TIBERIUS SMITH
and beans. They'll think we're a godsend if we'll resurrect the old press and toss off the news once a week. I'll hire you now as associate editor.'
"‘But news!' I cried. 'Good Heavens! how can we get news?'
"‘To think,' he apostrophized the horizon, 'that he should lead that card after living with me all these years. Child'—and his voice took on the old histrionic ring—'we have forty-two years of history to drag on. They don't even know the Civil War is over. The old man is cloudy in his attic, and the present generation doesn't even know how long their people have been here. It is as if they had slumbered for half a century.
"‘Their neighbors can't read or write, never heard of the great conflict, and so have told them nothing. It's true they've heard in a vague way of the Spanish-American war, but they think it's a continuation of the Civil War. The battle of Gettysburg occurred yesterday; the name is new to 'em. Jeff Davis is fleeing towards Texas, and Sheridan is only twenty miles away.'
"The sublimity of it all dazed me. 'Will they nibble?' I whispered.
"‘Nibble!' He laughed. 'Why, they'll climb into the boat for the bait. This is a virgin field, a lost town. It will be like selling yesterday's extras in the moon. I can set type, or use to when a maiden,
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