CHAPTER I


THE FAIR INCENDIARY
THE "Carthage News" office was full of tobacco smoke at half-past eight o'clock on a bright fall morning. At four rickety desks, by the dusty windows, sat four young men in their shirt-sleeves, cutting, pasting, writing, smoking continuously. The walls of the place were dirty and patched with choice paragraphs and illustrations, often with derisive comments written in the margins, representing frivolous interludes in the strenuous life and vicissitudes of provincial journalism. At the farthest and darkest corner of the room were the files of the other Carthage papers, covered with dust and overcoats. One corner of the floor was boarded off into a box, with thin wooden partitions, and within the telegraph instruments were ticking away about the news of the previous night: the session of Congress, the doings of Parliament, the lynching at Atlanta, the latest originality of the German emperor,— a chorus of heterogeneous chords in the concert of continents that went to make up
the music of the sphere.
All these the young woman in the wooden box was transcribing on her typewriter as calmly as though she were measuring so many yards of tape. At another corner of the room was a second small space, similarly partitioned off, and constituting the editorial sanctum; and there sat John Price, grinding away at his copy.
Price had left school when he was fourteen years of age, and had begun life in the composing room of the "News," then just launched upon its checkered career. He was boy of all-work. He swept the floor and picked out the loose type from the sweepings. He proved and washed the galleys. He held copy for the proof-reader. Gradually he began to help the "job man" set the "ads" when there was a rush. Then he was given a "frame," and at seventeen he was a full-fledged compositor. When the linotype came he began to do local work, if the city editor was short-handed.
At twenty-two years of age Price was a regular member of the local force. He had been earning considerably more money at the linotype than he could command at first as a reporter; but he longed for the larger and freer life. For seven years he had worked at the local desk, gradually pushing his way to the front, slowly building up a small bank account; smoking, writing, reading, thinking,— learning things not told in books, growing wise in the knowledge of life, imbibing all sorts of general information from the men he met and conversed with, gaining force and character from the stir of the city life.

On his twenty-ninth birthday, and about two months ago, Price had made a bold coup, and suddenly found himself the most talked-about, the most feared, and, by a small circle of friends, the most respected man in the city of Carthage.
This was his opportunity, and he was wrestling with it. "Mother," he would say, as he came home pale and haggard with the strain of his bustling day, "I have got old Opportunity by his forelock, and it will stay in my fist or his scalp will come off with it."
John Price was now the telegraph editor, city editor, managing editor, editor-in-chief, and business manager of the "News." How long would it last? Every cent of income earned, every cent of salary saved went to pay the monthly instalments upon Congressman Parkerson's stock. The contract, which had made Price this opportunity, provided that there should be a regular payment on the last day of every month, or that the option should at once expire.
John Price had been gifted by nature with a comprehensive intellect and a fine physique. Full six feet two in his stockings, he was rather slender for his height, with a resulting appearance of lankiness unpardonable in the eyes of the fair sex. His face was set in solemn mould, with high, narrow forehead, prominent nose, angular jaw, and jet black hair as straight and sleek as that of his Puritan grandsires, for he came of eastern Massachusetts stock, though his early years had all been passed in the middle west.
While in process of editing a mass of manuscript with wonderful celerity, he paused doubtfully over the following editorial from the pen of one of his subordinates:

Fads In The School
Our local article yesterday on the efforts of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union to secure the introduction of sewing and carpentry work into our public schools, seems to have provoked some criticism.
The trouble with this business is that it is a fad, and a fad of women who do not send their own children to the public schools. We will venture to assert that not one in four of these women have a mother's interest in public school training.
Do they regard the public schools as solely the place for the education of the sons and daughters of seamstresses and carpenters?
"That 's rather warm," muttered Price, to himself; "but I guess it's about right, so in it goes. Truth is like soup, always to be served hot, otherwise a mess of insipid jelly;" and he gave the copy along with a mass of other articles to the dirty-faced boy that entered.
"What a dismal place!" exclaimed a high-pitched feminine voice without.
"How close it is," complained another female voice.
"Where is Mr. Price?" queried a third.
"This way, ma'm," said the copy boy.
Price tossed his pipe into a corner of his den, and made a dive for his coat. He was in the act of struggling into it when the ladies entered.
"Good morning, Mr. Price," said Mrs. DeWitt, as the trio filed into his office; "is this where you hide yourself?"
The delegation consisted of the clergyman's wife, who had thus spoken; Mrs. DuBois, whose husband was a professor in the local university, and Mrs. Nathan Everett, one of the social leaders of Carthage. The editor was quite disturbed by the sudden and unusual visitation, and saw breakers ahead. "What can I do for you, ladies?" he asked suavely, as though he had no inkling of their errand.
"We were a little disturbed over your article," said Mrs. DeWitt, "or was it your article? Well, over an article in the 'News' of yesterday, which spoke in what seemed to us a flippant and unpleasant way, of our effort to introduce sewing and manual training into the public schools."jjfgufyhjh "Confound Sam! I expected just this; I'm in for it," thought Price to himself; his only expression of it was a sigh of patience.
"A very disagreeable article, indeed; I 'm sure you did not write it, Mr. Price," added Mrs. Everett.
"I was really quite hurt that you should print it," put in Mrs. DuBois.
"I am afraid my young man was a little indiscreet," admitted the editor, "and I wish I had revised his copy a little more carefully; I 'm so sorry it hurt your feelings."
"But it is not to make any complaint we have come to you," said Mrs. DeWitt, tactfully. "The fact is, we want your help in this matter. We can't get along without you, Mr. Price."
"Your paper reaches a class of readers, —" began Mrs. Everett.
"Oh, dear, no," interrupted Mrs. DeWitt, "Mrs. Everett was going to say that the 'News' is so widely read by all classes, —"
"Especially since you have taken it in hand," added Mrs. DuBois.
"But, ladies, supposing I really do not agree with you, what can I do about it?" asked the editor, though not sure that he had any serious convictions on the subject.
"We can convince you in ten minutes," said Mrs.

It was just a bright young face, surrounded by a halo of soft blond hair.

TO BE COTINUED

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 06.09.2011

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