"Beautiful," the druggist agreed.
Walking back to the house Doak wondered if this couldn't be handled without punitive measures being taken. The only doctor in town and the president of the bank—and they were probably only a small part of the picture. It could disrupt this town if Senator Arnold had his way.
And what was their crime? Reading. A law as stupid as the ancient prohibition law had been, pushed through a bewildered Congress under much the same conditions. Supported by a strange blend of the divine and ridiculous, the naïve and the clever, the gullible and the knowing.
Well, was it his business? He didn't make the laws—he only helped to enforce them. It was a logical answer and why didn't it satisfy him?
He had a job, a good job at the public trough in a woman-heavy city, a security that was as solid as his country. Why should he fret over a gang of law-breakers? Unless it was that cow-town cutie, that Martha. Unless he was so dame-happy he'd sell out the Department. That corrupt he certainly wasn't—at least, not yet.
And they weren't readers anyway—they were publishers. He had almost forgotten that. Inciters to violence, instigators of strife, polluters of the mind ... Good Lord, he was beginning to sound like crack-brained ex-Senator Arnold!
V
Mrs. Klein was shaking out a rug on the front porch. She smiled at him. "Not much to do here, for a city man, is there?"
"I'm not bored," he said, "for some reason. You have a beautiful daughter, Mrs. Klein."
"I'd feel happier about her looks if she'd marry somebody," Mrs. Klein said dryly. "Seems to me they're wasted this way."