Kilo. Part 13

"What?" asked the Colonel.

"Graft me," repeated Mayor St.i.tz. "I say for how much you will graft me when I shall pa.s.s one such ordinance my council through?"

"What's that?" asked the Colonel, puzzled.

"For how much you will make me one graft?" Mayor St.i.tz repeated slowly.

"Graft! Graft! Understand him not?"

The Colonel shook his head.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Graft! Graft! Graft!" exclaimed the mayor with annoyance. "Don't you know him? When I make you one ordinance to pa.s.s, so, then you make me one graft, so! Like I read me in this book. Me to you, one ordinance; you to me one graft. So!"

A look of dismay came over the face of the Colonel, as he frowned at the smooth, honest face of the mayor, from which beamed eyes of childish honesty and frankness.

"Here in this book," said the mayor slowly and distinctly, like one explaining some simple thing to a child, "I read me of this graft business. It is to me this graft comes. So it is by all big cities. Man would have one ordinance. Goot! In every town is such one boss grafter.

To the boss grafter gives the ordinance-wanting man a graft. So! Then for the ordinance-wanting man does the boss grafter get one ordinance made like is wanted. Yes! So, it is; no graft, no ordinance! Some graft, some ordinance! I read him in this book Doc Weaver gives me as a lesson to go by. It is a goot way. I like me that graft business."

A glimmer of the meaning entered the Colonel's mind, but he could hardly connect the idea of graft with the honest Johann St.i.tz. As a fact, to Mayor St.i.tz the idea of unlawful gain did not come. Graft was a way out of the difficulty of having to decide things. It was a system authorized by the lawmakers of great cities, and a system that could operate in Kilo. Whenever St.i.tz and his council pa.s.sed an ordinance someone complained, and upbraided him; he saw now why this was; they had not used the approved system. But the Colonel still frowned.

"Well, what--how much do you want?" he asked.

Mayor St.i.tz turned up his innocent face and smiled blandly again.

"That makes not!" he exclaimed. "In the books it says much money, but is not yet Kilo so gross as New York. We go easy yet a while. It is what you want to graft me. One bushel apples--one bushel potatoes--that YOU must say."

The Colonel moved closer to the mayor. He thought of Miss Sally, and of Skinner.

"I will make you a present of a bushel of apples," he said.

The mayor laid down his magazine and arose. As the Colonel watched him with surprise, he removed his leathern ap.r.o.n. The Colonel folded his hand into a fist, but on the pleasant face of Mayor St.i.tz there was no sign of anger; no sign of righteous indignation; only a bland look of satisfaction.

"Well," inquired the Colonel impatiently, "will ye put the ordinance through, or won't ye?"

The mayor looked at him with surprise in every feature. Clearly this Colonel did not understand the first rudiments of graft.

"First I must go by Mr. Skinner," said St.i.tz simply. "Mebby he grafts me more NOT to pa.s.s such an ordinance."

"Look here, St.i.tz," said the Colonel in alarm. "You ain't goin' to do that, are ye?"

"Vell," said the mayor, "still must I do it! So always does the boss grafter. Which side grafts him the most, so he does. It is always so, never different. To the most grafter, so goes he. I read it in this books. When the boss grafter does not so, what use is the grafts? How then does he know which he shall do for, the ordinance-wanting man, or the ordinance-not-wanting man?"

The Colonel tried to argue with him, but the mayor was obdurate. He would not budge from the highest principles of graft, and, as the Colonel had gone too far now to recede with honor, he secured the best terms he could. The most he could obtain was a promise that the mayor would not mention any names, nor so much as hint that graft had been promised. He uneasily awaited the mayor's return.

St.i.tz returned radiant. He was rubbing his hands and beaming.

"Fine!" he exclaimed. "Fine! I make me one boss grafter yet! Mister Skinner grafts me one roast beef and six pigs' feet. He ain't much liking those fire-extinguishers to have. How much more will you graft me now?"

The Colonel looked the mayor squarely in the eye.

"St.i.tz," he said, "I ain't goin' to run no auction with that there Skinner. I come to you first, an' I was the first to say I'd make you a present, an' you ought to pa.s.s that ordinance anyhow. But to shut up this thing right here an' now, I'll do this: if you'll say you'll pas that ordinance like I want, so Skinner'll have to buy them four nickel-plated fire-extinguishers that Miss Briggs owns, at twenty-five dollars each, I'll give you four bushels of Benoni apples, two bushels of Early Rose potatoes, four bunches of celery, a peck of peas, and one spring chicken. And if you won't" he added, raising his hand threateningly, "I'll go to them six councilmen, an' I'll graft 'em one at a time, an' THEN where 'll your boss grafter be? You can't help yourself."

"Say!" he exclaimed, "ain't I a boss grafter? Apples, potatoes, celery, peas, and chickens! Five grafts for one ordinance! I do it!"

"An' don't you say nothing about it," warned the Colonel.

The Colonel thought there would be no harm in making a little commission for himself on the deal. It was not as if he had done nothing to earn it. He would have to furnish the produce for the mayor's "graft," and he had secured the services of Toole free of fees, and he was doing Miss Sally a good turn into the bargain. If Skinner was compelled to buy the four fire-extinguishers at twenty-five dollars each Miss Sally could afford a commission of ten dollars each, and forty dollars were always forty dollars to the Colonel.

The mayor kept his promise. At the next meeting of the council the ordinance was proposed, and hurried to a third reading by suspension of the by-laws, and the next day St.i.tz signed it. There was some opposition at the council meeting, for Skinner was present, and wanted to talk, but the marshal was present, too, and at a word from St.i.tz, he helped Skinner down the stairs, but gently, as a marshal owing a considerable butcher's bill should.

CHAPTER XI. The False G.o.ds of Doc Weaver

When Eliph' Hewlitt reached the hotel after his unfortunate visit of courts.h.i.+p, he stood a minute irresolute, and then the sign of the KILO TIMES, across the street, caught his eye. Here was a power he must not neglect; the power of the press. He knew well enough that the next issue of the KILO TIMES would chronicle his arrival in town; something like "E. Hewlitt is registered at the Kilo Hotel," or "E. Hewlitt, representing a New York publis.h.i.+ng house, is sojourning in our midst,"

but he felt that his heart interest in Kilo demanded something more than this. He was willing to have all the friends he could muster for the fight he would have to make for Miss Sally's affection, and he knew that the press was powerful in creating first impressions. He crossed the street and climbed the stair to the office of the KILO TIMES.

Every Thursday, except once a year, when Thomas Jefferson Jones went to the State Fair at Des Moines, the KILO TIMES appeared, printed on an old Was.h.i.+ngton hand-power press in the TIMES office four small pages, backed by four other pages that came already printed from a Chicago supply house, with the usual a.s.sortment of serial story, "Hints to Farmers,"

column of jokes, sermon, and patent medicine advertis.e.m.e.nts. T. J.'s own side was made up of local advertis.e.m.e.nts, a column of editorial, a few bits of local news that he could sc.r.a.pe together, and several columns of "country correspondence." T. J. himself was the entire force of the TIMES, except for a boy who came in every Thursday morning to work the hand-power of the press, who then washed up and delivered the papers about town. T. J. had built up the paper from a state of decay until it was one of the most prosperous country weeklies in Iowa, and he had done this against a handicap that would have discouraged most men--he was not married.

In Kilo subscriptions are frequently paid in turnips or cordwood, and the advertisers expect at least half of their bills to be taken out in trade, and the unmarried publisher is at a disadvantage. An unmarried publisher has little use for the trade half of the payment he received from the advertising milliner. No editor can appear in public wearing a gorgeously flowered hat of the type known as "buzzard," and retain the respect of his subscribers. Neither can he receive as currency, in a year when the turnip crop is unusually plentiful, more than sixty or seventy bushels of turnips in one day without having to get rid of them at a severe discount. But, in spite of all this, T. J., by his energy and good humor, had made a success of the TIME, and his editorials advising the people not to patronize the Chicago mail-order houses, but to patronize their home merchants, were copied by his contemporaries all over the State. One of his editorials on the prospects of the year's hog crop was quoted by the hog editor of a big Chicago daily, word for word.

These are the real triumphs of country journalism, and all over the State his paper was referred to by his brother editors as "Our enterprising contemporary, the KILO TIMES," and T. J. as "The brilliant young editor of the same."

When Eliph' Hewlitt entered the printing office T. J. was standing by his case setting up an item of news. He never wrote anything but editorials on paper; other matter he composed in type as he went along.

It saved time. Now he laid his "stick" on the case and turned to Eliph'.

"My name is Hewlitt, Eliph' Hewlitt," said the book agent, "agent for Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art,' published by Jarby & Goss, New York; price five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down, and one dollar a month until paid."

As the editor was about to speak, Eliph' raised his hand.

"I don't want to sell you one!" he exclaimed. "We are members of the same craft, and I never canva.s.s publishers, except to offer them a chance to buy this book at a very liberal discount offered by our firm to the fellow members of the great craft, a discount of forty percent, bringing the cost of the book, complete in every respect and exactly like those sold regularly for five dollars, down to the phenomenally low cost of three dollars. At this price no publisher can afford to be without a copy, containing, as it does, all the matter usually found in the most complete and expensive encyclopedias, and much more, all condensed into one volume for ready reference. It saves times and money."

T. J. shook his head, not unkindly, but positively, and was about to turn to his case again, but Eliph' held out his hand.

"I merely mentioned it," he said, with a smile. "I don't want to sell you one. I supposed you would have learned from the landlord that I was in town and I only wanted to be sure that you got the item right for the next paper."

T. J. turned to his galleys and read from the type:

"'One of the visitors to our little burg this week is E. Hewlitt, of New York, who is stopping at the Kilo House.'"

Eliph' stroked his whiskers and smiled.

"Yes," he said. "Quite correct. H-e-w-l-i-t-t, I presume? A very good item, and well worded, but it might be more--more extensive."

"We are rather crowded for s.p.a.ce this week," said T. J. "Two of our country correspondents missed the mails last week, and we have a double dose of it this week."