necessary apprenticeship of newspaper work. But it's not a proper work
for a gentleman. And, in any case, Ban, you are that, by the grace of
your ancestral gods.

Little enough did Banneker care for his ancestral gods: but he did
greatly care for the maintenance of those standards which seemed to have
grown, indigenously within him, since he had never consciously
formulated them. As for reporting, of whatever kind, he deemed Miss Van
Arsdale prejudiced. Furthermore, he had met the society reporter of The
Ledger, an elderly, mild, inoffensive man, neat and industrious, and
discerned in him no stigma of the lickspittle. Nevertheless, he hoped
that he would not be assigned to such "society news" as Remington did
not cover in his routine. It might, he conceived, lead him into false
situations where he could be painfully snubbed. And he had never yet
been in a position where any one could snub him without instant
reprisals. In such circumstances he did not know exactly what he would
do. However, that bridge could be crossed or refused when he came to it.




CHAPTER VI


Such members of the Brashear household as chose to accommodate
themselves strictly to the hour could have eight o'clock breakfast in
the basement dining-room for the modest consideration of thirty cents;
thirty-five with special cream-jug. At these gatherings, usually
attended by half a dozen of the lodgers, matters of local interest were
weightily discussed; such as the progress of the subway excavations, the