IN THE WAY OF TRADE
Dr. Surtaine sat in Little George's best chair, beaming upon the world.By habit, the big man was out of his seat with his dime and nickel inthe bootblack's ready hand, almost coincidently with the final clip-clapof the rhythmic process. But this morning he lingered, contemplatingwith an unobtrusive scrutiny the occupant of the adjoining chair, asmall, angular, hard man, whose brick-red face was cut off in thesegment of an abrupt circle, formed by a low-jammed green hat. Thisindividual had just briskly bidden his bootblack "hurry it up" in a tonewhich meant precisely what it said. The youth was doing so.
"George," said Dr. Surtaine, to the proprietor of the stand.
"Yas, suh."
"Were you ever in St. Jo, Missouri?"
"Yas, suh, Doctah Suhtaine; oncet."
"For long?"
"No, suh."
"Didn't live there, did you?"
"No, suh."
"George," said his interlocutor impressively, "you're lucky."
"Yas, suh," agreed the negro with a noncommittal grin.
"While you can buy accommodations in a graveyard or break into apenitentiary, don't you ever live in St. Jo Missouri, George."
The man in the adjacent seat half turned toward Dr. Surtaine and lookedhim up and down, with a freezing regard.
"It's the sink-hole and sewer-pipe of creation, George. They onceelected a chicken-thief mayor, and he resigned because the town was toomean to live in. Ever know any folks there, George?"
"Don't have no mem'ry for 'em, Doctah."
"You're lucky again. They're the orneriest, lowest-down, minchin',pinchin', pizen trash that ever tainted the sweet air of Heaven bybreathing it, George."
"You don' sesso, Doctah Suhtaine, suh."
"I do sess precisely so, George. Does the name McQuiggan mean anythingto you?"
"Don' mean nothin' at-tall to me, Doctah."
"You got away from St. Jo in time, then. Otherwise you might have metthe McQuiggan family, and never been the same afterward."
"Ef you don' stop youah feet a-fidgittin', Boss," interpolated theneighboring bootblack, addressing the green-hatted man in aggrievedtones, "I cain't do no good wif this job."
"McQuiggan was the name," continued the volunteer biographer. "The bestyou could say of the McQuiggans, George, was that one wasn't muchcusseder than the others, because he couldn't be. Human nature has itslimitations, George."
"It suttinly have, suh."
"But if you had to allow a shade to any of 'em, it would probably havegone to the oldest brother, L.P. McQuiggan. Barring a scorpion I oncesat down on while in swimming, he was the worst outrage upon the schemeof creation ever perpetrated by a short-sighted Providence."
"Get out of that chair!"
The little man had shot from his own and was dancing upon the pavement.
"What for?" Dr. Surtaine's tone was that of inquiring innocence.
"To have your fat head knocked off."
With impressive agility for one of his size and years, the challengedone descended. He advanced, "squared," and suddenly held out a muscularand plump hand.
"Hullo, Elpy."
"Huh?"
The other glared at him, baleful and baffled.
"Hullo, I said. Don't you know me?"
"No, I don't. Neither will your own family after I get through withyou."
"Come off, Elpy; come off. I licked you once in the old days, and Iguess I could do it now, but I don't want to. Come and have a drink withold Andy."
"Andy? Andy the Spieler? Andy Certain?"
"Dr. L. Andr?Surtaine, at your service. Now, will you shake?"
Still surly, Mr. McQuiggan hung back. "What about that roast?" hedemanded.
"Wasn't sure of you. Twenty years is a long time. But I knew if it wasyou you'd want to fight, and I knew if you didn't want to fight itwasn't you. I'll buy you one in honor of the best little city west ofthe Mississip, and the best bunch of sports that ever came out of it,the McQuiggans of St. Jo, Missouri. Does that go?"
"It goes," replied the representative of the family concisely.
Across the caf?table Dr. Surtaine contemplated his old acquaintancewith friendly interest.
"The same old scrappy Elpy," he observed. "What's happened to you, sinceyou used to itinerate with the Iroquois Extract of Life?"
"Plenty."
"You're looking pretty prosperous."
"Have to, in my line."
"What is it?"
Mr. McQuiggan produced a card, with the legend:--
+-----------------------------------------+ | | | McQuiggan & Straight | | STREAKY MOUNTAIN COPPER COMPANY | | Orsten, Palas County, Nev. | | | | | | L.P. MCQUIGGAN ARTHUR STRAIGHT | | President Vice-Pres. & Treas. | | | +-----------------------------------------+
"Any good?" queried the Doctor.
"Best undeveloped property in the State."
"Why don't you develop it?"
"Capital."
"Get the capital."
"Will you help me?"
"Sure."
"How?"
"Advertise."
"Advertising costs money."
"And brings two dollars for every one you spend."
"Maybe," retorted the other, with a skeptical air. "But my game is stilltalk."
"Talk gets dimes; print gets dollars," said his friend sententiously.
"You have to show me."
"Show you!" cried the Doctor. "I'll write your copy myself."
"You will? What do you know about mining?"
"Not a thing. But there isn't much I don't know about advertising. I'vebuilt up a little twelve millions, plus, on it. And I can sell yourstock like hot cakes through the 'Clarion.'"
"What's the 'Clarion'?"
"My son's newspaper."
"Thereby keeping the graft in the family, eh?"
"Don't be a fool, Elpy. I'm showing you profits. Besides doing you agood turn, I'd like to bring in some new business to the boy. Now youtake half-pages every other day for a week and a full page Sunday--"
"Pages!" almost squalled the little man. "D'you think I'm made ofmoney?"
"Elpy," said Dr. Surtaine, abruptly, "do you remember my platformpatter?"
"Like the multiplication table."
"Was it good?"
"Best ever!"
"Well, I'm a slicker proposition with a pen than I ever was with aspiel. And you're securing my services for nothing. Come around to theoffice, man, and let me show you."
Still suspicious, Mr. McQuiggan permitted himself to be led away,expatiating as he went, upon the unrivaled location and glorious futureof his mining property. From time to time, Dr. Surtaine jotted down anunostentatious note.
The first view of the Certina building dashed Mr. McQuiggan'ssuspicions; his inspection of his old friend's superb office slew thempainlessly.
"Is this all yours, Andy? On the level? Did you do it all on your own?"
"Every bit of it! With my little pen-and-ink. Take a look around thewalls and you'll see how."
He seated himself at his desk and proceeded to jot down, with apparentcarelessness, but in broad, sweeping lines, a type lay-out, while hisguest passed from advertisement to advertisement, in increasingadmiration. Before Old Lame-Boy he paused, absolutely fascinated.
"I thought that'd get you," exulted the host, who, between strokes ofthe creative pen had been watching him.
"I've seen it in the newspaper, but never connected it with you. Beingout of the medical line I lost interest. Say, it's a wonder! Did itfetch 'em?"
"Fetch 'em? It knocked 'em flat. That picture's the foundation of thisbusiness. Talk about suggestion in advertising! He's a regularhypnotist, Old Lame-Boy is. Plants the suggestion right in the small ofyour back, where we want it. Why, Elpy, I've seen a man walk up to thatpicture on a bill-board as straight as you or me, take one good, longlook, and go away hanging onto his kidneys, and squirming like a lizard.Fact! What do you think of that? Genius, I call it: just flat genius, toproduce an effect like that with a few lines and a daub or two ofcolor."
"Some pull!" agreed Mr. McQuiggan, with professional approval. "Andthen--'Try Certina,' eh?"
"For a starter and, for a finisher 'Certina Cures.' Shoves the bottleright into their hands. The first bottle braces 'em. They take another.By the time they've had half a dozen, they love it."
"Booze?"
"Sure! Flavored and spiced up, nice and tasty. Great for the temperancetrade. And the best little repeater on the market. Now take a look,Elpy."
He tapped the end of his pen upon the rough sketch of the miningadvertisement, which he had drafted. Mr. McQuiggan bent over it instudy, and fell a swift victim to the magic of the art.
"Why, that would make a wad of bills squirm out of the toe of astockin'! It's new game to me. I've always worked the personal touch.But I'll sure give it a try-out, Andy."
"I guess it's bad!" exulted the other. "I guess I've lost the trick oftolling the good old dollars in! Take this home and try it on your cashregister! Now, come around and meet the boy."
Thus it was that Editor-in-Chief Harrington Surtaine, in the third weekof his incumbency received a professional call from his father, and acompanion from whose pockets bulged several sheets of paper.
"Shake hands with Mr. McQuiggan, Hal," said the Doctor. "Make a bow whenyou meet him, too. He's your first new business for the reformed'Clarion.'"
"In what way?" asked Hal, meeting a grip like iron from the stranger."News?"
"News! I guess not. Business, I said. Real money. Advertising."
"It's like this, Mr. Surtaine," said L.P. McQuiggan, turning his spare,hard visage toward Hal. "I've got some copper stock to sell--an A1under-developed proposition; and your father, who's an old pal, tells methe 'Clarion' can do the business for me. Now, if I can get a good ratefrom you, it's a go."
"Mr. Shearson, the advertising manager, is your man. I don't knowanything about advertising rates."
"Then you'd best get busy and learn," cried Dr. Surtaine.
"I'm learning other things."
"For instance?"
"What news is and isn't."
"Look here, Boyee." Dr. Surtaine's voice was surcharged with adisappointed earnestness. "Put yourself right on this. News is news; anypaper can get it. But advertising is Money. Let your editors run thenews part, till you can work into it. You get next to the door wherethe cash comes in."
In the fervor of his advice he thumped Hal's desk. The thump wokeMcGuire Ellis, who had been devoting a spare five minutes to hisfavorite pastime. For his behoof, the exponent of policy repeated hisperoration. "Isn't that right, Ellis?" he cried. "You're a practicalnewspaper man."
"It's true to type, anyway," grunted Ellis.
"Sure it is!" cried the other, too bent on his own notions to interpretthis comment correctly. "And now, what about a little reading notice forMcQuiggan's proposition?"
"Yes: an interview with me on the copper situation and prospects mighthelp," put in McQuiggan.
Hal hesitated, looking to Ellis for counsel.
"You've got to do something for an advertiser on a big order like this,Boyee," urged his father.
"Let's see the copy," put in Ellis. The trained journalistic eye ranover the sheets. "Lot of gaudy slush about copper mines in general," heobserved, "and not much information on Streaky Mountain."
"It's an undeveloped property," said McQuiggan.
"Strong on geography," continued Ellis. "'In the immediate vicinity,'"he read from one sheet, "'lie the Copper Monarch Mine paying 40 per centdividends, the Deep Gulch Mine, paying 35 per cent, the Three Sisters,Last Chance, Alkali Spring Mines, all returning upwards of 25 per centper annum: and immediately adjacent is the famous Strike-for-the-Westproperty which enriches its fortunate stockholders to the tune of 75 percent a year!' Are you on the same range as the Strike-for-the-West, Mr.McQuiggan?"
"It's an adjacent property," growled the mining man. "What d'you knowabout copper?"
"Oh, I've seen a little mining, myself. And a bit of mining advertising.That's quite an ad. of yours, McQuiggan."
"I wrote that ad.," said Dr. Surtaine blandly: "and I challenge anybodyto find a single misstatement in it."
"You're safe. There isn't any. And scarcely a single statement. But ifyou wrote it, I suppose it goes."
"And the interview, too," rasped McQuiggan.
"It's usual," said Ellis to Hal. "The tail with the hide: the soul withthe body, when you're selling."
"But we're not selling interviews," said Hal uneasily.
"You're getting nearly a thousand dollars' worth of copy, and giving abonus that don't cost you anything," said his father. "The papers havedone it for me ever since I've been in business."
"I guess that's right, too," agreed Ellis.
"Why don't you take McQuiggan down to meet your Mr. Shearson, Hal?"suggested the Doctor. "I'll stay here and round out a couple of otherideas for his campaign."
Hal had risen from his desk when there was a light knock at the door andMilly Neal's bright head appeared.
"Hullo!" said Dr. Surtaine. "What's up? Anything wrong at the shop,Milly?"
The girl walked into the room and stood trimly at ease before the fourmen.
"No, Chief," said she. "I understood Mr. Surtaine wanted to see me."
"I?" said Hal blankly, pushing a chair toward her.
"Yes. Didn't you? They told me you left word for me in the city room, tosee you when I came in again. Sometimes I send my copy, so I only justgot the message."
"Miss Neal is 'Kitty the Cutie,'" explained McGuire Ellis.
"Looks it, too," observed L.P. McQuiggan jauntily, addressing the upperfar corner of the room.
Miss Neal looked at him, met a knowing and conscious smile, looked rightthrough the smile, and looked away again, all with the air of one whogazes out into nothingness.
"Guess I'll go look up this Shearson person," said Mr. McQuiggan, atrifle less jauntily. "See you all later."
"I'd no notion you were the writer of the Cutie paragraphs, Milly," saidDr. Surtaine. "They're lively stuff."
"Nobody has. I'm keeping it dark. It's only a try-out. You did sendfor me, didn't you?" she added, turning to Hal.
"Yes. What I had in mind to say to you--that is, to the author--thewriter of the paragraphs," stumbled Hal, "is that they're a littletoo--too--"
"Too flip?" queried his father. "That's what makes 'em go."
"If they could be done in a manner not quite so undignified," suggestedthe editor-in-chief.
Color rose in the girl's smooth cheek. "You think they're vulgar," shecharged.
"That's rather too harsh a word," he protested.
"You do! I can see it." She flushed an angry red. "I'd rather stopaltogether than have you think that."
"Don't be young," put in McGuire Ellis, with vigor. "Kitty has caughton. It's a good feature. The paper can't afford to drop it."
"That's right," supplemented Dr. Surtaine. "People are beginning to talkabout those items. They read 'em. I read 'em myself. They've got the go,the pep. They're different. But, Milly, I didn't even know you couldwrite."
"Neither did I," said the girl staidly, "till I got to putting down someof the things I heard the girls say, and stringing them together withnonsense of my own. One evening I showed some of it to Mr. Veltman, andhe took it here and had it printed."
"I was going to suggest, Mr. Surtaine," said McGuire Ellis formally,"that we put Miss Kitty on the five-dollar-a-column basis and make heran every-other-day editorial page feature. I think the stuff's worthit."
"We can give it a trial," said his principal, a little dubiously, "sinceyou think so well of it."
"Then, Milly, I suppose you'll be quitting the shop to become afull-fledged writer," remarked Dr. Surtaine.
"No, indeed, Chief." The girl smiled at him with that frankfriendliness which Hal had noted as informing every relationship betweenDr. Surtaine and the employees of the Certina plant. "I'll stick. Theregular pay envelope looks good to me. And I can do this work afterhours."
"How would it be if I was to put you on half-time, Milly?" suggested heremployer. "You can keep your department going by being there in themornings and have your afternoons for the writing."
The girl thanked him demurely but with genuine gratitude.
"Then we'll look for your copy here on alternate days," said Hal. "And Ithink I'll give you a desk. As this develops into an editorial feature Ishall want to keep an eye on it and to be in touch with you. Perhaps Icould make suggestions sometimes."
She rose, thanking him, and Hal held open the door for her. Once againhe felt, with a strange sensation, her eyes take hold on his as shepassed him.
"Pretty kid," observed Ellis. "Veltman is crazy about her, they say."
"Good kid, too," added Dr. Surtaine, emphasizing the adjective. "Youmight tell Veltman that, whoever he is."
"Tell him, yourself," retorted Ellis with entire good nature. "He isn'tthe sort to offer gratuitous information to."
Upon this advice, L.P. McQuiggan re雗tered. "All fixed," said he, withevident satisfaction. "We went to the mat on rates, but Shearson agreedto give me some good reading notices. Now, I'll beat it. See youto-night, Andy?"
Dr. Surtaine nodded. "You owe me a commission, Boyee," said he, smilingat Hal as McQuiggan made his exit. "But I'll let you off this time. Iguess it won't be the last business I bring in to you. Only, don't youand Ellis go looking every gift horse too hard in the teeth. You mightget bit."
"Shut your eyes and swallow it and ask no questions, if it's good, eh,Doctor?" said McGuire Ellis. "That's the motto for your practice."
"Right you are, my boy. And it's the motto of sound business. What isbusiness?" he continued, soaring aloft upon the wings of a P鎍n ofPolicy. "Why, business is a deal between you and me in which I give youmy goods and a pleasant word, and you give me your dollar and a politereply. Some folks always want to know where the dollar came from. Notme! I'm satisfied to know that its coming to me. Money has wings, and ifyou throw stones at it, it'll fly away fast. And you want to remember,"he concluded with the fervor of honest conviction, "that a newspapercan't be quite right, any more than a man can, unless it makes its ownliving. Well. I'm not going to preach any more. So long, boys."
"What do you think of it, Mr. Surtaine?" inquired McGuire Ellis, afterthe lecturer had gone his way. "Pretty sound sense, eh?"
"I wonder just what you mean by that, Ellis. Not what you say,certainly."
But Ellis only laughed and turned to his "flimsy."
Meantime the editor of the "Clarion" was being quietly but persistentlybeset by another sermonizer, less cocksure of text than the Sweet Singerof Policy, but more subtle in influence. This was Miss Esm?Elliot.Already, the half-jocular partnership undertaken at the outset of theiracquaintance had developed into a real, if somewhat indeterminateconnection. Esm?found her new acquaintance interesting both for himselfand for his career. Her set in general considered the ripeningfriendship merely "another of Esm?s flirtations," and variouslyprophesied the d閚ouement. To the girl's own mind it was not aflirtation at all. She was (she assured herself) genuinely absorbed inthe development of a new mission in which she aspired to be influential.That she already exercised a strong sway of personality over HalSurtaine, she realized. Indeed, in the superb confidence of her charm,she would have been astonished had it been otherwise. Just where herinterest in the newly adventured professional field ended, and inHarrington Surtaine, the man, began, she would have been puzzled to say.Kathleen Pierce had bluntly questioned her on the subject.
"Yes, of course I like him," said Esm?frankly. "He's interesting andhe's a gentleman, and he has a certain force about him, and he's"--shepaused, groping for a characterization--"he's unexpected."
"What gets me," said Kathleen, in her easy slang, "is that he neverpulls any knighthood-in-flower stuff, yet you somehow feel it's there.Know what I mean? There's a scrapper behind that nice-boy smile."
"He hasn't scrapped with me, yet, Kathie," smiled the beauty.
"Don't let him," advised the other. "It mightn't be safe. Still, Isuppose you understand him by now, down to the ground."
"Indeed I do not. Didn't I tell you he was unexpected? He has anuncomfortable trick," complained Miss Elliot, "just when everything issmooth and lovely, of suddenly leveling those gray-blue eyes of his atyou, like two pistols. 'Throw up your hands and tell me what you reallymean!' One doesn't always want to tell what one really means."
"Bet you have to with him, sooner or later," returned her friend.
This conversation took place at the Vanes' al fresco tea, to which Halcame for a few minutes, late in the afternoon of his father's visit withMcQuiggan, mainly in the hope of seeing Esm?Elliot. Within five minutesafter his arrival, Worthington society was frowning, or smiling,according as it was masculine or feminine, at their backs, as theystrolled away toward the garden. Miss Esm?was feeling a bit petulant,perhaps because of Kathie Pierce's final taunt.
"I think you aren't living up to our partnership," she accused.
"Is it a partnership, where one party is absolute slave to the other'sslightest wish?" he smiled.
"There! That is exactly it. You treat me like a child."
"I don't think of you as a child, I assure you."
"You listen to all I say with pretended deference, and smile and--and goyour own way with inevitable motion."
"Wherein have I failed in my allegiance?" asked Hal, courteouslyconcerned. "Haven't we published everything about all the charities thatyou're interested in?"
"Oh, yes. So far as that goes. But the paper itself doesn't seem tochange any. It's got the same tone it always had."
"What's wrong with its tone?" The eyes were leveled at her now.
"Speaking frankly, it's tawdry. It's lurid. It's--well, yellow."
"A matter of method. You're really more interested, then, in the way wepresent news than in the news we present."
"I don't know anything about news, itself. But I don't see why anewspaper run by a gentleman shouldn't be in good taste."
"Nor do I. Except that those things take time. I suppose I've got to getin touch with my staff before I can reform their way of writing thepaper."
"Haven't you done that yet?"
"I simply haven't had time."
"Then I'll make you a nice present of a very valuable suggestion. Give aluncheon to your employees, and invite all the editors and reporters.Make a little speech to them and tell them what you intend to do, andget them to talk it over and express opinions. That's the way to getthings done. I do it with my mission class. And, by the way, don't makeit a grand banquet at one of the big hotels. Have it in some place wherethe men are used to eating. They'll feel more at home and you'll getmore out of them."
"Will you come?"
"No. But you shall come up to the house and report fully on it."
Had Miss Esm?Elliot, experimentalist in human motives, foreseen to whatpurpose her ingenious suggestion was to work out, she might well haveretracted her complaint of lack of real influence; for this casualconversation was the genesis of the Talk-it-Over Breakfast, aninstitution which potently affected the future of the "Clarion" and itsyoung owner.