Chapter 13

So my suspicion was well-founded. Goodrich, informed of his brother-in-law's failure, was posting to make peace on whatever terms he could honeyfugle out of my conciliation-mad candidate.

A few minutes later I shut myself in with the long-distance telephone and roused Burbank from bed and from sleep. "I am coming by the first train to-morrow," I said. "I thought you'd be glad to know that I've made satisfactory arrangements in New York--unexpectedly satisfactory."

"That's good--excellent," came the reply. I noted an instant change of tone which told me that Burbank had got, by some underground route, news of my failure in New York and had been preparing to give Goodrich a cordial reception.

"If Goodrich comes, James," I went on, "don't see him till I've seen you."

A pause, then in a strained voice: "But I've given him an appointment at nine to-morrow."

"Put him off till noon. I'll be there at eleven. It's--imperative." That last word with an accent I did not like to use, but knew how to use--and when.

Another pause, then: "Very well, Harvey. But we must be careful about him. De Milt has told you how dangerous he is, hasn't he?"

"Yes--how dangerous he tried to be." I was about to add that Goodrich was a fool to permit any one to go to such a man as Scarborough with such a proposition; but I bethought me of Burbank's acute moral sensitiveness and how it would be rasped by the implication of his opponent's moral superiority. "We're past the last danger, James. That's all. Sleep sound. Good night."

"Good night, old man," was his reply in his pose's tone for affection. But I could imagine him posing there in his night shirt, the anger against me snapping in his eyes.

On the train the next morning, De Milt, who had evidently been doing a little thinking, said, "I hope you won't let it out to Cousin James that I told you Goodrich was coming to see him."

"Certainly not," I replied, not losing the opportunity to win over to myself one so near to my political ward. "I'm deeply obliged to you for telling me." And presently I went on: "By the way, has anything been done for you for your brilliant work at Saint X?"

"Oh, that's all right," he said, "I guess Cousin James'll look after me--unless he forgets about it." "Cousin James" had always had the habit of taking favors for granted unless reward was pressed for; and since he had become a presidential candidate, he was inclining more than ever to look on a favor done him as a high privilege which was its own reward.

I made no immediate reply to De Milt; but just before we reached the capital, I gave him a cheque for five thousand dollars. "A little expression of gratitude from the party," said I. "Your reward will come later." From that hour he was mine, for he knew now by personal experience that "the boys" were right in calling me appreciative.

It is better to ignore a debt than to pay with words.

XXIV

GRANBY INTRUDES AGAIN

Burbank had grown like a fungus in his own esteem.

The adulation of the free excursionists I had poured in upon him, the eulogies in the newspapers, the flatteries of those about him, eager to make themselves "solid" with the man who might soon have the shaking of the huge, richly laden presidential boughs of the plum tree--this combination of assaults upon sanity was too strong for a man with such vanity as his, a traitor within. He had convinced his last prudent doubt that he was indeed a "child of destiny." He was resentful lest I might possibly think myself more important than he to the success of the campaign. And his resentment was deepened by the probably incessant reminders of his common sense that all this vast machine, public and secret, could have been set in motion just as effectively for any one of a score of "statesmen" conspicuous in the party.

I saw through his labored cordiality; and it depressed me again--started me down toward those depths of self-condemnation from which I had been held up for a few days by the excitement of the swiftly thronging events and by the necessity of putting my whole mind upon moves for my game.

"I am heartily glad you were successful," he began when we were alone. "That takes a weight off my mind."

"You misunderstood me, I see," said I. "I haven't got anything from those people in New York as yet. But within a week they'll be begging me to take whatever I need. Thwing's report will put them in a panic."

His face fell. "Then I must be especially courteous to Goodrich," he said, after thinking intently. "Your hopes might be disappointed."

"Not the slightest danger," was my prompt assurance. "And if you take my advice, you will ask Goodrich how his agent found Senator Scarborough's health, and then order him out of this house. Why harbor a deadly snake that can be of no use to you?"

"But you seem to forget, Harvey, that he is the master of at least the eastern wing of the party. And you must now see that he will stop at nothing, unless he is pacified."

"He is the fetch-and-carry of an impudent and cowardly crowd in Wall Street," I retorted, "that is all. When they find he can no longer do their errands, they'll throw him over and come to us. And we can have them on our own terms."

We argued, with growing irritation on both sides, and after an hour or so, I saw that he was hopelessly under the spell of his pettiness and his moral cowardice. He had convinced himself that I was jealous of Goodrich and would sacrifice anything to gratify my hate. And Goodrich's sending an agent to Scarborough had only made him the more formidable in Burbank's eyes. As I looked in upon his mind and watched its weak, foolish little workings, my irritation subsided. "Do as you think best," said I wearily. "But when he presents the mortgage you are going to give him on your presidency, remember my warning."

He laughed this off, feeling my point only in his vanity, not at all in his judgment. "And how will _you_ receive him, Harvey? He will be sure to come to you next--must, as you are in charge of my campaign."

"I'll tell him straight out that I'll have nothing to do with him," said I blandly. "The Wall Street submission to the party must be brought to me by some other ambassador. I'll not help him to fool his masters and to hide it from them that he has lost control."

I could have insisted, could have destroyed Goodrich--for Burbank would not have dared disobey me. But the campaign, politics in general, life itself, filled me with disgust, a paralyzing disgust that made me almost lose confidence in my theory of practical life.

"What's the use?" I said to myself. "Let Burbank keep his adder. Let it sting him. If it so much as shoots a fang at me, I can crush it."

And so, Burbank lifted up Goodrich and gave hostages to him; and Goodrich, warned that I would not deal with him, made some excuse or other to his masters for sending Senator Revell to me. "See Woodruff," said I to Revell, for I was in no mood for such business. "He knows best what we need."

"They give up too damn cheerfully," Woodruff said to me, when I saw him a week or ten days later, and he gave me an account of the negotiations. "I suspect they've paid more before."

"They have," said I. "In two campaigns where they had to elect against hard times."

"But I've a notion," he warned me, "that our candidate has promised them something privately."

"No doubt," I replied, as indifferently as I felt.

I had intended to make some speeches--I had always kept the public side of my career in the foreground, and in this campaign my enforced prominence as director of the machine was causing the public to dwell too much on the real nature of my political activity. But I could not bring myself to it. Instead, I set out for home to spend the time with my children and to do by telephone, as I easily could, such directing of Woodruff as might be necessary.

My daughter Frances was driving me from the Fredonia station. A man darted in front of the horses, flung up his arms and began to shriek curses at me. If she had not been a skilful driver, we should both have been thrown from the cart. As it was, the horses ran several miles before she got them under control, I sitting inactive, because I knew how it would hurt her pride if I should interfere.

When the horses were quiet, she gave me an impetuous kiss that more than repaid me for the strain on my nerves. "You are the dearest papa that ever was!" she said. Then--"Who was he? He looked like a crazy man!"

"No doubt he is," was my reply. And I began complimenting her on her skill with horses, chiefly to prevent her pressing me about the man. I had heard, and had done, so much lying that I had a horror of it, and tried to make my children absolutely truthful--my boy Ed used to think up and do mischief just for the pleasure of pleasing me by confessing. To make my example effective, I was always strictly truthful with them. I did not wish to tell her who the man was; but I instantly recognized, through the drunken dishevelment, my mutineer, Granby--less than a year before one of the magnates of the state. My orders about him had been swiftly and literally obeyed. Deserted by his associates, blacklisted at the banks, beset by his creditors, harassed by the attorney general, his assets chained with injunctions, his liabilities given triple fangs, he went bankrupt, took to drink, became a sot and a barroom lounger. His dominant passion was hatred of me; he discharged the rambling and frantic story of his wrongs upon whoever would listen. And here he was in Fredonia!

I had one of my secretaries telephone the police to look after him; they reported that he had disappeared.

The next morning but one, my daughter and I went for an early walk. At the turn of the main drive just beyond view from the lodge, she exclaimed, "Oh, father, _oh_!" and clung to me. Something--like a scarecrow, but not a scarecrow--swung from a limb overhanging the drive. The face was distorted and swollen; the arms and legs were drawn up in sickening crookedness. Before I saw, I knew it was Granby.

I took Frances home, then returned, passing the swaying horror far on the other side of the road. I got the lodge-keeper, and he and I went back together. I had them telephone from the lodge for the coroner and personally saw to it that the corpse should be reported as found in the open woods a long distance from my place. But Granby had left a message "to the public" in his room at the hotel: "Senator Sayler ruined me and drove me to death. I have gone to hang myself in his park. Down with monopoly!" In spite of my efforts, this was published throughout the country--though not in Fredonia. Such of the big opposition papers as were not under our control sent reporters and raked out the whole story; and it was blown up hugely and told everywhere. Our organs retold it, giving the true color and perspective; but my blundering attempt to avoid publicity had put me in too bad a light.

It was the irony of fate--my power thus ludicrously thwarted by a triviality. Within twenty-four hours I realized the danger to our campaign. I sent Woodruff post-haste to the widow. He gave her convincing assurances that she and her children were to be lifted from the slough of poverty into which Granby's drunkenness had thrust them. And in return she wrote at his dictation and issued an apparently uninspired public statement, exonerating me from all blame for her husband's reverses, and saying that he had been acting strangely for over a year and had been insane for several months. In brief, I did everything suggested by sincere regret and such skill at influencing public opinion as I had and commanded. But not until my reports began to show the good effects of the million dollars Woodruff put into the last week of the campaign, did I begin to hope again.

Another hope brightened toward confidence when, on the Saturday before election, I sprung my carefully matured scheme for stiffening those of our partizans who were wavering. The Scarborough speakers had, with powerful effect, been taunting us with our huge campaign fund, daring us to disclose its sources. On that Sunday morning, when it was too late for the opposition to discount me, I boldly threw open a set of campaign ledgers which showed that our fund was just under a million dollars, with the only large subscription, the hundred thousand which I myself had given. Tens of thousands of our partizans, longing for an excuse for staying with us, returned cheering to the ranks--enough of them in the doubtful states, we believed, to restore the floating vote to its usual balance of power.

Each horse of my team had taken a turn at doing dangerous, even menacing, threshing about; but both were now quietly pulling in the harness, Partizanship as docile as Plutocracy. The betting odds were six to five against us, but we of the "inside" began to plunge on Burbank and Howard.

XXV

AN HOUR OF EMOTION

It was after midnight of election day before we knew the result, so close were the two most important doubtful states.

Scarborough had swept the rural districts and the small towns. But we had beaten him in the cities where the machines and other purchasable organizations were powerful. His state gave him forty-two thousand plurality, Burbank carried his own state by less than ten thousand--and in twenty-four years our majority there in presidential campaigns had never before been less than forty thousand.

By half-past one, the whole capital city knew that Burbank had won. And they flocked and swarmed out the road to his modest "retreat," until perhaps thirty thousand people were shouting, blowing horns, singing, sending up rockets and Roman candles, burning red fire, lighting bonfires in and near the grounds. I had come down from Fredonia to be in instant touch with Burbank and the whole national machine, should there arise at the last minute necessity for bold and swift action. When Burbank finally yielded to the mob and showed himself on his porch with us, his immediate associates, about him, I for the first time unreservedly admired him. For the man inside seemed at last to swell until the presidential pose he had so long worn prematurely was filled to a perfect fit. And in what he said as well as in the way he said it there was an unexpected dignity and breadth and force. "I have made him President," I thought, "and it looks as if the presidency had made him a man."

After he finished, Croffut spoke, and Senator Berwick of Illinois. Then rose a few calls for me. They were drowned in a chorus of hoots, toots and hisses. Burbank cast a quick glance of apprehension at me--again that hidden conviction of my vanity, this time shown in dread lest it should goad me into hating him. I smiled reassuringly at him--and I can say in all honesty that the smile came from the bottom of my heart. An hour later, as I bade him good night, I said:

"I believe the man and the opportunity have met, Mr. President. God bless you."

Perhaps it was the unusualness of my speaking with feeling that caused the tears to start in his eyes. "Thank you, Harvey," he replied, clasping my hand in both his. "I realize now the grave responsibility. I need the help of every friend--the _true_ help of every _true_ friend. And I know what I owe to you just as clearly as if _she_ were here to remind me."

I was too moved to venture a reply. Woodruff and I drove to the hotel together--the crowd hissing me wherever it recognized me. Woodruff looked first on one side then on the other, muttering at them. "The fools!" he said to me, with his abrupt, cool laugh. "Just like them, isn't it? Cheering the puppet, hissing its proprietor."

I made no answer--what did it matter? Not for Burbank's position and opportunity, as in that hour of emotion they appeared even to us who knew politics from behind the scenes, not for the reality of what the sounding title of President seems to mean, would I have changed with him, would I have paid the degrading price he had paid. I preferred my own position--if I had bowed the knee, at least it was not to men. As for hisses, I saw in them a certain instinctive tribute to my power. The mob cheers its servant, hisses its master.

"Doc," said I, "do you want to go to the Senate instead of Croffut?"

By the flames on the torches on either side I saw his amazement. "Me?" he exclaimed. "Why, you forget I've got a past."

"I do," said I, "and so does every one else. All we know is that you've got a future."

He drew in his breath hard and leaned back into the corner where the shadow hid him. At last he said in a quiet earnest voice: "You've given me self-respect, Senator. I can only say--I'll see that you never regret it."

I was hissed roundly at the hotel entrance, between cheers for Croffut and Berwick, and even for Woodruff. But I went to bed in the most cheerful, hopeful humor I had known since the day Scarborough was nominated. "At any rate"--so I was thinking--"my President, with my help, will be a man."

XXVI

"ONLY AN OLD JOKE"

On the train going home, I was nearer to castle-building than at any time since my boyhood castles collapsed under the rude blows of practical life.

My paths have not always been straight and open, said I to myself; like all others who have won in the conditions of this world of man still thrall to the brute, I have had to use the code of the jungle. In climbing I have had to stoop, at times to crawl. But, now that I have reached the top, I shall stand erect. I shall show that the sordidness of the struggle has not unfitted me to use the victory. True, there are the many and heavy political debts I've had to contract in getting Burbank the presidency; and as we must have a second term to round out our work, we shall be compelled to make some further compromises. We must still deal with men on the terms which human nature exacts. But in the main we can and we will do what is just and right, what helps to realize the dreams of the men and women who founded our country--the men and women like my father and mother.

And my mother's grave, beside my father's and among the graves of my sisters and my grandparents, rose before me. And I recalled the pledge I had made there, in the boyish beginnings of my manhood and my career. "My chance and Burbank's," said I, "comes just in time. We are now at the age where reputation is fixed; and our children are growing up and will soon begin to judge us and be judged from us."

Years of patient sowing, thought I, and at last the harvest! And what a harvest it will be! For under the teachings of experience I have sown not starlight and moonshine, but seeds.

The next morning I could not rise; it was six weeks before I was able to leave my bed. During that savage illness I met each and every one of the reckless drafts I had been drawing against my reserve vitality. Four times the doctors gave me up; once even Frances lost hope. When I was getting well she confessed to me how she had warned God that He need never expect to hear from her again if her prayer for me were not answered--and I saw she rather suspected that her threat was not unassociated with my recovery.

Eight weeks out of touch with affairs, and they the crucial eight weeks of all my years of thought and action! At last the harvest, indeed; and I was reaping what I had sown.

In the second week of January I revolted against the doctors and nurses and had my political secretary, Wheelock, telephone for Woodruff--the legislature had elected him to the Senate three days before. When he had sat with me long enough to realize that I could bear bad news, he said: "Goodrich and Burbank have formed a combination against you."

"How do you know?" said I, showing no surprise, and feeling none.

"Because"--he laughed--"I was in it. At least, they thought so until they had let me be safely elected. As nearly as I can make it out, they began to plot about ten days after you fell sick. At first they had it on the slate to do me up, too. But--the day after Christmas--Burbank sent for me--"

"Wait a minute," I interrupted. And I began to think. It was on Christmas day that Burbank telephoned for the first time in nearly three weeks, inquiring about my condition. I remembered their telling me how minute his questionings were. And I had thought his solicitude was proof of his friendship! Instead, he had been inquiring to make sure about the reports in the papers that I was certain to recover, in order that he might shift the factors in his plot accordingly. "When did you say Burbank sent for you?" I asked.

"On Christmas day," Woodruff replied.

I laughed; he looked at me inquiringly. "Nothing," said I. "Only an old joke--as old as human nature. Go on."

"Christmas day," he continued; "I didn't get to him until next morning. I can't figure out just why they invited me into their combine."

But I could figure it out, easily. If I had died, my power would have disintegrated and Woodruff would have been of no use to them. When they were sure I was going to live, they had to have him because he might be able to assassinate me, certainly could so cripple me that I would--as they reasoned--be helpless under their assaults. But it wasn't necessary to tell Woodruff this, I thought.

"Well," said I, "and what happened?"

"Burbank gave me a dose of his 'great and gracious way'--you ought to see the 'side' he puts on now!--and turned me over to Goodrich. He had been mighty careful not to give himself away any further than that. Then Goodrich talked to me for three solid hours, showing me it was my duty to the party as well as to myself to join him and Burbank in eliminating the one disturber of harmony--that meant you."

"And didn't they tell you they'd destroy you if you didn't?"

"Oh, that of course," he answered indifferently.

"Well, what did you do?"

"Played with 'em till I was elected. Then I dropped Goodrich a line. 'You can go to hell,' I wrote. 'I travel only with men'."

"Very imprudent," was my comment.

"Yes," he admitted, "but I had to do something to get the dirt off my hands."

"So Burbank has gone over to Goodrich!" I went on presently, as much to myself as to him.

"I always knew he was one of those chaps you have to keep scared to keep straight," said Woodruff. "They think your politeness indicates fear and your friendship fright. Besides, he's got a delusion that his popularity carried the West for him and that you and I did him only damage." Woodruff interrupted himself to laugh. "A friend of mine," he resumed, "was on the train with Scarborough when he went East to the meeting of Congress last month. He tells me it was like a President-elect on the way to be inaugurated. The people turned out at every cross-roads, even beyond the Alleghanies. And Burbank knows it. If he wasn't clean daft about himself he'd realize that if it hadn't been for you--well, I'd hate to say how badly he'd have got left. But then, if it hadn't been for you, he'd never have been governor. He was a dead one, and you hauled him out of the tomb."

True enough. But what did it matter now?

"He's going to get a horrible jolt before many months," Woodruff went on. "I can see you after him."

"You forget. He's President," I answered. "He's beyond our reach."

"Not when he wants a renomination," insisted Woodruff.

"He can get that without us--_if_," I said. "You must remember we've made him a fetish with our rank and file. And he's something of a fetish with the country, now that he's President. No, we can't destroy him--can't even injure him. He'll have to do that himself, if it's done. Besides--"