too bad to see good men trying to bunt a stone
wall over with their bare heads. You couldn't have won at any stage of
the game. I wish I could have talked to you and your friends before you
went into that Sacramento fight. I could have told you then how little
chance you had. When will you people realise that you can't buck against
the Railroad? Why, Magnus, it's like me going out in a paper boat and
shooting peas at a battleship."

"Is that all you wished to see me about, Mr. Genslinger?" remarked
Magnus, bestirring himself. "I am rather occupied to-day." "Well,"
returned the other, "you know what the publication of this article would
mean for you." He paused again, took off his glasses, breathed on them,
polished the lenses with his handkerchief and readjusted them on his
nose. "I've been thinking, Governor," he began again, with renewed
alertness, and quite irrelevantly, "of enlarging the scope of the
'Mercury.' You see, I'm midway between the two big centres of the State,
San Francisco and Los Angeles, and I want to extend the 'Mercury's'
sphere of influence as far up and down the valley as I can. I want to
illustrate the paper. You see, if I had a photo-engraving plant of
my own, I could do a good deal of outside jobbing as well, and the
investment would pay ten per cent. But it takes money to make money.
I wouldn't want to put in any dinky, one-horse affair. I want a good
plant. I've been figuring out the business. Besides the plant, there
would be the expense of a high grade paper. Can't print half-tones on
anything but coated paper, and that COSTS. Well, what with this and with
that and running expenses till the thing began to pay, it would cost
me about ten thousand dollars, and I was wondering if, perhaps, you
couldn't see your way clear to accommodating me."

"Ten thousand?"

"Yes. Say five thousand down, and the balance within sixty days."

Magnus, for the moment blind to what Genslinger had in mind, turned on
him in astonishment.

"Why, man, what security could you give me for such an amount?"

"Well, to tell the truth," answered the editor, "I hadn't thought much
about securities. In fact, I believed you would see how greatly it was
to your advantage to talk business with me. You see, I'm not going to
print this article about you, Governor, and I'm not going to let it get
out so as any one else can print it, and it seems to me that one good
turn deserves another. You understand?"

Magnus understoo