his question had concluded. The other two
members of the committee seemed about to inquire further when the chief
managed to stammer, he was awfully sorry, gentlemen, but he had been
out of town and hadnt even heard of the oil till this moment.

He was instantly dismissed from the stand and a new witness, from the
mayor's office, was called, with no happier results. He, too, was about
to be excused when Dr Johnson, who represented Science on the committee,
descended from Himalayan abstraction to demand what effect the oil had
had on the grass.

There were excited whisperings and craning of feminine heads as Dr
Johnson propounded his question. The interest he excited was, however,
largely vicarious. For he was famous, not so much in his own right, as
in being the husband of the _Intelligencer_'s widely read society
columnist whose malapropisms caused more wry enjoyment and fearsome
anticipation than an elopement to Nevada.

"And what effect did the oil have on the grass?" he repeated.

The query caused confusion, for it seemed the committee could not
proceed until this fact had been ascertained. Various technicians were
sent for, and the doctor, tall, solemn and benign, looked over his
stiff, turned-down collar and the black string tie drooping around it,
as though searching for some profound truth which would be readily
apparent to him alone.

The experts discoursed at some length in esoteric terms--one even
bringing a portable blackboard on which he demonstrated, with diagrams,
the chemical, geologic and mathematical aspects of the problem--but no
pertinent information was forthcoming till some minor clerk in the
Department of Water and Power, who had only got to the stand through a
confusion of names, said boldly, "No effect whatever."

"Why not?" asked Judge Robinson. "Was the oil adulterated? Speak up,
speak up; don't mumble."

Henry Miller, the Southland's bestknown realtor ("Los Angeles First in
Population by Nineteen Ninety Nine"), who had connections in the oil
industry, as well as in citrus and walnut packing, frowned
disapprovingly. The clerk said he didnt know, but he might venture a
guess--

Senator Jones informed him majestically that the committee was concerned
with facts, not speculations. This created an impasse until Attorney
General Smith tactfully suggested the clerk might be permitted to guess,
entirely off the record. After the official stenographer had been
commanded sternly not to take