[Illustration: SHE WAS AT THE STATION IN HER PHAETON TO MEET ME]

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THE PLUM TREE

ByDAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS

Author ofThe Cost, Golden Fleece, Etc. 

Illustrated ByE. M. ASHE

NEW YORKGROSSET & DUNLAPPUBLISHERS

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Copyright 1905The Bobbs-Merrill Company

March

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CONTENTS

 CHAPTER PAGE

 I. HOW IT ALL BEGAN 1 II. AT THE COURT OF A SOVEREIGN 17 III. SAYLER "DRAWS THE LINE" 33 IV. THE SCHOOL OF LIFE-AS-IT-IS 44 V. A GOOD MAN AND HIS WOES 68 VI. MISS RAMSAY REVOLTS 78 VII. BYGONES 96 VIII. A CALL FROM "THE PARTY" 107 IX. TO THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY 123 X. THE FACE IN THE CROWD 136 XI. BURBANK 144 XII. BURBANK FIRES THE POPULAR HEART 163 XIII. ROEBUCK & CO. PASS UNDER THE YOKE 168 XIV. A "BOOM-FACTORY" 177 XV. MUTINY 193 XVI. A VICTORY FOR THE PEOPLE 199 XVII. SCARBOROUGH 209 XVIII. A DANGEROUS PAUSE 221 XIX. DAVID SENT OUT AGAINST GOLIATH 224 XX. PILGRIMS AND PATRIOTS 234 XXI. AN INTERLUDE 249 XXII. MOSTLY ABOUT MONEY 261 XXIII. IN WHICH A MOUSE HELPS A LION 271 XXIV. GRANBY INTRUDES AGAIN 282 XXV. AN HOUR OF EMOTION 292 XXVI. "ONLY AN OLD JOKE" 296 XXVII. A DOMESTIC DISCORD 306 XXVIII. UNDER A CRAYON PORTRAIT 314 XXIX. A LETTER FROM THE DEAD 327 XXX. A PHILOSOPHER RUDELY INTERRUPTED 333 XXXI. HARVEY SAYLER, SWINEHERD 345 XXXII. A GLANCE BEHIND THE MASK OF GRANDEUR 365 XXXIII. A "SPASM OF VIRTUE" 380 XXXIV. "LET US HELP EACH OTHER" 387

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THE PLUM TREE

I

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

"We can hold out six months longer, --at least six months. " My mother'stone made the six months stretch encouragingly into six long years. 

I see her now, vividly as if it were only yesterday. We were at ourscant breakfast, I as blue as was ever even twenty-five, she brave andconfident. And hers was no mere pretense to reassure me, no cheerlessoptimism of ignorance, but the through-and-through courage and strengthof those who flinch for no bogey that life or death can conjure. Hertone lifted me; I glanced at her, and what shone from her eyes set me onmy feet, face to the foe. The table-cloth was darned in many places, butso skilfully that you could have looked closely without detecting it. Not a lump of sugar, not a slice of bread, went to waste in that house;yet even I had to think twice to realize that we were poor, desperatelypoor. She did not hide our poverty; she beautified it, she dignified itinto Spartan simplicity. I know it is not the glamour over the past thatmakes me believe there are no women now like those of the race to whichshe belonged. The world, to-day, yields comfort too easily to thecapable; hardship is the only mould for such character, and in thosedays, in this middle-western country, even the capable were notstrangers to hardship. 

"When I was young, " she went on, "and things looked black, as they havea habit of looking to the young and inexperienced, "--that put in with ateasing smile for me, --"I used to say to myself, 'Well, anyhow, theycan't _kill_ me. ' And the thought used to cheer me up wonderfully. Infact, it still does. "

I no longer felt hopeless. I began to gnaw my troubles again--despair isstill. 

"Judge Granby is a dog, " said I; "yes, a dog. "

"Why 'dog'?" objected my mother. "Why not simply 'mean man'? I've neverknown a dog that could equal a man who set out to be 'ornery. '"

"When I think of all the work I've done for him in these three years--"

"For yourself, " she interrupted. "Work you do for others doesn't amountto much unless it's been first and best for yourself. "

"But he was benefited by it, too, " I urged, "and has taken life easy, and has had more clients and bigger fees than he ever had before. I'dlike to give him a jolt. I'd stop nagging him to put my name in amiserable corner of the glass in his door. I'd hang out a big sign of myown over my own office door. "

My mother burst into a radiant smile. "I've been waiting a year to hearthat, " she said. 

Thereupon I had a shock of fright--inside, for I'd never have dared toshow fear before my mother. There's nothing else that makes you so braveas living with some one before whom you haven't the courage to let yourcowardice show its feather. If we didn't keep each other up to the mark, what a spectacle of fright and flight this world-drama would be!Vanity, the greatest of vices, is also the greatest of virtues, or thesource of the greatest virtues--which comes to the same thing. 

"When will you do it?" she went on, and then I knew I was in for it, andhow well-founded was the suspicion that had been keeping my lipstight-shut upon my dream of independence. 

"I'll--I'll think about it, " was my answer, in a tone which I hoped shewould see was not hesitating, but reflective; "I mustn't go too far, --ortoo fast. "

"Better go too far and too fast than not go at all, " retorted my wisemother. "Once a tortoise beat a hare, --_once_. It never happened again, yet the whole timid world has been talking about it ever since. " And shefell into a study from which she roused herself to say, "You'd betterlet _me_ bargain for the office and the furniture, --and the big sign. "She knew--but could not or would not teach me--how to get a dollar'sworth for a dollar; would not, I suspect, for she despised parsimony, declaring it to be another virtue which is becoming only in a woman. 

"Of course, --when--" I began. 

"We've got to do something in the next six months, " she warned. And nowshe made the six months seem six minutes. 

I had at my tongue's end something about the danger of dragging her downinto misfortune; but before speaking I looked at her, and, looking, refrained. To say it to _her_ would have been too absurd, --to her whohad been left a widow with nothing at all, who had educated me forcollege, and who had helped me through my first year there, --helped mewith money, I mean. But for what she gave besides, more, immeasurablymore, --but for her courage in me and round me and under me, --I'd neverhave got my degree or anything else, I fear. To call that courage helpwould be like saying the mainspring helps the watch to go. I looked ather. "They can't kill me, can they?" said I, with a laugh which soundedso brave that it straightway made me brave. 

So it was settled. 

But that was the first step in a fight I can't remember even now withouta sinking at the heart. The farmers of Jackson County, of which Pulaskiwas the county seat, found in litigation their chief distraction fromthe stupefying dullness of farm life in those days of pause, after theIndian and nature had been conquered and before the big world's arteriesof thought and action had penetrated. The farmers took eagerly tolitigation to save themselves from stagnation. Still, a new lawyer, especially if he was young, had an agonizing time of it convincing theirslow, stiff, suspicious natures that he could be trusted in such acrisis as "going to law. "

To make matters worse I fell in love. 

 * * * * *

Once--it was years afterward, though not many years ago--Burbank, at thetime governor, was with me, and we were going over the main points forhis annual message. One of my suggestions--my orders to all my agents, high and low, have always been sugar-coated as "suggestions"--started anew train of thought in him, and he took pen and paper to fix it beforeit had a chance to escape. As he wrote, my glance wandered along theshelves of the book-cases. It paused on the farthest and lowest shelf. Irose and went there, and found my old school-books, those I used when Iwas in Public School Number Three, too near thirty years ago!

In the shelf one book stood higher than the others--tall and thin andragged, its covers torn, its pages scribbled, stained and dog-eared. Looking through that old physical geography was like a first talk with along-lost friend. It had, indeed, been my old friend. Behind its broadback I had eaten forbidden apples, I had aimed and discharged theblow-gun, I had reveled in blood-and-thunder tales that made the drowsyschoolroom fade before the vast wilderness, the scene of breathlessstruggles between Indian and settler, or open into the high seas wherepirate, or worse-than-pirate Britisher, struck flag to Americanprivateer or man-o'-war. 

On an impulse shot up from the dustiest depths of memory, I turned theold geography sidewise and examined the edges of the cover. Yes, therewas the _cache_ I had made by splitting the pasteboard with myjack-knife. I thrust in my fingernail; out came a slip of paper. Iglanced at Burbank--he was still busy. I, somewhat stealthily, you mayimagine, opened the paper and--well, my heart beat much more rapidly asI saw in a school-girl scrawl:

[Illustration: (handwriting)]

[Transcriber's Note: the image is approximately this:

 Harvey Sayler hait Elizabeth Crosby love

with the letters "H", "a", "r", "e", "y", "S", "l", "e" in the firstline and "E", "l", "a", "e", "h", "r", "s", "y" in the second line, inthat order, struck out, as marked by the game mentioned in thefollowing paragraph. ]

I was no longer master of a state; I was a boy in school again. I couldsee her laboring over this game of "friendship, love, indifference, hate. " I could see "Redney" Griggs, who sat between her and me, in therow of desks between and parallel to my row and hers, --could see himswoop and snatch the paper from her, look at it, grin maliciously, andtoss it over to me. I was in grade A, was sixteen, and was beginning totake myself seriously. She was in grade D, was little more than half myage, but looked older, --and how sweet and pretty she was! She had blackhair, thick and wavy, with little tresses escaping from plaits andribbons to float about her forehead, ears, and neck. Her skin was darkerthen, I think, than it is now, but it had the same smoothness andglow, --certainly, it could not have had more. 

 * * * * *

I think the dart must have struck that day, --why else did I keep the bitof paper? But it did not trouble me until the first winter of mylaunching forth as "Harvey Sayler, Attorney and Counselor at Law. " Shewas the daughter of the Episcopal preacher; and, as every one thoughtwell of the prospects of my mother's son, our courtship was undisturbed. Then, in the spring, when fortune was at its coldest and love at itsmost feverish, her father accepted a call to a church in Boston, eighthundred miles away. 

To go to see her was impossible; how could the money be spared, --fiftydollars, at the least? Once--when they had been gone about fourmonths--my mother insisted that I must. But I refused, and I do not knowwhether it is to my credit or not, for my refusal gave her only pain, whereas the sacrifices she would have had to make, had I gone, wouldhave given her only pleasure. I had no fear that Betty would change inour separation. There are some people you hope are stanch, and somepeople you think will be stanch, if--, and then there are those, manywomen and a few men, whom it is impossible to think of as false or evenfaltering. I did not fully appreciate that quality then, for my memorywas not then dotted with the graves of false friendships and litteredwith the rubbish of broken promises; but I did appreciate it enough tobuild securely upon it. 

Build? No, that is not the word. There may be those who are stimulatedto achievement by being in love, though I doubt it. At any rate, I wasnot one of them. My love for her absorbed my thoughts, and paralyzed mycourage. Of the qualities that have contributed to what success I mayhave had, I put in the first rank a disposition to see the gloomiestside of the future. But it has not helped to make my life happier, invaluable though it has been in preventing misadventure from catchingme napping. 

So another year passed. Then came hard times, --_real_ hard times. I hadsome clients--enough to insure mother and myself a living, with theinterest on mortgage and note kept down. But my clients were poor, andpoor pay, and slow pay. Nobody was doing well but the note-shavers. I--How mother fought to keep the front brave and bright!--not her front, for that was bright by nature, like the sky beyond the clouds; but ourfront, my front, --the front of our affairs. No one must see that we werepinching, --so I must be the most obviously prosperous young lawyer inPulaski. What that struggle cost her I did not then realize; no, couldnot realize until I looked at her face for the last time, looked andturned away and thought on the meaning of the lines and the hollows overwhich Death had spread his proclamation of eternal peace. I have heardit said of those markings in human faces, "How ugly!" But it seems to methat, to any one with eyes and imagination, line and wrinkle and hollowalways have the somber grandeur of tragedy. I remember my mother whenher face was smooth and had the shallow beauty that the shallow dote on. But her face whereon was written the story of fearlessness, sacrifice, and love, --that is the face beautiful of my mother for me. 

In the midst of those times of trial, when she had ceased to smile, --forshe had none of that hypocritical cheerfulness which depresses and is amere vanity to make silly onlookers cry "Brave!" when there is no truebravery, --just when we were at our lowest ebb, came an offer from BillDominick to put me into politics. 

I had been interested in politics ever since I was seven years old. Irecall distinctly the beginning:--

On a November afternoon, --it must have been November, though I rememberthat it was summer-warm, with all the windows open and many men in thestreets in shirt-sleeves, --at any rate, I was on my way home fromschool. As I neared the court-house I saw a crowd in the yard and wasreminded that it was election day, and that my father was running forreëlection to the state senate; so, I bolted for his law office in thesecond story of the Masonic Temple, across the street from thecourt-house. 

He was at the window and was looking at the polling place so intentlythat he took no notice of me as I stood beside him. I know now why hewas absorbed and why his face was stern and sad. I can shut my eyes andsee that court-house yard, the long line of men going up to vote, singlefile, each man calling out his name as he handed in his ballot, and TomWeedon--who shot an escaping prisoner when he was deputysheriff--repeating the name in a loud voice. Each oncoming voter in thatcuriously regular and compact file was holding out his right arm stiffso that the hand was about a foot clear of the thigh; and in every oneof those thus conspicuous hands was a conspicuous bit of white paper--aballot. As each man reached the polling window and gave in his name, heswung that hand round with a stiff-armed, circular motion that kept itclear of the body and in full view until the bit of paper disappeared inthe slit in the ballot box. 

I wished to ask my father what this strange spectacle meant; but, as Iglanced up at him to begin my question, I knew I must not, for I feltthat I was seeing something which shocked him so profoundly that hewould take me away if I reminded him of my presence. I know now that Iwas witnessing the crude beginnings of the money-machine inpolitics, --the beginnings of the downfall of parties, --the beginnings ofthe overthrow of the people as the political power. Those stiff-armedmen were the "floating voters" of that ward of Pulaski. They had beenbought up by a rich candidate of the opposition party, which was lessscrupulous than our party, then in the flush of devotion to "principles"and led by such old-fashioned men as my father with old-fashionednotions of honor and honesty. Those "floaters" had to keep the ballot infull view from the time they got it of the agent of their purchaseruntil they had deposited it beyond the possibility of substitution--hemust see them "deliver the goods. "

My father was defeated. He saw that, in politics, the day of the publicservant of public interests was over, and that the night of the privateservant of private interests had begun. He resigned the leadership intothe dexterous hands of a politician. Soon afterward he died, muttering:"Prosperity has ruined my country!"

From that election day my interest in politics grew, and but for mymother's bitter prejudice I should have been an active politician, perhaps before I was out of college. 

Pulaski, indeed all that section of my state, was strongly of my party. Therefore Dominick, its local boss, was absolute. At the last countyelection, four years before the time of which I am writing, there hadbeen a spasmodic attempt to oust him. He had grown so insolent, and hadput his prices for political and political-commercial "favors" to ourleading citizens so high, that the "best element" in our partyreluctantly broke from its allegiance. To save himself he had beenforced to order flagrant cheating on the tally sheets; his ally andfellow conspirator, M'Coskrey, the opposition boss, was caught and wasindicted by the grand jury. The Reformers made such a stir that BenCass, the county prosecutor, though a Dominick man, disobeyed his masterand tried and convicted M'Coskrey. Of course, following the custom incases of yielding to pressure from public sentiment, he made thetrial-errors necessary to insure reversal in the higher court; and hefinally gave Dominick's judge the opportunity to quash the indictment. But the boss was relentless, --Cass had been disobedient, and had putupon "my friend M'Coskrey" the disgrace of making a sorry figure incourt. "Ben can look to his swell reform friends for a renomination, "said he; "he'll not get it from me. "

Thus it came to pass that Dominick's lieutenant, Buck Fessenden, appeared in my office one afternoon in July, and, after a brief parley, asked me how I'd like to be prosecuting attorney of Jackson County. Fourthousand a year for four years, and a reëlection if I should givesatisfaction; and afterward, the bench or a seat in Congress! I couldpay off everything; I could marry!

It was my first distinct vision of the plum tree. To how many thousandsof our brightest, most promising young Americans it is shown each yearin just such circumstances!

II

AT THE COURT OF A SOVEREIGN

That evening after supper I went to see Dominick. 

In the lower end of Pulaski there was a large beer-garden, known asDominick's headquarters. He received half the profits in return formaking it his loafing-place, the seat of the source of all politicalhonor, preferment and privilege in the third, sixth and seventhcongressional districts. I found him enthroned at the end of a longtable in the farthest corner of the garden. On one side of him sat JamesSpencer, judge of the circuit court, --"Dominick's judge"; on the otherside Henry De Forest, principal owner of the Pulaski Gas and StreetRailway Company. There were several minor celebrities in politics, thelaw, and business down either side of the table, then Fessenden, talkingwith Cowley, our lieutenant governor. As soon as I appeared Fessendennodded to me, rose, and said to the others generally: "Come on, boys, let's adjourn to the next table. Mr. Dominick wants to talk to thisyoung fellow. "

I knew something of politics, but I was not prepared to see thatdistinguished company rise and, with not a shadow of resentment on anyman's face, with only a respectful, envious glance at me, who was todeprive them of sunshine for a few minutes, remove themselves and theirglasses to another table. When I knew Dominick better, and other bossesin this republic of ours, I knew that the boss is never above theweaknesses of the monarch class for a rigid and servile court etiquette. My own lack of this weakness has been a mistake which might have beenserious had my political power been based upon men. It is a blunder totreat men without self-respect as if they were your equals. They expectto cringe; if they are not compelled to do so, they are very likely toforget their place. At the court of a boss are seen only those who havelost self-respect and those who never had it. The first are the lowerthough they rank themselves, and are ranked, above the "just naturallylow. "

But--Dominick was alone, his eternal glass of sarsaparilla before him. He used the left corner of his mouth both for his cigar and for speech. To bid me draw near and seat myself, he had to shift his cigar. When thefew words necessary were half-spoken, half-grunted, he rolled his cigarback to the corner which it rarely left. He nodded condescendingly, and, as I took the indicated chair at his right, gave me a hand that was fatand firm, not unlike the flabby yet tenacious sucker of a moistsea-creature. 

He was a huge, tall man, enormously muscular, with a high head like ablock, straight in front, behind and on either side; keen, shifty, pigeyes, pompous cheeks, a raw, wide mouth; slovenly dress, with a bigdiamond as a collar button and another on his puffy little finger. Hewas about forty years old, had graduated from blacksmith too lazy towork into prize-fighter, thence into saloon-keeper. It was as asaloon-keeper that he founded and built his power, made himself thelocal middleman between our two great political factors, those who buyand break laws and those who aid and abet the lawlessness by sellingthemselves as voters or as office-holders. 

Dominick had fixed his eyes upon his sarsaparilla. He frowned savagelyinto its pale brown foam when he realized that I purposed to force himto speak first. His voice was ominously surly as he shifted his cigar tosay: "Well, young fellow, what can I do for you?"

"Mr. Fessenden told me you wanted to see me, " said I. 

"He didn't say nothing of the sort, " growled Dominick. "I've knowed Buckseventeen years, and he ain't no liar. "

I flushed and glanced at the distinguished company silently waiting toreturn to the royal presence. Surely, if these eminent fellow citizensof mine endured this insulting monarch, I could, --I, the youthful, theobscure, the despondent. Said I: "Perhaps I did not express myself quiteaccurately. Fessenden told me you were considering making me yourcandidate for county prosecutor, and suggested that I call and seeyou. "

[Illustration: HE SHIFTED HIS CIGAR TO SAY: "WELL, YOUNG FELLOW, WHATCAN I DO FOR YOU?" p. 20]

Dominick gave a gleam and a grunt like a hog that has been flatteredwith a rough scratching of its hide. But he answered: "I don't give nonominations. That's the province of the party, young man. "

"But _you_ are the party, " was my reply. At the time I was not consciousthat I had thus easily dropped down among the hide-scratchers. I assuredmyself that I was simply stating the truth, and ignored the fact thattelling the truth can be the most degrading sycophancy, and the subtlestand for that reason the most shameless, lying. 

"Well, I guess I've got a little something to say about the party, " heconceded. "Us young fellows that are active in politics like to seeyoung fellows pushed to the front. A good many of the boys ain't stuckon Ben Cass, --he's too stuck on himself. He's getting out of touch withthe common people, and is boot-licking in with the swells up town. So, when I heard you wanted the nomination for prosecutor, I told Buck totrot you round and let us look you over. Good party man?"

"Yes--and my father and grandfather before me. "

"No reform germs in your system?"

I laughed--I was really amused, such a relief was it to see a gleam ofpleasantry in that menacing mass. "I'm no better than my party, " said I, "and I don't desert it just because it doesn't happen to do everythingaccording to my notions. "

"That's right, " approved Dominick, falling naturally into the role ofpolitical schoolmaster. "There ain't no government withoutresponsibility, and there ain't no responsibility without organization, and there ain't no organization without men willing to sink theirdifferences. " He paused. 

I looked my admiration, --I was most grateful to him for this chance tothink him an intellect. Who likes to admit that he bows before a merebrute? The compulsory courtiers of a despot may possibly and in parttell the truth about him, after they are safe; but was there ever avoluntary courtier whose opinion of his monarch could be believed? Themore distinguished the courtier the greater his necessity to exaggeratehis royal master--or mistress--to others and to himself. 

Dominick forged on: "Somebody's got to lead, and the leader's got to beobeyed. Otherwise what becomes of the party? Why, it goes to hell, andwe've got anarchy. "

This was terse, pointed, plausible--the stereotyped "machine" argument. I nodded emphatically. 

"Ben Cass, " he proceeded, "believes in discipline and organization andleadership only when they're to elect him to a fat job. He wants to usethe party, but when the party wants service in return, up goes Mr. Cass'snout and tail, and off he lopes. He's what I call a cast iron--" Ishall omit the vigorous phrase wherein he summarized Cass. Hisvocabulary was not large; he therefore frequently resorted to thegarbage barrel and the muck heap for missiles. 

I showed in my face my scorn for the Cass sort of selfishness andinsubordination. "The leader has all the strings in his hand, " said I. "He's the only one who can judge what must be done. He must be trustedand obeyed. "

"I see you've got the right stuff in you, young man, " said Dominickheartily. "So you want the job?"

I hesitated, --I was thinking of him, of his bestial tyranny, and of myself-respect, unsullied, but also untempted, theretofore. 

He scowled. "Do you, or don't you?"

"Yes, " said I, --I was thinking of the debts and mother and Betty. "Yes, indeed; I'd esteem it a great honor, and I'd be grateful to you. " If Ihad thrust myself over-head into a sewer I should have felt less vilethan I did as my fears and longings uttered those degrading words. 

He grunted. "Well, we'll see. Tell the boys at the other table to comeback. " He nodded a dismissal and gave me that moist, strong grip again. 

As I went toward the other table each man there had a hand round hisglass in readiness for the message of recall. I mentally called theroll--wealth, respectability, honor, all on their knees before Dominick, each with his eye upon the branch of the plum tree that bore the kind offruit he fancied. And I wondered how they felt inside, --for I was thenignorant of the great foundation truth of practical ethics, that a man'sconscience is not the producer but the product of his career. 

Fessenden accompanied me to the door. "The old man's in a hell of ahumor to-night, " said he. "His wife's caught on to a little game he'sbeen up to, and she's the only human being he's afraid of. She came inhere, one night, and led him out by the ear. What a fool a man is tomarry when there's a chance of running into a mess like that! But--youmade a hit with him. Besides, he needs you. Your family--" Buck checkedhimself, feeling that drink was making him voluble. 

"He's a strong man, isn't he?" said I; "a born leader. "

"Middle-weight champion in his day, " replied Fessenden. "He can stillknock out anybody in the organization in one round. "

"Good night and thank you, " said I. So I went my way, not elated bututterly depressed, --more depressed than when I won the first case inwhich I knew my client's opponent was in the right and had lost onlybecause I outgeneraled his stupid lawyer. I was, like most of the sonsand daughters of the vigorous families of the earnest, deeply religiousearly-West, an idealist by inheritance and by training; but I supposeany young man, however practical, must feel a shock when he begins thosecompromises between theoretical and practical right which are part ofthe daily routine of active life, and without which active life isimpossible. 

I had said nothing to my mother, because I did not wish to raise herhopes--or her objections. I now decided to be silent until the mattershould be settled. The next day but one Fessenden came, bad news in hisface. "The old man liked you, " he began, "but--"

I had not then learned to control my expression. I could not helpshowing what ruins of lofty castles that ominous "but" dropped upon myhead. 

"You'll soon be used to getting it in the neck if you stay in politics, "said Fessenden. "There's not much else. But you ain't so bad off as youthink. The old man has decided that he can afford to run one of hisreliable hacks for the place. He's suddenly found a way of sinking hishooks in the head devil of the Reformers and Ben Cass' chief backer, Singer, --you know him, --the lawyer. "

Singer was one of the leaders of the state bar and superintendent of ourSunday-school. 

"Dominick has made De Forest give Singer the law business of the Gas andStreet Railway Company, so Singer is coming over to us. " Buck grinned. "He has found that 'local interests must be subordinated to the broaderinterests of the party in state and nation. '"

I had been reading in our party's morning paper what a wise andpatriotic move Singer had made in advising the putting off of a Reformcampaign, --and I had believed in the sincerity of his motive!

Fessenden echoed my sneer, and went on: "He's a rotten hypocrite; butthen, we can always pull the bung out of these Reform movements thatway. "

"You said it isn't as bad for me as it seems, " I interrupted. 

"Oh, yes. You're to be on the ticket. The old man's going to send youto the legislature, --lower house, of course. "

I did not cheer up. An assemblyman got only a thousand a year. 

"The pay ain't much, " confessed Buck, "but there ain't nothing to doexcept vote according to order. Then there's a great deal to be pickedup on the side, --the old man understands that others have got to livebesides him. Salaries in politics don't cut no figure nowadays, anyhow. It's the chance the place gives for pick-ups. "

At first I flatly refused, but Buck pointed out that I was foolish tothrow away the benefits sure to come through the "old man's" liking forme. "He'll take care of you, " he assured me. "He's got you booked for aquick rise. " My poverty was so pressing that I had not the courage torefuse, --the year and a half of ferocious struggle and the longing tomarry Betty Crosby had combined to break my spirit. I believe it isJohnson who says the worst feature of genteel poverty is its power tomake one ridiculous. I don't think so. No; its worst feature is itspower to make one afraid. 

That night I told my mother of my impending "honors. " We were in thedark on our little front porch. She was silent, and presently I thoughtI heard her suppressing a sigh. "You don't like it, mother?" said I. 

"No, Harvey, but--I see no light ahead in any other direction, and Iguess one should always steer toward what light there is. " She stoodbehind my chair, put her hands on my shoulders, and rested her chinlightly on the top of my head. "Besides, I can trust you. Whateverdirection you take, you're sure to win in the end. "

I was glad it was dark. An hour after I went to bed I heard some onestirring in the house, --it seemed to me there was a voice, too. I roseand went into the hall, and so, softly to my mother's room. Her door wasajar. She was near the window, kneeling there in the moonlight, praying--for me. 

 * * * * *

I had not been long in the legislature before I saw that my position waseven more contemptible than I anticipated. So contemptible, indeed, wasit that, had I not been away from home and among those as baselysituated as myself, it would have been intolerable, --a convictinfinitely prefers the penitentiary to the chain gang. Then, too, therewas consolation in the fact that the people, my fellow citizens, intheir stupidity and ignorance about political conditions, did notrealize what public office had come to mean. At home they believed whatthe machine-controlled newspapers said of me--that I was a "manly, independent young man, " that I was "making a vigorous stand for what washonest in public affairs, " that I was the "honorable and distinguishedson of an honorable and distinguished father. " How often I read thoseand similar eulogies of young men just starting in public life! And isit not really amazing that the people believe, that they never say tothemselves: "But, if he were actually what he so loudly professes to be, how could he have got public office from a boss and a machine?"

I soon gave up trying to fool myself into imagining I was the servant ofthe people by introducing or speaking for petty little popularmeasures. I saw clearly that graft was the backbone, the whole skeletonof legislative business, and that its fleshly cover of pretended publicservice could be seen only by the blind. I saw, also, that no one in themachine of either party had any real power. The state boss of our party, United States Senator Dunkirk, was a creature and servant ofcorporations. Silliman, the state boss of the opposition party, was thesame, but got less for his services because his party was hopelessly inthe minority and its machine could be useful only as a sort ofsupplement and scapegoat. 

With the men at the top, Dunkirk and Silliman, mere lackeys, I saw myown future plainly enough. I saw myself crawling on year afteryear, --crawling one of two roads. Either I should become a politicalscullion, a wretched party hack, despising myself and despised by thosewho used me, or I should develop into a lackey's lackey or a plainlackey, lieutenant of a boss or a boss, so-called--a derisive name, really, when the only kind of boss-ship open was head political procurerto one or more rich corporations or groups of corporations. I felt Ishould probably become a scullion, as I thought I had no taste orinstinct for business, and as I was developing some talent for "mixing, "and for dispensing "hot air" from the stump. 

I turned these things over and over in my mind with an energy thatsprang from shame, from the knowledge of what my mother would think ifshe knew the truth about her son, and from a realization that I was nonearer marrying Betty Crosby than before. At last I wrought myself intoa sullen fury beneath a calm surface. The lessons in self-restraint andself-hiding I learned in that first of my two years as assemblyman havebeen invaluable. 

When I entered upon my second and last winter, I was outwardly as sereneas--as a volcano on the verge of eruption. 

III

SAYLER "DRAWS THE LINE"

In February the railways traversing our state sent to the capitol a billthat had been drawn by our ablest lawyers and reviewed by the craftiestof the great corporation lawyers of New York City. Its purpose, mostshrewdly and slyly concealed, was to exempt the railways frompractically all taxation. It was so subtly worded that this would bedisclosed only when the companies should be brought to court forrefusing to pay their usual share of the taxes. Such measures areusually "straddled" through a legislature, --that is, neither party takesthe responsibility, but the boss of each machine assigns to vote forthem all the men whose seats are secure beyond any ordinary assault ofpublic indignation. In this case, of the ninety-one members of the lowerhouse, thirty-two were assigned by Dunkirk and seventeen by Silliman tomake up a majority with three to spare. 

My boss, Dominick, got wind that Dunkirk and Silliman were cutting anextra melon of uncommon size. He descended upon the capitol and servednotice on Dunkirk that the eleven Dominick men assigned to vote for thebill would vote against it unless he got seven thousand dollars apiecefor them, --seventy-seven thousand dollars. Dunkirk needed every one ofDominick's men to make up his portion of the majority; he yielded aftertrying in vain to reduce the price. All Dominick would say to him onthat point, so I heard afterward, was:

"Every day you put me off, I go up a thousand dollars a head. "

We who were to be voted so profitably for Dunkirk, Silliman, Dominick, and the railroads, learned what was going on, --Silliman went on a "tear"and talked too much. Nine of us, _not_ including myself, got togetherand sent Cassidy, member from the second Jackson County district, toDominick to plead for a share. I happened to be with him in the CapitalCity Hotel bar when Cassidy came up, and, hemming and hawing, explainedhow he and his fellow insurgents felt. 

Dominick's veins seemed cords straining to bind down a demon strugglingto escape. "It's back to the bench you go, Pat Cassidy, --back to thebench where I found you, " he snarled, with a volley of profanity andsewage. "I don't know nothing about this here bill except that it's forthe good of the party. Go back to that gang of damned wharf rats, andtell 'em, if I hear another squeak, I'll put 'em where I got 'em. "

Cassidy shrank away with a furtive glance of envy and hate at me, whomDominick treated with peculiar consideration, --I think it was because Iwas the only man of education and of any pretensions to "family" inofficial position in his machine. He used to like to class himself andme together as "us gentlemen, " in contrast to "them muckers, " meaning mycolleagues. 

Next day, just before the voting began, Dominick seated himself at thefront of the governor's gallery, --the only person in it. I see him nowas he looked that day, --black and heavy-jawed and scowling, leaningforward with both forearms on the railing, and his big, flat chinresting on his upturned, stubby thumbs. He was there to see that eachof us, his creatures, dependent absolutely upon him for our politicallives, should vote as he had sold us in block. There was no chance toshirk or even to squirm. As the roll-call proceeded, one after another, seven of us, obeyed that will frowning from the gallery, --jumped throughthe hoop of fire under the quivering lash. I was eighth on the roll. 

"Sayler!" How my name echoed through that horrible silence!

I could not answer. Gradually every face turned toward me, --I could seethem, could feel them, and, to make bad enough worse, I yielded to animperious fascination, the fascination of that incarnation ofbrute-power, --power of muscle and power of will. I turned my eyes uponthe amazed, furious eyes of my master. It seemed to me that his lipsmust give passage to the oaths and filth swelling beneath his chest, andseething behind his eyes. 

"Sayler!" repeated the clerk in a voice that exploded within me. 

"No!" I shouted, --not in answer to the clerk, but in denial of thatinsolent master-to-dog command from the beast in the gallery. 

The look in his eyes changed to relief and contemptuous approval. Therewas a murmur of derision from my fellow members. Then I remembered thata negative was, at that stage of the bill, a vote for it, --I had donejust the reverse of what I intended. The roll-call went on, and I satdebating with myself. Prudence, inclination, the natural timidity ofyouth, the utter futility of opposition, fear, above all else, fear, --these joined in bidding me let my vote stand as cast. On theother side stood my notion of self-respect. I felt I must then and thereand for ever decide whether I was a thing or a man. Yet, again and againI had voted for measures just as corrupt, --had voted for them with noprotest beyond a cynical shrug and a wry look. Every man, even thelaxest, if he is to continue to "count as one, " must have a point wherehe draws the line beyond which he will not go. The liar must have thingshe will not lie about, the thief things he will not steal, thecompromiser things he will not compromise, the practical man in thepulpit, in politics, in business, in the professor's chair, oreditorial tribune, things he will not sacrifice, whatever the cost. Thatis "practical honor. " I had reached my line of practical honor, my linebetween possible compromise and certain demoralization. And I realizedit. 

When the roll-call ended I rose, and, in a voice that I knew was firmand clear, said: "Mr. Speaker, I voted in the negative by mistake. Iwish my vote recorded in the affirmative. I am against the bill. "

Amid a fearful silence I took my seat. With a suddenness that made meleap, a wild and crazy assemblyman, noted as the crank of that session, emitted a fantastic yell of enthusiastic approval. Again there was thatsilence; then the tension of the assembly, floor and crowded galleries, burst in a storm of hysterical laughter. 

I wish I could boast how brave I felt as I reversed my vote, howindifferent to that tempest of mockery, and how strong as I went forthto meet my master and hear my death-warrant. But I can't, inhonesty, --I'm only a human being, not a hero, and these are my_con_fessions, not my _pro_fessions. So I must relate that, though thevoice that requested the change of vote was calm and courageous, the manbehind it was agitated and sick with dread. There may be those who havethe absolute courage some men boast, --if not directly, then byimplication in despising him who shows that he has it not. For myself, Imust say that I never made a venture, --and my life has been a successionof ventures, often with my whole stake upon the table, --I never made aventure that I did not have a sickening sensation at the heart. Mycourage, if it can be called by so sounding a name, has been in daringto make the throw when every atom of me was shrieking, "You'll lose!You'll be ruined!"

I did not see Dominick until after supper. I had nerved myself for ascene, --indeed, I had been hoping he would insult me. When one lacks thecourage boldly to advance along the perilous course his intelligencecounsels, he is lucky if he can and will goad some one into kicking himalong it past the point where retreat is possible. Such methods ofadvance are not dignified, but then, is life dignified? To my surpriseand alarm, Dominick refused to kick me into manhood. He had been paid, and the seventy-seven thousand dollars, in bills of large denomination, were warming his heart from the inner pocket of his waistcoat. So hecame up to me, scowling, but friendly. 

"Why didn't you tell me you wanted to be let off, Harvey?" he saidreproachfully. "I'd 'a' done it. Now, damn you, you've put me in a placewhere I've got to give you the whip. "

To flush at this expression from Dominick was a hypocritical refinementof sensitiveness. To draw myself up haughtily, to turn on my heel andwalk away, --that was the silliness of a boy. Still, I am glad I did boththose absurd things. When I told my mother how I had ruined myself inpolitics she began to cry, --and tears were not her habit. Then she gotmy father's picture and kissed it and talked to it about me, just as ifhe were there with us; and for a time I felt that I was of heroicstature. 

But, as the days passed, with no laurels in the form of cases and fees, and as clients left me through fear of Dominick's power, I shriveledback to human size, and descended from my pedestal. From theground-level I began again to look about the matter-of-fact world. 

I saw I was making only a first small payment on the heavy price for theright to say, no, for the right to be free to break with any man or anyenterprise that menaced my self-ownership. That right I felt I mustkeep, whatever its cost. Some men can, or think they can, lend theirself-ownership and take it back at convenience; I knew I was not ofthem--and let none of them judge me. Especially let none judge me whoonly deludes himself that he owns himself, who has sold himself all hislife long for salaries and positions or for wealth, or for the emptyreputation of power he wields only on another's sufferance. 

A glance about me was enough to disclose the chief reason why so manymen had surrendered the inner citadel of self-respect. In the crucialhour, when they had had to choose between subservience and a hard battlewith adversity, forth from their hearts had issued a traitor weakness, the feeling of responsibility to wife and children, and this traitorhad easily delivered them captive to some master or masters. More, orless, than human, it seemed to me, was the courage that could makesuccessful resistance to this traitor, and could strike down and dragdown wife and children. "I must give up Elizabeth, " I said to myself, "for her own sake as well as for mine. Marry her I must not until I amestablished securely in freedom. And when will that be?" In my mood ofdarkness and despair, the answer to that question was a relentless, "Never, especially if you are weighted with the sense of obligation toher, of her wasting her youth in waiting for you. "

I wrote her all that was in my mind. "You must forget me, " I said, "andI shall forget you--for I see that you are not for me. "

The answer came by telegraph--"Please don't ever again hurt me in thatway. " And of the letter which came two days later I remember clearlythis sentence: "If you will not let me go on with you, I will make thejourney alone. "

This shook me, but I knew only too well how the bright and beautifullegions of the romantic and the ideal could be put to flight, could behurled headlong into the abyss of oblivion by the phalanxes of fact. 

"I see what I must do, " was my answer to her letter. "And I shall do it. Be merciful to me, Elizabeth. Do not tempt me to a worse cowardice thangiving you up. I shall not write again. "

And I did not. Every one of her letters was answered--sometimes, Iremember, I wrote to her the whole night through, shading my window sothat mother could not from her window see the reflection of my lamp'slight on the ground and become anxious. But I destroyed those long andoften agonized answers. And I can not say whether my heart was theheavier in the months when I was getting her letters, to which I darednot reply, or in those succeeding months when her small, clearhandwriting first ceased to greet me from the mail. 

IV

THE SCHOOL OF LIFE-AS-IT-IS

A day or so after I lost the only case of consequence I had had in morethan a year, Buck Fessenden came into my office, and, after dosing meliberally with those friendly protestations and assurances which pleaseeven when they do not convince, said: "I know you won't give me away, Sayler, and I can't stand it any longer to watch you going on this way. Don't you see the old man's after you hammer and tongs? He'll never letup. You won't get no clients, and, if you do, _you won't win no cases_. "

Those last five words, spoken in Buck's most significant manner, revealed what my modesty--or, if you prefer, my stupidity--had hiddenfrom me. I had known all along that Dominick was keeping away anddriving away clients; but I had not suspected his creatures on thebench. To this day, after all these years of use, only with the greatestreluctance and with a moral uneasiness which would doubtless amuse mostpolitical managers, do I send "suggestions" or "intimations" to my menin judicial office--and I always do it, and always have done it, indirectly. And I feel relieved and grateful when my judges, eager to"serve the party, " anticipate me by sending me a reassuring hint. 

I did not let Buck see into my mind. "Nonsense!" I pooh-poohed; "I've nocause to complain of lack of business: but even if I had, I'd not blameDominick or any one else but myself. " Then I gave him a straight butgood-humored look. "Drop it, Buck, " said I. "What did the old man sendyou to me for? What does he want?"

He was too crafty to defend an indefensible position. "I'll admit he didsend me, " said he with a grin, "but I came on my own account, too. Doyou want to make it up with him? You can get back under the plum tree ifyou'll say the word. "

I could see my mother, as I had seen her two hours before at our poormidday meal, --an old, old woman, so broken, so worn! And all throughthe misery this Dominick had brought upon us. Before I could controlmyself to speak, Buck burst out, a look of alarm in his face, "Don't sayit, Mr. Sayler, --I know, --I know. I told him it'd be no use. Honest, heain't as bad as you think, --he don't know no better, and it's because heliked and still likes you that he wants you back. " He leaned across thedesk toward me, in his earnestness, --and I could not doubt hissincerity. "Sayler, " he went on, "take my advice, get out of the state. You ain't the sort that gives in, and no more is he. You've got morenerve than any other man I know, bar none, but don't waste it on a foolfight. You know enough about politics to know what you're up against. "

"Thank you, " said I, "but I'll stay on. "

He gave over trying to persuade me. "I hope, " said he, "you've got acard up your sleeve that the old man don't know about. "

I made some vague reply, and he soon went away. I felt that I hadconfirmed his belief in my fearlessness. Yet, if he could have lookedinto my mind, how he would have laughed at his credulity! Probably hewould have pitied me, too, for it is one of the curious facts of humannature that men are amazed and even disgusted whenever they see--inothers--the weaknesses that are universal. I doubt not, many who readthese memoirs will be quite honestly Pharisaical, thanking Heaven thatthey are not touched with any of my infirmities. 

It may have been coincidence, though I think not, that, a few days afterFessenden's call, a Reform movement against Dominick appeared upon thesurface of Jackson County politics. I thought, at the time, that it wasthe first streak of the dawn I had been watching for, --the awakening ofthe sluggish moral sentiment of the rank and file of the voters. I knownow that it was merely the result of a quarrel among the corporationsthat employed Dominick. He had been giving the largest of them, Roebuck's Universal Gas and Electric Company, called the Power Trust, more than its proportional share of the privileges and spoils. Theothers had protested in vain, and as a last resort had ordered theirlawyers to organize a movement to "purify" Jackson County, Dominick'sstronghold. 

I did not then know it, but I got the nomination for county prosecutorchiefly because none of the other lawyers, not even those secretlydirecting the Reform campaign, was brave enough publicly to provoke thePower Trust. I made a house to house, farm to farm, man to man, canvass. We had the secret ballot, and I was elected. The people rarely fail torespond to that kind of appeal if they are convinced that response cannot possibly hurt, and may help, their pockets. And, by the way, thoseoccasional responses, significant neither of morality nor ofintelligence, lead political theorists far astray. As if honor orhonesty could win other than sporadic and more or less hypocriticalhomage--practical homage, I mean--among a people whose permanent idealis wealth, no matter how got or how used. That is another way of sayingthat the chief characteristic of Americans is that we are human and, whatever we may profess, cherish the human ideal universal in a worldwhere want is man's wickedest enemy and wealth his most winning friend. But as I was relating, I was elected, and my majority, on the face ofthe returns, was between ten and eleven hundred. It must actually havebeen many thousands, for never before had Dominick "doctored" the tallysheets so recklessly. 

Financially I was now on my way to the surface. I supposed that I hadbecome a political personage also. Was I not in possession of the mostpowerful office in the county? I was astonished that neither Dominicknor any other member of his gang made the slightest effort to conciliateme between election day and the date of my taking office. I did succeedin forcing from reluctant grand juries indictments against a few of themost notorious, but least important, members of the gang; and I got oneconviction--which was reversed on trial-errors by the higher court. 

The truth was that my power had no existence. Dominick still ruled, through the judges and the newspapers. The press was silent when itcould not venture to deprecate or to condemn me. 

But I fought on almost alone. I did not fail to make it clear to thepeople why I was not succeeding, and what a sweep there must be beforeJackson County could have any real reform. I made an even more vigorouscampaign for reëlection than I had made four years before. The farmersstood by me fairly well, but the town went overwhelmingly against me. Why? Because I was "bad for business" and, if reëlected, would be stillworse. The corporations with whose law-breaking I interfered werethreatening to remove their plants from Pulaski, --that would have meantthe departure of thousands of the merchants' best customers, and thedestruction of the town's prosperity. I think the election was fairlyhonest. Dominick's man beat me by about the same majority by which I hadbeen elected. 

"Bad for business!"--the most potent of political slogans. And it willinevitably result some day in the concentration of absolute power, political and all other kinds, in the hands of the few who are strongestand cleverest. For they can make the people bitterly regret and speedilyrepent having tried to correct abuses; and the people, to save theirdollars, will sacrifice their liberty. I doubt if they will, in our timeat least, learn to see far enough to realize that who captures theirliberty captures them and, therefore, their dollars too. 

By my defeat in that typical contest I was disheartened, embittered, --and ruined. For, in my enthusiasm and confidence I had gonedeeply into debt for the expenses of the Reform campaign. At midnight ofelection day I descended into the black cave of despair. For three weeksI explored it. When I returned to the surface, I was a man, ready todeal with men on the terms of human nature. I had learned my lesson. 

For woman the cost of the attainment of womanhood's maturity is thebeautiful, the divine freshness of girlhood. For man, the cost of theattainment of manhood's full strength and power is equally great, andequally sad, --his divine faith in human nature, his divine belief thatabstract justice and right and truth rule the world. 

Even now, when life is redeeming some of those large promises to paywhich I had long ago given up as hopeless bad debts; even now, it givesme a wrench to remember the crudest chapter in that bitter lesson. Socertain had I been of reëlection that I had arranged to go to Boston theday after my triumph at the polls. For I knew from friends of theCrosbys in Pulaski that Elizabeth was still unmarried, was not engaged, and upon that I had built high a romantic hope. 

 * * * * *

I made up my mind that mother and I must leave Pulaski, that I must giveup the law and must, in Chicago or Cleveland, get something to do thatwould bring in a living at once. Before I found courage to tell her thatwhich would blast hopes wrapped round and rooted in her very heart, and, fortunately, before I had to confess to her the debts I had made, EdwardRamsay threw me a life-line. 

He came bustling into my office one afternoon, big and broad, andobviously pleased with himself, and, therefore, with the world. He hadhardly changed in the years since we were at Ann Arbor together. He hadkept up our friendship, and had insisted on visiting me several times, though not in the past four years, which had been as busy for him as forme. Latterly his letters urging me to visit him at their great countryplace, away at the other end of the state, had set me a hard task ofinventing excuses. 

"Well, well!" he exclaimed, shaking my hand violently in both his. "Youwouldn't come to see me, so I've come to you. "

I tried not to show the nervousness this announcement stirred. "I'mafraid you'll find our hospitality rather uncomfortable, " was all Isaid. Mother and I had not spread much sail to our temporary gust ofprosperity; and when the storm began to gather, she straightwayclosereefed. 

"Thanks, but I can't stop with you this time, " said he. "I'm making aninspection of the Power Trust's properties, and I've got mother andsister along. We're living in the private car the company gives me forthe tour. " He went on to tell how, since his father's death, he had beenforced into responsibilities, and was, among many other things, a memberof the Power Trust's executive committee. 

Soon came the inevitable question, "And how are you getting on?"

"So so, " replied I; "not too well, just at the present. I was beaten, you know, and have to go back to my practice in January. "

"Wish you lived in my part of the state, " said he. "But the RamsayCompany hasn't anything down here. " He reflected a moment, then beamed. "I can get you the legal business of the Power Trust if you want it, " hesaid. "Their lawyer down here goes on the bench, you know--he was on theticket that won. Roebuck wanted a good, safe, first-class man on thebench in this circuit. "

But he added nothing more about the Power Trust vacancy at Pulaski. True, my first impulse was that I couldn't and wouldn't accept; also, Itold myself it was absurd to imagine they would consider me. Still, Iwished to hear, and his failure to return to the subject settled oncemore the clouds his coming had lifted somewhat. 

Mother was not well enough to have the Ramsays at the house thatevening, so I dined with them in the car. Mrs. Ramsay was the samesimple, silent, ill-at-ease person I had first met at the Ann Arborcommencement, --probably the same that she had been ever since herhusband's wealth and her children's infection with newfangled ideas hadforced her from the plain ways of her youth. I liked her, but I was notso well pleased with her daughter. Carlotta was then twenty-two, hadabundant, noticeably nice brown hair, an indifferent skin, pettish lips, and restless eyes, a little too close together, --a spoiled wilful youngwoman, taking to herself the deference that had been paid chiefly to herwealth. She treated me as if I were a candidate for her favor whom shewas testing so that she might decide whether she would be graciouslypleased to tolerate him. 

Usually, superciliousness has not disturbed me. It is a cheap andharmless pleasure of cheap and harmless people. But just at that time mynerves were out of order, and Miss Ramsay's airs of patronage "got" onme. I proceeded politely to convey to her the impression that she didnot attract me, that I did not think her worth while--this, not throughartful design of interesting by piquing, but simply in the hope ofrasping upon her as she was rasping upon me. When I saw that I hadgained my point, I ignored her. I tried to talk with Ed, then with hismother, but neither would interfere between me and Carlotta. I had totalk to her until she voluntarily lapsed into offended silence. Then Ed, to save the evening from disaster, began discussing with me the fate ofour class-mates. I saw that Carlotta was studying me curiously, --evenresentfully, I thought; and she was coldly polite when I said goodnight. 

She and her mother called on my mother the next morning. "And what anice girl Miss Ramsay is, --so sensible, so intelligent, and sofriendly!" said my mother, relating the incidents of the visit in minutedetail when I went home at noon. 

"I didn't find her especially friendly, " said I. Whereat I saw, orfancied I saw, a smile deep down in her eyes, --and it set me tothinking. 

In the afternoon Ed looked in at my office in the court-house to saygood-by. "But first, old man, I want to tell you I got that place foryou. I thought I had better use the wire. Old Roebuck isdelighted, --telegraphed me to close the arrangement atonce, --congratulated me on being able to get you. I knew it'd be so. Hehas his eyes skinned for bright young men, --all those big men have. Whenever a fellow, especially a bright young lawyer, shows signs ofability, they scoop him in. "

"I can't believe it, " said I, dazed. "I've been fighting him for fouryears--hard. "

"That's it!" said he. "And don't you fret about its being a case oftrying to heap coals of fire on your head. Roebuck don't use thefire-shovel for that sort of thing. He's snapping you up because you'veshown him what you can do. That's the way to get on nowadays, they tellme. Whenever the fellows on top find the chap, especially one in publicoffice, who makes it hot for them, they hire him. Good business allaround. "

Thus, so suddenly that it giddied me, I was translated from failure tosuccess, from poverty to affluence, from the most harassing anxiety toease and security. Two months before I should have rejected the PowerTrust's offer with scorn, and should have gloried in my act as proof ofsuperior virtue. But in those crucial two months I had been apprenticeto the master whom all men that ever come to anything in this world mustfirst serve. I had reformed my line of battle, had adjusted it to thelines laid down in the tactics of Life-as-it-is. 

Before I was able to convince myself that my fortunes had reallychanged, Ed Ramsay telegraphed me to call on him in Fredonia on businessof his own. It proved to be such a trifle that I began to puzzle at hisreal reason for sending for me. When he spun that trifle out over tendays, on each of which I was alone with Carlotta at least half my wakinghours, I thought I had the clue to the mystery. I saw how I couldincrease the energy of his new enthusiasm for me, and, also, how I couldcool it, if I wished to be rash and foolish and to tempt fate again. 

"Oh, the business didn't amount to much, " was my answer to one of mymother's first questions, on my return. She smiled peculiarly. In spiteof my efforts, the red came--at least I felt red. 

"How did you like his sister?" she went on, again with that flutteringsmile in the eyes only. 

"A very nice girl, " said I, in anything but a natural manner. Mymother's expression teased me into adding: "Don't be silly. Nothing of_that_ sort. You are always imagining that every one shares your opinionof me. She isn't likely to fall in love with me. Certainly I shan't withher. "

Mother's silence somehow seemed argumentative. 

"I couldn't marry a girl for her money, " I retorted to it. 

"Of course not, " rejoined mother. "But there are other things to marryfor besides money, or love, --other things more sensible than either. Forinstance, there are the principal things, --home and children. "

I was listening with an open mind. 

"The glamour of courtship and honeymoon passes, " she went on. "Thencomes the sober business of living, --your career and your home. Thewoman's part in both is better played if there isn't the sort of lovethat is exacting, always interfering with the career, and making thehome-life a succession of ups and downs, mostly downs. "

"Carlotta is very ambitious, " said I. 

"Ambitious for her husband, " replied my mother, "as a sensible womanshould be. She appreciates that a woman's best chance for big dividendsin marriage is by being the silent partner in her husband's career. She'll be very domestic when she has children. I saw it the instant Ilooked at her. She has the true maternal instinct. What a man who'sgoing to amount to something needs isn't a woman to be taken care of, but a woman to take care of him. "

She said no more, --she had made her point; and, when she had done that, she always stopped. 

Within a month Ed Ramsay sent for me again, but this time it wasbusiness alone. I found him in a panic, like a man facing an avalancheand armed only with a shovel. Dunkirk, the senior United States senatorfor our state, lived at Fredonia. He had seen that, by tunneling theMesaba Range, a profitable railroad between Fredonia and Chicago couldbe built that would shorten the time at least three hours. But it wouldtake away about half the carrying business of the Ramsay Company, besides seriously depreciating the Ramsay interest in the existingroad. "And, " continued Ed, "the old scoundrel has got the capitalpractically subscribed in New York. The people here are hot for the newroad. It'll be sure to carry at the special election, next month. He hasthe governor and legislature in his vest pocket, so they'll put throughthe charter next winter. "

"I don't see that anything can be done, " said Ed's lawyer, old JudgeBarclay, who was at the consultation. "It means a big rake-off forDunkirk. Politics is on a money basis nowadays. That's natural enough, since there is money to be made out of it. I don't see how those inpolitics that don't graft, as they call it, are any better than thosethat do. Would they get office if they didn't help on the jobs of thegrafters? I suppose we might buy Dunkirk off. "

"What do you think, Harvey?" asked Ed, looking anxiously at me. "We'vegot to fight the devil with fire, you know. "

I shook my head. "Buying him off isn't fighting, --it's surrender. Wemust fight him, --with fire. "

I let them talk themselves out, and then said, "Well, I'll take it tobed with me. Perhaps something will occur to me that can be worked upinto a scheme. "

In fact, I had already thought of a scheme, but before suggesting it Iwished to be sure it was as good as it seemed. Also, there was afundamental moral obstacle, --the road would be a public benefit; itought to be built. That moral problem caused most of my wakefulness thatnight, simple though the solution was when it finally came. The firstthing Ed said to me, as we faced each other alone at breakfast, showedme how well spent those hours were. 

"About this business of the new road, " said he. "If I were the onlyparty at interest, I'd let Dunkirk go ahead, for it's undoubtedly a goodthing from the public standpoint. But I've got to consider the interestsof all those I'm trustee for, --the other share-holders in the RamsayCompany and in our other concerns here. "

"Yes, " replied I, "but why do you say Dunkirk intends to build the road?Why do you take that for granted?"

"He's all ready to do it, and it'd be a money-maker from the start. "

"But, " I went on, "you must assume that he has no intention of building, that he is only making an elaborate bluff. How do you know but that hewants to get this right of way and charter so that he can blackmail youand your concerns, not merely once, but year after year? You'd gladlypay him several hundred thousand a year not to use his charter and rightof way, wouldn't you?"

"I never thought of that!" exclaimed Ed. "I believe you're right, Harvey, and you've taken a weight off my conscience. There's nothinglike a good lawyer to make a man see straight. What an infernal houndold Dunkirk is!"

"And, " I went on, "if he should build the road, what would he do withit? Why, the easiest and biggest source of profit would be to run bigexcursions every Saturday and Sunday, especially Sunday, into Fredonia. He'd fill the place every Sunday, from May till November, withroistering roughs from the slums of Chicago. How'd the people likethat?"

"He wouldn't dare, " objected Ramsay, stupidly insisting on leaningbackward in his determination to stand straight. "He's a religioushypocrite. He'd be afraid. "

"As Deacon Dunkirk he wouldn't dare, " I replied. "But as the Chicago andFredonia Short Line he'd dare anything, and nobody would blame himpersonally. You know how that is. "

Ed was looking at me in dazed admiration. "Then, " I went on, "there arethe retail merchants of Fredonia. Has it ever occurred to them, in theirexcitement in favor of this road, that it'll ruin them? Where will theshopping be done if the women can get to Chicago in two hours and ahalf?"

"You're right, you're right!" exclaimed Ed, rising to pace the floor inhis agitation. "Bully for you, Harvey! We'll show the people that theroad'll ruin the town morally and financially. "

"But you must come out in favor of it, " said I. "We mustn't give Dunkirkthe argument that you're fighting it because you'd be injured by it. No, you must be hot for the road. Perhaps you might give out that you wereconsidering selling your property on the lake front to a company thatwas going to change it into a brewery and huge pleasure park. As thelake's only a few hundred yards wide, with the town along one bank andyour place along the other, why, I think that'd rouse the people totheir peril. "

"That's the kind of fire to fight the devil with, " said he, laughing. "Idon't think Mister Senator Dunkirk will get the consent of Fredonia. "

"But there's the legislature, " said I. 

His face fell. "I'm afraid he'll do us in the end, old man. "

I thought not, but I only said, "Well, we've got until next winter, --ifwe can beat him here. "

Ed insisted that I must stay on and help him at the delicate task ofreversing the current of Fredonia sentiment. My share of the work wasimportant enough, but, as it was confined entirely to makingsuggestions, it took little of my time. I had no leisure, however, forthere was Carlotta to look after. 

 * * * * *

When it was all over and she had told Ed and he had shaken hands withher and had kissed me and had otherwise shown the chaotic condition ofhis mind, and she and I were alone again, she said, "How did it happen?I don't remember that you really proposed to me. Yet we certainly areengaged. "

"We certainly are, " said I, "and that's the essential point, isn't it?"

"Yes, " she admitted, "but, --" and she looked mystified. 

"We drifted, " I suggested. 

She glanced at me with a smile that was an enigma. "Yes--we justdrifted. Why do you look at me so queerly?"

"I was just going to ask you that same question, " said I by way ofevasion. 

Then we both fell to thinking, and after a long time she roused herselfto say, "But we shall be very happy. I am so fond of you. And you aregoing to be a great man and you do so look it, even if you aren't talland fair, as I always thought the man I married would be. Don't look atme like that. Your eyes are strange enough when you are smiling; butwhen you--I often wonder what you're so sad about. "

"Have you ever seen a grown person's face that wasn't sad in repose?" Iasked, eager to shift from the particular to the general. 

"A few idiots or near idiots, " she replied with a laugh. Thereafter wetalked of the future and let the past sleep in its uncovered coffin. 

V

A GOOD MAN AND HIS WOES

After Ed and I had carried the Fredonia election against Dunkirk's road, we went fishing with Roebuck in the northern Wisconsin woods. I had twoweeks, two uninterrupted weeks, in which to impress myself upon him;besides, there was Ed, who related in tedious but effective detail, onthe slightest provocation, the achievements that had made him my devotedadmirer. So, when I went to visit Roebuck, in June, at his house nearChicago, he was ready to listen to me in the proper spirit. 

I soon drew him on to tell of his troubles with Dunkirk--how the Senatorwas gouging him and every big corporation doing business in the state. "I've been loyal to the party for forty years, " said he bitterly, "yet, if I had been on the other side it couldn't cost me more to do business. I have to pay enough here, heaven knows. But it costs me more in yourstate, --with your man Dunkirk. " His white face grew pink with anger. "It's monstrous! Yet you should have heard him address my Sunday-schoolscholars at the last annual outing I gave them. What an evidence of thepower of religion it is that such wretches as he pay the tribute ofhypocrisy to it!"

His business and his religion were Roebuck's two absorbingpassions, --religion rapidly predominating as he drew further away fromsixty. 

"Why do you endure this blackmailing, Mr. Roebuck?" I asked. "He isgrowing steadily worse. "

"He is certainly more rapacious than he was ten years ago, " Roebuckadmitted. "Our virtues or our vices, whichever we give the stronger holdon us, become more marked as we approach Judgment. When we finally go, we are prepared for the place that has been prepared for us. "

"But why do you put up with his impudence?"

"What can we do? He has political power and is our only protectionagainst the people. They have been inflamed with absurd notions abouttheir rights. They are filled with envy and suspicion of the rich. Theyhave passed laws to hamper us in developing the country, and want topass more and worse laws. So we must either go out of business and letthe talents God has given us lie idle in a napkin, or pay the Dunkirksto prevent the people from having their ignorant wicked way, anddestroying us and themselves. For how would they get work if we didn'tprovide it for them?"

"A miserable makeshift system, " said I, harking back to Dunkirk and hisblackmailing, for I was not just then in the mood to amuse myself withthe contortions of Roebuck's flexible and fantastic "moral sense. "

"I've been troubled in conscience a great deal, Harvey, a great deal, about the morality of what we business men are forced to do. Ihope--indeed I feel--that we are justified in protecting our property inthe only way open to us. The devil must be fought with fire, you know. "

"How much did Dunkirk rob you of last year?" I asked. 

"Nearly three hundred thousand dollars, " he said, and his expressionsuggested that each dollar had been separated from him with as greatagony as if it had been so much flesh pinched from his body. "There wasDominick, besides, and a lot of infamous strike-bills to be quieted. Itcost five hundred thousand dollars in all--in your state alone. And wedidn't ask a single bit of new legislation. All the money was paid justto escape persecution under those alleged laws! Yet they call this afree country! When I think of the martyrdom--yes, the mental and moralmartyrdom, of the men who have made this country--What are the fewmillions a man may amass, in compensation for what he has to endure?Why, Sayler, I've not the slightest doubt you could find well-meaning, yes, really honest, God-fearing people, who would tell you I am ascoundrel! I have read _sermons_, delivered from _pulpits_ against me!_Sermons_ from _pulpits_!"

"I have thought out a plan, " said I, after a moment's silent and shockedcontemplation of this deplorable state of affairs, "a plan to endDunkirk and cheapen the cost of political business. "

At "cheapen the cost" his big ears twitched as if they had been tickled. 

"You can't expect to get what you need for nothing, " I continued, "inthe present state of public opinion. But I'm sure I could reduceexpenses by half--at least half. "

I had his undivided attention. 

"It is patently absurd, " I went on, "that you who finance politics andkeep in funds these fellows of both machines should let them treat youas if you were their servants. Why don't you put them in their place, servants at servants' wages?"

"But I've no time to go into politics, --and I don't know anything aboutit--don't want to know. It's a low business, --ignorance, corruption, filthiness. "

"Take Dunkirk, for example, " I pushed on. "His lieutenants and heelershate him because he doesn't divide squarely. The only factor in hispower is the rank and file of the voters of our party. They, I'mconvinced, are pretty well aware of his hypocrisy, --but it doesn'tmatter much what they think. They vote like sheep and accept whateverleaders and candidates our machine gives them. They are almoststone-blind in their partizanship and they can always be fooled up tothe necessary point. And we can fool them ourselves, if we go about itright, just as well as Dunkirk does it for hire. "

"But Dunkirk is _their_ man, isn't he?" he suggested. 

"Any man is their man whom you choose to give them, " replied I. "Anddon't _you_ give them Dunkirk? He takes the money from the big businessinterests, and with it hires the men to sit in the legislature andfinances the machine throughout the state. It takes big money to run apolitical machine. His power belongs to you people, to a dozen of you, and you can take it away from him; his popularity belongs to the party, and it would cheer just as loudly for any other man who wore the partyuniform. "

"I see, " he said reflectively; "the machine rules the party, and moneyrules the machine, and we supply the money and don't get the benefit. It's as if I let my wife or one of my employés run my property. "

"Much like that, " I answered. "Now, why shouldn't you finance themachine directly and do away with Dunkirk, who takes as his own wagesabout half what you give him? He takes it and wastes it in stockspeculations, --gambling with your hard-earned wealth, gambling it awaycheerfully, because he feels that you people will always give him more. "

"What do you propose?" he asked; and I could see that his acute businessmind was ready to pounce upon my scheme and search it hopefully ifmercilessly. 

"A secret, absolutely secret, combine of a dozen of the big corporationsof my state, --those that make the bulk of the political business, --thecombine to be under the management of some man whom they trust and whoseinterests are business, not political. "

"He would have enormous power, " said Roebuck. 

I knew that he would point first and straight at that phase of myscheme, no matter how subtly I might disguise it. So I had pushed itinto his face and had all but pointed at it myself so that I mightexplain it away. "Power?" said I. "How do you make that out? Any memberof the combine that is dissatisfied can withdraw at any time and goback to the old way of doing business. Besides, the manager won't dareappear in it at all, --he'll have to hide himself from the people andfrom the politicians, behind some popular figure-head. There's anotheradvantage that mustn't be overlooked. Dunkirk and these other demagogueswho bleed you are inflaming public sentiment more and more against youbig corporations, --that's their way of frightening you into yielding totheir demands. Under the new plan their demagoguery would cease. Don'tyou think it's high time for the leaders of commerce and industry tocombine intelligently against demagoguery? Don't you think they havecringed before it, and have financed and fostered it too long?"

This argument, which I had reserved for the last, had all the effect Ianticipated. He sat rubbing his broad, bald forehead, twisting his whitewhiskers and muttering to himself. Presently he asked, "When are you andLottie Ramsay going to be married?"

"In the fall, " said I. "In about three months. "

"Well, we'll talk this over again--after you are married and settled. If you had the substantial interests to give you the steadiness andballast, I think you'd be the very man for your scheme. Yes, something--some such thing as you suggest--must be done to stop thepoisoning of public opinion against the country's best and strongestmen. The political department of the business interests ought to be asthoroughly organized as the other departments are. Come to me againafter you're married. "

I saw that his mind was fixed, that he would be unable to trust me untilI was of his class, of the aristocracy of corpulent corporate persons. Iwent away much downcast; but, two weeks afterward he telegraphed for me, and when I came he at once brought up the subject of the combine. 

"Go ahead with it, " he said. "I've been thinking it over and talking itover. We shall need only nine others besides myself and you. Yourepresent the Ramsay interest. "

He equipped me with the necessary letters of introduction and sent meforth on a tour of my state. When it was ended, my "combine" was formed. And _I_ was the combine, --was master of this political blind pool. Ihad taken the first, the hardest step, toward the realization of mydream of real political power, --to become an unbossed boss, not theagent and servant of Plutocracy or Partizanship, but using both tofurther my own purposes and plans. 

I had thus laid out for myself the difficult feat of controlling twofiery steeds. Difficult, but not impossible, if I should develop skillas a driver--for the skilful driver has a hand so light that his horsesfancy they are going their own road at their own gait. 

VI

MISS RAMSAY REVOLTS

The last remark Roebuck had made to me--on his doorstep, as I wasstarting on my mission--was: "Can't you and Lottie hurry up thatmarriage of yours? You ought to get it over and out of the way. " When Ireturned home with my mission accomplished, the first remark my mothermade after our greeting was: "Harvey, I wish you and Lottie were goingto marry a little sooner. "

A note in her voice made me look swiftly at her, and then, without aword, I was on my knees, my face in her lap and she stroking my head. "Ifeel that I'm going to--to your father, dear, " she said. 

I heard and I thought I realized; but I did not. Who, feeling upon himthe living hand of love, was ever able to imagine that hand other thanalive? But her look of illness, of utter exhaustion, --_that_ Iunderstood and suffered for. "You must rest, " said I; "you must sitquiet and be waited on until you are strong again. "

"Yes, I will rest, " she answered, "as soon as my boy is settled. "

That very day I wrote Carlotta telling her about mother's health andasking her to change the date of our wedding to the first week inAugust, then just under a month away. She telegraphed me to come andtalk it over. 

She was at the station in her phaeton to meet me. We had not driven farbefore I felt and saw that she was intensely irritated against me. As Iunburdened my mind of my anxieties about mother, she listened coldly. And I had to wait a long time before I got her answer, in a strainedvoice and with averted eyes: "Of course, I'm sorry your mother isn'twell, but I can't get ready that soon. "

It was not her words that exasperated me; the lightning of speech fromthe storm-clouds of anger tends to clear the air. It was her expression. 

Never have I known any one who could concentrate into brows and eyes andchin and lips more of that sullen and aggressive obstinacy which is theclimax of provocativeness. Patience, in thought at least, with refusalhas not been one of my virtues. This refusal of hers, this denial ofhappiness to one who had deserved so much and had received so little, set temper to working in me like a quick poison. But I was silent, notso much from prudence as from inability to find adequate words. 

"I can't do it, " repeated Carlotta, "and I won't. " She made it clearthat she meant the "won't, "--that she was bent upon a quarrel. 

But in my struggle to train those stanchest of servants and maddest ofmasters, the passions, I had got at least far enough always to chooseboth the time and the ground of a quarrel. So I said: "Very well, Carlotta. Then, that is settled. " And with an air sufficiently deceptiveto pass muster before angry eyes, I proceeded to talk of indifferentmatters. 

As I sat beside her, my temper glowering in the straining leash, Irevolved her conduct and tried to puzzle out its meaning. It is clear, thought I, that she does not care for me as people about to marryusually profess to care. Then, does she wish to break the engagement?

That tamed my anger instantly. 

Yes, I thought on, she wishes to be free--to free me. And, as my combineis formed and my career well advanced in the way to being established, what reason is there for trying to prevent her from freeing herself?None--for I can easily explain the situation to mother. "Yes, " Iconcluded, "you can avoid a quarrel, can remain friends with Carlotta, can give and get freedom. " What had changed her? I did not know; I didnot waste time in puzzling; I did not tempt fate by asking. "You arepoor, she is rich, " I reminded myself. "That makes it impossible for youto hesitate. You must give her no excuse for thinking you lack pride. "

Thus I reasoned and planned, my temper back in its kennel and peacefulas a sheep. That evening I avoided being alone with her; just as I wasdebating how to announce that I must be leaving by the first train inthe morning a telegram came from Roebuck calling me to Chicago at once. When we were all going to bed, I said to Mrs. Ramsay: "I shall see youand Ed in the morning, but"--to Carlotta--"you don't get up so early. I'll say good-by now, "--this in the friendliest possible way. 

I was conscious of Mrs. Ramsay's look of wonder and anxiety; of Ed'swild stare from Carlotta to me and back again at her. She bit her lipand her voice was unsteady as she said: "Oh, no, Harvey. I'll be up. "There was a certain meekness in her tone which would probably havedelighted me had I been what is usually called "masterful. "

When I came down at seven o'clock after an unquiet night, Carlotta waslying in wait for me, took me into the parlor and shut the door. "Whatdo you mean?" she demanded, facing me with something of her wontedimperiousness. 

"Mean?" said I, for once feeling no resentment at her manner. 

"By leaving--this way, " she explained with impatience. 

"You heard Mr. Roebuck's telegram, " said I. 

"You are angry with me, " she persisted. 

"No, Carlotta, " said I. "I was, but I am not. As soon as I saw what youwished, I was grateful, not angry. "

"What did I wish?"

"To let me know as gently and kindly as you could that you purposed toend our engagement. And I guess you are right. We do not seem to carefor each other as we ought if we--"

"You misunderstood me, " she said, pale and with flashing eyes, and insuch a struggle with her emotions that she could say no more. 

If I had not seen that only her pride and her vanity were engaged in thestruggle, and her heart not at all, I think I should have abandoned mycomfortable self-deception that my own pride forbade discussion withher. As it was, I was able to say: "Don't try to spare me, Carlotta, I'mglad you had the courage and the good sense not to let us both driftinto irrevocable folly. I thank you. " I opened the door into the hall. "Let us talk no more about it. We could say to each other only thethings that sting or the things that stab. Let us be friends. You mustgive me your friendship, at least. " I took her hand. 

She looked strangely at me. "You want me to humble myself, to crawl atyour feet and beg your pardon, " said she between her teeth. "But Ishan't. " She snatched away her hand and threw back her head. 

"I wish nothing but what is best for us both, " said I. "But let us nottalk of it now--when neither of us is calm. "

"You don't care for me!" she cried. 

"Do _you_ love _me_?" I rejoined. 

Her eyes shifted. I waited for her reply and, when it did not come, Isaid: "Let us go to breakfast. "

"I'll not go in just now, " she answered, in a quiet tone, a sudden andstrange shift from that of the moment before. And she let me take herhand, echoed my good-by, and made no further attempt to detain me. 

That was a gloomy breakfast despite my efforts to make my own seeming ofgood-humor permeate to the others. Mrs. Ramsay hid a somber face behindthe coffee-urn; Ed ate furiously, noisily, choking every now and then. He drove me to the station; his whole body was probably as damp from hisemotions as were his eyes and his big friendly hand. The train gotunder way; I drew a long breath. I was free. 

But somehow freedom did not taste as I had anticipated. Though Ireminded myself that I had acted as any man with pride and self-respectwould have acted in such delicate circumstances, and though I knew thatCarlotta was no more in love with me than I was with her, this end toour engagement seemed even more humiliating to me than its beginning hadseemed. It was one more instance of that wretched fatality which haspursued me through life, which has made every one of my triumphs come tome in mourning robes and with a gruesome face. In the glittering arrayof "prizes" that tempts man to make a beast and a fool of himself in thegladiatorial show called Life, the sorriest, the most ironic, is thegrand prize, Victory. 

 * * * * *

The parlor car was crowded; its only untaken seat was in the smokingcompartment, which had four other occupants, deep in a game of poker. Three of them were types of commonplace, prosperous Americans; thefourth could not be so easily classed and, therefore, interestedme--especially as I was in the mood to welcome anything that would crowdto the background my far from agreeable thoughts. 

The others called him "Doc, " or Woodruff. As they played, they drankfrom flasks produced by each in turn. Doc drank with the others, anddeeper than any of them. They talked more and more, he less and less, until finally he interrupted their noisy volubility only when the gamecompelled. I saw that he was one of those rare men upon whom amiableconversation or liquor or any other relaxing force has the reverse ofthe usual effect. Instead of relaxing, he drew himself together andconcentrated more obstinately upon his game. Luck, so far as the cardscontrolled it, was rather against him, and the other three players tookturns at audacious and by no means unskilful play. I was soon admiringthe way he "sized up" and met each in turn. Prudence did not make himtimid. He advanced and retreated, "bluffed" and held aloof, withacuteness and daring. 

At a station perhaps fifty miles from Chicago, the other threeleft, --and Doc had four hundred-odd dollars of their money. 

I dropped into the seat opposite him--it was by the window--and amusedmyself watching him, while waiting for a chance to talk with him; for Isaw that he was a superior person, and, in those days, when I wasinconspicuous and so was not compelled constantly to be on guard, Inever missed a chance to benefit by such exchanges of ideas. 

He was apparently about forty years old, to strike a balance between theyouth of eyes, mouth, and contour, and the age of deep lines andgrayish, thinning hair. He had large, frank, blue eyes, a large nose, astrong forehead and chin, a grossly self-indulgent mouth, --there was theweakness, there, as usual! Evidently, the strength his mind andcharacter gave him went in pandering to physical appetites. Inconfirmation of this, there were two curious marks on him, --a nick inthe rim of his left ear, a souvenir of a bullet or a knife, and a scarjust under the edge of his chin to the right. When he compressed hislips, this scar, not especially noticeable at other times, lifted upinto his face, became of a sickly, bluish white, and transformed acareless, good-humored cynic into a man of danger, of terror. 

His reverie began, as I gathered from his unguarded face, in cynicalamusement, probably at his triumph over his friends. It passed on tostill more agreeable things, --something in the expression of the mouthsuggested thoughts of how he was going to enjoy himself as he "blew in"his winnings. Then his features shadowed, darkened, and I had my firstview of the scar terrible. He shook his big head and big shoulders, roused himself, made ready to take a drink, noticed me, and said, "Won'tyou join me?" His look was most engaging. 

I accepted and we were soon sociable, each taking an instinctive likingto the other. We talked of the business situation, of the news in thepapers, and then of political affairs. Each of us saw that there he wasat the other's keenest interest in life. He knew the game, --practicalpolitics as distinguished from the politics talked by and to the public. But he evaded, without seeming to do so, all the ingenious traps I laidfor drawing from him some admission that would give me a clue to wherehe "fitted in. " I learned no more about him than I thought he learnedabout me. 

"I hope we shall meet again, " said I cordially, as we parted at thecab-stand. 

"Thank you, " he answered, and afterward I remembered the faint smile inhis eyes. 

I, of course, knew that Roebuck was greatly interested in my project forputting political business on a business basis; but not until he hadexplained why he sent for me did I see how it had fascinated andabsorbed his mind. "You showed me, " he began, "that you must have underyou a practical man to handle the money and do the arranging with theheelers and all that sort of thing. "

"Yes, " said I; "it's a vital part of the plan. We must find a man who isperfectly trustworthy and discreet. Necessarily he'll know or suspectsomething--not much, but still something--of the inside workings of thecombine. "

"Well, I've found him, " went on Roebuck, in a triumphant tone. "He's agodless person, with no character to lose, and no conception of whatcharacter means. But he's straight as a string. Providence seems to haveprovided such men for just such situations as these, where the devilmust be fought with fire. I've been testing him for nearly fifteenyears. But you can judge for yourself. "

I was the reverse of pleased. It was not in my calculations to have acreature of Roebuck's foisted upon me, perhaps--indeed, probably--a spy. I purposed to choose my own man; and I decided while he was talking, that I would accept the Roebuck selection only to drop him on someplausible pretext before we began operations. I was to meet the man atdinner, --Roebuck had engaged a suite at the Auditorium. "It wouldn't doto have him at my house or club, " said he; "neither do we want to beseen with him. "

Coincidence is so familiar a part of the daily routine that I was notmuch surprised when my acquaintance, the astute poker player with thescar, walked in upon us at the Auditorium. But Roebuck was bothastonished and chagrined when we shook hands and greeted each other likeold friends. 

"How do you do, Mr. Sayler?" said Woodruff. 

"Glad to see you, Doctor Woodruff, " I replied. "Then you knew me all thetime? Why didn't you speak out? We might have had an hour's businesstalk in the train. "

"If I'd shown myself as leaky as all that, I guess there'd have been nobusiness to talk about, " he replied. "Anyhow, I didn't know you till youtook out your watch with the monogram on the back, just as we werepulling in. Then I remembered where I'd seen your face before. I was upat your state house the day that you threw old Dominick down. That'sbeen a good many years ago. "

That chance, easy, smoking-compartment meeting, at which each hadstudied the other dispassionately, was most fortunate for us both. 

The relation that was to exist between us--more, much more, than that ofmere employer and employé--made fidelity, personal fidelity, imperative;and accident had laid the foundation for the mutual attachment withoutwhich there is certain to be, sooner or later, suspicion on both sides, and cause for it. 

The two hours and a half with Woodruff, at and after dinner, served toreinforce my first impression. I saw that he was a thorough man of theworld, that he knew politics from end to end, and that he understood themain weaknesses of human nature and how to play upon them for theadvantage of his employers and for his own huge amusement. He gave asmall exhibition of that skill at the expense of Roebuck. He appreciatedthat Roebuck was one of those unconscious hypocrites who put conscienceout of court in advance by assuming that whatever they wish to do isright or _they_ could not wish to do it. He led Roebuck on to show offthis peculiarity of his, --a jumbling, often in the same breath, of themost sonorous piety and the most shameless business perfidy. All thetime Woodruff's face was perfectly grave, --there are some men who refuseto waste any of their internal enjoyment in external show. 

Before he left us I arranged to meet him the next morning for thesettlement of the details of his employment. When Roebuck and I werealone, I said: "What do you know about him? Who is he?"

"He comes of a good family here in Chicago, --one of the best. Perhapsyou recall the Bowker murder?"

"Vaguely, " I answered. 

"It was Woodruff who did it. We had a hard time getting him off. Bowkerand Woodruff's younger brother were playing cards one day, and Bowkeraccused him of cheating. Young Woodruff drew, --perhaps they both drew atthe same time. At any rate, Bowker shot first and killed his man, --hegot off on the plea of self-defense. It was two years before Bowker andDoc met, --in the lobby of the Palmer House, --I happened to be there. Iwas talking to a friend when suddenly I felt as if something awful wasabout to happen. I started up, and saw Bowker just rising from a tableat the far end of the room. I shan't ever forget his look, --like a birdcharmed by a snake. His lips were ajar and wrinkled as if his blood hadfled away inside of him, and his throat was expanding and contracting. "

Roebuck wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. "It was Doc Woodruffwalking slowly toward him, with a wicked smile on his face, and thatscar--you noticed the scar?"

I nodded. 

"Well, you can imagine how that scar stood out. He came slowly on, nobody able to move a muscle to stop him. When he was about ten feetfrom Bowker and as near me as you are now, Bowker gave a kind of shudderand scream of fright, drew his pistol, and fired. The bullet clippedWoodruff's ear. Quick as that--" Roebuck snapped his fingers--"Doc drew, and sent a bullet into his heart. He fell forward across the table andhis pistol crashed on the marble floor. Doc looked at him, gave a coldsort of laugh, like a jeer and a curse, and walked out into the street. When he met a policeman he said, 'I've killed Dick Bowker. Here's mygun. Lock me up'--perfectly cool, just as he talked to us to-night. "

"And you got him off?"

"Yes. I hated to do it, too, for Dick was one of my best friends. ButDoc was too useful to us. In his line he's without an equal. "

"How did he get that scar?" said I. 

"Nobody knows. He left here when he was a boy, --to avoid being sent tothe reformatory. When he turned up, after a dozen years, he said he hadbeen a doctor, but didn't say where or how. And he had that scar. Oneday a man asked him how he got it. He picked up a bottle, and, with hispleasant laugh, broke it over the fellow's jaw. 'About like that, ' saidhe. People don't ask him questions. "

"He's my man, " said I. 

VII

BYGONES

A telegram had been thrust under my door--"I must see you. Don't fail tostop off here on your way back. Answer. Carlotta. "

Again she was at the station in her phaeton. Her first look, long beforeI was near enough for speech, showed me how her mood had changed; butshe waited until we were clear of the town. "Forgive me, " she then saidin the abrupt, direct manner which was the expression of her greatestcharm, her absolute honesty. "I've got the meanest temper in the world, but it don't last, and as soon as you were gone I was ashamed ofmyself. "

"I don't understand why you are making these apologies, " said I, "and Idon't understand why you were angry. "

"That's what it means to be a man, " she replied. "Your letter about yourmother made me furious. You hadn't ever urged me to hurry up thewedding on your own account. And your letter made me feel as if, whileyou personally didn't care whether we ever married or not, still foryour mother's sake you were willing to--to sacrifice yourself. "

"Let me see my letter, " said I. 

"I tore it into a thousand pieces, " said she. "But I don't mean that youreally wrote just that. You didn't. But you made me jealous of yourmother, and my temper got hold of me, and then I read the meanest kindof things into and under and all round every word. And--I'm sorry. "

I could find nothing to say. I saw my freedom slipping from me. Iwatched it, sick at heart; yet, on the other hand, I neither tried norwished to detain it, though I could easily have made a renewal of ourengagement impossible. I have no explanation for this conflict ofemotions and motives. 

"Don't make it so hard for me, " she went on. "I never before in my lifetold anybody I was sorry for anything, and I thought I never would. ButI _am_ sorry, and--we'll have the wedding the first day of August. "

Still I found nothing to say. It was so painfully obvious that, true toher training, she had not given and was not giving a thought to thestate of my mind and feelings. What _she_ wished, that she would do--therest did not interest her. 

"Are you satisfied, my lord?" she demanded. "Have I humbled myselfsufficiently?"

"You haven't humbled yourself at all, " said I. "You have only humbledme. "

She did not pause on my remark long enough to see what it meant. "Nowthat it's all settled, " she said gaily, "I don't mind telling you that Ibegan to make my preparations to be married on the first ofAugust--when, do you think?"

"When?" I said. 

"The very day I got your nasty letter, putting me second to yourmother. " And she laughed, and was still laughing, when she added: "So, you see, I was determined to marry you. "

"I do, " said I dryly. "I suppose I ought to feel flattered. "

"No, you oughtn't, " she retorted. "I simply made up my mind to marryyou. And I'd do it, no matter what it cost. I get _that_ from father. But I've got mother's disposition, too--and that makes me far too goodfor such a cold, unsentimental, ambitious person as you. "

"Don't you think you're rather rash to confess so frankly--when I couldstill escape?"

"Not at all, " was her confident answer. "I know you, and so I knownothing could make you break your word. "

"There's some truth in that, "--and I hope that I do not deceive myselfin thinking I was honest there. "More truth, perhaps, than you guess. "

She looked shrewdly at me--and friendlily. "Don't be too sure I haven'tguessed, " said she. "Nobody's ever so blind as he lets others think. It's funny, isn't it? There are things in your mind that you'd nevertell me, and things in my mind that I'd never tell you. And each of usguesses most of them, without ever letting on. " She laughed queerly, andstruck the horse smartly so that he leaped into a gait at whichconversation was impossible. 

When we resumed, the subject was the details of our wedding. 

At home again, I found my mother too ill to leave her bed. She had beenill before, --many times when she wouldn't confess it, several times whenshe was forced to admit it, but never before so ill that she could notdress and come down stairs. "I shall be up to-morrow, " she assured me, and I almost believed her. She drew a letter from under her pillow. "This came while you were away, " she went on. "I kept it here, because--" a look of shame flitted across her face, and then her eyeswere steady and proud again, --"why should I be ashamed of it? I had theimpulse to destroy the letter, and I'm not sure but that I'm failing inmy duty. "

I took it, --yes, it was from Boston, from Betty. I opened it andfortunately had nerved myself against showing myself to my mother. Therewas neither beginning nor end, just a single sentence:

"From the bottom of my broken heart I am thankful that I have beenspared the horror of discovering I had bound myself for life to acoward. "

The shot went straight to the center of the target. But----There lay mymother--did _she_ not have the right to determine my destiny--she whohad given me my life and her own? I tore up Betty's letter, and I lookedat mother and said, "There's nothing in that to make me waver--orregret. " It was the only lie I ever told her. I told it well, thank God, for she was convinced, and the look in her face repaid me athousandfold. It repays me once more as I write. 

Carlotta and I were married at her bedside, and she lived only until thenext day but one. When the doctor told me of the long concealed mortaldisease that was the cause of her going, he ended with: "And, Mr. Sayler, it passes belief that she managed to keep alive for five years. I can't understand it. " But _I_ understood. She simply refused to gountil she felt that her mission was accomplished. 

"We must never forget her, " said Carlotta, trying to console me bygrieving with me. 

I did not answer, --how could I explain? Never forget her! On thecontrary, I knew that I must forget, and that I must work and grow andso heal the wound and cover its scar. I lost not a day in beginning. 

To those few succeeding months I owe the power I have had all theseyears to concentrate my mind upon whatever I will to think about; for inthose months I fought the fight I dared not lose--fought it and won. Letthose who have never loved talk of remembering the dead. 

 * * * * *

I turned away from her grave with the resolve that my first act of powerwould be to stamp out Dominick. But for him she would not have gone formany a year. It was his persecutions that involved us in the miserieswhich wasted her and made her fall a victim to the mortal disease. Itwas his malignity that poisoned her last years, which, but for him, would have been happy. 

As my plans for ousting Dunkirk took shape, I saw clearly that, if hewere to be overthrown at once, I must use part of the existing controlof the machine of the party, --it would take several years, at leastthree, to build up an entirely new control. To work quickly, I must useCroffut, Dunkirk's colleague in the Senate. And Croffut was the creatureof Dominick. 

Early in September Woodruff came to me, at Fredonia, his mannerjubilant. "I can get Dominick, " he exclaimed. "He is furious againstDunkirk because he's just discovered that Dunkirk cheated him out of ahundred thousand dollars on that perpetual street railway franchise, last winter. "

"But we don't want Dominick, " said I. 

My face must have reflected my mind, for Woodruff merely replied, "Oh, very well. Of course that alters the case. "

"We must get Croffut without him, " I went on. 

Woodruff shook his head. "Can't get him, " he said. "Dominick controlsthe two southern ranges of counties. He finances his own machine fromwhat he collects from vice and crime in those cities. He gives thatbranch of the plum tree to the boys. He keeps the bigger one, thecorporations, for himself. "

"He can be destroyed, " said I, waving aside these significant reminders. 

"Yes, in five years or so of hard work. Meanwhile, Dunkirk will runthings at the capital to suit himself. Anyhow, you're taking on a gooddeal more than's necessary--starting with two big fights, one of 'emagainst a man you ought to use to do up the other. It's like breakingyour own sword at the beginning of the duel. "

"Go back to the capital, " said I, after a moment's thought; "I'lltelegraph you up there what to do. "

It was my first test--my first chance to show whether I had learned atthe savage school at which I had been a pupil. Scores, hundreds of men, can plan, and plan wisely, --at almost any cross-roads' general store youhear in the conversation round the stove as good plans as ever moved theworld to admiration. But execution, --there's the rub! And the firstessential of an executive is freedom from partialities and hatreds, --notto say, "Do I like him? Do I hate him? Was he my enemy a year or a weekor a moment ago?" but only to ask oneself the one question, "Can he beuseful to me _now_?"

"I will use Dominick to destroy Dunkirk, and then I will destroy him, " Isaid to myself. But that did not satisfy me. I saw that I wastemporizing with the weakness that has wrecked more careers thanmisjudgment. I felt that I must decide then and there whether or not Iwould eliminate personal hatred from my life. After a long and bitterstruggle, I did decide once and for all. 

I telegraphed Woodruff to go ahead. When I went back to Pulaski tosettle my affairs there, Dominick came to see me. Not that he dreamed ofthe existence of my combine or of my connection with the new politicaldeal, but simply because I had married into the Ramsay family and wastherefore now in the Olympus of corporate power before which he was onhis knees, --for a price, like a wise devotee, untroubled by any suchqualmishness as self-respect. I was ready for him. I put out my hand. 

"I'm glad you're willing to let bygones be bygones, Mr. Sayler, " saidhe, so moved that the tears stood in his eyes. 

Then it flashed on me that, after all, he was only a big brute, drivenblindly by his appetites. How silly to plot revenges upon the creaturesof circumstance--how like a child beating the chair it happens tostrike against! Hatreds and revenges are for the small mind with smallmatters to occupy it. Of the stones I have quarried to build my career, not one has been, or could have been, spared to waste as a missile. 

I went down to the Cedar Grove cemetery, where my mother lay beside myfather. My two sisters who died before I was born were at their feet;her parents and his on either side. And I said to her, "Mother, I amgoing to climb up to a place where I can use my life as you would haveme use it. To rise in such a world as this I shall have to do manythings you would not approve. I shall do them. But when I reach theheight, I shall justify myself and you. I know how many have startedwith the same pledge and have been so defiled by what they had to handlethat when they arrived they were past cleansing; and they neither keptnor cared to keep their pledge. But I, mother, shall not break thispledge to you. "

VIII

A CALL FROM "THE PARTY"

About a month after the Chicago and Fredonia bill was smothered incommittee there appeared upon the threshold of my office, in theadministration building of the Ramsay Company, a man whom at firstglance you might have taken for an exhorter or a collector for somepious enterprise. But if you had made a study of faces, your secondglance would have cut through that gloze of oily, apologetic appeal. Behind a thin screen of short gray beard lay a heavy loose mouth, crueland strong; above it, a great beak and a pair of pale green eyes, intensely alive. They were in startling contrast to the apparentdecrepitude of the stooped shambling body, far too small for itscovering of decent but somewhat rusty black. 

"Senator Dunkirk, " said I, rising and advancing to greet the justlyfeared leader of my party. I knew there was an intimate connectionbetween this visit and the death of his pet project. I thought it safeto assume that he had somehow stumbled upon Woodruff's tunnelings, andwith that well-trained nose of his had smelled out their origin. But Ineed not have disquieted myself; I did not then know how softly Woodruffmoved, sending no warnings ahead, and leaving no trail behind. 

For several minutes the Senator and I felt for each other in the dark inwhich we both straightway hid. He was the first to give up and revealhimself in the open. "But I do not wish to waste your time and my own, Mr. Sayler, " he said; "I have come to see you about the threatened splitin the party. You are, perhaps, surprised that I should have come toyou, when you have been so many years out of politics, but I think youwill understand, as I explain myself. You know Mr. Roebuck?"

"I can't say that I _know_ him, " I replied. "He is not an easy man toknow--indeed, who is?"

"A very able man; in some respects a great man, " Dunkirk went on. "But, like so many of our great men of business, he can not appreciatepolitics, --the difficulties of the man in public life where persuasionand compromise must be used, authority almost never. And, because I haveresisted some of his impossible demands, he has declared war on theparty. He has raised up in it a faction headed by your old enemy, Dominick. I need not tell you what a brute, what a beast he is, therepresentative of all that is abhorrent in politics. "

"A faction headed by Dominick couldn't be very formidable, " I suggested. 

"But Dominick isn't the nominal leader, " replied Dunkirk. "Roebuck isfar too shrewd for that. No, he has put forward as the decoy mycolleague, Croffut, --perhaps you know him? If so, I needn't tell youwhat a vain, shallow, venal fellow he is, with his gift of gab thatfools the people. "

"I know him, " said I, in a tone which did not deny the accuracy ofDunkirk's description. 

"Their object, " continued the Senator, "is to buy the control of theparty machinery away from those who now manage it in the interests ofconservatism and fair dealing. If they succeed, the only businessinterest that will be considered in this state will be the Power Trust. And we shall have Dominick, the ignorant brute, lashed on by Roebuck'sappetites, until the people will rise in fury and elect theopposition, --and you know what _it_ is. "

"What you say is most interesting, " said I, "but I confess I haven'timagination enough to conceive a condition of affairs in which anybodywith 'the price' couldn't get what he wanted by paying for it. Perhapsthe business interests would gain by a change, --the other crowd might beless expensive. Certainly the demands of our party's machine have becomeintolerable. "

"It astonishes me, Mr. Sayler, to hear you say that, --you, who have beenin politics, " he protested, taken aback by my hardly disguised attackupon him, --for he was in reality "party" and "machine. " "Surely, youunderstand the situation. We must have money to maintain ourorganization, and to run our campaign. Our workers can't live on air;and, to speak of only one other factor, there are thousands andthousands of our voters, honest fellows, too, who must be paid to cometo the polls. They wouldn't vote against us for any sum; but, unless wepay them for the day lost in the fields, they stay at home. Now, wheredoes our money come from? The big corporations are the only source, --whoelse could or would give largely enough? And it is necessary and justthat they should be repaid. But they are no longer content with moderateand prudent rewards for their patriotism. They make bigger and bigger, and more and more unreasonable, demands on us, and so undermine ourpopularity, --for the people can't be blinded wholly to what's going on. And thus, year by year, it takes more and more money to keep us incontrol. "

"You seem to have forgotten my point, " said I, smiling. "Why should_you_ be kept in control? If you go out, the others come in. Theybluster and threaten, in order to get themselves in; but, once they'reelected, they discover that it wasn't the people's woes they wereshouting about, but their own. And soon they are docile 'conservatives'lapping away at the trough, with nothing dangerous in them but theirappetites. "

"Precisely, --their appetites, " said he. 

"A starved man has to practise eating a long, long time before he canequal the performances of a trained glutton, " I suggested. 

His facial response to my good-humored raillery was feeble indeed. Andit soon died in a look of depression that made him seem even older andmore decrepit than was his wont. "The same story, wherever I go, " saidhe sadly. "The business interests refuse to see their peril. And when I, in my zeal, persist, they, --several of them, Sayler, have grinned at meand reminded me that the legislature to be elected next fall will choosemy successor! As if my own selfish interests were all I have in mind! Iam old and feeble, on the verge of the grave. Do you think, Mr. Sayler, that I would continue in public life if it were not for what I conceiveto be my duty to my party? I have toiled too long for it--"

"Your record speaks for itself, Senator, " I put in, politely butpointedly. 

"You are very discouraging, Sayler, " he said forlornly. "But I refuse tobe discouraged. The party needs you, and I have come to do my duty, andI won't leave without doing it. "

"I have nothing to do with the company's political contributions, " saidI. "You will have to see Mr. Ramsay, as usual. "

He waved his hand. "Let me explain, please. Roover is about toresign, --as you probably know, he's been chairman of the party's statecommittee for seventeen years. I've come to ask you to take his place. "

It was impossible wholly to hide my amazement, my stupefaction. Had hehad the shadowiest suspicion of my plans, of the true inwardness of theCroffut-Dominick movement, he would as readily have offered me his ownhead. In fact, he was offering me his own head; for, with the money andthe other resources at my command, I needed only this place of officialexecutive of the party to make me master. And here he was, giving me theplace, under the delusion that he could use me as he had been usingRoover. 

He must have misread my expression, for he went on: "Don't refuse onimpulse, Sayler. I and the others will do everything to make your dutiesas light as possible. "

"I should not be content to be a mere figure-head, as Roover has been, "I warned him. He had come, in his desperation, to try to get the man whocombined the advantages of being, as he supposed, Dominick's enemy and amember of one of the state's financially influential families. He hadcome to cozen me into letting him use me in return for a mockery of anhonor. And I was simply tumbling him, or, rather, permitting him totumble himself, into the pit he had dug for me. Still, I felt that Iowed it to my self-respect to give him a chance. "If I take the place, Ishall fill it _to the best of my ability_. "

"Certainly, certainly, --we want your ability. " Behind his bland, cordialmask I saw the spider eyes gleaming and the spider claws twitching as hefelt his net quiver under hovering wings. "We want you--we need you, Sayler. We expect you to do your best. "

My best! What would my "best" have been, had I been only what hethought, --dependent upon him for supplies, surrounded by hislieutenants, hearing nothing but what he chose to tell me, and able toexecute only such orders as he gave or approved!

"I am sure we can count on you, " he urged. 

"I will try it, " said I, after a further hesitation that was notaltogether show. 

He did not linger, --he wished to give me no chance to change my mind andfly his net. I was soon alone, staring dazedly at my windfall andwondering if fortune would ever give me anything without attaching to itthat which would make me doubt whether my gift had more of bitter ormore of sweet in it. 

Dunkirk announced the selection of a new chairman that veryafternoon, --as a forecast, of course, for there was the formality of my"election" by the sixty-three members of the state committee to be gonethrough. His proposition was well received. The old-line politiciansremembered my father; the Reformers recalled my fight against Dominick;the business men liked my connection with the Ramsay Company, assuringstability and regard for "conservatism"; the "boys" were glad because Ihad a rich wife and a rich brother-in-law. The "boys" always cheer whena man with money develops political aspirations. 

I did not see Woodruff until I went down to the capital to begin myinitiation. I came upon him there, in the lobby of the Capital CityHotel. As we talked for a moment like barely-acquainted strangers, saying nothing that might not have been repeated broadcast, his look wasasking: "How did you manage to trap Dunkirk into doing it?" I never toldhim the secret, and so never tore out the foundation of his belief in meas a political wizard. It is by such judicious use of their few strokesof good luck that successful men get their glamour of the superhuman. Inthe eyes of the average man, who is lazy or intermittent, the result ofplain, incessant, unintermittent work is amazing enough. All that isneeded to make him cry, "Genius!" is a little luck adroitly exploited. 

I left Woodruff, to join Dunkirk. "Who is that chap over there, --DoctorWoodruff?" I asked him. 

"Woodruff?" replied the Senator. "Oh, a lobbyist. He does a good dealfor Roebuck, I believe. An honest fellow, --for that kind, --they tell me. It's always well to be civil to them. "

Dunkirk's "initiation" of me into the duties of my office wiped away mylast lingering sense of double, or, at least, doubtful, dealing. He toldme nothing that was not calculated to mislead me. And he was so glib andso frank and so sympathetic that, had I not known the whole machine fromthe inside, I should have been his dupe. 

It is not pleasant to suspect that, in some particular instance, one ofyour fellow men takes you for a simple-minded fool. To know you arebeing so regarded, not in one instance, but in general, is in thehighest degree exasperating, no matter how well your vanity is undercontrol. 

Perhaps I should not have been able to play my part and deceive mydeceiver had I been steadily at headquarters. As it was, I went therelittle and then gave no orders, apparently contenting myself with thecredit for what other men were doing in my name. In fact, so obvious didI make my neglect as chairman that the party press commented on it andcovertly criticized me. Dunkirk mildly reproached me for lack ofinterest. He did not know--indeed, he never knew--that his chieflieutenant, Thurston, in charge at headquarters, had gone over to "theenemy, " and was Woodruff's right-hand man. And it is not necessary forme to say where Woodruff got the orders he transmitted to Thurston. 

My excuse for keeping aloof was that I was about to be transformed intoa man of family. As I was fond of children I had looked forward to thiswith more eagerness than I ventured to show to my wife. She might nothave liked it, eager though she was also. As soon as she knew that herlongings were to be satisfied, she entered upon a course of preparationso elaborate that I was secretly much amused, though I thoroughlyapproved and encouraged her. Every moment of her days was laid out insome duty imposed upon her by the regimen she had arranged after a studyof all that science says on the subject. 

As perfect tranquillity was a fundamental of the _régime_, she permittednothing to ruffle her. But Ed more than made up for her calm. Two weeksbefore the event, she forbade him to enter her presence--"or any part ofthe grounds where I'm likely to see you, " said she. "The very sight ofyou, looking so flustered, unnerves me. "

While he and I were waiting in the sitting-room for the news, he turnedhis heart inside out. 

"I want to tell you, Harvey, " said he, "that the--boy or girl--whicheverit is--is to be my heir. "

"I shan't hold you to that, " I replied with a laugh. 

"No, --I'll never marry, " he went on. "There was an--an angel. You knowthe Shaker settlement?--well, out there. "

I looked at him in wonder. If ever there was a man who seemedunromantic, it was he, heavy and prosaic and so shy that he was visiblyagitated even in bowing to a woman acquaintance. 

"I met her, " he was saying, "when I was driving that way, --the horseran, I was thrown out, and her parents had to take me in and let hernurse me. You've seen her face, --or faces like it. Most of thoseMadonnas over on the other side in all the galleries suggest her. Well, --her parents were furious, --wouldn't hear of it, --you know Shakersthink marriage and love and all those things are wicked. And she thoughtso, too. How she used to suffer! It wore her to a shadow. She wouldn'tmarry me, --wouldn't let me so much as touch her hand. But we used tomeet and--then she caught a cold--waiting hours for me, one winternight, when there'd been a misunderstanding about the place--I was inone place, she in another. And the cold, --you see, she couldn't fightagainst it. And--and--there won't be another, Harvey. All women aresacred to me for her sake, but I couldn't any more marry than Icould--could stop feeling her sitting beside me, just a little way off, wrapped in her drab shawl, with her face--like a glimpse through thegates of Heaven. "

Within me up-started the memories that I kept battened down. 

"Your children are mine, too, Harvey, " he ended. 

I took from Carlotta's work-basket an unfinished bit of baby clothing. Iwent to him and held it up and pointed to the monogram she hadembroidered on it. 

"E. R. S. , " he read aloud. Then he looked at me with a queer expressionbeginning to form in his eyes. 

"Edward Ramsay Sayler, if it's a boy, " said I. "Edwina Ramsay Sayler, ifit's a girl. "

He snatched the bit of linen from me and buried his face in it. 

The baby was a boy, --fortunately, for I don't admire the name Edwina, and I shouldn't have liked to handicap a child with it. Carlotta and Edwere delighted, but I felt a momentary keen disappointment. I had wanteda girl. Girls never leave their parents completely, as boys do. Also Ishould rather have looked forward to my child's having a sheltered life, one in which the fine and beautiful ideals do not have to be molded intothe gross, ugly forms of the practical. I may say, in passing, that Ideplore the entrance of women into the world of struggle. Women are thenatural and only custodians of the ideals. We men are compelled towander, often to wander far, from the ideal. Unless our women remainaloof from action, how are the ideals to be preserved? Man for action;woman to purify man, when he returns stained with the blood and sin ofbattle. 

But--with the birth of the first child I began to appreciate howprofoundly right my mother had been about marriage and its source ofhappiness. There are other flowers than the rose, --other flowers, andbeautiful, the more beautiful for its absence. 

IX

TO THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY

We, our party, carried the state, as usual. Our legislative majority wasincreased by eleven, to thirty-seven on joint ballot. It was certainthat Dunkirk's successor would be of the same political faith; but wouldhe be Dunkirk? At first that venerable custodian of the plum tree hadn'ta doubt. He had come to look on it as his personal property. But, afterhe had talked to legislators-elect from various parts of the state, hebecame uneasy. He found that the party's members were dangerously evenlydivided between himself and the "Dominick-Croffut" faction. And soon hewas at me to declare for him. 

I evaded as long as I could, --which did not decrease his nervousness. When he put it to me point-blank, I said: "I can't do it, Senator. Iwill not mix in quarrels within the party. "

"But they are saying you are against me, " he pleaded. 

"And your people are saying I am for you, " I retorted. 

"But surely you are not against _me_ and for Schoolcraft? What has hedone for you?"

"And what have _you_ done for me?" I replied, --a mere interrogation, without any feeling in it. "Tell me. I try to pay my debts. "

His eyes shifted. "Nothing, Sayler, nothing, " he said. "I didn't mean toinsinuate that you owed me anything. Still, I thought--you wouldn't havebeen state chairman, except--"

As he halted, I said, "Except that you needed me. And you will recallthat I took it only on condition that I should be free. "

"Then you are opposed to me, " he said. "Nobody can be on the fence inthis fight. "

"I do not think you can be elected, " I replied. 

As he sat silent, the puffs under his eyes swelled into bags and thepallor of his skin changed to the gray which makes the face look as if ahaze or a cloud lay upon it. I pitied him so profoundly that, had Iventured to speak, I should have uttered impulsive generosities thatwould have cost me dear. How rarely are our impulses of generosityanything but impulses to folly, injustice, and wrong!

"We shall see, " was all he said, and he rose and shambled away. 

They told me he made a pitiful sight, wheedling and whining among thelegislators. But he degraded himself to some purpose. He succeeded inrallying round him enough members to deadlock the party caucus for amonth, --members from the purely rural districts, where the sentiment ofloyalty is strongest, where his piety and unselfish devotion to theparty were believed in, and his significance as a "statesman. " I letthis deadlock continue--forty-one for Dunkirk, forty-one forSchoolcraft--until I felt that the party throughout the state washeartily sick of the struggle. Then Woodruff bought, at twelve thousanddollars apiece, two Dunkirk men to vote to transfer the contest to thefloor of a joint session of the two houses. 

After four days of balloting there, seven Dominick-Croffut men voted forme--my first appearance as a candidate. On the seventy-seventh ballotSchoolcraft withdrew, and all the Dominick-Croffut men voted for me. Onthe seventy-ninth ballot I got, in addition, two opposition votesWoodruff had bought for me at eight hundred dollars apiece. The ballotwas: Dunkirk, forty-one; Grassmere, (who was receiving the opposition'scomplimentary vote) thirty-six; Sayler, forty-three. I was a Senator ofthe United States. 

There was a wild scene. Threats, insults, blows even, were exchanged. And down at the Capital City Hotel Dunkirk crawled upon a table anddenounced me as an infamous ingrate, a traitor, a serpent he had warmedin his bosom. But the people of the state accepted it as natural andsatisfactory that "the vigorous and fearless young chairman of theparty's state committee" should be agreed on as a compromise. An hourafter that last ballot, he hadn't a friend left except some gallingsympathizers from whom he hid himself. Those who had been his firmestsupporters were paying court to the new custodian of the plum tree. 

The governor was mine, and the legislature. Mine was the Federalpatronage, also--all of it, if I chose, for Croffut was my dependent, though he did not realize it; mine also were the indefinitely vastresources of the members of my combine. Without my consent no man couldget office anywhere in my state, from governorship and judgeship down asfar as I cared to reach. Subject only to the check of publicsentiment, --so easily defeated if it be not defied, --I was master of themaking and execution of laws. Why? Not because I was leader of thedominant party. Not because I was a Senator of the United States. Solelybecause I controlled the sources of the money that maintained thepolitical machinery of both parties. The hand that holds the pursestrings is the hand that rules, --if it knows how to rule; for rule ispower _plus_ ability. 

I was not master because I had the plum tree. I had the plum treebecause I was master. 

 * * * * *

The legislature attended to such of the demands of my combine and suchof the demands of the public as I thought it expedient to grant, andthen adjourned. Woodruff asked a three months' leave. I did not hearfrom or of him until midsummer, when he sent me a cablegram fromLondon. He was in a hospital there, out of money and out of health. Icabled him a thousand dollars and asked him to come home as soon as hecould. It was my first personal experience with that far from uncommonAmerican type, the periodic drunkard. I had to cable him money threetimes before he started. 

When he came to me at Washington, in December, he looked just asbefore, --calm, robust, cool, cynical, and dressed in the very extreme ofthe extreme fashion. I received him as if nothing had happened. It wasnot until the current of mutual liking was again flowing freely betweenus that I said: "Doc, may I impose on your friendship to the extent ofan intrusion into your private affairs?"

He started, and gave me a quick look, his color mounting. "Yes, " he saidafter a moment. 

"When I heard from you, " I went on, "I made some inquiries. I owe you noapology. You had given me a shock, --one of the severest of my life. Butthey told me that you never let--that--that peculiarity of yoursinterfere with business. "

His head was hanging. "I always go away, " he said. "Nobody that knows meever sees me when--at that time. "

I laid my hand on his arm. "Doc, why do you do--that sort of thing?"

The scar came up into his face to put agony into the reckless despairthat looked from his eyes. For an instant I stood on the threshold of_his_ Chamber of Remorse and Vain Regret, --and well I knew where I was. "Why not?" he asked bitterly. "There's always a--sort of horror--insideme. And it grows until I can't bear it. And then--I drown it--whyshouldn't I?"

"That's very stupid for a man of your brains, " said I. "There'snothing--nothing in the world, except death--that can not be wiped outor set right. Play the game, Doc. Play it with me for five years. Playit for all there is in it. Then--go back, if you want to. "

He thought a long time, and I did not try to hurry him. At length hesaid, in his old off-hand manner: "Well, I'll go you, Senator; I'll nottouch a drop. "

And he didn't. Whenever I thought I saw signs of the savage internalbattle against the weakness, I gave him something important andabsorbing to do, and I kept him busy until I knew the temptation hadlost its power for the time. 

This is the proper place to put it on the record that he was the mostscrupulously honest man I have ever known. He dealt with the shadiestand least scrupulous of men--those who train their consciences to be theeager servants of their appetites; he handled hundreds of thousands ofdollars, millions, first and last, all of it money for which he couldnever have been forced to account. He has had at one time as much ashalf a million dollars in checks payable to bearer. I am not confidingby nature or training, but I am confident that he kept not a penny forhimself beyond his salary and his fixed commission. I put his salary atthe outset, at ten thousand a year; afterward, at fifteen; finally, attwenty. His commissions, perhaps, doubled it. 

There are many kinds of honesty nowadays. There is "corporate honesty, "not unlike that proverbial "honor among thieves, " which secures a fairor fairly fair division of the spoils. Then there is "personalhonesty, " which subdivides into three kinds--legal, moral, andinstinctive. Legal honesty needs no definition. Moral honesty defiesdefinition--how untangle its intertwinings of motives of fear, pride, insufficient temptation, sacrifice of the smaller chance in the hope ofa larger? Finally, there is instinctive honesty--the rarest, the onlybed-rock, unassailable kind. Give me the man who is honest simplybecause it never occurs to him, and never could occur to him, to beanything else. That is Woodruff. 

There is, to be sure, another kind of instinctively honest man--he whodisregards loyalty as well as self-interest in his uprightness. Butthere are so few of these in practical life that they may bedisregarded. 

Perhaps I should say something here as to the finances of my combine, though it was managed in the main precisely like all thesepolitical-commercial machines that control both parties in all thestates, except a few in the South. 

My assessments upon the various members of my combine were sent, forseveral years, to me, afterward to Woodruff directly, in one thousand, five thousand, and ten thousand dollar checks, sometimes by mail, and atother times by express or messenger. 

These checks were always payable to bearer; and I made through Woodruff, for I kept to the far background in all my combine's affairs, anarrangement with several large banks in different parts of the state, including one at the capital, that these checks were to be cashedwithout question, no matter who presented them, provided there was acertain flourish under the line where the amount was written in figures. Sometimes these checks were signed by the corporation, and sometimesthey were the personal checks of the president or some other highofficial. Often the signature was that of a person wholly disconnected, so far as the public knew. Once, I remember, Roebuck sent me a thousanddollar check signed by a distinguished Chicago lawyer who was just thencounsel to his opponent in a case involving millions, a case whichRoebuck afterward won!

Who presented these checks? I could more easily say who did not. 

From the very beginning of my control I kept my promise to reduce thecost of the political business to my clients. When I got the machinethoroughly in hand, I saw I could make it cost them less than a third ofwhat they had been paying, on the average, for ten years. I cut off, almost at a stroke, a horde of lobbyists, lawyers, threateners withoutinfluence, and hangers-on of various kinds. I reduced the payments forlegislation to a system, instead of the shameless, scandal-creating andwasteful auctioneering that had been going on for years. 

In fact, so cheaply did I run the machine that I saw it would be mostimprudent to let my clients have the full benefit. Cheapness would havemade them uncontrollably greedy and exacting, and would have given thema wholly false idea of my value as soon as it had slipped their shortmemories how dearly they used to pay. 

So I continued to make heavy assessments, and put by the surplus in areserve fund for emergencies. I thought, for example, that I might someday have trouble with one or more members of my combine; my reservewould supply me with the munitions for forcing insurgents to return totheir agreements. 

This fund was in no sense part of my private fortune. Nowhere else, Ithink, do the eccentricities of conscience show themselves moreinterestingly than in the various attitudes of the various politicalleaders toward the large sums which the exigencies of commercializedpolitics place absolutely and secretly under their control. I have nocriticism for any of these attitudes. 

I have lived long enough and practically enough to learn not tocriticize the morals of men, any more than I criticize their facialcontour or their physical build. "As many men, so many minds, "--andmorals. Wrong, for practical purposes, is that which a man can notcajole or compel his conscience to approve. 

It so happened that I had a sense that to use my assessments for myprivate financial profits would be wrong. Therefore, my private fortunehas been wholly the result of the opportunities which came through myintimacy with Roebuck and such others of the members of my combine aswere personally agreeable, --or, perhaps it would be more accurate tosay, not disagreeable, for, in the circumstances, I naturally saw a sideof those men which a friend must never see in a friend. I could not helphaving toward most of these distinguished clients of mine much thefeeling his lawyer has for the guilty criminal he is defending. 

X

THE FACE IN THE CROWD

Except the time given to the children, --there were presently three, --mylife, in all its thoughts and associations, was now politics: atWashington, from December until Congress adjourned, chiefly nationalpolitics, the long and elaborate arrangements preliminary to thecampaign for the conquest of the national fields; at home, chiefly statepolitics, --strengthening my hold upon the combine, strengthening my holdupon the two political machines. As the days and the weeks, the monthsand the years, rushed by, as the interval between breakfast and bedtime, between Sunday and Sunday, between election day and election day again, grew shorter and shorter, I played the game more and more furiously. What I won, once it was mine, seemed worthless in itself, and worthwhile only if I could gain the next point; and, when that was gained, the same story was repeated. Whenever I paused to reflect, it was tothrottle reflection half-born, and hasten on again. 

"A silly business, this living, isn't it?" said Woodruff to me. 

"Yes, --but--" replied I. "You remember the hare and the hatter in _Alicein Wonderland_. 'Why?' said the hare. 'Why not?' said the hatter. Asensible man does not interrogate life; he lives it. "

"H'm, " retorted Woodruff. 

And we went on with the game, --shuffling, dealing, staking. But more andmore frequently there came hours, when, against my will, I would pause, drop my cards, watch the others; and I would wonder at them, and atmyself, the maddest of these madmen, --and the saddest, because I hadmoments in which I was conscious of my own derangement. 

I have often thought on the cause of this dissatisfaction which hasnever ceased to gird me, and which I have learned girds all men ofintelligence who lead an active life. I think it is that such men arelike a civilized man who has to live among a savage tribe. To keepalive, to have influence, he must pretend to accept the savage point ofview, must pretend to disregard his own knowledge and intelligentmethods, must play the game of life with the crude, clumsy counters ofcaste and custom and creed and thought which the savages regard as fitand proper. Intelligent men of action do see as clearly as thephilosophers; but they have to pretend to adapt their mental vision tothat of the mass of their fellow men or, like the philosophers, theywould lead lives of profitless inaction, enunciating truths which are ofno value to mankind until it rediscovers them for itself. No man oftrained reasoning power could fail to see that the Golden Rule is not apiece of visionary altruism, but a sound principle of practicalself-interest. Or, could anything be clearer, to one who takes thetrouble really to think about it, than that he who advances himself atthe expense of his fellow men does not advance, but sinks down into theclass of murderers for gain, thieves, and all those who seek to advancethemselves by injustice? Yet, so feeble is man's reason, so near to thebrute is he, so under the rule of brute appetites, that he can notthink beyond the immediate apparent good, beyond to-day's meal. 

I once said to Scarborough: "Politics is the science and art of foolingthe people. "

"That is true, as far as it goes, " he said. "If that were all, justice, which is only another name for common sense, would soon be established. But, unfortunately, politics is the art of playing upon cupidity, theart of fooling the people into thinking they are helping to despoil theother fellow and will get a share of the swag. "

And he was right. It is by subtle appeal to the secret and shamefaced, but controlling, appetites of men that the clever manipulate them. Toget a man to vote for the right you must show him that he is voting forthe personally profitable. And very slow he is to believe that what isright can be practically profitable. Have not the preachers beenpreaching the reverse all these years; have they not been insisting thatto do right means treasure in Heaven only?

 * * * * *

It was in my second term as Senator, toward the middle of it. I wasspeaking, one afternoon, in defense of a measure for the bigcontributors, which the party was forcing through the Senate in face offire from the whole country. Personally, I did not approve the measure. It was a frontal attack upon public opinion, and frontal attacks are asunwise and as unnecessary in politics as in war. But the party leadersin the nation insisted, and, as the move would weaken their hold uponthe party and so improve my own chances, I was not deeply aggrieved thatmy advice had been rejected. Toward the end of my speech, aroused byapplause from the visitors' gallery, I forgot myself and began to lookup there as I talked, instead of addressing myself to my fellowSenators. The eyes of a speaker always wander over his audience insearch of eyes that respond. My glance wandered, unconsciously, until itfound an answering glance that fixed it. 

This answering glance was not responsive, nor even approving. It was thereverse, --and, in spite of me, it held me. At first it was just a pairof eyes, in the shadow of the brim of a woman's hat, the rest of theface, the rest of the woman, hid by those in front and on either side. There was a movement among them, and the whole face appeared, --and Istopped short in my speech. I saw only the face, really only the mouthand the eyes, --the lips and the eyes of Elizabeth Crosby, --an expressionof pain, and of pity. 

[Illustration: I SAW ONLY THE LIPS AND EYES OF ELIZABETH CROSBY p. 141]

I drank from the glass of water on my desk, and went on. When I venturedto look up there again, the face was gone. Had I seen or imagined? Wasit she or was it only memory suddenly awakening and silhouetting herupon that background of massed humanity? I tried to convince myself thatI had only imagined, but I knew that I had seen. 

Within me--and, I suppose, within every one else--there is a dualpersonality: not a good and a bad, as is so often shallowly said; butone that does, and another that watches. The doer seems to me to bemyself; the watcher, he who stands, like an idler at the rail of abridge, carelessly, even indifferently, observing the tide of my thoughtand action that flows beneath, --who is he? I do not know. But I do knowthat I have no control over him, --over his cynical smile, or his lipcurling in good-natured contempt of me, or his shrug at self-excuse, orhis moods when he stares down at the fretting stream with a look ofweariness so profound that it is tragic. It was he who was moreinterested in the thoughts, --the passion, the protest, the defiance, andthe dread, --which the sight of that face set to boiling within me. Sometimes he smiled cynically at the turmoil, and at other times hewatched it with what seemed to me bitter disgust and disappointment andregret. 

While this tempest was struggling to boil over into action, Carlottaappeared. She had never stayed long at Washington after the firstwinter; she preferred, for the children and perhaps for herself, thequiet and the greater simplicity of Fredonia. But--"I got to thinkingabout it, " said she, "and it seemed to me a bad idea for a man to beseparated so long from his wife and children--and home influences. "

That last phrase was accompanied by one of her queer shrewd looks. 

"Your idea is not without merit, " replied I judicially. 

"What are you smiling at?" she demanded sharply. 

"If it was a smile, " said I, "it was at myself. "

"No, you were laughing at me. You think I am jealous. "

"Of what? Of whom?"

She looked fixedly at me and finally said: "I want to tell you twothings about myself and you. The first is that I am afraid of you. "

"Why?" said I. 

"I don't know, " she answered. 

"And the second confession?"

"That I never trust you. "

"Why?"

"I don't know. "

"Yet you are always telling me I am cold. "

She laughed shortly. "So is a stick of dynamite, " said she. 

She stayed on at Washington. 

XI

BURBANK

It was through Carlotta that I came to know Burbank well. 

He was in the House, representing the easternmost district of our state. I had disliked him when we were boys in the state assembly together, and, when I met him again in Washington, he seemed to me to have all hisfaults of fifteen years before aggravated by persistence in them. Finally, I needed his place in Congress for a useful lieutenant ofWoodruff's and ordered him beaten for the renomination. He made a bitterfight against decapitation, and, as he was popular with the people ofhis district, we had some difficulty in defeating him. But when he wasbeaten, he was of course helpless and hopelessly discredited, --thepeople soon forget a fallen politician. He "took off his coat" andworked hard and well for the election of the man who had euchred him outof the nomination. When he returned to Washington to finish his term, he began a double, desperate assault upon my friendship. The directassault was unsuccessful, --I understood it, and I was in no need oflieutenants. More than I could easily take care of were already strivingto serve me, scores of the brightest, most ambitious young men of thestate eager to do my bidding, whatever it might be, in the hope that inreturn I would "take care of" them, would admit them to the covetedinclosure round the plum tree. The plum tree! Is there any kind of fruitwhich gladdens the eyes of ambitious man, that does not glisten uponsome one of its many boughs, heavy-laden with corporate and publichonors and wealth?

Burbank's indirect attack, through his wife and Carlotta, fared better. 

The first of it I distinctly recall was after a children's party at ourhouse. Carlotta singled out Mrs. Burbank for enthusiastic commendation. "The other women sent nurses with their children, " said she, "but Mrs. Burbank came herself. She was so sweet in apologizing for coming. Shesaid she hadn't any nurse, and that she was so timid about her childrenthat she never could bring herself to trust them to nurses. And really, Harvey, you don't know how nice she was all the afternoon. She's thekind of mother I approve of, the kind I try to be. Don't you admireher?"

"I don't know her, " said I. "The only time I met her she struck me asbeing--well, rather silent. "

"That's it, " she exclaimed triumphantly. "She doesn't care a rap formen. She's absorbed in her children and her husband. " Then, after apause, she added: "Well, she's welcome to him. I can't see what shefinds to care for. "

"Why?" said I. 

"Oh, he's distinguished-looking, and polite, offensively polite towomen--he doesn't understand them at all--thinks they like deference andflattery, the low-grade molasses kind of flattery. He has a very nicesmile. But he's so stilted and tiresome, always serious, --and such apose! It's what I call the presidential pose. No doubt he'll bePresident some day. "

"Why?" said I. It is amusing to watch a woman fumble about for reasonsfor her intuitions. 

Carlotta did uncommonly well. "Oh, I don't know. He's the sort ofhigh-average American that the people go crazy about. He--he--_looks_like a President, that sort of--solemn--no-sense-of-humor, _Sunday_look, --you know what I mean. Anyhow, he's going to be President. "

I thought not. A few days later, while what Carlotta had said was freshin my mind, he overtook me walking to the capitol. As we went ontogether, I was smiling to myself. He certainly did look and talk like aPresident. He was of the average height, of the average build, and of asort of average facial mold; he had hair that was a compromise among theaverage shades of brown, gray, and black, with a bald spot just wheremost men have it. 

His pose--I saw that Carlotta was shrewdly right. He was acutelyself-conscious, and was acting his pose every instant. He had selectedit early in life; he would wear it, even in his nightshirt, until death. He said nothing brilliant, but neither did he say anything that wouldnot have been generally regarded as sound and sensible. His impressivemanner of delivering his words made one overvalue the freight theycarried. But I soon found, for I studied him with increasing interest, thanks to my new point of view upon him, --I soon found that he had onequality the reverse of commonplace. He had magnetism. 

Whenever a new candidate was proposed for Mazarin's service, he used toask, first of all, "Has he luck?" My first question has been, "Has hemagnetism?" and I think mine is the better measure. Such of one's luckas is not the blundering blindness of one's opponents is usually theresult of one's magnetism. However, it is about the most dangerous ofthe free gifts of nature, --which are all dangerous. Burbank's merit layin his discreet use of it. It compelled men to center upon him; heturned this to his advantage by making them feel, not how he shone, buthow they shone. They went away liking him because they had new reasonsfor being in love with themselves. 

I found only two serious weaknesses. The first was that he lacked themoral courage boldly to do either right or wrong. That explained why, inspite of his talents for impressing people both privately and from theplatform, he was at the end of his political career. The second weaknesswas that he was ashamed of his very obscure and humble origin. He knewthat his being "wholly self-made" was a matchless political asset, andhe used it accordingly. But he looked on it somewhat as the beggar lookson the deformity he exhibits to get alms. 

Neither weakness made him less valuable to my purpose, --the first one, if anything, increased his value. I wanted an instrument that wascapable, but strong only when I used it. 

I wanted a man suitable for development first into governor of my state, and then into a President. I could not have got the presidency formyself, but neither did I want it. My longings were all for power, --thereality, not the shadow. In a republic the man who has the real powermust be out of view. If he is within view, a million hands stretch todrag him from the throne. He _must_ be out of view, putting forward hispuppets and changing them when the people grow bored or angry with them. And the President--in all important matters he must obey his party, which is, after all, simply the "interests" that finance it; inunimportant matters, his so-called power is whittled down by the party'sleaders and workers, whose requirements may not be disregarded. Heshakes the plum tree, but he does it under orders; others gather thefruit, and he gets only the exercise and the "honor. "

I had no yearning for puppetship, however exalted the title or sonorousthe fame; but to be the power that selects the king-puppet of thepolitical puppet-hierarchy, to be the power that selects and ruleshim, --that was the logical development of my career. 

In Burbank I thought I had found a man worthy to wear the puppetrobes, --one who would glory in them. He, like most of the otherambitious men I have known, cared little who was behind the throne, provided he himself was seated upon it, the crown on his head and thecrowds tossing the hats that shelter their dim-thinking brains. Also, inaddition to magnetism and presence, he had dexterity and distinction andas much docility as can be expected in a man big enough to use forimportant work. 

In September I gave him our party nomination for governor. In ourone-sided state that meant his election. 

As I had put him into the governorship not so much for use there as foruse thereafter, it was necessary to protect him from my combine, whichhad destroyed his two immediate predecessors by over-use, --they hadbecome so unpopular that their political careers ended with their terms. Protect him I must, though the task would be neither easy nor pleasant. It involved a collision with my clients, --a square test of strengthbetween us. What was to me far more repellent, it involved my personallytaking a hand in that part of my political work which I had hithertoleft to Woodruff and his lieutenants. 

One does not in person chase and catch and kill and dress and serve thechicken he has for dinner; he orders chicken, and hears and thinks nomore about it until it is served. Thus, all the highly disagreeable partof my political work was done by others; Woodruff, admirably capable andmost careful to spare my feelings, received the demands of my clientsfrom their lawyers and transmitted them to the party leaders in thelegislature with the instructions how the machinery was to be used inmaking them into law. As I was financing the machines of both parties, his task was not difficult, though delicate. 

But now that I began to look over Woodruff's legislative program inadvance, I was amazed at the rapacity of my clients, rapacious though Iknew them to be. I had been thinking that the independentnewspapers--there were a few such, but of small circulation andinfluence--were malignant in their attacks upon my "friends. " In fact, as I soon saw, they had told only a small part of the truth. They hadnot found out the worst things that were done; nor had they grasped howlittle the legislature and the governor were doing other than thebusiness of the big corporations, most of it of doubtful public benefit, to speak temperately. An hour's study of the facts and I realized asnever before why we are so rapidly developing a breed ofmulti-millionaires in this country with all the opportunities to wealthin their hands. I had only to remember that the system which ruled myown state was in full blast in every one of the states of the Union. Everywhere, no sooner do the people open or propose to open a new roadinto a source of wealth, than men like these clients of mine hurry tothe politicians and buy the rights to set up toll-gates and to fix theirown schedule of tolls. 

However, the time had now come when I must assert myself. I made noradical changes in that first program of Burbank's term. I contentedmyself with cutting off the worst items, those it would have ruinedBurbank to indorse. My clients were soon grumbling, but Woodruff handledthem well, placating them with excuses that soothed their annoyance todiscontented silence. So ably did he manage it that not until Burbank'sthird year did they begin to come directly to me and complain of the waythey were being "thrown down" at the capitol. 

Roebuck, knowing me most intimately and feeling that he was my authorand protector, was frankly insistent. "We got almost nothing at the lastsession, " he protested, "and this winter--Woodruff tells me we may notget the only thing we're asking. "

I was ready for him, as I was for each of the ten. I took out the listof measures passed or killed at the last session in the interest of thePower Trust. It contained seventy-eight items, thirty-four of thempassed. I handed it to him. 

"Yes, --a few things, " he admitted, "but all trifles!"

"That little amendment to the Waterways law must alone have netted youthree or four millions already. "

"Nothing like that. Nothing like that. "

"I can organize a company within twenty-four hours that will pay youfour millions in cash for the right, and stock besides. "

He did not take up my offer. 

"You have already had thirteen matters attended to this winter, " Ipursued. "The one that can't be done--Really, Mr. Roebuck, the wholestate knows that the trustees of the Waukeegan Christian University areyour dummies. It would be insanity for the party to turn over a hundredthousand acres of valuable public land gratis to them, so that they canpresently sell it to you for a song. "

He reddened. "Newspaper scandal!" he blustered, but changed the subjectas soon as he had shown me and re-shown himself that his motives werepure. 

I saw that Burbank's last winter was to be crucial. My clients wereclamorous, and were hinting at all sorts of dire doings if they were nottreated better. Roebuck was questioning, in the most malignantlyfriendly manner, "whether, after all, Harvey, the combine isn't amistake, and the old way wasn't the best. " On the other hand Burbank wasbecoming restless. He had so cleverly taken advantage of the chances todo popular things, which I had either made for him or pointed out tohim, that he had become something of a national figure. When he goteighty-one votes for the presidential nomination in our party's nationalconvention his brain was dizzied. Now he was in a tremor lest my clientsshould demand of him things that would diminish or destroy this saplingpopularity which, in his dreams, he already saw grown into a mighty treeobscuring the national heavens. 

I gave many and many an hour to anxious thought and careful planningthat summer and fall. It was only a few days before Doc Woodruffappeared at Fredonia with the winter's legislative program that I saw myway straight to what I hoped was broad day. The program he brought wasso outrageous that it was funny. There was nothing in it for the Ramsayinterests, but each of the other ten had apparently exhausted theingenuity of its lawyers in concocting demands that would have wreckedfor ever the party granting them. 

"Our friends are modest, " said I. 

"They've gone clean crazy, " replied Woodruff. "And if you could haveheard them talk! It's impossible to make them see that anybody has anyrights but themselves. "

"Well, let me have the details, " said I. "Explain every item on thislist; tell me just what it means, and just how the lawyers propose todisguise it so the people won't catch on. "

When he finished, I divided the demands into three classes, --theimpossible, the possible, and the practicable. "Strike out all theimpossible, " I directed. "Cut down the possible to the ten that areleast outrageous. Those ten and the practicable must be passed. "

He read off the ten which were beyond the limits of prudence, but notmob-and-hanging matters. "We can pass them, of course, " was his comment. "We could pass a law ordering the state house burned, but--"

"Precisely, " said I. "I think the consequences will be interesting. " Icross-marked the five worst of the ten possibilities. "Save those untilthe last weeks of the session. "

Early in the session Woodruff began to push the five least bad of thebad measures on to the calendar of the legislature, one by one. When thethird was introduced, Burbank took the Limited for Washington. Hearrived in time to join my wife and my little daughter Frances and me atbreakfast. He was so white and sunken-eyed and his hands were sounsteady that Frances tried in vain to take her solemn, wondering, pitying gaze from his face. As soon as my study door closed behind us, he burst out, striding up and down. 

"I don't know _what_ to think, Sayler, " he cried, "I don't _know_ whatto think! The demands of these corporations have been growing, growing, growing! And now--You have seen the calendar?"

"Yes, " said I. "Some of the bills are pretty stiff, aren't they? But theboys tell me they're for our best friends, and that they're allnecessary. "

"No doubt, no doubt, " he replied, "but it will be impossible toreconcile the people. " Suddenly he turned on me, his eyes full of fearand suspicion. "Have _you_ laid a plot to ruin me, Sayler? It certainlylooks that way. Have you a secret ambition for the presidency--"

"Don't talk rubbish, James, " I interrupted. Those few meaningless votesin the national convention had addled his common sense. "Sit down, --calmyourself, --tell me all about it. "

He seated himself and ran his fingers up and down his temples andthrough his wet hair that was being so rapidly thinned and whitened bythe struggles and anxieties of his ambition. "My God!" he cried out, "how I am punished! When I started in my public career, I lookedforward and saw just this time, --when I should be the helpless tool inthe hands of the power I sold myself to. Governor!" He almost shoutedthe word, rising and pacing the floor again. "Governor!"--and he laughedin wild derision. 

I watched him, fascinated. I, too, at the outset of my career, hadlooked forward, and had seen the same peril, but I had avoided it. Wretched figure that he was!--what more wretched, more pitiable than aman groveling and moaning in the mire of his own self-contempt?"Governor!" I said to myself, as I saw awful thoughts flitting likedemons of despair across his face. And I shuddered, and pitied, andrejoiced, --shuddered at the narrowness of my own escape; pitied the manwho seemed myself as I might have been; and rejoiced that I had had mymother with me and in me to impel me into another course. 

"Come, come, Burbank, " said I, "you're not yourself; you've lostsleep--"

"Sleep!" he interrupted, "I have not closed my eyes since I read thosecursed bills. "

"Tell me what you want done, " was my suggestion. "I'll help in any wayI can, --any way that's practicable. "

"Oh, I understand your position, Sayler, " he answered, when he had gotcontrol of himself again, "but I see plainly that the time has come whenthe power that rules me, --that rules us both, --has decided to use me tomy own destruction. If I refuse to do these things, it will destroyme, --and a hundred are eager to come forward and take my place. If I dothese things, the people will destroy me, --and neither is that of thesmallest importance to our master. "

His phrases, "the power that rules us both, " and "our master, " jarred onme. So far as he knew, indeed, so far as "our master" knew, were not heand I in the same class? But that was no time for personal vanity. All Isaid was: "The bills must go through. This is one of those crises thattest a man's loyalty to the party. "

"For the good of the party!" he muttered with a bitter sneer. "Crimeupon crime--yes, crime, I say--that the party may keep the favor of thepowers! And to what end? to what good? Why, that the party may continuein control and so may be of further use to its rulers. " He rested hiselbows on the table and held his face between his hands. He lookedterribly old, and weary beyond the power ever to be rested again. "Istand with the party, --what am I without it?" he went on in a dullvoice. "The people may forget, but, if I offend the master, --he neverforgives or forgets. I'll sign the bills, Sayler, --_if_ they come to meas party measures. "

Burbank had responded to the test. 

A baser man would have acted as scores of governors, mayors, and judgeshave acted in the same situation--would have accepted popular ruin andwould have compelled the powers to make him rich in compensation. Abraver man would have defied it and the powers, would have appealed tothe people--with one chance of winning out against ten thousand chancesof being disbelieved and laughed at as a "man who thinks he's too goodfor his party. " Burbank was neither too base nor too brave; clearly, Iassured myself, he is the man I want. I felt that I might safely relievehis mind, so far as I could do so without letting him too far into mysecret plans. 

I had not spent five minutes in explanation before he was up, his faceradiant, and both hands stretched out to me. 

"Forgive me, Harvey!" he cried. "I shall never distrust you again. I putmy future in your hands. "

XII

BURBANK FIRES THE POPULAR HEART

That was, indeed, a wild winter at the state capital, --a "carnival ofcorruption, " the newspapers of other states called it. One of the firstof the "black bills" to go through was a disguised street railway grab, out of which Senator Croffut got a handsome "counsel fee" of fifty-oddthousand dollars. But as the rout went on, ever more audaciously andrecklessly, he became uneasy. In mid-February he was urging me to goWest and try to do something to "curb those infernal grabbers. " Irefused to interfere. He went himself, and Woodruff reported to me thathe was running round the state house and the hotels like a crazy man;for when he got into the thick of it, he realized that it was much worsethan it seemed from Washington. In a few days he was back and at meagain. 

"It's very strange, " said he suspiciously. "The boys say they're gettingnothing out of it. They declare they're simply obeying orders. "

"Whose orders?" I asked. 

"I don't know, " he answered, his eyes sharply upon me. "But I do knowthat, unless something is done, I'll not be returned to the Senate. We'll lose the legislature, sure, next fall. "

"It does look that way, " I said with a touch of melancholy. "That streetrailway grab was the beginning of our rake's progress. We've been goingit, hell bent, ever since. "

He tossed his handsome head and was about to launch into an angrydefense of himself. But my manner checked him. He began to plead. "_You_can stop it, Sayler. Everybody out there says you can. And, if I amreëlected, I've got a good chance for the presidential nomination. Should I get it and be elected, we could form a combination that wouldinterest you, I think. "

It was a beautiful irony that in his conceit he should give as hisreason why I should help him the very reason why I was not sorry he wasto be beaten. For, although he was not dangerous, still he was a rivalpublic figure to Burbank in our state, and, --well, accidents sometimeshappen, unless they're guarded against. 

"What shall I do?" I asked him. 

"Stop them from passing any more black bills. Why, they've got half adozen ready, some of them worse even than the two they passed overBurbank's veto, a week ago. "

"For instance?"

He cited three Power Trust bills. 

"But why don't _you_ stop those three?" said I. "They're under thespecial patronage of Dominick. You have influence with him. "

"Dominick!" he groaned. "Are you sure?" And when I nodded emphatically, he went on: "I'll do what I can, but--" He threw up his hands. 

He was off for the West that night. When he returned, his face wore thelook of doom. He had always posed for the benefit of the galleries, especially the women in the galleries. But now he became sloven indress, often issued forth unshaven, and sat sprawled at his desk in theSenate, his chin on his shirt bosom, looking vague and starting when anyone spoke to him. 

Following my advice on the day when I sent him away happy, Burbank leftthe capital and the state just before the five worst bills left thecommittees. He was called to the bedside of his wife who, so all thenewspapers announced, was at the point of death at Colorado Springs. 

While he was there nursing her as she "hovered between life and death, "the bills were jammed through the senate and the assembly. 

He telegraphed the lieutenant governor not to sign them, as he wasreturning and wished to deal with them himself. He reached the capitalon a Thursday morning, sent the bills back with a "ringing" vetomessage, and took the late afternoon train for Colorado Springs. It wasas good a political "grand-stand play" as ever thrilled a people. 

The legislature passed the bills over his veto and adjourned that night. 

Press and people, without regard to party lines, were loud in theirexecrations of the "abandoned and shameless wretches" who had "betrayedthe state and had covered themselves with eternal infamy. " I quote froman editorial in the newspaper that was regarded as my personal organ. But there was only praise for Burbank; his enemies, and those who haddoubted his independence and had suspected him of willingness to doanything to further his personal ambitions, admitted that he had shown"fearless courage, inflexible honesty, and the highest ideals of privatesacrifice to public duty. " And they eagerly exaggerated him, to make hiswhite contrast more vividly with the black of the "satanic spawn" in thelegislature. His fame spread, carried far and wide by the sentimentalityin that supposed struggle between heart and conscience, between love forthe wife of his bosom and duty to the people. 

Carlotta, who like most women took no interest in politics because itlacks "heart-interest, " came to me with eyes swimming and cheeks aglow. She had just been reading about Burbank's heroism. 

"Isn't he splendid!" she cried. "I always told you he'd be President. And you didn't believe me. "

"Be patient with me, my dear, " said I. "I am not a woman withseven-league boots of intuition. I'm only a heavy-footed man. "

XIII

ROEBUCK & CO. PASS UNDER THE YOKE

And now the stage had been reached at which my ten mutinous clientscould be, and must be, disciplined. 

As a first step, I resigned the chairmanship of the state committee andordered the election of Woodruff to the vacancy. I should soon havesubstituted Woodruff for myself, in any event. I had never wanted theplace, and had taken it only because to refuse it would have been tothrow away the golden opportunity Dunkirk so unexpectedly thrust at me. Holding that position, or any other officially connecting me with myparty's machine, made me a target; and I wished to be completely hidden, for I wished the people of my state to think me merely one of the partyservants, in sympathy with the rank and file rather than with themachine. Yet, in the chairmanship, in the targetship, I must have a manwhom I could trust through and through; and, save Woodruff, who wasthere for the place?

When my resignation was announced, the independent and the oppositionpress congratulated me on my high principle in refusing to have anyofficial connection with the machine responsible for such infamies. WhenWoodruff's election was announced it came as a complete surprise. Suchof the newspapers as dared, and they were few, denounced it as infamy'scrown of infamy; and the rank and file of the party was shocked, --as Ihad known it would be. He made not a murmur, but I knew what must be inhis mind. I said nothing until six weeks or two months had passed; thenI went straight at him. 

"You are feeling bitter against me, " said I. "You think I dropped outwhen there was danger of heavy firing, and put you up to take it. "

"No, indeed, Senator, " he protested, "nothing like that. Honestly, Ihave not had a bitter thought against you. I'm depressed simply because, just as I had a chance to get on my feet again, they won't let me. "

"But, " I rejoined, "I did resign and put you in my place because Ididn't want to take the fire and thought you could. "

"And so I can, " said he. "I haven't any reputation to lose. I'm no worseoff than I was before. Let 'em do their damnedest. "

"Your first campaign will probably be a failure, " I went on, "and, theday after election, there'll be a shout for your head. "

He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm enlisted for the war, " said he. "You'remy general. I go where you order. "

I hope the feelings that surged up in me showed in my face, as Istretched out my hand. "Thank you, Doc, " said I. "And--there's anotherside to it. It isn't all black. "

"It isn't black at all, " he replied stoutly. 

I explained: "I've wanted you to have the place from the outset. But Ishouldn't dare give it to you except at a time like this, when our partyhas done so many unpopular things that one more won't count; and there'sso much to be said against us, so much worse things than they canpossibly make out your election to be, that it'll soon be almostneglected. "

"They're beginning to drop me already and go back to harrying those poordevils of ours in the legislature, " said Woodruff. 

"A few weeks more, " I went on, "and you'll be safe and you are to staychairman, no matter what happens. When they have leisure to attack you, there'll be nothing to attack. The people will have dismissed the matterfrom their minds. They don't care to watch the threshing of old straw. "

I saw that I had lifted a weight from him, though he said nothing. 

So much for my first move toward the chastening of my clients. Furtherand even more effective in the same direction, I cut down our campaignfund for the legislative ticket to one-fifth what it usually was; and, without even Woodruff's knowing it, I heavily subsidized the oppositionmachine. Wherever it could be done with safety I arranged for thetrading off of our legislative ticket for our candidate for governor. "The legislature is hopelessly lost, " I told Woodruff; "we mustconcentrate on the governorship. We must save what we can. " In fact, sooverwhelmingly was our party in the majority, and so loyal were itsrank and file, that it was only by the most careful arrangement of weakcandidates and of insufficient campaign funds that I was able to throwthe legislature to the opposition. Our candidate for governor, Walbrook--Burbank was ineligible to a second successive term--waselected by a comfortable plurality. And, by the way, I saw to it thatthe party organs gave Woodruff enthusiastic praise for rescuing so muchfrom what had looked like utter ruin. 

My clients had been uneasy ever since the furious popular outburst whichhad followed their breaking away from my direction and restraint. Whenthey saw an opposition legislature, they readily believed what they readin the newspapers about the "impending reign of radicalism. " Silliman, the opposition leader, had accepted John Markham's offer of one hundredand fifty thousand dollars for Croffut's seat in the Senate; but Idirected him to send Veerhoft, one of the wildest and cleverest of theopposition radicals. He dared not disobey me. Veerhoft went, and Markhamnever saw again the seventy-five thousand he had paid Silliman as a"retainer. "

Veerhoft in the United States Senate gave my clients the chills; but Iwas preparing the fever for them also. I had Silliman introduce bills inboth houses of the legislature that reached for the privileges of thebig corporations and initiated proceedings to expose their corruption. Ihad Woodruff suggest to Governor Walbrook that, in view of the popularclamor, he ought to recommend measures for equalizing taxation andreadjusting the prices of franchises. As my clients were bonded andcapitalized on the basis of no expense either for taxes or forfranchises, the governor's suggestion, eagerly adopted by Silliman's"horde, " foreshadowed ruin. If the measures should be passed, all thedividends and interest they were paying on "water" would go into thepublic treasury. 

My clients came to me, singly and in pairs, to grovel and to implore. Aninteresting study these arrogant gentlemen made as they cringed, utterlyindifferent to the appearance of self-respect, in their agony for theirimperiled millions. A mother would shrink from abasing herself to savethe life of her child as these men abased themselves in the hope ofsaving their dollars. How they fawned and flattered! They begged mypardon for having disregarded my advice; they assured me that, if Iwould only exert that same genius of mine which had conceived thecombine, I could devise some way of saving them from this tidal wave ofpopular clamor, --for they hadn't a suspicion of my part in making thattidal wave. 

Reluctantly I consented to "see what I can do. "

The instant change in the atmosphere of the capital, the instant outcryfrom the organs of both parties that "the people had voted for reform, not for confiscatory revolution, " completed my demonstration. My clientsrealized who was master of the machines. The threatening storm rapidlyscattered; the people, relieved that the Silliman program of upheavalwas not to be carried out, were glad enough to see the old"conservative" order restored, --our people always reason that it isbetter to rot slowly by corruption than to be frightened to death byrevolution. 

"Hereafter, we must trust to your judgment in these political matters, Harvey, " said Roebuck. "The manager must be permitted to manage. "

I smiled at the ingenuousness of this speech. It did not ruffle me. Roebuck was one of those men who say their prayers in a patronizingtone. 

Yes, I was master. But it is only now, in the retrospect of years, thatI have any sense of triumph; for I had won the supremacy with smalleffort, comparatively, --with the small effort required of him who seesthe conditions of a situation clearly, and, instead of trying to combator to change them, intelligently uses them to his ends. Nor do I nowregard my achievement as marvelous. Everything was in my favor; againstme, there was nothing, --no organization, no plan, no knowledge of myaim. I wonder how much of their supernal glory would be left to theworld's men of action, from its Alexanders and Napoleons down to itssuccessful bandits and ward-bosses, if mankind were in the habit oflooking at what the winner had opposed to him, --Alexander faced only byflocks of sheep-like Asiatic slaves; Napoleon routing the badly trained, wretchedly officered soldiers of decadent monarchies; and the bandit orward-boss overcoming peaceful and unprepared and unorganized citizens. Who would erect statues or write eulogies to a man for mowing a field ofcorn-stalks with a scythe? Mankind is never more amusing than in itshero-worship. 

No, I should simply have been stupid had I failed. 

But--even had I been disposed to rein in and congratulate myself at thequarter-stretch, I could not have done it. A man has, perhaps, somechoice as to his mount before he enters the race for success. But oncein the saddle and off, he must let the reins go; his control is confinedto whip and spur. 

XIV

A "BOOM-FACTORY"

In the early autumn of that last year of his as governor, Burbank's wifedied--a grim and unexpected fulfilment of their pretended anxieties ofsix months before. 

It was, in some respects, as great a loss to me as to him--how great tous both I did not--indeed, could not--measure until several yearspassed. She was what I regard as a typical American wife--devoted to herhusband, jealously guarding his interests, yet as keen to see hisshortcomings as she was to see her own. And how much more persistent andintelligent in correcting her faults than he in correcting his! Likemost men, he was vain--that is, while he would probably have admitted ina large, vague way that he wasn't perfect, when it came to details hewould defend his worst fault against any and all criticism. Like mostwomen, she, too, was vain--but an intelligent woman's vanity, instead ofmaking her self-complacent, somehow spurs her on to hide her weakpoints and to show her best points in the best light. For example, Mrs. Burbank, a pretty woman and proud of it, was yet conscious of herdeficiencies in dress and in manners through her plain and rural earlysurroundings. It was interesting, and instructive, too, to watch herstudying and cleverly copying, or rather, adapting Carlotta; for shetook from Carlotta only that which could be fitted without visible jointinto her own pattern. 

Latterly, whenever I was urging upon Burbank a line of action requiringcourage or a sacrifice of some one of his many insidious forms ofpersonal vanity, I always arranged for her to be present at ourconferences. And she would sit there, apparently absorbed in her sewing;but in reality she was seeing not only the surface reasons I gave him, but also those underlying and more powerful reasons which we do notutter, sometimes because we like to play the hypocrite to ourselves, again because we must give the other person a chance to play thehypocrite before himself--and us. And often I left him reluctant andtrying to muster courage to refuse or finesse to evade, only to findhim the next day consenting, perhaps enthusiastic. Many's the time shespared me the disagreeable necessity of being peremptory--doublydisagreeable because show of authority has ever been distasteful to meand because an order can never be so heartily executed as is anassimilated suggestion. 

When I went to him a month after her death, I expected he would still becrushed as he was at the funeral. I listened with a feeling of revulsionto his stilted and, as it seemed to me, perfunctory platitudes on his"irreparable loss"--stale rhetoric about _her_, and to her most intimatefriend and his! I had thought he would be imagining himself done withambition for ever; I had feared his strongly religious nature would leadhim to see a "judgment" upon him and her for having exaggerated herindisposition to gain a political point. And I had mapped out what Iwould say to induce him to go on. Instead, after a few of thosestereotyped mortuary sentences, he shifted to politics and was presentlyshowing me that her death had hardly interrupted his plannings for thepresidential nomination. As for the "judgment, " I had forgotten that inhis religion his deity was always on his side, and his misfortunes werealways of the evil one. These deities of men of action! Man with his goda ventriloquist puppet in his pocket, and with his conscience an old dogTray at his heels, needing no leading string!

However, it gave me a shock, this vivid reminder from Burbank of theslavery of ambition--ambition, the vice of vices. For it takes itsvictims' all--moral, mental, physical. And, while other vices rarelywreck any but small men or injure more than what is within their smallcircles of influence, ambition seizes only the superior and sets them onto use their superior powers to blast communities, states, nations, continents. Yet it is called a virtue. And men who have sold themselvesto it and for it to the last shred of manhood are esteemed and, mysteryof mysteries, esteem themselves!

I had come to Burbank to manufacture him into a President. His wife andI had together produced an excellent raw material. Now, to make it upinto the finished product!

He pointed to the filing-cases that covered the west wall of his libraryfrom floor to ceiling, from north window to south. "I base my hope onthose--next to you, of course, " said he. Then with his "woeful widower"pose, he added: "They were _her_ suggestions. "

I looked at the filing-cases and waited for him to explain. 

"When we were first married, " he went on presently, "she said, 'It seemsto me, if I were a public man, I should keep everything relating tomyself--every speech, all that the newspapers said, every meeting andthe lists of the important people who were there, notes of _all_ thepeople I ever met anywhere, every letter or telegram or note I received. If you do, you may find after a few years that you have an enormous listof acquaintances. You've forgotten them because you meet so many, butthey will not have forgotten you, who were one of the principal figuresat the meeting or reception. ' That's in substance what she said. And so, we began and kept it up"--he paused in his deliberate manner, compressedhis lips, then added--"together. "

I opened one of the filing-cases, glanced at him for permission, tookout a slip of paper under the M's. It was covered with notes, in Mrs. Burbank's writing, of a reception given to him at the Manufacturers'Club in St. Louis three years before. A lot of names, after each somereminders of the standing and the personal appearance of the man. Another slip, taken at random from the same box, contained similar notesof a trip through Montana eight years before. 

"Wonderful!" I exclaimed, as the full value of these accumulationsloomed in my mind. "I knew she was an extraordinary woman. Now I seethat she had genius for politics. "

His expression--a peering through that eternal pose of his--made merevise my first judgment of his mourning. For I caught a glimpse of areal human being, one who had loved and lost, looking grief and prideand gratitude. "If she had left me two or three years earlier, " he saidin that solemn, posing tone, "I doubt if I should have got one stepfurther. As it is, I may be able to go on, though--I have lost--mystaff. "

What fantastic envelopes does man, after he has been finished byNature, wrap about himself in his efforts to improve her handiwork!Physically, even when most dressed, we are naked in comparison with theenswathings that hide our real mental and moral selves from oneanother--and from ourselves. 

My campaign was based on the contents of those filing-cases. I learnedall the places throughout the West--cities, towns, centrally-locatedvillages--where he had been and had made an impression; and by simpleand obvious means we were able to convert them into centers of "theBurbank boom. " I could afterward trace to the use we made of thosememoranda the direct getting of no less than one hundred and sevendelegates to the national convention--and that takes no account of thevaster indirect value of so much easily worked-up, genuine, unpurchasedand unpurchasable "Burbank sentiment. " The man of only local prominence, whom Burbank remembered perfectly after a chance meeting years before, could have no doubt who ought to be the party's nominee for President. 

The national machine of our party was then in the custody, andsupposedly in the control, of Senator Goodrich of New Jersey. He had areputation for Machiavellian dexterity, but I found that he was anaccident rather than an actuality. 

The dominion of the great business interests over politics was the rapidgrowth of about twenty years--the consolidations of business naturallyproducing concentrations of the business world's political power in thehands of the few controllers of the big railway, industrial andfinancial combines. Goodrich had happened to be acquainted with some ofthe most influential of these business "kings"; they naturally made himtheir agent for the conveying of their wishes and their bribes of onekind and another to the national managers of both parties. They knewlittle of the details of practical politics, knew only what they neededin their businesses; and as long as they got that, it did not interestthem what was done with the rest of the power their "campaigncontributions" gave. 

With such resources any man of good intelligence and discretion couldhave got the same results as Goodrich's. He was simply a lackey, strutting and cutting a figure in his master's clothes and under hismaster's name. He was pitifully vain of his reputation as a Machiavelliand a go-between. Vanity is sometimes a source of great strength; butvanity of that sort, and about a position in which secrecy is the primerequisite, could mean only weakness. 

Throughout his eight years of control of our party it had had possessionof all departments of the national administration--except of the Houseof Representatives during the past two years. This meant theuninterrupted and unchecked reign of the interests. To treat withconsideration the interests, the strong men of the country, they whomust have a free hand for developing its resources, to give themprivileges and immunities beyond what can be permitted the ordinarycitizen or corporation--that is a course which, however offensive toabstract justice, still has, as it seems to me, a practical justice init, and, at any rate, must be pursued so long as the masses of thevoters are short-sighted, unreasoning and in nose-rings to politicalmachines. A man's rights, whatever they may be in theory, are inpractice only what he has the intelligence and the power to compel. But, for the sake of the nation, for the upholding of civilizationitself, these over-powerful interests should never be given their heads, should be restrained as closely as may be to their rights--their_practical_ rights. Goodrich had neither the sagacity nor thepatriotism--nor the force of will, for that matter--to keep them withinthe limits of decency and discretion. Hence the riot of plunder andprivilege which revolted and alarmed me when I came to Washington andsaw politics in the country-wide, yes, history-wide, horizon of thatview-point. 

Probably I should have been more leisurely in bringing my presidentialplans to a focus, had I not seen how great and how near was the peril tomy party. It seemed to me, not indeed a perfect or even a satisfactory, but the best available, instrument for holding the balances of order aseven as might be between our country's two opposing elements ofdisorder--the greedy plunderers and the rapidly infuriating plundered. And I saw that no time was to be lost, if the party was not to be blownto fragments. The first mutterings of the storm were in our summaryejection from control of the House in the midway election. If the partywere not to be dismembered, I must oust Goodrich, must defeat his plansfor nominating Cromwell, must nominate Burbank instead. If I shouldsucceed in electing him, I reasoned that I could through him carry outmy policy of moderation and _practical_ patriotism--to yield to thepowerful few a minimum of what they could compel, to give to theprostrate but potentially powerful many at least enough to keep themquiet--a stomachful. The world may have advanced; but patriotism stillremains the art of restraining the arrogance of full stomachs and theanger of empty ones. 

In Cromwell, Goodrich believed he had a candidate with sufficient holdupon the rank and file of the party to enable him to carry the electionby the usual means--a big campaign fund properly distributed in thedoubtful states. I said to Senator Scarborough of Indiana soon afterCromwell's candidacy was announced: "What do you think of Goodrich'sman?"

Scarborough, though new to the Senate then, had shown himself far andaway the ablest of the opposition Senators. He had as much intellect asany of them; and he had what theorists, such as he, usually lack, skillat "grand tactics"--the management of men in the mass. His oneweakness--and that, from my standpoint, a great one--was a literalbelief in democratic institutions and in the inspiring but in practicepernicious principle of exact equality before the law. 

"Cromwell's political sponsors, " was his reply, "are two as shrewdbankers as there are in New York. I have heard it said that a fittingsign for a bank would be: 'Here we do nothing for nothing for nobody. '"

An admirable summing up of Cromwell's candidacy. And I knew that itwould so appear to the country, that no matter how great a corruptionfund Goodrich might throw into the campaign, we should, in that time ofpublic exasperation, be routed if Cromwell was our standard-bearer--soutterly routed that we could not possibly get ourselves together againfor eight, perhaps twelve years. There might even be a re-alignment ofparties with some sort of socialism in control of one of them. Ifcontrol were to be retained by the few who have the capital and theintellect to make efficient the nation's resources and energy, myprojects must be put through at once. 

I had accumulated a fund of five hundred thousand dollars for my"presidential flotation"--half of it contributed by Roebuck in exchangefor a promise that his son-in-law should have an ambassadorship ifBurbank were elected; the other half set aside by me from the "reserve"I had formed out of the year-by-year contributions of my combine. By thejudicious investment of that capital I purposed to get Burbank thenomination on the first ballot--at least four hundred and sixty of thenine hundred-odd delegates. 

In a national convention the delegates are, roughly speaking, aboutevenly divided among the three sections of the country--a third fromeast of the Alleghanies; a third from the West; a third from the South. It was hopeless for us to gun for delegates in the East; that was theespecial bailiwick of Senator Goodrich. The most we could do there wouldbe to keep him occupied by quietly encouraging any anti-Cromwellsentiment--and it existed a-plenty. Our real efforts were to be in theWest and South. 

I organized under Woodruff a corps of about thirty traveling agents. Each man knew only his own duties, knew nothing of the general plan, noteven that there was a general plan. Each was a trained political worker, a personal retainer of ours. I gave them their instructions; Woodruffequipped them with the necessary cash. During the next five months theywere incessantly on the go--dealing with our party's western machineswhere they could; setting up rival machines in promising localitieswhere Goodrich controlled the regular machines; using money here, diplomacy there, both yonder, promises of patronage everywhere. 

Such was my department of secrecy. At the head of my department ofpublicity I put De Milt, a sort of cousin of Burbank's and a newspaperman. He attended to the subsidizing of news agencies that suppliedthousands of country papers with boiler-plate matter to fill theirinside pages. He also subsidized and otherwise won over many small townorgans of the party. Further, he and three assistants wrote each weekmany columns of "boom" matter, all of which was carefully revised byBurbank himself before it went out as "syndicate letters. " If Goodrichhadn't been ignorant of conditions west of the Alleghanies and confidentthat his will was law, he would have scented out this department ofpublicity of mine and so would have seen into my "flotation. " But heknew nothing beyond his routine. I once asked him how many countrynewspapers there were in the United States, and he said: "Oh, I don'tknow. Perhaps three or four thousand. " Even had I enlightened him to theextent of telling him that there were about five times that number, hewould have profited nothing. Had he been able to see the importance ofsuch a fact to capable political management, he would have learned itlong before through years of constant use of the easiest avenue into theheart of the people. 

He did not wake up to adequate action until the fourth of that group ofstates whose delegations to our national conventions were habituallybought and sold, broke its agreement with him and instructed itsdelegation to vote for Burbank. By the time he had a corps of agents inthose states, Doc Woodruff had "acquired" more than a hundred delegates. Goodrich was working only through the regular machinery of the party andwas fighting against a widespread feeling that Cromwell shouldn't, andprobably couldn't, be elected; we, on the other hand, were manufacturingpresidential sentiment for a candidate who was already popular. Nor hadGoodrich much advantage over us with the regular machines anywhereexcept in the East. 

Just as I was congratulating myself that nothing could happen to preventour triumph at the convention, Roebuck telegraphed me to come toChicago. I found with him in the sitting-room of his suite in theAuditorium Annex, Partridge and Granby, next to him the most importantmembers of my combine, since they were the only ones who had intereststhat extended into many states. It was after an uneasy silence thatGranby, the uncouth one of the three, said:

"Senator, we brought you here to tell you this Burbank nonsense has gonefar enough. "

XV

MUTINY

It was all I could do not to show my astonishment and sudden fury. "Idon't understand, " said I, in a tone which I somehow managed to keepdown to tranquil inquiry. 

But I did understand. It instantly came to me that the three had beenbrought into line for Cromwell by their powerful business associates inWall Street, probably by the great bankers who loaned them money. Swiftupon the surge of anger I had suppressed before it flamed at the surfacecame a surge of triumph--which I also suppressed. I had often wished, perhaps as a matter of personal pride, just this opportunity; and hereit was!

"Cromwell must be nominated, " said Granby in his insolent tone. He hadbut two tones--the insolent and the cringing. "He's safe and sound. Burbank isn't trusted in the East. And we didn't like his conduct lastyear. He caters to the demagogues. "

Roebuck, through his liking for me, I imagine, rather than throughrefined instinct, now began to speak, thinly disguising his orders asrequests. I waited until he had talked himself out. I waited with thesame air of calm attention until Partridge had given me his jerkyvariation. I waited, still apparently calm, until the silence must havebeen extremely uncomfortable to them. I waited until Granby saidsharply, "Then it is settled?"

"Yes, " said I, keeping all emotion out of my face and voice. "It issettled. Ex-Governor Burbank is to be nominated. I am at a loss toaccount for this outbreak. However, I shall at once take measures toprevent its occurring again. Good day. "

And I was gone--straight to the train. I did not pause at Fredonia butwent on to the capital. The next morning I had the legislature and theattorney-general at work demolishing Granby's business in my state--forI had selected him to make an example of, incidentally because he hadinsulted me, but chiefly because he was the most notorious of my ten, was about the greediest and crudest "robber baron" in the West. Mylegislature was to revoke his charter; my attorney-general was toenforce upon him the laws I had put on the statute books against justsuch emergencies. And it had never entered their swollen heads that Imight have taken these precautions that are in the primer of politicalmanagement. 

My three mutineers pursued me to the capital, missed me, were standingbreathless at the door of my house near Fredonia on the morning of thethird day. I refused to be seen until the afternoon of the fourth day, and then I forbade Granby. But when I descended to the reception-room herushed at me, tried to take my hand, pouring out a stream of sickeningapologies. I rang the bell. When a servant appeared, I said, "Show thisman the door. "

Granby turned white and, after a long look into my face, said in abroken voice to Roebuck: "For God's sake, don't go back on me, Mr. Roebuck. Do what you can for me. "

As the curtain dropped behind him, I looked expectantly at Roebuck, sweating with fright for his imperiled millions. Probably his mentalstate can be fully appreciated only by a man who has also felt the dreadof losing the wealth upon which he is wholly dependent for courage, respect and self-respect. 

"Don't misunderstand me, Harvey, " he began to plead, forgetting thatthere was anybody else to save besides himself. "I didn't mean--"

"What _did_ you mean?" I interrupted, my tone ominously quiet. 

"We didn't intend--" began Partridge. 

"What _did_ you intend?" I interrupted as quietly as before. 

They looked nervously each at the other, then at me. "If you thinkBurbank's the man, " Roebuck began again, "why, you may go ahead--"

There burst in me such a storm of anger that I dared not speak until Icould control and aim the explosion. Partridge saw how, and howseriously, Roebuck had blundered. He thrust him aside and faced me. "What's the use of beating around the bush?" he said bluntly. "We'vemade damn fools of ourselves, Senator. We thought we had the whip. Wesee that we haven't. We're mighty sorry we didn't do a little thinkingbefore Roebuck sent that telegram. We hope you'll let us off as easy asyou can, and we promise not to meddle in your business again--and youcan bet your life we'll keep our promise. "

"I think you will, " said I. 

"I am a man of my word, " said he. "And so is Roebuck. "

"Oh, I don't mean that, " was my answer. "I mean, when the Granbyobject-lesson in the stupidity of _premature_ ingratitude is complete, you shan't be able to forget it. "

They drifted gloomily in the current of their unpleasant thoughts; theneach took a turn at wringing my hand. I invited them up to mysitting-room where we smoked and talked amicably for a couple of hours. It would have amused the thousands of employés and dependents over whomthese two lorded it arrogantly to have heard with what care they weighedtheir timid words, how nervous they were lest they should give me freshprovocation. As they were leaving, Roebuck said earnestly: "Isn't there_anything_ I can do for you, Harvey?"

"Why, yes, " said I. "Give out a statement next Sunday in Chicago--forthe Monday morning papers--indorsing Cromwell's candidacy. Say you andall your associates are enthusiastic for it because his election wouldgive the large enterprises that have been the object of demagogic attacka sense of security for at least four years more. "

He thought I was joking him, being unable to believe me so lacking injudgment as to fail to realize what a profound impression in Cromwell'sfavor such a statement from the great Roebuck would produce. I wrote andmailed him an interview with himself the following day; he gave it outas I had requested. It got me Burbank delegations in Illinois, SouthDakota and Oregon the same week. 

XVI

A VICTORY FOR THE PEOPLE

I arrived at Chicago the day before the convention and, going at once toour state headquarters in the Great Northern, shut myself in with DocWoodruff. My door-keeper, the member of the legislature from Fredonia, ventured to interrupt with the announcement that a messenger had comefrom Senator Goodrich. 

"Let him in, " said I. 

As the door-man disappeared Doc Woodruff glanced at his watch, then saidwith a smile: "You've been here seven minutes and a half--just time fora lookout down stairs to telephone to the Auditorium and for themessenger to drive from there here. Goodrich is on the anxious-seat, allright. "

The messenger was Goodrich's handy-man, Judge Dufour. I myself havealways frowned on these public exhibitions of the intimacy of judges inpractical politics; but Goodrich had many small vanities--he liked hisjudges to hold his coat and his governors to carry his satchel. Onewould say that such petty weaknesses would be the undoing of a man. Fortunately, we are not as weak as our weakness but as strong as ourstrength; and while the universal weaknesses are shared by the strong, their strength is peculiar and rare. After Dufour had introduced himselfand we had exchanged commonplaces he said: "Senator, there's a littleconference of some of the leaders at headquarters and it isn't completewithout you. So, Senator Goodrich has sent me over to escort you. "

"Thank you--very courteous of you and of him, " said I withouthesitation, for I knew what was coming as soon as his name had beenbrought in, and my course was laid out. "But I can't leave just now. Please ask him if he won't come over--any time within the next fourhours. " This blandly and without a sign that I was conscious of Dufour'sstupefaction--for his vanity made him believe that the god the greatDufour knelt to must be the god of gods. 

There is no more important branch of the art of successful dealing withmen than the etiquette of who shall call upon whom. Many a man has inhis very hour of triumph ruined his cause with a blunder there--by goingto see some one whom he should have compelled to come to him, or bycompelling some one to come to him when he should have made theconcession of going. I had two reasons for thus humiliating Goodrich, neither of them the reason he doubtless attributed to me, the desire tofeed my vanity. My first reason was his temperament; I knew his havingto come to me would make him bow before me in spirit, as he was atyrant, and tyrants are always cringers. My second reason was that Ithought myself near enough to control of the convention to be able towin control by creating the atmosphere of impending success. There isalways a lot of fellows who wait to see who is likely to win, so thatthey may be on the side of the man in the plum tree; often there areenough of these to gain the victory for him who can lure them over atjust the right moment. 

As soon as Dufour had taken his huge body away I said to Woodruff: "Goout with your men and gather in the office down stairs as many membersof the doubtful delegations as you can. Keep them where they'll be boundto see Goodrich come in and go out. "

He rushed away, and I waited--working with the leaders of threefar-western states. At the end of two hours, I won them by the spectacleof the arriving Goodrich. He came in, serene, smiling, giving me thejoyously shining eyes and joyously firm hand-clasp of the politician'sgreeting; not an outward sign that he would like to see me tortured todeath by some slow process then and there. Hypocritical preliminarieswere not merely unnecessary but even highly ridiculous; yet, so greatwas his anger and confusion that he began with the "prospects for anold-time convention, with old-time enthusiasm and that generous rivalrywhich is the best sign of party health. "

"I hope not, Senator, " said I pleasantly. "Here, we think the fight isover--and won. "

He lifted his eyebrows; but I saw his maxillary muscles twitching. "Wedon't figure it out just that way at headquarters, " he replied oilily. "But, there's no doubt about it, your man has developed strength in theWest. "

"And South, " said I, with deliberate intent to inflame, for I knew howhe must feel about those delegates we had bought away from him. 

There were teeth enough in his smile--but little else. "I think Burbankand Cromwell will be about even on the first ballot, " said he. "May thebest man win! We're all working for the good of the party and thecountry. But--I came, rather, to get your ideas about platform. "

I opened a drawer in the table at which I was sitting and took out apaper. "We've embodied our ideas in this, " said I, holding the papertoward him. "There's a complete platform, but we only insist on the fiveparagraphs immediately after the preamble. "

He seemed to age as he read. "Impossible!" he finally exclaimed. "Preposterous! It would be difficult enough to get any money for_Cromwell_ on such a platform, well as our conservative men know theycan trust him. But for _Burbank_--you couldn't get a cent--not a damncent! A rickety candidate on a rickety platform--that's what they'dsay. "

I made no answer. 

"May I ask, " he presently went on, "has ex-Governor Burbank seenthis--this astonishing document?"

Burbank had written it. I confess when he first showed it to me, it hadaffected me somewhat as it was now affecting Goodrich. For, a dealerwith business men as well as with public sentiment, I appreciatedinstantly the shock some of the phrases would give the large interests. But Burbank had not talked to me five minutes before I saw he was in themain right and that his phrases only needed a little "toning down" sothat they wouldn't rasp too harshly on "conservative" ears, "Yes, Mr. Burbank has seen it, " said I. "He approves it--though, of course, itdoes not represent his _personal_ views, or his _intentions_. "

"If Mr. Burbank approves _this_, " exclaimed Goodrich, red and tossingthe paper on the table, "then my gravest doubts about him are confirmed. He is an utterly unsafe man. He could not carry a single state in theEast where there are any large centerings of capital or ofenterprise--not even our yellow-dog states. "

"He can and will carry them all, " said I. "They _must_ go for him, because after the opposition have nominated, and have announced theirplatform, your people will regard him as, at any rate, much the less oftwo evils. We have decided on that platform because we wish to make itpossible for him to carry the necessary Western states. We can't holdour rank and file out here unless we have a popular platform. The peoplemust have their way _before_ election, Senator, if the interests are tocontinue to have their way _after_ election. "

"I'll never consent to that platform, " said he, rising. 

"Very well, " said I with a mild show of regret, rising also as if I hadno wish to prolong the interview. 

He brought his hand down violently upon the paper. "This, " he exclaimed, "is a timely uncovering of a most amazing plot--a plot to turn our partyover to demagoguery. "

"To rescue it from the combination of demagoguery and plutagoguery thatis wrecking it, " said I without heat, "and make it again an instrumentof at least sanity, perhaps of patriotism. "

"We control the platform committee, " he went on, "and I can tell younow, Senator Sayler, that that there platform, nor nothing like it, willnever be reported. " In his agitation he went back to the grammar of hisyouthful surroundings. 

"I regret that you will force us to a fight on the floor of theconvention, " I returned. "It can't but make a bad impression on thecountry to see two factions in the party--one for the people, the otheragainst them. "

Goodrich sat down. 

"But, " I went on, "at least, such a fight will insure Burbank all thedelegates except perhaps the two or three hundred you directly control. You are courageous, Senator, to insist upon a count of noses on theissues we raise there. "

He took up the platform again, and began to pick it to pieces phrase byphrase. That was what I wanted. Some phrases I defended, some I concededmight be altered to advantage, others I cheerfully agreed to discardaltogether. Presently he had a pencil in his hand and was going over thecrucial paragraphs, was making interlineations. And he grew more andmore reasonable. At last I suggested that he take the platform awaywith him, make the changes agreed upon and such others as he mightthink wise, and send it back for my criticism and suggestions. Heassented, and we parted on excellent terms--"harmony" in the conventionwas assured. 

When the amended platform came back late in the afternoon, I detainedGoodrich's messenger, the faithful Dufour again. It was still theBurbank platform, with no changes we could not concede. I had a copymade and gave it to Dufour, saying: "Tell the Senator I think thisadmirable, a great improvement. But I'll try to see him to-night andthank him. "

I did not try to see him, however. I took no risk of lessening theeffect created by his having to come to me. He had entered throughgroups of delegates from all parts of the country. He had passed outthrough a crowd, so well did my men employ the time his long stay withme gave them. 

On the next day the platform was adopted. On the following day, amiddelirious enthusiasm in the packed galleries and not a little agitationamong the delegates--who, even to the "knowing ones, " were as ignorantof what was really going on as private soldiers are of the general'splan of battle--amid waving of banners and crash of band and shriek ofcrowd Burbank was nominated on the first ballot. Our press hailed thenomination as a "splendid victory of the honest common sense of theentire party over the ultra conservatism of a faction associated in thepopular mind with segregated wealth and undue enjoyment of the favors oflaws and law-makers. "

When I saw Burbank he took me graciously by the hand. "I thank you, Harvey, " he said, "for your aid in this glorious victory of the people. "

I did not realize then that his vanity was of the kind which can in aninstant spring into a Redwood colossus from the shriveled stalk to whichthe last glare of truth has wilted it. Still his words and manner jarredon me. As our eyes met, something in mine--perhaps something he imaginedhe saw--made him frown in the majesty of offended pose. Then histimidity took fright and he said apologetically, "How can I repay you?After all, it is your victory. "

I protested. 

"Then _ours_, " said he. "Yours, for us. "

XVII

SCARBOROUGH

Now came _the_ problem--to elect. 

We hear much of many wonders of combination and concentration of_industrial_ power which railway and telegraph have wrought. But nothingis said about what seems to me the greatest wonder of them all--howthese forces have resulted in the concentration of the _political_ powerof upwards of twelve millions of our fifteen million voters; how the fewcan impose their ideas and their will upon widening circles, out andout, until all are included. The people are scattered; the powersconfer, man to man, day by day. The people are divided by partizan andother prejudices; the powers are bound together by the oneself-interest. The people must accept such political organizations asare provided for them; the powers pay for, and their agents make anddirect, those organizations. The people are poor; the powers are rich. The people have not even offices to bestow; the powers have offices togive and lucrative employment of all kinds, and material and socialadvancement, --everything that the vanity or the appetite of man craves. The people punish but feebly--usually the wrong persons--and soonforget; the powers relentlessly and surely pursue those who oppose them, forgive only after the offender has surrendered unconditionally, andthey never forget where it is to their interest to remember. The powersknow both what they want and how to get it; the people know neither. 

Back in March, when Goodrich first suspected that I had outgeneraledhim, he opened negotiations with the national machine of the oppositionparty. He decided that, if I should succeed in nominating Burbank, hewould save his masters and himself by nominating as the oppositioncandidate a man under their and his control, and by electing him with anenormous campaign fund. 

Beckett, the subtlest and most influential of the managers of thenational machine of the opposition party, submitted several names tohim. He selected Henry J. Simpson, Justice of the Supreme Court ofOhio--a slow, shy, ultra-conservative man, his brain spun full in everycell with the cobwebs of legal technicality. He was, in his way, almostas satisfactory a candidate for the interests as Cromwell would havebeen. For, while he was honest, of what value is honesty when combinedwith credulity and lack of knowledge of affairs? They knew what advisershe would select, men trained in their service and taken from their legalstaffs. They knew he would shrink from anything "radical" or"disturbing"--that is, would not molest the two packs of wolves, thebusiness and the political, at their feast upon the public. He came of aline of bigoted adherents of his party; he led a simple, retired lifeamong sheep and cows and books asleep in the skins of sheep and cows. Hewore old-fashioned rural whiskers, thickest in the throat, thinningtoward the jawbone, scant about the lower lip, absent from the upper. These evidences of unfitness to cope with up-to-date corruption seemedto endear him to the masses. 

As soon as those big organs of the opposition that were in the controlof the powers began to talk of Simpson as an ideal candidate, Isuspected what was in the wind. But I had my hands full; the most Icould then do was to supply my local "left-bower, " Silliman, with fundsand set him to work for a candidate for his party more to my taste. Itwas fortunate for me that I had cured myself of the habit of worrying. For it was plain that, if Goodrich and Beckett succeeded in gettingSimpson nominated by the opposition, I should have a hard fight to raisethe necessary campaign money. The large interests either would financeSimpson or, should I convince them that Burbank was as good for theirpurposes as Simpson, would be indifferent which won. 

I directed Silliman to work for Rundle of Indiana, a thoroughly honestman, in deadly earnest about half a dozen deadly wrong things, andcapable of anything in furthering them--after the manner of fanatics. Ifhe had not been in public life, he would have been a camp-meetingexhorter. Crowds liked to listen to him; the radicals and radicallyinclined throughout the West swore by him; he had had two terms inCongress, had got a hundred-odd votes for the nomination for Presidentat the last national convention of the opposition. A splendid scarecrowfor the Wall Street crowd, but difficult to nominate over Goodrich's manSimpson in a convention of practical politicians. 

In May--it was the afternoon of the very day my mutineers got back intothe harness--Woodruff asked me if I would see a man he had picked up ina delegate-hunting trip into Indiana. "An old pal of mine, much thebetter for the twelve years' wear since I last saw him. He has alwaystrained with the opposition. He's a full-fledged graduate of the Indianaschool of politics, and that's the best. It's almost all craftthere--they hate to give up money and don't use it except as a lastresort. "

He brought in his man--Merriweather by name. I liked the first look athim--keen, cynical, indifferent. He had evidently sat in so many gamesof chance of all kinds that play roused in him only the ice-cold passionof the purely professional. 

"There's been nothing doing in our state for the last two or threeyears--at least nothing in my line, " said he. "A rank outsider, Scarborough--"

I nodded. "Yes, I know him. He came into the Senate from your state twoyears ago. "

"Well, he's built up a machine of his own and runs things to suithimself. "

"I thought he wasn't a politician, " said I. 

Merriweather's bony face showed a faint grin. "The best ever, " said he. "He's put the professionals out of business, without its costing him acent. I've got tired of waiting for him to blow over. "

Tired--and hungry, I thought. After half an hour of pumping I sent himaway, detaining Woodruff. "What does he really think about Rundle?" Iasked. 

"Says he hasn't the ghost of a chance--that Scarborough'll control theIndiana delegation and that Scarborough has no more use for lunaticsthan for grafters. "

This was not encouraging. I called Merriweather back. "Why don't youpeople nominate Scarborough at St. Louis?" said I. 

Behind his surface of attention, I saw his mind traveling at lightningspeed in search of my hidden purpose along every avenue that mysuggestion opened. 

"Scarborough'd be a dangerous man for you, " he replied. "He's got anasty way of reaching across party lines for votes. "

I kept my face a blank. 

"You've played politics only in your own state or against the Easterncrowd, these last few years, " he went on, as if in answer to mythoughts. "You don't realize what a hold Scarborough's got through theentire West. He has split your party and the machine of his own in ourstate, and they know all about him and his doings in the states to thewest. The people like a fellow that knocks out the regulars. "

"A good many call him a demagogue, don't they?" said I. 

"Yes--and he is, in sort of a way, " replied Merriweather. "But--well, he's got a knack of telling the truth so that it doesn't scare folks. And he's managed to convince them that he isn't looking out for numberone. It can't be denied that he made a good governor. For instance, hegot after the monopolies, and the cost of living is twenty per cent. Lower in Indiana than just across the line in Ohio. "

"Then I should say that all the large interests in the country wouldline up against him, " said I. 

"Every one, " said Merriweather, and an expression of understandingflitted across his face. He went on: "But it ain't much use talkingabout him. He couldn't get the nomination--at least, it wouldn't be easyto get it for him. "

"I suppose not, " said I. "That's a job for a first-class man--andthey're rare. " And I shook hands with him. 

About a week later he returned, and tried to make a report to me. But Isent him away, treating him very formally. I appreciated that, being anexperienced and capable man, he knew the wisdom of getting intimately intouch with his real employer; but, as I had my incomparable Woodruff, better far than I at the rough work of politics, there was no necessityfor my entangling myself. Merriweather went to Woodruff, and Woodruffreported to me--Scarborough's friends in Indianapolis all agreed thathe did not want the nomination and would not have it. 

"We must force it on him, " said I. "We must have Scarborough. "

Immediately after Burbank's nomination, Goodrich concentrated uponnominating Judge Simpson. He had three weeks, and he worked hard andwell. I think he overdid it in the editorials in our party organs underhis influence in New York, Boston and other eastern cities--never a daywithout lugubrious screeds on the dismal outlook for Burbank if theother party should put up Simpson. But his Simpson editorials in bigopposition papers undoubtedly produced an effect. I set for De Milt andhis bureau of underground publicity the task of showing up, as far as itwas prudent to expose intimate politics to the public, Goodrich and hiscrowd and their conspiracy with Beckett and his crowd to secure theopposition nomination for a man of the same offensive type as Cromwell. And I directed Woodruff to supply Silliman and Merriweather and thatdepartment of my "bi-partizan" machine with all the money they wanted. "They can't spend much to advantage at this late day except fortraveling expenses, " said I. "Our best plan, anyhow, is good honestmissionary work with the honest men of the other party who wish to seeits best man nominated. "

While Goodrich's agents and Beckett's agents were industriouslyarranging the eastern machinery of the opposition party for Simpson, Merriweather had Silliman's men toiling in the West and South to getRundle delegates or uninstructed delegations. And, after ourconversation, he was reinforced by Woodruff and such men of his staff ascould be used without suspicion. Woodruff himself could permeate like anodorless gas; you knew he was there only by the results. Nothing couldbe done for Rundle in his own state; but the farther away from his homeour men got, the easier it was to induce--by purchase and otherwise--thepoliticians of his party to think well of him. This the more becausethey regarded Simpson as a "stuff" and a "stiff"--and they weren't farwrong. 

"It may not be Scarborough, and it probably won't be Rundle, " Woodruffsaid in his final report to me, "but it certainly won't be Simpson. He's the dead one, no matter how well he does on the first ballot. "

But I would not let him give me the details--the story of shrewd andslippery plots, stratagems, surprises. "I am worn out, mind and body, "said I in apology for my obvious weariness and indifference. 

For six months I had been incessantly at work. The tax upon memoryalone, to say nothing of the other faculties, had been crushing. Easy aspolitical facts always were for me, I could not lightly bear the strainof keeping constantly in mind not merely the outlines, but also hundredsof the details, of the political organizations of forty-odd states withall their counties. And the tax on memory was probably the least. Thenadded to all my political work was business care; for while I wasabsorbed in politics, Ed Ramsay had badly muddled the business. Nor hadI, like Burbank and Woodruff, the power to empty my mind as I touchedthe pillow and so to get eight hours of unbroken rest each night. 

Woodruff began asking me for instructions. But my judgment wasuncertain, and my imagination barren. "Do as you think best, " said I. "Imust rest. I've reached my limit, "--my limit of endurance of the sightsand odors and befoulings of these sewers of politics I must in personadventure in order to reach my goal. I must pause and rise to thesurface for a breath of decent air or I should not have the strength tofinish these menial and even vile tasks which no man can escape if he isa practical leader in the practical activities of practical life. 

XVIII

A DANGEROUS PAUSE

I took train for my friend Sandys' country place near Cleveland, forbidding Woodruff or Burbank or my secretaries to communicate with me. Sandys had no interest in politics--his fortune was in real estate and, therefore, did not tempt or force him into relations with politicalmachines. 

Early in the morning after my arrival I got away from the others and, with a stag-hound who remembered me with favor from my last visit, struck into woods that had never been despoiled by man. As I tramped onand on, my mind seemed to revive, and I tried to take up the plots andschemes that had been all-important yesterday. But I could not. Instead, as any sane man must when he and nature are alone and face to face, Ifell to marveling that I could burn up myself, the best of me, the bestyears of my one life, in such a fever of folly and fraud as thispolitical career of mine. I seemed to be in a lucid interval betweenparoxysms of insanity. I reviewed the men and things of my world as onerecalls the absurd and repellent visions of a nightmare. I shrank frompassing from this mood of wakefulness and reason back into the unrealreality of what had for years been my all-in-all. I wandered hour afterhour, sometimes imagining that I was flying from the life I loathed, again that somewhere in those cool, green, golden-lighted mazes I shouldfind--my lost youth, and her. For, how could I think of _it_ withoutthinking of _her_ also? It had been lighted by her; it had gone withher; it lived in memory, illumined by her. 

The beautiful, beautiful world-that-ought-to-be! The hideous, thehorrible world-that-is!

I did not return to the house until almost dinner-time. "I have to goaway to-morrow morning, " I announced after dinner. For I felt that, if Idid not fly at once, I should lose all heart for the task which must befinished. 

"Why, " protested Sandys, "you came to stay until we all started with youfor St. Louis. "

"I must go, " I repeated. I did not care to invent an excuse; I couldnot give the reason. Had I followed my impulse, I should have gone atonce, that night. 

By noon the next day I had again flung myself into the vexed politicalocean whose incessant buffetings give the swimmers small chance to thinkof anything beyond the next oncoming wave. 

XIX

DAVID SENT OUT AGAINST GOLIATH

I was almost master of myself again when, a week later, I got aboard thecar in which Carlotta and I were taking our friends to look on at theopposition's convention at St. Louis. 

When we arrived, I went at once to confer with Merriweather in a room atthe Southern Hotel which no one knew he had. "Simpson has under, ratherthan over, five hundred delegates, " was his first item of good news. "Ittakes six hundred and fifty to nominate. As his sort of boom alwaysmusters its greatest strength on the first ballot, I'm putting my moneytwo to one against him. "

"And Scarborough?" I asked, wondering at my indifference to thisforeshadowing of triumph. 

"My men talk him to every incoming delegation. It's well known that hedon't want the nomination and has forbidden his friends to vote for himand has pledged them to work against him. Then, too, the bosses and theboys don't like him--to put it mildly. But I think we're making everyone feel he's the only man they can put up, with a chance to beatBurbank. "

[Illustration: "THAT, " I REPLIED TO MRS. SANDYS, "IS SENATOR SCARBOROUGHOF INDIANA" p. 226]

My wife and our friends and I dined at the Southern that night. As wewere about to leave, the streets began to fill. And presently throughthe close-packed masses came at a walk an open carriage--thestorm-center of a roar that almost drowned the music of the four or fivebands. The electric lights made the scene bright as day. 

"Who is he?" asked the woman at my side--Mrs. Sandys. 

She was looking at _the_ man in that carriage--there were four, butthere was no mistaking him. He was seated, was giving not the slightestheed to the cheering throngs. His soft black hat was pulled well downover his brows; his handsome profile was stern, his face pale. If thatcrowd had been hurling curses at him and preparing to tear him limb fromlimb he would not have looked different. He was smooth-shaven, whichmade him seem younger than I knew him to be. And over him was theglamour of the world-that-ought-to-be in which he lived and had thepower to compel others to live as long as they were under the spell ofhis personality. 

"That, " I replied to Mrs. Sandys, "is Senator Scarborough of Indiana. "

"What's he so stern about?"

"I'm sure I don't know--perhaps to hide his joy, " said I. 

But I did know, and my remark was the impulsive fling of envy. He hadfound out, several weeks before, what a strong undercurrent was runningtoward him. He was faced by a dilemma--if he did not go to theconvention, it would be said that he had stayed away deliberately, andhe would be nominated; if he went, to try to prevent his nomination, theenthusiasm of his admirers and followers would give the excuse forforcing the nomination upon him. And as he sat there, with that ominoustumult about him, he was realizing how hard his task was to be. 

His companions pushed him a passage through the crowds on the sidewalkand in the lobby, and he shut himself away in the upper part of thehotel. When we left, half an hour later, the people were packed beforethat face of the hotel which displayed the banner of the Indianadelegation, were cheering Scarborough, were clamoring--in vain--for himto show himself. 

"But won't he offend them?" asked my wife. 

"A crowd loves like a woman, " said I. "Indifference only excites it. "

"Oh, _I_ never loved that way, " protested Mrs. Sandys. 

"Then, " said my wife, rather sourly I thought, "you and Mr. Sandys havesomething to live for. "

And so we talked no more politics. There may be American women who_really_ like to talk politics, but I never happened to know one with solittle sense. It's a pity we men do not imitate our women more closelyin one respect. In season and out of season, they never talk anythingbut business--woman's one business. When other things are beingdiscussed, they listen, or rather, pretend to listen; in reality, theirminds are still on their business, and how they shall contrive to bringit back into the conversation with advantage to themselves. 

Next day the convention adopted a wishy-washy platform much likeBurbank's--if anything, weaker. I saw Goodrich's blight upon it. But thevictory cost him dear. That night the delegates realized what a blunderthey had made--or thought they realized it after Merriweather and hisstaff had circulated among them. Few of them had been trusted by Beckettwith the secret that, with that platform and with Simpson as thenominee, their party would have the interests behind it, would almostcertainly win. They only saw ahead a dull campaign, and no real issuebetween the parties, and their candidate, if he was Simpson, much theless attractive personality of the two. 

The following morning the voting began; and after seven ballots Simpsonhad thirty-nine votes less than on the first ballot. "It was like afuneral, " was the verdict of my disappointed guests that evening. Anight of debate and gloom among the politicians and other delegates, andon the opening ballot Merriweather sprung his trap. 

The first big doubtful state in the alphabetical list of states isIllinois. When the secretary of the convention called for Illinois'vote, it was cast solidly for Scarborough. 

There was straightway pandemonium. It was half an hour before any onecould get a hearing. Then Indiana was called, and Pierson, attorneygeneral of that state and chairman of its delegation, cast its vote asin the other ballots, for Hitchens, its governor. From my box I waswatching Scarborough and his immediate friends going from delegation todelegation, and I knew what he was about. When Iowa was called and castits vote solidly for him I knew he had failed. 

"How white he is!" said Mrs. Sandys, who was looking at him throughopera-glasses. 

I borrowed them and saw that his gaze was fixed on a box on the otherside of the huge auditorium, on a woman in that box--I had only to lookat her to see which woman. She was beautiful, of that type of charmwhich the French sum up in the phrase "the woman of thirty. " I haveheard crowds bellow too often to be moved by it--though the twenty orthirty thousand gathered under that roof were outdoing the cannonade ofany thunderstorm. But that woman's look in response toScarborough's--there was sympathy and understanding in it, and more, infinitely more. He had been crushed for the moment--and I understoodenough of his situation to understand what a blow to all his plans thisuntimely apparent triumph was. She was showing that she too felt theblow, but she was also sending a message of courage to him--one of thosemessages that transcend words, like music, like the perfumes of flowersand fields, like that which fills us as we look straight up into a clearnight sky. I lowered the glasses and looked away--I could not bear it. For the moment I hated him--hating myself for it. 

I heard Carlotta asking a woman in the box next ours the name of "thewoman with the white plume in the big black hat in the seventh box onthe other side. "

"Mrs. Scarborough, " was the answer. 

"Oh, is that _she_?" exclaimed Mrs. Sandys, almost snatching her glassesfrom me in her eagerness. "You know who she was--John Dumont'swidow--you remember him? She must be an unusual person to have attractedtwo such men. "

But Scarborough was nominated now. He waved aside those who tried totake him up and bear him to the platform. He walked down the aisle aloneand ascended amid a tense silence; he stood looking calmly out. His facehad lost its whiteness of a few minutes before. As he stood there, bigand still, a sort of embodiment of fearlessness, I wondered--and I fancymany others were wondering--whether he was about to refuse thenomination. But an instant's thought drove the wild notion from my mind. He could not strike that deadly blow at his party. 

"Fellow delegates, " said he--a clearer, more musical voice than his Ihave never heard--"I thank you for this honor. As you know, I opposedthe platform you saw fit to adopt. I have nothing to retract. I do notlike it. But, after all, a candidate must be his own platform. And Ibring my public record as proof of my pledge--that--" he paused and thesilence was tremendous. He went on, each word distinct and byitself--"if I am elected"--a long pause--"I shall obey theConstitution"--another long pause--"I shall enforce the laws!"

He was descending to the aisle before the silence was broken--a feeble, rippling applause, significant of disappointment at what seemed ananti-climax. He had merely repeated in condensed form the oath of officewhich a President takes at his inauguration. But somehow--no doubt, itwas the magic of his voice and his manner and superb presence--thosesimple words kept on ringing; and all at once--full half a minute musthave elapsed, a long time in such circumstances--all at once theenormous meaning of the two phrases boomed into the brains of thosethousands: If this man is elected, there will be a President withoutfear or favor, and he will really obey the Constitution, will reallyenforce the laws! That little speech, though only a repetition of anoath embodied in our century-old supreme law, was a firebrand to lightthe torch of revolution, of revolution back toward what the republicused to be before differences of wealth divided its people into upper, middle and lower classes, before enthroned corporate combinations madeequality before the law a mockery, before the development of our vastmaterial resources restored to the intelligent and energetic few theirpower over the careless and purposeless many. 

As the multitude realized his meaning, --I doubt if many times in allhistory such a sight and sound has burst upon mortal ears and eyes. Forthe moment I was daunted; it was impossible not to think that here wasthe whole people, not to feel that Scarborough had been chosen Presidentand was about to fulfil his pledge. Daunted, yet thrilled too. For, atbottom, are we not all passionate dreamers of abstract right andjustice?

Then I remembered; and I said to myself, "He has defied the interests. David has gone out against Goliath--but the Davids do not win nowadays. I can elect Burbank. "

But where was the elation that thought would have set to swelling in the_me_ of less than two weeks before? And then I began clearly to seethat, for me at least, the prize, to be prized, must be fairly won fromstart to goal; and to be enjoyed, must gladden eyes that would in turngladden me with the approval and sympathy which only a woman can giveand without which a man is alone and indeed forlorn. 

XX

PILGRIMS AND PATRIOTS

From St. Louis I went direct to Burbank. 

His heart had been set upon a grand speech-making tour. He was fond ofwandering about, showing himself to cheering crowds; and he had a deep, and by no means unwarranted, confidence in his platform magnetism. Atfirst I had been inclined to give him his way. But the more I consideredthe matter, the stronger seemed to become the force of theobjections--it takes a far bigger man than was Burbank at that stage ofhis growth not to be cheapened by "steeple-chasing for votes"; also, thecoming of the candidate causes jealousy and heart-burnings over mattersof precedence, reception and entertainment among the local celebrities, and so he often leaves the party lukewarm where he found itenthusiastic. Further, it uses up local campaign money that ought to bespent in hiring workers at the polls, which is the polite phrase forvote-buying as "retaining-fee" is the polite phrase for bribe. 

I decided against the tour and for the highly expensive but alwaysadmirable and profitable "pilgrimage plan". 

Burbank's own home was at Rivington, and I should have had him visitedthere, had it not been on a single-track branch-railway which could nothandle without danger and discomfort the scores of thousands we wereplanning to carry to and from him almost daily. So, it was given outthat he purposed as far as possible to withdraw from the strife of thecampaign and to await the results in the dignified calm in which hewished the voters to determine it. He took--after Woodruff had carefullyselected it--a "retired" house "in the country. "

And it was in the open country. A farm garden adjoined it on the oneside, a wheat field on the other, a large orchard to the rear. The broadmeadow in front gave plenty of room for delegations visiting the"standard bearer of the party of patriotism" in his "rural seclusion, "to hear his simple, spontaneous words of welcome. But for all the remoteaspect of the place, it was only five minutes' drive and ten minutes'walk from a station through which four big railroads passed. One of theout-buildings was changed into a telegraph office from which accounts ofthe enthusiasm of the delegations and of his speeches could be sent tothe whole country. On his desk in his little study stood a private-wiretelephone that, without danger of leakage, would put him in directcommunication either with my study at Fredonia or with Doc Woodruff'sprivatest private room in the party national headquarters at Chicago. Thus, our statesman, though he seemed to be aloof, was in the very thickof the fray; and the tens of thousands of his fellow citizens, thoughthey seemed to come almost on their own invitation inspired byuncontrollable enthusiasm for the great statesman, were in fact freeexcursionists--and a very troublesome, critical, expensive lot theywere. But--the public was impressed. It sits in its seat in the theaterof action and believes that the play is real, and ignores and forgetsthe fact that there is a behind-the-scenes. 

The party distributed from various centers tons of "literature. " And inaddition to meetings arranged by state and local committees, a seriesof huge demonstrations was held in the cities of every doubtful state. Besides the party's regular speakers, we hired as many "independent"orators as we could. But all these other branches of the public side ofthe campaign were subsidiary to the work at the "retreat. " It might becalled the headquarters of the rank and file of the party--thosemillions of "principle" voters and workers who were for Burbank becausehe was the standard-bearer of their party. No money, no bribes ofpatronage have to be given to them; but it costs several millions toraise that mass to the pitch of hot enthusiasm which will make eachindividual in it certain to go to the polls on election day and take hisneighbors, instead of staying at home and hoping the party won't lose. 

Burbank's work was, therefore, highly important. But the seat of thereal campaign was Woodruff's privatest private room in the Chicagoheadquarters. For, there were laid and were put in the way of executionthe plans for acquiring those elements that, in the doubtful states, have the balance of power between the two opposing and about evenlymatched masses of "principle" voters. I just now recall a talk I hadwith my wife, about that time. She took no interest in politics andrarely spoke of political matters--and both of us discouraged politicaltalk before the children. One day she said to me: "This campaign ofyours and Mr. Burbank's must be costing an awful lot of money. "

"A good deal, " said I. 

"Several millions?"

"This is a big country, and you can't stir it up politically fornothing. Why do you ask?"

"Who gives the money?" she persisted. 

"The rich men--the big corporations--give most of it. "

"Why?"

"Patriotism, " said I. "To save the nation from our wicked opponent. "

"How do Mr. Roebuck and the others get it back?" she pursued, ignoringmy pleasantry. 

"Get what back?"

"Why the money they advance. They aren't the men to _give_ anything. "

I answered with a smile only. 

She lapsed into thoughtfulness. When I was assuming that her mind hadwandered off to something else she said: "The people must be verystupid--not to suspect. "

"Or, the rich men and the corporations very stupid to give, " Isuggested. 

"Do you mean that they don't get it back?" she demanded. 

"Of course, " said I, "their patriotism must be rewarded. We can notexpect them to save the country year after year for nothing. "

"I should think not!" she said, adding disgustedly, "I think politics isvery silly. And men get excited about it! But _I_ never listen. "

Arriving at the "retreat" from the Scarborough convention, I foundBurbank much perturbed because Scarborough had been nominated. He didnot say so--on the contrary, he expressed in sonorous phrases hissatisfaction that there was to be "a real test of strength betweenconservatism and radicalism. " He never dropped his pose, even withme--not even with himself. 

"I confess I don't share your cheerfulness, " said I. "If Scarboroughwere a wild man, we'd have a walkover. But he isn't, and I fear he'llbe more and more attractive to the wavering voters, to many of our ownpeople. Party loyalty has been overworked in the last few presidentialcampaigns. He'll go vote-hunting in the doubtful states, but it won'tseem undignified. He's one of those men whose dignity comes from theinside and can't be lost. "

Burbank was unable to conceal his annoyance--he never could bear praiseof another man of his own rank in public life. Also he showed surprise. "Why, I understood--I had been led to believe--that you--favored hisnomination, " was his guarded way of telling me he knew I had a hand inbringing it about. 

"So I did, " replied I. "He was your only chance. He won't be able to geta campaign fund of so much as a quarter of a million, and the bestworkers of his party will at heart be against him. Simpson would havehad--well, Goodrich could and would have got him enough to elect him. "

Burbank's eyes twitched. "I think you're prejudiced against SenatorGoodrich, Harvey, " said he in his gentlest tone. "He is first of all aloyal party man. "

"Loyal fiddlesticks!" replied I. "He is agent of the Wall Streetcrowd--they're his party. He's just the ordinary machine politician, with no more party feeling than--than--" I smiled--"than any other manbehind the scenes. "

Burbank dodged this by taking it as a jest. He always shed my frankspeeches as humor. "Prejudice, prejudice, Harvey!" he said in mildreproof. "We need Goodrich, and--"

"Pardon me, " I interrupted. "We do not need him. On the contrary, wemust put him out of the party councils. If we don't, he may try to helpScarborough. The Senate's safe, no matter who's elected President; andGoodrich will rely on it to save his crowd. He's a mountain of vanityand the two defeats we've given him have made every atom of that vanityquiver with hatred of us. "

"I wish you could have been here when he called, " said Burbank. "I amsure you would have changed your mind. "

"When does he resign the chairmanship of the national committee?" Iasked. "He agreed to plead bad health and resign within two weeks afterthe convention. "

Burbank gave an embarrassed cough. "Don't you think, Harvey, " said he, "that, to soothe his vanity, it might be well for us--for you--to lethim stay on there--nominally, of course? I know _you_ care nothing fortitles. "

Instead of being angered by this attempt to cozen me, by this exhibitionof treachery, I felt disgust and pity--how nauseating and how hopelessto try to forward one so blind to his own interests, so easilyfrightened into surrender to his worst enemies! But I spoke very quietlyto him. "The reason you want me to be chairman--for it is you that wantand need it, not I--the reason I _must_ be chairman is because themachine throughout the country must know that Goodrich is out and thatyour friends are in. In what other way can this be accomplished?"

He did not dare try to reply. 

I went on: "If he stays at the head of the national committeeScarborough will be elected. "

"You are prejudiced, Harvey--"

"Please don't say that again, Governor, " I interrupted coldly. "Irepeat, Goodrich must give place to me, or Scarborough will beelected. "

"You don't mean that you would turn against me?" came from him in aqueer voice after a long pause. 

"While I was in St. Louis, working to make you President, " said I, "youwere plotting behind my back, plotting against me and yourself. "

"You were at St. Louis aiding in the nomination of the strongestcandidate, " he retorted, his bitterness distinct though guarded. 

"Strongest--yes. But strongest with whom?"

"With the people, " he replied. 

"Precisely, " said I. "But the people are not going to decide thiselection. The party lines are to be so closely drawn that money willhave the deciding vote. The men who organize and direct industry andenterprise--_they_ are going to decide it. And, in spite of Goodrich'straitorous efforts, the opposition has put up the man who can't get apenny from them. "

In fact, I had just discovered that Scarborough had instructed Pierson, whom he had made chairman of his campaign, not to take any money fromany corporation even if it was offered. But I thought it wiser to keepthis from Burbank. 

He sat folding a sheet of paper again and again. I let him reason itout. Finally he said: "I see your point, Harvey. But I practicallypromised Goodrich--practically asked him to remain--"

I waited. 

"For the sake of the cause, " he went on when he saw he was to get nohelp from me, "any and all personal sacrifices must be made. If youinsist on having Goodrich's head, I will break my promise, and--"

"Pardon me again, " I interrupted. My mood would not tolerate twaddleabout "the cause" and "promises" from Burbank--Burbank, whose "cause, "as he had just shown afresh, was himself alone, and who promisedeverything to everybody and kept only the most advantageous promisesafter he had made absolutely sure how his advantage lay. "It's all amatter of indifference to me. If you wish to retain Goodrich, do so. Hemust not be dismissed as a personal favor to me. The favor is to you. Ido not permit any man to thimblerig his debts to me into my debts tohim. "

Burbank seemed deeply moved. He came up to me and took my hand. "It isnot like my friend Sayler to use the word indifference in connectionwith me, " he said. And then I realized how completely the nomination hadturned his head. For his tone was that of the great man addressing hishenchman. 

I did not keep my amusement out of my eyes. "James, " said I, "indifference is precisely the word. I should welcome a chance towithdraw from this campaign. I have been ambitious for power, _you_ wantplace. If you think the time has come to dissolve partnership, sayso--and trade yourself off to Goodrich. "

He was angry through and through, not so much at my bluntness as at myhaving seen into his plot to help himself at my expense--for, not evenwhen I showed it to him, could he see that it was to his interest todestroy Goodrich. Moral coward that he was, the course of conciliationalways appealed to him, whether it was wise or not, and the course ofcourage always frightened him. He bit his lip and dissembled his anger. Presently he began to pace up and down the room, his head bent, hishands clasped behind him. After perhaps five minutes he paused to say:"You insist on taking the place yourself, Harvey?"

I stood before him and looked down at him. "Your suspicion that I havealso a personal reason is well-founded, James, " said I. "I wouldn't putmyself in a position where I should have to ask as a favor what I nowget as a right. If I help you to the presidency, I must be master of thenational machine of the party, able to use it with all its power andagainst _any one_--" here I looked him straight in the eye--"who shalltry to build himself up at my expense. Personally, we are friends, andit has been a pleasure to me to help elevate a man I liked. But there isno friendship in affairs, except where friendship and interest point thesame way. It is strange that a man of your experience should expectfriendship from me at a time when you are showing that you haven't forme even the friendship of enlightened self-interest. "

"Your practice is better than your theory, Harvey, " said he, putting onan injured, forgiving look and using his chest tones. "A better friendnever lived than you, and I know no other man who gets the absoluteloyalty you get. " He looked at me earnestly. "What has changed you?" heasked. "Why are you so bitter and so--so unlike your even-temperedself?"

I waved his question aside, --I had no mind to show him my uncoveredcoffin with its tenant who only slept, or to expose to him the feelingswhich the erect and fearless figure of Scarborough had set to stirringin me. "I'm careful to choose my friends from among those who can serveme and whom I can therefore serve, " I said. "And that is thesentimentalism of the wise. I wish us to remain friends--therefore, Imust be able to be as useful to you as you can be useful to me. "

"Goodrich shall go, " was the upshot of his thinking. "I'll telephone himthis afternoon. Is my old friend satisfied?"

"You have done what was best for yourself, " said I, with whollygood-humored raillery. And we shook hands, and I went. 

I was glad to be alone where I could give way to my weariness anddisgust; for I had lost all the joy of the combat. The arena of ambitionhad now become to me a ring where men are devoured by the beast-in-manafter hideous battles. I turned from it, heart-sick. "If only I had lessintelligence, less insight, " I thought, "so that I could cheat myself asBurbank cheats himself. Or, if I had the relentlessness or the supremeegotism, or whatever it is, that enables great men to trample without aqualm, to destroy without pity, to enjoy without remorse. "

XXI

AN INTERLUDE

My nerves began to feel as if some one were gently sliding his fingersalong their bared length--not a pain, but as fear-inspiring as the soundof the stealthy creep of the assassin moving up behind to strike asudden and mortal blow. I dismissed business and politics and wentcruising on the lakes with restful, non-political Fred Sandys. 

After we had been knocking about perhaps a week, we landed one noon atthe private pier of the Liscombes to lunch with them. As Sandys and Istrolled toward the front of the house, several people, also guests forlunch, were just descending from a long buckboard. At sight of one ofthem I stopped short inside, though I mechanically continued to walktoward her. I recognized her instantly--the curve of her shoulders, thepoise of her head, and her waving jet-black hair to confirm. And withoutthe slightest warning there came tumbling and roaring up in me atorrent of longings, regrets; and I suddenly had a clear understandingof my absorption in this wretched game I had been playing year in andyear out with hardly a glance up from the table. That wretched game withits counterfeit stakes; and the more a man wins, the poorer he is. 

She seemed calm enough as she faced me. Indeed, I was not sure when shehad first caught sight of me, or whether she had recognized me, untilMrs. Liscombe began to introduce us. "Oh, yes, " she then interrupted, "Iremember Senator Sayler very well. We used to live in the same town. Wewent to the same school. " And with a friendly smile she gave me herhand. 

What did I say? I do not know. But I am sure I gave no sign of theclamor within. I had not cultivated surface-calm all those years invain. I talked, and she talked--but I saw only her face, splendidfulfilment of the promise of girlhood; I hardly heard her words, sogreatly was her voice moving me. It was an unusually deep voice for awoman, sweet and with a curious carrying quality that made it seemstronger than it was. In figure she was delicate, but radiant of lifeand health--aglow, not ablaze. She was neither tall nor short, and wasdressed simply, but in the fashion--I heard the other women discussingher clothes after she left. And she still had the mannerism that wasmost fascinating to me--she kept her eyes down while she was talking orlistening, and raised them now and then with a full, slow look at you. 

When Mrs. Liscombe asked her to come to dinner the next evening with thepeople she was visiting, she said: "Unfortunately, I must start forWashington in the morning. I am overhauling my school and building anaddition. "

It had not occurred to me to think where she had come from or how shehappened to be there, or of anything in the years since I was last withher. The reminder that she had a school came as a shock--she was soutterly unlike my notion of the head of a school. I think she saw orfelt what was in my mind, for she went on, to me: "I've had it six yearsnow--the next will be the seventh. "

"Do you like it?" I asked. 

"Don't I look like a happy woman?"

"You do, " said I, after our eyes had met. "You are. "

"There were sixty girls last year--sixty-three, " she went on. "Next yearthere will be more--about a hundred. It's like a garden, and I'm thegardener, busy from morning till night, with no time to think ofanything but my plants and flowers. "

She had conjured a picture that made my heart ache. I suddenly felt oldand sad and lonely--a forlorn failure. "I too am a gardener, " said I. "But it's a sorry lot of weeds and thistles that keeps me occupied. Andin the midst of the garden is a plum tree--that bears Dead Sea fruit. "

She was silent. 

"You don't care for politics?" said I. 

"No, " she replied, and lifted and lowered her eyes in a slow glance thatmade me wish I had not asked. "It is, I think, gardening with weeds andthistles, as you say. " Then, after a pause: "Do _you_ like it?"

"Don't ask me, " I said with a bitterness that made us both silentthereafter. 

That evening I got Fred to land me at the nearest town. The train shemust have been on had just gone. In the morning I took the express forthe East. Arrived at Washington, I drove straight to her school. 

A high iron fence, not obstructing the view from the country road; along drive under arching maples and beeches; a rambling, fascinating oldhouse upon the crest of a hill; many windows, a pillared porch, a low, very wide doorway. It seemed like her in its dark, cool, odorous beauty. 

She herself was in the front hall, directing some workmen. "Why, SenatorSayler, this _is_ a surprise, " she said, advancing to greet me. Butthere was no suggestion of surprise in her tone or her look, only afriendly welcome to an acquaintance. 

She led the way into the drawing-room to the left. The furniture andpictures were in ghostly draperies; everything was in confusion. We wenton to a side veranda, seated ourselves. She looked inquiringly at me. 

"I do not know why, " was my answer. "I only know--I had to come. "

She studied me calmly. I remember her look, everything about her--theembroidery on the sleeves and bosom of her blouse, the buckles on herwhite shoes. I remember also that there was a breeze, and how good itfelt to my hot face, to my eyes burning from lack of sleep. At last shesaid: "Well--what do you think of my little kingdom?"

"It is yours--entirely?"

"House, gardens--everything. I paid the last of my debts in June. "

"I'm contrasting it with my own, " I said. 

"But that isn't fair, " she protested with a smile. "You must remember, I'm only a woman. "

"With my own, " I went on, as if she had not interrupted. "Yoursis--yours, honestly got. It makes you proud, happy. Mine--" I did notfinish. 

She must have seen or felt how profoundly I was moved, for I presentlysaw her looking at me with an expression I might have resented for itspity from any other than her. "Why do you tell _me_ this?" she asked. 

"There is always for every one, " was my answer, "some person to whom heshows himself as he is. You are that person for me because--I'msurrounded by people who care for me for what I can give. Even mychildren care to a great extent for that reason. It's the penalty forhaving the power to give the material things all human beings crave. Only two persons ever cared--cared much for me just because I wasmyself. They were my mother--and you. "

She laughed in quiet raillery. "Two have cared for you, but you havecared for only one. And what devotion you have given him!"

"I have cared for my mother--for my children--"

"Yes--your children. I forgot them. "

"And--for you. "

She made what I thought a movement of impatience. 

"For you, " I repeated. Then: "Elizabeth, you were right when you wrotethat I was a coward. "

She rose and stood--near enough to me for me to catch her faint, elusiveperfume--and gazed out into the distance. 

"In St. Louis the other day, " I went on, "I saw a man who has risen topower greater than I can ever hope to have. And he got it by marchingerect in the open. "

"Yet you have everything you used to want, " she said dreamily. 

"Yes--everything. Only to learn how worthless what I wanted was. And forthis trash, this dirt, I have given--all I had that was of value. "

"All?"

"All, " I replied. "Your love and my own self-respect. "

"Why do you think you've not been brave?" she asked after a while. 

"Because I've won by playing on the weaknesses and fears of men which myown weaknesses and fears enabled me to understand. "

"You have done wrong--deliberately?"

"Deliberately. "

"But that good might come?"

"So I told myself. "

"And good has come? I have heard that figs do grow on thistles. "

"Good has come. But, I think, in spite of me, not through me. "

"But now that you see, " she said, turning her eyes to mine with appealin them, and something more, I thought, "you will--you will not go on?"

"I don't know. Is there such a thing as remorse without regret?" Andthen my self-control went and I let her see what I had commanded myselfto keep hid: "I only know clearly one thing, Elizabeth--only one thingmatters. _You_ are the whole world to me. You and I could--what could wenot do together!"

Her color slowly rose, slowly vanished. "Was _that_ what you came totell me?" she asked. 

"Yes, " I answered, not flinching. 

"_That_ is the climax of your moralizings?"

"Yes, " I answered. "And of my cowardice. "

A little icy smile just changed the curve of her lips. "When I was agirl, you won my love--or took it when I gave it to you, if you prefer. And then--you threw it away. For an ambition you weren't brave enough topursue honorably, you broke my heart. "

"Yes, " I answered. "But--I loved you. "

"And now, " she went on, "after your years of self-indulgence, ofgetting what you wanted, no matter about the cost, you see me again. Youfind I have mended my heart, have coaxed a few flowers of happiness tobloom. You find there was something you did not destroy, something youthink it will make you happier to destroy. "

"Yes, " I answered, "I came to try to make you as unhappy as I am. For Ilove you. "

She drew a long breath. "Well, " she said evenly, "for the first time inyour life you are defeated. I learned the lesson you so thoroughlytaught me. And I built the wall round my garden high and strong. You--"she smiled, a little raillery, a little scorn--"you can't break in, Harvey--nor slip in. "

"No need, " I said. "For I _am_ in--I've always been in. "

Her bosom rose and fell quickly, and her eyes shifted. But that was foran instant only. "If you were as brave as you are bold!" she scoffed. 

"If I were as brave without you as I should be with you!" I replied. Then: "But you love as a woman loves--herself first, the man afterward. "

"Harvey Sayler denouncing selfishness!"

"Do not sneer, " I said. "For--I love you as a man loves. A poor, paleshadow of ideal love, no doubt, but a man's best, Elizabeth. "

I saw that she was shaken; but even as I began to thrill with a hope sohigh that it was giddy with fear, she was once more straight and strongand calm. 

"You have come. You have tried. You have failed, " she went on after along pause. And in spite of her efforts, that deep voice of hers wasgentle and wonderfully sweet. "Now--you will return to your life, I tomine. " And she moved toward the entrance to the drawing-room, Ifollowing her. We stood in silence at the front doorway waiting for mycarriage to come up. I watched her--maddeningly mistress of herself. 

"How can you be so cold!" I cried. "Don't you see, don't you feel, howI, who love you, suffer?"

Without a word she stretched out her beautiful, white hands, long andnarrow and capable. In each of the upturned palms were four deep andbloody prints where her nails had been crushing into them. 

Before I could lift my eyes to her face she was turning to rejoin herworkmen. As I stood uncertain, dazed, she glanced at me with a brightsmile. "Good-by again, " she called. "A pleasant journey!"

"Thank you, " I replied. "Good-by. "

Driving toward the road gates, I looked at the house many times, fromwindow to window, everywhere. Not a glimpse of her until I was almost atthe road again. Then I saw her back--the graceful white dress, the knotof blue-black hair, the big white hat, and she directing her workmenwith her closed white parasol. 

XXII

MOSTLY ABOUT MONEY

I went up to New York, to find confusion and gloom at our headquartersthere. 

Senator Goodrich had subtly given the impression, not only to theworkers but also to the newspaper men, who had given it to the public, that with his resignation the Burbank campaign had fallen to pieces. "And I fear you'll have some difficulty in getting any money at all downtown, " said Revell, the senior Senator from New York state, who enviedand hated Goodrich and was therefore, if not for personal reasons, amiably disposed toward me. "They don't like our candidate. "

"Naturally, " said I. "That's why he's running and that's why he maywin. "

"Of course, he'll carry everything here in the East. The only doubt wasin this state, but I had no difficulty in making a deal with theopposition machine as soon as they had sounded Scarborough and hadfound that if he should win, there'd be nothing in it for them--nothingbut trouble. I judged he must have thrown them down hard, from theirbeing so sore. How do things look out West?"

"Bad, " said I. "Our farmers and workingmen have had lots of idle timethese last four years. They've done too much of what they callthinking. "

"Then you need money?" asked Revell, lengthening his sly, smug old face. 

"We must have four millions, at least. And we must get it from thosepeople down town. "

He shook his head. 

"I think not, " was my careless reply. "When they wake up to the dangerin Scarborough's election, the danger to business, especially to theirsort of business, they'll give me twice four millions if I ask it. "

"What do you wish me to do?"

"Nothing, except look after these eastern states. We'll take care of theWest, and also of raising money here for our campaign during October outthere. "

"Can I be of any service to you in introducing you down town?" he asked. 

"No, thank you, " said I. "I have a few acquaintances there. I'm notgoing to fry any fat this trip. My fire isn't hot enough yet. "

And I did not. I merely called on two of the big bankers and four headsof industrial combinations and one controller of an ocean-to-oceanrailway system. I stayed a very few minutes with each, just long enoughto set him thinking and inquiring what the election of Scarborough wouldmean to him and to his class generally. "If you'll read his speeches, "said I to each, "you'll see he intends to destroy your kind of business, that he regards it as brigandage. He's honest, afraid of nothing, and anable lawyer, and he can't be fooled or fooled with. If he's electedhe'll carry out his program, Senate or no Senate--and no matter whatscares you people cook up in the stock market. " To this they made noanswer beyond delicately polite insinuations about being tired of payingfor that which was theirs of right. I did not argue; it is nevernecessary to puncture the pretenses of men of affairs with a view tosaving them from falling into the error of forgetting that whatever"right" may mean on Sunday, on week days it means that which a man cancompel. 

I returned to Fredonia and sent Woodruff East to direct a campaign ofcalamity-howling in the eastern press, for the benefit of the New York, Boston and Philadelphia "captains of industry. " At the end of ten days Irecalled him, and sent Roebuck to Wall Street to confirm the fears andalarms Woodruff's campaign had aroused. And in the West I was laying outthe money I had been able to collect from the leading men of Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio and western Pennsylvania--except a quarter of a millionfrom Howard of New York, to whom we gave the vice-presidentialnomination for that sum, and about half a million more given by severaleastern men, to whom we promised cabinet offices and posts abroad. I putall this money, not far from two millions, into our "campaign ofeducation" and into those inpourings of delegations upon Burbank at his"rural retreat. "

To attempt to combat Scarborough's popularity with the rank and file ofhis own party, was hopeless. I contented myself with restoring orderand arousing enthusiasm in the main body of our partizans in thedoubtful and uneasy states. So ruinous had been Goodrich's managementthat even at that comparatively simple task we should not have succeededbut for the fortunate fact that the great mass of partizans refuses tohear anything from the other side; they regard reasoning asdisloyalty--which, curiously enough, it so often is. Then, too, fewnewspapers in the doubtful states printed the truth about whatScarborough and his supporters were saying and doing. The cost of thisperversion of publicity to us--direct money cost, I mean--was almostnothing. The big papers and news associations were big properties, andtheir rich proprietors were interested in enterprises to whichScarborough's election meant disaster; a multitude of the smallerpapers, normally of the opposition, were dependent upon those sameenterprises for the advertising that kept them alive. 

Perhaps the most far-sighted--certainly, as the event showed, the mostfortunate--single stroke of my campaign was done in Illinois. Thatstate was vital to our success; also it was one of the doubtful stateswhere, next to his own Indiana, Scarborough's chances were best. I feltthat we must put a heavy handicap on his popularity there. I had noticedthat in Illinois the violently radical wing of the opposition was verystrong. So I sent Merriweather to strengthen the radicals still further. I hoped to make them strong enough to put through their party's stateconvention a platform that would be a scarecrow to timid voters inIllinois and throughout the West; and I wished for a "wild man" as thecandidate for governor, but I didn't hope it, though I told Merriweatherit must be done. Curiously enough, my calculation of the probabilitieswas just reversed. The radicals were beaten on platform; but, thanks toa desperate effort of Merriweather's in "coaxing" rural delegates, afrothing, wild-eyed, political crank got the nomination. And he neverspoke during the campaign that he didn't drive voters away from histicket--and, therefore, from Scarborough. And our machine theresacrificed the local interests to the general by nominating a popularand not insincere reformer. 

When Roebuck and I descended upon Wall Street on October sixteenth, three weeks before election, I had everything in readiness for my finaland real campaign. 

Throughout the doubtful states, Woodruff was in touch with local machineleaders of Scarborough's party, with corruptible labor and fraternalorder leaders, with every element that would for a cash price deliver abody of voters on election day. Also he had arranged in those states forthe "right sort" of election officers at upward of five hundred pollingplaces, at least half of them places where several hundred votes couldbe shifted without danger or suspicion. Also, Burbank and our corps of"spellbinders" had succeeded beyond my hopes in rousing partizanpassion--but here again part of the credit belongs to Woodruff. Neverbefore had there been so many free barbecues, distributions of freeuniforms to well-financed Burbank and Howard Campaign Clubs, andarrangings of those expensive parades in which the average citizendelights. The wise Woodruff spent nearly one-third of my "education"money in this way. 

One morning I found him laughing over the bill for a grand Burbank rallyat Indianapolis--about thirty-five thousand dollars, as I remember thefigures. 

"What amuses you?" said I. 

"I was thinking what fools the people are, never to ask themselves whereall the money for these free shows comes from, and why those who giveare willing to give so much, and how they get it back. What an ass thepublic is!"

"Fortunately, " said I. 

"For us, " said he. 

"And for itself, " I rejoined. 

"Perhaps, " he admitted. "It was born to be plucked, and I suppose ourcrowd does do the plucking more scientifically than less experiencedhands would. "

"I prefer to put it another way, " said I. "Let's say that we save itfrom a worse plucking. "

"That _is_ better, " said Doc. For, on his way up in the world, he wasrapidly developing what could, and should, be called conscience. 

I looked at him and once more had a qualm like shame before his moralsuperiority to me. We were plodding along on about the same morallevel; but he had ascended to that level, while I had descended to it. There were politicians posing as pure before the world and even in theparty's behind-the-scene, who would have sneered at Doc's "conscience. "Yet, to my notion, they, who started high and from whatever sophistry ofmotive trailed down into the mire, are lower far than they who begandeep in the mire and have been struggling bravely toward the surface. Iknow a man who was born in the slums, was a pickpocket at eight years ofage, was a boss at forty-five, administering justice according to hislights. I know a man who was born what he calls a gentleman and who, atforty-five, sold himself for the "honors" of a high office. And once, after he had shaken hands with that boss, he looked at me, furtivelymade a wry face, and wiped his hand with his pocket handkerchief!

The other part of our work of preparation--getting the Wall Streetwhales in condition for the "fat-frying"--was also finished. The WallStreet Roebuck and I adventured was in a state of quake from fear of theelection of "the scourge of God, " as our subsidized socialist andextreme radical papers had dubbed Scarborough--and what invaluablecampaign material their praise of him did make for us!

Roebuck and I went from office to office among the great of commerce, industry and finance. We were received with politeness, deferentialpoliteness, everywhere. But not a penny could we get. Everywhere thesame answer: "We can not see our way to contributing just yet. But ifyou will call early next week--say Monday or Tuesday--" four or fivedays away--"we'll let you know what we can do. " The most ardenteagerness to placate us, to keep us in good humor; but not a cent--untilMonday or Tuesday. 

When I heard "Monday or Tuesday" for the third time, my suspicions wererousing. When I heard it for the fifth time, I understood. Wall Streetwas negotiating with the other side, and would know the result byMonday, or at the latest Tuesday. 

XXIII

IN WHICH A MOUSE HELPS A LION

I did not dare communicate my suspicions to my "dear friend" Roebuck. Asit was, with each refusal I had seen his confidence in me sink; if heshould get an inkling how near to utter disaster I and my candidatewere, he would be upon me like a tiger upon its trainer when he slips. Ireasoned out my course while we were descending from the fifth "king's"office to our cab: If the negotiations with the opposition should besuccessful, I should not get a cent; if they should fail, Wall Streetwould be frantic to get its contributions into my hand; therefore, theonly sane thing to do was to go West, and make such preparations as Icould against the worst. 

"Let's go back to the Holland, " said I to Roebuck, in a weary, boredtone. "These people are a waste of time. I'll start home to-night, andwhen they see in the morning papers that I've left for good, they maycome to their senses. But they'll have to hunt me out. I'll not go nearthem again. And when they come dragging themselves to you, don't forgethow they've treated us to-day. "

Roebuck was silent, glancing furtively at me now and then, not knowingwhat to think. "How is it possible to win without them?" he finallysaid. "This demagogue Scarborough has set the people crazy. I can'timagine what possesses these men of property with interests throughoutthe country. They are inviting ruin. "

I smiled. "My dear Roebuck, " I replied, "do you suppose I'm the man toput all my eggs into one basket--and that basket Wall Street?"

And I refused to talk any more politics with him. We dined together, Icalm and in the best of spirits; we went to a musical farce, and hewatched me glumly as I showed my lightness of heart. Then I went alone, at midnight, to the Chicago Express sleeper--to lie awake all nightstaring at the phantoms of ruin that moved in dire panorama before me. In every great affair there is a crisis at which one must stake all upona single throw. I had staked all upon Wall Street. Without itscontributions, Woodruff's arrangements could not be carried out. 

 * * * * *

When I descended at the Fredonia station I found De Milt waiting for me. He had news that was indeed news. I shall give it here moreconsecutively than my impatience for the event permitted him to give itto me. 

About ten days before, a paragraph in one of Burbank's "pilgrimage"speeches had been twisted by the reporter so that it seemed a personalattack upon Scarborough. As Burbank was a stickler for the etiquette ofcampaigning, he not only sent out a denial and a correction but alsodirected De Milt to go to Scarborough's home at Saint X, Indiana, andconvey the explanation in a personal message. De Milt arrived at Saint Xat eight in the evening. As he was leaving the parlor car he saw a manemerge from its drawing-room, make a hasty descent to the platform, hurriedly engage a station hack and drive away. De Milt had an amazingmemory for identities--something far rarer than memory merely for faces. He was convinced he knew that man; and being shrewd and quick ofthought, he jumped into a trap and told the driver to follow the hackwhich was just disappearing. A few minutes' driving and he saw it turnin at a gateway. 

"Whose place is that?" he asked. 

"The old Gardiner homestead, " was the answer. "President Scarboroughlives there. "

De Milt did not discuss this rather premature entitling of SenatorScarborough. He said: "Oh--I've made a mistake, " descended and sent histrap away. Scarborough's house was quiet, not a soul about, lights inonly a few windows. De Milt strolled in at the open gates and, keepingout of view, made a detour of the gardens, the "lay" of which he couldsee by the starlight. He was soon in line with the front door--his manwas parleying with a servant. "Evidently he's not expected, " thought mychief of publicity. 

Soon his man entered. De Milt, keeping in the shadows, moved round thehouse until he was close under open windows from which came light andmen's voices. Peering through a bush he saw at a table-desk a man whomhe recognized as Senator Scarborough. Seated opposite him, with a veryuneasy, deprecating expression on his face, was John Thwing, presidentof the Atlantic and Western System, and Senator Goodrich'sbrother-in-law. 

De Milt could not hear what Thwing was saying, so careful was thatexperienced voice to reach only the ears for whom its insinuatingsubtleties were intended. But he saw a puzzled look come intoScarborough's face, heard him say: "I don't think I understand you, John. "

Thwing unconsciously raised his voice in his reply, and De Miltcaught--"satisfactory assurances from you that these alarming views andintentions attributed to you are false, and they'll be glad to exertthemselves to elect you. "

Scarborough smiled. "Impossible, " he said. "Very few of them wouldsupport _me_ in any circumstances. "

"You are mistaken, Hampden, " was Thwing's answer. "On the contrary, theywill--"

Scarborough interrupted with an impatient motion of his head. "Impossible!" he repeated. "But in any case, why should they send you tome? My speeches speak for themselves. Surely no intelligent man couldfancy that my election would mean harm to any legitimate business, greator small, East or West. You've known me for twenty years, Thwing. Youneedn't come to me for permission to reassure your friends--such of themas you can _honestly_ reassure. "

"I have been reassuring them, " Thwing answered. "I tell them that youare about the last man in the world to permit mob rule. "

"Precisely, " said Scarborough. "I purpose to continue to do what I canto break up the mob that is being led on by demagogues disguised ascaptains of industry and advance agents of prosperity--led on to pillagethe resources of the country, its riches and its character. "

This ought to have put Thwing on his guard. But, convinced that the godshe worshiped must be the gods of all men, whatever they might profess, he held to his purpose. 

"Still, you don't quite follow me, " he persisted. "You've said some verydisquieting things against some of my friends--of course, theyunderstand that the exigencies of campaigning, the necessity of rousingthe party spirit, the--"

Thwing stopped short; De Milt held his breath. Scarborough was leaningforward, was holding Thwing's eyes with one of those looks that grip. "Do you mean, " said he, "that, if I'll assure these friends of yoursthat I don't mean what I say, they'll buy me the presidency?"

"My dear Hampden, " expostulated Thwing, "nothing of the sort. Simplythat the campaign fund which Burbank must get to be elected won't go tohim, but will be at the disposal of your national committee. My friends, naturally, won't support their enemies. "

De Milt, watching Scarborough, saw him lower his head, his face flushingdeeply. 

"Believe me, Hampden, " continued Thwing, "without our support Burbank isbeaten, and you are triumphantly elected--not otherwise. But you knowpolitics; I needn't tell you. You know that the presidency depends upongetting the doubtful element in the doubtful states. "

Scarborough stood, and, without lifting his eyes, said in a voice verydifferent from his strong, clear tones of a few minutes before: "Isuppose in this day no one is beyond the reach of insult. I havethought I was. I see I have been mistaken. And it is a man who has knownme twenty years and has called me friend, who has taught me the deepmeaning of the word shame. The servant will show you the door. " And heleft Thwing alone in the room. 

I had made De Milt give me the point of his story as soon as I saw itsdrift. While he was going over it in detail, I was thinking out all thebearings of Scarborough's refusal upon my plans. 

"Has Senator Goodrich seen Governor Burbank yet?" I asked De Milt in acasual tone, when he had told how he escaped unobserved in Thwing's wakeand delivered Burbank's message the next morning. 

"I believe he's to see him by appointment to-morrow, " replied De Milt. 

So my suspicion was well-founded. Goodrich, informed of hisbrother-in-law's failure, was posting to make peace on whatever terms hecould honeyfugle out of my conciliation-mad candidate. 

A few minutes later I shut myself in with the long-distance telephoneand roused Burbank from bed and from sleep. "I am coming by the firsttrain to-morrow, " I said. "I thought you'd be glad to know that I'vemade satisfactory arrangements in New York--unexpectedly satisfactory. "

"That's good--excellent, " came the reply. I noted an instant change oftone which told me that Burbank had got, by some underground route, newsof my failure in New York and had been preparing to give Goodrich acordial reception. 

"If Goodrich comes, James, " I went on, "don't see him till I've seenyou. "

A pause, then in a strained voice: "But I've given him an appointment atnine to-morrow. "

"Put him off till noon. I'll be there at eleven. It's--imperative. " Thatlast word with an accent I did not like to use, but knew how to use--andwhen. 

Another pause, then: "Very well, Harvey. But we must be careful abouthim. De Milt has told you how dangerous he is, hasn't he?"

"Yes--how dangerous he tried to be. " I was about to add that Goodrichwas a fool to permit any one to go to such a man as Scarborough withsuch a proposition; but I bethought me of Burbank's acute moralsensitiveness and how it would be rasped by the implication of hisopponent's moral superiority. "We're past the last danger, James. That'sall. Sleep sound. Good night. "

"Good night, old man, " was his reply in his pose's tone for affection. But I could imagine him posing there in his night shirt, the angeragainst me snapping in his eyes. 

On the train the next morning, De Milt, who had evidently been doing alittle thinking, said, "I hope you won't let it out to Cousin James thatI told you Goodrich was coming to see him. "

"Certainly not, " I replied, not losing the opportunity to win over tomyself one so near to my political ward. "I'm deeply obliged to you fortelling me. " And presently I went on: "By the way, has anything beendone for you for your brilliant work at Saint X?"

"Oh, that's all right, " he said, "I guess Cousin James'll look afterme--unless he forgets about it. " "Cousin James" had always had the habitof taking favors for granted unless reward was pressed for; and since hehad become a presidential candidate, he was inclining more than ever tolook on a favor done him as a high privilege which was its own reward. 

I made no immediate reply to De Milt; but just before we reached thecapital, I gave him a cheque for five thousand dollars. "A littleexpression of gratitude from the party, " said I. "Your reward will comelater. " From that hour he was mine, for he knew now by personalexperience that "the boys" were right in calling me appreciative. 

It is better to ignore a debt than to pay with words. 

XXIV

GRANBY INTRUDES AGAIN

Burbank had grown like a fungus in his own esteem. 

The adulation of the free excursionists I had poured in upon him, theeulogies in the newspapers, the flatteries of those about him, eager tomake themselves "solid" with the man who might soon have the shaking ofthe huge, richly laden presidential boughs of the plum tree--thiscombination of assaults upon sanity was too strong for a man with suchvanity as his, a traitor within. He had convinced his last prudent doubtthat he was indeed a "child of destiny. " He was resentful lest I mightpossibly think myself more important than he to the success of thecampaign. And his resentment was deepened by the probably incessantreminders of his common sense that all this vast machine, public andsecret, could have been set in motion just as effectively for any oneof a score of "statesmen" conspicuous in the party. 

I saw through his labored cordiality; and it depressed me again--startedme down toward those depths of self-condemnation from which I had beenheld up for a few days by the excitement of the swiftly thronging eventsand by the necessity of putting my whole mind upon moves for my game. 

"I am heartily glad you were successful, " he began when we were alone. "That takes a weight off my mind. "

"You misunderstood me, I see, " said I. "I haven't got anything fromthose people in New York as yet. But within a week they'll be begging meto take whatever I need. Thwing's report will put them in a panic. "

His face fell. "Then I must be especially courteous to Goodrich, " hesaid, after thinking intently. "Your hopes might be disappointed. "

"Not the slightest danger, " was my prompt assurance. "And if you take myadvice, you will ask Goodrich how his agent found Senator Scarborough'shealth, and then order him out of this house. Why harbor a deadly snakethat can be of no use to you?"

"But you seem to forget, Harvey, that he is the master of at least theeastern wing of the party. And you must now see that he will stop atnothing, unless he is pacified. "

"He is the fetch-and-carry of an impudent and cowardly crowd in WallStreet, " I retorted, "that is all. When they find he can no longer dotheir errands, they'll throw him over and come to us. And we can havethem on our own terms. "

We argued, with growing irritation on both sides, and after an hour orso, I saw that he was hopelessly under the spell of his pettiness andhis moral cowardice. He had convinced himself that I was jealous ofGoodrich and would sacrifice anything to gratify my hate. And Goodrich'ssending an agent to Scarborough had only made him the more formidable inBurbank's eyes. As I looked in upon his mind and watched its weak, foolish little workings, my irritation subsided. "Do as you think best, "said I wearily. "But when he presents the mortgage you are going to givehim on your presidency, remember my warning. "

He laughed this off, feeling my point only in his vanity, not at all inhis judgment. "And how will _you_ receive him, Harvey? He will be sureto come to you next--must, as you are in charge of my campaign. "

"I'll tell him straight out that I'll have nothing to do with him, " saidI blandly. "The Wall Street submission to the party must be brought tome by some other ambassador. I'll not help him to fool his masters andto hide it from them that he has lost control. "

I could have insisted, could have destroyed Goodrich--for Burbank wouldnot have dared disobey me. But the campaign, politics in general, lifeitself, filled me with disgust, a paralyzing disgust that made me almostlose confidence in my theory of practical life. 

"What's the use?" I said to myself. "Let Burbank keep his adder. Let itsting him. If it so much as shoots a fang at me, I can crush it. "

And so, Burbank lifted up Goodrich and gave hostages to him; andGoodrich, warned that I would not deal with him, made some excuse orother to his masters for sending Senator Revell to me. "See Woodruff, "said I to Revell, for I was in no mood for such business. "He knows bestwhat we need. "

"They give up too damn cheerfully, " Woodruff said to me, when I saw hima week or ten days later, and he gave me an account of the negotiations. "I suspect they've paid more before. "

"They have, " said I. "In two campaigns where they had to elect againsthard times. "

"But I've a notion, " he warned me, "that our candidate has promised themsomething privately. "

"No doubt, " I replied, as indifferently as I felt. 

I had intended to make some speeches--I had always kept the public sideof my career in the foreground, and in this campaign my enforcedprominence as director of the machine was causing the public to dwelltoo much on the real nature of my political activity. But I could notbring myself to it. Instead, I set out for home to spend the time withmy children and to do by telephone, as I easily could, such directing ofWoodruff as might be necessary. 

My daughter Frances was driving me from the Fredonia station. A mandarted in front of the horses, flung up his arms and began to shriekcurses at me. If she had not been a skilful driver, we should both havebeen thrown from the cart. As it was, the horses ran several milesbefore she got them under control, I sitting inactive, because I knewhow it would hurt her pride if I should interfere. 

When the horses were quiet, she gave me an impetuous kiss that more thanrepaid me for the strain on my nerves. "You are the dearest papa thatever was!" she said. Then--"Who was he? He looked like a crazy man!"

"No doubt he is, " was my reply. And I began complimenting her on herskill with horses, chiefly to prevent her pressing me about the man. Ihad heard, and had done, so much lying that I had a horror of it, andtried to make my children absolutely truthful--my boy Ed used to thinkup and do mischief just for the pleasure of pleasing me by confessing. To make my example effective, I was always strictly truthful with them. I did not wish to tell her who the man was; but I instantly recognized, through the drunken dishevelment, my mutineer, Granby--less than a yearbefore one of the magnates of the state. My orders about him had beenswiftly and literally obeyed. Deserted by his associates, blacklisted atthe banks, beset by his creditors, harassed by the attorney general, hisassets chained with injunctions, his liabilities given triple fangs, hewent bankrupt, took to drink, became a sot and a barroom lounger. Hisdominant passion was hatred of me; he discharged the rambling andfrantic story of his wrongs upon whoever would listen. And here he wasin Fredonia!

I had one of my secretaries telephone the police to look after him; theyreported that he had disappeared. 

The next morning but one, my daughter and I went for an early walk. Atthe turn of the main drive just beyond view from the lodge, sheexclaimed, "Oh, father, _oh_!" and clung to me. Something--like ascarecrow, but not a scarecrow--swung from a limb overhanging the drive. The face was distorted and swollen; the arms and legs were drawn up insickening crookedness. Before I saw, I knew it was Granby. 

I took Frances home, then returned, passing the swaying horror far onthe other side of the road. I got the lodge-keeper, and he and I wentback together. I had them telephone from the lodge for the coroner andpersonally saw to it that the corpse should be reported as found in theopen woods a long distance from my place. But Granby had left a message"to the public" in his room at the hotel: "Senator Sayler ruined me anddrove me to death. I have gone to hang myself in his park. Down withmonopoly!" In spite of my efforts, this was published throughout thecountry--though not in Fredonia. Such of the big opposition papers aswere not under our control sent reporters and raked out the whole story;and it was blown up hugely and told everywhere. Our organs retold it, giving the true color and perspective; but my blundering attempt toavoid publicity had put me in too bad a light. 

It was the irony of fate--my power thus ludicrously thwarted by atriviality. Within twenty-four hours I realized the danger to ourcampaign. I sent Woodruff post-haste to the widow. He gave herconvincing assurances that she and her children were to be lifted fromthe slough of poverty into which Granby's drunkenness had thrust them. And in return she wrote at his dictation and issued an apparentlyuninspired public statement, exonerating me from all blame for herhusband's reverses, and saying that he had been acting strangely forover a year and had been insane for several months. In brief, I dideverything suggested by sincere regret and such skill at influencingpublic opinion as I had and commanded. But not until my reports began toshow the good effects of the million dollars Woodruff put into the lastweek of the campaign, did I begin to hope again. 

Another hope brightened toward confidence when, on the Saturday beforeelection, I sprung my carefully matured scheme for stiffening those ofour partizans who were wavering. The Scarborough speakers had, withpowerful effect, been taunting us with our huge campaign fund, daring usto disclose its sources. On that Sunday morning, when it was too latefor the opposition to discount me, I boldly threw open a set ofcampaign ledgers which showed that our fund was just under a milliondollars, with the only large subscription, the hundred thousand which Imyself had given. Tens of thousands of our partizans, longing for anexcuse for staying with us, returned cheering to the ranks--enough ofthem in the doubtful states, we believed, to restore the floating voteto its usual balance of power. 

Each horse of my team had taken a turn at doing dangerous, evenmenacing, threshing about; but both were now quietly pulling in theharness, Partizanship as docile as Plutocracy. The betting odds were sixto five against us, but we of the "inside" began to plunge on Burbankand Howard. 

XXV

AN HOUR OF EMOTION

It was after midnight of election day before we knew the result, soclose were the two most important doubtful states. 

Scarborough had swept the rural districts and the small towns. But wehad beaten him in the cities where the machines and other purchasableorganizations were powerful. His state gave him forty-two thousandplurality, Burbank carried his own state by less than ten thousand--andin twenty-four years our majority there in presidential campaigns hadnever before been less than forty thousand. 

By half-past one, the whole capital city knew that Burbank had won. Andthey flocked and swarmed out the road to his modest "retreat, " untilperhaps thirty thousand people were shouting, blowing horns, singing, sending up rockets and Roman candles, burning red fire, lightingbonfires in and near the grounds. I had come down from Fredonia to bein instant touch with Burbank and the whole national machine, shouldthere arise at the last minute necessity for bold and swift action. WhenBurbank finally yielded to the mob and showed himself on his porch withus, his immediate associates, about him, I for the first timeunreservedly admired him. For the man inside seemed at last to swelluntil the presidential pose he had so long worn prematurely was filledto a perfect fit. And in what he said as well as in the way he said itthere was an unexpected dignity and breadth and force. "I have made himPresident, " I thought, "and it looks as if the presidency had made him aman. "

After he finished, Croffut spoke, and Senator Berwick of Illinois. Thenrose a few calls for me. They were drowned in a chorus of hoots, tootsand hisses. Burbank cast a quick glance of apprehension at me--againthat hidden conviction of my vanity, this time shown in dread lest itshould goad me into hating him. I smiled reassuringly at him--and I cansay in all honesty that the smile came from the bottom of my heart. Anhour later, as I bade him good night, I said:

"I believe the man and the opportunity have met, Mr. President. Godbless you. "

Perhaps it was the unusualness of my speaking with feeling that causedthe tears to start in his eyes. "Thank you, Harvey, " he replied, clasping my hand in both his. "I realize now the grave responsibility. Ineed the help of every friend--the _true_ help of every _true_ friend. And I know what I owe to you just as clearly as if _she_ were here toremind me. "

I was too moved to venture a reply. Woodruff and I drove to the hoteltogether--the crowd hissing me wherever it recognized me. Woodrufflooked first on one side then on the other, muttering at them. "Thefools!" he said to me, with his abrupt, cool laugh. "Just like them, isn't it? Cheering the puppet, hissing its proprietor. "

I made no answer--what did it matter? Not for Burbank's position andopportunity, as in that hour of emotion they appeared even to us whoknew politics from behind the scenes, not for the reality of what thesounding title of President seems to mean, would I have changed withhim, would I have paid the degrading price he had paid. I preferred myown position--if I had bowed the knee, at least it was not to men. Asfor hisses, I saw in them a certain instinctive tribute to my power. Themob cheers its servant, hisses its master. 

"Doc, " said I, "do you want to go to the Senate instead of Croffut?"

By the flames on the torches on either side I saw his amazement. "Me?"he exclaimed. "Why, you forget I've got a past. "

"I do, " said I, "and so does every one else. All we know is that you'vegot a future. "

He drew in his breath hard and leaned back into the corner where theshadow hid him. At last he said in a quiet earnest voice: "You've givenme self-respect, Senator. I can only say--I'll see that you never regretit. "

I was hissed roundly at the hotel entrance, between cheers for Croffutand Berwick, and even for Woodruff. But I went to bed in the mostcheerful, hopeful humor I had known since the day Scarborough wasnominated. "At any rate"--so I was thinking--"my President, with myhelp, will be a man. "

XXVI

"ONLY AN OLD JOKE"

On the train going home, I was nearer to castle-building than at anytime since my boyhood castles collapsed under the rude blows ofpractical life. 

My paths have not always been straight and open, said I to myself; likeall others who have won in the conditions of this world of man stillthrall to the brute, I have had to use the code of the jungle. Inclimbing I have had to stoop, at times to crawl. But, now that I havereached the top, I shall stand erect. I shall show that the sordidnessof the struggle has not unfitted me to use the victory. True, there arethe many and heavy political debts I've had to contract in gettingBurbank the presidency; and as we must have a second term to round outour work, we shall be compelled to make some further compromises. Wemust still deal with men on the terms which human nature exacts. But inthe main we can and we will do what is just and right, what helps torealize the dreams of the men and women who founded our country--the menand women like my father and mother. 

And my mother's grave, beside my father's and among the graves of mysisters and my grandparents, rose before me. And I recalled the pledge Ihad made there, in the boyish beginnings of my manhood and my career. "My chance and Burbank's, " said I, "comes just in time. We are now atthe age where reputation is fixed; and our children are growing up andwill soon begin to judge us and be judged from us. "

Years of patient sowing, thought I, and at last the harvest! And what aharvest it will be! For under the teachings of experience I have sownnot starlight and moonshine, but seeds. 

The next morning I could not rise; it was six weeks before I was able toleave my bed. During that savage illness I met each and every one of thereckless drafts I had been drawing against my reserve vitality. Fourtimes the doctors gave me up; once even Frances lost hope. When I wasgetting well she confessed to me how she had warned God that He neednever expect to hear from her again if her prayer for me were notanswered--and I saw she rather suspected that her threat was notunassociated with my recovery. 

Eight weeks out of touch with affairs, and they the crucial eight weeksof all my years of thought and action! At last the harvest, indeed; andI was reaping what I had sown. 

In the second week of January I revolted against the doctors and nursesand had my political secretary, Wheelock, telephone for Woodruff--thelegislature had elected him to the Senate three days before. When he hadsat with me long enough to realize that I could bear bad news, he said:"Goodrich and Burbank have formed a combination against you. "

"How do you know?" said I, showing no surprise, and feeling none. 

"Because"--he laughed--"I was in it. At least, they thought so untilthey had let me be safely elected. As nearly as I can make it out, theybegan to plot about ten days after you fell sick. At first they had iton the slate to do me up, too. But--the day after Christmas--Burbanksent for me--"

"Wait a minute, " I interrupted. And I began to think. It was onChristmas day that Burbank telephoned for the first time in nearly threeweeks, inquiring about my condition. I remembered their telling me howminute his questionings were. And I had thought his solicitude was proofof his friendship! Instead, he had been inquiring to make sure about thereports in the papers that I was certain to recover, in order that hemight shift the factors in his plot accordingly. "When did you sayBurbank sent for you?" I asked. 

"On Christmas day, " Woodruff replied. 

I laughed; he looked at me inquiringly. "Nothing, " said I. "Only an oldjoke--as old as human nature. Go on. "

"Christmas day, " he continued; "I didn't get to him until next morning. I can't figure out just why they invited me into their combine. "

But I could figure it out, easily. If I had died, my power would havedisintegrated and Woodruff would have been of no use to them. When theywere sure I was going to live, they had to have him because he might beable to assassinate me, certainly could so cripple me that I would--asthey reasoned--be helpless under their assaults. But it wasn't necessaryto tell Woodruff this, I thought. 

"Well, " said I, "and what happened?"

"Burbank gave me a dose of his 'great and gracious way'--you ought tosee the 'side' he puts on now!--and turned me over to Goodrich. He hadbeen mighty careful not to give himself away any further than that. ThenGoodrich talked to me for three solid hours, showing me it was my dutyto the party as well as to myself to join him and Burbank in eliminatingthe one disturber of harmony--that meant you. "

"And didn't they tell you they'd destroy you if you didn't?"

"Oh, that of course, " he answered indifferently. 

"Well, what did you do?"

"Played with 'em till I was elected. Then I dropped Goodrich a line. 'You can go to hell, ' I wrote. 'I travel only with men'. "

"Very imprudent, " was my comment. 

"Yes, " he admitted, "but I had to do something to get the dirt off myhands. "

"So Burbank has gone over to Goodrich!" I went on presently, as much tomyself as to him. 

"I always knew he was one of those chaps you have to keep scared to keepstraight, " said Woodruff. "They think your politeness indicates fear andyour friendship fright. Besides, he's got a delusion that his popularitycarried the West for him and that you and I did him only damage. "Woodruff interrupted himself to laugh. "A friend of mine, " he resumed, "was on the train with Scarborough when he went East to the meeting ofCongress last month. He tells me it was like a President-elect on theway to be inaugurated. The people turned out at every cross-roads, evenbeyond the Alleghanies. And Burbank knows it. If he wasn't clean daftabout himself he'd realize that if it hadn't been for you--well, I'dhate to say how badly he'd have got left. But then, if it hadn't beenfor you, he'd never have been governor. He was a dead one, and youhauled him out of the tomb. "

True enough. But what did it matter now?

"He's going to get a horrible jolt before many months, " Woodruff wenton. "I can see you after him. "

"You forget. He's President, " I answered. "He's beyond our reach. "

"Not when he wants a renomination, " insisted Woodruff. 

"He can get that without us--_if_, " I said. "You must remember we'vemade him a fetish with our rank and file. And he's something of a fetishwith the country, now that he's President. No, we can't destroyhim--can't even injure him. He'll have to do that himself, if it's done. Besides--"

I did not finish. I did not care to confess that since Frances and I sawGranby swinging from that tree in my grounds I had neither heart norstomach for the relentless side of the game. Indeed, whether fromcalculation or from sentimentality or from both--or, from a certainsympathy and fellow feeling for all kinds of weakness--I have neverpursued those who have played me false, except when exemplary punishmentwas imperative. 

"Well--" Woodruff looked bitterly disappointed. "I guess you're right. "He brightened. "I forgot Goodrich for a minute. Burbank'll do himself upthrough that--I'd have to be in a saloon to feel free to use thelanguage that describes him. "

"I fear he will, " I said. And it was not a hypocrisy--for I did not, andcould not, feel anger toward him. Had I not cut this staff deliberatelybecause it was crooked? What more natural than that it should give wayunder me as soon as I leaned upon it?

"Your sickness certainly couldn't have come at an unluckier time, "Woodruff observed just before he left. 

"I'm not sure of that, " was my reply. "It would have been useless tohave found him out sooner. And if he had hidden himself until later, hemight have done us some serious mischief. "

As he was the President-elect, to go to him uninvited would have beeninfringement of his dignity as well as of my pride. A few days later Iwrote him, thanking him for his messages and inquiries during my illnessand saying that I was once more taking part in affairs. He did not replyby calling me up on the telephone, as he would have done in thecordial, intimate years preceding his grandeur. Instead he sent atelegram of congratulation, following it with a note. He urged me to goSouth, as I had planned, and to stay until I was fully restored. "Ishall deny myself the pleasure of seeing you until you return. " Thatsentence put off our meeting indefinitely--I could see him smiling atits adroitness as he wrote it. 

But he made his state of mind even clearer. His custom had been to beginhis notes "Dear Harvey, " or "Dear Sayler, " and to end them "James" or"Burbank. " This note began "My dear Senator"; it ended, "Yourssincerely, James E. Burbank. " As I stared at these phrases my bloodsteamed in my brain. Had he spat in my face my fury would have beenless, far less. "So!" I thought in the first gush of anger, "you feelthat you have been using me, that you have no further use for me. Youhave decided to take the advice of those idiotic independent newspapersand 'wash your hands of the corruptionist who almost defeated you'. "

To make war upon him was in wisdom impossible--even had I wished. Andwhen anger flowed away and pity and contempt succeeded, I really didnot wish to war upon him. But there was Goodrich--the realcorruptionist, the wrecker of my plans and hopes, the menace to thefuture of the party. I sent for Woodruff and together we mapped out acampaign against the senior senator from New Jersey in all thenewspapers we could control or influence. I gave him a free hand touse--with his unfailing discretion, of course--all the facts we hadaccumulated to Goodrich's discredit. I put at his disposal a hundredthousand dollars. As every available dollar of the party funds had beenused in the campaign, I advanced this money from my own pocket. 

And I went cheerfully away to Palm Beach, there to watch at my ease therain of shot and shell upon my enemy. 

XXVII

A DOMESTIC DISCORD

After a month in the South, I was well again--younger in feeling, and inlooks, than I had been for ten years. Carlotta and the children, except"Junior" who was in college, had gone to Washington when I went toFlorida. I found her abed with a nervous attack from the double strainof the knowledge that Junior had eloped with an "impossible" woman hehad met, I shall not say where, and of the effort of keeping thecalamity from me until she was sure he had really entangled himselfhopelessly. 

She was now sitting among her pillows, telling the whole story. "If heonly hadn't married her!" she ended. 

This struck me as ludicrous--a good woman citing to her son's discreditthe fact that he had goodness' own ideals of honor. 

"What are you laughing at?" she demanded. 

I was about to tell her I was hopeful of the boy chiefly because he hadthus shown the splendid courage that more than redeems folly. But Irefrained. I had never been able to make Carlotta understand me or myideas, and I had long been weary of the resentful silences or angrytirades which mental and temperamental misunderstandings produce. 

"Courage never gets into a man unless it's born there, " said I. "Follyis born into us all and can be weeded out. "

"What can be expected?" she went on after trying in vain to connect myremark with our conversation. "A boy needs a father. You've been so busywith your infamous politics that you've given him scarcely a thought. "

Painfully true, throughout; but it was one of those criticisms we canhardly endure even when we make it upon ourselves. I was silent. 

"I've no patience with men!" she went on. "They're always meddling withthings that would get along better without them, and letting their ownpatch run to weeds. "

Unanswerable. I held my peace. 

"What are you going to do about it, Harvey? How _can_ you be so calm?Isn't there _anything_ that would rouse you?"

"I'm too busy thinking what to do to waste any energy in blowing offsteam, " was my answer in my conciliatory tone. 

"But there's nothing we _can_ do, " she retorted, with increasing anger, which vented itself toward me because the true culprit, fate, was notwithin reach. 

"Precisely, " I agreed. "Nothing. "

"That creature won't let him come to see me. "

"And you musn't see him when he sends for you, " said I. "He'll come assoon as his money gives out. She'll see that he does. "

"But you aren't going to cut him off!"

"Just that, " said I. 

A long silence, then I added in answer to her expression: "And _you_must not let him have a cent, either. "

In a gust of anger, probably at my having read her thoughts, she blurtedout: "One would think it was _your_ money. "

I had seen that thought in her eyes, had watched her hold it back behindher set teeth, many times in our married years. And I now thanked mystars I had had the prudence to get ready for the inevitable moment whenshe would speak it. But at the same time I could not restrain a flush ofshame. "It _is_ my money, " I forced myself to say. "Ask your brother. He'll tell you what I've forbidden him to tell before--that I have twicerescued you and him from bankruptcy. "

"With our own money, " she retorted, hating herself for saying it, butgoaded on by a devil that lived in her temper and had got control many atime, though never before when I happened to be the one with whom shewas at outs. 

"No--with my own, " I replied tranquilly. 

"_Your_ own!" she sneered. "Every dollar you have has come through whatyou got by marrying me--through what you married me for. Where would yoube if you hadn't married me? You know very well. You'd still be fightingpoverty as a small lawyer in Pulaski, married to Betty Crosby orwhatever her name was. " And she burst into hysterical tears. At last shewas showing me the secrets that had been tearing at her, was showing meher heart where they had torn it. 

"Probably, " said I in my usual tone, when she was calm enough to hearme. "So, that's what you brood over?"

"Yes, " she sobbed. "I've hated you and myself. Why don't you tell me itisn't so? I'll believe it--I don't want to hear the truth. I know youdon't love me, Harvey. But just say you don't love _her_. "

"What kind of middle-aged, maudlin moonshine is this, anyway?" said I. "Let's go back to Junior. We've passed the time of life when people cantalk sentimentality without being ridiculous. "

"That's true of me, Harvey, " she said miserably, "but not of you. Youdon't look a day over forty--you're still a young man, while I--"

She did not need to complete the sentence. I sat on the bed beside herand patted her vaguely. She took my hand and kissed it. And I said--Itried to say it gently, tenderly, sincerely: "People who've beentogether, as you and I have, see each other always as at first, theysay. "

She kissed my hand gratefully again. "Forgive me for what I said, " shemurmured. "You know I didn't think it, really. I've got such a nastydisposition and I felt so down, and--that was the only thing I couldfind to throw at you. "

"Please--_please_!" I protested. "Forgive isn't a word that I'd have theright to use to any one. "

"But I must--"

"Now, _I've_ known for years, " I went on, "that you were in love withthat other man when I asked you to marry me. I might have taunted youwith it, might have told you how I've saved him from going to jail forpassing worthless checks. "

This delighted her--this jealousy so long and so carefully hidden. Undercover of her delight I escaped from the witness-stand. And the discoverythat evening by Doc Woodruff that my son's ensnarer had a husband livingput her in high good humor. "If he'd only come home, " said she, adding:"Though, now I feel that he's perfectly safe with her. "

"Yes--let them alone, " I replied. "He has at least one kind of sense--asense of honor. And I suspect and hope that he has at bottom commonsense too. Let him find her out for himself. Then, he'll be done withher, and her kind, for good. "

"I must marry him off as soon as possible, " said Carlotta. "I'll lookabout for some nice, quiet young girl with character and looks anddomestic tastes. " She laughed a little bitterly. "You men can profit byexperience and it ruins us women. "

"Unjust, " said I, "but injustice and stupidity are the ground plan oflife. "

We had not long to wait. The lady, as soon as Junior reached the end ofhis cash, tried to open negotiations. Failing and becoming convincedthat he had been cast off by his parents, she threw aside her mask. Onestraight look into her real countenance was enough for the boy. He fledshuddering--but not to me as I had expected. Instead, he got a place asa clerk in Chicago. 

"Why not let him shift for himself a while?" suggested Woodruff, whocouldn't have taken more trouble about the affair if the boy had beenhis own. "A man never knows whether his feet were made to stand on andwalk with, unless he's been down to his uppers. "

"I think the boy's got his grandmother in him, " said I. "Let's give hima chance. "

"He'll make a career for himself yet--like his father's, " saidWoodruff. 

That, with the sincerest enthusiasm. But instinctively I looked at himfor signs of sarcasm. And then I wondered how many "successful" menwould, in the same circumstances, have had the same curiouslysignificant instinct. 

XXVIII

UNDER A CRAYON PORTRAIT

It was now less than a month before inauguration. Daily the papers gaveprobable selections for the high posts under the approachingadministration; and, while many of them were attributed to my influence, Roebuck's son as ambassador to Russia was the only one I even approvedof. As payments for the services of the plutocracy they were unnecessaryand foolishly lavish; as preparations for a renomination and reëlection, the two guiding factors in every plan of a President-elect, they werepreposterous. They were first steps toward an administration that wouldmake Scarborough's triumph inevitable, in spite of his handicap ofidealism. 

I sent Woodruff west to find out what Burbank was doing about the placesI had pledged--all of them less "honorable" but more lucrative officeswhich party workers covet. He returned in a few days with the news that, according to the best information he could get through his spies inBurbank's _entourage_, all our pledges would be broken; theSayler-Burbank machine was to be made over into a Goodrich-Burbank. 

I saw that I could not much longer delay action. But I resolved to putit off until the very last minute, meanwhile trying to force Burbank tosend for me. My cannonade upon Goodrich in six thousand newspapers, great and small, throughout the West and South, had been reinforced bythe bulk of the opposition press. I could not believe it was to bewithout influence upon the timid Burbank, even though he knew who wasback of the attack, and precisely how I was directing it. I wasrelying--as I afterward learned, not in vain--upon my faithful De Miltto bring to "Cousin James'" attention the outburst of public sentimentagainst his guide, philosopher and friend, the Wall Streetfetch-and-carry. 

I had fixed on February fifteenth as the date on which I would telegrapha formal demand for an interview. On February eleventh, hesurrendered--he wired, asking me to come. I took a chance; I wired backa polite request to be excused as I had urgent business in Chicago. Andtwenty-four hours later I passed within thirty miles of Rivington on myway to Chicago with Carlotta--we were going to see Junior, hugely proudof himself and his twenty-seven dollars a week. At the Auditorium atelegram waited from Burbank: He hoped I would come as soon as I could;the matters he wished to discuss were most important. 

Toward noon of the third day thereafter we were greeting each other--hewith an attempt at his old-time cordiality, I without concealment of atleast the coldness I felt. But my manner apparently, and probably, escaped his notice. He was now blind and drunk with the incense that hadbeen whirling about him in dense clouds for three months; he wasincapable of doubting the bliss of any human being he was gracious to. He shut me in with him and began confiding the plans he and Goodrich hadmade--cabinet places, foreign posts, and so forth. His voice, lingeringand luxuriating upon the titles--"my ambassador to his BrittanicMajesty, " "my ambassador to the German Emperor, " and so on--amused and alittle, but only a little, astonished me; I had always known that hewas a through-and-through snob. For nearly an hour I watched hisingenuous, childish delight in bathing himself in himself, the wonderfulfountain of all these honors. At last he finished, laid down his list, took off his nose-glasses. "Well, Harvey, what do you think?" he asked, and waited with sparkling eyes for my enthusiastic approval. 

"I see Goodrich drove a hard bargain, " said I. "Yet he came on hisknees, if you had but realized it. "

Burbank's color mounted. "What do you mean, Sayler?" he inquired, thefaint beginnings of the insulted god in his tone and manner. 

"You asked my opinion, " I answered, "I'm giving it. I don't recall asingle name that isn't obviously a Goodrich suggestion. Even the Roebuckappointment--"

"Sayler, " he interrupted, in a forbearing tone, "I wish you would notremind me so often of your prejudice against Senator Goodrich. It isunworthy of you. But for my tact--pardon my frankness--your prejudicewould have driven him away, and with him a support he controls--"

I showed my amusement. 

"Don't smile, Sayler, " he protested with some anger in his smooth, heavyvoice. "You are not the only strong man in the party. And I venture totake advantage of our long friendship to speak plainly to you. I wish tosee a united party. One of my reasons for sending for you was to tellyou how greatly I am distressed and chagrined by the attacks on SenatorGoodrich in our papers. "

"Did you have any other reason for sending for me?" said I very quietly. 

"That was the principal one, " he confessed. 

"Oh!" I exclaimed. 

"What do you mean, Sayler?"

"I thought possibly you might also have wished to tell me how unjust youthought the attacks on me in the eastern papers, and to assure me thatthey had only strengthened our friendship. "

He was silent. 

I rose, threw my overcoat on my arm, took up my hat. 

"Wait a moment, please, " he said. "I have always found you veryimpartial in your judgments--your clear judgment has been of the highestusefulness to me many times. "

"Thank you, " I said. "You are most kind--most generous. "

"So, " he went on, not dreaming that he might find sarcasm if he searchedfor it, "I hope you appreciate why I have refrained from seeing you, asI wished. I know, Sayler, your friendship was loyal. I know you didduring the campaign what you thought wisest and best. But I feel thatyou must see now what a grave mistake you made. Don't misunderstand me, Harvey. I do not hold it against you. But you must see, no doubt you dosee, that it would not be fair for me, it would not be in keeping withthe dignity of the great office with which the people have intrusted me, to seem to lend my approval. "

I looked straight at him until his gaze fell. Then I said, my voice evenlower than usual: "If you will look at the election figures carefullyyou will find written upon them a very interesting fact. That fact is:In all the doubtful states--the ones that elected you--Scarborough swepteverything where our party has heretofore been strongest; you wereelected by carrying districts where our party has always been weakest. _And in those districts, James, our money was spent--as you well know. _"

I waited for this to cut through his enswaddlings of self-complacence, waited until I saw its acid eating into him. Then I went on: "I hope youwill never again deceive yourself, or let your enemies deceive you. Asto your plans--the plans for Goodrich and his crowd--I have nothing tosay. My only concern is to have Woodruff's matters--hispledges--attended to. That I must insist upon. "

He lowered his brows in a heavy frown. 

"I have your assent?" I insisted. 

"Really, Harvey, "--there was an astonishing change from the complacent, superior voice of a few minutes before, --"I'll do what I can--but--theresponsibilities--the duties of--of my position--"

"You are going to _take_ the office, James, " said I. "You can't cheatthe men who _gave_ it to you. "

He did not answer. 

"I pledged my word, " I went on. "You gave the promises. I indorsed foryou. The debts _must_ be met. " Never before had I enjoyed using thatugliest of words. 

"You ask me to bring myself into unpopularity with the entire country, "he pleaded. "Several of the men on your list are ex-convicts. Others areabout to be indicted for election frauds. Many are men utterly withoutcharacter--"

"They did _your_ work, James, " said I. "I guarantee that in no case willthe unpleasant consequences to you be more than a few disagreeable butsoon forgotten newspaper articles. You haggle over these trifles, and--why, look at your cabinet list! There are two names on it--two ofthe four Goodrich men--that will cost you blasts of publicanger--perhaps the renomination. "

"Is _this_ my friend Harvey Sayler?" he exclaimed, grief and pain inthat face which had been used by him for thirty years as the sculptoruses the molding clay. 

"It is, " I answered calmly. "And never more your friend than now, whenyou have ceased to be a friend to him--and to yourself. "

"Then do not ask me to share the infamy of those wretches, " he pleaded. 

"They are our allies and helpers, " I said, "wretches only as I and allof us in practical politics are wretches. Difference of degree, perhaps;but not of kind. And, James, if our promises to these invaluable fellowworkers of ours are not kept, kept to the uttermost, you will compel meand my group of Senators to oppose and defeat your most importantnominations. And I shall myself, publicly, from the floor of the Senate, show up these Goodrich nominees of yours as creatures of corruptcorporations and monopolies. " I said this without heat; every word of itfell cold as arctic ice upon his passion. 

A long pause, then: "Your promises shall be kept, " he assented withgreat dignity of manner; "not because you threaten, Harvey, but becauseI value your friendship beyond anything and everything. And I may add Iam sorry, profoundly sorry, my selections for the important places donot please you. "

"I think of your future, " I said. "You _talk_ of friendship--"

"No, no, Harvey, " he protested, with a vehemence of reassurance thatstruck me as amusing. 

"And, " I went on, "it is in friendship, James, that I warn you not tofill all your crucial places with creatures of the Goodrich crowd. Theywill rule your administration, they will drive you, in spite ofyourself, on and on, from excess to excess. You will put the middle Westirrevocably against you. You will make even the East doubtful. You arepaying, paying with your whole future, for that which is already yours. If you lose your hold on the people, the money-crowd will have none ofyou. If you keep the people, the money-crowd will be your very humbleservant. "

I happened just then to glance past him at a picture on the wall overhis chair. It was a crayon portrait of his wife, made from an enlargedphotograph--a poor piece of work, almost ludicrous in its distortions ofproportion and perspective. But it touched me the more because it wassuch a humble thing, reminiscent of her and his and my lowly beginnings. And an appeal seemed to go straight to my heart from those eyes that hadso often been raised from the sewing in sympathetic understanding ofthe things I was struggling to make her husband see. 

I pointed to the picture; he slowly turned round in his chair until hetoo was looking at it. "What would _she_ say, Burbank, " I asked, "if shewere with us now?"

And then I went on to analyze his outlined administration, to show himin detail why I thought it would ruin him, to suggest men who were asgood party men as the Goodrich crowd and would be a credit to him and ahelp. And he listened with his old-time expression, looking up at hisdead wife's picture all the while. "You must be _popular_, at any cost, "I ended. "The industrial crowd will stay with the party, no matter whatwe do. As long as Scarborough is in control on the other side, we aretheir only hope. And so, we are free to seek popularity--and we mustregain it or we're done for. Money won't save us when we've lost ourgrip on the rank and file. The presidency can't be bought again for_you_. If it must be bought next time, another figure-head will have tobe used. "

"I can't tell you how grateful I am, " was his conclusion after I had putmy whole mind before him and he and I had discussed it. "But there arecertain pledges to Goodrich--"

"Break them, " said I. "To keep them is catastrophe. "

I knew the pledges he had in the foreground of his thoughts--a St. Louisunderstrapper of the New York financial crowd for Secretary of theTreasury; for Attorney General a lawyer who knew nothing of politics orpublic sentiment or indeed of anything but how to instruct corporationsin law-breaking and law-dodging. 

He thought a long time. When he answered it was with a shake of thehead. "Too late, I'm afraid, Harvey. I've asked the men and they'veaccepted. That was a most untimely illness of yours. I'll see what canbe done. It's a grave step to offend several of the most conspicuous menin the party. "

"Not so serious as to offend the party itself, " I replied. "Money is agreat power in politics, but partizanship is a greater. "

"I'll think it over, " was the most he had the courage to concede. "Imust look at all sides, you know. But, whatever I decide, I thank youfor your candor. "

We separated, the best friends in the world, I trying to recover somefew of the high hopes of him that had filled me on election night. "He'sweak and timid, " I said to myself, "but at bottom he must have a longingto be President in fact as well as in name. Even the meanest slave longsto be a man. "

I should have excepted the self-enslaved slaves of ambition. Of allbondmen, they alone, I believe, not only do not wish freedom, but alsoare ever plotting how they may add to their chains. 

XXIX

A LETTER FROM THE DEAD

I was living alone at the Willard. 

Soon after the death of Burbank's wife, his sister and brother-in-law, the Gracies, had come with their three children to live with him and tolook after his boy and girl. Trouble between his family and mine, originating in some impertinences of the oldest Gracie girl, spread fromthe children to the grown people until, when he went into the WhiteHouse, he and I were the only two on speaking terms. I see now that thissituation had large influence on me in holding aloof and waiting alwaysfor overtures from him. At the time I thought, as no doubt he thoughtalso, that the quarrel was beneath the notice of men. 

At any rate my family decided not to come to Washington during his firstwinter in the White House. I lived alone at the Willard. One afternoontoward the end of February I returned there from the Senate and foundWoodruff, bad news in his face. "What is it?" I asked indifferently, for I assumed it was some political tangle. 

"Your wife--was taken--very ill--very suddenly, " he said. His eyes toldme the rest. 

If I had ever asked myself how this news would affect me, I should haveanswered that it would give me a sensation of relief. But, instead ofrelief, I felt the stunning blow of a wave of sorrow which has neverwholly receded. Not because I loved her--that I never did. Not becauseshe was the mother of my children--my likes and dislikes are direct andpersonal. Not because she was my wife--that bond had been galling. Notbecause I was fond of her--she had one of those cold, angry natures thatforbid affection. No; I was overwhelmed because she and I had beenintimates, with all the closest interests of life in common, with thewhole world, even my children whom I loved passionately, outside thatcircle which fate had drawn around us two. I imagine this is notuncommon among married people, --this unhealable break in their routineof association when one departs. No doubt it often passes with theunthinking for love belatedly discovered. 

"She did not suffer, " said Woodruff gently. "It was heart disease. Shehad just come in from a ride with your oldest daughter. They wereresting and talking in high spirits by the library fire. And then--theend came--like putting out the light. "

Heart disease! Often I had noted the irregular beat of her heart--athrob, a long pause, a flutter, a short pause, a throb. And I couldremember that more than once the sound had been followed by the shadowyappearance, in the door of my mind, of one of those black thoughts whichtry to tempt hope but only make it hide in shame and dread. Now, thememory of those occasions tormented me into accusing myself of havingwished her gone. But it was not so. 

She had told me she had heart trouble; but she had confided to no onethat she knew it might bring on the end at any moment. She left aletter, sealed and addressed to me:

 Harvey--

 I shall never have the courage to tell you, yet I feel you ought to know. I think every one attributes to every one else less shrewdness than he possesses. I know you have never given me the credit of seeing that you did not love me. And you were so kind and considerate and so patient with my moods that no doubt I should have been deceived had I not known what love is. I think, to have loved and to have been loved develops in a woman a sort of sixth sense--sensitiveness to love. And that had been developed in me, and when it never responded to your efforts to deceive me, I knew you did not love me. 

 Well, neither did I love you, though I was able to hide it from you. And it has often irritated me that you were so unobservant. You know now the cause of many of my difficult moods, which have seemed causeless. 

 I admired you from the first time we met. I have liked you, I have been proud of you, I would not have been the wife of any other man in the world, I would not have had any other father for my children. But I have kept on loving the man I loved before I met you. 

 Why? I don't know. I despised him for his weaknesses. I should never have married him, though mother and Ed both feared I would. I think I loved him because I knew he loved me. That is the way it is with women--they seldom love independently. Men like to love; women like to be loved. And, poor, unworthy creature that he was, still he would have died for me, though God had denied him the strength to live for me. But all that God gave him--the power to love--he gave me. And so he was different in my eyes from what he was in any one's else in the world. And I loved him. 

 I don't tell you this because I feel regret or remorse. I don't; there never was a wife truer than I, for I put him completely aside. I tell you, because I want you to remember me right after I'm gone, Harvey dear. You may remember how I was silly and jealous of you, and think I am mistaken about my own feelings. But jealousy doesn't mean love. When people really love, I think it's seldom that they're jealous. What makes people jealous usually is suspecting the other person of having the same sort of secret they have themselves. It hurt my vanity that you didn't love me; and it stung me to think you cared for some one else, just as I did. 

 I want you to remember me gently. And somehow I think that, after you've read this, you will, even if you did love some one else. If you ever see this at all, Harvey--and I may tear it up some day on impulse--but if you ever do see it, I shall be dead, and we shall both be free. And I want you to come to me and look at me and--

It ended thus abruptly. No doubt she had intended to open the envelopeand finish it--but, what more was there to say?

I think she must have been content with the thoughts that were in mymind as I looked down at her lying in death's inscrutable calm. I hadone of my secretaries hunt out the man she had loved--a sad, strandedwreck of a man he had become; but since that day he has been shelteredat least from the worst of the bufferings to which his incapacity forlife exposed him. 

There was a time when I despised incapables; then I pitied them; butlatterly I have felt for them the sympathetic sense of brotherhood. Arewe not all incapables? Differing only in degree, and how slightly there, if we look at ourselves without vanity; like practice-sketches put uponthe slate by Nature's learning hand and impatiently sponged away. 

XXX

A PHILOSOPHER RUDELY INTERRUPTED

After the funeral I lingered at our Fredonia place. There was the estateto settle; my two daughters had now no one to look after them; Juniormust be started right at learning the business of which he would soon bethe head, as his uncle had shown himself far too easy-going for largeexecutive responsibility. So, I stayed on, doing just enough to keep aface of plausibility upon my pretexts for not returning to Washington. The fact was that Carlotta's death had deepened my mood of distaste intodisgust. It had set me to brooding over the futility and pettiness of myactivities in politics, of all activities of whatever kind. I watched Edand my children resuming the routine of their lives, swiftly adjustingthemselves to the loss of one who had been so dear to them andapparently so necessary to their happiness. The cry of "man overboard, "a few ripples, a few tears; the sailing on, with the surface of thewater smooth again and the faces keen and bright. 

Woodruff wrote, urging; then he sent telegram after telegram. Still Iprocrastinated; for all the effect his letters and telegrams had uponme, I might as well have left them unopened. My final answer was: "Actas you would if I were dead. "

Probably, what had given my pessimism its somberest tone was theattitude of the public toward Burbank's high appointments. I hadconfidently predicted that filling all the high offices with men who hadno interest but "the interests, " men who were notoriously the agents andservants of the great "campaign contributors, " would cause a publicoutcry that could not be ignored. The opposition press did makeperfunctory criticisms; but nowhere was there a sign that the peoplewere really angered. 

I got the clue to this mystery from my gardener, who prided himself onbeing strenuously of the opposition party. "What do you think of the newadministration?" said I when I came upon him one morning at therhododendron beds. 

"Much better than I allowed, " said he. "Burbank's got good men aroundhim. "

"You approve of his Cabinet?"

"Of course, they're all strong party men. I like a good party man. Ilike a man that has convictions and principles, and stands up for 'em. "

"Your newspapers say some pretty severe things about those men. "

"So I read, " said he, "but you know how that is, Mr. Sayler. They've gotto pound 'em to please the party. But nobody believes much he sees inthe newspapers. Whenever I read an item about things I happen to know, it's all wrong. And I guess they don't get it any nearer right about thethings I don't happen to know. Now, all this here talk of there being somany millionaires--I don't take no kind of stock in it. "

"No?" said I. 

"Of course, some's poor and some's rich--that's got to be. But I thinkit's all newspaper lies about these here big fortunes and about all theleading men in politics being corrupt. I know it ain't so about theleading men in _my_ party, and I reckon there ain't no more truth in itabout the leading men of your'n. I was saying to my wife last night, 'It's all newspaper lies, ' says I, 'just like the story they printedabout Mrs. Timmins eloping with Maria Wilmerding's husband, when she hadonly went over to Rabbit Forks to visit her married daughter. ' No, theycan't fool me--them papers. "

"That's one way of looking at it, " said I. 

"It's horse sense, " said he. 

And I have no doubt that to the average citizen, leading a small, quietlife and dealing with affairs in corner-grocery retail, the stupendousfacts of accumulations of wealth and wholesale, far-and-wide purchasesof the politicians, the vast system of bribery, with bribes adapted toevery taste and conscience, seem impossibilities, romancings ofpartizanship and envy and sensationalism. Nor can he understand the waysuperior men play the great games, the heartlessness of ambition, thecynicism of political and commercial prostitution, the sense ofsuperiority to the legal and moral codes which comes to most men withsuccess. 

Your average citizen is a hero-worshiper too. He knows his own and hisneighbor's weaknesses, but he gapes up at the great with glamoured eyes, and listens to their smooth plausibilities as to the reading of theGospel from the pulpit. He belongs to the large mass of those whobelieve, not to the small class of those who question. But for therivalries and jealousies of superior men which have kept them alwaysdivided into two parties, the ins and the outs, I imagine the masseswould have remained for ever sunk in the most hopeless, if the mostdelightful, slavery--that in which the slave accepts his lowliness as adivine ordinance and looks up to his oppressors and plunderers ashero-leaders. And no doubt, so long as the exuberant riches of ourcountry enable the triumphant class to "take care of" all the hungry whohave intellect enough to make themselves dangerous, we shall have nochange--except occasional spasms whenever a large number of unplacedintelligent hungry are forcing the full and fat to make room for them. How long will this be?

If our education did not merely feed prejudices instead of removingthem, I should say not long. As it is, I expect to "leave the world aswicked and as foolish as I found it. " At any rate, until the millenium, I shall continue to play the game under the rules of humannature--instead of under the rules of human ideals, as does my esteemedfriend Scarborough. And I claim that we practical men are as true anduseful servants of our country and of our fellow men as he. If men likehim are the light, men like us are the lantern that shields it from thealternating winds of rapacity and resentment. 

But, in running on about myself, I have got away from my point, whichwas how slight and even flimsy a pretense of fairness will shelter a manin high place--and therefore a Burbank. "He will fool the people aseasily as he fools himself, " said I. And more than ever it seemed to methat I must keep out of the game of his administration. My necessity ofparty regularity made it impossible for me to oppose him; my equalnecessity of not outraging my sense of the wise, not to speak of thedecent, made it impossible for me to abet him. 

At last Woodruff came in person. When his name was brought to me, Iregretted that I could not follow my strong impulse to refuse to seehim. But at sight of his big strong body and big strong face, with itstypically American careless good humor--the cool head, the warm heart, the amused eyes and lips that could also harden into sternness ofresolution--at sight of this old friend and companion-in-arms, my moodbegan to lift and I felt him stirring in it like sunshine attacking afog. "I know what you've come to say, " I began, "but don't say it. Ishall keep to my tent for the present. "

"Then you won't have a tent to keep to, " retorted he. 

"Very well, " said I. "My private affairs will give me all the occupationI need. "

He laughed. "The general resigns from the command of the army to playwith a box of lead soldiers. "

"That sounds well, " said I. "But the better the analogy, the worse thelogic. I am going out of the business of making and working off goldbricks and green goods--and that's no analogy. "

"Then you must be going to kill yourself, " he replied. "For that'slife. "

"Public life--active life, " said I. "Here, there are other things. " AndI looked toward my two daughters, whose laughter reached us from theirpony-cart just rounding a distant curve in the drive. 

His gaze followed mine and he watched the two children until they wereout of sight, watched them with the saddest, hungriest look in his eyes. "Guess you're right, " he said gruffly. 

After a silence I asked: "What's the news?"

A quizzical smile just curled his lips, and it broadened into a laugh ashe saw my own rather shamefaced smile of understanding. "Seems to me, "said he, "that I read somewhere once how a king, perhaps it was anemperor, so hankered for the quiet joys that he got off the throne andretired to a monastery--and then established lines of post-horses fromhis old capital to bring him the news every half-hour or so. I reckonhe'd have taken his job back if he could have got it. "

"I reckon, " said I. 

"Well, " said he, "the news is that they're about to oust you from thechairmanship of the national committee and from control in this state. "

"Really?" said I, in an indifferent tone--though I felt anything butindifferent. 

"Really, " said he. "Burbank is throwing out our people throughout thecountry and is putting Goodrich men in place of 'em--wherever ourfellows won't turn traitor. And they've got hold of Roebuck. He's givinga dinner at the Auditorium to-morrow night. It's a dinner of elevencovers. I think you can guess who ten of 'em are for. The eleventh isfor Dominick!"

That was enough. I grasped the situation instantly. The one weak spot inmy control of my state was my having left the city bosses their localpower, instead of myself ruling the cities from the state capital. Whyhad I done this? Perhaps the bottom reason was that I shrank frompermitting any part of the machine for which I was directly responsibleto be financed by collections from vice and crime. I admit that thedistinction between corporate privilege and plunder and the pickings andstealings and prostitutions of individuals is more apparent than real. Iadmit that the kinds of vice and crime I tolerated are far more harmfulthan the other sorts which are petty and make loathed outcasts of theirwretched practitioners. Still, I was snob or Pharisee or Puritan enoughto feel and to act upon the imaginary distinction. And so, I had leftthe city bosses locally independent--for, without the revenues and otheraids from vice and crime, what city political machine could be kept up?

"Dominick!" I exclaimed. 

"Exactly!" said Woodruff. "Now, Mr. Sayler, the point is just here. Idon't blame you for wanting to get out. If I had any other game, I'd getout myself. But what's to become of us--of all your friends, not only inthis state but throughout the country? Are you going to stand by and seethem slaughtered and not lift a finger to help 'em?"

There was no answering him. Yet the spur of vanity, which clipped intome at thought of myself thrown down and out by these cheap ingrates andscoundrels, had almost instantly ceased to sting; and my sense of wearydisgust had returned. If I went into the battle again, what work facedme? The same old monotonous round. To outflank Burbank and Goodrich bytricks as old as war and politics, and effective only because humanstupidity is infinite and unteachable. To beat down and whip back intothe ranks again these bandits of commerce disguised as respectable, church-going, law-upholding men of property--and to do this by the sameold methods of terror and force. 

"You can't leave us in the lurch, " said Doc. "And the game promises tobe interesting once more. I don't like racing on the flat. It's thehurdles that make the fun. "

I pictured myself again a circus horse, going round and round the ring, jumping the same old hurdles at the same old intervals. "Take my place, Doc, " said I. 

He shook his head. "I'm a good second, " said he, "but a rotten badfirst. "

It was true enough. He mysteriously lacked that mysterious somethingwhich, when a man happens to have been born with it, makes other menyield him the command--give it to him, force it on him, if he hangsback. 

"What do you want me to do?" I asked. 

"That dinner to-morrow night is in Suite L. Go to it--that's theshortest way to put Roebuck and Dominick out of business. Face 'em andthey'll skulk. "

"It's a risk, " said I. I saw at once that he was right, but I was in areluctant humor. 

"Not a bit of it, " was his confident reply. "I had a horse that was_crazy_--would run away on any old provocation. But no matter how busyhe was at kicking up the dust and the dashboard, you could always halthim by ringing a bell once. He'd been in the street-car service. That'sthe way it is with men, especially strong men, that have been broken tothe bell. They hear it ring and they can't resist. Go up and ring thebell. "

"Go ring it yourself, " said I. 

"You're the bell, " said he. 

XXXI

HARVEY SAYLER, SWINEHERD

At a little after eight the following night, I was in Chicago, wasknocking at Suite L in the Auditorium Hotel; I was hearing sounds fromwithin that indicated that the dinner was under way. The door swung backand there stood old Roebuck himself, napkin in hand, his shriveling oldface showing that his dollar sense was taking up the strength which hisother senses were losing. He was saying cordially, "Ah, Croffut, you arelate--"

Then his dim eyes saw me; he pulled himself up like a train when theair-brakes are clapped on. 

"They told me at the office that you were at dinner, " said I in the toneof one who has unintentionally blundered. "As I was looking for dinner, I rather hoped you'd ask me to join you. But I see that--"

"Come right in, " he said smoothly, but gray as a sheep. "You'll findsome old friends of yours. We're taking advantage of the convention ofwestern manufacturers to have a little reunion. "

I now had a full view of the table. There was a silence that made thecreaking of starched evening shirt-bosoms noisy as those men drew longstealthy breaths when breathing became imperative. All my "clients" andDominick--he at Roebuck's right. At Roebuck's left there was a vacantchair. "Shall I sit here?" said I easily. 

"That place was reserved--was for--but--" stammered Roebuck. 

"For Granby's ghost?" said I pleasantly. 

His big lips writhed. And as my glance of greeting to these old friendsof mine traveled down one side of the table and up the other, it mighthave been setting those faces on fire, so brightly did they flare. Itwas hard for me to keep my disgust beneath the surface. Those"gentlemen" assembled there were among the "leading citizens" of mystate; and Roebuck was famous on both sides of the Atlantic as a king ofcommerce and a philanthropist. Yet, every one of those brains was busymost of its hours with assassin-like plottings--and for what purpose?For ends so petty, so gross and stupid that it was inconceivable howintelligence could waste life upon them, not to speak of the utterdepravity and lack of manliness. Liars cheats, bribers; and flauntingthe fruits of infamy as honors, as titles to respect, as gifts fromAlmighty God! And here they were, assembled now for silly plottingsagainst the man whose only offense in their eyes was that he was savingthem from themselves--was preventing them from killing the goose thatwould cheerfully keep on laying golden eggs for the privilege ofremaining alive. It was pitiful. It was nauseating. I felt mydegradation in stooping to such company. 

I spoke to Dominick last. To my surprise he squarely returned my gaze. His eyes were twinkling, as the eyes of a pig seem to be, if you lookstraight into its face when it lifts its snout from a full trough. Presently he could contain the huge volume of his mirth no longer. Itcame roaring from him in a great coarse torrent, shaking his vast bulkand the chair that sustained it, swelling the veins in his face, resounding through the silent room while the waiters literally stoodaghast. At last he found breath to ejaculate: "Well, I'll be goodand--damned!"

This gale ripped from the others and whirled away their cloaks ofsurface-composure. Naked, they suggested a lot of rats in atrap--Dominick jeering at them and anticipating the pleasure of watchingme torment them. I choked back the surge of repulsion and said toRoebuck: "Then where _shall_ I sit?"

Roebuck looked, almost wildly, toward the foot of the table. He longedto have me as far from him as possible. Partridge, at the foot of thetable, cried out--in alarm: "Make room for the Senator between you andMr. Dominick, Roebuck! He ought to be as near the head of the table aspossible. "

"No matter where Senator Sayler sits, it's the head of the table, " saidRoebuck. His commonplace of courtesy indicated, not recoveredself-control, but the cunning of his rampant instinct ofself-preservation--that cunning which men so often exhibit in desperatestraits, thereby winning credit for cool courage. 

"We're a merry company, " said I, as we sat. This, with a glance atDominick heaving in the subsiding storm of his mirth. My remark set himoff again. I glanced at his place to see if he had abandoned his formerinflexible rule of total abstinence. There stood his invariable pot oftea. Clearly, it was not drink that enabled him to enjoy a situationwhich, as it seemed to me, was fully as unattractive for him as for hisfellows. 

Soon the door opened and in strode Croffut; handsome, picturesque, withhis pose of dashing, brave manhood, which always got the crowds into themood for the frenzy his oratory conjured. Croffut seemed to me to putthe climax upon this despicable company--Croffut, one of the greatorators of the party, so adored by the people that, but for ouroverwhelming superiority in the state, I should never have dared ejecthim from office. Since I ejected him he had not spoken to me. Dominicklooked at him, said in a voice that would have flared even the warmashes of manhood into a furious blaze: "Go and shake hands with SenatorSayler, Croffut, and sit down. "

Croffut advanced, smiling. "I am fit for my company, " thought I as I lethim clasp my hand. 

"Better tilt Granby's ghost out of that chair, Croffut, " said Dominick, as the ex-Senator was seating himself. And in his animal exuberance ofdelight at his joke and at the whole situation he clapped Roebuck on theshoulder. 

Roebuck shrank and winced. Moral humiliation he could shed as anarmor-plated turret sheds musket-balls. But a physical humiliation, especially with spectators, sank in and sank deep. Instantly, alarmedlest Dominick had seen and understood, he smiled and said: "That's avigorous arm of yours, Mr. Dominick. "

"Not bad for a man of sixty, " said Dominick. 

I ate because to eat was a necessary part of my pose of absolutecalmness; but I had to force down the food. It seemed to me to embodythe banquet there set before my mental appetite. I found I had nostomach for that banquet. It takes the coarse palate of youth or thedepraved palate of a more debauched manhood than mine to enjoy such afeast. Yet, less than a year before, I had enjoyed, had delighted in, afar less strenuous contest with these mutineers. As I sat holding downmy gorge and acting as if I were at ease, I suddenly wondered whatElizabeth Crosby would think of me if she could see. And then I saw her, with a reality of imagining that startled me--it was as if she were inthe doorway; and her eyes lifted to mine in that slow, steady, searchinggaze of hers. 

I suppose, if a soldier thrusting his saber into the bowels of his enemyon the battle-field were suddenly to see before him his mother or thegood and gentle wife or daughter he loved, he would drop the saber andfly to hide himself like a murderer. So, I, overwhelmed, said to myself:"I can not go on! Let these wretches wallow in their own vileness. Ishall not wallow with them. I am no swineherd!"

As I was debating how to escape and what one of the many other ways ofsaving my friends and lieutenants I should adopt, Dominick touched me onthe arm. "A word with you, Senator, " said he. 

He glanced at the others as if he were debating whether he should orderthem from the table while he talked with me. If he had ordered it, theywould have gone. But restrained, perhaps by his crude though reverentsense of convention, he rose and led the way over to a corner. 

"I want to tell you, Senator, that as soon as I got on to what this herepush was plottin', I wired you askin' an appointment. You'll find thetelegram at your house when you go home. I don't stand for no foulin'. Iplay the game straight. I came because I thought you'd want the party tobe represented at such a getherin'. "

I saw that he had come to the dinner, doubtful whether any enterpriseagainst me, promising enough for him to risk embarking, could belaunched; as soon as I entered the room he, like the rat when the catinterrupted the rat-and-mouse convention to discuss belling it, unceremoniously led the way to safety. But this was not one of those fewoccasions on which it is wise to show a man that his lies do not foolyou. "I am glad to hear you say these things, Dominick, " said I. "I amglad you are loyal to the party. "

"You can trust me, Senator, " said he earnestly. 

"I can trust your common sense, " said I. And I proceeded to grasp thislucky chance to get away. "I am leaving, " I went on, "as soon as thecoffee is served. I shall look to you to send these gentlemen home in aproper frame of mind toward the party. "

His eyes glistened. Except his growing fortune, nothing delighted him somuch as a chance to "rough-house" his eminently respectable "pals. " Hefelt toward them that quaint mixture of envy, contempt and a desire tofight which fills a gamin at sight of a fashionably dressed boy. He putout his big hand and dampened mine with it. "You can count on me, Senator, " he said gratefully. "I'll trim 'em, comb and tail-feathers. "

"Don't overlook their spurs, " said I. 

"They ain't got none, " said he, "except those you lend 'em. "

We returned to a table palled by sullen dread--dread of me, angeragainst Dominick who, in the courage of his ignorance of theconventionalities which restrained them, had taken the short, straightcut to me and peace. And, as veterans in the no-quarter warfare ofambition, they knew I had granted him peace on no less terms than theirheads. 

They had all, even Roebuck, been drinking freely in the effort tocounteract the depression. But the champagne seemed only to aggravatetheir gloom except in the case of young Jamieson. He had just succeeded, through the death of his father, to the privilege of levying upon thepeople of eleven counties by means of trolley franchises which thelegislature had granted his father in perpetuity in return for financialservices to "the party. " It is, by the way, an interesting illustrationof the human being's lack of thinking power that a legislature could notgive away a small gold-mine belonging to the public to any man for evena brief term of years without causing a revolution, but could and doesgive away far more valuable privileges to plunder and to tax, and givethem away for ever, without causing any real stir. However--youngJamieson's liquor, acting upon a mind that had not had enough experienceto appreciate the meaning of the situation, drove him on to insolenttaunts and boasts, addressed to his neighbors but intended for me. Iignored him and, when the coffee was served, rose to depart. 

Roebuck urged me to stay, followed me to the coat-room, took my coataway from the servant and helped me with it. "I want to see you thefirst thing in the morning, Harvey, " said he. 

"I'll call you up, if I have time, " said I. 

We came out of the cloak-room, his arm linked in mine, and crossed thecorner of the dining-room toward the outside door. Jamieson threw up hisarm and fluttered his hand in an impertinent gesture of farewell. "Solong, Senator Swollenhead, " he cried in a thick voice. "We'll teach youa lesson in how to treat gentlemen. "

The last word--gentlemen--was just clearing his mouth when Dominick'stea-pot, flung with all the force of the ex-prize-fighter's big musclesand big body, landed in the midst of his broad white shirt-bosom. Andwith the tea-pot Dominick hurled his favorite epithet from his garbagebarrel of language. With a yell Jamieson crashed over backward; hisflying legs, caught by the table, tilted it; his convulsive kicks sentit over, and half the diners, including Dominick, were floored under it. 

All this in a snap of the fingers. And with the disappearance of thephysical semblance of a company of civilized men engaged in dining incivilized fashion, the last thin veneer over hate and fury was scrapedaway. Curses and growling roars made a repulsive mess of sound over thatrepulsive mess of unmasked, half-drunken, wholly infuriated brutes. There is shrewd, sly wisdom snugly tucked away under the fable of thecat changed into a queen and how she sprang from her throne at sight ofa mouse to pursue it on all fours. The best of us are, after all, animals changed into men by the spell of reason; and in somecircumstances, it doesn't take much of a blow to dissolve that spell. 

For those men in those circumstances, that blow proved sufficient. Partridge extricated himself, ran round the table and kicked Jamieson inthe head--partly in punishment, perhaps, and because he needed just thatvent for his rage, but chiefly to get credit with me, for he glancedtoward me as he did it. Men, sprawling and squirming side by side on thefloor, lashed out with feet and fists, striking each other and adding tothe wild dishevelment. The candles set fire to the table-cloth andbefore the blaze was extinguished burned several in the hair andmustaches. 

Dominick, roaring with laughter, came to Roebuck and me standing at thedoor, both dazed at this magic shift of a "gentlemen's" dinner into abear-pit. "Granby's ghost is raisin' hell, " said he. 

But I had no impulse to laugh or to gloat. "Good night, " said I toRoebuck and hastened away. 

It was the end of the attempt to mine the foundations of my power. But Idid not neglect its plain warning. As soon as the legislature assembled, I publicly and strongly advocated the appointment of a joint committeeimpartially to investigate all the cities of the state, those ruled bymy own party no less than those ruled by the opposition. The committeewas appointed and did its work so thoroughly that there was a popularclamor for the taking away of the charters of the cities and for rulingthem from the state capital. It is hardly necessary to say that mylegislature and governor yielded to this clamor. And so thesemi-independent petty princes, the urban bosses, lost theirindependence and passed under my control; and the "collections" whichhad gone directly to them reached them by way of Woodruff as grants frommy machine, instead of as revenues of their own right. 

Before this securing of my home power was complete, I had mycounter-attack upon the Burbank-Goodrich combine well under way. Immediately on my return to Fredonia from the disastrous dinner, I sentfor the attorney general of the state, Ferguson. He was an idealcombination of man and politician. He held to the standards of privatemorality as nearly as it is possible for a man in active public life tohold to them--far more nearly than most men dare or, after they havebecome inured, care, to hold. He always maintained with me a firm buttactful independence; he saw the necessity for the sordid side ofpolitics, but he was careful personally to keep clear of smutched orbesmutching work. He had as keen an instinct for popularity as a bee hasfor blossoms; he knew how to do or to direct unpopular things on darknights with a dark lantern, how to do or to direct popular things infull uniform on a white horse. I have never ordered any man to a taskthat was not morally congenial; and I was careful to respect Ferguson'snotion of self-respect. I sent for him now, and outlined my plan--tobring suits, both civil and criminal, in the Federal courts in the nameof the state, against Roebuck and his associates of the Power Trust. 

When he had heard, he said: "Yes, Mr. Sayler, we can break up the PowerTrust, can cause the indictment and conviction of Mr. Roebuck. I canprevent the United States Attorney General from playing any of the usualtricks and defending the men whom the people think he is vigorouslyprosecuting. But--"

"But?" said I encouragingly. 

"Is this on the level? If I undertake these prosecutions, shall I beallowed to push them _honestly_? Or will there be a private settlementas soon as Roebuck and his crowd see their danger?"

"No matter what happens, " I replied, "you shall prosecute at least thecivil suits to the end. I give you my word for that. "

He thanked me warmly, for he appreciated that I was bestowing upon himan enormous opportunity for national fame. 

"And you?" said I. "If you succeed in this prosecution, will you remainin the public service or will you accept the offers the interests willmake, and remove to New York and become a rich corporation lawyer?"

He reflected before answering. "That depends, " said he. "If _you_ aregoing to stay on in control in this state, I shall stick to public life, for I believe you will let me have what I call a career. But, if you aregoing to get out and leave me at the mercy of those fellows, I certainlyshan't stay where they can fool the people into turning on me. "

"I shall stay on, " said I; "and after me, there will beWoodruff--unless, of course, there's some sort of cataclysm. "

"A man must take chances, " he answered. "I'll take that chance. "

We called Woodruff into the consultation. Although he was not a lawyer, he had a talent for taking a situation by the head and tail andstretching it out and holding it so that every crease and wrinkle in itcould be seen. And this made him valuable at any conference. 

In January we had our big battery loaded, aimed and primed. We unmaskedit, and Ferguson fired. I had expected the other side to act stupidly, but I had not hoped for such stupidity as they exhibited. Burbank's yearof bathing in presidential flatteries and of fawning on and cringing tothe multi-millionaires and their agents hedging him around, had sowrought upon him that he had wholly lost his point of view. And he lethis Attorney General pooh-pooh the proceedings, --this in face of thegreat popular excitement and enthusiasm. It was not until Roebuck'slawyers got far enough into the case against him to see his danger thatthe administration stopped flying in the teeth of the cyclone of publicsentiment and began to pretend enthusiasm, while secretly plotting themistrial of Ferguson's cases. And not until the United States AttorneyGeneral--a vain Goodrich creature whose talents were crippled by hiscontempt for "the rabble" and "demagoguery"--not until he had it forcedupon him that Ferguson could not be counter-mined, did they begin totreat with me for peace. 

I shall not retail the negotiations. The upshot was that I let theadministration drop the criminal cases against Roebuck in return for therestoration of my power in the national committee of the party to thesmallest ejected postmaster in the farthest state. The civil action waspressed by Ferguson with all his skill as a lawyer and apopularity-seeking politician; and he won triumphantly in the SupremeCourt--the lower Federal Court with its Power Trust judge had added tohis triumph by deciding against him. 

Roebuck was, therefore, under the necessity of going through thecustomary forms of outward obedience to the Supreme Court's order to himto dissolve. He had to get at huge expense, and to carry out at huger, aplan of reorganization. Though he was glad enough to escape thuslightly, he dissembled his content and grumbled so loudly that Burbank'sfears were roused and arrangements were made to placate him. The schemeadopted was, I believe, suggested by Vice-President Howard, as shrewdand cynical a rascal as ever lived in the mire without getting smutch orsplash upon his fine linen of respectability. 

For several years there had been a strong popular demand for a revisionof the tariff. The party had promised to yield, but had put offredeeming its promise. Now, there arose a necessity for revising thetariff in the interest of "the interests. " Some of the schedules weretoo low; others protected articles which the interests wanted as freeraw materials; a few could be abolished without offending any largeinterests and with the effect of punishing some small ones that had beenniggard in contributing to the "campaign fund" which maintains thestanding army of political workers and augments it whenever a battle ison. Accordingly, a revision of the tariff was in progress. To sootheRoebuck, they gave him a tariff schedule that would enable him tocollect each year more than the total of the extraordinary expenses towhich I had put him. Roebuck "forgave" me; and I really forgave Burbank. 

But I washed my hands of his administration. Not only did I actuallystand aloof but also I disassociated myself from it in the public mind. When the crash should come, as come it must with such men at the helm, Iwished to be in a position successfully to take full charge for the workof repair. 

XXXII

A GLANCE BEHIND THE MASK OF GRANDEUR

Not until late in the spring of his second year did Burbank find a traceof gall in his wine. 

From the night of his election parasites and plunderers and agents ofplunderers had imprisoned him in the usual presidential fool's paradise. The organs of the interests and their Congressional henchmen praisedeverything he did; I and my group of Congressmen and my newspapers, asloyal partizans, bent first of all upon regularity, were silent where wedid not praise also. But the second year of a President's first term isthe beginning of frank, if guarded, criticism of him from his own side. For it is practically his last year of venturing to exercise any realofficial power. The selection of delegates to the party's nationalconvention, to which a President must submit himself for leave tore-submit himself to the people, is well under way before the end ofhis third year; and direct and active preparations for it must beginlong in advance. 

Late in that second spring Burbank made a tour of the country, to givethe people the pleasure of seeing their great man, to give himself thepleasure of their admiration, and to help on the Congressional campaign, the result of which would be the preliminary popular verdict upon hisadministration. The thinness of the crowds, the feebleness of theenthusiasm, the newspaper sneers and flings at that oratory once hailedas a model of dignity and eloquence--even he could not accept the smoothexplanations of his flatterers. And in November came the party'smemorable overwhelming defeat--reducing our majority in the Senate fromtwenty to six, and substituting for our majority of ninety-three in theHouse an opposition majority of sixty-seven. 

I talked with him early in January and was amazed that, while heappreciated the public anger against the party, he still believedhimself personally popular. "There is a lull in prosperity, " said he, "and the people are peevish. " Soon, however, by a sort of endosmosis towhich the densest vanity is somewhat subject, the truth began to seepthrough and to penetrate into him. 

He became friendlier to me, solicitous toward spring--but he clung nonethe less tightly to Goodrich. The full awakening came in his thirdsummer when the press and the politicians of the party began openly todiscuss the next year's nomination and to speak of him as if he were outof the running. He was spending the hot months on the Jersey coast, theflatterers still swarming about him and still assiduous, but theirflatteries falling upon ever deafer ears as his mind rivetted upon thehair-suspended sword. In early September he invited me to visit him--myfirst invitation of that kind in two years and a half. We had threeinterviews before he could nerve himself to brush aside the barriersbetween him and me. 

"I am about to get together my friends with a view to next year, " saidhe through an uneasy smile. "What do you think of the prospects?"

"What do your friends say?" I asked. 

"Oh, of course, I am assured of a renomination--" He paused, and hislook at me made the confident affirmation a dubious question. 

"Yes?" said I. 

"And--don't you think my record has made me strong?" he went onnervously. 

"Strong--with whom?" said I. 

He was silent. Finally he laid his hand on my knee--we were taking theair on the ocean drive. "Harvey, " he said, "I can count on you?"

I shook my head. "I shall take no part in the next campaign, " I said. "Ishall resign the chairmanship. "

"But I have selected you as my chairman. I have insisted on you. I can'ttrust any one else. I need others, I use others, but I trust only you. "

I shook my head. "I shall resign, " I repeated. "What's the matter--won'tGoodrich take the place?"

He looked away. "I have not seriously thought of any one but you, " hesaid reproachfully. 

I happened to know that the place had been offered to Goodrich and thathe had declined it, protesting that I, a Western man, must not bedisturbed when the West was vital to the party's success. "My resolutionis fixed, " said I. 

A long silence, then: "Sayler, have you heard anything of an attempt todefeat me for the nomination?"

"Goodrich has decided to nominate Governor Ridgeway of Illinois, " saidI. 

He blanched and had to moisten his dry, wrinkled lips several timesbefore he could speak. "A report of that nature reached me lastThursday, " he went on. "For some time I have been perplexed by theRidgeway talk in many of our organs. I have questioned Goodrich aboutit--and--I must say--his explanations are not--not wholly satisfactory. "

I glanced at him and had instantly to glance away, so plainly was Ishowing my pity. He was not hiding himself from me now. He looked oldand tired and sick--not mere sickness of body, but that mortal sicknessof the mind and heart which kills a man, often years before his bodydies. 

"I have come to the conclusion that you were right about Goodrich, Sayler. I am glad that I took your advice and never trusted him. I thinkyou and I together will be too strong for him. "

"You are going to seek a renomination?" I asked. 

He looked at me in genuine astonishment. "It is impossible that theparty should refuse me, " he said. 

I was silent. 

"Be frank with me, Sayler, " he exclaimed at last. "Be frank. Be myfriend, your own old self. "

"As frank and as friendly as you have been?" said I, rather to remindmyself than to reproach him. For I was afraid of the reviving feeling offormer years--the liking for his personal charms and virtues, theforbearance toward that weakness which he could no more change than hecould change the color of his eyes. His moral descent had put no clearmarkings upon his pose. On the contrary, he had grown in dignity throughthe custom of deference. The people passing us looked admiration at him, had a new sense of the elevation of the presidential office. Often ittakes the trained and searching eye to detect in the majestic façade theevidences that the palace has degenerated into a rookery for pariahs. 

"I have done what I thought for the best, " he answered, never moredirect and manly in manner. "I have always been afraid, been on guard, lest my personal fondness for you should betray me into yielding to youwhen I ought not. Perhaps I have erred at times, have leaned backward inmy anxiety to be fair. But I had and have no fear of your notunderstanding. Our friendship is too long established, toowell-founded. " And I do not doubt that he believed himself; the capacityfor self-deception is rarely short of the demands upon it. 

"It's unfortunate--" I began. I was going to say it was unfortunate thatno such anxieties had ever restrained him from yielding to Goodrich. ButI hadn't the heart. Instead, I finished my sentence with: "However, it'sidle to hold a post-mortem on this case. The cause of death isunimportant. The fact of it is sufficient. No doubt you did the best youcould, Mr. President. "

My manner was that of finality. It forbade further discussion. Heabandoned the finesse of negotiation. 

"Harvey, I ask you, as a personal favor, to help me through thiscrisis, " he said. "I ask you, my friend and my dead wife's friend. "

No depth too low, no sentiment too sacred! Anger whirled up in meagainst this miserable, short-sighted self-seeker who had brought to aclimax of spoliation my plans to guide the strong in developing theresources of the country. And I turned upon him, intending to overwhelmhim with the truth about his treachery, about his attempts to destroyme. For I was now safe from his and Goodrich's vengeance--they haddestroyed themselves with the people and with the party. But a glance athim and--how could I strike a man stretched in agony upon his deathbed?"If I could help you, I would, " said I. 

"You--you and I together can get a convention that will nominate me, " heurged, hope and fear jostling each other to look pleadingly at me fromhis eyes. 

"Possibly, " I said. "But--of what use would that be?"

He sank back in the carriage, yellow-white and with trembling hands andeyelids. "Then you don't think I could be elected?" he asked in abroken, breathless way. 

For answer I could only shake my head. "No matter who is the nominee, " Iwent on after a moment, "our party can't win. " I half-yielded to theimpulse of sentimentality and turned to him appealingly. "James, " saidI, "why don't you--right away--before the country sees you are to bedenied a renomination--publicly announce that you won't take it in anycircumstances? Why don't you devote the rest of your term to regainingyour lost--popularity? Every day has its throngs of opportunities forthe man in the White House. Break boldly and openly with Goodrich andhis crowd. "

I saw and read the change in his face. My advice about the nominationstraightway closed his mind against me; at the mention of Goodrich, hisold notion of my jealousy revived. And I saw, too, that contact with anduse of and subservience to corruption had so corrupted him that he nolonger had any faith in any method not corrupt. All in an instant Irealized the full folly of what I was doing. I felt confident that bypursuing the line I had indicated he could so change the situation inthe next few months that he would make it impossible for them to refuseto renominate him, might make it possible for him to be elected. Buteven if he had the wisdom to listen, where would he get the courage andthe steadfastness to act? I gave him up finally and for ever. 

A man may lose his own character and still survive, and even go far. Butif he lose belief in character as a force, he is damned. He could notsurvive in a community of scoundrels. 

Burbank sat motionless and with closed eyes, for a long time. I watchedthe people in the throng of carriages--hundreds of faces all turnedtoward him, all showing that mingled admiration, envy and awe whichhumanity gives its exalted great. "The President! The President!" Iheard every few yards in excited undertones. And hats were lifting, andonce a crowd of enthusiastic partizans raised a cheer. 

"The President!" I thought, with mournful irony. And I glanced at him. 

Suddenly he was transformed by an expression the most frightful I haveever seen. It was the look of a despairing, weak, vicious thing, cornered, giving battle for its life--like a fox at bay before a pack ofhuge dogs. It was not Burbank--no, _he_ was wholly unlike that. It wasBurbank's ambition, interrupted at its meal by the relentless, sure-aiming hunter, Fate. 

"For God's sake, Burbank!" I exclaimed. "All these people are watchingus. "

"To hell with them!" he ground out. "I tell you, Sayler, I _will_ benominated! And elected too, by God! I will not be thrown aside like anemptied orange-skin. I will show them that I am President. "

Those words, said by some men, in some tones, would have thrilled me. Said by him and in that tone and with that look, they made me shudderand shrink. Neither of us spoke again. When he dropped me at my hotel wetouched hands and smiled formally for appearances before the gaping, peeping, peering crowd. And as he drove away, how they cheered him--theman risen high above eighty millions, alone on the mountain-peak, in theglorious sunshine of success. The President!

The next seven months were months of turmoil in the party and in thecountry--a turmoil of which I was a silent spectator, conspicuous by mysilence. Burbank, the deepest passions of his nature rampant, had burstthrough the meshes of partizanship and the meshes of social and personalintimacies in which he, as a "good party man" and as the father ofchildren with social aspirations and as the worshiper of wealth andrespectability, was entangled and bound down; with the desperate couragethat comes from fear of destruction, he was trying to save himself. 

But his only available instruments were all either Goodrich men or otherkinds of machine-men; they owed nothing to him, they had nothing to fearfrom him--a falling king is a fallen king. Every project he devised forstriking down his traitor friends and making himself popular was subtlyturned by his Cabinet or by the Senate or by the press or by all threeinto something futile and ridiculous or contemptible. It was a completedemonstration of the silliness of the fiction that the President couldbe an autocrat if he chose. Even had Burbank seen through the fawningsand the flatteries of the traitors round him, and dismissed his Cabinet, whatever men he might have put into it would not have attachedthemselves to his lost cause, but would have used their positions toingratiate themselves with the power that had used and exhausted anddiscarded him. 

He had the wisdom, or the timidity, to proceed always with caution andsafe legality and so to avoid impeachment and degradation. His chiefattempts were, naturally, upon monopoly; they were slyly balked by hissly Attorney General, and their failure was called by the press, and wasbelieved by the people, the cause of the hard times which were justbeginning to be acute. What made him such an easy victim to hislieutenants was not their craft, but the fact that he had lost hissense of right and wrong. A man of affairs may not, indeed will not, always steer by that compass; but he must have it aboard. Without it hecan not know how far off the course he is, or how to get back to it. Noship ever reached any port except that of failure and disgrace, unlessit, in spite of all its tackings before the cross-winds of practicallife, kept in the main to the compass and to the course. 

His last stagger was--or seemed to be--an attempt to involve us in a warwith Germany. I say "seemed to be" because I hesitate to ascribe aproject as infamous to him, even when unbalanced by despair. The firstugly despatch he ordered his Goodrich Secretary of State to send, _somehow_ leaked to the newspapers before it could be put into cipherfor transmission. It was not sent--for from the press of the entirecountry rose a clamor against "deliberate provocation of a nation withwhich we are, and wish to remain, at peace. " He repudiated the despatchand dismissed the Secretary of State in disgrace to disgrace--the onestroke in his fight against Goodrich in which he got the advantage. Butthat advantage was too small, too doubtful and too late. 

His name was not presented to the convention. 

XXXIII

A "SPASM OF VIRTUE"

I forced upon Goodrich my place as chairman of the national committeeand went abroad with my daughters. We stayed there until Scarborough wasinaugurated. He had got his nomination from a convention of men whohated and feared him, but who dared not flout the people and fling awayvictory; he had got his election because the defections from our ranksin the doubtful states far outbalanced Goodrich's extensive purchasesthere with the huge campaign-fund of the interests. The wheel-horse, Partizanship, had broken down, and the leader, Plutocracy, could notdraw the chariot to victory alone. 

As soon as the election was over, our people began to cable me to comehome and take charge. But I waited until Woodruff and my other faithfullieutenants had thoroughly convinced all the officers of the machine howdesperate its plight was, and that I alone could repair and restore, and that I could do it only if absolute control were given me. When theship reached quarantine Woodruff came aboard; and, not having seen himin many months, I was able to see, and was startled by, the contrastbetween the Doc Woodruff I had met on the train more years before than Icared to cast up, and the United States Senator Woodruff, high in thecouncils of the party and high in the esteem of its partizans among thepeople. He was saying: "You can have anything you want, Senator, " and soon. But I was thinking of him, of the vicissitudes of politics, of theunending struggle of the foul stream to purify itself, to sink or tosaturate its mud. For we ought not to forget that if the clear water issaturated with mud, also the mud is saturated with clear water. 

A week or so after I resumed the chairmanship, Scarborough invited me tolunch alone with him at the White House. When I had seen him, four yearsbefore, just after his defeat, he was in high spirits and looked ayouth. Now it depressed me, but gave me no surprise, to find him worn, and overcast by that tragic sadness which canopies every one of theseats of the mighty. "I fear, Mr. President, " said I, "you are findingthe men who will help you to carry out your ideas as rare as I oncewarned you they were. "

"Not rare, " was his answer, "but hard to get at through the throngs ofBaal-worshipers that have descended upon me and are trying to hedge mein. "

"Fortunately, you are free from political and social entanglements, "said I, with ironic intent. 

He laughed with only a slightly concealed bitterness. "From politicalentanglements--yes, " said he. "But not from social toils. Ever since Ihave been in national life, my wife and I have held ourselves sociallyaloof, because those with whom we would naturally and even inevitablyassociate would be precisely those who would some day beset me forimmunities and favors. And how can one hold to a course of any sort ofjustice, if doing so means assailing all one's friends and their friendsand relatives? For who are the offenders? They are of the rich, of thesuccessful, of the clever, of the socially agreeable and charming. Andhow can one enforce justice against one's dinner companions--and infavor of whom? Of the people, voiceless, distant, unknown to one. Personal friendship on the one side; on the other, an abstraction. "

"I should not class you among those likely to yield many inches to thesocial bribe, " said I. 

"That is pleasant, but not candid, " replied he with his simpledirectness. "No man of your experience could fail to know that thesocial bribe is the arch-corrupter, the one briber whom it is not inhuman nature to resist. But, as I was saying, to my amazement, in spiteof my wife's precautions and mine, I find myself beset--and with whatdevilish insidiousness! When I refuse, simply to save myself fromflagrant treachery to my obligations of duty, I find myself seeming, even to my wife and to myself, churlish and priggish; Pharisaical, inthe loathsome attitude of a moral _poseur_. Common honesty, in presenceof this social bribe, takes on the sneaking seeming of rottenesthypocrisy. It is indeed hard to get through and to get at the men I wantand need, and must and will have. "

"Impossible, " said I. "And if you could get at them, and if the Senatewould let you put them where they seem to you to belong, the temptationwould be too much for them. They too would soon become Baal-worshipers, the more assiduous for their long abstinence. "

"Some, " he admitted, "perhaps most. But at least a few would stand thetest--and just one such would repay and justify all the labor of all thesearch. The trouble with you pessimists is that you don't take ourancestry into account. Man isn't a falling angel, but a rising animal. So, every impulse toward the decent, every gleam of light, is atremendous gain. The wonder isn't the bad but the good, isn't that weare so imperfect, but that in such a few thousand years we've got sofar--so far _up_. I know you and I have in the main the samepurpose--where is there a man who'd like to think the world the worsefor his having lived? But we work by different means. You believe thebest results can be got through that in man which he has inherited fromthe past--by balancing passion against passion, by offsetting appetitewith appetite. I hope for results from that in the man of to-day whichis the seed, the prophecy, of the man who is to be. "

"Your method has had one recent and very striking _apparent_ success, "said I. "But--the spasm of virtue will pass. "

"Certainly, " he replied, "and so too will the succeeding spasm ofreaction. Also, your party must improve itself--and mine too--as theresult of this spasm of virtue. "

"For a time, " I admitted. "I envy you your courage and hope. But I can'tshare in them. You will serve four stormy years; you will retire withfriends less devoted and enemies more bitter; you will be misunderstood, maligned; and there's only a remote possibility that your vindicationwill come before you are too old to be offered a second term. And theharvest from the best you sow will be ruined in some flood of reaction. "

"No, " he answered. "It will be reaped. The evil I do, all evil, passes. The good will be reaped. Nothing good is lost. "

"And if it is reaped, " I rejoined, "the reaping will not come untillong, long after you are a mere name in history. "

Even as I spoke my doubts I was wishing I had kept them to myself; for, thought I, there's no poorer business than shooting at the beautifulsoaring bird of illusion. But he was looking at me without seeing me. His expression suggested the throwing open of the blinds hiding a man'sinmost self. 

"If a man, " said he absently, "fixes his mind not on making friends ordefeating enemies, not on elections or on history, but just on avoidingfrom day to day, from act to act, the condemnation of his ownself-respect--" The blinds closed as suddenly as they had opened--he hadbecome conscious that some one was looking in. And I was wishing againthat I had kept my doubts to myself; for I now saw that what I hadthought a bright bird of illusion was in fact the lost star whichlighted my own youth. 

Happy the man who, through strength or through luck, guides his wholelife by the star of his youth. Happy, but how rare!

XXXIV

"LET US HELP EACH OTHER"

In the following September I took my daughters to Elizabeth. She lookedearnestly, first at Frances, tall and slim and fancying herself a womangrown, then at Ellen, short and round and struggling with the gigglingage. "We shall like each other, I'm sure, " was her verdict. "We'll geton well together. " And Frances smiled, and Ellen nodded. They evidentlythought so, too. 

"I want you to teach them your art, " said I, when they were gone tosettle themselves and she and I were alone. 

"My art?"

"The art of being one's self. I am sick of men and women who hide theirreal selves behind a pose of what they want others to think them. "

"Most of our troubles come from that, don't they?"

"All mine did, " said I. "I am at the age when the very word age beginsto jar on the ear, and the net result of my years of effort is--I haveconvinced other people that I am somebody at the cost of convincingmyself that I am nobody. "

"No, you are master, " she said. 

"As a lion-tamer is master of his lions. He gives all his thought tothem, who think only of their appetites. And his whole reward is thatwith his life in his hand he can sometimes cow them through a fewworthless little tricks. " I looked round the attractive reception-roomof the school. "I wish you'd take _me_ in, too, " I ended. 

She flushed a little, then shook her head, her eyes twinkling. "This isnot a reformatory, " said she. And we both laughed. 

As I did not speak or look away, but continued to smile at her, shebecame uneasy, glanced round as if seeking an avenue of retreat. 

"Yes--I mean just that, Elizabeth, " I admitted, and my tone explainedthe words. 

She clasped her hands and started up. 

"In me--in every one, " I went on, "there's a beast and a man. Justnow--with me--the man is uppermost. And he wants to stay uppermost. Elizabeth--will you--help him?"

She lowered her head until I could see only the splendor of her thickhair, sparkling like black quartz. 

"Will you--dear? Won't you--dear?"

Suddenly she gave me both her hands. "Let us help each other, " she said. And slowly she lifted her glance to mine; and never before had I feltthe full glory of those eyes, the full melody of that deep voice. 

 * * * * *

And so, I end as I began, as life begins and ends--with a woman. In awoman's arms we enter life; in a woman's arms we get the courage andstrength to bear it; in a woman's arms we leave it. And as for the spanbetween--the business, profession, career--how colorless, howmeaningless it would be but for her!

THE END

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