"Mr. Coulter and Mr. Stokely are coming. I
want you to know them better."
Howard accepted and wondered that he took so little interest. For Stokely
and Coulter were the principal stockholders of the _News-Record_, and
with Malcolm formed the triumvirate which directed it in all its
departments. Mr. Malcolm held only a few shares of stock, but received what
was in the newspaper-world an immense salary--thirty thousand a year. He
was at once an able editor and an able diplomatist. He knew how to make the
plans of his two associates conform to conditions of news and policy--when
to let them use the paper, or, rather, when to use the paper himself for
their personal interests; when and how to induce them to let the paper
alone. Through a quarter of a century of changing ownerships Malcolm had
persisted, chiefly because he had but one conviction--that the post of
editor of the _News-Record_ exactly suited him and must remain his at
any sacrifice of personal character.
Howard had met Stokely and Coulter. He liked Stokely who was owner of a few
shares more than one-third; he disliked Coulter who owned just under
one-half.
Stokely was a frank, coarse, dollar-hunter, cheerfully unscrupulous in a
large way, acute, caring not at all for principles of any kind, letting the
paper alone most of the time because he was astute enough to know that in
his ignorance of journalism he would surely injure it as a property.
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