he warning note sounded by Mrs. Fallows at the beginning of the oil boom was echoed by many before the summer was over. The coldest thing in the world is an exhausted enthusiasm, and when weeks slipped into months, and notes fell due, and the bank became cautious about lending money, a spirit of distrust got abroad, and a financial frost settled upon the community.
Notwithstanding these conditions, “The Opp Eagle” persistently screamed prosperity. It attributed the local depression to the financial disturbance that had agitated the country at large, and assured the readers that the Cove was on the eve of the greatest period in its history.
[p268]
“The ascending, soaring bubble of inflated prices cannot last much longer,” one editorial said; “the financial flurry in the Wall Streets of the North were pretty well over before we become aware of it, in a major sense. ‘The Opp Eagle’ has in the past, present, and future waged noble warfare against the calamity jays. Panic or no panic, Cove City refuses to remain in the backgrounds. There has been a large order for job-work in this office within the past ten days, also several new and important subscribers, all of which does not make much of a showing for hard times, at least not from our point of looking at it.”
But in the same issue, in an inconspicuous corner, were a couple of lines to the effect that “the editor would be glad to take a load of wood on subscription.”
The truth was that it required all of Mr. Opp’s diplomacy to rise to the occasion. The effort to meet his own obligations was becoming daily more [p269] embarrassing, and he was reduced to economies entirely beneath the dignity of the editor of “The Opp Eagle.” But while he cheerfully restricted his diet to two meals a day, and wore shirt-fronts in lieu of the genuine article, he was, according to Nick’s ideas, rashly extravagant in other ways.
“What did you go and buy Widow Green’s oil-shares back for?” Nick demanded upon one of these occasions.
“Well, you see,” explained Mr. Opp, “it was purely a business proposition. Any day, now, things may open up in a way that will surprise you. I have good reason to believe that those shares are bound to go up; and besides,” he added lamely in an undertone, “I happen to know that that there lady was in immediate need of a little ready money.”
“So are we,” protested Nick; “we need every cent we can get for the paper. If we don’t get ahead some by the first of the year, we are going under, sure as you live.”
Mr. Opp laid a hand upon his shoulder [p270] and smiled tolerantly. “Financiers get used to these fluctuations in money circles. Don’t you worry, Nick; you leave that to the larger brains in the concern.”