the mayoralty race?"

Linder recovered himself a little. "What kind of a game are you
ringing in on me?" he demanded.

"Don't you think," suggested Average Jones sweetly, "that
considered as news, this--"

Linder caught the word out of his mouth. "News!" he roared. "A
fake story ten years old, news? That ain't news! It's spite work.
Even your dirty paper, Waldemar, wouldn't rake that kind of muck up
after ten years. It'd be a boomerang. You'll have to put up a
stronger line of blackmail and bluff than that."

"Blackmail is perhaps the correct word technically," admitted the
newspaper owner, "but bluff--there you go wrong. You've forgotten
one thing; that Arbuthnot's arrest and confession would make the
whole story news. We stand ready to arrest Arbuthnot, and he
stands ready to confess."

There was a long, tense minute of silence. Then--

"What do you want?" The straight-to-the-point question was an
admission of defeat.

"Your announcement of withdrawal. I'd rather print that than the
Arbuthnot story."

There was a long silence. Finally the Honorable Linder dropped his
hand on the table. "You win," he declared curtly. "But you'll