Читать книгу The Coming of the Law - Seltzer Charles Alden - Страница 6

Rumor, that mysterious disseminator of news whose tongues are legion, whispered that the Dry Bottom Kicker was to come to life. Wherefore curiosity led many of Dry Bottom’s citizens past the door of the Kicker office to steal covert glances at the young man whose figure was bent over the desk inside. Many passed in silence after looking at the young man–he did not see them. Others commented gravely or humorously according to their whim–the young man did not hear them. Seated at the desk he gave his attention to the tasks before him–he was not concerned with rumor; the curiosity of Dry Bottom’s citizens did not affect him. Seriously, methodically, steadily, he worked at his desk, while rumor wagged her tongues and curiosity lounged past the window.

It was Hollis’s first visit to the Kicker office; he had come to work and there was much that he could do. He had found the Kicker installed in a one story frame building, verging upon dilapidation, unpainted, dingy. The appearance of its exterior had given Hollis a queer sensation in the pit of the stomach. He was cheered a little by the businesslike appearance of the interior. It was not what he had been used to, but he felt that it would answer very well in this locality, and–well, he planned to make improvements.

About twenty by forty, he estimated the size of the interior. Originally there had been only one room. This had been divided into three sections by partitions. An old, flat-topped desk sat near the front window, a swivel chair before it. Along the wall above the desk were several rows of shelving with paste-board boxes and paper piled neatly up. Calendars, posters, and other specimens of the printer’s art covered the walls. In the next room was another desk. Piles of advertising electrotypes, empty forms, and papers filled the corners. The composing room was in the rear. Everything was in order here; type cases, stands, forms. There were a proof press, some galley racks, a printing press, with a forlorn-looking gasolene engine near it. A small cast-iron stove stood in a corner with its door yawning open, its front bespattered with tobacco juice. A dilapidated imposing stone ranged along the rear wall near a door that opened into the sunlight. A man stood before one of the type cases distributing type. He did not look up at Hollis’s entrance.

“Hello!” greeted Hollis.

The man hesitated in his work and looked up. “Hello,” he returned, perfunctorily.

“I suppose your name is Potter?” Hollis inquired cordially. Judge Graney had told him that if he succeeded in finding the compositor he would have him at the Kicker office this morning. Potter had gone to work without further orders.

“Yes,” said the man. He came forward.

“I am the new owner of the Kicker,” Hollis informed him with a smile.

“Jim Hollis’s boy?” inquired Potter, straightening. At Hollis’s nod he stepped quickly forward and grasped the hand the latter offered him, squeezing it tightly. “Of course you are Jim Hollis’s boy!” he said, finishing his inspection. “You are the living image of him!” He swept his hand around toward the type case. “I am working, you see. Judge Graney wrote me last week that you wanted me and I came as soon as I could. Is it true that the Kicker is going to be a permanent institution?”

“The Kicker is here to stay!” Hollis informed him.

Potter’s face lighted with pleasure. “That’s bully!” he said. “That’s bully!”

He was of medium height, slender, lean faced, with a magnificent head, and a wealth of brown hair thickly streaked with silver. His thin lips were strong; his chin, though a trifle weak, was well formed; his eyes slightly bleared, but revealing, in spite of this defect, unmistakable intelligence. In the first flashing glance which Hollis had taken at him he had been aware that here was a person of more than ordinary mental ability and refinement. It was with a pang of pity that he remembered Judge Graney’s words to the effect that he was a good workman–“when sober.” Hollis felt genuinely sorry for him.

“I have had a talk with Judge Graney,” volunteered Potter. “He tells me that you are a newspaper man. Between us we ought to be able to get out a very respectable paper.”

“We will,” calmly announced Hollis; “and we’ll get the first issue out Saturday. Come in here and we’ll talk about it.”

He led the way to the front room and seated himself at the desk, motioning Potter to another chair. Within the next hour he knew all about the Kicker. It was a six-column sheet of four pages. The first page was devoted to local news. The second carried some local advertisements, exchange clippings, and two or three columns of syndicate plate matter. On the third page two columns were devoted to editorials, one to advertisements, and three to local news in large type. The fourth, and last page was filled with more plate matter and a litter of “foreign” advertising–patent-medicines, soaps, hair-dye.

At the first glance it appeared that the paper must be a paying proposition, for there were a goodly proportion of advertisements. Yet Hollis had his suspicions about the advertisements. When he had spoken to Potter about them he discovered that quite a number of them were what is known to the craft as “dead ads”–which meant advertisements upon which payment had ceased and which were carried either for the purpose of filling up the paper or because it was found cheaper to run them than to set type for the space which would be left by their absence.

“We won’t carry any dead ads!” announced Hollis.

“Several of these are big merchants,” said Potter, pointing them out with inky forefinger; “though the contracts have run out the appearance of their ads lends the Kicker a certain moral support–the little fellows don’t know that they are not paid for and it draws their business.”

“We don’t care for that kind of business,” smiled Hollis; “we’re going to run a real newspaper. We’re going to get paid ads!”

“I hope so,” hesitatingly replied Potter.

“Of course you do,” laughed Hollis; “but whether we get paid ads or not this newspaper is coming out regularly and on time. Furthermore, we’re going to cut down on this plate stuff; we don’t want a paper filled with stale articles on snakes, antedated ocean disasters, Egyptian monoliths, and the latest style in opera hats. We’ll fill the paper with local news–we’ll ginger things up a little. You are pretty well acquainted here–I’ll leave the local items to you. What town near here compares with Dry Bottom in size?”

“There’s Lazette,” returned Potter; “over in Colfax County.”

“How far from here?”

“Eighty miles.”

“Got a newspaper?”

“Yes; the Eagle.”

“Bully! Step on the Eagle’s toes. Make the Eagle scream. Get into an argument with it about something–anything. Tell Lazette that as a town it’s forty miles behind Dry Bottom. That will stir up public spirit and boom our subscription list. You see, Potter, civic pride is a big asset to a newspaper. We’ll start a row right off the reel. Furthermore, we’re going to have some telegraph news. I’ll make arrangements for that to-day.”

Hollis’s enthusiasm was infectious; a flash of spirit lighted up Potter’s eyes as he rose from his chair. “I’m going to set up the head for the first page,” he said. “Probably you’ll want a slogan; that sort of thing is the style out here.”

“We’ll have one,” returned Hollis briskly. “Set this in triple leads: ‘We Herald the Coming of the Law! The Kicker is Here to Stay!’”

“Good!” declared Potter. He went into the composing room and Hollis saw his fine old head bent over a type case. Hollis turned to his desk.

He sat there long, his tall, lithe body slack, grim, serious lines in his lean face. He had thought of his conversation with Judge Graney concerning ambition–his ambition, the picture upon which his mind had dwelt many times. A little frame printing office in the West was not one of its features. He sighed with resignation and began methodically to look over the papers in the desk, finding many things to interest him. He discovered that in spite of his father’s one great fault he had been a methodical man. He smiled regretfully, wishing that he might have been able to have seen more of him. Among the papers he hoped to find a personal note–a word–from his father. He found nothing of that character.

After a time he took up a pen and began to write. Long ago he had decided that in the first issue of the paper he would attack the Cattlemen’s Association. Judge Graney had ridden out to the Circle Bar on the previous Saturday afternoon, remaining over Sunday, and accompanying Hollis on the return trip Monday morning.

While at the ranch the Judge had spent much of his time in communicating to Hollis his views of the situation in Union County and in acquainting him with the elder Hollis’s intentions regarding the newspaper. Hollis had made some inquiries on his own account, with the result that when he reached the Kicker office this morning he felt that he had acquired a good and sufficient knowledge of the situation.

Looking over the old copy of the Kicker he studied some of the advertisements. Evidently some Dry Bottom merchants had been brave enough to antagonize Dunlavey by advertising in the Kicker. With this copy of the Kicker in hand Hollis rose from his desk, told Potter he was going out, and proceeded to visit some of the merchants whose advertisements appeared in the paper, hoping that their bravery still abided with them. He made a good solicitor. Some of the merchants flatly refused, saying they did not care to risk Dunlavey’s anger. Others demurred, confidentially announcing that they had never considered the paper seriously and that there was really no good in advertising in Dry Bottom anyway–the town wasn’t big enough. Half a dozen listened quietly while he told them that the Kicker was in Dry Bottom to stay and then smiled and told him to run their advertisements. They rather admired his “nerve” and were not afraid of Dunlavey.

At noon Hollis stepped into a restaurant called the Alhambra. While he ate he was critically inspected; the Alhambra swarmed with customers, and the proprietor quietly informed him that he was a “drawin’ card” and hoped he’d “grub” there regularly. In return for his promise to do so Hollis secured his advertisement.