Meade County news., 1915-08-26
CHAPTER I.
At Chaudlere's.

OAOoSOhb SAhJg ohA ~ Woo ~ ShoN
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 ju-
bilant over the assignment, he had
dragged the New Yorker around to
Chaudiere's to small parting feast.
Not that It had required much per-
suasion. Griswold had tasted for "a
hours, and II cambridge were not
friend in purist's definition Of the
term, he was at least friendly &C
Quaintance.
The burden of the table talk fell
upon cambridge, and 1t occurred to
the host that his guest was less than
usually responsive, 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 ill-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"
Bainbridges laugh was tolerant
enough to take the edge from his re-
tort.
That's a pretty thing to fling at a
man who never knitted you or pistoled
you or tried to poison you! An inno-
cent bystander might say you envied
me-"
II do" rejoined Griswold gravely.
II envy any man who can earn enough
money to pay for three meals day
and place to sleep in"
"Oh, cats foot!-anybody can do
that" asserted cambridge, with the
air Of one to whom the struggle for
existence has been a mere athletes
practice run.
II know; that is your theory. But
the facts disprove it. 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
was moved
Il take 1t all back" he said. "I 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 an
Introduction in the magazines or the
newspapers. You haven't had that;
80 far as l know, you haven't tried
IT,"
"Oh, yes, have-tried and failed.
1t isn't in me to do the salable thing,
and there isn't magazine editor in
the country who doesn't know it by
this time. / tell you, Bainbridge, the
conditions are all wrong when a man
with q vital message to his kind can't
get to deliver 1t to the people who
want to hear It,"
Bainbridge ordered the small cof
fees and found his cigar case.
THAT is about what suspected, ,
he commented impatiently. "Yor
couldn't keep your peculiar views
muzzled even when you were writing
bit of pot boiler on sugar plant
ing. You drop your fool socialistit
fad and write a book that a reputable
publisher can bring out without com
mitting commercial suicide, and you'll
stand some show"
Call It what you please; names
don't change facts. Listen'-GriswolC
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 thi
cursed city begging-yes. that is tn,
word-begging for work of any kline
that would suffice to keep body anC
soul together, and for more than hal
of that time 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 enough
to find a chance to earn his crust, Il
but serf; chattel among the othe
possessions Of some fellow man VIII,
has acquired him in the plutocrati,
redistribution of the earth and thu
fullness thereof"
cambridge glanced at his watch.
81 must be going" he said. 9TH,
Adelantado drops down the river a
eleven. How are you fixed for thu
present, and what are. you going to d,
fol the future?"
Griswold's smile was not pleasan
10 look at