“This is my paper. So long as it is mine I’m going to try to run it. And if that man thinks he can threaten me with his old chattel mortgage, he’s going to wake up one bright morning to find his mistake. Maybe he can take this paper away from me, but until he does it’s mine.... You are working for me, Mr. Pell.” “Very gratifying.... In which case, if you mean what you say, and if I, with so many years wasted upon books, as you say, may offer a word of advice, this would be it: Find out who owns the Lakeside Hotel.” “What do you mean?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Protracted study of the various sciences may be folly, but it does train the mind to correct observation and in the ability to arrange and classify the data observed. It teaches how to move from cause to effect. It teaches that things which equal the same thing are equal to each other.” “What is the Lakeside Hotel?” “A resort of sordid reputation some three miles from town.” “And who owns it?” “Jonathan Bangs, colloquially known as Peewee, is the reputed owner.” “And what has that to do with Abner Fownes?” “That,” he said, “is a matter which has aroused my curiosity for some time.” CHAPTER V Carmel was not long in discovering Gibeon’s attitude toward advertising. The local merchants regarded it much as they did taxes, the _dull season_, so called (for in Gibeon’s business world there were only two seasons, the dull and the busy) and inventory sales. All were inevitable, in the course of nature, and things which always had and always would happen. One advertised, not with enthusiasm and in expectancy of results, but because men in business did advertise. Smith Brothers’ grocery bore reluctantly the expense of a four-inch double-column display which was as unchanging as the laws of the Medes and Persians. It stated, year in and year out, that Smith Brothers were the headquarters for staple and fancy groceries. The advertisement was as much a part of their business as the counter. The Busy Big Store was more energetic; its copy was changed every year on the 1st of January. Seven years before, Miss Gammidge let it be known through the columns of the _Free Press_ that she was willing to sell to the public millinery and fancy goods, and that statement appeared every week thereafter without change of punctuation mark. The idea that one attracted business by means of advertising was one which had not penetrated Gibeon, advertising was a business rite, just as singing the Doxology was an indispensable item in the service of the local Presbyterian church. It was done, as cheaply and inconspicuously as possible, and there was an end of it.