HOW essential a prop Martin Embree’s influence had been to the threatened fortunes of The Guardian, its editor was now to learn. Where, hitherto, the paper had offended, “Smiling Mart” had palliated, explained, excused, defended, spreading the soothing oil of his diplomacy with expert healing. Now the bland oil was supplanted by salt to rub into the wounds. At this, too, the Governor plied a master-hand. The “firebrand” interview, given to the papers of the State, in which he solemnly and all but officially anathematized The Guardian as an incendiary and anarchical agency, rallied the forces of peace-at-any-price and helped to organize them for the ruin of The Guardian. This was in the interval between the establishment of the State Council of Defense and the declaration of war, a period when Centralia still blundered about in a fog of delusion, blindly discrediting the inevitable.

Vainly a few dailies strove to force the truth upon them; The Bellair Journal, The Guardian, a handful of lesser papers. It was to be read between the lines of the German-language press, exhorting their people to be firm of spirit and stand together whatever might betide, warning them that British agencies were in control of the Administration, openly flouting and vilifying the Government of the Nation at a time when politicians of all parties but the Kaiser’s had forgotten every consideration but loyalty, extolling and exalting Germany, snarling at the military “pretensions” of the United States, appealing to racial divisions in a last-hour attempt to devitalize the war-spirit. But the Centralians, breathing the murky air of their pacifists’ paradise, were in no mood to read between the lines. For them the assurances of the great bulk of their newspapers sufficed. These, either themselves deceived, or fearful of reprisals, or simply accepting that old-time tenet of the pander “Give the public what it wants,” would not admit the possibility of this Nation’s being drawn into the struggle. War? Those who prophesied it were fools playing with fire. They were in Wall Street’s pay. They were traitors to a peace-loving people. And Centralia, for the most part, read and believed.

All that man could do to foster this creed, Martin Embree did. To do him justice, he did not admit to himself the imminence of the conflict. His was the type of mind, characteristic of the self-centered, which translates hopes into expectations and expectations into belief. On the whole he thought the time and opportunity favorable for a brief, preparatory campaign for the senatorship. On anti-war, pro-German sentiment combined, he felt sure that he could ride to victory, when the time came, atop the crest of an irresistible wave. He made a short speaking tour in the Northern Tier, where The Guardian as his representative organ had so prospered. Wherever he now appeared, The Guardian’s circulation withered. He had but to quote from the “Under Which Flag?” editorial, with such intonations as he well knew how to impart, and the Teutonic fury of his audiences did the rest.

At home in Fenchester the paper showed a slight but steady loss of circulation. Verrall went about the office looking, as Andrew Galpin indignantly observed, “like a sob-sister on reduced salary.” The circulation and advertising manager was frankly of opinion that The Guardian was done for. If the hyphen outbreak were not, in itself, enough, the split with Governor Embree was the final madness. Personally he maintained unbroken relations with the Governor. He did not despair, he told Galpin, of bringing about a practicable adjustment if not an actual reconciliation between The Guardian and Embree. How was the Governor to mature his senatorial plans without at least one important newspaper through which to express himself? he argued. The Bellair Journal, never reliably loyal, was now violently opposing him. The Record was out of the question on the political side. He needed The Guardian and The Guardian needed him. The thing ought to be fixed up—he put it squarely to Galpin. Could n’t it be fixed up?

Galpin, regarding him with a sinister eye, opined that it might, what time fried snowballs were a popular breakfast food in Sheol.

Since the publication of the fateful editorial the Deutscher Club had been, officially, mute. Even though, in a later effort from Editor Robson’s pen, it had been invited to gladden the eyes of Fenchester by displaying the Stars and Stripes above its building, it made no retort. Neither did it display the Stars and Stripes. It was quietly busy with other considerations.

“The Botches are at it,” announced Galpin one morning.

“What’s their line of action?”

“Boycott. The Deutscher Club is running it.”

“Old stuff, Andy.”

“Not this. They’ve got a committee and an organized campaign.”

“Print their names,” suggested the editor with a cheery but baleful smile.

“In a minute if I could get ’em! They are n’t so brash as all that. It’s all very pussy-footed. Nothing to put your hands on legally.”

“How are they working it?”

“House-to-house canvass, I’m told. That would fit in with our circulation returns. We’re shy about eight hundred right here in town, Boss. They’re claiming fifteen hundred.”

“Claims won’t hurt us.”

“Don’t you believe they won’t! They’re going to our advertisers. The Record is in on it.”

“Naturally. They could use some added advertising space if they could get it away from us.”

“They’re getting it; a little. They’ll get more if we hold up to our present rates. The Retailers’ Association had that up in meeting again, and we’ll probably hear one of their mild suggestions about a reduction soon.”

“They don’t get it!” said Jeremy angrily.

“No. If we let down now, we’ll be on the slide. Besides, we sure need the money. Those libel suits of Dana & Dana are going to cost something. They’re juggling ’em that way.”

“Any other cheer-up news to-day, Andy?”

“No-o. Nothing special. We’re up against a new paper contract. Verrall’s looking after that. Something’s going on under the surface in the press-room. Maybe the Deutscher Club has a committee at work there, too. I’d like to catch ’em at it—with a press-hammer handy,” he concluded, licking his lips. “It would n’t hurt my feelings at all to have to slaughter a few Botches.”

“Well, you may get your chance. Andy, what would you do if war were declared?”

“Who? Me? Get out a special, with the American flag all over it, if it was at 3 A.M.”

“That is n’t what I mean. What would you do personally?”

The general manager’s face fell. “Nothing. I couldn’t. No good.” He stretched his long and powerful arms and gazed at them sorrowfully. “Old lumber, Boss. They would n’t take me.” He touched his injured eye.

“No!” exclaimed Jeremy. “That’s tough. Are you sure?”

“Tried it. No go.”

“Tried it?” returned Jeremy, surprised. “How? When?”

“Went to Doc Summerfield. He’s been down on the border. Knows the game. He said no go right away. Not a chance.”

“So you did that,” mused Jeremy with growing wonder. “You never peeped to me about it.”

“Did n’t want to bother you.”

“I’m mighty sorry for you, Andy,” said his chief. “But I’m mighty glad for The Guardian. We need you here. And we’re going to need you worse.”

“How’s that?” The other looked up with swift suspicion.

“Andy, you could take hold and run The Guardian if—”

“Not by a dam’ sight!” shouted Andrew Galpin. “You can’t quit. Not now.”

“But if it comes to war—”

“This is your war. You’ve got your fighting cut out for you right here. It’s a dandy scrap if there ever was one.”

“It is n’t the same.”

“Ay-ah! Sure it is n’t. Has n’t got the headline stuff in it. ‘Gallant Young Editor Goes to War.’ Hey? Is that what you’re after?”

Jeremy sat silent, disconcerted by the bitterness and anger in his associate’s voice.

“You were going, if you could.”

Again Andy winced. “That’s different. You could run the paper without me—”

“Not for a week!”

“You’re saying that to make me feel better about it. Jem, you can’t quit. This is your job.”

“Until a bigger one turns up.”

“There is n’t any bigger one,” retorted his general manager with profound conviction.

In the ensuing days it seemed to the owner of The Guardian that there could be no more racking one. For, step by step, as war drew nearer, the revenues of The Guardian declined. The secret committee work of the Deutscher Club was as effective as it was quiet. Uncertainty in business conditions was producing a logical letup in advertising, and the boycott was borrowing impetus from this tendency. A committee from the Retailers’ Association had approached Jeremy on the subject of a reduction of rates. He had retorted hotly upon them that they were making themselves the agents of an attack upon The Guardian because of its Americanism. Matthew Ellison had attempted to smooth matters over with a “business is business” plea; but Ahrens, of the Northwestern Stores, had sneered at The Guardian for making capital out of cheap jingoism, and the session had ended in taunts and recriminations. Its echo had followed in the loss of some minor advertisements. The department stores, however, could not yet bring themselves to abjure so valuable a medium, no matter how defiant its attitude. Business was business to that extent.

Meantime Jeremy, amidst all his worries and troubles, was conscious of a great and unwonted inner peace. He was doing his job as it came to him to be done. The present was engrossed in the fight, growing sterner and more demanding day by day. His future was clear before him. He knew what course he must steer. If The Guardian were driven upon the rocks, or rather if the submarines got her (he grinned with cheerful determination over this preferred metaphor), at least she would go down fighting, and the flag that she had flown would be caught up from the flood and carried on. Wavering and uncertain notes from that quaint herald-figure, heading its pages, were a thing of the past. At last it had “sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat.” And, when the crash came, he, Jeremy, could find refuge in his country’s armed service. That was an unfailing comfort.

More potently sustaining, even, than this was the thought that the dear and distant and unforgotten reader of The Guardian overseas must, now and to the end, believe in it.