Argosy, Vol. 85, No. 3 — page 161: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

FIGHTING THE EGG KING. It seemed as though the world’s produc- tion of potatoes was being emptied into the building. Karby’s agents penetrated the country to its depths. Motor-cars had driven them into localities where the food shortage and the speculator had not set foot, and they were able to buy at prices far under those demanded by wholesalers in the cities. Karby himself marveled at the miles which these provisions were covering to reach him. Without being conscious of it he had whipped together a wonderful organization. And not alone potatoes came flooding into his place. Every known popular and necessary edible which mankind caters to, came in superabundance. Of course, the town soon began to wonder about the project. The press sent reporters in droves to interview fore- men, laborers, superintendents, con- tractors, but Karby himself had given no information to a single soul, and therefore they could divulge nothing. Rumor and idle gossip and speculation ran high. The newspapers supplied fic- tion where facts were lacking, and by pub- lishing something which was not true, tempted Karby to state his real purpose —a trick of the press, by the way—but Karby only smiled and held his peace. He meant to open his great relief store, as he called it, on a Monday morning, and the preceding Sunday he intended to carry a brief but glaring ad in the papers of the town, stating his list of prices and his purpose in selling at cost or below. The whole gigantic affair was to be a loss to Karby from beginning to end. Financiers would have stood back appalled at the idea, and had they seen his expense accounts and compared them with his intended selling prices, they would have succumbed to emotion or voted Karby a subject for an asylum. © Karby forgot no detail. As the time approached to divulge his great scheme, he employed a corps of detectives and upon their advice procured the services of two hundred special deputies. His money 503 brought certain politicians to exert their power which made the deputies possible. These deputies guarded the building day and night. It was a necessary pre- caution. Food manipulators were none too exacting about the means they em- ployed, and Karby was_ advised that once his scheme was out and the finer points of his great plan were discovered, the rage of the speculators would soar and they might possibly stoop to force to thwart his scheme. Meantime his detectives were busy taking such steps as would prevent spec- ulators’ agents invading the store when it did open and buying up the foodstuffs. On Friday the building was an arsenal of provisions. And it was on this Friday about four o’clock that the storm broke. Karby had returned to the hotel early _and was sitting at his desk framing the advertisement which he desired for the Sunday press, when Mason, one of his clerks, entered and informed him that a delegation of six men desired to see him, that they would present no cards and appeared to be the gloomiest, surliest group of individuals he had ever seen. Karby sent out a detective to explain that he was.at present engaged and would be unable to see them. He also ordered the detective to discover if possible some- thing of their identities and to refuse to book them for any interview, as he didn’t wish to argue his position to anybody. The detective returned, sweltering. He declared he had never put in such a ten minutes, that the six had nearly torn him to pieces and he had only got rid of them by threatening to call for help and have them ejected forcibly from the suite. He also reported that the big man of the assemblage was Truxton, the egg king, and that he had with him a man named Macavey, his secretary, and a farmer whom the detective discovered was presi- dent of one of the granges. Another of the men was proprietor of a large whole- sale house in the city, and the remaining two he could find nothing about. From that moment on Karby was more CO DOOK AMUC C©