The Washington herald., 1911-10-22

had come suddenly, and before its arrival had
been thoroughly acquainted with all sorts of hard
labor. now over every iced and decorated cake
a hot tired face Mountain Gap had not arrived at
the caterers state; it prepared its own banquets
knew that there had been certain amount of per-
sona sacrifice for everything the tables held and for
every nag and length Of bunting. 1t was then that
got my first disgust at E. Montgomery Martndale
They've done every turn of this themselves"
he boasted, as we walked nspectingly about. Some
of them have been pottering around here three or
four days-and it's all for glory and the road. It's
a great scheme that-introduces the personal ele-
ment, and the personal element, find, has been
lected heretofore. When the presidents representa-
tive fails to show up and also fails to explain his
absence every man and woman and child who has
had a finger in this preparation will be hot as a
hornet"
At half-past seven the crowd the hall had become
a crush. Every tp-toe. Twelve hundred
persons about to be delivered from the torment
of numbering stages, the commodities of everyday
life were to be cheapened. civilization was to be
brought little nearer.
The committee of welcome and their guest were ex-
pected every minute. E. Montgomery keyed to
the top notch. Think of all this enthusiasm being
turned to our account" he whispered to me. And
It's been dead easy that I'm half ashamed Of it.
We've literally ridden into the main tent c. &
Ms shoulders! Imagine the howl that will up when
Just then there a mighty noise the outside
hut it wasn't exactly howl 1t approached the en-
the hall and there swaying back of the
crowd to permit some ones coming The band smashed
excitedly into its welcoming air.
E. Montgomery and l sprang chairs and
craned necks toward the Three fat and tri-
umphant committeeman started down the middle aisle
For just instant they concealed the man whom
they were escorting then the middle committeeman
nH-nGV o-fIa
Jimmy Martindale came forward to his chair
1 turned my Mortified gaze on E. Montgomery It's
strange what tricks ones mind plays in such crises
When glimpsed his face harked back instantly to
the color of the catfish kids used to snake out Of
the old Luray dam-the color of them an inch or two
below the gis.
There just the trace of something like recogni
ton in Jimmys faded not much not too little
but the proper for a who family recalls
amid the crush of especially representing vast
amount of capital, that he has probably talked to
about the building of thirty miles of not very
important railroad
Jimmy's Trump Card.
We were his and he knew it. He knew that we knew
1t, which was to the point He could have
ruined us with a half dozen words. Once during the
prandial preliminaries caught E Montgomery's eye
fixed with pathetic perplexity my own. To see
pathetic perplexity in eye of E. Montgomery Mar
tndaes enough to bring msgving to the stoutest
heart
Everything plain to now as it must have
been to him. Jimmy had accepted the dare and gone
East, had Wakefield had opened the great mans
eyes to all that stake in Mountain Gap City and
had come back-his personal representative.
Somehow other the evening dragged along.
prayed that there might be disastrous development
before all those people, hitch in whatever Jimmy
had planned To play the farce after the new and
astonishing lines he had interpolaed al
most necessary to our personal safety.
1t when he rose for the speech that was to be
the principal feature the evening that our hearts
smOte ribs. 1t strange little speech pune
tuated by embarrassing pauses and cough depre-
eating ROckefeer's own. After two minutes and
half of his allotted thirty in which he assured them
that the road would be built he sat down Did a dis
appointed silence greet his plaintive effort? Not on
your life!
Here was modest painfully shy little man. as un-
pretentiOus their humble selves, man with mill
ions behind him, and he had among them like
this and been Overwrought by their presence that
he could do more than render incoherent thanks
They nearly tore the old rink down in their unre-
strained glee
+. Montgomery looked across at me, and this time
there was months illness in his gaze. The little
speech had prepared What a Railroad Means"
was overlooked. After the banquet we buzzed around
on Lie outslue OF Jlmmys admirlng groups, always
maintaining the proper nferiory for satellites to their
planet. 1t must have been gall and wormwood 10 E.
Montgomery
Late that night the franchise committee met and
we got down to business, or rather Jimmy did be-
Leve that E. Montgomery had a meagre hope up to
the very last of our having hand in the deal. He
could not believe, he told ME aferward that Jimmy
would hog the whole thing
Jimmy, however true to the Martndae in
Stnct. We didn't get a ook-in. He came creden-
tailed up to his neck and he had the details down to
a razor's edge. Not thing of the many his cousin
disclosed in our conversation on the porch had es-
capped him. When the conference was at an end he
had in his pocket as it were the beautiful spe
cial privileges which E. Montgomery had so easily
'cinched"
We manoeuvred desperately for private interview
with him both before and after the conference but
be shrewdly put us off The three of us returned by