Mansfield mirror. (Mansfield, Wright County, Mo.) 1908-1957, 1915-08-12
CHAPTER I.
At Chaudiere's.

AT ChauulercS.
II 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
L~ouisianian. Six weeks lay between
that and this; forty-odd days OF dis.
cou-asement 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 ju-
btlart over the assignment, he had
dragged the New Yorker around to
Chaudiere's to a small parting feast.
Not that 1t had required much per.
suasion. Griswold had tasted for "a
hours, and II cambridge we're not a
friend in a purist's definition of the
term, he was at least a friendly &C
luaintance.
The burden Of the table talk fell
upon cambridge, and 1t 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.
What's the matter with you TO-
night, Kenneth, old man? You're more
than commonly grumpy, it seems to
y-a ~ ,koys- -.-ar,.-
Griswold looked up with a smile
that was almost ill.natured, and quot
ed c~ynically: "'ul:o 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 "a tolerant
enough TO take the edge from his re-
tort.
"Thats a pretty thing to fling at a
man who eve knitted you or pistoled
you or tried to poison you. An limo
cent bystande- might say you envied
NE"
4 do" rejoined Griswold gravely.
! WV any mail "a SdAl CaLA CAlou6A
money to pay for three meals a day
and a place TO sleep in"
oh. cats fcot!-anybody can do
that" asserted cambridge. with the
air of one TO whom the struggle for
existence has been a mere athletes
practice run.
y know; that is your theory. But
the facts disproye it. l 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.
cambridge scoffed openly; but he
was good-natured enough to make
amends when he saw that Griswold
YVES moved.
4 take ii all back" he said. Il 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 10 bedrock facts. Nobody but
a crazy phenomenon can find a pub
fisher fer his first book, nowadays,
unless he has had some sort of an
Introduction in the magazines or the
newspapers. You haven't had that:
so far as | know, you haven't tried
It,"
"Oh, yes, / have-tried and failed.
II isn't in me TO do the salable thing,
and there isn't a magazine editor in
thc country who doesn't know 1t by
this time. ! tell you. cambridge, the
conditions are all wrong when a man
with a vital message to his kind can't
get 10 deliver 1t to the people who
want to hear It,"
cambridge ordered the small cot.
fees and found his cigar case.
That is about what l suspected"
he commented i~mpatiently. you
couldn't keep your peculiar views
muzzled even when you were writing
a bit of a pot boiler on sugar plant
ing. You drop your fool ~socialistic
fad and write a book that a reputable
publisher can bring out without com.
hitting commercial suicide, and you'll
stand some show"
Call it what you please; names
don't change facts. Listen"-Griswold
leaned upon the table; his eyes grew
hard and the blue in them became me
tallic-"For more than a month |
have tramped the streets Of this
cursed city begging-yes, that is the
word-begging for work of any kind
that would suffice to keep body and
soul together, and for more than halt
Of that time / have lived on one meal
a day. That is what we have come
TO; we OF the submerged majority.
And that isn't all. The wage worker
himself, when he is fortunate enough
TO find a chance to earn his crust. is
but a serf; a chattel among the other
possessions of some fellow man who
has acquired him In the plutocratic
redistribution Of the earth and the
fulIness thereof"
cambridge glanced at his watch.
IT must be going. he said. THE
Adelantado drops down the river at
eleven. How are you fixed for the
present, and what are you going to do
for the future?"
Griswold's smile was not pleasant
to look at
II am fixed to run twenty-four