He could not be certain that Wynand heard. But Wynand let him finish, then assumed the appearance of listening, as if the sounds were reaching him, delayed. After a moment, Wynand asked:
"Who was on the copy desk?"
"It ... it went through Alien and Falk."
"Fire Harding, Allen, Falk and Toohey. Buy off Harding's contract. But not Toohey's. Have them all out of the building in fifteen minutes."
Harding was the managing editor; Falk, a copy reader; Alien, the slot man, head of the copy desk; all had worked on the Banner for more than ten years. It was as if Scarret had heard a news flash announcing the impeachment of a President, the destruction of New York City by a meteor and the sinking of California into the Pacific Ocean.
"Gail!" he screamed. "We can't!"
"Get out of here."
Scarret got out.
Wynand pressed a switch on his desk and said in answer to the trembling voice of the woman outside:
"Don't admit anyone."
"Yes, Mr. Wynand."
He pressed a button and spoke to the circulation manager:
"Stop every copy on the street."
"Mr. Wynand, it's too late! Most of them are ... "
"Stop them."
"Yes, Mr. Wynand."
He wanted to put his head down on the desk, lie still and rest, only the form of rest he needed did not exist, greater than sleep, greater than death, the rest of having never lived. The wish was like a secret taunt against himself, because he knew that the splitting pressure in his skull meant the opposite, an urge to action, so strong that he felt paralyzed. He fumbled for some sheets of clean paper, forgetting where he kept them. He had to write the editorial that would explain and counteract. He had to hurry. He felt no right to any minute that passed with the thing unwritten.
The pressure disappeared with the first word he put on paper. He thought — while his hand moved rapidly — what a power there was in words; later, for those who heard them, but first for the one who found them; a healing power, a solution, like the breaking of a barrier. He thought, perhaps the basic secret the scientists have never discovered, the first fount of life, is that which happens when a thought takes shape in words.
He heard the rumble, the vibration in the walls of his office, in the floor. The presses were running off his afternoon paper, a small tabloid, the Clarion. He smiled at the sound. His hand went faster, as if the sound were energy pumped into his fingers.
He had dropped his usual editorial "we." He wrote: " ... And if my readers or my enemies wish to laugh at me over this incident, I shall accept it and consider it the payment of a debt incurred. I have deserved it."
He thought: It's the heart of this building, beating — what time is it? — do I really hear it or is it my own heart? — once, a doctor put the ends of his stethoscope into my ears and let me hear my own heartbeats — it sounded just like this — he said I was a healthy animal and good for many years — for many ... years ...
"I have foisted upon my readers a contemptible blackguard whose spiritual stature is my only excuse. I had not reached a degree of contempt for society such as would have permitted me to consider him dangerous. I am still holding on to a respect for my fellow men sufficient to let me say that Ellsworth Toohey cannot be a menace."
They say sound never dies, but travels on in space — what happens to a man's heartbeats? — so many of them in fifty-six years — could they be gathered again, in some sort of condenser, and put to use once more? If they were re-broadcast, would the result be the beating of those presses?
"But I have sponsored him under the masthead of my paper, and if public penance is a strange, humiliating act to perform in our modern age, such is the punishment I impose upon myself hereby."
Not fifty-six years of those soft little drops of sound a man never hears, each single and final, not like a comma, but like a period, a long string of periods on a page, gathered to feed those presses — not fifty-six, but thirty-one, the other twenty-five went to make me ready — I was twenty-five when I raised the new masthead over the door — Publishers don't change the name of a paper — This one does — The New York Banner — Gail Wynand's Banner ...
"I ask the forgiveness of every man who has ever read this paper."
A healthy animal — and that which comes from me is healthy — I must bring that doctor here and have him listen to those presses — he'll grin in his good, smug, satisfied way, doctors like a specimen of perfect health occasionally, it's rare enough — I must give him a treat — the healthiest sound he ever heard — and he'll say the Banner is good for many years ...
The door of his office opened and Ellsworth Toohey came in.
Wynand let him cross the room and approach the desk, without a gesture of protest. Wynand thought that what he felt was curiosity — if curiosity could be blown into the dimensions of a thing from the abyss — like those drawings of beetles the size of a house advancing upon human figures in the pages of the Banner's Sunday supplement — curiosity, because Ellsworth Toohey was still in the building, because Toohey had gained admittance past the orders given, and because Toohey was laughing.
"I came to take my leave of absence, Mr. Wynand," said Toohey. His face was composed; it expressed no gloating; the face of an artist who knew that overdoing was defeat and achieved the supreme of offensiveness by remaining normal. "And to tell you that I'll be back. On this job, on this column, in this building. In the interval you will have seen the nature of the mistake you've made. Do forgive me, I know this is in utterly bad taste, but I've waited for it for thirteen years and I think I can permit myself five minutes as a reward. So you were a possessive man, Mr. Wynand, and you loved your sense of property? Did you ever stop to think what it rested upon? Did you stop to secure the foundations? No, because you were a practical man. Practical men deal in bank accounts, real estate, advertising contracts and gilt-edged securities. They leave to the impractical intellectuals, like me, the amusements of putting the gilt edges through a chemical analysis to learn a few things about the nature and the source of gold. They hang on to Kream-O Pudding, and leave us such trivia as the theater, the movies, the radio, the schools, the book reviews and the criticism of architecture. Just a sop to keep us quiet if we care to waste our time playing with the inconsequentials of life, while you're making money. Money is power. Is it, Mr. Wynand? So you were after power, Mr. Wynand? Power over men? You poor amateur! You never discovered the nature of your own ambition or you'd have known that you weren't fit for it. You couldn't use the methods required and you wouldn't want the results. You've never been enough of a scoundrel. I don't mind handing you that, because I don't know which is worse: to be a great scoundrel or a gigantic fool. That's why I'll be back. And when I am, I'll run this paper."
Wynand said quietly:
"When you are. Now get out of here."
The city room of the Banner walked out on strike.
The Union of Wynand Employees walked out in a body. A great many others, non-members, joined them. The typographical staff remained.
Wynand had never given a thought to the Union. He paid higher wages than any other publisher and no economic demands had ever been made upon him. If his employees wished to amuse themselves by listening to speeches, he saw no reason to worry about it. Dominique had tried to warn him once: "Gail, if people want to organize for wages, hours or practical demands, it's their proper right. But when there's no tangible purpose, you'd better watch closely."
"Darling, how many times do I have to ask you? Keep off the Banner."
He had never taken the trouble to learn who belonged to the Union. He found now that the membership was small — and crucial; it included all his key men, not the big executives, but the rank below, expertly chosen, the active ones, the small, indispensable spark plugs: the best leg men, the general assignment men, the rewrite men, the assistant editors. He looked up their records: most of them had been hired in the last eight years; recommended by Mr. Toohey.