CHAPTER XXXVI
GOING, GOING, GONE!
Winn Hardy, agentle child when the hand of want was stretched out to him, but a lion in wrath at all iniquity and injustice, was not long in carrying out his thought to write the history of the Rockhaven Granite Company, and for the sole purpose of a warning.
To do so, came as an excuse to protect the pride of the poor girl who had been his co-worker; and when it was done, the editor to whom he took it gladly used it and, more than that, praised its writer editorially.
Winn, as was his nature, wrote with candor, sparing not even himself or the way he was duped, and it is needless to say that his article was widely read. Winn looked for no compensation, but the editor, keen to discover talent, at once offered him a position as city news reporter on the paper. And so his reward came. It was not over ample, so far as salary goes, but it was at least an occupation—what he just now needed.
One morning, when passing the closed office of Weston & Hill, he saw on the door a notice that, at two o'clock that afternoon, all the office fixtures and other assets of this bankrupt firm would be sold at public auction.
As Winn stood there that wintry morning, with the hurrying stream of people jostling him as they passed, while he read this business epitaph posted upon the massive doors, what a grim travesty it seemed!
He looked at the two nickel plates flanking them, once kept bright, but now tarnished, upon which the firm's name in bold black letters still stared at him, at the drawn curtains where "Investment Securities" in gold still uttered their lie; and gazing at these outward signs of deception and fraud, all the varying changes in his own hopes, plans, and opinions for a six months passed in review.
And in fancy he leaped back to Rockhaven.