"I've got to confess there isn't much wit and humor in me—there doesn't seem to be just now," stammered Harlan, after groping some moments for suitable reply to what he accepted as badinage.
"Oh, I don't want jest in answer to that, sir," protested the General. "I am in earnest." But his tone was still a bit whimsical. "You know, even so great a man as Caesar consulted the oracle and the omens and the soothsayers. Why should not I practice a little divination? Now answer me, young man—or I'll say, young men of the State?"
"Yet I can't think you really mean that, General," protested Harlan, wholly confused by this persistent banter.
"Call it in fun, call it in earnest, still I demand my answer." General Waymouth was serious now. "I came here resolved to tell Thelismer, face to face, that I could not sacrifice the last strength of my life in the way he has asked. But when you met me at the station all my ambitions for this newer generation, as I have dreamed them, came up in me. My boy, this State of ours is in a bad way. In one respect it is especially bad. We have one solemn law in our constitution that is made our own political football and the laughing-stock of the nation. We forbid the sale of liquor. Look at that saloon we are passing at this moment! It is a law that affects nearly every person in our State—comes near to every one, directly or indirectly. The manner of its breaking, publicly and protected by politics, has bred disrespect for all law in the boys who are growing up. And they are the ones who will run our State when we oldsters are gone. I'll not say anything about the other reforms that conditions are calling for. There's one—the big one that flaunts itself in our faces. I'm of the old school, Mr. Thornton. I don't believe in the prohibitory principle as applied to the liquor question. It hasn't the right spirit behind it—it is invoked by bigots and fanatics who refuse helpful compromise. But it's a law—our law! Every day that passes under present conditions adds its little to the damnation of the moral principle in our boys and girls, growing up with eyes and ears open. God, I wish I were twenty years younger! But I'm old enough to have fantastic notions; old enough to insist on an answer to my question, in spite of what you may think of my mental condition. Will you release me from that promise? I made it to the young men of this State—in my disgust at conditions, in my passion to do something to clean out this nest!"
The lights from the brilliant shop-windows shone into the carriage.
Harlan leaned forward. The General's face was serious.
"Still, I can't understand it!" he cried. "I'm only—"
"I tell you, you typify for me at this moment the young men of my State! I choose to decide in this fashion. Do you feel that an honest Governor would help your self-respect?"
"I can answer that question, sir. I believe in you. Ever since you promised my grandfather that you would accept the nomination I have depended on that promise. I know what you can do for our State. If you are not to be our next Governor the heart has gone out of me, and the young men of this State have lost their best hope."
The carriage wheels had grated to a standstill against the curb in front of the big hotel. The buzz of the crowded hive came out to them through the open windows. General Waymouth glanced that way and frowned. But when he turned and looked into the glowing face of the young man opposite, his countenance cleared slowly. His smile returned. There was a hint of pathos in that smile, but his eyes shone. He put out his hand and took Harlan's in a firm clasp.
"That sounds like my call to duty, Mr. Thornton," he declared. "I listen. I obey!" Then he dropped his earnestness. "Let this little talk remain a secret between us. These practical politicians wouldn't understand. A bit of an old man's weakness; perhaps that was it. A little eccentric, eh?"
The driver had opened the carriage door.
"I believe I understand, sir. I do now. And I'm sorry."
The remark was a bit cryptic, but the General understood.
"And you'll appreciate better what this means to me when you are as old as I. But that's the last of talk like this, my boy. There's one more fight still in me. We'll just go ahead and find out how much honesty is left in this State—and you shall help me hunt for it, for old eyes need the help of young ones, and I'm going outside the politicians to find honesty."
He led the way across the pavement to a side door of the hotel.
"We'll go in this way, quietly," he said. "I haven't any appetite for that kind of a stew just yet."
CHAPTER XV
SITTING IN FOR THE DEAL
On the second floor of the hotel Thelismer Thornton was pacing the corridor, hands behind his back, puffing his cigar. He was paying no heed to the men who were streaming past him in both directions, going and coming from the rooms of the candidates. Everett and Spinney were in their suites, extending hospitality with questionable cigars and ice-water.
Delegates were flocking up from the hotel bar in squads. They were meeting other delegates, forming new combinations which offered fresh opportunities for "setting 'em up," and after paying their respects were hustling back downstairs again to interview the gentlemen in white jackets.
Out from open transoms over the doors of sleeping-rooms floated cigar smoke and voices. There were boys running with ice-water and glasses to the noisiest rooms. From some of these rooms the familiar bacchanalian songs were resounding even at that early hour of the evening. The chorus of "We're here because we're here" mingled with the words of that reminiscent old carol, "When we fit with Gineral Grant, by gosh."
The Duke, towering, abstracted, swaying along ponderously, close to the wall of the corridor, eyes on the head of the stairway, was as indifferent to the uproar as he was to those who passed.
A man who was somewhat flushed and a bit uncertain in his gait came out of the State Committee headquarters. He planted himself in front of Thornton.
"Thelismer," he said, familiarly, "I've been trying to get something out of Luke. He won't say. Now what do you know about it? Is the party going to be honest? Are we going to get that resubmission plank in the platform this year?"
"They haven't asked me to write the platform, Phon."
"I tell you, the people want a chance to vote on this prohibitory question. It's been stuck into our constitution where the people can't get at it. I ain't arguing high license, but I tell you the people want a chance to vote on the question, and the Democrats are going to offer 'em a chance."
"That's a Democratic privilege," said the Duke, calmly, preparing to push past his interlocutor. "The Republican party stands for prohibition, and hasn't had any trouble in rounding up the votes for the last twenty-five years."
But the disputant caught hold of him when he started away.
"Look here, Thelismer, you ain't so much of a hypocrite as the most of 'em. Why don't you help us make a break in this thing? Damn it, let's be decent about it! Rum enough running in that bar-room downstairs to drive the turbine-wheel in my woollen-mill! Half the delegates to this convention with a drink aboard, and a third of 'em pretty well slewed! I am myself. But I'm honest about it. They're drinking rum in about every room in this hotel. And they're going into convention to-morrow and nail that prohibitory plank into the platform with spikes. By Judas, I'm honest in my business; now I want to have a chance to be honest in my politics!"
The Duke gazed down on him good-humoredly. He was accustomed to overlook the little delinquencies of his fellows on such festal occasions as State Conventions.
"You're asking too much out of party politics, Phon," he declared. "There are drawbacks to all the best things; seeing that the National platform won't let you vote as you think, you can hardly ask the State platform to be perfect and let you vote as you drink."
But his friend was not in the mood for jovial rallying.
"By the gods, if you old bucks that have been running things ain't going to give us a show—if we ain't going to get our rights from our own party—I know what I can do! I can vote the Democratic ticket, and I know of a lot more that will. You're asleep, you managers!"
"Well, Phon, when you vote as you drink—voting the Democratic ticket—you'll vote for a popocratic tax on corporations that will make your woollen-mill look sick. And that's only one thing!"
"I know what I will do," insisted the rebel.
The Duke took him by his two shoulders.
"So do I," he returned. "You'll have a bath, a shave, four hot towels, and a big bromo-seltzer—all in the morning, and you'll go into the State Convention and stick by the party, just as you always have done. But as for to-night—why, Phon, I wouldn't be surprised to see you pledge yourself to Arba Spinney."
He gayly shoved the man to one side and went on.
"Well, even Fog-horn is getting more votes corralled than you old blind mules realize!" shouted the other after him. "This party is sick! You're going to find it out, too!"
"Sick it is, but I reckon here's the doctor," muttered the old man, hurrying toward the top of the stairs.
General Waymouth had appeared there, Harlan close behind him.
The Duke forestalled those who hastened to greet the veteran. Taking his arm, he marched him promptly across the corridor and into the rear room of State Committee headquarters. He locked the door behind them after Harlan had entered.
"I don't think we're exactly ready for that public reception yet," he observed with a chuckle, turning from the door. He glanced at the General, anxious and keen in his scrutiny.
"Vard!" he cried, heartily, noting the resolution in the countenance, the light in the old soldier's eyes, "you're looking better, here, than you sounded over the telephone a few hours ago. You're going to stand—of course you're going to stand!"
"I'll take the nomination, Thelismer—that is, providing you want me to stand as a candidate who will go into office without a single string hitched to him."
"I guess the party isn't running into any desperate chances, Vard, with you in the big chair. Sit down now and take it easy. I'll call Luke in. After we've had our talk with him, we'll begin to enlarge our circle a little—it's a pretty close combination up to now."
The porter at the door summoned the chairman of the State Committee.
"The Senator is just in from Washington," he announced, after his enthusiastic greeting of the General. "I took him right up to Room 40, where the Committee on Resolutions is at work. He wanted to attend to that first. Then he'll be down here."
The chairman was referring to the United States Senator who would, by party custom, preside at the convention next day for the purpose of tinkering his own fences.
"Is Senator Pownal dictating the platform?" inquired the General, rather icily.
"He's got a few little ideas of his own he wants to work in," affably explained the chairman. "Nothing drastic. A little endorsement of some things he's gunning for. It'll be all safe and sane. We backed those resubmission fellows out of the room."
"By-the-way, keep a sharp eye out for those chaps, Luke," counselled the Duke. "I've been hearing around the hotel this evening that they're going to introduce a resubmission plank from the floor to-morrow."
"I'll rush an early vote in the convention, providing that all resolutions shall be presented to the Committee on Resolutions without argument," stated the chairman. "All that foolishness can be killed right in the committee-room. We've got trouble enough on hand in the party this year without letting the convention express itself on the liquor question, even if the split only amounts to a sliver."
He pulled his chair to the table, spread some papers there, and commanded attention by tapping his eyeglasses on the sheets.
"Here's the programme for the routine: Called to order at ten-thirty by chairman of State Committee. Call read by secretary. On motion of Davis Bolton, of Hollis, proceed to effect temporary organization—Senator Walker Pownal, chairman—and so forth. On motion of Parker Blake, of Jay, ten minutes' recess declared for county delegations to choose vice-president, member of State Committee, and member of the Committee on Resolutions."
As he read on, Harlan opened his eyes as well as his ears. The convention of the morrow had been blocked out to the last detail. Every motion that was to be made, every step that was to be taken, had its man assigned to it—and that man had already been notified and tagged. Fifteen hundred men, assembled presumably as free and independent agents to take counsel for the good of the party, were here bound to the narrowest routine, with programme cut and dried to such an extent that one who dared to lift his voice to interrupt would be considered an interloper. And he knew that even then, from what Presson had said, the little band of the select were formulating the resolutions that the committee would take in hand as delivered—accepting that platform as the dictum of the party, and free speech on the convention floor denied.
"Now," said the chairman, at the close, "let's fill in the rest, and finish this thing now. Spinney's name will be presented by Watson, of his county, and seconded by three other counties. I'm limiting the seconding speeches to three. And you know the men Everett has picked out! Of course, I've left the—the big matter in your own hands, Thelismer." Presson glanced over his glasses at General Waymouth with a significant smile. "Have you decided? Are you going to let both the other candidates be put in nomination before you spring the trap?"
"Sure!" snapped Thornton. "I want that convention to realize how little good can be said of either of them. By the time that gets through those fifteen hundred skulls, they'll be in a state of mind to appreciate the man of the hour!"
General Waymouth was leaning back in his deep chair, his head on the rest, his eyes upturned to the ceiling, fingers tapping the chair's arm. He was offering no comment.
"Vard," said the Duke, "we've got to let a few more into the case now. Overnight is short notice, at that, for a man to get his nominating speech ready. But we're safe. It won't be the speech that will take that convention off its feet. It'll be your name—and the fact that you're willing to stand. Who've you got in mind?"
"No one," replied the General, briefly.
"Any choice?"
"No."
"You're willing to leave it to me?"
"I am."
"Then I'll admit I've picked the men in my mind. One is Linton, that young lawyer that's been taking the lead in the referendum and the direct primaries campaigns—both of them devilish poor political policies; but that doesn't prevent him from being the most eloquent young chap in the State. And he'll tole along the liberals. We'll need only one other—that's old Colonel Wadsworth. You see the scheme of that combination, of course! We don't need any more. The convention will be off its feet before the old Colonel gets half through his seconding speech. Linton is a delegate, Luke, and I saw to it that the old Colonel was fixed out with a proxy after I got here. Now, Harlan, you go out and hunt up those two gentlemen, and bring them here quietly. They're in the hotel. Come to the private door, there. You say you haven't suggestions, Vard?"
"Not now," said the General, not shifting his position. "The time for my suggestions has not come yet."
Harlan went out into the throng, searching, asking questions. The first man of whom he made inquiry recognized him as Thelismer Thornton's grandson, and invited him to the bar to have a drink.
"Busy?" he ejaculated when the young man declined. "H—l, there ain't any one really busy here to-night, except Senator Pownal and Luke Presson. They're running the convention. The delegates don't have to do anything—they are just here for a good time. Come on!"
As Harlan walked away from him, he remembered what Chairman Presson had just delivered from his papers, and decided that truth often spoke from the depths of the wine-cup.
He did not find either of his men in the Hon. David Everett's headquarters. The rooms were packed. Perspiring delegates were edging in and oozing out. Everett was industriously shaking hands, his rubicund face sweat-streaked, his voice hoarse after his hours of constant chatter in that smoke-drenched atmosphere. Harlan stood a moment, and looked at him with a sort of shamed pity. The plot seemed unworthy, in spite of its object. The sordid treachery of politics was turned up to him, all its seamy side displayed.
Two men crowded past him, talking low; but in that press their mouths were near his ear. They were halted by the jam at the door.
"What did you stab him for—how much?" asked one.
"Got ten," said his companion—"ten on account. I get fifty for the caucus."
"Too many machine Republicans in my town, and he knows it," said the other. "The best I could do was fool him out of twenty-five. But that's doing well—in these times. This Spinney stir has made it cost Everett more than it has cost any candidate for ten years. I really didn't have the heart to crowd him for any more. He's been jounced down good and hard as it is."
Harlan took one more look at the unconscious and fatuous Everett, and went out of the room. Twenty feet away, as he knew, sat his grandfather, ready and able to smash the candidate's dreams and chances as a child bursts a soap-bubble. And the man's money—thrown to the winds when a word might have held his hand and closed his pocket-book! Harlan, grandson of Thelismer Thornton, tried to put the thing out of his mind.
"Politics," said a man in the corridor in his hearing, "has got the pelt off'm second-story work, as they're running the political game in this State right now. But it's only petty larceny. And that's why the whole thing makes me sick."
"Me too," said his listener. "You could brag some about a political safe-blowing, but we all have to turn to and hush up this sneak-thief work."
Harlan, walking on, wondered whether the coup that was then in process of elaboration in State Committee headquarters would not be considered by Everett and his supporters as arising to the proper dignity of political crime.
To his surprise Spinney's rooms were practically deserted. The candidate was there, perched on the edge of a table, nursing his knee in his clasped hands and talking vigorously to a few of his intimates. The defection was not bothering him, apparently. Harlan promptly understood why. As he stood for a moment, making sure that neither Linton nor Wadsworth was there, he heard the mellow blare of distant band music. Spinney jumped off the table.
"The boys are coming!" cried one of his friends, and stepped out through
the window upon a balcony. "Wait till after I call for the cheers,
Arba!" he called back. "Step out when they strike up Hail to the
Chief."
"This will make the Everett bunch sit up and take notice," said a man at Harlan's elbow. "There'll be a thousand men in line behind that band when she swings into the square, here! And a Spinney badge on every one of 'em!"
He was challenged promptly. The corridor was full of Everett men.
"Ten dollars to a drink that your man Spinney pays for the band! And when a band starts up street you can get every yag, vag, and jag in the city to trail it! You can't fool doubtful delegates that way, Seth! Go hang your badges on a hickory limb. They're only good to scare crows. You can't scare us!"
This speaker heard Harlan making inquiries for his men.
"The Colonel is down in the office," was his information, "over in the farther corner, behind one of those palms, telling war stories to Herbert Linton. Just came past 'em."
It seemed a rather happy augury to Harlan; that out of that throng his two men should have paired themselves struck him as an interesting coincidence. He found them, and quietly delivered his message.
Colonel Wadsworth stood up, gaunt, straight, twisting his sparse imperial, and blinking a bit doubtfully at the messenger. But Linton was not so much at a loss for reasons. He was an earnest young man with slow, illuminating smile.
"Has the committee seen new light regarding my two planks, Mr. Thornton?" he asked; and without waiting for answer, he led the way. The three were admitted at the private door.
United States Senator Pownal was there, evidently newly arrived from the committee-room.
The band was just coming into the square under their windows.
Its deafening clamor beat in echoes between the high buildings, the mob was roaring huzzas. The bedlam blocked conversation.
Thelismer Thornton pulled down the windows and twitched the curtains together.
"Let 'em hoorah," he said. "With Spinney's band on tap, any fellows that try to listen at our keyholes will be bothered. I'm glad his band is out there. Now, gentlemen, I have something to say to you."
They listened to him, all standing. Only General Waymouth kept his seat, his head tipped back, his finger-tips together.
The Duke was brief, but he was cogent and he was emphatic. He explained what he had done and why he had done it. He was frank and free with that selected few. He delicately made known the General's reluctance, but stated in his behalf his willingness to step into the breach at this eleventh hour for the sake of his party. Then Thornton went first to Colonel Wadsworth, drew him along to Linton, and told them what their party asked of them.
Senator Pownal did not wait for this explanation to be finished. He was the first to reach General Waymouth with congratulations and endorsement.
"You cannot understand how immensely relieved I am to know this plan," he declared. "I have been here only a few hours, but I was just beginning to realize what the situation had developed into. I hadn't the proper perspective at Washington. Thornton is right. We're on the edge of an upheaval in this State; I'm afraid Everett would have plunged us straight into it."
Thornton had made no mistake in his selection of advocates. Colonel Wadsworth rushed to the chair of his old commander, and Linton, with a young man's loyal zeal, followed. The lawyer came back to Harlan, his eyes shining.
"We've got a man to follow now, Mr. Thornton, not a political effigy nor a howl on two legs! I was down there hiding myself. I hadn't stomach for either of the others."
There had been a brief silence outside. Then the band struck up Hail to the Chief, and the uproar broke out once more.
"That's our tune, and they don't know it yet!" cried the Senator, gayly. "Let's have the benefit of that to spice our little celebration, now and here!" He started for the window to open it, but General Waymouth put out his hand and checked him. He had stood up to receive their handclasps.
"One moment, Senator," he entreated. "I have a word to say for myself now. You have just come from Room 40. Have they finished drafting the platform?"
"It's in shape—practically so."
"Will you send for it?"
The Duke nodded to Harlan, and the young man arose. "Tell Wasgatt I want him to come down here with the resolutions," he directed.
And while he was gone there was no conversation in the parlor. It might have been because the band was playing too loudly; it might have been because General Waymouth's visage, grave, stern, almost forbidding, rather dampened the recent cordiality of the gathering.
CHAPTER XVI
THE HANDS ARE DEALT
When Committeeman Wasgatt came into the room in tow of Harlan Thornton he found silence prevailing there. It was silence that was marked by a little restraint. The band outside was quiet now. A human voice was bellowing. It was Arba Spinney's voice—a voice without words.
Wasgatt, short, stout, habitually pop-eyed and nervous, clutched his papers in one hand and held his eyeglasses at arm's-length in the other.
The others were in their chairs now, ranged about the sides of the room. The General, alone, was standing near the table. Wasgatt turned to him after a rapid scrutiny of the make-up of the party.
"I'd like to have the resolutions read," remarked the General, quietly.
"Go ahead, Wasgatt," commanded Presson; and the committeeman advanced to the table under the chandelier and began to read.
The preamble was after the usual stereotyped form; the first sections endorsed the cardinal principles of the party, and Mr. Wasgatt, getting into the spirit of the thing, began to deliver the rounded periods sonorously. General Waymouth leaned slightly over the table, propping himself on the knuckles of his one hand. The light flowed down upon his silvery hair, his features were set in the intentness of listening.
"'We view without favor the demagogic attempts to throttle enterprise, check the proper development of our State, lock up the natural resources away from the fostering hands of commerce and labor, thereby preventing the establishment of industries that will extend their beneficent influence to the workingman, dependent upon his daily wage.'"
"One moment, Wasgatt!" The General tapped a knuckle on the table, and the reader waited.
Waymouth turned his gaze full upon the Senator when he spoke.
"Gentlemen, understand me aright at the start. I'm not here to try to dictate. That would be presumptuous in me, for I am not yet your candidate. To-morrow is not here."
Wasgatt's pop-eyes protruded still more. He stared from man to man, and it became necessary for Thelismer Thornton to take one more into the secret. He did it a bit ungraciously. He had not expected the General to be so blunt and precipitate. The candidate waited patiently until the brief explanation was concluded and Wasgatt had pledged fidelity.
"I want you fully to understand my spirit in this," went on the General. "We'll be honest with each other; we know that the floor of a convention is not the place to discuss the platform frankly; I don't want to wash our linen in public. We'll settle it now between ourselves. That plank, there, comes out of the platform if you expect me to stand on it."
The Senator, challenged by his eyes, spoke.
"You don't take exceptions to honest efforts to develop our State, do you, General Waymouth?"
"I do not. But that proposition, no matter how good it sounds, is the sugar-coated preface to an attempt to steal the undeveloped water-powers of this State."
The Senator's fat neck reddened.
"You may be inclined to modify that rather rash statement, General Waymouth, when I tell you that I suggested the insertion of that resolution."
"I recognized it as yours, Senator. Some time ago my bankers gave me the personnel of the group behind the Universal Development Company. In making my statement, I understand perfectly what legislation that resolution is leading up to."
"Vard," broke in the Duke, conciliatingly, "don't take so much for granted. Why, there are folks suspicious enough to accuse Saint Peter of starting Lent and ticking off Fridays from the meat programme simply because he was in the fish business. Let's not get to fussing about a set of convention resolutions. They're mostly wind, anyway."
But General Waymouth was not appeased.
"I know what resolutions stand for—how much and how little. I'm taking this occasion, gentlemen, to set myself right with you. That resolution will do for a text! I want no taunts later that I led you on into a trap."
He struck the table with the flat of his hand.
"I'm laying my cards face up. Here's my hand! I halt right here on that resolution. I'm certain I know what it means, no matter how it sounds. I'm willing to take my hat and walk out right now. But if I stay—if you promise to nominate me—I propose to have the saying of what kind of a Governor I shall be!"
"That's rather blunt talk to make to gentlemen," protested the Senator, showing a spark of ire.
"At my age there isn't time to make long speeches to shade the facts," returned General Waymouth. He was calm but intensely in earnest.
"Then you are all for reform—one of the new reformers, eh?" inquired the Senator. He cast a look of reproach at Thornton, as though that trusted manager had loosed a tiger on their defenceless party.
The General smiled—smiled so sweetly that he almost disarmed their resentment.
"No, the Arba Spinneys of this State are the reformers. I'm not under salary to run round and make disturbances in settled order. I'm not a bigot with a single idea, nor a fanatic insisting that the world ought to follow the diet that my dyspepsia imposes upon me. I'm merely an old man, gentlemen, who has got past a lot of the follies of youth and the passions of manhood, and has had a chance to reflect for a few years. I have not asked to return to public life. But if I do return, if you put power into my hands, I propose to render unto the people the things that are the people's, and that term includes every man in this room. It is not a programme that should alarm honest gentlemen!"
There was appeal in the tone—there was a hint of rebuke in that final sentence that troubled the conscience of even Senator Pownal. Thelismer Thornton was in a chair close to him.
"Don't let a few little cranky notions about a platform scare you," he mumbled in the Senator's ear. "You know Vard Waymouth as well as I do. He's safe and all right. Give him his head. You don't want Spinney, do you?"
"But that was devilish insulting," growled Pownal.
"Tipping backward a little, trying to stand straight, that's all. Blast it, a Governor can't run the State. What are you afraid of? You've got a lobby and a legislature, haven't you?"
If Waymouth noticed this sotto voce conference he gave no sign.
"General," said Pownal, getting hold of himself manfully, even desperately, "the resolution is not essential. I fear you misunderstand what it really means, but we'll not discuss it now. I withdraw it."
The General bowed acknowledgment, and signed to Wasgatt to resume.
"'We believe in dividing the burden of taxation equitably and justly, and will bend our efforts to that end.'"
"That is simply empty vaporing!" cried the General. "And it has been in every platform for twenty years without meaning anything. The platform that I stand on this year must declare for a non-partisan tax commission, empowered to investigate conditions in this State—wild lands, corporations, and all—and report as a basis for new legislation."
In the silence that ensued they could hear Arba Spinney continuing his harangue.
"Gentlemen, you've got to do something in this party to stop the mouths of him and men like him," declared the General, solemnly. "You may make up your minds that you've either got to pay in money, or else you'll pay in votes that mean the bankruptcy of the party."
"I suppose you have the resolution all drawn," suggested Thelismer
Thornton, dryly.
"I have, and drawn according to good constitutional law," replied the
General. He drew the paper from his breast-pocket.
"Incorporate it, Wasgatt, ready for the final draft, and we'll all go over the thing to-morrow morning." The Duke was grimly laconic. That resolution whacked his pet interests.
Senator Pownal gave the proposer of this prompt surrender a glance of mutual sympathy out of the corner of his eye, but the Duke remained imperturbable. Wasgatt received the paper and went on.
"'We reaffirm our belief in the principle of the prohibition of the liquor traffic, and pledge our earnest efforts to promote temperance.'"
Across the corridor revellers were bawling over and over in chorus:
"'Let's take a drink,
Let's take it now,
God only knows how dry I am!'"
"That's a good thing to reaffirm—I don't mean the song they're singing in that room across there! It's a good thing to pledge ourselves to promote temperance," said the General, "but that isn't the point at issue. I have another plank that I've written for our platform."
He drew a second paper from his pocket.
"Gentlemen, some politicians, more than half a century ago, simply to use a temperance movement for bait in a political campaign, dragged into our party a moral, social, and economic question that belongs to the whole people—not merely to us as a party. Let the people, when the right time comes and they decide the matter differently, make a law that the majority desires and will stand behind. Just now we have in our constitution a law that forbids the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in this State. There is no option in the matter. Just so long as our party, the dominant political power, uses that option, it is in disgrace with all decent men. I—"
There was a knock at the door—the private door.
Harlan started up, but his grandfather pulled him back into his chair.
"Go on, General," he said.
"I have drawn a resolution. Here it is: 'As a party, we deplore the fact that temperance, through the so-called prohibitory law, has become a matter of politics, its football to the extent that holders of public office, sworn to enforce the laws, turn from that enforcement in order to cater to public opinion which otherwise might deprive them of office. We declare against this intolerable system of protection of lawbreakers. Until the people shall repeal the law, we, the dominant party of the State and in control of enforcement, do pledge ourselves to faithfully enforce it, employing such law as we now have and invoking new powers through the legislature to assist us, so long as the prohibitory law shall remain in our constitution.'"
It was now Chairman Presson's turn to look uncomfortable.
"Look here, Vard," exploded Thornton, "I've been pretty patient while you've been amputating a few fingers and toes of the Republican party of this State, but I'll be damned if I propose to see you cut its throat."
There was fresh knocking at the door, but the group within the parlor had enough to think about just then without entertaining callers.
"Now you're talking simply about yourselves and your office-holders and your dirty profits. You're calling that mess of nasty confederacy 'Our Party,'" declared General Waymouth, passionately. "When honesty kills a party, let it die—let its men get out and organize another one. But I tell you, you can't kill it by being honest, Thelismer. The trouble is you're sitting here and building for to-night—for to-morrow. I'm a Republican—you can't take that name away from me. But the badge doesn't belong on men who are using that name to cover up a rum-selling business."
Chairman Presson was livid. He leaped from his chair and drove his fist down on the table,
"Now you're insulting me personally!" he shouted.
"I deal in no personalities, sir. So long as I hide myself under the name of Republican and allow this thing to go on as it's going, I'm in the traffic myself; and I don't propose to continue in it—not when I have power placed in my hands."
"By the eternal gods, you won't have the power placed there!" roared the chairman of the State Committee.
Now some one called to them from outside the door, repeating the rapping.
"When you say that, you're confessing that the Republican party is a sneak, Presson," declared the General.
The Duke came along to the table. He ticked his forefinger against the paper that Waymouth was holding.
"Vard, you're pledging yourself in advance of election to the most rabid of the prohibition fanatics."
"I'm pledging myself to obey the one State law that occupies the most space in public attention, causes the most discussion, makes the most row. It's a damnable bloodsucker to be hitched on to any political party! But it's on ours, and I'm going to grab it with both hands!"
"Hold a proxy from the ramrodders, eh?" sneered the State chairman, thoroughly a rebel.
"No, nor from the State rumsellers. If the people of his State want to have rum sold, let 'em vote to have it sold. But as it now stands, they can't enlist me to head the lawbreakers and shield the lawbreaking. I'm through playing the hypocrite!"
"We've got to set ourselves above petty bickerings and personal differences," interposed the Senator, cracking the party whip. "I'm a Republican, first of all!"
"Talk sense, Pownal!" snapped the General, impatiently. "This isn't a political rally. We're grown men and friends that can talk plain. His principles make a Republican—or ought to—not his protestations! And establishing a system of low license and sheriff-made local option under a prohibitory law is unprincipled, and you know it!"
Thelismer Thornton, god of that particular machine that was then grinding so ominously and rattling so badly, felt that he needed a few moments in which to mend belts and adjust cogs. He wanted an opportunity to think a little while. He had discovered a new Waymouth all of a sudden. He wanted to get acquainted with him. He wished to find out whether he would be really as dangerous as his astonishing threats indicated.
The persistent man at the door was now clamorous. The Duke strode that way and flung it open. Whoever it might be, the interruption would give him time to think, to plan, to investigate.
The intruder was the Hon. David Everett. He stepped in, and Thornton relocked the door after him.
Mr. Everett was not amiable. His little eyes snapped from face to face suspiciously. It was immediately and perfectly plain to him that he had forced admission to a conference that had not expected him, did not want him, and was embarrassed at finding him present. In the state of mind they were in, the men in that room would have glowered at any one. Everett detected something more than mere personal resentment at his intrusion—he sniffed a plot against him. There was no hand outstretched to him, no welcome, no explanation offered why these leaders of the party had met thus without intimation to him that anything was afoot. Choleric red suffused his face—it had been gray with passion when he entered, because a corridor filled with curious men is not a happy arena for a candidate shut out of committee headquarters.
He realized that he had been a spectacle inciting interest and some amusement while he was hammering on the door.
One object of the Duke had been attained when he admitted Everett—the wrangling ceased. But the embarrassment was intensified. The situation was more complex.
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen, if I am interrupting serious business," began Everett, intending to force some sort of explanation.
He waited. No one spoke. The others were waiting, too.
The candidate looked from one to the other, and then surveyed Wasgatt and the papers he was clutching. He eyed General Waymouth with much interest and some surprise. He had not been informed of that gentleman's presence in the hotel. The General returned the gaze with serenity, creasing his sheet of manuscript on the table with his thin fingers.
"I expected to be called in when you were ready to go over the platform," continued Everett, sourly. "I'm supposed to know as early as any one, I presume, what it is I'm going to stand on."
Thelismer Thornton decided that it was up to him to speak. He leaned against the table, half sitting on it, and swung his foot.
"You have a perfect right, Dave, to inquire about any platform that you're going to stand on. And when we get your platform ready for you we'll call you in and submit it. But allow me to remind you that you haven't been nominated yet." The band was blaring again outside. "The convention is yet to be held, and has yet to declare its platform."
"I don't expect you to call Arba Spinney in here and consult with him—if that's what your hints mean. But there's no need of your using that 'round-the-barn talk with me, Thelismer. You know that so far as the real Republican party is concerned Spinney is an outsider; I'm the logical candidate, and I demand to be taken into the conference. I don't recognize that there are two Republican candidates before the convention."
"I do," said the Duke, firmly and with significance. He was preparing to resent this autocratic manner.
"Well, I don't!" cried the State chairman. Secretly he had been offended by Thornton's high-handed assumption of control, ever since their talk on the morning after the Fort Canibas caucus. He had promptly recognized the political sagacity of the old man's plan. In his fear of the Spinney agitation—in his apprehension lest all control should be wrested from his faction of the party—he had been eager to compromise on General Waymouth, hoping that he would prove to be as amenable to party reason as he knew Everett already was. But this intractable old Spartan, with his dictation of party principles that meant the loss of policy, power, and profits, had angered him to his marrow. He was ready to declare himself now, Thornton or mo Thornton. He turned on the Duke.
"Perhaps you can lick me—that's the only way you can get it!" he declared. "But you needn't expect me to stand here and grin and hand it over."
Thornton stared at him understandingly, accepting the challenge.
"There was a man up our way, Luke, who fought two highway robbers a whole hour, and when they had finally torn his clothes all off him, he only had two cents in his pockets. He told the robbers, then, that he hadn't fought to save his two cents, but because he didn't want his financial condition revealed."
Candidate Everett was finding this conversation hard to follow.
"There's something here that isn't on the level, and I suspected it the minute I came into this room. Presson, is the State Committee behind me?"
"It is, and it's behind you to stay," declared the chairman. Again he turned to Thornton.
"It's up to you, now, whether Arba Spinney gets the nomination or not. If you keep on and split us, he gets it; but I shall make it mighty plain to the boys as to whose fault it was, Thelismer."
"What's all this about?" demanded Everett.
Presson hesitated only a moment.
"There was a movement on inside the party to run General Waymouth as a compromise candidate. It has been talked over. I declare myself now. I'm against it. The State Committee stands for you, Everett!"
The candidate revolved slowly on his heels in order to study the faces of all of them. He did not find much enthusiasm to back up Presson's declaration. He realized that he was in the company of those who had been plotting to shelve him, and he had the wit to understand that only their quarrel over some issue had availed to save him from being knifed.
His temper got away from him.
"You've held your nose up pretty high in this world, General Waymouth! Do you call a trick to steal my nomination away from me at the last moment gentlemanly or decent? I've put in my time and my money and my efforts. I've made a campaign. And I've waited for this!"
"You needn't insult the General in that fashion, Dave," broke in
Thornton. "Address your talk to me. I'm responsible."
"I think I'm the one that is responsible at this stage," insisted General Waymouth. "I'll talk to you, Mr. Everett, if you please. You addressed me. Any Republican in this State is entitled to seek nomination as Governor. It is a worthy and proper ambition. It is an honor that belongs to the people. It isn't a heritage to be passed on from one bunch of politicians to another. It isn't to be bought and bartered. I realize that precedent has given you that impression. But it's a pernicious precedent. It's time to do away with it. That's why I'm here to-night, dipping into slime that I hoped never to be soiled with again. I've been frank with these other gentlemen. I'm going to be frank with you, Mr. Everett. I know you stand for The System. I don't have to tell you what that is. You propose to continue the nullification programme, bar-rooms tolerated on payment of fines, tax reform slicked over, water powers and other State resources peddled out to favorites. It's useless to deny. We've all been in politics together too many years."
Mr. Everett did not deny. It was too intimate a gathering for that.
"This is not the way I'd like to be called to the Governor's chair of my State," went on the General, "but it's the way of politics. I've got to meet you on the politician's level, so far as securing the nomination goes. But I stand here and tell you, Mr. Everett"—he took two steps forward and stood close to the other candidate, and his voice rose—"that I can be a better Governor of this State than you—in the sort of days that are on us now. This is not egotism—it's truth. I say it because I know you and the men behind you as well as I know myself."
"It's a sneak trick, just the same!" shouted Everett.
"So are many tricks in politics—and, God help me, I'm back in politics!" returned the General. He looked them over there in the room, from face to face and eye to eye. "You cannot accuse me of vanity, self-seeking, or ambition at my age, gentlemen. I've been Governor of this State once. I didn't enjoy the experience. I'm going into this thing again simply because I believe that I can put some honesty into public affairs. This State is calling for it. And that object justifies me in what I'm doing. I am a candidate!"
"By ——!" roared Everett, furious, realizing how this candidacy threatened his hopes, "run if you want to. But I'll see to it that these delegates know how you're running—cutting under a man that's made an honest canvass!" He started for the door, tossing his arms above his head—a politician beginning to run amuck.
Presson grabbed his arm and held him back.
"Don't be a lunatic, Dave," he buzzed in his ear. "If you go to advertising this around the hotel to-night you'll be giving Spinney the tip and starting Waymouth's boom for him. Damn it, you want to keep your teeth shut tight and your tongue behind them! There'll be no blabbers go out of this room—I'll see to that! I'll put a dozen members of the State Committee at work on the delegates to-night." He was walking Everett toward the door, getting him out of earshot of the others. "Weymouth has got a platform there that sounds as though it was drawn up by the House Committee of Paradise. He's got to be licked—great Judas, he's got to be licked! I've got five thousand that the liquor crowd has sent into the State for the campaign, but this is the place to use it—right here now! And it'll be used. Don't you worry, Dave! And keep your mouth shut!"
It was a colloquy that no one else in the room heard—Everett putting in suggestions as the chairman whispered hoarsely in his ear. Harlan Thornton, looking on, guessed what it might be. Linton, at his side, ironically hinted at the possibilities of that hurried conference in the corner. Senator Pownal walked about the room, chewing his short beard and incapable of a word—for his re-election came before the next legislature, and to jump the wrong way now in the gubernatorial matter was political suicide.
Thelismer Thornton remained in his place on the corner of the table, staring reflectively at General Waymouth.
Presson ended his whispered exhortations with a rather savage reference to the manner in which the Duke had involved the campaign. Everett shot a baleful glance at the man who had so cold-bloodedly planned his undoing.
"Look here, Thornton," he called out, as he started for the door, "you and I will have our reckoning later. We use old horses for fox bait up our way, too, but we always make sure that the horses are dead first." He went out and slammed the door.
Thornton did not turn his head. He kept his eyes on Waymouth.
"Vard," he said, "I reckon I haven't been keeping my political charts up to date. I had you down as a peninsula, jutting out some from the Republican party, but still hitched on to it. I find you're an island, standing all by yourself, and with pretty rocky shores."
"Perhaps so," admitted the General.
"This has been a sort of a heart-to-heart meeting here to-night. In the general honesty I'll be honest myself. I can't support you."
"Then you lack honesty."
"No, but your scheme of honesty takes you right into the king-row of the ramrodders, and I can't train with the bunch that will flock to you. Your theory is good—but the practice will break your heart just as sure as God hasn't made humans perfect! You'll be up against it! You're going to test man to the limit of his professions—and it isn't a safe operation, if you want to come out with any of your ideals left unsmashed. If you start on that road you'll have to travel it without me."
"Well, there's a little common sense left in the Republican party," snapped Presson. "General Waymouth, you've had considerable many honors in your life, and the party gave 'em to you. That calls for some gratitude. You can show it by keeping your hands off this thing."
"That would have been an argument once, when I was a wheel-horse with my political blinders on; it has been an argument that has kept a good many decent men from doing their duty. It will not work with me now." He put his folded paper into his pocket, and reached and took the other document that he had handed to Wasgatt earlier in the evening. "I'll not disfigure the perfect structure of your platform now, Presson, but I'll see how these sound from the floor of the convention, in spite of your resolutions to shut off free speech! Good-night, gentlemen." He turned to leave, still serene with the poise of one who has experienced all and is prepared for all. "I used to have pretty good luck playing a lone hand in our old card-playing days, Thelismer. I'll see what I can do in politics."
"General Waymouth, have you a few moments to give me if I come to your room now?" inquired Harlan Thornton. "I want to offer my services!"
"I'll join the party too, if I may!" suggested Linton.
Colonel Wadsworth was twisting his imperial with one hand and fingering his Loyal Legion button with the other.
"I'm not the kind that waits for a draft, General," he said. "I didn't in '61. I volunteer now."
General Waymouth smiled, bowed the three ahead of him through the door of the parlor, and softly closed it behind himself and his little party.
"Well, Thelismer," raved the State chairman, "you can certainly take rank, at your time of life and after all you've been through, as a top-notch hell of a politician. You start out to run a State campaign, and you wind up by not being able to run even your grandson!"
"What I started running seems to be still running," said the old man, undisturbed by the attack.
"And it's costing the Republican party something, this mix-up," Presson went on.
"You think it looks expensive, taking the thing right now at apparent face value?"
"Look here! I don't relish humor—not now! I'm not in a humorous mood.
You can see what it's costing—blast that infernal band!"
Mr. Spinney's serenaders had not had their fill of music. There was din outside. The tune, "A Hot Time in the Old Town To-night," won a grunt of approval from Mr. Wasgatt, still holding his documents, more pop-eyed than ever.
"Pretty expensive, eh?" said the Duke, lifting his knee between his hands and leaning back on the table. "You heard about—"
"I don't want any more of your cussed stories! Not to-night!" Presson rushed out. He went into the main parlor, where the members of the State Committee were in informal session.
Wasgatt was left with the Duke, and the latter fixed him with benevolent gaze.
"Old Zavanna Dodge, up our way, got to courting two old maids, trying to make up his mind which he'd take—and the one he didn't take sued him for breach o' promise. After Zavanna put in his evidence in court, he sat across from the court-house in the tavern window, waiting for the arguments to be made and the case to be decided. Toward night Squire Enfield, his lawyer, came across. 'How did she end out?' says Zavanna. 'Agin ye—for eight hundred,' says the Squire. 'Pretty expensive, Zav!' Zavanna tucked a spill of whisker between his lips and chewed on it and rocked for a little while. 'Unh huh!' says he, figuring it over. And then he spoke up cheerful: 'Well, Squire, I reckon there's that much difference between the two women.'"
Wasgatt chuckled.
"The point to that is—but no matter! It was to Luke that I was going to show the point."
The old man got his hat from the window-sill and trudged toward the private door, saying, partly to Wasgatt, partly to himself: "I reckon I'll go to bed! Just at this minute the campaign doesn't seem to be needing my help."
CHAPTER XVII
THE ODD TRICK
Thelismer Thornton was one of the first to stir next morning in the big hotel. All night roisterers had flanked his room, there had been the buzz of eager argument overhead, riot of dispute below, and continual thudding of hurrying feet in the corridors. He had gone to sleep realizing that the hive was in a state of upheaval extraordinary, but he slept calmly in spite of it, and woke refreshed.
He picked his way past cots in the corridors. Men were snoring there.
His grandson had not returned to their apartments. But the Duke divined his whereabouts. He had ascertained by the house telephone the number of Linton's room. He tried the door when he arrived there. It was not locked. He entered. Linton was asleep on the bed. Harlan was on a cot. They had taken off only their coats and waistcoats. They did not wake when he came in. He pulled a chair to the centre of the room and sat astride it, his arms on its back. In a few moments both sleepers woke, stirring under his intent regard. They sat up and returned his gaze.
"Well, my boys, what's the programme?" he inquired, pleasantly.
Heavy with sleep, perturbed, a bit apprehensive, neither answered.
"You didn't come back to your room last night, Harlan. You weren't afraid of this old chap, were you? Didn't think I'd be running around the room on all fours, eh, or climb the wall, or growl and try to bite you?"
"I didn't want to disturb you, and Mr. Linton and I wanted to talk after we left General Waymouth," said Harlan.
"It's all right if you weren't afraid of me, my boy. We can't afford to have politics put us in that state of mind. Now, own up! You thought I'd pitch in and pull you over to the machine—you were afraid of that, now, weren't you?"
"To be perfectly honest, I didn't want any argument with you, grandfather, but I wasn't afraid you'd convert me. You couldn't do that."
"Bub, 'politics before friendship' is all right for a code. I practice that myself, but it hurts me to have you put politics before relationship—the kind that's between us."
"Grandfather," replied the young man, firmly, "you remember that you told me you were going to put me into politics right. I consider that you've done so. I'm going to stay where you put me."
"Oh, you mean one thing and I mean another, my boy, as matters stand just now. You're in wrong. A man isn't in right when he's playing on the losing end."
"I stay where you put me," insisted Harlan, doggedly. "I'm with General
Waymouth."
"General Waymouth was a winner till he committed hari-kari there last night. He had Luke's machine, and he had my scheme. He kicked over the machine, and the scheme won't work now; it could have been snapped through, but it can't be bulled through—not with the bunch forewarned and on the lookout. Your political chances with Vard Waymouth, Harlan, don't amount to that!" He clicked his finger smartly above his head. "You may as well go back up-country and boss the Quedaws."
"And yet you know that General Waymouth is right, Mr. Thornton," broke in Linton, pausing in lacing his shoes. "There's no chance for argument about that. Why is it the big men of this State—men like you, that have the influence to set things straight—won't back the man that's honest and right?"
"Linton, that's the kind of a question that's asked by the man whose experience in practical politics is limited to a term on the School Board and the ownership of a subscription edition of American Statesmen, bound in half morocco. I'll tell you why we don't: we're dealing with conditions, not theories. The chap who writes for the 'Kickers' Column' in the newspapers can tell you all about how politics should be run, but that's the only privilege he ever gets. It's the chap who keeps still and runs the politics that gets what's to be got out of it. And that's because mankind wants what it wants, and not what it says it wants."
He went to the window, snapped up the shade, and let the morning light flood the room.
"Wake up, my boys! Dreams are rosy—I've had 'em myself. But they don't buy the breakfast next morning. Martyrs get a devil of a reputation after they're dead. It doesn't do 'em a mite of good, not as human beings. As long as you're taking the curse that belongs with a human being, get some of the good, too. I tried to operate on a different plan long ago—about the time I had the dreams—but I had to give it up if I was to get anything out of life. Vard Waymouth can't build over the human nature in this State. I've had to drop him. I hadn't realized he was in such a bad way. Get aboard with the winners this trip! Then at least you can be in the swim—you can find some good to do on the side, and be able to do it. But you won't amount to anything sitting on the bank and bellowing."
The vigils of the night had fortified their faith, the loyalty of youth was in them, and they were the disciples of one who had enlisted their enthusiasm. Linton, however, was less assertive than Harlan. The Duke did not lose his patience.
"Boys," he said, at the end of his exhortations, "I see that you've got to have your little lesson (I'll have to be going now, for I've a few things to attend to), and I'll tell you frankly I propose to make that lesson a lasting one."
A few hours later the young men went in to breakfast together. The early trains had brought other delegates and visitors. The great room was crowded with a chattering throng. The head waiter intercepted them; he seemed to be waiting for them. They followed obediently, and he led them to an alcove.
Here a breakfast-party was already installed.
Miss Presson was first to greet them, giving a hand to each—radiant, fresh, and altogether charming in her tailored perfection.
"We left word at the door," she smiled, "for I wanted to behold you before the blood and dust of the arena settled over all."
Mrs. Presson and her ladies were cordial. They did not seem to remark that the State chairman kept his seat and was brusque in his greeting. Political abstraction excused general disregard to conventions among the men-folks that morning. The Duke was there. He patronized them with a particularly amiable smile.
"May I?" asked Linton, touching the chair next Madeleine.
"Yes," said the girl. "You know, Herbert and I are very old friends, Mr. Thornton." There was a hint of apology to Harlan behind the brilliant smile she gave him. He had moved toward the chair. He flushed when he realized that he felt a queer sense of hurt at her choice. It was another new experience for him who had made the woods his mistress—a woman had chosen another, slighting him. As he took his seat beside his grandfather he was angry at himself—at the sudden boyish pique he felt. He had not been conscious till then that he had been interested especially in Madeleine Presson. It needed the presence of this other young man, selected over his head, to make him understand that one may not draw near beauty with impunity, even though one may be very certain—telling his own heart—that love is undreamed of. He wondered whether he might not be afflicted with asinine pride.
He did not relish the glance that Linton bestowed on him; it seemed there was just a flash of triumph in it—that bit of a boast one sees in the eyes of a man who becomes, even briefly, the proprietor of a pretty woman.
"We were just talking over the latest news—or, rather, it's a rumor," said Miss Presson. With quick intuition she felt that something, somehow, was not just right. She hastened to break the silence. "They are saying that Mr. Spinney has withdrawn, and that his name will not go before the convention. Of course, you've heard about it, Herbert—and Mr. Thornton!"
They had not heard it. They looked guilty. They had been all the morning with Colonel Wadsworth, locked away from the throng, finishing matters of the night before. The expression on their faces was confession of their ignorance.
"If you're going to be early political fishermen you'll have to look for your worms sharp in the morning or you'll fetch up short of bait," suggested the Duke, maliciously.
"Three cheers and a snatch of band-music take on a hopeful color when they're lit up by red fire overnight," remarked the State chairman. "So do some other things. But a fellow with good eyesight usually comes to himself in the daylight."
"Is that true about Spinney?" asked Harlan, scenting mischief and treachery, and not yet enough of a politician to understand instantly just what effect this would have on the situation.
"I don't know anything about it," snapped Presson. "I don't care anything about it. It isn't important enough. The man's strength was overrated. It was mostly mouth. Just as soon as the delegates got together last night and shook themselves down it was plain enough where Spinney stood."
"But you yourself and grandfather have been saying all along that he—" began Harlan.
"We say a lot of things in politics," broke in the chairman, testily. "But it's only the final round-up that counts. And be prepared for sudden changes, as the almanac says! I tell you, I don't know anything about this Spinney rumor—nor I don't care. But it's probably true. Everett has got pledged delegates enough to nominate him by acclamation."
"But last night—" persisted Harlan.
His grandfather interrupted this time.
"Don't you remember that old Brad Dunham wrote to New York one spring and asked a commission man if he would take a million frogs' legs? Commission man wrote that he'd take a hundred pairs; and the best old Brad could do, after wading in the swamp back of his house all day, was to get a dozen. Wrote to the commission man that he'd been estimating his frogs by sound and thought he had a million. That's been the way with Spinney and his delegates, Harlan."
Mrs. Presson took advantage of the merriment to change the subject from politics. It was a topic that did not interest her, and she had learned from her husband's disgusted growlings that morning that there had been trouble the night before.
Harlan did not join in the chatter that went about the table. Under cover of it his grandfather gave him a few words of compassionate counsel.
"You'll have to swing in with the new deal, bub. You can't cut party sirloin too close to the horn, and that's what Vard did. He wants to sit on the mountain and slam us flat under a rock with the new ten commandments on it. We can't stand for it. I didn't dream that he had grown to be so impractical in his old age. No one wants any such deal as he's framing up for the State. As I told you, he's trying to build human nature over, and he can't do it. I'm sorry it's turned as it has—he could have been just a little diplomatic and made us a good Governor. But Everett will make a good one—you needn't be afraid of him. We'll put through a few measures that will smooth things down a little. Now you've got to remember that you're going to the legislature. You might just as well not be there if you don't stand clever with the administration. I haven't put you in just as I intended. But get into line now, quick. I can smooth it all right for you. I've squared myself with Everett—he needed me!"
Harlan listened patiently, keeping his eyes on his food.
"Right after breakfast Luke is going to have a talk with you and
Linton."
"It will do Mr. Presson no good to talk to me. I'm with General
Waymouth."
"But General Waymouth has been eliminated, you young idiot. It was the combination of circumstances that made him a candidate. But those circumstances have been changed. I can't explain to you how, Harlan—not here and now. But a brand-new trump has been turned. It had to be done. You stay behind here with Linton and talk with Luke."
The ladies were rising from the table.
Harlan did not reply. He did not remain. He stepped aside and allowed the ladies to pass, and followed them from the alcove. Presson stared after him angrily. Linton, obeying his request, sat down after Mrs. Presson and her party had retired.