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diff --git a/old/vspld10.txt b/old/vspld10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bcfeb0f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/vspld10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10262 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext The Vision Splendid, by William M. Raine +Project Gutenberg Etext The Vision Spendid, by William M. Raine +#3 in our series by William MacLeod Raine + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Mary Starr. + + + + + +THE VISION SPLENDID + +by William MacLeod Raine + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +Of all the remote streams of influence that pour both before and +after birth into the channel of our being, what an insignificant +few--and these only the more obvious--are traceable at all. We +swim in a sea of environment and heredity, are tossed hither and +thither by we know not what cross currents of Fate, are tugged at +by a thousand eddies of which we never dream. The sum of it all +makes Life, of which we know so little and guess so much, into +which we dive so surely in those buoyant days before time and tide +have shaken confidence in our power to snatch success and +happiness from its mysterious depths. +--From the Note Book of a Dreamer. + + +A REBEL IN THE MAKING + +Part 1 + +The air was mellow with the warmth of the young spring sun. +Locusts whirred in rhapsody. Bluebirds throbbed their love songs +joyously. The drone of insects, the shimmer of hear, were in the +atmosphere. One could almost see green things grow. To confine +youth within four walls on such a day was an outrage against human +nature. + +A lean, wiry boy, hatchet-faced, stared with dreamy eyes out of +the window of his prison. By raising himself in his seat while the +teacher was not looking he could catch a silvery gleam of the +river through the great firs. His thoughts were far afield. They +were not concerned with the capitals of the States he was supposed +to be learning, but had fared forth to the reborn earth, to the +stir and movement of creeping things. The call of nature awakening +from its long winter sleep drummed in his heart. He could +sympathize with the bluebottle buzzing against the sunny +windowpane in its efforts to reach the free world outside. + +Recess! With the sound of the gong his heart leaped, but he kept +his place in the line with perfect decorum. It would never do to +be called back now for a momentary indiscretion. From the school +yard he slipped the back way and dived into a bank of great ferns. +In the heart of this he lay until the bell had called his +classmates back to work. Cautiously he crept from his hiding place +and ran down to the river. + +Flinging himself on Big Rock, with his chin over the edge, he +looked into the deep holes under the bank where the trout lay +close to the strings of shiny moss, their noses to the current, +motionless save for the fanning tails. + +Idly he enjoyed himself for a happy hour, letting thoughts happen +as they would. Not till the school bell rang for dismissal did he +drag himself back with a sigh to the workaday world that called. +He had a lawn to mow and a back yard to clean up for Mr. Rawson. + +With his cap stuck on the back of his head and his hands in the +pockets of his patched trousers, the boy went whistling townward +on his barefoot way. At Adams Street he met the schoolchildren +bound for home. A dozen boys from his own room closed in on him +with shouts of joyous malice. + +"Played hookey! Played hookey! Jeff Farnum played hookey!" they +shrilled at him. + +Ned Merrill assumed leadership of the young Apaches. "You're goin' +to catch it. Old Webber was down askin' for you. Wasn't he, Tom? +Wasn't he, Dick?" + +Tom and Dick lied cheerfully to increase Jeff's dread. They added +graphic details to help the story. + +The victim looked around with stoicism. He remembered the +philosophy of the optimist that a licking does not last long. + +"Don't care if he was down," the boy bluffed. + +"Huh! Mr. Don't Care! Mr. Don't Care!" shrieked Merrill gleefully. + +They made a circle around Jeff and mocked him. Once or twice a +bolder tormentor snatched at his cap or pushed a neighbor against +him. Then, with the inconstancy of youth, they suddenly deserted +him for more diverting game. + +A forlorn little Italian girl was trying to slip past on the other +side of the street. Someone caught sight of her and with a whoop +the Apaches were upon her pell-mell. She began to run, but they +hemmed her in. One tugged at her braided hair. Another flipped mud +at her dress from the end of a stick. Merrill snatched her slate +and made off with it. + +Jeff cut swiftly across the street. Merrill was coming directly +toward him, his head turned to the girl. Triumphant whoops broke +from his throat. He bumped into Jeff, stumbled, and went down in +the mud. + +Young Merrill was up in an instant, clamorous for battle. His +hands and clothes were plastered with filth. + +"I'm goin' to lick the stuffin' out of you," he bellowed. + +Jeff said nothing. He was very white. His fingers worked +nervously. + +"Yah! Yah! He's scared," the mob jeered. + +Jeff was. In that circle of hostile faces he found no sympathy. He +had to stand up to the bully of the class, a boy who could have +given him fifteen pounds. Looking around for help, he saw that +none was at hand. The thin legs of the rescued Italian girl were +flashing down the street. On the steps of the big house of P. C. +Frome a six-year-old little one was standing with her nurse. +Nobody else was in sight except his cousin, James, and the +Apaches. + +"You're goin' to get the maulin' of your life," Ned Merrill +promised as he slipped out of his coat. "Webber'll lick you if he +finds out you been fightin'," James Farnum prophesied cheerfully +to his cousin. He intended to do his duty in the way of protest +and then watch the fight. + +Ned worked his wiry little foe to the fence and pummeled him. Jeff +ducked and backed out of danger. Keeping to the defensive, he was +being badly punished. Once he slipped in the mud and went down, +but he was up again before his slower antagonist could close with +him. Blood streamed from his nose. His lip was gashed. Under the +buffeting he was getting his head began to sing. + +"Punch him good, Ned," one of the champion's friends advised. + +"You bet he is," another chortled. + +Their jeers had an unexpected effect. Jeff's fears were blotted +out by his desperate need. Some spark of the fighting edge, +inherited from his father, was fanned to a flame in the heart of +the bruised little warrior. Like a tiger cat he leaped for Ned's +throat, twisted his slim legs round the sturdy ones of his enemy, +and went down with him in a heap. + +Jeff landed on the bottom, but like an eel he squirmed to the top +before the other had time to get set. The champion's patrician +head was thumped down into the mud and a knobby little fist played +a painful tattoo on his mouth and cheek. + +"Take him off! Take him off!" Merrill shrieked after he had tried +in vain to roll away the incubus clamped like a vise to his body. + +His henchmen ran forward to obey. An unexpected intervention +stopped them. A one-armed little man who had drifted down the +street in time to see part of the fracas pushed forward. + +"I reckon not just yet. Goliath's had a turn. Now David gets his." + +"Lemme up," sobbed Goliath furiously. + +"Say you're whopped." Jeff's fist emphasized the suggestion. + +"Doggone you!" + +This kind of one-sided warfare did not suit Jeff. He made as if to +get up, but his backer stopped him. + +"Hold on, son. You're not through yet. When you do a job do it +thorough." To the former champion he spoke. "Had plenty yet?" + +"I--I'll have him skinned," came from the tearful champion with a +burst of profanity. + +"That ain't the point. Have you had enough so you'll be good? Or +do you need some more?" + +"I'm goin' to tell Webber." + +"Needs just a leetle more, son," the one-armed man told Jeff, +dragging at his goatee. + +But young Farnum had made up his mind. With a little twist of his +body he got to his feet. + +Merrill rose, tearful and sullen. "I--I'll fix you for this," he +gulped, and went sobbing toward the schoolhouse. + +"Better duck," James whispered to his cousin. + +Jeff shook his head. + +The little man looked at the boy sharply. The eyes under his +shaggy brows were like gimlets. + +"Come up to the school with me. I'll see your teacher, son." + +Jeff walked beside him. He knew by the sound of the voice that his +rescuer was a Southerner and his heart warmed to him. He wanted +greatly to ask a question. Presently it plumped out. + +"Was it in the war, sir?" + +"I reckon I don't catch your meaning." + +"That you lost your arm?" The boy added quickly, "My father was a +soldier under General Early." + +The steel-gray eyes shot at him again. "I was under Early myself." + +"My father was a captain--Captain Farnum," the young warrior +announced proudly. + +"Not Phil Farnum!" + +"Yes, sir. Did you know him?" Jeff trembled with eagerness. His +dead soldier-father was the idol of his heart. + +"Did I?" He swung Jeff round and looked at him. "You're like him, +in a way, and, by Gad! you fight like him. What's your name?" + +"Jefferson Davis Farnum." + +"Shake hands, Jefferson Davis Farnum, you dashed little rebel. My +name is Lucius Chunn. I was a lieutenant in your father's company +before I was promoted to one of my own." + +Jeff forgot his troubles instantly. "I wish I'd been alive to go +with father to the war," he cried. + +Captain Chunn was delighted. "You doggoned little rebel!" + +"I didn't know we used that word in the South' sir." + +Chunn tugged at his goatee and laughed. "We're not in the South, +David." + +The former Confederate asked questions to piece out his patchwork +information. He knew that Philip Farnum had come out of the war +with a constitution weakened by the hardships of the service. +Rumors had drifted to him that the taste for liquor acquired in +camp as an antidote for sickness had grown upon his comrade and +finally overcome him. From Jeff he learned that after his father's +death the widow had sold her mortgaged place and moved to the +Pacific Coast. She had invested the few hundreds left her in some +river-bottom lots at Verden and had later discovered that an +unscrupulous real estate dealer had unloaded upon her worthless +property. The patched and threadbare clothes of the boy told him +that from a worldly point of view the affairs of the Farnums were +at ebb tide. + +"Did . . . did you know father very well?" Jeff asked tremulously. + +Chunn looked down at the thin dark face of the boy walking beside +him and was moved to lay a hand on his shoulder. He understood the +ache in that little heart to hear about the father who was a hero +to him. Jeff was of no importance in the alien world about him. +The Captain guessed from the little scene he had witnessed that +the lad trod a friendless, stormy path. He divined, too, that the +hungry soul was fed from within by dreams and memories. + +So Lucius Chunn talked. He told about the slender, soldierly +officer in gray who had given himself so freely to serve his men, +of the time he had caught pneumonia by lending his blanket to a +sick boy, of the day he had led the charge at Battle Creek and +received the wound which pained him so greatly to the hour of his +death. And Jeff drank his words in like a charmed thing. He +visualized it all, the bitter nights in camp, the long wet +marches, the trumpet call to battle. It was this last that his +imagination seized upon most eagerly. He saw the silent massing of +troops, the stealthy advance through the woods; and he heard the +blood-curdling rebel yell as the line swept forward from cover +like a tidal wave, with his father at its head. + +Captain Chunn was puzzled at the coldness with which Mr. Webber +listened to his explanation of what had taken place. The school +principal fell back doggedly upon one fact. It would not have +happened if Jeff had not been playing truant. Therefore he was to +blame for what had occurred. + +Nothing would be done, of course, without a thorough +investigation. + +The Captain was not satisfied, but he did not quite see what more +he could do. + +"The boy is a son of an old comrade of mine. We were in the war +together. So of course I have to stand by Jeff," he pleaded with a +smile. + +"You were in the rebel army?" The words slipped out before the +schoolmaster could stop them. + +"In the Confederate army," Chunn corrected quietly. + +Webber flushed at the rebuke. "That is what I meant to say." + +"I leave to-morrow for Alaska. It would be pleasant to know before +I go that Jeff is out of his trouble." + +"I'm afraid Jeff always will be in trouble. He is a most +insubordinate boy," the principal answered coldly. + +"Are you sure you quite understand him?" + +"He is not difficult to understand." Webber, resenting the +interference of the Southerner as an intrusion, disposed of the +matter in a sentence. "I'll look into this matter carefully, Mr. +Chunn." + +Webber called immediately at the office of Edward B. Merrill, +president of the tramway company and of the First National Bank. +It happened that the vice-president of the bank was a school +director; also that the funds of the district were kept in the +First National. The schoolteacher did not admit that he had come +to ingratiate himself with the powers that ruled his future, but +he was naturally pleased to come in direct touch with such a man +as Merrill. + +The financier was urbane and spent nearly half an hour of his +valuable time with the principal. When the latter rose to go they +shook hands. The two understood each other thoroughly. + +"You may depend upon me to do my duty, Mr. Merrill, painful though +such a course may be to me." + +"I am very glad to have met you, Mr. Webber. It is a source of +satisfaction to me that our educational system is in the care of +men of your stamp. I leave this matter with confidence entirely in +your hands. Do what you think best." + +His confidence was justified. After school opened next morning +Jeff was called up and publicly thrashed for playing truant. As a +prelude to the corporal punishment the principal delivered a +lecture. He alluded to the details of the fight gravely, with +selective discrimination, giving young Farnum to understand that +he had reached the end of his rope. If any more such brutal +affairs were reported to him he would be punished severely. + +The boy took the flogging in silence. He had learned to set his +teeth and take punishment without whimpering. From the hardest +whipping Webber had ever given he went to his seat with a white, +set face that stared straight in front of him. Young as he was, he +knew it had not been fair and his outraged soul cried out at the +injustice of it. The principal had seized upon the truancy as an +excuse to let him escape from an investigation of the cause of the +fight. Ned Merrill got off because his father was a rich man and +powerful in the city. He, Jeff, was whipped because he was an +outcast and had dared lift his hand against one of his betters. + +And there was no redress. It was simply the way of the world. + +Jeff and his mother were down that afternoon to see their new +friend off in the _City of Skook._ Captain Chunn found a chance to +draw the boy aside for a question. + +"Is it all right with Mr. Webber? What did he do?" + +"Oh, he gave me a jawing," the boy answered. + +The little man nodded. "I reckoned that was what he would do. Be a +good boy, Jeff. I never knew a man more honorable than your +father. Run straight, son." + +"Yes, sir," the lad promised, a lump in his throat. + +It was more than ten years before he saw Captain Chunn again. + + +Part 2 + +As an urchin Jeff had taken things as they came without +understanding causes. Thoughts had come to him in flashes, without +any orderly sequence, often illogically. As a gangling boy he +still took for granted the hard knocks of a world he did not +attempt to synthesize. + +Even his mother looked upon him as "queer." She worried +plaintively because he was so careless about his clothes and +because his fondness for the outdoors sometimes led him to play +truant. Constantly she set before him as a model his cousin, +James, who was a good-looking boy, polite, always well dressed, +with a shrewd idea of how to get along easily. + +"Why can't you be like Cousin James? He isn't always in trouble," +she would urge in her tired way. + +It was quite true that the younger cousin was more of a general +favorite than harum-scarum Jeff, but the mother might as well have +asked her boy to be like Socrates. It was not that he could not +learn or that he did not want to study. He simply did not fit into +the school groove. Its routine of work and discipline, its +tendency to stifle individuality, to run all children through the +same hopper like grist through a mill, put a clamp upon his +spirits and his imagination. Even thus early he was a rebel. + +Jeff scrambled up through the grades in haphazard fashion until he +reached the seventh. Here his teacher made a discovery. She was a +faded little woman of fifty, but she had that loving insight to +which all children respond. Under her guidance for one year the +boy blossomed. His odd literary fancy for Don Quixote, for Scott's +poems and romances she encouraged, quietly eliminating the dime +novels he had read indiscriminately with these. She broke through +the shell of his shyness to find out that his diffidence was not +sulkiness nor his independence impudence. + +The boy was a dreamer. He lived largely in a world of his own, +where Quentin Durward and Philip Farnum and Robert E. Lee were +enshrined as heroes. From it he would emerge all hot for action, +for adventure. Into his games then he would throw a poetic +imagination that transfigured them. Outwardly he lived merely in +that boys' world made to his hand. He adopted its shibboleths, +fought when he must, went through the annual routine of marbles, +tops, kites, hop scotch, and baseball. From his fellows he guarded +jealously the knowledge of even the existence of his secret world +of fancy. + +His progress through the grades and the high school was +intermittent. Often he had to stop for months at a time to earn +money for their living. In turn he was newsboy, bootblack, and +messenger boy. He drove a delivery wagon for a grocer, ushered at +a theater, was even a copyholder in the proofroom of a newspaper. +Hard work kept him thin, but he was like a lath for toughness. + +Seven weeks after he was graduated from the high school his mother +died. The day of the funeral a real estate dealer called to offer +three, hundred dollars for the lots in the river bottom bought +some years earlier by Mrs. Farnum. + +Jeff put the man off. It was too late now to do his mother any +good. She had had to struggle to the last for the bread she ate. +He wondered why the good things in life were so unevenly +distributed. + +Twice during the next week Jeff was approached with offers for his +lots. The boy was no fool. + +He found out that the land was wanted by a new railroad pushing +into Verden. Within three days he had sold direct to the agent of +the company for nine hundred dollars. With what he could earn on +the side and in his summers he thought that sum would take him +through college. + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +I wonder if Morgan, the Pirate, + When plunder had glutted his heart, +Gave part of the junk from the ships he had sunk + To help some Museum of Art; +If he gave up the role of "collector of toll" + And became a Collector of Art? + +I wonder if Genghis, the Butcher, + When he'd trampled down nations like grass, +Retired with his share when he'd lost all his hair + And started a Sunday-school class; +If he turned his past under and used half his plunder + In running a Sunday-school class? + +I wonder if Roger, the Rover, + When millions in looting he'd made, +Built libraries grand on the jolly mainland + To honor success and "free trade"; +If he founded a college of nautical knowledge + Where Pirates could study their trade? + +I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, + If Pirates were ever the same, +Ever trying to lend a respectable trend + To the jaunty old buccaneer game +Or is it because of our Piracy Laws + That philanthropists enter the game? +--Wallace Irwin, in Life. + + +THE REBEL IS INSTRUCTED IN THE WORSHIP OF THE GOD-OF-THINGS-AS- +THEY-ARE + + +Part 1 + +Jeff was digging out a passage in the "Apology" when there came a +knock at the door of his room. The visitor was his cousin, James, +and he radiated such an air of prosperity that the plain little +bedroom shrank to shabbiness. + +James nodded in offhand fashion as he took off his overcoat. +"Hello, Jeff! Thought I'd look you up. Got settled in your +diggings, eh?" Before his host could answer he rattled on: "Just +ran in for a moment. Had the devil of a time to find you. What's +the object in getting clear off the earth?" + +"Cheaper," Jeff explained. + +"Should think it would be," James agreed after he had let his eyes +wander critically around the room. "But you can't afford to save +that way. Get a good suite. And for heaven's sake see a tailor, my +boy. In college a man is judged by the company he keeps." + +"What have my room and my clothes to do with that?" Jeff wanted to +know, with a smile. + +"Everything. You've got to put up a good front. The best fellows +won't go around with a longhaired guy who doesn't know how to +dress. No offense, Jeff." + +His cousin laughed. "I'll see a barber to-morrow." + +"And you must have a room where the fellows can come to see you." + +"What's the matter with this one?" + +A hint of friendly patronage crept into the manner of the junior. +"My dear chap, college isn't worth doing at all unless you do it +right. You're here to get in with the best fellows and to make +connections that will help you later. That sort of thing, you +know." + +Into Jeff's face came the light that always transfigured its +plainness when he was in the grip of an idea. "Hold on, J. K. +Let's get at this right. Is that what I'm here for? I didn't know +it. There's a hazy notion in my noodle that I'm here to develop +myself." + +"That's what I'm telling you. Go in for the things that count. +Make a good frat. Win out at football or debating. I don't give a +hang what you go after, but follow the ball and keep on the jump. +I'm strong with the crowd that runs things and I'll see they take +you in and make you a cog of the machine. But you'll have to +measure up to specifications." + +"But, hang it, I don't want to be a cog in any machine. I'm here +to give myself a chance to grow--sit out in the sun and hatch an +individuality--give myself lots of free play." + +"Then you've come to the wrong shop," James informed him dryly. +"If you want to succeed at college you've got to do the things the +other fellows do and you've got to do them the same way." + +"You mean I've got to travel in a rut?" + +"Oh, well! That's a way of putting it. I mean that you have to +accept customs and traditions. You have to work like the devil +doing things that count. If you make the team you've got to think +football, talk it, eat it, dream it." + +"But is it worth while?" + +James waved his protest aside. "Of course it's worth while. +Success always is. Get this in your head. Four-fifths of the +fellows at college don't count. They're also-rans. To get in with +the right bunch you've got to make a good showing. Look at me. I'm +no John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Athletics bore me. I can't sing. I +don't grind. But I'm in everything. Best frat. Won the oratorical +contest. Manager of the football team next season. President of +the Dramatic Club. Why?" + +He did not wait for Jeff to guess the reason. "Because our set +runs things and I go after the honors." + +"But a college ought to be a democracy," Jeff protested. + +"Tommyrot! It's an aristocracy, that's what it is, just like the +little old world outside, an aristocracy of the survival of the +fittest. You get there if you're strong. You go to the wall if +you're weak. That's the law of life." + +The freshman came to this squint of pragmatism with surprise. He +had thought of Verden University as a splendid democracy of +intellectual brotherhood that was to leaven the world with which +it came in touch. + +"Do you mean that a fellow has to have money enough to make a good +showing before he can win any of the prizes?" + +James K. nodded with the sage wisdom of a man of the world. "The +long green is a big help, but you've got to have the stuff in you. +Success comes to the fellow who goes after it in the right way." + +"And suppose a fellow doesn't care to go after it?" + +"He stays a nobody." + +James was in evening dress, immaculate from clean-shaven cheek to +patent leather shoes. He had a well-filled figure and a handsome +face with a square, clean-cut jaw. His cousin admired the young +fellow's virile competency. It was his opinion that James K. +Farnum was the last person he knew likely to remain a nobody. He +knew how to conform, to take the color of his thinking from the +dominant note of his environment, but he had, too, a capacity for +leadership. + +"I'm not going to believe you if I can help it," Jeff answered +with a smile. + +The upper classman shrugged. "You'd better take my advice, just +the same. +At college you don't get a chance to make two starts. You're sized +up from the crack of the pistol." + +"I haven't the money to make a splurge even if I wanted to." + +"Borrow." + +"Who from?" asked Jeff ungrammatically. + +"You can rustle it somewhere. I'm borrowing right now." + +"It's different with you. I'm used to doing without things. Don't +worry about me. I'll get along." + +James came with a touch of embarrassment to the real object of his +visit. "I say, Jeff. I've had a tough time to win out. You won't-- +you'll not say anything--let anything slip, you know--something +that might set the fellows guessing." + +His cousin was puzzled. "About what?" + +"About the reason why Mother and I left Shelby and came out to the +coast." + +"What do you take me for?" + +"I knew you wouldn't. Thought I'd mention it for fear you might +make a slip." + +"I don't chatter about the private affairs of my people." + +"Course not. I knew you didn't." The junior's hand rested +caressingly on the shoulder of the other. "Don't get sore, Jeff. I +didn't doubt you. But that thing haunts me. Some day it will come +out and ruin me when I'm near the top of the ladder." + +The freshman shook his head. "Don't worry about it, James. Just +tell the plain truth if it comes out. A thing like that can't hurt +you permanently. Nothing can really injure you that does not come +from your own weakness." + +"That's all poppycock," James interrupted fretfully. "Just that +sort of thing has put many a man on the skids. I tell you a young +fellow needs to start unhampered. If the fellows got onto it that +my father had been in the pen because he was a defaulting bank +cashier they would drop me like a hot potato." + +"None but the snobs would. Your friends would stick the closer." + +"Oh' friends!" The young man's voice had a note of angry derision. + +Jeff's affectionate grin comforted him. "Don't let it get on your +nerves, J. K. Things never are as bad as we expect at their +worst." + +The junior set his teeth savagely. "I tell you, sometimes I hate +him for it. That's a fine heritage for a father to give his son, +isn't it? Nothing but trouble and disgrace." + +His cousin spoke softly. "He's paid a hundred times for it, old +man." + +"He ought to pay. Why shouldn't he? I've got to pay. Mother had to +as long as she lived." His voice was hard and bitter. + +"Better not judge him. You're his only son, you know." + +"I'm the one he's injured most. Why shouldn't I judge him? I've +been a pauper all these years, living off money given us by my +mother's people. I had to leave our home because of what he did. +I'd like to know why I shouldn't judge him." + +Jeff was silent. + +Presently James rose. "But there's no use talking about it. I've +got to be going. We have an eat to-night at Tucker's." + + +Part 2 + +Jeff came to his new life on the full tide of an enthusiasm that +did not begin to ebb till near the close of his first semester. He +lived in a new world, one removed a million miles from the sordid +one through which he had fought his way so many years. All the +idealism of his nature went out in awe and veneration for his +college. It stood for something he could not phrase, something +spiritually fine and intellectually strong. When he thought of the +noble motto of the university, "To Serve," it was always with a +lifted emotion that was half a prayer. His professors went clothed +in majesty. The chancellor was of godlike dimensions. Even the +seniors carried with them an impalpable aura of learning. + +The illusion was helped by reason of the very contrast between the +jostling competition of the street and the academic air of harmony +in which he now found himself. For the first time was lifted the +sense of struggle that had always been with him. + +The outstanding notes of his boyhood had been poverty and +meagerness. It was as if he and his neighbors had been flung into +a lake where they must keep swimming to escape drowning. There had +been no rest from labor. Sometimes the tragedy of disaster had +swept over a family. But on the campus of the university he found +the sheltered life. The echo of that battling world came to him +only faintly. + +He began to make tentative friendships, but in spite of the advice +of his cousin they were with the men who did not count. Samuel +Miller was an example. He was a big, stodgy fellow with a slow +mind which arrived at its convictions deliberately. But when he +had made sure of them he hung to his beliefs like a bulldog to a +bone. + +It was this quality that one day brought them together in the +classroom. An instructor tried to drive Miller into admitting he +was wrong in an opinion. The boy refused to budge, and the teacher +became nettled. + +"Mr. Miller will know more when he doesn't know so much," the +instructor snapped out. + +Jeff's instinct for fair play was roused at once, all the more +because of the ripple of laughter that came from the class. He +spoke up quietly. + +"I can't see yet but that Mr. Miller is right, sir." + +"The discussion is closed," was the tart retort. + +After class the dissenters walked across to chapel together. + +"Poke the animal up with a stick and hear him growl," Jeff laughed +airily. + +"Page always thinks a fellow ought to take his say-so as gospel," +Miller commented. + +Most of the students saw in Jeff Farnum only a tallish young man, +thin as a rail, not particularly well dressed, negligent as to +collar and tie. But Miller observed in the tanned face a tender, +humorous mouth and eager, friendly eyes that looked out upon the +world with a suggestion of inner mirth. In course of time he found +out that his friend was an unconquerable idealist. + +Jeff made discoveries. One of them was a quality of brutal +indifference in some of his classmates to those less fortunate. +These classy young gentlemen could ignore him as easily as a +hurrying business man can a newsboy trying to sell him a paper. If +he was forced upon their notice they were perfectly courteous; +otherwise he was not on the map for them. + +Another point that did not escape his attention was the way in +which the institution catered to Merrill and Frome, because they +were large donors to the university. He had once heard Peter C. +Frome say in a speech to the students that he contributed to the +support of Verden University because it was a "safe and +conservative citadel which never had yielded to demagogic +assaults." At the time he had wondered just what the president of +the Verden Union Water Company had meant. He was slowly puzzling +his way to an answer. + +Chancellor Bland referred often to the "largehearted Christian +gentlemen who gave of their substance to promote the moral and +educational life of the state." But Jeff knew that many believed +Frome and Merrill to be no better than robbers on a large scale. +He knew the methods by which they had gained their franchises and +that they ruled the politics of the city by graft and corruption. +Yet the chancellor was always ready to speak or write against +municipal ownership. It was common talk on the streets that +Professor Perkins, of the chair of political science, had had his +expenses paid to England by Merrill to study the street railway +system of Great Britain, and that Perkins had duly written several +bread-and-butter articles to show that public ownership was +unsuccessful there. + +The college was a denominational one and the atmosphere wholly +orthodox. Doubt and skepticism were spoken of only with horror. At +first it was of himself that Jeff was critical. The spirit of the +place was opposed to all his convictions, but he felt that perhaps +his reaction upon life had been affected too much by his +experiences. + +He asked questions, and was suppressed with severity or kindly +paternal advice. It came to him one night while he was walking +bareheaded under the stars that there was in the place no +intellectual stimulus, though there was an elaborate presence of +it. The classrooms were arid. Everywhere fences were up beyond +which the mind was not expected to travel. A thing was right, +because it had come to be accepted. That was the gospel of his +fellows, of his teachers. Later he learned that it is also the +creed of the world. + +What Jeff could not understand was a mind which refused to accept +the inevitable conclusions to which its own processes pushed it. +Verden University lacked the courage which comes from intellectual +honesty. Wherefore its economics were devitalized and its theology +an anachronism. + +But Jeff had been given a mind unable to lie to itself. He was in +very essence a non-conformist. To him age alone did not lend +sanctity to the ghosts of dead yesterdays that rule to-day. + + +CHAPTER 3 + +"Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist. He who would +gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of +goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last +sacred but the integrity of your own mind," +--Emerson. + + +CONVERSING ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY, THE REBEL LEARNS THAT IT IS +SOMETIMES WISE TO SOFT PEDAL IDEAS UNLESS THEY ARE ACCEPTED ONES + + +During his freshman year Jeff saw little of his cousin beyond the +usual campus greetings, except for a period of six weeks when the +junior happened to need him. But the career of James K. tickled +immensely the under classman's sense of humor. He was becoming the +most dazzling success ever developed by the college. Even with the +faculty he stood high, for if he lacked scholarship he had the +more showy gifts that went farther. He knew when to defer and when +to ride roughshod to his end. It was felt that his brilliancy had +a solidity back of it, a quality of flintiness that would endure. + +James was inordinately ambitious and loved the spotlight like an +actor. The flamboyant oratory at which he excelled had won for him +the interstate contest. He was editor-in-chief of the "Verdenian," +manager of the varsity football team, and president of the college +senate. + +With the beginning of his senior year James entered another phase +of his development. He offered to the college a new, or at least +an enlarged, interpretation of himself. Some of his smiling +good-fellowship had been sloughed to make way for the benignity of +a budding statesman. He still held a tolerant attitude to the +antics of his friends, but it was easy to see that he had put away +childish things. To his many young women admirers he talked +confidentially of his aims and aspirations. The future of James +K. Farnum was a topic he never exhausted. + +It was, too, a subject which greatly interested Jeff and Sam +Miller. His cousin might smile at his poses, and often did, but he +never denied James qualities likely to carry him far. + +"His one best bet is his belief in himself," Sam announced one +night. + +"It's a great thing to believe in yourself." + +"He's so dead sure he's cast for a big part. The egoism just oozes +out of him. He doesn't know himself that he's a faker." + +"He is a long way from that," Jeff protested warmly. + +"Take his oratory," Miller went on irritably. "It's all bunk. He +throws a chest and makes you feel he's a big man, but what he says +won't stand analysis--just a lot of platitudes." + +"Don't forget he's young yet. James K. hasn't found himself." + +"Sure there's anything to find?" + +"There's a lot in him. He's the biggest man in the university +to-day." + +"You practically wrote the oration that won the interstate +contest. Think I don't know that?" Miller snorted. + +Jeff's mouth took on a humorous twist. "I gave him some +suggestions. How did you know?" + +"Knew he wasn't hanging around last term for nothing. He's selfish +as the devil." + +"You're all wrong about him, Sam. He isn't selfish at all at +bottom." + +"Shoot the brains out of that oration and what's left would be the +part he supplied. The fellow's got a gift of absorbing new ideas +superficially and dressing them up smartly." + +"Then he's got us beat there," Jeff laughed goodnaturedly. He had +not in his make-up a grain of envy. Even his laughter was +generally genial, though often irreverent to the God-of-things- +as-they-are. + +"When he won the interstate he lapped up flattery like a thirsty +pup, but his bluff was that it was only for the college he cared +to win." + +"Most of us have mixed motives." + +"Not J. K. Reminds me of old Johnson's 'Patriotism is the last +refuge of a scoundrel.'" + +Jeff straightened. "That won't do, Sam. I believe in J. K. You've +got nothing against him except that you don't like him." + +"Forgot you were his cousin, Jeff," Miller grumbled. "But it's a +fact that he works everybody to shove him along." + +"He's only a kid. Give him time. He'll be a big help to any +community." + +"James K.'s biggest achievement will always be James K." + +Jeff chuckled at the apothegm even while he protested. Sam capped +it with another. + +"He's always sitting to himself for his own portrait." + +"He'll get over that when he brushes up against the world." Jeff +added his own criticism thoughtfully. "The weak spot in him is a +sort of flatness of mind. This makes him afraid of new ideas. He +wants to be respectable, and respectability is the most damning +thing on earth." + +After Miller had left Jeff buckled down to Ely's "Political +Economy." He had not been at it long when James surprised him by +dropping in. His host offered the easiest chair and shoved tobacco +toward him. + +"Been pretty busy with the team, I suppose?" Jeff suggested. + +"It's taken a lot of my time, but I think I've put the athletic +association on a paying basis at last." + +"I see by your report in the 'Verdenian' that you made good." + +"A fellow ought to do well whatever he undertakes to do." + +Jeff grinned across at him from where he lay on the bed with his +fingers laced beneath his head. "That's what the copybooks used to +say." + +"I want to have a serious talk with you, Jeff." + +"Aren't you having it? What can be more important than the +successes of James K. Farnum?" + +The senior looked at him suspiciously. He was not strongly +fortified with a sense of humor. "Just now I want to talk about +the failures of Jefferson D. Farnum," he answered gravely. + +Jeff's eyes twinkled. "Is it worth while? I am unworthy of this +boon, O great Cesar." + +"Now that's the sort of thing that stands in your way," James told +him impatiently. "People never know when you're laughing at them. +There is no reason why you shouldn't succeed. Your abilities are +up to the average, but you fritter them away." + +"Thank you." Jeff wore an air of being immensely pleased. + +"The truth is that you're your own worst enemy. Now that you have +taken to dressing better you are not bad looking. I find a good +many of the fellows like you--or they would if you'd let them." + +"Because I'm so well connected," Jeff laughed. + +"I suppose it does help, your being my cousin. But the thing +depends on you. Unless you make a decided change you'll never get +on." + +"What change do you suggest? Item one, please?" + +James looked straight at him. "You lack bedrock principles, Jeff." + +"Do I?" + +"Take your habits. Two or three times you've been seen coming out +of saloons." + +"Expect I went in to get a drink." + +"It's not generally known, of course, but if it reached Prexy he'd +fire you so quick your head would swim." + +"I dare say." + +The senior looked at him significantly. "You're the last man that +ought to go to such places. There's such a thing as an inherited +tendency." + +The jaw muscles stood out like ropes under the flesh of Jeff's +lean face. "We'll not discuss that." + +"Very well. Cut it out. A drinking man is handicapped too heavily +to win." + +"Much obliged. Second count in the indictment, please." + +"You've got strange, unsettling notions. The profs don't like +them." + +"Don't they?" + +"You know what I mean. We didn't make this world. We've got to +take it as it is. You can't make it over. There are always going +to be rich people and poor ones. Just because you've fed +indigestibly on Ibsen and Shaw you can't change facts." + +"So you advise?" + +"Soft pedal your ideas if you must have them." + +"Hasn't a man got to see things as straight as he can?" + +"That's no reason for calling in the neighbors to rejoice with him +because he has astigmatism." + +Jeff came back with a tag of Emerson, whose phrases James was fond +of quoting in his speeches. "Whoso would be a man must be a +non-conformist. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of +your own mind." + +"You can push that too far. It isn't practical. We've got to make +compromises, especially with established things." + +Jeff sat up on the bed. Points of light were dancing in his big +eyes. "That's what the Pharisees said to Jesus when he wouldn't +stand for lies because they were deep rooted and for injustice +because it had become respectable." + +"Oh, if you're going to compare yourself to Christ--" + +"Verden University is supposed to stand for Christianity, isn't +it? It was because Jesus whanged away at social and industrial +freedom, at fraternity, at love on earth, that he had to endure +the Cross. He got under the upper class skin when he attacked the +traditional lies of vested interests. Now why doesn't Bland preach +the things that Jesus taught?" + +"He does." + +"Yes, he does," Jeff scoffed. "He preaches good form, +respectability, a narrow personal righteousness, a salvation +canned and petrified three hundred years ago." + +"Do you want him to preach socialism?" + +"I want him to preach the square deal in our social life, +intellectual honesty, and a vital spiritual life. Think of what +this college might mean, how it might stand for democracy It ought +to pour out into the state hundreds of specialists on the problems +of the country. Instead, it is only a reflection of the caste +system that is growing up in America." + +James shrugged his broad shoulders. "I've been through all that. +It's a phase we pass. You'll get over it. You've got to if you are +going to succeed." + +A quizzical grin wrinkled Jeff's lean face. "What is success?" + +"It's setting a high goal and reaching it. It's taking the world +by the throat and shaking from it whatever you want." James leaned +across the table, his eyes shining. "It's the journey's end for +the strong, that's what it is. I don't care whether a man is +gathering gilt or fame, he's got to pound away with his eye right +on it. And he's got to trample down the things that get in his +way." + +Jeff's eye fell upon a book on the table. "Ever hear of a chap +called Goldsmith?" + +"Of course. He wrote 'The School for Scandal.' What's he got to do +with it?" + +Jeff smiled, without correcting his cousin. "I've been reading +about him. Seems to have been a poor hack writer 'who threw away +his life in handfuls.' He wrote the finest poem, the best novel, +the most charming comedy of his day. He knew how to give, but he +didn't know how to take. So he died alone in a garret. He was a +failure." + +"Probably his own fault." + +"And on the day of his funeral the stairway was crowded with poor +people he had helped. All of them were in tears." + +"What good did that do him? He was inefficient. He might have +saved his money and helped them then." + +"Perhaps. I don't know. It might have been too late then. He chose +to give his life as he was living it." + +"Another reason for his poverty, wasn't there?" + +Jeff flushed. "He drank." + +"Thought so." James rose triumphantly and put on his overcoat. +"Well, think over what I've said." + +"I will. And tell the chancellor I'm much obliged to him for +sending you." + +For once the Senior was taken aback. "Eh, what--what?" + +"You may tell him it won't be your fault that I'll never be a +credit to Verden University." + +As he walked across the campus to his fraternity house James did +not feel that his call had been wholly successful. With him he +carried a picture of his cousin's thin satiric face in which big +expressive eyes mocked his arguments. But he let none of this +sense of futility get into the report given next day to the +Chancellor. + +"Jeff's rather light-minded, I'm afraid, sir. He wanted to branch +off to side lines. But I insisted on a serious talk. Before I left +him he promised to think over what I had said." + +"Let us hope he may." + +"He said it wouldn't be my fault if he wasn't a credit to the +University." + +"We can all agree with him there, Farnum." + +"Thank you, sir. I'm not very hopeful about him. He has other +things to contend with." + +"I'm not sure I quite know what you mean." + +"I can't explain more fully without violating a confidence." + +"Well, we'll hope for the best, and remember him in our prayers." + +"Yes, sir," James agreed. + + +CHAPTER 4 + +"I met a hundred men on the road to Delhi, and they were all my +brothers."--Old Proverb. + + +THE REBEL FLUNKS IN A COURSE ON HOW TO GET ON IN LIFE + + +Part 1 + +It would be easy to overemphasize Jeff's intellectual difficulties +at the expense of the deep delight he found in many phases of his +student life. The daily routine of the library, the tennis courts, +and the jolly table talk brought out the boy in him that had been +submerged. + +There developed in him a vagabond streak that took him into the +woods and the hills for days at a time. About the middle of his +Sophomore year he discovered Whitman. While camping alone at night +under the stars he used to shout out, + +"Strong and content, I travel the open road," or + +"Allons! The road is before us! + +"It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well." + +Through Stevenson's essay on Whitman Jeff came to know the Scotch +writer, and from the first paragraph of him was a sealed follower +of R. L. S. In different ways both of these poets ministered to a +certain love of freedom, of beauty, of outdoor spaces that was +ineradicably a part of his nature. The essence of vagabondage is +the spirit of romance. One may tour every corner of the earth and +still be a respectable Pharisee. One may never move a dozen miles +from the village of his birth and yet be of the happy company of +romantics. Jeff could find in a sunset, in a stretch of windswept +plain, +in the sight of water through leafless trees, something that +filled his heart with emotion. + +Perhaps the very freedom of these vacation excursions helped to +feed his growing discontent. The yeast of rebellion was forever +stirring in him. He wanted to come to life with open mind. He was +possessed of an insatiable curiosity about it. This took him to +the slums of Verden, to the redlight district, to Socialist +meetings, to a striking coal camp near the city where he narrowly +escaped being killed as a scab. He knew that something was wrong +with our social life. Inextricably blended with success and +happiness he saw everywhere pain, defeat, and confusion. Why must +such things be? Why poverty at all? + +But when he flung his questions at Pearson, who had charge of the +work in sociology, the explanations of the professor seemed to him +pitifully weak. + +In the ethics class he met the same experience. A chance reference +to Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual world" introduced him +to that stimulating book. All one night he sat up and read it-- +drank it in with every fiber of his thirsty being. + +The fire in his stove went out. He slipped into his overcoat. Gray +morning found him still reading. He walked out with dazed eyes +into a world that had been baptized anew during the night to a +miraculous rebirth. + +But when he took his discovery to the lecture room Dawson was not +only cold but hostile. Drummond was not sound. There was about him +a specious charm very likely to attract young minds. Better let +such books alone for the present. In the meantime the class would +take up with him the discussion of predeterminism as outlined in +Tuesday's work. + +There were members of the faculty big enough to have understood +the boy and tolerant enough to have sympathized with his crude +revolt, but Jeff was diffident and never came in touch with them. + +His connection with the college ended abruptly during the Spring +term of his Sophomore year. + +A celebrated revivalist was imported to quicken the spiritual life +of the University. Under his exhortations the institution +underwent a religious ferment. An extraordinary excitement was +astir on the campus. Class prayer meetings were held every +afternoon, and at midday smaller groups met for devotional +exercises. At these latter those who had made no profession of +religion were petitioned for by name. James Farnum was swept into +the movement and distinguished himself by his zeal. It was +understood that he desired the prayers of friends for that +relative who had not yet cast away the burden of his sins. + +It became a point of honor with his cousin's circle to win Jeff +for the cause. There was no difficulty in getting him to attend +the meetings of the revivalist. But he sat motionless through the +emotional climax that brought to an end each meeting. To him it +seemed that this was not in any vital sense religion, but he was +careful not to suggest his feeling by so much as a word. + +One or two of his companions invited him to come to Jesus. He +disconcerted them by showing an unexpected familiarity with the +Scriptures as a weapon of offense against them. + +James invited him to his rooms and labored with him. Jeff resorted +to the Socratic method. From what sins was he to be saved? And +when would he know he had found salvation? + +His cousin uneasily explained the formula. "You must believe in +Christ and Him crucified. You must surrender your will to His. +Shall we pray together?" + +"I'd rather not, J. K. First, I want to get some points clear. Do +you mean that I'm to believe in what Jesus said and to try to live +as he suggested?" + +"Yes." + +Jeff picked up his cousin's Bible and read a passage. " 'We know +that we have passed from death unto life, BECAUSE WE LOVE THE +BRETHREN. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.' That's +the test, isn't it?" + +"Well, you have to be converted," James said dubiously. + +"Isn't that conversion--loving your brother? And if a man is +willing to live in plenty while his brother is in poverty, if he +exploits those weaker than himself to help him get along, then he +can't be really converted, can he?" + +"Now see here, Jeff, you've got the wrong idea. Christ didn't come +into the world to reform it, but to save it from its sins. He +wasn't merely a man, but the Divine Son of God." + +"I don't understand the dual nature of Jesus. But when one reads +His life it is easy to believe in His divinity." After a moment +the young man added: "In one way we're all divine sons of God, +aren't we?" + +James was shocked. "Where do you get such notions? None of our +people were infidels." + +"Am I one?" + +"You ought to take advantage of this chance. It's not right to set +your opinion up against those that know better." + +"And that's what I'm doing, isn't it?" Jeff smiled. "Can't help +it. I reckon I can't be saved by my emotions. It's going to be a +life job." + +James gave him up, but he sent another Senior to make a last +attempt. The young man was Thurston Thomas and he had never +exchanged six sentences with Jeff in his life. The unrepentant +sinner sent him to the right about sharply. + +"What the devil do you mean by running about officiously and +bothering about other people's souls? Better look out for your +own." + +Thomas, a scion of one of the best families in Verden, looked as +if he had been slapped in the face. + +"Why Farnum, I--I spoke for your good." + +"No, you didn't," contradicted Jeff flatly. "You don't care a hang +about me. You've never noticed me before. We're not friends. +You've always disliked me. But you want the credit of bringing me +into the fold. It's damned impertinent of you." + +The Senior retired with a white face. He was furious, but he +thought it due himself to turn the other cheek by saying nothing. +He reported his version to a circle of friends, and from them it +spread like grass seed in the wind. Soon it was generally known +that Jeff Farnum had grossly insulted with blasphemy a man who had +tried to save his soul. + +Two days later Miller met Jeff at the door of Frome 15. + +"You're in bad! Jeff. What the deuce did you do to Sissy Thomas?" + +"Gave him some good advice." + +Miller grinned. "I'll bet you did. The little cad has been +poisoning the wells against you. Look there." + +A young woman of their class had passed into the room. Her glance +had fallen upon Farnum and been quickly averted. + +"That's the first time Bessie Vroom ever cut you," Sam continued +angrily. "Thomas is responsible. I've heard the story a dozen +times already." + +"I only told him to mind his own business." + +"He can't. He's a born meddler. Now he's queered you with the +whole place." + +"Can't help it. I wasn't going to let him get away with his +impudence. Why should I?" + +Miller shrugged. "Policy, my boy. Better take the advice of Cousin +James and crawl into your shell till the storm has pelted past." + +Half an hour later Jeff met his cousin near the chapel and was +taken to task. + +"What's this I hear about your insulting Thomas?" + +"You have it wrong. He insulted me," Jeff corrected with a smile. + +"Tommyrot! Why couldn't you treat him right?" + +"Didn't like to throw him through the window on account of +littering up the lawn with broken glass. " + +James K.'s handsome square-cut face did not relax to a smile. "You +may think this a joke, but I don't. I've heard the Chancellor is +going to call you on the carpet." + +"If he does he'll learn what I think." + +The upper classman's anger boiled over. "You might think of me a +little." + +"Didn't know you were in this, J. K." + +"They know I'm your cousin. It's hurting my reputation." + +A faint ironic smile touched Jeff's face. "No, James, I'm helping +it. Ever notice how blondes and brunettes chum together. Value of +contrasts, you see. I'm a moral brunette. You're a shining example +of all a man should be. I simply emphasize your greatness." + +"That's not the way it works," his cousin grumbled. + +"That's just how it works. Best thing that could happen to you +would be for me to get expelled. Shall I?" + +Jeff offered his suggestion debonairly. + +"Of course not." + +"It would give you just the touch of halo you need to finish the +picture. Think of it: your noble head bowed in grief because of +the unworthy relative you had labored so hard to save; the +sympathy of the faculty, the respect of the fellows, the shy +adoration of the co-eds. Great Brutus bowed by the sorrow of a +strong man's unrepining emotion. By Jove, I ought to give you the +chance. You'd look the part to admiration." + +For a moment James saw himself in the role and coveted it. Jeff +read his thought, and his laughter brought his cousin back to +earth. He had the irritated sense of having been caught. + +"It's not an occasion for talking nonsense," he said coldly. + +Jeff sensed his disgrace in the stiff politeness of the professors +and in the embarrassed aloofness of his classmates. Some of the +men frankly gave him a wide berth as if he had been a moral +pervert. + +His temperament was sensitive to slights and he fell into one of +his rare depressions. One afternoon he took the car for the city. +He wanted to get away from himself and from his environment. + +A chill mist was in the air. Drawn by the bright lights, Jeff +entered a saloon and sat down in an alcove with his arms on the +table. Why did they hammer him so because he told the truth as he +saw it? Why must he toady to the ideas of Bland as everybody else +at the University seemed to do? He was not respectable enough for +them. That was the trouble. They were pushing him back into the +gutter whence he had emerged. Wild fragmentary thoughts chased +themselves across the record of his brain. + +Almost before he knew it he had ordered and drunk a highball. +Immediately his horizon lightened. With the second glass his +depression vanished. He felt equal to anything. + +It was past nine o'clock when he took the University car. As +chance had it Professor Perkins and he were the only passengers. +The teacher of Economics bowed to the flushed youth and buried +himself in a book. It was not till they both rose to leave at the +University station that he noticed the condition of Farnum. Even +then he stood in momentary doubt. + +With a maudlin laugh Jeff quieted any possible explanation of +sickness. + +"Been havin' little spree down town, Profeshor. Good deal like one +ev'body been havin' out here. Yours shpiritual; mine shpirituous. +Joke, see! Play on wor'd. Shpiritual--shpirituous." + +"You're intoxicated, sir," Perkin,s told him sternly. + +"Betcherlife I am, old cock! Ever get shp--shp--shpiflicated +yourself?" + +"Go home and go to bed, sir!" + +"Whaffor? 'S early yet. 'S reasonable man I ask whaffor?" + +The professor turned away, but Jeff caught at his sleeve. + +"Lesh not go to bed. Lesh talk economicsh." + +"Release me at once, sir." + +"Jush's you shay. Shancellor wants see me. I'll go now." + +He did. What occurred at that interview had better be omitted. +Jeff was very cordial and friendly, ready to make up any +differences there might be between them. An ice statue would have +been warm compared to the Chancellor. + +Next day Jeff was publicly expelled. At the time it did not +trouble him in the least. He had brought a bottle home with him +from town, and when the notice was posted he lay among the bushes +in a sodden sleep half a mile from the campus. + + +Part 2 + +From a great distance there seemed to come to Jeff vaguely the +sound of young rippling laughter and eager girlish voices. Drawn +from heavy sleep, he was not yet fully awake. This merriment might +be the music of fairy bells, such stuff as dreams are made of. He +lay incurious, drowsiness still heavy on his eyelids. + +"Oh, Virgie, here's another bunch! Oh, girls, fields of them!" + +There was a little rush to the place, and with it a rustle of +skirts that sounded authentic. Jeff began to believe that his +nymphs were not born of fancy. He opened his eyes languidly to +examine a strange world upon which he had not yet focused his +mind. + +Out of the ferns a dryad was coming toward him, lance straight, +slender, buoyantly youthful in the light tread and in the poise of +the golden head. + +At sight of him she paused, held in her tracks, eyes grown big +with solicitude. + +"You are ill." + +Before he could answer she had dropped the anemones she carried, +was on her knees beside him, and had his head cushioned against +her arm. + +"Tell me! What can I do for you? What is the matter?" + +Jeff groaned. His head was aching as if it would blow up, but that +was not the cause of the wave of pain which had swept over him. A +realization had come to him of what was the matter with him. His +eyes fell from hers. He made as if to get up, but her hand +restrained him with a gentle firmness. + +"Don't! You mustn't." Then aloud, she cried: "Girls--girls-- +there's a sick man here. Run and get help. Quick." + +"No--no! I--I'm not sick." + +A flood of shame and embarrassment drenched him. He could not +escape her tender hands without actual force and his poignant +shyness made that impossible. She was like a fairy tale, a +creature of dreams. He dared not meet her frank pitiful eyes, +though he was intensely aware of them. The odor of violets brings +to him even to this day a vision of girlish charm and daintiness, +together with a memory of the abased reverence that filled him. + +They came running, her companions, eager with question and +suggestion. And hard upon their heels a teamster from the road +broke through the thicket, summoned by their calls for help. He +stooped to pick up something that his foot had struck. It was a +bottle. He looked at it and then at Jeff. + +"Nothing the matter with him, Miss, but just plain drunk," the man +said with a grin. "He's been sleeping it off." + +Jeff felt the quiver run through her. She rose, trembling, and +with one frightened sidelong look at him walked quickly away. He +had seen a wound in her eyes he would not soon forget. It was as +if he had struck her down while she was holding out hands to help +him. + + +CHAPTER 5 + +Lies need only age to make them respectable. Given that, they +become traditions and are put upon a pedestal. Then the gentlest +word for him who attacks them is traitor. +--From the Note Book of a Dreamer. + + +THE REBEL FOLLOWS THE RAMIFICATIONS OF BIG BUSINESS AND FINDS THAT +THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY ARE NOT IN POLITICS FOR THEIR HEALTH + + +Part 1 + +"Hmp! Want to be a reporter, do you?" + +Warren, city editor on the Advocate, leaned back in his chair and +looked Jeff over sharply. + +"Yes." + +"It's a hell of a life. Better keep out." + +"I'd like to try it." + +"Any experience?" + +"Only correspondence. I've had two years at college." + +The city editor snorted. He had the unreasoning contempt for +college men so often found in the old-time newspaper hack. + +"Then you don't want to be a reporter. You want to be a +journalist," he jeered. + +"They kicked me out," Jeff went on quietly. + +"Sounds better. Why?" + +Jeff hesitated. "I got drunk." + +"Can't use you," Warren cut in hastily. + +"I've quit--sworn off." + +The city editor was back on the job, his eyes devouring copy. +"Heard that before. Nothing to it," he grunted. + +"Give me a trial. I'll show you." + +"Don't want a man that drinks. Office crowded with 'em already." + +Jeff held his ground. For five minutes the attention of Warren was +focused on his work. + +Suddenly he snapped out, "Well?" + +He met Farnum's ingratiating smile. "You haven't told me yet what +to start doing." + +"I told you I didn't want you." + +"But you do. I'm on the wagon." + +"For how long?" jeered the city editor. + +"For good." + +Warren sized him up again. He saw a cleareyed young fellow without +a superfluous ounce of flesh on him, not rugged but with a look of +strength in the slender figure and the thin face. This young man +somehow inspired confidence. + +"Sent in that Colby story to us, didn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"Rotten story. Not half played up. Report to Jenkins at the City +Hall." + +"Now?" + +"Now. Think I meant next year?" + +The city editor was already lost in the reading of more copy. + +Inside of half an hour Jeff was at work on his first assignment. +Some derelict had committed suicide under the very shadow of the +City Hall. Upon the body was a note scrawled on the bask of a +dirty envelope. + +Sick and out of work. Notify Henry Simmons, 237 River Street, San +Francisco. + +Jenkins, his hands in his pockets, looked at the body +indifferently and turned the story over to the cub with a nod of +his head. + +"Go to it. Half a stick," he said. + +From another reporter Jeff learned how much half a stick is. He +wrote the account. When he had read it Jenkins glanced sharply at +him. Though only the barest facts were told there was a sob in the +story. + +"That ain't just how we handle vag suicides, but we'll let 'er go +this time," he commented. + +It did not take Jeff long to learn how to cover a story to the +satisfaction of the city editor. He had only to be conventional, +sensational, and in general accurate as to his facts. He +fraternized with his fellow reporters at the City Hall, shared +stories with them, listened to the cheerful lies they told of +their exploits, and lent them money they generally forgot to +return. They were a happy-go-lucky lot, full of careless +generosities and Bohemian tendencies. Often a week's salary went +at a single poker sitting. Most of them drank a good deal. + +After a few months' experience Jeff discovered that while the +gathering of news tends to sharpen the wits it makes also for the +superficial. Alertness, cleverness, persistence, a nose for news, +and a surface accuracy were the chief qualities demanded of him by +the office. He had only to look around him to see that the +profession was full of keen-eyed, nimble-witted old-young men who +had never attempted to synthesize the life they were supposed to +be recording and interpreting. While at work they were always +in a hurry, for to-day's news is dead to-morrow. They wrote on the +run, without time for thought or reflection. Knowing beyond their +years, the fruit of their wisdom was cynicism. Their knowledge +withered for lack of roots. + +The tendency of the city desk and of copy readers is to reduce all +reporters to a dead level, but in spite of this Jeff managed to +get himself into his work. He brought to many stories a freshness, +a point of view, an optimism that began to be noticed. From the +police run Jeff drifted to other departments. He covered hotels, +the court house, the state house and general assignments. + +At the end of a couple of years he was promoted to a desk +position. This did not suit him, and he went back to the more +active work of the street. In time he became known as a star man. +From dramatics he went to politics, special stories and feature +work. The big assignments were given him. + +It was his duty to meet famous people and interview them. The +chance to get behind the scenes at the real inside story was given +him. Because of this many reputations were pricked like bubbles so +far as he was concerned. The mask of greatness was like the false +faces children wear to conceal their own. In the one or two really +big men he met Jeff discovered a humility and simplicity that came +from self-forgetfulness. They were too busy with their vision of +truth to pose for the public admiration. + + +Part 2 + +It was while Jeff was doing the City Hall run that there came to +him one night at his rooms a man he had known in the old days when +he had lived in the river bottom district. If he was surprised to +see him the reporter did not show it. + +"Hello, Burke! Come in. Glad to see you." + +Farnum took the hat of his guest and relieved his awkwardness by +guiding him to a chair and helping him get his pipe alight. + +"How's everything? Little Mike must be growing into a big boy +these days. Let's see. It's three years since I've seen him." + +A momentary flicker lit the gloomy eyes of the Irishman. "He's a +great boy, Mike is. He often speaks of you, Mr. Farnum. + +"Glad to know it. And Mrs. Burke?" + +"Fine." + +"That leaves only Patrick Burke. I suppose he hasn't fallen off +the water wagon yet." + +The occupation of Burke had been a threadbare joke between them in +the old days. He drove a street sprinkler for the city. + +"That's what he has. McGuire threw the hooks into me this mor- +rning. I've drove me last day." + +"What's the matter?" + +"I'm too damned honest. . . . or too big a coward. Take your +choice." + +"All right. I've taken it," smiled the reporter. + +Pat brought his big fist down on the table so forcefully that the +books shook. "I'll not go to the penitentiary for an-ny man. . . . +He wanted me to let him put two other teams on the rolls in my + name. I wouldn't stand for it. That was six weeks ago. To-day he +lets me out." + +Jeff began to see dimly the trail of the serpent graft. He lit his +pipe before he spoke. + +"Don't quite get the idea, Pat. Why wouldn't you?" + +"Because I'm on the level. I'll have no wan tellin' little Mike +his father is a dirty thief. . . .It's this way. The rolls were to +be padded, understand." + +"I see. You were to draw pay for three teams when you've got only +one." + +"McGuire was to draw it, all but a few dollars a month." The +Irishman leaned forward, his eyes blazing. "And because I wouldn't +stand for it I'm fired for neglecting my duty. I missed a street +yesterday. If he'd been frientlly to me I might have missed forty. +. . . But he can't throw me down like that. I've got the goods to +show he's a dirty grafter. Right now he's drawing pay for seven +teams that don't exist." + +"And he doesn't know you know it?" + +"You bet he don't. I've guessed it for a month. To-day I went +round and made sure." + +Jeff asked questions, learned all that Burke had to tell him. In +the days that followed he ran down the whole story of the graft so +secretly that not even the city editor knew what he was about. +Then he had a talk with the "old man" and wrote his story. + +It was a red-hot exposure of one of the most flagrant of the City +Hall gang. There was no question of the proof. He had it in black +and white. Moreover, there was always the chance that in the row +which must follow McGuire might peach on Big Tim himself, the boss +of all the little bosses. + +Within twenty-four hours Jeff was summoned to a conference at +which were present the city editor and Warren, now managing +editor. + +"We've killed your story, Farnum," announced the latter as soon as +the door was closed. + +"Why? I can prove every word of it." + +"That was what we were afraid of." + +"It's a peach of a story. With the spring elections coming on we +need some dynamite to blow up Big Tim. I tell you McGuire would +tell all he knows to save his own skin." + +"My opinion, too," agreed Warren dryly. "My boy, it's too big a +story. That's the whole trouble. If we were sure it would stop at +McGuire we'd run it. But it won't. The corporations are backing +Big Tim to win this spring. It won't do to get him tied up in a +graft scandal." + +"But the _Advocate_ has been out after his scalp for years." + +"Well, we're not after it any more. Of course, we're against him +on the surface still." + +Jeff did some rapid thinking. "Then the program will be for us to +nominate a weak ticket and elect Big Tim's by default. Is that +it?" + +"That's about it. The big fellows have to make sure of a Mayor who +will be all right about the Gas and Electric franchise. So we're +going to have four more years of Big Tim." + +"Will Brownell stand for it?" + +Brownell was the principal owner of the _Advocate._ + +"Will he?" Warren let his eyelash rest for a second upon the +cheek nearest Jeff. "He's been seen. My orders come direct from +the old man." + +The story was suppressed. No more was heard about the McGuire +graft scandal exposure. It had run counter to the projects of big +business. + +Burke had to be satisfied without his revenge. + +He got a job with a brewery and charged the McGuire matter to +profit and loss. + +As for Jeff the incident only served to make clearer what he +already knew. More and more he began to understand the forces that +dominate our cities, the alliance between large vested interests +and the powers that prey. These great corporations were seekers of +special privileges. To secure this they financed the machines and +permitted vice and corruption. He saw that ultimately most of the +shame for the bad government of American cities rests upon the +Fromes and the Merrills. + +As for the newspapers, he was learning that between the people and +an independent press stand the big advertisers. These make for +conservatism, for an unfair point of view, for a slant in both +news recording and news interpretation. Yet he saw that the press +is in spite of this a power for good. The evil that it does is +local and temporary, the good general and permanent. + + +Part 3 + +The spirit of commercialism that dominated America during the +nineties and the first years of the new century never got hold of +Jeff. The air and the light of his land were often the creation of +a poet's dream. The delight of life stabbed him, so, too, did its +tragedy. Not anchored to conventions, his mind was forever asking +questions, seeking answers. + +He would come out from a theater into a night that was a flood of +illumination. Electric signs poured a glare of light over the +streets. Motor cars and electrics whirled up to take away +beautifully gowned women and correctly dressed men. The windows of +the department stores were filled with imported luxuries. And he +would sometimes wonder how much of misery and trouble was being +driven back by that gay blare of wealth, how many men and women +and children were giving their lives to maintain a civilization +that existed by trampling over their broken hearts and bodies. + +Preventable poverty stared at him from all sides. He saw that our +social fabric is thrown together in the most haphazard fashion, +without scientific organization, with the greatest waste, in such +a way that non-producers win all the prizes while the toilers do +without. Yet out of this system that sows hate and discontent, +that is a practical denial of brotherhood, of God, springs here +and there love like a flower in a dunghill. + +He felt that art and learning, as well as beauty and truth, ought +to walk hand in hand with our daily lives. But this is impossible +so long as disorder and cruelty and disease are in the world +unnecessarily. He heard good people, busy with effects instead of +causes, talk about the way out, as if there could be any way out +which did not offer an equality of opportunity refused by the +whole cruel system of to-day. + +But Jeff could be in revolt without losing his temper. The men who +profited by present conditions were not monsters. They were as +kind of heart as he was, effects of the system just as much as the +little bootblack on the corner. No possible good could come of a +blind hatred of individuals. + +His Bohemian instinct sent Jeff ranging far in those days. He made +friends out of the most unlikely material. Some of the most +radical of these were in the habit of gathering informally in his +rooms about once a week. Sometimes the talk was good and pungent. +Much of it was merely wild. + +His college friend, Sam Miller, now assistant city librarian, was +one of this little circle. Another was Oscar Marchant, a fragile +little Socialist poet upon whom consumption had laid its grip. He +was not much of a poet, but there burnt in him a passion for +humanity that disease and poverty could not extinguish. + +One night James Farnum dropped in to borrow some money from his +cousin and for ten minutes listened to such talk as he had never +heard before. His mind moved among a group of orthodox and +accepted ideas. A new one he always viewed as if it were a +dynamite bomb timed to go off shortly. He was not only suspicious +of it; he was afraid of it. + +James was, it happened, in evening dress. He took gingerly the +chair his cousin offered him between the hectic Marchant and a +little Polish Jew. + +The air was blue with the smoke from cheap tobacco. More than one +of those present carried the marks of poverty. But the note of the +assembly was a cheerful at-homeness. James wondered what the devil +his cousin meant by giving this heterogeneous gathering the +freedom of his rooms. + +Dickinson, the single-taxer, was talking bitterly. He was a big +man with a voice like a foghorn. His idea of emphasis appeared to +be pounding the table with his blacksmith fist. + +"I tell you society doesn't want to hear about such things," he +was declaiming. "It wants to go along comfortably without being +disturbed. Ignore everything that's not pleasant, that's liable to +harrow the feelings. The sins of our neighbors make spicy reading. +Fill the papers with 'em. But their distresses and their poverty! +That's different. Let's hear as little about them as possible. +Let's keep it a well-regulated world." + +Nearly everybody began to talk at once. James caught phrases here +and there out of the melee. + +". . . Democratic institutions must either decay or become +revitalized. . . .To hell with such courts. They're no better than +anarchy. . . .In Verden there are only two classes: those who +don't get as much as they earn and those who get more. . . . Tell +you we've got to get back to the land, got to make it free as air. +You can't be saved from economic slavery till you have socialism. +. . ." + +Suddenly the hubbub subsided and Marchant had the floor. "All of +life's a compromise, a horrible unholy giving up as unpractical +all the best things. It's a denial of love, of Christ, of God." + +A young preacher who was conducting a mission for sailors on the +water front cut in. "Exactly. The church is radically wrong +because--" + +"Because it hasn't been converted to Christianity yet. Mr. +Moneybags in the front pew has got a strangle hold on the parson. +Begging your pardon, Mifflin. We know you're not that kind." + +Marchant won the floor again. "Here's the nub of it. A man's a +slave so long as his means of livelihood is dependent on some +other man. I don't care whether it's lands or railroads or mines. +Abolish private property and you abolish poverty." + +They were all at it again, like dogs at a bone. Across the Babel +James caught Jeff's gay grin at him. + +By sheer weight Dickinson's voice boomed out of the medley. + +". . . just as Henry George says: 'Private ownership of land is +the nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. +Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are +being ground.' We're just beginning to see the effect of private +property in land. Within a few years. . . ." + +"What we need is to get back to Democracy. Individualism has run +wild. . . ." + +"Trouble is we can't get anywhere under the Constitution. Every +time we make a move--check. It was adopted by aristocrats to hold +back the people and that's what it's done. Law--" + +Apparently nobody got a chance to finish his argument. The Polish +Jew broke in sharply. "Law! There iss no law." + +"Plenty of it, Sobieski, Go out on the streets and preach your +philosophic anarchy if you don't believe it. See what it will do +to you. Law's a device to bolster up the strong and to hammer down +the weak." + +James had given a polite cynical indulgence to views so lost to +reason and propriety. But he couldn't quite stand any more. He +made a sign to Jeff and they adjourned to the next room. + +"Your friends always so--so enthusiastic?" he asked with the +slightest lift of his upper lip. + +"Not always. They're a little excited to-night because Harshaw +imprisoned those fourteen striking miners for contempt of court." + +"Don't manufacture bombs here, do you?" + +Jeff laughed. "We're warranted harmless." + +James offered him good advice. "That sort of talk doesn't lead to +anything--except trouble. Men who get on don't question the +fundamentals of our social system. It doesn't do, you know. Take +the constitution. Now I've studied it. A wonderful document. +Gladstone said." + +"Yes, I know what Gladstone said. I don't agree with him. The +constitution was devised by men with property as a protection +against those who had none." + +"Why shouldn't it have been?" + +"It should, if vested interests are the first thing to consider. +In there"--with a smiling wave of his hand--"they think people are +more important than things. A most unsettling notion!" + +"Mean to say you believe all that rant they talk?" + +"Not quite," Jeff laughed. + +"Well, I'd cut that bunch of anarchists if I were you," his cousin +suggested. "Say, Jeff, can you let me have fifty dollars?" + +Jeff considered. He had been thinking of a new spring overcoat, +but his winter one would do well enough. From the office he could +get an advance of the balance he needed to make up the fifty. + +"Sure. I'll bring it to your rooms to-morrow night." + +"Much obliged. Hate to trouble you," James said lightly. "Well, I +won't keep you longer from your anarchist friends. Good-night." + + +CHAPTER 6 + +"The cure for the evils of Democracy is more Democracy." +--De Tocqueville. + + +THE REBEL HUMBLY ASSISTS AT THE UNVEILING OF A HERO'S STATUE + + +Part 1 + +On the occasion when his cousin was graduated with the highest +honors from the law school of Verden University Jeff sat +inconspicuously near the rear of the chapel. James, as class +orator, rose to his hour. From the moment that he moved slowly to +the front of the platform, handsome and impassive, his calm gaze +sweeping over the audience while he waited for the little bustle +of expectancy to subside, Jeff knew that the name of Farnum was +going to be covered with glory. + +The orator began in a low clear voice that reached to the last +seat in the gallery. Jeff knew that before he finished its echoes +would be ringing through the hall like a trumpet call to the +emotions of those present. + +It was not destined that Jeff should hear a word of that stirring +peroration. His eye fell by chance upon a young woman seated in a +box beside an elderly man whom he recognized as Peter C. Frome. +From that instant he was lost to all sense perception that did not +focus upon her. For he was looking at the dryad who had come upon +him out of the ferns three years before. She would never know it, +but Alice Frome had saved him from the weakness that might have +destroyed him. +From that day he had been a total abstainer. Now as he looked at +her the vivid irregular beauty of the girl flowed through him like +music. Her charm for him lay deeper than the golden gleams of +imprisoned sunlight woven in her hair, than the gallant poise of +the little head above the slender figure. Though these set his +heart beating wildly, a sure instinct told him of the fine and +exquisite spirit that found its home in her body. + +She was leaning forward in her chair, her eyes fixed on James +almost as if she were fascinated by his oratory. Her father +watched her, a trifle amused at her eagerness. In her admiration +she was frank as a boy. When Farnum's last period was rounded out +and he made to leave the stage her gloved hands beat together in +excited applause. + +After the ceremonies were over James came straight to her. Jeff +missed no detail of their meeting. The young lawyer was swimming +on a tide of triumph, but it was easy to see that Alice Frome's +approval was the thing he most desired. His cousin had never seen +him so gay, so handsome, so altogether irresistible. For the first +time a little spasm of envy shot through Jeff, That the girl liked +James was plain enough. How could any girl help liking him? + +The orator was so much the center of attention that Jeff postponed +his congratulations till evening. He called on his cousin after +midnight at his rooms. James had just returned from a class +banquet where he had been the toastmaster. He was still riding the +big wave. + +"It's been a great day for me, Jeff," he broke out after his +cousin had congratulated him. "I've earned it, too. For seven +years I've worked toward this day as a climax. Did you see me +talking to P. C. Frome and his daughter? I'm going to be accepted +socially in the best houses of the city. I'll make them all open +to me." + +"I don't doubt it." + +"And the best of it is that I've made my own success." + +"Yes, you've worked hard," Jeff admitted with a little gleam of +humor in his eyes. He would not remind his cousin that he had +lent him most of the money to see him through law school. + +"Oh, worked!" James was striding up and down the room to get rid +of some of his nervous energy. "I've done more than work. I've +made opportunities . . . grabbed them coming and going. Young as I +am Verden expects big things of me. And I'll deliver the goods, +too." + +"What's the program?" Jeff asked, much amused. + +"Don't know yet. I'm going into politics and I mean to get ahead. +I'll make a big splash and keep in the public eye." + +His cousin could not help laughing. "You always were a pretty good +press agent for J. K. Farnum." + +"Why shouldn't I be?" + +"I don't know why you shouldn't. A man who gets ahead puts himself +in a position where he can bring about reforms." + +"That's it exactly. I mean to make myself a power." + +"Get hold of one good practical reform and back it. Pound away on +it until the people identify you with it. Take direct legislation +as your text, say. There's going to be a strong drift that way in +the next ten years. Machines and bosses are going to be swept to +the junk heap." + +"How do you know?" + +Jeff could give no adequate justification for the faith that was +in him. It would be no answer to tell James that he knew the plain +people of the state better than the politicians did. However, he +mentioned a few facts. + +"It's all very well for you to be a radical, but I have to +conserve my influence," James objected. "I've got to be practical. +If I were just going to be a reporter it would be different." + +"Don't be too practical, James. You've got to have some vision if +you're going to lead the people. Nobody is so blind to the future +as practical politicians and business men." He stopped, smiling +quizzically. "But you're the orator of the family. I don't want to +infringe on your copyright. Only you have the personality to be a +real leader. Get started right. Remember that America faces +forward, and that we're going to move with seven league boots to +better conditions." + +James mused out loud. "If a man could be a Lincoln to save the +people from industrial slavery it would be worth while." + +Jeff did not laugh at his conceit. "Go to it. I'll promise you the +backing of the _World_." + +"What have you to do with the _World_?" + +"Beginning with next Monday I'm to be managing editor." + +"You!" + +"Even so. Captain Chunn has bought the paper." + +"Chunn, the man who made millions in a lucky strike in Alaska?" + +"Same man." + +James was still incredulous. "How did Chunn happen to pick you for +the editor?" + +"He's an old friend of mine. 'Member the day I had the fight with +Ned Merrill. Captain Chunn was the man who stood up for me." + +"And you've known him ever since?" + +"I've always corresponded with him." + +"Well, I'll be hanged. Talk about luck." James looked his cousin +over with increased respect. He always took off his hat to +success, but he had been so long accustomed to thinking of Jeff as +a failure that he could not adjust his mind to the situation. +"Why, you can't run a paper. Can you?" + +Jeff smiled. "I told Captain Chunn he was taking a big chance." + +"If he's as rich as they say he is he can afford to lose some +money." + +James took the news of his cousin's good fortune a little +peevishly. He did not grudge Jeff's advancement, but he resented +that it had befallen him to-day of all days. The promotion of the +reporter took the edge off his own achievements. + + + +Part 2 + +As James understood his own genius, it was as a statesman that he +was fitted preeminently to shine. He had the urbanity, the large +impassive manner, and the magnetic eloquence of the old-style +congressman. All he needed was the chance. + +With the passing months he grew more restless at the delay. There +were moments in the night when he trembled lest some stroke of +evil fate might fall upon him before he had carved his name in the +niche of fame. To sit in an empty law office and wait for clients +took more patience than he could summon. He wanted an opportunity +to make speeches in the campaign that was soon to open. That he +finally went to Big Tim himself about it instead of to his ward +committeeman was characteristic of James K. + +After he sent his card in the young lawyer was kept waiting for +thirty-five minutes in an outer office along with a Jew peddler, a +pugilist ward heeler, an Irish saloonkeeper, and a brick +contractor. Naturally he was exceedingly annoyed. O'Brien ought to +know that James K. Farnum did not rank with this riff-raff. + +When at last James got into the holy of holies he found Big Tim +lolling back in his swivel chair with a fat cigar in his mouth. +The boss did not take the trouble to rise as he waved his visitor +to a chair. + +Farnum explained that he was interested in the political situation +and that he was prepared to take an active part in the campaign +about to open. The big man listened, watching him out of half shut +attentive eyes. He had never yet seen a kid glove politician that +was worth the powder to blow him up. Moreover, he had special +reasons for disliking this one. His cousin was editor of the +_World_, and that paper was becoming a thorn in his side. + +O'Brien took the cigar from his mouth. "Did youse go to the +primary last night?' he asked. + +James did not even know there had been one. He had in point of +fact been at a Country Club dance. + +"Can youse tell me what the vote of your precinct was at the last +city election?" + +The budding statesman could not. + +"What precinct do youse live in?" + +Farnum was not quite sure. He explained that he had moved +recently. + +Big Tim grunted scornfully. He was pleased to have a chance to +take down the cheek of any Farnum. + +"What do youse think you can do?" + +"I can make speeches. I'm the best orator that ever came out of +Verden University." + +"Tommyrot! How do youse stand in your precinct? Can youse get the +vote out to go down the line for us? That's what counts. Oratory +be damned!" + +James was pale with rage. The manner of the boss was nothing less +than insulting. + +"Then you decline to give me a chance, Mr. O'Brien?" + +"I do not. In politics a man makes his own chance. He gets along +by being so useful we can't get along without him. See? He learns +the game. You don't know the A B C of it. It's my opinion youse +never will." + +O'Brien's hard cold eye triumphed over him as a principal does +over a delinquent schoolboy. + +His vanity stung, the lawyer sprang to his feet. "Very well, Mr. +O'Brien. I'll show you a thing or two about what I can and can't +do." + +For just an instant a notion flitted across Big Tim's mind that he +might be making a mistake. He was indulging an ugly temper, and he +knew it. This was a luxury he rarely permitted himself. Now he +decided to "go the whole hog," as he phrased it to himself later. +His lips set to an ugly snarl. + +"It's like the nerve of ye to come to me. Want to begin at the top +instid of at the bottom. Go to Billie Gray if youse want to have +some wan learn youse the game. If you're any good he'll find it +out." + +James got himself out of the office with all the dignity of which +he was capable. Go to Billie Gray, the notorious ballot box +stuffer! Take orders from the little rascal who had shaved the +penitentiary only because of his pull! James saw himself doing it. +He was sore in every outraged nerve of him. Never before in his +life had anybody sat and sneered at him openly before his eyes. He +would show the big boss that he had been a fool to treat him so. +And he would show P. C. Frome and Ned Merrill that he was a very +valuable man. + +How? Why, by fighting the corporations! Wasn't that the way that +all the big men got their start nowadays as lawyers? As soon as +they discovered his value Frome and his friends would be after his +services fast enough. James was no radical, but he believed Jeff +knew what he was talking about when he predicted an impending +political change, one that would carry power back from the machine +bosses to the people. The young lawyer decided to ride that wave +as far as it would take him. He would be a tribune of the people, +and they in turn would make of him their hero. With the promised +backing of the _World_ he would go a long way. He knew that Jeff +would fling him at once into the limelight. And he would make +good. He would be the big speaker for the reform movement. Nobody +in the state could sway a crowd as he could. James had not the +least doubt about that. It was glory and applause he wanted, not +the drudgery of dirty ward politics. + + +Part 3 + +Under Jeff's management the _World_ had at once taken the +leadership in the fight for political reform in the state. He made +it the policy of the paper to tell the truth as to corruption both +in and out of his own party. Nor would he allow the business +office, as influenced by the advertisers, to dictate the policy of +the paper. The result was that at the end of the first year he +went to the owner with a report of a deficit of one hundred and +twenty-five thousand dollars for the twelve months just ended. + +Captain Chunn only laughed. "Keep it up, son. I've had lots of fun +out of it. You've given this town one grand good shaking up. The +whole state is getting its fighting clothes on. We've got Merrill +and Frome scared stiff about their supreme court judges. Looks to +me as if we were going to lick them." + +The political campaign was already in progress. Hitherto the +public utility corporations of Verden had controlled and +practically owned the machinery of both parties. The _World_ had +revolted, rallied the better sentiment in the party to which it +belonged, and forced the convention to declare for a reform +platform and to nominate a clean ticket composed of men of +character. + +Jeff agreed. "I think we're going to win. The people are with us. +The _World_ is booming." It's the advertising troubles me. Frome +and Merrill have got at the big stores and they won't come in with +any space worth mentioning." + +"Damn the big advertisers," exploded Chunn. "I've got two million +cold and I'm going to see this thing out, son. That's what I told +Frome last week when he had the nerve to have me nominated to the +Verden Club. Wanted to muzzle me. Be a good fellow and quit +agitating. That was the idea. I sent back word I'd stuck by Lee to +Appomattox and I reckoned I was too old a dog to learn the new +trick of deserting my flag." + +"If you're satisfied I ought to be," Jeff laughed. "As for the +advertising, the stores will come back soon. The managers all want +to take space, but they are afraid of spoiling their credit at the +banks while conditions are so unsettled." + +"Oh, well. We'll stick to our guns. You fire'em and I'll supply +the ammunition." The little man put his hand on Jeff's shoulder +with a chuckle. "We're both rebels--both irreconcilables, son. I +reckon we're going to be well hated before we get through with +this fight." + +"Yes. They're going about making people believe we're cranks and +agitators who are hurting business for our own selfish ends." + +"I reckon we can stand it, David." Chunn had no children of his +own and he always called Jeff son or David. "By the way, how's +that good looking cousin of yours coming out? I see you're giving +his speeches lots of space." + +A light leaped to the eyes of the younger man. "He's doing fine. +James is a born orator. Wherever he goes he gets a big ovation." + +Chunn grunted. "Humph! That'll please him. He's as selfish as the +devil, always looking out for James Farnum." + +"He wins the people, Captain." + +"You talk every evening yourself, but I don't see reports of any +of your speeches." + +"I don't talk like James. There's not a man in the state to equal +him, young as he is." + +"Humph!" + +Captain Chunn grumbled a good deal about the way Jeff was always +pushing his cousin forward and keeping in the background himself. +In his opinion "David" was worth a hundred of the other. + + +CHAPTER 7 + +"Spirits of old that bore me, + And set me, meek of mind, +Between great deeds before me, + And deeds as great behind, + +Knowing Humanity my star + As forth of old I ride, +0 help me wear with every scar + Honor at eventide." + + +THE REBEL DISCOVERS THAT ADHESION IS A PROPERTY OF MUD; ALSO THAT +A SOLDIER MUST SOMETIMES TURN HIS BACK AND BURN THE BRIDGES BEHIND +HIM + + +Part 1 + +The fight for the control of the state developed unprecedented +bitterness. The big financial interests back of the political +machines poured out money like water to elect a ticket that would +be friendly to capital. An eight-hour-day bill to apply to miners +and underground workers had been passed by the last legislature +and a supreme court must be elected to declare this law +unconstitutional. Moreover, a United States senator was to be +chosen, so that the personnel of the assembly was a matter of +great importance. + +Through the subsidized columns of the _Advocate_ and the _Herald_ +all the venom of outraged public plunder was emptied on the heads +of Jeff Farnum and Captain Chunn. They were rebels, blackmailers, +and anarchists. Jeff's life was held up to public scorn as +dissolute and licentious. He had been expelled from college and +consorted only with companions of the lowest sort. A free thinker +and an atheist, he wanted to tear down the pillars which upheld +society. Unless Verden and the state repudiated him and his gang +of trouble breeders the poison of their opinions would infect the +healthy fabric of the community. + +There was about Jeff a humility, a sort of careless generosity, +that could take with a laugh a hit at himself. But in the days +that followed he was often made to wince when good men drew away +from him as from a moral pervert. Twice he was hissed from the +stage when he attempted to talk, or would have been, if he had not +quietly waited until the indignant protesters were exhausted. It +amused him to see that his old college acquaintance "Sissie" +Thomas and Billy Gray, the ballot box stuffer of the Second Ward, +were among the most vehement of those who thus scorned him. So do +the extremes of virtue and vice find common ground when the +blasphemer raises his voice against intrenched capital. + +The personal calumny of the enemy showed how hard hit the big +bosses were, how beneath their feet they felt the ground of public +opinion shift. It had been only a year since Big Tim O'Brien, boss +of the city by permission of the public utility corporations, had +read Jeff's first editorial against ballot box stuffing. In it the +editor of the _World_ had pledged that paper never to give up the +fight for the people until such crookedness was stamped out. Big +Tim had laughed until his paunch shook at the confidence of this +young upstart and in impudent defiance had sent him a check for +fifty dollars for the Honest Election League. + +Neither Big Tim nor the respectable buccaneers back of him were +laughing now. They were fighting with every ounce in them to sweep +back the wave of civic indignation the _World_ had gathered into a +compact aggressive organization. + +Young Ned Merrill, who represented the interests of the allied +corporations, had Big Tim on the carpet. The young man had not +been out of Harvard more than three years, but he did not let any +nonsense about fair play stand in his way. In spite of the clean- +cut look of him--he was broadshouldered and tall, with an effect +of decision in the square cleft chin that would some day +degenerate into fatness--Ned Merrill played the game of business +without any compunctions. + +"You're making a bad fight of it, O'Brien. Old style methods won't +win for us. These crank reformers have got the people stirred up. +Keep your ward workers busy, but don't expect them to win." He +leaned forward and brought his fist down heavily on the desk. +"We've got to smash Farnum--discredit him with the bunch of sheep +who are following him." + +"What more do youse want? We're callin' him ivery black name under +Hiven." + +Merrill shook his head decisively. "Not enough. Prove something. +Catch him with the goods." + +"If youse'll show me how?" + +"I don't care how, You've got detectives, haven't you? Find out +all about him, where he comes from, who his people were. Rake his +life with a fine tooth comb from the day he was born. He's a bad +egg. We all know that. Dig up facts to prove it." + +Within the hour detectives were set to work. One of them left next +day for Shelby. Another covered the neighborhoods where Jeff had +lived in Verden. Henceforth wherever he went he was shadowed. + +It was about this time that Samuel Miller lost his place in the +city library on account of his political opinions. For more than a +year he and Jeff had roomed together at a private boarding house +kept by a Mrs. Anderson. Within twentyfour hours of his dismissal +Miller was on the road, sent out by the campaign committee of his +party to make speeches throughout the state. + +Jeff himself was speaking nearly every night now that the day of +election was drawing near. This, together with the work of editing +the paper and the strain of the battle, told heavily on a vitality +never too much above par. He would come back to his rooms fagged +out, often dejected because some friend had deserted to the enemy. + +One cold rainy evening he met Nellie Anderson in the hall. She had +been saying good-bye to some friends who had been in to call on +her. + +"You're wet, Mr. Farnum," the young woman said. + +"A little." + +She stood hesitating in the doorway leading to the apartment of +herself and her mother, then yielded shyly to a kindly impulse. + +"We've been making chocolate. Won't you come in and have some? You +look cold." + +Jeff glimpsed beyond her the warm grate fire in the room. He, too, +yielded to an impulse. "Since you're so good as to ask me, Miss +Nellie." + +She took charge of his hat and overcoat, making him sit down in a +big armchair before the fire. He watched her curiously as she +moved lightly about waiting on him. Nellie was a soft round little +person with constant intimations of a childhood not long outgrown. +Jeff judged she must be nineteen or twenty, but she had moments of +being charmingly unsure of herself. The warm color came and went +in her clear cheeks at the least provocation. + +"Mother's gone to bed. She always goes early. You don't mind," she +asked naively. + +Jeff smiled. She was, he thought, about as worldly wise as a +fluffy kitten. "No, I don't mind at all," he assured her. + +Nor did he in the least. His weariness was of the spirit rather +than the body, and he found her grace, her shy sweetness, grateful +to the jaded senses. It counted in her favor that she was not +clever or ultra-modern. The dimpling smiles, the quick sympathy of +this innocent, sensuous young creature, drew him out of his +depression. When he left the pleasant warmth of the room half an +hour later it was with a little glow at the heart. He had found +comfort and refreshment. + +How it came to pass Jeff never quite understood, but it soon was +almost a custom for him to drop into the living room to get a cup +of chocolate when he came home. He found himself looking forward +to that half hour alone with Nellie Anderson. Whoever else +criticized him, she did not. The manner in which she made herself +necessary to his material comfort was masterly. She would be +waiting, eager to help him off with his overcoat, hot chocolate +and sandwiches ready for him in the cozy living-room. To him, who +for years had lived a hand-to-mouth boarding house existence, her +shy wholesome laughter made that room sing of home, one which her +personality fitted to a dot. She was always in good humor, always +trim and neat, always alluring to the eye. And she had the pretty +little domestic ways that go to the head of a bachelor when he +eats alone with an attractive girl. + +Their intimacy was not exactly a secret. Mrs. Anderson, who was +rather deaf and admitted to being a heavy sleeper, knew that Jeff +dropped in occasionally. He suspected she did not know how +regularly, but she was one of that large class of American mothers +who let their daughters arrange their own love affairs and would +not have interfered had she known. + +Once or twice it flashed upon Jeff that this ought not to go on. +Since he had no intention of marrying Nell he must not let their +relationship reach the emotional climax toward which he guessed it +was racing. But his experience in such matters was limited. He did +not know how to break off their friendship without hurting her, +and he was eager to minimize the possibility of danger. His +modesty made this last easy. Out of her kindness she was good to +him, but it was not to be expected that so pretty a girl would +fall in love with a man like him. + +The most potent argument for letting things drift was his own +craving for her. She was becoming necessary to him. Whenever he +thought of her it was with a tender glow. Her soft long-lashed +eyes would come between him and the editorial he was writing. A +dozen times a day he could see a picture of the tilted little +coaxing mouth. The gurgle of her laughter called to him for hours +before he left the office. + +He got into the habit of talking to her about the things that were +troubling him--the tactics of the enemy, the desertion of friends, +the dubious issue of the campaign. Curled up in a big chair, her +whole attention absorbed in what he was saying Nellie made a good +listener. If she did not show a full understanding of the +situation, he could always sense her ready sympathy. Her naive, +indignant loyalty was touching. + +"I read what the _Advocate_ said about you today," she told him +one night, a tide of color in her cheeks. "It was horrid. As if +anybody would believe it." + +"I'm afraid a good many people do," he said gravely. + +"Nobody who knows you," she protested stoutly. + +"Yes, some who know me." + +He let his eyes dwell on her. It was easy to see how undisciplined +of life she was, save where its material aspects had come into +impact with her on the economic side. + +"None of your real friends." + +"How many real friends has a man--friends who will stand by him no +matter how unpopular he is?" + +"I don't know. I should think you'd have lots of them." + +He shook his head, a hint of a smile in his eyes. "Not many. They +keep their chocolate and sandwiches for folks whose trolley +do'esn't fly the wire." + +"What wire?" she asked, her forehead knitted to a question. + +"Oh, the wire that's over the tracks of respectability and vested +interests and special privilege." + +She had been looking at him, but now her gaze went to the fire +with that slow tilt of the chin he liked. Another color wave swept +the oval of the soft cheeks. + +"You've got more friends than you think," she said in a low voice. + +"I've got one little friend I wouldn't like to lose." + +She did not speak and his hand moved forward to cover hers. +Instantly a wild and insurgent emotion tingled through him. He +felt himself trembling and could not steady his nerves. + +Without a word Nellie looked up and their eyes met. Something +electric flashed from one to another. Her shy fear of him was +adorable. + +"Oh, don't, don't!" she murmured. "What will you think of me now?" + +He had leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. + +Jeff sprang to his feet, the muscles in his lean cheeks standing +out. Some bell of warning was ringing in him. He was a man, young +and desirous, subject to all the frailties of his sex, holding +experiences in his past that had left him far from a puritan. And +she was a woman, of unschooled impulses, with unsuspected banked +passions, an innocent creature in whom primeval physical life +rioted. + +He moved toward the door, his left fist beating into the palm of +his right hand. He must protect her, against himself--and against +her innocent affection for him. + +She fluttered past him, barring the way. Her cheeks were flaming +with shame. + +"You despise me. Why did I let you?" A sob swelled up into her +soft round throat. + +"You blessed lamb," he groaned. + +"You're going to leave me. You--you don't want me for a friend any +longer." + +Her lips trembled--the red little lips that always reminded him of +a baby's with its Cupid's bow. She was on the verge of breaking +down. Jeff could not stand that. He held out his hands, intending +to take hers and explain that he was not angry or disappointed at +her. But somehow he found her in his arms instead, supple and +warm, vital youth flowing in the soft cheeks' rich coloring and in +the eyes quick and passionate with the tender abandon of her sex. + +He set his teeth against the rush of desire that flooded him as +her soft body clung to his. The emotional climax he had vaguely +feared had leaped upon them like an uncaged tiger. He fought to +stamp down the fires that blazed up in him. Time to think--he must +have time to think. + +"You don't despise me then," she cried softly, a little catch in +her breath. + +"No," he protested, and again "No." + +"But you think I've done wrong." + +"No. I've been to blame. You're a dear girl--and I've abused your +kindness. I must go away--now." + +"Then you--you do hate me," she accused with a quivering lip. + +"No . . . no. I'm very fond of you." + +"But you're going to leave me. It's because I've done wrong." + +"Don't blame yourself, dear. It has been all my fault. I ought to +have known." + +Her hands fell from him. The life seemed to die out of her whole +figure. "You do despise me." + +Desire of her throbbed through him, but he spoke very quietly. +"Listen, dear. There is nobody I respect more . . . and none I +like so much. I can't tell you how. . . fond of you I am. But I +must go now. You don't understand." + +She bit her lip to repress the sobs that would come and turned +away to hide her shame. Jeff caught her in his arms, kissed her +passionately on the lips, the eyes, the soft round throat. + +"You do . . . like me," she purred happily. + +Abruptly he pushed her from him. Where were they drifting? He must +get his anchors down before it was too late. + +Somehow he broke away, leaving her there hurt and bewildered at +his apparent fickleness, at the stiffness with which he had beaten +back the sweet delight inviting them. + +Jeff went to his rooms, his mind in a blind chaotic surge. He sat +before the table for hours, fighting grimly to persuade himself he +need not put away this joy that had come to him. Surely friendship +was a good thing . . . and love. A man ought not to turn his back +on them. + +It was long past midnight when he rose, took his father's sword +from the wall where it hung, and unsheathed it. A vision of an +open fireplace in a log house rose before him, his father in the +foreground looking like a picture of Stonewall Jackson. The kind +brave eyes that were the soul of honor gazed at him. + +"You damned scoundrel! You damned scoundrel!" Jeff accused himself +in a low voice. + +He knew his little friend was good and innocent, but he knew too +she had inherited a temperament that made her very innocence a + +anger to her. Every instinct of chivalry called upon him to +protect her from the weakness she did not even guess. She had +given him her kindness and her friendship, the dear child! It was +up to him to be worthy of them. If he failed her he would be a +creature forever lost to decency. + +There was a sob in his throat as Jeff pushed the blade back into +the worn scabbard and rehung the sword upon the wall. But the eyes +in his lifted face were very bright. He too would keep his sword +unstained and the flag of honor flying. + +All through the next day and the next his resolution held. He took +pains not to see her alone, though there was not an hour of the +day when he could get away from the thought of her. The uneasy +consciousness was with him that the issue was after all only +postponed, that decisions of this kind must be made again and +again so long as opportunity and desire go together. And there +were moments of reaction when his will was like a rope of sand, +when the longing for her swept over him like a great wave. + +As Jeff slipped quietly into the hall the door of her room opened. +Their eyes met, and presently hers fell. She was troubled and +ashamed at what she had done, but plainly eager in her innocence +to be forgiven. + +Jeff spoke gently. "Nellie." + +Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Aren't we ever going to be +friends again?" + +Through the open door he could see the fire glowing in the grate +and the chocolate set on the little table. He knew she had +prepared for his coming and how greatly she would be hurt if he +rejected her advances. + +"Of course we're friends." + +"Then you'll come in, just for a few minutes." + +He hesitated. + +"Please," she whispered. "Or I'll know you don't like me any +more." + +Jeff followed her into the room and closed the door behind him. + + +Part 2 + +Two days before the election Big Tim's detective wired from +Shelby, Tennessee, the outline of a story that got two front page +columns in both the _Advocate_ and the _Herald._ Jefferson Davis +Farnum was the son of a thief, of a rebel soldier who had spent +seven years in the penitentiary for looting the bank of which he +was cashier. In addition to featuring the news story both papers +handled the subject at length in their editorial columns. They +wanted to know whether the people of this beautiful state were +willing to hand over the Commonwealth to be plundered by the +reckless gang of which this son of a criminal was the head. + +The paper reached Jeff at his rooms in the morning. He had lately +taken the apartments formerly occupied by his cousin, James moving +to Mrs. Anderson's until after the election. The exchange had been +made at the suggestion of the editor, who gave as a reason that he +wanted to be close to his work until the winter was past. It +happened that James was just now very glad to get a cheaper place. +He was very short of funds and until after the election had no +time for social functions. All he needed with a room was to sleep +in it. + +Jeff was still reading the story from Shelby when his cousin came +in hurriedly. James was excited and very white. + +"My God, Jeff! It's come at last. I knew it would ruin me some +day," the lawyer cried, after he had carefully closed the door of +the bedroom. + +"It won't ruin you, James. Your name isn't mentioned yet. Perhaps +it may not be. It can't hurt you, even if it is." + +"I tell you it will ruin me both socially and politically. Once it +gets out nobody will trust me. I'll be the son of a thief," James +insisted wildly. + +"You're the son of a man who made a slip and has paid for it," +answered Jeff steadily. "Don't let your ideas get warped. This +town is full of men who have done wrong and haven't paid for it." + +"That's one of your fool socialist theories." James spoke sharply +and irritably. "No man's guilty till the law says so. They haven't +been in the penitentiary. He has. That's what damns me if it gets +out." + +Jeff laid a hand affectionately on his cousin's shoulder. "Don't +you believe it for a moment. There's no moral distinction between +the man who has paid and the man who hasn't paid for his sins +toward society. There is good and there is bad in all of us, +closely intertwined, knit together into the very warp and woof of +our lives. We're all good and we're all bad." + +It was with James a purely personal equation. He could not forget +its relation to himself. + +"My name is to be voted on at the University Club next month. I'll +be blackballed to a dead certainty," he said miserably. + +"Probably, if the story gets out. It's tough, I know." Jeff's eyes +gleamed angrily. "And why should they? You're just as good a man +to-day as you were yesterday. But there's nothing so fettering, so +despicable as good form. It blights. Let a man bow down to the +dead hand of custom and he can never again be true to what he +thinks and knows. His judgment gets warped. Soon Madame Grundy +does his thinking for him, along well-grooved lines." + +"Oh, well! That's just talk. What am I to do?" James broke out +nervously. + +"I know what I would do in your case." + +"What?" + +"Come out with a short statement telling the exact facts. I'd make +no apologies or long explanation. Just the plain story as simply +as you can." + +"Well, I'll not," the lawyer broke out. "Easy enough for you to +say what I ought to do. Look at who my friends are--the Fromes +and the Merrills and the Gilmans. Best set in town. I strained a +point when I broke loose from them to take up this progressive +fight. They'd cut me dead if a story like this came out." + +"I daresay. Communities are loaded to the guards with respectable +cowards. But if you stand on your own feet like a man they'll +think more of you for it. Most of them will be glad to know you +again inside of five years. For you're going to be successful, and +people like the Merrills and the Gilmans bow down to success." + +The lawyer shook his head doggedly. "I'm not going to tell a thing +I don't have to tell. That's settled." He hesitated a moment +before he went on. "I've got a reason why I want to stand well +with the Fromes, Jeff. I'm not in a position to risk anything." + +Jeff waited. He thought he knew that reason. + +"I'm going to marry Alice Frome if I can." + +"You've asked her." Jeff's voice sounded to himself as if it +belonged to another man. + +"No. Not yet. Ned Merrill's in the running. Strong, too. He's +being backed by his father and old P. C. Frome. The idea is to +consolidate interests by this marriage. But I've got a fighting +chance. She likes me. Since I went into this political fight +against her father she's taken pains to show me how friendly she +feels. But if this story gets out--I'm smashed. That's all." + +"Go to her. Tell her the truth. She'll stand by you," his cousin +urged. + +"You don't understand these people, Jeff. I do. Even if she wanted +to stand by me she couldn't. They wouldn't let her. Right now I'm +carrying all the handicap I can." + +Jeff walked to the window and stood looking out with his hands in +his pockets. The hum of the busy street rose to his ears, but he +did not hear it. Nor did he see the motor cars whizzing past, the +drays lumbering along, the thronged sidewalks of Powers Avenue. A +door that had for years been ajar in his heart had swung to with a +crash. The incredible folly of his dream was laid bare to him. +Despised, distrusted and disgraced, there was no chance that he +might be even a friend to her. She moved in another world, one he +could not reach if he would and would not if he could. All that he +believed in she had been brought up to disregard. Much that was +dear to her he must hammer down so long as there was life in him. + +But James--he had fought his way up to her. Why shouldn't he have +his chance? Better--far better James than Ned Merrill. He had +heard the echoes of a disgraceful story about that young man in +his college days, the story of how he had trampled down a working +girl for his pleasure. James was clean and honorable . . . and she +loved him. Jeff's mind fastened on that last as a thing assured. +Had he not seen her with starry eyes fixed on her hero, held fast +as a limed bird? She too was entitled to her chance, and there was +a way he could give it to her. + +He turned back to James, who was sitting despondently at the +managing editor's desk, jabbing at the blotting sheet with a +pencil. + +Jeff touched the _Advocate_ he still held in his hand. "Did you +read this story carefully?" + +"No. I just ran my eye down it. Why?" + +"Whoever dug it up has made a mistake. He has jumped to the +conclusion that I'm Uncle Robert's son. Why not let it go at +that?" + +His cousin looked up with a flash of eager hope. "You mean--" + +"I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Let it go the +way they have it." + +The lawyer's heart leaped, but he could not let this go without a +protest. "No, I--I couldn't do that. It's awfully good of you, +Jeff." + +The managing editor smiled in his whimsical way. "My reputation +has long been in tatters. A little more can't hurt it." + +James conceded a reflective assent with a manner of impartiality. +"Of course your friends wouldn't think any the less of you. +They're not so--so--" + +"respectable as yours," Jeff finished for him. + +"I was going to say so hidebound." + +"All the same, isn't it?" + +"But it would be a sacrifice for you. I recognize that. And I'm +not sure that I could accept it. I will have to think that over," +the lawyer concluded magnanimously. + +"You'll find it is best. But I think I would tell Miss Frome, even +if I didn't tell anybody else. She has a right to know." + +"You may depend upon me to do whatever is best about that." + +James was hardly out of the office before Captain Chunn blew in +like a small tornado. He was boiling with rage. + +"What's this infernal lie about you being the son of a convict, +David?" he demanded, waving a copy of the Herald. + +"Sit down, Captain. I'll tell you the story because you're +entitled to it. But I shall have to speak in confidence." + +"Confidence! Dad burn it, what are you talking about? Are you +trying to tell me that Phil Farnum was a thief and a convict?" + +Jeff's steel-blue eyes looked straight into his. "Nothing so +impossible as that, Captain. I'm going to tell you the story of +his brother." + +Jeff told it, but he and the owner of the _World_ disagreed +radically about the best way to answer the attack. + +"Why must you always stand between that kid glove cousin of yours +and trouble? Let him stand the gaff himself. It will do him good," +Chunn stormed. + +But Jeff had his way. The _World_ made no denial of the facts +charged. In a statement on the front page that covered less than +three sticks he told the simple story of the defalcation of Robert +Farnum. One thing only he added to the account given in the +opposition papers. This was that during the past two years the +shortage of the bank cashier had been paid in full to the +Planters' First National at Shelby. + +There were many forecasts as to what the effect of the Farnum +story would be on the election returns. It is enough to say that +the ticket supported by the _World_ was chosen by a small +majority. James was elected to the legislature by a plurality of +fifteen hundred votes over his antagonist, a majority unheard of +in the Eleventh District. + + +CHAPTER 8 + +Is not this the trouble with our whole man-made world, that the +game is played with loaded dice? Against the poor, the weak and +the unfortunate have the cards been stacked. A tremendous +percentage is in favor of the crook, the scoundrel, the smug +robber of industry by whom the hands are dealt. + +Wealth, created by the many, is more and more flowing into the +vaults of the few. Legislatures, Congress, the courts, all the +machinery of government, answer to the crack of the whip wielded +by Big Business. The creed of the allied plunderers is that he +should take who has the power and he should keep who can. + +Until we mutiny against the timidity of our times Democracy and +Prosperity will be dreams. The poor and the parasite we shall have +always with us. + +In that new world which is to be MEN and not THINGS will be +supreme, property a means and not an end. The heart of the world +will be born anew under an economic reconstruction that will give +freedom for individual development. For our social and industrial +life will be founded not on a denial of God but on an affirmation +of Brotherhood.--From the Note Book of a Dreamer. + + +THE HERO MEETS AND ADMIRES A MONA LISA SMILE. HE IS TENDERED AN +APOLOGY FOR A PAST DISCOURTESY + + +Part 1 + +Came James Farnum down Powers Avenue carrying with buoyant dignity +the manner of greatness that sat so well on him. His smile was +warm for a world that just now was treating him handsomely. There +could be no doubt that for a first term he was making an +extraordinary success of his work in the legislature. He had +worked hard on committees and his speeches had made a tremendous +hit. Jeff had played him up strong in the world too, so that he +was becoming well known over the state. That he had risen to +leadership of the progressives in the House during his first term +showed his quality. His ambition vaulted. Now that his feet were +on the first rungs of the ladder it would be his own fault if he +did not reach the top. + +His progress down the busy street was in the nature of an ovation. +Everywhere he met answering smiles that told of the people's pride +in their young champion. Already James had discovered that +Americans are eager for hero worship. He meant to be the hero of +his state, the favorite son it would delight to honor. This was +what he loved: the cheers for the victor, not the clash of the +battle. + +"Good morning, Farnum. What are the prospects?" It was Clinton +Rogers, of the big shipbuilding firm Harvey & Rogers, that stopped +him now. + +"Still anybody's fight, Mr. Rogers." The young lawyer's voice fell +a note to take on a frankly confidential tone, an accent of +friendliness that missed the fatal buttonholing familiarity of the +professional politician. "If we can hold our fellows together +we'll win. But the Transcontinental is bidding high for votes--and +there's always a quitter somewhere." + +"Does Frome stand any chance?" + +"It will be Hardy or Frome. The least break in our ranks will be +the signal for a stampede to P. C. The Republicans will support +him when they get the signal. It's all a question of our fellows +standing pat." + +"From what I can learn it won't be your fault if Hardy isn't +elected. I congratulate you on the best record ever made by a + +ember in his first term." + +"Oh, we all do our best," James answered lightly. "But I'm +grateful for your good opinion. I hope I deserve it." + +James could afford to be modest about his achievements so long as +Jeff was shouting his praises through the columns of the _World_ +to a hundred thousand readers of that paper. What the shipbuilder +had said pleased him mightily. For Clinton Rogers was one of the +few substantial moneyed men of Verden who had joined the reform +movement. Not a single member of the Verden Club, with the +exception of Rogers, was lined up with those making the fight for +direct legislation. Even those who had no financial interest in +the Transcontinental or the public utility corporations supported +that side from principle. + +James himself had thought a long time before casting in his lot +with the insurgents led by his cousin. He had made tentative +approaches both to Frome and to Edward B. Merrill. Both of these +gentlemen had been friendly enough, but James had made up his mind +they undervalued his worth. The way to convince them of this was +to take the field against them. + +He smiled now as he swung along the avenue. Both Frome and Merrill +--yes, and Big Tim too, for that matter!--knew by this time +whether they had made a mistake in sizing him up as a raw college +boy with his eye teeth not cut. + +A passing electric containing two young women brought his gloved +hand to his hat. The long slant eyes of the lady on the farther +side swept him indolently. In answer to her murmured suggestion +the girl who was driving brought the machine round in a half +circle which ended at the edge of the curb in front of Farnum. + +The lawyer's hat came off again with easy grace. The slim young +driver leaned back against the cushions and merely smiled a +greeting, tacitly yielding command of the situation to her cousin, +an opulent young widow adorned demurely with that artistic touch +of mourning that suggests a grief not inconsolable. + +"Good morning, Miss Frome--Mrs. Van Tyle," James distributed +impartially before turning to the latter lady. "Isn't this a day +to be alive in? Who says it always rains in Verden?" + +"I do--or nearly always. At least it finds no difficulty in giving +a good imitation," returned the young woman addressed. + +"A libel--I vow a libel," Farnum retorted gaily. "I was just going +to hope you might be tempted to forget New York and Vienna and +Paris to pay us a long visit. We're all hoping it. I'm merely the +spokesman." He waved a hand to indicate the busy street black with +humanity. + +A hint of pleasant adventure quickened the eyes of the young widow +who surveyed lazily his wellgroomed good looks. She judged him a +twentieth century American emerging from straightened +circumstances and eager to trample even the memory of it under +foot. + +"Did the Chamber of Commerce appoint you a committee to hope that +I would impose on my relatives longer? Or was it resoluted at a +mass meeting?" she asked with her Mona Lisa smile. + +He laughed. "Well, no! I'm a self-appointed committee voicing a +personal desire that has universal application. But if it would +have more weight with you I'll have the Chamber take it up and get +myself an accredited representative." + +"So kind of you. But do you think the committee could do itself +justice on the street curb?" + +She had among other sensuous charms a voice attuned to convey +slightest shades of meaning. James caught her half-shuttered +smoldering glance and divined her a woman subtle and complex, +capable of playing the world-old game of the sexes with unusual +dexterity. The hint of challenging mystery in the tawny depths of +the mocking eyes fired his imagination. She was to him a new find +in women, one altogether different from those he had known. He had +a curiosity to meet at close range this cosmopolitan heiress of +such cultivation as Joe Powers' millions could purchase. + +What Verden said of her he knew: that she was too free, too +scornful, too independent of conventions. All the tabby cats +whispered it to each other with lifted eyebrows that suggested +volumes, the while they courted her eager and unashamed. But he +had a feeling that perhaps Verden was not competent to judge. The +standards of this town and of New York were probably vastly +different. James welcomed the chance to enlarge his social +experience. Promptly he accepted the lead offered. + +"I'm sure it can't. To present the evidence cogently will take at +least two hours. May I make the argument this evening, if it +please the court, during a call?" + +"But I understood you were too busy saving the state--from my +father and my uncle by the way--to have time for a mere woman," +she parried. + +The good humor of her irony flattered him because it implied that +she offered him a chance to cultivate her--he was not at all sure +how much or how little that might mean--regardless of his +political affiliations. Not many women were logical enough to +accept so impersonally his opposition to the candidacy of an uncle +and the plans of a father. "I AM busy," he admitted, "but I need a +few hours' relaxation. It will help me to work more effectively +to-morrow--against your father and your uncle," he came back with +a smile that included them both. + +Alice Frome took up the challenge gaily. "We're going to beat you. +Father will be elected." + +"Then I'll be the first to congratulate him," he promised. Turning +to Mrs. Van Tyle, "Shall we say this evening?" he added. + +"You're not afraid to venture yourself into the hands of the +enemy," drawled that young woman, her indolent eyes daring him. + +Again he studiously included them both in his answer. "I'm afraid +all right, but I'm not going to let you know it. Did I hear you +set a time?" + +"If you are really willing to take the risk we shall be glad to +see you this afternoon." + +James observed that Alice Frome did not second her cousin's +invitation. He temporized. + +"Oh, this afternoon! I have an engagement, but I am tempted to +forget it in remembering a subsequent one." + +His smiling gaze passed to Alice and gave her another chance. +Still she did not speak. + +"The way to treat a temptation is to yield to it," the older +cousin sparkled. + +"In order to be done with it, I suppose. Very well. I yield to +mine. This afternoon I will have the pleasure of calling at The +Brakes." + +Alice nodded a curt good-bye, but her cousin offered him a +beautifully gloved hand to shake. A delightful tingle of triumph +warmed him. The daughter of Big Joe Powers, the grim gray pirate +who worked the levers of the great Transcontinental Railroad +system, had taken pains to be nice to him. The only fly in the +ointment of his self-satisfaction had been Alice Frome's +reticence. + +Why had she not shown any desire to have him call? He could guess +at one reason. The campaign for the legislature and the subsequent +battle for the senatorship had been bitter. Charges of corruption +had been flung broadcast. A dozen detectives had been hired to get +evidence on one side or the other. If he were seen going to The +Brakes just now fifty rumors might be flying inside of the hour. + +His guess was a good one. Alice drove the car forward several +blocks without speaking, Valencia Van Tyle watching with good- +humored contempt the little frown that rested on her cousin's +candid face. + +"I perceive that my uncompromising cousin is moved to protest," +she suggested placidly. + +"You ought not to have asked him, Val. It isn't fair to him or to +father," answered Alice promptly. "People will talk. They will say +father is trying to influence him unfairly. I wish you hadn't +asked him till this fight is over." + +"My dear Nora, does it matter in the least what people say?" +yawned Valencia behind her hand. + +"Not to you because you consider yourself above criticism. But it +matters to me that two honest men should be brought into unjust +obloquy without cause." + +"My dear Hothead, they are big enough to look out for themselves." + +"Nobody is big enough to kill slander." + +"Nonsense, child. You make a mountain out of a mole hill. People +WILL gossip. It really isn't of the least importance what they +gabble about." + +"Especially when you want to amuse yourself by making a fool of +Mr. Farnum," retorted the downright Alice with a touch of +asperity. + +Valencia already half regretted having asked him. The chances were +that he would prove a bore. But she did not choose to say so. "If +I'm treading on your preserves, dear," she ventured sweetly. + +"That's ridiculous," flushed Alice. "I only suggested that you +wait till after the election before chaining him to your chariot +wheels." + +"You're certainly an _enfant terrible_, my dear," murmured the +widow, with the little rippling laugh of cynicism her cousin found +so annoying. "But that young man does need a lesson. He's eaten up +with conceit of himself. Somebody ought to take him in hand." + +"So you're going to sacrifice yourself to duty," scoffed Alice as +she brought the electric to a stop under the porte-cochere of the +Frome residence. + +Mrs. Van Tyle folded her hands demurely. "It's sweet of you to see +it that way, Alice." + + +Part 2 + +James turned in at the Century Building. In the elevator he met +his cousin. Both of them were bound for the office of the +candidate being supported by the progressives for the Senate. + +"Anything new?" Jeff asked. + +"A rumor that Killen has fallen by the wayside. Big Tim was with +him for an hour last night at the Pacific." + +"I've not been sure of Killen for quite a while. He's a weak +sister." + +"He'd better not go wrong if he expects to keep on living in this +state," James imparted, a hard light in his eyes. + +At the third floor they left the elevator and turned to the right +under an arch bearing the sign Hardy, Elliott & Carson. Without +knocking they passed into Hardy's private office. + +Of the three men they found there it was plain that one was being +pushed doggedly to bay. He was small and insignificant, with weak +blinking eyes. Standing with his back to the wall, he moistened +his lips with the tip of his tongue. + +"Who says it?" he whined shrilly. "Who says I sold out?" + +An apoplectic, bull-necked ruffian stood directly in front of him +and sawed the air violently with a fat forefinger. + +"I ain't sayin' it, Killen--I'm askin' if you have. What I say is +that you'd better make your will before you vote for Frome. Make +'em pay fat, for by thunder! you'll be political junk, Mr. Sam +Killen." + +Killen, sweating agony, turned appealingly to Jeff. "I haven't +said I was going to vote for Frome. Mr. Rawson's got no right to +bulldoze me and I'm not going to stand it." + +"The hell you ain't," roared Rawson, shaking his fist at the +unhappy legislator. "I guess you'll stand the gaff till you +explain." + +"Just a moment, Bob," interrupted Jeff. "Let's get at the facts. +Don't convict the prisoner till the evidence is in." + +Rawson hobbled his wrath for the moment. "That's all right, Jeff. +You ask Hardy. I'm giving you straight goods." + +The keen-eyed, smooth-shaven man in a gray business suit who had +been listening silently to the gathering storm contributed +information briefly and impartially. + +"Mr. Killen spent an hour last night with Big Tim at the Pacific +Hotel." + +"Sneaked in by the side entrance and took the elevator to the +seventh floor. The deal was arranged in Room 743," added Rawson. + +"You spied on me," burst from Killen's lips. + +"Sure thing. And we caught you with the goods," sneered the red- +faced politician. + +"I'll not stand it. I'll not support a man that won't trust me." + +"You won't, eh?" Rawson was across the floor in two jumps, +worrying his victim as a terrier does a rat. "Forget it. You were +elected to support R. K. Hardy, sewed up with a pledge tight and +fast. We're not in the primer class, Killen. Don't get a notion +you're going to do as you damn please. You'll--vote--for--R.--K.-- +Hardy. Get that?" + +"I refuse to be moved by threats, and I decline to discuss the +matter further," retorted Killen with a pitiable attempt at +dignity. + +Rawson laughed with insulting menace. "That's a good one. I've +sold out, but it's none of your business what I got. That what you +mean?" + +"You surely must recognize our right to an explanation, Killen," +Jeff said gently. + +"No, sir, I don't," flushed the little man with sullen bravado. "I +ain't got a thing against you, but Rawson goes too far." + +"I think he does," Jeff agreed. "Killen is all right. Gentlemen, +suppose you let him and me talk it over alone. We can reach an +agreement that is satisfactory." + +Hardy's face cleared. This was not the first waverer Jeff had +brought back into line, not the first by several. There was +something compelling in his friendly smile and affectionate +manner. + +"I'm sure Mr. Killen intends only what is right. I'm content to +leave the matter entirely with you and him," Hardy said. + +Jeff turned to Rawson. "And you, old warhorse?" + +"Have it your own way, but don't forget there's a nigger in the +woodpile." + +Jeff and Killen walked to the office of the latter, which was on +the next floor of the Century Building, the legislator stiffening +his will to resist the assaults he felt would be made upon it. But +as soon as the door was shut Jeff surprised him by laying a hand +on his shoulder. + +"Tell me all about it, Sam." + +Killen gasped. He got an impossible vision of young Farnum as his +brother in trouble. "About what? I didn't say--" + +"I've known for a week something was wrong. I couldn't very well +ask you, but since I've blundered in you'd better let me help you +if I can." + +Killen was touched. His lip trembled. "It don't do any good to +talk about things. I guess a fellow has to carry his own griefs. +Nobody else is hunting for a chance to invest in them." + +"What's a friend for?" Jeff wanted to know gently. + +The little man gulped. "I guess I've got no friends. Anyhow they +don't count when a fellow's in hard luck. It's every man for +himself." + +The younger man's smile was warm as summer sunshine. "Wrong guess, +Sam. We're in this little old world to help each other when we +can." + +The wretched man drew the back of a trembling hand across his +moist eyes. He inhaled a long sobbing breath and broke into +apology for his weakness. "Haven't slept for a week except from +trional. The back of my head pricks day and night. Can't think of +anything but my troubles." + +"Unload them on me," Jeff said lightly. + +"It's that mortgage on my mill," Killen blurted out. "It falls due +this month and I can't meet it. Things haven't been going well +with me." + +"Can't you get it renewed?" + +"Through a dummy Big Tim has bought it up. He won't renew, unless +--" Killen broke off, to continue in a moment: "And that ain't +all. My little girl needs an operation awful badly. The doctor +says she had ought to go to Chicago. I just can't raise the +price." + +"How much is the mortgage?" + +"Three thousand," replied the man; and he added with a gust of +weak despair, "My God, man! That mill's all I've got to keep bread +in the mouths of my motherless children." + +"I reckon Big Tim has offered to cancel the mortgage notes and +give you about a thousand to go on," Jeff suggested casually. + +Killen nodded. "It would put me on my feet again and give the +kiddie her chance." The answer had slipped out naturally, but now +the fear chilled him that he had been lured into making a +confession. "I didn't say I was going to take it," he added +hastily. + +"You're quite safe with me, Killen," Jeff told him. He was +wondering whether he could not get Captain Chunn to take over the +mortgage. + +"I'm not so much struck on Hardy myself," grumbled the legislator. +"He's a rich man, just as Frome is. Six of one and half a dozen of +the other, looks like to me." + +"No, Killen. Frome represents the Transcontinental and the utility +corporations. Hardy stands for the people. And you're pledged to +support Hardy. You mustn't forget that." + +"I ain't likely to forget that mortgage either," Killen came back +drearily. + +"I think I can arrange about having the mortgage renewed. Will +that do?" + +"Yes. We're going to have a good year in the lumber business. +Probably in twelve months I could clear it off." + +"Good! And about the little girl--she'll have her chance. I +promise you that." + +The mill man wrung his hand, tears in his eyes. "You're a white +man, Jeff, and a dashed good friend. I tell you I'd hate like +poison to go back on Hardy. A fellow can't afford to do a thing +like that. But what else could I do? A fellow's got to stand by +the children he brings into the world, ain't he?" + +Farnum evaded with a smile this discussion of moral issues. "Well, +you can stand by them and us, too, if I can fix up this mortgage +proposition for you." + +"When will you let me know?" asked Killen anxiously. + +"Will to-morrow morning do? In James' office, say." + +"I'll have to know before noon," Killen reminded him, flushing +with embarrassment. + +"If I can arrange to get the money--and I think I can--I'll let +you know at eleven. Don't worry, Sam. It will be all right." + +The legislator shook hands again. "I ain't going to forget what +you're doing for me. No, sir!" + +Jeff laughed his thanks easily. "That's all right. I reckon you +would have done as much for me. Sam Killen isn't the man to throw +his friends down." + +"That's right," returned the other with a sudden valiant infusion +of courage. "I stand pat. I'm not going to lie down before the +Transcontinental. Not on your life, I ain't." + +They were walking toward the outer door as Killen's speech +overflowed. "The Transcontinental doesn't own this state yet. No, +sir! Nor Frome and Merrill either. We'll show 'em--" + +The valor of the big voice collapsed like a rent balloon. For the +office door had opened to let in Big Tim O'Brien. His shrewd eyes +passed with whimsical disgust over Killen and rested on Farnum. + +The situation made for amusement, since Jeff knew that Big Tim had +heard over the transom enough to show that Killen's vote had been +recaptured for Hardy. + +"You've stumbled on a red hot Hardy ratification meeting. Did you +come to get into the bandwagon while there is time, Tim?" Jeff +asked with twinkling eyes. + +"No sinking ship for mine. I guess I wouldn't ratify yet a while +if I were youse, Farnum." + +He stood aside to let the editor of the _World_ pass. Jeff +laughed. "Go to it, Tim." + +"I haven't got anything to say to you, Mr. O'Brien," the mill man +announced with heightened color. + +"Maybe I've got something to say to youse, Mr. Killen." + +Jeff passed out smiling. "Well, I'll not interrupt you. See you +to-morrow, Sam." + +Big Tim sat down heavily in a chair and pulled from his vest +pocket a fat black cigar. + +"Smoke, Killen?" + +"No, thanks." The legislator spoke with stiff dignity. + +Big Tim looked at the other man and his paunch shook with the +merriment that appeared to convulse him. + +"What's the matter?" snapped the mill man. + +"I'm laughin' at the things I see, Killen. Man, but you're an easy +mar-rk." + +"How?" + +"Can't you see they're stringin' youse for a sucker?" + +"No, I can't see it. I've made up my mind. I'm going to stand by +Hardy." + +"Fine! Now I'll tell youse one thing. We're goin' to elect Frome +to-morrow." O'Brien rose as one who has no time for unprofitable +talk. "Your friends have sold youse out. I'm going to call on one +of thim right now." + +"I don't believe it." + +"Of course you don't." Tim's projecting balcony shook with the +humor of it. "But you'll be convinced when they take your mill +from youse, me boy. It's a frame-up--and you're the goat." + +With which shot he took his departure, too shrewd to attempt any +argument. He had left behind him a doubt. That was all he could do +just now. + +Before Tim was out of the building Killen was gumshoeing after +him. He meant to find out whether O'Brien had been lying when he +said he was going to call on one of his friends. Fifty yards +behind him Killen followed, along Powers Avenue, down Pacific +Street, to the Equitable Building. From the pilot of one of the +elevators he learned that the big boss had got off at the seventh +floor and gone straight into James Farnum's office. + +His mind was instantly alive with suspicions tumbling over each +other in chaotic incoherency. There was a deal of some kind on +foot. Jeff's cousin was in it. Then Jeff must be playing him for a +sucker. His teeth set with a snap. + +Meanwhile Big Tim was having a heart to heart talk with James K. +Farnum. + +The young lawyer had risen in surprise at the entrance of O'Brien. +The big fellow, laughing easily, had helped himself to a chair. + +"Make yourself at home, Tim," he said jauntily. + +"Anything I can do for you, Mr. O'Brien?" James asked with stiff +dignity. + +"Sure. Or I wouldn't be here. Sit down. I'll not bite ye." + +The lawyer continued to stand. + +"I've come to tell you that I'm a dammed fool, Mr. Farnum," the +boss grinned. + +James bowed slightly. He did not know what was coming, but he had +no intention of committing himself to anything as yet. + +"In ever lettin' youse get away from me. I mistook yez for a kid +glove." + +Big Tim gazed with palpable admiration at the cleancut figure, at +the square cleft chin in the strong handsome face. It was his +opinion this young man would go far, and that every step of the +way would be in the interests of James K. Farnum. Shrewdly he +guessed that the way to pierce that impassive front was through an +appeal to vanity and to selfinterest. + +James waited, alert and expressionless, but O'Brien, having made +his apology, puffed in silence. + +"I think you suggested some business that brought you," James +reminded him. + +"You've got in you the makings of a big man. Nothing on the coast +to touch youse, Mr. Farnum. And I didn't see it. I was sore on +your name. That was what was bitin' me. It's sure on Big Tim this +time." + +None of the triumph that flooded Farnum reached the surface. + +"I think I don't quite understand," he said quietly. + +"I'm eatin' humble pie because youse slipped wan over on me. +You're the best campaign speaker in the state, bar none, boy as +you are." + +James could not keep his gratified smile down. "This heart-felt +testimonial comes free, I take it," he pretended to mock. + +"Come off with youse," O'Brien flung back good humoredly. "I'm not +here to hand you booquets, but to talk business. Here's the nub of +it, me boy. You need me, and I need you." + +"I don't quite see how I need you, Mr. O'Brien." + +"That's because you're young yet and don't know the game. Let me +tell you this." The boss leaned forward, his hard eyes focused on +Farnum. "You'll never get anywhere so long as youse trail with +that reform bunch. It's all hot air and tomfool theory. Populism +and socialism! Take my wor-rd for it, there's nothin' to 'em." + +"I'm neither a populist nor a socialist, Mr. O'Brien." + +"Coorse you're not. I can see that with wan eye shut. That's why I +hate to see youse ruin yourself with them that are. I've no need +to tell you that this country's run by business men and not +cranks. Me, I'm a business man, and I run the city. P. C. Frome's +a business man; so's Merrill. That's why they're on top. Old Joe +Powers is a business man from first to last. You'll never get +anywhere, me boy, until youse look at things from a business point +of view." + +If James was impressed he gave no sign of it. "Which means you +want me to support P. C. for the Senate. Is that it?" + +"I don't care whether you do or don't. We've got this fight won. +But this is only the beginning. I can see that. Agitators and +trouble breeders are busy iverywhere. Line up right and you've got +a big future before you. Joe Powers himself has noticed your +speeches. P. C. told me that last night." + +For a moment the lawyer felt an exultant paeon of victory beat in +his blood. His imagination saw the primrose path of the future +stretch before him in a golden glow. The surge of triumph passed +and he was himself again, cool and wary. His eyes met Big Tim's +full and straight. "I was elected to support Hardy. I expect to +stay with him." + +The political boss waved aside this declaration. "Sure. Of course +you've got to VOTE for him. I've got too much horse sense to try +to buy YOU. But after this election? Your whole future's not tied +up with fool reformers, is it? Say, what's the matter with you +havin' a talk with P. C.?" + +"Oh, I'll talk with him. P. C. and I are good friends." + +"When can you see him? Why not to-night?" + +"No hurry, is there?" James paused an instant before he added: +"I'm going to The Brakes this afternoon on a social call. If +Frome happens to be at home we might talk then. So far as making a +direct appointment with him, I wouldn't care to do that until the +senatorial election is decided. You understand that I pledge +myself to nothing." + +"That's right," agreed Big Tim. "It don't do any harm to hear both +sides of a proposition. I guess that cousin o' yours kind of +hypnotized you. He's got more fool schemes for redeemin' this +state. Far as I can see it don't need any redeemin'. It's loaded +to the rails with prosperity and clippin' off its sixty miles an +hour. I say, let well enough alone. Where youse keep your matches, +Mr. Farnum? Thanks! Well, talk it over with P. C. I reckon you can +get together. So long, me boy." + +Not until he was safe in the street did the big boss of Verden +allow his satisfaction expression. + +"We've got him! We've got the boob hooked!" he told himself +exultantly. + +A little man standing behind a showcase was watching him tensely. + + +CHAPTER 9 + +"Man is for woman made, + And woman made for man +As the spur is for the jade, +As the scabbard for the blade, + As for liquor is the can, +So man's for woman made, + And woman made for man." + + +THE HERO STUDIES THE MONA LISA SMILE IN ITS PROPER SETTING. +INCIDENTALLY, HE MEETS AN EMPIRE BUILDER + + +Since James was not courting observation he took as inconspicuous +a way as possible to The Brakes. He was irritably conscious of the +incongruity of his elaborate afternoon dress with the habits of +democratic Verden, which had been too busy "boosting" itself into +a great city, or at least one in the making, to have found time to +establish as yet a leisure class. + +Leaving the car at the entrance to Lakeview Park, he cut across it +by sinuous byways where madronas and alders isolated him from the +twilit green of the open lawn. Though it was still early the soft +winter dusk of the Pacific Northwest was beginning to render +objects indistinct. This perhaps may have been the reason he +failed to notice the skulking figure among the trees that dogged +him to his destination. + +James laughed at himself for the exaggerated precaution he took to +cover a perfectly defensible action. Why shouldn't he visit at the +house of P. C. Frome? Entirely clear as to his right, he yet +preferred his call not to become a matter of public gossip. For he +did not need to be told that there would be ugly rumors if it +should get out that Big Tim had called at his office for a +conference and he had subsequently been seen going to The Brakes. +Dunderheads not broad enough to separate social from political +intercourse would be quick to talk unpleasantly about it. + +Deflecting from the path into a carriage driveway, he came through +a woody hollow to the rear of The Brakes. The grounds were +spacious, rolling toward the road beyond in a falling sweep of +wellkept lawn. He skirted the green till he came to a "raveled +walk that zig-zagged up through the grass, leaving to the left the +rough fern-clad bluff that gave the place its name. + +The man who let him in had apparently received his instructions, +for he led Farnum to a rather small room in the rear of the big +house. Its single occupant was reclining luxuriantly among a +number of pillows on a lounge. From her lips a tiny spiral of +smoke rose like incense to the ceiling. James was conscious of a +little ripple of surprise as he looked down upon the copper crown +of splendid hair above which rested the thin nimbus of smoke. He +had expected a less intimate reception. + +But the astonishment had been sponged from his face before +Valencia Van Tyle rose and came forward, cigarette in hand. + +"You did find time." + +"Was it likely I wouldn't?" + +"How should I know?" her little shrug seemed to say with an +indifference that bordered on insolence. + +James was piqued. After all then she had not opened to him the +door to her friendship. She was merely amusing herself with him as +a provincial _pis aller._ + +Perhaps she saw his disappointment, for she added with a touch of +warmth: "I'm glad you came. Truth is, I'm bored to death of +myself." + +"Then I ought to be welcome, for if I don't exorcise the devils of +ennui you can now blame me." + +"I shall. Try that big chair, and one of these Egyptians." + +He helped himself to a cigarette and lit up as casually as if he +had been in the habit of smoking in the lounging rooms of the +ladies he knew. She watched him sink lazily into the chair and let +his glance go wandering over the room. In his face she read the +indolent sense of pleasure he found in sharing so intimately this +sanctum of her more personal life. + +The room was a bit barbaric in its warmth of color, as barbaric as +was the young woman herself in spite of her super-civilization. +The walls, done in an old rose, were gilded and festooned to meet +a ceiling almost Venetian in its scheme of decoration. Pink +predominated in the brocaded tapestries and in the rugs, and the +furniture was a luxurious modern compromise with the Louis Quinze. +There were flowers in profusion--his gaze fell upon the American +Beauties he had sent an hour or two ago--and a disorder of popular +magazines and French novels. Farnum did not need to be told that +the room was as much an exotic as its mistress. + +"You think?" her amused voice demanded when his eyes came back to +her. "that the room seems made especially for you." + +She volunteered information. "My uncle gave me a free hand to +arrange and decorate it." + +As he looked at her, smoking daintily in the fling of the fire +glow, every inch the pampered heiress of the ages, his blood +quickened to an appreciation of the sensuous charm of sex she +breathed forth so indifferently. The clinging crepe-de-chine-- +except in public she did not pretend even to a conventional +mourning for the scamp whose name she bore lent accent to her +soft, rounded curves, and the slow, regular rise and fall of her +breathing beneath the filmy lace promised a perfect fullness of +bust and throat. He was keenly responsive to the physical allure +of sex, and Valencia Van Tyle was endowed with more than her share +of magnetic aura. + +"You have expressed yourself. It's like you," he said with +finality. + +Her tawny eyes met his confident appraisal ironically. "Indeed! +You know then what I am like?" + +"One uses his eyes, and such brains as heaven has granted him," he +ventured lightly. + +"And what am I like?" she asked indolently. + +"I'm hoping to know that better soon--I merely guess now." + +"They say all women are egoists--and some men." She breathed her +soft inscrutable ripple of laughter. "Let me hasten to confess, +and crave a picture of myself." + +"But the subject deserves an artist," he parried. + +"He's afraid," she murmured to the fire. "He makes and unmakes +senators--this Warwick; but he's afraid of a girl." + +James lit a fresh cigarette in smiling silence. + +"He has met me once--twice--no, three times," she meditated aloud. +"But he knows what I'm like. He boasts of his divination and when +one puts him to the test he repudiates." + +"All I should have claimed is that I know I don't know what you +are like." + +"Which is something," she conceded. + +"It's a good deal," he claimed for himself. "It shows a beginning +of understanding. And--given the opportunity--I hope to know +more." He questioned of her eyes how far he might go. "It's the +incomprehensible that lures. It piques interest and lends magic. +Behind those eyelids a little weary all the subtle hidden meaning +of the ages shadows. The gods forbid that I should claim to hold +the answer to the eternal mystery of woman." + +"Dear me! I ask for a photograph and he gives me a poem," she +mocked, touching an electric button. + +"I try merely to interpret the poem." + +She looked at him under lowered lids with a growing interest. Her +experience had not warranted her in hoping that he would prove +worth while. It would be clear gain if he were to disappoint her +agreeably. + +"I think I have read somewhere that the function of present-day +criticism is to befog the mind and blur the object criticised." + +He considered an answer, but gave it up when a maid appeared with +a tray, and after a minute of deft arrangement disappeared to +return with the added paraphernalia that goes to the making and +consuming of afternoon tea. + +James watched in a pleasant content the easy grace with which the +flashing hands of his hostess manipulated the brew. Presently she +flung open a wing of the elaborate cellaret that stood near and +disclosed a gleaming array of cut-glass decanters. Her fingers +hovered over them. + +"Cognac?" + +"Think I'll take my tea straight just as you make it." + +"Most Western men don't care for afternoon tea. You should hear my +father on the subject." + +"I can imagine him." He smiled. "But if he has tried it with you I +should think he'd be converted." + +She laughed at him in the slow tantalizing way that might mean +anything or nothing. "I absolve you of the necessity of saying +pretty things. Instead, you may continue that portrait you were +drawing when the maid interrupted." + +"It's a subject I can't do justice." + +She laughed disdainfully. "I thought it was time for the flattery. +As if I couldn't extort that from any man. It's the A B C of our +education. But the truth about one's self--the unpalatable, bitter +truth--there's a sting of unexpected pleasure in hearing that +judicially." + +"And do you get that pleasure often?" + +"Not often. Men are dreadful cowards, you know. My father is about +the only man who dares tell it to me." + +Farnum put down his cup and studied her. She was leaning back with +her fingers laced behind her head. He wondered whether she knew +with what effectiveness the posture set off her ripe charms--the +fine modeling of the full white throat, the perfect curves of the +dainty arms bare to the elbows, the daring set of the tawny, +tilted head. A spark glowed in his eyes. + +"Far be it from me to deny you an accessible pleasure, though I +sacrifice myself to give it. But my sketch must be merely +subjective. I draw the picture as I see it." + +She sipped her tea with an air of considering the matter. "You +promise at least a family likeness, with not an ugly wrinkle of +character smoothed away." + +"I don't even promise that. For how am I to know what meaning +lurks behind that subtle, shadowy smile? There's irony in it--and +scorn--and sensuous charm--but back of them all is the great +enigma." + +"He's off," she derided slangily. + +"And that enigma is the complex YOU I want to learn. Of course +you're a specialized type, a product of artistic hothouse +propagation. You're so exquisite in your fastidiousness that to be +near you is a luxury. Simplicity and you have not a bowing +acquaintance. One looks to see your most casual act freighted with +intentions not obvious." + +"The poor man thinks I invited him here to propose to him," she +told the fire gravely, stretching out her little slippered feet +toward it. + +He laughed. "I'm not so presumptuous. You wouldn't aim at such +small game. You would be quite capable of it if you wanted to, but +you don't. But I'm devoured with curiosity to know why you asked +me, though of course I shan't find out." + +Her narrowed eyes swept him with amusement. "If I knew myself! +Alice says it was to make a fool of you. I don't think she is +right. But if she is I'm in to score a failure. You're too +coolheaded and--" She stopped, her eyes sparkling with the daring +of her unvoiced suggestion. + +"Say it," he nodded. + +"--and selfish to be anybody's fool. Perhaps I asked you just in +the hope you might prove interesting." + +He got up and stood with his arm on the mantel. From his superior +height he looked down on her dainty insolent perfection, answering +not too seriously the challenge of her eyes. No matter what she +meant--how much or how little she was wonderfully attractive. The +provocation of the mocking little face lured mightily. + +"I am going to prove interested at any rate. Let's hope it may be +a preliminary to being interesting." + +"But it never does. Symptoms of too great interest bore one. I +enjoy more the men who are impervious to me. Now there's my +father. He comes nearer understanding me than anybody else, but +he's quite adamantine to my wiles." + +"I shall order a suit of chain armor at once." + +"An unnecessary expense. Your emotions are quite under control," +she told him saucily. + +"I wish I were as sure." + +"I thought you promised to be interesting," she complained. + +"Now you're afraid I'm going to make love to you. Let me relieve +your mind. I'm not." + +"I knew you wouldn't be so stupid," she assured him. + +"No objection to my admiring your artistic effect at a distance, +as a spectator in a gallery?" + +"I shall expect that," she rippled. + +"Just as one does a picture too expensive to own." + +"I suppose I AM expensive." + +"Not a doubt of it. But if you don't mind I'll come occasionally +to the gallery to study the masterpiece." + +"I'll mind if you don't." + +Voices were heard approaching along the hall. The portieres +parted. The immediate effect on Farnum of the great figure that +filled the doorway was one of masterful authority. A massive head +crested a figure of extraordinary power. Gray as a mediaeval +castle, age had not yet touched his gnarled strength. The keen +steady eyes, the close straight lips, the shaggy eyebrows heavy +and overhanging, gave accent to the rugged force of this grim +freebooter who had reversed the law of nature which decrees that +railroads shall follow civilization. Scorning the established rule +of progress, he had spiked his rails through untrodden forests and +unexplored canons to watch the pioneer come after by the road he +had blazed. Chief among the makers of the Northwest, he yearly +conceived and executed with amazing audacity enterprises that +would have marked as monumental the life work of lesser men. + +Farnum, rising from his seat unconsciously as a tribute of +respect, acknowledged thus tacitly the presence of greatness in +the person of Joe Powers. + +The straight lips of the empire builder tightened as his eyes +gleamed over the soft luxury of his daughter's boudoir. James +would have been hard put to it to conceive any contrast greater +than the one between this modern berserk and the pampered daughter +of his wealth. A Hun or a Vandal gazing down with barbaric scorn +on some decadent paramour of captured Rome was the most analogous +simile Farnum's brain could summon. What freak of nature, he +wondered, had been responsible for so alien an offspring to this +ruthless builder? And what under heaven had the two in common +except the blood that ran in both their veins? + +Peter C. Frome, who had followed his brother-in-law into the room, +introduced the young man to the railroad king. + +The great man's grip drove the blood from Farnum's hand. + +"I've heard about you, young man. What do you mean by getting in +my way?" + +The young man's veins glowed. He had made Joe Powers notice him. +Not for worlds would he have winked an eyelash, though the bones +of his hand felt as if they were being ground to powder. + +"Do I get in your way, sir?" he asked innocently. + +"Do you?" boomed the deep bass of the railroader. "You and that +mad brother of yours." + +"He's my cousin," James explained. + +"Brother or cousin, he's got to get off the track or be run over. +And you, too, with that smooth tongue of yours." + +Farnum laughed. "Jeff's pretty solid. He may ditch the train, +sir." + +"No!" roared Powers. "He'll be flung into the ditch." He turned +abruptly to Frome. "Peter, take me to a room where I can talk to +this young man. I need him." + +"'Come into my little parlor,' said the spider to the fly." + +They wheeled as at a common rein to the sound of the young mocking +voice. Alice Frome had come in unnoticed and was standing in the +doorway smiling at them. The effect she produced was demurely +daring. The long lines of her slender sylph-like body, the +girlishness of her golden charm, were vigorously contradicted in +their suggestion of shyness by the square tilted chin and the +challenge in the dancing eyes. + +"Alice," admonished her father with a deprecatory apology in his +voice to his brother-in-law. + +Powers knit his shaggy brows in a frown not at all grim. The young +woman smiled back confidently. She could go farther with him than +anybody else in the world could, and she knew it. For he +recognized in her vigorous strength of fiber a kinship of the +spirit closer than that between him and his own daughter. An +autocrat to the marrow, it pleased him to recognize her an +exception to his rule. Valencia was also an exception, but in a +different way. + +"Have you any remarks to make, Miss Frome?" he asked. + +"Oh, I've made it," returned the girl unabashed. She turned to +James and shook hands with him. "How do you do, Mr. Farnum? I see +you are going to be tied to Uncle Joe's kite, too." + +Was there in her voice just a hint of scorn? James did not know. +He laughed a little uneasily. + +"Shall I be swallowed up alive, Miss Frome?" + +"You think you won't, but you will. He always gets what he wants." + +For all the warmth and energy of youth in her there was a vivid +spiritual quality that had always made a deep appeal to James. He +sensed the something fine and exquisite she breathed forth and did +reverence to it. + +"And what does he want now?" the young man parried. + +"He wants YOU." + +"Unless you would like him yourself, Alice," her uncle countered. + +The color washed into her cheeks. "Not just now, thank you. I was +merely giving him a friendly warning." + +"I'm awfully obliged to you. I'll be on my guard," laughed James. + +He stepped across to the lounge to make his farewell to Mrs. Van +Tyle. + +"You'll come again," she said in a low voice. + +"Whenever the gallery is open--if I am sent a ticket of +admission." + +"Wouldn't it be better to apply for a ticket and not wait for it +to be sent?" + +"I think it would--and to apply for one often." + +"I am waiting, Mr. Farnum," interrupted Powers impatiently. + +To the young man the suggestion sounded like a command. He bowed +to Alice and followed the great man out of the room. + + +CHAPTER 10 + +Many business men of every community are respectable cowards. The +sense of property fills them with a cramping timidity. +--From the Note Book of a Dreamer. + + +SAFE AND SOUND BUSINESS RALLIES TO THE DEFENSE OF THE COUNTRY. THE +REBEL, FRUSTRATED, PLANS FURTHER VILLAINIES + + +Part 1 + +When James reached his office next morning he found Killen waiting +for him. One glance at the weak defiant face told him that the +legislator was again in revolt. The lawyer felt a surge of disgust +sweep over him. All through the session he had cajoled and argued +the weak-kneed back into line. Why didn't Hardy do his own dirty +work instead of leaving it to him to soil his hands with these +cheap grafters?" + +No longer ago than yesterday it had been a keen pleasure to feel +himself so important a factor in the struggle, to know that his +power and his personality were of increasing value to his side. + +But to-day--somehow the salt had gone out of it. The value of the +issue had dwindled, his enthusiasm gone stale. After all, what did +it matter who was elected? Why should not the corporate wealth +that was developing the country see that men were chosen to +office who would safeguard vested interests? It was all very well +for Jeff to talk about democracy and the rights of the people. But +Jeff was an impracticable idealist. He, James, stood for success. +Within the past twenty-four hours there had been something of a +shift of standards for him. + +His visit to The Brakes had done that for him. He craved luxury +just as he did power, and the house on the hill had said the final +word of both to him in the personalities of Joe Powers and his +daughter. It had come home to him that the only way to satisfy his +ambition was by making money and a lot of it. This morning, with +the sharpness of his hunger rendering him irritable, he was in no +mood to conciliate disaffectants to the cause of which he was +himself beginning to weary. + +"Well?" he demanded sharply of Killen. + +"I've been looking for your cousin, but I can't find him. He was +to have met me here later." + +"Then I presume he'll be here when he said he would." The eyes of +the lawyer were cold and hard as jade. + +"You can tell him it won't be necessary for me to see him. I've +made other arrangements," Killen said uneasily. + +"You mean that you repudiate your agreement with him. Is that it?" +Farnum's voice was like a whiplash. + +"I've decided to support Frome. Fact is--" + +"Oh, damn the facts! You made an agreement. You're going to sell +out. That's all there is to it." + +The young man's face was dark with furious disgust. + +Killen flared up. "You better be careful how you talk to me, Mr. +Farnum. I might want to know what Big Tim was doing in your office +yesterday. I might want to know what business took you up to The +Brakes by a mighty roundabout way." + +James strode forward in a rage. "Get out of here before I throw +you out, you little spying blackguard." + +"You bet I'll get out," screamed the mill man. "Get clear out and +have nothing more to do with your outfit. But I want to tell you +that folks will talk a lot when they know how you and Big Tim +fixed up a deal--" Killen, backing toward the door as he spoke, +broke off to hasten his exit before the lawyer's threatening +advance. + +James slammed the door shut on him and paced up and down in an +impotent fury of passion. "The dirty little blackleg! He'd like to +bracket me in the same class as himself. He'd like to imply that +I--By Heaven, if he opens his lying mouth to a hint of such a +thing I'll horsewhip the little cad." + +But running uneasily through his mind was an undercurrent of +disgust--with himself, with Jeff, with the whole situation. Why +had he ever let himself get mixed up with such an outfit? +Government by the people! The thing was idiotic, mere demagogic +cant. Power was to the strong. He had always known it. But +yesterday that old giant at The Brakes had hammered it home to +him. He did not like to admit even to himself that his folly had +betrayed Hardy's cause, but at bottom he knew he should not have +gone to The Brakes until after the election and that he ought +never to have let Killen out of the office without an explanation. +Yesterday he would have won back the man somehow by an appeal to +his loyalty and his self-interest. + +He must send word at once to Jeff and let him try to remedy the +mischief. + +His cousin, coming into the office with Rawson just as James took +down the receiver of the telephone, noticed at once the +disturbance of the latter. + +James told his story. It was clear to him that he must anticipate +Killen's disclosure of his visit to The Brakes and so draw the +sting from it as far as possible. But his natural reluctance to +shoulder blame made him begin with Killen's defection. + +"I told you to let me deal with the little traitor," Rawson +exploded. + +"He was quite satisfied when I left him yesterday. They must have +got at him again," Jeff suggested. "I left O'Brien with him. But I +was dead sure of him." + +James cleared his throat and began casually. "I expect the little +beggar got suspicious when he saw Big Tim coming to my office." + +"To your office?" Rawson cut in sharply. + +The lawyer flushed, but his eyes met and quelled the incipient +doubt in those of the politician. "Yes, he came to feel the +ground. Of course I told him flatly where I stood. But Killen must +have thought something was doing he wasn't in on. It seems he +followed me to The Brakes yesterday afternoon when I called on +Mrs. Van Tyle." + +"Followed you to The Brakes. Good Lord!" groaned Rawson. "What in +Mexico were you doing there?" + +"Thought I mentioned that I was calling on Mrs. Van-Tyle," +returned James stiffly. + +"Wasn't that call a little injudicious under the circumstances, +James?" contributed Jeff with his whimsical smile. + +"I suppose I may call wherever I please." + +"It was a piece of dashed foolishness, that's what it was. You say +Killen saw you. The thing will fly like dust in the wind. It will +be buzzed all over the House by this time and every man that wants +to sell out will find a reason right there," stormed Rawson. + +"Are you implying that I sold out?" demanded James icily. + +Jeff put a conciliatory hand on his cousin's shoulder. "Of course +he doesn't. He isn't a fool, James. But there's a good deal in +what Rawson says. It was a mistake. The waverers will find in it +their excuse for deserting. Of course Big Tim has been at them all +night. We'll go right up to the House in your machine, Rawson. We +haven't a moment to lose." + +Rawson nodded. "It's dollars to doughnuts the thing is past +mending, but it's up to us to see. If I can only get at Killen in +time I'll choke the story in his throat. You wait here at the +'phone, Jeff, and I'll call you up if you're needed at this end of +the line. Better have a taxi waiting below in case you need one. +Come along, James." + +If he did not get to Killen in time it was not Rawson's fault, for +he made his car flash up and down Verden's hills with no regard to +the speed limit. He swept it along Powers Avenue, dodging in and +out among the traffic of the busy city like a halfback through a +broken field after a kick. With a twist of the wheel he put the +machine at the steep hill of Yarnell Way, climbed the brow of it, +and plunged with a flying leap down the long incline to the State +House. + +James clung to the swaying side of the car as it raced down. It +was raining hard, and the drops stung their faces like bird shot. +Two hundred yards in front appeared a farm wagon, leaped toward +them, and disappeared in the gulf behind. A dog barking at them +from the roadside was for an instant and then was not. In their +wake they left cursing teamsters, frightened horses, women and +children scurrying for safety; and in the driver's seat Rawson sat +goggle-eyed and rigid, swallowing the miles that lay in front of +him. + +The car took the last incline superbly and swung up the asphalt +carriage way to a Yale finish at the marble stairway of the State +House. Rawson was running up the steps almost before the machine +had stopped. Farnum caught him at the elevator and a minute later +they entered together the assembly room of the House. + +One swift glance told Rawson that Killen was not in his seat, and +as his eyes swept the room he noted also the absence of Pitts, +Bentley, and Miller. Of the doubtful votes only Ashton and Reilly +were present. + +He flung a question anything of Bentley, Akers?" + +"Mr. Bentley! Why, yes, sir. He was called to the telephone a few +minutes ago and he left at once. Mr. Miller went with him, and Mr. +Pitts." + +"Were Ashton and Reilly here then?" + +"No, sir. They came in a moment before you did." + +Rawson drew Farnum to one side and whispered. + +"Killen must have gone right from your room to Big Tim. They got +the others on the phone. They must have been on that street car we +met a mile back. There's just a chance to head 'em off. I'll chase +back in my machine while you call up Jeff and have him meet the +car as it comes in. Tell him not to let them out of his sight if +he has to hold them with a gun. You keep an eye on Reilly and +Ashton. Don't let anyone talk to them or get them on the phone. +Better take them up to the library." + +James nodded sulkily. He did not like Rawson's peremptory manner +any the better because he knew his indiscretion had called it down +upon him. What he had been unable to forget for the past hour was +that if this break to Frome had happened yesterday it would have +been he that gave the orders and Rawson who jumped to execute +them. Now he had slipped back to second place. + +He caught Jeff on the line and repeated Rawson's orders without +comment of his own, after which he went back from the committee +room, gathered up Reilly and Ashton, and took them on a pretext to +the library. + +It must have been nearly an hour later that a messenger boy handed +James a note. It was a hasty scribble from Rawson. + +Euchred, by thunder! Both Jeff and I missed them. Big Tim butted +in with a car at Grover Street before we could make connections. +Am waiting at the House for them. Don't bring A. & R. in till time +to vote. FROME CAN'T WIN IF YOU MAKE THEM BOTH STICK. + +James stuck the note in his pocket and flung himself with +artificial animation into the story he was telling. Once or twice +the others suggested a return to the House, but he always had just +one more good story they must hear. Since only routine business +was under way there was no urgency, and when at length they +returned to the House chamber the clock pointed to five minutes to +twelve. + +Rawson and two or three of the staunchest Hardy men relieved +Farnum of his charge in the cloak room and took care of the two +doubtfuls. The seats of Bentley, Miller, Pitts and Killen were +still vacant, and there was a tense watchfulness in the room that +showed rumors were flying of a break in the deadlock. + +Already the state senators were drifting in for the noon joint +sessions, and along with them came presently the missing +assemblymen flanked by O'Brien and Frome adherents. + +The President of the Senate called the session to order and +announced that the eleventh general assembly would now proceed to +take the sixty-fourth ballot for the election of a United States +Senator. + +In an oppressive silence the clerk began to call the roll. + +"Allan." + +A raw-boned farmer from one of the coast counties rose and +answered "Hardy." + +"Anderson." + +In broken English a fat Swede shouted, "Harty." + +"Ashton." + +"Hardy." The word fell hesitantly from dry lips. The man would +have voted for the Transcontinental candidate had he dared, but he +was not sure enough that the crucial moment was at hand and the +pressure of his environment was too great. + +"Bentley." + +Three hundred eyes focused expectantly on the gaunt white-faced +legislator who rose nervously at the sound of his name and almost +inaudibly gulped the word "Frome." + +A fierce tumult of rage and triumph rose and fell and swelled +again. Bentley became the center of a struggling vortex of roaring +humanity and found himself tossed hither and thither like a chip +in a choppy sea. + +It was many minutes before the clerk could proceed with the roll- +call. When his name was reached James said "Hardy" in a clear +distinct voice that brought from the gallery a round of applause +sharply checked by the presiding officer. Killen gave his vote for +Frome tremulously and shrank from the storm he had evoked. Rawson +could be seen standing on his seat, one foot on the top of his +desk, shaking his fist at him in purple apoplectic rage, the while +his voice rose above the tumult, "You damned Judas! You damned +little traitor!" + +The presiding officer beat in vain with his gavel for quiet. Not +until they had worn themselves to momentary exhaustion could the +roll-call be continued. + +Miller and Pitts voted for Frome and stirred renewed shouts of +support and execration. + +"Takes one more change to elect Frome. All depends on Reilly now," +Rawson whispered hoarsely to Jeff. "If he sticks we're safe for +another twenty-four hours." + +But Reilly, knowing the decisive moment had come, voted for Frome +and gave him the one more needed to elect. Pandemonium was loose +at once. The Transcontinental forces surrounded him and fought off +the excited men he had betrayed who tried to get at him to make +him change his vote. The culminating moment of months of battle +had come and mature men gave themselves to the abandon of the +moment like college boys after a football game. + +When at last the storm had subsided Ashton, who had seen several +thousand dollars go glimmering because his initial came at the +beginning of the alphabet instead of at the close, in the hope of +still getting into the bandwagon in time moved to make the +election unanimous. His suggestion was rejected with hoots of +derision, and Frome made the conventional speech of acceptance to +a House divided against itself. + +Jeff joined his cousin as he was descending the steps to the lower +hall. "Don't blame yourself, old man. It would have happened +anyhow in a day or two. They were looking for a chance to desert. +We couldn't have held them. Better luck next time." + +James found cold comfort in such consolation. He was dissatisfied +with the part he had played in the final drama. Instead of being +the hero of the hour, he was the unfortunate whose blunder had +started the avalanche. Yet he was gratified when Rawson said in +effect the same thing as Jeff. + +"And I'm going to have the pleasure of telling that damned little +Killen what I think of him," the politician added with savage +satisfaction. + +"Don't blame him. He's only a victim. What we must do is to change +the system that makes it possible to defeat the will of the people +through money," Jeff said. + +"How are you going about it?" Rawson demanded incredulously. + +"We'll go after the initiative and referendum right now while the +people are stirred up about this treachery. The very men who threw +us down will support us to try and square themselves. The bill +will slip through as if it were oiled," Jeff prophesied. + +"Oh, hang your initiative and referendum. I'm a politician, not a +socialist reformer," grinned Rawson. + +James said nothing. + + +Part 2 + +If the years were bringing Jeff a sharper realization of the +forces that control so much of life they were giving him too the +mellowness that can be in revolt without any surrender of faith in +men. He could for instance now look back on his college days and +appreciate the kindness and the patience of the teachers whom he +had then condemned. They had been conformists. No doubt they had +compromised to the pressure of their environment. But somehow he +felt much less like judging men than he used to in the first flush +of his intellectual awakening. It was perhaps this habit of making +allowance for weakness, together with his call to the idealism in +them, that made him so effective a worker with men. + +He was as easy as an old shoe, but people sensed the steel in him +instinctively. In his quiet way he was coming to be a power. For +one thing he was possessed of the political divination that +understands how far a leader may go without losing his following. +He knew too how to get practical results. It was these qualities +that enabled him out of the wreckage of the senatorial defeat to +build a foundation of victory for House Bill 77. + +To bring into effect Jeff's pet measure of the initiative and +referendum necessitated an amendment to the state constitution, +which must be passed by two successive legislative assemblies and +ratified by a vote of the people in order to become effective. The +bill had been slumbering in committee, but immediately after the +senatorial election Jeff insisted on having it brought squarely to +the attention of the House. + +His feeling for the psychological moment was a true one and he +succeeded by a skillful newspaper campaign in rallying the people +to his support. The sense of outrage felt at this shameless +purchase of a seat in the Senate, accented by a knowledge of its +helplessness to avenge the wrong done it, counted mightily in +favor of H. B. No. 77 just now. It promised a restoration of power +to the people, and the clamor for its passage became insistent. + +A good deal of quiet lobbying had been done for the bill, and the +legislators who had sold themselves, having received all they +could reasonably expect from the allied corporations, were anxious +to make a show of standing for their constituents. Politicians in +general considered the bill a "freak" one. Some who voted for it +explained that they did not believe in it, but felt the people +should have a chance to vote on it themselves. By a large majority +it passed the House. Two days later it squeezed through the +Senate. + +Rawson, who had been persuaded half against his judgment to +support the bill, lunched with Jeff that day. + +"Now watch the corporations dig a grave for your little pet at the +next legislature," he chuckled, helping himself to bread while he +waited for the soup. + +"They may. Then again they may not," Farnum answered. "We are +ruled by political machines and corporations only as long as we +let them. I've a notion the people are going to assert themselves +at the next election." + +"How are you going to make the will of the dear people effective +with the assembly?" asked Rawson, amused. + +"Make the initiative and referendum the issue of the campaign. +Pledge the legislators to vote for it before nominating them." + +"Pledge them?" grinned Rawson cynically. "Weren't they pledged to +support Hardy? And did they?" + +"No, but they'll stick next time, I think." + +"You're an incurable optimist, my boy." + +"It isn't optimism this time. It's our big stick." + +"Didn't know we had one." + +"Do you remember House Bill 19?" + +"No. What's that got to do with it?" + +"It slipped through early in the session. Anderson introduced it. +Nobody paid any attention to it because he's a back country Swede +and his bill was very wordy. The governor signed it to-day. That +bill provides for the recall of any public official, alderman or +legislator if the people are not satisfied with his conduct." + +The big man stared. "I thought it only applied to district road +supervisors. Were you back of that bill, Jeff?" + +"I had it drawn up and helped steer it through the committee, +though I was careful not to appear interested." + +"You sly old fox! And nobody guessed it had general application. +None of us read the blamed thing through. You're going to use it +as a club to make the legislators stand pat on their pledges." + +"Yes." + +"But don't you see how revolutionary your big stick is?" Rawson's +smile was expansive. "Why, hang it, man, you're destroying the +fundamental value of representative government. It's a deliberate +attack on graft." + +"Looks like it, doesn't it?" + +It was while Rawson was waiting for his mince pie piled with ice +cream that he ventured a delicate question. + +"Say, Jeff! What about James? Is he getting ready to flop over to +the enemy?" + +"No. Why do you ask that?" + +"I notice he explained when he voted for House Bill 77 that he +reserved the right to oppose it later. Said he hadn't made up his +mind, but felt the people should be given a chance to express +themselves on it." + +Upon Farnum's face rested a momentary gravity. "I can't make James +out lately. He's lost his enthusiasm. Half the time he's irritable +and moody. I think perhaps he's been blaming himself too much for +Hardy's defeat." + +Rawson laughed with cynical incredulity. "That's it, is it?" + + +CHAPTER 11 + +"Faustina hath the fairest face, +And Phillida the better grace; + Both have mine eye enriched: +This sings full sweetly with her voice; +Her fingers make so sweet a noise; + Both have mine ear bewitched. +Ah me! sith Fates have so provided, +My heart, alas! must be divided." + + +THE HERO, ASSISTED BY THE MONA LISA SMILE, DEPLORES THE +DEBILITATING EFFECTS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION + + +Part 1 + +With the adjournment of the legislature politics became a less +absorbing topic of interest. James at least was frankly glad of +this, for his position had begun to be embarrassing. He could not +always stand with a foot in either camp. As yet he had made no +break with the progressives. Joe Powers had given him a hint that +he might be more useful where he was. But as much as possible he +was avoiding the little luncheons at which Jeff and his political +friends were wont to foregather. He gave as an excuse the rush of +business that was swamping him. His excuse at least had the +justification of truth. His speeches had brought him a good many +clients and Frome was quietly throwing cases his way. + +It was at one of these informal little noonday gatherings that +Rawson gave his opinion of the legal ability of James. + +"He isn't any great lawyer, but he never gives it away. He knows +how to wear an air of profound learning with a large and +impressive silence. Roll up the whole Supreme Court into one and +it can't look any wiser than James K. Farnum." + +Miller laughed. "Reminds me of what I heard last week. Jeff was +walking down Powers Avenue with James and an old fellow stopped me +to point them out. There go the best citizen and the worst citizen +in this town, he said. I told him that was rather hard on James. +You ought to have heard him. For him James is the hero of the +piece and Jeff the villain." + +"Half the people in this town have got that damn fool notion," +Captain Chunn interrupted violently. + +"More than half, I should say." + +"Every day or two I hear about how dissipated Jeff used to be and +how if it were not for his good and noble cousin he would have +gone to the deuce long ago," Rawson contributed. + +Chunn pounded on the table with his fist. "Jeff's own fault. Talk +about durn fools! That boy's got them all beat clear off the map. +And I'm dashed if I don't like him better for it." + +"Move we change the subject," suggested Rawson. "Here comes +Verden's worst citizen." + +With a casual nod of greeting round the table Jeff sat down. + +"Any of you hear James' speech before the Chamber of Commerce +yesterday? It was bully. One of his best," he said as he reached +for the menu card. + +Captain Chunn groaned. The rest laughed. Jeff looked round in +surprise. "What's the joke?" + + +Part 2 + +It was a great relief to James, in these days when the complacency +of his self-satisfaction was a little ruffled, to call often on +Valencia Van Tyle and let himself drift pleasantly with her along +primrose paths where moral obligations never obtruded. Under the +near-Venetian ceiling of her den, with its pink Cupids and plump +dimpled cherubs smiling down, he was never troubled about his +relation to Hardy's defeat. Here he got at life from another slant +and could always find justification to himself for his course. + +She had a silent divination of his moods and knew how to minister +indolently to them. The subtle incense of luxury that she diffused +banished responsibility. In her soft sensuous blood the lusty beat +of duty had small play. + +But even while he yielded to the allure of Valencia Van Tyle, +admitting a finish of beauty to which mere youth could not aspire, +all that was idealistic in him went out to the younger cousin +whose admiration and shy swift friendship he was losing. His +vanity refused to accept this at first. She was a little piqued at +him because of the growing intimacy with Valencia. That was all. +Why, it had been only a month or two ago that her gaze had been +warm for him, that her playful irony had mocked sweetly his +ambition for service to the community. Their spirits had touched +in comradeship. Almost he had caught in her eyes the look they +would hold for only one man on earth. The best in him had +responded to the call. But now he did not often meet her at The +Brakes. When he did a cool little nod and an indifferent word +sufficed for him. How much this hurt only James himself knew. + +One of the visible signs of his increasing prosperity was a motor +car, in which he might frequently be seen driving with the +daughter of Joe Powers, to the gratification of its owner and the +envy of Verden. The cool indifference with which Mrs. Van Tyle +ignored the city's social elite had aroused bitter criticism. +Since she did not care a rap for this her escapades were frankly +indiscreet. James could not really afford a machine, but he +justified it on the ground that it was an investment. A man who +appears to be prosperous becomes prosperous. A good front is a +part of the bluff of twentieth century success. He did not follow +his argument so far as to admit that the purchase of the car was +an item in the expenses of a campaign by which he meant to make +capital out of a woman's favor to him, even though his imagination +toyed with the possibilities it might offer to build a sure +foundation of fortune. + +"You should go to New York," she told him once after he had +sketched, with the touch of eloquence so native to him, a plan for +a line of steamers between Verden and the Orient. + +"To be submerged in the huddle of humanity. No, thank you." + +"But the opportunities are so much greater there for a man of +ability." + +"Oh, ability!" he derided. "New York is loaded to the water line +with ability in garrets living on crusts. To win out there a man +must have a pull, or he must have the instinct for making money +breed, for taking what other men earn." + +She studied him, a good-looking, alert American, sheet-armored in +the twentieth century polish of selfishness, with an inordinate +appetite for success. Certainly he looked every inch a winner. + +"I believe you could do it. You're not too scrupulous to look out +for yourself." Her daring impudence mocked him lightly. + +"I'm not so sure about that." James liked to look his conscience +in the face occasionally. "I respect the rights of my fellows. In +the money centers you can't do that and win. And you've got to +win. It doesn't matter how. Make good-- make good! Get money--any +way you can. People will soon forget how you got it, if you have +it." + +"Dear me! I didn't know you were so given to moral reflections." +To Alice, who had just come into the room to settle where they +should spend their Sunday, Valencia explained with mock demureness +the subject of their talk. "Mr. Farnum and I are deploring the +immoral money madness of New York and the debilitating effects of +modern civilization. Will you deplore with us, my dear?" + +The younger woman's glance included the cigarette James had thrown +away and the one her cousin was still smoking. "Why go as far as +New York?" she asked quietly. + +Farnum flushed. She was right, he silently agreed. He had no +business futtering away his time in a pink boudoir. Nor could he +explain that he hoped his time was not being wasted. + +"I must be going," he said as casually as he could. + +"Don't let me drive you away, Mr. Farnum. I dropped in only for a +moment." + +"Not at all. I have an appointment with my cousin." + +"With Mr. Jefferson Farnum?" Alice asked in awakened interest. +"I've just been reading a magazine article about him. Is he really +a remarkable man?" + +"I don't think you would call him remarkable. He gets things done, +in spite of being an idealist." + +"Why, in spite of it?" + +"Aren't reformers usually unpractical?" + +"Are they? I don't know. I have never met one." She looked +straight at Farnum with the directness characteristic of her. "Is +the article in Stetson's Magazine true?" + +"Substantially, I think." + +Alice hesitated. She would have liked to pursue the subject, but +she could not very well do that with his cousin. For years she had +been hearing of this man as a crank agitator who had set himself +in opposition to her father and his friends for selfish reasons. +Her father had dropped vague hints about his unsavory life. The +Stetson write-up had given a very different story. If it told the +truth, many things she had been brought up to accept without +question would bear study. + +James suavely explained. "The facts are true, but not the +inferences from the facts. Jeff takes rather a one-sided view of a +very complex situation. But he's perfectly honest in it, so far as +that goes." + +"You voted for his bill, didn't you?" Alice asked. + +"Yes, I voted for it. But I said on the floor I didn't believe in +it. My feeling was that the people ought to have a chance to +express an opinion in regard to it." + +"Why don't you believe in it?" + +Valencia lifted her perfect eyebrows. "Really, my dear, I didn't +know you were so interested in politics." + +Alice waited for the young man's answer. + +"It would take me some time to give my reasons in full. But I can +give you the text of them in a sentence. Our government is a +representative one by deliberate choice of its founders. This bill +would tend to make it a pure democracy, which would be far too +cumbersome for so large a country." + +"So you'll vote against it next time to save the country," Alice +suggested lightly. "Thank you for explaining it." She turned to +her cousin with an air of dismissing the subject. "Well, Val. What +about the yacht trip to Kloochet Island for Sunday? Shall we go? I +have to 'phone the captain to let him know at once." + +"If you'll promise not to have it rain all the time," the young +widow shrugged with a little move. "Perhaps Mr. Farnum could join +us? I'm sure uncle would be pleased." + +Alice seconded her cousin's invitation tepidly, without any +enthusiasm. James, with a face which did not reflect his +disappointment, took his cue promptly. "Awfully sorry, but I'll be +out of the city. Otherwise I should be delighted." + +Valencia showed a row of dainty teeth in a low ripple of +amusement. Alice flashed her cousin one look of resentment and +with a sentence of conventional regret left the room to telephone +the sailing master. + +Farnum, seeking permission to leave, waited for his hostess to +rise from the divan where she nestled. + +But Valencia, her fingers laced in characteristic fashion back of +her neck, leaned back and mocked his defeat with indolent amused +eyes. + +"My engagement," he suggested as a reminder. + +"Poor boy! Are you hard hit?" + +"Your flights of fancy leave me behind. I can't follow," he evaded +with an angry flush. + +"No, but you wish you could follow," she laughed, glancing at the +door through which her cousin had departed. Then, with a demure +impudent little cast of her head, she let him have it straight +from the shoulder. "How long have you been in love with Alice? And +how will you like to see Ned Merrill win?" + +"Am I in love with Miss Frome?" + +"Aren't you?" + +"If you say so. It happens to be news to me." + +"As if I believed that, as if you believed it yourself," she +scoffed. + +Her pretty pouting lips, the long supple unbroken lines of the +soft sinuous body, were an invitation to forget all charms but +hers. He understood that she was throwing out her wiles, +consciously or unconsciously, to strike out from him a denial that +would convince her. His mounting vanity drove away his anger. He +forgot everything but her sheathed loveliness, the enticement of +this lovely creature whose smoldering eyes invited. Crossing the +room, he stood behind her divan and looked down at her with his +hands on the back of it. + +"Can a man care much for two women at the same time?" he asked in +a low voice. + +She laughed with slow mockery. + +Her faint perfume was wafted to his brain. He knew a besieging of +the blood. Slowly he leaned forward, holding her eyes till the +mockery faded from them. Then, very deliberately, he kissed her. + +"How dare you!" she voiced softly in a kind of wonder not free +from resentment. For with all her sensuous appeal the daughter of +Joe Powers was not a woman with whom men took liberties. + +"By the gods, why shouldn't I dare? We played a game and both of +us have lost. You were to beckon and coolly flit, while I followed +safely at a distance. Do you think me a marble statue? Do you +think me too wooden for the strings of my heart to pulsate? By +heaven, my royal Hebe, you have blown the fire in me to life. You +must pay forfeit." + +"Pay forfeit?" + +"Yes. I'm your servant no longer, but your lover and your master-- +and I intend to marry you." + +"How ridiculous," she derided. "Have you forgotten Alice?" + +"I have forgotten everything but you--and that I'm going to marry +you." + +She laughed a little tremulously. "You had better forget that too. +I'm like Alice. My answer is, 'No, thank you, kind sir.'" + +"And my answer, royal Hebe, is this." His hot lips met hers again +in abandonment to the racing passion in him. + +"You--barbarian," she gasped, pushing him away. + +"Perhaps. But the man who is going to marry you." + +She looked at him with a flash of almost shy curiosity that had +the charm of an untasted sensation. "Would you beat me?" + +"I don't know." He still breathed unevenly. "I'd teach you how to +live." + +"And love?" She was beginning to recover her lightness of tone, +though the warm color still dabbed her cheeks. + +"Why not?" His eyes were diamond bright. "Why not? You have never +known the great moments, the buoyant zest of living in the land +that belongs only to the Heirs o Life." + +"And can you guide me there?" The irony in her voice was not +untouched with wistfulness. + +"Try me." + +She laughed softly, stepped to the table, and chose a cigarette. +"My friend, you promise impossibilities. I was not born to that +incomparable company. To be frank, neither were you. Alice, grant +you, belongs there. And that mad cousin of yours. But not we two +earth creepers. We're neither of us star dwellers. In the +meantime"--she lit her Egyptian and stopped to make sure of her +light every moment escaping more definitely from the glamor of his +passion--"you mentioned an engagement that was imperative. Don't +let me keep you from it." + + +CHAPTER 12 + +From The New Catechism + +Question: What is the whole duty of man? + +Answer: To succeed. + +Q. What is success? + +A. Success is being a Captain of Industry. + +Q. How may one become a Captain of Industry? + +A. By stacking in his barns the hay made by others +while the sun shines. + +Q. But is this not theft? + +A. Not if done legally and respectably on a large scale. +It is high finance. + + +THE REBEL AND THE UNDESIRABLE CITIZEN TALK TREASON. THE +HERO HAS PRIVATE CONVERSE WITH A GREAT PIONEER OF CIVILIZATION + + +Part 1 + +Jeff never for a day desisted from his fight to win back for the +people the self rule that had been wrested from them for selfish +purposes by corporate greed. "Government by the people" was the +watchword he kept at the head of his editorial column. Better a +bad government that is representative than a good one emanating +from the privileged few, he maintained with conviction. + +To his office came one day Oscar Marchant, the little, half- +educated Socialist poet, coughing from the exertion of the stairs +he had just climbed. He had come begging, the consumptive +presently explained. + +"Remember Sobieski, the Polish Jew?" + +Jeff smiled. "Of course. Philosophical anarchy used to be his +remedy." + +"Starvation is the one he's trying now," returned Marchant grimly. +"He's had typhoid and lost his job. The rent's due and they'll be +turned out tomorrow. He's got a wife and two kids." + +Farnum asked questions briefly and pulled out his check book. +"Tell Sobieski not to worry," he said as he handed over a check. +"I'll send a reporter out there and we'll make an appeal through +the _World_. Of course his own name won't be used. No one will +know who it really is. We'll look out for him till he's on his +feet again." + +Marchant gave him the best he had. "You're a pretty good +Socialist, even though you don't know it." + +"Am I?" + +"But you're blind as a bat. The things you fight for in the +_World_ don't get to the bottom of what ails us." + +"We've got to forge the tools of freedom before we can use them, +haven't we?" + +"You're all for patching up the rotten system we've got. It will +never do." + +"Great changes are most easily brought about under the old forms. +Men's minds in the mass move slowly. They can see only a little +truth at a time." + +"Because they are blinded by ignorance and selfishness. Get at +bottom facts, Farnum. What's the one great crime?" + +Without a moment's hesitation Jeff answered. "Poverty. All other +crimes are paltry beside that." + +Marchant cocked himself up on the window seat with his legs +doubled under him tailor fashion. "Why?" + +"Because it stamps out hope and love and aspiration, all that is +fine and true in life." + +"Exactly. Men ought to love their work. But how can they + +ove that which is always associated in their minds with a denial +of justice? Is it likely that men will work better under a system +whereby they are condemned in advance to failure than under one +standing rationally for a just and fair division of the fruits of +labor? I tell you, Farnum, under present conditions the Juggernaut +of progress is forever wasting humanity." + +"I've always thought it a pity that the mainsprings of work should +be fear and greed instead of hope and love," Jeff agreed. + +"Why is it that poverty coexists with wealth increasing so +rapidly? Why is it that productive power has been so enormously +developed without lightening the burdens of labor?" + +Marchant's eyes were starlike in their earnestness. He had a +passion for humanity that neither want nor disease could quench, +and with it a certain gift of expression street oratory had +brought out. Even in private conversation he had got into the way +of declaiming. But Jeff knew he was no empty talker. All that he +had he literally gave to the poor. + +"Because the whole spirit of business life is wrong," Farnum +responded. + +"Of course it's wrong. It's a survival of the law of the jungle, +of tooth and fang. Its motto is dog eat dog. We all work under the +rule of get and grab. What's the result of this higgledypiggledy +system? One man starves and another has indigestion. That's the +trouble with Verden to-day. Some of us haven't enough and others +have too much. They take from us what we earn. That's the whole +cause of poverty. The Malthusian theory is all wrong. It's not +nature, but man that is to blame." + +Farnum knew the little Socialist was right so far. Here in Verden, +under the forms of freedom, was the very essence of slavery. All +the product of labor was taken from it except enough to sustain a +mere animal existence. Something was wrong in a world where a man +begs in vain for work to support his family. Given proper +conditions, men would not rise by trampling each other down, but +by lending a hand to the unfortunate. The effect of efficiency +would be to make things easier for the weak. The reward of service +would be more service. + +"The principle of the old order is dead," Marchant went on, +wagging his thin forefinger at Jeff. "The whole social fabric is +made up of lies, compromises, injustice. The only reason it has +hung together so long is that people have been trained to think +along certain lines like show animals. But they're waking up. Look +at Germany. Look at England. What the plutocrats call the menace +of Socialism is everywhere. Now that every worker knows he is +being robbed of what he earns, how long do you think he will carry +the capitalistic system on his back? From the beginning of the +world we have tried it. With what result? An injustice that is +staggering, a waste that is appalling, an inhumanity that is +deadening." + +Jeff let a hand fall lightly on his shoulder. "Of course it's all +wrong. We know that. But can you show me how to make it right, +except out of the hearts of men growing slowly wiser and better?" + +"Why slowly?" demanded Marchant. "Why not to-day while we're still +alive to see the smiles of men and women and children made glad? +You always want to begin at the wrong end. I tell you that you +can't change men's hearts until you change the conditions under +which they live." + +"And I tell you that you can't change the conditions until you +change men's hearts," Jeff answered with his wistful smile. + +"Rubbish! The only way to change the hearts of most plutocrats is +to hit them over the head with a two-by-four. Smug respectability +is in the saddle, and it knows it's right. We'll get nowhere until +we smash this iniquitous system to smithereens." + +"So you want to substitute one system for another. You think you +can eliminate by legal enactment all this fatty degeneration of +greed and selfishness that has incased our souls. I'm afraid it +will be a slower process. We must free ourselves from within. I +believe we are moving toward some sort of a socialistic state. No +man with eyes in his head can help seeing that. But we'll move a +step at a time, and only so fast as the love and altruism inside +us can be organized into external law." + +"No. You'll wake up some morning and find that this whole +capitalistic organization has crumbled in the night, fallen to +pieces from dry rot." + +Jeff might not agree with him, but he knew that Marchant, dreamer +and incoherent poet, his heart aflame with zeal for humanity, was +far nearer the truth of life than the smug complacent Pharisees +that fattened from the toil of the helpless many who could do +nothing but suffer in dumb silence. + + +Part 2 + +As the months passed Jeff grew in stature with the people of the +state. In spite of his energy he was always fair. The plain truth +he felt to be a better argument than the tricks of a demagogue. + +A rational common sense was to be found in all his advice. Add to +this that he had no personal profit to seek, no political axe to +grind, and was always transparent as a child. More and more Verden +recognized him as the one most conspicuous figure in the state +dedicated to uncompromising war against the foes of the Republic. + +Those who knew him best liked his humility, his good humor, the +gentleness that made him tolerant of the men he must fight. His +poise lifted him above petty animosities, and the daily sand- +stings of life did not disturb his serenity. + +Everywhere his propaganda gained ground. People's Power Leagues +were formed with a central steering committee at Verden. +Politicians with their ears close to the ground heard rumbles of +the coming storm. They began to notice that reputable business +men, prominent lawyers not affiliated with corporations, and even +a few educators who had shaken away the timidity of their class +were lining up to support Jeff's freak legislation. It began to +look as if one of those periodical uprisings of the people was +about to sweep the state. + +Big Tim found his ward workers met persistently by the same +questions from their ordinarily docile following. "Why shouldn't +we tie strings to our representatives so as to keep them from +betraying us? . . . Why can't we make laws ourselves in emergency +and kill bad laws the legislature makes? . . . What's the matter +with taking away some of the power from our representatives who +have abused it?" + +In the city election O'Brien went down to defeat. Only fragments +of his ticket were saved from the general wreckage. Next day Joe +Powers wired James Farnum to join him immediately at Chicago. + +"I'm going to put you in charge of the political field out there," +the great man announced, his gray granite eyes fastened on the +young lawyer. "Ned Merrill won't do. Neither will O'Brien. Between +them they've made a mess of things." + +"I don't know that it is their fault, except indirectly. One of +those populistic waves swept over the city." + +"Why didn't they know what was going to happen? Why didn't they +let me know? That's what I pay them for." + +"A child could have foreseen it, but O'Brien wouldn't believe his +eyes. He's been giving Verden an administration with too much +graft. The people got tired of it." + +"What were Merrill and Frome up to? Why did they permit it?" +demanded Powers impatiently. + +"They were looking out for their franchises. To get the machine's +support they had to give O'Brien a free hand." + +"If necessary you had better eliminate Big Tim. Or at least put +him and his gang in the background. Make the machine respectable +so that good citizens can indorse it." + +James nodded agreement. "I've been thinking about that. The thing +can be done. A business men's movement from inside the party to +purify it. A reorganization with new men in charge. That sort of +thing." + +"Exactly. And how about the state?" + +"Things don't look good to me." + +"Why not?" + +"This initiative and referendum idea is spreading." + +Powers drove his fist into a pile of papers on the desk. "Stop it. +I give you carte blanche. Spend as much as you like. But win. What +good is a lobby to me if those hare-brained farmers can kill every +bill we pass through their grafting legislature?" + +The possibilities grew on Farnum. "I'll send Professor Perkins of +Verden University to New Zealand to prepare a paper showing the +thing is a failure there. I'll have every town in the state +thoroughly canvassed by lecturers and speakers against the bill. +I'll bombard the farmers with literature." + +"What about the newspapers?" + +"We control most of them. At Verden only the _World_ is against +us." + +"Buy it." + +"Can't be bought. Its editorial columns are not for sale." + +"Anything can be bought if you've got the price. Who owns it?" + +"A Captain Chunn. He made his money in Alaska. My cousin is the +editor. He is the real force back of it." + +"Does the paper have any influence?" + +"A great deal." + +"I've heard of your cousin. A crack-brained Socialist, I +understand." + +"You'll find he's a long way from that," James denied. + +"Whatever he is, buy him," ordered Powers curtly. + +The young man shook his head. "Can't be done. He doesn't want the +things you have to offer." + +"Every man has his price. Find his, and buy him." + +James shook his head decisively. "Absolutely impossible. He's an +idealist and an altruist." + +Powers snorted impatiently. "Talk English, young man, and I'll +understand you." + +Farnum had heard Joe Powers was a man who would stand plain talk +from those who had the courage to give it him. His cool eyes +hardened. Why not? For once the old gray pirate, chief of the +robber buccaneers who rode on their predatory way superior to law, +should see himself as Jeff Farnum saw him. + +"What I mean is that the things he holds most important can't be +bought with dollars and cents. He believes in justice and fair +play. He thinks the strong ought to bear the burdens of the weak. + +He has a passion to uplift humanity. You can't understand him +because it isn't possible for you to conceive of a man whose first +thought is always for what is equitable." + +"Just as I thought, a Socialist dreamer and demagogue," pronounced +Powers scornfully. + +"Merrill and Frome have been thinking of him just as you do." +James waved his hand toward the newspaper in front of the railroad +king. "With what result our election shows." + +"Well, where does his power lie? How can you break it?" the old +man asked. + +"He is a kind of brother to the lame and the halt all over the +state. Among the poor and the working classes he has friends +without number. They believe in him as a patriot fighting for them +against the foes of the country." + +"Do you call me a foe of the country, young man?" Powers wanted to +know grimly. + +"Not I," laughed James. "Why should I quarrel with my bread and +jam? If you had ever done me the honor to read any of my speeches +you would see that I refer to you as a Pioneer of Civilization and +a Builder for the Future. But my view doesn't happen to be +universal. I was trying to show you how the man with the dinner +pail feels." + +"Who fills his dinner pails?" + +James met his frown with a genial eye. "There's a difference of +opinion about that, sir. According to the economics of Verden +University you fill them. According to the _World_ editorials it's +the other way. They fill yours." + +"Hmp! And what's your personal opinion? Am I a robber of labor?" + +"I think that the price of any success worth while is paid for in +the failure of others. You win because you're strong, sir. That's +the law of the game. It's according to the survival of the fittest +that you're where you are. If you had hesitated some other man +would have trampled you down. It's a case of wolf eat wolf." + +The old railroad builder laughed harshly. This was the first time +in his experience that a subordinate had so analyzed him to his +face. + +"So I'm a wolf, am I?" + +"In one sense of the word you're not that at all, sir. You're a +great builder. You've done more for the Northwest than any man +living. You couldn't have done it if you had been squeamish. I +hold the end justifies the means. What you've got is yours because +you've won it. Men who do a great work for the public are entitled +to great rewards." + +"Glad to know you've got more sense than that fool cousin of +yours. Now go home and beat him. I don't care how you do it, just +so that you get results. Spend what money you need. but make good, +young man--make good." + +"I'll do my best," James promised. + +"All I demand is that you win. I'm not interested in the method +you use. But put that cousin of yours out of the demagogue +business if you have to shanghai him." + +James laughed. "That might not be a bad way to get rid of him till +after the election. The word would leak out that he had been +bought off." + +The old buccaneer's eyes gleamed. He was as daring a lawbreaker as +ever built or wrecked a railroad. "Have you the nerve, young man?" + +"When I'm working for you, sir," retorted James coolly. + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"If I've studied your career to any purpose, sir, one thing stands +out pretty clear. You haven't the slightest respect for law merely +as law. When it's on your side you're a stickler for it; when it +isn't you say nothing, but brush it aside as if it did not exist. +In either case you get what you want." + +"I'm glad you've noticed that last point. Now we'll have +luncheon." He smiled grimly. "I daresay you'll enjoy it no less +because I stole it from the horny hand of labor, by your mad +cousin's way of it." + +"Not a bit," answered James cheerfully. + + +CHAPTER 13 + +"Must it be? Must we then +Render back to God again +This, His broken work, this thing +For His man that once did sing?" +--Josephine Prestor Peabody. + +"And listen! I declare to you that if all is as you say--and I do +not doubt it--you have never ceased to be virtuous in the sight of +God!" +--Victor Hugo. + + +THE REBEL PROVES THAT HE IS LOST TO GOOD FORM AND RESPECTABILITY +BY STEPPING BETWEEN A SINNER AND THE WAGES OF SIN, THUS EVIDENCING +TO THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY HIS COMPLETE DEGENERATION + + +Part 1 + +Sam Miller came into Jeff's office one night as he was looking +over the editorials. Farnum nodded abstractedly to him. + +"Take a chair, Sam. Be through in a minute." + +Presently Jeff pushed the galley proof to one side and looked at +his friend. "Well, Sam?" Almost at once he added: "What's the +matter?" + +There were queer white patches on Miller's fat face. He looked +like a man in hell. A lump rose in his throat. Two or three times +he swallowed hard. + +"It's--it's Nellie." + +"Nellie Anderson?" + +He nodded. + +Jeff felt as if his heart had been drenched in icy water. "What +about her?" + +"She's--gone." + +"Gone where?" + +"We don't know. She left Friday. There was a note for her mother. +It said to forget her, because she was a disgrace to her name." + +"You mean--" Jeff did not finish his question. He knew what the +answer was, and in his soul lay a reflection of the mortal +sickness he saw in his friend's face. + +Miller nodded, unable to speak. Presently his words came brokenly. +"She's been acting strangely for a long time. Her mother noticed +it. . . . So did I. Like as if she wasn't happy. We've been +worried. I . . .I . . ." He buried his face in his arm on the +table. "My God, I love her, Jeff. I have for years. If I'd only +known . . . if she'd only told me." + +Jeff was white as the galley proof that lay before him with the +unprinted side up. "Tell me all about it, Sam." + +Miller looked up. "That's all. We don't know where she's gone. She +had no money to speak of." + +"And the man?" Jeff almost whispered. + +"We don't know who he is. Might be any one of the clerks at the +Verden Dry Goods Company. + +Maybe it's none of them. If I knew I'd cut his heart out." + +The clock on the wall ticked ten times before Jeff spoke. "Did she +go alone?" + +"We don't know. None of the clerks are missing from the store +where she worked. I checked up with the manager yesterday." + +Another long silence. "They may have rooms in town here." + +"Not likely." Presently Miller added miserably: "She's--going to +be a mother soon. We found the doctor she went to see." + +"You're sure she hasn't been married? Of course you've looked over +the marriage licenses for the past year." + +"Yes. Her name isn't on the list." + +"Did she have money?" + +"About fifteen dollars, we figure." + +"That wouldn't take her far--unless the man gave her some. Have +you been to a detective agency?" + +"Yes." + +"We'll put blind ads in all the papers telling her to come home. +We'll rake the city and the state with a fine tooth comb. We're +bound to hear of her." + +"She's desperate, Jeff. If she's alone she'll think she has no +friends. We've got to find her in time or--" + +Jeff guessed the alternative. She might take the easy way out, the +one which offered an escape from all her earthly troubles. Girls +of her type often did. Nellie was made for laughter and for +happiness. He had known her innocent as a sunbeam and as glad. Now +that she was in the pit, facing disgrace and disillusionment and +despair, the horror and the dread of existence to her would be a +millstone round her neck. + +The damnable unfairness of it took. Jeff by the throat. Was it her +fault that she had inherited a temperament where passions lurked +unsuspected like a banked fire? Was she to blame because her +mother had brought her up without warning, because she had +believed in the love and the honor of a villain? Her very faith +and trust had betrayed her. Every honest instinct in him cried out +against the world's verdict, that she must pay with salt tears to +the end of her life while the scoundrel who had led her into +trouble walked gaily to fresh conquests. + +Cogged dice! She had gone forth smiling to play the game of life +with them, never dreaming that the cubes were loaded. He +remembered how once her every motion sang softly to him like +music, with what dear abandon she had given herself to his kisses. +Her fondness had been a thing to cherish, her innocence had called +for protection. And her chivalrous lover had struck the lightness +forever from her soul. + +For long he never thought of her without an icy sinking of the +heart. + + +Part 2 + +Weeks passed. Sam Miller gave his whole time to the search for the +missing girl. Jeff supplied the means; in every way he could he +encouraged him and the broken mother. For a thousand miles south +and east the police had her description and her photograph. But no +trace of her could be found. False clews there were aplenty. A +dozen haggard streetwalkers were arrested in mistake for her. +Patiently Sam ran down every story, followed every possibility to +its hopeless end. + +The weeks ran into months. Mrs. Anderson still hoped drearily. +Every night the light in the hall burned now till daybreak. And +every night she wept herself to sleep for that her one ewe lamb +was lost in a ravenous world. + +Tears were for the night. Wan smiles for the day, when she and +Sam, drawn close by a common grief, met to understand each other +with few words. He was back again at his work as curator of the +museum at the State House, a place Jeff had secured for him after +the election. + +Outside of Nellie's mother the one friend to whom Sam turned now +was Jeff. He came for comfort, to sit long hours in the office +while Farnum did his night work. Sometimes he would read; more +often sit brooding with his chin in his hands. When the midnight +rush was past and Jeff was free they would go together to a +restaurant. + +Afterwards they would separate at the door of the block where Jeff +had his rooms. + + +Part 3 + +Yet when Jeff found her it was not Sam who was with him, but +Marchant. They had been to see Sobieski about a place Captain +Chunn had secured for him as a night watchman of the shipbuilding +plant of which Clinton Rogers was part owner. The Pole had mounted +his hobby and it had been late when they got away from his cabin +under the viaduct. + +Just before they turned into lower Powers Avenue from the deadline +below Yarnell Way, Marchant clutched at the sleeve of his friend. + +"See that woman's face?" he asked sharply. + +"No." + +Jeff was interested at once. For during the past months he had +fallen into a habit of scanning the countenance of any woman who +might be the one they sought. + +"She knew you. I could see fear jump to her eyes." + +"We'll go back," Jeff decided instantly. + +"She's in deep water. Death is written on her face." + +Already Jeff was swinging back, almost on the run. But she had +gone swallowed up in the darkness of the night. They listened, but +could hear only the steady splashing of the rain. While they stood +hesitating the figure of a woman showed at the other end of the +alley and was lost at once down Pacific Avenue. + +Jeff ran toward the lights of the other avenue, but before he +reached it she had again disappeared. Marchant joined him a few +moments later. The little socialist leaned against the wall to +steady himself against the fit of coughing that racked him. + +"Nuisance . . . this . . . being a lunger. . . What's it all . . . +about, Jeff?" + +"I know her. We'll cover the waterfront. Take from Coffee Street +up. Don't miss a wharf or a boathouse. And if you find the girl +don't let her get away." + +The editor crossed to the Pacific & Alaska dock, his glance +sweeping every dark nook and cranny that might conceal a huddled +form. Out of a sodden sky rain pelted in a black night. + +He was turning away when an empty banana crate behind him crashed +down from a pyramid of them. Jeff whirled, was upon her in an +instant before she could escape. + +She was shrinking against the wall of the warehouse, her face a +tragic mask in its haggard pallor, a white outline clenched hard +against the driving rain. One hand was at her heart, the other +beat against the air to hold him back. + +"Nellie!" he cried. + +"What do you want? Let me alone! Let me alone!" She was panting +like a spent deer, and in her wild eyes he saw the hunted look of +a forest creature at bay. + +"We've looked everywhere for you. I've come to take you home." + +"Home!" Her strange laughter mocked the word. "There's no home for +folks like me in this world." + +"Your mother is breaking her heart for you. She thinks of nothing +else. All night she keeps a light burning to let you know." + +She broke into a sob. "I've seen it. To-night I saw it--for the +last time." + +"It is pitiful how she waits and waits," he went on quietly. "She +takes out your dresses and airs them. All the playthings you used +when you were a little girl she keeps near her. She--" + +"Don't! Don't!" she begged. + +"Your place is set at the table every day, so that when you come +in it may be ready." + +At that she leaned against the crates and broke down utterly. Jeff +knew that for the moment the battle was won. He slipped out of his +rain coat and made her put it on, coaxing her gently while the +sobs shook her. He led her by the hand back to Pacific Avenue, +talking cheerfully as if it were a matter of course. + +Here Marchant met them. + +"I want a cab, Oscar," Jeff told him. + +While he was gone they waited in the entrance to a store that +sheltered them from the rain. + +Suddenly the girl turned to Jeff. "I--I was going to do it to- +night," she whispered. + +He nodded. "That's all past now. Don't think of it. There are good +days ahead--happy days. It will be new life to your mother to see +you. We've all been frightfully anxious." + +She shivered, beginning to sob once more. Not for an instant had +he withdrawn the hand to which she clung so desperately. + +"It's all right, Nellie. . .All right at last. You're going home +to those that love you." + +"Not to-night--not while I'm looking like this. Don't take me home +to-night," she begged. "I can't stand it yet. Give me to-night, +please. I . . ." + +She trembled like an aspen. Jeff could see she was exhausted, in +deadly fear, ready to give way to any wild impulse that might +seize her. To reason with her would do no good and might do much +harm. He must humor her fancy about not going home at once. But he +could not take her to a rooming house and leave her alone while +her mind was in this condition. She must be watched, protected +against herself. Otherwise in the morning she might be gone. + +"All right. You may have my rooms. Here's the cab." + +Jeff helped her in, thanked Marchant with a word, got in himself, +and shut the door. They were driven through streets shining with +rain beneath the light clusters. Nellie crouched in a corner and +wept. As they swung down Powers Avenue they passed motor car after +motor car filled with gay parties returning from the theaters. He +glimpsed young women in furs, wrapped from the cruelty of life by +the caste system in which wealth had incased them. Once a ripple +of merry laughter floated to him across the gulf that separated +this girl from them. + +A year ago her laughter had been light as theirs. Life had been a +thing beautiful, full of color. She had come to it eagerly, like a +lover, glad because it was so good. + +But it had not been good to her. By the cluster lights he could +see how fearfully it had mauled her, how cruelly its irony had +kissed hollows in her young cheeks. All the bloom of her was gone, +all the brave pride and joy of youth--gone beyond hope of +resurrection. Why must such things be? Why so much to the few, so +little to the many? And why should that little be taken away? He +saw as in a vision the infinite procession of her hopeless sisters +who had traveled the same road, saw them first as sweet and +carefree children bubbling with joy, and again, after the _World_ +had misused them for its pleasure, haggard, tawdry, with dragging +steps trailing toward the oblivion that awaited them. Good God, +how long must life be so terribly wasted? How long a bruised and +broken thing instead of the fine, brave adventure for which it was +meant? + +Across his mind flashed Realf's words: + +"Amen!" I have cried in battle-time, + When my beautiful heroes perished; +The earth of the Lord shall bloom sublime + By the blood of his martyrs nourished. +"Amen!" I have said, when limbs were hewn + And our wounds were blue and ghastly +The flesh of a man may fail and swoon + But God shall conquer lastly. + + +Part 4 + +As Jeff helped her from the cab in front of the block where he +lived a limousine flashed past. It caught his glance for an +instant, long enough for him to recognize his Cousin James, Mrs. +Van Tyle and Alice Frome. The arm which supported Nellie did not +loosen from her waist, though he knew they had seen him and would +probably draw conclusions. + +The young woman was trembling violently. + +"My rooms are in the second story. Can you walk? Or shall I carry +you?" Farnum asked. + +"I can walk," she told him almost in a whisper. + +He got her upstairs and into the big armchair in front of the gas +log. Now that she had slipped out of his rain coat he saw that she +was wet to the skin. From his bedroom he brought a bathrobe, +pajamas, woolen slippers, anything he could find that was warm and +soft. In front of her he dumped them all. + +"I'm going down to the drug store to get you something that will +warm you, Nellie. While I'm away change your clothes and get into +these things," he told her. + +She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "You're good." + +A lump rose in his heart. He thought of those evenings before the +grate alone with her and of the desperate fight he had had with +his passions. Good! He accused himself bitterly for the harm that +he had done her. But before her his smile was bright and cheerful. + +"We're all going to be so good to you that you'll not know us. +Haven't we been waiting two months for a chance to spoil you?" + +"Do you . . . know?" she whispered, color for an instant in her +wan face. + +"I know things aren't half so bad as they seem to you. Dear girl, +we are your friends. We've not done right by you. Even your mother +has been careless and let you get hurt. But we're going to make it +up to you now." + +A man on the other side of the street watched Jeff come down and +cross to the drug store. Billie Gray, ballot box stuffer, +detective, and general handy man for Big Tim O'Brien, had been +lurking in that entry when Jeff came home. He had sneaked up the +stairs after them and had seen the editor disappear into his rooms +with one whom he took to be a woman of the street. Already a +second plain clothes man was doing sentry duty. The policeman +whose beat it was sat in the drug store and kept an eye open from +that quarter. + +To the officer Jeff nodded casually. "Bad weather to be out all +night in, Nolan." + +"Right you are, Mr. Farnum." + +The editor ordered a bottle of whiskey and while it was being put +up passed into the telephone booth and closed the door behind him. +He called up Olive 43I. + +Central rang again and again. + +"Can't get your party," she told him at last. + +"You'll waken him presently. Keep at it, please. It's very +important." + +At last Sam Miller's voice answered. "Hello! Hello! What is it?" + +"I've found Nellie. . . . Just in time. thank God. . .She's at my +rooms. . . . Have Mrs. Anderson bring an entire change of clothing +for her. . . . Yes, she's very much exhausted. I'll tell you all +about it later.... Come quietly. She may be asleep when you get +here." + +Jeff hung up the receiver, paid for the whiskey, and returned to +his rooms. He did not know that he had left three good and +competent witnesses who were ready to take oath that he had +brought to his rooms at midnight a woman of the half world and +that he had later bought liquor and returned with it to his +apartment. + +Billie Gray thumped his fist into his open palm. "We've got him. +We've got him right. He can't get away from it. By Gad, we've got +him at last!" + +Jeff found Nellie wrapped in his bathrobe in the big chair before +the gas log. Her own wet clothes were out of sight behind a +screen. + +"You locked the door when you went out," she charged. + +"Some of my friends might have dropped in to see me," he explained +with his disarming smile. + +But he could see in her eyes the unreasoning fear of a child that +has been badly hurt. He had locked the door on the outside. She +was going to be dragged home whether she wanted to go or not. +Dread of that hour was heavy on her soul. Jeff knew the choice +must be hers, not his. He spoke quietly. + +"You're not a prisoner, of course. You may go whenever you like. I +would have no right to keep you. But you will hurt me very much if +you go before morning." + +"Where will you stay?" she asked. + +"I'll sleep on the lounge in this room," he answered in his most +matter of fact voice. + +While he busied himself preparing a toddy for her she began to +tell brokenly, by snatches, the story of her wanderings. She had +gone to Portland and had found work in a department store at the +notion counter. After three weeks she had lost her place. Days of +tramping the streets looking for a job brought her at last to an +overall factory where she found employment. The foreman had +discharged her at the end of the third day. Once she had been +engaged at an agency as a servant by a man, but as soon as his +wife saw her Nellie was told she would not do. Bitter humiliating +experiences had befallen her. Twice she had been turned out of +rooming houses. Jeff read between the lines that as her time drew +near some overmastering impulse had drawn her back to Verden. +Already she was harboring the thought of death, but she could not +die in a strange place so far from home. Only that morning she had +reached town. + +After she had retired to the bedroom Jeff sat down in the chair +she had vacated. He heard her moving about for a short time. +Presently came silence. + +It must have been an hour and a half later that Sam and Mrs. +Anderson knocked gently on the door. + +"Cars stopped running. Had to 'phone for a taxi," Miller +whispered. + +The agitation of the mother was affecting. Her fingers twitched +with nervousness. Her eyes strayed twenty times in five minutes +toward the door behind which her daughter slept. Every little +while she would tip-toe to it and listen breathlessly. In whispers +Jeff told them the story, answering a hundred eager trembling +questions. + +Slowly the clock ticked out the seconds of the endless night. Gray +day began to sift into the room. Mrs. Anderson's excursions to the +bedroom door grew more frequent. Sometimes she opened it an inch +or two. On one of these occasions she went in quickly and shut the +door behind her. + +"Good enough. They don't need us here, Sam. We'll go out and have +some breakfast," Jeff proposed. + +On the street they met Billie Gray. He greeted the editor with a +knowing grin. "Good morning, Mr. Farnum. How's everything? Fine +and dandy, eh?" + +Jeff looked at him sharply. "What the mischief is he doing here?" +he asked Miller by way of comment. + +All through breakfast that sinister little figure shadowed his +thoughts. Gray was like a stormy petrel. He was surely there for +no good, barring the chance of its being an accident. Both of them +kept their eyes open on their way back, but they met nobody except +a policeman swinging his club as he leaned against a lamp post and + +whistled the Merry Widow waltz. + +But Farnum was not satisfied. He cautioned both Sam and Mrs. +Anderson to say nothing, above all to give no names or explanation +to anybody. A whisper of the truth would bring reporters down on +them in shoals. + +"You had better stay here quietly to-day," their host advised. +"I'll see you're not disturbed by the help. Sam will bring your +meals in from a restaurant. I'd say stay here as long as you like, +but it can't be done without arousing curiosity, the one thing we +don't want." + +"No, better leave late to-night in a taxi," Sam proposed. + +"Better still, I'll bring around Captain Chunn's car and Sam can +drive you home. We can't be too careful." + +So it was arranged. Mrs. Anderson left it to them and went back +into the bedroom where her wounded lamb lay. + +About midnight Jeff stopped a car in front of the stairway. The +two veiled women emerged, accompanied by Sam. They were helped +into the tonneau and Miller took the driver's seat. Just as the +machine began to move a little man ran across the street toward +them. + +Jeff's forearm went up suddenly and caught him under the chin. +Billie Gray's head went back and his heels came up. Farnum was on +him in an instant, ostensibly to help him up, but really to see he +did not get up too quickly. As soon as the automobile swung round +the corner Jeff lifted him to his feet. + +"Sorry. Hope I didn't hurt you," he smiled. + +"Smart trick, wasn't it?" snarled the detective. "Never mind, Mr. +Farnum. We've got your goat right." + +"Again?" Jeff asked with pleasant impudence. + +"Got you dead to rights this trip." Gray fired another shot as he +turned away. "And we'll find out yet who your lady friends are. +Don't you forget it." + +But Billie had overlooked a bet. He had been in the back of the +drug store getting a drink when Sam and Mrs. Anderson arrived. The +policeman on guard had not connected the coming of these with +Jeff. None of the watchers knew that Jeff had not been alone with +the girl all night. + + +Part 5 + +Sam called on Jeff two days later. + +"I want you to come round to-night at seven-fifteen. We're going +to be married," he explained. + +The newspaper man's eye met his in a swift surprise. "You and +Nellie?" + +"Yes." Miller's jaw set. "Why not? YOU'RE not going to spring that +damned cant about--" + +"I thought you knew me better," his friend interrupted. + +Miller's face worked. "I'll ask your pardon for that, Jeff. You've +been the best friend she has. Well, we've thrashed it all out. She +fought her mother and me two days; didn't think it right to let me +give my name to her, even though she admits she has come to care +for me. You can see how she would be torn two ways. It's the only +road out for her and the baby that is on the way, but she couldn't +bring herself to sacrifice me, as she calls it. I've hammered and +hammered at her that it's no sacrifice. She can't see it; just +cries and cries." + +"Of course she would be unusually sensitive; Her nerves must be +all bare so that she shrinks as one does when a wound is touched." + +"That's it. She keeps speaking of herself as if she were a lost +soul. At last we fairly wore her out. After we are married her +mother and she will take the eight o'clock for Kenton. Nobody +there knows them, and she'll have a chance to forget." + +"You're a white man, Sam," Jeff nodded lightly. But his eyes were +shining. + +"I'm the man that loves her. I couldn't do less, could I?" + +"Some men would do a good deal less." + +"Not if they looked at it the way I do. She's the same Nellie I've +always known. What difference does it make to me that she stumbled +in the dark and hurt herself--except that my heart is so much more +tender to her it aches?" + +"If you hold to that belief she'll live to see the day when she is +a happy woman again," the journalist prophesied. + +"I'm going to teach her to think of it all as only a bad nightmare +she's been through." His jaw clinched again so that the muscles +stood out on his cheeks. "Do you know she won't say a word--not +even to her mother--about who the villain is that betrayed her? +I'd wring his coward neck off for him," he finished with a savage +oath. + +"Better the way it is, Sam. Let her keep her secret.. The least +said and thought about it the better." + +Miller looked at his watch. "Perhaps you're right. I've got to go +to work. Remember, seven-fifteen sharp. We need you as a witness. +Just your business suit, you understand. No present, of course." + +The wedding took place in the room where Jeff had been used to +drinking chocolate with his little friend only a year before. It +was the first time he had been here since that night when the +danger signal had flashed so suddenly before his eyes. The whole +thing came back to him poignantly. + +It was a pitiful little wedding, with the bride and her mother in +tears from the start. The ceremony was performed by their friend +Mifflin, the young clergyman who had a mission for sailors on the +waterfront. Nobody else was present except Marchant, the second +witness. + +As soon as the ceremony was finished Sam put Nellie and her mother +into a cab to take them to their train. The other three walked +back down town. + +As Jeff sat before his desk four hours later, busy with a tax levy +story, Miller came in and took a seat. Jeff waved a hand at him +and promptly forgot he was on earth until he rose and put on his +coat an hour later. + +"Well! Did they get off all right?" he asked. + +Miller nodded absently. Ten minutes later he let out what he was +thinking about. + +"I wish to God I knew the man," he exploded. + +Jeff looked at him quietly. "I'm glad you don't. Adding murder to +it wouldn't help the situation one little bit, my friend." + + +CHAPTER 14 + +Only the man who is sheet-armored in a triple plate of selfishness +can be sure that weak hands won't clutch at him and delay his +march to success.--From the Note Book of a Dreamer. + + +THE HERO, CONFRONTED WITH AN UNPLEASANT POSSIBILITY, PROVES HIS +GREATNESS BY RISING SUPERIOR TO SENTIMENT + + +Part 1 + +James came down to the office one morning in his car with a smile +of contentment on his handsome face. It had been decided that he +was to be made speaker of the House after the next election, +assuming that he and his party were returned to power. Jeff and +the progressives were to stand back of him, and he felt sure that +after a nominal existence the standpatters would accept him. He +intended by scrupulous fair play to win golden opinions for +himself. From the speakership to the governor's chair would not be +a large step. After that--well, there were many possibilities. + +He did not for a moment admit to himself that there was anything +of duplicity in the course he was following. His intention was to +line up with the progressives during the campaign, to win his +reelection on that platform, and to support a rational liberal +program during the session. He would favor an initiative and +referendum amendment not so radical as the one Jeff offered, a +bill that would not cripple business or alarm capital. As he +looked at it life was a compromise. The fusion of many minds to a +practical result always demanded this. And results were more +important than any number of theories. + +As James passed into his office the stenographer stopped him with +a remark. + +"A man has been in twice to see you this morning, Mr. Farnum." + +"Did he leave his name?" + +"No. He said he would call again." + +James passed into his private office and closed the door. + +A quarter of an hour later his stenographer knocked. "He's here +again, Mr. Farnum." + +"Who?" + +"The man I told you of." + +"Oh!" James put down the brief he was reading. "Show him in." + +A figure presently stood hesitating in the doorway. James saw an +oldish man, gray and stooped with a rather wistful lost-dog +expression on his face. + +"What can I do for you, sir?" he questioned. + +"Don't you know me?" the stranger asked with a quaver in his +voice. + +The lawyer did not, but some premonition of disaster clutched at +his heart. He rose swiftly and closed the door behind his caller. + +A faint smile doubtful of its right touched the weak face of the +little old man. "So you don't know your own father--boy!" + +A sudden sickness ran through the lawyer and sapped his strength. +He leaned against the desk uncertainly. It had come at last. The +whole world would learn the truth about him. The Merrills, the +Fromes, Valencia Van Tyle--all of them would know it and scorn +him. + +"What are you doing here?" James heard himself say hoarsely. + +"Why, I--I--I came to see my son." + +"What for?" + +Before so harsh and abrupt a reception the weak smile went out +like a blown candle. + +"I thought you'd be glad to see me--after so many years." + +"Why should I be glad to see you? What have you ever done for me +but disgrace me?" + +Tears showed in the watery eyes. "That's right. It's gospel truth, +I reckon." + +"And now, when I've risen above it, so that all men respect me, +you come back to drag me down." + +"No--no, I wouldn't do that, son." + +"That's what you'll do. Do you think my friends will want to know +a man who is the son of a convict? I've got a future before me. +Already I've been mentioned for governor. What chance would I have +when people know my father is a thief?" + +"Son," winced the old man. + +"Oh, well! I'm not picking my words," James went on with angry +impatience. "I'm telling you the facts. I've got enemies. Every +strong man has. They'll smash me like an empty eggshell." + +"They don't need to know about me. I'll not do any talking." + +"That's all very well. Things leak out," James grumbled a little +more graciously. "Well, you better sit down now you're here. I +thought you were living in Arkansas." + +"So I am. I've done right well there. And I thought I'd take a +little run out to see you. I didn't know but what you might need a +little help." He glanced aimlessly around the well-furnished +office. "But I expect you don't, from the looks of things." + +"If you think I've got money you're wrong," James explained. "I'm +just starting in my profession, and of course I owe a good deal +here and there. I've been hard pressed ever since I left college." + +His father brightened up timidly. "I owe you money. We can fix +that up. I've got a little mill down there and I've done well, +though it was hard sledding at first." + +James caught at a phrase. What do you mean?" + +"Owe me money! + +"I knew it must be you paid off the shortage at the Planters' +National. When I sent the money it was returned. You'd got ahead +of me. I was THAT grateful to you, son." + +The lawyer found himself flushing. "Oh, Jeff paid that. He was +earning money at the time and I wasn't. Of course I intended to +pay him back some day." + +"Did Jeff do that? Then you and he must be friends. Tell me about +him." + +"There's not much to tell. He's managing editor of a paper here +that has a lot of influence. Yes. Jeff has been a staunch friend +to me always. He recognizes that I'm a rising man and ought to be +kept before the public." + +"I wonder if he's like his father." + +"Can't tell you that," his son replied carelessly. "I don't +remember Uncle Phil much. Jeff's a queer fellow, full of Utopian +notions about brotherhood and that sort of thing. But he's +practical in a way. He gets things done in spite of his +softheadedness." + +There was a knock at the door. "Mr. Jefferson Farnum, sir." + +James considered for a second. "Tell him to come in, Miss Brooks." + +The lawyer saw that the door was closed before he introduced Jeff +to his father. It gave him a momentary twinge of conscience to see +his cousin take the old man quickly by both hands. It was of +course a mere detail, but James had not yet shaken hands with his +father. + +"I'm glad to see you, Uncle Robert," Jeff said. + +His voice shook a little. There was in his manner that hint of +affection which made him so many friends, the warmth that +suggested a woman's sympathy, but not effeminacy. + +The ready tears brimmed into his uncle's eyes. "You're like your +father, boy. I believe I would have known you by him," he said +impulsively. + +"You couldn't please me better, sir. And what about James--would +you have known him?" + +The old man looked humbly at his handsome, distinguished son. "No, +I would never have known him." + +"He's becoming one of our leading citizens, James is. You ought to +hear him make a speech. Demosthenes and Daniel Webster hide their +heads when the Honorable James K. Farnum spellbinds," Jeff joked. + +"I've read his speeches," the father said unexpectedly. "For more +than a year I've taken the _World_ so as to hear of him." + +"Then you know that James is headed straight for the Hall of Fame. +Aren't you, James?" + +"Nonsense! You've as much influence in the state as I have, or you +would have if you would drop your fight on wealth." + +"Bless you, I'm not making a fight on wealth," Jeff answered with +good humor. "It's illicit wealth we're hammering at. But when you +compare me to James K. I'll have to remind you that I'm not a +silver-tongued orator or Verden's favorite son." + +The father's wistful smile grew bolder. Somehow Jeff's arrival had +cleared the atmosphere. A Scriptural phrase flashed into his mind +as applicable to this young man. Thinketh no evil. His nephew did +not regard him with suspicion or curiosity. To him he was not a +sinner or an outcast, but a brother. His manner had just the right +touch of easy deference youth ought to give age. + +"Of course you're going to make us a long visit, Uncle Robert." + +The old man's propitiating gaze went to his son. "Not long, I +reckon. I've got to get back to my business." + +"Nonsense! We'll not let you go so easily. Eh, James?" + +"No, of course not," the lawyer mumbled. He was both annoyed and +embarrassed. + +"I don't want to be selfish about it, but I do think you had +better put up with me, Uncle. James is at the University Club, and +only members have rooms there. We'll let him come and see you if +he's good," Jeff went on breezily. + +James breathed freer. "That might be the best way, if it wouldn't +put you out, Jeff." + +"I wouldn't want to be any trouble," the old man explained. + +"And you won't be. I want you. James wants you, too, but he can't +very well arrange it. I can. So that's settled." + +In his rooms that evening Jeff very gently made clear to his uncle +that Verden believed him to be his son. + +"If you don't mind, sir, we'll let it go that way in public. We +don't want to hurt the political chances of James just now. And +there are other things, too. He'll tell you about them himself +probably." + +"That's all right. Just as you say. I don't want to disturb +things." + +"I adopted you as a father about a year ago without your +permission. It won't do for you to give me away now," the nephew +laughed. + +Robert Farnum nodded without speaking. A lump choked his throat. +He had found a son after all, but not the one he had come to meet. + + +Part 2 + +At the ensuing election the progressives swept the state in spite +of all that the allied corporations could do. James was returned +to the legislature with an increased majority and was elected +speaker of the House according to program. His speech of +acceptance was the most eloquent that had ever been heard in the +assembly hall. The most radical of his party felt that the +committees appointed by him were in their personnel a little too +friendly to the vested interests of Verden, but the _World_ took +the high ground that he could render his party no higher service +than absolute fair play, that the bills for the rights of the +people ought to pass on their merits and not by tricky politics. + +Never before had there been seen at the State House a lobby like +the one that filled it now. The barrel was tapped so that the +glint of gold flowed through the corridors, into committee rooms, +and to out of the way corners where legislators fought for their +honor against an attack that never ceased. Sometimes the +corruption was bold. More often it was insidious. To see how one +by one men hitherto honest surrendered to bribery was a sight +pathetic and tragic. + +The Farnum cousins were the centers around whom the reformers +rallied. James directed their counsels in the House and Jeff +pounded away in the _World_ with vital trenchant editorials and +news stories. Every day that paper carried to the farthest corner +of the state bulletins of the battle. Farmers and miners and +laboring men watched its roll of honor to see if the local +representatives were standing firm. As the weeks passed the fight +grew more bitter. Now and again men fell by the wayside disgraced. +But the pressure from their constituents was so strong that Jeff +believed his bill would go through. + +His friends forced it through the committee and pushed it to a +vote. House Bill 33, as the initiative and referendum amendment +was called, passed the lower legislative body with a small +majority. The pool rooms offered five to four that it would carry +in the senate. + +It was on the night of the twenty-first of December that the +amendment passed the House. On the morning of the twenty-third the +_Herald_ sprang a front page sensation. It charged that the editor +of the _World_ had ruined a girl named Nellie Anderson at a house +where he had boarded and that she had subsequently disappeared. It +featured also a story of how he had been seen to enter his rooms +at midnight with a woman of the street, who remained there until +morning reveling with him. Attached to this were the affidavits of +two detectives, a police officer, and the druggist who had +furnished the liquor. + +The story exploded like a bomb shell in the camp of the +progressives. Rawson tried at once without success to get Jeff on +the telephone. He was not at the office, nor had he reached his +rooms at all after leaving the _World_ building on the previous +night. None of his friends had seen or heard of him. + +The afternoon papers had a sensation of their own. Jefferson +Farnum had left Verden secretly without leaving an address. +Evidently he had been given a hint of the exposure that was to be +made of his life and had decamped rather than face the charges. + +Rumor had a hundred tales to tell. The waverers at the State House +chose to believe that Jeff had sold them out and fled with his +price. It was impossible to deny the stories of his immorality, +since it happened that Sam Miller, the only man who knew the whole +story, was far up in the mountains arranging for a shipment of +Rocky Mountain sheep to the state museum. Farnum's friends could +only affirm their faith in him or surrender. Some gave way, some +stood firm. The lobbyists and the opposition went about with +confident, "I-told-you-so" smiles writ large on their faces. +Within a few days it became apparent that the reform bill would be +defeated in the senate. Its fate had been so long tied up with the +people's belief in Jeff that with his collapse the general opinion +condemned it to defeat. Its friends hung back, unwilling to risk a +vote as yet. + +The situation called for a leader and developed one. James Farnum +stepped into the breach and took command. In a ringing speech he +called for a new alignment. He would yield to none in the devotion +he had given to House Bill Number 33. But it needed no prophet to +see that now this amendment was doomed. Better half a loaf than no +bread. He was a practical man and wanted to see practical results. +Rather than see the will of the people frustrated he felt that +House Bill I7 should be passed. While not an ideal bill it was far +better than none. The principle of direct legislation at least +would be established. + +H. B. No. I7 was brought hurriedly out of committee. It had been +introduced as a substitute measure to defeat the real reform. +According to its provision legislation could be initiated by the +people, but to make it valid as a law the legislature had to +approve any bill so passed. The people could advise. They could +not compel. + +The speech of the speaker of the House precipitated a bitter +fight. The more eager friends of H. B. No. 33 accused him of +treachery, but many felt that it was the best possible practical +politics under the circumstances. For weeks the issue hung in +doubt, but gradually James gathered adherents among both +progressives and conservatives. It became almost a foregone +conclusion that H. B. No. I7 would pass. + + +CHAPTER 15 + +"Old Capting Pink of the Peppermint, + Though kindly at heart and good, +Had a blunt, bluff way of a-gittin' 'is say + That we all of us understood. + +When he brained a man with a pingle spike + Or plastered a seaman flat, +We should 'a' been blowed but we all of us knowed + That he didn't mean nothin' by that. + +I was wonderful fond of old Capting Pink, + And Pink he was fond o' me, +As he frequently said when he battered me head + Or sousled me into the sea." +--Wallace Irwin. + + +BULLY GREEN PRESERVES DISCIPLINE AND THE REBEL LEARNS TO SAY "SIR" + + +Part 1 + +On the night of the twenty-second of December Jeff left the +_World_ building and moved down Powers Avenue to the all night +restaurant he usually frequented. The man who was both cook and +waiter remembered afterwards that Farnum called for coffee, +sausage, and a waffle. + +Before the editor left the waffle house it was the morning of the +twenty-third. He had never felt less sleepy. Nor did a book and a +pipe before his gas log seem quite what he wanted. The vagabond +streak in him was awake, the same potent wanderlust that as a boy +had driven him to the solitude of the forests and the hills. This +morning it sent him questing down Powers Avenue to that lower town +where the derelicts of the city floated without a rudder. + +A cold damp mist had crept up from the water front and enwrapped +the city so that its lights showed like blurred moons. Some +instinct took him toward the wharves. He could hear the distant +cough of a tug as it fussed across the bay, and as he drew near +the big Transcontinental wharves of Joe Powers the black hulk of a +Japanese liner rose black out of the gray fog shadow. But the +freighters, the coasters, tramps that went hither and thither over +the earth wherever fat cargoes lured them--they were either +swallowed in the mist or shadowed to a ghost-like wraith of +themselves so tenuous that all detail was lost in the haze. + +Jeff leaned on a pile and let his imagination people the harbor +with the wandering children of the earth who had been drawn from +all its seafaring corners to this Mecca of trade. He knew that +here were swarthy little Japanese with teas and silks, dusky +Kanakas with copra, and Alaskan liners carrying gold and returning +miners. There would be brigs from Buenos Ayres and schooners that +had nosed into Robert Louis Stevenson's magic South Sea islands. +Puffy London steamers, Nome and Skagway liners condemned long +since on the Atlantic Coast, queer rigged hybrids from Rio and +other South American ports, were gorging themselves with lumber or +wheat or provisions according to their needs. Here truly lay +before him the romance of the nations. + +The sound of a stealthy footfall warned him of impending danger. +He whirled, and faced three men who were advancing on him. A vague +suspicion that had oppressed him more than once in the past week +leaped to definite conviction in his brain. He was the victim of a +plot to waylay--perhaps to murder him. One of these men was a huge +Swede, another a swarthy Italian with rings in his ears. He had +seen them before, lurking in the shadows of an alley outside the +_World_ building. Last night he had come out from the office with +Jenkins, which no doubt had saved him for the time. This morning +he had played into the hands of these men, had obligingly wandered +down to the waterfront where they could so easily conceal murder +in a tide running out fast. + +Strangely enough he felt no fear; rather a fierce exultant +drumming of the blood that braced him for the struggle. His eyes +swept the wharf for a weapon and found none. + +"What do you want?" he demanded sharply. + +The man in command ignored his question. "Stand by and down him." + +The Italian crouched and leaped. Jeff's fist caught him fairly +between the eyes. He went down like a log, rolled over once and +lay still. The others closed instantly with Farnum and the three +swayed in a fierce silent struggle. + +Both of his attackers were more powerful than Jeff, but he was far +more active. The darkness, too, aided him and hampered them. The +Swede he could have managed, for the fellow was awkward as a bear. +But the leader stuck to him like a burr. They went down together +over a cleat in the flooring, rolling over and over each other as +they fought. + +Somehow Jeff emerged out of the tangle. He dragged himself to his +knees and hammered with his fist at an upturned face beside him. +Battered, bleeding, and winded, he got to his feet and shook off +the hands that reached for him. Dodging past, he lurched along the +wharf like a drunken man. The Italian had gathered himself to his +knees. When Jeff came opposite him he dived like a football tackle +and threw his arms around the moving legs. The newspaper man +crashed heavily down to unconsciousness. + +When Farnum opened his eyes upon a world strangely hazy he found +himself lying in a row boat, his head bolstered by a man's knees. + +"Drink this, mate," ordered a voice that seemed very far away. + +The neck of a bottle was thrust between his lips and tilted so +that he could not escape drinking. + +"That dope'll hold him for a while, Say, Johnny Dago, put your +back into them oars," he heard indistinctly. + +Faintly there came to him the slap of the waves against the side +of the boat. These presently died rhythmically away. + +It was daylight when he awakened again. His throbbing head slowly +definitized the vile hole in which he lay as the forecastle of a +ship. Gradually the facts sifted back to him. He recalled the +fight on the wharf and the drink in the boat. In this last he +suspected knockout drops. That he had been shanghaied was beyond +suspicion. + +Laboriously he sat up on the side of his bunk and in doing so +became aware of a sailor asleep in the crib opposite. His +stertorous breathing stirred a doubt in Jeff's mind. Perhaps the +crimps had taken him too. + +The ship was rolling a good deal, but by a succession of tacks +Jeff staggered to the scuttle and climbed the hatchway to the +deck. A wintry sun was shining, and for a few moments he stood +blinking in the light. + +She was a three-masted schooner and was plunging forward into the +choppy seas outside the jaws of the harbor. He whiffed the salt +tang of the air and tasted the flying spray. An ebb tide was +lifting the vessel forward on a freshening wind, and trim as a +greyhound she slipped through the cat's-paws. + +A thickset, powerful figure paced to and fro on the quarter-deck, +occasionally bellowing an order in a tremendous voice like the +roar of a bull. He was getting canvas set for the fresh breeze of +the open seas that was catching him astern, and the sailors were +jumping to obey his orders. The pounding sails and the singing +cordage, the rattling blocks and the whipping ropes, would have +told Jeff they were scudding along fast, even if the heeling of +the schooner and its swift forward leaps had not made it plain. + +"By God, Jones, she's walking," he heard the captain boom across +to the mate. + +Just then a figure cut past him and made straight for the captain. +Farnum recognized in it the sailor whom he had left asleep in the +forecastle and even in that fleeting glance was aware of the man's +livid fury. Up the steps he went like a wild beast. + +"What kind of a boat is this?" he panted hoarsely. + +The captain turned toward him. His eyes were shining wickedly, but +his voice was ominously suave and honeyed. "This boat, son, is a +threemasted schooner, name of _Nancy Hanks_ , Master Joshua Green, +bound for the Solomon Islands with a cargo of Oregon fir." + +"I've been shanghaied. This is a nest of crimps," the man +screamed. + +Joshua Green's salient jaw came forward. "Been shanghaied, have +you? And we're a nest of crimps, are we? Son, the less I hear of +that line of talk the better. Put that in your pipe and smoke it." + +The man turned loose a flood of profanity and swore he would rot +in hell before he would touch a rope on that ship. + +Out went Green's great gnarled fist. The seaman shot back from the +quarterdeck and struck a pile of rope below. He was up again and +down again almost quicker than it takes to tell. Three times he +hit the planks before he lay still. + +The captain stood over him, his eyes blazing. He looked the +savage, barbaric slavedriver he was. + +"Me, I'm Bully Green, and don't you forget it. Been shanghaied, +have you? Not going to touch a rope? Then, by thunder, you +white-livered beachcomber, a rope will touch you till you're +flayed. Get this in your coconut. You'll walk chalk, you lazy son +of a sea cook, or I'll haze you till you wish you'd never been +born." He punctuated his remarks with vigorous kicks. "Bully Green +runs this tub, strike me dead if he don't. Now you hump for'ard +and clap a hand to them sheets. Walk, you shanghaied Dutchman!" + +The sailor crawled away, completely cowed. For one day he had had +more than enough. The captain watched him for a moment, his great +jaw thrust grimly out. Then, as on a pivot, he whirled toward +Jeff. + +"Come here, you! Step lively, Sport!" + +Farnum wondered whether he was about to undergo an experience +similar to that of the sailor. "Do you want to know what kind of a +ship this is?" + +"No, sir. I'm perfectly satisfied about that," smiled his victim. + +"Got no opinions you want to hand out free, son?" + +"Think I'll keep them bottled." + +"Say 'sir,' Sport!" + +"Yes, sir," answered Farnum, his quiet eyes steady and unafraid. + +"When I give an order you expect to jump?" + +"Jump isn't the word." + +"Sir!" thundered Green, and "Sir" the newspaper man corrected +himself. + +"Got no story to spiel about being shanghaied, son?" + +"Would it do any good, sir?" + +"Not unless you're aching to get what that son of a Dutchman got. +See here, sport! You walk the chalk line, and Bully Green and +you'll get along fine. I'm a lamb, I am, when I'm not riled. But +get gay--and you'll have a hectic time. I'll rough you till you're +shark-food. Get that through your teeth?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Now you trot down to the fo'c'sle and dive into them slops you +find there. You got just three minutes to do the dress-suit act." + +Jeff, as he passed below, could hear the great bull voice roaring +orders to the men. "Set y'r topsails! Jam 'er down hard, Johnnie +Dago! Stand by, you lubbers! . . . Now then, easy does it . . . +easy!" + +Within the allotted three minutes Farnum had climbed into the foul +oilskin coat and tarry breeches he found below and was ready for +orders. + +"Clap on to that windlass, sport! No loafing here. . . . Hump +y'rself. D'ye hear me? Hump?" + +Jeff threw his one hundred and fifty pounds of bone and muscle +against the crank of the windlass. Some men would have fought +first as long as they could stand and see. Others would have +begged, argued, or threatened. But Jeff had schooled himself to +master impulses of rage. He knew when to fight and when to yield. +Nor did he give way sullenly or passionately. It was an outrage-- +highhanded tyranny--but at the worst it was a magnificent +adventure. As he flung his weight into the crank he smiled. + + +Part 2 + +Before the trade winds the _Nancy Hanks_ foamed along day after +day, all sails set, making excellent time. But for his anxiety as +to the effect his disappearance would have upon the political +situation, Jeff would have enjoyed immensely the wild rough life +aboard the schooner. But he could not conceal from himself the +interpretation of his absence the machine agents would scatter +broadcast. He foresaw a reaction against his bill and its probable +defeat. + +The issue was on the knees of chance. The fact that could not be +obliterated was that he had been wiped from the slate until after +the legislature would adjourn. For every hour was carrying him +farther from the scene of action. + +His only hope was that the _Nancy Hanks_ might put in at the +Hawaiian Islands, from which place he might get a chance to write, +or, better still, to cable the reason of his absence. Captain +Green himself wiped out this expectation. He jocosely intimated to +Farnum one afternoon that he had no intention of calling the +Islands. + +"When we get through this six months' cruise you'll be a first- +rate sailorman, son, and you'll get a sailorman's wages," he added +genially. + +The shanghaied man met his eye squarely. "I think I could arrange +to draw on Verden for a thousand dollars if you would drop me at +the Islands." + +"Not for twenty thousand. You're going to stay with us till we get +to the Solomon Islands, and don't you forget it." + +Bully Green had taken rather a fancy to this amiable young man who +had taken so sensible a view of the little misadventure that had +befallen him, but of course business was business. He had been +paid to keep him out of the way and he intended to fulfil the +contract. + +"Here I'm educatin' you, makin' an able-bodied seaman out of you, +son. You had ought to be grateful," he grinned. + +"Oh, I am," Jeff agreed with a twinkle. + +But Captain Green had reckoned without the weather. The _Nancy +Hanks_ drifted into three days of calm and sultry heat. At the +end of the third day she began to rock gently beneath a murky sky. + +"Dirty weather," predicted the mate, the same who had assisted at +the shanghaing. "When you see a satin sea turn indigo and that +peculiar shade in the sky you want to look out for squalls," he +explained to Jeff. + +It came on them in a rush. The sun went out of a black sky like a +blown candle and the sea began to whip itself to a froth. The wind +quickened, boomed to a roar, and sent the schooner heeling to a +squall across the leaden waters. The open sea closed in on them. +Before they could get in sail and make secure the sheets ripped +with a scream, braces parted and the topmasts snapped off. The +_Nancy_ went pitching forward into the yawning deeps with drunken +plunges from which it seemed she would never emerge. Great combing +seas toppled down and pounded the decks, while the sailors clung +to stays or whatever would give them a hold. + +The squall lasted scarce an hour, but it left the schooner +dismantled. Her sheets were in ribbons, her topmasts and bowsprit +gone. There was nothing for it but a crippled beat toward the +Islands. + +Four days later she made an offing in the harbor at Honolulu just +as a liner was nosing her way out. + +Bully Green ranged up beside Farnum and cast a speculative eye on +him. + +"Sport, I had ought to iron you and keep you in the fo'c'sle until +we leave here. It's the only square thing to do." + +Jeff's gaze was on the advancing steamer. She was scarce two +hundred yards away now and he could plainly read the name painted +on her side. She was the _Bellingham_ of Verden. + +"I don't see the necessity, sir," he answered. + +"I reckon you do, son. Samuel Green stands by his word to a +finish. Now I've promised to keep you safe, and you can bet your +last dollar I'm a-going to do it." + +His prisoner turned from the rail against which he was leaning to +the captain. Pinpoints of light were gleaming in the big eyes. + +"How much safer do you want me than this?" + +Green expectorated at a chip in the water and shifted his quid. +"You've got brains, son. No telling what you might try to do. But +see here. You're no drunken beachcomber. I know a gentleman when I +see one. Gimme your word you'll not try to skip out or send a +message back to the States and I'll go easy on you. I'm so dashed +kindhearted, I am, that--" + +Jeff leaped to the rail, stood poised an instant, and dived into +the blue Pacific. + +"Well, I'll be " Bully Green interrupted himself to roar an order +to lower a boat. + + +CHAPTER 16 + +A young man left his father's house to see the world. Everywhere +he found busy human beings. Cities were rising toward the skies, +seas and plains were being lined with traffic, school, mill and +office hummed with life. He wondered why men were so busy and what +they were trying to do. + +He went to a railroad director and asked: "Why are you building +railroads?" "For profits," was the answer. But a laborer beckoned +him aside and whispered: "No--we are making the _World_ one +neighborhood. East is now next door to West, and all peoples dwell +in one continuing city." + +The young man went to the boss of a labor union. "Why," he asked, +"do you spend your days breeding discontent and leading strikes?" +"Why?" repeated the leader fiercely, "that the workers receive +more pay for shorter hours." "No," whispered a laborer, "we are +teaching the _World_ the sacred value of human beings. We are +learning how to be brotherly--how to stand up for each other. +--James Oppenheim. + + +UNDER STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES THE REBEL MAKES HIS BOW TO POLITE +SOCIETY. TAKING AN APPLE AS A TEXT, HE PREACHES ON THE RISE OF +ADAM + + +Part 1 + +"Man overboard!" + +Somebody on the liner sang it out. Instantly there was a rush of +passengers to the side. From the schooner a boat was being +lowered and manned. + +"I see him. He's swimming this way. I believe he's trying to +escape," one slender young woman cried. + +"Nonsense, Alice! He fell overboard and he's probably so +frightened he doesn't know which way he is swimming." This +suggestion was from the beautiful blonde with bronze hair who +stood beside her under a tan parasol held by a fresh-faced +globetrotter. + +"Don't you believe it, Val. Look how he's cutting through the +water. He's trying to reach us. Oh, I hope they won't get him. +Somebody get a rope to throw out." + +"By Jove, you're right, Miss Alice," cried the Englishman. "It's a +race, and it's going to be a near thing." He disappeared and was +presently back with a rope. + +"Come on! Come on!" screamed the passengers to the swimmer. + +"He's ripping strong with that overhead stroke. Ye gods, it's +close!" exclaimed the Britisher. + +It was. The swimmer reached the side of the ship not four yards in +front of the pursuing boat. He caught at the trailing rope and +began to clamber up hand over hand, while the Englishman, a man +standing near, and Alice Frome dragged him up. + +The mate of the Nancy Hanks, standing up in the boat, caught at +his foot and pulled. The man's hold loosened on the rope. He slid +down a foot, steadied himself. Suddenly the left leg shot out and +caught the grinning mate in the mouth. He went over backward into +the bottom of the boat. Before he could extricate himself from the +tangle his fall had precipitated, the dripping figure of the +swimmer stood safely on the deck of the _Bellingham._ + +In his wet foul slops the man was a sight to draw stares. The +cabin passengers moved back to give him a wide circle, as men do +with a wet retriever. + +"What does this mean, my man?" demanded the captain of the +_Bellingham,_ pushing forward. He was a big red-faced figure with +a heavy roll of fat over his collar. + +"I have been shanghaied, sir. From Verden. I'm the editor of the +_World_ of that city." + +"That's a lie," proclaimed the mate of the _Nancy Hanks_ , who by +this time had reached the deck. "He's a nutty deckswabber we +picked up at 'Frisco." + +"Why, it's Mr. Farnum," cried a fresh young voice from the circle. + +The rescued man turned. His eyes joined those of a slim golden +girl and he was struck dumb. + +"You know this man, Miss Frome?" the captain asked. + +"I know him by sight." She stepped to the front. "There can't be +any doubt about it. He's Mr. Farnum of Verden, the editor of the +_World._" + +"You're quite sure?" + +"Quite sure, Captain Barclay. My cousin knows him, too." + +The captain turned to Mrs. Van Tyle. She nodded languidly. + +Barclay swung back to the mate of the _Nancy Hanks_ . "I know your +kind, my man, and I can tell you that I think the penitentiary +would be the proper place for you and your captain, with my +compliments to him." + +"Better come and pay 'em yourself, sir," sneered the mate. + +"Get off my deck, you dirty crimp," roared the captain. "Slide +now, or I'll have you thrown off." + +Mr. Jones made a hurried departure. Once in the boat, he shook his +fist at Barclay and cursed him fluently. + +The captain turned away promptly. "Mr. Farwell, if you'll step +this way the steward will outfit you with some clothes. If they +don't fit they'll do better than those togs you're wearing." + +The English youth came forward with a suggestion. "Really, I think +I can do better than that for Mr. Far--" He hesitated for the +name. + +"Farnum," supplied the owner of it. + +"Ah! You're about my size, Mr. Farnum. If you don't mind, you +know, you're quite welcome to anything I have." + +"Thank you very much." + +"Very well. Mr. Farwell--Farnum, I mean--shake hands with +Lieutenant Beauchamp," and with the sense of duty done the worthy +captain dismissed the new arrival from his mind. + +Jeff bowed to Miss Frome and followed his broad-shouldered guide +to a cabin. He was conscious of an odd elation that had not +entirely to do with a brave adventure happily ended. The impelling +cause of it was rather the hope of a braver adventure happily +begun. + + +Part 2 + +"By Jove, I envy you, Mr. Farnum. Didn't know people bucked into +adventures like that these tame days. Think of actually being +shanghaied. It's like a novel. My word, the ladies will make a +lion of you!" + +The Englishman was dragging a steamer trunk from under his bed. It +needed no second glance at his frank boyish face to divine him a +friend worth having. Fresh-colored and blue-eyed, he looked very +much the country gentleman Jeff had read about but never seen. It +was perhaps by the gift of race that he carried himself with +distinction, though the flat straight back and the good shoulders +of the cricketer contributed somewhat, too. Jeff sized him up as a +resolute, clean-cut fellow, happily endowed with many gifts of +fortune to make him the likable chap he was. + +Beauchamp threw out some clothes from a steamer trunk and left the +rescued man alone to dress. Ten minutes later he returned. + +"Expect you'd like an interview with the barber. I'll take you +round. By the way, you'll let me be your banker till you reach +Verden?" + +"Thank you. Since I must." + +From the barber shop the Englishman took him to the dining saloon. +"Awfully sorry you can't sit at our table, Mr. Farnum. It's full +up. You're to be at the purser's." + +Jeff let a smile escape into his eyes. "Suits me. I've been at the +bos'n's for several weeks." + +"Beastly outrage. We'll want to hear all about it. Miss Frome's +tremendously excited. Odd you and she hadn't met before. Didn't +know Verden was such a big town." + +"I'm not a society man," explained Jeff. "And it happens I've been +fighting her father politically for years. Miss Frome and Mrs. Van +Tyle are about the last people I would be likely to meet." + +From his seat Jeff could see the cousins at the other end of the +room. They were seated near the head of the captain's table, and +that officer was paying particular attention to them, perhaps +because the _Bellingham_ happened to be one of a line of boats +owned by Joe Powers, perhaps because both of them were very +attractive young women. They were types entirely outside Farnum's +very limited experience. The indolence, the sheathed perfection, +the soft sensuous allure of the young widow seemed to Jeff a +product largely of her father's wealth. But the charm of her +cousin, with its sweet and mocking smile, its note of youthful +austerity, was born of the fine and gallant spirit in her. + +Beauchamp sat beside Miss Frome and the editor observed that they +were having a delightful time. He wondered what they could be +talking about. What did a man say to bring such a glow and sparkle +of life into a girl's face? It came to him with a wistful regret +for his stolen youth that never yet had he sat beside a young +woman at dinner and entertained her in the gay adequate manner of +Lieutenant Beauchamp. James could do it, had done it a hundred +times. But he had been sold too long to an urgent world of battle +ever to know such delights. + + +Part 3 + +After dinner Jeff lost no time in waiting upon Miss Frome to thank +her for her assistance. It was already dark. When he found her it +was not in one of the saloons, but on deck. She was leaning +against the deck railing in animated talk with Beauchamp, the +while Mrs. Van Tyle listened lazily from a deck chair. + +"I like the way that red head of his came bobbing through the +water," Beauchamp was saying. "Looks to me as if he would take a +lot of beating. He's no quitter. Since I haven't the pleasure of +knowing Mr. Powers or Senator Frome, I think I'll back Farnum to +win." + +"It's very plain you don't know Joe Powers. He always wins," +contributed his daughter blandly. + +"But Mr. Farnum is a remarkable man just the same," Alice added. +Then, with a little cry to cover her flushed embarrassment: "Here +he is. We do hope you're a little deaf, Mr. Farnum. We've been +talking about you." + +"You may say anything you like about me, Miss Frome, except that +I'm not grateful for the lift aboard you gave me this afternoon," +Jeff answered. + +He found himself presently giving the story of his adventure. He +did not look at Alice, but he told the tale to her alone and was +aware of the eagerness with which she listened. + +"But why should they want to kidnap you? I don't see any reason +for it," Alice protested. + +A shadowy smile lay in the eyes of Mrs. Van Tyle. "Mr. Farnum is +in politics, my dear." + +A fat pork packer from Chicago joined the group. "I've been +thinking about the sharks, Mr. Farnum. You played in great luck to +escape them." + +"Sharks!" Jeff heard the young woman beside him give a gasp. In +the moonlight her face showed white. + +"These waters are fairly infested with them," the Chicagoan +explained. "We saw two this morning in the harbor. It was when the +stewards threw out the scraps. They turned over on their--" + +"Don't!" cried Alice Frome sharply. + +The petrified horror on the vivid mobile face remained long as a +sweet memory to Jeff. It had been for him that she had known the +swift heart clutch of terror. + + +Part 4 + +Farnum, pacing the deck as he munched at an apple, heard himself +hailed from the bridge above. He looked up, to see Alice Frome, +caught gloriously in the wind like a winged Victory. Her hair was +parted in the middle with a touch of Greek simplicity and fell in +wavy ripples over her temples beneath the jaunty cap. She put her +arms on the railing and leaned forward, her chin tilted to an +oddly taking boyish piquancy. + +"I say, give a fellow a bite." + +By no catalogue of summarized details could this young woman have +laid claim to beauty, but in the flashing play of her expression, +the exquisite golden coloring, one could not evade the charm of a +certain warm witchery, of the passionate beat of innocent life. +The wonder of her lay in the sparkle of her inner self. Every +gleam of the deep true eyes, every impulsive motion of the slight +supple body, expressed some phase of her infinite variety. Her +flying moods swept her from demure to daring, from warm to cool. +And for all her sweet derision her friends knew a heart full of +pure, brave enthusiasms that would endure. + +"I don't believe in indiscriminate charity," Jeff explained, and +he took another bite. + +"Have you no sympathy for the deserving poor?" she pleaded. +"Besides, since you're a socialist, it isn't your apple any more +than it is mine. Bring my half up to me, sir." + +"Your half is the half I've already eaten. And if you knew as much +as you pretend to about socialism you'd know it isn't yours until +you've earned it." + +Her eyes danced. He noticed that beneath each of them was a +sprinkle of tiny powdered freckles. "But haven't I earned it? +Didn't I blister my hands pulling you aboard?" + +He promptly shifted ground. "We're living under the capitalistic +system. You earn it and I eat it," he argued. "The rest of this +apple is my reward for having appropriated what didn't belong to +me." + +"But that's not fair. It's no better than stealing." + +"Sh--h! It's high finance. Don't use that other word," he +whispered. "And what's fair hasn't a thing to do with it. It's my +apple because I've got it." + +"But--" + +He waved her protest aside blandly. "Now try to be content with +the lot a wise Providence has awarded you. I eat the apple. You +see me eat it. + +That's the usual division of profits. Don't be an agitator, or an +anarchist." + +"Don't I get even the core?" she begged. + +"I'd like to give it to you, but it wouldn't be best. You see I +don't want to make you discontented with your position in life." +He flung what was left of the apple into the sea and came up the +steps to join her. + +Laughter was in the eyes of both, but it died out of hers first. + +"Mr. Farnum, is it really as bad as that?" Before he could find an +answer she spoke again. "I've wanted for a long time to talk with +some one who didn't look at things as we do. I mean as my father +does and my uncle does and most of my friends. Tell me what you +think of it--you and your friends." + +"That's a large order, Miss Frome. I hardly know where to begin." + +"Wait! Here comes Lieutenant Beauchamp to take me away. I promised +to play ring toss with him, but I don't want to go now." She led a +swift retreat to a spot on the upper deck shielded from the wind +and warmed by the two huge smokestacks. Dropping breathless into a +chair, she invited him with a gesture to take another. Little imps +of mischief flashed out at him from her eyes. In the adventure of +the escape she had made him partner. A rush of warm blood danced +through his veins. + +"Now, sir, we're safe. Begin the propaganda. Isn't that the word +you use? Tell me all about everything. You're the first real live +socialist I ever caught, and I mean to make the most of you." + +"But I'm unfortunately not exactly a socialist." + +"An anarchist will do just as well." + +"Nor an anarchist. Sorry." + +"Oh, well, you're something that's dreadful. You haven't the +proper bump of respect for father and for Uncle Joe. Now why +haven't you?" + +And before he knew it this young woman had drawn from him glimpses +of what life meant to him. He talked to her of the pressure of the +struggle for existence, of the poverty that lies like a blight +over whole sections of cities, spreading disease and cruelty and +disorder, crushing the souls of its victims, poisoning their +hearts and bodies. He showed her a world at odds and ends, in +which it was accepted as the natural thing that some should starve +while others were waited upon by servants. + +He made her see how the tendency of environment is to reduce all +things to a question of selfinterest, and how the great triumphant +fact of life is that love and kindness persist. Her interest was +insatiable. She poured questions upon him, made him tell her +stories of the things he had seen in that strange underworld that +was farther from her than Asia. So she learned of Oscar Marchant, +coughing all day over the shoes he half-soled and going out at +night to give his waning life to the service of those who needed +him. He told her--without giving names--the story of Sam Miller +and his wife, of shop girls forced by grinding poverty to that +easier way which leads to death, of little children driven by want +into factories which crushed the youth out of them. + +Her eyes with the star flash in them never left his face. She was +absorbed, filled with a strange emotion that made her lashes +moist. She saw not only the tragedy and waste of life, but a +glorious glimpse of the way out. This man and his friends set the +common good above their private gain. For them a new heart was +being born into the world. They were no longer consumed with blind +greed, with love of their petty selves. They were no longer full +of cowardice and distrust and enmity. Life was a thing beautiful +to them. It was flushed with the color of hope, of fine +enthusiasms. They might suffer. They might be defeated. But +nothing could extinguish the joy in their souls. They walked like +gods, immortals, these brothers to the spent and the maimed. For +they had found spiritual values in it that made any material +profit of small importance. Alice got a vision of the great truth +that is back of all true reforms, all improvement, all progress. + +"Love," she said almost in a whisper, "is forgetting self." + +Jeff lost his stride and pulled up. He thought he could not have +heard aright. "I beg your pardon?" + +"Nothing. I was just thinking out loud. Go on please." + +But she had broken the thread of his talk. He attempted to take it +up again, but he was still trying for a lead when Alice saw Mrs. +Van Tyle and Beauchamp coming toward them. + +She rose. Her eyes were the brightest Jeff had ever seen. They +were filled with an ardent tenderness. It was as if she were +wrapped in a spiritual exaltation. + +"Thank you. Thank you. I can't tell you what you've done for me." + +She turned and walked quickly away. To be dragged back to the +commonplace at once was more than she could bear. First she must +get alone with herself, must take stock of this new emotion that +ran like wine through her blood. A pulse throbbed in her throat, +for she was in a passionate glow of altruism. + +"I'm glad of life--glad of it--glad of it!" she murmured through +the veil she had lowered to screen her face from observation. + +It had come to her as a revelation straight from Heaven that there +can be no salvation without service. And the motive back of +service must be love. Love! That was what Jesus had come to teach +the world, and all these years it had warped and mystified his +message. + +She felt that life could never again be gray or colorless. For +there was work waiting that she could do, service that she could +give. And surely there could be no greater happiness than to find +her work and do it gladly. + + +CHAPTER 17 + +All sorts of absurd assumptions pass current as fixed and non- +debatable standards. We might be free, and we tie ourselves to the +slavery of rutted convention. Afraid of ideas, we come to no +definite philosophy of life that is the result of clear and +pellucid thinking. + +We must get rid of our bonds, but only in order to take on new +ones. For our convictions will shackle us. The difference is that +then we shall be servants of Truth and not of dead Tradition. +--From the Note Book of a Dreamer. + + +THE CHAPERONE EXPLAINS THAT THE REBEL IS IMPOSSIBLE AND THE +CHAPERONED BEGS LEAVE TO DIFFER + + +Part 1 + +"And why mustn't I?" Alice demanded vigorously. + +Her cousin regarded her with indolent amusement. "My dear, you are +positively the most energetic person I know. It is refreshing to +see with what interest you enter into a discussion." + +Miss Frome, very erect and ready for argument, watched her +steadily from the piano stool of their joint sitting room. "Well?" + +"I didn't say you mustn't, my dear. I know better than to deal in +imperatives with Miss Alice. What I did was mildly to suggest that +you are going rather far. It's all very well to be civil, but--" +Mrs. Van Tyle shrugged her shoulders and let it go at that. She +was leaning back in an easychair and across its arm her wrist +hung. Between the fingers, polished like old ivory to the tapering +pink nails, was a lighted cigarette. + +"Why shouldn't I be--pleasant to him? I like him." Her color +deepened, but the eyes of the girl did not give way. There was in +them a little flare of defiance. + +"Be pleasant to him if you like, and if it amuses you. But--" +Again Valencia stopped, but after a puff or two at her cigarette +she added presently: "Don't get too interested in him." + +"I'm not likely to," Alice returned with a touch of scorn. "Can't +I like a man and admire him without wanting to marry him? I think +that's a hateful way to look at it." + +"It's your interpretation, not mine," Mrs. Van Tyle answered with +perfect good humor. "Of course you couldn't want to marry him +under any circumstances. His station in life--his anarchistic +ideas--his reputation as a confirmed libertine--all of them make +the thought of such a thing impossible." + +Miss Frome's mind seized on only one of the charges. "I don't +believe it. I don't believe a word of it. Anybody can throw +mud--and some of it is bound to stick. He's a good man. You can +see that in his face." + +"You can perhaps. I can't." Valencia studied her beneath a droop +of eyelids behind which she was very alert. "Those things aren't +said about a man unless they are true. Moreover, it happens we +don't have to depend on hearsay." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Do you remember that night we saw the Russian dancers?" + +"Yes." + +"On the way home our car passed him. He was helping a woman out of +a cab in front of the building where he rooms. She was +intoxicated, and--his arm was round her waist." + +"I don't believe it. It was somebody else," the young woman +flamed. + +"His cousin recognized him. So did I." + +"There must be some explanation. I'll ask him." + +"Ask him!" Valencia's level eyebrows lifted "Really, I don't think +that will do. Better quietly eliminate him." + +"You mean treat him as if he were guilty when, I am sure he is +not." + +Mrs. Van Tyle's little laugh rippled out. "You're quite dramatic +about it, my dear. The man's of no importance. He's a _poseur_, a +demagogue, and one with a vicious streak in him. I understand, of +course, that you're interested only because he different from the +other men you know. That merely a part of his pose." + +"I'm sure it isn't." + +"You're romantic, my dear. I'll admit his arrival on this ship was +dramatic. No doubt you're imagining him a knight going back to +save gallantly a day that is lost. He's only a politician, and so +far as I can understand they are almost all a bad lot." + +"Including Father and Uncle Joe and Ned Merrill?" Alice asked +acidly. + +"They are not politicians, but business men. They are in politics +merely to protect their interests. But I didn't intend to start a +discussion about Mr. Farnum. I ask you to remember that as your +chaperone I'm here to represent your father. Would he wish you to +be friendly with this man?" + +Alice was silent. What her father would think was not a matter of +doubt. + +"The man's impossible," Mrs. Van Tyle went on pleasantly. "And +it's just as well to be careful. Not that I'm very prudish myself. +But if you're going to marry Ned Merrill--" + +She had struck the wrong note. Like a flash Alice answered. + +"I'm not. That's definitely decided." + +"Really! I thought it was rather arranged," Valencia smiled +blandly. + +It was all very well for Alice to protest, but in the end she +would be a good girl and do as she was told. Not that her cousin +objected to her having a little fling before the fatal day. But +why couldn't the girl do her flirting with Beauchamp instead of +with this wild socialist? + +Valencia reflected that at any rate she had done her duty. + + +Part 2 + +Jeff was tramping the deck, his hands in his coat pockets, waiting +for the trumpeter to fling out the two bars of music that would +summon him to breakfast. He walked vigorously? drawing in deep +breaths of the salt sea air. His thoughts were of Alice Frome. He +was a lover, and in his imagination she embodied all things +beautiful. Her charm flowed through him, pierced him with delight. +When he heard music his mind flew to her. It voiced the rhythm of +her motions and the sound of her warm laughter. The sunshine but +reflected the golden gleams of light in her wavy hair. + +As he swung round the smoking saloon Jeff came face to face with +Alice. He turned and caught step with her. The coat she wore came +to her ankles, but it could not conceal her light, strong tread +nor the long lines of the figure that gave her the grace of a +captured wood nymph. + +"Only five hundred miles from Verden. By night we ought to be in +wireless communication," he suggested. + +Her glance flashed at him. "You'll be glad to get home." + +"I will and I won't. There's work for me to do there. But it's the +first real vacation I ever had in my life that lasted over a week. +You can't think how I've enjoyed it." + +"So have I. More than anything I can remember." They stopped to +look at a steamer which lay low on the distant horizon line. After +they had fallen into step again she continued at the point where +they had been interrupted: "And after we reach home? Are you going +to come and see me? Are you going to let me meet your friends, +those dear people who are giving themselves to make life less +hideous and harsh for the weak? Shall I meet Mr. Mifflin . . . and +Mr. Miller and your little Socialist poet? Or are you going to +desert me?" + +He smiled a little at her way of putting it, but he was troubled +none the less. "Are you sure that your way is our way? One can +give service on the Hill just as much as down in the bottoms. +There's no moral grandeur in rags or in dirt. Isn't your place +with your friends?" + +"Haven't I a right to take hold of life for myself at first hand? +Haven't I a right to know the truth? What have I done that I +should be walled off from all these people who earn the bread I +eat?" + +"But your friends . . . your father. . ." + +Her ironic smile derided him. "So after all you haven't the +courage of your convictions. Because I'm Peter C. Frome's daughter +I'm not to have the right to live." + +"No, it's your right to take hold of life with both hands. But +surely you must live it among your own people." + +"I've got to learn how to live it first, haven't I? + +Most of my friends are not even aware there a problem of poverty. +They thrust the thought of it from them. Our wealthy class has no +social consciousness. Take my father. He thinks the submerged are +lost because they are thriftless and that all would be right if +they wouldn't drink. To him they are just a waste product of +civilization. + +"But can you study the life of the people without growing +discontented with the life you must lead?" + +"There is a divine discontent, you know. I've got to see things +for myself. Why should all my opinions, my faith, be given to me +ready-made. Why must I live by a formula I have never examined? If +it isn't true I want to know it. And if it is true I want to know +it." She had been looking straight before them toward the rising +sun but now her gaze swept round on him. "Don't blame yourself for +giving me new thoughts. I suppose all new ideas are likely to make +trouble. But I've been working in this direction for years. Ever +since I've been a little girl my heresies have puzzled my father. +Meeting you has shown me a short cut. That's all." + +Something she had said recalled to him a fugitive memory. + +"Do you know, I think I saw you once when you were a little bit of +a thing?" + +"Where?" + +"On the doorstep of your old place. I was rather busy at the time +fighting Edward Merrill." + +She stopped, looking at him in surprise. "Were you that boy?" + +"I was that boy." + +"You fought him to help a little ragged girl. She was a +foreigner." + +"I've forgotten why I fought him. The reason I remember the +occasion is that I met then for the first time two of my friends." + +She claimed a place immediately. "Who was the other one?" + +"Captain Chunn." + +Presently she bubbled into a little laugh. "How did the fight come +out? My nurse dragged me into the house." + +"Don't remember. I know the school principal licked me next day. I +had been playing hookey." + +They made another turn of the deck before she spoke again. + +"So we're old acquaintances, and I didn't know it. That was nearly +eighteen years ago. Isn't it strange that after so long we should +meet again only last week?" + +Jeff felt the blood creep into his face. "We met once before, Miss +Frome." + +"Oh, on the street. I meant to speak." + +"So did I." + +"When?" + +With his eyes meeting hers steadily Jeff told her of the time she +had found him in the bushes and mistaken him for a sick man. He +could see that he had struck her dumb. She looked at him and +looked away again. + +"Why do you tell me this?" she asked at last in a low voice. + +"It's only fair you should know the truth about me." + +They tramped the circuit once more. Neither of them spoke. The +trumpeter's bugle call to breakfast rang out. + +At the bow she stopped and looked down at the waters they were +furrowing. It was a long time before she raised her head and met +his eyes. The color had whipped into her cheeks, but she put her +question steadily. + +"Are you telling me. . . that I must lose my friend?" + +"Isn't that for you to say?" + +"I don't know." She faltered for words, but not the least in her +intention. "Are you--what I have always heard you are?" + +"Can you be a little more definite?" he asked gently. + +"Well--dissipated! You're not that?" + +"No. I've trodden down the appetite. I'm a total abstainer." + +"And you're not. . . those worse things that the papers say?" + +"No." + +"I knew it." Triumph rang in her voice. She breathed a generous +trust. To know him for a true man it was necessary only to look +into his fearless eyes set deep in the thin tanned face. It was +impossible for anything unclean to survive with his humorous +humility and his pervading sympathy and his love of truth. "I +didn't care what they said. I knew it all the time." + +Her sweet faith was a thing to see with emotion. He felt tears +scorch the back of his eyes. + +"The thing you know is bad enough." + +"Oh, that! That is nothing . . . now. It doesn't matter." + +Lieutenant Beauchamp emerged from a saloon and bore down upon +them. + +"Mrs. Van Tyle has sent me to bring you to breakfast, Miss Frome. +Mornin', Mr. Farnum." + +"And I'm ready for it, We've been round the deck ever so many +times. Haven't we, Mr. Farnum?" + +She nodded lightly to Jeff and walked away with the Englishman. +The sunshine of her warm vitality was like quicksilver in Farnum's +veins. What a gallant spirit, at once delicate and daring, dwelt +in that vivid slender form! A snatch of Chesterton came to his +mind: + +Her face was like an open word + When brave men speak and choose, +The very colors of her coat + Were better than good news. + +"It is the hour of man: new purposes, + Broad shouldered, press against the world's slow gate; +And voices from the vast eternities + Publish the soul's austere apostolate. + +Man bursts the chains that his own hands have made; + Hurls down the blind, fierce gods that in blind years +He fashioned, and a power upon them laid + To bruise his heart and shake his soul with fears." +--Edwin Markham. + + +CHAPTER 18 + + +THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY ARE GIVEN AN ILLUSTRATION OF A ROORBACK + + +Part 1 + +Rawson sat in the rotunda of the Pacific Hotel in desultory +conversation with Captain Chunn, Hardy and Rogers. He brought his +clenched hand down on the padded leather arm of the big chair. + +"They'll jam it through to-morrow. That's what they'll do. James +K. Farnum's been playing mighty pretty politics and he has got the +votes to deliver the goods." + +Hardy nodded as he knocked the ash from his cigar. "Now that it's +all over we can see James K.'s trail easily enough. He meant to +defeat the initiative and referendum amendment, and he meant to do +it without losing his popularity. He's done it too. Jeff's +disappearance made it certain our bill wouldn't go through. James +jumps in with a hurrah and passes one that isn't worth the powder +to blow it up. But he's going to claim it as a great victory for +the people--and if I know that young man he'll get away with his +bluff. Yet it's certain as taxes that he's been working for Joe +Powers all the time." + +"I wouldn't put it past him to have engineered some deal to get +rid of his cousin," Chunn suggested. + +Rawson shook his head. "No. Not respectable enough for James. And +he's not fool enough to run his head into a trap. But I'd bet my +head Big Tim gave him a tip it was to be pulled off. J. K. had to +know. Otherwise he wouldn't have been in a position to play the +game for them. But he didn't know any details--just a suggestion. +Enough to wise him without making him responsible." + +"And the play he's been making in the papers. Offering a reward +for information about Jeff, insisting publicly that he has +absolute confidence in his cousin's integrity while he shakes his +head in private. If you want my opinion, that young man is a +whited sepulchre. I never did believe in him." + +Rogers turned to Captain Chunn with an incredulous smile. "But you +still believe in Jeff. Frankly, it looks to me like a double sell +out." + +The old Confederate's eyes gleamed. "Sir, I've known that boy +since he was a little tad. He's never told me a lie. He's square +as they make them." + +"I used to believe in his cousin James, too," Rogers commented. + +"Oh, James! He's another proposition." Rawson's voice was sour +with disgust. "He just naturally looked to see where his bread was +buttered. He's as selfish as the devil for all that suave, cordial +way of his. Right from the first his idea has been to make a big +personal hit. And he figured out he could do it easier with Joe +Powers back of him than against him. James K. is the smoothest +fraud on the Pacific Coast. But Jeff--why, every hair of his head +is straight. He's one out of a million, believe me." + +"You've said it," Chunn agreed. + +Rogers smiled across at them. "He's left a lot of good friends +behind him anyhow. But it's strange he could drop off the earth +without a soul knowing about it." + +"The men who murdered him know about it," Rawson answered +significantly. + +Captain Chunn shook his head. "No, that boy will turn up yet." + +"But not in time to save us. We're licked. There's not one chance +in a million for us. That's the discouraging feature of it, to be +sold out after we had won our fight." + +Rawson agreed with Hardy. "Yes, we're licked. Even if Jeff were to +show up, with all these stories against him, we wouldn't be able +to stem the tide now." + +"Mister Raw-w-son--Mister Raw-w-son." The singsong voice of a +bellhop echoed through the rotunda. + +Captain Chunn's walking stick flagged the lad and brought him +sliding across the polished floor. + +"Telegram for Mr. Rawson." + +The big politician ripped it open and ran his eyes rapidly over +the yellow slip. From his lips burst a sudden oath of surprise. + +"By Jupiter, the miracle's happened. Jeff is alive and on his way +here. He's sent me a wireless from out at sea somewhere." + +"What!" Captain Chunn let out a whoop of joy. + +"Listen here." Rawson read aloud his message. "'Shanghaied on +schooner _Nancy Hanks_ . Escaped at Honolulu. Back in Verden +to-night. Keep up the fight.'" + +"Didn't I say Jeff was alive? Didn't I say he would come back and +beat those robbers yet?" the owner of the _World_ demanded. + +"Don't get excited. It may be a fake." This from Hardy, who was +almost as much moved himself. + +"Fake nothing! We'll go down to the telegraph office and make sure +it's 0. K. Won't this make a bully story for the _World_ +'Shanghaied' in big letters across the top, and underneath a red +hot roast of the old city hall gang's methods of trying to defeat +the will of the people." Rawson laughed aloud as his imagination +pictured the story. + +The old soldier's eyes gleamed. "I'll run twice as many copies as +usual. We'll plaster the state with them, calling for mass +meetings everywhere to insist on the legislature passing our +bill." + +"Go easy, gentlemen," advised Rogers. "If it's true we hold a +trump card, but we want to play it mighty carefully so as to make +it carry as much dynamite as possible." + +The company could give no information more definite than that the +message had come from the _Bellingham,_ which was still a couple +of hundred miles out at sea. + +In view of the value of the news from a strategic slant his +friends succeeded in keeping the lid on Captain Chunn's enthusiasm +until the party was safe aboard a fast yacht steaming out of the +harbor to meet the _Bellingham._ The old Confederate's first +impulse had been to run an extra immediately, but he was argued +out of it. + +"We don't want to go off half cocked. We've got a beautiful +comeback if we play it right. That is, if Jeff's got any proof. +But we better wait and let Jeff run the newspaper end of it, +Captain." + +This was Hardy's view, and it was indorsed by the others. + +"Another thing. This story has got to come just like an explosion +on James K. Farnum's supporters. We've got to sweep them right +back to our bill. Now if we break the force of it by giving them +warning that swarm of lobbyists will get busy and stay busy all +night," Rawson added. + +Jim Dunn, the star reporter of the _World,_ was hurriedly summoned +by telephone. Chunn explained to the city editor that Dunn and the +staff photographer were needed to cover a big story, but of what +the story was no mention was made to the office. As soon as Dunn +and Quillen reached the wharf the _Fly by Night_ shot out of the +dock. + + +Part 2 + +In the wintry afternoon sunlight Beauchamp and Alice were playing +a match of shuffleboard against Jeff and the daughter of a +Honolulu missionary. The game had reached an exciting and critical +stage when they noticed that the ship was no longer quivering from +the throb of the engines. + +"A steam yacht, probably from Verden," the ship purser remarked to +the first mate as they passed. + +The players gave up their game to watch the boat that was being +lowered from the deck of a yacht close at hand. Into it stepped +five men in addition to the crew. Presently Jeff, leaning against +the rail, borrowed the glasses of a man near. After Alice had +looked she handed them to Farnum. + +He gave a little exclamation of surprise. + +"I beg your pardon?" the girl beside him murmured. + +"They are my friends, Miss Frome. Come to meet me, I expect. The +little man in gray with one arm is Captain Chunn." + +She was all excitement at once. "Then they must have received your +message?" + +"Probably." + +Jeff was the first man to meet Captain Chunn as he walked up the +steps. The gray little man gave a whoop of joy. + +"David!" + +Their hands gripped. + +Rawson fell on Farnum from behind and pounded him jubilantly. +Instantly the editor was the center of a group of eager, urgent +wellwishers. + +Alice explained to Captain Barclay what it was all about and stood +back smiling while questions and answers flew back and forth. + +"What about our bill?" Jeff inquired as soon as the first hubbub +had quieted. + +"Dead as a door nail. Your cousin has substituted H. B. I7. They +will pass it to-morrow or the next day." + +A swift sickness ran through Farnum. "James gone back on us?" + +"That's what. He's double-crossed us." Rawson snapped the words +out bitterly. + +"Why--why--surely not James." Jeff's mind groped for some possible + +explanation. + +"Says our bill was lost anyhow and it was a question of getting +through Garman's bill or none." + +"But Garman's bill was framed by Ned Merrill. It doesn't give us +anything." + +Rawson nodded grimly. "That's the idea. We're to get nothing, but +it's to be wrapped up like a Christmas present so as to fool us." + +"And isn't there any chance at all for our bill?" + +"Just this one chance." Rawson leaned forward and spoke in a low +voice, driving his hand down on the deck railing. "That you've got +a charge of dynamite up your sleeve to throw into their camp. If +you can't stampede them we're down and out." + +Jeff and his allies presently moved away together to hold a +conference of ways and means. The boat crew pulled back to the +yacht. The engines began to throb once more. The _Bellingham_ +gathered momentum and was soon plunging forward at full speed. + + +Part 3 + +With a queer little surge of pride in him Alice watched Jeff and +his friends move away. They depended on him. Unless he could save +it their fight was lost. To her he was a prophet of the better +civilization that would some day rise on the ruins of an +Individualism grown topheavy. But he was neither a dreamer nor +a weakling. His idealism was sane and practical, and he would +fight to the last ditch when he must. + +And this was another strange thing about him, that though his +democracy was a faith, vital and ardent, it was tempered with the +liberal spirit. He could make allowances; held no grudges, would +laugh away insults at which another man would have raged. Out of +her very limited experience Alice decided that he was a great man. +That he was so warm and human with it all was one of his seizing +charms. No boy could have been more interested in winning the +shuffleboard game than he. + +The fat pork packer from Chicago came wheezing toward her. He took +the steamer chair beside Alice and jerked his head toward the spot +where Jeff had disappeared. + +"Now if you want my notion, Miss Frome, that's the kind of a man +that breeds anarchy. I've seen his paper. He fills it full of +stuff that makes the workingman discontented with his lot. A +trouble maker, that's what he is. Stops the wheels of industry. +Gets in the road of the boosters to croak hard times." + +Alice observed the thick rolls of purple fat that bulged over his +collar. + +"Progress now," he went on. "I'm for progress. Develop the +country. That gives work to the laborers and keeps them contented. +But men like Farnum are always hampering development by annoying +capital. Now that's foolish because capital employs labor." + +The young woman suggested another possibility. "Or else labor +employs capital." + +"What!" The fat little man sat bolt upright in surprise. "I guess +you never heard your Uncle Joe Powers talk any such foolishness." +He snorted indignantly. "Hmp! The best friend labor has got is +capital. If I had the say so I'd crush every labor union--for the +good of the working people themselves." + +Alice decided that the mental indigestion of the rich sat heavily +upon him. She felt her temper rising and took advantage of the +approach of Beauchamp to leave quickly. + +"Oh, Lieutenant! Have you seen Valencia?" + +The Englishman showed surprise. It happened that Alice had at that +moment a view of Mrs. Van Tyle stretched on a deck chair some +thirty feet away. + +Miss Frome hurried him along. Presently, with a low laugh, she +explained. "I wanted to get away from him. Carelessly, I dropped a +new idea there. It's likely to go off. You know how dangerous they +are." + +"To people who haven't many. Had it anything to do with making +money?" + +"Not directly." + +"Then you needn't be alarmed on our stout friend's account. He's +immune to all ideas not connected with that subject." + +The double blast of a trumpet invited them to dinner down stairs. + + +Part 4 + +Dunn was sitting in the smoking room writing his story of the +kidnapping when a ruddy young Englishman stopped opposite him. + +"You're Mr. Dunn, are you not? Reporter for the _World?_" + +"Yes." The newspaper man looked him over with a swift, trained +attention. + +"A young lady would like to see you for a few minutes. She is +interested in this shanghaing of Mr. Farnum." + +Dunn's black gimlet eyes searched Beauchamp's face. + +"All right. Glad to see her." Dunn's story was being transferred +to his pocket as he rose. + +He followed his guide to the ladies' writing room. A slender young +woman was standing in front of the bookcase. She turned as they +entered. Beauchamp introduced the reporter to her, but Dunn failed +to catch the name of this rather remarkable looking young lady. + +"You are to write the story of Mr. Farnum's adventure?" she asked. + +The reporter's eyes narrowed very slightly. "What story?" + +"The account of the shanghaing. Oh, I know all about it. Have you +all the facts?" + +"I'll be glad to hear what you know, Miss--" + +She answered his hesitation by mentioning her name. + +Dunn grew more wary. "Miss Alice Frome, daughter of Senator +Frome?" + +"Yes." + +"Anything you have to say I'll be pleased to hear, Miss Frome." + +To his surprise she broke through the hedge of reserve he had +withdrawn behind. + +"You distrust me. You think because I'm Senator Frome's daughter +that I must be against Mr. Farnum. Is that it?" + +"I didn't say that," he sparred. + +"I'm not against him. It's because I'm anxious to see him win that +I want to be sure he has given you the whole story." + +"Why shouldn't he give me the whole story?" + +"Because he isn't the kind to boast. Did he tell you about the +sharks?" + +"Or how Miss Frome helped pull him aboard just in time to save him +from the crimps?" + +The reporter's eyes gleamed. "What's that?" he snapped quickly. + +"And all about the race from the schooner to the _Bellingham,_ It +was the most exciting thing I ever saw." + +"Great guns! What's the matter with Jeff Farnum? He didn't say a +word about that--missed the cream of the story." + +Alice smiled. "I thought perhaps he might have." + +"He said he saw a chance to swim across to the _Bellingham._ That +made a pretty good story. But sharks--and the shanghaiers chasing +him--and a young lady helping to haul him aboard to safety--and +that young lady Miss Alice Frome! Say, this is the biggest story +that ever broke in Verden. If I fall down on it I'm a dead one +sure enough." + +"You think it will help Mr. Farnum's fight for his bill?" + +"Help it. Say, I'd give fifty dollars to see James K. Farnum's +face when he reads the _World_ tomorrow morning. The town will go +right up in the air. Hundreds of telegrams are going to pour in to +members of the assembly from their constituents. We'll make a Yale +finish of this yet." + +"It's lucky Miss Frome recognized Mr. Farnum. Otherwise I suppose +he would have been sent back to the _Nancy Hanks_ ." + +"Oh, Miss Frome recognized him? Jeff said one of the passengers +did. He couldn't remember who." + +"I don't suppose my name is necessary to the story. Just say a +young woman on board," Alice suggested. + +Dunn's black eyes questioned her. "Are you for us, Miss Frome?" + +She smiled. "I'm for you." + +"Against Senator Frome and Mr. Powers?" + +"I think the bill ought to be passed. I'm not against anybody." + +"Well, I'll tell you this. It will help the story a lot to have +you in it. Some people might say we framed the whole thing up. But +with Senator Frome's daughter starring in it." + +"Oh, no, Mr. Farnum's the star." + +"Well, you're the leading lady. Don't you see how it helps? +Clinches the whole thing as genuine. It's as good as putting the +Senator himself on the stand as a witness for us. We've just got +to have you." + +"It will really help, you think?" + +"No question." + +"Very well." + +"And photographs. You'll stand for one, of course." + +"Now really I don't see " + +"They can't get back of a photograph. It carries conviction. Of +course we've got pictures of you at the office, Miss Frome. But I +want to play fair with you. Besides, I want them to show the ship +setting." + +She laughed. "Don't worry. Your enterprising photographer caught +me twice before I knew it. And he got one of my cousin, Mrs. Van +Tyle. She doesn't know it, though." + +"Good boy, Quillen. Now, if you'll begin at the beginning, Miss +Frome, I'll listen to your story. + +When she had finished his eyes were gleaming. "It's the biggest +scoop I ever got in on. Sounds too good to be true." + + +Part 5 + +At Gillam's Point Jeff and his friends, with Dunn and Quillen, +left the _Bellingham_ on the launch which brought the pilot. They +caught the fast express a half hour later and reached Verden +shortly after midnight. His hat drawn down over his eyes and +muffied to the ears in an ulster so that he might not be +recognized, Farnum took a cab with Captain Chunn, Dunn and +Quillen for the office of the World. He slipped into the building +and his private room unnoticed by any member of the staff. + +Dunn presently brought to him Jenkins, the make-up man. + +"Rip your front page to pieces. We've got the story of a life +time," Captain Chunn exploded. + +Jenkins opened his eyes and grinned at Jeff. "That's what Jim +tells me. Have you got the proof to hang the thing on Big Tim?" + +"I've got a letter he wrote to Captain Green of the_Nancy +Hanks_ . It's on city hall stationery of the last administration." + +"Funny he used that paper." + +"Someone usually makes a slip in putting a deal of this kind +through." + +"And the letter?" + +"Just a line, signed with O'Brien's initials. 'The terms agreed on +are satisfactory.' I found the letter in Green's cabin. As I +thought I might make use of it I helped myself." + +"Bully! We'll run a fac-simile of it on the front page." + +"Dunn's story covers the whole affair. I don't like some features +of it, but our friends say it ought to be run as it stands. I've +written three columns of editorial stuff dealing with the +situation. And here's a story calling for a mass meeting in front +of the State House to-morrow morning." + +"You'll speak to the people?" + +"I'll say a few words. Hardy and Rawson will be the speakers." + +"Pity we've lost your cousin. He'd stir them up." + +The muscles stood out on Jeff's lean jaw. James was a subject he +could not yet discuss. "We're nailing the No Compromise flag to +our masthead, Jenkins. We've got to prevent them from forcing +through Garman's bill to-morrow. After that every day will be in +our favor. Unless I'm mistaken the state will waken up as it never +has before. The people will see how nearly they've been euchred +out of what they want." + +Jenkins came bluntly to another point. "This story would carry a +lot more weight if those charges made against your character by +the other papers had been answered." + +"Then we'll answer them." + +The night editor looked at him dubiously. "They've got four +affidavits to back their story." + +"Only four?" A gay smile was dancing in Jeff's eyes. + +"Both the _Herald_ and the _Advocate_ have been playing it strong. +Every day they rehash the story and challenge a denial." + +"It will all be free advertising for us if we can make them eat +crow." + +"If we can!" Jenkins did not see how any effective answer was +possible and he knew that in the present state of public opinion +an unsupported bluff would be fatal. + +"How would this do for a starter?" + +Jeff handed him two typewritten sheets. The night editor read them +through. He looked straight at Jeff. + +"Can you back this up?" + +"I can." + +"But--what about those affidavits?" + +Farnum grinned. "We'll take care of them when we come to them." + +"It's your funeral," Jenkins admitted. + +The whole front page of the _World_ next morning was filled with +the Farnum story. As part of it there were interviews with Alice +Frome, with Captain Barclay, and with other passengers. The deadly +note from O'Brien to Green of the _Nancy Hanks_ occupied the +place usually held by the cartoon. Beneath it, exactly in the +center of the page, was a leaded box with the caption "A +Challenge." It ran as follows: + +The editor of the _World_ does not think his reputation important +enough to protect it at the expense of a woman. Yet he denies +absolutely the import of the charges made by the _Herald_ and the +_Advocate._ That the matter may be forever set at rest the _World_ +challenges the papers named to a searching investigation. It +proposes: + +(1) That the names of five representative citizens of Verden be +submitted to Governor Hawley by each of the three papers, and that +from this number be select a committee of five to sift thoroughly +the allegations; + +(2) That the meetings of the committee be held in secret, no +members of the press being admitted, and that those composing it +pledge themselves never to divulge the names of any witnesses who +may appear to give evidence; + +(3) That the _Herald,_ the _Advocate,_ and the _World_ severally +agree to print on the front page for a week the findings of the +committee as soon as received and exactly as received, without any +editorial or other comment whatsoever. + +By the decision of this committee Jefferson Farnum pledges himself +to abide. If found guilty, he will at once resign from the +editorial charge of the _World_ and will leave Verden forever. + + +CHAPTER 19 + +The practical man is the man who knows what can't be done. When he +begins to let hope take the place of information in this regard, +he becomes a conservative. When prejudice takes the place of hope, +the mere conservative graduates into a tory, or a justice of the +supreme court. It's all a matter of the chemistry of substitution. +--Dr.G.L. Knapp. + + +THE SAFE MAN FURNISHES DIVERSION + + +Part 1 + +For once the machine had overplayed its hand. Caught unexpectedly +by Jeff's return, no effective counter attack was possible. Dunn's +story in the _World_ swept the city and the state like wildfire. +It was a crouched dramatic narrative and its effect was telling. +From it only one inference could be drawn. The big corporations, +driven to the wall, had attempted a desperate coup to save the +day. It was all very well for Big Tim to file a libel suit. The +mind of the public was made up. + +The mass meeting at the State House drew an enormous crowd, one so +great that overflow meetings had to be held. Every corridor in the +building was full of excited jostling people. They poured into the +gallery of the Senate room and packed the rear of the floor +itself. Against such a demonstration the upper house did not dare +pass the Garman bill immediately. It was held over for a few days +to give the public emotion a chance to die. Instead, the +resentment against machine and corporate domination grew more +bitter. Stinging resolutions from the back counties were wired to +members who had backslidden. Committees of prominent citizens from +up state and across the mountains arrived at Verden for heart-to- +heart talks with the assemblymen from their districts. + +At a hurried meeting of the managers of the public utilities +companies it was decided that the challenge of the _World_ must +be accepted. For many who had believed in the total depravity of +Jefferson Farnum were beginning to doubt. Unless the man's +character could be impeached successfully the day was lost. And +with four witnesses against him how could the trouble maker +escape? + +The committee of investigation consisted of Senator Frome; Clinton +Rogers, the shipbuilder; Thomas Elliott, a law partner of Hardy; +James Moran, a wholesale wheat shipper, and the leading clergyman +of Verden. It sat behind locked doors, adjourning from one office +to another to obtain secrecy. + +For the defense appeared as witnesses Marchant, Miller, Mrs. +Anderson and Nellie. To doubt the truth of the young wife's story +was impossible. The agony of shyness and shame that flushed her, +the simple broken words of her little tragedy, bore the stamp of +minted gold. It was plain to see that she was a victim of +betrayal, being slowly won back to love of life by her husband and +her child. + +The committee in its report told the facts briefly without giving +names. Even P. C. Frome could find no excuse for not signing it. + +The effect was instantaneous. On this one throw the machine had +staked everything. That it had lost was now plain. In a day Jeff +was the hero of Verden, of the state at large. His long fight for +reform, the dramatic features of the shanghaing and his return, +the collapse of the charges against his character, all contributed +to lift him to dizzy popularity. He was the very much embarrassed +man of the hour. + +All the power of the Transcontinental, of the old city hall gang, +of the money that had been spent to corrupt the legislature, was +unable to roll back the tide of public determination. White-faced +assemblymen sneaked into offices at midnight to return the bribe +money for which they dared not deliver the goods. Two days after +the report of the investigating committee Jeff's bill passed the +Senate. Within three hours it was signed by Governor Hawley. That +it would be ratified by a vote of the people and so become a part +of the state constitution was a foregone conclusion. + +Jeff and his friends had forged the first of the tools they needed +to rescue the government of the state from the control of the +allied plunderers. + + +Part 2 + +In the days following her return to Verden Alice Frome devoured +the newspapers as she never had before. They were full of the +dramatic struggle between Jeff Farnum and the forces which +hitherto had controlled the city and state. To her the battle was +personal. It centered on the attacks made upon the character of +her friend and his pledge to refute them. + +When she read in the _Advocate_ the report of the committee Alice +wept. It was like her friend, she thought, to risk his reputation +for some poor lost wanderer of the streets. Another man might have +done it for the girl he loved or for the woman he had married. But +with Jeff it would be for one of the least of these. There flashed +into her mind an old Indian proverb she had read. "I met a hundred +men on the road to Delhi, and they were all my brothers." Yes! +None were too deep sunk in the mire to be brothers and sisters to +Jeff Farnum. + +Ever since her return Alice had known herself in disgrace with her +father and that small set in which she moved. Her part in the big +_World_ story had been "most regrettable." It was felt that in +letting her name be mentioned beside that of one who was a +thoroughly disreputable vagabond she had compromised her +exclusiveness and betrayed the cause of her class. Her friends +recalled that Alice had always been a queer girl. + +Her father and Ned Merrill agreed over a little luncheon at the +Verden Club that girls were likely to lose themselves in +sentimental foolishness and that the best way to stop such +nonsense was for one to get married to a safe man. Pending this +desirable issue she ought to be diverted by pleasant amusements. + +The safe man offered to supply these. + + +Part 3 + +The farthest thing from Merrill's thoughts had been to discuss +with her the confounded notions she had somehow absorbed. The +thing to do, of course, was to ignore them and assume everything +was all right. After all, of what importance were the opinions of +a girl about practical things? + +How the thing cropped up he did not afterward remember, but at the +thirteenth green he found himself mentioning that all reformers +were out of touch with facts. They were not practical. + +The smug finality of his verdict nettled her. This may or may not +have been the reason she sliced her ball, quite unnecessarily. But +it was probably due to her exasperation at the wasted stroke that +she let him have it. + +"I'm tired of that word. It means to be suicidally selfish. +There's not another word in the language so abused." + +"Didn't catch the word that annoys you," the young man smiled. + +"Practical! You used it yourself. It means to tear down and not +build up, to be so near-sighted you can't see beyond your reach. +Your practical man is the least hopeful member of the community. +He stands only for material progress. His own, of course!" + +"You sound like a Farnum editorial, Alice." + +"Do I?" she flashed. "Then I'll give you the rest of it. He--your +practical man--is rutted to class traditions. This would not be +good form or respectable. That would disturb the existing order. +So let's all do nothing and agree that all's well with the world." + +Merrill greeted this outburst with a complacent smile. "It's a +pretty good world. I haven't any fault to find with it--not this +afternoon anyhow." + +But Alice, serious with young care and weighted with the problems +of a universe, would have none of his compliments. + +"Can't you see that there's a--a " She groped and found a fugitive +phrase Jeff had once used--"a want of adjustment that is +appalling?" + +"It doesn't appall me. I believe in the survival of the fittest." + +Her eyes looked at him with scornful penetration. They went +through the well-dressed, broad-shouldered exterior of him, to see +a suave, gracious Pharisee of the modern world. He believed in the +God-of-things-as-they-are because he was the man on horseback. He +was a formalist because it paid him to be one. That was why he and +his class looked on any questioning of conditions as almost +atheistic. They were born to the good things of life. Why should +they doubt the ethics of a system that had dealt so kindly with +them? + +She gave him up. What was the use of talking about such things to +him? He had the sense of property ingrained in him. The last thing +he would be likely to do was to let any altruistic ideas into his +head. He would play safe. Wasn't he a practical man? + +She devoted herself to the game. To see her play was a pleasure to +the eye. The long lines and graceful curves of her supple young +body never appeared to better advantage than at golf. Her motions +showed the sylvan freedom of the woods. Ned Merrill appreciated +the long, light tread of her, the harmony of movement as of a +perfect young animal, together with the fine spiritual quality +that escaped her personality so unconsciously. + +At the fifteenth hole he continued her education. "This country is +founded upon individualism. It stands for the best chance of +development possible to all its citizens. When you hamper +enterprise you stop that development." + +She took him up dryly. "I see. So you and father and Uncle Joe +have developed your individualism at the expense of a million +other people's. You have gobbled up franchises, forests, ore +lands, coal mines, and every other opportunity worth having. As a +result you're making them your slaves and crushing out all +individuality." + +"Not at all. We're really custodians for the people. We administer +these things for their benefit because we are more fit to do it." + +"How do you know you are?" + +"The very fact that we have succeeded in getting what we have is +evidence of it." + +"All I can see is that our getting it and keeping it--you and I +and Uncle Joe and a thousand like us--is responsible for all the +poverty in the world. We're helping to make it every time we eat a +dinner we didn't work to get." + +Alice made a beautiful approach that landed her ball within four +feet of the hole. Presently Merrill joined her. + +"That was a dandy shot," he told her, and watched Alice hole out. +"I don't agree with you. For instance, I work as hard as other +men." + +"But you're not working for the common good." + +His impatience reached words. "That sort of talk is nonsense, +Alice. I don't know what has come over you of late." + +She smiled provokingly and changed the subject. Why argue with +him? The slant with which they got at things was different. Like +her father, he had the mental rigidity that is death to open- +mindedness. + +Briskly she returned to small talk. "You're only three up." + + +Part 4 + +On their way back to the club house the safe man recurred to one +phase of their talk. + +"You ought not to need any telling as to why I work, Alice." + +She shot one swift annoyed glance at him. When Ned Merrill tried +the sentimental she liked him least. + +"Oh, all men like to work, I suppose. Uncle Joe says it's half the +fun of life." + +"Most men work for some woman. I'm working for you," he told her +solenmly. + +A little giggle of laughter floated across to him. + +"What are you laughing about?" he demanded. + +"Oh, the things I notice. Just now it's you, Ned." + +"If you'll explain the joke." + +"You wouldn't understand it. Dear me, what are you so stiff +about?" + +Merrill brought things to an issue. "Look here, Alice! What's the +use of playing fast and loose? I'd like to know where we're at." + +"Would you?" + +"Yes, I would. You know all about the arrangement just as well as +I do. I haven't pushed you. I've stood back and let you have your +good times. Don't you think it's about time for us to talk +business?" + +"Just as soon as you like, Ned." + +"Well, then, let's announce it." + +"That we're not engaged to be married and never will be! Is that +what you want to announce?" + +He flushed angrily. "What's the use of talking that way? You know +it has been arranged for years." + +"I'm not going through with it. I told Father so. The thing is +outrageous," she flamed. + +"I don't see why. Our people want it. We are fond of each other. I +never cared for any girl but you." + +"Let's stick to the business reasons, Ned." + +"Hang it, you're so acid about it! I do care for you " + +Her dry anger spurted out. "That's unfortunate, since I don't care +for you." + +"I know you do. Just now you're vexed at me." + +"Yes, I am," she admitted, nodding her head swiftly. "But it +doesn't make any difference whether I am or not. I've made up my +mind. I'm not going through with it." + +"You promised." + +"I didn't, not in so many words. And I was pushed into it. None of +you gave me a fair chance. But I'll not go on with it." + +"But, why?" + +"Because I'm an American girl, and here we don't have to marry to +amalgamate business interests. I won't do it. I'd rather be " She +gave a little shrug of her shoulders. The passion died out of her +voice. "Oh, well! No need getting melodramatic about it. Just the +same, I won't do it. My mind's made up." + +"A pretty figure I'll cut, after all these years," he complained +sulkily. "Everyone will know you jilted me." + +Alice turned to him, mischief sparkling in her eyes. "I wouldn't +stand it if I were you. Show your spunk." + +He stared. "What do you mean?" + +"Why don't you jilt ME?" + +"Jilt you?" + +Her head went up and down in a dozen little nods of affirmation. +"Yes. Marry Pauline Gillam. You know you'd like to, but you +haven't had the courage to give me up. Now that you've got to give +me up anyhow--" + +"I'm very much obliged, Miss Frome. But I don't think it will be +necessary for you to select another wife for me." + +"Have you been married once. I didn't know it." + +"You know what I mean?" He was stiff as a poker. + +"I believe I do." She was in a perfectly good humor again now. +"But you better take my advice, Ned. Think what a joke it will be +on me. Everybody will say you could have had me." + +"We'll not discuss the subject if you please." + +Nevertheless Alice knew that she had dropped a seed on good +ground. + + +CHAPTER 20 + +Now poor Tom Dunstan's cold, + Our shop is duller; +Scarce a tale is told, + And our talk has lost the old +Red-republican color! + +. . . . . . . . . . . . . + +'She's coming, she's coming!' said he; +'Courage, boys I wait and see! + 'FREEDOM'S AHEAD!' +--Robert Buchanan. + + +THE HERO IS LURED TO AN ADVENTURE INTO THE UNCONVENTIONAL AND +HEARS MUCH THAT IS PAINFUL TO A WELL-REGULATED MIND + + +Near the close of a fine spring afternoon James Farnum and Alice +Frome were walking at the lower end of Powers Avenue. In the +conventional garb he affected since he had become a man of +substance the lawyer might have served as a model of fashion to +any aspiring youth. His silk hat, his light trousers, the double- +breasted coat which enfolded his manly form, were all of the +latest design. The weather, for a change, was behaving itself so +as not to soil the chaste glory of Solomon thus displayed. There +had been rain and would be more, but just now they passed through +a dripping world shot full of sunlight. + +"Of course I'm no end flattered at being allowed to go with you. +But I'm dying of curiosity to know where we are going." + +The young woman gave James her beguiling smile. "We're going to +call on a sick man. I'm taking you along as chaperon. You needn't +be flattered at all. You're merely a convenience, like a hat pin +or an umbrella." + +"But I'm not sure this is proper. Now as your chaperone--" + +"You're not that kind of a chaperon, Mr. Farnum. You haven't any +privileges. Nothing but duties. Unless it's a privilege to be +chosen. That gives you a chance to say something pretty." + +They crossed Yarnell Way. James, looking around upon the wrecks of +humanity they began to meet, was very sure that he did not enjoy +this excursion. An adventure with Miss Frome outside of the +conventions was the very thing he did not want. What in the world +did the girl mean anyhow? Her vagaries were beginning to disturb +her relatives. So much he had gathered from Valencia. + +Before he had got as far as a protest Alice turned in to the +entrance of a building and climbed a flight of stairs. She pushed +a button. A woman of rather slatternly appearance came to the +door. + +"Good afternoon, Mrs. Maloney. I've come to see how Mr. Marchant +is." + +The landlady brushed into place some flying strands of hair. +"Well, now, Miss Frome, he's better to-day. The nurse is with him. +If you'll jist knock at the door 'twill be all right." + +While they were in the passage James interposed an objection. "My +dear Miss Frome, I really don't think--" + +She interrupted brightly. "I'm glad you don't. You're not expected +to, you know. I'm commanding this expedition. Yours not to answer +why. Yours but to do and die." And she knocked on the door of the +room at which they had stopped. + +It was opened by a nurse in uniform. James observed that she, too, +like Mrs. Maloney, brightened at sight of the visitor. + +"Mr. Marchant will be pleased to see you, Miss Frome." + +He was. His gladness illuminated the white face through the skin +of which the cheek bones appeared about to emerge. A thin blue- +veined hand shot forward to meet hers. + +"Oh, comrade, but I'm glad to meet you." + +"I think you know Mr. Farnum." + +The man propped up in bed nodded a little grin at the lawyer. +"We've met. It was years ago in Jeff's rooms." + +"Oh--er--yes. Yes, I remember." + +Presently Jeff and Sam Miller dropped in to see the invalid. From +chance remarks the lawyer gathered that the little cobbler had +brought himself so low by giving his overcoat one bitter night to +a poor girl he had found shivering in the streets. + +The frankness with which they discussed before Alice Frome things +never referred to in good society shocked James. + +It appeared that the story of this little factory girl who had +been led astray was still urgent in Marchant's mind. At the time +of their arrival he had just finished scribbling some verses hot +from his heart. Jeff read them aloud, in spite of the poet's +modest insistence that they were only a first draft. + + "This is a story that two may tell, + I am the one, the other's in hell; + A story of passionate amorous fire, + With the glamor of love to attune the lyre. + + She traveled the road at breakneck speed, + I opened the gates and saddled the steed; + "Ride free!" I cried as we dashed along. + Her sweet voice echoed a mocking song." + +"'Fraid it doesn't always scan. They seldom do," apologized the +author of the verses. + +Jeff rapped for order. "The sense of the meeting is that the +blushing poet will please not interrupt." + + "Nights of the wildest revel and mirth, + Days of sorrow, remorse, and dearth, + A heaven of love and a hell of regret-- + But there's always the woman to pay my debt. + + 'Sin,' says the preacher, 'shall be washed free, + The blood of the Lamb was shed for thee.' + Smugly I pass the sacred wine, + The woman in hell pays toll for mine. + + 'I am a pillar of Church and State, + She but the broken sport of Fate; + This is a story that two may tell, + I am the one, the other's in hell.'" + +There was a moment's silence after Jeff had finished. + +"What are you going to call your verses?" the nurse asked. + +"I'll call them, 'She Pays.' That's the idea of it." + +James was distinctly uneasy. There was positively something +indecent about this. He had an aversion to thinking about +unpleasant things. Every well-regulated mind ought to have. He +would like to make a protest, but he could not very well do that +here. He promised himself to let Alice Frome know as soon as they +were alone what he thought about her escapades into this world +below the dead line. + +He moved uncomfortably in his chair, and in doing so his gaze fell +full into the eyes of Sam Miller. The fat librarian was staring at +him out of a very white face. Before James could break the spell +an unvoiced question had been asked and answered. + +Marchant was already riding the hobby that was religion to him. +"Four dollars a week. That's what she was getting. And her +employer is worth two millions. Think of it. All her youth to be +sold for four dollars a week. Just enough to keep body and soul +together. And when she went to the head of her department to ask +for a raise he leered at her and said a good looking girl like her +could always find someone to take care of her. Eight months she +stuck it out, getting more ragged every day. Then enter the man, +offering her some comfort and pleasure and love. Do you blame +her?" + +"You must give me her address," Alice said softly. + +Oscar nodded. "Good enough, comrade. Jeff has looked out for her, +but she needs a woman friend." With a sweep of the hand he went +back to the impersonal. "Her trouble was economic, just as ours +is. Look at it. We've got a perfect self-regulating system that +adjusts itself automatically to bring hard times when we're most +prosperous. Give us big crops and boom times, and we head straight +for a depression. Why?" He interrupted himself with a fit of +coughing, but presently began again, talking also with his swift +supple hands. "Because then the foreign market will be glutted. +Surplus goods won't sell abroad. The manufacturer, unable to +dispose of his produce, will cut down his force or close his +plant. Labor, out of work, cannot buy. So every branch of industry +suffers because we're too well off. It's a vicious absurd circle +born of the system under which we live. Under socialism the remedy +would be merely to work less for a time until the surplus was +used. It would affect nobody injuriously. The whole thing's as +simple as A B C." + +It had been plain to the first casual glance of James that the +little Socialist was far gone. The amazing thing was the eagerness +with which his spirit dominated the body in such ill case. He was +alive to the fingertips, though he was already in the Valley of +the Shadow. To the lawyer there was something eerie about it all. +Marchant was done with the business of living. Why didn't he lie +down and accept the verdict? + +But to Alice it was God-like, a thing to stand uncovered before. +His remedies might be all wrong. Probably they were. None the less +his vital courage for life took her by the throat. + +Jeff nodded at the invalid cheerfully. "We're going to change all +that, Oscar. Into this little old world a new soul is being born. +Or perhaps the old soul is being born again." + +The Socialist caught at this swiftly. "Yes, we're going to change +this terrible waste of human lives. I see a new world, where men +will live like brothers and not like wolves rending each other. +There poverty will be blotted out . . . and disease and all mean +and cruel things that hamper and destroy life. Law and justice +will walk hand in hand through a land of peace and plenty. Our +cities, the expression of our social life, will be clean and sunny +and beautiful because the lives of the common people are so. There +strong men and deep-breasted women will work for the joy of +working, since all is for the common good. Their children will be +free and happy and well fed . . . yes, and equal to each other. +From that highly socialized state, because it is tied together by +love, will come that restrained freedom which is the most perfect +individualism." + +The nurse forced him gently back upon the pillows. "There! You've +talked enough to-day." + +He lay coughing, a hectic flush above the high cheek bones. +Presently, at a look from the nurse, his guests departed. + +Outside the building Miller left the rest abruptly. Flanked by the +two cousins, Alice crossed Yarnell Way back to that world to which +she had always belonged. + +James laid down the law to her concerning the folly of such +excursions into the unconventional. Alice listened. She discovered +that his viewpoint was exactly like that of Ned Merrill. Any +deviation from the conventional was a mistake. Any attempt to +escape from existing conditions was a form of treason. Trade, +property, business, respectability, good form; these were the +shibboleth they worshipped. It was just because she did not want +to believe this of James Farnum that she had taken him with her to +call on Marchant. It was in a sense a test, and he was answering +it by showing himself complacently callous and hidebound. + +Surely he had not always been like this, a smug and well-clad +Pharisee, afraid to look at the truth. In those early days, when +they had been friends, with the possibility of being a good deal +more, there had been an impetuous touch of ardor she could no +longer find. Her cool glance ran down his figure. The man was +taking on flesh, the plump well-fed look of one who has escaped +moral conduct by giving up the fight. Fat cushioned the square jaw +and detracted from its strength. For the first time she observed a + +hardening of the eye. The visible deterioration of an inner +collapse was being writ on him. + +Alice sighed. After all she might have spared herself the trouble. +He had chosen his path and he must follow it. + +At the corner of Powers Avenue and Van Ault Street James left +them. It was natural that the talk should revert to Marchant. + +"Oscar finds your visits a very great pleasure," Jeff told her. + +"The dear madman!" Her eyes were shining softly. "Isn't he brave +and optimistic?" + +"Yes." + +Both of them were thinking how soon the arm of that unseen God of +love and law he worshipped would enfold him. + +Alice smiled tenderly, and for the moment the street in front of +her danced in a mist. "And his perfect state! Shall we ever +realize it?" + +"We must hope so. Perhaps not in the form he sees it, but in the +way we work it out through a species of evolution. Think of the +progress we have made in the last five years. How many dark +corners in the long disused houses of our minds have been flooded +with light!" + +"Yes. Why have we made more progress in the past few years?" + +Jeff's eyes held a gleam of humor. "This is a big country with +enormous resources. There used to be room for all the most active +plunderers to grab something. But lately the grabbing hasn't been +so good. We have discoveredthat the most powerful robbers are +doing their snatching from us. So we've suffered a moral +awakening." + +"You don't believe that," she said quickly. + +"There's a good deal in the bread and butter interpretation of +history. The push of life, its pressure, drives us to think. Out +of thought grow new hopes and a broader vision." + +"And then?" + +"Pretty soon the thought will flood the world that we make our own +poverty, that God and nature have nothing to do with it. After +that we'll proceed to eliminate it." + +"By means of Mr. Marchant's perfect state?" + +"Not by any revolution of an hour probably. Society cannot change +its nature in a day. We'll pass gradually from our present state +to a better one, the new growing out of the old by generations of +progress. But I think we will pass into a form of socialism. It +will be necessary to repress the predatory instinct in us that has +grown strong under the present system. I don't much care whether +you call it democracy or socialism. We must recognize how +interdependent we are and work together for the common good." + +They had come to the car line that would take her home. Up the +hill a trolley car was coming. + +"May I not see you home?" Jeff dared to ask. + +"You may." + +They left the car at Lakeview Park and crossed it to The Brakes. +Every step of that walk led Jeff deeper into an excursion of +endearment. It was amazingly true that he trod beside her an +acknowledged friend, a secret lover. The turn of her head, the +shadowy smile bubbling into laughter, the gracious undulations of +the body, indeed the whole dear delight of her presence, belonged +for that hour to him alone. + + +CHAPTER 21 + +Many a man has kept his self-respect through a long lifetime of +decalog breaking, only to go to smash like a crushed eggshell when +he commits the crime of being found out. +--From the Note Book of a Dreamer. + + +THE HERO IS PAINED TO FIND THAT EVEN IN A WELL-REGULATED WORLD THE +GODS ARE JUST, AND OF OUR PLEASANT VICES MAKE INSTRUMENTS TO +PLAGUE US + + +Going back across the park Jeff trod the hilltops. He was not +thinking about society, except that small unit of it represented +by a slender, golden girl who had just bidden him good-bye. And +because his heart sang within him his footsteps turned toward the +office of his cousin. There had been between them of late an +estrangement. Since the lawyer had been appointed general attorney +for the Transcontinental and had formed a partnership with Scott, +thus bringing to the firm the business of the public utility +corporations, James had not found much time for Jeff. He was a +member of the most important law firm on the Pacific Coast, judged +by the business it was doing, and he had definitely cut loose +politically from his former associates. His cousin blamed himself +for the change in their personal relations, and he meant to bring +things back to the old basis if he could. + +It was past office hours, but a light in the window of the junior +member's private office gave promise that James might be in. +Leaving the elevator at the fourth floor, he walked down the +corridor toward the suite occupied by the firm. + +Before he reached the door Jeff stopped. Something unusual was +happening within. There came to him the sounds of shuffling feet, +of furniture being smashed, of an angry oath. Almost at once there +was a thud, as if something heavy had fallen. The listener judged +that a live body was thrashing around actively. The impact of +blows, a heavy grunt, a second stifled curse, decided Farnum. +Pushing through the outer office, he entered the one usually +occupied by James. + +Two men were on the floor, one astride of the other. The man on +top was driving home heavy jarring blows against his opponent's +face and head. Jeff ran forward and dragged him away. + +"Good heavens, Sam! What's the matter?" his friend demanded in +surprise. + +Miller waited panting, his fists still doubled, the lust of battle +in his eyes. + +"The damned cad! The damned cad!" was all he could get out. + +From the floor James Farnum was rising. His forehead, his cheek, +and his lips were bleeding from cuts. One of his eyes was closing +rapidly. There was a dogged look of fear in the battered face. + +"I tripped over a chair, he explained, glaring at his foe. + +"Damn you then, stand up and fight!" + +Disgust and annoyance were pictured on the damaged countenance of +the lawyer. "I don't fight with riff raff from the streets." + +With a lurch Miller was free from Jeff and at him again. James +lashed straight out and cut open his lip without stopping him. +Jeff wrenched the furious man back again. A moment later he made a +discovery. The fear of his cousin was not physical. + +"Here! Stop it, man! What's the row about?" Jeff hung on with a +strangle hold while he fired his questions. + +Sam turned a distorted face toward him. "Nellie." + +The truth crashed home like a bolt of lightning. James was the man +who had betrayed Nellie Anderson. The thing was incredible, but +Jeff knew instantly it was so. + +Except where the blood streamed down it the face of the lawyer was +colorless. His lips twitched. + +"Is this true, James?" + +The sullen eyes of the detected man fell. "It will ruin me. It +will ruin my career. And all because in a moment of fearful +temptation I yielded, God help me." + +"God help you!" The angry scorn in Miller's voice burned like +vitriol. "God help you! you selfish villain and coward! You +pursued her! You hounded her. You made your own temptation--and +hers. And afterward you left her to bear a lifetime of shame--to +kill herself if she couldn't stand it. When I think of you, smug +liar and hell hound, I know that killing isn't good enough for +you." + +"Steady, old man," counseled Jeff. + +Miller began to tremble violently. Tears gathered in his eyes and +coursed down his fat cheeks. "And I can't stamp him out. I can't +expose him without hurting her worse. I've got to stand it without +touching him." + +Faintly Jeff smiled. James did not look quite untouched. He was a +much battered statue of virtue, his large dignity for once torn to +shreds. + +Miller flung himself down heavily in a chair and buried his face +in his hands. James began to talk, and as he talked his fluency +came back to him. + +"It's the only stain on my life record . . . the only one. My life +has been an open book but for that. I was only a boy--and I made a +slip. Ought that to spoil my whole life, a splendid career of +usefulness for the city and the state? Ought I to be branded for +that one error?" + +Miller looked up whitely. "Shut up, you liar! If it had been a +slip you would have stood by her, you would have married the girl +you had ruined. But you left her--to death or worse. She was loyal +to you. She kept your secret, you damned villain. I wrung it out +of her to-day when I went home only by pretending that I knew.... +And you let Jeff bear the blame of it without saying a word. I +know now why her name wasn't unearthed by the reporters. You +killed the story because you were afraid the truth would leak out. +You haven't a straight hair in your head. You sold out Jeff's +bill. You're for yourself first and last, no matter who pays the +price." + +"That's your interpretation of my career. But what does Verden +think of me? No man stands higher among the best people of the +community." + +"To hell with you and your best people. I say you're nothing but a +whited sepulchre," snarled Miller. + +Suddenly he reached for his hat and left the office. He was +stifling. + +He knew that if he stayed he could not keep his hands from his +enemy's throat. + +James wrung his hands. "My God, Jeff, it's awful! To think that a +little fault should come out now to ruin me. After I've gone so +far and am on the way to bigger things. It's ghastly luck. Can't +you do something? Can't you keep the fellow quiet? I'll pay +anything in reason." + +Jeff looked at him steadily. "I wouldn't say that to him if I were +you." + +"Oh, I don't know what I'm saying." He mopped the blood from his +face with a handkerchief. "I'm half crazy. Did he mark me up +badly?" James examined himself anxiously in the glass. "He's just +chopped my face to pieces. I'll have to get out of the city +to-night and stay away till the marks are gone. But the main point +is to keep him from talking. Can you do it?" + +For once Jeff's toleration failed him. "He's right. You are a +selfish beggar. Don't you ever think of anyone except yourself?" + +"I'm not thinking of myself at all, but of--of someone else. +You're wronging me, Jeff. This is not the time to go back on me, +now that I'm in trouble. You've got to help me out. You've got to +keep Miller quiet. If he talks I'm done for." + +His cousin looked at him with contemptuous eyes. "Can't you see-- +haven't you fineness enough to see that Sam Miller would cut an +arm off before he would expose his wife to more talk? Your +precious secret's safe." + +"It's all very well for you to talk that way," James complained. +"I don't suppose you ever were put into temptation by a woman. +You're not a lady's man. I'm the kind they take a shine to for +some reason. Now this Anderson woman--" + +Sharply Jeff cut in. "That's enough. When you speak of her it +won't be in that tone of voice. You'll speak respectfully of her. +She's the wife of my friend; and before she met you was innocent +as a child." + +"What do you know of her? I tell you, Jeff, there's a type of +woman that's always smiling round the corner at you. I don't say I +did right to yield to her. Of course I didn't. But, hang it, I'm +not a block of wood. I've got red blood in my veins. The whip of +youth drove me on. You've probably never noticed it, but she was a +devilish pretty girl." + +He was swimming into his phrases so fluently that Jeff knew he +would soon persuade himself that he had been the victim of her +wiles. So, no doubt, in one sense, he had. She had laid her +innocent bait to win his friendship, with never a thought of what +was to come of it. + +"It happened of course while you were rooming there," the editor +shot at him. + +James nodded sullenly. + +His cousin knew now that more than once he had put away doubts of +James. When Sam Miller told him of her disappearance he had +thought of the lawyer and had dismissed his suspicions as +unworthy. He had always believed James to be a more moral man than +himself, and he had turned his own back on the temptation lest it +might prove too great for him. It would have been better for +Nellie if he had stayed and fought it out to a finish. + +James began further explanations. "Look at it the way it is. She +put herself in my way." + +Two steps carried Jeff to him. Without touching James he stood +close to him, arms rigid and eyes blazing. "Don't say that again, +you liar. You ruined her life. You let her suffer. She might have +died for all of you. She nursed your child and never whispered the +name of its father. Sam Miller is charging himself with the keep +of your daughter. Do you think she hasn't paid a hundred times for +her mistake? Now, by God, keep your mouth shut! Be decent enough +not to fling mud at her, you of all men." + +James shrugged his shoulders and turned away in petulant disgust. +"I see. You've heard her side of it and you've made up your mind. +All right. I've nothing more to say." + +"I've never heard her side of it. Her own mother doesn't know the +truth. Sam didn't know not till to-day. But I know her--and now I +know you." + +"That's no way to talk, Jeff. I admit I did wrong. Can a man say +more than that? Do you want me to crawl on my hands and knees?" + +"It's easy for you to forgive yourself." + +"Maybe you think I haven't suffered too. I've lain awake nights +worrying over this." + +"Yes. For fear you might be found out." + +"I intended to look out for the girl, but she disappeared without +letting me know where she was going. What could I do?" The lawyer +was studying his face very carefully in the glass. "My face is a +sight. It will be weeks before that eye is fit to be seen." + +Jeff turned away and left him. He walked to his rooms and found +his uncle waiting for him. Robert Farnum had sold out his +interests in Arkansas and returned to Verden with the intention of +buying a small mill in the vicinity. Meanwhile he had the +apartment next to the one used by his nephew. + +"Seen anything of James lately?" he inquired as they started down +the street to dinner. + +"Yes. I saw him to-day. He's leaving town for a week or so." + +"On business, I suppose. He didn't mention it when I saw him +Wednesday." + +"It's a matter that came up suddenly, I understand." + +The father agreed proudly. There were moments when he had doubts +of James, but he always stifled them by remembering what a +splendid success he was. "Probably something nobody else could +attend to but him." + +"Exactly." + +"It's amazing how that boy gets along. His firm has the cream of +the corporation business of Verden. I never saw anything like it." + +The younger man assented, rather wearily. Somehow to-night he did +not feel like sounding the praises of James. + +His uncle's kindly gaze rested on him. "Tired, boy?" + +"I think I am a little. I'll be all right after we've had +something to eat." + + +CHAPTER 22 + +But when your arms are full of girl and fluff +You hide your nerve behind a yard of grin; +You'd spit into a bulldog's face, or bluff +A flock of dragons with a safety pin. +Life's a slow skate, but love's the dopey glim +That puts a brewery horse in racing trim. +--Wallace Irwin. + + +CANARIES SING FOR THE HERO + + +Part 1 + +James Farnum had been back in Verden twenty-four hours. A few +little scars still decorated his handsome visage, but he explained +them away with the story of a motor car accident. Just now he was +walking to the bank, and he had spoken his piece five times in a +distance of three blocks. From experience he was getting letter +perfect as to the details. Even the idiotic joke about the clutch +seemed now a necessary part of the recital. + +It was just as he was crossing Powers that a motor car whirled +around the corner and down upon a man descending from a street +car. The chauffeur honked wildly and rammed the brakes home. +Simultaneously James leaped, flinging his weight upon the man +standing dazed in the path of the automobile. The two went down +together, and for a moment Farnum knew only a crash of the senses. + +He was helped to his feet. Voices, distant and detached, asked +whether he was hurt. Blood trickled into his eyes from a cut in +the head. It came to him oddly enough that his story about the +motor car accident would now be true. + +A slender figure in gray slipped swiftly past him and knelt beside +the still shape lying on the asphalt. + +"Bring water, Roberts!" + +James knew that clear, sweet voice. It could belong only to Alice +Frome. + +"Are you much hurt, Mr. Farnum?" + +"No, I think not--a cut over my eye and a few bruises." + +"I'm so glad. But this poor old man--I'm afraid he's badly hurt." + +"Was he run over?" + +"No. You saved him from that. You don't know him, do you?" + +The lawyer looked at the unconscious man and could not repress a +start. It was his father. For just an eyebeat he hesitated before +he said, "I've seen him before somewhere." + +"We must take him to the hospital. Isn't there a doctor here? +Someone run for a doctor." The young woman's glance swept the +crowd in appeal. + +"I'll take care of him. Better get away before the crowd is too +large, Miss Frome." + +"No. It was our machine did it. Oh, here's a doctor." + +A pair of lean, muscular shoulders pushed through the press after +the doctor. "Much hurt, James?" inquired their owner. + +"No. For heaven's sake, get Miss Frome away, Jeff," implored his +cousin. + +"Miss Frome!" Jeff stepped forward with an exclamation. + +The young woman looked up. She was kneeling in the street and +supporting the head of the wounded man. Her face was almost as +bloodless as his. + +"We almost ran him down. Your cousin jumped to save him. He isn't +dead, doctor, is he?" + +Jeff turned swiftly to his cousin and spoke in a low voice. "It's +your father." + +The lawyer pushed forward with a manner of authority. + +"This won't do, doctor. The crowd's growing and we're delaying the +traffic. Let us lift him into the machine and take him to the +hospital." + +"Very good, Mr. Farnum." + +"Doctor, will you go with him to the hospital? And Jeff . . . you, +too, if you please." + +A minute later the car pushed its way slowly through the crush of +people and disappeared. James was left standing on the curb with +Alice. + +He spoke brusquely. "Someone call a cab, please....I'll send you +home, Miss Frome." + +"No, to the hospital," she corrected. "I couldn't go home now +without knowing how he is." + +"Very well. Anything to get away from here." + +"And you can have your cut attended to there." + +"Oh, that's nothing. A basin of cold water is all I need. Here's +the cab, thank heaven." + +The girl's gaze followed the automobile up the hill as she waited +for the taxicab to stop. "I do hope he isn't hurt badly," she +murmured piteously. + +"Probably he isn't. Just stunned, the doctor seemed to think. +Anyhow it was an unavoidable accident." + +The eyes of the young woman kindled. "I'll never forget the way +you jumped to save him. It was splendid." + +James flushed with pleasure. "Nonsense. I merely pushed him +aside." + +"You merely risked your life for his. A bagatelle--don't mention +it," the girl mocked. + +Farnum nodded, the old warmth for her in his eyes. "All right, +I'll take all the praise you want to give me. It's been a good +while since you have thought I deserved any." + +Alice looked out of the window in a silence that appeared to +accuse him. + +"Yet once"--She felt in his fine voice the vibration of feeling-- +"once we were friends. We met on the common ground of--of the +spirit," he risked. + +Her eyes came round to meet his. "Is it my fault that we are not +still friends?" + +"I don't know. Something has come between us. What is it?" + +"If you don't know I can't tell you." + +"I think I know." He folded his handkerchief again to find a spot +unstained. "You wanted me to fit into some ideal of me you had +formed. Am I to blame because I can't do it? Isn't the fault with +your austerity? I've got to follow my own convictions--not Jeff's, +not even yours. Life's a fight, and it's every man for himself. He +has to work out his own salvation in his own way. Nobody can do it +for him. The final test is his success or failure. I'm going to +succeed." + +"Are you?" The compassion of her look he could not understand. +"But how shall we define success?" + +"It's getting power and wielding it." + +"But doesn't it depend on how one wields it?" + +"Yes. It must be made to produce big results. Now my idea of a +successful man is your uncle, Joe Powers." + +"And my idea of one is your cousin, Jefferson Farnum." + +The young man sat up. "You're not seriously telling me that you +think Jeff is successful as compared with Joe Powers?" + +"Yes. In my opinion he is the most successful man I ever met." + +James was annoyed. "I expect you have a monopoly in that opinion, +Miss Frome--unless Jeff shares it." + +"He doesn't." + +The lawyer laughed irritably. "No, I shouldn't think he would." He +added a moment later: "I don't suppose Jeff is worth a hundred +dollars." + +"Probably not." + +"And Joe Powers is worth a hundred millions." + +"That settles it. I must have been wrong." Alice looked at him +with a flash of demure daring. "Valencia said something to me the +other day I didn't quite understand. Ought I to congratulate you?" + +"What did she say?" he asked eagerly. + +"Oh, I'll not tell you what she said. My question was in first." + +"You may as well, though it's still a secret. Nobody knows it but +you and me." + +"And Valencia." + +"I didn't know she knew it yet." + +Alice stared. "Not know that she is going to marry you? Then it +isn't really arranged?" + +"It is and it isn't." + +"Oh!" + +"I know it and she suspects it." + +"Is this a riddle?" + +"Riddle is a good word when we speak of your cousin," he admitted +judicially. + +"Perhaps I asked a question I ought not to have." + +"Not at all. I'm trying to answer you as well as I can. Last time +I mentioned the subject she laughed at me." + +"So you've asked her?" + +"No, I told her." + +"And she said?" + +"Regretted that other plans would not permit her to fall in with +mine." + +"Then I don't quite see how you are so sure." + +"That's just what she says, but I've a notion she is planning the +trousseau." + +Alice flashed a sidelong look at him. Was he playing with her? Or +did he mean it? + +"You'll let me know when I may safely congratulate you," she +retorted ironically. + +"Now is the best time. I may not see you this evening." + +"Oh, it's to be this evening, is it?" + +"To the best of my belief and hope." + +His complacency struck a spark from her. "You needn't be so cock +sure. I daresay she won't have you." + +His smile took her into his confidence. "That's what I'm afraid of +myself, but I daren't let her see it." + +"That sounds better." + +"I think she wants to eat her cake and have it, too." + +"Meaning, please?" + +"That she likes me, but would rather hold me off a while." + +Alice nodded. "Yes, that would be like Val." + +"Meanwhile I don't know whether I'm to be a happy man or not." + +Her fine eyes looked in their direct fashion right into his. "I +must say you appear greatly worried." + +"Yes," he smiled. + +"You must be tremendously in love with her." + +"Ye-es, thank you." + +"Why are you going to marry her then--if she'll let you?" + +"Now I'm having Joe Powers' railroads and his steamboats and his +mines thrown at me, am I not?" he asked lightly. + +"No, I don't think that meanly of you. I know you're a victim of +ambition, but I don't suppose it would take you that far." + +He gave her an ironical bow. "Thanks for this testimonial of +respect. You're right. It wouldn't. I'm going to marry Joe Power's +daughter, _Deo volente_ because she is the most interesting woman +I know and the most beautiful one." + +"Oh! That's the reason." + +"These, plus a sentimental one which I can't uncover to the +cynical eyes of my young cousin that is to be, are my motives; +though, mind you, I'm not fool enough to be impervious to the +railroads and the ocean liners and the mines you didn't mention. I +hope my reasons satisfy you," he added coolly. + +"If they satisfy Val they do me, but very likely you'll find they +won't." + +"The doubt adds a fillip to the situation." + +Her eyes had gone from time to time out of the window. Now she +gave a sigh of relief. "Here we are at the hospital. Oh, I do hope +that poor man is all right!" + +"I'm sure he is. He was recovering consciousness when they left. + +James helped her out of the cab and they went together up the +steps. In the hall they met Jeff. He had just come down stairs. + +"Everything's all right. His head must have struck the asphalt, +but there seems to be no danger." + +Alice noticed that the newspaper man spoke to his cousin and not +to her. + + +Part 2 + +Though Valencia Van Tyle had not made up her mind to get married, +James hit the mark when he guessed that she was interesting +herself in the accessories that would go with such an event. The +position she took in the matter was characteristic. She had gone +the length of taking expert counsel with her New York modiste +concerning gowns for the occasion, without having at all decided +that she would exchange her present independence for another +venture into stormy matrimonial seas. + +"Perhaps I shatn't have to make up my mind at all," she found +amusement in chuckling to herself. "What a saving of trouble it +would be if he would abduct me in his car. I could always blame +him then if it did not turn out well." + +Something of this she expressed to James the evening of the day of +the accident, watching him through half-shuttered eyes to see how +he would take her first concession that she was considering him. + +He took without external disturbance her gay, embarrassed +suggestion, the manner of which might mean either shyness or the +highest expression of her art. + +"I'd kidnap you fast enough except that I don't want to rob you of +the fun of getting ready. How long will it take you? Would my +birthday be too soon? It's on the fourth of June." + +"Too soon for what?" she asked innocently. + +"For my birthday present--Valencia Powers." + +She liked it that he used her maiden surname instead of her +married one. It seemed to imply that he loved her in the swift, +ardent way of youth. + +"Are you sure you want it?" + +The lawyer appreciated her soft, warm allurement, the appeal of +sex with which she was so prodigally endowed. His breath came a +little faster. + +"He won't be happy till he gets it." + +Her faint laughter rippled out. "That's just the point, my friend. +Will he be happy then? And, which is more important to her, will +she?" + +"That's what I'm here to see. I'm going to make you happy." + +She laced her fingers behind her tawny head, not quite unaware +perhaps that the attitude set off the perfect modeling of her +soft, supple body. + +"I don't doubt your good intentions, but it takes more than that +to make marriage happy when the contracting parties are not +Heaven-sent." + +"But we are--we are." + +Valencia shook her head. "Oh, no! There will be no rapturous song +of birds for us, none of that fine wantonness that doesn't stop to +count the cost. If we marry no doubt we'll have good reasons, but +not the very best one--that we can't help it." + +He would not consent to that. "You're not speaking for me. The +birds sing, Valencia." + +"Canaries in a cage," she mocked. + +"You've forgotten two things." + +"Yes?" + +"That you are the most beautiful woman on earth, and that I'm a +man, with red blood in my veins." + +Under lowered lids she studied him. This very confident, alert +American, modern from head to heel, attracted her more than any +other man. There was a dynamic quality in him that stirred her +blood. He was efficient, selfish enough to win, and yet +considerate in the small things that go to make up the sum of +existence. Why not then? She must marry some time and she was as +nearly in love as she would ever be. + +"What ARE your reasons for wanting me?" + +"We smoke the same Egyptians," he mocked. + +"That's a good reason, so far as it goes." + +"And you're such a charming puzzle that I would like to +domesticate it and study the eternal mystery at my leisure." + +"Then it's as a diversion that you want me." + +"A thing of beauty and a joy forever, the poet puts it. But +diversion if you like. What greater test of charming versatility +for a woman than that she remain a diversion to her husband, +unstaled by custom and undulled by familiarity?" + +After all her father would be pleased to have her marry an +American business man. The Powers' millions could easily buy for +her a fine old dukedom if she wanted one. At present there was +more than one available title-holder on her horizon. But Valencia +did not care to take up the responsibilities that go with such a +position. She was too indolent to adapt her life to the standards +of others--and perhaps too proud. Moreover, it happened that she +had had enough of the club man type in the late lamented Van Tyle. +This man was a worker. He would not annoy her or interfere with +her careless pleasures. Again she asked herself, Why not? + +"I suppose you really do like me." Her face was tilted in gay +little appeal. + +"I'm not going to tell you how much. It wouldn't be good for +discipline in the house." + +Her soft little laugh bubbled over. "We seem to have quite settled +it. And I hadn't the slightest notion of agreeing to anything so +ridiculous when I ventured that indiscreet remark about an +abduction." She looked up at him with smiling insolence. "You're +only an adventurer, you know. I daresay you haven't even paid for +the car in which you were going to kidnap me." + +"No," he admitted cheerfully. + +"I wonder what Dad will think of it," + +"He'll thank Heaven you didn't present him with a French or +Italian count to support." + +"I believe he will. His objection to Gus was that he looked like a +foreigner and never had done a day's work in his life. Poor Gus! +He didn't measure up to Dad's idea of a man. Now I suppose you +could earn a living for us." + +"I'm not expecting you to take in sewing." + +"Are you going to do the independent if Dad cuts up rough?" she +asked saucily. + +"Independent is the word." He smiled with a sudden appreciation of +the situation. "And I take it he means to cut up rough. I wired +him to-day I was going to ask you to marry me." + +"You didn't." + +"Yes." + +"But wasn't that a little premature? Perhaps it wouldn't have been +necessary. Or did you take me for granted" + +"There was always the car for a kidnapping in case of necessity," +he joked. + +"Why did you do it?" + +"I wanted to be above board about it even if I am an adventurer." + +"What did he say? How could you put it in a telegram?" + +"Red consoles marooned sweet post delayed." + +"Dear me! What gibberish is that?" + +"It's from our private code. It means, 'Going to marry your +daughter if she is willing. With your consent, I hope.'" + +"And he answered? I'll take the English version, please." + +"'Consent refused. No fortune hunters need apply.' That is not a +direct quotation, but it conveys his meaning accurately enough." + +"So I'm to be cut off with a shilling." Her eyes bubbled with +delight. + +"I reckon so. Of course I had to come back at him." + +"How, may I ask?" She was vastly amused at this novel +correspondence. + +"Oh, I merely said in substance that I was glad to hear it because +you couldn't think now I wanted to marry you for your money. I +added that if things came my way we would send him cards later. +One doesn't like to slang one's wife's father, so I drew it mild." + +"I don't believe a word of it. You wouldn't dare." + +That she admired and at the same time distrusted was so apparent +that he drew a yellow envelope from his pocket and handed it to +her. + +"This is his latest contribution to the literature of frankness. +You see his feelings overflowed so promptly he had to turn loose +in good American talk right off the bat. Couldn't wait for the +code." + +She read aloud. "Your resignation as General Counsel +Transcontinental will be accepted immediately. Turn over papers to +Walker and go to the devil." It was signed "Powers." + +"That's all, is it? No further exchange of compliments," she +wanted to know. + +"That's all, except that he is reading my resignation by this +time. I sent it two hours ago. In it I tried to convey to him my +sense of regret at being obliged to sever business relations owing +to the fact that I was about to contract family ties with him. I +hoped that he would command me in any way he saw fit and was sorry +we couldn't come to an agreement in the present instance." + +"I don't believe you're a bit sorry. Don't you realize what an +expensive luxury you're getting in me and how serious a thing it +is to cast off heaven knows how many millions?" + +"Oh, I realize it!" + +"But you expect him to come round when he has had time to think it +over?" + +"It's hard for me to conceive of anybody not wanting me for a +son-in-law," he admitted cheerfully. + +Valencia nodded. "He'll like you all the better for standing up to +him. He's fond of Alice because she's impudent to him." + +"I didn't mean to be impudent, but I couldn't lie down and let him +prove me what he called me." + +"If you're that kind of a man I'm almost glad you're going to make +me marry you," she confided. + +He leaned over her chair, his eyes shining. "I'll make you more +than almost glad, Valencia. You're going to learn what it is to-- +oh, damn it!" + +He was impersonally admiring her Whistler when the maid brushed +aside the portieres. She had come to bring Mrs. Van Tyle a +telegram. + +"No answer, Pratt." + +After the maid had retired her mistress called James to her side. +Over her shoulder he read it. + +"Glad he is an American and not living on his father. Didn't think +you had so much sense. Tell that young man I want to see him in +New York immediately." + +The message was signed with the name of her father. + +"What do you suppose he wants with you in New York?" + +James was radiant. He kissed the perfect lips turned toward him +before he answered. "Oh, to make me president of the +Transcontinental maybe. How should I know? It's an olive branch. +Isn't that enough?" + +"When shall you go?" + +He looked at his watch. "The limited leaves at nine-thirty. That +gives me nearly an hour." + +"You're not going to-night?" + +"I'm going to-night. I must, dear. Those are the orders and I've +got to obey them." + +"But suppose I give you different orders. Surely I have some +rights, to-night of all nights. Why, we haven't been engaged ten +minutes. Business doesn't always come first." + +James hesitated. "It's the last thing I want to do, but when Joe +Powers says 'Come!' I know enough to jump." + +"But when I say stay?" she pleaded. + +"Then I stop the prettiest mouth in the world with kisses and run +away before I hear the order." Gaily he suited the action to the +word. + +But, for once swift, she reached the door before him. + +"Wait. Don't go, dear." + +The last word came faintly, unexpectedly. The enticement of the +appeal went to his head. He had shaken her out of the indifference +that was her pride. One arm slipped round her waist. His other +hand tilted back her head until he could look into the eyes in +which a new fire had been kindled. + +"What about that almost glad? If I stay will you forget all +qualifying words and be just glad?" + +She nodded quickly, laughing ever so softly. "Yes, I'll help you +listen to the birds sing. Do you know I can almost hear them?" + +James drew a deep breath and caught her swiftly to him. "New York +will have to wait till to-morrow. The birds will sing to-night and +we will not count the cost." + +"Yes, my lord," she answered demurely. + +For to-night she wanted to forget that their birds were only caged +canaries. + + +CHAPTER 23 + +"And what are the names of the Fortunate Isles, + Lo! duty and love and a large content; +And these are the Isles of the watery miles + That God let down from the firmament. + +Lo! duty and love and a true man's trust, + Your forehead to God and your feet in the dust: +Lo! duty and love and a sweet babe's smiles, + And these, O friends, are the Fortunate Isles." + + +AND LARKS FOR THE REBEL + + +Beneath a sky faintly pink with the warning of the coming sunrise +Jeff walked an old logging trail that would take him back to camp +from his morning dip. Ferns and blackberry bushes, heavy with dew, +reached across the road and grappled with each other. At every +step, as he pushed through the tangle, a shower of drops went +flying. + +His was the incomparable buoyant humor of a lover treading a +newborn world. A smile was in his eyes, tender, luminous, +cheerful. He thought of the woman whom he had not seen for many +months, and he was buoyed up by the fine spiritual edge which does +not know defeat. Win or lose, it was clear gain to have loved her. + +With him he carried a vision of her, young, ardent, all fire and +flame. One spoke of things beautiful and her face lit from within. +Her words, motions, came from the depths, half revealed and half +concealed dear hidden secrets. He recalled the grace of the +delicate throat curve, little tricks of expression, the sweetness +of her energy. + +The forest broke, opening into a clearing. He stood to drink in +its beauty, for the sun, peeping over a saddle in the hills, had +painted the place a valley of gold and russet. And while he waited +there came out of the woods beyond, into that splendid setting, +the vision that was in his mind. + +He was not surprised that his eyes were playing him tricks. This +was after all the proper frame for the picture of his golden +sweetheart. Lance-straight and slender, his wood nymph waded knee +deep through the ferns. Straight toward him she came, and his +temples began to throb. A sylph of the woods should be +diaphanous. The one he saw was a creature of color and warmth and +definiteness. Life, sweet and mocking, flowed through her +radiantly. His heart sang within him, for the woman he loved out +of a world of beautiful women was coming to him, light-footed as +Daphne, the rhythm of the morning in her step. + +She spoke, commonplace words enough. "Last night I heard you were +here." + +"And I didn't know you were within a thousand miles." + +"We came back to Verden Thursday and are up over Sunday," she +explained. + +He was lost in the witchery of the spell she cast over him. Not +the drooping maidenhair ferns through which she trailed were more +delicate or graceful than she. But some instinct in him played +surface commonplaces against the insurgent emotion of his heart. + +"You like Washington?" + +"I like home better." + +"But you were popular at the capital. I read a great deal in the +papers about your triumphs." + +The dye in her cheeks ran a little stronger. There had been much +gossip about a certain Italian nobleman who had wooed her openly +and madly. "They told a lot of nonsense." + +"And some that wasn't nonsense." + +"Not much." She changed the subject lightly. "You read all about +the wedding, of course." + +He quoted. "Miss Alice Frome as maid of honor preceded the bride, +appearing in a handsome gown of very delicate old rose satin with +an overdress of--" + +"Very good. You may go to the head of the class, sir. Valencia was +beautiful and your cousin never looked more handsome." + +"Which is saying a good deal." + +"And we're all hoping they will live happy ever after." + +"You know he is being talked of for United States Senator +already." + +"You will oppose him?" she asked quickly. + +"I shall have to." + +"Still an irreconcilable." Her smile could be vivid, and just now +it was. + +"Still a demagogue and a trouble maker," he admitted. + +"You've won the recall and the direct primary since I left." + +"Yes. We've been busy." + +"And our friends--how are they?" + +"You should see Jefferson Davis Farnum Miller. He's two months old +and as fat as a dumpling." + +"I've seen him. He's a credit to his godfather." + +"Isn't he? That's one happy family." + +"I wonder who's to blame for that," she said, the star flash in +her eyes. + +"Nellie told you?" + +"She told me." + +"They exaggerate. Nobody could have done less than I." + +"Or more." She did not dwell upon the subject. "Tell me about Mr. +Marchant." + +He went over for her the story of the little poet's gentle death. +She listened till he made an end. + +"Then it was not hard for him?" + +"No. He had one of his good, eager days, then guietly fell +asleep." + +"And passed to where, beyond these voices, there is rest and +peace," she quoted, ever so softly. + +"Yes." + +"Perhaps he knows now all about his Perfect State." Her wistful +smile was very tender. + +"Perhaps." + +They walked together slowly across the valley. + +"It is nearly six months since I have seen you." + +"Five months and twenty-seven days." The words had slipped out +almost without her volition. She hurried on, ashamed, the color +flying in her cheeks, "I remember because it was the day we ran +down your cousin and that old gentleman. It has always been a +great comfort to me to know that he was not seriously injured." + +"No. It was only the shock of his fall." + +"What was his name? I don't think I heard it." + +There was just an instant's silence before he pronounced, +"Farnum--Mr. Robert Farnum." + +"A relative of yours?" + +"Yes." + +Across her brain there flashed a fugitive memory of three words +Jeff had spoken to his cousin the day of the accident. "It's your +father." + +But how could that be? She had always understood that both the +parents of James were dead. The lawyer had denied knowing the man +whose life he had saved. And yet she had been sure of the words +and of a furtive, frightened look on the face of James. According +to the story of the _Herald_ the father of Jefferson, a former +convict, was named Robert. But once, when she had made some +allusion to it Captain Chunn had exploded into vigorous denial. It +was a puzzle the meaning of which she could not guess. + +"He has several times mentioned his wish to thank you for your +kindness," Jeff mentioned. + +"I'll be glad to meet him." Swiftly she flashed a question at him. +"Is he James Farnum's father?" + +"Haven't you read the papers? He is said to be mine." + +"But he isn't. He isn't. I see it now. James was ashamed to +acknowledge a father who had been in prison. Your enemies made a +mistake and you let it go." + +"It's all long since past. I wouldn't say anything about it to +anybody." + +"Of course you wouldn't," she scoffed. Her eyes were very bright. +She wanted to laugh and to weep at her discovery. + +"You see it didn't matter with my friends. And my reputation was +beyond hope anyhow. It was different with James." + +She nodded. "Yes. It wouldn't have improved his chances with +Valencia," her cousin admitted. + +Jeff permitted himself a smile. "My impression was that he did not +have Mrs. Van Tyle in mind at the time." + +They had waded through the wet ferns to the edge of the woods. As +her eyes swept the russet valley through which they had passed +Alice drew a deep breath of pleasure. How good it was to be alive +in such a world of beauty! A meadow lark throbbed its three notes +at her joyfully to emphasize their kinship. An English pheasant +strutted across the path and disappeared into the ferns. Neither +the man nor the woman spoke. All the glad day called them to the +emotional climax toward which they were racing. + +Womanlike, Alice attempted to evade what she most desired. He was +to be her mate. She knew it now. But the fear of him was in her +heart. + +"Were you so fond of him? Is that why you did it for him?" she +asked. + +"I didn't do it for him." + +"For whom then?" + +He did not answer. Nor did his eyes meet hers. They were fixed on +the moving ferns where the pheasant had disappeared. + +Alice guessed. He had done it for the girl because he thought her +in love with his cousin. A warm glow suffused her. No man made +such a sacrifice for a woman unless he cared for her. + +The meadow lark flung out another carefree ecstasy. The theme of +it was the triumphant certainty that love is the greatest thing in +the world. Jeff felt that it was now or never. + +"I love you. It's been hidden in my heart more than eight years, +but I find I must tell you. All the arguments against it I've +rehearsed a thousand times. The world is at your feet. You could +never love a man like me. To your friends I'm a bad lot. They +never would consider me a moment." + +Gently she interrupted. "Is it my friends you want to marry?" + +The surprise of it took him by the throat. His astonished eyes +questioned for a denial. In that moment a wonderful secret was +born into the world. She held out both hands with a divine +frankness, a sweetness of surrender beyond words. + +"But your father--your people!" + +"'Where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my +people."' She murmured it with a broken little laugh that was a +sob. + +Even then he did not take her in his arms. The habit of reverence +for her was of many years' growth and not to be broken in an +instant. + +"You are sure, dear--quite sure?" + +"I've been sure ever since the day of our first talk on the +_Bellingham._" + +Still he fought the joy that flooded him. "I must tell you the +truth so that you won't idealize me . . . and the situation. I am +enlisted in this fight for life. Where it will lead me I don't +know. But I must follow the road I see. You will lose your +friends. They will think me a crank, an enemy to society; and they +will think you demented. But even for you I can't turn back." + +A tender glow was in her deep eyes. "If I did not know that do you +think I would marry you?" + +"But you've always had the best things. You've never known what it +is to be poor." + +"No, I've never had the best things, never till I knew you, dear. +I've starved for them and did not know how to escape the prison I +was in. Then you came . . . and you showed me. The world is at my +feet now. Not the world you meant, of idleness and luxury and +ennui . . . but that better one of the spirit where you and I +shall walk together as comrades of all who work and laugh and +weep." + +"If I could be sure!" + +"Of me, Jeff?" + +"That I can make you happy. After all it's a chance." + +"We all live on a chance. I'll take mine beside the man I love. +There is one way under heaven by which men may be saved. I'm going +to walk that way with you, dear." + +Jeff threw away the reins of a worldly wise prudence. + +"For ever and ever, Alice," he cried softly, shaken to his soul. + +As their lips met the lark throbbed a betrothal song. + +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +They went slowly through the wet ferns, hand in hand. It was +amazingly true that he had won her, but Jeff could scarce believe +the miracle. More than once he recurred to it. + +"You saw what no other young woman of your set in Verden did, the +human in me through my vagabondage. But why? There's nothing in my +appearance to attract." + +"Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck," she laughed. "And I +won't have you questioning my taste, sir. I've always thought you +very good-looking, if you must have it." + +"If you're as far gone as that!" His low laughter rang out to meet +hers, for no reason except the best of reasons--that they walked +alone with love through a world wonderful. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Vision Splendid, by William M. Raine +End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Vision Spendid, by William M. Raine + diff --git a/old/vspld10.zip b/old/vspld10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9080f7d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/vspld10.zip |