"M-m-m," said Mowbray.




Chapter 4


Peter and Lonegan were together at dinner three hours after the
message from _The States._

"It's a big chance, Mowbray. That's all I can say. I stay at the wire
--no heroics."

"You ought to see it all from here."

Lonegan smiled deprecatingly. "Boylan will help you get through. You
don't know him yet. Some time, perhaps, you will--two hundred and
fifty pounds of soul. He'll do all he can to get you the same chance
he has, because I asked him; and then he'll try to make _The
States_ look obsolete as a newspaper, wherein, of course, he'll
fail. But he'll try. If he takes to you, it won't make him try less,
but he'd do your stuff and his, if you fell sick. There isn't another
Boylan--a great newspaper man, too. _The States_ will watch
closely, knowing that _Rhodes'_ will get everything possible from
Boylan's part of the front. The point is--and I think he'll want it,
too--you'd better work together on the main line of stuff, as we do
here. Your letters on the side should be better than his, because
you're a better writer. As for war stuff, Boylan is the old master--