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+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
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