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by O. Henry
CONTENTS

"The Rose of Dixie"
The Third Ingredient

The Hiding of Black Bill
Schools and Schools

Thimble, Thimble
Supply and Demand

Buried Treasure
To Him Who Waits

He Also Serves
The Moment of Victory

The Head-Hunter
No Story

The Higher Pragmatism
Best-Seller

Rus in Urbe
A Poor Rule

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"THE ROSE OF DIXIE"

When The Rose of Dixie magazine was started by a stock company in
Toombs City, Georgia, there was never but one candidate for its chief

editorial position in the minds of its owners. Col. Aquila Telfair
was the man for the place. By all the rights of learning, family,

reputation, and Southern traditions, he was its foreordained, fit, and
logical editor. So, a committee of the patriotic Georgia citizens who

had subscribed the founding fund of $100,000 called upon Colonel
Telfair at his residence, Cedar Heights, fearful lest the enterprise

and the South should suffer by his possible refusal.
The colonel received them in his great library, where he spent most of

his days. The library had descended to him from his father. It
contained ten thousand volumes, some of which had been published as

late as the year 1861. When the deputation arrived, Colonel Telfair
was seated at his massive white-pine centre-table, reading Burton's

Anatomy of Melancholy. He arose and shook hands punctiliously with
each member of the committee. If you were familiar with The Rose of

Dixie you will remember the colonel's portrait, which appeared in it
from time to time. You could not forget the long, carefully brushed

white hair; the hooked, high-bridged nose, slightly twisted to the
left; the keen eyes under the still black eyebrows; the classic mouth

beneath the drooping white mustache, slightly frazzled at the ends.
The committee solicitously offered him the position of managing

editor, humbly presenting an outline of the field that the publication
was designed to cover and mentioning a comfortable salary. The

colonel's lands were growing poorer each year and were much cut up by
red gullies. Besides, the honor was not one to be refused.

In a forty-minute speech of acceptance, Colonel Telfair gave an
outline of English literature from Chaucer to Macaulay, re-fought the

battle of Chancellorsville, and said that, God helping him, he would
so conduct The Rose of Dixie that its fragrance and beauty would

permeate the entire world, hurling back into the teeth of the Northern
minions their belief that no genius or good could exist in the brains

and hearts of the people whose property they had destroyed and whose
rights they had curtailed.

Offices for the magazine were partitioned off and furnished in the
second floor of the First National Bank building; and it was for the

colonel to cause The Rose of Dixie to blossom and flourish or to wilt
in the balmy air of the land of flowers.

The staff of assistants and contributors that Editor-Colonel Telfair
drew about him was a peach. It was a whole crate of Georgia peaches.

The first assistant editor, Tolliver Lee Fairfax, had had a father
killed during Pickett's charge. The second assistant, Keats Unthank,

was the nephew of one of Morgan's Raiders. The book reviewer, Jackson
Rockingham, had been the youngest soldier in the Confederate army,

having appeared on the field of battle with a sword in one hand and a
milk-bottle in the other. The art editor, Roncesvalles Sykes, was a

third cousin to a nephew of Jefferson Davis. Miss Lavinia Terhune,
the colonel's stenographer and typewriter, had an aunt who had once

been kissed by Stonewall Jackson. Tommy Webster, the head office-boy,
got his job by having recited Father Ryan's poems, complete, at the

commencement exercises of the Toombs City High School. The girls who
wrapped and addressed the magazines were members of old Southern

families in Reduced Circumstances. The cashier was a scrub named
Hawkins, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who had recommendations and a bond

from a guarantee company filed with the owners. Even Georgia stock
companies sometimes realize that it takes live ones to bury the dead.

Well, sir, if you believe me, The Rose of Dixie blossomed five times
before anybody heard of it except the people who buy their hooks and

eyes in Toombs City. Then Hawkins climbed off his stool and told on
'em to the stock company. Even in Ann Arbor he had been used to

having his business propositions heard of at least as far away as
Detroit. So an advertisingmanager was engaged -- Beauregard Fitzhugh

Banks, a young man in a lavendernecktie, whose grandfather had been
the Exalted High Pillow-slip of the Kuklux Klan.

In spite of which The Rose of Dixie kept coming out every month.
Although in every issue it ran photos of either the Taj Mahal or the

Luxembourg Gardens, or Carmencita or La Follette, a certain number of
people bought it and subscribed for it. As a boom for it, Editor-

Colonel Telfair ran three different views of Andrew Jackson's old
home, "The Hermitage," a full-page engraving of the second battle of

Manassas, entitled "Lee to the Rear!" and a five-thousand-word
biography of Belle Boyd in the same number. The subscription list

that month advanced 118. Also there were poems in the same issue by
Leonina Vashti Haricot (pen-name), related to the Haricots of

Charleston, South Carolina, and Bill Thompson, nephew of one of the
stockholders. And an article from a special society correspondent

describing a tea-party given by the swell Boston and English set,
where a lot of tea was spilled overboard by some of the guests

masquerading as Indians.
One day a person whose breath would easily cloud a mirror, he was so

much alive, entered the office of The Rose of Dixie. He was a man
about the size of a real-estate agent, with a self-tied tie and a

manner that he must have borrowed conjointly from W J. Bryan,
Hackenschmidt, and Hetty Green. He was shown into the editor-

colonel's pons asinorum. Colonel Telfair rose and began a Prince
Albert bow.

"I'm Thacker," said the intruder, taking the editor's chair--"T. T.
Thacker, of New York."

He dribbled hastily upon the colonel's desk some cards, a bulky manila
envelope, and a letter from the owners of The Rose of Dixie. This

letter introduced Mr. Thacker, and politely requested Colonel Telfair
to give him a conference and whatever information about the magazine

he might desire.
"I've been corresponding with the secretary of the magazine owners for

some time," said Thacker, briskly. "I'm a practical magazine man
myself, and a circulation booster as good as any, if I do say it.

I'll guarantee an increase of anywhere from ten thousand to a hundred
thousand a year for any publication that isn't printed in a dead

language. I've had my eye on The Rose of Dixie ever since it started.
I know every end of the business from editing to setting up the

classified ads. Now, I've come down here to put a good bunch of money
in the magazine, if I can see my way clear. It ought to be made to

pay. The secretary tells me it's losing money. I don't see why a
magazine in the South, if it's properly handled, shouldn't get a

good circulation in the North, too.
"Colonel Telfair leaned back in his chair and polished his gold-rimmed

glasses.
"Mr. Thacker," said he, courteously but firmly, "The Rose of Dixie is

a publicationdevoted to the fostering and the voicing of Southern
genius. Its watchword, which you may have seen on the cover, is 'Of,