"Well, I believe Consolidated Pemmican has an office in New York."
"Yes, but the factory, the works; where is the product made?"
"Strictly speaking, I understand active operations ceased back in 1919.
However, there is a plant somewhere in New Jersey, I think; I'll look it
up for you."
My dream of wealth began fading as the whole situation became clear and
suspicions implicit in the peculiar behavior of the stock were
confirmed. The corporation had evidently fallen into the hands of
unscrupulous promoters who manipulated for the small but steady "take"
its fluctuations on the market afforded. Without attempting to operate
the factory, my reasoning ran, they had taken advantage of the stock's
low price to double whatever they cared to invest twice yearly. It was a
neat and wellshaped little racket and discovery, as the broker admitted,
would have exposed them to legal action. Only my recklessness with the
checks from the _Weekly Ruminant_ and the _Honeycomb_ had broken the
routine.
But ... they had offered me several thousand dollars, evidently in cold
cash. Defunct or not, then, the business was presumably worth at least
that. And if they had employed the stock to maintain some sort of
income, why, I could certainly learn to do the same. I was an
independent man afterall.
Except for the slightly embarrassing detail of being without current
funds I was also free of Le ffaçasé and the _Daily Intelligencer_. "Mr
Blank," I said, "I need some money for immediate expenses."
"I knew youd see things in a sensible light, Weener. I'll have your
check in a minute."
"You misunderstand me. I have no intention of giving up any part of
Consolidated Pemmican."
"Ah?"
"No."
He looked at me intently. "Mr. Weener, I am not a wealthy man. Above and
beyond that, since this grass business started, I assure you any common
laborer has made more money than I. Any common laborer," he repeated
sadly.
"Oh, I only need about a thousand dollars for immediate outlays. Just
write me a check for that much, like a good fellow."
"Mr Weener, how can we be sure you won't call upon us again for
more--ah--expensemoney?"
I drew myself up indignantly. "Mr Blank, no one has ever questioned my
integrity before. When I say a thousand dollars is all the expensemoney
I require, why, it is all the expensemoney I require. To doubt it is to
insult me."
"Ah," he said.
"Ah," I agreed.
Reluctantly he wrote the check and handed it to me. Then, more amicably,
we settled the details of the stock transfer and he gave me the location
of my property. I went back to the _Intelligencer_ office with the
springy step of a man who acknowledges no master. In my mind I prepared
a triumph: I would wait--even if it took days--for the first bullying
word from Le ffaçasé and then I would magnificently fling my resignation
in his face.
_34._ When the grass was thought to be invincible, Miss Francis, as the
discoverer of the compound which started it on its course, was the
recipient of a universal if grudging respect. Those whom the grass had
made homeless hated her and would have overcome their natural feeling of
protection toward a woman sufficiently to lynch her if they could. Men
like Senator Jones instinctively disliked her; others, like Dr Johnson,
detested her, but no one thought of her lightly, even when they glibly
coupled the word nut with her name.
When it was found the saltband worked Miss Francis immediately became
the butt of all the ridicule and contumely which could be heaped upon
her head. What could you expect of a woman who meddled with things
outside her province? Since she had asserted the grass would absorb
everything, its failure to absorb the salt proved beyond all doubt she
was an ignoramus, a dangerous charlatan, and a crazy woman, better
locked up, who had destroyed Southern California to her own obscure
benefit. The victory over the grass became a victory over Miss Francis;
of the ordinary gumchewing moviegoing maninthestreet over the
pretentious highbrow. She was ignominiously ejected from her
chickenhouse-laboratory on the ground that it was more needed for its
original use, and she was jeered at in every vehicle of public
expression. In spite of my natural chivalry, I cannot say I pitied her
in her fall, which she took with an unbecoming humility amounting to
arrogance.
_35._ It was amazing how quickly viewpoints returned to an apparent
normality as soon as the grass stopped at the saltband. That it still
existed, in undisputed possession of nearly all Southern California
after dispersing and scattering millions of people all over the country,
disturbing by its very being a large part of the national economy, was
only something read in newspapers, an accepted fact to be pushed into
the farthest background of awareness, now the immediate threat was gone.
The salt patrol, vigilant for erosions or leachings, a select corps, was
alert night and day to keep the saline wall intact. The general
attitude, if it concerned itself at all with the events of the past half
year, looked upon it merely as one of those setbacks periodically
afflicting the country like depressions, epidemics, floods, earthquakes,
or other manmade or natural misfortunes. The United States had been a
great nation when Los Angeles was a pueblo of five thousand people; the
movies could set up in business elsewhere, Iowans find another spot for
senescence, the country go on much as usual.
One of the first results of the defeat of the grass was the building,
almost overnight, it seemed, of a great city on the east bank of the
Salton Sea. Displaced realtors from the metropolis found the surrounding
mountains ideally suited for subdivision and laid out romantically named
suburbs large enough to contain the entire population of California
before the site of the city had been completely surveyed. Beyond their
claims, the memorial parks, columbariums, homes of eternal rest and
elysian lawns offered choice lots--with a special discount on
caskets--on the installmentplan. Magnificent brochures were printed, a
skeletal biographical dictionary--$5 for notice, $50 for a
portrait--planned, advertisements in leading magazines urged the
migration of industry: "contented labor and all local taxes remitted for
ten years."
These essential preliminaries accomplished, the city itself was laid
out, watermains installed, and paving and grading begun. It was no great
feat to divert the now aimless Colorado River aqueduct to the site nor
to erect thousands of prefabricated houses. The climate was declared to
be unequalled, salubrious, equable, pleasant and bracing. Factories were
erected, airports laid out, hospitals, prisons, and insane asylums
built. The Imperial and Coachella valleys shipped their products in at
low cost, and as a gesture to those who might suffer from homesickness
it was called New Los Angeles.
Perhaps in relief from the fear and despair so recently dispelled, New
Los Angeles began to boom from the moment the mayor first handed the key
to a passing distinguished visitor. It grew and spread as the grass had
grown and spread, the embryonic skeletons of its unborn skyline rivaled
the height of the green mass now triumphant in its namesake, presenting,
as newsphotographers were quick to see, an aspect from the west not
entirely dissimilar to Manhattan's.
To New Los Angeles, of course, the _Daily Intelligencer_ moved as soon
as a tent large enough to house its presses could be set up. But I did
not move with it. For some reason, perhaps intuitively forewarned of my
intention, Le ffaçasé never gave me the opportunity to humiliate him as
I planned. On the contrary, I received from him, a few days before the
paper's removal, a silly and characteristic note: "Since the freak grass
has been stopped it seems indicated other abnormalities be terminated
also. Your usefulness to this paper, always debatable, is now clearly at
an end. As of this moment your putative services will be no longer
required. W.R.L."
Bitter vexation came over me at having lost the opportunity to give this
bully a piece of my mind and my impulse was to go immediately to his
office and tell him I scorned his petty paycheck, but I reflected a man
of his nature would merely find some tricky way of turning the interview
to his malicious satisfaction and he would know soon enough it was the
paper which was suffering a loss and not I.
I started next morning and drove eastward toward my property, quite
satisfied to leave behind forever the scenes of my early struggles. The
West had given me only petty irritations. In the East, with its older
culture and higher level of intelligence, I looked forward to having my
worth appreciated.