Old Settler is a young tenderfoot who came here last spring and tried
to obtain a livelihood by selling an indestructible lamp-chimney. He did
well for several weeks by going to the different residences and throwing
one of his glass chimneys on the floor with considerable force to show
that it would not break. He did a good business till one day he made a
mistake. Instead of getting hold of his exhibition chimney, he picked
out one of the stock and busted it beyond recognition. Since that he has
been writing articles in violet ink relative to old times and publishing
them over the signature of Old Settler.
Old Subscriber is a friend of mine who reads his paper at the hotels
while waiting for a gratuitous drink. Fair Play is a retired monte man,
and Pro Bono Publico is our genial and urbane undertaker.
I am a very prolific writer, but all my work is not printed. A venal and
corrupt press at times hesitates about giving currency to such fearless,
earnest truths as I make use of.
I am also the man who says brave things in the columns of the papers
when the editor himself does not dare to say them because he is afraid
he will be killed. But what recks Veritas the bold and free? Does he
flinch or quail? Not a flinch; not a quail.
Boldly he flings aside his base fears, and with bitter vituperation he
assails those he dislikes, and attacks with resounding blows his own
personal enemies, fearlessly signing his name, Veritas, to the article,
so that those who yearn to kill him may know just who he is.
What would the world do without Veritas? In the hands of a horde of
journalists who have nothing to do but attend to their business, left
with no anonymous friend to whom they can fly when momentous occasions
arise, when the sound advice and better judgment of an outside friend
is needed, their condition would indeed be a pitiable one. But he will
never desert us. He is ever at hand, prompt to say, over his nom de
plume, what he might hesitate to say over his own name, for fear that he
might go home with a battle of Gettysburg under each eye and a nose like
a volcanic eruption. He cheerfully attacks everything and everybody, and
then goes away till the fight, the funeral, and the libel suit are
over. Then he returns and assails the grim monster Wrong. He proposes
improvements, and the following week a bitter reply comes from
Tax-Payer. Pro Bono Publico, the retired three-card-monteist, says: "Let
us have the proposed improvement, regardless of cost."
Then the cynical U. L. See (who is really the janitor at the blind
asylum) grumbles about useless expense, and finally draws out from
the teeming brain of Constant Reader a long, flabby essay, written
on red-ruled leaves, cut out of an old meat-market ledger, written
economically on both sides with light blue ink made of bluing and cold
tea. This essay introduces, under the most trying circumstances, such
crude yet original literary gems as:
Wad some power the giftie gie us, etc.
He also says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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