Page:The web (1919).djvu/349

 this country, which had been kind to him. But although he had been away from Germany for a score of years, he was foolish enough to retain all the German spots. He said that Wilson was a Kaiser and that the people ought to kill him; and he uttered a good many additional sentiments of like sort against this country and its Government. He was so bitter in his pro-German attitude that he lost practically all of his customers. As a result he began to worry, not only for the Imperial German Government, but for himself. And then one night he died—which closed the case for A. P. L. and opened it for a Higher Court. Since it has been shown in many instances that the River Jordan has not been able to wash out the German spots, the query is whether the River Styx is any more able to do so? That is the question in which all admirers of German Kultur and its practices are interested. The A. P. L. in Santa Barbara

There is an unsettled rivalry between the two types of beauty, blonde and brunette, which never will be concluded so long as women live and men admire them. So also, one supposes, time will not last long enough to determine which is the more beautiful and lovable spot—Monterey in Northern California, or Santa Barbara in the South. You can start a riot over that question on any railway train on the Pacific slope. One man will be ready to shoot anybody who does not agree that the Seventeen Mile Drive out of Monterey is the most beautiful region in all the world, bar none. It is—it is! Who can deny it? But who, also, can deny even at the point of a gun that the Santa Barbara coast is also the most beautiful spot in all the world? Besides, the latter community has scientific records as ground for the assertion that Santa Barbara has the finest mean temperature on the North American continent, and hence is the one ideal dwelling spot for human beings. It is—it is!

But, very naturally, so fair a region as that of the California slope must have attracted all sorts and conditions of men, evil men as well as good, designing transients as well as those calling California home. For this reason Santa Barbara also had her organization of the A. P. L.