nd fought among themselves for
possession of the United States of America. It is interesting to note
that in these struggles a certain chivalry was observed among the
combatants, no matter how bitter the rivalry: for instance, it was deemed
very bad form for one of the groups of combatants to take the public into
their confidence; cities were upset and stirred to the core by these
conflicts, and the citizens never knew who was doing the fighting, but
imagined that some burning issue was at stake that concerned them. As a
matter of fact the issue always did concern them, but not in the way they
supposed.

Gradually, out of the chaotic melee in which these titans were engaged
had emerged one group more powerful than the rest and more respectable,
whose leader was the Personality to whom I have before referred. He and
his group had managed to gain control of certain conservative fortresses
in various cities such as the Corn National Bank and the Ashuela
Telephone Company--to mention two of many: Adolf Scherer was his ally,
and the Boyne Iron Works, Limited, was soon to be merged by him into a
greater corporation still. Leonard Dickinson might be called his local
governor-general. We manned the parapets and kept our ears constantly to
the ground to listen for the rumble of attacks; but sometimes they burst
upon us fiercely and suddenly, without warning. Such was the assault on
the Ashuela, which for years had exercised an apparently secure monopoly
of the city's telephone service, which had been able to ignore with
complacency the shrillest protests of unreasonable subscribers. Through
the Pilot it was announced to the public that certain benevolent "Eastern
capitalists" were ready to rescue them from their thraldom if the city
would grant them a franchise. Mr. Lawler, the disinterestedness of whose
newspaper could not be doubted, fanned the flame day by day, sent his
reporters about the city gathering instances of the haughty neglect of
the Ashuela, proclaiming its instruments antiquated compared with those
used in more progressive cities, as compared with the very latest
inventions which the Automatic Company was ready to install provided they
could get their franchise. And the prices! These, too, would fall--under
competition. It was a clever campaign. If the city would give them a
franchise, that Automatic Company--so well named! would provide automatic
instruments. Each subscriber, by means of a numerical disk, could ca