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Show THE NEW SUPERINTENDENT. Smith "Have you heard of the changes of the management on the Wise Guy mine?" Rogers "No; what are they?" Smith "The directors have elected Professor Knowitall, superintendent." Rogers "And pray, who is he?" Smith "He is a scientist. For a- time he was professor of Bacteriology in the Pasteur Institute in Paris." Rogers "What countryman is he?" Smith "He is a Bulgarian." Rogers "He speaks English all right I suppose?" Smith "Not a word except a few slang words he picked up from the sailors as he was coming over in a sail ship." Rogers "How is he going to talk with the miners?" Smith "It is not necessary. The directors think it is better to have a superintendent that cannot get intimate with the men." Rogers "He is a great miner, I suppose." Smith "Not a bit of it. He does not know a pick from an anchor. He was brought up a silk-weaver. silk-weaver. He began to study the habits of silk worms and in this way got to be a bacteriologist." Rogers "Does he know anything about machinery?" ma-chinery?" Smith "Nothing beyond a miscroscope." Rogers "The Wise Guy is a very wet mine. They have to add a couple of steam pumps at every new level; the pitch of the mine is sharp and the ground is hard to hold; what will such fi superintendent superin-tendent do with such a property? He will depend upon his foreman I suppose." Smith "Not at all. Ho insists upon taking entire en-tire control and he proposes to put the undet-ground undet-ground workings in the hands of two or three other weavers that camo over in the ship with him." Rogers "Are the directors crazy?" Smith "No, they say that they have found out that the really effective men are those who know nothing of the business they undertake to run." Rogers "What about the stockholders, are they satisfied?" Smith "Oh, no, they are furious. A hundred of them waited on the directors yesterday to protest pro-test against the appointment." Rogers "What did the directors say?" Smith "They told the stockholders to mind their own affairs, that they were directors and would run the mine their way until the next annual election, which does not come off until next March." Rogers "How did the directors find this 1 chump?" Smith "He applied for the place through an. interpreter." in-terpreter." Rogers "What in the world led him to think he could direct the working of a great mine?" Smith "The interpreter explained that the man ha! applied for citizenship; that as soon as he could get his citizenship papers he wanted to be a can iidate for the United States Senate, that he had unHrstood that no one had so good a chance for that office as a mining superintendent and that if he ould be elected superintendent he would spend H his salary in giving entertainments." Rogers "Did the directors elect him on that H shosing?" H Smith "Yes, after several meetings in which H th- matter was all talked over." lagers "It is the strangest proceeding I ever htc a of." H nith "It is a trifle out of the ordinary. There H is mother queer feature about it. He was elected j lar Friday. On Saturday, Jones, one of the di- H ret, rs lifted the mortgage from his house. Per- H kin- another director, bought a new perfecting Prt - for his newspaper. Jensen, a third director, nt to town, got blind drunk and lost $4000 in a bra. r game. Von Switzer, another director, paid $70- i for a jjai interest in a sausage factory and Be De Pue, another, opened a wine store in Rag Bag Alley." Rogers "Does this man know anything about our country?" Smith "Nothing in the least." Rogers "Has he any appreciation of our free institutions?" Smith "Not the least. Indeed, he is a Mussulman Mussul-man and thinks all our people are "dogs of infidels. in-fidels. " Rogers "Why does he desire to be a Senator of the United States?" Smith "The interpreter says he has been told that it is the biggest thing he can get for the money." Rogers "But if he gets it what will he do in a body where he cannot speak a word of English?" Smith "Oh that does not worry him; he has been told that there are lots of them there who have no especial knowledge and who cannot speak intelligent English to save their lives." Rogers "Queer world this, Smith?" Smith "The queerest that a man ever saw. |