P. S. Once More. Well Mr. Edgerton called up and I met him at the restaurant but he was scared to speak to me he is being shadowed all the time by these mysterious enemies. He signed for me to follow him and I seen that something was wrong so I followed and we dodged about a while till we was sure there was nobody following and then he went to a big art gallery and we sat there and talked. He said that was a private enough place because nobody that had to do with politics in Washington would ever go into no place like an art gallery.
Well I have found about the stories and what went wrong. He says that my economy stories was the awfulest flop that ever had went out from the great white house and it has put him in the awfulest hole and most ruined him with the Spokesman. He says it was not the Bolshivikis at all but it was the business men no sooner did they see that story in the papers than they run bear-headed and wild-eyed to the nearest telegraft office and in the first two hours they had a hundred and forty-seven telegrams of protest mostly from millinery manufacturers and associations of cloak and suit dealers and they all wanted to know whether the Spokesman had gone mad or was the Bolshivikis conspiring to get Him to ruin the retail trade of the country. Here the Spokesman had promised them prosperity and they had put up I forget how many millions to elect Him, and now He goes and gives them this jab in the solar plexus.
And Mr. Edgerton says it was something awful the panic in the big white house because the Spokesman had gone out for a walk with His four secret service men that is hired to pull Him out from under automobiles and they couldn’t find Him and they begun telephoning to places on the way to look for Him and so there was a report that the Bolshivikis had blowed Him up and somebody called out all the fire-engines in the city. But at last they got hold of Him and the contradiction was sent out quick but not before eleven manufacturers in the Eastern states alone had gone into bankruptcy and that is why they had to make it a dozen suits the Spokesman had bought in the hope to save the wholesale trade.
And Mr. Edgerton says that poor Mr. Grandaddy Prows sent a heart-broken cablegram from the ship that he is sailing on to Europe because he is sure that it is an effort to ruin the department-store business and to punish him because he let the camelephant out of the stable. And Senator Buttles is furious too because he makes linings for ladies hats in one of his mills but he is glad too because he hates Mr. Edgerton because he can’t bear to have nobody but him telling the Spokesman what to say to the American people. But Mr. Edgerton says what would Senator Buttles know to say because he has got only one idea in the whole world and that is a ten percent reduction in the wages of his mill-hands.
Gee Mom it is terrible to be in a mix-up like this I had no idea that high life was so complicated and for the first time I am doubting whether I am big enough for my job. Just think of it to save the situation they have had to send out another story to say that the cost of keeping up the Spokesman’s private yacht that is really a ship of the navy is two hundred thousand dollars a year and so everybody can see that He lives like a Gentleman of His high Station had ought to do.
Well I seen that Mr. Edgerton was so blue I hated to tell him any more troubles but I thought that he should know about how I had spoke to that feller that has been following us and how he had walked home with me. I said that some time the feller would of been bound to of found out where I lived and Mr. Edgerton said that was right. And he said that he would not give a whoop about it because the truth was he was sick of his job and anybody that wanted it could have it for the price of ten cents. And he would go and get a job with some big business where a feller could do what he pleased and not have somebody snooping on him all the time. Of course I tried to cheer him up I told him how he must think about the plain people and he said something about the plain people that was not nice for a lady to hear and him sitting right in front of one of them Eyetalian madonnas in the art-gallery too.
I went home very sad and lonely and without no dinner and gee Mom what should I run into at home? Mrs. Budd that is my landlady must of been watching for me for she come running out and of course I was scared I wonder if I will ever get so that I do not jump when I see a landlady coming at me. But it wasn’t to get her money this time but to tell me that there has been a lady here looking for me about a half an hour ago.
“A lady?” I says. “What sort of a lady?”
“A large soft lady,” she says, “a real sure enough one a swell looker.”