Chapter IV: Part 4

There was another cough, more pronounced this time, from the party manager, and the superintendent was twisting uneasily in his seat. It was the strangest speech that had ever been delivered at the boys' reformatory. The boys were leaning forward--self-forgetful, intent. “One night I was playing cards with a crowd of my friends, and one of the men, the best friend I had, said something that made me mad. There was a revolver right there which one of the men had been showing us. Some kind of a demon got hold of me, and without so much as a thought I picked up that revolver and fired at my friend.”

The party manager gave way to an exclamation of horror, and the superintendent half rose from his seat. But before any one could say a word Philip Grayson continued, looking at the half-frightened faces before him: “I suppose you wonder why I am not in the penitentiary. I had been drinking, and I missed my aim; and I was with friends, and it was hushed up.”

He rested his hand upon the table, and looked out at the sullen landscape. His voice was not steady as he went on: “It's not an easy thing to talk about, boys. I never talked about it to any one before in all my life. I'm not telling it now just to entertain you or to create a sensation. I'm telling it,” his voice grew tense in its earnestness, “because I believe that this world could be made a better and a sweeter place if those who have lived and suffered would not be afraid to reach out their hands and cry: 'I know that road--it's bad! I steered off to a better place, and I'll help you steer off, too.'”

There was not one of the three hundred pairs of eyes but was riveted upon the speaker's colourless face. The masks of sullenness and defiance had fallen from them. They were listening now--not because they must, but because into their hungry and thirsty souls was being poured the very sustenance for which--unknowingly--they had yearned.

“We sometimes hear people say,” resumed the candidate for Governor, “that they have lived through hell. If by that they mean they've lived through the deepest torments the human heart can know, then I can say that I, too, have lived through hell. What I suffered after I went home that night no one in this world will ever know. Words couldn't tell it; it's not the kind of thing words can come anywhere near. My whole life spread itself out before me; it was not a pleasant thing to look at. But at last, boys, out of the depths of my darkness, I began to get a little light. I began to get some understanding of the battle which it falls to the lot of some of us human beings to wage. There was good in me, you see, or I wouldn't have cared like that, and it came to me then, all alone that terrible night, that it is the good which lies buried away somewhere in our hearts must fight out the bad. And so--all alone, boys--I began the battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do you know--this is the truth--it was with the beginning of that battle I got my first taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this world than the sense of coming into mastery of one's self. It is like opening a door that has shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in a minute. This is no miracle I'm talking about. It's a fight. But it's a fight that can be won. It's a fight that's gloriously worth the winning. I'm not saying to you, 'Be good and you'll succeed.' Maybe you won't succeed. Life as we've arranged it for ourselves makes success a pretty tough proposition. But that doesn't alter the fact that it pays to be a decent sort. You and I know about how much happiness there is in the other kind of thing. And there is happiness in feeling you're doing what you can to develop what's in you. Success or failure, it brings a sense of having done your part,--that bully sense of having put up the best fight you could.”

He leaned upon the table then, as though very weary. “I don't know, I am sure, what the people of my State will think of all this. Perhaps they won't want a man for their Governor who once tried to kill another man. But,” he looked around at them with that smile of his which got straight to men's hearts, “there's only one of me, and there are three hundred of you, and how do I know but that in telling you of that stretch of bad road ahead I've made a dozen Governors this very afternoon!”

He looked from row to row of them, trying to think of some last word which would leave them with a sense of his sincerity. What he did say was: “And so, boys, when you get away from here, and go out into the world to get your start, if you find the arms of that world aren't quite as wide open as you were told they would be, if there seems no place where you can get a hold, and you are saying to yourself, 'It's no use--I'll not try,' before you give up just remember there was one man who said he knew all about it, and give that one man a chance to show he meant what he said. So look me up, if luck goes all against you, and maybe I can give you a little lift.” He took a backward step, as though to resume his seat, and then he said, with a dry little smile which took any suggestion of heroics from what had gone before, “If I'm not at the State-house, you'll find my name in the directory of the city where your programme tells you I live.”

He sat down, and for a moment there was silence. Then, full-souled, heart-given, came the applause. It was not led by the attendants this time; it was the attendants who rose at last to stop it. And when the clapping of the hands had ceased, many of those hands were raised to eyes which had long been dry.

The exercises were drawn to a speedy close, and he found the party manager standing by his side. “It was very grand,” he sneered, “very high-sounding and heroic, but I suppose you know,” jerking his hand angrily toward a table where a reporter for the leading paper of the opposition was writing, “that you've given them the winning card.”

As he replied, in far-off tone, “I hope so,” the candidate for Governor was looking, not at the reporter who was sending out a new cry for the opposition, but into those faces aglow with the light of new understanding and new-born hopes. He stood there watching them filing out into the corridor, craning their necks to throw him a last look, and as he turned then and looked from the window it was to see that the storm had sobbed itself away, and that along the driveway of the reformatory grounds the young trees--unbroken and unhurt--were rearing their heads in the way they should go.

VII

HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA

They began work at seven-thirty, and at ten minutes past eight every hammer stopped. In the Senate Chamber and in the House, on the stairways and in the corridors, in every office from the Governor's to the custodian's they laid down their implements and rose to their feet. A long whistle had sounded through the building. There was magic in its note.

“What's the matter with you fellows?” asked the attorney-general, swinging around in his chair.

“Strike,” declared one of the men, with becoming brevity.

“Strike of what?”

“Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One,” replied the man, kindly gathering up a few tacks.

“Never heard of it.”

“Organised last night,” said the carpet-tacker, putting on his coat.

“Well I'll--” he paused expressively, then inquired: “What's your game?”

“Well, you see, boss, this executive council that runs the State-house has refused our demands.”

“What are your demands?”

“Double pay.”

“Double pay! Now how do you figure it out that you ought to have double pay?”

“Rush work. You see we were under oath, or pretty near that, to get every carpet in the State-house down by four o'clock this afternoon. Now you know yourself that rush work is hard on the nerves. Did you ever get rush work done at a laundry and not pay more for it? We was anxious as anybody to get the Capitol in shape for the big show this afternoon. But there's reason in all things.”

“Yes,” agreed his auditor, “there is.”

The man looked at him a little doubtfully. “Our president--we elected Johnny McGuire president last night--went to the Governor this morning with our demands.”

The Governor's fellow official smiled--he knew the Governor pretty well. “And he turned you down?”

The striker nodded. “But there's an election next fall; maybe the turning down will be turned around.”

“Maybe so--you never can tell. I don't know just what power Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One will wield, but the Governor's pretty solid, you know, with Labour as a whole.”

That was true, and went home. The striker rubbed his foot uncertainly across the floor, and took courage from its splinters. “Well, there's one thing sure. When Prince Ludwig and his train-load of big guns show up at four o'clock this afternoon they'll find bare floors, and pretty bum bare floors, on deck at this place.”

The attorney-general rubbed his own foot across the splintered, miserable boards. “They are pretty bum,” he reflected. “I wonder,” he added, as the man was half-way out of the door, “what Prince Ludwig will think of the American working-man when he arrives this afternoon?”

“Just about as much,” retorted the not-to-be-downed carpet-tacker, “as he does about American generosity. And he may think a few things,” he added weightily, “about American independence.”

“Oh, he's sure to do that,” agreed the attorney-general.

He joined the crowd in the corridor. They were swarming out from all the offices, all talking of the one thing. “It was a straight case of hold-up,” declared the Governor's secretary. “They supposed they had us on the hip. They were getting extra money as it was, but you see they just figured it out we'd pay anything rather than have these wretched floors for the reception this afternoon. They thought the Governor would argue the question, and then give in, or, at any rate, compromise. They never intended for one minute that the Prince should find bare floors here. And I rather think,” he concluded, “that they feel a little done up about it themselves.”

“What's the situation?” asked a stranger within the gates.

“It's like this,” a newspaper reporter told him; “about a month ago there was a fire here and the walls and carpets were pretty well knocked out with smoke and water. The carpets were mean old things anyway, so they voted new ones. And I want to tell you”--he swelled with pride--“that the new ones are beauties. The place'll look great when we get 'em down. Well, you know Prince Ludwig and his crowd cross the State on their way to the coast, and of course they were invited to stop. Last week Billy Patton--he's running the whole show--declined the invitation on account of lack of time, and then yesterday comes a telegram saying the Prince himself insisted on stopping. You know he's keen about Indian dope--and we've got Indian traditions to burn. So Mr. Bill Patton had to make over his schedule to please the Prince, and of course we were all pretty tickled about it, for more reasons than one. The telegram didn't come until five o'clock yesterday afternoon, but you know what a hummer the Governor is when he gets a start. He made up his mind this building should be put in shape within twenty-four hours. They engaged a whole lot of fellows to work on the carpets to-day. Then what did they do but get together last night--well, you know the rest. Pretty bum-looking old shack just now, isn't it?” and the reporter looked around ruefully.

It was approaching the hour for the legislature to convene, and the members who were beginning to saunter in swelled the crowd--and the indignation--in the rotunda.

The Governor, meanwhile, had been trying to get other men, but Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One had looked well to that. The biggest furniture dealer in the city was afraid of the plumbers. “Pipes burst last night,” he said, “and they may not do a thing for us if we get mixed up in this. Sorry--but I can't let my customers get pneumonia.”

Another furniture man was afraid of the teamsters. For one reason or another no one was disposed to respond to the Macedonian cry, and when the Governor at last gave it up and walked out into the rotunda he was about as disturbed as he permitted himself to get. “It's the idea of lying down,” he said. “I'd do anything--anything!--if I could only think what to do.”

A popular young member of the House overheard the remark. “By George, Governor,” he burst forth, after a minute's deep study--“say--by Jove, I say, let's do it ourselves!”

They all laughed, but the Governor's laugh stopped suddenly, and he looked hard at the young man.

“Why not?” the young legislator went on. “It's a big job, but there are a lot of us. We've all put down carpets at home; what are we afraid to tackle it here for?”

Again the others laughed, but the Governor did not. “Say, Weston,” he said, “I'd give a lot--I tell you I'd give a lot--if we just could!”

“Leave it to me!”--and he was lost in the crowd.

The Governor's eyes followed him. He had always liked Harry Weston. He was the very sort to inspire people to do things. The Governor smiled knowingly as he noted the men Weston was approaching, and his different manner with the various ones. And then he had mounted a few steps of the stairway, and was standing there facing the crowd.

“Now look here,” he began, after silence had been obtained, “this isn't a very formal meeting, but it's a mighty important one. It's a clear case of Carpet-Tackers' Union against the State. What I want to know is--Is the State going to lie down?”

There were loud cries of “No!”--“Well, I should say not!”

“Well, then, see here. The Governor's tried for other men and can't get them. Now the next thing I want to know is--What's the matter with us?”

They didn't get it for a minute, and then everybody laughed.

“It's no joke! You've all put down carpets at home; what's the use of pretending you don't know how to do it? Oh yes--I know, bigger building, and all that, but there are more of us, and the principle of carpet-tacking is the same, big building or little one. Now my scheme is this--Every fellow his own carpet-tacker! The Governor's office puts down the Governor's carpet; the Secretary's office puts down the Secretary's carpet; the Senate puts down the Senate carpet--and we'll look after our little patch in the House!”

“But you've got more fellows than anybody else,” cried a member of the Senate.

“Right you are, and we'll have an over-flow meeting in the corridors and stairways. The House, as usual, stands ready to do her part,”--that brought a laugh for the Senators, and from them.

“Now get it out of your heads this is a joke. The carpets are here; the building is full of able-bodied men; the Prince is coming at four--by his own request, and the proposition is just this: Are we going to receive him in a barn or in a palace? Let's hear what Senator Arnold thinks about it.”

That was a good way of getting away from the idea of its being a joke. Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and tested his muscle. “Not very much,” he said, “but enough to drive a tack or two.” That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the atmosphere warmed perceptibly. “I've fought for the State in more ways than one,”--Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil War--“and if I can serve her now by tacking down carpets, then it's tacking down carpets I'm ready to go at. Just count on me for what little I'm worth.”

Someone started the cry for the Governor. “Prince Ludwig is being entertained all over the country in the most lavish manner,” he began, with his characteristic directness in stating a situation. “By his own request he is to visit our Capitol this afternoon. I must say that I, for one, want to be in shape for him. I don't like to tell him that we had a labour complication and couldn't get the carpets down. Speaking for myself, it is a great pleasure to inform you that the carpet in the Governor's office will be in proper shape by four o'clock this afternoon.”

That settled it. Finally Harry Weston made himself heard sufficiently to suggest that when the House and Senate met at nine o'clock motions to adjourn be entertained. “And as to the rest of you fellows,” he cried, “I don't see what's to hinder your getting busy right now!”

There were Republicans and there were Democrats; there were friends and there were enemies; there were good, bad and--no, there were no indifferent. An unprecedented harmony of thought, a millennium-like unity of action was born out of that sturdy cry--Every man his own carpet-tacker! The Secretary of State always claimed that he drove the first tack, but during the remainder of his life the Superintendent of Public Instruction also contended hotly for that honour. The rivalry as to who would do the best job, and get it done most quickly, became intense. Early in the day Harry Weston made the rounds of the building and announced a fine of one-hundred dollars for every wrinkle. There were pounded fingers and there were broken backs, but slowly, steadily and good-naturedly the State-house carpet was going down. It was a good deal bigger job than they had anticipated, but that only added zest to the undertaking. The news of how the State officials were employing themselves had spread throughout the city, and guards were stationed at every door to keep out people whose presence would work more harm than good. All assistance from women was courteously refused. “This is solemn business,” said the Governor, in response to a telephone from some of the fair sex, “and the introduction of the feminine element might throw about it a social atmosphere which would result in loss of time. And then some of the boys might feel called upon to put on their collars and coats.”

Stretch--stretch--stretch, and tack--tack--tack, all morning long it went on, for the State-house was large--oh, very large. There should have been a Boswell there to get the good things, for the novelty of the situation inspired wit even in minds where wit had never glowed before. Choice bits which at other times would fairly have gone on official record were now passed almost unnoticed, so great was the surfeit. Instead of men going out to lunch, lunch came in to them. Bridget Haggerty, who by reason of her long connection with the boarding-house across the street was a sort of unofficial official of the State, came over and made the coffee and sandwiches, all the while calling down blessings on the head of every mother's son of them, and announcing in loud, firm tones that while all five of her boys belonged to the union she'd be after tellin' them what she thought of this day's work!

It was a United States Senator who did the awful trick, and, to be fair, the Senator did not think of it as an awful trick at all. He came over there in the middle of the morning to see the Governor, and in a few hurried words--it was no day for conversation--was told what was going on. It was while standing out in the corridor watching the perspiring dignitaries that the idea of his duty came to him, and one reason he was sure he was right was the way in which it came to him in the light of a duty. Here was America in undress uniform! Here was--not a thing arranged for show, but absolutely the thing itself! Prince Ludwig had come with a sincere desire to see America. Every one knew that he was not seeing it at all. He would go back with memories of bands and flags and people all dressed up standing before him making polite speeches. But would he carry back one small whiff of the spirit of the country? Again Senator Bruner looked about him. The Speaker of the House was just beginning laying the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was contending hotly for a better hammer. “It's an insult to expect any decent man to drive tacks with a hammer like this,” he was saying. Here were men--real, live men, men with individuality, spirit. When the Prince had come so far, wasn't it too bad that he should not see anything but uniforms and cut glass and dress suits and other externals and non-essentials? Senator Bruner was a kind man; he was a good fellow; he was hospitable--patriotic. He decided now in favour of the Prince.

He had to hurry about it, for it was almost twelve then. One of the vice-presidents of the road lived there, and he was taken into confidence, and proved an able and eager ally. They located the special train bearing the Prince and ordered it stopped at the next station. The stop was made that Senator Patton might receive a long telegram from Senator Bruner. “I figure it like this,” the Senator told the vice-president. “They get to Boden at a quarter of one and were going to stop there an hour. Then they were going to stop a little while at Creyville. I've told Patton the situation, and that if he wants to do the right thing by the prince he'll cut out those stops and rush right through here. That will bring him in--well, they could make it at a quarter of two. I've told him I'd square it with Boden and Creyville. Oh, he'll do it all right.”

And even as he said so came the reply from Patton: “Too good to miss. Will rush through. Arrive before two. Have carriage at Water Street.”

“That's great!” cried the Senator. “Trust Billy Patton for falling in with a good thing. And he's right about missing the station crowd. Patton can always go you one better,” he admitted, grinningly.

They had luncheon together, and they were a good deal more like sophomores in college than like a United States Senator and a big railroad man. “You don't think there's any danger of their getting through too soon?” McVeigh kept asking, anxiously.

“Not a bit,” the Senator assured him. “They can't possibly make it before three. We'll come in just in time for the final skirmish. It's going to be a jolly rush at the last.”

They laid their plans with skill worthy of their training. The State library building was across from the Capitol, and they were connected by tunnel. “I never saw before,” said the Senator, “what that tunnel was for, but I see now what a great thing it is. We'll get him in at the west door of the library--we can drive right up to it, you know, and then we walk him through the tunnel. That's a stone floor”--the Senator was chuckling with every sentence--“so I guess they won't be carpeting it. There's a little stairway running up from the tunnel---and say, we must telephone over and arrange about those keys. There'll be a good deal of climbing, but the Prince is a good fellow, and won't mind. It wouldn't be safe to try the elevator, for Harry Weston would be in it taking somebody a bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing but store rooms; we'll not be disturbed up there, and we can look right down the rotunda and see the whole show. Of course we'll be discovered in time; some one is sure to look up and see us, but we'll fix it so they won't see us before we've had our fun, and it strikes me, McVeigh, that for two old fellows like you and me we've put the thing through in pretty neat shape.”

It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the special at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing a long coat and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at all formidable or unusual. “You've saved the country,” Senator Patton whispered in an aside. “He was getting bored. Never saw a fellow jolly up so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling for some fun. Said it would be really worth while to see somebody who wasn't looking for him.”

Senator Bruner beamed. “That's just the point. He's caught my idea exactly.”

It went without a hitch. “I feel,” said the Prince, as they were hurrying him through the tunnel, “that I am a little boy who has run away from school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute some band may begin to play, and somebody may think of making a speech.”

They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so placed that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure. The final skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators--coatless, tieless, collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were finishing the stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations committee in the House was doing the stretching in a still uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and a member who had recently denounced the appropriations committee as a disgrace to the State was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most exquisitely harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member who fought every time they came within speaking distance of one another were now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large wrinkle which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many men were standing around holding their backs, and many others were deeply absorbed in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices were all open, and there was a general hauling in of furniture and hanging of pictures. Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing their best with “finishing touches.” The Prince grew so excited about it all that they had to keep urging him not to take too many chances of being seen.

“And I'll tell you,” Senator Bruner was saying, “it isn't only because I knew it would be funny that I wanted you to see it; but--well, you see America isn't the real America when she has on her best clothes and is trying to show off. You haven't seen anybody who hasn't prepared for your coming, and that means you haven't seen them as they are at all. Now here we are. This is us! You see that fellow hanging a picture down there? He's president of the First National Bank. Came over a little while ago, got next to the situation, and stayed to help. And--say, this is good! Notice that red-headed fellow just getting up from his knees? Well, he's president of the teamsters' union--figured so big in a strike here last year. I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow they are all so afraid of, but I guess he liked the idea of the boys doing it themselves, and just sneaked in and helped.--There's the Governor. He's a fine fellow. He wouldn't be held up by anybody--not even to get ready for a Prince, but he's worked like a Trojan all day to make things come his way. Yes sir--this is the sure-enough thing. Here you have the boys off dress parade. Not that we run away from our dignity every day, but--see what I mean?”

“I see,” replied the Prince, and he looked as though he really did.

“You know--say, dodge there! Move back! No--too late. The Governor's caught us. Look at him!”

The Governor's eyes had turned upward, and he had seen. He put his hands on his back--he couldn't look up without doing that--and gave a long, steady stare. First, Senator Bruner waved; then Senator Patton waved; then Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince waved. Other people were beginning to look up. “They're all on,” laughed Patton, “let's go down.”

At first they were disposed to think it pretty shabby treatment. “We worked all day to get in shape,” grumbled Harry Weston, “and then you go ring the curtain up on us before it's time for our show to begin.”

But the Prince made them feel right about it. He had such a good time that they were forced to concede the move had been a success. And he said to the Governor as he was leaving: “I see that the only way to see America is to see it when America is not seeing you.”

VIII

THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES

“Nine--ten--” The old clock paused as if in dramatic appreciation of the situation, and then slowly, weightily, it gave the final stroke, “Eleven!”

The Governor swung his chair half-way round and looked the timepiece full in the face. Already the seconds had begun ticking off the last hour of his official life. On the stroke of twelve another man would be Governor of the State. He sat there watching the movement of the minute hand.

The sound of voices, some jovial, some argumentative, was borne to him through the open transom. People were beginning to gather in the corridors, and he could hear the usual disputes about tickets of admission to the inaugural.

His secretary came in just then with some letters. “Could you see Whitefield now?” he asked. “He's waiting out here for you.”

The old man looked up wearily. “Oh, put him off, Charlie. Tell him you can talk to him about whatever it is he wants to know.”

The secretary had his hand on the knob, when the Governor added, “And, Charlie, keep everybody out, if you can. I'm--I've got a few private matters to go over.”

The younger man nodded and opened the door. He half closed it behind him, and then turned to say, “Except Francis. You'll want to see him if he comes in, won't you?”

He frowned and moved impatiently as he answered, curtly: “Oh, yes.”

Francis! Of course it never occurred to any of them that he could close the door on Francis. He drummed nervously on his desk, then suddenly reached down and, opening one of the drawers, tossed back a few things and drew out a newspaper. He unfolded this and spread it out on the desk. Running across the page was the big black line, “Real Governors of Some Western States,” and just below, the first of the series, and played up as the most glaring example of nominal and real in governorship, was a sketch of Harvey Francis.

He sat there looking at it, knowing full well that it would not contribute to his peace of mind. It did not make for placidity of spirit to be told at the end of things that he had, as a matter of fact, never been anybody at all. And the bitterest part of it was that, looking back on it now, getting it from the viewpoint of one stepping from it, he could see just how true was the statement: “Harvey Francis has been the real Governor of the State; John Morrison his mouthpiece and figurehead.”

He walked to the window and looked out over the January landscape. It may have been the snowy hills, as well as the thoughts weighing him down, that carried him back across the years to one snowy afternoon when he stood up in a little red schoolhouse and delivered an oration on “The Responsibilities of Statesmanship.” He smiled as the title came back to him, and yet--what had become of the spirit of that seventeen-year-old boy? He had meant it all then; he could remember the thrill with which he stood there that afternoon long before and poured out his sentiments regarding the sacredness of public trusts. What was it had kept him, when his chance came, from working out in his life the things he had so fervently poured into his schoolboy oration?

Someone was tapping at the door. It was an easy, confident tap, and there was a good deal of reflex action in the Governor's “Come in.”

“Indulging in a little meditation?”

The Governor frowned at the way Francis said it, and the latter went on, easily: “Just came from a row with Dorman. Everybody is holding him up for tickets, and he--poor young fool--looks as though he wanted to jump in the river. Takes things tremendously to heart--Dorman does.”

He lighted a cigar, smiling quietly over that youthful quality of Dorman's. “Well,” he went on, leaning back in his chair and looking about the room, “I thought I'd look in on you for a minute. You see I'll not have the _entree_ to the Governor's office by afternoon.” He laughed, the easy, good-humoured laugh of one too sophisticated to spend emotion uselessly.

It was he who fell into meditation then, and the Governor sat looking at him; a paragraph from the newspaper came back to him: “Harvey Francis is the most dangerous type of boss politician. His is not the crude and vulgar method that asks a man what his vote is worth. He deals gently and tenderly with consciences. He knows how to get a man without fatally injuring that man's self-respect.”

The Governor's own experience bore out the summary. When elected to office as State Senator he had cherished old-fashioned ideas of serving his constituents and doing his duty. But the very first week Francis had asked one of those little favours of him, and, wishing to show his appreciation of support given him in his election, he had granted it. Then various courtesies were shown him; he was let in on a “deal,” and almost before he realised it, it seemed definitely understood that he was a “Francis man.”

Francis roused himself and murmured: “Fools!--amateurs.”

“Leyman?” ventured the Governor.

“Leyman and all of his crowd!”

“And yet,” the Governor could not resist, “in another hour this same fool will be Governor of the State. The fool seems to have won.”

Francis rose, impatiently. “For the moment. It won't be lasting. In any profession, fools and amateurs may win single victories. They can't keep it up. They don't know _how_. Oh, no,” he insisted, cheerfully, “Leyman will never be re-elected. Fact is, I'm counting on this contract business we've saved up for him getting in good work.” He was moving toward the door. “Well,” he concluded, with a curious little laugh, “see you upstairs.”

The Governor looked at the clock. It pointed now to twenty-five minutes past eleven. The last hour was going fast. In a very short time he must join the party in the anteroom of the House. But weariness had come over him. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

He was close upon seventy, and to-day looked even older than his years. It was not a vicious face, but it was not a strong one. People who wanted to say nice things of the Governor called him pleasant or genial or kindly. Even the men in the appointive offices did not venture to say he had much force.

He felt it to-day as he never had before. He had left no mark; he had done nothing, stood for nothing. Never once had his personality made itself felt. He had signed the documents; Harvey Francis had always “suggested”--the term was that man's own--the course to be pursued. And the “suggestions” had ever dictated the policy that would throw the most of influence or money to that splendidly organised machine that Francis controlled.

With an effort he shook himself free from his cheerless retrospect. There was a thing or two he wanted to get from his desk, and his time was growing very short. He found what he wanted, and then, just as he was about to close the drawer, his eye fell on a large yellow envelope.

He closed the drawer; but only to reopen it, take out the envelope and remove the documents it contained; and then one by one he spread them out before him on the desk.

He sat there looking down at them, wondering whether a man had ever stepped into office with as many pitfalls laid for him. During the last month they had been busy about the old State-house setting traps for the new Governor. The “machine” was especially jubilant over those contracts the Governor now had spread out before him. The convict labour question was being fought out in the State just then--organised labour demanding its repeal; country taxpayers insisting that it be maintained. Under the system the penitentiary had become self-supporting. In November the contracts had come up for renewal; but on the request of Harvey Francis the matter had been put off from time to time, and still remained open. Just the week before, Francis had put it to the Governor something like this:

“Don't sign those contracts. We can give some reason for holding them off, and save them up for Leyman. Then we can see that the question is agitated, and whatever he does about it is going to prove a bad thing for him. If he doesn't sign, he's in bad with the country fellows, the men who elected him. Don't you see? At the end of his administration the penitentiary, under you self-sustaining, will have cost them a pretty penny. We've got him right square!”

The clock was close to twenty minutes of twelve, and he concluded that he would go out and join some of his friends he could hear in the other room. It would never do for him to go upstairs with a long, serious face. He had had his day, and now Leyman was to have his, and if the new Governor did better than the old one, then so much the better for the State. As for the contracts, Leyman surely must understand that there was a good deal of rough sailing on political waters.

But it was not easy to leave the room. Walking to the window he again stood there looking out across the snow, and once more he went back now at the end of things to that day in the little red schoolhouse which stood out as the beginning.

He was called back from that dreaming by the sight of three men coming up the hill. He smiled faintly in anticipation of the things Francis and the rest of them would say about the new Governor's arriving on foot. Leyman had requested that the inaugural parade be done away with--but one would suppose he would at least dignify the occasion by arriving in a carriage. Francis would see that the opposing papers handled it as a grand-stand play to the country constituents.

And then, forgetful of Francis, and of the approaching ceremony, the old man stood there by the window watching the young man who was coming up to take his place. How firmly the new Governor walked! With what confidence he looked ahead at the State-house. The Governor--not considering the inconsistency therein--felt a thrill of real pride in thought of the State's possessing a man like that.

Standing though he did for the things pitted against him, down in his heart John Morrison had all along cherished a strong admiration for that young man who, as District Attorney of the State's metropolis, had aroused the whole country by his fearlessness and unquestionable sincerity. Many a day he had sat in that same office reading what the young District Attorney was doing in the city close by--the fight he was making almost single-handed against corruption, how he was striking in the high places fast and hard as in the low, the opposition, threats, and time after time there had been that same secret thrill at thought of there being a man like that. And when the people of the State, convinced that here was one man who would serve _them_, began urging the District Attorney for chief executive, Governor Morrison, linked with the opposing forces, doing all he could to bring about Leyman's defeat, never lost that secret feeling for the young man, who, unbacked by any organisation, struck blow after blow at the machine that had so long dominated the State, winning in the end that almost incomprehensible victory.

The new Governor had passed from sight, and a moment later his voice came to the ear of the lonely man in the executive office. Some friends had stopped him just outside the Governor's door with a laughing “Here's hoping you'll do as much for us in the new office as you did in the old,” and the new Governor replied, buoyantly: “Oh, but I'm going to do a great deal more!”

The man within the office smiled a little wistfully and with a sigh sat down before his desk. The clock now pointed to thirteen minutes of twelve; they would be asking for him upstairs. There were some scraps of paper on his desk and he threw them into the waste-basket, murmuring: “I can at least give him a clean desk.”

He pushed his chair back sharply. A clean desk! The phrase opened to deeper meanings.... Why not clean it up in earnest? Why not give him a square deal--a real chance? Why not _sign the contracts_?

Again he looked at the clock--not yet ten minutes of twelve. For ten minutes more he was Governor of the State! Ten minutes of real governorship! Might it not make up a little, both to his own soul and to the world, for the years he had weakly served as another man's puppet? The consciousness that he could do it, that it was not within the power of any man to stop him, was intoxicating. Why not break the chains now at the last, and just before the end taste the joy of freedom?

He took up his pen and reached for the inkwell. With trembling, excited fingers he unfolded the contracts. He dipped his pen into the ink; he even brought it down on the paper; and then the tension broke. He sank back in his chair, a frightened, broken old man.

“Oh, no,” he whispered; “no, not now. It's--” his head went lower and lower until at last it rested on the desk--“too late.”

When he raised his head and grew more steady, it was only to see the soundness of his conclusion. He had not the right now in the final hour to buy for himself a little of glory. It would only be a form of self-indulgence. They would call it, and perhaps rightly, hush money to his conscience. They would say he went back on them only when he was through with them. Oh, no, there would be no more strength in it than in the average deathbed repentance. He would at least step out with consistency.

He folded the contracts and put them back into the envelope. The minute hand now pointed to seven minutes to twelve. Some one was tapping at the door, and the secretary appeared to say they were waiting for him upstairs. He replied that he would be there in a minute, hoping that his voice did not sound as strange to the other man as it had to himself.

Slowly he walked to the door leading into the corridor. This, then, was indeed the end; this the final stepping down from office! After years of what they called public service, he was leaving it all now with a sense of defeat and humiliation. A lump was in the old man's throat; his eyes were blurred. “But you, Frank Leyman,” he whispered passionately, turning as if for comfort to the other man, “it will be different with you! They'll not get you--not you!”

It lifted him then as a great wave--this passionate exultation that here was one man whom corruption could not claim as her own. Here was one human soul not to be had for a price! There flitted before him again a picture of that seventeen-year-old boy in the little red schoolhouse, and close upon it came the picture of this other young man against whom all powers of corruption had been turned in vain. With the one it had been the emotional luxury of a sentiment, a thing from life's actualities apart; with the other it was a force that dominated all things else, a force over which circumstances and design could not prevail. “I know all about it,” he was saying. “I know about it all! I know how easy it is to fall! I know how fine it is to stand!”

His sense of disappointment in his own empty, besmirched career was almost submerged then as he projected himself on into the career of this other man who within the hour would come there in his stead. How glorious was his opportunity, how limitless his possibilities, and how great to his own soul the satisfaction the years would bring of having done his best!

It had all changed now. That passionate longing to vindicate himself, add one thing honourable and fine to his own record, had altogether left him, and with the new mood came new insight and what had been an impulse centred to a purpose.

It pointed to three minutes to twelve as he walked over to his desk, unfolded the contracts, and one by one affixed his signature. In a dim way he was conscious of how the interpretation of his first motive would be put upon it, how they would call him traitor and coward; but that mattered little. The very fact that the man for whom he was doing it would never see it as it was brought him no pang. And when he had carefully blotted the papers, affixed the seal and put them away, there was in his heart the clean, sweet joy of a child because he had been able to do this for a man in whom he believed.

The band was playing the opening strains as he closed the door behind him and started upstairs.

IX

“OUT THERE”

The old man held the picture up before him and surveyed it with admiring but disapproving eye. “No one that comes along this way'll have the price for it,” he grumbled. “It'll just set here 'till doomsday.”

It did seem that the picture failed to fit in with the rest of the shop. A persuasive young fellow who claimed he was closing out his stock let the old man have it for what he called a song. It was only a little out-of-the-way store which subsisted chiefly on the framing of pictures. The old man looked around at his views of the city, his pictures of cats and dogs and gorgeous young women, his flaming bits of landscape. “Don't belong in here,” he fumed, “any more 'an I belong in Congress.”

And yet the old man was secretly proud of his acquisition. He seemed all at once to be lifted from his realm of petty tradesman to that of patron of art. There was a hidden dignity in his scowling as he shuffled about pondering the least ridiculous place for the picture.

It is not fair to the picture to try repainting it in words, for words reduce it to a lithograph. It was a bit of a pine forest, through which there exuberantly rushed an unspoiled little mountain stream. Chromos and works of art may deal with kindred subjects. There is just that one difference of dealing with them differently. “It ain't what you _see_, so much as what you can guess is there,” was the thought it brought to the old man who was dusting it. “Now this frame ain't three feet long, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if that timber kept right on for a hundred miles. I kind of suspect it's on a mountain--looks cool enough in there to be on a mountain. Wish I was there. Bet they never see no such days as we do in Chicago. Looks as though a man might call his soul his own--out there.”

He began removing some views of Lincoln Park and some corpulent Cupids in order to make room in the window for the new picture. When he went outside to look at it he shook his head severely and hastened in to take away some ardent young men and women, some fruit and flowers and fish which he had left thinking they might “set it off.” It was evident that the new picture did not need to be “set off.” “And anyway,” he told himself, in vindication of entrusting all his goods to one bottom, “I might as well take them out, for the new one makes them look so kind of sick that no one would have them, anyhow.” Then he went back to mounting views with the serenity of one who stands for the finer things.

His clamorous little clock pointed to a quarter of six when he finally came back to the front of the store. It was time to begin closing up for the night, but for the minute he stood there watching the crowd of workers coming from the business district not far away over to the boarding-house region, a little to the west. He watched them as they came by in twos and threes and fours: noisy people and worn-out people, people hilarious and people sullen, the gaiety and the weariness, the acceptance and the rebellion of humanity--he saw it pass. “As if any of _them_ could buy it,” he pronounced severely, adding, contemptuously, “or wanted to.”

The girl was coming along by herself. He watched her as she crossed to his side of the street, thinking it was too bad for a poor girl to be as tired as that. She was dressed like many of the rest of them, and yet she looked different--like the picture and the chromo. She turned an indifferent glance toward the window, and then suddenly she stood there very still, and everything about her seemed to change. “For all the world,” he told himself afterward, “as if she'd found a long-lost friend, and was 'fraid to speak for fear it was too good to be true.”

She did seem afraid to speak--afraid to believe. For a minute she stood there right in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the picture. And when she came toward the window it was less as if coming than as if drawn. What she really seemed to want to do was to edge away; yet she came closer, as close as she could, her eyes never leaving the picture, and then fear, or awe, or whatever it was made her look so queer gave way to wonder--that wondering which is ready to open the door to delight. She looked up and down the street as one rubbing one's eyes to make sure of a thing, and then it all gave way to a joy which lighted her pale little face like--“Well, like nothing I ever saw before,” was all the old man could say of it. “Why, she'd never know if the whole fire department was to run right up here on the sidewalk,” he gloated. Just then she drew herself up for a long breath. “See?” he chuckled, delightedly. “She knows it has a smell!” She looked toward the door, but shook her head. “Knows she can't pay the price,” he interpreted her. Then, she stepped back and looked at the number above the door. “Coming again,” he made of that; “ain't going to run no chances of losing the place.” And then for a long time she stood there before the picture, so deeply and so strangely quiet that he could not translate her. “I can't just get the run of it,” was his bewildered conclusion. “I don't see why it should make anybody act like that.” And yet he must have understood more than he knew, for suddenly he was seeing her through a blur of tears.

As he began shutting up for the night he was so excited about the way she looked when she finally turned away that it never occurred to him to be depressed about her inability to pay the price.