any, and to the salving of their properties in the
interests of the creditors. His present prominence grows out of the
signal skill and ability with which he has done this work; and he must
prove a great factor in the city's future development, as he has been in
its past. Mr. Hinckley, the third member of the syndicate, now far
advanced in years, is living happily with his daughter and her husband.
The fourth, Mr. Cornish, resides in Paris, where he is well known as a
daring and successful financial operator. He, of all the syndicate,
retired from the Lattimore enterprises rich.

"There have been years when the names of these men were not held in the
respect and esteem they deserve. The town was going backward. People who
had been rich were, many of them, in absolute distress for the
necessaries of life. And these men, in a vague sort of way, were blamed
for it. Now, however, we can begin to see the wisdom of their plans and
the vastness of the scope of their combinations. Nothing but the element
of time was wanting, abundantly to vindicate their judgment and
sagacity. The industries they founded succeeded as soon as they were
divorced from the real-estate speculation which unavoidably entered into
their management at the outset. It is regrettable that their founders
could not share in their success."

"Nothing but the element of time," said I to Captain Tolliver, who sat
by me in the car as I read this editorial, "prevents the hot-air balloon
from carrying its load over the Rockies."

"Nothing but luck," said the Captain, "evah could have beaten us. It was
the Fleischmann failure, and it was nothing else. As to the great
qualities of Mr. Elkins, suh, the editorial puts it too mild by fah. He
was a Titan, suh, a Titan, and we shall not look upon his like again.
This town at this moment is vegetating fo' the want of some fo'ceful
Elkins to put life into it. The trilobites, as he so well dubbed them,
ah in control again. What's this Auditorium we've built? A good thing
fo' the city, cehtainly, a ve'y good thing: but see the difficulty, the
humiliatin' difficulty we had, in gettin' togethah the paltry and
trivial hundred and fifty thousand dolla's! Why in that elder day, in
such a cause, we'd have called a meetin' in that old office of Elkins &
Barslow's, and made it up out of ouah own funds in fifteen minutes. It's
the so't of cattle we've got hyah as citizens that's handicappin' us;
but in spite of this, suh, ouah unsu