J. W. Coleman, publisher of the Effingham New Leaf, having conceived the idea that a string of local papers along the Central Branch, would be the motive power to land him in a fat political job, came here to negotiate with me for the Spectator. My paper was not for sale. The doctor and the political boys combined to persuade Mr. Coleman that a second paper would be preferable. It would seem the MD and PB’s did not want to crush me on the spot—or maybe it was their idea of one huge joke to let me die a slower death. In either event, it was the wedge that pried me loose from The Spectator. I sold to Coleman. I did not permit this to cause me to break with the Doctor and my political friends — as there was the outside chance that they might have been misquoted by the over-anxious purchaser. And then, too, it was not long before I really liked it. It afforded me time to give my full attention to other more congenial matters — for getting married, for instance. The wife said it was a great stroke of good luck for me. I had weathered one brief, and I may say clean siege of competition, which had proved that the town was not large enough to support two papers. P. L. Briney, with his two daughters, Bertha and Olive, wholly on their own—that is, without MD’s or PB’s moral support—established and published the Enterprise for about one year. Unable to make a go of it, Mr. Briney sold the whole outfit—exclusive of the girls, of course—to me for $125, his first asking price. Mr. Coleman did not last long enough here to do the political boys any good. He got off on the wrong foot in an early issue. He attended a recital given by Edith McConwell’s music pupils—and ridiculed it. Our people did not like to have their kiddies ridiculed—nor their music teacher either, who was once a kiddie here herself. However, after a few issues by Coleman, Art Sells, also of Effingham, took charge, and gave the people—not the politicians—a very satisfactory paper. Coleman gave up his political aspirations, sold his two papers, and took the job of City Editor for the Atchison Daily Globe. However, Coleman’s successor, W. F. Turrentine, held forth twenty years longer than the fourteen years that I had published the Spectator before giving up the ghost about five years ago. The idle plant is still in Wetmore.