WHEN the old Chief was gone, Big Kennedy succeeded to his place as the ruling spirit of the organization. For myself, I moved upward to become a figure of power only a whit less imposing; for I stepped forth as a leader of the ward, while in the general councils of Tammany I was recognized as Big Kennedy's adviser and lieutenant.
To the outside eye, unskilled of politics in practice, everything of Tammany sort would have seemed in the plight desperate. The efforts required for the overthrow of the old Chief, and Big Kennedy's bolt in favor of the forces of reform—ever the blood enemy of Tammany—had torn the organization to fragments. A first result of this dismemberment was the formation of a rival organization meant to dominate the local Democracy. This rival coterie was not without its reasons of strength, since it was upheld as much as might be by the State machine. The situation was one which for a time would compel Big Kennedy to tolerate the company of his reform friends, and affect, even though he privately opposed them, some appearance of sympathy with their plans for the purification of the town.
“But,” observed Big Kennedy, when we considered the business between ourselves, “I think I can set these guys by the ears. There aint a man in New York who, directly or round th' corner, aint makin' money through a broken law, an' these mugwumps aint any exception. I've invited three members of the main squeeze to see me, an' I'll make a side bet they get tired before I do.”
In deference to the invitation of Big Kennedy, there came to call upon him a trio of civic excellence, each a personage of place. Leading the three was our longtime friend, the reputable old gentleman. Of the others, one was a personage whose many millions were invested in real estate, the rentals whereof ran into the hundreds of thousands, while his companion throve as a wholesale grocer, a feature of whose business was a rich trade in strong drink.
Big Kennedy met the triumvirate with brows of sanctimony, and was a moral match for the purest. When mutual congratulations over virtue's late successes at the ballot box, and the consequent dawn of whiter days for the town, were ended, Big Kennedy, whose statecraft was of the blunt, positive kind, brought to the discussional center the purpose of the meeting.
“We're not only goin' to clean up th' town, gents,” said Big Kennedy unctuously, “but Tammany Hall as well. There's to be no more corruption; no more blackmail; every man an' every act must show as clean as a dog's tooth. I s'ppose, now, since we've got th' mayor, th' alderman, an' th' police, our first duty is to jump in an' straighten up th' village?” Here Big Kennedy scanned the others with a virtuous eye.
“Precisely,” observed the reputable old gentleman. “And since the most glaring evils ought to claim our earliest attention, we should compel the police, without delay, to go about the elimination of the disorderly elements—the gambling dens, and other vice sinks. What do you say, Goldnose?” and the reputable old gentleman turned with a quick air to him of the giant rent-rolls.
“Now on those points,” responded the personage of real estate dubiously, “I should say that we ought to proceed slowly. You can't rid the community of vice; history shows it to be impossible.” Then, with a look of cunning meaning: “There exist, however, evils not morally bad, perhaps, that after all are violations of law, and get much more in the way of citizens than gambling or any of its sister iniquities.” Then, wheeling spitefully on the reputable old gentleman: “There's the sidewalk and street ordinances: You know the European Express Company, Morton? I understand that you are a heaviest stockholder in it. I went by that corner the other day and I couldn't get through for the jam of horses and trucks that choked the street. There they stood, sixty horses, thirty trucks, and the side street fairly impassable. I scratched one side of my brougham to the point of ruin—scratched off my coat-of-arms, in fact, on the pole of one of the trucks. I think that to enforce the laws meant to keep the street free of obstructions is more important, as a civic reform, than driving out gamblers. These latter people, after all, get in nobody's way, and if one would find them one must hunt for them. They are prompt with their rents, too, and ready to pay a highest figure; they may be reckoned among the best tenants to be found.”
The real estate personage was red in the face when he had finished this harangue. He wiped his brow and looked resentfully at the reputable old gentleman. That latter purist was now in a state of great personal heat.
“Those sixty horses were being fed, sir,” said he with spirit. “The barn is more than a mile distant; there's no time to go there and back during the noon hour. You can't have the barn on Broadway, you know. That would be against the law, even if the value of Broadway property didn't put it out of reach.”
“Still, it's against the law to obstruct the streets,” declared the real-estate personage savagely, “just as much as it is against the law to gamble. And the trucks and teams are more of a public nuisance, sir!”
“I suppose,” responded the reputable old gentleman, with a sneer, “that if my express horses paid somebody a double rent, paid it to you, Goldnose, for instance, they wouldn't be so much in the way.” Then, as one exasperated to frankness: “Why don't you come squarely out like a man, and say that to drive the disorderly characters from the town would drive a cipher or two off your rents?”
“If I, or any other real-estate owner,” responded the baited one indignantly, “rent certain tenements, not otherwise to be let, to disorderly characters, whose fault is it? I can't control the town for either its morals or its business. The town grows up about my property, and conditions are made to occur that practically condemn it. Good people won't live there, and the property is unfit for stores or warehouses. What is an owner to do? The neighborhood becomes such that best people won't make of it a spot of residence. It's either no rent, or a tenant who lives somewhat in the shade. Real-estate owners, I suppose, are to be left with millions of unrentable property on their hands; but you, on your side, are not to lose half an hour in taking your horses to a place where they might lawfully be fed? What do you say, Casebottle?” and the outraged real-estate prince turned to the wholesale grocer, as though seeking an ally.
“I'm inclined, friend Goldnose,” returned the wholesale grocer suavely, “I'm inclined to think with you that it will be difficult to deal with the town as though it were a camp meeting. Puritanism is offensive to the urban taste.” Here the wholesale grocer cleared his throat impressively.
“And so,” cried the reputable old gentleman, “you call the suppression of gamblers and base women, puritanism? Casebottle, I'm surprised!”
The wholesale grocer looked nettled, but held his peace. There came a moment of silence. Big Kennedy, who had listened without interference, maintaining the while an inflexible morality, took advantage of the pause.
“One thing,” said he, “about which I think you will all agree, is that every ginmill open after hours, or on Sunday, should be pinched, and no side-doors or speakeasy racket stood for. We can seal th' town up as tight as sardines.”
Big Kennedy glanced shrewdly at Casebottle. Here was a move that would injure wholesale whisky. Casebottle, however, did not immediately respond; it was the reputable old gentleman who spoke.
“That's my notion,” said he, pursing his lips. “Every ginmill ought to be closed as tight as a drum. The Sabbath should be kept free of that disorder which rum-drinking is certain to breed.”
“Well, then,” broke in Casebottle, whose face began to color as his interests began to throb, “I say that a saloon is a poor man's club. If you're going to close the saloons, I shall be in favor of shutting up the clubs. I don't believe in one law for the poor and another for the rich.”
This should offer some impression of how the visitors agreed upon a civil policy. Big Kennedy was good enough to offer for the others, each of whom felt himself somewhat caught in a trap, a loophole of escape.
“For,” explained Big Kennedy, “while I believe in rigidly enforcin' every law until it is repealed, I have always held that a law can be tacitly repealed by th' people, without waitin' for th' action of some skate legislature, who, comin' for th' most part from th' cornfields, has got it in for us lucky ducks who live in th' town. To put it this way: If there's a Sunday closin' law, or a law ag'inst gamblers, or a law ag'inst obstructin' th' streets, an' th' public don't want it enforced, then I hold it's repealed by th' highest authority in th' land, which is th' people, d'ye see!”
“Now, I think that very well put,” replied the real-estate personage, with a sigh of relief, while the wholesale grocer nodded approval. “I think that very well put,” he went on, “and as it's getting late, I suggest that we adjourn for the nonce, to meet with our friend, Mr. Kennedy, on some further occasion. For myself, I can see that he and the great organization of which he is now, happily, the head, are heartily with us for reforming the shocking conditions that have heretofore persisted in this community. We have won the election; as a corollary, peculation and blackmail and extortion will of necessity cease. I think, with the utmost safety to the public interest, we can leave matters to take their natural course, without pushing to extremes. Don't you think so, Mr. Kennedy?”
“Sure!” returned that chieftain. “There's always more danger in too much steam than in too little.”
The reputable old gentleman was by no means in accord with the real-estate personage; but since the wholesale grocer cast in his voice for moderation and no extremes, he found himself in a hopeless minority of no one save himself. With an eye of high contempt, therefore, for what he described as “The reform that needs reform,” he went away with the others, and the weighty convention for pure days was over.
“An' that's th' last we'll see of 'em,” said Big Kennedy, with a laugh. “No cat enjoys havin' his own tail shut in th' door; no man likes th' reform that pulls a gun on his partic'lar interest. This whole reform racket,” continued Big Kennedy, who was in a temper to moralize, “is, to my thinkin', a kind of pouter-pigeon play. Most of 'em who go in for it simply want to swell 'round. Besides the pouter-pigeon, who's in th' game because he's stuck on himself, there's only two breeds of reformers. One is a Republican who's got ashamed of himself; an' th' other is some crook who's been kicked out o' Tammany for graftin' without a license.”
“Would your last include you and me?” I asked. I thought I might hazard a small jest, since we were now alone.
“It might,” returned Big Kennedy, with an iron grin. Then, twisting the subject: “Now let's talk serious for two words. I've been doin' th' bunco act so long with our three friends that my face begins to ache with lookin' pious. Now listen: You an' me have got a long road ahead of us, an' money to be picked up on both sides. But let me break this off to you, an' don't let a word get away. When you do get th' stuff, don't go to buildin' brownstone fronts, an' buyin' trottin' horses, an' givin' yourself away with any Coal-Oil Johnny capers. If we were Republicans or mugwumps it might do. But let a Democrat get a dollar, an' there's a warrant out for him before night. When you get a wad, bury it like a dog does a bone. An' speakin' of money; I've sent for th' Chief of Police.. Come to think of it, we'd better talk over to my house. I'll go there now, an' you stay an' lay for him. When he shows up, bring him to me. There won't be so many pipin' us off over to my house.”
Big Kennedy left the Tammany headquarters, where he and the good government trio had conferred, and sauntered away in the direction of his habitat. The Chief of Police did not keep me in suspense. Big Kennedy was not four blocks away when that blue functionary appeared.
“I'm to go with you to his house,” said I.
The head of the police was a bloated porpoise-body of a man, oily, plausible, masking his cunning with an appearance of frankness. As for scruple; why then the sharks go more freighted of a conscience.
Big Kennedy met the Chief of Police with the freedom that belongs with an acquaintance, boy and man, of forty years. In a moment they had gotten to the marrow of what was between them.
“Of course,” said Big Kennedy, “Tammany's crippled just now with not havin' complete swing in th' town; an' I've got to bunk in more or less with the mugwumps. Still, we've th' upper hand in th' Board of Aldermen, an' are stronger everywhere than any other single party. Now you understand;” and here Big Kennedy bent a keen eye on the other. “Th' organization's in need of steady, monthly contributions. We'll want 'em in th' work I'm layin' out. I think you know where to get 'em, an' I leave it to you to organize th' graft. You get your bit, d'ye see! I'm goin' to name a party, however, to act as your wardman an' make th' collections. What sort is that McCue who was made Inspector about a week ago?”
“McCue!” returned the Chief of Police in tones of surprise. “That man would never do! He's as honest as a clock!”
“Honest!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, and his amazement was a picture. “Well, what does he think he's doin' on th' force, then?”
“That's too many for me,” replied the other. Then, apologetically: “But you can see yourself, that when you rake together six thousand men, no matter how you pick 'em out, some of 'em's goin' to be honest.”
“Yes,” assented Big Kennedy thoughtfully, “I s'ppose that's so, too. It would be askin' too much to expect that a force, as you say, of six thousand could be brought together, an' have 'em all crooked. It was Father Considine who mentioned this McCue; he said he was his cousin an' asked me to give him a shove along. It shows what I've claimed a dozen times, that th' Church ought to keep its nose out o' politics. However, I'll look over th' list, an' give you some good name to-morrow.”
“But how about th' town?” asked the Chief of Police anxiously. “I want to know what I'm doin'. Tell me plain, just what goes an' what don't.”
“This for a pointer, then,” responded Big Kennedy. “Whatever goes has got to go on th' quiet. I've got to keep things smooth between me an' th' mugwumps. The gamblers can run; an' I don't find any fault with even th' green-goods people. None of 'em can beat a man who don't put himself within his reach, an' I don't protect suckers. But knucks, dips, sneaks, second-story people, an' strong-arm men have got to quit. That's straight; let a trick come off on th' street cars, or at th' theater, or in the dark, or let a crib get cracked, an' there'll be trouble between you an' me, d'ye see! An' if anything as big as a bank should get done up, why then, you send in your resignation. An' at that, you'll be dead lucky if you don't do time.”
“There's th' stations an' th' ferries,” said the other, with an insinuating leer. “You know a mob of them Western fine-workers are likely to blow in on us, an' we not wise to 'em—not havin' their mugs in the gallery. That sort of knuck might do business at th' depots or ferries, an' we couldn't help ourselves. Anyway,” he concluded hopefully, “they seldom touch up our own citizens; it's mostly th' farmers they go through.”
“All right,” said Big Kennedy cheerfully, “I'm not worryin' about what comes off with th' farmers. But you tell them fine-workers, whose mugs you haven't got, that if anyone who can vote or raise a row in New York City goes shy his watch or leather, th' artist who gets it can't come here ag'in. Now mind: You've got to keep this town so I can hang my watch on any lamp-post in it, an' go back in a week an' find it hasn't been touched. There'll be plenty of ways for me an' you to get rich without standin' for sneaks an' hold-ups.”
Big Kennedy, so soon as he got possession of Tammany, began divers improvements of a political sort, and each looking to our safety and perpetuation. One of his moves was to break up the ward gangs, and this included the Tin Whistles.
“For one thing, we don't need 'em—you an' me,” said he. “They could only help us while we stayed in our ward an' kept in touch with 'em. The gangs strengthen th' ward leaders, but they don't strengthen th' Chief. So we're goin' to abolish 'em. The weaker we make th' ward leaders, the stronger we make ourselves. Do you ketch on?” and Big Kennedy nudged me significantly.
“You've got to disband, boys,” said I, when I had called the Tin Whistles together. “Throw away your whistles. Big Kennedy told me that the first toot on one of 'em would get the musician thirty days on the Island. It's an order; so don't bark your shins against it.”
After Big Kennedy was installed as Chief, affairs in their currents for either Big Kennedy or myself went flowing never more prosperously. The town settled to its lines; and the Chief of Police, with a wardman whom Big Kennedy selected, and who was bitten by no defect of integrity like the dangerous McCue, was making monthly returns of funds collected for “campaign purposes” with which the most exacting could have found no fault. We were rich, Big Kennedy and I; and acting on that suggestion of concealment, neither was blowing a bugle over his good luck.
I could have been happy, being now successful beyond any dream that my memory could lay hands on, had it not been for Apple Cheek and her waning health. She, poor girl, had never been the same after my trial for the death of Jimmy the Blacksmith; the shock of that trouble bore her down beyond recall. The doctors called it a nervous prostration, but I think, what with the fright and the grief of it, that the poor child broke her heart. She was like something broken; and although years went by she never once held up her head. Apple Cheek faded slowly away, and at last died in my arms.
When she passed, and it fell upon me like a pall that Apple Cheek had gone from me forever, my very heart withered and perished within me. There was but one thing to live for: Blossom, my baby girl. Anne came to dwell with us to be a mother to her, and it was good for me what Anne did, and better still for little Blossom. I was no one to have Blossom's upbringing, being ignorant and rude, and unable to look upon her without my eyes filling up for thoughts of my lost Apple Cheek. That was a sharpest of griefs—the going of Apple Cheek! My one hope lay in forgetfulness, and I courted it by working at politics, daylight and dark.
It would seem, too, that the blow that sped death to Apple Cheek had left its nervous marks on little Blossom. She was timid, hysterical, terror-whipped of fears that had no form. She would shriek out in the night as though a fiend frighted her, and yet could tell no story of it. She lived the victim of a vast formless fear that was to her as a demon without outlines or members or face. One blessing: I could give the trembling Blossom rest by holding her close in my arms, and thus she has slept the whole night through. The “frights,” she said, fled when I was by.
In that hour, Anne was my sunshine and support; I think I should have followed Apple Cheek had it not been for Blossom, and Anne's gentle courage to hold me up. For all that, my home was a home of clouds and gloom; waking or sleeping, sorrow pressed upon me like a great stone. I took no joy, growing grim and silent, and far older than my years.
One evening when Big Kennedy and I were closeted over some enterprise of politics, that memorable exquisite, young Morton, was announced. He greeted us with his old-time vacuity of lisp and glance, and after mounting that double eyeglass, so potent with the herd, he said: “Gentlemen, I've come to make some money.”
THAT'S my purpose in a nutshell,” lisped young Morton; “I've decided to make some money; and I've come for millions.” Here he waved a delicate hand, and bestowed upon Big Kennedy and myself his look of amiable inanity.
“Millions, eh?” returned Big Kennedy, with his metallic grin. “I've seen whole fam'lies taken the same way. However, I'm glad you're no piker.”
“If by 'piker,'” drawled young Morton, “you mean one of those cheap persons who play for minimum stakes, I assure you that I should scorn to be so described; I should, really! No, indeed; it requires no more of thought or effort to play for millions than for ten-dollar bills.”
“An' dead right you are!” observed Big Kennedy with hearty emphasis. “A sport can buck faro bank for a million as easily as for a white chip. That is, if he can find a game that'll turn for such a bundle, an' has th' money to back his nerve. What's true of faro is true of business. So you're out for millions! I thought your old gent, who's into fifty enterprises an' has been for as many years, had long ago shaken down mankind for a whole mountain of dough. The papers call him a multimillionaire.”
Young Morton, still with the empty smile, brought forth a cigarette case. The case, gold, was adorned with a ruby whereon to press when one would open it, and wore besides the owner's monogram in diamonds. Having lighted a cigarette, he polished his eyeglass with a filmy handkerchief. Re-establishing the eyeglass on his high patrician nose, he again shone vacuously upon Big Kennedy.
That personage had watched these manifestations of fastidious culture in a spirit of high delight. Big Kennedy liked young Morton; he had long ago made out how those dandyisms were no more than a cover for what fund of force and cunning dwelt beneath. In truth, Big Kennedy regarded young Morton's imbecilities as a most fortunate disguise. His remark would show as much. As young Morton—cigarette just clinging between his lips, eye of shallow good humor—bent towards him, he said, addressing me:
“Say! get onto that front! That look of not knowin' nothin' ought by itself to cash in for half a million! Did you ever see such a throw-off?” and here Big Kennedy quite lost himself in a maze of admiration. Recovering, however, and again facing our caller, he repeated: “Yes, I thought your old gent had millions.”
“Both he and the press,” responded young Morton, “concede that he has; they do, really! Moreover, he possesses, I think, the evidence of it in a cord or two of bonds and stocks, don't y' know! But in what fashion, pray, does that bear upon my present intentions as I've briefly laid them bare?”
“No fashion,” said Big Kennedy, “only I'd naturally s'ppose that when you went shy on th' long green, you'd touch th' old gentleman.”
“Undoubtedly,” returned young Morton, “I could approach my father with a request for money—that is if my proposal were framed in a spirit of moderation, don't y' know!—say one hundred thousand dollars. But such a sum, in my present temper, would be but the shadow of a trifle. I owe five times the amount; I do, really! I've no doubt I'm on Tiffany's books for more than one hundred thousand, while my bill at the florist's should be at least ten thousand dollars, if the pen of that brigand of nosegays has kept half pace with his rapacity. However,” concluded young Morton, breaking into a soft, engaging laugh, “since I intend, with your aid, to become the master of millions, such bagatelles are unimportant, don't y' know.”
“Certainly!” observed Big Kennedy in a consolatory tone; “they don't amount to a deuce in a bum deck. Still, I must say you went in up to your neck on sparks an' voylets. I never saw such a plunger on gewgaws an' garlands since a yard of cloth made a coat for me.”
“Those bills arose through my efforts to make grand opera beautiful. I set the prima donna ablaze with gems; and as for the stage, why, it was like singing in a conservatory; it was really!”
“Well, let that go!” said Big Kennedy, after a pause. “I shall be glad if through my help you make them millions. If you do, d'ye see, I'll make an armful just as big; it's ag'inst my religion to let anybody grab off a bigger piece of pie than I do when him an' me is pals. It would lower my opinion of myself. However, layin' guff aside, s'ppose you butt in now an' open up your little scheme. Let's see what button you think you're goin' to push.”
“This is my thought,” responded young Morton, and as he spoke the eyeglass dropped from its aquiline perch, and under the heat of a real animation those mists of affectation were dissipated; “this is my thought: I want a street railway franchise along Mulberry Avenue, the length of the Island.”
“Go on,” said Big Kennedy.
“It's my plan to form a corporation—-Mulberry Traction. There'll be eight millions of preferred stock at eight per cent. I can build and equip the road with that. In addition, there'll be ten millions of common stock.”
“Have you th' people ready to take th' preferred?”
“Ready and waiting. If I had the franchise, I could float those eight millions within ten days.”
“What do you figger would be th' road's profits?”
“It would carry four hundred thousand passengers a day, and take in twenty thousand dollars. The operating expenses would not exceed an annual four millions and a half. That, after the eight per cent, on the preferred were paid, would leave over two millions a year on the common—a dividend of twenty per cent., or five per cent, every quarter. You can see where such returns would put the stock. You, for your ride, would go into the common on the ground floor.”
“We'll get to how I go in, in a minute,” responded Big Kennedy dryly. He was impressed by young Morton's proposal, and was threshing it out in his mind as they talked. “Now, see here,” he went on, lowering his brows and fixing his keen gray glance on young Morton, “you mustn't get restless if I ask you questions. I like to tap every wheel an' try every rivet on a scheme or a man before I hook up with either.”
“Ask what you please,” said young Morton, as brisk as a terrier.
“I'll say this,” observed Big Kennedy. “That traction notion shows that you're a hogshead of horse sense. But of course you understand that you're going to need money, an' plenty of it, before you get th' franchise. I can take care of th' Tammany push, perhaps; but there's highbinders up to your end of th' alley who'll want to be greased.”
“How much do you argue that I'll require as a preliminary to the grant of the franchise?” asked young Morton, interrupting Big Kennedy.
“Every splinter of four hundred thousand.”
“That was my estimate,” said young Morton; “but I've arranged for twice that sum.”
“Who is th' Rothschild you will get it from?”
“My father,” replied young Morton, and now he lapsed anew into his manner of vapidity. “Really, he takes an eighth of the preferred at par—one million! I've got the money in the bank, don't y' know!”
“Good!” ejaculated Big Kennedy, with the gleam which never failed to sparkle in his eye at the mention of rotund riches.
“My father doesn't know my plans,” continued young Morton, his indolence and his eyeglass both restored. “No; he wouldn't let me tell him; he wouldn't, really! I approached him in this wise:
“'Father,' said I, 'you are aware of the New York alternative?'
“'What is it?' he asked.
“'Get money or get out.'
“'Well!' said he.
“'Father, I've decided not to move. Yes, father; after a full consideration of the situation, I've resolved to make, say twenty or thirty millions for myself; I have, really! It's quite necessary, don't y' know; I am absolutely bankrupt. And I don't like it; there's nothing comfortable in being bankrupt, it so deucedly restricts a man. Besides, it's not good form. I've evolved an idea, however; there's a business I can go into.'
“'Store?' he inquired.
“'No, no, father,' I replied, for the odious supposition quite upset me; 'it's nothing so horribly vulgar as trade; it's a speculation, don't y' know. There'll be eight millions of preferred stock; you are to take a million. Also, you are to give me the million at once.'
“'What is this speculation?' he asked. 'If I'm to go in for a million, I take it you can entrust me with the outlines.'
“'Really, it was on my mind to do so,' I replied.
“'My scheme is this: I shall make an alliance with Mr. Kennedy.'
“'Stop, stop!' cried my father hastily. 'On the whole, I don't care to hear your scheme. You shall have the money; but I've decided that it will reflect more glory upon you should you bring things to an issue without advice from me. Therefore, you need tell me no more; positively, I will not hear you.'”
“It was my name made him leary,” observed Big Kennedy, with the gratified face of one who has been paid a compliment. “When you said 'Kennedy,' he just about figgered we were out to get a kit of tools an' pry a shutter off th' First National. It's th' mugwump notion of Tammany, d'ye see! You put him onto it some time, that now I'm Chief I've got center-bits an' jimmies skinned to death when it comes to makin' money.”
“I don't think it was your name,” observed young Morton. “He's beginning to learn, however, about my voting those three hundred wenches in overalls and jumpers, don't y' know, and it has taught him to distrust my methods as lacking that element of conservatism which he values so much. It was that which came uppermost in his memory, and it occurred to him that perhaps the less he knew about my enterprises the sounder he would sleep. Is it not remarkable, how fondly even an advanced man like my father will cling to the moss-grown and the obsolete?”
“That's no dream neither!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, in earnest coincidence with young Morton. “It's this old fogy business on th' parts of people who ought to be leadin' up th' dance for progress, that sends me to bed tired in th' middle of th' day!” And here Big Kennedy shook his head reproachfully at gray ones whose sluggishness had wounded him.
“My father drew his check,” continued young Morton. “He couldn't let it come to me, however, without a chiding. Wonderful, how the aged like to lord it over younger folk with rebukes for following in their footsteps—really!
“'You speak of bankruptcy,' said my father, sucking in his cheeks. 'Would it violate confidence should you tell me how you come to be in such a disgraceful predicament?' This last was asked in a spirit of sarcasm, don't y' know.
“'It was by following your advice, sir,' said I.
“'Following my advice!' exclaimed my father. 'What do you mean, sir? Or are you mad?'
“'Not at all,' I returned. 'Don't you recall how, when I came from college, you gave me a world of advice, and laid particular stress on my establishing a perfect credit? “Nothing is done without credit,” you said on that occasion; “and it should be the care of a young man, as he enters upon life, to see to it that his credit is perfect in every quarter of trade. He should extend his credit with every opportunity.” This counsel made a deep impression upon me, it did, really! and so I've extended my credit wherever I saw a chance until I owe a half-million. I must say, father, that I think it would have saved me money, don't y' know, had you told me to destroy my credit as hard as I could. In fostering my credit, I but warmed a viper.'”
Young Morton paused to fire another cigarette, while the pucker about the corner of his eye indicated that he felt as though he had turned the laugh upon his father. Following a puff or two, he returned gravely to Mulberry Traction.
“Do you approve my proposition?” he asked of Big Kennedy, “and will you give me your aid?”
“The proposition's all hunk,” said Big Kennedy. “As to my aid: that depends on whether we come to terms.”
“What share would you want?”
“Forty per cent, of th' common stock,” responded Big Kennedy. “That's always th' Tammany end; forty per cent.”
Young Morton drew in his lips. The figure seemed a surprise. “Do you mean that you receive four millions of the common stock, you paying nothing?” he asked at last.
“I don't pony for a sou markee. An' I get th' four millions, d'ye see! Who ever heard of Tammany payin' for anything!” and Big Kennedy glared about the room, and sniffed through his nose, as though in the presence of all that might be called preposterous.
“But if you put in no money,” remonstrated young Morton, “why should you have the stock? I admit that you ought to be let in on lowest terms; but, after all, you should put in something.”
“I put in my pull,” retorted Big Kennedy grimly. “You get your franchise from me.”
“From the City,” corrected young Morton.
“I'm the City,” replied Big Kennedy; “an' will be while I'm on top of Tammany, an' Tammany's on top of th' town.” Then, with a friendliness of humor: “Here, I like you, an' I'll go out o' my way to educate you on this point. You're fly to some things, an' a farmer on others. Now understand: The City's a come-on—a sucker—an' it belongs to whoever picks it up. That's me this trip, d'ye see! Now notice: I've got no office; I'm a private citizen same as you, an' I don't owe no duty to th' public. Every man has his pull—his influence. You've got your pull; I've got mine. When a man wants anything from th' town, he gets his pull to work. In this case, my pull is bigger than all th' other pulls clubbed together. You get that franchise or you don't get it, just as I say. In short, you get it from me—get it by my pull, d'ye see! Now why shouldn't I charge for th' use of my pull, just as a lawyer asks his fee, or a bank demands interest when it lends? My pull's my pull; it's my property as much as a bank's money is th' bank's, or a lawyer's brains is the lawyer's. I worked hard to get it, an' there's hundreds who'd take it from me if they could. There's my doctrine: I'm a private citizen; my pull is my capital, an' I'm as much entitled to get action on it in favor of myself as a bank has to shave a note. That's why I take forty per cent. It's little enough: The franchise will be four-fifths of th' whole value of th' road; an' all I have for it is two-fifths of five-ninths, for you've got to take into account them eight millions of preferred.”
Young Morton was either convinced of the propriety of what Big Kennedy urged, or saw—the latter is the more likely surmise—that he must agree if he would attain success for his enterprise. He made no more objection, and those forty per cent, in favor of Big Kennedy were looked upon as the thing adjusted.
“You spoke of four hundred thousand dollars as precedent to the franchise,” said young Morton. “Where will that go?”
“There's as many as thirty hungry ones who, here an' there an' each in our way, must be met an' squared.”
“How much will go to your fellows?”
“Most of th' Tammany crowd I can beat into line. But there's twelve who won't take orders. They were elected as 'Fusion' candidates, an' they think that entitles 'em to play a lone hand. Whenever Tammany gets th' town to itself, you can gamble! I'll knock their blocks off quick. You ask what it'll take to hold down th' Tammany people? I should say two hundred thousand dollars. We'll make it this way: I'll take thirty per cent, instead of forty of th' common, an' two hundred thousand in coin. That'll be enough to give us th' Tammany bunch as solid as a brick switch shanty.”
“That should do,” observed young Morton thoughtfully.
When young Morton was about to go, Big Kennedy detained him with a final query.
“This aint meant to stick pins into you,” said Big Kennedy, “but, on th' dead! I'd like to learn how you moral an' social high-rollers reconcile yourselves to things. How do you agree with yourself to buy them votes needed to get th' franchise? Not th' ones I'll bring in, an' which you can pretend you don't know about; but them you'll have to deal with personally, d'ye see!”
“There'll be none I'll deal with personally, don't y' know,” returned young Morton, getting behind his lisp and eyeglass, finding them a refuge in what was plainly an embarrassed moment, “no; I wouldn't do anything with the vulgar creatures in person. They talk such awful English, it gets upon my nerves—really! But I've retained Caucus & Club; they're lawyers, only they don't practice law, they practice politics. They'll attend to those low details of which you speak. For me to do so wouldn't be good form. It would shock my set to death, don't y' know!”
“That's a crawl-out,” observed Big Kennedy reproachfully, “an' it aint worthy of you. Why don't you come to th' center? You're goin' to give up four hundred thousand dollars to get this franchise. You don't think it's funny—you don't do it because you like it, an' are swept down in a gust of generosity. An' you do think it's wrong.”
“Really, now you're in error,” replied young Morton earnestly, but still clinging to his lisp and his languors. “As you urge, one has scant pleasure in paying this money. On the contrary, I shall find it extremely dull, don't y' know! But I don't call it wrong. I'm entitled, under the law, and the town's practice—a highly idiotic one, this latter, I concede!—of giving these franchises away, to come forward with my proposition. Since I offer to build a perfect road, and to run it in a perfect manner, I ought, as a matter of right—always bearing in mind the town's witless practice aforesaid—to be granted this franchise. But those officers of the city who, acting for the city, should make the grant, refuse to do their duty by either the city or myself, unless I pay to each of them, say ten thousand dollars; they do, really! What am I to do? I didn't select those officers; the public picked them out. Must I suffer loss, and go defeated of my rights, because the public was so careless or so ignorant as to pitch upon those improper, or, if you will, dishonest officials? I say, No. The fault is not mine; surely the loss should not be mine. I come off badly enough when I submit to the extortion. No, it is no more bribery, so far as I am involved, than it is bribery when I surrender my watch to that footpad who has a pistol at my ear. In each instance, the public should have saved me and has failed, don't y' know. The public, thus derelict, must not denounce me when, under conditions which its own neglect has created, I take the one path left open to insure myself; it mustn't, really!”
Young Morton wiped the drops from his brow, and I could tell how he was deeply in earnest in what he thus put forward. Big Kennedy clapped him lustily on the back.
“Put it there!” he cried, extending his hand. “I couldn't have said it better myself, an' I aint been doin' nothin' but buy aldermen since I cut my wisdom teeth. There's one last suggestion, however: I take it, you're onto the' fact that Blackberry Traction will lock horns with us over this franchise. We parallel their road, d'ye see, an' they'll try to do us up.” Then to me: “Who are th' Blackberry's pets in th' Board?”
“McGinty and Doloran,” I replied.
“Keep your peepers on them babies. You can tell by th' way they go to bat, whether th' Blackberry has signed up to them to kill our franchise.”
“I can tell on the instant,” I said.
“That has all been anticipated,” observed young Morton. “The president of Blackberry Traction is a member of my club; we belong in the same social set. I foresaw his opposition, and I've provided for it; I have, really! McGinty and Doloran, you say? The names sound like the enemy. Please post me if those interesting individuals move for our disfavor.”
And now we went to work. Whatever was demanded of the situation as it unfolded found prompt reply, and in the course of time Mulberry Traction was given its franchise. The Blackberry at one crisis came forward to work an interruption; the sudden hot enmity of McGinty and Doloran was displayed. I gave notice of it to young Morton.
“I'll arrange the matter,” he said. “At the next meeting of the Board I think they will be with us, don't y' know.”
It was even so; and since Big Kennedy, with my aid, discharged every responsibility that was his, the ordinance granting the franchise went through, McGinty and Doloran voting loudly with the affirmative. They were stubborn caitiffs, capable of much destructive effort, and their final tameness won upon my surprise. I put the question of it to young Morton.
“This is the secret of that miracle,” said he. “The president of Blackberry has been a Wall Street loser, don't y' know, for more than a year—has lost more than he could honestly pay. And yet he paid! Where did he get the money? At first I asked myself the question in a feeling of lazy curiosity. When I decided to organize our Mulberry Traction, I asked it in earnest; I did, really! I foresaw my friend's opposition, and was seeking a weapon against him. Wherefore I looked him over with care, trying to determine where he got his loans. Now, he was the president, and incidentally a director, of the Confidence Trust Company. I bought stock in the Confidence. Then I drew into my interest that employee who had charge of the company's loans. I discovered that our Blackberry president had borrowed seven millions from the Trust Company, giving as security a collection of dogs and cats and chips and whetstones, don't y' know! That was wrong; considering his position as an officer of the company, it was criminal. I made myself master of every proof required to establish his guilt in court. Then I waited. When you told me of those evil symptoms manifested by McGinty and Doloran, I took our president into the Fifth Avenue window of the club and showed him those evidences of his sins. He looked them over, lighted a cigar, and after musing for a moment, asked if the help of McGinty and Doloran for our franchise would make towards my gratification. I told him I would be charmed—really! You know the rest. Oh, no; I did not do so rude a thing as threaten an arrest. It wasn't required. Our president is a highly intellectual man. Besides, it wouldn't have been clubby; and it would have been bad form. And,” concluded young Morton, twirling his little cane, and putting on that look of radiant idiocy, “I've an absolute mania for everything that's form, don't y' know.”