Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1913-11-25

OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
The young man was the glass or
fashion, from the silken ribbon on the
spotless Panama to his pearl-gray
CATERS, and we'll favored-a 1.-the stall
wart figure, with wide-set hazel eyes
and strong brown hair waving back
from a candid forehead. The soft
straw, however, had been wrung to a
wisp between clutching fingers and the
face was glazed in a kind Of Mortified
and assiduous surprise, as If the rosy
peach Of life, bitten. had suddenly re-
vealed itself an unripe persimmon.
The very words themselves came with
a galvanic twitch and a stagger that
conveyed a sense at once Of shock and
of protest. Even the white bulldog
stretched on the floor, nose between
paws and one restless eye on his mas
ter in a troubled wonder that any one
should prefer to forsake the ecstatlc
sunshine of the street, with It's thousand
fascinating scents and cross-trails, for
stuffy business Office. lifted his Wrink
link nose and snuffled with acute and
hopeful inquiry.
Never had John Valiant's innocuous
and butterfly existence known a sur
prise more startling. He had swung
into the room with all the nonchalant
habits, the ingrained gertrude Of the
man born with achievement ready
made in his hands. An a single curt
statement-like the ruthless blades Of
pair of shears-had shipped across
the one splendid scarlet thread in the
woot that constituted life as he knew
It. He had knotted his lavendar scarf
that morning a vice-president OF the
Valiant Corporation-one of the great
est and most successful Of modern day
organizations; he sat now in the fad
ing afternoon trying to realize that the
huge fabric without warning, had top
pied to it's fall.
With every nerve Of his six feet OF
manhood in rebellion. he rose and
strobe to the half opened window.
through which sifted the smell Of grow
ing things-foro the great building
fronted the square-and the soft allur-
ing moistness Of early spring. Fail
edt" he repeated helplessly, and the
echo seemed to 60 flittering about the
substantial walls like a derisive India
rubber bat on spree.
The bulldog sat up, humping the
rug with a vibrant tail. There was
some mistake, surely; one went out by
the door. not by the window! He rose
picked up the Panama In his mouth,
and padded across the rug. poked it
tentatively into his masters hand.
But no, the hand made no response
Clearly they were not to go out. and
he dropped 1t and went puzzledly back
and lay down with pricked ears, while
his master stared out into the foliaged
day.
How solid and changeless it had al.
ways seemed-that great business fab
ric woven by the father he could so
dimly remember! His own invested
fortune had been derived from the
great corporation the elder Valiant
had founded and controlled until his
death. With almost unprecedented
earnings, 1t had stood as very Gibral-
tar of finance a type and sign Of bril-
liant organization. Now, on the heels
of a trusts dissolution which would
be a nine-days' wonder, the vast struc-
ture had crumpled up like cardboard
The rains had descended and the
floods had come. and it had fallen.
The man at the desk had wheeled
in his revolving chair and was look
ing at the trim athletic back blottins
the daylight, with smile that was
little short Of covert sheer. He was
was one Of the local managers Of the
Corporation whose ruin was to be that
days sensation, colorless man who
had acquired middle age with his first
long trousers and had been dedicated
to the commercial treadmill before he
had bought a safety razor. He despis-
ed all loiterers along the primrose
paths. and John Valiant was but de-
corative fgurehead.
The bulldog lifted his head. The
ghost of furred throaty growl rum
bled in the silence and the man at the
desk shrank a little, as the hair rip
pied up on the thick neck and the
faithful red trimmed eyes opened a
shade wider. But John Valiant did
not turn. He was bitterly absorbed
with his own thoughts.
TIL this moment he had never really
known how proud he had always been
of the Corporation, of the fact that he
was its founders son. His election
to high office in the small coterie that
it's destinies he had known
very we'll to be but the modern con-
crete expression Of his individual hold
ings, but it had nevertheless deeply
pleased him. The fleeting sense Of
power, the intimate touching of wide
issues in city of Big Things had fiat
tered him; for while he had dreamed
Of playing great part, of pushing the
activities of the Corporation into new
territory, invading foreign SOIL He
might have done much, for he had be-
gun with good equipment. He had
law, had even been admitted to the
bar. But to what had it come? A
gradual slipping back into the rut Of
careless amusement, the tacit assump-
ton Of his perogatives by other wait
ing hands. The huge wheels had con-
tinued to turn, smoothly, inevitably,
and he had drawn his dividends
and that was all. John Valiant swal-
lowed something that was very like
a sob.
AS he stood trying to plumb the
depth of the calamity, self-anger be-
gan to stir and buzz in his heart like
a great bee. Like tingling X-ray
there went stabbing through the husk
woven of a thousand inherent habits