Something turned up the very next day. It turned all Kilo upside down as
nothing had for years, and created such a demand for the TIMES that J.
T. Jones had to print an extra edition of sixty copies, and he would
have printed ten more if his press had not broken down.
Across two columns--the TIMES never used over one column headlines
except for the elections--blazed the work “GRAFT,” and beneath, in but a
size or two smaller, stared the “sub-head” “OFFICIAL OF KILO CORRUPTED.
CITIZENS' PARTY ROTTEN TO THE CORE. PROMINENT CITIZEN IMPLICATED.”
Beneath this followed the moral of it, “The City, as Predicted in
These Columns, Suffers for Departing from The Beneficent Rule of the
Republican Party.”
Attorney Toole was sitting in his office when the boy from the TIMES
delivered the paper to him. He smiled as he opened the damp sheet, for
he extracted more amusement than news from the little paper, but as he
turned it the headlines caught his eye, and instantly he was deep in
the columns. Someone had sprung his mine before he had intended--it
had exploded prematurely and with, what seemed to him, as he read on, a
futile insipidity.
There were full two columns of it. There were hints and innuendoes, too
well veiled, but no names mentioned. The specific act of graft was not
brought to the surface. It was as if the writer had a “spread” of
some vaguely uncertain rumor, and yet there was not doubt that Colonel
Guthrie and Mayor Stitz and the fire-extinguishers were meant. The
attorney could see that, and he had an idea that the writer had meant
to tell more than he really did tell. The veiled allusions were so
thoroughly veiled in words that they were buried as if under mountains
of veils. Each slight hint was swamped in morasses of quotations and
fine flourishes, overgrown and hidden by tropical verbiage, and covered
up by philosophical and political phrases until nothing of the hint
could be seen. As he read on the attorney could see Doc Weaver talking,
as plainly as if he stood before him; he could see him at his desk in
a frenzy of composition, and he recognized the apt quotations from
Shakespeare that were Doc's specialty. Doc Weaver had written it.
The attorney laid the paper down and studied the matter. How could Doc
have learned of the affair? Skinner, angry as he had been at having to
buy the four fire-extinguishers, would never have dared to wreck the
party he had helped to create. The Colonel would have been no such fool.
Stitz? He would hardly accuse himself. Who then?
One passage set the attorney thinking again as he re-read the article.
“'Thinks are seldom what they seem,' as the poet says, which is as true
as that 'Honesty is the best policy.' And as Shakespeare says, 'To
what base ends,' for all this disreputable graft centers around certain
brilliant objects that are not what the guilty bribers and bribees
suppose them to be. While we shudder with horror at the temerity of the
sinners we shake with laughter as we think of their faces as they will
be when they realize that they are mortals to whom the immortal bard
refers when he enunciates the truth, 'What fools these mortals be!'”
“Certain brilliant objects” could mean nothing but the lung-testers.
Eliph' Hewlitt had that secret, and Eliph' Hewlitt boarded with Doc
Weaver. The attorney felt a sudden rush of anger. It was to this
intermeddling book agent, then, that he owed the premature explosion of
the mine that was to have blown the Citizens' Party to fragments, and to
have landed the fragments in the basket held ready by Attorney Toole?
The distribution of that week's TIMES acted like a tonic on the town
streets. New life followed in the wake of the boy as he carried the
paper from door to door. It began at the corner of Main and Cross
Streets, and as the boy proceeded, the merchants, the loafers, and the
customers came from the stores and gathered in knots that formed quickly
and dissolved again as the parts passed from one group to another,
questioning, arguing, and guessing. The attorney looked out of his
window. Across the street he could see the office of the TIMES, and T.
J. already besieged by questioners, to whom he was evidently giving a
kind but decided refusal of further information. The editor was waving
them away with his hands. Some of the editor's visitors handed T. J.
money, and carried away copies of the TIMES, but all went, gently
urged by the editor, and joined one or another of the groups below. The
attorney drew on his coat. He would postpone his interview with Eliph'
Hewlitt; Thomas Jefferson Jones was the man he wanted to see at that
moment.
It was difficult for the attorney to retain his enigmatical smiles as
he climbed the stairs to the TIMES office. He was angry, but he knew the
value of that irritating smile that hinted superiority and a knowledge
of hidden details. He needed it in his talk with the editor.
It is odd how common interests will bring men together. And sometimes
how common interests will not. The attorney and the editor had been as
one man in polite attentions to Susan Bell, Mrs. Smith's protégée, at
first, but as their acquaintance with her grew they seemed to like each
other less. They no longer consulted each other on the best methods of
bringing Republican rule back to Kilo. They did not consult together
at all. The attorney coldly ignored the editor, and his irritation,
beginning in this rivalry, was increased by the growing suspicion that
the editor dared look toward the leadership of the Republican party in
Kilo.
It all angered the attorney. What right had a country editor to compete
with a man of talent, with a member of the bar, with Attorney Toole? Was
this the thanks a rising lawyer should receive for leaving the superior
culture of Franklin and bringing his talents to add luster to the bleak
unimportance of Kilo? The very impertinence of it angered him. Toole,
a man whose name would one day ring in the hall of Congress and perhaps
stand at the head of the nation's officers as chief executive, to be
bothered by the interference of a Jones! By the interference of a man
who spent his time collecting news of measles and hog cholera! It was
about time T. J. Jones was told a few things.
As Toole entered the printing office T. J. was handing a copy of the
TIMES to a customer, and the editor turned, and, seeing who his visitor
was, held up his hand playfully.
“No use!” he exclaimed. “I can't say anything about it, except what's
in the paper. Contributed article, and the editor sworn to silence, you
know.”
The attorney seated himself on the editor's desk, pushing a pile of
papers out of his way.
“That's all right, Jones,” he said. “That's for the”--he waved his hand
toward the window--“for the fellow citizens; for the populace. This is
between ourselves.”
“I'd like to,” said Jones, “but really, I can't say anything about it. I
promised faithfully I would not betray my contributor's confidence.”
“Now, do I look so green as that?” asked Toole. “Nonsense! Doc Weaver
wrote that rot.” He smiled. “He spread himself, didn't he?”
The editor remained motionless.
“I have nothing whatever to say,” he remarked, noncommittally.
“Well, I have!” cried the attorney. “I'll tell you that it is poor work
for you to steal my thunder and attempt to use it without consulting
me! It is poor work, and mean work. You want to be boss of this party
in Kilo county, that's what you want. And you haven't the capacity. You
have proved it right here, right here in this silly sheet of yours.
You hit on a big thing, and you spoil it. You are so anxious that Toole
shall get no credit that you rush it into print and make a fizzle of it.
I know who the traitors to the party are--you are one. Doc Weaver with
his elegant style and his Shakespeare is another. And that miserable
intermeddling little book agent is another. You make me sick.”
The editor stood like a statue, and his face was as white. The attorney
dropped his words slowly from lips that still wore the tantalizing
smile.
“The childishness amuses me,” said the attorney. “It makes me smile. Why
didn't you give names, since you had them? Why didn't you tell it all,
and do the party some good, as well as doing me some harm, if that was
what you were after--and I don't know what you were after if it wasn't
that? Why don't you get a schoolboy to edit your paper for you?”
T. J. ground his nails into the palms of his hands. He meant to retain
possession of his temper, but it was boiling within. He said nothing as
the attorney indolently arose from his seat on the desk; he was resolved
to do nothing, but when the attorney brushed against him in passing,
turning his superior smile full in his face, he raised his arm. The next
moment the two men were lying beside the press, struggling and gasping,
locked fast and fighting for advantage, legs intertwined and each
grasping the other by a wrist. The editor was on top, but the heavier
attorney was working with the energy of hate, and as they panted and
struggled the door opened and Eliph' Hewlitt entered.
There was strength in his wiry arms, and he threw himself upon the upper
man and dragged him backward. The attorney loosened his hold and the two
men stood up, panting and gulping, and soon began to brush their clothes
and look at the floor for dropped articles, as men do who have fought
inconclusively and are not sorry to have been parted. The only real
damage seemed to have been done to Eliph's spectacles, which he had
shaken off in his efforts, and which had been crushed beneath a heel.
The attorney presently smiled, but it was a silly smile, and then he
went out of the door and down the street.
Eliph' coughed gently behind his hand, as if to excuse his intrusion.
“Quarreling?” he suggested. “I used to wrestle some when I was a boy.
But not much. I hadn't then the rules, given on page 554 of Jarby's
Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art,
including “How to Wrestle, How to Defend Oneself Against Sudden Attack,
Jui Jitsu,” et cetery, with wood cuts showing the best holds and how
to get them. All this being but one of one thousand and one subjects
treated of in this work, the price of which is but five dollars, neatly
bound in cloth.”
The editor had turned his back and was staring angrily out of the
window--sulkily tremulous would be a better description, perhaps--when
he suddenly cried out. Eliph' searched hurriedly in his pockets for
another pair of spectacles, found them and put them on, and looked where
the editor pointed. Across the street the attorney, backed up against
the wall of the bank, was defending his face with one arm, and with his
right hand seeking to grasp a whip that was raining blows upon his face
and head. Someone grasped the whip from behind and wrenched it from the
hand of the attorney's assailant, and as the man turned angrily, the two
in the window saw that it was Colonel Guthrie.
They heard him cursing those who had taken the whip from him, ending by
loudly justifying himself for what he had done to the attorney, and saw
the attorney step forward to quell the Colonel's hot words. The Colonel
put up both his hands and shouted, and some from the crowd, grasping
the attorney about the waist and arms, as if the feared he was about to
attack the older man, hurried him away, speaking soothing words to him.
The Colonel rioted on. Nothing could have stopped him. He pulled a copy
of the TIMES from his pocket and slapped it with his hand as he abused
the attorney for having given T. J. Jones the facts of the article.
He lit it be plainly known, in his anger, that the article called him
a giver of graft. The crowd stood silent, as crowds stand about some
drunken man, for the Colonel was drunk with wrath, and wordy with it,
talking to himself as drunken men do. He finished, and the crowd opened
a passage through itself to let him pass, and Skinner, who, in apron and
bare arms, had viewed his rival's wrath from a safe place on the edge of
the group, backed away. The Colonel, mumbling, caught sight of him, and
with one swift motion of the arm grasped him by the shirt band.
“You!” he shouted, pulling the shirt band until Skinner grew purple
in the face. “You! You done it! Why couldn't you buy them
fire-extinguishers like a man? You made me buy up that Dutchman. I
wouldn't 'a' had to do it but for you.”
He gave the choking butcher an extra shake, and raised his hand to
strike him, but again the crowd interfered, and seized the Colonel, and
hurried him away.
The butcher stood stupidly and rubbed his neck, waiting for the wits
that had been choked out of him to return, and far down the street Mayor
Stitz, hearing a noise, came out on his front platform and looked up the
street. It appeared to him that something was going on, and sticking his
awl in the door of his car, he walked blandly up the street to where the
remnant of the crowd formed a half circle around the butcher. He crowded
through, saying, “Look out, the mayor is coming. Stand one side yet for
the mayor!”
The butcher looked and saw before him the round, innocent face of the
mayor, topped by the mayor's round bald head. He raised his large, fat
hand, and in vent for all his injured feelings brought it down, smack!
On the smooth bald spot.
“Ouw-etch!” said the mayor.
He was surprised. He backed away and rubbed the top of his head,
and what he said next was a rapid string of real, genuine German;
exclamations, compound tenses, and irregular verbs and all that makes
German a useful, forceful language. As long as he rubbed his head--with
a rotary motion--he spoke German; then he stopped rubbing and spoke
English.
“So is it you treat your mayor!” he exclaimed indignantly. “Such a town
is Kilo, to give mayors a klop on the head! Donnerblitzenvetter! Not so
is it in Germany.” He turned to the crowd. “A klop on the head! It is
not for klops on the head that I am mayor. No. I resign out of this
mayor business. Go get another mayor, such as likes klops on the head. I
am no mayor. I am resigned.”
He turned and walked slowly back to his car, pulled the awl out of the
door, and went inside.
The editor moved away from the window. He seated himself at his desk and
leaned his head on his arms and thought.
“Headache?” asked Eliph'.
“No,” said the editor, lifting his head. “I'm trying to think this thing
out. Guthrie is in it, and Skinner must be in it, and Stitz. And that
fellow across the way said you knew something about it, and he said Doc
Weaver wrote the article. No,” he added hastily, as Eliph' offered to
speak, “let me think it out myself.”
He leaned his head on his hand, and gazed at the attorney's office. He
drew the week's copy of the TIMES toward him and read over the article
that had caused all the trouble.
“It might be that fire-extinguishers ordinance,” he said slowly. “Stitz
pushed that through. And Skinner had to buy them. And--they were owned
by Miss Briggs and the Colonel negotiated the sale.” He jumped up
and turned over the file of back numbers of the TIMES. He found the
announcement he had made of the arrival of Eliph', and the report of
the meeting of the city council that had passed the fire-extinguishers
ordinance. Eliph' had been in town before the ordinance had passed.
Eliph' boarded now with Doc Weaver. Again he read the article in the
TIMES, seeking for the meanings that Doc knew so well how to hide. He
paused at the “Things are seldom what they seem” lines, and considered
it. Suddenly he arose and put on his hat.
“Wait here,” he said, “I'll be back.”
When he returned he was smiling. He had visited Skinner's Opera House
and had examined the fire-extinguishers where they sat, each on its
bracket.
“Hewlitt,” he said, “when you told Doc about the fire-extinguishers did
you tell him they were lung-testers?”
The little book agent stared at the editor.
“I never told,” he exclaimed. “I have never said a word to Doc Weaver,
nor to anyone about them. Not a word. I have kept it as sacred as the
secret of the Man in the Iron Mask, a full account of whom, together
with a wood cut, is given on page 231, together with 'All the World's
Famous Mysteries,' this being but one feature of Jarby's----”
“All right,” said the editor. “And you never told him about the graft?”
The blank amazement on the book agent's face was sufficient answer.
“I've got to go out,” said the editor. “I've got some reporting to do.
You'll excuse me. I want to see Stitz. And Skinner. And Guthrie. I wish
Doc hadn't gone to his State Medical Society meeting to-day.”
Eliph' went out with the editor, who locked the door behind him.
“Don't say anything,” said the editor, “but I think there will be an
extra edition of the TIMES out to-morrow.”