Edwin Balmer

“ There had been a difficulty with the expense account which necessitated travelling, not in cab which is only half as dear as automobile, but in cable-car which is awful indeed. A break-down in cable-car is quite as routine as in automobile but can never be fashionable; moreover the population misses by a shade or two the nicety of really refined gasoline.
My particular cable-car, however, was so comparatively deserted that I had quite one strap to myself till a huge gentlemen clamped hands and feet over mine and—following the custom in Chicago cable-cars—passed a word for Municipal Ownership. ”

“ He seemed to be quoting. "Me and Dravie, what was Manasha the Resusticator; up-to-date millionaire prophets we was. Right here we settled it, you setting there and giving us drinks. I'm Poachey Cardigan and you—Oh Lordy, you've been lying around here ever since!"
"In reality only," I warned. "Constructively I've been lying in Seoul, Chemulpo, Vladivostok, Chefoo and a lot of other places. But never mind that. Where have you been?" ”

“ We come to a little place in the country where a lot of crazy people were trying to get together on one religion. No two of them were alike except they were all dissatisfied and they're fighting but, when we finds them at the one meeting house trying to see who'd run it. And Dravie sees the reason they all disagree is that nobody's afraid of anybody else and they can all understand what each other say so they have the nerve to say it's not so. Then Dan puts on his robes and stalks in, not speaking to anybody when they speak to him but knocking over them in his way. ”

“ When a man has money, the only account he can't afford to pay is that of the Club; but when he hasn't it, the Pressed Club demands are the only ones he can afford to settle. It gives him a ready refuge where the talk is never sordid and even if he finds it advisable to bring thither creditors, met on the way, converse there is on too lofty a plane to ever become embarrassing. Moreover, if the creditor is too reminiscent, the Club furnishes excellent facilities for pleasantly and cheaply liquidating Liabilities. ”

“ You must be more careful."
"Neither drunk nor careless," denied Dravie. "Prophets we'll be—what else is there for us. We've never been in any one place except jail long enough to get anything out of politics—though jail ain't a real handicap in Chicago, We haven't any capital; we haven't a cent—haven't even a bank reference. We've played out every mere worldly graft. We can't work and we can't work anything that isn't liable to be investigated these days. So there's nothing else open but the Heavenly graft. We're going to be prophets—the only question is which?"
"Which prophet?" ”

“ Down by the court house are about a thousand people getting personal injury damages from the city and street cars. He goes into the street and hollers but they think he's advertising a dental parlor and no one stops. He hollers louder and waves his arms, and some thinks he's advertising a new Garden and some Germans stop. Then he cusses them and calls them beasts and swine so that at last everybody knows he's a modern prophet and that's the modern introduction to salvation and they all stops. ”

“ Said he was a better prophet than Dravie because he did it without the hair. Say; have you ever walked a hundred miles with a shoe full of stones? Old Poachey, he was one big shoe full of stones all over. He walked and walked and all along the road Dan Dravie said "Don't get drunk yet, Poachey; it's big; it's big." And though he was tired, though he was powerful tired, never, never did Poachey put down the prophet. You knew Manasha the Prophet, didn't you, Sir? ”

“ Them that haven't got their damages yet, he pulls out of their chairs and cures them; and they have to say he's a great prophet too, though they don't want to.
"But a man with really something the matter comes along; and Dravie, seeing him first, cries out that he feels a poor, diseased sinful brother is drawing nigh who can't be healed as he lacks faith; and he's right, he can't be healed. So Manasha makes good there too. ”

“ It's shameful what they spend in tobacco, so he forbids it to 'em and they give the prophet the cost. What they spend on liquor is disgraceful, so they have to stop that and give him the price. And that was better than selling them the liquor in monopoly as he thought first of doing because now we make one hundred instead of only ninety-five per cent, on the traffic. He discourages kissing and engagement rings—having no jewelry store—but advises adding the price of the diamond to the fee. When they build their houses, Dravie blesses them all on a sliding scale ”

“ In a newspaper office events obliterate each other. A great person could not be found or could not be lost or developed, some other incapacity which demanded some thousands of ems per day. It was only at the end of the month when I wondered who had written in six Martinis and Manhattans over my signature, that I recalled my indiscretion at the Club. ”

“ And as I fastened my watch to both key chains, I was inclined to agree with him.
"Did you say you were getting back down-town soon?" he asked.
"As soon as I can get a car," I replied.
"Do you think you can make it by night?" he said. "I must get word to him then. Mine is urgent business. It's this way. I didn't expect him till the twenty-ninth, but this time he got ten days off for good conduct. That means he'll be at the Magnolius Hotel to-night."
"The name?" said I.
"How should I know? But he can't get an alias for his figure. He ain't more than five feet six and stout. ”

“ And is there ten per cent. missed? We must have got that for we owned the stores and sold 'em everything. And Poachey Cardigan, he can't see what else we can get after getting one hundred per cent.; but he ain't the prophet. He says, "Now Dan, will you get out? If we get any more, it'll be tainted." But still he wouldn't as he should later on—but did not.
"Poachey Cardigan, he didn't have a prophetic insight; for after he thought he had everything, having only one hundred per cent., Dravie got 'em to give back everything—all the land he sold them and the houses they built on it. ”

“ That me and you be prophets together, or me with you or you with me. helping or any other way as pays best; and that me and you will do anything, even up to doing as we should, to do this.
"Three. That me nor you shall not be prophet unto himself for more than fifty per cent—whoever's prophet, me and you always getting half.
(Signed) Poachey Cardigan. Dan Dravie. " "Now," said Cardigan, "the only question is who we want? A good man's half the prophet. ”

“ As everyone knows, country newspapers pay illy for space but pictures require much space and little exertion. So, after buying the old sample stocks of small photographers, we supply the rural press with scores of likenesses (seldom two alike) whenever anything happens to celebrities—and sometimes when we merely say something happens. ”

“ We haven't any street railways wanting franchises or a gas works wanting a charter; there's no water-works big enough to make it worth his while and we ain't going to put in a subway or drainage system. ”