Queed Part 8

"I am the man, sir. How may I serve you?"

Queed laid on the table the card West had given him with a pencilled line of introduction.

"Oh--Mr. Queed! Certainly--certainly. Sit down, sir. I have been expecting you.--Let me get those papers out of your way."

Colonel Cowles had a heavy jaw and rather too rubicund a complexion. He looked as if apoplexy would get him some day. However, his head was like a lion's of the tribe of Judah; his eye was kindly; his manner dignified, courteous, and charming. Queed had decided not to set the Colonel right in his views on taxation; it would mean only a useless discussion which would take time. To the older gentleman's polite inquiries relative to his impressions of the city and so forth, he for the same reason gave the briefest possible replies. But the Colonel, no apostle of the doctrine that time is far more than money, went off into a long monologue, kindly designed to give the young stranger some idea of his new surroundings and atmosphere.

"... Look out there, sir. It is like that all day long--a double stream of people always pouring by. I have looked out of these windows for twenty-five years, and it was very different in the old days. I remember when the cows used to come tinkling down around that corner at milking-time. A twelve-story office building will rise there before another year. We have here the finest city and the finest State in the Union. You come to them, sir, at a time of exceptional interest. We are changing fast, leaping forward very fast. I do not hold with those who take all change to be progress, but G.o.d grant that our feet are set in the right path. No section of the country is moving more rapidly, or, as I believe, with all our faults, to better ends than this. My own eyes have seen from these windows a broken town, stagnant in trade and population and rich only in memories, transform itself into the splendid thriving city you see before you. Our faces, too long turned backward, are set at last toward the future. From one end of the State to another the spirit of honorable progress is throbbing through our people. We have revolutionized and vastly improved our school system. We have wearied of mud-holes and are laying the foundations of a network of splendid roads. We are doing wonders for the public health. Our farmers are learning to practice the new agriculture--with plenty of lime, sir, plenty of lime. They grasp the fact that corn at a hundred bushels to the acre is no dream, but the most vital of realities. Our young men who a generation ago left us for the irrigated lands of your Northwest, are at last understanding that the finest farmlands in the country are at their doors for half the price. With all these changes has come a growing independence in political thought. The old catchwords and bogies have lost their power. We no longer think that whatever wears the Democratic tag is necessarily right. We no longer measure every Republican by Henry G. Surface. We no longer ..."

Queed, somewhat interested in spite of himself, and tolerably familiar with history, interrupted to ask who Henry G. Surface might be. The question brought the Colonel up with a jolt.

"Ah, well," said he presently, with a wave of his hand, "you will hear that story soon enough." He was silent a moment, and then added, sadly and somewhat sternly: "Young man, I have reserved one count in the total, the biggest and best, for the last. Keep your ear and eye open--and I mean the inner ear and eye as well as the outer--keep your mind open, above all keep your heart open, and it will be given you to understand that we have here the bravest, the sweetest, and the kindliest people in the world. The Lord has been good to you to send you among them. This is the word of a man in the late evening of life to one in the hopeful morning. You will take it, I hope, without offense. Are you a Democrat, sir?"

"I am a political economist."

The Colonel smiled. "Well said, sir. Science knows no party lines. Your chosen subject rises above the valley of partisanry where we old wheel-horses plod--stinging each other in the dust, as the poet finely says. Mr. West has told me of your laurels."

He went on to outline the business side of what the _Post_ had to offer. Queed found himself invited to write a certain number of editorial articles, not to exceed six a week, under the Colonel's direction. He had his choice of working on s.p.a.ce, at the rate of five dollars per column, payment dependent upon publication; or of drawing a fixed honorarium of ten dollars per week, whether called on for the stipulated six articles or for no articles at all. Queed decided to accept the fixed honorarium, hoping that there would be many weeks when he would be called on for no articles at all. A provisional arrangement to run a month was agreed upon.

"I have," said the Colonel, "already sketched out some work for you to begin on. The legislature meets here in January. It is important to the State that our whole tax-system should be overhauled and reformed. The present system is a mere crazy-quilt, unsatisfactory in a thousand ways.

I suggest that you begin with a careful study of the law, making yourself familiar with--"

"I am already familiar with it."

"Ah! And what do you think of it?"

"It is grotesque."

"Good! I like a clean-cut expression of opinion such as that, sir. Now tell me your criticisms on the law as it stands, and what you suggest as remedies."

Queed did so briefly, expertly. The Colonel was considerably impressed by his swift, searching summaries.

"We may go right ahead," said he. "I wish you would block out a series of articles--eight, ten, or twelve, as you think best--designed to prepare the public mind for a thorough-going reform and point the way that the reform should take. Bring this schedule to me to-morrow, if you will be so good, and we will go over it together."

Queed, privately amused at the thought of Colonel Cowles's revising his views on taxation, rose to go.

"By the bye," said the Colonel, unluckily struck by a thought, "I myself wrote a preliminary article on tax reform a week or so ago, meaning to follow it up with others later on. Perhaps you had best read that before--"

"I have already read it."

"Ah! How did it strike you?"

"You ask me that?"

"Certainly," said Colonel Cowles, a little surprised.

"Well, since you ask me, I will say that I thought it rather amusing."

The Colonel looked nettled. He was by nature a choleric man, but in his age he had learned the futility of disputation and affray, and nowadays kept a tight rein upon himself.

"You are frank sir--'tis a commendable quality. Doubtless your work will put my own poor efforts to the blush."

"I shall leave you to judge of that, Colonel Cowles."

The Colonel, abandoning his hospitable plan of inviting his new a.s.sistant to sup with him at the club, bowed with dignity, and Queed eagerly left him. Glancing at his watch in the elevator, the young man figured that the interview, including going and coming, would stand him in an hour's time, which was ten minutes more than he had allowed for it.

V

_Selections from Contemporary Opinions of Mr. Queed; also concerning Henry G. Surface, his Life and Deeds; of Fifi, the Landlady's Daughter, and how she happened to look up Altruism in the Dictionary_.

A month later, one icy afternoon, Charles Gardiner West ran into Colonel Cowles at the club, where the Colonel, a lone widower, repaired each day at six P.M., there to talk over the state of the Union till nine-thirty.

"Colonel," said West, dropping into a chair, "man to man, what is your opinion of Doctor Queed's editorials?"

"They are unanswerable," said the Colonel, and consulted his favorite ante-prandial refreshment.

West laughed. "Yes, but from the standpoint of the general public, Constant Reader, Pro Bono Publico, and all that?"

"No subscriber will ever be angered by them."

"Would you say that they helped the editorial page or not?"

"They lend to it an academic elegance, a scientific stateliness, a certain grand and austere majesty--"

"Colonel, I asked you for your opinion of those articles."

"d.a.m.n it, sir," roared the Colonel, "I've never read one."

Later West repeated the gist of this conversation to Miss Weyland, who ornamented with him a tiny dinner given that evening at the home of their very good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Byrd.

It was a beautiful little dinner, as befitted the hospitable distinction of the givers. The Stewart Byrds were hosts among a thousand. In him, as it further happens, West (himself the beau ideal of so many) had from long ago recognized his own paragon and pattern; a worthy one, indeed, this tall young man whose fine abilities and finer faiths were already writing his name so large upon the history of his city. About the dim-lit round of his table there were gathered but six this evening, including the host and hostess; the others, besides Sharlee Weyland and West, being Beverley Byrd and Miss Avery: the youngest of the four Byrd brothers, and heir with them to one of the largest fortunes in the State; and the only daughter of old Avery, who came to us from Mauch Chunk, Pa., his money preceding him in a special train of box cars, especially invented for the transportation of Pennsylvania millions to places where the first families congregate.

"And I had to confess that I'd never read one either. I did begin one,"

said West--"it was called 'Elementary Principles of Incidence and Distribution,' I remember--but the hour was eleven-thirty and I fell asleep."

"I know exactly how you felt about it," said Sharlee, "for I have read them all--_moi!_"

He looked at her with boundless admiration. "His one reader!"

"There are two of us, if you please. I think of getting up a club--a.s.sociated Sons and Daughters of Mr. Queed's Faithful Followers; President, Me. I'll make the other member Secretary, for he is experienced in that work. He's at present Secretary of the Tax Reform League in New York. Did Colonel Cowles show you the wonderful letter that came from him, asking the name of the man who was writing the _Post's_ masterly tax articles, et cetera, et cetera?"

"No--really! But tell me, how have you, as President, enjoyed them?"

"I haven't understood a single word in any of them. Where on earth did he dig up his fearful vocabulary? Yet it is the plain duty of both of us to read these articles: you as one of his employers, I as the shrewd landlady's agent who keeps a watchful eye upon the earning power of her boarders."