United States or Saint Pierre and Miquelon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If there was one legitimate hope that was yet left untried, no matter how forlorn it was, I would try it. But there's not. It is literally and soberly true that every means of help every honest means has been attempted. Shelgrim is going to cinch us. Grain rates are increasing, while, on the other hand, the price of wheat is sagging lower and lower all the time.
If we wait till Shelgrim pulls it off, we're done for, that's flat. I tell you we're in a fix if we don't keep an eye open. Things are getting desperate. Magnus has just said that the key to the whole thing is the Railroad Commission. Well, why not have a Commission of our own? Never mind how we get it, let's get it.
Ruggles, you and S. Behrman and Genslinger and Shelgrim and the whole gang of thieves of you you'll wake this State of California up some of these days by going just one little bit too far, and there'll be an election of Railroad Commissioners of, by, and for the people, that'll get a twist of you, my bunco-steering friend you and your backers and cappers and swindlers and thimble-riggers, and smash you, lock, stock, and barrel.
"Let's double that, or say two hundred and fifty. Let's see how that will do." "Why of course if you say so, but really, Mr. Shelgrim" "Well, we'll try that, anyhow." Presley had not time to readjust his perspective to this new point of view of the President of the P. and S. W. before the assistant manager had withdrawn.
Isn't it like us? Isn't it like us?" he exclaimed sadly. "What a melancholy comment! San Francisco! It is not a city it is a Midway Plaisance. California likes to be fooled. Do you suppose Shelgrim could convert the whole San Joaquin Valley into his back yard otherwise? Indifference to public affairs absolute indifference, it stamps us all. Our State is the very paradise of fakirs.
"And Shelgrim encourages your million-dollar fairs and fetes," said a voice at Presley's elbow, "because it is throwing dust in the people's eyes." The group turned about and saw Cedarquist, who had come up unobserved in time to catch the drift of the talk. But he spoke without bitterness; there was even a good-humoured twinkle in his eyes.
"The Railroad, if you come to that," returned Lyman, "has already lodged a protest against the new rate." Annixter uttered a derisive shout. "A protest! That's good, that is. When the P. and S. W. objects to rates it don't 'protest, m' son. The first you hear from Mr. Shelgrim is an injunction from the courts preventing the order for new rates from taking effect.
His arms moved, and his head, but the great bulk of the man remained immobile in its place, and as the interview proceeded and this peculiarity emphasised itself, Presley began to conceive the odd idea that Shelgrim had, as it were, placed his body in the chair to rest, while his head and brain and hands went on working independently.
A man, evidently some sort of manager's assistant, stood at the end of the table, leaning on the back of one of the chairs. Shelgrim himself sat at the table. He was large, almost to massiveness. An iron-grey beard and a mustache that completely hid the mouth covered the lower part of his face. His eyes were a pale blue, and a little watery; here and there upon his face were moth spots.
In the end, Presley had been surprised to find that Shelgrim was still in. It was already very late, after six o'clock, and the other offices in the building were in the act of closing. Many of them were already deserted.
Word Of The Day