CHAPTER VIII TIMOTHY MARGRAVE MAKES A CHOICE
There was a tradition that no one had ever been black-balled in the Knights of Midas, so when Timothy Margrave got Wheaton's signature to an application for membership the cashier was beset by no fear of rejection. The citizens of Clarkson were indebted to Margrave for many schemes for booming their town. He lectured his fellow business men constantly about their lack of enterprise.
"Look at Kansas City," he would say at the club, bending forward ponderously on his fat knees, "they ain't got half the terminal facilities that we have, and there ain't any better country around 'em, but they're bigger than we are and ahead of us because they've got more hustle than we have; and hustle's what makes a town,—look at Chicago! But we've got a lot of salt mackerel business men here, so pickled in their brine of conservatism that they won't do anything. There's Billy Porter; when we want to raise money to help boom the town, I'm always dead sure that Billy will cough up, but you've got to show 'im;—tell 'im all about it, and he likes to play with you and guy you and rub it in before he puts his name down. Now he may be a safe banker and all that, but I say that there's such a thing as pushing conservatism too damned far. We're going to be a long time getting over the panic and we've got to give a strong pull and all pull together if we get in the procession." His voice rose as he proceeded. "Look at little Sioux City! busted wide open and knocked over the ropes, but here they come waltzing up again, as full of sass as a fox terrier with a flea on his tail. Talk about grit, the time a man wants to show that article's when he's busted. Any fool can be cheerful on a bull market."
Then he would settle himself back with an air of complacency, as if he had done all that he could do to arrest decay in the town; if his fellow citizens failed to rouse themselves it was not his fault. Margrave held no office in the Knights of Midas, but this was because he had learned by political experience that it was much simpler to lurk in the background and manipulate the men he placed in power. It was on this high principle that he built up the order of the Knights of Midas and directed its course from the office of the general manager of the Transcontinental. There was nothing incongruous to him in the annual ball, which was the only public social manifestation of the organization. It was he who directed that twenty members be chosen from the membership list each year, to conduct the purely social functions of the ball, and that these be taken in alphabetical order. Thus the Adamses and the Bakers and the Cummingses, who belonged in different constellations, found themselves in the same orbit. If they were unacquainted or were enemies of long standing, this did not trouble Margrave when the fact was brought to his notice. It was time, he said, that the people of Clarkson got together.
"We may as well get some work out of Jim Wheaton," he remarked to the grand chief of the Knights of Midas. "He's pretty solemn, but Jim was solemn when he was a kid and worked for me. Porter and Thompson have always been too slow for this earth and if we pull Wheaton in, it may wake up the old chaps so they'll do something besides sit on the fence and watch the rest of us hustle."
"See here," said Norton, the grand chief, "what's the matter with shoving him in for the king of the carnival? We've got to make a strong push this year to give tone to the show socially; that's the only way we can keep up the town interest. Having these jays come in from the country won't do any good unless we can hold these eminently respectable people who think they're Clarkson society."
"You're dead right on that point," said Margrave; "that's a big card with the jays,—they think they come to town and get right in the push and are tickled to pay ten dollars a ticket for a taste of high life. I tell you what we'll do, we'll get Porter to let his daughter appear as queen of the carnival, and if that ain't a big enough jolly, we can make Wheaton king. That's what I'd call giving the Clarkson National a run for its money. If Porter don't double his subscription on the strength of that—"
He looked at Norton and they both laughed.