"Certainly. Now, give me those telegraph blanks, and I'll drop him a few lines to let him know that the government at Raleigh still lives."
It is in the telegram alone that we Americans approach style. Our great commanders did much to form it; our business strategists took the key from them. "I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer" is not more admirable than "Cancel order our number six hundred and eighteen," or "Have drawn at sight." Through the most familiar and commonplace apparatus clicks and ticks the great American epic in phrases concise, unequivocal and apt. Von Moltke, roused at night with news of war, merely waved his hand to the long-prepared orders in his chiffonier and went to sleep again; but the great Prussian has his counterpart in the American magnate who ties up a railroad by telegraph over his after-dinner coffee. Telegrams were, however, with Mr. Thomas Ardmore, something more than a form of communication or a mere literary exercise. Letter-writing seemed to him the most formidable of human undertakings, but with a pad of telegraph blanks under his hand his spirit soared free. All untrammeled by the horror of the day tariff, whose steep slopes have wrought so much confusion and error among the economical, he gave to the wires and the wireless what he never would have confided to a stamp. He wrote and submitted to Miss Jerry Dangerfield the following:
To the Sheriff of Dilwell County,
Kildare, N. C.:What is this I hear about your inability to catch Appleweight and the rest of his bunch? Your inattention to your duties is a matter of common scandal, and if you don't get anxious pretty soon I shall remove you from your job and then some. I shall be down soon to see whether you are pitching quoits at the blacksmith shop or fishing for lobsters in Raccoon Creek, instead of attending to your knitting. Your conduct has annoyed me until I am something more than vexed by your behavior. The eyes of the great North State are upon you. Wire me at length just what you propose doing or not doing in this matter.
William Dangerfield,
Governor of North Carolina.
"What do you think of that?" he asked, his pride falling as she scanned the paper carefully.
"Isn't it pretty expensive?" Jerry inquired, counting the words to ten and then roughly computing the rest.
"I'll take care of that, Miss Dangerfield. What I want to know is whether you think that will make the sheriff sit up."
"Well, here's what father sent him only about a week ago. I found it in his private letter book, and it's marked confidential in red ink."
She read:
"'Act cautiously in Appleweight case. Indictment by grand jury is undoubtedly faulty and Foster threatens trouble in case parties are arrested.'
"And there's more like that! Papa never intended to do anything, that's as plain as daylight. Mr. Foster, the treasurer, comes from that county. He thought papa was going to have to do something, so he's holding back the payment of the state bonds just to frighten papa. You see, the state owes the Bronx Loan and Trust Company that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and if it isn't paid June first the state will be everlastingly disgraced."