"
"True," muttered Curtis, rummaging on his desk for a pipe.
"The danger isn't the point--_it's the fear of danger_," said Darrow.
Curtis looked up, arresting the operation of crowding the tobacco into the
pipe bowl.
"Suppose that throughout the length and breadth of this city the idea
should be spread broadcast that at any given moment it might be destroyed.
Can you imagine the effect?"
"Immediate exodus," grinned Curtis. "Immediate is a nice dignified word,"
he added.
"Quite so, and then?"
"Eh?"
"What in blazes would four million city people without homes or
occupations do? Where would they go? What would happen?"
"You see what I mean," went on Darrow, after the slight pause necessary to
let this sink in. "The fear would bring about a general catastrophe only
less serious than the fact itself. It's up to you newspaper men to see
that they don't catch this fear. There'll be a hundred letters from foxy
boys with just enough logic or imagination to see the possibility of
cutting off the furnace; but without imagination enough to get the final
effect of telling people about it. Suppress it. Unless I'm mistaken, the
affair will be over in a week."
Curtis drummed thoughtfully on his desk.
"It's got to be done, and it will be done," he said at last. "I'll get to
every paper in the city to-night--if it costs us our scoop."
"But won't the people who write the letters tell about it, anyway?" asked
Jack.
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