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Show tJOHN brand 1 fiB i' : -M O FAR as things political go, Pat Jf A O'Brien owns the town. So far f I as the railroad goes, and that V V Is to the jumplng-off place in the JV Pacific ocean, Joe Dale owns the fT"; railroad. Dale's railroad moves uncl has a large part of its being '! I 'n O'llrlen's town. Soon or late (JJp these two men were sure to war I dVT i for HllPi'einacy in the town, and I tJli- J this Is the story of how it hap-fjhv.m.r hap-fjhv.m.r pened. The people of the town and the stockholders of the railroad rail-road don't come into the story at all. They only furnished the sinews of war, which fact Is abundant abun-dant proof that the story Is true. Pat O'Brien's town calls him the cardinal. In a moment of angry defeat, a silk-stockinged enemy, ene-my, too polite to liken Pat to the devil, sourly dubbed him a second Cardinal Richelieu. The name tickled the town's fancy, and it stuck. The cardinal didn't mind. He was too busy to cavil at mere names. His business as a stockbroker stock-broker grew with the town, he had for customers men like John, the son and henchman of Joe Dale, and when John bought and sold stocks it was to be supposed that the cardinal profited through Inside knowledge. Other business friends wero powerful and their friendship financially was worth while. Colonel Legarde, who controls the Superior railroad. Is also president of the Interstate Electric railway, an electric road, with terminals and local lines in the town. The electric elec-tric road needed many political favors and the cardinal obtained them for It, or for his friend Colonel Legarde. Really there was no other way to get anything. Unless and until Pat nodded his head there was nothing doing, for the town council fed out of his hand and state legislators followed out his orders. Pat O'Brien waxed rich. But one generation away from the "ould sod" his clothes spelled American business man, but his neckties faded I7f I I ' ' n i (mm .fe-fr K i e(C3 KtLLffYO (2 COmfPto Off1 (M NIPPER. -STOCK-" the solar spectrum to a neutral tint, and marked the politician who bought and sold franchises and dealt out jobs at will. Knowing the times to talk and to keep silence, a loyal friend arid a deadly dead-ly enemy, he made money for his stock-dabbling customers, serenely grafting his political way as the surest means to a desired end, and was worth a million and a half, at least. He owned the town. As John Dale's business of owning the railroad grew greater and more complex, he was more and more away from Lacedaemon for that is better Greek than the real name of the town, anyhow It became necessary for him to ask favors of the cardinal, and the favors were given with open hand. Dale found it necessary, too, to have a daily local organ and a voice wherewith to fool the people. He bought the Daily Planet Publish- v lug company, and made Pat O'Brien president. Dale regarded the presidency a reward for favors received and a final binding of the iown boss to his chariot tail. The cardinal knew that Pollock, the editor, received all his orders from Dale, and regarded the presidency as something of a joke. Grown to full stature among the other railroad kings, ruling had become a habit with Joe Dale. He made and unmade towns and the people in them at will,, and expected no other interest in-terest than Joe Dale's to be thought of,' or moved in, or lived for by any one connected with him. Sometimes he mistook his man, as when, one day he went into the office of one of his eminent and well-paid legal aids and found the lawyer dead to the outside world nd Joe Dale's bust ness In a volume of Balzac. .- The railroad king blew up. "I don't pay you to read dum French novels," he roared. The lawyer law-yer looked at him a long moment. "Mr. Dale," he finally said, "You pay me for what I know, not what I do. I'll read dum French novels" crescendo "or do any other dum thing" forto "any dum time or any dum place" fortissimo for-tissimo "I dum please!" ending with a Wagnerian bang on the table. Whereupon Joe Dale changed the subject. Dale thought he owned the president of the Daily Planet company, but .the cardinal had other thoughts about the matter. Colonel Legarde wanted a new franchise for an extension of the Interstate toa summer resort, some 30 miles away. The proposed extension would pass through another town or two on its way to the lake and would parallel Joe Dale's steam road. Now Joe Dale and the colonel were bitterly at. outs over various grabbings and snatchings each had made at the other's magnateship. The cardinal car-dinal could not see that this concerned him at all The extension would be a benefit and a convenience to the town. There was money in It for him. The deal was on. Then Joe Dale came from New York and sent for the cardinal. The two men faced each other with the eyes of poker players in a game, keen, deep, unfathomable. For the rest, it might have been a whiskered farmer in his Sunday suit meeting a city man. otherwise correctly clad, wearing a red, red ascot tie. "I hear." said Dale, "That the Interstate people peo-ple want a franchise for that foolish summer re 6ort extension of theirs." "I hear so too," the cardinal replied. "Well, let's cut it short. They can't get it." "The extension would be a good thing for the town, Mr. Dale." "I don't want it. It parallels my road. Your city council must refuse the franchise." Here was no slushy talk or thought of the rights of people peo-ple or of stockholders. It was "my road," and "your council." The cardinal was undisturbed. "The people want it, Mr. Dale," he said, "It will be a great convenience for travel between the towns and the lake." Dale measured his man again. There were the cool, unfathomable eyes, the correct clothes, the red tie. The red necktie settled it. O'Brien was only a cheap politician after all. He must be shown. "You know, O'Brien, the Planet will oppose this thing to the bitter end, and you are the president of the Dally Planet Publishing company. com-pany. It will place you In a nasty light." This was no news to the cardinal, and his eyes were ncc;s ton cd to nasty lights. But he said, in the i - .. ,., :, n an who haif surrenders: "I hadn't i . 'v t " V I . gnns were spiked. He had no. other local means of attacking the franchise or the cardinal, and any way the deed was done. All wondered what he would do. They didn't wonder long. As fast as a railroad rail-road king can get over the rails, Joe Dale came to Lacedaemon. He almost literally threw the Daily Planet out of Its office windows, murdered it ' and jumped on its corpse. He fired Pat O'Brien from the presidency with force and arms. It would have been tragic, if everybody had not been grinning grin-ning at Dale's futile wrath, As it was, the only satisfaction the irate railroad king got out of It was to tell a few party leaders who besought him to continue the paper or sell, that he would let the Western Associated press' franchise expire ex-pire rather than see another fool paper like that in Lacedaemon. Even this small satisfaction satisfac-tion was lessened when Pollock insisted on his - salary being continued to the end of an iron-clad four-year contract. Mr. Dale went back to New York with new ideas about city bosses and their ways. The episode, for it was only an episode in the life of busy Lacedaemon, was soon almost forgotten. forgot-ten. The cardinal had shown Joe Dale that he was boss of the town. Joe Dale had chopped off the cardinal's presidential head in retaliation. , John Dale continued his business friend and customer, cus-tomer, and the whole affair was dismissed from the cardinal's busy mind as closed, with honors even. ... But Joe Dale was not through with Pat O'Brien. It is a railroad king's prerogative to punish, as well as to reward, and for the punishment punish-ment of O'Brien, Dale laid a trap the effectiveness effective-ness of which lay entirely in its simplicity. Came John Dale one day to the cardinal and said: "Pat, I have a private tip that a big killing kill-ing is coming off in Nipper stock. Buy me ten thousand at the market and hold on until I tell you to let go." ' All right," said the cardinal, and bought another an-other ten thousand as well for his own account. Nipper advanced a point. He called in a few chosen friends who formed a pool and Invested heavily. Nipper advanced two points, five points Pat bought more; he would pull out when John Dale did and retire from active business with his profits. John Dale himself had gone to New York on the day he gave his order to O'Brien. Within a day Nipper began to sag. Then it dropped below tiie buying point. The pool put up more margins. mar-gins. The stock still dropped, swiftly now, and the other members of the pool became alarmed. Pat reassured them. They're shaking out the small blocks of stock," he said, "Then you'il see her sky-rocket." Nipper continued to toboggan. Pat's friends were seriously concerned. They talked of selling sell-ing and pocketing their losses, but he showed them his hand. 'Look here," he said. "John Dale is in- this thing up to his neck and we know where he gets - his private tips. Here's what he has on my books alone. As long as he holds on and keeps up his margins, I'm satisfied." His friends knew the cardinal; they knew he, too. was "up to his neck;" they held on. Suddenly Nipper went down like mercury in blizzard weather. The friends were wildly alarmed. They insisted that John Dale was giving Dick the "double cross." Though he did not believe be-lieve it, he wired to New York for special and private investigation of John Dale's movements there. And after a little delay tidings came that made the pool-sharers very sick men. John Dale had gone to New York, had a short talk with his father, then gone straightway to his broker and sold short ten thousand Nipper at the market. The profits on the sale as the-stock went down would pay his losses on the Lacedaemon purchase Meanwhile Joe Dale would see to it that Nipper did go down until Pat O'Brien was utterly swamped. Of course the pool made haste to sell out. John Dale's private tip had been a prophecy. A killing had been made and O'Brien and his friends were the slaughtered ones. When the debris was finally final-ly swept up the cardinal, who had plunged fiercely fierce-ly on his own private account, found himself poor er by some $750,000. It had cost him that much to disobey the mandate of a railroad king But be still owns Lacedaemon. "Pollock will roast j'ou," the magnate went on, "Of course he can't do it by name, but he will do you up. You must block this franchise. I Insist on it, as your friend." "Well, Mr. Dale, Colonel Legarde is my friend too," continued the cardinal. "The extension will parallel my road. You must stop it," snapped Dale, irritated by the mention men-tion of his enemy's name. He cared nothing about the extension itself, but that Colonel Legarde Le-garde wanted it was enough to make him fight the franchise. O'Brien knew this as the real reason rea-son and went on deliberately. "It will be a hard thing to do. Colonel Legarde Le-garde is popular " This second mention of Legarde was too much tor the temper of the railroad king. He blew up. "Dum Legarde!" he shouted. "You block that franchise or you won't be president of the Planet Plan-et company long." "Hold on, Mr. Dale. Don't get hostile. I'd no idea you were so dead set against this thing." "Well, I am. And I don't want to have to tell you about it again." "You won't have to." the cardinal assured him, and departed, well satisfied with the fact that he had made Dale too mad to see that no promise prom-ise had been given to block the obnoxious franchise. fran-chise. Joe Dale went back to New York convinced thfit he had shown the man with the red necktie neck-tie it was not safe for Joe Dale's men to fool , with the Dale buzz saw. Apparently he had, for when the franchise came before the council it was chewed over, chewed up, delayed, tabled, taken ta-ken up again, juggled with, side tracked and everything but killed outright. Public interest in It lagged. Pollock of the Planet, his fears soothed by the parliamentary acrobatics which he thought were only O'Brien's method of "saving face," took himself and his loaded editorial pen to New York on business. This was the cardinal's time, and he acted quickly. At the next meeting of the city council the franchise was rushed through. But this was not all. In the absence of Pollock the president of the Planet company assumed authority, and the morning after, out came the Planet with news descriptions of the Interstate extension, scare-head, scare-head, first page, and double-leaded Indorsement of the council's action, the need of Lacedaemon for the proposed road and the many benefits it would bring to the city, on the editorial page. The people peo-ple read and marveled. Some laughed and others oth-ers of the knowing ones looked scared. Dale's |