“I’m running my paper as a business proposition,” growled the baited editor and owner of the ‘Bugle,’ “and I’m running it to suit myself and this community.” “You’re running it to suit the crooked and cruel advertisers who prey on this community,” retorted the other. “And you’ve served them further in the legislature, where you voted to kill the patent-medicine bill, last session, in protection of your own profits. Good profits, too. One third of all your advertising is medical quackery which takes good money out of this town by sheer swindling; money which ought to stay in town and be spent on the legitimate local products advertised in your paper. If I were a local advertiser, I’d want to know why.” “If that’s the case,” remarked Mr. Stanley Gryce, quick to catch the point, “I guess you owe my family seven dollars an’ a half, Silas, and till it’s paid up you can just drop my laundry announcement out of your columns.” “I guess I’ll stay out for a spell, too,” supplemented Mr. Corson, the hay and feed man. “For a week, my ad’s been swamped by Swamp Root so deep you can’t see it.” “While you’re about it,” added a third, “leave me out. I’m kinder sick of appearin’ between a poisonous headache powder and a consumption dope. Folks’ll be accusin’ me of seekin’ trade untimely.” This was greeted with a whoop, for the speaker was the local undertaker. “We’ve got a league for Clean Advertising in Worthington,” announced Mr. Clyde. “Why not organize something of the kind here?” “Help!” shouted the Honorable Silas, throwing up his hands. “Don’t shoot! I holler ‘Enough!’ As soon as the contracts are out, I’ll quit. There’s no money in patent-medicine advertising any more for the small paper, anyway.” “Well, we’ve done our evening’s chores, I reckon,” remarked the chairman. “A motion to adjourn will now be in order.” “Move we adjourn with the chorus of the ‘Hymn of Healing,’” piped the wag with the reedy voice, and the audience filed out, uproariously and profanely singing:— “Ye shall be healed! Ye shall be healed! Trust in the gospel advice. Cured by the herbs of the wood and the field; Healed without money or price.” “Well, young man,” said Grandma Sharpless, coming forward to join the Health Master, “you certainly carried out your programme.” “I?” said Dr. Strong, affectionately tucking the old lady’s arm under his. “To you the honors of war. I only squelched a quack. You taught Bairds-town’s self-coddling womanhood a lesson that will go down the generations.” “What I want to know,” said the Mayor, advancing to shake hands with Mrs. Sharpless, “is this: what’s a fussybuddy?” “A fussybuddy,” instructed Grandma Sharpless wisely, “is a woman who catches a stomach-ache from a patent-medicine almanac. What I want to know, Tom Allen, is what you had against the man. I seemed to get an inkling that you didn’t exactly like him.”