The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1905-10-20
CHAPTER XXXV.

KennaFdS ransom rOlIeQ ana JOlted
down upper Broadway, one rubber
tired wheel in the groove Of the car
rail and the other teetering on the
fringe of granite paving With j ser. ;
If bumps, plunges, and hops it hurt
across Long Acres tanele of trao 4,
slowed itself onto the asphalt triangle,
and slipped quietly along like ship
behind a breakwater after weathering
the storm. Beyond, as far as the eye
could reach stretched the great high
way of the city-a huge artery throb-
bling with feverish, exhausting move
ment in response to the fiutterad
heartbeat of Titan-a mighty stream
! lowing rapidly and ceaselessly. with
ross currents forming and disappear,
ing at every fresh impulse.
81 suppose it's been going on just
! like this all the time I've been away?"
/ Kennard asked the question musing-
/ ly, and Maddox did not answer 1lgiI
his companion turned to him inquir-
ingly.
Yes" he assented smilingly; 81
don't believe it ever stops.
Kennard leaned back on the cushions
YEARLY.
That's the hopeless side Of it ALL"
he murmured, as though talking to
himself. 1T never stops-it never
stops. All this din and scrambling
haste must go on, day in and out, for
endless days and nights. That's what
crushes.
"a
nervous scene before him with abb
sorbed attention.
ct may sound ridiculous to you,
Dave" he continued after a moment,
but this whole city is as foreign to me
to-day as though I'd been out of the
country for a matter of years, instead
Of in an uptown hospital for matter
of weeks"
Maddox nodded comprehendingly.
HAS the jolting bothered you much,
Did man." he asked anXiously.
mot very much | think the city
will come back to me, and | to it more
easily this way. To be shaken before
taken, you know. Perhaps this is just
what l need to make me feel at home
again, for I'm sadly out of my bear
ngs. Either I'm a sick man looking at
things with a sick mans eyes or else
I'm seeing them as they really are for
the first time. Certainly l never felt
until to-day the awfulness of this city.
It's terrifying, Dave, it's positively ter
rifying in the ceaseless grinding of its
wheels and the needless torrent of it's
isk in
The cold, hard, cruel mechanism of it
ALL"
Don't try to familiarize yourself too
rapidly. If my advice had been fol-
lowed, you wouldn't be down here at
all to-day"
1T won't Go me any harm AS a
matter of fact, ought to have come
before. The new board of directors
should get to work at the earliest pos
Sible moment"
Il like that! Just as though we
hadn't been as busy as bees for the
past month or more. Isn't the strike
settled and everything running
smoothly again? And yet the presi-
dent sits in his hanson cab and says
It's time for the new board to get to
work! There's egotism for you!"
you've done splendidly, l admit it,
But l don't want your work to go for
nothing. You remember what we were
talking OF the other night?"
you mean about getting rid of Wall
street ?"
yes"
"Well?"
1--WE mustn't postpone that move.
The Confederated isn't over capitalized
to-day. don't know why. unless it
was part of Trundell, Croydon & Co.'S
scheme to wait until they had things
completely in their hands before they
increased the stock to suit their own
convenience. However, the business
IAN now earn in the worst times a rea-
'onable dividend on it's capital, and
n good years very large profit That
being so, how long will it be before
he spectators get control of the COM
oany and multiply the stock until it
Won't be able to earn a decent return
n the best of years, and at other
lines will have to make good its losses
BY all kinds Of dangerous financier-
ing?"
Maddox shrugged his shoulders.
mot very long" he admitted. 1.-THE
to convert a hundred dol
ar share into two, three or four shares
md then peddle them off on an unsus-
Decting public, is too much for the
average financial conscience"
Well, I'm not worrying about the
public which dabbles in
Wall street. At least, it's not my chief
concern. I'm thinking about the en-.
oloyes at whose expense this game
If nerer-lasting is always played SOON
r or later; and incidentally I'm t ok
ng of ourselves. There isn't {ach
Incentive in working for a gang of
'peculators who'll turn us out at the
'ery next election. Whatever we do
will be of doubtful value if it's undone
n year.
isn't that just what said the other
light?"