Magnus took it in his hands. There, under his eyes, scare-headed, double-leaded, the more important clauses printed in bold type, was the detailed account of the “deal” Magnus had made with the two delegates. It was pitiless, remorseless, bald. Every statement was substantiated, every statistic verified with Genslinger’s meticulous love for exactness. Besides all that, it had the ring of truth. It was exposure, ruin, absolute annihilation.
“That’s about correct, isn’t it?” commented Genslinger, as Derrick finished reading. Magnus did not reply. “I think it is correct enough,” the editor continued. “But I thought it would only be fair to you to let you see it before it was published.”
The one thought uppermost in Derrick’s mind, his one impulse of the moment was, at whatever cost, to preserve his dignity, not to allow this man to exult in the sight of one quiver of weakness, one trace of defeat, one suggestion of humiliation. By an effort that put all his iron rigidity to the test, he forced himself to look straight into Genslinger’s eyes.
“I congratulate you,” he observed, handing back the proof, “upon your journalistic enterprise. Your paper will sell tomorrow.”
“Oh, I don’t know as I want to publish this story,” remarked the editor, indifferently, putting away the galley. “I’m just like that. The fun for me is running a good story to earth, but once I’ve got it, I lose interest. And, then, I wouldn’t like to see you—holding the position you do, President of the League and a leading man of the county—I wouldn’t like to see a story like this smash you over. It’s worth more to you to keep it out of print than for me to put it in. I’ve got nothing much to gain but a few extra editions, but you—Lord, you would lose everything. Your committee was in the deal right enough. But your League, all the San Joaquin Valley, everybody in the State believes the commissioners were fairly elected.”
“Your story,” suddenly exclaimed Magnus, struck with an idea, “will be thoroughly discredited just so soon as the new grain tariff is published. I have means of knowing that the San Joaquin rate—the issue upon which the board was elected—is not to be touched. Is it likely the ranchers would secure the election of a board that plays them false?”
“Oh, we know all about that,” answered Genslinger, smiling. “You thought you were electing Lyman easily. You thought you had got the Railroad to walk right into your trap. You didn’t understand how you could pull off your deal so easily. Why, Governor, Lyman was pledged to the railroad two years ago. He was the one particular man the corporation wanted for commissioner. And your people elected him—saved the Railroad all the trouble of campaigning for him. And you can’t make any counter charge of bribery there. No, sir, the corporation don’t use such amateurish methods as that. Confidentially and between us two, all that the Railroad has done for Lyman, in order to attach him to their interests, is to promise to back him politically in the next campaign for Governor. It’s too bad,” he continued, dropping his voice, and changing his position. “It really is too bad to see good men trying to bunt a stone wall over with their bare heads. You couldn’t have won at any stage of the game. I wish I could have talked to you and your friends before you went into that Sacramento fight. I could have told you then how little chance you had. When will you people realise that you can’t buck against the Railroad? Why, Magnus, it’s like me going out in a paper boat and shooting peas at a battleship.”
“Is that all you wished to see me about, Mr. Genslinger?” remarked Magnus, bestirring himself. “I am rather occupied today.”
“Well,” returned the other, “you know what the publication of this article would mean for you.” He paused again, took off his glasses, breathed on them, polished the lenses with his handkerchief and readjusted them on his nose. “I’ve been thinking, Governor,” he began again, with renewed alertness, and quite irrelevantly, “of enlarging the scope of the Mercury. You see, I’m midway between the two big centres of the State, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and I want to extend the Mercury’s sphere of influence as far up and down the valley as I can. I want to illustrate the paper. You see, if I had a photoengraving plant of my own, I could do a good deal of outside jobbing as well, and the investment would pay ten percent. But it takes money to make money. I wouldn’t want to put in any dinky, one-horse affair. I want a good plant. I’ve been figuring out the business. Besides the plant, there would be the expense of a high grade paper. Can’t print halftones on anything but coated paper, and that costs. Well, what with this and with that and running expenses till the thing began to pay, it would cost me about ten thousand dollars, and I was wondering if, perhaps, you couldn’t see your way clear to accommodating me.”
“Ten thousand?”
“Yes. Say five thousand down, and the balance within sixty days.”
Magnus, for the moment blind to what Genslinger had in mind, turned on him in astonishment.
“Why, man, what security could you give me for such an amount?”
“Well, to tell the truth,” answered the editor, “I hadn’t thought much about securities. In fact, I believed you would see how greatly it was to your advantage to talk business with me. You see, I’m
