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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8740-0.txt b/8740-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f57c4c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/8740-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5685 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Arena, by Booth Tarkington + +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: In the Arena + Stories of Political Life + +Author: Booth Tarkington + + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8740] +This file was first posted on August 6, 2003 +Last Updated: March 3, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + + + + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +IN THE ARENA + +Stories of Political Life + +By Booth Tarkington + + + +TO MY FATHER + +[Illustration: THE CONVERSION OF THE SENATOR FROM STACKPOLE] + + + +CONTENTS + +PART I + + Boss Gorgett + The Aliens + The Need of Money + Hector + +PART II + + Mrs. Protheroe + Great Men's Sons + + + + +“IN THE FIRST PLACE” + + +The old-timer, a lean, retired pantaloon, sitting with loosely +slippered feet close to the fire, thus gave of his wisdom to the +questioning student: + +“Looking back upon it all, what we most need in politics is more good +men. Thousands of good men _are_ in; and they need the others who +are not in. More would come if they knew how _much_ they are +needed. The dilettantes of the clubs who have so easily abused me, for +instance, all my life, for being a ward-worker, these and those other +reformers who write papers about national corruption when they don't +know how their own wards are swung, probably aren't so useful as they +might be. The exquisite who says that politics is 'too dirty a +business for a gentleman to meddle with' is like the woman who lived +in the parlour and complained that the rest of her family kept the +other rooms so dirty that she never went into them. + +“There are many thousands of young men belonging to what is for some +reason called the 'best class,' who would like to be 'in politics' if +they could begin high enough up--as ambassadors, for instance. That +is, they would like the country to do something for them, though they +wouldn't put it that way. A young man of this sort doesn't know how +much he'd miss if his wishes were gratified. For my part, I'd hate not +to have begun at the beginning of the game. + +“I speak of it as a game,” the old gentleman went on, “and in some +ways it is. That's where the fun of it comes in. Yet, there are times +when it looks to me more like a series of combats, hand-to-hand fights +for life, and fierce struggles between men and strange powers. You buy +your newspaper and that's your ticket to the amphitheatre. But the +distance is hazy and far; there are clouds of dust and you can't see +clearly. To make out just what is going on you ought to get down in +the arena yourself. Once you're in it, the view you'll have and the +fighting that will come your way will more than repay you. Still, I +don't think we ought to go in with the idea of being repaid. + +“It seems an odd thing to me that so many men feel they haven't any +time for politics; can't put in even a little, trying to see how their +cities (let alone their states and the country) are run. When we have +a war, look at the millions of volunteers that lay down everything and +answer the call of the country. Well, in politics, the country needs +_all_ the men who have any patriotism--_not_ to be seeking +office, but to watch and to understand what is going on. It doesn't +take a great deal of time; you can attend to your business and do that +much, too. When wrong things are going on and all the good men +understand them, that is all that is needed. The wrong things stop +going on.” + + + + +PART I + + + + +BOSS GORGETT + + +I guess I've been what you might call kind of an assistant boss pretty +much all my life; at least, ever since I could vote; and I was +something of a ward-heeler even before that. I don't suppose there's +any way a man of my disposition could have put in his time to less +advantage and greater cost to himself. I've never got a thing by it, +all these years, not a job, not a penny--nothing but injury to my +business and trouble with my wife. _She_ begins going for me, +first of every campaign. + +Yet I just can't seem to keep out of it. It takes a hold on a man that +I never could get away from; and when I reach my second childhood and +the boys have turned me out, I reckon I'll potter along trying to look +knowing and secretive, like the rest of the has-beens, letting on as +if I still had a place inside. Lord, if I'd put in the energy at my +business that I've frittered away on small politics! But what's the +use thinking about it? + +Plenty of men go to pot horse-racing and stock gambling; and I guess +this has just been my way of working off some of my nature in another +fashion. There's a good many like me, too; not out for office or +contracts, nor anything that you can put your finger on in +particular--nothing except the _game_. Of course, it's a +pleasure, knowing you've got more influence than some, but I believe +the most you ever get out of it is in being able to help your friends, +to get a man you like a job, or a good contract, something he wants, +when he needs it. + +I tell you _then's_ when you feel satisfied, and your time don't +seem to have been so much thrown away. You go and buy a higher-priced +cigar than you can afford, and sit and smoke it with your feet out in +the sunshine on your porch railing, and watch your neighbour's +children playing in their yard; and they look mighty nice to you; and +you feel kind, and as if everybody else was. + +But that wasn't the way I felt when I helped to hand over to a +reformer the nomination for mayor; then it was just selfish +desperation and nothing else. We had to do it. You see, it was this +way: the other side had had the city for four terms, and, naturally, +they'd earned the name of being rotten by that time. Big Lafe Gorgett +was their best. “Boss Gorgett,” of course our papers called him when +they went for him, which was all the time; and pretty considerable of +a man he was, too. Most people that knew him liked Lafe. I did. But he +got a bad name, as they say, by the end of his fourth term as +Mayor--and who wouldn't? Of course, the cry went up all round that he +and his crowd were making a fat thing out of it, which wasn't so much +the case as that Lafe had got to depending on humouring the gamblers +and the brewers for campaign funds and so forth. In fact, he had the +reputation of running a disorderly town, and the truth is, it +_was_ too wide open. + +But _we_ hadn't been much better when we'd had it, before Lafe +beat us and got in; and everybody remembered that. The “respectable +element” wouldn't come over to us strong enough for anybody we could +pick of our own crowd; and so, after trying it on four times, we +started in to play it another way, and nominated Farwell Knowles, who +was already running on an independent ticket, got out by the reform +and purity people. That is: we made him a fusion candidate, hoping to +find some way to control him later. We'd never have done it if we +hadn't thought it was our only hope. Gorgett was too strong, and he +handled the darkeys better than any man I ever knew. He had an +organization for it which we couldn't break; and the coloured voters +really held the balance of power with us, you know, as they do so many +other places near the same size, They were getting pretty well on to +it, too, and cost more every election. Our best chance seemed to be in +so satisfying the “law-and-order” people that they'd do something to +counterbalance this vote--which they never did. + +Well, sir, it was a mighty curious campaign. There never really was a +day when we could tell where we stood, for certain. As anybody knows, +the “better element” can't be depended on. There's too many of 'em +forget to vote, and if the weather isn't just right they won't go to +the polls. Some of 'em won't go anyway--act as if they looked down on +politics; say it's only helping one boodler against another. So your +true aristocrat won't vote for either. The real truth is, he don't +_care_. Don't care as much about the management of his city, +State, and country as about the way his club is run. Or he's ignorant +about the whole business, and what between ignorance and indifference +the worse and smarter of the two rings gets in again and old Mr. +Aristocrat gets soaked some more on his sewer assessments. _Then_ +he'll holler like a stabbed hand-organ; but he'll keep on talking +about politics being too low a business for a gentleman to mix in, +just the same! + +Somebody said a pessimist is a man who has a choice of two evils, and +takes both. There's your man that don't vote. + +And the best-dressed wards are the ones that fool us oftenest. We're +always thinking they'll do something, and they don't. But we thought, +when we took Farwell Knowles, that we had 'em at last. Fact is, they +did seem stirred up, too. They called it a “moral victory” when we +were forced to nominate Knowles to have any chance of beating +Gorgett. That was because it was _their_ victory. + +Farwell Knowles was a young man, about thirty-two, an editorial writer +on the _Herald_, an independent paper. I'd known him all his +life, and his wife--too, a mighty sweet-looking lady she was. I'd +always thought Farwell was kind of a dreamer, and too excitable; he +was always reading papers to literary clubs, and on the speech-making +side he wasn't so bad--he liked it; but he hadn't seemed to me to know +any more about politics and people than a royal family would. He was +always talking about life and writing about corruption, when, all the +time, so it struck me, it was only books he was really interested in; +and he saw things along book lines. Of course he was a tin god, +politically. + +He was for “stern virtue” only, and everlastingly lashed compromise +and temporizing; called politicians all the elegant hard names there +are, in every one of his editorials, especially Lafe Gorgett, whom +he'd never seen. He made mighty free with Lafe, referred to him +habitually as “Boodler Gorgett”, and never let up on him from one +year's end to another. + +I was against our adopting him, not only for our own sakes--because I +knew he'd be a hard man to handle--but for Farwell's too. I'd been a +friend of his father's, and I liked his wife--everybody liked his +wife. But the boys overruled me, and I had to turn in and give it to +him. + +Not without a lot of misgivings, you can be sure. I had one little +experience with him right at the start that made me uneasy and got me +to thinking he was what you might call too literary, or theatrical, or +something, and that he was more interested in being things than doing +them. I'd been aware, ever since he got back from Harvard, that +_I_ was one of his literary interests, so to speak. He had a way +of talking to me in a _quizzical_, condescending style, in the +belief that he was drawing me out, the way you talk to some old +book-peddler in your office when you've got nothing to do for a while; +and it was easy to see he regarded me as a “character” and thought he +was studying me. Besides, he felt it his duty to study the wickedness +of politics in a Parkhurstian fashion, and I was one of the lost. + +One day, just after we'd nominated him, he came to me and said he had +a friend who wanted to meet me. Asked me couldn't I go with him right +away. It was about five in the afternoon; I hadn't anything to do and +said, “Certainly,” thinking he meant to introduce me to some friend of +his who thought I'd talk politics with him. I took that for granted so +much that I didn't ask a question, just followed along up street, +talking weather. He turned in at old General Buskirk's, and may I be +shot if the person he meant wasn't Buskirk's daughter, Bella! He'd +brought me to call on a girl young enough to be my daughter. Maybe you +won't believe I felt like a fool! + +I knew Buskirk, of course (he didn't appear), but I hadn't seen Bella +since she was a child. She'd been “highly educated” and had been +living abroad a good deal, but I can't say that my visit made me +_for_ her--not very strong. She was good-looking enough, in her +thinnish, solemn way, but it seemed to me she was kind of overdressed +and too grand. You could see in a minute that she was intense and +dreamy and theatrical with herself and superior, like Farwell; and I +guess I thought they thought they'd discovered they were “kindred +souls,” and that each of them understood (without saying it) that both +of them felt that Farwell's lot in life was a hard one because +Mrs. Knowles wasn't up to him. Bella gave him little, quiet, deep +glances, that seemed to help her play the part of a person +who understood everything--especially him, and reverenced +greatness--especially his. I remember a fellow who called the sort of +game it struck me they were carrying on “those soully flirtations.” + +Well, sir, I wasn't long puzzling over why he had brought _me_ up +there. It stuck out all over, though they didn't know it, and would +have been mighty astonished to think that I saw. It was in their +manner, in her condescending ways with me, in her assumption of +serious interest, and in his going through the trick of “drawing me +out,” and exhibiting me to her. I'll have to admit that these young +people viewed me in the light of a “character.” That was the part +Farwell had me there to play. + +I can't say I was too pleased with the notion, and I was kind of sorry +for Mrs. Knowles, too. I'd have staked a good deal that my guess was +right, for instance: that Farwell had gone first to this girl for her +congratulations when he got the nomination, instead of to his wife; +and that she felt--or pretended she felt--a soully sympathy with his +ambitions; that she wanted to be, or to play the part of, a woman of +affairs, and that he talked over everything he knew with her. I +imagined they thought they were studying political reform together, +and she, in her novel-reading way, wanted to pose to herself as the +brilliant lady diplomat, kind of a Madam Roland advising statesmen, or +something of that sort. And I was there as part of their political +studies, an object-lesson, to bring her “more closely in touch” (as +Farwell would say) with the realities he had to contend with. I was +one of the “evils of politics,” because I knew how to control a few +wards, and get out the darkey vote almost as well as Gorgett. Gorgett +would have been better, but Farwell couldn't very easily get at him. + +I had to sit there for a little while, of course, like a ninny between +them; and I wasn't the more comfortable because I thought Knowles +looked like a bigger fool than I did. Bella's presence seemed to +excite him to a kind of exaltation; he had a dark flush on his face +and his eyes were large and shiny. + +I got out as soon as I could, naturally, wondering what my wife would +say if she knew; and while I was fumbling around among the +knick-knacks and fancy things in the hall for my hat and coat, I heard +Farwell get up and cross the room to a chair nearer Bella, and then +she said, in a sort of pungent whisper, that came out to me +distinctly: + +“My knight!” That's what she called him. “My knight!” That's what she +said. + +I don't know whether I was more disgusted with myself for hearing, or +with old Buskirk who spent his whole time frittering around the club +library, and let his daughter go in for the sort of soulliness she was +carrying on with Farwell Knowles. + + * * * * * + +Trouble in our ranks began right away. Our nominee knew too much, and +did all the wrong things from the start; he began by antagonizing most +of our old wheel-horses; he wouldn't consult with us, and advised with +his own kind. In spite of that, we had a good organization working for +him, and by a week before election I felt pretty confident that our +show was as good as Gorgett's. It looked like it would be close. + +Just about then things happened. We had dropped onto one of Lafe's +little tricks mighty smartly. We got one of his heelers fixed (of +course we usually tried to keep all that kind of work dark from +Farwell Knowles), and this heeler showed the whole business up for a +consideration. There was a precinct certain to be strong for Knowles, +where the balloting was to take place in the office-room of a +hook-and-ladder company. In the corner was a small closet with one +shelf, high up toward the ceiling. It was in the good old free and +easy Hayes and Wheeler times, and when the polls closed at six o'clock +it was planned that the election officers should set the ballot-box up +on this shelf, lock the closet door, and go out for their suppers, +leaving one of each side to watch in the room so that nobody could +open the closet-door with a pass-key and tamper with the ballots +before they were counted. Now, the ceiling over the shelf in the +closet wasn't plastered, and it formed, of course, part of the +flooring in the room above. The boards were to be loosened by a +Gorgett man upstairs, as soon as the box was locked in; he would take +up a piece of planking--enough to get an arm in--and stuff the box +with Gorgett ballots till it grunted. Then he would replace the board +and slide out. Of course, when they began the count our people would +know there was something wrong, but they would be practically up +against it, and the precinct would be counted for Gorgett. + +They brought the heeler up to me, not at headquarters (I was city +chairman) but at a hotel room I'd hired as a convenient place for the +more important conferences and to keep out of the way of every +Tom-Dick-and-Harry grafter. Bob Crowder, a ward committee-man, +brought him up and stayed in the room, while the fellow--his name was +Genz--went over the whole thing. + +“What do you think of it?” says Bob, when Genz finished. “Ain't it +worth the money? I declare, it's so neat and simple and so almighty +smart besides, I'm almost ashamed some of our boys hadn't thought of +it for us.” + +I was just opening my mouth to answer, when there was a signal knock +at the door and a young fellow we had as a kind of watcher in the next +room (opening into the one I used) put his head in and said +Mr. Knowles wanted to see me. + +“Ask him to wait a minute,” said I, for I didn't want him to know +anything about Genz. “I'll be there right away.” + +Then came Farwell Knowles's voice from the other room, sharp and +excited. “I believe I'll not wait,” says he. “I'll come in there now!” + +And that's what he did, pushing by our watcher before I could hustle +Genz into the hall through an outer door, though I tried to. There's +no denying it looked a little suspicious. + +Farwell came to a dead halt in the middle of the room. + +“I know that person!” he said, pointing at Genz, his brow mighty +black. “I saw him and Crowder sneaking into the hotel by the back way, +half an hour ago, and I knew there was some devilish--” + +“Keep your shirt on, Farwell,” said I. + +He was pretty hot. “I'll be obliged to you,” he returned, “if you'll +explain what you're doing here in secret with this low hound of +Gorgett's. Do you think you can play with me the way you do with your +petty committee-men? If you do, I'll _show_ you! You're not +dealing with a child, and I'm not going to be tricked or sold out of +this elec--” + +I took him by the shoulders and sat him down hard on a cane-bottomed +chair. “That's a dirty thought,” said I, “and if you knew enough to +be responsible I reckon you'd have to account for it. As it is--why, +I don't care whether you apologize or not.” + +He weakened right away, or, at least, he saw his mistake. “Then won't +you give me some explanation,” he asked, in a less excitable way, “why +are you closeted here with a notorious member of Gorgett's ring?” + +“No,” said I, “I won't.” + +“Be careful,” said he. “This won't look well in print.” + +That was just so plumb foolish that I began to laugh at him; and when +I got to laughing I couldn't keep up being angry. It _was_ +ridiculous, his childishness and suspiciousness. Right there was where +I made my mistake. + +“All right,” says I to Bob Crowder, giving way to the impulse. “He's +the candidate. Tell him.” + +“Do you mean it?” asks Bob, surprised. + +“Yes. Tell him the whole thing.” + +So Bob did, helped by Genz, who was more or less sulky, of course; and +is wasn't long till I saw how stupid I'd been. Knowles went straight +up in the air. + +“I knew it was a dirty business, politics,” he said, jumping out of +his chair, “but I didn't _realize_ it before. And I'd like to +know,” he went on, turning to me, “how you learn to sit there so +calmly and listen to such iniquities. How do you dull your conscience +so that you can do it? And what course do you propose to follow in the +matter of this confession?” + +“Me?” I answered. “Why, I'm going to send supper in to our fellows, +and the box'll never see that closet. The man upstairs may get a +little tired. I reckon the laugh's on Gorgett; it's his scheme and--” + +Farwell interrupted me; his face was outrageously red. “_What!_ +You actually mean you hadn't intended to expose this infamy?” + +“Steady,” I said. I was getting a little hot, too, and talked more +than I ought. “Mr. Genz here has our pledge that he's not given away, +or he'd never have--” + +“_Mister_ Genz!” sneered Farwell. “_Mister_ Genz has your +pledge, has he? Allow me to tell you that I represent the people, the +_honest_ people, in this campaign, and that the people and I have +made no pledges to _Mister_ Genz. You've paid the scoundrel--” + +“_Here!_” says Genz. + +“The scoundrel!” Farwell repeated, his voice rising and rising, “paid +him for his information, and I tell you by that act and your silence +on such a matter you make yourself a party to a conspiracy.” + +“Shut the transom,” says I to Crowder. + +“_I'm_ under no pledge, I say,” shouted Farwell, “and I do not +compound felonies. You're not conducting my campaign. I'm doing that, +and I don't conduct it along such lines. It's precisely the kind of +fraud and corruption that I intend to stamp out in this town, and this +is where I begin to work.” + +“How?” said I. + +“You'll see--and you'll see soon! The penitentiaries are built for +just this--” + +“_Sh, sh!_” said I, but he paid no attention. + +“They say Gorgett owns the Grand Jury,” he went on. “Well, let him! +Within a week I'll be mayor of this town--and Gorgett's Grand Jury +won't outlast his defeat very long. By his own confession this man +Genz is party to a conspiracy with Gorgett, and you and Crowder are +witnesses to the confession. I'll see that you have the pleasure of +giving your testimony before a Grand Jury of determined men. Do you +hear me? And tomorrow afternoon's _Herald_ will have the whole +infamous story to the last word. I give you my solemn oath upon it!” + +All three of us, Crowder, Genz, and I, sprang to our feet. We were +considerably worked up, and none of us said anything for a minute or +so, just looked at Knowles. + +“Yes, you're a little shocked,” he said. “It's always shocking to men +like you to come in contact with honesty that won't compromise. You +needn't talk to me; you can't say anything that would change me to +save your lives. I've taken my oath upon it, and you couldn't alter me +a hair's breadth if you burned me at a slow fire. Light, light, that's +what you need, the light of day and publicity! I'm going to clear this +town of fraud, and if Gorgett don't wear the stripes for this my +name's not Farwell Knowles! He'll go over the road, handcuffed to a +deputy, before three months are gone. Don't tell me I'm injuring +_you_ and the party by it. Pah! It will give me a thousand more +votes. I'm not exactly a child, my friends! On my honour, the whole +thing will be printed in to-morrow's paper!” + +“For God's sake--” Crowder broke out, but Knowles cut him off. + +“I bid you good-afternoon,” he said, sharply. We all started toward +him, but before we'd got half across the room he was gone, and the +door slammed behind him. + +Bob dropped into a chair; he was looking considerably pale; I guess I +was, too, but Genz was ghastly. + +“Let me out of here,” he said in a sick voice. “Let me out of here!” + +“Sit down!” I told him. + +“Just let me out of here,” he said again. And before I could stop him, +he'd gone, too, in a blind hurry. + +Bob and I were left alone, and not talking any. + +Not for a while. Then Bob said: “Where do you reckon he's gone?” + +“Reckon who's gone?” + +“Genz.” + +“To see Lafe.” + +“What?” + +“Of course he has. What else can he do? He's gone up any way. The best +he can do is to try to square himself a little by owning up the whole +thing. Gorgett will know it all any way, tomorrow afternoon, when the +_Herald_ comes out.” + +“I guess you're right,” said Bob. “We're done up along with Gorgett; +but I believe that idiot's right, he won't lose votes by playing hob +with _us_. What's to be done?” + +“Nothing,” I answered. “You can't head Farwell off. It's all my fault, +Bob.” + +“Isn't there any way to get hold of him? A crazy man could see that +his best friend couldn't _beg_ it out of him, and that he +wouldn't spare any of us; but don't you know of some bludgeon we could +hang up over him?” + +“Nothing. It's up to Gorgett.” + +“Well,” said Bob, “Lafe's mighty smart, but it looks like +God-help-Gorgett now!” + +Well, sir, I couldn't think of anything better to do than to go around +and see Gorgett; so, after waiting long enough for Genz to see him and +get away, I went. Lafe was always cool and slow; but I own I expected +to find him flustered, and was astonished to see right away that he +wasn't. He was smoking, as usual, and wearing his hat, as he always +did, indoors and out, sitting with his feet upon his desk, and a +pleasant look of contemplation on his face. + +“Oh,” says I, “then Genz hasn't been here?” + +“Yes,” says he, “he has. I reckon you folks have 'most spoiled Genz's +usefulness for me.” + +“You're taking it mighty easy,” I told him. + +“Yep. Isn't it all in the game? What's the use of getting excited +because you've blocked us on one precinct? We'll leave that closet out +of our calculations, that's all.” + +“Almighty Powers, I don't mean _that!_ Didn't Genz tell you--” + +“About Mr. Knowles and the _Herald_? Oh, yes,” he answered, +knocking the ashes off his cigar quietly. “And about the thousand +votes he'll gain? Oh, yes. And about incidentally showing you and +Crowder up as bribing Genz and promising to protect him--making your +methods public? Oh, yes. And about the Grand Jury? Yes, Genz told +me. And about me and the penitentiary. Yes, he told me. Mr. Knowles is +a rather excitable young man. Don't you think so?” + +“Well?” + +“Well, what's the trouble?” + +“Trouble!” I said. “I'd like to know what you're going to do?” + +“What's Knowles going to do?” + +“He's sworn to expose the whole deal, as you've just told me you knew; +one of the preliminaries to having us all up before the next Grand +Jury and sending you and Genz over the road, that's all!” + +Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, tilting farther back, with +his hands in his pockets and his eyes twinkling under his last +summer's straw hat-brim. + +“He can't hardly afford it, can he,” he drawled, “he being the +representative of the law and order and purity people? They're mighty +sensitive, those folks. A little thing turns 'em.” + +“I don't understand,” said I. + +“Well, I hardly reckoned you would,” he returned. “But I expect if +Mr. Knowles wants it warm all round, _I'm_ willing. We may be +able to do some of the heating up, ourselves.” + +This surprised me, coming from him, and I felt pretty sore. “You mean, +then,” I said, “that you think you've got a line on something our boys +have been planning--like the way we got onto the closet trick--and +you're going to show _us_ up because we can't control Knowles; +that you hold that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? Then I +tell you plainly I know I can't shut him up, and you can go ahead and +do us the worst you can.” + +“Whatever little tricks I may or may not have discovered,” he +answered, “that isn't what I mean, though I don't know as I'd be above +making such a threat if I thought it was my only way to keep out of +the penitentiary. I know as well as you do that such a threat would +only give Knowles pleasure. He'd take the credit for forcing me to +expose you, and he's convinced that everything of that kind he does +makes him solider with the people and brings him a step nearer this +chair I'm sitting in, which he regards as a step itself to the +governorship and Heaven knows what not. He thinks he's detached +himself from you and your organization till he stands alone. +_That_ boy's head was turned even before you fellows nominated +him. He's a wonder. I've been noticing him long before he turned up as +a candidate, and I believe the great surprise of his life was that +John the Baptist didn't precede and herald _him_. Oh, no, going +for you wouldn't stop him--not by a thousand miles. It would only do +him good.” + +“Well, what _are_ you going to do? Are you going to see him?” + +“No, sir!” Lafe spoke sharply. + +“Well, well! What?” + +“I'm not bothering to run around asking audiences of Farwell +Knowleses; you ought to know that!” + +“Given it up?” + +“Not exactly. I've sent a fellow around to talk to him.” + +“What use will that be?” + +Gorgett brought his feet down off the desk with a bang. + +“_Then_ he can come to see _me_, if he wants to. D'you +think I've been fool enough not to know what sort of man I was going +up against? D'you think that, knowing him as I do, I've not been ready +for something of this kind? And that's all you'll get out of +_me_, this afternoon!” + +And it was all I did. + + * * * * * + +It may have been about one o'clock, that night, or perhaps a little +earlier, as I lay tossing about, unable to sleep because I was too +much disturbed in my mind--too angry with myself--when there came a +loud, startling ring at the front-door bell. I got up at once and +threw open a window over the door, calling out to know what was +wanted. + +“It's I,” said a voice I didn't know--a queer, hoarse voice. “Come +down.” + +“Who's 'I'?” I asked. + +“Farwell Knowles,” said the voice. “Let me in!” + +I started, and looked down. + +He was standing on the steps where the light of a street-lamp fell on +him, and I saw even by the poor glimmer that something was wrong; he +was white as a dead man. There was something wild in his attitude; he +had no hat, and looked all mixed-up and disarranged. + +“Come down--come down!” he begged thickly, beckoning me with his arm. + +I got on some clothes, slipped downstairs without wakening my wife, +lit the hall light, and took him into the library. He dropped in a +chair with a quick breath like a sob, and when I turned from lighting +the gas I was shocked by the change in him since afternoon. I never +saw such a look before. It was like a rat you've seen running along +the gutter side of the curbstone with a terrier after it. + +“What's the matter, Farwell?” I asked. + +“Oh, my God!” he whispered. + +“What's happened?” + +“It's hard to tell you,” said he. “Oh, but it's hard to tell.” + +“Want some whiskey?” I asked, reaching for a decanter that stood +handy. He nodded and I gave him good allowance. + +“Now,” said I, when he'd gulped it down, “let's hear what's turned +up.” + +He looked at me kind of dimly, and I'll be shot if two tears didn't +well up in his eyes and run down his cheeks. “I've come to ask you,” + he said slowly and brokenly, “to ask you--if you won't intercede with +Gorgett for me; to ask you if you won't beg him to--to grant me--an +interview before to-morrow noon.” + +“_What!_” + +“Will you do it?” + +“Certainly. Have you asked for an interview with him yourself?” + +He struck the back of his hand across his forehead--struck hard, too. + +“Have I tried? I've been following him like a dog since five o'clock +this afternoon, beseeching him to give me twenty minutes' talk in +private. He _laughed_ at me! He isn't a man; he's an iron-hearted +devil! Then I went to his house and waited three hours for him. When +he came, all he would say was that you were supposed to be running +this campaign for me, and I'd better consult with you. Then he turned +me out of his house!” + +“You seem to have altered a little since this afternoon.” I couldn't +resist that. + +“This afternoon!” he shuddered. “I think that was a thousand years +ago!” + +“What do you want to see him for?” + +“What for? To see if there isn't a little human pity in him for a +fellow-being in agony--to end my suspense and know whether or not he +means to ruin me and my happiness and my home forever!” + +Farwell didn't seem to be regarding me so much in the light of a +character as usual; still, one thing puzzled me, and I asked him how +he happened to come to me. + +“Because I thought if anyone in the world could do anything with +Gorgett, you'd be the one,” he answered. “Because it seemed to me he'd +listen to you, and because I thought--in my wild clutching at the +remotest hope--that he meant to make my humiliation more awful by +sending me to you to ask you to go back to him for me.” + +“Well, well,” I said, “I guess if you want me to be of any use you'll +have to tell me what it's all about.” + +“I suppose so,” he said, and choked, with a kind of despairing sound; +“I don't see any way out of it.” + +“Go ahead,” I told him. “I reckon I'm old enough to keep my +counsel. Let it go, Farwell.” + +“Do you know,” he began, with a sharp, grinding of his teeth, “that +dishonourable scoundrel has had me _watched_, ever since there +was talk of me for the fusion candidate? He's had me followed, +_shadowed_, till he knows more about me than I do myself.” + +I saw right there that I'd never really measured Gorgett for as tall +as he really was. “Have a cigar?” I asked Knowles, and lit one +myself. But he shook his head and went on: + +“You remember my taking you to call on General Buskirk's daughter?” + +“Quite well,” said I, puffing pretty hard. + +“An angel! A white angel! And this beast, this _boodler_ has the +mud in his hands to desecrate her white garments!” + +“Oh,” says I. + +The angel's knight began to pace the room as he talked, clinching and +unclinching his hands, while the perspiration got his hair all +scraggly on his forehead. You see Farwell was doing some suffering and +he wasn't used to it. + +“When she came home from abroad, a year ago,” he said, “it seemed to +me that a light came into my life. I've got to tell you the whole +thing,” he groaned, “but it's hard! Well, my wife is taken up with our +little boy and housekeeping,--I don't complain of her, mind that--but +she really hasn't entered into my ambitions, my inner life. She +doesn't often read my editorials, and when she does, she hasn't been +serious in her consideration of them and of my purposes. Sometimes she +differed openly from me and sometimes greeted my work for truth and +light with indifference! I had learned to bear this, and more; to save +myself pain I had come to shrink from exposing my real self to +her. Then, when this young girl came, for the first time in my life I +found real sympathy and knew what I thought I never should know; a +heart attuned to my own, a mind that sought my own ideals, a soul of +the same aspirations--and a perfect faith in what I was and in what it +was my right to attain. She met me with open hands, and lifted me to +my best self. What, unhappily, I did not find at home, I found in +her--encouragement. I went to her in every mood, always to be greeted +by the most exquisite perception, always the same delicate +receptiveness. She gave me a sister's love!” + +I nodded; I knew he thought so. + +“Well, when I went into this campaign, what more natural than that I +should seek her ready sympathy at every turn, than that I should +consult with her at each crisis, and, when I became the fusion +candidate, that I should go to her with the news that I had taken my +first great step toward my goal and had achieved thus far in my +struggle for the cause of our hearts--reform?” + +“You went up to Buskirk's after the convention?” I asked. + +“No; the night before.” He took his head in his hands and groaned, but +without pausing in his march up and down the room. “You remember, it +was known by ten o'clock, after the primaries, that I should receive +the nomination. As soon as I was sure, I went to her; and I found her +in the same state of exaltation and pride that I was experiencing +myself. There was _always_ the answer in her, I tell you, always +the response that such a nature as mine craves. She took both my hands +and looked at me just as a proud sister would. 'I _read_ your +news,' she said. 'It is in your face!' Wasn't that touching? Then we +sat in silence for a while, each understanding the other's joy and +triumph in the great blow I had struck for the right. I left very +soon, and she came with me to the door. We stood for a moment on the +step--and--for the first time, the only time in my life--I received +a--a sister's caress.” + +“Oh,” said I. I understood how Gorgett had managed to be so calm that +afternoon. + +“It was the purest kiss ever given!” Farwell groaned again. + +“Who was it saw you?” I asked. + +He dropped into a chair and I saw the tears of rage and humiliation +welling up again in his eyes. + +“We might as well have been standing by the footlights in a theatre!” + he burst out, brokenly. “Who saw it? Who _didn't_ see it? Gorgett's +sleuth-hound, the man he sent to me this afternoon, for one; the +policeman on the beat that he'd stopped for a chat in front of the +house, for another; a maid in the hall behind us, the policeman's +sweetheart _she_ is, for another! Oh!” he cried, “the desecration! +That one caress, one that I'd thought a sacred secret between us +forever--and in plain sight of those three hideous vulgarians, all +belonging to my enemy, Gorgett! Ah, the horror of it--what _horror_!” + +Farwell wrung his hands and sat, gulping as if he were sick, without +speaking for several moments. + +“What terms did the man he sent offer from Gorgett?” I asked. + +“_No_ terms! He said to go ahead and print my story about the closet; +it was a matter of perfect indifference to him; that he meant to print +this about me in their damnable party-organ tomorrow, in any event, +and only warned me so that I should have time to prepare Miss Buskirk. +Of course he don't care! _I'll_ be ruined, that's all. Oh, the +hideous injustice of it, the unreason! Don't you see the frightful +irony of it? The best thing in my life, the widest and deepest; my +friendship with a good woman becomes a joke and a horror! Don't you +see that the personal scandal about me absolutely undermines me and +nullifies the political scandal of the closet affair? Gorgett will +come in again and the Grand Jury would laugh at any attack on him. I'm +ruined for good, for good and all, for good and all!” + +“Have you told Miss Buskirk?” + +He uttered a kind of a shriek. “_No!_ I can't! How could I? What do +you think I'm made of? And there's her father--and all her relatives, +and mine, and my wife--my wife! If she leaves me--” + +A fit of nausea seemed to overcome him and he struggled with it, +shivering. “My God! Do you think I can _face_ it? I've come to you for +help in the most wretched hour of my life--all darkness, darkness! +Just on the eve of triumph to be stricken down--it's so cruel, so +devilish! And to think of the horrible comic-weekly misery of it, +caught kissing a girl, by a policeman and his sweetheart, the +chambermaid! Ugh! The vulgar ridicule--the hideous laughter!” He +raised his hands to me, the most grovelling figure of a man I ever +saw. + +“Oh, for God's sake, help me, help me....” + +Well, sir, it was sickening enough, but after he had gone, and I +tumbled into bed again, I thought of Gorgett and laughed myself to +sleep with admiration. + +When Farwell and I got to Gorgett's office, fairly early the next +morning, Lafe was sitting there alone, expecting us, of course, as I +knew he would be, but in the same characteristic, lazy attitude I'd +found him in, the day before; feet up on the desk, hat-brim tilted +'way forward, cigar in the right-hand corner of his mouth, his hands +in his pockets, his double-chin mashing down his limp collar. He +didn't even turn to look at us as we came in and closed the door. + +“Come in, gentlemen, come in,” says he, not moving. “I kind of thought +you'd be along, about this time.” + +“Looking for us, were you?” I asked. + +“Yes,” said he. “Sit down.” + +We did; Farwell looking pretty pale and red-eyed, and swallowing a +good deal. + +There was a long, long silence. We just sat and watched +Gorgett. _I_ didn't want to say anything; and I believe Farwell +couldn't. It lasted so long that it began to look as if the little +blue haze at the end of Lafe's cigar was all that was going to +happen. But by and by he turned his head ever so little, and looked at +Knowles. + +“Got your story for the _Herald_ set up yet?” he asked. + +Farwell swallowed some more and just shook his head. + +“Haven't begun to work up the case for the Grand Jury yet?” + +“No,” answered Farwell, in almost a whisper, his head hanging. + +“Why,” Lafe said, in a tone of quiet surprise; “you haven't given all +that up, have you?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, ain't that strange?” said Lafe. “What's the trouble?” + +Knowles didn't answer. In fact, I felt mighty sorry for him. + +All at once, Gorgett's manner changed; he threw away his cigar, the +only time I ever saw him do it without lighting another at the end of +it. His feet came down to the floor and he wheeled round on Farwell. + +“I understand your wife's a mighty nice lady, Mr. Knowles.” + +Farwell's head sank lower till we couldn't see his face, only his +fingers working kind of pitifully. + +“I guess you've had rather a bad night?” said Gorgett, inquiringly. + +“Oh, my God!” The words came out in a whisper from under Knowles's +tilted hat-brim. + +“I believe I'd advise you to stick to your wife,” Gorgett went on, +quietly, “and let politics alone. Somehow I don't believe you're the +kind of man for it. I've taken considerable interest in you for some +time back, Mr. Knowles, though I don't suppose you've noticed it until +lately; and I don't believe you understand the game. You've said some +pretty hard things in your paper about me; you've been more or less +excitable in your statements; but that's all right. What I don't like +altogether, though, is that it seems to me you've been really tooting +your own horn all the time--calling everybody dishonest and +scoundrels, to shove _yourself_ forward. That always ends in sort +of a lonely position. I reckon you feel considerably lonely, just now? +Well, yesterday, I understand you were talking pretty free about the +penitentiary. Now, that ain't just the way to act, according to my +notion. It's a bad word. Here we are, he and I”--he pointed to +me--“carrying on our little fight according to the rules, enjoying it +and blocking each other, gaining a point here and losing one there, +everything perfectly good-natured, when _you_ turn up and begin +to talk about the penitentiary! That ain't quite the thing. You see +words like that are liable to stir up the passions. It's dangerous. +You were trusted, when they told you the closet story, to regard it as +a confidence--though they didn't go through the form of pledging +you--because your people had given their word not to betray Genz. But +you couldn't see it and there you went, talking about the Grand Jury +and stripes and so on, stirring up passions and ugly feelings. And I +want to tell you that the man who can afford to do that has to be +mighty immaculate himself. The only way to play politics, whatever +you're _for_, is to learn the game first. Then you'll know how +far you can go and what your own record will stand. There ain't a man +alive whose record will stand too much, Mr. Knowles--and when you get +to thinking about that and what your own is, it makes you feel more +like treating your fellow-sinners a good deal gentler than you would +otherwise. Now _I've_ got a wife and two little girls, and my old +mother's proud of me (though you wouldn't think it) and they'd hate it +a good deal to see me sent over the road for playing the game the best +I could as I found it.” + +He paused for a moment, looking sad and almost embarrassed. “It ain't +any great pleasure to me,” he said, “to think that the people have let +it get to be the game that it is. But I reckon it's good for +_you_. I reckon the best thing that ever happened to you is +having to come here this morning to ask mercy of a man you looked down +on.” + +Farwell shifted a little in his chair, but he didn't speak, and +Gorgett went on: + +“I suppose you think it's mighty hard that your private character +should be used against you in a political question by a man you call a +public corruptionist. But I'm in a position where I can't take any +chances against an antagonist that won't play the game my way. I had +to find your vulnerable point to defend myself, and, in finding it, I +find that there's no need to defend myself any longer, because it +makes all your weapons ineffective. I believe the trouble with you, +Mr. Knowles, is that you've never realized that politicians are human +beings. But we are: we breathe and laugh and like to do right, like +other folks. And, like most men, you've thought you were different +from other men, and you aren't. So, here you are. I believe you said +you'd had a hard night?” + +Knowles looked up at last, his lips working for a while before he +could speak. “I'll resign now--if you'll--if you'll let me off,” he +said. + +Gorgett shook his head. “I've got the election in my hand,” he +answered, “though you fellows don't know it. You've got nothing to +offer me, and you couldn't buy me if you had.” + +At that, Knowles just sank into himself with a little, faint cry, in a +kind of heap. There wasn't anything but anguish and despair _to_ +him. Big tears were sliding down his cheeks. + +I didn't say anything. Gorgett sat looking at him for a good while; +and then his fat chin began to tremble a little and I saw his eyes +shining in the shadow under his old hat-brim. + +He got up and went over to Farwell with slow steps and put his hand +gently on his shoulder. + +“Go on home to your wife,” he said, in a low voice that was the +saddest I ever heard. “I don't bear you any ill-will in the +world. Nobody's going to give you away.” + + + + +THE ALIENS + + +Pietro Tobigili, that gay young chestnut vender--he of the radiant +smiles--gave forth, in his warm tenor, his own interpretation of “Ach +du lieber Augustine,” whenever Bertha, rosy waitress in the little +German restaurant, showed her face at the door. For a month it had +been a courtship; and the merchant sang often: + +_“Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross.”_ + +The acquaintance, begun by the song and Pietro's wonderful laugh, had +grown tender. The chestnut vender had a way with him; he looked like +the “Neapolitan Fisher Lad” of the chromos, and you could have fancied +him of two centuries ago, putting a rose in his hair; even as it was, +he had the ear-rings. But the smile of him it was that won Bertha, +when she came to work in the little restaurant. It was a smile that +put the world at its ease; it proclaimed the coming of morning over +the meadows, and, taking every bystander into an April friendship, ran +on suddenly into a laugh that was like silver, and like a strange +puppy's claiming you for the lost master. + +So it befell that Bertha was fascinated; that, blushing, she laughed +back to him, and was nothing offended when, at his first sight of her, +he rippled out at once into “Ahaha, du libra Ogostine.” + +Within two weeks he was closing his business (no intricate matter) +every evening, to walk home with her, through the September moonlight. +Then extraordinary things happened to the English language. + +“I ain'd nefer can like no foreigner!” she often joked back to a +question of his. “Nefer, nefer! you t'ink I'm takin' up mit a +hant-orkan maan, Mister Toby?” + +Whereupon he would carol out the tender taunt, “Ahaha, du libra +Ogostine!” + +“Yoost a hant-orkan maan!” + +“No! _No_! No oragan! I am a greata--greata merchant. Vote a +Republican! Polititshian! To-bigli, Chititzen Republican. +Naturalasize! March in a parade!” + +Never lived native American prouder of his citizenship than this +adopted one. Had he not voted at the election? Was he not a member of +the great Republican party? He had eagerly joined it, for the reason +that he had been a Republican in Italy, and he had drawn with him to +the polls his second cousin, Leo Vesschi, and the five other Italians +with whom he lived. For this, he had been rewarded by Pixley, his +precinct committee-man, who allowed him to carry pink torches in three +night processions. + +“You keeb oud politigs,” said Bertha, earnestly, one evening. “My +uncle, Louie Gratz, he iss got a neighbour-lady; her man gone in +politigs. After_vorts_ he git it! He iss in der bennidenshierry +two years. You know why?” + +“Democrat!” shouted the chestnut vender triumphantly. + +“No, sir! Yoost politigs,” replied the unpartisan Bertha. “You keeb +oud politigs.” + +_“Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross.”_ + +The song was always a teasing of her and carried all his friendly +laughter at her, because of her German ways; but it became softly +exultant whenever she betrayed her interest in him. + +“Libra Ogostine, she afraid I go penitensh?” he inquired. + +“Me!” she jeered with uneasy laughter. “_I_ ain'd care! but +you--you don' look oud, you git in dod voikhouse!” + +He turned upon her, suddenly, a face like a mother's, and touched her +hand with a light caress. + +“I stay in a workhouse sevena-hunder' year,” he said gently, “you come +seeta by window some-a-time.” + +At this Bertha turned away, was silent for a space, leaning on the +gate-post in front of her uncle's house, whither they were now +come. Finally she answered brokenly: “I ain'd sit by no vinder for +yoost a jessnut maan.” This was her way of stimulating his ambition. + +“Ahaha!” he cried. “You don' know? I'm goin' buy beeg stan'! Candy! +Peanut! Banan'! Make some-a-time four dollar a day! 'Tis a greata +countra! Bimaby git a store! Ride a buggy! Smoke a cigar! You play +piano! Vote a Republican!” + +“Toby!” + +“Tis true!” + +“Toby,” she said tearfully; “Toby, you voik hart, und safe your +money?” + +“You help?” he whispered. + +“I help--_you_!” she cried loudly. Then, with a sudden fit of +sobbing, she flung open the gate and ran at the top of her speed into +the house. + +Halcyon the days for Pietro Tobigli, extravagant the jocularity of +this betrothed one. And, as his happiness, so did his prosperity +increase; the little chestnut furnace became the smallest adjunct of +his affairs; for he leaped (almost at one bound) to the proprietorship +of a wooden stand, shaped like the crate of an upright piano and +backed up against the brick wall of the restaurant--a mercantile house +which was closed at night by putting the lid on. All day long Toby's +smile arrested pedestrians, and compelled them to buy of him, making +his wares sweeter in the mouth. Bertha dwelt in a perpetual serenade: +on warm days, when the restaurant doors were open, she could hear him +singing, not always “Ogostine,” but festal lilts of Italy, liquid and +strangely sweet to her; and at such times, when the actual voice was +not in her ears, still she blushed with delight to hear in her heart +the thrilling echoes of his barcaroles, and found them humming +cheerily upon her own lips. + +Toby was to save five hundred dollars before they married, a great +sum, but they were patient and both worked very hard. The winter would +have fallen bitterly upon an outdoor merchant lacking Toby's confident +heart, but on the coldest days, when Bertha looked out, she always +found him slapping his hands, and trudging up and down in the snow in +front of the little box; and, as soon as he caught sight of +her--“Aha-ha, du libra Ogostine, Ogostine, Ogostine!” + +She saved her own money with German persistence, and on Christmas day +her present to her betrothed, in return for a coral pin, was a pair of +rubber boots filled with little cakes. + +Elysium was the dwelling-place of Pietro Tobigli, though, apparently, +he abode in a horrible slum cellar with Leo Vesschi and the five Latti +brothers. In this place our purveyor of sweetmeats was the only +light. Thither he had carried his songs and his laugh and his furnace +when he came from Italy to join Vesschi; and there he remained, partly +out of loyalty to his un-prosperous comrades, and partly because his +share of the expense was only twenty-five cents a week, and every +saving was a saving for Bertha. Every evening, on the homeward walk, +the affianced pair passed the hideous stairway that led down to the +cellar, and Bertha, neat soul, never failed to shudder at it. She did +not know that Pietro lived there, for he feared it might distress her; +nor could she ever persuade him to tell her where he lived. + +Because of this mystery, upon which he merrily insisted, she affected +a fear that he would some day desert her. “You don' tell me where you +lif, I t'ink you goin' ran away of me, Toby. I vake opp some day; git +a ledder dod you gone back home by 'Talian lady dod's grazy 'bout +you!” + +“Ahaha! Libra Ogostine, you believe I can make a write weet a +pen-a-paper? I don' know that-a _how_. Some-a-time you _see_ +that gran' palazzo where I leef. Eesa greata-great sooraprise!” + +In the gran' palazzo, it was as much as he could do to keep clean his +own grim little bunk in the corner. His comrades, sullen, hopeless, +came at evening from ten hours' desperate shovelling, and exhibited no +ambition for water or brooms, but sat hunched and silent, or morosely +muttering and coughing, in the dark room with its sodden earthen +floor, stained walls, and one smoky lamp. + +To this uncomfortable chamber repaired, one March evening, Mr. Frank +Pixley, Republican precinct committee-man, nor was its dinginess an +unharmonious setting for that political brilliant. He was a +pock-pitted, damp-looking, soiled little fungus of a man, who had +attained to his office because, in the dirtiest precinct of the +wickedest ward in the city, he had, through the operation of a +befitting ingenuity, forced a recognition of his leadership. From such +an office, manned by a Pixley, there leads an upward ramification of +wires, invisible to all except manipulators, which extends to higher +surfaces. Usually the Pixley is a deep-sea puppet, wholly controlled +by the dingily gilded wires that run down to him; but there are times +when the Pixley gives forth initial impulses of his own, such as may +alter the upper surface; for, in a system of this character, every +twitch is felt throughout the whole ramification. + +“Hello, boys,” the committee-man called out with automatic geniality, +as he descended the broken steps. “How are ye? All here? That's good; +that's the stuff! Good work!” + +Only Toby replied with more than an indifferent grunt; but he ran +forward, carrying an empty beer keg which he placed as a seat for the +guest. + +“Aha_ha_, Meesa Peeslay! Make a parade? Torchlight? +Bandaplay--ta ra, la la la? Firework? Fzzz! Boum! Eh?” + +The politician responded to Toby's extravagantly friendly laughter +with some mechanical cachinnations which, like an obliging salesman, +he turned on and off with no effort. “Not by a dern sight!” he +answered. “The campaign ain't begun yet.” + +“Champagne?” inquired Tobigli politely. + +“Campaign, campaign,” explained Pixley. “Not much champagne in +yours!” he chuckled beneath his breath. “Blame lucky to git Chicago +bowl!” + +“What is that, that campaign?” + +“Why--why, it's the campaign. Workin' up public sentiment; gittin' you +boys in line, 'lect-ioneerin'--fixin' it _right_.” + +Tobigli shook his head. “Campaign?” he repeated. + +“Why--Gee, _you_ know! Free beer, cigars, speakin', handshaking, +paradin'--” + +“Ahaha!” The merchant sprang to his feet with a shout. “Yes! +Hoor-r-ra! Vote a Republican! Dam-a Democrat!” + +“That's it,” replied the committee-man somewhat languidly. “You see, +this is a Republican precinct, and it turns the ward--” + +“Allaways a Republican!” vociferated Pietro. “That eesa right?” + +“Well,” said the other, “of course, whichever way you go, you want to +follow your precinct committee-man--that's me.” + +“Yess! Vote a Republican.” + +Pixley looked about the room, his little red eyes peering out cannily +from under his crooked brows at each of the sulky figures in the damp +shadows. + +“You boys all vote the way Pete says?” he asked. + +“Vote same Pietro,” answered Vesschi. “Allaways.” + +“Allaways a Republican,” added Pietro sparkingly, with abundant +gesture. “'Tis a greata-great countra. Republican here same a +Republican at home--eena Etallee. Republican eternall! All good +Republican eena thees house! Hoor-r-ra!” + +“Well,” said Pixley, with a furtiveness half habit, as he rose to go, +“of course, you want to keep your eye on your committee-man, and kind +of foller along with him, whatever he does. That's me.” He placed a +dingy bottle on the keg. “I jest dropped in to see how you boys were +gittin' along--mighty tidy little place you got here.” He changed the +stub of his burnt-out cigar to the other side of his mouth, shifting +his eyes in the opposite direction, as he continued benevolently: “I +thought I'd look in and leave this bottle o' gin fer ye, with my +compliments. I'll be around ag'in some evenin', and I reckon before +'lection day comes there may be somep'n doin'--I might have better fer +ye than a bottle. Keep your eye on me, boys, an' foller the +leader. That's the idea. So long!” + +“Vote a Republican!” Pietro shouted after him gaily. + +Pixley turned. + +“Jest foller yer leader,” he rejoined. “That's the way to learn +politics, boys.” + +Now as the rough spring wore on into the happier season, with the days +like spiced warm wine, when people on the street are no longer driven +by the weather but are won by it to loiter; now, indeed, did commerce +at Toby's new stand so mightily thrive that, when summer came, Bertha +was troubled as to the safety of Toby's profits. + +“You yoost put your money by der builtun-loan 'sociation, Toby,” she +advised gently. “Dey safe ut fer you.” + +“T'ree hunder' fifta dolla--_no_!” answered her betrothed. “I +keep in de pock'!” He showed her where the bills were pinned into his +corduroy waistcoat pocket. “See! Eesa _yau!_ Onna my heart, libra +Ogostine!” + +“Toby, uf you ain'd dake ut by der builtun-loan, _blease_ put ut +in der bink?” + +“I keep!” he repeated, shaking his head seriously. “In t'ree-four +mont' eesa five-hunder-dolla. Nobody but me eesa tross weet that +money.” + +Nor could Bertha persuade him. It was their happiness he watched +over. Who to guard it as he, the dingy, precious parcel of bills? He +pictured for himself a swampy forest through which he was laying a +pathway to Bertha, and each of the soiled green notes that he pinned +in his waistcoat was a strip of firm ground he had made, over which he +advanced a few steps nearer her. And Bertha was very happy, even +forgetting, for a while, to be afraid of the smallpox, which had +thrown out little flags, like auction signs, here and there about the +city. + +When the full heat of summer came, Pietro laughed at the dog-days; and +it was Bertha's to suffer in the hot little restaurant; but she smiled +and waved to Pietro, so that he should not know. Also she made him +sell iced lemonade and birch beer, which was well for the corduroy +waistcoat pocket. Never have you seen a more alluring merchant. One +glance toward the stand; you caught that flashing smile, the owner of +it a-tip-toe to serve you; and Pietro managed, too, by a light jog to +the table on which stood his big, bedewed, earthen jars, that you +became aware of the tinkle of ice and a cold, liquid murmur--what +mortal could deny the inward call and pass without stopping to buy? + +There fell a night in September when Bertha beheld her lover +glorious. She had been warned that he was to officiate in the great +opening function of the campaign; and she stood on the corner for an +hour before the head of the procession appeared. On they +came--Pietro's party, three thousand strong; brass bands, fireworks, +red fire, tumultuous citizens, political clubs, local potentates in +open carriages, policemen, boys, dogs, bicycles--the procession doing +all the cheering for itself, the crowds of spectators only feebly +responding to this enthusiasm, as is our national custom. At the end +of it all marched a plentiful crew of tatterdemalions, a few bleared +white men, and the rest negroes. They bore aloft a crazy transparency, +exhibiting the legend: + +“FRANK PIXLEY'S HARD-MONEY LEAGUE. + +WE STAND FOR OUR PRINCIPALS. + +WE ARE SOLLID! + +NO FOOLING THE PEOPLE GOES! + +WE VOTE AS ONE MAN FOR + +TAYLOR P. SINGLETON!” + +Bertha's eyes had not rested upon Toby where they innocently sought +him, in the front ranks, even scanning the carriages, seeking him in +all positions which she conceived as highest in honour, and she would +have missed him altogether, had not there reached her, out of chaotic +clamours, a clear, high, rollicking tenor: + +_“Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross!”_ + +Then the eager eyes found their pleasure, for there, in the last line +of Pixley's pirates, the very tail of the procession, danced Pietro +Tobigli, waving his pink torch at her, proud, happy, triumphant, a +true Republican, believing all company equal in the republic, and the +rear rank as good as the first. + +“Vote a Republican!” he shouted. “Republican--Republican eternall!” + +Strangely enough, a like fervid protestation (vociferated in greeting) +evoked no reciprocal enthusiasm in the breast of Mr. Pixley, when the +committee-man called upon Toby and his friends at their apartment one +evening, a fortnight later. + +“That's right,” he responded languidly. “That's right in gineral, I +_should_ say. Cert'nly, in _gineral_, I ain't got no quarrel +with no man's Republicanism. But this here's kind of a put-tickler +case, boys. The election's liable to be mighty close.” + +“Republican win!” laughed Toby. “Meelyun man eena parade!” + +Mr. Pixley's small eyes lowered furtively. He glanced once toward the +door, stroked his stubby chin, and answered softly: “Don't you be too +sure of that, young feller. Them banks is fightin' each other ag'in!” + +“Bank? Fight? W'at eesa that?” inquired the merchant, with an entirely +blank mind. + +“There's one thing it _ain't_,” replied the other, in the same +confidential tone. “It ain't no two-by-four campaign. All I got to say +to you boys is: 'Foller yer leader'--and you'll wear pearl +collar-buttons!” + +“Vote a Republican,” interjected Leo Vesschi gutturally. + +The furtiveness of Mr. Pixley increased. + +“Well--mebbe,” he responded, very deliberately. “I reckon I better +put you boys next, right now's well's any other time. Ain't nothin' +ever gained by not bein' open 'n' above-board; that's my motto, and I +ack up to it. You kin ast 'em, jest ast the boys, and you'll hear it +from each-an-dall: 'Frank Pixley's _square_!' That's what they'll +tell ye. Now see here, this is the way it is. I ain't worryin' much +about who goes to the legislature, or who's county-commissioners, nor +none o' _that. Why_ ain't I worryin'? Because it's picayune. It's +peanut politics. It ain't where the money is. No, sir, this campaign +is on the treasurership. Taylor P. Singleton is runnin' fer treasurer +on the Republican ticket, and Gil. Maxim on the Democratic. But that +ain't where the fight is.” Mr. Pixley spat contemptuously. “Pah! +whichever of 'em gits it won't no more'n draw his salary. It's the +banks. If Singleton wins out, the Washington National gits the use of +the county's money fer the term; if Maxim's elected, Florenheim's bank +gits it. Florenheim laid down the cash fer Maxim's nomination, and the +Washington National fixed it fer Singleton. And it's big money, don't +you git no wrong idea about _that_!” + +“Vote a Republican,” said Toby politely. + +A look of pain appeared upon the brow of the committee-man. + +“I reckon I ain't hardly made myself clear,” he observed, somewhat +plaintively. “Now here, you listen: I reckon it would be kind of resky +to trust you boys to scratch the ticket--it's a mixed up business, +anyway--” + +“Vote a straight!” cried Pietro, nodding his head, +cheerfully. “_Yess!_ I teach Leo; yess, teach all these”--he +waved his hands to indicate the melancholy listeners--“teach them +all. Stamp in a circle by that eagle. Vote a Republican!” + +“What I was goin' to say,” went on the official, exhibiting tokens of +impatience and perturbation, “was that if we _should_ make any +switch this year, I guess you boys would have to switch straight.” + +“'Tis true!” was the hearty response. “Vote a straight +Republican. Republican eternall!” + +Pixley wiped his forehead with a dirty handkerchief, and scratched his +head. “See here,” he said, after a pause, to Toby. “I've got to go +down to Collins's saloon, and I'd like to have you come along. Feel +like going?” + +“Certumalee,” answered Toby with alacrity, reaching for his hat. + +But no one could have been more surprised than the chestnut vender +when, on reaching the vacant street, his companion glancing cautiously +about, beckoned him into the darkness of an alley-way, and, +noiselessly upsetting a barrel, indicated it as a seat for both. + +“Here,” said Pixley, “I reckon this is better. Jest two men by +theirselves kin fix up a thing like this a lot quicker, and I seen you +didn't want to talk too much before _them_. You make your own +deal with 'em afterwards, or none at all, jest as you like! They'll do +whatever you say, anyway. I sized you up to run _that_ bunch, +first time I ever laid eyes on the outfit. Now see here, Pete, you +listen to me. I reckon I kin turn a little trick here that'll do you +some good. You kin bet I see that the men I pick fer my leaders--like +you, Pete--git their rights! Now here: there's you and the other six, +that's seven; it'll be three dollars in your pocket if you deliver the +goods.” + +“No! no!” said Pietro in earnest protestation. “We seven a good +Republican. We vote a Republican--same las' time, all a time. Eesa not +a need to pay us to vote a Republican. You save that a money, Meesa +Peaslay.” + +“You don't understand,” groaned Pixley, with an inclination to weep +over the foreigner's thick-headedness. “There's a chance fer a big +deal here for all the boys in the precinck. Gil. Maxim's backers'll +pay _big_ fer votes enough to swing it. The best of 'em don't +know where they're at, I tell you. Now here, you see here”--he took an +affectionate grip of Pietro's collar--“I'm goin' to have a talk with +Maxim's manager to-morrow, I've had one or two a'ready, and I'll put +up the price all round on them people. It's no more'n right, when you +count up what we're doin' fer them. Look here, you swing them six in +line and march 'em up, and all of ye stamp the rooster instead of the +eagle this time, and help me to show Maxim that Frank Pixley's there +with the goods, and I'll hand you a five-dollar bill and a full box o' +_ci_gars, see?” + +Pietro nodded and smiled through the darkness. “Stamp that eagle!” he +answered, “Eesa all _right_, Meesa Peasley. Don't you have +afraid. We all seven a good Republican! Stamp that eagle! Hoor-r-ra! +Republican _eternall_!” + +Pixley was left sitting on the barrel, looking after the light figure +of the young man joyously tripping back to the cellar, and turning to +wave a hand in farewell from the street. + +“Well, I _am_ damned!” the politician remarked, with unwitting +veracity. “Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he +reely didn't un'erstand fer honest?” Then, as he took up his way, +crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox +lanterns, “I'll git those seven votes, though, _someway_. I'm out +fer a record this time, and I'll _git_ 'em!” + +Bertha went with her fiancé to select the home that was to be +theirs. They found a clean, tidy, furnished room, with a canary bird +thrown in, and Toby, in the wild joy of his heart, seized his +sweetheart round the waist and tried to force her to dance under the +amazed eyes of the landlady. + +“You yoost behafed awful!” exclaimed the blushing waitress that +evening, with tears of laughter at the remembrance. + +She was as happy as her lover, except for two small worries that she +had: she feared that her uncle, Louie Gratz, with whom she lived, or +one of her few friends, might, when they found she was to marry Toby, +allude to him as a “Dago,” in which case she had an intuition that he +would slap the offender; and she was afraid of the smallpox, which had +caused the quarantine of two shanties not far from her uncle's house. +The former of her fears she did not mention, but the latter she spoke +of frequently, telling Pietro how Gratz was panic-stricken, and talked +of moving, and how glad she was that Toby's “gran' palazzo” was in +another quarter of the city, as he had led her to believe. Laughing +her humours almost away, he told her that the red and green lanterns, +threatening murkily down the street, were for only wicked ones, like +that Meesa Peaslay, for whom she discovered, Pietro's admiration had +diminished. And when she thought of the new home--far across the city +from the ugly flags and lanterns--the tiny room with its engraving of +the “Rock of Ages” and its canary, she forgot both her troubles +entirely; for now, at last, the marvellous fact was assured: the five +hundred dollars was pinned into the waistcoat pocket, lying upon +Pietro's heart day and night, the precious lump that meant to him +Bertha and a home. The good Republican set election-day for the +happiest holiday of his life, for that would be his wedding-day. + +He left her at her own gate, the evening before that glorious day, and +sang his way down the street, feeling that he floated on the airy +uplift of his own barcarole beneath sapphire skies, for Bertha had put +her arms about him at last. + +“Toby,” she said, “lieber Toby, I am so all-lofing by you--you are +sitch a good maan--I am so--so--I am yoost all-_lofing_ by you!” + And she cried heartily upon his shoulder. “Toby, uf you ain'd here for +me to-morrow by eckseckly dwelf o'glock, uf you are von minutes late, +I'm goin' yoost fall down deat! Don' you led nothings happen mit you, +Toby.” + +And she had whispered to him, in love with his old tender mockery of +her, to sing “Libra Ogostine” for her before he said good-night. + +Mr. Pixley, again seated upon the barrel which he had used for his +interview with Toby, beheld the transfigured face of the young man as +the chestnut vender passed the mouth of the alley, and the +committee-man released from his soul a burdening profanity in the ear +of his companion and confidant, a policeman who would be on duty in +Pixley's precinct on the morrow, and who had now reported for +instructions not necessarily received in a too public rendezvous. + +“After I talked to him out here on this very barrel,” said Pixley, his +anathema concluded, “I raised the bid on him; yessir, you kin skin me +fer a dead skunk if I didn't offer him ten dollars and a box of +_cigars_ fer the bunch; and him jest settin' there laughin' like +a plumb fool and tellin' me I didn't need to worry, they'd all vote +Republican fer nothin'! Talked like a parrot: 'Vote a Republican! +Republican eternal!' _Republican_! Faugh, he don't know no more +why he's a Republican than a yeller dog'd know! I went around +to-night, when he was out, thought mebbe I could fix it up with the +others. No, _sir_! Couldn't git nothing out of 'em except some +more parrot-cackle: 'Vote same Petro. All a good Republican!' It's +enough to sicken a man!” + +“Do we need his gang bad?” inquired the policeman deferentially. + +“I need everybody bad! This is a good-sized job fer me, and I want to +do it right. Throwin' the precinck to Maxim is goin' to do me +_some_ wrong with the Republican crowd, even if they don't git on +that it was throwed; and I want to throw it _good_! I couldn't +feel like I'd done right if I didn't. I've give my word that they'll +git a majority of sixty-eight votes, and that'll be jest twicet as +much in my pocket as a plain majority. And I want them seven Dagoes! +I've give up on _votin_' 'em; it can't be done. It'd make a saint +cuss to try to reason with 'em, and it's no good. They can't be +fooled, neither. They know where the polls is, and they know how to +vote--blast the Australian ballot system! The most that can be done is +to keep 'em away from the polls.” + +“Can't you git 'em out of town in the morning?” + +“D'you reckon I ain't tried that? _No_, sir! That Dago wouldn't +take a pass to _heaven_! Everything else is all right. Doc +Morgan's niggers stays right here and _votes_. I _know_ them +boys, and they'll walk up and stamp the rooster all right, all +right. Them other niggers, that Hell-Valley gang, ain't that kind; and +them and Tooms's crowd's goin' to be took out to Smelter's ice-houses +in three express wagons at four o'clock in the morning. It ain't goin' +to cost over two dollars a head, whiskey and all. Then, Dan Kelly is +fixed, and the Loo boys. Mike, I don't like to brag, and I ain't +around throwin' no bokays at myself as a reg'lar thing, but I want to +say right, here, there ain't another man in this city--no, nor the +State neither--that could of worked his precinck better'n I have +this. I tell you, I'm within five or six votes of the majority they +set for their big money.” + +“Have you give the Dagoes up altogether?” + +“No, by----!” cried the committee-man harshly, bringing his dirty fist +down on the other's knee. “Did you ever hear of Frank Pixley +weakenin'? Did you ever see the man that said Frank Pixley wasn't +game?” He rose to his feet, a ragged and sinister silhouette against +the sputtering electric light at the alley mouth. “Didn't you ever +hear that Frank Pixley had a barrel of schemes to any other man's +bucket o' wind? What's Frank Pixley's repitation, lemme ast you that? +I git what I go after, don't I? Now look here, you listen to me,” he +said, lowering his voice and shaking a bent forefinger earnestly in +the policeman's face; “I'm goin' to turn the trick. And I _ought_ +to do it, too. That there Pete, he ain't worth the powder to blow him +up--you couldn't learn him no politics if you set up with him night +after night fer a year. Didn't I _try? Try_? I dern near bust my +head open jest thinkin' up ways to make the flathead _see_. And +he wouldn't make no effort, jest set there and parrot out 'Vote a +Republican!' He's ongrateful, that's what he is. Well, him and them +other Dagoes are goin' to stay at home fer two weeks, beginnin' +to-night.” + +“I'll be dogged if I see how,” said the policeman, lifting his helmet +to scratch his head. + +“I'll show you how. I don't claim no credit fer the idea, I ain't +around blowin' my own horn too often, but I'd like fer somebody to +jest show me any other man in this city could have thought it out! I'd +like to be showed jest one, that's all, jest one! Now, you look here; +you see that nigger shanty over there, with the smallpox lanterns +outside?” + +The policeman shivered slightly. “Yes.” + +“Look here; they're rebuildin' the pest-house, ain't they?” + +“Yes.” + +“Leavin' smallpox patients in their own holes under quarantine guard +till they git a place to put 'em, ain't they?” + +“Yes.” + +“You know how many niggers in that shack?” + +“Four, ain't they?” + +“Yessir, four of 'em. One died to-night, another's goin' to, another +ain't tellin' which way he's goin' yit; and the last one, Joe +Cribbins, was the first to take it; and he's almost plumb as good as +ever ag'in. He's up and around the house, helpin' nurse the sick ones, +and fit fer hard labour. Now look here; that nigger does what I +_tell_ him and he does it quick--see? Well, he knows what I want +him to do to-night. So does Charley Gruder, the guard over +there. Charley's fixed; I seen to that; and he knows he ain't goin' to +lose no job fer the nigger's gittin' out of the back winder to go make +a little sociable call this evening.” + +“What!” exclaimed the policeman, startled; “Charley ain't goin' to let +that nigger out!” + +“Ain't he? Oh, you needn't worry, he ain't goin' _fur_! All he's +waiting fer is fer you to give the signal.” + +“Me!” The man in the helmet drew back. + +“Yessir, you! You walk out there and lounge up towards the drug-store +and jest look over to Charley and nod twice. Then you stand on the +corner and watch and see what you see. When you _see_ it, you +yell fer Charley and git into the drug store telephone, and call up +the health office and git their men up here and into that Dago cellar +like hell! The nigger'll be there. They don't know him, and he'll just +drop in to try and sell the Dagoes some policy tickets. You understand +_me_?” + +“Mother Mary in heaven!” The policeman sprang up. “What are you going +to do?” + +“What am I going to do?” shrilled the other, the light of a monstrous +pride in his little eyes. “I'm goin' to quarantine them Dagoes fer +fourteen days. They'll learn some politics before I git through with +'em. Maybe they'll know enough United States language to foller their +leader next time!” + +“By all that's mighty, Pixley,” said the policeman, with an admiration +that was almost reverence, “you _are_ a schemer!” + +“Mein Gott!” screeched Bertha's uncle, snapping his teeth fiercely on +his pipe-stem, as he flung open the door of the girl's room. “You want +to disgraze me mit der whole neighbourhoot, 'lection night? Quid ut! +Stob ut! Beoples in der streed stant owidside und litzen to dod +grying. You _voult_ goin' to marry mit a Dago mens, voult you! +Ha, ha! Soife you right! He run away!” The old man laughed unamiably. +“Ha, ha! Dago mens foolt dod smard Bertha. Dod's pooty tough. But, +bei Gott, you stop dod noise und ect lige a detzent voomans, or you +goin' haf droubles mit your uncle Louie Gratz!” + +But Bertha, an undistinguishable heap on the floor of the unlit room, +only gasped brokenly for breath and wept on. + +“Ach, ach, ach, lieber Gott in Himmel!” sobbed Bertha. “Why didn't +Toby come for me? Ach, ach! What iss happened mit Toby? Somedings iss +happened--I _know_ ut!” + +“Ya, ya!” jibed Gratz; “somedings iss heppened, I bet you! Brop'ly +he's got anoder vife, dod's vot heppened! Brop'ly _leffing_ ad +you mit anoder voomans! Vot for dit he nefer tolt you vere he lif? So +you voultn't ketch him; dod's der reason! You're a pooty vun, +_you_ are! Runnin' efter a doity Dago mens! Bei Gott! you bedder +git oop und back your glo'es, und stob dod gryin'. I'm goin' to mofe +owid to-morrow; und you kin go verefer you blease. I ain'd goin' to +sday anoder day in sitch a neighbourhoot. Fife more smallpox lanterns +yoost oop der streed. I'm goin' mofe glean to der oder ent of der +city. Und you can come by me or you can run efter your Dago mens und +his voomans! Dod's why he dittn't come to marry you, you grazy--ut's a +voomans!” + + +“No, _no_,” screamed Bertha, stopping her ears with her +forefingers. “Lies, lies, lies!” + +A slatternly negro woman dawdled down the street the following +afternoon, and, encountering a friend of like description near the +cottage which had been tenanted by Louie Gratz and his niece, paused +for conversation. + +“Howdy, honey,” she began, leaning restfully against the +gate-post. “How's you ma?” + +“She right spry,” returned the friend. “How you'self an' you good +husban', Miz Mo'ton?” + +Mrs. Morton laughed cheerily. “Oh, he enjoyin' de 'leckshum. He 'uz on +de picnic yas'day, to Smeltuh's ice-houses; an' 'count er Mist' +Maxim's gittin' 'lected, dey gi'n him bottle er whiskey an' two +dollahs. He up at de house now, entuhtainin' some ge'lemenfrien's +wi'de bones, honey.” + +“Um hum.” The other lady sighed reflectively. “I on'y wisht my po' +husban' could er live to enjoy de fruits er politics.” + +“Yas'm,” returned Mrs. Morton. “You right. It are a great intrus' in +a man's life. Dat what de ornator say in de speech f'm de back er de +groce'y wagon, yas'm, a great intrus' in a man's life. Decla'h, I +b'lieve Goe'ge think mo' er politics dan he do er me! Well ma'am,” she +concluded, glancing idly up and down the street and leaning back more +comfortably against the gatepost, “I mus' be goin' on my urrant.” + +“What urrant's dat?” inquired the widow. + +“Mighty quare urrant,” replied Mrs. Morton. “Mighty quare urrant, +honey. You see back yon'eh dat new smallpox flag?” + +“Sho.” + +“Well ma'am, night fo' las', dat Joe Cribbins, dat one-eye nigger what +sell de policy tickets, an's done be'n havin' de smallpox, he crope +out de back way, when's de gyahd weren't lookin', an', my Lawd, ef dey +ain't ketch him down in dat Dago cellar, tryin' sell dem Dagoes policy +tickets! Yahah, honey!” Mrs. Morton threw back her head to +laugh. “Ain't dat de beatenest nigger, dat one-eyed Joe?” + +“What den, Miz Mo'ton?” pursued the listener. + +“Den dey quahumteem dem Dagoes; sot a gyahd dah: you kin see him +settin' out dah now. Well ma'am, 'cordin' to dat gyahd, one er dem +Dagoes like ter go inter fits all day yas'day. Dat man hatter go in +an' quiet him down ev'y few minute'. Seem 't he boun' sen' a message +an' cain't git no one to ca'y it fer him. De gyahd, he cain't go; he +willin' sen' de message, but cain't git nobody come nigh enough de +place fer to tell 'em what it is. 'Sides, it 'leckshum-day, an' mos' +folks hangin' 'roun' de polls. Well ma'am, dis aft'noon, I so'nter'n +by, an' de gyahd holler out an' ask me do I want make a dollah, an' I +say I do. I ain't 'fraid no smallpox, done had it two year' ago. So I +say I take de message.” + +“What is it?” + +“Law, honey, it ain't wrote. Dem Dago folks hain't got no writin' ner +readin'. Dey mo' er less like de beasts er de fiel'. Dat message by +word er mouf. I goin' tell nuffin 'bout de quahumteem. I'm gotter +say: 'Toby sen' word to liebuh Augustine dat she needn' worry. He li'l +sick, not much, but de doctah ain' 'low him out fer two weeks; an' +'mejutly at de en' er dat time he come an' git her an' den kin go on +home wheres de canary bu'd is.' Honey, you evah hyuh o' sich a +foolishness? But de gyahd, he say de message gotter be ca'yied dass +dataways.” + +“Lan' name!” ejaculated the widow. “Who dat message to?” + +“Hit to a Dutch gal.” + +“My Lawd!” The widow lifted amazed hands to heaven. “De impidence er +dem Dagoes! _Little_ mo' an' dey'll be sen'in' messages to you +er me!--What her name?” + +“Name Bertha Grass,” responded Mrs. Morton, “an', nigh as I kin make +out, she live in one er dese little w'ite-paint cottages, right 'long +yere.” + +“Yas'm! I knows dat Dutch gal, ole man Grass, de tailor, dass his +niece. W'y, dey done move out dis mawn, right f'um dis ve'y house you +stan'in in front de gate of. De ole man skeered er de smallpox, an' he +mad, too, an' de neighbuhs ask him whuh he gwine, he won't tell; so +mad he won't speak to nobody. None on 'em 'round hyuh knows an' dey's +considabul cyu'us 'bout it, too. Dey gone off in bofe d'rections--him +one way, her 'nother. 'Peah lak dey be'n quollun!” + +“Now look at dat!” cried Mrs. Morton dolefully. “Look at dat! Ain't +dat de doggonest luck in de wide worl'! De gyahd he say dat Dago +willin' pay fifty cents a day fo' me to teck an' bring a message eve'y +mawn' tell de quahumteem took off de cellar. Now dat Dutch gal gone +an' loss dat money fo' me--movin' 'way whuh nobody cain't fine 'er!” + +“Sho!” laughed the widow. “Ef I'se in you place, Miz Mo'ton, an' you's +in mine, dat money sho'lly, sho'lly nevah would be los', indeed hit +wouldn't. I dass go in t' de do' an' tu'n right 'roun' back ag'in an' +go down to dat gyahd an' say de Dutch gal 'ceive de message wid de +bes' er 'bligin' politeness an' sent her kine regyahds to de Dago man +an' all inquirin' frien's, an' hope de Dago man soon come an' git +'er. To-morrer de same, nex' day de same--” + +“Lawd, ef dat ain't de beatenest!” cried Mrs. Morton +delightedly. “Well, honey, I thank you long as I live, 'cause I +nevah'd a wuk dat out by myself an de livin' worl', an' I sho does +needs de money. I'm goin' do exackly dass de way you say. Dat man he +ain' goin' know no diffunce till he git out--an' den, honey,” she let +loose upon the quiet air a sudden, great salvo of laughter, “dass let +him fine Lize Mo'ton!” + +Bertha went to live in the tiny room with the canary bird and the +engraving of the “Rock of Ages.” This was putting lime to the canker, +but, somehow, she felt that she could go to no other place. She told +the landlady that her young man had not done so well in business as +they had expected, and had sought work in another city. He would come +back, she said. + +She woke from troubled dreams each morning to stifle her sobbing in +the pillow. “Ach, Toby, coultn't you sented me yoost one word, you +_might_ sented me yoost one word, yoost one, to tell me what has +happened mit you! Ach, Toby, Toby!” + +The canary sang happily; she loved it and tended it, and the gay +little prisoner tried to reward her by the most marvellous trilling in +his power, but her heart was the sorer for every song. + +After a time she went back drearily to the kraut-smelling restaurant, +to the work she had thought to leave forever, that day when Toby had +not come for her. She went out twenty times every morning, and oftener +as it wore on towards evening, to look at his closed stand, always +with a choking hope in her heart, always to drag leaden feet back into +the restaurant. Several times, her breath failing for shame, she +approached Italians in the street, or where there was one to be found +at a stand of any sort she stopped and made a purchase, and asked for +some word of Toby--without result, always. She knew no other way to +seek for him. + +One day, as she trudged homeward, two coloured women met on the +pavement in front of her, exchanged greetings, and continued for a +little way together. + +“How you enjoyin' you' money, dese fine days, Miz Mo'ton?” inquired +one, with a laugh that attested to the richness of the joke between +the two. + +“Law, honey,” answered the other, “dat good luck di'n' las' ve'y +long. Dey done shut off my supplies.” + +“No!” + +“Yas'm, dey sho did. Dat man done tuck de smallpox; all on 'em ketched +it, ev'y las' one, off'n dat no 'count Joe Cribbins, an' now dat dey +got de new pes'-house finish', dey haul 'em off yon'eh, yas'day. +Reckon dat ain' make no diffunce in my urrant runnin'. Dat Dago man, +he outer he hade two day fo' dey haul 'em away, an' ain' sen' no mo' +messages. So dat spile _my_ job! Hit dass my luck. Dey's sho' a +voodoo on Lize Mo'ton!” + +Bertha, catching but fragments of this conversation, had no +realization that it bore in any way upon the mystery of Toby; and she +stumbled homeward through the twilight with her tired eyes on the +ground. + +When she opened the door of the tiny room, the landlady's lean black +cat ran out surreptitiously. The bird-cage lay on the floor, upside +down, and of its jovial little inhabitant the tokens were a few yellow +feathers. + +Bertha did not know until a month after, when Leo Vesschi found her at +the restaurant and told her, that out in the new pest-house, that +other songster and prisoner, the gay little chestnut vender, Pietro +Tobigli, had called lamentably upon the name of his God and upon +“Libra Ogostine,” and now lay still forever, with the corduroy +waistcoat and its precious burden tightly clenched to his breast. Even +in his delirium they had been unable to coax or force him to part from +it for a second. + + + + +THE NEED OF MONEY + + +Far back in his corner on the Democratic side of the House, Uncle +Billy Rollinson sat through the dragging routine of the legislative +session, wondering what most of it meant. When anybody spoke to him, +in passing, he would answer, in his gentle, timid voice, “Howdy-do, +sir.” Then his cheeks would grow a little red and he would stroke his +long, white beard elaborately, to cover his embarrassment. When a vote +was taken, his name was called toward the last of the roll, so that he +had ample time, after the leader of his side of the House, young +Hurlbut, had voted, to clear his throat several times and say “Aye” or +“No” in quite a firm voice. But the instant the word had left his lips +he found himself terribly frightened, and stroked his beard a great +many times, the while he stared seriously up at the ceiling, partly to +avoid meeting anybody's eye, and partly in the belief that it +concealed his agitation and gave him the air of knowing what he was +about. Usually he did not know, any more than he knew how he had +happened to be sent to the legislature by his county. But he liked +it. He liked the feeling of being a person to be considered; he liked +to think that he was making the laws of his State. He liked the +handsome desk and the easy leather chair; he liked the row of fat, +expensive volumes, the unlimited stationery, and the free penknives +which were furnished him. He enjoyed the attentions of the coloured +men in the cloakroom, who brushed him ostentatiously and always called +him (and the other Representatives) “Senator,” to make up to +themselves for the airs which the janitors of the “Upper House” + assumed. Most of these things surprised him; he had not expected to +be treated with such liberality by the State and never realized that +he and his colleagues were treating themselves to all these things at +the expense of the people, and so, although he bore off as much +note-paper as he could carry, now and then, to send to his son, Henry, +he was horrified and dumbfounded when the bill was proposed +appropriating $135,000 for the expenses of the seventy days' session +of the legislature. + +He was surprised to find that among his “perquisites” were passes +(good during the session) on all the railroads that entered the State, +and others for use on many inter-urban trolley lines. These, he +thought, might be gratifying to Henry, who was fond of travel, and had +often been unhappy when his father failed to scrape up enough money to +send him to a circus in the next county. It was “very accommodating +of the railroads,” Uncle Billy thought, to maintain this pleasant +custom, because the members' travelling expenses were paid by the +State just the same; hence the economical could “draw their mileage” + at the Treasurer's office, and add it to their salaries. He +heard--only vaguely understanding--many joking references to other +ways of adding to salaries. + +Most of the members of his party had taken rooms at one of the hotels, +whither those who had sought cheaper apartments repaired in the +evening, when the place became a noisy and crowded club, admission to +which was not by card. Most of the rougher man-to-man lobbying was +done here; and at times it was Babel. + +Through the crowds Uncle Billy wandered shyly, stroking his beard and +saying, “Howdy-do, sir,” in his gentle voice, getting out of the way +of people who hurried, and in great trouble of mind if any one asked +him how he intended to vote upon a bill. When this happened he looked +at the interrogator in the plaintive way which was his habit, and +answered slowly: “I reckon I'll have to think it over.” He was not in +Hurlbut's councils. + +There was much bustle all about him, but he was not part of it. The +newspaper reporters remarked the quiet, inoffensive old figure +pottering about aimlessly on the outskirts of the crowd, and thought +Uncle Billy as lonely as a man might well be, for he seemed less a +part of the political arrangement than any member they had ever seen. +He would have looked less lonely and more in place trudging alone +through the furrows of his home fields in a wintry twilight. + +And yet, everybody liked the old man, Hurlbut in particular, if Uncle +Billy had known it; for Hurlbut watched the votes very closely and was +often struck by the soundness of Representative Rollinson's +intelligence in voting. + +In return, Uncle Billy liked Hurlbut better than any other man he had +ever known--except Henry, of course. On the first day of the session, +when the young leader had been pointed out to him, Uncle Billy's +humble soul was prostrate with admiration, and when Hurlbut led the +first attack on the monopolistic tendencies of the Republican party, +Representative Rollinson, chuckling in his beard at the handsome +youth's audacity, himself dared so greatly as to clap his hands +aloud. Hurlbut, on the floor, was always a storm centre: tall, +dramatic, bold, the members put down their newspapers whenever his +strong voice was heard demanding recognition, and his “Mr. Speaker!” + was like the first rumble of thunder. The tempest nearly always +followed, and there were times when it threatened to become more than +vocal; when, all order lost, nine-tenths of the men on the other side +of the House were on their feet shouting jeers and denunciations, and +the orator faced them, out-thundering them all, with his own cohorts, +flushed and cheering, gathered round him. Then, indeed, Uncle Billy +would have thought him a god, if he had known what a god was. + +Sometimes Uncle Billy saw him in the hotel lobby, but he seemed always +to be making for the elevator in a hurry, with half-a-dozen people +trying to detain him, or descending momentarily from the stairway for +a quick, sharp talk with one or two members, their heads close +together, after which Hurlbut would dart upward again. + +Sometimes the old man sat down at one of the writing tables, in a +corner of the lobby, and, annexing a sheet of the hotel note-paper, +“wrote home” to Henry. He sat with his head bent far over, the broad +brim of his felt hat now and then touching the hand with which he kept +the paper from sliding; and he pressed diligently upon his pen, +usually breaking it before the letter was finished. He looked so like +a man intent upon concealment that the reporters were wont to say: +“There's Uncle Billy humped up over his guilty secret again.” + +The secret usually took this form: + + +“Dear Son Henry: + +“I would be glad if you was here. There is big doings. Hurlbut give +it to them to-day. He don't give the Republicans no rest, he lights +into them like sixty you would like to see him. They are plenty nice +fellows in the Republicans too but they lay mighty low when Hurlbut +gets after them. He was just in the office but went out. He always has +a segar in his mouth but not lit. I expect hes quit. I send you +enclosed last week's salary all but $11.80 which I had to use as +living is pretty high in our capital city of the state. If you would +like some of this hotel writing paper better than the kind I sent you +of the General Assembly I can send you some the boys say it is free. I +think it is all right you sold the calf but Wilkes didn't give you +good price. Hurlbut come in while I was writing then. You bet he can +always count on Wm. Rollinson's vote. + +“Well I must draw to a dose, Yours truly + +“Your father.” + + +“Wm. Rollinson” was not aware that he was known to his colleagues and +the lobby and the Press as “Uncle Billy” until informed thereof by a +public print. He stood, one night, on the edge of a laughing group, +when a reporter turned to him and said: + +“The _Constellation_ would like to know Representative +Rollinson's opinion of the scandalous story that has just been told.” + +The old man, who had not in the least understood the story, summoned +all his faculties, and, after long deliberation, bent his plaintive +eyes upon the youth and replied: + +“Well, sir, it's a-stonishing, a-stonishing!” + +“Think it's pretty bad, do you?” + +Some of the crowd turned to listen, and the old fellow, hopelessly +puzzled, stroked his beard with a trembling hand, and then, muttering, +“Well, young man, I expect you better excuse me,” hurried away and +left the place. The next morning he found the following item tacked to +the tail of the “Legislative Gossip” column of the _Constellation_: + + +“UNCLE BILLY ROLLINSON HORRIFIED + +“Yesterday a curious and amusing story was current among the solons at +the Nagmore Hotel. It seems that the wife of a country member of the +last legislature had been spending the day at the hotel and the wife +of a present member from the country complained to her of the greatly +increased expenditure appertaining to the cost of living in the +Capital City. 'Indeed,' replied the wife of the former member, 'that +is curious. But I suppose my husband is much more economical than +yours, for he brought home $1.500, that he'd saved out of his salary.' +As the salary is only $456, and the gentleman in question did not play +poker, much hilarity was indulged in, and there were conjectures that +the economy referred to concerned his vote upon a certain bill before +the last session, anent which the lobby pushing it were far from +economical. Uncle Billy Rollinson, the Gentleman from Wixinockee, +heard the story, as it passed from mouth to mouth, but he had no +laughter to greet it. Uncle Billy, as every one who comes in contact +with him knows, is as honest as the day is long, and the story grieved +and shocked him. He expressed the utmost horror and consternation, and +requested to be excused from speaking further upon a subject so +repugnant to his feelings. If there were more men of this stamp in +politics, who find corruption revolting instead of amusing, our +legislatures would enjoy a better fame.” + + +Uncle Billy had always been agitated by the sight of his name in +print. Even in the Wixinockee County _Clarion_, it dumbfounded +him and gave him a strange feeling that it must mean somebody else, +but this sudden blaze of metropolitan fame made him almost giddy. He +folded the paper quickly and placed it under his coat, feeling vaguely +that it would not do to be seen reading it. He murmured feeble answers +during the day, when some of his colleagues referred to it; but when +he reached his own little room that evening, he spread it out under +his oil-smelling lamp and read it again. Perhaps he read it twenty +times over before the supper bell rang. Perhaps the fact that he was +still intent upon it accounted for his not hearing the bell, so that +his landlady had to call him. + +What he liked was the phrase: “Honest as the day is long.” He did not +go to the hotel that night. He went back to his room and read the +_Constellation_. He liked the _Constellation_. Newspapers +were very kind, he thought. Now and then, he would pick up his pile of +legislative bills and try to spell through the ponderous sentences, +but he always gave it up and went back to the _Constellation_. He +wondered if Hurlbut had read it. Hurlbut had. The leader had even +told the author of the item that he was glad somebody could appreciate +the kind of a man Uncle Billy was, and his value to the body politic. + +“Honest as the day is long,” Uncle Billy repeated to himself, in the +little room, nodding his head gravely. Then he thought for a long +while about the member who had, according to the story, gone home with +$1,500. He sat up, that evening, until almost ten o'clock. Even after +he had gone to bed, he lay awake with his eyes wide open in the +darkness, thinking of the colossal sum. If anybody should come to +_him_ and offer him all that money to vote a certain way upon a +bill, he believed he would not take it, for that would be bribery; +though Henry would be glad to have the money. Henry always needed +money; sometimes the need was imperative--once, indeed, so imperative +that the small, unfertile farm had been mortgaged beyond its value, +otherwise very serious things must have happened to Henry. Uncle Billy +wondered how offers of money to members were refused without hurting +the intending donor's feelings. And what a great deal could be done +with $1,500, if a member could get it and still be as honest as the +day is long! + +About the second month of the session the floor of the House began +steadily to grow more and more tumultuous. To an unpolitical onlooker, +leaning over the gallery rail, it was often an incomprehensible +Bedlam, or perhaps one might have been reminded of an ant-heap by the +hurry-and-scurry and life-and-death haste in a hundred directions at +once, quite without any distinguishable purpose. Twenty men might be +rampaging up and down the aisles, all shouting, some of them +furiously, others with a determination that was deadly, all with arms +waving at the Speaker, some of the hands clenched, some of them +fluttering documents, while pages ran everywhere in mad haste, +stumbling and falling in the aisles. In the midst of this, other +members, seated, wrote studiously; others mildly read newspapers; +others lounged, half-standing against their desks, unlighted cigars in +their mouths, laughing; all the while the patient Speaker tapped with +his gavel on a small square of marble. Suddenly perfect calm would +come and the voice of the reading clerk drone for half an hour or +more, like a single bee in a country garden on Sunday morning. + +Of all this Uncle Billy was as much a layman spectator as any tramp +who crept into the gallery for a few hours out of the cold. The hurry +and seethe of the racing sea touched him not at all, except to +bewilderment, while he was carried with it, unknowing, toward the +breakers. The shout of those breakers was already in the ears of many, +for the crisis of the session was coming. This was the fight that was +to be made on Hurlbut's “Railroad Bill,” which was, indeed, but in +another sense, known as the “Breaker.” + +Uncle Billy had heard of the “Breaker.” He couldn't have helped +that. He had heard a dozen say: “Then's when it's going to be warm +times, when that 'Breaker' comes up!” or, “Look out for that +'Breaker.' We're going to have big trouble.” He knew, too, that +Hurlbut was interested in the “Breaker,” but upon which side he was +for a long time ignorant. + + * * * * * + +Hurlbut always nodded to the old man, now, as he came down the aisle +to his own desk. He had begun that, the day after the _Constellation_ +item. Uncle Billy never failed to be in his seat early in the +morning, waiting for the nod. He answered it with his usual “Howdy-do, +sir,” then stroked his beard and gazed profoundly at the row of fat +volumes in front of him, swallowing painfully once or twice. + +This was all that really happened for Uncle Billy during the turmoil +and scramble that went on about him all the day long. He had not been +forced to discover a way to meet an offer of $1,500, without hurting +the putative giver's feelings. No lobbyist had the faintest idea of +“approaching” the old man in that way. The members and the hordes of +camp-followers and all the lobby had settled into a belief that +Representative Rollinson was a sea-green Incorruptible, that of all +honest members he was the most honest. He had become typical of +honesty: sayings were current--“You might as well try to bribe Uncle +Billy Rollinson!” “As honest as old Uncle Billy Rollinson.” Hurlbut +often used such phrases in private. + +The “Breaker” was Hurlbut's own bill; he had planned it and written +it, though it came over to the House from the Senate under a Senator's +name. It was one of those “anti-monopolistic” measures which Democrats +put their whole hearts into, sometimes, and believe in and fight for +magnificently; an idea conceived in honesty and for a beneficent +purpose, in the belief that a legislature by the wave of a hand can +conjure the millennium to appear; and born out of an utter +misconception of man and railroads. The bill needs no farther +description than this: if it passed and became an enforced law, the +dividends of every rail road entering the State would be reduced by +two-fifths. There is one thing that will fight harder than a +Democrat--that is a railroad. + +The “Breaker” had been kept very dark until Hurlbut felt that he was +ready; then it was swept through the Senate before the railroad lobby, +previously lulled into unsuspicion, could collect itself and block +it. This was as Hurlbut had planned: that the fight should be in his +own House. It was the bill of his heart and he set his reputation upon +it. He needed fifty-one votes to pass it, and he had them, and one to +spare; for he took his followers, who formed the majority, into caucus +upon it. It was in the caucus Uncle Billy learned that Hurlbut was +“for” the bill. He watched the leader with humble, wavering eyes, +thinking how strong and clear his voice was, and wondering if he never +lit the cigar he always carried in his hand, or if he ever got into +trouble, like Henry, being a young man. If he did, Uncle Billy would +have liked the chance to help him out. + +He had plenty of such chances with Henry; indeed, the opportunity may +be said to have become unintermittent, and Uncle Billy was never free +from a dim fear of the day when his son would get in so deeply that he +could not get him out. Verily, the day seemed near at hand: Henry's +letters were growing desperate and the old man walked the floor of his +little room at night, more and more hopeless. Once or twice, even as +he sat at his desk in the House, his eyes became so watery that he +forced himself into long spells of coughing, to account for it, in +case any one might be noticing him. + +The caucus was uneventful and quiet, for it had all been talked over, +and was no more than a matter of form. + +The Republicans did not caucus upon the bill (they had reasons), but +they were solidly against it. Naturally it follows that the assault of +the railroad lobby had to be made upon the virtue of the Democrats +_as_ Democrats. That is, whether a member upon the majority side +cared about the bill for its own sake of not, right or wrong, he felt +it his duty as a Democrat to vote for it. If he had a conscience +higher than a political conscience, and believed the bill was bad, his +duty was to “bolt the caucus”; but all of the Democratic side believed +in the righteousness of the bill, except two. One had already been +bought and the other was Uncle Billy, who knew nothing about it, +except that Hurlbut was “for” it and it seemed to be making a “big +stir.” + +The man who had been bought sat not far from Uncle Billy. He was a +furtive, untidy slouch of a man, formerly a Republican; he had a great +capacity for “handling the coloured vote” and his name was +Pixley. Hurlbut mistrusted him; the young man had that instinct, which +good leaders need, for feeling the weak places in his following; and +he had the leader's way, too, of ever bracing up the weakness and +fortifying it; so he stopped, four or five times a day, at Pixley's +desk, urging the necessity of standing fast for the “Breaker,” and +expressing convictions as to the political future of a Democrat who +should fail to vote for it; to which Pixley assented in his husky, +tough-ward voice. + +All day long now, Hurlbut and his lieutenants, disregarding the +routine of bills, went up and down the lines, fending off the +lobbyists and such Republicans as were working openly for the bill. +They encouraged and threatened and never let themselves be too +confident of their seeming strength. Some of those who were known, or +guessed, to be of the “weaker brethren” were not left to themselves +for half an hour at a time, from their breakfasts until they went to +bed. There was always at elbow the “_Hold fast_!” whisper of +Hurlbut and his lieutenants. None of them ever thought of speaking to +Uncle Billy. + +Hurlbut's “work was cut out for him,” as they said. What work it is to +keep every one of fifty men honest under great temptation for three +weeks (which time it took for the hampered and filibustered bill to +come up for its passage or defeat), is known to those who have tried +to do it. The railroads were outraged and incensed by the measure; +they sincerely believed it to be monstrous and thievish. “Let the +legislature try to confiscate two-fifths of the lawyers', or the +bakers', or the ironmoulders', just earnings,” said they, “and see +what will happen!” + +When such a bill as this comes to the floor for the third time the +fight is already over, oratory is futile; and Cicero could not budge a +vote. The railroads were forced to fight as best they could; this was +the old way that they have learned is most effective in such a +case. Votes could not be had to “oblige a friend” on the “Breaker” + bill; nor could they be procured by arguments to prove the bill +unjust. In brief: the railroad lobby had no need to buy Republican +votes (with the exception of the one or two who charged out of habit +whenever legislation concerned corporations), for the Republicans were +against the bill, but they did mortally need to buy two Democratic +votes, and were willing to pay handsomely for them. Nevertheless, +Mr. Pixley's price was not exorbitant, considering the situation; nor +need he have congratulated himself so heartily as he did (in moments +of retirement from public life) upon his prospective $2,000 (when the +goods should be delivered) since his vote was assisting the railroads +to save many million dollars a year. + +Of course the lobby attacked the bill noisily; there were big guns +going all day long; but those in charge knew perfectly well that the +noise accomplished nothing in itself. It was used to cover the +whispering. Still, Hurlbut held his line firm and the bill passed its +second reading with fifty-two votes, Mr. Pixley being directed by his +owners to vote for it on that occasion. + +As time went on the lobby began to grow desperate; even Pixley had +been consulted upon his opinion by Barrett, the young lawyer through +whom negotiations in his case had been conducted. Pixley suggested +the name of Rollinson and Barrett dismissed this counsel with as much +disgust for Pixley's stupidity as he had for the man's person. (One +likes a _dog_ when he buys him.) + +“But why not?” Pixley had whined as he reached the door. “Uncle Billy +ain't so much! You listen to me. He wouldn't take it out-an'-out--I +don't say as he would. But you needn't work that way. Everybody thinks +it's no use to tackle him--but nobody never _tried_! What's he +_done_ to make you scared of him? _Nothing_! Jest set there +and _looked_!” + +After he had gone the fellow's words came back to Barrett: “Nobody +never tried!” And then, to satisfy his conscience that he was leaving +no stone unturned, yet laughing at the uselessness of it, he wrote a +letter to a confidant of his, formerly a colleague in the lobby, who +lived in the county-seat near which Uncle Billy's mortgaged acres +lay. The answer came the night after the second vote on the “Breaker.” + + +“Dear Barrett: + +“I agree with your grafter. I don't believe Rollinson would be hard to +approach if it were done with tact--of course you don't want to tackle +him the way you would a swine like Pixley. A good many people around +here always thought the old man simple-minded. He was given the +nomination almost in joke--nobody else wanted it, because they all +thought the Republicans had a sure thing of it; but Rollinson slid in +on the general Democratic landslide in this district. He's got one +son, a worthless pup, Henry, a sort of yokel Don Juan, always half +drunk when his father has any money to give him, and just smart enough +to keep the old man mesmerized. Lately Henry's been in a mighty +serious peck of trouble. Last fall he got married to a girl here in +town. Three weeks ago a family named Johnson, the most shiftless in +the county, the real low-down white trash sort, living on a truck +patch out Rollinson's way, heard that Henry was on a toot in town, +spending money freely, and they went after him. A client of mine rents +their ground to them and told me all about it. It seems they claim +that one of the daughters in the Johnson family was Henry's common-law +wife before he married the other girl, and it's more than likely they +can prove it. They are hollering for $600, and if Henry doesn't raise +it mighty quick they swear they'll get him sent over the road for +bigamy. I think the old man would sell his soul to keep his boy out of +the penitentiary and he's at his wits' ends; he hasn't anything to +raise the money on and he's up against it. He'll do any thing on earth +for Henry. Hope this'll be of some service to you, and if there's +anything more I can do about it you better call me up on the long +distance. + +“Yours faithfully, + +“J. P. WATSON. + +“P.S.--You might mention to our old boss that I don't want anything if +services are needed; but a pass for self and family to New York and +return would come in handy.” + + +Barrett telegraphed an answer at once: “If it goes you can have annual +for yourself and family. Will call you up at two sharp to-morrow.” + + * * * * * + +It was late the following night when the lobbyist concluded his +interview with Representative Rollinson, in the latter's little room, +half lighted by the oil-smelling lamp. + +“I knew you would understand, Mr. Rollinson,” said Barrett as he rose +to go. His eyes danced and his jaws set with the thought that had been +jubilant within him for the last half-hour: “We've got 'em! We've got +'em! We've got 'em!” The railroads had defended their own again. + +“Of course,” he went on, “we wouldn't have dreamed of coming to you +and asking you to vote against this outrageous bill if we thought for +a minute that you had any real belief in it or considered it a good +bill. But you say, yourself, your only feeling about it was to oblige +Mr. Hurlbut, and you admit, too, that you've voted his way on every +other bill of the session. Surely, as I've already said so many times, +you don't think he'd be so unreasonable as to be angry with you for +differing with him on the merits of only one! No, no, Hurlbut's a very +sensible fellow about such matters. You don't need to worry about +_that_! After all I've said, surely you won't give it another +thought, will you?” + +Uncle Billy sat in the shadow, bent far over, slowly twisting his +thin, corded hands, the fingers tightly interlocked. It was a long +time before he spoke, and his interlocutor had to urge him again +before he answered, in his gentle, quavering voice. + +“No, I reckon not, if you say so.” + +“Certainly not,” said Barrett briskly. “Why of course, we'd never have +thought of making you a money offer to vote either for or against your +principles. Not much! We don't do business that way! We simply want to +do something for you. We've wanted to, all during the session, but the +opportunity hadn't offered until I happened to hear your son was in +trouble.” + +Out of the shadow came a long, tremulous sigh. There was a moment's +pause; then Uncle Billy's head sank slowly lower and rested on his +hands. + +“You see,” the other continued cheerfully, “we make no conditions, +none in the world. We feel friendly to you and want to oblige you, but +of course we do think you ought to show a little good-will towards +_us_. I believe it's all understood: to-morrow night Mr. Watson +will drive out in his buggy to this Johnson place, and he's empowered +by us to settle the whole business and obtain a written statement from +the family that they have no claim on your son. How he will settle it +is neither your affair nor mine; nor whether it costs money or +not. But he _will_ settle it. We do that out of good-will to you, +as long as we feel as friendly to you as we do now, and all we ask is +that you show your good-will to us.” + +It was plain, even to Uncle Billy, that if he voted against +Mr. Barrett's friends in the afternoon those friends might not feel so +much good-will toward him in the evening as they did now: and +Mr. Watson might not go to the trouble of hitching up his buggy to +drive out to the Johnsons'. + +“You see, it's all out of friendship,” said Barrett, his hand on the +door knob. “And we can count on your's to-morrow, can't +we--absolutely?” + +The grey head sank a little lower, and then after a moment the +quavering voice answered: + +“Yes, sir--I'll be friendly.” + +Before morning, Hurlbut lost another vote. One of his best men left +on a night train for the bedside of his dying wife. This meant that +the “Breaker” needed every one of the fifty-one remaining Democratic +votes in order to pass. Hurlbut more than distrusted Pixley, yet he +felt sure of the other fifty, and if, upon the reading of the bill, +Pixley proved false, the bill would not be lost, since there would be +a majority of votes in its favour, though not the constitutional +majority of fifty-one required for its passage, and it could be +brought up again and carried when the absent man returned. Thus, on +the chance that Pixley had withstood tampering, Hurlbut made no effort +to prevent the bill from coming to the floor in its regular order in +the afternoon, feeling that it could not possibly be killed by a +majority against it, for he trusted his fifty, now, as strongly as he +distrusted Pixley. + +And so the roll-call on the “Breaker” began, rather quietly, though +there was no man's face in the hall that was not set to show the +tensity of high-strung nerves. The great crowd that had gathered and +choked the galleries and the floor beyond the bar, and the Senators +who had left their own chamber to watch the bill in the House, all +began to feel disappointed; for nothing happened until Pixley's name +was called. + +Pixley voted “No!” + +Uncle Billy, sitting far down in his leather chair on the small of his +back, heard the outburst of shouting that followed; but he could not +see Pixley, for the traitor was instantly surrounded by a ring of men, +and all that was visible from where he sat was their backs and +upraised, gesticulating hands. Uncle Billy began to tremble violently; +he had not calculated on this; but surely such things would not happen +to _him_! + +The Speaker's gavel clicked through the uproar and the roll-call +proceeded. + +The clerk reached the name of Rollinson. Uncle Billy swallowed, threw +a pale look about him and wrapped his damp hands in the skirts of his +shiny old coat, as if to warm them. For a moment he could not +answer. People turned to look at him. + +“Rollinson!” shouted the clerk again. + +“No,” said Uncle Billy. + +Immediately he saw above him and all about him a blur of men's faces +and figures risen to their feet, he heard a hundred voices say +breathlessly: “_What_!” and one that said: “My God, that kills +the bill!” + +Then a horrible and incredible storm burst upon him, and he who had +sat all the session shrinking unnoticed in his quiet, back seat, +unnerved when a colleague asked the simplest question, found himself +the centre and point of attack in the wildest mêlée that legislature +ever saw. A dozen men, red, frantic, with upraised arms, came at him, +Hurlbut the first of them. But the lobby was there, too; for it was +not part of its calculations that the old man should be frightened +into changing his vote. + +There need have been no fear of that. Uncle Billy was beyond the power +of speech. The lobby's agents swarmed on the floor, and, with +half-a-dozen hysterically laughing Republicans, met the onset of +Hurlbut and his men. It became a riot immediately. Sane men were swept +up in it to be as mad as the rest, while the galleries screamed and +shouted. All round the old man the fury was greatest; his head sank +over his desk and rested on his hands as it had the night before; for +he dared not lift it to see the avalanche he had loosed upon +himself. He would have liked to stop his ears to shut out the +egregious clamour of cursing and yelling that beset him, as his bent +head kept the glazed eyes from seeing the impossible vision of the +attack that strove to reach him. He remembered awful dreams that were +like this; and now, as then, he shuddered in a cold sweat, being as +one who would draw the covers over his head to shelter him from +horrors in great darkness. As Uncle Billy felt, so might a naked soul +feel at the judgment day, tossed alone into the pit with all the +myriads of eyes in the universe fastened on its sins. + +He was pressed and jostled by his defenders; once a man's shoulders +were bent back down over his own and he was crushed against the desk +until his ribs ached; voices thundered and wailed at him, threatening, +imploring, cursing, cajoling, raving. + +Smaller groups were struggling and shouting in every part of the room, +the distracted sergeants-at-arms roaring and wrestling with the +rest. On the high dais the Speaker, white but imperturbable, having +broken his gavel, beat steadily with the handle of an umbrella upon +the square of marble on his desk. Fifteen or twenty members, raging +dementedly, were beneath him, about the clerk's desk and on the steps +leading up to his chair, each howling hoarsely: + +“A point of _order_! A point of _or-der_!” + +When the semblance of order came at last, the roll was finished, +“reconsidered,” the “Breaker” was beaten, 50 to 49, was dead; and +Uncle Billy Rollinson was creeping down the outer steps of the +Statehouse in the cold February slush and rain. + +He was glad to be out of the nightmare, though it seemed still upon +him, the horrible clamours, all gonging and blaring at _him_; the +red, maddened faces, the clenched fists, the open mouths, all raging +at _him_--all the ruck and uproar swam about the dazed old man as +he made his slow, unseeing way through the wet streets. + +He was too late for dinner at his dingy boarding house, having +wandered far, and he found himself in his room without knowing very +well how he had come there, indeed, scarcely more than half-conscious +that he _was_ there. He sat, for a long time, in the dark. After +a while he mechanically lit the lamp, sat again to stare at it, then, +finding his eyes watering, he turned from it with an incoherent +whimper, as if it had been a person from whom he would conceal the +fact that he was weeping. He leaned his arm, against the window sill +and dried his eyes on the shiny sleeve. + +An hour later, there came a hard, imperative knock on the door. Uncle +Billy raised his head and said gently: + +“Come in.” + +He rose to his feet uncertain, aghast, when he saw who his visitor +was. It was Hurlbut. + +The young man confronted him darkly, for a moment, in silence. He was +dripping with rain; his hat, unremoved, shaded lank black locks over a +white face; his nostrils were wide with wrath; the “dry cigar” wagged +between gritting teeth. + +“Will ye take a chair?” faltered Uncle Billy. + +The room rang to the loud answer of the other: “I'd see you in Hell +before I'd sit in a chair of yours!” + +He raised an arm, straight as a rod, to point at the old +man. “Rollinson,” he said, “I've come here to tell you what I think of +you! I've never done that in my life before, because I never thought +any man worth it. I do it because I need the luxury of it--because I'm +sick of myself not to have had gumption enough to see what you were +all the time and have you watched!” + +Uncle Billy was stung to a moment's life. “Look here,” he quavered, +“you hadn't ought to talk that way to me. There ain't a cent of money +passed my fingers--” + +Hurlbut's bitter laugh cut him short. “_No?_ Don't you suppose +_I know_ how it was done? Do you suppose there's a man in the +whole Assembly doesn't know how you were sold? I had it by the long +distance an hour ago, from your own home. Do you suppose _we_ +have no friends there, or that it was hard to find out about the whole +dirty business? Your son's not going to stand trial for bigamy; that +was the price you charged for killing the bill. You and Pixley are the +only men whom they could buy with all their millions! Oh, I know a +dozen men who could be bought on other issues, but not on _this_! +You and Pixley stand alone. Well, you've broken the caucus and you've +betrayed the Democratic party. I've come to tell you that the party +doesn't want you any more. You are out of it, do you hear? We don't +want even to use you!” + +The old man had sunk back into his chair, stricken white, his hands +fluttering helplessly. “I didn't go to hurt your feelings, +Mr. Hurlbut,” he said. “I never knowed how it would be, but I don't +think you ought to say I done anything dishonest. I just felt kind of +friendly to the railroads--” + +The leader's laugh cut him off again. “Friendly! Yes, that's what you +were! Well, you can go back to your friends; you'll need them!--Mother +in Heaven! How you fooled us! We thought you were the straightest man +and the staunchest Democrat--” + +“I b'en a Democrat all my life, Mr. Hurlbut. I voted fer--” + +“Well, you're a Democrat no longer. You're done for, do you +understand? And we're done with you!” + +“You mean,” the old man's voice shook almost beyond control; “you mean +you're tryin' to read me out of the party?” + +“Trying to!” Hurlbut turned to the door. “You're out! It's done. You +can thank God that your 'friends' did their work so well that we can't +prove what we know. On my soul, you dog, if we could I believe some of +the boys would send you over the road.” + +An hour after he had gone, Uncle Billy roused himself from his stupor, +and the astonished landlady heard his shuffling step on the stair. She +followed him softly and curiously to the front door, and watched +him. He was bare-headed but had not far to go. The night-flare of the +cheap, all-night saloon across the sodden street silhouetted the +stooping figure for a moment and then the swinging doors shut the old +man from her view. She returned to her parlour and sat waiting for his +return until she fell asleep in her chair. She awoke at two o'clock, +went to his room, and was aghast to find it still vacant. + +“The Lord have mercy on us all!” she cried aloud. “To think that old +rascal'd go out on a spree! He'd better of stayed in the country where +he belonged.” + +It was the next morning that the House received a shock which loosed +another riot, but one of a kind different from that which greeted +Representative Rollinson's vote on the “Breaker.” The reading-clerk +had sung his way through an inconsequent bill; most of the members +were buried in newspapers, gossiping, idling, or smoking in the +lobbies, when a loud, cracked voice was heard shrilly demanding +recognition. + +“Mr. Speaker!” Every one turned with a start. There was Uncle Billy, +on his feet, violently waving his hands at the Speaker. “Mr. Speaker, +Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker!” His dress was disordered and muddy; his +eyes shone with a fierce, absurd, liquorish light; and with each +syllable that he uttered his beard wagged to an unspeakable effect of +comedy. He offered the most grotesque spectacle ever seen in that +hall--a notable distinction. + +For a moment the House sat in paralytic astonishment. Then came an +awed whisper from a Republican: “Has the old fool really found his +voice?” + +“No, he's drunk,” said a neighbour. “I guess he can afford it, after +his vote yesterday!” + +“Mister Speaker! _Mister_ Speaker!” + +The cracked voice startled the lobbies. The hangers-on, the +typewriters, the janitors, the smoking members came pouring into the +chamber and stood, transfixed and open-mouthed. + +“_Mister Speaker_!” + +Then the place rocked with the gust of laughter and ironical cheering +that swept over the Assembly, Members climbed upon their chairs and on +desks, waving handkerchiefs, sheets of foolscap, and waste-baskets. +“Hear 'im! _He-ear_ 'im!” rang the derisive cry. + +The Speaker yielded in the same spirit and said: + +“The Gentleman from Wixinockee.” + +A semi-quiet followed and the cracked voice rose defiantly: + +“That's who I am! I'm the Gentleman from Wixinockee an' I stan' here +to defen' the principles of the Democratic party!” + +The Democrats responded with violent hootings, supplemented by cheers +of approval from the Republicans. The high voice out-shrieked them +all: “Once a Democrat, always a Democrat! I voted Dem'cratic tick't +forty year, born a Democrat an' die a Democrat. Fellow sizzens, I want +to say to you right here an' now that principles of Dem'cratic party +saved this country a hun'erd times from Republican mal-'diministration +an' degerdation! Lemme tell you this: you kin take my life away but +you can't say I don' stan' by Dem'cratic party, mos' glorious party of +Douglas an' Tilden, Hen'ricks, Henry Clay, an' George Washin'ton. I +say to you they _hain't_ no other party an' I'm member of it till +death an' Hell an' f'rever after, so help me _God_!” + +He smote the desk beside him with the back of his hand, using all his +strength, skinning his knuckles so that the blood dripped from them, +unnoticed. He waved both arms continually, bending his body almost +double and straightening up again, in crucial efforts for +emphasis. All the old jingo platitudes that he had learned from +campaign speakers throughout his life, the nonsense and brag and blat, +the cheap phrases, all the empty balderdash of the platform, rushed to +his incoherent lips. + +The lord of misrule reigned at the end of each sentence, as the +members sprang again upon the chairs and desks, roaring, waving, +purple with laughter. The Speaker leaned back exhausted in his chair +and let the gavel rest. Spectators, pages, galleries whooped and +howled with the members. Finally the climax came. + +“I want to say to you just this _here_,” shrilled the cracked +voice, “an' you can tell the Republican party that I said so, tell 'em +straight from _me_, an' I hain't goin' back on it; I reckon they +know who I am, too; I'm a man that's honest--I'm as honest as the day +is long, I am--as honest as the day is long--” + +He was interrupted by a loud voice. “_Yes_,” it cried, “_when +that day is the twenty-first of December!_” + +That let pandemonium loose again, wilder, madder than before. A member +threw a pamphlet at Uncle Billy. In a moment the air was thick with a +Brobdingnagian snow-storm: pamphlets, huge wads of foolscap, bills, +books, newspapers, waste-baskets went flying at the grotesque target +from every quarter of the room. Members “rushed” the old man, hooting, +cheering; he was tossed about, half thrown down, bruised, but, +clamorous over all other clamours, jumping up and down to shriek over +the heads of those who hustled him, his hands waving frantically in +the air, his long beard wagging absurdly, still desperately +vociferating his Democracy and his honesty. + +That was only the beginning. He had, indeed, “found his voice”; for he +seldom went now to the boarding-house for his meals, but patronized +the free-lunch counter and other allurements of the establishment +across the way. Every day he rose in the House to speak, never failing +to reach the assertion that he was “as honest as the day is long,” + which was always greeted in the same way. + +For a time he was one of the jokes that lightened the tedious business +of law-making, and the members looked forward to his “_Mis-ter +Speaker_” as schoolboys look forward to recess. But, after a week, +the novelty was gone. + +The old man became a bore. The Speaker refused to recognize him, and +grew weary of the persistent shrilling. The day came when Uncle Billy +was forcibly put into his seat by a disgusted sergeant-at-arms. He was +half drunk (as he had come to be most of the time), but this +humiliation seemed to pierce the alcoholic vapours that surrounded his +always feeble intelligence. He put his hands up to his face and cried +like a whimpering child. Then he shuffled out and went back to the +saloon. He soon acquired the habit of leaving his seat in the House +vacant; he was no longer allowed to make speeches there; he made them +in the saloon, to the amusement of the loafers and roughs who infested +it. They badgered him, but they let him harangue them, and applauded +his rhodomontades. + +Hurlbut, passing the place one night at the end of the session, heard +the quavering, drunken voice, and paused in the darkness to listen. + +“I tell you, fellow-countrymen, I've voted Dem'cratic tick't forty +year, live a Dem'crat, die a Dem'crat! An' I'm's honest as day is +long!” + + * * * * * + +It was five years after that session, when Hurlbut, now in the +national Congress, was called to the district in which Wixinockee +lies, to assist his hard-pressed brethren in a campaign. He was +driving, one afternoon, to a political meeting in the country, when a +recollection came to him and he turned to the committee chairman, who +accompanied him, and said: + +“Didn't Uncle Billy Rollinson live somewhere near here?” + +“Why, yes. You knew him in the legislature, didn't you?” + +“A little. Where is he now?” + +“Just up ahead here. I'll show you.” + +They reached the gate of a small, unkempt, weedy graveyard and +stopped. + +“The inscription on the head-board is more or less amusing,” said the +chairman, as he got out of the buggy, “considering that he was thought +to be pretty crooked, and I seem to remember that he was 'read out of +the party,' too. But he wrote the inscription himself, on his +death-bed, and his son put it there.” + +There was a sparse crop of brown grass growing on the grave to which +he led his companion. A cracked wooden head-board, already tilting +rakishly, marked Henry's devotion. It had been white-washed and the +inscription done in black letters, now partly washed away by the rain, +but still legible: + +HERE LIES THE MORTAL REMAINS OF WILLIAM ROLLINSON A LIFE-LONG DEMOCRAT +AND A MAN AS HONEST AS THE DAY IS LONG + +The chairman laughed. “Don't that beat thunder? You knew his record in +the legislature didn't you?” + +“Yes.” + +“He _was_ as crooked as they say he was, wasn't he?” + +Hurlbut had grown much older in five years, and he was in Congress. He +was climbing the ladder, and, to hold the position he had gained, and +to insure his continued climbing, he had made some sacrifices within +himself by obliging his friends--sacrifices which he did not name. + +“I could hardly say,” he answered gently, his down-bent eyes fastened +on the sparse, brown grass. “It's not for us to judge too much. I +believe, maybe, that if he could hear me now, I'd ask his pardon for +some things I said to him once.” + + + + +HECTOR + + +It isn't the party manager, you understand, that gets the fame; it's +the candidate. The manager tries to keep his candidate in what the +newspapers call a “blaze of publicity”; that is, to keep certain spots +of him in the blaze, while sometimes it is the fact that a candidate +does not know much of what is really going on; he gets all the red +fire and sky-rockets, and, in the general dazzle and nervousness, is +unconscious of the forces which are to elect or defeat him. Strange +as it is, the more glare and conspicuousness he has, the more he +usually wants. But the more a working political manager gets, the less +he wants. You see, it's a great advantage to keep out of the high +lights. + +For my part, not even being known or important enough to be named +“Dictator,” now and then, in the papers, I've had my fun in the game +very quietly. Yet I did come pretty near being a famous man once, a +good while ago, for about a week. That was just after Hector J. Ransom +made his great speech on the “Patriotism of the Pasture” which set the +country to talking about him and, in time, brought him all he desired. + +You remember what a big stir that speech made, of course--everybody +remembers it. The people in his State went just wild with pride, and +all over the country the papers had a sort of catch head-line: +“Another Daniel Webster Come to Judgment!” When the reporters in my +own town found out that Ransom was a second cousin of mine, I was put +into a scare-head for the only time in my life. For a week I was a +public character and important to other people besides the boys that +do the work at primaries. I was interviewed every few minutes; and a +reporter got me up one night at half-past twelve to ask for some +anecdotes of Hector's “Boyhood Days and Rise to Fame.” + +I didn't oblige that young man, but I knew enough. I was always fond +of my first cousin, Mary Ransom, Hector's mother; and in the old days +I never passed through Greenville, the little town where they lived, +without stopping over, a train or two, to visit with her, and I saw +plenty of Hector! I never knew a boy that left the other boys to come +into the parlour (when there was company) quicker than Hector, and I +certainly never saw a boy that “showed off” more. His mother was +wrapped up in him; you could see in a minute that she fairly +worshipped him; but I don't know, if it hadn't been for Mary, that I'd +have praised his recitations and elocution so much, myself. + +Mary and I wouldn't any more than get to tell each other how long +since we'd heard from Aunt Sue, before Hector would grow uneasy and +switch around on the sofa and say: “Ma, I'd rather you wouldn't tell +cousin Ben about what happened at the G. A. R. reunion. I don't want +to go through all that stuff again.” + +At that, Mary's eyes would light up and she'd say: “You must, Hector, +you must! I want him to hear you do it; he mustn't go away without +that!” Then she'd go on to tell me how Hector had recited Lincoln's +Gettysburg speech at a meeting of the local post of the G. A. R. and +how he was applauded, and that many of the veterans had told him if he +kept on he'd be Governor of his State some day, and how proud she was +of him and how he was so different from ordinary boys that she was +often anxious about him. Then she would urge him to let me have +it--and he always would, especially if I said: “Oh, don't _make_ +the boy do it, Mary!” + +He would stand out in the middle of the floor and thrust his chin out, +knitting his brow and widening his nostrils, and shout “Of the people, +By the people, and For the people” at the top of his lungs in that +little parlour. He always had a great talent for mimicry, a talent of +which I think he was absolutely unconscious. He would give his +speeches in exactly the boy-orator style; that is, he imitated +speakers who imitated others who had heard Daniel Webster. Mary and +he, however, had no idea that he imitated anybody; they thought it was +creative genius. + +When he had finished Lincoln, he would say: “Well, I've got another +that's a good deal better, but I don't want to go through that today; +it's too much trouble,” with the result that in a few minutes Patrick +Henry would take a turn or two in his grave. Hector always placed +himself by a table for “Liberty or Death,” and barked his knuckles on +it for emphasis. Little he cared, so long as he thought he'd got his +effect! You could see, in spite of the intensity of his expression, +that he was perfectly happy. + +When he'd worked us through that, and perhaps “Horatius at the Bridge” + and the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius and was pretty well +emptied, he'd hang about and interrupt in a way that made me +restless. Neither Mary nor I could get out two sentences before the +boy would cut in with something like: “Don't tell cousin Ben about +that day I recited in school; I'm tired of all that guff!” + +Then Mary would answer: “It isn't guff, precious. I never was prouder +of you in my life.” And she'd go on to tell me about another of his +triumphs, and how he made up speeches of his own sometimes, and would +stand on a box and deliver them to his boy friends, though she didn't +say how the boys received them. All the while, Hector would stare at +me like a neighbour's cat on your front steps, to see what impression +it made on me; and I was conscious that he was sure that I knew he was +a wonderful boy. I think he felt that everybody knew it. Hector kind +of palled on me. + +When he was about sixteen, Mary wrote me that she was in great +distress about him because he had decided to go on the stage; that he +had written to John McCullough, offering to take the place of leading +man in his company to begin with. Mary was sure, she said, that the +life of an actor was a hard one; Hector had always been very delicate +(I had known him to eat a whole mince pie without apparent distress +afterward) and she wanted me to write and urge him to change his +mind. She felt sure Mr. McCullough would send for him at once, because +Hector had written him that he already knew all the principal +Shakespearian roles, could play Brutus, Cassius, or Mark Antony as +desired; and he had added a letter of recommendation from the Mayor of +their city, declaring that Hector was a finer elocutionist and +tragedian than any actor he had ever seen. + +The dear woman's anxiety was needless, for she wrote me, with as much +surprise as pleasure, two months later, that for some reason +Mr. McCullough had not answered the letter, and that she was very +happy; she had persuaded Hector to go to college. + +How she kept him there, the first two years, I don't know, for her +husband had only left her about four hundred dollars a year. Of +course, living in Greenville isn't expensive, but it does cost +something, and I honestly believe Mary came near to living on +nothing. It was a small college that she'd sent the boy to, but it was +a mother's point with her that Hector should be as comfortable as +anyone there. + +I stopped off at Greenville, one day, toward the end of his second +year, but before he'd come home, and I saw how it was. Mary seemed as +glad as ever to see me--it was the same old bright greeting that she'd +always given me. She saw me from the dining-room window where she was +eating her supper, and she came out, running down to the gate to meet +me, like a girl; but she looked thin and pale. + +I said I'd go right in and have some supper with her, and at that the +roses came back quickly to her cheeks. “No,” she said, “I wasn't +really at supper; only having a bite beforehand; I'm going up-town now +to get the things for supper. You smoke a cigar out on the porch till +I get back, and--” + +I took her by the arm. “Not much, Mary,” I said. “I'm going to have +the same supper you had for yourself.” + +So I went straight out to the dining-room; and all I found on the +table was some dry bread toasted and a baked apple without cream or +sugar. It gave me a pretty good idea of what the general run of her +meals must have been. + +I had a long talk with her that night, and I wormed it out of her that +Hector's college expenses were about twenty-five dollars a month, +which left her six to live on. The truth is, she didn't have enough to +eat, and you could see how happy it made her. She read me a good many +of Hector's letters, her voice often trembling with happiness over his +triumphs. The letters were long, I'll say that for Hector, which may +have been to his credit as a son, or it may have been because he had +such an interesting subject. There was no doubt that he had worked +hard; he had taken all the chief prizes for oratory and essay writing +and so forth that were open to him; he also allowed it to be seen that +he was the chief person in the consideration of his class and the +fraternity he had joined. Mary had a sort of humbleness about being +the mother of such a son. + +But I settled one thing with her that night, though I had to hurt her +feelings to do it. I owned a couple of small notes which had just +fallen due, and I could spare the money. I put it as a loan to Hector +himself; he was to pay me back when he got started, and so it was +arranged that he could finish his course without his mother's living +on apples and toast. + +I went over to his Commencement with Mary and we hadn't been in the +town an hour before we saw that Hector was the king of the place. He +had _all_ the honours; first in his class, first in oratory, +first in everything; professors and students all kow-towed and sounded +the hew-gag before him. Most of Mary's time was put in crying with +happiness. As for Hector himself, he had changed in just one way: he +no longer looked at people to see his effect on them; he was too +confident of it. + +His face had grown to be the most determined I have ever seen. There +was no obstinacy in it--he wasn't a bull-dog--only set determination. +No one could have failed to read in it an immensely powerful will. In +a curious way he seemed “on edge” all the time. His nostrils were +always distended, the muscles of his lean jaw were never lax, but +continually at tension, thrusting the chin forward with his teeth hard +together. His eyebrows were contracted, I think, even in his sleep, +and he looked at everything with a sort of quick, fierce, appearance +of scrutiny, though at that time I imagined that he saw very little. +He had a loud, rich voice, his pronunciation was clipped to a deadly +distinctness; he was so straight and his head so high in the air that +he seemed almost to tilt back. With his tall figure and black hair, he +was a boy who would have attracted attention, as they say, in any +crowd, so that he might have been taken for a young actor. His best +friend, a kind of Man Friday to him, was another young fellow from +Greenville, whose name was Joe Lane. I liked Joe. I'd known him? since +he was a boy. He was lazy and pleasant-looking, with reddish hair and +a drawling, low voice. He had a humorous, sensible expression, though +he was dissipated, I'd heard, but very gentle in his manners. I had a +talk with him under the trees of the college campus in the moonlight, +Commencement night. I can see the boy lying there now, sprawling on +the grass with a cigar in his mouth. + +“Hector's done well,” I said. + +“Oh, Lord, yes!” Joe answered. “He always will. He's going 'way up in +the world.” + +“What makes you think so?” + +“Because he's so sure of it. It only needs a little luck to make him a +great man. In fact, he already is a great man.” + +“You mean you think he has a great mind?” + +“Why, no, sir; but I think he has a purpose so big and so set, that it +might be called great, and it will make him great.” + +“What purpose?” + +Joe answered quietly but very slowly, pulling at his cigar after each +syllable: “Hec--tor--J. Ran--som!” + +“I declare,” I put in, “I thought you were his friend!” + +“So I am,” the young fellow returned. “Friend, admirer, and +doer-in-ordinary to Hector J. Ransom, that's my quality. I've done +errands and odd jobs for him all my life. Most people who meet him do; +though it might be hard to say why. I haven't hitched my wagon to a +star; nobody'll get to do that, because this star isn't going to take +anything to the zenith but itself.” + +“Going to the zenith, is he?” + +“Surely.” + +“You mean,” said I, “that he's going to make a fine lawyer?” + +“Oh, no, I think not. He might have been called one in the last +generation, but, as I understand it, nowadays a lawyer has to work out +business propositions more than oratory.” + +“And you think Hector has only his oratory?” + +“I think that's his vehicle; it's his racing sulky and he'll drive it +pretty hard. We're good friends, but if you want me to be frank, I +should say that he'd drive on over my dead body if it lay in the road +to where he was going.” Lane rolled over in the grass with a little +chuckle. “Of course,” he went on, “I talk about him this way because +I know what you've done for him and I'd like to help you to be sure +that he's going to be a success. He'll do you credit!” + +“What are you going to do, yourself, Joe?” I asked. + +“Me?” He sat up, looking surprised. “Why, didn't you know? I didn't +get my degree. They threw me out at the eleventh hour for getting too +publicly tight--celebrating Hector's winning the works of Lord Byron, +the prize in the senior debate! I'll never be a credit to anybody; and +as for what I'm going to do--go back to Greenville and loaf in Tim's +pool-room, I suppose, and watch Hector's balloon.” + +However, Hector's balloon seemed uninclined to soar, at the +set-off--though Hector didn't. The next summer began a presidential +campaign, and Hector, knowing that I was chairman of my county +committee, and strangely overestimating my importance, came up to see +me: he asked me to use my influence with the National Committee to +have him sent to make speeches in one of the doubtful States; he +thought he could carry it for us. I explained that I had no wires +leading up so far as the National Committee. There were other things +I might have explained, but it didn't seem much use. Hector would have +thought I wanted to “keep him down.” + +He thought so anyway, because, after a crestfallen moment, he began to +look at me in his fierce eye-to-eye way with what seemed to me a dark +suspicion. He came and struck my desk with his clinched fist (he was +always strong on that), and exclaimed: + +“Then by the eternal gods, if my own flesh and blood won't help me, +I'll go to Chicago myself, lay my credentials before the committee, +unaided, and wring from them--” + +“Hold on, Hector,” I said. “Why didn't you say you had credentials? +What are they?” + +“What are they?” he answered in a rising voice. “You ask me what are +my credentials? The credentials of my patriotism, my poverty, and my +pride! You ask me for my credentials? The credentials of youth!” (He +hit the desk every few words.) “The credentials of enthusiasm! The +credentials of strength! You ask for my credentials? The credentials +of red blood, of red corpuscles, of young manhood, ripest in the +glorious young West! The credentials of vitality! Of virile--” + +“Hold on,” I said again, but I couldn't stop him. He went on for +probably fifteen minutes, pacing the room and gesticulating and +thundering at me, though we two were all alone. I felt mighty +ridiculous, but, of course, I'd been through much the same thing with +one or two candidates and orators before. I thought then that he was +practising on me, but I came afterward to see that I was partly +wrong. “Oratory” was his only way of expressing himself; he couldn't +just _talk_, to save his life. All you could do, when he began, +was to sit and take it till he got through, which consumed some +valuable time for me that afternoon. I suppose I was profane inside, +for having given him that cue with “credentials.” Finally I got in a +question: + +“Why not begin a little more mildly, Hector? Why don't you make some +speeches in your own county first?” + +“I have consented to make the Fourth of July oration at Greenville,” + he answered. + +Before he could go on, I got up and slapped him on the back. “That's +right!” I said. “That's right! Go back and show the home folks what +you can do, and I'll come down to hear it!” + +And so I did. Mary was, if possible, more flustered and upset than at +Hector's Commencement. She and Joe Lane and I had a bench close up to +the stand, and on the other side of Mary sat a girl I'd never seen +before. Mary introduced me to her in a way that made me risk a guess +that Hector liked her more than common. Her name was Laura Rainey, and +she'd come to Greenville, a year before, to teach in the high-school. +She was young, not quite twenty, I reckoned, and as pretty and dainty +a girl as ever I saw; thin and delicate-looking, though not in the +sense of poor health; and she struck me as being very sweet and +thoughtful. Joe Lane told me, with his little chuckle, that she'd had +a good deal of trouble in the school on account of all the older boys +falling in love with her. + +Something in the way he spoke made me watch Joe, and I was sure if +he'd been one of her pupils he wouldn't have lightened her worries +much in that direction. He had it himself. I saw it, or, I should say, +I felt it, in spite of his never seeming to look at her. She looked at +him, however, and pretty often, too; and there was a good deal of +interest in her eyes, only it was a sad kind, which I understood, I +thought, when I found that Joe had been on a long spree and had just +sobered up the day before. + +Hector sat above us on the platform, with the Mayor and the County +Judge, and when the latter introduced him, and the same old white +pitcher and glass of water on a pine table, the boy came forward with +slow and impressive steps, and, setting his left fist on his hip, +allowed his right arm to hang straight by his side till his hand +rested on the table, like a statesman of the day standing for a +photograph. His brow contained a commanding frown, and he stood for +some moments in that position, while, to my astonishment, the crowd +cheered itself hoarse. + +There was no mistaking the genuine enthusiasm that he evoked, though I +didn't feel it myself. I suppose the only explanation is that he had +a great deal of what is called “magnetism.” What made it I don't +know. He was good-looking enough, with his dark eyes and hair, and +white, intense face and black clothes; but there was more in the +cheering than appreciation of that. I could not doubt that he produced +on the crowd, by his quiet attitude, an apparition of greatness. There +was some kind of hypnotism in it, I suppose. + +The speech was about what I was looking for: bombastic platitudes +delivered with such earnestness and velocity that “every point scored” + and the cheering came whenever he wanted it. + +For instance: he would retire a few steps toward the rear, and, +pointing to the sky, adjure it in a solemn voice which made every one +lean forward in a dead hush: + +“Tell me, ye silent stars, that seem to slumber 'neath the auroral +coverlet of day, tell me, down what laurelled pathways among ye walk +our dead, the heroes whose blood was our benison, bequeathing to us +the heritage of this flower-strewn land; they who have passed to that +bourne whence no traveller returns? Answer me: Are not _theirs_ +the loftiest names inscribed on your marble catalogues of the +nations?” He let his voice out startlingly and shouted: “CREEPS there +a creature of the earth with spirit so sordid as to doubt it, to doubt +_who_ heads those gilded rolls! If there be, then _I_ say to +him, 'Beware!' For the names I see written above me to-day on the +immemorial canopy of heaven begin with that of the spotless knight, +the unsceptred and uncrowned king, the godlike and immaculate”--(here +he turned suddenly, ran to the front of the stage, and, with +outstretched fist shaking violently over our heads, thundered at the +full power of his lungs): “GEORGE WASHINGTON!” + +He did the same for Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, and four or +five governors and senators of the State; and at every name the crowd +went wild, worked up to it by Hector in the same way. But what +surprised me was his daring to conclude his list with a votive +offering laid at the feet of Passley Trimmer. Trimmer was the +congressional representative of that district and one of the meanest +men and smartest politicians in the world. He was always creeping out +of tight places and money-scandals by the skin of his teeth; and yet, +by building up the finest personal machine in the State, he stuck to +his seat in Congress term after term, in spite of the fact that most +of the intelligent and honest men in his district despised him. It was +a proof of the power Hector held over his audience that, by his +tribute to Trimmer, he was able to evoke the noisiest enthusiasm of +the afternoon. + +Nevertheless, what really tickled me most was the boy's peroration. It +gave me a pretty clear insight into his “innard workings.” He led up +to it in his favourite way: stepping backward a pace or two and +sinking his voice to a kind of Edwin Booth quiet; gradually growing a +little louder; then suddenly turning on the thunder and running +forward. + +“You ask _me_ for our credentials?” he roared. (Nobody had, this +time.) “In the Lexicon of the Peoples, you ask _me_ for my +country's credentials? The credentials of our pastures, our +population and our pride! You ask me for my country's credentials? I +reply: 'The credentials of our youth and our enthusiasm! Of red +corpuscles! Of red blood! The credentials of the virility and of the +magnificent manhood of the Columbian Continent!' You ask for my +country's credentials and I answer: 'The credentials of Glory! By +right of the eternal and Almighty God!'” + +Of course there was a great deal more, but that's enough to show how +he had polished it. + + * * * * * + +I walked back to Mary's with Joe Lane, while Hector followed, making a +kind of Royal Progress through the crowds, with his mother and Miss +Rainey. + +“You see it now, yourself, don't you?” Joe said to me. + +“You mean about his doing well?” + +“What else? He's just shown what he can do with people. The day will +come when you'll have to take him at his own valuation.” + +I couldn't help laughing. “Well, Joe,” I said, “that sounds as if +_you_, at least, already took Hector at his own valuation.” + +“In some things,” he answered, “I think I do. Don't you take him for +an ass, sir. Sometimes I believe he's guided by a really superior +intelligence--” + +“Must be a sub-consciousness, then, Joe!” + +“Exactly,” he said seriously. “He doesn't make a single mistake. He's +trained his manner so that, while a very few people laugh at him, he +does things that the town would resent in any one else. He doesn't go +round with the boys, and they look up to him for it. He isn't pompous, +but he's acquired a kind of stateliness of manner that's made +Greenville call him 'Mister Ransom' instead of 'Hec.' You probably +think that his request to the National Committee only shows he's got +all the nerve in the world; but I believe, on my soul, that if it had +been granted he could have made good.” + +“What did he want to run Passley Trimmer into his Pantheon for, +to-day?” I asked. + +Joe's honest face looked a little dark at this. “It's only another +proof of the shrewdness that directs him, though it was, maybe, a +little bit sickening. He talks gold and stars and eternal gods, about +sweetness and light and pure politics and reform, but he wants Passley +Trimmer's machine to take him up. Passley Trimmer and his brother, +Link, are a good-sized curse to this district, I expect you know, but +Hector's courting them. Link is the dirtiest we've ever had here, and +he holds all the rottenest in this county solid for Passley. He's +overbearing; ugly, too; shot a nigger in the hip a year ago, and +crippled him for life on account of a little back-talk, and got off +scot-free. I had a row with him in a saloon last week; I was tight, I +suppose, though there's always been bad blood between us, anyway, +drunk or sober, and I didn't know much what happened, except that I +refused to drink in his company and he cursed me out and I blacked an +eye for him before they separated us. Well, sir, next day, here was +Hector demanding that I go and apologize to Link. I said I'd as soon +apologize to a rattlesnake, and Hector upbraided me in his rhetoric, +but with a whole lot of real feeling, too. He was even pathetic about +it: put it on the ground that I owed it to morality, by which he meant +Hector. I was known to be his most intimate friend; I had done him an +irrecoverable injury with the Trimmers, who would extend their +retaliation and let _him_ have a share of it, as my friend. He +ended by declaring that he should withhold the light of his +countenance from me until I had repaired the wrong done to his cause, +and had apologized to Link!” + +“Did you do it?” + +The good fellow answered with his little chuckle: “Of course! Don't +you see that he gets everybody to do what he wants? It's almost sheer +will, and he's a true cloud-compeller.” + +I wanted to understand something else, and I didn't know how much Mary +could tell me; that is, I was sure that she would think that Miss +Rainey was in love with Hector. Mary wouldn't be able to see how any +girl could help it. + +“Joe,” I said, “does Hector seem much taken with this Miss Rainey?” + +We had come to the gate, and Lane stopped to relight a cigar before he +answered. He kept the match at the stub until it burned out, half +hiding his face from me with his hands, shielding the flame from a +breeze that wasn't blowing. + +“Yes,” he said finally, “as much as he could be with anybody--at least +he wants her to be taken with him.” + +“Do you think she is?” + +He swung the gate open, and stood to let me pass in first. “She could +be of great help to him. We've all got to help Hector.” + +I was going on: “You believe she will--” + +“Did you ever hear,” he interrupted, “of Jane Welsh Carlyle?” + +I thought about that answer of Joe's most of the evening, and it +struck me he was right. It was one of those things you couldn't +possibly explain to save your life, but you knew it: everybody had +_got_ to help Hector. Everybody had to get behind him and +push. Hector took it for granted in a way that passed the love of +woman! + +And yet, as we sat at Mary's supper-table, that evening, I don't know +that I ever felt less real liking for any of my kin than I felt for +Hector, though, perhaps, that was because he seemed to keep rubbing it +in on me in indirect ways that I had done him an injury by not helping +him with the National Committee, and that I ought to know it, after +his triumph of the afternoon. I could see that Mary agreed with him, +though in her gentle way. + +Young Lane and Miss Rainey stayed for supper, too, and were very +quiet. Miss Rainey struck me as a quiet girl generally, and Joe never +talked, anyway, when in Hector's company. For that matter, nobody else +did; there was mighty little chance. The truth is, Hector had an +impediment of speech: he couldn't listen. + +Of course he talked only about himself. That followed, because it was +all there was in him. Not that it always _seemed_ to be about +himself. For instance, I remember one of his ways of rubbing it into +me, that evening. He had been delivering himself of some opinions on +the nature of Genius, fragments (like his “credentials”--I had a +sneaking idea) of some undeveloped oration or other. “Look at +Napoleon!” he bade us, while Mary was cutting the pie. “Could Barras +with all his jealous and malevolent opposition, could Barras with all +his craft, all his machinations, with all the machinery of the State, +could Barras oppose the upward flight of that mighty spirit? No! +Barras, who should have been the faithful friend, the helper, the +disciple and believer, Barras, I say, set himself to destroy the youth +whose genius he denied, and Barras was himself destroyed! He fell, for +he had dared to oppose the path of one of the eternal stars!” + +That was a sample, and I don't exaggerate it. I couldn't exaggerate +Hector; it's beyond me; he always exaggerated himself beyond anybody +else's power to do it. But I loved to hear Joe Lane's chuckle and I +got one out of him when I offered him a cigar as we went out on the +porch. + +“Take one,” I said. “It's one of Barras's best.” + +“Better get in line,” was all he added to the chuckle. + + * * * * * + +A good many visitors dropped in, during the evening, Greenville's +greatest come to congratulate Hector on the speech. Everybody in the +county was talking about him that night, they said. Hector received +these people in his old-fashioned-statesman manner, though I noticed +that already he shook hands like a candidate. He would grasp the +caller's hand quickly and decidedly, instead of letting the other do +the gripping. And I could see that all those who came in, even +hard-headed men twice his age, treated him deferentially, with the air +of intimate respect that he somehow managed to exact from people. +Perhaps I don't do him justice: he was a “mighty myster'us” boy! + +I sat and smoked, lounging in one of Mary's comfortable +porch-chairs. I managed without trouble to be in the background and I +couldn't help putting in most of my time studying Joe Lane and Miss +Rainey. Those two were sitting, on the side-steps of the porch, a +little apart from the rest of us--and a little apart from each other, +too. Lord knows how you get such strong impressions, but I was very +soon perfectly sure that these two young people were in love with each +other and that they both knew it, but that they had given each other +up. I was sure, too, that they were both under Hector's spell, and +preposterous as it may seem, that they were under his _will_, and +that Hector's plans included Miss Rainey for himself. + +It was a mighty pretty evening; full of flower-smells and breezes from +the woods, which began just across the village street. Joe sat in a +sort of doubled-up fashion he had, his thin hands clasped like a strap +round his knees. She sat straight and trim, both of them looking out +toward where the twilight was fading. As the darkness came on I could +barely make them out, a couple of quiet shadows, seemingly as far away +from the group about the lamp-lit doorway where Hector sat, as if they +were alone on big Jupiter who was setting up to be the whole thing, +far out yonder in the lonely sky. + +By and by, the moon oozed round from behind the house and leaked +through the trees and I could see them plainer, two silhouettes +against the foliage of some bright lilac-bushes. Joe hadn't budged, +but the back of Miss Rainey's head wasn't toward me as it had been +before; it was her profile. She was leaning back a little, against a +post, and looking at Joe--just looking at him. Neither of them spoke a +word the whole time, and somehow I felt they didn't need to, and that +what they had to say to each other had never been spoken and never +would be. It was mighty pretty--and sad, too. + +I felt so sorry for them, but it made me more or less impatient with +Hector, and with Joe--especially with Joe, I think. It seemed to me he +needn't have taken his temperament so hopelessly. But what's the use +of judging? When a man has a temperament like that, people who haven't +can't tell what he's got to contend with. + +That Fourth of July speech gave Hector his chance. His district +managers and the Trimmer faction saw they could use him; and they sent +him round stumping the district. Two campaigns later the State +Committee was using him, and parts of his speeches were being printed +in all the party papers over the State. Locally, I suppose you might +say, he had become a famous man; at least he acted like one--not that +there was any essential change in him. His style had undergone a large +improvement, however; his language was less mixed-up, and he seemed +clear-headed enough on “questions of the day,” showing himself to be +well-informed and of a fine judgment. + +In these things I thought I saw the hand of Laura Rainey. The teacher +was helping him. The seriousness of his face had increased, he had +always entirely lacked humour; yet the spell he managed to cast over +his audiences was greater. He never once failed to “get them going,” + as they say. At twenty-nine he was no longer called “a rising young +orator”; no, he was usually introduced as the “Hon. Hector J. Ransom, +the Silver-tongued Lochinvar of the West.” + +Things hadn't changed much at Greenville. Mary had always been so +proud of Hector that she hadn't inflated any more on account of his +wider successes. She couldn't, because she hadn't any room left for +it. + +Joe Lane still went on his periodical sprees quite regularly, about +one week every three months, and he was the least offensive tippler I +ever knew. He came up to the city during one of his lapses, and called +at my office. He was dressed with unusual care (he was always a good +deal of a dandy), and he did not stagger nor slush his syllables; +indeed, the only way I could have told what was the matter with him, +at first, was by the solemn preoccupation of his expression. A little +black pickaninny followed him, grinning and carrying a big bundle, +covered with a new lace window-curtain. + +“I am but a bearer of votive flowers,” Joe said, bowing. Then turning +to the little darky, he waved his hand loftily. “Unveil the offering!” + +The pickaninny did so, removing the lace curtain to reveal a shiny new +coal-bucket in which was a lump of ice, whereon reposed a pair of +white kid gloves and a large wreath of artificial daisies. + +“With love,” said Joe. “From Hector.” And he stalked majestically out. + +There was a card on the wreath, which Joe had inscribed: “To announce +the betrothal. No regrets.” + +Sure enough, the next morning I had a letter from Mary, telling me +that Hector and Miss Rainey were engaged, that they had been so +without announcing it, for several years, and she feared the +engagement must last much longer before they could be married. So did +I, for all of Hector's glittering had brought him very little +money. While he had some law practice, of course it was small, in +Greenville, and what he had he neglected. Nor was he a good lawyer. I +knew him to be heavily in debt to Lane, whose father had died lately, +leaving Joe fairly well off; and I knew also that this debt sat very +lightly on Hector. I judged so, because in the matter of the advances +I had made for his education, I never heard him refer to +them. Probably he forgot all about it, having so many more important +things to think of. + +Mary was right: it was a very long engagement. It had lasted seven +years in all, when Passley Trimmer declared himself a candidate for +the nomination for Governor and gave Hector the great chance he had +been waiting for. Hector “came out” for Trimmer, and came out strong. +He worked for him day and night, and he was one of the best cards in +Trimmer's hand. + +It was easy enough to understand: Trimmer's nomination would leave his +seat in Congress vacant and the Trimmer crowd would throw it to +Hector. + +You could see that the “young Lochinvar” was really a power, and I +think they counted on him almost as much as on the personal machine +Trimmer had built up. Most of all, they counted on Hector's speech, +nominating Trimmer, to stampede the convention. If it was to be done, +Hector was the man to do it. There's no doubt in the world of the +extraordinary capacity he had for whirling a crowd along into a kind +of insane enthusiasm. He could make his audience enthusiastic about +_anything_; he could have brought them to their feet waving and +cheering for Ben Butler himself, if he had set out to do it. I believe +that most of us who were against Trimmer were more afraid of Hector's +stampeding the convention than of Trimmer's machine and all the money +he was spending. + +I was working all I knew for another man, Henderson, of my county, and +our delegation would go into the convention sixty-three solid for +Henderson, first, last, and all the time. On that account I had to +play Barras again to the young Napoleon. He came to see me, and made +one of his orations, imploring me to swing half of our delegation for +Trimmer on the first ballot, and all of it on the second. + +“But they count on me!” he declaimed. “They count on me to turn you! +Is a man to be denied by his own flesh and blood? Are the ties of +relationship nothing? Can't you see that my whole future is put in +jeopardy by your refusal? Here is my opportunity at last and you +endanger it. My marriage and my fortune depend on it; the cup is at +my lips. My long years of toil and preparation, the bitter, bitter +waiting--are these things to go for nothing? I tell you that if you +refuse me you may blast the most sacred hopes that ever dwelt in a +human breast!” + +I only smoked on, and so he did “the jury pathetic,” and he was +sincere in it, too. + +“Have you no heart?” he inquired, his voice shaking. “Can you think +calmly of my mother? Remember the years she has waited to see this +recognition come to her son! Am I to go back to her and tell her that +your answer was 'No'? I ask you to think of her, I ask you to put +self out of your thoughts, to forget your own interests for once, and +to think of my mother, waiting in the old home in the quiet village +street where you knew her in her bright girlhood. Remember that she +awaits your answer; forget _me_ if you will, but remember what it +means to _her_, I say, and _then_ if there is a stone in +your breast, instead of a human heart, speak the word 'No'!” + +I spoke it, and, as he had to catch his train, he departed more in +anger than in sorrow, leaving me to my conscience, he told me. At the +door he turned. + +“I warn you,” he said, “that this faction of yours shall go down to +defeat! Trimmer will win this fight, and I shall take his seat in +Congress! That is my first stepping-stone, and I _will_ take it! +I have worked too hard and waited too long, for such as you to +successfully oppose me. I tell you that we shall meet in the +convention, and you and your machine will be broken! The rewards, +then, to us, the victors!” + +“Why, of course,” I said, “if you win.” + +The Trimmer people were strong with the State Executive Committee, +and, in spite of us, worked things a good deal their own way. They +took the convention away from the State Capital to Greenville, which +was, of course, a great advantage for Trimmer. The fact is, that most +of the best people in that district didn't like him, but you know how +we all are: he _was_ one _of_ them, and as soon as it seemed +he had a chance to beat men from other parts of the State, they began +to shout themselves black in the face for their own. When I went down +there, the day before the convention, the place was one mass of +Trimmer flags, banners, badges, transparencies, buttons, and brass +bands. + +I went around to see Mary right away, and while she wasn't exactly +cold to me--the dear woman never could be that to anybody--she was +different; her eyes met mine sadly and her old, sweet voice was a +little tremulous, as if she were sorry that I had done something +wrong. + +I didn't stay long. I started back to the Henderson headquarters in +the hotel, but on my way I passed a big store-room on a corner of the +Square, which Trimmer had fitted up as his own headquarters. There was +quite a crowd of the boys going in and out, looking cheerful, fresh +cigars in their mouths, and a drink or two inside, band coming down +the street, everything the way an old-timer likes to see it. + +Passley Trimmer himself came out as I was going by, and with him were +his brother, Link, and two or three other men, among them a +weasel-faced little fellow named Hugo Siffles, who kept a drug-store +on the next corner. Hugo wasn't anybody; nobody ever paid any +attention to him at all; but he was one of those empty-headed village +talkers who are always trying to look as if they were behind the +scenes, always trying to walk with important people. Everybody knows +them. They whisper to the undertaker at funerals; and during campaigns +they have something confidential to communicate to United States +Senators. They meddle and intrude and waste as much time for you as +they can. + +When Trimmer saw me, he held out his hand. “Hello, Ben! I hear you're +not _for_ me!” he said cordially. + +“How are you running?” I came back at him, laughing. + +“Oh, we're going to beat you,” he answered, in the same way. + +“Well, you'll see a good run, first, I expect!” + +He walked along with me, Link and the others following a little way +behind; but Hugo Siffles, of course, walking with us, partly to listen +and tell at the drug-store later, and partly to look like state +secrets. + +“Sorry you couldn't see your way to join us,” Trimmer said. “But we'll +win out all right, anyway. I shouldn't think that would be much of a +disappointment to you, though. It will be a great thing for one of +your family.” + +“Oh, yes,” I said, “Hector.” + +Trimmer took on a little of his benevolent statesman's manner, which +they nearly all get in time. “I have the greatest confidence in that +young man's future,” he said. “He may go to the very top. All he needs +is money. I speak to you as a relative: he ought to drop that +school-teacher and marry a girl with money. He could, easily enough.” + +That made me a little ugly. “Oh, no,” I said. “He can make plenty in +Congress outside of his salary, can't he? I understand some of them +do.” + +Of course Trimmer didn't lose his temper; instead, he laughed out +loud, and then put his hand on my shoulder. + +“Look here,” he said. “I'm his friend and you're his cousin. He's one +of my own crowd and I have his best interests at heart. That isn't the +girl for him. He tells me that, for a long while, she used to advise +him against having too much to do with _me_, until he showed her +that winning my influence in his favour was his only chance to +rise. Now, if _you_ have his best interests at heart, as I have, +you'll help persuade him to let her go. Why shouldn't he marry +better? She's not so young any longer, and she's pretty much lost her +looks. And then, you know people will talk--” + +“Talk about what?” I said. + +“Well, if he goes to Congress, and, with his prospects, throws himself +away on a skinny little old-maid school-teacher in the backwoods, one +that he's been making love to for years, they might say almost +anything. Why can't he hand her over to Joe Lane? I'm sure--” + +“That'll do,” I interrupted roughly. “I suppose you've been talking +that way to Hector?” + +“Why, certainly. I have his best interests at--” + +“Good-day, _sir_!” I said, and turned in at the hotel and left +him, with Hugo Siffles's little bright pig's eyes peeking at me round +Trimmer's shoulder. + +Sore enough I was, and cursing Trimmer and Hector in my heart, so that +when some one knocked on my door, while I was washing up for supper, I +said “Come in!” as if I were telling a dog to get out. + +It was Joe Lane and he was pretty drunk. He walked over to the bed and +caught himself unsteadily once or twice. I'd never seen him stagger +before. He didn't speak until he had sat down on the coverlet; then he +shaded his eyes with his hand and stared at me as if he wanted to make +sure that it _was_ I. + +“I've just been down to Hugo Siffles's drugstore,” he said, speaking +very slowly and carefully, “and Hugo was telling a crowd about a +conver--conversation between you and Passley Trimmer. He said Trimmer +said Hector Ransom ought to drop Miss Rainey--and 'hand her over to +Joe Lane,' Is that true?” + +“Yes,” I answered. “The beast said that.” + +“There was more,” Joe said heavily. “More that im--implied--might be +taken to imply scandal, which I believe Trimmer did not seriously +intend--but thought--thought might be used as an argument with Hector +to persuade him to jilt her?” + +“Yes.” + +“What was said ex---actly? It is being repeated about town in various +forms. I want to know.” + +Like a fool I told him the whole thing. I didn't think, didn't dream, +of course, what was in that poor, drunken, devoted head, and I wanted +to blow off my own steam, I was so hot. + +He sat very quietly until I had finished; then he took his head in +both hands and rocked himself gently to and fro upon the bed, and I +saw tears trickling down his cheeks. It was a wretched spectacle in a +way, he being drunk and crying like a child, but I don't think I +despised him. + +“And she so true,” he sobbed, “so good, so faithful to him! She's +given him her youth, her whole sweet youth--all of it for him!” He got +to his feet and went to the door. + +“Hold on, Joe,” I said, “where are you going?” + +“'Nother drink!” he said, and closed the door behind him. + +After supper I went to work with Henderson and three or four others in +a little back-room in our headquarters; and we were hard at it when +one of the boys held up his hand and said: “Listen!” + +The sounds of a big disturbance came in through the open windows: +shouting and yelling, and crowds running in the streets below. The +town had been so noisy all evening that I thought nothing of it. “It's +only some delegation getting in,” I said. “Go on with the lists.” + +But I'd no more than got the words out of my mouth than the noise +rolled into the outer rooms of our headquarters like a wave, and there +was a violent hammering on the door of our room, some one calling my +name in a loud frightened voice. I threw open the door and Hugo +Siffles fell in, his pig's eyes starting out of his pale, foolish +face. + +“Come with me!” he shouted, all in one breath, and laying hold of me +by the lapel of my coat, tried to drag me after him. “There's hell to +pay! Joe Lane came into Trimmer's headquarters, drunk, twenty minutes +ago, and slapped Passley Trimmer's face for what he said to us this +afternoon. Link Trimmer came in, a minute later, drunk too, and heard +what had happened. He followed Joe to Hodge's saloon and shot +him. They've carried him to the drug-store and he's asked to speak to +you.” + +I had the satisfaction of kicking that little cuss through the door +ahead of me, though I knew it was myself I ought to have kicked. + +It was true that Joe had asked to speak to me, but when I reached the +drug-store the doctor wouldn't let me come into the back-room where he +lay, so I sat on a stool in the store. They'd turned all the people +out, except four or five friends of Joe's; and the glass doors and the +windows were solid with flattened faces, some of them coloured by the +blue and green lights so that it sickened me, and all staring +horribly. After about four years the doctor's assistant came out to +get something from a shelf and I jumped at him, getting mighty little +satisfaction, you can be sure. + +“It seems to be very serious indeed,” was all he would say. I knew +that for myself, because one of the men in the store had told me that +it was in the left side. + +Half-an-hour after this--by the clock--the young man came out again +and called us in to carry Joe home. It was not more than a hundred +yards to the old Lane place, and six of us, walking very slowly, +carried him on a cot through the crowd. He was conscious, for he +thanked us in a weakish whisper, when we lifted him carefully into his +own bed. Then the doctor sent us all out except the assistant, and we +went to the front porch and waited, hating the crowd that had lined up +against the fence and about the gate. They looked like a lot of +buzzards; I couldn't bear the sight of them, so I went back into the +little hall and sat down near Joe's door. + +After a while the assistant opened the door, holding a glass pitcher +in his hand. + +“Here,” he said, when he saw me, “will you fill this with cold water +from the well?” + +I took it and hurried out to the kitchen, where four or five people +were sitting and glumly whispering around an old coloured woman, Joe's +cook, who was crying and rocking herself in a chair. I hushed her up +and told her to show me the pump. It was in an orchard behind the +house, and was one of those old-fashioned things that sound like a +siren whistle with the hiccups. + +It took me about five minutes to get the water up, and when I got back +to Joe's room, a woman was there with the doctors. It was Miss Rainey. +She had her hat off, her sleeves were rolled up and, though her face +was the whitest I ever saw, she was cool and steady. It was she who +took the water from me at the door. + +I heard low voices in the parlour, where a lamp was lit, and I went in +there. Mary was sitting on a sofa, with a handkerchief hard against +her eyes, and Hector was standing in the middle of the room, saying +over and over, “My God!” and shaking. I went to the sofa and sat by +Mary with my hand on her shoulder. + +“To think of it!” Hector moaned. “To think of its coming at such a +time! To think of what it means to me!” + +His mother spoke to him from behind her handkerchief: “You mustn't do +it; you _can't_ Hector--oh, you can't, you _can't._” + +For answer he struck himself desperately across the forehead with the +palm of his hand. + +“What is it,” I asked, “that your mother wants you not to do?” + +“She wants me to give up Trimmer--to refuse to make the nominating +speech for him to-morrow.” + +“You've _got_ to give him up!” cried his mother; and then went on +with reiterations as passionate as they were weak and broken in +utterance. “You can't make the speech, you can't do it, you +_can't--“_ + +“Then I'm done for!” he said. “Don't you see what a frightful blow +this pitiful, drunken folly of poor Joe's has dealt Trimmer's +candidaoy? Don't you see that they rely on me more than ever, +_now_? Are you so blind you don't see that I am the only man who +can save Trimmer the nomination? If I go back on him now, he's done +for and I'm done for with him! It's my only chance!” + +“No, no,” she sobbed, “you'll have other chances; you'll have plenty +of chances, dear; you're young--” + +“My only chance,” he went on rapidly, ignoring her, “and if I can +carry it through, it will mean everything to me. The tide's running +strong against Trimmer to-night, and I am the only man in the world +who can turn it the other way. If I go into the convention for him, +faithful to him, and, out of the highest sense of justice, explain +that, even though Lane has been my closest friend, he was in the wrong +and that--” + +Mary rose to her feet and went to her son and clung to him. “No, no!” + she cried; “no, _no_!” + +“I've got to!” he said. + +“What is that you must do, Hector?” It was Miss Rainey's voice, and +came from just behind me. She was standing in the doorway that led +from the hall, and her eyes were glowing with a brilliant, warm +light. We all started as she spoke, and I sprang up and turned toward +her. + +“He's going to get well,” she said, understanding me. “They say it is +surely so!” + +At that Mary ran and threw her arms about her and kissed her--and I +came near it! Hector gave a sort of shout of relief and sank into a +chair. + +“What is that you must do, Hector?” Miss Rainey said again in her +steady voice. + +“Stick to Trimmer!” he explained. “Don't you see that I must? He needs +me now more than ever, and it's my only chance.” + +Miss Rainey looked at him over Mary's shoulder. She looked at him a +long while before she spoke. “You know why Mr. Lane struck that blow?” + +“Oh, I suppose so,” he answered uneasily. “At least Siffles--” + +“Yes,” she said. “You know. What are you going to do?” + +“The right thing!” Hector rose and walked toward her. “I put right +before all. I shall be loyal and I shall be just. It might have been a +terribly hard thing to carry through, but, since dear old Joe will +recover, I know I can do it.” + +The girl's eyes widened suddenly, while the warm glow in them flashed +into a fiery and profound scrutiny. + +“You are going to make the nominating speech,” she said. It was not a +question but a declaration, in the tone of one to whom he stood wholly +revealed. + +“Yes,” he answered eagerly. “I knew you would see: it's my chance, my +whole career--” + +But his mother, turning swiftly, put her hand over his mouth, though +it was to Miss Rainey that she cried: + +“Oh, don't let him say it--he can't; you mustn't let him!” + +The girl drew her gently away and put an arm about her, saying: “Do +you think _I_ could stop him?” + +“But do you wish to stop me?” asked Hector sadly, as he stepped toward +her. “Do you set yourself not only in the way of my great chance, but +against justice and truth? Don't you see that I must do it?” + +“It is your chance--yes. I see the truth, Hector.” Her eyes had +fallen and she looked at him no more, but, with a little movement away +from him, offered her hand to him at arm's length. It was done in a +curious way, and he looked perplexed for a second, and then +frightened. He dropped her hand, and his lips twitched. + +“Laura,” he said, and could not go on. + +“You must go now,” she said to all three of us. “The house should be +very quiet. I shall be his nurse, and the doctor will stay all +night. Isn't it beautiful that Joe is going to get well!” + +She went out quickly, before Hector could detain her, back to the room +where Lane was. + + * * * * * + +There's no need my telling you the details of that convention: +Henderson was beaten from the start, and Hector's speech was all that +happened. If he hadn't made it, there might have been a consolidation +on a dark horse, for feeling was high against Trimmer. It isn't an +easy thing to go into a convention with a brother locked up in jail on +a charge of attempted murder! + +I'll never forget Hector's rising to make that speech. There wasn't +any cheering, there was a dead, cold hush. This wasn't because his +magnetism had deserted him; indeed, I don't think it had ever before +been felt so strongly. He was white as white paper, and his face had a +look of suffering; altogether I believe I couldn't give a better +notion of him than saying that he somehow made me think of Hamlet. + +He began in a very low but very penetrating voice, and I don't think +anybody in the farthest corner missed a single clear-cut syllable from +the first. As I may have indicated, I had never been a warm admirer of +his, but with all my prejudice, I think I admired him when he stood up +to his task that day. For the effect he intended, his speech was a +masterpiece, no less. I saw it before he had finished three +sentences. And he delivered it, knowing that even while he did so he +was losing the woman he loved; for Hector did love Laura Rainey, next +to himself, and she had been part of his life and necessary to +him. But though the heavens fell, he stuck to what he had set out to +do, and did it masterfully. + +Not that what he said could bear the analysis of a cool mind: nothing +that Hector ever did or said has been able to do that. But for the +purpose, it was perfect. For once he began at the beginning, without +rhetoric, and he made it all the more effective by beginning with +himself. + +“Doubtless there are many among you who think it strange to see me +rise to fulfil the charge with which you know me to be intrusted. My +oldest and most intimate friend lies wounded on a bed of suffering, +stricken down by the hand of another friend whose heart is in the +cause for which I have risen. Therefore, you might well question me; +you might well say: 'To whom is your loyalty?' Well might I ask myself +that same question. And I will give you my answer: 'There are things +beyond the personal friendship of man and man, things greater than +individual differences and individual tragedies, things as far higher +and greater than these as the skies of God are higher than the roof of +a child's doll-house. These higher things are the good of the State +and the Law of Justice!'” + +That brought the first applause; and Trimmer's people, seeing the +crowd had taken Hector's point, sprang to their feet and began to +cheer. At a tense moment, such as this, cheering is often hypnotic, +and good managers know how to make use of it on the floor. The noise +grew thunderous, and when it subsided Hector was master of the +convention. Then, for the first time, I saw how far he would go--and +why. I had laughed at him all my life, but now I believed there was +“something in him,” as they say. The Lord knows what, but it was +there; and as I looked at him and listened it seemed to me that the +world was at his feet. + +He was infinitely daring, yet he skirted the cause of the quarrel with +perfect tact: “The misinterpretation of a few careless and kindly +words, said in passing, and repeated, with garbling additions, to a +man who was not himself.... The brooding of a mind most unhappily +beset with alcohol.... A blow resented by a too devoted but too +violent kinsman....” + +Then, with the greatest skill, and rather quietly, he passed to a +eulogium of Trimmer's public career, gradually increasing the warmth +of his praise but controlling it as perfectly as he controlled the +enthusiasm and excitement which followed each of his points. For +myself, I only looked away from him once, and caught a glimpse of +Henderson looking sick. + +Hector finished with a great stroke. He went back to the original +theme. “You ask me where my duty lies!” His great voice rose and rang +through the hall magnificently: “I reply--'first to my State and her +needs'! Is that answer enough? If it be necessary that I should answer +for my personal loyalty to one man or another then I ask _you_: +Shall it go to the friend who, without cause, struck the first blow? +Shall it go to that other friend who went out hot-headed and struck +back to avenge a brother's wrongs? Is it only between these that +I--and many of you--are to choose to-day? Is there not a +_third_?' I tell you that I have chosen, and that my loyalty and +all my strength are devoted to that other, to that man who has +suffered most of all, to him who received a blow and did not avenge +it, because in his greatness he knew that his assailant knew not what +he did!” + +That carried them off their feet. Hector had turned Trimmer's greatest +danger into the means of victory. The Trimmer people led one of those +extraordinary hysterical processions round the aisles that you see +sometimes in a convention (a thing I never get used to), and it was +all Trimmer, or rather, it was all Hector. Trimmer was nominated on +the first ballot. + +There was a recess, and I hurried out, meaning to slip round to Joe +Lane's for a moment to find out how he was. I'd seen the doctor in the +morning and he said his patient had passed a good night and that Miss +Rainey was still there. “I think she's going to stay,” he added, and +smiled and shook hands with me. + +Joe's old darkey cook let me in, and, after a moment, came to say I +might go into Mr. Lane's room; Mr. Lane wanted to see me. + +Joe was lying very flat on his back, but with his face turned toward +the door, and beside him sat Laura Rainey, their thin hands clasped +together. I stopped on the threshold with the door half opened. + +“Come in,” said Joe weakly. “Hector made it, I'm sure.” + +“Yes,” I answered, and in earnest. “He's a great man.” + +Joe's face quivered with a pain that did not come from his hurt. “Oh, +it's knowing that, that makes me feel like such a scoundrel,” he +said. “I suppose you've come to congratulate me.” + +“Yes,” I said, “the doctor says it's a wonderful case, and that you're +one of the lucky ones with a charmed life, thank God!” + +Joe smiled sadly at Miss Rainey. “He hasn't heard,” he said. Then she +gave me her left hand, aot relinquishing Joe's with her right. + +“We were married this morning,” she said, “just after the convention +began.” + +The tears came into Joe's eyes as she spoke. “It's a shame, isn't +it?” he said to me. “You must see it so. And I the kind of man I am, +the town drunkard--” + +Then his wife leaned over and kissed his forehead. + +“Even so it was right--and so beautiful for me,” she said. + + + + +PART II + + + + +MRS. PROTHEROE + + +When Alonzo Tawson took his seat as the Senator from Stackpole in the +upper branch of the General Assembly of the State, an expression of +pleasure and of greatness appeared to be permanently imprinted upon +his countenance. He felt that if he had not quite arrived at all +which he meant to make his own, at least he had emerged upon the arena +where he was to win it, and he looked about him for a few other strong +spirits with whom to construct a focus of power which should control +the senate. The young man had not long to look, for within a week +after the beginning of the session these others showed themselves to +his view, rising above the general level of mediocrity and timidity, +party-leaders and chiefs of faction, men who were on their feet +continually, speaking half-a-dozen times a day, freely and loudly. To +these, and that house at large, he felt it necessary to introduce +himself by a speech which must prove him one of the elect, and he +awaited impatiently an opening. + +Alonzo had no timidity himself. He was not one of those who first try +their voices on motions to adjourn, written in form and handed out to +novices by presiding officers and leaders. He was too conscious of his +own gifts, and he had been “accustomed to speaking” ever since his +days in the Stackpole City Seminary. He was under the impression, +also, that his appearance alone would command attention from his +colleagues and the gallery. He was tall; his hair was long, with a +rich waviness, rippling over both brow and collar, and he had, by +years of endeavour, succeeded in moulding his features to present an +aspect of stern and thoughtful majesty whenever he “spoke.” + +The opportunity to show his fellows that new greatness was among them +delayed not over-long, and Senator Rawson arose, long and bony in his +best clothes, to address the senate with a huge voice in denunciation +of the “Sunday Baseball Bill,” then upon second reading. The classical +references, which, as a born orator, he felt it necessary to +introduce, were received with acclamations which the gavel of the +Lieutenant-Governor had no power to still. + +“What led to the De-cline and Fall of the Roman Empire?” he +exclaimed. “I await an answer from the advocates of this +_de_-generate measure! I _demand_ an answer from them! Let +me hear from them on _that_ subject! Why don't they speak up? +They can't give one. Not because they ain't familiar with history, no +sir! That's not the reason! It's because they _daren't,_ because +their answer would have to go on record _against_ 'em! Don't any +of you try to raise it against me that I ain't speakin' to the point, +for I tell you that when you encourage Sunday Baseball, or any kind of +Sabbath-breakin' on Sunday, you're tryin' to start this State on the +downward path that beset Rome! _I'll_ tell you what ruined +it. The Roman Empire started out to be the greatest nation on earth, +and they had a good start, too, just like the United States has got +to-day. _Then_ what happened to 'em? Why, them old ancient +fellers got more interested in athletic games and gladiatorial combats +and racing and all kinds of out-door sports, and bettin' on 'em, than +they were in oratory, or literature, or charitable institutions and +good works of all kinds! At first they were moderate and the country +was prosperous. But six days in the week wouldn't content 'em, and +they went at it all the time, so that at last they gave up the seventh +day to their sports, the way this bill wants _us_ to do, and from +that time on the result was _de_-generacy and _de_-gredation! +You better remember _that_ lesson, my friends, and don't try to +sink this State to the level of Rome!” + +When Alonzo Rawson wiped his dampened brow, and dropped into his +chair, he was satisfied to the core of his heart with the effect of +his maiden effort. There was not one eye in the place that was not +fixed upon him and shining with surprise and delight, while the kindly +Lieutenant-Governor, his face very red, rapped for order. The young +senator across the aisle leaned over and shook Alonzo's hand +excitedly. + +“That was beautiful, Senator Rawson!” he wispered. “I'm _for_ the +bill, but I can respect a masterly opponent.” + +“I thank you, Senator Truslow,” Alonzo returned graciously. “I am +glad to have your good opinion, Senator.” + +“You have it, Senator,” said Truslow enthusiastically. “I hope you +intend to speak often?” + +“I do, Senator. I intend to make myself heard,” the other answered +gravely, “upon all questions of moment.” + +“You will fill a great place among us, Senator!” + +Then Alonzo Rawson wondered if he had not underestimated his neighbour +across the aisle; he had formed an opinion of Truslow as one of small +account and no power, for he had observed that, although this was +Truslow's second term, he had not once demanded recognition nor +attempted to take part in a debate. Instead, he seemed to spend most +of his time frittering over some desk work, though now and then he +walked up and down the aisles talking in a low voice to various +senators. How such a man could have been elected at all, Alonzo failed +to understand. Also, Truslow was physically inconsequent, in his +colleague's estimation--“a little insignificant, dudish kind of a +man,” he had thought; one whom he would have darkly suspected of +cigarettes had he not been dumbfounded to behold Truslow smoking an +old black pipe in the lobby. The Senator from Stackpole had looked +over the other's clothes with a disapproval that amounted to +bitterness. Truslow's attire reminded him of pictures in New York +magazines, or the drees of boys newly home from college, he didn't +know which, but he did know that it was contemptible. Consequently, +after receiving the young man's congratulations, Alonzo was conscious +of the keenest surprise at his own feeling that there might be +something in him after all. + +He decided to look him over again, more carefully to take the measure +of one who had shown himself so frankly an admirer. Waiting, +therefore, a few moments until he felt sure that Truslow's gaze had +ceased to rest upon himself, he turned to bend a surreptitious but +piercing scrutiny upon his neighbour. His glance, however, sweeping +across Truslow's shoulder toward the face, suddenly encountered +another pair of eyes beyond, so intently fixed upon himself that he +started. The clash was like two search-lights meeting--and the +glorious brown eyes that shot into Alonzo's were not the eyes of +Truslow. + +Truslow's desk was upon the outer aisle, and along the wall were +placed comfortable leather chairs and settees, originally intended for +the use of members of the upper house, but nearly always occupied by +their wives and daughters, or “lady-lobbyists,” or other women +spectators. Leaning back with extraordinary grace, in the chair +nearest Truslow, sat the handsomest woman Alonzo had ever seen in his +life. Her long coat of soft grey fur was unrecognizable to him in +connection with any familiar breed of squirrel; her broad flat hat of +the same fur was wound with a grey veil, underneath which her heavy +brown hair seemed to exhale a mysterious glow, and never, not even in +a lithograph, had he seen features so regular or a skin so clear! And +to look into her eyes seemed to Alonzo like diving deep into clear +water and turning to stare up at the light. + +His own eyes fell first. In the breathless awkwardness that beset him +they seemed to stumble shamefully down to his desk, like a country-boy +getting back to his seat after a thrashing on the teacher's +platform. For the lady's gaze, profoundly liquid as it was, had not +been friendly. + +Alonzo Rawson had neither the habit of petty analysis, nor the +inclination toward it; yet there arose within him a wonder at his own +emotion, at its strangeness and the violent reaction of it. A moment +ago his soul had been steeped in satisfaction over the figure he had +cut with his speech and the extreme enthusiasm which had been accorded +it--an extraordinarily pleasant feeling: suddenly this was gone, and +in its place he found himself almost choking with a dazed sense of +having been scathed, and at the same time understood in a way in which +he did not understand himself. And yet--he and this most unusual lady +had been so mutually conscious of each other in their mysterious +interchange that he felt almost acquainted with her. Why, then, should +his head be hot with resentment? Nobody had _said_ anything to +him! + +He seized upon the fattest of the expensive books supplied to him by +the State, opened it with emphasis and began not to read it, with +abysmal abstraction, tinglingly alert to the circumstance that Truslow +was holding a low-toned but lively conversation with the unknown. Her +laugh came to him, at once musical, quiet and of a quality which +irritated him into saying bitterly to himself that he guessed there +was just as much refinement in Stackpole as there was in the Capital +City, and just as many old families! The clerk calling his vote upon +the “Baseball Bill” at that moment, he roared “No!” in a tone which +was profane. It seemed to him that he was avenging himself upon +somebody for something and it gave him a great deal of satisfaction. + +He returned immediately to his imitation of Archimedes, only relaxing +the intensity of his attention to the text (which blurred into jargon +before his fixed gaze) when he heard that light laugh again. He pursed +his lips, looked up at the ceiling as if slightly puzzled by some +profound question beyond the reach of womankind; solved it almost +immediately, and, setting his hand to pen and paper, wrote the capital +letter “O” several hundred times on note-paper furnished by the +State. So oblivious was he, apparently, to everything but the question +of statecraft which occupied him, that he did not even look up when +the morning's session was adjourned and the lawmakers began to pass +noisily out, until Truslow stretched an arm across the aisle and +touched him upon the shoulder. + +“In a moment, Senator!” answered Alonzo in his deepest chest tones. He +made it a very short moment, indeed, for he had a wild, breath-taking +suspicion of what was coming. + +“I want you to meet Mrs. Protheroe, Senator,” said Truslow, rising, as +Rawson, after folding his writings with infinite care, placed them in +his breast pocket. + +“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am,” Alonzo said in a +loud, firm voice, as he got to his feet, though the place grew vague +about him when the lady stretched a charming, slender, gloved hand to +him across Truslow's desk. He gave it several solemn shakes. + +“We shouldn't have disturbed you, perhaps?” she asked, smiling +radiantly upon him. “You were at some important work, I'm afraid.” + +He met her eyes again, and their beauty and the thoughtful kindliness +of them fairly took his breath. “I am the chairman, ma'am,” he +replied, swallowing, “of the committee on drains and dikes.” + +“I knew it was something of great moment,” she said gravely, “but I +was anxious to tell you that I was interested in your speech.” + +A few minutes later, without knowing how he had got his hat and coat +from the cloak-room, Alonzo Rawson found himself walking slowly +through the marble vistas of the State house to the great outer doors +with the lady and Truslow. They were talking inconsequently of the +weather, and of various legislators, but Alonzo did not know it. He +vaguely formed replies to her questions and he hardly realized what +the questions were; he was too stirringly conscious of the rich quiet +of her voice and of the caress of the grey fur of her cloak when the +back of his hand touched it--rather accidentally--now and then, as +they moved on together. + +It was a cold, quick air to which they emerged and Alonzo, daring to +look at her, found that she had pulled the veil down over her face, +the colour of which, in the keen wind, was like that of June roses +seen through morning mists. At the curb a long, low, rakish black +motor-car was in waiting, the driver a mere swaddled cylinder of fur. + +Truslow, opening the little door of the tonneau, offered his hand to +the lady. “Come over to the club, Senator, and lunch with me,” he +said. “Mrs. Protheroe won't mind dropping us there on her way.” + +That was an eerie ride for Alonzo, whose feet were falling upon +strange places. His pulses jumped and his eyes swam with the tears of +unlawful speed, but his big ungloved hand tingled not with the cold so +much as with the touch of that divine grey fur upon his little finger. + +“You intend to make many speeches, Mr. Truslow tells me,” he heard +the rich voice saying. + +“Yes ma'am,” he summoned himself to answer. “I expect I will. Yes +ma'am.” He paused, and then repeated, “Yes ma'am.” + +She looked at him for a moment. “But you will do some work, too, won't +you?” she asked slowly. + +Her intention in this passed by Alonzo at the time. “Yes ma'am,” he +answered. “The committee work interests me greatly, especially drains +and dikes.” + +“I have heard,” she said, as if searching his opinion, “that almost as +much is accomplished in the committee-rooms as on the floor? +There--and in the lobby and in the hotels and clubs?” + +“I don't have much to do with that!” he returned quickly. “I guess +none of them lobbyists will get much out of me! I even sent back all +their railroad tickets. They needn't come near me!” + +After a pause which she may have filled with unexpressed admiration, +she ventured, almost timidly: “Do you remember that it was said that +Napoleon once attributed the secret of his power over other men to one +quality?” + +“I am an admirer of Napoleon,” returned the Senator from Stackpole. “I +admire all great men.” + +“He said that he held men by his reserve.” + +“It can be done,” observed Alonzo, and stopped, feeling that it was +more reserved to add nothing to the sentence. + +“But I suppose that such a policy,” she smiled upon him inquiringly, +“wouldn't have helped him much with women?” + +“No,” he agreed immediately. “My opinion is that a man ought to tell a +_good_ woman everything. What is more sacred than--” + +The car, turning a corner much too quickly, performed a gymnastic +squirm about an unexpected street-car and the speech ended in a gasp, +as Alonzo, not of his own volition, half rose and pressed his cheek +closely against hers. Instantaneous as it was, his heart leaped +violently, but not with fear. Could all the things of his life that +had seemed beautiful have been compressed into one instant, it would +not have brought him even the suggestion of the wild shock of joy of +that one, wherein he knew the glamorous perfume of Mrs. Protheroe's +brown hair and felt her cold cheek firm against his, with only the +grey veil between. + +“I'm afraid this driver of mine will kill me some day,” she said, +laughing and composedly straightening her hat. “Do you care for big +machines?” + +“Yes ma'am,” he answered huskily. “I haven't been in many.” + +“Then I'll take you again,” said Mrs. Protheroe. “If you like I'll +come down to the State house and take you out for a run in the +country.” + +“When?” said the lost young man, staring at her with his mouth +open. “When?” + +“Saturday afternoon if you like. I'll be there at two.” + +They were in front of the club and Truslow had already jumped +out. Mrs. Protheroe gave him her hand and they exchanged a glance +significant of something more than a friendly goodbye. Indeed, one +might have hazarded that there was something almost businesslike about +it. The confused Senator from Stackpole, climbing out reluctantly, +observed it not, nor could he have understood, even if he had seen, +that delicate signal which passed between his two companions. + +When he was upon the ground Mrs. Protheroe extended her hand without +speaking, but her lips formed the word, “Saturday.” Then she was +carried away quickly, while Alonzo, his heart hammering, stood looking +after her, born into a strange world, the touch of the grey fur upon +his little finger, the odour of her hair faintly about him, one side +of his face red, the other pale. + +“To-day is Wednesday,” he said, half aloud. + +“Come on, Senator.” Truslow took his arm and turned him toward the +club doors. + +The other looked upon his new friend vaguely. “Why, I forgot to thank +her for the ride,” he exclaimed. + +“You'll have other chances, Senator,” Truslow assured +him. “Mrs. Protheroe has a hobby for studying politics and she expects +to come down often. She has plenty of time--she's a widow, you know.” + +“I hope you didn't think,” responded Alonzo indignantly, “that I +thought she was a married woman!” + +After lunch they walked back to the State house together, Truslow +regarding his thoughtful companion with sidelong whimsicalness. Mrs. +Protheroe's question, suggestive of a difference between work and +speechmaking, had recurred to Alonzo, and he had determined to make +himself felt, off the floor as well as upon it. He set to this with a +fine energy, that afternoon, in his committee-room, and the Senator +from Stackpole knew his subject. On drains and dikes he had no +equal. He spoke convincingly to his colleagues of the committee upon +every bill that was before them, and he compelled their humblest +respect. He went earnestly at it, indeed, and sat very late that +night, in his room at a nearby boarding house, studying bills, trying +to keep his mind upon them and not to think of his strange morning and +of Saturday. Finally his neighbour in the next room, Senator Ezra +Trumbull, long abed, was awakened by his praying and groaned +slightly. Trumbull meant to speak to Rawson about his prayers, for +Trumbull was an early one to bed and they woke him every night. The +partition was flimsy and Alonzo addressed his Maker in the loud voice +of one accustomed to talking across wide out-of-door spaces. Trumbull +considered it especially unnecessary in the city; though, as a citizen +of a county which loved but little his neighbour's district, he felt +that in Stackpole there was good reason for a person to shout his +prayers at the top of his voice and even then have small chance to +carry through the distance. Still, it was a delicate matter to +mention and he put it off from day to day. + +Thursday passed slowly for Alonzo Rawson, nor was his voice lifted in +debate. There was little but routine; and the main interest of the +chamber was in the lobbying that was being done upon the “Sunday +Baseball Bill” which had passed to its third reading and would come up +for final disposition within a fortnight. This was the measure which +Alonzo had set his heart upon defeating. It was a simple enough bill: +it provided, in substance, that baseball might be played on Sunday by +professionals in the State capital, which was proud of its league +team. Naturally, it was denounced by clergymen, and deputations of +ministers and committees from women's religious societies were +constantly arriving at the State house to protest against its +passage. The Senator from Stackpole reassured all of these with whom +he talked, and was one of their staunchest allies and supporters. He +was active in leading the wavering among his colleagues, or even the +inimical, out to meet and face the deputations. It was in this +occupation that he was engaged, on Friday afternoon, when he received +a shock. + +A committee of women from a church society was waiting in the +corridor, and he had rounded-up a reluctant half-dozen senators and +led them forth to be interrogated as to their intentions regarding the +bill. The committee and the lawmakers soon distributed themselves into +little argumentative clumps, and Alonzo found himself in the centre of +these, with one of the ladies who had unfortunately--but, in her +enthusiasm, without misgivings--begun a reproachful appeal to an +advocate of the bill whose name was Goldstein. + +“Senator Goldstein,” she exclaimed, “I could not believe it when I +heard that you were in favour of this measure! I have heard my husband +speak in the highest terms of your old father. May I ask you what +_he_ thinks of it? If you voted for the desecration of Sunday by +a low baseball game, could you dare go home and face that good old +man?” + +“Yes, madam,” said Goldstein mildly; “we are _both_ Jews.” + +A low laugh rippled out from near-by, and Alonzo, turning almost +violently, beheld his lady of the furs. She was leaning back against a +broad pilaster, her hands sweeping the same big coat behind her, her +face turned toward him, but her eyes, sparklingly delighted, resting +upon Goldstein. Under the broad fur hat she made a picture as +enraging, to Alonzo Rawson, as it was bewitching. She appeared not to +see him, to be quite unconscious of him--and he believed it. Truslow +and five or six members of both houses were about her, and they all +seemed to be bending eagerly toward her. Alonzo was furious with her. + +Her laugh lingered upon the air for a moment, then her glance swept +round the other way, omitting the Senator from Stackpole, who, +immediately putting into practice a reserve which would have +astonished Napoleon, swung about and quitted the deputation without a +word of farewell or explanation. He turned into the cloakroom and +paced the floor for three minutes with a malevolence which awed the +coloured attendants into not brushing his coat; but, when he returned +to the corridor, cautious inquiries addressed to the tobacconist, +elicited the information that the handsome lady with Senator Truslow +had departed. + +Truslow himself had not gone. He was lounging in his seat when Alonzo +returned and was genially talkative. The latter refrained from +replying in kind, not altogether out of reserve, but more because of a +dim suspicion (which rose within him, the third time Truslow called +him “Senator” in one sentence) that his first opinion of the young man +as a light-minded person might have been correct. + +There was no session the following afternoon, but Alonzo watched the +street from the windows of his committee-room, which overlooked the +splendid breadth of stone steps leading down from the great doors to +the pavement. There were some big bookcases in the room, whose glass +doors served as mirrors in which he more and more sternly regarded the +soft image of an entirely new grey satin tie, while the conviction +grew within him that (arguing from her behaviour of the previous day) +she would not come, and that the Stackpole girls were nobler by far at +heart than many who might wear a king's-ransom's-worth of jewels round +their throats at the opera-house in a large city. This sentiment was +heartily confirmed by the clock when it marked half-past two. He faced +the bookcase doors and struck his breast, his open hand falling across +the grey tie with tragic violence; after which, turning for the last +time to the windows, he uttered a loud exclamation and, laying hands +upon an ulster and a grey felt hat, each as new as the satin tie, ran +hurriedly from the room. The black automobile was waiting. + +“I thought it possible you might see me from a window,” said +Mrs. Protheroe as he opened the little door. + +“I was just coming out,” he returned, gasping for breath. “I +thought--from yesterday--you'd probably forgotten.” + +“Why 'from yesterday'?” she asked. + +“I thought--I thought--” He faltered to a stop as the full, glorious +sense of her presence overcame him. She wore the same veil. + +“You thought I did not see you yesterday in the corridor?” + +“I thought you might have acted more--more--” + +“More cordially?” + +“Well,” he said, looking down at his hands, “more like you knew we'd +been introduced.” + +At that she sat silent, looking away from him, and he, daring a quick +glance at her, found that he might let his eyes remain upon her face. +That was a dangerous place for eyes to rest, yet Alonzo Rawson was +anxious for the risk. The car flew along the even asphalt on its way +to the country like a wild goose on a long slant of wind, and, with +his foolish fury melted inexplicably into honey, Alonzo looked at +her--and looked at her--till he would have given an arm for another +quick corner and a street-car to send his cheek against that veiled, +cold cheek of hers again. It was not until they reached the alternate +vacant lots and bleak Queen Anne cottages of the city's ragged edge +that she broke the silence. + +“You were talking to some one else,” she said almost inaudibly. + +“Yes ma'am, Goldstein, but--” + +“Oh, no!” She turned toward him, lifting her hand. “You were quite the +lion among ladies.” + +“I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Protheroe,” he said, truthfully. + +“What were you talking to all those women about?” + +“It was about the 'Sunday Baseball Bill.'” + +“Ah! The bill you attacked in your speech, last Wednesday?” + +“Yes ma'am.” + +“I hear you haven't made any speeches since then,” she said +indifferently. + +“No ma'am,” he answered gently. “I kind of got the idea that I'd +better lay low for a while at first, and get in some quiet hard work.” + +“I understand. You are a man of intensely reserved nature.” + +“With men,” said Alonzo, “I am. With ladies I am not so much so. I +think a good woman ought to be told--” + +“But you are interested,” she interrupted, “in defeating that bill?” + +“Yes ma'am,” he returned. “It is an iniquitous measure.” + +“Why?” + +“Mrs. Protheroe!” he exclaimed, taken aback. “I thought all the +ladies were against it. My own mother wrote to me from Stackpole that +she'd rather see me in my grave than votin' for such a bill, and I'd +rather see myself there!” + +“But are you sure that you understand it?” + +“I only know it desecrates the Sabbath. That's enough for me!” + +She leaned toward him and his breath came quickly. + +“No. You're wrong,” she said, and rested the tips of her fingers upon +his sleeve. + +“I don't understand why--why you say that,” he faltered. “It sounds +kind of--surprising to me--” + +“Listen,” she said. “Perhaps Mr. Truslow told you that I am studying +such things. I do not want to be an idle woman; I want to be of use to +the world, even if it must be only in small ways.” + +“I think that is a noble ambition!” he exclaimed. “I think all good +women ought--” + +“Wait,” she interrupted gently. “Now, that bill is a worthy one, +though it astonishes you to hear me say so. Perhaps you don't +understand the conditions. Sunday is the labouring-man's only day of +recreation--and what recreation is he offered?” + +“He ought to go to church,” said Alonzo promptly. + +“But the fact is that he doesn't--not often--not at _all_ in the +afternoon. Wouldn't it be well to give him some wholesome way of +employing his Sunday afternoons? This bill provides for just that, and +it keeps him away from drinking too, for it forbids the sale of liquor +on the grounds.” + +“Yes, I know,” said Alonzo plaintively. “But it ain't _right_! I +was raised to respect the Sabbath and--” + +“Ah, that's what you should do! You think _I_ could believe in +anything that wouldn't make it better and more sacred?” + +“Oh, no, ma'am!” he cried reproachfully. “It's only that I don't +see--” + +“I am telling you.” She lifted her veil and let him have the full +dazzle of her beauty. “Do you know that many thousands of labouring +people spend their Sundays drinking and carousing about the low +country road-houses because the game is played at such places on +Sunday? They go there because they never get a chance to see it played +in the city. And don't you understand that there would be no Sunday +liquor trade, no working-men poisoning themselves every seventh day in +the low groggeries, as hundreds of them do now, if they had something +to see that would interest them?--something as wholesome and fine as +this sport would be, under the conditions of this bill; something to +keep them in the open air, something to bring a little gaiety into +their dull lives!” Her voice had grown louder and it shook a little, +with a rising emotion, though its sweetness was only the more +poignant. “Oh, my dear Senator,” she cried, “don't you _see_ how +wrong you are? Don't you want to _help_ these poor people?” + +Her fingers, which had tightened upon his sleeve, relaxed and she +leaned back, pulling the veil down over her face as if wishing to +conceal from him that her lips trembled slightly; then resting her arm +upon the leather cushions, she turned her head away from him, staring +fixedly into the gaunt beech woods, lining the country road along +which they were now coursing. For a time she heard nothing from him, +and the only sound was the monotonous chug of the machine. + +“I suppose you think it rather shocking to hear a woman talking +practically of such common-place things,” she said at last, in a cold +voice, just loud enough to be heard. + +“No ma'am,” he said huskily. + +“Then what _do_ you think?” she cried, turning toward him again +with a quick imperious gesture. + +“I think I'd better go back to Stackpole,” he answered very slowly, +“and resign my job. I don't see as I've got any business in the +Legislature.” + +“I don't understand you.” + +He shook his head mournfully. “It's a simple enough matter. I've +studied out a good many bills and talked 'em over and I've picked up +some influence and--” + +“I know you have.” she interrupted eagerly. “Mr. Truslow says that +the members of your drains and dikes committee follow your vote on +every bill.” + +“Yes ma'am,” said Alonzo Rawson meekly, “but I expect they oughtn't +to. I've had a lesson this afternoon.” + +“You mean to say--” + +“I mean that I didn't know what I was doing about that baseball +bill. I was just pig-headedly goin' ahead against it, not knowing +nothing about the conditions, and it took a lady to show me what they +were. I would have done a wrong thing if you hadn't stopped me.” + +“You mean,” she cried, her splendid eyes widening with excitement and +delight; “you mean that you---that you--” + +“I mean that I will vote for the bill!” He struck his clenched fist +upon his knee. “I come to the Legislature to do _right_!” + +“You will, ah, you _will_ do right in this!” Mrs. Protheroe +thrust up her veil again and her face was flushed and radiant with +triumph. “And you'll work, and you'll make a speech for the bill?” + +At this the righteous exaltation began rather abruptly to simmer down +in the soul of Alonzo Rawson. He saw the consequences of too violently +reversing, and knew how difficult they might be to face. + +“Well, not--not exactly,” he said weakly. “I expect our best plan +would be for me to lay kind of low and not say any more about the bill +at all. Of course, I'll quit workin' against it; and on the roll-call +I'll edge up close to the clerk and say 'Aye' so that only him'll hear +me. That's done every day--and I--well, I don't just exactly like to +come out too publicly for it, after my speech and all I've done +against it.” + +She looked at him sharply for a short second, and then offered him her +hand and said: “Let's shake hands _now_, on the vote. Think what +a triumph it is for me to know that I helped to show you the right.” + +“Yes ma'am,” he answered confusedly, too much occupied with shaking +her hand to know what he said. She spoke one word in an undertone to +the driver and the machine took the very shortest way back to the +city. + +After this excursion, several days passed, before Mrs. Protheroe came +to the State house again. Rawson was bending over the desk of Senator +Josephus Battle, the white-bearded leader of the opposition to the +“Sunday Baseball Bill,” and was explaining to him the intricacies of a +certain drainage measure, when Battle, whose attention had wandered, +plucked his sleeve and whispered: + +“If you want to see a mighty pretty woman that's doin' no good here, +look behind you, over there in the chair by the big fireplace at the +back of the room.” + +Alonzo looked. + +It was she whose counterpart had been in his dream's eye every moment +of the dragging days which had been vacant of her living presence. A +number of his colleagues were hanging over her almost idiotically; her +face was gay and her voice came to his ears, as he turned, with the +accent of her cadenced laughter running through her talk like a chime +of tiny bells flitting through a strain of music. + +“This is the third time she's been here,” said Battle, rubbing +his beard the wrong way. “She's lobbyin' for that infernal +Sabbath-Desecration bill, but we'll beat her, my son.” + +“Have you made her acquaintance, Senator?” asked Alonzo stiffly. + +“No, sir, and I don't want to. But I knew her father--the slickest old +beat and the smoothest talker that ever waltzed up the pike. She +married rich; her husband left her a lot of real estate around here, +but she spends most of her time away. Whatever struck her to come down +and lobby for that bill I don't know _yet_--but I will! Truslow's +helping her to help himself; he's got stock in the company that runs +the baseball team, but what she's up to--well, I'll bet there's a +nigger in the woodpile _some_where!” + +“I expect there's a lot of talk like that!” said Alonzo, red with +anger, and taking up his papers abruptly. + +“Yes, _sir_!” said Battle emphatically, utterly misunderstanding +the other's tone and manner. “Don't you worry, my son. We'll kill +that venomous bill right here in this chamber! We'll kill it so dead +that it won't make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some +others'll tend to _that_! Let her work that pretty face and those +eyes of hers all she wants to! I'm keepin' a little lookout, too--and +I'll--” + +He broke off, for the angry and perturbed Alonzo had left him and gone +to his own desk. Battle, slightly surprised, rubbed his beard the +wrong way and sauntered out to the lobby to muse over a cigar. Alonzo, +loathing Battle with a great loathing, formed bitter phrases +concerning that vicious-minded old gentleman, while for a moment he +affected to be setting his desk in order. Then he walked slowly up the +aisle, conscious of a roaring in his ears (though not aware how red +they were) as he approached the semicircle about her. + +He paused within three feet of her in a sudden panic of timidity, and +then, to his consternation, she looked him squarely in the face, over +the shoulders of two of the group, and the only sign of recognition +that she exhibited was a slight frown of unmistakable repulsion, which +appeared between her handsome eyebrows. + +It was very swift; only Alonzo saw it; the others had no eyes for +anything but her, and were not aware of his presence behind them, for +she did not even pause in what she was saying. + +Alonzo walked slowly away with the wormwood in his heart. He had not +grown up among the young people of Stackpole without similar +experiences, but it had been his youthful boast that no girl had ever +“stopped speaking” to him without reason, or “cut a dance” with him +and afterward found opportunity to repeat the indignity. + +“What have I _done_ to _her?_” was perhaps the hottest cry +of his soul, for the mystery was as great as the sting of it. + +It was no balm upon that sting to see her pass him at the top of the +outer steps, half an hour later, on the arm of that one of his +colleagues who had been called the “best-dressed man in the +Legislature.” She swept by him without a sign, laughing that same +laugh at some sally of her escort, and they got into the black +automobile together and were whirled away and out of sight by the +impassive bundle of furs that manipulated the wheel. + +For the rest of that afternoon and the whole of that night no man, +woman, or child heard the voice of Alonzo Rawson, for he spoke to +none. He came not to the evening meal, nor was he seen by any who had +his acquaintance. He entered his room at about midnight, and Trumbull +was awakened by his neighbour's overturning a chair. No match was +struck, however, and Trumbull was relieved to think that the Senator +from Stackpole intended going directly to bed without troubling to +light the gas, and that his prayers would soon be over. Such was not +the case, for no other sound came from the room, nor were Alonzo's +prayers uttered that night, though the unhappy statesman in the next +apartment could not get to sleep for several hours on account of his +nervous expectancy of them. + +After this, as the day approached upon which hung the fate of the bill +which Mr. Josephus Battle was fighting, Mrs. Protheroe came to the +Senate Chamber nearly every morning and afternoon. Not once did she +appear to be conscious of Alonzo Rawson's presence, nor once did he +allow his eyes to delay upon her, though it cannot be truthfully said +that he did not always know when she came, when she left, and with +whom she stood or sat or talked. He evaded all mention or discussion +of the bill or of Mrs. Protheroe; avoided Truslow (who, strangely +enough, was avoiding _him_) and, spending upon drains and dikes +all the energy that he could manage to concentrate, burned the +midnight oil and rubbed salt into his wounds to such marked effect +that by the evening of the Governor's Reception--upon the morning +following which the mooted bill was to come up--he offered an +impression so haggard and worn that an actor might have studied him +for a makeup as a young statesman going into a decline. + +Nevertheless, he dressed with great care and bitterness, and placed +the fragrant blossom of a geranium--taken from a plant belonging to +his landlady--in the lapel of his long coat before he set out. + +And yet, when he came down the Governor's broad stairs, and wandered +through the big rooms, with the glare of lights above him and the +shouting of the guests ringing in his ears, a sense of emptiness beset +him; the crowded place seemed vacant and without meaning. Even the +noise sounded hollow and remote--and why had he bothered about the +geranium? He hated her and would never look at her again--but why was +she not there? + +By-and-by, he found himself standing against a wall, where he had been +pushed by the press of people. He was wondering drearily what he was +to do with a clean plate and a napkin which a courteous negro had +handed him, half-an-hour earlier, when he felt a quick jerk at his +sleeve. It was Truslow, who had worked his way along the wall and who +now, standing on tiptoe, spoke rapidly but cautiously, close to his +ear. + +“Senator, be quick,” he said sharply, at the same time alert to see +that they were unobserved. “Mrs. Protheroe wants to speak to you at +once. You'll find her near the big palms under the stairway in the +hall.” + +He was gone--he had wormed his way half across the room--before the +other, in his simple amazement could answer. When Alonzo at last found +a word, it was only a monosyllable, which, with his accompanying +action, left a matron of years, who was at that moment being pressed +fondly to his side, in a state of mind almost as dumbfounded as his +own. “_Here!_” was all he said as he pressed the plate and napkin +into her hand and departed forcibly for the hall, leaving a +spectacular wreckage of trains behind him. + +The upward flight of the stairway left a space underneath, upon which, +as it was screened (save for a narrow entrance) by a thicket of palms, +the crowd had not encroached. Here were placed a divan and a couple of +chairs; there was shade from the glare of gas, and the light was dim +and cool. Mrs. Protheroe had risen from the divan when Alonzo entered +this grotto, and stood waiting for him. + +He stopped in the green entrance-way with a quick exclamation. + +She did not seem the same woman who had put such slights upon him, +this tall, white vision of silk, with the summery scarf falling from +her shoulders. His great wrath melted at the sight of her; the pain of +his racked pride, which had been so hot in his breast, gave way to a +species of fear. She seemed not a human being, but a bright spirit of +beauty and goodness who stood before him, extending two fine arms to +him in long, white gloves. + +She left him to his trance for a moment, then seized both his hands in +hers and cried to him in her rapturous, low voice: “Ah, Senator, you +have come! I _knew_ you understood!” + +“Yes ma'am,” he whispered chokily. + +She drew him to one of the chairs and sank gracefully down upon the +divan near him. + +“Mr. Truslow was so afraid you wouldn't,” she went on rapidly, “but I +was sure. You see I didn't want anybody to suspect that I had any +influence with you. I didn't want them to know, even, that I'd talked +to you. It all came to me after the first day that we met. You see +I've believed in you, in your power and in your reserve, from the +first. I want all that you do to seem to come from yourself and not +from me or any one else. Oh, I _believe_ in great, strong men who +stand upon their own feet and conquer the world for themselves! That's +_your_ way, Senator Rawson. So, you see, as they think I'm +lobbying for the bill, I wanted them to believe that your speech for +it to-morrow comes from your own great, strong mind and heart and your +sense of right, and not from any suggestion of mine.” + +“My speech!” he stammered. + +“Oh, I know,” she cried; “I know you think I don't believe much in +speeches, and I don't ordinarily, but a few, simple, straightforward +and vigorous words from you, to-morrow, may carry the bill through. +You've made such _progress_, you've been so _reserved_, that you'll +carry great weight--and there are three votes of the drains and dikes +that are against us now, but will follow yours absolutely. Do you +think I would have 'cut' _you_ if it hadn't been _best_?” + +“But I--” + +“Oh, I know you didn't actually promise me to speak, that day. But I +knew you would when the time came! I knew that a man of power goes +over _all_ obstacles, once his sense of _right_ is aroused! +I _knew_--I never doubted it, that once _you_ felt a thing +to be right you would strike for it, with all your great strength--at +all costs--at all--” + +“I can't--I--I--can't!” he whispered nervously. “Don't you see--don't +you see--I--” + +She leaned toward him, lifting her face close to his. She was so near +him that the faint odour of her hair came to him again, and once more +the unfortunate Senator from Stackpole risked a meeting of his eyes +with hers, and saw the light shining far down in their depths. + +At this moment the shadow of a portly man who was stroking his beard +the wrong way projected itself upon them from the narrow, green +entrance to the grotto. Neither of them perceived it. + +Senator Josephus Battle passed on, but when Alonzo Rawson emerged, a +few moments later, he was pledged to utter a few simple, +straightforward and vigorous words in favour of the bill. And--let the +shame fall upon the head of the scribe who tells it--he had kissed +Mrs. Protheroe! + +The fight upon the “Sunday Baseball Bill,” the next morning, was the +warmest of that part of the session, though for a while the reporters +were disappointed. They were waiting for Senator Battle, who was +famous among them for the vituperative vigour of his attacks and for +the kind of personalities which made valuable copy. And yet, until the +debate was almost over, he contented himself with going quietly up and +down the aisles, whispering to the occupants of the desks, and writing +and sending a multitude of notes to his colleagues. Meanwhile, the +orators upon both sides harangued their fellows, the lobby, the +unpolitical audience, and the patient presiding officer to no effect, +so far as votes went. The general impression was that the bill would +pass. + +Alonzo Rawson sat, bent over his desk, his eyes fixed with gentle +steadiness upon Mrs. Protheroe, who occupied the chair wherein he had +first seen her. A senator of the opposition was finishing his +denunciation, when she turned and nodded almost imperceptibly to the +young man. + +He gave her one last look of pathetic tenderness and rose. + +“The Senator from Stackpole!” + +“I want,” Alonzo began, in his big voice: “I want to say a few simple, +straightforward but vigorous words about this bill. You may remember I +spoke against it on its second reading--” + +“You did _that_!” shouted Senator Battle suddenly. + +“I want to say now,” the Senator from Stackpole continued, “that at +that time I hadn't studied the subject sufficiently. I didn't know the +conditions of the case, nor the facts, but since then a great light +has broke in upon me--” + +“I should say it had! I saw it break!” was Senator Battle's second +violent interruption. + +When order was restored, Alonzo, who had become very pale, summoned +his voice again. “I think we'd ought to take into consideration that +Sunday is the working-man's only day of recreation and not drive him +into low groggeries, but give him a chance in the open air to indulge +his love of wholesome sport--” + +“Such as the ancient Romans enjoyed!” interposed Battle vindictively. + +“No, sir!” Alonzo wheeled upon him, stung to the quick. “Such a sport +as free-born Americans and _only_ free-born Americans can play in +this, wide world--the American game of baseball, in which no other +nation of the _Earth_ is our equal!” + +This was a point scored and the cheering lasted two minutes. Then the +orator resumed: + +“I say: 'Give the working-man a chance!' Is his life a happy one? You +know it ain't! Give him his one day. _Don't_ spoil it for him with +your laws--he's only got one! I'm not goin' to take up any more of +your time, but if there's anybody here who thinks my well-considered +opinion worth following I say: '_Vote for this bill_.' It is right and +virtuous and ennobling, and it ought to be passed! I say: '_Vote for +it_.'” + +The reporters decided that the Senator from Stackpole had “wakened +things up.” The gavel rapped a long time before the chamber quieted +down, and when it did, Josephus Battle was on his feet and had +obtained the recognition of the chair. + +“I wish to say, right here,” he began, with a rasping leisureliness, +“that I hope no member of this honoured body will take my remarks as +personal or unparliamentary--_but_”--he raised a big forefinger and +shook it with menace at the presiding officer, at the same time +suddenly lifting his voice to an unprintable shriek--“I say to _you_, +sir, that the song of the siren has been _heard_ in the land, and the +call of Delilah has been answered! When the Senator from Stackpole +rose in this chamber, less than three weeks ago, and denounced this +iniquitous measure, I heard him with pleasure--we _all_ heard him with +pleasure--_and_ respect! In spite of his youth and the poor quality of +his expression, _we_ listened to him. _We_ knew he was sencere! What +has caused the change in him? What _has_, I ask? I shall not tell you, +upon this floor, but I've taken mighty good care to let most of you +know, during the morning, either by word of mouth or by _note_ of +hand! Especially those of you of the drains and dikes and others who +might follow this young Samson, whose locks have been shore! _I've_ +told you all about that, and more--_I've_ told you the _inside_ +history of some _facts_ about the bill that I will not make public, +because I am too confident of our strength to defeat this devilish +measure, and prefer to let our vote speak our opinion of it! Let me +not detain you longer. _I_ thank you!” + +Long before he had finished, the Senator from Stackpole was being held +down in his chair by Truslow and several senators whose seats were +adjacent; and the vote was taken amid an uproar of shouting and +confusion. When the clerk managed to proclaim the result over all +other noises, the bill was shown to be defeated and “killed,” by a +majority of five votes. + +A few minutes later, Alonzo Rawson, his neckwear disordered and his +face white with rage, stumbled out of the great doors upon the trail +of Battle, who had quietly hurried away to his hotel for lunch as soon +as he had voted. + +The black automobile was vanishing round a corner. Truslow stood upon +the edge of the pavement staring after it ruefully: + +“Where is Mrs. Protheroe?” gasped the Senator from Stackpole. + +“She's gone,” said the other. + +“Gone where?” + +“Gone back to Paris. She sails day after tomorrow. She just had time +enough to catch her train for New York after waiting to hear how the +vote went. She told me to tell you good-bye, and that she was +sorry. Don't stare at me Rawson! I guess we're in the same +boat!--Where are you going?” he finished abruptly. + +Alonzo swung by him and started across the street. “To find Battle!” + the hoarse answer came back. + +The conquering Josephus was leaning meditatively upon the counter of +the cigar-stand of his hotel when Alonzo found him. He took one look +at the latter's face and backed to the wall, tightening his grasp upon +the heavy-headed ebony cane it was his habit to carry, a habit upon +which he now congratulated himself. + +But his precautions were needless. Alonzo stopped out of reaching +distance. + +“You tell me,” he said in a breaking voice; “you tell me what you +meant about Delilah and sirens and Samsons and inside facts! You tell +me!” + +“You wild ass of the prairies,” said Battle, “I saw you last night +behind them pa'ms! But don't you think I told it--or ever will! I just +passed the word around that she'd argued you into her way of thinkin', +same as she had a good many others. And as for the rest of it, I +found out where the mgger in the woodpile was, and I handed that out, +too. Don't you take it hard, my son, but I told you her husband left +her a good deal of land around here. She owns the ground that they use +for the baseball park, and her lease would be worth considerable more +if they could have got the right to play on Sundays!” + +Senator Trumbull sat up straight, in bed, that night, and, for the +first time during his martyrdom, listened with no impatience to the +prayer which fell upon his ears. + +“O, Lord Almighty,” through the flimsy partition came the voice of +Alonzo Rawson, quaveringly, but with growing strength: “Aid Thou me to +see my way more clear! I find it hard to tell right from wrong, and I +find myself beset with tangled wires. O God, I feel that I am +ignorant, and fall into many devices. These are strange paths wherein +Thou hast set my feet, but I feel that through Thy help, and through +great anguish, I am learning!” + + + + +GREAT MEN'S SONS + + +Mme. Bernhardt and M. Coquelin were playing “L'Aiglon.” Toward the end +of the second act people began to slide down in their seats, shift +their elbows, or casually rub their eyes; by the close of the third, +most of the taller gentlemen were sitting on the small of their backs +with their knees as high as decorum permitted, and many were openly +coughing; but when the fourth came to an end, active resistance +ceased, hopelessness prevailed, the attitudes were those of the +stricken field, and the over-crowded house was like a college chapel +during an interminable compulsory lecture. Here and there--but most +rarely--one saw an eager woman with bright eyes, head bent forward and +body spellbound, still enchantedly following the course of the play. +Between the acts the orchestra pattered ragtime and inanities from the +new comic operas, while the audience in general took some heart. When +the play was over, we were all enthusiastic; though our admiration, +however vehement in the words employed to express it, was somewhat +subdued as to the accompanying manner, which consisted, mainly, of +sighs and resigned murmurs. In the lobby a thin old man with a +grizzled chin-beard dropped his hand lightly on my shoulder, and +greeted me in a tone of plaintive inquiry: + +“Well, son?” + +Turning, I recognized a patron of my early youth, in whose woodshed I +had smoked my first cigar, an old friend whom I had not seen for +years; and to find him there, with his long, dust-coloured coat, his +black string tie and rusty hat brushed on every side by opera cloaks +and feathers, was a rich surprise, warming the cockles of my +heart. His name is Tom Martin; he lives in a small country town, where +he commands the trade in Dry Goods and Men's Clothing; his speech is +pitched in a high key, is very slow, sometimes whines faintly; and he +always calls me “Son.” + +“What in the world!” I exclaimed, as we shook hands. + +“Well,” he drawled, “I dunno why I shouldn't be as meetropolitan as +anybody. I come over on the afternoon accommodation for the show. +Let's you and me make a night of it. What say, son?” + +“What did you think of the play?” I asked, as we turned up the street +toward the club. + +“I think they done it about as well as they could.” + +“That all?” + +“Well,” he rejoined with solemnity, “there was a heap _of_ it, +wasn't there!” + +We talked of other things, then, until such time as we found ourselves +seated by a small table at the club, old Tom somewhat uneasily +regarding a twisted cigar he was smoking and plainly confounded by the +“carbonated” syphon, for which, indeed, he had no use in the world. +We had been joined by little Fiderson, the youngest member of the +club, whose whole nervous person jerkily sparkled “L'Aiglon” + enthusiasm. + +“Such an evening!” he cried, in his little spiky voice. “Mr. Martin, +it does one good to realize that our country towns are sending +representatives to us when we have such things; that they wish to get +in touch with what is greatest in Art. They should do it often. To +think that a journey of only seventy miles brings into your life the +magnificence of Rostand's point of view made living fire by the genius +of a Bernhardt and a Coquelin!” + +“Yes,” said Mr. Martin, with a curious helplessness, after an ensuing +pause, which I refused to break, “yes, sir, they seemed to be doing it +about as well as they could.” + +Fiderson gasped slightly. “It was magnificent! Those two great +artists! But over all the play--the play! Romance new-born; poesy +marching with victorious banners; a great spirit breathing! Like +'Cyrano'--the birth-mark of immortality on this work!” + +There was another pause, after which old Tom turned slowly to me, and +said: “Homer Tibbs's opened up a cigar-stand at the deepo. Carries a +line of candy, magazines, and fruit, too. Home's a hustler.” + +Fiderson passed his hand through his hair. + +“That death scene!” he exclaimed at me, giving Martin up as a log +accidentally rolled in from the woods. “I thought that after 'Wagram' +I could feel nothing more; emotion was exhausted; but then came that +magnificent death! It was tragedy made ecstatic; pathos made into +music; the grandeur of a gentle spirit, conquered physically but +morally unconquerable! Goethe's 'More Light' outshone!” + +Old Tom's eyes followed the smoke of his perplexing cigar along its +heavy strata in the still air of the room, as he inquired if I +remembered Orlando T. Bickner's boy, Mel. I had never heard of him, +and said so. + +“No, I expect not,” rejoined Martin. “Prob'ly you wouldn't; Bickner +was Governor along in _my_ early days, and I reckon he ain't +hardly more than jest a name to you two. But _we_ kind of thought +he was the biggest man this country had ever seen, or was goin' to +see, and he _was_ a big man. He made one president, and could +have been it himself, instead, if he'd be'n willing to do a kind of +underhand trick, but I expect without it he was about as big a man as +anybody'd care to be; Governor, Senator, Secretary of State--and just +owned his party! And, my law!--the whole earth bowin' down to him; +torchlight processions and sky-rockets when he come home in the night; +bands and cannon if his train got in, daytime; home-folks so proud of +him they couldn't see; everybody's hat off; and all the most important +men in the country following at his heels--a country, too, that'd put +up consider'ble of a comparison with everything Napoleon had when he'd +licked 'em all, over there. + +“Of course he had enemies, and, of course, year by year, they got to +be more of 'em, and they finally downed him for good; and like other +public men so fixed, he didn't live long after that. He had a son, +Melville, mighty likable young fellow, studyin' law when his paw +died. I was livin' in their town then, and I knowed Mel Bickner pretty +well; he was consider'ble of a man. + +“I don't know as I ever heard him speak of that's bein' the reason, +but I expect it may've be'n partly in the hope of carryin' out some of +his paw's notions, Mel tried hard to git into politics; but the old +man's local enemies jumped on every move he made, and his friends +wouldn't help any; you can't tell why, except that it generally +_is_ thataway. Folks always like to laugh at a great man's son +and say _he_ can't amount to anything. Of course that comes +partly from fellows like that ornery little cuss we saw to-night, +thinkin' they're a good deal because somebody else done something, and +the somebody else happened to be their paw; and the women run after +'em, and they git low-down like he was, and so on.” + +“Mr. Martin,” interrupted Fiderson, with indignation, “will you kindly +inform me in what way 'L'Aiglon' was 'low-down'?” + +“Well, sir, didn't that huntin'-lodge appointment kind of put you in +mind of a camp-meetin' scandal?” returned old Tom quietly. “It did +me.” + +“But--” + +“Well, sir, I can't say as I understood the French of it, but I read +the book in English before I come up, and it seemed to me he was +pretty much of a low-down boy; yet I wanted to see how they'd make him +out; hearin' it was, thought, the country over, to be such a great +_play_; though to tell the truth all I could tell about +_that_ was that every line seemed to end in 'awze'; and 't they +all talked in rhyme, and it did strike me as kind of enervatin' to be +expected to believe that people could keep it up that long; and that +it wasn't only the boy that never quit on the subject of himself and +his folks, but pretty near any of 'em, if he'd git the chanst, did the +same thing, so't almost I sort of wondered if Rostand wasn't that +kind.” + +“Go on with Melville Bickner,” said I. + +“What do you expect,” retorted Mr. Martin with a vindictive gleam in +his eye, “when you give a man one of these here spiral staircase +cigars? Old Peter himself couldn't keep straight along one subject if +he tackled a cigar like this. Well, sir, I always thought Mel had a +mighty mean time of it. He had to take care of his mother and two +sisters, his little brother and an aunt that lived with them; and +there was mighty little to do it on; big men don't usually leave much +but debts, and in this country, of course, a man can't eat and spend +long on his paw's reputation, like that little Dook of Reishtod--” + +“I beg to tell you, Mr. Martin--” Fiderson began hotly. + +Martin waved his bony hand soothingly. + +“Oh, I know; they was money in his mother's family, and they give him +his vittles and clothes, and plenty, too. _His_ paw didn't leave +much either--though he'd stole more than Boss Tweed. I suppose--and, +just lookin' at things from the point of what they'd _earned_, +his maw's folks had stole a good deal, too; or else you can say they +were a kind of public charity; old Metternich, by what I can learn, +bein' the only one in the whole possetucky of 'em that really +_did_ anything to deserve his salary--” Mr. Martin broke off +suddenly, observing that I was about to speak, and continued: + +“Mel didn't git much law practice, jest about enough to keep the house +goin' and pay taxes. He kept workin' for the party jest the same and +jest as cheerfully as if it didn't turn him down hard every time he +tried to git anything for himself. They lived some ways out from town; +and he sold the horses to keep the little brother in school, one +winter, and used to walk in to his office and out again, twice a day, +over the worst roads in the State, rain or shine, snow, sleet, or +wind, without any overcoat; and he got kind of a skimpy, froze-up look +to him that lasted clean through summer. He worked like a mule, that +boy did, jest barely makin' ends meet. He had to quit runnin' with the +girls and goin' to parties and everything like that; and I expect it +may have been some hard to do; for if they ever _was_ a boy loved +to dance and be gay, and up to anything in the line of fun and +junketin' round, it was Mel Bickner. He had a laugh I can hear +yet--made you feel friendly to everybody you saw; feel like stoppin' +the next man you met and shakin' hands and havin' a joke with him. + +“Mel was engaged to Jane Grandis when Governor Bickner died. He had to +go and tell her to take somebody else--it was the only thing to do. He +couldn't give Jane anything but his poverty, and she wasn't used to +it. They say she offered to come to him anyway, but he wouldn't hear +of it, and no more would he let her wait for him; told her she mustn't +grow into an old maid, lonely, and still waitin' for the lightning to +strike him--that is, his luck to come; and actually advised her to +take 'Gene Callender, who'd be'n pressin' pretty close to Mel for her +before the engagement. The boy didn't talk to her this way with tears +in his eyes and mourning and groaning. No, sir! It was done +_cheerful_; and so much so that Jane never _was_ quite sure +afterwerds whether Mel wasn't kind of glad to git rid of her or +not. Fact is, they say she quit speakin' to him. Mel _knowed_; a +state of puzzlement or even a good _mad's_ a mighty sight better +than bein' all harrowed up and grief-stricken. And he never give +her--nor any one else--a chanst to be sorry for him. His maw was the +only one heard him walk the floor nights, and after he found, out she +could hear him he walked in his socks. + +“Yes, sir! Meet that boy on the street, or go up in his office, you'd +think that he was the gayest feller in town. I tell you there wasn't +anything pathetic about Mel Bickner! He didn't believe in it. And at +home he had a funny story every evening of the world, about something +'d happened during the day; and 'd whistle to the guitar, or git his +maw into a game of cards with his aunt and the girls. Law! that boy +didn't believe in no house of mourning. He'd be up at four in the +morning, hoein' up their old garden; raised garden-truck for their +table, sparrow-grass and sweet corn--yes, and roses, too; always had +the house full of roses in June-time; never _was_ a house +sweeter-smellin' to go into. + +“Mel was what I call a useful citizen. As I said, I knowed him well. I +don't recollect I ever heard him speak of himself, nor yet of his +father but once--for _that_, I reckon, he jest couldn't; and for +himself; I don't believe it ever occurred to him. + +“And he was a _smart_ boy. Now, you take it, all in all, a boy +can't be as smart as Mel was, and work as hard as he did, and not +_git_ somewhere--in this State, anyway! And so, about the fifth +year, things took a sudden change for him; his father's enemies and +his own friends, both, had to jest about own they was beat. The crowd +that had been running the conventions and keepin' their own men in all +the offices, had got to be pretty unpopular, and they had the sense to +see that they'd have to branch out and connect up with some mighty +good men, jest to keep the party in power. Well, sir, Mel had got to +be about the most popular and respected man in the county. Then one +day I met him on the street; he was on his way to buy an overcoat, and +he was lookin' skimpier and more froze-up and genialer than ever. It +was March, and up to jest that time things had be'n hardest of all for +Mel. I walked around to the store with him, and he was mighty happy; +goin' to send his mother north in the summer, and the girls were goin' +to have a party, and Bob, his little brother, could go to the best +school in the country in the fall. Things had come his way at last, +and that very morning the crowd had called him in and told him they +were goin' to run him for county clerk. + +“Well, sir, the next evening I heard Mel was sick. Seein' him only the +day before on the street, out and well, I didn't think anything of +it--thought prob'ly a cold or something like that; but in the morning +I heard the doctor said he was likely to die. Of course I couldn't +hardly believe it; thing like that never _does_ seem possible, +but they all said it was true, and there wasn't anybody on the street +that day that didn't look blue or talked about anything else. Nobody +seemed to know what was the matter with him exactly, and I reckon the +doctor did jest the wrong thing for it. Near as I can make out, it was +what they call appendicitis nowadays, and had come on him in the +night. + +“Along in the afternoon I went out there to see if there was anything +I could do. You know what a house in that condition is like. Old Fes +Bainbridge, who was some sort of a relation, and me sat on the stairs +together outside Mel's room. We could hear his voice, clear and +strong and hearty as ever. He was out of pain; and he had to die with +the full flush of health and strength on him, and he knowed it. Not +_wantin'_ to go, through the waste and wear of a long sickness, +but with all the ties of life clinchin' him here, and success jest +comin.' We heard him speak of us, amongst others, old Fes and me; +wanted 'em to be sure not forget to tell me to remember to vote for +Fillmore if the ground-hog saw his shadow election year, which was an +old joke I always had with him. He was awful worried about his mother, +though he tried not to show it, and when the minister wanted to pray +fer him, we heard him say, 'No, sir, you pray fer my mamma!' That was +the only thing that was different from his usual way of speakin'; he +called his mother 'mamma, and he wouldn't let 'em pray for him +neither; not once; all the time he could spare for their prayin' was +put in for her. + +“He called in old Fes to tell him all about his life insurance. He'd +carried a heavy load of it, and it was all paid up; and the sweat it +must have took to do it you'd hardly like to think about. He give +directions about everything as careful and painstaking as any day of +his life. He asked to speak to Fes alone a minute, and later I helped +Fes do what he told him. 'Cousin Fes,' he says, 'it's bad weather, but +I expect mother'll want all the flowers taken out to the cemetery and +you better let her have her way. But there wouldn't be any good of +their stayin' there; snowed on, like as not. I wish you'd wait till +after she's come away, and git a wagon and take 'em in to the +hospital. You can fix up the anchors and so forth so they won't look +like funeral flowers.' + +“About an hour later his mother broke out with a scream, sobbin' and +cryin', and he tried to quiet her by tellin' over one of their +old-time family funny stories; it made her worse, so he quit. 'Oh, +Mel,' she says, 'you'll be with your father--' + +“I don't know as Mel had much of a belief in a hereafter; certainly he +wasn't a great churchgoer. 'Well,' he says, mighty slow, but hearty +and smiling, too, 'if I see father, I--guess--I'll--be--pretty-- +well--fixed!' Then he jest lay still, tryin' to quiet her and pettin' +her head. And so--that's the way he went.” + +Fiderson made one of his impatient little gestures, but Mr. Martin +drowned his first words with a loud fit of coughing. + +“Well, sir,” he observed, “I read that 'Leg-long' book down home; and +I heard two or three countries, and especially ourn, had gone middling +crazy over it; it seemed kind of funny that _we_ should, too, so I +thought I better come up and see it for myself, how it _was_, on the +stage, where you could _look_ at it; and--I expect they done it as +well as they could. But when that little boy, that'd always had his +board and clothes and education free, saw that he'd jest about talked +himself to death, and called for the press notices about his +christening to be read to him to soothe his last spasms--why, I wasn't +overly put in mind of Melville Bickner.” + +Mr. Martin's train left for Plattsville at two in the morning. Little +Fiderson and I escorted him to the station. As the old fellow waved us +good-bye from within the gates, Fiderson turned and said: + +“Just the type of sodden-headed old pioneer that you couldn't hope to +make understand a beautiful thing like 'L'Aiglon' in a thousand +years. I thought it better not to try, didn't you?” + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Arena, by Booth Tarkington + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + +***** This file should be named 8740-0.txt or 8740-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/7/4/8740/ + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: In the Arena + Stories of Political Life + +Author: Booth Tarkington + + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8740] +This file was first posted on August 6, 2003 +Last Updated: April 9, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + + + + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +IN THE ARENA + +Stories of Political Life + +By Booth Tarkington + + + +TO MY FATHER + +[Illustration: THE CONVERSION OF THE SENATOR FROM STACKPOLE] + + + +CONTENTS + +PART I + + Boss Gorgett + The Aliens + The Need of Money + Hector + +PART II + + Mrs. Protheroe + Great Men's Sons + + + + +"IN THE FIRST PLACE" + + +The old-timer, a lean, retired pantaloon, sitting with loosely +slippered feet close to the fire, thus gave of his wisdom to the +questioning student: + +"Looking back upon it all, what we most need in politics is more good +men. Thousands of good men _are_ in; and they need the others who +are not in. More would come if they knew how _much_ they are +needed. The dilettantes of the clubs who have so easily abused me, for +instance, all my life, for being a ward-worker, these and those other +reformers who write papers about national corruption when they don't +know how their own wards are swung, probably aren't so useful as they +might be. The exquisite who says that politics is 'too dirty a +business for a gentleman to meddle with' is like the woman who lived +in the parlour and complained that the rest of her family kept the +other rooms so dirty that she never went into them. + +"There are many thousands of young men belonging to what is for some +reason called the 'best class,' who would like to be 'in politics' if +they could begin high enough up--as ambassadors, for instance. That +is, they would like the country to do something for them, though they +wouldn't put it that way. A young man of this sort doesn't know how +much he'd miss if his wishes were gratified. For my part, I'd hate not +to have begun at the beginning of the game. + +"I speak of it as a game," the old gentleman went on, "and in some +ways it is. That's where the fun of it comes in. Yet, there are times +when it looks to me more like a series of combats, hand-to-hand fights +for life, and fierce struggles between men and strange powers. You buy +your newspaper and that's your ticket to the amphitheatre. But the +distance is hazy and far; there are clouds of dust and you can't see +clearly. To make out just what is going on you ought to get down in +the arena yourself. Once you're in it, the view you'll have and the +fighting that will come your way will more than repay you. Still, I +don't think we ought to go in with the idea of being repaid. + +"It seems an odd thing to me that so many men feel they haven't any +time for politics; can't put in even a little, trying to see how their +cities (let alone their states and the country) are run. When we have +a war, look at the millions of volunteers that lay down everything and +answer the call of the country. Well, in politics, the country needs +_all_ the men who have any patriotism--_not_ to be seeking +office, but to watch and to understand what is going on. It doesn't +take a great deal of time; you can attend to your business and do that +much, too. When wrong things are going on and all the good men +understand them, that is all that is needed. The wrong things stop +going on." + + + + +PART I + + + + +BOSS GORGETT + + +I guess I've been what you might call kind of an assistant boss pretty +much all my life; at least, ever since I could vote; and I was +something of a ward-heeler even before that. I don't suppose there's +any way a man of my disposition could have put in his time to less +advantage and greater cost to himself. I've never got a thing by it, +all these years, not a job, not a penny--nothing but injury to my +business and trouble with my wife. _She_ begins going for me, +first of every campaign. + +Yet I just can't seem to keep out of it. It takes a hold on a man that +I never could get away from; and when I reach my second childhood and +the boys have turned me out, I reckon I'll potter along trying to look +knowing and secretive, like the rest of the has-beens, letting on as +if I still had a place inside. Lord, if I'd put in the energy at my +business that I've frittered away on small politics! But what's the +use thinking about it? + +Plenty of men go to pot horse-racing and stock gambling; and I guess +this has just been my way of working off some of my nature in another +fashion. There's a good many like me, too; not out for office or +contracts, nor anything that you can put your finger on in +particular--nothing except the _game_. Of course, it's a +pleasure, knowing you've got more influence than some, but I believe +the most you ever get out of it is in being able to help your friends, +to get a man you like a job, or a good contract, something he wants, +when he needs it. + +I tell you _then's_ when you feel satisfied, and your time don't +seem to have been so much thrown away. You go and buy a higher-priced +cigar than you can afford, and sit and smoke it with your feet out in +the sunshine on your porch railing, and watch your neighbour's +children playing in their yard; and they look mighty nice to you; and +you feel kind, and as if everybody else was. + +But that wasn't the way I felt when I helped to hand over to a +reformer the nomination for mayor; then it was just selfish +desperation and nothing else. We had to do it. You see, it was this +way: the other side had had the city for four terms, and, naturally, +they'd earned the name of being rotten by that time. Big Lafe Gorgett +was their best. "Boss Gorgett," of course our papers called him when +they went for him, which was all the time; and pretty considerable of +a man he was, too. Most people that knew him liked Lafe. I did. But he +got a bad name, as they say, by the end of his fourth term as +Mayor--and who wouldn't? Of course, the cry went up all round that he +and his crowd were making a fat thing out of it, which wasn't so much +the case as that Lafe had got to depending on humouring the gamblers +and the brewers for campaign funds and so forth. In fact, he had the +reputation of running a disorderly town, and the truth is, it +_was_ too wide open. + +But _we_ hadn't been much better when we'd had it, before Lafe +beat us and got in; and everybody remembered that. The "respectable +element" wouldn't come over to us strong enough for anybody we could +pick of our own crowd; and so, after trying it on four times, we +started in to play it another way, and nominated Farwell Knowles, who +was already running on an independent ticket, got out by the reform +and purity people. That is: we made him a fusion candidate, hoping to +find some way to control him later. We'd never have done it if we +hadn't thought it was our only hope. Gorgett was too strong, and he +handled the darkeys better than any man I ever knew. He had an +organization for it which we couldn't break; and the coloured voters +really held the balance of power with us, you know, as they do so many +other places near the same size, They were getting pretty well on to +it, too, and cost more every election. Our best chance seemed to be in +so satisfying the "law-and-order" people that they'd do something to +counterbalance this vote--which they never did. + +Well, sir, it was a mighty curious campaign. There never really was a +day when we could tell where we stood, for certain. As anybody knows, +the "better element" can't be depended on. There's too many of 'em +forget to vote, and if the weather isn't just right they won't go to +the polls. Some of 'em won't go anyway--act as if they looked down on +politics; say it's only helping one boodler against another. So your +true aristocrat won't vote for either. The real truth is, he don't +_care_. Don't care as much about the management of his city, +State, and country as about the way his club is run. Or he's ignorant +about the whole business, and what between ignorance and indifference +the worse and smarter of the two rings gets in again and old Mr. +Aristocrat gets soaked some more on his sewer assessments. _Then_ +he'll holler like a stabbed hand-organ; but he'll keep on talking +about politics being too low a business for a gentleman to mix in, +just the same! + +Somebody said a pessimist is a man who has a choice of two evils, and +takes both. There's your man that don't vote. + +And the best-dressed wards are the ones that fool us oftenest. We're +always thinking they'll do something, and they don't. But we thought, +when we took Farwell Knowles, that we had 'em at last. Fact is, they +did seem stirred up, too. They called it a "moral victory" when we +were forced to nominate Knowles to have any chance of beating +Gorgett. That was because it was _their_ victory. + +Farwell Knowles was a young man, about thirty-two, an editorial writer +on the _Herald_, an independent paper. I'd known him all his +life, and his wife--too, a mighty sweet-looking lady she was. I'd +always thought Farwell was kind of a dreamer, and too excitable; he +was always reading papers to literary clubs, and on the speech-making +side he wasn't so bad--he liked it; but he hadn't seemed to me to know +any more about politics and people than a royal family would. He was +always talking about life and writing about corruption, when, all the +time, so it struck me, it was only books he was really interested in; +and he saw things along book lines. Of course he was a tin god, +politically. + +He was for "stern virtue" only, and everlastingly lashed compromise +and temporizing; called politicians all the elegant hard names there +are, in every one of his editorials, especially Lafe Gorgett, whom +he'd never seen. He made mighty free with Lafe, referred to him +habitually as "Boodler Gorgett", and never let up on him from one +year's end to another. + +I was against our adopting him, not only for our own sakes--because I +knew he'd be a hard man to handle--but for Farwell's too. I'd been a +friend of his father's, and I liked his wife--everybody liked his +wife. But the boys overruled me, and I had to turn in and give it to +him. + +Not without a lot of misgivings, you can be sure. I had one little +experience with him right at the start that made me uneasy and got me +to thinking he was what you might call too literary, or theatrical, or +something, and that he was more interested in being things than doing +them. I'd been aware, ever since he got back from Harvard, that +_I_ was one of his literary interests, so to speak. He had a way +of talking to me in a _quizzical_, condescending style, in the +belief that he was drawing me out, the way you talk to some old +book-peddler in your office when you've got nothing to do for a while; +and it was easy to see he regarded me as a "character" and thought he +was studying me. Besides, he felt it his duty to study the wickedness +of politics in a Parkhurstian fashion, and I was one of the lost. + +One day, just after we'd nominated him, he came to me and said he had +a friend who wanted to meet me. Asked me couldn't I go with him right +away. It was about five in the afternoon; I hadn't anything to do and +said, "Certainly," thinking he meant to introduce me to some friend of +his who thought I'd talk politics with him. I took that for granted so +much that I didn't ask a question, just followed along up street, +talking weather. He turned in at old General Buskirk's, and may I be +shot if the person he meant wasn't Buskirk's daughter, Bella! He'd +brought me to call on a girl young enough to be my daughter. Maybe you +won't believe I felt like a fool! + +I knew Buskirk, of course (he didn't appear), but I hadn't seen Bella +since she was a child. She'd been "highly educated" and had been +living abroad a good deal, but I can't say that my visit made me +_for_ her--not very strong. She was good-looking enough, in her +thinnish, solemn way, but it seemed to me she was kind of overdressed +and too grand. You could see in a minute that she was intense and +dreamy and theatrical with herself and superior, like Farwell; and I +guess I thought they thought they'd discovered they were "kindred +souls," and that each of them understood (without saying it) that both +of them felt that Farwell's lot in life was a hard one because +Mrs. Knowles wasn't up to him. Bella gave him little, quiet, deep +glances, that seemed to help her play the part of a person +who understood everything--especially him, and reverenced +greatness--especially his. I remember a fellow who called the sort of +game it struck me they were carrying on "those soully flirtations." + +Well, sir, I wasn't long puzzling over why he had brought _me_ up +there. It stuck out all over, though they didn't know it, and would +have been mighty astonished to think that I saw. It was in their +manner, in her condescending ways with me, in her assumption of +serious interest, and in his going through the trick of "drawing me +out," and exhibiting me to her. I'll have to admit that these young +people viewed me in the light of a "character." That was the part +Farwell had me there to play. + +I can't say I was too pleased with the notion, and I was kind of sorry +for Mrs. Knowles, too. I'd have staked a good deal that my guess was +right, for instance: that Farwell had gone first to this girl for her +congratulations when he got the nomination, instead of to his wife; +and that she felt--or pretended she felt--a soully sympathy with his +ambitions; that she wanted to be, or to play the part of, a woman of +affairs, and that he talked over everything he knew with her. I +imagined they thought they were studying political reform together, +and she, in her novel-reading way, wanted to pose to herself as the +brilliant lady diplomat, kind of a Madam Roland advising statesmen, or +something of that sort. And I was there as part of their political +studies, an object-lesson, to bring her "more closely in touch" (as +Farwell would say) with the realities he had to contend with. I was +one of the "evils of politics," because I knew how to control a few +wards, and get out the darkey vote almost as well as Gorgett. Gorgett +would have been better, but Farwell couldn't very easily get at him. + +I had to sit there for a little while, of course, like a ninny between +them; and I wasn't the more comfortable because I thought Knowles +looked like a bigger fool than I did. Bella's presence seemed to +excite him to a kind of exaltation; he had a dark flush on his face +and his eyes were large and shiny. + +I got out as soon as I could, naturally, wondering what my wife would +say if she knew; and while I was fumbling around among the +knick-knacks and fancy things in the hall for my hat and coat, I heard +Farwell get up and cross the room to a chair nearer Bella, and then +she said, in a sort of pungent whisper, that came out to me +distinctly: + +"My knight!" That's what she called him. "My knight!" That's what she +said. + +I don't know whether I was more disgusted with myself for hearing, or +with old Buskirk who spent his whole time frittering around the club +library, and let his daughter go in for the sort of soulliness she was +carrying on with Farwell Knowles. + + * * * * * + +Trouble in our ranks began right away. Our nominee knew too much, and +did all the wrong things from the start; he began by antagonizing most +of our old wheel-horses; he wouldn't consult with us, and advised with +his own kind. In spite of that, we had a good organization working for +him, and by a week before election I felt pretty confident that our +show was as good as Gorgett's. It looked like it would be close. + +Just about then things happened. We had dropped onto one of Lafe's +little tricks mighty smartly. We got one of his heelers fixed (of +course we usually tried to keep all that kind of work dark from +Farwell Knowles), and this heeler showed the whole business up for a +consideration. There was a precinct certain to be strong for Knowles, +where the balloting was to take place in the office-room of a +hook-and-ladder company. In the corner was a small closet with one +shelf, high up toward the ceiling. It was in the good old free and +easy Hayes and Wheeler times, and when the polls closed at six o'clock +it was planned that the election officers should set the ballot-box up +on this shelf, lock the closet door, and go out for their suppers, +leaving one of each side to watch in the room so that nobody could +open the closet-door with a pass-key and tamper with the ballots +before they were counted. Now, the ceiling over the shelf in the +closet wasn't plastered, and it formed, of course, part of the +flooring in the room above. The boards were to be loosened by a +Gorgett man upstairs, as soon as the box was locked in; he would take +up a piece of planking--enough to get an arm in--and stuff the box +with Gorgett ballots till it grunted. Then he would replace the board +and slide out. Of course, when they began the count our people would +know there was something wrong, but they would be practically up +against it, and the precinct would be counted for Gorgett. + +They brought the heeler up to me, not at headquarters (I was city +chairman) but at a hotel room I'd hired as a convenient place for the +more important conferences and to keep out of the way of every +Tom-Dick-and-Harry grafter. Bob Crowder, a ward committee-man, +brought him up and stayed in the room, while the fellow--his name was +Genz--went over the whole thing. + +"What do you think of it?" says Bob, when Genz finished. "Ain't it +worth the money? I declare, it's so neat and simple and so almighty +smart besides, I'm almost ashamed some of our boys hadn't thought of +it for us." + +I was just opening my mouth to answer, when there was a signal knock +at the door and a young fellow we had as a kind of watcher in the next +room (opening into the one I used) put his head in and said +Mr. Knowles wanted to see me. + +"Ask him to wait a minute," said I, for I didn't want him to know +anything about Genz. "I'll be there right away." + +Then came Farwell Knowles's voice from the other room, sharp and +excited. "I believe I'll not wait," says he. "I'll come in there now!" + +And that's what he did, pushing by our watcher before I could hustle +Genz into the hall through an outer door, though I tried to. There's +no denying it looked a little suspicious. + +Farwell came to a dead halt in the middle of the room. + +"I know that person!" he said, pointing at Genz, his brow mighty +black. "I saw him and Crowder sneaking into the hotel by the back way, +half an hour ago, and I knew there was some devilish--" + +"Keep your shirt on, Farwell," said I. + +He was pretty hot. "I'll be obliged to you," he returned, "if you'll +explain what you're doing here in secret with this low hound of +Gorgett's. Do you think you can play with me the way you do with your +petty committee-men? If you do, I'll _show_ you! You're not +dealing with a child, and I'm not going to be tricked or sold out of +this elec--" + +I took him by the shoulders and sat him down hard on a cane-bottomed +chair. "That's a dirty thought," said I, "and if you knew enough to +be responsible I reckon you'd have to account for it. As it is--why, +I don't care whether you apologize or not." + +He weakened right away, or, at least, he saw his mistake. "Then won't +you give me some explanation," he asked, in a less excitable way, "why +are you closeted here with a notorious member of Gorgett's ring?" + +"No," said I, "I won't." + +"Be careful," said he. "This won't look well in print." + +That was just so plumb foolish that I began to laugh at him; and when +I got to laughing I couldn't keep up being angry. It _was_ +ridiculous, his childishness and suspiciousness. Right there was where +I made my mistake. + +"All right," says I to Bob Crowder, giving way to the impulse. "He's +the candidate. Tell him." + +"Do you mean it?" asks Bob, surprised. + +"Yes. Tell him the whole thing." + +So Bob did, helped by Genz, who was more or less sulky, of course; and +is wasn't long till I saw how stupid I'd been. Knowles went straight +up in the air. + +"I knew it was a dirty business, politics," he said, jumping out of +his chair, "but I didn't _realize_ it before. And I'd like to +know," he went on, turning to me, "how you learn to sit there so +calmly and listen to such iniquities. How do you dull your conscience +so that you can do it? And what course do you propose to follow in the +matter of this confession?" + +"Me?" I answered. "Why, I'm going to send supper in to our fellows, +and the box'll never see that closet. The man upstairs may get a +little tired. I reckon the laugh's on Gorgett; it's his scheme and--" + +Farwell interrupted me; his face was outrageously red. "_What!_ +You actually mean you hadn't intended to expose this infamy?" + +"Steady," I said. I was getting a little hot, too, and talked more +than I ought. "Mr. Genz here has our pledge that he's not given away, +or he'd never have--" + +"_Mister_ Genz!" sneered Farwell. "_Mister_ Genz has your +pledge, has he? Allow me to tell you that I represent the people, the +_honest_ people, in this campaign, and that the people and I have +made no pledges to _Mister_ Genz. You've paid the scoundrel--" + +"_Here!_" says Genz. + +"The scoundrel!" Farwell repeated, his voice rising and rising, "paid +him for his information, and I tell you by that act and your silence +on such a matter you make yourself a party to a conspiracy." + +"Shut the transom," says I to Crowder. + +"_I'm_ under no pledge, I say," shouted Farwell, "and I do not +compound felonies. You're not conducting my campaign. I'm doing that, +and I don't conduct it along such lines. It's precisely the kind of +fraud and corruption that I intend to stamp out in this town, and this +is where I begin to work." + +"How?" said I. + +"You'll see--and you'll see soon! The penitentiaries are built for +just this--" + +"_Sh, sh!_" said I, but he paid no attention. + +"They say Gorgett owns the Grand Jury," he went on. "Well, let him! +Within a week I'll be mayor of this town--and Gorgett's Grand Jury +won't outlast his defeat very long. By his own confession this man +Genz is party to a conspiracy with Gorgett, and you and Crowder are +witnesses to the confession. I'll see that you have the pleasure of +giving your testimony before a Grand Jury of determined men. Do you +hear me? And tomorrow afternoon's _Herald_ will have the whole +infamous story to the last word. I give you my solemn oath upon it!" + +All three of us, Crowder, Genz, and I, sprang to our feet. We were +considerably worked up, and none of us said anything for a minute or +so, just looked at Knowles. + +"Yes, you're a little shocked," he said. "It's always shocking to men +like you to come in contact with honesty that won't compromise. You +needn't talk to me; you can't say anything that would change me to +save your lives. I've taken my oath upon it, and you couldn't alter me +a hair's breadth if you burned me at a slow fire. Light, light, that's +what you need, the light of day and publicity! I'm going to clear this +town of fraud, and if Gorgett don't wear the stripes for this my +name's not Farwell Knowles! He'll go over the road, handcuffed to a +deputy, before three months are gone. Don't tell me I'm injuring +_you_ and the party by it. Pah! It will give me a thousand more +votes. I'm not exactly a child, my friends! On my honour, the whole +thing will be printed in to-morrow's paper!" + +"For God's sake--" Crowder broke out, but Knowles cut him off. + +"I bid you good-afternoon," he said, sharply. We all started toward +him, but before we'd got half across the room he was gone, and the +door slammed behind him. + +Bob dropped into a chair; he was looking considerably pale; I guess I +was, too, but Genz was ghastly. + +"Let me out of here," he said in a sick voice. "Let me out of here!" + +"Sit down!" I told him. + +"Just let me out of here," he said again. And before I could stop him, +he'd gone, too, in a blind hurry. + +Bob and I were left alone, and not talking any. + +Not for a while. Then Bob said: "Where do you reckon he's gone?" + +"Reckon who's gone?" + +"Genz." + +"To see Lafe." + +"What?" + +"Of course he has. What else can he do? He's gone up any way. The best +he can do is to try to square himself a little by owning up the whole +thing. Gorgett will know it all any way, tomorrow afternoon, when the +_Herald_ comes out." + +"I guess you're right," said Bob. "We're done up along with Gorgett; +but I believe that idiot's right, he won't lose votes by playing hob +with _us_. What's to be done?" + +"Nothing," I answered. "You can't head Farwell off. It's all my fault, +Bob." + +"Isn't there any way to get hold of him? A crazy man could see that +his best friend couldn't _beg_ it out of him, and that he +wouldn't spare any of us; but don't you know of some bludgeon we could +hang up over him?" + +"Nothing. It's up to Gorgett." + +"Well," said Bob, "Lafe's mighty smart, but it looks like +God-help-Gorgett now!" + +Well, sir, I couldn't think of anything better to do than to go around +and see Gorgett; so, after waiting long enough for Genz to see him and +get away, I went. Lafe was always cool and slow; but I own I expected +to find him flustered, and was astonished to see right away that he +wasn't. He was smoking, as usual, and wearing his hat, as he always +did, indoors and out, sitting with his feet upon his desk, and a +pleasant look of contemplation on his face. + +"Oh," says I, "then Genz hasn't been here?" + +"Yes," says he, "he has. I reckon you folks have 'most spoiled Genz's +usefulness for me." + +"You're taking it mighty easy," I told him. + +"Yep. Isn't it all in the game? What's the use of getting excited +because you've blocked us on one precinct? We'll leave that closet out +of our calculations, that's all." + +"Almighty Powers, I don't mean _that!_ Didn't Genz tell you--" + +"About Mr. Knowles and the _Herald_? Oh, yes," he answered, +knocking the ashes off his cigar quietly. "And about the thousand +votes he'll gain? Oh, yes. And about incidentally showing you and +Crowder up as bribing Genz and promising to protect him--making your +methods public? Oh, yes. And about the Grand Jury? Yes, Genz told +me. And about me and the penitentiary. Yes, he told me. Mr. Knowles is +a rather excitable young man. Don't you think so?" + +"Well?" + +"Well, what's the trouble?" + +"Trouble!" I said. "I'd like to know what you're going to do?" + +"What's Knowles going to do?" + +"He's sworn to expose the whole deal, as you've just told me you knew; +one of the preliminaries to having us all up before the next Grand +Jury and sending you and Genz over the road, that's all!" + +Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, tilting farther back, with +his hands in his pockets and his eyes twinkling under his last +summer's straw hat-brim. + +"He can't hardly afford it, can he," he drawled, "he being the +representative of the law and order and purity people? They're mighty +sensitive, those folks. A little thing turns 'em." + +"I don't understand," said I. + +"Well, I hardly reckoned you would," he returned. "But I expect if +Mr. Knowles wants it warm all round, _I'm_ willing. We may be +able to do some of the heating up, ourselves." + +This surprised me, coming from him, and I felt pretty sore. "You mean, +then," I said, "that you think you've got a line on something our boys +have been planning--like the way we got onto the closet trick--and +you're going to show _us_ up because we can't control Knowles; +that you hold that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? Then I +tell you plainly I know I can't shut him up, and you can go ahead and +do us the worst you can." + +"Whatever little tricks I may or may not have discovered," he +answered, "that isn't what I mean, though I don't know as I'd be above +making such a threat if I thought it was my only way to keep out of +the penitentiary. I know as well as you do that such a threat would +only give Knowles pleasure. He'd take the credit for forcing me to +expose you, and he's convinced that everything of that kind he does +makes him solider with the people and brings him a step nearer this +chair I'm sitting in, which he regards as a step itself to the +governorship and Heaven knows what not. He thinks he's detached +himself from you and your organization till he stands alone. +_That_ boy's head was turned even before you fellows nominated +him. He's a wonder. I've been noticing him long before he turned up as +a candidate, and I believe the great surprise of his life was that +John the Baptist didn't precede and herald _him_. Oh, no, going +for you wouldn't stop him--not by a thousand miles. It would only do +him good." + +"Well, what _are_ you going to do? Are you going to see him?" + +"No, sir!" Lafe spoke sharply. + +"Well, well! What?" + +"I'm not bothering to run around asking audiences of Farwell +Knowleses; you ought to know that!" + +"Given it up?" + +"Not exactly. I've sent a fellow around to talk to him." + +"What use will that be?" + +Gorgett brought his feet down off the desk with a bang. + +"_Then_ he can come to see _me_, if he wants to. D'you +think I've been fool enough not to know what sort of man I was going +up against? D'you think that, knowing him as I do, I've not been ready +for something of this kind? And that's all you'll get out of +_me_, this afternoon!" + +And it was all I did. + + * * * * * + +It may have been about one o'clock, that night, or perhaps a little +earlier, as I lay tossing about, unable to sleep because I was too +much disturbed in my mind--too angry with myself--when there came a +loud, startling ring at the front-door bell. I got up at once and +threw open a window over the door, calling out to know what was +wanted. + +"It's I," said a voice I didn't know--a queer, hoarse voice. "Come +down." + +"Who's 'I'?" I asked. + +"Farwell Knowles," said the voice. "Let me in!" + +I started, and looked down. + +He was standing on the steps where the light of a street-lamp fell on +him, and I saw even by the poor glimmer that something was wrong; he +was white as a dead man. There was something wild in his attitude; he +had no hat, and looked all mixed-up and disarranged. + +"Come down--come down!" he begged thickly, beckoning me with his arm. + +I got on some clothes, slipped downstairs without wakening my wife, +lit the hall light, and took him into the library. He dropped in a +chair with a quick breath like a sob, and when I turned from lighting +the gas I was shocked by the change in him since afternoon. I never +saw such a look before. It was like a rat you've seen running along +the gutter side of the curbstone with a terrier after it. + +"What's the matter, Farwell?" I asked. + +"Oh, my God!" he whispered. + +"What's happened?" + +"It's hard to tell you," said he. "Oh, but it's hard to tell." + +"Want some whiskey?" I asked, reaching for a decanter that stood +handy. He nodded and I gave him good allowance. + +"Now," said I, when he'd gulped it down, "let's hear what's turned +up." + +He looked at me kind of dimly, and I'll be shot if two tears didn't +well up in his eyes and run down his cheeks. "I've come to ask you," +he said slowly and brokenly, "to ask you--if you won't intercede with +Gorgett for me; to ask you if you won't beg him to--to grant me--an +interview before to-morrow noon." + +"_What!_" + +"Will you do it?" + +"Certainly. Have you asked for an interview with him yourself?" + +He struck the back of his hand across his forehead--struck hard, too. + +"Have I tried? I've been following him like a dog since five o'clock +this afternoon, beseeching him to give me twenty minutes' talk in +private. He _laughed_ at me! He isn't a man; he's an iron-hearted +devil! Then I went to his house and waited three hours for him. When +he came, all he would say was that you were supposed to be running +this campaign for me, and I'd better consult with you. Then he turned +me out of his house!" + +"You seem to have altered a little since this afternoon." I couldn't +resist that. + +"This afternoon!" he shuddered. "I think that was a thousand years +ago!" + +"What do you want to see him for?" + +"What for? To see if there isn't a little human pity in him for a +fellow-being in agony--to end my suspense and know whether or not he +means to ruin me and my happiness and my home forever!" + +Farwell didn't seem to be regarding me so much in the light of a +character as usual; still, one thing puzzled me, and I asked him how +he happened to come to me. + +"Because I thought if anyone in the world could do anything with +Gorgett, you'd be the one," he answered. "Because it seemed to me he'd +listen to you, and because I thought--in my wild clutching at the +remotest hope--that he meant to make my humiliation more awful by +sending me to you to ask you to go back to him for me." + +"Well, well," I said, "I guess if you want me to be of any use you'll +have to tell me what it's all about." + +"I suppose so," he said, and choked, with a kind of despairing sound; +"I don't see any way out of it." + +"Go ahead," I told him. "I reckon I'm old enough to keep my +counsel. Let it go, Farwell." + +"Do you know," he began, with a sharp, grinding of his teeth, "that +dishonourable scoundrel has had me _watched_, ever since there +was talk of me for the fusion candidate? He's had me followed, +_shadowed_, till he knows more about me than I do myself." + +I saw right there that I'd never really measured Gorgett for as tall +as he really was. "Have a cigar?" I asked Knowles, and lit one +myself. But he shook his head and went on: + +"You remember my taking you to call on General Buskirk's daughter?" + +"Quite well," said I, puffing pretty hard. + +"An angel! A white angel! And this beast, this _boodler_ has the +mud in his hands to desecrate her white garments!" + +"Oh," says I. + +The angel's knight began to pace the room as he talked, clinching and +unclinching his hands, while the perspiration got his hair all +scraggly on his forehead. You see Farwell was doing some suffering and +he wasn't used to it. + +"When she came home from abroad, a year ago," he said, "it seemed to +me that a light came into my life. I've got to tell you the whole +thing," he groaned, "but it's hard! Well, my wife is taken up with our +little boy and housekeeping,--I don't complain of her, mind that--but +she really hasn't entered into my ambitions, my inner life. She +doesn't often read my editorials, and when she does, she hasn't been +serious in her consideration of them and of my purposes. Sometimes she +differed openly from me and sometimes greeted my work for truth and +light with indifference! I had learned to bear this, and more; to save +myself pain I had come to shrink from exposing my real self to +her. Then, when this young girl came, for the first time in my life I +found real sympathy and knew what I thought I never should know; a +heart attuned to my own, a mind that sought my own ideals, a soul of +the same aspirations--and a perfect faith in what I was and in what it +was my right to attain. She met me with open hands, and lifted me to +my best self. What, unhappily, I did not find at home, I found in +her--encouragement. I went to her in every mood, always to be greeted +by the most exquisite perception, always the same delicate +receptiveness. She gave me a sister's love!" + +I nodded; I knew he thought so. + +"Well, when I went into this campaign, what more natural than that I +should seek her ready sympathy at every turn, than that I should +consult with her at each crisis, and, when I became the fusion +candidate, that I should go to her with the news that I had taken my +first great step toward my goal and had achieved thus far in my +struggle for the cause of our hearts--reform?" + +"You went up to Buskirk's after the convention?" I asked. + +"No; the night before." He took his head in his hands and groaned, but +without pausing in his march up and down the room. "You remember, it +was known by ten o'clock, after the primaries, that I should receive +the nomination. As soon as I was sure, I went to her; and I found her +in the same state of exaltation and pride that I was experiencing +myself. There was _always_ the answer in her, I tell you, always +the response that such a nature as mine craves. She took both my hands +and looked at me just as a proud sister would. 'I _read_ your +news,' she said. 'It is in your face!' Wasn't that touching? Then we +sat in silence for a while, each understanding the other's joy and +triumph in the great blow I had struck for the right. I left very +soon, and she came with me to the door. We stood for a moment on the +step--and--for the first time, the only time in my life--I received +a--a sister's caress." + +"Oh," said I. I understood how Gorgett had managed to be so calm that +afternoon. + +"It was the purest kiss ever given!" Farwell groaned again. + +"Who was it saw you?" I asked. + +He dropped into a chair and I saw the tears of rage and humiliation +welling up again in his eyes. + +"We might as well have been standing by the footlights in a theatre!" +he burst out, brokenly. "Who saw it? Who _didn't_ see it? Gorgett's +sleuth-hound, the man he sent to me this afternoon, for one; the +policeman on the beat that he'd stopped for a chat in front of the +house, for another; a maid in the hall behind us, the policeman's +sweetheart _she_ is, for another! Oh!" he cried, "the desecration! +That one caress, one that I'd thought a sacred secret between us +forever--and in plain sight of those three hideous vulgarians, all +belonging to my enemy, Gorgett! Ah, the horror of it--what _horror_!" + +Farwell wrung his hands and sat, gulping as if he were sick, without +speaking for several moments. + +"What terms did the man he sent offer from Gorgett?" I asked. + +"_No_ terms! He said to go ahead and print my story about the closet; +it was a matter of perfect indifference to him; that he meant to print +this about me in their damnable party-organ tomorrow, in any event, +and only warned me so that I should have time to prepare Miss Buskirk. +Of course he don't care! _I'll_ be ruined, that's all. Oh, the +hideous injustice of it, the unreason! Don't you see the frightful +irony of it? The best thing in my life, the widest and deepest; my +friendship with a good woman becomes a joke and a horror! Don't you +see that the personal scandal about me absolutely undermines me and +nullifies the political scandal of the closet affair? Gorgett will +come in again and the Grand Jury would laugh at any attack on him. I'm +ruined for good, for good and all, for good and all!" + +"Have you told Miss Buskirk?" + +He uttered a kind of a shriek. "_No!_ I can't! How could I? What do +you think I'm made of? And there's her father--and all her relatives, +and mine, and my wife--my wife! If she leaves me--" + +A fit of nausea seemed to overcome him and he struggled with it, +shivering. "My God! Do you think I can _face_ it? I've come to you for +help in the most wretched hour of my life--all darkness, darkness! +Just on the eve of triumph to be stricken down--it's so cruel, so +devilish! And to think of the horrible comic-weekly misery of it, +caught kissing a girl, by a policeman and his sweetheart, the +chambermaid! Ugh! The vulgar ridicule--the hideous laughter!" He +raised his hands to me, the most grovelling figure of a man I ever +saw. + +"Oh, for God's sake, help me, help me...." + +Well, sir, it was sickening enough, but after he had gone, and I +tumbled into bed again, I thought of Gorgett and laughed myself to +sleep with admiration. + +When Farwell and I got to Gorgett's office, fairly early the next +morning, Lafe was sitting there alone, expecting us, of course, as I +knew he would be, but in the same characteristic, lazy attitude I'd +found him in, the day before; feet up on the desk, hat-brim tilted +'way forward, cigar in the right-hand corner of his mouth, his hands +in his pockets, his double-chin mashing down his limp collar. He +didn't even turn to look at us as we came in and closed the door. + +"Come in, gentlemen, come in," says he, not moving. "I kind of thought +you'd be along, about this time." + +"Looking for us, were you?" I asked. + +"Yes," said he. "Sit down." + +We did; Farwell looking pretty pale and red-eyed, and swallowing a +good deal. + +There was a long, long silence. We just sat and watched +Gorgett. _I_ didn't want to say anything; and I believe Farwell +couldn't. It lasted so long that it began to look as if the little +blue haze at the end of Lafe's cigar was all that was going to +happen. But by and by he turned his head ever so little, and looked at +Knowles. + +"Got your story for the _Herald_ set up yet?" he asked. + +Farwell swallowed some more and just shook his head. + +"Haven't begun to work up the case for the Grand Jury yet?" + +"No," answered Farwell, in almost a whisper, his head hanging. + +"Why," Lafe said, in a tone of quiet surprise; "you haven't given all +that up, have you?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, ain't that strange?" said Lafe. "What's the trouble?" + +Knowles didn't answer. In fact, I felt mighty sorry for him. + +All at once, Gorgett's manner changed; he threw away his cigar, the +only time I ever saw him do it without lighting another at the end of +it. His feet came down to the floor and he wheeled round on Farwell. + +"I understand your wife's a mighty nice lady, Mr. Knowles." + +Farwell's head sank lower till we couldn't see his face, only his +fingers working kind of pitifully. + +"I guess you've had rather a bad night?" said Gorgett, inquiringly. + +"Oh, my God!" The words came out in a whisper from under Knowles's +tilted hat-brim. + +"I believe I'd advise you to stick to your wife," Gorgett went on, +quietly, "and let politics alone. Somehow I don't believe you're the +kind of man for it. I've taken considerable interest in you for some +time back, Mr. Knowles, though I don't suppose you've noticed it until +lately; and I don't believe you understand the game. You've said some +pretty hard things in your paper about me; you've been more or less +excitable in your statements; but that's all right. What I don't like +altogether, though, is that it seems to me you've been really tooting +your own horn all the time--calling everybody dishonest and +scoundrels, to shove _yourself_ forward. That always ends in sort +of a lonely position. I reckon you feel considerably lonely, just now? +Well, yesterday, I understand you were talking pretty free about the +penitentiary. Now, that ain't just the way to act, according to my +notion. It's a bad word. Here we are, he and I"--he pointed to +me--"carrying on our little fight according to the rules, enjoying it +and blocking each other, gaining a point here and losing one there, +everything perfectly good-natured, when _you_ turn up and begin +to talk about the penitentiary! That ain't quite the thing. You see +words like that are liable to stir up the passions. It's dangerous. +You were trusted, when they told you the closet story, to regard it as +a confidence--though they didn't go through the form of pledging +you--because your people had given their word not to betray Genz. But +you couldn't see it and there you went, talking about the Grand Jury +and stripes and so on, stirring up passions and ugly feelings. And I +want to tell you that the man who can afford to do that has to be +mighty immaculate himself. The only way to play politics, whatever +you're _for_, is to learn the game first. Then you'll know how +far you can go and what your own record will stand. There ain't a man +alive whose record will stand too much, Mr. Knowles--and when you get +to thinking about that and what your own is, it makes you feel more +like treating your fellow-sinners a good deal gentler than you would +otherwise. Now _I've_ got a wife and two little girls, and my old +mother's proud of me (though you wouldn't think it) and they'd hate it +a good deal to see me sent over the road for playing the game the best +I could as I found it." + +He paused for a moment, looking sad and almost embarrassed. "It ain't +any great pleasure to me," he said, "to think that the people have let +it get to be the game that it is. But I reckon it's good for +_you_. I reckon the best thing that ever happened to you is +having to come here this morning to ask mercy of a man you looked down +on." + +Farwell shifted a little in his chair, but he didn't speak, and +Gorgett went on: + +"I suppose you think it's mighty hard that your private character +should be used against you in a political question by a man you call a +public corruptionist. But I'm in a position where I can't take any +chances against an antagonist that won't play the game my way. I had +to find your vulnerable point to defend myself, and, in finding it, I +find that there's no need to defend myself any longer, because it +makes all your weapons ineffective. I believe the trouble with you, +Mr. Knowles, is that you've never realized that politicians are human +beings. But we are: we breathe and laugh and like to do right, like +other folks. And, like most men, you've thought you were different +from other men, and you aren't. So, here you are. I believe you said +you'd had a hard night?" + +Knowles looked up at last, his lips working for a while before he +could speak. "I'll resign now--if you'll--if you'll let me off," he +said. + +Gorgett shook his head. "I've got the election in my hand," he +answered, "though you fellows don't know it. You've got nothing to +offer me, and you couldn't buy me if you had." + +At that, Knowles just sank into himself with a little, faint cry, in a +kind of heap. There wasn't anything but anguish and despair _to_ +him. Big tears were sliding down his cheeks. + +I didn't say anything. Gorgett sat looking at him for a good while; +and then his fat chin began to tremble a little and I saw his eyes +shining in the shadow under his old hat-brim. + +He got up and went over to Farwell with slow steps and put his hand +gently on his shoulder. + +"Go on home to your wife," he said, in a low voice that was the +saddest I ever heard. "I don't bear you any ill-will in the +world. Nobody's going to give you away." + + + + +THE ALIENS + + +Pietro Tobigili, that gay young chestnut vender--he of the radiant +smiles--gave forth, in his warm tenor, his own interpretation of "Ach +du lieber Augustine," whenever Bertha, rosy waitress in the little +German restaurant, showed her face at the door. For a month it had +been a courtship; and the merchant sang often: + +_"Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross."_ + +The acquaintance, begun by the song and Pietro's wonderful laugh, had +grown tender. The chestnut vender had a way with him; he looked like +the "Neapolitan Fisher Lad" of the chromos, and you could have fancied +him of two centuries ago, putting a rose in his hair; even as it was, +he had the ear-rings. But the smile of him it was that won Bertha, +when she came to work in the little restaurant. It was a smile that +put the world at its ease; it proclaimed the coming of morning over +the meadows, and, taking every bystander into an April friendship, ran +on suddenly into a laugh that was like silver, and like a strange +puppy's claiming you for the lost master. + +So it befell that Bertha was fascinated; that, blushing, she laughed +back to him, and was nothing offended when, at his first sight of her, +he rippled out at once into "Ahaha, du libra Ogostine." + +Within two weeks he was closing his business (no intricate matter) +every evening, to walk home with her, through the September moonlight. +Then extraordinary things happened to the English language. + +"I ain'd nefer can like no foreigner!" she often joked back to a +question of his. "Nefer, nefer! you t'ink I'm takin' up mit a +hant-orkan maan, Mister Toby?" + +Whereupon he would carol out the tender taunt, "Ahaha, du libra +Ogostine!" + +"Yoost a hant-orkan maan!" + +"No! _No_! No oragan! I am a greata--greata merchant. Vote a +Republican! Polititshian! To-bigli, Chititzen Republican. +Naturalasize! March in a parade!" + +Never lived native American prouder of his citizenship than this +adopted one. Had he not voted at the election? Was he not a member of +the great Republican party? He had eagerly joined it, for the reason +that he had been a Republican in Italy, and he had drawn with him to +the polls his second cousin, Leo Vesschi, and the five other Italians +with whom he lived. For this, he had been rewarded by Pixley, his +precinct committee-man, who allowed him to carry pink torches in three +night processions. + +"You keeb oud politigs," said Bertha, earnestly, one evening. "My +uncle, Louie Gratz, he iss got a neighbour-lady; her man gone in +politigs. After_vorts_ he git it! He iss in der bennidenshierry +two years. You know why?" + +"Democrat!" shouted the chestnut vender triumphantly. + +"No, sir! Yoost politigs," replied the unpartisan Bertha. "You keeb +oud politigs." + +_"Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross."_ + +The song was always a teasing of her and carried all his friendly +laughter at her, because of her German ways; but it became softly +exultant whenever she betrayed her interest in him. + +"Libra Ogostine, she afraid I go penitensh?" he inquired. + +"Me!" she jeered with uneasy laughter. "_I_ ain'd care! but +you--you don' look oud, you git in dod voikhouse!" + +He turned upon her, suddenly, a face like a mother's, and touched her +hand with a light caress. + +"I stay in a workhouse sevena-hunder' year," he said gently, "you come +seeta by window some-a-time." + +At this Bertha turned away, was silent for a space, leaning on the +gate-post in front of her uncle's house, whither they were now +come. Finally she answered brokenly: "I ain'd sit by no vinder for +yoost a jessnut maan." This was her way of stimulating his ambition. + +"Ahaha!" he cried. "You don' know? I'm goin' buy beeg stan'! Candy! +Peanut! Banan'! Make some-a-time four dollar a day! 'Tis a greata +countra! Bimaby git a store! Ride a buggy! Smoke a cigar! You play +piano! Vote a Republican!" + +"Toby!" + +"Tis true!" + +"Toby," she said tearfully; "Toby, you voik hart, und safe your +money?" + +"You help?" he whispered. + +"I help--_you_!" she cried loudly. Then, with a sudden fit of +sobbing, she flung open the gate and ran at the top of her speed into +the house. + +Halcyon the days for Pietro Tobigli, extravagant the jocularity of +this betrothed one. And, as his happiness, so did his prosperity +increase; the little chestnut furnace became the smallest adjunct of +his affairs; for he leaped (almost at one bound) to the proprietorship +of a wooden stand, shaped like the crate of an upright piano and +backed up against the brick wall of the restaurant--a mercantile house +which was closed at night by putting the lid on. All day long Toby's +smile arrested pedestrians, and compelled them to buy of him, making +his wares sweeter in the mouth. Bertha dwelt in a perpetual serenade: +on warm days, when the restaurant doors were open, she could hear him +singing, not always "Ogostine," but festal lilts of Italy, liquid and +strangely sweet to her; and at such times, when the actual voice was +not in her ears, still she blushed with delight to hear in her heart +the thrilling echoes of his barcaroles, and found them humming +cheerily upon her own lips. + +Toby was to save five hundred dollars before they married, a great +sum, but they were patient and both worked very hard. The winter would +have fallen bitterly upon an outdoor merchant lacking Toby's confident +heart, but on the coldest days, when Bertha looked out, she always +found him slapping his hands, and trudging up and down in the snow in +front of the little box; and, as soon as he caught sight of +her--"Aha-ha, du libra Ogostine, Ogostine, Ogostine!" + +She saved her own money with German persistence, and on Christmas day +her present to her betrothed, in return for a coral pin, was a pair of +rubber boots filled with little cakes. + +Elysium was the dwelling-place of Pietro Tobigli, though, apparently, +he abode in a horrible slum cellar with Leo Vesschi and the five Latti +brothers. In this place our purveyor of sweetmeats was the only +light. Thither he had carried his songs and his laugh and his furnace +when he came from Italy to join Vesschi; and there he remained, partly +out of loyalty to his un-prosperous comrades, and partly because his +share of the expense was only twenty-five cents a week, and every +saving was a saving for Bertha. Every evening, on the homeward walk, +the affianced pair passed the hideous stairway that led down to the +cellar, and Bertha, neat soul, never failed to shudder at it. She did +not know that Pietro lived there, for he feared it might distress her; +nor could she ever persuade him to tell her where he lived. + +Because of this mystery, upon which he merrily insisted, she affected +a fear that he would some day desert her. "You don' tell me where you +lif, I t'ink you goin' ran away of me, Toby. I vake opp some day; git +a ledder dod you gone back home by 'Talian lady dod's grazy 'bout +you!" + +"Ahaha! Libra Ogostine, you believe I can make a write weet a +pen-a-paper? I don' know that-a _how_. Some-a-time you _see_ +that gran' palazzo where I leef. Eesa greata-great sooraprise!" + +In the gran' palazzo, it was as much as he could do to keep clean his +own grim little bunk in the corner. His comrades, sullen, hopeless, +came at evening from ten hours' desperate shovelling, and exhibited no +ambition for water or brooms, but sat hunched and silent, or morosely +muttering and coughing, in the dark room with its sodden earthen +floor, stained walls, and one smoky lamp. + +To this uncomfortable chamber repaired, one March evening, Mr. Frank +Pixley, Republican precinct committee-man, nor was its dinginess an +unharmonious setting for that political brilliant. He was a +pock-pitted, damp-looking, soiled little fungus of a man, who had +attained to his office because, in the dirtiest precinct of the +wickedest ward in the city, he had, through the operation of a +befitting ingenuity, forced a recognition of his leadership. From such +an office, manned by a Pixley, there leads an upward ramification of +wires, invisible to all except manipulators, which extends to higher +surfaces. Usually the Pixley is a deep-sea puppet, wholly controlled +by the dingily gilded wires that run down to him; but there are times +when the Pixley gives forth initial impulses of his own, such as may +alter the upper surface; for, in a system of this character, every +twitch is felt throughout the whole ramification. + +"Hello, boys," the committee-man called out with automatic geniality, +as he descended the broken steps. "How are ye? All here? That's good; +that's the stuff! Good work!" + +Only Toby replied with more than an indifferent grunt; but he ran +forward, carrying an empty beer keg which he placed as a seat for the +guest. + +"Aha_ha_, Meesa Peeslay! Make a parade? Torchlight? +Bandaplay--ta ra, la la la? Firework? Fzzz! Boum! Eh?" + +The politician responded to Toby's extravagantly friendly laughter +with some mechanical cachinnations which, like an obliging salesman, +he turned on and off with no effort. "Not by a dern sight!" he +answered. "The campaign ain't begun yet." + +"Champagne?" inquired Tobigli politely. + +"Campaign, campaign," explained Pixley. "Not much champagne in +yours!" he chuckled beneath his breath. "Blame lucky to git Chicago +bowl!" + +"What is that, that campaign?" + +"Why--why, it's the campaign. Workin' up public sentiment; gittin' you +boys in line, 'lect-ioneerin'--fixin' it _right_." + +Tobigli shook his head. "Campaign?" he repeated. + +"Why--Gee, _you_ know! Free beer, cigars, speakin', handshaking, +paradin'--" + +"Ahaha!" The merchant sprang to his feet with a shout. "Yes! +Hoor-r-ra! Vote a Republican! Dam-a Democrat!" + +"That's it," replied the committee-man somewhat languidly. "You see, +this is a Republican precinct, and it turns the ward--" + +"Allaways a Republican!" vociferated Pietro. "That eesa right?" + +"Well," said the other, "of course, whichever way you go, you want to +follow your precinct committee-man--that's me." + +"Yess! Vote a Republican." + +Pixley looked about the room, his little red eyes peering out cannily +from under his crooked brows at each of the sulky figures in the damp +shadows. + +"You boys all vote the way Pete says?" he asked. + +"Vote same Pietro," answered Vesschi. "Allaways." + +"Allaways a Republican," added Pietro sparkingly, with abundant +gesture. "'Tis a greata-great countra. Republican here same a +Republican at home--eena Etallee. Republican eternall! All good +Republican eena thees house! Hoor-r-ra!" + +"Well," said Pixley, with a furtiveness half habit, as he rose to go, +"of course, you want to keep your eye on your committee-man, and kind +of foller along with him, whatever he does. That's me." He placed a +dingy bottle on the keg. "I jest dropped in to see how you boys were +gittin' along--mighty tidy little place you got here." He changed the +stub of his burnt-out cigar to the other side of his mouth, shifting +his eyes in the opposite direction, as he continued benevolently: "I +thought I'd look in and leave this bottle o' gin fer ye, with my +compliments. I'll be around ag'in some evenin', and I reckon before +'lection day comes there may be somep'n doin'--I might have better fer +ye than a bottle. Keep your eye on me, boys, an' foller the +leader. That's the idea. So long!" + +"Vote a Republican!" Pietro shouted after him gaily. + +Pixley turned. + +"Jest foller yer leader," he rejoined. "That's the way to learn +politics, boys." + +Now as the rough spring wore on into the happier season, with the days +like spiced warm wine, when people on the street are no longer driven +by the weather but are won by it to loiter; now, indeed, did commerce +at Toby's new stand so mightily thrive that, when summer came, Bertha +was troubled as to the safety of Toby's profits. + +"You yoost put your money by der builtun-loan 'sociation, Toby," she +advised gently. "Dey safe ut fer you." + +"T'ree hunder' fifta dolla--_no_!" answered her betrothed. "I +keep in de pock'!" He showed her where the bills were pinned into his +corduroy waistcoat pocket. "See! Eesa _yau!_ Onna my heart, libra +Ogostine!" + +"Toby, uf you ain'd dake ut by der builtun-loan, _blease_ put ut +in der bink?" + +"I keep!" he repeated, shaking his head seriously. "In t'ree-four +mont' eesa five-hunder-dolla. Nobody but me eesa tross weet that +money." + +Nor could Bertha persuade him. It was their happiness he watched +over. Who to guard it as he, the dingy, precious parcel of bills? He +pictured for himself a swampy forest through which he was laying a +pathway to Bertha, and each of the soiled green notes that he pinned +in his waistcoat was a strip of firm ground he had made, over which he +advanced a few steps nearer her. And Bertha was very happy, even +forgetting, for a while, to be afraid of the smallpox, which had +thrown out little flags, like auction signs, here and there about the +city. + +When the full heat of summer came, Pietro laughed at the dog-days; and +it was Bertha's to suffer in the hot little restaurant; but she smiled +and waved to Pietro, so that he should not know. Also she made him +sell iced lemonade and birch beer, which was well for the corduroy +waistcoat pocket. Never have you seen a more alluring merchant. One +glance toward the stand; you caught that flashing smile, the owner of +it a-tip-toe to serve you; and Pietro managed, too, by a light jog to +the table on which stood his big, bedewed, earthen jars, that you +became aware of the tinkle of ice and a cold, liquid murmur--what +mortal could deny the inward call and pass without stopping to buy? + +There fell a night in September when Bertha beheld her lover +glorious. She had been warned that he was to officiate in the great +opening function of the campaign; and she stood on the corner for an +hour before the head of the procession appeared. On they +came--Pietro's party, three thousand strong; brass bands, fireworks, +red fire, tumultuous citizens, political clubs, local potentates in +open carriages, policemen, boys, dogs, bicycles--the procession doing +all the cheering for itself, the crowds of spectators only feebly +responding to this enthusiasm, as is our national custom. At the end +of it all marched a plentiful crew of tatterdemalions, a few bleared +white men, and the rest negroes. They bore aloft a crazy transparency, +exhibiting the legend: + +"FRANK PIXLEY'S HARD-MONEY LEAGUE. + +WE STAND FOR OUR PRINCIPALS. + +WE ARE SOLLID! + +NO FOOLING THE PEOPLE GOES! + +WE VOTE AS ONE MAN FOR + +TAYLOR P. SINGLETON!" + +Bertha's eyes had not rested upon Toby where they innocently sought +him, in the front ranks, even scanning the carriages, seeking him in +all positions which she conceived as highest in honour, and she would +have missed him altogether, had not there reached her, out of chaotic +clamours, a clear, high, rollicking tenor: + +_"Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross!"_ + +Then the eager eyes found their pleasure, for there, in the last line +of Pixley's pirates, the very tail of the procession, danced Pietro +Tobigli, waving his pink torch at her, proud, happy, triumphant, a +true Republican, believing all company equal in the republic, and the +rear rank as good as the first. + +"Vote a Republican!" he shouted. "Republican--Republican eternall!" + +Strangely enough, a like fervid protestation (vociferated in greeting) +evoked no reciprocal enthusiasm in the breast of Mr. Pixley, when the +committee-man called upon Toby and his friends at their apartment one +evening, a fortnight later. + +"That's right," he responded languidly. "That's right in gineral, I +_should_ say. Cert'nly, in _gineral_, I ain't got no quarrel +with no man's Republicanism. But this here's kind of a put-tickler +case, boys. The election's liable to be mighty close." + +"Republican win!" laughed Toby. "Meelyun man eena parade!" + +Mr. Pixley's small eyes lowered furtively. He glanced once toward the +door, stroked his stubby chin, and answered softly: "Don't you be too +sure of that, young feller. Them banks is fightin' each other ag'in!" + +"Bank? Fight? W'at eesa that?" inquired the merchant, with an entirely +blank mind. + +"There's one thing it _ain't_," replied the other, in the same +confidential tone. "It ain't no two-by-four campaign. All I got to say +to you boys is: 'Foller yer leader'--and you'll wear pearl +collar-buttons!" + +"Vote a Republican," interjected Leo Vesschi gutturally. + +The furtiveness of Mr. Pixley increased. + +"Well--mebbe," he responded, very deliberately. "I reckon I better +put you boys next, right now's well's any other time. Ain't nothin' +ever gained by not bein' open 'n' above-board; that's my motto, and I +ack up to it. You kin ast 'em, jest ast the boys, and you'll hear it +from each-an-dall: 'Frank Pixley's _square_!' That's what they'll +tell ye. Now see here, this is the way it is. I ain't worryin' much +about who goes to the legislature, or who's county-commissioners, nor +none o' _that. Why_ ain't I worryin'? Because it's picayune. It's +peanut politics. It ain't where the money is. No, sir, this campaign +is on the treasurership. Taylor P. Singleton is runnin' fer treasurer +on the Republican ticket, and Gil. Maxim on the Democratic. But that +ain't where the fight is." Mr. Pixley spat contemptuously. "Pah! +whichever of 'em gits it won't no more'n draw his salary. It's the +banks. If Singleton wins out, the Washington National gits the use of +the county's money fer the term; if Maxim's elected, Florenheim's bank +gits it. Florenheim laid down the cash fer Maxim's nomination, and the +Washington National fixed it fer Singleton. And it's big money, don't +you git no wrong idea about _that_!" + +"Vote a Republican," said Toby politely. + +A look of pain appeared upon the brow of the committee-man. + +"I reckon I ain't hardly made myself clear," he observed, somewhat +plaintively. "Now here, you listen: I reckon it would be kind of resky +to trust you boys to scratch the ticket--it's a mixed up business, +anyway--" + +"Vote a straight!" cried Pietro, nodding his head, +cheerfully. "_Yess!_ I teach Leo; yess, teach all these"--he +waved his hands to indicate the melancholy listeners--"teach them +all. Stamp in a circle by that eagle. Vote a Republican!" + +"What I was goin' to say," went on the official, exhibiting tokens of +impatience and perturbation, "was that if we _should_ make any +switch this year, I guess you boys would have to switch straight." + +"'Tis true!" was the hearty response. "Vote a straight +Republican. Republican eternall!" + +Pixley wiped his forehead with a dirty handkerchief, and scratched his +head. "See here," he said, after a pause, to Toby. "I've got to go +down to Collins's saloon, and I'd like to have you come along. Feel +like going?" + +"Certumalee," answered Toby with alacrity, reaching for his hat. + +But no one could have been more surprised than the chestnut vender +when, on reaching the vacant street, his companion glancing cautiously +about, beckoned him into the darkness of an alley-way, and, +noiselessly upsetting a barrel, indicated it as a seat for both. + +"Here," said Pixley, "I reckon this is better. Jest two men by +theirselves kin fix up a thing like this a lot quicker, and I seen you +didn't want to talk too much before _them_. You make your own +deal with 'em afterwards, or none at all, jest as you like! They'll do +whatever you say, anyway. I sized you up to run _that_ bunch, +first time I ever laid eyes on the outfit. Now see here, Pete, you +listen to me. I reckon I kin turn a little trick here that'll do you +some good. You kin bet I see that the men I pick fer my leaders--like +you, Pete--git their rights! Now here: there's you and the other six, +that's seven; it'll be three dollars in your pocket if you deliver the +goods." + +"No! no!" said Pietro in earnest protestation. "We seven a good +Republican. We vote a Republican--same las' time, all a time. Eesa not +a need to pay us to vote a Republican. You save that a money, Meesa +Peaslay." + +"You don't understand," groaned Pixley, with an inclination to weep +over the foreigner's thick-headedness. "There's a chance fer a big +deal here for all the boys in the precinck. Gil. Maxim's backers'll +pay _big_ fer votes enough to swing it. The best of 'em don't +know where they're at, I tell you. Now here, you see here"--he took an +affectionate grip of Pietro's collar--"I'm goin' to have a talk with +Maxim's manager to-morrow, I've had one or two a'ready, and I'll put +up the price all round on them people. It's no more'n right, when you +count up what we're doin' fer them. Look here, you swing them six in +line and march 'em up, and all of ye stamp the rooster instead of the +eagle this time, and help me to show Maxim that Frank Pixley's there +with the goods, and I'll hand you a five-dollar bill and a full box o' +_ci_gars, see?" + +Pietro nodded and smiled through the darkness. "Stamp that eagle!" he +answered, "Eesa all _right_, Meesa Peasley. Don't you have +afraid. We all seven a good Republican! Stamp that eagle! Hoor-r-ra! +Republican _eternall_!" + +Pixley was left sitting on the barrel, looking after the light figure +of the young man joyously tripping back to the cellar, and turning to +wave a hand in farewell from the street. + +"Well, I _am_ damned!" the politician remarked, with unwitting +veracity. "Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he +reely didn't un'erstand fer honest?" Then, as he took up his way, +crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox +lanterns, "I'll git those seven votes, though, _someway_. I'm out +fer a record this time, and I'll _git_ 'em!" + +Bertha went with her fianc to select the home that was to be +theirs. They found a clean, tidy, furnished room, with a canary bird +thrown in, and Toby, in the wild joy of his heart, seized his +sweetheart round the waist and tried to force her to dance under the +amazed eyes of the landlady. + +"You yoost behafed awful!" exclaimed the blushing waitress that +evening, with tears of laughter at the remembrance. + +She was as happy as her lover, except for two small worries that she +had: she feared that her uncle, Louie Gratz, with whom she lived, or +one of her few friends, might, when they found she was to marry Toby, +allude to him as a "Dago," in which case she had an intuition that he +would slap the offender; and she was afraid of the smallpox, which had +caused the quarantine of two shanties not far from her uncle's house. +The former of her fears she did not mention, but the latter she spoke +of frequently, telling Pietro how Gratz was panic-stricken, and talked +of moving, and how glad she was that Toby's "gran' palazzo" was in +another quarter of the city, as he had led her to believe. Laughing +her humours almost away, he told her that the red and green lanterns, +threatening murkily down the street, were for only wicked ones, like +that Meesa Peaslay, for whom she discovered, Pietro's admiration had +diminished. And when she thought of the new home--far across the city +from the ugly flags and lanterns--the tiny room with its engraving of +the "Rock of Ages" and its canary, she forgot both her troubles +entirely; for now, at last, the marvellous fact was assured: the five +hundred dollars was pinned into the waistcoat pocket, lying upon +Pietro's heart day and night, the precious lump that meant to him +Bertha and a home. The good Republican set election-day for the +happiest holiday of his life, for that would be his wedding-day. + +He left her at her own gate, the evening before that glorious day, and +sang his way down the street, feeling that he floated on the airy +uplift of his own barcarole beneath sapphire skies, for Bertha had put +her arms about him at last. + +"Toby," she said, "lieber Toby, I am so all-lofing by you--you are +sitch a good maan--I am so--so--I am yoost all-_lofing_ by you!" +And she cried heartily upon his shoulder. "Toby, uf you ain'd here for +me to-morrow by eckseckly dwelf o'glock, uf you are von minutes late, +I'm goin' yoost fall down deat! Don' you led nothings happen mit you, +Toby." + +And she had whispered to him, in love with his old tender mockery of +her, to sing "Libra Ogostine" for her before he said good-night. + +Mr. Pixley, again seated upon the barrel which he had used for his +interview with Toby, beheld the transfigured face of the young man as +the chestnut vender passed the mouth of the alley, and the +committee-man released from his soul a burdening profanity in the ear +of his companion and confidant, a policeman who would be on duty in +Pixley's precinct on the morrow, and who had now reported for +instructions not necessarily received in a too public rendezvous. + +"After I talked to him out here on this very barrel," said Pixley, his +anathema concluded, "I raised the bid on him; yessir, you kin skin me +fer a dead skunk if I didn't offer him ten dollars and a box of +_cigars_ fer the bunch; and him jest settin' there laughin' like +a plumb fool and tellin' me I didn't need to worry, they'd all vote +Republican fer nothin'! Talked like a parrot: 'Vote a Republican! +Republican eternal!' _Republican_! Faugh, he don't know no more +why he's a Republican than a yeller dog'd know! I went around +to-night, when he was out, thought mebbe I could fix it up with the +others. No, _sir_! Couldn't git nothing out of 'em except some +more parrot-cackle: 'Vote same Petro. All a good Republican!' It's +enough to sicken a man!" + +"Do we need his gang bad?" inquired the policeman deferentially. + +"I need everybody bad! This is a good-sized job fer me, and I want to +do it right. Throwin' the precinck to Maxim is goin' to do me +_some_ wrong with the Republican crowd, even if they don't git on +that it was throwed; and I want to throw it _good_! I couldn't +feel like I'd done right if I didn't. I've give my word that they'll +git a majority of sixty-eight votes, and that'll be jest twicet as +much in my pocket as a plain majority. And I want them seven Dagoes! +I've give up on _votin_' 'em; it can't be done. It'd make a saint +cuss to try to reason with 'em, and it's no good. They can't be +fooled, neither. They know where the polls is, and they know how to +vote--blast the Australian ballot system! The most that can be done is +to keep 'em away from the polls." + +"Can't you git 'em out of town in the morning?" + +"D'you reckon I ain't tried that? _No_, sir! That Dago wouldn't +take a pass to _heaven_! Everything else is all right. Doc +Morgan's niggers stays right here and _votes_. I _know_ them +boys, and they'll walk up and stamp the rooster all right, all +right. Them other niggers, that Hell-Valley gang, ain't that kind; and +them and Tooms's crowd's goin' to be took out to Smelter's ice-houses +in three express wagons at four o'clock in the morning. It ain't goin' +to cost over two dollars a head, whiskey and all. Then, Dan Kelly is +fixed, and the Loo boys. Mike, I don't like to brag, and I ain't +around throwin' no bokays at myself as a reg'lar thing, but I want to +say right, here, there ain't another man in this city--no, nor the +State neither--that could of worked his precinck better'n I have +this. I tell you, I'm within five or six votes of the majority they +set for their big money." + +"Have you give the Dagoes up altogether?" + +"No, by----!" cried the committee-man harshly, bringing his dirty fist +down on the other's knee. "Did you ever hear of Frank Pixley +weakenin'? Did you ever see the man that said Frank Pixley wasn't +game?" He rose to his feet, a ragged and sinister silhouette against +the sputtering electric light at the alley mouth. "Didn't you ever +hear that Frank Pixley had a barrel of schemes to any other man's +bucket o' wind? What's Frank Pixley's repitation, lemme ast you that? +I git what I go after, don't I? Now look here, you listen to me," he +said, lowering his voice and shaking a bent forefinger earnestly in +the policeman's face; "I'm goin' to turn the trick. And I _ought_ +to do it, too. That there Pete, he ain't worth the powder to blow him +up--you couldn't learn him no politics if you set up with him night +after night fer a year. Didn't I _try? Try_? I dern near bust my +head open jest thinkin' up ways to make the flathead _see_. And +he wouldn't make no effort, jest set there and parrot out 'Vote a +Republican!' He's ongrateful, that's what he is. Well, him and them +other Dagoes are goin' to stay at home fer two weeks, beginnin' +to-night." + +"I'll be dogged if I see how," said the policeman, lifting his helmet +to scratch his head. + +"I'll show you how. I don't claim no credit fer the idea, I ain't +around blowin' my own horn too often, but I'd like fer somebody to +jest show me any other man in this city could have thought it out! I'd +like to be showed jest one, that's all, jest one! Now, you look here; +you see that nigger shanty over there, with the smallpox lanterns +outside?" + +The policeman shivered slightly. "Yes." + +"Look here; they're rebuildin' the pest-house, ain't they?" + +"Yes." + +"Leavin' smallpox patients in their own holes under quarantine guard +till they git a place to put 'em, ain't they?" + +"Yes." + +"You know how many niggers in that shack?" + +"Four, ain't they?" + +"Yessir, four of 'em. One died to-night, another's goin' to, another +ain't tellin' which way he's goin' yit; and the last one, Joe +Cribbins, was the first to take it; and he's almost plumb as good as +ever ag'in. He's up and around the house, helpin' nurse the sick ones, +and fit fer hard labour. Now look here; that nigger does what I +_tell_ him and he does it quick--see? Well, he knows what I want +him to do to-night. So does Charley Gruder, the guard over +there. Charley's fixed; I seen to that; and he knows he ain't goin' to +lose no job fer the nigger's gittin' out of the back winder to go make +a little sociable call this evening." + +"What!" exclaimed the policeman, startled; "Charley ain't goin' to let +that nigger out!" + +"Ain't he? Oh, you needn't worry, he ain't goin' _fur_! All he's +waiting fer is fer you to give the signal." + +"Me!" The man in the helmet drew back. + +"Yessir, you! You walk out there and lounge up towards the drug-store +and jest look over to Charley and nod twice. Then you stand on the +corner and watch and see what you see. When you _see_ it, you +yell fer Charley and git into the drug store telephone, and call up +the health office and git their men up here and into that Dago cellar +like hell! The nigger'll be there. They don't know him, and he'll just +drop in to try and sell the Dagoes some policy tickets. You understand +_me_?" + +"Mother Mary in heaven!" The policeman sprang up. "What are you going +to do?" + +"What am I going to do?" shrilled the other, the light of a monstrous +pride in his little eyes. "I'm goin' to quarantine them Dagoes fer +fourteen days. They'll learn some politics before I git through with +'em. Maybe they'll know enough United States language to foller their +leader next time!" + +"By all that's mighty, Pixley," said the policeman, with an admiration +that was almost reverence, "you _are_ a schemer!" + +"Mein Gott!" screeched Bertha's uncle, snapping his teeth fiercely on +his pipe-stem, as he flung open the door of the girl's room. "You want +to disgraze me mit der whole neighbourhoot, 'lection night? Quid ut! +Stob ut! Beoples in der streed stant owidside und litzen to dod +grying. You _voult_ goin' to marry mit a Dago mens, voult you! +Ha, ha! Soife you right! He run away!" The old man laughed unamiably. +"Ha, ha! Dago mens foolt dod smard Bertha. Dod's pooty tough. But, +bei Gott, you stop dod noise und ect lige a detzent voomans, or you +goin' haf droubles mit your uncle Louie Gratz!" + +But Bertha, an undistinguishable heap on the floor of the unlit room, +only gasped brokenly for breath and wept on. + +"Ach, ach, ach, lieber Gott in Himmel!" sobbed Bertha. "Why didn't +Toby come for me? Ach, ach! What iss happened mit Toby? Somedings iss +happened--I _know_ ut!" + +"Ya, ya!" jibed Gratz; "somedings iss heppened, I bet you! Brop'ly +he's got anoder vife, dod's vot heppened! Brop'ly _leffing_ ad +you mit anoder voomans! Vot for dit he nefer tolt you vere he lif? So +you voultn't ketch him; dod's der reason! You're a pooty vun, +_you_ are! Runnin' efter a doity Dago mens! Bei Gott! you bedder +git oop und back your glo'es, und stob dod gryin'. I'm goin' to mofe +owid to-morrow; und you kin go verefer you blease. I ain'd goin' to +sday anoder day in sitch a neighbourhoot. Fife more smallpox lanterns +yoost oop der streed. I'm goin' mofe glean to der oder ent of der +city. Und you can come by me or you can run efter your Dago mens und +his voomans! Dod's why he dittn't come to marry you, you grazy--ut's a +voomans!" + + +"No, _no_," screamed Bertha, stopping her ears with her +forefingers. "Lies, lies, lies!" + +A slatternly negro woman dawdled down the street the following +afternoon, and, encountering a friend of like description near the +cottage which had been tenanted by Louie Gratz and his niece, paused +for conversation. + +"Howdy, honey," she began, leaning restfully against the +gate-post. "How's you ma?" + +"She right spry," returned the friend. "How you'self an' you good +husban', Miz Mo'ton?" + +Mrs. Morton laughed cheerily. "Oh, he enjoyin' de 'leckshum. He 'uz on +de picnic yas'day, to Smeltuh's ice-houses; an' 'count er Mist' +Maxim's gittin' 'lected, dey gi'n him bottle er whiskey an' two +dollahs. He up at de house now, entuhtainin' some ge'lemenfrien's +wi'de bones, honey." + +"Um hum." The other lady sighed reflectively. "I on'y wisht my po' +husban' could er live to enjoy de fruits er politics." + +"Yas'm," returned Mrs. Morton. "You right. It are a great intrus' in +a man's life. Dat what de ornator say in de speech f'm de back er de +groce'y wagon, yas'm, a great intrus' in a man's life. Decla'h, I +b'lieve Goe'ge think mo' er politics dan he do er me! Well ma'am," she +concluded, glancing idly up and down the street and leaning back more +comfortably against the gatepost, "I mus' be goin' on my urrant." + +"What urrant's dat?" inquired the widow. + +"Mighty quare urrant," replied Mrs. Morton. "Mighty quare urrant, +honey. You see back yon'eh dat new smallpox flag?" + +"Sho." + +"Well ma'am, night fo' las', dat Joe Cribbins, dat one-eye nigger what +sell de policy tickets, an's done be'n havin' de smallpox, he crope +out de back way, when's de gyahd weren't lookin', an', my Lawd, ef dey +ain't ketch him down in dat Dago cellar, tryin' sell dem Dagoes policy +tickets! Yahah, honey!" Mrs. Morton threw back her head to +laugh. "Ain't dat de beatenest nigger, dat one-eyed Joe?" + +"What den, Miz Mo'ton?" pursued the listener. + +"Den dey quahumteem dem Dagoes; sot a gyahd dah: you kin see him +settin' out dah now. Well ma'am, 'cordin' to dat gyahd, one er dem +Dagoes like ter go inter fits all day yas'day. Dat man hatter go in +an' quiet him down ev'y few minute'. Seem 't he boun' sen' a message +an' cain't git no one to ca'y it fer him. De gyahd, he cain't go; he +willin' sen' de message, but cain't git nobody come nigh enough de +place fer to tell 'em what it is. 'Sides, it 'leckshum-day, an' mos' +folks hangin' 'roun' de polls. Well ma'am, dis aft'noon, I so'nter'n +by, an' de gyahd holler out an' ask me do I want make a dollah, an' I +say I do. I ain't 'fraid no smallpox, done had it two year' ago. So I +say I take de message." + +"What is it?" + +"Law, honey, it ain't wrote. Dem Dago folks hain't got no writin' ner +readin'. Dey mo' er less like de beasts er de fiel'. Dat message by +word er mouf. I goin' tell nuffin 'bout de quahumteem. I'm gotter +say: 'Toby sen' word to liebuh Augustine dat she needn' worry. He li'l +sick, not much, but de doctah ain' 'low him out fer two weeks; an' +'mejutly at de en' er dat time he come an' git her an' den kin go on +home wheres de canary bu'd is.' Honey, you evah hyuh o' sich a +foolishness? But de gyahd, he say de message gotter be ca'yied dass +dataways." + +"Lan' name!" ejaculated the widow. "Who dat message to?" + +"Hit to a Dutch gal." + +"My Lawd!" The widow lifted amazed hands to heaven. "De impidence er +dem Dagoes! _Little_ mo' an' dey'll be sen'in' messages to you +er me!--What her name?" + +"Name Bertha Grass," responded Mrs. Morton, "an', nigh as I kin make +out, she live in one er dese little w'ite-paint cottages, right 'long +yere." + +"Yas'm! I knows dat Dutch gal, ole man Grass, de tailor, dass his +niece. W'y, dey done move out dis mawn, right f'um dis ve'y house you +stan'in in front de gate of. De ole man skeered er de smallpox, an' he +mad, too, an' de neighbuhs ask him whuh he gwine, he won't tell; so +mad he won't speak to nobody. None on 'em 'round hyuh knows an' dey's +considabul cyu'us 'bout it, too. Dey gone off in bofe d'rections--him +one way, her 'nother. 'Peah lak dey be'n quollun!" + +"Now look at dat!" cried Mrs. Morton dolefully. "Look at dat! Ain't +dat de doggonest luck in de wide worl'! De gyahd he say dat Dago +willin' pay fifty cents a day fo' me to teck an' bring a message eve'y +mawn' tell de quahumteem took off de cellar. Now dat Dutch gal gone +an' loss dat money fo' me--movin' 'way whuh nobody cain't fine 'er!" + +"Sho!" laughed the widow. "Ef I'se in you place, Miz Mo'ton, an' you's +in mine, dat money sho'lly, sho'lly nevah would be los', indeed hit +wouldn't. I dass go in t' de do' an' tu'n right 'roun' back ag'in an' +go down to dat gyahd an' say de Dutch gal 'ceive de message wid de +bes' er 'bligin' politeness an' sent her kine regyahds to de Dago man +an' all inquirin' frien's, an' hope de Dago man soon come an' git +'er. To-morrer de same, nex' day de same--" + +"Lawd, ef dat ain't de beatenest!" cried Mrs. Morton +delightedly. "Well, honey, I thank you long as I live, 'cause I +nevah'd a wuk dat out by myself an de livin' worl', an' I sho does +needs de money. I'm goin' do exackly dass de way you say. Dat man he +ain' goin' know no diffunce till he git out--an' den, honey," she let +loose upon the quiet air a sudden, great salvo of laughter, "dass let +him fine Lize Mo'ton!" + +Bertha went to live in the tiny room with the canary bird and the +engraving of the "Rock of Ages." This was putting lime to the canker, +but, somehow, she felt that she could go to no other place. She told +the landlady that her young man had not done so well in business as +they had expected, and had sought work in another city. He would come +back, she said. + +She woke from troubled dreams each morning to stifle her sobbing in +the pillow. "Ach, Toby, coultn't you sented me yoost one word, you +_might_ sented me yoost one word, yoost one, to tell me what has +happened mit you! Ach, Toby, Toby!" + +The canary sang happily; she loved it and tended it, and the gay +little prisoner tried to reward her by the most marvellous trilling in +his power, but her heart was the sorer for every song. + +After a time she went back drearily to the kraut-smelling restaurant, +to the work she had thought to leave forever, that day when Toby had +not come for her. She went out twenty times every morning, and oftener +as it wore on towards evening, to look at his closed stand, always +with a choking hope in her heart, always to drag leaden feet back into +the restaurant. Several times, her breath failing for shame, she +approached Italians in the street, or where there was one to be found +at a stand of any sort she stopped and made a purchase, and asked for +some word of Toby--without result, always. She knew no other way to +seek for him. + +One day, as she trudged homeward, two coloured women met on the +pavement in front of her, exchanged greetings, and continued for a +little way together. + +"How you enjoyin' you' money, dese fine days, Miz Mo'ton?" inquired +one, with a laugh that attested to the richness of the joke between +the two. + +"Law, honey," answered the other, "dat good luck di'n' las' ve'y +long. Dey done shut off my supplies." + +"No!" + +"Yas'm, dey sho did. Dat man done tuck de smallpox; all on 'em ketched +it, ev'y las' one, off'n dat no 'count Joe Cribbins, an' now dat dey +got de new pes'-house finish', dey haul 'em off yon'eh, yas'day. +Reckon dat ain' make no diffunce in my urrant runnin'. Dat Dago man, +he outer he hade two day fo' dey haul 'em away, an' ain' sen' no mo' +messages. So dat spile _my_ job! Hit dass my luck. Dey's sho' a +voodoo on Lize Mo'ton!" + +Bertha, catching but fragments of this conversation, had no +realization that it bore in any way upon the mystery of Toby; and she +stumbled homeward through the twilight with her tired eyes on the +ground. + +When she opened the door of the tiny room, the landlady's lean black +cat ran out surreptitiously. The bird-cage lay on the floor, upside +down, and of its jovial little inhabitant the tokens were a few yellow +feathers. + +Bertha did not know until a month after, when Leo Vesschi found her at +the restaurant and told her, that out in the new pest-house, that +other songster and prisoner, the gay little chestnut vender, Pietro +Tobigli, had called lamentably upon the name of his God and upon +"Libra Ogostine," and now lay still forever, with the corduroy +waistcoat and its precious burden tightly clenched to his breast. Even +in his delirium they had been unable to coax or force him to part from +it for a second. + + + + +THE NEED OF MONEY + + +Far back in his corner on the Democratic side of the House, Uncle +Billy Rollinson sat through the dragging routine of the legislative +session, wondering what most of it meant. When anybody spoke to him, +in passing, he would answer, in his gentle, timid voice, "Howdy-do, +sir." Then his cheeks would grow a little red and he would stroke his +long, white beard elaborately, to cover his embarrassment. When a vote +was taken, his name was called toward the last of the roll, so that he +had ample time, after the leader of his side of the House, young +Hurlbut, had voted, to clear his throat several times and say "Aye" or +"No" in quite a firm voice. But the instant the word had left his lips +he found himself terribly frightened, and stroked his beard a great +many times, the while he stared seriously up at the ceiling, partly to +avoid meeting anybody's eye, and partly in the belief that it +concealed his agitation and gave him the air of knowing what he was +about. Usually he did not know, any more than he knew how he had +happened to be sent to the legislature by his county. But he liked +it. He liked the feeling of being a person to be considered; he liked +to think that he was making the laws of his State. He liked the +handsome desk and the easy leather chair; he liked the row of fat, +expensive volumes, the unlimited stationery, and the free penknives +which were furnished him. He enjoyed the attentions of the coloured +men in the cloakroom, who brushed him ostentatiously and always called +him (and the other Representatives) "Senator," to make up to +themselves for the airs which the janitors of the "Upper House" +assumed. Most of these things surprised him; he had not expected to +be treated with such liberality by the State and never realized that +he and his colleagues were treating themselves to all these things at +the expense of the people, and so, although he bore off as much +note-paper as he could carry, now and then, to send to his son, Henry, +he was horrified and dumbfounded when the bill was proposed +appropriating $135,000 for the expenses of the seventy days' session +of the legislature. + +He was surprised to find that among his "perquisites" were passes +(good during the session) on all the railroads that entered the State, +and others for use on many inter-urban trolley lines. These, he +thought, might be gratifying to Henry, who was fond of travel, and had +often been unhappy when his father failed to scrape up enough money to +send him to a circus in the next county. It was "very accommodating +of the railroads," Uncle Billy thought, to maintain this pleasant +custom, because the members' travelling expenses were paid by the +State just the same; hence the economical could "draw their mileage" +at the Treasurer's office, and add it to their salaries. He +heard--only vaguely understanding--many joking references to other +ways of adding to salaries. + +Most of the members of his party had taken rooms at one of the hotels, +whither those who had sought cheaper apartments repaired in the +evening, when the place became a noisy and crowded club, admission to +which was not by card. Most of the rougher man-to-man lobbying was +done here; and at times it was Babel. + +Through the crowds Uncle Billy wandered shyly, stroking his beard and +saying, "Howdy-do, sir," in his gentle voice, getting out of the way +of people who hurried, and in great trouble of mind if any one asked +him how he intended to vote upon a bill. When this happened he looked +at the interrogator in the plaintive way which was his habit, and +answered slowly: "I reckon I'll have to think it over." He was not in +Hurlbut's councils. + +There was much bustle all about him, but he was not part of it. The +newspaper reporters remarked the quiet, inoffensive old figure +pottering about aimlessly on the outskirts of the crowd, and thought +Uncle Billy as lonely as a man might well be, for he seemed less a +part of the political arrangement than any member they had ever seen. +He would have looked less lonely and more in place trudging alone +through the furrows of his home fields in a wintry twilight. + +And yet, everybody liked the old man, Hurlbut in particular, if Uncle +Billy had known it; for Hurlbut watched the votes very closely and was +often struck by the soundness of Representative Rollinson's +intelligence in voting. + +In return, Uncle Billy liked Hurlbut better than any other man he had +ever known--except Henry, of course. On the first day of the session, +when the young leader had been pointed out to him, Uncle Billy's +humble soul was prostrate with admiration, and when Hurlbut led the +first attack on the monopolistic tendencies of the Republican party, +Representative Rollinson, chuckling in his beard at the handsome +youth's audacity, himself dared so greatly as to clap his hands +aloud. Hurlbut, on the floor, was always a storm centre: tall, +dramatic, bold, the members put down their newspapers whenever his +strong voice was heard demanding recognition, and his "Mr. Speaker!" +was like the first rumble of thunder. The tempest nearly always +followed, and there were times when it threatened to become more than +vocal; when, all order lost, nine-tenths of the men on the other side +of the House were on their feet shouting jeers and denunciations, and +the orator faced them, out-thundering them all, with his own cohorts, +flushed and cheering, gathered round him. Then, indeed, Uncle Billy +would have thought him a god, if he had known what a god was. + +Sometimes Uncle Billy saw him in the hotel lobby, but he seemed always +to be making for the elevator in a hurry, with half-a-dozen people +trying to detain him, or descending momentarily from the stairway for +a quick, sharp talk with one or two members, their heads close +together, after which Hurlbut would dart upward again. + +Sometimes the old man sat down at one of the writing tables, in a +corner of the lobby, and, annexing a sheet of the hotel note-paper, +"wrote home" to Henry. He sat with his head bent far over, the broad +brim of his felt hat now and then touching the hand with which he kept +the paper from sliding; and he pressed diligently upon his pen, +usually breaking it before the letter was finished. He looked so like +a man intent upon concealment that the reporters were wont to say: +"There's Uncle Billy humped up over his guilty secret again." + +The secret usually took this form: + + +"Dear Son Henry: + +"I would be glad if you was here. There is big doings. Hurlbut give +it to them to-day. He don't give the Republicans no rest, he lights +into them like sixty you would like to see him. They are plenty nice +fellows in the Republicans too but they lay mighty low when Hurlbut +gets after them. He was just in the office but went out. He always has +a segar in his mouth but not lit. I expect hes quit. I send you +enclosed last week's salary all but $11.80 which I had to use as +living is pretty high in our capital city of the state. If you would +like some of this hotel writing paper better than the kind I sent you +of the General Assembly I can send you some the boys say it is free. I +think it is all right you sold the calf but Wilkes didn't give you +good price. Hurlbut come in while I was writing then. You bet he can +always count on Wm. Rollinson's vote. + +"Well I must draw to a dose, Yours truly + +"Your father." + + +"Wm. Rollinson" was not aware that he was known to his colleagues and +the lobby and the Press as "Uncle Billy" until informed thereof by a +public print. He stood, one night, on the edge of a laughing group, +when a reporter turned to him and said: + +"The _Constellation_ would like to know Representative +Rollinson's opinion of the scandalous story that has just been told." + +The old man, who had not in the least understood the story, summoned +all his faculties, and, after long deliberation, bent his plaintive +eyes upon the youth and replied: + +"Well, sir, it's a-stonishing, a-stonishing!" + +"Think it's pretty bad, do you?" + +Some of the crowd turned to listen, and the old fellow, hopelessly +puzzled, stroked his beard with a trembling hand, and then, muttering, +"Well, young man, I expect you better excuse me," hurried away and +left the place. The next morning he found the following item tacked to +the tail of the "Legislative Gossip" column of the _Constellation_: + + +"UNCLE BILLY ROLLINSON HORRIFIED + +"Yesterday a curious and amusing story was current among the solons at +the Nagmore Hotel. It seems that the wife of a country member of the +last legislature had been spending the day at the hotel and the wife +of a present member from the country complained to her of the greatly +increased expenditure appertaining to the cost of living in the +Capital City. 'Indeed,' replied the wife of the former member, 'that +is curious. But I suppose my husband is much more economical than +yours, for he brought home $1.500, that he'd saved out of his salary.' +As the salary is only $456, and the gentleman in question did not play +poker, much hilarity was indulged in, and there were conjectures that +the economy referred to concerned his vote upon a certain bill before +the last session, anent which the lobby pushing it were far from +economical. Uncle Billy Rollinson, the Gentleman from Wixinockee, +heard the story, as it passed from mouth to mouth, but he had no +laughter to greet it. Uncle Billy, as every one who comes in contact +with him knows, is as honest as the day is long, and the story grieved +and shocked him. He expressed the utmost horror and consternation, and +requested to be excused from speaking further upon a subject so +repugnant to his feelings. If there were more men of this stamp in +politics, who find corruption revolting instead of amusing, our +legislatures would enjoy a better fame." + + +Uncle Billy had always been agitated by the sight of his name in +print. Even in the Wixinockee County _Clarion_, it dumbfounded +him and gave him a strange feeling that it must mean somebody else, +but this sudden blaze of metropolitan fame made him almost giddy. He +folded the paper quickly and placed it under his coat, feeling vaguely +that it would not do to be seen reading it. He murmured feeble answers +during the day, when some of his colleagues referred to it; but when +he reached his own little room that evening, he spread it out under +his oil-smelling lamp and read it again. Perhaps he read it twenty +times over before the supper bell rang. Perhaps the fact that he was +still intent upon it accounted for his not hearing the bell, so that +his landlady had to call him. + +What he liked was the phrase: "Honest as the day is long." He did not +go to the hotel that night. He went back to his room and read the +_Constellation_. He liked the _Constellation_. Newspapers +were very kind, he thought. Now and then, he would pick up his pile of +legislative bills and try to spell through the ponderous sentences, +but he always gave it up and went back to the _Constellation_. He +wondered if Hurlbut had read it. Hurlbut had. The leader had even +told the author of the item that he was glad somebody could appreciate +the kind of a man Uncle Billy was, and his value to the body politic. + +"Honest as the day is long," Uncle Billy repeated to himself, in the +little room, nodding his head gravely. Then he thought for a long +while about the member who had, according to the story, gone home with +$1,500. He sat up, that evening, until almost ten o'clock. Even after +he had gone to bed, he lay awake with his eyes wide open in the +darkness, thinking of the colossal sum. If anybody should come to +_him_ and offer him all that money to vote a certain way upon a +bill, he believed he would not take it, for that would be bribery; +though Henry would be glad to have the money. Henry always needed +money; sometimes the need was imperative--once, indeed, so imperative +that the small, unfertile farm had been mortgaged beyond its value, +otherwise very serious things must have happened to Henry. Uncle Billy +wondered how offers of money to members were refused without hurting +the intending donor's feelings. And what a great deal could be done +with $1,500, if a member could get it and still be as honest as the +day is long! + +About the second month of the session the floor of the House began +steadily to grow more and more tumultuous. To an unpolitical onlooker, +leaning over the gallery rail, it was often an incomprehensible +Bedlam, or perhaps one might have been reminded of an ant-heap by the +hurry-and-scurry and life-and-death haste in a hundred directions at +once, quite without any distinguishable purpose. Twenty men might be +rampaging up and down the aisles, all shouting, some of them +furiously, others with a determination that was deadly, all with arms +waving at the Speaker, some of the hands clenched, some of them +fluttering documents, while pages ran everywhere in mad haste, +stumbling and falling in the aisles. In the midst of this, other +members, seated, wrote studiously; others mildly read newspapers; +others lounged, half-standing against their desks, unlighted cigars in +their mouths, laughing; all the while the patient Speaker tapped with +his gavel on a small square of marble. Suddenly perfect calm would +come and the voice of the reading clerk drone for half an hour or +more, like a single bee in a country garden on Sunday morning. + +Of all this Uncle Billy was as much a layman spectator as any tramp +who crept into the gallery for a few hours out of the cold. The hurry +and seethe of the racing sea touched him not at all, except to +bewilderment, while he was carried with it, unknowing, toward the +breakers. The shout of those breakers was already in the ears of many, +for the crisis of the session was coming. This was the fight that was +to be made on Hurlbut's "Railroad Bill," which was, indeed, but in +another sense, known as the "Breaker." + +Uncle Billy had heard of the "Breaker." He couldn't have helped +that. He had heard a dozen say: "Then's when it's going to be warm +times, when that 'Breaker' comes up!" or, "Look out for that +'Breaker.' We're going to have big trouble." He knew, too, that +Hurlbut was interested in the "Breaker," but upon which side he was +for a long time ignorant. + + * * * * * + +Hurlbut always nodded to the old man, now, as he came down the aisle +to his own desk. He had begun that, the day after the _Constellation_ +item. Uncle Billy never failed to be in his seat early in the +morning, waiting for the nod. He answered it with his usual "Howdy-do, +sir," then stroked his beard and gazed profoundly at the row of fat +volumes in front of him, swallowing painfully once or twice. + +This was all that really happened for Uncle Billy during the turmoil +and scramble that went on about him all the day long. He had not been +forced to discover a way to meet an offer of $1,500, without hurting +the putative giver's feelings. No lobbyist had the faintest idea of +"approaching" the old man in that way. The members and the hordes of +camp-followers and all the lobby had settled into a belief that +Representative Rollinson was a sea-green Incorruptible, that of all +honest members he was the most honest. He had become typical of +honesty: sayings were current--"You might as well try to bribe Uncle +Billy Rollinson!" "As honest as old Uncle Billy Rollinson." Hurlbut +often used such phrases in private. + +The "Breaker" was Hurlbut's own bill; he had planned it and written +it, though it came over to the House from the Senate under a Senator's +name. It was one of those "anti-monopolistic" measures which Democrats +put their whole hearts into, sometimes, and believe in and fight for +magnificently; an idea conceived in honesty and for a beneficent +purpose, in the belief that a legislature by the wave of a hand can +conjure the millennium to appear; and born out of an utter +misconception of man and railroads. The bill needs no farther +description than this: if it passed and became an enforced law, the +dividends of every rail road entering the State would be reduced by +two-fifths. There is one thing that will fight harder than a +Democrat--that is a railroad. + +The "Breaker" had been kept very dark until Hurlbut felt that he was +ready; then it was swept through the Senate before the railroad lobby, +previously lulled into unsuspicion, could collect itself and block +it. This was as Hurlbut had planned: that the fight should be in his +own House. It was the bill of his heart and he set his reputation upon +it. He needed fifty-one votes to pass it, and he had them, and one to +spare; for he took his followers, who formed the majority, into caucus +upon it. It was in the caucus Uncle Billy learned that Hurlbut was +"for" the bill. He watched the leader with humble, wavering eyes, +thinking how strong and clear his voice was, and wondering if he never +lit the cigar he always carried in his hand, or if he ever got into +trouble, like Henry, being a young man. If he did, Uncle Billy would +have liked the chance to help him out. + +He had plenty of such chances with Henry; indeed, the opportunity may +be said to have become unintermittent, and Uncle Billy was never free +from a dim fear of the day when his son would get in so deeply that he +could not get him out. Verily, the day seemed near at hand: Henry's +letters were growing desperate and the old man walked the floor of his +little room at night, more and more hopeless. Once or twice, even as +he sat at his desk in the House, his eyes became so watery that he +forced himself into long spells of coughing, to account for it, in +case any one might be noticing him. + +The caucus was uneventful and quiet, for it had all been talked over, +and was no more than a matter of form. + +The Republicans did not caucus upon the bill (they had reasons), but +they were solidly against it. Naturally it follows that the assault of +the railroad lobby had to be made upon the virtue of the Democrats +_as_ Democrats. That is, whether a member upon the majority side +cared about the bill for its own sake of not, right or wrong, he felt +it his duty as a Democrat to vote for it. If he had a conscience +higher than a political conscience, and believed the bill was bad, his +duty was to "bolt the caucus"; but all of the Democratic side believed +in the righteousness of the bill, except two. One had already been +bought and the other was Uncle Billy, who knew nothing about it, +except that Hurlbut was "for" it and it seemed to be making a "big +stir." + +The man who had been bought sat not far from Uncle Billy. He was a +furtive, untidy slouch of a man, formerly a Republican; he had a great +capacity for "handling the coloured vote" and his name was +Pixley. Hurlbut mistrusted him; the young man had that instinct, which +good leaders need, for feeling the weak places in his following; and +he had the leader's way, too, of ever bracing up the weakness and +fortifying it; so he stopped, four or five times a day, at Pixley's +desk, urging the necessity of standing fast for the "Breaker," and +expressing convictions as to the political future of a Democrat who +should fail to vote for it; to which Pixley assented in his husky, +tough-ward voice. + +All day long now, Hurlbut and his lieutenants, disregarding the +routine of bills, went up and down the lines, fending off the +lobbyists and such Republicans as were working openly for the bill. +They encouraged and threatened and never let themselves be too +confident of their seeming strength. Some of those who were known, or +guessed, to be of the "weaker brethren" were not left to themselves +for half an hour at a time, from their breakfasts until they went to +bed. There was always at elbow the "_Hold fast_!" whisper of +Hurlbut and his lieutenants. None of them ever thought of speaking to +Uncle Billy. + +Hurlbut's "work was cut out for him," as they said. What work it is to +keep every one of fifty men honest under great temptation for three +weeks (which time it took for the hampered and filibustered bill to +come up for its passage or defeat), is known to those who have tried +to do it. The railroads were outraged and incensed by the measure; +they sincerely believed it to be monstrous and thievish. "Let the +legislature try to confiscate two-fifths of the lawyers', or the +bakers', or the ironmoulders', just earnings," said they, "and see +what will happen!" + +When such a bill as this comes to the floor for the third time the +fight is already over, oratory is futile; and Cicero could not budge a +vote. The railroads were forced to fight as best they could; this was +the old way that they have learned is most effective in such a +case. Votes could not be had to "oblige a friend" on the "Breaker" +bill; nor could they be procured by arguments to prove the bill +unjust. In brief: the railroad lobby had no need to buy Republican +votes (with the exception of the one or two who charged out of habit +whenever legislation concerned corporations), for the Republicans were +against the bill, but they did mortally need to buy two Democratic +votes, and were willing to pay handsomely for them. Nevertheless, +Mr. Pixley's price was not exorbitant, considering the situation; nor +need he have congratulated himself so heartily as he did (in moments +of retirement from public life) upon his prospective $2,000 (when the +goods should be delivered) since his vote was assisting the railroads +to save many million dollars a year. + +Of course the lobby attacked the bill noisily; there were big guns +going all day long; but those in charge knew perfectly well that the +noise accomplished nothing in itself. It was used to cover the +whispering. Still, Hurlbut held his line firm and the bill passed its +second reading with fifty-two votes, Mr. Pixley being directed by his +owners to vote for it on that occasion. + +As time went on the lobby began to grow desperate; even Pixley had +been consulted upon his opinion by Barrett, the young lawyer through +whom negotiations in his case had been conducted. Pixley suggested +the name of Rollinson and Barrett dismissed this counsel with as much +disgust for Pixley's stupidity as he had for the man's person. (One +likes a _dog_ when he buys him.) + +"But why not?" Pixley had whined as he reached the door. "Uncle Billy +ain't so much! You listen to me. He wouldn't take it out-an'-out--I +don't say as he would. But you needn't work that way. Everybody thinks +it's no use to tackle him--but nobody never _tried_! What's he +_done_ to make you scared of him? _Nothing_! Jest set there +and _looked_!" + +After he had gone the fellow's words came back to Barrett: "Nobody +never tried!" And then, to satisfy his conscience that he was leaving +no stone unturned, yet laughing at the uselessness of it, he wrote a +letter to a confidant of his, formerly a colleague in the lobby, who +lived in the county-seat near which Uncle Billy's mortgaged acres +lay. The answer came the night after the second vote on the "Breaker." + + +"Dear Barrett: + +"I agree with your grafter. I don't believe Rollinson would be hard to +approach if it were done with tact--of course you don't want to tackle +him the way you would a swine like Pixley. A good many people around +here always thought the old man simple-minded. He was given the +nomination almost in joke--nobody else wanted it, because they all +thought the Republicans had a sure thing of it; but Rollinson slid in +on the general Democratic landslide in this district. He's got one +son, a worthless pup, Henry, a sort of yokel Don Juan, always half +drunk when his father has any money to give him, and just smart enough +to keep the old man mesmerized. Lately Henry's been in a mighty +serious peck of trouble. Last fall he got married to a girl here in +town. Three weeks ago a family named Johnson, the most shiftless in +the county, the real low-down white trash sort, living on a truck +patch out Rollinson's way, heard that Henry was on a toot in town, +spending money freely, and they went after him. A client of mine rents +their ground to them and told me all about it. It seems they claim +that one of the daughters in the Johnson family was Henry's common-law +wife before he married the other girl, and it's more than likely they +can prove it. They are hollering for $600, and if Henry doesn't raise +it mighty quick they swear they'll get him sent over the road for +bigamy. I think the old man would sell his soul to keep his boy out of +the penitentiary and he's at his wits' ends; he hasn't anything to +raise the money on and he's up against it. He'll do any thing on earth +for Henry. Hope this'll be of some service to you, and if there's +anything more I can do about it you better call me up on the long +distance. + +"Yours faithfully, + +"J. P. WATSON. + +"P.S.--You might mention to our old boss that I don't want anything if +services are needed; but a pass for self and family to New York and +return would come in handy." + + +Barrett telegraphed an answer at once: "If it goes you can have annual +for yourself and family. Will call you up at two sharp to-morrow." + + * * * * * + +It was late the following night when the lobbyist concluded his +interview with Representative Rollinson, in the latter's little room, +half lighted by the oil-smelling lamp. + +"I knew you would understand, Mr. Rollinson," said Barrett as he rose +to go. His eyes danced and his jaws set with the thought that had been +jubilant within him for the last half-hour: "We've got 'em! We've got +'em! We've got 'em!" The railroads had defended their own again. + +"Of course," he went on, "we wouldn't have dreamed of coming to you +and asking you to vote against this outrageous bill if we thought for +a minute that you had any real belief in it or considered it a good +bill. But you say, yourself, your only feeling about it was to oblige +Mr. Hurlbut, and you admit, too, that you've voted his way on every +other bill of the session. Surely, as I've already said so many times, +you don't think he'd be so unreasonable as to be angry with you for +differing with him on the merits of only one! No, no, Hurlbut's a very +sensible fellow about such matters. You don't need to worry about +_that_! After all I've said, surely you won't give it another +thought, will you?" + +Uncle Billy sat in the shadow, bent far over, slowly twisting his +thin, corded hands, the fingers tightly interlocked. It was a long +time before he spoke, and his interlocutor had to urge him again +before he answered, in his gentle, quavering voice. + +"No, I reckon not, if you say so." + +"Certainly not," said Barrett briskly. "Why of course, we'd never have +thought of making you a money offer to vote either for or against your +principles. Not much! We don't do business that way! We simply want to +do something for you. We've wanted to, all during the session, but the +opportunity hadn't offered until I happened to hear your son was in +trouble." + +Out of the shadow came a long, tremulous sigh. There was a moment's +pause; then Uncle Billy's head sank slowly lower and rested on his +hands. + +"You see," the other continued cheerfully, "we make no conditions, +none in the world. We feel friendly to you and want to oblige you, but +of course we do think you ought to show a little good-will towards +_us_. I believe it's all understood: to-morrow night Mr. Watson +will drive out in his buggy to this Johnson place, and he's empowered +by us to settle the whole business and obtain a written statement from +the family that they have no claim on your son. How he will settle it +is neither your affair nor mine; nor whether it costs money or +not. But he _will_ settle it. We do that out of good-will to you, +as long as we feel as friendly to you as we do now, and all we ask is +that you show your good-will to us." + +It was plain, even to Uncle Billy, that if he voted against +Mr. Barrett's friends in the afternoon those friends might not feel so +much good-will toward him in the evening as they did now: and +Mr. Watson might not go to the trouble of hitching up his buggy to +drive out to the Johnsons'. + +"You see, it's all out of friendship," said Barrett, his hand on the +door knob. "And we can count on your's to-morrow, can't +we--absolutely?" + +The grey head sank a little lower, and then after a moment the +quavering voice answered: + +"Yes, sir--I'll be friendly." + +Before morning, Hurlbut lost another vote. One of his best men left +on a night train for the bedside of his dying wife. This meant that +the "Breaker" needed every one of the fifty-one remaining Democratic +votes in order to pass. Hurlbut more than distrusted Pixley, yet he +felt sure of the other fifty, and if, upon the reading of the bill, +Pixley proved false, the bill would not be lost, since there would be +a majority of votes in its favour, though not the constitutional +majority of fifty-one required for its passage, and it could be +brought up again and carried when the absent man returned. Thus, on +the chance that Pixley had withstood tampering, Hurlbut made no effort +to prevent the bill from coming to the floor in its regular order in +the afternoon, feeling that it could not possibly be killed by a +majority against it, for he trusted his fifty, now, as strongly as he +distrusted Pixley. + +And so the roll-call on the "Breaker" began, rather quietly, though +there was no man's face in the hall that was not set to show the +tensity of high-strung nerves. The great crowd that had gathered and +choked the galleries and the floor beyond the bar, and the Senators +who had left their own chamber to watch the bill in the House, all +began to feel disappointed; for nothing happened until Pixley's name +was called. + +Pixley voted "No!" + +Uncle Billy, sitting far down in his leather chair on the small of his +back, heard the outburst of shouting that followed; but he could not +see Pixley, for the traitor was instantly surrounded by a ring of men, +and all that was visible from where he sat was their backs and +upraised, gesticulating hands. Uncle Billy began to tremble violently; +he had not calculated on this; but surely such things would not happen +to _him_! + +The Speaker's gavel clicked through the uproar and the roll-call +proceeded. + +The clerk reached the name of Rollinson. Uncle Billy swallowed, threw +a pale look about him and wrapped his damp hands in the skirts of his +shiny old coat, as if to warm them. For a moment he could not +answer. People turned to look at him. + +"Rollinson!" shouted the clerk again. + +"No," said Uncle Billy. + +Immediately he saw above him and all about him a blur of men's faces +and figures risen to their feet, he heard a hundred voices say +breathlessly: "_What_!" and one that said: "My God, that kills +the bill!" + +Then a horrible and incredible storm burst upon him, and he who had +sat all the session shrinking unnoticed in his quiet, back seat, +unnerved when a colleague asked the simplest question, found himself +the centre and point of attack in the wildest mle that legislature +ever saw. A dozen men, red, frantic, with upraised arms, came at him, +Hurlbut the first of them. But the lobby was there, too; for it was +not part of its calculations that the old man should be frightened +into changing his vote. + +There need have been no fear of that. Uncle Billy was beyond the power +of speech. The lobby's agents swarmed on the floor, and, with +half-a-dozen hysterically laughing Republicans, met the onset of +Hurlbut and his men. It became a riot immediately. Sane men were swept +up in it to be as mad as the rest, while the galleries screamed and +shouted. All round the old man the fury was greatest; his head sank +over his desk and rested on his hands as it had the night before; for +he dared not lift it to see the avalanche he had loosed upon +himself. He would have liked to stop his ears to shut out the +egregious clamour of cursing and yelling that beset him, as his bent +head kept the glazed eyes from seeing the impossible vision of the +attack that strove to reach him. He remembered awful dreams that were +like this; and now, as then, he shuddered in a cold sweat, being as +one who would draw the covers over his head to shelter him from +horrors in great darkness. As Uncle Billy felt, so might a naked soul +feel at the judgment day, tossed alone into the pit with all the +myriads of eyes in the universe fastened on its sins. + +He was pressed and jostled by his defenders; once a man's shoulders +were bent back down over his own and he was crushed against the desk +until his ribs ached; voices thundered and wailed at him, threatening, +imploring, cursing, cajoling, raving. + +Smaller groups were struggling and shouting in every part of the room, +the distracted sergeants-at-arms roaring and wrestling with the +rest. On the high dais the Speaker, white but imperturbable, having +broken his gavel, beat steadily with the handle of an umbrella upon +the square of marble on his desk. Fifteen or twenty members, raging +dementedly, were beneath him, about the clerk's desk and on the steps +leading up to his chair, each howling hoarsely: + +"A point of _order_! A point of _or-der_!" + +When the semblance of order came at last, the roll was finished, +"reconsidered," the "Breaker" was beaten, 50 to 49, was dead; and +Uncle Billy Rollinson was creeping down the outer steps of the +Statehouse in the cold February slush and rain. + +He was glad to be out of the nightmare, though it seemed still upon +him, the horrible clamours, all gonging and blaring at _him_; the +red, maddened faces, the clenched fists, the open mouths, all raging +at _him_--all the ruck and uproar swam about the dazed old man as +he made his slow, unseeing way through the wet streets. + +He was too late for dinner at his dingy boarding house, having +wandered far, and he found himself in his room without knowing very +well how he had come there, indeed, scarcely more than half-conscious +that he _was_ there. He sat, for a long time, in the dark. After +a while he mechanically lit the lamp, sat again to stare at it, then, +finding his eyes watering, he turned from it with an incoherent +whimper, as if it had been a person from whom he would conceal the +fact that he was weeping. He leaned his arm, against the window sill +and dried his eyes on the shiny sleeve. + +An hour later, there came a hard, imperative knock on the door. Uncle +Billy raised his head and said gently: + +"Come in." + +He rose to his feet uncertain, aghast, when he saw who his visitor +was. It was Hurlbut. + +The young man confronted him darkly, for a moment, in silence. He was +dripping with rain; his hat, unremoved, shaded lank black locks over a +white face; his nostrils were wide with wrath; the "dry cigar" wagged +between gritting teeth. + +"Will ye take a chair?" faltered Uncle Billy. + +The room rang to the loud answer of the other: "I'd see you in Hell +before I'd sit in a chair of yours!" + +He raised an arm, straight as a rod, to point at the old +man. "Rollinson," he said, "I've come here to tell you what I think of +you! I've never done that in my life before, because I never thought +any man worth it. I do it because I need the luxury of it--because I'm +sick of myself not to have had gumption enough to see what you were +all the time and have you watched!" + +Uncle Billy was stung to a moment's life. "Look here," he quavered, +"you hadn't ought to talk that way to me. There ain't a cent of money +passed my fingers--" + +Hurlbut's bitter laugh cut him short. "_No?_ Don't you suppose +_I know_ how it was done? Do you suppose there's a man in the +whole Assembly doesn't know how you were sold? I had it by the long +distance an hour ago, from your own home. Do you suppose _we_ +have no friends there, or that it was hard to find out about the whole +dirty business? Your son's not going to stand trial for bigamy; that +was the price you charged for killing the bill. You and Pixley are the +only men whom they could buy with all their millions! Oh, I know a +dozen men who could be bought on other issues, but not on _this_! +You and Pixley stand alone. Well, you've broken the caucus and you've +betrayed the Democratic party. I've come to tell you that the party +doesn't want you any more. You are out of it, do you hear? We don't +want even to use you!" + +The old man had sunk back into his chair, stricken white, his hands +fluttering helplessly. "I didn't go to hurt your feelings, +Mr. Hurlbut," he said. "I never knowed how it would be, but I don't +think you ought to say I done anything dishonest. I just felt kind of +friendly to the railroads--" + +The leader's laugh cut him off again. "Friendly! Yes, that's what you +were! Well, you can go back to your friends; you'll need them!--Mother +in Heaven! How you fooled us! We thought you were the straightest man +and the staunchest Democrat--" + +"I b'en a Democrat all my life, Mr. Hurlbut. I voted fer--" + +"Well, you're a Democrat no longer. You're done for, do you +understand? And we're done with you!" + +"You mean," the old man's voice shook almost beyond control; "you mean +you're tryin' to read me out of the party?" + +"Trying to!" Hurlbut turned to the door. "You're out! It's done. You +can thank God that your 'friends' did their work so well that we can't +prove what we know. On my soul, you dog, if we could I believe some of +the boys would send you over the road." + +An hour after he had gone, Uncle Billy roused himself from his stupor, +and the astonished landlady heard his shuffling step on the stair. She +followed him softly and curiously to the front door, and watched +him. He was bare-headed but had not far to go. The night-flare of the +cheap, all-night saloon across the sodden street silhouetted the +stooping figure for a moment and then the swinging doors shut the old +man from her view. She returned to her parlour and sat waiting for his +return until she fell asleep in her chair. She awoke at two o'clock, +went to his room, and was aghast to find it still vacant. + +"The Lord have mercy on us all!" she cried aloud. "To think that old +rascal'd go out on a spree! He'd better of stayed in the country where +he belonged." + +It was the next morning that the House received a shock which loosed +another riot, but one of a kind different from that which greeted +Representative Rollinson's vote on the "Breaker." The reading-clerk +had sung his way through an inconsequent bill; most of the members +were buried in newspapers, gossiping, idling, or smoking in the +lobbies, when a loud, cracked voice was heard shrilly demanding +recognition. + +"Mr. Speaker!" Every one turned with a start. There was Uncle Billy, +on his feet, violently waving his hands at the Speaker. "Mr. Speaker, +Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker!" His dress was disordered and muddy; his +eyes shone with a fierce, absurd, liquorish light; and with each +syllable that he uttered his beard wagged to an unspeakable effect of +comedy. He offered the most grotesque spectacle ever seen in that +hall--a notable distinction. + +For a moment the House sat in paralytic astonishment. Then came an +awed whisper from a Republican: "Has the old fool really found his +voice?" + +"No, he's drunk," said a neighbour. "I guess he can afford it, after +his vote yesterday!" + +"Mister Speaker! _Mister_ Speaker!" + +The cracked voice startled the lobbies. The hangers-on, the +typewriters, the janitors, the smoking members came pouring into the +chamber and stood, transfixed and open-mouthed. + +"_Mister Speaker_!" + +Then the place rocked with the gust of laughter and ironical cheering +that swept over the Assembly, Members climbed upon their chairs and on +desks, waving handkerchiefs, sheets of foolscap, and waste-baskets. +"Hear 'im! _He-ear_ 'im!" rang the derisive cry. + +The Speaker yielded in the same spirit and said: + +"The Gentleman from Wixinockee." + +A semi-quiet followed and the cracked voice rose defiantly: + +"That's who I am! I'm the Gentleman from Wixinockee an' I stan' here +to defen' the principles of the Democratic party!" + +The Democrats responded with violent hootings, supplemented by cheers +of approval from the Republicans. The high voice out-shrieked them +all: "Once a Democrat, always a Democrat! I voted Dem'cratic tick't +forty year, born a Democrat an' die a Democrat. Fellow sizzens, I want +to say to you right here an' now that principles of Dem'cratic party +saved this country a hun'erd times from Republican mal-'diministration +an' degerdation! Lemme tell you this: you kin take my life away but +you can't say I don' stan' by Dem'cratic party, mos' glorious party of +Douglas an' Tilden, Hen'ricks, Henry Clay, an' George Washin'ton. I +say to you they _hain't_ no other party an' I'm member of it till +death an' Hell an' f'rever after, so help me _God_!" + +He smote the desk beside him with the back of his hand, using all his +strength, skinning his knuckles so that the blood dripped from them, +unnoticed. He waved both arms continually, bending his body almost +double and straightening up again, in crucial efforts for +emphasis. All the old jingo platitudes that he had learned from +campaign speakers throughout his life, the nonsense and brag and blat, +the cheap phrases, all the empty balderdash of the platform, rushed to +his incoherent lips. + +The lord of misrule reigned at the end of each sentence, as the +members sprang again upon the chairs and desks, roaring, waving, +purple with laughter. The Speaker leaned back exhausted in his chair +and let the gavel rest. Spectators, pages, galleries whooped and +howled with the members. Finally the climax came. + +"I want to say to you just this _here_," shrilled the cracked +voice, "an' you can tell the Republican party that I said so, tell 'em +straight from _me_, an' I hain't goin' back on it; I reckon they +know who I am, too; I'm a man that's honest--I'm as honest as the day +is long, I am--as honest as the day is long--" + +He was interrupted by a loud voice. "_Yes_," it cried, "_when +that day is the twenty-first of December!_" + +That let pandemonium loose again, wilder, madder than before. A member +threw a pamphlet at Uncle Billy. In a moment the air was thick with a +Brobdingnagian snow-storm: pamphlets, huge wads of foolscap, bills, +books, newspapers, waste-baskets went flying at the grotesque target +from every quarter of the room. Members "rushed" the old man, hooting, +cheering; he was tossed about, half thrown down, bruised, but, +clamorous over all other clamours, jumping up and down to shriek over +the heads of those who hustled him, his hands waving frantically in +the air, his long beard wagging absurdly, still desperately +vociferating his Democracy and his honesty. + +That was only the beginning. He had, indeed, "found his voice"; for he +seldom went now to the boarding-house for his meals, but patronized +the free-lunch counter and other allurements of the establishment +across the way. Every day he rose in the House to speak, never failing +to reach the assertion that he was "as honest as the day is long," +which was always greeted in the same way. + +For a time he was one of the jokes that lightened the tedious business +of law-making, and the members looked forward to his "_Mis-ter +Speaker_" as schoolboys look forward to recess. But, after a week, +the novelty was gone. + +The old man became a bore. The Speaker refused to recognize him, and +grew weary of the persistent shrilling. The day came when Uncle Billy +was forcibly put into his seat by a disgusted sergeant-at-arms. He was +half drunk (as he had come to be most of the time), but this +humiliation seemed to pierce the alcoholic vapours that surrounded his +always feeble intelligence. He put his hands up to his face and cried +like a whimpering child. Then he shuffled out and went back to the +saloon. He soon acquired the habit of leaving his seat in the House +vacant; he was no longer allowed to make speeches there; he made them +in the saloon, to the amusement of the loafers and roughs who infested +it. They badgered him, but they let him harangue them, and applauded +his rhodomontades. + +Hurlbut, passing the place one night at the end of the session, heard +the quavering, drunken voice, and paused in the darkness to listen. + +"I tell you, fellow-countrymen, I've voted Dem'cratic tick't forty +year, live a Dem'crat, die a Dem'crat! An' I'm's honest as day is +long!" + + * * * * * + +It was five years after that session, when Hurlbut, now in the +national Congress, was called to the district in which Wixinockee +lies, to assist his hard-pressed brethren in a campaign. He was +driving, one afternoon, to a political meeting in the country, when a +recollection came to him and he turned to the committee chairman, who +accompanied him, and said: + +"Didn't Uncle Billy Rollinson live somewhere near here?" + +"Why, yes. You knew him in the legislature, didn't you?" + +"A little. Where is he now?" + +"Just up ahead here. I'll show you." + +They reached the gate of a small, unkempt, weedy graveyard and +stopped. + +"The inscription on the head-board is more or less amusing," said the +chairman, as he got out of the buggy, "considering that he was thought +to be pretty crooked, and I seem to remember that he was 'read out of +the party,' too. But he wrote the inscription himself, on his +death-bed, and his son put it there." + +There was a sparse crop of brown grass growing on the grave to which +he led his companion. A cracked wooden head-board, already tilting +rakishly, marked Henry's devotion. It had been white-washed and the +inscription done in black letters, now partly washed away by the rain, +but still legible: + +HERE LIES THE MORTAL REMAINS OF WILLIAM ROLLINSON A LIFE-LONG DEMOCRAT +AND A MAN AS HONEST AS THE DAY IS LONG + +The chairman laughed. "Don't that beat thunder? You knew his record in +the legislature didn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"He _was_ as crooked as they say he was, wasn't he?" + +Hurlbut had grown much older in five years, and he was in Congress. He +was climbing the ladder, and, to hold the position he had gained, and +to insure his continued climbing, he had made some sacrifices within +himself by obliging his friends--sacrifices which he did not name. + +"I could hardly say," he answered gently, his down-bent eyes fastened +on the sparse, brown grass. "It's not for us to judge too much. I +believe, maybe, that if he could hear me now, I'd ask his pardon for +some things I said to him once." + + + + +HECTOR + + +It isn't the party manager, you understand, that gets the fame; it's +the candidate. The manager tries to keep his candidate in what the +newspapers call a "blaze of publicity"; that is, to keep certain spots +of him in the blaze, while sometimes it is the fact that a candidate +does not know much of what is really going on; he gets all the red +fire and sky-rockets, and, in the general dazzle and nervousness, is +unconscious of the forces which are to elect or defeat him. Strange +as it is, the more glare and conspicuousness he has, the more he +usually wants. But the more a working political manager gets, the less +he wants. You see, it's a great advantage to keep out of the high +lights. + +For my part, not even being known or important enough to be named +"Dictator," now and then, in the papers, I've had my fun in the game +very quietly. Yet I did come pretty near being a famous man once, a +good while ago, for about a week. That was just after Hector J. Ransom +made his great speech on the "Patriotism of the Pasture" which set the +country to talking about him and, in time, brought him all he desired. + +You remember what a big stir that speech made, of course--everybody +remembers it. The people in his State went just wild with pride, and +all over the country the papers had a sort of catch head-line: +"Another Daniel Webster Come to Judgment!" When the reporters in my +own town found out that Ransom was a second cousin of mine, I was put +into a scare-head for the only time in my life. For a week I was a +public character and important to other people besides the boys that +do the work at primaries. I was interviewed every few minutes; and a +reporter got me up one night at half-past twelve to ask for some +anecdotes of Hector's "Boyhood Days and Rise to Fame." + +I didn't oblige that young man, but I knew enough. I was always fond +of my first cousin, Mary Ransom, Hector's mother; and in the old days +I never passed through Greenville, the little town where they lived, +without stopping over, a train or two, to visit with her, and I saw +plenty of Hector! I never knew a boy that left the other boys to come +into the parlour (when there was company) quicker than Hector, and I +certainly never saw a boy that "showed off" more. His mother was +wrapped up in him; you could see in a minute that she fairly +worshipped him; but I don't know, if it hadn't been for Mary, that I'd +have praised his recitations and elocution so much, myself. + +Mary and I wouldn't any more than get to tell each other how long +since we'd heard from Aunt Sue, before Hector would grow uneasy and +switch around on the sofa and say: "Ma, I'd rather you wouldn't tell +cousin Ben about what happened at the G. A. R. reunion. I don't want +to go through all that stuff again." + +At that, Mary's eyes would light up and she'd say: "You must, Hector, +you must! I want him to hear you do it; he mustn't go away without +that!" Then she'd go on to tell me how Hector had recited Lincoln's +Gettysburg speech at a meeting of the local post of the G. A. R. and +how he was applauded, and that many of the veterans had told him if he +kept on he'd be Governor of his State some day, and how proud she was +of him and how he was so different from ordinary boys that she was +often anxious about him. Then she would urge him to let me have +it--and he always would, especially if I said: "Oh, don't _make_ +the boy do it, Mary!" + +He would stand out in the middle of the floor and thrust his chin out, +knitting his brow and widening his nostrils, and shout "Of the people, +By the people, and For the people" at the top of his lungs in that +little parlour. He always had a great talent for mimicry, a talent of +which I think he was absolutely unconscious. He would give his +speeches in exactly the boy-orator style; that is, he imitated +speakers who imitated others who had heard Daniel Webster. Mary and +he, however, had no idea that he imitated anybody; they thought it was +creative genius. + +When he had finished Lincoln, he would say: "Well, I've got another +that's a good deal better, but I don't want to go through that today; +it's too much trouble," with the result that in a few minutes Patrick +Henry would take a turn or two in his grave. Hector always placed +himself by a table for "Liberty or Death," and barked his knuckles on +it for emphasis. Little he cared, so long as he thought he'd got his +effect! You could see, in spite of the intensity of his expression, +that he was perfectly happy. + +When he'd worked us through that, and perhaps "Horatius at the Bridge" +and the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius and was pretty well +emptied, he'd hang about and interrupt in a way that made me +restless. Neither Mary nor I could get out two sentences before the +boy would cut in with something like: "Don't tell cousin Ben about +that day I recited in school; I'm tired of all that guff!" + +Then Mary would answer: "It isn't guff, precious. I never was prouder +of you in my life." And she'd go on to tell me about another of his +triumphs, and how he made up speeches of his own sometimes, and would +stand on a box and deliver them to his boy friends, though she didn't +say how the boys received them. All the while, Hector would stare at +me like a neighbour's cat on your front steps, to see what impression +it made on me; and I was conscious that he was sure that I knew he was +a wonderful boy. I think he felt that everybody knew it. Hector kind +of palled on me. + +When he was about sixteen, Mary wrote me that she was in great +distress about him because he had decided to go on the stage; that he +had written to John McCullough, offering to take the place of leading +man in his company to begin with. Mary was sure, she said, that the +life of an actor was a hard one; Hector had always been very delicate +(I had known him to eat a whole mince pie without apparent distress +afterward) and she wanted me to write and urge him to change his +mind. She felt sure Mr. McCullough would send for him at once, because +Hector had written him that he already knew all the principal +Shakespearian roles, could play Brutus, Cassius, or Mark Antony as +desired; and he had added a letter of recommendation from the Mayor of +their city, declaring that Hector was a finer elocutionist and +tragedian than any actor he had ever seen. + +The dear woman's anxiety was needless, for she wrote me, with as much +surprise as pleasure, two months later, that for some reason +Mr. McCullough had not answered the letter, and that she was very +happy; she had persuaded Hector to go to college. + +How she kept him there, the first two years, I don't know, for her +husband had only left her about four hundred dollars a year. Of +course, living in Greenville isn't expensive, but it does cost +something, and I honestly believe Mary came near to living on +nothing. It was a small college that she'd sent the boy to, but it was +a mother's point with her that Hector should be as comfortable as +anyone there. + +I stopped off at Greenville, one day, toward the end of his second +year, but before he'd come home, and I saw how it was. Mary seemed as +glad as ever to see me--it was the same old bright greeting that she'd +always given me. She saw me from the dining-room window where she was +eating her supper, and she came out, running down to the gate to meet +me, like a girl; but she looked thin and pale. + +I said I'd go right in and have some supper with her, and at that the +roses came back quickly to her cheeks. "No," she said, "I wasn't +really at supper; only having a bite beforehand; I'm going up-town now +to get the things for supper. You smoke a cigar out on the porch till +I get back, and--" + +I took her by the arm. "Not much, Mary," I said. "I'm going to have +the same supper you had for yourself." + +So I went straight out to the dining-room; and all I found on the +table was some dry bread toasted and a baked apple without cream or +sugar. It gave me a pretty good idea of what the general run of her +meals must have been. + +I had a long talk with her that night, and I wormed it out of her that +Hector's college expenses were about twenty-five dollars a month, +which left her six to live on. The truth is, she didn't have enough to +eat, and you could see how happy it made her. She read me a good many +of Hector's letters, her voice often trembling with happiness over his +triumphs. The letters were long, I'll say that for Hector, which may +have been to his credit as a son, or it may have been because he had +such an interesting subject. There was no doubt that he had worked +hard; he had taken all the chief prizes for oratory and essay writing +and so forth that were open to him; he also allowed it to be seen that +he was the chief person in the consideration of his class and the +fraternity he had joined. Mary had a sort of humbleness about being +the mother of such a son. + +But I settled one thing with her that night, though I had to hurt her +feelings to do it. I owned a couple of small notes which had just +fallen due, and I could spare the money. I put it as a loan to Hector +himself; he was to pay me back when he got started, and so it was +arranged that he could finish his course without his mother's living +on apples and toast. + +I went over to his Commencement with Mary and we hadn't been in the +town an hour before we saw that Hector was the king of the place. He +had _all_ the honours; first in his class, first in oratory, +first in everything; professors and students all kow-towed and sounded +the hew-gag before him. Most of Mary's time was put in crying with +happiness. As for Hector himself, he had changed in just one way: he +no longer looked at people to see his effect on them; he was too +confident of it. + +His face had grown to be the most determined I have ever seen. There +was no obstinacy in it--he wasn't a bull-dog--only set determination. +No one could have failed to read in it an immensely powerful will. In +a curious way he seemed "on edge" all the time. His nostrils were +always distended, the muscles of his lean jaw were never lax, but +continually at tension, thrusting the chin forward with his teeth hard +together. His eyebrows were contracted, I think, even in his sleep, +and he looked at everything with a sort of quick, fierce, appearance +of scrutiny, though at that time I imagined that he saw very little. +He had a loud, rich voice, his pronunciation was clipped to a deadly +distinctness; he was so straight and his head so high in the air that +he seemed almost to tilt back. With his tall figure and black hair, he +was a boy who would have attracted attention, as they say, in any +crowd, so that he might have been taken for a young actor. His best +friend, a kind of Man Friday to him, was another young fellow from +Greenville, whose name was Joe Lane. I liked Joe. I'd known him? since +he was a boy. He was lazy and pleasant-looking, with reddish hair and +a drawling, low voice. He had a humorous, sensible expression, though +he was dissipated, I'd heard, but very gentle in his manners. I had a +talk with him under the trees of the college campus in the moonlight, +Commencement night. I can see the boy lying there now, sprawling on +the grass with a cigar in his mouth. + +"Hector's done well," I said. + +"Oh, Lord, yes!" Joe answered. "He always will. He's going 'way up in +the world." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"Because he's so sure of it. It only needs a little luck to make him a +great man. In fact, he already is a great man." + +"You mean you think he has a great mind?" + +"Why, no, sir; but I think he has a purpose so big and so set, that it +might be called great, and it will make him great." + +"What purpose?" + +Joe answered quietly but very slowly, pulling at his cigar after each +syllable: "Hec--tor--J. Ran--som!" + +"I declare," I put in, "I thought you were his friend!" + +"So I am," the young fellow returned. "Friend, admirer, and +doer-in-ordinary to Hector J. Ransom, that's my quality. I've done +errands and odd jobs for him all my life. Most people who meet him do; +though it might be hard to say why. I haven't hitched my wagon to a +star; nobody'll get to do that, because this star isn't going to take +anything to the zenith but itself." + +"Going to the zenith, is he?" + +"Surely." + +"You mean," said I, "that he's going to make a fine lawyer?" + +"Oh, no, I think not. He might have been called one in the last +generation, but, as I understand it, nowadays a lawyer has to work out +business propositions more than oratory." + +"And you think Hector has only his oratory?" + +"I think that's his vehicle; it's his racing sulky and he'll drive it +pretty hard. We're good friends, but if you want me to be frank, I +should say that he'd drive on over my dead body if it lay in the road +to where he was going." Lane rolled over in the grass with a little +chuckle. "Of course," he went on, "I talk about him this way because +I know what you've done for him and I'd like to help you to be sure +that he's going to be a success. He'll do you credit!" + +"What are you going to do, yourself, Joe?" I asked. + +"Me?" He sat up, looking surprised. "Why, didn't you know? I didn't +get my degree. They threw me out at the eleventh hour for getting too +publicly tight--celebrating Hector's winning the works of Lord Byron, +the prize in the senior debate! I'll never be a credit to anybody; and +as for what I'm going to do--go back to Greenville and loaf in Tim's +pool-room, I suppose, and watch Hector's balloon." + +However, Hector's balloon seemed uninclined to soar, at the +set-off--though Hector didn't. The next summer began a presidential +campaign, and Hector, knowing that I was chairman of my county +committee, and strangely overestimating my importance, came up to see +me: he asked me to use my influence with the National Committee to +have him sent to make speeches in one of the doubtful States; he +thought he could carry it for us. I explained that I had no wires +leading up so far as the National Committee. There were other things +I might have explained, but it didn't seem much use. Hector would have +thought I wanted to "keep him down." + +He thought so anyway, because, after a crestfallen moment, he began to +look at me in his fierce eye-to-eye way with what seemed to me a dark +suspicion. He came and struck my desk with his clinched fist (he was +always strong on that), and exclaimed: + +"Then by the eternal gods, if my own flesh and blood won't help me, +I'll go to Chicago myself, lay my credentials before the committee, +unaided, and wring from them--" + +"Hold on, Hector," I said. "Why didn't you say you had credentials? +What are they?" + +"What are they?" he answered in a rising voice. "You ask me what are +my credentials? The credentials of my patriotism, my poverty, and my +pride! You ask me for my credentials? The credentials of youth!" (He +hit the desk every few words.) "The credentials of enthusiasm! The +credentials of strength! You ask for my credentials? The credentials +of red blood, of red corpuscles, of young manhood, ripest in the +glorious young West! The credentials of vitality! Of virile--" + +"Hold on," I said again, but I couldn't stop him. He went on for +probably fifteen minutes, pacing the room and gesticulating and +thundering at me, though we two were all alone. I felt mighty +ridiculous, but, of course, I'd been through much the same thing with +one or two candidates and orators before. I thought then that he was +practising on me, but I came afterward to see that I was partly +wrong. "Oratory" was his only way of expressing himself; he couldn't +just _talk_, to save his life. All you could do, when he began, +was to sit and take it till he got through, which consumed some +valuable time for me that afternoon. I suppose I was profane inside, +for having given him that cue with "credentials." Finally I got in a +question: + +"Why not begin a little more mildly, Hector? Why don't you make some +speeches in your own county first?" + +"I have consented to make the Fourth of July oration at Greenville," +he answered. + +Before he could go on, I got up and slapped him on the back. "That's +right!" I said. "That's right! Go back and show the home folks what +you can do, and I'll come down to hear it!" + +And so I did. Mary was, if possible, more flustered and upset than at +Hector's Commencement. She and Joe Lane and I had a bench close up to +the stand, and on the other side of Mary sat a girl I'd never seen +before. Mary introduced me to her in a way that made me risk a guess +that Hector liked her more than common. Her name was Laura Rainey, and +she'd come to Greenville, a year before, to teach in the high-school. +She was young, not quite twenty, I reckoned, and as pretty and dainty +a girl as ever I saw; thin and delicate-looking, though not in the +sense of poor health; and she struck me as being very sweet and +thoughtful. Joe Lane told me, with his little chuckle, that she'd had +a good deal of trouble in the school on account of all the older boys +falling in love with her. + +Something in the way he spoke made me watch Joe, and I was sure if +he'd been one of her pupils he wouldn't have lightened her worries +much in that direction. He had it himself. I saw it, or, I should say, +I felt it, in spite of his never seeming to look at her. She looked at +him, however, and pretty often, too; and there was a good deal of +interest in her eyes, only it was a sad kind, which I understood, I +thought, when I found that Joe had been on a long spree and had just +sobered up the day before. + +Hector sat above us on the platform, with the Mayor and the County +Judge, and when the latter introduced him, and the same old white +pitcher and glass of water on a pine table, the boy came forward with +slow and impressive steps, and, setting his left fist on his hip, +allowed his right arm to hang straight by his side till his hand +rested on the table, like a statesman of the day standing for a +photograph. His brow contained a commanding frown, and he stood for +some moments in that position, while, to my astonishment, the crowd +cheered itself hoarse. + +There was no mistaking the genuine enthusiasm that he evoked, though I +didn't feel it myself. I suppose the only explanation is that he had +a great deal of what is called "magnetism." What made it I don't +know. He was good-looking enough, with his dark eyes and hair, and +white, intense face and black clothes; but there was more in the +cheering than appreciation of that. I could not doubt that he produced +on the crowd, by his quiet attitude, an apparition of greatness. There +was some kind of hypnotism in it, I suppose. + +The speech was about what I was looking for: bombastic platitudes +delivered with such earnestness and velocity that "every point scored" +and the cheering came whenever he wanted it. + +For instance: he would retire a few steps toward the rear, and, +pointing to the sky, adjure it in a solemn voice which made every one +lean forward in a dead hush: + +"Tell me, ye silent stars, that seem to slumber 'neath the auroral +coverlet of day, tell me, down what laurelled pathways among ye walk +our dead, the heroes whose blood was our benison, bequeathing to us +the heritage of this flower-strewn land; they who have passed to that +bourne whence no traveller returns? Answer me: Are not _theirs_ +the loftiest names inscribed on your marble catalogues of the +nations?" He let his voice out startlingly and shouted: "CREEPS there +a creature of the earth with spirit so sordid as to doubt it, to doubt +_who_ heads those gilded rolls! If there be, then _I_ say to +him, 'Beware!' For the names I see written above me to-day on the +immemorial canopy of heaven begin with that of the spotless knight, +the unsceptred and uncrowned king, the godlike and immaculate"--(here +he turned suddenly, ran to the front of the stage, and, with +outstretched fist shaking violently over our heads, thundered at the +full power of his lungs): "GEORGE WASHINGTON!" + +He did the same for Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, and four or +five governors and senators of the State; and at every name the crowd +went wild, worked up to it by Hector in the same way. But what +surprised me was his daring to conclude his list with a votive +offering laid at the feet of Passley Trimmer. Trimmer was the +congressional representative of that district and one of the meanest +men and smartest politicians in the world. He was always creeping out +of tight places and money-scandals by the skin of his teeth; and yet, +by building up the finest personal machine in the State, he stuck to +his seat in Congress term after term, in spite of the fact that most +of the intelligent and honest men in his district despised him. It was +a proof of the power Hector held over his audience that, by his +tribute to Trimmer, he was able to evoke the noisiest enthusiasm of +the afternoon. + +Nevertheless, what really tickled me most was the boy's peroration. It +gave me a pretty clear insight into his "innard workings." He led up +to it in his favourite way: stepping backward a pace or two and +sinking his voice to a kind of Edwin Booth quiet; gradually growing a +little louder; then suddenly turning on the thunder and running +forward. + +"You ask _me_ for our credentials?" he roared. (Nobody had, this +time.) "In the Lexicon of the Peoples, you ask _me_ for my +country's credentials? The credentials of our pastures, our +population and our pride! You ask me for my country's credentials? I +reply: 'The credentials of our youth and our enthusiasm! Of red +corpuscles! Of red blood! The credentials of the virility and of the +magnificent manhood of the Columbian Continent!' You ask for my +country's credentials and I answer: 'The credentials of Glory! By +right of the eternal and Almighty God!'" + +Of course there was a great deal more, but that's enough to show how +he had polished it. + + * * * * * + +I walked back to Mary's with Joe Lane, while Hector followed, making a +kind of Royal Progress through the crowds, with his mother and Miss +Rainey. + +"You see it now, yourself, don't you?" Joe said to me. + +"You mean about his doing well?" + +"What else? He's just shown what he can do with people. The day will +come when you'll have to take him at his own valuation." + +I couldn't help laughing. "Well, Joe," I said, "that sounds as if +_you_, at least, already took Hector at his own valuation." + +"In some things," he answered, "I think I do. Don't you take him for +an ass, sir. Sometimes I believe he's guided by a really superior +intelligence--" + +"Must be a sub-consciousness, then, Joe!" + +"Exactly," he said seriously. "He doesn't make a single mistake. He's +trained his manner so that, while a very few people laugh at him, he +does things that the town would resent in any one else. He doesn't go +round with the boys, and they look up to him for it. He isn't pompous, +but he's acquired a kind of stateliness of manner that's made +Greenville call him 'Mister Ransom' instead of 'Hec.' You probably +think that his request to the National Committee only shows he's got +all the nerve in the world; but I believe, on my soul, that if it had +been granted he could have made good." + +"What did he want to run Passley Trimmer into his Pantheon for, +to-day?" I asked. + +Joe's honest face looked a little dark at this. "It's only another +proof of the shrewdness that directs him, though it was, maybe, a +little bit sickening. He talks gold and stars and eternal gods, about +sweetness and light and pure politics and reform, but he wants Passley +Trimmer's machine to take him up. Passley Trimmer and his brother, +Link, are a good-sized curse to this district, I expect you know, but +Hector's courting them. Link is the dirtiest we've ever had here, and +he holds all the rottenest in this county solid for Passley. He's +overbearing; ugly, too; shot a nigger in the hip a year ago, and +crippled him for life on account of a little back-talk, and got off +scot-free. I had a row with him in a saloon last week; I was tight, I +suppose, though there's always been bad blood between us, anyway, +drunk or sober, and I didn't know much what happened, except that I +refused to drink in his company and he cursed me out and I blacked an +eye for him before they separated us. Well, sir, next day, here was +Hector demanding that I go and apologize to Link. I said I'd as soon +apologize to a rattlesnake, and Hector upbraided me in his rhetoric, +but with a whole lot of real feeling, too. He was even pathetic about +it: put it on the ground that I owed it to morality, by which he meant +Hector. I was known to be his most intimate friend; I had done him an +irrecoverable injury with the Trimmers, who would extend their +retaliation and let _him_ have a share of it, as my friend. He +ended by declaring that he should withhold the light of his +countenance from me until I had repaired the wrong done to his cause, +and had apologized to Link!" + +"Did you do it?" + +The good fellow answered with his little chuckle: "Of course! Don't +you see that he gets everybody to do what he wants? It's almost sheer +will, and he's a true cloud-compeller." + +I wanted to understand something else, and I didn't know how much Mary +could tell me; that is, I was sure that she would think that Miss +Rainey was in love with Hector. Mary wouldn't be able to see how any +girl could help it. + +"Joe," I said, "does Hector seem much taken with this Miss Rainey?" + +We had come to the gate, and Lane stopped to relight a cigar before he +answered. He kept the match at the stub until it burned out, half +hiding his face from me with his hands, shielding the flame from a +breeze that wasn't blowing. + +"Yes," he said finally, "as much as he could be with anybody--at least +he wants her to be taken with him." + +"Do you think she is?" + +He swung the gate open, and stood to let me pass in first. "She could +be of great help to him. We've all got to help Hector." + +I was going on: "You believe she will--" + +"Did you ever hear," he interrupted, "of Jane Welsh Carlyle?" + +I thought about that answer of Joe's most of the evening, and it +struck me he was right. It was one of those things you couldn't +possibly explain to save your life, but you knew it: everybody had +_got_ to help Hector. Everybody had to get behind him and +push. Hector took it for granted in a way that passed the love of +woman! + +And yet, as we sat at Mary's supper-table, that evening, I don't know +that I ever felt less real liking for any of my kin than I felt for +Hector, though, perhaps, that was because he seemed to keep rubbing it +in on me in indirect ways that I had done him an injury by not helping +him with the National Committee, and that I ought to know it, after +his triumph of the afternoon. I could see that Mary agreed with him, +though in her gentle way. + +Young Lane and Miss Rainey stayed for supper, too, and were very +quiet. Miss Rainey struck me as a quiet girl generally, and Joe never +talked, anyway, when in Hector's company. For that matter, nobody else +did; there was mighty little chance. The truth is, Hector had an +impediment of speech: he couldn't listen. + +Of course he talked only about himself. That followed, because it was +all there was in him. Not that it always _seemed_ to be about +himself. For instance, I remember one of his ways of rubbing it into +me, that evening. He had been delivering himself of some opinions on +the nature of Genius, fragments (like his "credentials"--I had a +sneaking idea) of some undeveloped oration or other. "Look at +Napoleon!" he bade us, while Mary was cutting the pie. "Could Barras +with all his jealous and malevolent opposition, could Barras with all +his craft, all his machinations, with all the machinery of the State, +could Barras oppose the upward flight of that mighty spirit? No! +Barras, who should have been the faithful friend, the helper, the +disciple and believer, Barras, I say, set himself to destroy the youth +whose genius he denied, and Barras was himself destroyed! He fell, for +he had dared to oppose the path of one of the eternal stars!" + +That was a sample, and I don't exaggerate it. I couldn't exaggerate +Hector; it's beyond me; he always exaggerated himself beyond anybody +else's power to do it. But I loved to hear Joe Lane's chuckle and I +got one out of him when I offered him a cigar as we went out on the +porch. + +"Take one," I said. "It's one of Barras's best." + +"Better get in line," was all he added to the chuckle. + + * * * * * + +A good many visitors dropped in, during the evening, Greenville's +greatest come to congratulate Hector on the speech. Everybody in the +county was talking about him that night, they said. Hector received +these people in his old-fashioned-statesman manner, though I noticed +that already he shook hands like a candidate. He would grasp the +caller's hand quickly and decidedly, instead of letting the other do +the gripping. And I could see that all those who came in, even +hard-headed men twice his age, treated him deferentially, with the air +of intimate respect that he somehow managed to exact from people. +Perhaps I don't do him justice: he was a "mighty myster'us" boy! + +I sat and smoked, lounging in one of Mary's comfortable +porch-chairs. I managed without trouble to be in the background and I +couldn't help putting in most of my time studying Joe Lane and Miss +Rainey. Those two were sitting, on the side-steps of the porch, a +little apart from the rest of us--and a little apart from each other, +too. Lord knows how you get such strong impressions, but I was very +soon perfectly sure that these two young people were in love with each +other and that they both knew it, but that they had given each other +up. I was sure, too, that they were both under Hector's spell, and +preposterous as it may seem, that they were under his _will_, and +that Hector's plans included Miss Rainey for himself. + +It was a mighty pretty evening; full of flower-smells and breezes from +the woods, which began just across the village street. Joe sat in a +sort of doubled-up fashion he had, his thin hands clasped like a strap +round his knees. She sat straight and trim, both of them looking out +toward where the twilight was fading. As the darkness came on I could +barely make them out, a couple of quiet shadows, seemingly as far away +from the group about the lamp-lit doorway where Hector sat, as if they +were alone on big Jupiter who was setting up to be the whole thing, +far out yonder in the lonely sky. + +By and by, the moon oozed round from behind the house and leaked +through the trees and I could see them plainer, two silhouettes +against the foliage of some bright lilac-bushes. Joe hadn't budged, +but the back of Miss Rainey's head wasn't toward me as it had been +before; it was her profile. She was leaning back a little, against a +post, and looking at Joe--just looking at him. Neither of them spoke a +word the whole time, and somehow I felt they didn't need to, and that +what they had to say to each other had never been spoken and never +would be. It was mighty pretty--and sad, too. + +I felt so sorry for them, but it made me more or less impatient with +Hector, and with Joe--especially with Joe, I think. It seemed to me he +needn't have taken his temperament so hopelessly. But what's the use +of judging? When a man has a temperament like that, people who haven't +can't tell what he's got to contend with. + +That Fourth of July speech gave Hector his chance. His district +managers and the Trimmer faction saw they could use him; and they sent +him round stumping the district. Two campaigns later the State +Committee was using him, and parts of his speeches were being printed +in all the party papers over the State. Locally, I suppose you might +say, he had become a famous man; at least he acted like one--not that +there was any essential change in him. His style had undergone a large +improvement, however; his language was less mixed-up, and he seemed +clear-headed enough on "questions of the day," showing himself to be +well-informed and of a fine judgment. + +In these things I thought I saw the hand of Laura Rainey. The teacher +was helping him. The seriousness of his face had increased, he had +always entirely lacked humour; yet the spell he managed to cast over +his audiences was greater. He never once failed to "get them going," +as they say. At twenty-nine he was no longer called "a rising young +orator"; no, he was usually introduced as the "Hon. Hector J. Ransom, +the Silver-tongued Lochinvar of the West." + +Things hadn't changed much at Greenville. Mary had always been so +proud of Hector that she hadn't inflated any more on account of his +wider successes. She couldn't, because she hadn't any room left for +it. + +Joe Lane still went on his periodical sprees quite regularly, about +one week every three months, and he was the least offensive tippler I +ever knew. He came up to the city during one of his lapses, and called +at my office. He was dressed with unusual care (he was always a good +deal of a dandy), and he did not stagger nor slush his syllables; +indeed, the only way I could have told what was the matter with him, +at first, was by the solemn preoccupation of his expression. A little +black pickaninny followed him, grinning and carrying a big bundle, +covered with a new lace window-curtain. + +"I am but a bearer of votive flowers," Joe said, bowing. Then turning +to the little darky, he waved his hand loftily. "Unveil the offering!" + +The pickaninny did so, removing the lace curtain to reveal a shiny new +coal-bucket in which was a lump of ice, whereon reposed a pair of +white kid gloves and a large wreath of artificial daisies. + +"With love," said Joe. "From Hector." And he stalked majestically out. + +There was a card on the wreath, which Joe had inscribed: "To announce +the betrothal. No regrets." + +Sure enough, the next morning I had a letter from Mary, telling me +that Hector and Miss Rainey were engaged, that they had been so +without announcing it, for several years, and she feared the +engagement must last much longer before they could be married. So did +I, for all of Hector's glittering had brought him very little +money. While he had some law practice, of course it was small, in +Greenville, and what he had he neglected. Nor was he a good lawyer. I +knew him to be heavily in debt to Lane, whose father had died lately, +leaving Joe fairly well off; and I knew also that this debt sat very +lightly on Hector. I judged so, because in the matter of the advances +I had made for his education, I never heard him refer to +them. Probably he forgot all about it, having so many more important +things to think of. + +Mary was right: it was a very long engagement. It had lasted seven +years in all, when Passley Trimmer declared himself a candidate for +the nomination for Governor and gave Hector the great chance he had +been waiting for. Hector "came out" for Trimmer, and came out strong. +He worked for him day and night, and he was one of the best cards in +Trimmer's hand. + +It was easy enough to understand: Trimmer's nomination would leave his +seat in Congress vacant and the Trimmer crowd would throw it to +Hector. + +You could see that the "young Lochinvar" was really a power, and I +think they counted on him almost as much as on the personal machine +Trimmer had built up. Most of all, they counted on Hector's speech, +nominating Trimmer, to stampede the convention. If it was to be done, +Hector was the man to do it. There's no doubt in the world of the +extraordinary capacity he had for whirling a crowd along into a kind +of insane enthusiasm. He could make his audience enthusiastic about +_anything_; he could have brought them to their feet waving and +cheering for Ben Butler himself, if he had set out to do it. I believe +that most of us who were against Trimmer were more afraid of Hector's +stampeding the convention than of Trimmer's machine and all the money +he was spending. + +I was working all I knew for another man, Henderson, of my county, and +our delegation would go into the convention sixty-three solid for +Henderson, first, last, and all the time. On that account I had to +play Barras again to the young Napoleon. He came to see me, and made +one of his orations, imploring me to swing half of our delegation for +Trimmer on the first ballot, and all of it on the second. + +"But they count on me!" he declaimed. "They count on me to turn you! +Is a man to be denied by his own flesh and blood? Are the ties of +relationship nothing? Can't you see that my whole future is put in +jeopardy by your refusal? Here is my opportunity at last and you +endanger it. My marriage and my fortune depend on it; the cup is at +my lips. My long years of toil and preparation, the bitter, bitter +waiting--are these things to go for nothing? I tell you that if you +refuse me you may blast the most sacred hopes that ever dwelt in a +human breast!" + +I only smoked on, and so he did "the jury pathetic," and he was +sincere in it, too. + +"Have you no heart?" he inquired, his voice shaking. "Can you think +calmly of my mother? Remember the years she has waited to see this +recognition come to her son! Am I to go back to her and tell her that +your answer was 'No'? I ask you to think of her, I ask you to put +self out of your thoughts, to forget your own interests for once, and +to think of my mother, waiting in the old home in the quiet village +street where you knew her in her bright girlhood. Remember that she +awaits your answer; forget _me_ if you will, but remember what it +means to _her_, I say, and _then_ if there is a stone in +your breast, instead of a human heart, speak the word 'No'!" + +I spoke it, and, as he had to catch his train, he departed more in +anger than in sorrow, leaving me to my conscience, he told me. At the +door he turned. + +"I warn you," he said, "that this faction of yours shall go down to +defeat! Trimmer will win this fight, and I shall take his seat in +Congress! That is my first stepping-stone, and I _will_ take it! +I have worked too hard and waited too long, for such as you to +successfully oppose me. I tell you that we shall meet in the +convention, and you and your machine will be broken! The rewards, +then, to us, the victors!" + +"Why, of course," I said, "if you win." + +The Trimmer people were strong with the State Executive Committee, +and, in spite of us, worked things a good deal their own way. They +took the convention away from the State Capital to Greenville, which +was, of course, a great advantage for Trimmer. The fact is, that most +of the best people in that district didn't like him, but you know how +we all are: he _was_ one _of_ them, and as soon as it seemed +he had a chance to beat men from other parts of the State, they began +to shout themselves black in the face for their own. When I went down +there, the day before the convention, the place was one mass of +Trimmer flags, banners, badges, transparencies, buttons, and brass +bands. + +I went around to see Mary right away, and while she wasn't exactly +cold to me--the dear woman never could be that to anybody--she was +different; her eyes met mine sadly and her old, sweet voice was a +little tremulous, as if she were sorry that I had done something +wrong. + +I didn't stay long. I started back to the Henderson headquarters in +the hotel, but on my way I passed a big store-room on a corner of the +Square, which Trimmer had fitted up as his own headquarters. There was +quite a crowd of the boys going in and out, looking cheerful, fresh +cigars in their mouths, and a drink or two inside, band coming down +the street, everything the way an old-timer likes to see it. + +Passley Trimmer himself came out as I was going by, and with him were +his brother, Link, and two or three other men, among them a +weasel-faced little fellow named Hugo Siffles, who kept a drug-store +on the next corner. Hugo wasn't anybody; nobody ever paid any +attention to him at all; but he was one of those empty-headed village +talkers who are always trying to look as if they were behind the +scenes, always trying to walk with important people. Everybody knows +them. They whisper to the undertaker at funerals; and during campaigns +they have something confidential to communicate to United States +Senators. They meddle and intrude and waste as much time for you as +they can. + +When Trimmer saw me, he held out his hand. "Hello, Ben! I hear you're +not _for_ me!" he said cordially. + +"How are you running?" I came back at him, laughing. + +"Oh, we're going to beat you," he answered, in the same way. + +"Well, you'll see a good run, first, I expect!" + +He walked along with me, Link and the others following a little way +behind; but Hugo Siffles, of course, walking with us, partly to listen +and tell at the drug-store later, and partly to look like state +secrets. + +"Sorry you couldn't see your way to join us," Trimmer said. "But we'll +win out all right, anyway. I shouldn't think that would be much of a +disappointment to you, though. It will be a great thing for one of +your family." + +"Oh, yes," I said, "Hector." + +Trimmer took on a little of his benevolent statesman's manner, which +they nearly all get in time. "I have the greatest confidence in that +young man's future," he said. "He may go to the very top. All he needs +is money. I speak to you as a relative: he ought to drop that +school-teacher and marry a girl with money. He could, easily enough." + +That made me a little ugly. "Oh, no," I said. "He can make plenty in +Congress outside of his salary, can't he? I understand some of them +do." + +Of course Trimmer didn't lose his temper; instead, he laughed out +loud, and then put his hand on my shoulder. + +"Look here," he said. "I'm his friend and you're his cousin. He's one +of my own crowd and I have his best interests at heart. That isn't the +girl for him. He tells me that, for a long while, she used to advise +him against having too much to do with _me_, until he showed her +that winning my influence in his favour was his only chance to +rise. Now, if _you_ have his best interests at heart, as I have, +you'll help persuade him to let her go. Why shouldn't he marry +better? She's not so young any longer, and she's pretty much lost her +looks. And then, you know people will talk--" + +"Talk about what?" I said. + +"Well, if he goes to Congress, and, with his prospects, throws himself +away on a skinny little old-maid school-teacher in the backwoods, one +that he's been making love to for years, they might say almost +anything. Why can't he hand her over to Joe Lane? I'm sure--" + +"That'll do," I interrupted roughly. "I suppose you've been talking +that way to Hector?" + +"Why, certainly. I have his best interests at--" + +"Good-day, _sir_!" I said, and turned in at the hotel and left +him, with Hugo Siffles's little bright pig's eyes peeking at me round +Trimmer's shoulder. + +Sore enough I was, and cursing Trimmer and Hector in my heart, so that +when some one knocked on my door, while I was washing up for supper, I +said "Come in!" as if I were telling a dog to get out. + +It was Joe Lane and he was pretty drunk. He walked over to the bed and +caught himself unsteadily once or twice. I'd never seen him stagger +before. He didn't speak until he had sat down on the coverlet; then he +shaded his eyes with his hand and stared at me as if he wanted to make +sure that it _was_ I. + +"I've just been down to Hugo Siffles's drugstore," he said, speaking +very slowly and carefully, "and Hugo was telling a crowd about a +conver--conversation between you and Passley Trimmer. He said Trimmer +said Hector Ransom ought to drop Miss Rainey--and 'hand her over to +Joe Lane,' Is that true?" + +"Yes," I answered. "The beast said that." + +"There was more," Joe said heavily. "More that im--implied--might be +taken to imply scandal, which I believe Trimmer did not seriously +intend--but thought--thought might be used as an argument with Hector +to persuade him to jilt her?" + +"Yes." + +"What was said ex---actly? It is being repeated about town in various +forms. I want to know." + +Like a fool I told him the whole thing. I didn't think, didn't dream, +of course, what was in that poor, drunken, devoted head, and I wanted +to blow off my own steam, I was so hot. + +He sat very quietly until I had finished; then he took his head in +both hands and rocked himself gently to and fro upon the bed, and I +saw tears trickling down his cheeks. It was a wretched spectacle in a +way, he being drunk and crying like a child, but I don't think I +despised him. + +"And she so true," he sobbed, "so good, so faithful to him! She's +given him her youth, her whole sweet youth--all of it for him!" He got +to his feet and went to the door. + +"Hold on, Joe," I said, "where are you going?" + +"'Nother drink!" he said, and closed the door behind him. + +After supper I went to work with Henderson and three or four others in +a little back-room in our headquarters; and we were hard at it when +one of the boys held up his hand and said: "Listen!" + +The sounds of a big disturbance came in through the open windows: +shouting and yelling, and crowds running in the streets below. The +town had been so noisy all evening that I thought nothing of it. "It's +only some delegation getting in," I said. "Go on with the lists." + +But I'd no more than got the words out of my mouth than the noise +rolled into the outer rooms of our headquarters like a wave, and there +was a violent hammering on the door of our room, some one calling my +name in a loud frightened voice. I threw open the door and Hugo +Siffles fell in, his pig's eyes starting out of his pale, foolish +face. + +"Come with me!" he shouted, all in one breath, and laying hold of me +by the lapel of my coat, tried to drag me after him. "There's hell to +pay! Joe Lane came into Trimmer's headquarters, drunk, twenty minutes +ago, and slapped Passley Trimmer's face for what he said to us this +afternoon. Link Trimmer came in, a minute later, drunk too, and heard +what had happened. He followed Joe to Hodge's saloon and shot +him. They've carried him to the drug-store and he's asked to speak to +you." + +I had the satisfaction of kicking that little cuss through the door +ahead of me, though I knew it was myself I ought to have kicked. + +It was true that Joe had asked to speak to me, but when I reached the +drug-store the doctor wouldn't let me come into the back-room where he +lay, so I sat on a stool in the store. They'd turned all the people +out, except four or five friends of Joe's; and the glass doors and the +windows were solid with flattened faces, some of them coloured by the +blue and green lights so that it sickened me, and all staring +horribly. After about four years the doctor's assistant came out to +get something from a shelf and I jumped at him, getting mighty little +satisfaction, you can be sure. + +"It seems to be very serious indeed," was all he would say. I knew +that for myself, because one of the men in the store had told me that +it was in the left side. + +Half-an-hour after this--by the clock--the young man came out again +and called us in to carry Joe home. It was not more than a hundred +yards to the old Lane place, and six of us, walking very slowly, +carried him on a cot through the crowd. He was conscious, for he +thanked us in a weakish whisper, when we lifted him carefully into his +own bed. Then the doctor sent us all out except the assistant, and we +went to the front porch and waited, hating the crowd that had lined up +against the fence and about the gate. They looked like a lot of +buzzards; I couldn't bear the sight of them, so I went back into the +little hall and sat down near Joe's door. + +After a while the assistant opened the door, holding a glass pitcher +in his hand. + +"Here," he said, when he saw me, "will you fill this with cold water +from the well?" + +I took it and hurried out to the kitchen, where four or five people +were sitting and glumly whispering around an old coloured woman, Joe's +cook, who was crying and rocking herself in a chair. I hushed her up +and told her to show me the pump. It was in an orchard behind the +house, and was one of those old-fashioned things that sound like a +siren whistle with the hiccups. + +It took me about five minutes to get the water up, and when I got back +to Joe's room, a woman was there with the doctors. It was Miss Rainey. +She had her hat off, her sleeves were rolled up and, though her face +was the whitest I ever saw, she was cool and steady. It was she who +took the water from me at the door. + +I heard low voices in the parlour, where a lamp was lit, and I went in +there. Mary was sitting on a sofa, with a handkerchief hard against +her eyes, and Hector was standing in the middle of the room, saying +over and over, "My God!" and shaking. I went to the sofa and sat by +Mary with my hand on her shoulder. + +"To think of it!" Hector moaned. "To think of its coming at such a +time! To think of what it means to me!" + +His mother spoke to him from behind her handkerchief: "You mustn't do +it; you _can't_ Hector--oh, you can't, you _can't._" + +For answer he struck himself desperately across the forehead with the +palm of his hand. + +"What is it," I asked, "that your mother wants you not to do?" + +"She wants me to give up Trimmer--to refuse to make the nominating +speech for him to-morrow." + +"You've _got_ to give him up!" cried his mother; and then went on +with reiterations as passionate as they were weak and broken in +utterance. "You can't make the speech, you can't do it, you +_can't--"_ + +"Then I'm done for!" he said. "Don't you see what a frightful blow +this pitiful, drunken folly of poor Joe's has dealt Trimmer's +candidaoy? Don't you see that they rely on me more than ever, +_now_? Are you so blind you don't see that I am the only man who +can save Trimmer the nomination? If I go back on him now, he's done +for and I'm done for with him! It's my only chance!" + +"No, no," she sobbed, "you'll have other chances; you'll have plenty +of chances, dear; you're young--" + +"My only chance," he went on rapidly, ignoring her, "and if I can +carry it through, it will mean everything to me. The tide's running +strong against Trimmer to-night, and I am the only man in the world +who can turn it the other way. If I go into the convention for him, +faithful to him, and, out of the highest sense of justice, explain +that, even though Lane has been my closest friend, he was in the wrong +and that--" + +Mary rose to her feet and went to her son and clung to him. "No, no!" +she cried; "no, _no_!" + +"I've got to!" he said. + +"What is that you must do, Hector?" It was Miss Rainey's voice, and +came from just behind me. She was standing in the doorway that led +from the hall, and her eyes were glowing with a brilliant, warm +light. We all started as she spoke, and I sprang up and turned toward +her. + +"He's going to get well," she said, understanding me. "They say it is +surely so!" + +At that Mary ran and threw her arms about her and kissed her--and I +came near it! Hector gave a sort of shout of relief and sank into a +chair. + +"What is that you must do, Hector?" Miss Rainey said again in her +steady voice. + +"Stick to Trimmer!" he explained. "Don't you see that I must? He needs +me now more than ever, and it's my only chance." + +Miss Rainey looked at him over Mary's shoulder. She looked at him a +long while before she spoke. "You know why Mr. Lane struck that blow?" + +"Oh, I suppose so," he answered uneasily. "At least Siffles--" + +"Yes," she said. "You know. What are you going to do?" + +"The right thing!" Hector rose and walked toward her. "I put right +before all. I shall be loyal and I shall be just. It might have been a +terribly hard thing to carry through, but, since dear old Joe will +recover, I know I can do it." + +The girl's eyes widened suddenly, while the warm glow in them flashed +into a fiery and profound scrutiny. + +"You are going to make the nominating speech," she said. It was not a +question but a declaration, in the tone of one to whom he stood wholly +revealed. + +"Yes," he answered eagerly. "I knew you would see: it's my chance, my +whole career--" + +But his mother, turning swiftly, put her hand over his mouth, though +it was to Miss Rainey that she cried: + +"Oh, don't let him say it--he can't; you mustn't let him!" + +The girl drew her gently away and put an arm about her, saying: "Do +you think _I_ could stop him?" + +"But do you wish to stop me?" asked Hector sadly, as he stepped toward +her. "Do you set yourself not only in the way of my great chance, but +against justice and truth? Don't you see that I must do it?" + +"It is your chance--yes. I see the truth, Hector." Her eyes had +fallen and she looked at him no more, but, with a little movement away +from him, offered her hand to him at arm's length. It was done in a +curious way, and he looked perplexed for a second, and then +frightened. He dropped her hand, and his lips twitched. + +"Laura," he said, and could not go on. + +"You must go now," she said to all three of us. "The house should be +very quiet. I shall be his nurse, and the doctor will stay all +night. Isn't it beautiful that Joe is going to get well!" + +She went out quickly, before Hector could detain her, back to the room +where Lane was. + + * * * * * + +There's no need my telling you the details of that convention: +Henderson was beaten from the start, and Hector's speech was all that +happened. If he hadn't made it, there might have been a consolidation +on a dark horse, for feeling was high against Trimmer. It isn't an +easy thing to go into a convention with a brother locked up in jail on +a charge of attempted murder! + +I'll never forget Hector's rising to make that speech. There wasn't +any cheering, there was a dead, cold hush. This wasn't because his +magnetism had deserted him; indeed, I don't think it had ever before +been felt so strongly. He was white as white paper, and his face had a +look of suffering; altogether I believe I couldn't give a better +notion of him than saying that he somehow made me think of Hamlet. + +He began in a very low but very penetrating voice, and I don't think +anybody in the farthest corner missed a single clear-cut syllable from +the first. As I may have indicated, I had never been a warm admirer of +his, but with all my prejudice, I think I admired him when he stood up +to his task that day. For the effect he intended, his speech was a +masterpiece, no less. I saw it before he had finished three +sentences. And he delivered it, knowing that even while he did so he +was losing the woman he loved; for Hector did love Laura Rainey, next +to himself, and she had been part of his life and necessary to +him. But though the heavens fell, he stuck to what he had set out to +do, and did it masterfully. + +Not that what he said could bear the analysis of a cool mind: nothing +that Hector ever did or said has been able to do that. But for the +purpose, it was perfect. For once he began at the beginning, without +rhetoric, and he made it all the more effective by beginning with +himself. + +"Doubtless there are many among you who think it strange to see me +rise to fulfil the charge with which you know me to be intrusted. My +oldest and most intimate friend lies wounded on a bed of suffering, +stricken down by the hand of another friend whose heart is in the +cause for which I have risen. Therefore, you might well question me; +you might well say: 'To whom is your loyalty?' Well might I ask myself +that same question. And I will give you my answer: 'There are things +beyond the personal friendship of man and man, things greater than +individual differences and individual tragedies, things as far higher +and greater than these as the skies of God are higher than the roof of +a child's doll-house. These higher things are the good of the State +and the Law of Justice!'" + +That brought the first applause; and Trimmer's people, seeing the +crowd had taken Hector's point, sprang to their feet and began to +cheer. At a tense moment, such as this, cheering is often hypnotic, +and good managers know how to make use of it on the floor. The noise +grew thunderous, and when it subsided Hector was master of the +convention. Then, for the first time, I saw how far he would go--and +why. I had laughed at him all my life, but now I believed there was +"something in him," as they say. The Lord knows what, but it was +there; and as I looked at him and listened it seemed to me that the +world was at his feet. + +He was infinitely daring, yet he skirted the cause of the quarrel with +perfect tact: "The misinterpretation of a few careless and kindly +words, said in passing, and repeated, with garbling additions, to a +man who was not himself.... The brooding of a mind most unhappily +beset with alcohol.... A blow resented by a too devoted but too +violent kinsman...." + +Then, with the greatest skill, and rather quietly, he passed to a +eulogium of Trimmer's public career, gradually increasing the warmth +of his praise but controlling it as perfectly as he controlled the +enthusiasm and excitement which followed each of his points. For +myself, I only looked away from him once, and caught a glimpse of +Henderson looking sick. + +Hector finished with a great stroke. He went back to the original +theme. "You ask me where my duty lies!" His great voice rose and rang +through the hall magnificently: "I reply--'first to my State and her +needs'! Is that answer enough? If it be necessary that I should answer +for my personal loyalty to one man or another then I ask _you_: +Shall it go to the friend who, without cause, struck the first blow? +Shall it go to that other friend who went out hot-headed and struck +back to avenge a brother's wrongs? Is it only between these that +I--and many of you--are to choose to-day? Is there not a +_third_?' I tell you that I have chosen, and that my loyalty and +all my strength are devoted to that other, to that man who has +suffered most of all, to him who received a blow and did not avenge +it, because in his greatness he knew that his assailant knew not what +he did!" + +That carried them off their feet. Hector had turned Trimmer's greatest +danger into the means of victory. The Trimmer people led one of those +extraordinary hysterical processions round the aisles that you see +sometimes in a convention (a thing I never get used to), and it was +all Trimmer, or rather, it was all Hector. Trimmer was nominated on +the first ballot. + +There was a recess, and I hurried out, meaning to slip round to Joe +Lane's for a moment to find out how he was. I'd seen the doctor in the +morning and he said his patient had passed a good night and that Miss +Rainey was still there. "I think she's going to stay," he added, and +smiled and shook hands with me. + +Joe's old darkey cook let me in, and, after a moment, came to say I +might go into Mr. Lane's room; Mr. Lane wanted to see me. + +Joe was lying very flat on his back, but with his face turned toward +the door, and beside him sat Laura Rainey, their thin hands clasped +together. I stopped on the threshold with the door half opened. + +"Come in," said Joe weakly. "Hector made it, I'm sure." + +"Yes," I answered, and in earnest. "He's a great man." + +Joe's face quivered with a pain that did not come from his hurt. "Oh, +it's knowing that, that makes me feel like such a scoundrel," he +said. "I suppose you've come to congratulate me." + +"Yes," I said, "the doctor says it's a wonderful case, and that you're +one of the lucky ones with a charmed life, thank God!" + +Joe smiled sadly at Miss Rainey. "He hasn't heard," he said. Then she +gave me her left hand, aot relinquishing Joe's with her right. + +"We were married this morning," she said, "just after the convention +began." + +The tears came into Joe's eyes as she spoke. "It's a shame, isn't +it?" he said to me. "You must see it so. And I the kind of man I am, +the town drunkard--" + +Then his wife leaned over and kissed his forehead. + +"Even so it was right--and so beautiful for me," she said. + + + + +PART II + + + + +MRS. PROTHEROE + + +When Alonzo Tawson took his seat as the Senator from Stackpole in the +upper branch of the General Assembly of the State, an expression of +pleasure and of greatness appeared to be permanently imprinted upon +his countenance. He felt that if he had not quite arrived at all +which he meant to make his own, at least he had emerged upon the arena +where he was to win it, and he looked about him for a few other strong +spirits with whom to construct a focus of power which should control +the senate. The young man had not long to look, for within a week +after the beginning of the session these others showed themselves to +his view, rising above the general level of mediocrity and timidity, +party-leaders and chiefs of faction, men who were on their feet +continually, speaking half-a-dozen times a day, freely and loudly. To +these, and that house at large, he felt it necessary to introduce +himself by a speech which must prove him one of the elect, and he +awaited impatiently an opening. + +Alonzo had no timidity himself. He was not one of those who first try +their voices on motions to adjourn, written in form and handed out to +novices by presiding officers and leaders. He was too conscious of his +own gifts, and he had been "accustomed to speaking" ever since his +days in the Stackpole City Seminary. He was under the impression, +also, that his appearance alone would command attention from his +colleagues and the gallery. He was tall; his hair was long, with a +rich waviness, rippling over both brow and collar, and he had, by +years of endeavour, succeeded in moulding his features to present an +aspect of stern and thoughtful majesty whenever he "spoke." + +The opportunity to show his fellows that new greatness was among them +delayed not over-long, and Senator Rawson arose, long and bony in his +best clothes, to address the senate with a huge voice in denunciation +of the "Sunday Baseball Bill," then upon second reading. The classical +references, which, as a born orator, he felt it necessary to +introduce, were received with acclamations which the gavel of the +Lieutenant-Governor had no power to still. + +"What led to the De-cline and Fall of the Roman Empire?" he +exclaimed. "I await an answer from the advocates of this +_de_-generate measure! I _demand_ an answer from them! Let +me hear from them on _that_ subject! Why don't they speak up? +They can't give one. Not because they ain't familiar with history, no +sir! That's not the reason! It's because they _daren't,_ because +their answer would have to go on record _against_ 'em! Don't any +of you try to raise it against me that I ain't speakin' to the point, +for I tell you that when you encourage Sunday Baseball, or any kind of +Sabbath-breakin' on Sunday, you're tryin' to start this State on the +downward path that beset Rome! _I'll_ tell you what ruined +it. The Roman Empire started out to be the greatest nation on earth, +and they had a good start, too, just like the United States has got +to-day. _Then_ what happened to 'em? Why, them old ancient +fellers got more interested in athletic games and gladiatorial combats +and racing and all kinds of out-door sports, and bettin' on 'em, than +they were in oratory, or literature, or charitable institutions and +good works of all kinds! At first they were moderate and the country +was prosperous. But six days in the week wouldn't content 'em, and +they went at it all the time, so that at last they gave up the seventh +day to their sports, the way this bill wants _us_ to do, and from +that time on the result was _de_-generacy and _de_-gredation! +You better remember _that_ lesson, my friends, and don't try to +sink this State to the level of Rome!" + +When Alonzo Rawson wiped his dampened brow, and dropped into his +chair, he was satisfied to the core of his heart with the effect of +his maiden effort. There was not one eye in the place that was not +fixed upon him and shining with surprise and delight, while the kindly +Lieutenant-Governor, his face very red, rapped for order. The young +senator across the aisle leaned over and shook Alonzo's hand +excitedly. + +"That was beautiful, Senator Rawson!" he wispered. "I'm _for_ the +bill, but I can respect a masterly opponent." + +"I thank you, Senator Truslow," Alonzo returned graciously. "I am +glad to have your good opinion, Senator." + +"You have it, Senator," said Truslow enthusiastically. "I hope you +intend to speak often?" + +"I do, Senator. I intend to make myself heard," the other answered +gravely, "upon all questions of moment." + +"You will fill a great place among us, Senator!" + +Then Alonzo Rawson wondered if he had not underestimated his neighbour +across the aisle; he had formed an opinion of Truslow as one of small +account and no power, for he had observed that, although this was +Truslow's second term, he had not once demanded recognition nor +attempted to take part in a debate. Instead, he seemed to spend most +of his time frittering over some desk work, though now and then he +walked up and down the aisles talking in a low voice to various +senators. How such a man could have been elected at all, Alonzo failed +to understand. Also, Truslow was physically inconsequent, in his +colleague's estimation--"a little insignificant, dudish kind of a +man," he had thought; one whom he would have darkly suspected of +cigarettes had he not been dumbfounded to behold Truslow smoking an +old black pipe in the lobby. The Senator from Stackpole had looked +over the other's clothes with a disapproval that amounted to +bitterness. Truslow's attire reminded him of pictures in New York +magazines, or the drees of boys newly home from college, he didn't +know which, but he did know that it was contemptible. Consequently, +after receiving the young man's congratulations, Alonzo was conscious +of the keenest surprise at his own feeling that there might be +something in him after all. + +He decided to look him over again, more carefully to take the measure +of one who had shown himself so frankly an admirer. Waiting, +therefore, a few moments until he felt sure that Truslow's gaze had +ceased to rest upon himself, he turned to bend a surreptitious but +piercing scrutiny upon his neighbour. His glance, however, sweeping +across Truslow's shoulder toward the face, suddenly encountered +another pair of eyes beyond, so intently fixed upon himself that he +started. The clash was like two search-lights meeting--and the +glorious brown eyes that shot into Alonzo's were not the eyes of +Truslow. + +Truslow's desk was upon the outer aisle, and along the wall were +placed comfortable leather chairs and settees, originally intended for +the use of members of the upper house, but nearly always occupied by +their wives and daughters, or "lady-lobbyists," or other women +spectators. Leaning back with extraordinary grace, in the chair +nearest Truslow, sat the handsomest woman Alonzo had ever seen in his +life. Her long coat of soft grey fur was unrecognizable to him in +connection with any familiar breed of squirrel; her broad flat hat of +the same fur was wound with a grey veil, underneath which her heavy +brown hair seemed to exhale a mysterious glow, and never, not even in +a lithograph, had he seen features so regular or a skin so clear! And +to look into her eyes seemed to Alonzo like diving deep into clear +water and turning to stare up at the light. + +His own eyes fell first. In the breathless awkwardness that beset him +they seemed to stumble shamefully down to his desk, like a country-boy +getting back to his seat after a thrashing on the teacher's +platform. For the lady's gaze, profoundly liquid as it was, had not +been friendly. + +Alonzo Rawson had neither the habit of petty analysis, nor the +inclination toward it; yet there arose within him a wonder at his own +emotion, at its strangeness and the violent reaction of it. A moment +ago his soul had been steeped in satisfaction over the figure he had +cut with his speech and the extreme enthusiasm which had been accorded +it--an extraordinarily pleasant feeling: suddenly this was gone, and +in its place he found himself almost choking with a dazed sense of +having been scathed, and at the same time understood in a way in which +he did not understand himself. And yet--he and this most unusual lady +had been so mutually conscious of each other in their mysterious +interchange that he felt almost acquainted with her. Why, then, should +his head be hot with resentment? Nobody had _said_ anything to +him! + +He seized upon the fattest of the expensive books supplied to him by +the State, opened it with emphasis and began not to read it, with +abysmal abstraction, tinglingly alert to the circumstance that Truslow +was holding a low-toned but lively conversation with the unknown. Her +laugh came to him, at once musical, quiet and of a quality which +irritated him into saying bitterly to himself that he guessed there +was just as much refinement in Stackpole as there was in the Capital +City, and just as many old families! The clerk calling his vote upon +the "Baseball Bill" at that moment, he roared "No!" in a tone which +was profane. It seemed to him that he was avenging himself upon +somebody for something and it gave him a great deal of satisfaction. + +He returned immediately to his imitation of Archimedes, only relaxing +the intensity of his attention to the text (which blurred into jargon +before his fixed gaze) when he heard that light laugh again. He pursed +his lips, looked up at the ceiling as if slightly puzzled by some +profound question beyond the reach of womankind; solved it almost +immediately, and, setting his hand to pen and paper, wrote the capital +letter "O" several hundred times on note-paper furnished by the +State. So oblivious was he, apparently, to everything but the question +of statecraft which occupied him, that he did not even look up when +the morning's session was adjourned and the lawmakers began to pass +noisily out, until Truslow stretched an arm across the aisle and +touched him upon the shoulder. + +"In a moment, Senator!" answered Alonzo in his deepest chest tones. He +made it a very short moment, indeed, for he had a wild, breath-taking +suspicion of what was coming. + +"I want you to meet Mrs. Protheroe, Senator," said Truslow, rising, as +Rawson, after folding his writings with infinite care, placed them in +his breast pocket. + +"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am," Alonzo said in a +loud, firm voice, as he got to his feet, though the place grew vague +about him when the lady stretched a charming, slender, gloved hand to +him across Truslow's desk. He gave it several solemn shakes. + +"We shouldn't have disturbed you, perhaps?" she asked, smiling +radiantly upon him. "You were at some important work, I'm afraid." + +He met her eyes again, and their beauty and the thoughtful kindliness +of them fairly took his breath. "I am the chairman, ma'am," he +replied, swallowing, "of the committee on drains and dikes." + +"I knew it was something of great moment," she said gravely, "but I +was anxious to tell you that I was interested in your speech." + +A few minutes later, without knowing how he had got his hat and coat +from the cloak-room, Alonzo Rawson found himself walking slowly +through the marble vistas of the State house to the great outer doors +with the lady and Truslow. They were talking inconsequently of the +weather, and of various legislators, but Alonzo did not know it. He +vaguely formed replies to her questions and he hardly realized what +the questions were; he was too stirringly conscious of the rich quiet +of her voice and of the caress of the grey fur of her cloak when the +back of his hand touched it--rather accidentally--now and then, as +they moved on together. + +It was a cold, quick air to which they emerged and Alonzo, daring to +look at her, found that she had pulled the veil down over her face, +the colour of which, in the keen wind, was like that of June roses +seen through morning mists. At the curb a long, low, rakish black +motor-car was in waiting, the driver a mere swaddled cylinder of fur. + +Truslow, opening the little door of the tonneau, offered his hand to +the lady. "Come over to the club, Senator, and lunch with me," he +said. "Mrs. Protheroe won't mind dropping us there on her way." + +That was an eerie ride for Alonzo, whose feet were falling upon +strange places. His pulses jumped and his eyes swam with the tears of +unlawful speed, but his big ungloved hand tingled not with the cold so +much as with the touch of that divine grey fur upon his little finger. + +"You intend to make many speeches, Mr. Truslow tells me," he heard +the rich voice saying. + +"Yes ma'am," he summoned himself to answer. "I expect I will. Yes +ma'am." He paused, and then repeated, "Yes ma'am." + +She looked at him for a moment. "But you will do some work, too, won't +you?" she asked slowly. + +Her intention in this passed by Alonzo at the time. "Yes ma'am," he +answered. "The committee work interests me greatly, especially drains +and dikes." + +"I have heard," she said, as if searching his opinion, "that almost as +much is accomplished in the committee-rooms as on the floor? +There--and in the lobby and in the hotels and clubs?" + +"I don't have much to do with that!" he returned quickly. "I guess +none of them lobbyists will get much out of me! I even sent back all +their railroad tickets. They needn't come near me!" + +After a pause which she may have filled with unexpressed admiration, +she ventured, almost timidly: "Do you remember that it was said that +Napoleon once attributed the secret of his power over other men to one +quality?" + +"I am an admirer of Napoleon," returned the Senator from Stackpole. "I +admire all great men." + +"He said that he held men by his reserve." + +"It can be done," observed Alonzo, and stopped, feeling that it was +more reserved to add nothing to the sentence. + +"But I suppose that such a policy," she smiled upon him inquiringly, +"wouldn't have helped him much with women?" + +"No," he agreed immediately. "My opinion is that a man ought to tell a +_good_ woman everything. What is more sacred than--" + +The car, turning a corner much too quickly, performed a gymnastic +squirm about an unexpected street-car and the speech ended in a gasp, +as Alonzo, not of his own volition, half rose and pressed his cheek +closely against hers. Instantaneous as it was, his heart leaped +violently, but not with fear. Could all the things of his life that +had seemed beautiful have been compressed into one instant, it would +not have brought him even the suggestion of the wild shock of joy of +that one, wherein he knew the glamorous perfume of Mrs. Protheroe's +brown hair and felt her cold cheek firm against his, with only the +grey veil between. + +"I'm afraid this driver of mine will kill me some day," she said, +laughing and composedly straightening her hat. "Do you care for big +machines?" + +"Yes ma'am," he answered huskily. "I haven't been in many." + +"Then I'll take you again," said Mrs. Protheroe. "If you like I'll +come down to the State house and take you out for a run in the +country." + +"When?" said the lost young man, staring at her with his mouth +open. "When?" + +"Saturday afternoon if you like. I'll be there at two." + +They were in front of the club and Truslow had already jumped +out. Mrs. Protheroe gave him her hand and they exchanged a glance +significant of something more than a friendly goodbye. Indeed, one +might have hazarded that there was something almost businesslike about +it. The confused Senator from Stackpole, climbing out reluctantly, +observed it not, nor could he have understood, even if he had seen, +that delicate signal which passed between his two companions. + +When he was upon the ground Mrs. Protheroe extended her hand without +speaking, but her lips formed the word, "Saturday." Then she was +carried away quickly, while Alonzo, his heart hammering, stood looking +after her, born into a strange world, the touch of the grey fur upon +his little finger, the odour of her hair faintly about him, one side +of his face red, the other pale. + +"To-day is Wednesday," he said, half aloud. + +"Come on, Senator." Truslow took his arm and turned him toward the +club doors. + +The other looked upon his new friend vaguely. "Why, I forgot to thank +her for the ride," he exclaimed. + +"You'll have other chances, Senator," Truslow assured +him. "Mrs. Protheroe has a hobby for studying politics and she expects +to come down often. She has plenty of time--she's a widow, you know." + +"I hope you didn't think," responded Alonzo indignantly, "that I +thought she was a married woman!" + +After lunch they walked back to the State house together, Truslow +regarding his thoughtful companion with sidelong whimsicalness. Mrs. +Protheroe's question, suggestive of a difference between work and +speechmaking, had recurred to Alonzo, and he had determined to make +himself felt, off the floor as well as upon it. He set to this with a +fine energy, that afternoon, in his committee-room, and the Senator +from Stackpole knew his subject. On drains and dikes he had no +equal. He spoke convincingly to his colleagues of the committee upon +every bill that was before them, and he compelled their humblest +respect. He went earnestly at it, indeed, and sat very late that +night, in his room at a nearby boarding house, studying bills, trying +to keep his mind upon them and not to think of his strange morning and +of Saturday. Finally his neighbour in the next room, Senator Ezra +Trumbull, long abed, was awakened by his praying and groaned +slightly. Trumbull meant to speak to Rawson about his prayers, for +Trumbull was an early one to bed and they woke him every night. The +partition was flimsy and Alonzo addressed his Maker in the loud voice +of one accustomed to talking across wide out-of-door spaces. Trumbull +considered it especially unnecessary in the city; though, as a citizen +of a county which loved but little his neighbour's district, he felt +that in Stackpole there was good reason for a person to shout his +prayers at the top of his voice and even then have small chance to +carry through the distance. Still, it was a delicate matter to +mention and he put it off from day to day. + +Thursday passed slowly for Alonzo Rawson, nor was his voice lifted in +debate. There was little but routine; and the main interest of the +chamber was in the lobbying that was being done upon the "Sunday +Baseball Bill" which had passed to its third reading and would come up +for final disposition within a fortnight. This was the measure which +Alonzo had set his heart upon defeating. It was a simple enough bill: +it provided, in substance, that baseball might be played on Sunday by +professionals in the State capital, which was proud of its league +team. Naturally, it was denounced by clergymen, and deputations of +ministers and committees from women's religious societies were +constantly arriving at the State house to protest against its +passage. The Senator from Stackpole reassured all of these with whom +he talked, and was one of their staunchest allies and supporters. He +was active in leading the wavering among his colleagues, or even the +inimical, out to meet and face the deputations. It was in this +occupation that he was engaged, on Friday afternoon, when he received +a shock. + +A committee of women from a church society was waiting in the +corridor, and he had rounded-up a reluctant half-dozen senators and +led them forth to be interrogated as to their intentions regarding the +bill. The committee and the lawmakers soon distributed themselves into +little argumentative clumps, and Alonzo found himself in the centre of +these, with one of the ladies who had unfortunately--but, in her +enthusiasm, without misgivings--begun a reproachful appeal to an +advocate of the bill whose name was Goldstein. + +"Senator Goldstein," she exclaimed, "I could not believe it when I +heard that you were in favour of this measure! I have heard my husband +speak in the highest terms of your old father. May I ask you what +_he_ thinks of it? If you voted for the desecration of Sunday by +a low baseball game, could you dare go home and face that good old +man?" + +"Yes, madam," said Goldstein mildly; "we are _both_ Jews." + +A low laugh rippled out from near-by, and Alonzo, turning almost +violently, beheld his lady of the furs. She was leaning back against a +broad pilaster, her hands sweeping the same big coat behind her, her +face turned toward him, but her eyes, sparklingly delighted, resting +upon Goldstein. Under the broad fur hat she made a picture as +enraging, to Alonzo Rawson, as it was bewitching. She appeared not to +see him, to be quite unconscious of him--and he believed it. Truslow +and five or six members of both houses were about her, and they all +seemed to be bending eagerly toward her. Alonzo was furious with her. + +Her laugh lingered upon the air for a moment, then her glance swept +round the other way, omitting the Senator from Stackpole, who, +immediately putting into practice a reserve which would have +astonished Napoleon, swung about and quitted the deputation without a +word of farewell or explanation. He turned into the cloakroom and +paced the floor for three minutes with a malevolence which awed the +coloured attendants into not brushing his coat; but, when he returned +to the corridor, cautious inquiries addressed to the tobacconist, +elicited the information that the handsome lady with Senator Truslow +had departed. + +Truslow himself had not gone. He was lounging in his seat when Alonzo +returned and was genially talkative. The latter refrained from +replying in kind, not altogether out of reserve, but more because of a +dim suspicion (which rose within him, the third time Truslow called +him "Senator" in one sentence) that his first opinion of the young man +as a light-minded person might have been correct. + +There was no session the following afternoon, but Alonzo watched the +street from the windows of his committee-room, which overlooked the +splendid breadth of stone steps leading down from the great doors to +the pavement. There were some big bookcases in the room, whose glass +doors served as mirrors in which he more and more sternly regarded the +soft image of an entirely new grey satin tie, while the conviction +grew within him that (arguing from her behaviour of the previous day) +she would not come, and that the Stackpole girls were nobler by far at +heart than many who might wear a king's-ransom's-worth of jewels round +their throats at the opera-house in a large city. This sentiment was +heartily confirmed by the clock when it marked half-past two. He faced +the bookcase doors and struck his breast, his open hand falling across +the grey tie with tragic violence; after which, turning for the last +time to the windows, he uttered a loud exclamation and, laying hands +upon an ulster and a grey felt hat, each as new as the satin tie, ran +hurriedly from the room. The black automobile was waiting. + +"I thought it possible you might see me from a window," said +Mrs. Protheroe as he opened the little door. + +"I was just coming out," he returned, gasping for breath. "I +thought--from yesterday--you'd probably forgotten." + +"Why 'from yesterday'?" she asked. + +"I thought--I thought--" He faltered to a stop as the full, glorious +sense of her presence overcame him. She wore the same veil. + +"You thought I did not see you yesterday in the corridor?" + +"I thought you might have acted more--more--" + +"More cordially?" + +"Well," he said, looking down at his hands, "more like you knew we'd +been introduced." + +At that she sat silent, looking away from him, and he, daring a quick +glance at her, found that he might let his eyes remain upon her face. +That was a dangerous place for eyes to rest, yet Alonzo Rawson was +anxious for the risk. The car flew along the even asphalt on its way +to the country like a wild goose on a long slant of wind, and, with +his foolish fury melted inexplicably into honey, Alonzo looked at +her--and looked at her--till he would have given an arm for another +quick corner and a street-car to send his cheek against that veiled, +cold cheek of hers again. It was not until they reached the alternate +vacant lots and bleak Queen Anne cottages of the city's ragged edge +that she broke the silence. + +"You were talking to some one else," she said almost inaudibly. + +"Yes ma'am, Goldstein, but--" + +"Oh, no!" She turned toward him, lifting her hand. "You were quite the +lion among ladies." + +"I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Protheroe," he said, truthfully. + +"What were you talking to all those women about?" + +"It was about the 'Sunday Baseball Bill.'" + +"Ah! The bill you attacked in your speech, last Wednesday?" + +"Yes ma'am." + +"I hear you haven't made any speeches since then," she said +indifferently. + +"No ma'am," he answered gently. "I kind of got the idea that I'd +better lay low for a while at first, and get in some quiet hard work." + +"I understand. You are a man of intensely reserved nature." + +"With men," said Alonzo, "I am. With ladies I am not so much so. I +think a good woman ought to be told--" + +"But you are interested," she interrupted, "in defeating that bill?" + +"Yes ma'am," he returned. "It is an iniquitous measure." + +"Why?" + +"Mrs. Protheroe!" he exclaimed, taken aback. "I thought all the +ladies were against it. My own mother wrote to me from Stackpole that +she'd rather see me in my grave than votin' for such a bill, and I'd +rather see myself there!" + +"But are you sure that you understand it?" + +"I only know it desecrates the Sabbath. That's enough for me!" + +She leaned toward him and his breath came quickly. + +"No. You're wrong," she said, and rested the tips of her fingers upon +his sleeve. + +"I don't understand why--why you say that," he faltered. "It sounds +kind of--surprising to me--" + +"Listen," she said. "Perhaps Mr. Truslow told you that I am studying +such things. I do not want to be an idle woman; I want to be of use to +the world, even if it must be only in small ways." + +"I think that is a noble ambition!" he exclaimed. "I think all good +women ought--" + +"Wait," she interrupted gently. "Now, that bill is a worthy one, +though it astonishes you to hear me say so. Perhaps you don't +understand the conditions. Sunday is the labouring-man's only day of +recreation--and what recreation is he offered?" + +"He ought to go to church," said Alonzo promptly. + +"But the fact is that he doesn't--not often--not at _all_ in the +afternoon. Wouldn't it be well to give him some wholesome way of +employing his Sunday afternoons? This bill provides for just that, and +it keeps him away from drinking too, for it forbids the sale of liquor +on the grounds." + +"Yes, I know," said Alonzo plaintively. "But it ain't _right_! I +was raised to respect the Sabbath and--" + +"Ah, that's what you should do! You think _I_ could believe in +anything that wouldn't make it better and more sacred?" + +"Oh, no, ma'am!" he cried reproachfully. "It's only that I don't +see--" + +"I am telling you." She lifted her veil and let him have the full +dazzle of her beauty. "Do you know that many thousands of labouring +people spend their Sundays drinking and carousing about the low +country road-houses because the game is played at such places on +Sunday? They go there because they never get a chance to see it played +in the city. And don't you understand that there would be no Sunday +liquor trade, no working-men poisoning themselves every seventh day in +the low groggeries, as hundreds of them do now, if they had something +to see that would interest them?--something as wholesome and fine as +this sport would be, under the conditions of this bill; something to +keep them in the open air, something to bring a little gaiety into +their dull lives!" Her voice had grown louder and it shook a little, +with a rising emotion, though its sweetness was only the more +poignant. "Oh, my dear Senator," she cried, "don't you _see_ how +wrong you are? Don't you want to _help_ these poor people?" + +Her fingers, which had tightened upon his sleeve, relaxed and she +leaned back, pulling the veil down over her face as if wishing to +conceal from him that her lips trembled slightly; then resting her arm +upon the leather cushions, she turned her head away from him, staring +fixedly into the gaunt beech woods, lining the country road along +which they were now coursing. For a time she heard nothing from him, +and the only sound was the monotonous chug of the machine. + +"I suppose you think it rather shocking to hear a woman talking +practically of such common-place things," she said at last, in a cold +voice, just loud enough to be heard. + +"No ma'am," he said huskily. + +"Then what _do_ you think?" she cried, turning toward him again +with a quick imperious gesture. + +"I think I'd better go back to Stackpole," he answered very slowly, +"and resign my job. I don't see as I've got any business in the +Legislature." + +"I don't understand you." + +He shook his head mournfully. "It's a simple enough matter. I've +studied out a good many bills and talked 'em over and I've picked up +some influence and--" + +"I know you have." she interrupted eagerly. "Mr. Truslow says that +the members of your drains and dikes committee follow your vote on +every bill." + +"Yes ma'am," said Alonzo Rawson meekly, "but I expect they oughtn't +to. I've had a lesson this afternoon." + +"You mean to say--" + +"I mean that I didn't know what I was doing about that baseball +bill. I was just pig-headedly goin' ahead against it, not knowing +nothing about the conditions, and it took a lady to show me what they +were. I would have done a wrong thing if you hadn't stopped me." + +"You mean," she cried, her splendid eyes widening with excitement and +delight; "you mean that you---that you--" + +"I mean that I will vote for the bill!" He struck his clenched fist +upon his knee. "I come to the Legislature to do _right_!" + +"You will, ah, you _will_ do right in this!" Mrs. Protheroe +thrust up her veil again and her face was flushed and radiant with +triumph. "And you'll work, and you'll make a speech for the bill?" + +At this the righteous exaltation began rather abruptly to simmer down +in the soul of Alonzo Rawson. He saw the consequences of too violently +reversing, and knew how difficult they might be to face. + +"Well, not--not exactly," he said weakly. "I expect our best plan +would be for me to lay kind of low and not say any more about the bill +at all. Of course, I'll quit workin' against it; and on the roll-call +I'll edge up close to the clerk and say 'Aye' so that only him'll hear +me. That's done every day--and I--well, I don't just exactly like to +come out too publicly for it, after my speech and all I've done +against it." + +She looked at him sharply for a short second, and then offered him her +hand and said: "Let's shake hands _now_, on the vote. Think what +a triumph it is for me to know that I helped to show you the right." + +"Yes ma'am," he answered confusedly, too much occupied with shaking +her hand to know what he said. She spoke one word in an undertone to +the driver and the machine took the very shortest way back to the +city. + +After this excursion, several days passed, before Mrs. Protheroe came +to the State house again. Rawson was bending over the desk of Senator +Josephus Battle, the white-bearded leader of the opposition to the +"Sunday Baseball Bill," and was explaining to him the intricacies of a +certain drainage measure, when Battle, whose attention had wandered, +plucked his sleeve and whispered: + +"If you want to see a mighty pretty woman that's doin' no good here, +look behind you, over there in the chair by the big fireplace at the +back of the room." + +Alonzo looked. + +It was she whose counterpart had been in his dream's eye every moment +of the dragging days which had been vacant of her living presence. A +number of his colleagues were hanging over her almost idiotically; her +face was gay and her voice came to his ears, as he turned, with the +accent of her cadenced laughter running through her talk like a chime +of tiny bells flitting through a strain of music. + +"This is the third time she's been here," said Battle, rubbing +his beard the wrong way. "She's lobbyin' for that infernal +Sabbath-Desecration bill, but we'll beat her, my son." + +"Have you made her acquaintance, Senator?" asked Alonzo stiffly. + +"No, sir, and I don't want to. But I knew her father--the slickest old +beat and the smoothest talker that ever waltzed up the pike. She +married rich; her husband left her a lot of real estate around here, +but she spends most of her time away. Whatever struck her to come down +and lobby for that bill I don't know _yet_--but I will! Truslow's +helping her to help himself; he's got stock in the company that runs +the baseball team, but what she's up to--well, I'll bet there's a +nigger in the woodpile _some_where!" + +"I expect there's a lot of talk like that!" said Alonzo, red with +anger, and taking up his papers abruptly. + +"Yes, _sir_!" said Battle emphatically, utterly misunderstanding +the other's tone and manner. "Don't you worry, my son. We'll kill +that venomous bill right here in this chamber! We'll kill it so dead +that it won't make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some +others'll tend to _that_! Let her work that pretty face and those +eyes of hers all she wants to! I'm keepin' a little lookout, too--and +I'll--" + +He broke off, for the angry and perturbed Alonzo had left him and gone +to his own desk. Battle, slightly surprised, rubbed his beard the +wrong way and sauntered out to the lobby to muse over a cigar. Alonzo, +loathing Battle with a great loathing, formed bitter phrases +concerning that vicious-minded old gentleman, while for a moment he +affected to be setting his desk in order. Then he walked slowly up the +aisle, conscious of a roaring in his ears (though not aware how red +they were) as he approached the semicircle about her. + +He paused within three feet of her in a sudden panic of timidity, and +then, to his consternation, she looked him squarely in the face, over +the shoulders of two of the group, and the only sign of recognition +that she exhibited was a slight frown of unmistakable repulsion, which +appeared between her handsome eyebrows. + +It was very swift; only Alonzo saw it; the others had no eyes for +anything but her, and were not aware of his presence behind them, for +she did not even pause in what she was saying. + +Alonzo walked slowly away with the wormwood in his heart. He had not +grown up among the young people of Stackpole without similar +experiences, but it had been his youthful boast that no girl had ever +"stopped speaking" to him without reason, or "cut a dance" with him +and afterward found opportunity to repeat the indignity. + +"What have I _done_ to _her?_" was perhaps the hottest cry +of his soul, for the mystery was as great as the sting of it. + +It was no balm upon that sting to see her pass him at the top of the +outer steps, half an hour later, on the arm of that one of his +colleagues who had been called the "best-dressed man in the +Legislature." She swept by him without a sign, laughing that same +laugh at some sally of her escort, and they got into the black +automobile together and were whirled away and out of sight by the +impassive bundle of furs that manipulated the wheel. + +For the rest of that afternoon and the whole of that night no man, +woman, or child heard the voice of Alonzo Rawson, for he spoke to +none. He came not to the evening meal, nor was he seen by any who had +his acquaintance. He entered his room at about midnight, and Trumbull +was awakened by his neighbour's overturning a chair. No match was +struck, however, and Trumbull was relieved to think that the Senator +from Stackpole intended going directly to bed without troubling to +light the gas, and that his prayers would soon be over. Such was not +the case, for no other sound came from the room, nor were Alonzo's +prayers uttered that night, though the unhappy statesman in the next +apartment could not get to sleep for several hours on account of his +nervous expectancy of them. + +After this, as the day approached upon which hung the fate of the bill +which Mr. Josephus Battle was fighting, Mrs. Protheroe came to the +Senate Chamber nearly every morning and afternoon. Not once did she +appear to be conscious of Alonzo Rawson's presence, nor once did he +allow his eyes to delay upon her, though it cannot be truthfully said +that he did not always know when she came, when she left, and with +whom she stood or sat or talked. He evaded all mention or discussion +of the bill or of Mrs. Protheroe; avoided Truslow (who, strangely +enough, was avoiding _him_) and, spending upon drains and dikes +all the energy that he could manage to concentrate, burned the +midnight oil and rubbed salt into his wounds to such marked effect +that by the evening of the Governor's Reception--upon the morning +following which the mooted bill was to come up--he offered an +impression so haggard and worn that an actor might have studied him +for a makeup as a young statesman going into a decline. + +Nevertheless, he dressed with great care and bitterness, and placed +the fragrant blossom of a geranium--taken from a plant belonging to +his landlady--in the lapel of his long coat before he set out. + +And yet, when he came down the Governor's broad stairs, and wandered +through the big rooms, with the glare of lights above him and the +shouting of the guests ringing in his ears, a sense of emptiness beset +him; the crowded place seemed vacant and without meaning. Even the +noise sounded hollow and remote--and why had he bothered about the +geranium? He hated her and would never look at her again--but why was +she not there? + +By-and-by, he found himself standing against a wall, where he had been +pushed by the press of people. He was wondering drearily what he was +to do with a clean plate and a napkin which a courteous negro had +handed him, half-an-hour earlier, when he felt a quick jerk at his +sleeve. It was Truslow, who had worked his way along the wall and who +now, standing on tiptoe, spoke rapidly but cautiously, close to his +ear. + +"Senator, be quick," he said sharply, at the same time alert to see +that they were unobserved. "Mrs. Protheroe wants to speak to you at +once. You'll find her near the big palms under the stairway in the +hall." + +He was gone--he had wormed his way half across the room--before the +other, in his simple amazement could answer. When Alonzo at last found +a word, it was only a monosyllable, which, with his accompanying +action, left a matron of years, who was at that moment being pressed +fondly to his side, in a state of mind almost as dumbfounded as his +own. "_Here!_" was all he said as he pressed the plate and napkin +into her hand and departed forcibly for the hall, leaving a +spectacular wreckage of trains behind him. + +The upward flight of the stairway left a space underneath, upon which, +as it was screened (save for a narrow entrance) by a thicket of palms, +the crowd had not encroached. Here were placed a divan and a couple of +chairs; there was shade from the glare of gas, and the light was dim +and cool. Mrs. Protheroe had risen from the divan when Alonzo entered +this grotto, and stood waiting for him. + +He stopped in the green entrance-way with a quick exclamation. + +She did not seem the same woman who had put such slights upon him, +this tall, white vision of silk, with the summery scarf falling from +her shoulders. His great wrath melted at the sight of her; the pain of +his racked pride, which had been so hot in his breast, gave way to a +species of fear. She seemed not a human being, but a bright spirit of +beauty and goodness who stood before him, extending two fine arms to +him in long, white gloves. + +She left him to his trance for a moment, then seized both his hands in +hers and cried to him in her rapturous, low voice: "Ah, Senator, you +have come! I _knew_ you understood!" + +"Yes ma'am," he whispered chokily. + +She drew him to one of the chairs and sank gracefully down upon the +divan near him. + +"Mr. Truslow was so afraid you wouldn't," she went on rapidly, "but I +was sure. You see I didn't want anybody to suspect that I had any +influence with you. I didn't want them to know, even, that I'd talked +to you. It all came to me after the first day that we met. You see +I've believed in you, in your power and in your reserve, from the +first. I want all that you do to seem to come from yourself and not +from me or any one else. Oh, I _believe_ in great, strong men who +stand upon their own feet and conquer the world for themselves! That's +_your_ way, Senator Rawson. So, you see, as they think I'm +lobbying for the bill, I wanted them to believe that your speech for +it to-morrow comes from your own great, strong mind and heart and your +sense of right, and not from any suggestion of mine." + +"My speech!" he stammered. + +"Oh, I know," she cried; "I know you think I don't believe much in +speeches, and I don't ordinarily, but a few, simple, straightforward +and vigorous words from you, to-morrow, may carry the bill through. +You've made such _progress_, you've been so _reserved_, that you'll +carry great weight--and there are three votes of the drains and dikes +that are against us now, but will follow yours absolutely. Do you +think I would have 'cut' _you_ if it hadn't been _best_?" + +"But I--" + +"Oh, I know you didn't actually promise me to speak, that day. But I +knew you would when the time came! I knew that a man of power goes +over _all_ obstacles, once his sense of _right_ is aroused! +I _knew_--I never doubted it, that once _you_ felt a thing +to be right you would strike for it, with all your great strength--at +all costs--at all--" + +"I can't--I--I--can't!" he whispered nervously. "Don't you see--don't +you see--I--" + +She leaned toward him, lifting her face close to his. She was so near +him that the faint odour of her hair came to him again, and once more +the unfortunate Senator from Stackpole risked a meeting of his eyes +with hers, and saw the light shining far down in their depths. + +At this moment the shadow of a portly man who was stroking his beard +the wrong way projected itself upon them from the narrow, green +entrance to the grotto. Neither of them perceived it. + +Senator Josephus Battle passed on, but when Alonzo Rawson emerged, a +few moments later, he was pledged to utter a few simple, +straightforward and vigorous words in favour of the bill. And--let the +shame fall upon the head of the scribe who tells it--he had kissed +Mrs. Protheroe! + +The fight upon the "Sunday Baseball Bill," the next morning, was the +warmest of that part of the session, though for a while the reporters +were disappointed. They were waiting for Senator Battle, who was +famous among them for the vituperative vigour of his attacks and for +the kind of personalities which made valuable copy. And yet, until the +debate was almost over, he contented himself with going quietly up and +down the aisles, whispering to the occupants of the desks, and writing +and sending a multitude of notes to his colleagues. Meanwhile, the +orators upon both sides harangued their fellows, the lobby, the +unpolitical audience, and the patient presiding officer to no effect, +so far as votes went. The general impression was that the bill would +pass. + +Alonzo Rawson sat, bent over his desk, his eyes fixed with gentle +steadiness upon Mrs. Protheroe, who occupied the chair wherein he had +first seen her. A senator of the opposition was finishing his +denunciation, when she turned and nodded almost imperceptibly to the +young man. + +He gave her one last look of pathetic tenderness and rose. + +"The Senator from Stackpole!" + +"I want," Alonzo began, in his big voice: "I want to say a few simple, +straightforward but vigorous words about this bill. You may remember I +spoke against it on its second reading--" + +"You did _that_!" shouted Senator Battle suddenly. + +"I want to say now," the Senator from Stackpole continued, "that at +that time I hadn't studied the subject sufficiently. I didn't know the +conditions of the case, nor the facts, but since then a great light +has broke in upon me--" + +"I should say it had! I saw it break!" was Senator Battle's second +violent interruption. + +When order was restored, Alonzo, who had become very pale, summoned +his voice again. "I think we'd ought to take into consideration that +Sunday is the working-man's only day of recreation and not drive him +into low groggeries, but give him a chance in the open air to indulge +his love of wholesome sport--" + +"Such as the ancient Romans enjoyed!" interposed Battle vindictively. + +"No, sir!" Alonzo wheeled upon him, stung to the quick. "Such a sport +as free-born Americans and _only_ free-born Americans can play in +this, wide world--the American game of baseball, in which no other +nation of the _Earth_ is our equal!" + +This was a point scored and the cheering lasted two minutes. Then the +orator resumed: + +"I say: 'Give the working-man a chance!' Is his life a happy one? You +know it ain't! Give him his one day. _Don't_ spoil it for him with +your laws--he's only got one! I'm not goin' to take up any more of +your time, but if there's anybody here who thinks my well-considered +opinion worth following I say: '_Vote for this bill_.' It is right and +virtuous and ennobling, and it ought to be passed! I say: '_Vote for +it_.'" + +The reporters decided that the Senator from Stackpole had "wakened +things up." The gavel rapped a long time before the chamber quieted +down, and when it did, Josephus Battle was on his feet and had +obtained the recognition of the chair. + +"I wish to say, right here," he began, with a rasping leisureliness, +"that I hope no member of this honoured body will take my remarks as +personal or unparliamentary--_but_"--he raised a big forefinger and +shook it with menace at the presiding officer, at the same time +suddenly lifting his voice to an unprintable shriek--"I say to _you_, +sir, that the song of the siren has been _heard_ in the land, and the +call of Delilah has been answered! When the Senator from Stackpole +rose in this chamber, less than three weeks ago, and denounced this +iniquitous measure, I heard him with pleasure--we _all_ heard him with +pleasure--_and_ respect! In spite of his youth and the poor quality of +his expression, _we_ listened to him. _We_ knew he was sencere! What +has caused the change in him? What _has_, I ask? I shall not tell you, +upon this floor, but I've taken mighty good care to let most of you +know, during the morning, either by word of mouth or by _note_ of +hand! Especially those of you of the drains and dikes and others who +might follow this young Samson, whose locks have been shore! _I've_ +told you all about that, and more--_I've_ told you the _inside_ +history of some _facts_ about the bill that I will not make public, +because I am too confident of our strength to defeat this devilish +measure, and prefer to let our vote speak our opinion of it! Let me +not detain you longer. _I_ thank you!" + +Long before he had finished, the Senator from Stackpole was being held +down in his chair by Truslow and several senators whose seats were +adjacent; and the vote was taken amid an uproar of shouting and +confusion. When the clerk managed to proclaim the result over all +other noises, the bill was shown to be defeated and "killed," by a +majority of five votes. + +A few minutes later, Alonzo Rawson, his neckwear disordered and his +face white with rage, stumbled out of the great doors upon the trail +of Battle, who had quietly hurried away to his hotel for lunch as soon +as he had voted. + +The black automobile was vanishing round a corner. Truslow stood upon +the edge of the pavement staring after it ruefully: + +"Where is Mrs. Protheroe?" gasped the Senator from Stackpole. + +"She's gone," said the other. + +"Gone where?" + +"Gone back to Paris. She sails day after tomorrow. She just had time +enough to catch her train for New York after waiting to hear how the +vote went. She told me to tell you good-bye, and that she was +sorry. Don't stare at me Rawson! I guess we're in the same +boat!--Where are you going?" he finished abruptly. + +Alonzo swung by him and started across the street. "To find Battle!" +the hoarse answer came back. + +The conquering Josephus was leaning meditatively upon the counter of +the cigar-stand of his hotel when Alonzo found him. He took one look +at the latter's face and backed to the wall, tightening his grasp upon +the heavy-headed ebony cane it was his habit to carry, a habit upon +which he now congratulated himself. + +But his precautions were needless. Alonzo stopped out of reaching +distance. + +"You tell me," he said in a breaking voice; "you tell me what you +meant about Delilah and sirens and Samsons and inside facts! You tell +me!" + +"You wild ass of the prairies," said Battle, "I saw you last night +behind them pa'ms! But don't you think I told it--or ever will! I just +passed the word around that she'd argued you into her way of thinkin', +same as she had a good many others. And as for the rest of it, I +found out where the mgger in the woodpile was, and I handed that out, +too. Don't you take it hard, my son, but I told you her husband left +her a good deal of land around here. She owns the ground that they use +for the baseball park, and her lease would be worth considerable more +if they could have got the right to play on Sundays!" + +Senator Trumbull sat up straight, in bed, that night, and, for the +first time during his martyrdom, listened with no impatience to the +prayer which fell upon his ears. + +"O, Lord Almighty," through the flimsy partition came the voice of +Alonzo Rawson, quaveringly, but with growing strength: "Aid Thou me to +see my way more clear! I find it hard to tell right from wrong, and I +find myself beset with tangled wires. O God, I feel that I am +ignorant, and fall into many devices. These are strange paths wherein +Thou hast set my feet, but I feel that through Thy help, and through +great anguish, I am learning!" + + + + +GREAT MEN'S SONS + + +Mme. Bernhardt and M. Coquelin were playing "L'Aiglon." Toward the end +of the second act people began to slide down in their seats, shift +their elbows, or casually rub their eyes; by the close of the third, +most of the taller gentlemen were sitting on the small of their backs +with their knees as high as decorum permitted, and many were openly +coughing; but when the fourth came to an end, active resistance +ceased, hopelessness prevailed, the attitudes were those of the +stricken field, and the over-crowded house was like a college chapel +during an interminable compulsory lecture. Here and there--but most +rarely--one saw an eager woman with bright eyes, head bent forward and +body spellbound, still enchantedly following the course of the play. +Between the acts the orchestra pattered ragtime and inanities from the +new comic operas, while the audience in general took some heart. When +the play was over, we were all enthusiastic; though our admiration, +however vehement in the words employed to express it, was somewhat +subdued as to the accompanying manner, which consisted, mainly, of +sighs and resigned murmurs. In the lobby a thin old man with a +grizzled chin-beard dropped his hand lightly on my shoulder, and +greeted me in a tone of plaintive inquiry: + +"Well, son?" + +Turning, I recognized a patron of my early youth, in whose woodshed I +had smoked my first cigar, an old friend whom I had not seen for +years; and to find him there, with his long, dust-coloured coat, his +black string tie and rusty hat brushed on every side by opera cloaks +and feathers, was a rich surprise, warming the cockles of my +heart. His name is Tom Martin; he lives in a small country town, where +he commands the trade in Dry Goods and Men's Clothing; his speech is +pitched in a high key, is very slow, sometimes whines faintly; and he +always calls me "Son." + +"What in the world!" I exclaimed, as we shook hands. + +"Well," he drawled, "I dunno why I shouldn't be as meetropolitan as +anybody. I come over on the afternoon accommodation for the show. +Let's you and me make a night of it. What say, son?" + +"What did you think of the play?" I asked, as we turned up the street +toward the club. + +"I think they done it about as well as they could." + +"That all?" + +"Well," he rejoined with solemnity, "there was a heap _of_ it, +wasn't there!" + +We talked of other things, then, until such time as we found ourselves +seated by a small table at the club, old Tom somewhat uneasily +regarding a twisted cigar he was smoking and plainly confounded by the +"carbonated" syphon, for which, indeed, he had no use in the world. +We had been joined by little Fiderson, the youngest member of the +club, whose whole nervous person jerkily sparkled "L'Aiglon" +enthusiasm. + +"Such an evening!" he cried, in his little spiky voice. "Mr. Martin, +it does one good to realize that our country towns are sending +representatives to us when we have such things; that they wish to get +in touch with what is greatest in Art. They should do it often. To +think that a journey of only seventy miles brings into your life the +magnificence of Rostand's point of view made living fire by the genius +of a Bernhardt and a Coquelin!" + +"Yes," said Mr. Martin, with a curious helplessness, after an ensuing +pause, which I refused to break, "yes, sir, they seemed to be doing it +about as well as they could." + +Fiderson gasped slightly. "It was magnificent! Those two great +artists! But over all the play--the play! Romance new-born; poesy +marching with victorious banners; a great spirit breathing! Like +'Cyrano'--the birth-mark of immortality on this work!" + +There was another pause, after which old Tom turned slowly to me, and +said: "Homer Tibbs's opened up a cigar-stand at the deepo. Carries a +line of candy, magazines, and fruit, too. Home's a hustler." + +Fiderson passed his hand through his hair. + +"That death scene!" he exclaimed at me, giving Martin up as a log +accidentally rolled in from the woods. "I thought that after 'Wagram' +I could feel nothing more; emotion was exhausted; but then came that +magnificent death! It was tragedy made ecstatic; pathos made into +music; the grandeur of a gentle spirit, conquered physically but +morally unconquerable! Goethe's 'More Light' outshone!" + +Old Tom's eyes followed the smoke of his perplexing cigar along its +heavy strata in the still air of the room, as he inquired if I +remembered Orlando T. Bickner's boy, Mel. I had never heard of him, +and said so. + +"No, I expect not," rejoined Martin. "Prob'ly you wouldn't; Bickner +was Governor along in _my_ early days, and I reckon he ain't +hardly more than jest a name to you two. But _we_ kind of thought +he was the biggest man this country had ever seen, or was goin' to +see, and he _was_ a big man. He made one president, and could +have been it himself, instead, if he'd be'n willing to do a kind of +underhand trick, but I expect without it he was about as big a man as +anybody'd care to be; Governor, Senator, Secretary of State--and just +owned his party! And, my law!--the whole earth bowin' down to him; +torchlight processions and sky-rockets when he come home in the night; +bands and cannon if his train got in, daytime; home-folks so proud of +him they couldn't see; everybody's hat off; and all the most important +men in the country following at his heels--a country, too, that'd put +up consider'ble of a comparison with everything Napoleon had when he'd +licked 'em all, over there. + +"Of course he had enemies, and, of course, year by year, they got to +be more of 'em, and they finally downed him for good; and like other +public men so fixed, he didn't live long after that. He had a son, +Melville, mighty likable young fellow, studyin' law when his paw +died. I was livin' in their town then, and I knowed Mel Bickner pretty +well; he was consider'ble of a man. + +"I don't know as I ever heard him speak of that's bein' the reason, +but I expect it may've be'n partly in the hope of carryin' out some of +his paw's notions, Mel tried hard to git into politics; but the old +man's local enemies jumped on every move he made, and his friends +wouldn't help any; you can't tell why, except that it generally +_is_ thataway. Folks always like to laugh at a great man's son +and say _he_ can't amount to anything. Of course that comes +partly from fellows like that ornery little cuss we saw to-night, +thinkin' they're a good deal because somebody else done something, and +the somebody else happened to be their paw; and the women run after +'em, and they git low-down like he was, and so on." + +"Mr. Martin," interrupted Fiderson, with indignation, "will you kindly +inform me in what way 'L'Aiglon' was 'low-down'?" + +"Well, sir, didn't that huntin'-lodge appointment kind of put you in +mind of a camp-meetin' scandal?" returned old Tom quietly. "It did +me." + +"But--" + +"Well, sir, I can't say as I understood the French of it, but I read +the book in English before I come up, and it seemed to me he was +pretty much of a low-down boy; yet I wanted to see how they'd make him +out; hearin' it was, thought, the country over, to be such a great +_play_; though to tell the truth all I could tell about +_that_ was that every line seemed to end in 'awze'; and 't they +all talked in rhyme, and it did strike me as kind of enervatin' to be +expected to believe that people could keep it up that long; and that +it wasn't only the boy that never quit on the subject of himself and +his folks, but pretty near any of 'em, if he'd git the chanst, did the +same thing, so't almost I sort of wondered if Rostand wasn't that +kind." + +"Go on with Melville Bickner," said I. + +"What do you expect," retorted Mr. Martin with a vindictive gleam in +his eye, "when you give a man one of these here spiral staircase +cigars? Old Peter himself couldn't keep straight along one subject if +he tackled a cigar like this. Well, sir, I always thought Mel had a +mighty mean time of it. He had to take care of his mother and two +sisters, his little brother and an aunt that lived with them; and +there was mighty little to do it on; big men don't usually leave much +but debts, and in this country, of course, a man can't eat and spend +long on his paw's reputation, like that little Dook of Reishtod--" + +"I beg to tell you, Mr. Martin--" Fiderson began hotly. + +Martin waved his bony hand soothingly. + +"Oh, I know; they was money in his mother's family, and they give him +his vittles and clothes, and plenty, too. _His_ paw didn't leave +much either--though he'd stole more than Boss Tweed. I suppose--and, +just lookin' at things from the point of what they'd _earned_, +his maw's folks had stole a good deal, too; or else you can say they +were a kind of public charity; old Metternich, by what I can learn, +bein' the only one in the whole possetucky of 'em that really +_did_ anything to deserve his salary--" Mr. Martin broke off +suddenly, observing that I was about to speak, and continued: + +"Mel didn't git much law practice, jest about enough to keep the house +goin' and pay taxes. He kept workin' for the party jest the same and +jest as cheerfully as if it didn't turn him down hard every time he +tried to git anything for himself. They lived some ways out from town; +and he sold the horses to keep the little brother in school, one +winter, and used to walk in to his office and out again, twice a day, +over the worst roads in the State, rain or shine, snow, sleet, or +wind, without any overcoat; and he got kind of a skimpy, froze-up look +to him that lasted clean through summer. He worked like a mule, that +boy did, jest barely makin' ends meet. He had to quit runnin' with the +girls and goin' to parties and everything like that; and I expect it +may have been some hard to do; for if they ever _was_ a boy loved +to dance and be gay, and up to anything in the line of fun and +junketin' round, it was Mel Bickner. He had a laugh I can hear +yet--made you feel friendly to everybody you saw; feel like stoppin' +the next man you met and shakin' hands and havin' a joke with him. + +"Mel was engaged to Jane Grandis when Governor Bickner died. He had to +go and tell her to take somebody else--it was the only thing to do. He +couldn't give Jane anything but his poverty, and she wasn't used to +it. They say she offered to come to him anyway, but he wouldn't hear +of it, and no more would he let her wait for him; told her she mustn't +grow into an old maid, lonely, and still waitin' for the lightning to +strike him--that is, his luck to come; and actually advised her to +take 'Gene Callender, who'd be'n pressin' pretty close to Mel for her +before the engagement. The boy didn't talk to her this way with tears +in his eyes and mourning and groaning. No, sir! It was done +_cheerful_; and so much so that Jane never _was_ quite sure +afterwerds whether Mel wasn't kind of glad to git rid of her or +not. Fact is, they say she quit speakin' to him. Mel _knowed_; a +state of puzzlement or even a good _mad's_ a mighty sight better +than bein' all harrowed up and grief-stricken. And he never give +her--nor any one else--a chanst to be sorry for him. His maw was the +only one heard him walk the floor nights, and after he found, out she +could hear him he walked in his socks. + +"Yes, sir! Meet that boy on the street, or go up in his office, you'd +think that he was the gayest feller in town. I tell you there wasn't +anything pathetic about Mel Bickner! He didn't believe in it. And at +home he had a funny story every evening of the world, about something +'d happened during the day; and 'd whistle to the guitar, or git his +maw into a game of cards with his aunt and the girls. Law! that boy +didn't believe in no house of mourning. He'd be up at four in the +morning, hoein' up their old garden; raised garden-truck for their +table, sparrow-grass and sweet corn--yes, and roses, too; always had +the house full of roses in June-time; never _was_ a house +sweeter-smellin' to go into. + +"Mel was what I call a useful citizen. As I said, I knowed him well. I +don't recollect I ever heard him speak of himself, nor yet of his +father but once--for _that_, I reckon, he jest couldn't; and for +himself; I don't believe it ever occurred to him. + +"And he was a _smart_ boy. Now, you take it, all in all, a boy +can't be as smart as Mel was, and work as hard as he did, and not +_git_ somewhere--in this State, anyway! And so, about the fifth +year, things took a sudden change for him; his father's enemies and +his own friends, both, had to jest about own they was beat. The crowd +that had been running the conventions and keepin' their own men in all +the offices, had got to be pretty unpopular, and they had the sense to +see that they'd have to branch out and connect up with some mighty +good men, jest to keep the party in power. Well, sir, Mel had got to +be about the most popular and respected man in the county. Then one +day I met him on the street; he was on his way to buy an overcoat, and +he was lookin' skimpier and more froze-up and genialer than ever. It +was March, and up to jest that time things had be'n hardest of all for +Mel. I walked around to the store with him, and he was mighty happy; +goin' to send his mother north in the summer, and the girls were goin' +to have a party, and Bob, his little brother, could go to the best +school in the country in the fall. Things had come his way at last, +and that very morning the crowd had called him in and told him they +were goin' to run him for county clerk. + +"Well, sir, the next evening I heard Mel was sick. Seein' him only the +day before on the street, out and well, I didn't think anything of +it--thought prob'ly a cold or something like that; but in the morning +I heard the doctor said he was likely to die. Of course I couldn't +hardly believe it; thing like that never _does_ seem possible, +but they all said it was true, and there wasn't anybody on the street +that day that didn't look blue or talked about anything else. Nobody +seemed to know what was the matter with him exactly, and I reckon the +doctor did jest the wrong thing for it. Near as I can make out, it was +what they call appendicitis nowadays, and had come on him in the +night. + +"Along in the afternoon I went out there to see if there was anything +I could do. You know what a house in that condition is like. Old Fes +Bainbridge, who was some sort of a relation, and me sat on the stairs +together outside Mel's room. We could hear his voice, clear and +strong and hearty as ever. He was out of pain; and he had to die with +the full flush of health and strength on him, and he knowed it. Not +_wantin'_ to go, through the waste and wear of a long sickness, +but with all the ties of life clinchin' him here, and success jest +comin.' We heard him speak of us, amongst others, old Fes and me; +wanted 'em to be sure not forget to tell me to remember to vote for +Fillmore if the ground-hog saw his shadow election year, which was an +old joke I always had with him. He was awful worried about his mother, +though he tried not to show it, and when the minister wanted to pray +fer him, we heard him say, 'No, sir, you pray fer my mamma!' That was +the only thing that was different from his usual way of speakin'; he +called his mother 'mamma, and he wouldn't let 'em pray for him +neither; not once; all the time he could spare for their prayin' was +put in for her. + +"He called in old Fes to tell him all about his life insurance. He'd +carried a heavy load of it, and it was all paid up; and the sweat it +must have took to do it you'd hardly like to think about. He give +directions about everything as careful and painstaking as any day of +his life. He asked to speak to Fes alone a minute, and later I helped +Fes do what he told him. 'Cousin Fes,' he says, 'it's bad weather, but +I expect mother'll want all the flowers taken out to the cemetery and +you better let her have her way. But there wouldn't be any good of +their stayin' there; snowed on, like as not. I wish you'd wait till +after she's come away, and git a wagon and take 'em in to the +hospital. You can fix up the anchors and so forth so they won't look +like funeral flowers.' + +"About an hour later his mother broke out with a scream, sobbin' and +cryin', and he tried to quiet her by tellin' over one of their +old-time family funny stories; it made her worse, so he quit. 'Oh, +Mel,' she says, 'you'll be with your father--' + +"I don't know as Mel had much of a belief in a hereafter; certainly he +wasn't a great churchgoer. 'Well,' he says, mighty slow, but hearty +and smiling, too, 'if I see father, I--guess--I'll--be--pretty-- +well--fixed!' Then he jest lay still, tryin' to quiet her and pettin' +her head. And so--that's the way he went." + +Fiderson made one of his impatient little gestures, but Mr. Martin +drowned his first words with a loud fit of coughing. + +"Well, sir," he observed, "I read that 'Leg-long' book down home; and +I heard two or three countries, and especially ourn, had gone middling +crazy over it; it seemed kind of funny that _we_ should, too, so I +thought I better come up and see it for myself, how it _was_, on the +stage, where you could _look_ at it; and--I expect they done it as +well as they could. But when that little boy, that'd always had his +board and clothes and education free, saw that he'd jest about talked +himself to death, and called for the press notices about his +christening to be read to him to soothe his last spasms--why, I wasn't +overly put in mind of Melville Bickner." + +Mr. Martin's train left for Plattsville at two in the morning. Little +Fiderson and I escorted him to the station. As the old fellow waved us +good-bye from within the gates, Fiderson turned and said: + +"Just the type of sodden-headed old pioneer that you couldn't hope to +make understand a beautiful thing like 'L'Aiglon' in a thousand +years. I thought it better not to try, didn't you?" + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Arena, by Booth Tarkington + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + +***** This file should be named 8740-8.txt or 8740-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/7/4/8740/ + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: In the Arena + Stories of Political Life + +Author: Booth Tarkington + + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8740] +This file was first posted on August 6, 2003 +Last Updated: March 3, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + + + + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, David Widger, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + IN THE ARENA + </h1> + <h3> + Stories of Political Life + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Booth Tarkington + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + TO MY FATHER + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> + <!-- IMG --></a> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> + <img src="images/frontis.jpg" + alt="The Conversion of the Senator from Stackpole width" /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> “IN THE FIRST PLACE” </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PART"> <b>PART I</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> BOSS GORGETT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE ALIENS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE NEED OF MONEY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> HECTOR </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PART2"> <b>PART II</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> MRS. PROTHEROE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> GREAT MEN'S SONS </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + “IN THE FIRST PLACE” + </h2> + <p> + The old-timer, a lean, retired pantaloon, sitting with loosely slippered + feet close to the fire, thus gave of his wisdom to the questioning + student: + </p> + <p> + “Looking back upon it all, what we most need in politics is more good men. + Thousands of good men <i>are</i> in; and they need the others who are not + in. More would come if they knew how <i>much</i> they are needed. The + dilettantes of the clubs who have so easily abused me, for instance, all + my life, for being a ward-worker, these and those other reformers who + write papers about national corruption when they don't know how their own + wards are swung, probably aren't so useful as they might be. The exquisite + who says that politics is 'too dirty a business for a gentleman to meddle + with' is like the woman who lived in the parlour and complained that the + rest of her family kept the other rooms so dirty that she never went into + them. + </p> + <p> + “There are many thousands of young men belonging to what is for some + reason called the 'best class,' who would like to be 'in politics' if they + could begin high enough up—as ambassadors, for instance. That is, + they would like the country to do something for them, though they wouldn't + put it that way. A young man of this sort doesn't know how much he'd miss + if his wishes were gratified. For my part, I'd hate not to have begun at + the beginning of the game. + </p> + <p> + “I speak of it as a game,” the old gentleman went on, “and in some ways it + is. That's where the fun of it comes in. Yet, there are times when it + looks to me more like a series of combats, hand-to-hand fights for life, + and fierce struggles between men and strange powers. You buy your + newspaper and that's your ticket to the amphitheatre. But the distance is + hazy and far; there are clouds of dust and you can't see clearly. To make + out just what is going on you ought to get down in the arena yourself. + Once you're in it, the view you'll have and the fighting that will come + your way will more than repay you. Still, I don't think we ought to go in + with the idea of being repaid. + </p> + <p> + “It seems an odd thing to me that so many men feel they haven't any time + for politics; can't put in even a little, trying to see how their cities + (let alone their states and the country) are run. When we have a war, look + at the millions of volunteers that lay down everything and answer the call + of the country. Well, in politics, the country needs <i>all</i> the men + who have any patriotism—<i>not</i> to be seeking office, but to + watch and to understand what is going on. It doesn't take a great deal of + time; you can attend to your business and do that much, too. When wrong + things are going on and all the good men understand them, that is all that + is needed. The wrong things stop going on.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PART" id="link2H_PART"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART I + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOSS GORGETT + </h2> + <p> + I guess I've been what you might call kind of an assistant boss pretty + much all my life; at least, ever since I could vote; and I was something + of a ward-heeler even before that. I don't suppose there's any way a man + of my disposition could have put in his time to less advantage and greater + cost to himself. I've never got a thing by it, all these years, not a job, + not a penny—nothing but injury to my business and trouble with my + wife. <i>She</i> begins going for me, first of every campaign. + </p> + <p> + Yet I just can't seem to keep out of it. It takes a hold on a man that I + never could get away from; and when I reach my second childhood and the + boys have turned me out, I reckon I'll potter along trying to look knowing + and secretive, like the rest of the has-beens, letting on as if I still + had a place inside. Lord, if I'd put in the energy at my business that + I've frittered away on small politics! But what's the use thinking about + it? + </p> + <p> + Plenty of men go to pot horse-racing and stock gambling; and I guess this + has just been my way of working off some of my nature in another fashion. + There's a good many like me, too; not out for office or contracts, nor + anything that you can put your finger on in particular—nothing + except the <i>game</i>. Of course, it's a pleasure, knowing you've got + more influence than some, but I believe the most you ever get out of it is + in being able to help your friends, to get a man you like a job, or a good + contract, something he wants, when he needs it. + </p> + <p> + I tell you <i>then's</i> when you feel satisfied, and your time don't seem + to have been so much thrown away. You go and buy a higher-priced cigar + than you can afford, and sit and smoke it with your feet out in the + sunshine on your porch railing, and watch your neighbour's children + playing in their yard; and they look mighty nice to you; and you feel + kind, and as if everybody else was. + </p> + <p> + But that wasn't the way I felt when I helped to hand over to a reformer + the nomination for mayor; then it was just selfish desperation and nothing + else. We had to do it. You see, it was this way: the other side had had + the city for four terms, and, naturally, they'd earned the name of being + rotten by that time. Big Lafe Gorgett was their best. “Boss Gorgett,” of + course our papers called him when they went for him, which was all the + time; and pretty considerable of a man he was, too. Most people that knew + him liked Lafe. I did. But he got a bad name, as they say, by the end of + his fourth term as Mayor—and who wouldn't? Of course, the cry went + up all round that he and his crowd were making a fat thing out of it, + which wasn't so much the case as that Lafe had got to depending on + humouring the gamblers and the brewers for campaign funds and so forth. In + fact, he had the reputation of running a disorderly town, and the truth + is, it <i>was</i> too wide open. + </p> + <p> + But <i>we</i> hadn't been much better when we'd had it, before Lafe beat + us and got in; and everybody remembered that. The “respectable element” + wouldn't come over to us strong enough for anybody we could pick of our + own crowd; and so, after trying it on four times, we started in to play it + another way, and nominated Farwell Knowles, who was already running on an + independent ticket, got out by the reform and purity people. That is: we + made him a fusion candidate, hoping to find some way to control him later. + We'd never have done it if we hadn't thought it was our only hope. Gorgett + was too strong, and he handled the darkeys better than any man I ever + knew. He had an organization for it which we couldn't break; and the + coloured voters really held the balance of power with us, you know, as + they do so many other places near the same size, They were getting pretty + well on to it, too, and cost more every election. Our best chance seemed + to be in so satisfying the “law-and-order” people that they'd do something + to counterbalance this vote—which they never did. + </p> + <p> + Well, sir, it was a mighty curious campaign. There never really was a day + when we could tell where we stood, for certain. As anybody knows, the + “better element” can't be depended on. There's too many of 'em forget to + vote, and if the weather isn't just right they won't go to the polls. Some + of 'em won't go anyway—act as if they looked down on politics; say + it's only helping one boodler against another. So your true aristocrat + won't vote for either. The real truth is, he don't <i>care</i>. Don't care + as much about the management of his city, State, and country as about the + way his club is run. Or he's ignorant about the whole business, and what + between ignorance and indifference the worse and smarter of the two rings + gets in again and old Mr. Aristocrat gets soaked some more on his sewer + assessments. <i>Then</i> he'll holler like a stabbed hand-organ; but he'll + keep on talking about politics being too low a business for a gentleman to + mix in, just the same! + </p> + <p> + Somebody said a pessimist is a man who has a choice of two evils, and + takes both. There's your man that don't vote. + </p> + <p> + And the best-dressed wards are the ones that fool us oftenest. We're + always thinking they'll do something, and they don't. But we thought, when + we took Farwell Knowles, that we had 'em at last. Fact is, they did seem + stirred up, too. They called it a “moral victory” when we were forced to + nominate Knowles to have any chance of beating Gorgett. That was because + it was <i>their</i> victory. + </p> + <p> + Farwell Knowles was a young man, about thirty-two, an editorial writer on + the <i>Herald</i>, an independent paper. I'd known him all his life, and + his wife—too, a mighty sweet-looking lady she was. I'd always + thought Farwell was kind of a dreamer, and too excitable; he was always + reading papers to literary clubs, and on the speech-making side he wasn't + so bad—he liked it; but he hadn't seemed to me to know any more + about politics and people than a royal family would. He was always talking + about life and writing about corruption, when, all the time, so it struck + me, it was only books he was really interested in; and he saw things along + book lines. Of course he was a tin god, politically. + </p> + <p> + He was for “stern virtue” only, and everlastingly lashed compromise and + temporizing; called politicians all the elegant hard names there are, in + every one of his editorials, especially Lafe Gorgett, whom he'd never + seen. He made mighty free with Lafe, referred to him habitually as + “Boodler Gorgett”, and never let up on him from one year's end to another. + </p> + <p> + I was against our adopting him, not only for our own sakes—because I + knew he'd be a hard man to handle—but for Farwell's too. I'd been a + friend of his father's, and I liked his wife—everybody liked his + wife. But the boys overruled me, and I had to turn in and give it to him. + </p> + <p> + Not without a lot of misgivings, you can be sure. I had one little + experience with him right at the start that made me uneasy and got me to + thinking he was what you might call too literary, or theatrical, or + something, and that he was more interested in being things than doing + them. I'd been aware, ever since he got back from Harvard, that <i>I</i> + was one of his literary interests, so to speak. He had a way of talking to + me in a <i>quizzical</i>, condescending style, in the belief that he was + drawing me out, the way you talk to some old book-peddler in your office + when you've got nothing to do for a while; and it was easy to see he + regarded me as a “character” and thought he was studying me. Besides, he + felt it his duty to study the wickedness of politics in a Parkhurstian + fashion, and I was one of the lost. + </p> + <p> + One day, just after we'd nominated him, he came to me and said he had a + friend who wanted to meet me. Asked me couldn't I go with him right away. + It was about five in the afternoon; I hadn't anything to do and said, + “Certainly,” thinking he meant to introduce me to some friend of his who + thought I'd talk politics with him. I took that for granted so much that I + didn't ask a question, just followed along up street, talking weather. He + turned in at old General Buskirk's, and may I be shot if the person he + meant wasn't Buskirk's daughter, Bella! He'd brought me to call on a girl + young enough to be my daughter. Maybe you won't believe I felt like a + fool! + </p> + <p> + I knew Buskirk, of course (he didn't appear), but I hadn't seen Bella + since she was a child. She'd been “highly educated” and had been living + abroad a good deal, but I can't say that my visit made me <i>for</i> her—not + very strong. She was good-looking enough, in her thinnish, solemn way, but + it seemed to me she was kind of overdressed and too grand. You could see + in a minute that she was intense and dreamy and theatrical with herself + and superior, like Farwell; and I guess I thought they thought they'd + discovered they were “kindred souls,” and that each of them understood + (without saying it) that both of them felt that Farwell's lot in life was + a hard one because Mrs. Knowles wasn't up to him. Bella gave him little, + quiet, deep glances, that seemed to help her play the part of a person who + understood everything—especially him, and reverenced greatness—especially + his. I remember a fellow who called the sort of game it struck me they + were carrying on “those soully flirtations.” + </p> + <p> + Well, sir, I wasn't long puzzling over why he had brought <i>me</i> up + there. It stuck out all over, though they didn't know it, and would have + been mighty astonished to think that I saw. It was in their manner, in her + condescending ways with me, in her assumption of serious interest, and in + his going through the trick of “drawing me out,” and exhibiting me to her. + I'll have to admit that these young people viewed me in the light of a + “character.” That was the part Farwell had me there to play. + </p> + <p> + I can't say I was too pleased with the notion, and I was kind of sorry for + Mrs. Knowles, too. I'd have staked a good deal that my guess was right, + for instance: that Farwell had gone first to this girl for her + congratulations when he got the nomination, instead of to his wife; and + that she felt—or pretended she felt—a soully sympathy with his + ambitions; that she wanted to be, or to play the part of, a woman of + affairs, and that he talked over everything he knew with her. I imagined + they thought they were studying political reform together, and she, in her + novel-reading way, wanted to pose to herself as the brilliant lady + diplomat, kind of a Madam Roland advising statesmen, or something of that + sort. And I was there as part of their political studies, an + object-lesson, to bring her “more closely in touch” (as Farwell would say) + with the realities he had to contend with. I was one of the “evils of + politics,” because I knew how to control a few wards, and get out the + darkey vote almost as well as Gorgett. Gorgett would have been better, but + Farwell couldn't very easily get at him. + </p> + <p> + I had to sit there for a little while, of course, like a ninny between + them; and I wasn't the more comfortable because I thought Knowles looked + like a bigger fool than I did. Bella's presence seemed to excite him to a + kind of exaltation; he had a dark flush on his face and his eyes were + large and shiny. + </p> + <p> + I got out as soon as I could, naturally, wondering what my wife would say + if she knew; and while I was fumbling around among the knick-knacks and + fancy things in the hall for my hat and coat, I heard Farwell get up and + cross the room to a chair nearer Bella, and then she said, in a sort of + pungent whisper, that came out to me distinctly: + </p> + <p> + “My knight!” That's what she called him. “My knight!” That's what she + said. + </p> + <p> + I don't know whether I was more disgusted with myself for hearing, or with + old Buskirk who spent his whole time frittering around the club library, + and let his daughter go in for the sort of soulliness she was carrying on + with Farwell Knowles. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Trouble in our ranks began right away. Our nominee knew too much, and did + all the wrong things from the start; he began by antagonizing most of our + old wheel-horses; he wouldn't consult with us, and advised with his own + kind. In spite of that, we had a good organization working for him, and by + a week before election I felt pretty confident that our show was as good + as Gorgett's. It looked like it would be close. + </p> + <p> + Just about then things happened. We had dropped onto one of Lafe's little + tricks mighty smartly. We got one of his heelers fixed (of course we + usually tried to keep all that kind of work dark from Farwell Knowles), + and this heeler showed the whole business up for a consideration. There + was a precinct certain to be strong for Knowles, where the balloting was + to take place in the office-room of a hook-and-ladder company. In the + corner was a small closet with one shelf, high up toward the ceiling. It + was in the good old free and easy Hayes and Wheeler times, and when the + polls closed at six o'clock it was planned that the election officers + should set the ballot-box up on this shelf, lock the closet door, and go + out for their suppers, leaving one of each side to watch in the room so + that nobody could open the closet-door with a pass-key and tamper with the + ballots before they were counted. Now, the ceiling over the shelf in the + closet wasn't plastered, and it formed, of course, part of the flooring in + the room above. The boards were to be loosened by a Gorgett man upstairs, + as soon as the box was locked in; he would take up a piece of planking—enough + to get an arm in—and stuff the box with Gorgett ballots till it + grunted. Then he would replace the board and slide out. Of course, when + they began the count our people would know there was something wrong, but + they would be practically up against it, and the precinct would be counted + for Gorgett. + </p> + <p> + They brought the heeler up to me, not at headquarters (I was city + chairman) but at a hotel room I'd hired as a convenient place for the more + important conferences and to keep out of the way of every + Tom-Dick-and-Harry grafter. Bob Crowder, a ward committee-man, brought him + up and stayed in the room, while the fellow—his name was Genz—went + over the whole thing. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of it?” says Bob, when Genz finished. “Ain't it worth + the money? I declare, it's so neat and simple and so almighty smart + besides, I'm almost ashamed some of our boys hadn't thought of it for us.” + </p> + <p> + I was just opening my mouth to answer, when there was a signal knock at + the door and a young fellow we had as a kind of watcher in the next room + (opening into the one I used) put his head in and said Mr. Knowles wanted + to see me. + </p> + <p> + “Ask him to wait a minute,” said I, for I didn't want him to know anything + about Genz. “I'll be there right away.” + </p> + <p> + Then came Farwell Knowles's voice from the other room, sharp and excited. + “I believe I'll not wait,” says he. “I'll come in there now!” + </p> + <p> + And that's what he did, pushing by our watcher before I could hustle Genz + into the hall through an outer door, though I tried to. There's no denying + it looked a little suspicious. + </p> + <p> + Farwell came to a dead halt in the middle of the room. + </p> + <p> + “I know that person!” he said, pointing at Genz, his brow mighty black. “I + saw him and Crowder sneaking into the hotel by the back way, half an hour + ago, and I knew there was some devilish—” + </p> + <p> + “Keep your shirt on, Farwell,” said I. + </p> + <p> + He was pretty hot. “I'll be obliged to you,” he returned, “if you'll + explain what you're doing here in secret with this low hound of Gorgett's. + Do you think you can play with me the way you do with your petty + committee-men? If you do, I'll <i>show</i> you! You're not dealing with a + child, and I'm not going to be tricked or sold out of this elec—” + </p> + <p> + I took him by the shoulders and sat him down hard on a cane-bottomed + chair. “That's a dirty thought,” said I, “and if you knew enough to be + responsible I reckon you'd have to account for it. As it is—why, I + don't care whether you apologize or not.” + </p> + <p> + He weakened right away, or, at least, he saw his mistake. “Then won't you + give me some explanation,” he asked, in a less excitable way, “why are you + closeted here with a notorious member of Gorgett's ring?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I, “I won't.” + </p> + <p> + “Be careful,” said he. “This won't look well in print.” + </p> + <p> + That was just so plumb foolish that I began to laugh at him; and when I + got to laughing I couldn't keep up being angry. It <i>was</i> ridiculous, + his childishness and suspiciousness. Right there was where I made my + mistake. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” says I to Bob Crowder, giving way to the impulse. “He's the + candidate. Tell him.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean it?” asks Bob, surprised. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Tell him the whole thing.” + </p> + <p> + So Bob did, helped by Genz, who was more or less sulky, of course; and is + wasn't long till I saw how stupid I'd been. Knowles went straight up in + the air. + </p> + <p> + “I knew it was a dirty business, politics,” he said, jumping out of his + chair, “but I didn't <i>realize</i> it before. And I'd like to know,” he + went on, turning to me, “how you learn to sit there so calmly and listen + to such iniquities. How do you dull your conscience so that you can do it? + And what course do you propose to follow in the matter of this + confession?” + </p> + <p> + “Me?” I answered. “Why, I'm going to send supper in to our fellows, and + the box'll never see that closet. The man upstairs may get a little tired. + I reckon the laugh's on Gorgett; it's his scheme and—” + </p> + <p> + Farwell interrupted me; his face was outrageously red. “<i>What!</i> You + actually mean you hadn't intended to expose this infamy?” + </p> + <p> + “Steady,” I said. I was getting a little hot, too, and talked more than I + ought. “Mr. Genz here has our pledge that he's not given away, or he'd + never have—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Mister</i> Genz!” sneered Farwell. “<i>Mister</i> Genz has your + pledge, has he? Allow me to tell you that I represent the people, the <i>honest</i> + people, in this campaign, and that the people and I have made no pledges + to <i>Mister</i> Genz. You've paid the scoundrel—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Here!</i>” says Genz. + </p> + <p> + “The scoundrel!” Farwell repeated, his voice rising and rising, “paid him + for his information, and I tell you by that act and your silence on such a + matter you make yourself a party to a conspiracy.” + </p> + <p> + “Shut the transom,” says I to Crowder. + </p> + <p> + “<i>I'm</i> under no pledge, I say,” shouted Farwell, “and I do not + compound felonies. You're not conducting my campaign. I'm doing that, and + I don't conduct it along such lines. It's precisely the kind of fraud and + corruption that I intend to stamp out in this town, and this is where I + begin to work.” + </p> + <p> + “How?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “You'll see—and you'll see soon! The penitentiaries are built for + just this—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Sh, sh!</i>” said I, but he paid no attention. + </p> + <p> + “They say Gorgett owns the Grand Jury,” he went on. “Well, let him! Within + a week I'll be mayor of this town—and Gorgett's Grand Jury won't + outlast his defeat very long. By his own confession this man Genz is party + to a conspiracy with Gorgett, and you and Crowder are witnesses to the + confession. I'll see that you have the pleasure of giving your testimony + before a Grand Jury of determined men. Do you hear me? And tomorrow + afternoon's <i>Herald</i> will have the whole infamous story to the last + word. I give you my solemn oath upon it!” + </p> + <p> + All three of us, Crowder, Genz, and I, sprang to our feet. We were + considerably worked up, and none of us said anything for a minute or so, + just looked at Knowles. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you're a little shocked,” he said. “It's always shocking to men like + you to come in contact with honesty that won't compromise. You needn't + talk to me; you can't say anything that would change me to save your + lives. I've taken my oath upon it, and you couldn't alter me a hair's + breadth if you burned me at a slow fire. Light, light, that's what you + need, the light of day and publicity! I'm going to clear this town of + fraud, and if Gorgett don't wear the stripes for this my name's not + Farwell Knowles! He'll go over the road, handcuffed to a deputy, before + three months are gone. Don't tell me I'm injuring <i>you</i> and the party + by it. Pah! It will give me a thousand more votes. I'm not exactly a + child, my friends! On my honour, the whole thing will be printed in + to-morrow's paper!” + </p> + <p> + “For God's sake—” Crowder broke out, but Knowles cut him off. + </p> + <p> + “I bid you good-afternoon,” he said, sharply. We all started toward him, + but before we'd got half across the room he was gone, and the door slammed + behind him. + </p> + <p> + Bob dropped into a chair; he was looking considerably pale; I guess I was, + too, but Genz was ghastly. + </p> + <p> + “Let me out of here,” he said in a sick voice. “Let me out of here!” + </p> + <p> + “Sit down!” I told him. + </p> + <p> + “Just let me out of here,” he said again. And before I could stop him, + he'd gone, too, in a blind hurry. + </p> + <p> + Bob and I were left alone, and not talking any. + </p> + <p> + Not for a while. Then Bob said: “Where do you reckon he's gone?” + </p> + <p> + “Reckon who's gone?” + </p> + <p> + “Genz.” + </p> + <p> + “To see Lafe.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course he has. What else can he do? He's gone up any way. The best he + can do is to try to square himself a little by owning up the whole thing. + Gorgett will know it all any way, tomorrow afternoon, when the <i>Herald</i> + comes out.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess you're right,” said Bob. “We're done up along with Gorgett; but I + believe that idiot's right, he won't lose votes by playing hob with <i>us</i>. + What's to be done?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” I answered. “You can't head Farwell off. It's all my fault, + Bob.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't there any way to get hold of him? A crazy man could see that his + best friend couldn't <i>beg</i> it out of him, and that he wouldn't spare + any of us; but don't you know of some bludgeon we could hang up over him?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. It's up to Gorgett.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Bob, “Lafe's mighty smart, but it looks like God-help-Gorgett + now!” + </p> + <p> + Well, sir, I couldn't think of anything better to do than to go around and + see Gorgett; so, after waiting long enough for Genz to see him and get + away, I went. Lafe was always cool and slow; but I own I expected to find + him flustered, and was astonished to see right away that he wasn't. He was + smoking, as usual, and wearing his hat, as he always did, indoors and out, + sitting with his feet upon his desk, and a pleasant look of contemplation + on his face. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” says I, “then Genz hasn't been here?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” says he, “he has. I reckon you folks have 'most spoiled Genz's + usefulness for me.” + </p> + <p> + “You're taking it mighty easy,” I told him. + </p> + <p> + “Yep. Isn't it all in the game? What's the use of getting excited because + you've blocked us on one precinct? We'll leave that closet out of our + calculations, that's all.” + </p> + <p> + “Almighty Powers, I don't mean <i>that!</i> Didn't Genz tell you—” + </p> + <p> + “About Mr. Knowles and the <i>Herald</i>? Oh, yes,” he answered, knocking + the ashes off his cigar quietly. “And about the thousand votes he'll gain? + Oh, yes. And about incidentally showing you and Crowder up as bribing Genz + and promising to protect him—making your methods public? Oh, yes. + And about the Grand Jury? Yes, Genz told me. And about me and the + penitentiary. Yes, he told me. Mr. Knowles is a rather excitable young + man. Don't you think so?” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what's the trouble?” + </p> + <p> + “Trouble!” I said. “I'd like to know what you're going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “What's Knowles going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “He's sworn to expose the whole deal, as you've just told me you knew; one + of the preliminaries to having us all up before the next Grand Jury and + sending you and Genz over the road, that's all!” + </p> + <p> + Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, tilting farther back, with his + hands in his pockets and his eyes twinkling under his last summer's straw + hat-brim. + </p> + <p> + “He can't hardly afford it, can he,” he drawled, “he being the + representative of the law and order and purity people? They're mighty + sensitive, those folks. A little thing turns 'em.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I hardly reckoned you would,” he returned. “But I expect if Mr. + Knowles wants it warm all round, <i>I'm</i> willing. We may be able to do + some of the heating up, ourselves.” + </p> + <p> + This surprised me, coming from him, and I felt pretty sore. “You mean, + then,” I said, “that you think you've got a line on something our boys + have been planning—like the way we got onto the closet trick—and + you're going to show <i>us</i> up because we can't control Knowles; that + you hold that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? Then I tell you + plainly I know I can't shut him up, and you can go ahead and do us the + worst you can.” + </p> + <p> + “Whatever little tricks I may or may not have discovered,” he answered, + “that isn't what I mean, though I don't know as I'd be above making such a + threat if I thought it was my only way to keep out of the penitentiary. I + know as well as you do that such a threat would only give Knowles + pleasure. He'd take the credit for forcing me to expose you, and he's + convinced that everything of that kind he does makes him solider with the + people and brings him a step nearer this chair I'm sitting in, which he + regards as a step itself to the governorship and Heaven knows what not. He + thinks he's detached himself from you and your organization till he stands + alone. <i>That</i> boy's head was turned even before you fellows nominated + him. He's a wonder. I've been noticing him long before he turned up as a + candidate, and I believe the great surprise of his life was that John the + Baptist didn't precede and herald <i>him</i>. Oh, no, going for you + wouldn't stop him—not by a thousand miles. It would only do him + good.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what <i>are</i> you going to do? Are you going to see him?” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir!” Lafe spoke sharply. + </p> + <p> + “Well, well! What?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not bothering to run around asking audiences of Farwell Knowleses; + you ought to know that!” + </p> + <p> + “Given it up?” + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly. I've sent a fellow around to talk to him.” + </p> + <p> + “What use will that be?” + </p> + <p> + Gorgett brought his feet down off the desk with a bang. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Then</i> he can come to see <i>me</i>, if he wants to. D'you think + I've been fool enough not to know what sort of man I was going up against? + D'you think that, knowing him as I do, I've not been ready for something + of this kind? And that's all you'll get out of <i>me</i>, this afternoon!” + </p> + <p> + And it was all I did. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It may have been about one o'clock, that night, or perhaps a little + earlier, as I lay tossing about, unable to sleep because I was too much + disturbed in my mind—too angry with myself—when there came a + loud, startling ring at the front-door bell. I got up at once and threw + open a window over the door, calling out to know what was wanted. + </p> + <p> + “It's I,” said a voice I didn't know—a queer, hoarse voice. “Come + down.” + </p> + <p> + “Who's 'I'?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Farwell Knowles,” said the voice. “Let me in!” + </p> + <p> + I started, and looked down. + </p> + <p> + He was standing on the steps where the light of a street-lamp fell on him, + and I saw even by the poor glimmer that something was wrong; he was white + as a dead man. There was something wild in his attitude; he had no hat, + and looked all mixed-up and disarranged. + </p> + <p> + “Come down—come down!” he begged thickly, beckoning me with his arm. + </p> + <p> + I got on some clothes, slipped downstairs without wakening my wife, lit + the hall light, and took him into the library. He dropped in a chair with + a quick breath like a sob, and when I turned from lighting the gas I was + shocked by the change in him since afternoon. I never saw such a look + before. It was like a rat you've seen running along the gutter side of the + curbstone with a terrier after it. + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter, Farwell?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my God!” he whispered. + </p> + <p> + “What's happened?” + </p> + <p> + “It's hard to tell you,” said he. “Oh, but it's hard to tell.” + </p> + <p> + “Want some whiskey?” I asked, reaching for a decanter that stood handy. He + nodded and I gave him good allowance. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” said I, when he'd gulped it down, “let's hear what's turned up.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at me kind of dimly, and I'll be shot if two tears didn't well + up in his eyes and run down his cheeks. “I've come to ask you,” he said + slowly and brokenly, “to ask you—if you won't intercede with Gorgett + for me; to ask you if you won't beg him to—to grant me—an + interview before to-morrow noon.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>What!</i>” + </p> + <p> + “Will you do it?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. Have you asked for an interview with him yourself?” + </p> + <p> + He struck the back of his hand across his forehead—struck hard, too. + </p> + <p> + “Have I tried? I've been following him like a dog since five o'clock this + afternoon, beseeching him to give me twenty minutes' talk in private. He + <i>laughed</i> at me! He isn't a man; he's an iron-hearted devil! Then I + went to his house and waited three hours for him. When he came, all he + would say was that you were supposed to be running this campaign for me, + and I'd better consult with you. Then he turned me out of his house!” + </p> + <p> + “You seem to have altered a little since this afternoon.” I couldn't + resist that. + </p> + <p> + “This afternoon!” he shuddered. “I think that was a thousand years ago!” + </p> + <p> + “What do you want to see him for?” + </p> + <p> + “What for? To see if there isn't a little human pity in him for a + fellow-being in agony—to end my suspense and know whether or not he + means to ruin me and my happiness and my home forever!” + </p> + <p> + Farwell didn't seem to be regarding me so much in the light of a character + as usual; still, one thing puzzled me, and I asked him how he happened to + come to me. + </p> + <p> + “Because I thought if anyone in the world could do anything with Gorgett, + you'd be the one,” he answered. “Because it seemed to me he'd listen to + you, and because I thought—in my wild clutching at the remotest hope—that + he meant to make my humiliation more awful by sending me to you to ask you + to go back to him for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, well,” I said, “I guess if you want me to be of any use you'll have + to tell me what it's all about.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so,” he said, and choked, with a kind of despairing sound; “I + don't see any way out of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Go ahead,” I told him. “I reckon I'm old enough to keep my counsel. Let + it go, Farwell.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know,” he began, with a sharp, grinding of his teeth, “that + dishonourable scoundrel has had me <i>watched</i>, ever since there was + talk of me for the fusion candidate? He's had me followed, <i>shadowed</i>, + till he knows more about me than I do myself.” + </p> + <p> + I saw right there that I'd never really measured Gorgett for as tall as he + really was. “Have a cigar?” I asked Knowles, and lit one myself. But he + shook his head and went on: + </p> + <p> + “You remember my taking you to call on General Buskirk's daughter?” + </p> + <p> + “Quite well,” said I, puffing pretty hard. + </p> + <p> + “An angel! A white angel! And this beast, this <i>boodler</i> has the mud + in his hands to desecrate her white garments!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” says I. + </p> + <p> + The angel's knight began to pace the room as he talked, clinching and + unclinching his hands, while the perspiration got his hair all scraggly on + his forehead. You see Farwell was doing some suffering and he wasn't used + to it. + </p> + <p> + “When she came home from abroad, a year ago,” he said, “it seemed to me + that a light came into my life. I've got to tell you the whole thing,” he + groaned, “but it's hard! Well, my wife is taken up with our little boy and + housekeeping,—I don't complain of her, mind that—but she + really hasn't entered into my ambitions, my inner life. She doesn't often + read my editorials, and when she does, she hasn't been serious in her + consideration of them and of my purposes. Sometimes she differed openly + from me and sometimes greeted my work for truth and light with + indifference! I had learned to bear this, and more; to save myself pain I + had come to shrink from exposing my real self to her. Then, when this + young girl came, for the first time in my life I found real sympathy and + knew what I thought I never should know; a heart attuned to my own, a mind + that sought my own ideals, a soul of the same aspirations—and a + perfect faith in what I was and in what it was my right to attain. She met + me with open hands, and lifted me to my best self. What, unhappily, I did + not find at home, I found in her—encouragement. I went to her in + every mood, always to be greeted by the most exquisite perception, always + the same delicate receptiveness. She gave me a sister's love!” + </p> + <p> + I nodded; I knew he thought so. + </p> + <p> + “Well, when I went into this campaign, what more natural than that I + should seek her ready sympathy at every turn, than that I should consult + with her at each crisis, and, when I became the fusion candidate, that I + should go to her with the news that I had taken my first great step toward + my goal and had achieved thus far in my struggle for the cause of our + hearts—reform?” + </p> + <p> + “You went up to Buskirk's after the convention?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “No; the night before.” He took his head in his hands and groaned, but + without pausing in his march up and down the room. “You remember, it was + known by ten o'clock, after the primaries, that I should receive the + nomination. As soon as I was sure, I went to her; and I found her in the + same state of exaltation and pride that I was experiencing myself. There + was <i>always</i> the answer in her, I tell you, always the response that + such a nature as mine craves. She took both my hands and looked at me just + as a proud sister would. 'I <i>read</i> your news,' she said. 'It is in + your face!' Wasn't that touching? Then we sat in silence for a while, each + understanding the other's joy and triumph in the great blow I had struck + for the right. I left very soon, and she came with me to the door. We + stood for a moment on the step—and—for the first time, the + only time in my life—I received a—a sister's caress.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said I. I understood how Gorgett had managed to be so calm that + afternoon. + </p> + <p> + “It was the purest kiss ever given!” Farwell groaned again. + </p> + <p> + “Who was it saw you?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + He dropped into a chair and I saw the tears of rage and humiliation + welling up again in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “We might as well have been standing by the footlights in a theatre!” he + burst out, brokenly. “Who saw it? Who <i>didn't</i> see it? Gorgett's + sleuth-hound, the man he sent to me this afternoon, for one; the policeman + on the beat that he'd stopped for a chat in front of the house, for + another; a maid in the hall behind us, the policeman's sweetheart <i>she</i> + is, for another! Oh!” he cried, “the desecration! That one caress, one + that I'd thought a sacred secret between us forever—and in plain + sight of those three hideous vulgarians, all belonging to my enemy, + Gorgett! Ah, the horror of it—what <i>horror</i>!” + </p> + <p> + Farwell wrung his hands and sat, gulping as if he were sick, without + speaking for several moments. + </p> + <p> + “What terms did the man he sent offer from Gorgett?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “<i>No</i> terms! He said to go ahead and print my story about the closet; + it was a matter of perfect indifference to him; that he meant to print + this about me in their damnable party-organ tomorrow, in any event, and + only warned me so that I should have time to prepare Miss Buskirk. Of + course he don't care! <i>I'll</i> be ruined, that's all. Oh, the hideous + injustice of it, the unreason! Don't you see the frightful irony of it? + The best thing in my life, the widest and deepest; my friendship with a + good woman becomes a joke and a horror! Don't you see that the personal + scandal about me absolutely undermines me and nullifies the political + scandal of the closet affair? Gorgett will come in again and the Grand + Jury would laugh at any attack on him. I'm ruined for good, for good and + all, for good and all!” + </p> + <p> + “Have you told Miss Buskirk?” + </p> + <p> + He uttered a kind of a shriek. “<i>No!</i> I can't! How could I? What do + you think I'm made of? And there's her father—and all her relatives, + and mine, and my wife—my wife! If she leaves me—” + </p> + <p> + A fit of nausea seemed to overcome him and he struggled with it, + shivering. “My God! Do you think I can <i>face</i> it? I've come to you + for help in the most wretched hour of my life—all darkness, + darkness! Just on the eve of triumph to be stricken down—it's so + cruel, so devilish! And to think of the horrible comic-weekly misery of + it, caught kissing a girl, by a policeman and his sweetheart, the + chambermaid! Ugh! The vulgar ridicule—the hideous laughter!” He + raised his hands to me, the most grovelling figure of a man I ever saw. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, for God's sake, help me, help me....” + </p> + <p> + Well, sir, it was sickening enough, but after he had gone, and I tumbled + into bed again, I thought of Gorgett and laughed myself to sleep with + admiration. + </p> + <p> + When Farwell and I got to Gorgett's office, fairly early the next morning, + Lafe was sitting there alone, expecting us, of course, as I knew he would + be, but in the same characteristic, lazy attitude I'd found him in, the + day before; feet up on the desk, hat-brim tilted 'way forward, cigar in + the right-hand corner of his mouth, his hands in his pockets, his + double-chin mashing down his limp collar. He didn't even turn to look at + us as we came in and closed the door. + </p> + <p> + “Come in, gentlemen, come in,” says he, not moving. “I kind of thought + you'd be along, about this time.” + </p> + <p> + “Looking for us, were you?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said he. “Sit down.” + </p> + <p> + We did; Farwell looking pretty pale and red-eyed, and swallowing a good + deal. + </p> + <p> + There was a long, long silence. We just sat and watched Gorgett. <i>I</i> + didn't want to say anything; and I believe Farwell couldn't. It lasted so + long that it began to look as if the little blue haze at the end of Lafe's + cigar was all that was going to happen. But by and by he turned his head + ever so little, and looked at Knowles. + </p> + <p> + “Got your story for the <i>Herald</i> set up yet?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + Farwell swallowed some more and just shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “Haven't begun to work up the case for the Grand Jury yet?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” answered Farwell, in almost a whisper, his head hanging. + </p> + <p> + “Why,” Lafe said, in a tone of quiet surprise; “you haven't given all that + up, have you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, ain't that strange?” said Lafe. “What's the trouble?” + </p> + <p> + Knowles didn't answer. In fact, I felt mighty sorry for him. + </p> + <p> + All at once, Gorgett's manner changed; he threw away his cigar, the only + time I ever saw him do it without lighting another at the end of it. His + feet came down to the floor and he wheeled round on Farwell. + </p> + <p> + “I understand your wife's a mighty nice lady, Mr. Knowles.” + </p> + <p> + Farwell's head sank lower till we couldn't see his face, only his fingers + working kind of pitifully. + </p> + <p> + “I guess you've had rather a bad night?” said Gorgett, inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my God!” The words came out in a whisper from under Knowles's tilted + hat-brim. + </p> + <p> + “I believe I'd advise you to stick to your wife,” Gorgett went on, + quietly, “and let politics alone. Somehow I don't believe you're the kind + of man for it. I've taken considerable interest in you for some time back, + Mr. Knowles, though I don't suppose you've noticed it until lately; and I + don't believe you understand the game. You've said some pretty hard things + in your paper about me; you've been more or less excitable in your + statements; but that's all right. What I don't like altogether, though, is + that it seems to me you've been really tooting your own horn all the time—calling + everybody dishonest and scoundrels, to shove <i>yourself</i> forward. That + always ends in sort of a lonely position. I reckon you feel considerably + lonely, just now? Well, yesterday, I understand you were talking pretty + free about the penitentiary. Now, that ain't just the way to act, + according to my notion. It's a bad word. Here we are, he and I”—he + pointed to me—“carrying on our little fight according to the rules, + enjoying it and blocking each other, gaining a point here and losing one + there, everything perfectly good-natured, when <i>you</i> turn up and + begin to talk about the penitentiary! That ain't quite the thing. You see + words like that are liable to stir up the passions. It's dangerous. You + were trusted, when they told you the closet story, to regard it as a + confidence—though they didn't go through the form of pledging you—because + your people had given their word not to betray Genz. But you couldn't see + it and there you went, talking about the Grand Jury and stripes and so on, + stirring up passions and ugly feelings. And I want to tell you that the + man who can afford to do that has to be mighty immaculate himself. The + only way to play politics, whatever you're <i>for</i>, is to learn the + game first. Then you'll know how far you can go and what your own record + will stand. There ain't a man alive whose record will stand too much, Mr. + Knowles—and when you get to thinking about that and what your own + is, it makes you feel more like treating your fellow-sinners a good deal + gentler than you would otherwise. Now <i>I've</i> got a wife and two + little girls, and my old mother's proud of me (though you wouldn't think + it) and they'd hate it a good deal to see me sent over the road for + playing the game the best I could as I found it.” + </p> + <p> + He paused for a moment, looking sad and almost embarrassed. “It ain't any + great pleasure to me,” he said, “to think that the people have let it get + to be the game that it is. But I reckon it's good for <i>you</i>. I reckon + the best thing that ever happened to you is having to come here this + morning to ask mercy of a man you looked down on.” + </p> + <p> + Farwell shifted a little in his chair, but he didn't speak, and Gorgett + went on: + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you think it's mighty hard that your private character should + be used against you in a political question by a man you call a public + corruptionist. But I'm in a position where I can't take any chances + against an antagonist that won't play the game my way. I had to find your + vulnerable point to defend myself, and, in finding it, I find that there's + no need to defend myself any longer, because it makes all your weapons + ineffective. I believe the trouble with you, Mr. Knowles, is that you've + never realized that politicians are human beings. But we are: we breathe + and laugh and like to do right, like other folks. And, like most men, + you've thought you were different from other men, and you aren't. So, here + you are. I believe you said you'd had a hard night?” + </p> + <p> + Knowles looked up at last, his lips working for a while before he could + speak. “I'll resign now—if you'll—if you'll let me off,” he + said. + </p> + <p> + Gorgett shook his head. “I've got the election in my hand,” he answered, + “though you fellows don't know it. You've got nothing to offer me, and you + couldn't buy me if you had.” + </p> + <p> + At that, Knowles just sank into himself with a little, faint cry, in a + kind of heap. There wasn't anything but anguish and despair <i>to</i> him. + Big tears were sliding down his cheeks. + </p> + <p> + I didn't say anything. Gorgett sat looking at him for a good while; and + then his fat chin began to tremble a little and I saw his eyes shining in + the shadow under his old hat-brim. + </p> + <p> + He got up and went over to Farwell with slow steps and put his hand gently + on his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Go on home to your wife,” he said, in a low voice that was the saddest I + ever heard. “I don't bear you any ill-will in the world. Nobody's going to + give you away.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE ALIENS + </h2> + <p> + Pietro Tobigili, that gay young chestnut vender—he of the radiant + smiles—gave forth, in his warm tenor, his own interpretation of “Ach + du lieber Augustine,” whenever Bertha, rosy waitress in the little German + restaurant, showed her face at the door. For a month it had been a + courtship; and the merchant sang often: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +<i>“Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross.”</i> +</pre> + <p> + The acquaintance, begun by the song and Pietro's wonderful laugh, had + grown tender. The chestnut vender had a way with him; he looked like the + “Neapolitan Fisher Lad” of the chromos, and you could have fancied him of + two centuries ago, putting a rose in his hair; even as it was, he had the + ear-rings. But the smile of him it was that won Bertha, when she came to + work in the little restaurant. It was a smile that put the world at its + ease; it proclaimed the coming of morning over the meadows, and, taking + every bystander into an April friendship, ran on suddenly into a laugh + that was like silver, and like a strange puppy's claiming you for the lost + master. + </p> + <p> + So it befell that Bertha was fascinated; that, blushing, she laughed back + to him, and was nothing offended when, at his first sight of her, he + rippled out at once into “Ahaha, du libra Ogostine.” + </p> + <p> + Within two weeks he was closing his business (no intricate matter) every + evening, to walk home with her, through the September moonlight. Then + extraordinary things happened to the English language. + </p> + <p> + “I ain'd nefer can like no foreigner!” she often joked back to a question + of his. “Nefer, nefer! you t'ink I'm takin' up mit a hant-orkan maan, + Mister Toby?” + </p> + <p> + Whereupon he would carol out the tender taunt, “Ahaha, du libra Ogostine!” + </p> + <p> + “Yoost a hant-orkan maan!” + </p> + <p> + “No! <i>No</i>! No oragan! I am a greata—greata merchant. Vote a + Republican! Polititshian! To-bigli, Chititzen Republican. Naturalasize! + March in a parade!” + </p> + <p> + Never lived native American prouder of his citizenship than this adopted + one. Had he not voted at the election? Was he not a member of the great + Republican party? He had eagerly joined it, for the reason that he had + been a Republican in Italy, and he had drawn with him to the polls his + second cousin, Leo Vesschi, and the five other Italians with whom he + lived. For this, he had been rewarded by Pixley, his precinct + committee-man, who allowed him to carry pink torches in three night + processions. + </p> + <p> + “You keeb oud politigs,” said Bertha, earnestly, one evening. “My uncle, + Louie Gratz, he iss got a neighbour-lady; her man gone in politigs. After<i>vorts</i> + he git it! He iss in der bennidenshierry two years. You know why?” + </p> + <p> + “Democrat!” shouted the chestnut vender triumphantly. + </p> + <p> + “No, sir! Yoost politigs,” replied the unpartisan Bertha. “You keeb oud + politigs.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +<i>“Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross.”</i> +</pre> + <p> + The song was always a teasing of her and carried all his friendly laughter + at her, because of her German ways; but it became softly exultant whenever + she betrayed her interest in him. + </p> + <p> + “Libra Ogostine, she afraid I go penitensh?” he inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Me!” she jeered with uneasy laughter. “<i>I</i> ain'd care! but you—you + don' look oud, you git in dod voikhouse!” + </p> + <p> + He turned upon her, suddenly, a face like a mother's, and touched her hand + with a light caress. + </p> + <p> + “I stay in a workhouse sevena-hunder' year,” he said gently, “you come + seeta by window some-a-time.” + </p> + <p> + At this Bertha turned away, was silent for a space, leaning on the + gate-post in front of her uncle's house, whither they were now come. + Finally she answered brokenly: “I ain'd sit by no vinder for yoost a + jessnut maan.” This was her way of stimulating his ambition. + </p> + <p> + “Ahaha!” he cried. “You don' know? I'm goin' buy beeg stan'! Candy! + Peanut! Banan'! Make some-a-time four dollar a day! 'Tis a greata countra! + Bimaby git a store! Ride a buggy! Smoke a cigar! You play piano! Vote a + Republican!” + </p> + <p> + “Toby!” + </p> + <p> + “Tis true!” + </p> + <p> + “Toby,” she said tearfully; “Toby, you voik hart, und safe your money?” + </p> + <p> + “You help?” he whispered. + </p> + <p> + “I help—<i>you</i>!” she cried loudly. Then, with a sudden fit of + sobbing, she flung open the gate and ran at the top of her speed into the + house. + </p> + <p> + Halcyon the days for Pietro Tobigli, extravagant the jocularity of this + betrothed one. And, as his happiness, so did his prosperity increase; the + little chestnut furnace became the smallest adjunct of his affairs; for he + leaped (almost at one bound) to the proprietorship of a wooden stand, + shaped like the crate of an upright piano and backed up against the brick + wall of the restaurant—a mercantile house which was closed at night + by putting the lid on. All day long Toby's smile arrested pedestrians, and + compelled them to buy of him, making his wares sweeter in the mouth. + Bertha dwelt in a perpetual serenade: on warm days, when the restaurant + doors were open, she could hear him singing, not always “Ogostine,” but + festal lilts of Italy, liquid and strangely sweet to her; and at such + times, when the actual voice was not in her ears, still she blushed with + delight to hear in her heart the thrilling echoes of his barcaroles, and + found them humming cheerily upon her own lips. + </p> + <p> + Toby was to save five hundred dollars before they married, a great sum, + but they were patient and both worked very hard. The winter would have + fallen bitterly upon an outdoor merchant lacking Toby's confident heart, + but on the coldest days, when Bertha looked out, she always found him + slapping his hands, and trudging up and down in the snow in front of the + little box; and, as soon as he caught sight of her—“Aha-ha, du libra + Ogostine, Ogostine, Ogostine!” + </p> + <p> + She saved her own money with German persistence, and on Christmas day her + present to her betrothed, in return for a coral pin, was a pair of rubber + boots filled with little cakes. + </p> + <p> + Elysium was the dwelling-place of Pietro Tobigli, though, apparently, he + abode in a horrible slum cellar with Leo Vesschi and the five Latti + brothers. In this place our purveyor of sweetmeats was the only light. + Thither he had carried his songs and his laugh and his furnace when he + came from Italy to join Vesschi; and there he remained, partly out of + loyalty to his un-prosperous comrades, and partly because his share of the + expense was only twenty-five cents a week, and every saving was a saving + for Bertha. Every evening, on the homeward walk, the affianced pair passed + the hideous stairway that led down to the cellar, and Bertha, neat soul, + never failed to shudder at it. She did not know that Pietro lived there, + for he feared it might distress her; nor could she ever persuade him to + tell her where he lived. + </p> + <p> + Because of this mystery, upon which he merrily insisted, she affected a + fear that he would some day desert her. “You don' tell me where you lif, I + t'ink you goin' ran away of me, Toby. I vake opp some day; git a ledder + dod you gone back home by 'Talian lady dod's grazy 'bout you!” + </p> + <p> + “Ahaha! Libra Ogostine, you believe I can make a write weet a pen-a-paper? + I don' know that-a <i>how</i>. Some-a-time you <i>see</i> that gran' + palazzo where I leef. Eesa greata-great sooraprise!” + </p> + <p> + In the gran' palazzo, it was as much as he could do to keep clean his own + grim little bunk in the corner. His comrades, sullen, hopeless, came at + evening from ten hours' desperate shovelling, and exhibited no ambition + for water or brooms, but sat hunched and silent, or morosely muttering and + coughing, in the dark room with its sodden earthen floor, stained walls, + and one smoky lamp. + </p> + <p> + To this uncomfortable chamber repaired, one March evening, Mr. Frank + Pixley, Republican precinct committee-man, nor was its dinginess an + unharmonious setting for that political brilliant. He was a pock-pitted, + damp-looking, soiled little fungus of a man, who had attained to his + office because, in the dirtiest precinct of the wickedest ward in the + city, he had, through the operation of a befitting ingenuity, forced a + recognition of his leadership. From such an office, manned by a Pixley, + there leads an upward ramification of wires, invisible to all except + manipulators, which extends to higher surfaces. Usually the Pixley is a + deep-sea puppet, wholly controlled by the dingily gilded wires that run + down to him; but there are times when the Pixley gives forth initial + impulses of his own, such as may alter the upper surface; for, in a system + of this character, every twitch is felt throughout the whole ramification. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, boys,” the committee-man called out with automatic geniality, as + he descended the broken steps. “How are ye? All here? That's good; that's + the stuff! Good work!” + </p> + <p> + Only Toby replied with more than an indifferent grunt; but he ran forward, + carrying an empty beer keg which he placed as a seat for the guest. + </p> + <p> + “Aha<i>ha</i>, Meesa Peeslay! Make a parade? Torchlight? Bandaplay—ta + ra, la la la? Firework? Fzzz! Boum! Eh?” + </p> + <p> + The politician responded to Toby's extravagantly friendly laughter with + some mechanical cachinnations which, like an obliging salesman, he turned + on and off with no effort. “Not by a dern sight!” he answered. “The + campaign ain't begun yet.” + </p> + <p> + “Champagne?” inquired Tobigli politely. + </p> + <p> + “Campaign, campaign,” explained Pixley. “Not much champagne in yours!” he + chuckled beneath his breath. “Blame lucky to git Chicago bowl!” + </p> + <p> + “What is that, that campaign?” + </p> + <p> + “Why—why, it's the campaign. Workin' up public sentiment; gittin' + you boys in line, 'lect-ioneerin'—fixin' it <i>right</i>.” + </p> + <p> + Tobigli shook his head. “Campaign?” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Why—Gee, <i>you</i> know! Free beer, cigars, speakin', handshaking, + paradin'—” + </p> + <p> + “Ahaha!” The merchant sprang to his feet with a shout. “Yes! Hoor-r-ra! + Vote a Republican! Dam-a Democrat!” + </p> + <p> + “That's it,” replied the committee-man somewhat languidly. “You see, this + is a Republican precinct, and it turns the ward—” + </p> + <p> + “Allaways a Republican!” vociferated Pietro. “That eesa right?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said the other, “of course, whichever way you go, you want to + follow your precinct committee-man—that's me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yess! Vote a Republican.” + </p> + <p> + Pixley looked about the room, his little red eyes peering out cannily from + under his crooked brows at each of the sulky figures in the damp shadows. + </p> + <p> + “You boys all vote the way Pete says?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Vote same Pietro,” answered Vesschi. “Allaways.” + </p> + <p> + “Allaways a Republican,” added Pietro sparkingly, with abundant gesture. + “'Tis a greata-great countra. Republican here same a Republican at home—eena + Etallee. Republican eternall! All good Republican eena thees house! + Hoor-r-ra!” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Pixley, with a furtiveness half habit, as he rose to go, “of + course, you want to keep your eye on your committee-man, and kind of + foller along with him, whatever he does. That's me.” He placed a dingy + bottle on the keg. “I jest dropped in to see how you boys were gittin' + along—mighty tidy little place you got here.” He changed the stub of + his burnt-out cigar to the other side of his mouth, shifting his eyes in + the opposite direction, as he continued benevolently: “I thought I'd look + in and leave this bottle o' gin fer ye, with my compliments. I'll be + around ag'in some evenin', and I reckon before 'lection day comes there + may be somep'n doin'—I might have better fer ye than a bottle. Keep + your eye on me, boys, an' foller the leader. That's the idea. So long!” + </p> + <p> + “Vote a Republican!” Pietro shouted after him gaily. + </p> + <p> + Pixley turned. + </p> + <p> + “Jest foller yer leader,” he rejoined. “That's the way to learn politics, + boys.” + </p> + <p> + Now as the rough spring wore on into the happier season, with the days + like spiced warm wine, when people on the street are no longer driven by + the weather but are won by it to loiter; now, indeed, did commerce at + Toby's new stand so mightily thrive that, when summer came, Bertha was + troubled as to the safety of Toby's profits. + </p> + <p> + “You yoost put your money by der builtun-loan 'sociation, Toby,” she + advised gently. “Dey safe ut fer you.” + </p> + <p> + “T'ree hunder' fifta dolla—<i>no</i>!” answered her betrothed. “I + keep in de pock'!” He showed her where the bills were pinned into his + corduroy waistcoat pocket. “See! Eesa <i>yau!</i> Onna my heart, libra + Ogostine!” + </p> + <p> + “Toby, uf you ain'd dake ut by der builtun-loan, <i>blease</i> put ut in + der bink?” + </p> + <p> + “I keep!” he repeated, shaking his head seriously. “In t'ree-four mont' + eesa five-hunder-dolla. Nobody but me eesa tross weet that money.” + </p> + <p> + Nor could Bertha persuade him. It was their happiness he watched over. Who + to guard it as he, the dingy, precious parcel of bills? He pictured for + himself a swampy forest through which he was laying a pathway to Bertha, + and each of the soiled green notes that he pinned in his waistcoat was a + strip of firm ground he had made, over which he advanced a few steps + nearer her. And Bertha was very happy, even forgetting, for a while, to be + afraid of the smallpox, which had thrown out little flags, like auction + signs, here and there about the city. + </p> + <p> + When the full heat of summer came, Pietro laughed at the dog-days; and it + was Bertha's to suffer in the hot little restaurant; but she smiled and + waved to Pietro, so that he should not know. Also she made him sell iced + lemonade and birch beer, which was well for the corduroy waistcoat pocket. + Never have you seen a more alluring merchant. One glance toward the stand; + you caught that flashing smile, the owner of it a-tip-toe to serve you; + and Pietro managed, too, by a light jog to the table on which stood his + big, bedewed, earthen jars, that you became aware of the tinkle of ice and + a cold, liquid murmur—what mortal could deny the inward call and + pass without stopping to buy? + </p> + <p> + There fell a night in September when Bertha beheld her lover glorious. She + had been warned that he was to officiate in the great opening function of + the campaign; and she stood on the corner for an hour before the head of + the procession appeared. On they came—Pietro's party, three thousand + strong; brass bands, fireworks, red fire, tumultuous citizens, political + clubs, local potentates in open carriages, policemen, boys, dogs, bicycles—the + procession doing all the cheering for itself, the crowds of spectators + only feebly responding to this enthusiasm, as is our national custom. At + the end of it all marched a plentiful crew of tatterdemalions, a few + bleared white men, and the rest negroes. They bore aloft a crazy + transparency, exhibiting the legend: + </p> + <h3> + “FRANK PIXLEY'S HARD-MONEY LEAGUE. + </h3> + <h3> + WE STAND FOR OUR PRINCIPALS. + </h3> + <h3> + WE ARE SOLLID! + </h3> + <h3> + NO FOOLING THE PEOPLE GOES! + </h3> + <h3> + WE VOTE AS ONE MAN FOR + </h3> + <h3> + TAYLOR P. SINGLETON!” + </h3> + <p> + Bertha's eyes had not rested upon Toby where they innocently sought him, + in the front ranks, even scanning the carriages, seeking him in all + positions which she conceived as highest in honour, and she would have + missed him altogether, had not there reached her, out of chaotic clamours, + a clear, high, rollicking tenor: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +<i>“Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross!”</i> +</pre> + <p> + Then the eager eyes found their pleasure, for there, in the last line of + Pixley's pirates, the very tail of the procession, danced Pietro Tobigli, + waving his pink torch at her, proud, happy, triumphant, a true Republican, + believing all company equal in the republic, and the rear rank as good as + the first. + </p> + <p> + “Vote a Republican!” he shouted. “Republican—Republican eternall!” + </p> + <p> + Strangely enough, a like fervid protestation (vociferated in greeting) + evoked no reciprocal enthusiasm in the breast of Mr. Pixley, when the + committee-man called upon Toby and his friends at their apartment one + evening, a fortnight later. + </p> + <p> + “That's right,” he responded languidly. “That's right in gineral, I <i>should</i> + say. Cert'nly, in <i>gineral</i>, I ain't got no quarrel with no man's + Republicanism. But this here's kind of a put-tickler case, boys. The + election's liable to be mighty close.” + </p> + <p> + “Republican win!” laughed Toby. “Meelyun man eena parade!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pixley's small eyes lowered furtively. He glanced once toward the + door, stroked his stubby chin, and answered softly: “Don't you be too sure + of that, young feller. Them banks is fightin' each other ag'in!” + </p> + <p> + “Bank? Fight? W'at eesa that?” inquired the merchant, with an entirely + blank mind. + </p> + <p> + “There's one thing it <i>ain't</i>,” replied the other, in the same + confidential tone. “It ain't no two-by-four campaign. All I got to say to + you boys is: 'Foller yer leader'—and you'll wear pearl + collar-buttons!” + </p> + <p> + “Vote a Republican,” interjected Leo Vesschi gutturally. + </p> + <p> + The furtiveness of Mr. Pixley increased. + </p> + <p> + “Well—mebbe,” he responded, very deliberately. “I reckon I better + put you boys next, right now's well's any other time. Ain't nothin' ever + gained by not bein' open 'n' above-board; that's my motto, and I ack up to + it. You kin ast 'em, jest ast the boys, and you'll hear it from + each-an-dall: 'Frank Pixley's <i>square</i>!' That's what they'll tell ye. + Now see here, this is the way it is. I ain't worryin' much about who goes + to the legislature, or who's county-commissioners, nor none o' <i>that. + Why</i> ain't I worryin'? Because it's picayune. It's peanut politics. It + ain't where the money is. No, sir, this campaign is on the treasurership. + Taylor P. Singleton is runnin' fer treasurer on the Republican ticket, and + Gil. Maxim on the Democratic. But that ain't where the fight is.” Mr. + Pixley spat contemptuously. “Pah! whichever of 'em gits it won't no more'n + draw his salary. It's the banks. If Singleton wins out, the Washington + National gits the use of the county's money fer the term; if Maxim's + elected, Florenheim's bank gits it. Florenheim laid down the cash fer + Maxim's nomination, and the Washington National fixed it fer Singleton. + And it's big money, don't you git no wrong idea about <i>that</i>!” + </p> + <p> + “Vote a Republican,” said Toby politely. + </p> + <p> + A look of pain appeared upon the brow of the committee-man. + </p> + <p> + “I reckon I ain't hardly made myself clear,” he observed, somewhat + plaintively. “Now here, you listen: I reckon it would be kind of resky to + trust you boys to scratch the ticket—it's a mixed up business, + anyway—” + </p> + <p> + “Vote a straight!” cried Pietro, nodding his head, cheerfully. “<i>Yess!</i> + I teach Leo; yess, teach all these”—he waved his hands to indicate + the melancholy listeners—“teach them all. Stamp in a circle by that + eagle. Vote a Republican!” + </p> + <p> + “What I was goin' to say,” went on the official, exhibiting tokens of + impatience and perturbation, “was that if we <i>should</i> make any switch + this year, I guess you boys would have to switch straight.” + </p> + <p> + “'Tis true!” was the hearty response. “Vote a straight Republican. + Republican eternall!” + </p> + <p> + Pixley wiped his forehead with a dirty handkerchief, and scratched his + head. “See here,” he said, after a pause, to Toby. “I've got to go down to + Collins's saloon, and I'd like to have you come along. Feel like going?” + </p> + <p> + “Certumalee,” answered Toby with alacrity, reaching for his hat. + </p> + <p> + But no one could have been more surprised than the chestnut vender when, + on reaching the vacant street, his companion glancing cautiously about, + beckoned him into the darkness of an alley-way, and, noiselessly upsetting + a barrel, indicated it as a seat for both. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” said Pixley, “I reckon this is better. Jest two men by theirselves + kin fix up a thing like this a lot quicker, and I seen you didn't want to + talk too much before <i>them</i>. You make your own deal with 'em + afterwards, or none at all, jest as you like! They'll do whatever you say, + anyway. I sized you up to run <i>that</i> bunch, first time I ever laid + eyes on the outfit. Now see here, Pete, you listen to me. I reckon I kin + turn a little trick here that'll do you some good. You kin bet I see that + the men I pick fer my leaders—like you, Pete—git their rights! + Now here: there's you and the other six, that's seven; it'll be three + dollars in your pocket if you deliver the goods.” + </p> + <p> + “No! no!” said Pietro in earnest protestation. “We seven a good + Republican. We vote a Republican—same las' time, all a time. Eesa + not a need to pay us to vote a Republican. You save that a money, Meesa + Peaslay.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't understand,” groaned Pixley, with an inclination to weep over + the foreigner's thick-headedness. “There's a chance fer a big deal here + for all the boys in the precinck. Gil. Maxim's backers'll pay <i>big</i> + fer votes enough to swing it. The best of 'em don't know where they're at, + I tell you. Now here, you see here”—he took an affectionate grip of + Pietro's collar—“I'm goin' to have a talk with Maxim's manager + to-morrow, I've had one or two a'ready, and I'll put up the price all + round on them people. It's no more'n right, when you count up what we're + doin' fer them. Look here, you swing them six in line and march 'em up, + and all of ye stamp the rooster instead of the eagle this time, and help + me to show Maxim that Frank Pixley's there with the goods, and I'll hand + you a five-dollar bill and a full box o' <i>ci</i>gars, see?” + </p> + <p> + Pietro nodded and smiled through the darkness. “Stamp that eagle!” he + answered, “Eesa all <i>right</i>, Meesa Peasley. Don't you have afraid. We + all seven a good Republican! Stamp that eagle! Hoor-r-ra! Republican <i>eternall</i>!” + </p> + <p> + Pixley was left sitting on the barrel, looking after the light figure of + the young man joyously tripping back to the cellar, and turning to wave a + hand in farewell from the street. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I <i>am</i> damned!” the politician remarked, with unwitting + veracity. “Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely + didn't un'erstand fer honest?” Then, as he took up his way, crossing the + street at the warning of some red and green smallpox lanterns, “I'll git + those seven votes, though, <i>someway</i>. I'm out fer a record this time, + and I'll <i>git</i> 'em!” + </p> + <p> + Bertha went with her fiancé to select the home that was to be theirs. They + found a clean, tidy, furnished room, with a canary bird thrown in, and + Toby, in the wild joy of his heart, seized his sweetheart round the waist + and tried to force her to dance under the amazed eyes of the landlady. + </p> + <p> + “You yoost behafed awful!” exclaimed the blushing waitress that evening, + with tears of laughter at the remembrance. + </p> + <p> + She was as happy as her lover, except for two small worries that she had: + she feared that her uncle, Louie Gratz, with whom she lived, or one of her + few friends, might, when they found she was to marry Toby, allude to him + as a “Dago,” in which case she had an intuition that he would slap the + offender; and she was afraid of the smallpox, which had caused the + quarantine of two shanties not far from her uncle's house. The former of + her fears she did not mention, but the latter she spoke of frequently, + telling Pietro how Gratz was panic-stricken, and talked of moving, and how + glad she was that Toby's “gran' palazzo” was in another quarter of the + city, as he had led her to believe. Laughing her humours almost away, he + told her that the red and green lanterns, threatening murkily down the + street, were for only wicked ones, like that Meesa Peaslay, for whom she + discovered, Pietro's admiration had diminished. And when she thought of + the new home—far across the city from the ugly flags and lanterns—the + tiny room with its engraving of the “Rock of Ages” and its canary, she + forgot both her troubles entirely; for now, at last, the marvellous fact + was assured: the five hundred dollars was pinned into the waistcoat + pocket, lying upon Pietro's heart day and night, the precious lump that + meant to him Bertha and a home. The good Republican set election-day for + the happiest holiday of his life, for that would be his wedding-day. + </p> + <p> + He left her at her own gate, the evening before that glorious day, and + sang his way down the street, feeling that he floated on the airy uplift + of his own barcarole beneath sapphire skies, for Bertha had put her arms + about him at last. + </p> + <p> + “Toby,” she said, “lieber Toby, I am so all-lofing by you—you are + sitch a good maan—I am so—so—I am yoost all-<i>lofing</i> + by you!” And she cried heartily upon his shoulder. “Toby, uf you ain'd + here for me to-morrow by eckseckly dwelf o'glock, uf you are von minutes + late, I'm goin' yoost fall down deat! Don' you led nothings happen mit + you, Toby.” + </p> + <p> + And she had whispered to him, in love with his old tender mockery of her, + to sing “Libra Ogostine” for her before he said good-night. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pixley, again seated upon the barrel which he had used for his + interview with Toby, beheld the transfigured face of the young man as the + chestnut vender passed the mouth of the alley, and the committee-man + released from his soul a burdening profanity in the ear of his companion + and confidant, a policeman who would be on duty in Pixley's precinct on + the morrow, and who had now reported for instructions not necessarily + received in a too public rendezvous. + </p> + <p> + “After I talked to him out here on this very barrel,” said Pixley, his + anathema concluded, “I raised the bid on him; yessir, you kin skin me fer + a dead skunk if I didn't offer him ten dollars and a box of <i>cigars</i> + fer the bunch; and him jest settin' there laughin' like a plumb fool and + tellin' me I didn't need to worry, they'd all vote Republican fer nothin'! + Talked like a parrot: 'Vote a Republican! Republican eternal!' <i>Republican</i>! + Faugh, he don't know no more why he's a Republican than a yeller dog'd + know! I went around to-night, when he was out, thought mebbe I could fix + it up with the others. No, <i>sir</i>! Couldn't git nothing out of 'em + except some more parrot-cackle: 'Vote same Petro. All a good Republican!' + It's enough to sicken a man!” + </p> + <p> + “Do we need his gang bad?” inquired the policeman deferentially. + </p> + <p> + “I need everybody bad! This is a good-sized job fer me, and I want to do + it right. Throwin' the precinck to Maxim is goin' to do me <i>some</i> + wrong with the Republican crowd, even if they don't git on that it was + throwed; and I want to throw it <i>good</i>! I couldn't feel like I'd done + right if I didn't. I've give my word that they'll git a majority of + sixty-eight votes, and that'll be jest twicet as much in my pocket as a + plain majority. And I want them seven Dagoes! I've give up on <i>votin</i>' + 'em; it can't be done. It'd make a saint cuss to try to reason with 'em, + and it's no good. They can't be fooled, neither. They know where the polls + is, and they know how to vote—blast the Australian ballot system! + The most that can be done is to keep 'em away from the polls.” + </p> + <p> + “Can't you git 'em out of town in the morning?” + </p> + <p> + “D'you reckon I ain't tried that? <i>No</i>, sir! That Dago wouldn't take + a pass to <i>heaven</i>! Everything else is all right. Doc Morgan's + niggers stays right here and <i>votes</i>. I <i>know</i> them boys, and + they'll walk up and stamp the rooster all right, all right. Them other + niggers, that Hell-Valley gang, ain't that kind; and them and Tooms's + crowd's goin' to be took out to Smelter's ice-houses in three express + wagons at four o'clock in the morning. It ain't goin' to cost over two + dollars a head, whiskey and all. Then, Dan Kelly is fixed, and the Loo + boys. Mike, I don't like to brag, and I ain't around throwin' no bokays at + myself as a reg'lar thing, but I want to say right, here, there ain't + another man in this city—no, nor the State neither—that could + of worked his precinck better'n I have this. I tell you, I'm within five + or six votes of the majority they set for their big money.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you give the Dagoes up altogether?” + </p> + <p> + “No, by——!” cried the committee-man harshly, bringing his + dirty fist down on the other's knee. “Did you ever hear of Frank Pixley + weakenin'? Did you ever see the man that said Frank Pixley wasn't game?” + He rose to his feet, a ragged and sinister silhouette against the + sputtering electric light at the alley mouth. “Didn't you ever hear that + Frank Pixley had a barrel of schemes to any other man's bucket o' wind? + What's Frank Pixley's repitation, lemme ast you that? I git what I go + after, don't I? Now look here, you listen to me,” he said, lowering his + voice and shaking a bent forefinger earnestly in the policeman's face; + “I'm goin' to turn the trick. And I <i>ought</i> to do it, too. That there + Pete, he ain't worth the powder to blow him up—you couldn't learn + him no politics if you set up with him night after night fer a year. + Didn't I <i>try? Try</i>? I dern near bust my head open jest thinkin' up + ways to make the flathead <i>see</i>. And he wouldn't make no effort, jest + set there and parrot out 'Vote a Republican!' He's ongrateful, that's what + he is. Well, him and them other Dagoes are goin' to stay at home fer two + weeks, beginnin' to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll be dogged if I see how,” said the policeman, lifting his helmet to + scratch his head. + </p> + <p> + “I'll show you how. I don't claim no credit fer the idea, I ain't around + blowin' my own horn too often, but I'd like fer somebody to jest show me + any other man in this city could have thought it out! I'd like to be + showed jest one, that's all, jest one! Now, you look here; you see that + nigger shanty over there, with the smallpox lanterns outside?” + </p> + <p> + The policeman shivered slightly. “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Look here; they're rebuildin' the pest-house, ain't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Leavin' smallpox patients in their own holes under quarantine guard till + they git a place to put 'em, ain't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “You know how many niggers in that shack?” + </p> + <p> + “Four, ain't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Yessir, four of 'em. One died to-night, another's goin' to, another ain't + tellin' which way he's goin' yit; and the last one, Joe Cribbins, was the + first to take it; and he's almost plumb as good as ever ag'in. He's up and + around the house, helpin' nurse the sick ones, and fit fer hard labour. + Now look here; that nigger does what I <i>tell</i> him and he does it + quick—see? Well, he knows what I want him to do to-night. So does + Charley Gruder, the guard over there. Charley's fixed; I seen to that; and + he knows he ain't goin' to lose no job fer the nigger's gittin' out of the + back winder to go make a little sociable call this evening.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” exclaimed the policeman, startled; “Charley ain't goin' to let + that nigger out!” + </p> + <p> + “Ain't he? Oh, you needn't worry, he ain't goin' <i>fur</i>! All he's + waiting fer is fer you to give the signal.” + </p> + <p> + “Me!” The man in the helmet drew back. + </p> + <p> + “Yessir, you! You walk out there and lounge up towards the drug-store and + jest look over to Charley and nod twice. Then you stand on the corner and + watch and see what you see. When you <i>see</i> it, you yell fer Charley + and git into the drug store telephone, and call up the health office and + git their men up here and into that Dago cellar like hell! The nigger'll + be there. They don't know him, and he'll just drop in to try and sell the + Dagoes some policy tickets. You understand <i>me</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Mother Mary in heaven!” The policeman sprang up. “What are you going to + do?” + </p> + <p> + “What am I going to do?” shrilled the other, the light of a monstrous + pride in his little eyes. “I'm goin' to quarantine them Dagoes fer + fourteen days. They'll learn some politics before I git through with 'em. + Maybe they'll know enough United States language to foller their leader + next time!” + </p> + <p> + “By all that's mighty, Pixley,” said the policeman, with an admiration + that was almost reverence, “you <i>are</i> a schemer!” + </p> + <p> + “Mein Gott!” screeched Bertha's uncle, snapping his teeth fiercely on his + pipe-stem, as he flung open the door of the girl's room. “You want to + disgraze me mit der whole neighbourhoot, 'lection night? Quid ut! Stob ut! + Beoples in der streed stant owidside und litzen to dod grying. You <i>voult</i> + goin' to marry mit a Dago mens, voult you! Ha, ha! Soife you right! He run + away!” The old man laughed unamiably. “Ha, ha! Dago mens foolt dod smard + Bertha. Dod's pooty tough. But, bei Gott, you stop dod noise und ect lige + a detzent voomans, or you goin' haf droubles mit your uncle Louie Gratz!” + </p> + <p> + But Bertha, an undistinguishable heap on the floor of the unlit room, only + gasped brokenly for breath and wept on. + </p> + <p> + “Ach, ach, ach, lieber Gott in Himmel!” sobbed Bertha. “Why didn't Toby + come for me? Ach, ach! What iss happened mit Toby? Somedings iss happened—I + <i>know</i> ut!” + </p> + <p> + “Ya, ya!” jibed Gratz; “somedings iss heppened, I bet you! Brop'ly he's + got anoder vife, dod's vot heppened! Brop'ly <i>leffing</i> ad you mit + anoder voomans! Vot for dit he nefer tolt you vere he lif? So you voultn't + ketch him; dod's der reason! You're a pooty vun, <i>you</i> are! Runnin' + efter a doity Dago mens! Bei Gott! you bedder git oop und back your + glo'es, und stob dod gryin'. I'm goin' to mofe owid to-morrow; und you kin + go verefer you blease. I ain'd goin' to sday anoder day in sitch a + neighbourhoot. Fife more smallpox lanterns yoost oop der streed. I'm goin' + mofe glean to der oder ent of der city. Und you can come by me or you can + run efter your Dago mens und his voomans! Dod's why he dittn't come to + marry you, you grazy—ut's a voomans!” + </p> + <p> + “No, <i>no</i>,” screamed Bertha, stopping her ears with her forefingers. + “Lies, lies, lies!” + </p> + <p> + A slatternly negro woman dawdled down the street the following afternoon, + and, encountering a friend of like description near the cottage which had + been tenanted by Louie Gratz and his niece, paused for conversation. + </p> + <p> + “Howdy, honey,” she began, leaning restfully against the gate-post. “How's + you ma?” + </p> + <p> + “She right spry,” returned the friend. “How you'self an' you good husban', + Miz Mo'ton?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Morton laughed cheerily. “Oh, he enjoyin' de 'leckshum. He 'uz on de + picnic yas'day, to Smeltuh's ice-houses; an' 'count er Mist' Maxim's + gittin' 'lected, dey gi'n him bottle er whiskey an' two dollahs. He up at + de house now, entuhtainin' some ge'lemenfrien's wi'de bones, honey.” + </p> + <p> + “Um hum.” The other lady sighed reflectively. “I on'y wisht my po' husban' + could er live to enjoy de fruits er politics.” + </p> + <p> + “Yas'm,” returned Mrs. Morton. “You right. It are a great intrus' in a + man's life. Dat what de ornator say in de speech f'm de back er de groce'y + wagon, yas'm, a great intrus' in a man's life. Decla'h, I b'lieve Goe'ge + think mo' er politics dan he do er me! Well ma'am,” she concluded, + glancing idly up and down the street and leaning back more comfortably + against the gatepost, “I mus' be goin' on my urrant.” + </p> + <p> + “What urrant's dat?” inquired the widow. + </p> + <p> + “Mighty quare urrant,” replied Mrs. Morton. “Mighty quare urrant, honey. + You see back yon'eh dat new smallpox flag?” + </p> + <p> + “Sho.” + </p> + <p> + “Well ma'am, night fo' las', dat Joe Cribbins, dat one-eye nigger what + sell de policy tickets, an's done be'n havin' de smallpox, he crope out de + back way, when's de gyahd weren't lookin', an', my Lawd, ef dey ain't + ketch him down in dat Dago cellar, tryin' sell dem Dagoes policy tickets! + Yahah, honey!” Mrs. Morton threw back her head to laugh. “Ain't dat de + beatenest nigger, dat one-eyed Joe?” + </p> + <p> + “What den, Miz Mo'ton?” pursued the listener. + </p> + <p> + “Den dey quahumteem dem Dagoes; sot a gyahd dah: you kin see him settin' + out dah now. Well ma'am, 'cordin' to dat gyahd, one er dem Dagoes like ter + go inter fits all day yas'day. Dat man hatter go in an' quiet him down + ev'y few minute'. Seem 't he boun' sen' a message an' cain't git no one to + ca'y it fer him. De gyahd, he cain't go; he willin' sen' de message, but + cain't git nobody come nigh enough de place fer to tell 'em what it is. + 'Sides, it 'leckshum-day, an' mos' folks hangin' 'roun' de polls. Well + ma'am, dis aft'noon, I so'nter'n by, an' de gyahd holler out an' ask me do + I want make a dollah, an' I say I do. I ain't 'fraid no smallpox, done had + it two year' ago. So I say I take de message.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Law, honey, it ain't wrote. Dem Dago folks hain't got no writin' ner + readin'. Dey mo' er less like de beasts er de fiel'. Dat message by word + er mouf. I goin' tell nuffin 'bout de quahumteem. I'm gotter say: 'Toby + sen' word to liebuh Augustine dat she needn' worry. He li'l sick, not + much, but de doctah ain' 'low him out fer two weeks; an' 'mejutly at de + en' er dat time he come an' git her an' den kin go on home wheres de + canary bu'd is.' Honey, you evah hyuh o' sich a foolishness? But de gyahd, + he say de message gotter be ca'yied dass dataways.” + </p> + <p> + “Lan' name!” ejaculated the widow. “Who dat message to?” + </p> + <p> + “Hit to a Dutch gal.” + </p> + <p> + “My Lawd!” The widow lifted amazed hands to heaven. “De impidence er dem + Dagoes! <i>Little</i> mo' an' dey'll be sen'in' messages to you er me!—What + her name?” + </p> + <p> + “Name Bertha Grass,” responded Mrs. Morton, “an', nigh as I kin make out, + she live in one er dese little w'ite-paint cottages, right 'long yere.” + </p> + <p> + “Yas'm! I knows dat Dutch gal, ole man Grass, de tailor, dass his niece. + W'y, dey done move out dis mawn, right f'um dis ve'y house you stan'in in + front de gate of. De ole man skeered er de smallpox, an' he mad, too, an' + de neighbuhs ask him whuh he gwine, he won't tell; so mad he won't speak + to nobody. None on 'em 'round hyuh knows an' dey's considabul cyu'us 'bout + it, too. Dey gone off in bofe d'rections—him one way, her 'nother. + 'Peah lak dey be'n quollun!” + </p> + <p> + “Now look at dat!” cried Mrs. Morton dolefully. “Look at dat! Ain't dat de + doggonest luck in de wide worl'! De gyahd he say dat Dago willin' pay + fifty cents a day fo' me to teck an' bring a message eve'y mawn' tell de + quahumteem took off de cellar. Now dat Dutch gal gone an' loss dat money + fo' me—movin' 'way whuh nobody cain't fine 'er!” + </p> + <p> + “Sho!” laughed the widow. “Ef I'se in you place, Miz Mo'ton, an' you's in + mine, dat money sho'lly, sho'lly nevah would be los', indeed hit wouldn't. + I dass go in t' de do' an' tu'n right 'roun' back ag'in an' go down to dat + gyahd an' say de Dutch gal 'ceive de message wid de bes' er 'bligin' + politeness an' sent her kine regyahds to de Dago man an' all inquirin' + frien's, an' hope de Dago man soon come an' git 'er. To-morrer de same, + nex' day de same—” + </p> + <p> + “Lawd, ef dat ain't de beatenest!” cried Mrs. Morton delightedly. “Well, + honey, I thank you long as I live, 'cause I nevah'd a wuk dat out by + myself an de livin' worl', an' I sho does needs de money. I'm goin' do + exackly dass de way you say. Dat man he ain' goin' know no diffunce till + he git out—an' den, honey,” she let loose upon the quiet air a + sudden, great salvo of laughter, “dass let him fine Lize Mo'ton!” + </p> + <p> + Bertha went to live in the tiny room with the canary bird and the + engraving of the “Rock of Ages.” This was putting lime to the canker, but, + somehow, she felt that she could go to no other place. She told the + landlady that her young man had not done so well in business as they had + expected, and had sought work in another city. He would come back, she + said. + </p> + <p> + She woke from troubled dreams each morning to stifle her sobbing in the + pillow. “Ach, Toby, coultn't you sented me yoost one word, you <i>might</i> + sented me yoost one word, yoost one, to tell me what has happened mit you! + Ach, Toby, Toby!” + </p> + <p> + The canary sang happily; she loved it and tended it, and the gay little + prisoner tried to reward her by the most marvellous trilling in his power, + but her heart was the sorer for every song. + </p> + <p> + After a time she went back drearily to the kraut-smelling restaurant, to + the work she had thought to leave forever, that day when Toby had not come + for her. She went out twenty times every morning, and oftener as it wore + on towards evening, to look at his closed stand, always with a choking + hope in her heart, always to drag leaden feet back into the restaurant. + Several times, her breath failing for shame, she approached Italians in + the street, or where there was one to be found at a stand of any sort she + stopped and made a purchase, and asked for some word of Toby—without + result, always. She knew no other way to seek for him. + </p> + <p> + One day, as she trudged homeward, two coloured women met on the pavement + in front of her, exchanged greetings, and continued for a little way + together. + </p> + <p> + “How you enjoyin' you' money, dese fine days, Miz Mo'ton?” inquired one, + with a laugh that attested to the richness of the joke between the two. + </p> + <p> + “Law, honey,” answered the other, “dat good luck di'n' las' ve'y long. Dey + done shut off my supplies.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” + </p> + <p> + “Yas'm, dey sho did. Dat man done tuck de smallpox; all on 'em ketched it, + ev'y las' one, off'n dat no 'count Joe Cribbins, an' now dat dey got de + new pes'-house finish', dey haul 'em off yon'eh, yas'day. Reckon dat ain' + make no diffunce in my urrant runnin'. Dat Dago man, he outer he hade two + day fo' dey haul 'em away, an' ain' sen' no mo' messages. So dat spile <i>my</i> + job! Hit dass my luck. Dey's sho' a voodoo on Lize Mo'ton!” + </p> + <p> + Bertha, catching but fragments of this conversation, had no realization + that it bore in any way upon the mystery of Toby; and she stumbled + homeward through the twilight with her tired eyes on the ground. + </p> + <p> + When she opened the door of the tiny room, the landlady's lean black cat + ran out surreptitiously. The bird-cage lay on the floor, upside down, and + of its jovial little inhabitant the tokens were a few yellow feathers. + </p> + <p> + Bertha did not know until a month after, when Leo Vesschi found her at the + restaurant and told her, that out in the new pest-house, that other + songster and prisoner, the gay little chestnut vender, Pietro Tobigli, had + called lamentably upon the name of his God and upon “Libra Ogostine,” and + now lay still forever, with the corduroy waistcoat and its precious burden + tightly clenched to his breast. Even in his delirium they had been unable + to coax or force him to part from it for a second. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE NEED OF MONEY + </h2> + <p> + Far back in his corner on the Democratic side of the House, Uncle Billy + Rollinson sat through the dragging routine of the legislative session, + wondering what most of it meant. When anybody spoke to him, in passing, he + would answer, in his gentle, timid voice, “Howdy-do, sir.” Then his cheeks + would grow a little red and he would stroke his long, white beard + elaborately, to cover his embarrassment. When a vote was taken, his name + was called toward the last of the roll, so that he had ample time, after + the leader of his side of the House, young Hurlbut, had voted, to clear + his throat several times and say “Aye” or “No” in quite a firm voice. But + the instant the word had left his lips he found himself terribly + frightened, and stroked his beard a great many times, the while he stared + seriously up at the ceiling, partly to avoid meeting anybody's eye, and + partly in the belief that it concealed his agitation and gave him the air + of knowing what he was about. Usually he did not know, any more than he + knew how he had happened to be sent to the legislature by his county. But + he liked it. He liked the feeling of being a person to be considered; he + liked to think that he was making the laws of his State. He liked the + handsome desk and the easy leather chair; he liked the row of fat, + expensive volumes, the unlimited stationery, and the free penknives which + were furnished him. He enjoyed the attentions of the coloured men in the + cloakroom, who brushed him ostentatiously and always called him (and the + other Representatives) “Senator,” to make up to themselves for the airs + which the janitors of the “Upper House” assumed. Most of these things + surprised him; he had not expected to be treated with such liberality by + the State and never realized that he and his colleagues were treating + themselves to all these things at the expense of the people, and so, + although he bore off as much note-paper as he could carry, now and then, + to send to his son, Henry, he was horrified and dumbfounded when the bill + was proposed appropriating $135,000 for the expenses of the seventy days' + session of the legislature. + </p> + <p> + He was surprised to find that among his “perquisites” were passes (good + during the session) on all the railroads that entered the State, and + others for use on many inter-urban trolley lines. These, he thought, might + be gratifying to Henry, who was fond of travel, and had often been unhappy + when his father failed to scrape up enough money to send him to a circus + in the next county. It was “very accommodating of the railroads,” Uncle + Billy thought, to maintain this pleasant custom, because the members' + travelling expenses were paid by the State just the same; hence the + economical could “draw their mileage” at the Treasurer's office, and add + it to their salaries. He heard—only vaguely understanding—many + joking references to other ways of adding to salaries. + </p> + <p> + Most of the members of his party had taken rooms at one of the hotels, + whither those who had sought cheaper apartments repaired in the evening, + when the place became a noisy and crowded club, admission to which was not + by card. Most of the rougher man-to-man lobbying was done here; and at + times it was Babel. + </p> + <p> + Through the crowds Uncle Billy wandered shyly, stroking his beard and + saying, “Howdy-do, sir,” in his gentle voice, getting out of the way of + people who hurried, and in great trouble of mind if any one asked him how + he intended to vote upon a bill. When this happened he looked at the + interrogator in the plaintive way which was his habit, and answered + slowly: “I reckon I'll have to think it over.” He was not in Hurlbut's + councils. + </p> + <p> + There was much bustle all about him, but he was not part of it. The + newspaper reporters remarked the quiet, inoffensive old figure pottering + about aimlessly on the outskirts of the crowd, and thought Uncle Billy as + lonely as a man might well be, for he seemed less a part of the political + arrangement than any member they had ever seen. He would have looked less + lonely and more in place trudging alone through the furrows of his home + fields in a wintry twilight. + </p> + <p> + And yet, everybody liked the old man, Hurlbut in particular, if Uncle + Billy had known it; for Hurlbut watched the votes very closely and was + often struck by the soundness of Representative Rollinson's intelligence + in voting. + </p> + <p> + In return, Uncle Billy liked Hurlbut better than any other man he had ever + known—except Henry, of course. On the first day of the session, when + the young leader had been pointed out to him, Uncle Billy's humble soul + was prostrate with admiration, and when Hurlbut led the first attack on + the monopolistic tendencies of the Republican party, Representative + Rollinson, chuckling in his beard at the handsome youth's audacity, + himself dared so greatly as to clap his hands aloud. Hurlbut, on the + floor, was always a storm centre: tall, dramatic, bold, the members put + down their newspapers whenever his strong voice was heard demanding + recognition, and his “Mr. Speaker!” was like the first rumble of thunder. + The tempest nearly always followed, and there were times when it + threatened to become more than vocal; when, all order lost, nine-tenths of + the men on the other side of the House were on their feet shouting jeers + and denunciations, and the orator faced them, out-thundering them all, + with his own cohorts, flushed and cheering, gathered round him. Then, + indeed, Uncle Billy would have thought him a god, if he had known what a + god was. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes Uncle Billy saw him in the hotel lobby, but he seemed always to + be making for the elevator in a hurry, with half-a-dozen people trying to + detain him, or descending momentarily from the stairway for a quick, sharp + talk with one or two members, their heads close together, after which + Hurlbut would dart upward again. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes the old man sat down at one of the writing tables, in a corner + of the lobby, and, annexing a sheet of the hotel note-paper, “wrote home” + to Henry. He sat with his head bent far over, the broad brim of his felt + hat now and then touching the hand with which he kept the paper from + sliding; and he pressed diligently upon his pen, usually breaking it + before the letter was finished. He looked so like a man intent upon + concealment that the reporters were wont to say: “There's Uncle Billy + humped up over his guilty secret again.” + </p> + <p> + The secret usually took this form: + </p> + <p> + “Dear Son Henry: + </p> + <p> + “I would be glad if you was here. There is big doings. Hurlbut give it to + them to-day. He don't give the Republicans no rest, he lights into them + like sixty you would like to see him. They are plenty nice fellows in the + Republicans too but they lay mighty low when Hurlbut gets after them. He + was just in the office but went out. He always has a segar in his mouth + but not lit. I expect hes quit. I send you enclosed last week's salary all + but $11.80 which I had to use as living is pretty high in our capital city + of the state. If you would like some of this hotel writing paper better + than the kind I sent you of the General Assembly I can send you some the + boys say it is free. I think it is all right you sold the calf but Wilkes + didn't give you good price. Hurlbut come in while I was writing then. You + bet he can always count on Wm. Rollinson's vote. + </p> + <p> + “Well I must draw to a dose, Yours truly + </p> + <p> + “Your father.” + </p> + <p> + “Wm. Rollinson” was not aware that he was known to his colleagues and the + lobby and the Press as “Uncle Billy” until informed thereof by a public + print. He stood, one night, on the edge of a laughing group, when a + reporter turned to him and said: + </p> + <p> + “The <i>Constellation</i> would like to know Representative Rollinson's + opinion of the scandalous story that has just been told.” + </p> + <p> + The old man, who had not in the least understood the story, summoned all + his faculties, and, after long deliberation, bent his plaintive eyes upon + the youth and replied: + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, it's a-stonishing, a-stonishing!” + </p> + <p> + “Think it's pretty bad, do you?” + </p> + <p> + Some of the crowd turned to listen, and the old fellow, hopelessly + puzzled, stroked his beard with a trembling hand, and then, muttering, + “Well, young man, I expect you better excuse me,” hurried away and left + the place. The next morning he found the following item tacked to the tail + of the “Legislative Gossip” column of the <i>Constellation</i>: + </p> + <h3> + “UNCLE BILLY ROLLINSON HORRIFIED + </h3> + <p> + “Yesterday a curious and amusing story was current among the solons at the + Nagmore Hotel. It seems that the wife of a country member of the last + legislature had been spending the day at the hotel and the wife of a + present member from the country complained to her of the greatly increased + expenditure appertaining to the cost of living in the Capital City. + 'Indeed,' replied the wife of the former member, 'that is curious. But I + suppose my husband is much more economical than yours, for he brought home + $1.500, that he'd saved out of his salary.' As the salary is only $456, + and the gentleman in question did not play poker, much hilarity was + indulged in, and there were conjectures that the economy referred to + concerned his vote upon a certain bill before the last session, anent + which the lobby pushing it were far from economical. Uncle Billy + Rollinson, the Gentleman from Wixinockee, heard the story, as it passed + from mouth to mouth, but he had no laughter to greet it. Uncle Billy, as + every one who comes in contact with him knows, is as honest as the day is + long, and the story grieved and shocked him. He expressed the utmost + horror and consternation, and requested to be excused from speaking + further upon a subject so repugnant to his feelings. If there were more + men of this stamp in politics, who find corruption revolting instead of + amusing, our legislatures would enjoy a better fame.” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy had always been agitated by the sight of his name in print. + Even in the Wixinockee County <i>Clarion</i>, it dumbfounded him and gave + him a strange feeling that it must mean somebody else, but this sudden + blaze of metropolitan fame made him almost giddy. He folded the paper + quickly and placed it under his coat, feeling vaguely that it would not do + to be seen reading it. He murmured feeble answers during the day, when + some of his colleagues referred to it; but when he reached his own little + room that evening, he spread it out under his oil-smelling lamp and read + it again. Perhaps he read it twenty times over before the supper bell + rang. Perhaps the fact that he was still intent upon it accounted for his + not hearing the bell, so that his landlady had to call him. + </p> + <p> + What he liked was the phrase: “Honest as the day is long.” He did not go + to the hotel that night. He went back to his room and read the <i>Constellation</i>. + He liked the <i>Constellation</i>. Newspapers were very kind, he thought. + Now and then, he would pick up his pile of legislative bills and try to + spell through the ponderous sentences, but he always gave it up and went + back to the <i>Constellation</i>. He wondered if Hurlbut had read it. + Hurlbut had. The leader had even told the author of the item that he was + glad somebody could appreciate the kind of a man Uncle Billy was, and his + value to the body politic. + </p> + <p> + “Honest as the day is long,” Uncle Billy repeated to himself, in the + little room, nodding his head gravely. Then he thought for a long while + about the member who had, according to the story, gone home with $1,500. + He sat up, that evening, until almost ten o'clock. Even after he had gone + to bed, he lay awake with his eyes wide open in the darkness, thinking of + the colossal sum. If anybody should come to <i>him</i> and offer him all + that money to vote a certain way upon a bill, he believed he would not + take it, for that would be bribery; though Henry would be glad to have the + money. Henry always needed money; sometimes the need was imperative—once, + indeed, so imperative that the small, unfertile farm had been mortgaged + beyond its value, otherwise very serious things must have happened to + Henry. Uncle Billy wondered how offers of money to members were refused + without hurting the intending donor's feelings. And what a great deal + could be done with $1,500, if a member could get it and still be as honest + as the day is long! + </p> + <p> + About the second month of the session the floor of the House began + steadily to grow more and more tumultuous. To an unpolitical onlooker, + leaning over the gallery rail, it was often an incomprehensible Bedlam, or + perhaps one might have been reminded of an ant-heap by the + hurry-and-scurry and life-and-death haste in a hundred directions at once, + quite without any distinguishable purpose. Twenty men might be rampaging + up and down the aisles, all shouting, some of them furiously, others with + a determination that was deadly, all with arms waving at the Speaker, some + of the hands clenched, some of them fluttering documents, while pages ran + everywhere in mad haste, stumbling and falling in the aisles. In the midst + of this, other members, seated, wrote studiously; others mildly read + newspapers; others lounged, half-standing against their desks, unlighted + cigars in their mouths, laughing; all the while the patient Speaker tapped + with his gavel on a small square of marble. Suddenly perfect calm would + come and the voice of the reading clerk drone for half an hour or more, + like a single bee in a country garden on Sunday morning. + </p> + <p> + Of all this Uncle Billy was as much a layman spectator as any tramp who + crept into the gallery for a few hours out of the cold. The hurry and + seethe of the racing sea touched him not at all, except to bewilderment, + while he was carried with it, unknowing, toward the breakers. The shout of + those breakers was already in the ears of many, for the crisis of the + session was coming. This was the fight that was to be made on Hurlbut's + “Railroad Bill,” which was, indeed, but in another sense, known as the + “Breaker.” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy had heard of the “Breaker.” He couldn't have helped that. He + had heard a dozen say: “Then's when it's going to be warm times, when that + 'Breaker' comes up!” or, “Look out for that 'Breaker.' We're going to have + big trouble.” He knew, too, that Hurlbut was interested in the “Breaker,” + but upon which side he was for a long time ignorant. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Hurlbut always nodded to the old man, now, as he came down the aisle to + his own desk. He had begun that, the day after the <i>Constellation</i> + item. Uncle Billy never failed to be in his seat early in the morning, + waiting for the nod. He answered it with his usual “Howdy-do, sir,” then + stroked his beard and gazed profoundly at the row of fat volumes in front + of him, swallowing painfully once or twice. + </p> + <p> + This was all that really happened for Uncle Billy during the turmoil and + scramble that went on about him all the day long. He had not been forced + to discover a way to meet an offer of $1,500, without hurting the putative + giver's feelings. No lobbyist had the faintest idea of “approaching” the + old man in that way. The members and the hordes of camp-followers and all + the lobby had settled into a belief that Representative Rollinson was a + sea-green Incorruptible, that of all honest members he was the most + honest. He had become typical of honesty: sayings were current—“You + might as well try to bribe Uncle Billy Rollinson!” “As honest as old Uncle + Billy Rollinson.” Hurlbut often used such phrases in private. + </p> + <p> + The “Breaker” was Hurlbut's own bill; he had planned it and written it, + though it came over to the House from the Senate under a Senator's name. + It was one of those “anti-monopolistic” measures which Democrats put their + whole hearts into, sometimes, and believe in and fight for magnificently; + an idea conceived in honesty and for a beneficent purpose, in the belief + that a legislature by the wave of a hand can conjure the millennium to + appear; and born out of an utter misconception of man and railroads. The + bill needs no farther description than this: if it passed and became an + enforced law, the dividends of every rail road entering the State would be + reduced by two-fifths. There is one thing that will fight harder than a + Democrat—that is a railroad. + </p> + <p> + The “Breaker” had been kept very dark until Hurlbut felt that he was + ready; then it was swept through the Senate before the railroad lobby, + previously lulled into unsuspicion, could collect itself and block it. + This was as Hurlbut had planned: that the fight should be in his own + House. It was the bill of his heart and he set his reputation upon it. He + needed fifty-one votes to pass it, and he had them, and one to spare; for + he took his followers, who formed the majority, into caucus upon it. It + was in the caucus Uncle Billy learned that Hurlbut was “for” the bill. He + watched the leader with humble, wavering eyes, thinking how strong and + clear his voice was, and wondering if he never lit the cigar he always + carried in his hand, or if he ever got into trouble, like Henry, being a + young man. If he did, Uncle Billy would have liked the chance to help him + out. + </p> + <p> + He had plenty of such chances with Henry; indeed, the opportunity may be + said to have become unintermittent, and Uncle Billy was never free from a + dim fear of the day when his son would get in so deeply that he could not + get him out. Verily, the day seemed near at hand: Henry's letters were + growing desperate and the old man walked the floor of his little room at + night, more and more hopeless. Once or twice, even as he sat at his desk + in the House, his eyes became so watery that he forced himself into long + spells of coughing, to account for it, in case any one might be noticing + him. + </p> + <p> + The caucus was uneventful and quiet, for it had all been talked over, and + was no more than a matter of form. + </p> + <p> + The Republicans did not caucus upon the bill (they had reasons), but they + were solidly against it. Naturally it follows that the assault of the + railroad lobby had to be made upon the virtue of the Democrats <i>as</i> + Democrats. That is, whether a member upon the majority side cared about + the bill for its own sake of not, right or wrong, he felt it his duty as a + Democrat to vote for it. If he had a conscience higher than a political + conscience, and believed the bill was bad, his duty was to “bolt the + caucus”; but all of the Democratic side believed in the righteousness of + the bill, except two. One had already been bought and the other was Uncle + Billy, who knew nothing about it, except that Hurlbut was “for” it and it + seemed to be making a “big stir.” + </p> + <p> + The man who had been bought sat not far from Uncle Billy. He was a + furtive, untidy slouch of a man, formerly a Republican; he had a great + capacity for “handling the coloured vote” and his name was Pixley. Hurlbut + mistrusted him; the young man had that instinct, which good leaders need, + for feeling the weak places in his following; and he had the leader's way, + too, of ever bracing up the weakness and fortifying it; so he stopped, + four or five times a day, at Pixley's desk, urging the necessity of + standing fast for the “Breaker,” and expressing convictions as to the + political future of a Democrat who should fail to vote for it; to which + Pixley assented in his husky, tough-ward voice. + </p> + <p> + All day long now, Hurlbut and his lieutenants, disregarding the routine of + bills, went up and down the lines, fending off the lobbyists and such + Republicans as were working openly for the bill. They encouraged and + threatened and never let themselves be too confident of their seeming + strength. Some of those who were known, or guessed, to be of the “weaker + brethren” were not left to themselves for half an hour at a time, from + their breakfasts until they went to bed. There was always at elbow the “<i>Hold + fast</i>!” whisper of Hurlbut and his lieutenants. None of them ever + thought of speaking to Uncle Billy. + </p> + <p> + Hurlbut's “work was cut out for him,” as they said. What work it is to + keep every one of fifty men honest under great temptation for three weeks + (which time it took for the hampered and filibustered bill to come up for + its passage or defeat), is known to those who have tried to do it. The + railroads were outraged and incensed by the measure; they sincerely + believed it to be monstrous and thievish. “Let the legislature try to + confiscate two-fifths of the lawyers', or the bakers', or the + ironmoulders', just earnings,” said they, “and see what will happen!” + </p> + <p> + When such a bill as this comes to the floor for the third time the fight + is already over, oratory is futile; and Cicero could not budge a vote. The + railroads were forced to fight as best they could; this was the old way + that they have learned is most effective in such a case. Votes could not + be had to “oblige a friend” on the “Breaker” bill; nor could they be + procured by arguments to prove the bill unjust. In brief: the railroad + lobby had no need to buy Republican votes (with the exception of the one + or two who charged out of habit whenever legislation concerned + corporations), for the Republicans were against the bill, but they did + mortally need to buy two Democratic votes, and were willing to pay + handsomely for them. Nevertheless, Mr. Pixley's price was not exorbitant, + considering the situation; nor need he have congratulated himself so + heartily as he did (in moments of retirement from public life) upon his + prospective $2,000 (when the goods should be delivered) since his vote was + assisting the railroads to save many million dollars a year. + </p> + <p> + Of course the lobby attacked the bill noisily; there were big guns going + all day long; but those in charge knew perfectly well that the noise + accomplished nothing in itself. It was used to cover the whispering. + Still, Hurlbut held his line firm and the bill passed its second reading + with fifty-two votes, Mr. Pixley being directed by his owners to vote for + it on that occasion. + </p> + <p> + As time went on the lobby began to grow desperate; even Pixley had been + consulted upon his opinion by Barrett, the young lawyer through whom + negotiations in his case had been conducted. Pixley suggested the name of + Rollinson and Barrett dismissed this counsel with as much disgust for + Pixley's stupidity as he had for the man's person. (One likes a <i>dog</i> + when he buys him.) + </p> + <p> + “But why not?” Pixley had whined as he reached the door. “Uncle Billy + ain't so much! You listen to me. He wouldn't take it out-an'-out—I + don't say as he would. But you needn't work that way. Everybody thinks + it's no use to tackle him—but nobody never <i>tried</i>! What's he + <i>done</i> to make you scared of him? <i>Nothing</i>! Jest set there and + <i>looked</i>!” + </p> + <p> + After he had gone the fellow's words came back to Barrett: “Nobody never + tried!” And then, to satisfy his conscience that he was leaving no stone + unturned, yet laughing at the uselessness of it, he wrote a letter to a + confidant of his, formerly a colleague in the lobby, who lived in the + county-seat near which Uncle Billy's mortgaged acres lay. The answer came + the night after the second vote on the “Breaker.” + </p> + <p> + “Dear Barrett: + </p> + <p> + “I agree with your grafter. I don't believe Rollinson would be hard to + approach if it were done with tact—of course you don't want to + tackle him the way you would a swine like Pixley. A good many people + around here always thought the old man simple-minded. He was given the + nomination almost in joke—nobody else wanted it, because they all + thought the Republicans had a sure thing of it; but Rollinson slid in on + the general Democratic landslide in this district. He's got one son, a + worthless pup, Henry, a sort of yokel Don Juan, always half drunk when his + father has any money to give him, and just smart enough to keep the old + man mesmerized. Lately Henry's been in a mighty serious peck of trouble. + Last fall he got married to a girl here in town. Three weeks ago a family + named Johnson, the most shiftless in the county, the real low-down white + trash sort, living on a truck patch out Rollinson's way, heard that Henry + was on a toot in town, spending money freely, and they went after him. A + client of mine rents their ground to them and told me all about it. It + seems they claim that one of the daughters in the Johnson family was + Henry's common-law wife before he married the other girl, and it's more + than likely they can prove it. They are hollering for $600, and if Henry + doesn't raise it mighty quick they swear they'll get him sent over the + road for bigamy. I think the old man would sell his soul to keep his boy + out of the penitentiary and he's at his wits' ends; he hasn't anything to + raise the money on and he's up against it. He'll do any thing on earth for + Henry. Hope this'll be of some service to you, and if there's anything + more I can do about it you better call me up on the long distance. + </p> + <p> + “Yours faithfully, + </p> + <h3> + “J. P. WATSON. + </h3> + <p> + “P.S.—You might mention to our old boss that I don't want anything + if services are needed; but a pass for self and family to New York and + return would come in handy.” + </p> + <p> + Barrett telegraphed an answer at once: “If it goes you can have annual for + yourself and family. Will call you up at two sharp to-morrow.” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It was late the following night when the lobbyist concluded his interview + with Representative Rollinson, in the latter's little room, half lighted + by the oil-smelling lamp. + </p> + <p> + “I knew you would understand, Mr. Rollinson,” said Barrett as he rose to + go. His eyes danced and his jaws set with the thought that had been + jubilant within him for the last half-hour: “We've got 'em! We've got 'em! + We've got 'em!” The railroads had defended their own again. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” he went on, “we wouldn't have dreamed of coming to you and + asking you to vote against this outrageous bill if we thought for a minute + that you had any real belief in it or considered it a good bill. But you + say, yourself, your only feeling about it was to oblige Mr. Hurlbut, and + you admit, too, that you've voted his way on every other bill of the + session. Surely, as I've already said so many times, you don't think he'd + be so unreasonable as to be angry with you for differing with him on the + merits of only one! No, no, Hurlbut's a very sensible fellow about such + matters. You don't need to worry about <i>that</i>! After all I've said, + surely you won't give it another thought, will you?” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy sat in the shadow, bent far over, slowly twisting his thin, + corded hands, the fingers tightly interlocked. It was a long time before + he spoke, and his interlocutor had to urge him again before he answered, + in his gentle, quavering voice. + </p> + <p> + “No, I reckon not, if you say so.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not,” said Barrett briskly. “Why of course, we'd never have + thought of making you a money offer to vote either for or against your + principles. Not much! We don't do business that way! We simply want to do + something for you. We've wanted to, all during the session, but the + opportunity hadn't offered until I happened to hear your son was in + trouble.” + </p> + <p> + Out of the shadow came a long, tremulous sigh. There was a moment's pause; + then Uncle Billy's head sank slowly lower and rested on his hands. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” the other continued cheerfully, “we make no conditions, none in + the world. We feel friendly to you and want to oblige you, but of course + we do think you ought to show a little good-will towards <i>us</i>. I + believe it's all understood: to-morrow night Mr. Watson will drive out in + his buggy to this Johnson place, and he's empowered by us to settle the + whole business and obtain a written statement from the family that they + have no claim on your son. How he will settle it is neither your affair + nor mine; nor whether it costs money or not. But he <i>will</i> settle it. + We do that out of good-will to you, as long as we feel as friendly to you + as we do now, and all we ask is that you show your good-will to us.” + </p> + <p> + It was plain, even to Uncle Billy, that if he voted against Mr. Barrett's + friends in the afternoon those friends might not feel so much good-will + toward him in the evening as they did now: and Mr. Watson might not go to + the trouble of hitching up his buggy to drive out to the Johnsons'. + </p> + <p> + “You see, it's all out of friendship,” said Barrett, his hand on the door + knob. “And we can count on your's to-morrow, can't we—absolutely?” + </p> + <p> + The grey head sank a little lower, and then after a moment the quavering + voice answered: + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir—I'll be friendly.” + </p> + <p> + Before morning, Hurlbut lost another vote. One of his best men left on a + night train for the bedside of his dying wife. This meant that the + “Breaker” needed every one of the fifty-one remaining Democratic votes in + order to pass. Hurlbut more than distrusted Pixley, yet he felt sure of + the other fifty, and if, upon the reading of the bill, Pixley proved + false, the bill would not be lost, since there would be a majority of + votes in its favour, though not the constitutional majority of fifty-one + required for its passage, and it could be brought up again and carried + when the absent man returned. Thus, on the chance that Pixley had + withstood tampering, Hurlbut made no effort to prevent the bill from + coming to the floor in its regular order in the afternoon, feeling that it + could not possibly be killed by a majority against it, for he trusted his + fifty, now, as strongly as he distrusted Pixley. + </p> + <p> + And so the roll-call on the “Breaker” began, rather quietly, though there + was no man's face in the hall that was not set to show the tensity of + high-strung nerves. The great crowd that had gathered and choked the + galleries and the floor beyond the bar, and the Senators who had left + their own chamber to watch the bill in the House, all began to feel + disappointed; for nothing happened until Pixley's name was called. + </p> + <p> + Pixley voted “No!” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy, sitting far down in his leather chair on the small of his + back, heard the outburst of shouting that followed; but he could not see + Pixley, for the traitor was instantly surrounded by a ring of men, and all + that was visible from where he sat was their backs and upraised, + gesticulating hands. Uncle Billy began to tremble violently; he had not + calculated on this; but surely such things would not happen to <i>him</i>! + </p> + <p> + The Speaker's gavel clicked through the uproar and the roll-call + proceeded. + </p> + <p> + The clerk reached the name of Rollinson. Uncle Billy swallowed, threw a + pale look about him and wrapped his damp hands in the skirts of his shiny + old coat, as if to warm them. For a moment he could not answer. People + turned to look at him. + </p> + <p> + “Rollinson!” shouted the clerk again. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Uncle Billy. + </p> + <p> + Immediately he saw above him and all about him a blur of men's faces and + figures risen to their feet, he heard a hundred voices say breathlessly: “<i>What</i>!” + and one that said: “My God, that kills the bill!” + </p> + <p> + Then a horrible and incredible storm burst upon him, and he who had sat + all the session shrinking unnoticed in his quiet, back seat, unnerved when + a colleague asked the simplest question, found himself the centre and + point of attack in the wildest mêlée that legislature ever saw. A dozen + men, red, frantic, with upraised arms, came at him, Hurlbut the first of + them. But the lobby was there, too; for it was not part of its + calculations that the old man should be frightened into changing his vote. + </p> + <p> + There need have been no fear of that. Uncle Billy was beyond the power of + speech. The lobby's agents swarmed on the floor, and, with half-a-dozen + hysterically laughing Republicans, met the onset of Hurlbut and his men. + It became a riot immediately. Sane men were swept up in it to be as mad as + the rest, while the galleries screamed and shouted. All round the old man + the fury was greatest; his head sank over his desk and rested on his hands + as it had the night before; for he dared not lift it to see the avalanche + he had loosed upon himself. He would have liked to stop his ears to shut + out the egregious clamour of cursing and yelling that beset him, as his + bent head kept the glazed eyes from seeing the impossible vision of the + attack that strove to reach him. He remembered awful dreams that were like + this; and now, as then, he shuddered in a cold sweat, being as one who + would draw the covers over his head to shelter him from horrors in great + darkness. As Uncle Billy felt, so might a naked soul feel at the judgment + day, tossed alone into the pit with all the myriads of eyes in the + universe fastened on its sins. + </p> + <p> + He was pressed and jostled by his defenders; once a man's shoulders were + bent back down over his own and he was crushed against the desk until his + ribs ached; voices thundered and wailed at him, threatening, imploring, + cursing, cajoling, raving. + </p> + <p> + Smaller groups were struggling and shouting in every part of the room, the + distracted sergeants-at-arms roaring and wrestling with the rest. On the + high dais the Speaker, white but imperturbable, having broken his gavel, + beat steadily with the handle of an umbrella upon the square of marble on + his desk. Fifteen or twenty members, raging dementedly, were beneath him, + about the clerk's desk and on the steps leading up to his chair, each + howling hoarsely: + </p> + <p> + “A point of <i>order</i>! A point of <i>or-der</i>!” + </p> + <p> + When the semblance of order came at last, the roll was finished, + “reconsidered,” the “Breaker” was beaten, 50 to 49, was dead; and Uncle + Billy Rollinson was creeping down the outer steps of the Statehouse in the + cold February slush and rain. + </p> + <p> + He was glad to be out of the nightmare, though it seemed still upon him, + the horrible clamours, all gonging and blaring at <i>him</i>; the red, + maddened faces, the clenched fists, the open mouths, all raging at <i>him</i>—all + the ruck and uproar swam about the dazed old man as he made his slow, + unseeing way through the wet streets. + </p> + <p> + He was too late for dinner at his dingy boarding house, having wandered + far, and he found himself in his room without knowing very well how he had + come there, indeed, scarcely more than half-conscious that he <i>was</i> + there. He sat, for a long time, in the dark. After a while he mechanically + lit the lamp, sat again to stare at it, then, finding his eyes watering, + he turned from it with an incoherent whimper, as if it had been a person + from whom he would conceal the fact that he was weeping. He leaned his + arm, against the window sill and dried his eyes on the shiny sleeve. + </p> + <p> + An hour later, there came a hard, imperative knock on the door. Uncle + Billy raised his head and said gently: + </p> + <p> + “Come in.” + </p> + <p> + He rose to his feet uncertain, aghast, when he saw who his visitor was. It + was Hurlbut. + </p> + <p> + The young man confronted him darkly, for a moment, in silence. He was + dripping with rain; his hat, unremoved, shaded lank black locks over a + white face; his nostrils were wide with wrath; the “dry cigar” wagged + between gritting teeth. + </p> + <p> + “Will ye take a chair?” faltered Uncle Billy. + </p> + <p> + The room rang to the loud answer of the other: “I'd see you in Hell before + I'd sit in a chair of yours!” + </p> + <p> + He raised an arm, straight as a rod, to point at the old man. “Rollinson,” + he said, “I've come here to tell you what I think of you! I've never done + that in my life before, because I never thought any man worth it. I do it + because I need the luxury of it—because I'm sick of myself not to + have had gumption enough to see what you were all the time and have you + watched!” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy was stung to a moment's life. “Look here,” he quavered, “you + hadn't ought to talk that way to me. There ain't a cent of money passed my + fingers—” + </p> + <p> + Hurlbut's bitter laugh cut him short. “<i>No?</i> Don't you suppose <i>I + know</i> how it was done? Do you suppose there's a man in the whole + Assembly doesn't know how you were sold? I had it by the long distance an + hour ago, from your own home. Do you suppose <i>we</i> have no friends + there, or that it was hard to find out about the whole dirty business? + Your son's not going to stand trial for bigamy; that was the price you + charged for killing the bill. You and Pixley are the only men whom they + could buy with all their millions! Oh, I know a dozen men who could be + bought on other issues, but not on <i>this</i>! You and Pixley stand + alone. Well, you've broken the caucus and you've betrayed the Democratic + party. I've come to tell you that the party doesn't want you any more. You + are out of it, do you hear? We don't want even to use you!” + </p> + <p> + The old man had sunk back into his chair, stricken white, his hands + fluttering helplessly. “I didn't go to hurt your feelings, Mr. Hurlbut,” + he said. “I never knowed how it would be, but I don't think you ought to + say I done anything dishonest. I just felt kind of friendly to the + railroads—” + </p> + <p> + The leader's laugh cut him off again. “Friendly! Yes, that's what you + were! Well, you can go back to your friends; you'll need them!—Mother + in Heaven! How you fooled us! We thought you were the straightest man and + the staunchest Democrat—” + </p> + <p> + “I b'en a Democrat all my life, Mr. Hurlbut. I voted fer—” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you're a Democrat no longer. You're done for, do you understand? + And we're done with you!” + </p> + <p> + “You mean,” the old man's voice shook almost beyond control; “you mean + you're tryin' to read me out of the party?” + </p> + <p> + “Trying to!” Hurlbut turned to the door. “You're out! It's done. You can + thank God that your 'friends' did their work so well that we can't prove + what we know. On my soul, you dog, if we could I believe some of the boys + would send you over the road.” + </p> + <p> + An hour after he had gone, Uncle Billy roused himself from his stupor, and + the astonished landlady heard his shuffling step on the stair. She + followed him softly and curiously to the front door, and watched him. He + was bare-headed but had not far to go. The night-flare of the cheap, + all-night saloon across the sodden street silhouetted the stooping figure + for a moment and then the swinging doors shut the old man from her view. + She returned to her parlour and sat waiting for his return until she fell + asleep in her chair. She awoke at two o'clock, went to his room, and was + aghast to find it still vacant. + </p> + <p> + “The Lord have mercy on us all!” she cried aloud. “To think that old + rascal'd go out on a spree! He'd better of stayed in the country where he + belonged.” + </p> + <p> + It was the next morning that the House received a shock which loosed + another riot, but one of a kind different from that which greeted + Representative Rollinson's vote on the “Breaker.” The reading-clerk had + sung his way through an inconsequent bill; most of the members were buried + in newspapers, gossiping, idling, or smoking in the lobbies, when a loud, + cracked voice was heard shrilly demanding recognition. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Speaker!” Every one turned with a start. There was Uncle Billy, on + his feet, violently waving his hands at the Speaker. “Mr. Speaker, Mr. + Speaker, Mr. Speaker!” His dress was disordered and muddy; his eyes shone + with a fierce, absurd, liquorish light; and with each syllable that he + uttered his beard wagged to an unspeakable effect of comedy. He offered + the most grotesque spectacle ever seen in that hall—a notable + distinction. + </p> + <p> + For a moment the House sat in paralytic astonishment. Then came an awed + whisper from a Republican: “Has the old fool really found his voice?” + </p> + <p> + “No, he's drunk,” said a neighbour. “I guess he can afford it, after his + vote yesterday!” + </p> + <p> + “Mister Speaker! <i>Mister</i> Speaker!” + </p> + <p> + The cracked voice startled the lobbies. The hangers-on, the typewriters, + the janitors, the smoking members came pouring into the chamber and stood, + transfixed and open-mouthed. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Mister Speaker</i>!” + </p> + <p> + Then the place rocked with the gust of laughter and ironical cheering that + swept over the Assembly, Members climbed upon their chairs and on desks, + waving handkerchiefs, sheets of foolscap, and waste-baskets. “Hear 'im! <i>He-ear</i> + 'im!” rang the derisive cry. + </p> + <p> + The Speaker yielded in the same spirit and said: + </p> + <p> + “The Gentleman from Wixinockee.” + </p> + <p> + A semi-quiet followed and the cracked voice rose defiantly: + </p> + <p> + “That's who I am! I'm the Gentleman from Wixinockee an' I stan' here to + defen' the principles of the Democratic party!” + </p> + <p> + The Democrats responded with violent hootings, supplemented by cheers of + approval from the Republicans. The high voice out-shrieked them all: “Once + a Democrat, always a Democrat! I voted Dem'cratic tick't forty year, born + a Democrat an' die a Democrat. Fellow sizzens, I want to say to you right + here an' now that principles of Dem'cratic party saved this country a + hun'erd times from Republican mal-'diministration an' degerdation! Lemme + tell you this: you kin take my life away but you can't say I don' stan' by + Dem'cratic party, mos' glorious party of Douglas an' Tilden, Hen'ricks, + Henry Clay, an' George Washin'ton. I say to you they <i>hain't</i> no + other party an' I'm member of it till death an' Hell an' f'rever after, so + help me <i>God</i>!” + </p> + <p> + He smote the desk beside him with the back of his hand, using all his + strength, skinning his knuckles so that the blood dripped from them, + unnoticed. He waved both arms continually, bending his body almost double + and straightening up again, in crucial efforts for emphasis. All the old + jingo platitudes that he had learned from campaign speakers throughout his + life, the nonsense and brag and blat, the cheap phrases, all the empty + balderdash of the platform, rushed to his incoherent lips. + </p> + <p> + The lord of misrule reigned at the end of each sentence, as the members + sprang again upon the chairs and desks, roaring, waving, purple with + laughter. The Speaker leaned back exhausted in his chair and let the gavel + rest. Spectators, pages, galleries whooped and howled with the members. + Finally the climax came. + </p> + <p> + “I want to say to you just this <i>here</i>,” shrilled the cracked voice, + “an' you can tell the Republican party that I said so, tell 'em straight + from <i>me</i>, an' I hain't goin' back on it; I reckon they know who I + am, too; I'm a man that's honest—I'm as honest as the day is long, I + am—as honest as the day is long—” + </p> + <p> + He was interrupted by a loud voice. “<i>Yes</i>,” it cried, “<i>when that + day is the twenty-first of December!</i>” + </p> + <p> + That let pandemonium loose again, wilder, madder than before. A member + threw a pamphlet at Uncle Billy. In a moment the air was thick with a + Brobdingnagian snow-storm: pamphlets, huge wads of foolscap, bills, books, + newspapers, waste-baskets went flying at the grotesque target from every + quarter of the room. Members “rushed” the old man, hooting, cheering; he + was tossed about, half thrown down, bruised, but, clamorous over all other + clamours, jumping up and down to shriek over the heads of those who + hustled him, his hands waving frantically in the air, his long beard + wagging absurdly, still desperately vociferating his Democracy and his + honesty. + </p> + <p> + That was only the beginning. He had, indeed, “found his voice”; for he + seldom went now to the boarding-house for his meals, but patronized the + free-lunch counter and other allurements of the establishment across the + way. Every day he rose in the House to speak, never failing to reach the + assertion that he was “as honest as the day is long,” which was always + greeted in the same way. + </p> + <p> + For a time he was one of the jokes that lightened the tedious business of + law-making, and the members looked forward to his “<i>Mis-ter Speaker</i>” + as schoolboys look forward to recess. But, after a week, the novelty was + gone. + </p> + <p> + The old man became a bore. The Speaker refused to recognize him, and grew + weary of the persistent shrilling. The day came when Uncle Billy was + forcibly put into his seat by a disgusted sergeant-at-arms. He was half + drunk (as he had come to be most of the time), but this humiliation seemed + to pierce the alcoholic vapours that surrounded his always feeble + intelligence. He put his hands up to his face and cried like a whimpering + child. Then he shuffled out and went back to the saloon. He soon acquired + the habit of leaving his seat in the House vacant; he was no longer + allowed to make speeches there; he made them in the saloon, to the + amusement of the loafers and roughs who infested it. They badgered him, + but they let him harangue them, and applauded his rhodomontades. + </p> + <p> + Hurlbut, passing the place one night at the end of the session, heard the + quavering, drunken voice, and paused in the darkness to listen. + </p> + <p> + “I tell you, fellow-countrymen, I've voted Dem'cratic tick't forty year, + live a Dem'crat, die a Dem'crat! An' I'm's honest as day is long!” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It was five years after that session, when Hurlbut, now in the national + Congress, was called to the district in which Wixinockee lies, to assist + his hard-pressed brethren in a campaign. He was driving, one afternoon, to + a political meeting in the country, when a recollection came to him and he + turned to the committee chairman, who accompanied him, and said: + </p> + <p> + “Didn't Uncle Billy Rollinson live somewhere near here?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, yes. You knew him in the legislature, didn't you?” + </p> + <p> + “A little. Where is he now?” + </p> + <p> + “Just up ahead here. I'll show you.” + </p> + <p> + They reached the gate of a small, unkempt, weedy graveyard and stopped. + </p> + <p> + “The inscription on the head-board is more or less amusing,” said the + chairman, as he got out of the buggy, “considering that he was thought to + be pretty crooked, and I seem to remember that he was 'read out of the + party,' too. But he wrote the inscription himself, on his death-bed, and + his son put it there.” + </p> + <p> + There was a sparse crop of brown grass growing on the grave to which he + led his companion. A cracked wooden head-board, already tilting rakishly, + marked Henry's devotion. It had been white-washed and the inscription done + in black letters, now partly washed away by the rain, but still legible: + </p> + <p> + HERE LIES THE MORTAL REMAINS OF WILLIAM ROLLINSON A LIFE-LONG DEMOCRAT AND + A MAN AS HONEST AS THE DAY IS LONG + </p> + <p> + The chairman laughed. “Don't that beat thunder? You knew his record in the + legislature didn't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “He <i>was</i> as crooked as they say he was, wasn't he?” + </p> + <p> + Hurlbut had grown much older in five years, and he was in Congress. He was + climbing the ladder, and, to hold the position he had gained, and to + insure his continued climbing, he had made some sacrifices within himself + by obliging his friends—sacrifices which he did not name. + </p> + <p> + “I could hardly say,” he answered gently, his down-bent eyes fastened on + the sparse, brown grass. “It's not for us to judge too much. I believe, + maybe, that if he could hear me now, I'd ask his pardon for some things I + said to him once.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HECTOR + </h2> + <p> + It isn't the party manager, you understand, that gets the fame; it's the + candidate. The manager tries to keep his candidate in what the newspapers + call a “blaze of publicity”; that is, to keep certain spots of him in the + blaze, while sometimes it is the fact that a candidate does not know much + of what is really going on; he gets all the red fire and sky-rockets, and, + in the general dazzle and nervousness, is unconscious of the forces which + are to elect or defeat him. Strange as it is, the more glare and + conspicuousness he has, the more he usually wants. But the more a working + political manager gets, the less he wants. You see, it's a great advantage + to keep out of the high lights. + </p> + <p> + For my part, not even being known or important enough to be named + “Dictator,” now and then, in the papers, I've had my fun in the game very + quietly. Yet I did come pretty near being a famous man once, a good while + ago, for about a week. That was just after Hector J. Ransom made his great + speech on the “Patriotism of the Pasture” which set the country to talking + about him and, in time, brought him all he desired. + </p> + <p> + You remember what a big stir that speech made, of course—everybody + remembers it. The people in his State went just wild with pride, and all + over the country the papers had a sort of catch head-line: “Another Daniel + Webster Come to Judgment!” When the reporters in my own town found out + that Ransom was a second cousin of mine, I was put into a scare-head for + the only time in my life. For a week I was a public character and + important to other people besides the boys that do the work at primaries. + I was interviewed every few minutes; and a reporter got me up one night at + half-past twelve to ask for some anecdotes of Hector's “Boyhood Days and + Rise to Fame.” + </p> + <p> + I didn't oblige that young man, but I knew enough. I was always fond of my + first cousin, Mary Ransom, Hector's mother; and in the old days I never + passed through Greenville, the little town where they lived, without + stopping over, a train or two, to visit with her, and I saw plenty of + Hector! I never knew a boy that left the other boys to come into the + parlour (when there was company) quicker than Hector, and I certainly + never saw a boy that “showed off” more. His mother was wrapped up in him; + you could see in a minute that she fairly worshipped him; but I don't + know, if it hadn't been for Mary, that I'd have praised his recitations + and elocution so much, myself. + </p> + <p> + Mary and I wouldn't any more than get to tell each other how long since + we'd heard from Aunt Sue, before Hector would grow uneasy and switch + around on the sofa and say: “Ma, I'd rather you wouldn't tell cousin Ben + about what happened at the G. A. R. reunion. I don't want to go through + all that stuff again.” + </p> + <p> + At that, Mary's eyes would light up and she'd say: “You must, Hector, you + must! I want him to hear you do it; he mustn't go away without that!” Then + she'd go on to tell me how Hector had recited Lincoln's Gettysburg speech + at a meeting of the local post of the G. A. R. and how he was applauded, + and that many of the veterans had told him if he kept on he'd be Governor + of his State some day, and how proud she was of him and how he was so + different from ordinary boys that she was often anxious about him. Then + she would urge him to let me have it—and he always would, especially + if I said: “Oh, don't <i>make</i> the boy do it, Mary!” + </p> + <p> + He would stand out in the middle of the floor and thrust his chin out, + knitting his brow and widening his nostrils, and shout “Of the people, By + the people, and For the people” at the top of his lungs in that little + parlour. He always had a great talent for mimicry, a talent of which I + think he was absolutely unconscious. He would give his speeches in exactly + the boy-orator style; that is, he imitated speakers who imitated others + who had heard Daniel Webster. Mary and he, however, had no idea that he + imitated anybody; they thought it was creative genius. + </p> + <p> + When he had finished Lincoln, he would say: “Well, I've got another that's + a good deal better, but I don't want to go through that today; it's too + much trouble,” with the result that in a few minutes Patrick Henry would + take a turn or two in his grave. Hector always placed himself by a table + for “Liberty or Death,” and barked his knuckles on it for emphasis. Little + he cared, so long as he thought he'd got his effect! You could see, in + spite of the intensity of his expression, that he was perfectly happy. + </p> + <p> + When he'd worked us through that, and perhaps “Horatius at the Bridge” and + the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius and was pretty well emptied, + he'd hang about and interrupt in a way that made me restless. Neither Mary + nor I could get out two sentences before the boy would cut in with + something like: “Don't tell cousin Ben about that day I recited in school; + I'm tired of all that guff!” + </p> + <p> + Then Mary would answer: “It isn't guff, precious. I never was prouder of + you in my life.” And she'd go on to tell me about another of his triumphs, + and how he made up speeches of his own sometimes, and would stand on a box + and deliver them to his boy friends, though she didn't say how the boys + received them. All the while, Hector would stare at me like a neighbour's + cat on your front steps, to see what impression it made on me; and I was + conscious that he was sure that I knew he was a wonderful boy. I think he + felt that everybody knew it. Hector kind of palled on me. + </p> + <p> + When he was about sixteen, Mary wrote me that she was in great distress + about him because he had decided to go on the stage; that he had written + to John McCullough, offering to take the place of leading man in his + company to begin with. Mary was sure, she said, that the life of an actor + was a hard one; Hector had always been very delicate (I had known him to + eat a whole mince pie without apparent distress afterward) and she wanted + me to write and urge him to change his mind. She felt sure Mr. McCullough + would send for him at once, because Hector had written him that he already + knew all the principal Shakespearian roles, could play Brutus, Cassius, or + Mark Antony as desired; and he had added a letter of recommendation from + the Mayor of their city, declaring that Hector was a finer elocutionist + and tragedian than any actor he had ever seen. + </p> + <p> + The dear woman's anxiety was needless, for she wrote me, with as much + surprise as pleasure, two months later, that for some reason Mr. + McCullough had not answered the letter, and that she was very happy; she + had persuaded Hector to go to college. + </p> + <p> + How she kept him there, the first two years, I don't know, for her husband + had only left her about four hundred dollars a year. Of course, living in + Greenville isn't expensive, but it does cost something, and I honestly + believe Mary came near to living on nothing. It was a small college that + she'd sent the boy to, but it was a mother's point with her that Hector + should be as comfortable as anyone there. + </p> + <p> + I stopped off at Greenville, one day, toward the end of his second year, + but before he'd come home, and I saw how it was. Mary seemed as glad as + ever to see me—it was the same old bright greeting that she'd always + given me. She saw me from the dining-room window where she was eating her + supper, and she came out, running down to the gate to meet me, like a + girl; but she looked thin and pale. + </p> + <p> + I said I'd go right in and have some supper with her, and at that the + roses came back quickly to her cheeks. “No,” she said, “I wasn't really at + supper; only having a bite beforehand; I'm going up-town now to get the + things for supper. You smoke a cigar out on the porch till I get back, and—” + </p> + <p> + I took her by the arm. “Not much, Mary,” I said. “I'm going to have the + same supper you had for yourself.” + </p> + <p> + So I went straight out to the dining-room; and all I found on the table + was some dry bread toasted and a baked apple without cream or sugar. It + gave me a pretty good idea of what the general run of her meals must have + been. + </p> + <p> + I had a long talk with her that night, and I wormed it out of her that + Hector's college expenses were about twenty-five dollars a month, which + left her six to live on. The truth is, she didn't have enough to eat, and + you could see how happy it made her. She read me a good many of Hector's + letters, her voice often trembling with happiness over his triumphs. The + letters were long, I'll say that for Hector, which may have been to his + credit as a son, or it may have been because he had such an interesting + subject. There was no doubt that he had worked hard; he had taken all the + chief prizes for oratory and essay writing and so forth that were open to + him; he also allowed it to be seen that he was the chief person in the + consideration of his class and the fraternity he had joined. Mary had a + sort of humbleness about being the mother of such a son. + </p> + <p> + But I settled one thing with her that night, though I had to hurt her + feelings to do it. I owned a couple of small notes which had just fallen + due, and I could spare the money. I put it as a loan to Hector himself; he + was to pay me back when he got started, and so it was arranged that he + could finish his course without his mother's living on apples and toast. + </p> + <p> + I went over to his Commencement with Mary and we hadn't been in the town + an hour before we saw that Hector was the king of the place. He had <i>all</i> + the honours; first in his class, first in oratory, first in everything; + professors and students all kow-towed and sounded the hew-gag before him. + Most of Mary's time was put in crying with happiness. As for Hector + himself, he had changed in just one way: he no longer looked at people to + see his effect on them; he was too confident of it. + </p> + <p> + His face had grown to be the most determined I have ever seen. There was + no obstinacy in it—he wasn't a bull-dog—only set + determination. No one could have failed to read in it an immensely + powerful will. In a curious way he seemed “on edge” all the time. His + nostrils were always distended, the muscles of his lean jaw were never + lax, but continually at tension, thrusting the chin forward with his teeth + hard together. His eyebrows were contracted, I think, even in his sleep, + and he looked at everything with a sort of quick, fierce, appearance of + scrutiny, though at that time I imagined that he saw very little. He had a + loud, rich voice, his pronunciation was clipped to a deadly distinctness; + he was so straight and his head so high in the air that he seemed almost + to tilt back. With his tall figure and black hair, he was a boy who would + have attracted attention, as they say, in any crowd, so that he might have + been taken for a young actor. His best friend, a kind of Man Friday to + him, was another young fellow from Greenville, whose name was Joe Lane. I + liked Joe. I'd known him? since he was a boy. He was lazy and + pleasant-looking, with reddish hair and a drawling, low voice. He had a + humorous, sensible expression, though he was dissipated, I'd heard, but + very gentle in his manners. I had a talk with him under the trees of the + college campus in the moonlight, Commencement night. I can see the boy + lying there now, sprawling on the grass with a cigar in his mouth. + </p> + <p> + “Hector's done well,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lord, yes!” Joe answered. “He always will. He's going 'way up in the + world.” + </p> + <p> + “What makes you think so?” + </p> + <p> + “Because he's so sure of it. It only needs a little luck to make him a + great man. In fact, he already is a great man.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean you think he has a great mind?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, no, sir; but I think he has a purpose so big and so set, that it + might be called great, and it will make him great.” + </p> + <p> + “What purpose?” + </p> + <p> + Joe answered quietly but very slowly, pulling at his cigar after each + syllable: “Hec—tor—J. Ran—som!” + </p> + <p> + “I declare,” I put in, “I thought you were his friend!” + </p> + <p> + “So I am,” the young fellow returned. “Friend, admirer, and + doer-in-ordinary to Hector J. Ransom, that's my quality. I've done errands + and odd jobs for him all my life. Most people who meet him do; though it + might be hard to say why. I haven't hitched my wagon to a star; nobody'll + get to do that, because this star isn't going to take anything to the + zenith but itself.” + </p> + <p> + “Going to the zenith, is he?” + </p> + <p> + “Surely.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean,” said I, “that he's going to make a fine lawyer?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, I think not. He might have been called one in the last + generation, but, as I understand it, nowadays a lawyer has to work out + business propositions more than oratory.” + </p> + <p> + “And you think Hector has only his oratory?” + </p> + <p> + “I think that's his vehicle; it's his racing sulky and he'll drive it + pretty hard. We're good friends, but if you want me to be frank, I should + say that he'd drive on over my dead body if it lay in the road to where he + was going.” Lane rolled over in the grass with a little chuckle. “Of + course,” he went on, “I talk about him this way because I know what you've + done for him and I'd like to help you to be sure that he's going to be a + success. He'll do you credit!” + </p> + <p> + “What are you going to do, yourself, Joe?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Me?” He sat up, looking surprised. “Why, didn't you know? I didn't get my + degree. They threw me out at the eleventh hour for getting too publicly + tight—celebrating Hector's winning the works of Lord Byron, the + prize in the senior debate! I'll never be a credit to anybody; and as for + what I'm going to do—go back to Greenville and loaf in Tim's + pool-room, I suppose, and watch Hector's balloon.” + </p> + <p> + However, Hector's balloon seemed uninclined to soar, at the set-off—though + Hector didn't. The next summer began a presidential campaign, and Hector, + knowing that I was chairman of my county committee, and strangely + overestimating my importance, came up to see me: he asked me to use my + influence with the National Committee to have him sent to make speeches in + one of the doubtful States; he thought he could carry it for us. I + explained that I had no wires leading up so far as the National Committee. + There were other things I might have explained, but it didn't seem much + use. Hector would have thought I wanted to “keep him down.” + </p> + <p> + He thought so anyway, because, after a crestfallen moment, he began to + look at me in his fierce eye-to-eye way with what seemed to me a dark + suspicion. He came and struck my desk with his clinched fist (he was + always strong on that), and exclaimed: + </p> + <p> + “Then by the eternal gods, if my own flesh and blood won't help me, I'll + go to Chicago myself, lay my credentials before the committee, unaided, + and wring from them—” + </p> + <p> + “Hold on, Hector,” I said. “Why didn't you say you had credentials? What + are they?” + </p> + <p> + “What are they?” he answered in a rising voice. “You ask me what are my + credentials? The credentials of my patriotism, my poverty, and my pride! + You ask me for my credentials? The credentials of youth!” (He hit the desk + every few words.) “The credentials of enthusiasm! The credentials of + strength! You ask for my credentials? The credentials of red blood, of red + corpuscles, of young manhood, ripest in the glorious young West! The + credentials of vitality! Of virile—” + </p> + <p> + “Hold on,” I said again, but I couldn't stop him. He went on for probably + fifteen minutes, pacing the room and gesticulating and thundering at me, + though we two were all alone. I felt mighty ridiculous, but, of course, + I'd been through much the same thing with one or two candidates and + orators before. I thought then that he was practising on me, but I came + afterward to see that I was partly wrong. “Oratory” was his only way of + expressing himself; he couldn't just <i>talk</i>, to save his life. All + you could do, when he began, was to sit and take it till he got through, + which consumed some valuable time for me that afternoon. I suppose I was + profane inside, for having given him that cue with “credentials.” Finally + I got in a question: + </p> + <p> + “Why not begin a little more mildly, Hector? Why don't you make some + speeches in your own county first?” + </p> + <p> + “I have consented to make the Fourth of July oration at Greenville,” he + answered. + </p> + <p> + Before he could go on, I got up and slapped him on the back. “That's + right!” I said. “That's right! Go back and show the home folks what you + can do, and I'll come down to hear it!” + </p> + <p> + And so I did. Mary was, if possible, more flustered and upset than at + Hector's Commencement. She and Joe Lane and I had a bench close up to the + stand, and on the other side of Mary sat a girl I'd never seen before. + Mary introduced me to her in a way that made me risk a guess that Hector + liked her more than common. Her name was Laura Rainey, and she'd come to + Greenville, a year before, to teach in the high-school. She was young, not + quite twenty, I reckoned, and as pretty and dainty a girl as ever I saw; + thin and delicate-looking, though not in the sense of poor health; and she + struck me as being very sweet and thoughtful. Joe Lane told me, with his + little chuckle, that she'd had a good deal of trouble in the school on + account of all the older boys falling in love with her. + </p> + <p> + Something in the way he spoke made me watch Joe, and I was sure if he'd + been one of her pupils he wouldn't have lightened her worries much in that + direction. He had it himself. I saw it, or, I should say, I felt it, in + spite of his never seeming to look at her. She looked at him, however, and + pretty often, too; and there was a good deal of interest in her eyes, only + it was a sad kind, which I understood, I thought, when I found that Joe + had been on a long spree and had just sobered up the day before. + </p> + <p> + Hector sat above us on the platform, with the Mayor and the County Judge, + and when the latter introduced him, and the same old white pitcher and + glass of water on a pine table, the boy came forward with slow and + impressive steps, and, setting his left fist on his hip, allowed his right + arm to hang straight by his side till his hand rested on the table, like a + statesman of the day standing for a photograph. His brow contained a + commanding frown, and he stood for some moments in that position, while, + to my astonishment, the crowd cheered itself hoarse. + </p> + <p> + There was no mistaking the genuine enthusiasm that he evoked, though I + didn't feel it myself. I suppose the only explanation is that he had a + great deal of what is called “magnetism.” What made it I don't know. He + was good-looking enough, with his dark eyes and hair, and white, intense + face and black clothes; but there was more in the cheering than + appreciation of that. I could not doubt that he produced on the crowd, by + his quiet attitude, an apparition of greatness. There was some kind of + hypnotism in it, I suppose. + </p> + <p> + The speech was about what I was looking for: bombastic platitudes + delivered with such earnestness and velocity that “every point scored” and + the cheering came whenever he wanted it. + </p> + <p> + For instance: he would retire a few steps toward the rear, and, pointing + to the sky, adjure it in a solemn voice which made every one lean forward + in a dead hush: + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, ye silent stars, that seem to slumber 'neath the auroral + coverlet of day, tell me, down what laurelled pathways among ye walk our + dead, the heroes whose blood was our benison, bequeathing to us the + heritage of this flower-strewn land; they who have passed to that bourne + whence no traveller returns? Answer me: Are not <i>theirs</i> the loftiest + names inscribed on your marble catalogues of the nations?” He let his + voice out startlingly and shouted: “CREEPS there a creature of the earth + with spirit so sordid as to doubt it, to doubt <i>who</i> heads those + gilded rolls! If there be, then <i>I</i> say to him, 'Beware!' For the + names I see written above me to-day on the immemorial canopy of heaven + begin with that of the spotless knight, the unsceptred and uncrowned king, + the godlike and immaculate”—(here he turned suddenly, ran to the + front of the stage, and, with outstretched fist shaking violently over our + heads, thundered at the full power of his lungs): “GEORGE WASHINGTON!” + </p> + <p> + He did the same for Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, and four or five + governors and senators of the State; and at every name the crowd went + wild, worked up to it by Hector in the same way. But what surprised me was + his daring to conclude his list with a votive offering laid at the feet of + Passley Trimmer. Trimmer was the congressional representative of that + district and one of the meanest men and smartest politicians in the world. + He was always creeping out of tight places and money-scandals by the skin + of his teeth; and yet, by building up the finest personal machine in the + State, he stuck to his seat in Congress term after term, in spite of the + fact that most of the intelligent and honest men in his district despised + him. It was a proof of the power Hector held over his audience that, by + his tribute to Trimmer, he was able to evoke the noisiest enthusiasm of + the afternoon. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, what really tickled me most was the boy's peroration. It + gave me a pretty clear insight into his “innard workings.” He led up to it + in his favourite way: stepping backward a pace or two and sinking his + voice to a kind of Edwin Booth quiet; gradually growing a little louder; + then suddenly turning on the thunder and running forward. + </p> + <p> + “You ask <i>me</i> for our credentials?” he roared. (Nobody had, this + time.) “In the Lexicon of the Peoples, you ask <i>me</i> for my country's + credentials? The credentials of our pastures, our population and our + pride! You ask me for my country's credentials? I reply: 'The credentials + of our youth and our enthusiasm! Of red corpuscles! Of red blood! The + credentials of the virility and of the magnificent manhood of the + Columbian Continent!' You ask for my country's credentials and I answer: + 'The credentials of Glory! By right of the eternal and Almighty God!'” + </p> + <p> + Of course there was a great deal more, but that's enough to show how he + had polished it. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I walked back to Mary's with Joe Lane, while Hector followed, making a + kind of Royal Progress through the crowds, with his mother and Miss + Rainey. + </p> + <p> + “You see it now, yourself, don't you?” Joe said to me. + </p> + <p> + “You mean about his doing well?” + </p> + <p> + “What else? He's just shown what he can do with people. The day will come + when you'll have to take him at his own valuation.” + </p> + <p> + I couldn't help laughing. “Well, Joe,” I said, “that sounds as if <i>you</i>, + at least, already took Hector at his own valuation.” + </p> + <p> + “In some things,” he answered, “I think I do. Don't you take him for an + ass, sir. Sometimes I believe he's guided by a really superior + intelligence—” + </p> + <p> + “Must be a sub-consciousness, then, Joe!” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly,” he said seriously. “He doesn't make a single mistake. He's + trained his manner so that, while a very few people laugh at him, he does + things that the town would resent in any one else. He doesn't go round + with the boys, and they look up to him for it. He isn't pompous, but he's + acquired a kind of stateliness of manner that's made Greenville call him + 'Mister Ransom' instead of 'Hec.' You probably think that his request to + the National Committee only shows he's got all the nerve in the world; but + I believe, on my soul, that if it had been granted he could have made + good.” + </p> + <p> + “What did he want to run Passley Trimmer into his Pantheon for, to-day?” I + asked. + </p> + <p> + Joe's honest face looked a little dark at this. “It's only another proof + of the shrewdness that directs him, though it was, maybe, a little bit + sickening. He talks gold and stars and eternal gods, about sweetness and + light and pure politics and reform, but he wants Passley Trimmer's machine + to take him up. Passley Trimmer and his brother, Link, are a good-sized + curse to this district, I expect you know, but Hector's courting them. + Link is the dirtiest we've ever had here, and he holds all the rottenest + in this county solid for Passley. He's overbearing; ugly, too; shot a + nigger in the hip a year ago, and crippled him for life on account of a + little back-talk, and got off scot-free. I had a row with him in a saloon + last week; I was tight, I suppose, though there's always been bad blood + between us, anyway, drunk or sober, and I didn't know much what happened, + except that I refused to drink in his company and he cursed me out and I + blacked an eye for him before they separated us. Well, sir, next day, here + was Hector demanding that I go and apologize to Link. I said I'd as soon + apologize to a rattlesnake, and Hector upbraided me in his rhetoric, but + with a whole lot of real feeling, too. He was even pathetic about it: put + it on the ground that I owed it to morality, by which he meant Hector. I + was known to be his most intimate friend; I had done him an irrecoverable + injury with the Trimmers, who would extend their retaliation and let <i>him</i> + have a share of it, as my friend. He ended by declaring that he should + withhold the light of his countenance from me until I had repaired the + wrong done to his cause, and had apologized to Link!” + </p> + <p> + “Did you do it?” + </p> + <p> + The good fellow answered with his little chuckle: “Of course! Don't you + see that he gets everybody to do what he wants? It's almost sheer will, + and he's a true cloud-compeller.” + </p> + <p> + I wanted to understand something else, and I didn't know how much Mary + could tell me; that is, I was sure that she would think that Miss Rainey + was in love with Hector. Mary wouldn't be able to see how any girl could + help it. + </p> + <p> + “Joe,” I said, “does Hector seem much taken with this Miss Rainey?” + </p> + <p> + We had come to the gate, and Lane stopped to relight a cigar before he + answered. He kept the match at the stub until it burned out, half hiding + his face from me with his hands, shielding the flame from a breeze that + wasn't blowing. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said finally, “as much as he could be with anybody—at + least he wants her to be taken with him.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think she is?” + </p> + <p> + He swung the gate open, and stood to let me pass in first. “She could be + of great help to him. We've all got to help Hector.” + </p> + <p> + I was going on: “You believe she will—” + </p> + <p> + “Did you ever hear,” he interrupted, “of Jane Welsh Carlyle?” + </p> + <p> + I thought about that answer of Joe's most of the evening, and it struck me + he was right. It was one of those things you couldn't possibly explain to + save your life, but you knew it: everybody had <i>got</i> to help Hector. + Everybody had to get behind him and push. Hector took it for granted in a + way that passed the love of woman! + </p> + <p> + And yet, as we sat at Mary's supper-table, that evening, I don't know that + I ever felt less real liking for any of my kin than I felt for Hector, + though, perhaps, that was because he seemed to keep rubbing it in on me in + indirect ways that I had done him an injury by not helping him with the + National Committee, and that I ought to know it, after his triumph of the + afternoon. I could see that Mary agreed with him, though in her gentle + way. + </p> + <p> + Young Lane and Miss Rainey stayed for supper, too, and were very quiet. + Miss Rainey struck me as a quiet girl generally, and Joe never talked, + anyway, when in Hector's company. For that matter, nobody else did; there + was mighty little chance. The truth is, Hector had an impediment of + speech: he couldn't listen. + </p> + <p> + Of course he talked only about himself. That followed, because it was all + there was in him. Not that it always <i>seemed</i> to be about himself. + For instance, I remember one of his ways of rubbing it into me, that + evening. He had been delivering himself of some opinions on the nature of + Genius, fragments (like his “credentials”—I had a sneaking idea) of + some undeveloped oration or other. “Look at Napoleon!” he bade us, while + Mary was cutting the pie. “Could Barras with all his jealous and + malevolent opposition, could Barras with all his craft, all his + machinations, with all the machinery of the State, could Barras oppose the + upward flight of that mighty spirit? No! Barras, who should have been the + faithful friend, the helper, the disciple and believer, Barras, I say, set + himself to destroy the youth whose genius he denied, and Barras was + himself destroyed! He fell, for he had dared to oppose the path of one of + the eternal stars!” + </p> + <p> + That was a sample, and I don't exaggerate it. I couldn't exaggerate + Hector; it's beyond me; he always exaggerated himself beyond anybody + else's power to do it. But I loved to hear Joe Lane's chuckle and I got + one out of him when I offered him a cigar as we went out on the porch. + </p> + <p> + “Take one,” I said. “It's one of Barras's best.” + </p> + <p> + “Better get in line,” was all he added to the chuckle. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A good many visitors dropped in, during the evening, Greenville's greatest + come to congratulate Hector on the speech. Everybody in the county was + talking about him that night, they said. Hector received these people in + his old-fashioned-statesman manner, though I noticed that already he shook + hands like a candidate. He would grasp the caller's hand quickly and + decidedly, instead of letting the other do the gripping. And I could see + that all those who came in, even hard-headed men twice his age, treated + him deferentially, with the air of intimate respect that he somehow + managed to exact from people. Perhaps I don't do him justice: he was a + “mighty myster'us” boy! + </p> + <p> + I sat and smoked, lounging in one of Mary's comfortable porch-chairs. I + managed without trouble to be in the background and I couldn't help + putting in most of my time studying Joe Lane and Miss Rainey. Those two + were sitting, on the side-steps of the porch, a little apart from the rest + of us—and a little apart from each other, too. Lord knows how you + get such strong impressions, but I was very soon perfectly sure that these + two young people were in love with each other and that they both knew it, + but that they had given each other up. I was sure, too, that they were + both under Hector's spell, and preposterous as it may seem, that they were + under his <i>will</i>, and that Hector's plans included Miss Rainey for + himself. + </p> + <p> + It was a mighty pretty evening; full of flower-smells and breezes from the + woods, which began just across the village street. Joe sat in a sort of + doubled-up fashion he had, his thin hands clasped like a strap round his + knees. She sat straight and trim, both of them looking out toward where + the twilight was fading. As the darkness came on I could barely make them + out, a couple of quiet shadows, seemingly as far away from the group about + the lamp-lit doorway where Hector sat, as if they were alone on big + Jupiter who was setting up to be the whole thing, far out yonder in the + lonely sky. + </p> + <p> + By and by, the moon oozed round from behind the house and leaked through + the trees and I could see them plainer, two silhouettes against the + foliage of some bright lilac-bushes. Joe hadn't budged, but the back of + Miss Rainey's head wasn't toward me as it had been before; it was her + profile. She was leaning back a little, against a post, and looking at Joe—just + looking at him. Neither of them spoke a word the whole time, and somehow I + felt they didn't need to, and that what they had to say to each other had + never been spoken and never would be. It was mighty pretty—and sad, + too. + </p> + <p> + I felt so sorry for them, but it made me more or less impatient with + Hector, and with Joe—especially with Joe, I think. It seemed to me + he needn't have taken his temperament so hopelessly. But what's the use of + judging? When a man has a temperament like that, people who haven't can't + tell what he's got to contend with. + </p> + <p> + That Fourth of July speech gave Hector his chance. His district managers + and the Trimmer faction saw they could use him; and they sent him round + stumping the district. Two campaigns later the State Committee was using + him, and parts of his speeches were being printed in all the party papers + over the State. Locally, I suppose you might say, he had become a famous + man; at least he acted like one—not that there was any essential + change in him. His style had undergone a large improvement, however; his + language was less mixed-up, and he seemed clear-headed enough on + “questions of the day,” showing himself to be well-informed and of a fine + judgment. + </p> + <p> + In these things I thought I saw the hand of Laura Rainey. The teacher was + helping him. The seriousness of his face had increased, he had always + entirely lacked humour; yet the spell he managed to cast over his + audiences was greater. He never once failed to “get them going,” as they + say. At twenty-nine he was no longer called “a rising young orator”; no, + he was usually introduced as the “Hon. Hector J. Ransom, the + Silver-tongued Lochinvar of the West.” + </p> + <p> + Things hadn't changed much at Greenville. Mary had always been so proud of + Hector that she hadn't inflated any more on account of his wider + successes. She couldn't, because she hadn't any room left for it. + </p> + <p> + Joe Lane still went on his periodical sprees quite regularly, about one + week every three months, and he was the least offensive tippler I ever + knew. He came up to the city during one of his lapses, and called at my + office. He was dressed with unusual care (he was always a good deal of a + dandy), and he did not stagger nor slush his syllables; indeed, the only + way I could have told what was the matter with him, at first, was by the + solemn preoccupation of his expression. A little black pickaninny followed + him, grinning and carrying a big bundle, covered with a new lace + window-curtain. + </p> + <p> + “I am but a bearer of votive flowers,” Joe said, bowing. Then turning to + the little darky, he waved his hand loftily. “Unveil the offering!” + </p> + <p> + The pickaninny did so, removing the lace curtain to reveal a shiny new + coal-bucket in which was a lump of ice, whereon reposed a pair of white + kid gloves and a large wreath of artificial daisies. + </p> + <p> + “With love,” said Joe. “From Hector.” And he stalked majestically out. + </p> + <p> + There was a card on the wreath, which Joe had inscribed: “To announce the + betrothal. No regrets.” + </p> + <p> + Sure enough, the next morning I had a letter from Mary, telling me that + Hector and Miss Rainey were engaged, that they had been so without + announcing it, for several years, and she feared the engagement must last + much longer before they could be married. So did I, for all of Hector's + glittering had brought him very little money. While he had some law + practice, of course it was small, in Greenville, and what he had he + neglected. Nor was he a good lawyer. I knew him to be heavily in debt to + Lane, whose father had died lately, leaving Joe fairly well off; and I + knew also that this debt sat very lightly on Hector. I judged so, because + in the matter of the advances I had made for his education, I never heard + him refer to them. Probably he forgot all about it, having so many more + important things to think of. + </p> + <p> + Mary was right: it was a very long engagement. It had lasted seven years + in all, when Passley Trimmer declared himself a candidate for the + nomination for Governor and gave Hector the great chance he had been + waiting for. Hector “came out” for Trimmer, and came out strong. He worked + for him day and night, and he was one of the best cards in Trimmer's hand. + </p> + <p> + It was easy enough to understand: Trimmer's nomination would leave his + seat in Congress vacant and the Trimmer crowd would throw it to Hector. + </p> + <p> + You could see that the “young Lochinvar” was really a power, and I think + they counted on him almost as much as on the personal machine Trimmer had + built up. Most of all, they counted on Hector's speech, nominating + Trimmer, to stampede the convention. If it was to be done, Hector was the + man to do it. There's no doubt in the world of the extraordinary capacity + he had for whirling a crowd along into a kind of insane enthusiasm. He + could make his audience enthusiastic about <i>anything</i>; he could have + brought them to their feet waving and cheering for Ben Butler himself, if + he had set out to do it. I believe that most of us who were against + Trimmer were more afraid of Hector's stampeding the convention than of + Trimmer's machine and all the money he was spending. + </p> + <p> + I was working all I knew for another man, Henderson, of my county, and our + delegation would go into the convention sixty-three solid for Henderson, + first, last, and all the time. On that account I had to play Barras again + to the young Napoleon. He came to see me, and made one of his orations, + imploring me to swing half of our delegation for Trimmer on the first + ballot, and all of it on the second. + </p> + <p> + “But they count on me!” he declaimed. “They count on me to turn you! Is a + man to be denied by his own flesh and blood? Are the ties of relationship + nothing? Can't you see that my whole future is put in jeopardy by your + refusal? Here is my opportunity at last and you endanger it. My marriage + and my fortune depend on it; the cup is at my lips. My long years of toil + and preparation, the bitter, bitter waiting—are these things to go + for nothing? I tell you that if you refuse me you may blast the most + sacred hopes that ever dwelt in a human breast!” + </p> + <p> + I only smoked on, and so he did “the jury pathetic,” and he was sincere in + it, too. + </p> + <p> + “Have you no heart?” he inquired, his voice shaking. “Can you think calmly + of my mother? Remember the years she has waited to see this recognition + come to her son! Am I to go back to her and tell her that your answer was + 'No'? I ask you to think of her, I ask you to put self out of your + thoughts, to forget your own interests for once, and to think of my + mother, waiting in the old home in the quiet village street where you knew + her in her bright girlhood. Remember that she awaits your answer; forget + <i>me</i> if you will, but remember what it means to <i>her</i>, I say, + and <i>then</i> if there is a stone in your breast, instead of a human + heart, speak the word 'No'!” + </p> + <p> + I spoke it, and, as he had to catch his train, he departed more in anger + than in sorrow, leaving me to my conscience, he told me. At the door he + turned. + </p> + <p> + “I warn you,” he said, “that this faction of yours shall go down to + defeat! Trimmer will win this fight, and I shall take his seat in + Congress! That is my first stepping-stone, and I <i>will</i> take it! I + have worked too hard and waited too long, for such as you to successfully + oppose me. I tell you that we shall meet in the convention, and you and + your machine will be broken! The rewards, then, to us, the victors!” + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course,” I said, “if you win.” + </p> + <p> + The Trimmer people were strong with the State Executive Committee, and, in + spite of us, worked things a good deal their own way. They took the + convention away from the State Capital to Greenville, which was, of + course, a great advantage for Trimmer. The fact is, that most of the best + people in that district didn't like him, but you know how we all are: he + <i>was</i> one <i>of</i> them, and as soon as it seemed he had a chance to + beat men from other parts of the State, they began to shout themselves + black in the face for their own. When I went down there, the day before + the convention, the place was one mass of Trimmer flags, banners, badges, + transparencies, buttons, and brass bands. + </p> + <p> + I went around to see Mary right away, and while she wasn't exactly cold to + me—the dear woman never could be that to anybody—she was + different; her eyes met mine sadly and her old, sweet voice was a little + tremulous, as if she were sorry that I had done something wrong. + </p> + <p> + I didn't stay long. I started back to the Henderson headquarters in the + hotel, but on my way I passed a big store-room on a corner of the Square, + which Trimmer had fitted up as his own headquarters. There was quite a + crowd of the boys going in and out, looking cheerful, fresh cigars in + their mouths, and a drink or two inside, band coming down the street, + everything the way an old-timer likes to see it. + </p> + <p> + Passley Trimmer himself came out as I was going by, and with him were his + brother, Link, and two or three other men, among them a weasel-faced + little fellow named Hugo Siffles, who kept a drug-store on the next + corner. Hugo wasn't anybody; nobody ever paid any attention to him at all; + but he was one of those empty-headed village talkers who are always trying + to look as if they were behind the scenes, always trying to walk with + important people. Everybody knows them. They whisper to the undertaker at + funerals; and during campaigns they have something confidential to + communicate to United States Senators. They meddle and intrude and waste + as much time for you as they can. + </p> + <p> + When Trimmer saw me, he held out his hand. “Hello, Ben! I hear you're not + <i>for</i> me!” he said cordially. + </p> + <p> + “How are you running?” I came back at him, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we're going to beat you,” he answered, in the same way. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you'll see a good run, first, I expect!” + </p> + <p> + He walked along with me, Link and the others following a little way + behind; but Hugo Siffles, of course, walking with us, partly to listen and + tell at the drug-store later, and partly to look like state secrets. + </p> + <p> + “Sorry you couldn't see your way to join us,” Trimmer said. “But we'll win + out all right, anyway. I shouldn't think that would be much of a + disappointment to you, though. It will be a great thing for one of your + family.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes,” I said, “Hector.” + </p> + <p> + Trimmer took on a little of his benevolent statesman's manner, which they + nearly all get in time. “I have the greatest confidence in that young + man's future,” he said. “He may go to the very top. All he needs is money. + I speak to you as a relative: he ought to drop that school-teacher and + marry a girl with money. He could, easily enough.” + </p> + <p> + That made me a little ugly. “Oh, no,” I said. “He can make plenty in + Congress outside of his salary, can't he? I understand some of them do.” + </p> + <p> + Of course Trimmer didn't lose his temper; instead, he laughed out loud, + and then put his hand on my shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” he said. “I'm his friend and you're his cousin. He's one of + my own crowd and I have his best interests at heart. That isn't the girl + for him. He tells me that, for a long while, she used to advise him + against having too much to do with <i>me</i>, until he showed her that + winning my influence in his favour was his only chance to rise. Now, if <i>you</i> + have his best interests at heart, as I have, you'll help persuade him to + let her go. Why shouldn't he marry better? She's not so young any longer, + and she's pretty much lost her looks. And then, you know people will talk—” + </p> + <p> + “Talk about what?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Well, if he goes to Congress, and, with his prospects, throws himself + away on a skinny little old-maid school-teacher in the backwoods, one that + he's been making love to for years, they might say almost anything. Why + can't he hand her over to Joe Lane? I'm sure—” + </p> + <p> + “That'll do,” I interrupted roughly. “I suppose you've been talking that + way to Hector?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, certainly. I have his best interests at—” + </p> + <p> + “Good-day, <i>sir</i>!” I said, and turned in at the hotel and left him, + with Hugo Siffles's little bright pig's eyes peeking at me round Trimmer's + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + Sore enough I was, and cursing Trimmer and Hector in my heart, so that + when some one knocked on my door, while I was washing up for supper, I + said “Come in!” as if I were telling a dog to get out. + </p> + <p> + It was Joe Lane and he was pretty drunk. He walked over to the bed and + caught himself unsteadily once or twice. I'd never seen him stagger + before. He didn't speak until he had sat down on the coverlet; then he + shaded his eyes with his hand and stared at me as if he wanted to make + sure that it <i>was</i> I. + </p> + <p> + “I've just been down to Hugo Siffles's drugstore,” he said, speaking very + slowly and carefully, “and Hugo was telling a crowd about a conver—conversation + between you and Passley Trimmer. He said Trimmer said Hector Ransom ought + to drop Miss Rainey—and 'hand her over to Joe Lane,' Is that true?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I answered. “The beast said that.” + </p> + <p> + “There was more,” Joe said heavily. “More that im—implied—might + be taken to imply scandal, which I believe Trimmer did not seriously + intend—but thought—thought might be used as an argument with + Hector to persuade him to jilt her?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “What was said ex—-actly? It is being repeated about town in various + forms. I want to know.” + </p> + <p> + Like a fool I told him the whole thing. I didn't think, didn't dream, of + course, what was in that poor, drunken, devoted head, and I wanted to blow + off my own steam, I was so hot. + </p> + <p> + He sat very quietly until I had finished; then he took his head in both + hands and rocked himself gently to and fro upon the bed, and I saw tears + trickling down his cheeks. It was a wretched spectacle in a way, he being + drunk and crying like a child, but I don't think I despised him. + </p> + <p> + “And she so true,” he sobbed, “so good, so faithful to him! She's given + him her youth, her whole sweet youth—all of it for him!” He got to + his feet and went to the door. + </p> + <p> + “Hold on, Joe,” I said, “where are you going?” + </p> + <p> + “'Nother drink!” he said, and closed the door behind him. + </p> + <p> + After supper I went to work with Henderson and three or four others in a + little back-room in our headquarters; and we were hard at it when one of + the boys held up his hand and said: “Listen!” + </p> + <p> + The sounds of a big disturbance came in through the open windows: shouting + and yelling, and crowds running in the streets below. The town had been so + noisy all evening that I thought nothing of it. “It's only some delegation + getting in,” I said. “Go on with the lists.” + </p> + <p> + But I'd no more than got the words out of my mouth than the noise rolled + into the outer rooms of our headquarters like a wave, and there was a + violent hammering on the door of our room, some one calling my name in a + loud frightened voice. I threw open the door and Hugo Siffles fell in, his + pig's eyes starting out of his pale, foolish face. + </p> + <p> + “Come with me!” he shouted, all in one breath, and laying hold of me by + the lapel of my coat, tried to drag me after him. “There's hell to pay! + Joe Lane came into Trimmer's headquarters, drunk, twenty minutes ago, and + slapped Passley Trimmer's face for what he said to us this afternoon. Link + Trimmer came in, a minute later, drunk too, and heard what had happened. + He followed Joe to Hodge's saloon and shot him. They've carried him to the + drug-store and he's asked to speak to you.” + </p> + <p> + I had the satisfaction of kicking that little cuss through the door ahead + of me, though I knew it was myself I ought to have kicked. + </p> + <p> + It was true that Joe had asked to speak to me, but when I reached the + drug-store the doctor wouldn't let me come into the back-room where he + lay, so I sat on a stool in the store. They'd turned all the people out, + except four or five friends of Joe's; and the glass doors and the windows + were solid with flattened faces, some of them coloured by the blue and + green lights so that it sickened me, and all staring horribly. After about + four years the doctor's assistant came out to get something from a shelf + and I jumped at him, getting mighty little satisfaction, you can be sure. + </p> + <p> + “It seems to be very serious indeed,” was all he would say. I knew that + for myself, because one of the men in the store had told me that it was in + the left side. + </p> + <p> + Half-an-hour after this—by the clock—the young man came out + again and called us in to carry Joe home. It was not more than a hundred + yards to the old Lane place, and six of us, walking very slowly, carried + him on a cot through the crowd. He was conscious, for he thanked us in a + weakish whisper, when we lifted him carefully into his own bed. Then the + doctor sent us all out except the assistant, and we went to the front + porch and waited, hating the crowd that had lined up against the fence and + about the gate. They looked like a lot of buzzards; I couldn't bear the + sight of them, so I went back into the little hall and sat down near Joe's + door. + </p> + <p> + After a while the assistant opened the door, holding a glass pitcher in + his hand. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” he said, when he saw me, “will you fill this with cold water from + the well?” + </p> + <p> + I took it and hurried out to the kitchen, where four or five people were + sitting and glumly whispering around an old coloured woman, Joe's cook, + who was crying and rocking herself in a chair. I hushed her up and told + her to show me the pump. It was in an orchard behind the house, and was + one of those old-fashioned things that sound like a siren whistle with the + hiccups. + </p> + <p> + It took me about five minutes to get the water up, and when I got back to + Joe's room, a woman was there with the doctors. It was Miss Rainey. She + had her hat off, her sleeves were rolled up and, though her face was the + whitest I ever saw, she was cool and steady. It was she who took the water + from me at the door. + </p> + <p> + I heard low voices in the parlour, where a lamp was lit, and I went in + there. Mary was sitting on a sofa, with a handkerchief hard against her + eyes, and Hector was standing in the middle of the room, saying over and + over, “My God!” and shaking. I went to the sofa and sat by Mary with my + hand on her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “To think of it!” Hector moaned. “To think of its coming at such a time! + To think of what it means to me!” + </p> + <p> + His mother spoke to him from behind her handkerchief: “You mustn't do it; + you <i>can't</i> Hector—oh, you can't, you <i>can't.</i>” + </p> + <p> + For answer he struck himself desperately across the forehead with the palm + of his hand. + </p> + <p> + “What is it,” I asked, “that your mother wants you not to do?” + </p> + <p> + “She wants me to give up Trimmer—to refuse to make the nominating + speech for him to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “You've <i>got</i> to give him up!” cried his mother; and then went on + with reiterations as passionate as they were weak and broken in utterance. + “You can't make the speech, you can't do it, you <i>can't—”</i> + </p> + <p> + “Then I'm done for!” he said. “Don't you see what a frightful blow this + pitiful, drunken folly of poor Joe's has dealt Trimmer's candidaoy? Don't + you see that they rely on me more than ever, <i>now</i>? Are you so blind + you don't see that I am the only man who can save Trimmer the nomination? + If I go back on him now, he's done for and I'm done for with him! It's my + only chance!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” she sobbed, “you'll have other chances; you'll have plenty of + chances, dear; you're young—” + </p> + <p> + “My only chance,” he went on rapidly, ignoring her, “and if I can carry it + through, it will mean everything to me. The tide's running strong against + Trimmer to-night, and I am the only man in the world who can turn it the + other way. If I go into the convention for him, faithful to him, and, out + of the highest sense of justice, explain that, even though Lane has been + my closest friend, he was in the wrong and that—” + </p> + <p> + Mary rose to her feet and went to her son and clung to him. “No, no!” she + cried; “no, <i>no</i>!” + </p> + <p> + “I've got to!” he said. + </p> + <p> + “What is that you must do, Hector?” It was Miss Rainey's voice, and came + from just behind me. She was standing in the doorway that led from the + hall, and her eyes were glowing with a brilliant, warm light. We all + started as she spoke, and I sprang up and turned toward her. + </p> + <p> + “He's going to get well,” she said, understanding me. “They say it is + surely so!” + </p> + <p> + At that Mary ran and threw her arms about her and kissed her—and I + came near it! Hector gave a sort of shout of relief and sank into a chair. + </p> + <p> + “What is that you must do, Hector?” Miss Rainey said again in her steady + voice. + </p> + <p> + “Stick to Trimmer!” he explained. “Don't you see that I must? He needs me + now more than ever, and it's my only chance.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Rainey looked at him over Mary's shoulder. She looked at him a long + while before she spoke. “You know why Mr. Lane struck that blow?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I suppose so,” he answered uneasily. “At least Siffles—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said. “You know. What are you going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “The right thing!” Hector rose and walked toward her. “I put right before + all. I shall be loyal and I shall be just. It might have been a terribly + hard thing to carry through, but, since dear old Joe will recover, I know + I can do it.” + </p> + <p> + The girl's eyes widened suddenly, while the warm glow in them flashed into + a fiery and profound scrutiny. + </p> + <p> + “You are going to make the nominating speech,” she said. It was not a + question but a declaration, in the tone of one to whom he stood wholly + revealed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he answered eagerly. “I knew you would see: it's my chance, my + whole career—” + </p> + <p> + But his mother, turning swiftly, put her hand over his mouth, though it + was to Miss Rainey that she cried: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don't let him say it—he can't; you mustn't let him!” + </p> + <p> + The girl drew her gently away and put an arm about her, saying: “Do you + think <i>I</i> could stop him?” + </p> + <p> + “But do you wish to stop me?” asked Hector sadly, as he stepped toward + her. “Do you set yourself not only in the way of my great chance, but + against justice and truth? Don't you see that I must do it?” + </p> + <p> + “It is your chance—yes. I see the truth, Hector.” Her eyes had + fallen and she looked at him no more, but, with a little movement away + from him, offered her hand to him at arm's length. It was done in a + curious way, and he looked perplexed for a second, and then frightened. He + dropped her hand, and his lips twitched. + </p> + <p> + “Laura,” he said, and could not go on. + </p> + <p> + “You must go now,” she said to all three of us. “The house should be very + quiet. I shall be his nurse, and the doctor will stay all night. Isn't it + beautiful that Joe is going to get well!” + </p> + <p> + She went out quickly, before Hector could detain her, back to the room + where Lane was. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There's no need my telling you the details of that convention: Henderson + was beaten from the start, and Hector's speech was all that happened. If + he hadn't made it, there might have been a consolidation on a dark horse, + for feeling was high against Trimmer. It isn't an easy thing to go into a + convention with a brother locked up in jail on a charge of attempted + murder! + </p> + <p> + I'll never forget Hector's rising to make that speech. There wasn't any + cheering, there was a dead, cold hush. This wasn't because his magnetism + had deserted him; indeed, I don't think it had ever before been felt so + strongly. He was white as white paper, and his face had a look of + suffering; altogether I believe I couldn't give a better notion of him + than saying that he somehow made me think of Hamlet. + </p> + <p> + He began in a very low but very penetrating voice, and I don't think + anybody in the farthest corner missed a single clear-cut syllable from the + first. As I may have indicated, I had never been a warm admirer of his, + but with all my prejudice, I think I admired him when he stood up to his + task that day. For the effect he intended, his speech was a masterpiece, + no less. I saw it before he had finished three sentences. And he delivered + it, knowing that even while he did so he was losing the woman he loved; + for Hector did love Laura Rainey, next to himself, and she had been part + of his life and necessary to him. But though the heavens fell, he stuck to + what he had set out to do, and did it masterfully. + </p> + <p> + Not that what he said could bear the analysis of a cool mind: nothing that + Hector ever did or said has been able to do that. But for the purpose, it + was perfect. For once he began at the beginning, without rhetoric, and he + made it all the more effective by beginning with himself. + </p> + <p> + “Doubtless there are many among you who think it strange to see me rise to + fulfil the charge with which you know me to be intrusted. My oldest and + most intimate friend lies wounded on a bed of suffering, stricken down by + the hand of another friend whose heart is in the cause for which I have + risen. Therefore, you might well question me; you might well say: 'To whom + is your loyalty?' Well might I ask myself that same question. And I will + give you my answer: 'There are things beyond the personal friendship of + man and man, things greater than individual differences and individual + tragedies, things as far higher and greater than these as the skies of God + are higher than the roof of a child's doll-house. These higher things are + the good of the State and the Law of Justice!'” + </p> + <p> + That brought the first applause; and Trimmer's people, seeing the crowd + had taken Hector's point, sprang to their feet and began to cheer. At a + tense moment, such as this, cheering is often hypnotic, and good managers + know how to make use of it on the floor. The noise grew thunderous, and + when it subsided Hector was master of the convention. Then, for the first + time, I saw how far he would go—and why. I had laughed at him all my + life, but now I believed there was “something in him,” as they say. The + Lord knows what, but it was there; and as I looked at him and listened it + seemed to me that the world was at his feet. + </p> + <p> + He was infinitely daring, yet he skirted the cause of the quarrel with + perfect tact: “The misinterpretation of a few careless and kindly words, + said in passing, and repeated, with garbling additions, to a man who was + not himself.... The brooding of a mind most unhappily beset with + alcohol.... A blow resented by a too devoted but too violent kinsman....” + </p> + <p> + Then, with the greatest skill, and rather quietly, he passed to a eulogium + of Trimmer's public career, gradually increasing the warmth of his praise + but controlling it as perfectly as he controlled the enthusiasm and + excitement which followed each of his points. For myself, I only looked + away from him once, and caught a glimpse of Henderson looking sick. + </p> + <p> + Hector finished with a great stroke. He went back to the original theme. + “You ask me where my duty lies!” His great voice rose and rang through the + hall magnificently: “I reply—'first to my State and her needs'! Is + that answer enough? If it be necessary that I should answer for my + personal loyalty to one man or another then I ask <i>you</i>: Shall it go + to the friend who, without cause, struck the first blow? Shall it go to + that other friend who went out hot-headed and struck back to avenge a + brother's wrongs? Is it only between these that I—and many of you—are + to choose to-day? Is there not a <i>third</i>?' I tell you that I have + chosen, and that my loyalty and all my strength are devoted to that other, + to that man who has suffered most of all, to him who received a blow and + did not avenge it, because in his greatness he knew that his assailant + knew not what he did!” + </p> + <p> + That carried them off their feet. Hector had turned Trimmer's greatest + danger into the means of victory. The Trimmer people led one of those + extraordinary hysterical processions round the aisles that you see + sometimes in a convention (a thing I never get used to), and it was all + Trimmer, or rather, it was all Hector. Trimmer was nominated on the first + ballot. + </p> + <p> + There was a recess, and I hurried out, meaning to slip round to Joe Lane's + for a moment to find out how he was. I'd seen the doctor in the morning + and he said his patient had passed a good night and that Miss Rainey was + still there. “I think she's going to stay,” he added, and smiled and shook + hands with me. + </p> + <p> + Joe's old darkey cook let me in, and, after a moment, came to say I might + go into Mr. Lane's room; Mr. Lane wanted to see me. + </p> + <p> + Joe was lying very flat on his back, but with his face turned toward the + door, and beside him sat Laura Rainey, their thin hands clasped together. + I stopped on the threshold with the door half opened. + </p> + <p> + “Come in,” said Joe weakly. “Hector made it, I'm sure.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I answered, and in earnest. “He's a great man.” + </p> + <p> + Joe's face quivered with a pain that did not come from his hurt. “Oh, it's + knowing that, that makes me feel like such a scoundrel,” he said. “I + suppose you've come to congratulate me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I said, “the doctor says it's a wonderful case, and that you're one + of the lucky ones with a charmed life, thank God!” + </p> + <p> + Joe smiled sadly at Miss Rainey. “He hasn't heard,” he said. Then she gave + me her left hand, aot relinquishing Joe's with her right. + </p> + <p> + “We were married this morning,” she said, “just after the convention + began.” + </p> + <p> + The tears came into Joe's eyes as she spoke. “It's a shame, isn't it?” he + said to me. “You must see it so. And I the kind of man I am, the town + drunkard—” + </p> + <p> + Then his wife leaned over and kissed his forehead. + </p> + <p> + “Even so it was right—and so beautiful for me,” she said. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART II + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MRS. PROTHEROE + </h2> + <p> + When Alonzo Tawson took his seat as the Senator from Stackpole in the + upper branch of the General Assembly of the State, an expression of + pleasure and of greatness appeared to be permanently imprinted upon his + countenance. He felt that if he had not quite arrived at all which he + meant to make his own, at least he had emerged upon the arena where he was + to win it, and he looked about him for a few other strong spirits with + whom to construct a focus of power which should control the senate. The + young man had not long to look, for within a week after the beginning of + the session these others showed themselves to his view, rising above the + general level of mediocrity and timidity, party-leaders and chiefs of + faction, men who were on their feet continually, speaking half-a-dozen + times a day, freely and loudly. To these, and that house at large, he felt + it necessary to introduce himself by a speech which must prove him one of + the elect, and he awaited impatiently an opening. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo had no timidity himself. He was not one of those who first try + their voices on motions to adjourn, written in form and handed out to + novices by presiding officers and leaders. He was too conscious of his own + gifts, and he had been “accustomed to speaking” ever since his days in the + Stackpole City Seminary. He was under the impression, also, that his + appearance alone would command attention from his colleagues and the + gallery. He was tall; his hair was long, with a rich waviness, rippling + over both brow and collar, and he had, by years of endeavour, succeeded in + moulding his features to present an aspect of stern and thoughtful majesty + whenever he “spoke.” + </p> + <p> + The opportunity to show his fellows that new greatness was among them + delayed not over-long, and Senator Rawson arose, long and bony in his best + clothes, to address the senate with a huge voice in denunciation of the + “Sunday Baseball Bill,” then upon second reading. The classical + references, which, as a born orator, he felt it necessary to introduce, + were received with acclamations which the gavel of the Lieutenant-Governor + had no power to still. + </p> + <p> + “What led to the De-cline and Fall of the Roman Empire?” he exclaimed. “I + await an answer from the advocates of this <i>de</i>-generate measure! I + <i>demand</i> an answer from them! Let me hear from them on <i>that</i> + subject! Why don't they speak up? They can't give one. Not because they + ain't familiar with history, no sir! That's not the reason! It's because + they <i>daren't,</i> because their answer would have to go on record <i>against</i> + 'em! Don't any of you try to raise it against me that I ain't speakin' to + the point, for I tell you that when you encourage Sunday Baseball, or any + kind of Sabbath-breakin' on Sunday, you're tryin' to start this State on + the downward path that beset Rome! <i>I'll</i> tell you what ruined it. + The Roman Empire started out to be the greatest nation on earth, and they + had a good start, too, just like the United States has got to-day. <i>Then</i> + what happened to 'em? Why, them old ancient fellers got more interested in + athletic games and gladiatorial combats and racing and all kinds of + out-door sports, and bettin' on 'em, than they were in oratory, or + literature, or charitable institutions and good works of all kinds! At + first they were moderate and the country was prosperous. But six days in + the week wouldn't content 'em, and they went at it all the time, so that + at last they gave up the seventh day to their sports, the way this bill + wants <i>us</i> to do, and from that time on the result was <i>de</i>-generacy + and <i>de</i>-gredation! You better remember <i>that</i> lesson, my + friends, and don't try to sink this State to the level of Rome!” + </p> + <p> + When Alonzo Rawson wiped his dampened brow, and dropped into his chair, he + was satisfied to the core of his heart with the effect of his maiden + effort. There was not one eye in the place that was not fixed upon him and + shining with surprise and delight, while the kindly Lieutenant-Governor, + his face very red, rapped for order. The young senator across the aisle + leaned over and shook Alonzo's hand excitedly. + </p> + <p> + “That was beautiful, Senator Rawson!” he wispered. “I'm <i>for</i> the + bill, but I can respect a masterly opponent.” + </p> + <p> + “I thank you, Senator Truslow,” Alonzo returned graciously. “I am glad to + have your good opinion, Senator.” + </p> + <p> + “You have it, Senator,” said Truslow enthusiastically. “I hope you intend + to speak often?” + </p> + <p> + “I do, Senator. I intend to make myself heard,” the other answered + gravely, “upon all questions of moment.” + </p> + <p> + “You will fill a great place among us, Senator!” + </p> + <p> + Then Alonzo Rawson wondered if he had not underestimated his neighbour + across the aisle; he had formed an opinion of Truslow as one of small + account and no power, for he had observed that, although this was + Truslow's second term, he had not once demanded recognition nor attempted + to take part in a debate. Instead, he seemed to spend most of his time + frittering over some desk work, though now and then he walked up and down + the aisles talking in a low voice to various senators. How such a man + could have been elected at all, Alonzo failed to understand. Also, Truslow + was physically inconsequent, in his colleague's estimation—“a little + insignificant, dudish kind of a man,” he had thought; one whom he would + have darkly suspected of cigarettes had he not been dumbfounded to behold + Truslow smoking an old black pipe in the lobby. The Senator from Stackpole + had looked over the other's clothes with a disapproval that amounted to + bitterness. Truslow's attire reminded him of pictures in New York + magazines, or the drees of boys newly home from college, he didn't know + which, but he did know that it was contemptible. Consequently, after + receiving the young man's congratulations, Alonzo was conscious of the + keenest surprise at his own feeling that there might be something in him + after all. + </p> + <p> + He decided to look him over again, more carefully to take the measure of + one who had shown himself so frankly an admirer. Waiting, therefore, a few + moments until he felt sure that Truslow's gaze had ceased to rest upon + himself, he turned to bend a surreptitious but piercing scrutiny upon his + neighbour. His glance, however, sweeping across Truslow's shoulder toward + the face, suddenly encountered another pair of eyes beyond, so intently + fixed upon himself that he started. The clash was like two search-lights + meeting—and the glorious brown eyes that shot into Alonzo's were not + the eyes of Truslow. + </p> + <p> + Truslow's desk was upon the outer aisle, and along the wall were placed + comfortable leather chairs and settees, originally intended for the use of + members of the upper house, but nearly always occupied by their wives and + daughters, or “lady-lobbyists,” or other women spectators. Leaning back + with extraordinary grace, in the chair nearest Truslow, sat the handsomest + woman Alonzo had ever seen in his life. Her long coat of soft grey fur was + unrecognizable to him in connection with any familiar breed of squirrel; + her broad flat hat of the same fur was wound with a grey veil, underneath + which her heavy brown hair seemed to exhale a mysterious glow, and never, + not even in a lithograph, had he seen features so regular or a skin so + clear! And to look into her eyes seemed to Alonzo like diving deep into + clear water and turning to stare up at the light. + </p> + <p> + His own eyes fell first. In the breathless awkwardness that beset him they + seemed to stumble shamefully down to his desk, like a country-boy getting + back to his seat after a thrashing on the teacher's platform. For the + lady's gaze, profoundly liquid as it was, had not been friendly. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo Rawson had neither the habit of petty analysis, nor the inclination + toward it; yet there arose within him a wonder at his own emotion, at its + strangeness and the violent reaction of it. A moment ago his soul had been + steeped in satisfaction over the figure he had cut with his speech and the + extreme enthusiasm which had been accorded it—an extraordinarily + pleasant feeling: suddenly this was gone, and in its place he found + himself almost choking with a dazed sense of having been scathed, and at + the same time understood in a way in which he did not understand himself. + And yet—he and this most unusual lady had been so mutually conscious + of each other in their mysterious interchange that he felt almost + acquainted with her. Why, then, should his head be hot with resentment? + Nobody had <i>said</i> anything to him! + </p> + <p> + He seized upon the fattest of the expensive books supplied to him by the + State, opened it with emphasis and began not to read it, with abysmal + abstraction, tinglingly alert to the circumstance that Truslow was holding + a low-toned but lively conversation with the unknown. Her laugh came to + him, at once musical, quiet and of a quality which irritated him into + saying bitterly to himself that he guessed there was just as much + refinement in Stackpole as there was in the Capital City, and just as many + old families! The clerk calling his vote upon the “Baseball Bill” at that + moment, he roared “No!” in a tone which was profane. It seemed to him that + he was avenging himself upon somebody for something and it gave him a + great deal of satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + He returned immediately to his imitation of Archimedes, only relaxing the + intensity of his attention to the text (which blurred into jargon before + his fixed gaze) when he heard that light laugh again. He pursed his lips, + looked up at the ceiling as if slightly puzzled by some profound question + beyond the reach of womankind; solved it almost immediately, and, setting + his hand to pen and paper, wrote the capital letter “O” several hundred + times on note-paper furnished by the State. So oblivious was he, + apparently, to everything but the question of statecraft which occupied + him, that he did not even look up when the morning's session was adjourned + and the lawmakers began to pass noisily out, until Truslow stretched an + arm across the aisle and touched him upon the shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “In a moment, Senator!” answered Alonzo in his deepest chest tones. He + made it a very short moment, indeed, for he had a wild, breath-taking + suspicion of what was coming. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to meet Mrs. Protheroe, Senator,” said Truslow, rising, as + Rawson, after folding his writings with infinite care, placed them in his + breast pocket. + </p> + <p> + “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am,” Alonzo said in a loud, + firm voice, as he got to his feet, though the place grew vague about him + when the lady stretched a charming, slender, gloved hand to him across + Truslow's desk. He gave it several solemn shakes. + </p> + <p> + “We shouldn't have disturbed you, perhaps?” she asked, smiling radiantly + upon him. “You were at some important work, I'm afraid.” + </p> + <p> + He met her eyes again, and their beauty and the thoughtful kindliness of + them fairly took his breath. “I am the chairman, ma'am,” he replied, + swallowing, “of the committee on drains and dikes.” + </p> + <p> + “I knew it was something of great moment,” she said gravely, “but I was + anxious to tell you that I was interested in your speech.” + </p> + <p> + A few minutes later, without knowing how he had got his hat and coat from + the cloak-room, Alonzo Rawson found himself walking slowly through the + marble vistas of the State house to the great outer doors with the lady + and Truslow. They were talking inconsequently of the weather, and of + various legislators, but Alonzo did not know it. He vaguely formed replies + to her questions and he hardly realized what the questions were; he was + too stirringly conscious of the rich quiet of her voice and of the caress + of the grey fur of her cloak when the back of his hand touched it—rather + accidentally—now and then, as they moved on together. + </p> + <p> + It was a cold, quick air to which they emerged and Alonzo, daring to look + at her, found that she had pulled the veil down over her face, the colour + of which, in the keen wind, was like that of June roses seen through + morning mists. At the curb a long, low, rakish black motor-car was in + waiting, the driver a mere swaddled cylinder of fur. + </p> + <p> + Truslow, opening the little door of the tonneau, offered his hand to the + lady. “Come over to the club, Senator, and lunch with me,” he said. “Mrs. + Protheroe won't mind dropping us there on her way.” + </p> + <p> + That was an eerie ride for Alonzo, whose feet were falling upon strange + places. His pulses jumped and his eyes swam with the tears of unlawful + speed, but his big ungloved hand tingled not with the cold so much as with + the touch of that divine grey fur upon his little finger. + </p> + <p> + “You intend to make many speeches, Mr. Truslow tells me,” he heard the + rich voice saying. + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he summoned himself to answer. “I expect I will. Yes ma'am.” + He paused, and then repeated, “Yes ma'am.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him for a moment. “But you will do some work, too, won't + you?” she asked slowly. + </p> + <p> + Her intention in this passed by Alonzo at the time. “Yes ma'am,” he + answered. “The committee work interests me greatly, especially drains and + dikes.” + </p> + <p> + “I have heard,” she said, as if searching his opinion, “that almost as + much is accomplished in the committee-rooms as on the floor? There—and + in the lobby and in the hotels and clubs?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't have much to do with that!” he returned quickly. “I guess none of + them lobbyists will get much out of me! I even sent back all their + railroad tickets. They needn't come near me!” + </p> + <p> + After a pause which she may have filled with unexpressed admiration, she + ventured, almost timidly: “Do you remember that it was said that Napoleon + once attributed the secret of his power over other men to one quality?” + </p> + <p> + “I am an admirer of Napoleon,” returned the Senator from Stackpole. “I + admire all great men.” + </p> + <p> + “He said that he held men by his reserve.” + </p> + <p> + “It can be done,” observed Alonzo, and stopped, feeling that it was more + reserved to add nothing to the sentence. + </p> + <p> + “But I suppose that such a policy,” she smiled upon him inquiringly, + “wouldn't have helped him much with women?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he agreed immediately. “My opinion is that a man ought to tell a <i>good</i> + woman everything. What is more sacred than—” + </p> + <p> + The car, turning a corner much too quickly, performed a gymnastic squirm + about an unexpected street-car and the speech ended in a gasp, as Alonzo, + not of his own volition, half rose and pressed his cheek closely against + hers. Instantaneous as it was, his heart leaped violently, but not with + fear. Could all the things of his life that had seemed beautiful have been + compressed into one instant, it would not have brought him even the + suggestion of the wild shock of joy of that one, wherein he knew the + glamorous perfume of Mrs. Protheroe's brown hair and felt her cold cheek + firm against his, with only the grey veil between. + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid this driver of mine will kill me some day,” she said, laughing + and composedly straightening her hat. “Do you care for big machines?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he answered huskily. “I haven't been in many.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I'll take you again,” said Mrs. Protheroe. “If you like I'll come + down to the State house and take you out for a run in the country.” + </p> + <p> + “When?” said the lost young man, staring at her with his mouth open. + “When?” + </p> + <p> + “Saturday afternoon if you like. I'll be there at two.” + </p> + <p> + They were in front of the club and Truslow had already jumped out. Mrs. + Protheroe gave him her hand and they exchanged a glance significant of + something more than a friendly goodbye. Indeed, one might have hazarded + that there was something almost businesslike about it. The confused + Senator from Stackpole, climbing out reluctantly, observed it not, nor + could he have understood, even if he had seen, that delicate signal which + passed between his two companions. + </p> + <p> + When he was upon the ground Mrs. Protheroe extended her hand without + speaking, but her lips formed the word, “Saturday.” Then she was carried + away quickly, while Alonzo, his heart hammering, stood looking after her, + born into a strange world, the touch of the grey fur upon his little + finger, the odour of her hair faintly about him, one side of his face red, + the other pale. + </p> + <p> + “To-day is Wednesday,” he said, half aloud. + </p> + <p> + “Come on, Senator.” Truslow took his arm and turned him toward the club + doors. + </p> + <p> + The other looked upon his new friend vaguely. “Why, I forgot to thank her + for the ride,” he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “You'll have other chances, Senator,” Truslow assured him. “Mrs. Protheroe + has a hobby for studying politics and she expects to come down often. She + has plenty of time—she's a widow, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you didn't think,” responded Alonzo indignantly, “that I thought + she was a married woman!” + </p> + <p> + After lunch they walked back to the State house together, Truslow + regarding his thoughtful companion with sidelong whimsicalness. Mrs. + Protheroe's question, suggestive of a difference between work and + speechmaking, had recurred to Alonzo, and he had determined to make + himself felt, off the floor as well as upon it. He set to this with a fine + energy, that afternoon, in his committee-room, and the Senator from + Stackpole knew his subject. On drains and dikes he had no equal. He spoke + convincingly to his colleagues of the committee upon every bill that was + before them, and he compelled their humblest respect. He went earnestly at + it, indeed, and sat very late that night, in his room at a nearby boarding + house, studying bills, trying to keep his mind upon them and not to think + of his strange morning and of Saturday. Finally his neighbour in the next + room, Senator Ezra Trumbull, long abed, was awakened by his praying and + groaned slightly. Trumbull meant to speak to Rawson about his prayers, for + Trumbull was an early one to bed and they woke him every night. The + partition was flimsy and Alonzo addressed his Maker in the loud voice of + one accustomed to talking across wide out-of-door spaces. Trumbull + considered it especially unnecessary in the city; though, as a citizen of + a county which loved but little his neighbour's district, he felt that in + Stackpole there was good reason for a person to shout his prayers at the + top of his voice and even then have small chance to carry through the + distance. Still, it was a delicate matter to mention and he put it off + from day to day. + </p> + <p> + Thursday passed slowly for Alonzo Rawson, nor was his voice lifted in + debate. There was little but routine; and the main interest of the chamber + was in the lobbying that was being done upon the “Sunday Baseball Bill” + which had passed to its third reading and would come up for final + disposition within a fortnight. This was the measure which Alonzo had set + his heart upon defeating. It was a simple enough bill: it provided, in + substance, that baseball might be played on Sunday by professionals in the + State capital, which was proud of its league team. Naturally, it was + denounced by clergymen, and deputations of ministers and committees from + women's religious societies were constantly arriving at the State house to + protest against its passage. The Senator from Stackpole reassured all of + these with whom he talked, and was one of their staunchest allies and + supporters. He was active in leading the wavering among his colleagues, or + even the inimical, out to meet and face the deputations. It was in this + occupation that he was engaged, on Friday afternoon, when he received a + shock. + </p> + <p> + A committee of women from a church society was waiting in the corridor, + and he had rounded-up a reluctant half-dozen senators and led them forth + to be interrogated as to their intentions regarding the bill. The + committee and the lawmakers soon distributed themselves into little + argumentative clumps, and Alonzo found himself in the centre of these, + with one of the ladies who had unfortunately—but, in her enthusiasm, + without misgivings—begun a reproachful appeal to an advocate of the + bill whose name was Goldstein. + </p> + <p> + “Senator Goldstein,” she exclaimed, “I could not believe it when I heard + that you were in favour of this measure! I have heard my husband speak in + the highest terms of your old father. May I ask you what <i>he</i> thinks + of it? If you voted for the desecration of Sunday by a low baseball game, + could you dare go home and face that good old man?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, madam,” said Goldstein mildly; “we are <i>both</i> Jews.” + </p> + <p> + A low laugh rippled out from near-by, and Alonzo, turning almost + violently, beheld his lady of the furs. She was leaning back against a + broad pilaster, her hands sweeping the same big coat behind her, her face + turned toward him, but her eyes, sparklingly delighted, resting upon + Goldstein. Under the broad fur hat she made a picture as enraging, to + Alonzo Rawson, as it was bewitching. She appeared not to see him, to be + quite unconscious of him—and he believed it. Truslow and five or six + members of both houses were about her, and they all seemed to be bending + eagerly toward her. Alonzo was furious with her. + </p> + <p> + Her laugh lingered upon the air for a moment, then her glance swept round + the other way, omitting the Senator from Stackpole, who, immediately + putting into practice a reserve which would have astonished Napoleon, + swung about and quitted the deputation without a word of farewell or + explanation. He turned into the cloakroom and paced the floor for three + minutes with a malevolence which awed the coloured attendants into not + brushing his coat; but, when he returned to the corridor, cautious + inquiries addressed to the tobacconist, elicited the information that the + handsome lady with Senator Truslow had departed. + </p> + <p> + Truslow himself had not gone. He was lounging in his seat when Alonzo + returned and was genially talkative. The latter refrained from replying in + kind, not altogether out of reserve, but more because of a dim suspicion + (which rose within him, the third time Truslow called him “Senator” in one + sentence) that his first opinion of the young man as a light-minded person + might have been correct. + </p> + <p> + There was no session the following afternoon, but Alonzo watched the + street from the windows of his committee-room, which overlooked the + splendid breadth of stone steps leading down from the great doors to the + pavement. There were some big bookcases in the room, whose glass doors + served as mirrors in which he more and more sternly regarded the soft + image of an entirely new grey satin tie, while the conviction grew within + him that (arguing from her behaviour of the previous day) she would not + come, and that the Stackpole girls were nobler by far at heart than many + who might wear a king's-ransom's-worth of jewels round their throats at + the opera-house in a large city. This sentiment was heartily confirmed by + the clock when it marked half-past two. He faced the bookcase doors and + struck his breast, his open hand falling across the grey tie with tragic + violence; after which, turning for the last time to the windows, he + uttered a loud exclamation and, laying hands upon an ulster and a grey + felt hat, each as new as the satin tie, ran hurriedly from the room. The + black automobile was waiting. + </p> + <p> + “I thought it possible you might see me from a window,” said Mrs. + Protheroe as he opened the little door. + </p> + <p> + “I was just coming out,” he returned, gasping for breath. “I thought—from + yesterday—you'd probably forgotten.” + </p> + <p> + “Why 'from yesterday'?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I thought—I thought—” He faltered to a stop as the full, + glorious sense of her presence overcame him. She wore the same veil. + </p> + <p> + “You thought I did not see you yesterday in the corridor?” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you might have acted more—more—” + </p> + <p> + “More cordially?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he said, looking down at his hands, “more like you knew we'd been + introduced.” + </p> + <p> + At that she sat silent, looking away from him, and he, daring a quick + glance at her, found that he might let his eyes remain upon her face. That + was a dangerous place for eyes to rest, yet Alonzo Rawson was anxious for + the risk. The car flew along the even asphalt on its way to the country + like a wild goose on a long slant of wind, and, with his foolish fury + melted inexplicably into honey, Alonzo looked at her—and looked at + her—till he would have given an arm for another quick corner and a + street-car to send his cheek against that veiled, cold cheek of hers + again. It was not until they reached the alternate vacant lots and bleak + Queen Anne cottages of the city's ragged edge that she broke the silence. + </p> + <p> + “You were talking to some one else,” she said almost inaudibly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am, Goldstein, but—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no!” She turned toward him, lifting her hand. “You were quite the + lion among ladies.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Protheroe,” he said, truthfully. + </p> + <p> + “What were you talking to all those women about?” + </p> + <p> + “It was about the 'Sunday Baseball Bill.'” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! The bill you attacked in your speech, last Wednesday?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am.” + </p> + <p> + “I hear you haven't made any speeches since then,” she said indifferently. + </p> + <p> + “No ma'am,” he answered gently. “I kind of got the idea that I'd better + lay low for a while at first, and get in some quiet hard work.” + </p> + <p> + “I understand. You are a man of intensely reserved nature.” + </p> + <p> + “With men,” said Alonzo, “I am. With ladies I am not so much so. I think a + good woman ought to be told—” + </p> + <p> + “But you are interested,” she interrupted, “in defeating that bill?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he returned. “It is an iniquitous measure.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Protheroe!” he exclaimed, taken aback. “I thought all the ladies + were against it. My own mother wrote to me from Stackpole that she'd + rather see me in my grave than votin' for such a bill, and I'd rather see + myself there!” + </p> + <p> + “But are you sure that you understand it?” + </p> + <p> + “I only know it desecrates the Sabbath. That's enough for me!” + </p> + <p> + She leaned toward him and his breath came quickly. + </p> + <p> + “No. You're wrong,” she said, and rested the tips of her fingers upon his + sleeve. + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand why—why you say that,” he faltered. “It sounds + kind of—surprising to me—” + </p> + <p> + “Listen,” she said. “Perhaps Mr. Truslow told you that I am studying such + things. I do not want to be an idle woman; I want to be of use to the + world, even if it must be only in small ways.” + </p> + <p> + “I think that is a noble ambition!” he exclaimed. “I think all good women + ought—” + </p> + <p> + “Wait,” she interrupted gently. “Now, that bill is a worthy one, though it + astonishes you to hear me say so. Perhaps you don't understand the + conditions. Sunday is the labouring-man's only day of recreation—and + what recreation is he offered?” + </p> + <p> + “He ought to go to church,” said Alonzo promptly. + </p> + <p> + “But the fact is that he doesn't—not often—not at <i>all</i> + in the afternoon. Wouldn't it be well to give him some wholesome way of + employing his Sunday afternoons? This bill provides for just that, and it + keeps him away from drinking too, for it forbids the sale of liquor on the + grounds.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know,” said Alonzo plaintively. “But it ain't <i>right</i>! I was + raised to respect the Sabbath and—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that's what you should do! You think <i>I</i> could believe in + anything that wouldn't make it better and more sacred?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, ma'am!” he cried reproachfully. “It's only that I don't see—” + </p> + <p> + “I am telling you.” She lifted her veil and let him have the full dazzle + of her beauty. “Do you know that many thousands of labouring people spend + their Sundays drinking and carousing about the low country road-houses + because the game is played at such places on Sunday? They go there because + they never get a chance to see it played in the city. And don't you + understand that there would be no Sunday liquor trade, no working-men + poisoning themselves every seventh day in the low groggeries, as hundreds + of them do now, if they had something to see that would interest them?—something + as wholesome and fine as this sport would be, under the conditions of this + bill; something to keep them in the open air, something to bring a little + gaiety into their dull lives!” Her voice had grown louder and it shook a + little, with a rising emotion, though its sweetness was only the more + poignant. “Oh, my dear Senator,” she cried, “don't you <i>see</i> how + wrong you are? Don't you want to <i>help</i> these poor people?” + </p> + <p> + Her fingers, which had tightened upon his sleeve, relaxed and she leaned + back, pulling the veil down over her face as if wishing to conceal from + him that her lips trembled slightly; then resting her arm upon the leather + cushions, she turned her head away from him, staring fixedly into the + gaunt beech woods, lining the country road along which they were now + coursing. For a time she heard nothing from him, and the only sound was + the monotonous chug of the machine. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you think it rather shocking to hear a woman talking + practically of such common-place things,” she said at last, in a cold + voice, just loud enough to be heard. + </p> + <p> + “No ma'am,” he said huskily. + </p> + <p> + “Then what <i>do</i> you think?” she cried, turning toward him again with + a quick imperious gesture. + </p> + <p> + “I think I'd better go back to Stackpole,” he answered very slowly, “and + resign my job. I don't see as I've got any business in the Legislature.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand you.” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head mournfully. “It's a simple enough matter. I've studied + out a good many bills and talked 'em over and I've picked up some + influence and—” + </p> + <p> + “I know you have.” she interrupted eagerly. “Mr. Truslow says that the + members of your drains and dikes committee follow your vote on every + bill.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” said Alonzo Rawson meekly, “but I expect they oughtn't to. + I've had a lesson this afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say—” + </p> + <p> + “I mean that I didn't know what I was doing about that baseball bill. I + was just pig-headedly goin' ahead against it, not knowing nothing about + the conditions, and it took a lady to show me what they were. I would have + done a wrong thing if you hadn't stopped me.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean,” she cried, her splendid eyes widening with excitement and + delight; “you mean that you—-that you—” + </p> + <p> + “I mean that I will vote for the bill!” He struck his clenched fist upon + his knee. “I come to the Legislature to do <i>right</i>!” + </p> + <p> + “You will, ah, you <i>will</i> do right in this!” Mrs. Protheroe thrust up + her veil again and her face was flushed and radiant with triumph. “And + you'll work, and you'll make a speech for the bill?” + </p> + <p> + At this the righteous exaltation began rather abruptly to simmer down in + the soul of Alonzo Rawson. He saw the consequences of too violently + reversing, and knew how difficult they might be to face. + </p> + <p> + “Well, not—not exactly,” he said weakly. “I expect our best plan + would be for me to lay kind of low and not say any more about the bill at + all. Of course, I'll quit workin' against it; and on the roll-call I'll + edge up close to the clerk and say 'Aye' so that only him'll hear me. + That's done every day—and I—well, I don't just exactly like to + come out too publicly for it, after my speech and all I've done against + it.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him sharply for a short second, and then offered him her + hand and said: “Let's shake hands <i>now</i>, on the vote. Think what a + triumph it is for me to know that I helped to show you the right.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he answered confusedly, too much occupied with shaking her + hand to know what he said. She spoke one word in an undertone to the + driver and the machine took the very shortest way back to the city. + </p> + <p> + After this excursion, several days passed, before Mrs. Protheroe came to + the State house again. Rawson was bending over the desk of Senator + Josephus Battle, the white-bearded leader of the opposition to the “Sunday + Baseball Bill,” and was explaining to him the intricacies of a certain + drainage measure, when Battle, whose attention had wandered, plucked his + sleeve and whispered: + </p> + <p> + “If you want to see a mighty pretty woman that's doin' no good here, look + behind you, over there in the chair by the big fireplace at the back of + the room.” + </p> + <p> + Alonzo looked. + </p> + <p> + It was she whose counterpart had been in his dream's eye every moment of + the dragging days which had been vacant of her living presence. A number + of his colleagues were hanging over her almost idiotically; her face was + gay and her voice came to his ears, as he turned, with the accent of her + cadenced laughter running through her talk like a chime of tiny bells + flitting through a strain of music. + </p> + <p> + “This is the third time she's been here,” said Battle, rubbing his beard + the wrong way. “She's lobbyin' for that infernal Sabbath-Desecration bill, + but we'll beat her, my son.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you made her acquaintance, Senator?” asked Alonzo stiffly. + </p> + <p> + “No, sir, and I don't want to. But I knew her father—the slickest + old beat and the smoothest talker that ever waltzed up the pike. She + married rich; her husband left her a lot of real estate around here, but + she spends most of her time away. Whatever struck her to come down and + lobby for that bill I don't know <i>yet</i>—but I will! Truslow's + helping her to help himself; he's got stock in the company that runs the + baseball team, but what she's up to—well, I'll bet there's a nigger + in the woodpile <i>some</i>where!” + </p> + <p> + “I expect there's a lot of talk like that!” said Alonzo, red with anger, + and taking up his papers abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, <i>sir</i>!” said Battle emphatically, utterly misunderstanding the + other's tone and manner. “Don't you worry, my son. We'll kill that + venomous bill right here in this chamber! We'll kill it so dead that it + won't make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some others'll + tend to <i>that</i>! Let her work that pretty face and those eyes of hers + all she wants to! I'm keepin' a little lookout, too—and I'll—” + </p> + <p> + He broke off, for the angry and perturbed Alonzo had left him and gone to + his own desk. Battle, slightly surprised, rubbed his beard the wrong way + and sauntered out to the lobby to muse over a cigar. Alonzo, loathing + Battle with a great loathing, formed bitter phrases concerning that + vicious-minded old gentleman, while for a moment he affected to be setting + his desk in order. Then he walked slowly up the aisle, conscious of a + roaring in his ears (though not aware how red they were) as he approached + the semicircle about her. + </p> + <p> + He paused within three feet of her in a sudden panic of timidity, and + then, to his consternation, she looked him squarely in the face, over the + shoulders of two of the group, and the only sign of recognition that she + exhibited was a slight frown of unmistakable repulsion, which appeared + between her handsome eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + It was very swift; only Alonzo saw it; the others had no eyes for anything + but her, and were not aware of his presence behind them, for she did not + even pause in what she was saying. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo walked slowly away with the wormwood in his heart. He had not grown + up among the young people of Stackpole without similar experiences, but it + had been his youthful boast that no girl had ever “stopped speaking” to + him without reason, or “cut a dance” with him and afterward found + opportunity to repeat the indignity. + </p> + <p> + “What have I <i>done</i> to <i>her?</i>” was perhaps the hottest cry of + his soul, for the mystery was as great as the sting of it. + </p> + <p> + It was no balm upon that sting to see her pass him at the top of the outer + steps, half an hour later, on the arm of that one of his colleagues who + had been called the “best-dressed man in the Legislature.” She swept by + him without a sign, laughing that same laugh at some sally of her escort, + and they got into the black automobile together and were whirled away and + out of sight by the impassive bundle of furs that manipulated the wheel. + </p> + <p> + For the rest of that afternoon and the whole of that night no man, woman, + or child heard the voice of Alonzo Rawson, for he spoke to none. He came + not to the evening meal, nor was he seen by any who had his acquaintance. + He entered his room at about midnight, and Trumbull was awakened by his + neighbour's overturning a chair. No match was struck, however, and + Trumbull was relieved to think that the Senator from Stackpole intended + going directly to bed without troubling to light the gas, and that his + prayers would soon be over. Such was not the case, for no other sound came + from the room, nor were Alonzo's prayers uttered that night, though the + unhappy statesman in the next apartment could not get to sleep for several + hours on account of his nervous expectancy of them. + </p> + <p> + After this, as the day approached upon which hung the fate of the bill + which Mr. Josephus Battle was fighting, Mrs. Protheroe came to the Senate + Chamber nearly every morning and afternoon. Not once did she appear to be + conscious of Alonzo Rawson's presence, nor once did he allow his eyes to + delay upon her, though it cannot be truthfully said that he did not always + know when she came, when she left, and with whom she stood or sat or + talked. He evaded all mention or discussion of the bill or of Mrs. + Protheroe; avoided Truslow (who, strangely enough, was avoiding <i>him</i>) + and, spending upon drains and dikes all the energy that he could manage to + concentrate, burned the midnight oil and rubbed salt into his wounds to + such marked effect that by the evening of the Governor's Reception—upon + the morning following which the mooted bill was to come up—he + offered an impression so haggard and worn that an actor might have studied + him for a makeup as a young statesman going into a decline. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, he dressed with great care and bitterness, and placed the + fragrant blossom of a geranium—taken from a plant belonging to his + landlady—in the lapel of his long coat before he set out. + </p> + <p> + And yet, when he came down the Governor's broad stairs, and wandered + through the big rooms, with the glare of lights above him and the shouting + of the guests ringing in his ears, a sense of emptiness beset him; the + crowded place seemed vacant and without meaning. Even the noise sounded + hollow and remote—and why had he bothered about the geranium? He + hated her and would never look at her again—but why was she not + there? + </p> + <p> + By-and-by, he found himself standing against a wall, where he had been + pushed by the press of people. He was wondering drearily what he was to do + with a clean plate and a napkin which a courteous negro had handed him, + half-an-hour earlier, when he felt a quick jerk at his sleeve. It was + Truslow, who had worked his way along the wall and who now, standing on + tiptoe, spoke rapidly but cautiously, close to his ear. + </p> + <p> + “Senator, be quick,” he said sharply, at the same time alert to see that + they were unobserved. “Mrs. Protheroe wants to speak to you at once. + You'll find her near the big palms under the stairway in the hall.” + </p> + <p> + He was gone—he had wormed his way half across the room—before + the other, in his simple amazement could answer. When Alonzo at last found + a word, it was only a monosyllable, which, with his accompanying action, + left a matron of years, who was at that moment being pressed fondly to his + side, in a state of mind almost as dumbfounded as his own. “<i>Here!</i>” + was all he said as he pressed the plate and napkin into her hand and + departed forcibly for the hall, leaving a spectacular wreckage of trains + behind him. + </p> + <p> + The upward flight of the stairway left a space underneath, upon which, as + it was screened (save for a narrow entrance) by a thicket of palms, the + crowd had not encroached. Here were placed a divan and a couple of chairs; + there was shade from the glare of gas, and the light was dim and cool. + Mrs. Protheroe had risen from the divan when Alonzo entered this grotto, + and stood waiting for him. + </p> + <p> + He stopped in the green entrance-way with a quick exclamation. + </p> + <p> + She did not seem the same woman who had put such slights upon him, this + tall, white vision of silk, with the summery scarf falling from her + shoulders. His great wrath melted at the sight of her; the pain of his + racked pride, which had been so hot in his breast, gave way to a species + of fear. She seemed not a human being, but a bright spirit of beauty and + goodness who stood before him, extending two fine arms to him in long, + white gloves. + </p> + <p> + She left him to his trance for a moment, then seized both his hands in + hers and cried to him in her rapturous, low voice: “Ah, Senator, you have + come! I <i>knew</i> you understood!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he whispered chokily. + </p> + <p> + She drew him to one of the chairs and sank gracefully down upon the divan + near him. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Truslow was so afraid you wouldn't,” she went on rapidly, “but I was + sure. You see I didn't want anybody to suspect that I had any influence + with you. I didn't want them to know, even, that I'd talked to you. It all + came to me after the first day that we met. You see I've believed in you, + in your power and in your reserve, from the first. I want all that you do + to seem to come from yourself and not from me or any one else. Oh, I <i>believe</i> + in great, strong men who stand upon their own feet and conquer the world + for themselves! That's <i>your</i> way, Senator Rawson. So, you see, as + they think I'm lobbying for the bill, I wanted them to believe that your + speech for it to-morrow comes from your own great, strong mind and heart + and your sense of right, and not from any suggestion of mine.” + </p> + <p> + “My speech!” he stammered. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know,” she cried; “I know you think I don't believe much in + speeches, and I don't ordinarily, but a few, simple, straightforward and + vigorous words from you, to-morrow, may carry the bill through. You've + made such <i>progress</i>, you've been so <i>reserved</i>, that you'll + carry great weight—and there are three votes of the drains and dikes + that are against us now, but will follow yours absolutely. Do you think I + would have 'cut' <i>you</i> if it hadn't been <i>best</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “But I—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know you didn't actually promise me to speak, that day. But I knew + you would when the time came! I knew that a man of power goes over <i>all</i> + obstacles, once his sense of <i>right</i> is aroused! I <i>knew</i>—I + never doubted it, that once <i>you</i> felt a thing to be right you would + strike for it, with all your great strength—at all costs—at + all—” + </p> + <p> + “I can't—I—I—can't!” he whispered nervously. “Don't you + see—don't you see—I—” + </p> + <p> + She leaned toward him, lifting her face close to his. She was so near him + that the faint odour of her hair came to him again, and once more the + unfortunate Senator from Stackpole risked a meeting of his eyes with hers, + and saw the light shining far down in their depths. + </p> + <p> + At this moment the shadow of a portly man who was stroking his beard the + wrong way projected itself upon them from the narrow, green entrance to + the grotto. Neither of them perceived it. + </p> + <p> + Senator Josephus Battle passed on, but when Alonzo Rawson emerged, a few + moments later, he was pledged to utter a few simple, straightforward and + vigorous words in favour of the bill. And—let the shame fall upon + the head of the scribe who tells it—he had kissed Mrs. Protheroe! + </p> + <p> + The fight upon the “Sunday Baseball Bill,” the next morning, was the + warmest of that part of the session, though for a while the reporters were + disappointed. They were waiting for Senator Battle, who was famous among + them for the vituperative vigour of his attacks and for the kind of + personalities which made valuable copy. And yet, until the debate was + almost over, he contented himself with going quietly up and down the + aisles, whispering to the occupants of the desks, and writing and sending + a multitude of notes to his colleagues. Meanwhile, the orators upon both + sides harangued their fellows, the lobby, the unpolitical audience, and + the patient presiding officer to no effect, so far as votes went. The + general impression was that the bill would pass. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo Rawson sat, bent over his desk, his eyes fixed with gentle + steadiness upon Mrs. Protheroe, who occupied the chair wherein he had + first seen her. A senator of the opposition was finishing his + denunciation, when she turned and nodded almost imperceptibly to the young + man. + </p> + <p> + He gave her one last look of pathetic tenderness and rose. + </p> + <p> + “The Senator from Stackpole!” + </p> + <p> + “I want,” Alonzo began, in his big voice: “I want to say a few simple, + straightforward but vigorous words about this bill. You may remember I + spoke against it on its second reading—” + </p> + <p> + “You did <i>that</i>!” shouted Senator Battle suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “I want to say now,” the Senator from Stackpole continued, “that at that + time I hadn't studied the subject sufficiently. I didn't know the + conditions of the case, nor the facts, but since then a great light has + broke in upon me—” + </p> + <p> + “I should say it had! I saw it break!” was Senator Battle's second violent + interruption. + </p> + <p> + When order was restored, Alonzo, who had become very pale, summoned his + voice again. “I think we'd ought to take into consideration that Sunday is + the working-man's only day of recreation and not drive him into low + groggeries, but give him a chance in the open air to indulge his love of + wholesome sport—” + </p> + <p> + “Such as the ancient Romans enjoyed!” interposed Battle vindictively. + </p> + <p> + “No, sir!” Alonzo wheeled upon him, stung to the quick. “Such a sport as + free-born Americans and <i>only</i> free-born Americans can play in this, + wide world—the American game of baseball, in which no other nation + of the <i>Earth</i> is our equal!” + </p> + <p> + This was a point scored and the cheering lasted two minutes. Then the + orator resumed: + </p> + <p> + “I say: 'Give the working-man a chance!' Is his life a happy one? You know + it ain't! Give him his one day. <i>Don't</i> spoil it for him with your + laws—he's only got one! I'm not goin' to take up any more of your + time, but if there's anybody here who thinks my well-considered opinion + worth following I say: '<i>Vote for this bill</i>.' It is right and + virtuous and ennobling, and it ought to be passed! I say: '<i>Vote for it</i>.'” + </p> + <p> + The reporters decided that the Senator from Stackpole had “wakened things + up.” The gavel rapped a long time before the chamber quieted down, and + when it did, Josephus Battle was on his feet and had obtained the + recognition of the chair. + </p> + <p> + “I wish to say, right here,” he began, with a rasping leisureliness, “that + I hope no member of this honoured body will take my remarks as personal or + unparliamentary—<i>but</i>”—he raised a big forefinger and + shook it with menace at the presiding officer, at the same time suddenly + lifting his voice to an unprintable shriek—“I say to <i>you</i>, + sir, that the song of the siren has been <i>heard</i> in the land, and the + call of Delilah has been answered! When the Senator from Stackpole rose in + this chamber, less than three weeks ago, and denounced this iniquitous + measure, I heard him with pleasure—we <i>all</i> heard him with + pleasure—<i>and</i> respect! In spite of his youth and the poor + quality of his expression, <i>we</i> listened to him. <i>We</i> knew he + was sencere! What has caused the change in him? What <i>has</i>, I ask? I + shall not tell you, upon this floor, but I've taken mighty good care to + let most of you know, during the morning, either by word of mouth or by <i>note</i> + of hand! Especially those of you of the drains and dikes and others who + might follow this young Samson, whose locks have been shore! <i>I've</i> + told you all about that, and more—<i>I've</i> told you the <i>inside</i> + history of some <i>facts</i> about the bill that I will not make public, + because I am too confident of our strength to defeat this devilish + measure, and prefer to let our vote speak our opinion of it! Let me not + detain you longer. <i>I</i> thank you!” + </p> + <p> + Long before he had finished, the Senator from Stackpole was being held + down in his chair by Truslow and several senators whose seats were + adjacent; and the vote was taken amid an uproar of shouting and confusion. + When the clerk managed to proclaim the result over all other noises, the + bill was shown to be defeated and “killed,” by a majority of five votes. + </p> + <p> + A few minutes later, Alonzo Rawson, his neckwear disordered and his face + white with rage, stumbled out of the great doors upon the trail of Battle, + who had quietly hurried away to his hotel for lunch as soon as he had + voted. + </p> + <p> + The black automobile was vanishing round a corner. Truslow stood upon the + edge of the pavement staring after it ruefully: + </p> + <p> + “Where is Mrs. Protheroe?” gasped the Senator from Stackpole. + </p> + <p> + “She's gone,” said the other. + </p> + <p> + “Gone where?” + </p> + <p> + “Gone back to Paris. She sails day after tomorrow. She just had time + enough to catch her train for New York after waiting to hear how the vote + went. She told me to tell you good-bye, and that she was sorry. Don't + stare at me Rawson! I guess we're in the same boat!—Where are you + going?” he finished abruptly. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo swung by him and started across the street. “To find Battle!” the + hoarse answer came back. + </p> + <p> + The conquering Josephus was leaning meditatively upon the counter of the + cigar-stand of his hotel when Alonzo found him. He took one look at the + latter's face and backed to the wall, tightening his grasp upon the + heavy-headed ebony cane it was his habit to carry, a habit upon which he + now congratulated himself. + </p> + <p> + But his precautions were needless. Alonzo stopped out of reaching + distance. + </p> + <p> + “You tell me,” he said in a breaking voice; “you tell me what you meant + about Delilah and sirens and Samsons and inside facts! You tell me!” + </p> + <p> + “You wild ass of the prairies,” said Battle, “I saw you last night behind + them pa'ms! But don't you think I told it—or ever will! I just + passed the word around that she'd argued you into her way of thinkin', + same as she had a good many others. And as for the rest of it, I found out + where the mgger in the woodpile was, and I handed that out, too. Don't you + take it hard, my son, but I told you her husband left her a good deal of + land around here. She owns the ground that they use for the baseball park, + and her lease would be worth considerable more if they could have got the + right to play on Sundays!” + </p> + <p> + Senator Trumbull sat up straight, in bed, that night, and, for the first + time during his martyrdom, listened with no impatience to the prayer which + fell upon his ears. + </p> + <p> + “O, Lord Almighty,” through the flimsy partition came the voice of Alonzo + Rawson, quaveringly, but with growing strength: “Aid Thou me to see my way + more clear! I find it hard to tell right from wrong, and I find myself + beset with tangled wires. O God, I feel that I am ignorant, and fall into + many devices. These are strange paths wherein Thou hast set my feet, but I + feel that through Thy help, and through great anguish, I am learning!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + GREAT MEN'S SONS + </h2> + <p> + Mme. Bernhardt and M. Coquelin were playing “L'Aiglon.” Toward the end of + the second act people began to slide down in their seats, shift their + elbows, or casually rub their eyes; by the close of the third, most of the + taller gentlemen were sitting on the small of their backs with their knees + as high as decorum permitted, and many were openly coughing; but when the + fourth came to an end, active resistance ceased, hopelessness prevailed, + the attitudes were those of the stricken field, and the over-crowded house + was like a college chapel during an interminable compulsory lecture. Here + and there—but most rarely—one saw an eager woman with bright + eyes, head bent forward and body spellbound, still enchantedly following + the course of the play. Between the acts the orchestra pattered ragtime + and inanities from the new comic operas, while the audience in general + took some heart. When the play was over, we were all enthusiastic; though + our admiration, however vehement in the words employed to express it, was + somewhat subdued as to the accompanying manner, which consisted, mainly, + of sighs and resigned murmurs. In the lobby a thin old man with a grizzled + chin-beard dropped his hand lightly on my shoulder, and greeted me in a + tone of plaintive inquiry: + </p> + <p> + “Well, son?” + </p> + <p> + Turning, I recognized a patron of my early youth, in whose woodshed I had + smoked my first cigar, an old friend whom I had not seen for years; and to + find him there, with his long, dust-coloured coat, his black string tie + and rusty hat brushed on every side by opera cloaks and feathers, was a + rich surprise, warming the cockles of my heart. His name is Tom Martin; he + lives in a small country town, where he commands the trade in Dry Goods + and Men's Clothing; his speech is pitched in a high key, is very slow, + sometimes whines faintly; and he always calls me “Son.” + </p> + <p> + “What in the world!” I exclaimed, as we shook hands. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he drawled, “I dunno why I shouldn't be as meetropolitan as + anybody. I come over on the afternoon accommodation for the show. Let's + you and me make a night of it. What say, son?” + </p> + <p> + “What did you think of the play?” I asked, as we turned up the street + toward the club. + </p> + <p> + “I think they done it about as well as they could.” + </p> + <p> + “That all?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he rejoined with solemnity, “there was a heap <i>of</i> it, wasn't + there!” + </p> + <p> + We talked of other things, then, until such time as we found ourselves + seated by a small table at the club, old Tom somewhat uneasily regarding a + twisted cigar he was smoking and plainly confounded by the “carbonated” + syphon, for which, indeed, he had no use in the world. We had been joined + by little Fiderson, the youngest member of the club, whose whole nervous + person jerkily sparkled “L'Aiglon” enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + “Such an evening!” he cried, in his little spiky voice. “Mr. Martin, it + does one good to realize that our country towns are sending + representatives to us when we have such things; that they wish to get in + touch with what is greatest in Art. They should do it often. To think that + a journey of only seventy miles brings into your life the magnificence of + Rostand's point of view made living fire by the genius of a Bernhardt and + a Coquelin!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Mr. Martin, with a curious helplessness, after an ensuing + pause, which I refused to break, “yes, sir, they seemed to be doing it + about as well as they could.” + </p> + <p> + Fiderson gasped slightly. “It was magnificent! Those two great artists! + But over all the play—the play! Romance new-born; poesy marching + with victorious banners; a great spirit breathing! Like 'Cyrano'—the + birth-mark of immortality on this work!” + </p> + <p> + There was another pause, after which old Tom turned slowly to me, and + said: “Homer Tibbs's opened up a cigar-stand at the deepo. Carries a line + of candy, magazines, and fruit, too. Home's a hustler.” + </p> + <p> + Fiderson passed his hand through his hair. + </p> + <p> + “That death scene!” he exclaimed at me, giving Martin up as a log + accidentally rolled in from the woods. “I thought that after 'Wagram' I + could feel nothing more; emotion was exhausted; but then came that + magnificent death! It was tragedy made ecstatic; pathos made into music; + the grandeur of a gentle spirit, conquered physically but morally + unconquerable! Goethe's 'More Light' outshone!” + </p> + <p> + Old Tom's eyes followed the smoke of his perplexing cigar along its heavy + strata in the still air of the room, as he inquired if I remembered + Orlando T. Bickner's boy, Mel. I had never heard of him, and said so. + </p> + <p> + “No, I expect not,” rejoined Martin. “Prob'ly you wouldn't; Bickner was + Governor along in <i>my</i> early days, and I reckon he ain't hardly more + than jest a name to you two. But <i>we</i> kind of thought he was the + biggest man this country had ever seen, or was goin' to see, and he <i>was</i> + a big man. He made one president, and could have been it himself, instead, + if he'd be'n willing to do a kind of underhand trick, but I expect without + it he was about as big a man as anybody'd care to be; Governor, Senator, + Secretary of State—and just owned his party! And, my law!—the + whole earth bowin' down to him; torchlight processions and sky-rockets + when he come home in the night; bands and cannon if his train got in, + daytime; home-folks so proud of him they couldn't see; everybody's hat + off; and all the most important men in the country following at his heels—a + country, too, that'd put up consider'ble of a comparison with everything + Napoleon had when he'd licked 'em all, over there. + </p> + <p> + “Of course he had enemies, and, of course, year by year, they got to be + more of 'em, and they finally downed him for good; and like other public + men so fixed, he didn't live long after that. He had a son, Melville, + mighty likable young fellow, studyin' law when his paw died. I was livin' + in their town then, and I knowed Mel Bickner pretty well; he was + consider'ble of a man. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know as I ever heard him speak of that's bein' the reason, but I + expect it may've be'n partly in the hope of carryin' out some of his paw's + notions, Mel tried hard to git into politics; but the old man's local + enemies jumped on every move he made, and his friends wouldn't help any; + you can't tell why, except that it generally <i>is</i> thataway. Folks + always like to laugh at a great man's son and say <i>he</i> can't amount + to anything. Of course that comes partly from fellows like that ornery + little cuss we saw to-night, thinkin' they're a good deal because somebody + else done something, and the somebody else happened to be their paw; and + the women run after 'em, and they git low-down like he was, and so on.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Martin,” interrupted Fiderson, with indignation, “will you kindly + inform me in what way 'L'Aiglon' was 'low-down'?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, didn't that huntin'-lodge appointment kind of put you in mind + of a camp-meetin' scandal?” returned old Tom quietly. “It did me.” + </p> + <p> + “But—” + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, I can't say as I understood the French of it, but I read the + book in English before I come up, and it seemed to me he was pretty much + of a low-down boy; yet I wanted to see how they'd make him out; hearin' it + was, thought, the country over, to be such a great <i>play</i>; though to + tell the truth all I could tell about <i>that</i> was that every line + seemed to end in 'awze'; and 't they all talked in rhyme, and it did + strike me as kind of enervatin' to be expected to believe that people + could keep it up that long; and that it wasn't only the boy that never + quit on the subject of himself and his folks, but pretty near any of 'em, + if he'd git the chanst, did the same thing, so't almost I sort of wondered + if Rostand wasn't that kind.” + </p> + <p> + “Go on with Melville Bickner,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “What do you expect,” retorted Mr. Martin with a vindictive gleam in his + eye, “when you give a man one of these here spiral staircase cigars? Old + Peter himself couldn't keep straight along one subject if he tackled a + cigar like this. Well, sir, I always thought Mel had a mighty mean time of + it. He had to take care of his mother and two sisters, his little brother + and an aunt that lived with them; and there was mighty little to do it on; + big men don't usually leave much but debts, and in this country, of + course, a man can't eat and spend long on his paw's reputation, like that + little Dook of Reishtod—” + </p> + <p> + “I beg to tell you, Mr. Martin—” Fiderson began hotly. + </p> + <p> + Martin waved his bony hand soothingly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know; they was money in his mother's family, and they give him his + vittles and clothes, and plenty, too. <i>His</i> paw didn't leave much + either—though he'd stole more than Boss Tweed. I suppose—and, + just lookin' at things from the point of what they'd <i>earned</i>, his + maw's folks had stole a good deal, too; or else you can say they were a + kind of public charity; old Metternich, by what I can learn, bein' the + only one in the whole possetucky of 'em that really <i>did</i> anything to + deserve his salary—” Mr. Martin broke off suddenly, observing that I + was about to speak, and continued: + </p> + <p> + “Mel didn't git much law practice, jest about enough to keep the house + goin' and pay taxes. He kept workin' for the party jest the same and jest + as cheerfully as if it didn't turn him down hard every time he tried to + git anything for himself. They lived some ways out from town; and he sold + the horses to keep the little brother in school, one winter, and used to + walk in to his office and out again, twice a day, over the worst roads in + the State, rain or shine, snow, sleet, or wind, without any overcoat; and + he got kind of a skimpy, froze-up look to him that lasted clean through + summer. He worked like a mule, that boy did, jest barely makin' ends meet. + He had to quit runnin' with the girls and goin' to parties and everything + like that; and I expect it may have been some hard to do; for if they ever + <i>was</i> a boy loved to dance and be gay, and up to anything in the line + of fun and junketin' round, it was Mel Bickner. He had a laugh I can hear + yet—made you feel friendly to everybody you saw; feel like stoppin' + the next man you met and shakin' hands and havin' a joke with him. + </p> + <p> + “Mel was engaged to Jane Grandis when Governor Bickner died. He had to go + and tell her to take somebody else—it was the only thing to do. He + couldn't give Jane anything but his poverty, and she wasn't used to it. + They say she offered to come to him anyway, but he wouldn't hear of it, + and no more would he let her wait for him; told her she mustn't grow into + an old maid, lonely, and still waitin' for the lightning to strike him—that + is, his luck to come; and actually advised her to take 'Gene Callender, + who'd be'n pressin' pretty close to Mel for her before the engagement. The + boy didn't talk to her this way with tears in his eyes and mourning and + groaning. No, sir! It was done <i>cheerful</i>; and so much so that Jane + never <i>was</i> quite sure afterwerds whether Mel wasn't kind of glad to + git rid of her or not. Fact is, they say she quit speakin' to him. Mel <i>knowed</i>; + a state of puzzlement or even a good <i>mad's</i> a mighty sight better + than bein' all harrowed up and grief-stricken. And he never give her—nor + any one else—a chanst to be sorry for him. His maw was the only one + heard him walk the floor nights, and after he found, out she could hear + him he walked in his socks. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir! Meet that boy on the street, or go up in his office, you'd + think that he was the gayest feller in town. I tell you there wasn't + anything pathetic about Mel Bickner! He didn't believe in it. And at home + he had a funny story every evening of the world, about something 'd + happened during the day; and 'd whistle to the guitar, or git his maw into + a game of cards with his aunt and the girls. Law! that boy didn't believe + in no house of mourning. He'd be up at four in the morning, hoein' up + their old garden; raised garden-truck for their table, sparrow-grass and + sweet corn—yes, and roses, too; always had the house full of roses + in June-time; never <i>was</i> a house sweeter-smellin' to go into. + </p> + <p> + “Mel was what I call a useful citizen. As I said, I knowed him well. I + don't recollect I ever heard him speak of himself, nor yet of his father + but once—for <i>that</i>, I reckon, he jest couldn't; and for + himself; I don't believe it ever occurred to him. + </p> + <p> + “And he was a <i>smart</i> boy. Now, you take it, all in all, a boy can't + be as smart as Mel was, and work as hard as he did, and not <i>git</i> + somewhere—in this State, anyway! And so, about the fifth year, + things took a sudden change for him; his father's enemies and his own + friends, both, had to jest about own they was beat. The crowd that had + been running the conventions and keepin' their own men in all the offices, + had got to be pretty unpopular, and they had the sense to see that they'd + have to branch out and connect up with some mighty good men, jest to keep + the party in power. Well, sir, Mel had got to be about the most popular + and respected man in the county. Then one day I met him on the street; he + was on his way to buy an overcoat, and he was lookin' skimpier and more + froze-up and genialer than ever. It was March, and up to jest that time + things had be'n hardest of all for Mel. I walked around to the store with + him, and he was mighty happy; goin' to send his mother north in the + summer, and the girls were goin' to have a party, and Bob, his little + brother, could go to the best school in the country in the fall. Things + had come his way at last, and that very morning the crowd had called him + in and told him they were goin' to run him for county clerk. + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, the next evening I heard Mel was sick. Seein' him only the day + before on the street, out and well, I didn't think anything of it—thought + prob'ly a cold or something like that; but in the morning I heard the + doctor said he was likely to die. Of course I couldn't hardly believe it; + thing like that never <i>does</i> seem possible, but they all said it was + true, and there wasn't anybody on the street that day that didn't look + blue or talked about anything else. Nobody seemed to know what was the + matter with him exactly, and I reckon the doctor did jest the wrong thing + for it. Near as I can make out, it was what they call appendicitis + nowadays, and had come on him in the night. + </p> + <p> + “Along in the afternoon I went out there to see if there was anything I + could do. You know what a house in that condition is like. Old Fes + Bainbridge, who was some sort of a relation, and me sat on the stairs + together outside Mel's room. We could hear his voice, clear and strong and + hearty as ever. He was out of pain; and he had to die with the full flush + of health and strength on him, and he knowed it. Not <i>wantin'</i> to go, + through the waste and wear of a long sickness, but with all the ties of + life clinchin' him here, and success jest comin.' We heard him speak of + us, amongst others, old Fes and me; wanted 'em to be sure not forget to + tell me to remember to vote for Fillmore if the ground-hog saw his shadow + election year, which was an old joke I always had with him. He was awful + worried about his mother, though he tried not to show it, and when the + minister wanted to pray fer him, we heard him say, 'No, sir, you pray fer + my mamma!' That was the only thing that was different from his usual way + of speakin'; he called his mother 'mamma, and he wouldn't let 'em pray for + him neither; not once; all the time he could spare for their prayin' was + put in for her. + </p> + <p> + “He called in old Fes to tell him all about his life insurance. He'd + carried a heavy load of it, and it was all paid up; and the sweat it must + have took to do it you'd hardly like to think about. He give directions + about everything as careful and painstaking as any day of his life. He + asked to speak to Fes alone a minute, and later I helped Fes do what he + told him. 'Cousin Fes,' he says, 'it's bad weather, but I expect mother'll + want all the flowers taken out to the cemetery and you better let her have + her way. But there wouldn't be any good of their stayin' there; snowed on, + like as not. I wish you'd wait till after she's come away, and git a wagon + and take 'em in to the hospital. You can fix up the anchors and so forth + so they won't look like funeral flowers.' + </p> + <p> + “About an hour later his mother broke out with a scream, sobbin' and + cryin', and he tried to quiet her by tellin' over one of their old-time + family funny stories; it made her worse, so he quit. 'Oh, Mel,' she says, + 'you'll be with your father—' + </p> + <p> + “I don't know as Mel had much of a belief in a hereafter; certainly he + wasn't a great churchgoer. 'Well,' he says, mighty slow, but hearty and + smiling, too, 'if I see father, I—guess—I'll—be—pretty— + well—fixed!' Then he jest lay still, tryin' to quiet her and pettin' + her head. And so—that's the way he went.” + </p> + <p> + Fiderson made one of his impatient little gestures, but Mr. Martin drowned + his first words with a loud fit of coughing. + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir,” he observed, “I read that 'Leg-long' book down home; and I + heard two or three countries, and especially ourn, had gone middling crazy + over it; it seemed kind of funny that <i>we</i> should, too, so I thought + I better come up and see it for myself, how it <i>was</i>, on the stage, + where you could <i>look</i> at it; and—I expect they done it as well + as they could. But when that little boy, that'd always had his board and + clothes and education free, saw that he'd jest about talked himself to + death, and called for the press notices about his christening to be read + to him to soothe his last spasms—why, I wasn't overly put in mind of + Melville Bickner.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Martin's train left for Plattsville at two in the morning. Little + Fiderson and I escorted him to the station. As the old fellow waved us + good-bye from within the gates, Fiderson turned and said: + </p> + <p> + “Just the type of sodden-headed old pioneer that you couldn't hope to make + understand a beautiful thing like 'L'Aiglon' in a thousand years. I + thought it better not to try, didn't you?” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Arena, by Booth Tarkington + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + +***** This file should be named 8740-h.htm or 8740-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/7/4/8740/ + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, David Widger, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + + +</pre> + + </body> +</html> diff --git a/8740-h/images/frontis.jpg b/8740-h/images/frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fad053f --- /dev/null +++ b/8740-h/images/frontis.jpg diff --git a/8740.txt b/8740.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a84c2aa --- /dev/null +++ b/8740.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5685 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Arena, by Booth Tarkington + +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: In the Arena + Stories of Political Life + +Author: Booth Tarkington + + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8740] +This file was first posted on August 6, 2003 +Last Updated: April 9, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + + + + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +IN THE ARENA + +Stories of Political Life + +By Booth Tarkington + + + +TO MY FATHER + +[Illustration: THE CONVERSION OF THE SENATOR FROM STACKPOLE] + + + +CONTENTS + +PART I + + Boss Gorgett + The Aliens + The Need of Money + Hector + +PART II + + Mrs. Protheroe + Great Men's Sons + + + + +"IN THE FIRST PLACE" + + +The old-timer, a lean, retired pantaloon, sitting with loosely +slippered feet close to the fire, thus gave of his wisdom to the +questioning student: + +"Looking back upon it all, what we most need in politics is more good +men. Thousands of good men _are_ in; and they need the others who +are not in. More would come if they knew how _much_ they are +needed. The dilettantes of the clubs who have so easily abused me, for +instance, all my life, for being a ward-worker, these and those other +reformers who write papers about national corruption when they don't +know how their own wards are swung, probably aren't so useful as they +might be. The exquisite who says that politics is 'too dirty a +business for a gentleman to meddle with' is like the woman who lived +in the parlour and complained that the rest of her family kept the +other rooms so dirty that she never went into them. + +"There are many thousands of young men belonging to what is for some +reason called the 'best class,' who would like to be 'in politics' if +they could begin high enough up--as ambassadors, for instance. That +is, they would like the country to do something for them, though they +wouldn't put it that way. A young man of this sort doesn't know how +much he'd miss if his wishes were gratified. For my part, I'd hate not +to have begun at the beginning of the game. + +"I speak of it as a game," the old gentleman went on, "and in some +ways it is. That's where the fun of it comes in. Yet, there are times +when it looks to me more like a series of combats, hand-to-hand fights +for life, and fierce struggles between men and strange powers. You buy +your newspaper and that's your ticket to the amphitheatre. But the +distance is hazy and far; there are clouds of dust and you can't see +clearly. To make out just what is going on you ought to get down in +the arena yourself. Once you're in it, the view you'll have and the +fighting that will come your way will more than repay you. Still, I +don't think we ought to go in with the idea of being repaid. + +"It seems an odd thing to me that so many men feel they haven't any +time for politics; can't put in even a little, trying to see how their +cities (let alone their states and the country) are run. When we have +a war, look at the millions of volunteers that lay down everything and +answer the call of the country. Well, in politics, the country needs +_all_ the men who have any patriotism--_not_ to be seeking +office, but to watch and to understand what is going on. It doesn't +take a great deal of time; you can attend to your business and do that +much, too. When wrong things are going on and all the good men +understand them, that is all that is needed. The wrong things stop +going on." + + + + +PART I + + + + +BOSS GORGETT + + +I guess I've been what you might call kind of an assistant boss pretty +much all my life; at least, ever since I could vote; and I was +something of a ward-heeler even before that. I don't suppose there's +any way a man of my disposition could have put in his time to less +advantage and greater cost to himself. I've never got a thing by it, +all these years, not a job, not a penny--nothing but injury to my +business and trouble with my wife. _She_ begins going for me, +first of every campaign. + +Yet I just can't seem to keep out of it. It takes a hold on a man that +I never could get away from; and when I reach my second childhood and +the boys have turned me out, I reckon I'll potter along trying to look +knowing and secretive, like the rest of the has-beens, letting on as +if I still had a place inside. Lord, if I'd put in the energy at my +business that I've frittered away on small politics! But what's the +use thinking about it? + +Plenty of men go to pot horse-racing and stock gambling; and I guess +this has just been my way of working off some of my nature in another +fashion. There's a good many like me, too; not out for office or +contracts, nor anything that you can put your finger on in +particular--nothing except the _game_. Of course, it's a +pleasure, knowing you've got more influence than some, but I believe +the most you ever get out of it is in being able to help your friends, +to get a man you like a job, or a good contract, something he wants, +when he needs it. + +I tell you _then's_ when you feel satisfied, and your time don't +seem to have been so much thrown away. You go and buy a higher-priced +cigar than you can afford, and sit and smoke it with your feet out in +the sunshine on your porch railing, and watch your neighbour's +children playing in their yard; and they look mighty nice to you; and +you feel kind, and as if everybody else was. + +But that wasn't the way I felt when I helped to hand over to a +reformer the nomination for mayor; then it was just selfish +desperation and nothing else. We had to do it. You see, it was this +way: the other side had had the city for four terms, and, naturally, +they'd earned the name of being rotten by that time. Big Lafe Gorgett +was their best. "Boss Gorgett," of course our papers called him when +they went for him, which was all the time; and pretty considerable of +a man he was, too. Most people that knew him liked Lafe. I did. But he +got a bad name, as they say, by the end of his fourth term as +Mayor--and who wouldn't? Of course, the cry went up all round that he +and his crowd were making a fat thing out of it, which wasn't so much +the case as that Lafe had got to depending on humouring the gamblers +and the brewers for campaign funds and so forth. In fact, he had the +reputation of running a disorderly town, and the truth is, it +_was_ too wide open. + +But _we_ hadn't been much better when we'd had it, before Lafe +beat us and got in; and everybody remembered that. The "respectable +element" wouldn't come over to us strong enough for anybody we could +pick of our own crowd; and so, after trying it on four times, we +started in to play it another way, and nominated Farwell Knowles, who +was already running on an independent ticket, got out by the reform +and purity people. That is: we made him a fusion candidate, hoping to +find some way to control him later. We'd never have done it if we +hadn't thought it was our only hope. Gorgett was too strong, and he +handled the darkeys better than any man I ever knew. He had an +organization for it which we couldn't break; and the coloured voters +really held the balance of power with us, you know, as they do so many +other places near the same size, They were getting pretty well on to +it, too, and cost more every election. Our best chance seemed to be in +so satisfying the "law-and-order" people that they'd do something to +counterbalance this vote--which they never did. + +Well, sir, it was a mighty curious campaign. There never really was a +day when we could tell where we stood, for certain. As anybody knows, +the "better element" can't be depended on. There's too many of 'em +forget to vote, and if the weather isn't just right they won't go to +the polls. Some of 'em won't go anyway--act as if they looked down on +politics; say it's only helping one boodler against another. So your +true aristocrat won't vote for either. The real truth is, he don't +_care_. Don't care as much about the management of his city, +State, and country as about the way his club is run. Or he's ignorant +about the whole business, and what between ignorance and indifference +the worse and smarter of the two rings gets in again and old Mr. +Aristocrat gets soaked some more on his sewer assessments. _Then_ +he'll holler like a stabbed hand-organ; but he'll keep on talking +about politics being too low a business for a gentleman to mix in, +just the same! + +Somebody said a pessimist is a man who has a choice of two evils, and +takes both. There's your man that don't vote. + +And the best-dressed wards are the ones that fool us oftenest. We're +always thinking they'll do something, and they don't. But we thought, +when we took Farwell Knowles, that we had 'em at last. Fact is, they +did seem stirred up, too. They called it a "moral victory" when we +were forced to nominate Knowles to have any chance of beating +Gorgett. That was because it was _their_ victory. + +Farwell Knowles was a young man, about thirty-two, an editorial writer +on the _Herald_, an independent paper. I'd known him all his +life, and his wife--too, a mighty sweet-looking lady she was. I'd +always thought Farwell was kind of a dreamer, and too excitable; he +was always reading papers to literary clubs, and on the speech-making +side he wasn't so bad--he liked it; but he hadn't seemed to me to know +any more about politics and people than a royal family would. He was +always talking about life and writing about corruption, when, all the +time, so it struck me, it was only books he was really interested in; +and he saw things along book lines. Of course he was a tin god, +politically. + +He was for "stern virtue" only, and everlastingly lashed compromise +and temporizing; called politicians all the elegant hard names there +are, in every one of his editorials, especially Lafe Gorgett, whom +he'd never seen. He made mighty free with Lafe, referred to him +habitually as "Boodler Gorgett", and never let up on him from one +year's end to another. + +I was against our adopting him, not only for our own sakes--because I +knew he'd be a hard man to handle--but for Farwell's too. I'd been a +friend of his father's, and I liked his wife--everybody liked his +wife. But the boys overruled me, and I had to turn in and give it to +him. + +Not without a lot of misgivings, you can be sure. I had one little +experience with him right at the start that made me uneasy and got me +to thinking he was what you might call too literary, or theatrical, or +something, and that he was more interested in being things than doing +them. I'd been aware, ever since he got back from Harvard, that +_I_ was one of his literary interests, so to speak. He had a way +of talking to me in a _quizzical_, condescending style, in the +belief that he was drawing me out, the way you talk to some old +book-peddler in your office when you've got nothing to do for a while; +and it was easy to see he regarded me as a "character" and thought he +was studying me. Besides, he felt it his duty to study the wickedness +of politics in a Parkhurstian fashion, and I was one of the lost. + +One day, just after we'd nominated him, he came to me and said he had +a friend who wanted to meet me. Asked me couldn't I go with him right +away. It was about five in the afternoon; I hadn't anything to do and +said, "Certainly," thinking he meant to introduce me to some friend of +his who thought I'd talk politics with him. I took that for granted so +much that I didn't ask a question, just followed along up street, +talking weather. He turned in at old General Buskirk's, and may I be +shot if the person he meant wasn't Buskirk's daughter, Bella! He'd +brought me to call on a girl young enough to be my daughter. Maybe you +won't believe I felt like a fool! + +I knew Buskirk, of course (he didn't appear), but I hadn't seen Bella +since she was a child. She'd been "highly educated" and had been +living abroad a good deal, but I can't say that my visit made me +_for_ her--not very strong. She was good-looking enough, in her +thinnish, solemn way, but it seemed to me she was kind of overdressed +and too grand. You could see in a minute that she was intense and +dreamy and theatrical with herself and superior, like Farwell; and I +guess I thought they thought they'd discovered they were "kindred +souls," and that each of them understood (without saying it) that both +of them felt that Farwell's lot in life was a hard one because +Mrs. Knowles wasn't up to him. Bella gave him little, quiet, deep +glances, that seemed to help her play the part of a person +who understood everything--especially him, and reverenced +greatness--especially his. I remember a fellow who called the sort of +game it struck me they were carrying on "those soully flirtations." + +Well, sir, I wasn't long puzzling over why he had brought _me_ up +there. It stuck out all over, though they didn't know it, and would +have been mighty astonished to think that I saw. It was in their +manner, in her condescending ways with me, in her assumption of +serious interest, and in his going through the trick of "drawing me +out," and exhibiting me to her. I'll have to admit that these young +people viewed me in the light of a "character." That was the part +Farwell had me there to play. + +I can't say I was too pleased with the notion, and I was kind of sorry +for Mrs. Knowles, too. I'd have staked a good deal that my guess was +right, for instance: that Farwell had gone first to this girl for her +congratulations when he got the nomination, instead of to his wife; +and that she felt--or pretended she felt--a soully sympathy with his +ambitions; that she wanted to be, or to play the part of, a woman of +affairs, and that he talked over everything he knew with her. I +imagined they thought they were studying political reform together, +and she, in her novel-reading way, wanted to pose to herself as the +brilliant lady diplomat, kind of a Madam Roland advising statesmen, or +something of that sort. And I was there as part of their political +studies, an object-lesson, to bring her "more closely in touch" (as +Farwell would say) with the realities he had to contend with. I was +one of the "evils of politics," because I knew how to control a few +wards, and get out the darkey vote almost as well as Gorgett. Gorgett +would have been better, but Farwell couldn't very easily get at him. + +I had to sit there for a little while, of course, like a ninny between +them; and I wasn't the more comfortable because I thought Knowles +looked like a bigger fool than I did. Bella's presence seemed to +excite him to a kind of exaltation; he had a dark flush on his face +and his eyes were large and shiny. + +I got out as soon as I could, naturally, wondering what my wife would +say if she knew; and while I was fumbling around among the +knick-knacks and fancy things in the hall for my hat and coat, I heard +Farwell get up and cross the room to a chair nearer Bella, and then +she said, in a sort of pungent whisper, that came out to me +distinctly: + +"My knight!" That's what she called him. "My knight!" That's what she +said. + +I don't know whether I was more disgusted with myself for hearing, or +with old Buskirk who spent his whole time frittering around the club +library, and let his daughter go in for the sort of soulliness she was +carrying on with Farwell Knowles. + + * * * * * + +Trouble in our ranks began right away. Our nominee knew too much, and +did all the wrong things from the start; he began by antagonizing most +of our old wheel-horses; he wouldn't consult with us, and advised with +his own kind. In spite of that, we had a good organization working for +him, and by a week before election I felt pretty confident that our +show was as good as Gorgett's. It looked like it would be close. + +Just about then things happened. We had dropped onto one of Lafe's +little tricks mighty smartly. We got one of his heelers fixed (of +course we usually tried to keep all that kind of work dark from +Farwell Knowles), and this heeler showed the whole business up for a +consideration. There was a precinct certain to be strong for Knowles, +where the balloting was to take place in the office-room of a +hook-and-ladder company. In the corner was a small closet with one +shelf, high up toward the ceiling. It was in the good old free and +easy Hayes and Wheeler times, and when the polls closed at six o'clock +it was planned that the election officers should set the ballot-box up +on this shelf, lock the closet door, and go out for their suppers, +leaving one of each side to watch in the room so that nobody could +open the closet-door with a pass-key and tamper with the ballots +before they were counted. Now, the ceiling over the shelf in the +closet wasn't plastered, and it formed, of course, part of the +flooring in the room above. The boards were to be loosened by a +Gorgett man upstairs, as soon as the box was locked in; he would take +up a piece of planking--enough to get an arm in--and stuff the box +with Gorgett ballots till it grunted. Then he would replace the board +and slide out. Of course, when they began the count our people would +know there was something wrong, but they would be practically up +against it, and the precinct would be counted for Gorgett. + +They brought the heeler up to me, not at headquarters (I was city +chairman) but at a hotel room I'd hired as a convenient place for the +more important conferences and to keep out of the way of every +Tom-Dick-and-Harry grafter. Bob Crowder, a ward committee-man, +brought him up and stayed in the room, while the fellow--his name was +Genz--went over the whole thing. + +"What do you think of it?" says Bob, when Genz finished. "Ain't it +worth the money? I declare, it's so neat and simple and so almighty +smart besides, I'm almost ashamed some of our boys hadn't thought of +it for us." + +I was just opening my mouth to answer, when there was a signal knock +at the door and a young fellow we had as a kind of watcher in the next +room (opening into the one I used) put his head in and said +Mr. Knowles wanted to see me. + +"Ask him to wait a minute," said I, for I didn't want him to know +anything about Genz. "I'll be there right away." + +Then came Farwell Knowles's voice from the other room, sharp and +excited. "I believe I'll not wait," says he. "I'll come in there now!" + +And that's what he did, pushing by our watcher before I could hustle +Genz into the hall through an outer door, though I tried to. There's +no denying it looked a little suspicious. + +Farwell came to a dead halt in the middle of the room. + +"I know that person!" he said, pointing at Genz, his brow mighty +black. "I saw him and Crowder sneaking into the hotel by the back way, +half an hour ago, and I knew there was some devilish--" + +"Keep your shirt on, Farwell," said I. + +He was pretty hot. "I'll be obliged to you," he returned, "if you'll +explain what you're doing here in secret with this low hound of +Gorgett's. Do you think you can play with me the way you do with your +petty committee-men? If you do, I'll _show_ you! You're not +dealing with a child, and I'm not going to be tricked or sold out of +this elec--" + +I took him by the shoulders and sat him down hard on a cane-bottomed +chair. "That's a dirty thought," said I, "and if you knew enough to +be responsible I reckon you'd have to account for it. As it is--why, +I don't care whether you apologize or not." + +He weakened right away, or, at least, he saw his mistake. "Then won't +you give me some explanation," he asked, in a less excitable way, "why +are you closeted here with a notorious member of Gorgett's ring?" + +"No," said I, "I won't." + +"Be careful," said he. "This won't look well in print." + +That was just so plumb foolish that I began to laugh at him; and when +I got to laughing I couldn't keep up being angry. It _was_ +ridiculous, his childishness and suspiciousness. Right there was where +I made my mistake. + +"All right," says I to Bob Crowder, giving way to the impulse. "He's +the candidate. Tell him." + +"Do you mean it?" asks Bob, surprised. + +"Yes. Tell him the whole thing." + +So Bob did, helped by Genz, who was more or less sulky, of course; and +is wasn't long till I saw how stupid I'd been. Knowles went straight +up in the air. + +"I knew it was a dirty business, politics," he said, jumping out of +his chair, "but I didn't _realize_ it before. And I'd like to +know," he went on, turning to me, "how you learn to sit there so +calmly and listen to such iniquities. How do you dull your conscience +so that you can do it? And what course do you propose to follow in the +matter of this confession?" + +"Me?" I answered. "Why, I'm going to send supper in to our fellows, +and the box'll never see that closet. The man upstairs may get a +little tired. I reckon the laugh's on Gorgett; it's his scheme and--" + +Farwell interrupted me; his face was outrageously red. "_What!_ +You actually mean you hadn't intended to expose this infamy?" + +"Steady," I said. I was getting a little hot, too, and talked more +than I ought. "Mr. Genz here has our pledge that he's not given away, +or he'd never have--" + +"_Mister_ Genz!" sneered Farwell. "_Mister_ Genz has your +pledge, has he? Allow me to tell you that I represent the people, the +_honest_ people, in this campaign, and that the people and I have +made no pledges to _Mister_ Genz. You've paid the scoundrel--" + +"_Here!_" says Genz. + +"The scoundrel!" Farwell repeated, his voice rising and rising, "paid +him for his information, and I tell you by that act and your silence +on such a matter you make yourself a party to a conspiracy." + +"Shut the transom," says I to Crowder. + +"_I'm_ under no pledge, I say," shouted Farwell, "and I do not +compound felonies. You're not conducting my campaign. I'm doing that, +and I don't conduct it along such lines. It's precisely the kind of +fraud and corruption that I intend to stamp out in this town, and this +is where I begin to work." + +"How?" said I. + +"You'll see--and you'll see soon! The penitentiaries are built for +just this--" + +"_Sh, sh!_" said I, but he paid no attention. + +"They say Gorgett owns the Grand Jury," he went on. "Well, let him! +Within a week I'll be mayor of this town--and Gorgett's Grand Jury +won't outlast his defeat very long. By his own confession this man +Genz is party to a conspiracy with Gorgett, and you and Crowder are +witnesses to the confession. I'll see that you have the pleasure of +giving your testimony before a Grand Jury of determined men. Do you +hear me? And tomorrow afternoon's _Herald_ will have the whole +infamous story to the last word. I give you my solemn oath upon it!" + +All three of us, Crowder, Genz, and I, sprang to our feet. We were +considerably worked up, and none of us said anything for a minute or +so, just looked at Knowles. + +"Yes, you're a little shocked," he said. "It's always shocking to men +like you to come in contact with honesty that won't compromise. You +needn't talk to me; you can't say anything that would change me to +save your lives. I've taken my oath upon it, and you couldn't alter me +a hair's breadth if you burned me at a slow fire. Light, light, that's +what you need, the light of day and publicity! I'm going to clear this +town of fraud, and if Gorgett don't wear the stripes for this my +name's not Farwell Knowles! He'll go over the road, handcuffed to a +deputy, before three months are gone. Don't tell me I'm injuring +_you_ and the party by it. Pah! It will give me a thousand more +votes. I'm not exactly a child, my friends! On my honour, the whole +thing will be printed in to-morrow's paper!" + +"For God's sake--" Crowder broke out, but Knowles cut him off. + +"I bid you good-afternoon," he said, sharply. We all started toward +him, but before we'd got half across the room he was gone, and the +door slammed behind him. + +Bob dropped into a chair; he was looking considerably pale; I guess I +was, too, but Genz was ghastly. + +"Let me out of here," he said in a sick voice. "Let me out of here!" + +"Sit down!" I told him. + +"Just let me out of here," he said again. And before I could stop him, +he'd gone, too, in a blind hurry. + +Bob and I were left alone, and not talking any. + +Not for a while. Then Bob said: "Where do you reckon he's gone?" + +"Reckon who's gone?" + +"Genz." + +"To see Lafe." + +"What?" + +"Of course he has. What else can he do? He's gone up any way. The best +he can do is to try to square himself a little by owning up the whole +thing. Gorgett will know it all any way, tomorrow afternoon, when the +_Herald_ comes out." + +"I guess you're right," said Bob. "We're done up along with Gorgett; +but I believe that idiot's right, he won't lose votes by playing hob +with _us_. What's to be done?" + +"Nothing," I answered. "You can't head Farwell off. It's all my fault, +Bob." + +"Isn't there any way to get hold of him? A crazy man could see that +his best friend couldn't _beg_ it out of him, and that he +wouldn't spare any of us; but don't you know of some bludgeon we could +hang up over him?" + +"Nothing. It's up to Gorgett." + +"Well," said Bob, "Lafe's mighty smart, but it looks like +God-help-Gorgett now!" + +Well, sir, I couldn't think of anything better to do than to go around +and see Gorgett; so, after waiting long enough for Genz to see him and +get away, I went. Lafe was always cool and slow; but I own I expected +to find him flustered, and was astonished to see right away that he +wasn't. He was smoking, as usual, and wearing his hat, as he always +did, indoors and out, sitting with his feet upon his desk, and a +pleasant look of contemplation on his face. + +"Oh," says I, "then Genz hasn't been here?" + +"Yes," says he, "he has. I reckon you folks have 'most spoiled Genz's +usefulness for me." + +"You're taking it mighty easy," I told him. + +"Yep. Isn't it all in the game? What's the use of getting excited +because you've blocked us on one precinct? We'll leave that closet out +of our calculations, that's all." + +"Almighty Powers, I don't mean _that!_ Didn't Genz tell you--" + +"About Mr. Knowles and the _Herald_? Oh, yes," he answered, +knocking the ashes off his cigar quietly. "And about the thousand +votes he'll gain? Oh, yes. And about incidentally showing you and +Crowder up as bribing Genz and promising to protect him--making your +methods public? Oh, yes. And about the Grand Jury? Yes, Genz told +me. And about me and the penitentiary. Yes, he told me. Mr. Knowles is +a rather excitable young man. Don't you think so?" + +"Well?" + +"Well, what's the trouble?" + +"Trouble!" I said. "I'd like to know what you're going to do?" + +"What's Knowles going to do?" + +"He's sworn to expose the whole deal, as you've just told me you knew; +one of the preliminaries to having us all up before the next Grand +Jury and sending you and Genz over the road, that's all!" + +Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, tilting farther back, with +his hands in his pockets and his eyes twinkling under his last +summer's straw hat-brim. + +"He can't hardly afford it, can he," he drawled, "he being the +representative of the law and order and purity people? They're mighty +sensitive, those folks. A little thing turns 'em." + +"I don't understand," said I. + +"Well, I hardly reckoned you would," he returned. "But I expect if +Mr. Knowles wants it warm all round, _I'm_ willing. We may be +able to do some of the heating up, ourselves." + +This surprised me, coming from him, and I felt pretty sore. "You mean, +then," I said, "that you think you've got a line on something our boys +have been planning--like the way we got onto the closet trick--and +you're going to show _us_ up because we can't control Knowles; +that you hold that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? Then I +tell you plainly I know I can't shut him up, and you can go ahead and +do us the worst you can." + +"Whatever little tricks I may or may not have discovered," he +answered, "that isn't what I mean, though I don't know as I'd be above +making such a threat if I thought it was my only way to keep out of +the penitentiary. I know as well as you do that such a threat would +only give Knowles pleasure. He'd take the credit for forcing me to +expose you, and he's convinced that everything of that kind he does +makes him solider with the people and brings him a step nearer this +chair I'm sitting in, which he regards as a step itself to the +governorship and Heaven knows what not. He thinks he's detached +himself from you and your organization till he stands alone. +_That_ boy's head was turned even before you fellows nominated +him. He's a wonder. I've been noticing him long before he turned up as +a candidate, and I believe the great surprise of his life was that +John the Baptist didn't precede and herald _him_. Oh, no, going +for you wouldn't stop him--not by a thousand miles. It would only do +him good." + +"Well, what _are_ you going to do? Are you going to see him?" + +"No, sir!" Lafe spoke sharply. + +"Well, well! What?" + +"I'm not bothering to run around asking audiences of Farwell +Knowleses; you ought to know that!" + +"Given it up?" + +"Not exactly. I've sent a fellow around to talk to him." + +"What use will that be?" + +Gorgett brought his feet down off the desk with a bang. + +"_Then_ he can come to see _me_, if he wants to. D'you +think I've been fool enough not to know what sort of man I was going +up against? D'you think that, knowing him as I do, I've not been ready +for something of this kind? And that's all you'll get out of +_me_, this afternoon!" + +And it was all I did. + + * * * * * + +It may have been about one o'clock, that night, or perhaps a little +earlier, as I lay tossing about, unable to sleep because I was too +much disturbed in my mind--too angry with myself--when there came a +loud, startling ring at the front-door bell. I got up at once and +threw open a window over the door, calling out to know what was +wanted. + +"It's I," said a voice I didn't know--a queer, hoarse voice. "Come +down." + +"Who's 'I'?" I asked. + +"Farwell Knowles," said the voice. "Let me in!" + +I started, and looked down. + +He was standing on the steps where the light of a street-lamp fell on +him, and I saw even by the poor glimmer that something was wrong; he +was white as a dead man. There was something wild in his attitude; he +had no hat, and looked all mixed-up and disarranged. + +"Come down--come down!" he begged thickly, beckoning me with his arm. + +I got on some clothes, slipped downstairs without wakening my wife, +lit the hall light, and took him into the library. He dropped in a +chair with a quick breath like a sob, and when I turned from lighting +the gas I was shocked by the change in him since afternoon. I never +saw such a look before. It was like a rat you've seen running along +the gutter side of the curbstone with a terrier after it. + +"What's the matter, Farwell?" I asked. + +"Oh, my God!" he whispered. + +"What's happened?" + +"It's hard to tell you," said he. "Oh, but it's hard to tell." + +"Want some whiskey?" I asked, reaching for a decanter that stood +handy. He nodded and I gave him good allowance. + +"Now," said I, when he'd gulped it down, "let's hear what's turned +up." + +He looked at me kind of dimly, and I'll be shot if two tears didn't +well up in his eyes and run down his cheeks. "I've come to ask you," +he said slowly and brokenly, "to ask you--if you won't intercede with +Gorgett for me; to ask you if you won't beg him to--to grant me--an +interview before to-morrow noon." + +"_What!_" + +"Will you do it?" + +"Certainly. Have you asked for an interview with him yourself?" + +He struck the back of his hand across his forehead--struck hard, too. + +"Have I tried? I've been following him like a dog since five o'clock +this afternoon, beseeching him to give me twenty minutes' talk in +private. He _laughed_ at me! He isn't a man; he's an iron-hearted +devil! Then I went to his house and waited three hours for him. When +he came, all he would say was that you were supposed to be running +this campaign for me, and I'd better consult with you. Then he turned +me out of his house!" + +"You seem to have altered a little since this afternoon." I couldn't +resist that. + +"This afternoon!" he shuddered. "I think that was a thousand years +ago!" + +"What do you want to see him for?" + +"What for? To see if there isn't a little human pity in him for a +fellow-being in agony--to end my suspense and know whether or not he +means to ruin me and my happiness and my home forever!" + +Farwell didn't seem to be regarding me so much in the light of a +character as usual; still, one thing puzzled me, and I asked him how +he happened to come to me. + +"Because I thought if anyone in the world could do anything with +Gorgett, you'd be the one," he answered. "Because it seemed to me he'd +listen to you, and because I thought--in my wild clutching at the +remotest hope--that he meant to make my humiliation more awful by +sending me to you to ask you to go back to him for me." + +"Well, well," I said, "I guess if you want me to be of any use you'll +have to tell me what it's all about." + +"I suppose so," he said, and choked, with a kind of despairing sound; +"I don't see any way out of it." + +"Go ahead," I told him. "I reckon I'm old enough to keep my +counsel. Let it go, Farwell." + +"Do you know," he began, with a sharp, grinding of his teeth, "that +dishonourable scoundrel has had me _watched_, ever since there +was talk of me for the fusion candidate? He's had me followed, +_shadowed_, till he knows more about me than I do myself." + +I saw right there that I'd never really measured Gorgett for as tall +as he really was. "Have a cigar?" I asked Knowles, and lit one +myself. But he shook his head and went on: + +"You remember my taking you to call on General Buskirk's daughter?" + +"Quite well," said I, puffing pretty hard. + +"An angel! A white angel! And this beast, this _boodler_ has the +mud in his hands to desecrate her white garments!" + +"Oh," says I. + +The angel's knight began to pace the room as he talked, clinching and +unclinching his hands, while the perspiration got his hair all +scraggly on his forehead. You see Farwell was doing some suffering and +he wasn't used to it. + +"When she came home from abroad, a year ago," he said, "it seemed to +me that a light came into my life. I've got to tell you the whole +thing," he groaned, "but it's hard! Well, my wife is taken up with our +little boy and housekeeping,--I don't complain of her, mind that--but +she really hasn't entered into my ambitions, my inner life. She +doesn't often read my editorials, and when she does, she hasn't been +serious in her consideration of them and of my purposes. Sometimes she +differed openly from me and sometimes greeted my work for truth and +light with indifference! I had learned to bear this, and more; to save +myself pain I had come to shrink from exposing my real self to +her. Then, when this young girl came, for the first time in my life I +found real sympathy and knew what I thought I never should know; a +heart attuned to my own, a mind that sought my own ideals, a soul of +the same aspirations--and a perfect faith in what I was and in what it +was my right to attain. She met me with open hands, and lifted me to +my best self. What, unhappily, I did not find at home, I found in +her--encouragement. I went to her in every mood, always to be greeted +by the most exquisite perception, always the same delicate +receptiveness. She gave me a sister's love!" + +I nodded; I knew he thought so. + +"Well, when I went into this campaign, what more natural than that I +should seek her ready sympathy at every turn, than that I should +consult with her at each crisis, and, when I became the fusion +candidate, that I should go to her with the news that I had taken my +first great step toward my goal and had achieved thus far in my +struggle for the cause of our hearts--reform?" + +"You went up to Buskirk's after the convention?" I asked. + +"No; the night before." He took his head in his hands and groaned, but +without pausing in his march up and down the room. "You remember, it +was known by ten o'clock, after the primaries, that I should receive +the nomination. As soon as I was sure, I went to her; and I found her +in the same state of exaltation and pride that I was experiencing +myself. There was _always_ the answer in her, I tell you, always +the response that such a nature as mine craves. She took both my hands +and looked at me just as a proud sister would. 'I _read_ your +news,' she said. 'It is in your face!' Wasn't that touching? Then we +sat in silence for a while, each understanding the other's joy and +triumph in the great blow I had struck for the right. I left very +soon, and she came with me to the door. We stood for a moment on the +step--and--for the first time, the only time in my life--I received +a--a sister's caress." + +"Oh," said I. I understood how Gorgett had managed to be so calm that +afternoon. + +"It was the purest kiss ever given!" Farwell groaned again. + +"Who was it saw you?" I asked. + +He dropped into a chair and I saw the tears of rage and humiliation +welling up again in his eyes. + +"We might as well have been standing by the footlights in a theatre!" +he burst out, brokenly. "Who saw it? Who _didn't_ see it? Gorgett's +sleuth-hound, the man he sent to me this afternoon, for one; the +policeman on the beat that he'd stopped for a chat in front of the +house, for another; a maid in the hall behind us, the policeman's +sweetheart _she_ is, for another! Oh!" he cried, "the desecration! +That one caress, one that I'd thought a sacred secret between us +forever--and in plain sight of those three hideous vulgarians, all +belonging to my enemy, Gorgett! Ah, the horror of it--what _horror_!" + +Farwell wrung his hands and sat, gulping as if he were sick, without +speaking for several moments. + +"What terms did the man he sent offer from Gorgett?" I asked. + +"_No_ terms! He said to go ahead and print my story about the closet; +it was a matter of perfect indifference to him; that he meant to print +this about me in their damnable party-organ tomorrow, in any event, +and only warned me so that I should have time to prepare Miss Buskirk. +Of course he don't care! _I'll_ be ruined, that's all. Oh, the +hideous injustice of it, the unreason! Don't you see the frightful +irony of it? The best thing in my life, the widest and deepest; my +friendship with a good woman becomes a joke and a horror! Don't you +see that the personal scandal about me absolutely undermines me and +nullifies the political scandal of the closet affair? Gorgett will +come in again and the Grand Jury would laugh at any attack on him. I'm +ruined for good, for good and all, for good and all!" + +"Have you told Miss Buskirk?" + +He uttered a kind of a shriek. "_No!_ I can't! How could I? What do +you think I'm made of? And there's her father--and all her relatives, +and mine, and my wife--my wife! If she leaves me--" + +A fit of nausea seemed to overcome him and he struggled with it, +shivering. "My God! Do you think I can _face_ it? I've come to you for +help in the most wretched hour of my life--all darkness, darkness! +Just on the eve of triumph to be stricken down--it's so cruel, so +devilish! And to think of the horrible comic-weekly misery of it, +caught kissing a girl, by a policeman and his sweetheart, the +chambermaid! Ugh! The vulgar ridicule--the hideous laughter!" He +raised his hands to me, the most grovelling figure of a man I ever +saw. + +"Oh, for God's sake, help me, help me...." + +Well, sir, it was sickening enough, but after he had gone, and I +tumbled into bed again, I thought of Gorgett and laughed myself to +sleep with admiration. + +When Farwell and I got to Gorgett's office, fairly early the next +morning, Lafe was sitting there alone, expecting us, of course, as I +knew he would be, but in the same characteristic, lazy attitude I'd +found him in, the day before; feet up on the desk, hat-brim tilted +'way forward, cigar in the right-hand corner of his mouth, his hands +in his pockets, his double-chin mashing down his limp collar. He +didn't even turn to look at us as we came in and closed the door. + +"Come in, gentlemen, come in," says he, not moving. "I kind of thought +you'd be along, about this time." + +"Looking for us, were you?" I asked. + +"Yes," said he. "Sit down." + +We did; Farwell looking pretty pale and red-eyed, and swallowing a +good deal. + +There was a long, long silence. We just sat and watched +Gorgett. _I_ didn't want to say anything; and I believe Farwell +couldn't. It lasted so long that it began to look as if the little +blue haze at the end of Lafe's cigar was all that was going to +happen. But by and by he turned his head ever so little, and looked at +Knowles. + +"Got your story for the _Herald_ set up yet?" he asked. + +Farwell swallowed some more and just shook his head. + +"Haven't begun to work up the case for the Grand Jury yet?" + +"No," answered Farwell, in almost a whisper, his head hanging. + +"Why," Lafe said, in a tone of quiet surprise; "you haven't given all +that up, have you?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, ain't that strange?" said Lafe. "What's the trouble?" + +Knowles didn't answer. In fact, I felt mighty sorry for him. + +All at once, Gorgett's manner changed; he threw away his cigar, the +only time I ever saw him do it without lighting another at the end of +it. His feet came down to the floor and he wheeled round on Farwell. + +"I understand your wife's a mighty nice lady, Mr. Knowles." + +Farwell's head sank lower till we couldn't see his face, only his +fingers working kind of pitifully. + +"I guess you've had rather a bad night?" said Gorgett, inquiringly. + +"Oh, my God!" The words came out in a whisper from under Knowles's +tilted hat-brim. + +"I believe I'd advise you to stick to your wife," Gorgett went on, +quietly, "and let politics alone. Somehow I don't believe you're the +kind of man for it. I've taken considerable interest in you for some +time back, Mr. Knowles, though I don't suppose you've noticed it until +lately; and I don't believe you understand the game. You've said some +pretty hard things in your paper about me; you've been more or less +excitable in your statements; but that's all right. What I don't like +altogether, though, is that it seems to me you've been really tooting +your own horn all the time--calling everybody dishonest and +scoundrels, to shove _yourself_ forward. That always ends in sort +of a lonely position. I reckon you feel considerably lonely, just now? +Well, yesterday, I understand you were talking pretty free about the +penitentiary. Now, that ain't just the way to act, according to my +notion. It's a bad word. Here we are, he and I"--he pointed to +me--"carrying on our little fight according to the rules, enjoying it +and blocking each other, gaining a point here and losing one there, +everything perfectly good-natured, when _you_ turn up and begin +to talk about the penitentiary! That ain't quite the thing. You see +words like that are liable to stir up the passions. It's dangerous. +You were trusted, when they told you the closet story, to regard it as +a confidence--though they didn't go through the form of pledging +you--because your people had given their word not to betray Genz. But +you couldn't see it and there you went, talking about the Grand Jury +and stripes and so on, stirring up passions and ugly feelings. And I +want to tell you that the man who can afford to do that has to be +mighty immaculate himself. The only way to play politics, whatever +you're _for_, is to learn the game first. Then you'll know how +far you can go and what your own record will stand. There ain't a man +alive whose record will stand too much, Mr. Knowles--and when you get +to thinking about that and what your own is, it makes you feel more +like treating your fellow-sinners a good deal gentler than you would +otherwise. Now _I've_ got a wife and two little girls, and my old +mother's proud of me (though you wouldn't think it) and they'd hate it +a good deal to see me sent over the road for playing the game the best +I could as I found it." + +He paused for a moment, looking sad and almost embarrassed. "It ain't +any great pleasure to me," he said, "to think that the people have let +it get to be the game that it is. But I reckon it's good for +_you_. I reckon the best thing that ever happened to you is +having to come here this morning to ask mercy of a man you looked down +on." + +Farwell shifted a little in his chair, but he didn't speak, and +Gorgett went on: + +"I suppose you think it's mighty hard that your private character +should be used against you in a political question by a man you call a +public corruptionist. But I'm in a position where I can't take any +chances against an antagonist that won't play the game my way. I had +to find your vulnerable point to defend myself, and, in finding it, I +find that there's no need to defend myself any longer, because it +makes all your weapons ineffective. I believe the trouble with you, +Mr. Knowles, is that you've never realized that politicians are human +beings. But we are: we breathe and laugh and like to do right, like +other folks. And, like most men, you've thought you were different +from other men, and you aren't. So, here you are. I believe you said +you'd had a hard night?" + +Knowles looked up at last, his lips working for a while before he +could speak. "I'll resign now--if you'll--if you'll let me off," he +said. + +Gorgett shook his head. "I've got the election in my hand," he +answered, "though you fellows don't know it. You've got nothing to +offer me, and you couldn't buy me if you had." + +At that, Knowles just sank into himself with a little, faint cry, in a +kind of heap. There wasn't anything but anguish and despair _to_ +him. Big tears were sliding down his cheeks. + +I didn't say anything. Gorgett sat looking at him for a good while; +and then his fat chin began to tremble a little and I saw his eyes +shining in the shadow under his old hat-brim. + +He got up and went over to Farwell with slow steps and put his hand +gently on his shoulder. + +"Go on home to your wife," he said, in a low voice that was the +saddest I ever heard. "I don't bear you any ill-will in the +world. Nobody's going to give you away." + + + + +THE ALIENS + + +Pietro Tobigili, that gay young chestnut vender--he of the radiant +smiles--gave forth, in his warm tenor, his own interpretation of "Ach +du lieber Augustine," whenever Bertha, rosy waitress in the little +German restaurant, showed her face at the door. For a month it had +been a courtship; and the merchant sang often: + +_"Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross."_ + +The acquaintance, begun by the song and Pietro's wonderful laugh, had +grown tender. The chestnut vender had a way with him; he looked like +the "Neapolitan Fisher Lad" of the chromos, and you could have fancied +him of two centuries ago, putting a rose in his hair; even as it was, +he had the ear-rings. But the smile of him it was that won Bertha, +when she came to work in the little restaurant. It was a smile that +put the world at its ease; it proclaimed the coming of morning over +the meadows, and, taking every bystander into an April friendship, ran +on suddenly into a laugh that was like silver, and like a strange +puppy's claiming you for the lost master. + +So it befell that Bertha was fascinated; that, blushing, she laughed +back to him, and was nothing offended when, at his first sight of her, +he rippled out at once into "Ahaha, du libra Ogostine." + +Within two weeks he was closing his business (no intricate matter) +every evening, to walk home with her, through the September moonlight. +Then extraordinary things happened to the English language. + +"I ain'd nefer can like no foreigner!" she often joked back to a +question of his. "Nefer, nefer! you t'ink I'm takin' up mit a +hant-orkan maan, Mister Toby?" + +Whereupon he would carol out the tender taunt, "Ahaha, du libra +Ogostine!" + +"Yoost a hant-orkan maan!" + +"No! _No_! No oragan! I am a greata--greata merchant. Vote a +Republican! Polititshian! To-bigli, Chititzen Republican. +Naturalasize! March in a parade!" + +Never lived native American prouder of his citizenship than this +adopted one. Had he not voted at the election? Was he not a member of +the great Republican party? He had eagerly joined it, for the reason +that he had been a Republican in Italy, and he had drawn with him to +the polls his second cousin, Leo Vesschi, and the five other Italians +with whom he lived. For this, he had been rewarded by Pixley, his +precinct committee-man, who allowed him to carry pink torches in three +night processions. + +"You keeb oud politigs," said Bertha, earnestly, one evening. "My +uncle, Louie Gratz, he iss got a neighbour-lady; her man gone in +politigs. After_vorts_ he git it! He iss in der bennidenshierry +two years. You know why?" + +"Democrat!" shouted the chestnut vender triumphantly. + +"No, sir! Yoost politigs," replied the unpartisan Bertha. "You keeb +oud politigs." + +_"Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross."_ + +The song was always a teasing of her and carried all his friendly +laughter at her, because of her German ways; but it became softly +exultant whenever she betrayed her interest in him. + +"Libra Ogostine, she afraid I go penitensh?" he inquired. + +"Me!" she jeered with uneasy laughter. "_I_ ain'd care! but +you--you don' look oud, you git in dod voikhouse!" + +He turned upon her, suddenly, a face like a mother's, and touched her +hand with a light caress. + +"I stay in a workhouse sevena-hunder' year," he said gently, "you come +seeta by window some-a-time." + +At this Bertha turned away, was silent for a space, leaning on the +gate-post in front of her uncle's house, whither they were now +come. Finally she answered brokenly: "I ain'd sit by no vinder for +yoost a jessnut maan." This was her way of stimulating his ambition. + +"Ahaha!" he cried. "You don' know? I'm goin' buy beeg stan'! Candy! +Peanut! Banan'! Make some-a-time four dollar a day! 'Tis a greata +countra! Bimaby git a store! Ride a buggy! Smoke a cigar! You play +piano! Vote a Republican!" + +"Toby!" + +"Tis true!" + +"Toby," she said tearfully; "Toby, you voik hart, und safe your +money?" + +"You help?" he whispered. + +"I help--_you_!" she cried loudly. Then, with a sudden fit of +sobbing, she flung open the gate and ran at the top of her speed into +the house. + +Halcyon the days for Pietro Tobigli, extravagant the jocularity of +this betrothed one. And, as his happiness, so did his prosperity +increase; the little chestnut furnace became the smallest adjunct of +his affairs; for he leaped (almost at one bound) to the proprietorship +of a wooden stand, shaped like the crate of an upright piano and +backed up against the brick wall of the restaurant--a mercantile house +which was closed at night by putting the lid on. All day long Toby's +smile arrested pedestrians, and compelled them to buy of him, making +his wares sweeter in the mouth. Bertha dwelt in a perpetual serenade: +on warm days, when the restaurant doors were open, she could hear him +singing, not always "Ogostine," but festal lilts of Italy, liquid and +strangely sweet to her; and at such times, when the actual voice was +not in her ears, still she blushed with delight to hear in her heart +the thrilling echoes of his barcaroles, and found them humming +cheerily upon her own lips. + +Toby was to save five hundred dollars before they married, a great +sum, but they were patient and both worked very hard. The winter would +have fallen bitterly upon an outdoor merchant lacking Toby's confident +heart, but on the coldest days, when Bertha looked out, she always +found him slapping his hands, and trudging up and down in the snow in +front of the little box; and, as soon as he caught sight of +her--"Aha-ha, du libra Ogostine, Ogostine, Ogostine!" + +She saved her own money with German persistence, and on Christmas day +her present to her betrothed, in return for a coral pin, was a pair of +rubber boots filled with little cakes. + +Elysium was the dwelling-place of Pietro Tobigli, though, apparently, +he abode in a horrible slum cellar with Leo Vesschi and the five Latti +brothers. In this place our purveyor of sweetmeats was the only +light. Thither he had carried his songs and his laugh and his furnace +when he came from Italy to join Vesschi; and there he remained, partly +out of loyalty to his un-prosperous comrades, and partly because his +share of the expense was only twenty-five cents a week, and every +saving was a saving for Bertha. Every evening, on the homeward walk, +the affianced pair passed the hideous stairway that led down to the +cellar, and Bertha, neat soul, never failed to shudder at it. She did +not know that Pietro lived there, for he feared it might distress her; +nor could she ever persuade him to tell her where he lived. + +Because of this mystery, upon which he merrily insisted, she affected +a fear that he would some day desert her. "You don' tell me where you +lif, I t'ink you goin' ran away of me, Toby. I vake opp some day; git +a ledder dod you gone back home by 'Talian lady dod's grazy 'bout +you!" + +"Ahaha! Libra Ogostine, you believe I can make a write weet a +pen-a-paper? I don' know that-a _how_. Some-a-time you _see_ +that gran' palazzo where I leef. Eesa greata-great sooraprise!" + +In the gran' palazzo, it was as much as he could do to keep clean his +own grim little bunk in the corner. His comrades, sullen, hopeless, +came at evening from ten hours' desperate shovelling, and exhibited no +ambition for water or brooms, but sat hunched and silent, or morosely +muttering and coughing, in the dark room with its sodden earthen +floor, stained walls, and one smoky lamp. + +To this uncomfortable chamber repaired, one March evening, Mr. Frank +Pixley, Republican precinct committee-man, nor was its dinginess an +unharmonious setting for that political brilliant. He was a +pock-pitted, damp-looking, soiled little fungus of a man, who had +attained to his office because, in the dirtiest precinct of the +wickedest ward in the city, he had, through the operation of a +befitting ingenuity, forced a recognition of his leadership. From such +an office, manned by a Pixley, there leads an upward ramification of +wires, invisible to all except manipulators, which extends to higher +surfaces. Usually the Pixley is a deep-sea puppet, wholly controlled +by the dingily gilded wires that run down to him; but there are times +when the Pixley gives forth initial impulses of his own, such as may +alter the upper surface; for, in a system of this character, every +twitch is felt throughout the whole ramification. + +"Hello, boys," the committee-man called out with automatic geniality, +as he descended the broken steps. "How are ye? All here? That's good; +that's the stuff! Good work!" + +Only Toby replied with more than an indifferent grunt; but he ran +forward, carrying an empty beer keg which he placed as a seat for the +guest. + +"Aha_ha_, Meesa Peeslay! Make a parade? Torchlight? +Bandaplay--ta ra, la la la? Firework? Fzzz! Boum! Eh?" + +The politician responded to Toby's extravagantly friendly laughter +with some mechanical cachinnations which, like an obliging salesman, +he turned on and off with no effort. "Not by a dern sight!" he +answered. "The campaign ain't begun yet." + +"Champagne?" inquired Tobigli politely. + +"Campaign, campaign," explained Pixley. "Not much champagne in +yours!" he chuckled beneath his breath. "Blame lucky to git Chicago +bowl!" + +"What is that, that campaign?" + +"Why--why, it's the campaign. Workin' up public sentiment; gittin' you +boys in line, 'lect-ioneerin'--fixin' it _right_." + +Tobigli shook his head. "Campaign?" he repeated. + +"Why--Gee, _you_ know! Free beer, cigars, speakin', handshaking, +paradin'--" + +"Ahaha!" The merchant sprang to his feet with a shout. "Yes! +Hoor-r-ra! Vote a Republican! Dam-a Democrat!" + +"That's it," replied the committee-man somewhat languidly. "You see, +this is a Republican precinct, and it turns the ward--" + +"Allaways a Republican!" vociferated Pietro. "That eesa right?" + +"Well," said the other, "of course, whichever way you go, you want to +follow your precinct committee-man--that's me." + +"Yess! Vote a Republican." + +Pixley looked about the room, his little red eyes peering out cannily +from under his crooked brows at each of the sulky figures in the damp +shadows. + +"You boys all vote the way Pete says?" he asked. + +"Vote same Pietro," answered Vesschi. "Allaways." + +"Allaways a Republican," added Pietro sparkingly, with abundant +gesture. "'Tis a greata-great countra. Republican here same a +Republican at home--eena Etallee. Republican eternall! All good +Republican eena thees house! Hoor-r-ra!" + +"Well," said Pixley, with a furtiveness half habit, as he rose to go, +"of course, you want to keep your eye on your committee-man, and kind +of foller along with him, whatever he does. That's me." He placed a +dingy bottle on the keg. "I jest dropped in to see how you boys were +gittin' along--mighty tidy little place you got here." He changed the +stub of his burnt-out cigar to the other side of his mouth, shifting +his eyes in the opposite direction, as he continued benevolently: "I +thought I'd look in and leave this bottle o' gin fer ye, with my +compliments. I'll be around ag'in some evenin', and I reckon before +'lection day comes there may be somep'n doin'--I might have better fer +ye than a bottle. Keep your eye on me, boys, an' foller the +leader. That's the idea. So long!" + +"Vote a Republican!" Pietro shouted after him gaily. + +Pixley turned. + +"Jest foller yer leader," he rejoined. "That's the way to learn +politics, boys." + +Now as the rough spring wore on into the happier season, with the days +like spiced warm wine, when people on the street are no longer driven +by the weather but are won by it to loiter; now, indeed, did commerce +at Toby's new stand so mightily thrive that, when summer came, Bertha +was troubled as to the safety of Toby's profits. + +"You yoost put your money by der builtun-loan 'sociation, Toby," she +advised gently. "Dey safe ut fer you." + +"T'ree hunder' fifta dolla--_no_!" answered her betrothed. "I +keep in de pock'!" He showed her where the bills were pinned into his +corduroy waistcoat pocket. "See! Eesa _yau!_ Onna my heart, libra +Ogostine!" + +"Toby, uf you ain'd dake ut by der builtun-loan, _blease_ put ut +in der bink?" + +"I keep!" he repeated, shaking his head seriously. "In t'ree-four +mont' eesa five-hunder-dolla. Nobody but me eesa tross weet that +money." + +Nor could Bertha persuade him. It was their happiness he watched +over. Who to guard it as he, the dingy, precious parcel of bills? He +pictured for himself a swampy forest through which he was laying a +pathway to Bertha, and each of the soiled green notes that he pinned +in his waistcoat was a strip of firm ground he had made, over which he +advanced a few steps nearer her. And Bertha was very happy, even +forgetting, for a while, to be afraid of the smallpox, which had +thrown out little flags, like auction signs, here and there about the +city. + +When the full heat of summer came, Pietro laughed at the dog-days; and +it was Bertha's to suffer in the hot little restaurant; but she smiled +and waved to Pietro, so that he should not know. Also she made him +sell iced lemonade and birch beer, which was well for the corduroy +waistcoat pocket. Never have you seen a more alluring merchant. One +glance toward the stand; you caught that flashing smile, the owner of +it a-tip-toe to serve you; and Pietro managed, too, by a light jog to +the table on which stood his big, bedewed, earthen jars, that you +became aware of the tinkle of ice and a cold, liquid murmur--what +mortal could deny the inward call and pass without stopping to buy? + +There fell a night in September when Bertha beheld her lover +glorious. She had been warned that he was to officiate in the great +opening function of the campaign; and she stood on the corner for an +hour before the head of the procession appeared. On they +came--Pietro's party, three thousand strong; brass bands, fireworks, +red fire, tumultuous citizens, political clubs, local potentates in +open carriages, policemen, boys, dogs, bicycles--the procession doing +all the cheering for itself, the crowds of spectators only feebly +responding to this enthusiasm, as is our national custom. At the end +of it all marched a plentiful crew of tatterdemalions, a few bleared +white men, and the rest negroes. They bore aloft a crazy transparency, +exhibiting the legend: + +"FRANK PIXLEY'S HARD-MONEY LEAGUE. + +WE STAND FOR OUR PRINCIPALS. + +WE ARE SOLLID! + +NO FOOLING THE PEOPLE GOES! + +WE VOTE AS ONE MAN FOR + +TAYLOR P. SINGLETON!" + +Bertha's eyes had not rested upon Toby where they innocently sought +him, in the front ranks, even scanning the carriages, seeking him in +all positions which she conceived as highest in honour, and she would +have missed him altogether, had not there reached her, out of chaotic +clamours, a clear, high, rollicking tenor: + +_"Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross!"_ + +Then the eager eyes found their pleasure, for there, in the last line +of Pixley's pirates, the very tail of the procession, danced Pietro +Tobigli, waving his pink torch at her, proud, happy, triumphant, a +true Republican, believing all company equal in the republic, and the +rear rank as good as the first. + +"Vote a Republican!" he shouted. "Republican--Republican eternall!" + +Strangely enough, a like fervid protestation (vociferated in greeting) +evoked no reciprocal enthusiasm in the breast of Mr. Pixley, when the +committee-man called upon Toby and his friends at their apartment one +evening, a fortnight later. + +"That's right," he responded languidly. "That's right in gineral, I +_should_ say. Cert'nly, in _gineral_, I ain't got no quarrel +with no man's Republicanism. But this here's kind of a put-tickler +case, boys. The election's liable to be mighty close." + +"Republican win!" laughed Toby. "Meelyun man eena parade!" + +Mr. Pixley's small eyes lowered furtively. He glanced once toward the +door, stroked his stubby chin, and answered softly: "Don't you be too +sure of that, young feller. Them banks is fightin' each other ag'in!" + +"Bank? Fight? W'at eesa that?" inquired the merchant, with an entirely +blank mind. + +"There's one thing it _ain't_," replied the other, in the same +confidential tone. "It ain't no two-by-four campaign. All I got to say +to you boys is: 'Foller yer leader'--and you'll wear pearl +collar-buttons!" + +"Vote a Republican," interjected Leo Vesschi gutturally. + +The furtiveness of Mr. Pixley increased. + +"Well--mebbe," he responded, very deliberately. "I reckon I better +put you boys next, right now's well's any other time. Ain't nothin' +ever gained by not bein' open 'n' above-board; that's my motto, and I +ack up to it. You kin ast 'em, jest ast the boys, and you'll hear it +from each-an-dall: 'Frank Pixley's _square_!' That's what they'll +tell ye. Now see here, this is the way it is. I ain't worryin' much +about who goes to the legislature, or who's county-commissioners, nor +none o' _that. Why_ ain't I worryin'? Because it's picayune. It's +peanut politics. It ain't where the money is. No, sir, this campaign +is on the treasurership. Taylor P. Singleton is runnin' fer treasurer +on the Republican ticket, and Gil. Maxim on the Democratic. But that +ain't where the fight is." Mr. Pixley spat contemptuously. "Pah! +whichever of 'em gits it won't no more'n draw his salary. It's the +banks. If Singleton wins out, the Washington National gits the use of +the county's money fer the term; if Maxim's elected, Florenheim's bank +gits it. Florenheim laid down the cash fer Maxim's nomination, and the +Washington National fixed it fer Singleton. And it's big money, don't +you git no wrong idea about _that_!" + +"Vote a Republican," said Toby politely. + +A look of pain appeared upon the brow of the committee-man. + +"I reckon I ain't hardly made myself clear," he observed, somewhat +plaintively. "Now here, you listen: I reckon it would be kind of resky +to trust you boys to scratch the ticket--it's a mixed up business, +anyway--" + +"Vote a straight!" cried Pietro, nodding his head, +cheerfully. "_Yess!_ I teach Leo; yess, teach all these"--he +waved his hands to indicate the melancholy listeners--"teach them +all. Stamp in a circle by that eagle. Vote a Republican!" + +"What I was goin' to say," went on the official, exhibiting tokens of +impatience and perturbation, "was that if we _should_ make any +switch this year, I guess you boys would have to switch straight." + +"'Tis true!" was the hearty response. "Vote a straight +Republican. Republican eternall!" + +Pixley wiped his forehead with a dirty handkerchief, and scratched his +head. "See here," he said, after a pause, to Toby. "I've got to go +down to Collins's saloon, and I'd like to have you come along. Feel +like going?" + +"Certumalee," answered Toby with alacrity, reaching for his hat. + +But no one could have been more surprised than the chestnut vender +when, on reaching the vacant street, his companion glancing cautiously +about, beckoned him into the darkness of an alley-way, and, +noiselessly upsetting a barrel, indicated it as a seat for both. + +"Here," said Pixley, "I reckon this is better. Jest two men by +theirselves kin fix up a thing like this a lot quicker, and I seen you +didn't want to talk too much before _them_. You make your own +deal with 'em afterwards, or none at all, jest as you like! They'll do +whatever you say, anyway. I sized you up to run _that_ bunch, +first time I ever laid eyes on the outfit. Now see here, Pete, you +listen to me. I reckon I kin turn a little trick here that'll do you +some good. You kin bet I see that the men I pick fer my leaders--like +you, Pete--git their rights! Now here: there's you and the other six, +that's seven; it'll be three dollars in your pocket if you deliver the +goods." + +"No! no!" said Pietro in earnest protestation. "We seven a good +Republican. We vote a Republican--same las' time, all a time. Eesa not +a need to pay us to vote a Republican. You save that a money, Meesa +Peaslay." + +"You don't understand," groaned Pixley, with an inclination to weep +over the foreigner's thick-headedness. "There's a chance fer a big +deal here for all the boys in the precinck. Gil. Maxim's backers'll +pay _big_ fer votes enough to swing it. The best of 'em don't +know where they're at, I tell you. Now here, you see here"--he took an +affectionate grip of Pietro's collar--"I'm goin' to have a talk with +Maxim's manager to-morrow, I've had one or two a'ready, and I'll put +up the price all round on them people. It's no more'n right, when you +count up what we're doin' fer them. Look here, you swing them six in +line and march 'em up, and all of ye stamp the rooster instead of the +eagle this time, and help me to show Maxim that Frank Pixley's there +with the goods, and I'll hand you a five-dollar bill and a full box o' +_ci_gars, see?" + +Pietro nodded and smiled through the darkness. "Stamp that eagle!" he +answered, "Eesa all _right_, Meesa Peasley. Don't you have +afraid. We all seven a good Republican! Stamp that eagle! Hoor-r-ra! +Republican _eternall_!" + +Pixley was left sitting on the barrel, looking after the light figure +of the young man joyously tripping back to the cellar, and turning to +wave a hand in farewell from the street. + +"Well, I _am_ damned!" the politician remarked, with unwitting +veracity. "Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he +reely didn't un'erstand fer honest?" Then, as he took up his way, +crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox +lanterns, "I'll git those seven votes, though, _someway_. I'm out +fer a record this time, and I'll _git_ 'em!" + +Bertha went with her fiance to select the home that was to be +theirs. They found a clean, tidy, furnished room, with a canary bird +thrown in, and Toby, in the wild joy of his heart, seized his +sweetheart round the waist and tried to force her to dance under the +amazed eyes of the landlady. + +"You yoost behafed awful!" exclaimed the blushing waitress that +evening, with tears of laughter at the remembrance. + +She was as happy as her lover, except for two small worries that she +had: she feared that her uncle, Louie Gratz, with whom she lived, or +one of her few friends, might, when they found she was to marry Toby, +allude to him as a "Dago," in which case she had an intuition that he +would slap the offender; and she was afraid of the smallpox, which had +caused the quarantine of two shanties not far from her uncle's house. +The former of her fears she did not mention, but the latter she spoke +of frequently, telling Pietro how Gratz was panic-stricken, and talked +of moving, and how glad she was that Toby's "gran' palazzo" was in +another quarter of the city, as he had led her to believe. Laughing +her humours almost away, he told her that the red and green lanterns, +threatening murkily down the street, were for only wicked ones, like +that Meesa Peaslay, for whom she discovered, Pietro's admiration had +diminished. And when she thought of the new home--far across the city +from the ugly flags and lanterns--the tiny room with its engraving of +the "Rock of Ages" and its canary, she forgot both her troubles +entirely; for now, at last, the marvellous fact was assured: the five +hundred dollars was pinned into the waistcoat pocket, lying upon +Pietro's heart day and night, the precious lump that meant to him +Bertha and a home. The good Republican set election-day for the +happiest holiday of his life, for that would be his wedding-day. + +He left her at her own gate, the evening before that glorious day, and +sang his way down the street, feeling that he floated on the airy +uplift of his own barcarole beneath sapphire skies, for Bertha had put +her arms about him at last. + +"Toby," she said, "lieber Toby, I am so all-lofing by you--you are +sitch a good maan--I am so--so--I am yoost all-_lofing_ by you!" +And she cried heartily upon his shoulder. "Toby, uf you ain'd here for +me to-morrow by eckseckly dwelf o'glock, uf you are von minutes late, +I'm goin' yoost fall down deat! Don' you led nothings happen mit you, +Toby." + +And she had whispered to him, in love with his old tender mockery of +her, to sing "Libra Ogostine" for her before he said good-night. + +Mr. Pixley, again seated upon the barrel which he had used for his +interview with Toby, beheld the transfigured face of the young man as +the chestnut vender passed the mouth of the alley, and the +committee-man released from his soul a burdening profanity in the ear +of his companion and confidant, a policeman who would be on duty in +Pixley's precinct on the morrow, and who had now reported for +instructions not necessarily received in a too public rendezvous. + +"After I talked to him out here on this very barrel," said Pixley, his +anathema concluded, "I raised the bid on him; yessir, you kin skin me +fer a dead skunk if I didn't offer him ten dollars and a box of +_cigars_ fer the bunch; and him jest settin' there laughin' like +a plumb fool and tellin' me I didn't need to worry, they'd all vote +Republican fer nothin'! Talked like a parrot: 'Vote a Republican! +Republican eternal!' _Republican_! Faugh, he don't know no more +why he's a Republican than a yeller dog'd know! I went around +to-night, when he was out, thought mebbe I could fix it up with the +others. No, _sir_! Couldn't git nothing out of 'em except some +more parrot-cackle: 'Vote same Petro. All a good Republican!' It's +enough to sicken a man!" + +"Do we need his gang bad?" inquired the policeman deferentially. + +"I need everybody bad! This is a good-sized job fer me, and I want to +do it right. Throwin' the precinck to Maxim is goin' to do me +_some_ wrong with the Republican crowd, even if they don't git on +that it was throwed; and I want to throw it _good_! I couldn't +feel like I'd done right if I didn't. I've give my word that they'll +git a majority of sixty-eight votes, and that'll be jest twicet as +much in my pocket as a plain majority. And I want them seven Dagoes! +I've give up on _votin_' 'em; it can't be done. It'd make a saint +cuss to try to reason with 'em, and it's no good. They can't be +fooled, neither. They know where the polls is, and they know how to +vote--blast the Australian ballot system! The most that can be done is +to keep 'em away from the polls." + +"Can't you git 'em out of town in the morning?" + +"D'you reckon I ain't tried that? _No_, sir! That Dago wouldn't +take a pass to _heaven_! Everything else is all right. Doc +Morgan's niggers stays right here and _votes_. I _know_ them +boys, and they'll walk up and stamp the rooster all right, all +right. Them other niggers, that Hell-Valley gang, ain't that kind; and +them and Tooms's crowd's goin' to be took out to Smelter's ice-houses +in three express wagons at four o'clock in the morning. It ain't goin' +to cost over two dollars a head, whiskey and all. Then, Dan Kelly is +fixed, and the Loo boys. Mike, I don't like to brag, and I ain't +around throwin' no bokays at myself as a reg'lar thing, but I want to +say right, here, there ain't another man in this city--no, nor the +State neither--that could of worked his precinck better'n I have +this. I tell you, I'm within five or six votes of the majority they +set for their big money." + +"Have you give the Dagoes up altogether?" + +"No, by----!" cried the committee-man harshly, bringing his dirty fist +down on the other's knee. "Did you ever hear of Frank Pixley +weakenin'? Did you ever see the man that said Frank Pixley wasn't +game?" He rose to his feet, a ragged and sinister silhouette against +the sputtering electric light at the alley mouth. "Didn't you ever +hear that Frank Pixley had a barrel of schemes to any other man's +bucket o' wind? What's Frank Pixley's repitation, lemme ast you that? +I git what I go after, don't I? Now look here, you listen to me," he +said, lowering his voice and shaking a bent forefinger earnestly in +the policeman's face; "I'm goin' to turn the trick. And I _ought_ +to do it, too. That there Pete, he ain't worth the powder to blow him +up--you couldn't learn him no politics if you set up with him night +after night fer a year. Didn't I _try? Try_? I dern near bust my +head open jest thinkin' up ways to make the flathead _see_. And +he wouldn't make no effort, jest set there and parrot out 'Vote a +Republican!' He's ongrateful, that's what he is. Well, him and them +other Dagoes are goin' to stay at home fer two weeks, beginnin' +to-night." + +"I'll be dogged if I see how," said the policeman, lifting his helmet +to scratch his head. + +"I'll show you how. I don't claim no credit fer the idea, I ain't +around blowin' my own horn too often, but I'd like fer somebody to +jest show me any other man in this city could have thought it out! I'd +like to be showed jest one, that's all, jest one! Now, you look here; +you see that nigger shanty over there, with the smallpox lanterns +outside?" + +The policeman shivered slightly. "Yes." + +"Look here; they're rebuildin' the pest-house, ain't they?" + +"Yes." + +"Leavin' smallpox patients in their own holes under quarantine guard +till they git a place to put 'em, ain't they?" + +"Yes." + +"You know how many niggers in that shack?" + +"Four, ain't they?" + +"Yessir, four of 'em. One died to-night, another's goin' to, another +ain't tellin' which way he's goin' yit; and the last one, Joe +Cribbins, was the first to take it; and he's almost plumb as good as +ever ag'in. He's up and around the house, helpin' nurse the sick ones, +and fit fer hard labour. Now look here; that nigger does what I +_tell_ him and he does it quick--see? Well, he knows what I want +him to do to-night. So does Charley Gruder, the guard over +there. Charley's fixed; I seen to that; and he knows he ain't goin' to +lose no job fer the nigger's gittin' out of the back winder to go make +a little sociable call this evening." + +"What!" exclaimed the policeman, startled; "Charley ain't goin' to let +that nigger out!" + +"Ain't he? Oh, you needn't worry, he ain't goin' _fur_! All he's +waiting fer is fer you to give the signal." + +"Me!" The man in the helmet drew back. + +"Yessir, you! You walk out there and lounge up towards the drug-store +and jest look over to Charley and nod twice. Then you stand on the +corner and watch and see what you see. When you _see_ it, you +yell fer Charley and git into the drug store telephone, and call up +the health office and git their men up here and into that Dago cellar +like hell! The nigger'll be there. They don't know him, and he'll just +drop in to try and sell the Dagoes some policy tickets. You understand +_me_?" + +"Mother Mary in heaven!" The policeman sprang up. "What are you going +to do?" + +"What am I going to do?" shrilled the other, the light of a monstrous +pride in his little eyes. "I'm goin' to quarantine them Dagoes fer +fourteen days. They'll learn some politics before I git through with +'em. Maybe they'll know enough United States language to foller their +leader next time!" + +"By all that's mighty, Pixley," said the policeman, with an admiration +that was almost reverence, "you _are_ a schemer!" + +"Mein Gott!" screeched Bertha's uncle, snapping his teeth fiercely on +his pipe-stem, as he flung open the door of the girl's room. "You want +to disgraze me mit der whole neighbourhoot, 'lection night? Quid ut! +Stob ut! Beoples in der streed stant owidside und litzen to dod +grying. You _voult_ goin' to marry mit a Dago mens, voult you! +Ha, ha! Soife you right! He run away!" The old man laughed unamiably. +"Ha, ha! Dago mens foolt dod smard Bertha. Dod's pooty tough. But, +bei Gott, you stop dod noise und ect lige a detzent voomans, or you +goin' haf droubles mit your uncle Louie Gratz!" + +But Bertha, an undistinguishable heap on the floor of the unlit room, +only gasped brokenly for breath and wept on. + +"Ach, ach, ach, lieber Gott in Himmel!" sobbed Bertha. "Why didn't +Toby come for me? Ach, ach! What iss happened mit Toby? Somedings iss +happened--I _know_ ut!" + +"Ya, ya!" jibed Gratz; "somedings iss heppened, I bet you! Brop'ly +he's got anoder vife, dod's vot heppened! Brop'ly _leffing_ ad +you mit anoder voomans! Vot for dit he nefer tolt you vere he lif? So +you voultn't ketch him; dod's der reason! You're a pooty vun, +_you_ are! Runnin' efter a doity Dago mens! Bei Gott! you bedder +git oop und back your glo'es, und stob dod gryin'. I'm goin' to mofe +owid to-morrow; und you kin go verefer you blease. I ain'd goin' to +sday anoder day in sitch a neighbourhoot. Fife more smallpox lanterns +yoost oop der streed. I'm goin' mofe glean to der oder ent of der +city. Und you can come by me or you can run efter your Dago mens und +his voomans! Dod's why he dittn't come to marry you, you grazy--ut's a +voomans!" + + +"No, _no_," screamed Bertha, stopping her ears with her +forefingers. "Lies, lies, lies!" + +A slatternly negro woman dawdled down the street the following +afternoon, and, encountering a friend of like description near the +cottage which had been tenanted by Louie Gratz and his niece, paused +for conversation. + +"Howdy, honey," she began, leaning restfully against the +gate-post. "How's you ma?" + +"She right spry," returned the friend. "How you'self an' you good +husban', Miz Mo'ton?" + +Mrs. Morton laughed cheerily. "Oh, he enjoyin' de 'leckshum. He 'uz on +de picnic yas'day, to Smeltuh's ice-houses; an' 'count er Mist' +Maxim's gittin' 'lected, dey gi'n him bottle er whiskey an' two +dollahs. He up at de house now, entuhtainin' some ge'lemenfrien's +wi'de bones, honey." + +"Um hum." The other lady sighed reflectively. "I on'y wisht my po' +husban' could er live to enjoy de fruits er politics." + +"Yas'm," returned Mrs. Morton. "You right. It are a great intrus' in +a man's life. Dat what de ornator say in de speech f'm de back er de +groce'y wagon, yas'm, a great intrus' in a man's life. Decla'h, I +b'lieve Goe'ge think mo' er politics dan he do er me! Well ma'am," she +concluded, glancing idly up and down the street and leaning back more +comfortably against the gatepost, "I mus' be goin' on my urrant." + +"What urrant's dat?" inquired the widow. + +"Mighty quare urrant," replied Mrs. Morton. "Mighty quare urrant, +honey. You see back yon'eh dat new smallpox flag?" + +"Sho." + +"Well ma'am, night fo' las', dat Joe Cribbins, dat one-eye nigger what +sell de policy tickets, an's done be'n havin' de smallpox, he crope +out de back way, when's de gyahd weren't lookin', an', my Lawd, ef dey +ain't ketch him down in dat Dago cellar, tryin' sell dem Dagoes policy +tickets! Yahah, honey!" Mrs. Morton threw back her head to +laugh. "Ain't dat de beatenest nigger, dat one-eyed Joe?" + +"What den, Miz Mo'ton?" pursued the listener. + +"Den dey quahumteem dem Dagoes; sot a gyahd dah: you kin see him +settin' out dah now. Well ma'am, 'cordin' to dat gyahd, one er dem +Dagoes like ter go inter fits all day yas'day. Dat man hatter go in +an' quiet him down ev'y few minute'. Seem 't he boun' sen' a message +an' cain't git no one to ca'y it fer him. De gyahd, he cain't go; he +willin' sen' de message, but cain't git nobody come nigh enough de +place fer to tell 'em what it is. 'Sides, it 'leckshum-day, an' mos' +folks hangin' 'roun' de polls. Well ma'am, dis aft'noon, I so'nter'n +by, an' de gyahd holler out an' ask me do I want make a dollah, an' I +say I do. I ain't 'fraid no smallpox, done had it two year' ago. So I +say I take de message." + +"What is it?" + +"Law, honey, it ain't wrote. Dem Dago folks hain't got no writin' ner +readin'. Dey mo' er less like de beasts er de fiel'. Dat message by +word er mouf. I goin' tell nuffin 'bout de quahumteem. I'm gotter +say: 'Toby sen' word to liebuh Augustine dat she needn' worry. He li'l +sick, not much, but de doctah ain' 'low him out fer two weeks; an' +'mejutly at de en' er dat time he come an' git her an' den kin go on +home wheres de canary bu'd is.' Honey, you evah hyuh o' sich a +foolishness? But de gyahd, he say de message gotter be ca'yied dass +dataways." + +"Lan' name!" ejaculated the widow. "Who dat message to?" + +"Hit to a Dutch gal." + +"My Lawd!" The widow lifted amazed hands to heaven. "De impidence er +dem Dagoes! _Little_ mo' an' dey'll be sen'in' messages to you +er me!--What her name?" + +"Name Bertha Grass," responded Mrs. Morton, "an', nigh as I kin make +out, she live in one er dese little w'ite-paint cottages, right 'long +yere." + +"Yas'm! I knows dat Dutch gal, ole man Grass, de tailor, dass his +niece. W'y, dey done move out dis mawn, right f'um dis ve'y house you +stan'in in front de gate of. De ole man skeered er de smallpox, an' he +mad, too, an' de neighbuhs ask him whuh he gwine, he won't tell; so +mad he won't speak to nobody. None on 'em 'round hyuh knows an' dey's +considabul cyu'us 'bout it, too. Dey gone off in bofe d'rections--him +one way, her 'nother. 'Peah lak dey be'n quollun!" + +"Now look at dat!" cried Mrs. Morton dolefully. "Look at dat! Ain't +dat de doggonest luck in de wide worl'! De gyahd he say dat Dago +willin' pay fifty cents a day fo' me to teck an' bring a message eve'y +mawn' tell de quahumteem took off de cellar. Now dat Dutch gal gone +an' loss dat money fo' me--movin' 'way whuh nobody cain't fine 'er!" + +"Sho!" laughed the widow. "Ef I'se in you place, Miz Mo'ton, an' you's +in mine, dat money sho'lly, sho'lly nevah would be los', indeed hit +wouldn't. I dass go in t' de do' an' tu'n right 'roun' back ag'in an' +go down to dat gyahd an' say de Dutch gal 'ceive de message wid de +bes' er 'bligin' politeness an' sent her kine regyahds to de Dago man +an' all inquirin' frien's, an' hope de Dago man soon come an' git +'er. To-morrer de same, nex' day de same--" + +"Lawd, ef dat ain't de beatenest!" cried Mrs. Morton +delightedly. "Well, honey, I thank you long as I live, 'cause I +nevah'd a wuk dat out by myself an de livin' worl', an' I sho does +needs de money. I'm goin' do exackly dass de way you say. Dat man he +ain' goin' know no diffunce till he git out--an' den, honey," she let +loose upon the quiet air a sudden, great salvo of laughter, "dass let +him fine Lize Mo'ton!" + +Bertha went to live in the tiny room with the canary bird and the +engraving of the "Rock of Ages." This was putting lime to the canker, +but, somehow, she felt that she could go to no other place. She told +the landlady that her young man had not done so well in business as +they had expected, and had sought work in another city. He would come +back, she said. + +She woke from troubled dreams each morning to stifle her sobbing in +the pillow. "Ach, Toby, coultn't you sented me yoost one word, you +_might_ sented me yoost one word, yoost one, to tell me what has +happened mit you! Ach, Toby, Toby!" + +The canary sang happily; she loved it and tended it, and the gay +little prisoner tried to reward her by the most marvellous trilling in +his power, but her heart was the sorer for every song. + +After a time she went back drearily to the kraut-smelling restaurant, +to the work she had thought to leave forever, that day when Toby had +not come for her. She went out twenty times every morning, and oftener +as it wore on towards evening, to look at his closed stand, always +with a choking hope in her heart, always to drag leaden feet back into +the restaurant. Several times, her breath failing for shame, she +approached Italians in the street, or where there was one to be found +at a stand of any sort she stopped and made a purchase, and asked for +some word of Toby--without result, always. She knew no other way to +seek for him. + +One day, as she trudged homeward, two coloured women met on the +pavement in front of her, exchanged greetings, and continued for a +little way together. + +"How you enjoyin' you' money, dese fine days, Miz Mo'ton?" inquired +one, with a laugh that attested to the richness of the joke between +the two. + +"Law, honey," answered the other, "dat good luck di'n' las' ve'y +long. Dey done shut off my supplies." + +"No!" + +"Yas'm, dey sho did. Dat man done tuck de smallpox; all on 'em ketched +it, ev'y las' one, off'n dat no 'count Joe Cribbins, an' now dat dey +got de new pes'-house finish', dey haul 'em off yon'eh, yas'day. +Reckon dat ain' make no diffunce in my urrant runnin'. Dat Dago man, +he outer he hade two day fo' dey haul 'em away, an' ain' sen' no mo' +messages. So dat spile _my_ job! Hit dass my luck. Dey's sho' a +voodoo on Lize Mo'ton!" + +Bertha, catching but fragments of this conversation, had no +realization that it bore in any way upon the mystery of Toby; and she +stumbled homeward through the twilight with her tired eyes on the +ground. + +When she opened the door of the tiny room, the landlady's lean black +cat ran out surreptitiously. The bird-cage lay on the floor, upside +down, and of its jovial little inhabitant the tokens were a few yellow +feathers. + +Bertha did not know until a month after, when Leo Vesschi found her at +the restaurant and told her, that out in the new pest-house, that +other songster and prisoner, the gay little chestnut vender, Pietro +Tobigli, had called lamentably upon the name of his God and upon +"Libra Ogostine," and now lay still forever, with the corduroy +waistcoat and its precious burden tightly clenched to his breast. Even +in his delirium they had been unable to coax or force him to part from +it for a second. + + + + +THE NEED OF MONEY + + +Far back in his corner on the Democratic side of the House, Uncle +Billy Rollinson sat through the dragging routine of the legislative +session, wondering what most of it meant. When anybody spoke to him, +in passing, he would answer, in his gentle, timid voice, "Howdy-do, +sir." Then his cheeks would grow a little red and he would stroke his +long, white beard elaborately, to cover his embarrassment. When a vote +was taken, his name was called toward the last of the roll, so that he +had ample time, after the leader of his side of the House, young +Hurlbut, had voted, to clear his throat several times and say "Aye" or +"No" in quite a firm voice. But the instant the word had left his lips +he found himself terribly frightened, and stroked his beard a great +many times, the while he stared seriously up at the ceiling, partly to +avoid meeting anybody's eye, and partly in the belief that it +concealed his agitation and gave him the air of knowing what he was +about. Usually he did not know, any more than he knew how he had +happened to be sent to the legislature by his county. But he liked +it. He liked the feeling of being a person to be considered; he liked +to think that he was making the laws of his State. He liked the +handsome desk and the easy leather chair; he liked the row of fat, +expensive volumes, the unlimited stationery, and the free penknives +which were furnished him. He enjoyed the attentions of the coloured +men in the cloakroom, who brushed him ostentatiously and always called +him (and the other Representatives) "Senator," to make up to +themselves for the airs which the janitors of the "Upper House" +assumed. Most of these things surprised him; he had not expected to +be treated with such liberality by the State and never realized that +he and his colleagues were treating themselves to all these things at +the expense of the people, and so, although he bore off as much +note-paper as he could carry, now and then, to send to his son, Henry, +he was horrified and dumbfounded when the bill was proposed +appropriating $135,000 for the expenses of the seventy days' session +of the legislature. + +He was surprised to find that among his "perquisites" were passes +(good during the session) on all the railroads that entered the State, +and others for use on many inter-urban trolley lines. These, he +thought, might be gratifying to Henry, who was fond of travel, and had +often been unhappy when his father failed to scrape up enough money to +send him to a circus in the next county. It was "very accommodating +of the railroads," Uncle Billy thought, to maintain this pleasant +custom, because the members' travelling expenses were paid by the +State just the same; hence the economical could "draw their mileage" +at the Treasurer's office, and add it to their salaries. He +heard--only vaguely understanding--many joking references to other +ways of adding to salaries. + +Most of the members of his party had taken rooms at one of the hotels, +whither those who had sought cheaper apartments repaired in the +evening, when the place became a noisy and crowded club, admission to +which was not by card. Most of the rougher man-to-man lobbying was +done here; and at times it was Babel. + +Through the crowds Uncle Billy wandered shyly, stroking his beard and +saying, "Howdy-do, sir," in his gentle voice, getting out of the way +of people who hurried, and in great trouble of mind if any one asked +him how he intended to vote upon a bill. When this happened he looked +at the interrogator in the plaintive way which was his habit, and +answered slowly: "I reckon I'll have to think it over." He was not in +Hurlbut's councils. + +There was much bustle all about him, but he was not part of it. The +newspaper reporters remarked the quiet, inoffensive old figure +pottering about aimlessly on the outskirts of the crowd, and thought +Uncle Billy as lonely as a man might well be, for he seemed less a +part of the political arrangement than any member they had ever seen. +He would have looked less lonely and more in place trudging alone +through the furrows of his home fields in a wintry twilight. + +And yet, everybody liked the old man, Hurlbut in particular, if Uncle +Billy had known it; for Hurlbut watched the votes very closely and was +often struck by the soundness of Representative Rollinson's +intelligence in voting. + +In return, Uncle Billy liked Hurlbut better than any other man he had +ever known--except Henry, of course. On the first day of the session, +when the young leader had been pointed out to him, Uncle Billy's +humble soul was prostrate with admiration, and when Hurlbut led the +first attack on the monopolistic tendencies of the Republican party, +Representative Rollinson, chuckling in his beard at the handsome +youth's audacity, himself dared so greatly as to clap his hands +aloud. Hurlbut, on the floor, was always a storm centre: tall, +dramatic, bold, the members put down their newspapers whenever his +strong voice was heard demanding recognition, and his "Mr. Speaker!" +was like the first rumble of thunder. The tempest nearly always +followed, and there were times when it threatened to become more than +vocal; when, all order lost, nine-tenths of the men on the other side +of the House were on their feet shouting jeers and denunciations, and +the orator faced them, out-thundering them all, with his own cohorts, +flushed and cheering, gathered round him. Then, indeed, Uncle Billy +would have thought him a god, if he had known what a god was. + +Sometimes Uncle Billy saw him in the hotel lobby, but he seemed always +to be making for the elevator in a hurry, with half-a-dozen people +trying to detain him, or descending momentarily from the stairway for +a quick, sharp talk with one or two members, their heads close +together, after which Hurlbut would dart upward again. + +Sometimes the old man sat down at one of the writing tables, in a +corner of the lobby, and, annexing a sheet of the hotel note-paper, +"wrote home" to Henry. He sat with his head bent far over, the broad +brim of his felt hat now and then touching the hand with which he kept +the paper from sliding; and he pressed diligently upon his pen, +usually breaking it before the letter was finished. He looked so like +a man intent upon concealment that the reporters were wont to say: +"There's Uncle Billy humped up over his guilty secret again." + +The secret usually took this form: + + +"Dear Son Henry: + +"I would be glad if you was here. There is big doings. Hurlbut give +it to them to-day. He don't give the Republicans no rest, he lights +into them like sixty you would like to see him. They are plenty nice +fellows in the Republicans too but they lay mighty low when Hurlbut +gets after them. He was just in the office but went out. He always has +a segar in his mouth but not lit. I expect hes quit. I send you +enclosed last week's salary all but $11.80 which I had to use as +living is pretty high in our capital city of the state. If you would +like some of this hotel writing paper better than the kind I sent you +of the General Assembly I can send you some the boys say it is free. I +think it is all right you sold the calf but Wilkes didn't give you +good price. Hurlbut come in while I was writing then. You bet he can +always count on Wm. Rollinson's vote. + +"Well I must draw to a dose, Yours truly + +"Your father." + + +"Wm. Rollinson" was not aware that he was known to his colleagues and +the lobby and the Press as "Uncle Billy" until informed thereof by a +public print. He stood, one night, on the edge of a laughing group, +when a reporter turned to him and said: + +"The _Constellation_ would like to know Representative +Rollinson's opinion of the scandalous story that has just been told." + +The old man, who had not in the least understood the story, summoned +all his faculties, and, after long deliberation, bent his plaintive +eyes upon the youth and replied: + +"Well, sir, it's a-stonishing, a-stonishing!" + +"Think it's pretty bad, do you?" + +Some of the crowd turned to listen, and the old fellow, hopelessly +puzzled, stroked his beard with a trembling hand, and then, muttering, +"Well, young man, I expect you better excuse me," hurried away and +left the place. The next morning he found the following item tacked to +the tail of the "Legislative Gossip" column of the _Constellation_: + + +"UNCLE BILLY ROLLINSON HORRIFIED + +"Yesterday a curious and amusing story was current among the solons at +the Nagmore Hotel. It seems that the wife of a country member of the +last legislature had been spending the day at the hotel and the wife +of a present member from the country complained to her of the greatly +increased expenditure appertaining to the cost of living in the +Capital City. 'Indeed,' replied the wife of the former member, 'that +is curious. But I suppose my husband is much more economical than +yours, for he brought home $1.500, that he'd saved out of his salary.' +As the salary is only $456, and the gentleman in question did not play +poker, much hilarity was indulged in, and there were conjectures that +the economy referred to concerned his vote upon a certain bill before +the last session, anent which the lobby pushing it were far from +economical. Uncle Billy Rollinson, the Gentleman from Wixinockee, +heard the story, as it passed from mouth to mouth, but he had no +laughter to greet it. Uncle Billy, as every one who comes in contact +with him knows, is as honest as the day is long, and the story grieved +and shocked him. He expressed the utmost horror and consternation, and +requested to be excused from speaking further upon a subject so +repugnant to his feelings. If there were more men of this stamp in +politics, who find corruption revolting instead of amusing, our +legislatures would enjoy a better fame." + + +Uncle Billy had always been agitated by the sight of his name in +print. Even in the Wixinockee County _Clarion_, it dumbfounded +him and gave him a strange feeling that it must mean somebody else, +but this sudden blaze of metropolitan fame made him almost giddy. He +folded the paper quickly and placed it under his coat, feeling vaguely +that it would not do to be seen reading it. He murmured feeble answers +during the day, when some of his colleagues referred to it; but when +he reached his own little room that evening, he spread it out under +his oil-smelling lamp and read it again. Perhaps he read it twenty +times over before the supper bell rang. Perhaps the fact that he was +still intent upon it accounted for his not hearing the bell, so that +his landlady had to call him. + +What he liked was the phrase: "Honest as the day is long." He did not +go to the hotel that night. He went back to his room and read the +_Constellation_. He liked the _Constellation_. Newspapers +were very kind, he thought. Now and then, he would pick up his pile of +legislative bills and try to spell through the ponderous sentences, +but he always gave it up and went back to the _Constellation_. He +wondered if Hurlbut had read it. Hurlbut had. The leader had even +told the author of the item that he was glad somebody could appreciate +the kind of a man Uncle Billy was, and his value to the body politic. + +"Honest as the day is long," Uncle Billy repeated to himself, in the +little room, nodding his head gravely. Then he thought for a long +while about the member who had, according to the story, gone home with +$1,500. He sat up, that evening, until almost ten o'clock. Even after +he had gone to bed, he lay awake with his eyes wide open in the +darkness, thinking of the colossal sum. If anybody should come to +_him_ and offer him all that money to vote a certain way upon a +bill, he believed he would not take it, for that would be bribery; +though Henry would be glad to have the money. Henry always needed +money; sometimes the need was imperative--once, indeed, so imperative +that the small, unfertile farm had been mortgaged beyond its value, +otherwise very serious things must have happened to Henry. Uncle Billy +wondered how offers of money to members were refused without hurting +the intending donor's feelings. And what a great deal could be done +with $1,500, if a member could get it and still be as honest as the +day is long! + +About the second month of the session the floor of the House began +steadily to grow more and more tumultuous. To an unpolitical onlooker, +leaning over the gallery rail, it was often an incomprehensible +Bedlam, or perhaps one might have been reminded of an ant-heap by the +hurry-and-scurry and life-and-death haste in a hundred directions at +once, quite without any distinguishable purpose. Twenty men might be +rampaging up and down the aisles, all shouting, some of them +furiously, others with a determination that was deadly, all with arms +waving at the Speaker, some of the hands clenched, some of them +fluttering documents, while pages ran everywhere in mad haste, +stumbling and falling in the aisles. In the midst of this, other +members, seated, wrote studiously; others mildly read newspapers; +others lounged, half-standing against their desks, unlighted cigars in +their mouths, laughing; all the while the patient Speaker tapped with +his gavel on a small square of marble. Suddenly perfect calm would +come and the voice of the reading clerk drone for half an hour or +more, like a single bee in a country garden on Sunday morning. + +Of all this Uncle Billy was as much a layman spectator as any tramp +who crept into the gallery for a few hours out of the cold. The hurry +and seethe of the racing sea touched him not at all, except to +bewilderment, while he was carried with it, unknowing, toward the +breakers. The shout of those breakers was already in the ears of many, +for the crisis of the session was coming. This was the fight that was +to be made on Hurlbut's "Railroad Bill," which was, indeed, but in +another sense, known as the "Breaker." + +Uncle Billy had heard of the "Breaker." He couldn't have helped +that. He had heard a dozen say: "Then's when it's going to be warm +times, when that 'Breaker' comes up!" or, "Look out for that +'Breaker.' We're going to have big trouble." He knew, too, that +Hurlbut was interested in the "Breaker," but upon which side he was +for a long time ignorant. + + * * * * * + +Hurlbut always nodded to the old man, now, as he came down the aisle +to his own desk. He had begun that, the day after the _Constellation_ +item. Uncle Billy never failed to be in his seat early in the +morning, waiting for the nod. He answered it with his usual "Howdy-do, +sir," then stroked his beard and gazed profoundly at the row of fat +volumes in front of him, swallowing painfully once or twice. + +This was all that really happened for Uncle Billy during the turmoil +and scramble that went on about him all the day long. He had not been +forced to discover a way to meet an offer of $1,500, without hurting +the putative giver's feelings. No lobbyist had the faintest idea of +"approaching" the old man in that way. The members and the hordes of +camp-followers and all the lobby had settled into a belief that +Representative Rollinson was a sea-green Incorruptible, that of all +honest members he was the most honest. He had become typical of +honesty: sayings were current--"You might as well try to bribe Uncle +Billy Rollinson!" "As honest as old Uncle Billy Rollinson." Hurlbut +often used such phrases in private. + +The "Breaker" was Hurlbut's own bill; he had planned it and written +it, though it came over to the House from the Senate under a Senator's +name. It was one of those "anti-monopolistic" measures which Democrats +put their whole hearts into, sometimes, and believe in and fight for +magnificently; an idea conceived in honesty and for a beneficent +purpose, in the belief that a legislature by the wave of a hand can +conjure the millennium to appear; and born out of an utter +misconception of man and railroads. The bill needs no farther +description than this: if it passed and became an enforced law, the +dividends of every rail road entering the State would be reduced by +two-fifths. There is one thing that will fight harder than a +Democrat--that is a railroad. + +The "Breaker" had been kept very dark until Hurlbut felt that he was +ready; then it was swept through the Senate before the railroad lobby, +previously lulled into unsuspicion, could collect itself and block +it. This was as Hurlbut had planned: that the fight should be in his +own House. It was the bill of his heart and he set his reputation upon +it. He needed fifty-one votes to pass it, and he had them, and one to +spare; for he took his followers, who formed the majority, into caucus +upon it. It was in the caucus Uncle Billy learned that Hurlbut was +"for" the bill. He watched the leader with humble, wavering eyes, +thinking how strong and clear his voice was, and wondering if he never +lit the cigar he always carried in his hand, or if he ever got into +trouble, like Henry, being a young man. If he did, Uncle Billy would +have liked the chance to help him out. + +He had plenty of such chances with Henry; indeed, the opportunity may +be said to have become unintermittent, and Uncle Billy was never free +from a dim fear of the day when his son would get in so deeply that he +could not get him out. Verily, the day seemed near at hand: Henry's +letters were growing desperate and the old man walked the floor of his +little room at night, more and more hopeless. Once or twice, even as +he sat at his desk in the House, his eyes became so watery that he +forced himself into long spells of coughing, to account for it, in +case any one might be noticing him. + +The caucus was uneventful and quiet, for it had all been talked over, +and was no more than a matter of form. + +The Republicans did not caucus upon the bill (they had reasons), but +they were solidly against it. Naturally it follows that the assault of +the railroad lobby had to be made upon the virtue of the Democrats +_as_ Democrats. That is, whether a member upon the majority side +cared about the bill for its own sake of not, right or wrong, he felt +it his duty as a Democrat to vote for it. If he had a conscience +higher than a political conscience, and believed the bill was bad, his +duty was to "bolt the caucus"; but all of the Democratic side believed +in the righteousness of the bill, except two. One had already been +bought and the other was Uncle Billy, who knew nothing about it, +except that Hurlbut was "for" it and it seemed to be making a "big +stir." + +The man who had been bought sat not far from Uncle Billy. He was a +furtive, untidy slouch of a man, formerly a Republican; he had a great +capacity for "handling the coloured vote" and his name was +Pixley. Hurlbut mistrusted him; the young man had that instinct, which +good leaders need, for feeling the weak places in his following; and +he had the leader's way, too, of ever bracing up the weakness and +fortifying it; so he stopped, four or five times a day, at Pixley's +desk, urging the necessity of standing fast for the "Breaker," and +expressing convictions as to the political future of a Democrat who +should fail to vote for it; to which Pixley assented in his husky, +tough-ward voice. + +All day long now, Hurlbut and his lieutenants, disregarding the +routine of bills, went up and down the lines, fending off the +lobbyists and such Republicans as were working openly for the bill. +They encouraged and threatened and never let themselves be too +confident of their seeming strength. Some of those who were known, or +guessed, to be of the "weaker brethren" were not left to themselves +for half an hour at a time, from their breakfasts until they went to +bed. There was always at elbow the "_Hold fast_!" whisper of +Hurlbut and his lieutenants. None of them ever thought of speaking to +Uncle Billy. + +Hurlbut's "work was cut out for him," as they said. What work it is to +keep every one of fifty men honest under great temptation for three +weeks (which time it took for the hampered and filibustered bill to +come up for its passage or defeat), is known to those who have tried +to do it. The railroads were outraged and incensed by the measure; +they sincerely believed it to be monstrous and thievish. "Let the +legislature try to confiscate two-fifths of the lawyers', or the +bakers', or the ironmoulders', just earnings," said they, "and see +what will happen!" + +When such a bill as this comes to the floor for the third time the +fight is already over, oratory is futile; and Cicero could not budge a +vote. The railroads were forced to fight as best they could; this was +the old way that they have learned is most effective in such a +case. Votes could not be had to "oblige a friend" on the "Breaker" +bill; nor could they be procured by arguments to prove the bill +unjust. In brief: the railroad lobby had no need to buy Republican +votes (with the exception of the one or two who charged out of habit +whenever legislation concerned corporations), for the Republicans were +against the bill, but they did mortally need to buy two Democratic +votes, and were willing to pay handsomely for them. Nevertheless, +Mr. Pixley's price was not exorbitant, considering the situation; nor +need he have congratulated himself so heartily as he did (in moments +of retirement from public life) upon his prospective $2,000 (when the +goods should be delivered) since his vote was assisting the railroads +to save many million dollars a year. + +Of course the lobby attacked the bill noisily; there were big guns +going all day long; but those in charge knew perfectly well that the +noise accomplished nothing in itself. It was used to cover the +whispering. Still, Hurlbut held his line firm and the bill passed its +second reading with fifty-two votes, Mr. Pixley being directed by his +owners to vote for it on that occasion. + +As time went on the lobby began to grow desperate; even Pixley had +been consulted upon his opinion by Barrett, the young lawyer through +whom negotiations in his case had been conducted. Pixley suggested +the name of Rollinson and Barrett dismissed this counsel with as much +disgust for Pixley's stupidity as he had for the man's person. (One +likes a _dog_ when he buys him.) + +"But why not?" Pixley had whined as he reached the door. "Uncle Billy +ain't so much! You listen to me. He wouldn't take it out-an'-out--I +don't say as he would. But you needn't work that way. Everybody thinks +it's no use to tackle him--but nobody never _tried_! What's he +_done_ to make you scared of him? _Nothing_! Jest set there +and _looked_!" + +After he had gone the fellow's words came back to Barrett: "Nobody +never tried!" And then, to satisfy his conscience that he was leaving +no stone unturned, yet laughing at the uselessness of it, he wrote a +letter to a confidant of his, formerly a colleague in the lobby, who +lived in the county-seat near which Uncle Billy's mortgaged acres +lay. The answer came the night after the second vote on the "Breaker." + + +"Dear Barrett: + +"I agree with your grafter. I don't believe Rollinson would be hard to +approach if it were done with tact--of course you don't want to tackle +him the way you would a swine like Pixley. A good many people around +here always thought the old man simple-minded. He was given the +nomination almost in joke--nobody else wanted it, because they all +thought the Republicans had a sure thing of it; but Rollinson slid in +on the general Democratic landslide in this district. He's got one +son, a worthless pup, Henry, a sort of yokel Don Juan, always half +drunk when his father has any money to give him, and just smart enough +to keep the old man mesmerized. Lately Henry's been in a mighty +serious peck of trouble. Last fall he got married to a girl here in +town. Three weeks ago a family named Johnson, the most shiftless in +the county, the real low-down white trash sort, living on a truck +patch out Rollinson's way, heard that Henry was on a toot in town, +spending money freely, and they went after him. A client of mine rents +their ground to them and told me all about it. It seems they claim +that one of the daughters in the Johnson family was Henry's common-law +wife before he married the other girl, and it's more than likely they +can prove it. They are hollering for $600, and if Henry doesn't raise +it mighty quick they swear they'll get him sent over the road for +bigamy. I think the old man would sell his soul to keep his boy out of +the penitentiary and he's at his wits' ends; he hasn't anything to +raise the money on and he's up against it. He'll do any thing on earth +for Henry. Hope this'll be of some service to you, and if there's +anything more I can do about it you better call me up on the long +distance. + +"Yours faithfully, + +"J. P. WATSON. + +"P.S.--You might mention to our old boss that I don't want anything if +services are needed; but a pass for self and family to New York and +return would come in handy." + + +Barrett telegraphed an answer at once: "If it goes you can have annual +for yourself and family. Will call you up at two sharp to-morrow." + + * * * * * + +It was late the following night when the lobbyist concluded his +interview with Representative Rollinson, in the latter's little room, +half lighted by the oil-smelling lamp. + +"I knew you would understand, Mr. Rollinson," said Barrett as he rose +to go. His eyes danced and his jaws set with the thought that had been +jubilant within him for the last half-hour: "We've got 'em! We've got +'em! We've got 'em!" The railroads had defended their own again. + +"Of course," he went on, "we wouldn't have dreamed of coming to you +and asking you to vote against this outrageous bill if we thought for +a minute that you had any real belief in it or considered it a good +bill. But you say, yourself, your only feeling about it was to oblige +Mr. Hurlbut, and you admit, too, that you've voted his way on every +other bill of the session. Surely, as I've already said so many times, +you don't think he'd be so unreasonable as to be angry with you for +differing with him on the merits of only one! No, no, Hurlbut's a very +sensible fellow about such matters. You don't need to worry about +_that_! After all I've said, surely you won't give it another +thought, will you?" + +Uncle Billy sat in the shadow, bent far over, slowly twisting his +thin, corded hands, the fingers tightly interlocked. It was a long +time before he spoke, and his interlocutor had to urge him again +before he answered, in his gentle, quavering voice. + +"No, I reckon not, if you say so." + +"Certainly not," said Barrett briskly. "Why of course, we'd never have +thought of making you a money offer to vote either for or against your +principles. Not much! We don't do business that way! We simply want to +do something for you. We've wanted to, all during the session, but the +opportunity hadn't offered until I happened to hear your son was in +trouble." + +Out of the shadow came a long, tremulous sigh. There was a moment's +pause; then Uncle Billy's head sank slowly lower and rested on his +hands. + +"You see," the other continued cheerfully, "we make no conditions, +none in the world. We feel friendly to you and want to oblige you, but +of course we do think you ought to show a little good-will towards +_us_. I believe it's all understood: to-morrow night Mr. Watson +will drive out in his buggy to this Johnson place, and he's empowered +by us to settle the whole business and obtain a written statement from +the family that they have no claim on your son. How he will settle it +is neither your affair nor mine; nor whether it costs money or +not. But he _will_ settle it. We do that out of good-will to you, +as long as we feel as friendly to you as we do now, and all we ask is +that you show your good-will to us." + +It was plain, even to Uncle Billy, that if he voted against +Mr. Barrett's friends in the afternoon those friends might not feel so +much good-will toward him in the evening as they did now: and +Mr. Watson might not go to the trouble of hitching up his buggy to +drive out to the Johnsons'. + +"You see, it's all out of friendship," said Barrett, his hand on the +door knob. "And we can count on your's to-morrow, can't +we--absolutely?" + +The grey head sank a little lower, and then after a moment the +quavering voice answered: + +"Yes, sir--I'll be friendly." + +Before morning, Hurlbut lost another vote. One of his best men left +on a night train for the bedside of his dying wife. This meant that +the "Breaker" needed every one of the fifty-one remaining Democratic +votes in order to pass. Hurlbut more than distrusted Pixley, yet he +felt sure of the other fifty, and if, upon the reading of the bill, +Pixley proved false, the bill would not be lost, since there would be +a majority of votes in its favour, though not the constitutional +majority of fifty-one required for its passage, and it could be +brought up again and carried when the absent man returned. Thus, on +the chance that Pixley had withstood tampering, Hurlbut made no effort +to prevent the bill from coming to the floor in its regular order in +the afternoon, feeling that it could not possibly be killed by a +majority against it, for he trusted his fifty, now, as strongly as he +distrusted Pixley. + +And so the roll-call on the "Breaker" began, rather quietly, though +there was no man's face in the hall that was not set to show the +tensity of high-strung nerves. The great crowd that had gathered and +choked the galleries and the floor beyond the bar, and the Senators +who had left their own chamber to watch the bill in the House, all +began to feel disappointed; for nothing happened until Pixley's name +was called. + +Pixley voted "No!" + +Uncle Billy, sitting far down in his leather chair on the small of his +back, heard the outburst of shouting that followed; but he could not +see Pixley, for the traitor was instantly surrounded by a ring of men, +and all that was visible from where he sat was their backs and +upraised, gesticulating hands. Uncle Billy began to tremble violently; +he had not calculated on this; but surely such things would not happen +to _him_! + +The Speaker's gavel clicked through the uproar and the roll-call +proceeded. + +The clerk reached the name of Rollinson. Uncle Billy swallowed, threw +a pale look about him and wrapped his damp hands in the skirts of his +shiny old coat, as if to warm them. For a moment he could not +answer. People turned to look at him. + +"Rollinson!" shouted the clerk again. + +"No," said Uncle Billy. + +Immediately he saw above him and all about him a blur of men's faces +and figures risen to their feet, he heard a hundred voices say +breathlessly: "_What_!" and one that said: "My God, that kills +the bill!" + +Then a horrible and incredible storm burst upon him, and he who had +sat all the session shrinking unnoticed in his quiet, back seat, +unnerved when a colleague asked the simplest question, found himself +the centre and point of attack in the wildest melee that legislature +ever saw. A dozen men, red, frantic, with upraised arms, came at him, +Hurlbut the first of them. But the lobby was there, too; for it was +not part of its calculations that the old man should be frightened +into changing his vote. + +There need have been no fear of that. Uncle Billy was beyond the power +of speech. The lobby's agents swarmed on the floor, and, with +half-a-dozen hysterically laughing Republicans, met the onset of +Hurlbut and his men. It became a riot immediately. Sane men were swept +up in it to be as mad as the rest, while the galleries screamed and +shouted. All round the old man the fury was greatest; his head sank +over his desk and rested on his hands as it had the night before; for +he dared not lift it to see the avalanche he had loosed upon +himself. He would have liked to stop his ears to shut out the +egregious clamour of cursing and yelling that beset him, as his bent +head kept the glazed eyes from seeing the impossible vision of the +attack that strove to reach him. He remembered awful dreams that were +like this; and now, as then, he shuddered in a cold sweat, being as +one who would draw the covers over his head to shelter him from +horrors in great darkness. As Uncle Billy felt, so might a naked soul +feel at the judgment day, tossed alone into the pit with all the +myriads of eyes in the universe fastened on its sins. + +He was pressed and jostled by his defenders; once a man's shoulders +were bent back down over his own and he was crushed against the desk +until his ribs ached; voices thundered and wailed at him, threatening, +imploring, cursing, cajoling, raving. + +Smaller groups were struggling and shouting in every part of the room, +the distracted sergeants-at-arms roaring and wrestling with the +rest. On the high dais the Speaker, white but imperturbable, having +broken his gavel, beat steadily with the handle of an umbrella upon +the square of marble on his desk. Fifteen or twenty members, raging +dementedly, were beneath him, about the clerk's desk and on the steps +leading up to his chair, each howling hoarsely: + +"A point of _order_! A point of _or-der_!" + +When the semblance of order came at last, the roll was finished, +"reconsidered," the "Breaker" was beaten, 50 to 49, was dead; and +Uncle Billy Rollinson was creeping down the outer steps of the +Statehouse in the cold February slush and rain. + +He was glad to be out of the nightmare, though it seemed still upon +him, the horrible clamours, all gonging and blaring at _him_; the +red, maddened faces, the clenched fists, the open mouths, all raging +at _him_--all the ruck and uproar swam about the dazed old man as +he made his slow, unseeing way through the wet streets. + +He was too late for dinner at his dingy boarding house, having +wandered far, and he found himself in his room without knowing very +well how he had come there, indeed, scarcely more than half-conscious +that he _was_ there. He sat, for a long time, in the dark. After +a while he mechanically lit the lamp, sat again to stare at it, then, +finding his eyes watering, he turned from it with an incoherent +whimper, as if it had been a person from whom he would conceal the +fact that he was weeping. He leaned his arm, against the window sill +and dried his eyes on the shiny sleeve. + +An hour later, there came a hard, imperative knock on the door. Uncle +Billy raised his head and said gently: + +"Come in." + +He rose to his feet uncertain, aghast, when he saw who his visitor +was. It was Hurlbut. + +The young man confronted him darkly, for a moment, in silence. He was +dripping with rain; his hat, unremoved, shaded lank black locks over a +white face; his nostrils were wide with wrath; the "dry cigar" wagged +between gritting teeth. + +"Will ye take a chair?" faltered Uncle Billy. + +The room rang to the loud answer of the other: "I'd see you in Hell +before I'd sit in a chair of yours!" + +He raised an arm, straight as a rod, to point at the old +man. "Rollinson," he said, "I've come here to tell you what I think of +you! I've never done that in my life before, because I never thought +any man worth it. I do it because I need the luxury of it--because I'm +sick of myself not to have had gumption enough to see what you were +all the time and have you watched!" + +Uncle Billy was stung to a moment's life. "Look here," he quavered, +"you hadn't ought to talk that way to me. There ain't a cent of money +passed my fingers--" + +Hurlbut's bitter laugh cut him short. "_No?_ Don't you suppose +_I know_ how it was done? Do you suppose there's a man in the +whole Assembly doesn't know how you were sold? I had it by the long +distance an hour ago, from your own home. Do you suppose _we_ +have no friends there, or that it was hard to find out about the whole +dirty business? Your son's not going to stand trial for bigamy; that +was the price you charged for killing the bill. You and Pixley are the +only men whom they could buy with all their millions! Oh, I know a +dozen men who could be bought on other issues, but not on _this_! +You and Pixley stand alone. Well, you've broken the caucus and you've +betrayed the Democratic party. I've come to tell you that the party +doesn't want you any more. You are out of it, do you hear? We don't +want even to use you!" + +The old man had sunk back into his chair, stricken white, his hands +fluttering helplessly. "I didn't go to hurt your feelings, +Mr. Hurlbut," he said. "I never knowed how it would be, but I don't +think you ought to say I done anything dishonest. I just felt kind of +friendly to the railroads--" + +The leader's laugh cut him off again. "Friendly! Yes, that's what you +were! Well, you can go back to your friends; you'll need them!--Mother +in Heaven! How you fooled us! We thought you were the straightest man +and the staunchest Democrat--" + +"I b'en a Democrat all my life, Mr. Hurlbut. I voted fer--" + +"Well, you're a Democrat no longer. You're done for, do you +understand? And we're done with you!" + +"You mean," the old man's voice shook almost beyond control; "you mean +you're tryin' to read me out of the party?" + +"Trying to!" Hurlbut turned to the door. "You're out! It's done. You +can thank God that your 'friends' did their work so well that we can't +prove what we know. On my soul, you dog, if we could I believe some of +the boys would send you over the road." + +An hour after he had gone, Uncle Billy roused himself from his stupor, +and the astonished landlady heard his shuffling step on the stair. She +followed him softly and curiously to the front door, and watched +him. He was bare-headed but had not far to go. The night-flare of the +cheap, all-night saloon across the sodden street silhouetted the +stooping figure for a moment and then the swinging doors shut the old +man from her view. She returned to her parlour and sat waiting for his +return until she fell asleep in her chair. She awoke at two o'clock, +went to his room, and was aghast to find it still vacant. + +"The Lord have mercy on us all!" she cried aloud. "To think that old +rascal'd go out on a spree! He'd better of stayed in the country where +he belonged." + +It was the next morning that the House received a shock which loosed +another riot, but one of a kind different from that which greeted +Representative Rollinson's vote on the "Breaker." The reading-clerk +had sung his way through an inconsequent bill; most of the members +were buried in newspapers, gossiping, idling, or smoking in the +lobbies, when a loud, cracked voice was heard shrilly demanding +recognition. + +"Mr. Speaker!" Every one turned with a start. There was Uncle Billy, +on his feet, violently waving his hands at the Speaker. "Mr. Speaker, +Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker!" His dress was disordered and muddy; his +eyes shone with a fierce, absurd, liquorish light; and with each +syllable that he uttered his beard wagged to an unspeakable effect of +comedy. He offered the most grotesque spectacle ever seen in that +hall--a notable distinction. + +For a moment the House sat in paralytic astonishment. Then came an +awed whisper from a Republican: "Has the old fool really found his +voice?" + +"No, he's drunk," said a neighbour. "I guess he can afford it, after +his vote yesterday!" + +"Mister Speaker! _Mister_ Speaker!" + +The cracked voice startled the lobbies. The hangers-on, the +typewriters, the janitors, the smoking members came pouring into the +chamber and stood, transfixed and open-mouthed. + +"_Mister Speaker_!" + +Then the place rocked with the gust of laughter and ironical cheering +that swept over the Assembly, Members climbed upon their chairs and on +desks, waving handkerchiefs, sheets of foolscap, and waste-baskets. +"Hear 'im! _He-ear_ 'im!" rang the derisive cry. + +The Speaker yielded in the same spirit and said: + +"The Gentleman from Wixinockee." + +A semi-quiet followed and the cracked voice rose defiantly: + +"That's who I am! I'm the Gentleman from Wixinockee an' I stan' here +to defen' the principles of the Democratic party!" + +The Democrats responded with violent hootings, supplemented by cheers +of approval from the Republicans. The high voice out-shrieked them +all: "Once a Democrat, always a Democrat! I voted Dem'cratic tick't +forty year, born a Democrat an' die a Democrat. Fellow sizzens, I want +to say to you right here an' now that principles of Dem'cratic party +saved this country a hun'erd times from Republican mal-'diministration +an' degerdation! Lemme tell you this: you kin take my life away but +you can't say I don' stan' by Dem'cratic party, mos' glorious party of +Douglas an' Tilden, Hen'ricks, Henry Clay, an' George Washin'ton. I +say to you they _hain't_ no other party an' I'm member of it till +death an' Hell an' f'rever after, so help me _God_!" + +He smote the desk beside him with the back of his hand, using all his +strength, skinning his knuckles so that the blood dripped from them, +unnoticed. He waved both arms continually, bending his body almost +double and straightening up again, in crucial efforts for +emphasis. All the old jingo platitudes that he had learned from +campaign speakers throughout his life, the nonsense and brag and blat, +the cheap phrases, all the empty balderdash of the platform, rushed to +his incoherent lips. + +The lord of misrule reigned at the end of each sentence, as the +members sprang again upon the chairs and desks, roaring, waving, +purple with laughter. The Speaker leaned back exhausted in his chair +and let the gavel rest. Spectators, pages, galleries whooped and +howled with the members. Finally the climax came. + +"I want to say to you just this _here_," shrilled the cracked +voice, "an' you can tell the Republican party that I said so, tell 'em +straight from _me_, an' I hain't goin' back on it; I reckon they +know who I am, too; I'm a man that's honest--I'm as honest as the day +is long, I am--as honest as the day is long--" + +He was interrupted by a loud voice. "_Yes_," it cried, "_when +that day is the twenty-first of December!_" + +That let pandemonium loose again, wilder, madder than before. A member +threw a pamphlet at Uncle Billy. In a moment the air was thick with a +Brobdingnagian snow-storm: pamphlets, huge wads of foolscap, bills, +books, newspapers, waste-baskets went flying at the grotesque target +from every quarter of the room. Members "rushed" the old man, hooting, +cheering; he was tossed about, half thrown down, bruised, but, +clamorous over all other clamours, jumping up and down to shriek over +the heads of those who hustled him, his hands waving frantically in +the air, his long beard wagging absurdly, still desperately +vociferating his Democracy and his honesty. + +That was only the beginning. He had, indeed, "found his voice"; for he +seldom went now to the boarding-house for his meals, but patronized +the free-lunch counter and other allurements of the establishment +across the way. Every day he rose in the House to speak, never failing +to reach the assertion that he was "as honest as the day is long," +which was always greeted in the same way. + +For a time he was one of the jokes that lightened the tedious business +of law-making, and the members looked forward to his "_Mis-ter +Speaker_" as schoolboys look forward to recess. But, after a week, +the novelty was gone. + +The old man became a bore. The Speaker refused to recognize him, and +grew weary of the persistent shrilling. The day came when Uncle Billy +was forcibly put into his seat by a disgusted sergeant-at-arms. He was +half drunk (as he had come to be most of the time), but this +humiliation seemed to pierce the alcoholic vapours that surrounded his +always feeble intelligence. He put his hands up to his face and cried +like a whimpering child. Then he shuffled out and went back to the +saloon. He soon acquired the habit of leaving his seat in the House +vacant; he was no longer allowed to make speeches there; he made them +in the saloon, to the amusement of the loafers and roughs who infested +it. They badgered him, but they let him harangue them, and applauded +his rhodomontades. + +Hurlbut, passing the place one night at the end of the session, heard +the quavering, drunken voice, and paused in the darkness to listen. + +"I tell you, fellow-countrymen, I've voted Dem'cratic tick't forty +year, live a Dem'crat, die a Dem'crat! An' I'm's honest as day is +long!" + + * * * * * + +It was five years after that session, when Hurlbut, now in the +national Congress, was called to the district in which Wixinockee +lies, to assist his hard-pressed brethren in a campaign. He was +driving, one afternoon, to a political meeting in the country, when a +recollection came to him and he turned to the committee chairman, who +accompanied him, and said: + +"Didn't Uncle Billy Rollinson live somewhere near here?" + +"Why, yes. You knew him in the legislature, didn't you?" + +"A little. Where is he now?" + +"Just up ahead here. I'll show you." + +They reached the gate of a small, unkempt, weedy graveyard and +stopped. + +"The inscription on the head-board is more or less amusing," said the +chairman, as he got out of the buggy, "considering that he was thought +to be pretty crooked, and I seem to remember that he was 'read out of +the party,' too. But he wrote the inscription himself, on his +death-bed, and his son put it there." + +There was a sparse crop of brown grass growing on the grave to which +he led his companion. A cracked wooden head-board, already tilting +rakishly, marked Henry's devotion. It had been white-washed and the +inscription done in black letters, now partly washed away by the rain, +but still legible: + +HERE LIES THE MORTAL REMAINS OF WILLIAM ROLLINSON A LIFE-LONG DEMOCRAT +AND A MAN AS HONEST AS THE DAY IS LONG + +The chairman laughed. "Don't that beat thunder? You knew his record in +the legislature didn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"He _was_ as crooked as they say he was, wasn't he?" + +Hurlbut had grown much older in five years, and he was in Congress. He +was climbing the ladder, and, to hold the position he had gained, and +to insure his continued climbing, he had made some sacrifices within +himself by obliging his friends--sacrifices which he did not name. + +"I could hardly say," he answered gently, his down-bent eyes fastened +on the sparse, brown grass. "It's not for us to judge too much. I +believe, maybe, that if he could hear me now, I'd ask his pardon for +some things I said to him once." + + + + +HECTOR + + +It isn't the party manager, you understand, that gets the fame; it's +the candidate. The manager tries to keep his candidate in what the +newspapers call a "blaze of publicity"; that is, to keep certain spots +of him in the blaze, while sometimes it is the fact that a candidate +does not know much of what is really going on; he gets all the red +fire and sky-rockets, and, in the general dazzle and nervousness, is +unconscious of the forces which are to elect or defeat him. Strange +as it is, the more glare and conspicuousness he has, the more he +usually wants. But the more a working political manager gets, the less +he wants. You see, it's a great advantage to keep out of the high +lights. + +For my part, not even being known or important enough to be named +"Dictator," now and then, in the papers, I've had my fun in the game +very quietly. Yet I did come pretty near being a famous man once, a +good while ago, for about a week. That was just after Hector J. Ransom +made his great speech on the "Patriotism of the Pasture" which set the +country to talking about him and, in time, brought him all he desired. + +You remember what a big stir that speech made, of course--everybody +remembers it. The people in his State went just wild with pride, and +all over the country the papers had a sort of catch head-line: +"Another Daniel Webster Come to Judgment!" When the reporters in my +own town found out that Ransom was a second cousin of mine, I was put +into a scare-head for the only time in my life. For a week I was a +public character and important to other people besides the boys that +do the work at primaries. I was interviewed every few minutes; and a +reporter got me up one night at half-past twelve to ask for some +anecdotes of Hector's "Boyhood Days and Rise to Fame." + +I didn't oblige that young man, but I knew enough. I was always fond +of my first cousin, Mary Ransom, Hector's mother; and in the old days +I never passed through Greenville, the little town where they lived, +without stopping over, a train or two, to visit with her, and I saw +plenty of Hector! I never knew a boy that left the other boys to come +into the parlour (when there was company) quicker than Hector, and I +certainly never saw a boy that "showed off" more. His mother was +wrapped up in him; you could see in a minute that she fairly +worshipped him; but I don't know, if it hadn't been for Mary, that I'd +have praised his recitations and elocution so much, myself. + +Mary and I wouldn't any more than get to tell each other how long +since we'd heard from Aunt Sue, before Hector would grow uneasy and +switch around on the sofa and say: "Ma, I'd rather you wouldn't tell +cousin Ben about what happened at the G. A. R. reunion. I don't want +to go through all that stuff again." + +At that, Mary's eyes would light up and she'd say: "You must, Hector, +you must! I want him to hear you do it; he mustn't go away without +that!" Then she'd go on to tell me how Hector had recited Lincoln's +Gettysburg speech at a meeting of the local post of the G. A. R. and +how he was applauded, and that many of the veterans had told him if he +kept on he'd be Governor of his State some day, and how proud she was +of him and how he was so different from ordinary boys that she was +often anxious about him. Then she would urge him to let me have +it--and he always would, especially if I said: "Oh, don't _make_ +the boy do it, Mary!" + +He would stand out in the middle of the floor and thrust his chin out, +knitting his brow and widening his nostrils, and shout "Of the people, +By the people, and For the people" at the top of his lungs in that +little parlour. He always had a great talent for mimicry, a talent of +which I think he was absolutely unconscious. He would give his +speeches in exactly the boy-orator style; that is, he imitated +speakers who imitated others who had heard Daniel Webster. Mary and +he, however, had no idea that he imitated anybody; they thought it was +creative genius. + +When he had finished Lincoln, he would say: "Well, I've got another +that's a good deal better, but I don't want to go through that today; +it's too much trouble," with the result that in a few minutes Patrick +Henry would take a turn or two in his grave. Hector always placed +himself by a table for "Liberty or Death," and barked his knuckles on +it for emphasis. Little he cared, so long as he thought he'd got his +effect! You could see, in spite of the intensity of his expression, +that he was perfectly happy. + +When he'd worked us through that, and perhaps "Horatius at the Bridge" +and the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius and was pretty well +emptied, he'd hang about and interrupt in a way that made me +restless. Neither Mary nor I could get out two sentences before the +boy would cut in with something like: "Don't tell cousin Ben about +that day I recited in school; I'm tired of all that guff!" + +Then Mary would answer: "It isn't guff, precious. I never was prouder +of you in my life." And she'd go on to tell me about another of his +triumphs, and how he made up speeches of his own sometimes, and would +stand on a box and deliver them to his boy friends, though she didn't +say how the boys received them. All the while, Hector would stare at +me like a neighbour's cat on your front steps, to see what impression +it made on me; and I was conscious that he was sure that I knew he was +a wonderful boy. I think he felt that everybody knew it. Hector kind +of palled on me. + +When he was about sixteen, Mary wrote me that she was in great +distress about him because he had decided to go on the stage; that he +had written to John McCullough, offering to take the place of leading +man in his company to begin with. Mary was sure, she said, that the +life of an actor was a hard one; Hector had always been very delicate +(I had known him to eat a whole mince pie without apparent distress +afterward) and she wanted me to write and urge him to change his +mind. She felt sure Mr. McCullough would send for him at once, because +Hector had written him that he already knew all the principal +Shakespearian roles, could play Brutus, Cassius, or Mark Antony as +desired; and he had added a letter of recommendation from the Mayor of +their city, declaring that Hector was a finer elocutionist and +tragedian than any actor he had ever seen. + +The dear woman's anxiety was needless, for she wrote me, with as much +surprise as pleasure, two months later, that for some reason +Mr. McCullough had not answered the letter, and that she was very +happy; she had persuaded Hector to go to college. + +How she kept him there, the first two years, I don't know, for her +husband had only left her about four hundred dollars a year. Of +course, living in Greenville isn't expensive, but it does cost +something, and I honestly believe Mary came near to living on +nothing. It was a small college that she'd sent the boy to, but it was +a mother's point with her that Hector should be as comfortable as +anyone there. + +I stopped off at Greenville, one day, toward the end of his second +year, but before he'd come home, and I saw how it was. Mary seemed as +glad as ever to see me--it was the same old bright greeting that she'd +always given me. She saw me from the dining-room window where she was +eating her supper, and she came out, running down to the gate to meet +me, like a girl; but she looked thin and pale. + +I said I'd go right in and have some supper with her, and at that the +roses came back quickly to her cheeks. "No," she said, "I wasn't +really at supper; only having a bite beforehand; I'm going up-town now +to get the things for supper. You smoke a cigar out on the porch till +I get back, and--" + +I took her by the arm. "Not much, Mary," I said. "I'm going to have +the same supper you had for yourself." + +So I went straight out to the dining-room; and all I found on the +table was some dry bread toasted and a baked apple without cream or +sugar. It gave me a pretty good idea of what the general run of her +meals must have been. + +I had a long talk with her that night, and I wormed it out of her that +Hector's college expenses were about twenty-five dollars a month, +which left her six to live on. The truth is, she didn't have enough to +eat, and you could see how happy it made her. She read me a good many +of Hector's letters, her voice often trembling with happiness over his +triumphs. The letters were long, I'll say that for Hector, which may +have been to his credit as a son, or it may have been because he had +such an interesting subject. There was no doubt that he had worked +hard; he had taken all the chief prizes for oratory and essay writing +and so forth that were open to him; he also allowed it to be seen that +he was the chief person in the consideration of his class and the +fraternity he had joined. Mary had a sort of humbleness about being +the mother of such a son. + +But I settled one thing with her that night, though I had to hurt her +feelings to do it. I owned a couple of small notes which had just +fallen due, and I could spare the money. I put it as a loan to Hector +himself; he was to pay me back when he got started, and so it was +arranged that he could finish his course without his mother's living +on apples and toast. + +I went over to his Commencement with Mary and we hadn't been in the +town an hour before we saw that Hector was the king of the place. He +had _all_ the honours; first in his class, first in oratory, +first in everything; professors and students all kow-towed and sounded +the hew-gag before him. Most of Mary's time was put in crying with +happiness. As for Hector himself, he had changed in just one way: he +no longer looked at people to see his effect on them; he was too +confident of it. + +His face had grown to be the most determined I have ever seen. There +was no obstinacy in it--he wasn't a bull-dog--only set determination. +No one could have failed to read in it an immensely powerful will. In +a curious way he seemed "on edge" all the time. His nostrils were +always distended, the muscles of his lean jaw were never lax, but +continually at tension, thrusting the chin forward with his teeth hard +together. His eyebrows were contracted, I think, even in his sleep, +and he looked at everything with a sort of quick, fierce, appearance +of scrutiny, though at that time I imagined that he saw very little. +He had a loud, rich voice, his pronunciation was clipped to a deadly +distinctness; he was so straight and his head so high in the air that +he seemed almost to tilt back. With his tall figure and black hair, he +was a boy who would have attracted attention, as they say, in any +crowd, so that he might have been taken for a young actor. His best +friend, a kind of Man Friday to him, was another young fellow from +Greenville, whose name was Joe Lane. I liked Joe. I'd known him? since +he was a boy. He was lazy and pleasant-looking, with reddish hair and +a drawling, low voice. He had a humorous, sensible expression, though +he was dissipated, I'd heard, but very gentle in his manners. I had a +talk with him under the trees of the college campus in the moonlight, +Commencement night. I can see the boy lying there now, sprawling on +the grass with a cigar in his mouth. + +"Hector's done well," I said. + +"Oh, Lord, yes!" Joe answered. "He always will. He's going 'way up in +the world." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"Because he's so sure of it. It only needs a little luck to make him a +great man. In fact, he already is a great man." + +"You mean you think he has a great mind?" + +"Why, no, sir; but I think he has a purpose so big and so set, that it +might be called great, and it will make him great." + +"What purpose?" + +Joe answered quietly but very slowly, pulling at his cigar after each +syllable: "Hec--tor--J. Ran--som!" + +"I declare," I put in, "I thought you were his friend!" + +"So I am," the young fellow returned. "Friend, admirer, and +doer-in-ordinary to Hector J. Ransom, that's my quality. I've done +errands and odd jobs for him all my life. Most people who meet him do; +though it might be hard to say why. I haven't hitched my wagon to a +star; nobody'll get to do that, because this star isn't going to take +anything to the zenith but itself." + +"Going to the zenith, is he?" + +"Surely." + +"You mean," said I, "that he's going to make a fine lawyer?" + +"Oh, no, I think not. He might have been called one in the last +generation, but, as I understand it, nowadays a lawyer has to work out +business propositions more than oratory." + +"And you think Hector has only his oratory?" + +"I think that's his vehicle; it's his racing sulky and he'll drive it +pretty hard. We're good friends, but if you want me to be frank, I +should say that he'd drive on over my dead body if it lay in the road +to where he was going." Lane rolled over in the grass with a little +chuckle. "Of course," he went on, "I talk about him this way because +I know what you've done for him and I'd like to help you to be sure +that he's going to be a success. He'll do you credit!" + +"What are you going to do, yourself, Joe?" I asked. + +"Me?" He sat up, looking surprised. "Why, didn't you know? I didn't +get my degree. They threw me out at the eleventh hour for getting too +publicly tight--celebrating Hector's winning the works of Lord Byron, +the prize in the senior debate! I'll never be a credit to anybody; and +as for what I'm going to do--go back to Greenville and loaf in Tim's +pool-room, I suppose, and watch Hector's balloon." + +However, Hector's balloon seemed uninclined to soar, at the +set-off--though Hector didn't. The next summer began a presidential +campaign, and Hector, knowing that I was chairman of my county +committee, and strangely overestimating my importance, came up to see +me: he asked me to use my influence with the National Committee to +have him sent to make speeches in one of the doubtful States; he +thought he could carry it for us. I explained that I had no wires +leading up so far as the National Committee. There were other things +I might have explained, but it didn't seem much use. Hector would have +thought I wanted to "keep him down." + +He thought so anyway, because, after a crestfallen moment, he began to +look at me in his fierce eye-to-eye way with what seemed to me a dark +suspicion. He came and struck my desk with his clinched fist (he was +always strong on that), and exclaimed: + +"Then by the eternal gods, if my own flesh and blood won't help me, +I'll go to Chicago myself, lay my credentials before the committee, +unaided, and wring from them--" + +"Hold on, Hector," I said. "Why didn't you say you had credentials? +What are they?" + +"What are they?" he answered in a rising voice. "You ask me what are +my credentials? The credentials of my patriotism, my poverty, and my +pride! You ask me for my credentials? The credentials of youth!" (He +hit the desk every few words.) "The credentials of enthusiasm! The +credentials of strength! You ask for my credentials? The credentials +of red blood, of red corpuscles, of young manhood, ripest in the +glorious young West! The credentials of vitality! Of virile--" + +"Hold on," I said again, but I couldn't stop him. He went on for +probably fifteen minutes, pacing the room and gesticulating and +thundering at me, though we two were all alone. I felt mighty +ridiculous, but, of course, I'd been through much the same thing with +one or two candidates and orators before. I thought then that he was +practising on me, but I came afterward to see that I was partly +wrong. "Oratory" was his only way of expressing himself; he couldn't +just _talk_, to save his life. All you could do, when he began, +was to sit and take it till he got through, which consumed some +valuable time for me that afternoon. I suppose I was profane inside, +for having given him that cue with "credentials." Finally I got in a +question: + +"Why not begin a little more mildly, Hector? Why don't you make some +speeches in your own county first?" + +"I have consented to make the Fourth of July oration at Greenville," +he answered. + +Before he could go on, I got up and slapped him on the back. "That's +right!" I said. "That's right! Go back and show the home folks what +you can do, and I'll come down to hear it!" + +And so I did. Mary was, if possible, more flustered and upset than at +Hector's Commencement. She and Joe Lane and I had a bench close up to +the stand, and on the other side of Mary sat a girl I'd never seen +before. Mary introduced me to her in a way that made me risk a guess +that Hector liked her more than common. Her name was Laura Rainey, and +she'd come to Greenville, a year before, to teach in the high-school. +She was young, not quite twenty, I reckoned, and as pretty and dainty +a girl as ever I saw; thin and delicate-looking, though not in the +sense of poor health; and she struck me as being very sweet and +thoughtful. Joe Lane told me, with his little chuckle, that she'd had +a good deal of trouble in the school on account of all the older boys +falling in love with her. + +Something in the way he spoke made me watch Joe, and I was sure if +he'd been one of her pupils he wouldn't have lightened her worries +much in that direction. He had it himself. I saw it, or, I should say, +I felt it, in spite of his never seeming to look at her. She looked at +him, however, and pretty often, too; and there was a good deal of +interest in her eyes, only it was a sad kind, which I understood, I +thought, when I found that Joe had been on a long spree and had just +sobered up the day before. + +Hector sat above us on the platform, with the Mayor and the County +Judge, and when the latter introduced him, and the same old white +pitcher and glass of water on a pine table, the boy came forward with +slow and impressive steps, and, setting his left fist on his hip, +allowed his right arm to hang straight by his side till his hand +rested on the table, like a statesman of the day standing for a +photograph. His brow contained a commanding frown, and he stood for +some moments in that position, while, to my astonishment, the crowd +cheered itself hoarse. + +There was no mistaking the genuine enthusiasm that he evoked, though I +didn't feel it myself. I suppose the only explanation is that he had +a great deal of what is called "magnetism." What made it I don't +know. He was good-looking enough, with his dark eyes and hair, and +white, intense face and black clothes; but there was more in the +cheering than appreciation of that. I could not doubt that he produced +on the crowd, by his quiet attitude, an apparition of greatness. There +was some kind of hypnotism in it, I suppose. + +The speech was about what I was looking for: bombastic platitudes +delivered with such earnestness and velocity that "every point scored" +and the cheering came whenever he wanted it. + +For instance: he would retire a few steps toward the rear, and, +pointing to the sky, adjure it in a solemn voice which made every one +lean forward in a dead hush: + +"Tell me, ye silent stars, that seem to slumber 'neath the auroral +coverlet of day, tell me, down what laurelled pathways among ye walk +our dead, the heroes whose blood was our benison, bequeathing to us +the heritage of this flower-strewn land; they who have passed to that +bourne whence no traveller returns? Answer me: Are not _theirs_ +the loftiest names inscribed on your marble catalogues of the +nations?" He let his voice out startlingly and shouted: "CREEPS there +a creature of the earth with spirit so sordid as to doubt it, to doubt +_who_ heads those gilded rolls! If there be, then _I_ say to +him, 'Beware!' For the names I see written above me to-day on the +immemorial canopy of heaven begin with that of the spotless knight, +the unsceptred and uncrowned king, the godlike and immaculate"--(here +he turned suddenly, ran to the front of the stage, and, with +outstretched fist shaking violently over our heads, thundered at the +full power of his lungs): "GEORGE WASHINGTON!" + +He did the same for Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, and four or +five governors and senators of the State; and at every name the crowd +went wild, worked up to it by Hector in the same way. But what +surprised me was his daring to conclude his list with a votive +offering laid at the feet of Passley Trimmer. Trimmer was the +congressional representative of that district and one of the meanest +men and smartest politicians in the world. He was always creeping out +of tight places and money-scandals by the skin of his teeth; and yet, +by building up the finest personal machine in the State, he stuck to +his seat in Congress term after term, in spite of the fact that most +of the intelligent and honest men in his district despised him. It was +a proof of the power Hector held over his audience that, by his +tribute to Trimmer, he was able to evoke the noisiest enthusiasm of +the afternoon. + +Nevertheless, what really tickled me most was the boy's peroration. It +gave me a pretty clear insight into his "innard workings." He led up +to it in his favourite way: stepping backward a pace or two and +sinking his voice to a kind of Edwin Booth quiet; gradually growing a +little louder; then suddenly turning on the thunder and running +forward. + +"You ask _me_ for our credentials?" he roared. (Nobody had, this +time.) "In the Lexicon of the Peoples, you ask _me_ for my +country's credentials? The credentials of our pastures, our +population and our pride! You ask me for my country's credentials? I +reply: 'The credentials of our youth and our enthusiasm! Of red +corpuscles! Of red blood! The credentials of the virility and of the +magnificent manhood of the Columbian Continent!' You ask for my +country's credentials and I answer: 'The credentials of Glory! By +right of the eternal and Almighty God!'" + +Of course there was a great deal more, but that's enough to show how +he had polished it. + + * * * * * + +I walked back to Mary's with Joe Lane, while Hector followed, making a +kind of Royal Progress through the crowds, with his mother and Miss +Rainey. + +"You see it now, yourself, don't you?" Joe said to me. + +"You mean about his doing well?" + +"What else? He's just shown what he can do with people. The day will +come when you'll have to take him at his own valuation." + +I couldn't help laughing. "Well, Joe," I said, "that sounds as if +_you_, at least, already took Hector at his own valuation." + +"In some things," he answered, "I think I do. Don't you take him for +an ass, sir. Sometimes I believe he's guided by a really superior +intelligence--" + +"Must be a sub-consciousness, then, Joe!" + +"Exactly," he said seriously. "He doesn't make a single mistake. He's +trained his manner so that, while a very few people laugh at him, he +does things that the town would resent in any one else. He doesn't go +round with the boys, and they look up to him for it. He isn't pompous, +but he's acquired a kind of stateliness of manner that's made +Greenville call him 'Mister Ransom' instead of 'Hec.' You probably +think that his request to the National Committee only shows he's got +all the nerve in the world; but I believe, on my soul, that if it had +been granted he could have made good." + +"What did he want to run Passley Trimmer into his Pantheon for, +to-day?" I asked. + +Joe's honest face looked a little dark at this. "It's only another +proof of the shrewdness that directs him, though it was, maybe, a +little bit sickening. He talks gold and stars and eternal gods, about +sweetness and light and pure politics and reform, but he wants Passley +Trimmer's machine to take him up. Passley Trimmer and his brother, +Link, are a good-sized curse to this district, I expect you know, but +Hector's courting them. Link is the dirtiest we've ever had here, and +he holds all the rottenest in this county solid for Passley. He's +overbearing; ugly, too; shot a nigger in the hip a year ago, and +crippled him for life on account of a little back-talk, and got off +scot-free. I had a row with him in a saloon last week; I was tight, I +suppose, though there's always been bad blood between us, anyway, +drunk or sober, and I didn't know much what happened, except that I +refused to drink in his company and he cursed me out and I blacked an +eye for him before they separated us. Well, sir, next day, here was +Hector demanding that I go and apologize to Link. I said I'd as soon +apologize to a rattlesnake, and Hector upbraided me in his rhetoric, +but with a whole lot of real feeling, too. He was even pathetic about +it: put it on the ground that I owed it to morality, by which he meant +Hector. I was known to be his most intimate friend; I had done him an +irrecoverable injury with the Trimmers, who would extend their +retaliation and let _him_ have a share of it, as my friend. He +ended by declaring that he should withhold the light of his +countenance from me until I had repaired the wrong done to his cause, +and had apologized to Link!" + +"Did you do it?" + +The good fellow answered with his little chuckle: "Of course! Don't +you see that he gets everybody to do what he wants? It's almost sheer +will, and he's a true cloud-compeller." + +I wanted to understand something else, and I didn't know how much Mary +could tell me; that is, I was sure that she would think that Miss +Rainey was in love with Hector. Mary wouldn't be able to see how any +girl could help it. + +"Joe," I said, "does Hector seem much taken with this Miss Rainey?" + +We had come to the gate, and Lane stopped to relight a cigar before he +answered. He kept the match at the stub until it burned out, half +hiding his face from me with his hands, shielding the flame from a +breeze that wasn't blowing. + +"Yes," he said finally, "as much as he could be with anybody--at least +he wants her to be taken with him." + +"Do you think she is?" + +He swung the gate open, and stood to let me pass in first. "She could +be of great help to him. We've all got to help Hector." + +I was going on: "You believe she will--" + +"Did you ever hear," he interrupted, "of Jane Welsh Carlyle?" + +I thought about that answer of Joe's most of the evening, and it +struck me he was right. It was one of those things you couldn't +possibly explain to save your life, but you knew it: everybody had +_got_ to help Hector. Everybody had to get behind him and +push. Hector took it for granted in a way that passed the love of +woman! + +And yet, as we sat at Mary's supper-table, that evening, I don't know +that I ever felt less real liking for any of my kin than I felt for +Hector, though, perhaps, that was because he seemed to keep rubbing it +in on me in indirect ways that I had done him an injury by not helping +him with the National Committee, and that I ought to know it, after +his triumph of the afternoon. I could see that Mary agreed with him, +though in her gentle way. + +Young Lane and Miss Rainey stayed for supper, too, and were very +quiet. Miss Rainey struck me as a quiet girl generally, and Joe never +talked, anyway, when in Hector's company. For that matter, nobody else +did; there was mighty little chance. The truth is, Hector had an +impediment of speech: he couldn't listen. + +Of course he talked only about himself. That followed, because it was +all there was in him. Not that it always _seemed_ to be about +himself. For instance, I remember one of his ways of rubbing it into +me, that evening. He had been delivering himself of some opinions on +the nature of Genius, fragments (like his "credentials"--I had a +sneaking idea) of some undeveloped oration or other. "Look at +Napoleon!" he bade us, while Mary was cutting the pie. "Could Barras +with all his jealous and malevolent opposition, could Barras with all +his craft, all his machinations, with all the machinery of the State, +could Barras oppose the upward flight of that mighty spirit? No! +Barras, who should have been the faithful friend, the helper, the +disciple and believer, Barras, I say, set himself to destroy the youth +whose genius he denied, and Barras was himself destroyed! He fell, for +he had dared to oppose the path of one of the eternal stars!" + +That was a sample, and I don't exaggerate it. I couldn't exaggerate +Hector; it's beyond me; he always exaggerated himself beyond anybody +else's power to do it. But I loved to hear Joe Lane's chuckle and I +got one out of him when I offered him a cigar as we went out on the +porch. + +"Take one," I said. "It's one of Barras's best." + +"Better get in line," was all he added to the chuckle. + + * * * * * + +A good many visitors dropped in, during the evening, Greenville's +greatest come to congratulate Hector on the speech. Everybody in the +county was talking about him that night, they said. Hector received +these people in his old-fashioned-statesman manner, though I noticed +that already he shook hands like a candidate. He would grasp the +caller's hand quickly and decidedly, instead of letting the other do +the gripping. And I could see that all those who came in, even +hard-headed men twice his age, treated him deferentially, with the air +of intimate respect that he somehow managed to exact from people. +Perhaps I don't do him justice: he was a "mighty myster'us" boy! + +I sat and smoked, lounging in one of Mary's comfortable +porch-chairs. I managed without trouble to be in the background and I +couldn't help putting in most of my time studying Joe Lane and Miss +Rainey. Those two were sitting, on the side-steps of the porch, a +little apart from the rest of us--and a little apart from each other, +too. Lord knows how you get such strong impressions, but I was very +soon perfectly sure that these two young people were in love with each +other and that they both knew it, but that they had given each other +up. I was sure, too, that they were both under Hector's spell, and +preposterous as it may seem, that they were under his _will_, and +that Hector's plans included Miss Rainey for himself. + +It was a mighty pretty evening; full of flower-smells and breezes from +the woods, which began just across the village street. Joe sat in a +sort of doubled-up fashion he had, his thin hands clasped like a strap +round his knees. She sat straight and trim, both of them looking out +toward where the twilight was fading. As the darkness came on I could +barely make them out, a couple of quiet shadows, seemingly as far away +from the group about the lamp-lit doorway where Hector sat, as if they +were alone on big Jupiter who was setting up to be the whole thing, +far out yonder in the lonely sky. + +By and by, the moon oozed round from behind the house and leaked +through the trees and I could see them plainer, two silhouettes +against the foliage of some bright lilac-bushes. Joe hadn't budged, +but the back of Miss Rainey's head wasn't toward me as it had been +before; it was her profile. She was leaning back a little, against a +post, and looking at Joe--just looking at him. Neither of them spoke a +word the whole time, and somehow I felt they didn't need to, and that +what they had to say to each other had never been spoken and never +would be. It was mighty pretty--and sad, too. + +I felt so sorry for them, but it made me more or less impatient with +Hector, and with Joe--especially with Joe, I think. It seemed to me he +needn't have taken his temperament so hopelessly. But what's the use +of judging? When a man has a temperament like that, people who haven't +can't tell what he's got to contend with. + +That Fourth of July speech gave Hector his chance. His district +managers and the Trimmer faction saw they could use him; and they sent +him round stumping the district. Two campaigns later the State +Committee was using him, and parts of his speeches were being printed +in all the party papers over the State. Locally, I suppose you might +say, he had become a famous man; at least he acted like one--not that +there was any essential change in him. His style had undergone a large +improvement, however; his language was less mixed-up, and he seemed +clear-headed enough on "questions of the day," showing himself to be +well-informed and of a fine judgment. + +In these things I thought I saw the hand of Laura Rainey. The teacher +was helping him. The seriousness of his face had increased, he had +always entirely lacked humour; yet the spell he managed to cast over +his audiences was greater. He never once failed to "get them going," +as they say. At twenty-nine he was no longer called "a rising young +orator"; no, he was usually introduced as the "Hon. Hector J. Ransom, +the Silver-tongued Lochinvar of the West." + +Things hadn't changed much at Greenville. Mary had always been so +proud of Hector that she hadn't inflated any more on account of his +wider successes. She couldn't, because she hadn't any room left for +it. + +Joe Lane still went on his periodical sprees quite regularly, about +one week every three months, and he was the least offensive tippler I +ever knew. He came up to the city during one of his lapses, and called +at my office. He was dressed with unusual care (he was always a good +deal of a dandy), and he did not stagger nor slush his syllables; +indeed, the only way I could have told what was the matter with him, +at first, was by the solemn preoccupation of his expression. A little +black pickaninny followed him, grinning and carrying a big bundle, +covered with a new lace window-curtain. + +"I am but a bearer of votive flowers," Joe said, bowing. Then turning +to the little darky, he waved his hand loftily. "Unveil the offering!" + +The pickaninny did so, removing the lace curtain to reveal a shiny new +coal-bucket in which was a lump of ice, whereon reposed a pair of +white kid gloves and a large wreath of artificial daisies. + +"With love," said Joe. "From Hector." And he stalked majestically out. + +There was a card on the wreath, which Joe had inscribed: "To announce +the betrothal. No regrets." + +Sure enough, the next morning I had a letter from Mary, telling me +that Hector and Miss Rainey were engaged, that they had been so +without announcing it, for several years, and she feared the +engagement must last much longer before they could be married. So did +I, for all of Hector's glittering had brought him very little +money. While he had some law practice, of course it was small, in +Greenville, and what he had he neglected. Nor was he a good lawyer. I +knew him to be heavily in debt to Lane, whose father had died lately, +leaving Joe fairly well off; and I knew also that this debt sat very +lightly on Hector. I judged so, because in the matter of the advances +I had made for his education, I never heard him refer to +them. Probably he forgot all about it, having so many more important +things to think of. + +Mary was right: it was a very long engagement. It had lasted seven +years in all, when Passley Trimmer declared himself a candidate for +the nomination for Governor and gave Hector the great chance he had +been waiting for. Hector "came out" for Trimmer, and came out strong. +He worked for him day and night, and he was one of the best cards in +Trimmer's hand. + +It was easy enough to understand: Trimmer's nomination would leave his +seat in Congress vacant and the Trimmer crowd would throw it to +Hector. + +You could see that the "young Lochinvar" was really a power, and I +think they counted on him almost as much as on the personal machine +Trimmer had built up. Most of all, they counted on Hector's speech, +nominating Trimmer, to stampede the convention. If it was to be done, +Hector was the man to do it. There's no doubt in the world of the +extraordinary capacity he had for whirling a crowd along into a kind +of insane enthusiasm. He could make his audience enthusiastic about +_anything_; he could have brought them to their feet waving and +cheering for Ben Butler himself, if he had set out to do it. I believe +that most of us who were against Trimmer were more afraid of Hector's +stampeding the convention than of Trimmer's machine and all the money +he was spending. + +I was working all I knew for another man, Henderson, of my county, and +our delegation would go into the convention sixty-three solid for +Henderson, first, last, and all the time. On that account I had to +play Barras again to the young Napoleon. He came to see me, and made +one of his orations, imploring me to swing half of our delegation for +Trimmer on the first ballot, and all of it on the second. + +"But they count on me!" he declaimed. "They count on me to turn you! +Is a man to be denied by his own flesh and blood? Are the ties of +relationship nothing? Can't you see that my whole future is put in +jeopardy by your refusal? Here is my opportunity at last and you +endanger it. My marriage and my fortune depend on it; the cup is at +my lips. My long years of toil and preparation, the bitter, bitter +waiting--are these things to go for nothing? I tell you that if you +refuse me you may blast the most sacred hopes that ever dwelt in a +human breast!" + +I only smoked on, and so he did "the jury pathetic," and he was +sincere in it, too. + +"Have you no heart?" he inquired, his voice shaking. "Can you think +calmly of my mother? Remember the years she has waited to see this +recognition come to her son! Am I to go back to her and tell her that +your answer was 'No'? I ask you to think of her, I ask you to put +self out of your thoughts, to forget your own interests for once, and +to think of my mother, waiting in the old home in the quiet village +street where you knew her in her bright girlhood. Remember that she +awaits your answer; forget _me_ if you will, but remember what it +means to _her_, I say, and _then_ if there is a stone in +your breast, instead of a human heart, speak the word 'No'!" + +I spoke it, and, as he had to catch his train, he departed more in +anger than in sorrow, leaving me to my conscience, he told me. At the +door he turned. + +"I warn you," he said, "that this faction of yours shall go down to +defeat! Trimmer will win this fight, and I shall take his seat in +Congress! That is my first stepping-stone, and I _will_ take it! +I have worked too hard and waited too long, for such as you to +successfully oppose me. I tell you that we shall meet in the +convention, and you and your machine will be broken! The rewards, +then, to us, the victors!" + +"Why, of course," I said, "if you win." + +The Trimmer people were strong with the State Executive Committee, +and, in spite of us, worked things a good deal their own way. They +took the convention away from the State Capital to Greenville, which +was, of course, a great advantage for Trimmer. The fact is, that most +of the best people in that district didn't like him, but you know how +we all are: he _was_ one _of_ them, and as soon as it seemed +he had a chance to beat men from other parts of the State, they began +to shout themselves black in the face for their own. When I went down +there, the day before the convention, the place was one mass of +Trimmer flags, banners, badges, transparencies, buttons, and brass +bands. + +I went around to see Mary right away, and while she wasn't exactly +cold to me--the dear woman never could be that to anybody--she was +different; her eyes met mine sadly and her old, sweet voice was a +little tremulous, as if she were sorry that I had done something +wrong. + +I didn't stay long. I started back to the Henderson headquarters in +the hotel, but on my way I passed a big store-room on a corner of the +Square, which Trimmer had fitted up as his own headquarters. There was +quite a crowd of the boys going in and out, looking cheerful, fresh +cigars in their mouths, and a drink or two inside, band coming down +the street, everything the way an old-timer likes to see it. + +Passley Trimmer himself came out as I was going by, and with him were +his brother, Link, and two or three other men, among them a +weasel-faced little fellow named Hugo Siffles, who kept a drug-store +on the next corner. Hugo wasn't anybody; nobody ever paid any +attention to him at all; but he was one of those empty-headed village +talkers who are always trying to look as if they were behind the +scenes, always trying to walk with important people. Everybody knows +them. They whisper to the undertaker at funerals; and during campaigns +they have something confidential to communicate to United States +Senators. They meddle and intrude and waste as much time for you as +they can. + +When Trimmer saw me, he held out his hand. "Hello, Ben! I hear you're +not _for_ me!" he said cordially. + +"How are you running?" I came back at him, laughing. + +"Oh, we're going to beat you," he answered, in the same way. + +"Well, you'll see a good run, first, I expect!" + +He walked along with me, Link and the others following a little way +behind; but Hugo Siffles, of course, walking with us, partly to listen +and tell at the drug-store later, and partly to look like state +secrets. + +"Sorry you couldn't see your way to join us," Trimmer said. "But we'll +win out all right, anyway. I shouldn't think that would be much of a +disappointment to you, though. It will be a great thing for one of +your family." + +"Oh, yes," I said, "Hector." + +Trimmer took on a little of his benevolent statesman's manner, which +they nearly all get in time. "I have the greatest confidence in that +young man's future," he said. "He may go to the very top. All he needs +is money. I speak to you as a relative: he ought to drop that +school-teacher and marry a girl with money. He could, easily enough." + +That made me a little ugly. "Oh, no," I said. "He can make plenty in +Congress outside of his salary, can't he? I understand some of them +do." + +Of course Trimmer didn't lose his temper; instead, he laughed out +loud, and then put his hand on my shoulder. + +"Look here," he said. "I'm his friend and you're his cousin. He's one +of my own crowd and I have his best interests at heart. That isn't the +girl for him. He tells me that, for a long while, she used to advise +him against having too much to do with _me_, until he showed her +that winning my influence in his favour was his only chance to +rise. Now, if _you_ have his best interests at heart, as I have, +you'll help persuade him to let her go. Why shouldn't he marry +better? She's not so young any longer, and she's pretty much lost her +looks. And then, you know people will talk--" + +"Talk about what?" I said. + +"Well, if he goes to Congress, and, with his prospects, throws himself +away on a skinny little old-maid school-teacher in the backwoods, one +that he's been making love to for years, they might say almost +anything. Why can't he hand her over to Joe Lane? I'm sure--" + +"That'll do," I interrupted roughly. "I suppose you've been talking +that way to Hector?" + +"Why, certainly. I have his best interests at--" + +"Good-day, _sir_!" I said, and turned in at the hotel and left +him, with Hugo Siffles's little bright pig's eyes peeking at me round +Trimmer's shoulder. + +Sore enough I was, and cursing Trimmer and Hector in my heart, so that +when some one knocked on my door, while I was washing up for supper, I +said "Come in!" as if I were telling a dog to get out. + +It was Joe Lane and he was pretty drunk. He walked over to the bed and +caught himself unsteadily once or twice. I'd never seen him stagger +before. He didn't speak until he had sat down on the coverlet; then he +shaded his eyes with his hand and stared at me as if he wanted to make +sure that it _was_ I. + +"I've just been down to Hugo Siffles's drugstore," he said, speaking +very slowly and carefully, "and Hugo was telling a crowd about a +conver--conversation between you and Passley Trimmer. He said Trimmer +said Hector Ransom ought to drop Miss Rainey--and 'hand her over to +Joe Lane,' Is that true?" + +"Yes," I answered. "The beast said that." + +"There was more," Joe said heavily. "More that im--implied--might be +taken to imply scandal, which I believe Trimmer did not seriously +intend--but thought--thought might be used as an argument with Hector +to persuade him to jilt her?" + +"Yes." + +"What was said ex---actly? It is being repeated about town in various +forms. I want to know." + +Like a fool I told him the whole thing. I didn't think, didn't dream, +of course, what was in that poor, drunken, devoted head, and I wanted +to blow off my own steam, I was so hot. + +He sat very quietly until I had finished; then he took his head in +both hands and rocked himself gently to and fro upon the bed, and I +saw tears trickling down his cheeks. It was a wretched spectacle in a +way, he being drunk and crying like a child, but I don't think I +despised him. + +"And she so true," he sobbed, "so good, so faithful to him! She's +given him her youth, her whole sweet youth--all of it for him!" He got +to his feet and went to the door. + +"Hold on, Joe," I said, "where are you going?" + +"'Nother drink!" he said, and closed the door behind him. + +After supper I went to work with Henderson and three or four others in +a little back-room in our headquarters; and we were hard at it when +one of the boys held up his hand and said: "Listen!" + +The sounds of a big disturbance came in through the open windows: +shouting and yelling, and crowds running in the streets below. The +town had been so noisy all evening that I thought nothing of it. "It's +only some delegation getting in," I said. "Go on with the lists." + +But I'd no more than got the words out of my mouth than the noise +rolled into the outer rooms of our headquarters like a wave, and there +was a violent hammering on the door of our room, some one calling my +name in a loud frightened voice. I threw open the door and Hugo +Siffles fell in, his pig's eyes starting out of his pale, foolish +face. + +"Come with me!" he shouted, all in one breath, and laying hold of me +by the lapel of my coat, tried to drag me after him. "There's hell to +pay! Joe Lane came into Trimmer's headquarters, drunk, twenty minutes +ago, and slapped Passley Trimmer's face for what he said to us this +afternoon. Link Trimmer came in, a minute later, drunk too, and heard +what had happened. He followed Joe to Hodge's saloon and shot +him. They've carried him to the drug-store and he's asked to speak to +you." + +I had the satisfaction of kicking that little cuss through the door +ahead of me, though I knew it was myself I ought to have kicked. + +It was true that Joe had asked to speak to me, but when I reached the +drug-store the doctor wouldn't let me come into the back-room where he +lay, so I sat on a stool in the store. They'd turned all the people +out, except four or five friends of Joe's; and the glass doors and the +windows were solid with flattened faces, some of them coloured by the +blue and green lights so that it sickened me, and all staring +horribly. After about four years the doctor's assistant came out to +get something from a shelf and I jumped at him, getting mighty little +satisfaction, you can be sure. + +"It seems to be very serious indeed," was all he would say. I knew +that for myself, because one of the men in the store had told me that +it was in the left side. + +Half-an-hour after this--by the clock--the young man came out again +and called us in to carry Joe home. It was not more than a hundred +yards to the old Lane place, and six of us, walking very slowly, +carried him on a cot through the crowd. He was conscious, for he +thanked us in a weakish whisper, when we lifted him carefully into his +own bed. Then the doctor sent us all out except the assistant, and we +went to the front porch and waited, hating the crowd that had lined up +against the fence and about the gate. They looked like a lot of +buzzards; I couldn't bear the sight of them, so I went back into the +little hall and sat down near Joe's door. + +After a while the assistant opened the door, holding a glass pitcher +in his hand. + +"Here," he said, when he saw me, "will you fill this with cold water +from the well?" + +I took it and hurried out to the kitchen, where four or five people +were sitting and glumly whispering around an old coloured woman, Joe's +cook, who was crying and rocking herself in a chair. I hushed her up +and told her to show me the pump. It was in an orchard behind the +house, and was one of those old-fashioned things that sound like a +siren whistle with the hiccups. + +It took me about five minutes to get the water up, and when I got back +to Joe's room, a woman was there with the doctors. It was Miss Rainey. +She had her hat off, her sleeves were rolled up and, though her face +was the whitest I ever saw, she was cool and steady. It was she who +took the water from me at the door. + +I heard low voices in the parlour, where a lamp was lit, and I went in +there. Mary was sitting on a sofa, with a handkerchief hard against +her eyes, and Hector was standing in the middle of the room, saying +over and over, "My God!" and shaking. I went to the sofa and sat by +Mary with my hand on her shoulder. + +"To think of it!" Hector moaned. "To think of its coming at such a +time! To think of what it means to me!" + +His mother spoke to him from behind her handkerchief: "You mustn't do +it; you _can't_ Hector--oh, you can't, you _can't._" + +For answer he struck himself desperately across the forehead with the +palm of his hand. + +"What is it," I asked, "that your mother wants you not to do?" + +"She wants me to give up Trimmer--to refuse to make the nominating +speech for him to-morrow." + +"You've _got_ to give him up!" cried his mother; and then went on +with reiterations as passionate as they were weak and broken in +utterance. "You can't make the speech, you can't do it, you +_can't--"_ + +"Then I'm done for!" he said. "Don't you see what a frightful blow +this pitiful, drunken folly of poor Joe's has dealt Trimmer's +candidaoy? Don't you see that they rely on me more than ever, +_now_? Are you so blind you don't see that I am the only man who +can save Trimmer the nomination? If I go back on him now, he's done +for and I'm done for with him! It's my only chance!" + +"No, no," she sobbed, "you'll have other chances; you'll have plenty +of chances, dear; you're young--" + +"My only chance," he went on rapidly, ignoring her, "and if I can +carry it through, it will mean everything to me. The tide's running +strong against Trimmer to-night, and I am the only man in the world +who can turn it the other way. If I go into the convention for him, +faithful to him, and, out of the highest sense of justice, explain +that, even though Lane has been my closest friend, he was in the wrong +and that--" + +Mary rose to her feet and went to her son and clung to him. "No, no!" +she cried; "no, _no_!" + +"I've got to!" he said. + +"What is that you must do, Hector?" It was Miss Rainey's voice, and +came from just behind me. She was standing in the doorway that led +from the hall, and her eyes were glowing with a brilliant, warm +light. We all started as she spoke, and I sprang up and turned toward +her. + +"He's going to get well," she said, understanding me. "They say it is +surely so!" + +At that Mary ran and threw her arms about her and kissed her--and I +came near it! Hector gave a sort of shout of relief and sank into a +chair. + +"What is that you must do, Hector?" Miss Rainey said again in her +steady voice. + +"Stick to Trimmer!" he explained. "Don't you see that I must? He needs +me now more than ever, and it's my only chance." + +Miss Rainey looked at him over Mary's shoulder. She looked at him a +long while before she spoke. "You know why Mr. Lane struck that blow?" + +"Oh, I suppose so," he answered uneasily. "At least Siffles--" + +"Yes," she said. "You know. What are you going to do?" + +"The right thing!" Hector rose and walked toward her. "I put right +before all. I shall be loyal and I shall be just. It might have been a +terribly hard thing to carry through, but, since dear old Joe will +recover, I know I can do it." + +The girl's eyes widened suddenly, while the warm glow in them flashed +into a fiery and profound scrutiny. + +"You are going to make the nominating speech," she said. It was not a +question but a declaration, in the tone of one to whom he stood wholly +revealed. + +"Yes," he answered eagerly. "I knew you would see: it's my chance, my +whole career--" + +But his mother, turning swiftly, put her hand over his mouth, though +it was to Miss Rainey that she cried: + +"Oh, don't let him say it--he can't; you mustn't let him!" + +The girl drew her gently away and put an arm about her, saying: "Do +you think _I_ could stop him?" + +"But do you wish to stop me?" asked Hector sadly, as he stepped toward +her. "Do you set yourself not only in the way of my great chance, but +against justice and truth? Don't you see that I must do it?" + +"It is your chance--yes. I see the truth, Hector." Her eyes had +fallen and she looked at him no more, but, with a little movement away +from him, offered her hand to him at arm's length. It was done in a +curious way, and he looked perplexed for a second, and then +frightened. He dropped her hand, and his lips twitched. + +"Laura," he said, and could not go on. + +"You must go now," she said to all three of us. "The house should be +very quiet. I shall be his nurse, and the doctor will stay all +night. Isn't it beautiful that Joe is going to get well!" + +She went out quickly, before Hector could detain her, back to the room +where Lane was. + + * * * * * + +There's no need my telling you the details of that convention: +Henderson was beaten from the start, and Hector's speech was all that +happened. If he hadn't made it, there might have been a consolidation +on a dark horse, for feeling was high against Trimmer. It isn't an +easy thing to go into a convention with a brother locked up in jail on +a charge of attempted murder! + +I'll never forget Hector's rising to make that speech. There wasn't +any cheering, there was a dead, cold hush. This wasn't because his +magnetism had deserted him; indeed, I don't think it had ever before +been felt so strongly. He was white as white paper, and his face had a +look of suffering; altogether I believe I couldn't give a better +notion of him than saying that he somehow made me think of Hamlet. + +He began in a very low but very penetrating voice, and I don't think +anybody in the farthest corner missed a single clear-cut syllable from +the first. As I may have indicated, I had never been a warm admirer of +his, but with all my prejudice, I think I admired him when he stood up +to his task that day. For the effect he intended, his speech was a +masterpiece, no less. I saw it before he had finished three +sentences. And he delivered it, knowing that even while he did so he +was losing the woman he loved; for Hector did love Laura Rainey, next +to himself, and she had been part of his life and necessary to +him. But though the heavens fell, he stuck to what he had set out to +do, and did it masterfully. + +Not that what he said could bear the analysis of a cool mind: nothing +that Hector ever did or said has been able to do that. But for the +purpose, it was perfect. For once he began at the beginning, without +rhetoric, and he made it all the more effective by beginning with +himself. + +"Doubtless there are many among you who think it strange to see me +rise to fulfil the charge with which you know me to be intrusted. My +oldest and most intimate friend lies wounded on a bed of suffering, +stricken down by the hand of another friend whose heart is in the +cause for which I have risen. Therefore, you might well question me; +you might well say: 'To whom is your loyalty?' Well might I ask myself +that same question. And I will give you my answer: 'There are things +beyond the personal friendship of man and man, things greater than +individual differences and individual tragedies, things as far higher +and greater than these as the skies of God are higher than the roof of +a child's doll-house. These higher things are the good of the State +and the Law of Justice!'" + +That brought the first applause; and Trimmer's people, seeing the +crowd had taken Hector's point, sprang to their feet and began to +cheer. At a tense moment, such as this, cheering is often hypnotic, +and good managers know how to make use of it on the floor. The noise +grew thunderous, and when it subsided Hector was master of the +convention. Then, for the first time, I saw how far he would go--and +why. I had laughed at him all my life, but now I believed there was +"something in him," as they say. The Lord knows what, but it was +there; and as I looked at him and listened it seemed to me that the +world was at his feet. + +He was infinitely daring, yet he skirted the cause of the quarrel with +perfect tact: "The misinterpretation of a few careless and kindly +words, said in passing, and repeated, with garbling additions, to a +man who was not himself.... The brooding of a mind most unhappily +beset with alcohol.... A blow resented by a too devoted but too +violent kinsman...." + +Then, with the greatest skill, and rather quietly, he passed to a +eulogium of Trimmer's public career, gradually increasing the warmth +of his praise but controlling it as perfectly as he controlled the +enthusiasm and excitement which followed each of his points. For +myself, I only looked away from him once, and caught a glimpse of +Henderson looking sick. + +Hector finished with a great stroke. He went back to the original +theme. "You ask me where my duty lies!" His great voice rose and rang +through the hall magnificently: "I reply--'first to my State and her +needs'! Is that answer enough? If it be necessary that I should answer +for my personal loyalty to one man or another then I ask _you_: +Shall it go to the friend who, without cause, struck the first blow? +Shall it go to that other friend who went out hot-headed and struck +back to avenge a brother's wrongs? Is it only between these that +I--and many of you--are to choose to-day? Is there not a +_third_?' I tell you that I have chosen, and that my loyalty and +all my strength are devoted to that other, to that man who has +suffered most of all, to him who received a blow and did not avenge +it, because in his greatness he knew that his assailant knew not what +he did!" + +That carried them off their feet. Hector had turned Trimmer's greatest +danger into the means of victory. The Trimmer people led one of those +extraordinary hysterical processions round the aisles that you see +sometimes in a convention (a thing I never get used to), and it was +all Trimmer, or rather, it was all Hector. Trimmer was nominated on +the first ballot. + +There was a recess, and I hurried out, meaning to slip round to Joe +Lane's for a moment to find out how he was. I'd seen the doctor in the +morning and he said his patient had passed a good night and that Miss +Rainey was still there. "I think she's going to stay," he added, and +smiled and shook hands with me. + +Joe's old darkey cook let me in, and, after a moment, came to say I +might go into Mr. Lane's room; Mr. Lane wanted to see me. + +Joe was lying very flat on his back, but with his face turned toward +the door, and beside him sat Laura Rainey, their thin hands clasped +together. I stopped on the threshold with the door half opened. + +"Come in," said Joe weakly. "Hector made it, I'm sure." + +"Yes," I answered, and in earnest. "He's a great man." + +Joe's face quivered with a pain that did not come from his hurt. "Oh, +it's knowing that, that makes me feel like such a scoundrel," he +said. "I suppose you've come to congratulate me." + +"Yes," I said, "the doctor says it's a wonderful case, and that you're +one of the lucky ones with a charmed life, thank God!" + +Joe smiled sadly at Miss Rainey. "He hasn't heard," he said. Then she +gave me her left hand, aot relinquishing Joe's with her right. + +"We were married this morning," she said, "just after the convention +began." + +The tears came into Joe's eyes as she spoke. "It's a shame, isn't +it?" he said to me. "You must see it so. And I the kind of man I am, +the town drunkard--" + +Then his wife leaned over and kissed his forehead. + +"Even so it was right--and so beautiful for me," she said. + + + + +PART II + + + + +MRS. PROTHEROE + + +When Alonzo Tawson took his seat as the Senator from Stackpole in the +upper branch of the General Assembly of the State, an expression of +pleasure and of greatness appeared to be permanently imprinted upon +his countenance. He felt that if he had not quite arrived at all +which he meant to make his own, at least he had emerged upon the arena +where he was to win it, and he looked about him for a few other strong +spirits with whom to construct a focus of power which should control +the senate. The young man had not long to look, for within a week +after the beginning of the session these others showed themselves to +his view, rising above the general level of mediocrity and timidity, +party-leaders and chiefs of faction, men who were on their feet +continually, speaking half-a-dozen times a day, freely and loudly. To +these, and that house at large, he felt it necessary to introduce +himself by a speech which must prove him one of the elect, and he +awaited impatiently an opening. + +Alonzo had no timidity himself. He was not one of those who first try +their voices on motions to adjourn, written in form and handed out to +novices by presiding officers and leaders. He was too conscious of his +own gifts, and he had been "accustomed to speaking" ever since his +days in the Stackpole City Seminary. He was under the impression, +also, that his appearance alone would command attention from his +colleagues and the gallery. He was tall; his hair was long, with a +rich waviness, rippling over both brow and collar, and he had, by +years of endeavour, succeeded in moulding his features to present an +aspect of stern and thoughtful majesty whenever he "spoke." + +The opportunity to show his fellows that new greatness was among them +delayed not over-long, and Senator Rawson arose, long and bony in his +best clothes, to address the senate with a huge voice in denunciation +of the "Sunday Baseball Bill," then upon second reading. The classical +references, which, as a born orator, he felt it necessary to +introduce, were received with acclamations which the gavel of the +Lieutenant-Governor had no power to still. + +"What led to the De-cline and Fall of the Roman Empire?" he +exclaimed. "I await an answer from the advocates of this +_de_-generate measure! I _demand_ an answer from them! Let +me hear from them on _that_ subject! Why don't they speak up? +They can't give one. Not because they ain't familiar with history, no +sir! That's not the reason! It's because they _daren't,_ because +their answer would have to go on record _against_ 'em! Don't any +of you try to raise it against me that I ain't speakin' to the point, +for I tell you that when you encourage Sunday Baseball, or any kind of +Sabbath-breakin' on Sunday, you're tryin' to start this State on the +downward path that beset Rome! _I'll_ tell you what ruined +it. The Roman Empire started out to be the greatest nation on earth, +and they had a good start, too, just like the United States has got +to-day. _Then_ what happened to 'em? Why, them old ancient +fellers got more interested in athletic games and gladiatorial combats +and racing and all kinds of out-door sports, and bettin' on 'em, than +they were in oratory, or literature, or charitable institutions and +good works of all kinds! At first they were moderate and the country +was prosperous. But six days in the week wouldn't content 'em, and +they went at it all the time, so that at last they gave up the seventh +day to their sports, the way this bill wants _us_ to do, and from +that time on the result was _de_-generacy and _de_-gredation! +You better remember _that_ lesson, my friends, and don't try to +sink this State to the level of Rome!" + +When Alonzo Rawson wiped his dampened brow, and dropped into his +chair, he was satisfied to the core of his heart with the effect of +his maiden effort. There was not one eye in the place that was not +fixed upon him and shining with surprise and delight, while the kindly +Lieutenant-Governor, his face very red, rapped for order. The young +senator across the aisle leaned over and shook Alonzo's hand +excitedly. + +"That was beautiful, Senator Rawson!" he wispered. "I'm _for_ the +bill, but I can respect a masterly opponent." + +"I thank you, Senator Truslow," Alonzo returned graciously. "I am +glad to have your good opinion, Senator." + +"You have it, Senator," said Truslow enthusiastically. "I hope you +intend to speak often?" + +"I do, Senator. I intend to make myself heard," the other answered +gravely, "upon all questions of moment." + +"You will fill a great place among us, Senator!" + +Then Alonzo Rawson wondered if he had not underestimated his neighbour +across the aisle; he had formed an opinion of Truslow as one of small +account and no power, for he had observed that, although this was +Truslow's second term, he had not once demanded recognition nor +attempted to take part in a debate. Instead, he seemed to spend most +of his time frittering over some desk work, though now and then he +walked up and down the aisles talking in a low voice to various +senators. How such a man could have been elected at all, Alonzo failed +to understand. Also, Truslow was physically inconsequent, in his +colleague's estimation--"a little insignificant, dudish kind of a +man," he had thought; one whom he would have darkly suspected of +cigarettes had he not been dumbfounded to behold Truslow smoking an +old black pipe in the lobby. The Senator from Stackpole had looked +over the other's clothes with a disapproval that amounted to +bitterness. Truslow's attire reminded him of pictures in New York +magazines, or the drees of boys newly home from college, he didn't +know which, but he did know that it was contemptible. Consequently, +after receiving the young man's congratulations, Alonzo was conscious +of the keenest surprise at his own feeling that there might be +something in him after all. + +He decided to look him over again, more carefully to take the measure +of one who had shown himself so frankly an admirer. Waiting, +therefore, a few moments until he felt sure that Truslow's gaze had +ceased to rest upon himself, he turned to bend a surreptitious but +piercing scrutiny upon his neighbour. His glance, however, sweeping +across Truslow's shoulder toward the face, suddenly encountered +another pair of eyes beyond, so intently fixed upon himself that he +started. The clash was like two search-lights meeting--and the +glorious brown eyes that shot into Alonzo's were not the eyes of +Truslow. + +Truslow's desk was upon the outer aisle, and along the wall were +placed comfortable leather chairs and settees, originally intended for +the use of members of the upper house, but nearly always occupied by +their wives and daughters, or "lady-lobbyists," or other women +spectators. Leaning back with extraordinary grace, in the chair +nearest Truslow, sat the handsomest woman Alonzo had ever seen in his +life. Her long coat of soft grey fur was unrecognizable to him in +connection with any familiar breed of squirrel; her broad flat hat of +the same fur was wound with a grey veil, underneath which her heavy +brown hair seemed to exhale a mysterious glow, and never, not even in +a lithograph, had he seen features so regular or a skin so clear! And +to look into her eyes seemed to Alonzo like diving deep into clear +water and turning to stare up at the light. + +His own eyes fell first. In the breathless awkwardness that beset him +they seemed to stumble shamefully down to his desk, like a country-boy +getting back to his seat after a thrashing on the teacher's +platform. For the lady's gaze, profoundly liquid as it was, had not +been friendly. + +Alonzo Rawson had neither the habit of petty analysis, nor the +inclination toward it; yet there arose within him a wonder at his own +emotion, at its strangeness and the violent reaction of it. A moment +ago his soul had been steeped in satisfaction over the figure he had +cut with his speech and the extreme enthusiasm which had been accorded +it--an extraordinarily pleasant feeling: suddenly this was gone, and +in its place he found himself almost choking with a dazed sense of +having been scathed, and at the same time understood in a way in which +he did not understand himself. And yet--he and this most unusual lady +had been so mutually conscious of each other in their mysterious +interchange that he felt almost acquainted with her. Why, then, should +his head be hot with resentment? Nobody had _said_ anything to +him! + +He seized upon the fattest of the expensive books supplied to him by +the State, opened it with emphasis and began not to read it, with +abysmal abstraction, tinglingly alert to the circumstance that Truslow +was holding a low-toned but lively conversation with the unknown. Her +laugh came to him, at once musical, quiet and of a quality which +irritated him into saying bitterly to himself that he guessed there +was just as much refinement in Stackpole as there was in the Capital +City, and just as many old families! The clerk calling his vote upon +the "Baseball Bill" at that moment, he roared "No!" in a tone which +was profane. It seemed to him that he was avenging himself upon +somebody for something and it gave him a great deal of satisfaction. + +He returned immediately to his imitation of Archimedes, only relaxing +the intensity of his attention to the text (which blurred into jargon +before his fixed gaze) when he heard that light laugh again. He pursed +his lips, looked up at the ceiling as if slightly puzzled by some +profound question beyond the reach of womankind; solved it almost +immediately, and, setting his hand to pen and paper, wrote the capital +letter "O" several hundred times on note-paper furnished by the +State. So oblivious was he, apparently, to everything but the question +of statecraft which occupied him, that he did not even look up when +the morning's session was adjourned and the lawmakers began to pass +noisily out, until Truslow stretched an arm across the aisle and +touched him upon the shoulder. + +"In a moment, Senator!" answered Alonzo in his deepest chest tones. He +made it a very short moment, indeed, for he had a wild, breath-taking +suspicion of what was coming. + +"I want you to meet Mrs. Protheroe, Senator," said Truslow, rising, as +Rawson, after folding his writings with infinite care, placed them in +his breast pocket. + +"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am," Alonzo said in a +loud, firm voice, as he got to his feet, though the place grew vague +about him when the lady stretched a charming, slender, gloved hand to +him across Truslow's desk. He gave it several solemn shakes. + +"We shouldn't have disturbed you, perhaps?" she asked, smiling +radiantly upon him. "You were at some important work, I'm afraid." + +He met her eyes again, and their beauty and the thoughtful kindliness +of them fairly took his breath. "I am the chairman, ma'am," he +replied, swallowing, "of the committee on drains and dikes." + +"I knew it was something of great moment," she said gravely, "but I +was anxious to tell you that I was interested in your speech." + +A few minutes later, without knowing how he had got his hat and coat +from the cloak-room, Alonzo Rawson found himself walking slowly +through the marble vistas of the State house to the great outer doors +with the lady and Truslow. They were talking inconsequently of the +weather, and of various legislators, but Alonzo did not know it. He +vaguely formed replies to her questions and he hardly realized what +the questions were; he was too stirringly conscious of the rich quiet +of her voice and of the caress of the grey fur of her cloak when the +back of his hand touched it--rather accidentally--now and then, as +they moved on together. + +It was a cold, quick air to which they emerged and Alonzo, daring to +look at her, found that she had pulled the veil down over her face, +the colour of which, in the keen wind, was like that of June roses +seen through morning mists. At the curb a long, low, rakish black +motor-car was in waiting, the driver a mere swaddled cylinder of fur. + +Truslow, opening the little door of the tonneau, offered his hand to +the lady. "Come over to the club, Senator, and lunch with me," he +said. "Mrs. Protheroe won't mind dropping us there on her way." + +That was an eerie ride for Alonzo, whose feet were falling upon +strange places. His pulses jumped and his eyes swam with the tears of +unlawful speed, but his big ungloved hand tingled not with the cold so +much as with the touch of that divine grey fur upon his little finger. + +"You intend to make many speeches, Mr. Truslow tells me," he heard +the rich voice saying. + +"Yes ma'am," he summoned himself to answer. "I expect I will. Yes +ma'am." He paused, and then repeated, "Yes ma'am." + +She looked at him for a moment. "But you will do some work, too, won't +you?" she asked slowly. + +Her intention in this passed by Alonzo at the time. "Yes ma'am," he +answered. "The committee work interests me greatly, especially drains +and dikes." + +"I have heard," she said, as if searching his opinion, "that almost as +much is accomplished in the committee-rooms as on the floor? +There--and in the lobby and in the hotels and clubs?" + +"I don't have much to do with that!" he returned quickly. "I guess +none of them lobbyists will get much out of me! I even sent back all +their railroad tickets. They needn't come near me!" + +After a pause which she may have filled with unexpressed admiration, +she ventured, almost timidly: "Do you remember that it was said that +Napoleon once attributed the secret of his power over other men to one +quality?" + +"I am an admirer of Napoleon," returned the Senator from Stackpole. "I +admire all great men." + +"He said that he held men by his reserve." + +"It can be done," observed Alonzo, and stopped, feeling that it was +more reserved to add nothing to the sentence. + +"But I suppose that such a policy," she smiled upon him inquiringly, +"wouldn't have helped him much with women?" + +"No," he agreed immediately. "My opinion is that a man ought to tell a +_good_ woman everything. What is more sacred than--" + +The car, turning a corner much too quickly, performed a gymnastic +squirm about an unexpected street-car and the speech ended in a gasp, +as Alonzo, not of his own volition, half rose and pressed his cheek +closely against hers. Instantaneous as it was, his heart leaped +violently, but not with fear. Could all the things of his life that +had seemed beautiful have been compressed into one instant, it would +not have brought him even the suggestion of the wild shock of joy of +that one, wherein he knew the glamorous perfume of Mrs. Protheroe's +brown hair and felt her cold cheek firm against his, with only the +grey veil between. + +"I'm afraid this driver of mine will kill me some day," she said, +laughing and composedly straightening her hat. "Do you care for big +machines?" + +"Yes ma'am," he answered huskily. "I haven't been in many." + +"Then I'll take you again," said Mrs. Protheroe. "If you like I'll +come down to the State house and take you out for a run in the +country." + +"When?" said the lost young man, staring at her with his mouth +open. "When?" + +"Saturday afternoon if you like. I'll be there at two." + +They were in front of the club and Truslow had already jumped +out. Mrs. Protheroe gave him her hand and they exchanged a glance +significant of something more than a friendly goodbye. Indeed, one +might have hazarded that there was something almost businesslike about +it. The confused Senator from Stackpole, climbing out reluctantly, +observed it not, nor could he have understood, even if he had seen, +that delicate signal which passed between his two companions. + +When he was upon the ground Mrs. Protheroe extended her hand without +speaking, but her lips formed the word, "Saturday." Then she was +carried away quickly, while Alonzo, his heart hammering, stood looking +after her, born into a strange world, the touch of the grey fur upon +his little finger, the odour of her hair faintly about him, one side +of his face red, the other pale. + +"To-day is Wednesday," he said, half aloud. + +"Come on, Senator." Truslow took his arm and turned him toward the +club doors. + +The other looked upon his new friend vaguely. "Why, I forgot to thank +her for the ride," he exclaimed. + +"You'll have other chances, Senator," Truslow assured +him. "Mrs. Protheroe has a hobby for studying politics and she expects +to come down often. She has plenty of time--she's a widow, you know." + +"I hope you didn't think," responded Alonzo indignantly, "that I +thought she was a married woman!" + +After lunch they walked back to the State house together, Truslow +regarding his thoughtful companion with sidelong whimsicalness. Mrs. +Protheroe's question, suggestive of a difference between work and +speechmaking, had recurred to Alonzo, and he had determined to make +himself felt, off the floor as well as upon it. He set to this with a +fine energy, that afternoon, in his committee-room, and the Senator +from Stackpole knew his subject. On drains and dikes he had no +equal. He spoke convincingly to his colleagues of the committee upon +every bill that was before them, and he compelled their humblest +respect. He went earnestly at it, indeed, and sat very late that +night, in his room at a nearby boarding house, studying bills, trying +to keep his mind upon them and not to think of his strange morning and +of Saturday. Finally his neighbour in the next room, Senator Ezra +Trumbull, long abed, was awakened by his praying and groaned +slightly. Trumbull meant to speak to Rawson about his prayers, for +Trumbull was an early one to bed and they woke him every night. The +partition was flimsy and Alonzo addressed his Maker in the loud voice +of one accustomed to talking across wide out-of-door spaces. Trumbull +considered it especially unnecessary in the city; though, as a citizen +of a county which loved but little his neighbour's district, he felt +that in Stackpole there was good reason for a person to shout his +prayers at the top of his voice and even then have small chance to +carry through the distance. Still, it was a delicate matter to +mention and he put it off from day to day. + +Thursday passed slowly for Alonzo Rawson, nor was his voice lifted in +debate. There was little but routine; and the main interest of the +chamber was in the lobbying that was being done upon the "Sunday +Baseball Bill" which had passed to its third reading and would come up +for final disposition within a fortnight. This was the measure which +Alonzo had set his heart upon defeating. It was a simple enough bill: +it provided, in substance, that baseball might be played on Sunday by +professionals in the State capital, which was proud of its league +team. Naturally, it was denounced by clergymen, and deputations of +ministers and committees from women's religious societies were +constantly arriving at the State house to protest against its +passage. The Senator from Stackpole reassured all of these with whom +he talked, and was one of their staunchest allies and supporters. He +was active in leading the wavering among his colleagues, or even the +inimical, out to meet and face the deputations. It was in this +occupation that he was engaged, on Friday afternoon, when he received +a shock. + +A committee of women from a church society was waiting in the +corridor, and he had rounded-up a reluctant half-dozen senators and +led them forth to be interrogated as to their intentions regarding the +bill. The committee and the lawmakers soon distributed themselves into +little argumentative clumps, and Alonzo found himself in the centre of +these, with one of the ladies who had unfortunately--but, in her +enthusiasm, without misgivings--begun a reproachful appeal to an +advocate of the bill whose name was Goldstein. + +"Senator Goldstein," she exclaimed, "I could not believe it when I +heard that you were in favour of this measure! I have heard my husband +speak in the highest terms of your old father. May I ask you what +_he_ thinks of it? If you voted for the desecration of Sunday by +a low baseball game, could you dare go home and face that good old +man?" + +"Yes, madam," said Goldstein mildly; "we are _both_ Jews." + +A low laugh rippled out from near-by, and Alonzo, turning almost +violently, beheld his lady of the furs. She was leaning back against a +broad pilaster, her hands sweeping the same big coat behind her, her +face turned toward him, but her eyes, sparklingly delighted, resting +upon Goldstein. Under the broad fur hat she made a picture as +enraging, to Alonzo Rawson, as it was bewitching. She appeared not to +see him, to be quite unconscious of him--and he believed it. Truslow +and five or six members of both houses were about her, and they all +seemed to be bending eagerly toward her. Alonzo was furious with her. + +Her laugh lingered upon the air for a moment, then her glance swept +round the other way, omitting the Senator from Stackpole, who, +immediately putting into practice a reserve which would have +astonished Napoleon, swung about and quitted the deputation without a +word of farewell or explanation. He turned into the cloakroom and +paced the floor for three minutes with a malevolence which awed the +coloured attendants into not brushing his coat; but, when he returned +to the corridor, cautious inquiries addressed to the tobacconist, +elicited the information that the handsome lady with Senator Truslow +had departed. + +Truslow himself had not gone. He was lounging in his seat when Alonzo +returned and was genially talkative. The latter refrained from +replying in kind, not altogether out of reserve, but more because of a +dim suspicion (which rose within him, the third time Truslow called +him "Senator" in one sentence) that his first opinion of the young man +as a light-minded person might have been correct. + +There was no session the following afternoon, but Alonzo watched the +street from the windows of his committee-room, which overlooked the +splendid breadth of stone steps leading down from the great doors to +the pavement. There were some big bookcases in the room, whose glass +doors served as mirrors in which he more and more sternly regarded the +soft image of an entirely new grey satin tie, while the conviction +grew within him that (arguing from her behaviour of the previous day) +she would not come, and that the Stackpole girls were nobler by far at +heart than many who might wear a king's-ransom's-worth of jewels round +their throats at the opera-house in a large city. This sentiment was +heartily confirmed by the clock when it marked half-past two. He faced +the bookcase doors and struck his breast, his open hand falling across +the grey tie with tragic violence; after which, turning for the last +time to the windows, he uttered a loud exclamation and, laying hands +upon an ulster and a grey felt hat, each as new as the satin tie, ran +hurriedly from the room. The black automobile was waiting. + +"I thought it possible you might see me from a window," said +Mrs. Protheroe as he opened the little door. + +"I was just coming out," he returned, gasping for breath. "I +thought--from yesterday--you'd probably forgotten." + +"Why 'from yesterday'?" she asked. + +"I thought--I thought--" He faltered to a stop as the full, glorious +sense of her presence overcame him. She wore the same veil. + +"You thought I did not see you yesterday in the corridor?" + +"I thought you might have acted more--more--" + +"More cordially?" + +"Well," he said, looking down at his hands, "more like you knew we'd +been introduced." + +At that she sat silent, looking away from him, and he, daring a quick +glance at her, found that he might let his eyes remain upon her face. +That was a dangerous place for eyes to rest, yet Alonzo Rawson was +anxious for the risk. The car flew along the even asphalt on its way +to the country like a wild goose on a long slant of wind, and, with +his foolish fury melted inexplicably into honey, Alonzo looked at +her--and looked at her--till he would have given an arm for another +quick corner and a street-car to send his cheek against that veiled, +cold cheek of hers again. It was not until they reached the alternate +vacant lots and bleak Queen Anne cottages of the city's ragged edge +that she broke the silence. + +"You were talking to some one else," she said almost inaudibly. + +"Yes ma'am, Goldstein, but--" + +"Oh, no!" She turned toward him, lifting her hand. "You were quite the +lion among ladies." + +"I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Protheroe," he said, truthfully. + +"What were you talking to all those women about?" + +"It was about the 'Sunday Baseball Bill.'" + +"Ah! The bill you attacked in your speech, last Wednesday?" + +"Yes ma'am." + +"I hear you haven't made any speeches since then," she said +indifferently. + +"No ma'am," he answered gently. "I kind of got the idea that I'd +better lay low for a while at first, and get in some quiet hard work." + +"I understand. You are a man of intensely reserved nature." + +"With men," said Alonzo, "I am. With ladies I am not so much so. I +think a good woman ought to be told--" + +"But you are interested," she interrupted, "in defeating that bill?" + +"Yes ma'am," he returned. "It is an iniquitous measure." + +"Why?" + +"Mrs. Protheroe!" he exclaimed, taken aback. "I thought all the +ladies were against it. My own mother wrote to me from Stackpole that +she'd rather see me in my grave than votin' for such a bill, and I'd +rather see myself there!" + +"But are you sure that you understand it?" + +"I only know it desecrates the Sabbath. That's enough for me!" + +She leaned toward him and his breath came quickly. + +"No. You're wrong," she said, and rested the tips of her fingers upon +his sleeve. + +"I don't understand why--why you say that," he faltered. "It sounds +kind of--surprising to me--" + +"Listen," she said. "Perhaps Mr. Truslow told you that I am studying +such things. I do not want to be an idle woman; I want to be of use to +the world, even if it must be only in small ways." + +"I think that is a noble ambition!" he exclaimed. "I think all good +women ought--" + +"Wait," she interrupted gently. "Now, that bill is a worthy one, +though it astonishes you to hear me say so. Perhaps you don't +understand the conditions. Sunday is the labouring-man's only day of +recreation--and what recreation is he offered?" + +"He ought to go to church," said Alonzo promptly. + +"But the fact is that he doesn't--not often--not at _all_ in the +afternoon. Wouldn't it be well to give him some wholesome way of +employing his Sunday afternoons? This bill provides for just that, and +it keeps him away from drinking too, for it forbids the sale of liquor +on the grounds." + +"Yes, I know," said Alonzo plaintively. "But it ain't _right_! I +was raised to respect the Sabbath and--" + +"Ah, that's what you should do! You think _I_ could believe in +anything that wouldn't make it better and more sacred?" + +"Oh, no, ma'am!" he cried reproachfully. "It's only that I don't +see--" + +"I am telling you." She lifted her veil and let him have the full +dazzle of her beauty. "Do you know that many thousands of labouring +people spend their Sundays drinking and carousing about the low +country road-houses because the game is played at such places on +Sunday? They go there because they never get a chance to see it played +in the city. And don't you understand that there would be no Sunday +liquor trade, no working-men poisoning themselves every seventh day in +the low groggeries, as hundreds of them do now, if they had something +to see that would interest them?--something as wholesome and fine as +this sport would be, under the conditions of this bill; something to +keep them in the open air, something to bring a little gaiety into +their dull lives!" Her voice had grown louder and it shook a little, +with a rising emotion, though its sweetness was only the more +poignant. "Oh, my dear Senator," she cried, "don't you _see_ how +wrong you are? Don't you want to _help_ these poor people?" + +Her fingers, which had tightened upon his sleeve, relaxed and she +leaned back, pulling the veil down over her face as if wishing to +conceal from him that her lips trembled slightly; then resting her arm +upon the leather cushions, she turned her head away from him, staring +fixedly into the gaunt beech woods, lining the country road along +which they were now coursing. For a time she heard nothing from him, +and the only sound was the monotonous chug of the machine. + +"I suppose you think it rather shocking to hear a woman talking +practically of such common-place things," she said at last, in a cold +voice, just loud enough to be heard. + +"No ma'am," he said huskily. + +"Then what _do_ you think?" she cried, turning toward him again +with a quick imperious gesture. + +"I think I'd better go back to Stackpole," he answered very slowly, +"and resign my job. I don't see as I've got any business in the +Legislature." + +"I don't understand you." + +He shook his head mournfully. "It's a simple enough matter. I've +studied out a good many bills and talked 'em over and I've picked up +some influence and--" + +"I know you have." she interrupted eagerly. "Mr. Truslow says that +the members of your drains and dikes committee follow your vote on +every bill." + +"Yes ma'am," said Alonzo Rawson meekly, "but I expect they oughtn't +to. I've had a lesson this afternoon." + +"You mean to say--" + +"I mean that I didn't know what I was doing about that baseball +bill. I was just pig-headedly goin' ahead against it, not knowing +nothing about the conditions, and it took a lady to show me what they +were. I would have done a wrong thing if you hadn't stopped me." + +"You mean," she cried, her splendid eyes widening with excitement and +delight; "you mean that you---that you--" + +"I mean that I will vote for the bill!" He struck his clenched fist +upon his knee. "I come to the Legislature to do _right_!" + +"You will, ah, you _will_ do right in this!" Mrs. Protheroe +thrust up her veil again and her face was flushed and radiant with +triumph. "And you'll work, and you'll make a speech for the bill?" + +At this the righteous exaltation began rather abruptly to simmer down +in the soul of Alonzo Rawson. He saw the consequences of too violently +reversing, and knew how difficult they might be to face. + +"Well, not--not exactly," he said weakly. "I expect our best plan +would be for me to lay kind of low and not say any more about the bill +at all. Of course, I'll quit workin' against it; and on the roll-call +I'll edge up close to the clerk and say 'Aye' so that only him'll hear +me. That's done every day--and I--well, I don't just exactly like to +come out too publicly for it, after my speech and all I've done +against it." + +She looked at him sharply for a short second, and then offered him her +hand and said: "Let's shake hands _now_, on the vote. Think what +a triumph it is for me to know that I helped to show you the right." + +"Yes ma'am," he answered confusedly, too much occupied with shaking +her hand to know what he said. She spoke one word in an undertone to +the driver and the machine took the very shortest way back to the +city. + +After this excursion, several days passed, before Mrs. Protheroe came +to the State house again. Rawson was bending over the desk of Senator +Josephus Battle, the white-bearded leader of the opposition to the +"Sunday Baseball Bill," and was explaining to him the intricacies of a +certain drainage measure, when Battle, whose attention had wandered, +plucked his sleeve and whispered: + +"If you want to see a mighty pretty woman that's doin' no good here, +look behind you, over there in the chair by the big fireplace at the +back of the room." + +Alonzo looked. + +It was she whose counterpart had been in his dream's eye every moment +of the dragging days which had been vacant of her living presence. A +number of his colleagues were hanging over her almost idiotically; her +face was gay and her voice came to his ears, as he turned, with the +accent of her cadenced laughter running through her talk like a chime +of tiny bells flitting through a strain of music. + +"This is the third time she's been here," said Battle, rubbing +his beard the wrong way. "She's lobbyin' for that infernal +Sabbath-Desecration bill, but we'll beat her, my son." + +"Have you made her acquaintance, Senator?" asked Alonzo stiffly. + +"No, sir, and I don't want to. But I knew her father--the slickest old +beat and the smoothest talker that ever waltzed up the pike. She +married rich; her husband left her a lot of real estate around here, +but she spends most of her time away. Whatever struck her to come down +and lobby for that bill I don't know _yet_--but I will! Truslow's +helping her to help himself; he's got stock in the company that runs +the baseball team, but what she's up to--well, I'll bet there's a +nigger in the woodpile _some_where!" + +"I expect there's a lot of talk like that!" said Alonzo, red with +anger, and taking up his papers abruptly. + +"Yes, _sir_!" said Battle emphatically, utterly misunderstanding +the other's tone and manner. "Don't you worry, my son. We'll kill +that venomous bill right here in this chamber! We'll kill it so dead +that it won't make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some +others'll tend to _that_! Let her work that pretty face and those +eyes of hers all she wants to! I'm keepin' a little lookout, too--and +I'll--" + +He broke off, for the angry and perturbed Alonzo had left him and gone +to his own desk. Battle, slightly surprised, rubbed his beard the +wrong way and sauntered out to the lobby to muse over a cigar. Alonzo, +loathing Battle with a great loathing, formed bitter phrases +concerning that vicious-minded old gentleman, while for a moment he +affected to be setting his desk in order. Then he walked slowly up the +aisle, conscious of a roaring in his ears (though not aware how red +they were) as he approached the semicircle about her. + +He paused within three feet of her in a sudden panic of timidity, and +then, to his consternation, she looked him squarely in the face, over +the shoulders of two of the group, and the only sign of recognition +that she exhibited was a slight frown of unmistakable repulsion, which +appeared between her handsome eyebrows. + +It was very swift; only Alonzo saw it; the others had no eyes for +anything but her, and were not aware of his presence behind them, for +she did not even pause in what she was saying. + +Alonzo walked slowly away with the wormwood in his heart. He had not +grown up among the young people of Stackpole without similar +experiences, but it had been his youthful boast that no girl had ever +"stopped speaking" to him without reason, or "cut a dance" with him +and afterward found opportunity to repeat the indignity. + +"What have I _done_ to _her?_" was perhaps the hottest cry +of his soul, for the mystery was as great as the sting of it. + +It was no balm upon that sting to see her pass him at the top of the +outer steps, half an hour later, on the arm of that one of his +colleagues who had been called the "best-dressed man in the +Legislature." She swept by him without a sign, laughing that same +laugh at some sally of her escort, and they got into the black +automobile together and were whirled away and out of sight by the +impassive bundle of furs that manipulated the wheel. + +For the rest of that afternoon and the whole of that night no man, +woman, or child heard the voice of Alonzo Rawson, for he spoke to +none. He came not to the evening meal, nor was he seen by any who had +his acquaintance. He entered his room at about midnight, and Trumbull +was awakened by his neighbour's overturning a chair. No match was +struck, however, and Trumbull was relieved to think that the Senator +from Stackpole intended going directly to bed without troubling to +light the gas, and that his prayers would soon be over. Such was not +the case, for no other sound came from the room, nor were Alonzo's +prayers uttered that night, though the unhappy statesman in the next +apartment could not get to sleep for several hours on account of his +nervous expectancy of them. + +After this, as the day approached upon which hung the fate of the bill +which Mr. Josephus Battle was fighting, Mrs. Protheroe came to the +Senate Chamber nearly every morning and afternoon. Not once did she +appear to be conscious of Alonzo Rawson's presence, nor once did he +allow his eyes to delay upon her, though it cannot be truthfully said +that he did not always know when she came, when she left, and with +whom she stood or sat or talked. He evaded all mention or discussion +of the bill or of Mrs. Protheroe; avoided Truslow (who, strangely +enough, was avoiding _him_) and, spending upon drains and dikes +all the energy that he could manage to concentrate, burned the +midnight oil and rubbed salt into his wounds to such marked effect +that by the evening of the Governor's Reception--upon the morning +following which the mooted bill was to come up--he offered an +impression so haggard and worn that an actor might have studied him +for a makeup as a young statesman going into a decline. + +Nevertheless, he dressed with great care and bitterness, and placed +the fragrant blossom of a geranium--taken from a plant belonging to +his landlady--in the lapel of his long coat before he set out. + +And yet, when he came down the Governor's broad stairs, and wandered +through the big rooms, with the glare of lights above him and the +shouting of the guests ringing in his ears, a sense of emptiness beset +him; the crowded place seemed vacant and without meaning. Even the +noise sounded hollow and remote--and why had he bothered about the +geranium? He hated her and would never look at her again--but why was +she not there? + +By-and-by, he found himself standing against a wall, where he had been +pushed by the press of people. He was wondering drearily what he was +to do with a clean plate and a napkin which a courteous negro had +handed him, half-an-hour earlier, when he felt a quick jerk at his +sleeve. It was Truslow, who had worked his way along the wall and who +now, standing on tiptoe, spoke rapidly but cautiously, close to his +ear. + +"Senator, be quick," he said sharply, at the same time alert to see +that they were unobserved. "Mrs. Protheroe wants to speak to you at +once. You'll find her near the big palms under the stairway in the +hall." + +He was gone--he had wormed his way half across the room--before the +other, in his simple amazement could answer. When Alonzo at last found +a word, it was only a monosyllable, which, with his accompanying +action, left a matron of years, who was at that moment being pressed +fondly to his side, in a state of mind almost as dumbfounded as his +own. "_Here!_" was all he said as he pressed the plate and napkin +into her hand and departed forcibly for the hall, leaving a +spectacular wreckage of trains behind him. + +The upward flight of the stairway left a space underneath, upon which, +as it was screened (save for a narrow entrance) by a thicket of palms, +the crowd had not encroached. Here were placed a divan and a couple of +chairs; there was shade from the glare of gas, and the light was dim +and cool. Mrs. Protheroe had risen from the divan when Alonzo entered +this grotto, and stood waiting for him. + +He stopped in the green entrance-way with a quick exclamation. + +She did not seem the same woman who had put such slights upon him, +this tall, white vision of silk, with the summery scarf falling from +her shoulders. His great wrath melted at the sight of her; the pain of +his racked pride, which had been so hot in his breast, gave way to a +species of fear. She seemed not a human being, but a bright spirit of +beauty and goodness who stood before him, extending two fine arms to +him in long, white gloves. + +She left him to his trance for a moment, then seized both his hands in +hers and cried to him in her rapturous, low voice: "Ah, Senator, you +have come! I _knew_ you understood!" + +"Yes ma'am," he whispered chokily. + +She drew him to one of the chairs and sank gracefully down upon the +divan near him. + +"Mr. Truslow was so afraid you wouldn't," she went on rapidly, "but I +was sure. You see I didn't want anybody to suspect that I had any +influence with you. I didn't want them to know, even, that I'd talked +to you. It all came to me after the first day that we met. You see +I've believed in you, in your power and in your reserve, from the +first. I want all that you do to seem to come from yourself and not +from me or any one else. Oh, I _believe_ in great, strong men who +stand upon their own feet and conquer the world for themselves! That's +_your_ way, Senator Rawson. So, you see, as they think I'm +lobbying for the bill, I wanted them to believe that your speech for +it to-morrow comes from your own great, strong mind and heart and your +sense of right, and not from any suggestion of mine." + +"My speech!" he stammered. + +"Oh, I know," she cried; "I know you think I don't believe much in +speeches, and I don't ordinarily, but a few, simple, straightforward +and vigorous words from you, to-morrow, may carry the bill through. +You've made such _progress_, you've been so _reserved_, that you'll +carry great weight--and there are three votes of the drains and dikes +that are against us now, but will follow yours absolutely. Do you +think I would have 'cut' _you_ if it hadn't been _best_?" + +"But I--" + +"Oh, I know you didn't actually promise me to speak, that day. But I +knew you would when the time came! I knew that a man of power goes +over _all_ obstacles, once his sense of _right_ is aroused! +I _knew_--I never doubted it, that once _you_ felt a thing +to be right you would strike for it, with all your great strength--at +all costs--at all--" + +"I can't--I--I--can't!" he whispered nervously. "Don't you see--don't +you see--I--" + +She leaned toward him, lifting her face close to his. She was so near +him that the faint odour of her hair came to him again, and once more +the unfortunate Senator from Stackpole risked a meeting of his eyes +with hers, and saw the light shining far down in their depths. + +At this moment the shadow of a portly man who was stroking his beard +the wrong way projected itself upon them from the narrow, green +entrance to the grotto. Neither of them perceived it. + +Senator Josephus Battle passed on, but when Alonzo Rawson emerged, a +few moments later, he was pledged to utter a few simple, +straightforward and vigorous words in favour of the bill. And--let the +shame fall upon the head of the scribe who tells it--he had kissed +Mrs. Protheroe! + +The fight upon the "Sunday Baseball Bill," the next morning, was the +warmest of that part of the session, though for a while the reporters +were disappointed. They were waiting for Senator Battle, who was +famous among them for the vituperative vigour of his attacks and for +the kind of personalities which made valuable copy. And yet, until the +debate was almost over, he contented himself with going quietly up and +down the aisles, whispering to the occupants of the desks, and writing +and sending a multitude of notes to his colleagues. Meanwhile, the +orators upon both sides harangued their fellows, the lobby, the +unpolitical audience, and the patient presiding officer to no effect, +so far as votes went. The general impression was that the bill would +pass. + +Alonzo Rawson sat, bent over his desk, his eyes fixed with gentle +steadiness upon Mrs. Protheroe, who occupied the chair wherein he had +first seen her. A senator of the opposition was finishing his +denunciation, when she turned and nodded almost imperceptibly to the +young man. + +He gave her one last look of pathetic tenderness and rose. + +"The Senator from Stackpole!" + +"I want," Alonzo began, in his big voice: "I want to say a few simple, +straightforward but vigorous words about this bill. You may remember I +spoke against it on its second reading--" + +"You did _that_!" shouted Senator Battle suddenly. + +"I want to say now," the Senator from Stackpole continued, "that at +that time I hadn't studied the subject sufficiently. I didn't know the +conditions of the case, nor the facts, but since then a great light +has broke in upon me--" + +"I should say it had! I saw it break!" was Senator Battle's second +violent interruption. + +When order was restored, Alonzo, who had become very pale, summoned +his voice again. "I think we'd ought to take into consideration that +Sunday is the working-man's only day of recreation and not drive him +into low groggeries, but give him a chance in the open air to indulge +his love of wholesome sport--" + +"Such as the ancient Romans enjoyed!" interposed Battle vindictively. + +"No, sir!" Alonzo wheeled upon him, stung to the quick. "Such a sport +as free-born Americans and _only_ free-born Americans can play in +this, wide world--the American game of baseball, in which no other +nation of the _Earth_ is our equal!" + +This was a point scored and the cheering lasted two minutes. Then the +orator resumed: + +"I say: 'Give the working-man a chance!' Is his life a happy one? You +know it ain't! Give him his one day. _Don't_ spoil it for him with +your laws--he's only got one! I'm not goin' to take up any more of +your time, but if there's anybody here who thinks my well-considered +opinion worth following I say: '_Vote for this bill_.' It is right and +virtuous and ennobling, and it ought to be passed! I say: '_Vote for +it_.'" + +The reporters decided that the Senator from Stackpole had "wakened +things up." The gavel rapped a long time before the chamber quieted +down, and when it did, Josephus Battle was on his feet and had +obtained the recognition of the chair. + +"I wish to say, right here," he began, with a rasping leisureliness, +"that I hope no member of this honoured body will take my remarks as +personal or unparliamentary--_but_"--he raised a big forefinger and +shook it with menace at the presiding officer, at the same time +suddenly lifting his voice to an unprintable shriek--"I say to _you_, +sir, that the song of the siren has been _heard_ in the land, and the +call of Delilah has been answered! When the Senator from Stackpole +rose in this chamber, less than three weeks ago, and denounced this +iniquitous measure, I heard him with pleasure--we _all_ heard him with +pleasure--_and_ respect! In spite of his youth and the poor quality of +his expression, _we_ listened to him. _We_ knew he was sencere! What +has caused the change in him? What _has_, I ask? I shall not tell you, +upon this floor, but I've taken mighty good care to let most of you +know, during the morning, either by word of mouth or by _note_ of +hand! Especially those of you of the drains and dikes and others who +might follow this young Samson, whose locks have been shore! _I've_ +told you all about that, and more--_I've_ told you the _inside_ +history of some _facts_ about the bill that I will not make public, +because I am too confident of our strength to defeat this devilish +measure, and prefer to let our vote speak our opinion of it! Let me +not detain you longer. _I_ thank you!" + +Long before he had finished, the Senator from Stackpole was being held +down in his chair by Truslow and several senators whose seats were +adjacent; and the vote was taken amid an uproar of shouting and +confusion. When the clerk managed to proclaim the result over all +other noises, the bill was shown to be defeated and "killed," by a +majority of five votes. + +A few minutes later, Alonzo Rawson, his neckwear disordered and his +face white with rage, stumbled out of the great doors upon the trail +of Battle, who had quietly hurried away to his hotel for lunch as soon +as he had voted. + +The black automobile was vanishing round a corner. Truslow stood upon +the edge of the pavement staring after it ruefully: + +"Where is Mrs. Protheroe?" gasped the Senator from Stackpole. + +"She's gone," said the other. + +"Gone where?" + +"Gone back to Paris. She sails day after tomorrow. She just had time +enough to catch her train for New York after waiting to hear how the +vote went. She told me to tell you good-bye, and that she was +sorry. Don't stare at me Rawson! I guess we're in the same +boat!--Where are you going?" he finished abruptly. + +Alonzo swung by him and started across the street. "To find Battle!" +the hoarse answer came back. + +The conquering Josephus was leaning meditatively upon the counter of +the cigar-stand of his hotel when Alonzo found him. He took one look +at the latter's face and backed to the wall, tightening his grasp upon +the heavy-headed ebony cane it was his habit to carry, a habit upon +which he now congratulated himself. + +But his precautions were needless. Alonzo stopped out of reaching +distance. + +"You tell me," he said in a breaking voice; "you tell me what you +meant about Delilah and sirens and Samsons and inside facts! You tell +me!" + +"You wild ass of the prairies," said Battle, "I saw you last night +behind them pa'ms! But don't you think I told it--or ever will! I just +passed the word around that she'd argued you into her way of thinkin', +same as she had a good many others. And as for the rest of it, I +found out where the mgger in the woodpile was, and I handed that out, +too. Don't you take it hard, my son, but I told you her husband left +her a good deal of land around here. She owns the ground that they use +for the baseball park, and her lease would be worth considerable more +if they could have got the right to play on Sundays!" + +Senator Trumbull sat up straight, in bed, that night, and, for the +first time during his martyrdom, listened with no impatience to the +prayer which fell upon his ears. + +"O, Lord Almighty," through the flimsy partition came the voice of +Alonzo Rawson, quaveringly, but with growing strength: "Aid Thou me to +see my way more clear! I find it hard to tell right from wrong, and I +find myself beset with tangled wires. O God, I feel that I am +ignorant, and fall into many devices. These are strange paths wherein +Thou hast set my feet, but I feel that through Thy help, and through +great anguish, I am learning!" + + + + +GREAT MEN'S SONS + + +Mme. Bernhardt and M. Coquelin were playing "L'Aiglon." Toward the end +of the second act people began to slide down in their seats, shift +their elbows, or casually rub their eyes; by the close of the third, +most of the taller gentlemen were sitting on the small of their backs +with their knees as high as decorum permitted, and many were openly +coughing; but when the fourth came to an end, active resistance +ceased, hopelessness prevailed, the attitudes were those of the +stricken field, and the over-crowded house was like a college chapel +during an interminable compulsory lecture. Here and there--but most +rarely--one saw an eager woman with bright eyes, head bent forward and +body spellbound, still enchantedly following the course of the play. +Between the acts the orchestra pattered ragtime and inanities from the +new comic operas, while the audience in general took some heart. When +the play was over, we were all enthusiastic; though our admiration, +however vehement in the words employed to express it, was somewhat +subdued as to the accompanying manner, which consisted, mainly, of +sighs and resigned murmurs. In the lobby a thin old man with a +grizzled chin-beard dropped his hand lightly on my shoulder, and +greeted me in a tone of plaintive inquiry: + +"Well, son?" + +Turning, I recognized a patron of my early youth, in whose woodshed I +had smoked my first cigar, an old friend whom I had not seen for +years; and to find him there, with his long, dust-coloured coat, his +black string tie and rusty hat brushed on every side by opera cloaks +and feathers, was a rich surprise, warming the cockles of my +heart. His name is Tom Martin; he lives in a small country town, where +he commands the trade in Dry Goods and Men's Clothing; his speech is +pitched in a high key, is very slow, sometimes whines faintly; and he +always calls me "Son." + +"What in the world!" I exclaimed, as we shook hands. + +"Well," he drawled, "I dunno why I shouldn't be as meetropolitan as +anybody. I come over on the afternoon accommodation for the show. +Let's you and me make a night of it. What say, son?" + +"What did you think of the play?" I asked, as we turned up the street +toward the club. + +"I think they done it about as well as they could." + +"That all?" + +"Well," he rejoined with solemnity, "there was a heap _of_ it, +wasn't there!" + +We talked of other things, then, until such time as we found ourselves +seated by a small table at the club, old Tom somewhat uneasily +regarding a twisted cigar he was smoking and plainly confounded by the +"carbonated" syphon, for which, indeed, he had no use in the world. +We had been joined by little Fiderson, the youngest member of the +club, whose whole nervous person jerkily sparkled "L'Aiglon" +enthusiasm. + +"Such an evening!" he cried, in his little spiky voice. "Mr. Martin, +it does one good to realize that our country towns are sending +representatives to us when we have such things; that they wish to get +in touch with what is greatest in Art. They should do it often. To +think that a journey of only seventy miles brings into your life the +magnificence of Rostand's point of view made living fire by the genius +of a Bernhardt and a Coquelin!" + +"Yes," said Mr. Martin, with a curious helplessness, after an ensuing +pause, which I refused to break, "yes, sir, they seemed to be doing it +about as well as they could." + +Fiderson gasped slightly. "It was magnificent! Those two great +artists! But over all the play--the play! Romance new-born; poesy +marching with victorious banners; a great spirit breathing! Like +'Cyrano'--the birth-mark of immortality on this work!" + +There was another pause, after which old Tom turned slowly to me, and +said: "Homer Tibbs's opened up a cigar-stand at the deepo. Carries a +line of candy, magazines, and fruit, too. Home's a hustler." + +Fiderson passed his hand through his hair. + +"That death scene!" he exclaimed at me, giving Martin up as a log +accidentally rolled in from the woods. "I thought that after 'Wagram' +I could feel nothing more; emotion was exhausted; but then came that +magnificent death! It was tragedy made ecstatic; pathos made into +music; the grandeur of a gentle spirit, conquered physically but +morally unconquerable! Goethe's 'More Light' outshone!" + +Old Tom's eyes followed the smoke of his perplexing cigar along its +heavy strata in the still air of the room, as he inquired if I +remembered Orlando T. Bickner's boy, Mel. I had never heard of him, +and said so. + +"No, I expect not," rejoined Martin. "Prob'ly you wouldn't; Bickner +was Governor along in _my_ early days, and I reckon he ain't +hardly more than jest a name to you two. But _we_ kind of thought +he was the biggest man this country had ever seen, or was goin' to +see, and he _was_ a big man. He made one president, and could +have been it himself, instead, if he'd be'n willing to do a kind of +underhand trick, but I expect without it he was about as big a man as +anybody'd care to be; Governor, Senator, Secretary of State--and just +owned his party! And, my law!--the whole earth bowin' down to him; +torchlight processions and sky-rockets when he come home in the night; +bands and cannon if his train got in, daytime; home-folks so proud of +him they couldn't see; everybody's hat off; and all the most important +men in the country following at his heels--a country, too, that'd put +up consider'ble of a comparison with everything Napoleon had when he'd +licked 'em all, over there. + +"Of course he had enemies, and, of course, year by year, they got to +be more of 'em, and they finally downed him for good; and like other +public men so fixed, he didn't live long after that. He had a son, +Melville, mighty likable young fellow, studyin' law when his paw +died. I was livin' in their town then, and I knowed Mel Bickner pretty +well; he was consider'ble of a man. + +"I don't know as I ever heard him speak of that's bein' the reason, +but I expect it may've be'n partly in the hope of carryin' out some of +his paw's notions, Mel tried hard to git into politics; but the old +man's local enemies jumped on every move he made, and his friends +wouldn't help any; you can't tell why, except that it generally +_is_ thataway. Folks always like to laugh at a great man's son +and say _he_ can't amount to anything. Of course that comes +partly from fellows like that ornery little cuss we saw to-night, +thinkin' they're a good deal because somebody else done something, and +the somebody else happened to be their paw; and the women run after +'em, and they git low-down like he was, and so on." + +"Mr. Martin," interrupted Fiderson, with indignation, "will you kindly +inform me in what way 'L'Aiglon' was 'low-down'?" + +"Well, sir, didn't that huntin'-lodge appointment kind of put you in +mind of a camp-meetin' scandal?" returned old Tom quietly. "It did +me." + +"But--" + +"Well, sir, I can't say as I understood the French of it, but I read +the book in English before I come up, and it seemed to me he was +pretty much of a low-down boy; yet I wanted to see how they'd make him +out; hearin' it was, thought, the country over, to be such a great +_play_; though to tell the truth all I could tell about +_that_ was that every line seemed to end in 'awze'; and 't they +all talked in rhyme, and it did strike me as kind of enervatin' to be +expected to believe that people could keep it up that long; and that +it wasn't only the boy that never quit on the subject of himself and +his folks, but pretty near any of 'em, if he'd git the chanst, did the +same thing, so't almost I sort of wondered if Rostand wasn't that +kind." + +"Go on with Melville Bickner," said I. + +"What do you expect," retorted Mr. Martin with a vindictive gleam in +his eye, "when you give a man one of these here spiral staircase +cigars? Old Peter himself couldn't keep straight along one subject if +he tackled a cigar like this. Well, sir, I always thought Mel had a +mighty mean time of it. He had to take care of his mother and two +sisters, his little brother and an aunt that lived with them; and +there was mighty little to do it on; big men don't usually leave much +but debts, and in this country, of course, a man can't eat and spend +long on his paw's reputation, like that little Dook of Reishtod--" + +"I beg to tell you, Mr. Martin--" Fiderson began hotly. + +Martin waved his bony hand soothingly. + +"Oh, I know; they was money in his mother's family, and they give him +his vittles and clothes, and plenty, too. _His_ paw didn't leave +much either--though he'd stole more than Boss Tweed. I suppose--and, +just lookin' at things from the point of what they'd _earned_, +his maw's folks had stole a good deal, too; or else you can say they +were a kind of public charity; old Metternich, by what I can learn, +bein' the only one in the whole possetucky of 'em that really +_did_ anything to deserve his salary--" Mr. Martin broke off +suddenly, observing that I was about to speak, and continued: + +"Mel didn't git much law practice, jest about enough to keep the house +goin' and pay taxes. He kept workin' for the party jest the same and +jest as cheerfully as if it didn't turn him down hard every time he +tried to git anything for himself. They lived some ways out from town; +and he sold the horses to keep the little brother in school, one +winter, and used to walk in to his office and out again, twice a day, +over the worst roads in the State, rain or shine, snow, sleet, or +wind, without any overcoat; and he got kind of a skimpy, froze-up look +to him that lasted clean through summer. He worked like a mule, that +boy did, jest barely makin' ends meet. He had to quit runnin' with the +girls and goin' to parties and everything like that; and I expect it +may have been some hard to do; for if they ever _was_ a boy loved +to dance and be gay, and up to anything in the line of fun and +junketin' round, it was Mel Bickner. He had a laugh I can hear +yet--made you feel friendly to everybody you saw; feel like stoppin' +the next man you met and shakin' hands and havin' a joke with him. + +"Mel was engaged to Jane Grandis when Governor Bickner died. He had to +go and tell her to take somebody else--it was the only thing to do. He +couldn't give Jane anything but his poverty, and she wasn't used to +it. They say she offered to come to him anyway, but he wouldn't hear +of it, and no more would he let her wait for him; told her she mustn't +grow into an old maid, lonely, and still waitin' for the lightning to +strike him--that is, his luck to come; and actually advised her to +take 'Gene Callender, who'd be'n pressin' pretty close to Mel for her +before the engagement. The boy didn't talk to her this way with tears +in his eyes and mourning and groaning. No, sir! It was done +_cheerful_; and so much so that Jane never _was_ quite sure +afterwerds whether Mel wasn't kind of glad to git rid of her or +not. Fact is, they say she quit speakin' to him. Mel _knowed_; a +state of puzzlement or even a good _mad's_ a mighty sight better +than bein' all harrowed up and grief-stricken. And he never give +her--nor any one else--a chanst to be sorry for him. His maw was the +only one heard him walk the floor nights, and after he found, out she +could hear him he walked in his socks. + +"Yes, sir! Meet that boy on the street, or go up in his office, you'd +think that he was the gayest feller in town. I tell you there wasn't +anything pathetic about Mel Bickner! He didn't believe in it. And at +home he had a funny story every evening of the world, about something +'d happened during the day; and 'd whistle to the guitar, or git his +maw into a game of cards with his aunt and the girls. Law! that boy +didn't believe in no house of mourning. He'd be up at four in the +morning, hoein' up their old garden; raised garden-truck for their +table, sparrow-grass and sweet corn--yes, and roses, too; always had +the house full of roses in June-time; never _was_ a house +sweeter-smellin' to go into. + +"Mel was what I call a useful citizen. As I said, I knowed him well. I +don't recollect I ever heard him speak of himself, nor yet of his +father but once--for _that_, I reckon, he jest couldn't; and for +himself; I don't believe it ever occurred to him. + +"And he was a _smart_ boy. Now, you take it, all in all, a boy +can't be as smart as Mel was, and work as hard as he did, and not +_git_ somewhere--in this State, anyway! And so, about the fifth +year, things took a sudden change for him; his father's enemies and +his own friends, both, had to jest about own they was beat. The crowd +that had been running the conventions and keepin' their own men in all +the offices, had got to be pretty unpopular, and they had the sense to +see that they'd have to branch out and connect up with some mighty +good men, jest to keep the party in power. Well, sir, Mel had got to +be about the most popular and respected man in the county. Then one +day I met him on the street; he was on his way to buy an overcoat, and +he was lookin' skimpier and more froze-up and genialer than ever. It +was March, and up to jest that time things had be'n hardest of all for +Mel. I walked around to the store with him, and he was mighty happy; +goin' to send his mother north in the summer, and the girls were goin' +to have a party, and Bob, his little brother, could go to the best +school in the country in the fall. Things had come his way at last, +and that very morning the crowd had called him in and told him they +were goin' to run him for county clerk. + +"Well, sir, the next evening I heard Mel was sick. Seein' him only the +day before on the street, out and well, I didn't think anything of +it--thought prob'ly a cold or something like that; but in the morning +I heard the doctor said he was likely to die. Of course I couldn't +hardly believe it; thing like that never _does_ seem possible, +but they all said it was true, and there wasn't anybody on the street +that day that didn't look blue or talked about anything else. Nobody +seemed to know what was the matter with him exactly, and I reckon the +doctor did jest the wrong thing for it. Near as I can make out, it was +what they call appendicitis nowadays, and had come on him in the +night. + +"Along in the afternoon I went out there to see if there was anything +I could do. You know what a house in that condition is like. Old Fes +Bainbridge, who was some sort of a relation, and me sat on the stairs +together outside Mel's room. We could hear his voice, clear and +strong and hearty as ever. He was out of pain; and he had to die with +the full flush of health and strength on him, and he knowed it. Not +_wantin'_ to go, through the waste and wear of a long sickness, +but with all the ties of life clinchin' him here, and success jest +comin.' We heard him speak of us, amongst others, old Fes and me; +wanted 'em to be sure not forget to tell me to remember to vote for +Fillmore if the ground-hog saw his shadow election year, which was an +old joke I always had with him. He was awful worried about his mother, +though he tried not to show it, and when the minister wanted to pray +fer him, we heard him say, 'No, sir, you pray fer my mamma!' That was +the only thing that was different from his usual way of speakin'; he +called his mother 'mamma, and he wouldn't let 'em pray for him +neither; not once; all the time he could spare for their prayin' was +put in for her. + +"He called in old Fes to tell him all about his life insurance. He'd +carried a heavy load of it, and it was all paid up; and the sweat it +must have took to do it you'd hardly like to think about. He give +directions about everything as careful and painstaking as any day of +his life. He asked to speak to Fes alone a minute, and later I helped +Fes do what he told him. 'Cousin Fes,' he says, 'it's bad weather, but +I expect mother'll want all the flowers taken out to the cemetery and +you better let her have her way. But there wouldn't be any good of +their stayin' there; snowed on, like as not. I wish you'd wait till +after she's come away, and git a wagon and take 'em in to the +hospital. You can fix up the anchors and so forth so they won't look +like funeral flowers.' + +"About an hour later his mother broke out with a scream, sobbin' and +cryin', and he tried to quiet her by tellin' over one of their +old-time family funny stories; it made her worse, so he quit. 'Oh, +Mel,' she says, 'you'll be with your father--' + +"I don't know as Mel had much of a belief in a hereafter; certainly he +wasn't a great churchgoer. 'Well,' he says, mighty slow, but hearty +and smiling, too, 'if I see father, I--guess--I'll--be--pretty-- +well--fixed!' Then he jest lay still, tryin' to quiet her and pettin' +her head. And so--that's the way he went." + +Fiderson made one of his impatient little gestures, but Mr. Martin +drowned his first words with a loud fit of coughing. + +"Well, sir," he observed, "I read that 'Leg-long' book down home; and +I heard two or three countries, and especially ourn, had gone middling +crazy over it; it seemed kind of funny that _we_ should, too, so I +thought I better come up and see it for myself, how it _was_, on the +stage, where you could _look_ at it; and--I expect they done it as +well as they could. But when that little boy, that'd always had his +board and clothes and education free, saw that he'd jest about talked +himself to death, and called for the press notices about his +christening to be read to him to soothe his last spasms--why, I wasn't +overly put in mind of Melville Bickner." + +Mr. Martin's train left for Plattsville at two in the morning. Little +Fiderson and I escorted him to the station. As the old fellow waved us +good-bye from within the gates, Fiderson turned and said: + +"Just the type of sodden-headed old pioneer that you couldn't hope to +make understand a beautiful thing like 'L'Aiglon' in a thousand +years. I thought it better not to try, didn't you?" + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Arena, by Booth Tarkington + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + +***** This file should be named 8740.txt or 8740.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/7/4/8740/ + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: In the Arena + Stories of Political Life + +Author: Booth Tarkington + + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8740] +This file was first posted on August 6, 2003 +Last Updated: March 3, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + + + + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, David Widger, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + IN THE ARENA + </h1> + <h3> + Stories of Political Life + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Booth Tarkington + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + TO MY FATHER + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> + <!-- IMG --></a> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> + <img src="images/frontis.jpg" + alt="The Conversion of the Senator from Stackpole width" /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> “IN THE FIRST PLACE” </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PART"> <b>PART I</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> BOSS GORGETT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE ALIENS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE NEED OF MONEY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> HECTOR </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PART2"> <b>PART II</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> MRS. PROTHEROE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> GREAT MEN'S SONS </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + “IN THE FIRST PLACE” + </h2> + <p> + The old-timer, a lean, retired pantaloon, sitting with loosely slippered + feet close to the fire, thus gave of his wisdom to the questioning + student: + </p> + <p> + “Looking back upon it all, what we most need in politics is more good men. + Thousands of good men <i>are</i> in; and they need the others who are not + in. More would come if they knew how <i>much</i> they are needed. The + dilettantes of the clubs who have so easily abused me, for instance, all + my life, for being a ward-worker, these and those other reformers who + write papers about national corruption when they don't know how their own + wards are swung, probably aren't so useful as they might be. The exquisite + who says that politics is 'too dirty a business for a gentleman to meddle + with' is like the woman who lived in the parlour and complained that the + rest of her family kept the other rooms so dirty that she never went into + them. + </p> + <p> + “There are many thousands of young men belonging to what is for some + reason called the 'best class,' who would like to be 'in politics' if they + could begin high enough up—as ambassadors, for instance. That is, + they would like the country to do something for them, though they wouldn't + put it that way. A young man of this sort doesn't know how much he'd miss + if his wishes were gratified. For my part, I'd hate not to have begun at + the beginning of the game. + </p> + <p> + “I speak of it as a game,” the old gentleman went on, “and in some ways it + is. That's where the fun of it comes in. Yet, there are times when it + looks to me more like a series of combats, hand-to-hand fights for life, + and fierce struggles between men and strange powers. You buy your + newspaper and that's your ticket to the amphitheatre. But the distance is + hazy and far; there are clouds of dust and you can't see clearly. To make + out just what is going on you ought to get down in the arena yourself. + Once you're in it, the view you'll have and the fighting that will come + your way will more than repay you. Still, I don't think we ought to go in + with the idea of being repaid. + </p> + <p> + “It seems an odd thing to me that so many men feel they haven't any time + for politics; can't put in even a little, trying to see how their cities + (let alone their states and the country) are run. When we have a war, look + at the millions of volunteers that lay down everything and answer the call + of the country. Well, in politics, the country needs <i>all</i> the men + who have any patriotism—<i>not</i> to be seeking office, but to + watch and to understand what is going on. It doesn't take a great deal of + time; you can attend to your business and do that much, too. When wrong + things are going on and all the good men understand them, that is all that + is needed. The wrong things stop going on.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PART" id="link2H_PART"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART I + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOSS GORGETT + </h2> + <p> + I guess I've been what you might call kind of an assistant boss pretty + much all my life; at least, ever since I could vote; and I was something + of a ward-heeler even before that. I don't suppose there's any way a man + of my disposition could have put in his time to less advantage and greater + cost to himself. I've never got a thing by it, all these years, not a job, + not a penny—nothing but injury to my business and trouble with my + wife. <i>She</i> begins going for me, first of every campaign. + </p> + <p> + Yet I just can't seem to keep out of it. It takes a hold on a man that I + never could get away from; and when I reach my second childhood and the + boys have turned me out, I reckon I'll potter along trying to look knowing + and secretive, like the rest of the has-beens, letting on as if I still + had a place inside. Lord, if I'd put in the energy at my business that + I've frittered away on small politics! But what's the use thinking about + it? + </p> + <p> + Plenty of men go to pot horse-racing and stock gambling; and I guess this + has just been my way of working off some of my nature in another fashion. + There's a good many like me, too; not out for office or contracts, nor + anything that you can put your finger on in particular—nothing + except the <i>game</i>. Of course, it's a pleasure, knowing you've got + more influence than some, but I believe the most you ever get out of it is + in being able to help your friends, to get a man you like a job, or a good + contract, something he wants, when he needs it. + </p> + <p> + I tell you <i>then's</i> when you feel satisfied, and your time don't seem + to have been so much thrown away. You go and buy a higher-priced cigar + than you can afford, and sit and smoke it with your feet out in the + sunshine on your porch railing, and watch your neighbour's children + playing in their yard; and they look mighty nice to you; and you feel + kind, and as if everybody else was. + </p> + <p> + But that wasn't the way I felt when I helped to hand over to a reformer + the nomination for mayor; then it was just selfish desperation and nothing + else. We had to do it. You see, it was this way: the other side had had + the city for four terms, and, naturally, they'd earned the name of being + rotten by that time. Big Lafe Gorgett was their best. “Boss Gorgett,” of + course our papers called him when they went for him, which was all the + time; and pretty considerable of a man he was, too. Most people that knew + him liked Lafe. I did. But he got a bad name, as they say, by the end of + his fourth term as Mayor—and who wouldn't? Of course, the cry went + up all round that he and his crowd were making a fat thing out of it, + which wasn't so much the case as that Lafe had got to depending on + humouring the gamblers and the brewers for campaign funds and so forth. In + fact, he had the reputation of running a disorderly town, and the truth + is, it <i>was</i> too wide open. + </p> + <p> + But <i>we</i> hadn't been much better when we'd had it, before Lafe beat + us and got in; and everybody remembered that. The “respectable element” + wouldn't come over to us strong enough for anybody we could pick of our + own crowd; and so, after trying it on four times, we started in to play it + another way, and nominated Farwell Knowles, who was already running on an + independent ticket, got out by the reform and purity people. That is: we + made him a fusion candidate, hoping to find some way to control him later. + We'd never have done it if we hadn't thought it was our only hope. Gorgett + was too strong, and he handled the darkeys better than any man I ever + knew. He had an organization for it which we couldn't break; and the + coloured voters really held the balance of power with us, you know, as + they do so many other places near the same size, They were getting pretty + well on to it, too, and cost more every election. Our best chance seemed + to be in so satisfying the “law-and-order” people that they'd do something + to counterbalance this vote—which they never did. + </p> + <p> + Well, sir, it was a mighty curious campaign. There never really was a day + when we could tell where we stood, for certain. As anybody knows, the + “better element” can't be depended on. There's too many of 'em forget to + vote, and if the weather isn't just right they won't go to the polls. Some + of 'em won't go anyway—act as if they looked down on politics; say + it's only helping one boodler against another. So your true aristocrat + won't vote for either. The real truth is, he don't <i>care</i>. Don't care + as much about the management of his city, State, and country as about the + way his club is run. Or he's ignorant about the whole business, and what + between ignorance and indifference the worse and smarter of the two rings + gets in again and old Mr. Aristocrat gets soaked some more on his sewer + assessments. <i>Then</i> he'll holler like a stabbed hand-organ; but he'll + keep on talking about politics being too low a business for a gentleman to + mix in, just the same! + </p> + <p> + Somebody said a pessimist is a man who has a choice of two evils, and + takes both. There's your man that don't vote. + </p> + <p> + And the best-dressed wards are the ones that fool us oftenest. We're + always thinking they'll do something, and they don't. But we thought, when + we took Farwell Knowles, that we had 'em at last. Fact is, they did seem + stirred up, too. They called it a “moral victory” when we were forced to + nominate Knowles to have any chance of beating Gorgett. That was because + it was <i>their</i> victory. + </p> + <p> + Farwell Knowles was a young man, about thirty-two, an editorial writer on + the <i>Herald</i>, an independent paper. I'd known him all his life, and + his wife—too, a mighty sweet-looking lady she was. I'd always + thought Farwell was kind of a dreamer, and too excitable; he was always + reading papers to literary clubs, and on the speech-making side he wasn't + so bad—he liked it; but he hadn't seemed to me to know any more + about politics and people than a royal family would. He was always talking + about life and writing about corruption, when, all the time, so it struck + me, it was only books he was really interested in; and he saw things along + book lines. Of course he was a tin god, politically. + </p> + <p> + He was for “stern virtue” only, and everlastingly lashed compromise and + temporizing; called politicians all the elegant hard names there are, in + every one of his editorials, especially Lafe Gorgett, whom he'd never + seen. He made mighty free with Lafe, referred to him habitually as + “Boodler Gorgett”, and never let up on him from one year's end to another. + </p> + <p> + I was against our adopting him, not only for our own sakes—because I + knew he'd be a hard man to handle—but for Farwell's too. I'd been a + friend of his father's, and I liked his wife—everybody liked his + wife. But the boys overruled me, and I had to turn in and give it to him. + </p> + <p> + Not without a lot of misgivings, you can be sure. I had one little + experience with him right at the start that made me uneasy and got me to + thinking he was what you might call too literary, or theatrical, or + something, and that he was more interested in being things than doing + them. I'd been aware, ever since he got back from Harvard, that <i>I</i> + was one of his literary interests, so to speak. He had a way of talking to + me in a <i>quizzical</i>, condescending style, in the belief that he was + drawing me out, the way you talk to some old book-peddler in your office + when you've got nothing to do for a while; and it was easy to see he + regarded me as a “character” and thought he was studying me. Besides, he + felt it his duty to study the wickedness of politics in a Parkhurstian + fashion, and I was one of the lost. + </p> + <p> + One day, just after we'd nominated him, he came to me and said he had a + friend who wanted to meet me. Asked me couldn't I go with him right away. + It was about five in the afternoon; I hadn't anything to do and said, + “Certainly,” thinking he meant to introduce me to some friend of his who + thought I'd talk politics with him. I took that for granted so much that I + didn't ask a question, just followed along up street, talking weather. He + turned in at old General Buskirk's, and may I be shot if the person he + meant wasn't Buskirk's daughter, Bella! He'd brought me to call on a girl + young enough to be my daughter. Maybe you won't believe I felt like a + fool! + </p> + <p> + I knew Buskirk, of course (he didn't appear), but I hadn't seen Bella + since she was a child. She'd been “highly educated” and had been living + abroad a good deal, but I can't say that my visit made me <i>for</i> her—not + very strong. She was good-looking enough, in her thinnish, solemn way, but + it seemed to me she was kind of overdressed and too grand. You could see + in a minute that she was intense and dreamy and theatrical with herself + and superior, like Farwell; and I guess I thought they thought they'd + discovered they were “kindred souls,” and that each of them understood + (without saying it) that both of them felt that Farwell's lot in life was + a hard one because Mrs. Knowles wasn't up to him. Bella gave him little, + quiet, deep glances, that seemed to help her play the part of a person who + understood everything—especially him, and reverenced greatness—especially + his. I remember a fellow who called the sort of game it struck me they + were carrying on “those soully flirtations.” + </p> + <p> + Well, sir, I wasn't long puzzling over why he had brought <i>me</i> up + there. It stuck out all over, though they didn't know it, and would have + been mighty astonished to think that I saw. It was in their manner, in her + condescending ways with me, in her assumption of serious interest, and in + his going through the trick of “drawing me out,” and exhibiting me to her. + I'll have to admit that these young people viewed me in the light of a + “character.” That was the part Farwell had me there to play. + </p> + <p> + I can't say I was too pleased with the notion, and I was kind of sorry for + Mrs. Knowles, too. I'd have staked a good deal that my guess was right, + for instance: that Farwell had gone first to this girl for her + congratulations when he got the nomination, instead of to his wife; and + that she felt—or pretended she felt—a soully sympathy with his + ambitions; that she wanted to be, or to play the part of, a woman of + affairs, and that he talked over everything he knew with her. I imagined + they thought they were studying political reform together, and she, in her + novel-reading way, wanted to pose to herself as the brilliant lady + diplomat, kind of a Madam Roland advising statesmen, or something of that + sort. And I was there as part of their political studies, an + object-lesson, to bring her “more closely in touch” (as Farwell would say) + with the realities he had to contend with. I was one of the “evils of + politics,” because I knew how to control a few wards, and get out the + darkey vote almost as well as Gorgett. Gorgett would have been better, but + Farwell couldn't very easily get at him. + </p> + <p> + I had to sit there for a little while, of course, like a ninny between + them; and I wasn't the more comfortable because I thought Knowles looked + like a bigger fool than I did. Bella's presence seemed to excite him to a + kind of exaltation; he had a dark flush on his face and his eyes were + large and shiny. + </p> + <p> + I got out as soon as I could, naturally, wondering what my wife would say + if she knew; and while I was fumbling around among the knick-knacks and + fancy things in the hall for my hat and coat, I heard Farwell get up and + cross the room to a chair nearer Bella, and then she said, in a sort of + pungent whisper, that came out to me distinctly: + </p> + <p> + “My knight!” That's what she called him. “My knight!” That's what she + said. + </p> + <p> + I don't know whether I was more disgusted with myself for hearing, or with + old Buskirk who spent his whole time frittering around the club library, + and let his daughter go in for the sort of soulliness she was carrying on + with Farwell Knowles. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Trouble in our ranks began right away. Our nominee knew too much, and did + all the wrong things from the start; he began by antagonizing most of our + old wheel-horses; he wouldn't consult with us, and advised with his own + kind. In spite of that, we had a good organization working for him, and by + a week before election I felt pretty confident that our show was as good + as Gorgett's. It looked like it would be close. + </p> + <p> + Just about then things happened. We had dropped onto one of Lafe's little + tricks mighty smartly. We got one of his heelers fixed (of course we + usually tried to keep all that kind of work dark from Farwell Knowles), + and this heeler showed the whole business up for a consideration. There + was a precinct certain to be strong for Knowles, where the balloting was + to take place in the office-room of a hook-and-ladder company. In the + corner was a small closet with one shelf, high up toward the ceiling. It + was in the good old free and easy Hayes and Wheeler times, and when the + polls closed at six o'clock it was planned that the election officers + should set the ballot-box up on this shelf, lock the closet door, and go + out for their suppers, leaving one of each side to watch in the room so + that nobody could open the closet-door with a pass-key and tamper with the + ballots before they were counted. Now, the ceiling over the shelf in the + closet wasn't plastered, and it formed, of course, part of the flooring in + the room above. The boards were to be loosened by a Gorgett man upstairs, + as soon as the box was locked in; he would take up a piece of planking—enough + to get an arm in—and stuff the box with Gorgett ballots till it + grunted. Then he would replace the board and slide out. Of course, when + they began the count our people would know there was something wrong, but + they would be practically up against it, and the precinct would be counted + for Gorgett. + </p> + <p> + They brought the heeler up to me, not at headquarters (I was city + chairman) but at a hotel room I'd hired as a convenient place for the more + important conferences and to keep out of the way of every + Tom-Dick-and-Harry grafter. Bob Crowder, a ward committee-man, brought him + up and stayed in the room, while the fellow—his name was Genz—went + over the whole thing. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of it?” says Bob, when Genz finished. “Ain't it worth + the money? I declare, it's so neat and simple and so almighty smart + besides, I'm almost ashamed some of our boys hadn't thought of it for us.” + </p> + <p> + I was just opening my mouth to answer, when there was a signal knock at + the door and a young fellow we had as a kind of watcher in the next room + (opening into the one I used) put his head in and said Mr. Knowles wanted + to see me. + </p> + <p> + “Ask him to wait a minute,” said I, for I didn't want him to know anything + about Genz. “I'll be there right away.” + </p> + <p> + Then came Farwell Knowles's voice from the other room, sharp and excited. + “I believe I'll not wait,” says he. “I'll come in there now!” + </p> + <p> + And that's what he did, pushing by our watcher before I could hustle Genz + into the hall through an outer door, though I tried to. There's no denying + it looked a little suspicious. + </p> + <p> + Farwell came to a dead halt in the middle of the room. + </p> + <p> + “I know that person!” he said, pointing at Genz, his brow mighty black. “I + saw him and Crowder sneaking into the hotel by the back way, half an hour + ago, and I knew there was some devilish—” + </p> + <p> + “Keep your shirt on, Farwell,” said I. + </p> + <p> + He was pretty hot. “I'll be obliged to you,” he returned, “if you'll + explain what you're doing here in secret with this low hound of Gorgett's. + Do you think you can play with me the way you do with your petty + committee-men? If you do, I'll <i>show</i> you! You're not dealing with a + child, and I'm not going to be tricked or sold out of this elec—” + </p> + <p> + I took him by the shoulders and sat him down hard on a cane-bottomed + chair. “That's a dirty thought,” said I, “and if you knew enough to be + responsible I reckon you'd have to account for it. As it is—why, I + don't care whether you apologize or not.” + </p> + <p> + He weakened right away, or, at least, he saw his mistake. “Then won't you + give me some explanation,” he asked, in a less excitable way, “why are you + closeted here with a notorious member of Gorgett's ring?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I, “I won't.” + </p> + <p> + “Be careful,” said he. “This won't look well in print.” + </p> + <p> + That was just so plumb foolish that I began to laugh at him; and when I + got to laughing I couldn't keep up being angry. It <i>was</i> ridiculous, + his childishness and suspiciousness. Right there was where I made my + mistake. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” says I to Bob Crowder, giving way to the impulse. “He's the + candidate. Tell him.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean it?” asks Bob, surprised. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Tell him the whole thing.” + </p> + <p> + So Bob did, helped by Genz, who was more or less sulky, of course; and is + wasn't long till I saw how stupid I'd been. Knowles went straight up in + the air. + </p> + <p> + “I knew it was a dirty business, politics,” he said, jumping out of his + chair, “but I didn't <i>realize</i> it before. And I'd like to know,” he + went on, turning to me, “how you learn to sit there so calmly and listen + to such iniquities. How do you dull your conscience so that you can do it? + And what course do you propose to follow in the matter of this + confession?” + </p> + <p> + “Me?” I answered. “Why, I'm going to send supper in to our fellows, and + the box'll never see that closet. The man upstairs may get a little tired. + I reckon the laugh's on Gorgett; it's his scheme and—” + </p> + <p> + Farwell interrupted me; his face was outrageously red. “<i>What!</i> You + actually mean you hadn't intended to expose this infamy?” + </p> + <p> + “Steady,” I said. I was getting a little hot, too, and talked more than I + ought. “Mr. Genz here has our pledge that he's not given away, or he'd + never have—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Mister</i> Genz!” sneered Farwell. “<i>Mister</i> Genz has your + pledge, has he? Allow me to tell you that I represent the people, the <i>honest</i> + people, in this campaign, and that the people and I have made no pledges + to <i>Mister</i> Genz. You've paid the scoundrel—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Here!</i>” says Genz. + </p> + <p> + “The scoundrel!” Farwell repeated, his voice rising and rising, “paid him + for his information, and I tell you by that act and your silence on such a + matter you make yourself a party to a conspiracy.” + </p> + <p> + “Shut the transom,” says I to Crowder. + </p> + <p> + “<i>I'm</i> under no pledge, I say,” shouted Farwell, “and I do not + compound felonies. You're not conducting my campaign. I'm doing that, and + I don't conduct it along such lines. It's precisely the kind of fraud and + corruption that I intend to stamp out in this town, and this is where I + begin to work.” + </p> + <p> + “How?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “You'll see—and you'll see soon! The penitentiaries are built for + just this—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Sh, sh!</i>” said I, but he paid no attention. + </p> + <p> + “They say Gorgett owns the Grand Jury,” he went on. “Well, let him! Within + a week I'll be mayor of this town—and Gorgett's Grand Jury won't + outlast his defeat very long. By his own confession this man Genz is party + to a conspiracy with Gorgett, and you and Crowder are witnesses to the + confession. I'll see that you have the pleasure of giving your testimony + before a Grand Jury of determined men. Do you hear me? And tomorrow + afternoon's <i>Herald</i> will have the whole infamous story to the last + word. I give you my solemn oath upon it!” + </p> + <p> + All three of us, Crowder, Genz, and I, sprang to our feet. We were + considerably worked up, and none of us said anything for a minute or so, + just looked at Knowles. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you're a little shocked,” he said. “It's always shocking to men like + you to come in contact with honesty that won't compromise. You needn't + talk to me; you can't say anything that would change me to save your + lives. I've taken my oath upon it, and you couldn't alter me a hair's + breadth if you burned me at a slow fire. Light, light, that's what you + need, the light of day and publicity! I'm going to clear this town of + fraud, and if Gorgett don't wear the stripes for this my name's not + Farwell Knowles! He'll go over the road, handcuffed to a deputy, before + three months are gone. Don't tell me I'm injuring <i>you</i> and the party + by it. Pah! It will give me a thousand more votes. I'm not exactly a + child, my friends! On my honour, the whole thing will be printed in + to-morrow's paper!” + </p> + <p> + “For God's sake—” Crowder broke out, but Knowles cut him off. + </p> + <p> + “I bid you good-afternoon,” he said, sharply. We all started toward him, + but before we'd got half across the room he was gone, and the door slammed + behind him. + </p> + <p> + Bob dropped into a chair; he was looking considerably pale; I guess I was, + too, but Genz was ghastly. + </p> + <p> + “Let me out of here,” he said in a sick voice. “Let me out of here!” + </p> + <p> + “Sit down!” I told him. + </p> + <p> + “Just let me out of here,” he said again. And before I could stop him, + he'd gone, too, in a blind hurry. + </p> + <p> + Bob and I were left alone, and not talking any. + </p> + <p> + Not for a while. Then Bob said: “Where do you reckon he's gone?” + </p> + <p> + “Reckon who's gone?” + </p> + <p> + “Genz.” + </p> + <p> + “To see Lafe.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course he has. What else can he do? He's gone up any way. The best he + can do is to try to square himself a little by owning up the whole thing. + Gorgett will know it all any way, tomorrow afternoon, when the <i>Herald</i> + comes out.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess you're right,” said Bob. “We're done up along with Gorgett; but I + believe that idiot's right, he won't lose votes by playing hob with <i>us</i>. + What's to be done?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” I answered. “You can't head Farwell off. It's all my fault, + Bob.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't there any way to get hold of him? A crazy man could see that his + best friend couldn't <i>beg</i> it out of him, and that he wouldn't spare + any of us; but don't you know of some bludgeon we could hang up over him?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. It's up to Gorgett.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Bob, “Lafe's mighty smart, but it looks like God-help-Gorgett + now!” + </p> + <p> + Well, sir, I couldn't think of anything better to do than to go around and + see Gorgett; so, after waiting long enough for Genz to see him and get + away, I went. Lafe was always cool and slow; but I own I expected to find + him flustered, and was astonished to see right away that he wasn't. He was + smoking, as usual, and wearing his hat, as he always did, indoors and out, + sitting with his feet upon his desk, and a pleasant look of contemplation + on his face. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” says I, “then Genz hasn't been here?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” says he, “he has. I reckon you folks have 'most spoiled Genz's + usefulness for me.” + </p> + <p> + “You're taking it mighty easy,” I told him. + </p> + <p> + “Yep. Isn't it all in the game? What's the use of getting excited because + you've blocked us on one precinct? We'll leave that closet out of our + calculations, that's all.” + </p> + <p> + “Almighty Powers, I don't mean <i>that!</i> Didn't Genz tell you—” + </p> + <p> + “About Mr. Knowles and the <i>Herald</i>? Oh, yes,” he answered, knocking + the ashes off his cigar quietly. “And about the thousand votes he'll gain? + Oh, yes. And about incidentally showing you and Crowder up as bribing Genz + and promising to protect him—making your methods public? Oh, yes. + And about the Grand Jury? Yes, Genz told me. And about me and the + penitentiary. Yes, he told me. Mr. Knowles is a rather excitable young + man. Don't you think so?” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what's the trouble?” + </p> + <p> + “Trouble!” I said. “I'd like to know what you're going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “What's Knowles going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “He's sworn to expose the whole deal, as you've just told me you knew; one + of the preliminaries to having us all up before the next Grand Jury and + sending you and Genz over the road, that's all!” + </p> + <p> + Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, tilting farther back, with his + hands in his pockets and his eyes twinkling under his last summer's straw + hat-brim. + </p> + <p> + “He can't hardly afford it, can he,” he drawled, “he being the + representative of the law and order and purity people? They're mighty + sensitive, those folks. A little thing turns 'em.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I hardly reckoned you would,” he returned. “But I expect if Mr. + Knowles wants it warm all round, <i>I'm</i> willing. We may be able to do + some of the heating up, ourselves.” + </p> + <p> + This surprised me, coming from him, and I felt pretty sore. “You mean, + then,” I said, “that you think you've got a line on something our boys + have been planning—like the way we got onto the closet trick—and + you're going to show <i>us</i> up because we can't control Knowles; that + you hold that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? Then I tell you + plainly I know I can't shut him up, and you can go ahead and do us the + worst you can.” + </p> + <p> + “Whatever little tricks I may or may not have discovered,” he answered, + “that isn't what I mean, though I don't know as I'd be above making such a + threat if I thought it was my only way to keep out of the penitentiary. I + know as well as you do that such a threat would only give Knowles + pleasure. He'd take the credit for forcing me to expose you, and he's + convinced that everything of that kind he does makes him solider with the + people and brings him a step nearer this chair I'm sitting in, which he + regards as a step itself to the governorship and Heaven knows what not. He + thinks he's detached himself from you and your organization till he stands + alone. <i>That</i> boy's head was turned even before you fellows nominated + him. He's a wonder. I've been noticing him long before he turned up as a + candidate, and I believe the great surprise of his life was that John the + Baptist didn't precede and herald <i>him</i>. Oh, no, going for you + wouldn't stop him—not by a thousand miles. It would only do him + good.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what <i>are</i> you going to do? Are you going to see him?” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir!” Lafe spoke sharply. + </p> + <p> + “Well, well! What?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not bothering to run around asking audiences of Farwell Knowleses; + you ought to know that!” + </p> + <p> + “Given it up?” + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly. I've sent a fellow around to talk to him.” + </p> + <p> + “What use will that be?” + </p> + <p> + Gorgett brought his feet down off the desk with a bang. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Then</i> he can come to see <i>me</i>, if he wants to. D'you think + I've been fool enough not to know what sort of man I was going up against? + D'you think that, knowing him as I do, I've not been ready for something + of this kind? And that's all you'll get out of <i>me</i>, this afternoon!” + </p> + <p> + And it was all I did. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It may have been about one o'clock, that night, or perhaps a little + earlier, as I lay tossing about, unable to sleep because I was too much + disturbed in my mind—too angry with myself—when there came a + loud, startling ring at the front-door bell. I got up at once and threw + open a window over the door, calling out to know what was wanted. + </p> + <p> + “It's I,” said a voice I didn't know—a queer, hoarse voice. “Come + down.” + </p> + <p> + “Who's 'I'?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Farwell Knowles,” said the voice. “Let me in!” + </p> + <p> + I started, and looked down. + </p> + <p> + He was standing on the steps where the light of a street-lamp fell on him, + and I saw even by the poor glimmer that something was wrong; he was white + as a dead man. There was something wild in his attitude; he had no hat, + and looked all mixed-up and disarranged. + </p> + <p> + “Come down—come down!” he begged thickly, beckoning me with his arm. + </p> + <p> + I got on some clothes, slipped downstairs without wakening my wife, lit + the hall light, and took him into the library. He dropped in a chair with + a quick breath like a sob, and when I turned from lighting the gas I was + shocked by the change in him since afternoon. I never saw such a look + before. It was like a rat you've seen running along the gutter side of the + curbstone with a terrier after it. + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter, Farwell?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my God!” he whispered. + </p> + <p> + “What's happened?” + </p> + <p> + “It's hard to tell you,” said he. “Oh, but it's hard to tell.” + </p> + <p> + “Want some whiskey?” I asked, reaching for a decanter that stood handy. He + nodded and I gave him good allowance. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” said I, when he'd gulped it down, “let's hear what's turned up.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at me kind of dimly, and I'll be shot if two tears didn't well + up in his eyes and run down his cheeks. “I've come to ask you,” he said + slowly and brokenly, “to ask you—if you won't intercede with Gorgett + for me; to ask you if you won't beg him to—to grant me—an + interview before to-morrow noon.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>What!</i>” + </p> + <p> + “Will you do it?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. Have you asked for an interview with him yourself?” + </p> + <p> + He struck the back of his hand across his forehead—struck hard, too. + </p> + <p> + “Have I tried? I've been following him like a dog since five o'clock this + afternoon, beseeching him to give me twenty minutes' talk in private. He + <i>laughed</i> at me! He isn't a man; he's an iron-hearted devil! Then I + went to his house and waited three hours for him. When he came, all he + would say was that you were supposed to be running this campaign for me, + and I'd better consult with you. Then he turned me out of his house!” + </p> + <p> + “You seem to have altered a little since this afternoon.” I couldn't + resist that. + </p> + <p> + “This afternoon!” he shuddered. “I think that was a thousand years ago!” + </p> + <p> + “What do you want to see him for?” + </p> + <p> + “What for? To see if there isn't a little human pity in him for a + fellow-being in agony—to end my suspense and know whether or not he + means to ruin me and my happiness and my home forever!” + </p> + <p> + Farwell didn't seem to be regarding me so much in the light of a character + as usual; still, one thing puzzled me, and I asked him how he happened to + come to me. + </p> + <p> + “Because I thought if anyone in the world could do anything with Gorgett, + you'd be the one,” he answered. “Because it seemed to me he'd listen to + you, and because I thought—in my wild clutching at the remotest hope—that + he meant to make my humiliation more awful by sending me to you to ask you + to go back to him for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, well,” I said, “I guess if you want me to be of any use you'll have + to tell me what it's all about.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so,” he said, and choked, with a kind of despairing sound; “I + don't see any way out of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Go ahead,” I told him. “I reckon I'm old enough to keep my counsel. Let + it go, Farwell.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know,” he began, with a sharp, grinding of his teeth, “that + dishonourable scoundrel has had me <i>watched</i>, ever since there was + talk of me for the fusion candidate? He's had me followed, <i>shadowed</i>, + till he knows more about me than I do myself.” + </p> + <p> + I saw right there that I'd never really measured Gorgett for as tall as he + really was. “Have a cigar?” I asked Knowles, and lit one myself. But he + shook his head and went on: + </p> + <p> + “You remember my taking you to call on General Buskirk's daughter?” + </p> + <p> + “Quite well,” said I, puffing pretty hard. + </p> + <p> + “An angel! A white angel! And this beast, this <i>boodler</i> has the mud + in his hands to desecrate her white garments!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” says I. + </p> + <p> + The angel's knight began to pace the room as he talked, clinching and + unclinching his hands, while the perspiration got his hair all scraggly on + his forehead. You see Farwell was doing some suffering and he wasn't used + to it. + </p> + <p> + “When she came home from abroad, a year ago,” he said, “it seemed to me + that a light came into my life. I've got to tell you the whole thing,” he + groaned, “but it's hard! Well, my wife is taken up with our little boy and + housekeeping,—I don't complain of her, mind that—but she + really hasn't entered into my ambitions, my inner life. She doesn't often + read my editorials, and when she does, she hasn't been serious in her + consideration of them and of my purposes. Sometimes she differed openly + from me and sometimes greeted my work for truth and light with + indifference! I had learned to bear this, and more; to save myself pain I + had come to shrink from exposing my real self to her. Then, when this + young girl came, for the first time in my life I found real sympathy and + knew what I thought I never should know; a heart attuned to my own, a mind + that sought my own ideals, a soul of the same aspirations—and a + perfect faith in what I was and in what it was my right to attain. She met + me with open hands, and lifted me to my best self. What, unhappily, I did + not find at home, I found in her—encouragement. I went to her in + every mood, always to be greeted by the most exquisite perception, always + the same delicate receptiveness. She gave me a sister's love!” + </p> + <p> + I nodded; I knew he thought so. + </p> + <p> + “Well, when I went into this campaign, what more natural than that I + should seek her ready sympathy at every turn, than that I should consult + with her at each crisis, and, when I became the fusion candidate, that I + should go to her with the news that I had taken my first great step toward + my goal and had achieved thus far in my struggle for the cause of our + hearts—reform?” + </p> + <p> + “You went up to Buskirk's after the convention?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “No; the night before.” He took his head in his hands and groaned, but + without pausing in his march up and down the room. “You remember, it was + known by ten o'clock, after the primaries, that I should receive the + nomination. As soon as I was sure, I went to her; and I found her in the + same state of exaltation and pride that I was experiencing myself. There + was <i>always</i> the answer in her, I tell you, always the response that + such a nature as mine craves. She took both my hands and looked at me just + as a proud sister would. 'I <i>read</i> your news,' she said. 'It is in + your face!' Wasn't that touching? Then we sat in silence for a while, each + understanding the other's joy and triumph in the great blow I had struck + for the right. I left very soon, and she came with me to the door. We + stood for a moment on the step—and—for the first time, the + only time in my life—I received a—a sister's caress.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said I. I understood how Gorgett had managed to be so calm that + afternoon. + </p> + <p> + “It was the purest kiss ever given!” Farwell groaned again. + </p> + <p> + “Who was it saw you?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + He dropped into a chair and I saw the tears of rage and humiliation + welling up again in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “We might as well have been standing by the footlights in a theatre!” he + burst out, brokenly. “Who saw it? Who <i>didn't</i> see it? Gorgett's + sleuth-hound, the man he sent to me this afternoon, for one; the policeman + on the beat that he'd stopped for a chat in front of the house, for + another; a maid in the hall behind us, the policeman's sweetheart <i>she</i> + is, for another! Oh!” he cried, “the desecration! That one caress, one + that I'd thought a sacred secret between us forever—and in plain + sight of those three hideous vulgarians, all belonging to my enemy, + Gorgett! Ah, the horror of it—what <i>horror</i>!” + </p> + <p> + Farwell wrung his hands and sat, gulping as if he were sick, without + speaking for several moments. + </p> + <p> + “What terms did the man he sent offer from Gorgett?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “<i>No</i> terms! He said to go ahead and print my story about the closet; + it was a matter of perfect indifference to him; that he meant to print + this about me in their damnable party-organ tomorrow, in any event, and + only warned me so that I should have time to prepare Miss Buskirk. Of + course he don't care! <i>I'll</i> be ruined, that's all. Oh, the hideous + injustice of it, the unreason! Don't you see the frightful irony of it? + The best thing in my life, the widest and deepest; my friendship with a + good woman becomes a joke and a horror! Don't you see that the personal + scandal about me absolutely undermines me and nullifies the political + scandal of the closet affair? Gorgett will come in again and the Grand + Jury would laugh at any attack on him. I'm ruined for good, for good and + all, for good and all!” + </p> + <p> + “Have you told Miss Buskirk?” + </p> + <p> + He uttered a kind of a shriek. “<i>No!</i> I can't! How could I? What do + you think I'm made of? And there's her father—and all her relatives, + and mine, and my wife—my wife! If she leaves me—” + </p> + <p> + A fit of nausea seemed to overcome him and he struggled with it, + shivering. “My God! Do you think I can <i>face</i> it? I've come to you + for help in the most wretched hour of my life—all darkness, + darkness! Just on the eve of triumph to be stricken down—it's so + cruel, so devilish! And to think of the horrible comic-weekly misery of + it, caught kissing a girl, by a policeman and his sweetheart, the + chambermaid! Ugh! The vulgar ridicule—the hideous laughter!” He + raised his hands to me, the most grovelling figure of a man I ever saw. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, for God's sake, help me, help me....” + </p> + <p> + Well, sir, it was sickening enough, but after he had gone, and I tumbled + into bed again, I thought of Gorgett and laughed myself to sleep with + admiration. + </p> + <p> + When Farwell and I got to Gorgett's office, fairly early the next morning, + Lafe was sitting there alone, expecting us, of course, as I knew he would + be, but in the same characteristic, lazy attitude I'd found him in, the + day before; feet up on the desk, hat-brim tilted 'way forward, cigar in + the right-hand corner of his mouth, his hands in his pockets, his + double-chin mashing down his limp collar. He didn't even turn to look at + us as we came in and closed the door. + </p> + <p> + “Come in, gentlemen, come in,” says he, not moving. “I kind of thought + you'd be along, about this time.” + </p> + <p> + “Looking for us, were you?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said he. “Sit down.” + </p> + <p> + We did; Farwell looking pretty pale and red-eyed, and swallowing a good + deal. + </p> + <p> + There was a long, long silence. We just sat and watched Gorgett. <i>I</i> + didn't want to say anything; and I believe Farwell couldn't. It lasted so + long that it began to look as if the little blue haze at the end of Lafe's + cigar was all that was going to happen. But by and by he turned his head + ever so little, and looked at Knowles. + </p> + <p> + “Got your story for the <i>Herald</i> set up yet?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + Farwell swallowed some more and just shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “Haven't begun to work up the case for the Grand Jury yet?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” answered Farwell, in almost a whisper, his head hanging. + </p> + <p> + “Why,” Lafe said, in a tone of quiet surprise; “you haven't given all that + up, have you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, ain't that strange?” said Lafe. “What's the trouble?” + </p> + <p> + Knowles didn't answer. In fact, I felt mighty sorry for him. + </p> + <p> + All at once, Gorgett's manner changed; he threw away his cigar, the only + time I ever saw him do it without lighting another at the end of it. His + feet came down to the floor and he wheeled round on Farwell. + </p> + <p> + “I understand your wife's a mighty nice lady, Mr. Knowles.” + </p> + <p> + Farwell's head sank lower till we couldn't see his face, only his fingers + working kind of pitifully. + </p> + <p> + “I guess you've had rather a bad night?” said Gorgett, inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my God!” The words came out in a whisper from under Knowles's tilted + hat-brim. + </p> + <p> + “I believe I'd advise you to stick to your wife,” Gorgett went on, + quietly, “and let politics alone. Somehow I don't believe you're the kind + of man for it. I've taken considerable interest in you for some time back, + Mr. Knowles, though I don't suppose you've noticed it until lately; and I + don't believe you understand the game. You've said some pretty hard things + in your paper about me; you've been more or less excitable in your + statements; but that's all right. What I don't like altogether, though, is + that it seems to me you've been really tooting your own horn all the time—calling + everybody dishonest and scoundrels, to shove <i>yourself</i> forward. That + always ends in sort of a lonely position. I reckon you feel considerably + lonely, just now? Well, yesterday, I understand you were talking pretty + free about the penitentiary. Now, that ain't just the way to act, + according to my notion. It's a bad word. Here we are, he and I”—he + pointed to me—“carrying on our little fight according to the rules, + enjoying it and blocking each other, gaining a point here and losing one + there, everything perfectly good-natured, when <i>you</i> turn up and + begin to talk about the penitentiary! That ain't quite the thing. You see + words like that are liable to stir up the passions. It's dangerous. You + were trusted, when they told you the closet story, to regard it as a + confidence—though they didn't go through the form of pledging you—because + your people had given their word not to betray Genz. But you couldn't see + it and there you went, talking about the Grand Jury and stripes and so on, + stirring up passions and ugly feelings. And I want to tell you that the + man who can afford to do that has to be mighty immaculate himself. The + only way to play politics, whatever you're <i>for</i>, is to learn the + game first. Then you'll know how far you can go and what your own record + will stand. There ain't a man alive whose record will stand too much, Mr. + Knowles—and when you get to thinking about that and what your own + is, it makes you feel more like treating your fellow-sinners a good deal + gentler than you would otherwise. Now <i>I've</i> got a wife and two + little girls, and my old mother's proud of me (though you wouldn't think + it) and they'd hate it a good deal to see me sent over the road for + playing the game the best I could as I found it.” + </p> + <p> + He paused for a moment, looking sad and almost embarrassed. “It ain't any + great pleasure to me,” he said, “to think that the people have let it get + to be the game that it is. But I reckon it's good for <i>you</i>. I reckon + the best thing that ever happened to you is having to come here this + morning to ask mercy of a man you looked down on.” + </p> + <p> + Farwell shifted a little in his chair, but he didn't speak, and Gorgett + went on: + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you think it's mighty hard that your private character should + be used against you in a political question by a man you call a public + corruptionist. But I'm in a position where I can't take any chances + against an antagonist that won't play the game my way. I had to find your + vulnerable point to defend myself, and, in finding it, I find that there's + no need to defend myself any longer, because it makes all your weapons + ineffective. I believe the trouble with you, Mr. Knowles, is that you've + never realized that politicians are human beings. But we are: we breathe + and laugh and like to do right, like other folks. And, like most men, + you've thought you were different from other men, and you aren't. So, here + you are. I believe you said you'd had a hard night?” + </p> + <p> + Knowles looked up at last, his lips working for a while before he could + speak. “I'll resign now—if you'll—if you'll let me off,” he + said. + </p> + <p> + Gorgett shook his head. “I've got the election in my hand,” he answered, + “though you fellows don't know it. You've got nothing to offer me, and you + couldn't buy me if you had.” + </p> + <p> + At that, Knowles just sank into himself with a little, faint cry, in a + kind of heap. There wasn't anything but anguish and despair <i>to</i> him. + Big tears were sliding down his cheeks. + </p> + <p> + I didn't say anything. Gorgett sat looking at him for a good while; and + then his fat chin began to tremble a little and I saw his eyes shining in + the shadow under his old hat-brim. + </p> + <p> + He got up and went over to Farwell with slow steps and put his hand gently + on his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Go on home to your wife,” he said, in a low voice that was the saddest I + ever heard. “I don't bear you any ill-will in the world. Nobody's going to + give you away.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE ALIENS + </h2> + <p> + Pietro Tobigili, that gay young chestnut vender—he of the radiant + smiles—gave forth, in his warm tenor, his own interpretation of “Ach + du lieber Augustine,” whenever Bertha, rosy waitress in the little German + restaurant, showed her face at the door. For a month it had been a + courtship; and the merchant sang often: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +<i>“Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross.”</i> +</pre> + <p> + The acquaintance, begun by the song and Pietro's wonderful laugh, had + grown tender. The chestnut vender had a way with him; he looked like the + “Neapolitan Fisher Lad” of the chromos, and you could have fancied him of + two centuries ago, putting a rose in his hair; even as it was, he had the + ear-rings. But the smile of him it was that won Bertha, when she came to + work in the little restaurant. It was a smile that put the world at its + ease; it proclaimed the coming of morning over the meadows, and, taking + every bystander into an April friendship, ran on suddenly into a laugh + that was like silver, and like a strange puppy's claiming you for the lost + master. + </p> + <p> + So it befell that Bertha was fascinated; that, blushing, she laughed back + to him, and was nothing offended when, at his first sight of her, he + rippled out at once into “Ahaha, du libra Ogostine.” + </p> + <p> + Within two weeks he was closing his business (no intricate matter) every + evening, to walk home with her, through the September moonlight. Then + extraordinary things happened to the English language. + </p> + <p> + “I ain'd nefer can like no foreigner!” she often joked back to a question + of his. “Nefer, nefer! you t'ink I'm takin' up mit a hant-orkan maan, + Mister Toby?” + </p> + <p> + Whereupon he would carol out the tender taunt, “Ahaha, du libra Ogostine!” + </p> + <p> + “Yoost a hant-orkan maan!” + </p> + <p> + “No! <i>No</i>! No oragan! I am a greata—greata merchant. Vote a + Republican! Polititshian! To-bigli, Chititzen Republican. Naturalasize! + March in a parade!” + </p> + <p> + Never lived native American prouder of his citizenship than this adopted + one. Had he not voted at the election? Was he not a member of the great + Republican party? He had eagerly joined it, for the reason that he had + been a Republican in Italy, and he had drawn with him to the polls his + second cousin, Leo Vesschi, and the five other Italians with whom he + lived. For this, he had been rewarded by Pixley, his precinct + committee-man, who allowed him to carry pink torches in three night + processions. + </p> + <p> + “You keeb oud politigs,” said Bertha, earnestly, one evening. “My uncle, + Louie Gratz, he iss got a neighbour-lady; her man gone in politigs. After<i>vorts</i> + he git it! He iss in der bennidenshierry two years. You know why?” + </p> + <p> + “Democrat!” shouted the chestnut vender triumphantly. + </p> + <p> + “No, sir! Yoost politigs,” replied the unpartisan Bertha. “You keeb oud + politigs.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +<i>“Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross.”</i> +</pre> + <p> + The song was always a teasing of her and carried all his friendly laughter + at her, because of her German ways; but it became softly exultant whenever + she betrayed her interest in him. + </p> + <p> + “Libra Ogostine, she afraid I go penitensh?” he inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Me!” she jeered with uneasy laughter. “<i>I</i> ain'd care! but you—you + don' look oud, you git in dod voikhouse!” + </p> + <p> + He turned upon her, suddenly, a face like a mother's, and touched her hand + with a light caress. + </p> + <p> + “I stay in a workhouse sevena-hunder' year,” he said gently, “you come + seeta by window some-a-time.” + </p> + <p> + At this Bertha turned away, was silent for a space, leaning on the + gate-post in front of her uncle's house, whither they were now come. + Finally she answered brokenly: “I ain'd sit by no vinder for yoost a + jessnut maan.” This was her way of stimulating his ambition. + </p> + <p> + “Ahaha!” he cried. “You don' know? I'm goin' buy beeg stan'! Candy! + Peanut! Banan'! Make some-a-time four dollar a day! 'Tis a greata countra! + Bimaby git a store! Ride a buggy! Smoke a cigar! You play piano! Vote a + Republican!” + </p> + <p> + “Toby!” + </p> + <p> + “Tis true!” + </p> + <p> + “Toby,” she said tearfully; “Toby, you voik hart, und safe your money?” + </p> + <p> + “You help?” he whispered. + </p> + <p> + “I help—<i>you</i>!” she cried loudly. Then, with a sudden fit of + sobbing, she flung open the gate and ran at the top of her speed into the + house. + </p> + <p> + Halcyon the days for Pietro Tobigli, extravagant the jocularity of this + betrothed one. And, as his happiness, so did his prosperity increase; the + little chestnut furnace became the smallest adjunct of his affairs; for he + leaped (almost at one bound) to the proprietorship of a wooden stand, + shaped like the crate of an upright piano and backed up against the brick + wall of the restaurant—a mercantile house which was closed at night + by putting the lid on. All day long Toby's smile arrested pedestrians, and + compelled them to buy of him, making his wares sweeter in the mouth. + Bertha dwelt in a perpetual serenade: on warm days, when the restaurant + doors were open, she could hear him singing, not always “Ogostine,” but + festal lilts of Italy, liquid and strangely sweet to her; and at such + times, when the actual voice was not in her ears, still she blushed with + delight to hear in her heart the thrilling echoes of his barcaroles, and + found them humming cheerily upon her own lips. + </p> + <p> + Toby was to save five hundred dollars before they married, a great sum, + but they were patient and both worked very hard. The winter would have + fallen bitterly upon an outdoor merchant lacking Toby's confident heart, + but on the coldest days, when Bertha looked out, she always found him + slapping his hands, and trudging up and down in the snow in front of the + little box; and, as soon as he caught sight of her—“Aha-ha, du libra + Ogostine, Ogostine, Ogostine!” + </p> + <p> + She saved her own money with German persistence, and on Christmas day her + present to her betrothed, in return for a coral pin, was a pair of rubber + boots filled with little cakes. + </p> + <p> + Elysium was the dwelling-place of Pietro Tobigli, though, apparently, he + abode in a horrible slum cellar with Leo Vesschi and the five Latti + brothers. In this place our purveyor of sweetmeats was the only light. + Thither he had carried his songs and his laugh and his furnace when he + came from Italy to join Vesschi; and there he remained, partly out of + loyalty to his un-prosperous comrades, and partly because his share of the + expense was only twenty-five cents a week, and every saving was a saving + for Bertha. Every evening, on the homeward walk, the affianced pair passed + the hideous stairway that led down to the cellar, and Bertha, neat soul, + never failed to shudder at it. She did not know that Pietro lived there, + for he feared it might distress her; nor could she ever persuade him to + tell her where he lived. + </p> + <p> + Because of this mystery, upon which he merrily insisted, she affected a + fear that he would some day desert her. “You don' tell me where you lif, I + t'ink you goin' ran away of me, Toby. I vake opp some day; git a ledder + dod you gone back home by 'Talian lady dod's grazy 'bout you!” + </p> + <p> + “Ahaha! Libra Ogostine, you believe I can make a write weet a pen-a-paper? + I don' know that-a <i>how</i>. Some-a-time you <i>see</i> that gran' + palazzo where I leef. Eesa greata-great sooraprise!” + </p> + <p> + In the gran' palazzo, it was as much as he could do to keep clean his own + grim little bunk in the corner. His comrades, sullen, hopeless, came at + evening from ten hours' desperate shovelling, and exhibited no ambition + for water or brooms, but sat hunched and silent, or morosely muttering and + coughing, in the dark room with its sodden earthen floor, stained walls, + and one smoky lamp. + </p> + <p> + To this uncomfortable chamber repaired, one March evening, Mr. Frank + Pixley, Republican precinct committee-man, nor was its dinginess an + unharmonious setting for that political brilliant. He was a pock-pitted, + damp-looking, soiled little fungus of a man, who had attained to his + office because, in the dirtiest precinct of the wickedest ward in the + city, he had, through the operation of a befitting ingenuity, forced a + recognition of his leadership. From such an office, manned by a Pixley, + there leads an upward ramification of wires, invisible to all except + manipulators, which extends to higher surfaces. Usually the Pixley is a + deep-sea puppet, wholly controlled by the dingily gilded wires that run + down to him; but there are times when the Pixley gives forth initial + impulses of his own, such as may alter the upper surface; for, in a system + of this character, every twitch is felt throughout the whole ramification. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, boys,” the committee-man called out with automatic geniality, as + he descended the broken steps. “How are ye? All here? That's good; that's + the stuff! Good work!” + </p> + <p> + Only Toby replied with more than an indifferent grunt; but he ran forward, + carrying an empty beer keg which he placed as a seat for the guest. + </p> + <p> + “Aha<i>ha</i>, Meesa Peeslay! Make a parade? Torchlight? Bandaplay—ta + ra, la la la? Firework? Fzzz! Boum! Eh?” + </p> + <p> + The politician responded to Toby's extravagantly friendly laughter with + some mechanical cachinnations which, like an obliging salesman, he turned + on and off with no effort. “Not by a dern sight!” he answered. “The + campaign ain't begun yet.” + </p> + <p> + “Champagne?” inquired Tobigli politely. + </p> + <p> + “Campaign, campaign,” explained Pixley. “Not much champagne in yours!” he + chuckled beneath his breath. “Blame lucky to git Chicago bowl!” + </p> + <p> + “What is that, that campaign?” + </p> + <p> + “Why—why, it's the campaign. Workin' up public sentiment; gittin' + you boys in line, 'lect-ioneerin'—fixin' it <i>right</i>.” + </p> + <p> + Tobigli shook his head. “Campaign?” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Why—Gee, <i>you</i> know! Free beer, cigars, speakin', handshaking, + paradin'—” + </p> + <p> + “Ahaha!” The merchant sprang to his feet with a shout. “Yes! Hoor-r-ra! + Vote a Republican! Dam-a Democrat!” + </p> + <p> + “That's it,” replied the committee-man somewhat languidly. “You see, this + is a Republican precinct, and it turns the ward—” + </p> + <p> + “Allaways a Republican!” vociferated Pietro. “That eesa right?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said the other, “of course, whichever way you go, you want to + follow your precinct committee-man—that's me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yess! Vote a Republican.” + </p> + <p> + Pixley looked about the room, his little red eyes peering out cannily from + under his crooked brows at each of the sulky figures in the damp shadows. + </p> + <p> + “You boys all vote the way Pete says?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Vote same Pietro,” answered Vesschi. “Allaways.” + </p> + <p> + “Allaways a Republican,” added Pietro sparkingly, with abundant gesture. + “'Tis a greata-great countra. Republican here same a Republican at home—eena + Etallee. Republican eternall! All good Republican eena thees house! + Hoor-r-ra!” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Pixley, with a furtiveness half habit, as he rose to go, “of + course, you want to keep your eye on your committee-man, and kind of + foller along with him, whatever he does. That's me.” He placed a dingy + bottle on the keg. “I jest dropped in to see how you boys were gittin' + along—mighty tidy little place you got here.” He changed the stub of + his burnt-out cigar to the other side of his mouth, shifting his eyes in + the opposite direction, as he continued benevolently: “I thought I'd look + in and leave this bottle o' gin fer ye, with my compliments. I'll be + around ag'in some evenin', and I reckon before 'lection day comes there + may be somep'n doin'—I might have better fer ye than a bottle. Keep + your eye on me, boys, an' foller the leader. That's the idea. So long!” + </p> + <p> + “Vote a Republican!” Pietro shouted after him gaily. + </p> + <p> + Pixley turned. + </p> + <p> + “Jest foller yer leader,” he rejoined. “That's the way to learn politics, + boys.” + </p> + <p> + Now as the rough spring wore on into the happier season, with the days + like spiced warm wine, when people on the street are no longer driven by + the weather but are won by it to loiter; now, indeed, did commerce at + Toby's new stand so mightily thrive that, when summer came, Bertha was + troubled as to the safety of Toby's profits. + </p> + <p> + “You yoost put your money by der builtun-loan 'sociation, Toby,” she + advised gently. “Dey safe ut fer you.” + </p> + <p> + “T'ree hunder' fifta dolla—<i>no</i>!” answered her betrothed. “I + keep in de pock'!” He showed her where the bills were pinned into his + corduroy waistcoat pocket. “See! Eesa <i>yau!</i> Onna my heart, libra + Ogostine!” + </p> + <p> + “Toby, uf you ain'd dake ut by der builtun-loan, <i>blease</i> put ut in + der bink?” + </p> + <p> + “I keep!” he repeated, shaking his head seriously. “In t'ree-four mont' + eesa five-hunder-dolla. Nobody but me eesa tross weet that money.” + </p> + <p> + Nor could Bertha persuade him. It was their happiness he watched over. Who + to guard it as he, the dingy, precious parcel of bills? He pictured for + himself a swampy forest through which he was laying a pathway to Bertha, + and each of the soiled green notes that he pinned in his waistcoat was a + strip of firm ground he had made, over which he advanced a few steps + nearer her. And Bertha was very happy, even forgetting, for a while, to be + afraid of the smallpox, which had thrown out little flags, like auction + signs, here and there about the city. + </p> + <p> + When the full heat of summer came, Pietro laughed at the dog-days; and it + was Bertha's to suffer in the hot little restaurant; but she smiled and + waved to Pietro, so that he should not know. Also she made him sell iced + lemonade and birch beer, which was well for the corduroy waistcoat pocket. + Never have you seen a more alluring merchant. One glance toward the stand; + you caught that flashing smile, the owner of it a-tip-toe to serve you; + and Pietro managed, too, by a light jog to the table on which stood his + big, bedewed, earthen jars, that you became aware of the tinkle of ice and + a cold, liquid murmur—what mortal could deny the inward call and + pass without stopping to buy? + </p> + <p> + There fell a night in September when Bertha beheld her lover glorious. She + had been warned that he was to officiate in the great opening function of + the campaign; and she stood on the corner for an hour before the head of + the procession appeared. On they came—Pietro's party, three thousand + strong; brass bands, fireworks, red fire, tumultuous citizens, political + clubs, local potentates in open carriages, policemen, boys, dogs, bicycles—the + procession doing all the cheering for itself, the crowds of spectators + only feebly responding to this enthusiasm, as is our national custom. At + the end of it all marched a plentiful crew of tatterdemalions, a few + bleared white men, and the rest negroes. They bore aloft a crazy + transparency, exhibiting the legend: + </p> + <h3> + “FRANK PIXLEY'S HARD-MONEY LEAGUE. + </h3> + <h3> + WE STAND FOR OUR PRINCIPALS. + </h3> + <h3> + WE ARE SOLLID! + </h3> + <h3> + NO FOOLING THE PEOPLE GOES! + </h3> + <h3> + WE VOTE AS ONE MAN FOR + </h3> + <h3> + TAYLOR P. SINGLETON!” + </h3> + <p> + Bertha's eyes had not rested upon Toby where they innocently sought him, + in the front ranks, even scanning the carriages, seeking him in all + positions which she conceived as highest in honour, and she would have + missed him altogether, had not there reached her, out of chaotic clamours, + a clear, high, rollicking tenor: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +<i>“Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Ogostine, Ogostine! +Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, + Nees coma ross!”</i> +</pre> + <p> + Then the eager eyes found their pleasure, for there, in the last line of + Pixley's pirates, the very tail of the procession, danced Pietro Tobigli, + waving his pink torch at her, proud, happy, triumphant, a true Republican, + believing all company equal in the republic, and the rear rank as good as + the first. + </p> + <p> + “Vote a Republican!” he shouted. “Republican—Republican eternall!” + </p> + <p> + Strangely enough, a like fervid protestation (vociferated in greeting) + evoked no reciprocal enthusiasm in the breast of Mr. Pixley, when the + committee-man called upon Toby and his friends at their apartment one + evening, a fortnight later. + </p> + <p> + “That's right,” he responded languidly. “That's right in gineral, I <i>should</i> + say. Cert'nly, in <i>gineral</i>, I ain't got no quarrel with no man's + Republicanism. But this here's kind of a put-tickler case, boys. The + election's liable to be mighty close.” + </p> + <p> + “Republican win!” laughed Toby. “Meelyun man eena parade!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pixley's small eyes lowered furtively. He glanced once toward the + door, stroked his stubby chin, and answered softly: “Don't you be too sure + of that, young feller. Them banks is fightin' each other ag'in!” + </p> + <p> + “Bank? Fight? W'at eesa that?” inquired the merchant, with an entirely + blank mind. + </p> + <p> + “There's one thing it <i>ain't</i>,” replied the other, in the same + confidential tone. “It ain't no two-by-four campaign. All I got to say to + you boys is: 'Foller yer leader'—and you'll wear pearl + collar-buttons!” + </p> + <p> + “Vote a Republican,” interjected Leo Vesschi gutturally. + </p> + <p> + The furtiveness of Mr. Pixley increased. + </p> + <p> + “Well—mebbe,” he responded, very deliberately. “I reckon I better + put you boys next, right now's well's any other time. Ain't nothin' ever + gained by not bein' open 'n' above-board; that's my motto, and I ack up to + it. You kin ast 'em, jest ast the boys, and you'll hear it from + each-an-dall: 'Frank Pixley's <i>square</i>!' That's what they'll tell ye. + Now see here, this is the way it is. I ain't worryin' much about who goes + to the legislature, or who's county-commissioners, nor none o' <i>that. + Why</i> ain't I worryin'? Because it's picayune. It's peanut politics. It + ain't where the money is. No, sir, this campaign is on the treasurership. + Taylor P. Singleton is runnin' fer treasurer on the Republican ticket, and + Gil. Maxim on the Democratic. But that ain't where the fight is.” Mr. + Pixley spat contemptuously. “Pah! whichever of 'em gits it won't no more'n + draw his salary. It's the banks. If Singleton wins out, the Washington + National gits the use of the county's money fer the term; if Maxim's + elected, Florenheim's bank gits it. Florenheim laid down the cash fer + Maxim's nomination, and the Washington National fixed it fer Singleton. + And it's big money, don't you git no wrong idea about <i>that</i>!” + </p> + <p> + “Vote a Republican,” said Toby politely. + </p> + <p> + A look of pain appeared upon the brow of the committee-man. + </p> + <p> + “I reckon I ain't hardly made myself clear,” he observed, somewhat + plaintively. “Now here, you listen: I reckon it would be kind of resky to + trust you boys to scratch the ticket—it's a mixed up business, + anyway—” + </p> + <p> + “Vote a straight!” cried Pietro, nodding his head, cheerfully. “<i>Yess!</i> + I teach Leo; yess, teach all these”—he waved his hands to indicate + the melancholy listeners—“teach them all. Stamp in a circle by that + eagle. Vote a Republican!” + </p> + <p> + “What I was goin' to say,” went on the official, exhibiting tokens of + impatience and perturbation, “was that if we <i>should</i> make any switch + this year, I guess you boys would have to switch straight.” + </p> + <p> + “'Tis true!” was the hearty response. “Vote a straight Republican. + Republican eternall!” + </p> + <p> + Pixley wiped his forehead with a dirty handkerchief, and scratched his + head. “See here,” he said, after a pause, to Toby. “I've got to go down to + Collins's saloon, and I'd like to have you come along. Feel like going?” + </p> + <p> + “Certumalee,” answered Toby with alacrity, reaching for his hat. + </p> + <p> + But no one could have been more surprised than the chestnut vender when, + on reaching the vacant street, his companion glancing cautiously about, + beckoned him into the darkness of an alley-way, and, noiselessly upsetting + a barrel, indicated it as a seat for both. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” said Pixley, “I reckon this is better. Jest two men by theirselves + kin fix up a thing like this a lot quicker, and I seen you didn't want to + talk too much before <i>them</i>. You make your own deal with 'em + afterwards, or none at all, jest as you like! They'll do whatever you say, + anyway. I sized you up to run <i>that</i> bunch, first time I ever laid + eyes on the outfit. Now see here, Pete, you listen to me. I reckon I kin + turn a little trick here that'll do you some good. You kin bet I see that + the men I pick fer my leaders—like you, Pete—git their rights! + Now here: there's you and the other six, that's seven; it'll be three + dollars in your pocket if you deliver the goods.” + </p> + <p> + “No! no!” said Pietro in earnest protestation. “We seven a good + Republican. We vote a Republican—same las' time, all a time. Eesa + not a need to pay us to vote a Republican. You save that a money, Meesa + Peaslay.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't understand,” groaned Pixley, with an inclination to weep over + the foreigner's thick-headedness. “There's a chance fer a big deal here + for all the boys in the precinck. Gil. Maxim's backers'll pay <i>big</i> + fer votes enough to swing it. The best of 'em don't know where they're at, + I tell you. Now here, you see here”—he took an affectionate grip of + Pietro's collar—“I'm goin' to have a talk with Maxim's manager + to-morrow, I've had one or two a'ready, and I'll put up the price all + round on them people. It's no more'n right, when you count up what we're + doin' fer them. Look here, you swing them six in line and march 'em up, + and all of ye stamp the rooster instead of the eagle this time, and help + me to show Maxim that Frank Pixley's there with the goods, and I'll hand + you a five-dollar bill and a full box o' <i>ci</i>gars, see?” + </p> + <p> + Pietro nodded and smiled through the darkness. “Stamp that eagle!” he + answered, “Eesa all <i>right</i>, Meesa Peasley. Don't you have afraid. We + all seven a good Republican! Stamp that eagle! Hoor-r-ra! Republican <i>eternall</i>!” + </p> + <p> + Pixley was left sitting on the barrel, looking after the light figure of + the young man joyously tripping back to the cellar, and turning to wave a + hand in farewell from the street. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I <i>am</i> damned!” the politician remarked, with unwitting + veracity. “Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely + didn't un'erstand fer honest?” Then, as he took up his way, crossing the + street at the warning of some red and green smallpox lanterns, “I'll git + those seven votes, though, <i>someway</i>. I'm out fer a record this time, + and I'll <i>git</i> 'em!” + </p> + <p> + Bertha went with her fiancé to select the home that was to be theirs. They + found a clean, tidy, furnished room, with a canary bird thrown in, and + Toby, in the wild joy of his heart, seized his sweetheart round the waist + and tried to force her to dance under the amazed eyes of the landlady. + </p> + <p> + “You yoost behafed awful!” exclaimed the blushing waitress that evening, + with tears of laughter at the remembrance. + </p> + <p> + She was as happy as her lover, except for two small worries that she had: + she feared that her uncle, Louie Gratz, with whom she lived, or one of her + few friends, might, when they found she was to marry Toby, allude to him + as a “Dago,” in which case she had an intuition that he would slap the + offender; and she was afraid of the smallpox, which had caused the + quarantine of two shanties not far from her uncle's house. The former of + her fears she did not mention, but the latter she spoke of frequently, + telling Pietro how Gratz was panic-stricken, and talked of moving, and how + glad she was that Toby's “gran' palazzo” was in another quarter of the + city, as he had led her to believe. Laughing her humours almost away, he + told her that the red and green lanterns, threatening murkily down the + street, were for only wicked ones, like that Meesa Peaslay, for whom she + discovered, Pietro's admiration had diminished. And when she thought of + the new home—far across the city from the ugly flags and lanterns—the + tiny room with its engraving of the “Rock of Ages” and its canary, she + forgot both her troubles entirely; for now, at last, the marvellous fact + was assured: the five hundred dollars was pinned into the waistcoat + pocket, lying upon Pietro's heart day and night, the precious lump that + meant to him Bertha and a home. The good Republican set election-day for + the happiest holiday of his life, for that would be his wedding-day. + </p> + <p> + He left her at her own gate, the evening before that glorious day, and + sang his way down the street, feeling that he floated on the airy uplift + of his own barcarole beneath sapphire skies, for Bertha had put her arms + about him at last. + </p> + <p> + “Toby,” she said, “lieber Toby, I am so all-lofing by you—you are + sitch a good maan—I am so—so—I am yoost all-<i>lofing</i> + by you!” And she cried heartily upon his shoulder. “Toby, uf you ain'd + here for me to-morrow by eckseckly dwelf o'glock, uf you are von minutes + late, I'm goin' yoost fall down deat! Don' you led nothings happen mit + you, Toby.” + </p> + <p> + And she had whispered to him, in love with his old tender mockery of her, + to sing “Libra Ogostine” for her before he said good-night. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pixley, again seated upon the barrel which he had used for his + interview with Toby, beheld the transfigured face of the young man as the + chestnut vender passed the mouth of the alley, and the committee-man + released from his soul a burdening profanity in the ear of his companion + and confidant, a policeman who would be on duty in Pixley's precinct on + the morrow, and who had now reported for instructions not necessarily + received in a too public rendezvous. + </p> + <p> + “After I talked to him out here on this very barrel,” said Pixley, his + anathema concluded, “I raised the bid on him; yessir, you kin skin me fer + a dead skunk if I didn't offer him ten dollars and a box of <i>cigars</i> + fer the bunch; and him jest settin' there laughin' like a plumb fool and + tellin' me I didn't need to worry, they'd all vote Republican fer nothin'! + Talked like a parrot: 'Vote a Republican! Republican eternal!' <i>Republican</i>! + Faugh, he don't know no more why he's a Republican than a yeller dog'd + know! I went around to-night, when he was out, thought mebbe I could fix + it up with the others. No, <i>sir</i>! Couldn't git nothing out of 'em + except some more parrot-cackle: 'Vote same Petro. All a good Republican!' + It's enough to sicken a man!” + </p> + <p> + “Do we need his gang bad?” inquired the policeman deferentially. + </p> + <p> + “I need everybody bad! This is a good-sized job fer me, and I want to do + it right. Throwin' the precinck to Maxim is goin' to do me <i>some</i> + wrong with the Republican crowd, even if they don't git on that it was + throwed; and I want to throw it <i>good</i>! I couldn't feel like I'd done + right if I didn't. I've give my word that they'll git a majority of + sixty-eight votes, and that'll be jest twicet as much in my pocket as a + plain majority. And I want them seven Dagoes! I've give up on <i>votin</i>' + 'em; it can't be done. It'd make a saint cuss to try to reason with 'em, + and it's no good. They can't be fooled, neither. They know where the polls + is, and they know how to vote—blast the Australian ballot system! + The most that can be done is to keep 'em away from the polls.” + </p> + <p> + “Can't you git 'em out of town in the morning?” + </p> + <p> + “D'you reckon I ain't tried that? <i>No</i>, sir! That Dago wouldn't take + a pass to <i>heaven</i>! Everything else is all right. Doc Morgan's + niggers stays right here and <i>votes</i>. I <i>know</i> them boys, and + they'll walk up and stamp the rooster all right, all right. Them other + niggers, that Hell-Valley gang, ain't that kind; and them and Tooms's + crowd's goin' to be took out to Smelter's ice-houses in three express + wagons at four o'clock in the morning. It ain't goin' to cost over two + dollars a head, whiskey and all. Then, Dan Kelly is fixed, and the Loo + boys. Mike, I don't like to brag, and I ain't around throwin' no bokays at + myself as a reg'lar thing, but I want to say right, here, there ain't + another man in this city—no, nor the State neither—that could + of worked his precinck better'n I have this. I tell you, I'm within five + or six votes of the majority they set for their big money.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you give the Dagoes up altogether?” + </p> + <p> + “No, by——!” cried the committee-man harshly, bringing his + dirty fist down on the other's knee. “Did you ever hear of Frank Pixley + weakenin'? Did you ever see the man that said Frank Pixley wasn't game?” + He rose to his feet, a ragged and sinister silhouette against the + sputtering electric light at the alley mouth. “Didn't you ever hear that + Frank Pixley had a barrel of schemes to any other man's bucket o' wind? + What's Frank Pixley's repitation, lemme ast you that? I git what I go + after, don't I? Now look here, you listen to me,” he said, lowering his + voice and shaking a bent forefinger earnestly in the policeman's face; + “I'm goin' to turn the trick. And I <i>ought</i> to do it, too. That there + Pete, he ain't worth the powder to blow him up—you couldn't learn + him no politics if you set up with him night after night fer a year. + Didn't I <i>try? Try</i>? I dern near bust my head open jest thinkin' up + ways to make the flathead <i>see</i>. And he wouldn't make no effort, jest + set there and parrot out 'Vote a Republican!' He's ongrateful, that's what + he is. Well, him and them other Dagoes are goin' to stay at home fer two + weeks, beginnin' to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll be dogged if I see how,” said the policeman, lifting his helmet to + scratch his head. + </p> + <p> + “I'll show you how. I don't claim no credit fer the idea, I ain't around + blowin' my own horn too often, but I'd like fer somebody to jest show me + any other man in this city could have thought it out! I'd like to be + showed jest one, that's all, jest one! Now, you look here; you see that + nigger shanty over there, with the smallpox lanterns outside?” + </p> + <p> + The policeman shivered slightly. “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Look here; they're rebuildin' the pest-house, ain't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Leavin' smallpox patients in their own holes under quarantine guard till + they git a place to put 'em, ain't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “You know how many niggers in that shack?” + </p> + <p> + “Four, ain't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Yessir, four of 'em. One died to-night, another's goin' to, another ain't + tellin' which way he's goin' yit; and the last one, Joe Cribbins, was the + first to take it; and he's almost plumb as good as ever ag'in. He's up and + around the house, helpin' nurse the sick ones, and fit fer hard labour. + Now look here; that nigger does what I <i>tell</i> him and he does it + quick—see? Well, he knows what I want him to do to-night. So does + Charley Gruder, the guard over there. Charley's fixed; I seen to that; and + he knows he ain't goin' to lose no job fer the nigger's gittin' out of the + back winder to go make a little sociable call this evening.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” exclaimed the policeman, startled; “Charley ain't goin' to let + that nigger out!” + </p> + <p> + “Ain't he? Oh, you needn't worry, he ain't goin' <i>fur</i>! All he's + waiting fer is fer you to give the signal.” + </p> + <p> + “Me!” The man in the helmet drew back. + </p> + <p> + “Yessir, you! You walk out there and lounge up towards the drug-store and + jest look over to Charley and nod twice. Then you stand on the corner and + watch and see what you see. When you <i>see</i> it, you yell fer Charley + and git into the drug store telephone, and call up the health office and + git their men up here and into that Dago cellar like hell! The nigger'll + be there. They don't know him, and he'll just drop in to try and sell the + Dagoes some policy tickets. You understand <i>me</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Mother Mary in heaven!” The policeman sprang up. “What are you going to + do?” + </p> + <p> + “What am I going to do?” shrilled the other, the light of a monstrous + pride in his little eyes. “I'm goin' to quarantine them Dagoes fer + fourteen days. They'll learn some politics before I git through with 'em. + Maybe they'll know enough United States language to foller their leader + next time!” + </p> + <p> + “By all that's mighty, Pixley,” said the policeman, with an admiration + that was almost reverence, “you <i>are</i> a schemer!” + </p> + <p> + “Mein Gott!” screeched Bertha's uncle, snapping his teeth fiercely on his + pipe-stem, as he flung open the door of the girl's room. “You want to + disgraze me mit der whole neighbourhoot, 'lection night? Quid ut! Stob ut! + Beoples in der streed stant owidside und litzen to dod grying. You <i>voult</i> + goin' to marry mit a Dago mens, voult you! Ha, ha! Soife you right! He run + away!” The old man laughed unamiably. “Ha, ha! Dago mens foolt dod smard + Bertha. Dod's pooty tough. But, bei Gott, you stop dod noise und ect lige + a detzent voomans, or you goin' haf droubles mit your uncle Louie Gratz!” + </p> + <p> + But Bertha, an undistinguishable heap on the floor of the unlit room, only + gasped brokenly for breath and wept on. + </p> + <p> + “Ach, ach, ach, lieber Gott in Himmel!” sobbed Bertha. “Why didn't Toby + come for me? Ach, ach! What iss happened mit Toby? Somedings iss happened—I + <i>know</i> ut!” + </p> + <p> + “Ya, ya!” jibed Gratz; “somedings iss heppened, I bet you! Brop'ly he's + got anoder vife, dod's vot heppened! Brop'ly <i>leffing</i> ad you mit + anoder voomans! Vot for dit he nefer tolt you vere he lif? So you voultn't + ketch him; dod's der reason! You're a pooty vun, <i>you</i> are! Runnin' + efter a doity Dago mens! Bei Gott! you bedder git oop und back your + glo'es, und stob dod gryin'. I'm goin' to mofe owid to-morrow; und you kin + go verefer you blease. I ain'd goin' to sday anoder day in sitch a + neighbourhoot. Fife more smallpox lanterns yoost oop der streed. I'm goin' + mofe glean to der oder ent of der city. Und you can come by me or you can + run efter your Dago mens und his voomans! Dod's why he dittn't come to + marry you, you grazy—ut's a voomans!” + </p> + <p> + “No, <i>no</i>,” screamed Bertha, stopping her ears with her forefingers. + “Lies, lies, lies!” + </p> + <p> + A slatternly negro woman dawdled down the street the following afternoon, + and, encountering a friend of like description near the cottage which had + been tenanted by Louie Gratz and his niece, paused for conversation. + </p> + <p> + “Howdy, honey,” she began, leaning restfully against the gate-post. “How's + you ma?” + </p> + <p> + “She right spry,” returned the friend. “How you'self an' you good husban', + Miz Mo'ton?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Morton laughed cheerily. “Oh, he enjoyin' de 'leckshum. He 'uz on de + picnic yas'day, to Smeltuh's ice-houses; an' 'count er Mist' Maxim's + gittin' 'lected, dey gi'n him bottle er whiskey an' two dollahs. He up at + de house now, entuhtainin' some ge'lemenfrien's wi'de bones, honey.” + </p> + <p> + “Um hum.” The other lady sighed reflectively. “I on'y wisht my po' husban' + could er live to enjoy de fruits er politics.” + </p> + <p> + “Yas'm,” returned Mrs. Morton. “You right. It are a great intrus' in a + man's life. Dat what de ornator say in de speech f'm de back er de groce'y + wagon, yas'm, a great intrus' in a man's life. Decla'h, I b'lieve Goe'ge + think mo' er politics dan he do er me! Well ma'am,” she concluded, + glancing idly up and down the street and leaning back more comfortably + against the gatepost, “I mus' be goin' on my urrant.” + </p> + <p> + “What urrant's dat?” inquired the widow. + </p> + <p> + “Mighty quare urrant,” replied Mrs. Morton. “Mighty quare urrant, honey. + You see back yon'eh dat new smallpox flag?” + </p> + <p> + “Sho.” + </p> + <p> + “Well ma'am, night fo' las', dat Joe Cribbins, dat one-eye nigger what + sell de policy tickets, an's done be'n havin' de smallpox, he crope out de + back way, when's de gyahd weren't lookin', an', my Lawd, ef dey ain't + ketch him down in dat Dago cellar, tryin' sell dem Dagoes policy tickets! + Yahah, honey!” Mrs. Morton threw back her head to laugh. “Ain't dat de + beatenest nigger, dat one-eyed Joe?” + </p> + <p> + “What den, Miz Mo'ton?” pursued the listener. + </p> + <p> + “Den dey quahumteem dem Dagoes; sot a gyahd dah: you kin see him settin' + out dah now. Well ma'am, 'cordin' to dat gyahd, one er dem Dagoes like ter + go inter fits all day yas'day. Dat man hatter go in an' quiet him down + ev'y few minute'. Seem 't he boun' sen' a message an' cain't git no one to + ca'y it fer him. De gyahd, he cain't go; he willin' sen' de message, but + cain't git nobody come nigh enough de place fer to tell 'em what it is. + 'Sides, it 'leckshum-day, an' mos' folks hangin' 'roun' de polls. Well + ma'am, dis aft'noon, I so'nter'n by, an' de gyahd holler out an' ask me do + I want make a dollah, an' I say I do. I ain't 'fraid no smallpox, done had + it two year' ago. So I say I take de message.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Law, honey, it ain't wrote. Dem Dago folks hain't got no writin' ner + readin'. Dey mo' er less like de beasts er de fiel'. Dat message by word + er mouf. I goin' tell nuffin 'bout de quahumteem. I'm gotter say: 'Toby + sen' word to liebuh Augustine dat she needn' worry. He li'l sick, not + much, but de doctah ain' 'low him out fer two weeks; an' 'mejutly at de + en' er dat time he come an' git her an' den kin go on home wheres de + canary bu'd is.' Honey, you evah hyuh o' sich a foolishness? But de gyahd, + he say de message gotter be ca'yied dass dataways.” + </p> + <p> + “Lan' name!” ejaculated the widow. “Who dat message to?” + </p> + <p> + “Hit to a Dutch gal.” + </p> + <p> + “My Lawd!” The widow lifted amazed hands to heaven. “De impidence er dem + Dagoes! <i>Little</i> mo' an' dey'll be sen'in' messages to you er me!—What + her name?” + </p> + <p> + “Name Bertha Grass,” responded Mrs. Morton, “an', nigh as I kin make out, + she live in one er dese little w'ite-paint cottages, right 'long yere.” + </p> + <p> + “Yas'm! I knows dat Dutch gal, ole man Grass, de tailor, dass his niece. + W'y, dey done move out dis mawn, right f'um dis ve'y house you stan'in in + front de gate of. De ole man skeered er de smallpox, an' he mad, too, an' + de neighbuhs ask him whuh he gwine, he won't tell; so mad he won't speak + to nobody. None on 'em 'round hyuh knows an' dey's considabul cyu'us 'bout + it, too. Dey gone off in bofe d'rections—him one way, her 'nother. + 'Peah lak dey be'n quollun!” + </p> + <p> + “Now look at dat!” cried Mrs. Morton dolefully. “Look at dat! Ain't dat de + doggonest luck in de wide worl'! De gyahd he say dat Dago willin' pay + fifty cents a day fo' me to teck an' bring a message eve'y mawn' tell de + quahumteem took off de cellar. Now dat Dutch gal gone an' loss dat money + fo' me—movin' 'way whuh nobody cain't fine 'er!” + </p> + <p> + “Sho!” laughed the widow. “Ef I'se in you place, Miz Mo'ton, an' you's in + mine, dat money sho'lly, sho'lly nevah would be los', indeed hit wouldn't. + I dass go in t' de do' an' tu'n right 'roun' back ag'in an' go down to dat + gyahd an' say de Dutch gal 'ceive de message wid de bes' er 'bligin' + politeness an' sent her kine regyahds to de Dago man an' all inquirin' + frien's, an' hope de Dago man soon come an' git 'er. To-morrer de same, + nex' day de same—” + </p> + <p> + “Lawd, ef dat ain't de beatenest!” cried Mrs. Morton delightedly. “Well, + honey, I thank you long as I live, 'cause I nevah'd a wuk dat out by + myself an de livin' worl', an' I sho does needs de money. I'm goin' do + exackly dass de way you say. Dat man he ain' goin' know no diffunce till + he git out—an' den, honey,” she let loose upon the quiet air a + sudden, great salvo of laughter, “dass let him fine Lize Mo'ton!” + </p> + <p> + Bertha went to live in the tiny room with the canary bird and the + engraving of the “Rock of Ages.” This was putting lime to the canker, but, + somehow, she felt that she could go to no other place. She told the + landlady that her young man had not done so well in business as they had + expected, and had sought work in another city. He would come back, she + said. + </p> + <p> + She woke from troubled dreams each morning to stifle her sobbing in the + pillow. “Ach, Toby, coultn't you sented me yoost one word, you <i>might</i> + sented me yoost one word, yoost one, to tell me what has happened mit you! + Ach, Toby, Toby!” + </p> + <p> + The canary sang happily; she loved it and tended it, and the gay little + prisoner tried to reward her by the most marvellous trilling in his power, + but her heart was the sorer for every song. + </p> + <p> + After a time she went back drearily to the kraut-smelling restaurant, to + the work she had thought to leave forever, that day when Toby had not come + for her. She went out twenty times every morning, and oftener as it wore + on towards evening, to look at his closed stand, always with a choking + hope in her heart, always to drag leaden feet back into the restaurant. + Several times, her breath failing for shame, she approached Italians in + the street, or where there was one to be found at a stand of any sort she + stopped and made a purchase, and asked for some word of Toby—without + result, always. She knew no other way to seek for him. + </p> + <p> + One day, as she trudged homeward, two coloured women met on the pavement + in front of her, exchanged greetings, and continued for a little way + together. + </p> + <p> + “How you enjoyin' you' money, dese fine days, Miz Mo'ton?” inquired one, + with a laugh that attested to the richness of the joke between the two. + </p> + <p> + “Law, honey,” answered the other, “dat good luck di'n' las' ve'y long. Dey + done shut off my supplies.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” + </p> + <p> + “Yas'm, dey sho did. Dat man done tuck de smallpox; all on 'em ketched it, + ev'y las' one, off'n dat no 'count Joe Cribbins, an' now dat dey got de + new pes'-house finish', dey haul 'em off yon'eh, yas'day. Reckon dat ain' + make no diffunce in my urrant runnin'. Dat Dago man, he outer he hade two + day fo' dey haul 'em away, an' ain' sen' no mo' messages. So dat spile <i>my</i> + job! Hit dass my luck. Dey's sho' a voodoo on Lize Mo'ton!” + </p> + <p> + Bertha, catching but fragments of this conversation, had no realization + that it bore in any way upon the mystery of Toby; and she stumbled + homeward through the twilight with her tired eyes on the ground. + </p> + <p> + When she opened the door of the tiny room, the landlady's lean black cat + ran out surreptitiously. The bird-cage lay on the floor, upside down, and + of its jovial little inhabitant the tokens were a few yellow feathers. + </p> + <p> + Bertha did not know until a month after, when Leo Vesschi found her at the + restaurant and told her, that out in the new pest-house, that other + songster and prisoner, the gay little chestnut vender, Pietro Tobigli, had + called lamentably upon the name of his God and upon “Libra Ogostine,” and + now lay still forever, with the corduroy waistcoat and its precious burden + tightly clenched to his breast. Even in his delirium they had been unable + to coax or force him to part from it for a second. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE NEED OF MONEY + </h2> + <p> + Far back in his corner on the Democratic side of the House, Uncle Billy + Rollinson sat through the dragging routine of the legislative session, + wondering what most of it meant. When anybody spoke to him, in passing, he + would answer, in his gentle, timid voice, “Howdy-do, sir.” Then his cheeks + would grow a little red and he would stroke his long, white beard + elaborately, to cover his embarrassment. When a vote was taken, his name + was called toward the last of the roll, so that he had ample time, after + the leader of his side of the House, young Hurlbut, had voted, to clear + his throat several times and say “Aye” or “No” in quite a firm voice. But + the instant the word had left his lips he found himself terribly + frightened, and stroked his beard a great many times, the while he stared + seriously up at the ceiling, partly to avoid meeting anybody's eye, and + partly in the belief that it concealed his agitation and gave him the air + of knowing what he was about. Usually he did not know, any more than he + knew how he had happened to be sent to the legislature by his county. But + he liked it. He liked the feeling of being a person to be considered; he + liked to think that he was making the laws of his State. He liked the + handsome desk and the easy leather chair; he liked the row of fat, + expensive volumes, the unlimited stationery, and the free penknives which + were furnished him. He enjoyed the attentions of the coloured men in the + cloakroom, who brushed him ostentatiously and always called him (and the + other Representatives) “Senator,” to make up to themselves for the airs + which the janitors of the “Upper House” assumed. Most of these things + surprised him; he had not expected to be treated with such liberality by + the State and never realized that he and his colleagues were treating + themselves to all these things at the expense of the people, and so, + although he bore off as much note-paper as he could carry, now and then, + to send to his son, Henry, he was horrified and dumbfounded when the bill + was proposed appropriating $135,000 for the expenses of the seventy days' + session of the legislature. + </p> + <p> + He was surprised to find that among his “perquisites” were passes (good + during the session) on all the railroads that entered the State, and + others for use on many inter-urban trolley lines. These, he thought, might + be gratifying to Henry, who was fond of travel, and had often been unhappy + when his father failed to scrape up enough money to send him to a circus + in the next county. It was “very accommodating of the railroads,” Uncle + Billy thought, to maintain this pleasant custom, because the members' + travelling expenses were paid by the State just the same; hence the + economical could “draw their mileage” at the Treasurer's office, and add + it to their salaries. He heard—only vaguely understanding—many + joking references to other ways of adding to salaries. + </p> + <p> + Most of the members of his party had taken rooms at one of the hotels, + whither those who had sought cheaper apartments repaired in the evening, + when the place became a noisy and crowded club, admission to which was not + by card. Most of the rougher man-to-man lobbying was done here; and at + times it was Babel. + </p> + <p> + Through the crowds Uncle Billy wandered shyly, stroking his beard and + saying, “Howdy-do, sir,” in his gentle voice, getting out of the way of + people who hurried, and in great trouble of mind if any one asked him how + he intended to vote upon a bill. When this happened he looked at the + interrogator in the plaintive way which was his habit, and answered + slowly: “I reckon I'll have to think it over.” He was not in Hurlbut's + councils. + </p> + <p> + There was much bustle all about him, but he was not part of it. The + newspaper reporters remarked the quiet, inoffensive old figure pottering + about aimlessly on the outskirts of the crowd, and thought Uncle Billy as + lonely as a man might well be, for he seemed less a part of the political + arrangement than any member they had ever seen. He would have looked less + lonely and more in place trudging alone through the furrows of his home + fields in a wintry twilight. + </p> + <p> + And yet, everybody liked the old man, Hurlbut in particular, if Uncle + Billy had known it; for Hurlbut watched the votes very closely and was + often struck by the soundness of Representative Rollinson's intelligence + in voting. + </p> + <p> + In return, Uncle Billy liked Hurlbut better than any other man he had ever + known—except Henry, of course. On the first day of the session, when + the young leader had been pointed out to him, Uncle Billy's humble soul + was prostrate with admiration, and when Hurlbut led the first attack on + the monopolistic tendencies of the Republican party, Representative + Rollinson, chuckling in his beard at the handsome youth's audacity, + himself dared so greatly as to clap his hands aloud. Hurlbut, on the + floor, was always a storm centre: tall, dramatic, bold, the members put + down their newspapers whenever his strong voice was heard demanding + recognition, and his “Mr. Speaker!” was like the first rumble of thunder. + The tempest nearly always followed, and there were times when it + threatened to become more than vocal; when, all order lost, nine-tenths of + the men on the other side of the House were on their feet shouting jeers + and denunciations, and the orator faced them, out-thundering them all, + with his own cohorts, flushed and cheering, gathered round him. Then, + indeed, Uncle Billy would have thought him a god, if he had known what a + god was. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes Uncle Billy saw him in the hotel lobby, but he seemed always to + be making for the elevator in a hurry, with half-a-dozen people trying to + detain him, or descending momentarily from the stairway for a quick, sharp + talk with one or two members, their heads close together, after which + Hurlbut would dart upward again. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes the old man sat down at one of the writing tables, in a corner + of the lobby, and, annexing a sheet of the hotel note-paper, “wrote home” + to Henry. He sat with his head bent far over, the broad brim of his felt + hat now and then touching the hand with which he kept the paper from + sliding; and he pressed diligently upon his pen, usually breaking it + before the letter was finished. He looked so like a man intent upon + concealment that the reporters were wont to say: “There's Uncle Billy + humped up over his guilty secret again.” + </p> + <p> + The secret usually took this form: + </p> + <p> + “Dear Son Henry: + </p> + <p> + “I would be glad if you was here. There is big doings. Hurlbut give it to + them to-day. He don't give the Republicans no rest, he lights into them + like sixty you would like to see him. They are plenty nice fellows in the + Republicans too but they lay mighty low when Hurlbut gets after them. He + was just in the office but went out. He always has a segar in his mouth + but not lit. I expect hes quit. I send you enclosed last week's salary all + but $11.80 which I had to use as living is pretty high in our capital city + of the state. If you would like some of this hotel writing paper better + than the kind I sent you of the General Assembly I can send you some the + boys say it is free. I think it is all right you sold the calf but Wilkes + didn't give you good price. Hurlbut come in while I was writing then. You + bet he can always count on Wm. Rollinson's vote. + </p> + <p> + “Well I must draw to a dose, Yours truly + </p> + <p> + “Your father.” + </p> + <p> + “Wm. Rollinson” was not aware that he was known to his colleagues and the + lobby and the Press as “Uncle Billy” until informed thereof by a public + print. He stood, one night, on the edge of a laughing group, when a + reporter turned to him and said: + </p> + <p> + “The <i>Constellation</i> would like to know Representative Rollinson's + opinion of the scandalous story that has just been told.” + </p> + <p> + The old man, who had not in the least understood the story, summoned all + his faculties, and, after long deliberation, bent his plaintive eyes upon + the youth and replied: + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, it's a-stonishing, a-stonishing!” + </p> + <p> + “Think it's pretty bad, do you?” + </p> + <p> + Some of the crowd turned to listen, and the old fellow, hopelessly + puzzled, stroked his beard with a trembling hand, and then, muttering, + “Well, young man, I expect you better excuse me,” hurried away and left + the place. The next morning he found the following item tacked to the tail + of the “Legislative Gossip” column of the <i>Constellation</i>: + </p> + <h3> + “UNCLE BILLY ROLLINSON HORRIFIED + </h3> + <p> + “Yesterday a curious and amusing story was current among the solons at the + Nagmore Hotel. It seems that the wife of a country member of the last + legislature had been spending the day at the hotel and the wife of a + present member from the country complained to her of the greatly increased + expenditure appertaining to the cost of living in the Capital City. + 'Indeed,' replied the wife of the former member, 'that is curious. But I + suppose my husband is much more economical than yours, for he brought home + $1.500, that he'd saved out of his salary.' As the salary is only $456, + and the gentleman in question did not play poker, much hilarity was + indulged in, and there were conjectures that the economy referred to + concerned his vote upon a certain bill before the last session, anent + which the lobby pushing it were far from economical. Uncle Billy + Rollinson, the Gentleman from Wixinockee, heard the story, as it passed + from mouth to mouth, but he had no laughter to greet it. Uncle Billy, as + every one who comes in contact with him knows, is as honest as the day is + long, and the story grieved and shocked him. He expressed the utmost + horror and consternation, and requested to be excused from speaking + further upon a subject so repugnant to his feelings. If there were more + men of this stamp in politics, who find corruption revolting instead of + amusing, our legislatures would enjoy a better fame.” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy had always been agitated by the sight of his name in print. + Even in the Wixinockee County <i>Clarion</i>, it dumbfounded him and gave + him a strange feeling that it must mean somebody else, but this sudden + blaze of metropolitan fame made him almost giddy. He folded the paper + quickly and placed it under his coat, feeling vaguely that it would not do + to be seen reading it. He murmured feeble answers during the day, when + some of his colleagues referred to it; but when he reached his own little + room that evening, he spread it out under his oil-smelling lamp and read + it again. Perhaps he read it twenty times over before the supper bell + rang. Perhaps the fact that he was still intent upon it accounted for his + not hearing the bell, so that his landlady had to call him. + </p> + <p> + What he liked was the phrase: “Honest as the day is long.” He did not go + to the hotel that night. He went back to his room and read the <i>Constellation</i>. + He liked the <i>Constellation</i>. Newspapers were very kind, he thought. + Now and then, he would pick up his pile of legislative bills and try to + spell through the ponderous sentences, but he always gave it up and went + back to the <i>Constellation</i>. He wondered if Hurlbut had read it. + Hurlbut had. The leader had even told the author of the item that he was + glad somebody could appreciate the kind of a man Uncle Billy was, and his + value to the body politic. + </p> + <p> + “Honest as the day is long,” Uncle Billy repeated to himself, in the + little room, nodding his head gravely. Then he thought for a long while + about the member who had, according to the story, gone home with $1,500. + He sat up, that evening, until almost ten o'clock. Even after he had gone + to bed, he lay awake with his eyes wide open in the darkness, thinking of + the colossal sum. If anybody should come to <i>him</i> and offer him all + that money to vote a certain way upon a bill, he believed he would not + take it, for that would be bribery; though Henry would be glad to have the + money. Henry always needed money; sometimes the need was imperative—once, + indeed, so imperative that the small, unfertile farm had been mortgaged + beyond its value, otherwise very serious things must have happened to + Henry. Uncle Billy wondered how offers of money to members were refused + without hurting the intending donor's feelings. And what a great deal + could be done with $1,500, if a member could get it and still be as honest + as the day is long! + </p> + <p> + About the second month of the session the floor of the House began + steadily to grow more and more tumultuous. To an unpolitical onlooker, + leaning over the gallery rail, it was often an incomprehensible Bedlam, or + perhaps one might have been reminded of an ant-heap by the + hurry-and-scurry and life-and-death haste in a hundred directions at once, + quite without any distinguishable purpose. Twenty men might be rampaging + up and down the aisles, all shouting, some of them furiously, others with + a determination that was deadly, all with arms waving at the Speaker, some + of the hands clenched, some of them fluttering documents, while pages ran + everywhere in mad haste, stumbling and falling in the aisles. In the midst + of this, other members, seated, wrote studiously; others mildly read + newspapers; others lounged, half-standing against their desks, unlighted + cigars in their mouths, laughing; all the while the patient Speaker tapped + with his gavel on a small square of marble. Suddenly perfect calm would + come and the voice of the reading clerk drone for half an hour or more, + like a single bee in a country garden on Sunday morning. + </p> + <p> + Of all this Uncle Billy was as much a layman spectator as any tramp who + crept into the gallery for a few hours out of the cold. The hurry and + seethe of the racing sea touched him not at all, except to bewilderment, + while he was carried with it, unknowing, toward the breakers. The shout of + those breakers was already in the ears of many, for the crisis of the + session was coming. This was the fight that was to be made on Hurlbut's + “Railroad Bill,” which was, indeed, but in another sense, known as the + “Breaker.” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy had heard of the “Breaker.” He couldn't have helped that. He + had heard a dozen say: “Then's when it's going to be warm times, when that + 'Breaker' comes up!” or, “Look out for that 'Breaker.' We're going to have + big trouble.” He knew, too, that Hurlbut was interested in the “Breaker,” + but upon which side he was for a long time ignorant. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Hurlbut always nodded to the old man, now, as he came down the aisle to + his own desk. He had begun that, the day after the <i>Constellation</i> + item. Uncle Billy never failed to be in his seat early in the morning, + waiting for the nod. He answered it with his usual “Howdy-do, sir,” then + stroked his beard and gazed profoundly at the row of fat volumes in front + of him, swallowing painfully once or twice. + </p> + <p> + This was all that really happened for Uncle Billy during the turmoil and + scramble that went on about him all the day long. He had not been forced + to discover a way to meet an offer of $1,500, without hurting the putative + giver's feelings. No lobbyist had the faintest idea of “approaching” the + old man in that way. The members and the hordes of camp-followers and all + the lobby had settled into a belief that Representative Rollinson was a + sea-green Incorruptible, that of all honest members he was the most + honest. He had become typical of honesty: sayings were current—“You + might as well try to bribe Uncle Billy Rollinson!” “As honest as old Uncle + Billy Rollinson.” Hurlbut often used such phrases in private. + </p> + <p> + The “Breaker” was Hurlbut's own bill; he had planned it and written it, + though it came over to the House from the Senate under a Senator's name. + It was one of those “anti-monopolistic” measures which Democrats put their + whole hearts into, sometimes, and believe in and fight for magnificently; + an idea conceived in honesty and for a beneficent purpose, in the belief + that a legislature by the wave of a hand can conjure the millennium to + appear; and born out of an utter misconception of man and railroads. The + bill needs no farther description than this: if it passed and became an + enforced law, the dividends of every rail road entering the State would be + reduced by two-fifths. There is one thing that will fight harder than a + Democrat—that is a railroad. + </p> + <p> + The “Breaker” had been kept very dark until Hurlbut felt that he was + ready; then it was swept through the Senate before the railroad lobby, + previously lulled into unsuspicion, could collect itself and block it. + This was as Hurlbut had planned: that the fight should be in his own + House. It was the bill of his heart and he set his reputation upon it. He + needed fifty-one votes to pass it, and he had them, and one to spare; for + he took his followers, who formed the majority, into caucus upon it. It + was in the caucus Uncle Billy learned that Hurlbut was “for” the bill. He + watched the leader with humble, wavering eyes, thinking how strong and + clear his voice was, and wondering if he never lit the cigar he always + carried in his hand, or if he ever got into trouble, like Henry, being a + young man. If he did, Uncle Billy would have liked the chance to help him + out. + </p> + <p> + He had plenty of such chances with Henry; indeed, the opportunity may be + said to have become unintermittent, and Uncle Billy was never free from a + dim fear of the day when his son would get in so deeply that he could not + get him out. Verily, the day seemed near at hand: Henry's letters were + growing desperate and the old man walked the floor of his little room at + night, more and more hopeless. Once or twice, even as he sat at his desk + in the House, his eyes became so watery that he forced himself into long + spells of coughing, to account for it, in case any one might be noticing + him. + </p> + <p> + The caucus was uneventful and quiet, for it had all been talked over, and + was no more than a matter of form. + </p> + <p> + The Republicans did not caucus upon the bill (they had reasons), but they + were solidly against it. Naturally it follows that the assault of the + railroad lobby had to be made upon the virtue of the Democrats <i>as</i> + Democrats. That is, whether a member upon the majority side cared about + the bill for its own sake of not, right or wrong, he felt it his duty as a + Democrat to vote for it. If he had a conscience higher than a political + conscience, and believed the bill was bad, his duty was to “bolt the + caucus”; but all of the Democratic side believed in the righteousness of + the bill, except two. One had already been bought and the other was Uncle + Billy, who knew nothing about it, except that Hurlbut was “for” it and it + seemed to be making a “big stir.” + </p> + <p> + The man who had been bought sat not far from Uncle Billy. He was a + furtive, untidy slouch of a man, formerly a Republican; he had a great + capacity for “handling the coloured vote” and his name was Pixley. Hurlbut + mistrusted him; the young man had that instinct, which good leaders need, + for feeling the weak places in his following; and he had the leader's way, + too, of ever bracing up the weakness and fortifying it; so he stopped, + four or five times a day, at Pixley's desk, urging the necessity of + standing fast for the “Breaker,” and expressing convictions as to the + political future of a Democrat who should fail to vote for it; to which + Pixley assented in his husky, tough-ward voice. + </p> + <p> + All day long now, Hurlbut and his lieutenants, disregarding the routine of + bills, went up and down the lines, fending off the lobbyists and such + Republicans as were working openly for the bill. They encouraged and + threatened and never let themselves be too confident of their seeming + strength. Some of those who were known, or guessed, to be of the “weaker + brethren” were not left to themselves for half an hour at a time, from + their breakfasts until they went to bed. There was always at elbow the “<i>Hold + fast</i>!” whisper of Hurlbut and his lieutenants. None of them ever + thought of speaking to Uncle Billy. + </p> + <p> + Hurlbut's “work was cut out for him,” as they said. What work it is to + keep every one of fifty men honest under great temptation for three weeks + (which time it took for the hampered and filibustered bill to come up for + its passage or defeat), is known to those who have tried to do it. The + railroads were outraged and incensed by the measure; they sincerely + believed it to be monstrous and thievish. “Let the legislature try to + confiscate two-fifths of the lawyers', or the bakers', or the + ironmoulders', just earnings,” said they, “and see what will happen!” + </p> + <p> + When such a bill as this comes to the floor for the third time the fight + is already over, oratory is futile; and Cicero could not budge a vote. The + railroads were forced to fight as best they could; this was the old way + that they have learned is most effective in such a case. Votes could not + be had to “oblige a friend” on the “Breaker” bill; nor could they be + procured by arguments to prove the bill unjust. In brief: the railroad + lobby had no need to buy Republican votes (with the exception of the one + or two who charged out of habit whenever legislation concerned + corporations), for the Republicans were against the bill, but they did + mortally need to buy two Democratic votes, and were willing to pay + handsomely for them. Nevertheless, Mr. Pixley's price was not exorbitant, + considering the situation; nor need he have congratulated himself so + heartily as he did (in moments of retirement from public life) upon his + prospective $2,000 (when the goods should be delivered) since his vote was + assisting the railroads to save many million dollars a year. + </p> + <p> + Of course the lobby attacked the bill noisily; there were big guns going + all day long; but those in charge knew perfectly well that the noise + accomplished nothing in itself. It was used to cover the whispering. + Still, Hurlbut held his line firm and the bill passed its second reading + with fifty-two votes, Mr. Pixley being directed by his owners to vote for + it on that occasion. + </p> + <p> + As time went on the lobby began to grow desperate; even Pixley had been + consulted upon his opinion by Barrett, the young lawyer through whom + negotiations in his case had been conducted. Pixley suggested the name of + Rollinson and Barrett dismissed this counsel with as much disgust for + Pixley's stupidity as he had for the man's person. (One likes a <i>dog</i> + when he buys him.) + </p> + <p> + “But why not?” Pixley had whined as he reached the door. “Uncle Billy + ain't so much! You listen to me. He wouldn't take it out-an'-out—I + don't say as he would. But you needn't work that way. Everybody thinks + it's no use to tackle him—but nobody never <i>tried</i>! What's he + <i>done</i> to make you scared of him? <i>Nothing</i>! Jest set there and + <i>looked</i>!” + </p> + <p> + After he had gone the fellow's words came back to Barrett: “Nobody never + tried!” And then, to satisfy his conscience that he was leaving no stone + unturned, yet laughing at the uselessness of it, he wrote a letter to a + confidant of his, formerly a colleague in the lobby, who lived in the + county-seat near which Uncle Billy's mortgaged acres lay. The answer came + the night after the second vote on the “Breaker.” + </p> + <p> + “Dear Barrett: + </p> + <p> + “I agree with your grafter. I don't believe Rollinson would be hard to + approach if it were done with tact—of course you don't want to + tackle him the way you would a swine like Pixley. A good many people + around here always thought the old man simple-minded. He was given the + nomination almost in joke—nobody else wanted it, because they all + thought the Republicans had a sure thing of it; but Rollinson slid in on + the general Democratic landslide in this district. He's got one son, a + worthless pup, Henry, a sort of yokel Don Juan, always half drunk when his + father has any money to give him, and just smart enough to keep the old + man mesmerized. Lately Henry's been in a mighty serious peck of trouble. + Last fall he got married to a girl here in town. Three weeks ago a family + named Johnson, the most shiftless in the county, the real low-down white + trash sort, living on a truck patch out Rollinson's way, heard that Henry + was on a toot in town, spending money freely, and they went after him. A + client of mine rents their ground to them and told me all about it. It + seems they claim that one of the daughters in the Johnson family was + Henry's common-law wife before he married the other girl, and it's more + than likely they can prove it. They are hollering for $600, and if Henry + doesn't raise it mighty quick they swear they'll get him sent over the + road for bigamy. I think the old man would sell his soul to keep his boy + out of the penitentiary and he's at his wits' ends; he hasn't anything to + raise the money on and he's up against it. He'll do any thing on earth for + Henry. Hope this'll be of some service to you, and if there's anything + more I can do about it you better call me up on the long distance. + </p> + <p> + “Yours faithfully, + </p> + <h3> + “J. P. WATSON. + </h3> + <p> + “P.S.—You might mention to our old boss that I don't want anything + if services are needed; but a pass for self and family to New York and + return would come in handy.” + </p> + <p> + Barrett telegraphed an answer at once: “If it goes you can have annual for + yourself and family. Will call you up at two sharp to-morrow.” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It was late the following night when the lobbyist concluded his interview + with Representative Rollinson, in the latter's little room, half lighted + by the oil-smelling lamp. + </p> + <p> + “I knew you would understand, Mr. Rollinson,” said Barrett as he rose to + go. His eyes danced and his jaws set with the thought that had been + jubilant within him for the last half-hour: “We've got 'em! We've got 'em! + We've got 'em!” The railroads had defended their own again. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” he went on, “we wouldn't have dreamed of coming to you and + asking you to vote against this outrageous bill if we thought for a minute + that you had any real belief in it or considered it a good bill. But you + say, yourself, your only feeling about it was to oblige Mr. Hurlbut, and + you admit, too, that you've voted his way on every other bill of the + session. Surely, as I've already said so many times, you don't think he'd + be so unreasonable as to be angry with you for differing with him on the + merits of only one! No, no, Hurlbut's a very sensible fellow about such + matters. You don't need to worry about <i>that</i>! After all I've said, + surely you won't give it another thought, will you?” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy sat in the shadow, bent far over, slowly twisting his thin, + corded hands, the fingers tightly interlocked. It was a long time before + he spoke, and his interlocutor had to urge him again before he answered, + in his gentle, quavering voice. + </p> + <p> + “No, I reckon not, if you say so.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not,” said Barrett briskly. “Why of course, we'd never have + thought of making you a money offer to vote either for or against your + principles. Not much! We don't do business that way! We simply want to do + something for you. We've wanted to, all during the session, but the + opportunity hadn't offered until I happened to hear your son was in + trouble.” + </p> + <p> + Out of the shadow came a long, tremulous sigh. There was a moment's pause; + then Uncle Billy's head sank slowly lower and rested on his hands. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” the other continued cheerfully, “we make no conditions, none in + the world. We feel friendly to you and want to oblige you, but of course + we do think you ought to show a little good-will towards <i>us</i>. I + believe it's all understood: to-morrow night Mr. Watson will drive out in + his buggy to this Johnson place, and he's empowered by us to settle the + whole business and obtain a written statement from the family that they + have no claim on your son. How he will settle it is neither your affair + nor mine; nor whether it costs money or not. But he <i>will</i> settle it. + We do that out of good-will to you, as long as we feel as friendly to you + as we do now, and all we ask is that you show your good-will to us.” + </p> + <p> + It was plain, even to Uncle Billy, that if he voted against Mr. Barrett's + friends in the afternoon those friends might not feel so much good-will + toward him in the evening as they did now: and Mr. Watson might not go to + the trouble of hitching up his buggy to drive out to the Johnsons'. + </p> + <p> + “You see, it's all out of friendship,” said Barrett, his hand on the door + knob. “And we can count on your's to-morrow, can't we—absolutely?” + </p> + <p> + The grey head sank a little lower, and then after a moment the quavering + voice answered: + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir—I'll be friendly.” + </p> + <p> + Before morning, Hurlbut lost another vote. One of his best men left on a + night train for the bedside of his dying wife. This meant that the + “Breaker” needed every one of the fifty-one remaining Democratic votes in + order to pass. Hurlbut more than distrusted Pixley, yet he felt sure of + the other fifty, and if, upon the reading of the bill, Pixley proved + false, the bill would not be lost, since there would be a majority of + votes in its favour, though not the constitutional majority of fifty-one + required for its passage, and it could be brought up again and carried + when the absent man returned. Thus, on the chance that Pixley had + withstood tampering, Hurlbut made no effort to prevent the bill from + coming to the floor in its regular order in the afternoon, feeling that it + could not possibly be killed by a majority against it, for he trusted his + fifty, now, as strongly as he distrusted Pixley. + </p> + <p> + And so the roll-call on the “Breaker” began, rather quietly, though there + was no man's face in the hall that was not set to show the tensity of + high-strung nerves. The great crowd that had gathered and choked the + galleries and the floor beyond the bar, and the Senators who had left + their own chamber to watch the bill in the House, all began to feel + disappointed; for nothing happened until Pixley's name was called. + </p> + <p> + Pixley voted “No!” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy, sitting far down in his leather chair on the small of his + back, heard the outburst of shouting that followed; but he could not see + Pixley, for the traitor was instantly surrounded by a ring of men, and all + that was visible from where he sat was their backs and upraised, + gesticulating hands. Uncle Billy began to tremble violently; he had not + calculated on this; but surely such things would not happen to <i>him</i>! + </p> + <p> + The Speaker's gavel clicked through the uproar and the roll-call + proceeded. + </p> + <p> + The clerk reached the name of Rollinson. Uncle Billy swallowed, threw a + pale look about him and wrapped his damp hands in the skirts of his shiny + old coat, as if to warm them. For a moment he could not answer. People + turned to look at him. + </p> + <p> + “Rollinson!” shouted the clerk again. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Uncle Billy. + </p> + <p> + Immediately he saw above him and all about him a blur of men's faces and + figures risen to their feet, he heard a hundred voices say breathlessly: “<i>What</i>!” + and one that said: “My God, that kills the bill!” + </p> + <p> + Then a horrible and incredible storm burst upon him, and he who had sat + all the session shrinking unnoticed in his quiet, back seat, unnerved when + a colleague asked the simplest question, found himself the centre and + point of attack in the wildest mêlée that legislature ever saw. A dozen + men, red, frantic, with upraised arms, came at him, Hurlbut the first of + them. But the lobby was there, too; for it was not part of its + calculations that the old man should be frightened into changing his vote. + </p> + <p> + There need have been no fear of that. Uncle Billy was beyond the power of + speech. The lobby's agents swarmed on the floor, and, with half-a-dozen + hysterically laughing Republicans, met the onset of Hurlbut and his men. + It became a riot immediately. Sane men were swept up in it to be as mad as + the rest, while the galleries screamed and shouted. All round the old man + the fury was greatest; his head sank over his desk and rested on his hands + as it had the night before; for he dared not lift it to see the avalanche + he had loosed upon himself. He would have liked to stop his ears to shut + out the egregious clamour of cursing and yelling that beset him, as his + bent head kept the glazed eyes from seeing the impossible vision of the + attack that strove to reach him. He remembered awful dreams that were like + this; and now, as then, he shuddered in a cold sweat, being as one who + would draw the covers over his head to shelter him from horrors in great + darkness. As Uncle Billy felt, so might a naked soul feel at the judgment + day, tossed alone into the pit with all the myriads of eyes in the + universe fastened on its sins. + </p> + <p> + He was pressed and jostled by his defenders; once a man's shoulders were + bent back down over his own and he was crushed against the desk until his + ribs ached; voices thundered and wailed at him, threatening, imploring, + cursing, cajoling, raving. + </p> + <p> + Smaller groups were struggling and shouting in every part of the room, the + distracted sergeants-at-arms roaring and wrestling with the rest. On the + high dais the Speaker, white but imperturbable, having broken his gavel, + beat steadily with the handle of an umbrella upon the square of marble on + his desk. Fifteen or twenty members, raging dementedly, were beneath him, + about the clerk's desk and on the steps leading up to his chair, each + howling hoarsely: + </p> + <p> + “A point of <i>order</i>! A point of <i>or-der</i>!” + </p> + <p> + When the semblance of order came at last, the roll was finished, + “reconsidered,” the “Breaker” was beaten, 50 to 49, was dead; and Uncle + Billy Rollinson was creeping down the outer steps of the Statehouse in the + cold February slush and rain. + </p> + <p> + He was glad to be out of the nightmare, though it seemed still upon him, + the horrible clamours, all gonging and blaring at <i>him</i>; the red, + maddened faces, the clenched fists, the open mouths, all raging at <i>him</i>—all + the ruck and uproar swam about the dazed old man as he made his slow, + unseeing way through the wet streets. + </p> + <p> + He was too late for dinner at his dingy boarding house, having wandered + far, and he found himself in his room without knowing very well how he had + come there, indeed, scarcely more than half-conscious that he <i>was</i> + there. He sat, for a long time, in the dark. After a while he mechanically + lit the lamp, sat again to stare at it, then, finding his eyes watering, + he turned from it with an incoherent whimper, as if it had been a person + from whom he would conceal the fact that he was weeping. He leaned his + arm, against the window sill and dried his eyes on the shiny sleeve. + </p> + <p> + An hour later, there came a hard, imperative knock on the door. Uncle + Billy raised his head and said gently: + </p> + <p> + “Come in.” + </p> + <p> + He rose to his feet uncertain, aghast, when he saw who his visitor was. It + was Hurlbut. + </p> + <p> + The young man confronted him darkly, for a moment, in silence. He was + dripping with rain; his hat, unremoved, shaded lank black locks over a + white face; his nostrils were wide with wrath; the “dry cigar” wagged + between gritting teeth. + </p> + <p> + “Will ye take a chair?” faltered Uncle Billy. + </p> + <p> + The room rang to the loud answer of the other: “I'd see you in Hell before + I'd sit in a chair of yours!” + </p> + <p> + He raised an arm, straight as a rod, to point at the old man. “Rollinson,” + he said, “I've come here to tell you what I think of you! I've never done + that in my life before, because I never thought any man worth it. I do it + because I need the luxury of it—because I'm sick of myself not to + have had gumption enough to see what you were all the time and have you + watched!” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Billy was stung to a moment's life. “Look here,” he quavered, “you + hadn't ought to talk that way to me. There ain't a cent of money passed my + fingers—” + </p> + <p> + Hurlbut's bitter laugh cut him short. “<i>No?</i> Don't you suppose <i>I + know</i> how it was done? Do you suppose there's a man in the whole + Assembly doesn't know how you were sold? I had it by the long distance an + hour ago, from your own home. Do you suppose <i>we</i> have no friends + there, or that it was hard to find out about the whole dirty business? + Your son's not going to stand trial for bigamy; that was the price you + charged for killing the bill. You and Pixley are the only men whom they + could buy with all their millions! Oh, I know a dozen men who could be + bought on other issues, but not on <i>this</i>! You and Pixley stand + alone. Well, you've broken the caucus and you've betrayed the Democratic + party. I've come to tell you that the party doesn't want you any more. You + are out of it, do you hear? We don't want even to use you!” + </p> + <p> + The old man had sunk back into his chair, stricken white, his hands + fluttering helplessly. “I didn't go to hurt your feelings, Mr. Hurlbut,” + he said. “I never knowed how it would be, but I don't think you ought to + say I done anything dishonest. I just felt kind of friendly to the + railroads—” + </p> + <p> + The leader's laugh cut him off again. “Friendly! Yes, that's what you + were! Well, you can go back to your friends; you'll need them!—Mother + in Heaven! How you fooled us! We thought you were the straightest man and + the staunchest Democrat—” + </p> + <p> + “I b'en a Democrat all my life, Mr. Hurlbut. I voted fer—” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you're a Democrat no longer. You're done for, do you understand? + And we're done with you!” + </p> + <p> + “You mean,” the old man's voice shook almost beyond control; “you mean + you're tryin' to read me out of the party?” + </p> + <p> + “Trying to!” Hurlbut turned to the door. “You're out! It's done. You can + thank God that your 'friends' did their work so well that we can't prove + what we know. On my soul, you dog, if we could I believe some of the boys + would send you over the road.” + </p> + <p> + An hour after he had gone, Uncle Billy roused himself from his stupor, and + the astonished landlady heard his shuffling step on the stair. She + followed him softly and curiously to the front door, and watched him. He + was bare-headed but had not far to go. The night-flare of the cheap, + all-night saloon across the sodden street silhouetted the stooping figure + for a moment and then the swinging doors shut the old man from her view. + She returned to her parlour and sat waiting for his return until she fell + asleep in her chair. She awoke at two o'clock, went to his room, and was + aghast to find it still vacant. + </p> + <p> + “The Lord have mercy on us all!” she cried aloud. “To think that old + rascal'd go out on a spree! He'd better of stayed in the country where he + belonged.” + </p> + <p> + It was the next morning that the House received a shock which loosed + another riot, but one of a kind different from that which greeted + Representative Rollinson's vote on the “Breaker.” The reading-clerk had + sung his way through an inconsequent bill; most of the members were buried + in newspapers, gossiping, idling, or smoking in the lobbies, when a loud, + cracked voice was heard shrilly demanding recognition. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Speaker!” Every one turned with a start. There was Uncle Billy, on + his feet, violently waving his hands at the Speaker. “Mr. Speaker, Mr. + Speaker, Mr. Speaker!” His dress was disordered and muddy; his eyes shone + with a fierce, absurd, liquorish light; and with each syllable that he + uttered his beard wagged to an unspeakable effect of comedy. He offered + the most grotesque spectacle ever seen in that hall—a notable + distinction. + </p> + <p> + For a moment the House sat in paralytic astonishment. Then came an awed + whisper from a Republican: “Has the old fool really found his voice?” + </p> + <p> + “No, he's drunk,” said a neighbour. “I guess he can afford it, after his + vote yesterday!” + </p> + <p> + “Mister Speaker! <i>Mister</i> Speaker!” + </p> + <p> + The cracked voice startled the lobbies. The hangers-on, the typewriters, + the janitors, the smoking members came pouring into the chamber and stood, + transfixed and open-mouthed. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Mister Speaker</i>!” + </p> + <p> + Then the place rocked with the gust of laughter and ironical cheering that + swept over the Assembly, Members climbed upon their chairs and on desks, + waving handkerchiefs, sheets of foolscap, and waste-baskets. “Hear 'im! <i>He-ear</i> + 'im!” rang the derisive cry. + </p> + <p> + The Speaker yielded in the same spirit and said: + </p> + <p> + “The Gentleman from Wixinockee.” + </p> + <p> + A semi-quiet followed and the cracked voice rose defiantly: + </p> + <p> + “That's who I am! I'm the Gentleman from Wixinockee an' I stan' here to + defen' the principles of the Democratic party!” + </p> + <p> + The Democrats responded with violent hootings, supplemented by cheers of + approval from the Republicans. The high voice out-shrieked them all: “Once + a Democrat, always a Democrat! I voted Dem'cratic tick't forty year, born + a Democrat an' die a Democrat. Fellow sizzens, I want to say to you right + here an' now that principles of Dem'cratic party saved this country a + hun'erd times from Republican mal-'diministration an' degerdation! Lemme + tell you this: you kin take my life away but you can't say I don' stan' by + Dem'cratic party, mos' glorious party of Douglas an' Tilden, Hen'ricks, + Henry Clay, an' George Washin'ton. I say to you they <i>hain't</i> no + other party an' I'm member of it till death an' Hell an' f'rever after, so + help me <i>God</i>!” + </p> + <p> + He smote the desk beside him with the back of his hand, using all his + strength, skinning his knuckles so that the blood dripped from them, + unnoticed. He waved both arms continually, bending his body almost double + and straightening up again, in crucial efforts for emphasis. All the old + jingo platitudes that he had learned from campaign speakers throughout his + life, the nonsense and brag and blat, the cheap phrases, all the empty + balderdash of the platform, rushed to his incoherent lips. + </p> + <p> + The lord of misrule reigned at the end of each sentence, as the members + sprang again upon the chairs and desks, roaring, waving, purple with + laughter. The Speaker leaned back exhausted in his chair and let the gavel + rest. Spectators, pages, galleries whooped and howled with the members. + Finally the climax came. + </p> + <p> + “I want to say to you just this <i>here</i>,” shrilled the cracked voice, + “an' you can tell the Republican party that I said so, tell 'em straight + from <i>me</i>, an' I hain't goin' back on it; I reckon they know who I + am, too; I'm a man that's honest—I'm as honest as the day is long, I + am—as honest as the day is long—” + </p> + <p> + He was interrupted by a loud voice. “<i>Yes</i>,” it cried, “<i>when that + day is the twenty-first of December!</i>” + </p> + <p> + That let pandemonium loose again, wilder, madder than before. A member + threw a pamphlet at Uncle Billy. In a moment the air was thick with a + Brobdingnagian snow-storm: pamphlets, huge wads of foolscap, bills, books, + newspapers, waste-baskets went flying at the grotesque target from every + quarter of the room. Members “rushed” the old man, hooting, cheering; he + was tossed about, half thrown down, bruised, but, clamorous over all other + clamours, jumping up and down to shriek over the heads of those who + hustled him, his hands waving frantically in the air, his long beard + wagging absurdly, still desperately vociferating his Democracy and his + honesty. + </p> + <p> + That was only the beginning. He had, indeed, “found his voice”; for he + seldom went now to the boarding-house for his meals, but patronized the + free-lunch counter and other allurements of the establishment across the + way. Every day he rose in the House to speak, never failing to reach the + assertion that he was “as honest as the day is long,” which was always + greeted in the same way. + </p> + <p> + For a time he was one of the jokes that lightened the tedious business of + law-making, and the members looked forward to his “<i>Mis-ter Speaker</i>” + as schoolboys look forward to recess. But, after a week, the novelty was + gone. + </p> + <p> + The old man became a bore. The Speaker refused to recognize him, and grew + weary of the persistent shrilling. The day came when Uncle Billy was + forcibly put into his seat by a disgusted sergeant-at-arms. He was half + drunk (as he had come to be most of the time), but this humiliation seemed + to pierce the alcoholic vapours that surrounded his always feeble + intelligence. He put his hands up to his face and cried like a whimpering + child. Then he shuffled out and went back to the saloon. He soon acquired + the habit of leaving his seat in the House vacant; he was no longer + allowed to make speeches there; he made them in the saloon, to the + amusement of the loafers and roughs who infested it. They badgered him, + but they let him harangue them, and applauded his rhodomontades. + </p> + <p> + Hurlbut, passing the place one night at the end of the session, heard the + quavering, drunken voice, and paused in the darkness to listen. + </p> + <p> + “I tell you, fellow-countrymen, I've voted Dem'cratic tick't forty year, + live a Dem'crat, die a Dem'crat! An' I'm's honest as day is long!” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It was five years after that session, when Hurlbut, now in the national + Congress, was called to the district in which Wixinockee lies, to assist + his hard-pressed brethren in a campaign. He was driving, one afternoon, to + a political meeting in the country, when a recollection came to him and he + turned to the committee chairman, who accompanied him, and said: + </p> + <p> + “Didn't Uncle Billy Rollinson live somewhere near here?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, yes. You knew him in the legislature, didn't you?” + </p> + <p> + “A little. Where is he now?” + </p> + <p> + “Just up ahead here. I'll show you.” + </p> + <p> + They reached the gate of a small, unkempt, weedy graveyard and stopped. + </p> + <p> + “The inscription on the head-board is more or less amusing,” said the + chairman, as he got out of the buggy, “considering that he was thought to + be pretty crooked, and I seem to remember that he was 'read out of the + party,' too. But he wrote the inscription himself, on his death-bed, and + his son put it there.” + </p> + <p> + There was a sparse crop of brown grass growing on the grave to which he + led his companion. A cracked wooden head-board, already tilting rakishly, + marked Henry's devotion. It had been white-washed and the inscription done + in black letters, now partly washed away by the rain, but still legible: + </p> + <p> + HERE LIES THE MORTAL REMAINS OF WILLIAM ROLLINSON A LIFE-LONG DEMOCRAT AND + A MAN AS HONEST AS THE DAY IS LONG + </p> + <p> + The chairman laughed. “Don't that beat thunder? You knew his record in the + legislature didn't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “He <i>was</i> as crooked as they say he was, wasn't he?” + </p> + <p> + Hurlbut had grown much older in five years, and he was in Congress. He was + climbing the ladder, and, to hold the position he had gained, and to + insure his continued climbing, he had made some sacrifices within himself + by obliging his friends—sacrifices which he did not name. + </p> + <p> + “I could hardly say,” he answered gently, his down-bent eyes fastened on + the sparse, brown grass. “It's not for us to judge too much. I believe, + maybe, that if he could hear me now, I'd ask his pardon for some things I + said to him once.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HECTOR + </h2> + <p> + It isn't the party manager, you understand, that gets the fame; it's the + candidate. The manager tries to keep his candidate in what the newspapers + call a “blaze of publicity”; that is, to keep certain spots of him in the + blaze, while sometimes it is the fact that a candidate does not know much + of what is really going on; he gets all the red fire and sky-rockets, and, + in the general dazzle and nervousness, is unconscious of the forces which + are to elect or defeat him. Strange as it is, the more glare and + conspicuousness he has, the more he usually wants. But the more a working + political manager gets, the less he wants. You see, it's a great advantage + to keep out of the high lights. + </p> + <p> + For my part, not even being known or important enough to be named + “Dictator,” now and then, in the papers, I've had my fun in the game very + quietly. Yet I did come pretty near being a famous man once, a good while + ago, for about a week. That was just after Hector J. Ransom made his great + speech on the “Patriotism of the Pasture” which set the country to talking + about him and, in time, brought him all he desired. + </p> + <p> + You remember what a big stir that speech made, of course—everybody + remembers it. The people in his State went just wild with pride, and all + over the country the papers had a sort of catch head-line: “Another Daniel + Webster Come to Judgment!” When the reporters in my own town found out + that Ransom was a second cousin of mine, I was put into a scare-head for + the only time in my life. For a week I was a public character and + important to other people besides the boys that do the work at primaries. + I was interviewed every few minutes; and a reporter got me up one night at + half-past twelve to ask for some anecdotes of Hector's “Boyhood Days and + Rise to Fame.” + </p> + <p> + I didn't oblige that young man, but I knew enough. I was always fond of my + first cousin, Mary Ransom, Hector's mother; and in the old days I never + passed through Greenville, the little town where they lived, without + stopping over, a train or two, to visit with her, and I saw plenty of + Hector! I never knew a boy that left the other boys to come into the + parlour (when there was company) quicker than Hector, and I certainly + never saw a boy that “showed off” more. His mother was wrapped up in him; + you could see in a minute that she fairly worshipped him; but I don't + know, if it hadn't been for Mary, that I'd have praised his recitations + and elocution so much, myself. + </p> + <p> + Mary and I wouldn't any more than get to tell each other how long since + we'd heard from Aunt Sue, before Hector would grow uneasy and switch + around on the sofa and say: “Ma, I'd rather you wouldn't tell cousin Ben + about what happened at the G. A. R. reunion. I don't want to go through + all that stuff again.” + </p> + <p> + At that, Mary's eyes would light up and she'd say: “You must, Hector, you + must! I want him to hear you do it; he mustn't go away without that!” Then + she'd go on to tell me how Hector had recited Lincoln's Gettysburg speech + at a meeting of the local post of the G. A. R. and how he was applauded, + and that many of the veterans had told him if he kept on he'd be Governor + of his State some day, and how proud she was of him and how he was so + different from ordinary boys that she was often anxious about him. Then + she would urge him to let me have it—and he always would, especially + if I said: “Oh, don't <i>make</i> the boy do it, Mary!” + </p> + <p> + He would stand out in the middle of the floor and thrust his chin out, + knitting his brow and widening his nostrils, and shout “Of the people, By + the people, and For the people” at the top of his lungs in that little + parlour. He always had a great talent for mimicry, a talent of which I + think he was absolutely unconscious. He would give his speeches in exactly + the boy-orator style; that is, he imitated speakers who imitated others + who had heard Daniel Webster. Mary and he, however, had no idea that he + imitated anybody; they thought it was creative genius. + </p> + <p> + When he had finished Lincoln, he would say: “Well, I've got another that's + a good deal better, but I don't want to go through that today; it's too + much trouble,” with the result that in a few minutes Patrick Henry would + take a turn or two in his grave. Hector always placed himself by a table + for “Liberty or Death,” and barked his knuckles on it for emphasis. Little + he cared, so long as he thought he'd got his effect! You could see, in + spite of the intensity of his expression, that he was perfectly happy. + </p> + <p> + When he'd worked us through that, and perhaps “Horatius at the Bridge” and + the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius and was pretty well emptied, + he'd hang about and interrupt in a way that made me restless. Neither Mary + nor I could get out two sentences before the boy would cut in with + something like: “Don't tell cousin Ben about that day I recited in school; + I'm tired of all that guff!” + </p> + <p> + Then Mary would answer: “It isn't guff, precious. I never was prouder of + you in my life.” And she'd go on to tell me about another of his triumphs, + and how he made up speeches of his own sometimes, and would stand on a box + and deliver them to his boy friends, though she didn't say how the boys + received them. All the while, Hector would stare at me like a neighbour's + cat on your front steps, to see what impression it made on me; and I was + conscious that he was sure that I knew he was a wonderful boy. I think he + felt that everybody knew it. Hector kind of palled on me. + </p> + <p> + When he was about sixteen, Mary wrote me that she was in great distress + about him because he had decided to go on the stage; that he had written + to John McCullough, offering to take the place of leading man in his + company to begin with. Mary was sure, she said, that the life of an actor + was a hard one; Hector had always been very delicate (I had known him to + eat a whole mince pie without apparent distress afterward) and she wanted + me to write and urge him to change his mind. She felt sure Mr. McCullough + would send for him at once, because Hector had written him that he already + knew all the principal Shakespearian roles, could play Brutus, Cassius, or + Mark Antony as desired; and he had added a letter of recommendation from + the Mayor of their city, declaring that Hector was a finer elocutionist + and tragedian than any actor he had ever seen. + </p> + <p> + The dear woman's anxiety was needless, for she wrote me, with as much + surprise as pleasure, two months later, that for some reason Mr. + McCullough had not answered the letter, and that she was very happy; she + had persuaded Hector to go to college. + </p> + <p> + How she kept him there, the first two years, I don't know, for her husband + had only left her about four hundred dollars a year. Of course, living in + Greenville isn't expensive, but it does cost something, and I honestly + believe Mary came near to living on nothing. It was a small college that + she'd sent the boy to, but it was a mother's point with her that Hector + should be as comfortable as anyone there. + </p> + <p> + I stopped off at Greenville, one day, toward the end of his second year, + but before he'd come home, and I saw how it was. Mary seemed as glad as + ever to see me—it was the same old bright greeting that she'd always + given me. She saw me from the dining-room window where she was eating her + supper, and she came out, running down to the gate to meet me, like a + girl; but she looked thin and pale. + </p> + <p> + I said I'd go right in and have some supper with her, and at that the + roses came back quickly to her cheeks. “No,” she said, “I wasn't really at + supper; only having a bite beforehand; I'm going up-town now to get the + things for supper. You smoke a cigar out on the porch till I get back, and—” + </p> + <p> + I took her by the arm. “Not much, Mary,” I said. “I'm going to have the + same supper you had for yourself.” + </p> + <p> + So I went straight out to the dining-room; and all I found on the table + was some dry bread toasted and a baked apple without cream or sugar. It + gave me a pretty good idea of what the general run of her meals must have + been. + </p> + <p> + I had a long talk with her that night, and I wormed it out of her that + Hector's college expenses were about twenty-five dollars a month, which + left her six to live on. The truth is, she didn't have enough to eat, and + you could see how happy it made her. She read me a good many of Hector's + letters, her voice often trembling with happiness over his triumphs. The + letters were long, I'll say that for Hector, which may have been to his + credit as a son, or it may have been because he had such an interesting + subject. There was no doubt that he had worked hard; he had taken all the + chief prizes for oratory and essay writing and so forth that were open to + him; he also allowed it to be seen that he was the chief person in the + consideration of his class and the fraternity he had joined. Mary had a + sort of humbleness about being the mother of such a son. + </p> + <p> + But I settled one thing with her that night, though I had to hurt her + feelings to do it. I owned a couple of small notes which had just fallen + due, and I could spare the money. I put it as a loan to Hector himself; he + was to pay me back when he got started, and so it was arranged that he + could finish his course without his mother's living on apples and toast. + </p> + <p> + I went over to his Commencement with Mary and we hadn't been in the town + an hour before we saw that Hector was the king of the place. He had <i>all</i> + the honours; first in his class, first in oratory, first in everything; + professors and students all kow-towed and sounded the hew-gag before him. + Most of Mary's time was put in crying with happiness. As for Hector + himself, he had changed in just one way: he no longer looked at people to + see his effect on them; he was too confident of it. + </p> + <p> + His face had grown to be the most determined I have ever seen. There was + no obstinacy in it—he wasn't a bull-dog—only set + determination. No one could have failed to read in it an immensely + powerful will. In a curious way he seemed “on edge” all the time. His + nostrils were always distended, the muscles of his lean jaw were never + lax, but continually at tension, thrusting the chin forward with his teeth + hard together. His eyebrows were contracted, I think, even in his sleep, + and he looked at everything with a sort of quick, fierce, appearance of + scrutiny, though at that time I imagined that he saw very little. He had a + loud, rich voice, his pronunciation was clipped to a deadly distinctness; + he was so straight and his head so high in the air that he seemed almost + to tilt back. With his tall figure and black hair, he was a boy who would + have attracted attention, as they say, in any crowd, so that he might have + been taken for a young actor. His best friend, a kind of Man Friday to + him, was another young fellow from Greenville, whose name was Joe Lane. I + liked Joe. I'd known him? since he was a boy. He was lazy and + pleasant-looking, with reddish hair and a drawling, low voice. He had a + humorous, sensible expression, though he was dissipated, I'd heard, but + very gentle in his manners. I had a talk with him under the trees of the + college campus in the moonlight, Commencement night. I can see the boy + lying there now, sprawling on the grass with a cigar in his mouth. + </p> + <p> + “Hector's done well,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lord, yes!” Joe answered. “He always will. He's going 'way up in the + world.” + </p> + <p> + “What makes you think so?” + </p> + <p> + “Because he's so sure of it. It only needs a little luck to make him a + great man. In fact, he already is a great man.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean you think he has a great mind?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, no, sir; but I think he has a purpose so big and so set, that it + might be called great, and it will make him great.” + </p> + <p> + “What purpose?” + </p> + <p> + Joe answered quietly but very slowly, pulling at his cigar after each + syllable: “Hec—tor—J. Ran—som!” + </p> + <p> + “I declare,” I put in, “I thought you were his friend!” + </p> + <p> + “So I am,” the young fellow returned. “Friend, admirer, and + doer-in-ordinary to Hector J. Ransom, that's my quality. I've done errands + and odd jobs for him all my life. Most people who meet him do; though it + might be hard to say why. I haven't hitched my wagon to a star; nobody'll + get to do that, because this star isn't going to take anything to the + zenith but itself.” + </p> + <p> + “Going to the zenith, is he?” + </p> + <p> + “Surely.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean,” said I, “that he's going to make a fine lawyer?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, I think not. He might have been called one in the last + generation, but, as I understand it, nowadays a lawyer has to work out + business propositions more than oratory.” + </p> + <p> + “And you think Hector has only his oratory?” + </p> + <p> + “I think that's his vehicle; it's his racing sulky and he'll drive it + pretty hard. We're good friends, but if you want me to be frank, I should + say that he'd drive on over my dead body if it lay in the road to where he + was going.” Lane rolled over in the grass with a little chuckle. “Of + course,” he went on, “I talk about him this way because I know what you've + done for him and I'd like to help you to be sure that he's going to be a + success. He'll do you credit!” + </p> + <p> + “What are you going to do, yourself, Joe?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Me?” He sat up, looking surprised. “Why, didn't you know? I didn't get my + degree. They threw me out at the eleventh hour for getting too publicly + tight—celebrating Hector's winning the works of Lord Byron, the + prize in the senior debate! I'll never be a credit to anybody; and as for + what I'm going to do—go back to Greenville and loaf in Tim's + pool-room, I suppose, and watch Hector's balloon.” + </p> + <p> + However, Hector's balloon seemed uninclined to soar, at the set-off—though + Hector didn't. The next summer began a presidential campaign, and Hector, + knowing that I was chairman of my county committee, and strangely + overestimating my importance, came up to see me: he asked me to use my + influence with the National Committee to have him sent to make speeches in + one of the doubtful States; he thought he could carry it for us. I + explained that I had no wires leading up so far as the National Committee. + There were other things I might have explained, but it didn't seem much + use. Hector would have thought I wanted to “keep him down.” + </p> + <p> + He thought so anyway, because, after a crestfallen moment, he began to + look at me in his fierce eye-to-eye way with what seemed to me a dark + suspicion. He came and struck my desk with his clinched fist (he was + always strong on that), and exclaimed: + </p> + <p> + “Then by the eternal gods, if my own flesh and blood won't help me, I'll + go to Chicago myself, lay my credentials before the committee, unaided, + and wring from them—” + </p> + <p> + “Hold on, Hector,” I said. “Why didn't you say you had credentials? What + are they?” + </p> + <p> + “What are they?” he answered in a rising voice. “You ask me what are my + credentials? The credentials of my patriotism, my poverty, and my pride! + You ask me for my credentials? The credentials of youth!” (He hit the desk + every few words.) “The credentials of enthusiasm! The credentials of + strength! You ask for my credentials? The credentials of red blood, of red + corpuscles, of young manhood, ripest in the glorious young West! The + credentials of vitality! Of virile—” + </p> + <p> + “Hold on,” I said again, but I couldn't stop him. He went on for probably + fifteen minutes, pacing the room and gesticulating and thundering at me, + though we two were all alone. I felt mighty ridiculous, but, of course, + I'd been through much the same thing with one or two candidates and + orators before. I thought then that he was practising on me, but I came + afterward to see that I was partly wrong. “Oratory” was his only way of + expressing himself; he couldn't just <i>talk</i>, to save his life. All + you could do, when he began, was to sit and take it till he got through, + which consumed some valuable time for me that afternoon. I suppose I was + profane inside, for having given him that cue with “credentials.” Finally + I got in a question: + </p> + <p> + “Why not begin a little more mildly, Hector? Why don't you make some + speeches in your own county first?” + </p> + <p> + “I have consented to make the Fourth of July oration at Greenville,” he + answered. + </p> + <p> + Before he could go on, I got up and slapped him on the back. “That's + right!” I said. “That's right! Go back and show the home folks what you + can do, and I'll come down to hear it!” + </p> + <p> + And so I did. Mary was, if possible, more flustered and upset than at + Hector's Commencement. She and Joe Lane and I had a bench close up to the + stand, and on the other side of Mary sat a girl I'd never seen before. + Mary introduced me to her in a way that made me risk a guess that Hector + liked her more than common. Her name was Laura Rainey, and she'd come to + Greenville, a year before, to teach in the high-school. She was young, not + quite twenty, I reckoned, and as pretty and dainty a girl as ever I saw; + thin and delicate-looking, though not in the sense of poor health; and she + struck me as being very sweet and thoughtful. Joe Lane told me, with his + little chuckle, that she'd had a good deal of trouble in the school on + account of all the older boys falling in love with her. + </p> + <p> + Something in the way he spoke made me watch Joe, and I was sure if he'd + been one of her pupils he wouldn't have lightened her worries much in that + direction. He had it himself. I saw it, or, I should say, I felt it, in + spite of his never seeming to look at her. She looked at him, however, and + pretty often, too; and there was a good deal of interest in her eyes, only + it was a sad kind, which I understood, I thought, when I found that Joe + had been on a long spree and had just sobered up the day before. + </p> + <p> + Hector sat above us on the platform, with the Mayor and the County Judge, + and when the latter introduced him, and the same old white pitcher and + glass of water on a pine table, the boy came forward with slow and + impressive steps, and, setting his left fist on his hip, allowed his right + arm to hang straight by his side till his hand rested on the table, like a + statesman of the day standing for a photograph. His brow contained a + commanding frown, and he stood for some moments in that position, while, + to my astonishment, the crowd cheered itself hoarse. + </p> + <p> + There was no mistaking the genuine enthusiasm that he evoked, though I + didn't feel it myself. I suppose the only explanation is that he had a + great deal of what is called “magnetism.” What made it I don't know. He + was good-looking enough, with his dark eyes and hair, and white, intense + face and black clothes; but there was more in the cheering than + appreciation of that. I could not doubt that he produced on the crowd, by + his quiet attitude, an apparition of greatness. There was some kind of + hypnotism in it, I suppose. + </p> + <p> + The speech was about what I was looking for: bombastic platitudes + delivered with such earnestness and velocity that “every point scored” and + the cheering came whenever he wanted it. + </p> + <p> + For instance: he would retire a few steps toward the rear, and, pointing + to the sky, adjure it in a solemn voice which made every one lean forward + in a dead hush: + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, ye silent stars, that seem to slumber 'neath the auroral + coverlet of day, tell me, down what laurelled pathways among ye walk our + dead, the heroes whose blood was our benison, bequeathing to us the + heritage of this flower-strewn land; they who have passed to that bourne + whence no traveller returns? Answer me: Are not <i>theirs</i> the loftiest + names inscribed on your marble catalogues of the nations?” He let his + voice out startlingly and shouted: “CREEPS there a creature of the earth + with spirit so sordid as to doubt it, to doubt <i>who</i> heads those + gilded rolls! If there be, then <i>I</i> say to him, 'Beware!' For the + names I see written above me to-day on the immemorial canopy of heaven + begin with that of the spotless knight, the unsceptred and uncrowned king, + the godlike and immaculate”—(here he turned suddenly, ran to the + front of the stage, and, with outstretched fist shaking violently over our + heads, thundered at the full power of his lungs): “GEORGE WASHINGTON!” + </p> + <p> + He did the same for Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, and four or five + governors and senators of the State; and at every name the crowd went + wild, worked up to it by Hector in the same way. But what surprised me was + his daring to conclude his list with a votive offering laid at the feet of + Passley Trimmer. Trimmer was the congressional representative of that + district and one of the meanest men and smartest politicians in the world. + He was always creeping out of tight places and money-scandals by the skin + of his teeth; and yet, by building up the finest personal machine in the + State, he stuck to his seat in Congress term after term, in spite of the + fact that most of the intelligent and honest men in his district despised + him. It was a proof of the power Hector held over his audience that, by + his tribute to Trimmer, he was able to evoke the noisiest enthusiasm of + the afternoon. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, what really tickled me most was the boy's peroration. It + gave me a pretty clear insight into his “innard workings.” He led up to it + in his favourite way: stepping backward a pace or two and sinking his + voice to a kind of Edwin Booth quiet; gradually growing a little louder; + then suddenly turning on the thunder and running forward. + </p> + <p> + “You ask <i>me</i> for our credentials?” he roared. (Nobody had, this + time.) “In the Lexicon of the Peoples, you ask <i>me</i> for my country's + credentials? The credentials of our pastures, our population and our + pride! You ask me for my country's credentials? I reply: 'The credentials + of our youth and our enthusiasm! Of red corpuscles! Of red blood! The + credentials of the virility and of the magnificent manhood of the + Columbian Continent!' You ask for my country's credentials and I answer: + 'The credentials of Glory! By right of the eternal and Almighty God!'” + </p> + <p> + Of course there was a great deal more, but that's enough to show how he + had polished it. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I walked back to Mary's with Joe Lane, while Hector followed, making a + kind of Royal Progress through the crowds, with his mother and Miss + Rainey. + </p> + <p> + “You see it now, yourself, don't you?” Joe said to me. + </p> + <p> + “You mean about his doing well?” + </p> + <p> + “What else? He's just shown what he can do with people. The day will come + when you'll have to take him at his own valuation.” + </p> + <p> + I couldn't help laughing. “Well, Joe,” I said, “that sounds as if <i>you</i>, + at least, already took Hector at his own valuation.” + </p> + <p> + “In some things,” he answered, “I think I do. Don't you take him for an + ass, sir. Sometimes I believe he's guided by a really superior + intelligence—” + </p> + <p> + “Must be a sub-consciousness, then, Joe!” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly,” he said seriously. “He doesn't make a single mistake. He's + trained his manner so that, while a very few people laugh at him, he does + things that the town would resent in any one else. He doesn't go round + with the boys, and they look up to him for it. He isn't pompous, but he's + acquired a kind of stateliness of manner that's made Greenville call him + 'Mister Ransom' instead of 'Hec.' You probably think that his request to + the National Committee only shows he's got all the nerve in the world; but + I believe, on my soul, that if it had been granted he could have made + good.” + </p> + <p> + “What did he want to run Passley Trimmer into his Pantheon for, to-day?” I + asked. + </p> + <p> + Joe's honest face looked a little dark at this. “It's only another proof + of the shrewdness that directs him, though it was, maybe, a little bit + sickening. He talks gold and stars and eternal gods, about sweetness and + light and pure politics and reform, but he wants Passley Trimmer's machine + to take him up. Passley Trimmer and his brother, Link, are a good-sized + curse to this district, I expect you know, but Hector's courting them. + Link is the dirtiest we've ever had here, and he holds all the rottenest + in this county solid for Passley. He's overbearing; ugly, too; shot a + nigger in the hip a year ago, and crippled him for life on account of a + little back-talk, and got off scot-free. I had a row with him in a saloon + last week; I was tight, I suppose, though there's always been bad blood + between us, anyway, drunk or sober, and I didn't know much what happened, + except that I refused to drink in his company and he cursed me out and I + blacked an eye for him before they separated us. Well, sir, next day, here + was Hector demanding that I go and apologize to Link. I said I'd as soon + apologize to a rattlesnake, and Hector upbraided me in his rhetoric, but + with a whole lot of real feeling, too. He was even pathetic about it: put + it on the ground that I owed it to morality, by which he meant Hector. I + was known to be his most intimate friend; I had done him an irrecoverable + injury with the Trimmers, who would extend their retaliation and let <i>him</i> + have a share of it, as my friend. He ended by declaring that he should + withhold the light of his countenance from me until I had repaired the + wrong done to his cause, and had apologized to Link!” + </p> + <p> + “Did you do it?” + </p> + <p> + The good fellow answered with his little chuckle: “Of course! Don't you + see that he gets everybody to do what he wants? It's almost sheer will, + and he's a true cloud-compeller.” + </p> + <p> + I wanted to understand something else, and I didn't know how much Mary + could tell me; that is, I was sure that she would think that Miss Rainey + was in love with Hector. Mary wouldn't be able to see how any girl could + help it. + </p> + <p> + “Joe,” I said, “does Hector seem much taken with this Miss Rainey?” + </p> + <p> + We had come to the gate, and Lane stopped to relight a cigar before he + answered. He kept the match at the stub until it burned out, half hiding + his face from me with his hands, shielding the flame from a breeze that + wasn't blowing. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said finally, “as much as he could be with anybody—at + least he wants her to be taken with him.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think she is?” + </p> + <p> + He swung the gate open, and stood to let me pass in first. “She could be + of great help to him. We've all got to help Hector.” + </p> + <p> + I was going on: “You believe she will—” + </p> + <p> + “Did you ever hear,” he interrupted, “of Jane Welsh Carlyle?” + </p> + <p> + I thought about that answer of Joe's most of the evening, and it struck me + he was right. It was one of those things you couldn't possibly explain to + save your life, but you knew it: everybody had <i>got</i> to help Hector. + Everybody had to get behind him and push. Hector took it for granted in a + way that passed the love of woman! + </p> + <p> + And yet, as we sat at Mary's supper-table, that evening, I don't know that + I ever felt less real liking for any of my kin than I felt for Hector, + though, perhaps, that was because he seemed to keep rubbing it in on me in + indirect ways that I had done him an injury by not helping him with the + National Committee, and that I ought to know it, after his triumph of the + afternoon. I could see that Mary agreed with him, though in her gentle + way. + </p> + <p> + Young Lane and Miss Rainey stayed for supper, too, and were very quiet. + Miss Rainey struck me as a quiet girl generally, and Joe never talked, + anyway, when in Hector's company. For that matter, nobody else did; there + was mighty little chance. The truth is, Hector had an impediment of + speech: he couldn't listen. + </p> + <p> + Of course he talked only about himself. That followed, because it was all + there was in him. Not that it always <i>seemed</i> to be about himself. + For instance, I remember one of his ways of rubbing it into me, that + evening. He had been delivering himself of some opinions on the nature of + Genius, fragments (like his “credentials”—I had a sneaking idea) of + some undeveloped oration or other. “Look at Napoleon!” he bade us, while + Mary was cutting the pie. “Could Barras with all his jealous and + malevolent opposition, could Barras with all his craft, all his + machinations, with all the machinery of the State, could Barras oppose the + upward flight of that mighty spirit? No! Barras, who should have been the + faithful friend, the helper, the disciple and believer, Barras, I say, set + himself to destroy the youth whose genius he denied, and Barras was + himself destroyed! He fell, for he had dared to oppose the path of one of + the eternal stars!” + </p> + <p> + That was a sample, and I don't exaggerate it. I couldn't exaggerate + Hector; it's beyond me; he always exaggerated himself beyond anybody + else's power to do it. But I loved to hear Joe Lane's chuckle and I got + one out of him when I offered him a cigar as we went out on the porch. + </p> + <p> + “Take one,” I said. “It's one of Barras's best.” + </p> + <p> + “Better get in line,” was all he added to the chuckle. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A good many visitors dropped in, during the evening, Greenville's greatest + come to congratulate Hector on the speech. Everybody in the county was + talking about him that night, they said. Hector received these people in + his old-fashioned-statesman manner, though I noticed that already he shook + hands like a candidate. He would grasp the caller's hand quickly and + decidedly, instead of letting the other do the gripping. And I could see + that all those who came in, even hard-headed men twice his age, treated + him deferentially, with the air of intimate respect that he somehow + managed to exact from people. Perhaps I don't do him justice: he was a + “mighty myster'us” boy! + </p> + <p> + I sat and smoked, lounging in one of Mary's comfortable porch-chairs. I + managed without trouble to be in the background and I couldn't help + putting in most of my time studying Joe Lane and Miss Rainey. Those two + were sitting, on the side-steps of the porch, a little apart from the rest + of us—and a little apart from each other, too. Lord knows how you + get such strong impressions, but I was very soon perfectly sure that these + two young people were in love with each other and that they both knew it, + but that they had given each other up. I was sure, too, that they were + both under Hector's spell, and preposterous as it may seem, that they were + under his <i>will</i>, and that Hector's plans included Miss Rainey for + himself. + </p> + <p> + It was a mighty pretty evening; full of flower-smells and breezes from the + woods, which began just across the village street. Joe sat in a sort of + doubled-up fashion he had, his thin hands clasped like a strap round his + knees. She sat straight and trim, both of them looking out toward where + the twilight was fading. As the darkness came on I could barely make them + out, a couple of quiet shadows, seemingly as far away from the group about + the lamp-lit doorway where Hector sat, as if they were alone on big + Jupiter who was setting up to be the whole thing, far out yonder in the + lonely sky. + </p> + <p> + By and by, the moon oozed round from behind the house and leaked through + the trees and I could see them plainer, two silhouettes against the + foliage of some bright lilac-bushes. Joe hadn't budged, but the back of + Miss Rainey's head wasn't toward me as it had been before; it was her + profile. She was leaning back a little, against a post, and looking at Joe—just + looking at him. Neither of them spoke a word the whole time, and somehow I + felt they didn't need to, and that what they had to say to each other had + never been spoken and never would be. It was mighty pretty—and sad, + too. + </p> + <p> + I felt so sorry for them, but it made me more or less impatient with + Hector, and with Joe—especially with Joe, I think. It seemed to me + he needn't have taken his temperament so hopelessly. But what's the use of + judging? When a man has a temperament like that, people who haven't can't + tell what he's got to contend with. + </p> + <p> + That Fourth of July speech gave Hector his chance. His district managers + and the Trimmer faction saw they could use him; and they sent him round + stumping the district. Two campaigns later the State Committee was using + him, and parts of his speeches were being printed in all the party papers + over the State. Locally, I suppose you might say, he had become a famous + man; at least he acted like one—not that there was any essential + change in him. His style had undergone a large improvement, however; his + language was less mixed-up, and he seemed clear-headed enough on + “questions of the day,” showing himself to be well-informed and of a fine + judgment. + </p> + <p> + In these things I thought I saw the hand of Laura Rainey. The teacher was + helping him. The seriousness of his face had increased, he had always + entirely lacked humour; yet the spell he managed to cast over his + audiences was greater. He never once failed to “get them going,” as they + say. At twenty-nine he was no longer called “a rising young orator”; no, + he was usually introduced as the “Hon. Hector J. Ransom, the + Silver-tongued Lochinvar of the West.” + </p> + <p> + Things hadn't changed much at Greenville. Mary had always been so proud of + Hector that she hadn't inflated any more on account of his wider + successes. She couldn't, because she hadn't any room left for it. + </p> + <p> + Joe Lane still went on his periodical sprees quite regularly, about one + week every three months, and he was the least offensive tippler I ever + knew. He came up to the city during one of his lapses, and called at my + office. He was dressed with unusual care (he was always a good deal of a + dandy), and he did not stagger nor slush his syllables; indeed, the only + way I could have told what was the matter with him, at first, was by the + solemn preoccupation of his expression. A little black pickaninny followed + him, grinning and carrying a big bundle, covered with a new lace + window-curtain. + </p> + <p> + “I am but a bearer of votive flowers,” Joe said, bowing. Then turning to + the little darky, he waved his hand loftily. “Unveil the offering!” + </p> + <p> + The pickaninny did so, removing the lace curtain to reveal a shiny new + coal-bucket in which was a lump of ice, whereon reposed a pair of white + kid gloves and a large wreath of artificial daisies. + </p> + <p> + “With love,” said Joe. “From Hector.” And he stalked majestically out. + </p> + <p> + There was a card on the wreath, which Joe had inscribed: “To announce the + betrothal. No regrets.” + </p> + <p> + Sure enough, the next morning I had a letter from Mary, telling me that + Hector and Miss Rainey were engaged, that they had been so without + announcing it, for several years, and she feared the engagement must last + much longer before they could be married. So did I, for all of Hector's + glittering had brought him very little money. While he had some law + practice, of course it was small, in Greenville, and what he had he + neglected. Nor was he a good lawyer. I knew him to be heavily in debt to + Lane, whose father had died lately, leaving Joe fairly well off; and I + knew also that this debt sat very lightly on Hector. I judged so, because + in the matter of the advances I had made for his education, I never heard + him refer to them. Probably he forgot all about it, having so many more + important things to think of. + </p> + <p> + Mary was right: it was a very long engagement. It had lasted seven years + in all, when Passley Trimmer declared himself a candidate for the + nomination for Governor and gave Hector the great chance he had been + waiting for. Hector “came out” for Trimmer, and came out strong. He worked + for him day and night, and he was one of the best cards in Trimmer's hand. + </p> + <p> + It was easy enough to understand: Trimmer's nomination would leave his + seat in Congress vacant and the Trimmer crowd would throw it to Hector. + </p> + <p> + You could see that the “young Lochinvar” was really a power, and I think + they counted on him almost as much as on the personal machine Trimmer had + built up. Most of all, they counted on Hector's speech, nominating + Trimmer, to stampede the convention. If it was to be done, Hector was the + man to do it. There's no doubt in the world of the extraordinary capacity + he had for whirling a crowd along into a kind of insane enthusiasm. He + could make his audience enthusiastic about <i>anything</i>; he could have + brought them to their feet waving and cheering for Ben Butler himself, if + he had set out to do it. I believe that most of us who were against + Trimmer were more afraid of Hector's stampeding the convention than of + Trimmer's machine and all the money he was spending. + </p> + <p> + I was working all I knew for another man, Henderson, of my county, and our + delegation would go into the convention sixty-three solid for Henderson, + first, last, and all the time. On that account I had to play Barras again + to the young Napoleon. He came to see me, and made one of his orations, + imploring me to swing half of our delegation for Trimmer on the first + ballot, and all of it on the second. + </p> + <p> + “But they count on me!” he declaimed. “They count on me to turn you! Is a + man to be denied by his own flesh and blood? Are the ties of relationship + nothing? Can't you see that my whole future is put in jeopardy by your + refusal? Here is my opportunity at last and you endanger it. My marriage + and my fortune depend on it; the cup is at my lips. My long years of toil + and preparation, the bitter, bitter waiting—are these things to go + for nothing? I tell you that if you refuse me you may blast the most + sacred hopes that ever dwelt in a human breast!” + </p> + <p> + I only smoked on, and so he did “the jury pathetic,” and he was sincere in + it, too. + </p> + <p> + “Have you no heart?” he inquired, his voice shaking. “Can you think calmly + of my mother? Remember the years she has waited to see this recognition + come to her son! Am I to go back to her and tell her that your answer was + 'No'? I ask you to think of her, I ask you to put self out of your + thoughts, to forget your own interests for once, and to think of my + mother, waiting in the old home in the quiet village street where you knew + her in her bright girlhood. Remember that she awaits your answer; forget + <i>me</i> if you will, but remember what it means to <i>her</i>, I say, + and <i>then</i> if there is a stone in your breast, instead of a human + heart, speak the word 'No'!” + </p> + <p> + I spoke it, and, as he had to catch his train, he departed more in anger + than in sorrow, leaving me to my conscience, he told me. At the door he + turned. + </p> + <p> + “I warn you,” he said, “that this faction of yours shall go down to + defeat! Trimmer will win this fight, and I shall take his seat in + Congress! That is my first stepping-stone, and I <i>will</i> take it! I + have worked too hard and waited too long, for such as you to successfully + oppose me. I tell you that we shall meet in the convention, and you and + your machine will be broken! The rewards, then, to us, the victors!” + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course,” I said, “if you win.” + </p> + <p> + The Trimmer people were strong with the State Executive Committee, and, in + spite of us, worked things a good deal their own way. They took the + convention away from the State Capital to Greenville, which was, of + course, a great advantage for Trimmer. The fact is, that most of the best + people in that district didn't like him, but you know how we all are: he + <i>was</i> one <i>of</i> them, and as soon as it seemed he had a chance to + beat men from other parts of the State, they began to shout themselves + black in the face for their own. When I went down there, the day before + the convention, the place was one mass of Trimmer flags, banners, badges, + transparencies, buttons, and brass bands. + </p> + <p> + I went around to see Mary right away, and while she wasn't exactly cold to + me—the dear woman never could be that to anybody—she was + different; her eyes met mine sadly and her old, sweet voice was a little + tremulous, as if she were sorry that I had done something wrong. + </p> + <p> + I didn't stay long. I started back to the Henderson headquarters in the + hotel, but on my way I passed a big store-room on a corner of the Square, + which Trimmer had fitted up as his own headquarters. There was quite a + crowd of the boys going in and out, looking cheerful, fresh cigars in + their mouths, and a drink or two inside, band coming down the street, + everything the way an old-timer likes to see it. + </p> + <p> + Passley Trimmer himself came out as I was going by, and with him were his + brother, Link, and two or three other men, among them a weasel-faced + little fellow named Hugo Siffles, who kept a drug-store on the next + corner. Hugo wasn't anybody; nobody ever paid any attention to him at all; + but he was one of those empty-headed village talkers who are always trying + to look as if they were behind the scenes, always trying to walk with + important people. Everybody knows them. They whisper to the undertaker at + funerals; and during campaigns they have something confidential to + communicate to United States Senators. They meddle and intrude and waste + as much time for you as they can. + </p> + <p> + When Trimmer saw me, he held out his hand. “Hello, Ben! I hear you're not + <i>for</i> me!” he said cordially. + </p> + <p> + “How are you running?” I came back at him, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we're going to beat you,” he answered, in the same way. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you'll see a good run, first, I expect!” + </p> + <p> + He walked along with me, Link and the others following a little way + behind; but Hugo Siffles, of course, walking with us, partly to listen and + tell at the drug-store later, and partly to look like state secrets. + </p> + <p> + “Sorry you couldn't see your way to join us,” Trimmer said. “But we'll win + out all right, anyway. I shouldn't think that would be much of a + disappointment to you, though. It will be a great thing for one of your + family.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes,” I said, “Hector.” + </p> + <p> + Trimmer took on a little of his benevolent statesman's manner, which they + nearly all get in time. “I have the greatest confidence in that young + man's future,” he said. “He may go to the very top. All he needs is money. + I speak to you as a relative: he ought to drop that school-teacher and + marry a girl with money. He could, easily enough.” + </p> + <p> + That made me a little ugly. “Oh, no,” I said. “He can make plenty in + Congress outside of his salary, can't he? I understand some of them do.” + </p> + <p> + Of course Trimmer didn't lose his temper; instead, he laughed out loud, + and then put his hand on my shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” he said. “I'm his friend and you're his cousin. He's one of + my own crowd and I have his best interests at heart. That isn't the girl + for him. He tells me that, for a long while, she used to advise him + against having too much to do with <i>me</i>, until he showed her that + winning my influence in his favour was his only chance to rise. Now, if <i>you</i> + have his best interests at heart, as I have, you'll help persuade him to + let her go. Why shouldn't he marry better? She's not so young any longer, + and she's pretty much lost her looks. And then, you know people will talk—” + </p> + <p> + “Talk about what?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Well, if he goes to Congress, and, with his prospects, throws himself + away on a skinny little old-maid school-teacher in the backwoods, one that + he's been making love to for years, they might say almost anything. Why + can't he hand her over to Joe Lane? I'm sure—” + </p> + <p> + “That'll do,” I interrupted roughly. “I suppose you've been talking that + way to Hector?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, certainly. I have his best interests at—” + </p> + <p> + “Good-day, <i>sir</i>!” I said, and turned in at the hotel and left him, + with Hugo Siffles's little bright pig's eyes peeking at me round Trimmer's + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + Sore enough I was, and cursing Trimmer and Hector in my heart, so that + when some one knocked on my door, while I was washing up for supper, I + said “Come in!” as if I were telling a dog to get out. + </p> + <p> + It was Joe Lane and he was pretty drunk. He walked over to the bed and + caught himself unsteadily once or twice. I'd never seen him stagger + before. He didn't speak until he had sat down on the coverlet; then he + shaded his eyes with his hand and stared at me as if he wanted to make + sure that it <i>was</i> I. + </p> + <p> + “I've just been down to Hugo Siffles's drugstore,” he said, speaking very + slowly and carefully, “and Hugo was telling a crowd about a conver—conversation + between you and Passley Trimmer. He said Trimmer said Hector Ransom ought + to drop Miss Rainey—and 'hand her over to Joe Lane,' Is that true?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I answered. “The beast said that.” + </p> + <p> + “There was more,” Joe said heavily. “More that im—implied—might + be taken to imply scandal, which I believe Trimmer did not seriously + intend—but thought—thought might be used as an argument with + Hector to persuade him to jilt her?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “What was said ex—-actly? It is being repeated about town in various + forms. I want to know.” + </p> + <p> + Like a fool I told him the whole thing. I didn't think, didn't dream, of + course, what was in that poor, drunken, devoted head, and I wanted to blow + off my own steam, I was so hot. + </p> + <p> + He sat very quietly until I had finished; then he took his head in both + hands and rocked himself gently to and fro upon the bed, and I saw tears + trickling down his cheeks. It was a wretched spectacle in a way, he being + drunk and crying like a child, but I don't think I despised him. + </p> + <p> + “And she so true,” he sobbed, “so good, so faithful to him! She's given + him her youth, her whole sweet youth—all of it for him!” He got to + his feet and went to the door. + </p> + <p> + “Hold on, Joe,” I said, “where are you going?” + </p> + <p> + “'Nother drink!” he said, and closed the door behind him. + </p> + <p> + After supper I went to work with Henderson and three or four others in a + little back-room in our headquarters; and we were hard at it when one of + the boys held up his hand and said: “Listen!” + </p> + <p> + The sounds of a big disturbance came in through the open windows: shouting + and yelling, and crowds running in the streets below. The town had been so + noisy all evening that I thought nothing of it. “It's only some delegation + getting in,” I said. “Go on with the lists.” + </p> + <p> + But I'd no more than got the words out of my mouth than the noise rolled + into the outer rooms of our headquarters like a wave, and there was a + violent hammering on the door of our room, some one calling my name in a + loud frightened voice. I threw open the door and Hugo Siffles fell in, his + pig's eyes starting out of his pale, foolish face. + </p> + <p> + “Come with me!” he shouted, all in one breath, and laying hold of me by + the lapel of my coat, tried to drag me after him. “There's hell to pay! + Joe Lane came into Trimmer's headquarters, drunk, twenty minutes ago, and + slapped Passley Trimmer's face for what he said to us this afternoon. Link + Trimmer came in, a minute later, drunk too, and heard what had happened. + He followed Joe to Hodge's saloon and shot him. They've carried him to the + drug-store and he's asked to speak to you.” + </p> + <p> + I had the satisfaction of kicking that little cuss through the door ahead + of me, though I knew it was myself I ought to have kicked. + </p> + <p> + It was true that Joe had asked to speak to me, but when I reached the + drug-store the doctor wouldn't let me come into the back-room where he + lay, so I sat on a stool in the store. They'd turned all the people out, + except four or five friends of Joe's; and the glass doors and the windows + were solid with flattened faces, some of them coloured by the blue and + green lights so that it sickened me, and all staring horribly. After about + four years the doctor's assistant came out to get something from a shelf + and I jumped at him, getting mighty little satisfaction, you can be sure. + </p> + <p> + “It seems to be very serious indeed,” was all he would say. I knew that + for myself, because one of the men in the store had told me that it was in + the left side. + </p> + <p> + Half-an-hour after this—by the clock—the young man came out + again and called us in to carry Joe home. It was not more than a hundred + yards to the old Lane place, and six of us, walking very slowly, carried + him on a cot through the crowd. He was conscious, for he thanked us in a + weakish whisper, when we lifted him carefully into his own bed. Then the + doctor sent us all out except the assistant, and we went to the front + porch and waited, hating the crowd that had lined up against the fence and + about the gate. They looked like a lot of buzzards; I couldn't bear the + sight of them, so I went back into the little hall and sat down near Joe's + door. + </p> + <p> + After a while the assistant opened the door, holding a glass pitcher in + his hand. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” he said, when he saw me, “will you fill this with cold water from + the well?” + </p> + <p> + I took it and hurried out to the kitchen, where four or five people were + sitting and glumly whispering around an old coloured woman, Joe's cook, + who was crying and rocking herself in a chair. I hushed her up and told + her to show me the pump. It was in an orchard behind the house, and was + one of those old-fashioned things that sound like a siren whistle with the + hiccups. + </p> + <p> + It took me about five minutes to get the water up, and when I got back to + Joe's room, a woman was there with the doctors. It was Miss Rainey. She + had her hat off, her sleeves were rolled up and, though her face was the + whitest I ever saw, she was cool and steady. It was she who took the water + from me at the door. + </p> + <p> + I heard low voices in the parlour, where a lamp was lit, and I went in + there. Mary was sitting on a sofa, with a handkerchief hard against her + eyes, and Hector was standing in the middle of the room, saying over and + over, “My God!” and shaking. I went to the sofa and sat by Mary with my + hand on her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “To think of it!” Hector moaned. “To think of its coming at such a time! + To think of what it means to me!” + </p> + <p> + His mother spoke to him from behind her handkerchief: “You mustn't do it; + you <i>can't</i> Hector—oh, you can't, you <i>can't.</i>” + </p> + <p> + For answer he struck himself desperately across the forehead with the palm + of his hand. + </p> + <p> + “What is it,” I asked, “that your mother wants you not to do?” + </p> + <p> + “She wants me to give up Trimmer—to refuse to make the nominating + speech for him to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “You've <i>got</i> to give him up!” cried his mother; and then went on + with reiterations as passionate as they were weak and broken in utterance. + “You can't make the speech, you can't do it, you <i>can't—”</i> + </p> + <p> + “Then I'm done for!” he said. “Don't you see what a frightful blow this + pitiful, drunken folly of poor Joe's has dealt Trimmer's candidaoy? Don't + you see that they rely on me more than ever, <i>now</i>? Are you so blind + you don't see that I am the only man who can save Trimmer the nomination? + If I go back on him now, he's done for and I'm done for with him! It's my + only chance!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” she sobbed, “you'll have other chances; you'll have plenty of + chances, dear; you're young—” + </p> + <p> + “My only chance,” he went on rapidly, ignoring her, “and if I can carry it + through, it will mean everything to me. The tide's running strong against + Trimmer to-night, and I am the only man in the world who can turn it the + other way. If I go into the convention for him, faithful to him, and, out + of the highest sense of justice, explain that, even though Lane has been + my closest friend, he was in the wrong and that—” + </p> + <p> + Mary rose to her feet and went to her son and clung to him. “No, no!” she + cried; “no, <i>no</i>!” + </p> + <p> + “I've got to!” he said. + </p> + <p> + “What is that you must do, Hector?” It was Miss Rainey's voice, and came + from just behind me. She was standing in the doorway that led from the + hall, and her eyes were glowing with a brilliant, warm light. We all + started as she spoke, and I sprang up and turned toward her. + </p> + <p> + “He's going to get well,” she said, understanding me. “They say it is + surely so!” + </p> + <p> + At that Mary ran and threw her arms about her and kissed her—and I + came near it! Hector gave a sort of shout of relief and sank into a chair. + </p> + <p> + “What is that you must do, Hector?” Miss Rainey said again in her steady + voice. + </p> + <p> + “Stick to Trimmer!” he explained. “Don't you see that I must? He needs me + now more than ever, and it's my only chance.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Rainey looked at him over Mary's shoulder. She looked at him a long + while before she spoke. “You know why Mr. Lane struck that blow?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I suppose so,” he answered uneasily. “At least Siffles—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said. “You know. What are you going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “The right thing!” Hector rose and walked toward her. “I put right before + all. I shall be loyal and I shall be just. It might have been a terribly + hard thing to carry through, but, since dear old Joe will recover, I know + I can do it.” + </p> + <p> + The girl's eyes widened suddenly, while the warm glow in them flashed into + a fiery and profound scrutiny. + </p> + <p> + “You are going to make the nominating speech,” she said. It was not a + question but a declaration, in the tone of one to whom he stood wholly + revealed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he answered eagerly. “I knew you would see: it's my chance, my + whole career—” + </p> + <p> + But his mother, turning swiftly, put her hand over his mouth, though it + was to Miss Rainey that she cried: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don't let him say it—he can't; you mustn't let him!” + </p> + <p> + The girl drew her gently away and put an arm about her, saying: “Do you + think <i>I</i> could stop him?” + </p> + <p> + “But do you wish to stop me?” asked Hector sadly, as he stepped toward + her. “Do you set yourself not only in the way of my great chance, but + against justice and truth? Don't you see that I must do it?” + </p> + <p> + “It is your chance—yes. I see the truth, Hector.” Her eyes had + fallen and she looked at him no more, but, with a little movement away + from him, offered her hand to him at arm's length. It was done in a + curious way, and he looked perplexed for a second, and then frightened. He + dropped her hand, and his lips twitched. + </p> + <p> + “Laura,” he said, and could not go on. + </p> + <p> + “You must go now,” she said to all three of us. “The house should be very + quiet. I shall be his nurse, and the doctor will stay all night. Isn't it + beautiful that Joe is going to get well!” + </p> + <p> + She went out quickly, before Hector could detain her, back to the room + where Lane was. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There's no need my telling you the details of that convention: Henderson + was beaten from the start, and Hector's speech was all that happened. If + he hadn't made it, there might have been a consolidation on a dark horse, + for feeling was high against Trimmer. It isn't an easy thing to go into a + convention with a brother locked up in jail on a charge of attempted + murder! + </p> + <p> + I'll never forget Hector's rising to make that speech. There wasn't any + cheering, there was a dead, cold hush. This wasn't because his magnetism + had deserted him; indeed, I don't think it had ever before been felt so + strongly. He was white as white paper, and his face had a look of + suffering; altogether I believe I couldn't give a better notion of him + than saying that he somehow made me think of Hamlet. + </p> + <p> + He began in a very low but very penetrating voice, and I don't think + anybody in the farthest corner missed a single clear-cut syllable from the + first. As I may have indicated, I had never been a warm admirer of his, + but with all my prejudice, I think I admired him when he stood up to his + task that day. For the effect he intended, his speech was a masterpiece, + no less. I saw it before he had finished three sentences. And he delivered + it, knowing that even while he did so he was losing the woman he loved; + for Hector did love Laura Rainey, next to himself, and she had been part + of his life and necessary to him. But though the heavens fell, he stuck to + what he had set out to do, and did it masterfully. + </p> + <p> + Not that what he said could bear the analysis of a cool mind: nothing that + Hector ever did or said has been able to do that. But for the purpose, it + was perfect. For once he began at the beginning, without rhetoric, and he + made it all the more effective by beginning with himself. + </p> + <p> + “Doubtless there are many among you who think it strange to see me rise to + fulfil the charge with which you know me to be intrusted. My oldest and + most intimate friend lies wounded on a bed of suffering, stricken down by + the hand of another friend whose heart is in the cause for which I have + risen. Therefore, you might well question me; you might well say: 'To whom + is your loyalty?' Well might I ask myself that same question. And I will + give you my answer: 'There are things beyond the personal friendship of + man and man, things greater than individual differences and individual + tragedies, things as far higher and greater than these as the skies of God + are higher than the roof of a child's doll-house. These higher things are + the good of the State and the Law of Justice!'” + </p> + <p> + That brought the first applause; and Trimmer's people, seeing the crowd + had taken Hector's point, sprang to their feet and began to cheer. At a + tense moment, such as this, cheering is often hypnotic, and good managers + know how to make use of it on the floor. The noise grew thunderous, and + when it subsided Hector was master of the convention. Then, for the first + time, I saw how far he would go—and why. I had laughed at him all my + life, but now I believed there was “something in him,” as they say. The + Lord knows what, but it was there; and as I looked at him and listened it + seemed to me that the world was at his feet. + </p> + <p> + He was infinitely daring, yet he skirted the cause of the quarrel with + perfect tact: “The misinterpretation of a few careless and kindly words, + said in passing, and repeated, with garbling additions, to a man who was + not himself.... The brooding of a mind most unhappily beset with + alcohol.... A blow resented by a too devoted but too violent kinsman....” + </p> + <p> + Then, with the greatest skill, and rather quietly, he passed to a eulogium + of Trimmer's public career, gradually increasing the warmth of his praise + but controlling it as perfectly as he controlled the enthusiasm and + excitement which followed each of his points. For myself, I only looked + away from him once, and caught a glimpse of Henderson looking sick. + </p> + <p> + Hector finished with a great stroke. He went back to the original theme. + “You ask me where my duty lies!” His great voice rose and rang through the + hall magnificently: “I reply—'first to my State and her needs'! Is + that answer enough? If it be necessary that I should answer for my + personal loyalty to one man or another then I ask <i>you</i>: Shall it go + to the friend who, without cause, struck the first blow? Shall it go to + that other friend who went out hot-headed and struck back to avenge a + brother's wrongs? Is it only between these that I—and many of you—are + to choose to-day? Is there not a <i>third</i>?' I tell you that I have + chosen, and that my loyalty and all my strength are devoted to that other, + to that man who has suffered most of all, to him who received a blow and + did not avenge it, because in his greatness he knew that his assailant + knew not what he did!” + </p> + <p> + That carried them off their feet. Hector had turned Trimmer's greatest + danger into the means of victory. The Trimmer people led one of those + extraordinary hysterical processions round the aisles that you see + sometimes in a convention (a thing I never get used to), and it was all + Trimmer, or rather, it was all Hector. Trimmer was nominated on the first + ballot. + </p> + <p> + There was a recess, and I hurried out, meaning to slip round to Joe Lane's + for a moment to find out how he was. I'd seen the doctor in the morning + and he said his patient had passed a good night and that Miss Rainey was + still there. “I think she's going to stay,” he added, and smiled and shook + hands with me. + </p> + <p> + Joe's old darkey cook let me in, and, after a moment, came to say I might + go into Mr. Lane's room; Mr. Lane wanted to see me. + </p> + <p> + Joe was lying very flat on his back, but with his face turned toward the + door, and beside him sat Laura Rainey, their thin hands clasped together. + I stopped on the threshold with the door half opened. + </p> + <p> + “Come in,” said Joe weakly. “Hector made it, I'm sure.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I answered, and in earnest. “He's a great man.” + </p> + <p> + Joe's face quivered with a pain that did not come from his hurt. “Oh, it's + knowing that, that makes me feel like such a scoundrel,” he said. “I + suppose you've come to congratulate me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I said, “the doctor says it's a wonderful case, and that you're one + of the lucky ones with a charmed life, thank God!” + </p> + <p> + Joe smiled sadly at Miss Rainey. “He hasn't heard,” he said. Then she gave + me her left hand, aot relinquishing Joe's with her right. + </p> + <p> + “We were married this morning,” she said, “just after the convention + began.” + </p> + <p> + The tears came into Joe's eyes as she spoke. “It's a shame, isn't it?” he + said to me. “You must see it so. And I the kind of man I am, the town + drunkard—” + </p> + <p> + Then his wife leaned over and kissed his forehead. + </p> + <p> + “Even so it was right—and so beautiful for me,” she said. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART II + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MRS. PROTHEROE + </h2> + <p> + When Alonzo Tawson took his seat as the Senator from Stackpole in the + upper branch of the General Assembly of the State, an expression of + pleasure and of greatness appeared to be permanently imprinted upon his + countenance. He felt that if he had not quite arrived at all which he + meant to make his own, at least he had emerged upon the arena where he was + to win it, and he looked about him for a few other strong spirits with + whom to construct a focus of power which should control the senate. The + young man had not long to look, for within a week after the beginning of + the session these others showed themselves to his view, rising above the + general level of mediocrity and timidity, party-leaders and chiefs of + faction, men who were on their feet continually, speaking half-a-dozen + times a day, freely and loudly. To these, and that house at large, he felt + it necessary to introduce himself by a speech which must prove him one of + the elect, and he awaited impatiently an opening. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo had no timidity himself. He was not one of those who first try + their voices on motions to adjourn, written in form and handed out to + novices by presiding officers and leaders. He was too conscious of his own + gifts, and he had been “accustomed to speaking” ever since his days in the + Stackpole City Seminary. He was under the impression, also, that his + appearance alone would command attention from his colleagues and the + gallery. He was tall; his hair was long, with a rich waviness, rippling + over both brow and collar, and he had, by years of endeavour, succeeded in + moulding his features to present an aspect of stern and thoughtful majesty + whenever he “spoke.” + </p> + <p> + The opportunity to show his fellows that new greatness was among them + delayed not over-long, and Senator Rawson arose, long and bony in his best + clothes, to address the senate with a huge voice in denunciation of the + “Sunday Baseball Bill,” then upon second reading. The classical + references, which, as a born orator, he felt it necessary to introduce, + were received with acclamations which the gavel of the Lieutenant-Governor + had no power to still. + </p> + <p> + “What led to the De-cline and Fall of the Roman Empire?” he exclaimed. “I + await an answer from the advocates of this <i>de</i>-generate measure! I + <i>demand</i> an answer from them! Let me hear from them on <i>that</i> + subject! Why don't they speak up? They can't give one. Not because they + ain't familiar with history, no sir! That's not the reason! It's because + they <i>daren't,</i> because their answer would have to go on record <i>against</i> + 'em! Don't any of you try to raise it against me that I ain't speakin' to + the point, for I tell you that when you encourage Sunday Baseball, or any + kind of Sabbath-breakin' on Sunday, you're tryin' to start this State on + the downward path that beset Rome! <i>I'll</i> tell you what ruined it. + The Roman Empire started out to be the greatest nation on earth, and they + had a good start, too, just like the United States has got to-day. <i>Then</i> + what happened to 'em? Why, them old ancient fellers got more interested in + athletic games and gladiatorial combats and racing and all kinds of + out-door sports, and bettin' on 'em, than they were in oratory, or + literature, or charitable institutions and good works of all kinds! At + first they were moderate and the country was prosperous. But six days in + the week wouldn't content 'em, and they went at it all the time, so that + at last they gave up the seventh day to their sports, the way this bill + wants <i>us</i> to do, and from that time on the result was <i>de</i>-generacy + and <i>de</i>-gredation! You better remember <i>that</i> lesson, my + friends, and don't try to sink this State to the level of Rome!” + </p> + <p> + When Alonzo Rawson wiped his dampened brow, and dropped into his chair, he + was satisfied to the core of his heart with the effect of his maiden + effort. There was not one eye in the place that was not fixed upon him and + shining with surprise and delight, while the kindly Lieutenant-Governor, + his face very red, rapped for order. The young senator across the aisle + leaned over and shook Alonzo's hand excitedly. + </p> + <p> + “That was beautiful, Senator Rawson!” he wispered. “I'm <i>for</i> the + bill, but I can respect a masterly opponent.” + </p> + <p> + “I thank you, Senator Truslow,” Alonzo returned graciously. “I am glad to + have your good opinion, Senator.” + </p> + <p> + “You have it, Senator,” said Truslow enthusiastically. “I hope you intend + to speak often?” + </p> + <p> + “I do, Senator. I intend to make myself heard,” the other answered + gravely, “upon all questions of moment.” + </p> + <p> + “You will fill a great place among us, Senator!” + </p> + <p> + Then Alonzo Rawson wondered if he had not underestimated his neighbour + across the aisle; he had formed an opinion of Truslow as one of small + account and no power, for he had observed that, although this was + Truslow's second term, he had not once demanded recognition nor attempted + to take part in a debate. Instead, he seemed to spend most of his time + frittering over some desk work, though now and then he walked up and down + the aisles talking in a low voice to various senators. How such a man + could have been elected at all, Alonzo failed to understand. Also, Truslow + was physically inconsequent, in his colleague's estimation—“a little + insignificant, dudish kind of a man,” he had thought; one whom he would + have darkly suspected of cigarettes had he not been dumbfounded to behold + Truslow smoking an old black pipe in the lobby. The Senator from Stackpole + had looked over the other's clothes with a disapproval that amounted to + bitterness. Truslow's attire reminded him of pictures in New York + magazines, or the drees of boys newly home from college, he didn't know + which, but he did know that it was contemptible. Consequently, after + receiving the young man's congratulations, Alonzo was conscious of the + keenest surprise at his own feeling that there might be something in him + after all. + </p> + <p> + He decided to look him over again, more carefully to take the measure of + one who had shown himself so frankly an admirer. Waiting, therefore, a few + moments until he felt sure that Truslow's gaze had ceased to rest upon + himself, he turned to bend a surreptitious but piercing scrutiny upon his + neighbour. His glance, however, sweeping across Truslow's shoulder toward + the face, suddenly encountered another pair of eyes beyond, so intently + fixed upon himself that he started. The clash was like two search-lights + meeting—and the glorious brown eyes that shot into Alonzo's were not + the eyes of Truslow. + </p> + <p> + Truslow's desk was upon the outer aisle, and along the wall were placed + comfortable leather chairs and settees, originally intended for the use of + members of the upper house, but nearly always occupied by their wives and + daughters, or “lady-lobbyists,” or other women spectators. Leaning back + with extraordinary grace, in the chair nearest Truslow, sat the handsomest + woman Alonzo had ever seen in his life. Her long coat of soft grey fur was + unrecognizable to him in connection with any familiar breed of squirrel; + her broad flat hat of the same fur was wound with a grey veil, underneath + which her heavy brown hair seemed to exhale a mysterious glow, and never, + not even in a lithograph, had he seen features so regular or a skin so + clear! And to look into her eyes seemed to Alonzo like diving deep into + clear water and turning to stare up at the light. + </p> + <p> + His own eyes fell first. In the breathless awkwardness that beset him they + seemed to stumble shamefully down to his desk, like a country-boy getting + back to his seat after a thrashing on the teacher's platform. For the + lady's gaze, profoundly liquid as it was, had not been friendly. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo Rawson had neither the habit of petty analysis, nor the inclination + toward it; yet there arose within him a wonder at his own emotion, at its + strangeness and the violent reaction of it. A moment ago his soul had been + steeped in satisfaction over the figure he had cut with his speech and the + extreme enthusiasm which had been accorded it—an extraordinarily + pleasant feeling: suddenly this was gone, and in its place he found + himself almost choking with a dazed sense of having been scathed, and at + the same time understood in a way in which he did not understand himself. + And yet—he and this most unusual lady had been so mutually conscious + of each other in their mysterious interchange that he felt almost + acquainted with her. Why, then, should his head be hot with resentment? + Nobody had <i>said</i> anything to him! + </p> + <p> + He seized upon the fattest of the expensive books supplied to him by the + State, opened it with emphasis and began not to read it, with abysmal + abstraction, tinglingly alert to the circumstance that Truslow was holding + a low-toned but lively conversation with the unknown. Her laugh came to + him, at once musical, quiet and of a quality which irritated him into + saying bitterly to himself that he guessed there was just as much + refinement in Stackpole as there was in the Capital City, and just as many + old families! The clerk calling his vote upon the “Baseball Bill” at that + moment, he roared “No!” in a tone which was profane. It seemed to him that + he was avenging himself upon somebody for something and it gave him a + great deal of satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + He returned immediately to his imitation of Archimedes, only relaxing the + intensity of his attention to the text (which blurred into jargon before + his fixed gaze) when he heard that light laugh again. He pursed his lips, + looked up at the ceiling as if slightly puzzled by some profound question + beyond the reach of womankind; solved it almost immediately, and, setting + his hand to pen and paper, wrote the capital letter “O” several hundred + times on note-paper furnished by the State. So oblivious was he, + apparently, to everything but the question of statecraft which occupied + him, that he did not even look up when the morning's session was adjourned + and the lawmakers began to pass noisily out, until Truslow stretched an + arm across the aisle and touched him upon the shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “In a moment, Senator!” answered Alonzo in his deepest chest tones. He + made it a very short moment, indeed, for he had a wild, breath-taking + suspicion of what was coming. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to meet Mrs. Protheroe, Senator,” said Truslow, rising, as + Rawson, after folding his writings with infinite care, placed them in his + breast pocket. + </p> + <p> + “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am,” Alonzo said in a loud, + firm voice, as he got to his feet, though the place grew vague about him + when the lady stretched a charming, slender, gloved hand to him across + Truslow's desk. He gave it several solemn shakes. + </p> + <p> + “We shouldn't have disturbed you, perhaps?” she asked, smiling radiantly + upon him. “You were at some important work, I'm afraid.” + </p> + <p> + He met her eyes again, and their beauty and the thoughtful kindliness of + them fairly took his breath. “I am the chairman, ma'am,” he replied, + swallowing, “of the committee on drains and dikes.” + </p> + <p> + “I knew it was something of great moment,” she said gravely, “but I was + anxious to tell you that I was interested in your speech.” + </p> + <p> + A few minutes later, without knowing how he had got his hat and coat from + the cloak-room, Alonzo Rawson found himself walking slowly through the + marble vistas of the State house to the great outer doors with the lady + and Truslow. They were talking inconsequently of the weather, and of + various legislators, but Alonzo did not know it. He vaguely formed replies + to her questions and he hardly realized what the questions were; he was + too stirringly conscious of the rich quiet of her voice and of the caress + of the grey fur of her cloak when the back of his hand touched it—rather + accidentally—now and then, as they moved on together. + </p> + <p> + It was a cold, quick air to which they emerged and Alonzo, daring to look + at her, found that she had pulled the veil down over her face, the colour + of which, in the keen wind, was like that of June roses seen through + morning mists. At the curb a long, low, rakish black motor-car was in + waiting, the driver a mere swaddled cylinder of fur. + </p> + <p> + Truslow, opening the little door of the tonneau, offered his hand to the + lady. “Come over to the club, Senator, and lunch with me,” he said. “Mrs. + Protheroe won't mind dropping us there on her way.” + </p> + <p> + That was an eerie ride for Alonzo, whose feet were falling upon strange + places. His pulses jumped and his eyes swam with the tears of unlawful + speed, but his big ungloved hand tingled not with the cold so much as with + the touch of that divine grey fur upon his little finger. + </p> + <p> + “You intend to make many speeches, Mr. Truslow tells me,” he heard the + rich voice saying. + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he summoned himself to answer. “I expect I will. Yes ma'am.” + He paused, and then repeated, “Yes ma'am.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him for a moment. “But you will do some work, too, won't + you?” she asked slowly. + </p> + <p> + Her intention in this passed by Alonzo at the time. “Yes ma'am,” he + answered. “The committee work interests me greatly, especially drains and + dikes.” + </p> + <p> + “I have heard,” she said, as if searching his opinion, “that almost as + much is accomplished in the committee-rooms as on the floor? There—and + in the lobby and in the hotels and clubs?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't have much to do with that!” he returned quickly. “I guess none of + them lobbyists will get much out of me! I even sent back all their + railroad tickets. They needn't come near me!” + </p> + <p> + After a pause which she may have filled with unexpressed admiration, she + ventured, almost timidly: “Do you remember that it was said that Napoleon + once attributed the secret of his power over other men to one quality?” + </p> + <p> + “I am an admirer of Napoleon,” returned the Senator from Stackpole. “I + admire all great men.” + </p> + <p> + “He said that he held men by his reserve.” + </p> + <p> + “It can be done,” observed Alonzo, and stopped, feeling that it was more + reserved to add nothing to the sentence. + </p> + <p> + “But I suppose that such a policy,” she smiled upon him inquiringly, + “wouldn't have helped him much with women?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he agreed immediately. “My opinion is that a man ought to tell a <i>good</i> + woman everything. What is more sacred than—” + </p> + <p> + The car, turning a corner much too quickly, performed a gymnastic squirm + about an unexpected street-car and the speech ended in a gasp, as Alonzo, + not of his own volition, half rose and pressed his cheek closely against + hers. Instantaneous as it was, his heart leaped violently, but not with + fear. Could all the things of his life that had seemed beautiful have been + compressed into one instant, it would not have brought him even the + suggestion of the wild shock of joy of that one, wherein he knew the + glamorous perfume of Mrs. Protheroe's brown hair and felt her cold cheek + firm against his, with only the grey veil between. + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid this driver of mine will kill me some day,” she said, laughing + and composedly straightening her hat. “Do you care for big machines?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he answered huskily. “I haven't been in many.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I'll take you again,” said Mrs. Protheroe. “If you like I'll come + down to the State house and take you out for a run in the country.” + </p> + <p> + “When?” said the lost young man, staring at her with his mouth open. + “When?” + </p> + <p> + “Saturday afternoon if you like. I'll be there at two.” + </p> + <p> + They were in front of the club and Truslow had already jumped out. Mrs. + Protheroe gave him her hand and they exchanged a glance significant of + something more than a friendly goodbye. Indeed, one might have hazarded + that there was something almost businesslike about it. The confused + Senator from Stackpole, climbing out reluctantly, observed it not, nor + could he have understood, even if he had seen, that delicate signal which + passed between his two companions. + </p> + <p> + When he was upon the ground Mrs. Protheroe extended her hand without + speaking, but her lips formed the word, “Saturday.” Then she was carried + away quickly, while Alonzo, his heart hammering, stood looking after her, + born into a strange world, the touch of the grey fur upon his little + finger, the odour of her hair faintly about him, one side of his face red, + the other pale. + </p> + <p> + “To-day is Wednesday,” he said, half aloud. + </p> + <p> + “Come on, Senator.” Truslow took his arm and turned him toward the club + doors. + </p> + <p> + The other looked upon his new friend vaguely. “Why, I forgot to thank her + for the ride,” he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “You'll have other chances, Senator,” Truslow assured him. “Mrs. Protheroe + has a hobby for studying politics and she expects to come down often. She + has plenty of time—she's a widow, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you didn't think,” responded Alonzo indignantly, “that I thought + she was a married woman!” + </p> + <p> + After lunch they walked back to the State house together, Truslow + regarding his thoughtful companion with sidelong whimsicalness. Mrs. + Protheroe's question, suggestive of a difference between work and + speechmaking, had recurred to Alonzo, and he had determined to make + himself felt, off the floor as well as upon it. He set to this with a fine + energy, that afternoon, in his committee-room, and the Senator from + Stackpole knew his subject. On drains and dikes he had no equal. He spoke + convincingly to his colleagues of the committee upon every bill that was + before them, and he compelled their humblest respect. He went earnestly at + it, indeed, and sat very late that night, in his room at a nearby boarding + house, studying bills, trying to keep his mind upon them and not to think + of his strange morning and of Saturday. Finally his neighbour in the next + room, Senator Ezra Trumbull, long abed, was awakened by his praying and + groaned slightly. Trumbull meant to speak to Rawson about his prayers, for + Trumbull was an early one to bed and they woke him every night. The + partition was flimsy and Alonzo addressed his Maker in the loud voice of + one accustomed to talking across wide out-of-door spaces. Trumbull + considered it especially unnecessary in the city; though, as a citizen of + a county which loved but little his neighbour's district, he felt that in + Stackpole there was good reason for a person to shout his prayers at the + top of his voice and even then have small chance to carry through the + distance. Still, it was a delicate matter to mention and he put it off + from day to day. + </p> + <p> + Thursday passed slowly for Alonzo Rawson, nor was his voice lifted in + debate. There was little but routine; and the main interest of the chamber + was in the lobbying that was being done upon the “Sunday Baseball Bill” + which had passed to its third reading and would come up for final + disposition within a fortnight. This was the measure which Alonzo had set + his heart upon defeating. It was a simple enough bill: it provided, in + substance, that baseball might be played on Sunday by professionals in the + State capital, which was proud of its league team. Naturally, it was + denounced by clergymen, and deputations of ministers and committees from + women's religious societies were constantly arriving at the State house to + protest against its passage. The Senator from Stackpole reassured all of + these with whom he talked, and was one of their staunchest allies and + supporters. He was active in leading the wavering among his colleagues, or + even the inimical, out to meet and face the deputations. It was in this + occupation that he was engaged, on Friday afternoon, when he received a + shock. + </p> + <p> + A committee of women from a church society was waiting in the corridor, + and he had rounded-up a reluctant half-dozen senators and led them forth + to be interrogated as to their intentions regarding the bill. The + committee and the lawmakers soon distributed themselves into little + argumentative clumps, and Alonzo found himself in the centre of these, + with one of the ladies who had unfortunately—but, in her enthusiasm, + without misgivings—begun a reproachful appeal to an advocate of the + bill whose name was Goldstein. + </p> + <p> + “Senator Goldstein,” she exclaimed, “I could not believe it when I heard + that you were in favour of this measure! I have heard my husband speak in + the highest terms of your old father. May I ask you what <i>he</i> thinks + of it? If you voted for the desecration of Sunday by a low baseball game, + could you dare go home and face that good old man?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, madam,” said Goldstein mildly; “we are <i>both</i> Jews.” + </p> + <p> + A low laugh rippled out from near-by, and Alonzo, turning almost + violently, beheld his lady of the furs. She was leaning back against a + broad pilaster, her hands sweeping the same big coat behind her, her face + turned toward him, but her eyes, sparklingly delighted, resting upon + Goldstein. Under the broad fur hat she made a picture as enraging, to + Alonzo Rawson, as it was bewitching. She appeared not to see him, to be + quite unconscious of him—and he believed it. Truslow and five or six + members of both houses were about her, and they all seemed to be bending + eagerly toward her. Alonzo was furious with her. + </p> + <p> + Her laugh lingered upon the air for a moment, then her glance swept round + the other way, omitting the Senator from Stackpole, who, immediately + putting into practice a reserve which would have astonished Napoleon, + swung about and quitted the deputation without a word of farewell or + explanation. He turned into the cloakroom and paced the floor for three + minutes with a malevolence which awed the coloured attendants into not + brushing his coat; but, when he returned to the corridor, cautious + inquiries addressed to the tobacconist, elicited the information that the + handsome lady with Senator Truslow had departed. + </p> + <p> + Truslow himself had not gone. He was lounging in his seat when Alonzo + returned and was genially talkative. The latter refrained from replying in + kind, not altogether out of reserve, but more because of a dim suspicion + (which rose within him, the third time Truslow called him “Senator” in one + sentence) that his first opinion of the young man as a light-minded person + might have been correct. + </p> + <p> + There was no session the following afternoon, but Alonzo watched the + street from the windows of his committee-room, which overlooked the + splendid breadth of stone steps leading down from the great doors to the + pavement. There were some big bookcases in the room, whose glass doors + served as mirrors in which he more and more sternly regarded the soft + image of an entirely new grey satin tie, while the conviction grew within + him that (arguing from her behaviour of the previous day) she would not + come, and that the Stackpole girls were nobler by far at heart than many + who might wear a king's-ransom's-worth of jewels round their throats at + the opera-house in a large city. This sentiment was heartily confirmed by + the clock when it marked half-past two. He faced the bookcase doors and + struck his breast, his open hand falling across the grey tie with tragic + violence; after which, turning for the last time to the windows, he + uttered a loud exclamation and, laying hands upon an ulster and a grey + felt hat, each as new as the satin tie, ran hurriedly from the room. The + black automobile was waiting. + </p> + <p> + “I thought it possible you might see me from a window,” said Mrs. + Protheroe as he opened the little door. + </p> + <p> + “I was just coming out,” he returned, gasping for breath. “I thought—from + yesterday—you'd probably forgotten.” + </p> + <p> + “Why 'from yesterday'?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I thought—I thought—” He faltered to a stop as the full, + glorious sense of her presence overcame him. She wore the same veil. + </p> + <p> + “You thought I did not see you yesterday in the corridor?” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you might have acted more—more—” + </p> + <p> + “More cordially?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he said, looking down at his hands, “more like you knew we'd been + introduced.” + </p> + <p> + At that she sat silent, looking away from him, and he, daring a quick + glance at her, found that he might let his eyes remain upon her face. That + was a dangerous place for eyes to rest, yet Alonzo Rawson was anxious for + the risk. The car flew along the even asphalt on its way to the country + like a wild goose on a long slant of wind, and, with his foolish fury + melted inexplicably into honey, Alonzo looked at her—and looked at + her—till he would have given an arm for another quick corner and a + street-car to send his cheek against that veiled, cold cheek of hers + again. It was not until they reached the alternate vacant lots and bleak + Queen Anne cottages of the city's ragged edge that she broke the silence. + </p> + <p> + “You were talking to some one else,” she said almost inaudibly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am, Goldstein, but—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no!” She turned toward him, lifting her hand. “You were quite the + lion among ladies.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Protheroe,” he said, truthfully. + </p> + <p> + “What were you talking to all those women about?” + </p> + <p> + “It was about the 'Sunday Baseball Bill.'” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! The bill you attacked in your speech, last Wednesday?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am.” + </p> + <p> + “I hear you haven't made any speeches since then,” she said indifferently. + </p> + <p> + “No ma'am,” he answered gently. “I kind of got the idea that I'd better + lay low for a while at first, and get in some quiet hard work.” + </p> + <p> + “I understand. You are a man of intensely reserved nature.” + </p> + <p> + “With men,” said Alonzo, “I am. With ladies I am not so much so. I think a + good woman ought to be told—” + </p> + <p> + “But you are interested,” she interrupted, “in defeating that bill?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he returned. “It is an iniquitous measure.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Protheroe!” he exclaimed, taken aback. “I thought all the ladies + were against it. My own mother wrote to me from Stackpole that she'd + rather see me in my grave than votin' for such a bill, and I'd rather see + myself there!” + </p> + <p> + “But are you sure that you understand it?” + </p> + <p> + “I only know it desecrates the Sabbath. That's enough for me!” + </p> + <p> + She leaned toward him and his breath came quickly. + </p> + <p> + “No. You're wrong,” she said, and rested the tips of her fingers upon his + sleeve. + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand why—why you say that,” he faltered. “It sounds + kind of—surprising to me—” + </p> + <p> + “Listen,” she said. “Perhaps Mr. Truslow told you that I am studying such + things. I do not want to be an idle woman; I want to be of use to the + world, even if it must be only in small ways.” + </p> + <p> + “I think that is a noble ambition!” he exclaimed. “I think all good women + ought—” + </p> + <p> + “Wait,” she interrupted gently. “Now, that bill is a worthy one, though it + astonishes you to hear me say so. Perhaps you don't understand the + conditions. Sunday is the labouring-man's only day of recreation—and + what recreation is he offered?” + </p> + <p> + “He ought to go to church,” said Alonzo promptly. + </p> + <p> + “But the fact is that he doesn't—not often—not at <i>all</i> + in the afternoon. Wouldn't it be well to give him some wholesome way of + employing his Sunday afternoons? This bill provides for just that, and it + keeps him away from drinking too, for it forbids the sale of liquor on the + grounds.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know,” said Alonzo plaintively. “But it ain't <i>right</i>! I was + raised to respect the Sabbath and—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that's what you should do! You think <i>I</i> could believe in + anything that wouldn't make it better and more sacred?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, ma'am!” he cried reproachfully. “It's only that I don't see—” + </p> + <p> + “I am telling you.” She lifted her veil and let him have the full dazzle + of her beauty. “Do you know that many thousands of labouring people spend + their Sundays drinking and carousing about the low country road-houses + because the game is played at such places on Sunday? They go there because + they never get a chance to see it played in the city. And don't you + understand that there would be no Sunday liquor trade, no working-men + poisoning themselves every seventh day in the low groggeries, as hundreds + of them do now, if they had something to see that would interest them?—something + as wholesome and fine as this sport would be, under the conditions of this + bill; something to keep them in the open air, something to bring a little + gaiety into their dull lives!” Her voice had grown louder and it shook a + little, with a rising emotion, though its sweetness was only the more + poignant. “Oh, my dear Senator,” she cried, “don't you <i>see</i> how + wrong you are? Don't you want to <i>help</i> these poor people?” + </p> + <p> + Her fingers, which had tightened upon his sleeve, relaxed and she leaned + back, pulling the veil down over her face as if wishing to conceal from + him that her lips trembled slightly; then resting her arm upon the leather + cushions, she turned her head away from him, staring fixedly into the + gaunt beech woods, lining the country road along which they were now + coursing. For a time she heard nothing from him, and the only sound was + the monotonous chug of the machine. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you think it rather shocking to hear a woman talking + practically of such common-place things,” she said at last, in a cold + voice, just loud enough to be heard. + </p> + <p> + “No ma'am,” he said huskily. + </p> + <p> + “Then what <i>do</i> you think?” she cried, turning toward him again with + a quick imperious gesture. + </p> + <p> + “I think I'd better go back to Stackpole,” he answered very slowly, “and + resign my job. I don't see as I've got any business in the Legislature.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand you.” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head mournfully. “It's a simple enough matter. I've studied + out a good many bills and talked 'em over and I've picked up some + influence and—” + </p> + <p> + “I know you have.” she interrupted eagerly. “Mr. Truslow says that the + members of your drains and dikes committee follow your vote on every + bill.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” said Alonzo Rawson meekly, “but I expect they oughtn't to. + I've had a lesson this afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say—” + </p> + <p> + “I mean that I didn't know what I was doing about that baseball bill. I + was just pig-headedly goin' ahead against it, not knowing nothing about + the conditions, and it took a lady to show me what they were. I would have + done a wrong thing if you hadn't stopped me.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean,” she cried, her splendid eyes widening with excitement and + delight; “you mean that you—-that you—” + </p> + <p> + “I mean that I will vote for the bill!” He struck his clenched fist upon + his knee. “I come to the Legislature to do <i>right</i>!” + </p> + <p> + “You will, ah, you <i>will</i> do right in this!” Mrs. Protheroe thrust up + her veil again and her face was flushed and radiant with triumph. “And + you'll work, and you'll make a speech for the bill?” + </p> + <p> + At this the righteous exaltation began rather abruptly to simmer down in + the soul of Alonzo Rawson. He saw the consequences of too violently + reversing, and knew how difficult they might be to face. + </p> + <p> + “Well, not—not exactly,” he said weakly. “I expect our best plan + would be for me to lay kind of low and not say any more about the bill at + all. Of course, I'll quit workin' against it; and on the roll-call I'll + edge up close to the clerk and say 'Aye' so that only him'll hear me. + That's done every day—and I—well, I don't just exactly like to + come out too publicly for it, after my speech and all I've done against + it.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him sharply for a short second, and then offered him her + hand and said: “Let's shake hands <i>now</i>, on the vote. Think what a + triumph it is for me to know that I helped to show you the right.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he answered confusedly, too much occupied with shaking her + hand to know what he said. She spoke one word in an undertone to the + driver and the machine took the very shortest way back to the city. + </p> + <p> + After this excursion, several days passed, before Mrs. Protheroe came to + the State house again. Rawson was bending over the desk of Senator + Josephus Battle, the white-bearded leader of the opposition to the “Sunday + Baseball Bill,” and was explaining to him the intricacies of a certain + drainage measure, when Battle, whose attention had wandered, plucked his + sleeve and whispered: + </p> + <p> + “If you want to see a mighty pretty woman that's doin' no good here, look + behind you, over there in the chair by the big fireplace at the back of + the room.” + </p> + <p> + Alonzo looked. + </p> + <p> + It was she whose counterpart had been in his dream's eye every moment of + the dragging days which had been vacant of her living presence. A number + of his colleagues were hanging over her almost idiotically; her face was + gay and her voice came to his ears, as he turned, with the accent of her + cadenced laughter running through her talk like a chime of tiny bells + flitting through a strain of music. + </p> + <p> + “This is the third time she's been here,” said Battle, rubbing his beard + the wrong way. “She's lobbyin' for that infernal Sabbath-Desecration bill, + but we'll beat her, my son.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you made her acquaintance, Senator?” asked Alonzo stiffly. + </p> + <p> + “No, sir, and I don't want to. But I knew her father—the slickest + old beat and the smoothest talker that ever waltzed up the pike. She + married rich; her husband left her a lot of real estate around here, but + she spends most of her time away. Whatever struck her to come down and + lobby for that bill I don't know <i>yet</i>—but I will! Truslow's + helping her to help himself; he's got stock in the company that runs the + baseball team, but what she's up to—well, I'll bet there's a nigger + in the woodpile <i>some</i>where!” + </p> + <p> + “I expect there's a lot of talk like that!” said Alonzo, red with anger, + and taking up his papers abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, <i>sir</i>!” said Battle emphatically, utterly misunderstanding the + other's tone and manner. “Don't you worry, my son. We'll kill that + venomous bill right here in this chamber! We'll kill it so dead that it + won't make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some others'll + tend to <i>that</i>! Let her work that pretty face and those eyes of hers + all she wants to! I'm keepin' a little lookout, too—and I'll—” + </p> + <p> + He broke off, for the angry and perturbed Alonzo had left him and gone to + his own desk. Battle, slightly surprised, rubbed his beard the wrong way + and sauntered out to the lobby to muse over a cigar. Alonzo, loathing + Battle with a great loathing, formed bitter phrases concerning that + vicious-minded old gentleman, while for a moment he affected to be setting + his desk in order. Then he walked slowly up the aisle, conscious of a + roaring in his ears (though not aware how red they were) as he approached + the semicircle about her. + </p> + <p> + He paused within three feet of her in a sudden panic of timidity, and + then, to his consternation, she looked him squarely in the face, over the + shoulders of two of the group, and the only sign of recognition that she + exhibited was a slight frown of unmistakable repulsion, which appeared + between her handsome eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + It was very swift; only Alonzo saw it; the others had no eyes for anything + but her, and were not aware of his presence behind them, for she did not + even pause in what she was saying. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo walked slowly away with the wormwood in his heart. He had not grown + up among the young people of Stackpole without similar experiences, but it + had been his youthful boast that no girl had ever “stopped speaking” to + him without reason, or “cut a dance” with him and afterward found + opportunity to repeat the indignity. + </p> + <p> + “What have I <i>done</i> to <i>her?</i>” was perhaps the hottest cry of + his soul, for the mystery was as great as the sting of it. + </p> + <p> + It was no balm upon that sting to see her pass him at the top of the outer + steps, half an hour later, on the arm of that one of his colleagues who + had been called the “best-dressed man in the Legislature.” She swept by + him without a sign, laughing that same laugh at some sally of her escort, + and they got into the black automobile together and were whirled away and + out of sight by the impassive bundle of furs that manipulated the wheel. + </p> + <p> + For the rest of that afternoon and the whole of that night no man, woman, + or child heard the voice of Alonzo Rawson, for he spoke to none. He came + not to the evening meal, nor was he seen by any who had his acquaintance. + He entered his room at about midnight, and Trumbull was awakened by his + neighbour's overturning a chair. No match was struck, however, and + Trumbull was relieved to think that the Senator from Stackpole intended + going directly to bed without troubling to light the gas, and that his + prayers would soon be over. Such was not the case, for no other sound came + from the room, nor were Alonzo's prayers uttered that night, though the + unhappy statesman in the next apartment could not get to sleep for several + hours on account of his nervous expectancy of them. + </p> + <p> + After this, as the day approached upon which hung the fate of the bill + which Mr. Josephus Battle was fighting, Mrs. Protheroe came to the Senate + Chamber nearly every morning and afternoon. Not once did she appear to be + conscious of Alonzo Rawson's presence, nor once did he allow his eyes to + delay upon her, though it cannot be truthfully said that he did not always + know when she came, when she left, and with whom she stood or sat or + talked. He evaded all mention or discussion of the bill or of Mrs. + Protheroe; avoided Truslow (who, strangely enough, was avoiding <i>him</i>) + and, spending upon drains and dikes all the energy that he could manage to + concentrate, burned the midnight oil and rubbed salt into his wounds to + such marked effect that by the evening of the Governor's Reception—upon + the morning following which the mooted bill was to come up—he + offered an impression so haggard and worn that an actor might have studied + him for a makeup as a young statesman going into a decline. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, he dressed with great care and bitterness, and placed the + fragrant blossom of a geranium—taken from a plant belonging to his + landlady—in the lapel of his long coat before he set out. + </p> + <p> + And yet, when he came down the Governor's broad stairs, and wandered + through the big rooms, with the glare of lights above him and the shouting + of the guests ringing in his ears, a sense of emptiness beset him; the + crowded place seemed vacant and without meaning. Even the noise sounded + hollow and remote—and why had he bothered about the geranium? He + hated her and would never look at her again—but why was she not + there? + </p> + <p> + By-and-by, he found himself standing against a wall, where he had been + pushed by the press of people. He was wondering drearily what he was to do + with a clean plate and a napkin which a courteous negro had handed him, + half-an-hour earlier, when he felt a quick jerk at his sleeve. It was + Truslow, who had worked his way along the wall and who now, standing on + tiptoe, spoke rapidly but cautiously, close to his ear. + </p> + <p> + “Senator, be quick,” he said sharply, at the same time alert to see that + they were unobserved. “Mrs. Protheroe wants to speak to you at once. + You'll find her near the big palms under the stairway in the hall.” + </p> + <p> + He was gone—he had wormed his way half across the room—before + the other, in his simple amazement could answer. When Alonzo at last found + a word, it was only a monosyllable, which, with his accompanying action, + left a matron of years, who was at that moment being pressed fondly to his + side, in a state of mind almost as dumbfounded as his own. “<i>Here!</i>” + was all he said as he pressed the plate and napkin into her hand and + departed forcibly for the hall, leaving a spectacular wreckage of trains + behind him. + </p> + <p> + The upward flight of the stairway left a space underneath, upon which, as + it was screened (save for a narrow entrance) by a thicket of palms, the + crowd had not encroached. Here were placed a divan and a couple of chairs; + there was shade from the glare of gas, and the light was dim and cool. + Mrs. Protheroe had risen from the divan when Alonzo entered this grotto, + and stood waiting for him. + </p> + <p> + He stopped in the green entrance-way with a quick exclamation. + </p> + <p> + She did not seem the same woman who had put such slights upon him, this + tall, white vision of silk, with the summery scarf falling from her + shoulders. His great wrath melted at the sight of her; the pain of his + racked pride, which had been so hot in his breast, gave way to a species + of fear. She seemed not a human being, but a bright spirit of beauty and + goodness who stood before him, extending two fine arms to him in long, + white gloves. + </p> + <p> + She left him to his trance for a moment, then seized both his hands in + hers and cried to him in her rapturous, low voice: “Ah, Senator, you have + come! I <i>knew</i> you understood!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes ma'am,” he whispered chokily. + </p> + <p> + She drew him to one of the chairs and sank gracefully down upon the divan + near him. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Truslow was so afraid you wouldn't,” she went on rapidly, “but I was + sure. You see I didn't want anybody to suspect that I had any influence + with you. I didn't want them to know, even, that I'd talked to you. It all + came to me after the first day that we met. You see I've believed in you, + in your power and in your reserve, from the first. I want all that you do + to seem to come from yourself and not from me or any one else. Oh, I <i>believe</i> + in great, strong men who stand upon their own feet and conquer the world + for themselves! That's <i>your</i> way, Senator Rawson. So, you see, as + they think I'm lobbying for the bill, I wanted them to believe that your + speech for it to-morrow comes from your own great, strong mind and heart + and your sense of right, and not from any suggestion of mine.” + </p> + <p> + “My speech!” he stammered. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know,” she cried; “I know you think I don't believe much in + speeches, and I don't ordinarily, but a few, simple, straightforward and + vigorous words from you, to-morrow, may carry the bill through. You've + made such <i>progress</i>, you've been so <i>reserved</i>, that you'll + carry great weight—and there are three votes of the drains and dikes + that are against us now, but will follow yours absolutely. Do you think I + would have 'cut' <i>you</i> if it hadn't been <i>best</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “But I—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know you didn't actually promise me to speak, that day. But I knew + you would when the time came! I knew that a man of power goes over <i>all</i> + obstacles, once his sense of <i>right</i> is aroused! I <i>knew</i>—I + never doubted it, that once <i>you</i> felt a thing to be right you would + strike for it, with all your great strength—at all costs—at + all—” + </p> + <p> + “I can't—I—I—can't!” he whispered nervously. “Don't you + see—don't you see—I—” + </p> + <p> + She leaned toward him, lifting her face close to his. She was so near him + that the faint odour of her hair came to him again, and once more the + unfortunate Senator from Stackpole risked a meeting of his eyes with hers, + and saw the light shining far down in their depths. + </p> + <p> + At this moment the shadow of a portly man who was stroking his beard the + wrong way projected itself upon them from the narrow, green entrance to + the grotto. Neither of them perceived it. + </p> + <p> + Senator Josephus Battle passed on, but when Alonzo Rawson emerged, a few + moments later, he was pledged to utter a few simple, straightforward and + vigorous words in favour of the bill. And—let the shame fall upon + the head of the scribe who tells it—he had kissed Mrs. Protheroe! + </p> + <p> + The fight upon the “Sunday Baseball Bill,” the next morning, was the + warmest of that part of the session, though for a while the reporters were + disappointed. They were waiting for Senator Battle, who was famous among + them for the vituperative vigour of his attacks and for the kind of + personalities which made valuable copy. And yet, until the debate was + almost over, he contented himself with going quietly up and down the + aisles, whispering to the occupants of the desks, and writing and sending + a multitude of notes to his colleagues. Meanwhile, the orators upon both + sides harangued their fellows, the lobby, the unpolitical audience, and + the patient presiding officer to no effect, so far as votes went. The + general impression was that the bill would pass. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo Rawson sat, bent over his desk, his eyes fixed with gentle + steadiness upon Mrs. Protheroe, who occupied the chair wherein he had + first seen her. A senator of the opposition was finishing his + denunciation, when she turned and nodded almost imperceptibly to the young + man. + </p> + <p> + He gave her one last look of pathetic tenderness and rose. + </p> + <p> + “The Senator from Stackpole!” + </p> + <p> + “I want,” Alonzo began, in his big voice: “I want to say a few simple, + straightforward but vigorous words about this bill. You may remember I + spoke against it on its second reading—” + </p> + <p> + “You did <i>that</i>!” shouted Senator Battle suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “I want to say now,” the Senator from Stackpole continued, “that at that + time I hadn't studied the subject sufficiently. I didn't know the + conditions of the case, nor the facts, but since then a great light has + broke in upon me—” + </p> + <p> + “I should say it had! I saw it break!” was Senator Battle's second violent + interruption. + </p> + <p> + When order was restored, Alonzo, who had become very pale, summoned his + voice again. “I think we'd ought to take into consideration that Sunday is + the working-man's only day of recreation and not drive him into low + groggeries, but give him a chance in the open air to indulge his love of + wholesome sport—” + </p> + <p> + “Such as the ancient Romans enjoyed!” interposed Battle vindictively. + </p> + <p> + “No, sir!” Alonzo wheeled upon him, stung to the quick. “Such a sport as + free-born Americans and <i>only</i> free-born Americans can play in this, + wide world—the American game of baseball, in which no other nation + of the <i>Earth</i> is our equal!” + </p> + <p> + This was a point scored and the cheering lasted two minutes. Then the + orator resumed: + </p> + <p> + “I say: 'Give the working-man a chance!' Is his life a happy one? You know + it ain't! Give him his one day. <i>Don't</i> spoil it for him with your + laws—he's only got one! I'm not goin' to take up any more of your + time, but if there's anybody here who thinks my well-considered opinion + worth following I say: '<i>Vote for this bill</i>.' It is right and + virtuous and ennobling, and it ought to be passed! I say: '<i>Vote for it</i>.'” + </p> + <p> + The reporters decided that the Senator from Stackpole had “wakened things + up.” The gavel rapped a long time before the chamber quieted down, and + when it did, Josephus Battle was on his feet and had obtained the + recognition of the chair. + </p> + <p> + “I wish to say, right here,” he began, with a rasping leisureliness, “that + I hope no member of this honoured body will take my remarks as personal or + unparliamentary—<i>but</i>”—he raised a big forefinger and + shook it with menace at the presiding officer, at the same time suddenly + lifting his voice to an unprintable shriek—“I say to <i>you</i>, + sir, that the song of the siren has been <i>heard</i> in the land, and the + call of Delilah has been answered! When the Senator from Stackpole rose in + this chamber, less than three weeks ago, and denounced this iniquitous + measure, I heard him with pleasure—we <i>all</i> heard him with + pleasure—<i>and</i> respect! In spite of his youth and the poor + quality of his expression, <i>we</i> listened to him. <i>We</i> knew he + was sencere! What has caused the change in him? What <i>has</i>, I ask? I + shall not tell you, upon this floor, but I've taken mighty good care to + let most of you know, during the morning, either by word of mouth or by <i>note</i> + of hand! Especially those of you of the drains and dikes and others who + might follow this young Samson, whose locks have been shore! <i>I've</i> + told you all about that, and more—<i>I've</i> told you the <i>inside</i> + history of some <i>facts</i> about the bill that I will not make public, + because I am too confident of our strength to defeat this devilish + measure, and prefer to let our vote speak our opinion of it! Let me not + detain you longer. <i>I</i> thank you!” + </p> + <p> + Long before he had finished, the Senator from Stackpole was being held + down in his chair by Truslow and several senators whose seats were + adjacent; and the vote was taken amid an uproar of shouting and confusion. + When the clerk managed to proclaim the result over all other noises, the + bill was shown to be defeated and “killed,” by a majority of five votes. + </p> + <p> + A few minutes later, Alonzo Rawson, his neckwear disordered and his face + white with rage, stumbled out of the great doors upon the trail of Battle, + who had quietly hurried away to his hotel for lunch as soon as he had + voted. + </p> + <p> + The black automobile was vanishing round a corner. Truslow stood upon the + edge of the pavement staring after it ruefully: + </p> + <p> + “Where is Mrs. Protheroe?” gasped the Senator from Stackpole. + </p> + <p> + “She's gone,” said the other. + </p> + <p> + “Gone where?” + </p> + <p> + “Gone back to Paris. She sails day after tomorrow. She just had time + enough to catch her train for New York after waiting to hear how the vote + went. She told me to tell you good-bye, and that she was sorry. Don't + stare at me Rawson! I guess we're in the same boat!—Where are you + going?” he finished abruptly. + </p> + <p> + Alonzo swung by him and started across the street. “To find Battle!” the + hoarse answer came back. + </p> + <p> + The conquering Josephus was leaning meditatively upon the counter of the + cigar-stand of his hotel when Alonzo found him. He took one look at the + latter's face and backed to the wall, tightening his grasp upon the + heavy-headed ebony cane it was his habit to carry, a habit upon which he + now congratulated himself. + </p> + <p> + But his precautions were needless. Alonzo stopped out of reaching + distance. + </p> + <p> + “You tell me,” he said in a breaking voice; “you tell me what you meant + about Delilah and sirens and Samsons and inside facts! You tell me!” + </p> + <p> + “You wild ass of the prairies,” said Battle, “I saw you last night behind + them pa'ms! But don't you think I told it—or ever will! I just + passed the word around that she'd argued you into her way of thinkin', + same as she had a good many others. And as for the rest of it, I found out + where the mgger in the woodpile was, and I handed that out, too. Don't you + take it hard, my son, but I told you her husband left her a good deal of + land around here. She owns the ground that they use for the baseball park, + and her lease would be worth considerable more if they could have got the + right to play on Sundays!” + </p> + <p> + Senator Trumbull sat up straight, in bed, that night, and, for the first + time during his martyrdom, listened with no impatience to the prayer which + fell upon his ears. + </p> + <p> + “O, Lord Almighty,” through the flimsy partition came the voice of Alonzo + Rawson, quaveringly, but with growing strength: “Aid Thou me to see my way + more clear! I find it hard to tell right from wrong, and I find myself + beset with tangled wires. O God, I feel that I am ignorant, and fall into + many devices. These are strange paths wherein Thou hast set my feet, but I + feel that through Thy help, and through great anguish, I am learning!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + GREAT MEN'S SONS + </h2> + <p> + Mme. Bernhardt and M. Coquelin were playing “L'Aiglon.” Toward the end of + the second act people began to slide down in their seats, shift their + elbows, or casually rub their eyes; by the close of the third, most of the + taller gentlemen were sitting on the small of their backs with their knees + as high as decorum permitted, and many were openly coughing; but when the + fourth came to an end, active resistance ceased, hopelessness prevailed, + the attitudes were those of the stricken field, and the over-crowded house + was like a college chapel during an interminable compulsory lecture. Here + and there—but most rarely—one saw an eager woman with bright + eyes, head bent forward and body spellbound, still enchantedly following + the course of the play. Between the acts the orchestra pattered ragtime + and inanities from the new comic operas, while the audience in general + took some heart. When the play was over, we were all enthusiastic; though + our admiration, however vehement in the words employed to express it, was + somewhat subdued as to the accompanying manner, which consisted, mainly, + of sighs and resigned murmurs. In the lobby a thin old man with a grizzled + chin-beard dropped his hand lightly on my shoulder, and greeted me in a + tone of plaintive inquiry: + </p> + <p> + “Well, son?” + </p> + <p> + Turning, I recognized a patron of my early youth, in whose woodshed I had + smoked my first cigar, an old friend whom I had not seen for years; and to + find him there, with his long, dust-coloured coat, his black string tie + and rusty hat brushed on every side by opera cloaks and feathers, was a + rich surprise, warming the cockles of my heart. His name is Tom Martin; he + lives in a small country town, where he commands the trade in Dry Goods + and Men's Clothing; his speech is pitched in a high key, is very slow, + sometimes whines faintly; and he always calls me “Son.” + </p> + <p> + “What in the world!” I exclaimed, as we shook hands. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he drawled, “I dunno why I shouldn't be as meetropolitan as + anybody. I come over on the afternoon accommodation for the show. Let's + you and me make a night of it. What say, son?” + </p> + <p> + “What did you think of the play?” I asked, as we turned up the street + toward the club. + </p> + <p> + “I think they done it about as well as they could.” + </p> + <p> + “That all?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he rejoined with solemnity, “there was a heap <i>of</i> it, wasn't + there!” + </p> + <p> + We talked of other things, then, until such time as we found ourselves + seated by a small table at the club, old Tom somewhat uneasily regarding a + twisted cigar he was smoking and plainly confounded by the “carbonated” + syphon, for which, indeed, he had no use in the world. We had been joined + by little Fiderson, the youngest member of the club, whose whole nervous + person jerkily sparkled “L'Aiglon” enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + “Such an evening!” he cried, in his little spiky voice. “Mr. Martin, it + does one good to realize that our country towns are sending + representatives to us when we have such things; that they wish to get in + touch with what is greatest in Art. They should do it often. To think that + a journey of only seventy miles brings into your life the magnificence of + Rostand's point of view made living fire by the genius of a Bernhardt and + a Coquelin!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Mr. Martin, with a curious helplessness, after an ensuing + pause, which I refused to break, “yes, sir, they seemed to be doing it + about as well as they could.” + </p> + <p> + Fiderson gasped slightly. “It was magnificent! Those two great artists! + But over all the play—the play! Romance new-born; poesy marching + with victorious banners; a great spirit breathing! Like 'Cyrano'—the + birth-mark of immortality on this work!” + </p> + <p> + There was another pause, after which old Tom turned slowly to me, and + said: “Homer Tibbs's opened up a cigar-stand at the deepo. Carries a line + of candy, magazines, and fruit, too. Home's a hustler.” + </p> + <p> + Fiderson passed his hand through his hair. + </p> + <p> + “That death scene!” he exclaimed at me, giving Martin up as a log + accidentally rolled in from the woods. “I thought that after 'Wagram' I + could feel nothing more; emotion was exhausted; but then came that + magnificent death! It was tragedy made ecstatic; pathos made into music; + the grandeur of a gentle spirit, conquered physically but morally + unconquerable! Goethe's 'More Light' outshone!” + </p> + <p> + Old Tom's eyes followed the smoke of his perplexing cigar along its heavy + strata in the still air of the room, as he inquired if I remembered + Orlando T. Bickner's boy, Mel. I had never heard of him, and said so. + </p> + <p> + “No, I expect not,” rejoined Martin. “Prob'ly you wouldn't; Bickner was + Governor along in <i>my</i> early days, and I reckon he ain't hardly more + than jest a name to you two. But <i>we</i> kind of thought he was the + biggest man this country had ever seen, or was goin' to see, and he <i>was</i> + a big man. He made one president, and could have been it himself, instead, + if he'd be'n willing to do a kind of underhand trick, but I expect without + it he was about as big a man as anybody'd care to be; Governor, Senator, + Secretary of State—and just owned his party! And, my law!—the + whole earth bowin' down to him; torchlight processions and sky-rockets + when he come home in the night; bands and cannon if his train got in, + daytime; home-folks so proud of him they couldn't see; everybody's hat + off; and all the most important men in the country following at his heels—a + country, too, that'd put up consider'ble of a comparison with everything + Napoleon had when he'd licked 'em all, over there. + </p> + <p> + “Of course he had enemies, and, of course, year by year, they got to be + more of 'em, and they finally downed him for good; and like other public + men so fixed, he didn't live long after that. He had a son, Melville, + mighty likable young fellow, studyin' law when his paw died. I was livin' + in their town then, and I knowed Mel Bickner pretty well; he was + consider'ble of a man. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know as I ever heard him speak of that's bein' the reason, but I + expect it may've be'n partly in the hope of carryin' out some of his paw's + notions, Mel tried hard to git into politics; but the old man's local + enemies jumped on every move he made, and his friends wouldn't help any; + you can't tell why, except that it generally <i>is</i> thataway. Folks + always like to laugh at a great man's son and say <i>he</i> can't amount + to anything. Of course that comes partly from fellows like that ornery + little cuss we saw to-night, thinkin' they're a good deal because somebody + else done something, and the somebody else happened to be their paw; and + the women run after 'em, and they git low-down like he was, and so on.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Martin,” interrupted Fiderson, with indignation, “will you kindly + inform me in what way 'L'Aiglon' was 'low-down'?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, didn't that huntin'-lodge appointment kind of put you in mind + of a camp-meetin' scandal?” returned old Tom quietly. “It did me.” + </p> + <p> + “But—” + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, I can't say as I understood the French of it, but I read the + book in English before I come up, and it seemed to me he was pretty much + of a low-down boy; yet I wanted to see how they'd make him out; hearin' it + was, thought, the country over, to be such a great <i>play</i>; though to + tell the truth all I could tell about <i>that</i> was that every line + seemed to end in 'awze'; and 't they all talked in rhyme, and it did + strike me as kind of enervatin' to be expected to believe that people + could keep it up that long; and that it wasn't only the boy that never + quit on the subject of himself and his folks, but pretty near any of 'em, + if he'd git the chanst, did the same thing, so't almost I sort of wondered + if Rostand wasn't that kind.” + </p> + <p> + “Go on with Melville Bickner,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “What do you expect,” retorted Mr. Martin with a vindictive gleam in his + eye, “when you give a man one of these here spiral staircase cigars? Old + Peter himself couldn't keep straight along one subject if he tackled a + cigar like this. Well, sir, I always thought Mel had a mighty mean time of + it. He had to take care of his mother and two sisters, his little brother + and an aunt that lived with them; and there was mighty little to do it on; + big men don't usually leave much but debts, and in this country, of + course, a man can't eat and spend long on his paw's reputation, like that + little Dook of Reishtod—” + </p> + <p> + “I beg to tell you, Mr. Martin—” Fiderson began hotly. + </p> + <p> + Martin waved his bony hand soothingly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know; they was money in his mother's family, and they give him his + vittles and clothes, and plenty, too. <i>His</i> paw didn't leave much + either—though he'd stole more than Boss Tweed. I suppose—and, + just lookin' at things from the point of what they'd <i>earned</i>, his + maw's folks had stole a good deal, too; or else you can say they were a + kind of public charity; old Metternich, by what I can learn, bein' the + only one in the whole possetucky of 'em that really <i>did</i> anything to + deserve his salary—” Mr. Martin broke off suddenly, observing that I + was about to speak, and continued: + </p> + <p> + “Mel didn't git much law practice, jest about enough to keep the house + goin' and pay taxes. He kept workin' for the party jest the same and jest + as cheerfully as if it didn't turn him down hard every time he tried to + git anything for himself. They lived some ways out from town; and he sold + the horses to keep the little brother in school, one winter, and used to + walk in to his office and out again, twice a day, over the worst roads in + the State, rain or shine, snow, sleet, or wind, without any overcoat; and + he got kind of a skimpy, froze-up look to him that lasted clean through + summer. He worked like a mule, that boy did, jest barely makin' ends meet. + He had to quit runnin' with the girls and goin' to parties and everything + like that; and I expect it may have been some hard to do; for if they ever + <i>was</i> a boy loved to dance and be gay, and up to anything in the line + of fun and junketin' round, it was Mel Bickner. He had a laugh I can hear + yet—made you feel friendly to everybody you saw; feel like stoppin' + the next man you met and shakin' hands and havin' a joke with him. + </p> + <p> + “Mel was engaged to Jane Grandis when Governor Bickner died. He had to go + and tell her to take somebody else—it was the only thing to do. He + couldn't give Jane anything but his poverty, and she wasn't used to it. + They say she offered to come to him anyway, but he wouldn't hear of it, + and no more would he let her wait for him; told her she mustn't grow into + an old maid, lonely, and still waitin' for the lightning to strike him—that + is, his luck to come; and actually advised her to take 'Gene Callender, + who'd be'n pressin' pretty close to Mel for her before the engagement. The + boy didn't talk to her this way with tears in his eyes and mourning and + groaning. No, sir! It was done <i>cheerful</i>; and so much so that Jane + never <i>was</i> quite sure afterwerds whether Mel wasn't kind of glad to + git rid of her or not. Fact is, they say she quit speakin' to him. Mel <i>knowed</i>; + a state of puzzlement or even a good <i>mad's</i> a mighty sight better + than bein' all harrowed up and grief-stricken. And he never give her—nor + any one else—a chanst to be sorry for him. His maw was the only one + heard him walk the floor nights, and after he found, out she could hear + him he walked in his socks. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir! Meet that boy on the street, or go up in his office, you'd + think that he was the gayest feller in town. I tell you there wasn't + anything pathetic about Mel Bickner! He didn't believe in it. And at home + he had a funny story every evening of the world, about something 'd + happened during the day; and 'd whistle to the guitar, or git his maw into + a game of cards with his aunt and the girls. Law! that boy didn't believe + in no house of mourning. He'd be up at four in the morning, hoein' up + their old garden; raised garden-truck for their table, sparrow-grass and + sweet corn—yes, and roses, too; always had the house full of roses + in June-time; never <i>was</i> a house sweeter-smellin' to go into. + </p> + <p> + “Mel was what I call a useful citizen. As I said, I knowed him well. I + don't recollect I ever heard him speak of himself, nor yet of his father + but once—for <i>that</i>, I reckon, he jest couldn't; and for + himself; I don't believe it ever occurred to him. + </p> + <p> + “And he was a <i>smart</i> boy. Now, you take it, all in all, a boy can't + be as smart as Mel was, and work as hard as he did, and not <i>git</i> + somewhere—in this State, anyway! And so, about the fifth year, + things took a sudden change for him; his father's enemies and his own + friends, both, had to jest about own they was beat. The crowd that had + been running the conventions and keepin' their own men in all the offices, + had got to be pretty unpopular, and they had the sense to see that they'd + have to branch out and connect up with some mighty good men, jest to keep + the party in power. Well, sir, Mel had got to be about the most popular + and respected man in the county. Then one day I met him on the street; he + was on his way to buy an overcoat, and he was lookin' skimpier and more + froze-up and genialer than ever. It was March, and up to jest that time + things had be'n hardest of all for Mel. I walked around to the store with + him, and he was mighty happy; goin' to send his mother north in the + summer, and the girls were goin' to have a party, and Bob, his little + brother, could go to the best school in the country in the fall. Things + had come his way at last, and that very morning the crowd had called him + in and told him they were goin' to run him for county clerk. + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, the next evening I heard Mel was sick. Seein' him only the day + before on the street, out and well, I didn't think anything of it—thought + prob'ly a cold or something like that; but in the morning I heard the + doctor said he was likely to die. Of course I couldn't hardly believe it; + thing like that never <i>does</i> seem possible, but they all said it was + true, and there wasn't anybody on the street that day that didn't look + blue or talked about anything else. Nobody seemed to know what was the + matter with him exactly, and I reckon the doctor did jest the wrong thing + for it. Near as I can make out, it was what they call appendicitis + nowadays, and had come on him in the night. + </p> + <p> + “Along in the afternoon I went out there to see if there was anything I + could do. You know what a house in that condition is like. Old Fes + Bainbridge, who was some sort of a relation, and me sat on the stairs + together outside Mel's room. We could hear his voice, clear and strong and + hearty as ever. He was out of pain; and he had to die with the full flush + of health and strength on him, and he knowed it. Not <i>wantin'</i> to go, + through the waste and wear of a long sickness, but with all the ties of + life clinchin' him here, and success jest comin.' We heard him speak of + us, amongst others, old Fes and me; wanted 'em to be sure not forget to + tell me to remember to vote for Fillmore if the ground-hog saw his shadow + election year, which was an old joke I always had with him. He was awful + worried about his mother, though he tried not to show it, and when the + minister wanted to pray fer him, we heard him say, 'No, sir, you pray fer + my mamma!' That was the only thing that was different from his usual way + of speakin'; he called his mother 'mamma, and he wouldn't let 'em pray for + him neither; not once; all the time he could spare for their prayin' was + put in for her. + </p> + <p> + “He called in old Fes to tell him all about his life insurance. He'd + carried a heavy load of it, and it was all paid up; and the sweat it must + have took to do it you'd hardly like to think about. He give directions + about everything as careful and painstaking as any day of his life. He + asked to speak to Fes alone a minute, and later I helped Fes do what he + told him. 'Cousin Fes,' he says, 'it's bad weather, but I expect mother'll + want all the flowers taken out to the cemetery and you better let her have + her way. But there wouldn't be any good of their stayin' there; snowed on, + like as not. I wish you'd wait till after she's come away, and git a wagon + and take 'em in to the hospital. You can fix up the anchors and so forth + so they won't look like funeral flowers.' + </p> + <p> + “About an hour later his mother broke out with a scream, sobbin' and + cryin', and he tried to quiet her by tellin' over one of their old-time + family funny stories; it made her worse, so he quit. 'Oh, Mel,' she says, + 'you'll be with your father—' + </p> + <p> + “I don't know as Mel had much of a belief in a hereafter; certainly he + wasn't a great churchgoer. 'Well,' he says, mighty slow, but hearty and + smiling, too, 'if I see father, I—guess—I'll—be—pretty— + well—fixed!' Then he jest lay still, tryin' to quiet her and pettin' + her head. And so—that's the way he went.” + </p> + <p> + Fiderson made one of his impatient little gestures, but Mr. Martin drowned + his first words with a loud fit of coughing. + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir,” he observed, “I read that 'Leg-long' book down home; and I + heard two or three countries, and especially ourn, had gone middling crazy + over it; it seemed kind of funny that <i>we</i> should, too, so I thought + I better come up and see it for myself, how it <i>was</i>, on the stage, + where you could <i>look</i> at it; and—I expect they done it as well + as they could. But when that little boy, that'd always had his board and + clothes and education free, saw that he'd jest about talked himself to + death, and called for the press notices about his christening to be read + to him to soothe his last spasms—why, I wasn't overly put in mind of + Melville Bickner.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Martin's train left for Plattsville at two in the morning. Little + Fiderson and I escorted him to the station. As the old fellow waved us + good-bye from within the gates, Fiderson turned and said: + </p> + <p> + “Just the type of sodden-headed old pioneer that you couldn't hope to make + understand a beautiful thing like 'L'Aiglon' in a thousand years. I + thought it better not to try, didn't you?” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Arena, by Booth Tarkington + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE ARENA *** + +***** This file should be named 8740-h.htm or 8740-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/7/4/8740/ + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, David Widger, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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