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"You got away from St. Jo in time, then. Otherwise you might have met the McQuiggan family, and never been the same afterward." "Ef you don' stop youah feet a-fidgittin', Boss," interpolated the neighboring bootblack, addressing the green-hatted man in aggrieved tones, "I cain't do no good wif this job." "McQuiggan was the name," continued the volunteer biographer.
McQuiggan was running over some proofs which he had brought with him, Dr. Surtaine walked into the office. There was about him a formidable smoothness, as of polished metal. He greeted his old friend with a nod and a cool "Back again, I see, Elpy." "And doing business at the old stand," rejoined his friend. "Worthington's the place where the dollars grow, all right." "Grow, and stay," said Dr.
"Very ingenious, Mr. McQuiggan," said Hal. "But you're practically admitting that your ads. are faked." "Admittin' nothin'! I offer you the ads. and I've got the ready stuff to pay for 'em." "And you think that is all that's necessary?" "Sure do I!" "Mr. McQuiggan," remarked Ellis, "has probably been reading our able editorial on the reformed and chastened policy of the 'Clarion."
"Still sticking out for the money-back-if-not-satisfied racket in the other fellow's business, eh, Andy? Better practice it in your own." "Hal," Dr. Surtaine turned to his son, "has McQuiggan brought in a new batch of copy?" "So I understand." "The 'Clarion' mustn't run it." "The hell it mustn't!" said McQuiggan. "It's crooked," said the quack bluntly. The promoter laughed.
"Anybody that works in your joint ought to be wise to the bunk game," suggested McQuiggan. "I'll tell you one thing: you don't run any more of it in this town." "Maybe I don't and then again maybe I do. It won't be as good as your copy, p'r'aps. But it'll get some coin, I reckon. Take a look," he taunted, and tossed his proofs to the other. The quack broke forth at the first glance. "Look here!
"Well, you didn't say there was anything more, did you?" inquired the bland McQuiggan. "I? I didn't say?" "Yes, you. You got up the ads." "Well well well, of all the nerve!" cried Dr. Surtaine, grievously appealing to the universe at large. "I got 'em up! You gave me the material, didn't you?" "Sure, did I. Hot stuff it was, too." "Hot bunk! And to flim-flam my own people with it, too!"
Surtaine. "Meaning?" inquired McQuiggan solicitously. "That you've over-medicated this field." "Have I got any dollars away from you, Andy?" "No. But you have from my people." "Well, their money's as good to buy booze with as anybody else's, I reckon." Dr. Surtaine had sat down, directly opposite the visitor, fronting him eye-to-eye. Nothing loath, McQuiggan accepted the challenge.
But take a look at to-morrow's 'Clarion' before you make your speech. Now, good-day to you." McQuiggan, wondering and a little subdued by a certain quiet resolution in Hal's speech, went, beckoning Ellis after him for explication. Hal turned to his father. "I don't suppose," he began haltingly, "that you could have told me all this yourself." "What?" asked Dr.
Hal hesitated, looking to Ellis for counsel. "You've got to do something for an advertiser on a big order like this, Boyee," urged his father. "Let's see the copy," put in Ellis. The trained journalistic eye ran over the sheets. "Lot of gaudy slush about copper mines in general," he observed, "and not much information on Streaky Mountain." "It's an undeveloped property," said McQuiggan.
"In what way?" asked Hal, meeting a grip like iron from the stranger. "News?" "News! I guess not. Business, I said. Real money. Advertising." "It's like this, Mr. Surtaine," said L.P. McQuiggan, turning his spare, hard visage toward Hal. "I've got some copper stock to sell an A1 under-developed proposition; and your father, who's an old pal, tells me the 'Clarion' can do the business for me.
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