l move to Florida."

It was an ultimatum; Southern Californians heard and trembled. The last
time this dread interdiction had been invoked--in the midst of a bitter
election fight--it had sent them scurrying to the polls to do their
benefactor's bidding. Now indeed the grass menace would be taken
seriously.

The next day's paper had news of more immediate concern to me. The
governor had appointed a special committee to investigate the situation
and the first two witnesses to be called were Josephine Spencer Francis
and Albert Weener.

_20._ William Rufus Le ffacase was as enthusiastic as his phlegmatic
nature permitted. He called me into his office and half raised the
snuffbox off the desk as though to offer me an unwelcome pinch. "Youre a
made man now, Weener," he said, thinking better of his generosity and
putting the snuffbox back. "Your name will be in headlines from Alabama
to Alberta--and all due to the _Intelligencer_."

I would have resented this as a gross misappropriation of credit--for
surely all obligation was on the other side--had I not been deeply
disturbed by the prospect of being haled before this committee like a
criminal before the bar of justice.

"I'd much rather avoid this unpleasant notoriety, Mr. Le ffacase," I
protested. "Since the _Intelligencer_, for reasons best known to itself,
chooses not to avail itself of my contributions, but prints my name over
words I have not written, there could be no possible objection to my
slipping away to Nevada until this investigation ends."

His face became a pretty shade of plum. "Weener, youre a thief, a petty,
cadging, sly, larcenous, pilfering, bloody thief. You take the _Daily
Intelligencer_'s honest dollars without a qualm, aye, with a smirk on
your imbecile face, proposing with the cool impudence of the born
embezzler to return no value for them. Weener, you forget yourself. The
_Intelligencer_ picked you out of a gutter, a nauseous, dungspattered
and thoroughly fitting gutter, and pays you well, mark that, you
feebleminded counterfeit of a confidenceman, pays you well, not for your
futile, lecherous pawings at the chastity of the English language, but
out of the boundless generosity which only a newspaper with a great soul
can have. And what do you propose to do in gratitude? To run, to flee,
to hide from the expression of authority, to bring disgrace upon the
very newspaper whose munificence pumps life into your boneless,
soulless, gutless ca