"Meat's not healthy this damp weather," he suggested. "Cook something light."
"It'll be darned light," said Jap. "There's one tater."
"No bread?" asked Ellis.
"Give that scrap to the cat," Jap returned, "Doc Hall says she's done eat all the mice in town and if we don't feed her she'll be eatin' off'n the subscribers."
"Confound Doc Hall," stormed Ellis. "You take your orders from me. That bread, stewed with potato, would have made a dandy dish." He shook the form to settle it, and faced Jap.
"How did I come to pick this place?" he said slowly. "Well, Jap, it was the dirtiest deal a boy ever got. I had a little money after my father died. I wanted to invest it in a newspaper, somewhere in the West, where the world was honest and young. I had served my apprenticeship in a dingy, narrow little New England office, and I thought my lifework was cut out for me. I had big dreams, Jap. I saw myself a power in my town. With straw and mud I wanted to build a town of brick and stone. Dreams, dreams, Jap, dreams. Some day you may have them, too."
He let his lean form slowly down into a chair. Jap braced himself against the table as the narrative continued:
"In Hartford I met Hallam, the man who started the Bloomtown Herald. I heard his flattering version. I inspected his subscription list and studied the columns of his paper, full of ads. I bought. The subs were deadheads, the ads—gratuitous, for my undoing. It was indeed straw and mud, and, lad, it has remained straw and mud." He leaned his head on his hand for a moment.
"That was the year after you were born, Jap. I was only twenty-one. For a year I was hopeful; then I dragged like a dead dog. You will be surprised when I tell you what brought me to life again. I tell you this, boy, so that you will never despise Opportunity, though she may wear blue calico, as mine did.
"It was one dark, cold day. No human face had come inside the office for a week. That was the period of my life when I learned how human a cat can be. We were starving, the cat and me, with the advantage in favor of the cat. She could eat vermin. I sat by the table, wondering the quickest way to get out of it. Yes, Jap, the first and, God help me, the only time that life was worthless. The door opened and a plump woman dressed in blue calico, a sunbonnet pushed back from her smiling face, entered."