For a year Bob worked hard at all sorts of jobs. He saw the woods work, the river work, the mill work. From the stump to the barges he followed the timbers. Being naturally of a good intelligence, he learned very fast how things were done, so that at the end of the time mentioned he had acquired a fair working knowledge of how affairs were accomplished in this business he had adopted. That does not mean he had become a capable lumberman. One of the strangest fallacies long prevalent in the public mind is that lumbering is always a sure road to wealth. The margin of profit seems very large. As a matter of fact, the industry is so swiftly conducted, on so large a scale, along such varied lines; the expenditures must be made so lavishly, and yet so carefully; the consequences of a niggardly policy are so quickly apparent in decreased efficiency, and yet the possible leaks are so many, quickly draining the most abundant resources, that few not brought up through a long apprenticeship avoid a loss. A great deal of money has been and is made in timber. A great deal has been lost, simply because, while the possibilities are alluring, the complexity of the numerous problems is unseen.
At first Bob saw only the results. You went into the woods with a crew of men, felled trees, cut them into lengths, dragged them to the roads already prepared, piled them on sleighs, hauled them to the river, and stacked them there. In the spring you floated the logs to the mill where they were sawed into boards, laden into sailing vessels or steam barges, and taken to market. There was the whole process in a nutshell. Of course, there would be details and obstructions to cope with. But between the eighty thousand dollars or so worth of trees standing in the forest and the quarter-million dollars or so they represented at the market seemed space enough to allow for many reverses.
As time went on, however, the young man came more justly to realize the minuteness of the bits comprising this complicated mosaic. From keeping men to the point of returning, in work, the worth of their wages; from so correlating and arranging that work that all might be busy and not some waiting for others; up through the anxieties of weather and the sullen or active opposition of natural forces, to the higher levels of competition and contracts, his awakened attention taught him that legitimate profits could attend only on vigilant and minute attention, on comprehensive knowledge of detail, on experience, and on natural gift. The feeding of men abundantly at a small price involved questions of buying, transportation and forethought, not to speak of concrete knowledge of how much such things should ideally be worth. Tools by the thousand were needed at certain places and at certain times. They must be cared for and accounted for. Horses, and their feed, equipment and care, made another not inconsiderable item both of expense and attention. And so with a thousand and one details which it would be superfluous to enumerate here. Each cost money, and some one's time. Relaxed attention might make each cost a few pennies more. What do a few pennies amount to? Two things: a lowering of the standard of efficiency, and, in the long run, many dollars. If incompetence, or inexperience should be added to relaxed attention, so that the various activities do not mortise exactly one with another, and the legitimate results to be expected from the pennies do not arrive, then the sum total is very apt to be failure. Where organized and settled industries, however complicated in detail, are in a manner played by score, these frontier activities are vast improvisations following only the general unchangeable laws of commerce.
Therefore, Bob was very much surprised and not a little dismayed at what Mr. Welton had to say to him one evening early in the spring.
It was in the "van" of Camp Thirty-nine. Over in the corner under the lamp the sealer and bookkeeper was epitomizing the results of his day. Welton and Bob sat close to the round stove in the middle, smoking their pipes. The three or four bunks belonging to Bob, the scaler, and the camp boss were dim in another corner; the shelves of goods for trade with the men occupied a third. A rude door and a pair of tiny windows communicated with the world outside. Flickers of light from the cracks in the stove played over the massive logs of the little building, over the rough floor and the weapons and snowshoes on the wall. Both Bob and Welton were dressed in flannel and kersey, with the heavy German socks and lumberman's rubbers on their feet. Their bright-checked Mackinaw jackets lay where they had been flung on the beds. Costume and surroundings both were a thousand miles from civilization; yet civilization was knocking at the door. Welton gave expression to this thought.
"Two seasons more'll finish us, Bob," said he. "I've logged the Michigan woods for thirty-five years, but now I'm about done here."
"Yes, I guess they're all about done," agreed Bob.
"The big men have gone West; lots of the old lumber jacks are out there now. It's our turn. I suppose you know we've got timber in California?"
"Yes," said Bob, with a wry grin, as he thought of the columns of "descriptions" he had copied; "I know that."
"There's about half a billion feet of it. We'll begin to manufacture when we get through here. I'm going out next month, as soon as the snow is out of the mountains, to see about the plant and the general lay-out. I'm going to leave you in charge here."
Bob almost dropped his pipe as his jaws fell apart.
"Me!" he cried.
"Yes, you."
"But I can't; I don't know enough! I'd make a mess of the whole business," Bob expostulated.
"You've been around here for a year," said Welton, "and things are running all right. I want somebody to see that things move along, and you're the one. Are you going to refuse?"
"No; I suppose I can't refuse," said Bob miserably, and fell silent.
To Bob's father Welton expressed himself in somewhat different terms. The two men met at the Auditorium Annex, where they promptly adjourned to the Palm Room and a little table.
"Now, Jack," the lumberman replied to his friend's expostulation, "I know just as well as you do that the kid isn't capable yet of handling a proposition on his own hook. It's just for that reason that I put him in charge."
"And Welton isn't an Irish name, either," murmured Jack Orde.
"What? Oh, I see. No; and that isn't an Irish bull, either. I put him in charge so he'd have to learn something. He's a good kid, and he'll take himself dead serious. He'll be deciding everything that comes up all for himself, and he'll lie awake nights doing it. And all the time things will be going on almost like he wasn't there!"
Welton paused to chuckle in his hearty manner.
"You see, I've brought that crew up in the business. Mason is as good a mill man as they make; and Tally's all right in the woods and on the river; and I reckon it would be difficult to take a nick out of Collins in office work."
"In other words, Bob is to hold the ends of the reins while these other men drive," said his father, vastly amused. "That's more like it. I'd hate to bury a green man under too much responsibility."
"No," denied Welton, "it isn't that exactly. Somebody's got to boss the rest of 'em. And Bob certainly is a wonder at getting the men to like him and to work for him. That's his strong point. He gets on with them, and he isn't afraid to tell 'em when he thinks they're 'sojering' on him. That makes me think: I wonder what kind of ornaments these waiters are supposed to be." He rapped sharply on the little table with his pocket-knife.
"It's up to him," he went on, after the waiter had departed. "If he's too touchy to acknowledge his ignorance on different points that come up, and if he's too proud to ask questions when he's stumped, why, he's going to get in a lot of trouble. If he's willing to rely on his men for knowledge, and will just see that everybody keeps busy and sees that they bunch their hits, why, he'll get on well enough."
"It takes a pretty wise head to make them bunch their hits," Orde pointed out, "and a heap of figuring."
"It'll keep him mighty busy, even at best," acknowledged Welton, "and he's going to make some bad breaks. I know that."
"Bad breaks cost money," Orde reminded him.
"So does any education. Even at its worst this can't cost much money. He can't wreck things—the organization is too good—he'll just make 'em wobble a little. And this is a mighty small and incidental proposition, while this California lay-out is a big project. No, by my figuring Bob won't actually do much, but he'll lie awake nights to do a hell of a lot of deciding, and----."
"Oh, I know," broke in Orde with a laugh; "you haven't changed an inch in twenty years—and 'it's not doing but deciding that makes a man,'" he quoted.
"Well, isn't it?" demanded Welton insistently.
"Of course," agreed Orde with another laugh. "I was just tickled to see you hadn't changed a hair. Now if you'd only moralize on square pegs in round holes, I'd hear again the birds singing in the elms by the dear old churchyard."
Welton grinned, a trifle shamefacedly. Nevertheless he went on with the development of his philosophy.
"Well," he asserted stoutly, "that's just what Bob was when I got there. He can't handle figures any better than I can, and Collins had been putting him through a course of sprouts." He paused and sipped at his glass. "Of course, if I wasn't absolutely certain of the men under him, it would be a fool proposition. Bob isn't the kind to get onto treachery or double-dealing very quick. He likes people too well. But as it is, he'll get a lot of training cheap."
Orde ruminated over this for some time, sipping slowly between puffs at his cigar.
"Why wouldn't it be better to take him out to California now?" he asked at length. "You'll be building your roads and flumes and railroad, getting your mill up, buying your machinery and all the rest of it. That ought to be good experience for him—to see the thing right from the beginning."
"Bob is going to be a lumberman, and that isn't lumbering; it's construction. Once it's up, it will never have to be done again. The California timber will last out Bob's lifetime, and you know it. He'd better learn lumbering, which he'll do for the next fifty years, than to build a mill, which he'll never have to do again—unless it burns up," he added as a half-humorous afterthought.
"Correct," Orde agreed promptly to this. "You're a wonder. When I found a university with my ill-gotten gains, I'll give you a job as professor of—well, of Common Sense, by jiminy!"
Bob managed to lose some money in his two years of apprenticeship. That is to say, the net income from the small operations under his charge was somewhat less than it would have been under Welton's supervision. Even at that, the balance sheet showed a profit. This was probably due more to the perfection of the organization than to any great ability on Bob's part. Nevertheless, he exercised a real control over the firm's destinies, and in one or two instances of sudden crisis threw its energies definitely into channels of his own choosing. Especially was this true in dealing with the riverman's arch-enemy, the mossback.
The mossback follows the axe. When the timber is cut, naturally the land remains. Either the company must pay taxes on it, sell it, or allow it to revert to the state. It may be very good land, but it is encumbered with old slashing, probably much of it needs drainage, a stubborn second-growth of scrub oak or red willows has already usurped the soil, and above all it is isolated. Far from the cities, far from the railroad, far even from the crossroad's general store, it is further cut off by the necessity of traversing atrocious and—in the wet season—bottomless roads to even the nearest neighbour. Naturally, then, in seeking purchasers for this cut-over land, the Company must address itself to a certain limited class. For, if a man has money, he will buy him a cleared farm in a settled country. The mossback pays in pennies and gives a mortgage. Then he addresses himself to clearing the land. It follows that he is poverty-stricken, lives frugally and is very tenacious of what property rights he may be able to coax or wring from a hard wilderness. He dwells in a shack, works in a swamp, and sees no farther than the rail fence he has split out to surround his farm.
Thus, while he possesses many of the sturdy pioneer virtues, he becomes by necessity the direct antithesis to the riverman. The purchase of a bit of harness, a vehicle, a necessary tool or implement is a matter of close economy, long figuring, and much work. Interest on the mortgage must be paid. And what can a backwoods farm produce worth money? And where can it find a market? Very little; and very far. A man must "play close to his chest" in order to accomplish that plain, primary, simple duty of making both ends meet. The extreme of this virtue means a defect, of course; it means narrowness of vision, conservatism that comes close to suspicion, illiberality. When these qualities meet the sometimes foolishly generous and lavish ideas of men trained in the reckless life of the river, almost inevitably are aroused suspicion on one side, contempt on the other and antagonism on both.
This is true even in casual and chance intercourse. But when, as often happens, the mossback's farm extends to the very river bank itself; when the legal rights of property clash with the vaguer but no less certain rights of custom, then there is room for endless bickering. When the river boss steps between his men and the backwoods farmer, he must, on the merits of the case and with due regard to the sort of man he has to deal with, decide at once whether he will persuade, argue, coerce, or fight. It may come to be a definite choice between present delay or a future lawsuit.
This kind of decision Bob was most frequently called upon to make. He knew little about law, but he had a very good feeling for the human side. Whatever mistakes he made, the series of squabbles nourished his sense of loyalty to the company. His woods training was gradually bringing him to the lumberman's point of view; and the lumberman's point of view means, primarily, timber and loyalty.
"By Jove, what a fine bunch of timber!" was his first thought on entering a particularly imposing grove.
Where another man would catch merely a general effect, his more practised eye would estimate heights, diameters, the growth of the limbs, the probable straightness of the grain. His eye almost unconsciously sought the possibilities of location—whether a road could be brought in easily, whether the grades could run right. A fine tree gave him the complicated pleasure that comes to any expert on analytical contemplation of any object. It meant timber, good or bad, as well as beauty.
Just so opposition meant antagonism. Bob was naturally of a partisan temperament. He played the game fairly, but he played it hard. Games imply rules, and any infraction of the rules is unfair and to be punished. Bob could not be expected to reflect that while rules are generally imposed by a third party on both contestants alike, in this game the rules with which he was acquainted had been made by his side; that perhaps the other fellow might have another set of rules. All he saw was that the antagonists were perpetrating a series of contemptible, petty, mean tricks or a succession of dastardly outrages. His loyalty and anger were both thoroughly aroused, and he plunged into his little fights with entire whole-heartedness. As his side of the question meant getting out the logs, the combination went far toward efficiency. When the drive was down in the spring, Bob looked back on his mossback campaign with a little grieved surprise that men could think it worth their self-respect to try to take such contemptible advantage of quibbles for the purpose of defeating what was certainly customary and fair, even if it might not be technically legal. What the mossbacks thought about it we can safely leave to the crossroad stores.
In other respects Bob had the good sense to depend absolutely on his subordinates.
"How long do you think it ought to take to cut the rest of Eight?" he would ask Tally.
"About two weeks."
Bob said nothing more, but next day he ruminated long in the snow-still forest at Eight, trying to apportion in his own mind the twelve days' work. If it did not go at a two weeks' gait, he speedily wanted to know why.
When the sleighs failed to return up the ice road with expected regularity, Bob tramped down to the "banks" to see what the trouble was. When he returned, he remarked casually to Jim Tally:
"I fired Powell off the job as foreman, and put in Downy."
"Why?" asked Tally. "I put Powell in there because I thought he was an almighty good worker."
"He is," said Bob; "too good. I found them a little short-handed down there, and getting discouraged. The sleighs were coming in on them faster than they could unload. The men couldn't see how they were going to catch up, so they'd slacked down a little, which made it worse. Powell had his jacket off and was working like the devil with a canthook. He does about the quickest and hardest yank with a canthook I ever saw," mused Bob.
"Well?" demanded Tally.
"Oh," said Bob, "I told him if that was the kind of a job he wanted, he could have it. And I told Downy to take charge. I don't pay a foreman's wages for canthook work; I hire him to keep the men busy, and he sure can't do it if he occupies his time and attention rolling logs."
"He was doing his best to straighten things out," said Tally.
"Well, I'm now paying him for his best," replied Bob, philosophically.
But if it had been a question of how most quickly to skid the logs brought in by the sleighs, Bob would never have dreamed of questioning Powell's opinion, although he might later have demanded expert corroboration from Tally.
The outdoor life, too, interested him and kept him in training, both physically and spiritually. He realized his mistakes, but they were now mistakes of judgment rather than of mechanical accuracy, and he did not worry over them once they were behind him.
When Welton returned from California toward the close of the season, he found the young man buoyant and happy, deeply absorbed, well liked, and in a fair way to learn something about the business.
Almost immediately after his return, the mill was closed down. The remaining lumber in the yards was shipped out as rapidly as possible. By the end of September the work was over.
Bob perforce accepted a vacation of some months while affairs were in preparation for the westward exodus.
Then he answered a summons to meet Mr. Welton at the Chicago offices.
He entered the little outer office he had left so down-heartedly three years before. Harvey and his two assistants sat on the high stools in front of the shelf-like desk. The same pictures of record loads, large trees, mill crews and logging camps hung on the walls. The same atmosphere of peace and immemorial quiet brooded over the place. Through the half-open door Bob could see Mr. Fox, his leg swung over the arm of his revolving chair, chatting in a leisurely fashion with some visitor.
No one had heard him enter. He stood for a moment staring at the three bent backs before him. He remembered the infinite details of the work he had left, the purchasings of innumerable little things, the regulation of outlays, the balancings of expenditures, the constantly shifting property values, the cost of tools, food, implements, wages, machinery, transportation, operation. And in addition he brought to mind the minute and vexatious mortgage and sale and rental business having to do with the old cut-over lands; the legal complications; the questions of arbitration and privilege. And beyond that his mind glimpsed dimly the extent of other interests, concerning which he knew little—investment interests, and silent interests in various manufacturing enterprises where the Company had occasionally invested a surplus by way of a flyer. In this quiet place all these things were correlated, compared, docketed, and filed away. In the brains of the four men before him all these infinite details were laid out in order. He knew that Harvey could answer specific questions as to any feature of any one of these activities. All the turmoil, the rush and roar of the river, the mills, the open lakes, the great wildernesses passed through this silent, dusty room. The problems that kept a dozen men busy in the solving came here also, together with a hundred others. Bob recalled his sight of the hurried, wholesale shipping clerk he had admired when, discouraged and discredited, he had left the office three years before. He had thought that individual busy, and had contrasted his activity with the somnolence of this office. Busy! Why, he, Bob, had over and over again been ten times as busy. At the thought he chuckled aloud. Harvey and his assistants turned to the sound.
"Hullo, Harvey; hullo Archie!" cried the young man. "I'm certainly glad to see you. You're the only men I ever saw who could be really bang-up rushed and never show it."
On a wintry and blustering evening in the latter part of February, 1902, Welton and Bob boarded the Union Pacific train en route for California. They distributed their hand baggage, then promptly took their way forward to the buffet car, where they disposed themselves in the leather-and-wicker armchairs for a smoke. At this time of year the travel had fallen off somewhat in volume. The westward tourist rush had slackened, and the train was occupied only by those who had definite business in the Land of Promise, and by that class of wise ones who realize that an Eastern March and April are more to be avoided than the regulation winter months. The smoking car contained then but a half-dozen men.
Welton and Bob took their places and lit their cigars. The train swayed gently along, its rattle muffled by the storm. Polished black squares represented the windows across which drifted hazy lights and ghostlike suggestions of snowflakes. Bob watched this ebony nothingness in great idleness of spirit. Presently one of the half-dozen men arose from his place, walked the length of the car, and dropped into the next chair.
"You're Bob Orde, aren't you?" he remarked without preliminary.
Bob looked up. He saw before him a very heavy-set young man, of medium height, possessed of a full moon of a face, and alert brown eyes.
"I thought so," went on this young man in answer to Bob's assent. "I'm Baker of '93. You wouldn't know me; I was before your time. But I know you. Seen you play. Headed for the Sunshine and Flowers?"
"Yes," said Bob.
"Ever been there before?"
"No."
"Great country! If you listen to all the come-on stuff you may be disappointed—at first."
"How's that?" asked Bob, highly amused. "Isn't the place what it's cracked up to be?"
"It's more," asserted Baker, "but not the same stuff. The climate's bully—best little old climate they've made, up to date—but it's got to rain once in a while; and the wind's got to blow; and all that. If you believe the Weather in the Old Home column, you'll be sore. In two years you'll be sore, anyway, whenever it does anything but stand 55 at night, 72 at noon and shine like the spotlight on the illustrated songster. If a Californian sees a little white cloud about as big as a toy balloon down in the southeast corner he gets morose as a badger. If it starts to drizzle what you'd call a light fog he holes up. When it rains he hibernates like a bear, and the streets look like one of these populous and thriving Aztec metropoli you see down Sonora way. I guess every man is privileged to get just about so sore on the weather wherever he is—and does so."
"You been out there long?" asked Bob.
"Ever since I graduated," returned Baker promptly, "and I wouldn't live anywhere else. They're doing real things. Don't you run away with any notions ofdolce far nientesor tropical languor. This California gang is strictly on the job. The bunch seated under the spreading banana tree aren't waiting for the ripe fruit to drop in their mouths. That's in the First Reader and maybe somewhere down among the Black and Tans—"
"Black and Tans?" interrupted Bob with a note of query.
"Yep. Oilers—greasers—Mexicans—hidalgos of all kinds from here to the equator," explained Baker. "No, sir, that gang under the banana tree are either waiting there to sandbag the next tourist and sell him some real estate before he comes to, or else they're figuring on uprooting said piffling shrub and putting up an office building. Which part of the country are you going to?"
"Near White Oaks," said Bob.
"No abalone shells for yours, eh?" remarked Baker cryptically. He glanced at Welton. "Where's your timber located?" he asked.
"Near Granite," replied Bob;—"why, how the devil did you know we were out for timber?"
"'How did the Master Mind solve that problem?'" asked Baker. "Ah, that's my secret!"
"No, that doesn't go," said Bob. "I insist on knowing; and what was that abalone shell remark?"
"Abalone shells—tourists," capitulated Baker; "also Mexican drawn work, bead belts, burned leather, fake turquoise and ostrich eggs. Sabe?"
"Sure. But why not a tourist?"
"Tourist—in White Oaks!" cried Baker. "Son, White Oaks raises raisins and peaches and apricots and figs and such things in quantities to stagger you. It is a nice, well-built city, and well conducted, and full of real estate boards and chambers of commerce. But it is not framed up for tourists, and it knows it. Not at 100 degrees Fahrenheit 'most all summer, and a chill and solemn land fog 'most all winter."
"Well, why timber?" demanded Bob.
"My dear Watson," said Baker, indicating Mr. Welton, who grinned. "Does your side partner resemble a raisin raiser? Has he the ear marks of a gentle agriculturist? Would you describe him as a typical sheepman, or as a daring and resolute bee-keeper?"
Bob shook his head, still unconvinced.
"Well, if you will uncover my dark methods," sighed Baker. He leaned over and deftly abstracted from the breast pocket of Bob's coat a long, narrow document. "You see the top of this stuck out in plain sight. To the intelligent eye instructed beyond the second grade of our excellent school system the inscription cannot be mistaken." He held it around for Bob to see. In plain typing the document was endorsed as follows:
"Granite County Timber Lands."
"My methods are very subtle," said Baker, laughing. "I find it difficult to explain them. Come around sometime and I'll pick it out for you on the piano."
"Where are you going?" asked Bob in his turn.
"Los Angeles, on business."
"On business?—or just buying abalone shells?"
"It takes a millionaire or an Iowa farmer to be a tourist," replied Baker.
"What are you doing?"
"Supporting an extravagant wife, I tell Mrs. Baker. You want to get down that way. The town's a marvel. It's grown from thirty thousand to two hundred thousand in twenty years; it has enough real estate subdivisions to accommodate eight million; it has invented the come-on house built by the real estate agents to show how building is looking up at Lonesomehurst; it has two thousand kinds of architecture—all different; it has more good stuff and more fake stuff than any place on earth—it's a wonder. Come on down and I'll show you the high buildings."
He chatted for a few moments, then rose abruptly and disappeared down the aisle toward the sleeping cars without the formality of a farewell.
Welton had been listening amusedly, and puffing away at his cigar in silence.
"Well," said he when Baker had gone. "How do you like your friend?"
"He's certainly amusing," laughed Bob, "and mighty good company. That sort of a fellow is lots of fun. I've seen them many times coming back at initiation or Commencement. They are great heroes to the kids."
"But not to any one else?" inquired Welton.
"Well—that's about it," Bob hesitated. "They're awfully good fellows, and see the joke, and jolly things up; but they somehow don't amount to much."
"Wouldn't think much of the scheme of trying Baker as woods foreman up in our timber, then?" suggested Welton.
"Him? Lord, no!" said Bob, surprised.
Welton threw back his head and laughed heartily, in great salvos.
"Ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "Oh, Bobby, I wish any old Native Son could be here to enjoy this joke with me. Ho! ho! ho! ho!"
The coloured porter stuck his head in to see what this tremendous rolling noise might be, grinned sympathetically, and withdrew.
"What's the matter with you!" cried Bob, exasperated. "Shut up, and be sensible."
Welton wiped his eyes.
"That, son, is Carleton P. Baker. Just say Carleton P. Baker to a Californian."
"Well, I can't, for four days, anyway. Who is he?"
"Didn't find out from him, for all his talk, did you?" said Welton shrewdly. "Well, Baker, as he told you, graduated from college in '93. He came to California with about two thousand dollars of capital and no experience. He had the sense to go in for water rights, and here he is!"
"Marvellous!" cried Bob sarcastically. "But what is he now that he is here?"
"Head of three of the biggest power projects in California," said Welton impressively, "and controller of more potential water power than any other man or corporation in the state."
Welton enjoyed his joke hugely. After Bob had turned in, the big man parted the curtains to his berth.
"Oh, Bob," he called guardedly.
"What!" grunted the young man, half-asleep.
"Who do you think we'd better get for woods foreman justin caseBaker shouldn't take the job?"
All next day the train puffed over the snow-blown plains. There was little in the prospect, save an inspiration to thankfulness that the cars were warm and comfortable. Bob and Welton spent the morning going over their plans for the new country. After lunch, which in the manner of trans-continental travellers they stretched over as long a period as possible, they again repaired to the smoking car. Baker hailed them jovially, waving a stubby forefinger at vacant seats.
"Say, do Populists grow whiskers, or do whiskers make Populists?" he demanded.
"Give it up," replied Welton promptly. "Why?"
"Because if whiskers make Populists, I don't blame this state for going Pop. A fellow'd have to grow some kind of natural chest protector in self-defence. Look at that snow! And thirty dollars will take you out where there's none of it, and the soil's better, and you can see something around you besides fresh air. Why, any one of these poor pinhead farmers could come out our way, get twenty acres of irrigated land, and in five years—"
"Hold on!" cried Bob, "you haven't by any chance some of that real estate for sale—or a sandbag?"
Baker laughed.
"Everybody gets that way," said he. "I'll bet the first five men you meet will fill you up on statistics."
He knew the country well, and pointed out in turn the first low rises of the prairie swell, and the distant Rockies like a faint blue and white cloud close down along the horizon. Bob had never seen any real mountains before, and so was much interested. The train laboured up the grades, steep to the engine, but insignificant to the eye; it passed through the cañons to the broad central plateau. The country was broken and strange, with its wide, free sweeps, its sage brush, its stunted trees, but it was not mountainous as Bob had conceived mountains. Baker grinned at him.
"Snowclad peaks not up to specifications?" he inquired. "Chromos much better? Mountain grandeur somewhat on the blink? Where'd you expect them to put a railroad—out where the scenery is? Never mind. Wait till you slide off 'Cape Horn' into California."
The cold weather followed them to the top of the Sierras. Snow, dull clouds, mists and cold enveloped the train. Miles of snowsheds necessitated keeping the artificial light burning even at midday. Winter held them in its grip.
Then one morning they rounded the bold corner of a high mountain. Far below them dropped away the lesser peaks, down a breathless descent. And from beneath, so distant as to draw over themselves a tender veil of pearl gray, flowed out foothills and green plains. The engine coughed, shut off the roar of her exhaust. The train glided silently forward.
"Now come to the rear platform," Baker advised.
They sat in the open air while the train rushed downward. From the great drifts they ran to the soft, melting snow, then to the mud and freshness of early spring. Small boys crowded early wild-flowers on them whenever they stopped at the small towns built on the red clay. The air became indescribably soft and balmy, full of a gentle caress. At the next station the children brought oranges. A little farther the foothill ranches began to show the brightness of flowers. The most dilapidated hovel was glorified by splendid sprays of red roses big as cabbages. Dooryards of the tiniest shacks blazed with red and yellow. Trees and plants new to Bob's experience and strangely and delightfully exotic in suggestion began to usurp the landscape. To the far Northerner, brought up in only a common-school knowledge of olive trees, palms, eucalyptus, oranges, banana trees, pomegranates and the ordinary semi-tropical fruits, there is something delightful and wonderful in the first sight of them living and flourishing in the open. When closer investigation reveals a whole series of which he probably does not remember ever to have heard, he feels indeed an explorer in a new and wonderful land. After a few months these things become old stories. They take their places in his cosmos as accustomed things. He is then at some pains to understand his visitor's extravagant interest and delight over loquats, chiramoyas, alligator pears, tamarinds, guavas, the blooming of century plants, the fruits of chollas and the like. Baker pointed out some of these things to Bob.
"Winter to summer in two jumps and a hop," said he. "The come-on stuff rings the bell in this respect, anyway. Smell the air: it's real air. 'Listen to the mocking bird.'"
"Seriously or figuratively?" asked Bob. "I mean, is that a real mocking bird?"
"Surest thing you know," replied Baker as the train moved on, leaving the songster to his ecstasies. "They sing all night out here. Sounds fine when you haven't a grouch. Then you want to collect a brick and drive the darn fowl off the reservation."
"I never saw one before outside a cage," said Bob.
"There's lots of things you haven't seen that you're going to see, now you've got out to the Real Thing," said Baker. "Why, right in your own line: you don't know what big pine is. Wait till you see the woods out here. We've got the biggest trees, and the biggest mountains, and the biggest crops and the biggest—."
"Liars," broke in Bob, laughing. "Don't forget them."
"Yes, the biggest liars, too," agreed Baker. "A man's got to lie big out here to keep in practice so he can tell the plain truth without straining himself."
Before they changed cars to the Valley line, Baker had a suggestion to make.
"Look here," said he, "whydon'tyou come and look at the tall buildings? You can't do anything in the mountains yet, and when you get going you'll be too busy to see California. Come, make a pasear. Glad to show you the sights. Get reckless. Take a chance. Peruse carefully your copy of Rules for Rubes and try it on."
"Go ahead," said Welton, unexpectedly.
Bob went on to Los Angeles with the sprightly Baker. At first glance the city seemed to him like any other. Then, as he wandered its streets, the marvel and vigour and humour of the place seized on him.
"Don't you suppose I see the joke?" complained Baker at the end of one of their long trolley rides. "Just get onto that house; it looks like a mission-style switch engine. And the one next to it, built to shed snow. Funny! sure it's funny. But you ain't talking to me! It's alive! Those fellows wanted something different from anybody else—so does everybody. After they'd used up the regular styles, they had to make 'em up out of the fresh air. But anyway, they weren't satisfied just to copy Si Golosh's idea of a Noah's Ark chicken coop."
They stopped opposite very elaborate and impressive iron gates opening across a graded street. These gates were supported by a pair of stone towers crowned with tiles. A smaller pair of towers and gates guarded the concrete sidewalk. As a matter of fact, all these barriers enclosed nothing, for even in the remote possibility that the inquiring visitor should find them shut, an insignificant detour would circumvent their fenceless flanks.
"Maudsley Court," Bob read sculptured on one of the towers.
"That makes this particular subdivision mighty exclusive," grinned Baker. "Now if you were a homeseeker wouldn't you love to bring your dinner pail back to the cawstle every night?"
Bob peered down the single street. It was graded, guttered and sidewalked. A small sentry box labelled "office," and inscribed with glowing eulogiums, occupied a strategic position near the gates. From this house Bob immediately became aware of close scrutiny by a man half concealed by the indoor dimness.
"The spider," said Baker. "He's onto us big as a house. He can spot a yap at four hundred yards' range, and you bet they don't get much nearer than that alone."
A huge sign shrieked of Maudsley Court. "Get a grin!" was its first advice.
"They all try for a catchword—every one of 'em," explained Baker. "You'll see all kinds in the ads; some pretty good, most of 'em rotten."
"They seem to have made a start, anyway," observed Bob, indicating a new cottage half way down the street. It was a super-artistic structure, exhibiting the ends of huge brown beams at all points. Baker laughed.
"That's what it's intended to seem," said he. "That's the come-on house. It's built by the spider. It's stick-um for the flies. 'This is going to be a high-brow proposition,' says the intending purchaser; 'look at the beautiful house already up. I must join this young and thriving colony.' Hence this settled look."
He waved his hand abroad. Dotted over the low, rounded hills of the charming landscapes were new and modern bungalows. They were spaced widely, and each was flanked by an advertising board and guarded by a pair of gates shutting their private thoroughfares from the country highways. Between them showed green the new crops.
"Nine out of ten come-on houses," said Baker, "and all exclusive. If you can't afford iron gates, you can at least put up a pair of shingled pillars. It's the game."
"Will these lots ever be sold?" asked Bob.
"Out here, yes," replied Baker. "That's part of the joke. The methods are on the blink, but the goods insist on delivering themselves. Most of these fellows are just bunks or optimists. All hands are surprised when things turn out right. But ifallthe lots are ever sold, Los Angeles will have a population of five million."
They boarded an inward-bound trolley. Bob read the devices as they flashed past. "Hill-top Acres," he read near a street plastered against an apparently perpendicular hill. "Buy before the rise!" advised this man's rival at its foot. The true suburbs strung by in a panorama of strange little houses—imitation Swiss chalets jostling bastard Moorish, cobblestones elbowing plaster—a bewildering succession of forced effects. Baker caught Bob's expression.
"These are workingmen's and small clerks' houses," he said quietly. "Pretty bad, eh? But they're trying. Remember what they lived in back East."
Bob recalled the square, painted, ugly, featureless boxes built all after the same pattern of dreariness. He looked on this gay bewilderment of bad taste with more interest.
"At least they're taking notice," said Baker, lighting his pipe. "And every fellow raisessomekind of posies."
A few moments later they plunged into the vortex of the city and the smiling country, the far plains toward the sea, and the circle of the mountains were lost. Only remained overhead the blue of the California sky.
Baker led the way toward a blaring basement restaurant.
"I'm beginning to feel that I'll have to find some monkey-food somewhere, or cash in," said he.
They found a table and sat down.
"This is the place to see all the sights," proffered Baker, his broad face radiating satisfaction. "When they strike it rich on the desert, they hike right in here. That fat lady thug yonder is worth between three and four millions. Eight months ago she did washing at two bits a shirt while her husband drove a one-man prospect shaft. The other day she blew into the big jewelry store and wanted a thirty-thousand-dollar diamond necklace. The boss rolled over twice and wagged his tail. 'Yes, madam,' said he; 'what kind?' 'I dunno; just a thirty-thousand-dollar one.' That's all he could get out of her. 'But tell me how you want 'em set,' he begged. She looked bewildered.'Oh, set 'em so they'll jingle,'says she."
After the meal they walked down the principal streets, watching the crowd. It was a large crowd, as though at busy midday, and variously apparelled, from fur coat to straw hat. Each extreme of costume seemed justified, either by the balmy summer-night effect of the California open air, or by the hint of chill that crept from the distant mountains. Either aspect could be welcomed or ignored by a very slight effort of the will. Electric signs blazed everywhere. Bob was struck by the numbers of clairvoyants, palm readers, Hindu frauds, crazy cults, fake healers, Chinese doctors, and the like thus lavishly advertised. The class that elsewhere is pressed by necessity to the inexpensive dinginess of back streets, here blossomed forth in truly tropical luxuriance. Street vendors with all sorts of things, from mechanical toys to spot eradicators, spread their portable lay-outs at every corner. Vacant lots were crowded with spielers of all sorts—religious or political fanatics, vendors of cure-alls, of universal tools, of marvelous axle grease, of anything and everything to catch the idle dollar. Brilliantly lighted shops called the passer-by to contemplate the latest wavemotor, flying machine, door check, or what-not. Stock in these enterprises was for sale—and was being sold! Other sidewalk booths, like those ordinarily used as dispensaries of hot doughnuts and coffee, offered wild-cat mining shares, oil stock and real estate in some highly speculative suburb. Great stores of curios lay open to the tourist trade. Here one could buy sheepskin Indian moccasins made in Massachusetts, or abalone shells, or burnt-leather pillows, or a whole collection of photographic views so minute that they could all be packed in a single walnut shell. Next door were shops of Japanese and Chinese goods presided over by suave, sleepy-eyed Orientals, in wonderful brocade, wearing the close cap with the red coral button atop. Shooting galleries spit spitefully. Gasolene torches flared.
Baker strolled along, his hands in his pockets, his hat on the back of his head. From time to time he cast an amused glance at his companion.
"Come in here," he said abruptly.
Bob found himself comfortably seated in a commodious open-air theatre, watching an excellent vaudeville performance. He enjoyed it thoroughly, for it was above the average. In fifteen minutes, however, the last soubrette disappeared in the wings to the accompaniment of a swirl of music. Her place was taken by a tall, facetious-looking, bald individual, clad in a loose frock coat. He held up his hand for silence.
"Ladies 'n' gentlemen," he drawled, "we hope you have enjoyed yourselves. If you find a better show than this in any theatre in town, barring the Orpheum, come and tell us about it and we will see what we can do to brace ours up. I don't believe you can. This show will be repeated every afternoon and evening, with complete change of programme twice a week. Go away and tell your friends about the great free show down on Spring Street. Just tell them about it."
Bob glanced startled at his companion. Baker was grinning.
"This show has cost us up to date," went on the leisurely drawl, "just twenty-eight hundred dollars. Go and tell your friends that.But"—he suddenly straightened his figure and his voice became more incisive—"that is not enough. We have decided to give you somethingrealto talk about. We have decided to give every man, woman and child in this vast audience a first-night present of Two Silver Dollars!"
Bob could feel an electric thrill run through the crowd, and every one sat up a little straighter in his chair.
"Let me see," the orator went on, running his eye over the audience. He had resumed his quieter manner. "There are perhaps seven hundred people present. That would make fourteen hundred dollars. By the way, John, "he addressed some one briskly. "Close the gates and lock them. We don't want anybody in on this who didn't have interest enough in our show to come in the first place." He winked humorously at the crowd, and several laughed.
"Pretty rotten, eh?" whispered Baker admiringly. "Fixed 'em so they won't bolt when the show's over and before he works off his dope."
"These Two Silver Dollars, which I want you all to get, are in these hampers. Six little boys will distribute them. Come up, boys, and get each a hatful of dollars." The six solemnly marched up on the stage and busied themselves with the hampers. "While we are waiting," went on the orator, "I will seize the opportunity to present to you the world-famed discoverer of that wonderful anaesthetic, Oxodyne, Painless Porter."
At the words a dapper little man in immaculately correct evening dress, and carrying a crush hat under his arm, stepped briskly from the wings. He was greeted by wild but presumably manufactured applause. He bowed rigidly from the hips, and at once began to speak in a high and nasal but extremely penetrating voice.
"As far as advertising is concerned," he began without preamble, "it is entirely unnecessary that I give this show. There is no man, woman or child in this marvellous commonwealth of ours who is not familiar with the name of Painless Porter, whether from the daily papers, the advertising boards, the street cars, or the elegant red brougham in which I traverse your streets. My work for you is my best advertisement. It is unnecessary from that point of view that I spend this money for this show, or that this extra money should be distributed among you by my colleague, Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of Modern Times."
The tall man paused from his business with the hampers and the six boys to bow in acknowledgment.
"No, ladies 'n' gentlemen, my purpose is higher. In the breast of each human being is implanted an instinctive fear of Pain. It sits on us like a nightmare, from the time we first come to consciousness of our surroundings. It is a curse of humanity, like drink, and he who can lighten that curse is as much of a philanthropist as George W. Childs or Andrew Carnegie. I want you to go away and talk about me. It don't matter what you say, just so you say something. You can call me quack, you may call me fakir, you may call me charlatan—but be sure to call me SOMETHING! Then slowly the news will spread abroad that Pain is banished, and I can smile in peace, knowing that my vast expenditures of time and money have not been in vain, and that I have been a benefit to humanity. Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of Modern Times, will now attend to the distribution, after which I will pull a few teeth gratis in order to demonstrate to you the wonderful merits of Oxodyne."
"A dentist!" gasped Bob.
"Yup," said Baker. "Not much gasoline-torch-on-the-back-lot in his, is there?"
Bob was hardly surprised, after much preamble and heightening of suspense, to find that the Two Silver Dollars turned out finally to be a pink ticket and a blue ticket, "good respectively at the luxurious offices for one dollar's worth of dental and medical attention FREE."
Nor was he more than slightly astounded when the back drop rose to show the stage set glitteringly with nickel-mounted dentist chairs and their appurtenances, with shining glass, white linen, and with a chorus of fascinating damsels dressed as trained nurses and standing rigidly at attention. Then entered Painless himself, in snowy shirt-sleeves and serious professional preoccupation. Volunteers came up two by two. Painless explained obscurely the scientific principles on which the marvelous Oxodyne worked—by severing temporarily but entirely all communication between the nerves and the brain. Then much business with a very glittering syringe.
"My lord," chuckled Baker, "if he fills that thing up, it'll drown her!"
In an impressive silence Painless flourished the forceps, planted himself square in front of his patient, heaved a moment, and triumphantly held up in full view an undoubted tooth. The trained nurses offered rinses. After a moment the patient, a roughly dressed country woman, arose to her feet. She was smiling broadly, and said something, which the audience could not hear. Painless smiled indulgently.
"Speak up so they can all hear you," he encouraged her.
"Never hurt a bit," the woman stammered.
Three more operations were conducted as expeditiously and as successfully. The audience was evidently impressed.
"How does he do it?" whispered Bob.
"Cappers," explained Baker briefly. "He only fakes pulling a tooth. Watch him next time and you'll see that he doesn't actually pull an ounce."
"Suppose a real toothache comes up?"
"I think that is one now. Watch him."
A young ranchman was making his way up the steps that led to the stage. His skin was tanned by long exposure to the California sun, and his cheek rounded into an unmistakable swelling.
"No fake about him," commented Baker.
He seated himself in the chair. Painless examined his jaw carefully. He started back, both hands spread in expostulation.
"Mydearfriend!" he cried, "you can save that tooth! It would be a crime to pull that tooth! Come to my office at ten to-morrow morning and I will see what can be done." He turned to the audience and for ten minutes expounded the doctrine of modern dentistry as it stands for saving a tooth whenever possible. Incidentally he had much to say as to his skill in filling and bridge work and the marvellous painlessness thereof. The meeting broke up finally to the inspiring strains of a really good band. Bob and his friend, standing near the door, watched the audience file out. Some threw away their pink and blue tickets, but most stowed them carefully away.
"And every one that goes to the 'luxurious offices' for the free dollar's worth will leave ten round iron ones," said Baker.
After a moment the Painless One and the Wizard marched smartly out, serenely oblivious of the crowd. They stepped into a resplendent red brougham and were whisked rapidly away.
"It pays to advertise," quoted Baker philosophically.
They moved on up the street.
"There's the inventor of the Unlimited Life," said Baker suddenly, indicating a slender figure approaching. "I haven't seen him in three years—not since he got into this graft, anyway."
"Unlimited Life," echoed Bob, "what's that? A medicine?"
"No. A cult. Hullo, Sunny!"
The approaching figure swerved and stopped. Bob saw a very slender figure clad in a close-fitting, gray frock suit. To his surprise, from beneath the wide, black felt hat there peered at him the keenly nervous face of the more intelligent mulatto. The man's eyes were very bright and shrewd. His hair surrounded his face as an aureole of darkness, and swept low to his coat collar.
"Mr. Baker," he said, simply, his eyes inscrutable.
"Well, Sunny, this is my old friend Bob Orde. Bob, this is the world-famous Sunny Larue, apostle of the Unlimited Life of whom you've heard so much." He winked at Bob. "How's the Colony flourishing, Sunny?"
"More and more our people are growing to see the light," said the mulatto in low, musical tones. "The mighty but simple principles of Azamud are coming into their own. The poor and lowly, the humble and oppressed are learning that in me is their salvation—." He went on in his beautiful voice explaining the Colony of the Unlimited Life, addressing always Bob directly and paying little attention to Baker, who stood aside, his hands in his pockets, a smile on his fat, good-natured face. It seemed that the Colony lived in tents in a cañon of the foothills. It paid Larue fifty dollars a head, and in return was supported for six months and instructed in the mysteries of the cult. It had its regimen. "At three we arise and break our fast, quite simply, with three or four dry prunes," breathed Larue, "and then, going forth to the high places for one hour, we hold steadfast the thought of Love."
"Say, Sunny," broke in Baker, "how many you got rounded up now?"
"There are at present twenty-one earnest proselytes."
"At fifty a head—and you've got to feed and keep 'em somehow—even three dried prunes cost you something in the long run"—ruminated Baker. He turned briskly to the mulatto: "Sunny, on the dead, where does the graft come in?"
The mulatto drew himself up in swift offence, scrutinized Bob closely for a moment, met Baker's grin. Abruptly his impressive manner dropped from him. He leaned toward them with a captivating flash of white teeth.
"You just leave that to me," he murmured, and glided away into the crowd.
Baker laughed and drew Bob's arm within his own.
"Out of twenty of the faithful there's sure to be one or two with life savings stowed away in a sock, and Sunny's the boy to make them produce the sock."
"What's his cult, anyway?" asked Bob. "I mean, what do they pretend to believe? I couldn't make out."
"A nigger's idea of Buddhism," replied Baker briefly. "But you can get any brand of psychic damfoolishness you think you need in your business. They do it all, here, from going barefoot, eating nuts, swilling olive oil, rolling down hill, adoring the Limitless Whichness, and all the works. It is now," he concluded, looking at his watch, "about ten o'clock. We will finish the evening by dropping in on the Fuzzies."
Together they boarded a street car, which shortly deposited them at an uptown corner. Large houses and spacious grounds indicated a district of some wealth. To one of these houses, brilliantly lighted, Baker directed his steps.
"But I don't know these people, and I'm not properly dressed," objected Bob.
"They know me. And as for dress, if you'd arrange to wear a chaste feather duster only, you'd make a hit."
A roomful of people were buzzing like a hive. Most were in conventional evening dress. Here and there, however, Bob caught hints of masculine long hair, of feminine psyche knots, bandeaux and other extremely artistic but unusual departures. One man with his dinner jacket wore a soft linen shirt perforated by a Mexican drawn-work pattern beneath which glowed a bright red silk undergarment. Women's gowns on the flowing and Grecian order were not uncommon. These were usually coupled with the incongruity of parted hair brought low and madonna-wise over the ears. As the two entered, a very powerful blond man was just finishing the declamation of a French poem. He was addressing it directly at two women seated on a sofa.
"Un r-r-reve d'amour!"
He concluded with much passion and clasped hands.
In the rustle ensuing after this effort, Baker led his friend down the room to a very fat woman upholstered in pink satin, to whom he introduced Bob. Mrs. Annis, for such proved to be her name, welcomed him effusively.
"I've heard so much about you!" she cried vivaciously, to Bob's vast astonishment. She tapped him on the arm with her fan. "I'm going to make a confession to you; I know it may be foolish, but I do like music so much better than I do pictures."
Bob, his brain whirling, muttered something.
"But I'm going to confess to you again, I like artists so much better than I do musicians."
A light dawned on Bob. "But I'm not an artist nor a musician," he blurted out.
The pink-upholstered lady, starting back with an agility remarkable in one of her size, clasped her hands.
"Don'ttellme you write!" she cried dramatically.
"All right, I won't," protested poor Bob, "for I don't."
A slow expression of bewilderment overspread Mrs. Annis's face, and she glanced toward Baker with an arched brow of interrogation.
"I merely wanted Mr. Orde to meet you, Mrs. Annis," he said impressively, "and to feel that another time, when he is less exhausted by the strain of a long day, he may have the privilege of explaining to you the details of the great Psychic Movement he is inaugurating."
Mrs. Annis smiled on him graciously. "I am home every Sunday to myintimes," she murmured. "I should be so pleased."
Bob bowed mechanically.
"You infernal idiot!" he ground out savagely to Baker, as they moved away. "What do you mean? I'll punch your fool head when I get you out of here!"
But the plump young man merely smiled.
Halfway down the room a group of attractive-looking young men hailed them.
"Join in, Baker," said they. "Bring your friend along. We're just going to raid the commissary."
But Baker shook his head.
"I'm showing him life," he replied. "None but Fuzzies in his to-night!"
He grasped Bob firmly by the arm and led him away.
"That," he said, indicating a very pale young man, surrounded by women, "is Pickering, the celebrated submarine painter."
"The what?" demanded Bob.
"Submarine painter. He paints fish and green water and lobsters, and the bottom of the sea generally. He paints them on the skins of kind-faced little calves."
"What does he do that for?"
"He says it's the only surface that will express what he wants to. He has also invented a waterproof paint that he can use under water. He has a coral throne down on the bottom which he sits in, and paints as long as he can hold his breath."
"Oh, he does!" said Bob.
"Yes," said Baker.
"But a man can't see three feet in front of his face under water!" cried Bob.
"Pickering says he can. He paints submarinescapes, and knows all the fishes. He says fishes have individual expressions. He claims he can tell by a fish's expression whether he is polygamous or monogamous."
"Do you mean to tell me anybody swallows that rot!" demanded Bob indignantly.
"The women do—and a lot more I can't remember. The market for calf-skins with green swirls on them is booming. Also the women clubbed together and gave him money enough to build a house."
Bob surveyed the little white-faced man with a strong expression of disgust.
"The natural man never sits in chairs," the artist was expounding. "When humanity shall have come into its own we shall assume the graceful and hygienic postures of the oriental peoples. In society one must, to a certain extent, follow convention, but in my own house, the House Beautiful of my dreams, are no chairs. And even now a small group of the freer spirits are following my example. In time----"
"If you don't take me away, I'll run in circles!" whispered Bob fiercely to his friend.
They escaped into the open air.
"Phew!" said Bob, straightening his long form. "Is that what you call the good society here?"
"Good society is there," amended Baker. "That's the joke. There are lots of nice people in this little old town, people who lisp our language fluently. They are all mixed in with the Fuzzies."
They decided to walk home. Bob marvelled at the impressive and substantial buildings, at the atrocious streets. He spoke of the beautiful method of illuminating one of the thoroughfares—by globes of light gracefully supported in clusters on branched arms either side the roadway.
"They were originally bronze—and they went and painted them a mail-box green," commented Baker drily.
At the hotel the night clerk, a young man, quietly dressed and with an engaging air, greeted them with just the right amount of cordiality as he handed them their keys. Bob paused to look about him.
"This is a good hotel," he remarked.
"It's one of the best-managed, the best-conducted, and the best-appointed hotels in the United States," said Baker with conviction.
The next morning Bob bought all the papers and glanced through them with considerable wonder and amusement. They were decidedly metropolitan in size, and carried a tremendous amount of advertising. Early in his perusal he caught the personal bias of the news. Without distortion to the point of literal inaccuracy, nevertheless by skilful use of headlines and by manipulation of the point of view, all items were made to subserve a purpose. In local affairs the most vulgar nicknaming, the most savage irony, vituperation, scorn and contempt were poured out full measure on certain individuals unpopular with the papers. Such epithets as "lickspittle," "toad," "carcass blown with the putrefying gas of its own importance," were read in the body of narration.