Drayton felt himself catching the fever of Quinlan's fire. He broke in eagerly. "But, Quinlan, how could it be done?" he asked. "How could you get concerted action for a thing that's so revolutionary, so unprecedented, so----" "This happens to be one time in the history of the United States when you could get it," said the inebriate. "You could get it because the press is practically united to-day in favour of real Americanism. Let some man like your editor-in-chief, Fred Core, or like Carlos Seers of the Era, or Manuel Oxus of the Period, or Malcolm Flint of the A.P. call a private meeting in New York of the biggest individual publishers of daily papers and the leading magazine publishers and the heads of all the press associations and news syndicates, from the big fellows clear down to the shops that sell boiler plate to the country weeklies with patent insides. Through their concerted influence that crowd could put the thing over in twenty-four hours. They could line up the Authors' League, line up the defence societies, line up the national advertisers, line up organised labour in the printing trades--line up everybody and everything worth while. Oh, it could be done--make no mistake about that. Call it a boycott; call it coercion, mob law, lynch law, anything you please--it's justifiable. And there'd be no way out for Mallard. He couldn't bring an injunction suit to make a newspaper publisher print his name. He couldn't buy advertising space to tell about himself if nobody would sell it to him. There's only one thing he could do--and if I'm any judge he'd do it, sooner or later." [Illustration: THAT'S THE THING HE FEEDS ON--VANITY.] Young Drayton stood up. His eyes were blazing. "Do you know what I'm going to do, Quinlan?" he asked. "I'm going to run up to New York on the midnight train. If I can't get a berth on a sleeper I'll sit up in a day coach. I'm going to rout Fred Core out of bed before breakfast time in the morning and put this thing up to him just as you've put it up to me here to-night. If I can make him see it as you've made me see it, he'll get busy. If he doesn't see it, there's no harm done. But in any event it's your idea, and I'll see to it that you're not cheated out of the credit for it." The dipsomaniac shook his head. The flame of inspiration had died out in Quinlan; he was a dead crater again--a drunkard quivering for the lack of stimulant. "Never mind the credit, son. What was it wise old Omar said--'Take the cash and let the credit go'?--something like that anyhow. You run along up to New York and kindle the fires. But before you start I wish you'd loan me about two dollars. Some of these days when my luck changes I'll pay it all back. I'm keeping track of what I owe you. Or say, Drayton--make it five dollars, won't you, if you can spare it?" * * * * *