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diff --git a/old/50269-0.txt b/old/50269-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6457d9f..0000000 --- a/old/50269-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6606 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Port Argent, by Arthur Colton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Port Argent - A Novel - -Author: Arthur Colton - -Illustrator: Eliot Keen - -Release Date: October 21, 2015 [EBook #50269] -Last Updated: March 12, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PORT ARGENT *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - -PORT ARGENT - -A Novel - -By Arthur Colton - -With a Frontispiece by Eliot Keen - -New York - -Henry Holt And Company - -1904 - -[Ill 0001] - -[Ill 0010] - -[Ill 0011] - - -IN MEMORIAM - -C. W. WELLS - - -DEDICATED - -TO - -GEORGE COLTON - -863714 - -PORT ARGENT - - - - -CHAPTER I--PULSES - - -|PORT ARGENT is a city lying by a brown navigable river that gives it -a waterway to the trade of the Lakes. No one knows why it grew there, -instead of elsewhere on the banks of the Muscadine, with higher land and -better convenience. One dim-eyed event leaped on the back of another, -and the city grew. - -In the Senate Chamber where accidents and natural laws meet in Executive -Session or Committee of the Whole, and log-roll bills, there are no -“press galleries,” nor any that are “open to the public.” Inferences -have been drawn concerning its submerged politics, stakes laid on -its issues, and lobbying attempted. What are its parties, its -sub-committees? Does an administrative providence ever veto its bills, -or effectively pardon the transgressors of any statute? - -Fifty years ago the Honourable Henry Champney expected that the acres -back of his large square house, on Lower Bank Street by the river, would -grow in value, and that their growing values would maintain, or help -to maintain, his position in the community, and show the over-powers to -favour integrity and Whig principles. But the city grew eastward instead -into the half-cleared forest, and the sons of small farmers in that -direction are now the wealthy citizens. The increment of the small -farmers and the decrement of Henry Champney are called by social -speculators “unearned,” implying that this kind of attempt to lobby a -session of accidents and natural laws is, in general, futile. - -Still, the acres are mainly built over. The Champney house stands back -of a generous lawn with accurate paths. Trolley cars pass the front edge -of the lawn. Beyond the street and the trolleys and sidewalks comes the -bluff. Under the bluff is the tumult of the P. and N. freight-yards. But -people in Port Argent have forgotten what Whig principles were composed -of. - -There in his square-cupolaed house, some years ago, lived Henry Champney -with his sister, Miss Eunice, and his daughter, Camilla. Camilla was -born to him in his middle life, and through her eyes he was beginning, -late in his old age, to look curiously at the affairs of a new -generation. - -Wave after wave these generations follow each other. The forces of -Champney's generation were mainly spent, its noisy questions and answers -subsiding. It pleased him that he was able to take interest in the -breakers that rolled over their retreat. He wondered at the growth of -Port Argent. - -The growth of Port Argent had the marks of that irregular and corrupt -legislation of destiny. It had not grown like an architect-builded -house, according to orderly plans. If some thoughtful observer had come -to it once every decade of its seventy years, it might have seemed to -his mind not so much a mechanic result of men's labours as something -living and personal, a creature with blood flowing daily through -arteries and veins (trolley cars being devices to assist the flow), -with brains working in a thousand cells, and a heart beating foolish -emotions. He would note at one decade how it had thrown bridges across -the river, steeples and elevator-buildings into the air, with sudden -throbs of energy; had gathered a bundle of railroads and a row -of factories under one arm, and was imitating speech through a -half-articulate daily press; at another decade, it would seem to have -slept; at another, it had run asphalt pavements out into the country, -after whose enticing the houses had not followed, and along its busiest -streets were hollow, weed-grown lots. On the whole, Port Argent would -seem masculine rather than feminine, reckless, knowing not form or -order, given to growing pains, boyish notions, ungainly gestures, -changes of energy and sloth, high hope and sudden moodiness. - -The thoughtful observer of decades, seeing these signs of eccentric -character, would feel curious to understand it from within, to enter its -streets, offices, and homes, to question and listen, to watch the civic -heart beat and brain conceive. - -One April afternoon, some decades ago, such an observer happened by and -found gangs of men tearing up Lower Bank Street. - -Lower Bank Street was higher than Bank Street proper, but it was down -the river, and in Port Argent people seldom cared whether anything -fitted anything else. - -Bank Street proper was the main business street beside the river. Fifty -years before, in forecasting the future city, one would have pictured -Lower Bank Street as an avenue where wealth and dignity would take -its pleasure; so had Henry Champney pictured it at that time; but -the improvident foreigner lived along it largely, and possessed Port -Argent's one prospect, the brown-flowing river with its ships. Most of -the buildings were small houses or tenements. There was one stately -line of square old mansions, a block or two long and beginning with the -Champney place. - -A worn-out, puddle-holding Macadam roadbed had lain in the street since -the memory of most men. It had occurred to a railroad to come into the -city from the north, peg a station to the river bank, and persuade the -city to pave its approaches, and when the observer of decades asked -a citizen on the sidewalk: “Why, before this long, grey station and -freight-yards here of the Peninsular and Northern Railroad are these -piles of paving brick, this sudden bustle on Lower Bank Street?” he was -told: “It's a deal between Marve Wood and the P. and N. He was going to -make them come into the Union Station, but they fixed him, I guess.” - -“Fixed him?” - -“Oh, they're a happy family now.” - -The citizens of Port Argent held singular language. - -“Who is Marve Wood?” - -“He's--there he is over there.” - -“Talking to the young man with the notebook and papers?” - -“Yes. That's Dick Hennion, engineer and contractor.” - -“And this Wood--is he an engineer and contractor?” - -“No--well, yes. He contracts with himself and engineers the rest of us.” - -The observer of decades moved on, thoughtfully to observe other phases -of the city, its markets, churches, charities, children pouring out of -school, its pleasures at theatre, fair-grounds, and Outing Club. - -The young man with the notebook stood on the curb, writing in it with -a pencil. He was large, lean, sinewy, broad-shouldered, brown-haired, -grey-eyed, short-moustached, with features bony and straight. He -produced the effect of impassiveness, steadiness, something concentrated -and consistent in the midst of the bustle. Workmen slouched and hurried -to and fro about him, unnoticed. There was the mingled click of shovel -and bar and trowel, thud of rammer, and harsh voices of foremen. The -elderly “Marve Wood,” stood beside him--thick-set, with a grey beard of -the cut once typical throughout the Northern States, which gave to the -faces that shape as of a blunt spade, and left the lips clean-shaven. He -had a comfortable girth, a straight, thin-lipped mouth, a certain mellow -Yankeeism of expression, and wore a straw hat and a black alpaca coat. - -Hennion tore a leaf from the notebook, and beckoned the head foreman, a -huge, black-moustached Irishman. - -“Here, Kennedy, if any of these men ask for jobs to-morrow, set them to -work.” - -The nearer workmen looked curiously toward' the paper which Kennedy -tucked in his vest pocket. Hennion and Wood turned away to the city. The -sidewalk grew more crowded as they came to Upper Bank Street, where the -statue of a Civil-War general struck a gallant attitude on a pedestal. -He appeared to be facing his country's enemies with determination, but -time and weather had given the face a slight touch of disappointment, as -if he found no enemies worth while in sight, nothing but the P. and N. -station and the workmen tearing up Lower Bank Street. - -Henry Champney stood at his tall library window, gazing out, and saw -Hennion and Wood go up the street. “Dick must have a hundred men out -there,” he said. - -“Has he?” Camilla looked up from her book. - -“Ha! Concentration was the military principle of Napoleon,” Champney -went on. “Our energetic friend, Dick, is, in his own way, I should say, -Napoleonic in action.” Camilla came to the window and took her father's -arm, and stood leaning her head against his large bowed shoulder. She -did not seem inclined to concentrate her thoughts on the scene in front -of the P. and N. station, or the Napoleonic actions of “Dick,” but -looked away at the sunlight shimmering in the thin young maple leaves, -at the hurrying, glinting river, at the filmy clouds floating in the -perfect blue. The lower edges of this perfect sky were a bit stained -with the reek of the factory chimneys across the river; and the river, -when you came to consider it, was muddy beyond all reason, and thronged -with impetuous tugboats. The factory chimneys and tugboats were -energetic, too, concentrated and Napoleonic in action. The tugboats -had no poise or repose, but the factory chimneys had both. Their fiery -energies had solid bases, and the powers within them did not carry them -away. There are men, as well as steam engines, whose energies carry -them bodily, and there are others who are equally energetic from a fixed -basis, and the difference is important--important to the observer of the -signs of the times; possibly even important to Camilla. - -Camilla's thoughts had no bearing on factories and tugboats. They were -more like the filmy clouds floating in the blue, beyond the stain of the -spouting chimneys, and if darkened at all it was probably only as sunny -clouds are sometimes darkened mysteriously by the shadows of themselves. - -Hennion and Wood entered the swing-door of a business block, mounted -a flight of stairs to an office where “Marvin Wood” was gilded on the -ground glass of the door. The room was large, and contained a desk and -an extraordinary number of comfortable chairs. A typewriter clicked in -the next room. They lit cigars and sat down before the open window. The -street outside was full of noises. The windows of the office building -opposite were open. - -“Those were Freiburger's men, you say?” remarked Hennion. - -“Whole batch. It's Freiburger's wanting to get on the Council, and his -boys are bothering him already for 'shobs.' Oh--well--he's all right.” - -“He can get on the City Hall flagstaff and wave himself for a starry -banner if he wants to.” - -Wood chuckled appreciatively at the image of Freiburger in that -function. - -“But you'd better tell Freiburger,” continued Hennion, “that I won't -stand any deadheads.” - -“Shan't tell him a thing, Dick, not a thing.” - -Wood turned shrewd grey eyes on the young man, and smiled away the -shortness of his answer. The eyes were full of humour and liking for the -man beside him, and bordered on a network of wrinkles. - -“Supposing you feel like firing some of his men, you'd better go and see -him,” he added. - -“All right, I'll do that.” - -“And take your time, of course,” said Wood. “Hang on till you're both -satisfied. He's peaceful, only if you scare him to death, he might feel -injured.” - -“Well, I'm glad to oblige him----” - -“That's it. Talk to him that way. Fire 'em, of course, but--you'd better -make it all right with Freiburger. A man that rides in a cross-country -schooner, sometimes he has to join the shoving.” - -“That's all right.” - -Hennion smoked in silence a few moments, then took his cigar out and -added, “I see.” - -“I never knew a man that made a living by looking up rows for himself,” - said Wood, wrinkling his eyes thoughtfully at the coils of smoke, -“except one, and that wasn't what you'd call a comfortable living. It -was a man named Johnson, in St. Joseph, somewhere about '60. He started -in to fight the landlord of the Morton House for his bill, till the -landlord was full of knots, and his features painful, and his secretest -rheumatism woke up, and his interest in his bill was dead. That was all -right, supposing Johnson didn't really have the price. I guess, -like enough, he hadn't. But he went round town then making the same -arrangement with other folks, a lawyer and a liveryman and others. -Sometimes he had to fight, sometimes he didn't, but after a while -somebody drew a gun on him, and St. Joseph buried him with a sigh. He -never was really comfortable.” - -Wood wrinkled his eyes, and followed the twists and capers of the smoke -with a close interest. Hennion sighted over the points of his shoes at -an upper window opposite, where three men were arguing excitedly in what -appeared dumb-show. - -“Does the parable mean something, particularly St. Joseph's sigh?” - -“The parable,” said Wood, “particularly St. Joseph's sigh. Yes. It -means, if the peaceable man comes out better 'n the warlike, it's -because folks get so tired of the warlike.” - -“Oh!” - -“Now, the Preacher, up on Seton Avenue----” - -“Aidee?” - -“Yes. He's terrible warlike. He says I'm a thief. I say he's a fine -man--fine man. He keeps on saying it. I keep on saying it. Folks -got kind of tired of him a while ago. He says I'm a disease, now. -Well--maybe so. Then I guess this world's got me chronic. Chap comes -along with a patent pill, and a new porous plaster, and claims his -plaster has the holes arranged in triangles, instead of squares like all -previous plasters; he has an air of candid discovery; he says, 'Bless my -soul! Your system's out of order.' Sounds interesting once in a while. -And then this world gets so tired of him; says, 'I've had a belly-ache -eleven thousand years. I wish to God you wouldn't keep giving it new -names.' Well,--a couple of years ago the _Chronicle_ was publishing -Aidee's speeches on Civic something or other every week. Aidee used -to shoot straight but scattering at that time. He'd got too much -responsibility for the details of the millennium. Why, when you come -right down to it, Dick, Aidee's got as sky-high an opinion of himself -as anybody I know. That's natural enough, why, yes. If I could stand up -like him, and convert myself into a six-inch pipe of natural gas on the -blaze, I'd have the same. Certain, I would. But, there ain't any real -democracy in him. He says he'd sit in the gutter with any man. Guess -likely he would. I wouldn't. But would he and the other gutter-man -hitch. Would they get along together? No, they wouldn't. Aidee's a loose -comet that thinks he's the proper conflagration for boiling potatoes. -Go on now! He's too warlike. Him and his Independent Reform and his -Assembly--oh, well--he wasn't doing any great harm then. He ain't now, -either. I told him one time, like this: “I says, 'Fire away anyhow that -suits you. But,' I says, 'what makes you think you'd like my job?'” - -“'What is your job?' says he. - -“'Don't know as I could describe it,' I says, and I was a little -stumped. 'It's not that kind. It's complicated.' - -“'No,' he says, 'as you understand and work your job, I shouldn't like -it.' - -“'No more I shouldn't yours. Speaking of which,' I says, 'what is your -job?' - -“And he was stumped too. He was, for a fact. - -“'I don't know as I could describe it. It's not that kind,' he says. - -“'Complicated?' - -“'Yes.' - -“'Well,' I says, 'I shouldn't want to try it. I'd mean all right, but it -wouldn't go.' I says, 'There was a man died up here at the city jail -last year, and Sol Sweeney, the jailor, he was going to call in a -clergyman on the case as being in that line. But then Sweeney thinks, “I -can talk it. I've heard 'em.” Well, Sweeney's got an idea his -intellectuals are all right anyhow. Being a jailor, he says, he's got -the habit of meditation. So he starts in.” - -“Bill, you've been a bad lot.” - -“Yep.” - -“There ain't no hope for you, Bill.” - -“No,” says Bill, “there ain't.” - -“You'll go to that there bad place, Bill.” Bill was some bored, but he -allowed, “I guess that's right,” speaking feeble. “Well, Bill,” says -Sweeney, “you ought to be thankful you've got a place to go to.”' - -“Aidee laughed,--he did really,--and after that he looked thoughtful. -Fine man, Dick. I sized him up for the things he didn't say. 'Sweeney,' -I says, 'he meant all right, and he'd got the general outline of it. But -I was going to say, if I tried to run your job for you, thinking anybody -could run it with his intentions, I'd make a gone fool of myself, sure.' - -“Now see this, Dick. I did make a gone fool of myself, sure. It wasn't -any of my business what he didn't know. He's been acting too reasonable -since. That's what I wanted to tell you.” - -“What for?” - -“Oh, well,” said Wood balmily, “you might run across him. You might be -interested to find out what he's up to.” - -After a few moments of silence Hennion dropped his feet and stood up. - -“All right. I won't row with Frei-burger, but I don't see what Aidee's -got to do with me,” he said, and went out, and up Bank Street, and then -turned into Hancock, a street which led back from the river into the -residence sections. - - - - -CHAPTER II--RICHARD THE SECOND - - -|WHEN Hennion reached his rooms the sunlight was slanting through the -maples outside. - -He sat down after supper by his windows. The twilight was thickening in -the foliage, the sparrows holding noisy caucuses there---- - -Hennion's father had been a contractor and engineer before him, and -before the great war had made the face of the nation more thoughtful -with the knowledge of what may happen in well-regulated families. - -Once the sun was a pillar of fire and cloud, the land of promise seemed -every day attained, and the stars were jubilant. Were ever such broad -green plains, strong brown rivers and blue lakes? There was oratory -then, and sublime foreheads were smitten against the stars. Such oratory -and such a forehead had Henry Champney, in those days. The subject -of oratory was the devotion of the forefathers, the promises and -attainments of the nation set forth in thrilling statistics. A thousand -audiences shuffled and grinned, and went their way to accomplish the -more immediate things which the orators had endeavoured to decorate. -The admiration of the orator and the public was mutual. There was a -difference in type,--and the submerged industrialist, who worked with -odd expedients, who jested with his lips, and toiled terribly with brain -and hand, admired the difference. - -The elder Hennion did not care about “the destinies of the nation.” He -dredged the channel of that brown river, the Muscadine, drove the piles -that held the docks of Port Argent, and dug the east section of the -Interstate Canal. The war came, and someone appointed him to something -connected with the transportation of commissary. He could not escape the -habit of seeing that things did what they were supposed to do. Hennion's -supplies were apt to reach the Army of the Cumberland regularly and on -scheduled time, it would be hard to tell why. - -He built the Maple Street Bridge, and the Chickering Valley Railroad. A -prairie town was named after him, which might become a stately city, -and did not. Someone in the East, speaking technically, “wrecked” the -Chickering Valley Railroad for private reasons, rendered the stock of -it for the time as waste winter leaves. The elder Hennion died poor and -philosophical. - -“Never mind, Dick. He [the wrecker], he'd have gone to hell anyhow. -That's a cheerful thought. When old Harvey Ester-brook died, he told -his boys he hoped they'd have as much fun spending his money as he did -making it, but they didn't. They worried it away. They'd've disappointed -him there, only he was dead. It's mighty good luck to be young, and -I wish I had your luck. But I've had a good time.” Such was “Rick” - Hennion's philosophy. - -Young Hennion had been his father's close companion those last seven -years, and learned of him the mechanics of engineering and the ways of -business, how men talked and what they meant by it. He stepped into the -inheritance of a known name and a wide acquaintance. He knew everyone on -Bank Street, merchants and lawyers, railroad men up and down the -State, agents and promoters, men in grain and lumber, iron and oil, and -moreover some thousand or more men who handled pick and shovel, saw -and trowel. He recognised faces brown with earth-dust, black with coal, -white with the dust of grain. Men of one class offered him contracts, -somewhat small at first; men of another class seemed to look to him as -naturally for jobs; his life stretched before him a sweep of fertile -country. Among the friendliest hands held out to him were Marve Wood's. - -Wood came to Port Argent after the War, a man in middle life, but he -seemed to have been there before. He seemed to have drifted much about -the continent. It was a common type in Port Argent, so many citizens, -one found, had drifted in their time. He had a kind of land agency at -one time, and an office on Hancock Street, and presently became one -of those personages little noted by a public looking to oratory, but -certainly members of party committees, sometimes holders of minor -offices. Such a man's power, if it grows, has a reason to account for -the growth, a process of selecting the man most fitted to perform a -function. If one wished to know anything intimate about the city, what -was doing, or about to be done, or how the Council would vote, or -any one thread in the tangled interests of scores of men, Marve Wood -appeared to have this information. His opinion was better--at least -better informed--than most opinions. For some reason it was difficult -not to be on good terms with him. - -Port Argent concluded one day that it had a “boss.” It was suggested in -a morning paper, and people talked of it on the street. Port Argent was -interested, on the whole pleased. It sounded metropolitan. Someone said, -“We're a humming town.” Real estate at auction went a shade higher that -morning, as at the announcement of a new hotel or theatre contracted -for. The hardware man from the corner of Hancock Street said: - -“Wood, I hear you're a boss.” - -“That's it. Fellow told me so this morning. I threw him out of the -window and asked him how to spell it. Been figuring on that ever since.” - -“Well, I've been reading the New York papers, and they do say down there -it ought to be spelled with a brick.” - -“Well--now--I learned to spell that way, but the teacher used a shingle -mostly. 'Marvin Wood, spell buzzard,' says he, and splits his shingle on -my head for dropping a 'z.' Yes, sir, that was fifty years ago, and now -every time I write a tough word I duck my head to dodge the shingle, and -spell it wrong. I don't know. Maybe a brick would 've been better. Want -anything in particular?” - -The hardware man wanted to know about the new Third-ward schoolhouse, -and when and where to put in a bid for supplying it twelve dozen -indestructible desks. - -The sparrows in the dark maples in front of Hennion's windows were -quiet, because the night was come, wherein no sparrow may quarrel. The -issues of their commonwealth were settled by being forgotten. Doubtless, -many a sparrow would keep the perch he had pre-empted unrighteously, -and in the morning the issues be different, and the victims find their -neighbours overnight had tired of their wrongs. Even one's neighbours' -sins are not interesting forever, let alone their wrongs. - -Hennion dressed and went out, and presently was walking on Lower Bank -Street past the broken-up street and the piles of paving brick. - -The Champney house was one of those houses that cannot do otherwise -than contain four rooms to the floor, each square, high-ceilinged, and -furnished more with an eye to the squareness and high ceilings than to -the people who might come to live in it, not so angled and elevated. -Hennion was not impressionable, but it seemed to him dimly that Camilla -ought to sit on a different kind of chair. The house was heavy with the -spirit of another generation, as if effectual life in it had stopped -short years before. The furniture in the parlour had an air of conscious -worth; the curtains hung reminiscently; Webster, Clay, and Quincy Adams -occupied gilded frames and showed star-smitten foreheads. - -Through the open door across the hall Hennion could see the big white -head of Henry Champney in the lamplight, and knew where Miss Eunice sat -primly with her knitting and gold-rimmed glasses. - -The rush of the day's work was still ringing in his mind, the sense of -the flexibleness of men and events, the absence of all form among them, -or attitude, or repose. The Champney house with its inmates, except -Camilla, seemed to have petrified at its point of greatest dignity. - -Camilla said: “You haven't heard a word I've been saying, and it's -important!” - -Camilla was the second generation to possess the gift of feeling the -importance of the immediate occasion. Fair maids are common enough, and -yet most of them are extraordinary. But Camilla had the shining eyes, -and lift of thick dark hair away from the forehead, that to elderly -people recalled Henry Champney of long ago. She had the same intensity -and readiness of belief. The manner in which that man of distinction -would wrap small issues in the flag of the Republic, and identify a -notion of his own with a principle of the Constitution, used to astonish -even the constituency which voted him a giant. She seemed to Hennion not -less apart from the street than Henry Champney, Miss Eunice, and their -antiquities. She belonged to a set of associations that should not be -mixed up with the street. In the street, in the clear light and grey -dust, men and ideas were shaped to their uses. But Camilla's presence -was to him a kind of vestal college. At least, it was the only presence -that ever suggested to his mind things of that nature, symbols and -sacred fires, and half-seen visions through drifting smoke. - -He was contented now to wait for the revelation. - -“Have you lots of influence really?” she said. “Isn't it fine! I want -you to see Mr. Aidee. He's coming here to-night.” - -The revelation was unpleasant. He felt his latent dislike for Aidee grow -suddenly direct. When it came to introducing the incongruities of the -dusty street and blatant platform to the place where his few silent -ideals lay glimmering; bringing Camilla to march in the procession where -chants were played on fife and drum, and the Beatitudes painted on the -transparencies, so to speak--it was unpleasant. - -“I'd rather not see him here.” - -“But he's coming!” - -“All right. I shan't run away.” - -“And he has asked my father----” - -Hennion disliked Aidee to the point of assassination. - -“Oh, Camilla!” he broke in, and then laughed. “Did he ask Miss Eunice to -come in, too?” - -The prospect had its humours--the guilelessness of the solemn -preparation to sweep him into the fold with ceremony, with peals of -Champney oratory and the calamitous approval of Miss Eunice. It might -turn out a joke, and Camilla might be persuaded to see the joke. She -sometimes did; that is, she sometimes hovered over the comprehension -of a joke, as a bright, peculiar seraph might hover over some muddy -absurdity jogging along the highway of this world, but she had so many -other emotions to take care of, they shed such prismatic colours around -her, that her humour could not always be depended on. - -The door-bell rang, and Aidee came in. Hennion felt nearly benevolent, -as he shook hands and towered over him. Aidee was slight, black-haired, -black-eyed, smooth-faced, and pale. Miss Eunice entered. She had the air -of condemning the monstrous world for its rotundity and reckless orbit. -Mr. Champney's white head and sunken shoulders loomed behind her. The -five sat about the centre-table. A chandelier glittered overhead. - -Hennion felt amused and interested in the scene. Mr. Champney's big -white head was bowed over and his eyes glowed under shaggy brows; -Camilla was breathless and bright with interest; Miss Eunice had her -gold-rimmed glasses fixed in qualified approval on Aidee, who was not -rotund, though his orbit seemed to be growing reckless. He was on his -feet, pacing the floor and talking rapidly. It occurred to Hennion that -Aidee was a peculiar man, and at that moment making a masterful speech. -He swept together at first a number of general ideas which did not -interest Hennion, who looked, in fact, at Camilla. Aidee drew nearer in -particulars. Hennion felt himself caught in the centre of a narrowing -circle of propositions. He ceased to be amused. It was interesting, but -disagreeable. He appreciated the skill of the performance, and returned -to dislike the performer, who leaned forward now, with his hands on the -table. - -“Mr. Hennion, you don't belong to that class of men or that class of -ideas. You are doing good work for this city in your profession. You -put your right hand to it. We share its benefits. But your left hand -is mixed up with something that is not upbuilding, but a sapping of -foundations. Here the hopes of our fathers are more than fulfilled, and -here they are bitterly disappointed. How do you come to have a share--in -both of these results?” - -Mr. Champney lifted his brows, appreciating the rhetoric. Camilla's face -was flushed with excitement. How glorious! And now, Dick! - -Hennion resented the situation. His length and impassiveness helped him, -so that he seemed to be holding it easily, but he felt like nothing of -that kind. Talking for exhibition, or approval, was a thing his soul -abhorred in himself, and observed but curiously in other men. He felt -that Camilla expected him to talk with elevation, from the standpoint of -a noble sinner now nobly repentant, some such florid circus performance. -He felt drawn in obstinacy to mark out his position with matter-of-fact -candour. Aidee's rhetoric only emphasised what seemed to Hennion a kind -of unreal, gaudy emotionalism. - -“I am not in politics, Mr. Aidee. I meet with it as an incident to -business. I sometimes do engineering for the city. I am supposed to -have a certain amount in preference on contracts, and to give a certain -amount of preference on jobs to workmen your city politicians send, -provided they're good workmen. Maybe when they vote they understand -themselves to be voting for their jobs. They're partly mistaken. I -contract with them to suit my business interests, but I never canvass. -Probably the ward leaders do. I suppose there's a point in all this -affair. I'd rather come to it, if you don't mind. You want me to do -personal wire-pulling, which I never do and don't like, in order to down -certain men I am under obligations to, which doesn't seem honourable, -and against my business interests, which doesn't seem reasonable.” - -“Wire-pulling? No.” - -“Why, yes. That's what you're doing now, isn't it? You think I'm a wire -that pulls a lot of other wires. Of course it's all right, if you like -it, or think you have to, but I don't like it, and don't see that I have -to.” - -Aidee hesitated. - -“Miss Champney----” - -Hennion was sharp and angry in a moment. - -“Mr. Aidee, the standards of my class are not supposed to be up to -yours----” - -“Why not? Class! I have no class!” - -“I don't know why not. I don't seem to care just now. But not everyone -even of my class would have cared to ask Miss Champney to oblige them -this way.” - -“Why not?” - -“Because we have more scruples than we advertise. I beg your pardon.” - -“The apology seems in place,” rumbled Mr. Champney, his voice vibrating -thorough bass. - -“I offer it to you, too, sir. The situation is forced on me.” - -“The gentleman doesn't like the situation. I suggest”--Champney -heaved his wide frame out of the chair--“that he be released from his -situation.” - -“Do you like the situation, sir?” - -“I do not, sir,” with rising thunder. “I hope, if this discussion is -continued here, or elsewhere,”--appearing to imply a preference for -“elsewhere,”--“it will have no reference to my family.” - -Mr. Champney withdrew royally. Miss Eunice followed, a suspicion of -meekness and fright in her manner, her glasses tilted sideways. Aidee -stood still a moment. Then he said quietly: - -“I have made a mistake. Good-night,” and took his leave. He looked tired -and weighed down. - -Hennion felt the air as full of echoes and vibrations subsiding. - -Camilla wept with her head on the table. - -“I'm sorry, Milly. It was a shocking row.” - -Camilla felt her soul in too great tumult to consider either humour or -repentance. - -Going past the piles of brick, on Lower Bank Street, Hennion felt like -shoving them all into the Muscadine, and Aidee and Wood after them. He -wanted his private life and work, and Camilla. But Camilla hovered away -from him, and would not be drawn nearer. She was a puzzling seraph, and -the world was a puzzling world, in whose algebra the equations were too -apt to have odd zeros and miscellaneous infinities dropped among them -to suit the taste of an engineer. It seemed to be constructed not -altogether and solely for business men to do business in, else why such -men as Aidee, so irrationally forcible? And why such girls as Camilla to -fill a practical man's soul with misty dreams, and draw him whither he -would not? - -“Wisdom,” says the man in the street, “is one of those things which do -not come to one who sits down and waits.” There was once a persuasion -that wisdom would come to nothing else than just such leisure and -patient attendance; but the man in the street has made his “hustling” - his philosophy, and made the Copernican discovery that the street, and -no longer the study, nor yet the hall of legislature, is the centre of -the wheeling system. There the main current runs; elsewhere are eddies, -backwaters, odd futilities, and these, too, fall into the current -eventually and pour on. Life is governed and convinced by the large -repetitions of “hunger and labour, seed-time and harvest, love and -death,” and of these the first four make their reports in the street. - -Only love and death seem to have their still eccentric orbits, not -Copernican, and even the street is content to refer them to seven -celestial spheres and a primum mobile, and say no more. - - - - -CHAPTER III--CAMILLA - - -|SOMEONE once suggested that Camilla was “a type,” and Miss Eunice found -comfort in the suggestion. To most of her friends she seemed nothing -else than Camilla, a term inclusive and select, meaning something -radiant and surprising, valuable for the zest that came with her and -lingered after her going. They said that, if she had been born to -masculine destinies, she would have been another Henry Champ-ney, a -Camillus with - - “The fervent love Camillus bore - - His native land.” - -In that case she would not have been Camilla. Here speculation paused. - -In general they agreed that she walked and talked harmoniously, and was -lovely and lovable, with grey eyes and lifted brows, stature tall and -shoulder carried martially, delicate and tender curves of mouth and -throat. Camilla was no accumulation of details either. - -At any rate, the world is not so old but a sweet-faced maiden still -makes it lyrical. It is a fine question whether she is not more -exhilarating than ever. - -Camilla seemed to herself identified with her ideas, her energetic -beliefs and sympathies. The terms in which she made an attempt to -interpret herself came forth partly from cloistral studies in that hive -of swarming energies, a girls' college in an old New England town, where -ran a swift river, much cleaner and swifter than the Muscadine. She -barely remembered when the family lived in the national capital, and -Henry Champney was a noted and quoted man. She had but a dim mental -picture of an invalid mother, fragile, be-laced, and be-ribboned. Her -memories ran about Port Argent and the Muscadine, the Eastern seminary, -the household rule of Miss Eunice. They included glimpses of her -father's friend, the elder Hennion, a broad-shouldered man, who always -had with him the slim youth, Dick; which slim youth was marvellously -condescending, and once reconstructed her doll with wires, so that when -you pulled a wire it would wave arms and legs in the manner in which -Miss Eunice said no well-bred little girl ever waved her arms and legs. -He seemed a beneficial person, this Dick. He taught her carpentry and -carving. Magical things he used to do with hammer and saw, mallet and -chisel, in that big unfurnished room over the mansards of the Champney -house, so high up that one saw the Muscadine through the tops of -the trees. The room was unchanged even now. It was still Camilla's -hermitage. The ranges of trunks were still there, the tool-chest with -Dick's old tools, old carvings, drawings, plans of bridges. - -He was beneficial, but peculiar. He thought the Maple Street bridge -the finest of objects on the earth. He did not care for fairy stories, -because they were not true. - -Henry Champney kept certain blocks of wood, whereon Camilla at the age -of twelve had cut the semblances of faces, semblances of the vaguest, -but all hinting at tragedy. Miss Eunice had disapproved of that pursuit. - -On the morning after Aidee's visit Miss Eunice sat at the parlour window -knitting. Beyond the lawn ran Lower Bank Street; beyond the street and -underneath the bluff were the freight-yards, with piles of black coal -and brown iron dust, and a travelling crane rattling to and fro, from -ship to car. Beyond the yards were the river and the P. and N. railroad -bridge; beyond the river the dark chimneys of factories, with long -roofs, and black smoke streaming in the sky, and the brick and wood -tenements of East Argent. Beyond these, hidden but influential, because -one knew they were there, lay the rank, unsightly suburbs; beyond the -suburbs, a flat, prosperous country of fields and woods, farm buildings, -highways, and trestle pyramids of the oil wells. - -Camilla was reading, with one hand plunged in her hair. The river -and factories had lain some hours under the shadow of Miss Eunice's -disapproval. She turned the shadow on Camilla, and remonstrated. Camilla -came out of her absorption slowly. The remonstrance roused her to -reminiscence. - -“We used to keep our heads in wet towels at college,” she said. - -Miss Eunice laid down her knitting. Camilla went on thoughtfully: - -“Do you know, Aunty, a wet towel is a good thing?” - -Miss Eunice sighed. Camilla lingered over her reminiscences. After a -time she picked up the books that lay about her, laid them on her lap, -and began running through the titlepages. - -“They're Mr. Aidee's. Listen! 'The Problems of the Poor,' 'The Civic -Disease,' 'If Christ Came to Chicago.'” - -“Mr. Aidee lent you such books!” - -“Yes, but you need a wet towel with them. 'Socialism and Anarchy,' -'The Inner Republic.' Oh! Why! How fine!” She had slipped beyond the -titlepage of a fat grey volume. She was sunk fathoms deep, and soaked -in a new impression, nested and covered and lost to conversation. Miss -Eunice returned to her knitting, and spread gloom about her in a circle. - -It is one of the penalties of stirring times that they open such gulfs -between the generations. If the elders have been unplastic, the young -have not taken it intimately to themselves that life was as keen to -their predecessors as it is to them, that the present is not all the -purport of the past. Our fathers did not live merely in order that we -might live, but were worth something to themselves. Miss Eunice had had -her heartbeats and flushed cheeks, no matter at this late day when or -how. No matter what her romance was. It was a story of few events or -peculiarities. She had grown somewhat over-rigid with time. That -her melancholy--if melancholy it should be called, a certain dry -severity--that it gave most people a slight impression of comedy, -was perhaps one of the tragic elements in it. As to that long-past -phenomenon of flushed cheeks, at least she could not remember ever -having allowed herself any such folly over books entitled “Socialism and -Anarchy,” or “The Civic Disease,” or “The Inner Republic.” She was glad -to believe that Camilla was “a type,” because it was easier to condemn -a type than to condemn Camilla, for having heartbeats and flushed cheeks -over matters so unsuitable. - -In the times when carefully constructed curls tapped against Miss -Eunice's flushed cheeks, it has been supposed, there was more social -emphasis on sex. At least there was a difference. Miss Eunice felt the -difference, and looked across it in disapproval of Camilla's reading. - -Camilla started, gathered the books in an armful, and flashed out of the -room, across the hall to her father's library. She settled in a chair -beside him. - -“Now! What do you think?” - -Several books fell on the floor. She spilled others in picking up the -first. - -“I think your books will lose their backs,” Champney rumbled mildly. - -The fire leaped and snapped in the fireplace, and the sunlight streamed -in at the tall side windows. - -“Think of what, my dear?” - -“Listen!” - -Her father leaned his white-haired and heavy head on his hand, while she -read from the grey volume, as follows: - -“'You have remarked too often “I am as good as you.” It is probable that -God only knows whether you are or not. You may be better. I think he -knows that you are always either better or worse. If you had remarked -“You are as good as I,” it would have represented a more genial frame -of mind. It would have rendered your superiority more probable, since -whichever remark you make gives, so far as it goes, its own evidence -that it is not true. But indeed it is probable that neither your life -nor your ideas are admirable, that your one hope of betterment is, not -to become convinced that no one is better than you, but to find someone -to whom you can honourably look up. I am asking you to look up, not -back, nor away among the long dead years for any cause or ideal. I am -asking you to search for your leader among your contemporaries, not -satisfied until you find him, not limited in your devotion when you have -found him, taking his cause to be yours. I am asking you to remember -that evil is not social, but human; that good is not social, but human. -You have heard that an honest man is the noblest work of God. You have -heard of no institution which merits that finality of praise. You have -heard that every institution is the lengthened shadow of a man. Is it -then in shadows or by shadows that we live?'” - -Camilla paused. - -“I think your author is in a measure a disciple of Carlyle,” said -Champney. - -“Are you interested, daddy? See who wrote it!” - -Champney took the volume, read, “Chapter Eighth. Whither My Master -Went,” and turned back to the title page. “H'm--'The Inner Republic, by -Alcott Aidee.' Another discovery, is it?” he asked. “We discover America -every other day, my dear! What an extraordinary generation we are!” - -Camilla's discovery of her father had been a happy surprise. Happy -surprises are what maids in their Arcadian age are of all creatures -most capable of receiving. She called him her “graduate course,” and he -replied gallantly by calling her his “postponed education.” He had had -his happy surprise as well. It was an especial, an unexpected reward for -the efforts Champ-ney had made--not altogether painless--to realise -the lapse of old conditions, and to pick up threads of interest in the -new,--that his efforts had brought him to these relations with Camilla; -so that the two were able to sit together of a morning, and talk -friendly and long, without patronage or impatience. - -To realise the lapse of old conditions, to realise that he was obsolete, -that his effective days were over! It was a hard matter. Hard, but an -old story now, this struggle to realise this change. The books on his -shelves had grown to seem passive and lifeless, since they no longer had -connection through himself with the stir of existence. - -The Websterian periods had taken on a ghostly echo, and the slow ebbing -of the war issues had left him with a sense of being stranded on dry -sands. There seemed to be a flatness everywhere,--a silence, except for -the noisy rattle of the street. - -It is a pleasant saying, that “The evening of life comes bringing its -own lamp,” but it seemed to him it was a drearily false one. The great -men of a great time, he thought, were gone, or fast going. It was a -stagnation period in his life, pictured in his mind afterward as an -actual desert, dividing arable lands. Were the new men so small, so -unuplifted, or was it only his own mind grown dry and nerveless? He was -afraid it was the latter,--afraid life was dying away, or drying up in -his still comfortable body. - -He would prove to himself that it was not. - -This was the beginning of the effort he had made,--a defiant, -half-desperate rally. The struggle began at a definite date. One day -he put away his old books. He bought new ones, and new periodicals, and -determined to find the world still alive,--to find again that old sense -of the importance of things that were going on. It was an intimate fight -this time, unapplauded--against a shadow, a creeping numbness. He fought -on, and at length had almost begun to lose hope. - -When Camilla came back from college and Eastern friends she dawned upon -him in a series of minute surprises. She brought him his victory, and -the lamp for his evening. So it came about. The struggle was over, and -the longed-for hope and cheer came back to him. - -So it came that the relation between them was peculiar. New books had a -meaning when Camilla read them to him, as she read from Alcott Aidee's -book to-day, while the noise of the freight-yards, and the rattle of the -travelling crane unloading a docked ship, sounded dull and distant. The -sunlight came yellow and pleasant through tall windows, and the fire -snapped briskly, and Alcott Aidee spoke through the medium of Camilla -and the grey volume, making these singular remarks: - -“Incarnation of divinity! Surely you have been unfortunate, if in -going to and fro in this world you have nowhere observed any measure of -divinity incarnated in a man, apparent in ordering or in obedience, in -leading or in following, speaking from lips which said, 'Follow me,' as -well as from those which said, 'Thy will, not mine be done,' speaking, -for aught I know, as largely in one way as the other. I am not measuring -divinity. I am showing you where to look for it. I am trying to persuade -you that it does not speak from lips which say 'I am as good as you.'” - -New books, ran Champney's thoughts, new men, new times, new waves -foaming up the old slant shores. But only as they spoke with Camilla's -voice, did they seem to him now to make the numbed cords vibrate again, -or comfort his wintry age. - -“Isn't it interesting, daddy? If you're going to be frivolous, I shan't -read.” - -Champney was looking at the volume with a grim smile. - -“I was thinking that to read only in the middle of the gentleman's -book was perhaps not doing him justice. It was perhaps why I did not -understand where he began, or where he was going. It seems to be neither -old democracy nor new socialism, but more like the divine rights of some -kind of aristocracy. Shall we not read the book through in order, my -dear? Having become convinced that Mr. Aidee himself contains a measure -of this divinity, and having taken him for our leader, shall we not then -induce our recalcitrant friend Dick to join us, and in that way induce -him to become a politician?” - -This was the Champney manner in the stately vein of irony. - -“Oh!” Camilla pushed her hand through her hair, a Champney gesture, -“Dick was horrid about that.” - -“Recalcitrant, Hum! Horrid, horridus, bristling, Ha! Not inappropriate -to the attitude on that occasion of the said Dick. Not usual for him, I -should say. He is like his father, Camilla. A quiet man, but striking, -the latter. You don't remember him?” - -“Oh, yes! But you see, Dick didn't like it, because Mr. Aidee asked me -to help him. But it isn't like him to be fussy. Anyway, I liked it, -but Dick didn't. So!” Camilla pushed back her hair, another Champney -gesture--the defiant one. “Now, what made him act like hornets?” - -“I also took the liberty not to like it, Camilla,” with a rumble of -thorough bass. - -Camilla glanced up, half startled, and put a small warm hand into -her father's hand, which was large, bony, and wrinkled. The two hands -clasped instinctively hard, as if for assurance that no breach should -come between them, no distance over which the old and the young hand -could not clasp. - -Camilla turned back to Alcott Aidee's book, and read on. Champney found -himself now listening in a personal, or what he might have described -as a feminine, way; he found himself asking, not what meaning or truth -there was in this writer, but asking what meaning it might have toward -Camilla, at the Arcadian age when maids are fain of surprises. He -thought of Dick Hennion, of the Hennions, father and son. One always -wondered at them, their cross-lot logic, their brevities, their instinct -as to where the fulcrum of a thing rested. One believed in them without -asking reasons--character was a mysterious thing--a certain fibre or -quality. Ah! Rick Hennion was dead now, and Henry Champney's fighting -days were over. It was good to live, but a weariness to be too old. He -thought of Alcott Aidee, of his gifts and temperament, his theory of -devotion and divinity--an erratic star, a comet of a man, who had a -great church--by the way, it was not a church--a building at least, with -a tower full of clamouring bells, and a swarming congregation. It was -called “The Seton Avenue Assembly.” So Aidee had written this solid -volume on--something or other. One could see he was in earnest, but -that Camilla should be over-earnest in the wake of his argument seemed -a strong objection to the argument. A new man, an able writer--all very -interesting--but---- In fact, he might prove resident divinities, or -prove perpetual incarnations of the devil, if he chose, but what did -the fellow mean by asking Camilla to---- In fact, it was an unwarranted -liberty. Champney felt suddenly indignant. Camilla read on, and Champney -disliked the doctrine, whatever it was, in a manner defined even by -himself as “feminine.” - -“'Not in vain,' she read, 'have men sought in nature the assurance -of its large currents, of its calm and self-control, the knitting up -of “the ravelled sleave of care,” “the breathing balm of mute insensate -things,” “the sleep that is among the lonely hills.” It has been -written, - - “Into the woods my Master went - - Clean foresprent, - -and that “the little grey leaves were kind to him.” All these things -have I found, and known them. Was it there my Master went? I found the -balm, the slumber, and the peace. But I found no inspiration. This, -wherever I found it, always spoke with human lips, always looked out -of human eyes. The calm of nature is as the calm of the past. Green -battlefields lie brooding, because the issue is over; deep woods and -secluded valleys, because the issue is elsewhere. The apostle who met a -vision of his Master on the Appian Way, and asked, “Whither goest thou?” - was answered, “Into the city.” Do you ask again, whither he went? I -answer that he went on with the vanguard of the fight; which vanguard is -on the front wave and surf of these times; which front wave and surf -is in the minds and moods of persons; not in creeds, customs, formulas, -churches, governments, or anywhere else at all; for the key to all -cramped and rusted locks lies in humanity, not in nature; in cities, not -in solitudes; in sympathy, not in science; in men, not in institutions; -not in laws, but in persons.' - -“Aren't you interested, daddy?” - -“Yes, my dear. Why do you ask?” - -“You look so absent-minded. But it's a new chapter now, and it's called -'Constitutions.'” Camilla laughed triumphantly. - -“Constitutions! Then the gentleman will be political. Go on.” - -“'Chapter ninth,'” she read. “'Constitutions.' - -“'Most men govern themselves as monarchies; some as despotisms that -topple to anarchies, some as nearly absolute monarchies; but mainly, -and on the whole, they govern themselves as partially restricted or -constitutional monarchies; which constitutions are made up of customs, -precedents, and compromises, British Constitutions of opportunism and -common law. Indeed, they claim that the inner life _must_ be a monarchy -by its nature, and every man's soul his castle. They are wrong. It must -be a republic, and every man's soul an open house. - -“'Now, it is nowhere stated in any Declaration or Constitution put forth -of this Inner Republic that “all men are by nature free and equal.” If -such a declaration occurred to the framers of this Constitution, they -would seem to have thought it difficult to reconcile with observation, -and not very pertinent either. As a special qualification for -citizenship, it appears to be written there that a man must love his -neighbour as himself--meaning as nearly as he can, his citizenship -graded to his success; and as a general maxim of common law, it is -written that he shall treat other men as he would like them to treat -him, or words to that effect. However, although to apply and interpret -this Constitution there are courts enough, and bewildering litigation, -and counsel eager with their expert advice, yet the Supreme Court holds -in every man's heart its separate session.” - -To all of which Champney's thoughts made one singular comment. -“Camilla,” they insisted, “Camilla.” - - - - -CHAPTER IV--MUSCADINE STREET - - -|WHILE Camilla and Henry Champney bent a dark and a white head over -Aidee's book, Miss Eunice in the parlour bent a grey head over her -knitting, and thought of Camilla, and disapproved of the type of girls -who neither knitted nor even embroidered; who had hot cheeks, not over -such subjects, for instance, as “Richard,” but over such subjects as -“Problems of the Poor,” and “Civic Diseases.” - -Miss Eunice looked up from her knitting now and then, and through the -window she saw across the river the huddle of East Argent's disordered -roofs, and factories, and chimneys powerfully belching black smoke, and -disapproved of what she saw. - -There were others than Miss Eunice who disapproved of East Argent. -Dwellers on Herbert and Seton Avenues, those quiet, shaded avenues, with -their clean, broad lawns, were apt to do so. - -Yet it was a corporate part of Port Argent and the nearest way to it was -over the Maple Street bridge. - -The P. and N. Railroad passed under the East Argent approach to the -bridge, coming from its further freight yards on the right. At the first -corner beyond, if there happened to be a street sign there, which was -unlikely, the sign would read “Muscadine Street.” - -Muscadine Street left ran down the river toward the belching factories; -Muscadine Street right, up the river between the freight yards on one -side and a row of houses on the other; depressing houses, of wood or -brick, with false front elevations feebly decorated; ground floors -mainly shops for meat, groceries, liquors, candies; upper floors overrun -with inhabitants. There were slouching men on the sidewalk, children -quarrelling in the muddy street, unkempt women in the windows, of -whom those with dull faces were generally fat, those with clever -faces generally drawn and thin. It was a street with iron clamours and -triumphant smells. It was a street whose population objected to neither -circumstance, and found existence on the whole interesting and more -than endurable. It was a street unaware of Miss Eunice Champney's -disapproval, and undisturbed by that of Herbert and Seton Avenues. It is -singular how many people can be disapproved of by how many others, and -neither be the better or worse on that account. - -On the second corner was a grocery occupying the ground floor of a -flat-roofed, clap-boarded house. Around the corner, on a side street -leading east, a wooden stair ran up on the outside. At the top of the -stair a sign in black letters on a yellow background implied that “James -Shays, Shoemaker,” was able to mend all kinds of footwear, and would do -so on request. Inside the hallway, the first door on the right was the -shoemaker's door, and within were two small rooms, of which the first -was the shop. - -A wooden table stood in the middle of the room, with a smoky-chimneyed -lamp thereon, some newspapers, and half of a book that had been ripped -savagely in two. A double shoemaker's bench stood next the window, a -cooking stove and a cupboard opposite. Clothes hung on wall-hooks, hides -lay on the floor. - -Shays sat on one end of the bench, a grey-haired, grey-moustached, -watery-eyed man, pegging a shoe vaguely. A black-haired little man with -a thin black beard sat on the other end, stitching a shoe fiercely. -A redlipped, red-cheeked, thick-nosed, thick-necked man with prominent -eyes, sat tilted back in one of the wooden chairs, stating his mind -deliberately. - -Most of these phases of Muscadine Street might be found so arranged, on -most mornings, by any visitor. Shays and the red-cheeked Coglan could -not be depended on; but the men on the sidewalk, the women in the -windows, the children in the street, the clamour and the smells would be -there; also the grocer, the butcher, and Hicks, the stitcher of vehement -stitches. If Coglan and Shays were there, Coglan would be found in the -process of stating his mind. - -Hicks' eyes were black, restless, and intense, his mouth a trifle on -one side, his forehead high with a deep line down the middle. It was a -painful line; when he smiled it seemed to point downward frowningly to -the fact that the smile was onesided. - -Coglan was Shays' associate in the pursuit of happiness. His value lay -in this: that upon a certain amount of hard liquor purchased by Shays, -and divided fairly and orderly between them, Shays became needy of help, -and Coglan generally remained in good condition and able to take him -home. Hicks was Shays' partner in the shop. His value lay in this: that -he did twice as much work as Shays, and was satisfied with half the -profits. Both men were valuable to Shays, and the shop supported the -three. - -The relations between them had grown settled with time. Nearly four -years earlier Hicks had entered Shays' shop. There he learned to cobble -footwear in some incredibly short time, and took his place in the -apprehension of Muscadine Street. Hicks he called himself and nothing -more. “Hicks” was a good enough name. It went some distance toward -describing the brooding and restless little man, with his shaking, -clawlike fingers, smouldering temper, and gift for fluent invective. -Some said he was an anarchist. He denied it, and went into fiery -definitions, at which the grocer and candy man shook their heads -vaguely, and the butcher said, “Says he ain't, an' if he ain't, he -ain't,” not as I see which seemed a conclusive piece of logic. At any -rate he was Hicks. - -The elderly Shays was a peaceful soul, a dusty mind, a ruined body. He -was travelling through his life now at a pace that would be apt to -bring him to the end of it at no distant date, enjoying himself, as he -understood enjoyment, or as enjoyment was interpreted to him by the -wise Coglan. Coglan maintained a solidly planted dislike of Hicks, whose -attacks threatened his dominance, whose acrid contempt and unlimited -vocabulary sometimes even threatened his complacence. Coglan's wisdom -saw that the situation was preferable to searching for jobs, and that -the situation depended on Hicks' acceptance of it. Hicks was a mystery -to him, as well as to Shays, and something of a fear, but Coglan was not -disturbed by the mystery. He could leave that alone and do very well. -But Hicks was a poisoned needle. Hicks knew where to find Coglan's -sensitive point and jab it. Coglan hated him solidly, but balancing -his dislike against his interest and ease, Coglan wisely found that the -latter were more solid still--beyond comparison solid. - -All this could be learned by any visitor inquiring in Muscadine Street. -The grocer underneath would add tersely that Shays was a soak, but -good-hearted; that Hicks was a fool, and ought to set up shop for -himself; that Coglan was a loafer, and had his bread buttered now about -to suit him. Disapproval of each other was current in Muscadine Street. -It was a part of their interest in life. - -The same morning sunlight that slanted through Henry Champney's tall -library and parlour widows was slanting through the small streaked -window of Shays, the shoe-mender. Coglan was stating his mind. - -“Jimmy Shays, yer a good man,” he was saying slowly; “an', Hicksy, yer -an' industhrious man; but nayther of ye is a wise man; but Jimmy is the -wisest man of ye two. For why? Ask that, an' I says this. For when Jimmy -wants a bit of thinkin' done for him, he gets a sensible man to do -it, an' a poor man, an' a workin' man like himself, an' a man that's a -friend, and that stands by him in throuble. But what does ye do, Hicksy? -Ye goes over the river. Ye goes up to Seton Avenue. Ye listens to a -chin-waggin' preacher. An' what's his name? Aidee! He ain't a workin' -man himself, but wears the clothes of the rich, an' ates his dinner -wid the rich, an' says hard words of the friends of the poor. An' yer -desaved, Hicksy.” - -Hicks stopped work and shook a thin fist at Coglan. “If you're talkin' -of him, you keep your manners.” - -“Oi, the Preacher! Oi, he might be meanin' well, Hicksy. I ain't sayin' -not.” - -“What are you saying then?” jabbing viciously with his needle. “Damn! -You're an Irishman, ain't you? Chin-wagging institution yourself. What! -Who's the working man? You! Ain't you got a description of you that's -vivider'n that?” breaking into a cackling laugh. “Then I'll ask you, -what friends of the poor you're talking about so glib, like a greased -wheel?” - -“Oi! Yer askin' what I mean by a friend, Hicksy? Ye are! An' yer right, -an' I'll show ye the point. I'll speak to ye of John Murphy, now, what -I've had many a drink on him, an' a helpin' hand. A friend is a friend -in need. That's him. Now, thin, Murphy's a friend of Wood's, for he says -so. Now, thin, I'll show you Dick Hennion. For if I wants a job, I says -the word to Murphy, an' he speaks the word maybe to Hennion an' he gets -me a job, for he done it onct, an' I know, don't I? if so be it happen -I wants a job. An' Hennion's a friend of Wood's, too, as anywan knows. -Now! A friend of me, I says, is a man that acts friendly to me. That's -him. So would ye say, Hicksy, if ye was a wise man an' a man of sense, -instead of chasin' afther a chin-waggin' preacher, like a schnare-drum -afther a thrombone. Haw, haw, haw! a brass throm-bone! But Wood's a -friend of the poor, an' I've proved it. For why? For I say it's the rich -that he bleeds, but the poor man he's friendly to. Now, thin! What does -Aidee do but say the bad word of Wood. In consequence, in consequence, I -says,”--and Coglan smote his knee,--“he ain't no friend of the poor.” - -Hicks' black eyes glittered and focussed themselves, a concentrated -stare at a minutely small spot between Coglan's eyes. His teeth clicked. -Coglan's laugh died away. He turned his eyes aside and rubbed his red -face uneasily. - -“Coglan,” said Hicks, “I warned you before. You shake your mouth at the -Preacher again and I'll stick a knife into your dirty throat. You hear -that!” - -Coglan's redness showed purple spots. - -“Think I'm afraid of ye!” - -“Yep, I think you are.” - -“I'll break your little chick bones!” - -“Yep. You're afraid, and you better stay so.” - -“Hicksy!” broke in Shays with quavering voice. “Tom! we're all friends, -ain't we? Now, then, Tom, Hicksy makes a point you leave out the -Preacher, don't he? He'll argue peaceful. Jus' leave out the Preacher. -Won't you, Hicksy? Hey? You'll argue peaceful.” - -“I said I would.” - -“Leave out the Preacher,” said Shays. “All friens'. Hey?” - -Coglan wiped his perspiring face. “I'm a sensible man,” he said. “When -Jimmy Shays asks a favour, I say, sure! I'm a sensible man.” He looked -resentfully and uneasily at Hicks, but seemed relieved to withdraw from -his aggressive position without losing his dominance. - -“Oi! I told ye what I meant by a friend. I said Marve Wood was a friend -of the poor, an' I proved it. I'll be fair an' square. I'll ask ye, -what's _your_ meanin'?” - -Hicks dropped his eyes, and fell to his jabbing needlework. - -“Friend!” he said. “You mean a man that's useful to you. _You_ say so! -_You_ say so! That's your meaning. Good's what's good for me. Sense is -what agrees with me. Nothing's got any value that ain't valuable to -that God-forsaken, whiskey-soaked 'me,' named Coglan, that's got no more -value than to fertilise a patch of potatoes. Friend! You get another -word. I got nothing to say to you. But I'll tell you this. I'll tell you -what I think of Wood. He's got a reckoning coming. What is Wood? I'll -tell you that he's the meeting point of two enemies--the corporations -and the people, the rich and the poor. His job's to keep in with -both. That's what his friendliness amounts to. His job's to sell the -corporations what belongs to the people. And he'll grin at the people on -one side, so! And he'll wink at the corporations on the other, so! And -he'll say: 'How do, Johnny, and Billy, and Sammy?' So! And he'll say to -the corporations, 'What'll you give for Johnny's hat?' So! Then he gives -Johnny half what he gets for the hat, so! Then he's got Sammy and Billy -to back the deal, so! Well, what's Wood! I've told you what he is. -Friend of the poor! What do you know about it?” He dropped the shoe, -shook his loose fingers in the air, and cried. “He's a cancer! Cut him -out! He's an obstruction! Blow him up! What, then? Then I say this, Tom -Coglan, and I say it's a good thing when damn rascals are afraid!” - -“Quotin' the Preacher?” said Coglan complacently. - -Hicks narrowed his black eyes again, and focussed them on Coglan, who -turned away uneasily. Hicks went on: - -“What you'd ask, if you were quick enough with your point, is whether -Wood ever did you a bad turn? No, he didn't. Nor said a word to me in -his life, nor I to him, nor want to. Will you ask me what I got against -him, then, or won't you, or are you too fat-headed to know what I'm -talking about?” - -“Oi!” said Coglan. “Yer right. I'll ask ye that.” - -“And I'll say that so long as this 'me' of mine”--tapping his narrow -chest--“ain't fertilising a patch of potatoes, a friend ain't going to -mean any man that does me a good turn, nor an enemy mean anybody that -does me a bad turn. A man that means no more'n that, ain't fit to -fertilise turnips. That's my meaning, Tom Coglan.” - -“Oi! Quotin' the Preacher.” - -“Yes, I am, some of it.” - -He went back to his stitching sullenly. Coglan and Shays looked at each -other and then stealthily at Hicks. - -“I hear no talk against the Preacher,” Hicks went on, after a time; “I -won't, and why not is my business. He ain't for you to understand, nor -the like of you, nor the like of Jimmy Shays,--neither him, nor his -talk, nor his book. What of it? There ain't another man in Port Argent -but me that understands that book. But the Preacher don't do all my -thinking for me, and you're wrong there, Coglan. What do you know about -him, or me? What's the use of my talking to you? But if you did know, -and then if you said, 'The Preacher holds a man back till he's like to -go crazy, and always did'; or if you said, 'The Preacher's for setting -you on fire and then smothering it, till he's burnt your bowels out'; -and if you talked like that, as understanding him and me, maybe I'd talk -to you. I'd talk so, too, for his way ain't my way.” - -He pointed a crooked finger at the torn book on the table. - -“See that book! It's called 'Communism.' Half of it's right and half of -it's not. That's my way.” - -His two-handed gesture of ripping the book in two was so sudden and -savage that Coglan dropped his chair and turned to look at the book in a -startled way, as if he expected to see something ghastly. - -“But it ain't the Preacher's way. But I ain't the man to be held back,” - said Hicks, “and patted and cooed over. Not me. Show me a snake and I -stamp on it! Show me the spot and I hit it! Damn!” - -He twisted his mouth. His teeth clicked again, and his crooked fingers -drove the glittering needles swiftly back and forth through the leather. -Coglan stared at him with prominent eyeballs and mouth open. Shays wiped -his glasses, and then his red-lidded eyes with his coat sleeve. - -“All frien's, Hicksy! Ain't we?” he murmured uneasily. - -Coglan recovered. “An' that's right, too. Jimmy Shays is a kind man and -a peaceable man, an' I'm a sensible man, an' yer an industhrious man, -but yer not a wise man, Hicksy, an'”--with sudden severity--“I'll thank -ye not to stomp on Tom Coglan.” - -He got up. Shays rose, too, and put on his coat, and both went out of -the door. Hicks gave a cackling laugh, but did not look after them. - -Presently he finished the shoe, laid it down, rubbed his hands, and -straightened his back. Then he went and got the torn book, sat down, and -read in it half an hour or more, intent and motionless. - -The factory whistles blew for twelve o'clock. He rose and went to a side -cupboard, took out a leathern rifle case, put a handful of cartridges in -his pockets, and left the shop. - -The grocer's children in the side doorway fled inward to the darkness -of the hall as he passed. The grocer's wife also saw him, and drew back -behind the door. He did not notice any of them. - -The long eastward-leading street grew more and more dusty and unpaved. -He passed empty lots and then open fields, cornfields, clumps of woods, -and many trestles of the oil wells. He climbed a rail fence and entered -a large piece of woods, wet and cool. The new leaves were just starting -from their buds. - -It was a mild April day, with a silvery, misty atmosphere over the green -mass of the woods. A few of the oil wells were at work, thudding in the -distance. Cattle were feeding in the wet green fields. Birds, brown and -blue, red-breasted and grey-breasted, twittered and hopped in tree and -shrub. A ploughman in a far-off field shouted to his team. Crows flapped -slowly overhead, dropping now and then a dignified, contented croak. The -only other sound was the frequent and sharp crack of a rifle from deep -in the centre of the woods. - - - - -CHAPTER V--TECUMSEH STREET - - -|TECUMSEH STREET was the fourth street back from the river. Tradition -said that the father and Certain aunts of the man who laid out the -street had been scalped by Tecumseh, the Indian. It was the only -distinguished event in his family, and he wished to commemorate it. - -The street was paved with undressed Medina. The newspaper offices were -all there, and the smash and scream of undressed Medina under traffic -was in the columns. It was satisfactory to Port Argent. The proper -paving of streets in front of newspaper offices was never petitioned -in the Council. Opposite the offices was a half block of vacant lots, a -high board fence of advertisements around it. - -The space between was packed with a jostling crowd. A street lamp lit a -small section of it. Lights from the office windows fell in patches on -faces, hats, and shoulders. A round moon floated above the tower of -_The Chronicle_ Building with a look of mild speculation, like a -“Thrice Blessed Buddha,” leading in the sky his disciple stars, who -all endeavoured to look mildly speculative, and saying, “Yonder, oh, -mendicants! is a dense mass of foolish desires, which indeed squirm as -vermin in a pit, and are unpleasant to the eye of meditation. Because -the mind of each individual is there full of squirming desires, even -as the individual squirms in the mass.” No doubt it looks so when one -floats so far over it. - -Opposite the windows of _The Chronicle_ (Independent-Reform) and _The -Press_ (Republican) the advertising boards were covered with white -cloth, and two blinding circles shone there of rival stereopticons. -There was no board fence opposite _The Western Advocate_ (Democratic), -and no stereopticon in the windows. This was deplored. It showed a lack -of public spirit--a want of understanding of the people's needs. If -there could be no stereopticon without a board fence, there should be a -brass band. - -The proprietor of _The Advocate_ sent out for a bushel of Roman candles, -and discharged them from his windows by threes, of red, white, and blue. -This was poetic and sufficient. - -The stereopticons flashed on the white circles the figures of returns, -when there were any, pictures and slurs when there were no figures,--a -picture of a cage full of riotous monkeys on _The Chronicle_ circle, -underwritten, “The Council,”--a picture of an elderly lady with a -poke bonnet and lifted hands of reprehension, on the _Press_ circle, -underwritten, “Independent Reform.” - -“Auction of the City of Port Argent!” flashed _The Chronicle_. “Office -of M. Wood. Cash on Delivery of Goods.” - -“All citizens must go to Sunday School or be fined,” from _The Press_. - -“6th Ward. Rep. Plurality, 300.” - -“1st Ward. Ind. Ref. Plurality, 28.” - -Whish! a rocket from the windows of _The Western Advocate_. And the -crowd roared and shuffled. - -The last of _The Press_ windows to the left belonged to a little room -off the press-room, containing a desk, a board table, and several -chairs. The desk seemed only to be used as an object at which to throw -articles, in order that, they might roll to the floor. There were crude -piles of newspapers on it and about it, hats, a section of a stove pipe, -and a backgammon board. The table looked as if it sometimes might be -used to write on. - -The room was supposed to be the editor's, but no one in Port Argent -believed Charlie Carroll ever stayed in the same place long enough to -pre-empt it. He edited _The Press_ from all over the city, and wrote the -editorials wherever he stopped to catch breath. _The Press_ editorials -were sometimes single sentences, sometimes a paragraph. More than a -paragraph was supposed to mean that Carroll had ridden on a street car, -and relieved the tedium of his long imprisonment. - -A number of men stood at the window or stood grouped back, and watched -the canvas across the street. The only light came through the door from -the press-room. - -Carroll put his curly head through the door, shouted something and -vanished. _The Press_ stereopticon withdrew a view of Yosmite Valley and -threw on the canvas: - -“Recount in the 1st Ward announced.” - -_The Chronicle_ cleared its canvas promptly and flung across the street: - -“Fraud!” - -Only two men sat still by the window of the darkened room. The rest -rushed out. - -The street was in an uproar, hats crushed over heads, fists shaken in -the air to the instructive comment of the moon. - -“How foolish, oh, mendicants! How do men make for themselves troubles, -as though one should stir quiet waters with his hand, saying, 'It is a -storm. The gods have afflicted me.'” - -“How foolish!” said one of the men at the darkened window. “Those boys -are terribly anxious to carry that Ward, and no point in it, Dick!” - -“Suppose I'd been out canvassing for Reform, Wood? Think you'd have -lost?” - -Wood peered curiously at Hennion in the half-lit dusk. “Like enough! -Well--want anything in particular? I admit the bill, if it ain't too -big.” - -“I don't want anything.” - -Wood tilted his chair and was silent a moment. - -“Look what comes of making rows,” he went on. “I wouldn't have that -Ward now for a gift. _The Chronicle_'s red in the face with wrath and -happiness. Everybody's hair on end as it is. Disgusting, ain't it? -Well--down east, where the land's tilted up so you can turn a section -over bottom upwards by heaving one end with a rail, well--there was a -man there had a farm at the bottom of a long hill, and his neighbour's -punkins up above used to roll down on him. But he didn't make any row, -because his yard was littered with punkins, no. He ate the punkins. -Well, now, take the neighbour above, he might have gone down and called -somebody a thief for not returning strayed punkins, and two pillars of -the church might have disliked each other. But he didn't. He built a -board fence along the lower edge of his cornfield and caught his own -punkins. And there was mutual respect, mutual respect. Well--the -boys, they always want to fight. They go round saying, 'The old man's -level-headed,' but they ain't satisfied with building that fence to -catch those punkins without heaving a rock down an aggravating man's -chimney, or else it makes 'em mad to have punkins rolled at 'em, and -moreover they don't roll fast enough. Disgusting, ain't it?” - -“Wood! Wood! Wherein----” Carroll rushed in and turned up the electric -light impatiently. “Wh-what you going to do about the First Ward?” - -He had thin bright curly hair, the slimmest of bodies, and moved like a -restless insect. - -“Tell'em to count it twenty-eight Reform plurality, no more and no less! -And turn off that light! And clear out! Well--now--that Charlie Carroll, -he's a living fidget. Well--when they used to race steamboats on the -Mississippi, they'd put a nigger on the safety valve, so it wouldn't -get nervous. I've heard so. I've seen 'em tie it up with a string. -Well--winning the race depended some on the size and serenity of the -nigger, that'd see it wasn't his place to worry, for he'd get blown off -all right in the natural course of things. For sitting on a safety valve -you want a nigger that won't wriggle. Well--Charlie's a good man. Keeps -people thinking about odds and ends of things. If one thing out of forty -is going to happen, his mind's going to be a sort of composite picture -of the whole forty. Sees eight or ten dimensions to a straight line. -Yes--folks are pretty liberal. They'll allow there's another side to -'most anything, and a straight line's got no business to be so gone -particular. It's the liberal-mindedness of the public that lets us win -out, of course. But--you've got to sit still sometimes, and wait for the -earth to turn round.” - -“I suppose you have. It'll turn round.” - -“Yes, it'll turn round.” - -The tumult outside had subsided in a dull, unsettled rumble. The moon -went into retreat among silver-grey clouds. Tecumseh Street muttered in -the darkness of its pit. The stereopticons continued. - -“_The Chronicle_ suspects the U. S. Census,” from _The Press_. - -“Census O. K. Wood didn't make it,” from _The Chronicle_. - -“Port Argent stands by the G. O. P.” - -“Did Wood mention his Candidate's Name?” - -The _Press_ threw defiantly the portrait of its candidate for mayor. - -“Pull the String and See it Jump!” from _The Chronicle._ - -Behind _The Press_ stereopticon a telephone jingled, telegraph -instruments clicked, men wrote busily at a long table under a row of -pendent electric lights that swayed in the draught. - -A large man came in, panting. His short coat swung back under his -arm-pits, away from the vast curve of his waistcoat. He had a falling -moustache and a round face. - -“Vere iss Vood? So!” He peered curiously into the darker room. “Vere.” - -“Come along, Freiburger,” said Wood. “Pull up a chair. Well--how's your -Ward? All quiet?” - -Freiburger settled into a chair with the same caution. - -“Oh, yes, quviet. Not shtill, but quviet.” - -“What's the difference between 'still' and 'quiet'?” asked Hennion. - -“Veil, it vass drunk, und someone vass punch Cahn der barber's nose, but -not me.” - -“You call it quiet till somebody hits you?” - -“Vy should he hit me?” cried Freiburger indignantly. - -“He shouldn't,” said Hennion. - -“No! Veil, it vass not shtill, but quviet. Ach!” sadly, “ven a man iss -drunk, vy don't he shleep?” - -“He wants to stay awake and enjoy it.” - -Freiburger shook his head slowly and felt of his nose, as if to be quite -sure before taking the responsibility of repeating the statement. - -“It vass Cahn. It vass not me.” - -Wood sat silently, looking through the window to where the stereopticons -flashed over the crowd's changing emotions, half listening to the -conversation near him. Freiburger peered anxiously at him in the dusk. -His mind was trembling with the thrill and tumult of the day, longing -that Wood might say something, utter some sentence that it might -cling to, clasp about with comprehension, and be safe from wandering, -unguaranteed ideas. Hennion seemed interested in examining Freiburger's -soul. - -“Freiburger, you're as honest a man as I know.” - -“Veil, yes, I'm honest. I don't know who you know.” - -“You never owed a dollar you didn't pay.” - -“Oh, no, I don' do it.” - -“Business fair?” - -“Oh, yes.” - -“Well, what did you want to get on the Council for?” - -“Oh! Veil! It vass goot for business.” He seemed pleased to talk about -this, but expression was a matter of labour and excitement. “Veil! You -see! Die boys sie come at Freiburger's saloon, und I know 'em all on -Maple Street und der Fourt Vard. Und nights at Freiburger's I hear von -der shobs und der Union und der prices. Und sie tell me vy der carriage -factory strike. Und sie tell me Hennion iss a shquvare man, und Vood -vill do as he say he vill do, und Shamieson in der freight yards iss a -hog, und Ranald Cam iss make money, und Fater Harra iss teach lil' -boys fight mit gloves in St. Catherine's parochial school und bleed -der badness out of der kleine noses. Und sie say, 'I loss my shob, -Freiburger!' 'My lil' boy sick, Freiburger.' Ach, so! All dings in der -Vard iss tell me. Veil now, aber, look here! I am a Councilman. Der iss -no man so big on Maple Street as Fater Harra und me, und Freiburger's -iss head-quaverters of der Vard, und das iss goot for business.” - -“That's all right. I see your point. But the Council isn't supposed to -be an adjunct to the different councilmen's business, is it? I suppose -the Ward understood itself to be trusting its interests in your hands, -don't you? and you're a sort of guardian and trustee for the city, -aren't you? Seems as if that would take a good deal of time and worry, -because you'd want to be sure you were doing right by the city and the -Ward, and it's a complicated affair you have to look after, and a lot of -people's interests at stake.” - -Wood stirred slightly in his chair, partly with pleasure at the humour -of it, partly with uneasiness. It was all right for Hennion to examine -the Freiburger soul, if he liked, but to cast on its smooth seas such -wide-stirring, windy ideas seemed unkind to Freiburger. - -Freiburger puffed heavily in the darkness. - -The excitement of expressing himself subsided, and Hennion's idea opened -before him, a black gulf into which he could for a while only stare -dubiously. His mind reached out vaguely for something familiar to cling -to. - -“Veil--I don' know--die boys and Fater Harra und--Mein Gott! I ask -Vood!” He puffed heavily again after the struggle and triumph. - -“Couldn't do better. It's what your boys expect of you anyhow.” - -And Hennion returned to his silence. Freiburger's soul glowed peacefully -once more. - -“It iss Vood's business, hein?” - -He looked from one to the other of the impassive, self-controlled men. -He wanted Wood to say something that he could carry away for law and -wisdom and conviction, something to which other ideas might be fitted -and referred. He had the invertebrate instinct of a mollusk to cling to -something not itself, something rooted and undriven, in the sea. - -“You've done well, Freiburger,” said Wood, rousing himself. “Tell the -boys they've done well. Stay by your beer and don't worry till the keg's -dry.” - -Freiburger rolled away, murmuring his message loyally. “Stay by -mein--a--mein keg's dry.” - -“Freiburger won't cost you much,” Hen-nion murmured after a while. Wood -swung softly in his chair. - -“Got something on your mind, ain't you, Dick?” - -“Oh, yes. Of course. But I don't know what it is. I've fished for it -till I'm tired. I've analysed Freiburger, and didn't get much. Now I'd -like to examine your soul in a strong chemical solution. Maybe I'm a bit -embarrassed.” - -Wood chuckled. “Go ahead. Most men 'll lie, if you give 'em time to -rearrange their ideas. Well--it won't take me so long.” His manner -became genial. “You've got a good head, Dick. Well--I'll tell what I'm -thinking. It's this. The old man 'll have to drop his job one of these -days, and--if you're feeling for pointers--I don't say you are, but -supposing you are--I don't mind saying I shall back you to head the -organization. Maybe--well,--in fact, I don't suppose there's much money -in it you'd care to touch--maybe there ain't any--but there's a place -for the right man. I like you. I liked your father. He was built -something your way. The boys want somebody over 'em that won't wriggle -off the safety valve, and knows how to pick up punkins peacefully as -they come. This First Ward business--well, you've got a pretty good grip -through the crowd to begin with.” - -“Now there!” broke in Hennion. - -“You and Aidee are both trying to do the same thing. You want to get me -into politics. I don't care for your primaries and committees. I don't -see ten cents' difference to the city which party runs it. I dare say -whoever runs it expects to make a living out of it. Why do you both come -to me?” - -“I guess we've both got an idea you're useful.” - -Hennion thought a moment and then spoke more quietly. - -“Henry Champney used to boss this section. He did it from the platform -instead of the committee room. And my father handled bigger contracts -than I've touched yet. But Champney didn't ask him to run his canal into -the next caucus, or furnish stray batches of constituents with jobs. -Understand, I'm not grumbling about the last. Champney stayed on his -platform, and my father stayed in his big ditch and dug. The proper -thing now seems to be for everybody to get into the street and row -around together. Here's Aidee too thinks he's got to jump into it now, -and take with him--take with him everything he can' reach.” - -“That's straight,” murmured Wood. “So they do.” - -“Yes, and I call off, myself.” - -“All right. I was only guessing what you had in your mind. Well--it's -business sets the pace nowadays. 'Most everything else has to catch its -gait or be left. I remember Champney forty years gone. He was a fine -picture, when he got up and spread himself. He didn't do anything -that's here now, unless it's a volume of his speeches, congressional -and occasional. Not much. He kept us all whooping for Harry Clay. -Well--Clay's dead, Whig Party and Compromises and all burnt up. Your -father built sixty miles of canal. Canal stock's pretty dead now, but -that's not his fault. He laid a few thousand miles of railroad, went -around this place and that, cleaning up the country. Several million -people travel his railroads and walk his bridges. Anybody ever call him -a great man like Henry Champney? Gone little he cared if they did or -didn't. He and his like were a sight more important. Well--no; Champney -didn't ask favours of anybody in those days. And he didn't ask votes. -They shovelled 'em at him, and he went on telling 'em the Constitution -was the foundation of America, and Harry Clay the steeple. They weren't. -Rick Hennion and his like were the foundation, and there wasn't any -steeple. If you ask what they're all rowing round in the street for now, -why, I don't know. I guess they've all found out the point's got to be -fought out there or nowhere. Well--better think over what I was -telling you, Dick. You're Rick Hennion's son. Well--it's none of my -business--but--I'd gone like to see you old Champney's son-in-law--if -that's it. I believed in Champney once, and shouted for Clay, and -thought there was something in it. I did, that's a fact. I'd lock horns -with any other bull then, and swear my name was Righteouashess and his -was Sin.” - -“Well, but Champney----” - -“Yes--Champney!” - -“When he turned a vote, it meant he'd persuaded a man, didn't it?” - -“Yes--Champney! His best argument was a particular chest tone. If I tell -a man, 'Hullo, Jimmy!' and give him a cigar, it's as reasonable as a -chest tone.” - -“It's not in my line, Wood,” said Hen-nion after a silence. “What makes -you so down? You're not old.” - -“Going on seventy, Dick.” Wood's mood seemed more than usually frank -and talkative. He seemed to be smoothing out the creases in his mind, -hunting into corners that he hardly knew himself, showing a certain -wistfulness to explain his conception of things, complex and crumpled -by the wear and pressures of a long life, possibly taking Hennion to -represent some remembrance that he would like to be friends with after -long estrangement, and in that way pleading with his own youth to think -kindly of him. Or it might have been he was thinking of “Rick” Hennion, -who helped him forty years before, and stayed with him longest of -worn-out ideals. - -There was a rush of feet and clamour of voices in the press-room. - -“Wood! Wood!” - -“First Ward.” - -“Thrown out forty votes.” - -“Wouldn't do what you told 'em.” - -The little room was jammed with men, thinned out, and jammed again. The -electric light flashed up. - -“What's to pay now?” - -_The Chronicle_ flung its bold cone of light and glaring challenge -across the street. It seemed to strike the canvas with a slap. - -“Forty Reform votes thrown out in 1st Ward. Fraud!” - -A hush fell on Tecumseh Street. Then a roar went up that seemed to shake -the buildings. Tecumseh Street thundered below, monstrous and elemental, -and trembled above like a resonant drum. The mob rolled against the -brick front of the block like a surf that might be expected to splash -any moment up the flat perpendicular. Grey helmets of policemen tossed -on the surface. Faces were yellow and greenish-white in the mingled -electric-light and moonlight. Fists and spread hands were shaken at _The -Press_ windows. Five or six heads were in the window of the little room. -Wood's face was plain to make out by his grey shovel-beard. They shouted -comments in each other's ears. - -“It's a riot.” - -“No!” - -“Looks like the bottom of hell, don't it?” Then a little spit of smoke -and flame darted like a snake's tongue between the advertising boards, -seven feet above the sidewalk. There was a sharp crack that only the -nearest heard. - -Wood flung up his hand, pitched forward, and hung half over the window -sill. - -Someone directly beneath, looking up, saw a head hanging, felt a drop -splash on his face, and drew back wincing. - -The thrill and hush spread from the centre. It ran whisperingly over -the mass. The roar died away in the distance to right and left. Tecumseh -Street was still, except for the crash where a policeman tore a board -from the advertisements with a heave of burly shoulders, and plunged -through into the darkness of empty lots. - -The little room above was now crowded and silent, like the street. -They laid Wood on the table with a coat under his head. He coughed and -blinked his eyes at the familiar faces, leaning over him, strained and -staring. - -“You boys are foolish. Charlie Carroll--I want--take Hennion--Ranald -Cam, you hear me! Becket--Tuttle.” - -It was like a Roman emperor dispensing the succession, some worn -Augustus leaving historic counsel out of his experience of good and evil -and the cross-breeds of expediency--meaning by good, good for something, -and by evil, good for nothing. - -“Seems queer to be plugged at my time of life. Take Hennion. You ain't -got any heads. Dick!” - -Hennion stood over him. Wood looked up wistfully, as if there were -something he would like to explain. - -“The game's up to you, Dick. I played it the only way I knew how.” - -The moon floated clear above the street, and mild and speculative. Ten -minutes passed, twenty, thirty. The mass began to sway and murmur, then -caught sight of Carroll in the window, lifting his hand, and was quiet. - -“Gentlemen, Mr. Wood is dead.” - -For a moment there was hardly a motion. Then the crowd melted away, -shuffling and murmuring, into half a score of dim streets. - - - - -CHAPTER VI--ALCOTT AIDEE - - -|THE Sexton Avenue Assembly hall was a large building of red brick, -with wide windows and a tower full of bells, and Aidee lived across the -Avenue in a block of bay-windowed houses painted grey, the third house -from the corner. Aidee rented rooms on the floor above the drawing-room, -but his study was in the Assembly building. The house belonged to -one Mrs. Tillotson, sometime wife of one Colonel Tillotson. She wrote -articles for _The Chronicle_, and verses which were military at one -time, nay, even ferocious, which afterward reflected her pensioned -widowhood, and now reflected Aidee. She hoped her drawing-room might -be the intellectual nucleus of the Assembly. She was tall, thin, -grey-haired, and impressive. - -The people who gathered in Mrs. Tillotson's drawing-room were mainly a -kind of mental driftwood, caught in the Aideean swirl and backwater, -but some of them were more salient. There was Emil Ralbeck, the Assembly -organist, a small blond and smoothly bearded man with a pudgy nose, who -delivered harsh language melodiously, denounced classes and aggregations -of capital, and while not advocating slaughter, yet prophesied it. There -was Thomas Berry, whose theme was brotherly love and the Golden Rule. -Crime, he said, was mainly the creation of Law. He lay on the sofa, and -rumpled his hair, and wished all human beings to call him “Tom.” He had -fleshy flowing outlines, a heavy shaven face, and a leaden grey eye. -There was Alberta Keys, a small, trim, blue-eyed damsel, who thirsted -for excitement of the soul and resembled a Maltese kitten; and a large, -good-looking, surprised, hesitating young man, who followed in her -trail, Ted Secor, son of T. M. Secor, the owner of mines and rolling -mills. - -T. M. S. had financed the Assembly in the beginning, either because he -liked Aidee, or liked sport, or both. The bloom of untroubled health was -on Ted Secor's cheek. Hard drinks and ballet girls had suddenly faded -from his mind of late, and he followed Alberta Keys in dazed submission -into Mrs. Tillotson's drawing-room, and believed his mind now set -forever on higher things. These, and others less salient, met in Mrs. -Tillotson's drawing-room, and held conversation. - -Her furnishings hinted at luxury by means of sofa cushions, at art by -means of pictures resting unconventionally on easels, and at literature -by the skilfully careless distribution of books. A fireplace with -natural gas and asbestos seemed to say, “With all this we are modern, -intensely modern.” - -Aidee's father had been a circuit preacher of New England birth, a man -of radical statements, who declared that the subsidence of Puritanism -there had left it spiritually dead. Being a man of radical action, he -came to the Middle West in the early forties, and spent the rest of his -life in the wake of the frontier. He died at about the end of the war, -leaving two sons aged twelve and eight, Alcott and Allen Aidee, “Al” and -“Lolly,” on a small farm in the prairie. The mother died soon after, on -the same small farm. - -The story of the two brothers ran on for some twenty years together, and -then split apart. It involved school, school-teaching by the elder, in -that straggling but populous prairie town, and the pursuit of trouble by -the younger. Alcott developed political and religious opinions -objected to by school commissioners, and a barn belonging to a school -commissioner was fired in consequence by Allen. It was enough. They left -it all suddenly, their native town and the stumpy fields of their farm, -the corn lot, the muddy creek, the brick schoolhouse that was so proud -of its two stories and three grades of scholars. A newspaper period -followed in a disorderly city on the Mississippi, where Allen enjoyed -himself prodigally, and the finances of the brothers went to pieces. -Allen's endeavour to improve their finances led him to a barred and -solitary cell. Alcott was at the door of the prison when he came out. - -“Let me go! Oh, Al!” pleaded the younger, “Kick me out!” - -“We'll go west,” said Alcott. “Come on, Lolly. Never mind.” - -But Allen took the issue in his own freakish hands, and disappeared, -a weak-willed youth, yet secret and sudden, reckless, violent, fierce, -affectionate. Alcott thought no adjectives about him, but followed him -to Nevada, and there lost his trail; there staked a claim and dug a -pit, like other men, in search of the flecked ore; there fell in with -a circuit-riding bishop, and began making speeches to heavily armed -miners. There he found his wrapped-up talent, his gift of moving men. - -“You've got no beliefs that I can make head or tail of. Eccentric -youth,” said the hard-riding bishop, “go ahead!” - -There he met T. M. Secor, that breezy money-maker and man of level -horizons, who bore other resemblances to a prairie; who listened in -astonishment to Alcott's torrent of extraordinary language, delivered in -an ore shed from the tail of a dump cart. - -“By gad, sonny, you can talk tall!” said T. M. S. “Want to bombard hell, -do you? Got any idea where it is?” - -“Yes.” - -“Ho! You have!” - -“Some hot chunks of it in this town.” - -“You don't say! Look here! You come back to my place in Port Argent, -and I'll build you a church. We'll raise a congregation or blow the roof -off. What church are you, anyhow?” - -“I'm no church. I'm a freak.” - -“Ho! You don't say!” - -“I'm a voice in the wilderness crying: The kingdom of God is lost, -strayed, and stolen. Help me find my brother.” - -But they did not find him. - -Such was the outward story of Alcott Aidee. - -But the outward story of a man is the wind-blown rippled surface of him. -The current and true action are below. How can it be told? There was -a love lying between two brothers, unreasoning and indomitable, which -followed them up through their zigzag careers, and left with the elder a -burden and a bleeding sore. There was some maze of impulse, impatience, -and remorse, out of whose dusky tangle it arose that Allen cut himself -loose like a broken spar. Who shall pick the tangle apart? “Evil and -good may be better or worse,” but the “mixture of each is a marvel,” - says the penetrative poet. Why a marvel? Not from the strangeness of -unuse, if they came so unmixed in the use and custom of things. Remorse -there was, and irritated impatience, in Allen, no doubt. - -“The Inner Republic,” wrote Alcott afterwards in the grey volume of that -title, “has this peril to its liberties, that love there tends to become -a tyranny.” - -In Alcott's long thirst after knowledge, and his midnight studies, it is -certain that something peculiar in his own nature lit the pages before -him, with another light than that of his dim oil lamp. In the same grey -volume, which troubled Henry Champney with premonitions, we read, near -the beginning of Chapter XVIII., entitled “Light”: “Two lamps have -mainly given me what light I have. I suppose many men, if not every man, -has known them. One seemed to shine from overhead, a hanging flicker -becoming a larger glow,--the Lamp of Knowledge. There are no better -moments than when its flame leaps at the opening of a new vista. The -other has seemed to rise out of the deeps beneath me, out of anger and -brooding and pain, and by it I hope to find my brother in my neighbour. -Two lamps--the Lamp of Knowledge, and the Lamp of Sorrow.” - -So the Seton Avenue Hall was built, and thronged now with a shifting -multitude. It was a time, a land, and a section of many an undenominated -thing. Many a religious or social movement started up impulsively, and -died on the spot without going beyond its seed bed. Some were hardier -and more fertile, some curious, some famous, and some are with us still. - -“Classifications of men are all false,” declared Aidee. “Everyone is an -elemental unit.” - -If he had a mind to be ignorant of whether he was clerical or not, and -to care less, to be indifferent to all names that were applied to him, -Port Argent had no call to be wiser. T. M. Secor was said to be backing -the Assembly. In that case he would be apt to set up something in -opposition next, and gamble on both sides. Aidee presently fell tooth -and nail on local politics, and Port Argent saw a solution of the -mystery. - -“T. M.'s got a hawk-eye for excitement,” it remarked, and went its -way. Secor built the hall for Aidee, and built it handsomely. The Seton -Avenue Assembly became an accepted element in the hurrying city. Port -Argent concluded that Aidee was rather worth while. A black-eyed, pallid -man it found him, concentrated, sharp, decided, with an instinct for -rhetorical speech, a gift for vivid, understandable language. It counted -him a definite object, a something ponderable. But off the platform it -found him rather repellent. - -The Assembly was an incorporated organisation, whose creed in early days -had been Aidee's latest speech, whose activity in municipal politics -started the Independent Reform Party; which party was backed by one -newspaper, _The Chronicle_, and sometimes elected a few councilmen, -sometimes a good many. The cynical in Port Argent said that the -Independent Reform Party was dying of indigestion, brought on by -over-eating of a diet of too many ideas, too highly seasoned and -disagreeing; that the Assembly was a sort of tintinabular tin can tied -to a rapid and eloquent canine. The cynical perhaps overstated it. They -generally do. - -Of the throng which faced Aidee from week to week some faces became -familiar, but most of them seemed to him indistinct and changing. He -walked much about the city, watching faces--dingy and blurred faces, -hurried and anxious faces, open and clear-eyed faces. “There's no -equality among men, but there's a family likeness,” he said. It grew -to be a kind of emotional luxury, yet he made few friends among them. -Personally, he was rather solitary. When he tested his feelings about -other men by too much direct contact with them, they put him out. He -looked at them hungrily from a distance. Port Argent did not find him -companionable. His solitude suited his temperament, but troubled his -conscience. - -Mrs. Tillotson found him the key to her social aspirations. Her -aspirations sometimes drove him to think well of a tower of clamouring -bells for a place of residence. - -He fancied himself settled. Here was his work, his big brick hall -with its platform, and opening off its narrow side entrance was his -wide-windowed study. Here he would write his books and speak his mind, -scatter his seed, and let the wind and sun take care of it. A man could -do no more than throw his personality into the welter of things, and -leave the worth of it to other decisions than his own. Here his travels -were ended, except as one's soul travelled onward, spaceless and -timeless. - -In this spiritual kind of travelling he seemed ever to have moved by -two concurrent roads, paths now rutted and worn, running into and -overlapping each other. One of them was everywhere marked “Allen.” Of -the other, the Seton Avenue Assembly and the grey volume, “The Inner -Republic,” might be called signboards, or statements of condition. -Even there might be noted the deep groove of the path marked “Allen,” - crossing and following the path of his convictions and interpretations, -showing itself here and there in some touch of bitterness, some personal -sense of the confusion and mockery of life, in a feeling for dishonoured -humanity as if it were a personal dishonour, and so in a passionate -championship of wrecked and aimless people. He spoke of them as if they -were private and near. One champions kindred with little question of -their deserts. This was part of the secret of Alcott's power on the -platform. Over his success, as well as his failures, was written -“Allen.” - -“Why do you go apart from me?” he asks in the grey volume. “Are you -sensual, thievish, violent, irresponsible? I am sensual, thievish, -violent, irresponsible. If it troubles you that my coat is too new and -my books too many, I will burn them and sit down in the gutter. It does -not matter. Nothing matters except that you walk apart from me. For -though I know that some effort one must make, somehow conspire to grasp -this sorry scheme of things and remould it nearer to the heart's -desire, yet I am no socialist. I know that the evil is not social, but -human,--and I know not how I shall grasp it if we go apart.” - -The groove of the path marked “Allen” seems plain enough here. Allen, -present, had wrecked his life more than once. Allen, lost, gave his -speech the passion that gave it power. Mixed impatience and remorse -drove Allen to cast himself loose, a broken spar, to disappear over the -next wave. Alcott hungered and thirsted to find him again. Allen had -ruined his career; and Allen had made for himself his career; there was -no jest in that irony. The coloured thread “Allen” was woven so thickly -into the woof of his life that it tinged the whole pattern. - -The day after the death of Wood Alcott passed through Bank Street -and met Charlie Carroll, that valuable and spasmodic editor. Carroll -glittered with malice. - -“Say, that man's name was Hicks.” - -“What of it?” - -“Why, he's one of your heelers.” - -“Don't know him.” - -“Didn't you ever see him? Well, Tom Berry knows him. He lived in -Muscadine Street, over the river. Tom Berry says he used to sit 'way -back under your gallery, curled up like a muskrat, eating his beard and -drinking eloquence like raw brandy. Say, he looks like it.” - -“Do you think I recommended him to shoot Wood?” - -“Well, not exactly.” - -“Been writing some buckshot paragraphs on me, then?” - -Carroll shook his head. - -“Don't know how it is. Down with the devil! Hicks, go shoot Wood! Never -saw a man like you to make a general remark sound so blanked particular. -No, but I'm going to soak you six to-morrow, you bet.” - -Carroll laughed and flitted away. - -Aidee sat brooding and troubled in his study that afternoon. Nobody -cared what Carroll said. Carroll could not hurt him. A man was not his -brother's keeper any further than he could keep him. It was his business -to do his best, and not cultivate an invalid conscience. Wood had been a -likeable man. Whatever his qualities, he had a right to his life. Aidee -had seen men drop and die in Nevada of sudden holes through the chest. -If somebody from the Third Ward undertook to emphasize Carroll's -paragraphs by applying a club to Alcott Aidee, it would be no business -of Carroll's either, whose business was with his paragraphs, and with -seeing that they said what he meant, or that he meant what he caused -them to say. - -But the thing tasted badly. - -He would see this Hicks, and discover at what point of discipleship a -man translated “Down with the devil!” into “Go shoot Wood!” and became -ready to take another's life and give over his own in exchange. - -He stood at the window and saw Alberta Keys enter the Tillotson door, -followed by Ted Secor, later by Ralbeck and Berry. They would be sipping -Mrs. Tillotson's coffee presently, and discussing the Wood murder, and -giving voluble opinions. They were driftwood people. Berry's “brotherly -love” was a personal luxury he indulged himself with, a billowy divan -that his soul reclined on. He had both brains and education, and played -dolls with his sympathies. Ralbeck cursed the “Standard Oil” by way -of relaxation, his earnest business in this world being connected with -thorough-bass. Mrs. Tillotson's pretence was only a little more evident. -A lot of zig-zag waterflies! That poor muddy humanity which had no -opinions, except they came directly out of its sins and pains, was -better than these, whose opinions were their mental entertainments. And -who were the bulk of those who listened to him weekly? What real men -followed him now or believed in him utterly, except some poor madman -like the murderer, Hicks? The masses of men in Port Argent did not care -for him, Aidee. They liked Marve Wood better, and young Hennion. He knew -of no one person in Port Argent who loved Alcott Aidee. The Assembly was -a collection of the half-curious, the half-sincere, the half-educated, -the drunken with a little philosophy; some driftwood from the churches, -and a percentage of socialists from the shops, with opinions like Scotch -plaids. What dedication was there in any of them? - -What was there in them that was genuine, as a mother with her child is -genuine, or a man at his set task and knowledge of instant need? It was -one of Aidee's dark hours. The Wood murder was a jarring discord. One -could not deny that. - -Ah, there came times to every man, he thought, whatever his success, -when he looked on his success with a dull dislike. He remembered one day -in Nevada, when he had sat unnoticed hours on water-dribbled rocks on -the edge of his claim--which was paying at that time--and felt the same -mental nausea. Another time was at Allen's prison door in St. Louis. - -Disillusion was no more rational than illusion. Sometimes the morning -stars sang discordantly, and knew not why, any more than they knew why -at other times their voices were effortless and sweet. - -On that day of the water-dribbled rocks of Nevada, it was the loss -of Allen which had caused the mood, and the thought that the loss was -final, and that the yellow fleck ore in the pit paid back no minutest -percentage of the loss. Then the discovery that he could speak and move -men had come, and brought with it the longing to move them to certain -ends, and he had thought: - -“All men are brothers. But some are lost and some are seeking. One is -afraid and is condemned; one is not afraid and is called righteous; but -neither of them can save himself alone; he can only do it because of -the other. He can't do it without the other, for salvation is not the -solitary issue they say it is. Salvation is a commonwealth. This is my -message.” Then he had lifted himself from the rocks and the ore pit, and -had faith. - -Now, if faith in his ends should fail, and the springs dry up! Faith -and doubt were three-fourths irrational. Someone would be proving them -bacteria. They passed from man to man--they floated in the air--one -caught them from events and objects as one caught the cholera--they were -apt to be epidemic. - -And yet faith in ends and purposes was health, and doubt of them -disease. The one we must have, the other we must be rid of. - -So ran Aidee's thoughts while he stood at the window and looked out -gloomily at Seton Avenue, at its block pavement, and the shadows thrown -by the pale young maple leaves. He saw nothing coming but a street -car, a headlong rattling mechanism. He thought how all over Port Argent -people were talking of the Wood murder--some gabbling about it like Mrs. -Tillotson's guests, others saying, decently enough: “Wood always treated -me right,” or, “Well, the old scamp's gone!” - -The Wood murder seemed an abrupt and challenging event thrust across his -life--harsh, discordant, repellent, like that clanging mechanism in the -street, which stopped, however, almost before Mrs. Tillotson's door, -and Camilla Champney stepped down from it. Aidee watched her enter the -house, and then fell to pacing the floor restlessly. After half an -hour he took his hat and went across the street to the Tillotson -drawing-room. - - - - -CHAPTER VII--THE THIRD LAMP - - -|WHILE Aidee was looking gloomily from his study window on Seton Avenue, -the Tillotson coterie were discussing the Wood murder. - -“Splendid subject for a poem, Mrs. Tillotson!” cried Ralbeck. “I will -put it in music, the schema thus--The wronged cry for justice! -They rise! Staccato! Spare not! Fortissimo! Triumph! Victory! -Allegro-mezzoforte!” - -And Berry rumpled his hair and murmured: “Peace and coffee at Mrs. -Tillotson's afterwards. Andante. It's rather nice.” - -And Mrs. Tillotson poured coffee from her patent coffee-pot, saying -sternly that Mr. Aidee never countenanced crime; she could not bring -herself either to countenance crime. - -“This is important,” she said. “We must take a position. We must insist -to Mr. Aidee on a position.” She drew herself up and paused. “People -will ask our position.” - -Alberta opened her soft blue eyes widely. “Will you write a poem about -Wood and Hicks, really?” - -“My dear, what is your opinion?” Mrs. Tillotson asked. - -“Scrumptious!” said Alberta. - -Mrs. Tillotson hesitated. - -“I will consult Mr. Aidee. The Assembly must take a position.” - -It was Mrs. Tillotson's latest theory that she was the power behind the -throne. Genius must be supported, guided, controlled. She referred to -Chateaubriand and Madame Récamier, a reference furnished her by Berry. - -“Countenance crime!” cried Ralbeck. “Everybody countenances crime.” - -Alberta opened her eyes a shade wider. - -“Except crimes of technique,” Berry murmured softly. “You don't -countenance a man who sings off the key. Curious! I do.” - -“Art has laws,” declared Mrs. Tillotson. “Society has laws. Crime is the -breach of necessary laws.” - -“Necessary, Mrs. Tillotson! You touch the point.” Berry stirred himself. -“But we sing in tune or out of tune by nature; just so love and hate by -nature. Or if we learn to love, or to sing in tune, it is by example, -and not by fear or compulsion, that we learn. Most crimes are crimes of -technique, the breach, not of natural laws, but of artificial laws. An -unnecessary law is an initial crime. The breach of it is a consequent -crime. 'Love one another' is the law most systematic, beautiful, -inclusive. Really, all other laws than that are technical.” - -“G-gorry!” stammered Ted Secor. “Bu-but, you see, Hicks----” - -“Did Hicks love Wood?” said Berry, and fixed on Teddy his glassy-eyed -and smiling stare. “He was wrong, Hicks was wrong.” - -“G-gorry, no! He didn't love Wood!” Ted Secor found it hard work, this -keeping one's gaze fixed on higher things, for the stars all seemed to -be erratic stars. He was not clever himself; they were all cleverer here -than he. He was nearly as idle as Berry, and more ignorant than Ralbeck, -whose knowledge extra-musical was less than moderate; he was as useless -as possible; his limbs were large and his head small; Mrs. Tillotson -scared him; Alberta ordered and he obeyed; but he had decided instincts, -and he knew that Berry was cleverer than Ralbeck, that Mrs. Tillotson -posed, that Alberta carried himself around somehow in her diminutive -pocket, and finally, that his own staying powers on the whole were -rather good. - -The trolley car clattered, and crashed past outside, and stopped, and -Alberta, looking through the bow-window, cried: - -“Camilla Champney! She's coming in!” - -While Mrs. Tillotson flushed and saw visions. Camilla was not frequent -and familiar in her drawing-room. She had been there but once or twice, -and then nearly a year before. - -When Aidee entered, Ralbeck, Mrs. Tillotson, and Berry were arguing -eagerly on the subject of rituals, Camilla's thrilled and thrilling -interest seeming to act like a draught on excitable coals. Mrs. -Tillotson appealed to Aidee. Berry argued the softening effect of -rituals; they tended to substitute non-combative forces and habits, he -said, in the place of combative opinion; the Catholics were wise who -substituted ecclesiasticism for theology; opinion was quarrelsome; hence -followed anger and hate; a ritual represented order, therefore habit, -therefore peace; it induced these qualities in character; he thought -Mrs. Tillotson might compose a ritual for the Assembly. Ralbeck shouted -his scorn. Mrs. Tillotson did not seem pleased with Ralbeck for his -scorn. - -Aidee left the house with Ted, Alberta, and Camilla. Presently Ted -and Alberta turned north toward Herbert Avenue and the region of large -houses and broad lawns, and Aidee and Camilla walked down Franklin -Street. The crowds increased as they drew nearer the business -section--late afternoon crowds hurrying home. - -“I don't know how to say what I have to say, Miss Champney,” he said -stiffly, somewhat painfully. “I thought you could say anything. That's -your gift.” - -Camilla was radiant for a moment. - -“It is about the other evening. I see it differently. I see that Mr. -Hennion was right.” - -“Oh!” For another moment she was disdainful. “Women don't want to be -men's conventions.” - -“Conventions! Berry would say that men are sermons and women rituals.” - -“Mr. Berry wouldn't have said that. He _couldn't!_” She was radiant -again. - -“Don't flatter me for coining epigrams. They're the small change of Mrs. -Tillotson's drawing-room.” - -“But I like Alberta!” - -She already felt the something discordant in Aidee's mood. - -The increasing crowds broke the conversation. They turned to the left -through the Court House Square, and passed the old jail with its barred -windows and crumbling bricks. Sparrows fluttered and pecked in the wet -young grass, sometimes lit on the sill of a barred window and looked -into its black secrecy. - -“Please don't be troubled about that, Mr. Aidee, because it doesn't -matter, and besides--I don't know how to ask you--but there's something -I want to find out. I don't know exactly what it is. It's about 'The -Inner Republic'!” - -She was flushed, hurried, and embarrassed now. - -“I thought it was different--from the other books--that is--I thought -there was something in it besides what you wanted to prove.” - -“The book is more a confession than an argument, do you mean?” - -“Not more, but besides.” - -“And that is what you want explained? You are perfectly right. A man -ought not to spill his blood into a book. It looks smeared. Or else he -ought to add explanatory notes. Oh, yes! the book! But the notes you ask -for are extensive.” - -Camilla dropped her head, and they walked on silently. - -They were come into a section of little wooden shanties. There were a -few saloons with gilded signs, some grocery stores showing sodden -and specked vegetables, and empty spaces here and there, cavernous, -weed-grown, and unsightly with refuse. The section was wedged in between -the Lower Bank Street neighbourhood, where the well-to-do in Port Argent -once builded their residences, and the upper part of the city, whither -they had capriciously migrated since. The two noisy thoroughfares of -Bank Street and Maple Street came together at one corner of it. A great -red-brick ward schoolhouse was backed against an empty space, which was -surrounded with a rickety board fence, and therein a few unhealthy -trees were putting forth pale spring leaves. The still greater mass of a -steepleless church thrust out its apse toward the same empty space. - -Aidee had spoken out of the sick bitterness which he had already noted -as unreasonable. Miss Champney, he thought, was only reasonable in -asking for explanatory notes. - -A bluebird on one of the feeble and stunted maples by the schoolhouse -began to sing, “Lulu-lu,” pleading, liquid, and faint. A flabby woman -at the door of one of the shanties bellowed hoarse threats at some -quarrelling children. - -Camilla lifted her face. Her eyes were wet, and her mouth trembling at -the rebuff. - -“I didn't think it would seem that way. I thought you might tell -me--because you seemed to know, to understand about one's life--because -I thought,--you seemed to know so well what I only guessed at. I didn't -mean it as if it were nothing to me. I'm sorry.” - -Aidee stopped short, they stood in silence for some time by the old -fence with its lichened boards enclosing the meagre maples and the -grassless space within, where the bluebird's young spring song floated -above, “Lulu-lu,” tender and unfinished, as if at that point the -sweetness and pain of its thought could only be hinted at by the little -wistful silence to follow. Doubtless, among the maple leaves, too, there -are difficulties of expression, imprisoned meanings that peer out of -dark windows, and the songsters are afraid of singing something that -will not be answered in the same key. They sing a few notes wistfully -and listen. They flutter about the branches, and think each other's -hesitations bewildering. It happens every spring with them, when the -maple buds unfold, when April breaks into smiles and tears at the -discovery of her own delicate warmth, and the earth feels its myriad -arteries throbbing faintly. - -Camilla was about to turn to go on, but he stopped her. - -“I won't say that I didn't mean that,” he said. “I did. I'm not sorry. -Otherwise I couldn't have understood you.” - -“I shall make a circus of myself,” he thought. “But she'll look as if -she thought it a solemn ceremony. Women can do that. They don't have to -believe. And perhaps she would understand.” - -“Lulu-lu,” sang the bluebird plaintively, seeming to say, “Don't you -understand? This is what I mean.” - -“But you do understand now!” said Camilla. - -“Yes. I've been moody to-day, and sick of my life here. It was the Wood -murder. If I were writing another book now, the smear of the Wood murder -would be on it at this point. It would compose an explanatory note. You -asked for explanations of my book, and where we have bled we are sore. -Well, then, I had a younger brother once, and we loved each other like -two rank young wolves, and hung hard together by ourselves some twenty -years, and were ragged together, and hungry and cold sometimes. I -dragged him out of the gutter and prison, he wrecked me more than once. -Then he left me and sank himself somewhere. I don't know if he is dead -or alive. He was a thief and a drunkard off and on, and a better man -than I in several ways, and more of a fanatic, and very lovable. It tore -me in two. - -“I'd give ten years to grip his hand again. Is that curious? I've been -a schoolmaster and a newspaper editor, day laborer, truck driver, and -miner. Now I'm the exponent of an idea. Sometimes I've worked like a -dray horse all day and studied all night. Sometimes I've been happy. -Sometimes I've had an extraordinary desire to be dead. Do you see about -those explanatory notes? Do you think they would help you any? The -reviews say my book is morbid, overemotional. Some of them say it's -hysteric.” - -“I think you're a wonderful man.” She looked up with glowing and frank -admiration. - -The bluebird flitted past them from one scrubby tree to another, crying -softly. The schoolhouse stared down upon them blankly, with its thirty -unspeculative back windows. The flabby woman sat down on her porch and -folded her fat hands. The turbulent children poked in the refuse heaps -and grew imperceptibly dirtier. A factory whistle blew. A nearby street -grew noisier with the outpouring of workmen. Aidee leaned against the -fence and looked at the thirty windows as if he saw speculation in them. - -“Wonderful! No! But you are wonderful, Miss Champney. Wherever you come -you bring hope. You have more sympathies than an April day. You are the -genius of the spring. The bluebirds are singing to you. You tempt me -to be happy. You set me to poetising against the back windows of a -schoolhouse where a hundred and fifty innocents are bored to death every -day. Tell me your secret, and I'll cure the world. It's sick of an old -disease. Old! Some say eternal. But it feels pretty well sometimes, in -the spring, or because women are good and beautiful, and tell us that it -is impossible not to hope. They seem to tell us to dream on, till -we've outdreamed the wrong and so found the right. Wonderful? You are -wonderful. The hope of the world looks out of your eyes. I owe you a -debt. I owe it to tell you whatever you want to know. I'm as flattered -and foolish as you like.” - -Camilla laughed happily. - -“Then I shall have to ask questions. For instance, I want to know what -you think about the man who shot Mr. Wood.” - -He glowered a little. - -“Could I say without seeing him? But you mean about what he did. I -think a man's life belongs to him and shouldn't be stolen. I don't like -thievery of any kind. I've been trying to show people that men like -Wood were disguised thieves, more or less disguised from themselves. I -suppose Hicks is no less a murderer because the thing appeared to him -in the disguise of a cause. I don't know. They call him so. Murder is -illegal killing. They'll probably put him to death, and that will be -legal killing. They'll think their motive is good. The motives of the -two killings are not so different. Hicks thought his motive was good. I -think no man has a right to kill another, legally or illegally. I don't -care for the laws. I'd as lief break them as not. They are codified -habits, some of them bad habits. Half the laws are crimes against better -laws. You can break all the Ten Commandments with perfect legality. -The laws allow you to kill and steal under prescribed conditions. Wood -stole, and Hicks killed, and most men lie, though only now and then -illegally. It's all villainous casuistry. Taking life that doesn't -belong to you is worse than taking money that doesn't belong to you, -because it's the breach of a better ownership. But Hicks' motive seems -better than Wood's. How can one measure the length and breadth of sin? -Wood seemed to me more of a thief than most who are in jail, because I -felt clearer as to the rights of public property than as to the rights -of private property. But I found him a very human man. Hicks is probably -no less so. Wood was a likeable----” - -“The Third Lamp man too. There is no criminal class, no corrupt -politician class. There are no classes of any kind. I mean to say the -classification hinders more truth than it helps. Do you understand me? -I'm not a systematic thinker. Shall I confess, Miss Champney? One talks -confidently about right and wrong in public. In secret he confesses that -he never saw them apart. I confess it to you, that I don't know how they -would look apart.” - -Camilla felt thrilled. It was the word “secret,” perhaps, or, -“confession.” Or more with the sense of being present at the performance -of a mystery, when a great man, as she thought him--a man new, at least, -and original--conceived, created, shaped his thoughts before her, and -held them out for her to see. The great men of history, the statesmen, -poets, reformers, were vivid to her, to be read and to be read about. -Some of them her father had known. They were the subjects of long -morning talks in the tall-windowed library. She had a halo ready for -any deserving head. She had a halo fitted on Alcott Aidee's, and he was -conversationally doffing it, a celestial performance that set her cheeks -to flying signals of excitement. - -Aidee was basking in a vague sense of pleasantness, his sick moodiness -soothed away. What did it matter if one had work to do? How noble and -lovely and sweet was Camilla Champney! - -“The man who first invented women,” he went on more slowly, “must have -been a lyric poet.” - -He caught sight of the huge woman on the porch of the shanty, who now -rose and bobbed to him vigorously. Aidee returned the salute. Camilla -choked a laugh, and Aidee grinned in sympathy, and all seemed well, -with a bluebird, the moist April weather, and the cheerful noise of the -surrounding streets, and the coming on of sunset. They turned and walked -up the slight hill, past the big steepleless church, to Maple Street. - -“No, she's not lyric,” he said. “She's epic. Her name is Mrs. Finney. -I've forgotten how I happen to know. Oh, yes! She and her husband fight, -but she always thrashes him.” - -“How dreadful!” - -“Is it? But it's good for him to know where he stands in the scheme of -things. His hopefulness is wonderful, and then the knowledge that she -can do it is part of her contentment. Do you suppose we could get Tom -Berry to admit that a combativeness which had a regular recurrence and a -foregone conclusion, like the Finneys', might come to have the -qualities and benefits of a ritual? It would be a nice question for Mrs. -Tillotson's drawing-room.” - -“He talks as he writes!” thought Camilla, marvelling, too interested -in marvelling to question if the man could be analysed, and some things -found not altogether worshipful--egotisms, perhaps inconsistencies, -weaknesses, and tyrannies. Capable of earnestness he was surely beyond -most men; capable of sarcasm and laughter. Camilla was occupied in -getting the spirit of the grey volume properly incarnated in the man -walking beside her, a slender man, tirelessly energetic, whose black, -restless eyes glanced under bony brows so intently at whatever for the -moment met them, whose talk was so brilliant and electric. This brother -whom he was describing so frankly seemed to have behaved more than -doubtfully. But Alcott's frank description of his brother and his close -love of him both were so clear, and his frankness and his love each -seemed to Camilla the more beautiful for the other. - -The Arcadian age is not only an age of surprises. It is above all an age -of images. All ideas then make haste to shape themselves into persons, -into living objects, however vast and vague. In the farthest inland -Arcadia, hard by the sources and fountain heads of streams, where -everyone has once lived, what unhesitating outstretchings there were, -what innocent anthropomorphisms! In our dreams God came into the window -and kissed us at night with sweet, fiery lips, as realistic a visitation -as ever came to Psyche or Endymion, and the soul swelled up like a -balloon, and was iridescent as a soap bubble. Everything was a person -then. - -Camilla had still the habit. A face and a voice came to her out of every -book. She had already a close acquaintance with a surprising person in -the grey volume, one who had varying tones and features, who seemed -to reason so closely, so trenchantly, and again to be but a lost and -longing petitioner; one who sometimes bitterly denounced, but sometimes -spoke humorously and pleasantly enough. A feverish spirit, yet as it -seemed to her, beautiful, earnest, daring, searching, and like a ship -carrying a mysterious force and fearless prow. She had but pictures and -impressions of these things. She was slowly identifying them now with -the restless-eyed Aidee, and felt peculiarly happy. How beautiful it -seemed that spring had come, and the first bluebird was singing! The -impish children on the refuse heaps shouted gleefully. A silky spring -haze was in the air, as if risen out of the valleys of Arcadia. - -Maple Street was thronged, and mainly with foreign-looking faces, German -and Italian, some Jewish, a few Chinese and Negro. Lower Bank Street -seemed comparatively quiet and deserted. Black-hulled freight boats, -cumbersome monsters, slept at their docks. The glimmer of the white sail -of a yacht could be seen far down the river beyond the bridges. - -“Cheerful old river!” Aidee remarked. - -“I love it.” - -“Reason enough for its cheerfulness.” - -“I've loved it for ages.” - -“But you needn't dodge a tribute,” said Aidee. - -“You needn't insist on it.” - -“Not if I think it important?” - -“Oh, never at all!” - -“But a tribute! You might take what belongs to you. I owe you a debt.” - -“Better owe it than pay it in small coin.” - -“Then I offer a promissory note.” - -“You mean--you will tell me more about----” Camilla paused and dropped -her voice. - -“Whatever you may ask. It's the kind called payable on demand.” - -It has ever been noticed, at some point, sooner or later, probably in -the springtime, the conversations in Arcadia become singularly light, -and small tinklings of wit are thought poetical. - -Opposite the P. and N. station were the gangs of Hennion's workmen. The -paving job was nearly finished. But something was wrong. The men stood -idle. Hennion had his back against a telegraph pole, and talked to -Kennedy, as Aidee and Camilla came up behind him. - -“Rip it out again, Kennedy,” he said. “Can't help it.” - -“'Twill cost the best part of a day,” said the big foreman ruefully. - -“Can't help it.” - -Kennedy swore stealthily but solidly, and Hennion laughed. - -“I'll pay the damages if you'll do the growling. That's all right.” - -He turned and met Camilla and Aidee, and the three walked toward the -Champney house. Camilla asked imperative questions. - -“What is it, Dick? What have you done?” - -Hennion glanced at Aidee and thought of their late stormy tilting. - -“Oh, I was away to-day, and Kennedy saw the chance to make a blunder -with his sand layer. He thinks it won't make much difference, if we -forget about it. He's an ingenious arguer. But I hate sloppy work.” - -Aidee said nothing. The two men stopped at the Champney gate. Camilla -went up the path with her swift, springy step. They turned back to the -gangs of workmen. - -“You were right about that, the other night,” said Aidee abruptly. “I'm -not quite clear how you were right, but you were.” - -“Right about the whole business?” - -“No, only about my method. I'm still urging you to go in, but I'm -adopting your scruples.” - -Hennion shook his head thoughtfully. Aidee went on. - -“Political power is safest in the hands of those who have to make a -sacrifice in order to accept it.” Then he stopped with a short laugh. -“I'm a coiner of phrases. It's inveterate. Maxims don't interest you. -Would it be any argument for your going in if I engaged to stay out?” - -“Why, hardly. I don't know. I don't make you out.” - -“Carroll's going to explain me in six paragraphs to-morrow.” - -“Carroll doesn't amount to anything. Did you know Hicks at all?” - implying that he knew what the paragraphs would be. - -“Never saw him that I know of.” - -“Well--I don't see where you're concerned.” - -Hennion went out into the street among his workmen. He wondered what -Aidee meant by “adopting your scruples.” Probably Aidee saw the enormity -of dragging in Camilla. It was time he did. Hennion did not find himself -liking Aidee any better for his candour, or advice, or conscientious -scruples, if he had them. He thought his own scruples about Camilla were -not things to be copied or “adopted” precisely by anyone else. - -Aidee went back by the schoolhouse. He thought he would like to hear the -bluebird again, on the spot where his bitterness and the wound within -him had been suddenly-healed by some medicine as irrational as the -disease, but the twilight had fallen now, and there was no song about -the place. Mrs. Finney and her “man” were quarrelling noisily at their -open window. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII--MECHANICS - - -|HENNION came back from seeing Wood laid away (where other men were -lying, who had been spoken of in their day, whom Port Argent had -forgotten or was in process of forgetting) and saw the last bricks laid -and rammed on Lower Bank Street. There was satisfaction in the pavement -of Lower Bank Street, in knowing what was in it and why. The qualities -of sand, crushed stone, and paving brick were the same yesterday and -to-day. Each brick was three inches and three-eighths thick, and not -one would be ambitious of four inches to-morrow. If it were broken, -and thrown away, there would be no altruistic compunctions. One built -effectively with such things. - -Charlie Carroll whispered to Hennion as they came out of the cemetery: - -“It's all right. The boys are satisfied.” - -“Why are they?” - -“They'd be scared not to do what Wood said now. It wouldn't go down.” - -“Go down where?” - -“Well, they seem to like the idea too. They will have it.” - -But why should he be congratulated over a prospective invitation from -“the boys” to labour in their interests? He was not sure why he had not -already refused, by what subconscious motive or scruple. Properly there -should be scruples about accepting. The leadership of the organisation -was an unsalaried position, with vague perquisites. Wood had taken -honorariums and contributions, spent what he chose on the organisation, -and kept what he chose. Apparently he had not kept much, if any. He had -seemed to care only for influence. He had liked the game. He had left -only a small estate. But whether he had kept or passed it on, the money -was called unclean. - -If one went into politics to effect something--and Hennion could not -imagine why one went into anything otherwise--the leadership of the -organisation seemed to be the effective point. The city had a set of -chartered machinery, ineffectually chartered to run itself; also certain -subsets of unchartered machinery. It voted now and then which of the -subsets should be allowed to slip on its belt. The manner in which the -chartered machinery was run depended somewhat on the expedients that -were needed to keep the unchartered machinery going. There must be -dynamics and mechanics in all that machinery. To an engineer's criticism -it seemed oddly complicated. There must be a big waste. But almost any -machine, turning heat force into motion, wasted sixty per cent. -Still these sets and subsets seemed loosely geared. It looked like -an interesting problem in engineering, that had been met rather -experimentally. As mechanics, it seemed to be all in an experimental -stage. Hennion wondered if there were any text-books on the subject, and -then pulled himself up with a protest. - -What did politics want of an engineer and a business man? As an engineer -and a business man, he had been asking something of politics, to be -sure, but he had only asked it in the way of business. In his father's -time politics had called for lawyers. Nowadays lawyers too were mainly -a class of business men. If political machinery had any dynamic and -mechanic laws, they must be original. Those who succeeded in running it -seemed to succeed by a kind of amateur, hand-to-mouth common sense. - -Wood had been an interesting man. After all, he might have been as -important in his way as Henry Champney had been. If you were talking of -the dynamics of politics, you were estimating men as forces. - -The amount and direction were a good deal matters of guess. Wood had -thought Hennion's father a better man for results than Champney. - -Wood himself had been a man for results, with some impersonal ambitions -for Port Argent. He had known it better than almost anyone else, more -of its details and different aspects, from the wharves to Seton Avenue. -Those who criticised him generally had seemed hampered by knowing less -about the matter than he did. They fell back on principles, and called -him corrupt, which meant that, if the unchartered machinery needed fuel, -the chartered machinery was set to turning out some bit of legislation -to suit those who furnished the fuel. Hennion thought the prosperity -of Port Argent had always been a motive with Wood. Only it was a -complicated motive, half private, hardly confessed. - -Hennion entered another protest against the direction of his thoughts, -and noticed the big foreman, Kennedy, close beside him. The workmen were -gathering their tools. - -“All right, Kennedy. Come around tomorrow. We'll begin that grading on -the east side next.” - -Kennedy looked after him wistfully, and the workmen stood still, holding -their tools and looking after him. He noticed it as he turned away, and -it occurred to him to wonder how it happened that he knew so many men -like Kennedy, who seemed to have a sort of feudal attachment for him. - -He passed through Tecumseh Street on his way home, and noticed where the -policeman had ripped off the advertising boards. Hicks must be a queer -specimen, he thought. But relatively to mechanics, every man was an -eccentric. - -Tecumseh Street was absorbed in its daily business. It seemed to have no -conscience-smitten, excited memories. A mob and a flash of gunpowder, a -runaway horse, the breaking down of a truck, everything went the way -of incident. “Everything goes,” was the phrase there, meaning it is -accepted and goes away, for the street has not time to remember it. - -Hennion glanced up at the window of the little room in _The Press_ -building. Why had Wood chosen an engineer and contractor to make of him -a machine politician? Machinery made of men, with the notions of men -to drive it--what kind of machinery was that to work with! Aidee, the -enthusiast, was a man! Hicks, the mad, was another; Freiburger, the -mollusk, another. Wood, with his complicated sympathies and tolerances -and hand-to-mouth flexible common sense, was a specially developed type -to run that kind of machinery. Wood was dead, and as for his “job,” and -what “the boys” wanted, why, they wanted _their_ “jobs,” like everybody -else. Hennion wanted his own. - -Carroll came flitting around the corner of Hancock Street at that -moment, and nearly ran into him. - -“Oh! Committee meets to-morrow night.” - -“I don't want it.” - -“Come off! You can't help it.” - -Carroll flitted away in the direction of _The Press_ building. - -Before seven o'clock the sparrows in the dark maples were forgetting in -sleep all the great issues of their day. - -Hennion left his rooms, in the apartment building that was splendidly -called “The Versailles,” and came out in the street. It was too early to -see Camilla. He walked a few blocks north, and turned down Maple Street -presently, past St. Catherine's Church, and Freiburger's saloon across -the street from the church. They were the seats of the two rulers of the -Fourth Ward, church and state--Father Harra and Frei-burger. - -Maple Street instead of tumbling down the bluff like other streets, to -be chopped off short at the wharves, seems to lift itself there with a -sense of power beneath, becomes a victory and a spirit, and so floats -out over the brown Muscadine. The bridge was always to Hennion more -like his father than the canal or the C. V. Railroad. The railroad was a -financial cripple now, absorbed in a system. The great day of the -canal was long past. The elder Hennion had seemed a soul for daring and -success, and that was the bridge. It stood to Hennion for a memorial, -and for the symbol of his father's life and his own hope in the working -world. He liked to stand on it, to feel it beneath and around him, -knowing what each steel girder meant, and what in figures was the -strength of its grip and pull. There was no emotional human nature in -it, no need of compromise. Steel was steel, and stone stone, and not a -bolt or strand of wire had any prejudice or private folly. In a certain -way he seemed to find his father there, and to be able to go over with -him their old vivid talks. - -The Muscadine reflected up at him, out of its brown turbulence, -shattered fragments of the moon and stars. A quavering voice spoke in -his ear: “Got a light?” - -Besides himself and the inebriate, who held up by the nearest girder, -there was only one other person on the bridge, a small, thin figure, -creeping from the distance toward them in the moonlight, a half-grown -child, who leaned her shoulders to one side to balance a basket on the -other. - -“Pretty full, Jimmy Shays,” Hennion said, giving him a match. “You'd -float all right if you fell into the river.” - -“Tha'sh right, tha'sh right! I drinks to pervent accerdents, myself.” - -He lit the match, seemed to gather the idea that he had succeeded with -the pipe, and sucked at it imaginatively; then started suddenly for the -basket girl. “Hi!” - -The child stopped and looked at him. - -“I gets one end. Tha'sh right.” - -She accepted the offer with matter-of-fact gravity, and they moved away -over the bridge unsteadily. The glamour of the moon was around them. -Hennion heard Shays lift his voice into husky resemblance of a song. - -A queer world, with its futilities like Shays, its sad little creeping -creatures like the basket girl! - -Down the river some distance was the P. and N. Railroad bridge. The -west-bound train shot out upon it, a sudden yell, a pursuing rumble, a -moving line of lit windows. - -Whatever one did, taking pride in it purely as a work, as victory and -solution, it was always done at last for the sake of men and women. The -west-bound passenger train was the foremost of effectual things. It ran -as accurately to its aims in the dark as in the light, with a rhythm of -smooth machinery, over spider-web bridges. Compared with the train, the -people aboard it were ineffectual. Most of them had--but mixed ideas -of their purposes there. But if no passengers had been aboard, the -westbound train would have been a silly affair. - -Hennion came from the bridge and down Bank Street, which was brilliant -with lights. He turned up an outrunning street and came out on the -square, where stood Port Argent's city hall and court house and jail, -where there was a fountain that sometimes ran, and beds of trimmed -foliage plants arranged in misguided colour-designs. - -Several lights were burning in the barred windows of the old jail. He -stopped and looked at the lights, and wondered what varieties of human -beings were there. The jail was another structure which would have been -futile without people to go in, at least to dislike going in. The man -who shot Wood was there. Why did he shoot Wood? What was his futile idea -in that? - -The jail was old and dilapidated. Some of the bricks had crumbled under -the barred windows. - -Hennion walked into the entrance, and rang the bell. - -The jailor was middle-aged, bearded, and smoking a short pipe. - -“Can I see Hicks, Sweeney?” - -“Got a permit? Oh! Mr. Hennion! Well, it ain't regular, you know.” - -“You can stay by.” - -“Well, all right. No, but I'll have to lock you in. It's the rules.” - -They went up a flight of dark stairs, through a corridor, where a -watchman passed them. They stopped at a door, and the jailor turned the -key. - -“Hicks, gentleman to see you.” - - - - -CHAPTER IX--HICKS - - -|HICKS was sitting within by a plain board table, reading. It was a -whitewashed room and had a window with rusted bars. The door banged, and -the key again creaked in the lock. The jailor walked to and fro in the -corridor. - -Hicks looked up from his reading, and stared in a half-comprehending -way. - -“I have a selfish thirst for knowledge, Mr. Hicks,” said Hennion. - -He took the chair on the opposite side, and looked at the book on the -table. The feeble gas jet stood some six inches out from the wall, -directly over the table. - -“It's the Bible,” said the other. “It needs to be made modern, but -there's knowledge in it.” - -“I didn't mean that.” - -“Lazarus and Dives. That's fanciful justice. A trick to pacify Lazarus. -But there's knowledge. Notice what the dogs did. That's satire.” - -It seemed a trifle uncanny, the place, the little man with the absorbed -manner, metallic voice and strange language, black hair and beard, -intent black eyes. Hennion had never interviewed a criminal before. - -“I'm not a reporter, Mr. Hicks, nor a lawyer.” - -Hicks marked his place and closed the book. - -“I know who you are.” - -“I was a friend of Wood's, in a way, but I'm not here in malice. I -gathered you hadn't anything personal against him. It seemed to follow -you had some sort of a long-range motive in it. I wanted to ask you why -you shot Wood.” - -Hicks' gaze grew slowly in intentness as if his mind were gathering -behind it, concentrating its power on one point. The point seemed to be -midway between and above Hennion's eyes. Hennion had an impulse to -put his hand to the spot, as if it were burnt, but his habit of -impassiveness prevented. He thought the gaze might represent the way in -which Hicks' mind worked. A focussing mind was a good thing for anyone -who worked with his brains, but it might have extravagances. An analysis -concentrated and confined to an infinitely small point in the centre -of the forehead might make an infinitely small hole to the back of the -head, but it would not comprehend a whole character. A man's character -ran to the ends of his hands and feet. - -“I'm an engineer,” Hennion went on, “and in that way I have to know the -effectiveness of things I handle and apply. And in that way men too are -to me so much effectiveness.” - -“I know about you,” said Hicks sharply. “Your men like you. You've never -had a strike.” - -“Why--no.” - -Hicks' manner had changed. It was quick, excited, and angular. - -“You're wrong. They're something more to you, that you didn't count in. -Why do they like you?” - -“I don't know.” - -“Exactly. But it's something effective, ain't it?” - -Hennion paused and felt confused. A man of such sharp analysis and -warped performance as this, how was one to get to understand him? He -leaned back in his chair and crossed his knees. The sharp analysis -might be a trick Hicks had caught from listening to Aidee's speeches. It -sounded like Aidee. - -“Well, anyhow, Mr. Hicks, in the way of effectiveness, why did you shoot -Wood?” - -Hicks' eyes were little pin-points of concentration. - -“He sold the people to the corporations.” - -“Well. But suppose he did. Will the next man do any better? If not, -where's the effectiveness?” - -“He won't be so sharp.” - -“You thought Wood was too sharp to be downed Aidee's way?” - -“He was the devil's latest scheme. I sent him to the devil.” - -“And shoulder the consequences. I like that. But the next man. Suppose I -were the next man.” - -Hicks' teeth clicked together. His hands moved across the table. They -were thin and claw-like, and the nails scratched the boards. He said -softly: - -“Look out what you do.” - -“What shall I do? I'm looking around for advice. Does it seem queer if I -ask some of you?” - -Hennion felt brutally master of the situation. There seemed something -unfair in his greater size, his colder nerves and more untroubled brain, -unfair to the little man opposite, with his hot impulses, his sad and -sordid tragedy. Hennion felt so much at ease as to wonder why he did -not feel more repulsion for Wood's murderer, and consoled himself by -thinking Wood himself had been tolerant of hostilities and extremities, -and would probably feel no repulsion for Hicks. Perhaps the key to Hicks -was that he was created without tolerance. He was made up of intense -convictions and repulsions and inflamed nerves. Whatever goal his -purpose fixed on would become a white-hot point, blinding him to -circumstances. And this focussing nature, which acted like a lens to -contract general heat into a point of fire, was a natural phenomenon in -dynamics. It seemed a characteristic of better service for starting a -fire, and furnishing the first impulse of a social movement, than for -running steady machinery. Some people claimed that society was running -down and needed a new impulse. If so, it needed the Hicks type. If not, -the trouble with Hicks might be that he was a phenomenon occurring at -the wrong time, a fire that had to be put out. - -“You ask me!” - -“Then it does seem queer? But I ask it. Could a man be a party boss, and -satisfy you?” - -Hicks' gaze was now troubled and wild, as if he were trying to find -the centre of the conception with his focus, and could not; as if the -attempt to look at the conception with other than a set hostility was -to break up the organisation of his mind. He drew back, his finger nails -scratching across the table, and hid his face. Hennion rose. - -“I beg your pardon.” - -“You ask me!” - -“Well, I don't think your method is the right one. If a clock's out of -order, I don't think shooting into it is the right method. I dare say it -expresses the way a man feels, but I don't see that it mends the clock. -But if I were undertaking to mend it, and didn't know any too much about -it, I might like to ask the man that was for shooting what his idea -was. I told you I had a selfish thirst for knowledge. Under the -circumstances, I beg your pardon.” - -“Why do you ask me?” Hicks' fingers shook on the table. “There's a man -who can tell you. He can lead you. He led me, when I wasn't a fool.” - -“Who? You mean Aidee?” - -Hicks nodded, and fell to glowering at his nervous fingers, absent and -brooding. - -“He didn't tell you to shoot Wood. I know better than that.” - -“No, he didn't.” - -“Why, there's another thing I'd like to know. What did Aidee do?” - -“Do! He held me back! He was always holding me back! I couldn't stand -it!” he cried sharply, and a flash of anger and impatience went over his -face. “He shouldered me like a log of wood on his back. Maybe I liked -that papoose arrangement, with a smothered damn fire in the heart of me. -No, I didn't! I had to break loose or turn charcoal.” - -Hennion wondered. The man reminded him of Aidee, the same vivid phrase, -the figures of speech. But Aidee had said that he did not know him. It -appeared that he must know him. If Aidee had been lying about it, that -opened sinister suggestions. Hennion did not like Aidee, neither did he -like in himself this furtive sense of satisfaction in the suggestions. - -“Aidee told me he didn't know you. I hadn't thought he would lie about -it.” - -“By God, don't call him a liar to me!” Hicks jumped to his feet, and had -his wooden chair swung over his back in an instant. - -“I don't. I want it explained,” Hennion said coolly. “You can't do -anything with that. Sit down.” - -“He's the only man alive that dares tell the truth. You're all hounds, -cowards, thieves! He's a saint in hell!” - -“Likely enough. You're a hot disciple. Still, I'm waiting for an -explanation.” - -“Don't you call him a liar!” - -“Haven't. Sit down.” - -Hicks sat down, his thin hands shaking painfully. His eyes were -narrowed, glittering and suspicious. Hennion tipped his chair back, put -his hands into his pockets, and looked at the weak, flickering gas -jet, and the ripples of light and shadow that crossed the whitewashed -ceiling. They were wild, disordered, and fugitive, as if reflections -from the spirit behind Hicks' eyes, instead of from the jet at the end -of a lead pipe. - -“I'll help you out with a suggestion,” Hennion said slowly. “You don't -mean to leave Aidee in that shape, since you feel about him in this way. -But you don't know whether your story would go down with me, or whether -it might not get Aidee into trouble. Now, if I'm forecasting that story, -it's something like this. You knew each other years ago, not in Port -Argent.” - -Hicks said nothing. - -“Carried you around papoose-fashion, did he? But there's some likeness -between you. It might happen to be a family likeness.” Still no comment. - -“If it so happened, you might be related. You might be twins. And then -again you might not. You might have been his first convert. Partners -maybe in Nevada. That: was where he came from,--silver mines and what -not. It's no business of mine.” - -He paused and meditated, looking at the pulsating light; then brought -his chair down and leaned forward. - -“I take the liberty to disagree with you. I'm no exception to the run -of men, and I'm neither a hound, nor a coward, nor a thief, nor yet a -liar.” - -“I know you're not.” - -“However, your story, or Aidee's, is no business of mine. I gave you -those inferences because they occurred to me. Naturally you'd suspect -they would. So they do. Gabbling them abroad might make some trouble for -Aidee, that's true. I shan't gabble them.” - -“I know you won't.” - -“I wanted your point of view in shooting Wood. If you don't see your -way to give it, all right. I judge it was the same way you were going to -club me with a chair. Simple enough and rather silly. Goodnight, then. -Is there anything I can do for you?” - -“Yes.” - -Hennion leaned back and studied the gaslight, and disliked himself. -Hicks clasped and unclasped his hands on the table. - -“It won't hurt him,” he said hoarsely, “between you and me. Besides, you -can do that for me. He's my brother, old Al. But I cut away from him. I -kept off. I kept away from him for a while, but I couldn't live without -seeing him. You see? I couldn't do it. Then he came here, and I followed -him, and I lived with a shoemaker across the river and cobbled shoes. -But I heard every speech he made in Port Argent, though he never saw me. -He thinks I'm dead, don't he? I dodged him pretty slick.” He flushed and -smiled--“I liked it,” he whispered, growing excited. “It was better'n -the old way, for we got along all right this way. You've heard of him! -Ain't he wonderful? Ain't he a great one, hey? That was Al. I liked it, -but he didn't know. You see? How'd he know when he thought I was dead, -didn't he? I watched him, old Al!” - -His face was lit up with the warm memory of it. He clicked his teeth, -and swayed to and fro, smiling. - -“We got along all right this way. All right. My idea. Wasn't Al's. I -kept the other side the river, mostly. Nobody can touch him when he's -fired up, can they? They didn't know Al like I knew him. They called him -the Preacher. He scared 'em like prairie fire. He's got his way. I've -heard him. I watched 'em, and I knew him, but they didn't, did they?” - -He focussed his excited eyes suddenly on Hennion. - -“You! I know you; I know your men that live on the east side. I heard -a man say you'd got a heart like a baked potato and don't know it. That -fat-headed foreman of yours, Kennedy, he can tell you more 'n you -ever thought of. Think you're a composite of steel and brick, set up -according to laws of mechanics, don't you? Oh, hell! Go and ask Al. He's -a wonder. Why do your men like you? Go and ask 'em. I've told you why. -Why'd I shoot Wood? Al wouldn't have let me, but it 'll do good. He -scares 'em his way, I scare 'em mine. You wait and see! It 'll do good.” - -Hennion studied the gas jet, until he could see nothing but an isolated -impish dancing flame, until it seemed as if either the little man across -the table were chattering far away in the distance and darkness, or else -he and the gas jet were one and the same. - -Aidee had been four years in Port Argent, and so Hicks had been -following and watching him, cobbling shoes, living a fanciful, excited -life, maniacal more or less. Hennion fancied that he had Hicks' point of -view now. - -“You wait and see! It'll do good.” - -“Well,” said Hennion, “I dare say you've answered the question. You -haven't told me yet what I can do for you.” - -Hicks' excitement died out as suddenly as it had risen. He reached a -trembling hand across the table, and whispered: - -“I thought---- What do you think they'll do to me?” - -“I can't help you there. You'll have counsel.” - -“No, no! It's this. I thought I'd write a letter to Al, and you'd give -it to him afterwards, a year afterwards--supposing--you see?” - -He hesitated pitifully. - -“All right, I'll do that.” - -“I won't write it now.” - -“I see.” - -“You'll keep it still? You won't tell? You won't get a grudge against -Al? If you do! No. I know about you. You won't tell.” - -“No, I won't. Well, good-night, then.” - -“Good-night.” - -His voice was husky and weak now. He put out his hand, hesitating. -Hennion took it promptly. It felt like a wet, withered leaf. - -Hennion went and knocked at the door, which Sweeney opened. Hicks sat -still by the table, looking down, straggling locks of his black hair -plastered wet against his white forehead, his finger nails scratching -the boards. - -The door clanged to, and the noise echoed in the corridor. - -“I heerd him gettin' some excited,” said the jailor. - -“Some.” - -“Think he's crazy?” - -“That's for the court to say.” - -“Ain't crazier'n this old jail. I need a new one bad, Mr. Hennion. Look -at them windows! I seen mighty clever boys here. A sharp one could dig -out here some night, if he had the tools.” - -“Then you'd better not suggest it to Hicks.” - -“Ho! He ain't thinkin' of it. He's a weakly man.” - -“No, probably not.” - -“He ain't got the tools, either. I know the business. Look at the -experience I've had! But I need a new jail, Mr. Hennion, bad, as I told -Mr. Wood.” - -“Better write out a statement of the case. Good-night. Much obliged for -your trouble.” - -The jailor talked busily till they came to the outer door. Hennion broke -away, and left him in the doorway smoking his short pipe. - -He came presently to sit in the tall Champ-ney library, and heard Henry -Champney speaking in that tone and accent which made an ordinary remark -sound like one of the Ten Commandments. Camilla was silent. - -“Do you then, ha! cross the Rubicon?” Champney asked. - -“Wood's organisation, sir? Carroll and the city jailor both seem to -think it a foregone conclusion. Sweeney thinks if one of his 'boys' had -a crowbar, or chisel, or a pair of tongs, he'd return to the community; -so he wants a new jail, thinking it might include a new salary.” - - - - -CHAPTER X--MACCLESFIELD'S BRIDGE - - -|HENNION knew Wood's organisation intimately enough. He had been a part -of it on the outside. Wood had been chairman of the “General Committee,” - a body that had total charge of the party's municipal campaigns, -including admission to caucuses, and local charge in its general -campaigns. Local nominations were decided there. It was only less active -between elections than during them. It had an inner ring which met -by habit, socially, in Wood's office. Whatever was decided in Wood's -office, it was understood, would pass the Committee, and whatever passed -the Committee would pass the City Council, and be welcomed by a mayor -who had been socially at the birth of the said measure. Port Argent was -a ring-led city, but it claimed to have a better ring than ordinary. -Probably it had. Probably this was due in the main to something peculiar -in Wood. - -Hennion's election to the chairmanship was followed by a meeting in -his office that forced a sudden investment in chairs. It was Thursday. -Carroll was there; Mayor Beckett, a neatly dressed man with a long -neck and close-trimmed black beard, talkative, casuistical, a lawyer by -profession; Ranald Cam, President of the Council, solid, grim, rugged, -devoid of grammar, grown grey in the game of politics, and for some -reason unmatched in his devotion to Wood's memory; John Murphy, -saloon-keeper from East Argent, not now in any office, an over-barbered, -plastered, and gummy-looking person, boisterous and genial; J. M. Tait, -small, thin, dry, of bloodless complexion, sandy hair, and infrequent -speech, a lawyer, supposed to represent corporate interests; Major Jay -Tuttle, President of the School Board, white-moustached and pompous. - -Port Argent's school system was thought too military by the teachers -who suffered under it. The Major stood high among Masons and G. A. R.'s. -Endless gossip and detail might be given of all these men. Hen-nion knew -them well, some of them as far back as he could remember. Each of -them held the corner threads of a spreading network of influences and -personal interests. In Hennion's office they smoked and discussed. They -varied discussion with anecdotes of Wood. - -Major Tuttle wanted two of the ward schools enlarged, and offered plans -and estimates of competing architects. - -“Any preference, Major?” asked Hennion. - -“I have given it some consideration,” said the Major puffily, and stated -considerations. - -“Well,” Hennion suggested, “why not give one to Smith and one to Hermon, -and tell them to compete for glory. It might stir them up.” - -The circle laughed and nodded. - -The North Shore R. R. had put in a large proposition involving a new -bridge and station, street crossings, and various rights of way. -Tait read a document signed “Wm. R. Macclesfield, President.” Hennion -suggested that they offer a counter-proposition. - -“We don't want any more grade crossings down there. What makes him -expect his right of way for a gift?” - -“You know what they chipped in this spring?” said Tait, looking up. - -“Pretty much. But Wood never sold out that way, did he?” He turned to -Ranald Cam. - -“Marve Wood ain't never made the city a bad bargain yet,” growled Cam, -“for all they gas about it.” Tait was silent. The others disputed -at length on obscure historic points in Wood's policy. The shadowy -influence of the “old man” was still so strong in the circle that no one -ventured to put any doubt on the guiding wisdom of whatever he had done. -They only disputed points of fact. - -“He kept things solid,” said Carroll, “that's the point.” - -“I should say Macclesfield would have to come up,” said Hennion at last. -“I'll bring you in a counter-estimate next week.” - -When the circle broke up an hour later, Tait lingered behind the rest. -Tuttle, Beckett, and Cam went up Hancock Street together. - -“I guess Dick's going to shut down on Tait,” said Beckett. “Suit me all -right if he does. Depends on how he handles Macclesfield, don't it? He's -rather prompt, eh? I wouldn't exactly say brusque, but it won't do to -rough Macclesfield. Guess you'd better advise him, Major. Say, why not?” - Hennion seemed to him not so companionable, so comfortable as Wood. - -“Possibly, possibly,” said the Major. - -Ranald Cam growled in his beard. Wood's death was a heavy blow to him. -Both the elder men had felt the touch of Hennion's deference toward -them. They did not like Tait. - -“Want to go over there with me, Hennion?” said Tait, puffing his black -cigar rather fast. “See Macclesfield?” - -“Not that I know of.” - -“Suppose I bring him over here?” Hennion stared at the top of his desk -for a full moment. “All right. Come in an hour.” - -Tait went out, and Hennion fell to figuring. - -William R. Macclesfield was a cultivated gentleman, whose personal -courtesies to all men seemed to be returned by fortune in personal -courtesies to him. Macclesfield's attractiveness would be evident at -first knowledge. Persuasion of his astuteness would follow not long -after. Precipitate judgments on his character, based on the interview -which here dropped into Hennion's experience of men and things, were as -well unmade. Hennion preferred to whistle and consider it. - -“Should I congratulate or commiserate?” said Macclesfield, smiling and -shaking hands. - -“Commiserate, thank you.” - -Macclesfield sat down and talked on pleasantly. - -“Yes, yes. Well, it may not be so bad as you think. It calls for great -judiciousness. Wood, now, was a remarkable, I should say a judicious, -man. I know. Your profession, of course. Times have changed since your -father and I met thirty, yes, forty years ago. He was proud of his -profession. Rightly so. Of course, rightly so. We enjoyed ourselves, -too, we young men. The times were perhaps a little, I might say, rugged. -Port Argent has grown. There have been remarkable developments in -politics and engineering. Nowadays municipal affairs seem to call for a -manager in the background. If he's apt to be there, it must mean he is -needed, but it's a peculiar position. You are quite right. But you were -Wood's choice, and he was a very judicious man. You find it takes time -and labour. Yes, and it calls for ability. Now, it is curious that some -people seem to think one in that position ought not to get anything -for his trouble. I call that absurd. I always found in railroading that -time, labour, and ability had to be paid for. By the way, you learned -engineering from your father, I think. Yes, an old friend of mine. I was -thinking coming over the street just now with Tait--I was thinking what -fine things he did in his profession. Very bold, and yet very safe. -Remarkable. And yet engineering was almost in its infancy then.” - -“Yes,” said Hennion, “the changes would have interested him.” - -“Indeed they would! So--the fact is--I was thinking that, if you cared -to submit plans, I should personally like to see you build that bridge -of ours. I should personally like to see what Rick Hennion's son can -do. An elderly man like me can be forgiven a little sentiment, even in -business.” - -Hennion laughed. Macclesfield glanced up suddenly, but saw nothing in -the young man's somewhat impassive face to trouble him. - -“I'd like to build the bridge, of course. You don't think the sentiment -needs any forgiveness from me?” - -“My dear boy, it's perfectly sincere! You'll submit plans, then?” - -“If you continue to want them.” - -“Good! Now--oh! Tait said something about the crossings. You think the -figures too low. Tait said something of the kind. Perhaps they are a -little. I'll look them over again. At the same time, you realise the -feasibility depends on expense. We want to be fair. But considering how -much more convenient to the public this new station will be, considering -the benefit of that arrangement, you think the city ought to be -moderate?” - -“Moderate in its generosity.” - -“Ah--I don't know--I was thinking that we understood each other--that -is--the situation.” - -Hennion swung in his chair. - -“I was thinking, Mr. Macclesfield, of the advantages of candour, and -I was wondering what my father would have said about the situation. -Wouldn't he have said, in his candid way, that a personal contract and -the representative disposal of either city or trust properties were two -transactions that had better not be mixed?” - -“My dear boy, who's mixing them?” - -“Well, I'm proposing to separate them. We'll take your station scheme. -Considering the benefit and convenience, as you say, the city can afford -to be moderate, but it can't afford any more grade crossings down there. -You'll have to come in by a subway.” - -Macclesfield shook his head smilingly. - -“We can't afford that, you see.” - -“Can't? Well, you can afford what you have to. May I ask what you expect -to get through for, from Roper's front to Maple Street?” - -“Oh, well--isn't this a little inquisitorial?” - -“Not necessary, anyway. I know, about.” - -He named a figure. Macclesfield looked surprised. - -Hennion went on slowly: - -“The offer you have made Roper I happen to know that he won't take at -all. You'll suspect, then, that the P. and N. are bidding against you. -There'll be a mess, and you'd better not be in it. You might as well -suspect it now. The P. and N. can afford anything they choose.” - -Macclesfield said nothing. - -“I'm going to make a suggestion, Mr. Macclesfield, if you like.” - -“By all means!” - -“I'm going to suggest that you put your bridge a half mile lower down, -below the boathouses, and come up back of the Gas Works. If you don't -know the holdings down there I'll give them to you.” - -He plunged, without waiting, into a stream of ordered and massed -figures, following the suggested line from point to point, massed the -figures of the Roper's front to Maple Street plan, compared them, and -went on. - -“The Gas Works people will be all right. A. J. Lee will make you some -trouble. Dennis Dolan, being one of your stockholders, won't. You'll -save about half on your right of way. Construction will be considerably -more. You get an easy water-front instead of having to bid against the -P. and N. By stopping beyond the Gas Works instead of going on to Maple -Street you'll save seventy thousand at least. You'll have the marshes to -develop your freight yards without much limit. The station's preferable -there, probably, from the city's standpoint. It will front on the -Boulevard, if the Boulevard ever gets down there, and it will. You have -a better curve, same connection with the P. and N., and this one here -with the L. and S. You'd have to buy right and left on Maple Street. -Here you get your site in a lump from Dolan and the Gas Works. Now, -we'll take your approach on the east side.” More details massed and -ordered. Macclesfield listened intently. Tait half closed his eyes and -swung one nervous foot. Hen-nion concluded and paused a moment. - -“Now, Mr. Macclesfield, allow me a little more candour. It amounts to -this--first, if you can't touch me with a bridge, you can't touch me -with anything.” - -“If I seemed to attempt it,” said Macclesfield, “I owe you an apology -for my awkwardness.” - -“None at all for anything. Secondly, a subway and no grade crossings -this side the Gas Works or on Lower Bank Street is final, so far as I -can make it so. Thirdly, your proposal that I put in plans for the new -bridge can now be very properly withdrawn.” - -Macclesfield smoothed his face thoughtfully. - -“I don't deny a certain amount of surprise. You have discussed the -subject very ably. I'd rather you'd let me have that in the form of a -report.” - -“All right.” - -“And you'll add a preliminary estimate on the bridge? I--don't, in fact, -withdraw it.” - -He rose and shook hands with Hennion. - -“So you think the sentiment wasn't sincere? Well, I don't know. I -sometimes have them.” - -“Tait,” he said, as they went down the stairs. “That young man--for -God's sake don't let's have any trouble with him.” - -“Is he going to bite or build?” - -“Build! Bless my soul, I hope so! A young man--a--that won't lose his -temper! He didn't turn a hair! Bless my soul, Tait, I hope so!” - -Hennion was left to swing in his chair, to whistle and consider, -to wonder what, in fact, might be the true sentiments of William R. -Macclesfield, who had retreated neatly, to say the least. A slippery -man, a little fishy, who slid around in a situation as if it were water. -Perhaps that was injustice. Whether it were sincerity, or neatness, he -had left Hennion with a sense of having done him an injustice. - -He turned to his desk and figured and wrote for half an hour; then -pushed aside the papers and went out. He thought he would go over to -East Argent and see how Kennedy was getting on with the grading. Before -he had gone far he changed his mind. - -The grading job was not interesting. Kennedy could look after it. -It might be better to let him work alone for a day or two, without -watching; it would cheer up Kennedy not to feel eternally disgraced -for blundering with his sand layer, or to feel that he had to go around -acting like a desolate orphan about it. - -He took a car down Lower Bank Street, past the boathouses, and there -paced the high wet and weedy river bank. Then he turned west through -some miles of empty acres. Low marshy lands lay on his right, misty and -warm in the distance, vividly green nearby. Now and again he crossed a -street that had been thrust out speculatively from the vague verge of -the city to tempt inhabitants. Cheap new houses were strung along them -at wide intervals. The Gas Works had huge furnaces and a cluster of -built-up streets about them. He followed the line of the Boulevard -surveys, absorbed, often stopping and making notes. He came through a -stretch of cornfield and pasture. If the city bought it in here before -it began to develop the section, it would be shrewd investment. The -marshes would be crossed by an embankment. - -A half mile further on he vaulted over a high fence and plunged into the -wet woods and open spaces, scrubby and weedy, of Wabash Park, a stretch -of three hundred acres and more, bought spasmodically by the city some -years back and then left to its own devices. It was useful now mainly to -small boys, who speared frogs in the broad, sluggish creek that twisted -through between banks of slippery clay. - -The Boulevard was another spasmodic vision of a forgotten commissioner. -It was planned to run somewhat in the shape of a half circle, around the -city, from a river-bank park on the north to a river-bank park on -the south, with Wabash Park midway. Hennion tried to fancy himself a -landscape gardener. He stood a long while staring down at the creek, -which was brimful with the spring rains. Pools of brown water lay all -about the bottom lands and in the brush. - -To build a bridge as it should be built, to shape a city as it should -be shaped, to make Port Argent famous for its moonshaped Boulevard, to -accomplish something worth while, to make a name--it looked like a weedy -road to travel in, and no small trick to keep out of the mud. Still, -after all, the mud was mostly in the ruts. People said you couldn't get -ahead there without splashing through the ruts. Maybe not. There would -be blackguarding probably. But Macclesfield had been handled anyway. - -Wabash Park was a scrubby-looking place now. Beckett would have to be -sent after the Park Board, to tell them to clean it up. By the way, -Macclesfield was on that effortless, or otherwise busy Park Board. The -rest of the commissioners didn't know a landscape from a potato patch. -Macclesfield was the man. He might be persuaded to have a sentiment on -the subject. - -Hennion followed the creek out of the park to a lately macadamised road. -A wide, straight, half-made highway started from the other side of the -road and stretched a half mile across country, with small maples planted -regularly on either side. It was all of the Boulevard and the spasmodic -commissioner's vision that had ever been realised. So it remained a -fragment, of no use to anyone, one of Port Argent's humourous civic -capers. - -Beyond this, following the surveys, he came through a rough and noisy -neighbourhood--factories, and unkempt streets, empty lots strewn with -refuse--and came to the canal, the great Interstate Canal, built by -Hennion the elder. It was idle now. The water splashed musically from -its lock gates, and the towpath was overgrown. Then followed pastures -with cattle in them, and fields where men were ploughing. He came to the -river bank at last, where Wyandotte Park lay, popular already for Sunday -afternoons, popular somewhat on any afternoon in spring and summer for -picnics and boating. It was dotted with stalls of the sellers of hard -drinks and cigars, sellers of soft drinks and chewing gum. It possessed -a band and an incipient menagerie, a merry-go-round, a boathouse, and -several flamboyant restaurants. It was the cheerfullest place in Port -Argent on a Sunday afternoon. - -The day was almost gone. Hennion's notebook was half-full of mysterious -jottings, and his shoes caked with clay, the slimy blue mud that sticks -and stains and is the mother of harvests. The river had a swifter -current here than lower down, and there were marshy islands, steep -bluffs on either side, and up-stream a vista of deeply-wooded shores. - -He stood near the merry-go-round and watched the crowd. He wondered if -it were not peculiar for a man to know so many people as he did, to know -almost everyone in Port Argent. It had always been a fact to some -extent. But Port Argent was getting to be a large city. Still, he had an -impression that strange faces and unnamed were rather an exception. Most -faces that he saw were familiar. He looked around him in the park. - -Here were three young girls sipping soda water. He did not know them. -Wait! They were all three daughters of Kottar, the baker on Maple -Street. They'd been growing up. And here came Kottar himself with the -rest of the flock, taking an afternoon's pleasure. Here were two men -getting on the trolley car. They appeared to be mainly drunk. No use! -He knew them too. One of them was Jimmy Shays, shoemaker, on Muscadine -Street, east side; the other was Tom Coglan, one time a drayman, another -time one of a batch of John Murphy's, which batch Hennion had helped -John Murphy to get jobs for with the Traction Company. Coglan and Shays -lived in a house on Muscadine Street, with an outside stairway. Hicks, -who shot Wood, used to live there too; grocery store underneath, grocer -named Wilson. Names of Kottar's children, remembered to have once been -so stated by Kottar, Nina, Katherine, Henry, Carl, William, Adela, and -Elizabeth. One appeared to remember things useful, like the price -per gross of three-inch screws at present quoting, as well as things -useless, like the price three years ago. Hennion thought such an -inveterate memory a nuisance. - -Coglan and Shays appeared to be happy. Everybody appeared to be happy in -Wyandotte Park. Hennion concluded that he liked Wyandotte Park and its -people. When you knew them, you found they differ little for better or -worse from Herbert Avenue people, Secors and Macclesfields--all people, -and a mixed, uncertain article to deal in. - -He sat down on the roots of a tree. It grew on the edge of a bluff over -the river, a survival of that fraternity of trees which had covered the -whole section but a few generations back. - -“Mighty good luck to be young, Dick,” the “Governor” had said, and died, -calling his life on the whole satisfactory, on account of the good times -he had had, and the work that he knew he had done as it should be done. - -Hennion thought he would go and tell Camilla about the Boulevard. He -caught a car and went back to the centre of the town. - -When he came to the Champney house late in the evening, Alcott Aidee was -there, though about to leave. It struck Hennion that Aidee's being about -to leave was not an absolute compensation for his being there, but he -did not have time to examine the impression. Camilla had been reading -Charlie Carroll's sinister paragraphs on “a certain admired instigator -of crime.” She dashed into the subject as soon as Aidee was gone. - -“He says he doesn't care about it,” she cried, “but I do!” - -“Do you? Why?” - -“Why!” - -Camilla paused, either from stress of feeling or inability altogether -to say why. Hennion had seen the paragraphs, but had not thought about -them. - -“Well, if you mean it's not just, Milly, I don't suppose Carroll ever -bothers about that. There's a good deal of give and take in politics. -Aidee has given it pretty sharply himself. I dare say he knows how to -take it.” - -“It's wicked!” cried Camilla passionately. - -Hennion laughed. - -“Well--he needn't have called Wood names--that's true.” - -“If you're going to laugh about it, you can go away!” - -“'Instigator of crime,' isn't so strong as 'thief,' is it? It's a pity -they can't get along without blackguarding each other, but probably they -can't.” - -Camilla turned away. Her indignation was too genuine, and sobered him. - -“My dear girl! I don't suppose Wood was properly called a 'thief' nor -Aidee 'an instigator of crime.' Probably Aidee believes what he says. -Probably Carroll hasn't the remotest idea what he believes. What of -it? I've been tramping the wilderness of Port Argent all day and seeing -visions, Milly, and I'd rather not quarrel. Did Aidee say he was going -to do anything in particular?” - -“He said he was going to see Mr. Hicks.” - -“What!” - -“To see Mr. Hicks to-night. Of course he'll go to comfort someone that -nobody else will,” cried Camilla breathlessly, “and of course you'll say -he'd be wiser to keep away and nurse his reputation, because people will -talk. Perhaps you think it proves he's an anarchist, and makes bombs.” - -“You go too fast for me.” He thought he did not dislike Aidee so much -that he would not have stopped his going to see Hicks, if he could. He -was not quite clear why he disliked him at all. - -It was a turn of mind, characteristic of the Hennions, somewhat of -the grimly philosophical, which set him to thinking next that Aidee's -situation now, in the whitewashed cell with the alias Hicks, must be -confusing and not pleasant, that his own situation was vastly more -comfortable, and that these, on the whole, were not bad situations. - -He set himself to the fascinating task of making Camilla's eyes shine -with excitement,--but he did not seem to succeed,--over the subject of -a moon-shaped Boulevard, strung with parks, like a necklace around a -lady's throat. - -“I worked out that figure of speech for you, Milly. It's a beauty. Port -Argent is the lady. A necklace ought to raise her self-respect. She'll -have three hundred acres of brooch in the middle called Wabash Park. -She's eight miles on the curve from shoulder to shoulder. I walked it -today. It struck me she needed washing and drying.” - -True, Camilla's indignation seemed to fade away. She said, “That's -tremendously nice, Dick,” and stared into the fire with absent wistful -eyes. - -He drew nearer her and spoke lower, “Milly.” - -“No, no! Don't begin on that!” - -Presently he was striding up Lower Bank Street, hot-hearted with his -disappointment. - -“Well, Port Argent shall have her necklace, anyhow. Maybe I shan't. But -I will, though!” - -He went through the Court House Square past the old jail, glanced up -under the trees at Hicks' barred window. - -“Aidee's getting a black eye too in there,” he thought. “That's too -bad.” - -When he reached his rooms he was already thinking of Macclesfield's -bridge. - - - - -CHAPTER XI--THE BROTHERS - - -|MAY I see Hicks?” - -The stout, bearded jailor nearly-filled the doorway. He puffed his short -pipe deliberately, and stared at Aidee. The smoke floated up and around -the gas jet over his head. - -“Ain't you the Preacher?” - -“So they call me.” - -The jailor stepped back, either in surprise or consent. Aidee walked -into the opening and passed on. The jailor followed him. - -“Where is his cell?” - -“Spiritual consolation! That's it. That's the word,” said the jailor -thoughtfully. “Some folks has the gift of it. Oils a chap up, don't it, -so he'll slip out'n his corpse, like he was greased. Well, there's -som'p'n in it. But I seen in the _Press_ this mornin'--say, you ain't -goin' to instigate him again?” - -Aidee laughed, and said: - -“They have to be lively.” - -“That's right, Preacher. Folks say a thing, but what they got in their -heads is the thing they don't say, ain't it?” - -“You're a philosopher.” - -“Oh, I do a pile of thinkin',” said the jailor complacently. - -He mounted slowly to the upper corridor, knocked at a door, and unlocked -it. - -“Hicks, gentleman to see you.” - -Hicks looked up, blinking and shading his eyes. - -The jailor locked the door noisily behind Aidee, and walked away. At the -end of the corridor he stopped and listened, and heard the murmur of low -voices. He sat down and tipped his chair against the wall and meditated. - -“Spiritual consolation! That's the word.” - -Alcott leaned his back against the wall, and stared at Allen, who ran to -his side and grasped his arm and whispered, “Don't you yell out!” while -Sweeney was locking the door noisily. Sweeney's steps receded in the -corridor. - -“What do you come here for? Keep quiet!” - -“Lolly!” - -“Who told you it was me?” - -He pulled him over to the table. They sat down and gripped hands across -and looked dumbly at each other. Allen broke down first. He dropped his -head on the table and gave soft, dry sobs. - -“Lolly, boy!” - -“Did he tell you it was me?” - -“Who?” - -“Hennion!” - -“Nobody told me it was you.” - -“You came to see Hicks!” - -He looked up suddenly with an impish grin. “Hey! I know! You wanted to -ask me what I shot Wood for? That's what they all want to know.” - -It was the same twisted smile that Alcott knew so well, two-thirds on -one side of his face, the same shy, freakish look in the eyes as of -a cornered animal. They used to laugh at home over Lolly's queer -smile--Lolly the original, the unexpected, the sudden and fierce in -his small resentments, yet how passionately loving, and how lovable -and clever! They used to think so at home. Here he was, then, with his -twisted smile, and hot, black eyes and jerking, vivid speech. His thin, -straggling beard had changed his looks. He had aged fast in the six -years. Alcott thought he would hardly have recognised him at a little -distance. So--why, Hicks!--Carroll said Hicks used to drink down -Alcott's own speeches like brandy! Hicks had killed Wood! - -“What else have you been up to, Lolly? That's the worst job yet.” - -The eyes of each regarded the other's hungrily. Allen chattered on in a -low, excited voice. - -“Old Al, I love you so! Forgive me seventy times seven. Hey! I heard -every speech you made, pretty near. What do you think? Say! What'll they -do to me?” he whispered, turning to the window. “I wished I could get -out. Say, Al, when you were in Nevada at Beekman's, where do you suppose -I was? Over the divide at Secor's Lode, Number Two, and you came near -spotting me once! I ain't a fool, anyway. I dodged you neat. I lived on -the east side with Jimmy Shays. Say, he's a fool. I can sole two shoes -to his one. But sometimes I don't remember, Al. I tried to remember how -Mummy looked, and I couldn't. But I used to remember. But, Al, what'd -you come for? Say, I cleared the track of Wood all right. Say, they'd -never have caught me, if I'd got away then. They were too many. I kept -out of your way all right. I wasn't going to mess you again, and that -suited me all right, that way. I pegged shoes along with old Shays. -Damn greasy Irishman, there, Coglan. I'll knife him some day. No! No! I -won't, Al! Forgive me seventy times. I got something in me that burns me -up. I ain't going to last long. Let 'em kill me. God, I was proud of you! -I used to go home like dynamite, and collar old Shays, and yell, 'Down -with 'em! Where's justice?' 'Wha's matter?' says Shays. 'Where is -'t?' and goes hunting for justice at the bottom of a jug of forty-rod -whiskey. Oh, Al! Al! Ain't we a sad story, you and I?” - -He broke down again, chattering, sobbing with soft, small sobs, and hid -his face on the table. The gas jet leaped and fell, feebly, fitfully. -The noises of the city, the roll of wheels and clang of street-car -gongs, came in through the barred window. - -“I was running myself, too, Al, and that made me feel better. I been -happy sometimes.” - -“Aren't you glad to see me, Lolly?” - -“Yes. But you ain't going to hold me down. Now, say, Al,” he pleaded, -“don't you give it away! Folks'd be down on you. I ain't like I used to -be. I'm proud of you, now. I ain't going to mess you any more, but I've -done something myself, ain't I? Done for myself too, ain't I?” - -“I've got to think this out. That was all wrong, boy. That old man, -Wood, had a right to his life.” - -“He had _no_ right!” - -Allen was on his feet, two fingers shaking in the air. - -“Quiet, Lolly! Sweeney's in the corridor. I'm not blaming you. Why -didn't you come to me? I'd have let you live as you liked. I'm going -away to think it out. Never mind. I say, drop it, Lolly! We'll sled -together again. I've said it, and you can quit talking.” - -Allen clung to his hand. - -“You're coming again, Al.” - -He felt Alcott's old mastery gripping him again, the same thing that -had always been to him the foundation of his existence, and yet always -intolerable and smothering. Not being able to live without Alcott, -nor yet with him, the four years in Port Argent had seemed a clever -solution--not with Alcott, nor yet without him; free of his smothering -control, but seeing his face and hearing his voice. - -He rattled on half hysterically, while Alcott gripped his hand across -the table, and said little. - -Gradually the picture took shape in Alcott's mind, and his mental image -of the last four years changed form and line of the new demand. He saw -Allen going home nights from the Assembly Hall, with his light, jerky -step, exulting, hugging himself gleefully. How he had hated Al's -enemies! How he had longed to kill Carroll for sneering at Al in choppy -paragraphs! How he had hated Marve Wood, whom Al called a “disease”! How -he had lurked in the shadow under the gallery of the Assembly Hall! How -he had pegged shoes and poured his excitement, in vivid language, into -the ears of the east-side loafers in the shoe-shop! How flitted back -and forth over the Maple Street bridge, where the drays and trolley cars -jangled, where the Muscadine flowed, muddy and muttering, below! - -“You've been in Port Argent all this time!” Alcott said at last. “I -wouldn't have talked that way if I'd known you were there.” - -“Say! You'd have been afraid? No! Why, you ain't afraid of anything, -Al!” - -“I was always afraid of you.” - -“What for? You're coming again, Al!” - -“You don't think I'm going to let you alone now!” - -“I ain't going to mess you over again! No!” he whispered, twisting his -fingers. - -Alcott knitted his black brows and held his hand over the nervous -fingers. - -“Drop it, Lolly!” - -“What you going to do? You're coming again?” His voice was thin and -plaintive. - -“Yes.” - -“How soon?” - -“To-morrow. I've got to think it over. I can't stay now, Lolly.” - -He rose and went to the door and rattled it. Sweeney's steps came slowly -down the corridor. Allen sat still while the jailor opened the door. - -“I'll see you again, then, Mr. Hicks.” - -Allen looked up suddenly with an impish grin. - -“Pretty cool, ain't he?” said Sweeney presently. “I didn't hear -much noise. Now, when Mr. Hennion came here--look here, I told Mr. -Hennion--why, you look at it, now! There ought to be a new jail.” - -“I see. Not very creditable.” - -“Why, no.” Sweeney argued in an injured tone. “Look at it!” - -“I want to bring Hicks a book or two. May I?” - -“Why, I guess so.” - -Aidee went home, hurrying, not knowing why he hurried. His hands felt -cold, his head hot and dizzy. He longed to hide and not see the faces on -the street, faces which all judged that Lolly should die. - -“Brotherhood of man!” He had a brother, one whom the rest of the -brotherhood wanted to hang, a small man, with a queer smile and -wriggling fingers, sitting under the dim gas jet. - -Even in his familiar rooms he could not think or sleep. He saw before -him days upon days, courts and lawyers, preparations for the trial, the -long doubt, and what then? Only a black pit full of things intolerable, -not to be looked at. Yet it stood there stolidly, in front. - -The Assembly? He would rather have Wood than the Assembly to help him -here, or Hennion, or Secor. But neither Hennion nor Secor would help -him here. They were men of the crowd in the street, who all preferred to -hang Lolly. - -At daybreak he rose, dressed, and went out. It was Friday morning. The -air was fresh and damp. He looked at the Assembly building opposite, and -fancied himself speaking from the familiar wide platform within, saying: -“I am the brother of Hicks, the murderer, in your jail--I who lied to -you, calling you my brethren, protesting one universal bond, who have -but one brother and one bond of blood,--to you who are my enemies. His -name is Allen Aidee, and your name is Legion.” - -People called him abrupt and sensational. It would be a relief to speak -so, sharp and harsh, like the breaking of a window glass with one's fist -in a stifling room. - -He thought of the scores of times he had looked on the crowd of faces -from the platform there, and he tried now to put into each picture -one more item, namely, Allen sitting far back in the shadow under the -gallery. When he had put this item in, it covered up the rest of the -picture. - -Probably Allen used to go across the river by following the side streets -over to Maple Street, and so to the bridge. Alcott left Seton Avenue and -walked toward Maple Street through that still sleeping section of the -city. On Maple Street, the trolley cars were beginning to run, milk -waggons clattered over the rough pavement. - -“Poor boy!” - -Lolly claimed to have been happy during those four years. After all, the -arrangement he had made was characteristic, the very kind of thing he -would be apt to do. Alcott wondered why he had never suspected that -Allen was lurking near him. - -Down Maple Street, then, Allen's regular road must have lain. How often -he must have gone over the bridge, his nerves twitching and his head -blazing with Alcott's last words! Here was the hurrying muddy river, -running high now with the spring floods, mad, headlong, and unclean. Not -an inch beyond its surface could one see. A drowned body might float, -and if an inch of water covered it, no man would know. - -Doctrines and theories! Do this, and think thus, and believe that which -I tell you, and take my medicine for a world diseased! What notional, -unsteady things were these, floating things, only on the surface of this -muddy stream of life. They had no other foundation than the stream, -and the stream drowned them all, in course of time. It drowned all -interpretations of itself, in course of time. - -In East Argent he turned to the right, into Muscadine Street. On one -side of the street stretched the P. and N. freight yards by the river, -on the other shabby and flimsy fronts, some of wood, some of brick, with -shops in most of the ground floors, an inhabited story or two over each. -Already Muscadine Street was awake. The freight yards were noisy -with cars and hooting engines. The stream whistles of the down-river -factories began to blow. - -The harsh, pitiless iron clangour tortured him and he hurried through a -street that seemed to lead away into the country back from the river. He -stopped at a discarded horse car, that was propped up in an empty lot, -and bore the sign “Night lunches,” and went up the shaky step, through -the narrow door. The occupant was a grimy-aproned man, asleep with his -head on the counter. Alcott drank a cup of coffee and ate something, he -hardly noticed what. It tasted unpleasantly. - -One corner succeeded another in the long street. Then came empty lots, -cornfields, clumps of woods, scores of trestle pyramids of the oil -wells. - -“Lolly! Lolly!” - -Men and their societies, and all the structures they built, and the -ideas that governed them, were monstrous, implacable, harsh, and hard, -iron beating on iron in freight yards and factories. Justice! What was -justice? One knew the sense of injustice. It was like a scald. It was a -clamour and cry, “He has done me wrong, a wrong!” But justice? An even -balance? There was no such balance. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a -tooth? It was revenge. There was no justice but perfect pardon. You must -know that uttermost love was justice, and not one iota less than that -was justice. - -Alcott's old doctrines, these. Doctrines only, “floating things on muddy -stream.” They seemed to mean to him now only, “I must have Lolly! I must -have him!” - -All that Alcott had built up about himself in four years now seemed -suddenly wiped out of his desires. He wanted to take Allen and go -away. It seemed a simple thing, not so complicated as the Seton Avenue -Assembly, and the Brotherhood of Man. But bars and bricks, metal and -stone, and the iron refusal of society, were in the way of this simple -thing. Their stolid refusal faced him as well in the woods as in the -city. - -The woods were wet and cool. No sound reached the centre of the grove -from without, except the far-off thudding of an oil well. Shy wood birds -flitted and twittered. Fragments of twigs and bark dropped from heights -where the squirrels were at their thriving enterprises, and the new -leaves were growing. - - - - -CHAPTER XII--AIDEE AND CAMILLLA - - -|ALCOTT came back to the city in the afternoon. At four o'clock he was -on Lower Bank Street, knocking at Henry Champney's door. - -“Is Miss Camilla Champney in?” - -The startled maid stared at him and showed him into the library, where -Henry Champney's shelves of massive books covered the lower walls, and -over them hung the portraits of Webster, Clay, and Quincy Adams with -solemn, shining foreheads. - -He walked up and down, twisting his fingers, stopping now and then to -listen for Camilla's steps. She came soon. - -“I'm so glad you're here! I want to ask----” She stopped, caught a quick -breath, and put her hand to her throat. - -“What is it?” - -Alcott's face was white and damp, and his black eyes stared at her. He -stood very still. - -“What is it?” she asked. - -“Do I look like that? Do I show what I am, gone blind and mad? Do I look -it? I could only think of this, of you--I must tell someone. There -must be some way. Help me!” He moved about jerkily, talking half -incoherently. “He's been here four years. Allen, you know! If I'd -known, I could have handled him somehow. But--he's--Hicks--he called -himself--Hicks. He killed Wood. I saw him last night, but he's changed, -but--my boy, Lolly! Four years he's been in Port Argent--watching me! -He called himself Hicks. Don't you see, Camilla! It's my boy! Don't you -see! Wait. I'll get buckled down. I can tell you better in a moment.” - -Camilla leaned back against Henry Champney's big desk, and stared with -wide grey eyes. Alcott walked away breathing heavily, and returned. He -sat down in the desk chair and dropped his head on his arm. - -“It's your brother!” - -“I must save him! Don't you understand? No one shall touch him! He's -mine!” He sprang up, walked away, and came again. - -Camilla thought of many confused things. The bluebird's note was gone -from her heart, but the current of the tumult that was there ran in one -direction. It poured into Alcott's passion and point of view. Her new -pillar of fire and cloud, the man with the halo of her own construction -was begging for help, a demigod suddenly become human and suffering, -stammering, calling himself blind and mad. - -“Why, we must get him out!” she cried. - -She thought of Dick. Another instinct warned her that he would not -understand. It was a case where Dick would be a rock in the way, instead -of one to anchor to. But thinking of him served to remind her of what he -had said the night before. - -“Listen!” She went on. “He must get out. Listen! Somebody told -Dick--what was it? Something about a crowbar or pair of--nonsense! He -said a prisoner might get out if he had a chisel. Now we must think -about it. Could he get out?” - -She sat down too. Alcott stared at her in a kind of dull confusion. - -“Now, this is what I'm thinking,” she hurried on. “What is the place -like?” - -“The place?” - -“When do you go to him again?” - -“When I leave here. Perhaps. I hadn't thought.” - -They leaned closer together across the desk. - -Miss Eunice came in that moment and startled them. She disapproved of -their startled expression, he gave Alcott a gloomy greeting and went -away. - -“There's a chest of tools in the storeroom,” Camilla said. “We'll go up -there.” - -They mounted to that high-perched room above the mansards, whose windows -looked eastward to the river, whose walls were ranged about with boxes, -trunks, chests, bits of aged furniture. - -Here Richard the Second and Camilla, the little maid, used to sit the -long rainy afternoons at their labor. He made bridges, houses, and -ships, his artistry running no further than scroll and square patterns, -while Camilla aspired to the human face divine. Her soul was creative -at ten years. She cut ominous faces on pine shingles, sorrowful -shapes--tombstone cherubs in execution, symbolic in intention--and -her solemn exaltation of mood was commonly followed by anger and tears -because Dick would not admire them. - -It was a room full of memories for Camilla. Here and in her father's -library she still passed her happiest hours. Here was the trunk that -held her retired dolls and baby relics. Another was full of her mother's -blue-ribboned gowns. Here was the tool chest, close to the window. - -She flung it open, making a great noise and business. - -“See! Will this do?” - -It was a heavy carpenter's chisel with a scroll design on one side of -the battered handle, and on the other the crude semblance or intention -of a woful face. “I don't know whether it's Dick's or mine. We both -used to make messes here.” She chattered on, and thought the while, “He -called me Camilla--I wish--I wonder if he will again.” - -He thrust it into an inner pocket, ripping through the lining of his -coat. She closed the lid, and turned about to the low-silled window, -clasped her hands about her knees, and stared away into the tree tops, -flushed and smiling. - -“You needn't go yet?” - -“It's three o'clock.” - -“You'll come and tell me to-morrow? When?”. - -Alcott did not seem to hear her. - -“I'm sure I could take care of him now,” he said. - -“But you'll remember that I helped!” - -“Does anyone ever forget you?” - -Both were silent, and then he started up nervously. - -“It isn't done yet. Lolly is clever. He lived here four years and kept -out of my sight. But, afterwards, granted he succeeds--but the law is -a great octopus. Its arms are everywhere. But he'll have me with him. I -suppose we must go out of the country.” - -“You! Do you mean--do you--you'll go too!” - -“Go! Could I stay?” - -“Oh! I don't know! I don't know!” - -She shivered and leaned against the friendly old chest. - -“But could I do it without that? How could I? I couldn't do less than -that.” - -He came and sat beside her again, clasping his knees in the same way, -looking off into the tree tops, talking slowly and sadly. - -“To be with him always, and give up my life to that, and see that he -doesn't do any more harm. That would be the debt I would owe to the rest -of the world. You see, I know him so well. I shall know how to manage -him better than I used to. I used to irritate him. Do you know, I think -he's better off in places where things are rough and simple. He has an -odd mind or temperament, not what people call balanced or healthy, but -it's hot and sensitive; oh, but loving and hating so suddenly, one never -knows! You understand. I don't know how you do, but you do understand, -somehow, about Lolly and me. You're wholly healthy, too, but Lolly and -I, we're morbid of course. Yes, we're morbid. I don't know that there's -any cure for us. We'll smash up altogether by and by.” - -“When will you go?” she asked only just audibly. - -“He ought to try it to-night. To-night or to-morrow night. He ought to -be away on one of the early freight trains, to St. Louis, and meet me -there. We know our bearings there.” - -Camilla sat very still. - -“I must be going,” he said. - -“Don't go! You'll come before--when?” - -“To-morrow we'll know. To-morrow then.” - -After he was gone, she lifted the window and peered over the mansards -to watch him going down the street. The tree tops were thick with busy -sparrows, the railroad yards clamorous, and there was the rattle of the -travelling crane, and the clug-chug of steamers on the river. - -She drew back, and leaned against the old chest, and sobbed with her -face against the hard, worn edge of it. - -“I didn't suppose it would be like this,” she thought. “I thought people -were happy.” - -Meanwhile Miss Eunice sat below in the parlour knitting. Hennion came -in later and found her there. She said that Camilla, she thought, was -upstairs, and added primly: - -“I think it will be as well if you talk with me.” - -He smothered his surprise. - -“Why, of course, Miss Eunice!” - -“I think you need advice.” - -He sat down beside her, and felt humble. - -“That's just what I need. But, Miss Eunice, do you like me well enough -to give it?” - -“I like you more than some people.” - -“You might do better than that.” - -“I like you well enough to give it,” she admitted. - -Tick, tick, tick, continued the knitting needles. - -“I'm stumped, you know, about Camilla,” Dick went on bluntly. “I don't -get ahead. She has changed lately. Hasn't she changed?” - -“She has changed.” - -“Well, then, she has! I thought so.” - -The knitting needles ticked on, and both Dick and Miss Eunice studied -their vibrating points, criss-crossing, clicking dry comments over the -mystery of the web. - -“It is my constant prayer that Camilla may be happy,” said Miss Eunice -at last. “I have felt--I have examined the feeling with great care--I -have felt, that, if she saw her happiness in your happiness, it would be -wise to believe her instinct had guided her well. My brother's thoughts, -his hopes, are all in Camilla. He could not live without her. He depends -upon her to such an extent,--as you know, of course.” - -“Of course, Miss Eunice.” - -“I have grieved that she seemed so wayward. I have wished to see this -anxious question settled. You have been almost of the family since she -was a child, and if she saw her happiness in--in you, I should feel -quite contented, quite secure--of her finding it there, and of my -brother's satisfaction, in the end. He must not be separated from her. -He could not--I think he could not outlive it. And in this way I should -feel secure that--that you would understand.” - -“I hope I should deserve your tribute. I'm more than glad to have it.” - -“Perhaps this long intimacy, which makes me feel secure, is, at the same -time, the trouble with her?” - -“But why, Miss Eunice? I don't understand that. It has struck me so. And -yet I love Camilla the more for all I know of her, and the better for -the time. How can it be so different with her?” - -“That is true. I don't doubt it, Richard.” - -“Well, then, is it because I don't wear well?” - -“No. It is true, I think, that we don't understand this difference -always--perhaps, not often. But I think,”--knitting a trifle more -slowly, speaking with a shade of embarrassment--“I think, with women, it -must be strange in order to be at all. It must not be customary. It must -always be strange.” - -Hennion looked puzzled and frowning. - -“Please go on.” - -“Lately then, very lately, I have grown more anxious still, seeing -an influence creeping into her life, against which I could not openly -object, and which yet gave me great uneasiness. It--he was here an hour -ago. I should not perhaps have spoken in this way, but I thought there -was something unusual between them, some secrecy or confusion. I was -distressed. I feared something might have occurred already. I wished to -take some step. You know to whom I refer?” - -“I think so.” - -“A gentleman, in appearance at least. One does not know anything about -his past. He is admired by some, by many, and disliked or distrusted by -others. He has great gifts, as my brother thinks. But he thinks him also -'heady,' 'fantastic.' He has used these words. My brother thinks that -this society called 'The Assembly' is a mere fashion in Port Argent, -depending for financial support, even now, on Mr. Secor, and he thinks -this gentleman, whom I am describing, is not likely to continue to be -successful in our society, in Port Argent, but more likely to have a -chequered career, probably unfortunate, unhappy. My brother regards--he -calls him--'a spasmodic phenomenon.' My own disapproval goes further -than my brother's in this respect. Yet he does not approve of this -influence on Camilla. It causes him uneasiness. I have not thought wise -to speak to her about it, for I am afraid of--of some mistake, but -I think my brother has spoken, has said something. This--this person -arouses my distrust, my dislike. I look at this subject with great -distress.” - -Tick, tick, tick, the knitting needles, and their prim, dry comment. - -Hennion said gravely: - -“I have nothing to say about the gentleman you've been speaking of. I -will win Camilla if I can, but I've come to the point of confessing that -I don't know how.” - -Tick, tick, the not uneloquent knitting needles. - -“Will you tell me, Miss Eunice? You said something about love as it -comes to women, as it seems to them. I had never thought about it, about -that side of it, from that side.” - -“I dare say not.” - -Tick, tick, tick. - -“You said it must always be strange. I suppose, that is, it's like a -discovery, as if nobody ever made it before. Well, but, Miss Eunice, -they never did make it before, not that one!” - -“Oh, indeed!” - -“Don't you think I'm coming on?” - -“You are progressing.” - -Miss Eunice's lips were compressed a little grimly, but there was a red -spot in either cheek. - -“I ought to act as if I didn't see how she was possible, ought I?” - -“You are progressing.” - -“Whether I did see, or didn't?” - -“Of course!” Miss Eunice was almost snappish. - -“Well, I don't think I do see.” - -“You'd better not.” - -Hennion went away without seeing Camilla. Going up Bank Street he -thought of Camilla. At the corner of Franklin Street he thought of Miss -Eunice. - -“There's another one I was off about. I don't see how she's possible, -either.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--IN WHICH HICKS IS BUSY - - -|ALLEN AIDEE lay on his back across the bed in his whitewashed cell, and -smoked, swinging one foot swiftly, incessantly, like a pendulum, arguing -with Sol Sweeney, and gesticulating with loose fingers. The bed was a -wooden cot with a mattress on it. - -Sweeney sat at the table under the gas jet, and smoked too. He had a -large friendly acquaintance with jailbirds, and his placid philosophy -was composed out of his knowledge of them. - -“I seen folks like you, Hicks,” he said, “two or three. Trouble is you -gets hold of one end of a string. Any old string 'll do. All the same to -you. 'Hullo!' you says, 'this is a valyble string. Fact, there ain't any -other string, not any other real string. This the only genwine. Follow -it, and you gets wherever you like. It's that kind of a string,' says -you. 'God A'mighty, what a string!' says you. Then you rolls yourself up -in it, and there you are! Ball up! Ain't no more use! For you take a -solid man like me, and he talks to you and he shows you reason, but you -don't see it. Why? 'Cause you're balled up in the string, that's why.” - -Allen snapped out his answer. - -“I'll tell you the trouble with you.” - -“Ain't any trouble with me.” - -“Ain't! Well, I know this, I can stand your kind about half an hour at -a stretch. Give me two hours of you--damn! I'd drink rat poison to get -cooled down.” - -“That's the trouble with you,” said the complacent jailor. “Ain't me.” - -“Trouble! No! You ain't equal to that. You ain't capable of that! You've -got no more consistency or organisation than a barrel of oil. You're all -fat and hair. Solid! So's a brick solid. Damn! You're solid, but are you -alive? You'll be dead before anybody sees the difference. Ain't any real -difference!” - -Sweeney puffed his pipe contentedly, but thoughtfully, and shook his -heavy beard. - -“Well, well! But now, I'll say this for you, Hicks. You're an -entertainin' man. I'll say that to anybody that asks. I'll say, 'Hicks -is a man that's got language, if I know what's what.'” - -The jailor rose. Allen swung his foot swiftly. - -“I wish you'd do something for me, Sweeney.” - -“What's that?” - -“Let me have the gas at night. I don't sleep good. If I had the gas I -could get up and read. You heavy men, you sleep all night. You don't -know what it is.” - -“Why, I'll see, Hicks. I'll ask about that to-morrow.” - -“Oh, let me have it to-night!” he pleaded. - -“I ain't going to sleep good to-night. I can feel it. It'll be eternity -before morning. I swear I'll be dead before morning. I'll turn it low.” - -“Well--I don't see no harm in that. It ain't in me to rough a man.” - -He went out, locking the door noisily behind him. - -Allan lay still. His foot swung steadily, but more slowly. After a time -Sweeney came down the corridor, making his ten o'clock round. He went to -the end, and back again, and then downstairs. The corridor was quiet. - -Half an hour later Allen got up and filled his pipe, lit it at the gas -jet, turned the jet low, and lay down again across his mattress. He -smoked with quick, sharp puffs, but not fast. He swung his foot slowly, -and stared at a point on the blank wall over the gas jet. Eleven o'clock -struck. - -After the theatre crowds were gone past, the noise of the city grew -less. There were fewer cars, and only now and then footsteps on the -neighbouring pavement. Twelve o'clock struck. - -He got up again, slipped off his shoes, and went to his window. - -A maple tree grew directly in front, some twenty feet away. Its leaves -were thick, but he could see the glitter of the electric light through -them. The sidewalk was high as the lower windows of the jail, for the -Court House Square was on sunken land. The black shadow of the maple -covered the front of the jail down to the ground. - -The grating of the window had its bars set at both sides, and at the -top and bottom. There were two rows of bricks from the bars to the inner -edge of the window, and the wooden framework that held the panes of -glass was set close to the grating. The outside of the sill was stone. - -Allen went back and lifted his mattress. There was a rent in the seam -of the lower edge. He thrust in his hand, drew out a black cloth cap -and put it on his head. Then he drew out a heavy chisel with a battered -wooden handle, and returned to the window. - -The woodwork came away, cracking slightly as the nails drew out. He -leaned the boards and frame carefully against the wall. He tried one -crack after another between the bricks at the bottom of the window, -pushing and pressing. Presently one became loose, then another. He laid -them one by one in a neat row on the floor. - -The work at the sides and top was slower, because it was difficult to -get a purchase, and to prevent fragments from falling. He dug till he -got the purchase, and then held the brick up with one hand and pried -with the other. Once a fragment of cement fell with a smart slap on the -sill. He got down suddenly and sat on the floor, and listened, wiping -his wet hands and forehead with his cap. Either Sweeney or his assistant -was always around at night, and would have heard, if he had happened to -be in the upper corridor. - -He carried the mattress to the window and laid it underneath to catch -and deaden the noise, if anything more fell. - -It was half-past one by the striking of the city clocks when he finished -stripping off the first thickness of bricks. If the ends of the bars -were buried more than two layers downward, there would not be time to -strip them all before daylight. He forced up those on the sill, which -were opposite one of the bars, and felt with his fingers. He felt the -end of the bar, and knew that at that rate he would be out by three -o'clock. - -He worked on. His black hair hung wet against his forehead. He watched -intensely for the loosened fragments of cement. He grew more skilful, -more noiseless. The loudest sound in the cell was his own breathing, and -except for that, only little rasps and clicks. - -When the last brick was out and laid in its place, he moved the grating, -which came out easily with a little scraping noise. It was heavy, and -he rested a corner of it on the mattress, so that the ends of the bars -caught in the sides of the window. Then he brought his blanket. In -lifting the blanket he noticed the short iron braces on the cot bed. -They suggested an idea. He took out the screws of one of them with the -chisel, carried it to the window, and scratched it on the bricks until -its black enamel was rubbed off one end; then laid it on the floor. -Whether possible to do so or not, people would think he must have -loosened the bricks with the brace. He wasn't going to mess “old Al” - again, he thought, no, nor meet him in St. Louis for that matter, nor be -led around the rest of his life by a string. - -“Not me, like a damn squealing little pig” - -He slit one end of the blanket into strips with his chisel, tied each -strip to the bars of the grating and dropped the other end of the -blanket through the window. Leaning out, he looked down and saw that it -reached the grating of the window below. He put his shoes into his side -coat pockets, the chisel into an inner coat pocket, and felt in his vest -for the money Alcott had left him. He pulled his cap on hard, turned off -the gas jet, and climbed over the grating. - -He gripped with both hands the corner of it which projected into the -window, opposite the corner which rested on the mattress within the -cell, and let himself down till his feet caught on the grating of the -window below, slipping his hands alternately along the edges of the -blanket, and so down step by step, feeling for the bars with his feet. -When his feet reached the stone sill below he felt the top bars under -his hands. He stopped to catch the lower bars in order to lower himself -to the ground, and his face came opposite the upper half of a partly -dropped window. The lower half of it was curtained. A gas jet burned -inside. - -The room was like the cell overhead, whitewashed, but larger and -furnished with ordinary bedroom furniture. The gas jet was fixed in the -same place as in his own cell. The light fell flickering across the wide -bed. A man lay there asleep on his back, his thick beard thrust up and -in the air, his feet toward the window, where Allen clung like a spider. -The sleeper was Sweeney. Allen slipped to the ground, sat down, and -covered his face with his hands, and shivered. He had not known that -Sweeney slept underneath him. - -He pulled on his shoes, stood up, and went out under the maple tree to -the sidewalk. He was glad he had not known that Sweeney slept underneath -him. The sky was nearly covered by clouds, a few sparkling spaces here -and there. - -The blanket hung from the dismantled upper window, and flapped in the -night wind against the wall. - -As he climbed the bank to the sidewalk the clock in the church tower -across the street struck three. It frightened him. It seemed too -spectacular a place to be in, there under the great arc light that -poured its glare down upon him, while the bells above the light were -pealing, shouting in their high tower, clamouring alarm over the Court -House Square, over the little old jail, the grim, small, dingy jail, low -down in the sunken land, jail of the one ungrated window and flapping -blanket, jail of the sleeping Sweeney. - -He hurried along the sidewalk toward Maple Street. At the corner of -the square was a drug store with gas jets flaring behind two glass -globes--one red, the other blue--the two dragonish eyes of the monstrous -long shape of the block looming behind and over them. All the blocks -around seemed unnaturally huge. They crowded close to the street, and -stared down at him with their ghastly blank windows--nervous, startled -fronts of buildings that shivered and echoed to the sound of his steps. -There were no other sounds now but a small whispering wind, and his own -steps and their pursuing echoes. The red and blue globes in the corner -drug store glared intolerably. As he passed they began suddenly to flow -and whirl all over their glassy slopes. - -He turned to the right, past the great brick Ward School building, out -of Easter Street into Buckeye Street, which was only an unpaved road; -and here his feet made no noise in the dust; neither were there any -lights; so that he went softly in the darkness. A row of little wooden -shanties were on the right, and on the left the mass of the Ward School -building. Still higher, the roof of a steepleless church, whose apse -overhung the empty lot behind the school, rose up, splitting the sky -with its black wedge. In front of him were the buildings of the Beck -Carriage Factory, bigger than church and school together. The vacant -spaces between them, these buildings and shanties, were by day -overflowed with light, overrun by school children and factory hands, -over-roared by the tumult of the nearby thoroughfares of Bank and Maple -Streets. By night they were the darkest and stillest places in Port -Argent. One man might pass another, walking in the thick dust of the -cart road and hardly be aware of him. It was too dark to see the rickety -fence about the schoolyard, or make out the small sickly maples. - -He came to a sidewalk with a curb, and saw up the hill to the left the -dim glow from the lights of Maple Street, and went toward them. At the -corner of Maple Street he stopped and thrust his head cautiously around -the angle of the building. - -A block below, a policeman stood in the glare of the arc light, swinging -his club slowly by its cord, and looking around for objects of interest, -not apparently finding anything of the kind. Allen drew back his head. - -It might be better to go back and cross Bank Street at another point and -so come to the bridge along the docks by the river. It would take some -time. He would have to pass an electric light in any case. - -Footsteps were approaching on Maple Street from the other direction. -Presently four men appeared on the other corner and crossed to the -corner where he stood flattened against the wall, and in the shadow. All -walked unsteadily, with elaborate care. Two of them maintained a third -between them. The fourth followed a few paces in the rear. - -As they passed, Allen pulled his cap over his eyes, and dropped in -behind them, and so they approached Bank Street, and he drew close to -the three in front. - -“Hullo!” said the policeman calmly; “jagged?” - -“Say!” exclaimed the maintainer on the left, stopping; “tha's mistake. -Smooth as silk. Ain't it?” - -“You're out late, anyhow,” said the policeman. - -“It's a weddin'. Ain't it? Wa'n't us. 'Nother feller did it.” - -“Well, get along, then.” - -“All ri'! All ri'!” - -He watched the five men as far as the next electric light, and then -dropped them as objects of interest. - -“Hoi' on!” exclaimed the man walking beside Allen, turning suddenly upon -him. “That ain't right. There's five of us. Two, three, four, five. Bet -your life! That ain't right.” - -They all stopped and looked at Allen. He started and his breath came -harsh in his throat. - -“'Nother weddin'?” said the middleman thickly. “Wa'n't him. 'Nother -feller did it. You didn', did you?” - -Allen shook his head “No.” - -“Tha's so! Well, tha's right. 'Sh good thing. If 'nother feller does it, -'sh good thing.” - -They shambled on amiably across the drawbridge. Allen fell behind, -stopped, and leaned against the guard rail. - -In a few moments he could hear their footsteps no more, but he could -hear the mutter of the river against the stone piers. Leaning over the -rail, he could see here and there a dull glint, though the night -was dark; and across the wide spaces over the river he could see -the buildings on each side, low, heavy masses, only saved from the -smothering night and made sullenly visible by the general glow of the -street lamps beyond them. There a few red lights along shore, some in -the freight yards, some belonging to anchored or moored vessels, small -sail-boats, and long black lumber and coal barges from the northern -lakes. He could remember looking down at other times in the night at -the dull glint of water, and being shaken as now by the jar of fighting -things in his own mind, angry things fighting furiously. At those times -it seemed as if some cord within him were strained almost to snapping, -but always some passing excitement, some new glittering idea, something -to happen on the morrow, had drawn him away. But those moments of -despair were associated mainly with the glinting and mutter of dusky -water. “I been a fool,” he muttered, and a little later, “What's the -use!” - -He decided to go to the shoe-shop and change his clothes, shave his -beard, and pick up a few things, and then hide himself on some outgoing -freight train, the other side of Muscadine Street, before the morning -came. The morning could not be far off now. Shays would keep quiet, -maybe, for a while. He would take Shays' razor. - -He roused himself and moved on. He began to have glimpses of schemes, -tricks, and plans. There were little spots of light in his brain, which -for a while had seemed numb, dull, and unstirring. But he carried away -with him the impression of the glints of the gloomy river and the mutter -of its hurrying. - -His feet dragged with his weariness. He turned into Muscadine Street and -crept along the sidewalk on the right. - -Suddenly a switch engine in the freight yards glared him in the face -with its one blinding eye, yelled and hissed through its steam whistle, -and came charging toward him. He leaped aside and fell into a doorway, -and lay there crouching. Then he sat up and whimpered, “I ain't fit. I'm -all gone away. I ain't fit.” - -He rubbed his face and hands, peered around the corner to see the -harmless engine withdrawing in the distance then got up and crossed the -street. The nearness of the familiar shop windows, as he passed them one -after another, comforted him not a little. On the next corner was the -grocer's, the butcher's shop this side of it, and the shoemaker's shop -was over the rear of the grocery. The mingled butcher-shop and grocery -smell pervaded the corner, comforting, too, with its associations. - -He turned the corner and climbed slowly the outside wooden stairway, -with the signboard at the top, “James Shays,” and leaning over the -railing, he saw a faint light in the windows of the shop. He entered the -hall, turned the knob of the door softly, opened the door part way, and -peered in. - -The table stood in its ordinary central place, on it were a bottle, a -tin cup, and a small lit lamp with a smoky chimney. The work bench was -unchanged in place. The door of the inner room beyond stood open, but -that room was dark. On the pile of hides in the corner some clothes, -taken from the hooks overhead, had been thrown, and on the clothes lay -Coglan, face downward and asleep. - -Allen thought, “He's sleeping on my clothes,” and stepped in, closing -the door softly behind him. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV--IN WHICH HICKS COMES TO HIS REST - - -|HE stood a moment with his hands against the closed door behind him, -listening to Coglan's heavy breathing. Then he crossed noiselessly to -the table, took the lamp and went through to the inner room. - -There were two cot beds in it. Shays lay asleep on one in all his -clothes, except his shoes. The other bed was broken down, a wreck on -the floor. Evidently Coglan had been using it, and it was not built for -slumberers of his weight, so he had gone back to the hides that had -often furnished him with a bed before. - -Shays turned his face away from the light and raised one limp hand in -half-conscious protest. He opened his eyes and blinked stupidly. Then he -sat up. - -“Don't make a noise, Jimmy,” said Allen. “I'm going pretty soon.” - -“G-goin'--wha' for?” stammered Shays. “Wha's that for?” - -“I've broke jail. I'm going to change clothes and shave, then I'll light -out. You won't see me again, Jimmy.” - -He sat down on the side of the bed and rocked to and fro, twisting his -fingers. - -“You're decent, Jimmy. When they get to posting notices and rewards, you -see, you don't do a thing. Nor you don't wake Coglan. He's a damn hound. -See?” - -Shays shook his head, indicating either a promise or his general -confusion and despondency. - -“Wha' for, Hicksy?” - -Allen was silent a moment. - -“Jim-jams, Jimmy,” he said at last. “You'll die of those all right, and -Coglan will squat on you. You ain't bright, but you've been white to -me.” - -“Tha's right! Tom don't like you. Hicksy, tha's right,” whispered Shays -with sudden trembling. “Maybe he'd--'sh! We won't wake him, Hicksy. Wha' -for?” - -“He's sleeping on my clothes, so I'll take yours. Get me your razor.” - -“Wha' for? Wha's that for? All right! I ain't going to wake Tom.” - -He stepped unsteadily on a shoe that lay sidewise, stumbled, and fell -noisily on the floor. - -There he lay a moment, and then scrambled back to his feet, shaking and -grumbling. - -“What's the matter?” Coglan cried, now awake in the shop. - -“Nothin', Tommy! I'm gettin' back, Tommy!” - -“What you doin' with thot light?” - -“Nothin', Tommy.” - -Allen stood still. When Coglan came stamping unevenly to the door, he -only made a quick shift of the lamp to his left hand, and thrust the -other inside his coat till he felt the wooden handle of the chisel. - -“Oi!” said Coglan. - -His eyes seemed more prominent than ever, his face and neck heavier -with the drink and sleep than was even natural. Allen looked at him with -narrowed eyes. - -“He's broke out,” Shays said, feebly deprecating. “He's goin' off,” and -sat on the bed to pull on his shoes. - -“Is he thot!” said Coglan. - -Coglan turned back slowly into the shop. Shays shuffled after. Allen -followed, too, with the lamp and said nothing, but put the lamp on -the table. Coglan sat down, drank from the black bottle, and wiped his -mouth. The first dim light of the morning was in the windows. - -“I'll be getting along, Jimmy,” said Allen. “I'll take your razor.” - -Coglan wiped his mouth again. - -“An' ye'd be goin' widout takin' advice of a sinsible mon, Hicksy, an' -a friend in need! Sure, sure! Didn't I say ye weren't a wise mon? Nor -Jimmy here, he ain't a wise mon. An' ain't I proved it? Ain't it so? -Would ye be jailed if ye was a wise mon? No! Here ye are again, an' ye'd -be runnin' away this time of the mornin', an' be took by a polaceman on -the first corner. I do laugh an' I do wape over ye, Hicksy. I do laugh -an wape. An' all because ye won't take advice.” - -“What's your advice?” - -Coglan moved uneasily and cleared his throat. “'Tis this, for ye're -rasonable now, sure! Ye'll hide in the back room a day or two. Quiet, -aisy, safe! Jimmy an' me to watch. An' what happens to ye? Ye gets away -some night wid the night before ye.” - -He lowered his voice and gestured with closed fist. - -“Ye'll lie under Jimmy's bed. The polaceman comes. 'Hicks!' says Jimmy, -'we ain't seen Hicks.' 'Hicks!' says I, 'Hicks be dommed! If he's broke -jail he's left for Chiney maybe.' I ask ye, do they look under Jimmy's -bed? No! What do they do? Nothin'!” - -Allen drew a step back. - -“You're right about one thing,” he said. “That reward would be easy -picking for you.” - -“What's thot?” - -“I ain't a wise man. I know it. But I know you. That's what it is. I'm -going now.” - -“Ye're not!” - -“Hicksy!” cried Shays feebly. “Tom, don't ye do it!” - -Coglan plunged around the table and grasped at Allen's throat, at -Allen's hand, which had shot behind his head, gripping the heavy chisel. -Allen dodged him, and struck, and jumped after as Coglan staggered, -and struck again. The corner of the chisel seemed to sink into Coglan's -head. - -Allen stood and clicked his teeth over his fallen enemy, who sighed like -a heavy sleeper, and was still. It was a moment of tumult, and then all -still in the shop. Then Shays stumbled backward over the work bench, and -dropped on the hides. Allen turned and looked at him, putting the chisel -into one of the side pockets of his coat, where it hung half-way out. -The light was growing clearer in the windows. - -“That's the end of me,” he said. - -And Shays cried angrily, “Wha's that for?” and cowered with fear and -dislike in his red-lidded eyes. “Keep off me! You keep off me!” - -“I got to the end, Jimmy. Goodbye.” - -“Keep off me!” - -Allen hung his head and went out of the shop into the dark hall. - -Shays heard his steps go down the outside stairway. He scrambled up from -the pile of hides, and snatched his hat. He kept close to the wall, as -far as possible from where Coglan lay against the legs of the table. He -was afraid. He vaguely wanted to get even with the man who had killed -Coglan. He had loved Coglan, on the whole, best among living men. - -People in the rooms about the hall were roused by the noise, and were -stirring. Someone called to him from a door in the darkness. He hurried -down the outside stair. On Muscadine Street he saw Allen a half block -away, walking slowly. - -At the corner of the next street, as Allen stepped from the curb, the -chisel dropped from his pocket, but he did not notice it, plodding on, -with head down and dragging steps. Shays picked up the chisel when he -came to the spot, stared at it stupidly, and thrust it in his pocket. -The two kept the same distance apart and came out on the bridge. - -The city and water-front for the most part were quite still, though it -was nearly time for both to waken, and for the milk and market waggons -to come in, and the trolley cars to begin running. The street lights had -been turned off. There were forebodings of sunrise, over and beyond the -disorderly roofs of East Argent. In the hush of that hour the muttering -of the Muscadine whispering, rustling along the piers, seemed louder -than by day. The dark buildings on the western river-front had the red -glimmer of the sunrise now in their windows. No one was on the bridge -except Shays and Allen, possibly a hidden and sleepy watcher in the -drawbridge house. - -Close to the drawbridge Allen stopped and looked back. Shays stopped, -too, and muttered, “Wha's that for? Wha' for?” and found his mind blank -of all opinion about it, and so, without any opinion what for, he began -to run forward at a stumbling trot. Allen glanced back at him, leaped -on the guard rail, threw his hands in the air, and plunged down into the -river. - -When Shays came there was nothing to be seen but the brown rippled -surface; nor to be heard, except the lapping against the piers. He -leaned over limply, and stared at the water. - -“Wha' for?” he repeated persistently. “Wha's that for?” and whimpered, -and rubbed his eyes with a limp hand, and leaned a long time on the -rail, staring down at the mystery, with the other limp hand hung over -the water pointing downward. “Wha' for?” - -The city was waking with distant murmurs and nearby jarring noise. A -freight train went over the P. and N. bridge. - -Shays drew back from the railing and shuffled on till he had come almost -to Bank Street; there he stopped and turned back, seeing a trolley car -in the distance coming down Maple Street. He went down on the littered -wharves, close to the abutments of the bridge, sat down on a box, leaned -against the masonry, and took from his pocket the chisel he had picked -up, stared at it, rubbed it in the refuse at his feet, and put it back -in his pocket. The sun was risen now, the spot grew pleasantly warm, and -he went to sleep muttering in the morning sunlight on the wharf by the -Muscadine, and over his head went the trucks, waggons, trolley cars, the -stamp of hoofs, and the shuffle of feet. - - - - -CHAPTER XV--HENNION AND SHAYS - - -|HENNION came to his office early that Saturday morning with his -mind full of Macclesfield's bridge, and of the question of how to get -Macclesfield interested in the Boulevard and the parks. He wondered how -Macclesfield would take to the part of a municipal patriot. He thought -that if he could only conquer some shining success, something marked, -public, and celebrated, then, perhaps, his success might succeed with -Camilla. At any rate, it paid to keep your eyes on the path where you -seemed to be getting somewhere, and to follow that path, for so one -travelled ahead and found that success attracted success by a sort of -gravitation between them. All things came about to him who kept going. -This was the native Hennion philosophy, of father and son, much as -it was a Champney trait to crave something to canonise. Neither Henry -Champney nor Camilla could ever find peace without believing something -to be better than they could prove it to be; neither the elder Hennion -nor his son could ever find peace without the occupation of making -something a little better than it had been. - -Hennion leaned back in his office chair and stared out of the window. -“I'll bet Miss Eunice is level-headed,” he thought. - -The half-begun plans and rough drawings for Macclesfield's bridge lay -reproachful on his desk; a typewriter clicked in the anteroom; the -clamour of trucks and trolley cars came in through the window, familiar -noises, now sounding dull and far away to his ears. The maze of -telephone wires and the window panes across the street glittered in the -bright sunlight. - -The sound of shambling feet outside approached the corridor door. -The owner of the feet knocked, hesitated, and came in, the pallid, -unsubstantial, wavering Shays. His lips trembled, and his hand lingered -on the door knob. Hennion swung around promptly in his chair. - -“Look here, Shays! You don't get nourishment enough! You've burnt holes -in your stomach till it won't hold any more than a fish net. Now, I'll -tell you what you'd better do.” - -“Misser Hennion--Misser Hennion--I want you to see me through!” - -He stretched out his hand with scattered fingers, appealingly. - -“I want you--Misser Hennion--you see me through!” - -“Oh, come in! Sit down.” - -Shays sat down, and Hennion looked him over. - -“Had any breakfast?” - -“I want you see me through!” - -“What's the matter?” - -Shays sat on the edge of the chair and told his story, waving a thin -hand with high blue veins. He hurried, stumbled, and came on through -confusion to the end. - -“Hicksy come about three o'clock,” he said. “I didn't do nothing, and -Tom he was asleep. Tha's right. We didn't want him, but he woke me up, -and he says, 'I'm off, Jimmy,' like that. 'I broke jail,' he says, 'an' -ye needn't wake Coglan,' he says, like that. Then I gets up and I falls -down, plunk! like that, and Tom woke up. Then he goes arguin' with -Hicksy, like they always done, and he says, 'You stay under Jimmy's -bed,' he says, friendly, like that. 'You get off when there ain't nobody -lookin',' he says. But Hicksy says, 'You're lookin' for the reward; -you're goin' to sell me out,' he says. Then he says he's off, but Tom -won't let him. Then they clinched, and Hicksy hit him with the chisel. -Oh, my God! Misser Hennion! You see me through! He dropped, plunk! -like that, plunk! Oh, my God! Misser Hennion! Jus' like that, plunk! He -clipped him dead. He did, too!” Shays paused and rubbed his lips. - -“What next?” - -“Then he says, 'Jimmy, that's the end of me,' like that, and he put that -thing what he done it with in his pocket. He goes creepin', scroochin' -out the door, like that, creepin', scroochin'. Oh, my God! Misser -Hennion! I ain't goin' to stay there alone! Not me! I goes after him. -And in Muscadine Street I see him, but it was dark, but I see him -creepin', scroochin' along to the bridge; I see the chisel fall out and -it clinked on the stones. Pretty soon I picks it up, and pretty soon I -see Hicksy out on the bridge. Then he stopped. Then I knowed he'd jump. -Then he jumped, plunk! jus' like that, plunk!” - -He had the chisel in his hand, and showed it to Hennion. - -“Let me see that.” - -Hennion swung away in his chair toward the light and examined the -battered handle with the straggling, ill-cut, and woe-begone face traced -there. - -He turned slowly and took a newspaper from his desk, rolled up the -chisel in the newspaper, thrust it into a drawer, locked the drawer and -turned back to the muttering Shays. - -“I see. What next?” - -“I says, 'Wha' for? Wha's that for?' Then I come to that place, and -there ain't nothin' there. He got under quick, he did. He stayed there. -He never come up. I watched. He never come up. Oh, my God! Misser -Hennion, I ain't goin' to stay there! Folks was comin' on the bridge. I -ain't goin' to stay there!” - -“I see. What next?” - -“Next?” - -“Where'd you go then?” - -“Misser Hennion! I went down under along the bridge, where there wa'n't -anybody.” - -“What next?” - -“Next?” - -“Did you meet anyone? Say anything?” - -“Wha' for? Wha's tha' for?” - -“What did you do between then and now?” - -“Me? Nothin'! I went to sleep by the bridge. Then I got breakfast at -Riley's 'All Night.' Then I come here. I ain't said a word, excep' to -Riley.” - -“What did you say to Riley?” - -“Me! I says, 'Give me some coffee and an egg sandwich,' and Riley says, -'Ye're a dom little gutter pig, Jimmy,' and tha's every word.” - -“I see.” - -“Misser Hennion! You see me through!” - -“All right. But you've got to mind this, or I get out from under you. -You leave out Hicks' dropping that chisel, or your picking it up. He -dropped nothing; you picked up nothing. Understand? He hit Coglan with -something he had in his hand. Whatever it was, never mind. He put it in -his pocket and carried it off. You followed. You saw him jump off the -bridge. That's all. Tell me the thing again, and leave that out. Begin -where Hicks waked you.” - -“Me! Wha' for? Wha's tha' for?” - -“I want you to get it fixed. Oh, never mind why! Fire away!” - -While Shays repeated the story Hennion swung to and fro in his swing -chair. - -He had not seen the chisel these halfdozen years, but he knew the -battered handle and the woful cherub face as the face of an old friend. -He knew the niche in the tool chest where it belonged, and the spot -where the tool chest stood in the room high over the mansards, from -whose windows one looked through the upper branches of the trees out on -the Muscadine. There in the summer the maple leaves would flicker in the -sunlight, and in winter through bare branches one could see the river. -There Milly used to sit on the floor with a white apron on and a red -ribbon, and chatter like a sweet-voiced canary bird. - -He went over again the connection that had first flashed past his mind, -between the chisel in the Champney tool chest and the one wrapped in -a newspaper in his desk. Aidee visited Hicks Thursday night; Friday -afternoon he was at the Champney house, where Miss Eunice had noticed -emotion, conjectured a crisis, and was moved to give advice; Friday -night Hicks broke jail and went to Shays, quarrelled with and killed -Coglan, and went off to another world, leaving Shays with the chisel; -Saturday morning comes Shays, along with the story that he was stumbling -through now, anxiously shying around the forbidden part of it. Well, -but--now as to Aidee--that was the second time he had been to Camilla -for help, and Henry Champney had liked that sort of business no better -than Hennion. It wouldn't do. As to Camilla, of course the “little maid” - would be “game,” but that gameness was a bit too convenient for men like -Aidee, who came along with a wheelbarrow full of celestial purposes in -front and a cartload of tragedies behind. Hennion did not like the kind. -A man ought to handle his own troubles and not drag women into them; -that is to say, not Camilla. Why in thunder couldn't he keep his mouth -shut, and buy a respectable burglar's outfit, like a gentleman, from a -respectable hardware dealer! However, as to Miss Eunice's “crisis,” - it looked as if Aidee must have been confessing his criminal family, -instead of the condition of his heart. Aidee was having a run of hard -luck. Still, his criminal family was out of the way now, which did not -seem a bad idea. Any chance of Camilla's name being mentioned would have -to be smothered of course, which meant smothering the whole thing. - -“Go on, Jimmy. Your style's picking up.” - -But, of course, Camilla now would take into her soul all the -responsibilities in sight, and brood and sadden over her fancies, and -have nightmares. That wouldn't do either. - -“Very good, Jimmy.” - -He must see Camilla, and be the first to tell her. Being inside the -story now, he could give a healthy point of view from the inside. - -“Plunk! jus' like that!” said Shays. “He went, plunk! I come up, and I -looked, and he wa'n't there. Wa'n't nothin' there. He got under quick. -He stayed, but I wa'n't goin' to stay. Wha' for? Wha's that for? Folks -was cornin' down Maple Street and I come away. I ain't see no more of -him, but Tom, he's under the table, and there ain't no use in that, not -him, nor I ain't goin' to stay there, not him.” - -“You wander, Jimmy. Who's 'him'?” Miss Eunice was a wise woman, and -according to her wisdom love was a sort of continuity of surprise, -because women wanted it that way, and they held the leading ideas on the -subject. Humph! Well--Camilla's joining Aidee that way was curious, and -in fact, that “continuity of surprise” was all right. Aidee preached a -kind of contempt for law; his doctrine always led him to side with -the individual man against men organised, and against the structure of -things; and he might have infected Camilla with his view of things, -or it might be that view of things natural to women, their gift and -function. What would Camilla do next? “God knows!” She would see that -the “continuity of surprise” was all right. What on earth was Jimmy -Shays talking about? - -“Tom he says to me, 'Hicksy's a dangerous man, Jimmy,' he says, 'and I -wouldn't trust him with me life or me property. Nor,' he says, 'I -don't agree with his vilyanous opinions,' he says. That was Tom's word, -'vilyanous,' and it's true and it's proved, Misser Hennion, ain't it? -Sure! Then he jumps into the river, plunk! like that, Misser Hennion! I -ain't done no harm.” - -Shays was harmless surely, and cobbled shoes besides for the benefit of -society. - -“Drop it, Jimmy. We'll go over to the police station.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVI--CAMILLA GOES TO THE ASSEMBLY HALL - - -|CAMILLA spent the morning in the store-room, staring through the window -at the tree tops and glinting river. In the afternoon she went driving -with her father. Henry Champney was garrulous on the subject of Dick's -plans for the new railroad bridge and station, the three parks and -moon-shaped boulevard. - -“His conceptions impress me, Camilla. They do indeed! They do indeed!” - -In Wabash Park Champney's imagination rose, and his periods lengthened. -He foresaw lakes, lawns, and sinuous avenues. - -“Nature judiciously governed, my dear, art properly directed, and the -moral dignity of man ever the end in view. I foresee a great and famous -city, these vast, green spaces, these fragrant gardens. Ha!” - -He gazed benevolently at the scrubby pastures, and the creek where the -small boys were shooting bullfrogs with rubber slings. - -Camilla felt a certain vagueness of interest, and vaguely reproached -herself. What was Alcott Aidee doing? Had his brother escaped? What was -this dreadful brother like who would drag him away? But Alcott might -come to the Champney house that afternoon. He might be there now. She -must go back. He did not care for parks and boulevards and bridges. -He loved the people, and sacrificed himself for the people, and he was -going away, and did not know where it all would lead him. What did it -matter whether or not one made a lawn in place of a pasture lot? But it -must be wrong not to be interested in what Dick did and planned, or what -her father said about it. She forced herself to answer and smile. Henry -Champney was too busy unfolding his ideas to notice that her thoughts -were absent. But Camilla noticed how Dick's doings, sayings, and plans -seemed to occupy her father's mind of late. - -“A noble thought, a worthy ambition,” Champney rumbled. - -So they drove from the Park, Champney muttering and booming, Camilla -wrapped in a crowd of uncertain fears and cravings. Through this cloud -came the half-distinguished pain of feeling that her father could feel -it possible to lean on anyone but herself, and find a wide passage -through someone else than her to his fine victory over old age. It was -through Dick, and of course, that made it more natural, but it hurt her. - -She must find Aidee now. If his brother had escaped, it would be in the -afternoon papers. - -When they reached home she jumped out and ran up the steps, while her -father drove on to the stable. She picked up the paper that lay on the -porch, thrown in by the passing newsboy, who was skilful to deliver -papers without getting off his bicycle. She went upstairs, and did not -look at the paper till she reached the store-room. - -Henry Champney came into the library, where Miss Eunice was sitting. A -half hour slipped by. - -“That boy!” rumbled Henry Champney to Miss Eunice in his library; “that -superlative procrastination! that acme of mental, moral, and physical -ineptitude! Ha! Why doesn't he bring my paper? On my word, five o'clock! -Five o'clock! Does he expect me to get up in the middle of the night to -read it? Nonsense! I won't do it!” - -Miss Eunice shook her head gloomily, implying that not much was to -be expected of this generation. Richard, she said, had been in to see -Camilla. He had been very unsatisfactory and distrait. He had said that -he would come in again before teatime. No one else had called. She was -of the opinion that Richard was worried. It was not proper for -young people, when their elders were speaking, were giving important -advice--it was not considerate or well-bred of them to look vague, to -answer only that it was four o'clock, and they would come back to tea, -when neither statement was important. The paper boy's rough manner of -throwing the paper on the porch she had never approved of. - -They were still on the subject when Camilla's step was heard in the -hall. Instead of coming into the library she went swiftly out of the -front door. Miss Eunice, at the window, dropped her knitting. - -“Camilla is going out again!” - -Mr. Champney rumbled inarticulately. Miss Eunice wondered if Camilla -could have taken the paper upstairs. The young people of this generation -were thoughtless, inconsiderate, and headstrong. But was it not -injustice to Camilla to suspect her of carrying selfishly away her -father's newspaper, a thing so important to his happiness before tea? -Miss Eunice put aside her knitting and left the room, feeling uneasy. - -She climbed the stairs and looked into Camilla's room, then climbed -the second flight to the store-room. On the floor of the store-room, in -front of the window, lay the paper, crushed and rumpled. Miss' Eunice -gasped, took it up, and sat down on the tool chest. How could Camilla -have been so rude, so inconsiderate! The staring headlines of the front -page proclaimed: “Hicks Escaped; a Murder and a Suicide. The Incidents -of a Night.” - -“Rumours of Important Cabinet Officer's Retirement.” - -“Uprising in Southwestern Europe Expected. Rumours from Roumania.” - -“Hen-nion and Macclesfield Are Agreed. Improvements projected in Port -Argent.” - -“John Murphy knew the Deceased Coglan.” - -“Father Harra Orders Plain Funerals for his Flock. Two Carriages and a -Hearse are his Limit.” - -None of these proclamations gave Miss Eunice any help in her amazement. -No headline, except “Hennion and Macclesfield,” seemed to have any -bearing on Camilla, and the column beneath that told nothing that -Richard had not already told the family, about a railroad bridge -and station, park improvements and so on; in which, it had been Miss -Eunice's impression, Camilla had taken less interest than was becoming. - -She sat on the tool chest, and stared at the front page of the crumpled -newspaper, with a vague sense of distress. The air in the room seemed -tense, the creases across the front of the paper like some wild and -helpless handwriting, but what the interlinear writing meant, or whether -it applied to “John Murphy” or “the deceased Coglan,” or “Hennion and -Macclesfield,” or the “Cabinet officer,” was beyond her. This sign of -Miss Eunice's trouble was sure, that she sat a long time on the old tool -chest, and no more than Camilla remembered that Henry Champney was in -the library, forlorn of his afternoon paper. - -When Hennion came to the Champney house again, it was a little before -six. He saw through the door to the library Mr. Champney's white head -bent down drowsily, where he sat in his chair. - -Miss Eunice came down the stairs, agitated, mysterious, and beckoned him -into the parlour. She showed him the crumpled newspaper. - -“I don't understand Camilla's behaviour, Richard! She went out suddenly. -I found the paper in the store-room. It is so unlike her! I don't -understand, Richard!” - -Hennion glanced at the front page, and stood thinking for a moment. - -“Well--you'd better iron it out, Miss Eunice, before you take it to Mr. -Champney. Milly will be back soon, but if you're worrying, you see, it -might be just as well. He might be surprised.” - -He left the house, took a car up Franklin Street and got off at the -corner by the Assembly Hall. The side door was ajar. - -He went in and heard voices, but not from Aidee's study, the door of -which stood open, its windows glimmering with the remaining daylight. -The voices came from the distance, down the hallway, probably from the -Assembly Hall. He recognised Aidee's voice, and turned, and went back to -the street door, out of hearing of the words. - -“It's the other man's innings,” he thought ruefully. But, he thought -too, that Milly was in trouble. His instinct to be in the neighbourhood -when Milly was in trouble was too strong to be set aside. He leaned his -shoulder against the side of the door, jammed his hands in his pockets, -stood impassively, and meditated, and admired the mechanism of things. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII--AIDEE--CAMILLA--HENNION - - -|CAMILLA went up Bank Street, and took a car at the corner of Franklin -Street. It carried her past the Court House Square, and so on to the -little three-cornered park, where stood the Seton Avenue Assembly Hall, -and opposite the Hall the block of grey houses with bay windows, of -which the third from the corner was Mrs. Tillotson's. - -That lady saw Camilla through the window and met her at the door. - -“My dear! My dear! There is no one here! Positively! And my little -drawing-room usually thronged! _Now_, we can have such a talk, such -an _earnest_ talk! We women must unite. The Assembly must take a -_position_.” - -She sat by Camilla on the sofa and clasped her hand. - -“I--I don't quite understand,” said Camilla. - -“_Surely_, my dear, the two most important questions before the Assembly -are these: First, shall we, or shall we not, support Mr. Hennion? -second, shall we, or shall we not, adopt a fixed form of service, more -ornate and beautiful? Mr. Berry takes the affirmative of both, Mr. -Ralbeck the negative. I am at present in the position of a reconciler. -I have in particular devoted myself to the latter question. I have -examined thoroughly the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church. I have -offered Mr. Aidee _all_ my knowledge, _all_ my literary experience. But -he does not as yet take a _position!_” - -Camilla promised a number of things, and asked for Aidee. Mrs. Tillotson -thought he was at the Hall. He had not been to lunch. She was of the -opinion that Mr. Aidee was distinctly avoiding her, knowing that she -would insist on his taking a position, knowing her to be right in -insisting. - -Camilla escaped, and crossed the Avenue to the little side door that led -into a hallway, out of which opened a room used by Aidee for a study. -The door on the street was ajar. She had never entered that door before. -She knew the windows of the study from without. - -She entered the dusky hallway and knocked at the door of the study, but -no one answered. She hesitated, and drew back, and then tried the knob. -The door yielded and opened, but the room was empty. - -In the growing dusk the corners of it were quite dark. It seemed bare, -half-furnished--some books in a case, a matting, a flat littered table, -a few chairs. She grasped at the sides of the open door, for the room -seemed to darken and lighten alternately, and be so full of meaning as -to be ghostly, seeing that no one sat at the littered table, or was -even hiding, crouching in the darkened corners. The large square windows -seemed to look inward rather than outward, as if the centre of interest -were within, and everything outside were meaningless. Yet the room was -empty. - -She gave a little moan of disappointment and helplessness. He must be -hiding and suffering somewhere. She must protect him from the cruel, -clattering noises and tongues outside! the dull, selfish, heartless -people outside, to whom the prophet and martyr was forever coming -and forever rejected, wounded by blind accidents, by people blind as -accidents! So pitiful! so intolerable! So strange that the room should -be empty of Aidee, and yet full of him! She could fancy him there, -pacing the yellow matting, staring at the window, thinking, thinking. - -She turned back from the half-lit room to the darkened hallway, and saw -that another door opened out of it at the end furthest from the door on -the street. Wherever it led, he might be there. - -She opened it bravely, and saw only a little corridor, crooking suddenly -to the left and even darker than the outer hallway. She felt her way -along the plastered wall to the corner, and beyond that in the darkness -felt the panels of a final door. She opened it, half expecting a closet -or cellar stair, and almost cried out, for the great, dim, glowing, -glimmering space of the Assembly Hall was before her, with its windows -now turning grey from the outer twilight; but its vaulted roof, its -pillars and curved galleries of brown oak could be distinguished, its -ranged tiers of seats, its wide, curved, carpeted platform, its high -bulk of gilded organ pipes. She had seen it before only when the -tiers of seats had been packed with people, when Aidee had filled the -remaining space with his presence, his purposes, and his torrent of -speech; when the organ had played before and after, ushering in and -following the Preacher with its rolling music; when great thoughts and -sounds, and multitudes of staring and listening people had been there, -where now it was so empty, so lonely and still. Silvery dim bars of -light slanted from the windows downward to the centre of the hall, and -the varnished backs of the seats shone in long concentric curves. Lines -of darkness lay between them; deep darkness was under the galleries; -shadows clustered in the vault overhead, shadows on the platform below -the organ, where stood the Preacher's high-backed seat. Aidee had given -the Hall what living meaning it had. Empty, it was still haunted by his -voice, haunted by his phrases. - -Camilla held her breath and stared from the little dark door, across the -Hall, and saw Aidee standing by one of the gallery pillars. She started -forward. Aidee came slowly from under the gallery to meet her. - -“Camilla!” - -“Oh! Why didn't you come?” - -“Come?” - -“To me. I thought you would!” - -He stood silently before her, and seemed absorbed and constrained. - -“When did you know?” she asked, and he answered mechanically, “This -morning. I went down and saw the crowd under the window. I heard them -talking. A newspaper reporter told me. Then I went to the bridge, but -there was another crowd there, looking down at the water. So I came -back.” - -They sat down in one of the seats. Camilla felt both excited and -constrained. She was afraid to go on. During the dumb hour she had spent -in the store-room, she had felt that life was plainly a ruinous affair, -and that she was somehow touched by a horrible wickedness and stained -forever. She imagined, shrinking, some disclosure and disgrace. She -pictured Henry Champney's amazement and grief. And then it all had been -swept from her mind by the thought of Aidee, suffering somewhere alone. -But now that she had found him, she found him reserved and quiet, and -she seemed to stop on the edge of a gulf or crater, to peer over, to -expect some red, rending explosion, but it was all still and dim there; -and it stared up at her coldly and quietly. - -“I came, because I thought I could help,” she said. “I thought it would -help us both.” - -“Are you troubled? You'd better let it go. It's the end of that story. -I've fought it out now. I'm free of it.” - -“What do you mean?” - -They stared closely in the dusk into each other's eyes. Then she dropped -her head, and wept with her face in her hands. - -“It's not your story,” said Aidee. - -“Yes, it is! It's mine!” - -Then she raised her head, and he saw her wet eyes glisten in the -dimness, and she said: “Teach me what it means.” And a dull shock went -through him threaded by a sharp pain, a sensation so penetrating as to -resemble pain, and desirable enough to be called happiness, and yet not -like any pain or happiness in the remembered stretch of his concentrated -and brooding life. That life, as he looked back on it, he saw starting -from the old farmhouse on the plain, with its fallen fences and dry -fields, the tired face of his mother in the house door, the small impish -face of “Lolly” by his side. Next followed the big brick schoolhouse in -the village, the schoolroom that he disliked, the books that he loved, -the smoky chimney of his lamp, the pine table and the room where he -studied; from which he would have to go presently down into the street -and drag Lolly out of some raging battle with other boys, struggling -and cursing, up to their room, where Lolly would turn on him in a moment -with queer, twisted, affectionate smile, and clinging arms--“I ain't -mad now, Al.” Then he saw the press-room in St. Louis, he saw Lolly -imprisoned and then suddenly gone. He saw the mines and the crumbling -mountain slopes in Nevada, the sheds, the dump cart, the spot where he -had poured out first his long pent-up dreams to a rugged, astonished -audience, and where that new passion of speech had come to him, that had -seemed to fill the craving void in his heart; the spot where he had met -the circuit-riding bishop and T. M. Secor. Then came his early success -in Port Argent and the organisation of the Assembly; then the attack on -Wood, and the growing sense of futility, in that while many listened and -praised, little happened and little came of their listening or approval. -“They take me for an actor, and the Assembly for a comedy,” he had -thought bitterly, and he had written “The Inner Republic,” and the -book that had brought to him Camilla Champney, eager and pureeyed, and -asking, “What does it mean? It is my story too!” - -What did it mean? Lolly lay dead in the ooze of the Muscadine and Port -Argent was come to be a horror. He seemed so plainly to have failed, so -drearily was Lolly dead, and all the fire in his own soul dead too, gone -out in cinders, and his theory of life cracked like a hollow nutshell. -He would go back to the mines, or to the slums and shops, and live again -with the sweating hordes, among whom the grim secret of life lay, if -anywhere; and when next he preached, he would preach the bitterest fact -loudest. No, rather, if life is hopeless let us dig in the earth and say -nothing. But Camilla! What of Camilla? And what did she mean? Her story -too! He began to speak slowly, but presently grew rapid and eager. - -“How can I explain? I never knew my fellow men, nor cared for them. They -were no brothers of mine. I had but one. I never loved another human -being, not these twenty years, but I had the kin instinct like hunger. -Allen and I were rooted together. I thought I was a prophet, who was no -more than a savage. Men are brothers by blood or interest, but for the -rest they fight the old war that began before the earth had a decent -crust to cover its chaos. Brotherhood of wildcats!” - -“Oh, no! no!” she cried. - -“For your sake, no, Camilla! Oh, through you I could hope again! You -will save me, I will cut the past out and bury it, I will begin again. -I will count this place with the dead and leave it forever. I need you. -Come with me, my wife and hope and guide. Camilla, help me!” - -“No, no!” - -His sharp, strained voice frightened her. His eyes glittered and his -face was white below his black hair. His intensity frightened her. -The future he pointed to threatened her like an overhanging cloud, the -struggle in her own heart frightened her. - -“You said the story was yours. Camilla, tell me so again! We'll blot it -out. I will forget! I need you! Come away from this ghastly city!” - -Now she saw her father in his library, his white head bent. He was -waiting and listening for her footsteps; and Dick seemed to be standing -over him, listening for her to come; and Aunt Eunice, near by, was -listening. - -“I can't!” she cried. “I can't!” - -“You must! Camilla! We will go away. It would be possible with you. -I'll find a truth yet that doesn't lead to hell. I'll be a leader yet. -Camilla, look at me!” She lifted her face and turned slowly toward -him, and a voice spoke out in the distant, dark doorway, saying, -“Milly!”--and then hesitated, and Hennion came out. - -“I heard you crying,” he said quietly. “I didn't seem to be able to -stand that.” - -“Dick! Take care of me!” she cried, and ran to him, and put her face -against his arm. The two men looked at each other for a moment. - -Aidee said, “I'm answered.” - -“I think you gave me a close call,” said Hennion, and drew Camilla past -him into the passage, and followed her a few steps. Then he turned back, -thinking: - -“A fanatic is a term that mostly defines the definer, instead of the -person meant to be defined. Sometimes it defines the man who uses it, as -dense.” - -At any rate Aidee was a force and had a direction, and force ought not -to be wasted that way, for the credit of dynamics. So Hennion justified -himself, and then confused his motive by thinking, “It's hardly a square -game besides.” He stepped from the door into the dim Hall again, and -said slowly: - -“By the way, I saw Hicks last one night, some two weeks ago, and he told -me who he was. He intended, I believe, to leave a message for you. Maybe -he mentioned it to you. I think he told no one else who he was.” - -Hennion paused. Aidee made no motion nor sound, but stood stiffly -resistant. - -“Well, you see, this morning, Jimmy Shays, the shoemaker, brought me -that chisel. It seems Hicks used it last on Coglan, and then left it -behind him, which was rather careless. Well, I knew the tool. The fact -is, it was mine. Strikes me you might as well have gone somewhere else -for your hardware.” - -Still no sound. - -“However, being mine, I took the liberty of pitching it into the river, -where it really belonged, and swore Jimmy into a state of collapsed -secrecy. Consequently, I'm in collusion. Consequently, I'm mentioning -this to you in order to clean up the ground between us. It makes no -great difference. That's all right. I only wanted to point out that -you're clear of the mess. Now, there's a job for you in Port Argent. -I think you can fill the place rather better--better than anyone else. -Will you stay?” - -“No.” - -“Oh! But I've heard it said, political power was safe in the hands of -those who had to make a sacrifice in order to accept it.” - -“I won't make it.” - -“It turns out a hypocritical sacrifice for me, you know. I'm on the -highroad to corruption. You might stay in Port Argent and keep me -honest. Will you?” - -“No.” - -“All right. Good-night.” - -The little side streets between Seton Avenue and Maple Street were -shaded by young maples, the street lamps frequent, and now being lit. -Hennion and Camilla walked slowly. She shivered once or twice, and half -sobbed, and clung to him. They talked very little at first. - -“Milly,” he said at last, “of course, you know, I'm backing you, anyway. -You shall do as you like.” - -“I know, Dick. You're good. You're very good to me.” - -“Well--maybe I'm wrong--I've been that before--but it looks to me in -this way, that, after all, most impossible things are possible somehow, -or somehow else, and it's better to go straight at the steep places. It -stirs your blood to see how steep they are. I don't know altogether--I -don't ask--but if you see anything that looks steep ahead, why, perhaps -it is, perhaps it is--but then, what of it? And that's the moral I've -been hedging around to, Milly.” - -After a silence she asked, “How did you know I was there?” - -“I thought it likely.” - -He told her of his talk with Hicks in the cell, and how Shays, the -shoemaker, had come to him that morning, but he omitted the fact that -the chisel had been “used on Coglan.” Passing that point, he went on, -comfortably comforting. - -“You know, people don't own all the miscellaneous consequences of what -they do. For instance, I knew Coglan. He was a blackguard and loafer, -and generally drunk, and his death was rather a judicious selection. -Hicks was a curious man. Maybe he wasn't quite sane. He jumped into the -river on his own notion, to the happy relief of the public, which might -have had scruples about hanging him. Still, you must see that as you -didn't arrange all these social benefits, they'll have to be credited -to your good luck, if they're credited at all. Aidee helped him to break -jail, which was natural enough. It's a debatable moral maybe, if -anyone wants to debate it, but who wants to? I'm no casuist, anyway. He -shouldn't have come to you. But since he did, why, of course you'd do -something of the kind, same as the wind blows. I know you, Milly. Is it -your part in it that troubles you? You'd better take my judgment on it.” - -“What is it?” she said, half audibly. - -“My judgment? Only that I want you for myself.” - -He went on quietly after a pause: “There are objections to interfering -with the law, if your conscience means that. Those who try it, I think, -don't often know what they're doing. If they do it theoretically, -they're staking a small experience against a big one. The chances of -being right are mainly against them. Aren't they? It looks so. Your -getting mixed with that kind of thing or people, is--would be, of -course, rather hard on us, on Mr. Champney and me. But your nerve was -good. Is that what you want my judgment on?” - -They turned up the path to the Champney house. - -“You knew all about it!” she said hurriedly. “But you don't understand. -It was because I thought him so great and noble, and I do! I do! Oh, he -is! But I'm not brave at all. No, you don't know! He asked me to help, -and it was so dark and painful, what he meant to do before he came -again. It frightened me. He asked me to marry him, and break off -everything here, and I was afraid! I'm a coward! I wouldn't do it -because I was afraid. I'm a coward.” - -“Did, did he?” said Hennion comfortably. “That was good nerve, too.” - -“You don't understand,” she said with a small sob, and then another. - -“Maybe not. But I think you had other reasons.” - -They looked in through the tall library window, and saw Henry Champney -sitting alone by his table, the gas jet flaring over him, and his white -head dropped over on his hand. Hennion went on: “There's some of this -business that it doesn't suit me to argue about or admit. But it occurs -to me that”--pointing toward the window--“that may have been a reason.” - -“You do understand that,” she said, and they went in together. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII--T. M. SECOR--HENNION--CAMILLA - - -|PORT ARGENT had not reached such a stage of civic life that its wealthy -citizens went out into the neighbouring country by reason of warm -weather. Besides, the neighbouring country is flat, and the summer heats -seem to lie on it level and undisturbed. There straight roads meet at -right angles, one cornfield is like another, and one stumpy pasture -differs little from the next. It is fertile, and looks democratic, not -to say socialistic, in its monotonous similarity, but it does not look -like a landscape apt to draw out to it the civilian, as the hill country -draws out its civilians, with the thirst of the hill people for -their falling brooks and stormy mountains, the wood thrushes and the -columbine. An “observer of decades” might have remarked that Herbert -Avenue was the pleasantest spot he had seen within a hundred miles of -Port Argent, and that the civic life seemed to be peculiarly victorious -at that point. There was a village air about the Avenue, only on a -statelier scale, but with the same space and greenness and quiet. One of -the largest houses was T. M. Secor's. - -Secor sat on his broad verandah in the early twilight. He stirred -heavily in his chair, and stretched out a great hand thick and hard, as -Hennion came up the steps. - -“Glad to see you, sonny,” Secor said. “Stick up your feet and have a -drink.” - -“Just come from Nevada?” - -“One hour and one-half ago, during the which time Billy Macclesfield's -been here, greasy with some new virtues. I take it you had something to -do with greasing him. Next came Ted, who said he's going to get married. -Next came Aidee with a melodious melodrama of his own, and said he -was going to quit town. Why, things are humming here! How you feeling, -sonny?” - -A huge, hairy, iron-grey, talkative man, with a voice like an amiable -bison, was T. M. Secor. - -He continued: “Hold on! Why, Aidee said you knew about that screed -of his. I gathered you got it by a sort of fortuitous congregation of -atoms? I gathered that there brother of Aidee's was, by the nature of -him, a sort of fortuitous atom.” - -“About that.” - -“Just so! Well--you ain't got a melodious melodrama too?” - -“No,” said Hennion. “I want to take up the conversation you had with -Macclesfield.” - -“Oh, you do!” - -“I'm not feeling greasy with virtue myself, you know.” - -“Oh, you ain't!”--Secor was silent for some moments. - -“I guess I'm on to you, sonny,” he said at last. “I'll tell you my mind -about it. I think you handled Macclesfield all right, and that's a very -good job, and you may be solid now with the gang, for aught I know, but -my idea is, it'll be only a question of time before you get bucked off. -I'd give you a year, maybe two.” - -“I think so.” - -“You figure on two years?” - -“Next election. Tait's out with me now, and he'll get a knife in when -he can. Beckett, Freiburger, and Tuttle will probably be on edge before -next spring. That's too soon. Now--if I can get the parks and Boulevard -done, I'm willing to call off without a row. I want the Manual Training -School too. But Tuttle's going to get some rake off out of that. Can't -help it. Anyway Tuttle will see it's a good enough job. I don't mind -Cam, and John Murphy's indecent, but reasonable. But Freiburger's going -to be a holy terror. I don't see that I can run with that crowd, and I -don't see how it can be altered much at present. If I split it they'll -lose the election. Now--I think it'll split of itself, and I'd be of -more use without the responsibility of having split it. I think so. -Anyhow, I'm going to have something to show people for my innings.” - -“Just so.” - -After another silence Secor said: “What was Wood's idea? D'you know?” - -“He thought it would split of itself.” - -“Think so? Well, I've a notion he had a soft side to him, and you'd got -on it. Well--I don' know. Seemed to me that way. What then?” - -“Oh, I'll go out. I don't want it anyway. I want my father's job. Maybe -I'm a bit of a Puritan, Secor, and maybe not, but when the heelers get -restless to explosion, and the Reformers grimmer around the mouth -because the city isn't rosy and polite, and my general utility's gone, I -expect to thank God, and go back to pile-driving exclusive. But I want -time.” - -“Just so. I can keep Beckett and Tuttle from being too soon, maybe. That -what you want of me?” - -“Yes.” - -“You say 'Wood's machine,'” Hennion went on after a while. “It's a poor -metaphor, 'machine politics,' 'machine organisation.' Why, being an -engineer, I ought to know a machine when I see one. I've analysed Wood's -organisation, and I tell you you can't apply one bottom principle of -dynamics to it to fit. The machinery is full of ghosts.” - -The two smoked a while, and Hennion said: “How about Aidee?” - -“Ho! I don't see why he won't stay in Port Argent.” - -“He won't. I asked him.” - -“You don't say so! Why, there you are! I had a notion you two might team -it together, come along time enough.” - -“It won't work.” - -“Ho! Well! I dare say. Maybe you know why.” another silence. Secor said -at last: - -“Dick, I got only one real notion in business and philanthropy. I bank -on it in both trades. I keep gunning for men with coal in their engines -and a disposition to burn it, and go on till they bust up into scrap -iron, and when I find one, I give him a show. If I think he's got the -instinct to follow his nose like a setter pup, and not get nervous and -climb telegraph poles, I give him a show. Well--Aidee had the coal and -the disposition, and he burnt it all right, and I gave him his show. -Didn't I? He's got the idea now that he's run himself into the ditch and -turned scrap iron. Humph! Well! He lost his nerve anyway. Why, Hicks is -dead, and Wood's dead, and they can scrap it out in hell between 'em, -can't they? What business he got to lose his nerve? He used to have an -idea God Almighty was in politics, and no quitter, and meant to have a -shy at business. Interesting idea, that. Ho! He never proved it. What -the blazes he want to quit for now? Well! I was going to say, I'm -gambling on you now for a setter pup, sonny, without believing you can -ride Wood's machine. I'll give you a show, when you're good and through -with that. I've been buying Chickering R. R. stock. Want some of it? -Yes, sir, I'm going to own that line inside a year, and give you a job -there that'll make you grunt to reach around it. Ho! Ted says he's going -to take John Keys' girl and go to Nevada. Ain't so foolish as you'd -expect of him. Sounds cheerful. Ted's a drooling damn fool all right, -but he's no quitter. I hear you're going to marry Champney's daughter?” - -“I will if I can.” - -“You don't say! Ain't any better off'n that? Humph! Well, Henry -Champney's petered out, but then he's pretty old now. He could talk tall -in his time, near as good as Aidee, but more windy. Aidee had a better -outfit of brains, but Champney was a fine figure of a man, and burnt -coal all right. Why, I met my wife on a lake steamer, and married her -when I got to Port Argent with twenty-one dollars and fifty cents in my -pocket, and she never understood how it happened--claimed she didn't, -anyhow--and that afternoon I heard Henry Champney make a speech from the -Court House steps that sounded like he was President of the Board of -Prophets, and I bet a man twenty dollars Champney was prophesying all -right, and lost it, I did. I began housekeeping on a dollar and a half. -Yes, sir. 'Will if you can!' Ho! Well, why can't you?” - -The big talkative man wandered off into mellow reminiscence, and Hennion -presently took his leave. - -He came to the Champney house and was about to ring the bell, but -Camilla spoke from the corner of the porch, where she sat hidden in the -black shadows of the vines. - -“Do you want me, Dick?” - -“Yes.” - -From the outside, where the nervous electric light and the placid -moonlight mingled, little gimlets of light bored through, insisted and -arrived, through the matting of vine leaves that hid the porch, and made -little specks of light within, impertinent and curious, little specks on -the wall, little specks on the floor. - -“Want you!” Hennion said. “I always want you.” - -He bent over till her breath was warm on his face. - -“How can you be so near me, and so far away? Did you think I loved you -as a habit? You're God's crown of glory that he sent me, but it won't -stay still on my head. Do you remember when you used to sit on the floor -upstairs in a white dress, with a red ribbon on it somewhere? Don't -remember the red ribbon? You used to cut faces on shingles, with dismal -expressions and hard-luck features, and you thought they were the -beautifullest things, and got very hot because I didn't. But I thought -that you were the beautifullest girl with the red ribbon. I did so.” - -“I didn't know that.” - -“I know. I'm a poor, tongue-tied lover, Milly. I ought to fling myself -loose on the subject, and describe the gorgeous state of my heart, and -lie like a seaman ashore, if I had the gift of my calling. I'm no -poet or dreamer of dreams. I'm after realities. I don't expect to be a -burning and shining light to other people or reform anybody whatever, -but I expect to please one girl, if she'll let me try. Real things! What -do you suppose they are? One time I was born, and now I love you, and -sometime I'll die, and God knows what then. Are those realities? Can you -see the river there, where the moonlight is on it? It runs down to the -lake, and the force that draws it down is as real as the river itself. -Love is a real thing, more real than hands and feet. It pulls like -gravitation and drives like steam. When you came to me there at the -Hall, what was it brought you? An instinct? You asked me to take care -of you. I had an instinct that was what I was made for. I thought it was -all safe then, and I felt like the eleventh commandment and loved mine -enemy for a brother. I can't do anything without you! I've staked my -hopes on you, so far as I can see them. I've come to the end of my rope, -and there's something between us yet, but you must cross it. I can't -cross it.” - -From where Hennion sat he could look past the porch pillar, to the spot -at the street corner directly under the electric light. The street was -deserted except for some solitary walker, pacing the sidewalk slowly -past the house, and hidden from Hennion by the porch vines. Now he had -turned and was coming back again slowly to the corner, and now Hennion -glanced out beyond the pillar and saw Aidee standing under the electric -light. Then Aidee was again hidden by the porch vines, and again his -slow footsteps passed on the sidewalk some hundreds of feet from the -porch. - -“Can I cross it?” Camilla's voice sounded older, not buoyant, but tired -and humble, and sinking lower and lower as she went on. “Can I? If love -were the same as faith! There's no one else I can believe in, in this -way, as I do in you, dear. I'm so sure, but I thought--but can I come? -If you tell me truly that I can come--I will believe what you tell me.” - -Hennion wondered if Aidee had come to take his last look at the house, -or were debating in his mind whether or not he should enter. He turned -on Camilla, and thrust his arm beneath her, and drew her to him sharply. -He expected a remonstrance, but none came; only a small sigh whose -meaning was as imponderable as the scent of the little white flowers -that grew on the porch vines; and her hand lay still on one of his -shoulders, and her head with its thick hair on the other. - -“You have come!” he said. - -Another small sigh, a moment's weighing of the statement. - -“Yes. I have.” - -Aidee passed under the electric light once more, and looked his last -on the Champney windows, unnoticed now from the Champney porch, unaware -that there was anyone to notice him in the shadow of the deep porch -vines, with their small white glimmering blossoms. He quickened his pace -and went his way up Bank Street. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX--CONCLUSION - - -|HENNION and Camilla were married in the fall when the maple leaves were -turning yellow and red. It may be that Camilla thought of herself as -one consenting with humility to enter a quiet gateway, the shelter of -a garden whose walks and borders she knew; and it may be that she was -mistaken and found it a strange garden with many an herb of grace, and -many an old-fashioned perennial as fairly embroidered as any that grow -in Arcadia; for when one has found that the birth of one of the common -flowers and hardy perennials comes as wonderfully out of the deeps -as the birth of a new day, it may be that one understands heaven even -better than when floating in Arcadia among its morning islands. - -She could never truly have a working share in Dick's working life. She -could sympathise with its efforts and achievements, but never walk even -with him along that road. He would come to her tired, asking for home -and rest, but never sick of soul, asking for healing, nor troubled and -confused, asking for help. It was not his nature. One must take the -measure of one's destiny and find happiness therein. After all, -when that is found, it is found to be a quite measureless thing; and -therefore the place where it is found must be a spacious place after -all, a high-roofed and wide-walled habitation. - -Who is so rich in happiness as to have any to throw away? We are beggars -rather than choosers in that commodity. And Time, who is represented -with his hourglass for measuring, his scythe for destruction, his -forelock for the grasp of the vigilant, except for his title of Father -Time, has been given no symbol definitely pointing to that kindness of -his as of a good shepherd, that medicinal touch as of a wise physician, -that curious untangling of tangled skeins as of a patient weaver, that -solution of improbable equations as of a profound algebraist. But yet a -little while, and let the winds freshen the air and the waters go their -clean rounds again, and lo! he has shepherded us home from the desert, -and comforted us in new garments, and turned our minus into plus by a -judicious shifting across the equation. Shall we not give him his crook, -his medicine case and license to practise, his loom, his stylus and -tablets, and by oracle declare him “the Wisest,” and build him a temple, -and consult his auspices, and be no more petulant if he nurtures other -seeds than those of our planting, the slow, old-fashioned, silent -gardener? We know no oracle but Time, yet we are always harking after -another. He is a fluent, dusky, imperturbable person, resembling the -Muscadine River. He goes on forever, and yet remains. His answers are -Delphic and ambiguous. Alas! he tends to drown enthusiasm. Who is the -wisest? “The one who knows that he knows nothing,” quoth your cynic -oracle. What is justice? “A solemn lady, but with so bandaged eyes that -she cannot see the impish capers of her scales.” What is happiness? As -to that he answers more kindly. “In the main,” he says, “happiness is a -hardy perennial.” - -The “observer of decades,” who came to Port Argent some years later, -found it proud of its parks, its boulevard, and railroad stations, its -new court house, and jail, and manual training school; proud of its -rapid growth, and indignant at the inadequacy of the national census. -He was shown the new streets, and driven through suburbs where lately -pasture and cornfields had been. He found Port Argent still in the main -electric, ungainly, and full of growing pains, its problem of municipal -government still inaccurately solved, the system not so satisfactory -a structure as the railroad bridge below the boathouses, built by Dick -Hennion for the North Shore Railroad. In shop and street and office -the tide of its life was pouring on, and its citizens held singular -language. Its sparrows were twittering in the maples, bustling, -quarrelling, yet not permanently interested in either the sins or the -wrongs of their neighbours, but going tolerantly to sleep at night. -Here and there a bluebird was singing apart its plaintive, unfinished -“Lulu-lu.” - -He inquired of one of Port Argent's citizens for news, and heard that -the “Independent Reformers” had won an election sometime back; that they -were out again now, and inclined to be vituperative among themselves; -that Port Argent was again led by Marve Wood's ring, which was not such -a distressing ring as it might be. Hennion was not in it now. No, but -he was suspected of carrying weight still in the party councils, which -perhaps accounted for the “ring's” not being so distressing as it might -be. - -“He did more than he talked about,” said the garrulous citizen. “But -speaking of talkers, there was a man here once named Aidee. You've heard -of him. He's getting celebrated. Well, I'm a business man, and stick to -my times. But I read Aidee's books. It's a good thing to do that much.” - -The observer of decades left the garrulous citizen, and went down Lower -Bank Street. He noted the shapeless, indifferent mass and contour of the -buildings on the river-front, the litter of the wharves, the lounging -black barges beside them, the rumble of traffic on the bridge and in -distant streets, the dusky, gliding river lapping the stone piers and -wooden piles, and going on forever while men come and go. He thought how -the stone piers would sometime waste and fall, and the Muscadine would -still go on, turbid and unperturbed. - -“Adaptability seems the great test of permanence,” he thought. “Whatever -is rigid is fragile.” - -In front of the Champney house he stopped and looked up past the lawn -and saw old Henry Champney, sitting in a wicker chair that was planted -on the gravel walk. He was leaning forward, his chin on his cane, and -gazing absorbed at his two grandchildren at his feet, a brown-haired -child and a dark-haired baby. They were digging holes in the gravel with -iron spoons. - -What with the street, the railway, and the river, it might almost -be said that from the Champney lawns one watched the world go by, -clattering, rolling, puffing, travelling these its three concurrent -highways. But Henry Champney seemed to take no interest now in this -world's triple highways, nor to hear their clamour, but only cared now -to watch the dark-haired baby, and listen to the little cooing voices. - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Port Argent, by Arthur Colton - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PORT ARGENT *** - -***** This file should be named 50269-0.txt or 50269-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/2/6/50269/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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