Part 14

With infinite pains and a manner almost reverential, as though he were handling sacred vessels, the old judge compiled two dark reddish portions which he denominated toddies. Malley, sipping his, found it to be a most smooth and tasty mixture. And as he sipped, the old judge, smiling blandly, bestowed himself in a chair, which he widely overflowed, and balancing his own drink on the chair arm he crossed his booted feet and was ready, he said, to hear what his young friend might have to say.

As it turned out, Malley didn't have much to say, except to put the questions by which a skilled reporter leads on the man he wants to talk. And the old judge was willing enough to talk. It was his first visit to New York; he had come reluctantly, at the behest of certain friends, upon business of a more or less private nature; he had taken a walk and a ride already; he had seen a stretch of Broadway and some of Fifth Avenue, and he was full of impressions and observations that tickled Malley dear down to the core of his reportorial soul.

So Malley, like the wise newspaper man he was, threw away his notes on the Brazilian rubber magnate and the merchant prince of Sandusky; and at dark he went back to the office and wrote the story of old Judge Priest, of Kentucky, for a full column and a quarter. Boss Clark, the night city editor, saw the humor value of the story before he had run through the first paragraph; and he played it up hard on the second page of the Sun, with a regular Sun head over it.

It was by way of being a dull time of news in New York. None of the wealthiest families was marrying or giving in marriage; more remarkable still, none of them was divorcing or giving in divorce. No subway scandal was emerging drippingly from the bowels of the earth; no aviator was descending abruptly from aloft with a dull and lethal thud. Malley's story, with the personality of the old judge deftly set forward as a foil for his homely simplicity and small-town philosophy, arched across the purview of divers saddened city editors like a rainbow spanning a leadish sky. The craft, in the vernacular of the craft, saw the story and went to it. Inside of twenty-four hours Judge Priest, of Kentucky, was Broadway's reigning favorite, for publicity purposes anyhow. The free advertising he got could not have been measured in dollars and cents if a prima donna had been getting it.

The judge kept open house all that next day in his room at the Hotel Royal, receiving regular and special members of various city staffs. Margaret Movine, the star lady writer of the Evening Journal, had a full-page interview, in which the judge, using the Southern accent as it is spoken in New York exclusively, was made to discuss, among other things, the suffragette movement, women smoking in public, Fifth Avenue, hobble skirts, Morgan's raid, and the iniquity of putting sugar in corn bread. The dialect was the talented Miss Margaret Movine's, but the thoughts and the words were the judge's, faithfully set forth. The Times gave him a set of jingles on its editorial page and the Evening Mail followed up with a couple of humorous paragraphs; but it was the Sunday World that scored heaviest.

McCartwell, of the Sunday, went up and secured from the judge his own private recipe for mint juleps--a recipe which the judge said had been in his family for three generations--and he thought possibly longer, it having been brought over the mountains and through the Gap from Virginia by a grandsire who didn't bring much of anything else of great value; and the World, printing this recipe and using it as a starter, conducted through its correspondents southward a telegraphic symposium of mint-julep recipes. Private John Allen, of Mississippi; Colonel Bill Sterritt, of Texas; Marse Henry Watterson and General Simon Bolivar Buckner, of Kentucky; Senator Bob Taylor, of Tennessee, and others, contributed. A dispute at once arose in the South concerning the relative merits oi mint bruised and mint crushed. An old gentleman in Virginia wrote an indignant letter to the Richmond Times-Dispatch--he said it should be bruised only--and a personal misunderstanding between two veteran members oi the Pendennis Club, of Louisville, was with difficulty averted by bystanders. For the American, Tom Powers drew a cartoon showing the old judge, with a julep in his hand, marching through the Prohibition belt of the South, accompanied by a procession of jubilant Joys, while hordes of disconcerted Glooms fled ahead oi them across the map.

In short, for the better part of a week Judge Priest was a celebrity, holding the limelight to the virtual exclusion of grand opera stars, favorite sons, white hopes, debutantes and contributing editors of the Outlook Magazine. And on the fourth day the judge, sitting in the privacy of his chamber and contemplating his sudden prominence, had an idea--and this idea was the answer to a question he had been asking himself many times since he left home. He spent half an hour and seventy cents telephoning to various newspaper offices. When finally he hung up the receiver and wriggled into his caped overcoat a benevolent smile illumined his broad, pink face. The smile still lingered there as he climbed into a cab at the curb and gave the driver a certain Wall Street address, which was the address ci one J. Hayden Witherbee.

*****

J. Hayden Witherbee, composing the firm of Witherbee & Company, bankers, had a cozy flytrap or office suite in one of the tallest and most ornate of the office buildings or spider-webs in the downtown financial district. This location was but a natural one, seeing that Mr. J. Hayden Witherbee's interests were widely scattered and diversified, including as they did the formation and construction--on paper and with paper--of trolley lines; the floating of various enterprises, which floated the more easily by reason of the fact that water was their native element; and the sale of what are known in the West as holes in the ground and in the East as permanent mining investments. He rode to and from business in a splendid touring car trained to stop automatically at at least three cafés on the way up town of an evening; and he had in his employ a competent staff, including a grayish gentle-man of a grim and stolid aspect, named Betts.

Being a man of affairs, and many of them, Mr. Witherbee had but small time for general newspaper reading, save and except only the market quotations, the baseball scores in season and the notices of new shows for tired business men, though keeping a weather eye ever out for stories touching on the pernicious activities of the Federal Grand Jury, with its indictments and summonses and warrants, and of the United States Post-Office Department, with its nasty habit of issuing fraud orders and tying up valuable personal mail. Nevertheless, on a certain wintry afternoon about two o'clock or half-past two, when his office boy brought to him a small card, engraved--no, not engraved; printed--smudgily printed with the name of William Pitman Priest and the general address of Kentucky, the sight of the card seemed to awaken within him certain amusing stories which had lately fallen under his attention in the printed columns; and, since he never overlooked any bets--even the small ones--he told the boy to show the gentleman in.

The reader, I take it, being already acquainted with the widely varying conversational characteristics of Judge Priest and Mr. J. Hayden Witherbee, it would be but a waste of space and time for me to undertake to describe in detail the manner of their meeting on this occasion. Suffice it to say that the judge was shown into Mr. J. Hayden Witherbee's private office; that he introduced himself, shook hands with Mr. Witherbee, and in response to an invitation took a seat; after which he complimented Mr. Witherbee upon the luxury and good taste of his surroundings, and remarked that it was seasonable weather, considering the Northern climate and the time of the year. And then, being requested to state the nature of his business, he told Mr. Witherbee he had called in the hope of interesting him in an industrial property located in the South. It was at this juncture that Mr. Witherbee pressed a large, dark cigar upon his visitor.

“Yes,” said Mr. Witherbee, “we have been operating somewhat extensively in the South of late, and we are always on the lookout for desirable properties of almost any character. Er--where is this particular property you speak of located and what is its nature?”

When Judge Priest named the town Mr. Witherbee gave a perceptible start, and when Judge Priest followed up this disclosure by stating that the property in question was a gasworks plant which he, holding power of attorney and full authority to act, desired to sell to Mr. Witherbee, complete with equipment, accounts, franchise and good will, Mr. Witherbee showed a degree of heat and excitement entirely out of keeping with the calmness and deliberation of Judge Priest's remarks. He asked Judge Priest what he--the judge--took him--Witherbee--for anyhow? Judge Priest, still speaking slowly and choosing his words with care, then told him--and that only seemed to add to Mr. Witherbee's state of warmth. However, Judge Priest drawled right on.

“Yes, suh,” he continued placidly, “accordin' to the best of my knowledge and belief, you are in the business of buyin' and sellin' such things as gasworks, and so I've come to you to sell you this here one. You have personal knowledge of the plant, I believe, havin' been on the ground recently.”

“Say,” demanded Mr. Witherbee with a forced grin--a grin that would have reminded you of a man drawing a knife--“say, what do you think you're trying to slip over on me? I did go to your measly little one-horse town and I spent more than a week there; and I did look over your broken-down little old gashouse, and I concluded that I didn't want it; and then I came away. That's the kind of a man I am--when I'm through with a thing I'm through with it! Huh! What would I do with those gasworks if I bought 'em?”

“That, suh, is a most pertinent point,” said Judge Priest, “and I'm glad you brought it up early. In case, after buyin' this property, you do not seem to care greatly for it, I am empowered to buy it back from you at a suitable figure. For example, I am willin' to sell it to you for sixty thousand dollars; and then, providin' you should want to sell it back to me, I stand prepared to take it off your hands at twenty-six thousand five hundred. I name those figures, suh, because those are the figures that were lately employed in connection with the proposition.”

“Blackmail--huh!” sneered Mr. Witherbee. “Cheap blackmail and nothing else. Well, I took you for a doddering old pappy guy; but you're a bigger rube even than I thought. Now you get out of here before you get thrown out--see?”

“Now there you go, son--fixin' to lose your temper already,” counseled the old judge reprovingly.

But Mr. Witherbee had already lost it--completely lost it. He jumped up from his desk as though contemplating acts of violence upon the limbs and body of the broad, stoutish old man sitting in front of him; but he sheered off. Though old Judge Priest's lips kept right on smiling, his eyelids puckered down into a disconcerting little squint; and between them little menacing blue gleams flickered. Anyway, personal brawls, even in the sanctity of one's office, were very bad form and sometimes led to that publicity which is so distasteful to one engaged in large private enterprises. Mr. Witherbee had known the truth of this when his name had been Watkins and when it had been the Bland. Brothers' Investment Company, limited; and he knew it now when he was Witherbee & Company. So, as aforesaid, he sheered off. Retreating to his desk, he felt for a button. A buzzer whirred dimly in the wall like a rattlesnake's tail. An officeboy poked his head in instantly.

“Herman,” ordered Mr. Witherbee, trembling with his passion, “you go down to the superintendent's office and tell him to send a special building officer here to me right away!”

The boy's head vanished, and Mr. Witherbee swung back again on the judge, wagging a threatening forefinger at him.

“Do you know what I'm going to do?” he asked. “Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do--I'm going to have you chucked out of here bodily--that's what!”

But he couldn't keep the quaver out of the threat. Somehow he was developing a growing fear of this imperturbable old man.

“Now, son,” said Judge Priest, who hadn't moved, “I wouldn't do that if I was you. It might not be so healthy for you.”

“Oh, you needn't be trying any of your cheap Southern gunplays round here,” warned Mr. Witherbee; but, in spite of his best efforts at control, his voice rose quivering at the suggestion.

“Bless your heart, son!” said the judge soothingly, “I wouldn't think of usin' a gun on you any more'n I'd think of takin' a Winchester rifle to kill one of these here cockroaches! Son,” he said, rising now for the first time, “you come along here with me a minute--I want to show you something you ain't seen yet.”

He walked to the door and opened it part way. Witherbee, wondering and apprehensive, followed him and looked over the old judge's shoulder into the anteroom.

For J. Hayden Witherbee, one quick glance was enough. Four--no, five--five alert-looking young men, all plainly marked with the signs of a craft abhorrent to Mr. Witherbee, sat in a row of chairs beyond a railing; and beyond them was a sixth person, a young woman with a tiptilted nose and a pair of inquisitive, expectant gray eyes. Mr. Witherbee would have known them anywhere by their backs--jackals of the press, muckrakers, sworn enemies to Mr. Witherbee and all his kith and kind!

It was Mr. Witherbee who slammed the door shut, drawing Judge Priest back into the shelter of the closed room; and it was Mr. Witherbee who made inquiry, tremulously, almost humbly:

“What does this mean? What are these people doing there? What game is this?” He sputtered out the words, one question overlapping the next.

“Son,” said Judge Priest, “you seem flustered. Ca'm yourself. This is no game as I know of. These are merely friends of mine--representatives of the daily press of your city.”

“But how did they come to be here?”

“Oh!” said the judge. “Why, I tele-phoned 'em. I telephoned 'em that I was comin' down here on a matter of business, and that maybe there might be a sort of an item for them if they'd come too. I've been makin' what they call copy for them, and we're all mighty sociable and friendly; and so they came right along. To tell you the truth, we all arrived practically together. You see, if I was sort of shoved out of here against my will and maybe mussed up a little those boys and that there young lady there--her name Is Miss Margaret Movine--they'd be sure to put pieces in their papers about it; and if it should come out incidentally that the cause of the row was a certain gasworks transaction, in a certain town down in Kentucky, they'd probably print that too. Why, those young fellows would print anything almost if I wanted them to. You'd be surprised!

“Yes, suh, you'd be surprised to see how much they'd print for me,” he went on, tapping J. Hayden Witherbee upon his agitated chest with a blunt forefinger. “I'll bet you they'd go into the full details.”

As Mr. Witherbee listened, Mr. Witherbee perspired freely. At this very moment there were certain transactions pending throughout the country--he had a telegram in his desk now from Betts, sent from a small town in Alabama--and newspaper publicity of an unpleasant and intimate nature might be fatal in the extreme. Mr. Witherbee had a mind trained to act quickly.

“Wait a minute!” he said, mopping his brow and wetting his lips, they being the only dry things about him. “Wait a minute, please. If we could settle this--this matter--just between ourselves, quietly--and peaceably---there wouldn't be anything to print--would there?”

“As I understand the ethics of your Eastern journalism, there wouldn't be anything to print,” said Judge Priest. “The price of them gasworks, accordin' to the latest quotations, was sixty thousand--but liable to advance without notice.”

“And what--what did you say you'd buy 'em back at?”

“Twenty-six thousand five hundred was the last price,” said the judge, “but subject to further shrinkage almost any minute.”

“I'll trade,” said Mr. Witherbee.

“Much obliged to you, son,” said Judge Priest gratefully, and he began fumbling in his breast pocket. “I've got the papers all made out.”

Mr. Witherbee regained his desk and reached for a checkbook just as the officeboy poked his head in again.

“Special officer's cornin' right away, sir,” he said.

“Tell him to go away and keep away,” snarled the flurried Mr. Witherbee; “and you keep that door shut--tight! Shall I make the check out to you?” he asked the judge.

“Well, now, I wouldn't care to bother with checks,” said the judge. “All the recent transactions involvin' this here gashouse property was by the medium of the common currency of the country, and I wouldn't care to undertake on my own responsibility to interfere with a system that has worked heretofore with such satisfaction. I'll take the difference in cash--if you don't mind.”

“But I can't raise that much cash now,” whined Witherbee. “I haven't that much in my safe. I doubt if I could get it at my bank on such short notice.”

“I know of a larger sum bein' gathered together in a much smaller community than this--oncet!” said the judge reminiscently. “I would suggest that you try.”

“I'll try,” said Mr. Witherbee desperately. “I'll send out for it--on second thought, I guess I can raise it.”

“I'll wait,” said the judge; and he took his seat again, but immediately got up and started for the door. “I'll ask the boys and Miss Margaret Movine to wait too,” he explained. “You see, I'm leavin' for my home tomorrow and we're all goin' to have a little farewell blowout together tonight.”

Upon Malley, who in confidence had heard enough from the judge to put two and two together and guess something of the rest, there was beginning to dawn a conviction that behind Judge William Pitman Priest's dovelike simplicity there lurked some part of the wisdom that has been commonly attributed to the serpent of old. His reporter's instinct sensed out a good story in it, too, but his pleadings with the old judge to stay over for one more day, anyhow, were not altogether based on a professional foundation. They were in large part personal.

Judge Priest, caressing a certificate of deposit in a New York bank doing a large Southern business, insisted that he had to go. So Malley went with him to the ferry and together they stood on the deck of the ferryboat, saying good-by. For the twentieth time Malley was promising the old man that in the spring he would surely come to Kentucky and visit him. And at the time he meant it.

In front of them as they faced the shore loomed up the tall buildings, rising jaggedly like long dog teeth in Manhattan's lower jaw. There were pennons of white steam curling from their eaves. The Judge's puckered eyes took in the picture, from the crowded streets below to the wintry blue sky above, where mackerel-shaped white clouds drifted by, all aiming the same way, like a school of silver fish.

“Son,” he was saying, “I don't know when I've enjoyed anything more than this here little visit, and I'm beholden to you boys for a lot. It's been pleasant and it's been profitable, and I'm proud that I met up with all of you.”

“When will you be coming back, judge?” asked Malley.

“Well, that I don't know,” admitted the old judge. “You see, son, I'm gettin' on in years, considerably; and it's sort of a hard trip from away down where I live plum' up here to New York. As a matter of fact,” he went on, “this was the third time in my life that I started for this section of the country. The first time I started was with General Albert Sidney Johnston and a lot of others; but, owin' to meetin' up with your General Grant at a place called Pittsburg Landing by your people and Shiloh by ours, we sort of altered our plans. Later on I started again, bein' then temporarily in the company of General John Morgan, of my own state; and that time we got as far as the southern part of the state of Ohio before we run into certain insurmountable obstacles; but this time I managed to git through. I was forty-odd years doin' it--but I done it! And, son,” he called out as the ferryboat began to quiver and Malley stepped ashore, “I don't mind tellin' you in strict confidence that while the third Confederate invasion of the North was a long time gittin' under way, it proved a most complete success in every particular when it did. Give my best reguards to Miss Margaret Movine.”

VIII. THE MOB FROM MASSAC

YOU might call it a tragedy--this thing that came to pass down in our country here a few years back. For that was exactly what it was--a tragedy, and in its way a big one. Yet at the time nobody thought of calling it by any name at all. It was just one of those shifts that are inevitably bound to occur in the local politics of a county or a district; and when it did come, and was through and over with, most people accepted it as a matter of course.

There were some, however, it left jarred and dazed and bewildered--yes, and helpless too; men too old to readjust their altered fortunes to their altered conditions even if they had the spirit to try, which they hadn't. Take old Major J. Q. A. Pickett now. Attaching himself firmly to a certain spot at the far end of Sherrill's bar, with one leg hooked up over the brass bar-rail--a leg providentially foreshortened by a Minie ball at Shiloh, as if for that very purpose--the major expeditiously drank himself to death in a little less than four years, which was an exceedingly short time for the job, seeing he had always been a most hale and hearty old person, though grown a bit gnarly and skewed with the coming on of age. The major had been county clerk ever since Reconstruction; he was a gentleman and a scholar and could quote Latin and Sir Walter Scott's poetry by the running yard. Toward the last he quoted them with hiccups and a stutter.

Also there was Captain Andy J. Redcliffe, who was sheriff three terms handrunning and, before that, chief of police. Going out of office he went into the livery-stable business; but he didn't seem to make much headway against the Farrell Brothers, who 'owned the other livery stable and were younger men and spry and alert to get trade. He spent a few months sitting at the front door of his yawning, half-empty stables, nursing a grudge against nearly everything and plaintively garrulous on the subject of the ingratitude of republics in general and this republic in particular; and presently he sickened of one of those mysterious diseases that seem to attack elderly men of a full habit of life and to rob them of their health without denuding them of their flesh. His fat sagged on his bones in unwholesome, bloated folds and he wallowed unsteadily when he walked. One morning one of his stable hands found him dead in his office, and the Gideon K. Irons Camp turned out and gave him a comrade's funeral, with full military honors.

Also there were two or three others, including ex-County Treasurer Whitford, who shot himself through the head when a busy and conscientious successor found in his accounts a seeming shortage of four hundred and eighty dollars, which afterward turned out to be more a mistake in bookkeeping than anything else. Yet these men--all of them--might have seen what was coming had they watched. The storm that wrecked them was a long time making up--four years before it had threatened them.