"An alias. That's what they called bubonic plague in San Francisco and yellow fever in Texas in the old days of concealment." "It couldn't be either of those, could it?" "No. But it might be any reportable disease: diphtheria, smallpox, any of 'em. Even that hardly explains the quicklime." "Could you look into it for us; for the 'Clarion'?" "I? Work for the 'Clarion'?" "Why not?" "I don't like your paper." "But you'd be doing a public service." "Possibly. How do I know you'd print what I discovered--supposing I discovered anything?" "We're publishing an honest paper, nowadays." "_Are_ you? Got this morning's?" Like all good newspaper men, McGuire Ellis habitually went armed with a copy of his own paper. He produced it from his coat pocket. "Honest, eh?" muttered the physician grimly as he twisted the "Clarion" inside out. "Honest! Well, not to go any farther, what about this for honesty?" Top of column, "next to reading," as its contract specified, the lure of the Neverfail Company stood forth, bold and black. "Boon to Troubled Womanhood" was the heading. Dr. Elliot read, with slow emphasis, the lying half-promises, the specious pretenses of the company's "Relief Pills." "No Case too Obstinate": "Suppression from Whatever Cause": "Thousands of Women have Cause to Bless this Sovereign Remedy": "Saved from Desperation." "No doubt what that means, is there?" queried the reader. "It seems pretty plain." "What do you mean, then, by telling me you run an honest paper when you carry an abortion advertisement every day?" "Will that medicine cause abortion?" "Certainly it won't cause abortion!" "Well, then." "Can't you see that makes it all the worse, in a way? It promises to bring on abortion. It encourages any fool girl who otherwise might be withheld from vice by fear of consequences. It puts a weapon of argument into the hands of every rake and ruiner; 'If you get into trouble, this stuff will fix you all right.' How many suicides do you suppose your 'Boon to Womanhood' and its kind of hellishness causes in a year, thanks to the help of your honest journalism?" "When I said we were honest, I wasn't thinking of the advertising." "But I am. Can you be honest on one page and a crook on another? Can you bang the big drum of righteousness in one column and promise falsely in the next to commit murder? Ellis, why does the 'Clarion' carry such stuff as that?" "Do you really want to know?" "Well, you're asking me to help your sheet," the ex-surgeon reminded him. "Because Dr. L. Andre Surtaine _is_ the Neverfail Company." "Oh," said the other. "And I suppose Dr. L. Andre Surtaine _is_ the 'Clarion,' also. Well, I don't choose to be associated with that honorable and high-minded polecat, thank you." "Don't be too sure about the 'Clarion.' Harrington Surtaine isn't his father." "The same rotten breed." "Plus another strain. Where it comes from I don't know, but there's something in the boy that may work out to big ends."