Part 18 (1/2)
”I hope Miss Sally like the little token of esteem; the box of candy;”
he said, looking up into Mrs. Smith's face anxiously, ”it isn't as if I was used to such matters. My preference would have been a book; a good book; a book that I could recommend to man, woman or child, containing in a condensed form all the world's knowledge, from the time of Adam to the present day, with an index for ready reference, and useful information for every day of the year. It was my intention to have given her such a book, which would have been a proper vehicle to convey to her my--my regard, but I learned only last night that she already had a copy of that work, without which no home is complete, and which is published by Jarby & Goss, New York, five dollars, bound in cloth; seven fifty, morocco. I learned that she already had one.”
”She told you I had given her my copy?” asked Mrs. Smith.
”Yes,” said Eliph' simply. ”So I could not present her with a copy of that work. My preference was to give a work of literature; I am a worker in the field of literature, and it would have been more appropriate.
But I could give her nothing but the best of its kinds, and where find another such book as Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art? Nowhere! There is no other. This book combining in one volume selections from the world's best literature, recipes for the home, advice for every period of existence, together with one thousand and one other subjects, forms in itself a volume unequaled in the history of literature. No person should be without it.”
”I know, Mr. Hewlitt,” pleaded Mrs. Smith, smiling, ”but I have already bought two copies. Don't you thing you ought to let me off with that?”
”I was not trying to sell you one,” said Eliph' with embarra.s.sment. ”I hoped----” He paused and coughed behind his hand again. ”You know my intention in sending a present to Miss Briggs,” he said bravely. ”I admire her greatly. I--to me she is, in fact, a Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art among women.”
”Dear Mr. Hewlitt,” said Mrs. Smith, taking his hand, ”I understand. And I wish you all the good fortune in the world. I shall do all I can to help you.”
”Thank you,” said Eliph', shaking her hand as if she was an old acquaintance he ad met after long years of separation. ”So you understand that I can feel the same to no other woman. Not even to--to anyone.” He wiped his forehead with his disengaged hand. ”So I feel that you will not misunderstand me if I ask you to accept a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, bound in morocoo, seven fifty. I mean gratis. No home should be without one.”
”Why, it is very kind of you to suggest such a thing,” said Mrs. Smith, ”and I'm sure I'll be glad to own a copy.”
”I'm glad to have you,” said Eliph'. ”I wanted to give you one, but I didn't want you to think I meant it in the way I meant what I sent to Miss Sally. I was afraid you might, or that Miss Sally might. But I don't mean it that way.”
”I know you don't,” said Mrs. Smith heartily. ”And if Miss Sally is jealous I will tell her she is quite mistaken. But if you will let a woman that has had a little experience advise you, do not be too hasty.
Do not try to hurry matters too much. It would spoil everything if you pressed for an answer too soon and received an unfavorable one. And I'm afraid it would be an unfavorable one if you put it to the test now.”
Eliph's countenance fell. It said plainly enough that he understood her to mean that the Colonel and Skinner were more apt to be favorably received.
”I'm afraid so,” said Mrs. Smith regretfully. ”You know they are older acquaintances, and Miss Sally is not one of those who think new friends are best.”
”I was coming again to-night,” said Eliph'. ”Perhaps I'd better not say anything to-night. Perhaps I had better wait until to-morrow.”
”Wait until next month, or next year,” advised Mrs. Smith. ”There is no hurry. Something may turn up.”
CHAPTER XIV. Something Turns Up
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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 St.i.tz 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 mora.s.ses 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.
St.i.tz? He would hardly accuse himself. Who then?
One pa.s.sage 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!'”