It is a most unfair story." "Do you know Sippiac, Mr. Gordon?" inquired Banneker equably. "I do not. Nor can I believe it possible that you could acquire the knowledge of it implied in your article, in a few hours." "I spent some time investigating conditions there before I came on the paper." Mr. Gordon was taken aback. Shifting his stylus to his left hand, he assailed severally the knuckles of his right therewith before he spoke. "You know the principles of The Ledger, Mr. Banneker." "To get the facts and print them, so I have understood." "These are not facts." The managing editor rapped sharply upon the proof. "This is editorial matter, hardly disguised." "Descriptive, I should call it," returned the writer amiably. "Editorial. You have pictured Sippiac as a hell on earth." "It is." "Sentimentalism!" snapped the other. His heavy visage wore a disturbed and peevish expression that rendered it quite plaintive. "You have been with us long enough, Mr. Banneker, to know that we do not cater to the uplift-social trade, nor are we after the labor vote." "Yes, sir. I understand that." "Yet you present here, what is, in effect, a damning indictment of the Sippiac Mills." "The facts do that; not I." "But you have selected your facts, cleverly--oh, very cleverly--to produce that effect, while ignoring facts on the other side." "Such as?" "Such as the presence and influence of agitators. The evening editions have the names, and some of the speeches." "That is merely clouding the main issue. Conditions are such there that no outside agitation is necessary to make trouble." "But the agitators are there. They're an element and you have ignored it. Mr. Banneker, do you consider that you are dealing fairly with this paper, in attempting to commit it to an inflammatory, pro-strike course?" "Certainly, if the facts constitute that kind of an argument." "What of that picture of Horace Vanney? Is that news?" "Why not? It goes to the root of the whole trouble."