“Good!” promptly announced the other. “Yes, it’s so good, in fact, that you’ve got to come and help me kill it in the bud.” “Then let me add that what you want isn’t a reporter, but an undertaker,” retorted the unfeeling young White Hope of his over-saffroned daily. “No, I want you, Louis, and I want you as quick as you can come,” Gerry coolly averred. “But why _me_?” “Because you’re the only ink-coolie on this Island who’d keep your word if you once promised to. So come over here in a taxi and let me unload.” Louis came, and smoked Gerry’s good cigars, and listened, and remembered his promise with a true inkster’s pang of regret. “Now, the one thing that Avenue-robin can’t stand, the one thing be doesn’t want, in all this, is printer’s ink. So it’s up to us to give him what he’s afraid of. It’s up to us to hold a full-page Sunday story over his fat head. I want you to go right up to him as a reporter from _The Star_, with every detail I’ve given you. I want you to let him see just what it’ll look like when it’s unrolled, the entire unsavory story. And if he isn’t sending a hurry-call in for the soft pedal before you’re out of the elevator I’ll buy _The Star_ and give it to you to play with when you’ve got writer’s cramp in the coco and can’t dream up cable-despatches any more.” “And supposing our Romeo doesn’t weaken?” “He can’t help it. But if he’s crazy enough not to, I’ll bring Gunboat Dorgan up there myself. And if that doesn’t turn the trick, I’ll call the rotter out myself and give ’im what he deserves. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll put a bullet into him!” The man from _The Star_ office smiled a bit wearily. “Say, Gerry, doesn’t this strike you as going pretty far for a mere client?” “A mere client!” echoed the other. “A mere client?” he repeated as he looked his confederate straight in the eye. “She’s a darned sight more than that. She’s the girl, please God, that I’m going to marry!” “So at last I get you,” announced the solemn-eyed Louis as he reached over the desk-end and solemnly shook hands with the other man. “And now I’ll know how to put the screws to that palette-scraper!” “Then let’s get busy,” suggested Gerry as he reached for his hat and coat, after a moment’s talk over the wire. “They’ve got that Reamer girl for me, and the sooner we have our pow-wow the better!” CHAPTER TEN