The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-04-01

one who had purchased suit of clothes with expectations of extensive growth which had never been realized. In fact the city of Gasburg covers considerably more fair farm land than conditions warrant Gasburg's boom was a dud. The only busi- ness aside from catering to the simple wants of the town and surrounding farm country-and this requires little effort consists of sporadic trading in leases, backed by an occasional drilling venture in country already tried and found want ing in subterranean products in paying quantity.
 No one paid any particular attention to a fat man, wearing the conventional wrinkled blue serge and carrying a single piece of baggage, when he arrived in town. Small-time traders who dropped in for a few days to talk in large numerals of acreage, deep tests and the like were no novelty. This fat man was different, but Gasburg didn't know it, and never sus- pected that it had been chosen as his desti- nation because of it's location on the map which, by actual measurement, was farthest from any place, without leaving the United States, that had ever been fa- vored with the fat mans presence. The fat man made casual survey of the town and found it to his liking. To have audibly ex- pressed his satisfaction with the place would have at once attracted attention and marked him as the first visitor in years who had ever voiced such sentiment, but he was not loquacous, as are so many fat men, and Gasburg was not thus favored.
 Registering at the one hotel still in operation as R. A. Singleton, Kansas City, the stranger mingled casually with other guests and townsmen whose principal oc- cupation seemed to be holding down the splint chairs ranged along the hotel front and joined them in the talk of acreage and the possibility of the Standard making deep test on Section 49. He secured blue print map of the field and consulted it frequently while under observation. He also took under advisement a number of propositions" offered by rather thread bare individuals who classified themselves as traders"
 In the cool of the evening the fat one invariably took a short constitutional, strolling in leisurely manner with hands clasped behind him, cigar in his face. He didn't seem to be inspecting anything in particular, but at times his steps led past the corner containing the Case County State Bank, the surviving financial institu- tion of the city. In casual manner he glanced at the "cannon ball." burglar-de- flying safe which sat heavily upon it's con- crete base near the front of the room. Then his eye would rove across the narrow street to two-story buff brick building which housed, on the first floor, Campani's Mar ket
 During Gasburg's hopeful days, an opti- mist named Franklin had invested his life's savings in this structure. Although it oc- cupied but three short lots it was Frank lin Block"-if one doubted, he could be convinced by the title cut in limestone just beneath the decorative cornice. The first floor had been originally occupied by Lieb- erman's Ready to Wear, but after MT. Lieb- erman blew coincidently with the town, it had stood vacant for long time. The har- assed owner wasted no time in investigation when an opportunity presented to make a long time lease to Signor Campani. It was too late to back up when the Campani stock, consisting largely of assorted cheese and cases of sardines that invariably suf- fered damage in shipment, chased ma jority of those who had rented the up- stairs offices An alleged caretaker, who got three rear rooms for simply living on the premises, was therefore startled when a fat gentleman climbed the stairs and opened negotiations for office quarters. The caretaker was pitifully eager to oblige and offered four empties for inspection. MT. Singleton's selection was not the cor ner room, but the third back, which con- tained furniture to the extent of bat