While this was going on, Janus Leftwitch was in the bank parlor, talking earnestly with Abner Hildreth. Podauger was in a panic. Jack Summers, he said, had many friends in town, and they would ruin the Enterprise.
"I don't see how that can be," replied Hildreth. "The plant of the paper isn't worth more than three thousand dollars; I've lent you money on it up to five thousand dollars already, and you're in debt up to your eyes still. It looks to me as if you had already done all the ruining in sight."
"But, Mr. Hildreth, that ought to make you the more cautious. You have money in the Enterprise. I have been careful to make everybody its friend, as much in your interest as mine."
"Yes, and I'm short a pile of money in consequence."
"That will come around right all in good time. Thebes is growing, Mr. Hildreth; her wonderful natural resources, situated as she is – "
"Oh, stop that! I've read that in your editorials every day for three years. Look here, Pod, I'm not ill disposed toward you. I'm willing to go on supporting you, but I must find some cheaper way of doing it. I'll foreclose the cut-throat mortgage on the Enterprise now, and give you a place as clerk on the wharf-boat."
"But, my dear Mr. Hildreth – " broke in the editor, with consternation and despair in every line of his countenance.
"There, don't thank me, old fellow," said Hildreth, interrupting; "you know I don't like thanks, and I know you're grateful. The fact is, I ought to have closed out the Enterprise business long ago, but I didn't want the town to be without a paper, and I didn't know anybody to edit it. I know the man now. I'll put Braine in charge to-morrow, and you can print as affectionate a card of farewell this afternoon, as you please. Run along and write it. I'm too busy to talk longer now," and with that he bowed the fallen editor out of the bank, and forever out of a profession which suited no part of his nature, except his vanity.
V
The arrangement between Hildreth and Edgar Braine, by which the young man came into control of the Thebes Daily Enterprise, was a much less definite one in its terms than Abner Hildreth was accustomed to make, except in those cases in which indefiniteness was to his advantage.
This was one of those cases.
He simply said to Braine:
"Take the establishment and see what you can make of it. You can make it of some good to the town, at any rate, and that's all I care for. I'll pay you a salary if you like, or you can pocket any profits there are instead, if you prefer that."
"I'll take the profits," said Edgar.
"Suppose they turn out to be losses?"
"Then the quicker I find out my unfitness the better. I don't want you to pay me a salary for losing your money."
"You've good grit, Edgar," exclaimed the elder man, admiringly, "and you've got 'go'! I'll stand by you and see you win. You'll need money for a little while to pay running expenses, and you can have it on your own notes till you get the old hulk afloat again. I'll back you. Go in and win!"
That was all there was of contract between these two. Obviously the education Edgar Braine had received at Hanover College was deficient in certain particulars.
The change in the Enterprise was immediate. Everybody bought it at first to see what more the young editor would have to say in scarification of Jack Summers, and everybody continued to buy it, because the young editor at once ceased to scarify Summers, flinging him contemptuously aside as something done for, and turning his attention to a more important aspect of the same matter.
He wanted to know why Jack Summers had been allowed to maintain a gambling house in Thebes, without disguise and without molestation. He called the public prosecutor by name, and asked him what excuse he had to make for his neglect of his sworn duty. He named the respectable men who had served on the last Grand Jury, and requested them to say why they had omitted to indict so flagrant an offender.
By this time – and it was within the first week of Braine's editorship – the languid contempt hitherto felt for the lifeless newspaper had changed to an eager impatience throughout the town for its appearance each day.
At first there was anger everywhere. Two libel suits were brought, but nothing was ever done about them; they were meant to intimidate, and they failed to do it.
After awhile the community caught something of the editor's enthusiasm. Clergymen preached from the pulpit on the duties of citizens as Grand Jurors and public officers. Finally, a new Grand Jury was assembled, and its first act was to indict Jack Summers, who promptly fled the city.
This was but a beginning. Braine struck at wrong whenever he saw indications of it. He introduced the element of detection into his work, and followed up clews in a way to which the good people of Thebes were wholly unaccustomed.
He did many things merely to excite curiosity and interest. These were harmless fooleries for the most part, and Braine justified them on the ground that they made people read his paper, and thus gave him opportunity for the good work he was doing.
It was this that gave him joy. He had power, and he was using it for the public good. He had borrowed little from Hildreth, and had repaid it easily. His newspaper was profitable, and the job printing establishment connected with it was doing all the business of that kind which the city afforded, now that he had added large supplies of type, a ruling-machine, and a steam press to its equipment.
At the end of two years of hard work Edgar Braine believed that he had conquered the tools of fortune and power. He regarded himself as the owner of a prosperous and influential newspaper. He had an income sufficient to justify a marriage to which he looked forward with eager longing. He saw no obstacle now between him and fortune.
VI
Edgar left me an hour ago. After he said good night, I came up to my room, took down my hair, put on a wrapper, and sat by the open window, not to think, but to feel.
After all these months of uncertainty – no, not uncertainty, for Edgar was destined to succeed – after all these months of waiting, we have reached the time when separation will soon be at an end.
I seem about to be entering on a new life, as a new woman. I am a new, an unfamiliar woman, to myself. I have not realized it until to-night. The change has been so gradual that I have not realized any difference in myself. My love has passed through so many phases.
I remember, to-night, a time when my love contained but one element – trust. I remember a particular day when love was young with me, – I went into the Enterprise office with Aunt's chronic "want," – "A girl to do general housework – references required." It was immediately after Edgar had offered himself for a target to Jack Summers. There is something glorious in a man's inviting another man to attack him – if he dares. I was thinking about it as I went up the Enterprise steps. When I entered the office Edgar sat at a funny desk with peculiar pigeon holes – he has said since that he had used it before he took the Enterprise, and though he could have had one that would have been an improvement on it, in point of beauty, he had a sort of sentimental feeling in regard to the old one. He says in times of prosperity it will be quite wholesome to look at those collar boxes, and remember the time when he was very thankful to get paper collars.
We laugh a great deal over this, and I am going to have the desk put in our – well, yes, in our room.
He sat that day by the desk, and Mose Harbell had his feet on the white-washed part of the stove, – Edgar says he always does it after his dinner, while he is preparing his most "genial" paragraphs.
A sunbeam glanced across the room, and made the frayed edge of Edgar's coat stand out beautifully, but he looked terribly clean. He didn't see me at first, and I watched him a minute as he wrote. I loved him first, for the way in which he grasped his pen. He was finishing an editorial on the lack of energy in his esteemed fellow citizens in putting down immoral enterprises that were wrecking the universe in general,