My co-laborer, Mr. Tax-Payer, is an old contributor to the paper, but he is not really a taxpayer. He uses this signature in order to conceal his identity, just as I use the name Veritas. We have a great deal of fun over this at our regular annual reunions, where we talk about all our affairs.
Old Settler is a young tenderfoot who came here last spring and tried to obtain a livelihood by selling an indestructible lamp-chimney. He did well for several weeks by going to the different residences and throwing one of his glass chimneys on the floor with considerable force to show that it would not break. He did a good business till one day he made a mistake. Instead of getting hold of his exhibition chimney, he picked out one of the stock and busted it beyond recognition. Since that he has been writing articles in violet ink relative to old times and publishing them over the signature of Old Settler.
Old Subscriber is a friend of mine who reads his paper at the hotels while waiting for a gratuitous drink. Fair Play is a retired monte man, and Pro Bono Publico is our genial and urbane undertaker.
I am a very prolific writer, but all my work is not printed. A venal and corrupt press at times hesitates about giving currency to such fearless, earnest truths as I make use of.
I am also the man who says brave things in the columns of the papers when the editor himself does not dare to say them because he is afraid he will be killed. But what recks Veritas the bold and free? Does he flinch or quail? Not a flinch; not a quail.
Boldly he flings aside his base fears, and with bitter vituperation he assails those he dislikes, and attacks with resounding blows his own personal enemies, fearlessly signing his name, Veritas, to the article, so that those who yearn to kill him may know just who he is.
What would the world do without Veritas? In the hands of a horde of journalists who have nothing to do but attend to their business, left with no anonymous friend to whom they can fly when momentous occasions arise, when the sound advice and better judgment of an outside friend is needed, their condition would indeed be a pitiable one. But he will never desert us. He is ever at hand, prompt to say, over his nom de plume, what he might hesitate to say over his own name, for fear that he might go home with a battle of Gettysburg under each eye and a nose like a volcanic eruption. He cheerfully attacks everything and everybody, and then goes away till the fight, the funeral, and the libel suit are over. Then he returns and assails the grim monster Wrong. He proposes improvements, and the following week a bitter reply comes from Tax-Payer. Pro Bono Publico, the retired three-card-monteist, says: "Let us have the proposed improvement, regardless of cost."
Then the cynical U. L. See (who is really the janitor at the blind asylum) grumbles about useless expense, and finally draws out from the teeming brain of Constant Reader a long, flabby essay, written on red-ruled leaves, cut out of an old meat-market ledger, written economically on both sides with light blue ink made of bluing and cold tea. This essay introduces, under the most trying circumstances, such crude yet original literary gems as:
Wad some power the giftie gie us, etc.
He also says: