Page:Left to Themselves (1891).djvu/262

 "I've a good mind to do it. What harm can come of it, especially as Mr. Banger is here to help me any minute? It's ten to one that that rascal don't meddle with us."

Mr. Banger was still talking in the office.

"I believe I'll step down to the newspaper you spoke of and find that Mr. Fillmore and let him send his account," he said.

"This gentleman is Mr. Fillmore—just dropped in here," returned the hotel proprietor, pushing his neighbor, a red-faced young man with hair to match his complexion.

It would not be kind to cast any doubts on Mr. Banger's honor or on his ability to hold his tongue about even a remarkable secret; but it seemed to Philip that the editor had already numerous ideas of the story that he hastily dashed down in his note-book, and certainly Mr. Banger had been in close confab with him for an hour. Perhaps that paragraph on the escape of Philip and Gerald, and their waiting at Knoxport for word from their friends, would have appeared, without Philip's leave, in The Tribune and The Herald and The World and The Advertiser of the following morning exactly as it did—not to speak of the longer state-