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The essays in this collection originally appeared in The Washington Post, with the exception of “Will
It Be 1972 Forever?,” “The Pathology of Climatology,” “Where Is the Pencil Czar?,” “German
Resistance: Neither Negligible nor Contemptible,” and “George McGovern: He Came by the Horror
of War Honorably,” which originally appeared in Newsweek; and “Philipp Blom’s Nature’s Mutiny: An
Exemplary Book of 2019,” which originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
Image Credits: “Falling Soldier” by Robert Capa © International Center of Photography. “Jon Will at
Forty” © Victoria Will.
Copyright © 2021 by G.F.W. Inc.
Cover design by Terri Sirma
Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose
of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our
culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s
intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for
review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the
author’s rights.
Hachette Books
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
HachetteBooks.com
Twitter.com/HachetteBooks
Instagram.com/HachetteBooks
First Edition: September 2021
Published by Hachette Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book
Group, Inc. The Hachette Books name and logo is a trademark of the Hachette Book Group.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out
more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBNs: 978-0-306-92441-5 (hardcover); 978-0-306-92440-8 (ebook)
E320210823-DC-SIG-ORI
 Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
Section 1: The Path to the Present
From Runnymede to Stelle’s Hotel
A Nation Not Made by Flimsy People
News Bulletin: The American Revolutionary War Was Violent
U. S. Grant, and the Writing of History, Rescued
Frederick Douglass, A Classical Liberal Born at Sixteen
An Illinois Pogrom
Let Us Now Praise President Taft
America’s Dark Home front during World War I
The Somme: The Hinge of World War I, and Hence of Modern
History
Prohibition’s Unintended Consequences
When America Reached Peak Stupidity
“Tell That to Mrs. Coolidge”
1940: When the Republican Establishment Mattered
America’s Last Mass Lynching
A Year in U.S. History as Disruptive as 2020
The Perverse Fecundity ofa Perfect Failure
The Transformation of a Murder, and of Liberalism
JFK: Not So Elusive
Vietnam: Squandered Valor
Not an Illness, a Vaccine
Haunted by Hue
Apollo 11: A Cap Tossed over the Wall
The Thunderclap of Ocean Venture ’81
“This Is Going to Be Difficult”
 Home to Henry Wright’s Farm
Looking Backward Through Rose-Tinted Glasses
Section 2: Politics and Policies
Crises and the Collectivist Temptation
The Announcement of a Presidential Candidacy You Will Never
Hear
The Awful State of the State of the Union Address
How Not to Select Presidential Candidates
Socialism: A Classification that No Longer Classifies
American Socialists: Half Right
Anti-Capitalist Conservatives versus Progressives: The
Narcissism of Small Differences
Better Never Means Better for Everyone
The Extravagant Faith of Market Skeptics
Nikki Haley against “Hyphenated Capitalism”
Data Confounds the Cassandra Caucus
Worse Can Be Better
Lear Raging on His Twitter-Heath
“Baumol’s Disease” Is the Public Sector’s Health
Defining Efficiency Down
America, Dated by “Rule Stupor”
Larry Summers’s Epiphany
The National Endowment for the Arts’ Adaptive Evolution
Ignorance of the Law Is… Inevitable
The Catholic Crime Wave
Bootleggers and Baptists, Together Yet Again
Overcriminalization Killed Eric Garner
Drug Policy and the “Balloon Effect”
Rethinking the Drug Control Triad
Injustices in the Criminal Justice System
Coercive Plea Bargaining Is a National Embarrassment
How the Right to a Trial Is Nullified
Disenfranchising Felons: Why?
Human Reclamation through Bricklaying
Sing Sing: “Not a Landfill but a Recycling Center”
Section 3: Justice. More or Less. Sometimes.
 Aristotle and the Bikini-Clad Baristas
The Recurring Evil of the “One Drop” Rule
“Judicial Engagement” against the Administrative State
Legal Logic versus Judicial Labels
Public Sector Unions: FDR Was Right
The Court’s Correct Correction
Social Sciences, Brain Science, and the Eighth Amendment
“Depravity” and the Eighth Amendment
When Vernon Madison Was Not “Competent to Be Executed”
Will It Be 1972 Forever? The High Court’s Misplaced Modesty
Philadelphia’s “Room 101”
“What Country Are We In?”
Do Fish Perform Pedicures?
“Shut Up!”: North Carolina Explained
A Cake and “Animus” in Colorado
A Victory (Only) for the Baker
Supreme Court to the Prickly Plaintiffs of Greece, New York:
Lighten Up
Cranky Secularists Have Their Cross to Bear
Resuscitating the Rights of National Citizenship
Korematsu v. United States, Repudiated
The Court and the Politics of Politics
Litigating Through a Fog of Euphemisms
Section 4: Excursions into Science
Mapping the Universe Between Our Ears
Medicalizing Character Flaws
A Telescope as History Teacher
“Take a Sun and Put It in a Box”
The Pathology of Climatology
The MWP, LIA, and the Climate Change Debate
A Note on Violins and Climate Change
You Are Not a Teetering Contraption
The Coronavirus’s Disturbing Lesson
Section 5: Thinking Economically
A Pessimist’s Fatal Conceit
“Creative Destruction”: More the Former than the Latter
 The Accelerated Churning
The Great Enrichment, the Great Flinch, and the Complacent
Class
Pope Francis’s Fact-Free Sanctimony
Peak Nonsense about Scarcities
The Not at All Dismal Science
“Where Is the Pencil Czar?”
Section 6: Skirmishes in the Culture War
The Ideological Ax-Grinding of the 1619 Project
“Is Food the New Sex?”
About that Snake in the Center Seat…
Sanitizing Names Is Steady Work
Ban “Oklahoma”?
A Raised Eyebrow about “Redskins”
Slants, Redskins, and Other Insensitivities
What Is the Matter with Oregon?
Progressivism at Oregon’s Gas Pumps
Oregon Engineers Another Embarrassment
The 1960s Echo: The Politics of Reciprocal Resentment
The “Hometown-Gym-on-a-Friday-Night” Feeling
An Endangered Species: The American Adult
The Plight of Princeton Women
Anti-Elitism and the “Meteorologist Fallacy”
The Problem with “Parental Determinism”
Free-Range Parenting
The Damage Done by Too Much Parental Praise
“Advantage Hoarding” in Cognitively Stratified America
Awesome Children and Difficult Food Choices in Gentrified
Brooklyn
Section 7: Peculiar Goings-On in the Groves of Academe
36,000 Valedictorians: “They Can’t All Go to Brown.”
The First Amendment Amended: Freedom from Speech
The First Amendment in the “Free Speech Gazebo”
The “Surveillance State” in Ann Arbor
Salutary Ludicrousness
The Campus “Rape Culture” and the Death of Due Process
 All Right Then, What an Unreasonable Person Finds Offensive
The College Degree as Status Marker
Yale and Other Incubators
Another Yale Burlesque, “Contextualized”
Diversity: In Everything but Thought
Mandatory Political Participation in California
“Sustainability” as Theology
The Consequences of Academia’s Kudzu-like Bureaucracies
The High Cost of Oberlin’s “Core Values”
Academic Supply Meets Diminishing Demand
Taxing Independent Excellence
Harvard’s Problem Is America’s, Too
About Harvard: Three Hard Questions
The SAT and the Privilege, If Such It Is, of Transmitted
Advantages
Meritocracy and the SAT’s “Adversity Index”
The Surplus of Intellectual Emptiness
A Hymn to Impracticability
Section 8: Matters of Life and Death
Brittany Maynard: Death on Her Terms
Abortion: Who Are the Extremists?
The Wholesome Provocations of “Heartbeat Bills”
“America’s Biggest Serial Killer”
“Inappropriate”
Iceland’s Final Solution to the Down Syndrome “Problem”
Jon Will at Forty
Section 9: Darkness Remembered
German Resistance: Neither Negligible nor Contemptible
Eichmann: Not “Terrifyingly Normal”
The 442nd
“Into Eternity, Vilma”
“It Happened. Therefore It Can Happen Again.”
The Politics of Memory
“Falling Soldier”: A Well-Intended Falsification
China: Churchill’s Foreboding, Redux
Faint Echoes of Fascism
 Authoritarianism and the Politics of Emotion
Section 10: Complaints and Appreciations
The Plague of Denim
Drowning in a River of Public Words
Hobbes at Whole Foods
A Car under a Cloud of Smug
Frank Sinatra’s Reminder
Appropriation Indignation: Elvis, How Could You!
Bob Dylan’s Two Propositions
The Beach Boys and the Boomers’ Music-Cued Nostalgia
Downton Abbey and Nostalgia Gluttony
Truth Decay and Healthy Distrust
In Praise of Binge Reading
Section 11: Games
Are You Ready for Some Autopsies?
The Morality of Enjoying Football
Super Bowl Sunday: A Roman Holiday
Rally ’Round the Math Class!
College Football and the Question of Cookie Corruption
The Wages of Amateurism
March Madness After All
Cooperstown: Museum or Shrine?
Baseball’s Common Law
Autumn for Some Boys of Long Ago Summers
Vin Scully, Craftsman
Section 12: Farewells, Mostly Fond
“The Smartest Man in the United States”
The Roman Candle Jurist
William F. Buckley’s High-Spirited Romp
The Twentieth Century’s Most Consequential Journalist
Charles Krauthammer: “First, You Go to Medical School”
The Catcher at Dago Hill
Fidel Castro and Utopianism, Both Dead
Billy Graham: Neither Prophet nor Theologian
George McGovern: He Came by the Horror of War Honorably
Gerald Ford: The Benevolent Accident
 George H. W. Bush: “I Am Not a Mystic”
“Then Along Came Nancy”
“The Eyes of Caligula and the Lips of Marilyn Monroe”
The Last Doughboy
Lieutenant Colonel Jim Walton
Discover More
Acknowledgments
Also by George F. Will
 For Sarah Walton
To whom I am indebted for her many years
of indispensable assistance.
And to whom the nation is indebted.
(see this page)
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 Introduction

“In order to master the unruly torrent of life the learned man
meditates, the poet quivers, and the political hero erects the
fortress of his will.”
—José Ortega y Gasset

ut a journalist, whose job is to chronicle and comment on the

B
torrent, knows that this is not amenable to being mastered.
That is what it means to be unruly. Besides, the enjoyment of
life is inseparable from life’s surprises, and hence from its
contingencies. Surprises and contingencies have propelled this
columnist through a happy half century of arriving at his office each
morning impatient to get on with the pleasure of immersion in the
torrent.
For a third of a century my office has been in a narrow, three-
story townhouse built in 1810 in what is now Washington’s
Georgetown section. It was here in 1814 when marauding British
troops burned the White House and part of the Capitol. I purchased
the building in 1987 from a small, sprightly, sparrow-like woman,
then in her nineties, who had lived there since her childhood. She
said that her parents recalled seeing Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert
walk past the house on his way to the corner saloon to purchase a
pail of beer. This is plausible. Back then, beer was often sold in pails.
And Robert, although frail at age seventy-eight, haltingly made his
way up the steps of the memorial to his father at the dedication of it
on May 30, 1922.
Because of where I live and work, the continuity of America’s
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 CHAPTER XI.

AN ANGEL VISITS PYLE’S PARK.

A week had elapsed.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and in the drawing-room at Pyle’s
Park, Mr. and Mrs. Enoch Pyle were having tea.
The custom did not come naturally to them, but they believed it was the
proper thing, and so they adopted it. It was particularly a trial to the old man,
who, since his retirement, had been obliged to fight hard against an ingrained
preference for shirt sleeves and slippers; but he had denied himself
heroically, for the most part.
The merest glance about the room, with its costly furniture and costlier
pictures and statuary, was enough to show that its owner was a man of great
wealth; but one might have looked in vain for any signs of culture or good
taste.
For Enoch Pyle and his wife, as Atherton has said, were old-fashioned
country people, who had had few advantages.
Having said this, however, it is only fair to say that they had their good
points—many of them. There was nothing mean or uncharitable about them.
They were kind-hearted, hospitable, and generous to a fault.
At the same time, it must be admitted that they dearly loved “society”—at
a distance—and that it was the greatest disappointment of their lives that
none of the neighboring social lights would have anything to do with them.
At the moment the old couple were talking about the “sensational affair,”
as the newspapers called it, at Meadowview—the attempted burglary of the
Massey jewels, and the wounding of Francis Massey’s arm.
For unluckily—from the standpoint of The Order of the Philosopher’s
Stone—the rich haul had not been carried away. The jewel cases had not yet
been placed in the waiting bag when the Count had fired, and that unlooked-
for shot, coming from some mysterious quarter, had so unnerved the rascals
for the time being that they had decamped without their booty.
Probably, also, they had feared with good reason, that the shot would
alarm the household and bring the servants about their ears in short order.
 At any rate, Johann Wilhelm had subsequently learned, to his deep
disgust, that the burglary had been unsuccessful with all he had done.
“I heard down in the village to-day,” said Mr. Pyle, “that the doctors ain’t
very encouragin’. They’re afraid they’ll have to ampytate Mr. Massey’s
hand. They say the bones——”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk about bones at tea time!” protested his wife. “It
don’t seem proper, and it sort of takes my appetite away.”
“Excuse me, ma,” Mr. Pyle said humbly, and lapsed into silence.
“Ain’t the police discovered any clew to the thieves yet?” his wife asked
presently.
“Neither hide nor hair of one,” was the answer. “An’ that reminds me of
somethin’ else I heard in the village to-day. Mr. Massey has gone and sent
for Nick Carter.”
“That’s what he’d ought to have done a week ago,” declared his wife.
“Has Mr. Carter been to the house yet?”
“He’s there this afternoon. Him and one of his assistants—Chick, I think
they call him. I’ll bet it won’t be long before they find a clew.”
Mr. Pyle helped himself to another piece of buttered toast, then he
coughed uneasily.
“Do you know, ma,” he said, “I’ve been wonderin’ if we oughtn’t to call
at Meadowview and leave a card—jest to show our sympathy, you know.
What d’you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” sighed Mrs. Pyle. “I was readin’ a book on
etiquette this mornin’, and it said when any of our friends was sick, it was
the correct thing to stop at the house and leave your card. But we couldn’t
honestly say that Mr. Massey was a friend of ours, could we? He’s never
taken no notice of us since we came here. In fact,” she added bitterly, “none
of ’em takes any notice of us. We could buy lots of ’em up and never miss
the money, but——”
Suddenly she paused, and her eyes grew round and big with excitement.
She was sitting near a window, and could see the drive which ran from the
entrance gates to the front door of the house.
“Enoch,” she said breathlessly, “there’s a moty car comin’ up the drive!
Such a swell turnout, too. Who can it be?”
 Mr. Pyle hurriedly set down his cup, tiptoed to the window, and
cautiously peered out from behind the curtain. By that time the car had
pulled up outside the front door, and an aristocratic-looking, fashionably
dressed lady of middle age was in the act of stepping out.
“Marier,” gasped Mr. Pyle, staggering back from the window, “as sure as
you live, it’s—it’s Mrs. Brook-White comin’ to call on us.”
“And me in my second-best dress!” groaned Mrs. Pyle agitatedly. “Ain’t
that jest my luck! Put your tie straight, Enoch! Pull down your vest! And
wipe that butter off your chin!”
In frantic haste the worthy couple strove to make themselves more
presentable. A few moments of nerve-racking suspense followed, then the
liveried footman flung open the door and announced:
“Mrs. Brook-White!”
Elaine—for it was she, of course—sailed into the room with an air that a
queen might have envied. Her disguise was perfect, and her acting superb.
“My dear Mrs. Pyle!” she gushed, tripping forward and holding out her
hand to that agitated woman, “I know what you must have been thinking of
me for not having called upon you before. I’ve really wanted so much to,
you know, ever since you came here, but you see, my time is so fully
occupied—and this is your husband, is it? Charmed to make your
acquaintance, Mr. Pyle! What a delightful place you have here. I hope now
that I’ve made the plunge, that I shall be able to come often—if you’ll let
me.”
“As often as you like, ma’am,” said Mr. Pyle, who hardly knew whether
he was standing on his head or his heels. “We’ll be tickled to death to have
you! But won’t you sit down?”
“And won’t you have a cup of tea?” asked Mrs. Pyle, when Elaine had
seated herself.
The girl murmured her thanks, and the footman was dispatched in quest
of another cup and a fresh supply of cakes and buttered toast. By the time
these arrived, Elaine had completely won the hearts of her hosts, and had put
them quite at their ease.
“By the way,” she said presently, in her most dulcet tones, “you have a
little nephew living with you, haven’t you? Or is it a grandson?”
 CHAPTER XII.

THE KIDNAPING.

“A grandson,” replied Mr. Pyle. “Such a cute little feller, too! Only five,
but as big as most boys of seven or eight. He’s all we’ve got, you see, and
some day all this will be his. Would you like to see him, Mrs. White?”
“Don’t be foolish, Enoch!” protested his wife. “A lady like Mrs. White
ain’t interested in children.”
“Indeed, I am!” declared Elaine. “I should dearly love to see the little
man. Where is he?”
“In the nursery,” said Mr. Pyle. “I’ll bring him down.”
The proprietor of Pyle’s Pink Pellets left the room, and presently
returned, leading Tommy by the hand—a curly-headed little chap wearing
his first sailor’s suit.
The boy was naturally shy at first, but he soon succumbed to Elaine’s
charming manners, and allowed her to take him on her knee.
How Mr. and Mrs. Pyle beamed! Here was their grandson sitting on the
lap of a real social leader! Without a doubt, it was the proudest moment of
their lives.
Presently Elaine announced that she must go.
“This has been a most delightful visit,” she said, “but I’m afraid it must
come to an end, as all good things do. You’ll come and see me soon, though,
won’t you, and bring Tommy with you? I’ve quite set my heart on it.”
She rose to her feet and held out her hand to the boy.
“Will you escort me to my car, Tommy?” she asked, with a dazzling
smile.
The lad shyly took her hand, and they walked out of the room, Mr. and
Mrs. Pyle following close behind them.
“This is a much nicer car than any of ours,” Tommy announced, as Elaine
took her seat, and the chauffeur solicitously tucked her in. “I wish we had a
car like this, granddad.”
“I’m sure you have much nicer ones as it is,” the girl said, patting him on
the head. “You just think this is better, because it is new to you. However, if
you like it, would you care to ride with me as far as the gate?”
“Yes,” Tommy said eagerly. “Can I go, granddad?”
Elaine turned to Mr. Pyle.
“Do you think you can trust me with him as far as the road?” she asked,
throwing him a mischievous glance.
The glance struck home, and Mr. Pyle looked at her reproachfully.
“What a question!” he ejaculated. “Of course, I’d trust him with you
anywhere. You—you can have anything we’ve got, Mrs. White.”
“That’s perfectly dear of you!” she said, holding out her hand to assist
Tommy to climb into the car; then turned to the driver. “Go slowly down the
drive,” she said, “so that Tommy’s ride won’t come to an end too soon, and
stop at the gates.”
The chauffeur—who was none other than the Count in disguise—touched
his cap, and the car began to move slowly down the drive.
Mr. and Mrs. Pyle walked beside it, responding to Elaine’s lively sallies
in their slow, embarrassed way, and feeling several inches taller than they
had felt an hour ago.
At last the car reached the gates and turned into the road. Wilhelm
glanced ahead and saw that the way was clear, after which he looked back
over his shoulder at Elaine, who replied, with an almost imperceptible nod.
Then suddenly the car leaped forward like a thing alive, and the next
instant it was thundering along the road with the speed of an express train.
Mr. Pyle let out a cry of alarm, but no thought of treachery crossed his
mind.
He merely thought the chauffeur had made a mistake, and had increased
the speed of the machine instead of shutting off the power.
“Stop! stop!” he shouted, running after the car. “Shut off your engine and
put on your brakes!”
Mrs. Pyle meanwhile stood still and wrung her hands. She was certain
that the big car was running wild and that a terrible accident was imminent.
Then an extraordinary thing occurred.
The dignified Mrs. Brook-White—or, rather, the lady who Mr. and Mrs.
Pyle believed to be Mrs. Brook-White—turned around in her seat with a
mocking laugh, and daintily blew them a farewell kiss.
Mr. Pyle could hardly believe his eyes.
 To use his own words, he was “completely flabbergasted.” He pulled up
with a gasp of incredulous bewilderment, and even as he did so, the car
swung around a turn in the road and vanished from sight.
It was evident that Tommy Pyle was to have a much longer ride than
either he or his grandparents anticipated, but where that ride would end, no
one could say—except “Mrs. Brook-White,” her eminently respectable-
looking chauffeur, and certain of the leading members of The Order of the
Philosopher’s Stone.
 CHAPTER XIII.

NICK COMES TO MEADOWVIEW.

It was quite true, as Mr. Pyle had heard, that Francis Massey had sent for
Nick Carter.
He had first left the case in the hands of the local police, but when at the
end of a week they had frankly confessed that they were baffled, he had
wired for Nick Carter.
The detective promptly responded to the summons, and arrived at
Meadowview in one of his private cars, accompanied by Chick and Captain,
their police dog.
Massey received them in the study, his right hand swathed in bandages,
and his left arm in a sling.
“If I had followed my own inclination,” he said, “I should have sent for
you at first. I was persuaded to place the matter in the hands of the police,
but although they have been searching and investigating and inquiring and
cross-examining for just a week, they’re as far as ever from discovering any
clew to the identity of the scoundrels. I sincerely trust you will be more
successful.”
The detective looked a little dubious.
“You haven’t improved my chances by waiting a week before sending for
me. However, I’ll do my best, of course. Needless to say, I’ve read the
newspaper accounts of the case, but I should be glad to hear your version of
the affair.”
“If you’ve read the newspapers,” replied Massey, “I don’t suppose I can
tell you anything that will be very new. We’d been to the opera—my wife
and daughters and myself—and, in the ordinary course of events, we should
have returned about half past twelve. Owing to engine troubles and a blow-
out, however, it was just after two when we got here.
“We were all rather tired,” he continued, “and we decided to go straight
to bed. Before my wife and daughters retired, however, they handed me their
jewels. I placed the latter in their proper cases, brought them to this room,
and locked them in that safe.”
 He pointed to the mutilated safe in the corner. It was empty now, but was
otherwise in the same condition as when the burglars had left it.
“After I’d locked up the jewels,” Massey resumed, “I switched off the
lights and went to bed. For some reason or other I could not get to sleep at
once, and when I’d been in bed about half an hour I thought I heard
somebody moving in the study. I got up quietly, put on a dressing gown and
slippers, armed myself with a revolver, and stole downstairs.
“When I’d crept up to the door here,” he went on, “I distinctly heard men
at work in the room. I waited for a few seconds, and then I suddenly flung
the door open and sprang in, switching on the lights as I did so. One glance
showed me that the safe had been forced and the jewels removed. Two men
were about to stow the cases in a leather bag, and two others were packing
up the apparatus with which they had opened the safe.”
“All the four men wore masks, I understand,” Nick put in.
“That’s true.”
“So you never saw their faces?”
“Unfortunately I did not. From the cut of their clothes, however, and the
appearance of their hands, I judged them to be men of a much superior type
to the common housebreaker. Their hands were as white as my own, and
their clothes were as good as those I’m wearing at this moment.”
“That’s interesting. Now, tell me what you did.”
Massey described how he had covered the men with his revolver, and had
ordered them to raise their hands and stand with their backs to the wall.
“They obeyed without a word,” he said. “I thought I’d cowed them, and
that I only had to ring for help in order to make my capture complete. But
evidently they had posted a fifth man outside the window, to keep watch,
and just as I was about to ring the bell—this bell on the desk—the scoundrel
fired at me through the window and broke my wrist.”
“Did you ever see the fifth man?”
“No, I should never have known of his existence had he not fired. It was
very clever on their part to leave him out there.”
“I see. What happened next?”
“Then for a moment the four masked men seemed almost as startled as
myself—at least, so it appeared to me, although I had troubles of my own
just then, and was hardly in a position to study them at my leisure. At any
rate, panic seized them, I suppose, owing to the fear that the shot would be
heard all over the house. The pain of my shattered wrist made it impossible
for me to do anything more. I was helpless, and the jewels were at their
mercy, but, to my amazement, they seemed to forget all about them.”
“They bolted at once?”
Massey nodded.
“Yes,” he answered. “They rushed to the window, tore down the curtain
in their haste, and took to their heels through the grounds.
“The report of the revolver had aroused the household,” he continued,
“and, in a remarkably short time, the servants were scouring the grounds in
all directions. Two of them saw a man in the act of mounting a motor cycle
in the little lane at the back here. They tried to capture him, but he got away,
and from that day to this nothing more has been seen or heard of any of the
five of them.”
“The man whom your servants saw in the lane—was he one of those in
the study?”
“Apparently not. My people describe him as a young man of rather
foreign appearance, wearing a dark-blue suit. There was no such man in this
room. It seems clear to me that he was the one who was posted outside the
window, and who fired at me.”
“He escaped, you say, on a motor cycle? How did the others get away?”
“The police have a theory that they came here in a motor car, in which
they afterward made their escape. If is only a theory, however. At least, there
doesn’t seem to be any proof. There was a heavy thunder shower an hour or
two later, and that may have obliterated the marks of the car.”
“They left the jewels behind, I understand.”
“Yes, and they also left their apparatus and the leather bag in which they
were about to pack the jewels when I disturbed them. Would you like to see
the things?”

The continuation of this story will be found in the first issue of

DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE, out October 5th. See the
announcement on the next page, telling about this new magazine, which
in future will contain, not only Nick Carter stories, but many other
narratives dealing with the detective art.
It will be published twice a month, and the price will be ten cents a
copy.

GETTING OUT OF A DIFFICULTY.

At a certain school, one day, the teacher had occasion to examine his
class in arithmetic, previous to the final examination.
On finding that he had a very dilatory boy, and thinking to make him look
a fool, he set him the under-mentioned task:
If a man was to fall down a well fifty feet deep, how long would it take
him to get out if, for every foot he climbed, he fell down two?
The boy started figuring out the above sum.
After filling six slates with figures, the teacher stopped him, and asked
what he was doing.
“Trying to get that man out of the well, sir,” replied the boy.
“But that’s not the way to do it.”
“I don’t know,” said the boy. “Just you give me another half a dozen
slates. I’ll get that man out of the well if I have to take him right through to
China.”
 Announcement
Extraordinary
Readers of Nick Carter Stories, and lovers of narratives
dealing with the detective art and the solving of mysterious
crimes, there is a great treat coming to you. Nick Carter Stories
has outgrown its present form and we are going to publish it in
magazine style. It will be edited by Nicholas Carter, and will be
called DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE. It will be published on
the fifth and twentieth of each month, and will contain, besides a
rattling good serial, telling of the exploits of Nick Carter, serials
and short stories dealing with the detective art in all its forms.
The stories will be the very best that can be obtained, and the
magazine will contain one hundred and twenty-eight pages of
them. The first number will be out October fifth. Don’t miss it,
and get your copy early, or you will get left, for they will sell fast.

SNAPSHOT ARTILLERY.

By BERTRAM LEBHAR.

(This interesting story was commenced in No. 153 of Nick Carter

Stories. Back numbers can always be obtained from your news dealer or the
publishers.)
 CHAPTER XXXII.

THE OUTLAW NABBED.

Although Mayor Henkle had declared his intention of removing Chief of

Police Hodgins from office as a result of the Bulletin’s revelation of the
police conditions which prevailed in Oldham, he had not done so.
There were several reasons why his honor had changed his mind about
taking this step. In the first place, Hodgins was the mayor’s wife’s cousin,
and his honor feared that Mrs. Henkle would have something to say if he
fired her relative. Tyrant thought he was at the city hall, the Honorable
Martin Henkle stood in considerable awe of his little wife.
A second reason was that if he had removed Hodgins on account of those
snapshots, the mayor, in order to be consistent, would have had to dismiss
from the department the delinquent policemen whose pictures had appeared
in the Bulletin. Some of these men had a strong political pull, and Mayor
Henkle was disinclined to take such action against them.
Besides, the Chronicle, at the mayor’s suggestion, had published a long
editorial denouncing those police snapshots as atrocious fakes, and denying
that the members of the force were really guilty of the misconduct of which
the Bulletin’s pictures had seemed to convict them. Consequently, the mayor
could not have punished his chief of police without going back on the
administration organ.
So Chief Hodgins still held on to his job. But he was not happy. The fact
that Hawley had come back to Oldham, and was once more at work with his
camera, was one of the things which prevented him from being so.
Goaded by the jeers and snarls of the mayor and by his own frantic desire
for vengeance, he sought desperately to capture the Camera Chap; but, try as
he would, he could not succeed in laying hands on that elusive man.
Hawley had become a veritable will-o’-the-wisp. Although every member
of the force was as anxious as the chief to catch him, and kept a sharp
lookout for him day and night, he seemed as immune from capture as a
mosquito buzzing around the head of an armless man.
Hodgins stationed detectives outside the Bulletin office, in the hope of
being able to apprehend him when he came to deliver the pictures; but,
greatly to his chagrin, these sleuths reported that the Camera Chap did not
come to the Bulletin office. Evidently anticipating this ambush, he had made
secret arrangements with Carroll to get the films to the Bulletin without
bringing them in person; but what this method was the police were unable to
find out.
Hodgins also sent detectives, armed with a warrant, up to the mountain
retreat of Hawley’s host; but the latter informed the policemen that he had
not seen the Camera Chap for several days. Evidently Hawley, anticipating
this move, too, had seen fit to change his boarding house; and the police
were unable to find his present residence.
Through the medium of the Chronicle, the chief of police appealed to all
good citizens to aid in the capture of the “notorious camera bandit.” Had this
appeal met with a general response, the chances are that Hawley would soon
have been caught; but, fortunately for him, the sympathies of the citizens of
Oldham were largely on his side. The new anticamera law was not proving
at all popular. People thought it a shame that the Bulletin should be
discriminated against, and the public in general was rather pleased than
otherwise by Hawley’s success in dodging the police.
But at last Hawley’s phenomenal luck deserted him. Chief Hodgins,
strolling along Main Street one afternoon, saw a sight which astonished him
so much that for a moment he was inclined to believe himself a victim of
hallucinations.
There, only a few yards ahead of him, stood a man with a camera in his
hand, photographing an ornamental fountain in which several urchins were
paddling and splashing—a thing forbidden by law, but ignored by the
indolent police.
It was the Camera Chap! His profile was turned toward the chief, and the
latter recognized him at first glance.
With a gasp of joy, Hodgins bounded forward. Hawley was so intent upon
getting a focus that he did not perceive his danger until a heavy hand
clutched him roughly by the coat collar and a hoarse voice exclaimed:
“Got you at last! Try to get away, and I’ll let daylight into you!”
Hodgins had drawn his revolver as he rushed toward the Camera Chap,
and he pressed the barrel of the weapon against his prisoner’s ribs. It was not
usual for him to indulge in such spectacular gun play when making an arrest
for a misdemeanor, but he had the legal right to shoot if his prisoner
attempted to escape, and so bitter was he against Hawley that he would not
have hesitated to avail himself of that right if the latter had made it
necessary.
But the Camera Chap proved to be a most submissive prisoner. Although
he knew that he was booked now for a six months’ stay in the county jail, he
accepted the situation with a rueful smile. The prospect was decidedly
unpleasant, but there was nothing to be gained by “going up in the air.”
Hodgins slipped handcuffs on his wrists, and marched him to police
headquarters. Thrusting him into a cell and bidding the turnkey keep a
vigilant watch over him, the chief hurried to the city hall to tell the mayor
the good news.
Half an hour later, as the Camera Chap sat in his cell, pondering on how
he was going to get out of this predicament, there came to his ears the sound
of a violent detonation, as though somebody had exploded a dynamite bomb
in the vicinity of the headquarters building.
Hawley wondered greatly as to the meaning of this. As the hours went by,
he wondered, too, why he was not taken before a magistrate, instead of being
kept at police headquarters. He put both of these questions to the turnkey,
but could get no answer from that taciturn official.
At length, however, his curiosity was satisfied in a most startling manner.
The door of his cell was suddenly opened, and a powerfully built man,
struggling desperately in the grip of two burly policemen, was dragged into
the cage.
As the iron gate closed with a clang, Hawley turned to this new captive in
great astonishment.
“Ye gods, Fred!” he exclaimed. “Have they got you, too? What on earth
for?”
Carroll, bleeding from a deep gash on his left temple, and badly bruised
about the face, laughed bitterly.
“There’s been a tragedy,” he said. “The Chronicle Building has been
blown up by dynamite, and old man Gale killed—or, at least, fatally injured.
And that fathead, Hodgins, accuses me of being responsible for the outrage.”
 CHAPTER XXXIII.

A BOMB OUTRAGE.

Chief of Police Hodgins had been to the city hall to tell the mayor the
good news that the Camera Chap had been captured, and was on his way
back to police headquarters when the explosion in the Chronicle Building
occurred.
As he passed the office of Gale’s newspaper, the chief thought that he
might as well drop in and tell his old friend the glad tidings, too. He knew
that the proprietor of the Chronicle and his son would be delighted to hear
that Hawley’s wings had been clipped at last, and that Mayor Henkle had
agreed that the “young desperado” must be sent to jail, public sentiment to
the contrary notwithstanding.
Hodgins was just about to enter the building when there came a violent
report, followed instantly by a crash and loud cries of alarm.
“Great grief!” he gasped. “What has happened? Sounds as if a bomb had
gone off. And it came from inside the building, too!”
Rushing up the stairs, which were strewn with pieces of plaster that the
explosion had torn from the walls, the chief entered the private office of
Delancey Gale—or, to be more exact, all that was left of the private office.
The room was a total wreck. Its door had been torn from its hinges; the
panes of the two windows were completely blown out; the ceiling had come
down; great holes had been torn in the plastering of the walls; the office
furniture was smashed.
And, stretched on the floor, lying so still that Hodgins thought at first that
he surely must be dead, was old Delancey Gale, so badly banged up by the
explosion that his face was scarcely recognizable.
In the hope that there might still be some life left in that inert form, the
chief of police grabbed the telephone which stood on the ruin of what had
been a fine mahogany desk. Fortunately the instrument was still in working
order, and in a few minutes he had the hospital on the wire, and was
imploring them to send an ambulance to the Chronicle office with as little
delay as possible.
 When the ambulance surgeon arrived, he announced that there was still a
spark of life left in the proprietor of the Chronicle, but that it was
exceedingly doubtful whether he would survive his injuries.
“Anybody else hurt, chief?” the surgeon inquired, as he and his driver
placed the wounded man on a stretcher and prepared to take him to the
hospital.
“It seems not,” Hodgins replied. “A couple of chaps in the reporters’
room got a few scratches, I’m told; but nobody except poor Gale is injured
seriously. The whole building was jarred by the explosion, but most of its
force seems to have been confined to this room.”
“How did it happen?” the surgeon inquired, as he lifted one end of the
stretcher and started to carry the unconscious man to the ambulance.
“Looks to me like a bomb outrage,” the police official replied, with a
scowl. “See that clockwork affair over there on the floor? I reckon it was
that contraption which caused the damage. But I ain’t had time to make an
investigation. I’ve got my suspicions, though, as to who is responsible for
this atrocity.”
Just as they were lifting the stretcher into the ambulance, young Gale
pushed his way through the crowd which had gathered on the sidewalk. He
had gone out on an errand for his father about an hour before the explosion,
and the sight of the ambulance and the crowd gathered in front of the
Chronicle office was the first intimation he had that anything was wrong.
His face was white as he approached Chief Hodgins.
“Is the governor dead?” he inquired hoarsely.
“Not quite,” was the gruff reply. “But the doc says he don’t stand much
show. What do you know about this explosion, my boy?”
“Nothing at all,” Gale replied nervously. “I can’t understand how it
happened.”
“I reckon I’ve got a pretty clear idea how it happened, all right,” growled
Hodgins. “Somebody sent the old gent an infernal machine. The pieces of it
are lying on the floor of the office now. And it ain’t hard to guess who that
somebody was, eh?”
“No, indeed,” young Gale replied. “My father has only one enemy—at
least, only one who would be capable of such a cowardly attack. That cad,
Carroll, is responsible for this, as sure as you’re standing here, chief! I
demand that you place him under arrest at once!”
 “You won’t have to ask that of me twice,” Hodgins replied grimly. “My
fingers are just itching to get hold of that big stiff’s coat collar. But first let
us go in and look the ground over, and see if we can’t find a little more
evidence against him. Suspicion ain’t evidence, you know.”
A more affectionate son might have preferred to accompany the
ambulance to the hospital, in order to be present, or near at hand, while the
surgeons made a thorough examination of his father’s injuries; but this
course did not seem to suggest itself to Gale.
Eagerly he followed the chief of police up the plaster-strewn stairway to
the wrecked private office of the proprietor of the Chronicle.
They examined the fragments of the exploded infernal machine, and
found there some clews which caused Gale to turn excitedly to Hodgins.
“It’s Carroll, sure enough!” he cried triumphantly. “We’ve got enough
evidence here to send him to the chair, if the governor dies, and to prison for
life if he doesn’t. Come on, chief; let’s march to the Bulletin office and place
him under arrest.”
The chief of police took the precaution of providing himself with an
escort of four stalwart members of his force before he went to arrest the
proprietor of the Bulletin.
Not possessing the sunny, placid disposition of his friend Hawley,
Carroll’s indignation took the form of physical resistance when he learned
the intentions of his visitors concerning himself. Hodgins and his posse had
to send for reënforcements before they could get him out of the building.
That was why the proprietor of the Bulletin presented such a battered
appearance when he joined the Camera Chap in the cell at police
headquarters.
 CHAPTER XXXIV.

DUBIOUS PROSPECTS.

“The Chronicle office blown up!” exclaimed Hawley, staring at his

cellmate in horrified astonishment. “Who could have done it, Fred?”
“I don’t know who did it,” the proprietor of the Bulletin answered, with a
scowl, applying his handkerchief to the deep cut in his scalp which Chief
Hodgins had inflicted with the butt of his revolver. “I only know that I didn’t
have anything to do with the outrage.”
“Of course you didn’t, old man,” said the Camera Chap soothingly. “I
know you too well to believe you capable of anything like that. What
grounds have they for trying to put it up to you?”
Carroll laughed grimly. “Oh, they claim to have plenty of evidence—
enough to send me to the chair, if old Gale dies. Hodgins told me that the
box in which the infernal machine was inclosed has been identified as a box
which was previously in my possession. He claims, too, that they have the
wrapper of the package, and that the address is in my handwriting. If they
can prove these things, they’ve got a strong case against me.”
“If they can prove them!” exclaimed Hawley, with a confident laugh.
“But of course there’s no danger of that. The whole thing is a palpable
frame-up.”
“There’s no doubt about its being a frame-up,” said Carroll; “but I’m not
so sure that it’s palpable. Hodgins is an expert at manufacturing evidence,
and if he’s careful not to make any breaks, he’ll probably be able to convince
a jury that he’s got the goods on me. You see, Frank, there’s the question of
motive to be considered. I’m afraid they’ve got me there.”
“Motive?” the Camera Chap repeated, with an interrogative inflection.
“Certainly. Everybody in Oldham is aware of the enmity which existed
between myself and the Gales. Isn’t it only natural that I should be the first
person suspected of sending that infernal machine?”
“Not at all,” Hawley protested indignantly. “You are illogical at your own
expense, Fred. Even assuming that you could be coward enough to have
done such a thing—which, of course, is quite out of the question, old man—
what logical reason could you have had for resorting to such desperate
tactics? You were winning. Everything was going your way. You had no
cause to use violence.”
Carroll brightened up a trifle at this argument. “I suppose there’s
something in that,” he agreed, once more dabbing with his handkerchief at
the gash on his temple.
“By the way, old man,” said Hawley, noticing this act; “you haven’t told
me yet how you came by that cut and battered countenance. You weren’t in
the Chronicle Building when the explosion took place, were you?”
“Not exactly,” Carroll answered, with a sheepish grin. “I received these
wounds in the Bulletin Building. When Hodgins and his men came and told
me that they wanted me for sending that bomb, I—well, I’m afraid I lost my
temper for a little while.”
Hawley shook his head disapprovingly. “That was foolish of you, old
man. I gave you credit for possessing more poise. What will the citizens of
Oldham say when they learn that the man who is to be their next mayor was
so lawless as to resist arrest?”
Carroll laughed bitterly. “Don’t deceive yourself about any strong chance
of my being Oldham’s next mayor. That’s out of the question now. Even if
I’m fortunate enough to be able to clear myself of this charge in court, I’ll
have a hard job convincing the public that I didn’t send that bomb to the
Chronicle office. You ought to have seen how the crowds on the streets acted
when I was being brought here. Their attitude was so ugly that I was afraid
they were going to take me away from the police and string me to a lamp-
post. The people of this town are always willing to believe the worst of a
man. You never saw such a community of backbiters. I guess this arrest
means the finish of my political aspirations.”
“Nonsense!” Hawley returned reassuringly. “Don’t worry about that,
Fred. The public may be inclined to suspect you at first, but we’ll soon
swing them around to our side again. We’re going to put you in the mayor’s
chair, old man, in spite of this little trouble.”
“We?” exclaimed Carroll pointedly. “Good heavens, man, you don’t seem
to realize your own position at all!” He laid his hand sympathetically upon
his friend’s shoulder. “Poor old chap! There’s precious little you’ll be able to
do between now and election. Even if I do manage to get out of this mess,
your goose is cooked for sure. There isn’t any doubt that they’ll send you to
jail for six months for taking pictures without a license. They’ve got a clear
case against you, and I can’t see how you’re going to get out of it.”
The Camera Chap smiled. “Yes, I must admit that it does look very much
as if I’m slated to spend the next six months in practicing the gentle art of
converting large stones into little ones. You are wrong in supposing that I
don’t realize the position I’m in, Fred.”
“Then how the deuce can you be so cheerful?” Carroll demanded. “By
jinks, Frank, you’re the most unselfish fellow I’ve ever met! Here you are
worrying about me, and trying to cheer me up, when you have plenty of
cause to be brooding over your own impending fate.”
Hawley shrugged his shoulders. “What’s the use of brooding? I’ve never
seen anybody get any farther by doing that. Besides, I’m not absolutely
positive that I’m going to jail. I’ve still got a faint ray of hope.”
“What is it?” Carroll inquired eagerly.
“The New York Sentinel,” the Camera Chap replied. “If I can get word to
Tom Paxton, I haven’t any doubt he’ll come to my rescue with bells on. The
good old Sentinel stands by its men through thick and thin, and, although I
don’t quite see how he’s going to work it, I am hopeful that Tom Paxton will
find some way of saving me from jail.
“The trouble is, though,” he added, “how the deuce am I going to get
word to him? Hodgins isn’t going to let me get in touch with my friends, if
he can help it.”
“But he wouldn’t dare do that,” Carroll protested indignantly. “It is
illegal. It is your constitutional right to confer——”
“Pshaw! A little thing like a prisoner’s constitutional rights doesn’t bother
our friend Hodgins,” the Camera Chap interrupted. “Besides, it is a condition
and not a theory which confronts us. I asked the turnkey to let me send a
telegram from here, and was curtly refused. The man told me that he had
orders not to let me communicate with any one. They wouldn’t even let me
send word of my arrest to you. Still, I am confident that I’ll be able to find
some way of getting a C. Q. D. call to the Sentinel.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Carroll assured him. “Word has
already been sent to the Sentinel. I guess by this time, Frank, Paxton is aware
of your predicament.”
“Why, what do you mean?” Hawley demanded eagerly.