“Ay-ah,” drawled Andrew Galpin, to whom the decision was communicated. “Your advertisers ’ll just love that!”
“They ought to be satisfied. It’s the only square way.”
“Oh, they’ll be satisfied if you put the scale low enough. But if you put the scale low enough you’ll go broke.”
“The Guardian had other sources of revenue under Wymett.”
“Occasionally. Also the steady, reliable revenue from the advertising matter that does n’t bear the a-d-v sign.”
“You mean store ‘readers’ and that sort of thing? I’m going to cut those out.”
“Are, you? They’re semi-legitimate. Compared with some of the stuff we’ve carried they’re so high-principled they’re almost holy.”
“Paid editorials. Paid political articles. Paid puffs and roasts. Brewery checks. Railroad checks. P.-U. checks. Paving and other contractors’ checks. You can read it all in the back files, if you’re newspaper man enough to read between the lines.”
“It ain’t there. The Record don’t do it that way; a little more decent. The Record’s a kept-lady. We’re on the street--or were.”
“‘Were’ is right.” Jeremy ran his hands through his hair and regarded his companion anxiously. “Andy?” he said.
“Were you--Did you--Never mind. It does n’t matter.”
“Ay-ah; it matters all right. You were going to ask me whether I had to write any of that bought-and-paid-for stuff. And you were afraid to. Is that right?”
“It’s right,” confirmed the other. “Well, I never did. I would n’t. I gave ’em notice that I was fired the noon of the morning I got one of those jobs. They were decent about it. But I had to do the next worse thing. I had to let myself be called off a story so that some other guy could write it, and write it crooked.”
“Have we had any--any offers since we took hold of the paper?”
“Give ’em time, Boss. It’s only a month, and in the slack period at that. But I’ll tell you one thing. If you’re going to change the entire advertising policy, you’ll have to change your advertising manager, for Perley don’t know anything different from the news-selling and rebate game.”
“So far, so good. Who ’ve you got to take his place?”
“Nobody, yet. Could you manage it, Andy?”
“Temporarily, I might. But I’m going to have my hands too full re-making the old sheet on the news side to give much time to advertising, in the next year or so.”