“It seems to have been a habit,” remarked Jeremy. “But, gentlemen, A. M. Wymett is no longer The Guardian. His secret rebates do not bind us indefinitely.”
“The courts ’ll have a word to say on that,” declared the combative Ahrens.
“Easy, gentlemen! Let’s be friendly,” purred Matthew Ellison.
“We need n’t go to the courts,” put in Andrew Galpin. “In the cases where rebates were offered, the rate will be raised to a point where it covers the rebates.”
“Where do _you_ come in?” demanded Ahrens.
“As acting advertising manager of The Guardian.”
“What becomes of your ‘one-rate-for-all’ claim?” Turnbull turned upon Jeremy.
“Discarded,” said the owner, promptly accepting Galpin’s strategy.
“Why ain’d I neffer gud any discound?” inquired Bernard Stockmuller, the leading jeweler of the town, in a powerful and plaintive voice.
“Because you never had the sense to stick out for it, Barney,” retorted Betts. “You were easy.”
“There you have the unfairness of the system,” Jeremy pointed out. “Mr. Stockmuller is as frequent a user of space as some of you who have taken rebates. Gentlemen, it does n’t go any more.”
“Well, this is a hell of a note!” murmured a discontented voice which seemed to emanate from the depths of the abdominal curve of the senior partner of Arndt & Niebuhr, furniture dealers.
“Did any of these private letters from Mr. Wymett mention reading notices as an extra inducement?” asked the host of the occasion. .
“There was no need,” stated Ellison. “‘Readers’ are a recognized courtesy to advertisers.”
“They take up space,” Jeremy pointed out. “They cost money, for ink, paper, and setting up. From the newspaper’s viewpoint, they’re a dead loss.”
“We pay for ’em in our advertising bills,” said Friedland, of the Big Shop.
“But they don’t appear as advertising. They are in regular news type, made up to look like news items, and they carry no a-d-v mark.”
Matthew Ellison took it upon his kindly self to enlighten this innocent young adventurer in untried fields. “If they appeared as advertising, the public would be less likely to read them.”
“Fraud? Oh, really, Mr. Robson,” deprecated the merchant. “A--a harmless--er--subterfuge.”
“The Guardian cuts them out,” announced The Guardian’s revolutionary proprietor. “No more ‘readers’ except with the a-d-v sign, and paid for at full rates.”