Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  Well, sir, I wasn’t long puzzling over why he had brought me up there. It stuck out all over, though they didn’t know it, and would have been mighty astonished to think that I saw. It was in their manner, in her condescending ways with me, in her assumption of serious interest, and in his going through the trick of “drawing me out,” and exhibiting me to her. I’ll have to admit that these young people viewed me in the light of a “character.” That was the part Farwell had me there to play.

  I can’t say I was too pleased with the notion, and I was kind of sorry for Mrs. Knowles, too. I’d have staked a good deal that my guess was right, for instance: that Farwell had gone first to this girl for her congratulations when he got the nomination, instead of to his wife; and that she felt—or pretended she felt—a soully sympathy with his ambitions; that she wanted to be, or to play the part of, a woman of affairs, and that he talked over everything he knew with her. I imagined they thought they were studying political reform together, and she, in her novel-reading way, wanted to pose to herself as the brilliant lady diplomat, kind of a Madam Roland advising statesmen, or something of that sort. And I was there as part of their political studies, an object-lesson, to bring her “more closely in touch” (as Farwell would say) with the realities he had to contend with. I was one of the “evils of politics,” because I knew how to control a few wards, and get out the darkey vote almost as well as Gorgett. Gorgett would have been better, but Farwell couldn’t very easily get at him.

  I had to sit there for a little while, of course, like a ninny between them; and I wasn’t the more comfortable because I thought Knowles looked like a bigger fool than I did. Bella’s presence seemed to excite him to a kind of exaltation; he had a dark flush on his face and his eyes were large and shiny.

  I got out as soon as I could, naturally, wondering what my wife would say if she knew; and while I was fumbling around among the knickknacks and fancy things in the hall for my hat and coat, I heard Farwell get up and cross the room to a chair nearer Bella, and then she said, in a sort of pungent whisper, that came out to me distinctly:

  “My knight!” That’s what she called him. “My knight!” That’s what she said.

  I don’t know whether I was more disgusted with myself for hearing, or with old Buskirk who spent his whole time frittering around the club library, and let his daughter go in for the sort of soulliness she was carrying on with Farwell Knowles.

  Trouble in our ranks began right away. Our nominee knew too much, and did all the wrong things from the start; he began by antagonizing most of our old wheel-horses; he wouldn’t consult with us, and advised with his own kind. In spite of that, we had a good organization working for him, and by a week before election I felt pretty confident that our show was as good as Gorgett’s. It looked like it would be close.

  Just about then things happened. We had dropped onto one of Lafe’s little tricks mighty smartly. We got one of his heelers fixed (of course we usually tried to keep all that kind of work dark from Farwell Knowles), and this heeler showed the whole business up for a consideration. There was a precinct certain to be strong for Knowles, where the balloting was to take place in the office-room of a hook-and-ladder company. In the corner was a small closet with one shelf, high up toward the ceiling. It was in the good old free and easy Hayes and Wheeler times, and when the polls closed at six o’clock it was planned that the election officers should set the ballot-box up on this shelf, lock the closet door, and go out for their suppers, leaving one of each side to watch in the room so that nobody could open the closet-door with a pass-key and tamper with the ballots before they were counted. Now, the ceiling over the shelf in the closet wasn’t plastered, and it formed, of course, part of the flooring in the room above. The boards were to be loosened by a Gorgett man upstairs, as soon as the box was locked in; he would take up a piece of planking—enough to get an arm in—and stuff the box with Gorgett ballots till it grunted. Then he would replace the board and slide out. Of course, when they began the count our people would know there was something wrong, but they would be practically up against it, and the precinct would be counted for Gorgett.

  They brought the heeler up to me, not at headquarters (I was city chairman) but at a hotel room I’d hired as a convenient place for the more important conferences and to keep out of the way of every Tom-Dick-and-Harry grafter. Bob Crowder, a ward committee-man, brought him up and stayed in the room, while the fellow—his name was Genz—went over the whole thing.

  “What do you think of it?” says Bob, when Genz finished. “Ain’t it worth the money? I declare, it’s so neat and simple and so almighty smart besides, I’m almost ashamed some of our boys hadn’t thought of it for us.”

  I was just opening my mouth to answer, when there was a signal knock at the door and a young fellow we had as a kind of watcher in the next room (opening into the one I used) put his head in and said Mr. Knowles wanted to see me.

  “Ask him to wait a minute,” said I, for I didn’t want him to know anything about Genz. “I’ll be there right away.”

  Then came Farwell Knowles’s voice from the other room, sharp and excited. “I believe I’ll not wait,” says he. “I’ll come in there now!”

  And that’s what he did, pushing by our watcher before I could hustle Genz into the hall through an outer door, though I tried to. There’s no denying it looked a little suspicious.

  Farwell came to a dead halt in the middle of the room.

  “I know that person!” he said, pointing at Genz, his brow mighty black. “I saw him and Crowder sneaking into the hotel by the back way, half an hour ago, and I knew there was some devilish—”

  “Keep your shirt on, Farwell,” said I.

  He was pretty hot. “I’ll be obliged to you,” he returned, “if you’ll explain what you’re doing here in secret with this low hound of Gorgett’s. Do you think you can play with me the way you do with your petty committee-men? If you do, I’ll show you! You’re not dealing with a child, and I’m not going to be tricked or sold out of this elec—”

  I took him by the shoulders and sat him down hard on a cane-bottomed chair. “That’s a dirty thought,” said I, “and if you knew enough to be responsible I reckon you’d have to account for it. As it is—why, I don’t care whether you apologize or not.”

  He weakened right away, or, at least, he saw his mistake. “Then won’t you give me some explanation,” he asked, in a less excitable way, “why are you closeted here with a notorious member of Gorgett’s ring?”

  “No,” said I, “I won’t.”

  “Be careful,” said he. “This won’t look well in print.”

  That was just so plumb foolish that I began to laugh at him; and when I got to laughing I couldn’t keep up being angry. It was ridiculous, his childishness and suspiciousness. Right there was where I made my mistake.

  “All right,” says I to Bob Crowder, giving way to the impulse. “He’s the candidate. Tell him.”

  “Do you mean it?” asks Bob, surprised.

  “Yes. Tell him the whole thing.”

  So Bob did, helped by Genz, who was more or less sulky, of course; and it wasn’t long till I saw how stupid I’d been. Knowles went straight up in the air.

  “I knew it was a dirty business, politics,” he said, jumping out of his chair, “but I didn’t realize it before. And I’d like to know,” he went on, turning to me, “how you learn to sit there so calmly and listen to such iniquities. How do you dull your conscience so that you can do it? And what course do you propose to follow in the matter of this confession?”

  “Me?” I answered. “Why, I’m going to send supper in to our fellows, and the box’ll never see that closet. The man upstairs may get a little tired. I reckon the laugh’s on Gorgett; it’s his scheme and—”

  Farwell interrupted me; his face was outrageously red. “What! You actually mean you hadn’t intended to expose this infamy?”


  “Steady,” I said. I was getting a little hot, too, and talked more than I ought. “Mr. Genz here has our pledge that he’s not given away, or he’d never have—”

  “Mister Genz!” sneered Farwell. “Mister Genz has your pledge, has he? Allow me to tell you that I represent the people, the honest people, in this campaign, and that the people and I have made no pledges to Mister Genz. You’ve paid the scoundrel—”

  “Here!” says Genz.

  “The scoundrel!” Farwell repeated, his voice rising and rising, “paid him for his information, and I tell you by that act and your silence on such a matter you make yourself a party to a conspiracy.”

  “Shut the transom,” says I to Crowder.

  “I’m under no pledge, I say,” shouted Farwell, “and I do not compound felonies. You’re not conducting my campaign. I’m doing that, and I don’t conduct it along such lines. It’s precisely the kind of fraud and corruption that I intend to stamp out in this town, and this is where I begin to work.”

  “How?” said I.

  “You’ll see—and you’ll see soon! The penitentiaries are built for just this—”

  “Sh, sh!” said I, but he paid no attention.

  “They say Gorgett owns the Grand Jury,” he went on. “Well, let him! Within a week I’ll be mayor of this town—and Gorgett’s Grand Jury won’t outlast his defeat very long. By his own confession this man Genz is party to a conspiracy with Gorgett, and you and Crowder are witnesses to the confession. I’ll see that you have the pleasure of giving your testimony before a Grand Jury of determined men. Do you hear me? And to-morrow afternoon’s Herald will have the whole infamous story to the last word. I give you my solemn oath upon it!”

  All three of us, Crowder, Genz, and I, sprang to our feet. We were considerably worked up, and none of us said anything for a minute or so, just looked at Knowles.

  “Yes, you’re a little shocked,” he said. “It’s always shocking to men like you to come in contact with honesty that won’t compromise. You needn’t talk to me; you can’t say anything that would change me to save your lives. I’ve taken my oath upon it, and you couldn’t alter me a hair’s breadth if you burned me at a slow fire. Light, light, that’s what you need, the light of day and publicity! I’m going to clear this town of fraud, and if Gorgett don’t wear the stripes for this my name’s not Farwell Knowles! He’ll go over the road, handcuffed to a deputy, before three months are gone. Don’t tell me I’m injuring you and the party by it. Pah! It will give me a thousand more votes. I’m not exactly a child, my friends! On my honour, the whole thing will be printed in to-morrow’s paper!”

  “For God’s sake—” Crowder broke out, but Knowles cut him off.

  “I bid you good-afternoon,” he said, sharply. We all started toward him, but before we’d got half across the room he was gone, and the door slammed behind him.

  Bob dropped into a chair; he was looking considerably pale; I guess I was, too, but Genz was ghastly.

  “Let me out of here,” he said in a sick voice. “Let me out of here!”

  “Sit down!” I told him.

  “Just let me out of here,” he said again. And before I could stop him, he’d gone, too, in a blind hurry.

  Bob and I were left alone, and not talking any.

  Not for a while. Then Bob said: “Where do you reckon he’s gone?”

  “Reckon who’s gone?”

  “Genz.”

  “To see Lafe.”

  “What?”

  “Of course he has. What else can he do? He’s gone up any way. The best he can do is to try to square himself a little by owning up the whole thing. Gorgett will know it all any way, to-morrow afternoon, when the Herald comes out.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Bob. “We’re done up along with Gorgett; but I believe that idiot’s right, he won’t lose votes by playing hob with us. What’s to be done?”

  “Nothing,” I answered. “You can’t head Farwell off. It’s all my fault, Bob.”

  “Isn’t there any way to get hold of him? A crazy man could see that his best friend couldn’t beg it out of him, and that he wouldn’t spare any of us; but don’t you know of some bludgeon we could hang up over him?”

  “Nothing. It’s up to Gorgett.”

  “Well,” said Bob, “Lafe’s mighty smart, but it looks like God-help-Gorgett now!”

  Well, sir, I couldn’t think of anything better to do than to go around and see Gorgett; so, after waiting long enough for Genz to see him and get away, I went. Lafe was always cool and slow; but I own I expected to find him flustered, and was astonished to see right away that he wasn’t. He was smoking, as usual, and wearing his hat, as he always did, indoors and out, sitting with his feet upon his desk, and a pleasant look of contemplation on his face.

  “Oh,” says I, “then Genz hasn’t been here?”

  “Yes,” says he, “he has. I reckon you folks have ’most spoiled Genz’s usefulness for me.”

  “You’re taking it mighty easy,” I told him.

  “Yep. Isn’t it all in the game? What’s the use of getting excited because you’ve blocked us on one precinct? We’ll leave that closet out of our calculations, that’s all.”

  “Almighty Powers, I don’t mean that! Didn’t Genz tell you—”

  “About Mr. Knowles and the Herald? Oh, yes,” he answered, knocking the ashes off his cigar quietly. “And about the thousand votes he’ll gain? Oh, yes. And about incidentally showing you and Crowder up as bribing Genz and promising to protect him—making your methods public? Oh, yes. And about the Grand Jury? Yes, Genz told me. And about me and the penitentiary. Yes, he told me. Mr. Knowles is a rather excitable young man. Don’t you think so?”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what’s the trouble?”

  “Trouble!” I said. “I’d like to know what you’re going to do?”

  “What’s Knowles going to do?”

  “He’s sworn to expose the whole deal, as you’ve just told me you knew; one of the preliminaries to having us all up before the next Grand Jury and sending you and Genz over the road, that’s all!”

  Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, tilting farther back, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes twinkling under his last summer’s straw hat-brim.

  “He can’t hardly afford it, can he,” he drawled, “he being the representative of the law and order and purity people? They’re mighty sensitive, those folks. A little thing turns ’em.”

  “I don’t understand,” said I.

  “Well, I hardly reckoned you would,” he returned. “But I expect if Mr. Knowles wants it warm all round, I’m willing. We may be able to do some of the heating up, ourselves.”

  This surprised me, coming from him, and I felt pretty sore. “You mean, then,” I said, “that you think you’ve got a line on something our boys have been planning—like the way we got onto the closet trick—and you’re going to show us up because we can’t control Knowles; that you hold that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? Then I tell you plainly I know I can’t shut him up, and you can go ahead and do us the worst you can.”

  “Whatever little tricks I may or may not have discovered,” he answered, “that isn’t what I mean, though I don’t know as I’d be above making such a threat if I thought it was my only way to keep out of the penitentiary. I know as well as you do that such a threat would only give Knowles pleasure. He’d take the credit for forcing me to expose you, and he’s convinced that everything of that kind he does makes him solider with the people and brings him a step nearer this chair I’m sitting in, which he regards as a step itself to the governorship and Heaven knows what not. He thinks he’s detached himself from you and your organization till he stands alone. That boy’s head was turned even before you fellows nominated him. He’s a wonder. I’ve been noticing him long before he turned up as a candidate, and I bel
ieve the great surprise of his life was that John the Baptist didn’t precede and herald him. Oh, no, going for you wouldn’t stop him—not by a thousand miles. It would only do him good.”

  “Well, what are you going to do? Are you going to see him?”

  “No, sir!” Lafe spoke sharply.

  “Well, well! What?”

  “I’m not bothering to run around asking audiences of Farwell Knowleses; you ought to know that!”

  “Given it up?”

  “Not exactly. I’ve sent a fellow around to talk to him.”

  “What use will that be?”

  Gorgett brought his feet down off the desk with a bang.

  “Then he can come to see me, if he wants to. D’you think I’ve been fool enough not to know what sort of man I was going up against? D’you think that, knowing him as I do, I’ve not been ready for something of this kind? And that’s all you’ll get out of me, this afternoon!”

  And it was all I did.

  It may have been about one o’clock, that night, or perhaps a little earlier, as I lay tossing about, unable to sleep because I was too much disturbed in my mind—too angry with myself—when there came a loud, startling ring at the front-door bell. I got up at once and threw open a window over the door, calling out to know what was wanted.