Part 74

“Fine, fat way you’ve got of opening up a request for a favor,” he retorted, recovering himself somewhat, and in a particularly discouraging voice. But the shrewd old judge of human nature before him marked the little pursing at the corners of the mouth. “I’ll bet I know what it is.”

“I’ll bet all the money I’ve got in the bank and my best gold tooth thrown in you don’t,” was the prompt retort.

“There’s a sporting proposition, all right,” cried the editor in great admiration. “I thought you was going to ask me to let up on the city administration now you’ve got one of the fat jobs in the family, with your Dr. Strong.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to make guesses for a living,” returned his caller scornfully. “Pitch into the administration as hard as you like. I don’t care. All I want is for you to print the news about this diphtheria epidemic.”

“Is that all?” There was a profound sardonicism in the final word.

“Come to think of it, it isn’t. I want you to print some editorials, too, telling people how to take care of themselves while the disease is spreading.”

“Anything more?”

“Well, you might do the same thing about the measles epidemic.”

“Harr-rr-rr!” It was a singular growl, not wholly compounded of wrath and disgust. “Doc Strong send you here?”

“No; he didn’t!”

“Don’t bite me. I believe you.”

“Will you publish some articles?”

“Look-a-here, Mrs. Sharpless; the ‘Star’ is a business proposition. Its business is to make money for me. That’s all it’s here for. People say some pretty tough things about me and the paper. Well, we’re pretty tough. We can stand ‘em. Let ‘em talk, so long as I get the circulation and the advertising and the cash. Now, you want me to print something for you. Come down to brass tacks; what is there in it for me?”

“A chance to be of some real use to your city for once in your life,” answered Grandma Sharpless mildly. “Isn’t that enough?”

Bart Snyder threw back his head and laughed immoderately. “Say, I like you,” he gurgled. “You’ve got nerve. Me a good Samaritan! It’s so rich, I’m half a mind to go you, if it wasn’t for losing the advertising. Wha’ d’ ye want me to say, anyway, just for curiosity and cussedness?”

“Just give the people plain talk,” explained the visitor. “Talk to ‘em in your editorials as if you had ‘em by the buttonhole. Say to them: ‘Do you want to get diphtheria? Well, you don’t need to. It’s just as easy to avoid it as to have it. Are you anxious to have measles in your house? It’s for you to decide. All you need is to take reasonable care against it. Infectious disease only kills foo—careless people.’”

“Let it go at ‘fools,’” interjected Mr. Snyder, smiting his thigh. “Go on.”

“Then I’d give them simple, straight advice; tell them how to recognize the early symptoms; how and where to get anti-toxin. And I’d scare ‘em, too. I’d tell ‘em there are five thousand cases of the two diseases in town, and there will be ten thousand in a week unless something is done.”

Up rose the editor-proprietor, kicked over his own chair, whirled Mrs. Sharpless’s chair with its human burden to the desk, thrust a pencil into her hand, and slapped down a pad before her.

“Write it,” he adjured her.

“Who? Me?” cried Mrs. Sharpless, her astonishment momentarily overwhelming her grammar. “Bless you, man! I’m no writer.”

“Talk it, then, and make your pencil take down the talk. I’ll be back in a minute.”

That minute stretched to a good half-hour, during which period Grandma Sharpless talked to her pencil. When Mr. Snyder returned, he had with him a mournful-looking man who, he explained occultly, “holds down our city desk.”

“This is our new Health Editor,” chuckled Snyder, indicating Mrs. Sharpless. “How many cases did you say there were in town, ma’am?”

“Five thousand or more.”

The city editor whistled whisperingly. “Where do you get that?” he asked.

“From Dr. Strong.”

“That’s news,” said the desk man. “I didn’t suppose it was half so bad. If only we dared print it!”