Part 28

Within two weeks, Duncan was at the head of an association of agents gathering proxies from the policy holders to oust the Armstrong regime. Duncan and his fellow conspirators sent out a circular, calling attention to the recent rise in the profits to policy holders. "It is evident," said the circular, "that there has been mismanagement of our interests, and that the present powers have been frightened into giving us a little larger part of our own. We ought to have it all! Send your proxies to the undersigned, that the O.A.D. may be reorganized upon an honest, democratic basis. A new broom, a clean sweep!"

Duncan in person came to Armstrong with one of the circulars. "There's nothing underhand about me," said he as he handed it to the president. "Here's our declaration of war."

Armstrong glanced at it, smiled satirically. "You've sent copies to the newspapers also, haven't you?" replied he. "As you couldn't possibly keep the matter secret, I can't get excited about your candor." And he tossed the circular on his desk.

"When you read it, you'll see we're fighting fair," said Duncan.

"I've read it," was Armstrong's answer. "One of my friends among the agents sent me a copy a week ago--the day you drew it up."

Duncan began to "hedge." "I don't want you to have any hard feelings toward me," said he. "All the boys were hot for this thing, and I had to go in with them."

"You were displaced as general Western agent this morning," said Armstrong tranquilly. "I telegraphed your assistant to take charge. I also telephoned him a memorandum of what you owe the company, with instructions to bring suit unless you paid up in three days."

"It ain't fair to single me out this way," cried Duncan. "It's persecution."

"I haven't singled you out," said Armstrong. "I bounced the whole crowd of you at the same time, and in the same way. You charge me with extravagance. Well, you see, I've admitted the charge and have begun to retrench."

Duncan's fat, round face was purple and his brown eyes were glittering. "You think you've done us up," said he, with a nasty laugh. "But you're not as 'cute' as you imagine. We provided against just that move."

"I see that your committee of policy holders to receive proxies are dummies," replied Armstrong. "I know all about your arrangements."

"Then you know we're going to win."

Armstrong looked indifferent. "That remains to be seen," said he. "Good morning."

When Duncan had got himself out of the room, Armstrong laid the circular beside the one he himself had written and sent to each of the seven hundred thousand policy holders. His circular was a straight-forward statement of the facts--of how and why his policy of economy had stirred up all the plunderers of the company, great and small. It ended with a request that proxies be sent direct to him, by those who wished the new order to persist and did not wish a return to the old order with its long-standing and grave abuses. He compared the two circulars and laughed at himself. "Mine's the unvarnished truth," thought he. "But it doesn't sound as probable, as reasonable, as Duncan's lies. If the policy holders do stand by me, it'll be because most people are fools and hit it right by accident. Most of us are never so wrong as in our way of being right. The wise thing is always to assume that the crowd that's in is crooked."

If Armstrong had been a reformer, with the passion to reorganize the world on his own private plan, and in the event of the world's failure to recognize his commission as vice-regent of the Almighty, ready to denounce it as a hopeless case--if Armstrong had been a professional regenerator, those would have been trying days for him. The measures he took that were the most honest and the most honorable were the very measures that made the other side strong. He had weeded out a multitude of grafters and had shown an inflexible purpose to weed out the rest; and so he had organized and made powerful the conspiracy to restore graft. He had attacked the men--the big agents--who were using their influence with the policy holders to enable them to rob freely; and so he had stirred up those traitors still further to cozen their victims. He had cut down the enormous subsidies to the press, had cut off the graft of the great financiers who were the powers behind the great organs of public opinion; and so he had enlisted the press as an open and most helpful ally of the conspirators. The policy holders were told by agents--whom they knew personally and regarded as their representatives--that Armstrong was the "thieving tool of the Wall Street crowd"; the policy holders read in their newspapers that "on the whole the O.A.D. would probably benefit by a new management selected by the body of the policy holders themselves." It was ridiculous, it was tragic. Armstrong laughed, with a heavy and at times a bitter heart. "I don't blame the poor devils," he said. "How are they to know? I'm the damn fool, not they--I who, dealing with men all these years, have put myself in a position where I am appealing from the men who run the people to the people, who always have been run and always will be."

Still, he began to hope against hope, as the proxies rolled in for him--by hundreds, by thousands, by tens of thousands. Most of the letters accompanying the proxies justified his cynical opinion that the average man is never so wrong as when he is right; the writers gave the most absurd reasons for supporting him, not a few of them frankly saying that it was to the best interest of the company to leave the control to the man who was in with the powers of Wall Street! But there were letters, hundreds of them, from men and women who showed that they understood the situation; and, curiously enough, most of these letters were badly written, badly spelled, letters from so-called ignorant people. It was a striking exhibit of how little education has to do with brains. "I've always said," thought Armstrong, "that our rotten system of education is responsible for most of the fools and all the damn fools, but I never before knew how true it was."

And the weeks passed, and the annual meeting and election drew nearer and nearer. Instead of Armstrong's agitation increasing, it disappeared entirely. Within, he was as calm as he had all along seemed at the surface. It was an unexpected reward for trying to do the square thing. He was eminently practical in his morals, was the last man in the world to turn the other cheek, was disposed to return a blow both in kind and in degree. But he knew, also, that the calm he now felt was due to the changed course, could never have been his in the old course.

On the morning of the great day, he stopped shaving to look into his own eyes reflected in the glass. "Old man," said he aloud, "there's much to be said for being clean--reasonably, humanly clean. It begins to have compensations sooner than the preachers seem to think."

As Armstrong entered the splendid assembly chamber of the new O.A.D. building, the first figure his eyes hit upon was that of Hugo Fosdick, entering at the opposite door. To look at him was like hearing a good joke. He was walking as if upon air, head rearing, lofty brow corrugated, eyes rolling and serious, shoulders squared as if bearing lightly a ponderous burden. Of all the trifles that flash and wink out upon the expanse of the infinite, the physically vain man seems the most trivial. The so-called upper classes, being condemned to think about themselves almost all the time, furnish to the drama of life the most of the low comedy, with their struttings and swellings and posings. Those who in addition to class vanity have physical vanity are the clowns of the great show. Hugo was of the clowns--and he dressed the part, that day. He had on a tremendously loud tweed suit, a billycock hat of a peculiar shade of brown to match, a huge plaid overcoat; he was wearing a big, rough-looking chrysanthemum that seemed of a piece with his tie; he diffused perfume like a woman who wishes to be known by the scent she uses. As he drew off his big, thick driving gloves, he gazed grandly around. His eyes met Armstrong's, and his haughty lip curled in a supercilious smile.

"Did you come down in an auto?" some one asked him.

"No, not in an auto," he said in a voice intended to be heard by all. "I drove down. I've dropped the auto--it's become vulgar, like the bicycle. It was merely a fad, and the best people soon exhausted it. There's no chance for individual taste in those mechanical things, as there is in horses. Anyone can get together the best there is going in automobiles; but how many men can provide themselves with well turned out traps--horses, harness, the men on the box, just as a gentleman's turnout should be?"

One of the Western men laughed behind his hand, and said, "Wot t' hell!" But most of the assembly gazed rather awedly at Hugo. They would have thought him ridiculous had he been presented to them as a laugh-provoker; but, as he was presented as a representative of the "top notch" of New York, they were respectfully silent and obediently impressed.

And now, with Randall, a Duncan man, in the chair, the meeting began--formalities, reading of reports to which nobody listened, making of motions in which nobody was interested. Half an hour of this, with the tension increasing. Duncan had dry-smoked three cigars, and the corners of his fat mouth were yellow with tobacco stains; Hugo, struggling hard for a gentleman's _sang froid_, had half torn out the sweat band of his pot hat, had bit his lip till it bled. He was watching Armstrong, was hating him and envying him--for the big Westerner sat at the right of the chairman with no more trace of excitement on his face than there is in the features of a bronze Buddha who has been staring cross-legged into Nirvana for twenty-five centuries.

Nor did he rouse himself when the election began, though a nervous shiver like an electric shock visibly shook every other man in the room. His lieutenants proposed his list of candidates; Duncan's men proposed the "Popular" list; the voting began. Barry, for Armstrong, cast sixty-two thousand four hundred and fifteen votes--the proxies that had come in for Armstrong in answer to his appeal and also the uncanceled proxies of those he had had since the beginning of his term. Duncan and his crowd burst into a cheer, and in rapid succession nine of them cast forty-three thousand and eleven votes. Then they turned anxious eyes on Hugo. Armstrong, too, looked at him. He could not understand. Hugo's name was not on the Duncan list of persons to whom the "new broom" proxies were to be sent. Hugo, pale and trembling, rose. He fixed revengeful, triumphant, gloating eyes upon Armstrong and addressed him, as he said to the chairman, "For Mr. Wolcott here, I cast for the Popular, or anti-Armstrong ticket, the proxies of ninety thousand six hundred and four policy holders."

Armstrong looked at Hugo as if he were not seeing him; indeed, he seemed almost oblivious of his surroundings, as if he were absorbed in some tranquil, interesting mental problem. Silence followed Hugo's announcement, and the porters brought in and piled upon the huge table, over against the now insignificant bundles of Armstrong's proxies, the packages which were the tangible demonstration of the overwhelming force and power of his foes. As the porters completed their task, the spectacle became so inspiring to Duncan and his friends that they forgot their dignity, and gave way to their feelings. They yelled, they tossed their hats; they embraced, shook hands, gave each other resounding slaps upon the shoulders. Hugo condescended to join in their jubilations, never taking his eyes off Armstrong's face. Armstrong and Barry and Driggs sat silent, Armstrong impassive, Barry frowning, Driggs gnawing his mustache. Armstrong's gaze went from face to face of these "policy holders"; on each he saw written the basest emotions--emotions from the jungle, emotions of tusk and claw. The O.A.D. with all its vast treasures was theirs to despoil--and they were clashing their fangs and licking their savage chops in anticipation of the feast. The vast majority of the policy holders had been too indifferent to respond to the appeal of either side--this, though the future of their widows and their orphans was at stake! Of those who had responded, the overwhelming majority had declared against Armstrong.

He had long known it would be so and had resolved to accept the "popular mandate." But the gleam of those greedy eyes, the grate of that greedy, gloating laughter, was too horrible. "I _can't_ let things go to hell like this!" he muttered--and he leaned toward Driggs and said in an undertone, "I've changed my mind. Carry out my original programme."

Driggs suddenly straightened himself, and his face changed from gloom to delight, then sobered into alert calmness. Gradually the victors quieted down. "Close the polls!" called Duncan. "Nobody else is going to vote."

"Before closing the polls, Mr. Chairman," said Driggs, "or, rather, before the proxies offered by Mr. Fosdick are accepted, I wish to ask Mr. Wolcott a question." And he turned toward young Wolcott, a distant relative and henchman of Duncan's and one of the three men in whose names stood all the "new-broom" proxies.

"How old are you, Mr. Wolcott, please?"

Wolcott stared at him, glanced at Hugo, at Duncan, grinned. "None of your business," drawled he. "I may say none of your damn business."

Driggs smiled blandly, turned to the chairman. "As a policy holder in the O.A.D.," he said gently, "I ask that all the proxies on which the name of Howard C. Wolcott appears be thrown out."

Duncan and Hugo sprang up. "What kind of trick is this?" shouted Duncan at Armstrong.

Armstrong seemed not to be listening, was idly twisting his slender gold watch guard round his forefinger.

"By the constitution of the association," proceeded Driggs, "proxies given to anyone under thirty years of age or to any committee any of whose members is under thirty years are invalid. I refer you to Article nine, Section five."

"But Wolcott's over thirty," bawled Duncan.

"I'm thirty-one--thirty-two the sixth of next month," blustered Wolcott. "I demand to be sworn."

Driggs drew several papers from his pocket. "I have here," he pursued, "an official copy of Wolcott's application for a marriage license, in which he gives the date of his birth. Also the sworn statement of the physician who presided over his entrance into this wicked world. Also, an official copy of Wolcott's statement to the election registrars of Peoria, where he lives. All these documents agree that Mr. Wolcott is not yet twenty-nine." Driggs leaned back and smiled benevolently at Wolcott. "I think Mr. Wolcott's own testimony would be superfluous."

"This is infamous--infamous!" cried Hugo, hysterically menacing Armstrong with his billycock hat and big driving gloves and crimson-fronted head.

"Of all the outrages ever attempted, this is the most brazen!" shouted Duncan.

"Mr. Chairman," said Driggs, in that same gentle voice, not unlike the purring of a stroked cat, "I believe the Constitution is self-executing. As I understand it, all the proxies collected for the Duncan-Fosdick party are on the same form--the one authorizing Wolcott and two others to cast the vote. Thus, the only legal votes cast are those for the regular ticket."

"The election must be postponed!" Duncan screamed, waving his fists and then beating them upon the table. "This outrage must not go on."

The chairman, Randall, had been a Duncan man. He now fled to the victors. "There is no legal way to postpone, Mr. Duncan," he responded coldly. "No other votes offering, I declare the polls closed. Shall we adjourn until this day week, gentlemen, according to custom, so that the tellers may have time to examine the vote and report?"

Armstrong spoke for the first time. "Move we adjourn," he said, rising like a man who is weary from sitting too long in the same position. Barry seconded; the meeting stood adjourned. Armstrong, followed by Barry and Driggs, withdrew.

As soon as they had gone, Hugo blazed on Duncan. "You are responsible for this!" he cried. "You damn fool!"

Duncan stared stupidly. Then, by a reflex action of the muscles rather than as the result of any order from his dazed brain, his great, fat-cushioned fist swung into Hugo's face and Hugo was flat upon his back on the floor.

"Come on, boys," said Duncan. "Let's go have a drink and feel ourselves for broken bones."

*XXXI*

*"I DON'T TRUST HIM"*

Armstrong was now the man of the hour, the one tenant of the public pillories who was sure of a fling from every passer. The press shrieked at him, the pulpit thundered; the policy holders organized into state associations and threatened. Those who had sent him proxies wrote revoking them and denouncing him as having betrayed their confidence. Those who had given the Duncan crowd their proxies wrote excoriating him for taking advantage of a technicality to cheat them out of their rights and to gain one year more of power to plunder.

"It's a blistering shame!" cried Barry, wrought up over some particularly vicious attack. "It's so infernally unjust!"

"I don't agree with you," replied Armstrong, as judicial as his friend was infuriate. "The people are right; they simply are right in the wrong way. They think I'm part of the system of wholesale, respectable pocket-picking that has grown up in this country. You can't blame 'em. And it does look ugly, my using that technical point to save myself."

"I suppose you wish you had stuck to your first scheme," said Barry, sarcastic, "and had let the Duncan broom sweep the safes."

"No, I don't repent," replied Armstrong. "When I decided to save the policy holders in spite of themselves, I knew this was coming. When you try to save a mule from a burning stable, you're a fool to be surprised if you get kicked."

"You're not going to pay any attention to these yells for you to resign?" Barry asked, even more alarmed than he showed.

"No, I'll not resign," said Armstrong.

"Then you ought to do something, ought to meet these charges. You ought to fight back." Barry had been waiting for three weeks in daily expectation; but Armstrong had not moved, had given no sign that he was aware of the attack.

"Yes, it is about time, I guess," said he. "Beginning to-day, I am going to clean out of the O.A.D. all that's left of the old gang."

Barry looked at him as if he thought he had gone crazy. "Why, Horace, that'll simply raise hell!" he said. "We'll be put out by force. You know what everybody'll say."

Armstrong leaned back in his chair, put his big hands behind his head and beamed on his first lieutenant. "It wouldn't surprise me if we had to call on the police for protection before the end of next week."

"The governor'll be forced to act," urged Barry. "As it is, he's catching it for keeping his hands off."

"Don't be alarmed. Morris understands the situation. We had a talk last night--met on a corner and walked round in quiet streets for two hours."

"He sent for you, did he?"

"Yes. He was weakening. But he's all right again."

"Well, I don't see the advantage in this new move, in making a bad matter worse."

"The worse it gets, the quicker it'll improve when the turn comes," Armstrong answered. "I've got to get rid of the old gang--you know that. They were brought up on graft. They look on it as legitimate. They never'll be right again, and if a single one of them stays, he'll rot our new force. So out they all go. Now, as it's got to be done, the best time is right now, and have it over with. I tell you, Jim," and Armstrong brought his fist down on the desk, "I'm going to put this company in order if I'm thrown into jail the day after I've done it! But I ain't going to jail. I'm going to stay right here, and, inside of six months, the crowd that's howling loudest for my blood will be sending me proxies and praying that I'll live forever."

"I wish I could think so," muttered Barry gloomily.

"So you've lost confidence in me, too?" Armstrong said this with more mockery than reproach. "It's lucky I don't rely on confidence in me to get results, isn't it? Well, Jim----"

"Oh, I'll stand by you, Armstrong, faith or no faith," interrupted Barry.

"Thanks," said Armstrong, somewhat dryly. "But I'm bound to tell you that the result will be just the same, whether you do or not. If you want to accept Trafford's offer that you have taken under consideration, don't hesitate on my account."

Barry was scarlet. "It was on account of my family," he stammered. "My wife's been at me to----"

"Of course she has," said Armstrong. "Don't say any more."

"She's like all the women," Barry insisted on saying. "She likes luxury and all that, and she's afraid I'll lose my hold, and she knows how generous Trafford is."

"Yes," drawled Armstrong. "This country is full of that kind of generosity nowadays--generosity with other people's money."

"The women don't think about that side of it," said Barry. "They think that as pretty much everybody's doing that sort of thing--everybody that is anybody--why, it must be all right. And, by gad, Horace, sometimes it almost seems to me I'm a fool, a dumb one, to stick to the old-fashioned ways. Why be so particular about not taking people's property when they leave it around and don't look after it themselves, and when somebody else'll take it, if I don't--somebody who won't make as good use of it as I would?"

"The question isn't whose property it is, but whose property it isn't," said Armstrong. "And, when it isn't ours, why--I guess 'hands off' is honest--and decent." And then he colored and his eyes shifted, as if the other could read in them the source of this idea which he had thought and spoken as if it were his own.

"That's my notion, too," said Barry. "I suppose I'll never be rich. But--" His face became splendidly earnest--"by heaven, Armstrong, I'll never leave my children a dollar that wasn't honestly got."

"We're rowing against the tide, Jim. You can't even console yourself that your children would rather have had the heritage of an honest name than the millions. And if you don't leave 'em rich, they'll either have to plunge in and steal a fortune or become the servants of some rich man or go to farming. No, even independent farming won't be open by the time they grow up."

"Well, I'm going to keep on," replied Barry. "And so are you."

Armstrong laughed silently. "Guess you're right," said he. "God knows, I tried hard enough to turn my boat round and row the other way. But she would swing back. Queer about that sort of thing, isn't it? I wonder, Jim, how many of the men most of us look on as obscurities and failures are in the background or down because there was that queer something in them that wouldn't let them subscribe to this code of sneak, stab, and steal? We're in luck not to have been trampled clean under--and our luck may not hold."