"Why, nobody pays no attention to them fellers' wind, Mr. West. You could buy them off for a hundred dollars, ten dollars down, and have them praising you three times a week for two hundred dollars, twenty-five dollars down. I only take the paper," said Mr. Neal, "because their Sunday is mighty convenient f'r packin' furniture f'r shipment."
The Chronicle was the only paper Mr. Neal ever thought of reading, and this was how he stabbed it in the back.
"I don't want to butt in, Mr. West," said he, rising, "and you can stop me if I am, but as a friend of yours—why are you botherin' yourself at all with this here kid's-size proposition?"
"What kid's-size proposition?"
"This little two-by-twice grammar school that tries to pass itself off for a college. And you ain't even boss of it at that! You got a gang of mossbacks sitting on your head who don't get a live idea among 'em wunst a year. Why, the archangel Gabriel wouldn't have a show with a lot of corpses like them! Of course it ain't my business to give advice to a man like you, and I'm probably offendin' you sayin' this, but someway you don't seem to see what's so plain to everybody else. It's your modesty keeps you blind, I guess. But here's what I don't see: why don't you come out of this little hole in the ground and get in line?"
"In line?"
"You're dead and buried here. Now you mention the Evening Windbag that nobody pays no more attention to than kids yelling in the street. How about having a paper of your own some day, to express your own ideas and get things done, big things, the way you want 'em?"
"You mean the Post?"
"Well, the editor of the Post certainly would be in line, whereas the president of Blaines Grammar School certainly ain't."
"What do you mean by in line, Plonny?"