has struck it hard, and they’ve got a lot of
new buildings that needn’t be ashamed of themselves
anywhere; the new court-house is as big as St. Peter’s,
and the Grand Opera-house is in the highest style of
the art. You can’t buy a lot on that street
for much less than you can buy a lot in New York—or
you couldn’t when the boom was on; I saw the
place just when the boom was in its prime. I
went out there to work the newspapers in the syndicate
business, and I got one of their men to write me a
real bright, snappy account of the gas; and they just
took me in their arms and showed me everything.
Well, it was wonderful, and it was beautiful, too!
To see a whole community stirred up like that was—just
like a big boy, all hope and high spirits, and no
discount on the remotest future; nothing but perpetual
boom to the end of time—I tell you it warmed
your blood. Why, there were some things about
it that made you think what a nice kind of world this
would be if people ever took hold together, instead
of each fellow fighting it out on his own hook, and
devil take the hindmost. They made up their minds
at Moffitt that if they wanted their town to grow
they’d got to keep their gas public property.
So they extended their corporation line so as to take
in pretty much the whole gas region round there; and
then the city took possession of every well that was
put down, and held it for the common good. Anybody
that’s a mind to come to Moffitt and start any
kind of manufacture can have all the gas he wants
free; and for fifteen dollars a year you can have all
the gas you want to heat and light your private house.
The people hold on to it for themselves, and, as I
say, it’s a grand sight to see a whole community
hanging together and working for the good of all, instead
of splitting up into as many different cut-throats
as there are able-bodied citizens. See that fellow?”
Fulkerson broke off, and indicated with a twirl of
his head a short, dark, foreign-looking man going out
of the door. “They say that fellow’s
a Socialist. I think it’s a shame they’re
allowed to come here. If they don’t like
the way we manage our affairs let ’em stay at
home,” Fulkerson continued. “They
do a lot of mischief, shooting off their mouths round
here. I believe in free speech and all that;
but I’d like to see these fellows shut up in
jail and left to jaw one another to death. We
don’t want any of their poison.”
March did not notice the vanishing Socialist.
He was watching, with a teasing sense of familiarity,
a tall, shabbily dressed, elderly man, who had just
come in. He had the aquiline profile uncommon
among Germans, and yet March recognized him at once
as German. His long, soft beard and mustache
had once been fair, and they kept some tone of their
yellow in the gray to which they had turned.
His eyes were full, and his lips and chin shaped the
beard to the noble outline which shows in the beards
the Italian masters liked to paint for their Last
Suppers. His carriage was erect and soldierly,
and March presently saw that he had lost his left
hand. He took his place at a table where the overworked
waiter found time to cut up his meat and put everything
in easy reach of his right hand.