upon whom the years had laid no bonds
“I take you. I can think for myself and make it profitable to others, if I can find the chance. Why, Pop, this editorial game is child’s play!”
“You’ve tried it?”
“Experimentally. The opportunities are limitless. I could make people read editorials as eagerly as they read scandal or baseball.”
“How?”
“By making them as simple and interesting as scandal or baseball.”
“Oh! As easy as that,” observed Edmonds scornfully. “High art, son! Nobody’s found the way yet. Perhaps, if–”
He stopped, took his pipe from his lips and let his raised eyes level themselves toward the corner of the L where appeared a figure.
“Would you gentlemen mind if I took my coffee with you?” said the newcomer smoothly.
Banneker looked with questioning eyebrows toward Edmonds, who nodded. “Come up and sit down, Mr. Marrineal,” invited Banneker, moving his chair to leave a vacancy between himself and his companion.
Part 2 Chapter 14
Tertius C. Marrineal was a man of forty, upon whom the years had laid no bonds. A large fortune, founded by his able but illiterate father in the timber stretches of the Great Lakes region, and spread out into various profitable enterprises of mining, oil, cattle, and milling, provided him with a constantly increasing income which, though no amateur at spending, he could never quite overtake. Like many other hustlers of his day and opportunity, old Steve Marrineal had married a shrewd little shopgirl who had come up with him through the struggle by the slow, patient steps described in many of our most improving biographies. As frequently occurs, though it doesn’t get into the biographies, she who had played a helpful role in adversity, could not withstand affluence. She bloated physically and mentally, and became the juicy and unsuspecting victim of a horde of parasites and flatterers who swarmed eagerly upon her, as soon as the rough and contemptuous protection of her husband was removed by the hand of a medical prodigy who advertised himself as the discoverer of a new and infallible cure for cancer, and whom Mrs. Marrineal, with an instinctive leaning toward quackery, had forced upon her spouse.
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