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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Landloper, by Holman Day
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Landloper
+       The Romance Of A Man On Foot
+
+Author: Holman Day
+
+Release Date: April 13, 2006 [EBook #4712]
+Last Updated: March 8, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LANDLOPER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; John Bickers
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LANDLOPER
+
+THE ROMANCE OF A MAN ON FOOT
+
+
+By Holman Day
+
+1915
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LANDLOPER
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+IN THE DUST OF THE LONG HIGHWAY
+
+The man who called himself Walker Farr plodded down the dusty stretches
+of a country road.
+
+He moved leisurely. He neither slouched like a vagabond nor did he swing
+with a stride which indicated that he had aim in life or destination in
+mind. When he came under arching elms he plucked his worn cap from his
+head and stuffed it into a coat pocket which already bulged bulkily
+against his flank. He gazed to right and left upon the glories of a
+sun-bathed June morning and strolled bareheaded along the aisle of a
+temple of the great Out-of-Doors.
+
+He was young and stalwart and sunburnt.
+
+A big, gray automobile squawked curt warning behind him and then swept
+past and on its way, kicking dust upon him from its whirring wheels.
+
+He gave the car only an indifferent glance, but, as he walked on, he
+was conscious that out of the blur of impressions the memory of a girl's
+profile lingered.
+
+A farmer-man who had come to the end of a row in a field near the
+highway fence leaned on his hoe-handle and squinted against the sun
+at the face of the passer-by. Then the farmer shifted his gaze to the
+stranger's clothing and scowled. The face was the countenance of a man
+who was somebody; the clothing was the road-worn garb of a vagrant.
+
+“Here, you!” called the farmer.
+
+“I hear you,” said the man who called himself Walker Farr, smiling and
+putting subtle insolence into the smile.
+
+“Do you want a job?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Have you got a job?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Chopping down well-holes that have been turned inside out by a
+cyclone.”
+
+The man in the highway flashed a wonderful smile at the farmer and
+passed on. The farmer blinked and then he scowled more savagely. He
+climbed the fence and followed, carrying his hoe.
+
+“Look here, you! There ain't no such business.”
+
+“Send for me next time you have a well turned wrong side out and I'll
+prove it.”
+
+“You're a tramp.”
+
+Farr sauntered on.
+
+“You're a tramp, and here's what we are doing to tramps in this county
+right now!”
+
+Beyond them in the highway men were delving with shovels and hacking
+with mattocks. The men wore blue drilling overalls, obtrusively new, and
+their faces were pasty pale.
+
+“We have taken 'em out of jail and put 'em doing honest work,” said the
+farmer. He pointed to guards who were marching to and fro with rifles
+in the hook of their arms. “Here's where you belong. I'm a constable of
+this town. I arrest you.”
+
+The young man halted. His smile became provokingly compassionate as he
+stared down at the nickel badge the farmer was tapping.
+
+“So you represent the law, do you?” inquired Farr.
+
+“I do.”
+
+“It's too bad you don't know more about the law, then. I have neither
+solicited alms, trespassed on private property, begged food, nor
+committed crime in your little kingdom, my good and great three-tailed
+bashaw. Here is a coin to clear the law.” He exhibited a silver piece.
+“I am sorry I cannot remain here and help you mend your ways--they seem
+to need it!”
+
+He went on past the sullen gang of pick and shovel, treading the middle
+of the broad turnpike.
+
+“Ain't that a tramp?” asked one of the guards.
+
+“I don't know what he is,” confessed the farmer.
+
+The man who called himself Farr turned a corner and came upon the same
+automobile which had overtaken and passed him, contemptuously kicking
+its dust over him, a few minutes before he arrived at the farmer's
+fence.
+
+A rear tire was flat and a young man who was smartly attired in gray
+was smacking gloved hands together and cursing the lumps of a
+jail-bird-built road and the guilty negligence of a garage-man who had
+forgotten to put a lift-jack back into the kit. Two women stood beside
+the car and looked upon the young man's helplessness.
+
+“Enter tortoise, second scene of the ancient drama, 'The Tortoise and
+the Hare,'” Walter Farr informed himself.
+
+His amused brown eyes noted the young man was obviously flabby.
+
+“Here, you! Help me prop up this axle,” commanded the charioteer.
+
+“You do not need help,” suggested Farr. “You need somebody who can do
+the whole job.”
+
+The glance he gave the young man, up and down, conveyed his full
+meaning.
+
+“Well, I must say that's saucy talk from a hobo,” declared one of the
+women.
+
+“Mother!” warned the third member of the party.
+
+Farr turned his cynical gaze from the older woman to the younger--from
+the bleached hair and rouged lips to a fresh, pure, and vivid
+loveliness. He saw her profile once more.
+
+“No one has remembered to say 'please' yet,” the girl informed him,
+meeting his gaze. “I say it, sir!”
+
+He bowed and went straight to the roadside and picked up a bit of plank
+on which his searching eyes rested.
+
+He gave it into the gloved hands of the car's owner, he slipped off his
+own sun-faded coat and rolled the sleeves of his flannel shirt above
+his elbows, and then, with shoulder thrusting up; and arms straining,
+he heaved the car high enough so that the flabby gentleman could set the
+prop under the axle. And when the gentleman began to dust his gloves and
+to search for spots on his gray immaculateness, Farr dug tools from the
+box and proceeded to the work of replacing the tire.
+
+The girl stood near him and regarded him with interest. He looked up
+when he had the opportunity and found her eyes studying him. She was
+entirely frank in her gaze. There was nothing in her eyes except the
+earnestness of a scrutiny which was satisfying curiosity.
+
+When the work was done the owner offered money.
+
+Farr refused with curt decisiveness.
+
+“Well, have a drink?” invited the debtor.
+
+“I do not use liquor.”
+
+The autoist emptied his cigar-case into his hand and offered the cigars
+to Farr, who had just tugged on his coat.
+
+“I do not smoke, sir.”
+
+It was not declination with humility; the manner of the man of the road
+contained a hint that anybody who drank or smoked was no better than he
+should be. The girl studied him with renewed interest.
+
+“Don't stand there and try to put anything over on me,” advised the man
+in gray, showing resentment. “What can I do for you?”
+
+“You might thank the man, Richard,” declared the girl, tartly. She
+turned to Farr.
+
+“He seems to have forgotten 'thank you' as he forgot 'please.' May I
+make amends? We thank you!”
+
+“And now I am in your debt,” said the rover. He bowed and walked on.
+
+When the car passed him the girl turned and gave him a long look. He
+waved his hand. The dust-cloud closed in between them.
+
+“Kat Kilgour! That's a tramp! I'm amazed!” said the elder woman,
+observing the look and the salute.
+
+“Yes, this world is full of surprises,” agreed the girl, sweetly.
+
+“But your own eyes told you that he was a tramp.”
+
+“There isn't any doubt of it, is there, if you used your eyes?” demanded
+their escort.
+
+“We'll consider that the eyes have it--and let the matter drop,” said
+the girl--and her tone was not sweet.
+
+The man of the keen brown eyes and the faded garb fared on.
+
+He plucked a rose from a wayside bush and carried the flower in his
+hand.
+
+“Your sister just passed this way,” he informed the rose in whimsical
+fashion. “I don't suppose you and I will ever catch up with her. I go
+very slowly, but you may journey along with me.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+A HOME-MADE KNIGHT-ERRANT
+
+The wayfarer who called himself Farr came down the long hill and turned
+the corner of the highway where the alders crowded to the banks of the
+narrow brook; they whispered to one another as the breeze fluttered
+their leaves. He drank there, bending and scooping the water in his
+palm. He bathed the rose and stroked its wilted petals.
+
+“Too bad, little one!” he said. “The long road is a killing proposition,
+and I'm afraid I had no business inviting you to go with me. Your sister
+must be a long way ahead of us.”
+
+The rocks were cool where the alders cast shade, and he sat there for
+a little while, watching the drift of tiny flotsam down the eddying
+current and observing the skipper-bugs skating over the still shallows
+on their spraddled legs.
+
+There was a pleasant hush all about. The bubbling ecstasy of a bobolink
+floated above the grasses of a meadow, and near at hand a wren hopped
+about in the alders and chirped dozy notes. Peace and restfulness
+brooded. The man at the brook leaned low and thrust his head into the
+water and then rose and shook the drops from his thick thatch of brown
+hair. He did it with a sort of canine wriggle and smiled at the thought
+which came to him.
+
+“A stray dog!” he muttered. “Of as much account--and he'd better forget
+the sister of the rose. Here's a good place to put imagination to
+sleep--here's a place where all is asleep.”
+
+He went on around the curtain of the alders.
+
+There was a big old-fashioned house near at hand. Its walls were
+weather-worn, its yard was not tidy. The faded curtains at the windows
+hung crookedly. The glass of the panes was dirty. The entire aspect of
+the place indicated that there was no woman's hand to make it home. It
+was commonplace and uninteresting.
+
+But the front door was flung open suddenly with a screech of rusty
+hinges.
+
+Then came backing out of the doorway a very old man--a bent and
+wrinkled old man with long white hair which trailed down from under a
+broad-brimmed hat. He was dragging a coffin, single-handed. The free
+end of the solemn box bumped down the wooden steps with a hollow clatter
+that suggested emptiness. There was a woodpile at one side of the yard.
+The old man tugged the casket over the litter of chips and dropped the
+end. He wrenched an ax from its cleft in a chopping-block and caved in
+the top of the coffin with the first blow.
+
+The man Farr, observing from the road, saw that the casket was empty.
+The old man continued to bash and batter.
+
+The wayfarer, before the destruction was begun, had time to note that
+the coffin was a remarkably fine specimen of cabinet-maker's work. There
+were various sorts of wood inlaid with care, and the fretwork along
+its sides had been jig-sawed with much pains spent in detail, and the
+pilasters were turned with art. But the old man battered at all this
+excellence with savageness. It was evident that he was not merely
+providing kindling-wood--he was expending fury.
+
+It was an affair that demanded undivided attention from the observer in
+the road; but a man came around the corner of the house just then and
+Farr promptly gave over his interest in the aged chopper.
+
+The new arrival was clothed cap-a-pie in armor.
+
+He stood quietly at a little distance and gazed from under his vizor on
+the energetic old man at the woodpile.
+
+Farr noted that the armor was obviously home-made. The helmet, though
+burnished and adorned with a horse's tail, had the unmistakable outlines
+of a copper kettle. The cuirass could not disguise its obligation to
+certain parts of an air-tight stove. But the ensemble was peculiarly
+striking and the man in the road took a quick glance around at the New
+England landscape in order to assure himself that he was still where he
+supposed he was.
+
+Farr went to the fence and folded his arms on the top.
+
+The old man, resting a moment, seemed to feel that intent regard from
+behind and, without turning his body, hooked his narrow and bony chin
+over his shoulder and swapped a long stare with the stranger.
+
+“Well,” inquired the venerable chopper, “what is on thy mind, sir?” His
+tone was sour.
+
+“Seeing that the question is direct and remembering that age deserves
+the truth, I'll say that I was thinking that this seems to be an ideal
+location for a private lunatic-asylum, and that guests are allowed to
+enjoy themselves.”
+
+“I will have thee to understand that I have sat for thirty long years at
+the head of the Friends' meeting in this town and never has it been said
+that my wits are cracked. Furthermore, this is none of thy affair. Move
+on.”
+
+Farr merely shifted his feet and took an easier pose at the fence.
+
+“Feeling as I do, it will not trouble me much to come over there and
+take a chop or two at thee,” warned the old man.
+
+“I didn't know that Quakers ever allowed their feelings to get so highly
+spiced.”
+
+“Along with thee, tramp!”
+
+“You see, my dear sir,” drawled the man in the road, “I am out in search
+of peace of mind. If I should go on my way without understanding what
+this means my itching curiosity would never allow me another good
+night's sleep. A word from you to soothe curiosity, and then I go!”
+
+“Thee has seen me knocking into pieces a coffin. Is there anything
+strange in seeing me knock into pieces a coffin I have made with my own
+hands?”
+
+“No, sir. That is quite within your rights. But why? From what little I
+saw of it it seemed to me to be a mighty fine piece of work.”
+
+“It was,” stated the old man, a bit mollified. “Walnut with bird's-eye
+maple inlaid.”
+
+“May I ask if it was made for anybody who died lately?”
+
+“I made it for myself--I have had it by me for twenty years! Seeing that
+thee must stick thy nose into my business!” His tone was pettish and
+he stooped down and began to toss splinters and broken boards upon the
+woodpile.
+
+“Then I suppose it was--er--sort of out of date,” suggested Farr,
+blandly.
+
+“I see thee is minded to tease me--the world is full of fools.” He
+straightened as best he could, propping hands on his hips, and divided
+angry gaze between the man at the fence and the armored figure. “I am
+not going to die--I have decided to stay alive. I have a fool on my
+hands.”
+
+“Father, I think thee had better choose thy words a bit better in the
+presence of a stranger,” advised the man in armor.
+
+“Can't thee see that he is a fool?” demanded the old man.
+
+“I don't think I want to venture an opinion, sir. I'll simply say that
+your son's choice of a summer suit seems a little peculiar. But, of
+course, every man to his liking!”
+
+The old man walked down to the fence. He was crooked at the waist and
+his legs were hooked with the curves of age, but he strode along with
+brisk vigor. His gaze was as sharp as a gimlet, though the puckered lids
+were cocked over his eyes with the effect of little tents whose flaps
+were partly closed. He put his face close to Farr's.
+
+“Thee is as cheeky as a crow and as prying as a magpie and I venture
+to say thee is a roving scamp. But I may as well talk to thee as to
+anybody.”
+
+With armor rattling and squeaking, the son started toward them.
+
+“I do not care to have thee talk about me, father,” he warned.
+
+Farr noted that the son had eyes as keen and as gray as those of the
+elder. The armored citizen was sturdy and of middle age and the face
+under the vizor revealed intelligence and self-possession.
+
+The father paid no heed to the son.
+
+“Has thee traveled around the world much?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Thee has met many men?”
+
+“Many and of all sorts and conditions.”
+
+“Then I want to ask thee what thee thinks of the good wit of a man who
+declares that he will go forth into the world, faring here and there,
+to try to do good to all men, to try to settle the troubles between men,
+free of all price?”
+
+Farr turned gaze from the father to the earnest countenance of the son,
+and then stared again into the searching eyes of the old man. Prolonged
+and embarrassed silence followed.
+
+“Thy looks speak louder than words,” declared the father. “Thy eyes say
+it--he is a fool.”
+
+“It may be as well not to say so with thy tongue,” advised the son. “I
+might not be as patient with a stranger as I am with my father. He is
+wholly practical, without imagination, and so I excuse him.”
+
+“I offer no comments,” said Walker Farr with a frank smile which won an
+answering flicker from the face under the vizor. “I do not understand.”
+
+“I would not expect a vagabond to understand anything or to be brave
+enough to say what he thinks,” piped the father. He turned on his son.
+“Here's a scalawag of a tramp. Go along with him and be another such.”
+
+“I may be a peripatetic philosopher, for all you know,” said Farr,
+teasingly. “There are knights in fustian as well as knights in armor.”
+
+“I think thee is of more account than thy clothing indicates,” stated
+the son, regarding the stranger keenly. “And thee carries a rose in thy
+hand. Little things tell much.”
+
+Farr put the flower into his pocket. “Don't fool yourself about me,” he
+said, roughly.
+
+“Thy speech has betrayed thee,” insisted the other.
+
+“I have met crib-crackers who were college men--and pocket dictionaries
+are cheap. And so good day to you, gentlemen.”
+
+“Wait one moment!” appealed the man in armor. His face softened when he
+approached his father.
+
+“We have talked much and there is no more to say to each other now.
+I have served here patiently many years. If I leave thee for a little
+while there is old Ben to wait and tend. And I will come back after I
+have done my duty.”
+
+“I will stay alive so that I can bail thee out of prison,” his father
+informed him, sourly. “Go on, thou fool; learn thy lesson! The world is
+all right as it is; it will cuff the ears of meddlers. But go on!”
+
+“I would rather thee would show another spirit at parting--but have it
+thy way,” returned the son, with Quaker repression of all emotions. He
+came forth from the gate.
+
+“I am going thy road,” he informed Farr, “because all ways are alike to
+me. I would be pleased to talk with one who has journeyed. Thee may have
+good counsel for me. May I walk with thee?”
+
+The wayfarer opened his mouth and closed it suddenly on a half-spoken
+and indignant refusal of this honor. He pursed his lips and his thick
+brows drew together in a frown. Then, as if in spite of himself, he
+began to smile.
+
+“I will be no burden to thee,” pleaded the home-made knight. “I have had
+my armor for a long time and have practised walking in it.”
+
+“But why the tin suit?” expostulated Farr.
+
+“I will explain as we walk.”
+
+“Well, come along!” blurted the wayfarer. “Nothing more can happen to
+me, anyway.”
+
+“So thee has found one of thy own kind to follow about in the world?”
+ inquired the father, tauntingly. “Feathers on the head and rattles in
+the hand! Cockahoops and fiddle-de-lorums! Thee'll be back soon with thy
+folly cured after I have bailed thee from the calaboose! Then thee'll
+stick to thy forge and be sensible!”
+
+Farr noted a small shop by the roadside as they started off.
+
+“My father is a good man, but practical--wholly practical,” said his new
+comrade of the ways. “From my good mother I derive imagination. My life
+has not been happy here. But work has helped.”
+
+He pointed to the shop. Over the main door a faded, weather-worn sign
+advertised “Eastup Chick & Son, Blacksmiths.” On the gable was a newer
+sign heralding “Jared Chick & Father, Inventors.”
+
+“I am Jared Chick, my friend.”
+
+He talked slowly, pausing to pick words, phrasing with the carefulness
+of the man of method, talking as those persons talk who have read many
+books and use their tongue but seldom. Farr found much quaintness in the
+solemn man's discourse.
+
+“My father put my name on the sign when I was young, and it pleased me.
+I put his name on the other sign when he was old and it did not please
+him, though I have insisted that he must share in all credit which comes
+to me. But my father does not possess imagination. I am sorry he lost
+his temper to-day and broke up his coffin. Not that I approved of having
+it in the house all these years, but he was very proud of it. He made
+it soon after my mother died. I think, now that he has destroyed it, he
+will live many years longer. He is very strong-minded.”
+
+“I'm glad to have my suspicions confirmed,” said Farr.
+
+“He was extremely angry when his eldest brother died at eighty. He
+stood over him in the last moments and made us all very uncomfortable
+by telling Uncle Joachim that there was no need of his dying--that if he
+would only show a little Chick spunk he could stay alive just as well
+as not and would not go fushing out just when he was most needed in the
+Friends' meeting.”
+
+“Considering that the old fellow was eighty and probably felt like
+quitting, seems as if your father was rubbing it in just a little.”
+
+“Perhaps he was a mite harsh, but there is another side of it. There
+were only three of us left of the Friends' society to go to the old
+meeting-house on First Day so that it might not be said that after one
+hundred years we had allowed the society of the fathers to perish in
+our town. Thee may have noted that my father and I still use the plain
+language, keeping up the ways of the founders. My father sat at the head
+of the meeting, my Uncle Joachim was next to him on the facing seat. I
+am the only worshiper. I am not fitted to be a minister. My father, when
+Joachim died, had no one with whom to exchange the hand-shake at the end
+of the meeting.”
+
+“And now he's losing his congregation?”
+
+“Yes, my friend, and so my father blames me for going, just as he blamed
+Uncle Joachim for dying. He has the meeting much at heart.”
+
+“What will he do for a crowd after you go away?”
+
+“He will continue to sit at the head of the meeting, sir.”
+
+There was silence between them for some time. The blacksmith clanked on
+his way sturdily.
+
+“He will still sit at the head of the meeting! Only a little fire is
+left there, sir, but he will not allow it to go out as long as he is
+alive to blow the bellows of devotion.”
+
+“Look here, Brother Chick,” demanded Farr. “I don't want to be prying or
+impertinent, but what's your idea?”
+
+“I'm not ashamed of anything I'm going to do. Even though it is a very
+strange plan, as the world would look at it, I'm not ashamed of it. A
+very few words will tell you: I'm going out among men and spread the
+gospel of mercy and forbearance, teach the lessons of peace, urge men to
+forgive instead of fight--showing them that courts of law are more often
+the devil's playground than the abode of real justice. I have worked
+hard, I have read many books, I have stored information in my mind, I
+have laid up money enough. You behold my armor--I have wrought at it
+patiently for a long time.”
+
+“Expect to have 'em throw things at you?”
+
+But the blacksmith, replying, gave no sign that he resented this brusque
+humor.
+
+“It is well known that it is hard to attract the attention of the world
+from its own affairs. For instance, if I had stood in the yard to-day,
+dressed as a plain man, thee would have passed on thy way--providing
+father had been chopping up kindling-wood instead of a coffin. If I had
+stopped thee and started to explain my views thee would have paid little
+attention to me. Isn't that so?”
+
+“It's so.”
+
+“Well, then, thee have my theory and know my plan and have noted how it
+has worked,” said Mr. Chick.
+
+“I don't want to discourage you in a good thing, but how long do you
+think a policeman would let you stand on a street corner?”
+
+“I shall find places where I can deliver my message without offending.”
+
+“There's another point--a rather delicate point to consider, Brother
+Chick. There are plenty of persons who are a bit dull when they are
+examining a man's motives, but who think they are almighty smart in
+detecting a man's mental failings; when somebody does anything they
+wouldn't do they say he's crazy.”
+
+The blacksmith turned his serene face and smiled at Farr.
+
+“I appeal to thy good judgment, sir. Would thee, after talking with me,
+even if I do wear iron outside my wool garments, send me to an asylum?”
+
+“No,” acknowledged Farr, “I don't believe I would send you to an
+asylum.”
+
+“Thank thee! I believe thee can speak quite generally for the average
+man.”
+
+“But the armor scheme--it's a little risky, Friend Chick.”
+
+“But it has been the trade-mark of unselfishness ever since the days of
+the Crusaders,” declared Mr. Chick. “Why shouldn't its significance
+be revived in these modern times? At any rate,” he added, with Yankee
+shrewdness, “it's necessary to give the world quite a jump these days
+before it will stop, look, and listen.”
+
+“Some advertising concern will make you an offer that will pull you into
+camp your second day out, if you're not careful. You've certainly got a
+good idea of the business.”
+
+“I am sincere. I am not trifling. I have pondered on this for a long
+time. I shall be misjudged--but I shall not be afraid!”
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+KNIGHT-ERRANTRY TESTED
+
+The two marched on, side by side, and Walker Farr, piecing in his mind,
+from the scraps he had heard, the entire history of the Chick family,
+indulged the whim of Jared and forgot for a moment the grotesque figure
+presented by his companion.
+
+“No, I am not afraid!” repeated the new apostle of world harmony.
+
+But it became promptly apparent that Mr. Chick could not communicate his
+intrepidity to other creatures.
+
+Around the bend of the road came a sleepy horse, stubbing his hoofs into
+the dust, dragging a wagon in which rode a farmer and his wife.
+
+The horse became wide awake at sight of Mr. Chick.
+
+With head up, eyes goggling, nostrils dilating, and mane erect, the
+animal stopped short on straddled legs. Then he snorted, whirled, took
+the wagon around in a circle on two wheels in spite of the farmer's
+endeavors, and made off in the opposite direction, the driver pulling
+hard on the reins, hands above his head, elbows akimbo.
+
+“It occurs to me, Friend Chick,” said his companion, after the outfit
+had disappeared, “that in planning this pilgrimage of yours you have
+failed to take everything into account. If that farmer-man and his
+wife pile into the ditch and break their necks, then all your general
+mediating in other quarters will hardly make up for the damage you have
+caused right here.”
+
+“The world is full of problems,” sighed the man in armor. “There seems
+to be a hitch to about everything!”
+
+After a few moments the farmer came pelting into sight on foot.
+
+“What in the name of bald-headed Nicodemus do you call yourself, and
+what are you trying to do?” he shouted. “It's only by luck and chance
+and because the webbin's held that me and my wife ain't laying stiff and
+stark in the ditch.”
+
+“I am sorry,” said friend Chick with dignity.
+
+“Get a hoss used to bicycles, flying-machines, red whizzers and blue
+devils, and then along comes something else that ain't laid down in the
+back of the Old Farmer's Almanick! You there, the one that ain't crazy,
+what's this thing you're teaming round?” the farmer demanded, addressing
+Farr.
+
+“In this case I am not my brother's keeper,” stated the young man.
+
+“Well, where is his keeper, then? He needs one.” He walked around Chick
+and rudely rapped his whip-butt on the breastplate. “If I wasn't
+afraid of spraining a toe I'd boot you from here to hackenny, you old
+two-legged cook-stove!”
+
+“If there has been damage done, I'll pay for it.”
+
+“There isn't any damage and I'm not looking for anybody's money. But
+there _will_ be damage unless you get out of this highway. If you're in
+sight when I drive my hoss past here again I'll lick you, even if I have
+to use blasting-powder and a can-opener to get you out of that suit.”
+
+Jared Chick went apart into the bushes and Farr accompanied him.
+
+“This is a rather vulgar and discouraging adventure for high ideals to
+run into so soon,” averred the younger man.
+
+“I am not discouraged.”
+
+“I'm afraid you'll be even more greatly misunderstood.”
+
+“I don't expect silly old horses to understand me. My appeal is to men.”
+
+Farr sniffed scornfully. “You'd better let men alone,” he advised.
+
+“The world needs pure unselfishness,” insisted Chick.
+
+“The purer it is the more it is misunderstood. I have tested the matter.
+I know.”
+
+“Then you yourself would not go forth into the world and do good to men,
+without calculation and without price?”
+
+“I don't think I would,” declared Farr, dryly. “And I am so little
+interested in the matter that I think you'll have to excuse me from
+further talk about it. You have just had one illustration in a crude way
+of how the world misunderstands anything that's out of the ordinary.”
+
+“Have you any advice to give me?”
+
+“Not a word. I'm not even able to give myself sensible counsel. Good day
+to you!”
+
+“Then you do not care for my company longer on the way?”
+
+“I do not. Excuse my bluntness, but these are parlous times for
+wayfarers and I cannot afford to have a tin can tied to me as I go
+about.”
+
+“And you are absolutely selfish?” called Chick.
+
+“I think so,” replied Farr from the highway, getting into his stride.
+“When I see you again I expect you'll be wondering why you ever were
+altruistic. That will be the case, providing you wear that armor any
+longer.”
+
+Jared Chick from behind his bush called, appealingly, “But I fear I
+shall never see thee again and I have some questions to ask of thee!”
+
+“Oh, I promise to look you up somewhere in the world. If you keep on
+wearing that suit it will be easy to find you.”
+
+The man in armor leaned against a tree and pondered.
+
+“A strange young man, and callous and selfish. But there is truly
+something under his shell. I would relish putting some questions to
+him.”
+
+Then Jared Chick plunked an ash staff from a pile of hoop-poles left by
+a chopper and went on his way along shaded woodland paths, avoiding
+the main highroad. He decided that it would be better to go by the
+roundabout way and show himself on the streets of town instead of on a
+rural turnpike where countrified horses did not take kindly to a real
+knight-errant.
+
+“It was a good place back there for sleeping,” reflected Walker Farr,
+remembering the brook, singing over the stones, the whispering alders,
+the old-fashioned house, and the somnolent landscape. “That man who has
+been living there until the day of his emigration has certainly been
+asleep for a long time and is sleeping soundly now; he is having a
+wonderful dream. The nightmare will begin shortly and he will wake up.”
+
+After a time Farr came into a village, a hamlet of small houses which
+toed the crack of a single street. It was near the hour of noon and from
+the open windows of kitchens drifted scents of the dinners which the
+women were preparing. All the men of the place seemed to be afield; only
+women were in sight here and there at back doors, pinning freshly washed
+garments on lines, beating dust from rugs, or, seen through the windows,
+were bustling about the forenoon tasks set for patient household slaves
+in gingham.
+
+At one back door, his back comfortably set against a folded
+clothes-reel, was a greasily fat tramp, gobbling a hand-out lunch which
+a housewife had given to him.
+
+Under a little hill where the road dipped at the edge of the hamlet here
+sounded clink of steel on rock, suggesting that men labored there with
+trowel and drill. There was complaining creaking of cordage--the arm of
+a derrick sliced a slow arc across the blue sky of June.
+
+The fat tramp held up his empty plate and whined a request and the hand
+of a woman emerged from a close-by window and placed something in the
+dish.
+
+Farr slowed his steps and looked at the tramp, and a woman in a yard
+near by stared over the top of a sheet which she was pinning on the line
+and scowled at the new arrival.
+
+“I wonder if I'm considered as the Damon of that Pythias?” Farr asked
+himself, smiling into her frown. “But Damon is nomad spelled backward! I
+wish I dared to ask her for a piece of that pie cooling on the sill.”
+
+Just then, over the clink of metal under the hill, above wail of
+straining pulley, rose the screech of a man in agony, the raucous male
+squall whose timbre is more hideous than the death-cry of swine.
+
+Then came a man running from the valley under the hill.
+
+“It's your husband, Mrs. Jose,” he panted, turning in at the house where
+the fat tramp ate with his back against the clothes-reel. “You better
+go! I'll telephone for a doctor.”
+
+She ran, white-faced, gasping cries. Other women ran. The spirit of
+helpfulness and curiosity to know what had happened set wings on the
+heels of the little community. The messenger telephoned and followed
+them.
+
+The fat tramp set down his plate and glanced to right and left and all
+about. Then he shuffled into the deserted house and after a brief stay
+hastened out with his pockets crammed and bearing garments in his arms;
+he scuttled away with sagging trot across the fields.
+
+Farr saw him go and did not pursue.
+
+“Yonder goes the spirit of the age,” he told himself, with sardonic
+twisting of his lips. “When Opportunity knocks, knock Opportunity
+down. Embrace Opportunity, but be sure it's with the strangle hold. The
+directors of a robbed railroad make a more dignified getaway than
+that porcine pedestrian is making--but it's the same as far as the
+stockholders are concerned.”
+
+He went on slowly toward the hollow under the hill.
+
+The procession met him--a limp man, moaning, borne in the arms of his
+sweating mates, women trotting alongside and crossing the road, to and
+fro, like frightened hens--clucking sympathy.
+
+Farr found a half-finished stone bridge under the hill. A paunchy boss
+with underset jaw and overhanging upper lip was profanely urging his
+helpers back to their jobs.
+
+“Fifteen minutes before knock-off time--fifteen minutes! You can't help
+that man by standing around and doing his grunting for him. Get busy!”
+
+The men lifted their tools slowly and sullenly.
+
+“It's hell what can happen when you're fifteen days behind on a
+contract, with county commissioners waiting and anxious to grab off a
+penalty,” declared the boss, to nobody in particular. “One man bunged,
+and four to lug him home, and the rest of the crew taking a sympathetic
+vacation!”
+
+Farr, sauntering, swung off the highway down the lane leading to the
+temporary bridge.
+
+“Here, you long-horned steer, want a job?” called the contractor from
+his rostrum on the granite block.
+
+“No, my Sussex shote, I do not!”
+
+“Damnation! You dare to call me names, you hobo?”
+
+“Yes,” returned Farr, quite simply.
+
+“Well, quit it. I need men here. You're husky. Two dollars a day, even
+if you're not a regular mason.”
+
+“No.”
+
+He drawled both the affirmative and the negative and there was something
+subtly insolent in his tone--something that aroused more ire than a
+cruder retort would have accomplished. He turned his back on the cursing
+man and went on down to the bridge. He waited there for a time and
+watched the drift of foam on the fretted waters. The steady burbling of
+the stream made him oblivious to other sounds and he did not hear the
+two men approach. They leaped on him and seized him. One of his captors
+was the paunchy man, and his hands were heavy and his fingers gripped
+viciously.
+
+“No wonder you wouldn't work! You're making your living in an easier
+way.”
+
+“What is the occasion of this effusive welcome to your city?” asked
+Farr.
+
+The man who held one of the captive's arms was panting. He had run at
+top speed from the house to which he and his mates had borne the injured
+man.
+
+“You thief! You sneak! Eat a man's grub, his hard-earned grub, and steal
+when his wife's back is turned!”
+
+“Of all dirty work this job is the worst,” declared the big man.
+
+“She gave you all you could stuff into yourself, you loafer. You
+ransacked when her back was turned. You even stole her husband's Sunday
+suit. Where is it?”
+
+“I saw a fat tramp running away into the woods,” returned Farr, quietly.
+“He was carrying articles in his arms.”
+
+“You're the only tramp in sight around here,” insisted the contractor.
+“Where did you hide the plunder?”
+
+“She said she fed a tramp. She left him at the back door. You're the
+sneak,” indorsed the panting emissary.
+
+“If you will take me back to the house you may get some new light on the
+affair,” suggested their captive. “You need not drag me there. I'll go
+with much pleasure.”
+
+The mistress of the despoiled home, red of eyes, hurrying from her sink
+with a cold compress in her trembling hands, viewed Farr from her back
+door.
+
+“That isn't the man. I never saw him before. Oh, he is in awful pain.
+Why doesn't that doctor get here? But there doesn't seem to be anything
+broken. He took my pocketbook, too, with two dollars and twenty-seven
+cents in it. And it's every cent of money we've got by us. And it may be
+weeks before he can go to work again. Troubles don't come singly. That
+mis'able, fat, greasy thief! After I had fed him--even gave him pie!”
+
+“As I told you, gentlemen, it was a fat tramp. I saw him run away into
+the woods.”
+
+“If you call yourself a man why didn't you chase him?” inquired the
+contractor, with disgust.
+
+“I took no interest in his affairs--no interest whatever,” stated Farr,
+with languid tone.
+
+“You don't care much what happens to anybody else, you hog!”
+
+“My interest in other persons is very limited.”
+
+“You'll stand by and see one of your kind run away with the property of
+poor folks, will you? You meet him later and get your whack?” asked the
+big man.
+
+“No,” said Farr, mildly. He directed compelling gaze into the eyes of
+his detractor. “And you do not think so yourself.”
+
+“Perhaps not. But you're worse. You have just said it. You're a selfish
+renegade!”
+
+“Peculiarly selfish, hard, and unfeeling.”
+
+“And wouldn't turn your hand over to do a good turn for anybody?”
+
+“I don't think so.”
+
+“I'll tell you what I think _I'll_ do--I'll detail four of my men to
+ride you out of this town on a rail.”
+
+“I wouldn't call them off their jobs if I were you! I overheard you say
+that you are short of time and men. By the way, you offered me a job.
+I'll take it.”
+
+The contractor blinked and hesitated.
+
+“If after a half-day you find I'm not worth the money I'll pass on and
+you'll have a half-day's work free.”
+
+“Get on to the job, then.”
+
+Through the open door Farr could see the woman of the house wringing
+cloths at the sink.
+
+He stepped to the door and addressed her. “Madame, will you take a
+boarder? I'm going to do your husband's work on the job yonder. I will
+pay liberally. In your present difficulties the money may help. I'll be
+small trouble.”
+
+“We need the money terribly,” she said, after pondering. “Yes, I will
+take you. In the face you do not look like a tramp!”
+
+“I thank you,” said Farr. “If you will give me some food in my hands
+I'll take myself out of your way.”
+
+That afternoon Jared Chick came over the hill where the trowels clinked
+and the great derrick complained with its pulleys. He carried his armor
+on his back.
+
+He stopped and watched for some time his former companion of the road,
+who was sweating over his man's toil.
+
+“May I have sixty seconds off to speak with that man yonder?” Farr asked
+the contractor. “It partly concerns your business.”
+
+The big man nodded surly assent.
+
+“Thee sees I have taken off the armor for a time. I will wear it in the
+city where horses and people are not so silly. What is thee doing here?”
+
+“I have no time to talk about myself, Friend Chick. I want to ask you if
+you are still of the same mind about your mission?”
+
+“I am.”
+
+“Then throw down that hardware and come to work on this job. A man has
+been hurt here--his wife is in need. Earn some money and give it to
+them.”
+
+“But my mission concerns the world--the wide world.”
+
+“Real selfishness's chief excuse! Here's something ready to your hand.
+Will you do it?”
+
+“But thee told me thee would not go forth and do good!”
+
+“No matter about me. I am not a professional knight-errant! Will you do
+this?”
+
+“Ten seconds more!” warned the boss.
+
+“I cannot change my plans so suddenly,” protested Chick.
+
+“A knight-errant should not have plans! My time is up and I have work.
+Good-by, Friend Chick!”
+
+The young man went back to his task and the Quaker passed on, muttering
+reaffirmation of his own high aims.
+
+“And how could I expect a vagrant to understand?” he asked himself.
+
+The vagrant toiled two weeks at his heavy task and when the man Jose was
+about again the volunteer slipped away without farewell.
+
+He left on the table of his under-the-eaves bedroom in the Jose house
+all the pay he received for his work, to the last penny.
+
+“He wasn't what he seemed to be,” ran the burden of Mrs. Jose's various
+disquisitions on this strange guest. “He ate his vittles and asked no
+questions, and was out from underfoot, and was always willing to set up
+with my husband and give me a snippet of rest and a wink of sleep; and
+he read out of little books all the time--he had 'em stuffed into his
+pockets. And there needn't anybody tell _me_! He left all his pay on the
+table, every cent of it, and stole away without waiting for no thanks
+from nobody!”
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+FARR, THE FAT TRAMP, AND A SUIT OF CLOTHES
+
+On a balmy forenoon a jovial-appearing old gentleman went jogging out
+of the mill city of Marion and along a country road in his two-wheeled
+chaise. He sat erect and he was tall above the average of men, and he
+was very neat in his attire.
+
+“I wish,” he mused, “that the men who could really appreciate a
+good outfit of clothing and could use the same properly were not so
+infernally touchy. As it is, cranky human nature drives me out on an
+expedition like this--and I'm afraid I am just as cranky as the rest of
+'em, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this!”
+
+The old gentleman hummed a song under his breath and slapped his reins
+against the flanks of the plodding horse to keep time. He came into a
+piece of woodland. He seemed to take cheery and fresh interest in this
+place. He poked his rubicund face out from the shadow of the chaise's
+canopy and peered to right and to left. There was a smile in his puckery
+eyes. When there were trees ahead of him, trees behind him, and trees
+all about he pulled his old horse to a standstill.
+
+He listened, squinted quizzically through the glass of his chaise's rear
+curtain, and then climbed down. From a box at the rear of the vehicle he
+secured various articles of clothing and draped them over his arm.
+There was a frock-coat, not too badly worn, trousers in good repair,
+waistcoat, and a shirt. He also took out of the box a pair of shoes and
+a hat. With this load he went to the roadside and began to rig out a
+fence-post. When the garments were hung on it and the broad-brimmed,
+black, slouch-hat had been jauntily set on top of the post, anybody
+could see that the old gentleman was thus disposing of some of his own
+extra clothing. He was wearing a similar hat and a frock-coat, himself,
+and the decorated post took on a bizarre and slouchy resemblance to its
+decorator.
+
+He went back to the chaise and found a nickel alarm-clock in the box. He
+wound this up carefully and propped it on a rail of the fence near the
+clothing.
+
+Before he could escape from the vicinity of the exhibit and get into
+his chaise a wagon came rattling around the bend of the road. There were
+firkins and jars in the rear of this wagon and the driver was plainly a
+farmer-man.
+
+He pulled up short and then saluted the old gentleman with a stab of
+forefinger at his hat-brim.
+
+“Any trouble, Judge?” he inquired, affably.
+
+“None at all,” replied the old gentleman, edging away from the fully
+garbed fence-post.
+
+“Airing 'em out, hey?” A jab of the forefinger toward the garments.
+
+“No, leaving them out.”
+
+All at once the old gentleman appeared to remember something else. He
+took off his hat and produced a placard. He straightened it and stuck it
+into a crack in a fence-rail. Its legend was “Help Yourself.”
+
+“You're giving them clothes away, are you, Judge Peterson?”
+
+“I am leaving them here for any one who chooses to take them. Do you
+want first pick, Jolson?”
+
+“Not me! I ain't taking charity hand-me-downs from any man, Judge. If
+it's a polite question, why are you giving away your duds this way?”
+
+“I think you have just answered that question, Jolson. I offered you
+these clothes. Your nose went into the air. Other men have acted in the
+same way in the past when I have offered to give a fellow a good suit.
+I don't want to hurt other folks' feelings. I don't want to have my own
+feelings hurt. So, let any man help himself when no one is looking.”
+
+“I'll take the alarm-clock, if you say so,” volunteered Jolson. “It'll
+help to rout me out of bed at milking-time.”
+
+“No, you cannot have the clock, Jolson. I have tinkered it so that
+it will purr a little every half-hour. It will call attention to the
+clothes. You see, a good many men rush through life without looking to
+right or left, and so they miss a lot of opportunities.”
+
+Jolson clucked to his horse and rattled away down the road, muttering
+sour remarks.
+
+The old gentleman, with the air of a man who has satisfied his
+philanthropic ambitions, climbed into his chaise and followed the
+farmer.
+
+The brisk breeze flirted the tails of the frock-coat and the trousers
+legs tried out a modest little gig as if some of the jocose spirit of
+the old gentleman had remained with the garments he had discarded.
+
+There were several passers before another half-hour had elapsed.
+
+The trousers kicked out quite hilariously when a young couple drove by
+in a buggy. The girl was pretty, and companionship with her might have
+suited even a judge's garments. But the young man and the girl were
+quite absorbed in each other, and the trousers kicked and the frock-coat
+flirted ineffectually.
+
+A peddler's cart passed very slowly, but the driver did not look up from
+a paper filled with figures.
+
+There were others to whom the judge's garments offered themselves
+mutely, but no one glanced that way and the clock was discreetly silent.
+The breeze died down and the trousers and the coat hung with a sort of
+homeless, homesick, and wistful air. One might have thought they were
+trying to conceal themselves when the next person appeared, so still
+were they. He was not an inviting person--not such a new lord and master
+as a judge's garments might be expected to welcome.
+
+He was grossly fat and his own trousers were lashed about his bulging
+waist with a frayed belt; his coat was sun-faded, a greasy Scotch cap
+was pulled over to one side on his head with the peak hauled down upon
+his ear, and he scuffed along in boots that were disreputable. Surely, a
+most unseemly and unwholesome character to be wrapped in the habiliments
+of a judge! But just then, with that cursed inappropriateness of
+inanimate things, the clock jangled its alarm.
+
+The tramp--there was no mistaking that gait and that general air of the
+vagrant--snapped himself about, located the noise, stared at the post,
+and then hurried to it. He made sure that there was no one in sight. He
+scooped all into his arms, climbed the fence and trotted into the woods.
+He kept looking behind him as if he feared pursuit. It was plain from
+his disturbed demeanor that he was much perplexed and was chased by the
+uncomfortable thought that he was stealing this property. He bestowed so
+much attention behind him that he paid but little attention to what was
+ahead of him, and so he ran down into a little bowl of a valley among
+the trees and stopped short there, for he had come upon a man.
+
+It was the man who called himself Walker Farr.
+
+The man was kneeling beside a tiny fire, toasting bread on the end of a
+beech twig. He held the twig in one hand and an open book in the other.
+He looked up without changing his position when the tramp came charging
+down the hillside.
+
+He had wide-open, brown eyes, this man in the hollow. The eyes were not
+merely wide open on account of surprise at this irruption--one could see
+that they were naturally that way--keenly observant eyes. He had hair as
+brown as his eyes; his cap was on the ground beside him.
+
+But the tramp was not taking account of the attractions of this
+stranger; he was more interested in searching for flaws.
+
+He had been frightened at first sight of the man--for the tramp had the
+timidity of his kind; now he began to feel cheered. This stranger in the
+hollow had not been shaved recently, his clothing was unkempt, his
+shoes bore the marks of a long hike. He was cooking in the open--plain
+indication of the nomad.
+
+“Well, I say, bo,” chaffed the tramp, shifting from fright to high
+spirit with the hysteria of weak natures. “I'm sure glad to see one of
+the good old sort. I didn't know what I was dropping in on when I fell
+down that hill. But it's all right, hey? I'm on the road. My name is
+Boston Fat, and my monacker is a bean-pot.”
+
+The brown eyes moved slowly from the grinning face to the garments
+heaped in the man's arms. They were cold and critical eyes and there was
+no humor in them.
+
+“I do not do business during my lunch-hours, my man. I do not desire to
+change tailors just yet and I do not buy stolen property.”
+
+His chilliness did not dampen the other's good nature.
+
+“Oh, that's all right, old top. I'm no thief. These clothes were hung
+on a fence-post just above here on the road. I reckon they were only
+waiting for first-comer.”
+
+He dropped the shoes, cocked the hat on his head, and began to fumble
+the garments. The placard dropped out of the folds of the coat and the
+man at the fire craned his neck and read aloud: “Help Yourself.”
+
+“Oh, that's what the paper says, hey? I never learned to read any of the
+modern languages,” confided Boston Fat. “I was too much taken up with
+the dead ones at Harvard. Well, comrade, now you can see for yourself
+that I didn't steal this mess of moth-food. There was the sign right on
+it saying, 'Help Yourself.' It was there, even if I couldn't read it.
+Instinck told me them clothes was for me. I took 'em and came in here.”
+
+He shook out the garments one by one and hung them on a bush, chattering
+his comments. He set the ticking clock on a stump.
+
+The man at the fire slipped a piece of meat between two slabs of toasted
+bread and began to eat. He still held the open book in his hand but his
+eyes were watching the tramp.
+
+The vagrant was orally appraising his find, exhibiting the wisdom of one
+who has begged garments at back doors for the purposes of peddling them
+to second-hand shops.
+
+“A moucher,” observed the man at the fire. He continued aloud, evidently
+and sardonically exercising his vocabulary, plainly enjoying the
+amazement he provoked by his style of language. “The spirit of a stray
+cat at midnight, the tastes of the prowling hyena! The fat thief I saw
+running away into the woods! When such as these began to take to the
+road, knight-errantry vanished from the face of the earth. The varlets
+borrowed the grand idea of care-free itinerancy and debased it, as
+waiters borrow a gentleman's evening dress for their menial uniform, and
+drunken coachmen wear the same head-gear that a duke wears to a wedding!
+Why prove evolution by searching for a man with a tail? The performances
+of human nature must convince any thinking man that we have descended
+from apes!”
+
+The astonished tramp stared for a short time at this person who employed
+such peculiar language--then mumbled an oath and shook his head.
+
+He began to try on the frock-coat, paying scant attention to the other's
+monologue. The coat was a ludicrous misfit; it would not meet over the
+bulging belly; its tails dragged on the fat man's heels.
+
+“If I happened to stand handy by when a Kansas cyclone ripped the
+insides out of a clothing-store only the boys' sizes would drop in the
+same county with me,” grumbled the tramp, working his arms out of the
+sleeves.
+
+“The coat was plainly built for a gentleman,” stated the man at the
+fire. “Therefore it is of no value to you.”
+
+Boston Fat surveyed the stranger with a vicious glint in his little
+eyes, as a pig might stare at a man who had struck it across the snout.
+
+“Good afternoon, perfesser,” he sneered.
+
+“Why 'professor,' my frayed and frowsled Falstaff?”
+
+“There you go with it--showing yourself up out of your own mouth! Words
+a yard long--words that would break a decent man's teeth! You're one of
+these college dudes out on the road getting stuff to write into a book.
+I've heard about your kind. And that kind is getting too thick and
+plenty and you're putting slush all over the real profesh. Quit it and
+go back to college. Don't use me for your book.”
+
+This was reciprocation of derogatory sentiment with a vengeance!
+
+The man at the fire sat back on his haunches. He finished chewing his
+mouthful, regarding the tramp with a languid stare that traveled from
+crown of his head to tip of his battered shoe.
+
+“The only thing about a book that you would be good for,” he said,
+“would be for use in a volume of this sort.” He tapped the book in his
+palm. “Your anatomy could supply the binding. It is bound in pigskin.”
+
+The tramp squealed an oath in the falsetto voice that the weak and the
+flabby possess and took one step forward. The man at the fire came to
+his feet and stood erect. He was tall, and the brown eyes talked for him
+better than threats or bluster. The vagrant shifted his gaze from those
+eyes and backed away.
+
+“If I hadn't been penned in a pie-belt jail all winter up North, and all
+the strength starved out of me,” he whined, “you wouldn't call me a pig
+and get away with it.”
+
+“A person who forces himself into the presence of a gentleman who is
+dining mustn't expect compliments,” stated the stranger.
+
+“You ain't a tramp--not a real one,” snarled Boston Fat.
+
+Farr's eyes glistened; he smiled; he continued to play on this ignoramus
+his satiric pranks of mystifying language:
+
+“More of your lack of acuteness, my fat friend. Because I do not patter
+the flash lingo with you, you appear to take me for a college professor
+in disguise. _You_ are not a real tramp. You are a bum, a loafer, a yeg.
+You never traveled more than two hundred miles away from Hoboken--the
+capital city of hoboes. Have you ever hit the sage-brush trail, hiked
+the milk-and-honey route from Ogden through the Mormon country, decked
+the Overland Express, beaten the blind baggage on the Millionaires'
+Flier? Hey?”
+
+The sullen vagrant blinked stupidly.
+
+“Or have you made the prairie run on the truss of a Wagner freight, or
+thrown a stone at the Fox Train crew, or beaten the face off the Katy
+Shack when he tried to pitch you off a gondola-car?”
+
+“I don't know what you're chewing about,” sneered the fat man.
+
+“Probably not, for you are not a true man of the road. You disgrace the
+name of nomad, you sully an ancient profession. I'll venture to say you
+don't know who Ishmael was.”
+
+“Who said I did?”
+
+“Not I, because I'm not a flatterer. I am going to follow the example of
+the man who cast pearls before swine--I'm going to cast you a pearl from
+one of my own poems. You may listen. It will pass your ears, that's all.
+You cannot contaminate it by taking it in, so I repeat it for my own
+entertainment, to refresh my memory:
+
+     “Of the morrow we take no heed, no care infests the day;
+     Some hand-out gump and a train to jump, a grip on the rods, and
+     away!
+     To the game of grab for gold we give no thought or care.
+     We own with you the arch of blue--our share of God's fresh air.
+     One coin to clear the law, a section of rubber hose.
+     To soften the chafe of a freight-car's truss, our portion of
+     cast-off clothes,
+     And the big wide world is ours--a title made good by right--
+     By mankind's deed to the nomad breed with the taint of the
+     Ishmaelite.
+     Some from the wastes of the sage-brush, some from the orange land,
+     Some from God's own country, dusty and tattered and tanned.
+     Why are we? It's idle to tell you--you'd never understand.
+     To and fro
+     We come and go.
+     Old Father Ishmael's band.”
+
+He leaned back and laughed in the tramp's puzzled face.
+
+“Well, what's the answer?” scoffed Boston Fat.
+
+The other man talked on, humor in his eyes, plainly enjoying this verbal
+skylarking.
+
+“I'm afraid I cannot waste time and breath on you in an attempt to
+answer the riddle of the ages, to explain the wanderlust that sent forth
+the tribes from the Aryan bowl of the birth of the races, my
+corpulent bean-pot. Your blank eyes and your flattened skull suggest a
+discouraging incapacity for information.”
+
+“I don't know what you're gabbing abut. But there's one thing I do know.
+I'll tip 'em off at the next insane-asylum I come to that I met you
+headed north.” The tramp gathered the articles of clothing from the
+bushes and got down on his knees and began to fold them.
+
+The man of the brown eyes stepped forward, laid down his little book,
+picked up the frock-coat and pulled it on, the fat man squealing
+expostulation. With serene disregard of this protest Farr buttoned the
+coat, smoothed it down, and then straightened his shoulders.
+
+“You may see that it was built for a gentleman and that it fits a
+gentleman, friend pork-barrel.”
+
+“You shuck it off and pass it over, that's what you do,” yelped the
+tramp. “It's my coat.”
+
+“It was perfectly apparent that it was not your coat when you tried it
+on.”
+
+“I tell you I found it hanging on a fence-post just above here.”
+
+“That was merely by accident, and you should have passed on and left the
+garments for one whose frame was fitted to wear them. You illustrate
+the curse of modern society. Men are so filled with the greed of getting
+that they grab misfits simply out of passion for possessing.”
+
+“I've stood your slurs ever since I got here, but I'll be jobeefed if
+I'll stand for your swiping my property.”
+
+The man of the brown eyes smiled. His whole demeanor showed that he was
+more than ever hugely enjoying his own verbosity--the florid language
+which was both maddening and mystifying the tramp.
+
+“Further evidence of your mean nature: a gentleman resents an insult
+that steals away his character much more quickly than he resents an act
+that steals mere property. In that little book which I have just laid
+down Shakespeare speaks trenchantly on that matter: 'Who steals my purse
+steals trash . . . but he that filches from me my good name robs me . . .
+and makes me poor indeed.'”
+
+The tramp gave over his work of folding, and awkwardly and cumbersomely
+got upon his feet.
+
+“You take off that coat and hand it over. It's mine--I found it. I can
+stand a crazy man's gab, but when any one tries to do me out of what's
+my own I'll fight.”
+
+“May I ask what you're going to do with these garments of a gentleman
+which have fallen into your hands by accident?”
+
+“I'm going to cash 'em in at the nearest second-hand shop, that's just
+what I'm going to do.”
+
+“Just as you sold the Sunday suit you stole from a poor man! My friend,
+I was insulted that day on account of you. You owe me something!”
+
+Just then the alarm-clock purred a brief signal.
+
+Up to that time the air of the man with the brown eyes had been that of
+banter, of impish desire to harry and confuse by stilted language the
+ignorant stranger who had come blundering upon him.
+
+He stared at the clock, looked down upon the frock-coat, and then
+surveyed the other articles of clothing. He scowled as if he had
+suddenly begun to reflect. Seriousness smoldered in the brown eyes.
+That tinkling touch of metal against metal seemed to change his mood in
+astonishing fashion.
+
+“Ah, it may be morning again, O my soul!” he cried with such tense
+feeling in his voice that the tramp surveyed him with gaping mouth and
+bulging eyes, as one stares at a person suddenly become mad.
+
+“I will talk to you though you will not understand! Once upon a time the
+world was ruled by men who were ruled by omens. Man was then not so wise
+in his own conceit. His own soul was nearer the soul of things. He was
+not a mere gob of bumptiousness covered with the shell of cocksureness.
+He was willing to be informed. He sought the omens of true nature--he
+allowed Fate to guide him. He was not a pig running against the goad of
+circumstances, unheeding the upflung arms of Fortune, waving him toward
+the right path. He was simpler--he was truer. He felt that he was a part
+of nature instead of being boss of nature. Well, I have got nearer to
+true nature since I have been in the open. I am in contact with the
+soul of things. I am no longer insulated. I am not reformed, I am simply
+ready once again to grab Opportunity. So you think I am crazy, do you?”
+
+“They had a gink in a padded cell in the jail where I was last winter
+and he didn't take on much worse'n you,” stated the tramp.
+
+“As a brainless observer you may be quite right. I may be a lunatic. I
+feel much like one just now. It is lunacy to go climbing back to a level
+in society from which I have been kicked. But as I knelt there by
+that little fire, before you came, yearning sprang up in me--and I had
+thought all that sort of yearning was dead in me. A moment later came
+habiliments of a gentleman, borne in the arms of a wretch who could
+not wear them. There came Opportunity. Then the jangle of that clock
+signaled Opportunity--and there was a throb in me as though my sleeping
+soul had rolled and blinked at the sunlight of hope and had murmured,
+'It's morning again.' Such are omens, when one is ready to heed.”
+
+He set his teeth, clenched his fists, and by expression and attitude
+showed that he had arrived at a decision of moment. He walked close
+to the tramp. “I will admit, Friend Belly-brains, that you came upon
+Opportunity before I did this day. But tell me again, are you to make no
+further use of said Opportunity than to run to an old-clothes shop and
+exchange for a few pennies that which will help to make a man?”
+
+“They are mine and I'm going to sell 'em,” retorted the sullen vagrant.
+
+“I am sorry because you have no wit--no power to understand. Otherwise
+you would gladly lay these garments in my hands and bid me Godspeed. You
+don't understand at all, do you?”
+
+“Look here, are you trying to frisk me for these duds?”
+
+“It's all a waste of breath to explain to you that Providence meant
+these things for me. You are not acute enough to understand close
+reasoning. I could not show you that, for the sake of a few coins, which
+would do you only that harm which would come from their value in cheap
+whisky or beer, you might be wrecking the future of a soul that is
+awake. I simply tell you that I shall keep the clothing for myself.
+Perhaps you can understand that plain statement!” The brown eyes became
+resolute and piercing. “Even if I had money I would not pay you for
+these garments. Money does such as you no good; it may bring you
+trouble. My dear Boston Fat, I cannot afford to let you prejudice my
+future, which, so instinct tells me, is wrapped up in those poor things
+of wool and warp.” He snapped a finger into his palm and extended his
+hand. “Give me that hat and then pass on about your business.”
+
+The tramp backed away. His little blinking eyes expressed both fear and
+rebelliousness. More than ever did he resemble a pig at bay. The black
+hat, set on top of his greasy cap and topping with its respectability
+his disreputable general outfit, added a bizarre touch to the scene
+between the two men.
+
+“You think now that you are the injured party,” calmly pursued the man
+of the brown eyes. “You haven't intelligence enough to take my own case
+into account. You are injured because you are losing a few coins--but I
+may be injured in all that gives life its flavor if I do not grasp this
+opportunity.” Both raillery and earnestness dropped out of his tones. He
+became merely matter-of-fact. “I'll make it plain. Trot along about your
+business, fat one, or I shall proceed to pound the face off you and
+then kick you a few rods on your happy way. You deserve it as a thief--I
+worked two weeks as a stone-mason on your account. Do you get me?”
+
+For answer the infuriated vagrant rushed at him and kicked.
+
+With one hand the stranger plucked the hat from the tramp's head and
+sailed it to a place of safety. With the other hand he grabbed the
+attacker's ankle before the foot hit him and with a jerk he laid the
+tramp on his back.
+
+The victim fell so helplessly that the concussion knocked the breath and
+a groan out of him.
+
+The man of the brown eyes had moved languidly and had talked languidly
+till then. When he grabbed the foot he moved with a sort of steel-trap
+efficiency and quickness. He promptly straddled his victim, seated
+himself on the protruding abdomen, and began to beat the man's face. He
+battered the flabby cheeks and punched his fists into the pulpy neck. He
+ground his knees against the fat flanks and redoubled his blows when the
+tramp struggled. After the squalling falsetto had implored for a long
+time, the assailant at last gave over the exercise.
+
+“Are you licked?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” whined the tramp.
+
+“You have stolen--in most dirty style. I whipped you for that job. Now
+will you stay licked for some time?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You'll go on about your own business, will you, without any more
+foolish talk about those garments?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Are you sorry you stole from that good woman who fed you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The man of the brown eyes swung himself off his prostrate victim, as a
+rider dismounts from a horse, and the tramp sat up, moaning and patting
+his purple face.
+
+“I never had no luck, never,” he blubbered. “I was kicked out of jail
+before the weather got warmed up, I was thrown in last fall just when
+the Indian summer was beginning. When other fellows get hand-outs of pie
+I get cold potatoes and bannock bread. I have to walk when other fellows
+ride. I'm too fat for the trucks and they can always see me on the blind
+baggage. I'll keep on walking. I never had no luck in all my life.”
+
+He rolled upon his hands and knees and then stood up. He started away,
+wholly cowed, whining like a quill-pig, bewailing his luck.
+
+“Luck!” the man of the brown eyes shouted after him in a tone which
+expressed anger and regret. “What do you know about luck, you animated
+lard-pail? A thing like you is in luck when he is in jail where there
+is no workshop. Better luck than that is too good for you. Hold on one
+minute! Turn around and look at me.”
+
+The tramp obeyed. The stranger pounded one of those hard fists on his
+own breast.
+
+“I say look at me! No matter what I was once! But to-day you found me
+cooking bacon over three sticks and ready to fight for another man's
+cast-off clothes. And in between whiles I have hiked every path that the
+hobo knows between the oceans. Now jog on and think that over and keep
+your jaw shut on luck! I say jog on! Don't look back. Forget that you
+ever saw me.”
+
+He waved angry gesture and took two steps as though to enforce his
+command with his fists.
+
+The tramp jogged on at a brisk pace. He hurried to the highway and set
+out on his shuffling pilgrimage, rubbing his aching face and muttering
+to himself.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE GIRL WHO GUARDED HER LIPS
+
+The brown eyes of the victor watched the tramp out of sight and for
+some moments surveyed the nick in the undergrowth where the fellow had
+disappeared.
+
+There was no anger in the eyes. There had been none while their
+possessor had been pummeling the wretch. He had beaten the man up in a
+calm, methodical and perfectly business-like manner.
+
+When at last he turned and looked at the clothing he smiled whimsically.
+
+“The perambulating pork-barrel thinks I am crazy,” he mused, looking at
+the frock-coat. He had stripped that garment from his shoulders and had
+tossed it on a bush when he had decided on combat. “If I should stop to
+argue the matter with myself just now I should find myself flattering
+his good judgment. I have robbed a poor devil for a whim. Thank God,
+I went at it brutally and frankly. There was no 'high finance'
+sneak-thieving about that job. I sent him away with his face smarting.
+They sent me away with my soul black-and-blue.”
+
+He gathered the garments, picked up the shoes, put the hat on top of the
+pile on his arm, and went farther into the woods, following the course
+of a tiny stream of water. This stream led him to a pool. It was
+tree-bordered, it was a center gem in a dim alcove in the forest, it was
+as secret as a private chamber. The pool was glassy, for the winds were
+still in the tree-tops.
+
+The man laid down his burden. He stripped off his own well-worn coat and
+shirt, and secured a razor and stick of soap from the scattered articles
+he dumped from the coat pocket. He kneeled on the brink of the pool,
+leaned over and shaved himself carefully, using the glassy surface as
+a mirror. Then he put off his other clothing, the mean garments of a
+vagrant, and plunged into the pool.
+
+When he came forth from the water and dried himself with his discarded
+shirt, he revealed himself to the birds whom his splashings had
+attracted to the branches above the pool. If the birds' twitterings were
+comments on his appearance, they must have been admiring comments. The
+man's skin was white and he was lithe and tense and muscular. Breeding
+showed in him as it shows in the muscles and conformation of a
+race-horse. When he was dried he threw down the makeshift towel and
+combed his shock of brown hair with his fingers. Now that the bristle of
+beard was off his face he looked younger.
+
+From the pile of clothing he selected his outfit, garment by garment.
+The jovial humor of the judge had provided complete equipment for a man.
+In the breast pockets of the frock-coat there were a clean collar, a
+necktie, and a freshly laundered handkerchief.
+
+By the time he had finished his dressing the pool was still and glassy
+once more. He flirted out the handkerchief, holding it by one corner,
+and swept the soft fabric around and around the crown of the black hat.
+
+He carefully set the hat on his head and leaned over the pool and took
+an interested peep at himself.
+
+“You are a fool in this matter,” he informed the reflection. “And I
+wonder why you are determined to persist in the folly. The man
+Chick's tin suit cannot bring as much trouble to him as this garb of
+respectability may bring to you. For no man can step up to that poor
+Quaker and touch his shoulder and say--”
+
+He broke off. He began to search through his discarded garments and to
+stow his few possessions into the pockets of his new attire.
+
+“All folly!” ran his thoughts. “I am consumed with it all of a sudden.
+I have ranted to a tramp. Now I rant at myself. I am sloughing the rags
+that have protected me. All folly!”
+
+His searching fingers, groping to the deepest corner of a pocket,
+found the crumbling fragments of a dried rose. He narrowed his eyes and
+surveyed it as it lay in his palm, and then made as if to toss it into
+the pool. But he checked the gesture. He set his chin in his hands and
+communed aloud with himself after the fashion of those who hold aloof
+from mankind:
+
+“Folly, little sister! I may as well be truthful! Two dark eyes which
+gave me the first honest, unafraid, and frank gaze I've had from a maid
+in two years, two red lips which said 'Please' and 'Thank you'! A flash
+of a glance behind her which called me, even if she did not mean it as
+a call--and so, on I fare in a lunatic's dream. Own up! I have dreamed
+that some day I will see her again. And down in the depths of me stirs
+that impulse of the male which makes the peacock spread his feathers
+and silly man perk in front of a mirror. Why not give in to the sense
+of heredity once in a while even though it means beating up a tramp and
+making myself more of a mark for human eyes?”
+
+He rolled the old clothes into a bundle and stuffed them under the roots
+of a tree. Then he strolled away leisurely, and when he as in the wider
+stretches of the wood where the light was better he pulled a small book
+from his pocket and read as he walked.
+
+The volume was _Sartor Resartus_. His eyes happened to find this passage
+and he smiled as he read:
+
+
+All visible things are emblems. Hence clothes, as despicable as we think
+them, are so unspeakably significant. Clothes, from the King's mantle
+downward, are emblematic not of want only but of a manifold cunning
+victory over want. Men are properly said to be clothed with authority,
+clothed with beauty, with curses and the like. It is written, the
+Heavens and the Earth shall fade away like a vesture; which indeed
+they are: the time vesture of the Eternal. Whatsoever sensibly exists,
+whatsoever represents spirit to spirit, is properly a clothing, a suit
+of raiment, put on for a season and to be laid off. Thus in this one
+pregnant subject of clothes, rightly understood, is included all that
+men have thought, dreamed, done, and been; the whole Eternal Universe
+and what it holds is but clothing; and the essence of all science lies
+in the Philosophy of Clothes.
+
+
+From time to time he looked down upon himself complacently.
+
+When he came near a glade in the wood he heard the chatter of the voices
+of a merry party and he saw picnickers, men and women, gathered about
+hampers. Automobiles were parked at a little distance, and he made a
+detour to avoid the scene.
+
+He emerged upon an animated tableau of modern nymph and modish satyr
+in a close-by forest aisle. The girl was flushed and disheveled and was
+resisting a young man who had pushed aside her veil and was kissing her
+with ardor. She beat him back with her gloved hands and eluded him, but
+he caught her to him with more of rough passion than tender affection.
+
+“We are engaged to be married,” he insisted. “Why shouldn't I kiss you?
+Don't be a prude!”
+
+She thrust her protesting palms against him and set her arms rigidly and
+held her head away, not with coyness, but with indignation and fierce
+rebellion.
+
+“I love you! My God, can't you understand?” he gasped. “I can't keep my
+hands off you. You can't handle a man as you're trying to handle me. I
+must have some affection from you!”
+
+“Richard! I'll not endure this! I am insulted!”
+
+“My kisses an insult? I'm no ice-water lover. You set me crazy. I can't
+help myself.”
+
+She wrenched herself from his grasp and faced him, her face filled with
+outraged fury.
+
+Farr had started to leave the scene. He stopped. The girl was the girl
+of the red lips and the dark eyes.
+
+“Don't touch me!” she cried. “The only promise you have had from me,
+Richard, is the one my mother has fairly forced from me. I am trying
+honestly to like you. I will please my mother and you if I can.”
+
+“That's a devil of a thing to say to a man who loves you as I do,” he
+declared, with anger.
+
+“That is all I can say just now. But if you use me again as you would
+pull and haul a girl of the streets, I'll despise you. I give you
+warning.”
+
+“What sort of books have you been reading, Kate?” he asked,
+sarcastically. “Where did you get your idea of what love-making is?
+They don't sing serenades under windows these days. They don't kiss
+finger-tips and write mush poems. I am going to tell you a few things
+you ought to know, as a girl engaged to be married.”
+
+Farr stood close by them and in plain sight, but their absorption in
+their struggle had left them attention only for each other. He knew
+that if he started away while they were talking his presence would be
+promptly noted and undoubtedly misjudged.
+
+He set his finger between the leaves of his book and took his hat in his
+hand.
+
+“Your pardon!” he pleaded. “I stumbled here quite by accident. Please
+suspend conversation on private matters until I can walk out of
+earshot.”
+
+He stared straight into the eyes of the girl and once more received from
+her that frank and wondering gaze which had touched him so strangely
+when he had seen her first on the broad highway. His face was white
+under the tan. His hands trembled as he replaced his hat. In his
+heart he was saying farewell to her and his eyes expressed some of his
+emotion.
+
+“You may take your own time, sir,” said the girl. “This gentleman and
+I have finished our conversation.” She passed Farr, looking him up and
+down with increasing curiosity and dawning recognition, and when her
+escort called to her impatiently, she caught her skirts around her and
+ran toward the glade where the others of the party were chattering over
+their hampers.
+
+The lover started away slowly and sullenly on her trail, with only a
+glance at this blundering stranger.
+
+“No, they do not sing serenades under windows any more--nor has the
+stone age returned with its love-making manners,” remarked Farr, his
+lips trembling and his emotion still in his eyes. “There are some
+manners which were worse, however, than knocking maidens down with
+clubs.”
+
+The other man snapped himself around on his heels.
+
+“Damn you, you're that fresh hobo! I don't forget a man who shoots off
+low-down sneers at me. Here! You come back here! I want to ask a few
+questions, my man.”
+
+Farr continued on his way, opening his book.
+
+“If I ever see you again--” blustered the lover.
+
+“I sincerely hope that will never happen,” remarked the stranger,
+without turning his head. “Instinct of the purely animal sort tells me
+that if our paths cross in this life it will be very bad for one or the
+other.”
+
+When Farr was in the highway he fumbled in his pocket and found the
+withered rose. He tossed it away among the roadside bushes.
+
+But after he had gone on his way for some distance he retraced his steps
+and hunted in the bushes for a long time on his hands and knees until he
+found the poor little keepsake.
+
+He put it carefully into the deepest pocket he could find in his newly
+acquired habiliments and trudged on down the world.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A MAN ON FOOT AND A MAN IN HIS CHARIOT
+
+A blatant orator, haranguing passionately, attracted two new auditors.
+
+A tall young man sauntered to the edge of the little group in the square
+and listened with a smile which indicated cynical half-interest.
+
+An automobile halted on the opposite side of the group. A big man sat
+alone in the tonneau.
+
+He began to scowl as he listened.
+
+The young man continued to smile.
+
+The big man was plainly a personality. He was cool and crisp in summer
+flannels--as immaculate as the accoutrements of his car.
+
+In face and physique the young man was plainly not of that herd near
+which he stood.
+
+His glance crossed that of the man in the car; he met the scowl with his
+smile.
+
+Like a kiln open to the hot glare from a brassy sky or an oven where the
+July caloric blazed like a blast from the open mouth of a retort--such
+that day seemed Moosac Square in the heart of the cotton-mill city. High
+buildings closed in its treeless, ill-paved, dirty area. The air, made
+blistering by the torch of the sun, beat back and forth between the
+buildings in shimmering waves.
+
+In the center of the square the blatant orator balanced himself on a
+stone trough which was arid and dust-choked. He harangued the group of
+unkempt men; sweating, blinking, apathetic men; slouchy men; men who
+were ticketed in attire and demeanor with all the squalid marks of
+idlers, vagrants, and the unemployed.
+
+The man on the trough was of the ilk of the men who surrounded him. His
+face was flaming with the heat and with his vocal efforts. Perspiration
+streamed into his eyes, his voice was hoarse with shouting, but he had
+the natural eloquence of the demagogue. He was delivering the creed
+of the propaganda of rebellious poverty, the complaints of the
+dissatisfied, the demands of the idle agitators. He spiked his diatribe
+with threats flavored by anarchy. He pointed to policemen who had taken
+refuge in strips of shade which had been cast grudgingly by the high
+buildings. He reminded his hearers that those policemen had just driven
+them out of the tree-shaded parks. There the selfish rich folks were
+loafing under the trees. Poor folks were herded down the street and were
+forced to hold this meeting in that Gehenna, so he averred.
+
+The man in the automobile muttered impatient words. Then he shouted,
+breaking in on the impassioned anathema which the orator addressed to
+the rich: “Stop lying to these men--stirring them up. The parks are for
+the people. You can go there--all you men can go there--if you'll go
+without making a disturbance.”
+
+“If men in these days open their mouths to speak for their human rights
+it's a disturbance,” retorted the demagogue. “If we go up to the park
+and sit there and tremble like rabbits you rich men will let us stay
+there--perhaps! But we don't have as many rights there as the rabbits,
+for the rabbits are allowed to step on the grass.”
+
+“You've got to obey the law like other citizens--you will not be allowed
+to disturb decent and respectable people. You and men like you must stop
+putting foolish notions in the heads of loafers in this city.”
+
+“Then put something into our mouths--give us food. Why are we loafers?”
+
+“Because you won't go to work. I'll give every able-bodied man here
+all the work he wants. Apply at the office of the Consolidated Water
+Company--now.”
+
+“What's the work?” inquired a man in the crowd.
+
+“Digging trenches for water-pipes. How many men want that work? Hold up
+hands.”
+
+“It ain't work for human beings in this weather,” snarled the man who
+had inquired. No hands were raised.
+
+“That's your style!” blazed the big man. The policemen had sauntered
+into the square and their presence was reassuring. He stood up and began
+to lecture them.
+
+“And them's the kind of lord dukes that's running this country
+to-day--own it and run it,” growled a slouchy fellow who stood near the
+tall young man. “They ain't willing to give a poor man a show.”
+
+“He has just offered you a show--all of you,” stated the young man.
+
+“Yes, a Guinea job for white men.”
+
+“You're picking a poor excuse for being a loafer, my friend.”
+
+“Who says I'm a loafer?”
+
+The young man shot out his hands and grasped the fellow's elbow and
+hand. The arm was flabby, the palm was soft. He doubled back the fingers
+and exhibited the palm to the crowd.
+
+“I don't find any labor medals here, men. Is there anybody in the crowd
+who can show some?” He released the struggling, cursing captive.
+
+“What's labor medals?” inquired a bystander.
+
+The big man was still denouncing them from his car, but the group paid
+little attention now.
+
+“Callous spots in the place where a working-man ought to wear them. And
+that place isn't on the tongue.”
+
+“Are you sneering at us because we can't get a job?”
+
+“You're a loafer yourself, and anybody can see it,” declared another.
+
+The young man raised his arms, showing them his palms.
+
+“I carry a few labor medals,” he returned, curtly.
+
+“Why ain't you on your job? The lord dukes won't give you one?”
+
+“_When_ I work and _where_ I work is my own business, so long as I don't
+beg food at back doors.”
+
+“Do _we_?”
+
+They had crowded around him and menaced him with murmurings and
+glowering gaze.
+
+“I should say so,” he replied, giving them an indifferent going-over
+with his cold eyes. “You carry all the marks.”
+
+Then he shouldered his way out from among them, displaying the air of
+one who found further discourse unprofitable.
+
+He strolled leisurely in the direction of the big man in the car. The
+crowd he had left stared after him without presuming to voice taunt or
+reply; there was something compelling about him.
+
+As Farr approached the automobile its owner stopped talking and stared
+at the tall stranger with some apprehension. Then the big man beckoned
+unobtrusively to a policeman. It was evident that Farr was not of
+the same sort as the ruck of men from among whom he had just emerged,
+nevertheless he had come from among them. The lordly man in the car had
+observed him moving in the group, for Farr had loomed above the heads of
+the others; what he had been saying to the malcontents the big man had
+not been able to hear, but he guessed.
+
+“Some sort of sneak has been stirring up the fools in this city lately,”
+ the aristocrat informed the officer who came promptly to the side of the
+car. “Who is this fellow coming?”
+
+“I never saw him before, Colonel Dodd.”
+
+“Stand by! He is going to tackle me and make a grand-stand play in front
+of his gang. His clothes give him away--a loafing demagogue!”
+
+But the tall man did not pause at the car or even glance at the
+dignitary who occupied it. He seemed to have lost all interest in the
+occasion. He yawned as he passed the automobile and started away across
+the square.
+
+“Here, you! You big chap!” called Colonel Dodd, promptly emboldened.
+
+Farr halted and turned, his countenance showing mild inquiry.
+
+“What do you mean by coming into a peaceable city and stirring up labor
+troubles?”
+
+“Have I done so?”
+
+“You have just been mixing and mingling with those men, talking to them.
+I know your kind.”
+
+“Ah, a gentleman of keen discernment!”
+
+“I have seen you before--you fellows with long-tailed coats and
+short-horned ideas. We don't want your kind in this city!”
+
+“I seem to have made a prompt sensation without trying to do so,”
+ returned Farr, meekly. “I have been in your city less than fifteen
+minutes, sir!”
+
+“You're a traveling labor-agitator, aren't you?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“But I just saw you circulating among those men. Your rig-out shows your
+character!”
+
+“You mean these garments I wear?”
+
+“Certainly! A frock-coat helps out your pose before an ignorant public.”
+
+“He stole that coat from me,” squeaked a fat man, standing at a little
+distance, scrubbing a torn sleeve over his grimy, sweat-streaked face.
+“He picked it fair off'n my back. I have follered him to show him up as
+a robber and a fake. That's so help me!”
+
+Riotous laughter from all the listeners followed that declaration;
+a glance at the tubby tramp and survey of the tall young man whose
+contours fitted the garments made the fat man's assertion seem like a
+huge joke.
+
+“I can prove it!” squalled the vagrant.
+
+“Beat it! Get out of this city!” commanded a policeman. “If you
+don't we'll have you on the rock-pile. What ye mean by such guff?” He
+flourished his stick and the tramp hurried away.
+
+“It's no use,” he whined. “Grab and bluff! Him what can do it best
+always wins. That's the way the world goes!”
+
+“When I took these clothes off the back of my vanishing friend I felt
+that they would make a change in my life,” stated Farr, with a smile
+which provoked more laughter. “But I did not dream that they would bring
+me such prominence in so short a time.” He bowed to the man in the car.
+
+But Colonel Dodd was angry and insistent and did not join in the
+merriment.
+
+“I say you are a labor-agitator. Any man who won't go to work himself
+has no right to be stirring up other workers against their own
+interests. You may as well own up to me, my man. These men standing
+around here know what you are--you have been talking with them. Outside
+of stirring trouble, you don't work, do you?”
+
+“Oh yes, my lord!”
+
+There was smiling mockery in the tone, almost insolence. He seemed to
+be willing to display to the rich man the same lack of respect he had
+displayed to the poor men who stood near and listened to this colloquy.
+
+“Oh, you do?” Colonel Dodd raised his voice. “Listen sharp, my men! Do
+you want to be led around by the noses by a man who doesn't work? This
+gentleman is going to tell us what his job is!” He sneered when he said
+it.
+
+“I am an assiduous toiler in my profession, your excellency. I am
+surprised that as an employer you do not recognize a real worker when
+you see one.”
+
+This tone of raillery and this stilted manner of speech promptly caught
+the fancy of the throng. The men crowded more closely and the orator on
+the trough was silent.
+
+“What do you work at?”
+
+“I am an architect, your gracious highness.”
+
+“Less of that insolence in the way of names, my friend! An architect,
+eh? Well, what did you ever build?”
+
+“I laid out Dream Avenue in the boom city of Expectation and built on
+that thoroughfare a magnificent row of castles in the air. If you had a
+bit more imagination I might try to sell you something in my line. But
+it is useless, I see! Farewell!”
+
+He swept off his broad-brimmed hat with a deep bow, backed away a few
+steps, and bowed again and went on his way. The crowd guffawed. This
+baiting of the city's labor magnate had most agreeably scratched their
+itching sense of resentment.
+
+“I don't know who that josher is, but I hate to lose him out of town,”
+ confided the orator on the trough to those near him.
+
+“I never saw that fellow before, but I'll pinch him if you say so,
+Colonel Dodd,” volunteered the policeman. “Do you make complaint?”
+
+“No,” snapped the colonel, glowering on the broad back which was
+swinging across the square in retreat. He told his chauffeur to drive
+on.
+
+When the car passed Farr the colonel flicked cigar ashes which alighted
+in a spray of dust on the sleeve of the frock-coat.
+
+“Bah!” said the colonel, shooting the young man a scowl.
+
+Farr gave in return a smile, but it was not a particularly genial smile.
+
+The young man went on his way leisurely; by his gait, by his frequent
+and somewhat prolonged pauses at shop windows, by his indifferent
+starings at traffic and pedestrians, it was plain that he had little of
+moment on his mind.
+
+He bought a penny glass of water at a corner kiosk.
+
+“Do you mind telling me,” he asked the vender, “Who is Colonel Dodd of
+this city? I am a stranger and I have just overheard the name.”
+
+The man grinned. “If it wasn't for Colonel Symonds Dodd I wouldn't be
+making much of a living here, selling spring-water. He is president of
+the Consolidated.”
+
+“And that means?”
+
+“Why, it means that he is boss of the water trust that owns the system
+in this city and in all the other cities and towns of this state. And
+they pump all of their water out of the rivers because the lakes are so
+far off, and nobody drinks that water unless he has to or don't know any
+better. Colonel Dodd? Why, he bosses the whole state, they tell me.”
+
+“I gathered that he was important,” said the young man, and walked on.
+
+He was held up in the passing crowd at a street corner for a few moments
+because a parade of some half-dozen automobiles whirled past. The cars
+were decorated with banners, and the wild flowers and other spoil of
+forest and field in the arms of the ladies indicated that this was a
+party returning from a picnic in the suburbs.
+
+“Would you mind telling me,” asked Farr of the policeman who was
+guarding the corner, “who that young man is--the one there in the gray
+automobile?”
+
+“With the bleached blonde and the pretty girl?” asked the officer. “Oh,
+that's Colonel Dodd's nephew--Dicky Dodd. Of course you know who the
+colonel is.”
+
+“Yes,” said Farr. He opened his mouth to ask another question, for the
+policeman seemed to be of the obliging sort. Then he closed his lips
+resolutely and marched along.
+
+“What's the use?” he muttered. “Two dark eyes and a red mouth--and I am
+almost forgetting how to be a philosopher.”
+
+Farther down the city thoroughfare he met one who had claimed to be
+a philosopher. It was Jared Chick, stalking along the sidewalk in his
+home-made armor. He held a box of stove-polish in one hand and a brush
+in the other, and as he strolled he was giving his corselet and such
+parts of the armor as he could handily reach a glossy coat--a gleaming
+and burnished surface. On his helmet in place of a crest Knight Chick
+bore aloft a metal banneret inscribed, “Invincible Stove Polish.”
+
+“And the mission?” asked Farr, halting his quondam companion, who had
+been too intent upon his business to pay heed to passers.
+
+“I find thee changed, and no doubt thee, too, finds me changed,” sighed
+Mr. Chick.
+
+The mouth of an alley between high buildings afforded a retreat and the
+breeze blew there fitfully, and Mr. Chick stepped to that oasis of shade
+in the glare of sunshine.
+
+“I have been obliged to modify my mission in some degree. I must confess
+that to thee,” he said. “This is a strange and wicked world.”
+
+“Didn't you know it before you gave up a good blacksmith business to go
+out in the hot sun and suffer torment, all for nothing?”
+
+“It is very hard work,” acknowledged Chick, showing his flushed and
+streaming face under his vizor. “If I were not used to the fires of the
+forge I think I would fall down and die. But I must keep on.”
+
+“But you are simply an advertising-sign.”
+
+“I have modified my mission. I have not given up, however. I will tell
+thee! I found a man beside the way--a man who had been drinking strong
+waters and whose pockets had been turned wrong side out. So I took him
+to a tavern and I sat with him through the night, and nursed him when he
+suffered, and revealed my mission when he awoke. 'I am out to do good
+to all men,' I told him, and he searched through his pockets with
+blasphemy, and he said that I had done him--and he haled me before
+the court, and the judge said that no man could publicly profess such
+disinterestedness and escape suspicion, because people in these days
+are all looking for the main chance. So he did not believe me and he
+sentenced me to the jail. But a good Samaritan interceded for me and
+took me from behind the bars, and now in the spirit of gratitude I am
+repaying him; he makes and sells this stove-polish.”
+
+“That man is evidently shrewd in business and a good advertiser,”
+ commented Farr.
+
+“I find that I get along much better in the world,” asserted the
+knight-errant. “Now that I carry an advertising-sign my armor attracts
+no rude mobs. I can go abroad and do good to a foolish world; I can use
+the stipend my good benefactor allows to me for my work and I can help
+poor folks here and there. Therefore, I am content with my modified
+mission. Is thee more at peace with the world?”
+
+“I ought to be, after hearing you say that _you_ are contented,” said
+Farr, with irony.
+
+“Thee has manifestly improved thy condition, so I observe.”
+
+“It often happens in this world, Friend Chick, that the sleeker we are
+on the outside, the more ragged we are within. I think I'll move on. I
+might say something to jar your sense of sublime content. I'd be sorry
+to do that. Real contentment is a rare thing and must be handled very
+carefully.”
+
+“I fear thee loves thyself too much,” chided the Quaker. “Affection for
+somebody might make thee happy, my friend.”
+
+Farr choked back the comment that occurred to him in regard to love and
+walked away.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE RAKE WHICH GROPED IN DARK WATERS
+
+The afternoon was waning, but the hot bowl of the sky seemed to shut
+down over the city more closely.
+
+Farr held to the shaded sides of the streets, and yearned for a patch of
+green and a tree and its shade.
+
+At last he came into a section of the city where vast mills, one
+succeeding another in rows which vanished in the distance, clacked
+their everlasting staccato of hurrying looms, venting clamor from
+the thousands of open windows. A canal of slow-moving, turbid water
+intersected the city and fed its quota of power to each mill. The fenced
+bank of the canal was green; and elms, languid in the fierce heat,
+gave shade here and there with wilted leaves. The masses of brick which
+inclosed the toilers within the mills puffed off tremulous heat-waves
+and suggested that humanity must be baking in those gigantic ovens.
+
+A high fence interposed between the canal and the street; the mill lawn
+which extended between the canal and the shimmering brick walls was also
+inclosed. Signs posted on the fence warned trespassers not to venture.
+
+A bridge carried the street across the canal, and Farr stood there for a
+time and watched the swirl of the water below. Then he sauntered on and
+surveyed the expanse of mill lawn with appraising and envious gaze.
+
+The young man climbed the canal fence, exhibiting more of his cool
+contempt for authority by helping himself over the sharp spikes with
+the aid of a “No Trespassing” sign. The sickly odor of raw cotton came
+floating to his nostrils from the open windows. He strolled to the
+head of a transverse canal which sucked water from the main stream.
+A sprawling tree shaded a foot-worn plank where an old man, with bent
+shoulders and a withered face, trudged to and fro, clawing down into the
+black waters with a huge rake. He was the rack-tender--it was his task
+to keep the ribs of the guarding rack clear of the refuse that came
+swirling down with the water, for flotsam, if allowed to lodge, might
+filch some of the jealously guarded power away from the mighty turbines
+which growled and grunted in the depths of the wheel-pits. With rake in
+one hand and a long, barbed pole in the other the old man bent over the
+bubbling torrent that the rack's teeth sucked hissingly between them.
+Bits of wood, soggy paper, an old umbrella, all manner of stuff which
+had been tossed into the canal by lazy folks up-stream, he raked and
+pulled up and piled at the end of his foot-bridge.
+
+“Hy, yi, old Pickaroon!” came a child's shrill voice from a mill window.
+“There's a tramp under your tree.”
+
+The old man raised his head from his work at the rack.
+
+“You must not come on dis place,” he cried, with a strong
+French-Canadian accent.
+
+“Who says so?” inquired the stranger, putting his back against the tree
+and stretching out his legs.
+
+“I--Etienne Provancher.”
+
+“And I--my worthy alien--I am Walker Farr from Nowhere. Now that we have
+been properly introduced I will sit here and rest. I am here because I
+love the soothing sound of babbling waters on a hot day. Go about your
+work. I'll watch you. I love surprises. Who knows what next you'll draw
+forth from the depths of fate?
+
+“I can have you arrest!” cried the old man.
+
+The uninvited guest took off his broad-brimmed hat, laid it across
+his knees, and ran his hand through his shock of brown hair; it curled
+damply over his forehead and, behind, reached down nearly to his
+coat-collar, hiding his tanned neck. In some men that length of hair
+might have seemed affectation. It gave this man, as he sat there
+uncovered, that touch of the unusual which separates the person
+of strong individuality from the mere mob. Then he smiled on old
+Etienne--such a warm, radiant, compelling, disarming sort of smile that
+the rack-tender turned to his work again, muttering. His mouth twitched
+and the crinkles in his withered face deepened.
+
+Walker Farr found a comfortable indentation in the tree-trunk and
+settled his head there.
+
+“How much do you get a week for doing that, Etienne?” he inquired, with
+cool assurance.
+
+The old man glance sideways sharply, but the smile won him.
+
+“Six dollaire.”
+
+“After supporting your family, what do you do with the rest of the money
+these generous mill-owners allow you?”
+
+“I never was marry.”
+
+The young man looked up at the mill windows where childish heads were
+bobbing to and fro.
+
+“That was poor judgment, Etienne. You might have married and have a
+dozen children now, working hard for you in the mill. Just like those
+children yonder.”
+
+The old man came to the end of his foot-bridge and flung down his rake
+and his pike-pole.
+
+The sudden emotions of his Gallic forebears swept through him. His
+features worked, his voice was high with passion.
+
+“Ba gar, I don't sleep the night because I think about dem poor childs.
+Dem little white face, dem arm, dem leg--all dry up--not so big as
+chicken leg. And all outdoor free to odder childs--not to them childs
+up dere.” He shook his fists at the mill windows. And some child who
+saw the motion, getting a hasty peep from a widow, squealed, “Hi yi, old
+Pickaroon!”
+
+“It doesn't pay to get too excited over the sorrows of the world, my
+friend,” drawled the young man under the tree. “It doesn't do any good;
+and then somebody calls you names. I was something like you once. But
+I've changed my philosophy. I have hypnotized my altruism. Now I'm
+perfectly happy.”
+
+Etienne stared without understanding these big words. But he had often
+told himself that he never expected to understand Yankee speech very
+well. He worked alone; he lived alone in his garret in the tenement
+block; he talked but little with any person. But this young man with
+the wonderful smile seemed to inspire him to talk--even to the extent of
+revealing his secrets.
+
+He lowered his voice. “Thirty year I have work here. I live way up in
+the little room. Bread I eat with lard on it. It costs little. Of the
+six dollaire I save much. Ah, _oui_! Hist! Not for me I save it. Ah,
+_non_! To the priest I give it. To the good priest. And the poor childs
+what are sick--he send 'em to the farm--to have some outdoors. But I
+don't sleep the night because I think the dollaire come so slow--and so
+many poor childs are sick.”
+
+He picked up his rake and pike and went back to his labor.
+
+The man under the tree did not lose his smile.
+
+“Yonder is a brand of altruism that cannot be hypnotized or modified
+like Knight Chick's, I fear,” he muttered. “You'd have to hit it on the
+head--kill it with sticks! And my definition of philanthropy has always
+been, 'giving away something you don't want in order to get yourself
+advertised.' Etienne is interesting. He is the only philanthropist I
+have even found who will eat lard instead of butter so as to save more
+for his philanthropy.” Now his smile grew hard. “Don't dare to open your
+eyes, Altruism,” he commanded. “I saw the lids quiver a minute ago while
+that old man was talking, but remember you're hypnotized.”
+
+He saw the rack-tender lay down his pike so as to give both hands to his
+big rake.
+
+He was pulling at something heavier than the ordinary flotsam--something
+far below the surface of the water. At last it broke through the black
+surface of the turbid flood. To Walker Farr, glancing carelessly, it
+seemed like a bedraggled bundle of rags with something white at the end.
+
+“You come help, m'sieu',” called old Etienne. “It is a dead woman.”
+
+Together they pulled the rake's dread burden slowly up the bars of the
+rack.
+
+“You seem pretty cool about this,” gasped the young man.
+
+“It is no new thing. Many drown themselves--they drown in the canal so
+they will be found. Women and girls, they drown themselves. So! Help me
+carry her.”
+
+Farr gazed down on her after she had been laid on the canal bank. She
+was young, but thin and work-worn.
+
+“Weaver,” commented old Etienne, laying back on her breast one of the
+hands he had lifted. “There's the marks on the fingers where she have
+tie so many knots so quick.”
+
+There was a key on her breast; it was secured by a cord that passed out
+of sight between the buttons on her waist. Farr stooped and pulled on
+the key. A folded paper came with the key; the other end of the cord was
+tied around the paper.
+
+“You must not--it is for the coroner,” protested Etienne. “I know the
+law--I have drag up so many.”
+
+“My besetting sin is curiosity,” declared the young man, his calm
+impertinence unruffled. He pulled the wet paper from the noose of the
+cord. “We'll read this together.”
+
+“I cannot read,” confessed the rack-tender. “You shall read it to me.”
+ His little black eyes gleamed now with curiosity of his own. “I shall be
+glad to hear. The coroner he never read to me.”
+
+The water had spread the ink and spotted the paper, but Farr was able to
+decipher the missive. He read aloud:
+
+
+“'My head has grown bad since my husband died. It is grief, the awful
+heat, the work at the looms. They said if I would give my little girl
+away she could go to the country and grow well. But I could not give her
+up for ever. I could not earn the money to send her to board. I could
+not earn the money except to buy us bread here in the tenement block.
+And my bad head has been telling me it's best to kill myself and take
+her with me. So I kill myself before my head grows so bad that I might
+take away my little girl's life. It belongs to her and I hope she may
+be happy. Will somebody take her and give her happiness? It is wicked to
+kill myself, but my head is so bad I cannot think out the right way to
+do. This is the key to the room in Block Ten.
+
+“'MRS. ELISIANE SIROIS.
+
+“'Her name is Rosemarie.'”
+
+
+Walker Farr finished reading and stared into the glittering eyes of the
+old man.
+
+Etienne Provancher swore roundly and furiously--the strange, hard oaths
+that his ancestors had brought from the Normandy of the seventeenth
+century.
+
+“So you shall see--it is as I have say.” He shook his fists again at the
+mill. Its open windows vomited the staccato chatterings of the
+myriad looms. “It chews up the poor people. Hear its dam' teeth go
+chank--chank--chank!”
+
+“The Gallic imagination is always active,” said Farr, joggling the key
+at the end of the cord and eyeing it with peculiar interest. “But in
+this case it seems to picture conditions pretty accurately. I wonder
+just what a visitor would find inside the door that this key fits!”
+
+“You shall go tell them at the office of the mill,” commanded Etienne.
+“Tell them they have killed another. They will telephone for the
+coroner. I will give the paper and the key when he come.” He held out
+his hand. “It is the law.”
+
+“I have a natural hankering--sometimes--to break the law,” affirmed the
+young man. “I feel that fatal curiosity of mine stirring again, Friend
+Etienne. I will send the coroner. But coroners love mysteries. If we
+give him the letter it will take all the spice out of this affair. Let's
+make him happy--he can drag out the inquest and give his friends a long
+job on the jury.” He smiled and started away, shaking his head when the
+old man protested shrilly. “Better say nothing about this letter and
+the key. You'll get into trouble for letting a stranger come in here and
+carry away evidence. Better keep out of the law, Etienne.” He grabbed
+the “No Trespassing” sign for a hand-hold and climbed over the fence.
+“I'll come back and tell you, Etienne. But keep mum,” he advised.
+
+“It is his smile--it makes me break the law,” mumbled the old man.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE KEY TO A DOOR IN BLOCK TEN
+
+Walker Farr gave the first policeman--a fat and sweltering individual--a
+piece of gruesome news and in return casually asked the location of
+Block Ten.
+
+The policeman grudgingly growled the information over his shoulder while
+waiting for the station to answer the call from his box.
+
+The young man, taking his time, found the place at last, one in an
+interminable row of tenement-houses, all identical in structure and
+squalor, bearing the mark of corporation niggardliness in their cheap
+lumber and stingy accommodations.
+
+The hallway that Farr entered was narrow and stifling--stale odors of
+thousands of dead-and-gone boiled dinners mingled there, and a stairway
+with a greasy handrail invited him. The key bore a number. He hunted
+till he found a room, far up, flight after flight. Through open doors he
+saw here and there aged women or doddering old men who were guardians of
+dirty babes who tumbled about on the bare floors.
+
+“Either too old to run a loom or too young to lug a bobbin,” Farr
+informed himself; “that's why they aren't in the mill.”
+
+Old folks and babes stared at him without showing interest.
+
+No one looked at him when he opened the door in which the key fitted.
+
+He stepped in quickly and closed and locked the door behind him.
+
+It was a little room and pitifully bare, and it was under the roof, and
+the ceiling slanted across it so sharply that the young man, tall above
+the average, was compelled to bow his head.
+
+A little girl, a wraith of a child, pale with the pallor of a prisoner,
+hardly more than a toddler, sat on the floor and stared up at the
+intruder, frozen, silent, immobile with the sudden, paralyzing terror
+that grasps the frightened child. Pathetically poor little playthings
+were scattered about her: a doll fashioned from gingham and
+cotton-waste, makeshift dishes of pasteboard, a doll-carriage made from
+a broken flower-basket with spools for wheels. The man who entered saw
+all with one glance and understood that here in this bare room this
+child had been compelled to drag out the weary hours alone while the
+mother had toiled. Here now the child waited patiently for--for that
+water-soaked bundle, with the white, dead face, that lay on the canal
+bank waiting for the coroner.
+
+And when he realized it and saw this and looked down on that lonely,
+patient, wistful little creature making the best shift she could with
+those pitiable playthings, something came up from that man's breast into
+his throat. He had not supposed he had any of it left in his soul--it
+was tender, agonizing, heartrending pity.
+
+She still stared at him, terrorized. Probably she had never seen any
+face come in at that door except her mother's.
+
+His pity must have given Walker Farr a hint of how to deal with this
+frightened child. He did not speak to her. He made no move toward her.
+
+He smiled!
+
+But it was not the smile he had given the fat plutocrat in the
+automobile, nor yet the jocular radiance he had displayed to old
+Etienne. It was such a smile as the man had never smiled before--and he
+realized it. He did not want to smile. He wanted to weep. But he brought
+that smile from tender depths in his soul--depths he had not known of
+before--and tears came with the smile.
+
+Before that time the lines in his face had fitted the smile of the
+cynic, the grimace of banter, of irony and insolence. But the strange
+glory that now glowed upon his features came there after the mightiest
+effort he had ever made to control his feelings and his expression.
+
+He smiled!
+
+In that smile he soothed, he promised, he appealed. Then when he saw the
+tense expression of fear fade away he smiled more broadly--he provoked
+reply in kind. And slowly upon the child's face an answering smile began
+to dawn--little crinkles at the corners of the drooping mouth, little
+flickerings in the blue eyes, until at last the two beaming faces
+pledged--on the part of the man tender protection, on the part of the
+child unquestioning confidence.
+
+But he said no word--he dared not trust his voice.
+
+He went down on his knees cautiously, her smile welcoming him now.
+
+He held out his hands. She hesitated a moment and then gave into them
+her chiefest possession--her rag doll. It was as if she had pledged her
+faith in him. He danced the doll upon his broad palm, and the child's
+eyes, dancing too, thanked him for the courtesy he was paying to her
+dearest friend.
+
+But Walker Farr realized that something strange and disquieting in the
+case of a man who believed himself a cynic was stirring within him.
+That hostage of the doll was not sufficient to satisfy the sudden queer
+craving. The knowledge of the hopeless helplessness of that little girl
+throbbed through him. The memory of the spectacle of what he had left on
+the canal bank made the pathos of this little scene in the garret doubly
+poignant as he looked into the child's eyes. Never, in his memory, had
+he invited a child to come to him.
+
+Now he put out his hand--and it trembled. She snuggled her warm little
+fist into his grasp. And then she scrambled up and came and nestled
+confidingly against him. She couldn't see his face then, and he allowed
+the tears of a strong man who is overcome before he has understood--who
+wonders at himself--he allowed those tears to streak his cheeks and did
+not wipe them away.
+
+Walker Farr was too perturbed to soliloquize just then in his
+philosopher's style, but he did realize that some part of his altruism
+had come out of its trance.
+
+And after he had knelt there on the floor for a time he rose and took
+the child in his arms and sat down in a creaky rocking-chair and crooned
+under his breath, and was astonished to find that she had gone sound
+asleep. He stared into the dusk that was gathering outside the dormer
+window and wondered what ailed him.
+
+He had heard many feet thudding on the stairs below. The workers were
+returning. The beehive was filling. There were many voices, clatter of
+dishes, chatter of patois.
+
+He wondered how well the woman Sirois was known in the house--whether
+she had relatives--how soon somebody would come and beat upon the door.
+
+He wondered just what disposition was made of children left in this
+manner.
+
+If the woman had relatives who were forced to take the child it meant
+more of this horrible tenement life. The child in his arms was pale and
+thin; her bones seemed as inconsiderable as a bird's.
+
+He did not know much about children's homes, orphanages, institutions
+for the reception of the homeless, but it seemed to him that such a
+tiny, frail little girl would be very, very lonely in such a place.
+
+The skies grew dark without. He was cramped because he had sat for hours
+in one position, fearing to waken her. But when he moved she did not
+waken--he did not understand how soundly childhood can sleep. He laid
+her on the foot of the narrow bed and looked about the room, shielding
+a match with his hands. He had resolved to carry her out of that fetid,
+overcrowded babel of a tenement. Where? He did not know. He hunted to
+find her belongings. He found a few clothes. There was no receptacle in
+which he could pack them. He folded them and crowded the articles in his
+pockets. He stuffed in the doll and the rude playthings and hooked the
+basket doll-carriage upon his arm. She did not waken when he picked her
+up. He tiptoed down the stairs and nobody noticed him, In his own dizzy
+mind he could not determine whether he felt most like a thief or a
+lunatic. At any rate, he found himself walking the streets of the mill
+city at ten o'clock at night, carrying a little girl in his arms and all
+her earthly possessions in his pockets.
+
+It came over him at last that the longer he kept her the more uncertain
+he became as to what disposal he should make of her, or else he was more
+loath to part with her; he didn't exactly know which.
+
+Then she woke and spoke for the first time. “Me is te'bble hungry--and
+firsty,” she mourned.
+
+“Good Lord! What's the matter with me?” grunted the young man. “If I had
+found a cat or a dog, the first thing I would have done would be to give
+'em something to eat. I reckon I must have thought I had picked up an
+angel.” To her he said, smoothing her hair with his free hand. “We'll
+have sumpin for baby's tummy mighty quick.” He flushed at sound of that
+baby prattle from his lips. But it had popped out in the most natural
+manner possible.
+
+He headed for the nearest night lunch-cart. He entered with his burden.
+
+He elbowed aside men who were eating sandwiches and pie at the counter.
+With complete and rueful knowledge as to the extent of his resources,
+he ordered a bowl of bread and milk--“the best you can do for a hungry
+kiddie for ten cents,” he added.
+
+“Anything for yourself?” inquired the waiter.
+
+He shook his head and paid for the child's supper with his whole
+capital, two nickels. He held her on the end of the counter and,
+awkwardly but with tender carefulness, fed the bread and milk to her
+with a spoon. A healthy man's hunger gnawed within him and the savor of
+coffee from the big, bubbling urn tantalized him. He tipped the bowl to
+her lips and she drank the last of the milk with a happy little sigh,
+and he went out into the night again, carrying her in his arms.
+
+He understood all the suspicions that policemen entertain in the case
+of night prowlers, and knew that they would be particularly and
+meddlesomely interested in one who prowled with a child in his arms. The
+child began to whimper softly. Her interest in the stranger who had
+won her with a smile, her slumber in his arms, her feast in strange
+surroundings, had kept her child's mind busy and pacified till then. Now
+she voiced childhood's unvarying lament--“I wants my mamma!”
+
+He soothed her as best he could, promising, giving her all manner of
+assurance regarding her mother, wondering all the time what was to be
+done. Why had he interfered? Why had he taken upon himself the custody
+of this mite, so trifling a weight in his arms, but now resting--a giant
+of a burden--on his responsibility? He did not know. He owned up to that
+ignorance frankly. But he walked on, carrying her, and put away from his
+thoughts the sensible alternative of placing her in the hands of those
+duly appointed to care for such cases.
+
+He told himself that, as a stranger in the city, he would not be able
+to find a refuge--an institution that time of night--and he knew that he
+was lying to himself, and wondered why.
+
+The impulse that directed his course toward the canal was rather grim,
+but he remembered the tree which had been sanctuary for him that day. He
+carefully lowered the little girl over the fence and climbed after her.
+And she did not call any more for her mother because this strange new
+scene seemed to impress her and fill her with wonderment. She stared up
+into the dim, mysterious, rustling foliage of the tree for a long time.
+She patted her hands upon the grass as if it were something she
+had never seen or felt before. She seemed to be making her first
+acquaintance with Mother Nature--claiming the heritage of outdoors that
+children so intensely covet. The sloped ceiling and the walls of the
+attic room had been sky and landscape for her. She peered into the still
+waters of the canal and saw the stars reflected there, and cocked her
+ear to listen when sleepy birds stirred above and chirped in their
+dreams. And then she fell asleep again and he tucked her within his coat
+to keep from her the dampness of the faint mist rising from the canal.
+
+The dawn flushed early and she woke when the birds did, and found so
+much to interest her--ants who ran up and down the tree, funny bugs that
+tumbled, robins who bounced along the sward on stiff legs--that she did
+not ask for her mother nor seem to find at all strange the companionship
+of this tall man whose face was so kind.
+
+And so Etienne Provancher found them when he came with his rake and
+pike-pole at six o'clock, the hour when the great turbines began to
+grunt and rumble in their deep pits.
+
+“It is Rosemarie--I found her in the room,” said Walker Farr.
+
+The old man came close and gazed down on the pallor and pathos of this
+little snipped who still stared at the new wonders of outdoors.
+
+“Anodder one, hey? You found her lock up?”
+
+“Yes, and I brought her away--and I don't know just what the matter is
+with me, Etienne. I have not been inclined to put myself out for anybody
+in this world--man, woman, or child--of late years. I had made up my
+mind to let the world run itself.”
+
+“It is the way the rich man say--he do not care. But the poor man should
+care--he should try to help odder poor man. He should care.”
+
+“Oh, there are things that can happen to make a man stop caring. But I
+brought her away, just the same. I--I woke up--or something. I have
+been awake all night--I have been thinking--I had nothing else to do.
+Insomnia has made me insane--one night of it!” He laughed when the old
+man blinked at him. “I'm so crazy that I want you to help me find some
+good woman who will take this child to board in a comfortable home.”
+
+“Who'll pay?”
+
+“I'll pay. Oh, I am completely crazy--I'm going to work--earn money to
+pay her board.”
+
+“I know a good woman near by--she have leetle house, cat, plant in
+window.”
+
+“That's the kind.”
+
+“I will tell you where she live. You shall say you come from Etienne
+Provancher and it will make you good for her.” He paused, raised a brown
+finger, then went on. “But you shall not know where she live onless
+I may pay half the board money for the poor little one. We have been
+togedder in it--I tell some lie to the coroner--we must be togedder in
+help the childs.”
+
+There was firm resolve in old Etienne's face and tones.
+
+“Partnership it shall be, my old boy,” agreed the young man, heartily.
+“I'm no pig--I won't keep a good man out of a real picnic.” He rose and
+swept the child into his arms. “Give me the address and hand her over
+the fence to me. I'll have to quit being nurse and find a real job.
+By the way, Etienne, I heard a fat man weeping yesterday because he
+couldn't get men to dig dirt for the Consolidated Water Company. He
+seemed to take a great fancy to me. Where's their office?”
+
+He received both the information and the child after he had climbed the
+fence. Etienne was able to point out the little house of sanctuary from
+where he stood--and he waved his rake reassuringly from a distance when
+the good woman came to the door, answering Farr's knock. He danced
+into the house with the child, behind the good woman, who had answered
+Etienne's signal with a return flip of her apron; he was trying to bring
+a smile to the little face.
+
+“You'll have to lie to her more or less about her mother, good woman.
+Etienne and I will tell you all about it when there's time. When she
+asks about her mother just give her something to eat and lie a bit.”
+ He set the child upon the table where the good woman was making fresh
+cookies. He piled the little toys about her. “I'm going to market, to
+market to buy a fat pig, and I'll be home again, riggy-jig-jig,” he
+declared in a singsong that fetched a chuckle from the waif, and she
+followed him with a smile as he hurried out. “That smile will sweeten
+a day's work in the trench,” he assured himself. “I sure am some
+foster-father when I get started!”
+
+A listless clerk at the Consolidated office gave him a ticket to be
+delivered to the foreman of construction--the foreman sent him out with
+other men on a rattling jigger-wagon. By being very humble, and with the
+aid of his smile, he succeeded in begging a corned-beef sandwich for
+his breakfast from a workman on the jigger who was carrying his lunch to
+work. He ate it very slowly so as to make the most of it.
+
+The new trench was in a suburban plot which had just been opened up by a
+real-estate syndicate. It was a bare tract, flat and dusty, and the
+only trees were newly planted saplings that were about as large as
+fishing-poles. How the sun did beat into that trench! But Walker Farr
+threw off his coat and used again his ready asset--his smile. He smiled
+at the boss who sneered at the style of “fiddler's hair” worn by a
+dirt-flinger--smiled so sweetly that the boss came over later and hit
+him a friendly clap on the shoulder and said, “Well, old scout, here's
+hoping that times will be better!”
+
+“I'll take her out on the bank of the canal this evening before bedtime
+and we'll have a lark,” reflected Walker Farr as he toiled in the hot
+trench. And he stopped quizzing himself as to the whys of this sudden
+devotion to a freakish notion. He seemed to know at last.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE GIRL FROM TADOUSAC
+
+When the noon hour came Farr went and sat under a spindling tree and
+began to read in one of his little books, dismissing thoughts of hunger
+with the resoluteness of a man who had suffered hollow yearning of the
+stomach and knew how to conquer it.
+
+But he could not escape the keen eyes and kindly generosity of the
+fraternity of toilers.
+
+“A topper down on his luck a bit--see his clothes,” said the foreman,
+and he took tithes from willing men who were eating from pails that were
+pinched between their knees; he carried the food to the young man.
+
+Farr accepted with gratitude, ate with thrifty moderation, and hid what
+remained in the pockets of his coat; it would serve for his supper.
+
+He ate that supper after his day's work was done and after he had laved
+his face and hands in the overflow from a public fountain in a little
+square.
+
+Then he hurried to the house of the good woman.
+
+She was busy with her dishes in the kitchen and Rosemarie was on the
+knees of a young woman who sat and rocked in one of the sitting-room
+chairs.
+
+Farr entered by the kitchen door and stood there, looking in with some
+confusion on the girl and child.
+
+“It is only Zelie Dionne; she is my boarder,” the woman informed him.
+“She is a good girl and she has the very nice job in the cloth-hall of
+the big Haxton mill. She lives with me because I was neighbor of her
+good folks in the Tadousac country, so far away from here in our Canada.
+Come! I make you acquaint. You shall see. She is a good girl!”
+
+Zelie Dionne rose and acknowledged the introduction with a French girl's
+pretty grace. A bit of a flush lighted the dusky pallor of her cheeks
+when Farr bent before her. The bow in her hair was cocked with true
+Gallic chic and her gown was crisply smart in its simplicity. Her big,
+dark eyes were the wonderful feature of her face, and Farr looked into
+them and seemed to lose a bit of his cool self-possession; he faltered
+in speech, groping for words in the first commonplaces.
+
+“You must talk together. I must work,” said the good woman. She hurried
+back into her kitchen.
+
+The child ran to Farr and climbed upon his knees.
+
+“You have been good to Rosemarie. I thank you,” he said. “I suppose the
+good woman has told you how it has happened.”
+
+“Yes, when I came at noon.” Her tones were peculiarly sweet and
+compassionate. A touch of accent gave piquancy to what she said. She
+looked at him meaningly. “I have been talking to our little Rosemarie
+and she will not cry any more for her good mamma who has gone up to
+the green hills because she is sick and must rest. So Rosemarie will be
+patient and live here and I will be play-mamma.”
+
+“Yes, play-mamma,” agreed the child. “Good play-mamma! Two mammas! But
+only one papa!” She put up her arms and tucked them about his neck
+and snuggled down with a happy sense of complete understanding of his
+protection. At last, so it seemed to her, she had recovered the father
+she had never known. Poor, little, caged bird, her release from that
+lonely prison was dated in her happy consciousness from his appearance
+in the doorway, and all things had been well for her after he
+came--sunlight, the trees, the blue sky, and tender care, and the
+companionship of human beings. Therefore, the rush of a love her child's
+comprehension could not analyze had gone out to him.
+
+Farr returned with significance the look Zelie Dionne's dark eyes gave
+him.
+
+“I found the note. It made me go a-meddling. It left a legacy to
+somebody--and I accepted--without understanding why I did so.” He
+stroked the child's curls.
+
+“I did not understand at first--when Madame Maillet told me,” she
+confessed, with a smile. “Old Etienne came at noon to tell her and she
+has told it to me. It is very sad--but yet it is comical when I look at
+you. But as I look at you I understand better. You have a good heart. I
+can see!”
+
+“I am only a strolling stranger--here to-day and there to-morrow,”
+ protested Farr. “I think the heat must have affected my head. It has
+been very warm lately. But when I saw her--” He choked suddenly.
+
+“Oh, it is easy to understand,” said the girl, reassuringly. A mist
+of tears came across her big eyes, though her mouth did not lose the
+wistful smile. “The poor folks help one another--and they understand.”
+
+“It wouldn't be right to give her to an orphanage,” insisted Farr. “She
+has missed too much already. Of course I don't pretend to know what a
+little girl needs--but I am willing to be told.”
+
+“I will tell you and I will help.”
+
+“I think old Etienne and I need you in the partnership--as adviser. I
+thank you.”
+
+Then came the old Canadian, his wrinkled face tender with solicitous
+interest, and he chuckled when he welcomed the new member of the firm.
+
+“Ah, Mam'selle Zelie she shall help us the very much in what we do not
+know,” he informed the young man, and continued, while the dark eyes
+flashed protest: “I am of the Tadousac country, and she is a good girl,
+for I have know her all the years since I trot her on my knee when she
+much small as the petite Rosemarie. I can tell you how she dance down
+the meadows in the ring-a-rosy play and how she--”
+
+“Phut! Your tongue is as long as your rake and it goes reaching
+down into other folks' affairs, old Etienne! What cares this strange
+gentleman for what happened in Tadousac? Go use your key instead of your
+tongue. Unlock your little door so that Rosemarie may walk on the cool
+grass beside the canal.”
+
+The old man grinned and started away.
+
+“We're going out where the birds will sing good night to you,” Farr told
+the child and lifted her off his knees. But at the door she stopped and
+turned to Zelie Dionne, who had not risen.
+
+“Come, play-mamma!”
+
+“I will wait here till you come back, Rosemarie.”
+
+But the child was coaxingly insistent, holding out her hand.
+
+“I think it is because she has been so lonely all her life,” suggested
+Farr. “Now that she has found friends she wants them to be with her
+in her little pleasures. May I presume enough to add my invitation to
+hers?”
+
+She came and the child walked between them, holding their hands.
+
+“One papa and my play-mamma!” she said, looking up at them in turn.
+
+Mother Maillet came to the kitchen door and waved adieu with her
+dish-towel.
+
+“Ah, the family!” she cried. “Yesterday it was not--to-day it is. And
+grandpere marching off ahead!”
+
+“Old folks and children--they say embarrassing things,” remarked Farr
+when they were on their way.
+
+“One must be silly along with them to be disturbed by such chatter,”
+ said Zelie Dionne, tartly.
+
+They followed old Etienne through his little door and walked along the
+canal bank where the waters were still and glassy, for the big gates
+had been closed and power lay motionless and locked in the sullen depths
+till morning. The sunset behind the big mills glowed redly through the
+myriad windows.
+
+They walked slowly because little Rosemarie found marvels for childish
+eyes at every step, and even the cool carpet of the grass provided
+unfailing delight as she set slow and cautious footsteps into its
+yielding luxuriance. The old man plodded ahead, muttering and frowning
+as he peered down at the flotsam in the motionless waters.
+
+The silence between the two who accompanied the child continued a long
+time and Farr found it oppressive.
+
+“I have never been in Canada,” he said. “I am sorry you did not care to
+have Etienne talk about your home. I would like to know more about that
+country.”
+
+“He was talking about me instead of my home in Tadousac. I am not so
+important that I am to be talked about.”
+
+“Where is Tadousac?”
+
+Her vivacity returned, her dark eyes glowed. “Ah, m'sieu', you should go
+there. It is in the country of the good habitants where the St. Lawrence
+and the Saguenay meet. And now, as the sun is setting, the people are
+resting under the wide eaves of the little white houses, looking up
+where the hills are all so blue, or off across the wide bay. The white
+houses are very small and they crowd along the road, and the farms are
+narrow, and there is not much money in the homespun clothes or in the
+old clock, but the good world is wide about them and the people are not
+sad like those who sit yonder.”
+
+She pointed across the canal to rows of wooden tenement-houses many
+stories in height; on narrow porches, nicked one above another, and on
+fire-escapes which were slowly cooling after hours on the forge of the
+sun, men, women, and children were packed, seeking a breath of fresh
+air.
+
+“They stand at loom and spinner and slasher all day,” she said. “They
+are too tired to walk afar to the parks. They wait there for good air to
+come and it does not come.”
+
+“I don't understand why they flock down here from Canada--why they
+stay,” he declared, bluntly.
+
+“Ah, you look at me when you say that!” she cried, arching her brows.
+“You hear me talk about the sunset over the meadows and the hills, and
+you wonder why I am not there? Well, listen! There are fourteen sons
+and daughters of Onesime Dionne--that's my father--for all the habitant
+folks marry young, and the priest smiles and blesses the household when
+there are many children. And girls are not of much account in the house.
+The sons claim and receive their shares of the arpents of land when
+those boys are grown and married. The girl may marry--yes! But what if
+the right one does not ask? What if the right one has a father who says
+to him that he must obey and marry one the father has chosen? All kinds
+of things can happen in the habitant country, m'sieu'. So, then, the
+girl is less account in the house. And the letters come back from the
+girls who have gone down into the mills in the States. The pictures come
+back showing the new gown and the smart hat--and so!” She shrugged her
+shoulders and tossed her free hand. “One more girl for the big mill!”
+
+He stared at her with some curiosity.
+
+“You ask yourself which one of those things happened to me, do you not?”
+
+“Perhaps,” he confessed.
+
+“I talk little about myself. I talk about the habitant girls. I am
+fortunate. I do not breathe the air where the looms clack. I inspect in
+the cloth-hall because I have sharp eyes and nimble fingers.”
+
+“But you came here alone--it is strange. I mean, do not the father and
+mother and all the family move here, usually?”
+
+She lifted her chin and gazed at him with pride in her mien.
+
+“If you go to Tadousac you shall find that my father owns a large farm
+and that one of his grandfathers was a captain with General Montcalm,
+and many Dionnes have lived on the land that was given to a brave man. I
+came to the States because I wanted to come. My people did not come.”
+
+She clipped the last sentence in a manner that suggested to Farr that
+there was no more to be said on that topic. But she went on after a time
+in softened tones.
+
+“It is not strange that so many came to the States, sir. The farms of
+Beauce, of l'Islet, of the Chaudiere, were so crowded. Years ago, the
+old folks used to tell me, the boys began to drive the little white
+horses hitched to buckboards across the border in the early summer, and
+the boys were strong and willing, and the farmers who laughed at them
+and called them Canucks hired them for the hay-fields just the same.
+And they slept in the haymows and under the trees and worked hard and
+brought back all their money. Then the big mills needed men and women
+and children, and the Yankee girls would not work in the mills any
+more. You must understand how it was: Ouillette, who had worked in the
+hay-field, would hear of the work in the mill, and the Ouillettes would
+sell and go to the city. And as soon as they had seen the lights and
+the theater and the car which ran with a stick on a wire, and had earned
+their first pay and had bought Yankee clothes they wrote home to their
+cousins the Pelletiers and the Pelletiers sat nights till late talking
+excitedly--and then they sold and came, and so it has gone on and
+on--the endless chain, one family pulling on its neighbor, down the long
+way from Canada to the States. But it may be all for the best. I am not
+wise in such things. But when the sun bakes and the fever comes and the
+children die in the tenements, then I wish the fathers and mothers were
+back on the little farms and that workers of some other race than the
+habitants were chained to the looms in the big mills. That may be a
+selfish thought, but my own people are dear to me.”
+
+Farr was not in the mood to argue the economic side of that question
+with this girl who had so tersely told the story of two generations
+of mill-toilers. With that little waif between them, victim of the
+industrial Moloch which must roll on even if its wheels crushed the
+innocent here and there, he permitted sentiment to sway him. In fact,
+for a day and a night he had surrendered to sentiment and had found a
+strange sort of intoxication in the experience. His heart was with the
+humble folk and pity was in him--pity which was uncalculating and in
+which his cynicism was dissolving.
+
+And when the stars were mirrored in the still canal and the grass was
+damp with the dew, they walked back to the house of Mother Maillet and
+little Rosemarie murmured her bit of a prayer and was tucked in bed.
+
+“I hope that some day I may go to Tadousac,” said Farr to the girl,
+before he passed out of the good woman's house. “I would like to see the
+sunset, for you have praised it.”
+
+“Ask for the house of Onesime Dionne, second beyond the big parish
+cross. It will be easy to find, and the sunset is very grand from the
+porch under the eaves.”
+
+Farr went along with the old man and they walked slowly. Their way took
+them down narrow streets between the high tenements.
+
+“Yes, you shall find it very grand at Tadousac--and M'sieu' Dionne is an
+honest man,” declared Etienne. “Now and then in the thirty year I have
+been visit up there in Tadousac, and I sit those day and whittle for
+the children and then little Zelie trot on my knee with the others. So I
+know the story of those place. And all the people up there don't care if
+I know, because I listen and am glad to know, and sometimes I can give
+advice, for I have live long on the States where great matters are
+happening. But Farmer Leroux would not listen to me when I advise about
+his good son Jean and Zelie Dionne. Farmer Leroux is a good man, but he
+is a hard man when his ugly mad get stir. And the children up there do
+what the father tell--because that is what the cure preach and it is the
+way of the habitants.”
+
+“The old, old story--the Montagues and the Capulets on the banks of the
+river of the North.”
+
+“I think I know something what you mean, m'sieu', though I don't know
+your friend you speak about. But if he say to his son, 'Ba gar, you
+don't marry no girl what I don't like her fadder because we have
+hosswhip one anodder t'ree or two time when we have fuss over line
+fence--or crowd our wagon when we go to market'--why, then that's your
+friend. And it start from there and grow into big thing, so that all
+the cure can say it don't make no friend of them. So they wait--Jean and
+Zelie! Ah yes, they wait!” He put his finger beside his nose and winked.
+“They love. They get marry some nice day. But now!” He flirted his gaunt
+fingers. “They say nottings. I maself say nottings. But I see some very
+queer look in Jean Leroux's eye when he say to me as I meet him at the
+gate of his fadder's farm, 'And how carries Zelie Dionne herself these
+days?' And though he look high over the tree and chew the straw and look
+very careless, ah, I see the big tear in his eye and hear him choke in
+his throat.”
+
+“It's played out and old-fashioned, this letting old folks manage young
+folks that way just to satisfy old grudges,” scoffed Farr. “If they are
+in love they ought to get married and tell the old folks to go hang!”
+
+Etienne stopped and gazed quizzically at the young man who thus
+expounded the law for lovers.
+
+“I think you have in you none of the understanding of the French
+habitants who have live the three generation on one farm so that a young
+man, no matter if he love a mam'selle so very much that all the bread
+he eat taste ashes in his mouth--ah, he cannot say 'I will leave--I
+will go!' For then that young man must turn himself to be anodder young
+man--and the habitant does not so change.”
+
+“I may be a poor judge,” acknowledged Farr. “I have never yet taken root
+in the soil of any one place.”
+
+“And I think, mebbe, the girl you do not understand! Is it to stay in
+the home and hear every day about you love the pig of a Leroux, bah? No,
+no, m'sieu'! That's too proud, is Zelie Dionne. And so is Zelie Dionne
+too proud to take a son from a home that do not want her. So they wait.”
+
+“It's a tough old world, Uncle Etienne,” said Farr. “Why, even I, lord
+of my own affairs as I am, don't know where I'm going to sleep to-night.
+Do you have a boarding-place?”
+
+“I have my little room on the block up there--my room and my place at
+the big table. It is not grand. But there is place for you--and anodder
+little room. If you like you shall come and I will speak good for you.”
+
+“All right, Etienne! Take me along and speak good for me.”
+
+It was another such place as Block Ten. It was a crowded and stuffy
+warren, and the basement kitchen advertised itself with stale odors in
+all the corridors. But Farr was glad to stretch himself upon the narrow
+bed. He owned up to himself that he was a very weary bird of passage and
+confessed to his own heart, just as frankly, that he was a captive in
+the frail grasp of a little girl--and he did not try to understand.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+POISON FOR THE POOR
+
+It proved to be an amicable and satisfactory partnership between Etienne
+Provancher and Walker Farr and dark-eyed Zelie Dionne.
+
+When the days were pleasant the old man kept the little girl with him
+out of doors on the canal bank. She did not trouble him by running
+about. Her long days of confinement in the attic room had accustomed
+her to remain quietly in one place. She sat contentedly in the shade and
+watched the bugs in the grass and the birds in the tree above her. In
+the cool of the evening she trudged along the canal bank with Farr
+and the play-mamma until eyes grew heavy and little feet stumbled with
+weariness and it was time for bed. Rainy evenings they studied the
+alphabet or he read to her from picture-books in blazing colors, and
+after a time she remembered all the stories and made believe read them
+to him.
+
+He worked in the trench and looked forward impatiently to Saturday
+nights when the clerk came along with the pay-envelopes; there were so
+many things in the stores that would delight the heart of a little girl
+who had never had any toys except a rag doll and a broken flower-basket.
+Then there were pretty dresses to buy. The taste of Zelie Dionne took
+charge of that shopping. When he bought the first one--one that was
+white and fluffy--and Rosemarie walked out with him she displayed
+such feminine pride in fine feathers that he looked forward to future
+Saturdays nights and new dresses with anticipatory gusto. If one had
+questioned him he could have told weeks ahead just what his plans
+of purchases were, for he canvassed all the possibilities with the
+play-mamma who knew so well how to get value for a dollar--who knew the
+places to buy and whose needle helped to much.
+
+It was a wicked summer for those who were doomed to the mills and
+the tenement-houses. The heat puffed and throbbed over the lashing
+machinery. The slashers seemed to spit caloric. The spinning-frames
+tossed it off their spindles. The looms fairly wove it into the warp.
+The thick, sweet, greasy air seemed to distil cotton-oil upon the faces
+of the workers. The nights proved to be no better than the days. The
+stuffy tenements gulped in the hot air of midday and held it as a person
+holds his breath. All the folks came out upon the little platforms that
+were ranged, story after story, above each other. They gasped for air
+in the narrow spaces between the high buildings. The stars above those
+narrow spaces did not sparkle and suggest coolness; they seemed to float
+above the hot earth like red cinders.
+
+Every day the undertakers' wagons came “boombling” down the narrow
+canyons of streets between the “Blocks,” for the people were dying. The
+little white hearse was a more frequent visitor than the rusty black
+one; the ranks of the children were paying the greatest toll to death.
+
+“But we shall not worry about our Rosemarie,” old Etienne told Farr.
+“Under the shade on the green grass she shall stay where outdoors can
+paint her cheeks the very fine color.”
+
+But when the old man called for her at the good woman's house one
+morning something else than the sun had painted the little girl's
+cheeks--they were flushed with fever. He told the good woman to send
+straight for the doctor, and went to his work much disturbed.
+
+Later in the day the yard overseer, passing the rack, saw that the man
+was working with furious energy. He was even reaching out his rake to
+capture floating stuff before it touched the bars.
+
+“This seems to be your busy day, Pickaroon,” suggested the overseer.
+
+“I make believe this old rack to be a good friend of mine and that the
+float stuff be sickness come at him--so I work hard to keep it away.”
+
+The overseer went along about his business, commenting mentally on a
+Frenchman's imagination.
+
+When the big mill bells clanged the noon hour Etienne hurried to the
+good woman's house. The city physician had been there and had left
+medicine--two tumblers of it. He had hurried in and had hurried away and
+had been curt and brusk and had not told her what was the trouble, so
+the woman reported. But the child had been sleeping.
+
+She was drowsy all that evening while Farr held her in his arms and
+Etienne sat near by with Zelie Dionne, ministering solicitously.
+
+“Her cheeks are not so hot,” said the young man many times. He talked
+hopefully to reassure himself as well as the others, for he had been
+dreadfully frightened when he had come from his work. Fright had
+trodden close on the heels of much joy--for the superintendent of
+the Consolidated had taken him out of the hot trench that day and had
+appointed him boss of twoscore Italian diggers, doubling his pay.
+
+“I have been watching you,” the superintendent told him. “You're built
+to boss men. What kind of a bump was it that ever slammed you down like
+this?”
+
+The answer the superintendent got was a smile which put further
+questions out of his mind.
+
+“No, her cheeks are not so hot,” affirmed Farr when he laid her in her
+bed that night. “She will come along all right.”
+
+But at the end of a week languor still weighed on the child. There were
+circles under her eyes and her cheeks were wan, and she did not clap
+her hands with the old-time glee when he brought her new toys; the
+playthings lay beside her on the bed and invited her touch--staring eyes
+of dolls, beady eyes of toy dogs--without avail.
+
+“It is the queer way of being sick,” lamented the old man. “The doctor
+mebbe not know, because he very gruff and do not say. I think I know
+what may cure her--it has been done many time.
+
+“Away up in the Canada country there is the shrine of the good Sainte
+Anne de Beaupre. There she stand in the middle of the big church and she
+hold her little grandson in her arm--the little boy Jesus. So she feel
+very tender toward poor, sick childs. Ah, I have seen her many time--I
+have seen childs healed there and made so very smart--all cure. She
+loves little childs. _Oui_. All about her feet are short, small crutch
+where she has cure childs. The piece of her wrist-bone is there in the
+sacristy--it look like a wee scrap of some gray moss under the glass.
+And it cure when the good priest say the word for her. I know the way to
+the shrine of La Bonne Sainte Anne--I will go with the little Rosemarie
+and she shall sing and dance after that.”
+
+For a moment the cynical smile of the skeptic etched itself at the
+corners of Farr's mouth--the flash of the nature the young man had
+hidden during recent weeks.
+
+He turned to Zelie Dionne and found her regarding him with grave eyes.
+
+“It is as M'sieu' Etienne says,” she assured the young man. “La Bonne
+Sainte listens very tenderly when the children come to her. She is good
+to all, but her spirit leans over the poor little children and comforts
+them.”
+
+“You have been there?”
+
+“Many times, sir. It is not only the sick body that the good Sainte Anne
+heals--she comforts anybody who is in much sorrow--she tells the right
+way to go. There are many roads to take in this life--and if any one
+goes to her with prayer and humble soul she will guide. Ah, it is true,
+sir.”
+
+There was earnestness in her features and conviction in her tones and it
+was plain that Zelie Dionne was speaking out of the depths of her heart,
+and Farr remembered what old Etienne had said about the son of Farmer
+Leroux.
+
+“Yes, she will lead to the right way and make all well in the end,”
+ asserted the girl. “And, most of all, she is kind and gentle to the
+little children.”
+
+Between her and the wistful old man Farr divided tolerant and kindly
+gaze.
+
+“I believe in more things than I used to,” he said. “I'm willing to
+admit in these days that things I do not understand may have truth in
+them. The doctor is not making her well. But it is a long way to that
+shrine.”
+
+“It is a long way, so! But I am very scare for her as she lie here all
+day. I will carry her very tender--on the railway car--on the big boat.
+The good Sainte Anne is everywhere, too. She will help.”
+
+“If faith can move mountains it ought to heal easily one poor, little
+toddlekins,” muttered Farr.
+
+A new doctor came the next day, a breezy young man, a talkative and
+frank young man, the assistant of the over-worked city physician, whose
+municipal duties had obliged him to take on helpers.
+
+“I shall ask him, hey--about the shrine?” whispered Etienne to Farr
+while the doctor was examining the child.
+
+“Yes; he'll be more patient with you than with me.”
+
+“And do you think that pretty soon she can go on the railway if I
+be very careful, good docteur?” asked the old man, wistfully,
+apologetically.
+
+“Go where?”
+
+“On the pilgrimage to the shrine of the good Sainte Anne in the Canada
+country.”
+
+“Don't you realize what this case is?” demanded the young physician.
+
+“He have not say--he hurry in, he hurry out.”
+
+“You the grandfather?”
+
+“No!”
+
+The doctor turned on Farr.
+
+“Father?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then I can talk right out to you two. This is a case of typhoid that
+will be fatal in twenty-four hours. There's no use lying about it.”
+
+Old Etienne's mouth and eyes seemed to sink deep into his wrinkles, as
+if Time had forced him suddenly to swallow an extra score of years. He
+looked at Farr's blank and whitening face, and as quickly looked away.
+
+“Break it to her grandmother,” advised the doctor, nodding toward the
+kitchen where the good woman was at work.
+
+“But you don't know what you say,” stammered the old man.
+
+“It so happens that I do, my man. I've been handling too many of these
+cases to be fooled. Why, I've got more than fifty cases of typhoid in
+this city--just myself.”
+
+“But she has had sun and fresh air--on the canal bank where I tend the
+rack.”
+
+“Sun and fresh air can't cure victims of the poison that is being pumped
+through the water-mains of this city,” snapped the doctor.
+
+“Water-mains!”
+
+The doctor turned and stared at Farr, for the husky croak of his
+exclamation had not sounded human.
+
+“That's what I said. You can't have lived very long in this state not to
+know what we're up against on the water proposition.”
+
+“I haven't lived here long. But about the child--it can't--”
+
+“Why, this Consolidated Company is owned by Colonel Dodd and his
+politicians--and they own all the city and town water systems in this
+state,” said the doctor, no longer interested in his patient--exploding
+with the violence of imprudent youth. “They boss mayors, the aldermen,
+the politicians--boss the governor himself. That's because they've got
+the machine and the money. They've got a lot of money, because they
+won't wake up and spend it to lay lines far enough to tap the lakes in
+the hills. They tap these rotten rivers at our back doors, pump poison
+through the mains, sell it at prices that yield them twenty percent
+dividends. They say the water is all right--and back it up with
+analyses. I say it's all wrong.”
+
+“And you damnation doctors are letting this go on--letting folks drink
+poison--telling us when it's too late!” shouted Farr, purple replacing
+the white in his face.
+
+“Well, the folks up-town who have got wisdom and the money buy
+spring-water and mineral water. All the doctors don't agree that
+the river is responsible for the typhoid. With the governor and the
+legislature bossed by Dodd and his associates, and the city governments
+tied up by them, and the banks taking orders from the syndicate in case
+any town or an independent company tries to borrow money and install a
+water system, and the mill corporations and the tenement-block owners
+all in cahoots, a crusader who expected to get anywhere in politics or
+make money out of his business would stand a fine and dandy show, now
+wouldn't he? And the most of us in this world are trying to get ahead
+either in business or in politics.” He snapped the catch of his little
+black case. “Forget what I have said, you two. I hold my job through
+politics. I'm apt to talk too much when I get started. But don't drink
+city water, no matter if Colonel Dodd's analyses do give it a clean
+bill.”
+
+Farr caught him at the door, restraining him with a heavy hand.
+
+“You stay here, don't you let that baby die. By the gods, she sha'n't
+die!”
+
+“My staying will do no good, my friend. The little girl is death-struck
+already. It's quick work with the children. Sometimes we can bring the
+grown folks through. Get another doctor, if you feel like it, but I've
+got to keep moving--there are lots of folks waiting for me in these
+tenements.”
+
+He shook off Farr's hand and hurried away.
+
+Old Etienne stood by the bedside, gazing down on the little sufferer,
+closing and unclosing his shriveled hands as if he were grasping at
+straws of hope, dragging the depths of his soul for reassurance even as
+he dragged his rake in the black waters of the canal.
+
+“The whippersnapper lied about her. Because she's a baby he won't
+bother,” stormed Farr. “I'll ransack this town for doctors--I'll find
+one who knows his business.” He tiptoed to the bed and laid tender palm
+against the child's cheek. “I say her face isn't as hot as it was,” he
+persisted. “Where can I find a doctor with gray whiskers, Etienne? That
+young fool doesn't know.”
+
+“There are many wise old docteurs in the long street named Western
+Boulevard--they live in the big houses--but they don't come to the
+tenement folks.”
+
+“One of them will come this time even if I have to lug him on my back.”
+
+He began to search for his hat, not remembering where he had tossed it
+in the haste and eagerness of his arrival at the good woman's house. He
+did not find it readily and he rushed out bareheaded.
+
+“The sun and the air they do no good! It is the poison water--and the
+poor folks of the tenements they do not know!” muttered the old man.
+“That is what he say?” He went to the kitchen sink and unscrewed the
+faucet. He sniffed and made a wry face, then he ran his thin finger into
+the valve-chamber. He hooked and brought forth stringy slime, held it
+near his nose, and groaned. “The poor folks do not know. They who ask
+for the votes of the slashers, the weavers, the beamers--the men of the
+mills--they who ask votes do not want the poor folks to know, because
+the votes would not be given to them who sell poison in the water,” he
+told the astonished good woman who had watched his act.
+
+“I am careful about my kitchen--I am neat--I wash everything, Etienne,”
+ she assured him, sniffing at the slime in the sink, overcome by
+confusion, her housewife's reputation at stake.
+
+“Yes, but you cannot wash the souls of them dam' scoundrels who send
+that water through the pipes to the poor people who can buy no other,”
+ he raged. “This is not your blame--you did not know.” He pointed his
+finger, quivering, dripping with the slime, at the child on the bed.
+“They have murder her! With this!” He slatted his finger with the
+gesture of one who throws off a noisome serpent.
+
+“But I drink the water--it hasn't made me sick,” she protested.
+
+“You--me--odders that are all dry up--tough old fools--we ought to die
+and we don't,” he raged, stamping back and forth across the kitchen,
+waving his arms. “We have been poison so much we do not notice. But the
+poor little childs--the young folks that die--die in these tenements all
+the time--and we see the white ribbons hanging from the doors, so many
+place every day--the poor young folks with life ahead and much to live
+for even down here--they are poison and they do not know! Oh, _le bon
+Dieu_! Boil dem dam' devil in hell in the water they have sell to the
+poor!” He stopped, shocked by these words he heard coming from his
+mouth, and crossed himself contritely. “But I look at her--I hear what
+the docteur say--I talk and I cannot help!” He staggered into the room
+where the child lay, and sat down in a chair and held his face in his
+hands.
+
+It was an aged and somewhat unctuous physician whom Farr brought. The
+doctor pursed his lips and puckered his eyebrows above the little wraith
+who minded him not at all, lying with eyes half closed, plucking with
+finger and thumb at the bedclothing.
+
+“With a bit stronger constitution--if she were a little older--Take the
+case of an adult--”
+
+“Say it short,” growled Farr, clenching his fists as if he wanted to
+beat indulgence for the child out of the hide of the world. “I'm paying
+you for her life.”
+
+“I have nothing to sell you in this case--therefore there can be no
+pay.” He leaned over the bed and smoothed the moist, tangled hair away
+from the child's brow. “I can only _give_ you something, my friend. I
+give you all my sympathy. This baby is departing on a long journey, and
+I'm Christian enough to believe that the way will be made very smooth
+for the feet of little children. That's the faith of an old man.”
+
+There were both earnestness and tenderness in his tones--the smugness of
+the physician was gone. He shook Farr's hand and went out of the room,
+treading softly.
+
+And the next day Rosemarie's tiny fingers stopped their flutterings and
+she went away--somewhere!
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE LORDS OF THE CITY
+
+Walker Farr would not allow the tiny body of Rosemarie to be carried
+away in the white hearse. In his grief he had not been able as yet to
+dissociate the identity of the child from the poor little tenement in
+which her spirit had dwelt for the few barren years of her life; it
+seemed to him that she would be very lonely in the white hearse. He rode
+to the cemetery, holding the tiny casket across his knees. There was
+only the one carriage--it was sufficient to carry the friends of little
+Rosemarie: one Walker Farr and old Etienne and play-mamma Zelie Dionne.
+
+The rack-tender sat opposite Farr and nursed a bundle on his knees. He
+had wrapped it surreptitiously.
+
+The two men sent Zelie Dionne back to the city in the carriage. But they
+waited beside the grave until the sexton had finished his work; Farr
+felt an uncontrollable impulse to wait till all was ended, as he had
+always waited every night till the little girl was sound asleep and
+tucked up in bed in the good woman's house. He sat crouched on the edge
+of a turfed grave, elbows on his knees, his hands clutched into his
+shock of hair.
+
+After the sexton had departed, tools on his shoulder, Etienne unwrapped
+the bundle. He began to arrange the child's toys on the grave.
+
+“It is as the others do--the fathers and mothers of our faith in the
+tenement-houses,” he explained, wistfully, to the young man. He pointed
+to other graves in the vicinity, short and narrow graves. Toys were
+spread on them, too. They were the poor treasures of dead children. The
+toys had been left there in the vague, helpless yearning of parents who
+strove to reach their human consolation beyond the grave.
+
+Farr gazed on these pitiful memorials of the children--from those graves
+to the new mound which covered Rosemarie. The ache that had been in
+his throat for so many hours grew more excruciating. He realized that
+a father in those circumstances would weep, but he did not feel like
+shedding tears, and he was ashamed of himself for what seemed lack of
+something within himself. What he felt then, what he had felt ever
+since that young doctor had passed sentence of death was surly, bitter
+rancor--the anger of a man who is robbed.
+
+“Look all around at the graves,” said Etienne, tears in his wrinkles. “I
+know something better since I take off that faucet. Not all the martyr
+die when the lion eat 'em up and the fire burn 'em; there be some martyr
+these day, too. And sometimes, mebbe, some man what have the power will
+come here and see all these poor little grave and then he go and choke
+the lion what eat all these poor childs.”
+
+“What kind of man would that be?” pondered Farr. At that moment he had
+little faith--much less faith than usual--in the decency of any human
+being; and for many years his faith in humankind had been expressed by a
+contemptuous snap of his finger.
+
+To sit there longer and look at that fresh earth with the pathetic toys
+sprinkled over it was a torment his soul could not endure.
+
+He arose and hurried away and Etienne followed him. They trudged in
+silence back to the city--Etienne to take his rake and pike-pole from
+the hands of the man who had substituted at the rack, and Farr to resume
+surly domination over his sweating Italians.
+
+“The martyrs,” Etienne had called them. The notion of that stuck in
+Farr's brooding thoughts.
+
+He tried to look deeper into his own heart than he had ever looked
+before and explain to himself just what motive had attracted him to the
+child in the first place; he had never been especially interested in
+children before. He found himself muttering, “And a little child shall
+lead them,” without understanding just why this child had led him so
+strangely.
+
+If one Walker Farr had understood it at all and had been able to explain
+it to himself, he would have penetrated the mystery of the dynamics of
+love--the great gift to humanity that God has not seen fit to expose
+in its inner workings. Therefore, Farr strode here and there in the
+hot sun, spurred his diggers with crisp oaths, and on the heels of his
+profanity muttered to himself, “And a little child shall lead them.”
+
+The tile boss of the Consolidated, whose crew was following the
+trench-diggers, accosted Farr, after several inspections of his
+lugubrious countenance.
+
+“Don't you think you need to be cheered up a little?”
+
+Farr scowled at him.
+
+“I don't know what has disagreed with you, but you're certainly in a bad
+way,” pursued the boss. “Go up with the crowd to City Hall to-night
+and hear 'em open up the police scandals. Plenty of free fun for the
+heavy-hearted! There are about half a dozen fat cops in this city who'll
+be fried to a crisp on both sides, and the sound of the sizzling will be
+pleasant in the ears.”
+
+“I'm not interested.”
+
+“You will be, if you tend out. The hearing is before the mayor and the
+whole city government. Nothing very hefty in the way of charges--only
+loafing in beer-coolers during the heat of the day, spending their time
+chasing the labor-agitators out of the parks, and letting burglars keep
+house all summer in the mansions up-town while the owners are away at
+the seashore. It's all more or less of a joke.”
+
+“Why don't the mayor and aldermen of this city attend to duty instead of
+jokes?”
+
+“Oh, this city is run so smooth that there's nothing to do in the summer
+except stage a little farce comedy at City Hall.”
+
+“Let me tell you that there's something to be investigated in this city
+that isn't a joke,” raged Farr, his bitter ponderings blossoming into
+speech.
+
+“What's that?”
+
+“Murder going on every day in this damnable town.”
+
+“Well, I guess if there was any murder going on which we didn't hear
+about, even from our fat cops, it would be investigated, all right.
+What's the matter with you?”
+
+“I'm glad now you told me about that hearing to-night,” stated Farr,
+ignoring the other's curiosity. “I'm glad I know when and where to
+locate the mayor and his men in session. I'll find out if they propose
+to waste the people's time hearing funny stories about policemen and are
+going to let murder go on while they are laughing.”
+
+He strode away, cursing at his workmen as he tramped along the side of
+the ditch.
+
+Farr knocked at the garret room of Etienne early that evening.
+
+“I want you to come with me,” he commanded.
+
+The old man obeyed without questions. As they walked along the streets
+Farr did not volunteer information. He was grimly sure that if Etienne
+should receive an inkling of what was expected of him the old man would
+not stop running until he had crossed the Canadian border.
+
+They were ten minutes worming their way through the press that packed
+the corridors of City Hall. Groups were bulked at the doors admitting
+to the aldermen's room--men thatched against each other and overlapping
+like bees in a swarm at the door of a hive.
+
+But the young man was tall and his shoulders were broad and he kept
+uttering the magic words, “Room for witnesses!” In his own consciousness
+he knew that what he should attempt to testify to that night was not
+on the slate, but the crowd accepted him as one of those from whom they
+anticipated entertainment, and allowed him to pass--and Etienne, holding
+to his young friend's coat, followed close and made his way before the
+throng could close in again.
+
+The hearing began and progressed, and there was much laughter when
+the delinquencies of certain fat policemen were related--it was
+a free-and-easy affair--a sort of midsummer fantasy in municipal
+politics--a squabble between ward bosses who had become jealous in
+matters of the distribution of police patronage.
+
+Walker Farr, standing against the wall of the audience-chamber, did
+not laugh. He was busy with thoughts of his own. This bland fooling in
+municipal matters while stealthy death, protected by city franchise,
+dripped, so he believed, from every faucet in the tenement-house
+district, stirred his bitter indignation. Etienne Provancher stood
+beside him, and the old man did not laugh, either, because he did not
+understand in the least what those men were talking about. And he was
+very uneasy, wistfully awe-stricken, hardly daring to touch with his
+hands the polished oak at his back. He was in the great _hotel de ville_
+whose exterior he had stared at many times without presuming or daring
+to enter the broad portals.
+
+Then there came a recess while the mayor examined papers at his desk.
+The aldermen leaned back in their chairs with lighted cigars.
+
+“Etienne,” whispered the young man, deep resolve thrilling him, his
+eyes blazing into the wondering gaze of the old man, “those men who sit
+behind those desks can do something to save the children and the poor
+folks in the tenements. But they must wake up, these men here must. You
+and I must try to wake them up!”
+
+Etienne's eyes opened wide. He did not in the least comprehend how he
+could serve.
+
+“I know you will not desert a friend, Etienne. I know you'll stand
+behind me. I know you love the children. So be a brave man now!”
+
+The next moment Etienne was so frightened that he feared he would drop
+where he stood, because the young man raised his voice so that it rang
+through the great hall and all eyes were turned that way.
+
+“Your honor the mayor, and gentlemen; I am a stranger here. But I humbly
+ask permission to address you.”
+
+“If you are a witness in the police matter you will be called on in your
+turn after the recess,” stated the mayor.
+
+“I am not a witness in the police matter. I am here on other business.”
+
+“There is no other business before this meeting.”
+
+“But there should be, sir, for the business I have come on is a dreadful
+matter. It is a matter of life and death.”
+
+A hush fell on those in the chamber, and the mayor and his aldermen
+leaned forward, staring apprehensively. They had been warned that there
+were dangerous labor-agitators in the city. Many meetings had been
+broken up by the police at the request of Colonel Dodd, president of
+the Consolidated Water Company, and other employers had backed him. This
+tall young man had startled them with his sudden outbreak.
+
+“It is a matter, gentlemen, which concerns every man, woman, and child
+in this city--vitally concerns them every hour of the day--every hour
+they are awake. You say you have no other business now except this
+silly police investigation. For God's sake, wake up and attend to real
+business--save the people's lives. Here you are in session and here are
+the people to listen.”
+
+“State your complaint. Be very brief,” commanded the mayor.
+
+But Walker Farr, it was plain, possessed craft as well as courage; he
+realized that curiosity, properly tickled, will make men more patient in
+listening.
+
+“First, I want to call a witness. I am not known to this city. But I
+have here a man whom many of you know, I'm sure, for he has stood out in
+plain view of a street where many pass, and has worked there for thirty
+years. It is Etienne Provancher.”
+
+Several men laughed when Farr pushed the old man into view. There was a
+murmured chorus of “Pickaroon.”
+
+“It's for the children--the poor folks--for the memory of our little
+girl,” hissed Farr in the old man's ear. “Will you go to your bed
+to-night--the night of the day we buried her--knowing that--you are a
+coward? These are only men. We must tell them so that they will know.
+Speak! Tell them!” He set his firm clutch around the trembling old
+Frenchman's arm and held him out where all could see.
+
+“I do not know how to talk here--to so much man--to the lords of the
+city,” stammered the miserable old man, licking his parched lips, scared
+until all was black before his eyes.
+
+The hush was profound. Men curved their palms at their ears, wondering
+what old Pickaroon could have to say in City Hall.
+
+“Remember what we have left up there--in the cemetery--the poor children
+in their graves,” muttered Farr, again bending close to Etienne's ear.
+
+Then, thus reminded, thus spurred, all his Gallic emotion bursting into
+flame in him suddenly, the old man felt the desperate resolution that
+often animates the humble and ignorant in great emergencies. The little
+ones had been martyrs--why not he? That thought flashed through the
+tumult in his brain.
+
+“Yes, since you all hark for me to speak I will speak,” he declared.
+“Messieurs, I am a poor man. Not wise. It is very hard for me to talk
+to you. But I have been to-day up where the little children are bury--so
+many of them, with their playthings on the graves. I went to take there
+anodder little child, poor baby girl. I leave her there with the odder
+ones--so very lonesome all of them--their modders cannot sing them to
+sleep any more.”
+
+“This is irregular,” cried the mayor. “What do you want?”
+
+“Nottings for maself,” cried Etienne, passionately shrill in his tone
+now. “But I have to ask you, masters of this city, how much longer shall
+you send poison down the water-pipes to the poor folks and the
+children in the tenement blocks? It is poison that has kill our little
+Rosemarie--and all her life ahead! The doctor say so--and he say I
+cannot understand about the rich man, why he do it. But I understand
+that the childs are dying. I say you shall not sent that water--if you
+do send it I will bring here the fadders who have lost their babies and
+the modders of the babies.” His lips curled back in his excitement
+and froth flecked his mouth. “Sacred name of God! We shall tear that
+poison-factory up from the ground with our bare hands!”
+
+“Officer, put that man out of the room,” ordered the mayor.
+
+“Won't you listen to us?” shouted Farr. “You are the chief magistrate of
+this city. You and these aldermen are the guardians of the people. Are
+you going to sit there in those cushioned chairs and let a crowd of rich
+assassins murder the poor people?”
+
+Men hissed that speech.
+
+The mayor rapped his gavel furiously.
+
+“This is no matter to be brought up here at this time. You're slandering
+honorable men, sir! We have other business.”
+
+“Can there be any other business as important as this?”
+
+“Put both of these men out, officer.”
+
+“Are you and these aldermen owned by the water syndicate, as report says
+you are?” cried Farr. “Look here, you men, men in this room and at the
+door! This is your City Hall--these aldermen are elected by your votes.
+Aren't you going to demand that the people be heard in this matter?
+Don't you know that typhoid fever is killing off the children in this
+city--and that poison water is the cause of it?”
+
+“It's rotten stuff to drink--we all know that,” cried a voice. “But
+there'll have to be a change in politics in this state before they'll
+give us anything else.”
+
+Two policemen elbowed their rough way to Farr and Etienne.
+
+“The big chap is right--it's about time to have this water question
+opened up, Mr. Mayor,” called another voice.
+
+“Open it up in a legal and proper way, then,” snapped the mayor. “Go to
+the law.”
+
+“That's it--go to the law--go to the law,” jeered another. “And we'll
+all be dead and the lawyers will have all our money before the thing is
+decided.”
+
+There were more hisses.
+
+But an outburst of indorsing voices indicated that many men in that
+chamber understood more or less of the political management behind the
+Consolidated Water Company.
+
+“If a thing is wrong, change it. What better law do you need than
+that?” asked Farr, disregarding an officer's thumb that jerked imperious
+gesture.
+
+“When you know a little more law you won't be ignoramus enough to come
+into a public hearing and try to break it up. You'd better go and study
+law,” said the indignant mayor. He pounded his gavel to indicate that
+the recess was over.
+
+“I'll take your advice,” replied Farr, towering over the policeman and
+vibrating his finger at his Honor. “If you hadn't found law so handy
+in your own case you wouldn't forget yourself in your excitement and
+recommend it to others. If we've got to fight the devil we'd better use
+his weapons.”
+
+Men shouted approval all around him.
+
+“Clear the room,” ordered the mayor. “Everybody out!”
+
+“Keep your hands off,” Farr advised the officer nearest him. “I'll go
+without any help. I have found out that I'm only wasting my time in this
+place.”
+
+In the corridor men pressed around him. Some of them insisted on shaking
+his hand. Others shouted commendation. Still others exhibited only frank
+curiosity in the stalwart stranger. And others were clamorously hostile.
+
+“By gad! If you wanted to start something you took the right way to do
+it,” affirmed one of the throng.
+
+“You showed good courage,” declared an elderly man with an earnest face.
+“Some of the rest of us have tried to do something in the past. But
+those who didn't have much power were either kept out or kicked out
+of any office in city government or the legislature--and those who did
+amount to something were gobbled up by the machine. The machine can pay.
+Working for the people isn't very profitable. So I'm afraid you won't
+get very far.”
+
+“You needn't worry about that chap not getting along all right,”
+ remarked one of the group--but his indorsement was ironical. “He's a
+construction boss for the Consolidated, and he went into that hearing
+to start some kind of a back-fire. Shrewd operators--the Consolidated
+folks.”
+
+The men about Farr pulled away from him and there was considerable
+malicious laughter in the crowd.
+
+“So we see the game, even if we don't catch on to the meaning of it just
+now,” said the observant one.
+
+Farr squared his shoulders. They stared at him with fresh interest and
+a bit of additional respect. They saw in him something more than a
+mere popular agitator--a disturber of a municipal hearing; he must be
+a trusted agent of the great political machine, executing a secret
+mission.
+
+“You're right--I have been working for the Consolidated,” he admitted in
+tones that all could hear.
+
+“Move on! Get outdoors! Clear this corridor--all of you,” shouted a
+captain of police who had come hurrying up from down-stairs and had
+taken command of the situation.
+
+The crowd began to surge on, following Farr.
+
+“I went to work digging in their trenches because I struck this town on
+my uppers and needed the money--needed it quick. I was promoted to be a
+boss. But I want to tell you now, gentlemen, that I do not work for the
+Consolidated.”
+
+“I reckon you're right,” said somebody. “I just overheard a man
+telephoning to the superintendent about you--and if I'm any judge of a
+conversation you are _not_ working for the Consolidated. Not any more!”
+
+“I'm sorry you're going to leave the city,” lamented the elderly man.
+“We need chaps like you.”
+
+“I'm not going to leave the city.”
+
+“You might just as well,” counseled one of the bystanders, “after what
+you said in that hearing. If you get a job in this city after this
+you'll be a good one!”
+
+When they were outside City Hall, Farr waited for a moment on the steps.
+Etienne, still trembling after that most terrible experience of his
+placid life, pressed close at the young man's side.
+
+“Will all you gentlemen please take a good look at me so that
+you'll know me when you see me again?” invited the ex-boss for the
+Consolidated.
+
+They stared at him. His face was well lighted by the arc-light under the
+arch of the door.
+
+“I am not a labor-leader, nor a walking delegate, nor a politician, nor
+an anarchist. You men go home and unscrew the faucets in your kitchens,
+take a good sniff, and pull the slime out of the valve. Then remember
+that the mayor and aldermen of this city wouldn't listen to me to-night
+in the Hall that the tax-payer's money built. Also remember that a
+little later they will listen to me. Gentlemen, my name is Walker Farr.
+I'm going to stay here in this city. Good night.”
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+AT THE FOOT OF THE THRONE
+
+As usual at nine-thirty in the afternoon, the big tower clock on the
+First National Bank building in the city of Marion pointed the finger of
+its minute-hand straight downward.
+
+As usual, at this hour, as he had done for many years, Colonel Symonds
+Dodd eased himself down from the equipage that brought him to his
+office. This day the vehicle was his limousine car.
+
+In view of the fact that Colonel Dodd owned the First National block the
+big clock seemed to point its finger at him with the bland pride of a
+flunky in a master. It seemed to say, “Behold! The great man is here!”
+
+Colonel Dodd was never embarrassed when fingers were pointed at him
+wherever he went. If a man is lord of finance and politics in his state
+he expects to be pointed out.
+
+When he stepped from his car he carried in his arms, with great
+tenderness, a long parcel which was carefully wrapped in tissue-paper.
+He always carried a similar parcel when he came to his office. Each
+morning the gardener of the Dodd estate laid choice flowers on the seat
+of that vehicle which had been chosen to convey the master to the city.
+
+Colonel Dodd coddled the long parcel with the care a nurse would have
+bestowed on an infant--but he kicked his fat leg clumsily at an urchin
+who got in his way on the sidewalk. A college professor of Marion
+happened to be passing at the moment and saw the act and knew what the
+colonel was carrying in his arms. The professor made a mental note of
+fresh material for his lecture on “The Psychological Phenomena of the
+Bizarre in the Emotions.” The professor had just met a woman wheeling a
+cat out in a baby-carriage.
+
+The doctor had advised exercise for the colonel--a small amount. The
+colonel toilsomely climbed the one flight of stairs to his office. That
+was his daily quota of exercise.
+
+A little man with a beak of a nose was waiting in the corridor and
+hastened to unlock a door marked “Private,” and the colonel went in,
+and the little man locked the door and tiptoed down the corridor to the
+general offices.
+
+Before he removed his hat Colonel Dodd carefully stripped the
+tissue-paper from the damp flowers. There were two huge bouquets. He
+set these into vases of ornate bronze, one on each end of his desk. He
+patted and stroked the flowers until they appeared to best advantage. He
+stood back and bestowed affectionate regard on them. No human being had
+ever reported the receipt of such a look from Colonel Symonds Dodd. It
+was rather astonishing to find softness in him in respect to flowers. He
+seemed as hard as a block of wood. He had a squat, square body and his
+legs seemed to be set on the corners of that body. His square face was
+smooth except for a wisp of whisker, minute as a water-color brush,
+jutting from under his pendulous lower lip.
+
+He hung up his hat and stood for a moment before a massive mirror. The
+report in Marion was that he stood before that mirror and made up his
+expression to suit the character of a day's business.
+
+Then he sat down at his desk and stuck a pudgy finger on one button of a
+battery of buttons.
+
+A girl entered with a promptitude which showed that she had been waiting
+for the summons.
+
+He did not look up at her. His gaze was on one of the bouquets.
+
+She brought a portfolio and packets of letters all neatly docketed.
+
+His salutation was merely, “Miss Kilgour.” Colonel Dodd did not deal in
+many “Good-mornings.” It was also reported in Marion and the state that
+his stock of urbanity was so small he was compelled to expend it very
+thriftily. He certainly did not waste any of it on his office help.
+He might have afforded at least one glance at the girl, for she was
+extremely pretty. Still another report in Marion was to the effect that
+he had selected Kate Kilgour as his secretary as the final artistic
+touch to the beauty of his private office in order that he might have a
+perfect ensemble. She did seem, so far as his interest in her went, to
+be only a part of that ensemble which he occasionally swept carelessly
+with his gaze--he reserved all his intimate admiration for the bouquets.
+
+She laid his “Strictly Personal” letters on his fresh blotter.
+
+She sat down and began to read the business letters aloud, not waiting
+for his orders to begin. It was her daily routine, business transacted
+as Colonel Dodd wished it to be transacted--crisply, promptly, directly.
+
+He dictated replies, usually laconic, even curt, as soon as she had
+finished each letter. His eyes were on the flowers as he talked.
+
+When the letters were finished she retired with her portfolio and her
+notes, the thick carpet muffling the sound of her withdrawal.
+
+After he had slit the envelopes of his personal correspondence and had
+read the contents the colonel pushed another button. The little man who
+had been waiting in the corridor slipped edgewise in at the door. He was
+thin and elderly and his knob of a head, set well down on his pinched
+shoulders, had peering eyes on each side of that beak of a nose. When
+he walked across the room his long arms were behind him under his
+coat-tails and held them extended, and he bore some resemblance to a
+bird. In fact, one did not require much imagination to note resemblance
+to a bird in Peter Briggs--many folks likened him to a woodpecker--for
+he flitted to and fro in Colonel Dodd's anteroom, among those awaiting
+audience, tapping here and rapping there with the metaphorical beak of
+questions, starting up the moths and grubs of business which men who
+came and waited hid under the bark of their demeanor.
+
+“Seventeen, Colonel Dodd. Five for real business; twelve of them are
+sponges.”
+
+“The five?”
+
+“Chief Engineer Snell of the Consolidated, Dr. Dohl of the State Board
+of Health, the three promoters of the Danburg Village Water system.”
+
+“Send in Snell.”
+
+Engineer Snell did not sit in the presence of his president, nor did the
+president ask him to sit.
+
+“Briggs tells me the Danburg men are here.”
+
+“They're waiting out there, Colonel Dodd.”
+
+“Quitting?”
+
+“I don't think so--just yet. They look too mad. I gave 'em the harpoon
+in good shape, as is usual, but I didn't expect they'd run here so soon.
+Thought they would flop a little longer.”
+
+“They got their poke from Stone & Adams yesterday afternoon, did they?”
+
+“Yes, Colonel. My report to Stone & Adams showed that the Danburg plan
+of levels is faulty, that their unions are not up to contract, that
+their station and pumps are inefficient for the demands. So Stone &
+Adams had to tell 'em that their bonds were turned down.”
+
+“Do you know whether they have tried another banking-house yet?”
+
+“I don't believe they have had time, Colonel.”
+
+“But such fellows always do try. Their banging in here on me so quickly
+looks a little irregular. In business, you know, Snell, if you tie a tin
+can to a dog and he runs and ki-yi's, that's perfectly natural and you
+can sit back and wait for nature to take its course. If the dog doesn't
+run, but sits down and gnaws the string in two--then look out for the
+dog.”
+
+“I must admit they're coming here sudden after their jolt. They look
+mad. But I figure they must have quit. The jolt was a hard one, for
+Stone & Adams had been leading 'em on--according to orders.”
+
+The colonel stared at a bouquet.
+
+“Have you got your other report--the side report--in shape for me to get
+a hasty idea? If they have come here with a proposition--want to quit
+and cover themselves, I need information right now.”
+
+Engineer Snell laid papers on the desk. He proceeded to explain.
+
+“If you don't feel you have time to go over it--don't want to keep the
+Danburg crowd waiting--I can tell you that the plant is pretty nearly
+all right. So much all right that you can afford to slip 'em a couple of
+thousand apiece on top of what they have already spent. I don't suppose
+you want 'em to holler too loud. I can tell you that Davis, Erskine, and
+Owen--those men out there--are cleaned out. They have put in all
+their ready money. They were depending on Stone & Adams for the first
+instalment from the bonds, so as to take up some thirty-day notes and
+pay bills due on material.”
+
+Colonel Dodd meditated, pulling on his wisp of whisker.
+
+“It's one thing to encourage enterprise in this state--it's another
+thing to be everlastingly paying rake-offs to local promoters who grab
+a franchise when we're not looking and then hold us up. I don't want to
+hurt the Danburg men. But my stockholders expect certain things of me
+and it's about time men in this state understand that we propose to
+control the water question. Snell, you go and talk to those Danburg men
+like a father to children. Send them in here smoothed down and we'll do
+the right thing by them.”
+
+He signaled for Briggs and told him to admit Dr. Dohl.
+
+The doctor, chairman of the State Board of Health, was a chubby man with
+a tow-colored, fan-shaped beard. He sat down and sprung his eye-glasses
+on his bulgy nose and drew out a package of manuscript.
+
+“Colonel, I have felt it my duty to write a special chapter on the
+typhoid situation in this state for the report of the State Board of
+Health.”
+
+“Very well, Doctor.” The colonel was curt and his tone admitted nothing
+of his sentiments.
+
+“DO you care to listen to it? It rather vitally concerns the
+Consolidated Water Company.”
+
+“You don't blame us for all these typhoid cases, do you?”
+
+“No, sir--not for all of them.”
+
+“Why blame us for any of them? Our analyses show that we're giving clean
+water. How about dirty milkmen and the sanitary arrangements in these
+tenement-houses and all such? It's the fashion to blame a corporation
+for everything bad that happens in this world.”
+
+“We have placed blame on milkmen where any blame is due,” stated Dr.
+Dohl. He tapped his manuscript. “But I have spent considerable of my
+department's money in making a house-to-house canvass, tracing the
+sources. The man before me _guessed_. I have made _sure_! Colonel Dodd,
+the Consolidated water is pretty poisonous stuff these days.”
+
+“What's the matter in this state all of a sudden?” snapped the colonel.
+“I am told that a lunatic almost broke up our city government meeting
+the other night, shouting that the Consolidated is trying to poison
+folks. You're too level-headed a man to get into that class, Dr. Dohl.”
+
+“I'll allow you to set me down in any class which seems fitting from
+your point of view,” replied the doctor, stiffly. “But if that lunatic,
+as you call him, got an angle-worm or a frog's leg out of his tap I
+don't blame him for breaking up a meeting of the city government which
+will tolerate the water which is being pumped through the city mains
+just now.”
+
+“We're working on the filtering-plant--it will be all right in a little
+while. It got out of hand before we realized it,” said the colonel, now
+a bit apologetic.
+
+“In this crisis your filter amounts to about that!” The doctor snapped a
+pudgy finger into a plump palm. “The river-water in this state has been
+poisoned. You must go into the hills--to the lakes, Colonel Dodd.”
+
+“You don't mean to say that you recommend that in your report, Doctor?”
+
+“Absolutely--emphatically.”
+
+“Without stopping to think of the millions it will cost my company to
+build over its plants?”
+
+“It has come to a point where it isn't a question of money, Colonel.”
+
+“We can't afford it.”
+
+“Then let the cities and towns of the state buy in their water-plants
+and do it.”
+
+“Good Jefferson! Don't you know that every city and town in this state
+where we have a water-plant has already exceeded its debt limit of five
+percent?”
+
+“Do I understand you as intimating, Colonel Dodd, that there is no help
+for this present condition of affairs?”
+
+“Look here--I'm neither a Herod nor a Moloch, even if some of the
+crack-brained agitators in this state will have it that way,” protested
+the magnate, with heat. “Are you going to print that report before you
+have given us time to turn around?”
+
+“With one hundred deaths a day from typhoid fever in this state,
+Colonel, that matter of time becomes mighty important.”
+
+“Look here, Dohl, don't you remember that it was my indorsement that
+gave you your job?”
+
+“I do, Colonel Dodd. But I'm a physician, not a politician.”
+
+“I see you're not,” retorted the colonel, dryly. “But you're a member
+of our political party, and you know that the Consolidated and its
+associate interests are the backbone of that party. There are a lot of
+soreheads in this state, and we're having a devil of a time to hold 'em
+in line. Every savings-bank in this state, furthermore, holds bonds of
+the Consolidated. Do you want to start a panic? You've got to be careful
+how you touch the first brick standing in a row. Dohl, you leave that
+report with me. I'll go over it. I'll take the matter up with the
+directors. We'll move as fast as possible.”
+
+The doctor hesitated, stroking the folds of his manuscript.
+
+“You're not doubting my word, are you?” demanded the colonel.
+
+“No, sir!” Even the physician's sense of duty did not embolden him to
+persist under this scowl of the man of might.
+
+The colonel took the document from Dr. Dohl's relaxing hands and shoved
+it into a pigeonhole of the big desk.
+
+“You must understand that pipe-lines to lakes cannot be laid in a minute
+as a child strings straws, Doctor,” admonished the magnate.
+
+“Do you propose to lay lines to the lakes, Colonel? I need to throw a
+little sop to my conscience if my report is delayed.”
+
+“Everything right will be done in good time, Dr. Dohl. I will proceed as
+rapidly as possible, considering that the law, finance, and politics
+are all concerned. As you are leaving,” he added, giving his visitor the
+blunt hint that the interview was over, “I must draw your attention to
+the fact that if you bludgeon the Consolidated with a report like this
+it may be a long time before we can move in the matter. You'll only
+scare the banks and set the cranks to yapping. Just remember that you're
+a state officer and have a weighty responsibility to your party and to
+financial interests.”
+
+Dr. Dohl went away. He sourly realized that he was only a cog in the big
+machine; that for a moment he had threatened to develop a rough edge and
+start a squeak, but the big file had been used on him. It had been used
+on many another of the State House cogs, as he well knew. Responsibility
+as to his party! Safety and sanity in regard to financial interests! He
+knew that these talismanic words had been used to control even the
+lords in national politics. He departed from the Presence, muttering his
+rebellion, but fully conscious that a political Samson in modern days
+made but a sorry spectacle of himself when he started to pull down the
+pillars of the party temple.
+
+He continued to mutter when he walked through the anteroom.
+
+Most of the men who waited there had faces as lowering as the visage
+which Dr. Dohl displayed.
+
+The doctor had not lost all faith in his own fearlessness and rectitude
+of motive, but he was obliged to acknowledge to himself that just then
+he was a rather weak champion.
+
+“However, I'd like to lay eyes on the sort of man who can unjoint this
+devilish combination of politics and law and finance,” he informed
+himself, trying to justify his own retreat.
+
+His eyes, in passing, swept a stranger.
+
+The stranger was a tall young man with wavy hair and brown eyes. He sat
+patiently, nursing a broad-brimmed black hat on his knees.
+
+“I'd like to see that man!” repeated Dr. Dohl, mentally, sugar-coating
+his disgust at his own weakness.
+
+If mortal man were gifted with prescience Dr. Dohl would have stared out
+of countenance the tall young man who sat on a bench in the outer office
+of the state's overlord and nursed a broad-brimmed hat upon his knees.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE CODE AND THE GAGE OF BATTLE
+
+“I appreciate zeal in public affairs,” mused Colonel Dodd, gazing at
+the door which Dr. Dohl had closed behind him. “But once there was a
+retriever dog who chased his master with a stick of dynamite that had a
+sputtering fuse.”
+
+He set his broad hands upon the arms of his chair, derricked himself
+up, and went over to the mirror. He peered at himself and seemed to
+rearrange his countenance, much as a woman would smooth the ruffled
+plumage of her hat.
+
+“We're not murderers,” he informed the composed visage which the mirror
+held forth to him. “But we haven't got to the point where we're letting
+lunatics who break up city government meetings, or crank doctors, tell
+us how to spend a million or two of the money we've worked hard to
+accumulate. There's getting to be too much of this telling business men
+in this country how to run their business. If we're peddling typhoid
+fever in spite of what our analyses tell us, then we'll go ahead, of
+course, and clean up.” Colonel Dodd was willing to acknowledge that much
+to himself, surveying his countenance in the mirror. “But we'll continue
+to run our own business,” he added.
+
+Then he sat down again in his chair and pushed a button. “Briggs,” he
+directed, “send in those three men from Danburg.”
+
+He whirled his swivel-chair and sat there at his desk, his rectangular
+front squared to meet them.
+
+The three men who came in were of the rural businessmen type, and
+their faces were not amiable. Two of them halted in the middle of the
+sumptuous apartment and the third stepped a couple of paces ahead of
+them. He carried a huge roll of engineers' plans under his arm.
+
+“My name is Davis, as I suppose you know, Colonel Dodd,” he reported.
+
+“Have seats, gentlemen.”
+
+“We are tired of sitting,” stated the spokesmen, with sour significance.
+
+“I understand, Mr. David. But mornings are very busy times for me. I was
+attending to appointments made beforehand. You made no appointment, and
+I was not expecting you.”
+
+There was silence, and the three men glowered on him. It was evident
+that settled animosity emboldened these country merchants even in the
+presence of Colonel Symonds Dodd.
+
+“I was not expecting you, I say.”
+
+The colonel's demeanor displayed a little uncertainty; he had rather
+expected suppliants. He knew what a nasty blow had been dealt these men
+the day before.
+
+“Probably not,” assented Davis. “You expected that after Stone & Adams
+yanked the gangplank out from under us yesterday we would put in at
+least one day tearing around to other banking firms, trying to place our
+bonds.”
+
+“Why--why--Well, if Stone & Adams--You naturally wouldn't take the
+verdict of one banking-house on a matter of bonds, would you?”
+
+“Look here, Colonel Dodd, we understand you--clear way down to the
+ground--and we may as well save wear on our tongues. And first of all
+we have come right here to save shoe-leather. We have come straight to
+headquarters. Do you suppose we're going to gallop around this city to
+bankers after the word has gone out about us? Not much! We are here in
+the captain's office, and you can't fool us about that.”
+
+“I never heard such--” the colonel began to sputter.
+
+“I know you never did--and it's getting your goat,” asserted the blunt
+countryman. “We've got a plain and pertinent question to put to you--do
+you intend to ram us to the wall in our water deal?”
+
+The head of the state's water trust simulated anger perfectly, even if
+he didn't feel it. And there was astonishment in his anger.
+
+“What have I to do with your dealings with bankers?” he demanded.
+“Probably your plant isn't up to pitch.”
+
+“That talk doesn't go with us, not for a minute, Colonel Dodd,” shouted
+the undaunted Davis. “You're talking to business men, not to children.
+We offered to leave the matter of our plan to any three engineers in
+this state. Why is it that Stone & Adams refuse to take the word of
+anybody except your man, Snell?”
+
+“They probably want the word of the best consulting-engineer in the
+state.”
+
+“But he's your man.”
+
+“He is our man because he is the best. We hire him for our work. But we
+do not control his opinions when he is consulted by others. Oh no! And I
+want to tell you, my men, that I refuse to listen to any more such talk
+from you.”
+
+“Then call in one of your political policemen and have us put out,”
+ invited the unterrified Davis.
+
+“Build your plant right and your bonds will sell. Our bonds sell when
+Mr. Snell reports on our plants.”
+
+“We'll save our strength in the matter of building plants and running
+around trying to place bonds with brokers who have been tipped off by
+the money trust of this state. We propose to get it straight from you
+first. You can't fool us for one minute, I repeat! We'll have our last
+wiggle right here. Will you take your hands off our affairs?”
+
+“I haven't put my hands _on_ your affairs,” shouted Colonel Dodd,
+furious at being baited in this amazing manner. Never before had any
+visitor dared to raise his voice in that office. “You're crazy.”
+
+“You're right--we are--pretty nearly so. Myself and these two neighbors
+of mine have tied up every dollar we can rake and scrape to build a
+water-plant for our little village and give our folks clean water from a
+lake, not the rotten poison you would pump out of our millstream for
+us. We have tried to do this for our town and make an honest dollar for
+ourselves. Now you have got us lashed to the mast, financially, so
+you think, and you propose to step in and gobble our franchise. That's
+enough to make men crazy.”
+
+“Get out of my office!”
+
+“You grabbed the franchise and common stock of Westham that way,”
+ declared Davis. “You scooped in Durham and Newry and a lot of others.
+But I'm here to warn you, Colonel Dodd. Danburg is going to choke you if
+you try to swallow it. We are only countrymen, and we know it. You have
+always done all the bossing and threatening in this state up to now. But
+I tell you, Colonel Dodd, there comes a time when the rabbit will spit
+in the bulldog's eye. If we three go out of this room in the same spirit
+in which we came into it something will drop in this state. We shall
+have a story to tell.”
+
+Colonel Dodd swung his chair around and faced his desk.
+
+“Gentlemen, let's not get excited,” he appealed. Ostensibly he reached
+for a pencil. He also pushed a button he had not touched before that
+day. Then he came around slowly on the swivel of his chair. “You have
+mentioned certain towns, Davis. Those towns have water systems that are
+a part of the Consolidated, to be sure. But the men who promoted those
+plants and were unable to complete them came to us and begged us to step
+in and take the burden off their hands.” While Colonel Dodd talked he
+kept glancing, but in an extremely unobtrusive manner, at a huge and
+magnificent Japanese screen that occupied one corner of his office.
+“It is easy enough to start ventures in this world, Mr. Davis. An
+inexperienced man can do that. But it most often takes experience and a
+lot of money to install a successful water plant.”
+
+“We want to get down to cases, Colonel Dodd,” insisted the spokesman.
+“We haven't come here without posting ourselves. We know how you have
+talked to the others. But you can't bluff us. You propose to steal our
+plant, such of it as we have been able to build to date. One word from
+you to the money gang takes the hoodoo off us. Now talk business! Do you
+propose to pot us like you have the rest?”
+
+The heart of the big rose in the center of the screen flashed once with
+a glow that was imperceptible unless one had been gazing at it, watching
+for a signal. Colonel Dodd understood that Miss Kate Kilgour had entered
+through a low door and was behind the screen, ready with note-book
+and pencil. He leaned back in his deep chair and interlocked his pudgy
+fingers across his paunch.
+
+“I assure you I have not the least interest in your projects as to the
+Danburg water system, Mr. Davis, Mr. Erskine, Mr. Owen.” He dwelt on the
+names. “The Consolidated has plenty of its own business to attend to.”
+
+“But I say you are trying to run _our_ business, too--no, ruin it!”
+
+“Do you realize, Mr. Davis, that you are accusing me of criminal
+conspiracy--making a statement that might go hard with you in a court of
+law? You have accused me of trying to discredit you with banking-houses.
+Can you produce any proof except your foolish and unjust suspicions?
+You have been made angry by a refusal to handle your bonds. I don't sell
+bonds. I build and operate water systems.”
+
+“The same old game,” sneered Davis. “Your water syndicate, the railroads
+of this state, the banks, the politics--they're all snarled up together
+like snakes in winter quarters. I say, if you pass the word our bonds
+will be taken. If you don't do it, I'm going to trot out of this office
+and expose your highway-robber system.”
+
+“In one breath you threaten me because you say I'm interfering in
+your affairs. In the next breath you threaten me because I refuse to
+interfere. You are making dangerous talk, Davis. I may call the courts
+to pass on that threat. There is only one proposition I can make to
+you--and that's strictly in the line of my business. If you are tied up
+financially--are at the end of your resources and must have help--I'll
+give you my aid in getting the Consolidated to take over the Danburg
+plant at a fair valuation.”
+
+“Is that the best word you've got for us?”
+
+“I have made you an honorable business proposition.”
+
+“That your final talk?”
+
+“Absolutely.”
+
+Davis found words inadequate for his boiling emotions just then. He
+advanced on Dodd, who shrank back into his chair. Davis whipped the
+long roll of plans out from under his arm, held the roll by one end, and
+swung it like a bat-stick. But he did not strike at Dodd, as the magnate
+seemed to apprehend.
+
+He swung over the colonels' head and swept the top of the desk clean
+of everything; vases, bouquets, _objets d'art_, all went rolling and
+smashing to the floor.
+
+Colonel Dodd ducked low and held his square head in his hands as if
+he feared that the next assault would be on that. But Davis led his
+associates out of the room through the door which Briggs had flung open,
+summoned by the crash in his master's holy of holies.
+
+For the first time, perhaps, in the history of that private office the
+door leading into the anteroom was left open and unguarded. Briggs ran
+into the room, his coat-tails streaming, his inquisitive beak stretched
+forward. On his heels followed the tall young man who had been waiting
+in the anteroom. It was Walker Farr, who closed the door behind him,
+shutting out the curious anteroom clients who flocked and peered.
+
+When the colonel lifted his head he found himself looking squarely into
+the eyes of this tall young man whom he in no way remembered.
+
+Briggs went down on his hands and knees and began to pick up the debris.
+
+One of the bouquets had rolled to the colonel's feet, and he stooped
+with some difficulty, recovered it, and laid it across his knees. He
+gazed past Farr with a frown--with a significant, dismissing jerk of
+his head. The young man turned in time to see the capitalist's handsome
+secretary. The amazing riot in the sanctuary of her employer had brought
+her from behind the screen. Uncertainty and alarm were in her eyes
+and excitement had flushed her cheeks. Against the background of the
+gorgeous screen she seemed a veritable apparition of loveliness, and
+while Farr stared, frankly admiring her, recognizing her, exchanging
+that startled recognition with her, she disappeared.
+
+“How do you dare to come into my private office in this fashion?”
+
+“I have waited in that anteroom every day for ten days, trying to get an
+audience. The door was open just now and I came in.”
+
+“It's your own fault if you haven't seen me. I see men who have business
+with me and who send in an explanation of that business.”
+
+“So I have been told by that man,” stated Farr, pointing to Briggs, who
+was groping about on the carpet. “But my business with you couldn't be
+discussed through a third party.”
+
+“Now that you're in here, what is that business?”
+
+“I'll tell you first what it is _not_, so that there won't be any
+misunderstanding in your mind about me. I am not here to borrow money,
+beg money, ask for work, ask for a personal favor of any kind, solicit a
+political job, nor have I anything to sell to you or to give to you. So,
+you see, my business is different.”
+
+With a quick motion he brought out a parcel which he had held concealed
+in the broad-brimmed hat.
+
+Briggs straightened up on his knees and remained thus, seemingly
+paralyzed, staring at the parcel.
+
+The capitalist sank back in his chair, his face growing greenish white.
+
+“Don't you throw that bomb!” he gasped. In his panic he was not able to
+deduce any other explanation for the presence of this stranger who
+had so strenuously disclaimed all reasonable motives for his visit. He
+quailed before this man who seemed to be a dangerous crank--for Farr's
+attire was out of the ordinary and his eyes were flashing and his poise
+was that of a man sure of himself.
+
+“What do you think I have here in this package?”
+
+“Dynamite!” mumbled the magnate.
+
+“It's worse.”
+
+Colonel Dodd rolled his head to and fro on the back of his chair,
+shutting his eyes in vain attempt to find somebody to whom to appeal
+for help. He started a furtive hand in the direction of the battery of
+buttons.
+
+“Keep your hands in your lap,” commanded Farr. “I say that what I have
+here in this package is worse than dynamite.” He tore the paper and
+disclosed a half-dozen faucets that were still dripping with slime. “You
+know now what I mean, Colonel Dodd. This is the stuff your water company
+is pumping through the pipes in this state.”
+
+The president of the Consolidated straightened in his chair, but he had
+been thoroughly frightened.
+
+While Farr talked on the colonel seemed to be gathering
+himself--recovering his voice.
+
+“It's a mighty bold act for me to come in here like this, Colonel
+Dodd. I understand it. I'm a poor man and a stranger in this city. Just
+consider me a voice--call me Balaam's ass if you want to. But I've come
+up from the tenement-house districts where the children are dying.”
+
+“What do you want?” The magnate discharged the question explosively.
+
+“Pure water in the city mains.”
+
+“Whom do you represent?”
+
+Farr hesitated. Colonel Dodd scented possible political strategy in this
+visit, and was controlling his ire in order to probe the matter.
+
+“Come, my man. Out with it! Who commissioned you to come here?”
+
+“I'll not claim that I have any powers delegated to me, sir.”
+
+“How did you dare to force your way in here?”
+
+“Considering what kind of a man I was a few weeks ago, I'm having pretty
+hard work to explain to myself what I'm doing, sir.”
+
+The colonel knotted bushy brows. This person seemed to be playing with
+him. “Who told you to come here?”
+
+“The soul of a little girl who was named Rosemarie.”
+
+Colonel Dodd came out of his chair, thoroughly angry--and yet he
+repressed his anger. This person, more than ever, seemed to him to be a
+crank with vagaries.
+
+Farr put up a protesting palm. His tones trembled, and into them he put
+all the appeal a human voice can compass.
+
+“I know I astonish you, Colonel,” he added. “I astonish myself. I'm not
+much on self-analysis. I don't know just what has come over me the last
+few weeks. But they do say the Deity picks out queer instruments when He
+wants things done. Man to man, now, forgetting you're a mighty man and
+I'm a small one, won't you say you'll give the people of this state pure
+water instead of poison?”
+
+“You don't think you can stroll in here and coax me to build over the
+whole Consolidated system, do you?”
+
+“That isn't the idea at all, sir. Treat me simply as a voice--a jog
+of your conscience--a reminder. I'll go away and you'll never see me
+again.”
+
+“If you think the cranks in this state can influence me in the least
+item about running my own business you're the worst lunatic outside the
+state asylum,” declared the colonel, with passion.
+
+“You mean that what I have asked on behalf of women and children hasn't
+had any effect on you?”
+
+“Not the slightest. Get out!” In his present mood Colonel Dodd would not
+admit to this interloper that he planned reforms, and in that moment he
+unwittingly created his Frankenstein's monster.
+
+Farr retreated a couple of steps and bowed. “Colonel Dodd, in my part of
+the West we fellows had a little code: help a woman, always, everywhere;
+tote a tired child in our arms; and, in the case of a man who announced
+himself an enemy, give him fair notice when it came time to pull guns.
+Better get your weapon loose on your hip.”
+
+He bowed again and went out.
+
+Briggs rose from his knees and his master snapped an angry stare from
+the door that the young man had closed softly behind himself.
+
+“What kind of a resort is my office getting to be? Do you know who that
+devilish fool is, Briggs?”
+
+“No, sir. He has been hanging around here, that's all I know. I kept at
+him.” He made a little dab of his woodpecker beak. “But I couldn't find
+out anything from him.”
+
+“Well find out from somebody else, then. And get judge Warren on the
+'phone for me.”
+
+When the bell rang and the colonel heard the voice of the Consolidated's
+corporation counsel greeting him on the wire he ordered the judge to
+come over at once.
+
+“Hell has just burned through here in three small patches,” stated
+the colonel, grimly. “The sooner we turn on the Consolidated hose, the
+better.”
+
+
+In the early dusk of a summer evening Mr. Peter Briggs stood at the edge
+of the sidewalk of one of the squalid avenues of the district of the
+tenement-houses of Marion. His hands were behind him, propping out his
+coat-tails. He kept peering at the gloomy stairway of a house near at
+hand. Take the gloom, his attitude, and his sooty garb, and he gave a
+very picturesque impression of a raven doing sentinel duty.
+
+At last a tall young man came down the stairs which Mr. Briggs was
+watching and strolled off leisurely up the avenue, stopping here and
+there to chat, nodding to this man, flourishing a hand salute to that
+man. The young man apparently had nothing whatever on his mind except to
+enjoy a stroll in the summer evening.
+
+Mr. Briggs watched him out of sight without moving from his tracks.
+Then he withdrew both hands from under his coat-tails. In one hand was
+a note-book, in the other hand was a pencil. Mr. Briggs made an entry,
+closed the book with decision, and snapped an elastic band around the
+covers. Then he made off toward his home. He lived up-town in a section
+where there were fewer smells and better scenery. He determined that
+this should be his last tour of surveillance. He had found his trips
+into the nooks and crannies of the Eleventh Ward to be very distasteful
+employment for a man who had served Colonel Dodd for so many years in
+the sumptuous surroundings of that office in the First National block.
+
+He asked himself what would be the use of hunting for any more
+information regarding such an inconsequential individual as one Walker
+Farr? He wondered why this crank had impressed Colonel Symonds Dodd
+sufficiently to stir up all this trouble for himself, Peter Briggs. The
+fellow had come from somewhere--nobody in Marion seemed to know. He
+had been discharged from the employment of the Consolidated. Now he was
+going about, warning all the people to boil the city water they drew
+from the faucets. He seemed to be a crank on the water subject, so Peter
+Brigg's note-book recorded.
+
+The book also recorded that this queer Walker Farr strolled about
+the streets in the poorer quarters, “currying favor”: so Peter Briggs
+expressed the young man's evening activities in the note-book. That
+seemed to be all there was to it. At any rate, Peter Briggs decided that
+he had finished his quest.
+
+Thereupon he had snapped the elastic band with vigor and made up his
+mind to tell Colonel Dodd the next morning that chasing that worthless
+fellow around or thinking that such a fellow could do anything to
+interfere with Colonel Dodd was poppycock. Peter Briggs hoped he would
+dare to call it “poppycock” in the presence of his master--for he was
+thoroughly sick of being a sleuth in the ill-smelling Eleventh Ward.
+
+He did dare to call it poppycock. And Colonel Dodd shrugged
+his shoulders and forgot one Walker Farr. The fellow seemed
+inconsiderable--and Colonel Dodd found other matters very pressing.
+
+For one thing, those three men from Danburg had brought suit against
+both Stone & Adams and the Consolidated Water Company and had engaged
+as counsel no less a personage than the Honorable Archer Converse, the
+state's most eminent corporation lawyer, a man of such high ideals and
+such scrupulous conception of legal responsibility that he had never
+been willing to accept a retainer from the great System which dominated
+state affairs. Colonel Symonds Dodd feared the Honorable Archer
+Converse. It was hinted that the Danburg case would involve charges of
+conspiracy with intent to restrain independents, and would be used to
+show up what the opponents of the Consolidated insisted was general
+iniquity in finance and politics.
+
+Colonel Dodd outwardly was not intimidated. He sent no flag of truce.
+He decided to intrench and fight. He cursed when he remembered the
+interview with the Danburg triumvirate.
+
+“Under ordinary circumstances I would buy them off in the usual way,” he
+informed Judge Warren. “But that damnation lunatic raved at me with all
+the insults he could think of--then he up with his dirty bunch of plans
+and knocked my flowers on to the floor--yes, sir, that was what the mad
+bull did--he knocked my flowers on to the floor!”
+
+And Colonel Dodd emphasized that as the crime unforgivable.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE MATTER OF DOING WHAT ONE CAN
+
+It was from Citizen Drew that Walker Farr heard the story of Captain
+Andrew Kilgour.
+
+Citizen Drew was the elderly man with the earnest face who had been
+first to commend Farr that evening at City Hall when he and old Etienne
+had made their pathetically useless foray against bulwarked privilege.
+
+Folks in Marion who knew Citizen Drew had forgotten his given name.
+In his propaganda of protest he called himself “Citizen.” He built
+carriage-tops in a little shop where there were drawers stuffed with
+political and economic literature, and he read and pondered during his
+spare hours.
+
+Farr sought out Citizen Drew and sat at his feet, with open ears.
+
+For Citizen Drew knew the political history of his state, the men
+concerned, their characters, their aims, their weaknesses, their
+virtues, their faults--especially did he understand their faults--their
+affiliations with the Machine, their attitude toward the weak; he had
+followed their trails as the humble hound follows big game.
+
+Therefore, Farr, a stranger in that land, seeking knowledge with which
+to arm his resolve, went and sat with Citizen Drew and learned many
+things.
+
+Sometimes loquacity carried Citizen Drew a bit afield from the highway
+of politics, and when he touched on the case of Captain Andrew Kilgour
+Farr's heart thumped and his eyes glistened. For Drew prefaced the bit
+of a story with this:
+
+“I never knew Symonds Dodd to do anything toward squaring a wrong he
+had committed except when he gave Kate Kilgour a fine position in his
+office. And there are those who say that he was only showing more of his
+selfishness when he hired her; he wanted the prettiest girl in the city
+to match his office furnishings.”
+
+“I have seen her,” said Farr, trying to be matter-of-fact. “I--I sort of
+wondered!”
+
+“Her father was a friend of mine. He was a good man. And the
+Consolidated money couldn't buy him. His people were Kilgowers in
+Scotland and he was a man not given to much talk, but he was willing to
+let me run on, nodding his head now and then while he smoked. He was
+an honest man and the best engineer in the state, and he kept his own
+counsel in all things. And he showed me the Kilgower coat of arms--and
+he didn't show that to many. He was no boaster. He was proud of his
+people, but he used to say that it made but little difference who the
+ancestors were unless the descendants copied the virtues and tried to
+improve over the faults. There was a Kilgower who went down across
+the border and gave himself as a hostage so that the clan might gain
+time--and he knew that he would be hung--and he was. But he saved his
+people. And I wish you would remember that, Mr. Farr, for it explains a
+bit the state of mind of Andrew Kilgour.
+
+“He wouldn't sell himself for the gang's dirty work--he made honest
+reports. So they did for him, Mr. Farr. And he couldn't afford to have
+them do for him, because his wife was vain and a spendthrift and he let
+her waste and spend because he was a good and simple man when it came to
+the matter of a woman's domination over him. That's the curse on strong
+men--they are tender when it comes to a woman. She wasn't worthy of him,
+his wife. It's the daughter who has his honesty. I think if she knew who
+had done for her father she would not stay in Symonds Dodd's office. But
+the gang does for a man most often without leaving the trail open when
+they run away and hide.
+
+“He would come here and sit with me and smoke and was very silent. I
+knew there were debts and I knew well enough that the woman wanted him
+to sell himself.
+
+“He raked and scraped money--he sold everything of his own, his
+instruments and all. He took out every cent of insurance that money
+would buy. Then he put prussic acid in a capsule--a shell of salol,
+I believe they said it was--so that the work of the poison would be
+delayed, and he swallowed the capsule on the street and went into an
+office and sat and chatted with friends and joked and laughed much more
+than was his habit till at last his eyes closed and his face grew
+white and he fell out of his chair upon the floor stone-dead, and never
+uttered a groan.
+
+“It was brave work. They called it heart disease, but it's not easy
+to fool insurance people. They took him out of his grave and proved
+suicide--and they did not pay a dollar of insurance to his family. They
+were not obliged to. The policies were new and the suicide clause let
+the companies out. So he left only debts instead of twenty-five thousand
+dollars. However, I say it was brave work.”
+
+“It would have been braver to stay and face it,” blurted Farr.
+
+“But Andrew Kilgour had a code of his own--a state of mind some of us
+could not understand--the example of an ancestor. We are not all alike.
+Many cannot stay and face trouble. You might be able to do it--you seem
+to have a level head!”
+
+Farr grew pale, his hands trembled on the arms of his chair, and then
+he got up and marched across the little shop to the window, turning his
+back on Citizen Drew.
+
+“You told them in City Hall that you would stay here and fight,” pursued
+Citizen Drew. “That is brave work.”
+
+“I'll be much obliged to you, Citizen Drew, if you'll leave me out of
+your catalogue of heroes. And I take back what I said about his facing
+it. I hadn't any right to make any such comment.”
+
+“So the girl went to work in Symonds Dodd's office and his nephew is
+courting her. I hope he doesn't get Andrew Kilgour's daughter. He never
+went after any other girl honestly. I have looked into this case because
+I was Andrew's friend. Young Dodd wants to marry her and the mother is
+helping him. But I know that rapscallion, Mr. Farr. I can't believe that
+Kate Kilgour will be caught by him.”
+
+“He has a fine position, they tell me,” said Farr, still gazing out of
+the window.
+
+“The Machine made old Peleg Johnstone state treasurer, and he doesn't
+know bonds from biscuit. Colonel Dodd put in his nephew as chief clerk,
+and old Peleg is a figure-head, smoking his pipe in the back office and
+resting his wool-tipped boots on his desk. Oh, I know the bunch of 'em,
+sir. I can tell you the inside of things. Young Dodd takes orders from
+his uncle and runs the treasury. All the state's money is in the Dodd
+banks on the checking-account basis--and the gang is letting it out at
+six percent. Tidy little profit! And nobody to say a word, even to ask
+how Richard Dodd finds so much money to spend. But that's the principal
+wonder in the world, Mr. Farr--how your neighbor gets his money to blow.
+Jones, Smith, Brown, and Robinson--they stand and look at one another
+and ask the same question. And folks in the Eleventh Ward are even
+asking me how you get your living,” added Citizen Drew, smoothing his
+curiosity with a bit of jocoseness.
+
+“I have been working in this city--doing good, hard work,” stated Farr,
+moving toward the door.
+
+“Yes, but you have been discharged.”
+
+“I understand how it is you know so much stuff to tell me,” returned the
+young man, smiling. “Well, Citizen Drew, I'm going to take the first job
+that offers itself. Tell 'em that!”
+
+“I'm glad of it,” said Citizen Drew, with blunt heartiness. “If you have
+set out to do anything among the plain folks you've got to be at work in
+the open, earning honest wages, or they'll suspect you. They have been
+fooled too often by fakes and loafers. But since you advertised yourself
+in City Hall you may find jobs a little hard to land. It's pretty much
+of an air-tight proposition, Consolidated influence.”
+
+“I have somebody looking after my interests in that line, Citizen Drew.
+I'm not worrying.” He opened the door. “In fact, there are two mighty
+helpful chaps whom I'm going to associate with more or less from now
+on.”
+
+“Bring 'em with you and let me know 'em. Can't have too many in a good
+cause.”
+
+“I'll bring them--but they are pretty hard to understand--rather slow
+getting acquainted--lots of folks have no use for them,” said Farr,
+starting down-stairs.
+
+“What are their names?” asked the inquisitive citizen, eager for more
+additions to his general stock of information.
+
+“I'll tell you later.”
+
+But Farr named them to himself when he was on the street.
+
+“Chance and Humility--I hope you are going to stick by me from now on,”
+ he muttered. “Chance, you have led me into a queer position and into a
+strange state of mind. Humility, you are helping me to understand. Now,
+Chance, what have you to say to me?”
+
+It was more of the fantastic whimsy with which Walker Farr played.
+
+His eyes, searching the street after this challenge to Chance, beheld an
+ice-wagon rumbling past. It was a neat-looking cart, painted white, and
+bore the advertisement, “Crystal Pure Independent Ice Company.”
+
+Another wagon, painted dirty yellow, followed. It was a Consolidated
+ice-cart; Farr knew those carts with their loads of river-ice.
+
+The spectacle of something which promised rivalry to that yellow cart
+piqued his interest. His mood welcomed the first adventure which Chance
+presented. He had found Chance playing peculiar pranks with his affairs
+in the days just past.
+
+He hurried in pursuit of the white cart and accosted the driver.
+
+“Where can I find the manager of this company?”
+
+“He's up at Coosett Lake this afternoon, sir.” The man was respectful.
+The stranger's garb and demeanor impressed him. “The trolley will take
+you pretty near it. Take a car in the square--a Halcyon Park car.”
+
+Without canvassing the matter further Farr took the car.
+
+He decided that it was a most comforting sensation, this abandoning his
+problems to Chance! It saved so much fuss and worry.
+
+He found the little lake at the limits of the park area--a hollow among
+the hills.
+
+Men were busy at the foot of the slope over whose crest he marched. He
+saw several rough buildings at the edge of the lake, plainly makeshift
+ice-houses. One was a new structure and the other two were old barns
+which had been “darned” here and there with new material, and their
+yawed sides were propped with joists. Men were loading ice upon carts;
+the translucent cubes flashed in the rays of the sun.
+
+During the process of his little crusade he had become acquainted with
+the conditions in the city of Marion and he knew that the Consolidated
+folks controlled the ice-supply as well as the water. They held an iron
+grip by legislative charter on all the riparian rights along the river
+and allowed no one else to operate an ice-field. He had seen and sniffed
+the unwholesome slime which a melted cake of Consolidated ice deposited.
+
+When he found opportunity he accosted a man in corduroy. He was a
+big chap, bronzed by the sun, and Farr singled him out as the manager
+because he had been directing the other workers while he toiled himself.
+
+“It's a little business of my own,” said the man. “I have started in
+independent.”
+
+“I had thought the Consolidated had control of everything.”
+
+“They would control everything if they could. They wouldn't let me run
+my carts through the city streets if they knew how to stop me. I worked
+for them fifteen years, lugging their dirty ice on my back, up stairs
+and down, and I know that crowd. I don't understand much of anything but
+the ice business, mister, whoever you are. But I wouldn't lug any more
+of that ice into homes. I put my savings in here, every cent, hired
+these barns and a shore privilege, and I'm selling clean ice. But I'm
+going to lose every blamed cent! It's no use. I can't buck 'em. Excuse
+me! It's no interest to you. My mouth runs away with me when I get
+talking about that gang.”
+
+He went back to the barn to help his men shift a runway.
+
+Farr waited patiently until he was able to speak to the busy man again.
+
+“I don't mean to bother you, sir,” he said, humbly. “But I am interested
+in this proposition of yours. I have worked for the Consolidated,
+myself. I was discharged because I stood up and damned their water
+before the mayor and aldermen.”
+
+“Say, I heard something about that!” cried the iceman, displaying prompt
+interest and admiration. “The boys said it was good work.”
+
+“I mention it merely to put myself right with you.”
+
+“Then say on ahead, my friend!”
+
+“Do you tell me you can't make a go of this?”
+
+“I'm afraid I can't. It's a half-mile haul for me to the nearest siding.
+The railroad folks don't give me any better rate than they're obliged
+to--and you know why that is! And I have to have another set of carts
+for the city delivery. And no capital to work with! I'm up against a
+crowd that has all the money, plenty of equipment, and has its supply
+right at the back door of the city--and it belongs at the back door! But
+you know what the buying public is! The only reason why I have lasted is
+because my old customers gave me their business and are sticking pretty
+well.”
+
+“My friend,” declared Farr, putting his hand on the shoulder bent and
+ridged by many years of ice-toting, “lots of men who are making money
+as missionaries are not doing half the good in the world you're doing.
+You're certainly showing some of the citizens of Marion the difference
+between good ice and frozen gobs of pestilence.”
+
+“A fellow needs grit, grace, gumption, and a lot of missionary spirit to
+fight what I'm fighting, mister. I ain't going to say anything about
+a lot of obstacles the syndicate has put in my way. Those were to be
+expected in the way of regular business competition. But you can see I
+have only got limited resources here, and I can't afford a big outfit
+in the city. Sometimes I have run short, the best I could do--and it's
+mighty little sleep I have. And the Consolidated drivers have refused
+to sell ice to anybody who has been buying of me even when mothers have
+pleaded so as to keep milk for sick babies from souring. That's orders
+from headquarters! You wouldn't think that the same big chaps who boss
+the governor of the state would get down to such nubbins as that, eh?
+But they do--that's their system. They used to tell me that it's the
+only way a big syndicate can keep its grip--never leave a bar down! Yes,
+sir, they have blacklisted my customers until they'll be good and give
+the Consolidated a yearly contract. More than that, they pass word along
+that I'll be out of business by another season and that folks who have
+bought of me this year will be given the go-by next! Can you beat it?”
+
+“Are you going to sell out to them?”
+
+“No,” said the iceman, grimly. “There are two good reasons: I won't sell
+and they won't buy. They will kill me out so that nobody else will be
+encouraged to try the scheme again.”
+
+“I want a job,” stated Farr, curtly. “I want to work for you. Give me a
+place on one of your carts in the city.”
+
+“Say, look here,” blurted the other man, frankly astonished, “you look
+more like a gent than an iceman!”
+
+“No matter what I look like. The main question is, can I lug ice? Feel
+of my muscle!”
+
+“It may be a poor outlook for your pay--working for me,” warned the
+proprietor. “And if you ever want another job in Marion you may be
+blacklisted. I don't want to get you into a scrape.”
+
+“I can't be in any worse scrape than the one I am in now. Haven't I just
+told you who I am?”
+
+“Oh, I know that! I reckon you're the same fellow. But, see here,
+mister, I'm one of those simple kind of galoots--and the less a man
+knows the more suspicious he is. You ain't wanting to work for me just
+because you need a job!”
+
+“I do need a job! I have spent the little money I had by me after I was
+fired by the Consolidated. I had some special expenses--the funeral of
+a--a friend,” he added, wistfulness in his tones. He drove his hand into
+his pockets and exhibited a few small coins in his palm when he pulled
+his hand out. “That's my cash--every cent of it!”
+
+“Sure! I see it. But money's easy enough to come at by a fellow like you
+when he needs it. You haven't come across all square with me yet!” It
+was not mere inquisitiveness; it was the insistence of a plain man who
+wanted a definite peg on which to hitch the first warp of association.
+“You've got to handle money of mine,” he went on. “I'm in a tight place
+and I have got to have the right men tied up with me. I wouldn't have to
+ask one of those boys yonder why he wanted to lug ice. But you ain't no
+ordinary slouch, mister. You don't do things--not many of 'em--unless
+you've got a good reason for same.” It was the instinct of
+ingenuousness. “Keep it all to yourself if you want to. But in that case
+you'll have to excuse _me_!”
+
+Farr did not hesitate. He smiled.
+
+“You're a down-on-the-ground fellow who may be able to understand the
+thing better than I do myself,” he declared. Again he put his hand on
+the bent shoulder.
+
+“You didn't break loose from a good job and start this ice business here
+simply to make more money, did you?”
+
+“Well, I've got a family to support and I wanted to make some money,
+of course, but I thought it was about time to have less relics, germs,
+curiosities, microbes, and general knickknacks left in ice-boxes
+after the ice had melted. So I went out of the frozen museum business,
+mister.” His voice softened suddenly. “We lost a little girl a year ago
+last summer. Typhoid!”
+
+“I lost a little girl--a friend,” said Farr, patting the shoulder. “It's
+this way with me--What is your name?”
+
+“Freeland Nowell.”
+
+“Mr. Nowell, I have poked more or less fun in my life at men who claimed
+to have missions. Perhaps that was because those men drew my attention
+by advertising their missions loudly--and, therefore, I concluded that
+all men with licenses to cure this and fix that and regulate the other
+were fooling themselves or else were bluffs. But all of a sudden I have
+waked up to something. I believe that any human being who isn't doing
+a little something on the side to help somebody else in this life is
+mighty miserable. I believe that the average sort of folks are doing
+it--keeping it quiet, in most cases, perhaps. I thought I had a mission
+and I stood up in your city government and advertised it and made
+considerable of an ass of myself.”
+
+“Well, it was all right one way you look at it,” said Nowell, with the
+caution of the honest citizen. “But, of course, you got the stigmy put
+onto you of being a crank and a disturber and you don't get nowhere!
+It ain't gab and holler that does it! If talk sets folks to
+thinking--that's all right, so far as it goes. But a lot of these chaps
+set their mouths to going and let their hands lay crossed in their laps
+and then wonder why the world doesn't get better because they have asked
+it to be good.”
+
+It was sagacity from the humble observer.
+
+“Mr. Nowell, I don't want to be quite as lonesome in this world as I
+have been,” said Farr, with earnestness. “It's an awful feeling, that!
+A man can be lonely for a time and crowd down the hankering to be in the
+march of honest men where he can touch elbows and be a part of things.
+I see you look at me! That's right--it's queer stuff to be talking to
+you.” He pondered for a moment and went on. “Queer thing, eh, for a
+fellow to wake up all of a sudden--a fellow of my stamp--and want to
+do some real good in the world? Well, it surprises _me_, and it would
+surprise you a whole lot more if you knew me better. We won't try to
+analyze the feeling. I've given up trying to do it.” He paused and his
+brown eyes surveyed the blinking iceman with a quizzical appeal in them.
+“That's a pretty long preface, Mr. Nowell. It ought to lead up to some
+very important request. But it doesn't. I simply want a job on your
+ice-cart. It will give me the best opportunity I know of to go into
+homes and tell mothers to boil the water which comes out of those dirty
+taps; after I unscrew the faucets I won't have to argue much. I told
+Colonel Dodd in his office to look out for me! That may have been
+bluster. I am a nobody. But I'm on his trail, and there is one thing
+I can do to start with! I can help save the lives of a few children.
+That's all! I'll be following my new motto. Will you give me the job?”
+
+“I sure will,” declared Nowell, heartily. “If I don't know when a man is
+talking rock-bottom to me, then it's my own fault. When do you want to
+go to work?”
+
+“Now.”
+
+Nowell gave the new man's garments a disparaging side glance.
+
+“You look more as if you was going out to preach instead of deliver ice.
+But I can fix that if you're busted, my friend. You slip off that
+coat and help here till we're loaded. Then ride into the city on the
+freight-car and tell any one of my men to give you the overalls and
+jumper I left hanging in my stable office.”
+
+In this fashion it came about that Farr that day was riding on an
+ice-wagon in Marion, learning his route. A red-headed youth who was
+nursing an ice-pick wound in a bundled-up foot served as guide and
+driver and spotted the “Crystal Pure” cards propped here and there in
+windows, mutely signaling the household needs. With zestful complacency,
+and with secret enjoyment in being allowed to “team” this chap who
+looked and talked like a “nob,” the youth allowed Farr to do all the
+work.
+
+The route took in many apartment-houses of the city.
+
+The labor was muscle-racking. In most cases there were stairs to climb.
+He stood, sagging under his burden, till chests were cleared by
+the housewives or sluggish maids. He discovered that the iceman was
+considered a fair and logical butt for all the forenoon grouches of the
+kitchen. Women complained querulously that the ice dripped on the clean
+floor, or that the piece was not up to the twenty-cent piece delivered
+by the other company, or that he was late, or he had not had his eyes
+about him the day before or else he would have seen the card.
+
+On numerous occasions he was obliged to carry a piece of ice back
+down-stairs to his cart and exchange it for a piece of another size and
+price. He received no apology in such cases; he was tartly informed that
+he ought to have common sense enough to know what was wanted in that
+house. In other cases, the mistress of the apartments turned him from
+the door and explained with entire lack of interest in his long climb
+that the card had been left up by oversight--the chest had been filled
+the day before.
+
+And at two places sharp-tongued women would not allow him to enter,
+frankly stating that icemen were too dirty creatures to allow inside the
+door of a respectable house; the women received their ten-cent cubes in
+pans and slammed the door in his face.
+
+And through all this Farr preserved his smile.
+
+In this slavery, tongue-lashed by fretful women, sweating under his
+burden, he was happy; he could not account for it and did not attempt
+to, but he knew it. He accepted the situation.
+
+He received rewards enough to fortify his resolution.
+
+A motherly woman asked him to wait a moment and she mixed for him a
+glass of lemonade. That gave him an opportunity to say a few words
+to her about drinking-water, modestly and deferentially. She was
+interested, and he showed her what the guilty faucet of her tap held in
+concealment.
+
+And he saw that she was shocked and after he had warned her he asked
+her to tell all the other women whom she knew. She promised to bring the
+matter up in her sewing-club.
+
+“And even the fussy women,” he told himself, as he plodded back to his
+cart, encouraged by his first experiment, “if I keep calm, if I keep
+smiling--I shall find my chance to say something to them after a time.”
+
+A fresh doughnut was given to him by a maid who smiled up at his manly
+good looks approvingly, and he was very grateful, for his breakfast had
+been a meager one because he had barely enough small coins to make a
+jingle in his pocket.
+
+The maid gasped affrightedly when he showed her what was in the faucet,
+and immediately set on water to boil to supply the bottles in the
+ice-chest.
+
+Furthermore, the maid stated that she knew many other maids who would be
+glad to know about such a dreadful thing, and that she would have a word
+to say to them on the way to Sunday mass and back.
+
+Farr began to understand more clearly what can be accomplished by a lone
+voice, carrying a gospel which can be backed and illustrated by signs
+and wonders.
+
+“I'll have them listening to me yet,” he pondered. “I'll never say
+another unkind word about a woman's tongue.”
+
+Colonel Symonds Dodd flashed past the ice-cart that afternoon in his
+limousine.
+
+Farr laughed aloud at the humor of a thought which occurred to him:
+he reflected that he would like to behold Colonel Dodd's face and hear
+Colonel Dodd's remarks if somebody told that gentleman that the man
+before whom he had quailed and grown pale was now starting what the man
+believed was a more effective assault on the dynasty than even a whole
+car-load of dynamite bombs could make, even if they were exploded in all
+the Consolidated reservoirs. The remarks which would entertain, so Farr
+pondered, would come when the colonel was informed that the assault
+consisted of a lone iceman making talk to women in kitchens.
+
+“However,” said the iceman to himself, as he checked a nick in a
+ten-cent cube at the back of his cart. “I hold that my new motto is all
+right, and old Etienne will indorse it, and he knows what self-sacrifice
+consists of. It isn't rolling up your eyes and folding your hands and
+saying, 'What can I do?' It's saying, 'I'll do what I can!'--and then
+keeping your hands busy!”
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+WHEN A MAID IS COY
+
+Mr. Richard Dodd came wooing.
+
+He waited in his gray car at the curb in front of the First National
+Bank block until Kate Kilgour issued forth into the afternoon sunshine.
+
+He called to her, holding open the side door.
+
+“I just had to see you,” he told her. “I have come down from the
+capital, doing forty miles an hour. You're more precious than all the
+money I have locked up in the vaults.”
+
+He did not find in her eyes any of that acclaimed glad love-light which
+eager lovers seek. On the contrary, Miss Kilgour made just a bit of a
+face at him and was distinctly petulant.
+
+“I do not want to ride, Richard. I enjoy my walk. I need it after a day
+at my desk.”
+
+“But I'm going to take you on a long ride into the country. We'll have
+dinner at Hillcrest Inn and we'll--”
+
+“I'll go straight home, if you please.”
+
+“Then come in here with me.”
+
+“Oh, if you insist!” She said it with weary impatience.
+
+“Are you tired?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He drove slowly. “I don't want you to work any more. You know I don't.
+You know how I feel. Kate, I have published our intentions of marriage.”
+
+Her demeanor till then had been marked by tolerance, a bit pettish. Now
+she turned on him the indignant stare of offended womanhood.
+
+“Richard, I have not given you permission to do that.”
+
+“But you are going to marry me!”
+
+“Some day. I will tell you when. I am not ready.”
+
+“You are playing with me.”
+
+“I am not so frivolous.”
+
+“But why do you keep putting it off?”
+
+“A woman who gives herself has the right to say when it shall be.”
+
+“My God!” he raged. “I wish you would wake up.”
+
+She did not answer.
+
+“You don't know what love is. You won't let me touch you.”
+
+“I suppose that your experience has qualified you, Richard,” she
+returned, half humorously, half scornfully.
+
+“We are going to be married. Your mother is anxious for you to marry. I
+am going to tell my uncle to hunt for another secretary.”
+
+“Be careful how you take liberties with my private business,” she warned
+him, sharply.
+
+“You need somebody to take care of it for you. You have promised to be
+my wife. You can't give me a single good reason for waiting any longer.”
+
+“But I intend to wait.”
+
+He drove along in angry silence and they left the car together at
+the Trelawny Apartments. The car had made a detour in reaching the
+curb--avoiding a white wagon at the rear of which an iceman was briskly
+pecking in twain a cake of ice.
+
+The girl glanced sharply at the man and turned her head when she reached
+the sidewalk in order to survey him more closely. The iceman, peering up
+at the windows to locate such signal-cards as might be visible, lowered
+his gaze and intercepted the girl's scrutiny. Color came into her
+cheeks, but she frowned as if resenting his stare and hurried into the
+vestibule, her lover at her heels.
+
+“Look here, Friend Myself,” reflected Walker Farr, “it's time you woke
+up!” He sighed and swung a chunk of ice upon his shoulder. “But what
+else can I expect? Come on, Humility, and give me a soft word or two. I
+was hoping I'd never see her again.”
+
+“Youse take those two front numbers--ten and twelve--Mrs. Kilgour and
+Mr. Knowles,” advised his helper. “Package-entrance is around behind.”
+
+Farr toiled up the stairs, carrying one ice cube on his shoulder, with
+another swinging from tongs. There was but one door to the Kilgour
+apartment and the girl and Dodd stood in front of it; they had evidently
+waited in the corridor after emerging from the elevator, and the young
+man was detaining her, talking earnestly.
+
+The girl opened the door with her latch-key, and with an apology he
+stepped in front of the pair and entered.
+
+“Well, I'll be--” blurted Dodd. “So that's what he is--a cheap,
+low-lived iceman!”
+
+Mrs. Kilgour came into her vestibule and led the way to the kitchen, for
+Farr stood irresolutely in the doorway, awaiting directions as to his
+burden. Following her, the young man noted her house-dress, beribboned
+over-much, her rouged face, her bleached hair, and wondered how such
+a woman could have beguiled Andrew Kilgour, as he felt he knew that
+sacrificing hero from what Citizen Drew had said.
+
+“Say, that's the plug-ugly who insulted us in the woods. I'll never
+forget that face,” stormed Dodd, making no effort by lowered tones to
+conceal his sentiments from the iceman. “Where else am I going to run
+across him? He needs a horse-whipping. If there weren't ladies present
+I'd give him one.”
+
+“The man seems to be minding his own business,” said the girl, coldly.
+
+Farr heard her. There was a hint of contempt in her tones, and the young
+man humbly accepted the scorn as directed toward him. He lifted the ice
+into the box and received his coin from the languid woman, who seemed to
+pay as little heed to his presence as she did to Dodd's threats.
+
+She seemed to be more especially interested in herself, and when Farr
+departed was fondling into place the masses of her hair before a mirror
+in the vestibule. Through the space formed by the portieres he saw Dodd
+reaching eager hands to the girl, her presence having apparently charmed
+away his thoughts of vengeance.
+
+The iceman went humbly on his way.
+
+He was meditating on the sacrifice of Captain Andrew Kilgour; he
+remembered that stalwart men are willing slaves of the weakest women. He
+wondered how much of the honesty of the father was in the daughter. He
+tried to console himself by insisting that it was not there. He had
+had only a limited opportunity to study Richard Dodd. However, he was
+convinced that his unflattering estimate of that young man was surely
+justified; and so certain was he that the character of Dodd must be
+patent to all he went back to his tasks with a lowered estimate of the
+girl who would select such a man as husband. And yet out of the dust of
+the highway the profile of her face had touched him as his heart never
+had been touched before; he had plucked the rose and had plodded on
+behind the little sister of the rose. He wondered what strange impulse
+had touched him. She must be merely like all the rest. Her graciousness
+in that first meeting had tempted him to believe that she was different.
+Now some consciousness, equally as intangible, suggested to him that she
+was selfishly selling herself for ease. His thoughts were pretty
+much mixed, he acknowledged. But as he went on, bearing his burdens,
+listening to the petty tyrants who may ruthlessly taunt the man who
+comes in by the back door, he was aware that he had full need of much
+ministration from his new friend, Humility.
+
+In the sitting-room of the Kilgour flat Richard Dodd was telling the
+mother that he had made application for a marriage license.
+
+“And I have waited long enough,” he declared. “Mother Kilgour, you must
+convince Kate that we are to be married within a week.”
+
+And he gave the mother a look which made her turn pale and twist her
+ringed fingers nervously.
+
+“Kate, what is the use?” she pleaded. “You are acting like a child. You
+love Richard. You know you love him. You tell me often that you love
+him! Richard is such a dear boy!” She said this fawningly, with evident
+intent to placate the sullen young man. Her tone, her air suggested the
+nervous embarrassment of a debtor who seeks to put off a creditor with
+flattery and fresh promises. “Now be a darling child and say that we'll
+have the wedding next week without any fuss or feathers.”
+
+“I am not ready to get married, and I simply will not be married just
+yet,” declared the girl, her red lips compressed.
+
+“You don't love me!” complained Dodd.
+
+“I like you, Richard,” admitted the girl, frankly, without any
+coquettishness. “I have never cared for anybody else. You have been good
+to me, except when you were foolish.”
+
+“Foolishness--that's what she calls being so much in love with her
+that I can't keep my hands off her,” said Dodd to the mother. “Mother
+Kilgour, you haven't talked to Kate as you should. She doesn't know what
+love is.”
+
+“Oh, I'll find out all about it, and then we'll be married--when I'm
+ready to become a wife,” said the girl, with an indulgent smile. “All
+at once I'll wake up, just as you have been begging me to do, and then
+we'll simply run away and be married and live happily for ever after.”
+
+“I don't like this stalling,” growled Dodd, brutally.
+
+“I'll leave you two children together,” said the mother. “I'm sure
+you'll come to an understanding.” She went away, showing relief.
+
+“Sit down here on the divan with me, sweetheart,” pleaded the young man.
+
+But without removing her hat she went to the piano and began to play.
+
+“Please come!” he entreated.
+
+She smiled at him over her shoulder and made a pretty _moue_.
+
+Muttering an oath of passion he leaped up, hurried across the room, and
+began to kiss her fiercely.
+
+He crushed back with his lips all her protests; standing over her, he
+held her upon the piano-bench until by main strength and with all the
+force of her resentment she tore away from him.
+
+“And now you are going to blame me because I can't help it,” he gasped.
+
+“I don't in the least understand why normal persons can find any
+pleasure in that kind of folly.”
+
+“Is your idea of loving anybody rubbing noses like Eskimos?”
+
+“I'd endure that kind of loving in preference to that kind of kissing,
+Richard. That isn't love which you're offering--not the kind of love I
+want. I am going out for my walk--you filched it from me. No, I'm going
+alone. Go and talk with mamma, if you like.”
+
+She escaped the clutch he made and hurried out and to the elevator.
+
+Flushed and angry, Dodd made his way to an inner room where Mrs. Kilgour
+was reading a novel, sunning herself with feline indolence. She put the
+book by with evident regret.
+
+“Oh, Kate, has so much poise!” she lamented, breaking in on the young
+man's complaints. “She is so like her father. No one except myself could
+do anything with him at all. Sometime it was very hard for me! He would
+set his mind and his teeth! But I always won in the end.”
+
+“Well, go ahead and win now,” commanded the surly lover. “You are simply
+letting this thing run along.”
+
+“I know Kate's nature, Richard. It's only a matter of the right time.”
+
+He sat down at her feet on the end of the couch.
+
+“The time is here--now!” he told her. “I insist that you make Kate
+understand. I have been patient and reasonable for a year. You have
+promised me that you will bring everything around all right. Why don't
+you do it?”
+
+“But delivering a daughter into marriage isn't like delivering groceries
+on order!” Her tone showed a bit of impatience. “Be reasonable!”
+
+“I don't want to say anything to hurt your feelings, but we must get
+down to cases. I'm not asking you to deliver anything to me except what
+was promised long ago--promised by Kate herself. And you know what you
+said when I loaned you five thousand dollars to help you save those
+stocks. Excuse me, Mother Kilgour, but I can't always control my nature;
+I've been in the game with the bunch for a long time and I'm naturally
+suspicious--I have seen a good many chaps trimmed, and I don't propose
+to have anything put over on me.”
+
+“You are insolent and cruel,” she cried, her cheeks pale.
+
+“I don't mean you--I believe you want to help me. But it's time to be
+up and doing. She doesn't give me one good reason why she will not be
+married right away. It's only jolly and putting it off.”
+
+“But you are twitting me about the service you have done me! I am not
+selling my daughter!”
+
+“That isn't it at all! But you must agree that I have been good to
+you. I want you to be a friend to me. But I don't get anything that's
+definite. If this thing drags on and on the first thing I know some
+fellow will come along and she'll fall for him. That's the girl nature!”
+
+“You are talking about my daughter, Richard! She has her father's
+disposition and she is true blue. She has given her promise and she will
+keep it.”
+
+“When?” he demanded, curtly.
+
+“I can't drive her.”
+
+“You said you could,” he insisted. “You said a year ago when I advanced
+that money that you knew just how to handle her.”
+
+“Are you going to keep twitting me about that money?”
+
+“No; only I'm going to say that you haven't even told me about what
+stocks you were protecting. You haven't said anything about repaying the
+loan, Mother Kilgour. It has been a sort of general stand-off all around
+for me. Hold on! I'm not making a holler! But I like to be taken in
+right. I'm a Dodd, and I can't help playing to protect myself.”
+
+“It will come around all right, Richard. You don't know Kate as I do.
+I understand her because I understood her father. She is rather
+self-centered. But she is romantic underneath! But you know you're so
+sort--sort of--well, just a business man--so matter-of-fact. A girl like
+Kate needs to be stirred--her poise shaken--something like that!”
+
+“Lochinvar business, eh?” he sneered.
+
+“It must be something a little bit out of the ordinary to hurry her,
+Richard. Go away, please. Let me think. I have an idea. I must spend a
+little time on it.”
+
+“How much time?”
+
+“Oh, I don't know just how much. Be patient.”
+
+“Mrs. Kilgour, if this thing cannot be put through by you I want you to
+say so. I'm at the end of that patience you're appealing to. I won't be
+fooled.”
+
+“You don't need to say that you're Colonel Dodd's nephew,” she retorted.
+“You have all the family traits.”
+
+“Well, there's one I haven't got: I loaned you five thousand dollars
+without taking security--and that's the act of a good friend. Excuse me,
+but I've got to speak of it--you need a little reminder. Four days from
+now I'll have my marriage license from the city clerk. And when I have
+it in my hands I shall come to you and shall expect that you'll do your
+part.”
+
+“I will,” she said.
+
+“How? I want plain statements from now on.”
+
+“I will write you a letter to-morrow,” she faltered. “I will give you
+directions what to do. You'd better not come here till--till I have it
+all arranged. You know what they say about absence!”
+
+“I know what they say about a good many things. But I want something
+besides say-so.”
+
+“I will tell you in my letter what to do. Then you follow instructions.”
+
+“I don't like to go into a thing blind. What is the plan?”
+
+“Oh, if I tell you all about it you'll go and do something to spoil it,”
+ she protested, impatiently. “A woman knows about such matters better
+than a man does. I will write to you at the State House. Now be
+patient!”
+
+“I'll be going before you preach any more patience to me,” he said,
+sourly. “I might be provoked into saying something you won't like.”
+
+After he had gone she rose and touched up her cheeks.
+
+“The fool! They are all alike,” she muttered, viciously. “They pay. They
+never forget they have paid. Then they stand with their hand out--and
+just remember that they have paid. I am glad I bought this novel,” she
+added, taking the book from the couch and settling herself to read. “The
+woman who wrote it must have known human nature. If the plan worked in
+the case of the girl she writes about it ought to work in the case of
+Kate. If it doesn't it will be his fault because he has hurried me so. A
+poor, persecuted woman can't do everything.”
+
+And she applied herself to her recently discovered manual of procedure
+in the case of stubbornness in a maid.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+FARR HAS A VISION AND CLOSES HIS LIPS
+
+Walker Farr put aside papers upon which he had been working since he had
+eaten his modest supper, and pulled on his coat and went forth into
+the evening. He strolled up one of the streets in the Eleventh Ward of
+Marion, manifestly glad to be out among the people.
+
+He stopped at the curb and hailed the driver of a truck-wagon which was
+loaded down with kegs and jugs.
+
+“Marston,” he said, when the driver halted, “it's good to see the noble
+work going on.”
+
+“Yes, and now that the babies aren't dying off so fast old Dodd's
+newspapers are claiming that the new filtering-plant is doing all the
+good, sir.”
+
+“Well, it shows that our work is worth while if they're claiming it,
+Marston. But we'll wake up the folks all in good time. Do what we can
+for first aid, that's the idea! The people are waking up to what we're
+doing. And they are waking up in other places. I took a little run up
+state last week. Five other cities are going to try this co-operative
+scheme of getting good water to the poor folks until something better
+can be done.”
+
+“You've got a head on you,” commended the driver. “It's a little tough
+on tired horses to work at this after a day's trudging on regular
+business, but my nags seem to understand what it's all about--honest
+they do. I have hauled five hundred gallons this week. But I'd like
+to haul old Dodd up to Coosett Lake and drown him, if it wasn't for
+spoiling water that the poor folks are drinking.”
+
+Farr shook his head and walked on.
+
+He was a rather striking figure for a New England city as he strolled
+along. It did not seem to be affectation for this man to wear a
+frock-coat without a waistcoat, a flowing black tie setting off his
+snowy linen. The attire seemed to belong to his physique and manner.
+
+Women smiled at him in friendly fashion; men gave respectful and
+affectionate salutation.
+
+Soon he stepped off the street into a room where a group of men were
+waiting for him, so it appeared, because they all rose when he entered.
+
+He called the little meeting to order promptly, informing them that he
+would detain them only a short time.
+
+“I rise to make a motion,” said a man at one stage of the proceedings.
+“There have been so many volunteers in the work and the folks have been
+so ready to pay for real water in place of that stuff we get from the
+taps, that three hundred dollars have accumulated in the treasury. We
+all know that there is just one man who had been responsible for this
+whole plan and has given his time and has run about our state and hasn't
+charged anything but expenses for doing it all. I move we give that sum
+to Mr. Farr--wishing it was more.”
+
+The speaker was loudly applauded.
+
+Farr was so quickly on his feet and spoke so promptly that he clipped
+the man's last words.
+
+“A moment, my friends, before that motion is seconded.” He held up his
+hand and checked their protests against what his air told them. “Because
+my little plan has succeeded better than I hoped is not due to me, but
+to the generous co-operation of good men who have given their time. We
+are saving the babies, thank God! But do you know what else we have done
+by our hard toil and our devotion? We are propping up the Consolidated
+Water Company in this state. Understand me! I am not attacking that
+company because it is a corporation. If it were now making preparations
+to pipe down to us clean water from the hills I would gladly go
+on giving my time to this cause in order to help the case of the
+Consolidated. But the men in control are deliberately shutting their
+eyes to the real situation. Now that folks aren't dying, they claim
+all the credit--when we know the credit is due to weary men who go on
+working after their day's toil is over. It isn't right--it isn't just!
+My friends, I have got hold of a bigger thing than I reckoned on when I
+started out to wake those poison-peddlers up. Now that we are cleaning
+up the typhoid, the Consolidated is simply riding on our backs--refusing
+to see the real truth. If they give Marion pure water it will be only
+at more exorbitant rates, because the nearest lake is twenty miles away.
+I'm not an anarchist--I want to see capital get its just reward. But
+when a syndicate takes a franchise from citizens and makes them pay over
+and over for what was their own the citizens have a right to rise in
+self-defense. When we force the Consolidated to give us what we're
+paying for--pure water--they evidently propose to make us pay for what
+they call our cheek in asking.” He paused for a moment, and his smile
+succeeded his earnestness. “I beg your pardon for saying 'we.' I must
+remember that I'm still a stranger in this city.”
+
+“I'll have to dispute you there,” interposed a man. “You're one of us.
+And we're going to prove it to you a little later.”
+
+“My friends,” went on Farr, “until the cities and towns of this state
+own their own water-plants and take their own profits they will be
+paying double tribute to a merciless crowd.”
+
+“But we can't own our plants till the millennium, sir. There's that
+five-percent-debt-limit clause in the constitution.”
+
+Farr smiled--this time wistfully. “I've--I've had a sort of vision in
+regard to that,” he said. “I don't dare to explain myself just now,
+friends. It may be only a vision--but I think not. I'll not say any more
+at present. I did not intend to say as much. What was on my mind when
+I got up was this: I will not accept that money in the treasury--on no
+account will I take it. Because I believe that strange days are coming
+upon us soon in this state--days when we shall need money. Keep that
+nest-egg and guard it.” He picked up his hat and started for the door.
+“The meeting is adjourned,” he informed them. He smiled at them over his
+shoulder in such a manner that they wondered whether he joked or was
+in earnest. “Guard well that money--for the only way my vision can be
+realized, I fear, is by turning this state's politics upside down, and
+that will be quite a job for a rank outsider fighting Colonel Symonds
+Dodd--and fighting without money. Good night!”
+
+Men whom Walker Farr met as he strolled ducked amiable greetings. They
+grinned admiringly after him as he passed on.
+
+If a woman asked in regard to him or a stranger in the ward questioned
+a native they were informed with gusto that he was “the boy who stood in
+City Hall and talked turkey to the mayor and all the bunch, and said a
+good word for the poor people, and twisted the tail of the Consolidated
+and lost a good job doing it--and that's more than any alderman would do
+for those who elected him.”
+
+At a street corner children of the poor were dancing around a
+hurdy-gurdy. Farr gave the man at the crank a handful of change and told
+him to stay there and keep the kiddies happy. Shrill juvenile voices
+promptly proclaimed his praises to all the neighborhood, and mothers and
+fathers beamed benedictions on him from windows.
+
+He stopped at another street corner where a dozen youths were
+congregated. They were heavy-eyed, leering cubs, their hats were tipped
+back, and frowzled fore-tops stuck out over their pimply faces--types of
+youths whom modest girls avoid hurriedly by detours.
+
+“Boys, folks are writing to the newspapers complaining that young chaps
+are insulting girls on the street corners of Marion. But it must be
+those high-toned loafers up-town. You're not up to any of that business
+down here, of course.”
+
+“None of us would ever as much as say 'shoo' to a chicken,” protested
+one of the group.
+
+“You're Dave Joyce's boy, aren't you?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“The fifty men he bosses at the ice-house like him because he's square.
+Here's a good motto: 'Square with the boys and nice to the girls.' But
+keep off the street corners, fellows, or they'll get you mixed up with
+some of that masher gang.”
+
+The Joyce boy pulled his hat forward and marshaled the retreat from the
+loafing-place.
+
+“Naw, he ain't no candidate, nuther,” he informed his associates when
+they were out of hearing. “He ain't canvassing for no votes. My old man
+says he ain't. He ain't a four-flusher. He's the guy that stood for the
+poor folks up at City Hall and doped out the spring-water stuff.”
+
+At the side of a street where traffic raged to and from the city's Union
+Station Farr came upon two shriveled old ladies who were teetering on
+the curbstones, waiting tremulously for an opportunity to cross. They
+put down into the roaring street first one apprehensive foot and then
+another, like children trying chilly water. The big fellow offered an
+arm to each and led them safely across.
+
+“You're a real knight-errant, sir,” squeaked one of the two, looking up
+into the kindly face.
+
+He laughed, doffed the broad-brimmed hat with a low bow, and strolled on
+his way.
+
+“Knight-errant,” he muttered, still smiling. “Guess not. They don't have
+'em these days. The stories about 'em read well. Wonder what kind of a
+feeling it was that started those boys off on the hike! Perhaps there
+wasn't enough doing in politics. It must have been a fine game, though,
+rescuing distressed damsels. And all for love and not for pay!”
+
+A poster in the window of an empty store caught his eye just then. It
+advertised a woman's-suffrage rally.
+
+“The girls would paint rally signs on a knight's tin suit these days and
+send him off on an advertising trip,” was his whimsical reflection.
+
+At that moment, with this thought of knight in armor in his mind, he was
+attracted by a flare of red fire in a blacksmith shop located just off
+the street. The one worker in the place was revealed by the forge fire.
+The glow lighted the features of the man. There was no mistaking him--it
+was Friend Jared Chick. And Farr turned off the street and went into the
+shop and greeted his one-time traveling companion.
+
+“How does thee do?” replied Jared Chick, quietly, his Quaker calm
+undisturbed. He drew forth a white-hot iron and deftly hammered it into
+a circle around the snout of the anvil.
+
+“So you have given up knight-errantry and have gone back to the old job,
+have you, Friend Chick?”
+
+“No. This is a part of my service. The man who owns this shop is a good
+man who works hard here all day. And after he has gone home he allows me
+to work here in the evening.”
+
+He pounded away industriously and Farr walked up to the anvil to inspect
+the nature of the work, for the iron rod was assuming queer shapes.
+
+“A new kind of armor, Friend Chick?”
+
+If there was a bit of sarcasm in Farr's tone the Quaker paid no apparent
+heed.
+
+“No,” he said, quietly and meekly, “this is a brace for the leg of a
+little lame boy. I have found many children in this city who cannot
+walk. Their parents are too poor to buy braces. So I come here nights,
+when the good man is away from the forge, and I make braces and carry
+them with my blessing. I have some knack with the hammer. I hope to find
+other ways of doing my bit of good.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, Friend Chick,” said Farr, a catch in his voice. “I
+will not bother you in your work. Good night!”
+
+“Good night to thee!” said the Quaker, swinging at the bellows arm.
+
+Farr went back upon the street, his head bowed. “We all have our own way
+of doing it,” he pondered, contritely.
+
+He met a man and greeted him with a friendly handclasp. It was Citizen
+Drew, that elderly man with the earnest face.
+
+And as he had in the past, he turned, caught step with Farr, and they
+walked together.
+
+Their stroll took them into the broader avenues of up-town.
+
+As they talked, Farr caught side glances from his companion. The glances
+were a bit inquisitive.
+
+“Well, Citizen Drew,” asked the young man, “what is on your mind this
+evening?”
+
+“Since I have known you and studied you I have been thinking that you
+have the spirit of knight-errantry in you,” stated Citizen Drew.
+
+Farr laughed boyishly.
+
+“Two very nice old ladies have just got ahead of you with that
+accusation, my friend.”
+
+“Laugh if you feel like it. But there are so few men who can do anything
+unselfishly in these days that when a chap like you does come along he
+gets noticed--at any rate, I notice him.” He stopped dealing in side
+glances and stared at Farr fully and frankly. “Other men who would do
+the things you are doing so quietly in this state have been playing
+politics--and I have made it my business to watch politicians. And as
+soon as men have been elected to office by fooling the people--well,
+those men have simply been set into the Big Machine as new cogs. Are you
+like the rest, Mr. Farr? Nobody knows where you came from. Everybody who
+sees you knows you're above the jobs you have been working at. They're
+talking you up for alderman in our ward. But we have been fooled so many
+times!”
+
+Farr replied to this wistful inquisition in a way there was no
+misunderstanding.
+
+“I am not a candidate for anything, Citizen Drew. And I'll tell you how
+I can prove I am not. I am not a voter here. I have intentionally failed
+to have myself registered. Whenever you hear another man talking me
+up for office you tell him that. Therefore, it makes no difference to
+anybody where I came from or what job I work at.”
+
+Citizen Drew accepted the rebuke humbly and walked on in silence.
+
+“You have always been fooled, you say, when you have elected men to
+office. Haven't you any men in this state whom you can elect to high
+office, knowing for sure that they'll stay straight?”
+
+“No,” returned Citizen Drew.
+
+“I'm a stranger--I don't know your big men--you do know them, and I
+suppose I ought to take your word. But I don't believe you, Citizen
+Drew.”
+
+“But I told you the truth. We have big men who are honest men. But they
+won't go into politics. They feel too far above the game. Therefore, how
+can we elect them to office? I say I told you the truth. The men who go
+out and hunt for office are the ones who work the thing for their own
+profit--and that means they stand in with the bunch and the head boss.”
+
+It was the same old lament which is everlastingly on the lips of
+the voters of America! Citizen Drew had again epitomized the average
+politics of the great Republic!
+
+Walker Farr smiled--and he could express in a smile more than most men
+can express in speech.
+
+“An original idea has just occurred to me, Citizen Drew,” he said, with
+humorous drawl in his tones. “I'm sure nothing like it has ever
+been thought of before. There ought to be a new party formed in this
+country--a party outside all the others. No, not a party, exactly!
+What should I call it? You see, the idea has just come to me, and I'm
+floundering a little.” His tone was still jocular. “You're right about
+most of the able and big men staying out of politics except when
+the highest offices are passed around. Now, how's this for a scheme?
+Organize a loyal band and call it--well, say the Purified Political
+Privateers, the Sanctified Kidnappers, the People's Progressive and
+Public-spirited Press Gang. Go around and grab the Great and the Good
+who insist on minding their private business and who are letting the
+country be gobbled up--just go and grab 'em right up by the scruff
+of the neck and fling them into politics head over heels. They would
+sputter and froth and flop for a little while--and then they'd strike
+out and swim. They couldn't help swimming! They'd know that the folks
+were looking on. And then a lot of the sinking and drowning poor devils,
+like you and me and the folks in the tenements, could grab onto the
+Great and the Good and ask 'em to tow us safely ashore; and by that
+time their pride and their dander would be up and they'd swim all the
+harder--with the other folks looking on. Hah! An idea, eh? You see,
+I feel rather imaginative and on the high pressure and in a mood for
+adventure this evening! Probably because the nice old ladies called me a
+knight-errant.”
+
+Citizen Drew was not ready with comment on this amazing suggestion.
+He clawed his hand into his sparse hair and wrinkled his forehead in
+attempt to decide whether or not he ought to resent this playful retort
+to his lament. The next moment he dealt Farr a swift jab in the ribs
+with his elbow.
+
+“Take a good look at this man coming,” he mumbled.
+
+The oncomer was close upon them, and in spite of the dusk Farr's sharp
+gaze took him all in.
+
+In garb and mien he was a fine type of the American gentleman who is
+marked by a touch of the old school. There was a clean-cut crispness
+about him; the white mustache and the hair which matched it looked as
+if they would crackle if rubbed. His eyes were steely blue, and he held
+himself very erect as he walked, and he tapped the pavement briskly with
+his cane.
+
+He passed them, marched up the steps of a large building, and
+disappeared through a door which a boy in club uniform held open for
+him.
+
+“That man,” explained Citizen Drew, complacently displaying his boasted
+knowledge of public men in minute detail, “is the Honorable Archer
+Converse, whose father was General Aaron Converse, the war governor of
+this state. Lawyer, old bach, rich, just as crisp in talk as he is in
+looks, just as straight in his manners and morals and honesty as he is
+in his back, arrives every night at the Mellicite Club for his dinner on
+the dot of eight”--Citizen Drew waved his hand at the illuminated circle
+of the First National clock--“leaves the club exactly at nine for a walk
+through the park, then marches home, plays three games of solitaire, and
+goes to bed.”
+
+“I know him!” stated Farr.
+
+Citizen Drew's air betrayed a bit of a showman's disappointment.
+
+“I never saw him before--never heard of him. But I mean I know him now
+after your description--know his nature, his thoughts. You have a fine
+touch in your size-ups, Citizen Drew.”
+
+“I've studied 'em all.”
+
+“What has he done in politics?”
+
+“Never a thing. He is one of the kind I was complaining about. Too
+high-minded.”
+
+“But, ho, how a man like that would swim if he were once thrown in!”
+ declared Farr.
+
+“He never even tended out on a caucus.”
+
+“I know the style when I see it,” pursued Farr. He did not look at
+Citizen Drew. He was talking as much to himself as to his companion.
+“Spirit of a crusader harnessed by every-day habit! Righteousness in a
+rut! Achievement timed to the tick of the clock. But, once in, how he
+would swim!”
+
+“Think how our affairs would swing along with a man like that at the
+head of the state!”
+
+“Why hasn't he been put at the head?”
+
+“I have been in delegations that have gone to him”--he waved his
+hand--“he said he couldn't think of being mixed into political messes.”
+
+“He looked on you wallowing in muddy water and you invited him in. I
+don't blame him for not jumping.”
+
+“He's a good man,” insisted Citizen Drew. “He gives more money to the
+poor than any other man in town. The only way I found that out is by
+having a natural nose for finding out things. He doesn't say anything
+about it.”
+
+“How he would swim!” repeated Farr. “Steady and strong and straight
+toward the shore, Citizen Drew, and he wouldn't kick away the poor
+drowning devils, either.”
+
+“He probably thinks he has paid his debt to the world when he hands out
+his money,” stated Drew. “When he looks around and sees so many other
+men holding the poor chaps upside down and shaking the dollars out of
+their pockets he must think he is doing a mighty sight more than is
+required of him. But sticking plasters of dollar bills onto sore places
+in this state ain't curing anything.” He stopped. “I've walked with you
+farther than I intended to, Mr. Farr. But somehow I wanted to talk with
+you. There's a meeting of the Square Deal Club this evening at Union
+Hall. I didn't know but in some way we might--It was thought you might
+be going to run for office.”
+
+“The registration-office will prove that I'm not. Pass that word!”
+
+“I'll go back--to the meeting. It doesn't seem to be much use in holding
+the meetings,” said the man. “We hear one another talk--we know we are
+talking the truth. But nobody listens who can help us poor folks. Well,
+I'll admit that the politicians come in and listen and promise to help
+us and we give our votes; but that's all: they give nothing back to us.”
+
+Farr broke out with a remark which seemed to have no bearing on what
+Citizen Drew was saying.
+
+“He comes out at nine o'clock, eh?”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“The Honorable Archer Converse. Leaves that clubhouse then, does he?”
+
+“Regular to the tick of the clock.”
+
+“Citizen Drew, hold your club in session until half past nine or a
+little later. My experience with those meetings is that you always have
+troubles enough to keep you talking for at least two hours.”
+
+Citizen Drew glanced at the face of Farr and then at the big door of the
+Mellicite Club.
+
+“You don't mean to say--”
+
+“I don't say anything. I seem to be in a queer state of mind to-night,
+Citizen Drew.” Again there was an odd note of raillery in his voice. “A
+lot of odd ideas keep coming to me. Another one had just popped into my
+head. That's all! Keep your boys at the hall.”
+
+He swung off up the street.
+
+He turned after a few steps and saw the elderly man standing where he
+had left him. Drew was a rather pathetic figure there in the brilliantly
+lighted main thoroughfare, a poor, plain man from the Eleventh Ward
+of the tenement-houses--this man who had been striving and struggling,
+reading and studying, endeavoring to find some way out for the poor
+people; some relief--something that would help. Farr knew what sort of
+men were waiting in the little hall. He had attended their meetings. It
+was the only resource they understood--a public meeting. They knew that
+the important folks up-town held public meetings of various sorts, and
+the poor folks had decided that there must be virtue in assemblages.
+But nothing had seemed to come out of their efforts in the tenement
+districts.
+
+Farr stepped back to where Citizen Drew stood.
+
+“I think I will say something to you, after all. Tell the boys in Union
+Hall to be patient and I'll bring the Honorable Archer Converse around
+this evening.”
+
+He smiled into the stare of blank amazement on the man's face, flung up
+a hand to check the stammering questions, and went off up the street.
+
+“A decent man's conscience will make him keep a promise he has made to
+a child or to the simple or to the helpless,” Farr told himself. “I have
+undertaken a big contract, I reckon, but now that I have put myself on
+record I've got to go ahead and deliver the goods. At any rate, I feel
+on my mettle.” Then he smiled at what seemed to be his sudden folly. “I
+think I'll have to lay it all to those nice old ladies who were foolish
+enough to put that knight-errant idea into my head,” he said.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE MADNESS OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT
+
+Farr glanced again at the big clock in the First National block.
+
+He had less than one hour to wait, according to the schedule Citizen
+Drew had promulgated in regard to the unvarying movements of the
+Honorable Archer Converse. As to how this first coup in the operations
+of that nascent organization, the Public-spirited Press Gang, was to be
+managed Farr had little idea at that moment.
+
+He decided to devote that hour to devising a plan, deciding to attempt
+nothing until he saw the honorable gentleman march down the club steps.
+A club must be sanctuary--but the streets belonged to the people.
+
+Therefore, Farr took a walk. He went back into that quarter of the city
+from which he had emerged during his stroll with Citizen Drew; he
+felt his courage deserting him in those more imposing surroundings of
+up-town; he went back to the purlieus of the poor, hoping for contact
+that might charge him afresh with determination. He realized that he
+needed all the dynamics of courage in the preposterous task he had set
+himself.
+
+He knew he would find old Etienne sitting on the stoop of Mother
+Maillet's house where the old man posted himself on pleasant summer
+evenings and whittled whirligigs for the crowding children--just as his
+peasant ancestors whittled the same sort of toys in old Normandy.
+
+Mother Maillet's house had a yard. It was narrow and dusty, because the
+feet of the children had worn away all the grass. Some of the palings
+were off the fence, and through the spaces the little folks came and
+went as they liked. It was not much of a yard to boast of, but there
+were few open spaces in that part of the city where the big land
+corporation hogged all the available feet of earth in order to stick the
+tenement-houses closely together. Therefore, because Mother Maillet was
+kind, the yard was a godsend so far as the little folks were concerned.
+The high fence kept children off the greensward where the canal flowed.
+Householders who had managed to save their yards down that way were, in
+most cases, fussy old people who were hanging on to the ancient cottage
+homes in spite of the city's growth, and they shooed the children out of
+their yards where the flower-beds struggled under the coal-dust from the
+high chimneys.
+
+But Mother Maillet did not mind because she had no flower-beds and
+because the palings were off and the youngsters made merry in her
+yard. She had two geraniums and a begonia and a rubber-plant on the
+window-sill in order to give the canary-bird a comfortable sense of
+arboreal surroundings; so why have homesick flowers out in a front yard
+where they must all the time keep begging the breeze to come and dust
+the grime off their petals? It should be understood that Mother Maillet
+had known what _real_ flower-beds were when she was a girl in the
+Tadousac country.
+
+Furthermore, Etienne Provancher always came to the yard o' fine evenings
+and it served as his little realm; and the door-step of the good woman's
+house was his throne where he sat in state among his little subjects.
+However, on second thought, this metaphor is not happy description; old
+Etienne did not rule--he obeyed.
+
+He did not resent familiarity--he welcomed the comradeship of the
+children. When they called him “Pickaroon” it seemed to him that they
+were making a play-fellow of him.
+
+He sat and whittled toys for them out of the pine-wood scraps which the
+yard foreman gave him. There were grotesque heads for rag dolls, and
+the good woman seemed to have unlimited rags and an excellent taste in
+doll-dressmaking; there were chunky automobiles with spools for wheels;
+there were funny little wooden men who jumped in most amusing fashion
+at the end of wires which were stuck into their backs. Old Etienne was
+always ready to sit and whittle until the evening settled down and he
+could see no longer, even though he held the wood and busy knife close
+to his eyes.
+
+So on that evening he whittled as usual.
+
+Walker Farr came to the yard and sat beside the old man on the door-step
+and was plainly thinking no agreeable thoughts while he listened to the
+chatter of the children.
+
+After the darkness had come and the larger boys and girls, custodians
+of their tiny kin, had dragged away the protesting and whimpering little
+folks because it was bedtime, Zelie Dionne laid down her needlework over
+which she had been straining her eyes. The good woman protested often
+because the girl toiled so steadily with her needle after her day at the
+mill was ended. And on that summer evening she voiced complaint again.
+
+“You have so many pretty gowns already! You wear one last evening--you
+wear anodder this evening--and still you make some more! When a young
+girl nigh kill herself so as to make a picture-book of her dresses
+I think it is time to look for some young man who seems to like the
+pictures. Eh?”
+
+“Mother Angelique, I do not relish jokes which are silly,” protested the
+girl. “You know how the girls of our country are taught! We cannot sit
+with hands in our laps without being very unhappy.”
+
+She went out and sat upon the door-step where old Etienne made way for
+her.
+
+“At first I did not think I would come out, Mr. Farr,” she said. “But I
+have made bold to come.”
+
+“I do not think it needs boldness to come where I am,” he returned. “I
+hope you are not going to make a stranger of me because I have not been
+very neighborly of late. I have been busy and I have been away. The boys
+have paid my fare up-country, and so I ran about to carry the gospel of
+the free water. The truckmen have volunteered in half a dozen places. We
+are doing a great work.”
+
+“And yet I am afraid,” she confessed. “You are fighting men who can do
+you much harm. I have been asking questions so as to know more about
+those men. For they have threatened poor Father Etienne. I wanted to
+know about them. I cannot help. But can you not help, Mr. Farr? I think
+you are much more than you seem to be,” she added, naively.
+
+“They have threatened Etienne?” demanded Farr, a sharp note in his
+voice.
+
+“Ah, m'sieu', I have said nottin's to you. I am only poor old man. No
+matter.”
+
+“Why didn't you say something to me?”
+
+“It's because you might feel bad, m'sieu'. P'raps not, for I'm only poor
+man and don't count.”
+
+“What have they said to you?”
+
+“It's nottin's,” said Etienne, stubbornly. “You shall not think you got
+me into trouble. You did not. I would have done it maself as soon as I
+thought of it.”
+
+“I command you to tell me what has been said to you, Etienne.”
+
+“They say that I shall be discharge from the rack. They say I have
+talk too much to my compatriots about the poison water. But I shall
+talk--yes--jesso!”
+
+“Who says so?”
+
+“The yard boss say to me that. Oh, there's no mistake. He have the
+power, M'sieu' Farr. The super tell the yard boss, the mill agent tell
+the super, the alderman tell the mill agent, the mayor he tell the
+alderman.”
+
+“And probably Colonel Symonds Dodd told the mayor,” growled Farr. “It's
+a great system, Etienne. Nobody too small--nobody too big!”
+
+“But I do not care. I shall talk some more--yes, I shall talk in the
+_hotel de ville_ when you shall tell me to talk. I was scare at
+first and I tol' you I would not talk; but now I have found out I
+can talk--and I am not scare any more, and I will talk.” Pride and
+determination were in the old man's tones. Since that most wonderful
+evening in all his life when he had heard his voice as if it were the
+voice of another man ringing forth denunciation of those in high places,
+the old rack-tender had referred to that new manifestation of himself as
+if he were discussing another man whom he had discovered. The memory of
+his feat was ever fresh within him. And his meek pride was filled with
+much wonderment that such a being should have been hidden all the years
+in Etienne Provancher. Many men had called around to shake his hand and
+increase his wonderment as to his own ability.
+
+“We will wait awhile,” counseled Farr, understanding the pride and
+treating it gently. “Stay at your work and be very quiet, Etienne, and
+they will not trouble you. You need your money, and I will call on you
+when you can help again.”
+
+“Then I will come. I shall be sorry to see somebody have my rake and
+pole, but I shall come.”
+
+A moment of silence fell between them, and during that moment a young
+woman passed rapidly along the sidewalk. Walker Farr shut his eyes
+suddenly, as a man tries to wink away what he considers an illusion, and
+then opened his eyes and made sure that she was what she seemed; there
+was no mistaking that face--it was Kate Kilgour.
+
+He stared after her. She halted on the next corner, peered up at the
+dingy street light to make sure of the sign legend on its globe and then
+turned down an alley.
+
+“Ba gar!” commented old Etienne, putting Farr's thoughts into words,
+“that be queer t'ing for such a fine, pretty lady to go down into Rose
+Alley, because Rose Alley ain't so sweet as what it sounds.”
+
+Then two men came hurrying past without paying any attention to the
+denizens of the neighborhood who were sitting in the gloom on the stoop.
+The street light revealed the faces of the men as it had shown to them
+the girl's features. One was Richard Dodd. Unmistakably, they were
+following the girl. Farr heard Dodd say: “Slow up! Give her time to get
+there. She's headed all right.”
+
+And Farr stared after those men, more than ever amazed.
+
+One of them was obtrusively a clergyman--that is to say, he was cased in
+a frock-coat that flapped against his calves, wore a white necktie, and
+carried a book under his arm.
+
+Dodd was attired immaculately in gray, and as he walked he whipped a
+thin cane nervously. They began to stroll soon after they had hurried
+past the stoop, and were sauntering leisurely when they turned into Rose
+Alley.
+
+“I now say two ba gars!” exploded Etienne. “Because I been see the
+jailbird, Dennis Burke, all dress up like minister, go past here with
+the nephew of Colonel Dodd. And they go 'long after la belle mam'selle.”
+
+“A jailbird!”
+
+“He smart, bad man, that Dennis Burke. But he was hire by the big man
+to do something with the votes on election-time--so to cheat--and he
+get caught and so he been in the state prison. But he seem to be out all
+free now and convert to religion in some funny way. Eh?”
+
+“Etienne, are you sure of what you are talking about?” demanded Farr.
+His voice trembled. The visit of that handsome girl to that quarter of
+the city--those men so patently pursuing her--there was a sinister look
+to the affair.
+
+“Oh, we all know that Burke. He hire many votes in this ward for many
+years. He known in Marion just so well as the steeple on the _hotel de
+ville_. And that odder--that young mans, we know him, for his oncle is
+Colonel Dodd. Oh yes!”
+
+“Good night, Etienne--and to you Miss Zelie!” said Farr, curtly, walking
+off toward the entrance of Rose Alley. He did not ask the old man to
+go with him. He was drawn in two directions by his emotions and stopped
+after he had taken a few steps. This seemed like espionage in a matter
+which was none of his concern. It was entirely possible that the
+confidential secretary of Colonel Dodd and the nephew of that gentleman
+might have common business even in Rose Alley and at that time of
+evening.
+
+But the matter of that masquerading ballot-falsifier, just out of state
+prison, overcame Farr's scruples about meddling in the affairs of Kate
+Kilgour.
+
+He turned the corner into the alley in season to see the two men far
+ahead of him; they passed out of the radiance shed by a dim light and he
+saw no more of them. He walked the length of the alley and was not able
+to locate any of the party. At its lower end the alley was closed in by
+houses, and it was plain that the people he sought had not passed out
+into another thoroughfare. He marched back, scrutinizing the outside of
+buildings, trying to conjecture what business the handsome girl and
+the two men could have in that section at that hour, and where they had
+entered to prosecute that business.
+
+“I must continue to blame it all on the nice old ladies,” he told
+himself, smiling at the shamed zest he was finding in this hunt. “But I
+hope this knight-errantry will not grow to be a habit with me. I
+mustn't forget that I have another job on hand for nine o'clock--also
+knight-errantry!”
+
+He paused under the dim light where his men had disappeared and looked
+at his cheap watch.
+
+Twenty-five minutes of nine!
+
+Then he heard a woman's protesting voice. She cried “No, _no_, NO!” in
+crescendo.
+
+He gazed at the house from which the voice seemed to come. It was near
+at hand, a shabby little cottage with a thin slice of yard closed in by
+a dilapidated picket fence. He perceived no observers in the alley, and
+he stepped into the yard. The front windows were open, for the evening
+was warm, but no lights were visible in the house.
+
+He heard the protesting cry again. It was more earnest.
+
+He head the rumble of a man's voice, but could not catch the words.
+Whatever was happening was taking place in some rear room.
+
+“No, I say, no! Unlock that door,” cried the voice, passionately.
+
+Farr troubled his mind no longer with quixotic considerations about
+intrusion. He hoisted himself over the window-sill into the darkened
+front room, passed down a short corridor and, when he heard the voice
+once again on the inside of a door which he found locked, he immediately
+kicked the door open. He appeared to those in the room, heralded by an
+amazing crash and flying splinters.
+
+First of all, he was astonished to find two women there; one was Miss
+Kilgour and the other was her mother. And there were the two men whom he
+had followed.
+
+Farr swept off his hat and addressed the girl.
+
+“I happened to be passing and heard your voice,” he said. “If you are--”
+ He hesitated, a bit confused, realizing all at once that knight-errantry
+in modern days is not quite as free and easy a matter as it used to be
+when damsels were in distress in the ruder times of yore. “I am at your
+service,” he added, a bit curtly.
+
+But she did not reply. Her attitude was tense, her cheeks were flaming,
+her eyes were like glowing coals.
+
+“You lunatic, you have come slamming in here, disturbing a private
+wedding,” announced the man in the white tie, slapping his palm upon the
+book he carried.
+
+“Get out of here!” shouted Dodd. He had dodged into a corner of the
+room, his face whitening, when Farr had burst in. He remained in the
+corner now, brandishing his cane.
+
+The uninvited guest surveyed the young man with more composure than he
+had been able to command when he looked at the girl.
+
+Etienne Provancher had fortified him with some valuable information.
+
+“Mr. Richard Dodd, I'll apologize and walk out of here after you have
+explained to me why you have faked up into a parson one Dennis Burke,
+late of the state prison, to officiate at weddings.”
+
+Upon the silence that followed the girl thrust an “Oh!” into which she
+put grief, protest, anger, consternation.
+
+“Mother!” she cried. “Did you know? How could you allow--how did you
+come to do such a terrible thing?”
+
+Her mother put her hands to her face and sat down and began to sob with
+hysterical display of emotion. Farr scowled a bit as he looked at
+her. She was overdressed. There was an artificial air about her whole
+appearance--even her hysterics seemed artificial.
+
+The girl turned from her with a gesture of angry despair as if she
+realized, from experience, that she could expect, at that juncture, only
+emotion without explanation.
+
+“Hold on here,” cried Dodd, “hold on here, everybody! This is all right.
+You just let me inform you, Mr. Butter-in, that Mr. Burke has full
+authority to solemnize a marriage. He is a notary and was commissioned
+at the last meeting of the governor and council. And I know that,” he
+added, attempting a bit of a swagger, “for I secured the commission for
+him myself.” He came out of his corner and shook his cane at Farr. “I
+want you to understand that I have political power in this state!”
+
+“I wouldn't brag about that kind of political power, when you can use it
+to make notaries out of jailbirds. That must be a nice bunch you have up
+at your State House!”
+
+“On your way!” Again the cane swished in front of Farr's face.
+
+“I beg your pardon, madam,” apologized Farr, bowing to the girl. “You
+seem to be the only one in this room entitled to that courtesy,” he
+added, with a touch of his cynicism. “Am I intruding on your personal
+business?”
+
+“You are not,” she answered, her eyes flashing. “I am glad you came
+in here. I could have stopped the wretched folly myself, but you have
+helped me, and I thank you.” She delivered that little speech with
+vigor.
+
+“Kate!” pleaded Dodd. “This isn't fair. I meant it all right. Here's
+your mother here! You wouldn't be reasonable the other way. We had to do
+something. For the love of Heaven, be good. You know I--”
+
+She had turned her back on him. Now she whirled and spat furious words
+at him, commanding him to be silent.
+
+“Do you want to spread all this miserable business before this
+gentleman?” she demanded. “I am ashamed--ashamed! My mother to consent
+to such a thing!”
+
+She turned her back on him again and walked to and fro, beating her
+hands together in her passion. And now ire boiled in Dodd. He directed
+it all at the man who had interfered.
+
+“This is no business of yours, you loafer. I don't know who you are, but
+you--”
+
+Farr grabbed the switching cane as he would have swept into his palm an
+annoying insect. He broke it into many pieces between his sinewy fingers
+and tossed the bits into Dodd's convulsed face.
+
+“You'll know me better later on--you and your uncle, too. Ask him what
+I advised him to do about having his weapon loose on his hip--take the
+same advice for yourself.”
+
+Then his expression altered suddenly. A disquieting jog of memory
+prompted him to yank out the cheap watch.
+
+Twelve minutes to nine.
+
+It was a long way to the foot of the steps of the Mellicite Club! And
+Union Hall was filled with men who were patiently waiting for him to
+keep his pledged word!
+
+“I hope you'll be all right now,” he said to the girl, haste in his
+tones. “I'm sorry--I must go--I have an important engagement.”
+
+Her eyes met his in level gaze, turned scornful glance at the others in
+the room, and then came back to his.
+
+“Are you going in the direction of the Boulevard?” she asked him.
+
+“Straight there.”
+
+“Will you bother with me as far as the Boulevard?”
+
+“If you are a good walker,” he informed her. There was strict business
+in her tone and cool civility in his.
+
+“I'm going along with this gentleman, mother.”
+
+Farr ushered her ahead of him through the shattered door.
+
+“But I want to walk home with you, my child,” wailed the sobbing woman.
+
+“You'd better ask Mr. Dodd to escort you. And I trust that the talk you
+and he will have will bring both of you to your senses.”
+
+She hurried away up the alley with Farr, after he had unlocked the front
+door, finding the key on the inside.
+
+“I am sorry I must hurry you,” he apologized, “and if you cannot keep up
+I must desert you when we get to a well-lighted street.”
+
+She drove a sharp side glance at him and did not reply. Probably for the
+first time in her life she heard a young man declare with determination
+that he was in a hurry to leave her. Even a sensible young woman who is
+pretty must feel some sort of momentary pique because a young man can
+have engagements so summary and so engrossing.
+
+He offered her his arm that they might walk faster. Her touch thrilled
+him. He was far from feeling the outward calm that he displayed to her.
+
+They did not speak as they hurried.
+
+Both were nearly breathless when they came out on the Boulevard. He saw
+the big clock--its hands were nearly at the right angle.
+
+“Good night!” she gasped, and she put out her hand to him. “I thank
+you!”
+
+“It was nothing,” he assured her.
+
+When their palms met they looked into each other's eyes. It was a
+momentary flash which they exchanged, but in that instant both of them
+were thrilled with the strange, sweet knowledge that no human soul may
+analyze: it is the mystic conviction which makes this man or that woman
+different from all the rest of humankind to the one whose heart is
+touched.
+
+She gave him a smile. “Are you a knight-errant?”
+
+She hurried away before he could reply--and, though all his yearning
+nature strove against his man's resolution to do his duty, it could
+not prevail: he did not follow her as he wanted to--running after her,
+crying his love. But duty won out by a mere hazard of a margin because
+her face, as she had shown it to him at the moment of parting, possessed
+not merely the wonderful beauty which had so impressed him when he had
+first seen her--it shone with a sudden flash of emotion that glorified
+it.
+
+He turned away and hurried to the foot of the steps of the Mellicite
+Club.
+
+He had no time to ponder on the nature of that mystery which he had
+uncovered in the shabby cottage in Rose Alley nor to wonder what sort
+of persecution it was that could enlist a mother's aid in that grotesque
+fashion against her own daughter.
+
+He had not time even to frame a plan of campaign against the man whom
+the patient waiters in Union Hall were expecting him to capture.
+
+The bell in the tower was booming its nine strokes and the Honorable
+Archer Converse was coming down the steps from his club, erect, crisp,
+immaculate, dignified--tapping his cane against the stones.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+CORRALING A CONVERT
+
+Mr. Converse bestowed only a careless glance at the stranger who was
+waiting at the foot of the club-house steps.
+
+The young man accosted him, not obsequiously, but frankly.
+
+“I know you always take a turn in the park at this hour, Mr. Converse. I
+beg your pardon, but may I walk for a few steps with you?”
+
+“Why do you want to walk with me?”
+
+“It's a matter--”
+
+“I never discuss business on the street, sir. Come to my office
+to-morrow.”
+
+He marched on and Farr went along behind him.
+
+“You heard?” demanded the attorney.
+
+“I heard.” Farr replied very respectfully, but he kept on.
+
+He had rushed away from the girl and had come face to face with Mr.
+Converse, his mind utterly barren of plan or resource. That interim on
+which he had counted as a time in which he might devise ways and means
+had been so crowded with happenings that all consideration of plans in
+regard to Archer Converse had been swept from his mind.
+
+At all events, he had rendered a service in that time; he had made good
+use of that forty-five minutes--that reflection comforted him even while
+he dizzily wondered what he was to do now.
+
+That service had demanded sacrifice from him--why not demand something
+from that service? An idea, sudden, brazen, undefendable, even
+outrageous, popped into his head. He had no time for sensible planning.
+Mr. Converse was glancing about with the air of a citizen who would like
+to catch the eye of a policeman.
+
+“I know all about you, Mr. Converse, even if you know nothing about me.
+I'm making a curious appeal--it's to your chivalry!”
+
+That was appeal sufficiently novel, so the demeanor of Mr. Converse
+announced, to arrest even the attention of a gentleman who usually
+refused to allow the routine of his life to be interrupted by anything
+less than an earthquake. He halted and fronted this stranger.
+
+“A man who wears that,” proceeded Farr, indicating the rosette of the
+Military Order of the Loyal Legion in the lapel of Mr. Converse's coat,
+“and wears it because it came to him by inheritance from General Aaron
+Converse is bound to listen to that appeal.”
+
+“Explain, sir.”
+
+“Do you know a Richard Dodd who is the nephew of Colonel Dodd?”
+
+“I do, sir. You aren't asking me to assist him, are you? I will have
+nothing to do with him--no help from me!”
+
+“Just a moment--wait one moment! Mr. Converse, do you know a man named
+Dennis Burke who has been in prison for ballot frauds?”
+
+“I helped send him there, sir. Are you reciting the rogues' roster to
+me?”
+
+“Richard Dodd has dressed Burke up as a parson and is trying to force a
+young woman into a marriage. I haven't time to tell you how I happened
+to know about this affair--but it is in Rose Alley and there's no time
+to waste.”
+
+“A preposterous yarn.”
+
+“I have just come from that house.”
+
+“You're a young man of muscle--why didn't you stop it?”
+
+“The girl's mother is there, backing Dodd. Mr. Converse, the cause needs
+a man like you--a man of law, of standing, of influence. I appeal to you
+to follow me.”
+
+“A moment--a moment! I scent a ruse. I don't know you. Are you a decoy
+for blackmailers or robbers?” he inquired, bluntly.
+
+Farr took off his hat and stood before the Honorable Archer Converse,
+his strange, slow, winning smile dawning on his face.
+
+“I beg your pardon for interrupting your stroll,” he said, gently. “I
+hope you'll look at me! You may see, perhaps, that you're in error.
+I'll go back and kill Dodd--and come to your office to-morrow--on
+business--engaging you as counsel for the defense.”
+
+“Lead the way to that house,” snapped Mr. Converse. The attitude of
+Farr, his forbearance, his refraining from further solicitation, his
+frank demeanor, won out for him. “I'm sometimes a little hasty in
+my remarks,” acknowledged Mr. Converse in the tone of one who felt
+chastened. “Are you a new-comer to our city?” he continued as they
+hurried away. “You must be. I should certainly have remembered you if I
+had ever seen you before.” It was an indirect compliment--a gentleman's
+careful approach to an apology.
+
+The young man did not reply. He had conceived for this stately man a
+sudden hero-worship. What Citizen Drew had told him was added to his own
+instinct in matters of the understanding of a personality. He did not
+dare to stop and consider to what despicable extent he was lying to
+his victim. He knew if he stopped to think he would quit. Now the whole
+affair seemed a crazy thing. Did even his proposed ends justify this
+procedure?
+
+“There's a short cut through Sanson Street,” stammered Farr, the sense
+of his own iniquity increasing in the same ratio in which his respect
+and admiration grew. The honorable gentleman traveled along at a brisk
+jog, evidently desiring to show his apologetic mood by exhibiting
+confidence in his guide.
+
+And Farr, stealing side glances at him, was more self-accusatory, more
+abashed. He cherished the hope that they would be able to anticipate
+the departure of Dodd and the confederates from the cottage. It was not
+clear to him just how he would make the incident serve, anyway. He was
+conscious that he had grasped at any opportunity which would open the
+ears of the Honorable Archer Converse to a person who had accosted him
+on the street. Finding somebody in the house would, at least, stamp his
+story with verity even if it served no purpose in the main intent of
+Farr's efforts.
+
+But on a well-lighted street corner the young man halted suddenly.
+
+“It's no use,” he informed the astonished Mr. Converse. “Conscience has
+tripped me. I can't do it.”
+
+“Do you mean to intimate that you have been tricking me, sir?”
+
+“I mean to say, Mr. Converse, that I had proposed to take a half-hour or
+so and think up some method of honestly and properly interesting you in
+a matter which is very dear to me--a public matter, sir. But here is how
+I spent that half-hour.”
+
+Frankly, simply, convincingly he related to his amazed listener the full
+story of what he had found in the cottage in Rose Alley.
+
+“And therefore I had no time to ponder on my business with you--I simply
+turned from the young lady, and there you were, sir, coming down the
+club steps. I did the very best I could on short notice--but what I did
+was very crude. I apologize. I suppose, under the circumstances, I may
+as well say 'Good-night'!” He raised his hat.
+
+But there was something in all this which piqued Converse's curiosity.
+
+“Wait one moment. This is getting to be interesting.”
+
+A rather hazy conviction began to assure Farr that possibly chance had
+dealt a better stroke for him than well-considered planning. It was
+surely something to know that the honorable gentleman was interested.
+
+“If you had had time to think out a method of approaching me--Let me
+see, your name is--”
+
+“Farr.”
+
+“Mr. Farr, supposing I had been amenable to your suggestions, what is it
+you wanted of me?”
+
+“I wanted you to attend a public meeting,” blurted the young man. “They
+are men who need help--they need--”
+
+“That's sufficient,” snapped Converse. “I am not in politics. I do
+not address public meetings. Mr. Farr, you would have wasted your time
+planning. Absolutely!”
+
+“But is there not some appeal that--”
+
+“Useless--useless, sir.” He tapped his cane, and his tones showed
+irritation. He whirled on his heels. “It is decidedly evident that
+you are a stranger in these parts, sir. On that account I forgive your
+presumption.”
+
+At that moment a jigger-wagon rumbled to a halt near them. The corner
+light had revealed them to the driver.
+
+“Mr. Farr,” called the man, “it hasn't taken long for the news of what
+you did at the meeting to-night to travel around among the boys. And we
+ain't going to let you get ahead of us, sir.”
+
+“The more, the merrier, in a good cause,” said Farr; but he was staring
+regretfully at the back of Mr. Converse, who had begun his retreat.
+
+“I want to tell you I'm on the executive committee of the State
+Teamsters Union, Mr. Farr. I've been talking the matter up and I can
+promise you that the union as a body will vote to lend horses and men to
+carry your spring-water free gratis. And I hope that gent who's starting
+up-town where the dudes are will tell 'em that there are honest men
+enough left to protect the poor folks from that poison water him and his
+rich friends are pumping out of the river to us.”
+
+The Honorable Archer Converse halted his departure very suddenly.
+
+“You are not referring to me, are you, my man?”
+
+“I am if you're tied up with that Consolidated Water Company bunch,”
+ stated the unterrified member of the proletariat.
+
+Mr. Converse retraced his steps. He shook his cane at the driver.
+
+“I want to inform you very distinctly, sir, that I am _not_ interested
+in the Consolidated.”
+
+“Dawson, apologize to this gentleman,” Farr admonished the driver.
+
+“I'm sorry I said anything,” muttered the man. “But all dudes look alike
+to me,” he told himself under his breath.
+
+Mr. Converse appeared to be considerably disturbed by the humble
+citizen's sneer in regard to the Consolidated matter. He addressed
+himself to Farr.
+
+“I have been touched on a point where I am very sensitive,” he informed
+the young man. “I do not condone the policies of the Consolidated in
+regard to their control of franchises. Their system of operation has
+introduced a bad element into our finance and politics. I would be sorry
+to be misunderstood by the people of this state.”
+
+“I hope you will not be misunderstood, sir,” averred Farr, with
+humility.
+
+“In order to show you my stand in the matter and so that you may correct
+any misunderstanding among your friends in these quarters,” proceeded
+Mr. Converse, stiffly, “I will inform you that I am taking the case of
+the citizens' syndicate of Danburg on appeal up to our highest court.
+We hope to prove criminal conspiracy. We hope to show up some of the
+corruption in the state. That is why I have gone into the case.”
+
+“I thank you for informing me. I have been trying to fight the
+Consolidated in my own humble way.”
+
+The eminent lawyer came closer and was promptly interested.
+
+“I am in search of information of all kinds, sir. Kindly explain.”
+
+Eliminating himself as much as possible, Farr described the operations
+of the Co-operative Spring Water Association. But he could not eliminate
+the man on the box-seat of the jigger-wagon. When Farr had finished his
+brief explanation that loyal admirer gave in some enthusiastic testimony
+in regard to the man who had devised the plan and had sacrificed his
+time in efforts to extend the system. He kept on until Farr checked him.
+
+“I will say, Mr. Converse, before you leave, that I'd like to have you
+carry away a right opinion of me. I was not trying to drag you to a mere
+political gathering. There are some poor men assembled just now in this
+quarter who need a sympathetic listener and a little good advice. They
+are also trying to get justice from the Consolidated and all the general
+oppression it represents.”
+
+“Where are those men?” asked Converse, after a pause during which he
+wrinkled his brows and tapped his cane.
+
+Farr pointed down the street. Not far away a low-hung transparency
+heralded “The Square Deal Club.”
+
+Mr. Converse gazed in that direction and hesitated a few moments longer.
+
+“You assure me that it's not a mere political rally?”
+
+“I do, sir!”
+
+Then the son of General Converse gallantly extended his arm.
+
+“I'll be glad to be escorted by you, Mr. Farr,” he said. “Now that
+I understand this thing a bit better, I am going to break one of my
+rules.” As they walked along he remarked: “A man's affairs are sometimes
+directed and controlled for him in a most singular fashion. Little
+things change preconceived notions very suddenly.”
+
+“They do, sir,” agreed Walker Farr.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+CONSCIENCE ENLISTING A RECRUIT
+
+A man who stood at the head of the stairs, an outpost, saw them coming
+and ran and opened a door ahead of them. The door admitted to a hall
+which was packed with men who were ranged on settees and stood in the
+aisles and at the sides of the big room.
+
+“Make way for the Honorable Archer Converse,” shrieked their _avant
+courier_, excitedly.
+
+“Three cheers for the Honorable Archer Converse,” called a voice, and
+all the men came on to their feet and yelled lustily.
+
+The distinguished guest climbed upon the platform--Farr close at
+his heels. The young man placed a chair for the lawyer and remained
+standing. He raised his hand to command silence.
+
+“This is rather unexpected, boys. But this distinguished man happened
+to be passing our hall to-night and has dropped in on us in a purely
+informal manner. It's a great honor, and I want to say to him for all of
+us that the old Square Deal Club is mighty grateful. I ask you to rise,
+gentlemen of the club.”
+
+All came to their feet again.
+
+“Bow your heads and for thirty seconds of deep silence pay your respect
+and veneration to the memory of our great war governor, General Aaron
+Converse.”
+
+The Honorable Archer Converse looked forth over those bowed and bared
+heads. The most of them were gray heads, and toil-worn hands were
+clasped in front of those men. And when at last the faces were raised to
+his there was an appealing earnestness in their gaze which touched him
+poignantly.
+
+“Boys, the son of that great man is present. How will you express your
+admiration and respect for him?”
+
+They cheered again tumultuously.
+
+Farr walked to the edge of the platform.
+
+“It is kind and generous of Mr. Converse to consent to step in here for
+a few moments this evening. I will leave the meeting in his hands.”
+
+There was a hush for a moment. Then the guest carried his chair to the
+extreme front edge of the platform.
+
+“I don't know just what sort of meeting this is--I have not been fully
+informed,” he said, very crisply. “But I want it distinctly understood
+that I am not here to make any speech. Your faces indicate that you are
+very much in earnest in regard to the business you are met to consider.
+I am assured that this is no mere political rally?”
+
+“No,” somebody replied.
+
+“I'm glad of that. I am not in politics. The political mess grows to be
+nastier every year. But what are you here for? Come, now! Come! Let's
+talk it over.” He was a bit brusque, but his tone was kindly.
+
+A man who stood up in the middle of the hall was rather shabby in his
+attire, but he had the deep eyes of one who thinks.
+
+“Honored sir,” he said, “I don't stand up as one presuming to speak for
+all the rest. But I have talked with many men. I know what some of us
+want. We don't expect that laws or leaders will make lazy men get
+ahead in the world or that victuals can be legislated into the cupboard
+without a man gets out and hustles for 'em. I have worked at a bench
+ever since I was fourteen. I expect to work there until I drop out. I
+don't want any political office. I couldn't fill one. But why is it that
+the only men who get into office are the kind who turn around and
+get rich selling off property which belongs to all of us--I mean the
+franchises for this, that, and the other?” He sat down.
+
+A thin man in the front row got up.
+
+“Honorable Archer Converse, one franchise that was given away by those
+men years ago was the right to furnish water to this city. A private
+concern got hold of that franchise. It holds the right to-day. It saves
+money by pumping its water out of the Gamonic River. Saves money and
+wastes lives. The Board of Health's reports show that there were eleven
+hundred cases of typhoid fever in this city last year. In my family
+my mother and two of my children died. I shiver every time I touch a
+tap--but spring-water that can be depended on costs us at the grocer's
+a dollar for a five-gallon carboy--and my wages are only ten dollars a
+week. There are lakes twenty miles from this city. Pure water there for
+all of us! But every tap drips sewage from the Gamonic River. Haven't we
+got any leaders who will make that water company pump health instead of
+death?”
+
+“They sent 'Tabulator' Burke up for ballot frauds,” said a voter who
+stood up in a far corner. “But anybody in this city understands well
+enough that the judge who sent him to state prison knew who the real
+chaps were, knew how much the real ones paid 'Tabulator' to take the
+whole blame. And the governor knows it all and has just reappointed that
+judge.”
+
+The Honorable Archer Converse sat very straight in his chair and
+listened to those men. He continued to sit straight and listened to
+others. The men dealt in no diatribe. There was no raving, there was no
+anarchistic sentiments. They arose, uttered their grievances gloomily
+but without passion, and sat down.
+
+One elderly man stood up and raised both hands.
+
+“I came across the sea to this country, sir. I came because I could
+have my little share in the government where I paid taxes and labored--I
+could vote here. It's the only public privilege I have. But, O God, give
+us some one to vote for!”
+
+“I sympathize with your feelings,” replied Mr. Converse. “But you are
+talking to the wrong man. I'm not in politics.”
+
+“By the gods, you will be if my nerve only holds out,” Farr told
+himself.
+
+Another man sprang to his feet. He spoke quietly, but his very
+repression made him more effective.
+
+“What's the good of voting till men like you do get into politics,
+Mr. Converse, and give us leaders who will use their power to help the
+people who voted for them? I'm sick of voting. I'm teamed up to the
+polls by ward workers--and I know just why those men are in the game and
+who they're working for. What do you suppose Colonel Dodd cares which
+side carries this city, or which side carries the state? He and his
+crowd stand to win, whatever party gets in. You can't beat 'em. Business
+is business, no matter what politics may be! The city money is wasted
+just the same, the policy game is let run for the benefit of the rich
+men who back it, all the grafts go right on. You can't fool me any
+longer. They stir us poor chaps up at election-time, we rush to the
+polls and vote, and sometimes think we are accomplishing something. But
+what we're doing is simply boosting out some fellow who has made his
+pile and putting in another who wants office so that he can fill his
+own pockets by selling our common rights out to the same men. I say, you
+can't beat it!”
+
+The Honorable Archer Converse seemed to find his position on the
+platform uncomfortable. He rose suddenly and stepped down on the floor.
+He went among the men. He grasped the hands that were outstretched to
+him. He realized that he had scant encouragement for these men. The
+meeting had given him new light. He knew considerable about the old
+days, and in the old days of politics men flocked to rallies. They
+harkened humbly to speeches from their leaders, and swallowed the
+sugar-coated facts, and listened to bands, and joined the torch-light
+parades, and voted according to party lines, and thought they had done
+well; the surface of things was nicely slicked over.
+
+He understood that out of the ease with which the mob could be herded,
+with others doing their thinking for them, had grown politics as a
+business--with the big interests dominating both parties--and no one
+realized how it had all come about better than Converse. This new
+spirit, however, rather surprised him, for he had been keeping aloof
+from politics. These men who crowded about him were not mere dumb,
+driven voters in the mass--they were individuals who were thinking, who
+were demanding, who were seeking a leader that would consider them as
+citizens to be served, not chattels to be sold to the highest bidder.
+His keen lawyer's insight understood all this!
+
+“I'm a butcher down in the stock-yards, Mr. Converse,” said one man,
+who pressed forward. “We've got trained bulls there who tole the cattle
+along into the slaughter-pens. I've got tired of being a steer in
+politics and following these old trained bulls.”
+
+Converse worked his way through the press to the door, Farr at his
+heels.
+
+When they were on the street the honorable gentleman turned sharply
+toward the Boulevard.
+
+“I haven't any spirit or taste to-night for moonlight in the park, sir!
+A nice trick you played on me.”
+
+“I wanted you to get a first-hand notion of a state of affairs, Mr.
+Converse.”
+
+“But you ought to understand my temperament better--you ought to know
+it's going to stick in my mind, worry me, vex me, set me to seeking for
+remedies. It's just as if I'd been retained on a case. I feel almost
+duty-bound to pitch in.”
+
+“It's strange how a man gets pulled into a thing sometimes--into
+something he had no idea of meddling with,” philosophized Farr, blandly.
+“That's the way it has happened in my case.”
+
+“It has, eh?” demanded Mr. Converse, sharply. He had tacitly accepted
+the young man's companionship for the walk back to the Boulevard. “Now,
+look here! Just who are you?”
+
+“My name is Farr and I'm nothing.”
+
+“You needn't bluff me--you're a politician--a candidate for something.”
+
+“I'm not even a voter in this state. It's men like you, sir, who ought
+to be candidates for the high offices.”
+
+“My sainted father trained me to respect self-sacrifice, Mr. Farr. But
+for a clean man to try to accomplish things for the people in politics
+these days isn't self-sacrifice--it's martyrdom. The cheap politicians
+heap the fagots, the sneering newspapers light the fire and keep blowing
+it with their bellows, and the people stand around and seem to show a
+sort of calm relish in watching the operation. And when it is all over
+not a bit of good has been done.”
+
+“I'm afraid I have wasted an evening for you, sir. I'm sorry. I hoped
+the troubles of those men, when you heard them at first hand, would
+interest you.”
+
+“Interest me! Confound it all, you have wrecked my peace of mind! I knew
+it all before. But I'm selfish, like almost everybody else. I kept
+away where I couldn't hear about these things. Now, if I sleep soundly
+to-night I'll be ashamed to look up at my father's portrait when I walk
+into my office to-morrow morning. Why didn't you have better sense
+than to coax me into your infernal meeting?” He rapped his cane angrily
+against the curbstone as he strode on. “And the trouble with me is,”
+ continued Mr. Converse, with much bitterness, “I know the conditions are
+such in this state that a meeting like that can be assembled in every
+city and town--and the complaints will be just and demand help.
+But there's no organization--it's only blind kittens miauling. It's
+damnable!”
+
+“But this is the kind of country where some mighty quick changes can be
+made when the people do get their eyes open,” suggested the young man.
+
+Mr. Converse merely grunted, tapping his cane more viciously.
+
+They were on the frontier of the Eleventh Ward now. The brighter lights
+of the avenues of up-town blazed before them.
+
+“Then you will not go into politics?” inquired Farr.
+
+“I'd sooner sail for India with a cargo of hymn-books and give
+singing-lessons to Bengal tigers.”
+
+“Good night, sir,” said Farr. He halted on the street corner which
+marked the boundary of the ward.
+
+“Good night, sir!” replied Mr. Converse, striding on.
+
+The young man watched him out of sight. He heard the angry clack of the
+cane on the stones long after the Honorable Archer Converse had turned
+the next corner.
+
+“Maxim in the case of a true gentleman,” mused Farr: “tap his conscience
+on the shoulder, point your finger at the enemy, say nothing, simply
+stand back and give conscience plenty of elbow-room--it needs no help.
+There, by the grace of God, goes the next governor of this state.”
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+CONSIDERATION: ONE DAUGHTER
+
+On the morning following his discomfiture Richard Dodd posted himself
+in a little tobacco-shop opposite the Trelawny Apartment-house. Lurking
+behind cigar-boxes in the window, he held the door of the house under
+surly espionage. It was plain to the shopkeeper that “the gent had made
+a night of it.” Dodd's eyes were heavy, his face was flushed, and he
+lighted one cigarette after another with shaky hands.
+
+Shortly before nine o'clock Kate Kilgour came out and walked down the
+avenue on the way to her work. Dodd stared after her until she was
+out of sight. Shame and anger and desire mingled in the steady gaze
+he leveled on her; in her crisp freshness she represented both the
+longed-for and the unattainable. He was conscious of a new sentiment
+in regard to her. In the past his impatience had been tempered by the
+comforting knowledge that she had promised herself to him--that she was
+his to own, to possess after a bit of tantalizing procrastination. Now
+he was not at all sure of her. He had been just a bit patronizing in
+the past--his successes with women had inflated his conceit--he had
+exhibited a rather careless air of proprietorship--his manner had said
+to her and to others, “This is mine; look at it!” But now when he had
+watched her out of sight jealousy, anger, the sour conviction that
+he had forfeited her regard combined to make him desperate, and the
+excesses of the night before kindled a flame which heated all his evil
+passions.
+
+He threw away his cigarette, cursed roundly aloud, and hurried across
+the street into the Trelawny.
+
+When Mrs. Kilgour admitted him to her suite she clung to the
+door-casing, exhibiting much trepidation.
+
+He stepped in, closed the door, and put his back against it.
+
+“Have you got those hysterics out of you so that you can listen to me
+and then talk sense?” he demanded, coarsely.
+
+She went into her sitting-room and he followed, muttering:
+
+“No wonder you ran away from me last night--no wonder you didn't have
+the face to stay and take what you deserve. How in tophet I ever allowed
+you to plan and manage I can't understand.”
+
+“You asked me to,” she faltered.
+
+“I didn't ask you to rig up a dirty conspiracy to queer me.”
+
+“Richard, you are not yourself. You have been drinking!” She tried to
+exhibit protesting indignation and failed. “Come to me when you are
+yourself.”
+
+“There's no more of this to-morrow business goes with me, Mrs. Kilgour.
+I'll admit that you're Kate's mother. But just now you are something
+else. You have tried to do me, and nobody gets by with that stuff--man,
+woman, or child. We'll have our settlement here and now.”
+
+“I did the best I could,” she wailed.
+
+“Out of what damnation novel did you get that idea?” he raged.
+
+“It seemed to be a good plan, Richard. I swear by everything sacred I
+thought it would come out all right. Don't rave at me.” Her voice sunk
+to an appealing whisper. She picked up a book from her table. “If you
+will only listen--”
+
+“So you did get it out of a novel! My God! what have your fool ideas
+done to me?”
+
+“How do you dare to talk to Kate's mother like that?”
+
+“I am not talking to Kate's mother, I tell you! I'm talking to a woman
+who has put me into a hell on earth. I'm talking to you, Mrs. Kilgour,
+and you don't know the whole story yet.”
+
+“All my life it has been the same--only trouble and sorrow and to be
+misunderstood.” She began to sob.
+
+“Is there anything in that novel about ringing in an iceman to break
+up a marriage? I say it was all a conspiracy. You didn't intend to be
+square. You intended to rig a scheme so that you could duck out from
+under. You have always done that, Mrs. Kilgour.”
+
+“I had nothing to do with that man coming in.”
+
+“Don't try to fool me any more. You told me to come, didn't you? You
+must have told some yarn to your daughter to have her come.”
+
+“I did--it was all--”
+
+“And then you told that plug-ugly to come in, too, and break it up so
+as to queer me. Why did I ever fall for such lunacy? If I hadn't been
+desperate I would never have let you drag me into such a devilish
+scheme. But now you have got to do your part to square me. It's going to
+be straight talk from now on, Mrs. Kilgour. There must be a settlement
+between us.”
+
+She looked away from him. She was plainly searching her soul for excuses
+to postpone that settlement.
+
+“That person who came in, Dicky! I swear I did not arrange any such
+thing. He is only an iceman. I don't know the man. It was some accident.
+If the matter hadn't been interrupted! It was going along all right.”
+
+“What's the matter with your intellect? You know it wasn't going along
+at all! You simply had us chasing shadows. Good God! I ought to have
+made you tell me what you were planning. Think of it! Think of me
+waltzing down there like a boob and thinking you had something real to
+offer.”
+
+“But you frightened her with that jailbird. You should have brought a
+real clergyman.”
+
+“The man I brought has the power to perform marriages! I would have made
+a nice spectacle towing a clergyman into that mess, wouldn't I?”
+
+She broke in upon his further speech. She wrung her hands, paltering,
+pleading, trying to explain, trying more desperately to postpone that
+settlement he was demanding.
+
+“But, honestly, it did seem to be a good plan, Dicky. I'm her mother. I
+know her nature. You know how some natures have to be handled! She is so
+self-centered. She has to be taken by surprise. She has to know that she
+is making a sacrifice. That is why I arranged it all for Rose Alley and
+borrowed that house. And I had it all planned out what to say to her at
+the last moment there.”
+
+“Well, what was this great thing you were going to say?” He glared at
+her, disgust and suspicion in his eyes.
+
+She flushed. She hesitated, unable to meet his gaze.
+
+“It's no use to tell you now, Dicky. Somehow, now that I come to think
+it all over, it sounds rather tame. It all did seem so plausible, what
+I was going to say when I sat down and planned out the thing. And the
+romance of it--you know even self-centered girls like to feel that a man
+wants them so much that he gets desperate--and she said once that she
+would marry you some time--perhaps--and--”
+
+“Oh, you--you--” He broke in and then stopped, lacking words. “What's
+the use?” he muttered. “You don't even know your own daughter. She has
+been enduring me because you have been keeping at her. I understand it
+now. You told me you could hurry it up. You have made me look like a
+melodrama villain. You have made her hate me. Now own up! Didn't she
+rave to you after you got home and tell you she hated me? You have
+nailed me to the cross for ever where she is concerned--now haven't you?
+Own up.”
+
+“I can win her back, Dicky. Give me a little time.” But she was not able
+to look at him. “Don't scold me any more. I'm her mother. She will obey
+her own mother in time. Don't hurt my sensitive nature any more.” She
+began to weep, twisting her rings on her trembling fingers.
+
+He scowled at her, narrowing his eyes. “You haven't been playing square
+with me, Mrs. Kilgour.”
+
+“Call me Mother Kilgour, Dicky, just as you always have.”
+
+“I won't stand for any more bluffing, Mrs. Kilgour. Kate has sworn to
+you that she will never marry me--now hasn't she?”
+
+“But I can talk her around--you can win her back. I'll tell her it was
+my plan--I'll have courage to tell her later--”
+
+“So you have been laying that crazy idea all to me?”
+
+“But I'll get up courage to tell her some day--and your devotion will
+win her back--devotion always wins. You can--”
+
+“Mrs. Kilgour, I know you pretty well. I repeat, I know you have always
+ducked out from under--that's your nature. But here's a thing you can't
+dodge. You've got to come to time. You know how I love Kate. There isn't
+any reason why she shouldn't marry me. There's no excuse for her holding
+me off the way she does. You've got to fix it for me--quick! Understand?
+This fluff talk about 'devotion' and 'some day' doesn't go. I want
+action. Now hold on! I don't mean to threaten--I've been square with you
+till now. Good gad, you don't realize what a price I've paid!”
+
+“And now on top of your other insults you are going to twit me again
+because I have borrowed five thousand dollars from you. Oh, Dicky, I
+thought you were more of a gentleman?”
+
+“Mrs. Kilgour, I have simply got to make you understand what I have done
+for you before you'll wake up and do something for me.”
+
+“I appreciate what you did, Dicky. Honestly, I do. You save me from
+losing money on my stocks.”
+
+“Where are those stocks?”
+
+She did not look at him. “I have them put away--all safe. They are all
+right. Just as soon as business is better I will get your money for you,
+Dicky. You shall have it, every cent.”
+
+“Where are those stocks, I say! Mrs. Kilgour, look at me. Were are
+they?”
+
+“Why are you so particular about knowing where they are?” Protecting
+herself, she showed a flicker of resentment.
+
+“Because you must sell and hand me that money--at once.”
+
+“I--I don't believe I can realize on them just now. They are--are down
+just at present. They--”
+
+“What are the stocks?”
+
+“I don't care to reveal my private business, Richard.”
+
+“It happens to be my business, too. I'm in trouble. I must know. I shall
+stay here till I find out. You may as well come across.”
+
+“As soon as I can arrange it--I will tell you. Very soon now!”
+
+He snapped himself out of his chair and went across the room to her. He
+put his hands on her shoulders and bent his face to hers.
+
+“You haven't any stocks, Mrs. Kilgour.”
+
+“No,” she whispered, his eyes dominating her.
+
+“What did you do with that money I loaned you?”
+
+“I paid--a debt.”
+
+“What debt? Answer! This thing must be cleared up--_now_!”
+
+She began to weep.
+
+“No more hysterics, Mrs. Kilgour. We are now down to cases. Something
+bad will happen if you don't confide in me.”
+
+Then, cornered, with the impulse of weak natures to seek support from
+stronger--to appeal to a victor who cannot be eluded--she blurted the
+truth.
+
+“They got to suspecting me when I was cashier for Dalton & Company. I
+heard they were going to put experts upon my books, Dicky. I didn't want
+to go to jail. I would have disgraced Kate. I knew you loved her and
+would not want her mother to be arrested. I had to have that money.
+I told you the story about the stocks. So I was saved from being
+disgraced.”
+
+“Oh, you were?” His eyes flamed so furiously that she turned her gaze
+from him.
+
+“And now I feel better, for I have confided in you and you're going
+to be my good and true friend from now on. It will be made up to you,
+Dicky.”
+
+“What had you done with all that money you took from Dalton & Company?”
+
+“It costs so much to live--and keep up the position I had when Andrew
+was alive! A woman needs so many things, Richard. I have always been
+proud. I was obliged to--”
+
+He swore and swung away from her. “Wasted it on dress and jewelry! You
+turned the trick on one man and put him underground. And I'm the next
+victim! I knew I was being played for a sucker, but, oh--”
+
+He battered his fists against the wall in pure ecstasy of rage. Then he
+sat down and put his face in his hands.
+
+The woman clucked sobs which did not ring true.
+
+“I wonder what Kate would say if she knew how I had come to the scratch.
+She knew her father was a hero. I wonder whether she would think I am
+one!” he said, after silence had continued for a long time.
+
+“Are you going to tell her?” the mother gasped.
+
+“I love her too much. But, see here! Do you think I picked that five
+thousand off a rose-bush?”
+
+“You told me your uncle loaned it to you.”
+
+“You think I got it easy--got it for the asking, and that's why you have
+been loafing on the job,” he said, with bitterness. “Ask my uncle for
+money? I should say not. He never loosened for anybody yet--not even his
+relatives. Mrs. Kilgour, I love your daughter so much--I was so anxious
+to help you--I stole that five thousand from the state treasury. I have
+been covering it in my accounts for more than a year--hell all the time
+with plenty of white-hot when the legislative committee has been over
+the accounts. Some day some blasted fool will wake up enough to see that
+there's a hole in my figures.”
+
+He put his elbows on his knees and stared at the carpet. The woman's
+face grew white.
+
+“That's how it stands with me, Mrs. Kilgour. You know you were not
+square with me at the start. You said you needed the money for only a
+few weeks--you said you were pinched in a stock deal. You lied to me.
+You have wasted the money on fine feathers for your back. I have kept
+still. You can't pay me. I've got to struggle out of the mess as best
+I can. But, by the eternal gods, there's something coming to me, and
+that's your daughter. Now are you going to wake up?”
+
+“I'll do everything I can.” Her tone was not convincing, however.
+
+He realized that this woman with the pulpy conscience and the artificial
+emotions, selfish and a coward, was merely vaguely stirred by his
+revelation, not spurred by the extent of his sacrifice in her behalf.
+
+“Do what you _can_? Whine to me like that after I have stolen state's
+money and am standing under my steal? What if this state tips over
+politically and they investigate the treasury? I tell you, Mrs. Kilgour,
+I deserve to have Kate. I'm going to have her. You have got to fix
+it--and right away.”
+
+“But I can't marry off a girl of twenty as if she were a Chinese slave.”
+ His insistence caused her to display more of her pettish resentment.
+
+“If you can't deliver the goods, Mrs. Kilgour, I shall take a hand in
+it.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“I'll tell her the story.”
+
+“You wouldn't dare.”
+
+“She has a sense of honor and of obligation even if you haven't. She
+will pay. She'll pay with herself. That's a devil of a way to get a
+wife, but if that's the only way I'll take it.”
+
+“But you have just owned up that you have embezzled money. As Kate's
+mother it's my duty to protect her from disgrace.”
+
+That amazing declaration fairly took away Dodd's breath.
+
+By the manner in which the woman now looked at him it was plain that he
+had sunk in her estimation.
+
+“You know, Richard, a mother feels called on to protect a good
+daughter.”
+
+He got up and stamped on the floor in his passion and swore.
+
+“I appreciate what you did for me--but, really, I didn't ask you to
+steal money--and I supposed your uncle was always liberal with you. You
+should not have told me falsehoods.”
+
+The maddening feature of this calm assumption of superiority was the
+fact that the woman seemed really to believe for the moment exactly what
+she was saying and to forget why Dodd had jeopardized his fortunes; her
+manner showed her shallow estimate of the situation.
+
+“There's another way of doing it,” raged the young man, infuriated by
+this repudiation of obligation. “I'll blow the whole thing about the two
+of us--and she'll be glad enough to have me after it's all over.”
+
+“You haven't any right to bring all this trouble and disgrace into my
+family.”
+
+“You know one way of preventing it and you'd better get busy, Mrs.
+Kilgour,” he advised. “I'm going to give you another chance of keeping
+your word and paying your debt to me. I want Kate--and I have waited for
+her long enough.”
+
+He clapped on his hat and hurried away.
+
+He left the mother sprawled on a couch, her ringed hands clutched
+into her dyed hair. She was still clucking sobs which would not have
+convinced any unprejudiced hearer that she felt real grief.
+
+When Richard Dodd entered his uncle's offices in the First National
+block a little later he was in the mood to force his affairs a bit. He
+enjoyed liberties there which the ordinary caller did not have and he
+walked into Kate Kilgour's little room without attracting attention or
+comment.
+
+“I know exactly how you feel about last night, Kate.” He addressed her
+respectfully and humbly. “I understand that this is no place to discuss
+the matter. I haven't come here to do so. I apologize for the affair.
+I'm going to say this to you--I took your mother's advice. She planned
+the thing and trumped up the errand which called you to that house. I'm
+afraid she is rather too romantic. I only say this, Kate: a man's love
+can make him do foolish things. Please talk with your mother when you go
+home--and take her advice. If you do, it will be better for all of us.”
+ He trembled with the restraint he had put upon himself. “You can see
+that I have been punished, Kate. I am a different man--you ought to be
+able to see it. Awful trouble has come to me. I need your love to help
+me through it.”
+
+She gazed at him with level, cold eyes.
+
+“You don't understand. I can't explain, dear! But I'm telling you the
+truth. Kate, if you don't forget that folly I was guilty of last night
+and be to me what you have been--if you don't marry me very soon you
+will be sorry.”
+
+“Are you threatening me, Richard?”
+
+“No, I didn't mean it to sound like that. But I know that with your
+appreciation of what sacrifice means you will be very unhappy if you
+toss me away and then find out certain things.”
+
+“This is not the time for riddles, Richard. What do you mean?”
+
+“I have said all I can say.”
+
+“I do not love you well enough to be your wife. I have not meant to
+play the coquette. I have not known myself. You and my mother--Oh, why
+rehearse? You know the story. You have understood that my love for
+you was not what you should have. We may as well end it here and now,
+Richard. I will forget last night. I will forget all the rest--for it is
+ended!”
+
+“It cannot be ended,” he retorted. “Understand! It cannot be ended. I am
+trying to hold myself together, Kate. Don't provoke me. I call on you
+to keep your promise. No other man shall have you.” He leaned close. “Do
+you love any other man?”
+
+She looked up at him and spoke slowly and gravely. “I do not think I do,
+Richard.”
+
+He scowled at her. “You don't _think_ you do! What in the name of Judas
+do you mean by a remark like that?”
+
+“It's because I'm trying to tell the truth,” she returned, with simple
+earnestness.
+
+“This is a sort of new mood you're in?” he persisted.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He hesitated. He started to speak and then was silent for a long time.
+“Damnation! I won't insult you!” he blurted at last.
+
+“I hope not, Richard.”
+
+“It's preposterous!”
+
+“What is preposterous?” Her tone was calm.
+
+“I saw you look at a man last evening.”
+
+“Very well!”
+
+“I have seen women look at me like that in my life.”
+
+“I was not conscious that I looked at any man in any especial manner.”
+
+“You couldn't see yourself. Perhaps you did not realize that you looked
+at that man with any meaning in your eyes. But the women who looked
+at me as you looked at him told me that they loved me. I am talking
+it right out! But if I should hint that you're in love with a tramp I
+should insult you. I am crazy, that's all. My troubles are affecting my
+mind. Forgive me, Kate.”
+
+“You are, of course, referring to the young man who broke in on our
+prospective business last evening.” There was just a touch of contempt
+in her demeanor; but her air was coldly business-like; sitting there
+at her desk she held him, physically and mentally, at arm's-length. Her
+poise was sure. It seemed perfectly natural for her to be discussing a
+young man in an impersonal manner.
+
+“I am referring to that low-lived vagrant we met on the road--that
+iceman--that--well, I don't know what he is except that the devil
+seems to be kicking him under my feet to trip me. Kate, Kate, it's too
+ridiculous to talk about--that wretch!”
+
+“Do you mean by that remark that I am taking any interest in that young
+man outside of mere curiosity?”
+
+“I don't know why you should have any curiosity about a tramp.”
+
+“You are not a good student of physiognomy, Richard.”
+
+“So you have been studying him, have you? You went away with him and
+left me. What did he say to you? Where did he leave you? I haven't dared
+to think about your going away with him. I excused it because you were
+angry--so angry you'd even pick up a tramp for an escort. But what
+interest do you take in that renegade?” His tones were acrid with
+jealousy.
+
+“I did not find him a renegade. I found him a mystery, Richard. And I
+hope that some day I will know what the mystery is.”
+
+“Are you trying to drive me mad?”
+
+“I am merely chatting along in order to keep you off a topic which
+is distressing. I heard that your uncle intended to have the man
+investigated after he came into the office here and made that brave
+stand. I happened to hear the talk the young man made. Perhaps that
+accounts for my curiosity. Did your uncle find out much about the man?”
+
+“I don't know what he found out,” declared Dodd, rapidly losing control
+of himself. “But I propose to find out for myself.”
+
+“Please do, Richard,” said the girl, ingenuously and earnestly. She
+seemed to be losing some of the hauteur she had shown at the first of
+their meeting.
+
+“I'll find out enough to put him in jail, where he probably belongs. I'm
+not going to insult you, Kate, by any more talk about a tramp. You can't
+shift me from the main topic. Go home and talk with your mother, as I
+have told you. We are going to be married!”
+
+“Richard, our affair is ended.”
+
+“Then who is the man?”
+
+“There is no man.”
+
+“If you say that and mean it, then you don't know women as well as I
+know them. You don't know even yourself!” he declared. “I want to say
+to you, Kate, that we are all walking on mighty thin ice. The sooner
+you and I take hold of hands and get safely ashore--just you and I--the
+better it will be. Just let your curiosity about other men fall asleep.
+I tell you again, go home and talk with your mother.”
+
+He bowed, reached his hand to touch hers, but refrained when she turned
+suddenly to her desk and resumed her work.
+
+Young Dodd hurried out of the building without attempting to see his
+uncle, and cooled his head and his passion and soothed his physical
+discomfort by a headlong dash in his car back to the state's capital
+city.
+
+The girl took her courage in her hands and asked Mr. Peter Briggs, in
+as matter-of-fact tone as she could muster, whether he did not want any
+record copy made of his notes in regard to that person who had bearded
+Colonel Dodd. But Mr. Briggs informed her that the matter was not of
+sufficient importance.
+
+“The fellow is merely a cheap, loafing sort--here to-day, there
+to-morrow,” said Briggs. “I investigated him thoroughly.”
+
+Until then Miss Kilgour had always had a high opinion of Peter Briggs's
+acumen. She promptly revised that estimate, reflecting that age is bound
+to dull a person's senses and cloud his judgment.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE HONORABLE LION CONFERS WITH COLONEL TIGER
+
+All his people in the offices of the Honorable Archer Converse noticed
+that the chief was not amiable that day. His usual dignified composure
+was wholly lacking. He gave off orders fretfully, he slapped papers
+about on his desk when he worked there; every now and then he glanced
+up at the portrait of his distinguished father and muttered under
+his breath. He had called for more documents relating to state health
+statistics, reports on water systems, and had despatched a clerk to
+the capital city to secure certain additional facts, figures, and
+literature. The junior members of his law firm knew that he had taken
+much to heart the case of the citizens of Danburg, who had been blocked
+in their honest efforts to build a water system and who now
+charged various high interests with conspiracy. The litigation was
+important--the issues revolutionary. But the juniors had never seen the
+chief fussed up by any law case before.
+
+Then something really did happen!
+
+The three citizens of Danburg who had occasionally conferred with him
+came into his office and lined up in front of him. Mr. Davis scratched
+his chin and blinked meekly, Mr. Erskine exhibited his nervousness by
+running his fingers around inside his collar, and Mr. Owen fairly oozed
+unspoken apology.
+
+“Look here, gentlemen,” snapped Mr. Converse, “I'm not ready for you. I
+told you not to come until next week. I have an immense mass of material
+to study. You're only wasting time--mine and yours--coming here to-day.”
+
+“Well, you see, your honor,” stammered Davis, “we came to-day so as to
+save you more trouble and work.”
+
+“Work!” echoed Mr. Converse, seizing the arms of his chair and shoving
+an astonished face forward.
+
+“Why--why--you see we've decided not to push this case any further.
+And whatever is owing to you--name the sum.” He did not relish the
+glow which was coming into the attorney's eyes, nor the grim wrinkles
+settling about the thin lips. “So that there won't be any hard feelings,
+in any way,” Davis hastened to say.
+
+“What has happened to you men all of a sudden?” demanded the lawyer.
+“Explain! Speak up!”
+
+Davis's face was red, and he found much difficulty in replying.
+
+“Well--you see--you know--if you get into law you never know when you're
+going to get out. We feel that this case is bound to drag! It's an awful
+big case--and they've got lots of money to fight us.”
+
+“I told you I'd take your case for bare expenses and court fees,”
+ stormed the lawyer. “It's a case I wanted to prosecute.”
+
+“We know--you were mighty fine about it--but we've decided different.
+You see, the Consolidated--”
+
+Mr. Converse came onto his feet and shook his finger under Davis's nose.
+“Don't you dare to tell me you have sold out to the Consolidated,” he
+shouted in tones that rang through his offices and brought all his force
+to the right about and attention.
+
+“That wasn't it--exactly. But they'll take it off our hands--will do the
+right thing, now that we have shown 'em a few things! Colonel Dodd has
+seen new light. And it is too good a price for us to throw down.”
+
+“You have let those monopolists buy you off. They have paid you a big
+bribe because they are getting scared. They were afraid they had played
+the old game once too often. I have them where I want them! No, my men!
+You've got to fight this thing, I say.”
+
+“You can't drag us into law unless we're willing to go,” stated Davis,
+doggedly. “We've taken their money and the papers have been passed--and
+that settles it. We haven't done anything different than the others have
+done in this state.”
+
+“No, and that's the trouble with this state,” cried Converse, with
+passion. “You came in here at first and talked like men--like honest men
+who had good reason for righteous anger--and I took your case. And now
+you sneak back here and give up your fight--bribed after I clubbed them
+until they were willing to offer you enough money.”
+
+“We have only done what straight business men would do Mr. Converse,”
+ declared Owen.
+
+“We had a chance to go to the high court with a case that would open up
+the whole rottenness in this state before we got done fighting, and you
+have sold out!”
+
+“Good day. We don't have to listen to such talk,” said Erskine.
+
+“You wait one minute.” The lawyer pulled open a drawer and found his
+check-book. He wrote hastily and tore out the check. “Here's that
+retaining-fee you paid me. Now get out of my office.”
+
+He drove them ahead of him to the door, shouting insistent commands that
+they hurry.
+
+When they were gone he gazed about at his astonished associates, his
+partners, and his clerks.
+
+“I apologize most humbly ladies and gentlemen, for making such a
+disturbance. I--I hardly seem to be myself to-day.”
+
+He went to his desk and sat down and stared up at the portrait of
+War-Governor Converse for a long time. At last he thumped his fist on
+his desk and shook his head.
+
+“No,” he declared, as if the portrait had been asking him a question
+and pressing him for a reply, “I can't do it. I could have gone into
+the courts and fought them as an attorney. I could have maintained my
+self-respect. But not in politics--no--no! It's too much of a mess in
+these days.”
+
+But he pushed aside the papers which related to the affairs of the big
+corporations for which he was counsel and kept on studying the reports
+which his clerks had secured for him--such statements on health and
+financial affairs as they were able to dig up.
+
+A day later his messenger brought a mass of data back from the State
+House along with a story about insolent clerks and surly heads of
+departments who offered all manner of slights and did all they dared to
+hinder investigation.
+
+“It's a pretty tough condition of affairs, Mr. Converse,” complained
+the clerk, “when a state's hired servants treat citizens as if they were
+trespassers in the Capitol. It has got so that our State House isn't
+much of anything except a branch office for Colonel Dodd.”
+
+“But you told them from what office you came--from my office?”
+
+“Of course I did, sir.”
+
+“Well, what did they say?”
+
+The clerk's face grew red and betrayed sudden embarrassment.
+
+“Oh, they--they--didn't say anything special: just uppish--only--”
+
+“What did they say?” roared Mr. Converse. “You've got a memory! Out with
+it! Exact words.”
+
+Clerks were taught to obey orders in that office.
+
+“They said,” choked the man, “that simply because your father was
+governor of this state once you needn't think you could tell folks in
+the State House to stand around! They said you didn't cut any ice in
+politics.”
+
+“That's the present code of manners, eh? Insult a citizen and salaam to
+a politician!”
+
+“Mr. Converse, I waited an hour in the Vital Statistics Bureau while the
+chief smoked cigars with Alf Symmes, that ward heeler. I had sent in our
+firm card, and the chief held it in his hand and flipped it and smoked
+and sat where he could look out at me and grin--and when Symmes had
+finished his loafing they let me in.”
+
+Mr. Converse turned to his desk and plunged again into the data.
+
+The next day he put a clerk at the long-distance telephone to call
+physicians in all parts of the state--collecting independent information
+in regard to the past and present prevalence of typhoid; he read certain
+official reports with puckered brow and little mutters of disbelief,
+and after he had read for a long time that disbelief was very frank. Mr.
+Converse had rather keen vision in matters of prevarication, even when
+the lying was done adroitly with figures.
+
+He was not a pleasant companion for his office force during those days;
+his irascibility seemed to increase. He knew it himself, and he felt a
+gentleman's shame because of a state of mind which he could not seem to
+control.
+
+And finally, out of the complexity of his emotions, he fully realized
+that he was angry at himself and that his anger at himself was growing
+more acute from the fact that he realized that the anger was justified.
+For he woke to the knowledge that he had allowed himself to grow
+selfish. He resented the fact that anybody should expect him to meddle
+with public affairs--to get into the muddle of politics. And he knew he
+ought to be ashamed of such selfishness--and, therefore, he grew more
+angry at himself as he continued to harbor resentment against any agency
+which threatened to drag him into public life.
+
+He knew where the shell of that selfishness had been broken--it was
+cracked in the meeting where his chivalry had received its call to arms
+in behalf of the helpless. Those men had gazed at him, had told their
+troubles--and had left it all to his conscience! He did not believe
+those men were shrewd enough to understand so exactly in what fashion he
+could be snared in their affairs.
+
+“Confound that rascal who inveigled me there!” ran his mental anathema
+of the strange young man. “He must have been the devil, wearing that
+frock-coat to hide his forked tail. And here I am now, fighting for
+peace of mind!”
+
+And his struggle for his peace of mind drove him, at last, to set his
+hat very straight on his head and march across the street to Colonel
+Symonds Dodd's office.
+
+The Honorable Archer Converse had made up his mind that no influence
+in the world could pull or push him into politics. He held firmly fixed
+convictions as to what would happen to a good man in politics. To get
+office this man of principle would be obliged to fight manipulators with
+their own choice of weapons. And once in office, all his motives would
+be mocked and his movements assailed. Converse was a keen man who had
+studied men; he was not one of those amiable theorists who believe that
+the People always have sense enough in the mass to turn to and elect the
+right men for rulers. He understood perfectly well that accomplishing
+real things in politics is not a game of tossing rose-petals.
+
+He went to call on Colonel Dodd. He went with the lofty purpose of a
+patriotic citizen, resolved to exhort the colonel to clean house.
+It seemed to be quite the natural thing to do, now that the idea had
+occurred to him. Certainly Colonel Dodd would listen to reason--would
+wake up when the thing was presented to him in the right manner; he must
+understand that new fashions had come to stay in these days of reform.
+
+Thinking it all over, considering that really the matter of this
+water-supply and attendant monopoly of franchises had become an evil,
+that the prospects of the party would be endangered if the party leaders
+continued to nurse this evil, Mr. Converse was certain that he and the
+colonel would be able to arrange for reform, by letting the colonel do
+the reforming.
+
+They faced each other. Their respective attitudes told much!
+
+Colonel Dodd filled his chair in front of his desk, using all the space
+in it, swelling into all its concavities--usurping it all.
+
+The Honorable Archer Converse sat very straight, his shoulders not
+touching his chair-back.
+
+Physically they represented extremes; mentally, morally, and in
+political ethics they were as divergent as their physical attributes.
+
+“I'm sorry that you were able to take those Danburg men into camp,” said
+Mr. Converse, couching his lance promptly and in plain sight like
+an honorable antagonist. “I had been retained and proposed to expose
+conditions in the management of water systems.”
+
+“I don't know what you mean,” replied the colonel, following his
+own code of combat and mentally fumbling at a net to throw over this
+antagonist.
+
+“Yes, you do,” retorted Mr. Converse. “You know better than I do because
+you own the water systems of this state. But if you need to be reminded,
+Colonel, I'll say that you are making great profits. You can afford to
+tap lakes--spend money for mains even if you do have to go fifteen or
+twenty miles into the hills around the cities and towns.”
+
+“Whom do you represent, sir?”
+
+“Colonel Dodd, I think--really--that I'm representing _you_ when I give
+you mighty good advice and do not charge for it.”
+
+“I've got my own lawyers, Mr. Converse.”
+
+Both men were employing politeness that was grim, and they were swapping
+glances as duelists slowly chafe swords, awaiting an opening.
+
+Sullen anger was taking possession of the colonel, thus bearded.
+
+Righteous indignation, born from his bitterness of the past few days,
+made Converse's eyes flash.
+
+“You are one of the richest men in this state, Colonel Dodd, and
+your money has come to you from the pockets of the people--tolls from
+thousands of them. Remember that!”
+
+“Huh!” snorted the colonel, looking up at a bouquet.
+
+It is not often given to men to place proper estimate on their own
+limitations. Otherwise, the Honorable Archer Converse would never have
+gone in person to prevail upon Colonel Symonds Dodd. In temperament and
+ethics they were so far asunder that conference between them on a common
+topic was as hopeless an undertaking as would be argument between a
+tiger and a lion over the carcass of a sheep.
+
+Mr. Converse rose, unfolding himself with dignified angularity.
+
+“I must remind you, sir, that I belong to the political party of which
+you assume to be boss. If you refuse to give common justice to the
+people, then you are using that party to cover iniquity.”
+
+Colonel Dodd worked himself out of his chair and stood up. “I am taking
+no advice from you, sir, as to how I shall manage business or politics.”
+
+“Perhaps, sir, in regard to your business I can only exhort you to be
+honest, but as regards the party which my honored father led to victory
+in this state I have something to say, by gad! sir, when I see it being
+led to destruction.”
+
+“Well, sir, what have you to say?”
+
+“I will not stand by and allow it to be ruined by men who are using it
+to protect their methods in business dealings.”
+
+“What ice do you think you cut in the politics of this state?” inquired
+the colonel, dropping into the vernacular of the politician, too angry
+to deal in any more grim politeness.
+
+“Not the kind you are cutting, sir--your political ice is like the ice
+you cut from the poisoned rivers.”
+
+“It seems to be still popular for cranks to come here and threaten me,”
+ sneered the colonel. “It was started a while ago by a shock-headed idiot
+from the Eleventh Ward.”
+
+The Honorable Archer Converse displayed prompt interest which surprised
+the colonel. “A young man from the Eleventh Ward? Was he tall and rather
+distinguished-looking?”
+
+Colonel Dodd snorted his disgust. “Distinguished-looking! He threatened
+me, and I had him followed. He's a ward heeler. Better look him up!”
+ His choler was driving him to extremes. He was pricked by his caller's
+high-bred stare of disdain. “He seems to be another apostle of the
+people who wants to tell me how to run my own business. Yes, you better
+look him up, Converse.”
+
+“Very well, sir! If he came in here and tried to tell you the truth
+about yourself he's worth knowing. Furthermore, I think I do know him.”
+
+“Ah, one of those you train with, eh? Do you like him?”
+
+It was biting sarcasm, but to the colonel's disappointment it did not
+appear to affect his caller in the least. Converse even smiled--a most
+peculiar sort of smile.
+
+“I must say, sir, that I have been hating him cordially.”
+
+The colonel grunted approbation.
+
+“But from now on, sir, for reasons best known to myself, I'm going to
+make that young man my close and particular friend. You'll hear from us
+later.”
+
+He bowed stiffly and went out, leaving Colonel Dodd staring after him
+with his square face twisted into an expression of utter astonishment,
+his little eyes goggling, his tuft of whisker sticking up like an
+exclamation-point.
+
+“The first appropriation the next legislature makes,” he
+soliloquized, “will have to be money enough to build a new wing on the
+insane-hospital. They're all going crazy in this state, from aristocrats
+to tramps.”
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+ENLISTING A KNIGHT-ERRANT
+
+On his way down the stairs to the street the Honorable Archer Converse,
+moving more rapidly than was his wont, overtook and passed Kate Kilgour.
+He was too absorbed to notice even a pretty girl. She had finished her
+work for the day and was on her way home.
+
+When she reached the street she observed something which interested
+her immensely: Mr. Converse suddenly flourished his cane to attract the
+attention of a man on the opposite side of the street. Then Mr. Converse
+called to him from the curb with the utmost friendliness in his tones.
+The girl passed near him and heard what he said. It was not a mere hail
+to an inferior. The eminent lawyer very politely and solicitously asked
+the tall young man across the way if he could not spare time to come to
+the Converse office.
+
+She cast a look over her shoulder. The young man came across the street
+promptly. He was the man who had served her in her time of need!
+
+She went on, but turned again. An uncontrollable impulse prompted her.
+
+They were entering the door of the office-building, and the aristocratic
+hand of the Honorable Archer Converse was patting the shoulder of this
+stranger. Her cheeks flushed and she turned away hastily, for the young
+man caught her backward glance and returned an appealing smile.
+
+“Who is he?” she asked herself, knowing well the chill reserve of Mr.
+Converse in the matter of mankind.
+
+“Who are you?” demanded Mr. Converse, planting himself in front of the
+young man when they were in the private office.
+
+The other met the lawyer's searching look with his rare smile. “The same
+man I was last time we met--Walker Farr.”
+
+“I have no right to pry into your private affairs, sir, but I have
+special reasons for wanting you to volunteer plenty of information about
+yourself.”
+
+For reply the young man spread his palms and silently, by his smile,
+invited inspection of himself.
+
+“Yes, I see you. But the outside of you doesn't tell me what I want to
+know.”
+
+“It will have to speak for me.”
+
+“Look here, I have let myself be tied up most devilishly by a train of
+circumstances that you started, young man. I was minding my own private
+business until a little while ago.”
+
+“So was I, Mr. Converse.”
+
+“You're a moderately humble citizen, judged from outside looks just now.
+How did I allow myself to be pulled in as I've been?”
+
+The young man's smile departed. “I asked myself that question a little
+while ago, sir, after I was pulled in, for I am a stranger--not even a
+voter here.”
+
+“Well, did you decide how it was?”
+
+“I was led in by the hand of a helpless child--a poor little orphan girl
+whom I carried to the cemetery on my knees--a martyr--poisoned by that
+Consolidated water.”
+
+The lawyer was stirred by the intensity of feeling which the man's tones
+betrayed.
+
+“And it was borne in upon me afresh, Mr. Converse, that the philosophy
+of the causes by which God moves this world of ours will never be
+understood by man.”
+
+“See here,” snapped the son of the war governor, “take off your mask,
+Walker Farr! There's something behind it I want to see. You are an
+educated gentleman! What are you? Where did you come from?”
+
+Again Farr spread out his palms and was silent.
+
+“You are right about causes. You are one in my case. There may be some
+fatalism in me--but I'm impelled to use you in a great fight that I feel
+honor-bound to take up. Now be frank!”
+
+“For all use you can make of me, Mr. Converse, my life starts from the
+minute I picked that little girl up from the floor of a tenement-house
+in this city. For what I was _before_ is so different from what I am
+_now_ that I cannot mix that identity with my affairs.”
+
+“But I cannot take a man into a matter like this unless I know all about
+him.”
+
+Farr rose and bowed. “I'm sorry you can't accept me at face value, sir.
+I'm very sorry, because I'd like to serve under such a commander as you.
+However, I understand your position. I don't blame you. The rule of the
+world is pretty binding: know a man before you associate with him. But I
+am as I am. There's nothing more to be said.”
+
+“You sit down,” commanded Converse. “This is a case where rules of the
+world can be suspended. For I need the kind of man who dares to face
+even Symonds Dodd in his office and tell him what he is. Oh, I have just
+come from there,” he explained in reply to Farr's stare. “He told me.”
+
+“I went merely as a voice, sir.”
+
+“But you seem to have been more than that in getting the confidence of
+the men in your ward. I know an organizer when I see him. I watched the
+faces of those men when you stepped before them. They have faith in
+you. That's a rare quality--the ability to inspire faith in the humble.
+First, faith--and then they'll follow. The movement I'm going to start
+needs followers, Mr. Farr! Can you do with other men what you have done
+with men in the Eleventh?”
+
+“I believe I can, sir.”
+
+“Ah, you have led men in the past, have you?” Mr. Converse fired the
+question at him. But he did not jump Walker Farr from his equipoise. The
+young man took refuge behind that inscrutable smile.
+
+“Well,” sighed the lawyer, after a pause, “it's the dictum that one must
+be as wise as a serpent in politics, therefore I am picking out a man
+who will probably give a good account of himself. But it's a crazy
+performance of mine--going into this thing--and I may as well plunge to
+the extent of lunacy. Mr. Farr, the rebellious unrest in this state must
+be organized. We need a house-cleaning. We need the humbler voters!
+The men with interests are too well taken care of by the Machine to be
+interested. I want you to go out and hunt for sore spots and get to the
+voters just as you have in your ward. Find the right men in each town
+and city to help you. You must know many on account of your work for
+your water association. The fight will be financed--you need have no
+worry about that. Perhaps you have organized political revolts before,”
+ pursued Converse, still craftily probing. “Then you'll tell me what
+honorarium you expect.”
+
+“My expenses--nothing more, sir. If I had any money laid by I would pay
+my own way.”
+
+“I think,” stated Mr. Converse, warming with the spirit of combat,
+glancing up at the portrait of the war governor, “that we'll be able to
+surprise some of the fat toads of politicians in this state, sitting so
+comfortably under their cabbage-leaves. You're a stranger, young man,
+and as you go about your work the regular politicians will simply blink
+at you and will not understand, I hope, provided you go softly. It is
+very silly of me to be in this affair, sir. But a man of my age must
+have peace of mind, and that infernal meeting in your ward awoke me.
+Furthermore,” he added, displaying the acrimony that even a good man
+requires to spur him to honest fighting, “a cheap politician only lately
+flipped my card insolently and referred in slighting tones to my honored
+father.” He rose and gave Farr his hand. “I'll have assembled here in
+my office at ten o'clock to-morrow morning some gentlemen who will stand
+for decency in public affairs as soon as they have been waked up. You
+will please attend that conference, Mr. Farr. We have only a short
+month before the state convention, and we must bring there at least
+a respectable number of delegates whom Symonds Dodd cannot bribe or
+browbeat.”
+
+“Most extraordinary--most extraordinary!” mused the Honorable
+Archer Converse, when he was alone. “From that meeting--to an
+investigation--from Dodd--to this young man--I have been leaping from
+crag to crag like a mountain-goat, never stopping to take breath. And
+here I haven't even been able to find out just who he is--and they
+do say I'm the best cross-examiner in this state! However, I'll show
+Symonds Dodd that I'm not to be sneered at, even if I have to hire
+Patagonians in this campaign.”
+
+Even chivalry must needs be spiced with a little strictly personal
+animosity to achieve its best results!
+
+Colonel Symonds Dodd, laboriously climbing into his limousine in front
+of the First National block, scowled at a young man because the
+man grinned at him so broadly as he passed along. In his general
+indifference and contempt for the humble the colonel did not search
+his memory and did not recognize this person as the young man who had
+appealed to him in his office. The face seemed familiar and had some
+sort of an unpleasant recollection connected with it; therefore the
+colonel scowled. He was far from realizing that this person carried on
+his palm the warmth from a hand-clasp which, just a moment before, had
+ratified an agreement to dynamite the Dodd political throne.
+
+If some seer had risen beside his chariot to predict disaster the
+colonel would have shriveled him with a contemptuous look. For the
+Consolidated Water Company had that day been intrenched more firmly than
+ever in its autocracy by a decision handed down from the Supreme Court.
+A city had hired the best of lawyers and had fought desperately for the
+right to have pure water. But the law, as expounded by the judges, had
+held as inexorable the provision that no city or town in the state could
+extend its debt limit above the legal five percent of its valuation,
+no matter for what purpose. The city sought for some avenue, some plan,
+some evasion, even, so that it might take over the water system and
+give its people crystal water from the lakes instead of the polluted
+river-water. The city pointed to typhoid cases, to slothful torpor on
+the part of the water syndicate. But the court could only, in the last
+analysis, point to the law--and that law in regard to debt limit was
+rooted in the constitution of the state--and a law fortified by the
+constitution is seldom dislodged.
+
+Backed by law, bulwarked by political power, owning men and money-bags,
+Colonel Dodd rode home with great serenity. He had even forgotten his
+rather tempestuous half-hour with the Honorable Archer Converse. As a
+matter of fact, gentlemen of the aristocracy of the state who prided
+themselves on their ancestry were considered by Colonel Dodd to be
+impracticable cranks; he despised the poor and hated the proud--and
+called himself a self-made man. And Colonel Dodd was firmly convinced
+that nobody could _unmake_ him.
+
+He strolled among his flower-beds that evening.
+
+Walker Farr sat in his narrow chamber and pored over interlined
+manuscripts. At last he shook the papers above his head, not gaily, but
+with grim bitterness.
+
+“That plan will stand law, and no other lawyer ever thought of it!”
+ he cried, aloud. “You've got an iron clutch on those cities and towns,
+Colonel Dodd, but I've got something that will pry your fingers loose!”
+ He threw the papers from him and set his face in his hands. “And they
+ask me who I am and I can't tell them,” he sobbed.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE PROPHET WHO WAS UNDERRATED
+
+The first sniffer to catch the trail of Walker Farr was the veteran,
+Daniel Breed, an old political hound who always traveled with muffled
+paws and nose close to the ground. But when he went to the meeting of
+the state committee and the Big Boys with his news their reception of
+him hinted that they suspected he was making up a political bugaboo
+in order to get a job. He was even told that his services as field man
+would not be needed in that campaign. And it may be imagined what effect
+that news had on old Daniel Breed, who had been a trusted pussy-footer
+and caucus manipulator for a quarter of a century.
+
+“You don't mean to tell me that you're trying to slam me onto the
+scrap-heap, do you?” he demanded. “I'll scrap before I'll be scrapped.”
+
+“Look here, Dan, it's the colonel's orders,” explained the chairman. “It
+has been decided to play politics a little more smoothly. There is too
+much jaw-gab going among the cranks. If there is any outside work done
+at all it will be put over by new chaps who are not so well advertised
+as you old bucks. We want to hide the machinery this year.”
+
+“That's a jobeefed nice thing to say to me, a man that would go up in a
+balloon and troll for hen-hawks, asking no questions, provided the state
+committee told me it would help in carrying a caucus.”
+
+“But we're taking care of the old boys all right, Dan. Vose is in the
+pension-office; Ambrose and Sturdivant are in the adjutant-general's
+office patching up the Civil War rolls, with orders to take their time
+about it. And you'll be used well.”
+
+“I want to be in the field,” insisted Breed, 'sipping' his lips
+importantly. “Those fellows are old fuddy-duddies. I'm a natural
+politician.”
+
+He was an interesting figure, this Honorable Daniel Breed. He was
+entitled to the “Honorable.” He had been a state senator from his
+county. With his slow, side-wheel gait, head too little for his body,
+nose like a beak, sunken mouth, cavernous eyes, and a light hat perched
+on the back of his narrow head he suggested a languid, tame, bald-headed
+eagle. And his voice was a dry, nasal, querulous squawk--a sound more
+avian than human.
+
+“I tell ye there's yeast a-stirring,” he told the state committee.
+“There's a fellow come up out of the Eleventh Ward in Marion that's
+some punkins in organizing. He pretends to be a law student in Arch
+Converse's law-office. He ain't a native. I don't know where he hails
+from. He ain't a registered voter as yet. But he's a man who needs to be
+trailed.”
+
+“Squire Converse isn't in politics, Dan. You're getting notional in your
+old age,” said the committeeman from Breed's county.
+
+“But good gad! there ain't any statute to keep him out. Something has
+happened to make him good and mad. Some of these fancy jumping-jacks can
+make awful leaps when the box is opened, gents! Better take warning from
+what I tell you!”
+
+The committeemen exchanged smiles.
+
+“We are going to steal a little of the kid-gloved chaps' thunder,”
+ explained the chairman. “They have been howling about machine politics
+and interlocking interests and air-tight methods until the people are
+growling about the close corporation they say we've got. So we're going
+to show 'em a thing or two. Nothing like frankness and open house.”
+
+“Gor-ram it, you ain't even square with me--after I have worked politics
+with you for twenty-five years!” He marched up to the table and rapped
+his hard little knuckles on it. “It's this way, gents,” he said, “and
+I'll be short and sweet. What's the matter with politics when a man like
+I've always been gets pi-oogled out of the councils?”
+
+“We don't need workers like you any more,” stated the chairman.
+
+“But there's politics to play, just the same.”
+
+“But in a different way, Breed. There are the new ideas, and new men can
+operate more efficiently. They won't attract attention.”
+
+“Old Maid Orne down in my town came into church late and crawled up the
+aisle on her hands and knees so as not to attract attention. And she
+broke up the meeting!”
+
+“We've got to fall in with the new ways, Dan,” said the
+attorney-general. “These are touchy times. We must be careful of the
+party.”
+
+“I 'ain't never disgraced it, have I?”
+
+“Uncle Dan, we want you to take a good, comfortable position and settle
+down,” affirmed Governor Alonzo Harwood, an unctuous, rubicund gentleman
+who had been listening, smiling his everlasting smile.
+
+“I prefer to hold myself in readiness for a call to the field,” squalled
+Breed. “I'm better'n three of these young snydingles. They don't know
+how to organize!”
+
+“There isn't much chance for organizing,” said a Congressman,
+placatingly. “The primaries take care of themselves pretty well.”
+
+“Yes,” sneered old Dan, “a fellow thinks well of himself, or else his
+neighbors tell him he can save the nation, and he puts a piece in the
+paper saying how good he is and sets pictures of himself up in store
+winders like a cussed play-actor, keeps a cash account, and thinks
+that's politics. I don't care if there ain't ever no more caucuses. This
+thing ain't going to last. I want to keep in the field. I'll see chances
+to heave trigs into the spokes of these hallelujah chariots they're
+rolling to political glory in!”
+
+The mighty ones exchanged glances--deprecating glances--apprehensive
+glances.
+
+“You don't think I'm dangerous, do you, after I've been in politics as
+long as I have?”
+
+“No, but we feel that the old war-horses are entitled to run to pasture
+with their shoes off,” coaxed the chairman.
+
+“It seems to me more like tying me up to a stanchion in a stall. I
+ain't ungrateful, gents. I know this younger element doesn't believe
+in setting hens in politics any more. It's the incubator
+nowadays--wholesale job of it. But, by dadder! my settings have always
+cracked the shells, twelve to the dozen! Then you don't want me, eh?”
+
+“That job in the state land-office--we thought it would just about fit
+you,” suggested the chairman.
+
+“I'd just as soon be sent to state prison--solitary confinement. The
+state hasn't got any land any more. It has all been peddled out to the
+grabbers. I've messed and mingled with men all my life. Nobody ever
+comes into the land-office. You ain't afraid of me to that extent, be
+you?”
+
+“What do you want?” asked the governor.
+
+“Settled, is it, you don't want me in politics?”
+
+“There isn't anything for you to do,” declared his Excellency, and he
+showed a little impatience, though his smile did not fade.
+
+“Well, then make me state liberian,” said old Dan, with an air of
+resignation.
+
+There was deep and horrified silence.
+
+“I'm developing literary instinks,” explained Breed. “I've got a son who
+owns a printing-office, and my granddaughter can take down anything in
+shorthand and write it off. I'm going to write a book. She'll take it
+down and he'll print it.”
+
+“I can't appoint you state librarian,” said the governor, getting
+control of his emotions. “It's already tied up, that appointment. Keep
+it under your hat, but I have selected Reverend Doctor Fletcher, of
+Cornish, and have notified him.”
+
+“Giving a plum like that to a parson who never controlled but one vote,
+and that's his own--and then voted the way the deacon told him to?
+I reckon it's about as you say--there are new times in politics. All
+right! I'll go and climb a sumach-bush. You needn't bother about any job
+for me, gents. I'll settle down to my literary work.”
+
+“What is the book?” asked the chairman.
+
+“I have your word for it that the old days in politics have all gone
+by,” said Breed. “All the old things dead and buried! Very well. That's
+going to make my book valuable and interesting. No harm in putting it
+out in these times. I shall entitle it 'Breed's Handbook of Political
+Deviltry.' I shall tell the story of how it was done when politics was
+really politics.”
+
+“Going to tell all you know?” inquired the governor.
+
+“Of course. Truth, and not poetry, will be my motto. And just for a test
+of how popular it will be, I'd like to ask you gents how many of you
+will subscribe for a volume?”
+
+“I think this committee will take the whole edition,” said the chairman,
+dryly.
+
+“Look here, Dan,” blurted the attorney-general, “you must be joking.”
+
+“I don't know what ever gave you the impression that I'm a humorist,”
+ returned Breed. “If there ain't going to be anything more like the old
+times, then what's the matter with having the story of how it was done?
+That book will sell like hot cakes. I'll go out and sell it--it will
+give me a chance to keep on mixing and messing with men.”
+
+“Dan, if it wasn't you talking--knowing you well--I'd say this is a
+piece of blackmail,” declared the attorney-general. “Of course you can't
+put out a book of that kind in this state.”
+
+Mr. Breed blinked angrily.
+
+“I'll take all the cases of libel against you and won't charge my
+clients a cent.”
+
+“Fill everybody else's little tin dipper, eh? Passing everybody else a
+bottle and a rubber nipple! Everybody getting his, and me left out! All
+right. If that's political gratitude in these new times, go on with you
+medinkculum! And last year I snapped the six up-country caucuses that
+gave you your plurality in joint convention!”
+
+“We appreciate all your past services, Dan. If we didn't we wouldn't be
+trying so hard to place you,” said the governor. “We're taking care of
+all the old boys. You mustn't embarrass us. In these days it's for the
+good of the party to put in each office the man who is especially
+fitted for it. We mustn't invite criticism. A librarian needs peculiar
+qualifications.”
+
+“Well, old Jaquish was liberian, wasn't he? And he wouldn't even go vote
+unless you went and dragged him to the polls by the scruff of his neck.
+What did he ever do for the party? And look at old Tomdoozle as state
+treasurer!”
+
+“Jaquish was a bookman, and our state treasurer--but no matter. Now
+listen! I'm going to put you at the head of a new department in the
+State House where you won't be lonesome. More people will come there
+than to the library. You'll have the title of curator.”
+
+“What's that?” asked Breed, suspiciously. “And what is the department,
+anyway?”
+
+“The museum of natural history in the fish-and-game rooms. We're going
+to make it complete--mounted specimens of all our animals. You'll be
+curator--you see, you will get a title that sounds well!”
+
+“I'm of a restless and inquiring disposition, and my special forty is
+politics,” stated Breed, sulking. “I don't believe I'm going to relish
+being ringmaster of a lot of stuffed animals, no matter what kind of a
+title I get. How much pay goes with the job?”
+
+“Fifteen hundred,” said the governor.
+
+“Well,” sighed Breed, “it will give me a chance to be around the State
+House during the session, and I'll take it. Then if I don't like it I
+can resign after the legislature adjourns.”
+
+The Big Ones understood his frame of mind and overlooked his
+ingratitude.
+
+“And so I'll bid you good day, gents,” he said, and straddled out with
+his hands under his coat-tails.
+
+“So we've got _him_ side-tracked and out of mischief,” averred the
+governor. “That takes care of all of 'em, and I'm relieved. It isn't
+stylish any more to come to town with a lot of old hounds trotting under
+the tail of the political cart.”
+
+But before the end of that week the governor was obliged to call Uncle
+Dan to a private conference in the Executive Chamber.
+
+“You must remember that you're a state officer,” warned his Excellency.
+“You're a part of the administration. But you are out talking politics
+all the time. I want you to stay in your department. Just remember that
+you're curator of our museum.”
+
+“I don't like that blamed job,” complained Breed. “I don't care what my
+title is, it only means that I have to dust off that old stuffed loon,
+keep moths out of that loosivee, and fleas or some kind of insecks off'n
+that bull moose. It ain't no job for a politician. And there's a steady
+stream through there asking me all kinds of questions about animals. I
+don't know nothing about animals. I don't know whether a live moose eats
+hay or chopped liver. Those questions keep me all hestered up. It puts
+me in a wrong position before the public. I can't tell 'em which or
+what, and they think I'm losing my mind.”
+
+“Post up! It will keep you busy. Get books out of the library and read.
+Inform yourself and have a story for the folks!”
+
+A few days later the chairman of the state committee had an indignant
+report to make to the governor regarding Uncle Dan's natural-history
+activities.
+
+“He has turned that museum into a circus show, your Excellency. He has
+named every one of those stuffed animals for somebody in politics he
+doesn't like, and leads a snickering mob of sight-seers around the room
+and lectures. When a state officer names a saucer-eyed Canadian lynx for
+me and then folks come up from that basement and grin at me, it's time a
+halt was called.”
+
+His Excellency called for Breed and called a halt, using forceful
+language.
+
+“I resign,” declared old Dan, nipping his little bunghole of a mouth
+under the hook of his nose. “Those animals are getting onto my nerves.
+The whole pack and caboodle are chasing me in a nightmare every time
+I go to sleep. Their condemned glass eyes are boring me worse than
+gimlets. I'm going on with that book of mine. I've got a new idea for
+it. I'm going to put in pictures of animals and name 'em for those
+tin-horn flukedubbles who could never get an office if it wasn't for the
+primaries.”
+
+“Look here, Breed, you're an old man and you've done a lot of good work
+in your day, and we're all trying to do something for you. But I have
+pretty nigh reached the limit of my patience. Politics isn't what it
+used to be. Different manners, different men. I'm the head of our party
+and I command you to eliminate yourself. You go back to your job, use
+common sense, and keep out of things! You are silly--you're senile!”
+
+“You have taken me out of where I belong and have put me in where I
+don't belong and now you're blaming me because I can't learn a lot of
+new tricks at my age. I resign, I say!”
+
+“If you give up that job you'll never get another one.”
+
+Uncle Dan put his hands under his coat-tails and marched out, his beak
+in the air.
+
+“The trouble is,” he confided to old Sturdivant in the
+adjutant-general's office, “this younger element that's coming along
+thinks men like you and I have lost all our ability and influence.
+They're sally-lavering all over us, telling us how they want us to have
+an easy job. But it's all a damnation insult--that's what it amounts
+to.”
+
+“All I have to do is lap sticking-paper and gum up the places where
+these rolls are torn,” said old Sturdivant. “I'm perfectly contented.”
+
+“Then stay were you're put and swaller the insult,” retorted Breed,
+with disgust. “I thought you had more get-up-and-get. There's a stuffed
+rabbit in that museum. He'll make a good chum for you in your off hour.
+Go and sit down with him.” He went over to old Ambrose's desk. Ambrose
+was numbering dog's-eared pages with a rubber stamp and would not admit
+that he had been insulted by the state committee. “There's nobody got
+the right to ask me to stop being active and influential in this state,”
+ insisted Breed. “They haven't taken my pride into account. I ain't
+naturally a kicker. I've always obeyed orders. If I've got to go out
+alone and show 'em that the old guard can't be insulted, then I'll do
+it.”
+
+This time he took the trail of Walker Farr once more and followed that
+energetic young man until he cornered him.
+
+Farr harkened with interest to the story of the scrapping of the
+Honorable Daniel Breed as related by that gentleman himself.
+
+“And the moral of the tale is,” added Mr. Breed, “when a gang does you
+dirt turn around and plaster a few gobs onto the dirt-slingers. That
+ain't the rule in religion, but it's the natural and correct policy in
+politics. I have been hurt in my tender feelings. If them animals had
+been alive and savage enough I would have taken 'em up to the state
+committee-room and ste' boyed 'em onto the ungrateful cusses who have
+tried to make my last days unhappy. I know every sore spot in this
+state. You don't know 'em unless you have got second sight. I can take
+you to every man who has got a political bruise on him. Good gad! I have
+been poulticing those sore spots for twenty-five years. You need a man
+like I am.”
+
+“I'll admit that I do need such a man. I am a stranger in the state. But
+I'm going to be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Breed. How do I know but
+you're a spy who wants to attach himself to me for the benefit of the
+ring?”
+
+“You don't know,” returned Mr. Breed, serenely. “You have to take
+chances in politics. I'm taking chances when I join in with you. Just
+who are you and how do you happen to be mixed up in our politics?”
+
+“I am mixing into politics because the men, women, and children are
+being poisoned by the Consolidated water. That's platform enough, isn't
+it?”
+
+“Well, I reckon it is, knowing what I know of general conditions. You
+have got a pretty good head for politics, even if you ain't sincere on
+the water question,” said Breed, with a politician's ready suspicion of
+motives. “You've got a come-all-ye hoorah there that will make votes.”
+
+“As to my personality, that has nothing to do with the matter. I am only
+an agent. Will you come with me and allow Mr. Converse to ask you some
+questions?”
+
+“Sure thing!” agreed the Honorable Daniel, with great heartiness. “In
+politics the first thing to do before you get real busy is to have a
+nice heart-to-heart talk with the gent who says 'How much?' and laps his
+forefinger and begins to count. You understand, young man, that I have
+been in politics a long time. And I ain't an animal-trainer--I'm a field
+worker and I can earn my pay.”
+
+And inside of a week Walker Farr, who had been previously struggling
+hard against lack of acquaintance in the state, found that Mr. Breed
+had spoken the truth. The two made a team which excited the full
+approval--the wondering admiration--of the Honorable Archer Converse.
+
+Farr's power to control and interest men achieved astonishing results
+with Daniel Breed's exact knowledge of persons and conditions.
+
+But they were rather humble citizens. There was no fanfare about their
+work. If Colonel Symonds Dodd knew anything at all about the fires they
+were setting, he made no move to turn on the Consolidated hose.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THE STAR CHAMBER IN THE OLD NATIONAL
+
+They did not come furtively, yet they came unobtrusively--these men who
+drifted into the National Hotel in Marion that day.
+
+At one side of the big rotunda of the National stood Walker Farr, his
+keen gaze noting the men who came dribbling in, singly, by twos
+and threes. They were not men of Marion city. A newspaper reporter,
+happening in at the National, noted that fact. He stood for a time and
+watched the filtering arrivals. There were some who were plainly men of
+affairs, others were solid men who bore the stamp of the rural sections.
+They went to the desk, wrote their names, and were shown up-stairs by
+bellhops. Most of them, as they crossed the office, nodded greeting to
+the tall young man who wore a frock coat and a broad-brimmed hat and
+stood almost motionless at one side of the rotunda.
+
+The National was state Mecca for all kinds of conventions. The reporter
+studied his date-book. No convention was scheduled for that day. He
+managed to get a peep at the hotel register. The men who had been
+signing their names hailed from all portions of the state, but the
+reporter did not find identities which suggested political activities.
+It was plainly not a gathering of politicians--none of the old
+war-horses were in evidence.
+
+The reporter questioned a few of the arrivals, chasing beside them. They
+all gave the same answer--they had come to Marion on business.
+
+The reply was safe, succinct, and stopped further questions. The
+reporter did venture to pick out a little man and inquire what kind
+of business called him to Marion, and the little man informed him with
+sarcasm that he was a baker from Banbury and had come down to purchase
+doughnut holes.
+
+The reporter thereupon dodged into the bar to escape the grins of some
+of the office crew, and his haste was such that he nearly beat the baize
+doors into the face of Richard Dodd, who was coming out.
+
+“You're the first real politician I've seen in this bunch,” affirmed the
+reporter. “What's it all about?”
+
+“What's what about?”
+
+“This convention that's assembling here.”
+
+“I know nothing about it,” stated Mr. Dodd, with dignity. “It's nothing
+of a political nature, I can assure you of that.”
+
+The reporter noted that young Mr. Dodd's eyes were red and that his
+step wavered, and that he exhaled the peculiar odor which emanates from
+gentlemen who have been prolonging for some time what is known vulgarly
+as a “toot.” In fact, the reporter remembered then the rumor in
+newspaper circles that the chief clerk of the state treasury had been
+attending to stimulants instead of to business for almost two weeks.
+
+“I assure you that I know all that's to be known about politics,”
+ insisted Mr. Dodd. “If there's a convention here, who's running it?”
+
+They had returned from the bar into the main office.
+
+“I don't know--can't find out. That tall fellow over there seems to
+know everybody who had been coming in--all the bunch of outsiders. But I
+never saw him before.”
+
+Mr. Dodd closed one eye in order to focus his attention on this unknown
+across the office.
+
+A deep glow of antipathy and distrust came into the eye which located
+and identified Walker Farr.
+
+Mr. Dodd cursed without using names, verbs, or information.
+
+“Oh, you know him, do you?”
+
+“No, I don't know him.” Mr. Dodd hung to his vengeful secret doggedly.
+He left the reporter and went and sat down in a chair and continued to
+stare at Farr, who remained oblivious to this inspection.
+
+The reporter went across the office. There seemed to be more or less
+mystery about this man who had provoked all those curses from the
+secretive chief clerk of the treasury.
+
+“Can you give me any information about these men who are meeting here
+to-day?”
+
+“Meeting of the Independent Corn-Growers' Association.” The reporter's
+gaze was frankly skeptical, but Farr met it without a flicker of the
+eyelids.
+
+“I never heard of any such association.”
+
+“You have now, sir.”
+
+“Is it open to the newspapers?”
+
+“Closed doors--absolutely private.”
+
+“Who'll give out the statement?”
+
+Farr put his hand on the reporter's shoulder and gave him a smile.
+
+“You see, it's to fight the packers' union and so we are not giving away
+our ammunition to the enemy. Keep it quiet and when the thing breaks
+I'll give you our side.”
+
+“All right, sir. If it's to be an exclusive for me I'll steer away the
+other newspaper men. But do you know just why Richard Dodd--that man
+over there--is damning you into shoe-strings?”
+
+Even at that distance Farr's keen gaze detected the filmy eyes and the
+flushed face.
+
+“Perhaps it's because the Corn-Growers propose to put their corn into
+johnny-bread instead of using it for whisky?”
+
+The newspaper man, his suspicions dulled by Farr's radiant good nature
+and wholesome frankness, went away about his business, but he halted
+long enough beside Dodd's chair to repeat “the corn-grower's” joke
+regarding the young man who had been glowering on him.
+
+Dodd got up with as much alacrity as he could command and went across
+to Farr. Sober, the nephew of Colonel Dodd had treated this person
+with rather lofty contempt; drunk, he was not so finical in matters
+of caste--and, besides, this man now wore the garb of a gentleman, and
+young Mr. Dodd always placed much emphasis on clothes.
+
+“Look here, my fellow, now that I have you where I don't need to
+consider the presence of ladies, I want to ask you how you dared to mess
+into my private business?”
+
+Farr, towering above him, beamed down on him with tolerant indifference
+and did not answer.
+
+“That Lochinvar business may sound good in a poem, but it doesn't go
+here in Marion--not when it's my business and my girl.”
+
+Dodd raised his voice. He seemed about to become a bit hysterical.
+
+Farr set slow, gripping, commanding clutch about the young man's elbow.
+
+“If your business with me can possibly be any talk about a lady,” he
+advised, “you'd better come along into the reading-room.”
+
+“It is about a lady,” persisted Dodd when they had swung in behind a
+newspaper-rack. The room was apparently empty. “You understand what you
+came butting in upon, don't you?”
+
+“I took it to be a rehearsal of a melodrama, crudely conceived and very
+poorly played.”
+
+“Say, you use pretty big words for a low-lived iceman.”
+
+“State your business with me if you have any,” Farr reminded him. “I
+have something else to do besides swap talk with a drunken man--and your
+breath is very offensive.”
+
+Dodd began to tap a finger on Farr's breast.
+
+“I want you to understand that I've got a full line on you; you have
+been chumming with a Canuck rack-tender, you deserted a woman, and she
+committed suicide, and you took the brat--”
+
+Farr's big hand released the elbow and set itself around Mr. Dodd's
+neck. Thumb and forefinger bored under the jaw and Mr. Dodd's epiglottis
+ceased vibrating.
+
+“I don't like to assault a man, but talk doesn't seem to fit your case
+and I can't stop long enough to talk, anyway. This choking is my comment
+on your lies.” He pushed Mr. Dodd relentlessly down into the nearest
+chair and spanked his face slowly and deliberately with the flat of
+his hand. “And this will indicate to you just how much I care for your
+threats. You'll remember it longer than you will recollect words.”
+
+He finished and went away, leaving his victim getting his breath in
+the chair. Dodd, peering under the rack, saw him hasten and join the
+Honorable Archer Converse in the hotel lobby and they went up the broad
+stairs together.
+
+The chief clerk of the state treasury sat there and smoothed his
+smarting face with trembling hands and worked his jaws to dislodge the
+grinding ache in his neck. But the stinging, malevolent rancor within
+him burned hotter and hotter. He started to get up out of the chair and
+sat back again, much disturbed.
+
+A man who had been hidden by an adjoining rack of newspapers was now
+leaning forward, jutting his head past the ambuscade. He was an elderly
+man with an up-cocked gray mustache, and there was a queer little smile
+in his shrewd blue eyes. Dodd knew him; he was one Mullaney, a state
+detective.
+
+“What are you doing here--practicing your sneak work?” demanded the
+young man. As a state official he did not entertain a high opinion of
+the free-lance organization to which Mullaney belonged.
+
+“I'm here reading a paper--supposed it's what the room is for,” returned
+Detective Mullaney. “But excuse me--I'll get out. Room seems to be
+reserved for prize-fighters.”
+
+“You keep your mouth shut about that--that insult.”
+
+“I never talk--it would hurt my business.”
+
+“I don't fight in a public place. I'm a gentleman. I want you to
+remember what you saw, Mullaney! I'll get to that cheap bum in a way he
+won't forget.”
+
+“Do you mind telling me who your friend is?” asked the detective.
+
+Dodd shot him a sour side-glance and muttered profanity.
+
+“I couldn't help wondering what particular kind of business you and he
+could have, seeing how it was transacted,” pursued the detective.
+
+Dodd glowered at the floor. “Look here, Mullaney! There's a whole lot
+about that man I want to know, if you can help me and keep your mouth
+closed. I haven't got much confidence in the work you fellows do--they
+tell me you can't detect mud on your own boots.”
+
+Mr. Mullaney pulled his chair out from behind the papers and leaned back
+in it and crossed his hands over his stomach and smiled without a trace
+of resentment.
+
+“I might tell you something right now about that tall friend of yours
+that would jump you, Mr. Dodd--I'm that much of a detective!”
+
+“Tell me, then.”
+
+“Just as it stands it's guesswork--considerable guesswork.”
+
+“What does that amount to?”
+
+“A great deal in my business. Take this city of one hundred thousand!
+I'm the only man in it who is making guesswork about strangers his
+special line of work. The rest of the citizens rub elbows with all
+passers and don't give a hoot. There are a good many thousand men in
+this country whom the law wants and whom the law can't find. That fellow
+may be one of them, for all I know. I guess he is, for instance. Then I
+make it my business to prove guesswork.”
+
+“You must be doing a devil of a rushing business!” sneered Dodd.
+
+“I manage to make a good living. I don't talk about my business, for if
+I should blow it I wouldn't have any. I say, I _guess_! Then I spend my
+spare time hunting through my books of pointers. For ten years I have
+read every newspaper I could get hold of. I come in here and study
+papers from all over. Every crime that has been committed, every man
+wanted, every chap who has got away, I write down all I can find out
+about him. Then, if anything comes up to make me guess about a man I
+begin to hunt my books through.”
+
+“Well, if I'm any good on a guess,” snorted Dodd, “that renegade who
+just insulted me is down in your books, somewhere. You'd better hunt.”
+
+“It's slow work and eats up time,” sighed Mr. Mullaney.
+
+Dodd looked at him for a time and then began to pull crumpled bills from
+his waistcoat pocket. He straightened five ten-dollar bills, creased
+them into a trough, and stuck the end toward the detective.
+
+“Follow his trail back. I never heard of your book scheme before. Take
+this money for a starter. If you can't find him in your books, pick out
+half a dozen of the worst crimes any man can commit and hitch 'em on to
+him somehow,” urged Dodd, with fury. “Go after him. And when we get him
+good and proper I want to do some gloating through the bars. He's the
+first man who ever smacked my face for me--and I'll see that he gets
+his.”
+
+He left Mr. Mullaney stowing the money away in a big wallet which was
+stuffed with newspaper clippings. He hurried in to the bar, gulped
+down a drink, and then went to the office desk and examined the hotel
+register. Anger and zest for revenge were stimulating in him a lively
+interest in that meeting which Farr seemed to be promoting. Mr. Dodd
+did not care especially what kind of meeting it was. He had set forth to
+camp on Walker Farr's trail and do him what hurt he could.
+
+Dodd was a well-posted political worker. The names of the men were not
+names especially prominent in state politics, but his suspicions were
+stirred when he saw that all counties in the state were represented.
+And no more were arriving. He decided that the conference must be in
+session.
+
+Dodd avoided the elevator. He tramped up the broad stairs to the floor
+above the office. The doors of the large parlor were closed. He turned
+the knob cautiously; the doors were locked. He heard within the dull
+mumble of many voices--men in conversation. It was evident that the
+formal meeting, whatever it might be, had not begun its session. He
+tiptoed away from the door and climbed another flight of stairs.
+
+There were no nooks and corners of the old National Hotel which Richard
+Dodd did not understand in all their intricacies. As his uncle's
+political scout it had been his business to know them.
+
+He hunted along the corridor until he found a maid.
+
+“Is there anybody in Number 29?” he asked.
+
+“Two of that new crowd that just came in have it, Mr. Dodd. But they
+have gone down-stairs again.”
+
+He wadded a bill in his palm and jammed it into her hand. “Let me in
+with your pass-key, that's a good girl. It's all right. I won't disturb
+their stuff. I only want to listen. You understand! There's a political
+game on. I want to get to that ventilator in the closet--you know it!”
+
+“Oh, if it's only politics, Mr. Dodd!” she sniffed, with the scorn of a
+girl who has seen many conventions come and go, knew the little tricks,
+and had developed for the whole herd of politicians lofty disdain; she
+knew them merely as loud-talking men who had little consideration
+for hotel maids, men who littered their rooms with cigar stubs and
+whisky-bottles. She started for the door, swinging the pass-key on its
+cord. “If it's just politics, sure you can go in. Many a buck I've let
+in to listen to their old palaver down in that parlor.”
+
+Dodd bolted the door behind him.
+
+He felt entirely safe, for he understood that the rightful tenants of
+that room were locked into the parlor below. He climbed upon a chair in
+the closet and put his ear to the grating of the ventilator.
+
+He heard only one man's voice. He recognized its crisp tones--it was the
+Honorable Archer Converse.
+
+“I repeat, gentlemen, that this interest of yours would amaze me if I
+had not been prepared by reports from our agents who have been so well
+captained by Mr. Walker Farr. Remember that this is simply a conference,
+prior to organization. Every man of you is a chief in it. Let us be
+calm, discreet, sensible, and silent.
+
+“I'm not going over the details of the unrest in this state. The fact
+that so many of you are present here from all sections is sufficient
+commentary on that unrest. We understand perfectly well that a certain
+clique of self-seekers has arrogated to itself supreme control of the
+party. A party must be controlled, I admit. If that control were in the
+hands of honest and patriotic men we would not be here today.
+
+“I'm not going to bother you with details of what has been going on in
+departments in our State House. The employees are the tools of the ring
+and they have misused their power. I'm afraid of what may be uncovered
+there when the house-cleaning begins. But the honor of our party demands
+such a house-cleaning.”
+
+Richard Dodd's hands trembled as he clung to the ventilator bars.
+
+“However, we are faced by something in the way of an issue that's bigger
+than graft.”
+
+Now his earnestness impressed more than ever the listener at the
+grating.
+
+“Gentlemen, to a certain extent graft is bound to be fostered and
+protected by any party; but when a party is used to protect and
+aggrandize those who monopolize the people's franchise rights it's time
+for the honest men in that party to be _men_ instead of partisans. Don't
+you allow those monopolists to hold you in line by whining about party
+loyalty. And don't let them whip you into line by their threats, either.
+I refuse, for one, as much as I love my party, to have its tag tied into
+my ear if that tag isn't clean!”
+
+The assemblage applauded that sentiment.
+
+“I'm going to call names, gentlemen. Colonel Symonds Dodd has this state
+by its throat. With Colonel Dodd stand all the financial interests--the
+railroads, the corporations, even the savings-banks. He is intrenched
+behind that law which limits the indebtedness of our cities and towns.
+Municipalities cannot own their own plants under present conditions.
+Those men are even using the people's own money against them! They scare
+depositors by threats of financial havoc if present conditions and the
+big interest are bothered by any legislation.
+
+“I must warn you, gentlemen, that it's a long and difficult road ahead
+of us. But we must start. I have not intended to discourage you by
+stating the obstacles to be overcome.
+
+“I have explained them so that, if we make slow progress at first, we
+shall not be discouraged.
+
+“We will organize prevailing unrest and the innate honesty in this
+state. We will establish a branch of the Square Deal Club in every town
+and city. It must be done carefully, conservatively, and as secretly as
+possible.” The lawyer's cautious fear of too much haste now displayed
+itself. “The most we can hope to do is send to the state convention
+some men who will leaven that lump of ring politics. Party usage and
+tradition are so strong that we must renominate Governor Harwood, I
+suppose, for a complimentary second term.”
+
+“I think we can do better,” cried a voice.
+
+“Possibly,” returned Mr. Converse, dryly, “but we must do that 'better'
+carefully and slowly. In politics, gentlemen, we cannot transform the
+ogre into the saint merely by waving the magic wand and expecting
+the charm to operate instantly. Possibly we can control the next
+legislature. I do not know just what legislation we may be able to
+devise and pass, but I hope for inspiration.
+
+“I will say now that I am with you. My purse is open. Command my
+services for all questions of law. I will establish myself at the
+capital for the legislative session.
+
+“But there is one thing I will not do under any circumstances--I will
+not accept political office.”
+
+“You bet you won't,” muttered young Dodd, at the grating. “You wouldn't
+be elected a pound-keeper in the town of Bean Center.”
+
+But if Mr. Dodd could have seen through that grating as well as hear he
+would have been greatly interested just then in the expression on the
+face of Walker Farr. The face was not exactly the face of a prophet, but
+it had a large amount of resolution written over it.
+
+“I don't want to be the first one to throw any cold water on our
+prospects,” declared a voice, after Mr. Converse had announced that the
+meeting was open for general discussion; “it really does seem to me that
+we stand a good show of getting control of the next legislature.
+But after we do get control what prospect is there of passing any
+legislation that will help us? Wherever there is a water system in this
+state the municipality has been so loaded down with debts our machine
+politics have plastered into it that the legal debt limit has been
+reached. The only way this water question can be cleared up is by taking
+the systems away from those monopolists--making them the property of
+towns and cities. But if towns and cities can't borrow any more money,
+just how is this to be done? Mr. Converse hasn't told us! We can clean
+up politics, perhaps, but it seems to me that we'll never be able to
+clean up the dirtiest and most dangerous mess.”
+
+On the silence that followed broke a voice which made Dodd, his ear to
+the grating, grate his teeth. His hatred recognized this speaker. It was
+Walker Farr.
+
+“I apologize for venturing to speak in this meeting,” he said. “But if
+that gentleman's question isn't answered here and now in some way I'm
+afraid men will go away discouraged. I have heard the same question,
+Mr. Converse, as I have traveled about the state lately. I have thought
+about this matter constantly, in my poor fashion. And because I went
+into that job of pondering with an open mind is the reason, perhaps, why
+a strange idea has come to me. You know they say that strange notions
+are born out of ignorance. The better way would have been, possibly, to
+submit the plan first of all to your legal mind, Mr. Converse. I will
+keep silence now and confer with you, sir, if you think best.” His tone
+was wistful.
+
+“Talk it out in open meeting,” cried the cordial voice of Mr. Converse.
+“Free speech and all of us taken into confidence--that's the spirit of
+this movement of ours!”
+
+“Has it ever occurred to anybody to form a new municipality for water
+purposes only? I have studied your state constitution, and the language
+in which the debt limit of five percent is provided I find applies
+strictly to towns and cities. Suppose the citizens of Marion, together
+with the adjoining towns of Weston and Turner, all of them now served
+by the Consolidated, should unite simply as individuals for the common
+purpose of owning and operating their own water-plant--form, say a water
+district?”
+
+“An independent body politic and corporate?” It was Converse's voice and
+it betrayed quick interest and some astonishment.
+
+“I suppose that would be the legal name, sir. Wouldn't it be possible to
+organize such a combination of the people, distinct from other municipal
+responsibilities? Then if we can elect the right men to our legislature
+we can go to the State House and ask for some legislation that will
+enable us to take over systems by the right of eminent domain, provide
+a plan of fair appraisal, give us a law which will make water-district
+bonds a legal investment for savings-banks. In short, gentlemen, I
+repeat, this plan is nothing more than an organization of the desired
+territory and people into a new, distinct, and separate municipality for
+water purposes only, leaving all other forms of municipal government to
+pursue their accustomed functions precisely as though the district
+had not been organized. That's the idea as best I can state it in few
+words.”
+
+There was a long period of silence.
+
+Dodd, listening to the mutterings of a revolt which threatened the whole
+political fabric which protected him, his interest clearing his brain
+of the liquor fog, could imagine the scene below. That assemblage was
+staring wide-eyed at Archer Converse, the law's best-grounded man in the
+state.
+
+“It is very modest to call that suggestion an idea,” stated Mr.
+Converse, at last. “Mr. Farr, if I can find the necessary law in our
+statutes to back it up, it's an inspiration.”
+
+There was the ring of conviction in his tones.
+
+Mr. Dodd left the grating and escaped from the hotel.
+
+He fairly cantered to headquarters in the First National block; he
+felt a politician's frightened conviction that he had something mighty
+important to tell his uncle.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+A GIRL AND A MATTER OF HONOR
+
+It had been a protracted session.
+
+Judge Ambrose Warren, corporation counsel for the Consolidated, leaned
+back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling over the peak of the skeleton
+structure he had erected in front of his nose with his fingers.
+
+Colonel Dodd squinted first at his nephew and then at the bouquet on his
+desk.
+
+The nephew had been attempting by all the methods known to the appealing
+male to win only one return glance from Kate Kilgour; but the young lady
+held her eyes on her note-book, poised her pencil above the page, and
+waited for more of that conversation and statement of which she had been
+the silent recorder.
+
+“You think you have given us all the main points of what you overheard,
+do you, Mr. Dodd?” inquired the judge, turning sharp gaze on the young
+man.
+
+“I can't remember any more.”
+
+“You think you recognized voices sufficiently well to be sure that
+this person named Farr made that novel suggestion in regard to what was
+called a 'water district'?”
+
+“There was no mistaking his voice,” said Dodd, with the malevolence of
+bitter recollection.
+
+Another prolonged silence. Then the judge asked, his eyes again on the
+ceiling, “Just who is this Walker Farr?”
+
+Richard Dodd, keeping jealous espionage on all the girl's emotions and
+movements saw a flush suffuse her cheeks; her hands trembled. She raised
+her eyes in a quick glance and he detected eager inquiry.
+
+“I don't know who he is,” growled the colonel.
+
+“You'd better find out,” advised the corporation counsel.
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Of course this thing has been put up to me very suddenly. I can give
+you only a snap judgment. But that scheme has possibilities.”
+
+“As a lawyer you don't mean to tell me that a crazy idea like that can
+be put through in this state against the combination we control?”
+
+“It will not be a case of combination and money and politics, Colonel,
+when it gets to the high court. It will be _law_. And I'm sorry you
+can't tell me any more about the man who has devised the plan. I'd like
+to know how he dug it out.”
+
+“But a gang of pirates can't organize like that and confiscate our
+property! We're going to tap the lakes. We're going ahead right away.
+But can that fool's scheme scoop in the Consolidated Water Company?”
+
+“That's to be found out. I am going to tell you now that I believe an
+organization of citizens into an independent water district can be
+made legally and be independent of other debts. Colonel Dodd, if that
+opposition gets control of the next legislature you can depend upon it
+that the necessary legislation will be passed. We may as well look facts
+in the face: they're getting mighty restive in this state; the people
+have been penned in by the Machine very effectually to date--but show
+'em a place now where they can jump the fence and they're going to do
+it.”
+
+“But what's the good of paying you twenty-five thousand dollars a
+year for law if you can't keep the bars up?” The tone was that of the
+impatient tyrant.
+
+“You'll please remember that this thing is likely to go to the United
+States court. When you go in there you've got to leave your side-arms
+of politics--pull and pocket-book--at the door. I will say this: the
+Federal Constitution guarantees protection against any irregular,
+illegal, or confiscatory action under state authority. That is, no
+states shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts nor
+shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without
+due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
+equal protection of the laws. Now, of course, a corporation is a person
+in the meaning of the law, and therefore we can carry the matter to the
+United States Supreme Court, but I want to tell you that if the next
+legislature enacts law permitting water districts, and the state
+authorities proceed to condemn your plants, you may as well get ready to
+step out from under. You are a shrewd man and you understand the spirit
+of these times in regard to giving to the people their full rights in
+public utilities. I say again, you'd better get a line on this Walker
+Farr, because it's either a case of ignorance inspired or else he's a
+deep one. He has started with a plan that can be defended by law--and
+the judges in these days are handing the people's rights and property
+back to them when there is a legal opportunity.”
+
+“Why, this Farr is a nothing--nobody. Dug in our trenches for a while
+until he was discharged. Briggs looked him up for me. The only man
+in this city he has been at all intimate with is an old Canuck named
+Provancher who tends the rack down at Gamonic Mill. You can judge him by
+the company he keeps.”
+
+“Well, he seems to be fraternizing with better men just now,” drawled
+the judge. “Archer Converse, for instance!”
+
+“The thing to do,” suggested young Dodd, still watching the girl, “is
+get something on that hobo and boot him out of town or put him in jail.
+It ought to be easy enough.”
+
+“And it will be attended to,” declared the colonel, with venom. “We'll
+kill that one crow and hang him up in full view of the rest of those
+croakers! I'll put something over on that fellow and have all the papers
+in the state print it--and high-and-mighty Converse will be so disgusted
+that he'll quit and the rest of the crowd will be ashamed to keep on.
+Disgrace a reformer! That's the surest play in politics! We must get
+Farr!”
+
+He turned his scowling gaze away from the flowers and found Miss Kilgour
+looking at him with an expression in her eyes he had never seen there
+before. Reproach and scorn seemed to mingle in the stare she gave him.
+He blinked, and when he looked again she was examining the point of her
+pencil; he decided that his eyesight had played him a strange prank.
+
+“By the way, Miss Kilgour,” he informed her, “you need not remain. Make
+two typewritten copies--the judge will need one.”
+
+Richard Dodd arose when she left her chair, but she did not glance
+at him. He began to speak before she had reached the door, unable to
+restrain his jealous temper longer.
+
+“Uncle Symonds, pass the word to that old Provancher, through the
+superintendent of the Gamonic, that unless he comes across with all the
+stuff he knows about that Farr he'll be fired. And I've got a hunter out
+on my own account. It will be easy enough to catch the skunk and strip
+off his pelt.”
+
+Miss Kilgour closed the door behind her with a sharper click than she
+had ever given its latch before. She hurried to her typewriter in her
+little room and began to work with all her energy.
+
+She was so busy and her machine clattered so viciously that she did not
+hear Richard Dodd when he entered. He leaned over her.
+
+“Have you talked with your mother yet? Has she given you some
+advice?” he asked. His jealousy still fired him and his tone was not
+conciliatory.
+
+The contempt in the glance she flung upward at him roused him to
+passion. In the state of mind in which he then was he made no allowances
+for her ignorance of conditions in her mother's case. He knew what he
+had done for Mrs. Kilgour's sake, and this attitude on the daughter's
+part pricked him like wilful ingratitude.
+
+He put his hands on the keyboard of the typewriter and stopped her work.
+“I love you, Kate, and you have known it for a long time. I tried to
+show you how much I loved you. I know I did a foolish thing. But I loved
+you.” He almost sobbed the protestation. “I've been in hell's torment
+since it happened. I've been a fool all the way through, but I won't be
+a fool any more if you'll take pity on me.”
+
+She did not speak. Her silent, utter contempt stung more deeply and
+surely than words.
+
+“If you insist on being so high above, I'm going to bring you down a
+little,” he sneered. “I hate to do it, but you've got to be shown
+where your real friends are. I have given your mother a chance to say
+something to you, and say it right. But she hasn't done it, and I don't
+propose to be made the goat.” In his anger he was not choice in his
+language. “You go home and ask her whether or not she owes me five
+thousand dollars. Oh, you needn't open your eyes at me in that style!
+It's time we all got down to cases in this thing, Kate. I've waited for
+her long enough. She has simply fluffed me along. Now she has got to do
+her part.”
+
+“Have you lost your mind?” she demanded.
+
+“No! But I lost five thousand dollars when I loaned it to your mother.
+Kate, she told me she had a stock deal on--that she would be able to pay
+it back. Listen! I may as well go the limit with you. I took money that
+wasn't mine so that I could help your mother out--it was because I loved
+you. Now you realize how much I have loved you. I protected your mother.
+And now, by the gods, if you and she don't come to the scratch in this
+thing and do right by me I'll show up why she had to be protected,
+and after that you'll never draw a happy breath again in your life. I
+advised you to talk with your mother once before. This time you'd better
+to it.”
+
+She leaned back in her chair, white and trembling, for his tones carried
+conviction.
+
+“I have hated to open this thing up, Kate. I have waited a long time,
+hoping you'd understand that I would make a good husband--that I
+deserved to have you. I'm only speaking out now so that you'll wake up.
+You've got to stand by the man who has stood by you. Go talk with your
+mother!”
+
+After he had hurried out she went back to her work, but her fingers
+could only fumble at the keys. By effort of will persons of strong
+character can compose themselves after disaster has been confirmed;
+but impending disaster that is hinted at--guessed at--is a menace which
+paralyzes. She was endeavoring to write down what Richard Dodd had
+revealed of the plans of Walker Farr. She understood that the mighty
+power of the state machine was now doubling its fist over the head of
+the stranger who had come into her life in such peculiar fashion. At the
+same moment she was cowering under the threat of something she did not
+fully understand.
+
+And from the Dodds--uncle and nephew--came the menace which loomed over
+both of them.
+
+Then to her came Peter Briggs, who had been summoned to a conference in
+the inner office; by direction of his chief he had been reading to Judge
+Warren certain entries penciled in the note-book which he guarded with
+the elastic band.
+
+“The governor wants you to add these items to the record, so that the
+judge can have a copy,” said Mr. Briggs to the confidential secretary.
+“The subject isn't a very genteel one, Miss Kilgour, but orders are
+orders, and you'll have to excuse me.”
+
+And Mr. Briggs kept snapping the elastic band nervously while he
+dictated, carefully looking away from the young woman.
+
+In such manner Kate Kilgour learned of the existence of Zelie Dionne and
+of the child whom Walker Farr had protected; Mr. Briggs's zeal in the
+interest of his employer had made him a partisan in that affair, with
+easy conscience regarding the matter of the details. The bald record
+showed that Farr and the girl had cared for the child between them, had
+nursed it with grief and solicitude, had borne it to the plot of land
+where the little graves were crowded so closely. Mr. Briggs complacently
+avoided dates and age and the minuter details. He even pleaded the case,
+having caught a cue from Colonel Dodd; his record left the impression
+that Walker Farr, who had come from nowhere--nobody knew when--had lived
+in Marion unknown and unnoticed at the time when he had compassed the
+ruin of a confiding girl.
+
+“A scalawag, and a bad one!” commented Mr. Briggs, closing his
+note-book. “And of course there's worse to come! Posing as a
+reformer--that's the way such renegades work the thing. A new game for
+every new place!”
+
+And Kate Kilgour, remembering the vagrant on the broad highway, wrote
+down the arraignment of this person, trying to understand her emotions.
+
+Her own eyes had seen him garbed as a tramp, plainly a homeless nomad.
+
+Her ears had just listened to the story of his shame.
+
+But after a time, in spite of what she had seen and heard, that strange
+instinct which dominates the feminine mind in spite of what the mere
+senses affirm took possession of her.
+
+She had known from the first that Richard Dodd's garments, his attitude,
+his professions, his position did not make him what her woman's heart
+desired.
+
+But, somehow, this other man, no matter what he seemed to be from
+outward appearance, stood forth for her from all the world. At times, in
+her ponderings, she had disgustedly termed her mood regarding him pure
+lunacy. Then she gave rein to the domination of her intuition; the man
+was not what he seemed to be!
+
+She determined to put him out of her thoughts for ever.
+
+Just then, however, writing out the story of his turpitude, she must
+needs have him in her mind.
+
+She wondered whether he were honest in his attempts to help the poor
+people.
+
+She had believed that he was when he had faced Colonel Dodd.
+
+She determined that she would make some investigation of her own in
+regard to the mysterious person who had taken such possession of her
+thoughts since she had met him in the highway--whose personality had
+so pricked her curiosity. She comforted herself by calling her interest
+mere curiosity. That was it! If this man were what they claimed he was
+she might help in revealing him as an enemy of the poor folks.
+
+And then to her came another thought.
+
+She looked around the offices where she worked and bitter lines were
+etched in her forehead and about her mouth.
+
+The place had become hateful. She was conscious of a passionate desire
+to be free from the atmosphere of that central web of the Great Spider.
+
+She bent over her work and hurried.
+
+What was the shadow over her home?
+
+She realized that she was not thinking clearly in the matter. She
+knew that impulse was driving her. But it was impulse which was
+uncontrollable. For a long time she had understood the sinister
+influence which had radiated from that office in the First National
+block. But it had been rather the impersonal influence of partisan
+politics and she had had little knowledge of the persons concerned. But,
+now that the situation had been so sharply pointed by recent happenings,
+she understood better what had gone on in the past.
+
+This stranger, whoever he was, seemed to be fighting for the good of the
+people. She had heard him declare his principles boldly; she knew the
+selfishness of the men who opposed him. She resolved to know more.
+
+It was close upon six o'clock when she finished the transcription.
+
+She had given much thought to her own affairs while she had been
+working. And now she allowed impulse to dominate. She resolved to leave
+that employment which brought her into contact with Richard Dodd and
+where her duties required her to prepare material for the ruin of a man
+who seemed to be doing an unselfish duty, no matter what they said. She
+did not try to analyze that quixotic impulse; she merely obeyed.
+
+She tied up the packet of manuscript, addressed it to Colonel Dodd, and
+slipped under the string a sealed note. In that note she resigned her
+position, stating that a matter of personal honor demanded that she
+leave instantly. She did not qualify that statement by any explanation.
+But she knew in her own heart just what it meant. For when she left the
+office she did not hasten straight home as her anxious fears prompted
+her; she made a detour around by Gamonic Mill in search of one
+Provancher, who, she had learned, tended the rack of the canal.
+
+The thought that dominated all other thoughts and comforted her was the
+reflection that she was no longer the confidential secretary of Colonel
+Symonds Dodd, and that now she might obey certain promptings of both
+curiosity and conscience.
+
+The rumble of the big turbines was stilled when she came to the fence
+which surrounded the rack, and old Etienne was starting away with rake
+and pike-pole. But when she called he came to her--wondering, much
+abashed, for she was by far the prettiest lady he had ever seen.
+
+“Are you the friend of Mr. Walker Farr?” she asked, and she was even
+more embarrassed than he.
+
+“I am too poor mans to be call a friend, ma'm'selle. I can just say that
+he is grand mans that I love.”
+
+“Then you are the one to give him this message. Tell him that men who
+are fighting him in politics intend to do him great harm and that he
+must be very careful. Tell him that he will understand who these men
+are.”
+
+“_Oui_, ma'm'selle. But will he understand who tell me that thing?”
+
+Her cheeks were crimson. “No, no! He mustn't know that.”
+
+“Then he will tell me, 'Poh, old Etienne, you know nottings what you
+talk about.' He is very bold mans, and he not scare very easy.”
+
+“But he must be cautious, for these men have power. He need not be
+afraid of them, but he must watch carefully. You tell him that they
+want to make out bad things about him so that they can print them in the
+papers and hurt the cause he is working for. Can you remember?”
+
+“_Oui_, ma'm'selle! I never forget anything what may be for his good. I
+will tell him.”
+
+She hesitated for a long time and stared wistfully at the old man. She
+started to go away and then returned to the fence, plainly mustering her
+courage.
+
+“Do you know whether there is anything--about him--which wicked men can
+use to hurt him?” she stammered.
+
+“I only know about him what I know, ma'm'selle,” he replied, with a
+gentle smile nestling in the wrinkles of his withered face.
+
+“Could you tell me some of the things you know?” she asked, after much
+effort, striving to make her voice calmly inquiring.
+
+Old Etienne set the rake and the pike-pole against the fence. “I will be
+quick in what I tell you, ma'm'selle, for I have no place to ask you
+to take the seat. But I'm sure you will listen very well to this what I
+say.”
+
+And he told her the story of Rosemarie.
+
+But he did not go back as far as the pitiful figure on the canal
+bank, he made no mention of the water-soaked wad of paper which bore a
+mother's appeal to the world, he did not mention the key to Block Ten.
+He told the story of Walker Farr's devotion to a child. He did not
+dare to reveal to this stranger the identity of that child, because the
+telltale letter had been hidden from the coroner, and old Etienne stood
+in awe of the curt and domineering men who enforced the laws. But with
+simple earnestness and in halting speech he revealed the tenderness of
+Farr's nature and gave further testimony to her woman's understanding
+that this man who had come into her life possessed depths which she
+longed to probe.
+
+“But the child!” she ventured, after Etienne had finished the story of
+how the two of them, voices in the wilderness of careless greed, had
+faced the masters of the city in the _hotel de ville_; “it seems strange
+that a man--that anybody should take a child and--” She hesitated.
+
+“_Oui_, ma'm'selle, it seemed strange,” agreed the old man, studying her
+with sharp glance of suspicion--a gaze so strange that she shifted her
+eyes uneasily.
+
+Ah, Etienne told himself, the law sometimes sent queer emissaries to
+probe for it--and he feared the law very much.
+
+He must be very careful how he told any of the secrets which might
+trouble his good friend, who was now such a friend of the mighty
+folks; as for himself--well, he would willingly be a martyr if the law
+demanded--but he did fear that law!
+
+“But he loved the child very much,” she hinted.
+
+“So much that he will fight them because they have poisoned her--he will
+fight them and not be scare.”
+
+“It is strange!” she repeated.
+
+“_Oui_, ma'm'selle,” he said, regarding her with still more suspicion.
+
+“But before that morning--when you found them here under the tree! He
+told you--”
+
+“He walk the street with her in his arm. I don't tell you some more
+about dat t'ing what I do not know!”
+
+But she knew that he was withholding something from her. She mustered
+her courage.
+
+“Mr. Provancher, the bad men are making threats that they will print
+stories about the child--and its mamma--to hurt your friend. And the
+stories will make the mamma very sad.”
+
+“No stories can make her sad,” said old Etienne, solemnly. But he did
+not say that he had raked the mother from the canal. The law must not
+know!
+
+“But I have heard about her,” she insisted.
+
+The old man's mouth trembled; he was frightened. “What you hear?” he
+faltered.
+
+“Only good things. That she was very tender and went with you to the
+grave.”
+
+“_Oui_,” admitted Etienne, visibly relieved and grasping at this
+opportunity. “She's sweet and good. She's play-mamma.”
+
+“And her name is Zelie Dionne?” she asked, her face growing white in the
+dusk.
+
+“_Oui_, ma'm'selle--she live across in the little house where there are
+plant in the window--she live with the good Mother Maillet what I told
+you about.” He pointed to the cottage. “You go some time and talk with
+her--but not now,” he added, his fears flaming. He was anxious to be
+the first to talk to Zelie Dionne, in order that she might help him to
+protect their friend. “You shall talk with her--soon--p'raps. I will
+tell her so that she will not be afraid. Yes, you shall hear the
+play-mamma say good things of poor Rosemarie.”
+
+She bowed and hurried away.
+
+And before her tear-wet eyes the words “play-mamma” danced in letters of
+fire. It seemed to be only another sordid story.
+
+But she remembered the face of Walker Farr, and in her heart she
+wondered why she still refused to condemn him.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE DRIVEN BARGAIN
+
+The Honorable Daniel Breed, “sipping” his thin lips and propping his
+coat-tails on his gaunt fingers, patrolled the lobby of the National
+Hotel and his complacency was not a whit disturbed when Richard Dodd
+passed in front of him and sneered in his face.
+
+“Keep on practising making up faces,” advised the old man, amiably.
+“Perhaps in the course of time your uncle will give you a job making up
+faces as his understudy, seeing that his physog is getting so tough he
+can't manage it very well these days.”
+
+Young Dodd whirled on his heel and returned. “We've got a line on you
+and your amateur angels, Breed.”
+
+“Don't consider me an amateur, do you?” asked the old politician,
+smacking his lips complacently.
+
+“You're a has-been.”
+
+“Sure thing!” agreed Mr. Breed. “The state committee told me so, and the
+state committee never made a mistake.”
+
+“We've got so much of a line on your crowd that my uncle has called off
+the organizers. There's no need of our wasting money in this campaign.
+You're that!” He clacked a finger smartly into his palm.
+
+“Oh yes! You're right! Some snap to us.”
+
+“I mean you're nothing.”
+
+“Run in and take another drink, sonny,” advised Breed, giving slow cant
+of his head to denote the baize door through which Dodd had emerged.
+“What you have had up to date seems to be making you optimistic--and
+there's nothing like being optimistic in politics. I'm always
+optimistic--but naturally so. Don't need torching!”
+
+“Look here, Breed, we've got enough dope on that ex-hobo who is doing
+your errand-boy work--we know enough about him to kill your whole
+sorehead proposition. But I don't believe my uncle will even use it. No
+need of it.”
+
+“Probably not,” said Mr. Breed, without resentment. “And I wouldn't if I
+were he.”
+
+“We won't descend to it. Now that we have got rid of a lot of old
+battle-axes of politicians--and I'm calling no names--we can conduct a
+campaign with dignity.”
+
+“So do! So do! And it will save a lot of trouble, son; that's why the
+newspapers wouldn't print that stuff about Mr. Farr after your uncle got
+it ready. Libel cases make a lot of trouble.”
+
+Dodd grew red and scowled. “Look here, Breed, you're licked before the
+start, and as a good politician you know you are. My uncle wants you
+to drop in and see him. He told me to tell you so. This is no official
+order, you understand. Just drop in informally, and he'll probably have
+something interesting to say to you.”
+
+“I'm terribly rushed up--shall be till after convention,” averred Mr.
+Breed, piercing the end of a cigar with a peg he had whittled from a
+match.
+
+“What's the good of your being a fool any longer?”
+
+“Always have been, so I've found out from that state committee who never
+told a lie--and it's comfortable to keep on being one,” he said, with
+great serenity.
+
+“You don't think for a minute that you are going to get control of the
+next legislature, do you?”
+
+“How much money have you got--your own money, I mean?” inquired Mr.
+Breed, guilelessly, his eyes centered carefully on the lighted tip of
+his cigar.
+
+“Say--you--you--What do you mean by that?” rasped Dodd, putting the
+cracker of a good round oath on the question.
+
+“I meant that I wanted to bet something--and I wouldn't want you to go
+out and borrow money--or--or--anything else.” From the cavernous depths
+where his eyes were set Mr. Breed turned a slow and solemn stare on the
+enraged chief clerk of the state treasury.
+
+“What do you want to bet?”
+
+“Any amount in reason that after the first of next January there'll be
+a fresh deal in the way of state officers in every department in the
+Capitol. Arguing futures don't get you anywhere, son. If you've got
+money to back that opinion you just gave me it will express your notions
+without any more talk. But don't go borrow--or--or anything else.”
+
+Dodd stared at the shrewd old political manipulator for a long time.
+
+“You have money to bet, have you?” he asked.
+
+Mr. Breed languidly drew forth a wallet which would make a valise for
+some men and carelessly displayed a thick packet of bills.
+
+“There it is,” he said, “and I earned it myself and so I ain't poking it
+down any rat-hole without being condemned sure that I'll be able to pull
+it all back again with just as much more sticking to it. That wouldn't
+be sooavable--and from what you know of me I'm always sooavable.”
+
+Dodd looked at the bills, carefully straightened in their packet, and
+giving every evidence of having been hoarded with an old man's caution.
+
+There was something about that money which impressed him with the
+sincerity of Mr. Breed's belief in his own cause. The young man grew
+visibly white around the mouth.
+
+“I'll see you later, Breed,” he gulped. “I don't believe you know what
+you are talking about--but I'm not national bank on legs. I'll be around
+and cover your cash.”
+
+He went back into the bar, swallowed a glass of whisky, and went out
+and hailed a cab. He directed the driver to carry him to the Trelawny
+Apartment.
+
+Mrs. Kilgour admitted him to the vestibule of the suite.
+
+“Is Kate at home?” he demanded.
+
+“Yes, Richard!” She shrank away from him, for his aspect was not
+reassuring. “You know--she has given up her work--she is--”
+
+“I know all about it, Mrs. Kilgour. But I want to ask you whether she
+has given up her work in order to marry me at once?”
+
+“Why, I--She said--I think it will come about all right, Dicky.” She was
+pitifully unnerved.
+
+“Have you told her why she must marry me?”
+
+“It is not time to tell her--it is not right--I can't--”
+
+He seized her arm and pulled her into the sitting-room. The daughter
+rose and faced them, reproof and astonishment mingling in her
+expression.
+
+“This thing is going to be settled here and now,” said the lover,
+roughly. “There is going to be no more fooling. Has your mother put this
+matter up to you so that you understand it, Kate?”
+
+“She has told me that she owes you five thousand dollars,” returned
+the girl. Her eyes flashed her contempt. “You told me that yourself. I
+repeated the statement to her and she admits it.”
+
+“But did she tell you how it happens that she owes me that money?”
+
+“For God's sake, Richard, have some pity! This is my own daughter.
+I will sell everything. I will slave. I will pay you. Kate, for my
+sake--for your own sake, tell him that you will marry him.”
+
+“I will not marry this man,” declared the girl. “It has been a mistake
+from the beginning. As to your business with him, mother, that is not my
+affair. You must settle it.”
+
+“You belong in the settlement,” declared Dodd. “Hold on! Don't leave
+this room, Kate.”
+
+He reached out his hands to intercept her, and Mrs. Kilgour, released,
+fell upon the floor and began to grovel and cry entreaties.
+
+But his raucous tones overrode her appeals.
+
+“We're all together in this. I am five thousand dollars shy in the state
+treasury, Kate. I took that money and loaned it to your mother when she
+begged me to save her stocks. But she didn't have any stocks.”
+
+Mrs. Kilgour grasped his knees and shook him. But he kept on.
+
+“She had embezzled from Dalton & Company. What I did saved her from
+prison and you from disgrace, Kate. And now I am in the hole! Listen
+here! There's hell to pay in this state just now! The soreheads are
+banding together. A man has just offered to bet me big money that
+there's going to be an overturn in the State House departments. I don't
+know whether it will happen--but you can understand what kind of torment
+I'm in. Kate, are you going to let me stand this thing all alone?”
+
+The girl stood silent and motionless in the middle of the room.
+
+She did not weep or faint. Her face displayed no emotion. It was as
+white as marble.
+
+“Do you want to drag my daughter down with you?” cried Mrs. Kilgour.
+
+“You'd better not talk about dragging down,” he shouted, passionately.
+“I didn't steal for myself. Give me your love, Kate! Give me yourself
+to encourage me, and I'll get out of the scrape somehow. I'll find ways.
+But if you don't come with me I won't have the courage or the desire to
+fight my way through. I'll not disgrace you if you marry me--I swear I
+will not! With you to protect from everything I'll make good. Symonds
+Dodd is my uncle. He won't see the family name pulled in. But you must
+marry me!”
+
+“And if I do not?” she asked.
+
+“We'll all go to damnation together. I don't care! I'll blow it all. I
+won't be disgraced alone because of something I did for your mother. I
+may sound like a cur. I don't care, I say! I'm going to have you, and I
+don't care how I get you!”
+
+“We need not be so dramatic,” said the girl. Some wonderful influence
+seemed to be controlling her. “Mother, stop your noise and go and sit
+in that chair. You demand, do you, Mr. Dodd, that to save my mother from
+exposure as a woman who has stolen, I must be your wife?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Do you really want a wife who has been won in that fashion?”
+
+“I want you.”
+
+“You realize, fully, don't you, the spirit in which I shall marry you?”
+
+“We'll take care of that matter after we are married, Kate. You have
+liked me. You will care for me more when you come to your senses in this
+thing.”
+
+“You remember what my father did in the way of sacrifice, I suppose? It
+was no secret in this state.”
+
+“Yes,” he muttered, abashed under her steady gaze.
+
+“I am like my father in many ways--in many of my thoughts. Perhaps if
+he had not set me such an example in the way of sacrifice I should say
+something else to you, Mr. Dodd. But as the matter stands between us,
+considering the demand you make on me, I will marry you.”
+
+The concession was flung at him so suddenly--he had expected so much
+more of rebellion--that he staggered where he stood. He advanced toward
+her. But she waved him back.
+
+“Sit down!” she commanded. “This matter has gone far outside romance.
+It has become one of business. It is a matter of barter. I have had
+some experience in business. You say that mother owes you five thousand
+dollars which you took from the state treasury?”
+
+“Yes, Kate.”
+
+“And your books will be examined very carefully, of course, if there is
+an overturn in your office?”
+
+“Yes. It won't be any mere legislative auditing.”
+
+“I know something about politics as well as about business, Mr. Dodd.
+I cannot very well help knowing, after my experience in your uncle's
+office. I suppose the next state convention will determine pretty
+effectually whether there will be an overturn or not?”
+
+“If we renominate Harwood it ought to give us a good line on the control
+of the next legislature,” he told her. “A hobo and a goody-goody,” he
+added, with scorn, “think they have stirred up a revolution, but
+they have another think coming.” He had been calmed by her outwardly
+matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation. But he did not perceive the
+fires of her soul gleaming deep in her eyes.
+
+“If Governor Harwood is renominated and the next legislature is in
+the hands of your uncle, as usual, you will be sure to remain in your
+position?”
+
+“Of course!”
+
+“And you can hide the discrepancy on your books from the auditing
+committee?”
+
+“I am pretty sure I can.”
+
+“You appreciate fully, don't you, Mr. Dodd, why, after all my troubles
+in this life up till now, I should hesitate to marry a man with state
+prison hanging over him?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“If Governor Harwood is not renominated I shall expect you to defer
+our marriage until you can work out of your difficulties. There will be
+danger and it is not in the bargain of my sacrifice that I shall pass
+through such disgrace with you; at any rate, I do not consider that
+added suffering is in the trade and will not agree to it. I prefer to
+remain as I am and share the disgrace of my mother. Do you agree to
+that?”
+
+“I don't like it, but I suppose I've got to be decent in the matter.”
+
+“But if Governor Harwood is renominated at the convention I will concede
+a point on my part and will marry you at once, taking it for granted
+that you will be able to clear yourself. In that way both of us are
+making concessions--and such things should be considered in a bargain.”
+ She was coldly polite.
+
+He bowed, not knowing exactly what reply to make to her.
+
+“You have accused me of trifling in the past,” she continued. “I will
+now try to show you that I can conduct straight business as it should be
+handled. Shall I make a memo of our agreement and hand it to you?”
+
+“There is no need of it,” he stammered.
+
+“Thank you, Mr. Dodd. And now that the matter has been settled to our
+mutual satisfaction, I will ask you to go. I think my mother needs my
+attention. And I am reminded that our bargain does not dispose of the
+fact that my mother owes you five thousand dollars. I will reflect
+on how that debt may be paid--by insurance”--her face grew whiter
+still--“or by some arrangement.”
+
+“I wish you wouldn't say such--” But she interrupted him.
+
+“On my part, this is strictly business, Mr. Dodd, and I must consider
+all sides. I will give the money matter careful thought. I'm sure we can
+arrange it. I have merely bought my mother's good name with _myself_!”
+
+He stumbled out of the room and went on his way.
+
+“Mother, you and I have some long, long thoughts to busy ourselves with
+before we attempt to talk to each other,” said the girl when the two
+were alone. “I am going to my room. Please do not disturb me until
+to-morrow.”
+
+For an hour Kate Kilgour was a girl once more, sobbing her heart out
+against her pillow, stretched upon her bed in abandon of woe, torn by
+the bitter knowledge that she was alone in her pitiful fight. She was
+more frank with herself in her sorrow than she ever had been before.
+She owned to her heart that a few days before even a mother's desperate
+plight would hardly have won such a sacrifice as she had made.
+
+She was ready to own that she loved that tall young man of mystery
+whose face had refuted the suspicion that he was a mere vagrant. It
+was strange--it was unaccountable. But she had ceased to wonder at the
+vagaries of love. In her prostration of mental energies and of hope she
+confessed to herself that she had loved him.
+
+But now between his face and hers, as she shut her eyes and reproduced
+his features, limned in her memory, those fiery words danced--there was
+a “play-mamma” who with him had loved the little girl named Rosemarie.
+
+Checking her sobs, she sighed, and her heart surrendered him.
+
+Her sacrifice had been made both easier and yet more difficult.
+
+Then she snuggled close to her pillows and gazed out into the gathering
+night, and pondered on the fact that if Walker Farr won his fight in the
+state convention that victory put an end to her poor little truce in the
+matter of Richard Dodd.
+
+Then she was sure that she had put Walker Farr out of her heart for
+ever, because she found herself hoping that he would win. The girl
+had not yet grown into full knowledge of the dynamics of a true and
+unselfish love--she did not fully know herself.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+A DICKER FOR A MAN'S SOUL
+
+The populace came first and packed solidly into the galleries of the
+great auditorium of Marion city.
+
+For years the state conventions of the dominant party had attracted
+but little public attention. They had been simple affairs of routine,
+indorsing the men and the principles of the Big Machine. The next
+governor had been groomed and announced to the patient people long
+months before the date of the convention; platforms protecting the
+interests were glued placidly and secretly and brought forth from the
+star chamber to be admired; and no delegate was expected or allowed to
+joggle a plank or nick the smooth varnish which had been smoothed over
+selfish privilege.
+
+But this year came all the people who could pack themselves into
+galleries and aisles.
+
+Below on the main floor were more than two thousand delegates. Every
+town and city sent the full number accredited. After these men had been
+seated the men and women who thronged the corridors and stairways were
+allowed to enter and stand in the rear of the great hall.
+
+Strange stories, rumors, predictions, had been running from lip to lip
+all over the big commonwealth. It was reported that the throne of the
+tyrant was menaced at last by rebellion which was not mere vaporings of
+the restless and resentful; organized revolt had appeared, marching in
+grim silence, not revealing all its strength, and therefore all the more
+ominous.
+
+A military band brayed music unceasingly into the high arches of the
+hall. The music served as obbligato for the mighty diapason of men's
+voices; the thousands talked as they waited.
+
+The broad platform of the stage was untenanted. The speakers, the
+chairman, the clerks, the members of the state committee, did not
+appear, though the hour named as the time of calling the meeting to
+order arrived and passed.
+
+In an anteroom, so far removed from the main hall that only the dull
+rumble of voices and the shredded echoes of the blaring music reached
+there, was assembled the state's oligarchy awaiting the pleasure of
+Colonel Symonds Dodd.
+
+He sat in a big chair, his squat figure crowding its confines.
+
+The state committee and the rest of his entourage were gathered about
+him.
+
+There was a committeeman from every county in the state--the men who
+formed the motive cogs of his machine.
+
+One after the other they had reported to him.
+
+And each time a man finished talking the colonel drove a solid fist down
+on the arm of the chair and roared: “I say again I don't believe it's as
+bad as you figure it. It can't be as bad. Do you tell me that this party
+is going to be turned upside down by a kid-glove aristocrat who has
+hardly stirred out of his office during this campaign?”
+
+“He has had a chap to do his stirring for him,” stated one of the group.
+
+“A hobo, scum of the rough-scruff, hailing from nowhere! Shown up in our
+newspapers as a ditch-digger--a fly-by-night--a nobody! I'm ashamed
+of this state committee, coming here and telling me that he has been
+allowed to influence anybody.”
+
+“Colonel Dodd, what I'm going to say to you may not sound like politics
+as we usually talk it,” declared a committeeman, a gray-haired and
+spectacled person who had the grave mien of a student, “and it is not
+admitted very often by regular politicians who run with the machine. But
+we are up against something which has happened in this queer old world
+of ours a good many times. We have had the best organization here in
+this state that a machine ever put together. But in American politics
+it's always just when the machine is running best that something
+happens. Something is dropped into the gear, and it's usually done by
+the last man you'd expect to do it. The fellows who are tending the
+machine are too busy watching that part of the crowd they think is
+dangerous, and then the inconspicuous chap slips one over.”
+
+“I don't want any lecture on politics,” snapped the boss. “Do you mean
+to insinuate that that low-lived Farr has put _this_ over on _us_?”
+
+“I have hunted to the bottom of things and I do say so, Colonel Dodd.”
+
+“How in blazes did that fellow ever get any influence? I haven't been
+able to believe that he has been accomplishing anything.”
+
+“You ought to have listened a little more closely to us, Colonel,”
+ insisted the committeeman. “Every once in a while there comes forward
+a man whom the people will follow. And he is never the rich man nor the
+proud man, but he is one who knows how to reach the hearts of the crowd.
+A shrewd politician can get power by building up his machine. And then
+some fellow in overalls who has some kind of a God-given quality that
+has never been explained yet so that we can understand, smashes into
+sight like a comet. It may be his way of talking to men, it may be his
+personality--it is more likely a divine spark in him that neither he
+himself nor other men understand. But every now and again some humble
+chap like that has changed the history of the world, and I reckon it's
+pretty easy for such a man to change the politics of a mere state.”
+
+His associates were staring at him and Colonel Dodd was giving him
+furious glances. He had spoken with enthusiasm. He broke off suddenly.
+
+“I beg your pardon. I don't mean to go quite so far. But I'm a student
+of history and I've read a lot about natural-born leaders.”
+
+“You evidently know more about history than you do about politics,”
+ growled the colonel. “This whole state committee doesn't seem to know
+much politics. If you have allowed that Farr to slime his way around
+under cover and do you up in your own counties, I'll see to it that we
+have a new state committee.”
+
+“I have an idea that that convention out there will attend to the matter
+of a new state committee for us.”
+
+The new speaker's voice was very soft. His nickname in state politics
+was “Whispering Saunders.” He was known as being the most artistic
+political “pussy-foot” in the party. It was averred that he could put
+on rubber boots and run twice around the State House on a fresh fall of
+light snow and not leave a track.
+
+“If I'm any kind of a smeller--and I reckon it's admitted that I am,”
+ purred Saunders, “we are walloped before the start-off in every county
+delegation out on that floor.”
+
+“But what has been the matter with you fellows all the time?” blazed the
+boss. “Up to now you have been reporting simply that the soreheads were
+growling and were not getting together so as to be dangerous.”
+
+“Did you ever try to shovel up soft soap from a cellar floor with a
+knitting-needle?” inquired the politician. “That's how it's been in this
+case. Every man I talked with was slippery. I know slippery times when
+I see 'em. I've been afraid, but I hoped for the best. Now that they
+are here, with this convention due to be called to order, they are not
+slippery any longer. They don't need to be. I've just been through the
+convention hall. They are out and open--and they're against us.”
+
+“That Farr has a proxy from a delegate in the Eleventh Ward and is on
+the floor,” stated another.
+
+“But he isn't a voter.”
+
+“He wasn't a little while ago, but he is to-day, Colonel. The board of
+registration had to put his name on the books--he has lived here long
+enough to become a voter.”
+
+Colonel Dodd glared from face to face. It was plain that he was angered
+rather than dismayed; he was like a bull at bay, shaking the pricking
+darts out of his shoulders. He took a hasty glance at his watch.
+'Twas twenty minutes past the hour appointed for the calling of the
+convention. He could hear the distant band still bellowing bravely to
+kill time.
+
+A giant of a man stood up--a cool man, rather cynical. He was the
+chairman of the state committee.
+
+“I have been waiting till all these gentlemen got the panic worked out
+of their systems--or, at least, had said all they could think of about
+that panic, Colonel. Now we can go ahead and do real business. We have
+not had a battle in this state for a long time, and this panic may be
+excusable. They say that the men who are the worst frightened before the
+battle do the best fighting after they get into the real scrap. I will
+admit that the situation in the state has been a little slippery, as
+Saunders has said. And some men have dared to do a lot of loud talking
+since they have arrived here in this city. It is so strange a thing that
+it has got everybody in a panic. The Chinese are wise--they show dragons
+to the enemy, but the dragons are only paper. Wouldn't think the
+enemy could be scared that way, eh? But look at this bunch of state
+committeemen! A pasteboard 'natural-born leader' set up, and Archer
+Converse puffing smoke through the nostrils of that effigy! Gentlemen,
+you ought to be ashamed of yourselves!”
+
+Colonel Dodd snorted emphatic approval.
+
+“You are talking like children. Guff and growls can't carry this
+convention. That crowd hasn't even got a candidate for governor. Have
+you heard one mentioned?”
+
+“I don't suppose they would dare to go as far as that,” said one of
+the committeemen. “Governor Harwood, by party usage, is entitled to a
+renomination, of course. What they figure on is a new state committee
+and a platform that will include reforms.”
+
+“Huh! Yes! So much striped candy! Give it to 'em. Then we've got only
+twenty-four men to handle in the way we have always handled state
+committees--and even that crowd can't find saints and archangels for
+their candidates! And as for a political platform--bah!”
+
+It was the practical politician's caustic estimate of conditions.
+
+Then the chairman joined in, bolstering this supercilious view: “As for
+that legislature--how many bills were ever passed in our legislature
+over a governor's veto after we had got in our work? We are going to
+have a safe man for governor. That band's lungs won't last for ever.
+Colonel Dodd, are you ready?”
+
+If revolt and the spirit of resentment and rebellion did exist in that
+assemblage, which the magnates of the party faced when they marched
+upon the platform, the tumult of applause covered all sinister outward
+aspects. The routine of the convention was entered upon: the secretary
+read the convention call, the organization was perfected without
+protest, and the orator of the day, as president pro tem, a conservative
+United States Senator, began his “key-note speech.” It was a document
+which had been in proof slips for a week, and which all the party
+workers from Colonel Dodd down had read and approved. Therefore, when
+Richard Dodd entered from one of the side doors and came tiptoeing
+across the platform and touched the colonel's arm and jerked energetic
+request for the colonel to follow, the colonel followed, glad of an
+excuse to be absent while the Senator fulminated.
+
+Young Dodd's face was flushed and working with excitement. He hurried
+his uncle into a small retiring-room and locked the door.
+
+“I've got your man, uncle,” he declared.
+
+“What man?” The colonel was grouchy and indifferent.
+
+“Your man Farr.”
+
+“I don't claim him.”
+
+“But you said you wanted him. You said you wanted to hang him like a
+dead crow in the political bean-patch.”
+
+“Merely momentary insanity on my part, Richard. There seems to have been
+a little run of it in this state, and when Judge Warren caught it and
+gave it to me I talked like a fool, I suppose. But you must remember
+that a polecat can give the most level-headed man an almighty start--and
+then the level-headed man walks out around the polecat and goes on his
+way very calmly.”
+
+“But don't you consider that Farr is a dangerous man?”
+
+The colonel held up his pudgy hand and snapped a finger into his palm.
+“He amounts to that in front of the muzzle of a ten-inch gun.”
+
+“But I went ahead after what you said. I have put out time and money.
+I hired a detective. I figured I was doing a good job for the machine.”
+ Young Dodd's voice trembled and disappointment was etched into his
+anxious features.
+
+“Well, what have you found out?”
+
+“I can't tell you. It's another man's secret, and he's got to have cash
+or a guaranty before he'll come across with it.”
+
+“What's the price?”
+
+Richard Dodd exhibited confusion and hesitation. “I made some promises
+to him, uncle, because I know what has been paid in the past for things
+which didn't seem to be as important as this--judging from the way you
+and the judge talked. So I--well, I--”
+
+“Price, price, I say! I'm used to hearing money talked,” harked the
+colonel. “I've got to get back into that convention. Out with it!” He
+made two steps toward the door.
+
+“Five thousand!” blurted the young man.
+
+Colonel Dodd whirled and whipped off his eye-glasses so as to give his
+nephew the full effect of his contemptuous fury.
+
+“Why, you young lunatic, I wouldn't pay that price if they were going
+to elect Farr the governor of this state, and make him a present of the
+Consolidated, and you could bring proof that he is the reincarnation of
+Judas Iscariot.”
+
+A roar of voices and a thunder of thudding feet announced that the
+Senator had finished.
+
+Colonel Dodd hurried away.
+
+The nephew found Detective Mullaney in the alley behind the auditorium,
+and the young man's air of discomfiture and the sagging shake of his
+head told the story of his errand without words.
+
+“If they're getting too mean in their old age to hand me a fair price
+for a good job then let 'em get licked,” declared the detective. “You
+stuck to our original figure of five hundred dollars, didn't you?”
+
+The young man looked over the detective's head and lied. “Five
+hundred--that's what I told him.”
+
+“And he wouldn't consider it?”
+
+“Something has braced him so that he isn't afraid of the man any longer.
+Perhaps he has got a line of his own on him. It doesn't seem to be worth
+anything any longer. Suppose you tell me just who he is and what about
+him?”
+
+“Not on your life!” retorted Detective Mullaney, sharply. “I ain't
+saying anything against your family, of course, but when I give a Dodd
+something for nothing--even a hint--it will be when I'm talking in my
+sleep and don't know it. But I'll tell you what I _will_ do. Give me my
+two hundred and fifty and I'll hand you the whole proposition and you
+may go ahead and make what you can of it. I swear to you again that I've
+got it on him. Seeing what he did to _you_, you ought to feel that the
+story is worth that much of a gamble even for private purposes.”
+
+Dodd hesitated, put his hand in his pocket--then withdrew it empty.
+
+“No, Mullaney. What's the good? He says Farr isn't dangerous, and has
+turned down the whole thing flat. I may as well keep my money. If you
+want to sit on the platform, come along with me. I can find a place for
+you.”
+
+Detective Mullaney followed willingly, for he knew that people were
+fairly piling over one another in an attempt to get into the hall by the
+main entrance.
+
+He sat down in one of the square chairs on the platform and searched
+with his sharp little eyes until he found the face of Walker Farr in the
+terraced rows of humanity. It was not difficult to locate him, for
+his physique made him loom among other men and he was posted under the
+banner which marked the location of Moosac County.
+
+The detective found the eyes of the young man directed toward the
+gallery with such intentness and for so long a time that he endeavored
+to trace that earnest scrutiny to its object. The detective was not
+exactly certain, but he finally picked out a very handsome young lady
+who occupied a front chair in the balcony; she seemed to be returning
+the young man's intent regard.
+
+“You have the reputation of knowing all the pretty girls in the state,”
+ whispered Mullaney, drawing Dodd's attention with a nudge. “Who is that
+up there in the gallery, front row, fifth from the aisle; blue feather,
+and so handsome she hurts my eyes?”
+
+To have his attention drawn thus rudely to the one girl in all the world
+gave Dodd a sensation which he did not relish--and his face showed his
+astonished resentment.
+
+“That is Miss Kilgour, who used to be my uncle's secretary. Why do you
+want to know who she is?”
+
+“Because there seems to be something very especial on between her and
+the man we thought was worth five hundred dollars to us.”
+
+“That young lady, Mr. Mullaney, is engaged to me,” stated Dodd, acridly.
+“You'd better drop the topic.”
+
+But he did not display either the joy or the pride of the accepted
+suitor as he looked up at her.
+
+“I'll simply say that you're a mighty lucky chap and I congratulate
+you,” returned Mr. Mullaney, hiding his confusion by getting very
+busy with newspaper clippings and papers which he drew from his breast
+pocket.
+
+The detective was wholly unconscious of the irony of that remark. But it
+brought a flush of shame to Dodd's cheek, for the sorrow and sting and
+ignominy of that part which he had played had not departed from his soul
+nor did even the fervor of his passion for her help him forgive himself;
+he stared at her guiltily as the thief gloats over his loot and is
+conscious of his degradation without feeling sufficient contrition to
+give up the object he has stolen.
+
+For he remembered with fresh and poignant recollection the circumstances
+under which that girl had given her promise to him so recently: she had
+stood over a mother who had abased herself before them, had cast herself
+down and had writhed and screamed and implored her to consent; and the
+mother was driven to do this by the lash of his threats. He had stood
+there and demanded, and the woman on the floor had confessed her
+frailty, owned to her misdeeds, acknowledged her debt, and had
+frantically begged her daughter to sacrifice herself.
+
+The girl had given her “Yes,” paying the debt with herself; but her eyes
+had been wide and dry and her face was white and set and she had looked
+past the man to whom she promised herself when she had murmured that
+promise.
+
+Dodd swept cold sweat from his forehead as he remembered; he found
+almost the same expression now on her face as she gazed down on Walker
+Farr, who stared back at her anxiously, perceiving a grief that he could
+not understand.
+
+In that vast assemblage those three, thus wordlessly, no one marking
+them, fought a tragic battle of hopeless love with their eyes.
+
+Detective Mullaney pored over his papers. “By gad,” he mused, “I haven't
+kept my books all this time for nothing. I know my card. I've got him
+right--it's dead open and shut. But I swear he doesn't look the part
+he played, even if the description does fit him. Well, law is law! If
+I can't sell him to Symonds Dodd, I'll find out how much those will pay
+who do want him.”
+
+The routine of the great convention had been proceeding.
+
+“And the gentleman from Danton, Mr. Gray, moves that we do now proceed
+with the nomination of a candidate for governor,” intoned the chairman
+in sing-song tones.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE MAN WHO WAS NOT AFRAID
+
+One after the other, dignified and decorous, three men of the Big
+Machine, representing three of the large counties of the state, came
+upon the platform and put in nomination the name of Governor Harwood to
+succeed himself.
+
+These speakers had been carefully selected. They were elderly
+gentlemen whose reputations, tones, and demeanor bespoke safe and sane
+conservatism. They took occasion to rebuke the new spirit of unrest
+in the old party, and their tremolo notes of protest were extremely
+effective. While these men talked, a listener was compelled to feel that
+rebellion against the established order of things could only be rank
+sedition; for many years have these arts of oratory been employed to
+appeal to the average man's party loyalty; voters have listened and
+have been ashamed to revolt--as a son dutifully bows his head under a
+father's reprimand and responds to a father's appeal--for, after all,
+in matters where appeal is made to loyalty the human emotions are not so
+very complex.
+
+The elderly gentlemen put great stress on the fact that not in twenty
+years had a faithful governor been refused the honor of renomination for
+a second term. Would their convention deny that compliment to Governor
+Harwood? It was the same appeal that had been made for twoscore years
+in order to perpetuate the dynasty of gubernatorial figureheads who had
+obeyed the ring's orders.
+
+Walker Farr heard _sotto voce_ murmurings of men in his vicinity. They
+were men who had joined the new revolt and had stood bravely enough for
+a change in county political managers. But these men revealed that
+they were timorous about altering long party custom. They said, one
+to another, that it would be going too far to refuse renomination to
+Governor Harwood. It might split their party so widely that the rival
+political party would be able to carry the state--and that would never
+do.
+
+Farr was in no wise surprised to hear these murmurings.
+
+He had sounded men before that convention as he had traveled about the
+state.
+
+He had found them ready to begin house-cleaning in the smaller affairs
+of county management, and by assault on the little wheels of the gear
+of the machine which had so long ground political grist; but they
+were unwilling to tempt fate by venturing on such a general overturn as
+putting up for governor a man who had not been selected and groomed for
+high office during the accustomed term of apprenticeship--legislature,
+senate, and council.
+
+He realized how well the great ring had intrenched itself in absolute
+power by appealing to conservatism in matters of safe men for high
+office. Safe men meant those who protected the big interests and saw
+that no raids were made on capital--no matter how many abuses capital
+might be fostering.
+
+Mumble and grumble all about him, and men's faces showing that they were
+agreeing with the tremolo appeals of the elderly orators!
+
+Even the Honorable Archer Converse, his legal cautiousness governing his
+opinion, knowing the temper of conditions in his state, had emphatically
+discouraged Farr when the young man had timidly questioned him in regard
+to the advisability of securing a candidate for governor outside the
+ring's dynasty.
+
+Mr. Converse's discouragement of such hopes would have been even more
+emphatic had he ever dreamed that this apostle whom he had sent out into
+the field was coddling the audacious hope that Mr. Converse himself by
+some miracle might be put into the governor's chair.
+
+The orators proceeded, one after the other. They were applauded. They
+retired.
+
+Walker Farr was oppressed by the lugubrious conviction that he was the
+only man in that great assemblage who felt enough of the zealot's fire
+to be willing to put all his hopes to the test.
+
+He looked at the faces on the platform. There sat Colonel Dodd, wearing
+his expression assumed for that day and date--smug political hypocrisy.
+
+His henchmen winged out to right and left of him. They represented
+finance and respectability.
+
+Sometimes political rebels will gallantly and audaciously venture when
+they rail behind the backs of their leaders; but when those leaders
+appear and fill the foreground with their personalities the rebels
+subside; they are impressed by the men whom they behold. They defer,
+even when they are stung by knowledge of their leaders' principles.
+
+Colonel Dodd and those with him were the accredited leaders.
+
+Delegates glared, but were cowed and silent.
+
+Farr pondered. Perhaps the advice of Mr. Converse was best:
+
+“Take what we can get in our first skirmish. Keep it for the nucleus of
+what we hope to get later. If we put all to the test in our first fight
+against forces that have been in power for all the years and lose, then
+the cause gets a setback which may discourage our men for ever.”
+
+And Mr. Converse, having so declared, had remained away from the
+convention that day, feeling that no more was to be gained.
+
+“And I move you, Mr. Chairman,” called a voice, “that the nominations
+for governor do now close.”
+
+This had been the custom in the past.
+
+It was not in the minds of that convention that another candidate would
+be put forward. Governor Harwood was waiting in an anteroom, thumbing
+the leaves of his speech, and all the delegates knew it. All desired to
+expedite matters, nominate by acclamation, hear the inevitable speech,
+and go home.
+
+“One moment before that motion is seconded!”
+
+The voice was so loud, so clear, so dominant, so ringing, that the
+effect on the convention was as galvanically intense as if somebody had
+blown upon a bugle.
+
+Walker Farr had risen to his feet.
+
+Colonel Dodd set his curved palm at his mouth and from behind the
+chairman shot a few words at the presiding officer as one might shoot
+pellets from a bean-shooter. The chairman scowled impatiently at Farr,
+and a delegate among those who watched eagerly for signals from the
+throne rose half-way to his feet and bellowed, “Question!” The cry
+was taken up by other delegates, just as the unthinking mob follows a
+cheer-master.
+
+Farr climbed upon a settee. He stood there, silent and waiting, and
+his expression, poise, and mien wrought for him more effectively than
+speech.
+
+He towered over all the heads. He was markedly not one of those
+New-Englanders there assembled. His mass of dark-brown hair, his garb,
+the very set of his head on his shoulders, differed from the physical
+attributes of all others in the hall. And, as the delegates continued
+to shout for the question to be put, he turned slowly so that his
+expression of dignified and mild protest and appeal was visible to all.
+And as he turned he gave the girl in the gallery a long look.
+
+The chairman pounded with his gavel.
+
+“I second the motion,” called a delegate, taking advantage of the first
+moment of silence.
+
+There was another roaring chorus of, “Question!”
+
+But Walker Farr remained standing on the settee, waiting patiently. He
+showed no confusion. There was added dignity as well as appeal in his
+attitude and expression.
+
+“Before that vote is taken I want to say one word as a man to men,”
+ shouted a delegate. “It's plain to be seen that that man standing there
+is a gentleman. We are sent here to attend a meeting for the good of
+our party. If, as delegates, we refuse to listen to a gentleman because
+we're in too much of a hurry, we'd ought to be ashamed of ourselves. If,
+on the other hand, we're _afraid_ to listen to him, whatever it is he
+wants to say, then God save this party of ours!”
+
+That was a sentiment which promptly struck fire in that assemblage.
+
+There before their eyes stood the subject of that challenge, stalwart,
+modest, appealing silently--the sort of appeal which won.
+
+The galleries broke into applause first. Then the delegates took up the
+demonstration in behalf of fair play. They beat their hands and pounded
+their feet. The applause from the galleries had more or less of rebuke
+in it, because it began while the challenger's voice still echoed in the
+great hall.
+
+The chairman's gavel thumped ferociously.
+
+Colonel Dodd cursed under his breath. He had been on the trail of that
+convention, its movements, its progress, as a hound dog would follow
+the trail of a fox. He had seen it safely headed for the corner where
+it would be run to earth. He detected sudden peril in this threat of a
+detour.
+
+“Good Jericho!” gasped a committeeman near him. “The chairman ain't
+letting this convention get away from him, is he?”
+
+It was natural alarm in the case of a man who feared to allow any
+expression in a convention except such as had been arranged for
+previously and had been passed upon by those in power.
+
+“This isn't the kind of convention that will get away!” hissed the
+colonel in reply, bolstering his own convictions that all was safely
+harnessed. “But I don't want any fooling.”
+
+He caught the eye of his nephew and summoned him with an impatient jerk
+of the head.
+
+Richard Dodd hastened across the platform and bent his ear close to his
+uncle's mouth--the colonel pulling him down.
+
+“If your man can stop that fool now--quick--for five hundred dollars,
+I'll pay.”
+
+Young Dodd gulped. He needed five thousand dollars!
+
+“He won't consider less than I told you.”
+
+“Well, let the idiot talk to us--he can't do any harm.”
+
+The colonel pushed his nephew away. In spite of that applause he still
+half expected that the convention would close the nominations. What else
+was there to do?
+
+“The vote is upon the motion to close the nominations for governor,”
+ stated the chairman. “Those in favor will say 'Aye!'”
+
+Every delegate in that hall was looking at Farr. They were staring at
+him with curiosity and interest. But even curiosity does not always
+prompt politicians to open a convention to a person who may prove to be
+a bomb that will upset plans and precedent.
+
+Then Farr gave them that wonderful smile!
+
+The “Ayes” were scattered and sporadic! Men did not relish shutting off
+a chap who stood there and smiled upon them in that fashion.
+
+At the call for the “Noes” a bellow of voices shook the hall.
+
+The convention had given this stranger permission to speak by that
+refusal to subscribe to the cut-and-dried plans. Colonel Dodd was no
+longer smug. He scowled ferociously.
+
+“Gentlemen of the convention, I am grateful,” cried Walker Farr. “And I
+will not abuse your patience.”
+
+“Platform--take the platform!” called many of the delegates.
+
+He smiled and shook his head. “Let me talk to you standing here where
+I can look into your eyes, gentlemen. I feel pretty much alone in this
+convention. I _am_ alone! I represent no faction, no interest except the
+cause of the humble who have asked for help from the masters who have
+been set over them. Perhaps I ought to have remained silent here to-day.
+My cowardice has been prompting me to keep still. It is no easy matter
+for me to stand up here and disturb the order of events which had been
+arranged by the gentlemen who have managed your public affairs for
+you so many years. But it would be much more difficult for some of the
+others here to speak, because the gentlemen who manage politics have
+methods by which they can discredit a man in his profession, ruin him
+in his business, stop his credit at banks and in other ways make him pay
+dearly for his boldness in speech. I have no money in banks, no business
+which can be ruined.”
+
+“I rise to a point of order!” shouted a delegate, obeying a nod from the
+stage. “The business in hand is the nomination of a governor.”
+
+“That is my business,” stated Farr, calmly.
+
+With political scent sharpened by his apprehension, Colonel Dodd
+narrowed his eyes, sat straight in his chair, and desperately endeavored
+to fathom the intentions of this rank outsider.
+
+In spite of his bluster to the state committee he was worried. He had
+not felt comfortable since his conference with Judge Ambrose Warren.
+He did not like the “feel” of political conditions. There was some
+indefinable slipperiness about matters.
+
+He could not bring himself to consider the impossible idea that the
+convention would bolt--would run amuck, no matter who addressed it--no
+matter what contingency arose. But to have the convention even tolerate
+this brazen interloper troubled his sense of mastery; the convention had
+been too ready to permit the stranger to speak. It wasn't politics as
+the colonel had been accustomed to play the game. And this--this man
+from nowhere--it was preposterous!
+
+He snapped his head around and found his nephew close behind him.
+
+“You young whelp,” gritted Colonel Dodd, visiting his anger on the
+nearest object, “where's your political loyalty? This isn't any time to
+drive bargains. If you can stop that fellow hustle and do it.”
+
+“It's another man's secret, I tell you. I've got to buy it.”
+
+“I'll make it a thousand.”
+
+Young Dodd's face was white, but he knew how desperate his case was and
+how vitally necessary it was to play his cards as he held them.
+
+“I gave you final figures,” he whispered.
+
+“Where is that man? Let me deal with him.”
+
+“It must be done through me.”
+
+“If you wasn't my nephew I'd think this was blackmail.”
+
+Young Dodd stepped back to avoid the glare in his uncle's eyes.
+
+The colonel turned away and listened. Farr's voice was raised now in
+solemn appeal.
+
+“The idea of my letting myself get rattled by a crack-brained
+demagogue,” muttered the colonel. He had been fondling the outside of
+his coat furtively, locating his check-book. Now he took his hand away.
+
+“It is well to respect service and to show courtesy, gentlemen. I have
+listened with interest to the eulogies which have been given Governor
+Harwood. He is, without doubt, an amiable gentleman. But let me tell you
+that the next legislature is going to be asked to pass a law which will
+be a club with which the people will rap the knuckles of Greed till that
+unholy clutch on the water systems of this state will be loosened for
+ever.”
+
+The delegates stared at him for a few seconds when he paused, and then a
+tumult of applause greeted his utterance.
+
+“I ask you, gentlemen, whether Governor Harwood--and you know him well
+and how he has been chosen--will ever sign a bill that will take profit
+from the hands of his political makers even to give that profit to the
+people who are the rightful owners?”
+
+This time men were silent, but he knew what they thought from the manner
+in which they looked at him.
+
+“I do not need to tell you that the veto of a bill by a governor means,
+in most cases, its death. Gentlemen, it would be polite and kind and
+gracious of you to bow low here to-day and hand up the nomination to the
+amiable Governor Harwood. But with the conditions as they are in this
+state are you going to be polite, merely, while the hearses are rumbling
+down your streets? I have no way of knowing how many of you into whose
+eyes I am looking have seen death enter your own homes from the taps of
+this much-promising, little-accomplishing water syndicate. But if you
+have seen death touch your loved ones, or if you go home from here and
+behold fever ravaging your community, it will be poor consolation to
+your soul to remember that at least you were polite to an amiable man
+who desired the honor of a renomination.”
+
+The faces of the convention showed that this blunt yet shrewd appeal to
+the individual antagonism of men had produced profound effect.
+
+“But that is only one feature of what this state demands and needs,
+gentlemen,” was Farr's ringing declaration. “This struggle for pure
+water has opened a broad avenue. The towns and cities of this state must
+take back into their own hands the properties and franchises which have
+been mismanaged by the men to whose hands unwise gift by the people has
+intrusted the people's own. We need a man in the Big Chair of State who
+will stand with the people in this crusade!”
+
+This amazing declaration in open convention produced as much
+consternation on the platform as if Farr had dropped a bomb there.
+
+He uttered something which was worse than mere political rebellion: he
+was proposing to take for the people properties which constituted the
+backbone of the oligarchy's power in state affairs.
+
+Colonel Dodd had been growling behind the chairman, angrily endeavoring
+to get the ear of that gentleman. But the chairman seemed to be as
+wholly absorbed by this astonishing arraignment as were the delegates.
+
+The head of the state machine, for the first time in his career, was
+compelled to come into the open instead of through the mouth of a
+lieutenant. He could not wait to give orders.
+
+He rose and stamped to the front of the platform. His voice rang hoarse
+and loud.
+
+“There can be no more of this unparliamentary and irregular nonsense.
+What has got into this convention? Don't you understand that no speaker
+is allowed to break the rules and attack a man under guise of nominating
+another? Mr. Chairman, I demand that this slanderer be removed from the
+hall and that we proceed to the nomination of a governor.”
+
+There was a hush during which Farr and Colonel Dodd looked at each
+other, crossing their stares like long rapiers over the terraced heads.
+
+“I fear I was wrong,” confessed Farr, gently. “But we poor folks down in
+the ranks don't know much about the rules, and when we are struggling
+to save the ones we love we are apt to forget and talk to the heart of
+things. I am not trying to show that I am a skilful orator, gentlemen of
+the convention.” He held up his arms. “I am crying for _Justice_!”
+
+The delegates broke into applause once more.
+
+And Walker Farr sent a queer look straight into the eyes of the colonel.
+
+Conviction slapped Colonel Symonds Dodd in his mental face with a
+violence that made him blink!
+
+This man was no amateur in understanding how to sway an audience. To be
+sure, he had transgressed parliamentary usage, but in those words he had
+driven home facts that all knew to be truths--truths which others had
+been afraid to voice, but which, once put into words in public, tied
+the hideous stamp of ring favoritism upon Governor Harwood, made him a
+candidate who could not be trusted.
+
+The colonel understood, and he also saw plainly that the most of the
+audience had accepted the apology, and held no prejudice against the
+speaker.
+
+“Now that I understand what the rules governing nominations are I will
+not break them again,” declared Farr.
+
+But like a shrewd and not over-scrupulous lawyer he had jabbed into
+the proceedings a stinging truth which, though excluded by the rules,
+nevertheless served vitally the big purpose of his efforts; the colonel
+understood that, too, and turned back to his chair fairly livid with
+rage.
+
+“There is a man in this state who knows true law,” continued the
+speaker, “and that you may be assured that he will sign a bill which is
+passed for the good of the people, let me tell you a little about his
+character.”
+
+Colonel Dodd cursed without trying to moderate his tones very much.
+
+“There's no telling what tack that renegade will take next. This
+infernal convention is getting to be a nightmare. Those fools out there
+are listening as if they expected that cheap demagogue to bring 'em a
+new Messiah,” he told the committeemen near him.
+
+“There's a funny noise going on out there among 'em,” ventured
+“Whispering Saunders.” “Round-up fellows say they hear something like
+it when a herd is getting ready to stampede. It's the same thing in a
+political convention sometimes. The reason for it is: the crowd is ripe
+and the head steer gives the right bellow--and off they go!”
+
+Colonel Dodd grabbed his nephew by the elbow and rushed him off the
+stage and into an anteroom.
+
+“Is that matter on the hair-trigger, Richard?” he demanded.
+
+“It's ready to be snapped any minute.”
+
+The colonel whipped out his check-book and began to write. “It's as old
+Saunders said,” he muttered as he wrote. “And we've got to rope, throw,
+and tie that one steer.”
+
+The check was for five thousand dollars!
+
+Young Dodd seized it, and when his uncle hurried back upon the stage the
+nephew, through the door which was left open, beckoned to Mullaney. The
+detective came, hurrying past Colonel Dodd, who stared until the door
+had closed behind young Dodd and the officer.
+
+“But he's my own nephew!” he assured himself, as if he were replying to
+an accusation laid against Richard Dodd. He shook his head and sat down
+in his chair. “I wonder how long it has been since old Bob Mullaney put
+a price of that size on his secrets! I'm afraid Richard hasn't the Dodd
+ability to drive a sharp trade.”
+
+But Richard was showing considerable ability in that line behind the
+door of the anteroom.
+
+He jammed two hundred and fifty dollars in crumpled bills into the
+detective's hands, cleaning out his pockets for the purpose. He had
+slipped the check into his deepest pocket the moment his uncle had
+handed it to him.
+
+“It was hard work to screw him up, Mullaney. You have seen how I worked
+him. This is all he gave me--two hundred and fifty. Take it and spring
+your trap.”
+
+“You don't look honest,” grumbled the detective. “If I'm any kind of a
+guesser you're holding out on me.”
+
+“That's your price. You agreed. There isn't any time to argue this. Give
+me back the money.” He grabbed the bills from Mullaney's clutch. It was
+magnificent bluff. “I'll hand it to my uncle. He isn't very keen on the
+thing, anyway.”
+
+“I'll take it--give it back. I'll apologize,” pleaded Mullaney.
+
+“Will you swear to keep all this under your hat--the whole thing? Uncle
+says if you dare to speak to him about it--hint to him or anybody that
+he paid money for anything on Farr--he'll deny the story and have your
+license taken away.”
+
+“I promise--swear it,” Mullaney agreed.
+
+Dodd returned the money, and the detective started out on the trot.
+
+“You come, too, and I'll tell you on the way. Time is short. You'd
+better help me,” he advised Dodd. They hurried away together, rushed
+out into the alley and around to the front of the hall, the detective
+pouring certain information into Dodd's ear as they made their way to
+the big door and into the main corridor.
+
+Then they bored through the crowds.
+
+The detective led the way and showed his badge to compel the people to
+give them a lane.
+
+They entered the rear of the auditorium.
+
+“You take the left side and I'll take the right,” commanded Mullaney.
+“We need to paralyze him first. That's all there's time for just
+now--I've had short notice. But get that name to every man of your crowd
+you can, and when the howl is started tell 'em all to join in.”
+
+Dodd had had scant time to digest the knowledge which the detective
+had imparted on the run. But his eyes gleamed wickedly as he began to
+whisper to men among the delegates. And as he moved about he noticed
+that the girl in the gallery had marked his activity, even to the extent
+of turning her gaze from Walker Farr, whose voice was ringing through
+the spacious hall.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+THE BOMB
+
+Walker Farr, towering over their heads, talked to the men in whose midst
+he stood.
+
+Mere eloquence no longer avails in these days of cynical disbelief in
+the motives of political orators. But this young man who stood there
+was sincerity incarnate. The wonderful and mystic magnetic quality which
+wins men and inspires confidence radiated from him. And every now and
+then, as he glanced up at one face in the gallery his voice took on new
+tones of appeal and pathos. He was one crying from the depths to those
+in authority! By the marvel of his language he made the men who sat
+there as delegates understand that theirs was the power to make or
+mar--to save or sacrifice their state in the crisis which was upon them.
+He made them feel their responsibility after he made them understand
+their power.
+
+And he also made their duty plain.
+
+The crux of the situation rested on such a man as they should place in
+the highest office in the state.
+
+In other times, under other conditions, some pliant and amiable
+figurehead might serve them well.
+
+He told them, with outstretched finger and vibrant voice, what must be
+the masterful qualifications of the man who should assume the cross of
+public service and carry it up the steeps where he would be lashed at
+every step of his weary way by the thongs in the hands of privileged
+capital.
+
+Colonel Symonds Dodd had come back to the platform, cursing himself for
+a fool. The moment the check had left his hands he was angry because he
+had allowed circumstances to stampede him.
+
+He wondered what was getting into him and into politics.
+
+Was he afraid of mere talk from a demagogue!
+
+But after he had sat there for a few moments and listened, and had
+watched the faces of the delegates, he decided that if five thousand
+dollars would stop the mouth of that man he had spent money wisely.
+It was borne in upon him that he had spent greater sums many times for
+lesser service.
+
+He saw Richard Dodd and Mullaney circulating among the delegates. He
+restrained with difficulty an impulse to rise and shout to them to
+hurry. He felt that danger to his program and his political structure
+was imminent. Because once again were true eloquence and masterly appeal
+winning men.
+
+All the listeners in the vast hall were as still as death. All eyes were
+on this speaker who seemed to be clothing with effective speech all the
+hidden convictions of the delegates themselves who had nursed protest
+without being able to put it into force.
+
+Colonel Dodd had seen conventions in similar mood in the old days before
+the saddle of party had been as securely cinched as it had been in late
+years.
+
+The chairman of the state committee uttered the colonel's rising fears.
+The chairman had lost his sneer and his bumptious confidence. His face
+was red, he was sweating, he was staring out over the convention and
+snapping his fingers impatiently.
+
+“Good gad!” he informed those in hearing on the platform, “what kind of
+a turn is this thing taking? We have let this convention get away from
+us. That chap has got the whole crowd marching to the mourners' bench.
+He can wind up by nominating a yellow dog and they'll rise and howl him
+into office by acclamation!”
+
+Farr paused for a moment to give effect to his next words.
+
+“Such in character, in honest impulse, in honor, in ability, in
+devotion, and in God-given nobility must be the man who will lead you.
+Has God given such a man to this state? He has!”
+
+“Yes and the devil has given us Nelson Sinkler to speak for that man!”
+
+The voice was shrill and agitated and it came from a section of the hall
+where the rabid adherents of the machine were massed; it was an amazing
+and shocking interruption.
+
+“I said Nelson Sinkler--that's you!” screamed the voice.
+
+And on that, from here and there in the hall, like snipers posted in
+ambush, men shouted the name “Nelson Sinkler”--the words popping like
+rifles.
+
+There was uproar. Part of it was protest, part hysterical demonstration
+of excitement in an assemblage which did not in the least understand.
+
+Then after a time came quiet, for the object of the attack stood in his
+elevated position, unruffled, stern, turning bold front to right and
+left as men barked at him.
+
+“I am here where all may look on me,” he said. “Let one or all of those
+who are attacking me stand forth in view, too.”
+
+No one stood up.
+
+“It's a cowardly man who will not put his name to a letter or show his
+face when he makes an accusation,” cried Farr.
+
+“How about a man who doesn't dare to use his own name?” This questioner
+remained in ambush.
+
+“Your right name isn't Walker Farr and you know it isn't,” bellowed a
+voice on the opposite side of the hall.
+
+Other voices pot-shotted at him with the words, “Nelson Sinkler.”
+
+“Will one man in this convention stand up and show himself so that I can
+talk to him face to face?” shouted the man at bay.
+
+Detective Mullaney and Richard Dodd could not find seats. The others
+were sitting, and the two were marked men.
+
+“Well, Dodd, you have been whispering. What have you to say aloud?”
+ demanded the man they were baiting.
+
+“I say your name is not Walker Farr.”
+
+“You!” The tall young man darted a finger at Mullaney.
+
+“I say you're Nelson Sinkler.”
+
+“And what of him?”
+
+“He is wanted by the state of Nebraska for murder.”
+
+A sound that was mingled sigh and groan ran and throbbed from galleries
+to floor; it filled the great hall and seemed to vibrate back and forth
+over the assemblage. And for the long minute that the dreadful sound
+continued until it had breathed itself out into horrified silence the
+man who stood on the settee looked straight into the white face of the
+girl in the gallery.
+
+But those of the throng who devoured him with eager stares could not
+discern one trace of confession on his countenance.
+
+Then he did a strange thing.
+
+He held his arms out toward Detective Mullaney and crossed them, wrist
+over wrist, and he smiled.
+
+“If you are certain enough of your man to dare to arrest me, sir, I
+stand here waiting for the handcuffs.”
+
+The detective hesitated, visibly embarrassed. He had been looking for
+confusion, confession by manner, even collapse.
+
+“This is a put-up political job,” declared a delegate. “That's no
+murderer--that man.”
+
+“I am waiting,” repeated Farr.
+
+Detective Mullaney flushed. There were murmurs of hostility in the
+throng about him. He ran over swiftly in his mind the contents of his
+note-book and fortified his courage.
+
+“I haven't secured a warrant yet--but I'll take your dare,” he
+announced. He started to come down the aisle.
+
+“Just one moment,” called a stentorian voice in the gallery. “You're
+wrong, my man, down there. I don't want to see an innocent person
+disgraced in public nor an officer get himself into a scrape. That man
+is not Nelson Sinkler.”
+
+“What are we running here--a state convention or a police court?”
+ Colonel Dodd demanded, leaping up and grabbing the arm of the presiding
+officer. “Order all those men ejected from the hall.”
+
+But at that moment the convention was not in the control of the
+chairman. Irregular as it all was, human nature demanded to be shown
+there and then.
+
+Delegates arose, shouting, and surrounded Farr, making effectual
+bulwarks against Mullaney with their bodies. Voices asked the stranger
+in the gallery for information, and he motioned the vociferous mob into
+silence.
+
+“I am a United States post-office inspector, and I can easily prove my
+identity, gentlemen. I'm here in this convention merely as a spectator,
+killing time till my train leaves. But I know Nelson Sinkler because
+I arrested him a month or so ago after he had been a fugitive for two
+years. He killed a mail clerk. He is now awaiting trial. If that man
+down there is arrested as being Nelson Sinkler it will mean a lot of
+trouble for somebody.” He sat down.
+
+“Who are you?” yelled a chorus of the ring's henchmen. They pressed as
+near to Farr as his body-guard would permit and shook their fists at
+him.
+
+“I am a man and not a spirit,” he said in the first silence--and
+silence came quickly, for they were eager to hear. “You can see that
+for yourselves. But just now I am less a man than a _Voice_.” He shouted
+that last word. “The Voice calls you to rebuke the kind of politics that
+has just been attempted here. You have seen, you have heard! Will you
+indorse it by your votes? Will you keep in power that gang that has
+attempted it in the desperation of defeat?”
+
+“No,” the voices of men tumultuously replied.
+
+Reckless and unjust attack had never tossed a more golden opportunity
+into a man's hands.
+
+“Then come over to the side of decency, my men. Nominate a champion who
+will be spotless and unafraid. There is war in this commonwealth instead
+of politics. Through one war the great patriot of this state led his
+people with high chivalry. For the next governor of this state, in these
+trying times, I nominate the son of that patriot--the Honorable Archer
+Converse of this city--God bless him!”
+
+“We're licked,” gasped Colonel Dodd, trying to make the state chairman
+hear him, for the roar that rocked the great hall was deafening. “A
+boomerang has come back and mowed us flatter than an oven door in
+tophet.”
+
+In the rout, in the retreat--horse, foot and dragoons--crisp orders
+were issued and obeyed. The friends of Governor Harwood had only one
+resource--it was to save that gentleman's face. His nomination was
+withdrawn.
+
+That convention had run amuck, it was a mass of wild men who were
+feeling liberty from oppression for the first time and gloried in their
+new and sudden freedom from ring rule.
+
+Then the delegates who came upon their feet roared the unanimous
+nomination of Archer Converse.
+
+In the gale of that acclaim the opposition uttered no protest; the
+delegates who still remained loyal to the machine scowled and kept their
+seats.
+
+Ducking under the tossing arms of men who flung aloft their hats and
+cheered with the frenzy of delight that the amazing victory inspired,
+Richard Dodd escaped to the rear of the hall and jammed himself into the
+press of the spectators. He hid behind a hedge of bodies and then dared
+to look at Colonel Dodd's face. The mighty passion which flamed on
+the uncle's countenance was revealed to the nephew's gaze even at that
+distance. The colonel was at the edge of the platform and was beckoning
+imperiously to some one. Young Dodd saw Detective Mullaney work his
+way out of the throng which surrounded Walker Farr; the officer was
+obviously obeying the summons of Colonel Dodd and marched to the
+platform and climbed on a chair in order to converse with the angry man
+who had beckoned.
+
+And when Richard Dodd saw that conference begin overwhelming fear swept
+out of his soul all other emotions. He no longer had eyes for that girl
+in the gallery. Not even love and the promise she had made availed to
+stay him. Panic allowed him no time for planning an excuse or framing a
+lie. In playing for the stakes he had exacted he had felt that his uncle
+would hold no autopsy on the price of success. But five thousand dollars
+plucked from the Dodd pocket by a falsehood for which no excuse could
+be offered! And on top of that a crushing defeat which had been made
+definite and final by the work which Colonel Dodd had paid for!
+
+The nephew saw Mullaney shake his head and throw up his hands in appeal
+and protest.
+
+That spectacle made Richard Dodd a fugitive who thought only of saving
+himself. He fought his way through the crowd and ran out of the hall.
+The thought of facing Symonds Dodd in that crisis or of waiting to be
+dragged before the furious tyrant--that thought lashed the traitor into
+mad flight.
+
+He glanced up at the clock in the First National tower. He had three
+minutes before the bank's closing time. He controlled his emotions as
+best he could and presented the check at the paying-teller's grill.
+The money was counted out to him without question, and when he held the
+thick packet in his hand he realized still more acutely in what position
+he stood in his affairs with Symonds Dodd.
+
+He rushed to a garage, secured his car, and fled.
+
+“I tell you I gave my nephew a check for five thousand dollars,”
+ insisted the colonel. “And the Dodds don't lie to each other!”
+
+“Then they have begun to do it,” declared Mullaney. “He has
+double-crossed the two of us. There was never any talk between us of
+more than five hundred for the job.”
+
+Colonel Dodd hurried into the anteroom and called the bank on the
+telephone. “Almighty Herod!” he yelped, when he was informed that the
+check had been cashed. He banged the receiver upon its hook. “Even my
+own nephew has joined the pack of those damnation wolves!”
+
+Then with the air of a man recovering from a blow and wondering dizzily
+what had struck him, he left the convention hall by a rear door and went
+to his office.
+
+Those whom he passed on his way out made no attempt to stop him, did not
+urge him to remain. That convention seemed to be doing very well without
+calling upon Colonel Symonds Dodd for help or suggestions.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+A GIRL'S IMPULSE
+
+Herald unofficial, _avant courier_, Mr. Daniel Breed squeezed himself
+through the pack of people while they were still cheering the name of
+the Honorable Archer Converse.
+
+“Giving candy to youngsters and good news to grown folks never
+made anybody specially unpopular,” Mr. Breed assured himself with
+politician's sagacity.
+
+Therefore, he jog-trotted down to the Converse law-offices and shot
+himself into the presence of the estimable gentleman who had remained
+aloof from the distracting business of a convention.
+
+“He's done it,” proclaimed Mr. Breed, making his sentences short and his
+message to the point because he was out of breath.
+
+“Who has done what?” demanded Mr. Converse, with equal crispness.
+
+“Farr. You're nominated for governor. Acclamation! He's a wiz with his
+tongue.” Mr. Breed pursed his little mouth and “sipped” with gusto.
+“Some talker! Don't ever tell me that good talk doesn't win when the
+right man makes it at the right time.”
+
+Mr. Converse rose and stood--a rigid statue of consternation and
+protest. “Do you mean to come in here and tell me that I have been
+nominated by that state convention? Without my sanction? Without my
+consent?”
+
+“Sure thing! Easy work! Played all the tricks. Made believe he was
+green. Poked rights and lefts to Harwood's jaw. Had himself paged as
+a murderer--at least, I reckon it was his own get-up. It cinched the
+thing, anyway. He understands human nature.”
+
+But Mr. Converse did not in the least understand this talk. “Look here,
+Breed, you haven't gone crazy yourself, along with the rest, have you?”
+
+“Nobody's crazy. People have simply woke up.”
+
+“I'll be eternally condemned if I--”
+
+“That's right! You will be if you don't button up your coat and go over
+to the hall along with that notification committee that's probably on
+the way, give the folks your best bow, and say you'll take the job.
+We're some little team when we get started.”
+
+“You're an infernal steer team, and you have dragged me into a mess of
+trouble,” declared Mr. Converse, with venom.
+
+“Glad you're in,” retorted the imperturbable Breed. “A man needs more or
+less trouble so as to round himself out; I've been having some troubles
+of my own. Whatever job you give me after you're elected, don't put me
+back with them stuffed animals. Harwood made his mistake right there!”
+
+“It has begun already, has it?” asked Converse, indignantly.
+“Office-seekers at it?”
+
+“Sure thing!” responded Mr. Breed, amiably. “When you cool down you'll
+remember that I got to you first with the good news.”
+
+Five minutes later the Honorable Archer Converse, muttering, but more
+calm, was marching toward the convention hall in the company of a proud
+committee of notification.
+
+He walked out upon the platform and waited for the wild tumult of
+greeting to subside, and while he waited he searched the assemblage with
+stern scrutiny to find the face of Walker Farr.
+
+But that young worker of miracles was not in evidence.
+
+He had risen with the others when the band began to blare the music
+which signaled the approach of the nominee.
+
+Once more he turned his gaze toward the girl in the gallery.
+
+There was nothing in his demeanor to suggest that he had been a victor.
+His face was white, and after his eyes had held hers for a long time
+he gave her a wistful little smile which expressed regret, sorrow,
+renunciation, rather than pride. She no longer wondered at the interest
+she felt in this man; she knew that she loved him. She was able to own
+that truth to herself, and to view it calmly because she had made her
+promise to Richard Dodd and was resolved to keep it. That determination
+made of this love a precious possession that she could put away for ever
+out of the sight of all the world. Such a poor, meager, little story of
+love it was! A few meetings--a hand-touch--a word or two.
+
+There in that packed forum had been their only real love-making. Over
+the heads of angry men they had told each other with their eyes. There
+was no misunderstanding on the part of either. Both knew the truth.
+
+And yet, after he had told her, this enigma of a man bowed his head and
+edged his way to the door, moving unobtrusively through the press of
+humanity, taking advantage of the confusion which marked the entrance of
+Archer Converse.
+
+Impulse goaded Kate Kilgour at that moment. She did not reason or
+reflect. Something in the air of this man told her that sorrow instead
+of triumph was dominating him; his whole demeanor had said “Farewell”
+ when he had turned from her. The instinct of the woman who loves and
+longs to comfort the object of that affection drove her out of the hall,
+and she followed him--ashamed, marveling at herself, searching her soul
+for words with which to excuse her madness, should he turn and behold
+her.
+
+But the autumn dusk was early and she was grateful because it shrouded
+her.
+
+Farr, leaving the din of the convention, going forth alone, looked more
+like the vanquished than the victor. He walked slowly, his head was
+lowered, and he turned off the Boulevard at once, seeking deserted
+streets which led him down toward the big mills.
+
+Their myriad lights shone from dusty windows, row upon row, and the
+staccato chatter of the looms sounded ceaselessly.
+
+Farr climbed the fence where old Etienne was everlastingly raking. The
+young man had not seen much of the old rack-tender for some weeks, and
+now he greeted Etienne rather curtly as he passed on his way to the
+tree. But Etienne seemed to understand.
+
+“Ah, I will not talk, m'sieu'. I will not bodder you. I hear how much
+you have work and run about, and you must be very tire.”
+
+There was a crackle of autumn chill in the air, but Farr took off his
+hat and sat down and leaned his head against the tree. He closed his
+eyes. One might have thought that he wished to sleep.
+
+When the rack-tender made his next turn toward the street he saw a woman
+at the fence, and as he peered she beckoned to him. He went close and
+saw it was the pretty lady to whom he had told the story of Rosemarie.
+She trembled as she clutched the top of the high fence, and when she
+spoke to him he understood that she was very near to tears.
+
+“Is there not some way--some gate by which I may come in?” she pleaded.
+
+“That is not allow, ma'm'selle. It is trespass.”
+
+“But I want to speak--to--tell him--We can talk over there beside the
+tree and will not be heard. It is to Mr. Farr I wish to speak. I saw
+him when he climbed the fence.” She hurried her appeal with pitiful
+eagerness.
+
+“Ah yes, I have one little gate for maself--for my frien'--for hees
+frien', ma'm'selle. I will break the rule. You shall come in.”
+
+She went softly and stood before Farr for some minutes before he opened
+his eyes.
+
+Then he looked up and saw her and he did not speak. He seemed to accept
+her presence as a natural matter. She was clasping her hands tightly to
+steady herself. His calm demeanor helped her.
+
+“I don't know why I came here,” she murmured.
+
+“I know. It's because you are sorry for me.”
+
+“But I followed you. I dared to do that. I don't know why. I haven't the
+words--I can't explain.”
+
+“I understand. You wondered why I came away from the convention. You
+want to ask me why.”
+
+“Yes, that's it. I am interested in the fight. I have left the office
+where so many bad things were planned.”
+
+“I know. It was good of you to warn me.”
+
+“And now I am afraid you are in trouble.”
+
+“I am.”
+
+“But you have many good friends now, sir.”
+
+“I fear they cannot help me. When I left that hall I tried to tell you
+with my eyes that I was going away.”
+
+“I--I think I understood,” she stammered. “It was wrong--it was
+folly--but I followed you without knowing why I did so.”
+
+“I am glad you did. I can say farewell to you here.”
+
+“But you must not go away, Mr. Farr. You are needed.”
+
+“I am going because I can best help the work in that way. If I stay here
+I may be the cause of great harm.”
+
+“I cannot understand.”
+
+“I do not want you to understand.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“It is a matter which concerns others besides myself.”
+
+“Does Mr. Converse know that you are going away?”
+
+“I shall tell him to-night before I leave town.”
+
+“He will not allow you to do.”
+
+“Yes--he will,” the young man returned, quietly.
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+“Coming here--following you--it was a mad thing for me to do,” said the
+girl, still striving to find explanation for her act. “But I have had so
+much trouble in my own life--I am sorry for others who are in trouble. I
+want to tell you that I am sorry.”
+
+“I understand,” he repeated.
+
+Another period of silence followed.
+
+“That is all,” said the girl. “I only wanted to tell you what a grand
+battle you won to-day--and then I saw your face there in the hall and
+I knew that you did not want praise--you wanted somebody to say to you,
+'I'm sorry.'” She dwelt upon the word which expressed her sympathy,
+putting all her heart into her voice. “And now I'll be going,” she said,
+“and I hope you understand and will forgive me.”
+
+Farr had been sitting with head against the trunk of the tree. When he
+had started to rise she requested him to remain seated. Now he stood up
+so quickly that she gasped. She was plainly still less at ease when he
+stood and came close to her.
+
+“Wait a moment. You think that I am a very strange sort of man, do you
+not?”
+
+She was silent.
+
+“You need not answer--it doesn't need answer. You naturally must think
+that. You met me when I was a vagrant. You have seen me selling ice from
+a cart-tail. But--I will be very frank, for this is a time which demands
+frankness--you have seen me in other circumstances which have been a
+bit more creditable. You do not know who I am or what to make of me. But
+with all your heart and soul you know that I love you,” he declared, his
+tones low and tense and thrilling. “That love has needed no words. It
+has been strange love-making. Wait! This isn't going to be what you
+think. If I were simply going to say I love you I would have said it to
+you long ago--I am not a coward--and I had seen the one mate of all the
+world; I knew it when I saw you in the dust of the long highway. And
+after you went on I picked a rose beside the way, and the ashes of that
+rose are in my pocket now. I called you the little sister of the rose
+and plodded along after you, playing with a dream. And I threw the rose
+away after I saw you in the woods with your lover--and understood. But I
+went back and hunted on my knees for your sister. I didn't intend to say
+any of this to you. For it is of no use.”
+
+“No; I am promised to Richard Dodd,” she sobbed.
+
+“If that was all that stood between us I'd reach now and take you in my
+arms,” he said, with bitterness.
+
+“It is more than a mere promise--he owns me--it was bargain and
+sale--it's sacrifice--for--But I must not tell you.” She went to the
+tree and put her forehead on her crossed arms and wept with a child's
+pitiful abandon. He came close and put tender hand upon her shoulder.
+
+“Sacrifice, little sister of the rose! Then there is another bond
+between us! Sacrifice! My God! the curse that is sometimes put upon the
+innocent!” He put the tip of his forefinger under her chin and lifted
+her face from her arms. “I haven't any right to tell you that I love
+you. I must march on. I cannot even explain to you why I cannot take you
+in my arms and plead for your love.”
+
+Her eyes told him what answer his pleading would win, and he trembled
+and stepped away from her.
+
+“Since it can never be,” she said, brokenly, “you may as well know
+that I--that I do--I couldn't help it. I am forward--I am bold--it
+is shameless--but I never loved anybody before.” She put out both her
+hands, and he took them.
+
+Old Etienne dragged doggedly at his work, his lantern lighting his toil.
+The looms clacked behind the dusty windows which splashed their radiance
+upon the gloom.
+
+“It is a bit strange that now another wonderful but bitter experience
+should come into my life on this spot where we are standing,” he told
+her. He spoke quietly, trying to calm her; striving to crowd back his
+own emotions. “I guess fate picked this spot as the right place for us
+to say farewell to each other. I stood here one day and saw old Etienne
+draw a dead woman to the surface of the water, and I found a letter in
+her breast and I took her key and went and found little Rosemarie.”
+
+She stared at him, her eyes very wide in the darkness.
+
+“And that dead woman--she was the mother of the little girl?”
+
+“Yes, a poor weaver that the mills had broken. And Rosemarie and I sat
+all night under this tree. It is too long a story for you now. No matter
+about that, but I--”
+
+“I know about Rosemarie,” she confessed.
+
+“And my heart opened and something new came into it, little sister of
+the rose. And now on this spot I stand, and all joy and hope and love
+are dead for me when I give back to you these dear little hands.”
+
+She was still staring at him.
+
+“But I must not--I dare not speak of it,” he proceeded. His grasp grew
+tense. “See how I am trying to be calm? I will not loose my grip on
+myself. Our doom was written for us by other hands, dear heart. When it
+was summer I walked here with Rosemarie and play-mamma. Now it is autumn
+and--”
+
+“Play-mamma!” she gasped.
+
+“Yes, a dear, good girl who worked hard in the mill and who was very
+good to our Rosemarie; I was making poor shifts at buying a little
+girl's clothes, and Zelie Dionne was wise in those matters and was busy
+with her needle.”
+
+“I hope you been excuse me,” broke in old Etienne. “I overheard the name
+of Zelie Dionne, but I don't mean to listen. I have some good news for
+you, M'sieu' Farr, what you don't hear because you ain't been on this
+place for long time. And it is not good news for you, ma'm'selle, for
+now you can't get acquaint with very nice Canadian girl. The big beau
+Jean have come down here from Tadousac and now he own nice farm and they
+will get marry and be very happy up in the habitant country.”
+
+“Thank God, there's some happiness in this world,” said Farr. “She is a
+good girl.”
+
+There was almost joy on Kate Kilgour's face when she looked up at Farr.
+
+Her god had been restored to his pedestal.
+
+“Farewell,” he said at the little gate through which she had stepped
+into the street.
+
+“No,” she cried as she turned and hurried away; “I'll not say it--not
+now!” And he wondered because there was joy in her tones.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE MASK OF CYNICISM
+
+Old Etienne came to the gate with his lantern; the big turbines were
+stilling their rumble and growl in the deep pits and his day's work was
+ended.
+
+“P'r'aps you may walk to Mother Maillet's with me and say the good word
+to Jean from Tadousac and to Zelie Dionne, who is now so very glad,”
+ suggested the old man, humbly. “The good priest he marry them very soon
+and they will go home.”
+
+“Yes, I will go, Etienne. I can say good-by there to you and to Miss
+Dionne.”
+
+“So you go visit some place, eh, after your hard work? That will be very
+good for you, M'sieu' Farr. You shall come back much rest up and then
+you will show the poor folks how you will help them some more.”
+
+“I shall not come back--I am going away to stay.”
+
+“But you promise under the big light at the _hotel de ville_--I hear you
+promise that you will stay,” protested the old man.
+
+“My work is finished.”
+
+“That is not so, M'sieu' Farr. For many men come to talk to me over the
+fence since I stand up in the big hall. They are wiser than such a fool
+as I am. They say that you have just begin to do great things for the
+poor folks. You shall take the water-pipes away from the men who have
+poison them. Ah, that is what they say. I do not understand, but they
+say it shall be so.”
+
+“Other men can do it,” said Farr, curtly.
+
+“And yet you will come back--when?” The old man was struggling with his
+bewilderment and doubt.
+
+“Never.”
+
+He understood how he was hurting that old man, but bitterness and
+hopelessness were crowding all tender feelings out of Farr at that
+moment. Once more he put on the mask of cynicism. He feared to show
+anybody the depths of his soul.
+
+In the good woman's little sitting-room they found Zelie Dionne.
+
+“I have stopped in to say good-by, Miss Zelie. I am going away. I'm
+sorry that the grand young man from Tadousac is not here.”
+
+“He comes to sit with me in the evening. You shall wait and see him.”
+
+“No, I must hurry on.”
+
+“I have been reading about you.” She tapped the newspaper in her hand.
+“The boy just passed, crying the news. It is very wonderful what you
+have done. Now you will be the great man. But I knew all the time that
+you were much more than you seemed to be.”
+
+“However, you don't seem to understand me just now,” he declared. “I am
+going away from this city--from this state. I am going to stay away.”
+
+“_Oui_, he have say that thing to me,” said old Etienne, brokenly. “And
+I do not understand.”
+
+“And _I_ do not understand.”
+
+“I'm tired--put it that way.”
+
+“Ah no, that is not it.”
+
+“Well, I am more or less of a sneak and a quitter when it comes to a
+pinch. I don't want you two good folks to feel sorry about me. Forget
+me. That will be the best way. I hope you will be very happy in
+Tadousac, Miss Zelie.”
+
+“I hoped we were better friends,” she said simply. “I am very sad to
+find you do not trust us.”
+
+“Oh, I'm selfish--that's it. Remember me as a selfish man who was tired
+and ran away.”
+
+“We have talked about you, Uncle Etienne and I, and we have never said
+that you are selfish.”
+
+“That shows you don't know me,” said Farr, roughly.
+
+“But we know what you have done,” insisted the old man, with patient
+confidence. “For what you say you shall not do we do not care about
+that. For we have seen what you have done--ah, we know about that and
+care about it very much. You are wiser than we are, and if you say you
+must go we can only look at you very sad and bow the head. I wish I had
+some language so to tell you how very sorry! But the Yankee words--I
+know not those which tell how sorry I shall be. It is not much I can do
+for the poor little childs--only whittle and save pennies for the fresh
+air.”
+
+Another man, another tone, might have put rebuke, indirectly, into those
+words. But old Etienne, rasping his hard palms nervously, was merely
+vowing himself to sacrifice because there was no one else left to do so.
+Farr understood and was softened.
+
+“And now I must go to the bed for my sleep, because the rack must be
+cleared before the wheel start to go roompy-roomp in the big pit asking
+for its water.” He was showing nervousness, haste, his voice trembled;
+he staggered when he lifted himself out of his chair.
+
+“You'd better say good-by to me now,” said Farr, rising with the old
+man. “It's a good night under the stars. I shall probably be far out on
+the road by daylight.”
+
+“Good-bye,” muttered old Etienne, fumbling his hat and bowing.
+
+“But aren't you going to say something else to me--say you're sorry to
+have me go?” demanded the young man. “We have been close together in
+some things we shall never forget.”
+
+“I have told you. I cannot say how sorry.” The old man's voice was
+little more than a husky whisper.
+
+“I like you, Uncle Etienne. I want you to know it. You are an old
+saint.” He put out his hand, but the rack-tender turned and hurried to
+the door. “Not take my hand?” cried Farr. “Am I as much of a traitor as
+all that?”
+
+“Oh, I cannot speak! I have no word,” wailed the old man from the gloom
+in the street. His voice rose in shrill, cracked tones. He began to weep
+aloud. He had been restraining his feelings with all the strength of his
+will since Farr had announced his intentions. His departure was flight.
+He began to run away down the sidewalk. “Saint Joseph, guard my tongue!”
+ he gasped over and over. “I'll go very fast so that I not say it, for I
+am only old Pickaroon, and he is fine gentlemans!” He continued to weep
+broken-heartedly.
+
+“Mr. Farr, he was afraid he would tell you how much he loved you--afraid
+that you would be insulted if he presumed to tell you of it.”
+
+“I don't think I just understand that,” commented Farr, staring into the
+night, peering to get another glimpse of Etienne.
+
+“I understand!” said the girl. “It would be too bad for you to go away
+and think that at parting he was not polite to you. I would not like to
+have you suppose that fault is in one from Tadousac. He has told me. If
+you will not follow him and frighten him by saying that you know it, I
+will tell you.”
+
+“I will not follow him. Probably I shall never see him again.”
+
+“It may be a bit hard for you to understand, for you do not know the
+French nature, perhaps. But since little Rosemarie went away for ever he
+has loved you. You made something more of him than the old rack-tender
+when you took him into partnership. When you made him your friend
+before all the big men at the City Hall something bloomed in him,
+m'sieu'--something that before had been only a withered bud! Ah, you
+think I am fanciful? Very well! I cannot think how to say it any other
+way. You are a token for him from little Rosemarie who has gone away;
+you are friend, you are son, you are in his eyes destined savior of
+these poor people.”
+
+“I am glad I am going away. I would hate to betray such childlike faith.
+Good-by, Miss Zelie!”
+
+He heard her call to him when he was in the street. He turned and
+halted and saw her slim, white figure at the gate, and he stepped back
+half-way.
+
+She was girlish sympathy incarnate, and his troubled, hungry,
+self-accusatory soul caught the radiation of that womanly solace.
+
+“It's not what you say to me you are,” she said, her breath coming fast,
+her tones low. “It's what I know you are! That you will be when at last
+you shall come to yourself. I do not care what you say. I shall not
+remember! To the world--to me--to poor Etienne, just now, you lied about
+yourself, M'sieu' Farr--about your real self. But you did not lie to
+a little girl when she asked you to show your true self to her. Of
+yourself--with little Rosemarie--that shall I remember!”
+
+“I thank you,” he said, gratefully.
+
+“Some day some woman will love you,” she continued. “And when you are
+sure that she does love you, then you will tell her your troubles and
+she will know what to say to make things right for you. For that is the
+mission of good women. They understand how to listen and how to help the
+men they love. You shall see!” She hurried into the house.
+
+Farr was promptly admitted when he presented himself at the door of
+Archer Converse's residence, and he was conducted to that gentleman's
+library, and came face to face with his patron, whom he found sitting
+very erect in a high-backed chair.
+
+“I have been waiting for you, sir,” said Converse.
+
+“I expected that you would be waiting, sir.”
+
+“Be seated.”
+
+“I will stand, if you please. I have only a few words to say.”
+
+“Then your nature must have changed very suddenly,” said the lawyer,
+dryly. “Or did you pump your reservoir dry of language when you put my
+name in nomination to-day?”
+
+Farr bowed without reply.
+
+“I hear that speech commended very highly. Among opportunists you
+deserve high rank, Mr. Farr. You have tipped a state upside down very
+effectively, and I am upside down along with the rest.”
+
+“I will stand here very patiently, sir, and take my punishment. As
+between ourselves, I had no right to do what I did to-day without
+consulting you. As regards conditions in the state, I had a right to
+seize that opportunity and give to the people a man who can be depended
+on. I did so. Go ahead, now, Mr. Converse!”
+
+To the young man's surprise, the nominee arose and came to him with
+hand outstretched. A smile broke through the grimness of the lawyer's
+countenance. “I have accepted a public trust with pride, I am obeying my
+plain duty with satisfaction, and I shall work to be elected with all my
+might. Otherwise I wouldn't be the son of my father. My boy, I have had
+a talk with Citizen Drew to-day. He told me about your idea of kicking
+honest men into politics. I want you to understand that I thank you
+heartily because you have kicked me in. I'm going to swim!”
+
+“'Then God's in His Heaven and the world's all right,'” declared Farr.
+
+The lawyer's quizzical and searching gaze was rather disquieting; the
+young man had found Converse eyeing him with peculiar interest during
+their meetings in the recent past. Now Converse bestowed particularly
+intent scrutiny on his caller.
+
+“I feel that I have done my work, sir,” Farr hastened to say, anxious
+to terminate this interview. “I am going away--out of the state. I shall
+not return.”
+
+Mr. Converse did not break out into protest. He eyed Farr more closely.
+Then he reached a button and turned on the full light of the chandelier.
+“You have a good reason for deserting just when you are most needed, I
+presume, sir?”
+
+“I have. It is a reason which especially concerns the success of the
+legislation which we have discussed. If I stay I shall hamper you.”
+
+“I will ask you to stand where you are for a few minutes, sir,” said the
+lawyer, commanding rather than requesting. He went to a cabinet and drew
+forth a package. He brought that packet to the table and began to sort
+photographs.
+
+He selected one, regarded it with careful gaze, and shifted his eyes to
+the young man's face.
+
+“Um!” he commented, with judicial tone. “Now--suppose you tell me--just
+how your continued presence in this state will hamper me”--he paused; he
+drawled the next words, emphasizing them--“Mr. Bristol!”
+
+Farr had begun nervous retreat when the lawyer had begun comparison of
+the living features with the photograph. It was plain that he feared
+rather than understood.
+
+“Hold on, there!” shouted the investigator. “You may as well stay and
+settle this matter, Bristol. You look at this picture! You recognize it,
+do you? If you are in any doubt I'll inform you that it's a picture of
+your father when he and I were in law-school together.”
+
+“I deny any relationship to that man.”
+
+“Your tone and your manner convict you, my boy. I jumped you with that
+name purposely. I am no fool when it comes to examining a witness. When
+I first laid eyes on you I thought I had seen you, yourself, somewhere,
+and I have been puzzling my brains. Then it occurred to me that I had
+known in my youth a fellow who looked like you. You're the son of your
+father, all right. Don't stultify yourself by lying to me. You are
+Morgan Bristol's boy! Hah?”
+
+“I am,” confessed the young man, with resignation.
+
+“What is your first name?”
+
+“Thornton.”
+
+“Sit down, Thornton!”
+
+The visitor obeyed.
+
+“What have you done that you're ashamed of, my boy?”
+
+“I cannot tell you,” said Bristol, firmly.
+
+“Oh, but you're going to,” insisted the lawyer, with just as
+much firmness. “You are now retaining me as your attorney and
+counsel--whether you know it or not. And when a man talks to his lawyer
+and tells the truth it's no betrayal of confidence. Out with it!”
+
+“There's nothing to be done, Mr. Converse.”
+
+“There's always something which can be done when a man is in trouble.
+You are Morgan Bristol's son. I was in school with your father. He went
+West and settled. Is he alive?”
+
+“I think so.”
+
+“How is it that you don't know?”
+
+Mr. Converse settled himself into the tone and pose of the
+cross-examiner.
+
+“I have been a vagrant, hiding myself in the highways and byways of this
+country, for a long time.”
+
+“What happened to drive you out like that?”
+
+“Right there, Mr. Converse, is where I must halt. It is a family matter.
+I cannot go into it.”
+
+“Look here, Thornton, you are in trouble. If you are in trouble, so is
+your father. He has lost a boy! You can tell me now what it's all about,
+or I'll drop my affairs and go and hunt up Morgan Bristol and ask him
+about it. You may just as well save me all that time and trouble. You're
+a lawyer, yourself--I know it.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you're a good one and know our code when it comes to secrets. I am
+not asking you to expose a family skeleton--I'm demanding that you treat
+me as your attorney and trust to my discretion. You are in trouble and
+need a helper, and, by gad! you have got to take me into this thing.”
+
+Thornton Bristol set his elbows on his knees and clutched his shaking
+fingers into his hair.
+
+“I have been meaning to keep it all to myself, sir,” he stammered.
+
+“Quite likely. You have done mighty well at it, I should judge. But you
+know that any man who acts as his own lawyer usually does a mighty poor
+job. He lacks perspective.”
+
+Bristol did not reply.
+
+“I have been studying you a little since I have known you,” the lawyer
+went on. “You are a very strange mixture, my boy. I much fear that in
+some things in this life you are too quixotic in your views. We had a
+case here in town--a man named Andrew Kilgour--”
+
+“I have heard about that man, sir.”
+
+“Thornton, from what glimpses I have had of your nature, I'm going to
+tell you here and now that you are covering somebody else's fault. You
+are no coward. You would face your own delinquency just as bravely as
+you came here and faced me to-night. Now, what did your father do?”
+
+“Speculated with trust funds of estates.”
+
+“Old story, eh? Too bad, Morgan. I liked you when you were young.”
+
+“But I want you to understand it,” cried the son. “It is hard for me to
+talk about it, sir, but it isn't exactly the old story. My father was
+too indulgent where I was concerned. He tried to do more for me than he
+could afford. He didn't tell me the truth about his affairs--I supposed
+he was a rich man. I always had everything that money could furnish.
+When he found that I was interested in the law he sent me to schools at
+home and abroad and ordered me to take my time and go to the bottom of
+all.”
+
+“Well, I reckon you did,” stated Converse. “If ever I saw a chap with
+the true legal mind you have it, polished and pointed. You came into
+this state and saw a solution for a problem which has blocked us for
+twenty-five years. It's good law! And we will have a legislature that
+will pass it. But when did you find out that your father had taken other
+folks' money?”
+
+“I came home and insisted on going to work in the office. Then he told
+me. The settlement was due and had been called for. He was obliged to
+tell me. And he tried to convince me that he had not taken the money for
+my sake. He was willing to appear in my eyes a thief without excuse. But
+I knew. I had selfishly accepted it all without thought--and only half
+grateful. Young men are thoughtless, sir.”
+
+“Your father seems to have been quixotic after his own fashion,
+Thornton. I think I remember some of his traits when he was in school.
+But as old Hard-Times Brewster used to say, 'We are all poor, queer
+critters and some be queerer than the others!' So you were a little
+queerer than your father, eh, and tried to square matters by a worse
+piece of folly?”
+
+“It may have been folly. Perhaps it was. But I did not stop to argue or
+reason. That money had been spent on me. I accepted the blame. I said
+nothing to my father. I wrote letters to the persons who had lost. I
+told them that I had taken the money as my father's agent--without his
+knowledge. I said I had deceived him as well as them. And then, so
+that I might not perjure myself on the witness-stand or have the truth
+gimleted out of me by lawyers, I put on rags and hid myself among the
+thousands who trudge the highways and ride the trusses of freight-cars.
+And no one has come to me and put heavy hand on my shoulder and said, 'I
+want you!' But some one will come if I remain here. I am going to hide
+myself again.”
+
+“I say it has all been a piece of folly,” insisted Converse. “Dear
+folly! Yes, almost noble folly! But it must end, my boy. I suppose
+your father is back there toiling to repay those men from whom he took
+money.”
+
+“I suppose so, Mr. Converse. But he has not been disgraced in the eyes
+of the public.”
+
+“There's where your noble folly has made its mistake. You have doubled
+his grief, Thornton. Just sit there a moment and ponder. You will
+understand what I mean.”
+
+“I have understood--I have pondered--but I have not had the courage to
+go back. At least, they could not say to him that his son was in prison.
+He has escaped that grief.”
+
+“And has endured a heavier one, my boy. I'm afraid you're a poor
+counselor in your own affairs.” He came across the room to Bristol and
+slapped the bowed shoulder. “Now you have found a better one. I have
+taken your case.”
+
+The young man looked up into the kindly features of his adviser and was
+only half convinced.
+
+“Don't you realize how easy it will be for you to make money from
+this time on? You don't? Well, let me tell you. As soon as you can be
+admitted to the bar in this state I'm going to make you my law partner.
+Hold on! I'm doing you no especial favor--I'm putting into my office a
+man who had the legal acumen to devise a plan to break the unholy clutch
+of plunderers who have had this state by the throat for a quarter of a
+century. I'm simply grabbing you before somebody else gets you. I expect
+to be governor of this state, and I want my law business looked after
+by a man who is able to keep up the reputation of the firm. But first of
+all, my boy, you and I are going back to your home. I think you'll find
+me a fairly good lawyer in straightening out tangles. I'll know just how
+to talk to those folks out there. And then you're coming back here with
+me and face this state as yourself and help me fight the legislation
+we want put through to enactment--and be damned to 'em!” He put his arm
+about the young man's shoulders and drew him to his feet. “It has been
+a hard day for you, my boy. There are some hard things ahead of you. You
+must go to bed. The morning will bring comfort and good counsel.”
+
+But when Bristol started toward the door Converse restrained him gently
+and led him toward the stairs which led up from the big vestibule.
+
+“You're home, my boy--right here--you're home here from this time on!
+This is your other home until your father needs you more than I do.
+I have been pretty lonely in this house for a good many years without
+realizing just what was the matter with me.”
+
+“After all, you have only my word for what I am and what I have done,”
+ expostulated Bristol.
+
+“Oh no, I have the evidence of my eyes and ears and my own common
+sense.”
+
+Bristol pressed the hand stretched forth to him.
+
+“I'm not going to talk to you any more to-night,” stated the host,
+when they were on the upper landing. “It will all seem different in the
+morning. It's going to be all right after this, Thornton. I'm sorry I
+haven't a wife. A woman understands how to listen to troubles better
+than a man. Is your mother alive?”
+
+“No, Mr. Converse.”
+
+“I might have known that. You would not have allowed a mother to
+suffer--your folly would never have gone so far. You would have been
+home long before this. Ah, well, my boy, some woman will know how to
+comfort you some day for all you have endured. Good night!”
+
+The young man knew that Zelie Dionne had been right in what she said; he
+did not require the added opinion of the state's most eminent lawyer.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+THE DEBT
+
+Colonel Symonds Dodd sat at his desk in the First National block and
+clutched helplessly at the dragging ends of events. He failed to get
+firm hold on anything and irefully informed Judge Warren that the whole
+situation was a “damnation nightmare.”
+
+“Well,” affirmed the judge, who had been pricked in his legal pride
+by his master's tongue, “the Consolidated has eaten some pretty hearty
+meals. It's no wonder it is having bad dreams right now.”
+
+“You're squatting down like an old rooster in a dust-heap,” raged
+the colonel, too angry to be choice in his language. “You, a
+twenty-five-thousand-dollar lawyer, come in here to me and say that you
+can't block the confiscatory scheme of a bounder--a nobody--a black-leg
+stranger in this state!”
+
+“I'll carry on the fight if you order me to do so,” said the corporation
+lawyer. “That's my business. We can lobby in the next legislature. We
+can fight the laws that Archer Converse's legislature is bound to
+pass, for they're after us, Colonel Dodd. We can carry the thing to
+the highest tribunal--and then we can fight the appraisals on every
+water-plant in the state, but--”
+
+“Well, but what?”
+
+“One by one they'll pry loose every finger we have got hooked on to our
+proposition. I have submitted that water-district plan to the acid test,
+Colonel. It was my duty to do it. A lawyer must keep cool while his
+bosses curse and disparage. I have the opinions of the law departments
+of three leading colleges on the scheme. They all say that such a
+plan, if properly safeguarded by constitutional law, will get by every
+blockade we can erect. Now if you want to spend money I'll help you
+spend all you care to appropriate,” concluded the judge, grimly.
+
+“We'll fight,” was the dictum of the master.
+
+“Then I take it that you have definitely decided to give up your
+political control, Colonel! A certain amount of popularity is needed to
+cinch any man in politics. You're going to be the most unpopular man in
+this state if you start in to fight every town and city simply for the
+purpose of piling up costs and clubbing them away from their own as long
+as you have the muscle to do it.”
+
+“I don't care about politics--politics has gone to the devil in this
+state already. They'll get tired of chasing fox-fires through a swamp
+following after such lah-de-dahs as Arch Converse, and will come back
+and be good. I'll wait for 'em to come back. But in the mean time I'm
+going to have the courts say whether our property can be confiscated.
+I'll take a few pelts while they're trying it on!”
+
+Judge Warren bowed stiffly and retired from the interview.
+
+Day after day passed and Colonel Dodd was more than ever convinced that
+the nightmare was continuing. Politicians agreed with him--all of them
+with amazement, many of them with wrath.
+
+Because the Honorable Archer Converse and the man who had called himself
+Walker Farr had dropped completely out of sight, leaving no explanation
+of any sort.
+
+“They didn't even tell _me_,” confessed Daniel Breed, “and I'm their
+chief fugler, and here's the November election right plunk on top of
+us--and even the Apostle Paul would have to do at least four weeks of
+spry campaigning in this state to be sure of being elected if a state
+committee was getting ready to lay down on him like ours seems to be
+doing. I'm jogafferbasted. I can't express myself no other way.”
+
+Mr. Breed, in moments of especial anxiety and despondency when he
+reviewed the situation, darkly hinted that the grand jury ought to look
+into the thing. The Consolidated had done about everything up to date
+except assassinate and abduct, he averred, and everybody knew Colonel
+Dodd's present state of mind.
+
+However, Colonel Dodd did receive Miss Kate Kilgour politely when she
+came to him; he had always held her in estimation next to the bouquets
+in his office.
+
+“I have come to you,” she explained, “because I could not get the
+information anywhere else. I have tried. I do not want to bother you,
+sir.”
+
+The girl was pitifully broken, her voice trembled.
+
+“Well, well, what is it?” he demanded, impatiently, and yet with a touch
+of kindly tolerance. “You needn't be afraid of me even if you did leave
+me in hop-and-jump style, Miss Kilgour.”
+
+“Where is your nephew, Richard?”
+
+And then, in spite of his assuring statement, Miss Kilgour _was_ afraid
+of him.
+
+His square face was suffused with red, he thwacked his fist on his
+desk and leaped out of his chair and stamped away from her, cursing
+viciously.
+
+“Who sent you here to ask me that question?” he shouted, advancing on
+her from the window.
+
+“It's my own business--I came on my own account,” she stammered.
+
+“How comes it to be your business, miss?”
+
+“I gave him my promise to marry him.”
+
+“If you did you made a devil of a mistake; I can tell you that, young
+woman!”
+
+“I realize it, Colonel Dodd. I want to know where he is. I want to take
+back that promise.”
+
+He controlled himself and stared at her. “Take my advice and consider
+your contract with Richard Dodd annulled--for good and sufficient
+reasons, Miss Kilgour. I don't want to say any more. I can't say any
+more. This thing touches me on a sore spot. Don't be afraid. I'm not
+angry at you. But just forget that fellow and go on about your own
+business.”
+
+“I will do so, Colonel Dodd, after I have settled certain business with
+him.”
+
+“What business?”
+
+“I cannot tell you.”
+
+“You'll have to tell me,” he insisted, roughly. “I'm now engaged in
+looking into my nephew's affairs. I want all the information I can get.”
+
+“I can only ask you--implore you to tell me where he is.”
+
+“I'd like to know, myself,” he retorted, bluntly. “I'd give considerable
+to know. You needn't look at me as if you think I'm lying! Now you may
+as well be frank with me, Miss Kilgour. I'm going to be frank with you.
+I have always found you to be a young woman of prudence and caution.
+I'll take a chance and tell you something which I have been keeping
+to myself. I want you to know why you needn't feel bound to keep any
+promise you have made to my nephew. He has played a despicable trick on
+me, his own uncle, after all the help I have given him. He practically
+stole five thousand dollars from me and has run away, and I don't know
+where he is. Now, what have you to tell me?”
+
+“I want to put this in his hands, sir.” She produced a packet, at which
+the colonel peered with curiosity. “You will certainly find out where he
+is. I want you to give it to him.”
+
+“Oh, love-letters, eh?”
+
+“No, sir!”
+
+With shaking fingers she untied the cord and displayed the contents. The
+packet was money, many bills stacked neatly, and the size of the bundle
+made the colonel open his eyes very wide.
+
+“We--I--we owe it to him, sir. There are five thousand dollars here.”
+
+“So that's what he did with my money, eh? Well, I'll take it.”
+
+“I don't think it is your money, Colonel Dodd. I have good reason to
+feel sure that it is not. I have not seen your nephew since the day
+of the convention, and then only at a distance. And this money--it was
+borrowed a long time ago.”
+
+“Borrowed by whom--by you?”
+
+“No, sir. I cannot tell you the circumstances. I simply want you to give
+it back to him. I shall feel that I am released from my obligation.”
+
+“Look here, my dear young woman,” said the colonel, with all his
+masterful firmness, “there are going to be no more riddles here. You
+must tell me the truth. I must have it--hear? Otherwise I shall take
+steps to make you tell--and that may not be as confidential as a chat
+here with me. I propose to know about my nephew's affairs, I inform you
+once again!”
+
+“My mother borrowed this money from him. She was in trouble. He helped
+her.”
+
+“Your mother needs a guardian. I beg your pardon! But I thought she had
+had her lesson once before in her life. So my nephew loaned money to
+your mother! Where did he get that money?”
+
+“I do not--”
+
+“Hold on! Wait before you say that, Miss Kilgour. I'll not endure
+falsehoods from anybody just now. I have been lied to too much lately.
+This is a matter of my own nephew. I command you to tell me the truth.”
+
+She hesitated a long time, her countenance expressing her agony. “I
+haven't any right to betray him, sir.”
+
+“He did not get five thousand dollars by any honest means. The
+reputation of the family is in jeopardy just now, Miss Kilgour. I want
+to protect it for my own sake. He confessed to you, didn't he?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I can better understand your sense of obligation now. When a man
+commits a crime for a woman she gets some fool notions into her head
+about standing by him. I know my nephew's extravagances, Miss Kilgour.
+He had to steal to get five thousand dollars for your mother. There is
+just one handy place where he could steal. He took that money from the
+state treasury. He has told you so. Am I not right?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Colonel Dodd turned his back on her and looked up at his bouquets.
+
+Perspiration streaked his thick neck. His jowls trembled. She pitied
+this man, even in her own tribulation. She had never seen him moved
+before.
+
+“How did you get this money, Miss Kilgour?” he asked, after a time, his
+voice very low.
+
+“Must I tell you?”
+
+“Certainly. We are going to the bottom of this thing.”
+
+“I received a little legacy from my aunt a few years ago--I had put it
+away in the bank. I had saved some money from the wages I got here.
+My mother--I am sorry to say that she has been vain and extravagant,
+sir--she had wasted money on jewels and dress, and now she has sold
+everything. We have disposed of all our furniture and have gone to board
+in a very cheap place. I have been able to make out the amount of the
+debt. Here it is!” She placed it on his desk beside the flabby hand
+which lay there.
+
+He did not speak for a long time. “I am sorry for you,” he said at last.
+“This is a wicked thing. But I know better than to tell you to keep this
+money.”
+
+“Thank you,” she said, quietly. “I know you understand!”
+
+“I will put it in the place where it belongs. That's all!”
+
+And when he kept his broad back to her she went out of the office, her
+feet making no sound on the thick carpet.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+ALL THE WORLD OUTSIDE
+
+A good lawyer can accomplish much when men are willing to listen to
+reason and to accept the proffer of reparation!
+
+“All going to show,” declared the Honorable Archer Converse to his
+young protege, after they had parted at last from Morgan Bristol in the
+Western city, “that a thistle doesn't hurt much, after all, if you grab
+it with all your might and vim. We have found honest gentlemen here,
+thank God! It has been made plain to me, my boy, that they all knew you
+better than you knew yourself and that's why they waited so patiently.
+But, oh, that folly of yours!” However, he patted Thornton Bristol's
+shoulder when he said it. “It's a good thing for a young man to have a
+healthy debt when he starts out--a debt that's a joy to pay. Just look
+on it as an incentive, boy! You simply mortgaged your future!”
+
+“I am glad that I have been called on to pay for what I wasted,”
+ declared Bristol. “And I am not sorry, Mr. Converse, that my folly led
+me out into the byways of this world. I'll know how to appreciate the
+rest of life more highly.”
+
+“Needs a hot fire to make good steel--that's so,” agreed his mentor.
+“And speaking of fire--I reckon we're going to find it almighty hot when
+we get back to the place where we're expected. Now that we're leaving
+affairs all serene behind us, you must let me do a little careful
+thinking about how to meet the situation that's ahead of us.”
+
+Archer Converse reappeared in his home city as unobtrusively as he had
+left it and he held the polished shield of his urbane reserve over any
+vulnerable points which darts of questions might attack.
+
+Mr. Breed, assuring himself that he had certain personal rights in
+the matter, came with a veritable lance of interrogation, and thrust
+tirelessly.
+
+“It is the custom when a man has been nominated never to close an eye
+or leave the job for a minute. You have broke over all rules and I have
+been doing my best to fix up a story to account for it,” stated Mr.
+Breed.
+
+“Thank you,” returned Mr. Converse. “No doubt you have done a very good
+job.”
+
+“I done the best I could without knowing what I was talking about.”
+
+“And the general comment--the run of talk was--what?”
+
+“General talk was that you didn't seem to be worrying much about the
+election.”
+
+Mr. Converse turned a benignant smile on his new law partner.
+
+“It's generally conceded, then, that I feel sure of being elected?”
+
+“Why, they think you wouldn't have skyhooted off unless you were
+confident.”
+
+“Exactly! That attitude of mine takes care of the band-wagon crowd. They
+have climbed aboard, I'm told.”
+
+“Yes,” admitted Mr. Breed. “But the state committee has taken advantage
+and has laid down on ye!”
+
+“Breed, you run along and tell the chairman of that committee--from
+me--that unless he gets busy with his crowd in every county of this
+state inside of twenty-four hours I'll come out with a public statement
+that I have been forced to run my own campaign in behalf of the people.
+You don't think there'd be any doubt about my election after that
+statement, do you?”
+
+“Not a bit,” confessed Mr. Breed. “You're more of a politician than I
+had any idea of. Excuse me for any other kind of remarks. I'll go shoot
+a little hot lead in that chairman's left ear.”
+
+“Ordinary intelligence and common honesty,” commented the Honorable
+Archer Converse when Mr. Breed had departed. “They are such new elements
+in running politics in this state that they seem to the crowd to be a
+brand-new variety of political astuteness, Thornton! I'm not going to
+be quite as frank and honest in some other statements I'm about to
+make, under the circumstances. I don't believe my conscience is going to
+trouble me a bit. We'll go over, if you please, and have a word or two
+with Colonel Symonds Dodd.”
+
+Mr. Converse's secretary prefaced that call by a telephoned request for
+an appointment, and therefore Mr. Peter Briggs led them directly into
+the presence of the colonel.
+
+“This is my friend and law partner, Mr. Thornton Bristol,” said
+Converse, apparently and blandly unconscious that he was tossing at the
+magnate something much in the nature of a bomb.
+
+Colonel Dodd came forward in his chair, his hands clutching the carved
+mahogany of the desk in front of him.
+
+“Oh, I beg your pardon, Colonel,” purred Mr. Converse, amiably. “I
+forget that you are not as familiar with Mr. Bristol's identity as I am.
+You have known him merely as a stranger who has called himself Walker
+Farr.”
+
+“Yes, and he has registered himself on the voting-lists as Walker Farr,”
+ blustered Colonel Dodd. “Mr. Converse, something will drop in your camp
+before long--and it won't be rose-leaves!”
+
+Mr. Converse fixed a penetrating gaze on the angry man.
+
+“Colonel,” he said, with meaning, “you are probably well aware that in
+politics many things are done for a certain purpose--and many of those
+things are a bit off color so far as the strict law is concerned. If you
+particularly care about digging up the past of politics in this state I
+will come with my own little shovel and assist with great pleasure.”
+
+“You're making an ass of me with this peek-a-boo business.”
+
+“Mr. Bristol,” continued the nominee, with composure, “after long study
+abroad and at home has devoted himself enthusiastically to study in
+sociology and economics, and has preferred to gain his knowledge about
+conditions by first-hand observation. He came into this state in pursuit
+of his object, and by force of circumstances was drawn into our state
+upheaval.”
+
+“Much more deeply than I intended to be drawn, Colonel Dodd,” stated the
+young man, with dignity. “I think you will remember that I said as much
+to you in an interview we had. I called myself a Voice, if you will
+recollect, and humbly begged you to attend to certain reforms. Your
+refusal, and the manner with which you refused, rather forced me into
+your affairs.”
+
+“And I give you warning right here and now,” blustered the colonel,
+“that I'm going to force myself into _your_ affairs. I'm going to have
+you investigated from puppyhood to the present, Mr. Whatever-your-name
+is.”
+
+“We may as well issue general warnings--all of us,” said Mr. Converse.
+“I have prepared a statement for the newspapers regarding my friend, Mr.
+Bristol, and he will add a statement of his own relative to his project
+in regard to water districts. If you care to malign Mr. Bristol on the
+heels of that, Colonel, you may go ahead. But if you choose weapons of
+that sort in the conduct of this campaign we shall be forced to use
+a few cudgels of our own--for instance, we might be able to give the
+people considerable information as to how the state departments have
+been managed under your general direction. The funds of the state
+treasury--”
+
+Converse was about to mention the matter of the usufruct of the state's
+money deposited in the colonel's banks for the benefit of the syndicate.
+
+Colonel Dodd pulled himself out of his chair and exhibited instant and
+alarmed confusion. “We'd better make it a gentlemen's campaign,” he
+broke in.
+
+“Very well,” agreed Mr. Converse, politely. “And now that we are
+proceeding toward such an amicable understanding, will you allow me to
+express the hope that the Consolidated will meet us half-way in regard
+to the legislation that is inevitable? I have no desire to use any of my
+powers as the governor of this state to embarrass your interests; let
+us trust that we can get to a prompt adjustment in the matter of the
+water-plants. As a lawyer of some experience, I have to inform you,
+Colonel Dodd, that the cities and towns of this state are going to own
+their own systems. The city of Marion proposes to fight the first test
+case through. You are a heavy taxpayer--I trust you will not help to run
+your city into debt which is needless.”
+
+“I will confer with you,” admitted the colonel, his manner subdued.
+
+“I will ask you to confer with Mr. Bristol, my partner. He will
+have full charge of the litigation. I am assured that the next city
+government meeting will attend to the matter of choosing him as counsel,
+with a suitable retaining fee,” said Mr. Converse, with pride. “I will
+appreciate it personally and as chief executive if your interests will
+favor the matter. It will be better all around.”
+
+Colonel Dodd did not reply. But there was much significance in his bow
+as they retired.
+
+“I trust I did not intimate that I was employing any sort of threats,”
+ said Mr. Converse, when he and Bristol were on their way down-stairs.
+
+“I think he understood, sir.”
+
+“His suggestion that we have a gentlemen's campaign was very
+significant, coming from Colonel Symonds Dodd. The outlook is very
+hopeful,” stated the nominee. “We'll see the state committee
+chairman to-morrow, Thornton. I feel quite sure that he will
+have our speechmaking routes laid out. Mr. Breed is very
+convincing--sometimes--when he discusses the political situation.”
+
+When they were at the foot of the steps of the Mellicite Club, the young
+man begged permission to go about some affairs of his own.
+
+“But your own affairs must wait, my boy,” insisted Converse. “The party
+claims you from now on.”
+
+“I will do my duty, sir,” said Bristol, smiling; “but this evening I
+must have for myself.”
+
+“I have invited some gentlemen to dine with us. It's an important
+conference.”
+
+“The conference I hope to have, Mr. Converse, will be the most important
+one of my life.”
+
+The lawyer blinked, trying to understand.
+
+“I will tell you to-morrow--I trust it will be the happiest news I ever
+told to any person--I will tell you first.” He hesitated. “You have
+always given me good advice, sir. One night you told me that only a
+woman can listen with perfect sympathy and comfort a man's troubles
+surely.”
+
+Converse came close, put his hands on the young man's shoulders and
+studied him with intent regard. “My boy,” he said, “go along--and God go
+with you!”
+
+Bristol tore his hand from the lawyer's clasp and hurried away.
+
+But at the Trelawny he did not find the Kilgours' name on the directory
+board. The elevator man, the janitor, the manager, told him the
+same story with the same indifference. The Kilgours had sold their
+possessions and had removed--they had left no address.
+
+Bristol walked the streets and cursed the stilted folly that had made
+his farewell to her a parting in which he had pledged nothing, had
+promised nothing, had left no hopes for the future. He was not consoled
+by the thought that his farewell to her had been for her own sake, as
+he had viewed his situation. In the depths of his despair, when he
+had released her hand at the little gate, he had grimly sacrificed
+himself--had resolved to save her from himself by final and complete
+separation.
+
+And thinking of that parting at the little gate, hardly realizing where
+his wanderings led him, he went down to the great mills which were dark
+and silent under the shadows of the evening.
+
+Old Etienne had brought a lamp from Mother Maillet's kitchen and had
+set it on the stoop. He was whittling, and a little boy snuggled close,
+fixing intent regard on the work.
+
+The evening was bland after a balmy day of Indian summer.
+
+Bristol stopped at the fence and called greeting.
+
+The old man peered anxiously, shielding his eyes from the light of the
+lamp.
+
+“M'sieu'! M'sieu'!” He stammered, brokenly, gasping as he spoke the
+words. His wrinkled face worked as if he were trying to keep back the
+tears. His voice choked.
+
+“You are surprised to see me back here, Etienne--is that it?”
+
+“I am not surprised, m'sieu'. I knew you would come back. I am
+glad--that's why the tear come up in my eye. I cannot help that.”
+
+“You are working late, Uncle Etienne.”
+
+“_Oui_, the odders are gone home. But this leetle boy--I take care till
+his modder come from the shop. But you shall come in here, m'sieu'.”
+
+“I cannot stop, Etienne. I am--” He could not finish the sentence. He
+turned to go.
+
+“I say you shall come in. You must come queeck!” The old man spoke in
+a shrill whisper. He put aside his knife and stick and hurried to the
+fence. He reached and caught Bristol's sleeve. “Ba gar!” he declared,
+with as much impatience as anybody had ever heard in the tone of Etienne
+Provancher, “even the poor habitant boy in the Tadousac country know
+better how to love the nice girl as what you do, M'sieu' Farr.”
+
+“My name is not Farr; it is--”
+
+“I don't care what your name be,” snapped the old man. “Tell me that
+some odder time. It's what _you_ be--that's what I care! And you don't
+be good to nice girl.”
+
+“I don't understand.”
+
+“You go back there and rap on Modder Maillet's front door and then you
+understand! I'm only poor mans, m'sieu', but I shall talk to you like I
+spoke to the mans in the _hotel de ville_--and I shall not be scare when
+I am right.”
+
+“Look here, Etienne! What do you mean?”
+
+“_La belle_ ma'm'selle--ba gar! you have to be hit with brick bang--dat
+fine, pretty lady--she what tell me the good word to say to you about
+the bad folks--you must know she leeve now in the good woman's house.”
+
+Now it was Bristol's turn to grasp Etienne's arm. He shook the old man.
+
+“Miss Kilgour--here? Speak up! Don't be so slow!”
+
+“I have speak up. Odderwise you go off and be a big fool some more,”
+ retorted the rack-tender, boldly. “She's in there. She come here to live
+because somet'ing has made her very poor--and very sad. And her modder
+she cry all the time. And _la belle_ ma'm'selle she come to the big tree
+and she ask me many things--”
+
+While the old man chattered Bristol was yanking impatiently at the catch
+of the gate. He could not find the latch in the dark and so he kicked
+off a few more pickets from Mother Maillet's much-abused fence. He
+crawled through and bumped against old Etienne, thrusting him from the
+path, checking the flow of information.
+
+The young man leaped up the steps, to the plain dismay of the little
+boy, and beat upon the door.
+
+“It is I, Kate!” he called. “I have come back.”
+
+When she opened the door--half timorous, half eager, wholly beside
+herself--he took her in his arms and kissed her, paying no heed to the
+goggling eyes of childhood or the averted gaze of old age.
+
+“But you left no word for me. Did you believe me when I said I would not
+come back?”
+
+“I knew you would come back,” she sobbed. “So I came here. I knew you
+would find me here.”
+
+Etienne drew near apologetically and picked up the little boy.
+
+“Oh, my own girl, I have so much to tell you!” the lover murmured. “I
+know you will listen.”
+
+“We have so much to tell each other,” she said, her hands against his
+cheeks.
+
+The old man puffed out the lamp and set it to one side and tiptoed away,
+the child in his arms.
+
+“You ke'p your head under my coat--just so,” he commanded the struggling
+and inquisitive youngster. “Your modder would not like to have you
+breath in so much night air. We go find her!”
+
+He heard the murmur of eager voices behind him, and then the door of
+Mother Maillet's house was shut softly--and that left all the world
+outside.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Landloper, by Holman Day
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