San Diego, Mar 7. (AP) An unusual patch of Bermuda grass discovered
growing in one of the city parks' flower beds here today caused an
excited flurry among observers. Reaching to a height of nearly four
feet and defying all efforts of the park gardeners to uproot it, the
vivid green interloper reminded fearful spectators of the plague
which over ran Los Angeles two years ago. Scientists were
reassuring, however, as they pointed out that the giantism of the
Los Angeles devil grass was not transmissible by seed and that no
stolons or rhizomes of the abnormal plant had any means of traveling
to San Diego, protected as it is by the band of salt confining the
Los Angeles growth.
I was even more confident, for I had seen with my own eyes the shoots
grown by Miss Francis from seeds of the inoculated plant. A genuine
freak, this time, I thought, and promptly forgot the item.
Would have forgotten it, I should say, had I not an hour later received
a telegram, RETURN INSTANTLY CAN USE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF NEW GRASS
LEFFACASE. I knew from the fact he had only used nine of the ten words
paid for he considered the situation serious.
The answer prompted by impulse would, I knew, not be transmitted by the
telegraph company and on second thought I saw no reason why I should not
take advantage of the editor's need. Business was slack and I was
overworked; a succession of petty annoyances had driven me almost to a
nervous breakdown and a vacation at the expense of the New Los Angeles
_Daily Intelligencer_ sounded pleasantly restful after the serious work
of grappling with industrial affairs. Of course I did not need their
paltry few dollars, but at the moment some of my assets were frozen and
a weekly paycheck would be temporarily convenient, saving me the bother
of liquidating a portion of my smaller investments.
Besides, if, as was barely possible, this new growth was in some
unbelievable way an extension of the old, it would of course ruin our
sales of pemmican to the tourists and it behooved me to be on the spot.
I therefore answered: CONSIDER DOUBLE FORMER SALARY WIRE TRANSPORTATION.
Next day the great transcontinental plane pouterpigeoned along the
runway of the magnificent New Los Angeles airport.
I was in no great hurry to see the editor, but took a taxi instead to
the headquarters of the American Alpinists Incorporated where there was
frank worry over the news and acknowledgment that no further
consignments of pemmican would be accepted until the situation became
more settled. I left their offices in a thoughtful mood. Pausing only to
wire Fles to unload as much stock as he could--for even if this were
only a temporary scare it would undoubtedly affect the market--I finally
drove to the _Intelligencer_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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