The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1915-07-31
CHAPTER /.
At chaudIere,s.

AT Cnau0bCrS 81
1t was at Chaudiere's that Griswold |
had eaten his first breakfast in the |
Crescent city, and it was at Chau- !
diere's again that he was sharing a |
farewell supper with cambridge of the |
Louisianian. Six weeks lay between
that and this; forty-odd days of dis
couragement and failure superadded
upon other similar days and weeks
and months
Without meaning to, cambridge had
been strewing the path with fresh
thorns for the defeated one. He had
Just been billeted to write up the ba-
mana trade for his paper. Boyishly jul
Oilant over the assignment, he had
dragged the New Yorker around to
Chaudieres to a small parting feast.
Not that it had required much per
suasion. Griswold had tasted for "a
hours, and If cambridge were not a
friend in a purist's definition of the
term, he was at least a friendly &C
Quaintance.
The burden of the table talk fell
upon cambridge, and it occurred to
the host that his guest was less than
usually responsive, a fault not to be
lightly condoned under the joyous cir
cumstances Wherefore he protested.
Whats the matter with you to-
night, Kenneth, old man? You're more
than commonly grumpy, it seems to
me; and that's needless
Griswold looked up with a smile
that was almost ilI-natured, and quot
ed cynically: Unto everyone that
hath shall be given, and he shall have
abundance; but from him that hath
not, shall be taken away even that
which he hath
Bainbridge's laugh was tolerant
enough to take the edge from his re-
tort
That's q pretty thing to fling at a
man who never knitted you or pistoled
you or tried to poison you! An limo
cent bystander might say you envied
me-"
81 do" rejoined Griswold gravely.
81 envy any man who can earn enough
money to pay for three meals day
and place to sleep in"
ooh, cats footi-anybody can do
that" asserted cambridge, with the
air of one to whom the struggle for
existence has been a mere athletes
practice run.
81 know; that is your theory But
the facts disprove it. 1 can't, for one"
Griswold was a fair man, with red
dish hair and beard and the quick and
sensitive skin of the type. A red flush
OF anger crept up under the closely
cropped beard, and his eyes were
bright.
bT1& hn
was good-natured enough to make
amends when he saw that Griswold
was moved.
81 take it all back" he said. ct sup
pose the book-chicken has come home
again to roost, and a returned manu-.
script accounts for anything. But
seriously, Kenneth, you ought to get
down to bedrock facts. Nobody but
a crazy phenomenon can find a pub
Usher for his first book, nowadays
unless he has had some sort OF ar
introduction IN the magazines or the
newspapers. You haven't had that;
SO far as l know, you haven't tried
it."
ooh, yes, have-tried and failed
It isn't in me to do the salable thing
and there isn't a magazine editor il
tho country who doesn't know it By
this time. tell you, cambridge, the
conditions are all wrong when a mar
with vital message to his kind can
get to deliver it to the people whC
want to hear it,
cambridge ordered the small cot
fees and found his cigar case.
THAT is about what suspected, ,
he commented impatiently "Yol
couldn't keep your peculiar view!
muzzied even when you were writing
a bit of a pot boiler on sugar plant
ing. You drop your fool socialistit
fad and write book that reputable
publisher can bring out without com
uniting commercial suicide, and you'll
stand some show"
Call it what you please; name
don't change facts. Listen"-Griswolt
leaned upon the table; his eyes grew
hard and the blue in them became me
talIic-"For more than month
have tramped the streets of thi
cursed city begging that is tn
word-begging for work of any kin,
that would suffice to keep body an
soul together, and for more than hal
of that time l have lived on one mea
a day That is what we have com
to; we of the submerged majority
And that isn't all. The wage worke
himself, when he is fortunate enougl
to find a chance to earn his crust,
but a serf; a chattel among the othe
possessions of some fellow man VIII
has acquired him in the plutocrati
radisfrihufiOD of ffa earth and tn
fuIlness thereof"
cambridge glanced at his watch.
st must be going" he said. 9Th
Adelantado drops down the river q
eleven. How are you fixed for tn
present, and what are you going to d
for the future?'
Griswold's smile was not pleasan
to look at.
81 am fixed to run twenty-fou