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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York, by

+Alfred Henry Lewis

+

+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: The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

+

+Author: Alfred Henry Lewis

+

+Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51912]

+Last Updated: March 12, 2018

+

+Language: English

+

+Character set encoding: UTF-8

+

+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOSS ***

+

+

+

+

+Produced by David Widger from page images generously

+provided by the Internet Archive

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+THE BOSS, AND HOW HE CAME TO RULE NEW YORK

+

+By Alfred Henry Lewis

+

+Author Of “Peggy O'Neal,” “President,” “Wolfvilledays,” Etc.

+

+A. L. Burt Company, Publishers, New York

+

+1903

+

+

+[Illustration: 0005]

+

+

+

+

+THE WORD OF PREFACE

+

+It should be said in the beginning that these memoirs will not be

+written by my own hand. I have no skill of pen and ink, and any relation

+of length would be beyond my genius. The phrasing would fall to be

+disreputable, and the story itself turn involved and to step on its own

+toes, and mayhap with the last of it to fall flat on its face, unable

+to proceed at all. Wherefore, as much for folk who are to read as for

+my own credit, I shall have one who makes print his trade to write these

+pages for me.

+

+Nor shall I advance apology in this. If I plan for the construction of

+a house, I call to my aid architects and artisans in wood and stone and

+iron. I am not disgraced for that out of my own hands and head I do not

+throw up the walls and lay on the roof of the edifice. Why, then, when

+now I am about the paper-telling of my life, should I blush because I am

+driven to seek the aid of him who makes an inkpot his profession? I am

+like a lumber-yard or a stone-quarry, and full of the raw material for

+this work; but I require one drilled of saw and chisel to carry off the

+business of my housebuilding.

+

+It would be the thing natural, should you who open these leaves put the

+question of motive and ask why, when now I am retired, and should be

+cautious with my threescore years, I come forth with confidences which,

+aside from the mere sorrow of them, are like to prove less for my honor

+than I might wish. Why is it that I who have removed my loneliness

+and my millions to scenes of peace at least, may not leave well enough

+alone? Why should I return with disclosures touching Tammany and the

+inner history of that organization, when the dullest must apprehend only

+trouble and pain as the foolish fruits of such garrulity?

+

+To the cheer of ones still on the firing lines of Tammany effort, let me

+promise to say no more of them than belongs of necessity to the story

+of my own career. I aim towards the painting of no man's picture save

+my own. Also from first to last I will hold before the face of each old

+friend the shield of an alias and never for a moment in name or feature

+uncover him to the general eye.

+

+As to why it pleases me to give the public my Tammany evolution, and

+whether I hope for good or ill therefrom, I am not able to set forth.

+There is that within my bosom to urge me to this work, that much I know;

+the thing uncertain being--is it vanity, or is it remorse or a hunger

+for sympathy to so ride me and force my frankness to top-speed? There

+comes one thought: however black that robe of reputation which the truth

+weaves for me, it will seem milk-white when laid side by side with what

+Mendacity has invented and Malice sworn to as the story of my career.

+

+Before I lift the latch of narration, I would have you pardon me a first

+defensive word. Conceiving that, in the theory of politics, whatever the

+practice may discover, there is such a commodity as morals and such a

+ware as truth, and, remembering how much as the Chief of Tammany Hall I

+have been condemned by purists and folk voluble for reform as a fashion

+of City Satan, striving for all that was ebon in local conditions and

+control, I would remind the reader--hoping his mind to be unbiased and

+that he will hold fairly the scales for me--that both morals and truth

+as questions will ever depend for their answer on environment and point

+of view. The morality of one man is the sin of another, and the truth in

+this mouth is the serpent lie in that. Having said this much, let me now

+go forward without more of flourish or time to be eaten up with words.

+

+

+

+

+

+THE BOSS

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I--HOW THE BOSS CAME TO NEW YORK

+

+

+MY father was a blacksmith, and he and my mother came out of Clonmel,

+where I myself was born. There were four to our family, for besides my

+father and mother, I owned a sister named Anne, she being my better in

+age by a couple of years. Anne is dead now, with all those others I have

+loved, and under the grass roots; but while she lived--and she did not

+pass until after I had reached the size and manners of a man--she abode

+a sort of second mother to me, and the littlest of my interests was her

+chief concern.

+

+That Anne was thus tenderly about my destinies, worked doubtless a deal

+of fortunate good to me. By nature, while nothing vicious, I was as

+lawless as a savage; and being resentful of boundaries and as set for

+liberty as water down hill, I needed her influence to hold me in some

+quiet order. That I have the least of letters is due wholly to Anne, for

+school stood to me, child and boy, as hateful as a rainy day, and it was

+only by her going with me to sit by my side and show me my blurred way

+across the page that I would mind my book at all.

+

+It was upon a day rearward more than fifty years when my father,

+gathering together our slight belongings, took us aboard ship for

+America. We were six weeks between Queenstown and New York; the ship my

+father chose used sails, and there arose unfriendly seas and winds to

+baffle us and set us back. For myself, I hold no clear memory of that

+voyage, since I was but seven at the time. Nor could I have been called

+good company; I wept every foot of the way, being sick from shore to

+shore, having no more stomach to put to sea with then than I have now.

+

+It was eight of the clock on a certain July night that my father, having

+about him my mother and Anne and myself, came ashore at Castle Garden.

+It being dark, and none to meet us nor place for us to seek, we slept

+that night, with our coats to be a bed to us, on the Castle Garden

+flags. If there were hardship to lurk in thus making a couch of the

+stone floors, I missed the notice of it; I was as sound asleep as a tree

+at midnight when we came out of the ship and for eight hours thereafter,

+never once opening my eyes to that new world till the sun was up.

+

+Indeed, one may call it in all candor a new world! The more since, by

+the grace of accident, that first day fell upon the fourth of the month,

+and it was the near, persistent roar of cannon all about us, beginning

+with the break of day, to frighten away our sleep. My father and mother

+were as simple as was I, myself, on questions of Western story, and

+the fact of the Fourth of July told no news to them. Guns boomed; flags

+flaunted; bands of music brayed; gay troops went marching hither and

+yon; crackers sputtered and snapped; orators with iron throats swept

+down on spellbound crowds in gales of red-faced eloquence; flaming

+rockets when the sun went down streaked the night with fire! To these

+manifestations my father and the balance of us gave admiring ear and

+eye; although we were a trifle awed by the vehemence of an existence

+in which we planned to have our part, for we took what we heard and

+witnessed to be the everyday life of the place.

+

+My father was by trade a blacksmith, and one fair of his craft. Neither

+he nor my mother had much learning; but they were peaceful, sober folk

+with a bent for work; and being sure, rain or shine, to go to church,

+and strict in all their duties, they were ones to have a standing with

+the clergy and the neighbors, It tells well for my father that within

+the forty-eight hours to follow our landing at Castle Garden, he had a

+roof above our heads, and an anvil to hammer upon; this latter at a

+wage double the best that Clonmel might offer even in a dream. And so

+we began to settle to our surroundings, and to match with them, and fit

+them to ourselves; with each day Clonmel to gather a dimness, and we to

+seem less strange and more at home, and in the last to feel as naturally

+of America as though we had been born upon the soil.

+

+It has found prior intimation that my earlier years ran as wild as a

+colt, with no strong power save Anne's to tempt me in a right direction.

+My father, so far as his mood might promise, would have led me in paths

+I should go; but he was never sharp to a condition, and with nothing to

+him alert or quick he was one easily fooled, and I dealt with him as I

+would. Moreover, he had his hands filled with the task of the family's

+support; for while he took more in wage for his day's work than had ever

+come to him before, the cost to live had equal promotion, and it is

+to be doubted if any New York Monday discovered him with riches in his

+pocket beyond what would have dwelt there had he stayed in Clonmel. But

+whether he lacked temper or time, and whatever the argument, he cracked

+no thong of authority over me; I worked out my days by patterns to

+please myself, with never a word from him to check or guide me.

+

+And my mother was the same. She had her house to care for; and in a

+wash-tub day, and one when sewing machines were yet to find their birth,

+a woman with a family to be a cook to, and she of a taste besides to see

+them clothed and clean, would find her every waking hour engaged.

+She was a housekeeper of celebration, was my mother, and a star for

+neighboring wives to steer by; with floor and walls and everything about

+her as spick and span as scouring soap and lye might make them. Pale,

+work-worn, I still carry her on the skyline of my memory; and I recall

+how her eye would light and her gray cheek show a flush when the priest

+did us the credit of supper at our board, my father pulling down his

+sleeves over his great hairy arms in deference to the exalted station of

+the guest. It comes to this, however, that both my father and my mother,

+in their narrow simplicities and time taken up with the merest arts of

+living, had neither care nor commands for me. I came and I went by

+my own clock, and if I gave the business thought, it was a thought of

+gratitude to find myself so free.

+

+To be sure I went now and then to my lessons. Anne had been brisk to

+seek forth a school; for she refused to grow up in ignorance, and even

+cherished a plan to one day teach classes from a book herself. Being

+established, she drew me after her, using both persuasion and force to

+that end, and to keep me in a way of enlightenment, invented a system

+of rewards and punishments, mainly the former, by which according to my

+merit I was to suffer or gain.

+

+This temple of learning to which Anne lured me was nothing vast, being

+no bigger than one room. In lieu of a blackboard there was a box of

+clean white sand wherewith to teach dullards of my age and sort their

+alphabet. That feat of education the pedagogue in charge--a somber

+personage, he, and full of bitter muscularities--accomplished by tracing

+the letter in the sand. This he did with the point of a hickory ruler,

+which weapon was never out of his hand, and served in moments of

+thickness as a wand of inspiration, being laid across the dull one's

+back by way of brightening his wits. More than once I was made wiser in

+this fashion; and I found such stimulus to go much against the grain and

+to grievously rub wrong-wise the fur of my fancy.

+

+These hickory drubbings to make me quicker, falling as thickly as

+October's leaves, went short of their purpose. On the heels of one of

+them I would run from my lessons for a week on end. To be brief with

+these matters of schools and books and alphabets and hickory beatings,

+I went to my classes for a day, only to hide from them for a week; as

+might be guessed, the system collected but a scanty erudition.

+

+It is a pity, too: that question of education cannot too much invite an

+emphasis. It is only when one is young that one may be book-taught, just

+as the time of spring is the time for seed. There goes a byword of an

+old dog and a new trick, and I should say it meant a man when he is

+thirty or forty with a book; for, though driven by all the power of

+shame, I in vain strove with.

+

+What was utmost in me to repair in middle years the loss of those

+schooldays wasted away. I could come by no advance; the currents of

+habitual ignorance were too strong and I made no head against them. You

+think I pause a deal over my want of letters? I tell you it is the thing

+I have most mourned in all my life.

+

+When a fugitive from lessons, I would stay away from my home. This was

+because I must manage an escape from Anne; should she find me I was

+lost, and nothing for it save to be dragged again to school. The look of

+grief in her brown eyes meant ever defeat for me. My only safety was to

+turn myself out of doors and play the exile.

+

+This vagabondage was pleasant enough, since it served to feed my native

+vagrancy of temper. And I fared well, too; for I grew into a kind of

+cateran, and was out of my sleeping lair with the sun to follow the

+milkman and baker on their rounds. Coming betimes to the doors of

+customers who still snored between their sheets, these merchants left

+their wares in areas. That was all my worst need asked; by what time

+they doubled the nearest corner I had made my swoop and was fed for the

+whole of a day.

+

+Moreover, I knew a way to pick up coppers. On a nearby corner in the

+Bowery a great auction of horses was going. Being light and little, and

+having besides a lively inclination for horses, I was thrown upon the

+backs of ones put up for sale to show their paces. For each of these

+mounts I came the better off by five cents, and on lucky days have made

+as much as the half of a dollar at that trade. As for a bed, if it were

+summer time, what should be finer than the docks? Or if winter, then the

+fire-rooms of the tugs, with the engineers and stokers whereof I made

+it my care to be friendly? I was always ready to throw off a line, or

+polish a lantern, or, when a tug was at the wharf, run to the nearest

+tap-room and fetch a pail of beer; for which good deeds the East River

+went thickly dotted of my allies before ever I touched the age of ten.

+

+These meager etchings give some picture of what was my earlier life, the

+major share of which I ran wild about the streets. Neither my father nor

+my mother lived in any command of me, and the parish priest failed as

+dismally as did they when he sought to confine my conduct to a rule.

+That hickory-wielding dominie, with his sandbox and alphabet, was a

+priest; and he gave me such a distaste of the clergy that I rolled away

+from their touch like quicksilver. Anne's tears and the soft voice of

+her were what I feared, and so I kept as much as possible beyond their

+spell.

+

+Coming now to a day when I began first to consider existence as a

+problem serious, I must tell you how my lone sole claim to eminence

+abode in the fact that, lung and limb, I was as strong and tireless as

+any bison or any bear. It was my capital, my one virtue, the mark that

+set me above my fellows. This story of vast strength sounds the more

+strange, since I was under rather than above the common height, and

+never, until when in later life I took on a thickness of fat, scaled

+heavier than one hundred and forty pounds. Thus it stood, however, that

+my muscle strength, even as a youth, went so far beyond what might be

+called legitimate that it became as a proverb in the mouths of people.

+The gift was a kind of genius; I tell of it particularly because it

+turned to be the ladder whereby I climbed into the first of my fortunes.

+Without it, sure, I never would have lifted myself above the gutter

+levels of my mates, nor fingered a splinter of those millions that now

+lie banked and waiting to my name and hand.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II--THE BOSS MEETS WITH POLITICS

+

+

+IT was when I was in my fifteenth year that face to face I first met

+politics. Or to fit the phrase more nearly with the fact, I should say

+it was then when politics met me. Nor was that meeting in its incident

+one soon to slip from memory. It carried for a darkling element the

+locking of me in a graceless cell, and that is an adventure sure to

+leave its impress. The more if one be young, since the trail of events

+is ever deepest where the ground is soft. It is no wonder the business

+lies in my mind like a black cameo. It was my first captivity, and there

+will come on one no greater horror than seizes him when for the earliest

+time he hears bars and bolts grate home behind him.

+

+On that day, had one found and measured me he would not have called me

+a child of thoughts or books or alcoves. My nature was as unkempt as the

+streets. Still, in a turbid way and to broadest banks, the currents of

+my sentiment were running for honesty and truth. Also, while I wasted no

+space over the question, I took it as I took the skies above me that law

+was for folk guilty of wrong, while justice even against odds of power

+would never fail the weak and right. My eyes were to be opened; I was

+to be shown the lesson of Tammany, and how law would bend and judges bow

+before the mighty breath of the machine.

+

+It was in the long shadows of an August afternoon when the Southhampton

+boat was docked--a clipper of the Black Ball line. I stood looking on;

+my leisure was spent about the river front, for I was as fond of the

+water as a petrel. The passengers came thronging down the gang-plank;

+once ashore, many of the poorer steerage sort stood about in misty

+bewilderment, not knowing the way to turn or where to go.

+

+In that far day a special trade had grown up among the piers; the men to

+follow it were called hotel runners. These birds of prey met the

+ships to swoop on newcomers with lie and cheat, and carry them away

+to hostelries whose mean interests they served. These latter were the

+poorest in town, besides being often dens of wickedness.

+

+As I moved boy-like in and out among the waiting groups of immigrants,

+a girl called to me. This girl was English, with yellow hair, and cheeks

+red as apples. I remember I thought her beautiful, and was the more to

+notice it since she seemed no older than myself. She was stark alone and

+a trifle frightened.

+

+“Boy,” said Apple Cheek, “boy, where can I go for to-night? I have

+money, though not much, so it must not be a dear place.”

+

+Before I could set my tongue to a reply, a runner known as Sheeny Joe

+had Apple Cheek by the arm and was for leading her away.

+

+“Come with me,” said Sheeny Joe to Apple Cheek; “I will show you to a

+house, as neat as pins, and quiet as a church; kept it is by a Christian

+lady as wears out her eyes with searching of the scriptures. You can

+stay there as long as ever you likes for two shillin' a day.”

+

+This was reeled off by Sheeny Joe with a suave softness like the flow of

+treacle. He was cunning enough to give the charge in shillings so as to

+match the British ear and education of poor Apple Cheek.

+

+“Where is this place?” asked Apple Cheek. I could see how she shrunk

+from Sheeny Joe, with his eyes greedy and black, and small and shiny

+like the eyes of a rat.

+

+“You wouldn't know the place, young lady,” returned Sheeny Joe; “but

+it's all right, with prayers and that sort of thing, both night and

+mornin'. It's in Water Street, the place is. Number blank, Water

+Street,” repeated Sheeny Joe, giving a resort known as the Dead Rabbit.

+“Come; which ones is your bundles? I'll help you carry them.”

+

+Now by general word, the Dead Rabbit was not unknown to me. It was

+neither tavern nor boarding house, but a mill of vice, with blood on

+its doorstep and worse inside. If ever prayers were said there they must

+have been parcel of some Black Sanctus; and if ever a Christian went

+there it was to be robbed and beaten, and then mayhap to have his throat

+cut for a lesson in silence.

+

+“You don't want to go to that house,” said I, finding my voice and

+turning to Apple Cheek. “You come to my mother's; my sister will find

+you a place to stay. The house he's talkin' about”--here I indicated

+Sheeny Joe--“aint no tavern. It's a boozin' ken for crimps and thieves.”

+

+Without a word, Sheeny Joe aimed a swinging blow at my head: Apple Cheek

+gave a low scream. While somewhat unprepared for Sheeny Joe's attack,

+it falling so sharply sudden, I was not to be found asleep; nor would

+I prove a simple conquest even to a grown man. My sinister strength,

+almost the strength of a gorilla, would stand my friend.

+

+Quick as a goat on my feet, and as soon to see a storm coming up as any

+sailor, I leaped backward from the blow; and next, before Sheeny Joe

+recovered himself, I was upon him with a wrestler's twitch and trip

+that tossed him high in the air like a rag. He struck on his head and

+shoulders, the chimb of a cask against which he rolled cutting a fine

+gash in his scalp.

+

+With a whirl of oaths, Sheeny Joe tried to scramble to his feet; he was

+shaken with rage and wonder to be thus outfaced and worsted by a boy. As

+he gained his knees, and before he might straighten to his ignoble feet,

+I dealt him a crashing blow between the eyes, or rather, on the bridge

+of the nose, which latter feature for Sheeny Joe grew curved and beaky.

+The blow was of the sort that boxers style a “hook,” and one nothing

+good to stop. Over Sheeny Joe went with the kicking force of it, and lay

+against the tier of casks, bleeding like tragedy, beaten, and yelling

+“murder!”

+

+Sheeny Joe, bleeding and roaring, and I by no means glutted, but still

+hungry for his harm, were instantly the center of a gaping crowd that

+came about us like a whirlpool. With the others arrived an officer of

+the police.

+

+“W'at's the row here?” demanded the officer.

+

+“Take him to the station!” cried Sheeny Joe, picking himself up, a

+dripping picture of blood; “he struck me with a knuckle duster.”

+

+“Not so fast, officer,” put in a reputable old gentleman. “Hear the

+lad's story first. The fellow was saying something to this girl. Nor

+does he look as though it could have been for her benefit.”

+

+“Tell me about it, youngster,” said the officer, not unkindly. My age

+and weight, as against those of Sheeny Joe, told with this agent of

+the peace, who at heart was a fair man. “Tell me what there is to this

+shindy.”

+

+“Why don't you take him in?” screamed Sheeny Joe. “W'at have you to do

+with his story?”

+

+“Well, there's two ends to an alley,” retorted the officer warmly. “I'll

+hear what the boy has to say. Do you think you're goin' to do all the

+talkin'?”

+

+“The first thing you'll know,” cried Sheeny Joe fiercely, “I'll have

+them pewter buttons off your coat.”

+

+“Oh, you will!” retorted the officer with a scowl. “Now just for that

+I'll take you in. A night in the jug will put the soft pedal on that

+mouth of yours.” With that, the bluecoat seized Sheeny Joe, and there we

+were, one in each of his hands.

+

+For myself, I had not uttered a syllable. I was ever slow of speech, and

+far better with my hands than my tongue. Apple Cheek, the cause of the

+war, stood weeping not a yard away; perhaps she was thinking, if her

+confusion allowed her thought, of the savageries of this new land to

+which she was come. Apple Cheek might have taken herself from out the

+hubbub by merely merging with the crowd; I think she had the coolness to

+do this, but was too loyal. She owned the spirit, as it stood, to come

+forward when I would not say a word to tell the officer the story. Apple

+Cheek was encouraged to this steadiness by the reputable old gentleman.

+

+Before, however, Apple Cheek could win to the end of the first sentence,

+a burly figure of a man, red of face and broad as a door across the

+shoulders, pushed his way through the crowd.

+

+“What is it?” he asked, coming in front of the officer. “Turn that man

+loose,” he continued, pointing to Sheeny Joe.

+

+The red-faced man spoke in a low tone, but one of cool command. The

+officer, however, was not to be readily driven from his ground; he

+was new to the place and by nature an honest soul. Still, he felt an

+atmosphere of power about the red-faced personage; wherefore, while he

+kept strictest hold on both Sheeny Joe and myself, he was not wanting of

+respect in his response.

+

+“These two coves are under arrest,” said the officer, shaking Sheeny Joe

+and myself like rugs by way of identification.

+

+“I know,” said the other, still in the low cool tone. “All the same, you

+turn this one loose.”

+

+The officer still hesitated with a look of half-defiance. With that the

+red-faced man lost temper.

+

+“Take your hands off him, I tell you!” cried the redfaced man, a spark

+of anger showing in his small gray eyes. “Do you know me? I'm Big

+Kennedy. Did you never hear of Big John Kennedy of Tammany Hall? You

+do what I say, or I'll have you out in Harlem with the goats before

+to-morrow night.”

+

+With that, he of the red face took Sheeny Joe from between the officer's

+fingers; nor did the latter seek to detain him. The frown of authority

+left his brow, and his whole face became overcast with a look of surly

+submission.

+

+“You should have said so at the jump,” remarked the officer sullenly.

+“How was I to know who you are?”

+

+“You're all right,” returned the red-faced one, lapsing into an easy

+smile. “You're new to this stroll; you'll be wiser by an' by.”

+

+“What'll I do with the boy?” asked the officer.

+

+“Officer,” broke in the reputable old gentleman, who was purple to the

+point apoplectic; “officer, do you mean that you will take your orders

+from this man?”

+

+“Come, my old codger,” interrupted the red-faced one loftily, “stow

+that. You had better sherry for Fift' Avenue where you belong. If you

+don't, th' gang down here may get tired, d'ye see, an' put you in

+the river.” Then to the officer: “Take the boy in; I'll look him over

+later.”

+

+“An' the girl!” screamed Sheeny Joe. “I want her lagged too.”

+

+“An' the girl, officer,” commanded the red-faced one. “Take her along

+with the boy.”

+

+Thus was the procession made up; the officer led Apple Cheek and myself

+to the station, with Sheeny Joe, still bleeding, and the red-faced man

+to be his backer, bringing up the rear.

+

+At the station it was like the whirl and roar of some storm to me. It

+was my first captivity--my first collision with the police, and my wits

+were upside down. I recall that a crowd of people followed us, and were

+made to stand outside the door.

+

+The reputable old gentleman came also, and tried to interefere in behalf

+of Apple Cheek and myself. At a sign from the red-faced man, who stood

+leaning on the captain's desk with all the confidence of life, that

+potentate gave his sharp command.

+

+“Screw out!” cried he, to the reputable old gentleman. “We don't want

+any of your talk!” Then to an officer in the station: “Put him out!”

+

+“I'm a taxpayer!” shouted the reputable old gentleman furiously.

+

+“You'll pay a fine,” responded the captain with a laugh, “if you kick up

+a row 'round my station. Now screw out, or I'll put you the wrong side of

+the grate.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman was thrust into the street with about as

+much ceremony as might attend the delivery of a bale of goods at one's

+door. He disappeared, declaring he would have justice; at which a smile

+widened the faces of the sophisticated officers, several of whom were

+lounging about the room.

+

+“He'll have justice!” repeated the captain with a chuckle. “Say! he

+aought to put that in the Joe Miller Joke-book.” Then to the red-faced

+man, who still leaned against the desk, the image of autocracy sure of

+itself: “What is it to be, Mr. Kennedy?”

+

+“Why,” quoth the red-faced one, “you must lock this boy up. Yes, an' the

+girl, too; she had better go in for the night. I'll take a look into th'

+business, an' let the judge know in the mornin'.”

+

+“I don't think, captain,” interposed the officer who brought us from the

+docks, “there's any use locking up these people. It was nothin' but a

+cheap muss on the pier.”

+

+“Say! I don't stand that!” broke in Sheeny Joe. “This party smashed me

+with a bar of iron. The girl was in the play; an' I say they're both to

+go in.”

+

+“You 'say,'” mocked the captain, in high scorn. “An' who are you? Who is

+this fellow?” he demanded, looking about him.

+

+“He's one of my people,” said the red-faced man, still coolly by the

+desk.

+

+“No more out of you!” snarled the captain to the kindly officer, as the

+latter again tried to speak; “you get back to your beat!”

+

+“An' say!” cried the red-faced man, slowly rousing from his position

+by the desk; “before you go, let me give you a word. You're a sight too

+gabby; you had better think more and say less, or you won't last long

+enough as a copper to wear out that new uniform. An' if anybody asks,

+tell him it was Big Kennedy that told you.”

+

+They led me to a cell, while poor Apple Cheek, almost fainting, was

+carried to another. As I was being taken away, Anne came rushing in. Bad

+news is a creature of wings, and Anne had been told my adventures by

+a small urchin who ran himself nearly to death in defeating two fellow

+urchins for the privilege before I had reached the station.

+

+Anne did not observe me as she came in, for I stood somewhat to the

+rear, with several turnkeys and officers between. I could see the white

+face of her, and how the lamps of a great alarm were lighted in her

+eyes. Her voice was so low with terror I could not hear her words.

+Evidently she was pleading, girl-fashion, for my liberty. The tones of

+the captain, however, rose clear and high.

+

+“That'll do ye now,” said he in a manner of lordly insolence, looking

+up from the desk to which he had returned. “If we put a prisoner on

+the pavement every time a good-looking girl rushed in with a yarn about

+bein' his sister, we wouldn't need no cells at all. This boy stays till

+the judge takes a look at him in the mornin'. Meanwhile, you had better

+get back to your window, or all the men will have left the street.”

+

+At this, a mighty anger flamed up in my heart. I tore away from the

+officer who had me by the shoulders, and, save that three others as

+practiced in the sleight of it as football players instantly seized me,

+I should have gone straight at the captain's neck like a bulldog.

+

+“I'll have his life!” I foamed.

+

+The next moment I was thrown into a cell. The door slammed; the lock

+shot home; with that, my heart seemed to turn to water in my bosom and I

+sank upon the stone floor of my cage.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III--THE BOSS SEES THE POWER OF TAMMANY

+

+

+THAT night under lock and key was a night of laughed and screamed like

+bedlam. Once I heard the low click of sobs, and thought it might be poor

+unhappy Apple Cheek. The surmise went wide, for she was held in another

+part of the prison.

+

+It was in the first streaks of the morning before I slept. My slumbers

+did not last long; it seemed as though I had but shut my eyes when a

+loud rap of iron on iron brought me up, and there stood one armed of a

+key so large it might have done for the gate of a giant's castle. It was

+this man hammering with his weapon on the grate of my cell that roused

+me.

+

+“Now then, young gallows-bird,” said the functionary, “be you ready for

+court?”

+

+The man, while rough, gave me no hard impression, for he wore a tolerant

+grin and had eyes of friendly brown. These amiable signs endowed me with

+courage to ask a question.

+

+“What will they do with me?” I queried. I was long delirium. Drunken men

+babbled and cursed and shouted; while a lunatic creature anxious, for I

+had no experience to be my guide. “What will they do? Will they let me

+go?”

+

+“Sure! they'll let you go.” My hopes gained their feet. “To

+Blackwell's.” My hopes lay prone again.

+

+The turnkey, for such was the man's station, had but humored me with

+one of the stock jokes of the place. On seeing my distress, and perhaps

+remembering that I should be something tender if years were to count,

+and no frequent tenant of the cells with sensibilities trained to the

+safe consistency of leather, he made me further reply.

+

+“No, I'll tell you the truth, youngster. If you plead guilty, an'

+there's no one there but the cop, it'll be about ten dollars or twenty

+days on the Island. But if Sheeny Joe comes 'round to exhibit his nose,

+or Big Kennedy shows up to stall ag'inst you, why I should say you might

+take six months and call yourself in luck.”

+

+There was nothing to brighten the eye in the story, and my ribs seemed

+to inclose a heart of wood.

+

+With a vile dozen to be my companions, frowsy, bleary creatures, some

+shaking with the dumb ague of drink whose fires had died out, I was

+driven along a narrow corridor, up a pair of stairs, and into a room of

+respectable size! Its dimensions, however, would be its only claim to

+respectability, for the walls and ceiling were smoke-blackened, while

+the floor might have come the better off for a pailful of soap and

+water.

+

+Once within the room I found myself in a railed pen. Against the wall,

+with a desk before him and raised above the herd by a platform, sat the

+magistrate. There was a fence which divided the big room, and beyond and

+leaning on it lolled the public, leering and listening, as hard an array

+as one might wish to see. One might have sentenced the entire roomful to

+the workhouse and made few mistakes.

+

+Inside this fence, and gathered for the most part about the magistrate,

+were those who had business with the court; officers, witnesses, friends

+and enemies of the accused, with last although not least a collection of

+the talent of the bar. Many of these latter were brisk Jews, and all of

+them were marked by soiled linen, frayed elbows, greasy collars, and an

+evident carelessness as to the state of their hands and faces. There

+were boys to wait on these folk of law, a boy to each I should say. None

+of these urchins was older than was I, and some no more than twelve.

+They carried baize bags, chatted gravely while waiting the call of their

+masters, and gave themselves strutting airs and brows of consequence.

+These engaging children, in a spirit of loyalty, doubtless, showed

+themselves as untainted of water as were their betters.

+

+While I rehearse these sordid appearances as developed in the dim lights

+which through the grimy windows fell across the scene, you are not to

+suppose the notice of them preyed upon me. I was, in that hour, neither

+so squeamish nor so observant as to make particular note of them, nor

+was I to that degree the slave of soap in my own roving person, as to

+justify the risk of strictures which might provoke retort. Besides, I

+was thinking dolefully on that trip to Blackwell's Island whereof the

+future seemed so full, and my eyes scanned the judge on the bench rather

+than lesser folk who were not so important in my affairs.

+

+While in the mills of great misery, still I was steady enough. I turned

+my gaze upon the magistrate, and sought in his looks and words, as he

+went about the sorry destinies of other delinquents, some slant of what

+I might look forward to for myself. The dignitary in question showed

+lean and sallow and bald, with a sly face and an eye whereof the great

+expression was one of sleepless self-interest. He did not come upon you

+as either brave or good, but he had nothing brutal or vindictive, and

+his timid mealy voice was shaken by a quaver that seemed a perpetual

+apology for what judgments he from time to time would pass. His

+sentences were invariably light, except in instances where some strong

+influence from the outside, generally a politician or the agent of a big

+company, arose to demand severity.

+

+While within the railed pen with those other unfortunates whom the

+dragnets of the police had brought to these mean shores, and in an

+interval when my fascinated eyes were off the magistrate, I caught sight

+of Anne and my father. They had seats inside the fence. The latter's

+face was clouded with simple trouble; he wore his Sunday coat, and

+his hands, hard and showing the stains of his forge, roved in uneasy

+alternation from his pockets to his lapels and back again. Anne's young

+eyes were worn and tired, for she had slept as little as had I and wept

+much more the night before. I could not discover Apple Cheek, although I

+looked about the room for her more than once. I had it in my hopes

+that they had given Apple Cheek her freedom, and the thought was a

+half-relief. Nothing of such decent sort had come to pass, however;

+Apple Cheek was waiting with two or three harridans, her comrades of the

+cells, in an adjoining room.

+

+When my name was called, an officer of the court opened a gate in the

+prisoner's pen and motioned me to come forth.

+

+“Hurry up!” said the officer, who was for expedition. “W'at's the

+trouble with your heels? You aint got no ball an' chain on yet, you

+know.”

+

+Then he gave me a chair in front of the magistrate, where the man of

+power might run me up and down with his shifty deprecatory eye.

+

+“There was a girl brought in with him, your honor,” remarked the officer

+at the gate.

+

+“Have her out, then,” said the magistrate; whereupon Apple Cheek, a bit

+disheveled and cheeks redder than ever with the tears she had shed, was

+produced and given a seat by my side.

+

+“Who complains of these defendants?” asked the magistrate in a mild

+non-committal voice, glancing about the room.

+

+“I do, your honor.”

+

+It was Sheeny Joe who came pushing to the fore from a far corner. His

+head had received the benefit of several bandages, and it gave me a

+dullish joy to think it was I to furnish the reason of them.

+

+The magistrate appeared to know Sheeny Joe, and to hold him in regard

+at that. The moment my enemy declared himself as the complainant, and

+no one springing up to take my part, the magistrate bent upon me a

+stony glance that spoke plainly of those six months concerning which the

+turnkey told. I gave up everything, myself and Apple Cheek, as surely

+lost.

+

+“Tell your story,” said the magistrate to Sheeny Joe. His manner was

+full of commiseration for that unworthy. “What did he assault you with?”

+

+“With a blackjack, your honor, or a piece of lead pipe,” replied Sheeny

+Joe. “He struck me when I wasn't lookin'. I'm busy trying to tell the

+girl there w'at hotel she wants. He gives it to me over the head from

+behind; then as I wheels, he smashes me across the nose. I couldn't see

+with w'at, but it was a bar of some kind, mebby iron, mebby lead. As I

+goes down, I hears the sketch--the girl, I mean--sing out, 'Kill him!'

+The girl was eggin' him on, your honor.”

+

+Sheeny Joe unwound this string of lies without hitch or pause, and

+withal so rapidly it fair stole my breath away. I felt the eyes of the

+magistrate upon me; I knew my danger and yet could come by no words

+for my own defense. I make no doubt, had it not been for a diversion

+as unlooked-for as it was welcome, I would have been marked for prison

+where I stood.

+

+“I demand to be heard,” came suddenly, in a high angry voice. “What that

+rogue has just uttered is all a pack of lies together!”

+

+It was the reputable old gentleman of the evening before who thus

+threw himself in the way of events. Being escorted through the press of

+onlookers by an officer, the reputable old gentleman stood squarely in

+front of the magistrate.

+

+“I demand justice for that boy,” fumed the reputable old gentleman,

+glaring at the magistrate, and growing crimson in the face; “I demand

+a jury. As for the girl, she wasn't ten minutes off the boat; her only

+part in the offense would seem to be that this scoundrel,” pointing to

+Sheeny Joe, “was striving to lure her to a low resort.”

+

+“The Dead Rabbit a low resort!” cried Sheeny

+

+Joe indignantly. “The place is as straight as a gun.”

+

+“Will you please tell me who you are?” asked the magistrate of the

+reputable old gentleman. He had resumed his non-committal look. The

+confident vigor of the reputable old gentleman disconcerted him and made

+him wary.

+

+“I am a taxpayer,” said the reputable old gentleman; “yes,” donning an

+air as though the thunders and lightnings of politics dwelt in the word,

+“yes, your honor, a taxpayer. I do not know this boy, but here are his

+father and sister to speak for him.” Then, as he caught sight of the

+captain who had ordered him out of the station: “There is a man, your

+honor, who by the hands of his minions drove me from a public police

+office--me, a taxpayer!”

+

+The captain grinned easily to find himself thus distinguished. The grin

+irritated the reputable old gentleman, who was even more peppery than

+reputable.

+

+“Smile, sir!” cried the reputable old gentleman, shaking his wrathful

+finger at the captain. “I shall have you before your superiors on

+charges before I'm done!”

+

+“That's what they all say,” remarked the captain, stifling a yawn.

+

+“One thing at a time, sir,” said the magistrate to the reputable

+old gentleman. His attitude was wheedling and propitiatory. “Did I

+understand you to say that the gentleman and the lady at your back are

+the father and sister of this boy?”

+

+My father and Anne had taken their stations to the rear of the reputable

+old gentleman. The latter, looking around as if to identify them,

+replied:

+

+“If the court please, I'm told so.”

+

+“Your honor,” broke in Sheeny Joe with a front of injury, “w'at's that

+got to do with his sandbaggin' me? Am I to be murdered w'en peacefully

+about me business, just 'cause a guy's got a father?”

+

+“What were you saying to this girl?” asked the magistrate mildly of

+Sheeny Joe, and indicating Apple Cheek with his eye where she sat

+tearful and frightened by my side. “This gentleman”--the reputable old

+gentleman snorted fiercely--“declares that you were about to lure her to

+a low resort.”

+

+“Your honor, it was the Dead Rabbit,” said Sheeny Joe.

+

+“Is the Dead Rabbit,” observed the magistrate, to the captain, who was

+still lounging about, “is the Dead Rabbit a place of good repute?”

+

+“It aint no Astor House,” replied the captain, “but no one expects an

+Astor House in Water Street.”

+

+“Is it a resort for thieves?”

+

+The magistrate still advanced his queries in a fashion apologetic and

+subdued. The reputable old gentleman impressed him as one he would not

+like to offend. Then, too, there was my father--an honest working-man by

+plain testimony of his face. On the other hand stood Sheeny Joe, broken

+of nose, bandaged, implacable. Here were three forces of politics,

+according to our magistrate, who was thinking on a re-election; he would

+prefer to please them all. Obviously, he in no sort delighted in his

+present position, since whichever way he turned it might be a turn

+toward future disaster for himself.

+

+“Is the Dead Rabbit a resort for thieves?” again asked the magistrate.

+

+“Well,” replied the captain judgmatically, “even a crook has got to go

+somewhere. That is,” he added, “when he aint in hock.”

+

+Where this criss-cross colloquy of justice or injustice might have left

+me, and whether free or captive, I may only guess. The proceedings were

+to gain another and a final interruption. This time it was the red-faced

+man, he who had called himself “Big Kennedy,” to come panting into the

+presence of the court. The red-faced man had hurried up the stairs,

+three steps at a time, and it told upon his breathing.

+

+The magistrate made a most profound bow to the red-faced man.

+Remembering the somber prophecy of him with the big key, should “Big

+Kennedy show up to Stall ag'inst me,” my hope, which had revived with

+the stand taken by the reputable old gentleman, sunk now to lowest

+marks.

+

+“What will you have, Mr. Kennedy?” purred the magistrate obsequiously.

+

+“Is the court going to dispose of the cases of this boy and this girl?”

+ interrupted the reputable old gentleman warmly. “I demand a jury trial

+for both of them. I am a taxpayer and propose to have justice.”

+

+“Hold up, old sport, hold up!” exclaimed the redfaced man in cheerful

+tones. He was addressing the reputable old gentleman. “Let me get to

+work. I'll settle this thing like throwin' dice.”

+

+“What do you mean, sir, by calling me an old sport?” demanded the

+reputable old gentleman.

+

+The red-faced man did not heed the question, but wheeled briskly on the

+magistrate.

+

+“Your honor,” said the red-faced man, “there's nothin' to this. Sheeny

+Joe there has made a misdeal, that's all. I've looked the case over,

+your honor; there's nothin' in it; you can let the girl an' the boy go.”

+

+“But he said the Dead Rabbit was a drum for crooks!” protested Sheeny

+Joe, speaking to the redfaced man.

+

+“S'ppose he did,” retorted the other, “that don't take a dollar out of

+the drawer.”

+

+“An' he's to break my nose an' get away?” complained Sheeny Joe.

+

+“Well, you oughter to take care of your nose,” said the red-faced man,

+“an' not go leavin' it lyin' around where a kid can break it.”

+

+Sheeny Joe was not to be shaken off; he engaged in violent argument with

+the red-faced man. Their tones, however, were now more guarded, and no

+one might hear their words beyond themselves. While this went forward,

+the magistrate, to save his dignity, perhaps, and not to have it look as

+though he were waiting for orders, pretended to be writing in his book

+of cases which lay open on his desk.

+

+It was Sheeny Joe to bring the discussion between himself and the

+red-faced man to an end. Throughout the whispered differences between

+them, differences as to what should be my fate, Sheeny Joe showed hot

+with fury, while the red-faced man was cool and conciliatory; his voice

+when one caught some sound of it was coaxing.

+

+“There's been enough said!” cried Sheeny Joe, suddenly walking away from

+the red-faced man. “No duck is goin' to break my nose for fun.”

+

+“The boy's goin' loose,” observed the red-faced man in placid

+contradiction. “An' the girl goes to her friends, wherever they be, an'

+they aint at the Dead Rabbit.” Then in a blink the countenance of

+the redfaced man went from calm to rage. He whirled Sheeny Joe by the

+shoulder. “See here!” he growled, “one more roar out of you, an' I'll

+stand you up right now, an' it's you who will take sixty days, or

+my name aint Big John Kennedy. If you think that's a bluff, call it.

+Another yeep, an' the boat's waitin' for you! You've been due at the

+Island for some time.”

+

+“That's all right, Mr. Kennedy!” replied Sheeny Joe, his crest falling,

+and the sharpest terror in his face, “that's all right! You know me? Of

+course it goes as you say! Did you ever know me to buck ag'inst you?”

+

+The red-faced man smiled ferociously. The anger faded from his brow,

+and leaving Sheeny Joe without further word, he again spoke to the

+magistrate.

+

+“The charges ag'inst these two children, your honor, are withdrawn.” He

+spoke in his old cool tones. “Captain,” he continued, addressing that

+dignitary, “send one of your plain-clothes people with this girl to find

+her friends for her. Tell him he mustn't make any mistakes.”

+

+“The cases are dismissed,” said the magistrate, making an entry in his

+book. He appeared relieved with the change in the situation; almost as

+much, if that were possible, as myself. “The cases are dismissed; no

+costs to be taxed. I think that is what you desire, Mr. Kennedy?”

+

+“Yes, your honor.” Then coming over to where I sat, the red-faced man

+continued: “You hunt me up to-morrow--Big John Kennedy--that's my name.

+Any cop can tell you where to find me.”

+

+“Yes, sir,” I answered faintly.

+

+“There's two things about you,” said the red-faced man, rubbing my

+stubble of hair with his big paw, “that's great in a boy. You can hit

+like the kick of a pony; an' you can keep your mouth shut. I aint heard

+a yelp out of you, mor'n if you was a Boston terrier.” This, admiringly.

+

+As we left the magistrate's office--the red-faced man, the reputable old

+gentleman, my father, Apple Cheek, and myself, with Anne holding my

+hand as though I were some treasure lost and regained--the reputable old

+gentleman spoke up pompously to the red-faced man.

+

+“I commend what you have done, sir; but in that connection, and as

+a taxpayer, let me tell you that I resent your attitude towards the

+magistrate. You issued your orders, sir, and conducted yourself toward

+that officer of justice as though you owned him.”

+

+“Well, what of it?” returned the red-faced man composedly. “I put him

+there. What do you think I put him there for? To give me the worst of

+it?”

+

+“Sir, I do not understand your expressions!” said the reputable old

+gentleman. “And I resent them! Yes, sir, I resent them as a taxpayer of

+this town!”

+

+“Say,” observed the red-faced man benignantly, “there's nothin' wrong

+about you but your head. You had better take a term or two at night

+school an' get it put on straight. You say you're a taxpayer; you've

+already fired the fact at me about five times. An' now I ask you:

+Suppose you be?”

+

+“Taxpayer; yes, sir, taxpayer!” repeated the reputable old gentleman,

+in a mighty fume. “Do you intend to tell me there's no meaning to the

+word?”

+

+“It means,” said the red-faced man in the slow manner of one who gives

+instruction; “it means that if you're nothin' but a taxpayer--an' I

+don't think you be or you'd have told us--you might as well sit down.

+You're a taxpayer, eh? All right; I'm a ward-leader of Tammany Hall.

+You're a taxpayer; good! I'm the man that settles how much you pay, d'ye

+see!” Then, as though sympathy and disgust were blended: “Old man, you

+go home and take a hard look at the map, and locate yourself. You don't

+know it, but all the same you're in New York.”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV--THE BOSS ENTERS THE PRIMARY GRADE OF POLITICS

+

+

+PERHAPS you will say I waste space and lay too much of foolish stress

+upon my quarrel with Sheeny Joe and its police-cell consequences. And

+yet you should be mindful of the incident's importance to me as the

+starting point of my career. For I read in what took place the power of

+the machine as you will read this printed page. I went behind the bars

+by the word of Big John Kennedy; and it was by his word that I emerged

+and took my liberty again. And yet who was Big John Kennedy? He was the

+machine; the fragment of its power which molded history in the little

+region where I lived. As mere John Kennedy he would be nothing. Or at

+the most no more than other men about him. But as “Big John Kennedy,”

+ an underchief of Tammany Hall, I myself stood witness while a captain of

+police accepted his commands without a question, and a magistrate found

+folk guilty or innocent at the lifting of his finger. Also, that sweat

+of terror to sprinkle the forehead of Sheeny Joe, when in his moment of

+rebellion he found himself beneath the wrathful shadow of the machine,

+was not the least impressive element of my experience; and the tolerant

+smile, that was half pity, half amusement, as Big Kennedy set forth

+to the reputable old gentleman--who was only “a taxpayer”--the little

+limits of his insignificance, deepened the effect upon my mind of what

+had gone before.

+

+True, I indulged in no such analysis as the above, and made no study of

+the picture in its detail; but I could receive an impression just as

+I might receive a blow, and in the innocence of my ignorance began

+instantly to model myself upon the proven fact of a power that was above

+law, above justice, and which must be consulted and agreed with, even

+in its caprice, before existence could be profitable or even safe. From

+that moment the machine to me was as obviously and indomitably abroad as

+the pavement under foot, and must have its account in every equation

+of life to the solution whereof I was set. To hold otherwise, and

+particularly to act otherwise, would be to play the fool, with failure

+or something worse for a reward.

+

+Big Kennedy owned a drinking place. His barroom was his headquarters;

+although he himself never served among his casks and bottles, having

+barmen for that work. He poured no whisky, tapped no beer, donned no

+apron, but sat at tables with his customers and laid out his campaigns

+of politics or jubilated over victory, and seemed rather the visitor

+than the proprietor in his own saloon. He owned shrewdness, force,

+courage, enterprise, and was one of those who carry a pleasant

+atmosphere that is like hypnotism, and which makes men like them. His

+manner was one of rude frankness, and folk held him for a bluff, blunt,

+genial soul, who made up in generosity what he lacked of truth.

+

+And yet I have thought folk mistaken in Big Kennedy. For all his loud

+openness and friendly roar, which would seem to tell his every thought,

+the man could be the soul of cunning and turn secret as a mole. He was

+for his own interest; he came and went a cold calculating trader of

+politics; he never wasted his favors, but must get as much as he gave,

+and indulged in no revenges except when revenge was needed for a lesson.

+He did what men call good, too, and spent money and lost sleep in its

+accomplishment. To the ill he sent doctors and drugs; he found work and

+wages for idle men; he paid landlords and kept the roofs above the heads

+of the penniless; where folk were hungry he sent food, and where they

+were cold came fuel.

+

+For all that, it was neither humanity nor any milk of kindness which

+put him to these labors of grace; it was but his method of politics and

+meant to bind men to him. They must do his word; they must carry out his

+will; then it was he took them beneath the wing of his power and would

+spare neither time nor money to protect and prosper them.

+

+And on the other side, he who raised his head in opposition to Big

+Kennedy was crushed; not in anger, but in caution. He weeded out

+rebellion, and the very seed of it, with as little scruple and for the

+same reason a farmer weeds a field.

+

+It took me years to collect these truths of Big Kennedy. Nor was their

+arrival when they did come one by one, to make a shade of change in my

+regard for him. I liked him in the beginning; I liked him in the end;

+he became that headland on the coasts of politics by which I steered my

+course. I studied Big Kennedy as one might study a science; by the lines

+of his conduct I laid down lines for my own; in all things I was his

+disciple and his imitator.

+

+Big Kennedy is dead now; and I will say no worse nor better of him than

+this: He was a natural captain of men. Had he been born to a higher

+station, he might have lighted a wick in history that would require

+those ten thicknesses of darkness which belong with ten centuries, to

+obscure. But no such thing could come in the instance of Big Kennedy;

+his possibilities of eminence, like my own, were confined to Tammany and

+its politics, since he had no more of education than have I. The time

+has gone by in the world at large, and had in Big Kennedy's day, when

+the ignorant man can be the first man.

+

+Upon the day following my release, as he had bid me.

+

+I sought Big Kennedy. He was in his barroom, and the hour being

+mid-morning I was so far lucky as to find him quite alone. He was quick

+to see me, too, and seemed as full of a pleasant interest in me as

+though my simple looks were of themselves good news. He did most of the

+talking, for I sat backward and bashful, the more since I could feel his

+sharp eyes upon me, taking my measure. Never was I so looked over and

+so questioned, and not many minutes had come and gone before Big Kennedy

+knew as much of me and my belongings as did I myself. Mayhap more; for

+he weighed me in the scales of his experience with all the care of gold,

+considering meanwhile to what uses I should be put, and how far I might

+be expected to advance his ends.

+

+One of his words I recall, for it gave me a glow of relief at the time;

+at that it was no true word. It was when he heard how slightly I had

+been taught of books.

+

+“Never mind,” said he, “books as often as not get between a party's legs

+and trip him up. Better know men than books. There's my library.” Here

+he pointed to a group about a beer table. “I can learn more by studyin'

+them than was ever found between the covers of a book, and make more out

+of it.”

+

+Big Kennedy told me I must go to work.

+

+“You've got to work, d'ye see,” said he, “if it's only to have an excuse

+for livin'.”

+

+Then he asked me what I could do. On making nothing clear by my

+replies--for I knew of nothing--he descended to particulars.

+

+“What do you know of horses? Can you drive one?”

+

+My eye brightened; I might be trusted to handle a horse.

+

+“An' I'll gamble you know your way about the East Side,” said he

+confidently; “I'll answer for that.” Then getting up he started for the

+door, for no grass grew between decision and action with Big Kennedy.

+“Come with me,” he said.

+

+We had made no mighty journey when we stopped before a grocery. It was

+a two-store front, and of a prosperous look, with a wealth of vegetables

+and fruits in crates, and baskets, and barrels, covering half the

+sidewalk. The proprietor was a rubicund German, who bustled forth at

+sight of my companion.

+

+“How is Mr. Kennedy?” This with exuberance. “It makes me prout that you

+pay me a wisit.”

+

+“Yes?” said the other dryly. Then, going directly to the point: “Here's

+a boy I've brought you, Nick. Let him drive one of your wagons. Give him

+six dollars a week.”

+

+“But, Mr. Kennedy,” replied the grocer dubiously, looking me over with

+the tail of his eye, “I haf yet no wacancy. My wagons is all full.”

+

+“I'm goin' to get him new duds,” said Big Kennedy, “if that's what

+you're thinkin' about.”

+

+Still, the grocer, though not without some show of respectful alarm,

+insisted on a first position.

+

+“If he was so well dressed even as you, Mr. Kennedy, yet I haf no

+wacancy,” said he.

+

+“Then make one,” responded Big Kennedy coolly. “Dismiss one of the boys

+you have, d'ye see? At least two who work for you don't belong in my

+ward.” As the other continued doubtful Big Kennedy became sharp. “Come,

+come, come!” he cried in a manner peremptory rather than fierce; “I

+can't wait all day. Don't you feed your horses in the street? Don't you

+obstruct the sidewalks with your stuff? Don't you sell liquor in your

+rear room without a license? Don't you violate a dozen ordinances? Don't

+the police stand it an' pass you up? An' yet you hold me here fiddlin'

+and foolin' away time!”

+

+“Yes, yes, Mr. Kennedy,” cried the grocer, who from the first had sought

+to stem the torrent of the other's eloquence, “I was only try in' to

+think up w'ich horse I will let him drive alreatty. That's honest! sure

+as my name is Nick Fogel!”

+

+Clothed in what was to me the splendors of a king, being indeed a full

+new suit bought with Big Kennedy's money, I began rattling about the

+streets with a delivery wagon the very next day. As well as I could, I

+tried to tell my thanks for the clothes.

+

+“That's all right,” said Big Kennedy. “I owe you that much for havin'

+you chucked into a cell.”

+

+While Grocer Fogel might have been a trifle slow in hiring me, once I

+was engaged he proved amiable enough. I did my work well too, missing

+few of the customers and losing none of the baskets and sacks. Grocer

+Fogel was free with his praise and conceded my value. Still, since he

+instantly built a platform in the street on the strength of my being

+employed, and so violated a new and further ordinance upon which he

+for long had had an eye, I have sometimes thought that in forming his

+opinion of my worth he included this misdemeanor in his calculations.

+However, I worked with my worthy German four years; laying down the

+reins of that delivery wagon of my own will at the age of nineteen.

+

+Nor was I without a profit in this trade of delivering potatoes and

+cabbages and kindred grocery forage. It broadened the frontiers of my

+acquaintance, and made known to me many of a solvent middle class, and

+of rather a higher respectability than I might otherwise have met. It

+served to clean up my manners, if nothing more, and before I was done,

+that acquaintance became with me an asset of politics.

+

+While I drove wagon for Grocer Fogel, my work of the day was over with

+six o'clock. I had nothing to do with the care of the horses; I threw

+the reins to a stable hand when at evening I went to the barn, and left

+for my home without pausing to see the animals out of the straps or

+their noses into the corn. Now, had I been formed with a genius for it,

+I might have put in a deal of time at study. But nothing could have been

+more distant from my taste or habit; neither then nor later did I engage

+myself in any traffic with books, and throughout my life never opened a

+half-dozen.

+

+Still, considering those plans I had laid down for myself, and that

+future of politics to which my ambition began to consider, I cannot

+say I threw away my leisure. If my nose were not between the pages of

+a book, my hands were within a pair of boxing gloves, and I, engaged

+against this or that opponent, was leading or guarding, hitting or

+stopping, rushing or getting away, and fitting to an utmost hand and

+foot and eye and muscle for the task of beating a foeman black and blue

+should the accidents or duties of life place one before me.

+

+And I prospered with my boxing. I think I owned much native stomach for

+the business, since in my sullen fashion I was as near the touch of true

+happiness when in the midst of a mill as ever I hope to stand. My heart,

+and with that word I mean courage, was of fighting sort. While I was

+exceedingly cautious, my caution was based on courage. Men of this stamp

+stay until the last and either conquer or fall. There be ones who have

+courage, but their construction is the other way about. Their courage is

+based on caution; such if hard bested run away. Should you seek the man

+who will stand to the work of battle to the dour end, pick him whose

+caution, coming first in the procession of his nature, is followed by

+his courage, rather than that one whose caution follows his courage to

+tap it on the shoulder, preach to it of peril, and counsel flight.

+

+You are not to assume that I went about these boxing gymnastics because

+of any savageries or blood-hunger dominant in my breast, or was moved

+solely of that instinct by which the game-cock fights. I went to my

+fist-studies as the result of thought and calculation. In my slow way

+I had noted how those henchmen of the inner circle who surrounded Big

+Kennedy--those who were near to him, and upon whom he most relied,

+were wholly valued by him for the two matters of force of fist and that

+fidelity which asks no question. Even a thicker intellect than mine

+would have seen that to succeed as I proposed, I must be the gladiator.

+Wherefore, I boxed and wrestled and perfected my muscles; also as

+corollary I avoided drink and tobacco as I would two poisons.

+

+And Big Kennedy, who had a little of his eye on me most of the time, was

+so good as to approve. He applauded my refusal of alcohol and tobacco.

+And he indorsed my determination to be a boxer.

+

+“A man who can take care of himself with his hands,” said he, “an' who

+never lets whisky fool him or steal his head, can go far in this game of

+politics. An' it's a pretty good game at that, is politics, and can be

+brought to pay like a bank.”

+

+It chanced that I met with an adventure which added to my celebration

+in a way I could have wished. I was set upon by a drunken fellow--a

+stranger. He was an invader, bent upon mischief and came from an

+adjacent and a rival ward. I had offered no provocation; why he selected

+me to be his victim and whether it were accident or design I cannot say.

+Possibly I was pointed out to this drinking Hotspur as one from whose

+conquest honor would flow; perhaps some enemy of the pattern of Sheeny

+Joe had set him to it. All I know is that without challenge given, or

+the least offer of warning, the creature bore down upon me, whirling his

+fists like flails.

+

+“You're the party I'm lookin' for!” was all he said.

+

+In the mix-up to follow, and which I had neither time to consider

+nor avoid, the visitor from that other ward was fully and indubitably

+beaten. This was so evident that he himself admitted it when at the

+finish of hostilities certain Samaritans gave him strong drink as a

+restorative. It developed also that my assailant, in a shadowy subdued

+way, was a kind of prizefighter, and by his own tribe deemed invincible.

+My victory, therefore, made a noise in immediate circles; and I should

+say it saved me from a deal of trouble and later strife, since it served

+to place me in a class above the common. There came few so drunk or

+so bold as to ask for trouble with me, and I found that this casual

+battle--safe, too, because my prizefighter was too drunk to be

+dangerous--had brought me a wealth of peace.

+

+There dawned a day when Big Kennedy gave me a decisive mark of his

+esteem. He presented me to his father. The elder Kennedy, white-haired

+and furrowed of age, was known as “Old Mike.” He was a personage of

+gravity and power, since his was the only voice in that region to which

+Big Kennedy would yield. Wherefore to be of “Old Mike's” acquaintance

+shone in one's favor like a title of knighthood.

+

+Big Kennedy's presentation speech, when he led me before his father,

+was characteristic and peculiar. Old Mike was in the shadow of his front

+porch, while three or four oldsters of the neighborhood, like a council

+or a little court about a monarch, and all smoking short clay pipes,

+were sitting about him.

+

+“Here's a pup,” cried Big Kennedy, with his hand on my shoulder, “I want

+you to look over. He's a great pup and ought to make a great dog.”

+

+Old Mike glanced at me out of his twinkling gray eyes. After a moment he

+said, addressing me:

+

+“Come ag'in.”

+

+That was all I had from Old Mike that journey.

+

+Big Kennedy it should be said was a model for all sons. He kept his

+father in ease and comfort in a house of his own. He was prone to have

+Old Mike's advice, particularly if what he proposed were a step novel or

+one dangerous in its policy, and he never went to anything in the face

+of Old Mike's word. It wasn't deference, it was faith; Big Kennedy

+believed in the wisdom of Old Mike and relied upon it with a confidence

+that was implicit. I shall have more to tell of Old Mike as my story

+unrolls to the eye. If Big Kennedy were my example, Old Mike should be

+called my mentor. Taking the cue from Big Kennedy, I came to own for Old

+Mike that veneration which the youths of Ancient Greece felt for their

+oracles, and as utterly accepted either his argument or conclusion. It

+stood no wonder that I was impressed and played upon by this honor of an

+introduction to Old Mike. To bring you before Old Mike and name you for

+his consideration was the extremest proof of Big Kennedy's regard. As

+I've said, it glittered on one like the chain and spurs of knighthood,

+and the fact of it gave me a pedestal among my fellows.

+

+After my bout with that erring one who came out of his own ward to sup

+grief at my hands, there began to collect about me a coterie of halfway

+bruisers. This circle--and our enemies were quick to bestow upon it the

+epithet of “gang”--never had formal organization. And while the members

+were of the rougher sort, and each a man of his hands, the argument of

+its coming together was not so much aggression as protection.

+

+The town forty years ago was not a theater of peace and lambs'-wool

+safety. One's hand must keep one's head, and a stout arm, backed by

+a stout heart, traveled far. To leave one's own ward, or even the

+neighborhood where one lived, was to invite attack. In an alien ward,

+one would be set upon and beaten to rags before one traveled a mile.

+If one of the enemy were not equal to the business, others would lend a

+hand. Whether it required one or two or three or twenty, the interloper

+was fated to heir a drubbing. If his bones were not broken, he was

+looked upon as fortunate, while those who had undertaken to correct his

+wanderings went despised as bunglers who had slighted a task.

+

+Now and then a war-party would make a sortie from their own region to

+break windows and heads in the country of an enemy. Such hands often

+descended upon the domain of Big Kennedy, and it was a notion of defense

+against these Goths which brought the militant spirits I have mentioned

+to my shoulder. It was we who must meet them, when they would make

+desolate our territory. The police were of no use; they either walked

+the other way in a spirit of cautious neutrality, or were driven into

+hiding with a shower of stones.

+

+By the common tongue, this coterie to collect at my back was named the

+“Tin Whistle Gang.” Each member carried a whistle as part of his pocket

+furniture. These were made of uniform pattern, and the same keen note,

+like the screech of a hawk, was common to all.

+

+The screaming fife-like song would bring out the Tin Whistles as hotly

+bent for action as a colony of wasps. In those days, when might was

+right, the sound of these whistles was a storm signal. Quiet people shut

+their doors and drew their bolts, while apothecaries made ready to sell

+lint and plasters.

+

+It is required that I speak of the Tin Whistles in this place. I was now

+for the first time to be called into political activity by Big Kennedy.

+I was eighteen, and of a sober, steady, confident cast, and trustworthy

+in a wordless way. Because I was sober of face and one not given to talk

+or to laughter, men looked on me as five years better than my age; I

+think these characteristics even imposed on Big Kennedy himself, for he

+dealt with me as though I were a man full grown.

+

+It was in the height of a campaign. Two days before the balloting, Big

+Kennedy sent for me. There was a room to the rear of his bar. This room

+was a holy of holies; no one entered there who was not established in

+the confidence of Big Kennedy. It was a greater distinction even than

+the acquaintance of Old Mike. Knowing these things, my brow flushed when

+Big Kennedy led me into this sanctum of his policies.

+

+“Now, if I didn't trust you,” said Big Kennedy, looking me hard in the

+eye, “if I didn't trust you, you'd be t'other side of that door.” I said

+nothing; I had found that silence pleased Big Kennedy, and I learned

+early to keep my tongue between my teeth. Big Kennedy went on: “On

+election day the polls will close at six o'clock. Half an hour before

+they close, take that Bible Class of yours, the Tin Whistles, and drive

+every one of the opposition workers an' ticket peddlers away from the

+polling place. You'll know them by their badges. I don't want anyone

+hurt mor'n you have to. The less blood, the better. Blood's news; it

+gets into the papers. Now remember: half an hour before six, blow your

+whistle an' sail in. When you've got the other fellows on the run,

+keep'em goin'. And don't let'em come back, d'ye see.”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V--THE BATTLE OF THE BALLOTS

+

+

+BIG KENNEDY'S commands concerning the Tin Whistles taught me that

+lurking somewhere in the election situation he smelled peril to himself.

+Commonly, while his methods might be a wide shot to the left of the

+lawful, they were never violent. He must feel himself hard pressed to

+call for fist and club. He lived at present cross-purposes with sundry

+high spirits of the general organization; perhaps a word was abroad for

+his disaster and he had heard some sigh of it. This would be nothing

+wonderful; coarse as he seemed fibered, Big Kennedy had spun his web

+throughout the ward as close-meshed as any spider, and any fluttering

+proof of treason was certain to be caught in it.

+

+The election, while the office at local bay came to be no weightier than

+that of Alderman, was of moment to Big Kennedy. Defeat would mean

+his eclipse, and might even spell his death of politics. To lose the

+Alderman was to let fall the reins of ward direction. The Alderman and

+his turtle-devouring fellows cracked the whip over the police whom they

+appointed or dismissed, and the police were a ballot-engine not to be

+resisted. He who held the Alderman, held the police; and he who had the

+police, carried victory between his hands.

+

+Doubtless it was some inner-circle treachery which Big Kennedy

+apprehended. The regular opposition, while numerous and carrying on

+its muster rolls the best respectability of the ward, lacked of that

+organization which was the ridgepole of Big Kennedy's supremacies.

+It straggled, and was mob-like in its movements; and while, as I've

+written, it showed strong in numbers, it was no more to be collected or

+fashioned into any telling force for political effort than a flock of

+grazing sheep. If there were to come nothing before him more formidable

+than the regular opposition, Big Kennedy would go over it like a train

+of cars and ask no aid of shoulder-hitters. Such innocent ones might

+stand three deep about a ballot-box, and yet Big Kennedy would take from

+it what count of votes he chose and they be none the wiser. It would

+come to no more than cheating a child at cards.

+

+The open opposition to Big Kennedy was made up of divers misfit

+elements. At its head, as a sort of captain by courtesy, flourished

+that reputable peppery old gentleman who aforetime took my part against

+Sheeny Joe. A bit in love with his own eloquence, and eager for a forum

+wherein to exercise it, the reputable old gentleman had named himself

+for Alderman against Big Kennedy's candidate. As a campaign scheme

+of vote-getting--for he believed he had but to be heard to convince

+a listener--the reputable old gentleman engaged himself upon what he

+termed a house-to-house canvass.

+

+It was the evening of that day whereon Big Kennedy gave me those orders

+touching the Tin Whistles when the reputable old gentleman paid a visit

+to Old Mike, that Nestor being as usual on his porch and comforting

+himself with a pipe. I chanced to be present at the conversation,

+although I had no word therein; I was much at Old Mike's knee during

+those callow days, having an appetite for his counsel.

+

+“Good-evening, sir,” said the reputable old gentleman, taking a chair

+which Old Mike's politeness provided, “good-evening, sir. My name

+is Morton--Mr. Morton of the Morton Bank. I live in Lafayette Place.

+Incidentally, I am a candidate for the office of Alderman, and I thought

+I'd take the freedom of a neighbor and a taxpayer and talk with you on

+that topic of general interest.”

+

+“Why then,” returned Old Mike, with a cynical grin, “I'm th' daddy of

+Big Jawn Kennedy, an' for ye to talk to me would be loike throwin' away

+your toime.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman was set aback by the news. Next he took

+heart of grace.

+

+“For,” he said, turning upon Old Alike a pleasant eye, although just a

+dash of the patronizing showed in the curve of his brow, “if I should be

+so fortunate as to explain to you your whole duty of politics, it might

+influence your son. Your son, I understand, listens greatly to your

+word.”

+

+“He would be a ba-ad son who didn't moind his own father,” returned Old

+Mike. “As to me jooty av politics--it's th' same as every other man's.

+It's the jooty av lookin' out for meself.”

+

+This open-air selfishness as declared by Old Mike rather served to shock

+the reputable old gentleman.

+

+“And in politics do you think first of yourself?” he asked.

+

+“Not only first, but lasht,” replied Old Mike. “An' so do you; an' so

+does every man.”

+

+“I cannot understand the narrowness of your view,” retorted the

+reputable old gentleman, somewhat austere and distant. “You are a

+respectable man; you call yourself a good citizen?”

+

+“Why,” responded Old Mike, for the other's remark concluded with a

+rising inflection like a question, “I get along with th' p'lice; an' I

+get along with th' priests--what more should a man say!”

+

+“Are you a taxpayer?”

+

+“I have th' house,” responded Old Mike, with a smile.

+

+The reputable old gentleman considered the other dubiously. Evidently he

+didn't regard Old Mike's one-story cottage as all that might be desired

+in the way of credentials. Still he pushed on.

+

+“Have you given much attention to political economy?” This with an

+erudite cough. “Have you made politics a study?”

+

+“From me cradle,” returned Old Mike. “Every Irishman does. I knew so

+much about politics before I was twinty-one, th' British Government

+would have transhported me av I'd stayed in Dublin.”

+

+“I should think,” said the reputable old gentleman, with a look of one

+who had found something to stand on, “that if you ran from tyranny in

+Ireland, you would refuse here to submit to the tyranny of Tammany Hall.

+If you couldn't abide a Queen, how can you now put up with a Boss?”

+

+“I didn't run from th' Queen, I ran from th' laws,” said Old Mike. “As

+for the Boss--everything that succeeds has a Boss. The President's a

+boss; the Pope's a boss; Stewart's a boss in his store down in City

+Hall Park. That's right; everything that succeeds has a boss. Nothing is

+strong enough to stand the mishtakes av more than one man. Ireland would

+have been free th' long cinturies ago if she'd only had a boss.”

+

+“But do you call it good citizenship,” demanded the reputable old

+gentleman, not a trifle nettled by Old Mike's hard-shell philosophy of

+state; “do you call it good citizenship to take your orders from a boss?

+You are loyal to Tammany before you are loyal to the City?”

+

+“Shure!” returned Old Mike, puffing the puffs of him who is undisturbed.

+“Do ye ever pick up a hand in a game av ca-ards?” The reputable old

+gentleman seemed properly disgusted. “There you be then! City Government

+is but a game; so's all government, Shure, it's as if you an' me were

+playin' a game av ca-ards, this politics; your party is your hand, an'

+Tammany is my hand. In a game of ca-ards, which are ye loyal to, is it

+your hand or the game? Man, it's your hand av coorse! By the same token!

+I am loyal to Tammany Hall.”

+

+That closed the discussion; the reputable old gentleman went his way,

+and one might tell by his face that the question to assail him was

+whether he had been in a verbal encounter with a Bedlamite or an

+Anarchist. He did not recognize me, nor was I sorry. I liked the

+reputable old gentleman because of that other day, and would not have

+had him discover me in what he so plainly felt to be dangerous company.

+

+“He's a mighty ignorant man,” said Old Mike, pointing after the

+reputable old gentleman with the stem of his pipe. “What this country

+has mosht to fear is th' ignorance av th' rich.”

+

+It stood perhaps ten of the clock on the morning of election day when,

+on word sent me, I waited on Big Kennedy in his barroom. When he had

+drawn me into his sanctum at the rear, he, as was his custom, came

+pointedly to the purpose.

+

+“There's a fight bein' made on me,” he said. “They've put out a lot of

+money on the quiet among my own people, an' think to sneak th' play on

+me.” While Big Kennedy talked, his eyes never left mine, and I could

+feel he was searching me for any flickering sign that the enemy had been

+tampering with my fealty. I stared back at him like a statue. “An',”

+ went on Big Kennedy, “not to put a feather-edge on it, I thought I'd run

+you over, an' see if they'd been fixin' you. I guess you're all right;

+you look on the level.” Then swinging abruptly to the business of the

+day; “Have you got your gang ready?”

+

+“Yes,” I nodded.

+

+“Remember my orders. Five-thirty is the time. Go for the blokes with

+badges--th' ticket peddlers. An' mind! don't pound'em, chase'em. Unless

+they stop to slug with you, don't put a hand on'em.”

+

+Being thus re-instructed and about to depart, I made bold to ask Big

+Kennedy if there were any danger of his man's defeat. He shook his head.

+

+“Not a glimmer,” he replied. “But we've got to keep movin'. They've put

+out stacks of money. They've settled it to help elect the opposition

+candidate--this old gent, Morton. They don't care to win; they're only

+out to make me lose. If they could take the Alderman an' the police away

+from me, they would go in next trip an' kill me too dead to skin. But

+it's no go; they can't make th' dock. They've put in their money; but

+I'll show'em a trick that beats money to a standstill.”

+

+It was as I had surmised; Big Kennedy feared treachery and the underhand

+support of the enemy by men whom he called his friends. For myself, I

+would stand by him. Beg Kennedy was the only captain I knew.

+

+To the commands of Big Kennedy, and their execution, I turned with

+as ready a heart as ever sent duck to drink. No impulse to disobey or

+desert so much as crossed my slope of thought. Tammany Hall has ever

+been military in its spirit. Big Kennedy was my superior officer, I but

+a subaltern; it was my province to accept his commands and carry them

+forward without argument or pause.

+

+In full and proper season, I had my Tin Whistles in hand. I did not

+march them to the polling place in a body, since I was not one to

+obstreperously vaunt or flaunt an enterprise in advance. Also, I was too

+much the instinctive soldier to disclose either my force or my purpose,

+and I knew the value of surprise.

+

+There were a round twenty of my Tin Whistles, each a shoulder-hitter

+and warm to shine in the graces of Big Kennedy. I might have recruited

+a double strength, but there was no need. I had counted the foe; the

+poll-tenders of the opposition numbered but ten; my twenty, and each a

+berserk of his fists, ought to scatter them like a flock of sparrows. My

+instructions given to my fellows were precisely Big Kennedy's orders as

+given to me; no blows, no blood unless made necessary by resistance.

+

+As the time drew down for action, my Tin Whistles were scattered about,

+sticking close to the elbows of the enemy, and waiting the signal. The

+polling booth was a small frame construction, not much larger than a

+Saratoga trunk. On other occasions it served as the office of a wood and

+coal concern. The table, with the ballot-box thereon, stood squarely

+in the door; behind it were the five or six officers--judges and tally

+clerks--of election. There was a crush and crowd of Big Kennedy's

+clansmen to entirely surround the little building, and they so choked

+up the path that ones who had still to vote couldn't push through. There

+arose, too, a deal of shoving and jostling, and all to a running uproar

+of profanity; affairs appeared to be drifting towards the disorderly.

+

+The reputable old gentleman, his face red with indignation, was moving

+to and fro on the outskirts of the crowd, looking for a police officer.

+He would have him cut a way through the press for those who still owned

+votes. No officer was visible; the reputable old gentleman, even though

+he searched with that zeal common of candidates anxious for success,

+would have no aid from the constabulary.

+

+“And this is the protection,” cried the reputable old gentleman,

+striding up to Big Kennedy, and shaking a wrathful finger in his face,

+“that citizens and taxpayers receive from the authorities! Here are

+scores of voters who are being blocked from the polls and robbed of

+their franchise. It's an outrage!”

+

+Big Kennedy smiled upon the reputable old gentleman, but made no other

+reply.

+

+“It's an outrage!” repeated the reputable old gentleman in a towering

+fury. “Do you hear? It's an outrage on the taxpaying citizens of this

+town!”

+

+“Look out, old man!” observed a young fellow who stood at Big Kennedy's

+side, and who from his blackened hands and greasy blue shirt seemed to

+be the engineer of some tug. “Don't get too hot. You'll blow a cylinder

+head.”

+

+“How dare you!” fumed the reputable old gentleman; “you, a mere boy by

+comparison! how dare you address me in such terms! I'm old enough, sir,

+to be your father! You should understand, sir, that I've voted for a

+president eight times in my life.”

+

+“That's nothin',” returned the other gayly; “I have voted for a

+president eighty times before ten o'clock.”

+

+In the midst of the laugh that followed this piece of characteristic

+wit, Big Kennedy crossed to where I stood.

+

+“Send your boys along!” said he. “Let's see how good you are.”

+

+My whistle screamed the signal. At the first sharp note, a cry went up:

+

+“The Tin Whistles! The Tin Whistles!”

+

+It was done in a moment; a pair to a man, my Tin Whistles were sending

+their quarry down the streets as fast as feet might follow. And they

+obeyed directions; not a blow was struck, no blood was drawn; there was

+a hustling flurry, and the others took to their heels. The hard repute

+of the Tin Whistles was such that no ten were wild enough to face them

+or meet their charge.

+

+As the Tin Whistles fell upon their victims, the press of men that

+surged about the polling place began to shout, and strain, and tug.

+Suddenly, the small building commenced to heave and lift suspiciously.

+It was as though an earthquake were busy at its base. The mob about the

+structure seemed to be rolling it over on its side. That would be

+no feat, with men enough to set hand upon it and carry it off like a

+parcel.

+

+With the first heave there came shouts and oaths from those within.

+Then arose a crashing of glass, and the table was cast aside, as the

+threatened clerks and judges fought to escape through door and window.

+In the rush and scamper of it, a sharp hand seized the ballot-box.

+

+Ten minutes the riot raged. It was calmed by Big Kennedy, who forced

+himself into the middle of the tumult, hurling men right and left with

+his powerful hands as though they were sacks of bran, while he commanded

+the peace in a voice like the roar of a lion.

+

+Peace fell; the little building, which had not been overthrown, but only

+rocked and tipped, settled again to a decorous safe solidity; the judges

+and the clerks returned; the restored ballot-box again occupied the

+table.

+

+As that active one, who had saved the ballot-box when the downfall of

+the building seemed threatened came edgewise through the throng, he

+passed close to Big Kennedy. The latter gave him a sharp glance of

+inquiry.

+

+“I stuffed it full to the cover,” whispered the active one. “We win four

+to one, an' you can put down your money on that!”

+

+Big Kennedy nodded, and the zealot who saved the ballot-box passed on

+and disappeared.

+

+When the Tin Whistles fell upon their prey, I started to go with them.

+But in a moment I saw there was no call; the foe went off at top flight,

+and my twenty would keep them moving. Thus reasoning, I turned again to

+see what was going forward about the booth.

+

+My interest was immediately engaged by the words and actions of the

+reputable old gentleman, who, driven to frenzy, was denouncing. Big

+Kennedy and all who wore his colors as scoundrels without measure or

+mate.

+

+“I defy both you and your plug-uglies,” he was shouting, flourishing his

+fist in the face of Big Kennedy, who, busy with his own plans, did not

+heed him. “This is a plot to stuff the ballot-box.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman had gone thus far, when a hulking creature

+of a rough struck him from behind with a sandbag. I sprang forward, and

+fended away a second blow with my left arm. As I did so, I struck the

+rough on the jaw with such vengeful force that, not only did he drop

+like some pole-axed ox, but my right hand was fairly wrecked

+thereby. Without pausing to discover my own condition or that of the

+sandbag-wielding ruffian, I picked up the reputable old gentleman and

+bore him out of the crowd.

+

+The reputable old gentleman had come by no serious harm; he was stunned

+a trifle, and his hat broken. With me to hold him up, he could stand on

+his feet, though still dazed and addled from the dull power of the blow.

+I beckoned a carriage which Big Kennedy had employed to bring the old

+and infirm to the polling place. It came at my signal, and I placed the

+reputable old gentleman inside, and told the driver to take him to his

+home. The reputable old gentleman was murmuring and shaking his head

+as he drove away. As I closed the carriage door, he muttered: “This

+is barbarous! That citizens and taxpayers should receive such

+treatment------” The balance was lost in the gride of the wheels.

+

+The hurly-burly had now ceased; all was as calm and equal as a goose

+pond.

+

+“So you saved the old gentleman,” said Big Kennedy, as he came towards

+me. “Gratitude, I s'pose, because he stood pal to you ag'inst Sheeny

+Joe that time. Gratitude! You'll get over that in time,” and Big Kennedy

+wore a pitying look as one who dwells upon another's weakness. “That was

+Jimmy the Blacksmith you smashed. You'd better look out for him after

+this.” My dander was still on end, and I intimated a readiness to look

+out for Jimmy the Blacksmith at once.

+

+“Mind your back now!” cautioned Big Kennedy, “and don't take to gettin'

+it up. Let things go as they lay. Never fight till you have to, d'ye

+see! an' never fight for fun. Don't go lookin' for th' Blacksmith until

+you hear he's out lookin' for you.” Then, as shifting the subject: “It's

+been a great day, an' everything to run off as smooth an' true as sayin'

+mass. Now let's go back and watch'em count the votes.”

+

+“Did we beat them?” I asked.

+

+“Snowed'em under!” said Big Kennedy.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI--THE RED JACKET ASSOCIATION

+

+

+BIG KENNEDY'S success at the election served to tighten the rivets of

+his rule. It was now I looked to see him ferret forth and punish those

+renegades who had wrought against him in the dark. To my amazement he

+engaged himself in no such retaliatory labor. On the contrary he smiled

+on all about him like the sun at noon. Was it folly or want of heart

+that tied his hands? Assuredly it was error, and this I submitted to Old

+Mike. That veteran of policy disagreed with this, meanwhile beaming upon

+me in a way of fatherly cunning.

+

+“Jawn knows his business,” said Old Mike. “Thim people didn't rebel,

+they sold out. That's over with an' gone by. Everybody'll sell ye out

+if he gets enough; that's a rishk ye have to take. There's that Limerick

+man, Gaffney, however; ye'll see something happen to Gaffney. He's one

+of thim patent-leather Micks an' puts on airs. He's schemin' to tur-rn

+Jawn down an' take th' wa-ard. Ye'll see something happen to that

+Limerick man, Gaffney.”

+

+Gaffney made his money with flour and horse feed and hay and similar

+goods. Also, as Old Mike said, Gaffney was ambitious. It was within the

+week, when a midnight shower of stones smashed sash and glass and laid

+waste that offensive merchant's place of business. Gaffney restored his

+sash and glass only to invite a second midnight storm of stones. Three

+times were Gaffney's windows smashed by hands unknown; and no police

+officer would go within two blocks of Gaffney's. In the end, Gaffney

+came to Big Kennedy. The latter met him with a hectoring laugh.

+

+“Why do you come to me?” asked Big Kennedy. “Somebody's been trying to

+smash the windows of my leadership for over a year, but I never went

+howling about it to you.”

+

+Gaffney showed not a little shaken. He asked, in a manner sullen yet

+beaten, what he should do.

+

+“I'd get out of th' ward,” replied Big Kennedy as cool as ice.

+“Somebody's got it in for you. Now a man that'll throw a brick will

+light a match, d'ye see, an' a feed store would burn like a tar barrel.”

+

+“If I could sell out, I'd quit,” said Gaffney.

+

+“Well,” responded Big Kennedy, “I always like to help a friend.”

+

+Grocer Fogel bought Gaffney's store, making a bargain.

+

+This iron-bound lesson in practical politics I dwell on in full. I drew

+from it some notion of the stern character of that science. Old Mike,

+from the pinnacles of his hard experience, looked down to justify it.

+

+“Gaffney would do th' same,” said Old Mike, “if his ar-rm was long

+enough. Politics is a game where losers lose all; it's like war, shure,

+only no one's kilt--at any rate, not so many.”

+

+As the days drew on, I grew in favor with Big Kennedy, and the blossom

+thereof took this color.

+

+“Why don't you start a club?” he asked one afternoon, as we sat in his

+sanctum. “You could bring two hundred young fellows together, couldn't

+you?”

+

+“Yes,” I replied. I spoke doubtfully; the suggestion was of the

+sharpest, and gave me no space to think. It was one, too, which asked

+questions of the kind that don't answer themselves. “But where would

+they meet?” I put this after a pause.

+

+“There's the big lodgeroom over my saloon,” and Big Kennedy tossed his

+stubby thumb towards the ceiling. “You could meet there. There's a dumb

+waiter from the bar to send up beer and smokes.”

+

+“How about the Tin Whistles?” I hinted. “Would they do to build on?”

+

+“Leave the Tin Whistles out. They're all right as shoulder-hitters,

+an' a swifter gang to help at the polls, or break up the opposition's

+meetin's, never walked the streets. But for a play of this kind, they're

+a little off color. Your Tin Whistles can join, man by man, but if they

+do they must sing low. They mustn't try to give the show; it's the

+back seat for them. What you're out for now is the respectable young

+workin'-man racket; that's the lay.”

+

+“But where's the money?” said I. “These people I have in mind haven't

+much money.”

+

+“Of course not,” retorted Big Kennedy confidently, “an' what little they

+have they want for beer. But listen: You get the room free. Then once

+a year your club gives an excursion on the river; it ought to sell

+hundreds of tickets because there'll be hundreds of officeholders, an'

+breweries, an' saloon keepers, an' that sort who'll be crazy to buy'em.

+If they aint crazy to start with, you ought to be able to make'em crazy

+th' first election that comes 'round. The excursion should bring three

+thousand dollars over an' above expenses, d'ye see. Then you can give

+balls in the winter an' sell tickets. Then there's subscriptions an'

+hon'ry memberships. You'll ketch on; there's lots of ways to skin th'

+cat. You can keep th' club in clover an' have some of the long green

+left. That's settled then; you organize a young men's club. You be

+president an' treasurer; see to that. An' now,” here Big Kennedy took me

+by the shoulder and looked me instructively in the eye, “it's time for

+you to be clinchin' onto some stuff for yourself. This club's goin' to

+take a lot of your time. It'll make you do plenty of work. You're

+no treetoad; you can't live on air an' scenery.” Big Kennedy's look

+deepened, and he shook me as one who demands attention. “You'll be

+president and treasurer, particularly treasurer; and I'll chip you in

+this piece of advice. A good cook always licks his fingers.” Here he

+winked deeply.

+

+This long speech was not thrown away. Big Kennedy, having delivered

+himself, lapsed into silence, while I sat ruminating ways and means and

+what initiatory steps I should take.

+

+“What shall we call it?” I asked, as I arose to go.

+

+“Give it an Indian name,” said Big Kennedy. “S'p-pose you call it the

+Red Jacket Association.”

+

+Within the fortnight the Red Jackets held their maiden meeting. It was

+an hour rife of jubilation, fellowship, and cheer. While abstinence from

+drink was my guiding phrase, I made no point of that kind in the conduct

+of others, and a nearby brewery having contributed unlimited beer those

+whom it pleased lacked no reason for a light heart.

+

+As Big Kennedy had advised, I was chosen for the double responsibilities

+of president and treasurer. I may say in my own compliment, however,

+that these honors came drifting to my feet. There were reasons for this

+aside from any stiffness of heart or fist-virtues which might be mine.

+I have said that I was by disposition as taciturn as a tree, and this

+wondrous gift of silence earned me the name of wisdom, I was looked

+upon as one whose depth was rival to the ocean's. Stronger still, as

+the argument by which I rose, was my sobriety. The man who drinks, and

+whether it be little or much, never fails to save his great respect for

+him who sets whisky aside.

+

+“An' now,” remarked Big Kennedy, when the club had found fortunate

+birth, “with these Red Jackets to make the decent front, th' Tin

+Whistles to fall back on for the rough work, and Gaffney out of th' way,

+I call th' ward cleaned up. I'll tell you this, my son: after th' next

+election you shall have an office, or there's no such man as Big John

+Kennedy.” He smote the table with his heavy hand until the glasses

+danced.

+

+“But I won't be of age,” I suggested.

+

+“What's the difference?” said Big Kennedy. “We'll play that you are,

+d'ye see. There'll be no one fool enough to talk about your age if I'm

+at your side. We'll make it a place in the dock department; that'll be

+about your size. S'ppose we say a perch where there's twelve hundred

+dollars a year, an' nothin' to do but draw th' scads an' help your

+friends.”

+

+Jimmy the Blacksmith was an under-captain of Big Kennedy's and prevailed

+as vote-master in the northern end of the ward. Within certain fixed

+frontiers, which ran on one side within a block of my home, it was the

+business of Jimmy the Blacksmith to have watch and ward. He had charge

+of what meetings were held, and under the thumb of Big Kennedy carried

+forward the campaign, and on election day got out the vote.

+

+Having given the question its share of thought, I determined for myself

+on a forward, upward step. My determination--heart and soul--became

+agate-hard to drive Jimmy the Blacksmith from his place, and set up my

+own rule over that slender kingdom.

+

+Nor would I say aught to Big Kennedy of this private war which I

+meditated. Not that he would have interfered either to thwart or aid me,

+but by the ethics of the situation, to give him such notice was neither

+proper nor expected. To fight Jimmy the Blacksmith for his crown was

+not only right by every rule of ward justice, but it was the thing

+encouraged as a plan best likely to bring the strongest to the fore.

+Take what you may, keep what you can! was a Tammany statute; I would be

+right enough in that overthrow of Jimmy the Blacksmith, I was bent upon,

+if only I proved strong enough to bring it about. No, I was not to give

+word of my campaign to Big Kennedy, it was none of his affair, and he

+would prefer to be ignorant since he was bound to stand neutral. It is

+policy thus to let the younger cocks try beak and spur among themselves;

+it develops leadership, and is the one sure way of safety in picking out

+your captains.

+

+There was one drawback; I didn't live within the region of which I would

+make prize. However, ambition edged my wits and I bethought me of a plan

+whereby I might plow around that stump.

+

+It was my own good fortune that I had no love, but only hate, for Jimmy

+the Blacksmith. I was yet so softened of a want of years, that had we

+been friends I would have withheld myself from attacking him. Youth is

+generous, wherefore youth is weak. It is not until age has stopped these

+leaks in one's nature, and one ceases to give and only lives to take and

+keep, that one's estate begins to take on fat. Have the word, therefore,

+of him whose scars speak for his experience: that one will be wise who

+regards generosity as a malady, a mere disease, and sets to cure it with

+every sullen, cruel drug the case demands. I say it was my good luck to

+hate Jimmy the Blacksmith. He had never condoned that election-day blow,

+and I must confess there was reason for this hardness. His jaw had been

+broken, and, though mended, it was still all of one side and made of him

+a most forbidding spectacle. And he nursed a thought of revenge in his

+breast; there came a light to his eye when we met that belongs with none

+save him whose merest wish is murder. I would have had more than black

+looks, but his heart was of a pale and treacherous family that can

+strike no blow in front, and thus far the pathway of chance had not

+opened for him to come upon me unaware. For all of which, not alone my

+ambition, but my safety and my pleasure urged me about the destruction

+of Jimmy the Blacksmith.

+

+That epithet of the Blacksmith was born of no labors of the forge. Jimmy

+the Blacksmith was no more a blacksmith than a bishop. If he ever did

+a day's work, then the fact was already so far astern upon the tides

+of time that no eye of memory might discern it. The title was won in a

+brawl wherein he slew a man. True to his nature, Jimmy slunk away

+from his adversary and would not face him. He returned, carrying a

+blacksmith's fore-hammer. Creeping behind the other, Jimmy suddenly

+cried, with an oath:

+

+“I'll clink your anvil for you!”

+

+With that word, the hammer descended and the victim fell, skull crushed

+like an eggshell. It required a deal of perjury to save the murderer

+from noose and trap. I should not say he was set backward by this

+bloodshed, since most men feared him for it and stepped out of his way,

+giving him what he asked for in the name of their own safety. It was

+for this work he was called the Blacksmith, and he carried the word as

+though it were a decoration.

+

+Such was the man on whose downfall I stood resolved and whose place I

+meant to make my own. The thing was simple of performance too; all it

+asked were secrecy and a little wit. There was a Tammany club, one of

+regular sort and not like my Red Jacket Association, which was volunteer

+in its character. It met in that kingdom of the Blacksmith's as a little

+parliament of politics. This club was privileged each year to name for

+Big Kennedy's approval a man for that post of undercaptain. The annual

+selection was at hand. For four years the club had named Jimmy the

+Blacksmith; there came never the hint for believing he would not be

+pitched upon again.

+

+Now be it known that scores of my Red Jackets were residents of the

+district over which Jimmy the Blacksmith held sway. Some there were who

+already belonged to his club. I gave those others word to join at once.

+Also I told them, as they regarded their standing as Red Jackets, to be

+present at that annual meeting.

+

+The night arrived; the room was small and the attendance--except for my

+Red Jackets--being sparse, my people counted for three-quarters of those

+present. With the earliest move I took possession of the meeting, and

+selected its chairman. Then, by resolution, I added the block in which

+I resided to the public domain of the club. That question of residence

+replied to, instead of Jimmy the Blacksmith, I was named ballot-captain

+for the year. It was no more complex as a transaction than counting ten.

+The fact was accomplished like scratching a match; I had set the foot of

+my climbing on Jimmy the Blacksmith's neck.

+

+That unworthy was present; and to say he was made mad with the fury of

+it would be to write with snow the color of his feelings.

+

+“It's a steal!” he cried, springing to his feet. The little bandbox of

+a hall rang with his roarings. Then, to me: “I'll fight you for it! You

+don't dare meet me in the Peach Orchard to-morrow at three!”

+

+“Bring your sledge, Jimmy,” shouted some humorist; “you'll need it.”

+

+The Peach Orchard might have been a peach orchard in the days of

+Peter Stuyvesant. All formal battles took place in the Peach Orchard.

+Wherefore, and because the challenge for its propriety was not without

+precedent, to the Peach Orchard at the hour named I repaired.

+

+Jimmy the Blacksmith, however, came not. Someone brought the word

+that he was sick; whereat those present, being fifty gentlemen with a

+curiosity to look on carnage, and ones whose own robust health led them

+to regard the term “sickness” as a synonym for the preposterous, jeered

+the name of Jimmy the Blacksmith from their hearts.

+

+“Jimmy the Cur! it ought to be,” growled one, whose disappointment over

+a fight deferred was sore in the extreme.

+

+Perhaps you will argue that it smacked of the underhand to thus steal

+upon Jimmy the Blacksmith and take his place from him without due

+warning given. I confess it would have been more like chivalry if I had

+sent him, so to say, a glove and told my intentions against him. Also

+it would have augmented labor and multiplied risk. The great thing is

+to win and win cheaply; a victory that costs more than it comes to is

+nothing but a mask for defeat.

+

+“You're down and out,” said Big Kennedy, when Jimmy the Blacksmith

+brought his injuries to that chieftain. “Your reputation is gone too;

+you were a fool to say 'Peach Orchard' when you lacked the nerve to make

+it good. You'll never hold up your head ag'in in th' ward, an' if I was

+you I'd line out after Gaffney. This is a bad ward for a mongrel, Jimmy,

+an' I'd skin out.”

+

+Jimmy the Blacksmith followed Gaffney and disappeared from the country

+of Big Kennedy. He was to occur again in my career, however, as he who

+reads on shall see, and under conditions which struck the color from

+my cheek and set my heart to a trot with the terrors they loosed at its

+heels.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII--HOW THE BOSS WAS NAMED FOR ALDERMAN

+

+

+NOW it was that in secret my ambition took a hearty start and would

+vine-like creep and clamber. My triumph over Jimmy the Blacksmith added

+vastly to my stature of politics. Moreover, the sly intrigue by which I

+conquered began to found for me a fame. I had been locally illustrious,

+if I may so set the term to work, for a granite fist and a courage as

+rooted as a tree. For these traits the roughs revered me, and I may

+say I found my uses and rewards. Following my conquest of that

+under-captaincy, however, certain upper circles began to take account of

+me; circles which, if no purer than those others of ruder feather, were

+wont to produce more bulging profits in the pockets of their membership.

+In brief, I came to be known for one capable and cunning of a plot, and

+who was not without a genius for the executive.

+

+With Big Kennedy I took high position. His relations with Jimmy

+the Blacksmith never had been close; he had never unbuckled in any

+friendship and felt for him nothing nearer than distrust. But for me

+he held another pose. Big Kennedy, upon my elevation, fair made me his

+partner in the ward, a partnership wherein, to speak commercially, I

+might be said to have had an interest of one-fourth. This promotion

+brought me pleasure; and being only a boy when all was said, while I

+went outwardly quiet, my spirit in the privacy of my own bosom would on

+occasion spread moderately its tail and strut.

+

+Now, as time passed, I became like the shadow of Big Kennedy's authority

+throughout the ward; my voice was listened to and my word obeyed. I

+should say, too, that I made it a first concern to carry the interest of

+Big Kennedy ever on the crest of my thought. This should be called the

+offspring neither of loyalty nor gratitude; I did it because it was

+demanded of my safety and to curry advantage for myself. For all that

+attitude of confident friendship, I was not put off my guard. Big

+Kennedy never let my conduct roam beyond his ken. A first sign of an

+interest outside his own would have meant my instant disappearance. He

+would have plucked me of my last plume. With a breath he could reduce me

+to be a beggarman where now I gave alms. Having, therefore, the measure

+of his fell abilities, I was not so blind as to draw their horns my way.

+

+Still, while I went tamely to heel at a word from Big Kennedy, I had

+also resolved to advance. I meant before all was over to mount the

+last summit of Tammany Hall. I laid out my life as architects lay out a

+building; it would call for years, but I had years to give.

+

+My work with Grocer Fogel had ended long ago. I now gave myself entirely

+to the party, and to deepen the foundations of its power. Inside our

+lines a mighty harmony prevailed. Big Kennedy and those headquarters

+enemies who once schemed for his defeat had healed their differences and

+the surface of events showed as serene as summer seas. About this time

+a great star was rising in the Tammany sky; a new chief was gaining

+evolution. Already, his name was first, and although he cloaked his

+dictatorship with prudence, the sophisticated knew how his will was even

+then as law and through his convenient glove of velvet felt his grip of

+steel.

+

+For myself, I closely observed the unfolding of his genius. His methods

+as well as those of Big Kennedy were now my daily lesson. I had

+ever before me in that formative, plastic hour the examples of these

+past-masters of the art of domination.

+

+It was well for me. A dictator is so much unlike a poet that he is made,

+not born. He must build himself; and when completed he must save himself

+from being torn to pieces. No one blunders into a dictatorship; one

+might as well look to blunder upon some mountain peak. Even blunders

+are amenable to natural law, and it can be taken as a truism that no one

+blunders up hill.

+

+Wherefore, he who would be dictator and with his touch determine the day

+for pushing, struggling, rebelling thousands and mold their times for

+them, must study. And study hard I did.

+

+My Red Jackets received my most jealous care. They deserved that much

+from me, since their existence offered measurably for my support. When

+the day arrived, I was given that twelve-hundred-dollar place with the

+docks, whereof Big Kennedy had spoken, and under his suggestion and to

+the limits of my strength made what employ of it I might for my own and

+my friends' behoof. But those twelve hundred dollars would not go far

+in the affairs of one who must for their franchises lead hither and yon

+divers scores of folk, all of whom had but the one notion of politics,

+that it was founded of free beer. There came, too, a procession of

+borrowers, and it was a dull day when, in sums from a dime to a dollar,

+I did not to these clients part with an aggregate that would have

+supported any family for any decent week. There existed no door of

+escape; these charges, and others of similar kidney, must be met and

+borne; it was the only way to keep one's hold of politics; and so Old

+Mike would tell me.

+

+“But it's better,” said that deep one, “to lind people money than give

+it to'em. You kape thim bechune your finger longer by lindin'.”

+

+It was on the Red Jackets I leaned most for personal revenue. They were

+my bread-winners. No Tammany organization, great or small, keeps books.

+No man may say what is received, or what is disbursed, or name him who

+gave or got; and that is as it should be. If it were otherwise, one's

+troubles would never earn an end. For the Red Jackets I was--to steal

+a title from the general organization--not alone the treasurer, but the

+wiskinskie. In this latter rôle I collected the money that came in.

+Thus the interests, financial, of the Red Jackets were wholly within

+my hands, and recalling what Big Kennedy had said anent a good cook, I

+failed not to lick my fingers.

+

+Money was in no wise difficult to get. The Red Jackets were formidable

+both for numbers and influence, and their favor or resentment meant

+a round one thousand votes. Besides, there stood the memorable Tin

+Whistles, reckless, militant, ready for any midnight thing, and their

+dim outlines, like a challenge or a threat, filled up the cloudy

+background. Those with hopes or fears of office, and others who as

+merchants or saloonkeepers, or who gambled, or did worse, to say naught

+of builders who found the streets and pavements a convenient even though

+an illegal resting place for their materials of bricks and lime and

+lumber, never failed of response to a suggestion that the good Red

+Jackets stood in need of help. Every man of these contributing gentry,

+at their trades of dollar-getting, was violating law or ordinance, and

+I who had the police at my beck could instantly contract their liberties

+to a point that pinched. When such were the conditions, anyone with an

+imagination above a shoemaker's will see that to produce what funds

+my wants demanded would be the lightest of tasks. It was like grinding

+sugar canes, and as easily sure of steady sweet returns.

+

+True, as an exception to a rule, one met now and again with him who for

+some native bull-necked obstinacy would refuse a contribution. In such

+event the secret of his frugality was certain to leak forth and spread

+itself among my followers. It would not be required that one offer even

+a hint. Soon as ever the tale of that parsimony reached the ear of a Tin

+Whistle, disasters like a flock of buzzards collected about the saving

+man. His windows were darkly broken like Gaffney's. Or if he were a

+grocer his wares would upset themselves about the pavements, his carts

+of delivery break down, his harnesses part and fall in pieces, and he

+beset to dine off sorrow in many a different dish.

+

+And then and always there were the police to call his violative eye to

+this ordinance, or hale him before a magistrate for that one. And there

+were Health Boards, and Street Departments, who at a wink of Red Jacket

+disfavor would descend upon a recalcitrant and provide burdens for his

+life. With twenty methods of compulsion against him, and each according

+to law, there arose no man strong enough to refuse those duties of

+donation. He must support the fortunes of my Red Jackets or see his

+own decline, and no one with a heart for commerce was long to learn the

+lesson.

+

+The great credit, however, in such coils was due the police. With them

+to be his allies, one might not only finance his policies, but control

+and count a vote; and no such name as failure.

+

+“They're the foot-stones of politics,” said Old Mike. “Kape th' p'lice,

+an' you kape yourself on top.”

+

+Nor was this the task complex. It was but to threaten them with the

+powers above on the one hand, or on the other toss them individually

+an occasional small bone of profit to gnaw, and they would stand to you

+like dogs. I soon had these ins and outs of money-getting at the tips

+of my tongue and my fingers, for I went to school to Big Kennedy and

+Old Mike in the accomplishment, and I may tell you it was a branch of

+learning they were qualified to teach.

+

+Blackmail! cry you? Now there goes a word to that. These folk were

+violating the law. What would you have?--their arrest? Let me inform you

+that were the laws of the State and the town enforced to syllable and

+letter, it would drive into banishment one-half the population. They

+would do business at a loss; it would put up the shutters for over half

+the town. Wherefore, it would be against the common interest to arrest

+them.

+

+And still you would have the law enforced? And if it were, what, let me

+ask, would be the immediate response? These delinquents would be fined.

+You would then be satisfied. What should be the corrective difference

+between a fine paid to a court, and a donation paid to my Red Jackets?

+The corrective influence in both should be the same, since in either

+instance it is but a taking of dollars from the purses of the lawless.

+And yet, you clamor, “One is blackmail and the other is justice!” The

+separation I should say was academic rather than practical; and as for a

+name: why then, I care nothing for a name.

+

+I will, however, go this farther journey for my own defense. I have not

+been for over twoscore years with Tammany and sixteen years its head,

+without being driven to some intimate knowledge of my times, and those

+principles of individual as well as communal action which underlie them

+to make a motive. And now I say, that I have yet to meet that man, or

+that corporation, and though the latter were a church, who wouldn't

+follow interest across a prostrate law, and in the chase of dollars

+break through ordinance and statute as a cow walks through a cobweb.

+And each and all they come most willingly to pay the prices of their

+outlawry, and receivers are as bad as thieves--your price-payer as black

+as your price-taker. Practically, the New York definition of an honest

+man has ever gone that he is one who denounces any robbery in the

+proceeds whereof he is not personally interested, and with that

+definition my life has never failed to comply. If Tammany and Tammany

+men have been guilty of receiving money from violators of law, they had

+among their accomplices the town's most reputable names and influences.

+Why then should you pursue the one while you excuse the other? And are

+you not, when you do so, quite as much the criminal as either?

+

+When I was in the first year of my majority we went into a campaign

+for the ownership of the town. Standing on the threshold of my earliest

+vote, I was strung like a bow to win. My fervor might have gained a more

+than common heat, because by decision of Big Kennedy I, myself, was put

+down to make the run for alderman. There was a world of money against

+us, since we had the respectable element, which means ever the rich, to

+be our enemies.

+

+Big Kennedy and I, after a session in his sanctum, resolved that not one

+meeting should be held by our opponents within our boundaries. It was

+not that we feared for the vote; rather it swung on a point of pride;

+and then it would hearten our tribesmen should we suppress the least

+signal of the enemy's campaign.

+

+Having limitless money, the foe decided for sundry gatherings. They also

+outlined processions, hired music by the band, and bought beer by the

+barrel. They would have their speakers to address the commons in halls

+and from trucks.

+

+On each attempt they were encountered and dispersed. More than once the

+Red Jackets, backed by the faithful Tin Whistles, took possession of a

+meeting, put up their own orators and adopted their own resolutions.

+If the police were called, they invariably arrested our enemies, being

+sapient of their own safety and equal to the work of locating the butter

+on their personal bread. If the enemy through their henchmen or managers

+made physical resistance, the Tin Whistles put them outside the hall,

+and whether through door or window came to be no mighty matter.

+

+At times the Red Jackets and their reserves of Tin Whistles would

+permit the opposition to open a meeting. When the first orator had been

+eloquent for perhaps five minutes, a phalanx of Tin Whistles would arise

+in their places, and a hailstorm of sponges, soaking wet and each

+the size of one's head, would descend upon the rostrum. It was a

+never-failing remedy; there lived never chairman nor orator who would

+face that fusillade. Sometimes the lights were turned out; and again,

+when it was an open-air meeting and the speakers to talk from a truck,

+a bunch of crackers would be exploded under the horses and a runaway

+occur. That simple device was sure to cut the meeting short by carrying

+off the orators. The foe arranged but one procession; that was disposed

+of on the fringe of our territory by an unerring, even if improper,

+volley of eggs and vegetables and similar trumpery. The artillery used

+would have beaten back a charge by cavalry.

+

+Still the enemy had the money, and on that important point could

+overpower us like ten for one, and did. Here and there went their

+agents, sowing sly riches in the hope of a harvest of votes. To

+counteract this still-hunt where the argument was cash, I sent the word

+abroad that our people were to take the money and promise votes. Then

+they were to break the promise.

+

+“Bunco the foe!” was the watchword; “take their money and 'con' them!”

+

+This instruction was deemed necessary for our safety. I educated our men

+to the thought that the more money they got by these methods, the higher

+they would stand with Big Kennedy and me. If it were not for this,

+hundreds would have taken a price, and then, afraid to come back to

+us, might have gone with the banners of the enemy for that campaign at

+least. Now they would get what they could, and wear it for a feather

+in their caps. They exulted in such enterprise; it was spoiling the

+Egyptian; having filled their pockets they would return and make a brag

+of the fact. By these schemes we kept our strength. The enemy parted

+with money by the thousands, yet never the vote did they obtain. The

+goods failed of delivery.

+

+Sheeny Joe was a handy man to Big Kennedy. He owned no rank; but

+voluble, active, well dressed, and ready with his money across a barroom

+counter, he grew to have a value. Not once in those years which fell in

+between our encounter on the dock and this time I have in memory, did

+Sheeny Joe express aught save friendship for me. His nose was queer

+of contour as the result of my handiwork, but he met the blemish in a

+spirit of philosophy and displayed no rancors against me as the author

+thereof. On the contrary, he was friendly to the verge of fulsome.

+

+Sheeny Joe sold himself to the opposition, hoof and hide and horn. Nor

+was this a mock disposal of himself, although he gave Big Kennedy and

+myself to suppose he still held by us in his heart. No, it wasn't the

+money that changed him; rather I should say that for all his pretenses,

+his hankerings of revenge against me had never slept. It was now he

+believed his day to compass it had come. The business was no more no

+less than a sheer bald plot to take my life, with Sheeny Joe to lie

+behind it--the bug of evil under the dark chip.

+

+It was in the early evening at my own home. Sheeny Joe came and called

+me to the door, and all in a hustle of hurry.

+

+“Big Kennedy wants you to come at once to the Tub of Blood,” said Sheeny

+Joe.

+

+The Tub of Blood was a hang-out for certain bludgeon-wielding thugs who

+lived by the coarser crimes of burglary and highway robbery. It was

+suspected by Big Kennedy and myself as a camping spot for “repeaters”

+ whom the enemy had been at pains to import against us. We had it then in

+plan to set the Tin Whistles to the sacking of it three days before the

+vote.

+

+On this word from Sheeny Joe, and thinking that some new programme was

+afoot, I set forth for the Tub of Blood. As I came through the door, a

+murderous creature known as Strong-Arm Dan was busy polishing glasses

+behind the bar. He looked up, and giving a nod toward a door in the

+rear, said:

+

+“They want you inside.”

+

+The moment I set foot within that rear door, I saw how it was a trap.

+There were a round dozen waiting, and each the flower of a desperate

+flock.

+

+In the first surprise of it I did not speak, but instinctively got the

+wall to my back. As I faced them they moved uneasily, half rising from

+their chairs, growling, but speaking no word. Their purpose was to

+attack me; yet they hung upon the edge of the enterprise, apparently in

+want of a leader. I was not a yard from the door, and having advantage

+of their slowness began making my way in that direction. They saw that

+I would escape, and yet they couldn't spur their courage to the leap.

+It was my perilous repute as a hitter from the shoulder that stood my

+friend that night.

+

+At last I reached the door. Opening it with my hand behind me, my eyes

+still on the glaring hesitating roughs, I stepped backward into the main

+room.

+

+“Good-night, gentlemen,” was all I said.

+

+“You'll set up the gin, won't you?” cried one, finding his voice.

+

+“Sure!” I returned, and I tossed Strong-Arm Dan a gold piece as I passed

+the bar. “Give'em what they want while it lasts,” said I.

+

+That demand for gin mashed into the teeth of my thoughts like the cogs

+of a wheel. It would hold that precious coterie for twenty minutes. When

+I got into the street, I caught the shadow of Sheeny Joe as he twisted

+around the corner.

+

+It was a half-dozen blocks from the Tub of Blood that I blew the

+gathering call of the Tin Whistles. They came running like hounds to

+huntsman. Ten minutes later the Tub of Blood lay a pile of ruins, while

+Strong-Arm Dan and those others, surprised in the midst of that guzzling

+I had paid for, with heads and faces a hash of wounds and blood and

+the fear of death upon them, were running or staggering or crawling for

+shelter, according to what strength remained with them.

+

+“It's plain,” said Big Kennedy, when I told of the net that Sheeny Joe

+had spread for me, “it's plain that you haven't shed your milk-teeth

+yet. However, you'll be older by an' by, an' then you won't follow off

+every band of music that comes playin' down the street. No, I don't

+blame Sheeny Joe; politics is like draw-poker, an' everybody's got a

+right to fill his hand if he can. Still, while I don't blame him, it's

+up to us to get hunk an' even on th' play.” Here Big Kennedy pondered

+for the space of a minute. Then he continued: “I think we'd better make

+it up-the-river--better railroad the duffer. Discipline's been gettin'

+slack of late, an' an example will work in hot an' handy. The next crook

+won't pass us out the double-cross when he sees what comes off in th'

+case of Sheeny Joe.”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII--THE FATE OF SHEENY JOE

+

+

+BIG KENNEDY'S suggestion of Sing Sing for Sheeny Joe did not fit with

+my fancy. Not that a cropped head and a suit of stripes would have been

+misplaced in the instance of Sheeny Joe, but I had my reputation to

+consider. It would never do for a first bruiser of his day to fall back

+on the law for protection. Such coward courses would shake my standing

+beyond recovery. It would have disgraced the Tin Whistles; thereafter,

+in that vigorous brotherhood, my commands would have earned naught save

+laughter. To arrest Sheeny Joe would be to fly in the face of the Tin

+Whistles and their dearest ethics. When to this I called Big Kennedy's

+attention, he laughed as one amused.

+

+“You don't twig!” said he, recovering a partial gravity. “I'm goin' to

+send him over th' road for robbery.”

+

+“But he hasn't robbed anybody!”

+

+Big Kennedy made a gesture of impatience, mixed with despair.

+

+“Here!” said he at last, “I'll give you a flash of what I'm out to do

+an' why I'm out to do it. I'm goin' to put Sheeny Joe away to stiffen

+discipline. He's sold himself, an' th' whole ward knows it. Now I'm

+goin' to show'em what happens to a turncoat, as a hunch to keep their

+coats on right side out, d'ye see.”

+

+“But you spoke of a robbery!” I interjected; “Sheeny Joe has robbed no

+one.”

+

+“I'm gettin' to that,” returned Big Kennedy, with a repressive wave of

+his broad palm, “an' I can see that you yourself have a lot to learn.

+Listen: If I knew of any robbery Sheeny Joe had pulled off, I wouldn't

+have him lagged for that; no, not if he'd taken a jimmy an' cracked

+a dozen bins. There'd be no lesson in sendin' a duck over th' road

+in that. Any old woman could have him pinched for a crime he's really

+pulled off. To leave an impression on these people, you must send a

+party up for what he hasn't done. Then they understand.”

+

+For all Big Kennedy's explanation, I still lived in the dark. I made no

+return, however, either of comment or question; I considered that I had

+only to look on, and Big Kennedy's purpose would elucidate itself. Big

+Kennedy and I were in the sanctum that opened off his barroom. He called

+one of his barmen.

+

+“Billy, you know where to find the Rat?” Then, when the other nodded:

+“Go an' tell the Rat I want him.”

+

+“Who is the Rat?” I queried. I had never heard of the Rat.

+

+“He's a pickpocket,” responded Big Kennedy, “an' as fly a dip as ever

+nipped a watch or copped a leather.”

+

+The Rat belonged on the west side of the town, which accounted for my

+having failed of his acquaintance. Big Kennedy was sure his man would

+find him.

+

+“For he grafts nights,” said Big Kennedy, “an' at this time of day it's

+a cinch he's takin' a snooze. A pickpocket has to have plenty of sleep

+to keep his hooks from shakin'.”

+

+While we were waiting the coming of the Rat, one of the barmen entered

+to announce a caller. He whispered a word in Big Kennedy's ear.

+

+“Sure!” said he. “Tell him to come along.”

+

+The gentleman whom the barman had announced, and who was a young

+clergyman, came into the room. Big Kennedy gave him a hearty handshake,

+while his red face radiated a welcome.

+

+“What is it, Mr. Bronson?” asked Big Kennedy pleasantly; “what can I do

+for you?”

+

+The young clergyman's purpose was to ask assistance for a mission which

+he proposed to start near the Five Points.

+

+“Certainly,” said Big Kennedy, “an' not a moment to wait!” With that he

+gave the young clergyman one hundred dollars.

+

+When that gentleman, after expressing his thanks, had departed, Big

+Kennedy sighed.

+

+“I've got no great use for a church,” he said. “I never bought a gold

+brick yet that wasn't wrapped in a tract. But it's no fun to get a

+preacher down on you. One of'em can throw stones enough to smash every

+window in Tammany Hall. Your only show with the preachers is to flatter

+'em;--pass'em out the flowers. Most of 'em's as pleased with flattery as

+a girl. Yes indeed,” he concluded, “I can paste bills on 'em so long as

+I do it with soft soap.”

+

+The Rat was a slight, quiet individual and looked the young physician

+rather than the pickpocket. His hands were delicate, and he wore gloves

+the better to keep them in condition. His step and air were as quiet as

+those of a cat.

+

+“I want a favor,” said Big Kennedy, addressing the Rat, “an' I've got

+to go to one of the swell mob to get it. That's why I sent for you, d'ye

+see! It takes someone finer than a bricklayer to do th' work.”

+

+The Rat was uneasily questioning my presence with his eye. Big Kennedy

+paused to reassure him.

+

+“He's th' straight goods,” said Big Kennedy, speaking in a tone wherein

+were mingled resentment and reproach. “You don't s'ppose I'd steer you

+ag'inst a brace?”

+

+The Rat said never a word, but his glance left me and he gave entire

+heed to Big Kennedy.

+

+“This is the proposition,” resumed Big Kennedy. “You know Sheeny Joe.

+Shadow him; swing and rattle with him no matter where he goes. The

+moment you see a chance, get a pocketbook an' put it away in his

+clothes. When th' roar goes up, tell th' loser where to look. Are you

+on? Sheeny Joe must get th' collar, an' I want him caught with th'

+goods, d'ye see.”

+

+“I don't have to go to court ag'inst him?” said the Rat interrogatively.

+

+“No,” retorted Big Kennedy, a bit explosively. “You'd look about as well

+in th' witness box as I would in a pulpit. No, you shift th' leather.

+Then give th' party who's been touched th' office to go after Sheeny

+Joe. After that you can screw out; that's as far as you go.”

+

+It was the next evening at the ferry. Suddenly a cry went up.

+

+“Thief! Thief! My pocketbook is gone!”

+

+The shouts found source in a broad man. He was top-heavy with too much

+beer, but clear enough to realize that his money had disappeared. The

+Rat, sly, small, clean, inconspicuous, was at his shoulder.

+

+“There's your man!” whispered the Rat, pointing to Sheeny Joe, whose

+footsteps he had been dogging the livelong day; “there's your man!”

+

+In a moment the broad man had thrown himself upon Sheeny Joe.

+

+“Call the police!” he yelled. “He's got my pocket-book!”

+

+The officer pulled him off Sheeny Joe, whom he had thrown to the ground

+and now clung to with the desperation of the robbed.

+

+“Give me a look in!” said the officer, thrusting the broad man aside.

+“If he's got your leather we'll find it.”

+

+Sheeny Joe was breathless with the surprise and fury of the broad man's

+descent upon him. The officer ran his hand over the outside of Sheeny

+Joe's coat, holding him meanwhile fast by the collar. Then he slipped

+his hand inside, and drew forth a chubby pocketbook.

+

+“That's it!” screamed the broad man, “that's my wallet with over six

+hundred dollars in it! The fellow stole it!”

+

+“It's a plant!” gasped Sheeny Joe, his face like ashes. Then to the

+crowd: “Will somebody go fetch Big John Kennedy? He knows me; he'll say

+I'm square!”

+

+Big Kennedy arrived at the station as the officer, whose journey was

+slow because of the throng, came in with Sheeny Joe. Big Kennedy

+heard the stories of the officer and the broad man with all imaginable

+patience. Then a deep frown began to knot his brow. He waved Sheeny Joe

+aside with a gesture that told of virtuous indignation.

+

+“Lock him up!” cried Big Kennedy. “If he'd slugged somebody, even if

+he'd croaked him, I'd have stuck to him till th' pen'tentiary doors

+pinched my fingers. But I've no use for a crook. Sing Sing's th' place

+for him! It's just such fine workers as him who disgrace th' name of

+Tammany Hall. They lift a leather, an' they make Tammany a cover for th'

+play.”

+

+“Are you goin' back on me?” wailed Sheeny Joe.

+

+“Put him inside!” said Big Kennedy to the officer in charge of the

+station. Then, to Sheeny Joe, with the flicker of a leer: “Why don't you

+send to the Tub of Blood?”

+

+“Shall I take bail for him, Mr. Kennedy, if any shows up?” asked the

+officer in charge.

+

+“No; no bail!” replied Big Kennedy. “If anyone offers, tell him I don't

+want it done.”

+

+It was three weeks later when Sheeny Joe was found guilty, and sentenced

+to prison for four years. The broad man, the police officer, and divers

+who at the time of his arrest were looking on, come forward as witnesses

+against Sheeny Joe, and twelve honest dullards who called themselves a

+jury, despite his protestations that he was “being jobbed,” instantly

+declared him guilty. Sheeny Joe, following his sentence, was dragged

+from the courtroom, crying and cursing the judge, the jury, the

+witnesses, but most of all Big Kennedy.

+

+Nor do I think Big Kennedy's agency in drawing down this fate upon

+Sheeny Joe was misunderstood by ones with whom it was meant to pass

+for warning. I argue this from what was overheard by me as we left the

+courtroom where Sheeny Joe was sentenced. The two in conversation were

+walking a pace in advance of me.

+

+“He got four spaces!” said one in an awed whisper.

+

+“He's dead lucky not to go for life!” exclaimed the other. “How much of

+the double-cross do you guess now Big Kennedy will stand? I've seen a

+bloke take a slab in th' morgue for less. It was Benny the Bite; he gets

+a knife between his slats.”

+

+“What's it all about, Jawn?” asked Old Mike, who later sat in private

+review of the case of Sheeny Joe. “Why are you puttin' a four-year

+smother on that laad?”

+

+“It's gettin' so,” explained Big Kennedy, “that these people of ours

+look on politics as a kind of Virginny reel. It's first dance on one

+side an' then cross to th' other. There's a bundle of money ag'inst us,

+big enough to trip a dog, an' discipline was givin' way. Our men could

+smell th' burnin' money an' it made 'em crazy. Somethin' had to come off

+to sober 'em, an' teach 'em discipline, an' make 'em sing 'Home, Sweet

+Home'!”

+

+“It's all right, then!” declared Old Mike decisively.

+

+“The main thing is to kape up th' organization! Better twinty like that

+Sheeny Joe should learn th' lockstep than weaken Tammany Hall. Besides,

+I'm not like th' law. I belave in sindin' folks to prison, not for what

+they do, but for what they are. An' this la-ad was a har-rd crackther.”

+

+The day upon which Sheeny Joe went to his prison was election day.

+Tammany Hall took possession of the town; and for myself, I was made an

+alderman by a majority that counted into the skies.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX--HOW BIG KENNEDY BOLTED

+

+

+BEFORE I abandon the late election in its history to the keeping of time

+past, there is an episode, or, if you will, an accident, which should

+find relation. Of itself it would have come and gone, and been of brief

+importance, save for an incident to make one of its elements, which in

+a later pinch to come of politics brought me within the shadow of a

+gibbet.

+

+Busy with my vote-getting, I had gone to the docks to confer with the

+head of a certain gang of stevedores. These latter were hustling up and

+down the gangplanks, taking the cargo out of a West India coffee boat.

+The one I had come seeking was aboard the vessel.

+

+I pushed towards the after gangplank, and as I reached it I stepped

+aside to avoid one coming ashore with a huge sack of coffee on his

+shoulders. Not having my eyes about me, I caught my toe in a ringbolt

+and stumbled with a mighty bump against a sailor who was standing on

+the string-piece of the wharf. With nothing to save him, and a six-foot

+space opening between the wharf and the ship, the man fell into the

+river with a cry and a splash. He went to the bottom like so much

+pig-iron, for he could not swim.

+

+It was the work of a moment to throw off my coat and go after him. I was

+as much at ease in the water as a spaniel, and there would be nothing

+more dangerous than a ducking in the experiment. I dived and came up

+with the drowning man in my grip. For all his peril, he took it coolly

+enough, and beyond spluttering, and puffing, and cracking off a jargon

+of oaths, added no difficulties to the task of saving his life. We

+gained help from the dock, and it wasn't five minutes before we found

+the safe planks beneath our feet again.

+

+The man who had gone overboard so unexpectedly was a keen small dark

+creature of a Sicilian, and to be noticed for his black eyes, a red

+handkerchief over his head, and ears looped with golden earrings.

+

+“No harm done, I think?” said I, when we were both ashore again.

+

+“I lose-a my knife,” said he with a grin, the water dripping from his

+hair. He was pointing to the empty scabbard at his belt where he had

+carried a sheath-knife.

+

+“It was my blunder,” said I, “and if you'll hunt me up at Big Kennedy's

+this evening I'll have another for you.”

+

+That afternoon, at a pawnshop in the Bowery, I bought a strange-looking

+weapon, that was more like a single-edged dagger than anything else. It

+had a buck-horn haft, and was heavy and long, with a blade of full nine

+inches.

+

+My Sicilian came, as I had told him, and I gave him the knife. He was

+extravagant in his gratitude.

+

+“You owe me nothing!” he cried. “It is I who owe for my life that you

+save. But I shall take-a the knife to remember how you pull me out. You

+good-a man; some day I pull you out--mebby so! who knows?”

+

+With that he was off for the docks again, leaving me neither to hear nor

+to think of him thereafter for a stirring handful of years.

+

+It occurred to me as strange, even in a day when I gave less time to

+thought than I do now, that my first impulse as an alderman should be

+one of revenge. There was that police captain, who, in the long ago,

+offered insult to Anne, when she came to beg for my liberty. “Better

+get back to your window,” said he, “or all the men will have left the

+street!” The memory of that evil gibe had never ceased to burn me with

+the hot anger of a coal of fire, and now I resolved for his destruction.

+

+When I told Big Kennedy, he turned the idea on his wheel of thought for

+full two minutes.

+

+“It's your right,” said he at last. “You've got the ax; you're entitled

+to his head. But say! pick him up on proper charges; get him dead to

+rights! That aint hard, d'ye see, for he's as crooked as a dog's hind

+leg. To throw him for some trick he's really turned will bunco these

+reform guys into thinkin' that we're on th' level.”

+

+The enterprise offered no complexities. A man paid that captain money to

+save from suppression a resort of flagrant immorality. The bribery

+was laid bare; he was overtaken in this plain corruption; and next, my

+combinations being perfect, I broke him as I might break a stick across

+my knee. He came to me in private the following day.

+

+“What have I done?” said he. “Can I square it?”

+

+“Never!” I retorted; “there's some things one can't square.” Then I told

+him of Anne, and his insult.

+

+“That's enough,” he replied, tossing his hand resignedly. “I can take my

+medicine when it's come my turn.”

+

+For all that captain's stoicism, despair rang in his tones, and as he

+left me, the look in his eye was one to warm the cockles of my heart and

+feed my soul with comfort.

+

+“Speakin' for myself,” said Big Kennedy, in the course of comment, “I

+don't go much on revenge. Still when it costs nothin', I s'ppose

+you might as well take it in. Besides, it shows folks that there's a

+dead-line in th' game. The wise ones will figger that this captain held

+out on us, or handed us th' worst of it on th' quiet. The example of him

+gettin' done up will make others run true.”

+

+Several years slipped by wherein as alderman I took my part in the

+town's affairs. I was never a talking member, and gained no glory for my

+eloquence. But what I lacked of rhetoric, I made up in stubborn loyalty

+to Tammany, and I never failed to dispose of my vote according to its

+mandates.

+

+It was not alone my right, but my duty to do this. I had gone to the

+polls the avowed candidate of the machine. There was none to vote for

+me who did not know that my public courses would be shaped and guided by

+the organization. I was free to assume, therefore, being thus elected as

+a Tammany member by folk informed to a last expression of all that the

+phrase implied, that I was bound to carry out the Tammany programmes and

+execute the Tammany orders. Where a machine and its laws are known, the

+people when they lift to office one proposed of that machine, thereby

+direct such officer to submit himself to its direction and conform to

+its demands.

+

+There will be ones to deny this. And these gentry of denials will be

+plausible, and furnish the thought of an invincible purity for their

+assumptions. They should not, however, be too sure for their theories.

+They themselves may be the ones in error. They should reflect

+that wherever there dwells a Yes there lives also a No. These

+contradictionists should emulate my own forbearance.

+

+I no more claim to be wholly right for my attitude of implicit obedience

+to the machine, than I condemn as wholly wrong their own position of

+boundless denunciation. There is no man so bad he may not be defended;

+there lives none so good he does not need defense; and what I say of a

+man might with equal justice be said of any dogma of politics. As I set

+forth in my preface, the true and the false, the black and the white in

+politics will rest ever with the point of view.

+

+During my years as an alderman I might have made myself a wealthy man.

+And that I did not do so, was not because I had no profit of the place.

+As the partner, unnamed, in sundry city contracts, riches came often

+within my clutch. But I could not keep them; I was born with both hands

+open and had the hold of money that a riddle has of water.

+

+This want of a money wit is a defect of my nature. A great merchant late

+in my life once said to me:

+

+“Commerce--money-getting--is like a sea, and every man, in large or

+little sort, is a mariner. Some are buccaneers, while others are sober

+merchantmen. One lives by taking prizes, the other by the proper gains

+of trade. You belong to the buccaneers by your birth. You are not a

+business man, but a business wolf. Being a wolf, you will waste and

+never save. Your instinct is to pull down each day's beef each day.

+You should never buy nor sell nor seek to make money with money. Your

+knowledge of money is too narrow. Up to fifty dollars you are wise.

+Beyond that point you are the greatest dunce I ever met.”

+

+Thus lectured the man of markets, measuring sticks, and scales; and

+while I do not think him altogether exact, there has been much in my

+story to bear out what he said. It was not that I wasted my money in

+riot, or in vicious courses. My morals were good, and I had no vices.

+This was not much to my credit; my morals were instinctive, like

+the morals of an animal. My one passion was for politics, and my one

+ambition the ambition to lead men. Nor was I eager to hold office; my

+hope went rather to a day when I should rule Tammany as its Chief. My

+genius was not for the show ring; I cared nothing for a gilded place.

+That dream of my heart's wish was to be the power behind the screen,

+and to put men up and take men down, place them and move them about, and

+play at government as one might play at chess. Still, while I dreamed

+of an unbridled day to come, I was for that the more sedulous to execute

+the orders of Big Kennedy. I had not then to learn that the art of

+command is best studied in the art of obedience.

+

+To be entirely frank, I ought to name the one weakness that beset me,

+and which more than any spendthrift tendency lost me my fortune as fast

+as it flowed in. I came never to be a gambler in the card or gaming

+table sense, but I was inveterate to wager money on a horse. While money

+lasted, I would bet on the issue of every race that was run, and I was

+made frequently bankrupt thereby. However, I have said enough of my want

+of capacity to hoard. I was young and careless; moreover, with my place

+as alderman, and that sovereignty I still held among the Red Jackets,

+when my hand was empty I had but to stretch it forth to have it filled

+again.

+

+In my boyhood I went garbed of rags and patches. Now when money came,

+I sought the first tailor of the town. I went to him drawn of his high

+prices; for I argued, and I think sagaciously, that where one pays the

+most one gets the best.

+

+Nor, when I found that tailor, did I seek to direct him in his labors.

+I put myself in his hands, and was guided to quiet blacks and grays, and

+at his hint gave up thoughts of those plaids and glaring checks to which

+my tastes went hungering. That tailor dressed me like a gentleman and

+did me a deal of good. I am not one to say that raiment makes the man,

+and yet I hold that it has much to do with the man's behavior. I can say

+in my own case that when I was thus garbed like a gentleman, my conduct

+was at once controlled in favor of the moderate. I was instantly ironed

+of those rougher wrinkles of my nature, which last, while neither noisy

+nor gratuitously violent, was never one of peace.

+

+The important thing was that these clothes of gentility gave me

+multiplied vogue with ones who were peculiarly my personal followers.

+They earned me emphasis with my Red Jackets, who still bore me aloft as

+their leader, and whose favor I must not let drift. The Tin Whistles,

+too, drew an awe from this rich yet civil uniform which strengthened my

+authority in that muscular quarter. I had grown, as an alderman and that

+one next in ward power to Big Kennedy, to a place which exempted me

+from those harsher labors of fist and bludgeon in which, whenever the

+exigencies of a campaign demanded, the Tin Whistles were still employed.

+But I claimed my old mastery over them. I would not permit so hardy

+a force to go to another's hands, and while I no longer led their war

+parties, I was always in the background, giving them direction and

+stopping them when they went too far.

+

+It was demanded of my safety that I retain my hold upon both the Tin

+Whistles and the Red Jackets. However eminent I might be, I was by no

+means out of the ruck, and my situation was to be sustained only by the

+strong hand. The Tin Whistles and the Red Jackets were the sources of my

+importance, and if my voice were heeded or my word owned weight it was

+because they stood ever ready to my call. Wherefore, I cultivated their

+favor, secured my place among them, while at the same time I forced them

+to obey to the end that they as well as I be preserved.

+

+Those clothes of a gentleman not only augmented, but declared my

+strength. In that time a fine coat was an offense to ones more coarsely

+clothed. A well-dressed stranger could not have walked three blocks on

+the East Side without being driven to do battle for his life. Fine

+linen was esteemed a challenge, and that I should be so arrayed and

+go unscathed, proved not alone my popularity, but my dangerous repute.

+Secretly, it pleased my shoulder-hitters to see their captain so garbed;

+and since I could defend my feathers, they made of themselves another

+reason of leadership. I was growing adept of men, and I counted on this

+effect when I spent my money with that tailor.

+

+While I thus lay aside for the moment the running history of events

+that were as the stepping stones by which I crossed from obscurity

+and poverty to power and wealth, to have a glance at myself in my more

+personal attitudes, I should also relate my marriage and how I took a

+wife. It was Anne who had charge of the business, and brought me this

+soft victory. Had it not been for Anne, I more than half believe I

+would have had no wife at all; for I was eaten of an uneasy awkwardness

+whenever my fate delivered me into the presence of a girl. However

+earnestly Anne might counsel, I had no more of parlor wisdom than a

+savage, Anne, while sighing over my crudities and the hopeless thickness

+of my wits, established herself as a bearward to supervise my conduct.

+She picked out my wife for me, and in days when I should have been

+a lover, but was a graven image and as stolid, carried forward the

+courting in my stead.

+

+It was none other than Apple Cheek upon whom Anne pitched--Apple Cheek,

+grown rounder and more fair, with locks like cornsilk, and eyes of

+even a deeper blue than on that day of the docks. Anne had struck out a

+friendship for Apple Cheek from the beginning, and the two were much in

+one another's company. And so one day, by ways and means I was too much

+confused to understand, Anne had us before the priest. We were made

+husband and wife; Apple Cheek brave and sweet, I looking like a fool in

+need of keepers.

+

+Anne, the architect of this bliss, was in tears; and yet she must have

+kept her head, for I remember how she recalled me to the proprieties of

+my new station.

+

+“Why don't you kiss your bride!” cried Anne, at the heel of the

+ceremony.

+

+Anne snapped out the words, and they rang in my delinquent ears like a

+storm bell. Apple Cheek, eyes wet to be a match for Anne's, put up her

+lips with all the courage in the world. I kissed her, much as one

+might salute a hot flatiron. Still I kissed her; and I think to the

+satisfaction of a church-full looking on; but I knew what men condemned

+have felt on that journey to block and ax.

+

+Apple Cheek and her choice of me made up the sweetest fortune of my

+life, and now when I think of her it is as if I stood in a flood of

+sunshine. So far as I was able, I housed her and robed her as though she

+were the daughter of a king, and while I have met treason in others and

+desertion where I looked for loyalty, I held her heart-fast, love-fast,

+faith-fast, ever my own. She was my treasure, and when she died it was

+as though my own end had come.

+

+Big Kennedy and the then Chief of Tammany, during my earlier years as

+alderman, were as Jonathan and David. They were ever together, and their

+plans and their interests ran side by side. At last they began to fall

+apart. Big Kennedy saw a peril in this too-close a partnership, and was

+for putting distance between them. It was Old Mike who thus counseled

+him. The aged one became alarmed by the raw and insolent extravagance of

+the Chief's methods.

+

+“Th' public,” said Old Mike, “is a sheep, while ye do no more than

+just rob it. But if ye insult it, it's a wolf. Now this man insults

+th' people. Better cut loose from him, Jawn; he'll get ye all tor-rn to

+pieces.”

+

+The split came when, by suggestion of Old Mike and

+

+Big Kennedy, I refused to give my vote as alderman to a railway company

+asking a terminal. There were millions of dollars in the balance, and

+without my vote the machine and the railway company were powerless. The

+stress was such that the mighty Chief himself came down to Big Kennedy's

+saloon--a sight to make men stare!

+

+The two, for a full hour, were locked in Big Kennedy's sanctum; when

+they appeared I could read in the black anger that rode on the brow of

+the Chief how Big Kennedy had declined his orders, and now stood ready

+to abide the worst. Big Kennedy, for his side, wore an air of confident

+serenity, and as I looked at the pair and compared them, one black, the

+other beaming, I was surprised into the conviction that Big Kennedy of

+the two was the superior natural force. As the Chief reached the curb he

+said:

+

+“You know the meaning of this. I shall tear you in two in the middle an'

+leave you on both sides of the street!”

+

+“If you do, I'll never squeal,” returned Big Kennedy carelessly. “But

+you can't; I've got you counted. I can hold the ward ag'inst all you'll

+send. An' you look out for yourself! I'll throw a switch on you yet

+that'll send you to th' scrapheap.”

+

+“I s'ppose you think you know what you're doin'?” said the other

+angrily.

+

+“You can put a bet on it that I do,” retorted Big Kennedy. “I wasn't

+born last week.”

+

+That evening as we sat silent and thoughtful, Big Kennedy broke forth

+with a word.

+

+“I've got it! You're on speakin' terms with that old duffer, Morton,

+who's forever talkin' about bein' a taxpayer. He likes you, since you

+laid out Jimmy the Blacksmith that time. See him, an' fill him up with

+th' notion that he ought to go to Congress. It won't be hard; he's sure

+he ought to go somewhere, an' Congress will fit him to a finish. In two

+days he'll think he's on his way to be a second Marcy. Tell him that if

+his people will put him up, we'll join dogs with 'em an' pull down th'

+place. You can say that we can't stand th' dishonesty an' corruption

+at th' head of Tammany Hall, an' are goin' to make a bolt for better

+government. We'll send the old sport to Congress. He'll give us a bundle

+big enough to fight the machine, an' plank dollar for dollar with it.

+An' it'll put us in line for a hook-up with th' reform bunch in th'

+fight for th' town next year. It's the play to make; we're goin' to see

+stormy weather, you an' me, an' it's our turn to make for cover. We'll

+put up this old party, Morton, an' give th' machine a jolt. Th' Chief'll

+leave me on both sides of th' street, will he? I'll make him think,

+before he's through, that he's run ag'inst th' pole of a dray.”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X--HOW JIMMY THE BLACKSMITH DIED

+

+

+BIG KENNEDY was right; the reputable old gentleman rose to that lure

+of Congress like any bass to any fly. It was over in a trice, those

+preliminaries; he was proud to be thus called upon to serve the people.

+Incidentally, it restored his hope in the country's future to hear that

+such tried war-dogs of politics as Big Kennedy and myself were making a

+line of battle against dishonesty in place. These and more were said

+to me by the reputable old gentleman when I bore him that word how Big

+Kennedy and I were ready to be his allies. The reputable old gentleman

+puffed and glowed with the sheer glory of my proposal, and seemed

+already to regard his election as a thing secured.

+

+In due course, his own tribe placed him in nomina-ton. That done, Big

+Kennedy called a meeting of his people and declared for the reputable

+old gentleman's support. Big Kennedy did not wait to be attacked by

+the Tammany machine; he took the initiative and went to open rebellion,

+giving as his reason the machine's corruption.

+

+“Tammany Hall has fallen into the hands of thieves!” shouted Big

+Kennedy, in a short but pointed address which he made to his

+clansmen. “As an honest member of Tammany, I am fighting to rescue the

+organization.”

+

+In its way, the move was a master-stroke. It gave us the high ground,

+since it left us still in the party, still in Tammany Hall. It gave us a

+position and a battle-cry, and sent us into the conflict with a cleaner

+fame than it had been our wont to wear.

+

+In the beginning, the reputable old gentleman paid a pompous visit to

+Big Kennedy. Like all who saw that leader, the reputable old gentleman

+came to Big Kennedy's saloon. This last was a point upon which Big

+Kennedy never failed to insist.

+

+“Th' man,” said Big Kennedy, “who's too good to go into a saloon, is too

+good to go into politics; if he's goin' to dodge th' one, he'd better

+duck the' other.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman met this test of the barrooms, and qualified

+for politics without a quaver. Had a barroom been the shelter of his

+infancy, he could not have worn a steadier assurance. As he entered,

+he laid a bill on the bar for the benefit of the public then and there

+athirst. Next he intimated a desire to talk privately with Big Kennedy,

+and set his course for the sanctum as though by inspiration. Big Kennedy

+called me to the confab; closing the door behind us, we drew together

+about the table.

+

+“Let's cut out th' polite prelim'naries,” said Big Kennedy, “an' come

+down to tacks. How much stuff do you feel like blowin' in?”

+

+“How much should it take?” asked the reputable old gentleman.

+

+“Say twenty thousand!” returned Big Kennedy, as cool as New Year's Day.

+

+“Twenty thousand dollars!” repeated the reputable old gentleman, with

+wide eyes. “Will it call for so much as that?”

+

+“If you're goin' to put in money, put in enough to win. There's no sense

+puttin' in just enough to lose. Th' other fellows will come into th'

+district with money enough to burn a wet dog. We've got to break even

+with 'em, or they'll have us faded from th' jump.”

+

+“But what can you do with so much?” asked the reputable old gentleman

+dismally. “It seems a fortune! What would you do with it?”

+

+“Mass meetin's, bands, beer, torches, fireworks, halls; but most of all,

+buy votes.”

+

+“Buy votes!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman, his cheek paling.

+

+“Buy 'em by th' bunch, like a market girl sells radishes!” Then, seeing

+the reputable old gentleman's horror: “How do you s'ppose you're goin'

+to get votes? You don't think that these dock-wallopers an' river

+pirates are stuck on you personally, do you?”

+

+“But their interest as citizens! I should think they'd look at that!”

+

+“Their first interest as citizens,” observed Big Kennedy, with a cynical

+smile, “is a five-dollar bill.”

+

+“But do you think it right to purchase votes?” asked the reputable old

+gentleman, with a gasp.

+

+“Is it right to shoot a man? No. Is it right to shoot a man if he's

+shootin' at you? Yes. Well, these mugs are goin' to buy votes, an' keep

+at it early an' late. Which is why I say it's dead right to buy votes to

+save yourself. Besides, you're th' best man; it's th' country's welfare

+we're protectin', d'ye see!”

+

+The reputable old gentleman remained for a moment in deep thought. Then

+he got upon his feet to go.

+

+“I'll send my son to talk with you,” he said. Then faintly: “I guess

+this will be all right.”

+

+“There's somethin' you've forgot,” said Big Kennedy with a chuckle,

+as he shook hands with the reputable old gentleman when the latter was

+about to depart; “there's a bet you've overlooked.” Then, as the other

+seemed puzzled: “You aint got off your bluff about bein' a taxpayer.

+But, I understand! This is exec'tive session, an' that crack about bein'

+a taxpayer is more of a public utterance. You're keepin' it for th'

+stump, most likely.”

+

+“I'll send my son to you to-night,” repeated the reputable old

+gentleman, too much in the fog of Big Kennedy's generous figures to heed

+his jests about taxpayers. “He'll be here about eight o'clock.”

+

+“That's right!” said Big Kennedy. “The sooner we get th' oil, th' sooner

+we'll begin to light up.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman kept his word concerning his son and that

+young gentleman's advent. The latter was with us at eight, sharp, and

+brought two others of hard appearance to bear him company as a kind of

+bodyguard. The young gentleman was slight and superfine, with eyeglass,

+mustache, and lisp. He accosted Big Kennedy, swinging a dainty cane the

+while in an affected way.

+

+“I'm Mr. Morton--Mr. James Morton,” he drawled. “You know my father.”

+

+Once in the sanctum, and none save Big Kennedy and myself for company,

+young Morton came to the question.

+

+“My father's running for Congress. But he's old-fashioned; he doesn't

+understand these things.” The tones were confident and sophisticated. I

+began to see how the eyeglass, the cane, and the lisp belied our caller.

+Under his affectations, he was as keen and cool a hand as Big Kennedy

+himself. “No,” he repeated, taking meanwhile a thick envelope from his

+frock-coat, “he doesn't understand. The idea of money shocks him, don't

+y' know.”

+

+“That's it!” returned Big Kennedy, sympathetically. “He's old-fashioned;

+he thinks this thing is like runnin' to be superintendent of a Sunday

+school. He aint down to date.”

+

+“Here,” observed our visitor, tapping the table with the envelope, and

+smiling to find himself and Big Kennedy a unit as to the lamentable

+innocence of his father, “here are twenty one-thousand-dollar bills.

+I didn't draw a check for reasons you appreciate. I shall trust you to

+make the best use of this money. Also, I shall work with you through the

+campaign.”

+

+With that, the young gentleman went his way, humming a tune; and all as

+though leaving twenty thousand dollars in the hands of some chance-sown

+politician was the common employment of his evenings. When he was

+gone, Big Kennedy opened the envelope. There they were; twenty

+one-thousand-dollar bills. Big Kennedy pointed to them as they lay on

+the table.

+

+“There's the reformer for you!” he said. “He'll go talkin' about Tammany

+Hall; but once he himself goes out for an office, he's ready to buy a

+vote or burn a church! But say! that young Morton's all right!” Here Big

+Kennedy's manner betrayed the most profound admiration. “He's as flossy

+a proposition as ever came down th' pike.” Then his glance recurred

+doubtfully to the treasure. “I wish he'd brought it 'round by daylight.

+I'll have to set up with this bundle till th' bank opens. Some fly guy

+might cop a sneak on it else. There's a dozen of my best customers, any

+of whom would croak a man for one of them bills.”

+

+The campaign went forward rough and tumble. Big Kennedy spent money

+like water, the Red Jackets never slept, while the Tin Whistles met the

+plug-uglies of the enemy on twenty hard-fought fields.

+

+The only move unusual, however, was one made by that energetic

+exquisite, young Morton. Young Morton, in the thick from the first, went

+shoulder to shoulder with Big Kennedy and myself. One day he asked us

+over to his personal headquarters.

+

+“You know,” said he, with his exasperating lisp, and daintily adjusting

+his glasses, “how there's a lot of negroes to live over this way--quite

+a settlement of them.”

+

+“Yes,” returned Big Kennedy, “there's about three hundred votes among

+'em. I've never tried to cut in on 'em, because there's no gettin' a

+nigger to vote th' Tammany ticket.”

+

+“Three hundred votes, did you say?” lisped the youthful manager. “I

+shall get six hundred.” Then, to a black who was hovering about: “Call

+in those new recruits.”

+

+Six young blacks, each with a pleasant grin, marched into the room.

+

+“There,” said young Morton, inspecting them with the close air of a

+critic, “they look like the real thing, don't they? Don't you think

+they'll pass muster?”

+

+“An' why not?” said Big Kennedy. “I take it they're game to swear to

+their age, an' have got sense enough to give a house number that's in

+th' district?”

+

+“It's not that,” returned young Morton languidly. “But these fellows

+aren't men, old chap, they're women, don't y' know! It's the clothes

+does it. I'm going to dress up the wenches in overalls and jumpers; it's

+my own little idea.”

+

+“Say!” said Big Kennedy solemnly, as we were on our return; “that young

+Morton beats four kings an' an ace. He's a bird! I never felt so

+much like takin' off my hat to a man in my life. An' to think he's a

+Republican!” Here Big Kennedy groaned over genius misplaced. “There's no

+use talkin'; he ought to be in Tammany Hall.”

+

+The district which was to determine the destinies of the reputable old

+gentleman included two city wards besides the one over which Big Kennedy

+held sway. The campaign was not two weeks old before it stood patent to

+a dullest eye that Big Kennedy, while crowded hard, would hold his place

+as leader in spite of the Tammany Chief and the best efforts he could

+put forth. When this was made apparent, while the strife went forward

+as fiercely as before, the Chief sent overtures to Big Kennedy. If that

+rebellionist would return to the fold of the machine, bygones would be

+bygones, and a feast of love and profit would be spread before him. Big

+Kennedy, when the olive branch was proffered, sent word that he would

+meet the Chief next day. He would be at a secret place he named.

+

+“An' tell him to come alone,” said Big Kennedy to the messenger. “That's

+th' way I'll come; an' if he goes to ringin' in two or three for this

+powwow, you can say to him in advance it's all off.”

+

+Following the going of the messenger, Big Kennedy fell into a brown

+study.

+

+“Do you think you'll deal in again with the Chief and the machine?” I

+asked.

+

+“It depends on what's offered. A song an' dance won't get me.”

+

+“But how about the Mortons? Would you abandon them?”

+

+Big Kennedy looked me over with an eye of pity. Then he placed his hand

+on my head, as on that far-off day in court.

+

+“You're learnin' politics,” said Big Kennedy slowly, “an' you're showin'

+speed. But let me tell you: You must chuck sentiment. Quit th' Mortons?

+I'll quit 'em in a holy minute if th' bid comes strong enough.”

+

+“Would you quit your friends?”

+

+“That's different,” he returned. “No man ought to quit his friends. But

+you must be careful an' never have more'n two or three, d'ye see. Now

+these Mortons aint friends, they're confed'rates. It's as though we

+happened to be members of the same band of porch-climbers, that's all.

+Take it this way: How long do you guess it would take the Mortons to

+sell us out if it matched their little game? How long do you think we'd

+last? Well, we'd last about as long as a drink of whisky.” Big Kennedy

+met the Chief, and came back shaking his head in decisive negative.

+

+“There's nothin' in it,” he said; “he's all for playin' th' hog. It's

+that railway company's deal. Your vote as Alderman, mind you, wins or

+loses it! What do you think now he offers to do? I know what he gets. He

+gets stock, say two hundred thousand dollars, an' one hundred thousand

+dollars in cold cash. An' yet he talks of only splittin' out fifteen

+thousand for you an' me! Enough said; we fight him!”

+

+Jimmy the Blacksmith, when, in response to Big Kennedy's hint, he

+“followed Gaffney,” pitched his tent in the ward next north of our own.

+He made himself useful to the leader of that region, and called together

+a somber bevy which was known as the Alley Gang. With that care for

+himself which had ever marked his conduct, Jimmy the Blacksmith, and

+his Alley Gang, while they went to and fro as shoulder-hitters of

+the machine, were zealous to avoid the Tin Whistles, and never put

+themselves within their reach. On the one or two occasions when the Tin

+Whistles, lusting for collision, went hunting them, the astute Alleyites

+were no more to be discovered than a needle in the hay.

+

+“You couldn't find 'em with a search warrant!” reported my disgusted

+lieutenant. “I never saw such people! They're a disgrace to th' East

+Side.”

+

+However, they were to be found with the last of it, and it would have

+been a happier fortune for me had the event fallen the other way.

+

+It was the day of the balloting, and Big Kennedy and I had taken

+measures to render the result secure. Not only would we hold our ward,

+but the district and the reputable old gentleman were safe. Throughout

+the morning the word that came to us from time to time was ever a white

+one. It was not until the afternoon that information arrived of sudden

+clouds to fill the sky. The news came in the guise of a note from young

+Morton:

+

+“Jimmy the Blacksmith and his heelers are driving our people from the

+polls.”

+

+“You know what to do!” said Big Kennedy, tossing me the scrap of paper.

+

+With the Tin Whistles at my heels, I made my way to the scene of

+trouble. It was full time; for a riot was on, and our men were winning

+the worst of the fray. Clubs were going and stones were being thrown.

+

+In the heart of it, I had a glimpse of Jimmy the Blacksmith, a slungshot

+to his wrist, smiting right and left, and cheering his cohorts. The

+sight gladdened me. There was my man, and I pushed through the crowd to

+reach him. This last was no stubborn matter, for the press parted before

+me like water.

+

+Jimmy the Blacksmith saw me while yet I was a dozen feet from him. He

+understood that he could not escape, and with that he desperately faced

+me. As I drew within reach, he leveled a savage blow with the slungshot.

+It would have put a period to my story if I had met it. The shot

+miscarried, however, and the next moment I had rushed him and pinned him

+against the walls of the warehouse in which the precinct's polls were

+being held.

+

+“I've got you!” I cried, and then wrenched myself free to give me

+distance.

+

+I was to strike no blow, however; my purpose was to find an interruption

+in midswing. While the words were between my teeth, something like

+a sunbeam came flickering by my head, and a long knife buried itself

+vengefully in Jimmy the Blacksmith's throat. There was a choking gurgle;

+the man fell forward upon me while the red torrent from his mouth

+covered my hands. Then he crumpled to the ground in a weltering heap;

+dead on the instant, too, for the point had pierced the spine. In a dumb

+chill of horror, I stooped and drew forth the knife. It was that weapon

+of the Bowery pawnshop which I had given the Sicilian.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI--HOW THE BOSS STOOD AT BAY FOR HIS LIFE

+

+

+WHEN I gave that knife to the Sicilian, I had not thought how on the

+next occasion that I encountered it I should draw it from the throat of

+a dead and fallen enemy. With the sight of it there arose a vision of

+the dark brisk face, the red kerchief, and the golden earrings of him to

+whom it had been presented. In a blurred way I swept the throng for his

+discovery. The Sicilian was not there; my gaze met only the faces of

+the common crowd--ghastly, silent, questioning, staring, as I stood with

+knife dripping blood and the dead man on the ground at my feet. A police

+officer was pushing slowly towards me, his face cloudy with apology.

+

+“You mustn't hold this ag'inst me,” said he, “but you can see yourself,

+I can't turn my blind side to a job like this. They'd have me pegged out

+an' spread-eagled in every paper of th' town.”

+

+“Yes!” I replied vaguely, not knowing what I said. “An' there's th' big

+Tammany Chief you're fightin',” went on the officer; “he'd just about

+have my scalp, sure. I don't see why you did it! Your heart must be

+turnin' weak, when you take to carryin' a shave, an' stickin' people

+like pigs!”

+

+“You don't think I killed him!” I exclaimed.

+

+“Who else?” he asked.

+

+The officer shrugged his shoulders and turned his hands palm upwards

+with a gesture of deprecation. To the question and the gesture I made

+no answer. It came to me that I must give my Sicilian time to escape. I

+could have wished his friendship had taken a less tropical form; still

+he had thrown that knife for me, and I would not name him until he had

+found his ship and was safe beyond the fingers of the law. Even now I

+think my course a proper one. The man innocent has ever that innocence

+to be his shield; he should be ready to suffer a little in favor of ones

+who own no such strong advantage.

+

+It was nine of that evening's clock before Big Kennedy visited me in the

+Tombs. Young Morton came with him, clothed of evening dress and wearing

+white gloves. He twisted his mustache between his kid-gloved finger and

+thumb, meanwhile surveying the grimy interior--a fretwork of steel bars

+and freestone--with looks of ineffable objection. The warden was with

+them in his own high person when they came to my cell. That functionary

+was in a mood of sullen uncertainty; he could not make out a zone of

+safety for himself, when now Big Kennedy and the Tammany Chief were at

+daggers drawn. He feared he might go too far in pleasuring the former,

+and so bring upon him the dangerous resentment of his rival.

+

+“We can't talk here, Dave,” said Big Kennedy, addressing the warden,

+after greeting me through the cell grate. “Bring him to your private

+office.”

+

+“But, Mr. Kennedy,” remonstrated the warden, “I don't know about that.

+It's after lockin'-up hours now.”

+

+“You don't know!” repeated Big Kennedy, the specter of a threat peeping

+from his gray eyes. “An' you're to hand me out a line of guff about

+lockin'-up hours, too! Come, come, Dave; it won't do to get chesty! The

+Chief an' I may be pals to-morrow. Or I may have him done for an' on

+th' run in a month. Where would you be then, Dave? No more words, I say:

+bring him to your private office.”

+

+There was no gainsaying the masterful manner of Big Kennedy. The warden,

+weakened with years of fear of him and his power, grumblingly undid the

+bolts and led the way to his room.

+

+“Deuced wretched quarters, I should say!” murmured young Morton,

+glancing for a moment inside the cell. “Not at all worth cutting a

+throat for.”

+

+When we were in the warden's room, that master of the keys took up a

+position by the door. This was not to Big Kennedy's taste.

+

+“Dave, s'ppose you step outside,” said Big Kennedy.

+

+“It's no use you hearin' what we say; it might get you into trouble,

+d'ye see!” The last, insinuatingly.

+

+“Mr. Kennedy, I'm afraid!” replied the warden, with the voice of one

+worried. “You know the charge is murder. He's here for killin' Jimmy the

+Blacksmith. I've no right to let him out of my sight.”

+

+“To be sure, I know it's murder,” responded Big Kennedy. “I'd be

+plankin' down bail for him if it was anything else. But what's that got

+to do with you skip-pin' into th' hall? You don't think I'm goin' to

+pass him any files or saws, do you?”

+

+“Really, Mr. Warden,” said young Morton, crossing over to where the

+warden lingered irresolutely, “really, you don't expect to stay and

+overhear our conversation! Why, it would be not only impolite, but

+perposterous! Besides, it's not my way, don't y' know!” And here young

+Morton put on his double eyeglass and ran the warden up and down with an

+intolerant stare.

+

+“But he's charged, I tell you,” objected the warden, “with killin' Jimmy

+th' Blacksmith. I can't go to givin' him privileges an' takin' chances;

+I'd get done up if I did.”

+

+“You'll get done up if you don't!” growled Big Kennedy.

+

+“It is as you say,” went on young Morton, still holding the warden

+in the thrall of that wonderful eyeglass, “it is quite true that this

+person, James the Horseshoer as you call him, has been slain and will

+never shoe a horse again. But our friend had no hand in it, as we stand

+ready to spend one hundred thousand dollars to establish. And by

+the way, speaking of money,”--here young Morton turned to Big

+Kennedy--“didn't you say as we came along that it would be proper to

+remunerate this officer for our encroachments upon his time?”

+

+“Why, yes,” replied Big Kennedy, with an ugly glare at the warden, “I

+said that it might be a good idea to sweeten him.”

+

+“Sweeten! Ah, yes; I recall now that sweeten was the term you employed.

+A most extraordinary word for paying money. However,” and here young

+Morton again addressed the warden, tendering him at the same time a

+one-hundred-dollar bill, “here is a small present. Now let us have no

+more words, my good man.”

+

+The warden, softened by the bill, went out and closed the door. I could

+see that he looked on young Morton in wonder and smelled upon him a

+mysterious authority. As one disposed to cement a friendship just begun,

+the warden, as he left, held out his hand to young Morton.

+

+“You're th' proper caper!” he exclaimed, in a gush of encomium; “you're

+a gent of th' right real sort!” Young Morton gazed upon the warden's

+outstretched hand as though it were one of the curious things of nature.

+At. last he extended two fingers, which the warden grasped.

+

+“This weakness for shaking hands,” said young Morton, dusting his gloved

+fingers fastidiously, “this weakness for shaking hands on the part of

+these common people is inexcusable. Still, on the whole, I did not think

+it a best occasion for administering a rebuke, don't y' know, and so

+allowed that low fellow his way.”

+

+“Dave's all right,” returned Big Kennedy. Then coming around to me: “Now

+let's get down to business. You understand how the charge is murder, an'

+that no bail goes. But keep a stiff upper lip. The Chief is out to put

+a crimp in you, but we'll beat him just th' same. For every witness he

+brings, we'll bring two. Do you know who it was croaked th' Blacksmith?”

+

+I told him of the Sicilian; and how I had recognized the knife as I drew

+it from the throat of the dead man.

+

+“It's a cinch he threw it,” said Big Kennedy; “he was in the crowd an'

+saw you mixin' it up with th' Blacksmith, an' let him have it. Them

+Dagoes are great knife throwers. Did you get a flash of him in the

+crowd?”

+

+“No,” I said, “there was no sign of him. I haven't told this story to

+anybody. We ought to give him time to take care of himself.”

+

+“Right you are,” said Big Kennedy approvingly. “He probably jumped

+aboard his boat; it's even money he's outside the Hook, out'ard bound,

+by now.”

+

+Then Big Kennedy discussed the case. I would be indicted and tried;

+there was no doubt of that. The Chief, our enemy, had possession of the

+court machinery; so far as indictment and trial were concerned he would

+not fail of his will.

+

+“An' it's th' judge in partic'lar, I'm leary of,” said Big Kennedy

+thoughtfully. “The Chief has got that jurist in hock to him, d'ye

+see! But there's another end to it; I've got a pull with the party who

+selects the jury, an' it'll be funny if we don't have half of 'em our

+way. That's right; th' worst they can hand us is a hung jury. If it

+takes money, now,” and here Big Kennedy rolled a tentative eye on young

+Morton, “if it should take money, I s'ppose we know where to look for

+it?”

+

+Young Morton had been listening to every word, and for the moment,

+nothing about him of his usual languor. Beyond tapping his white

+teeth with the handle of his dress cane, he retained no trace of those

+affectations. I had much hope from the alert earnestness of young

+Morton, for I could tell that he would stay by my fortunes to the end.

+

+“What was that?” he asked, when Big Kennedy spoke of money.

+

+“I said that if we have to buy any little thing like a juror or a

+witness, we know where to go for the money.”

+

+“Certainly!” he lisped, relapsing into the exquisite; “we shall buy the

+courthouse should the purchase of that edifice become necessary to our

+friend's security.”

+

+“Aint he a dandy!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, surveying young Morton in a

+rapt way. Then coming back to me: “I've got some news for you that

+you want to keep under your waistcoat. You know Billy Cassidy--Foxy

+Billy--him that studied to be a priest? You remember how I got him a

+post in th' Comptroller's office. Well, I sent for him not an hour ago;

+he's goin' to take copies of th' accounts that show what th' Chief an'

+them other highbinders at the top o' Tammany have been doin'. I'll have

+the papers on 'em in less'n a week. If we get our hooks on what I'm

+after, an' Foxy Billy says we shall, we'll wipe that gang off th'

+earth.”

+

+“Given those documents, we shall, as you say, obliterate them,” chimed

+in young Morton. “But speaking of your agent: Is this Foxy Billy as

+astute as his name would imply?”

+

+“He could go down to Coney Island an' beat th' shells,” said Big Kennedy

+confidently.

+

+“About the knife which gave James the Horseshoer his death wound,” said

+young Morton. His tones were vapid, but his glance was bright enough.

+“They've sent it to the Central Office. The detectives are sure

+to discover the pawnbroker who sold it. I think it would be wise,

+therefore, to carry the detectives the word ourselves. It will draw the

+sting out of that wasp; it would, really. It wouldn't look well to a

+jury, should we let them track down-this information, while it will

+destroy its effect if we ourselves tell them. I think with the start he

+has, we can trust that Sicilian individual to take care of himself.”

+

+This suggestion appealed to Big Kennedy as good. He thought, too, that

+he and young Morton might better set about the matter without delay.

+

+“Don't lose your nerve,” said he, shaking me by the hand. “You are as

+safe as though you were in church. I'll crowd 'em, too, an' get this

+trial over inside of six weeks. By that time, if Foxy Billy is any good,

+we'll be ready to give the Chief some law business of his own.”

+

+“One thing,” I said at parting; “my wife must not come here. I wouldn't

+have her see me in a cell to save my life.”

+

+From the moment of my arrival at the Tombs, I had not ceased to think of

+Apple Cheek and her distress. Anne would do her best to comfort her; and

+for the rest--why! it must be borne. But I could not abide her seeing me

+a prisoner; not for her sake, but for my own.

+

+“Well, good-by!” said young Morton, as he and Big Kennedy were taking

+themselves away. “You need give yourself no uneasiness. Remember, you

+are not only right, but rich; and when, pray, was the right, on being

+backed by riches, ever beaten down?”

+

+“Or for that matter, the wrong either?” put in Big Kennedy sagely. “I've

+never seen money lose a fight.”

+

+“Our friend,” said young Morton, addressing the warden, who had now

+returned, and speaking in a high superior vein, “is to have everything

+he wants. Here is my card. Remember, now, this gentleman is my friend;

+and it is not to my fancy, don't y' know, that a friend of mine should

+lack for anything; it isn't, really!”

+

+As Big Kennedy and young Morton reached the door, I bethought me for the

+first time to ask the result of the election.

+

+“Was your father successful?” I queried. “These other matters quite

+drove the election from my head.”

+

+“Oh, yes,” drawled young Morton, “my father triumphed. I forget the

+phrase in which Mr. Kennedy described the method of his success, but

+it was highly epigrammatic and appropriate. How was it you said the old

+gentleman won?”

+

+“I said that he won in a walk,” returned Big Kennedy. Then,

+suspiciously: “Say you aint guying me, be you?”

+

+“Me guy you?” repeated young Morton, elevating his brows. “I'd as soon

+think of deriding a king with crown and scepter!”

+

+My trial came on within a month. Big Kennedy had a genius for

+expedition, and could hurry both men and events whenever it suited his

+inclinations. When I went to the bar I was accompanied by two of the

+leaders of the local guild of lawyers. These were my counsel, and they

+would leave no stone unturned to see me free. Big Kennedy sat by my side

+when the jury was empaneled.

+

+“We've got eight of 'em painted,” he whispered. “I'd have had all

+twelve,” he continued regretfully, “but what with the challengin', an'

+what with some of 'em not knowin' enough, an' some of 'em knowin' too

+much, I lose four. However, eight ought to land us on our feet.”

+

+There were no Irishmen in the panel, and I commented on the fact as

+strange.

+

+“No, I barred th' Irish,” said Big Kennedy. “Th' Irish are all right;

+I'm second-crop Irish--bein' born in this country--myself. But you don't

+never want one on a jury, especially on a charge of murder. There's this

+thing about a Mick: he'll cry an' sympathize with you an' shake your

+hand, an' send you flowers; but just th' same he always wants you

+hanged.”

+

+As Big Kennedy had apprehended, the Judge on the bench was set hard and

+chill as Arctic ice against me; I could read it in his jadestone eye.

+He would do his utmost to put a halter about my neck, and the look

+he bestowed upon me, menacing and full of doom, made me feel lost and

+gallows-ripe indeed. Suppose they should hang me! I had seen Sheeny Joe

+dispatched for Sing Sing from that very room! The memory of it, with the

+Judge lowering from the bench like a death-threat, sent a cold thought

+to creep and coil about my heart and crush it as in the folds of a

+snake.

+

+There came the pawnbroker to swear how he sold me the knife those years

+ago. The prosecution insisted as an inference drawn from this, that

+the knife was mine. Then a round dozen stood up to tell of my rush

+upon Jimmy the Blacksmith; and how he fell; and how, a moment later, I

+fronted them with the red knife in my clutch and the dead man weltering

+where he went down. Some there were who tried to say they saw me strike

+the blow.

+

+While this evidence was piling up, ever and again some timid juryman

+would glance towards Big Kennedy inquiringly. The latter would send back

+an ocular volley of threats that meant death or exile should that juror

+flinch or fail him.

+

+When the State ended, a score of witnesses took the stand in my behalf.

+One and all, having been tutored by Big Kennedy, they told of the thrown

+knife which came singing through the air like a huge hornet from the

+far outskirts of the crowd. Many had not seen the hand that hurled the

+knife; a few had been more fortunate, and described him faithfully as

+a small lean man, dark, a red silk cloth over his head, and earrings

+dangling from his ears.

+

+“He was a sailorman, too,” said one, more graphic than the rest; “as I

+could tell by the tar on his hands an' a ship tattooed on th' back of

+one of 'em. He stood right by me when he flung the knife.”

+

+“Why didn't you seize him?” questioned the State's Attorney, with a

+half-sneer.

+

+“Not on your life!” said the witness. “I aint collarin' nobody; I don't

+get policeman's wages.”

+

+The Judge gave his instructions to the jury, and I may say he did his

+best, or worst, to drag me to the scaffold. The jurors listened; but

+they owned eyes as well as ears, and for every word spoken by the

+Judge's tongue, Big Kennedy's eyes spoke two. Also, there was that

+faultless exquisite, young Morton, close and familiar to my side. The

+dullest ox-wit of that panel might tell how I was belted about by strong

+influences, and ones that could work a vengeance. Wherefore, when the

+jury at last retired, there went not one whose mind was not made up, and

+no more than twenty minutes ran by before the foreman's rap on the door

+announced them as prepared to give decision. They filed soberly in. The

+clerk read the verdict.

+

+“Not guilty!”

+

+The Judge's face was like thunder; he gulped and glared, and then

+demanded:

+

+“Is this your verdict?”

+

+“It is,” returned the foreman, standing in his place; and his eleven

+fellow jurors, two of whom belonged to my Red Jackets, nodded assent.

+

+Home I went on wings. Anne met me in the hallway and welcomed me with a

+kiss. She wore a strange look, but in my hurry for Apple Cheek I took no

+particular heed of that.

+

+“Where is she--where is my wife?” said I.

+

+Then a blackcoat man came from the rear room; he looked the doctor and

+had the smell of drugs about him. Anne glanced at him questioningly.

+

+“I think he may come in,” he said. “But make no noise! Don't excite

+her!”

+

+Apple Cheek, who was Apple Cheek no longer with her face hollowed and

+white, was lying in the bed. Her eyes were big and bright, and the ghost

+of a smile parted her wan lips.

+

+“I'm so happy!” she whispered, voice hardly above a breath. Then with

+weak hands she drew me down to her. “I've prayed and prayed, and I knew

+it would come right,” she murmured.

+

+Then Anne, who had followed me to the bedside, drew away the coverings.

+It was like a revelation, for I had been told no word of it, nor so much

+as dreamed of such sweet chances. The dear surprise of it was in one

+sense like a blow, and I staggered on my feet as that day's threats

+had owned no power to make me. There, with little face upturned and

+sleeping, was a babe!--our babe!

+

+--Apple Cheek's and mine!--our baby girl that had been born to us while

+its father lay in jail on a charge of murder! While I looked, it opened

+its eyes; and then a wailing, quivering cry went up that swept across my

+soul like a tune of music.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII--DARBY THE GOPHER

+

+

+FOXY BILLY CASSIDY made but slow work of obtaining those papers asked

+for to overthrow our enemy, the Chief. He copied reams upon reams of

+contracts and vouchers and accounts, but those to wholly match the

+crushing purposes of Big Kennedy were not within his touch. The

+documents which would set the public ablaze were held in a safe, of

+which none save one most trusted by the Chief, and deep in both his

+plans and their perils, possessed the secret.

+

+“That's how the game stands,” explained Big Kennedy. “Foxy Billy's up

+ag'inst it. The cards we need are in th' safe, an' Billy aint got th'

+combination, d'ye see.”

+

+“Can anything be done with the one who has?”

+

+“Nothin',” replied Big Kennedy. “No, there's no gettin' next to th'

+party with th' combination. Billy did try to stand in with this duck;

+an' say! he turned sore in a second.”

+

+“Then you've no hope?”

+

+“Not exactly that,” returned Big Kennedy, as though revolving some

+proposal in his mind. “I'll hit on a way. When it comes to a finish, I

+don't think there's a safe in New York I couldn't turn inside out. But

+I've got to have time to think.”

+

+There existed strong argument for exertion on Big Kennedy's part. Both

+he and I were fighting literally for liberty and for life. Our sole

+hope of safety layin the overthrow of the Chief; we must destroy or be

+destroyed.

+

+Big Kennedy was alive to the situation. He said as much when, following

+that verdict of “Not guilty!” I thanked him as one who had worked most

+for my defense.

+

+“There's no thanks comin',” said Big Kennedy, in his bluff way. “I had

+to break th' Chief of that judge-an'-jury habit at th' go-off. He'd have

+nailed me next.”

+

+Big Kennedy and I, so to phrase it, were as prisoners of politics.

+Our feud with the Chief, as the days went by, widened to open war.

+Its political effect was to confine us to our own territory, and we

+undertook no enterprise which ran beyond our proper boundaries. It was

+as though our ward were a walled town. Outside all was peril; inside

+we were secure. Against the Chief and the utmost of his power, we could

+keep our own, and did. His word lost force when once it crossed our

+frontiers; his mandates fell to the ground.

+

+Still, while I have described ourselves as ones in a kind of captivity,

+we lived sumptuously enough on our small domain. Big Kennedy went about

+the farming of his narrow acres with an agriculture deeper than ever. No

+enterprise that either invaded or found root in our region was permitted

+to go free, but one and all paid tribute. From street railways to push

+carts, from wholesale stores to hand-organs, they must meet our levy or

+see their interests pine. And thus we thrived.

+

+However, for all the rich fatness of our fortunes, Big Kennedy's designs

+against the Chief never cooled. On our enemy's side, we had daily proof

+that he, in his planning, was equally sleepless. If it had not been for

+my seat in the Board of Aldermen, and our local rule of the police which

+was its corollary, the machine might have broken us down. As it was, we

+sustained ourselves, and the sun shone for our ward haymaking, if good

+weather went with us no farther.

+

+One afternoon Big Kennedy of the suddenest broke upon me with an

+exclamation of triumph.

+

+“I have it!” he cried; “I know the party who will show us every paper in

+that safe.”

+

+“Who is he?” said I.

+

+“I'll bring him to you to-morrow night. He's got a country place up th'

+river, an' never leaves it. He hasn't been out of th' house for almost

+five years, but I think I can get him to come.” Big Kennedy looked as

+though the situation concealed a jest. “But I can't stand here talkin';

+I've got to scatter for th' Grand Central.”

+

+Who should this gifted individual be? Who was he who could come in from

+a country house, which he had not quitted for five years, and hand

+us those private papers now locked, and fast asleep, within the

+Comptroller's safe? The situation was becoming mysterious, and my

+patience would be on a stretch until the mystery was laid bare. The sure

+enthusiasm of Big Kennedy gave an impression of comfort. Big Kennedy was

+no hare-brained optimist, nor one to count his chickens before they were

+hatched.

+

+When Big Kennedy came into the sanctum on the following evening, the

+grasp he gave me was the grasp of victory.

+

+“It's all over but th' yellin'!” said he; “we've got them papers in a

+corner.”

+

+Big Kennedy presented me to a shy, retiring person, who bore him

+company, and who took my hand reluctantly. He was not ill-looking, this

+stranger; but he had a furtive roving eye--the eye of a trapped animal.

+His skin, too, was of a yellow, pasty color, like bad piecrust, and

+there abode a damp, chill atmosphere about him that smelled of caves and

+caverns.

+

+After I greeted him, he walked away in a manner strangely unsocial, and,

+finding a chair, sate himself down in a corner. He acted as might one

+detained against his will and who was not the master of himself. Also,

+there was something professional in it all, as though the purpose of

+his presence were one of business. I mentioned in a whisper the queer

+sallowness of the stranger.

+

+“Sure!” said Big Kennedy. “It's th' prison pallor on him. I've got to

+let him lay dead for a week or ten days to give him time to cover it

+with a beard, as well as show a better haircut.”

+

+“Who is he?” I demanded, my amazement beginning to sit up.

+

+“He's a gopher,” returned Big Kennedy, surveying the stranger with

+victorious complacency. “Yes, indeed; he can go through a safe like th'

+grace of heaven through a prayer meetin'.”

+

+“Is he a burglar?”

+

+“Burglar? No!” retorted Big Kennedy disgustedly; “he's an artist. Any

+hobo could go in with drills an' spreaders an' pullers an' wedges, an'

+crack a box. But this party does it by ear; just sits down before a

+safe, an' fumbles an' fools with it ten minutes, an' swings her open.

+I tell you he's a wonder! He knows th' insides of a safe like a priest

+knows th' insides of a prayer-book.”

+

+“Where was he?” I asked. “Where did you pick him up?” and here I took

+a second survey of the talented stranger, who dropped his eyes on the

+floor.

+

+“The Pen,” said Big Kennedy. “The warden an' me are old side-partners,

+an' I borrowed him. I knew where he was, d'ye see! He's doin' a stretch

+of five years for a drop-trick he turned in an Albany bank. That's

+what comes of goin' outside your specialty; he'd ought to have stuck to

+safes.”

+

+“Aren't you afraid he'll run?” I said. “You can't watch him night and

+day, and he'll give you the slip.”

+

+“No fear of his side-steppin',” replied Big Kennedy confidently. “He's

+only got six weeks more to go, an' it wouldn't pay to slip his collar

+for a little pinch of time like that. Besides, I've promised him five

+hundred dollars for this job, an' left it in th' warden's hands.”

+

+“What's his name?” I inquired.

+

+“Darby the Goph.”

+

+Big Kennedy now unfolded his plan for making Darby the Goph useful in

+our affairs. Foxy Billy would allow himself to get behind in his labors

+over the City books. In a spasm of industry he would arrange with his

+superiors to work nights until he was again abreast of his duties. Foxy

+Billy, night after night, would thus be left alone in the Comptroller's

+office. The safe that baffled us for those priceless documents would be

+unguarded. Nothing would be thought by janitors and night watchmen of

+the presence of Darby the Goph. He would be with Foxy Billy in the rôle

+of a friend, who meant no more than to kindly cheer his lonely labors.

+

+Darby the Goph would lounge and kill time while Foxy Billy moiled.

+

+“There's the scheme to put Darby inside,” said Big Kennedy in

+conclusion. “Once they're alone, he'll tear th' packin' out o' that

+safe. When Billy has copied the papers, th' game's as simple as suckin'

+eggs. We'll spring 'em, an' make th' Chief look like a dress suit at a

+gasfitters' ball.”

+

+Big Kennedy's programme was worked from beginning to end by Foxy Billy

+and Darby the Goph, and never jar nor jolt nor any least of friction.

+It ran out as smoothly as two and two make four. In the end, Big Kennedy

+held in his fingers every evidence required to uproot the Chief. The ear

+and the hand of Darby the Goph had in no sort lost their cunning.

+

+“An' now,” said Big Kennedy, when dismissing Darby the Goph, “you go

+back where you belong. I've wired the warden, an' he'll give you that

+bit of dough. I've sent for a copper to put you on th' train. I don't

+want to take chances on you stayin' over a day. You might get to

+lushin', an' disgrace yourself with th' warden.”

+

+The police officer arrived, and Big Kennedy told him to see Darby the

+Goph aboard the train.

+

+“Don't make no mistake,” said Big Kennedy, by way of warning. “He

+belongs in Sing Sing, an' must get back without fail to-night. Stay by

+th' train till it pulls out.”

+

+“How about th' bristles?” said the officer, pointing to the two-weeks'

+growth of beard that stubbled the chin of the visitor. “Shall I have him

+scraped?”

+

+“No, they'll fix his face up there,” said Big Kennedy. “The warden don't

+care what he looks like, only so he gets his clamps on him ag'in.”

+

+“Here's the documents,” said Big Kennedy, when Darby the Goph and his

+escort had departed. “The question now is, how to give th' Chief th'

+gaff, an' gaff him deep an' good. He's th' party who was goin' to leave

+me on both sides of th' street.” This last with an exultant sneer.

+

+It was on my thoughts that the hand to hurl the thunderbolt we had been

+forging was that of the reputable old gentleman. The blow would fall

+more smitingly if dealt by him; his was a name superior for this duty to

+either Big Kennedy's or my own. With this argument, Big Kennedy declared

+himself in full accord.

+

+“It'll look more like th' real thing,” said he, “to have th' kick come

+from th' outside. Besides, if I went to th' fore it might get in my way

+hereafter.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman moved with becoming conservatism, not to say

+dignity. He took the documents furnished by the ingenuity of Darby the

+Goph, and the oil-burning industry of Foxy Billy, and pored over them

+for a day. Then he sent for Big Kennedy. “The evidence you furnish

+me,” said he, “seems absolutely conclusive. It betrays a corruption not

+paralleled in modern times, with the head of Tammany as the hub of

+the villainy. The town has been plundered of millions,” concluded the

+reputable old gentleman, with a fine oratorical flourish, “and it is my

+duty to lay bare this crime in all its enormity, as one of the people's

+Representatives.”

+

+“An' a taxpayer,” added Big Kennedy.

+

+“Sir, my duty as a Representative,” returned the reputable old gentleman

+severely, “has precedence over my privileges as a taxpayer.” Then, as

+though the question offered difficulties: “The first step should be the

+publication of these documents in a paper of repute.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman had grounds for hesitation. Our enemy, the

+Chief, was not without his allies among the dailies of that hour. The

+Chief was popular in certain glutton circles. He still held to those

+characteristics of a ready, laughing, generous recklessness that marked

+him in a younger day when, as head of a fire company, with trousers

+tucked in boots, red shirt, fire helmet, and white coat thrown over arm,

+he led the ropes and cheered his men. But what were excellent as traits

+in a fireman, became fatal under conditions where secrecy and a policy

+of no noise were required for his safety. He was headlong, careless;

+and, indifferent to discovery since he believed himself secure, the

+trail of his wrongdoing was as widely obvious, not to say as unclean, as

+was Broadway.

+

+“Yes,” said the reputable old gentleman, “the great thing is to pitch

+upon a proper paper.”

+

+“There's the _Dally Tory?_” suggested Big Kennedy. “It's a very honest

+sheet,” said the reputable old gentleman approvingly.

+

+“Also,” said Big Kennedy, “the Chief has just cut it out of th' City

+advertisin', d'ye see, an' it's as warm as a wolf.”

+

+For these double reasons of probity and wrath, the _Daily Tory_ was

+agreed to. The reputable old gentleman would put himself in touch with

+the _Daily Tory_ without delay.

+

+“Who is this Chief of Tammany?” asked the reputable old gentleman,

+towards the close of the conference. “Personally, I know but little

+about him.”

+

+“He'd be all right,” said Big Kennedy, “but he was spoiled in the

+bringin' up. He was raised with th' fire companies, an' he made th'

+mistake of luggin' his speakin' trumpet into politics.”

+

+“But is he a deep, forceful man?”

+

+“No,” returned Big Kennedy, with a contemptuous toss of the hand. “If

+he was, you wouldn't have been elected to Congress. He makes a brash

+appearance, but there's nothin' behind. You open his front door an'

+you're in his back yard.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman was bowing us out of his library, when Big

+Kennedy gave him a parting word.

+

+“Now remember: my name aint to show at all.”

+

+“But the honor!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman. “The honor of

+this mighty reform will be rightfully yours. You ought to have it.”

+

+“I'd rather have Tammany Hall,” responded Big Kennedy with a laugh, “an'

+if I get to be too much of a reformer it might queer me. No, you go in

+an' do up th' Chief. When he's rubbed out, I intend to be Chief in his

+place. I'd rather be Chief than have th' honor you tell of. There's more

+money in it.”

+

+“Do you prefer money to honor?” returned the reputable old gentleman,

+somewhat scandalized.

+

+“I'll take th' money for mine, every time,” responded Big Kennedy.

+“Honor ought to have a bank account. The man who hasn't anything but

+honor gets pitied when he doesn't get laughed at, an' for my part I'm

+out for th' dust.”

+

+Four days later the _Daily Tory_ published the first of its articles; it

+fell upon our enemy with the force of a trip-hammer. From that hour the

+assaults on the Chief gained never let or stay. The battle staggered on

+for months. The public, hating him for his insolence, joined in hunting

+him. One by one those papers, so lately his adorers, showed him their

+backs.

+

+“Papers sail only with the wind,” said Big Kennedy sagely, in commenting

+on these ink-desertions of the Chief.

+

+In the midst of the trouble, Old Mike began to sicken for his end. He

+was dying of old age, and the stream of his life went sinking into his

+years like water into sand. Big Kennedy gave up politics to sit by the

+bedside of the dying old man. One day Old Mike seemed greatly to revive.

+

+“Jawn,” he said, “you'll be th' Chief of Tammany. The Chief, now

+fightin' for his life, will lose. The mish-take he made was in robbin'

+honest people. Jawn, he should have robbed th' crim'nals an' th' law

+breakers. The rogues can't fight back, an' th' honest people can. An'

+remember this: the public don't care for what it hears, only for what it

+sees. Never interfere with people's beer; give 'em clean streets; double

+the number of lamp-posts--th' public's like a fly, it's crazy over

+lamps--an' have bands playin' in every par-rk. Then kape th' streets

+free of ba-ad people, tinhorn min, an' such. You don't have to drive 'em

+out o' town, only off th' streets; th' public don't object to dirt, but

+it wants it kept in the back alleys. Jawn, if you'll follow what I tell

+you, you can do what else ye plaze. The public will go with ye loike a

+drunkard to th' openin' of a new s'loon.”

+

+“What you must do, father,” said Big Kennedy cheerfully, “is get well,

+an' see that I run things straight.”

+

+“Jawn,” returned Old Mike, smiling faintly, “this is Choosday; by

+Saturday night I'll be dead an' under th' daisies.”

+

+Old Mike's funeral was a creeping, snail-like, reluctant thing of miles,

+with woe-breathing bands to mark the sorrowful march. Big Kennedy never

+forgot; and to the last of his power, the question uppermost in his

+mind, though never in his mouth, was whether or not that one who sought

+his favor had followed Old Mike to the grave.

+

+The day of Old Mike's funeral saw the destruction of our enemy, the

+Chief. He fell with the crash of a tree. He fled, a hunted thing, and

+was brought back to perish in a prison. And so came the end of him,

+by the wit of Big Kennedy and the furtive sleighty genius of Darby the

+Goph.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII--BIG KENNEDY AND THE MUGWUMPS

+

+

+WHEN the old Chief was gone, Big Kennedy succeeded to his place as the

+ruling spirit of the organization. For myself, I moved upward to become

+a figure of power only a whit less imposing; for I stepped forth as

+a leader of the ward, while in the general councils of Tammany I was

+recognized as Big Kennedy's adviser and lieutenant.

+

+To the outside eye, unskilled of politics in practice, everything of

+Tammany sort would have seemed in the plight desperate. The efforts

+required for the overthrow of the old Chief, and Big Kennedy's bolt in

+favor of the forces of reform--ever the blood enemy of Tammany--had torn

+the organization to fragments. A first result of this dismemberment

+was the formation of a rival organization meant to dominate the local

+Democracy. This rival coterie was not without its reasons of strength,

+since it was upheld as much as might be by the State machine. The

+situation was one which for a time would compel Big Kennedy to tolerate

+the company of his reform friends, and affect, even though he privately

+opposed them, some appearance of sympathy with their plans for the

+purification of the town.

+

+“But,” observed Big Kennedy, when we considered the business between

+ourselves, “I think I can set these guys by the ears. There aint a man

+in New York who, directly or round th' corner, aint makin' money through

+a broken law, an' these mugwumps aint any exception. I've invited three

+members of the main squeeze to see me, an' I'll make a side bet they get

+tired before I do.”

+

+In deference to the invitation of Big Kennedy, there came to call upon

+him a trio of civic excellence, each a personage of place. Leading

+the three was our longtime friend, the reputable old gentleman. Of the

+others, one was a personage whose many millions were invested in real

+estate, the rentals whereof ran into the hundreds of thousands, while

+his companion throve as a wholesale grocer, a feature of whose business

+was a rich trade in strong drink.

+

+Big Kennedy met the triumvirate with brows of sanctimony, and was a

+moral match for the purest. When mutual congratulations over virtue's

+late successes at the ballot box, and the consequent dawn of whiter

+days for the town, were ended, Big Kennedy, whose statecraft was of the

+blunt, positive kind, brought to the discussional center the purpose of

+the meeting.

+

+“We're not only goin' to clean up th' town, gents,” said Big Kennedy

+unctuously, “but Tammany Hall as well. There's to be no more corruption;

+no more blackmail; every man an' every act must show as clean as a dog's

+tooth. I s'ppose, now, since we've got th' mayor, th' alderman, an' th'

+police, our first duty is to jump in an' straighten up th' village?”

+ Here Big Kennedy scanned the others with a virtuous eye.

+

+“Precisely,” observed the reputable old gentleman. “And since the most

+glaring evils ought to claim our earliest attention, we should compel

+the police, without delay, to go about the elimination of the disorderly

+elements--the gambling dens, and other vice sinks. What do you say,

+Goldnose?” and the reputable old gentleman turned with a quick air to

+him of the giant rent-rolls.

+

+“Now on those points,” responded the personage of real estate dubiously,

+“I should say that we ought to proceed slowly. You can't rid the

+community of vice; history shows it to be impossible.” Then, with a

+look of cunning meaning: “There exist, however, evils not morally bad,

+perhaps, that after all are violations of law, and get much more in the

+way of citizens than gambling or any of its sister iniquities.” Then,

+wheeling spitefully on the reputable old gentleman: “There's the

+sidewalk and street ordinances: You know the European Express Company,

+Morton? I understand that you are a heaviest stockholder in it. I went

+by that corner the other day and I couldn't get through for the jam

+of horses and trucks that choked the street. There they stood, sixty

+horses, thirty trucks, and the side street fairly impassable. I

+scratched one side of my brougham to the point of ruin--scratched off my

+coat-of-arms, in fact, on the pole of one of the trucks. I think that to

+enforce the laws meant to keep the street free of obstructions is more

+important, as a civic reform, than driving out gamblers. These latter

+people, after all, get in nobody's way, and if one would find them one

+must hunt for them. They are prompt with their rents, too, and ready to

+pay a highest figure; they may be reckoned among the best tenants to be

+found.”

+

+The real estate personage was red in the face when he had finished this

+harangue. He wiped his brow and looked resentfully at the reputable old

+gentleman. That latter purist was now in a state of great personal heat.

+

+“Those sixty horses were being fed, sir,” said he with spirit. “The barn

+is more than a mile distant; there's no time to go there and back during

+the noon hour. You can't have the barn on Broadway, you know. That would

+be against the law, even if the value of Broadway property didn't put it

+out of reach.”

+

+“Still, it's against the law to obstruct the streets,” declared the

+real-estate personage savagely, “just as much as it is against the law

+to gamble. And the trucks and teams are more of a public nuisance, sir!”

+

+“I suppose,” responded the reputable old gentleman, with a sneer,

+“that if my express horses paid somebody a double rent, paid it to you,

+Goldnose, for instance, they wouldn't be so much in the way.” Then, as

+one exasperated to frankness: “Why don't you come squarely out like a

+man, and say that to drive the disorderly characters from the town would

+drive a cipher or two off your rents?”

+

+“If I, or any other real-estate owner,” responded the baited one

+indignantly, “rent certain tenements, not otherwise to be let, to

+disorderly characters, whose fault is it? I can't control the town for

+either its morals or its business. The town grows up about my property,

+and conditions are made to occur that practically condemn it. Good

+people won't live there, and the property is unfit for stores or

+warehouses. What is an owner to do? The neighborhood becomes such that

+best people won't make of it a spot of residence. It's either no rent,

+or a tenant who lives somewhat in the shade. Real-estate owners, I

+suppose, are to be left with millions of unrentable property on their

+hands; but you, on your side, are not to lose half an hour in taking

+your horses to a place where they might lawfully be fed? What do you

+say, Casebottle?” and the outraged real-estate prince turned to the

+wholesale grocer, as though seeking an ally.

+

+“I'm inclined, friend Goldnose,” returned the wholesale grocer suavely,

+“I'm inclined to think with you that it will be difficult to deal with

+the town as though it were a camp meeting. Puritanism is offensive

+to the urban taste.” Here the wholesale grocer cleared his throat

+impressively.

+

+“And so,” cried the reputable old gentleman, “you call the suppression

+of gamblers and base women, puritanism? Casebottle, I'm surprised!”

+

+The wholesale grocer looked nettled, but held his peace. There came a

+moment of silence. Big Kennedy, who had listened without interference,

+maintaining the while an inflexible morality, took advantage of the

+pause.

+

+“One thing,” said he, “about which I think you will all agree, is that

+every ginmill open after hours, or on Sunday, should be pinched, and

+no side-doors or speakeasy racket stood for. We can seal th' town up as

+tight as sardines.”

+

+Big Kennedy glanced shrewdly at Casebottle. Here was a move that would

+injure wholesale whisky. Casebottle, however, did not immediately

+respond; it was the reputable old gentleman who spoke.

+

+“That's my notion,” said he, pursing his lips. “Every ginmill ought to

+be closed as tight as a drum. The Sabbath should be kept free of that

+disorder which rum-drinking is certain to breed.”

+

+“Well, then,” broke in Casebottle, whose face began to color as his

+interests began to throb, “I say that a saloon is a poor man's club. If

+you're going to close the saloons, I shall be in favor of shutting up

+the clubs. I don't believe in one law for the poor and another for the

+rich.”

+

+This should offer some impression of how the visitors agreed upon a

+civil policy. Big Kennedy was good enough to offer for the others, each

+of whom felt himself somewhat caught in a trap, a loophole of escape.

+

+“For,” explained Big Kennedy, “while I believe in rigidly enforcin'

+every law until it is repealed, I have always held that a law can be

+tacitly repealed by th' people, without waitin' for th' action of some

+skate legislature, who, comin' for th' most part from th' cornfields,

+has got it in for us lucky ducks who live in th' town. To put it this

+way: If there's a Sunday closin' law, or a law ag'inst gamblers, or

+a law ag'inst obstructin' th' streets, an' th' public don't want it

+enforced, then I hold it's repealed by th' highest authority in th'

+land, which is th' people, d'ye see!”

+

+“Now, I think that very well put,” replied the real-estate personage,

+with a sigh of relief, while the wholesale grocer nodded approval. “I

+think that very well put,” he went on, “and as it's getting late, I

+suggest that we adjourn for the nonce, to meet with our friend, Mr.

+Kennedy, on some further occasion. For myself, I can see that he and the

+great organization of which he is now, happily, the head, are heartily

+with us for reforming the shocking conditions that have heretofore

+persisted in this community. We have won the election; as a corollary,

+peculation and blackmail and extortion will of necessity cease. I think,

+with the utmost safety to the public interest, we can leave matters to

+take their natural course, without pushing to extremes. Don't you think

+so, Mr. Kennedy?”

+

+“Sure!” returned that chieftain. “There's always more danger in too much

+steam than in too little.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman was by no means in accord with the

+real-estate personage; but since the wholesale grocer cast in his voice

+for moderation and no extremes, he found himself in a hopeless minority

+of no one save himself. With an eye of high contempt, therefore, for

+what he described as “The reform that needs reform,” he went away with

+the others, and the weighty convention for pure days was over.

+

+“An' that's th' last we'll see of 'em,” said Big Kennedy, with a laugh.

+“No cat enjoys havin' his own tail shut in th' door; no man likes th'

+reform that pulls a gun on his partic'lar interest. This whole reform

+racket,” continued Big Kennedy, who was in a temper to moralize, “is, to

+my thinkin', a kind of pouter-pigeon play. Most of 'em who go in for

+it simply want to swell 'round. Besides the pouter-pigeon, who's in

+th' game because he's stuck on himself, there's only two breeds of

+reformers. One is a Republican who's got ashamed of himself; an' th'

+other is some crook who's been kicked out o' Tammany for graftin'

+without a license.”

+

+“Would your last include you and me?” I asked. I thought I might hazard

+a small jest, since we were now alone.

+

+“It might,” returned Big Kennedy, with an iron grin. Then, twisting

+the subject: “Now let's talk serious for two words. I've been doin' th'

+bunco act so long with our three friends that my face begins to ache

+with lookin' pious. Now listen: You an' me have got a long road ahead of

+us, an' money to be picked up on both sides. But let me break this off

+to you, an' don't let a word get away. When you do get th' stuff, don't

+go to buildin' brownstone fronts, an' buyin' trottin' horses, an' givin'

+yourself away with any Coal-Oil Johnny capers. If we were Republicans

+or mugwumps it might do. But let a Democrat get a dollar, an' there's a

+warrant out for him before night. When you get a wad, bury it like a dog

+does a bone. An' speakin' of money; I've sent for th' Chief of Police..

+Come to think of it, we'd better talk over to my house. I'll go there

+now, an' you stay an' lay for him. When he shows up, bring him to me.

+There won't be so many pipin' us off over to my house.”

+

+Big Kennedy left the Tammany headquarters, where he and the good

+government trio had conferred, and sauntered away in the direction

+of his habitat. The Chief of Police did not keep me in suspense. Big

+Kennedy was not four blocks away when that blue functionary appeared.

+

+“I'm to go with you to his house,” said I.

+

+The head of the police was a bloated porpoise-body of a man, oily,

+plausible, masking his cunning with an appearance of frankness. As for

+scruple; why then the sharks go more freighted of a conscience.

+

+Big Kennedy met the Chief of Police with the freedom that belongs with

+an acquaintance, boy and man, of forty years. In a moment they had

+gotten to the marrow of what was between them.

+

+“Of course,” said Big Kennedy, “Tammany's crippled just now with not

+havin' complete swing in th' town; an' I've got to bunk in more or less

+with the mugwumps. Still, we've th' upper hand in th' Board of Aldermen,

+an' are stronger everywhere than any other single party. Now you

+understand;” and here Big Kennedy bent a keen eye on the other. “Th'

+organization's in need of steady, monthly contributions. We'll want 'em

+in th' work I'm layin' out. I think you know where to get 'em, an' I

+leave it to you to organize th' graft. You get your bit, d'ye see! I'm

+goin' to name a party, however, to act as your wardman an' make th'

+collections. What sort is that McCue who was made Inspector about a week

+ago?”

+

+“McCue!” returned the Chief of Police in tones of surprise. “That man

+would never do! He's as honest as a clock!”

+

+“Honest!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, and his amazement was a picture. “Well,

+what does he think he's doin' on th' force, then?”

+

+“That's too many for me,” replied the other. Then, apologetically: “But

+you can see yourself, that when you rake together six thousand men, no

+matter how you pick 'em out, some of 'em's goin' to be honest.”

+

+“Yes,” assented Big Kennedy thoughtfully, “I s'ppose that's so, too.

+It would be askin' too much to expect that a force, as you say, of six

+thousand could be brought together, an' have 'em all crooked. It was

+Father Considine who mentioned this McCue; he said he was his cousin an'

+asked me to give him a shove along. It shows what I've claimed a dozen

+times, that th' Church ought to keep its nose out o' politics. However,

+I'll look over th' list, an' give you some good name to-morrow.”

+

+“But how about th' town?” asked the Chief of Police anxiously. “I want

+to know what I'm doin'. Tell me plain, just what goes an' what don't.”

+

+“This for a pointer, then,” responded Big Kennedy. “Whatever goes has

+got to go on th' quiet. I've got to keep things smooth between me an'

+th' mugwumps. The gamblers can run; an' I don't find any fault with even

+th' green-goods people. None of 'em can beat a man who don't put himself

+within his reach, an' I don't protect suckers. But knucks, dips,

+sneaks, second-story people, an' strong-arm men have got to quit. That's

+straight; let a trick come off on th' street cars, or at th' theater, or

+in the dark, or let a crib get cracked, an' there'll be trouble between

+you an' me, d'ye see! An' if anything as big as a bank should get done

+up, why then, you send in your resignation. An' at that, you'll be dead

+lucky if you don't do time.”

+

+“There's th' stations an' th' ferries,” said the other, with an

+insinuating leer. “You know a mob of them Western fine-workers are

+likely to blow in on us, an' we not wise to 'em--not havin' their mugs

+in the gallery. That sort of knuck might do business at th' depots

+or ferries, an' we couldn't help ourselves. Anyway,” he concluded

+hopefully, “they seldom touch up our own citizens; it's mostly th'

+farmers they go through.”

+

+“All right,” said Big Kennedy cheerfully, “I'm not worryin' about what

+comes off with th' farmers. But you tell them fine-workers, whose mugs

+you haven't got, that if anyone who can vote or raise a row in New York

+City goes shy his watch or leather, th' artist who gets it can't come

+here ag'in. Now mind: You've got to keep this town so I can hang my

+watch on any lamp-post in it, an' go back in a week an' find it hasn't

+been touched. There'll be plenty of ways for me an' you to get rich

+without standin' for sneaks an' hold-ups.”

+

+Big Kennedy, so soon as he got possession of Tammany, began divers

+improvements of a political sort, and each looking to our safety and

+perpetuation. One of his moves was to break up the ward gangs, and this

+included the Tin Whistles.

+

+“For one thing, we don't need 'em--you an' me,” said he. “They could

+only help us while we stayed in our ward an' kept in touch with 'em. The

+gangs strengthen th' ward leaders, but they don't strengthen th' Chief.

+So we're goin' to abolish 'em. The weaker we make th' ward leaders, the

+stronger we make ourselves. Do you ketch on?” and Big Kennedy nudged me

+significantly.

+

+“You've got to disband, boys,” said I, when I had called the Tin

+Whistles together. “Throw away your whistles. Big Kennedy told me that

+the first toot on one of 'em would get the musician thirty days on the

+Island. It's an order; so don't bark your shins against it.”

+

+After Big Kennedy was installed as Chief, affairs in their currents for

+either Big Kennedy or myself went flowing never more prosperously. The

+town settled to its lines; and the Chief of Police, with a wardman whom

+Big Kennedy selected, and who was bitten by no defect of integrity like

+the dangerous McCue, was making monthly returns of funds collected for

+“campaign purposes” with which the most exacting could have found no

+fault. We were rich, Big Kennedy and I; and acting on that suggestion of

+concealment, neither was blowing a bugle over his good luck.

+

+I could have been happy, being now successful beyond any dream that

+my memory could lay hands on, had it not been for Apple Cheek and her

+waning health. She, poor girl, had never been the same after my trial

+for the death of Jimmy the Blacksmith; the shock of that trouble bore

+her down beyond recall. The doctors called it a nervous prostration, but

+I think, what with the fright and the grief of it, that the poor child

+broke her heart. She was like something broken; and although years went

+by she never once held up her head. Apple Cheek faded slowly away, and

+at last died in my arms.

+

+When she passed, and it fell upon me like a pall that Apple Cheek had

+gone from me forever, my very heart withered and perished within me.

+There was but one thing to live for: Blossom, my baby girl. Anne came

+to dwell with us to be a mother to her, and it was good for me what Anne

+did, and better still for little Blossom. I was no one to have Blossom's

+upbringing, being ignorant and rude, and unable to look upon her without

+my eyes filling up for thoughts of my lost Apple Cheek. That was

+a sharpest of griefs--the going of Apple Cheek! My one hope lay in

+forgetfulness, and I courted it by working at politics, daylight and

+dark.

+

+It would seem, too, that the blow that sped death to Apple Cheek had

+left its nervous marks on little Blossom. She was timid, hysterical,

+terror-whipped of fears that had no form. She would shriek out in the

+night as though a fiend frighted her, and yet could tell no story of it.

+She lived the victim of a vast formless fear that was to her as a demon

+without outlines or members or face. One blessing: I could give the

+trembling Blossom rest by holding her close in my arms, and thus she has

+slept the whole night through. The “frights,” she said, fled when I was

+by.

+

+In that hour, Anne was my sunshine and support; I think I should have

+followed Apple Cheek had it not been for Blossom, and Anne's gentle

+courage to hold me up. For all that, my home was a home of clouds and

+gloom; waking or sleeping, sorrow pressed upon me like a great stone. I

+took no joy, growing grim and silent, and far older than my years.

+

+One evening when Big Kennedy and I were closeted over some enterprise

+of politics, that memorable exquisite, young Morton, was announced.

+He greeted us with his old-time vacuity of lisp and glance, and after

+mounting that double eyeglass, so potent with the herd, he said:

+“Gentlemen, I've come to make some money.”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV--THE MULBERRY FRANCHISE

+

+

+THAT'S my purpose in a nutshell,” lisped young Morton; “I've decided to

+make some money; and I've come for millions.” Here he waved a delicate

+hand, and bestowed upon Big Kennedy and myself his look of amiable

+inanity.

+

+“Millions, eh?” returned Big Kennedy, with his metallic grin. “I've seen

+whole fam'lies taken the same way. However, I'm glad you're no piker.”

+

+“If by 'piker,'” drawled young Morton, “you mean one of those cheap

+persons who play for minimum stakes, I assure you that I should scorn

+to be so described; I should, really! No, indeed; it requires no more of

+thought or effort to play for millions than for ten-dollar bills.”

+

+“An' dead right you are!” observed Big Kennedy with hearty emphasis. “A

+sport can buck faro bank for a million as easily as for a white chip.

+That is, if he can find a game that'll turn for such a bundle, an' has

+th' money to back his nerve. What's true of faro is true of business.

+So you're out for millions! I thought your old gent, who's into fifty

+enterprises an' has been for as many years, had long ago shaken

+down mankind for a whole mountain of dough. The papers call him a

+multimillionaire.”

+

+Young Morton, still with the empty smile, brought forth a cigarette

+case. The case, gold, was adorned with a ruby whereon to press when one

+would open it, and wore besides the owner's monogram in diamonds. Having

+lighted a cigarette, he polished his eyeglass with a filmy handkerchief.

+Re-establishing the eyeglass on his high patrician nose, he again shone

+vacuously upon Big Kennedy.

+

+That personage had watched these manifestations of fastidious culture

+in a spirit of high delight. Big Kennedy liked young Morton; he had long

+ago made out how those dandyisms were no more than a cover for what fund

+of force and cunning dwelt beneath. In truth, Big Kennedy regarded young

+Morton's imbecilities as a most fortunate disguise. His remark would

+show as much. As young Morton--cigarette just clinging between his lips,

+eye of shallow good humor--bent towards him, he said, addressing me:

+

+“Say! get onto that front! That look of not knowin' nothin' ought

+by itself to cash in for half a million! Did you ever see such a

+throw-off?” and here Big Kennedy quite lost himself in a maze of

+admiration. Recovering, however, and again facing our caller, he

+repeated: “Yes, I thought your old gent had millions.”

+

+“Both he and the press,” responded young Morton, “concede that he has;

+they do, really! Moreover, he possesses, I think, the evidence of it in

+a cord or two of bonds and stocks, don't y' know! But in what fashion,

+pray, does that bear upon my present intentions as I've briefly laid

+them bare?”

+

+“No fashion,” said Big Kennedy, “only I'd naturally s'ppose that when

+you went shy on th' long green, you'd touch th' old gentleman.”

+

+“Undoubtedly,” returned young Morton, “I could approach my father with

+a request for money--that is if my proposal were framed in a spirit of

+moderation, don't y' know!--say one hundred thousand dollars. But such

+a sum, in my present temper, would be but the shadow of a trifle. I

+owe five times the amount; I do, really! I've no doubt I'm on Tiffany's

+books for more than one hundred thousand, while my bill at the florist's

+should be at least ten thousand dollars, if the pen of that brigand of

+nosegays has kept half pace with his rapacity. However,” concluded young

+Morton, breaking into a soft, engaging laugh, “since I intend, with your

+aid, to become the master of millions, such bagatelles are unimportant,

+don't y' know.”

+

+“Certainly!” observed Big Kennedy in a consolatory tone; “they don't

+amount to a deuce in a bum deck. Still, I must say you went in up to

+your neck on sparks an' voylets. I never saw such a plunger on gewgaws

+an' garlands since a yard of cloth made a coat for me.”

+

+“Those bills arose through my efforts to make grand opera beautiful. I

+set the prima donna ablaze with gems; and as for the stage, why, it was

+like singing in a conservatory; it was really!”

+

+“Well, let that go!” said Big Kennedy, after a pause. “I shall be glad

+if through my help you make them millions. If you do, d'ye see, I'll

+make an armful just as big; it's ag'inst my religion to let anybody grab

+off a bigger piece of pie than I do when him an' me is pals. It would

+lower my opinion of myself. However, layin' guff aside, s'ppose you butt

+in now an' open up your little scheme. Let's see what button you think

+you're goin' to push.”

+

+“This is my thought,” responded young Morton, and as he spoke the

+eyeglass dropped from its aquiline perch, and under the heat of a

+real animation those mists of affectation were dissipated; “this is my

+thought: I want a street railway franchise along Mulberry Avenue, the

+length of the Island.”

+

+“Go on,” said Big Kennedy.

+

+“It's my plan to form a corporation---Mulberry Traction. There'll be

+eight millions of preferred stock at eight per cent. I can build and

+equip the road with that. In addition, there'll be ten millions of

+common stock.”

+

+“Have you th' people ready to take th' preferred?”

+

+“Ready and waiting. If I had the franchise, I could float those eight

+millions within ten days.”

+

+“What do you figger would be th' road's profits?”

+

+“It would carry four hundred thousand passengers a day, and take in

+twenty thousand dollars. The operating expenses would not exceed an

+annual four millions and a half. That, after the eight per cent, on

+the preferred were paid, would leave over two millions a year on the

+common--a dividend of twenty per cent., or five per cent, every quarter.

+You can see where such returns would put the stock. You, for your ride,

+would go into the common on the ground floor.”

+

+“We'll get to how I go in, in a minute,” responded Big Kennedy dryly.

+He was impressed by young Morton's proposal, and was threshing it out in

+his mind as they talked. “Now, see here,” he went on, lowering his

+brows and fixing his keen gray glance on young Morton, “you mustn't get

+restless if I ask you questions. I like to tap every wheel an' try every

+rivet on a scheme or a man before I hook up with either.”

+

+“Ask what you please,” said young Morton, as brisk as a terrier.

+

+“I'll say this,” observed Big Kennedy. “That traction notion shows that

+you're a hogshead of horse sense. But of course you understand that

+you're going to need money, an' plenty of it, before you get th'

+franchise. I can take care of th' Tammany push, perhaps; but there's

+highbinders up to your end of th' alley who'll want to be greased.”

+

+“How much do you argue that I'll require as a preliminary to the grant

+of the franchise?” asked young Morton, interrupting Big Kennedy.

+

+“Every splinter of four hundred thousand.”

+

+“That was my estimate,” said young Morton; “but I've arranged for twice

+that sum.”

+

+“Who is th' Rothschild you will get it from?”

+

+“My father,” replied young Morton, and now he lapsed anew into his

+manner of vapidity. “Really, he takes an eighth of the preferred at

+par--one million! I've got the money in the bank, don't y' know!”

+

+“Good!” ejaculated Big Kennedy, with the gleam which never failed to

+sparkle in his eye at the mention of rotund riches.

+

+“My father doesn't know my plans,” continued young Morton, his indolence

+and his eyeglass both restored. “No; he wouldn't let me tell him; he

+wouldn't, really! I approached him in this wise:

+

+“'Father,' said I, 'you are aware of the New York alternative?'

+

+“'What is it?' he asked.

+

+“'Get money or get out.'

+

+“'Well!' said he.

+

+“'Father, I've decided not to move. Yes, father; after a full

+consideration of the situation, I've resolved to make, say twenty or

+thirty millions for myself; I have, really! It's quite necessary, don't

+y' know; I am absolutely bankrupt. And I don't like it; there's nothing

+comfortable in being bankrupt, it so deucedly restricts a man. Besides,

+it's not good form. I've evolved an idea, however; there's a business I

+can go into.'

+

+“'Store?' he inquired.

+

+“'No, no, father,' I replied, for the odious supposition quite upset me;

+'it's nothing so horribly vulgar as trade; it's a speculation, don't y'

+know. There'll be eight millions of preferred stock; you are to take a

+million. Also, you are to give me the million at once.'

+

+“'What is this speculation?' he asked. 'If I'm to go in for a million, I

+take it you can entrust me with the outlines.'

+

+“'Really, it was on my mind to do so,' I replied.

+

+“'My scheme is this: I shall make an alliance with Mr. Kennedy.'

+

+“'Stop, stop!' cried my father hastily. 'On the whole, I don't care to

+hear your scheme. You shall have the money; but I've decided that it

+will reflect more glory upon you should you bring things to an issue

+without advice from me. Therefore, you need tell me no more; positively,

+I will not hear you.'”

+

+“It was my name made him leary,” observed Big Kennedy, with the

+gratified face of one who has been paid a compliment. “When you said

+'Kennedy,' he just about figgered we were out to get a kit of tools

+an' pry a shutter off th' First National. It's th' mugwump notion of

+Tammany, d'ye see! You put him onto it some time, that now I'm Chief

+I've got center-bits an' jimmies skinned to death when it comes to

+makin' money.”

+

+“I don't think it was your name,” observed young Morton. “He's beginning

+to learn, however, about my voting those three hundred wenches in

+overalls and jumpers, don't y' know, and it has taught him to distrust

+my methods as lacking that element of conservatism which he values so

+much. It was that which came uppermost in his memory, and it occurred

+to him that perhaps the less he knew about my enterprises the sounder he

+would sleep. Is it not remarkable, how fondly even an advanced man like

+my father will cling to the moss-grown and the obsolete?”

+

+“That's no dream neither!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, in earnest coincidence

+with young Morton. “It's this old fogy business on th' parts of people

+who ought to be leadin' up th' dance for progress, that sends me to bed

+tired in th' middle of th' day!” And here Big Kennedy shook his head

+reproachfully at gray ones whose sluggishness had wounded him.

+

+“My father drew his check,” continued young Morton. “He couldn't let it

+come to me, however, without a chiding. Wonderful, how the aged like

+to lord it over younger folk with rebukes for following in their

+footsteps--really!

+

+“'You speak of bankruptcy,' said my father, sucking in his cheeks.

+'Would it violate confidence should you tell me how you come to be in

+such a disgraceful predicament?' This last was asked in a spirit of

+sarcasm, don't y' know.

+

+“'It was by following your advice, sir,' said I.

+

+“'Following my advice!' exclaimed my father. 'What do you mean, sir? Or

+are you mad?'

+

+“'Not at all,' I returned. 'Don't you recall how, when I came from

+college, you gave me a world of advice, and laid particular stress on

+my establishing a perfect credit? “Nothing is done without credit,” you

+said on that occasion; “and it should be the care of a young man, as

+he enters upon life, to see to it that his credit is perfect in every

+quarter of trade. He should extend his credit with every opportunity.”

+ This counsel made a deep impression upon me, it did, really! and so I've

+extended my credit wherever I saw a chance until I owe a half-million.

+I must say, father, that I think it would have saved me money, don't

+y' know, had you told me to destroy my credit as hard as I could. In

+fostering my credit, I but warmed a viper.'”

+

+Young Morton paused to fire another cigarette, while the pucker about

+the corner of his eye indicated that he felt as though he had turned the

+laugh upon his father. Following a puff or two, he returned gravely to

+Mulberry Traction.

+

+“Do you approve my proposition?” he asked of Big Kennedy, “and will you

+give me your aid?”

+

+“The proposition's all hunk,” said Big Kennedy. “As to my aid: that

+depends on whether we come to terms.”

+

+“What share would you want?”

+

+“Forty per cent, of th' common stock,” responded Big Kennedy. “That's

+always th' Tammany end; forty per cent.”

+

+Young Morton drew in his lips. The figure seemed a surprise. “Do you

+mean that you receive four millions of the common stock, you paying

+nothing?” he asked at last.

+

+“I don't pony for a sou markee. An' I get th' four millions, d'ye see!

+Who ever heard of Tammany payin' for anything!” and Big Kennedy glared

+about the room, and sniffed through his nose, as though in the presence

+of all that might be called preposterous.

+

+“But if you put in no money,” remonstrated young Morton, “why should

+you have the stock? I admit that you ought to be let in on lowest terms;

+but, after all, you should put in something.”

+

+“I put in my pull,” retorted Big Kennedy grimly. “You get your franchise

+from me.”

+

+“From the City,” corrected young Morton.

+

+“I'm the City,” replied Big Kennedy; “an' will be while I'm on top of

+Tammany, an' Tammany's on top of th' town.” Then, with a friendliness

+of humor: “Here, I like you, an' I'll go out o' my way to educate you

+on this point. You're fly to some things, an' a farmer on others. Now

+understand: The City's a come-on--a sucker--an' it belongs to whoever

+picks it up. That's me this trip, d'ye see! Now notice: I've got no

+office; I'm a private citizen same as you, an' I don't owe no duty to

+th' public. Every man has his pull--his influence. You've got your pull;

+I've got mine. When a man wants anything from th' town, he gets his

+pull to work. In this case, my pull is bigger than all th' other pulls

+clubbed together. You get that franchise or you don't get it, just as I

+say. In short, you get it from me--get it by my pull, d'ye see! Now why

+shouldn't I charge for th' use of my pull, just as a lawyer asks his

+fee, or a bank demands interest when it lends? My pull's my pull; it's

+my property as much as a bank's money is th' bank's, or a lawyer's

+brains is the lawyer's. I worked hard to get it, an' there's hundreds

+who'd take it from me if they could. There's my doctrine: I'm a private

+citizen; my pull is my capital, an' I'm as much entitled to get action

+on it in favor of myself as a bank has to shave a note. That's why

+I take forty per cent. It's little enough: The franchise will be

+four-fifths of th' whole value of th' road; an' all I have for it is

+two-fifths of five-ninths, for you've got to take into account them

+eight millions of preferred.”

+

+Young Morton was either convinced of the propriety of what Big Kennedy

+urged, or saw--the latter is the more likely surmise--that he must

+agree if he would attain success for his enterprise. He made no more

+objection, and those forty per cent, in favor of Big Kennedy were looked

+upon as the thing adjusted.

+

+“You spoke of four hundred thousand dollars as precedent to the

+franchise,” said young Morton. “Where will that go?”

+

+“There's as many as thirty hungry ones who, here an' there an' each in

+our way, must be met an' squared.”

+

+“How much will go to your fellows?”

+

+“Most of th' Tammany crowd I can beat into line. But there's twelve who

+won't take orders. They were elected as 'Fusion' candidates, an' they

+think that entitles 'em to play a lone hand. Whenever Tammany gets th'

+town to itself, you can gamble! I'll knock their blocks off quick. You

+ask what it'll take to hold down th' Tammany people? I should say two

+hundred thousand dollars. We'll make it this way: I'll take thirty per

+cent, instead of forty of th' common, an' two hundred thousand in coin.

+That'll be enough to give us th' Tammany bunch as solid as a brick

+switch shanty.”

+

+“That should do,” observed young Morton thoughtfully.

+

+When young Morton was about to go, Big Kennedy detained him with a final

+query.

+

+“This aint meant to stick pins into you,” said Big Kennedy, “but, on th'

+dead! I'd like to learn how you moral an' social high-rollers reconcile

+yourselves to things. How do you agree with yourself to buy them votes

+needed to get th' franchise? Not th' ones I'll bring in, an' which you

+can pretend you don't know about; but them you'll have to deal with

+personally, d'ye see!”

+

+“There'll be none I'll deal with personally, don't y' know,” returned

+young Morton, getting behind his lisp and eyeglass, finding them a

+refuge in what was plainly an embarrassed moment, “no; I wouldn't do

+anything with the vulgar creatures in person. They talk such awful

+English, it gets upon my nerves--really! But I've retained Caucus &

+Club; they're lawyers, only they don't practice law, they practice

+politics. They'll attend to those low details of which you speak. For me

+to do so wouldn't be good form. It would shock my set to death, don't y'

+know!”

+

+“That's a crawl-out,” observed Big Kennedy reproachfully, “an' it aint

+worthy of you. Why don't you come to th' center? You're goin' to give

+up four hundred thousand dollars to get this franchise. You don't think

+it's funny--you don't do it because you like it, an' are swept down in a

+gust of generosity. An' you do think it's wrong.”

+

+“Really, now you're in error,” replied young Morton earnestly, but

+still clinging to his lisp and his languors. “As you urge, one has

+scant pleasure in paying this money. On the contrary, I shall find it

+extremely dull, don't y' know! But I don't call it wrong. I'm entitled,

+under the law, and the town's practice--a highly idiotic one, this

+latter, I concede!--of giving these franchises away, to come forward

+with my proposition. Since I offer to build a perfect road, and to run

+it in a perfect manner, I ought, as a matter of right--always bearing

+in mind the town's witless practice aforesaid--to be granted this

+franchise. But those officers of the city who, acting for the city,

+should make the grant, refuse to do their duty by either the city or

+myself, unless I pay to each of them, say ten thousand dollars; they

+do, really! What am I to do? I didn't select those officers; the public

+picked them out. Must I suffer loss, and go defeated of my rights,

+because the public was so careless or so ignorant as to pitch upon those

+improper, or, if you will, dishonest officials? I say, No. The fault is

+not mine; surely the loss should not be mine. I come off badly enough

+when I submit to the extortion. No, it is no more bribery, so far as

+I am involved, than it is bribery when I surrender my watch to that

+footpad who has a pistol at my ear. In each instance, the public should

+have saved me and has failed, don't y' know. The public, thus derelict,

+must not denounce me when, under conditions which its own neglect has

+created, I take the one path left open to insure myself; it mustn't,

+really!”

+

+Young Morton wiped the drops from his brow, and I could tell how he was

+deeply in earnest in what he thus put forward. Big Kennedy clapped him

+lustily on the back.

+

+“Put it there!” he cried, extending his hand. “I couldn't have said it

+better myself, an' I aint been doin' nothin' but buy aldermen since I

+cut my wisdom teeth. There's one last suggestion, however: I take it,

+you're onto the' fact that Blackberry Traction will lock horns with us

+over this franchise. We parallel their road, d'ye see, an' they'll try

+to do us up.” Then to me: “Who are th' Blackberry's pets in th' Board?”

+

+“McGinty and Doloran,” I replied.

+

+“Keep your peepers on them babies. You can tell by th' way they go

+to bat, whether th' Blackberry has signed up to them to kill our

+franchise.”

+

+“I can tell on the instant,” I said.

+

+“That has all been anticipated,” observed young Morton. “The president

+of Blackberry Traction is a member of my club; we belong in the same

+social set. I foresaw his opposition, and I've provided for it; I have,

+really! McGinty and Doloran, you say? The names sound like the enemy.

+Please post me if those interesting individuals move for our disfavor.”

+

+And now we went to work. Whatever was demanded of the situation as it

+unfolded found prompt reply, and in the course of time Mulberry Traction

+was given its franchise. The Blackberry at one crisis came forward to

+work an interruption; the sudden hot enmity of McGinty and Doloran was

+displayed. I gave notice of it to young Morton.

+

+“I'll arrange the matter,” he said. “At the next meeting of the Board I

+think they will be with us, don't y' know.”

+

+It was even so; and since Big Kennedy, with my aid, discharged every

+responsibility that was his, the ordinance granting the franchise went

+through, McGinty and Doloran voting loudly with the affirmative. They

+were stubborn caitiffs, capable of much destructive effort, and their

+final tameness won upon my surprise. I put the question of it to young

+Morton.

+

+“This is the secret of that miracle,” said he. “The president of

+Blackberry has been a Wall Street loser, don't y' know, for more than a

+year--has lost more than he could honestly pay. And yet he paid! Where

+did he get the money? At first I asked myself the question in a feeling

+of lazy curiosity. When I decided to organize our Mulberry Traction, I

+asked it in earnest; I did, really! I foresaw my friend's opposition,

+and was seeking a weapon against him. Wherefore I looked him over

+with care, trying to determine where he got his loans. Now, he was the

+president, and incidentally a director, of the Confidence Trust Company.

+I bought stock in the Confidence. Then I drew into my interest that

+employee who had charge of the company's loans. I discovered that our

+Blackberry president had borrowed seven millions from the Trust

+Company, giving as security a collection of dogs and cats and chips and

+whetstones, don't y' know! That was wrong; considering his position

+as an officer of the company, it was criminal. I made myself master of

+every proof required to establish his guilt in court. Then I waited.

+When you told me of those evil symptoms manifested by McGinty and

+Doloran, I took our president into the Fifth Avenue window of the club

+and showed him those evidences of his sins. He looked them over, lighted

+a cigar, and after musing for a moment, asked if the help of McGinty and

+Doloran for our franchise would make towards my gratification. I told

+him I would be charmed--really! You know the rest. Oh, no; I did not do

+so rude a thing as threaten an arrest. It wasn't required. Our president

+is a highly intellectual man. Besides, it wouldn't have been clubby; and

+it would have been bad form. And,” concluded young Morton, twirling

+his little cane, and putting on that look of radiant idiocy, “I've an

+absolute mania for everything that's form, don't y' know.”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV--THAT GAS COMPANY INJUNCTION

+

+

+YOUNG MORTON was president of Mulberry Traction. When the franchise

+came sound and safe into the hands of Mulberry, young Morton evolved a

+construction company and caused himself to be made president and manager

+thereof. These affairs cleared up, he went upon the building of his road

+with all imaginable spirit. He was still that kid-gloved, eve-glassed

+exquisite of other hours, but those who dealt with him in his

+road-building knew in him a hawk to see and a lion to act in what he

+went about. Big Kennedy was never weary of his name, and glowed at its

+merest mention.

+

+“He's no show-case proposition!” cried Big Kennedy exultantly. “To look

+at him, folks might take him for a fool. They'd bring him back, you bet!

+if they did. You've got to see a party in action before you can tell

+about him. A mudscow will drift as fast as an eight-oared shell; it's

+only when you set 'em to goin' endwise, an' give 'em a motive, you begin

+to get onto th' difference.”

+

+One day young Morton told me how the Gas Company had lodged suit against

+Mulberry.

+

+“They've gotten a beastly injunction, they have, really!” said he.

+“They say we're digging, don't y' know, among their pipes and mains. The

+hearing is put down for one week from to-day.”

+

+“The Gas Company goes vastly out of its way in this!” observed the

+reputable old gentleman indignantly.

+

+He had arrived in company with young Morton. When now the franchise was

+obtained, and those more devious steps for Mulberry advancement had been

+taken, the reputable old gentleman began to feel a vigorous interest in

+his son's enterprise. The reputable old gentleman had grown proud of his

+son, and it should be conceded that young Morton justified the paternal

+admiration.

+

+“Let us go over to Tammany Hall,” said I, “and talk with Big Kennedy.”

+

+We found Big Kennedy in cheerful converse with the Reverend Bronson,

+over the latter's Five Points Mission. He and the dominie were near Big

+Kennedy's desk; in a far corner lolled a drunken creature, tattered,

+unshorn, disreputable, asleep and snoring in his chair. As I entered the

+room, accompanied by the reputable old gentleman and young Morton, Big

+Kennedy was giving the Reverend Bronson certain hearty assurances of his

+good will.

+

+“I'll see to it to-day,” Big Kennedy was saying. “You go back an' deal

+your game. I'll have two cops detailed to every meetin', d'ye see, an'

+their orders will be to break their night-sticks over th' head of th'

+first duck that laughs or makes a row. You always come to me for what

+you want; you can hock your socks I'll back you up. What this town needs

+is religious teachin' of an elevated kind, an' no bunch of Bowery bums

+is goin' to give them exercises th' smother. An' that goes!”

+

+“I'm sure I'm much obliged,” murmured the Reverend Bronson, preparing to

+take himself away. Then, turning curious: “May I ask who that lost and

+abandoned man is?” and he indicated the drunkard, snoring in his chair.

+

+“You don't know him,” returned Big Kennedy, in a tone of confident,

+friendly patronage. “Just now he's steeped in bug juice to th' eyes,

+an' has been for a week. But I'm goin' to need him; so I had him brought

+in.”

+

+“Of what earthly use can one who has fallen so low be put to?” asked the

+Reverend Bronson. Then, with a shudder: “Look at him!”

+

+“An' that's where you go wrong!” replied Big Kennedy, who was in one of

+his philosophical humors. “Now if it was about morals, or virtue, or th'

+hereafter, I wouldn't hand you out a word. That's your game, d'ye see,

+an' when it's a question of heaven, you've got me beat. But there's

+other games, like Tammany Hall for instance, where I could give you

+cards an' spades. Now take that sot there: I know what he can do, an'

+what I want him for, an' inside of a week I'll be makin' him as useful

+as a corkscrew in Kentucky.”

+

+“He seems a most unpromising foundation upon which to build one's hope,”

+ said the Reverend Bronson dubiously.

+

+“He aint much to look at, for fair!” responded Big Kennedy, in his large

+tolerant way. “But you mustn't bet your big stack on a party's looks.

+You can't tell about a steamboat by th' coat of paint on her sides;

+you must go aboard. Now that fellow”--here he pointed to the sleeping

+drunkard--“once you get th' booze out of him, has a brain like a

+buzzsaw. An' you should hear him talk! He's got a tongue so acid it

+would eat through iron. The fact is, th' difference between that soak

+an' th' best lawyer at the New York bar is less'n one hundred dollars.

+I'll have him packed off to a Turkish bath, sweat th' whisky out of him,

+have him shaved an' his hair cut, an' get him a new suit of clothes.

+When I'm through, you won't know him. He'll run sober for a month, which

+is as long as I'll need him this trip.”

+

+“And will he then return to his drunkenness?” asked the Reverend

+Bronson.

+

+“Sure as you're alive!” said Big Kennedy. “The moment I take my hooks

+off him, down he goes.”

+

+“What you say interests me! Why not send him to my mission, and let me

+compass his reform.”

+

+“You might as well go down to th' morgue an' try an' revive th' dead.

+No, no, Doctor; that duck is out of humanity's reach. If you took him in

+hand at your mission, he'd show up loaded some night an' tip over your

+works. Better pass him up.”

+

+“If his case is so hopeless, I marvel that you tolerate him.”

+

+The Reverend Bronson was a trifle piqued at Big Kennedy for thinking his

+influence would fall short of the drunkard's reform.

+

+“You aint onto this business of bein' Chief of Tammany,” responded Big

+Kennedy, with his customary grin. “I always like to do my work through

+these incurables. It's better to have men about you who are handicapped

+by some big weakness, d'ye see! They're strong on th' day you need 'em,

+an' weak when you lay 'em down. Which makes it all the better. If

+these people were strong all th' year 'round, one of 'em, before we got

+through, would want my job, an' begin to lay pipes to get it. Some time,

+when I wasn't watchin', he might land th' trick at that. No, as hands to

+do my work, give me fellows who've got a loose screw in their machinery.

+They're less chesty; an' then they work better, an' they're safer.

+I've only one man near me who don't show a blemish. That's him,” and he

+pointed to where I sat waiting with young Morton and the reputable old

+gentleman. “I'll trust him; because I'm goin' to make him Boss when I

+get through; an' he knows it. That leaves him without any reason for

+doin' me up.”

+

+Big Kennedy called one of his underlings, and gave him directions to

+have the sleeping drunkard conveyed instantly to a bath-house.

+

+“Get th' kinks out of him,” said he; “an' bring him back to me in four

+days. I want to see him as straight as a string, an' dressed as though

+for a weddin'. I'm goin' to need him to make a speech, d'ye see! at that

+mugwump ratification meetin' in Cooper Union.”

+

+When the Reverend Bronson, and the drunken Cicero, in care of his

+keeper, had gone their several ways, Big Kennedy wheeled upon us. He was

+briefly informed of the troubles of Mulberry Traction.

+

+“If them gas crooks don't hold hard,” said he, when young Morton had

+finished, “we'll have an amendment to th' city charter passed at

+Albany, puttin' their meters under th' thumb an' th' eye of th' Board of

+Lightin' an' Supplies. I wonder how they'd like that! It would cut sixty

+per cent, off their gas bills. However, mebby th' Gas Company's buttin'

+into this thing in th' dark. What judge does the injunction come up

+before?”

+

+“Judge Mole,” said young Morton.

+

+“Mole, eh?” returned Big Kennedy thoughtfully. “We'll shift th' case

+to some other judge. Mole won't do; he's th' Gas Company's judge, d'ye

+see.”

+

+“The Gas Company's judge!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman, in

+horrified amazement.

+

+Big Kennedy, at this, shone down upon the reputable old gentleman like a

+benignant sun.

+

+“Slowly but surely,” said he, “you begin to tumble to th' day an'

+th' town you're livin' in. Don't you know that every one of our giant

+companies has its own judge? Why! one of them Captains of Industry, as

+th' papers call 'em, would no more be without his judge than without his

+stenographer.”

+

+“In what manner,” snorted the reputable old gentleman, “does one of our

+great corporations become possessed of a judge?”

+

+“Simple as sloppin' out champagne!” returned Big Kennedy. “It asks us to

+nominate him. Then it comes up with his assessment, d'ye see!--an' I've

+known that to run as high as one hundred thousand--an' then every year

+it contributes to our various campaigns, say fifty thousand dollars a

+whirl. Oh! it comes high to have your own private judge; but if you're

+settin' into a game of commerce where th' limit's higher than a cat's

+back, it's worth a wise guy's while.”

+

+“Come, come!” interposed young Morton, “we've no time for moral and

+political abstractions, don't y' know! Let's get back to Mulberry

+Traction. You say Judge Mole won't do. Can you have the case set down

+before another judge?”

+

+“Easy money!” said Big Kennedy. “I'll have Mole send it over to Judge

+Flyinfox. He'll knock it on th' head, when it comes up, an' that's th'

+last we'll ever hear of that injunction.”

+

+“You speak of Judge Flyinfox with confidence,” observed the reputable

+old gentleman, breaking in. “Why are you so certain he will dismiss the

+application for an injunction?”

+

+“Because,” retorted Big Kennedy, in his hardy way, “he comes up for

+renomination within two months. He'd look well throwin' the harpoon into

+me right now, wouldn't he?” Then, as the double emotions of wrath and

+wonder began to make purple the visage of the reputable old gentleman:

+“Look here: you're more'n seven years old. Why should you think a judge

+was different from other men? Haven't you seen men crawl in th' sewer

+of politics on their hands an' knees, an' care for nothin' only so they

+crawled finally into th' Capitol at Albany? Is a judge any better than

+a governor? Or is either of 'em any better than other people? While

+Tammany makes th' judges, do you s'ppose they'll be too good for th'

+organization? That last would be a cunnin' play to make!”

+

+“But these judges,” said the reputable old gentleman. “Their terms are

+so long and their salaries so large, I should think they would defy you

+and your humiliating orders.”

+

+“Exactly,” returned Big Kennedy, with the pleasant air of one aware of

+himself, “an' that long term an' big salary works square th' other way.

+There's so many of them judges that there's one or two to be re-elected

+each year. So we've always got a judge whose term is on th' blink, d'ye

+see! An' he's got to come to us--to me, if you want it plain--to get

+back. You spoke of th' big salary an' th' long term. Don't you see that

+you've only given them guys more to lose? Now th' more a party has to

+lose, th' more he'll bow and scrape to save himself. Between us, a judge

+within a year or so of renomination is th' softest mark on th' list.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman expressed unbounded indignation, while Big

+Kennedy laughed.

+

+“What're you kickin' about?” asked Big Kennedy, when he had somewhat

+recovered. “That's the 'Boss System.' Just now, d'ye see! it's water

+on your wheel, so you oughtn't to raise th' yell. But to come back

+to Mulberry Traction: We'll have Mole send th' case to Flyinfox; an'

+Flyinfox will put th' kybosh on it, if it comes up. But I'll let you

+into a secret. Th' case'll never come up; th' Gas Company will go back

+to its corner.”

+

+“Explain,” said young Morton eagerly.

+

+“Because I'll tell 'em to.”

+

+“Do you mean that you'll go to the Gas Company,” sneered the reputable

+old gentleman, “and give its officers orders the same as you say you

+give them to the State's and the City's officers?”

+

+“Th' Gas Company'll come to me, an' ask for orders.”

+

+The reputable old gentleman drew a long breath, while his brows worked

+up and down.

+

+“And dare you tell me,” he cried, “that men of millions--our leading men

+of business, will come to you and ask your commands?”

+

+“My friend,” replied Big Kennedy gravely, “no matter how puffed up an'

+big these leadin' men of business get to be, th' Chief of Tammany is a

+bigger toad than any. Listen: th' bigger the target th' easier th' shot.

+If you'll come down here with me for a month, I'll gamble you'll meet

+an' make th' acquaintance of every business king in th' country. An'

+you'll notice, too, that they'll take off their hats, an' listen to what

+I say; an' in th' end, they'll do what I tell 'em to do.” Big Kennedy

+glowered impressively upon the reputable old gentleman. “That sounds

+like a song that is sung, don't it?” Then turning to me: “Tell th'

+Street Department not to give th' Gas Company any more permits to open

+streets until further orders. An' now”--coming back to the reputable old

+gentleman--“can't you see what'll come off?”

+

+The reputable old gentleman looked mystified. Young Morton, for his

+part, began to smile.

+

+“He sees!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, pointing to young Morton. “Here's

+what'll happen. Th' Gas Company has to have two hundred permits a day to

+tear open th' streets. After that order reaches the Street Commissioner,

+it won't get any.”

+

+“'Better see the Boss,' the Street Commissioner will whisper, when the

+Gas Company asks what's wrong.

+

+“The next day one of th' deck hands will come to see me. I'll turn him

+down; th' Chief of Tammany don't deal with deck hands. The next day th'

+Gas Company will send th' first mate. The mate'll get turned down; th'

+Chief of Tammany deals with nobody less'n a captain, d'ye see! On th'

+third day, or to put it like a prophet, say next Friday--since this

+is Tuesday--th' president of th' Gas Company will drive here in his

+brougham. I'll let him wait ten minutes in the outer room to take the

+swell out of his head. Then I'll let him in, an', givin' him th' icy

+eye, I'll ask: 'What's th' row?' Th' Gas Company will have been three

+days without permits to open th' streets;--its business will be at a

+standstill;--th' Gas Company'll be sweatin' blood. There'll be th' Gas

+Company's president, an' here'll be Big John Kennedy. I think that even

+you can furnish th' wind-up. As I tell you, now that I've had time to

+think it out, th' case will be withdrawn. Still, to make sure, we'll

+have Mole send th' papers over to Flyinfox, just as though we had

+nowhere except th' courts to look for justice.”

+

+On Monday, the day before the case was to have been called, the Gas

+Company, humbled and made penitent with a stern paucity of “permits,”

+ dismissed its petition for an injunction against Mulberry Traction, and

+young Morton returned to his career, unchecked of a court's decree.

+

+“Father,” said young Morton, as we came from our interview with Big

+Kennedy, “I'm not sure that the so-called Boss System for the Government

+of Cities is wholly without its advantages, don't y' know!” And here

+young Morton puffed a complacent, not to say superior, cigarette.

+

+“Humph!” retorted the reputable old gentleman angrily. “Every Esau,

+selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, would speak the same.”

+

+“Esau with a cigarette--really!” murmured young Morton, giving a

+ruminative puff. “But I say, father, it isn't a mess of pottage, don't

+y' know, it's a street railway.”

+

+As Mulberry Traction approached completion, the common stock reached

+forty. At that point Big Kennedy closed out his interest. Snapping the

+catchlock behind us, to the end that we be alone, he tossed a dropsical

+gray envelope on the table.

+

+“There's two hundred thousand dollars' worth of Uncle Sam's bonds,” said

+he. “That's your end of Mulberry Traction.”

+

+“You've sold out?”

+

+“Sold out an' got one million two hundred thousand.”

+

+“The stock would have gone higher,” said I. “You would have gotten more

+if you'd held on.”

+

+“Wall Street,” returned Big Kennedy, with a cautious shake of the head,

+“is off my beat. I'm afraid of them stock sharps; I feel like a come-on

+th' minute I begin to talk with one, an' I wouldn't trust 'em as far as

+I could throw a dog by th' tail. I break away as fast as ever I can, an'

+chase back to Fourteenth Street, where I'm wise to th' game. I've seen

+suckers like me who took a million dollars into Wall Street, an'

+came out in a week with nothin' but a pocket full of canceled postage

+stamps.”

+

+“I've been told,” said I with a laugh, and going with Big Kennedy's

+humor, “that two hundred years ago, Captain Kidd, the pirate, had his

+home on the site of the present Stock Exchange.”

+

+“Did he?” said Big Kennedy. “Well, I figger that his crew must

+have lived up an' down both sides of the street from him, an' their

+descendants are still holdin' down th' property. An' to think,” mused

+Big Kennedy, “that Trinity Church stares down th' length of Wall Street,

+with th' graves in th' Trinity churchyard to remind them stock wolves of

+th' finish! I'm a hard man, an' I play a hard game, but on th' level!

+if I was as big a robber as them Wall Street sharps, I couldn't look

+Trinity Church in th' face!” Then, coming back to Mulberry Traction and

+to me: “I've put it in bonds, d'ye see! Now if I was you, I'd stand pat

+on 'em just as they are. Lay 'em away, an' think to yourself they're for

+that little Blossom of yours.”

+

+At the name of Blossom, Big Kennedy laid his heavy hand on mine as might

+one who asked a favor. It was the thing unusual. Big Kennedy's rough

+husk gave scanty promise of any softness of sentiment to lie beneath.

+Somehow, the word and the hand brought the water to my eyes.'

+

+“It is precisely what I mean to do,” said I. “Blossom is to have it, an'

+have it as it is--two hundred thousand dollars in bonds.”

+

+Big Kennedy, with that, gave my hand a Titan's grip in indorsement of my

+resolve.

+

+Blossom was growing up a frail, slender child, and still with her

+frightened eyes. Anne watched over her; and since Blossom lacked in

+sturdiness of health, she did not go to a school, but was taught by

+Anne at home. Blossom's love was for me; she clung to me when I left the

+house, and was in my arms the moment the door opened upon my return. She

+was the picture of my lost Apple Cheek, wanting her roundness, and my

+eyes went wet and weary with much looking upon her.

+

+My home was quiet and, for me, gloomy. Anne, I think, was happy in a

+manner pensive and undemonstrative. As for Blossom, that terror she drew

+in from her mother when the latter was struck by the blow of my arrest

+for the death of Jimmy the Blacksmith, still held its black dominion

+over her fancy; and while with time she grew away from those agitations

+and hysterias which enthralled her babyhood, she lived ever in a

+twilight of melancholy that nothing could light up, and from which her

+spirit never emerged. In all her life I never heard her laugh, and her

+smile, when she did smile, was as the soul of a sigh. And so my house

+was a house of whispers and shadows and silences as sad as death--a

+house of sorrow for my lost Apple Cheek, and fear for Blossom whose life

+was stained with nameless mourning before ever she began to live at all.

+

+Next door to me I had brought my father and mother to dwell. Anne, who

+abode with me, could oversee both houses. The attitude of Big Kennedy

+towards Old Mike had not been wanting in effect upon me. The moment my

+money was enough, I took my father from his forge, and set both him and

+my mother to a life of workless ease. I have feared more than once that

+this move was one not altogether wise. My people had been used to labor,

+and when it was taken out of their hands they knew not where to turn

+with their time. They were much looked up to by neighbors for the power

+and position I held in the town's affairs; and each Sunday they could

+give the church a gold piece, and that proved a mighty boon to their

+pride. But, on the whole, the leisure of their lives, and they unable

+to employ it, carked and corroded them, and it had not a little to do in

+breaking down their health. They were in no sense fallen into the vale

+of years, when one day they were seized by a pneumonia and--my mother

+first, with her patient peasant face! and my father within the week that

+followed--passed both to the other life.

+

+And now when I was left with only Blossom and Anne to love, and to be

+dear and near to me, I went the more among men, and filled still more

+my head and hands and heart with politics. I must have action, motion.

+Grief walked behind me; and, let me but halt, it was never long in

+coming up.

+

+Sundry years slipped by, and the common routine work of the organization

+engaged utterly both Big Kennedy and myself. We struggled heartily, and

+had our ups and our downs, our years of black and our years of white.

+The storm that wrecked Big Kennedy's predecessor had left Tammany in

+shallow, dangerous waters for its sailing. Also Big Kennedy and I were

+not without our personal enemies. We made fair weather of it, however,

+particularly when one considers the broken condition of Tammany, and the

+days were not desolate of their rewards.

+

+Now ensues a great heave upward in my destinies.

+

+One evening I came upon Big Kennedy, face gray and drawn, sitting as

+still as a church. Something in the look or the attitude went through me

+like a lance.

+

+“What's wrong?” I asked.

+

+“There was a saw-bones here,” said he, “pawin' me over for a

+life-insurance game that I thought I'd buy chips in. He tells me my

+light's goin' to flicker out inside a year. That's a nice number to

+hand a man! Just as a sport finds himself on easy street, along comes

+a scientist an' tells him it's all off an' nothin' for it but the

+bone-yard! Well,” concluded Big Kennedy, grimly lighting a cigar, “if

+it's up to me, I s'ppose I can hold down a hearse as good as th' next

+one. If it's th' best they can do, why, let her roll!”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI--THE BOSS IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE BOSS!

+

+

+BIG KENNEDY could not live a year; his doom was written. It was the

+word hard to hear, and harder to believe, of one who, broad, burly,

+ruddy with the full color of manhood at its prime, seemed in the very

+feather of his strength. And for all that, his hour was on its way.

+Death had gained a lodgment in his heart, and was only pausing to

+strengthen its foothold before striking the blow. I sought to cheer him

+with the probability of mistake on the side of ones who had given him

+this dark warning of his case.

+

+“That's all right,” responded Big Kennedy in a tone of dogged dejection;

+“I'm up ag'inst it just th' same. It didn't need th' doctor to put me

+on. More'n once I've felt my heart slip a cog. I shall clean up an'

+quit. They say if I pull out an' rest, I may hang on for a year. That's

+th' tip I've got, an' I'm goin' to take it. I'm two millions to th'

+good, an' when all is done, why, that's enough.”

+

+Big Kennedy declared for a vacation; the public announcement went for

+it that he would rest. I was to take control as a fashion of Boss by

+brevet.

+

+“Of course,” said Big Kennedy when we talked privately of the situation,

+“you understand. I'm down an' out, done for an' as good as dead right

+now. But it's better to frame th' play as I've proposed. Don't change

+th' sign over th' door for a month or two; it'll give you time to

+stiffen your grip. There's dubs who would like th' job, d'ye see, an' if

+they found an openin' they'd spill you out of th' place like a pup out

+of a basket. It's for you to get your hooks on th' levers, an' be in

+control of th' machine before I die.” Then, with a ghastly smile: “An'

+seein' it's you, I'll put off croakin! till th' last call of th' board.”

+

+Big Kennedy, seeking that quiet which had been the physician's

+prescription, went away. When, later by ten months, he came back, his

+appearance was a shock to me. The great, bluff man was gone, and he who

+feebly took me by the hand seemed no more than a weak shadow of that

+Big John Kennedy whom I had followed. The mere looks of him were like a

+knife-stab. He stayed but a day, and then returned to his retreat in the

+silent hills. Within a month Big Kennedy was dead.

+

+“You've got things nailed,” said he, on the last evening, “an' I'm glad

+it's so. Now let me give you a few points; they may help you to hold

+down your place as Boss. You're too hungry for revenge; there's your

+weakness. The revenge habit is worse than a taste for whisky. Th' best

+you can say for it is it's a waste of time. When you've downed a man,

+stop. To go on beatin' him is like throwin' water on a drowned rat.

+

+“When it comes to handin' out th' offices an' th' contracts, don't play

+fav'rites. Hand every man what's comin' to him by th' rules of th' game.

+It'll give you more power to have men say you'll do what's square, than

+that you'll stick by your friends. Good men--dead-game men, don't want

+favors; they want justice.

+

+“Never give a man the wrong office; size every man up, an' measure him

+for his place th' same as a tailor does for a suit of clothes. If you

+give a big man a little office, you make an enemy; if you give a little

+man a big office, you make trouble.

+

+“Flatter th' mugwumps. Of course, their belfry is full of bats; but

+about half th' time they have to be your pals, d'ye see, in order to be

+mugwumps. An' you needn't be afraid of havin' 'em around; they'll never

+ketch onto anything. A mugwump, as some wise guy said, is like a man

+ridin' backward in a carriage; he never sees a thing until it's by.

+

+“Say 'No' nineteen times before you say 'Yes' once. People respect th'

+man who says 'No,' an' his 'Yes' is worth more where he passes it out.

+When you say 'No,' you play your own game; when you say 'Yes,' you're

+playin' some other duck's game. 'No,' keeps; 'Yes,' gives; an' th' gent

+who says 'No' most will always be th' biggest toad in his puddle.

+

+“Don't be fooled by a cheer or by a crowd. Cheers are nothin' but a

+breeze; an' as for a crowd, no matter who you are, there would always be

+a bigger turn-out to see you hanged than to shake your mit.

+

+“Always go with th' current; that's th' first rule of leadership. It's

+easier; an' there's more water down stream than up.

+

+“Think first, last, an' all th' time of yourself. You may not be of

+account to others, but you're the whole box of tricks to yourself. Don't

+give a man more than he gives you. Folks who don't stick to that steer

+land either in bankruptcy or Bloomin'dale.

+

+“An' remember: while you're Boss, you'll be forced into many things

+ag'inst your judgment. The head of Tammany is like th' head of a snake,

+an' gets shoved forward by the tail. Also, like th' head of a snake, th'

+Boss is th' target for every rock that is thrown.

+

+“Have as many lieutenants as you can; twenty are safer than two. Two

+might fake up a deal with each other to throw you down; twenty might

+start, but before they got to you they'd fight among themselves.

+

+“Have people about you who distrust each other an' trust you. Keep th'

+leaders fightin' among themselves. That prevents combinations ag'inst

+you; an' besides they'll do up each other whenever you say the word,

+where every man is hated by the rest.

+

+“Always pay your political debts; but pay with a jolly as far as it'll

+go. If you find one who won't take a jolly, throw a scare into him and

+pay him with that. If he's a strong, dangerous mug with whom a jolly

+or a bluff won't work, get him next to you as fast as you can. If you

+strike an obstinate party, it's th' old rule for drivin' pigs. If you

+want 'em to go forward, pull 'em back by th' tails. Never trust a man

+beyond his interest; an' never love the man, love what he does.

+

+“The whole science of leadership lies in what I've told you, an' if you

+can clinch onto it, you'll stick at th' top till you go away, like I do

+now, to die. An' th' last of it is, don't get sentimental--don't take

+politics to heart. Politics is only worth while so long as it fills your

+pockets. Don't tie yourself to anything. A political party is like a

+street car; stay with it only while it goes your way. A great partisan

+can never be a great Boss.”

+

+When I found myself master of Tammany, my primary thought was to be

+cautious. I must strengthen myself; I must give myself time to take

+root. This was the more necessary, for not only were there a full score

+of the leaders, any one of whom would prefer himself for my place, but

+the political condition was far from reassuring. The workingman--whom as

+someone said we all respect and avoid--was through his unions moving to

+the town's conquest. It was as that movement of politics in the land

+of the ancient Nile. Having discovered a Moses, the hand-workers would

+offer him for the mayoralty on the issue of no more bricks without

+straw.

+

+Skilled to the feel of sentiment, I could gauge both the direction

+and the volume of the new movement. Nor was I long in coming to the

+knowledge that behind it marched a majority of the people. Unless

+checked, or cheated, that labor uprising would succeed; Tammany and its

+old-time enemies would alike go down.

+

+This news, self-furnished as a grist ground of the mills of my own

+judgment, stimulated me to utmost action. It would serve neither my

+present nor my future should that battle which followed my inauguration

+be given against me. I was on my trial; defeat would be the signal for

+my overthrow. And thus I faced my first campaign as Boss.

+

+That rebellion of the working folk stirred to terror the conservatives,

+ever the element of wealth. Each man with a share of stock to shrink in

+value, or with a dollar loaned and therefore with security to shake, or

+with a store through the plate-glass panes of which a mob might hurl

+a stone, was prey to a vast alarm. The smug citizen of money, and of

+ease-softened hands, grew sick as he reflected on the French Revolution;

+and he predicted gutters red with blood as the near or far finale

+should the town's peasantry gain the day. It was then those rich ones,

+panic-bit, began to ask a succor of Tammany Hall. There were other

+septs, but Tammany was the drilled, traditional corps of political

+janissaries. Wherefore, the local nobility, being threatened, fled to it

+for refuge.

+

+These gentry of white faces and frightened pocket-books came to me by

+ones and twos and quartettes; my every day was filled with them; and

+their one prayer was for me to make a line of battle between them and

+that frowning peril of the mob. To our silken worried ones, I replied

+nothing. I heard; but I kept myself as mute for hope or for fear as any

+marble.

+

+And yet it was sure from the beginning that I must make an alliance with

+my folk of purple. The movement they shuddered over was even more of a

+menace to Tammany than it was to them. It might mean dollars to them,

+but for Tammany it promised annihilation, since of every five who went

+with this crusade, four were recruited from the machine.

+

+Fifth Avenue, in a fever, did not realize this truth. Nor was I one to

+enlighten my callers. Their terror made for the machine; it could be

+trained to fill the Tammany treasure chest with a fund to match those

+swelling fears, the reason of its contribution. I locked up my tongue;

+it was a best method to augment a mugwump horror which I meant should

+find my resources.

+

+Young Morton, still with his lisp, his affectations, his scented gloves,

+and ineffable eyeglass, although now no longer “young,” but like myself

+in the middle journey of his life, was among my patrician visitors.

+Like the others, he came to urge a peace-treaty between Tammany and the

+mugwumps, and he argued a future stored of fortune for both myself and

+the machine, should the latter turn to be a defense for timid deer from

+whom he came ambassador.

+

+To Morton I gave particular ear. I was never to forget that loyalty

+wherewith he stood to me on a day of trial for the death of Jimmy the

+Blacksmith. If any word might move me it would be his. Adhering to a

+plan, however, I had as few answers for his questions as I had for those

+of his mates, and wrapped myself in silence like a mantle.

+

+Morton was so much his old practical self that he bade me consider a

+candidate and a programme.

+

+“Let us nominate my old gentleman for mayor,” said he. “He's very old;

+but he's clean and he's strong, don't y' know. Really he would draw

+every vote to his name that should of right belong to us.”

+

+“That might be,” I returned; “but I may tell you, and stay within the

+truth, that if your father got no more votes than should of right be

+his, defeat would overtake him to the tune of thousands. Add the machine

+to the mugwumps, and this movement of labor still has us beaten

+by twenty thousand men. That being the case, why should I march

+Tammany--and my own fortune, too--into such a trap?”

+

+“What else can you do?” asked Morton.

+

+“I can tell you what was in my mind,” said I. “It was to go with this

+labor movement and control it.”

+

+“That labor fellow they've put up would make the worst of mayors.

+You and Tammany would forever be taunted with the errors of his

+administration. Besides, the creature's success would vulgarize the

+town; it would, really!”

+

+“He is an honest man,” said I.

+

+“Honest, yes; but what of that? Honesty is the commonest trait of

+ignorance. There should be something more than honesty, don't y' know,

+to make a mayor. There be games like draw poker and government where

+to be merely honest is not a complete equipment. Besides, think of the

+shock of such a term of hobnails in the City Hall. If you, with your

+machine, would come in, we could elect my old gentleman over him or any

+other merely honest candidate whom those vulgarians could put up; we

+could, really!”

+

+“Tell me how,” said I.

+

+“There would be millions of money,” lisped Morton, pausing to select a

+cigarette; “since Money would be swimming for dear life. All our fellows

+at the club are scared to death--really! One can do anything with money,

+don't y' know.”

+

+“One can't stop a runaway horse with money,” I retorted; “and this labor

+movement is a political runaway.”

+

+“With money we could build a wall across its course and let those idiots

+of politics run against it. My dear fellow, let us make a calculation.

+Really, how many votes should those labor animals overrun us, on the

+situation's merits?”

+

+“Say twenty-five thousand.”

+

+“This then should give so experienced a hand as yourself some shade of

+comfort. The Master of the Philadelphia Machine, don't y' know, is one

+of my railway partners. 'Old chap,' said he, when I told him of the

+doings of our New York vandals, 'I'll send over to you ten thousand men,

+any one of whom would loot a convent. These common beggars must be put

+down! The example might spread to Philadelphia.' So you see,” concluded

+Morton, “we would not be wanting in election material. What should ten

+thousand men mean?”

+

+“At the least,” said I, “they should count for forty thousand. A man

+votes with a full beard; then he votes with his chin shaved; then he

+shaves the sides of his face and votes with a mustache; lastly he votes

+with a smooth face and retires to re-grow a beard against the

+next campaign. Ten thousand men should tally forty thousand votes.

+Registration and all, however, would run the cost of such an enterprise

+to full five hundred thousand dollars.”

+

+“Money is no object,” returned Morton, covering a yawn delicately with

+his slim hand, “to men who feel that their fortunes, don't y' know, and

+perhaps their lives, are on the cast. Bring us Tammany for this one war,

+and I'll guarantee three millions in the till of the machine; I

+will, really! You would have to take those ten thousand recruits from

+Philadelphia into your own hands, however; we Silk Stockings don't own

+the finesse required to handle such a consignment of goods. Besides, if

+we did, think what wretched form it would be.”

+

+To hide what was in my thought, I made a pretense of considering the

+business in every one of its angles. There was a minute during which

+neither of us spoke.

+

+“Why should I put the machine,” I asked at last, “in unnecessary peril

+of the law? This should be a campaign of fire. Every stick of those

+three millions you speak of would go to stoke the furnaces. I will do as

+well, and win more surely, with the labor people.”

+

+“But do you want to put the mob in possession?” demanded Morton,

+emerging a bit from his dandyisms. “I'm no purist of politics; indeed,

+I think I'm rather practical than otherwise, don't y' know. I am free

+to say, however, that I fear a worst result should those savages of a

+dinner-can and a dollar-a-day, succeed--really! You should think once in

+a while, and particularly in a beastly squall like the present, of the

+City itself.”

+

+“Should I?” I returned. “Now I'll let you into an organization tenet.

+Tammany, blow high, blow low, thinks only of itself.”

+

+“You would be given half the offices, remember.”

+

+“And the Police?”

+

+“And the Police.”

+

+“Tammany couldn't keep house without the police,” said I, laughing.

+“You've seen enough of our housekeeping to know that.”

+

+“You may have the police, and what else you will.”

+

+“Well,” said I, bringing the talk to a close, “I can't give you an

+answer now. I must look the situation in the eyes. To be frank, I don't

+think either the Tammany interest or my own runs with yours in this. I,

+with my people, live at the other end of the lane.”

+

+While Morton and I were talking, I had come to a decision. I would name

+the reputable old gentleman for mayor. He was stricken of years; but

+I bethought me how for that very reason he might be, when elected, the

+easier to deal with. But I would keep my resolve from Morton. There was

+no stress of hurry; the election was months away. I might see reason

+to change. One should ever put off his contract-making until the last.

+Besides, Morton would feel the better for a surprise.

+

+Before I went to an open alliance with the mugwumps, I would weaken the

+labor people. This I might do by pretending to be their friend.

+There was a strip of the labor candidate's support which was rabid

+anti-Tammany. Let me but seem to come to his comfort and aid, and every

+one of those would desert him.

+

+Within the week after my talk with Morton, I sent a sly scrap of news

+to the captains of labor. They were told that I had given utterance

+to sentiments of friendship for them and their man. Their taste to

+cultivate my support was set on edge. These amateurs of politics came

+seeking an interview. I flattered their hopes, and spoke in high terms

+of their candidate, his worth and honesty. The city could not be in

+safer hands.

+

+There were many interviews. It was as an experience, not without a side

+to amuse, since my visitors, while as pompous as turkey cocks, were as

+innocently shallow as so many sheep. Many times did we talk; and I gave

+them compliments and no promises.

+

+My ends were attained. The papers filled up with the coming partnership

+between the labor movement and the machine, and those berserks of

+anti-Tammany, frothing with resentment against ones who would sell

+themselves into my power as the price of my support, abandoned the

+laborites in a body. There were no fewer than five thousand of these to

+shake the dust of labor from their feet. When I had driven the last of

+them from the labor champion, by the simple expedient of appearing to be

+his friend, I turned decisively my back on him. Also, I at once called

+Tammany Convention--being the first in the field--and issued those

+orders which named the reputable old gentleman.

+

+There arose a roar and a cheer from my followers at this, for they read

+in that name a promise of money knee-deep; and what, than that word,

+should more brighten a Tammany eye! I was first, with the machine at

+my back, to walk upon the field with our reputable old gentleman. The

+mugwumps followed, adopting him with all dispatch; the Republicans,

+proper, made no ticket; two or three straggling cliques and split-offs

+of party accepted the reputable old gentleman's nomination; and so the

+lines were made. On the heels of the conventions, the mugwump leaders

+and I met and merged our tickets, I getting two-thirds and surrendering

+one-third of those names which followed that of the reputable old

+gentleman for the divers offices to be filled.

+

+When all was accomplished, the new situation offered a broad foundation,

+and one of solvency and depth, whereon to base a future for both Tammany

+and myself. It crystallized my power, and my grip on the machine was set

+fast and hard by the sheer effect of it. The next thing was to win at

+the polls; that would ask for studied effort and a quickness that must

+not sleep, for the opposition, while clumsy, straggling, and unwieldly

+with no skill, overtopped us in strength by every one of those thousands

+of which I had given Morton the name.

+

+“Really, you meant it should be a surprise,” observed Morton, as he

+grasped my hand. It was the evening of the day on which the Tammany

+Convention named the reputable old gentleman. “I'll plead guilty; it

+was a surprise. And that's saying a great deal, don't y' know. To be

+surprised is bad form, and naturally I guard myself against such a

+vulgar calamity. But you had me, old chap! I was never more baffled

+and beaten than when I left you. I regarded the conquest of the City by

+those barbarians as the thing made sure. Now all is changed. We will go

+in and win; and not a word I said, don't y' know, shall be forgotten and

+every dollar I mentioned shall be laid down. It shall, 'pon honor!”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII--THE REPUTABLE OLD GENTLEMAN IS MAYOR

+

+

+THE Philadelphia machine was a training school for repeaters. Those

+ten thousand sent to our cause by Morton's friend, went about their work

+like artillerymen about their guns. Each was good for four votes. As one

+of the squad captains said:

+

+“There's got to be time between, for a party to change his face an'

+shift to another coat an' hat. Besides, it's as well to give th' judges

+an hour or two to get dim to your mug, see!”

+

+Big Kennedy had set his foot upon the gang spirit, and stamped out of

+existence such coteries as the Tin Whistles and the Alley Gang, and I

+copied Big Kennedy in this. Such organizations would have been a threat

+to me, and put it more in reach of individual leaders to rebel against

+an order. What work had been done by the gangs was now, under a better

+discipline and with machine lines more tightly drawn, transacted by the

+police.

+

+When those skillful gentry, meant to multiply a ballot-total, came in

+from the South, I called my Chief of Police into council. He was that

+same bluff girthy personage who, aforetime, had conferred with Big

+Kennedy. I told him what was required, and how his men, should occasion

+arise, must foster as far as lay with them the voting purposes of our

+colonists.

+

+“You can rely on me, Gov'nor,” said the Chief. He had invented this

+title for Big Kennedy, and now transferred it to me. “Yes, indeed, you

+can go to sleep on me doin' my part. But I'm bothered to a standstill

+with my captains. Durin' th' last four or five years, th' force has

+become honeycombed with honesty; an', may I be struck! if some of them

+square guys aint got to be captains.”

+

+“Should any get in your way,” said I, “he must be sent to the outskirts.

+I shall hold you for everything that goes wrong.”

+

+“I guess,” said the Chief thoughtfully, “I'll put the whole racket in

+charge of Gothecore. He'll keep your emigrants from Philadelphia walkin'

+a crack. They'll be right, while Gothecore's got his peeps on 'em.”

+

+“Has Gothecore had experience?”

+

+“Is Bill Gothecore wise? Gov'nor, I don't want to paint a promise so

+brilliant I can't make good, but Gothecore is th' most thorough workman

+on our list. Why, they call him 'Clean Sweep Bill!' I put him in th'

+Tenderloin for six months, an' he got away with everything but th' back

+fence.”

+

+“Very well,” said I, “the care of these colonists is in your hands.

+Here's a list of the places where they're berthed.”

+

+“You needn't give 'em another thought, Gov'nor,” observed the Chief.

+Then, as he arose to depart: “Somethin's got to be done about them

+captains turnin' square. They act as a scare to th' others. I'll tell

+you what: Make the price of a captaincy twenty thousand dollars. That'll

+be a hurdle no honest man can take. Whoever pays it, we can bet on as a

+member of our tribe. One honest captain queers a whole force; it's like

+a horse goin' lame.” This last, moodily.

+

+In the eleventh hour, by our suggestion and at our cost, the Republican

+managers put up a ticket. This was made necessary by certain inveterate

+ones who would unite with nothing in which Tammany owned a part. As

+between us and the labor forces, they would have offered themselves to

+the latter. They must be given a ticket of their own whereon to waste

+themselves.

+

+The campaign itself was a whirlwind of money. That princely fund

+promised by Morton was paid down to me on the nail, and I did not stint

+or save it when a chance opened to advance our power by its employment.

+I say “I did not stint,” because, in accord with Tammany custom, the

+fund was wholly in my hands.

+

+As most men know, there is no such post as that of Chief of Tammany

+Hall. The office is by coinage, and the title by conference, of the

+public. There exists a finance committee of, commonly, a dozen names. It

+never meets, and the members in ordinary are 'to hear and know no

+more about the money of the organization than of sheep-washing among

+Ettrick's hills and vales. There is a chairman; into his hands all

+moneys come. These, in his care and name, and where and how and if he

+chooses, are put in bank. He keeps no books; he neither gives nor

+takes a scrap of paper, nor so much as writes a letter of thanks, in

+connection with such treasurership. He replies to no one for this

+money; he spends or keeps as he sees fit, and from beginning to end has

+the sole and only knowledge of either the intake or the outgo of the

+millions of the machine. The funds are wholly in his possession. To

+borrow a colloquialism, “He is the Man with the Money,” and since money

+is the mainspring of practical politics, it follows as the tail the

+kite, and without the intervention of either rule or statute, that he

+is The Boss. Being supreme with the money, he is supreme with the men of

+the machine, and it was the holding of this chairmanship which gave me

+my style and place as Chief.

+

+The position is not wanting in its rewards. Tammany, for its own safety,

+should come forth from each campaign without a dollar. There is no

+argument to carry over a residue from one battle to the next. It is not

+required, since Tammany, from those great corporations whose taxes and

+liberties it may extend or shrink by a word, may ever have what money

+it will; and it is not wise, because the existence of a fund between

+campaigns would excite dissension, as this leader or that one conceived

+some plan for its dissipation. It is better to upturn the till on the

+back of each election, and empty it in favor of organization peace. And

+to do this is the duty of the Chairman of the Finance Committee; and I

+may add that it is one he was never known to overlook.

+

+There was nothing notable in that struggle which sent the reputable old

+gentleman to the city fore as Mayor, beyond the energy wherewith the

+work required was performed. Every move ran off as softly sure as could

+be wished. The police did what they should. Those visitors from below

+turned in for us full forty thousand votes, and then quietly received

+their wages and as quietly went their way. I saw to it that, one and

+all, they were sharply aboard the ferryboats when their work was done.

+No one would care for them, drunken and mayhap garrulous, about the

+streets, until after the last spark of election interest had expired.

+The polls were closed: the count was made; the laborites and their Moses

+was beaten down, and the reputable old gentleman was declared victor by

+fifteen thousand. Those rich ones, late so pale, revived the color in

+their cheeks; and as for Tammany and myself, we took deep breaths, and

+felt as ones from whose shoulders a load had been lifted.

+

+It was for me a fortunate upcome; following that victory, my leadership

+could no more be shaken than may the full-grown oaks. Feeling now my

+strength, I made divers machine changes of the inner sort. I caused my

+executive leaders to be taken from the assembly districts, rather than

+from the wards. There would be one from each; and since there was

+a greater number of districts than wards, the executive array was

+increased. I smelled safety for myself in numbers, feeling, as Big

+Kennedy advised, the more secure with twenty than with two. Also the new

+situation gave the leaders less influence with the Aldermen, when now

+the frontiers of the one no longer matched those of the other. I had

+aimed at this; for it was my instant effort on becoming Chief to collect

+within my own fingers every last thread of possible authority. I wanted

+the voice of my leadership to be the voice of the storm; all others I

+would stifle to a whisper.

+

+While busy within the organization, deepening and broadening the

+channels of my power, I did not neglect conditions beyond the walls.

+I sent for the leaders of those two or three bands of Democracy which

+professed themselves opposed to Tammany Hall. I pitched upon my men as

+lumber folk in their log-driving pitch upon the key-logs in a “jam.” I

+loosened them with office, or the promise of it, and they instantly came

+riding down to me on the currents of self-interest, and brought with

+them those others over whom they held command.

+

+Within the twelvemonth Tammany was left no rival within the lines of the

+regular party; I had, either by purring or by purchase, brought about

+the last one's disappearance. It was a fair work for the machine, and I

+could feel the gathering, swelling confidence of my followers uplifting

+me as the deep sea uplifts a ship.

+

+There was a thorn with that rose of leadership, nor did my hand escape

+its sting. The papers in their attacks upon me were as incessant as they

+were vindictive, and as unsparing as they were unfair. With never a fact

+set forth, by the word of these unmuzzled and uncaring imprints I stood

+forth as everything that was thievish, vile, and swart.

+

+While I made my skin as thick against these shafts as I could, since I

+might neither avoid nor return them, still they pierced me and kept me

+bleeding, and each new day saw ever a new wound to my sensibilities. It

+is a bad business--these storms of black abuse! You have but to fasten

+upon one, even an honest one, the name of horse-thief and, behold you!

+he will steal a horse. Moreover, those vilifications of types become

+arrows to glance aside and bury themselves in the breasts of ones

+innocent.

+

+Blossom was grown now to be a grave stripling girl of fifteen. Anne

+conceived that she should be taught in a school. She, herself, had

+carried Blossom to a considerable place in her books, but the finishing

+would be the better accomplished by teachers of a higher skill,

+and among children of Blossom's age. With this on her thought, Anne

+completed arrangements with a private academy for girls, one of superior

+rank; and to this shop of learning, on a certain morning, she conveyed

+Blossom. Blossom was to be fitted with a fashionable education by those

+modistes of the intellectual, just as a dressmaker might measure her,

+and baste her, and stitch her into a frock.

+

+But insult and acrid grief were lying there in ambush for

+Blossom--Blossom, then as ever, with her fear-haunted eyes. She was home

+before night, tearful, hysterical--crying in Anne's arms. There had been

+a cartoon in the papers. It showed me as a hairy brutal ape, the city

+in the shape of a beautiful woman fainting in my arms, and a mighty rock

+labeled “Tammany” in one hand, ready to hurl at my pursuers. The whole

+was hideous; and when one of the girls of the school showed it to

+Blossom, and taunted her with this portrait of her father, it was more

+than heart might bear. She fled before the outrage of it, and would

+never hear the name of school again. This ape-picture was the thing

+fearful and new to Blossom, for to save her, both Anne and I had been

+at care to have no papers to the house. The harm was done, however;

+Blossom, hereafter, would shrink from all but Anne and me, and when she

+was eighteen, save for us, the priest, and an old Galway serving woman

+who had been her nurse, she knew no one in the whole wide world.

+

+The reputable old gentleman made a most amazing Major. He was puffed

+with a vanity that kissed the sky. Honest, and by nature grateful, he

+was still so twisted as to believe that to be a good Mayor one must

+comport himself in an inhuman way.

+

+“Public office is a public trust!” cried he, quoting some lunatic

+abstractionist.

+

+The reputable old gentleman's notion of discharging this trust was

+to refuse admittance to his friends, while he sat in council with his

+enemies. To show that he was independent, he granted nothing to ones

+who had builded him; to prove himself magnanimous, he went truckling to

+former foes, preferring them into place. As for me, he declined every

+suggestion, refused every name, and while there came no open rupture

+between us, I was quickly taught to stay away.

+

+“My luck with my father,” said Morton, when one day we were considering

+that lofty spirit of the reputable old gentleman, “is no more flattering

+than your own, don't y' know. He waves me away with a flourish. I

+reminded him that while he might forget me as one who with trowel and

+mortar had aided to lay the walls of his career, he at least should

+remember that I was none the less his son; I did, really! He retorted

+with the story of the Roman father who in his rôle as judge sentenced

+his son to death. Gad! he seemed to regret that no chance offered for

+him to equal though he might not surpass that noble example. Speaking

+seriously, when his term verges to its close, what will be your course?

+You know the old gentleman purposes to succeed himself. And, doubtless,

+since such is mugwump thickness, he'll be renominated.”

+

+“Tammany,” said I, “will fight him. We'll have a candidate on a straight

+ticket of our own. His honor, your father, will be beaten.”

+

+“On my soul! I hope so,” exclaimed Morton. “Don't you know, I expect

+every day to find him doing something to Mulberry Traction--trying to

+invalidate its franchise, or indulging in some similar piece of humor. I

+shall breathe easier with my parent returned to private life--really!”

+

+“Never fear; I'll have the city in the hollow of my hand within the

+year,” said I.

+

+“I will show you where to find a million or two in Wall Street, if you

+do,” he returned.

+

+The downfall of the reputable old gentleman was already half

+accomplished. One by one, I had cut the props from beneath him. While he

+would grant me no contracts, and yield me no offices for my people,

+he was quite willing to consider my advice on questions of political

+concern. Having advantage of this, I one day pointed out that it was

+un-American to permit certain Italian societies to march in celebration

+of their victories over the Pope long ago. Why should good Catholic

+Irish-Americans be insulted with such exhibitions! These Italian

+festivals should be kept for Italy; they do not belong in America.

+The reputable old gentleman, who was by instinct more than half a Know

+Nothing, gave warm assent to my doctrines, and the festive Italians did

+not celebrate.

+

+Next I argued that the reputable old gentleman should refuse his

+countenance to the Irish exercises on St. Patrick's Day. The Irish were

+no better than the Italians. He could not make flesh of one and fish

+of the other. The reputable old gentleman bore testimony to the lucid

+beauty of my argument by rebuffing the Irish in a flame of words in

+which he doubted both their intelligence and their loyalty to the land

+of their adoption. In another florid tirade he later sent the Orangemen

+to the political right-about. The one powerful tribe he omitted to

+insult were the Germans, and that only because they did not come within

+his reach. Had they done so, the reputable old gentleman would have

+heaped contumely upon them with all the pleasure in life.

+

+It is not needed that I set forth how, while guiding the reputable old

+gentleman to these deeds of derring, I kept myself in the background. No

+one knew me as the architect of those wondrous policies. The reputable

+old gentleman stood alone; and in the inane fullness of his vanity took

+a deal of delight in the uproar he aroused.

+

+There was an enemy of my own. He was one of those elegant personalities

+who, in the elevation of riches and a position to which they are born,

+find the name of Tammany a synonym for crime. That man hated me, and

+hated the machine. But he loved the reputable old gentleman; and, by his

+name and his money, he might become of utmost avail to that publicist in

+any effort he put forth to have his mayorship again.

+

+One of the first offices of the city became vacant, that of chamberlain.

+I heard how the name of our eminent one would be presented for the

+place. That was my cue. I instantly asked that the eminent one be named

+for that vacant post of chamberlain. It was the earliest word which the

+reputable old gentleman had heard on the subject, for the friends of the

+eminent one as yet had not broached the business with him.

+

+When I urged the name of the eminent one, the reputable old gentleman

+pursed up his lips and frowned. He paused for so long a period that I

+began to fear lest he accept my suggestion. To cure such chance, I broke

+violently in upon his cogitations with the commands of the machine.

+

+“Mark you,” I cried, in the tones wherewith I was wont in former and

+despotic days to rule my Tin Whistles, “mark you! there shall be no

+denial! I demand it in the name of Tammany Hall.”

+

+The sequel was what I sought; the reputable old gentleman elevated his

+crest. We straightway quarreled, and separated in hot dudgeon. When the

+select bevy who bore among them the name of the eminent one arrived upon

+the scene, the reputable old gentleman, metaphorically, shut the door in

+their faces. They departed in a rage, and the fires of their indignation

+were soon communicated to the eminent one.

+

+As the result of these various sowings, a nodding harvest of enemies

+sprung up to hate and harass the reputable old gentleman. I could tell

+that he would be beaten; he, with the most formidable forces of politics

+against him solid to a man! To make assurance sure, however, I secretly

+called to me the Chief of Police. In a moment, the quiet order was

+abroad to close the gambling resorts, enforce the excise laws against

+saloons, arrest every contractor violating the ordinances regulating

+building material in the streets, and generally, as well as

+specifically, to tighten up the town to a point that left folk gasping.

+

+No one can overrate the political effect of this. New York has no home.

+It sits in restaurants and barrooms day and night. It is a city of

+noisome tenements and narrow flats so small that people file themselves

+away therein like papers in a pigeonhole.

+

+These are not homes: they grant no comfort; men do not seek them until

+driven by want of sleep. It is for the cramped reasons of flats and

+tenements that New York is abroad all night. The town lives in the

+streets; or, rather, in those houses of refreshment which, open night

+and day, have thrown away their keys.

+

+This harsh enforcement of the excise law, or as Old Mike put it,

+“Gettin' bechune th' people an' their beer,” roused a wasps' nest

+of fifty thousand votes. The reputable old gentleman was to win the

+stinging benefit, since he, being chief magistrate, must stand the brunt

+as for an act of his administration.

+

+Altogether, politically speaking, my reputable old gentleman tossed and

+bubbled in a steaming kettle of fish when he was given his renomination.

+For my own side, I put up against him a noble nonentity with a historic

+name. He was a mere jelly-fish of principle--one whose boneless

+convictions couldn't stand on their own legs. If the town had looked at

+my candidate, it would have repudiated him with a howl. But I knew my

+public. New York votes with its back to the future. Its sole thought is

+to throw somebody out of office--in the present instance, the offensive

+reputable old gentleman--and this it will do with never a glance at that

+one who by the effect of the eviction is to be raised to the place.

+No, I had no apprehensions; I named my jelly-fish, and with a straight

+machine-made ticket, mine from truck to keel, shoved boldly forth. This

+time I meant to own the town.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII--HOW THE BOSS TOOK THE TOWN

+

+

+THE reputable old gentleman was scandalized by what he called my

+defection, and told me so. That I should put up a ticket against him was

+grossest treason.

+

+“And why should I not?” said I. “You follow the flag of your interest; I

+but profit by your example.”

+

+“Sir!” cried the reputable old gentleman haughtily, “I have no interest

+save the interest of The public.”

+

+“So you say,” I retorted, “and doubtless so you think.” I had a desire

+to quarrel finally and for all time with the reputable old gentleman,

+whose name I no longer needed, and whose fame as an excise purist would

+now be getting in my way. “You deceive yourself,” I went on. “Your prime

+motive is to tickle your own vanity with a pretense of elevation. From

+the pedestal of your millions, and the safe shelter of a clean white

+shirt, you patronize mankind and play the prig. That is what folk say of

+you. As to what obligation in your favor rests personally upon myself,

+I have only to recall your treatment of my candidate for that place of

+chamberlain.”

+

+“Do you say men call me a prig?” demanded the reputable old gentleman

+with an indignant start. He ignored his refusal of the eminent one as

+chamberlain.

+

+“Sir, I deny the term 'prig.' If such were my celebration, I should not

+have waited to hear it from you.”

+

+“What should you hear or know of yourself?” said I. “The man looking

+from his window does not see his own house. He who marches with it,

+never sees the regiment of which he is a unit. No more can you, as

+mayor, see yourself, or estimate the common view concerning you. It

+is your vanity to seem independent and above control, and you have

+transacted that vanity at the expense of your friends. I've stood by

+while others went that road, and politically at least it ever led down

+hill.”

+

+That was my last conference with the reputable old gentleman. I went

+back to Fourteenth Street, and called on my people of Tammany to do

+their utmost. Nor should I complain of their response, for they went

+behind their batteries with the cool valor of buccaneers.

+

+There was but one question which gave me doubt, and that was the

+question of the Australian ballot, then a novelty in our midst.

+Theretofore, a henchman of the machine went with that freeman to the

+ballot-box, and saw to it how he put no cheat upon his purchasers. Now

+our commissioners could approach a polls no nearer than two hundred

+feet; the freeman went in alone, took his folded ticket from the judges,

+retired to privacy and a pencil, and marked his ballot where none might

+behold the work. Who then could know that your mercenary, when thus

+removed from beneath one's eye and hand, would fight for one's side? I

+may tell you the situation was putting a wrinkle in my brow when Morton

+came lounging in.

+

+“You know I've nothing to do with the old gentleman's campaign,” said

+he, following a mouthful or two of commonplace, and puffing the

+while his usual cigarette. “Gad! I told him that I had withdrawn from

+politics; I did, really! I said it was robbing me of all fineness; and

+that I must defend my native purity of sensibility, don't y' know, and

+preserve it from such sordid contact.

+

+“'Father,' said I, 'you surely would not, for the small cheap glory of a

+second term, compel me into experiences that must leave me case-hardened

+in all that is spiritual?'

+

+“No, he made no reply; simply turned his back upon me in merited

+contempt. Really, I think he was aware of me for a hypocrite. It was

+beastly hard to go back on the old boy, don't y' know! But for what I

+have in mind it was the thing to do.”

+

+Now, when I had him to counsel with, I gave Morton my troubles over the

+Australian law. The situation, generally speaking, showed good; the more

+because there were three tickets in the field. Still, nothing was sure.

+We must work; and we must omit no usual means of adding to our strength.

+And the Australian law was in our way.

+

+“Really, you're quite right,” observed Morton, polishing his eyeglass

+meditatively. “To be sure, these beasts of burden, the labor element,

+have politically gone to pieces since our last campaign. But they are

+still wandering about by twos and threes, like so many lost sheep, and

+unless properly shepherded--and what a shepherd's crook is money!--they

+may fall into the mouths of opposition wolves, don't y' know. What

+exasperating dullards these working people are! I know of but one

+greater fool than the working man, and that is the fool he works for!

+And so you say this Australian law breeds uncertainty for our side?”

+

+“There is no way to tell how a man votes.”

+

+Morton behind that potent eyeglass narrowed his gaze to the end of his

+nose, and gave a full minute to thought. Then his eyes, released from

+contemplation of his nose, began to brighten. I placed much reliance

+upon the fertility of our exquisite, for all his trumpery affectations

+of eyeglass and effeminate mannerisms, and I waited with impatience for

+him to speak.

+

+“Really, now,” said he, at last, “how many under the old plan would

+handle your money about each polling place?”

+

+“About four,” I replied. “Then at each polling booth there would be a

+dozen pullers-in, to bring up the voters, and go with them to see that

+they put in the right ballots. This last, you will notice, is by the

+Australian system made impossible.”

+

+“It is the duty of artillery people,” drawled Morton, “whenever the

+armor people invent a plate that cannot be perforated by guns in being,

+don't y' know, to at once invent a gun that shall pierce it. The same

+holds good in politics. Gad! we must invent a gun that shall knock a

+hole through this Australian armor; we must, really! A beastly system, I

+should call it, which those beggarly Australians have constructed! It's

+no wonder: they are all convicts down there, and it would need a felon

+to devise such an interference. However, this is what I suggest. You

+must get into your hands, we'll put it, five thousand of the printed

+ballots in advance of election day. This may be secretly done, don't y'

+know, by paying the printers where the tickets are being struck off. A

+printer is such an avaricious dog; he is, really! The tickets would be

+equally distributed among those men with the money whom you send about

+the polling places. A ballot in each instance should be marked with the

+cross for Tammany Hall before it is given to the recruit. He will then

+carry it into the booth in his pocket. Having received the regular

+ticket from the hands of the judges, he can go through the form of

+retiring, don't y' know; then reappear and give in the ticket which was

+marked by your man of the machine.”

+

+“And yet,” said I breaking in, “I do not see how you've helped the

+situation. The recruit might still vote the ticket handed him by the

+judges, for all our wisdom. Moreover, it would be no easy matter to get

+hold of fifty thousand tickets, all of which we would require to make

+sure. Five thousand we might manage, but that would not be enough.”

+

+“You should let me finish; you should, really!” returned Morton. “One

+would not pay the recruit until he returned to that gentleman of finance

+with whom he was dealing, don't y' know, and put into his hands the

+unmarked ballot with which the judges had endowed him. That would prove

+his integrity; and it would also equip your agent with a new fresh

+ballot against the next recruit. Thus you would never run out of

+ballots. Gad! I flatter myself, I've hit upon an excellent idea, don't

+y' know!” and with that, Morton began delicately to caress his mustache,

+again taking on his masquerade of the ineffably inane.

+

+Morton's plan was good; I saw its merits in a flash. He had proposed

+a sure system by which the machine might operate in spite of that

+antipodean law. We used it too, and it was half the reason of our

+victory. Upon its proposal, I extended my compliments to Morton.

+

+“Really, it's nothing,” said he, as though the business bored him. “Took

+the hint from football, don't y' know. It is a rule of that murderous

+amusement, when you can't buck the center, to go around the ends. But I

+must have a ride in the park to rest me; I must, really! I seldom permit

+myself to think--it's beastly bad form to think--and, therefore, when

+I do give my intelligence a canter, it fatigues me beyond expression.

+Well, good-by! I shall see you when I am recuperated. Meanwhile, you

+must not let that awful parent of mine succeed; it would be our ruin,

+don't y' know!” and Morton glared idiotically behind the eyeglass at

+the thought of the reputable old gentleman flourishing through a second

+term. “Yes, indeed,” he concluded, “the old boy would become a perfect

+juggernaut!”

+

+Morton's plan worked to admiration. The mercenary was given a ballot,

+ready marked; and later he returned with the one which the judges gave

+him, took his fee, and went his way.

+

+In these days, when the ballot furnished, by the judges is stamped on

+the back, each with its separate number in red ink, which number is set

+opposite a voter's name at the time he receives the ballot, and all to

+be verified when he brings it again to the judges for deposit in the

+box, the scheme would be valueless. There lies no open chance for the

+substitution of a ready-made ballot, because of the deterrent number in

+red ink.

+

+Under these changed conditions, however, as Morton declared they must,

+the gunners of party have invented both the projectile and the rifle to

+pierce this new and stronger plate. The party emblems, the Eagle, the

+Star, the Ship, and other totems of partisanship, are printed across the

+head of the ticket in black accommodating ink. The recruit now makes his

+designating cross with a pencil that is as soft as fresh paint. Then

+he spreads over the head of the ticket, as he might a piece of blotting

+paper, a tissue sheet peculiarly prepared. A gentle rub of the fingers

+across the tissue, stains it plainly with the Eagle, the Star, the Ship,

+and the entire procession of totems; also, it takes with the rest an

+impression of that penciled cross. This tissue, our recruit brings to

+that particular paymaster of the forces with whom he is in barter, and a

+glance answers the query was the vote made right or wrong. If “right” the

+recruit has his reward; if “wrong,” he is spurned from the presence as

+one too densely ignorant to be of use.

+

+The reputable old gentleman, when the vote came on, was overpowered; he

+retired to private life, inveighing against republics for that they were

+ungrateful. My jelly-fish of historic blood took his place as mayor, and

+Tammany dominated every corner of the town. My word was absolute

+from the bench of the jurist to the beat of the policeman; the second

+greatest city in the world, with every dollar of its treasure, was in my

+hands to do with it as I would. I drew a swelling sense of comfort from

+the situation which my breast had never known.

+

+And yet, I was not made mad by this sudden grant of power. I knew by

+the counsel of Big Kennedy, and the dungeon fate of that Boss who was

+destroyed, that I must light a lamp of caution for my journeyings.

+Neither the rôle of bully, nor the bluff method of the highwayman, would

+serve; in such rough event, the people, overhanging all, would be upon

+one like an avalanche. One must proceed by indirection and while the

+common back was turned; one, being careful, might bleed the public while

+it slept.

+

+When the town in its threads was thus wholly in my hands, with every

+office, great or small, held by a man of the machine, Morton came to

+call upon me.

+

+“And so you're the Czar!” said he.

+

+“You have the enemy's word for it,” I replied. “'Czar' is what they call

+me in their papers when they do not call me 'rogue.'”

+

+“Mere compliments, all,” returned Morton airily. “Really, I should

+feel proud to be thus distinguished. And yet I'm surprised! I was just

+telling an editor of one of our rampant dailies: 'Can't you see,' said

+I, 'that he who speaks ill of his master speaks ill of himself? To call

+a man a scoundrel or an ignoramus, is to call him weak, since neither

+is a mark of strength. And when you term him scoundrel and ignoramus who

+has beaten you, you but name yourself both viler, weaker still. Really,'

+I concluded, 'if only to preserve one's own standing, one should ever

+speak well of one's conqueror, don't y' know!' But it was of no use;

+that ink-fellow merely scowled and went his way. However, to discuss a

+theory of epithet was not my present purpose. Do you recall how, on the

+edge of the campaign, I said that if you would but win the town I'd lead

+you into millions?”

+

+“Yes,” said I, “you said something of the sort.”

+

+“You must trust me in this: I understand the market better than you do,

+don't y' know. Perhaps you have noticed that Blackberry Traction is very

+low--down to ninety, I think?”

+

+“No,” I replied, “the thing is news to me. I know nothing of stocks.”

+

+“It's as well. This, then, is my road to wealth for both of us. As a

+first move, don't y' know, and as rapidly as I can without sending it

+up, I shall load myself for our joint account with we'll say--since I'm

+sure I can get that much--forty thousand shares of Blackberry. It will

+take me ten days. When I'm ready, the president of Blackberry will call

+upon you; he will, really! He will have an elaborate plan for extending

+Blackberry to the northern limits of the town; and he will ask, besides,

+for a half-dozen cross-town franchises to act as feeders to the main

+line, and to connect it with the ferries. Be slow and thoughtful with

+our Blackberry president, but encourage him. Gad! keep him coming to you

+for a month, and on each occasion seem nearer to his view. In the end,

+tell him he can have those franchises--cross-town and extensions--and,

+for your side, go about the preliminary orders to city officers. It

+will send Blackberry aloft like an elevator, don't y' know! Those forty

+thousand shares will go to one hundred and thirty-five--really!”

+

+Two weeks later Morton gave me the quiet word that he held for us a

+trifle over forty thousand shares of Blackberry which he had taken at an

+average of ninety-one. Also, he had so intrigued that the Blackberry's

+president would seek a meeting with me to consider those extensions, and

+discover my temper concerning them.

+

+The president of Blackberry and I came finally together in a parlor of

+the Hoffman House, as being neutral ground. I found him soft-voiced,

+plausible, with a Hebrew cast and clutch. He unfurled his blue-prints,

+which showed the proposed extensions, and what grants of franchises

+would be required.

+

+At the beginning, I was cold, doubtful; I distrusted a public approval

+of the grants, and feared the public's resentment.

+

+“Tammany must retain the people's confidence,” said I. “It can only do

+so by protecting jealously the people's interests.”

+

+The president of Blackberry shrugged his shoulders. He looked at me

+hard, and as one who waited for my personal demands. He would not speak,

+but paused for me to begin. I could feel it in the air how a halfmillion

+might be mine for the work of asking. I never said the word, however; I

+had no mind to put my hand into that dog's mouth.

+

+Thus we stood; he urging, I considering the advisability of those

+asked-for franchises. This was our attitude throughout a score of

+conferences, and little by little I went leaning the Blackberry way.

+

+To be sure, the secret of our meetings was whispered in right quarters,

+and every day found fresh buyers for Blackberry. Meanwhile, the shares

+climbed high and ever higher, until one bland April morning they stood

+at one hundred and thirty-seven.

+

+Throughout my series of meetings with the president of Blackberry, I had

+seen no trace of Morton. For that I cared nothing, but played my part

+slowly so as to give him time, having confidence in his loyalty, and

+knowing that my interest was his interest, and I in no sort to

+be worsted. On that day when Blackberry showed at one hundred and

+thirty-seven, Morton appeared. He laid down a check for an even million

+of dollars.

+

+“I've been getting out of Blackberry for a week,” said he, with his air

+of delicate lassitude. “I found that it was tiring me, don't y' know;

+I did really! Besides, we've done enough: No gentlemen ever makes more

+than one million on a single turn; it's not good form.” That check,

+drawn to my order, was the biggest of its kind I'd ever handled. I took

+it up, and I could feel a pringling to my finger-ends with the contact

+of so much wealth all mine. I envied my languid friend his genius for

+coolness and aplomb. He selected a cigarette, and lighted it as though

+a million here and there, on a twist of the market, was a commonest of

+affairs. When I could command my voice, I said:

+

+“And now I suppose we may give Blackberry its franchises?”

+

+“No, not yet,” returned Morton. “Really, we're not half through. I've

+not only gotten rid of our holdings, but I've sold thirty-five thousand

+shares the other way. It was a deuced hard thing to do without sending

+the stock off--the market is always so beastly ready to tumble, don't

+y' know. But I managed it; we're now short about thirty-five thousand

+shares at one hundred and thirty-seven.”

+

+“What then?” said I.

+

+“On the whole,” continued Morton, with just a gleam of triumph behind

+his eyeglass, “on the whole, I think I should refuse Blackberry, don't

+y' know. The public interest would be thrown away; and gad! the people

+are prodigiously moved over it already, they are, really! It would be

+neither right nor safe. I'd come out in an interview declaring that a

+grant of what Blackberry asks for would be to pillage the town. Here,

+I've the interview prepared. What do you say? Shall we send it to the

+_Daily Tory_?”

+

+The interview appeared; Blackberry fell with a crash. It slumped fifty

+points, and Morton and I were each the better by fairly another million.

+Blackberry grazed the reef of a receivership so closely that it rubbed

+the paint from its side.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX--THE SON OF THE WIDOW VAN FLANGE

+

+

+WHEN now I was rich with double millions, I became harrowed of new

+thoughts and sown with new ambitions. It was Blossom to lie at the roots

+of it--Blossom, looking from her window of young womanhood upon a world

+she did not understand, and from which she drew away. The world was like

+a dark room to Blossom, with an imagined fiend to harbor in every

+corner of it. She must go forth among people of manners and station.

+The contact would mend her shyness; with time and usage she might find

+herself a pleasant place in life. Now she lived a morbid creature of

+sorrow which had no name--a twilight soul of loneliness--and the thought

+of curing this went with me day and night.

+

+Nor was I unjustified of authority.

+

+“Send your daughter into society,” said that physician to whom I put the

+question. “It will be the true medicine for her case. It is her nerves

+that lack in strength; society, with its dinners and balls and fêtes

+and the cheerful hubbub of drawing rooms, should find them exercise, and

+restore them to a complexion of health.”

+

+Anne did not believe with that savant of nerves. She distrusted my

+society plans for Blossom.

+

+“You think they will taunt her with the fact of me,” I said, “like that

+one who showed her the ape cartoon as a portrait of her father. But

+Blossom is grown a woman now. Those whom I want her to meet would be

+made silent by politeness, even if nothing else might serve to stay

+their tongues from such allusions. And I think she would be loved among

+them, for she is good and beautiful, and you of all should know how she

+owns to fineness and elevation.”

+

+“But it is not her nature,” pleaded Anne. “Blossom would be as much hurt

+among those men and women of the drawing rooms as though she walked,

+barefooted, over flints.”

+

+For all that Anne might say, I persisted in my resolve. Blossom must be

+saved against herself by an everyday encounter with ones of her own age.

+I had more faith than Anne. There must be kindness and sympathy in the

+world, and a countenance for so much goodness as Blossom's. Thus she

+should find it, and the discovery would let in the sun upon an existence

+now overcast with clouds.

+

+These were my reasonings. It would win her from her broodings and those

+terrors without cause, which to my mind were a kind of insanity that

+might deepen unless checked.

+

+Full of my great design, I moved into a new home--a little palace in its

+way, and one to cost me a penny. I cared nothing for the cost; the house

+was in the center of that region of the socially select. From this fine

+castle of gilt, Blossom should conquer those alliances which were to

+mean so much for her good happiness.

+

+Being thus fortunately founded, I took Morton into my confidence. He was

+a patrician by birth and present station; and I knew I might have both

+his hand and his wisdom for what was in my heart. When I laid open my

+thought to Morton, he stood at gaze like one planet-struck, while that

+inevitable eyeglass dropped from his amazed nose.

+

+“You must pardon my staring,” said he, at last. “It was a beastly rude

+thing to do. But, really, don't y' know, I was surprised that one

+of force and depth, and who was happily outside society, should find

+himself so badly guided as to seek to enter it.”

+

+“You, yourself, are in its midst.”

+

+“That should be charged,” he returned, “to accident rather than design.

+I am in the midst of society, precisely as some unfortunate tree might

+be found in the middle of its native swamp, and only because being born

+there I want of that original energy required for my transplantation.

+I will say this,” continued Morton, getting up to walk the floor; “your

+introduction into what we'll style the Four Hundred, don't y' know,

+might easily be brought about. You have now a deal of wealth; and that

+of itself should be enough, as the annals of our Four Hundred offer

+ample guaranty. But more than that, stands the argument of your power,

+and how you, in your peculiar fashion, are unique. Gad, for the latter

+cause alone, swelldom would welcome you with spread arms; it would,

+really! But believe me, if it were happiness you came seeking you would

+miss it mightily. There is more laughter in Third Avenue than in Fifth.”

+

+“But it is of my Blossom I am thinking,” I cried. “For myself I am not

+so ambitious.”

+

+“And what should your daughter,” said Morton, “find worth her young

+while in society? She is, I hear from you, a girl of sensibility. That

+true, she would find nothing but disappointment in this region you think

+so select. Do you know our smart set? Sir, it is composed of savages in

+silk.” Morton, I found, had much the manner of his father, when stirred.

+“It is,” he went on, “that circle where discussion concerns itself with

+nothing more onerous than golf or paper-chases or singlestickers or polo

+or balls or scandals; where there is no literature save the literature

+of the bankbook; where snobs invent a pedigree and play at caste; where

+folk give lawn parties to dogs and dinners to which monkeys come as

+guests of honor; where quarrels occur over questions of precedence

+between a mosquito and a flea; where pleasure is a trade, and idleness

+an occupation; in short, it is that place where the race, bruised of

+riches, has turned cancerous and begun to rot.”

+

+“You draw a vivid picture,” said I, not without a tincture of derision.

+“For all that, I stick by my determination, and ask your help. I tell

+you it is my daughter's life or death.”

+

+Morton, at this, relapsed into his customary attitude of moral, mental

+Lah-de-dah, and his lisp and his drawl and his eyeglass found their

+usual places. He shrugged his shoulders in his manner of the superfine.

+

+“Why then,” said he, “and seeing that you will have no other way for it,

+you may command my services. Really, I shall be proud to introduce

+you, don't y' know, as one who, missing being a monkey by birth, is now

+determined to become one by naturalization. Now I should say that a way

+to begin would be to discover a dinner and have you there as a guest. I

+know a society queen who will jump at the chance; she will have you at

+her chariot wheel like another Caractacus in another Rome, and parade

+you as a latest captive to her social bow and spear. I'll tell her; it

+will offer an excellent occasion for you to declare your intentions and

+take out your first papers in that Apeland whereof you seem so strenuous

+to become a citizen.”

+

+While the work put upon me by my place as Boss had never an end, but

+filled both my day and my night to overflowing, it brought with it

+compensation. If I were ground and worn away on the wheel of my position

+like a knife on a grindstone, still I was kept to keenest edge, and

+I felt that joy I've sometimes thought a good blade must taste in the

+sheer fact of its trenchant quality. Besides, there would now and then

+arrive a moment which taught me how roundly I had conquered, and touched

+me with that sense of power which offers the highest pleasure whereof

+the soul of man is capable. Here would be an example of what I mean,

+although I cannot believe the thing could happen in any country save

+America or any city other than New York.

+

+It was one evening at my own door, when that judge who once sought to

+fix upon me the murder of Jimmy the Blacksmith, came tapping for an

+interview. His term was bending towards the evening of its close, and

+the mean purpose of him was none better-than to just plead for his place

+again. I will not say the man was abject; but then the thought of his

+mission, added to a memory of that relation to each other in which it

+was aforetime our one day's fate to have stood, choked me with contempt.

+I shall let his conduct go by without further characterization; and yet

+for myself, had our fortunes been reversed and he the Boss and I the

+Judge, before I had been discovered in an attitude of office-begging

+from a hand I once plotted to kill, I would have died against the wall.

+But so it was; my visitor would labor with me for a renomination.

+

+My first impulse was one of destruction; I would put him beneath the

+wheel and crush out the breath of his hopes. And then came Big Kennedy's

+warning to avoid revenge when moved of nothing broader than a reason of

+revenge.

+

+I sat and gazed mutely upon that judge for a space; he, having told

+his purpose, awaited my decision without more words. I grew cool, and

+cunning began to have the upper hand of violence in my breast. If I cast

+him down, the papers would tell of it for the workings of my vengeance.

+If, on the quiet other hand, he were to be returned, it would speak

+for my moderation, and prove me one who in the exercise of power lifted

+himself above the personal. I resolved to continue him; the more since

+the longer I considered, the clearer it grew that my revenge, instead of

+being starved thereby, would find in it a feast.

+

+“You tried to put a rope about my neck,” said I at last.

+

+“I was misled as to the truth.”

+

+“Still you put a stain upon me. There be thousands who believe me guilty

+of bloodshed, and of that you shall clear me by printed word.”

+

+“I am ever ready to repair an error.”

+

+Within a week, with black ink and white paper, my judge in peril set

+forth how since my trial he had gone to the ends of that death of Jimmy

+the Blacksmith in its history. I was, he said, an innocent man, having

+had neither part nor lot therein.

+

+I remember that over the glow of triumph wherewith I read his words,

+there came stealing the chill shadow of a hopeless grief. Those phrases

+of exoneration would not recall poor Apple Cheek; nor would they restore

+Blossom to that poise and even balance from which she had been shaken on

+a day before her birth. For all the sorrow of it, however, I made good

+my word; and I have since thought that whether our judge deserved the

+place or no, to say the least he earned it.

+

+Every man has his model, and mine was Big John Kennedy. This was in

+a way of nature, for I had found Big Kennedy in my boyhood, and it is

+then, and then only, when one need look for his great men. When once you

+have grown a beard, you will meet with few heroes, and make to yourself

+few friends; wherefore you should the more cherish those whom your

+fortunate youth has furnished.

+

+Big Kennedy was my exemplar, and there arose few conditions to frown

+upon me with a problem to be solved, when I did not consider what Big

+Kennedy would have done in the face of a like contingency. Nor was I

+to one side of the proprieties in such a course. Now, when I glance

+backward down that steep aisle of endeavor up which I've come, I recall

+occasions, and some meant for my compliment, when I met presidents,

+governors, grave jurists, reverend senators, and others of tallest

+honors in the land. They talked and they listened, did these mighty

+ones; they gave me their views and their reasons for them, and heard

+mine in return; and all as equal might encounter equal in a commerce of

+level terms. And yet, choose as I may, I have not the name of him who

+in a pure integrity of force, or that wisdom which makes men follow, was

+the master of Big John Kennedy. My old chief won all his wars within the

+organization, and that is the last best test of leadership. He made no

+backward steps, but climbed to a final supremacy and sustained himself.

+I was justified in steering by Big Kennedy. Respect aside, I would have

+been wrecked had I not done so. That man who essays to live with no

+shining example to show his feet the path, is as one who wanting a

+lantern, and upon a moonless midnight, urges abroad into regions utterly

+unknown.

+

+Not alone did I observe those statutes for domination which Big Kennedy

+both by precept and example had given me, but I picked up his alliances;

+and that one was the better in my eyes, and came to be observed with

+wider favor, who could tell of a day when he carried Big Kennedy's

+confidence. It was a brevet I always honored with my own.

+

+One such was the Reverend Bronson, still working for the regeneration

+of the Five Points, He often came to me for money or countenance in his

+labors, and I did ever as Big Kennedy would have done and heaped up the

+measure of his requests.

+

+It would seem, also, that I had more of the acquaintance of this good

+man than had gone to my former leader. For one thing, we were more

+near in years, and then, too, I have pruned my language of those slangy

+rudenesses of speech which loaded the conversation of Big Kennedy, and

+cultivated in their stead softness and a verbal cleanliness which put

+the Reverend Bronson at more ease in my company. I remember with what

+satisfaction I heard him say that he took me for a person of education.

+

+It was upon a time when I had told him of my little learning; for the

+gloom of it was upon me constantly, and now and then I would cry out

+against it, and speak of it as a burden hard to bear. I shall not soon

+forget the real surprise that showed in the Reverend Bronson's face, nor

+yet the good it did me.

+

+“You amaze me!” he cried. “Now, from the English you employ I should not

+have guessed it. Either my observation is dulled, or you speak as much

+by grammar as do I, who have seen a college.”

+

+This was true by more than half, since like many who have no glint of

+letters, and burning with the shame of it, I was wont to listen closely

+to the talk of everyone learned of books; and in that manner, and by

+imitation, I taught myself a decent speech just as a musician might

+catch a tune by ear.

+

+“Still I have no education,” I said, when the Reverend Bronson spoke of

+his surprise.

+

+“But you have, though,” returned he, “only you came by that education

+not in the common way.”

+

+That good speech alone, and the comfort of it to curl about my heart,

+more than repaid me for all I ever did or gave by request of the

+Reverend Bronson; and it pleases me to think I told him so. But I fear I

+set down these things rather in vanity than to do a reader service, and

+before patience turns fierce with me, I will get onward with my story.

+

+One afternoon the Reverend Bronson came leading a queer bedraggled boy,

+whose years--for all he was stunted and beneath a size--should have been

+fourteen.

+

+“Can't you find something which this lad may do?” asked the Reverend

+Bronson. “He has neither father nor mother nor home--he seems utterly

+friendless. He has no capacity, so far as I have sounded him, and, while

+he is possessed of a kind of animal sharpness, like the sharpness of a

+hawk or a weasel, I can think of nothing to set him about by which he

+could live. Even the streets seem closed to him, since the police for

+some reason pursue him and arrest him on sight. It was in a magistrate's

+court I found him. He had been dragged there by an officer, and would

+have been sent to a reformatory if I had not rescued him.”

+

+“And would not that have been the best place for him?” I asked, rather

+to hear the Reverend Bronson's reply, than because I believed in my own

+query. Aside from being a born friend of liberty in a largest sense, my

+own experience had not led me to believe that our reformatories reform.

+I've yet to hear of him who was not made worse by a term in any prison.

+“Why not send him to a reformatory?” said I again.

+

+“No one should be locked up,” contended the Reverend Bronson, “who

+has not shown himself unfit to be free. That is not this boy's case, I

+think; he has had no chance; the police, according to that magistrate

+who gave him into my hands, are relentless against him, and pick him up

+on sight.”

+

+“And are not the police good judges of these matters?”

+

+“I would not trust their judgment,” returned the Reverend Bronson.

+“There are many noble men upon the rolls of the police.” Then, with a

+doubtful look: “For the most part, however, I should say they stand at

+the head of the criminal classes, and might best earn their salaries by

+arresting themselves.”

+

+At this, I was made to smile, for it showed how my reverend visitor's

+years along the Bowery had not come and gone without lending him some

+saltiness of wit.

+

+“Leave the boy here,” said I at last, “I'll find him work to live by,

+if it be no more than sitting outside my door, and playing the usher to

+those who call upon me.”

+

+“Melting Moses is the only name he has given me,” said the Reverend

+Bronson, as he took his leave. “I suppose, if one might get to it, that

+he has another.”

+

+“Melting Moses, as a name, should do very well,” said I.

+

+Melting Moses looked wistfully after the Reverend Bronson when the

+latter departed, and I could tell by that how the urchin regretted the

+going of the dominie as one might regret the going of an only friend.

+Somehow, the lad's forlorn state grew upon me, and I made up my mind to

+serve as his protector for a time at least. He was a shrill child of the

+Bowery, was Melting Moses, and spoke a kind of gutter dialect, one-half

+slang and the other a patter of the thieves that was hard to understand.

+My first business was to send him out with the janitor of the building

+to have him thrown into a bathtub, and then buttoned into a new suit of

+clothes.

+

+Melting Moses submitted dumbly to these improvements, being rather

+resigned than pleased, and later with the same docility went home to

+sleep at the janitor's house. Throughout the day he would take up his

+post on my door and act as herald to what visitors might come.

+

+Being washed and combed and decently arrayed, Melting Moses, with black

+eyes and a dark elfin face, made no bad figure of a boy. For all his

+dwarfishness, I found him surprisingly strong, and as active as a

+monkey. He had all the love and loyalty of a collie for me, and within

+the first month of his keeping my door, he would have cast himself into

+the river if I had asked him for that favor.

+

+Little by little, scrap by scrap, Melting Moses gave me his story. Put

+together in his words, it ran like this:

+

+“Me fadder kept a joint in Kelly's Alley; d' name of-d' joint was d'

+Door of Death, see! It was a hot number, an' lots of trouble got pulled

+off inside. He used to fence for d' guns an' dips, too, me fadder did;

+an' w'en one of 'em nipped a super or a rock, an' wanted d' quick dough,

+he brought it to me fadder, who chucked down d' stuff an' no questions

+asked. One day a big trick comes off--a jooeler's winder or somet'ing

+like dat. Me fadder is in d' play from d' outside, see! An' so w'en

+dere's a holler, he does a sneak an' gets away, 'cause d' cops is layin'

+to pinch him. Me fadder gets put wise to this be a mug who hangs out

+about d' Central Office. He sherries like I says.

+

+“At dat, d' Captain who's out to nail me fadder toins sore all t'rough.

+W'en me fadder sidesteps into New Joisey or some'ers, d' Captain sends

+along a couple of his harness bulls from Mulberry Street, an' dey

+pinches me mudder, who aint had nothin' to do wit' d' play at all.

+Dey rings for d' hurry-up wagon, an' takes me mudder to d' station. D'

+Captain he gives her d' eye, an' asts where me fadder is. She says she

+can't put him on, 'cause she aint on herself. Wit' dat, dis Captain

+t'rows her d' big chest, see! an' says he'll give her d' t'ree degrees

+if she don't cough up d' tip. But she hands him out d' old gag: she aint

+on. So then, d' Captain has her put in a cell; an' nothin' to eat.

+

+“After d' foist night he brings her up ag'in.

+

+“'Dat's d' number one d'gree,' says he.

+

+“But still me mudder don't tell, 'cause she can't. Me fadder aint such a

+farmer as to go leavin' his address wit' no one.

+

+“D' second night dey keeps me mudder in a cell, an' toins d' hose on d'

+floor so she can't do nothin' but stan' 'round--no sleep! no chuck! no

+nothin'!

+

+“'Dat's d' number two d'gree,' says d' bloke of a Captain to me mudder.

+'Now where did dat husband of yours skip to?'

+

+“But me mudder couldn't tell.

+

+“'Give d' old goil d' dungeon,' says d' Captain; 'an' t'row her in a

+brace of rats to play wit'.'

+

+“An' now dey locks me mudder in a place like a cellar, wit' two rats to

+squeak an' scrabble about all night, an' t'row a scare into her.

+

+“An' it would too, only she goes dotty.

+

+“Next day, d' Captain puts her in d' street. But w'at's d' use? She's

+off her trolley. She toins sick; an' in a week she croaks. D' sawbones

+gets her for d' colleges.”

+

+Melting Moses shed tears at this.

+

+“Dat's about all,” he concluded. “W'en me mudder was gone, d' cops

+toined in to do me. D' Captain said he was goin' to clean up d' fam'ly;

+so he gives d' orders, an' every time I'd show up on d' line, I'd get d'

+collar. It was one of dem times, w'en d' w'itechoker, who passes me on

+to you, gets his lamps on me an' begs me off from d' judge, see!”

+

+Melting Moses wept a deal during his relation, and I was not without

+being moved by it myself. I gave the boy what consolation I might, by

+assuring him that he was safe with me, and that no policeman should

+threaten him. A tale of trouble, and particularly if told by a child,

+ever had power to disturb me, and I did not question Melting Moses

+concerning his father and mother a second time.

+

+My noble nonentity--for whom I will say that he allowed me to finger

+him for offices and contracts, as a musician fingers the keyboard of a

+piano, and play upon him what tunes of profit I saw fit--was mayor, and

+the town wholly in my hands, with a Tammany man in every office, when

+there occurred the first of a train of events which in their passage

+were to plow a furrow in my life so deep that all the years to come

+after have not served to smooth it away. I was engaged at my desk, when

+Melting Moses announced a caller.

+

+“She's a dame in black,” said Melting Moses; “an' she's of d' Fift'

+Avenoo squeeze all right.”

+

+Melting Moses, now he was fed and dressed, went through the days with

+uncommon spirit, and when not thinking on his mother would be gay

+enough. My visitors interested him even more than they did me, and he

+announced but few without hazarding his surmise as to both their origins

+and their errands.

+

+“Show her in!” I said.

+

+My visitor was a widow, as I could see by her mourning weeds. She was

+past middle life; gray, with hollow cheeks, and sad pleading eyes.

+

+“My name is Van Flange,” said she. “The Reverend Bronson asked me to

+call upon you. It's about my son; he's ruining us by his gambling.”

+

+Then the Widow Van Flange told of her son's infatuation; and how

+blacklegs in Barclay Street were fleecing him with roulette and faro

+bank.

+

+I listened to her story with patience. While I would not find it on my

+programme to come to her relief, I aimed at respect for one whom the

+Reverend Bronson had endorsed. I was willing to please that good man,

+for I liked him much since he spoke in commendation of my English.

+Besides, if angered, the Reverend Bronson would be capable of trouble.

+He was too deeply and too practically in the heart of the East Side;

+he could not fail to have a tale to tell that would do Tammany Hall no

+good, but only harm. Wherefore, I in no wise cut short the complaints

+of the Widow Van Flange. I heard her to the end, training my face to

+sympathy the while, and all as though her story were not one commonest

+of the town.

+

+“You may be sure, madam,” said I, when the Widow Van Flange had

+finished, “that not only for the Reverend Bronson's sake, but for your

+own, I shall do all I may to serve you. I own no personal knowledge of

+that gambling den of which you speak, nor of those sharpers who conduct

+it. That knowledge belongs with the police. The number you give,

+however, is in Captain Gothecore's precinct. We'll send for him if

+you'll wait.” With that I rang my desk bell for Melting Moses. “Send for

+Captain Gothecore,” said I. At the name, the boy's black eyes flamed up

+in a way to puzzle. “Send a messenger for Captain Gothecore; I want him

+at once.”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX--THE MARK OF THE ROPE

+

+

+WHILE the Widow Van Flange and I sat waiting the coming of Gothecore,

+the lady gave me further leaves of her story. The name of Van Flange was

+old. It had been honorable and high in the days of Wouter Van Twiller,

+and when the town was called New Amsterdam. The Van Flanges had found

+their source among the wooden shoes and spinning-wheels of the ancient

+Dutch, and were duly proud. They had been rich, but were now reduced,

+counting--she and her boy--no more than two hundred thousand dollars for

+their fortune.

+

+This son over whom she wept was the last Van Flange; there was no one

+beyond him to wear the name. To the mother, this made his case the more

+desperate, for mindful of her caste, she was borne upon by pride of

+family almost as much as by maternal love. The son was a drunkard; his

+taste for alcohol was congenital, and held him in a grip that could

+not be unloosed. And he was wasting their substance; what small riches

+remained to them were running away at a rate that would soon leave

+nothing.

+

+“But why do you furnish him money?” said I.

+

+“You should keep him without a penny.”

+

+“True!” responded the Widow Van Flange, “but those who pillage my son

+have found a way to make me powerless. There is a restaurant near this

+gambling den. The latter, refusing him credit and declining his checks,

+sends him always to this restaurant-keeper. He takes my son's check,

+and gives him the money for it. I know the whole process,” concluded

+the Widow Van Flange, a sob catching in her throat, “for I've had my son

+watched, to see if aught might be done to save him.”

+

+“But those checks,” I observed, “should be worthless, for you have told

+me how your son has no money of his own.”

+

+“And that is it,” returned the Widow Van Flange.

+

+“I must pay them to keep him from prison. Once, when I refused, they

+were about to arrest him for giving a spurious check. My own attorney

+warned me they might do this. My son, himself, takes advantage of it. I

+would sooner be stripped of the last shilling, than suffer the name

+of Van Flange to be disgraced. Practicing upon my fears, he does not

+scruple to play into the hands of those who scheme his downfall. You may

+know what he is about, when I tell you that within the quarter I have

+been forced in this fashion to pay over twenty-seven thousand dollars.

+I see no way for it but to be ruined,” and her lips twitched with the

+despair she felt.

+

+While the Widow Van Flange and I talked of her son and his down-hill

+courses, I will not pretend that I pondered any interference. The

+gamblers were a power in politics. The business of saving sons was none

+of mine; but, as I've said, I was willing, by hearing her story, to

+compliment the Reverend Bronson, who had suggested her visit. In the

+end, I would shift the burden to the police; they might be relied upon

+to find their way through the tangle to the advantage of themselves and

+the machine.

+

+Indeed, this same Gothecore would easily dispose of the affair. Expert

+with practice, there was none who could so run with the hare while

+pretending to course with the hounds. Softly, sympathetically, he would

+talk with the Widow Van Flange; and she would depart in the belief that

+her cause had found a friend.

+

+As the Widow Van Flange and I conversed, we were brought to sudden

+silence by a strange cry. It was a mad, screeching cry, such as might

+have come from some tigerish beast in a heat of fury. I was upon my feet

+in a moment, and flung open the door.

+

+Gothecore was standing outside, having come to my message. Over from him

+by ten feet was Melting Moses, his shoulders narrowed in a feline way,

+crouching, with brows drawn down and features in a snarl of hate. He was

+slowly backing away from Gothecore; not in fear, but rather like some

+cat-creature, measuring for a spring.

+

+On his side, Gothecore's face offered an equally forbidding picture.

+He was red with rage, and his bulldog jaws had closed like a trap.

+Altogether, I never beheld a more inveterate expression, like malice

+gone to seed.

+

+I seized Melting Moses by the shoulder, and so held him back from flying

+at Gothecore with teeth and claws.

+

+“He killed me mudder!” cried Melting Moses, struggling in my fingers

+like something wild.

+

+When the janitor with whom Melting Moses lived had carried him off--and

+at that, the boy must be dragged away by force--I turned to Gothecore.

+

+“What was the trouble?”

+

+“Why do you stand for that young whelp?” he cried. “I won't have it!”

+

+“The boy is doing you no harm.”

+

+“I won't have it!” he cried again. The man was like a maniac.

+

+“Let me tell you one thing,” I retorted, looking him between the eyes;

+“unless you walk with care and talk with care, you are no better than

+a lost man. One word, one look, and I'll snuff you out between my thumb

+and finger as I might a candle.”

+

+There must have been that which showed formidable in my manner,

+for Gothecore stood as though stunned. The vicious insolence of the

+scoundrel had exploded the powder in my temper like a coal of fire. I

+pointed the way to my room.

+

+“Go in; I've business with you.”

+

+Gothecore seemed to recall himself to steadiness. Without more words, he

+entered my door.

+

+With as much dignity as I might summon in the track of such a storm, I

+presented him to the Widow Van Flange. She had heard the sound of our

+differences; but, taken with her own troubles, she made no account of

+them. The Widow Van Flange received the rather boorish salutation of

+Gothecore in a way politely finished. Upon my hint, she gave him her

+story. Gothecore assumed a look at once professional and deprecatory.

+

+“An' now you're done, Madam,” said Gothecore, giving that slight police

+cough by which he intimated for himself a limitless wisdom, “an' now

+you're done, Madam, let me chip in a word. I know your son; I've knowed

+Billy Van Flange, now, goin' on three year--ever since he comes out o'

+college. I don't want to discourage you, Madam; but, to put it to you on

+th' square, Billy Van Flange is a warm member. I leave it to you to say

+if I aint right. Yes, indeed! he's as hot a proposition as ever went

+down th' line.”

+

+Here the eye of Gothecore wandered towards the ceiling, recalling the

+mad pranks of young Van Flange.

+

+“But these gamblers are destroying him!” moaned the Widow Van Flange.

+“Is there no way to shield him? Surely, you should know how to punish

+them, and keep him out of their hands!”

+

+“I know that gang of card sharps in Barclay Street,” remarked Gothecore;

+“an' they're a bunch of butes at that! But let me go on: I'll tell you

+what we can do; and then I'll tell you why it won't be fly to do it. In

+th' finish, however, it will all be up to you, Madam. We'll act on any

+steer you hand us. If you say 'pinch,' pinch goes.

+

+“But as I was tellin': I'm dead onto Billy Van Flange; I know him like

+a gambler knows an ace. He hits up th' bottle pretty stiff at that, an'

+any man who finds him sober has got to turn out hours earlier than I do.

+An' I'll tell you another thing, Madam: This Billy Van Flange is a tough

+mug to handle. More'n once, I've tried to point him for home, an'

+every time it was a case of nothin' doin'. Sometimes he shed tears,

+an' sometimes he wanted to scrap; sometimes he'd give me th' laugh,

+an' sometimes he'd throw a front an' talk about havin' me fired off th'

+force. He'd run all the way from th' sob or th' fiery eye, to th' gay

+face or th' swell front, accordin' as he was jagged.”

+

+While Gothecore thus descanted, the Widow Van Flange buried her face in

+her handkerchief. She heard his every word, however, and when Gothecore

+again consulted the ceiling, she signed for him to go on.

+

+“Knowin' New York as I do,” continued Gothecore, “I may tell you, Madam,

+that every time I get my lamps on that son of yours, I hold up my mits

+in wonder to think he aint been killed.” The Widow Van Flange started;

+her anxious face was lifted from the handkerchief. “That's on th' level!

+I've expected to hear of him bein' croaked, any time this twelve

+months. Th' best I looked for was that th' trick wouldn't come off in

+my precinct. He carries a wad in his pocket; an' he sports a streak of

+gilt, with a thousand-dollar rock, on one of his hooks; an' I could put

+you next to a hundred blokes, not half a mile from here, who'd do him up

+for half th' price. That's straight! Billy Van Flange, considerin' th'

+indoocements he hangs out, an' th' way he lays himself wide open to th'

+play, is lucky to be alive.

+

+“Now why is he alive, Madam? It is due to them very gamblin' ducks in

+Barclay Street. Not that they love him; but once them skin gamblers

+gets a sucker on th' string, they protect him same as a farmer does his

+sheep. They look on him as money in th' bank; an' so they naturally see

+to it that no one puts his light out.

+

+“That's how it stands, Madam!” And now Gothecore made ready to bring

+his observations to a close. This Billy Van Flange, like every other

+rounder, has his hangouts. His is this deadfall on Barclay Street, with

+that hash-house keeper to give him th' dough for his checks. Now I'll

+tell you what I think. While he sticks to th' Barclay Street mob, he's

+safe. You'll get him back each time. They'll take his stuff; but they'll

+leave him his life, an' that's more than many would do.

+

+“Say th' word, however, an' I can put th' damper on. I can fix it so

+Billy Van Flange can't gamble nor cash checks in Barclay Street. They'll

+throw him out th' minute he sticks his nut inside the door. But I'll put

+you wise to it, Madam: If I do, inside of ninety days you'll fish him

+out o' th' river; you will, as sure as I'm a foot high!”

+

+The face of the Widow Van Flange was pale as paper now, and her bosom

+rose and fell with new terrors for her son. The words of Gothecore

+seemed prophetic of the passing of the last Van Flange.

+

+“Madam,” said Gothecore, following a pause, “I've put it up to you. Give

+me your orders. Say th' word, an' I'll have th' screws on that Barclay

+Street joint as fast as I can get back to my station-house.”

+

+“But if we keep him from going there,” said the Widow Van Flange, with

+a sort of hectic eagerness, “he'll find another place, won't he?” There

+was a curious look in the eyes of the Widow Van Flange. Her hand was

+pressed upon her bosom as if to smother a pang; her handkerchief went

+constantly to her lips. “He would seek worse resorts?”

+

+“It's a cinch, Madam!”

+

+“And he'd be murdered?”

+

+“Madam, it's apples to ashes!”

+

+The eyes of the Widow Van Flange seemed to light up with an unearthly

+sparkle, while a flush crept out in her cheek. I was gazing upon these

+signs with wonder regarding them as things sinister, threatening ill.

+

+Suddenly, she stood on her feet; and then she tottered in a blind,

+stifled way toward the window as though feeling for light and air.

+The next moment, the red blood came trickling from her mouth; she fell

+forward and I caught her in my arms.

+

+“It's a hemorrhage!” said Gothecore.

+

+The awe of death lay upon the man, and his coarse voice was stricken to

+a whisper.

+

+“Now Heaven have my soul!” murmured the dying woman. Then: “My son! oh,

+my son!”

+

+There came another crimson cataract, and the Widow Van Flange was dead.

+

+“This is your work!” said I, turning fiercely to Gothecore.

+

+“Or is it yours?” cries he.

+

+The words went over my soul like the teeth of a harrow. Was it my work?

+

+“No, Chief!” continued Gothecore, more calmly, and as though in answer

+to both himself and me, “it's the work of neither of us. You think that

+what I said killed her. That may be as it may. Every word, however, was

+true. I but handed her th' straight goods.”

+

+The Widow Van Flange was dead; and the thought of her son was in her

+heart and on her lips as her soul passed. And the son, bleared and

+drunken, gambled on in the Barclay Street den, untouched. The counters

+did not shake in his hand, nor did the blood run chill in his veins, as

+he continued to stake her fortune and his own in sottish ignorance.

+

+One morning, when the first snow of winter was beating in gusty swirls

+against the panes, Morton walked in upon me. I had not seen that

+middle-aged fop since the day when I laid out my social hopes and fears

+for Blossom. It being broad September at the time, Morton had pointed

+out how nothing might be done before the snows.

+

+“For our society people,” observed Morton, on that September occasion,

+“are migratory, like the wild geese they so much resemble. At this time

+they are leaving Newport for the country, don't y' know. They will not

+be found in town until the frost.”

+

+Now, when the snow and Morton appeared together, I recalled our

+conversation. I at once concluded that his visit had somewhat to do with

+our drawing-room designs. Nor was I in the wrong.

+

+“But first,” said he, when in response to my question he had confessed

+as much, “let us decide another matter. Business before pleasure; the

+getting of money should have precedence over its dissipation; it should,

+really! I am about to build a conduit, don't y' know, the whole length

+of Mulberry, and I desire you to ask your street department to take no

+invidious notice of the enterprise. You might tell your fellows that it

+wouldn't be good form.”

+

+“But your franchise does not call for a conduit.”

+

+“We will put it on the ground that Mulberry intends a change to the

+underground trolley--really! That will give us the argument; and I

+think, if needs press, your Corporation Counsel can read the law that

+way. He seems such a clever beggar, don't y' know!”

+

+“But what do you want the conduit for?”

+

+“There's nothing definite or sure as yet. My notion, however, is to

+inaugurate an electric-light company. The conduit, too, would do for

+telephone or telegraph, wires. Really, it's a good thing to have; and my

+men, when this beastly weather softens a bit, might as well be about the

+digging. All that's wanted of you, old chap, is to issue your orders

+to the department people to stand aloof, and offer no interruptions. It

+will be a great asset in the hands of Mulberry, that conduit; I shall

+increase the capital stock by five millions, on the strength of it.”

+

+“Your charter isn't in the way?”

+

+“The charter contemplates the right on the part of Mulberry to change

+its power, don't y' know. We shall declare in favor of shifting to the

+underground trolley; although, really, we won't say when. The necessity

+of a conduit follows. Any chap can see that.”

+

+“Very well!” I replied, “there shall be no interference the city. If the

+papers grumble, I leave you and them to fight it out.”

+

+“Now that's settled,” said Morton, producing his infallible cigarette,

+“let us turn to those social victories we have in contemplation. I take

+it you remain firm in your frantic resolutions?”

+

+“I do it for the good of my child,” said I.

+

+“As though society, as presently practiced,” cried Morton, “could be for

+anybody's good! However, I was sure you would not change. You know the

+De Mudds? One of our best families, the De Mudds--really! They are on

+the brink of a tremendous function. They'll dine, and they'll dance, and

+all that sort of thing. They've sent you cards, the De Mudds have; and

+you and your daughter are to come. It's the thing to do; you can conquer

+society in the gross at the De Mudds.”

+

+“I'm deeply obliged,” said I. “My daughter's peculiar nervous condition

+has preyed upon me more than I've admitted. The physician tells me that

+her best hope of health lies in the drawing-rooms.”

+

+“Let us trust so!” said Morton. “But, realty, old chap, you ought to be

+deucedly proud of the distinction which the De Mudds confer upon you.

+Americans are quite out of their line, don't y' know! And who can

+blame them? Americans are such common beggars; there's so many of them,

+they're vulgar. Mamma DeMudd's daughters--three of them--all married

+earls. Mamma DeMudd made the deal herself; and taking them by the lot,

+she had those noblemen at a bargain; she did, really! Five millions was

+the figure. Just think of it! five millions for three earls! Why, it was

+like finding them in the street!

+

+“'But what is he?' asked Mamma DeMudd, when I proposed you for her

+notice.

+

+“'He's a despot,' said I, 'and rules New York. Every man in town is his

+serf.'

+

+“When Mamma DeMudd got this magnificent idea into her head, she was

+eager to see you; she was, really.

+

+“However,” concluded Morton, “let us change the subject, if only to

+restore my wits. The moment I speak of society, I become quite idiotic,

+don't y' know!”

+

+“Speaking of new topics, then,” said I, “let me ask of your father. How

+does he fare these days?”

+

+“Busy, exceeding busy!” returned Morton. “He's buying a home in New

+Jersey. Oh, no, he won't live there; but he requires it as a basis for

+declaring that he's changed his residence, don't y' know! You'd wonder,

+gad! to see how frugal the old gentleman has grown in his old age. It's

+the personal property tax that bothers him; two per cent, on twenty

+millions come to quite a sum; it does, really! The old gentleman doesn't

+like it; so he's going to change his residence to New Jersey. To be

+sure, while he'll reside in New Jersey, he'll live here.

+

+“'It's a fribble, father,' said I, when he set forth his little game.

+'Why don't you go down to the tax office, and commit perjury like a man?

+All your friends do.'

+

+“But, really! he couldn't; and he said so. The old gentleman lacks in

+those rugged characteristics, required when one swears to a point-blank

+lie.”

+

+When Morton was gone, I gave myself to pleasant dreams concerning

+Blossom. I was sure that the near company and conversation of those men

+and women of the better world, whom she was so soon to find about her,

+would accomplish all for which I prayed. Her nerves would be cooled;

+she would be drawn from out that hypochondria into which, throughout her

+life, she had been sinking as in a quicksand.

+

+I had not unfolded either my anxieties or my designs to Blossom. Now I

+would have Anne tell her of my plans. Time would be called for wherein

+to prepare the necessary wardrobe. She should have the best artistes;

+none must outshine my girl, of that I was resolved. These dress-labors,

+with their selections and fittings, would of themselves be excellent.

+They would employ her fancy, and save her from foolish fears of the De

+Mudds and an experience which she might think on as an ordeal. I never

+once considered myself--I, who was as ignorant of drawing-rooms as a

+cart-horse! Blossom held my thoughts. My heart would be implacable until

+it beheld her, placed and sure of herself, in the pleasant midst of

+those most elevated circles, towards which not alone my faith, but my

+admiration turned its eyes. I should be proud of her station, as well as

+relieved on the score of her health, when Blossom, serene and even and

+contained, and mistress of her own house, mingled on equal terms with

+ones who had credit as the nobility of the land.

+

+Was this the dream of a peasant grown rich? Was it the doting vision of

+a father mad with fondness? Why should I not so spread the nets of my

+money and my power as to ensnare eminence and the world's respect for

+this darling Blossom of mine? Wherein would lie the wild extravagance

+of the conceit? Surely, there were men in every sort my inferiors, and

+women, not one of whom was fit to play the rôle of maid to Blossom, who

+had rapped at this gate, and saw it open unto them.

+

+Home I went elate, high, walking on air. Nor did I consider how weak it

+showed, that I, the stern captain of thousands, and with a great city

+in my hands to play or labor with, should be thus feather-tickled with

+a toy! It was amazing, yes; and yet it was no less sweet:--this building

+of air-castles to house my Blossom in!

+

+It stood well beyond the strike of midnight as I told Anne the word that

+Morton had brought. Anne raised her dove's eyes to mine when I was done,

+and they were wet with tears. Anne's face was as the face of a nun, in

+its self-sacrifice and the tender, steady disinterest that looked from

+it.

+

+Now, as I exulted in a new bright life to be unrolled to the little

+tread of Blossom, I saw the shadows of a sorrow, vast and hopeless,

+settle upon Anne. At this I halted. As though to answer my silence, she

+put her hand caressingly upon my shoulder.

+

+“Brother,” said Anne, “you must set aside these thoughts for Blossom of

+men and women she will never meet, of ballrooms she will never enter,

+of brilliant costumes she will never wear. It is one and all impossible;

+you do not understand.”

+

+With that, irritated of too much opposition and the hateful mystery of

+it, I turned roughly practical.

+

+“Well!” said I, in a hardest tone, “admitting that I do not understand;

+and that I think on men and women she will never meet, and ballrooms

+she will never enter. Still, the costumes at least I can control, and

+it will mightily please me if you and Blossom at once attend to the

+frocks.”

+

+“You do not understand!” persisted Anne, with sober gentleness. “Blossom

+would not wear an evening dress.”

+

+“Anne, you grow daft!” I cried. “How should there be aught immodest in

+dressing like every best woman in town? The question of modesty is a

+question of custom; it is in the exception one will find the indelicate.

+I know of no one more immodest than a prude.”

+

+“Blossom is asleep,” said Anne, in her patient way. Then taking a

+bed-candle that burned on a table, she beckoned me. “Come; I will show

+you what I mean. Make no noise; we must not wake Blossom. She must never

+know that you have seen. She has held this a secret from you; and I, for

+her poor sake, have done the same.”

+

+Anne opened the door of Blossom's room. My girl was in a gentle slumber.

+With touch light as down, Anne drew aside the covers from about her

+neck.

+

+“There,” whispered Anne, “there! Look on her throat!”

+

+Once, long before, a man had hanged himself, and I was called. I had

+never forgotten the look of those marks which belted the neck of that

+self-strangled man. Encircling the lily throat of Blossom, I saw the

+fellows to those marks--raw and red and livid!

+

+There are no words to tell the horror that swallowed me up. I turned

+ill; my reason stumbled on its feet. Anne led me from the room.

+

+“The mark of the rope!” I gasped. “It is the mark of the rope!”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI--THE REVEREND BRONSON'S REBELLION

+

+

+WHAT should it be?--this gallows-brand to show like a bruised ribbon of

+evil about the throat of Blossom! Anne gave me the story of it. It was

+a birthmark; that hangman fear which smote upon the mother when, for the

+death of Jimmy the Blacksmith, I was thrown into a murderer's cell, had

+left its hideous trace upon the child. In Blossom's infancy and in her

+earliest childhood, the mark had lain hidden beneath the skin as seeds

+lie buried and dormant in the ground. Slowly, yet no less surely, the

+inveterate years had quickened it and brought it to the surface; it had

+grown and never stopped--this mark! and with each year it took on added

+sullenness. The best word that Anne could give me was that it would so

+continue in its ugly multiplication until the day of Blossom's death.

+There could be no escape; no curing change, by any argument of medicine

+or surgery, was to be brought about; there it glared and there it would

+remain, a mark to shrink from! to the horrid last. And by that token,

+my plans of a drawing room for Blossom found annihilation. Anne had

+said the truth; those dreams that my girl should shine, starlike, in the

+firmament of high society, must be put away.

+

+It will have a trivial sound, and perchance be scoffed at, when I say

+that for myself, personally, I remember no blacker disappointment than

+that which overtook me as I realized how there could come none of those

+triumphs of chandeliers and floors of wax. Now as I examine myself,

+I can tell that not a little of this was due to my own vanity, and a

+secret wish I cherished to see my child the equal of the first.

+

+And if it were so, why should I be shamed? Might I not claim integrity

+for a pride which would have found its account in such advancement? I

+had been a ragged boy about the streets. I had grown up ignorant; I

+had climbed, if climbing be the word, unaided of any pedigree or any

+pocketbook, into a place of riches and autocratic sway. Wherefore, to

+have surrounded my daughter with the children of ones who had owned

+those advantages which I missed--folk of the purple, all!--and they to

+accept her, would have been a victory, and to do me honor. I shall

+not ask the pardon of men because I longed for it; nor do I scruple to

+confess the blow my hopes received when I learned how those ambitions

+would never find a crown.

+

+Following my sight of that gallows mark, I sat for a long time

+collecting myself. It was a dreadful thing to think upon; the more,

+since it seemed to me that Blossom suffered in my stead. It was as if

+that halter, which I defeated, had taken my child for a revenge.

+

+“What can we do?” said I, at last.

+

+I spoke more from an instinct of conversation, and because I would have

+the company of Anne's sympathy, than with the thought of being answered

+to any purpose. I was set aback, therefore, by her reply.

+

+“Let Blossom take the veil,” said Anne. “A convent, and the good work of

+it, would give her peace.”

+

+At that, I started resentfully. To one of my activity, I, who needed the

+world about me every moment--struggling, contending, succeeding--there

+could have come no word more hateful. The cell of a nun! It was as

+though Anne advised a refuge in the grave. I said as much, and with no

+special choice of phrases.

+

+“Because Heaven in its injustice,” I cried, “has destroyed half her

+life, she is to make it a meek gift of the balance? Never, while I live!

+Blossom shall stay by me; I will make her happy in the teeth of Heaven!”

+ Thus did I hurl my impious challenge. What was to be the return, and the

+tempest it drew upon poor Blossom, I shall unfold before I am done. I

+have a worm of conscience whose slow mouth gnaws my nature, and you may

+name it superstition if you choose. And by that I know, when now I sit

+here, lonesome save for my gold, and with no converse better than the

+yellow mocking leer of it, that it was this, my blasphemy, which wrought

+in Heaven's retort the whole of that misery which descended to dog my

+girl and drag her down. How else shall I explain that double darkness

+which swallowed up her innocence? It was the bolt of punishment, which

+those skies I had outraged, aimed at me.

+

+Back to my labors of politics I went, with a fiercer heat than ever. My

+life, begun in politics, must end in politics. Still, there was a mighty

+change. I was not to look upon that strangling mark and escape the

+scar of it. I settled to a savage melancholy; I saw no pleasant moment.

+Constantly I ran before the hound-pack of my own thoughts, a fugitive,

+flying from myself.

+

+Also, there came the signs visible, and my hair was to turn and lose

+its color, until within a year it went as white as milk. Men, in the

+idleness of their curiosity, would notice this, and ask the cause. They

+were not to know; nor did Blossom ever learn how, led by Anne, I had

+crept upon her secret. It was a sorrow without a door, that sorrow of

+the hangman's mark; and because we may not remedy it, we will leave it,

+never again to be referred to until it raps for notice of its own black

+will.

+

+The death of the Widow Van Flange did not remove from before me the

+question of young Van Flange and his degenerate destinies. The Reverend

+Bronson took up the business where it fell from the nerveless fingers of

+his mother on that day she died.

+

+“Not that I believe he can be saved,” observed the Reverend Bronson;

+“for if I am to judge, the boy is already lost beyond recall. But there

+is such goods as a pious vengeance--an anger of righteousness!--and I

+find it in my heart to destroy with the law, those rogues who against

+the law destroy others. That Barclay Street nest of adders must be

+burned out; and I come to you for the fire.”

+

+In a sober, set-faced way, I was amused by the dominie's extravagance.

+And yet I felt a call to be on my guard with him. Suppose he were to

+dislodge a stone which in its rolling should crash into and crush the

+plans of the machine! The town had been lost before, and oftener than

+once, as the result of beginnings no more grave. Aside from my liking

+for the good man, I was warned by the perils of my place to speak him

+softly.

+

+“Well,” said I, trying for a humorous complexion, “if you are bound for

+a wrestle with those blacklegs, I will see that you have fair play.”

+

+“If that be true,” returned the Reverend Bronson, promptly, “give me

+Inspector McCue.”

+

+“And why Inspector McCue?” I asked. The suggestion had its baffling

+side. Inspector McCue was that honest one urged long ago upon Big

+Kennedy by Father Considine. I did not know Inspector McCue; there

+might lurk danger in the man. “Why McCue?” I repeated. “The business of

+arresting gamblers belongs more with the uniformed police. Gothecore is

+your proper officer.”

+

+“Gothecore is not an honest man,” said the Reverend Bronson, with

+sententious frankness. “McCue, on the other hand, is an oasis in the

+Sahara of the police. He can be trusted. If you support him he will

+collect the facts and enforce the law.”

+

+“Very well,” said I, “you shall take McCue. I have no official control

+in the matter, being but a private man like yourself. But I will speak

+to the Chief of Police, and doubtless he will grant my request.”

+

+“There is, at least, reason to think so,” retorted the Reverend Bronson

+in a dry tone.

+

+Before I went about an order to send Inspector McCue to the Reverend

+Bronson, I resolved to ask a question concerning him. Gothecore should

+be a well-head of information on that point; I would send for Gothecore.

+Also it might be wise to let him hear what was afoot for his precinct.

+He would need to be upon his defense, and to put others interested upon

+theirs.

+

+Melting Moses, who still stood warder at my portals, I dispatched upon

+some errand. The sight of Gothecore would set him mad. I felt sorrow

+rather than affection for Melting Moses. There was something unsettled

+and mentally askew with the boy. He was queer of feature, with the

+twisted fantastic face one sees carved on the far end of a fiddle.

+Commonly, he was light of heart, and his laugh would have been comic had

+it not been for a note of the weird which rang in it. I had not asked

+him, on the day when he went backing for a spring at the throat of

+Gothecore, the reason of his hate. His exclamation, “He killed me

+mudder!” told the story. Besides, I could have done no good. Melting

+Moses would have given me no reply. The boy, true to his faith of Cherry

+Hill, would fight out his feuds for himself; he would accept no one's

+help, and regarded the term “squealer” as an epithet of measureless

+disgrace.

+

+When Gothecore came in, I caught him at the first of it glowering

+furtively about, as though seeking someone.

+

+“Where is that Melting Moses?” he inquired, when he saw how I observed

+him to be searching the place with his eye.

+

+“And why?” said I.

+

+“I thought I'd look him over, if you didn't mind. I can't move about

+my precinct of nights but he's behind me, playin' th' shadow. I want to

+know why he pipes me off, an' who sets him to it.”

+

+“Well then,” said I, a bit impatiently, “I should have thought a

+full-grown Captain of Police was above fearing a boy.”

+

+Without giving Gothecore further opening, I told him the story of the

+Reverend Bronson, and that campaign of purity he would be about.

+

+“And as to young Van Flange,” said I. “Does he still lose his money in

+Barclay Street?”

+

+“They've cleaned him up,” returned Gothecore. “Billy Van Flange is gone,

+hook, line, and sinker. He's on his uppers, goin' about panhandlin' old

+chums for a five-dollar bill.”

+

+“They made quick work of him,” was my comment.

+

+“He would have it,” said Gothecore. “When his mother died th' boy got

+his bridle off. Th' property--about two hundred thousand dollars--was

+in paper an' th' way he turned it into money didn't bother him a bit.

+He came into Barclay Street, simply padded with th' long

+green--one-thousand-dollar bills, an' all that--an' them gams took it

+off him so fast he caught cold. He's dead broke; th' only difference

+between him an' a hobo, right now, is a trunk full of clothes.”

+

+“The Reverend Bronson,” said I, “has asked for Inspector McCue. What

+sort of a man is McCue?” Gothecore wrinkled his face into an expression

+of profound disgust.

+

+“Who's McCue?” he repeated. “He's one of them mugwump pets. He makes a

+bluff about bein' honest, too, does McCue. I think he'd join a church,

+if he took a notion it would stiffen his pull.”

+

+“But is he a man of strength? Can he make trouble?”

+

+“Trouble?” This with contempt. “When it comes to makin' trouble, he's a

+false alarm.”

+

+“Well,” said I, in conclusion, “McCue and the dominie are going into

+your precinct.”

+

+“I'll tell you one thing,” returned Gothecore, his face clouding up, “I

+think it's that same Reverend Bronson who gives Melting Moses th' office

+to dog me. I'll put Mr. Whitechoker onto my opinion of th' racket, one

+of these days.”

+

+“You'd better keep your muzzle on,” I retorted. “Your mouth will get you

+into trouble yet.”

+

+Gothecore went away grumbling, and much disposed to call himself

+ill-used.

+

+During the next few days I was to receive frequent visits from the

+Reverend Bronson. His mission was to enlist me in his crusade against

+the gamblers. I put him aside on that point.

+

+“You should remember,” said I, as pleasantly as I well could, “that I am

+a politician, not a policeman. I shall think of my party, and engage in

+no unusual moral exploits of the sort you suggest. The town doesn't want

+it done.”

+

+“The question,” responded the Reverend Bronson warmly, “is one of

+law and morality, and not of the town's desires. You say you are a

+politician, and not a policeman. If it comes to that, I am a preacher,

+and not a policeman. Still, I no less esteem it my duty to interfere for

+right. I see no difference between your position and my own.”

+

+“But I do. To raid gamblers, and to denounce them, make for your success

+in your profession. With me, it would be all the other way. It is quite

+easy for you to adopt the path you do. Now I am not so fortunately

+placed.”

+

+“You are the head of Tammany Hall,” said the Reverend Bronson solemnly.

+“It is a position which loads you with responsibility, since your power

+for good or bad in the town is absolute. You have but to point your

+finger at those gambling dens, and they would wither from the earth.”

+

+“Now you do me too much compliment,” said I. “The Chief of Tammany is a

+much weaker man than you think. Moreover, I shall not regard myself as

+responsible for the morals of the town.”

+

+“Take young Van Flange,” went on the Reverend Bronson, disregarding my

+remark. “They've ruined the boy; and you might have saved him.”

+

+“And there you are mistaken,” I replied. “But if it were so, why should

+I be held for his ruin? 'I am not my brother's keeper.'”

+

+“And so Cain said,” responded the Reverend Bronson. Then, as he was

+departing: “I do not blame you too much, for I can see that you are the

+slave of your position. But do not shield yourself with the word that

+you are not your brother's keeper. You may be made grievously to feel

+that your brother's welfare is your welfare, and that in his destruction

+your own destruction is also to be found.”

+

+Men have rallied me as superstitious, and it may be that some grains

+of truth lie buried in that charge. Sure it is, that this last from the

+Reverend Bronson was not without its uncomfortable effect. It pressed

+upon me in a manner vaguely dark, and when he was gone, I caught

+myself regretting the “cleaning up,” as Gothecore expressed it, of the

+dissolute young Van Flange.

+

+And yet, why should one feel sympathy for him who, by his resolute

+viciousness, struck down his own mother? If ever rascal deserved ruin,

+it was he who had destroyed the hopes of one who loved him before all!

+The more I considered, the less tender for the young Van Flange I grew.

+And as to his destruction carrying personal scathe for me, it might

+indeed do, as a flourish of the pulpit, to say so, but it was a thought

+too far fetched, as either a warning or a prophecy, to justify one in

+transacting by its light his own existence, or the affairs of a great

+organization of politics. The end of it was that I smiled over a

+weakness that permitted me to be disturbed by mournful forebodes, born

+of those accusing preachments of the Reverend Bronson.

+

+For all that my reverend mentor was right; the sequel proved how those

+flames which licked up young Van Flange were to set consuming fire to my

+own last hope.

+

+It would seem that young Van Flange, as a topic, was in everybody's

+mouth. Morton, having traction occasion for calling on me, began to talk

+of him at once.

+

+“Really!” observed Morton, discussing young Van Flange, “while he's

+a deuced bad lot, don't y' know, and not at all likely to do Mulberry

+credit, I couldn't see him starve, if only for his family. So I set him

+to work, as far from the company's money as I could put him, and on the

+soberish stipend of nine hundred dollars a year. I look for the best

+effects from those nine hundred dollars; a chap can't live a double life

+on that; he can't, really!”

+

+“And you call him a bad lot,” said I.

+

+“The worst in the world,” returned Morton. “You see young Van Flange is

+such a weakling; really, there's nothing to tie to. All men are vicious;

+but there are some who are strong enough to save themselves. This fellow

+isn't.”

+

+“His family is one of the best,” said I.

+

+For myself, I've a sincere respect for blood, and some glimpse of it

+must have found display in my face.

+

+“My dear boy,” cried Morton, “there's no more empty claptrap than this

+claptrap of family.” Here Morton adorned his high nose with the eyeglass

+that meant so much with him, and surveyed me as from a height. “There's

+nothing in a breed when it comes to a man.”

+

+“Would you say the same of a horse or a dog?”

+

+“By no means, old chap; but a dog or a horse is prodigiously a different

+thing, don't y' know. The dominant traits of either of those noble

+creatures are honesty, courage, loyalty--they're the home of the

+virtues. Now a man is another matter. He's an evil beggar, is a man;

+and, like a monkey, he has virtues only so far as you force him to adopt

+them. As Machiavelli says: 'We're born evil, and become good only by

+compulsion.' Now to improve a breed, as the phrase is, makes simply for

+the promotion of what are the dominant traits of the creature one has in

+hand. Thus, to refine or emphasize the horse and the dog, increases them

+in honesty, loyalty, and courage since such are top-traits with those

+animals. With a monkey or a man, and by similar argument, the more you

+refine him, the more abandoned he becomes. Really,” and here Morton

+restored himself with a cigarette, “I shouldn't want these views to find

+their way to my club. It would cause the greatest row ever in our set;

+it would, really! I am made quite ill to only think of it.”

+

+“What would you call a gentleman, then?” I asked.

+

+Morton's theories, while I in no manner subscribed to them, entertained

+me.

+

+“What should I call a gentleman? Why I should call him the caricature of

+a man, don't y' know.”

+

+The Reverend Bronson had been abroad in his campaign against those

+sharpers of Barclay Street for perhaps four weeks. I understood, without

+paying much heed to the subject, that he was seeking the evidence of

+their crimes, with a final purpose of having them before a court. There

+had been no public stir; the papers had said nothing. What steps

+had been taken were taken without noise. I doubted not that the

+investigation would, in the finish, die out. The hunted ones of Barclay

+Street were folk well used to the rôle of fugitive, and since Gothecore

+kept them informed of the enemy's strategy, I could not think they would

+offer the Reverend Bronson and his ally, McCue, any too much margin.

+

+As yet, I had never seen this McCue. By that, I knew him to be an honest

+man. Not that one is to understand how none save a rogue would come to

+me. I need hardly explain, however, that every policeman of dark-lantern

+methods was eagerly prone to make my acquaintance. It was a merest

+instinct of caution; the storm might break and he require a friend. Now

+this McCue had never sought to know me, and so I argued that his record

+was pure white.

+

+This did not please me; I preferred men upon whom one might have some

+hold. These folk of a smooth honesty go through one's fingers like

+water, and no more of a grip to be obtained upon one of them than upon

+the Hudson. I made up my mind that I would see this McCue.

+

+Still I did not send for him; it was no part of my policy to exhibit

+concern in one with whom I was strange, and who later might open his

+mouth to quote it against me. McCue, however, was so much inclined to

+humor my desire, that one afternoon he walked into my presence of his

+own free will.

+

+“My name is McCue,” said he, “Inspector McCue.” I motioned him to a

+chair. “I've been told to collect evidence against certain parties in

+Barclay Street,” he added. Then he came to a full stop.

+

+While I waited for him to proceed in his own way and time, I studied

+Inspector McCue. He was a square-shouldered man, cautious, keen,

+resolute; and yet practical, and not one to throw himself away in the

+jaws of the impossible. What he had come to say, presently proved my

+estimate of him. On the whole, I didn't like the looks of Inspector

+McCue.

+

+“What is your purpose?” I asked at last. “I need not tell you that I

+have no official interest in what you may be about. Still less have I a

+personal concern.”

+

+Inspector McCue's only retort was a grimace that did not add to his

+popularity. Next he went boldly to the object of his call.

+

+“What I want to say is this,” said he. “I've collected the evidence I

+was sent after; I can lay my hands on the parties involved as keepers

+and dealers in that Barclay Street den. But I'm old enough to know that

+all the evidence in the world won't convict these crooks unless the

+machine is willing. I'm ready to go ahead and take my chances. But I'm

+not ready to run against a stone wall in the dark. I'd be crazy, where

+no good can come, to throw myself away.”

+

+“Now this is doubtless of interest to you,” I replied, putting some

+impression of distance into my tones, “but what have I to do with the

+matter?”

+

+“Only this,” returned McCue. “I'd like to have you tell me flat, whether

+or no you want these parties pinched.”

+

+“Inspector McCue,” said I, “if that be your name and title, it sticks in

+my head that you are making a mistake. You ask me a question which you

+might better put to your chief.”

+

+“We won't dispute about it,” returned my caller; “and I'm not here to

+give offense. I am willing to do my duty; but, as I've tried to explain,

+I don't care to sacrifice myself if the game's been settled against me

+in advance. You speak of my going to the chief. If arrests are to be

+made, he's the last man I ought to get my orders from.”

+

+“If you will be so good as to explain?” said I.

+

+“Because, if I am to go on, I must begin by collaring the chief. He's

+the principal owner of that Barclay Street joint.”

+

+This was indeed news, and I had no difficulty in looking grave.

+

+“Captain Gothecore is in it, too; but his end is with the restaurant

+keeper. That check-cashing racket was a case of flam; there was a

+hold-out went with that play. The boy, Van Flange, was always drunk,

+and the best he ever got for, say a five-hundred-dollar check, was

+three hundred dollars. Gothecore was in on the difference. There's the

+lay-out. Not a pleasant outlook, certainly; and not worth attempting

+arrests about unless I know that the machine is at my back.”

+

+“You keep using the term 'machine,'” said I coldly. “If by that you mean

+Tammany Hall, I may tell you, sir, that the 'machine' has no concern in

+the affair. You will do your duty as you see it.”

+

+Inspector McCue sat biting his lips. After a moment, he got upon his

+feet to go.

+

+“I think it would have been better,” said he, “if you had met me

+frankly. However, I've showed you my hand; now I'll tell you what my

+course will be. This is Wednesday. I must, as you've said yourself, do

+my duty. If--mark you, I say 'If'--if I am in charge of this case on

+Saturday, I shall make the arrests I've indicated.”

+

+“Did you ever see such gall!” exclaimed the Chief of Police, when I

+recounted my conversation with Inspector McCue. Then, holding up his

+pudgy hands in a manner of pathetic remonstrance: “It shows what I told

+you long ago. One honest man will put th' whole force on th' bum!”

+

+Inspector McCue, on the day after his visit, was removed from his place,

+and ordered to a precinct in the drear far regions of the Bronx. The

+order was hardly dry on the paper when there descended upon me the

+Reverend Bronson, his eyes glittering with indignation, and a protest

+against this Siberia for Inspector McCue apparent in his face.

+

+“And this,” cried the Reverend Bronson, as he came through the door,

+“and this is what comes to an officer who is willing to do his duty!”

+

+“Sit down, Doctor,” said I soothingly, at the same time placing a chair;

+“sit down.”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXII--THE MAN OF THE KNIFE

+

+

+WHEN the first gust was over, the Reverend Bronson seemed sad rather

+than enraged. He reproached the machine for the failure of his effort

+against that gambling den.

+

+“But why do you call yourself defeated?” I asked. It was no part of my

+purpose to concede, even by my silence, that either I or Tammany was

+opposed to the Reverend Bronson. “You should put the matter to the test

+of a trial before you say that.”

+

+“What can I do without Inspector McCue? and he has been removed from the

+affair. I talked with him concerning it; he told me himself there was no

+hope.”

+

+“Now, what were his words?” said I, for I was willing to discover how

+far Inspector McCue had used my name.

+

+“Why, then,” returned the Reverend Bronson, with a faint smile at the

+recollection, “if I am to give you the precise words, our talk ran

+somewhat like this:

+

+“'Doctor, what's the use?' said Inspector McCue. 'We're up against it;

+we can't move a wheel.'

+

+“'There's such a word as law,' said I, advancing much, the argument you

+have just now given me; 'and such a thing as justice.'

+

+“'Not in the face of the machine,' responded Inspector McCue. 'The will

+of the machine stands for all the law and all the justice that we're

+likely to get. The machine has the courts, the juries, the prosecuting

+officers, and the police. Every force we need is in its hands.

+Personally, of course, they couldn't touch you; but if I were to so much

+as lift a finger, I'd be destroyed. Some day I, myself, may be chief;

+and if I am, for once in a way, I'll guarantee the decent people of this

+town a run for their money.'

+

+“'And yet,' said I, 'we prate of liberty!'

+

+“'Liberty!' cried he. 'Doctor, our liberties are in hock to the

+politicians, and we've lost the ticket.'”

+

+It was in my mind to presently have the stripes and buttons off the

+loquacious, honest Inspector McCue. The Reverend Bronson must have

+caught some gleam of it in my eye; he remonstrated with a gentle hand

+upon my arm.

+

+“Promise me that no more harm shall come to McCue,” he said. “I ought

+not to have repeated his words. He has been banished to the Bronx; isn't

+that punishment enough for doing right?”

+

+“Yes,” I returned, after a pause; “I give you my word, your friend is

+in no further peril. You should tell him, however, to forget the name,

+'machine.' Also, he has too many opinions for a policeman.”

+

+The longer I considered, the more it was clear that it would not be a

+cautious policy to cashier McCue. It would make an uproar which I

+did not care to court when so near hand to an election. It was not

+difficult, therefore, to give the Reverend Bronson that promise, and I

+did it with a good grace.

+

+Encouraged by my compliance, the Reverend Bronson pushed into an

+argument, the object of which was to bring me to his side for the town's

+reform.

+

+“Doctor,” said I, when he had set forth what he conceived to be my duty

+to the premises, “even if I were disposed to go with you, I would have

+to go alone. I could no more take Tammany Hall in the direction you

+describe, than I could take the East River. As I told you once before,

+you should consider our positions. It is the old quarrel of theory and

+practice. You proceed upon a theory that men are what they should be; I

+must practice existence upon the fact of men as they are.”

+

+“There is a debt you owe Above!” returned the Reverend Bronson, the

+preacher within him beginning to struggle.

+

+“And what debt should that be?” I cried, for my mind, on the moment, ran

+gloomily to Blossom. “What debt should I owe there?--I, who am the most

+unhappy man in the world!”

+

+There came a look into the eyes of the Reverend Bronson that was at once

+sharp with interrogation and soft with sympathy. He saw that I had

+been hard wounded, although he could not know by what; and he owned the

+kindly tact to change the course of his remarks.

+

+“There is one point, sure,” resumed the Reverend Bronson, going backward

+in his trend of thought, “and of that I warn you. I shall not give up

+this fight. I began with an attack upon those robbers, and I've been

+withstood by ones who should have strengthened my hands. I shall now

+assail, not alone the lawbreakers, but their protectors. I shall attack

+the machine and the police. I shall take this story into every paper

+that will print it; I shall summon the pulpits to my aid; I shall

+arouse the people, if they be not deaf or dead, to wage war on those who

+protect such vultures in their rapine for a share of its returns. There

+shall be a moral awakening; and you may yet conclude, when you sit down

+in the midst of defeat, that honesty is after all the best policy, and

+that virtue has its reward.”

+

+The Reverend Bronson, in the heat of feeling, had risen from the chair,

+and declaimed rather than said this, while striding up and down. To

+him it was as though my floor were a rostrum, and the private office of

+Tammany's Chief, a lecture room. I am afraid I smiled a bit cynically at

+his ardor and optimism, for he took me in sharp hand, “Oh! I shall not

+lack recruits,” said he, “and some will come from corners you might

+least suspect. I met your great orator, Mr. Gutterglory, but a moment

+ago; he gave me his hand, and promised his eloquence to the cause of

+reform.”

+

+“Nor does that surprise me,” said I. Then, with a flush of wrath: “You

+may say to orator Gutterglory that I shall have something to remind him

+of when he takes the stump in your support.”

+

+My anger over Gutterglory owned a certain propriety of foundation. He

+was that sodden Cicero who marred the scene when, long before, I called

+on Big Kennedy, with the reputable old gentleman and Morton, to consult

+over the Gas Company's injunction antics touching Mulberry Traction.

+By some wonderful chance, Gutterglory had turned into sober walks. Big

+Kennedy, while he lived, and afterward I, myself, had upheld him, and

+put him in the way of money. He paid us with eloquence in conventions

+and campaigns, and on show occasions when Tammany would celebrate a

+holiday or a victory. From low he soared to high, and surely none was

+more pleased thereby than I. On every chance I thrust him forward; and

+I was sedulous to see that always a stream of dollar-profit went running

+his way.

+

+Morton, I remember, did not share my enthusiasm. It was when I suggested

+Gutterglory as counsel for Mulberry.

+

+“But really now!” objected Morton, with just a taint of his old-time

+lisp, “the creature doesn't know enough. He's as shallow as a skimming

+dish, don't y' know.”

+

+“Gutterglory is the most eloquent of men,” I protested.

+

+“I grant you the beggar is quite a talker, and all that,” retorted

+Morton, twirling that potential eyeglass, “but the trouble is, old

+chap, that when we've said that, we've said all. Gutterglory is a mere

+rhetorical freak. He ought to take a rest, and give his brain a chance

+to grow up with his vocabulary.”

+

+What Morton said had no effect on me; I clung to Gutterglory, and made

+his life worth while. I was given my return when I learned that for

+years he had gone about, unknown to me, extorting money from people with

+the use of my name. Scores have paid peace-money to Gutterglory, and

+thought it was I who bled them. So much are we at the mercy of rascals

+who win our confidence!

+

+It was the fact of his learning that did it. I could never be called

+a good judge of one who knew books. I was over prone to think him of

+finest honor who wrote himself a man of letters, for it was my weakness

+to trust where I admired. In the end, I discovered the villain duplicity

+of Gutterglory, and cast him out; at that, the scoundrel was rich with

+six figures to his fortune, and every dime of it the harvest of some

+blackmail in my name.

+

+He became a great fop, did Gutterglory; and when last I saw him--it

+being Easter Day, as I stepped from the Cathedral, where I'd been with

+Blossom--he was teetering along Fifth Avenue, face powdered and a glow

+of rouge on each cheekbone, stayed in at the waist, top hat, frock coat,

+checked trousers, snowy “spats” over his patent leathers, a violet in

+his buttonhole, a cane carried endwise in his hand, elbows crooked,

+shoulders bowed, the body pitched forward on his toes, a perfect picture

+of that most pitiful of things--an age-seamed doddering old dandy! This

+was he whom the Reverend Bronson vaunted as an ally!

+

+“You are welcome to Gutterglory,” said I to my reverend visitor on that

+time when he named him as one to become eloquent for reform. “It but

+proves the truth of what Big John Kennedy so often said: Any rogue,

+kicked out of Tammany Hall for his scoundrelisms, can always be sure of

+a job as a 'reformer.'”

+

+“Really!” observed Morton, when a few days later I was telling him of

+the visit of the Reverend Bronson, “I've a vast respect for Bronson. I

+can't say that I understand him--working for nothing among the scum and

+rubbish of humanity!--for personally I've no talent for religion, don't

+y' know! And so he thinks that honesty is the best policy!”

+

+“He seemed to think it not open to contradiction.”

+

+“Hallucination, positive hallucination, my boy! At-least, if taken in a

+money sense; and 'pon my word! that's the only sense in which it's worth

+one's while to take anything--really! Honesty the best policy! Why, our

+dominie should look about him. Some of our most profound scoundrels are

+our richest men. Money is so much like water, don't y' know, that it

+seems always to seek the lowest places;” and with that, Morton went

+his elegant way, yawning behind his hand, as if to so much exert his

+intelligence wearied him.

+

+For over nine years--ever since the death of Big Kennedy--I had kept the

+town in my hands, and nothing strong enough to shake my hold upon

+it. This must have its end. It was not in the chapter of chance that

+anyone's rule should be uninterrupted. Men turn themselves in bed, if

+for no reason than just to lie the other way; and so will your town turn

+on its couch of politics. Folk grow weary of a course or a conviction,

+and to rest themselves, they will put it aside and have another in its

+place. Then, after a bit, they return to the old.

+

+In politics, these shifts, which are really made because the community

+would relax from some pose of policy and stretch itself in new

+directions, are ever given a pretense of morality as their excuse. There

+is a hysteria to arise from the crush and jostle of the great city.

+Men, in their crowded nervousness, will clamor for the new. This is also

+given the name of morals. And because I was aware how these conditions

+of restlessness and communal hysteria ever subsist, and like a magazine

+of powder ask but the match to fire them and explode into fragments

+whatever rule might at the time exist, I went sure that some day,

+somehow the machine would be overthrown. Also, I went equally certain

+how defeat would be only temporary, and that before all was done, the

+town would again come back to the machine.

+

+You've seen a squall rumple and wrinkle and toss the bosom of a lake? If

+you had investigated, you would have learned how that storm-disturbance

+was wholly of the surface. It did not bite the depths below. When the

+gust had passed, the lake--whether for good or bad--re-settled to its

+usual, equal state. Now the natural conditions of New York are machine

+conditions. Wherefore, I realized, as I've written, that no gust of

+reformation could either trouble it deeply or last for long, and that

+the moment it had passed, the machine must at once succeed to the

+situation.

+

+However, when the Reverend Bronson left me, vowing insurrection, I had

+no fears of the sort immediate. The times were not hysterical, nor ripe

+for change. I would re-carry the city; the Reverend Bronson--if his

+strength were to last that long--with those moralists he enlisted, might

+defeat me on some other distant day. But for the election at hand I was

+safe by every sign.

+

+As I pored over the possibilities, I could discern no present argument

+in his favor. He himself might be morally sure of machine protection

+for those men of Barclay Street. But to the public he could offer no

+practical proof. Should he tell the ruin of young Van Flange, no one

+would pay peculiar heed. Such tales were of the frequent. Nor would

+the fate of young Van Flange, who had employed his name and his fortune

+solely as the bed-plates of an endless dissipation, evoke a sympathy.

+Indeed those who knew him best--those who had seen him then, and who saw

+him now at his Mulberry Traction desk, industrious, sober, respectable

+in a hall-bedroom way on his narrow nine hundred a year, did not scruple

+to declare that his so-called ruin was his regeneration, and that those

+card-criminals who took his money had but worked marvels for his good.

+No; I could not smell defeat in the contest coming down. I was safe for

+the next election; and the eyes of no politician, let me tell you, are

+strong enough to see further than the ballot just ahead. On these facts

+and their deductions, while I would have preferred peace between the

+Reverend Bronson and the machine, and might have conceded not a little

+to preserve it, I based no present fears of that earnest gentleman, nor

+of any fires of politics he might kindle.

+

+And I would have come through as I forejudged, had it not been for that

+element of the unlooked-for to enter into the best arranged equation,

+and which this time fought against me. There came marching down upon me

+a sudden procession of blood in a sort of red lockstep of death. In it

+was carried away that boy of my door, Melting Moses, and I may say that

+his going clouded my eye. Gothecore went also; but I felt no sorrow

+for the death of that ignobility in blue, since it was the rock of his

+murderous, coarse brutality on which I split. There was a third to die,

+an innocent and a stranger; however, I might better give the story of it

+by beginning with a different strand.

+

+In that day when the Reverend Bronson and Inspector McCue worked for the

+condemnation of those bandits of Barclay Street, there was one whom they

+proposed as a witness when a case should be called in court. This man

+had been a waiter in the restaurant which robbed young Van Flange, and

+in whose pillage Gothecore himself was said to have had his share.

+

+After Inspector McCue was put away in the Bronx, and the Reverend

+Bronson made to give up his direct war upon the dens, this would-be

+witness was arrested and cast into a cell of the station where Gothecore

+held sway. The Reverend Bronson declared that the arrested one had been

+seized by order of Gothecore, and for revenge. Gothecore, ignorant,

+cruel, rapacious, violent, and with never a glimmer of innate fineness

+to teach him those external decencies which go between man and man as

+courtesy, gave by his conduct a deal of plausibility to the charge.

+

+“Get out of my station!” cried Gothecore, with a rain of oath upon oath;

+“get out, or I'll have you chucked out!” This was when the Reverend

+Bronson demanded the charge on which the former waiter was held. “Do

+a sneak!” roared Gothecore, as the Reverend Bronson stood in silent

+indignation. “I'll have no pulpit-thumper doggin' me! You show your

+mug in here ag'in, an' you'll get th' next cell to that hash-slingin'

+stoolpigeon of yours. You can bet your life, I aint called Clean Sweep

+Bill for fun!”

+

+As though this were not enough, there arrived in its wake another bit of

+news that made me, who was on the threshold of my campaign to retain the

+town, bite my lip and dig my palms with the anger it unloosed within

+me. By way of added fuel to flames already high, that one waiter, but

+the day before prisoner to Gothecore, must be picked up dead in the

+streets, head club-battered to a pulp.

+

+Who murdered the man?

+

+Half the town said Gothecore.

+

+For myself, I do not care to dwell upon that poor man's butchery, and

+my veins run fire to only think of it. There arises the less call for

+elaboration, since within hours--for it was the night of that very day

+on which the murdered man was found--the life was stricken from the

+heart of Gothecore. He, too, was gone; and Melting Moses had gone with

+him. By his own choice, this last, as I have cause to know.

+

+“I'll do him before I'm through!” sobbed Melting Moses, as he was held

+back from Gothecore on the occasion when he would have gone foaming for

+his throat; “I'll get him, if I have to go wit' him!”

+

+It was the Chief of Police who brought me word. I had sent for him with

+a purpose of charges against Gothecore, preliminary to his dismissal

+from the force. Aside from my liking for the Reverend Bronson, and the

+resentment I felt for the outrage put upon him, Gothecore must go as a

+defensive move of politics.

+

+The Chief's eye, when he arrived, popped and stared with a fishy horror,

+and for all the coolness of the early morning his brow showed clammy

+and damp. I was in too hot a hurry to either notice or remark on these

+phenomena; I reeled off my commands before the visitor could find a

+chair.

+

+“You're too late, Gov'nor,” returned the Chief, munching uneasily, his

+fat jowls working. “For once in a way, you've gone to leeward of the

+lighthouse.”

+

+“What do you mean?” said I.

+

+Then he told the story; and how Gothecore and Melting Moses were taken

+from the river not four hours before.

+

+“It was a fire in th' box factory,” said the Chief; “that factory

+'buttin' on th' docks. Gothecore goes down from his station. The night's

+as dark as the inside of a cow. He's jimmin' along th' edge of th'

+wharf, an' no one noticin' in particular. Then of a sudden, there's an

+oath an' a big splash.

+

+“'Man overboard!' yells some guy.

+

+“The man overboard is Gothecore. Two or three coves come chasin' up to

+lend a hand.

+

+“'Some duck jumps after him to save him,' says this party who yells

+'overboard!' 'First one, an' then t'other, hits th' water. They oughter

+be some'ers about.'

+

+“That second party in th' river was Melting Moses. An' say! Gov'nor, he

+didn't go after Gothecore to save him; not he! Melting Moses had shoved

+Gothecore in; an' seein' him swimmin' hard, an' likely to get ashore,

+he goes after him to cinch th' play. I'll tell you one thing: he cinches

+it. He piles himself on Gothecore's back, an' then he crooks his right

+arm about Gothecore's neck--the reg'lar garotte hug! an' enough to choke

+th' life out by itself. That aint th' worst.” Here the Chief's voice

+sunk to a whisper. “Melting Moses had his teeth buried in Gothecore's

+throat. Did you ever unlock a bulldog from his hold? Well, it was easy

+money compared to unhookin' Melting Moses from Gothecore. Sure! both was

+dead as mackerels when they got 'em out; they're on th' ice right now.

+Oh, well!” concluded the Chief; “I told Gothecore his finish more'n

+once. 'Don't rough people around so, Bill,' I'd say; 'you'll dig up more

+snakes than you can kill.' But he wouldn't listen; he was all for th'

+strong-arm, an' th' knock-about! It's a bad system. Nothin's lost by

+bein' smooth, Gov'nor; nothin's lost by bein' smooth!” and the Chief

+sighed lugubriously; after which he mopped his forehead and looked

+pensively from the window.

+

+Your river sailor, on the blackest night, will feel the tide for its

+ebb or flow by putting his hand in the water. In a manner of speaking,

+I could now as plainly feel the popular current setting against the

+machine. It was like a strong flood, and with my experience of the town

+and its tempers I knew that we were lost. That murdered man who might

+have been a witness, and the violence done to the Reverend Bronson, were

+arguments in everybody's mouth.

+

+And so the storm fell; the machine was swept away as by a flood. There

+was no sleight of the ballot that might have saved the day; our money

+proved no defense. The people fell upon Tammany and crushed it, and the

+town went from under my hand.

+

+Morton had seen disaster on its way.

+

+“And, really! I don't half like it,” observed that lounging king of

+traction. “It will cost me a round fifty thousand dollars, don't y'

+know! Of course, I shall give Tammany the usual fifty thousand, if only

+for the memory of old days. But, by Jove! there's those other chaps.

+Now they're going to win, in the language of our departed friend, Mr.

+Kennedy, I'll have to 'sweeten' them. It's a deuced bore contributing to

+both parties, but this time I can't avoid it--really!” and Morton stared

+feebly into space, as though the situation held him helpless with its

+perplexities.

+

+There is one worth-while matter to be the offspring of defeat. A beaten

+man may tell the names of his friends. On the day after I scored a

+victory, my ante-rooms had been thronged. Following that disaster to

+the machine, just chronicled, I sat as much alone as though Fourteenth

+Street were the center of a pathless waste.

+

+However, I was not to be wholly deserted. It was in the first shadows

+of the evening, when a soiled bit of paper doing crumpled duty as a card

+was brought me. I glanced at it indifferently. I had nothing to give;

+why should anyone seek me? There was no name, but my interest flared up

+at this line of identification:

+

+“The Man of the Knife!”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIII--THE WEDDING OF BLOSSOM

+

+

+GRAY, weather-worn, beaten of years, there in the door was my Sicilian!

+I observed, as he took a seat, how he limped, with one leg drawn and

+distorted. I had him in and gave him a chair.

+

+My Sicilian and I sat looking one upon the other. It was well-nigh the

+full quarter of a century since I'd clapped eyes on him. And to me

+the thing marvelous was that I did not hate him. What a procession

+of disasters, and he to be its origin, was represented in that little

+weazened man, with his dark skin, monkey-face, and eyes to shine like

+beads! That heart-breaking trial for murder; the death of Apple Cheek;

+Blossom and the mark of the rope;--all from him! He was the reef upon

+which my life had been cast away! These thoughts ran in my head like a

+mill-race; and yet, I felt only a friendly warmth as though he were some

+good poor friend of long ago.

+

+My Sicilian's story was soon told. He had fallen into the hold of a

+vessel and broken his leg. It was mended in so bad a fashion that he

+must now be tied to the shore with it and never sail again. Could I find

+him work?--something, even a little, by which he might have food and

+shelter? He put this in a manner indescribably plaintive.

+

+Then I took a thought full of the whimsical. I would see how far a

+beaten Chief of Tammany Hall might command. There were countless small

+berths about the public offices and courts, where a man might take a

+meager salary, perhaps five hundred dollars a year, for a no greater

+service than throwing up a window or arranging the papers on a desk.

+These were within the appointment of what judges or officers prevailed

+in the departments or courtrooms to which they belonged. I would offer

+my Sicilian for one.

+

+And I had a plan. I knew what should be the fate of the fallen. I had

+met defeat; also, personally, I had been the target of every flinging

+slander which the enemy might invent. It was a time when men would fear

+my friendship as much as on another day they had feared my power. I was

+an Ishmael of politics. The timid and the time-serving would shrink away

+from me.

+

+There might, however, be found one who possessed the courage and the

+gratitude, someone whom I had made and who remembered it, to take my

+orders. I decided to search for such a man. Likewise (and this was my

+plan) I resolved--for I knew better than most folk how the town would be

+in my hands again--to make that one mayor when a time should serve.

+

+“Come with me,” said I. “You shall have a berth; and I've nothing now to

+do but seek for it.”

+

+There was a somber comicality to the situation which came close

+to making me laugh--I, the late dictator, abroad begging a

+five-hundred-dollar place!

+

+Twenty men I went to; and if I had been a leper I could not have filled

+them with a broader terror. One and all they would do nothing. These

+fools thought my downfall permanent; they owed everything to me, but

+forgot it on my day of loss. They were of the flock of that Frenchman

+who was grateful only for favors to come. Tarred with the Tammany stick

+as much as was I, myself, each had turned white in a night, and must

+mimic mugwumpery, when now the machine was overborne. Many were those

+whom I marked for slaughter that day; and I may tell you that in a later

+hour, one and all, I knocked them on the head.

+

+Now in the finish of it, I discovered one of a gallant fidelity, and

+who was brave above mugwump threat. He was a judge; and, withal, a man

+indomitably honest. But as it is with many bred of the machine, his

+instinct was blindly military. Like Old Mike, he regarded politics as

+another name for war. To the last, he would execute my orders without

+demur.

+

+With this judge, I left my Sicilian to dust tables and chairs for

+forty dollars a month. It was the wealth of Dives to the poor broken

+sailorman, and he thanked me with tears on his face. In a secret,

+lock-fast compartment of my memory I put away the name of that judge. He

+should be made first in the town for that one day's work.

+

+My late defeat meant, so far as my private matters were involved,

+nothing more serious than a jolt to my self-esteem. Nor hardly that,

+since I did not blame myself for the loss of the election. It was the

+fortune of battle; and because I had seen it on its way, that shaft of

+regret to pierce me was not sharpened of surprise.

+

+My fortunes were rolling fat with at least three millions of dollars,

+for I had not held the town a decade to neglect my own good. If it had

+been Big Kennedy, now, he would have owned fourfold as much. But I was

+lavish of habit; besides being no such soul of business thrift as was my

+old captain. Three millions should carry me to the end of the journey,

+however, even though I took no more; there would arise no money-worry to

+bark at me. The loss of the town might thin the flanks of my sub-leaders

+of Tammany, but the famine could not touch me.

+

+While young Van Flange had been the reason of a deal that was unhappy in

+my destinies, I had never met the boy. Now I was to see him. Morton sent

+him to me on an errand of business; he found me in my own house just as

+dinner was done. I was amiably struck with the look of him. He was tall

+and broad of shoulder, for he had been an athlete in his college and

+tugged at an oar in the boat.

+

+My eye felt pleased with young Van Flange from the beginning; he was as

+graceful as an elm, and with a princely set of the head which to my

+mind told the story of good blood. His manner, as he met me, became

+the sublimation of deference, and I could discover in his air a tacit

+flattery that was as positive, even while as impalpable, as a perfume.

+In his attitude, and in all he did and said, one might observe the

+aristocrat. The high strain of him showed as plain as a page of print,

+and over all a clean delicacy that reminded one of a thoroughbred colt.

+

+While we were together, Anne and Blossom came into the room. This last

+was a kind of office-place I had at home, where the two often visited

+with me in the evening.

+

+It was strange, the color that painted itself in the shy face of

+Blossom. I thought, too, that young Van Flange's interest stood a bit on

+tiptoe. It flashed over me in a moment:

+

+“Suppose they were to love and wed?”

+

+The question, self-put, discovered nothing rebellious in my breast. I

+would abhor myself as a matchmaker between a boy and a girl; and yet, if

+I did not help events, at least, I wouldn't interrupt them. If it were

+to please Blossom to have him for a husband: why then, God bless the

+girl, and make her day a fair one!

+

+Anne, who was quicker than I, must have read the new glow in Blossom's

+face and the new shine in her eyes. But her own face seemed as friendly

+as though the picture gave her no pang, and it reassured me mightily to

+find it so.

+

+Young Van Flange made no tiresome stay of it on this evening. But he

+came again, and still again; and once or twice we had him in to dinner.

+Our table appeared to be more complete when he was there; it served to

+bring an evenness and a balance, like a ship in trim. Finally he was in

+and out of the house as free as one of the family.

+

+For the earliest time in life, a quiet brightness shone on Blossom that

+was as the sun through mists. As for myself, delight in young Van Flange

+crept upon me like a habit; nor was it made less when I saw how he had a

+fancy for my girl, and that it might turn to wedding bells. The thought

+gave a whiter prospect of hope for Blossom; also it fostered my own

+peace, since my happiness hung utterly by her.

+

+One day I put the question of young Van Flange to Morton.

+

+“Really, now!” said Morton, “I should like him vastly if he had a

+stronger under jaw, don't y' know. These fellows with chins like cats'

+are a beastly lot in the long run.”

+

+“But his habits are now good,” I urged. “And he is industrious, is he

+not?”

+

+“Of course, the puppy works,” responded Morton; “that is, if you're to

+call pottering at a desk by such a respectable term. As for his habits,

+they are the habits of a captive. He's prisoner to his poverty. Gad! one

+can't be so deucedly pernicious, don't y' know, on nine hundred a year.”

+ Then, with a burst of eagerness: “I know what you would be thinking. But

+I say, old chap, you mustn't bank on his blood. Good on both sides, it

+may be; but the blend is bad. Two very reputable drugs may be combined

+to make a poison, don't y' know!”

+

+There the matter stuck; for I would not tell Morton of any feeling my

+girl might have for young Van Flange. However, Morton's view in no wise

+changed my own; I considered that with the best of motives he might

+still suffer from some warping prejudice.

+

+There arose a consideration, however, and one I could not look in the

+face. There was that dread birthmark!--the mark of the rope! At last I

+brought up the topic of my fears with Anne.

+

+“Will he not loathe her?” said I. “Will his love not change to hate when

+he knows?”

+

+“Did your love change?” Anne asked.

+

+“But that is not the same.”

+

+“Be at peace, then,” returned Anne, taking my hand in hers and pressing

+it. “I have told him. Nor shall I forget the nobleness of his reply: 'I

+love Blossom,' said he; 'I love her for her heart.'”

+

+When I remember these things, I cannot account for the infatuation of us

+two--Anne and myself. The blackest villain of earth imposed himself upon

+us as a saint! And I had had my warning. I should have known that he who

+broke a mother's heart would break a wife's.

+

+Now when the forces of reform governed the town, affairs went badly for

+that superlative tribe, and each day offered additional claim for the

+return of the machine. Government is not meant to be a shepherd of

+morals. Its primal purposes are of the physical, being no more than to

+safeguard property and person. That is the theory; more strongly still

+must it become the practice if one would avoid the enmity of men. He

+whose morals are looked after by the powers that rule, grows impatient,

+and in the end, vindictive. No mouth likes the bit; a guardian is never

+loved. The reform folk made that error against which Old Mike warned Big

+Kennedy: They got between the public and its beer.

+

+The situation, thus phrased, called for neither intrigue nor labor on my

+own part. I had but to stay in my chair, and “reform” itself would drive

+the people into Tammany's arms.

+

+In those days I had but scanty glimpses of the Reverend Bronson.

+However, he now and then would visit me, and when he did, I think I read

+in his troubled brow the fear of machine success next time. Morton was

+there on one occasion when the Reverend Bronson came in. They were well

+known to one another, these two; also, they were friends as much as men

+might be whose lives and aims went wide apart.

+

+“Now the trouble,” observed Morton, as the two discussed that backward

+popularity of the present rule, “lies in this: Your purist of politics

+is never practical. He walks the air; and for a principle, he fixes

+his eyes on a star. Besides,” concluded Morton, tapping the Reverend

+Bronson's hand with that invaluable eyeglass, “you make a pet, at the

+expense of statutes more important, of some beggarly little law like the

+law against gambling.”

+

+“My dear sir,” exclaimed the Reverend Bronson, “surely you do not defend

+gambling.”

+

+“I defend nothing,” said Morton; “it's too beastly tiresome, don't y'

+know. But, really, the public is no fool; and with a stock-ticker and a

+bucket shop on every corner, you will hardly excite folk to madness over

+roulette and policy.”

+

+“The policy shops stretch forth their sordid palms for the pennies of

+the very poor,” said the Reverend Bronson earnestly.

+

+“But, my boy,” retorted Morton, his drooping inanity gaining a color,

+“government should be concerned no more about the poor man's penny than

+the rich man's pound. However, if it be a reason, why not suppress the

+barrooms? Gad! what more than your doggery reaches for the pennies of

+the poor?”

+

+“There is truth in what you say,” consented the Reverend Bronson

+regretfully. “Still, I count for but one as an axman in this wilderness

+of evil; I can fell but one tree at a time. I will tell you this,

+however: At the gates of you rich ones must lie the blame for most of

+the immoralities of the town. You are guilty of two wrongs: You are not

+benevolent; and you set a bad moral example.”

+

+“Really!” replied Morton, “I, myself, think the rich a deuced bad lot;

+in fact, I hold them to be quite as bad as the poor, don't y' know. But

+you speak of benevolence--alms-giving, and that sort of thing. Now I'm

+against benevolence. There is an immorality in alms just in proportion

+as there's a morality to labor. Folk work only because they lack money.

+Now you give a man ten dollars and the beggar will stop work.”

+

+“Let me hear,” observed the Reverend Bronson, amused if not convinced,

+“what your remedy for the town's bad morals would be.”

+

+“Work!” replied Morton, with quite a flash of animation. “I'd make every

+fellow work--rich and poor alike. I'd invent fardels for the idle. The

+only difference between the rich and the poor is a difference of cooks

+and tailors--really! Idleness, don't y' know, is everywhere and among

+all classes the certain seed of vice.”

+

+“You would have difficulty, I fear,” remarked the Reverend Bronson, “in

+convincing your gilded fellows of the virtuous propriety of labor.”

+

+“I wouldn't convince them, old chap, I'd club them to it. It is a

+mistake you dominies make, that you are all for persuading when you

+should be for driving. Gad! you should never coax where you can drive,”

+ and Morton smiled vacantly.

+

+“You would deal with men as you do with swine?”

+

+“What should be more appropriate? Think of the points of resemblance.

+Both are obstinate, voracious, complaining, cowardly, ungrateful,

+selfish, cruel! One should ever deal with a man on a pig basis.

+Persuasion is useless, compliment a waste. You might make a bouquet

+for him--orchids and violets--and, gad! he would eat it, thinking it a

+cabbage. But note the pleasing, screaming, scurrying difference when

+you smite him with a brick. Your man and your hog were born knowing all

+about a brick.”

+

+“The rich do a deal of harm,” remarked the Reverend Bronson

+thoughtfully. “Their squanderings, and the brazen spectacle thereof,

+should be enough of themselves to unhinge the morals of mankind. Think

+on their selfish vulgar aggressions! I've seen a lake, once the open

+joy of thousands, bought and fenced to be a play space for one rich man;

+I've looked on while a village where hundreds lived and loved and had

+their pleasant being, died and disappeared to give one rich man room; in

+the brag and bluster of his millions, I've beheld a rich man rearing a

+shelter for his crazy brain and body, and borne witness while he bought

+lumber yards and planing mills and stone quarries and brick concerns

+and lime kilns with a pretense of hastening his building. It is all a

+disquieting example to the poor man looking on. Such folk, dollar-loose

+and dollar-mad, frame disgrace for money, and make the better sentiment

+of better men fair loathe the name of dollar. And yet it is but a

+sickness, I suppose; a sort of rickets of riches--a Saint Vitus dance

+of vast wealth! Such go far, however, to bear out your parallel of the

+swine; and at the best, they but pile exaggeration on imitation and

+drink perfumed draff from trough of gold.”

+

+The Reverend Bronson as he gave us this walked up and down the floor

+as more than once I'd seen him do when moved. Nor did he particularly

+address himself to either myself or Morton until the close, when he

+turned to that latter personage. Pausing in his walk, the Reverend

+Bronson contemplated Morton at some length; and then, as if his thoughts

+on money had taken another path, and shaking his finger in the manner of

+one who preferred an indictment, he said:

+

+“Cato, the Censor, declared: 'It is difficult to save that city from

+ruin where a fish sells for more than an ox.' By the bad practices of

+your vulgar rich, that, to-day, is a description of New York. Still,

+from the public standpoint, I should not call the luxury it tells of,

+the worst effect of wealth, nor the riches which indulge in such luxury

+the most baleful riches. There be those other busy black-flag millions

+which maraud a people. They cut their way through bars and bolts of

+government with the saws and files and acids of their evil influence--an

+influence whose expression is ever, and simply, bribes. I speak of

+those millions that purchase the passage of one law or the downfall of

+another, and which buy the people's officers like cattle to their

+will. But even as I reproach those criminal millions, I marvel at their

+blindness. Cannot such wealth see that in its treasons--for treason it

+does as much as any Arnold--it but undermines itself? Who should need

+strength and probity in government, and the shelter of them, more than

+Money? And yet in its rapacity without eyes, it must ever be using the

+criminal avarice of officials to pick the stones and mortar from the

+honest foundations of the state!”

+

+The Reverend Bronson resumed his walking up and down. Morton, the

+imperturbable, lighted a cigarette and puffed bland puffs as though

+he in no fashion felt himself described. Not at all would he honor the

+notion that the reverend rhetorician was talking either of him or at

+him, in his condemnation of those pirate millions.

+

+“I should feel alarmed for my country,” continued the Reverend Bronson,

+coming back to his chair, “if I did not remember that New York is not

+the nation, and how a sentiment here is never the sentiment there. The

+country at large has still its ideals; New York, I fear, has nothing

+save its appetites.”

+

+“To shift discussion,” said Morton lightly, “a discussion that would

+seem academic rather than practical, and coming to the City and what you

+call its appetites, let me suggest this: Much of that trouble of

+which you speak arises by faults of politics as the latter science is

+practiced by the parties. Take yourself and our silent friend.” Here

+Morton indicated me: “Take the two parties you represent. Neither was

+ever known to propose an onward step. Each of you has for his sole

+issue the villainies of the other fellow; the whole of your cry is the

+iniquity of the opposition; it is really! I'll give both of you this for

+a warning. The future is to see the man who, leaving a past to bury a.

+past, will cry 'Public Ownership!' or some equally engaging slogan. Gad!

+old chap, with that, the rabble will follow him as the rats followed the

+pied piper of Hamelin. The moralist and the grafter will both be left,

+don't y' know!” Morton here returned into that vapidity from which, for

+the moment, he had shaken himself free. “Gad!” he concluded, “you will

+never know what a passion to own things gnaws at your peasant in his

+blouse and wooden shoes until some prophetic beggar shouts 'Public

+Ownership!' you won't, really!”

+

+“Sticking to what you term the practical,” said the Reverend Bronson,

+“tell me wherein our reform administration has weakened itself.”

+

+“As I've observed,” responded Morton, “you pick out a law and make a pet

+of it, to the neglect of criminal matters more important. It is

+your fad--your vanity of party, to do this. Also, it is your heel of

+Achilles, and through it will come your death-blow.” Then, as if weary

+of the serious, Morton went off at a lively tangent: “Someone--a very

+good person, too, I think, although I've mislaid his name--observed:

+'Oh, that mine enemy would write a book!' Now I should make it: 'Oh,

+that mine enemy would own a fad!' Given a fellow's fad, I've got him.

+Once upon a time, when I had a measure of great railway moment--really!

+one of those measures of black-flag millions, don't y' know!--pending

+before the legislature at Albany, I ran into a gentleman whose name

+was De Vallier. Most surprising creature, this De Vallier! Disgustingly

+honest, too; but above all, as proud as a Spanish Hidalgo of his name.

+Said his ancestors were nobles of France under the Grand Monarch, and

+that sort of thing. Gad! it was his fad--this name! And the bitterness

+wherewith he opposed my measure was positively shameful. Really, if the

+floor of the Assembly--the chap was in the Assembly, don't y' know--were

+left unguarded for a moment, De Vallier would occupy it, and call

+everybody but himself a venal rogue of bribes. There was never anything

+more shocking!

+

+“But I hit upon an expedient. If I could but touch his fad--if I might

+but reach that name of De Vallier, I would have him on the hip. So with

+that, don't y' know, I had a bill introduced to change the fellow's name

+to Dummeldinger. I did, 'pon my honor! The Assembly adopted it gladly.

+The Senate was about to do the same, when the horrified De Vallier threw

+himself at my feet. He would die if he were called Dummeldinger!

+

+“The poor fellow's grief affected me very much; my sympathies are easily

+excited--they are, really! And Dummeldinger was such a beastly name! I

+couldn't withstand De Vallier's pleadings. I caused the bill changing

+his name to be withdrawn, and in the fervor of his gratitude, De Vallier

+voted for that railway measure. It was my kindness that won him; in his

+relief to escape 'Dummeldinger,' De Vallier was ready to die for me.”

+

+It was evening, and in the younger hours I had pulled my chair before

+the blaze, and was thinking on Apple Cheek, and how I would give the

+last I owned of money and power to have her by me. This was no uncommon

+train; I've seen few days since she died that did not fill my memory

+with her image.

+

+Outside raged a threshing storm of snow that was like a threat for

+bitterness, and it made the sticks in the fireplace snap and sparkle in

+a kind of stout defiance, as though inviting it to do its worst.

+

+In the next room were Anne and Blossom, and with them young Van Flange.

+I could hear the murmur of their voices, and at intervals a little laugh

+from him.

+

+An hour went by; the door between opened, and young Van Flange, halting

+a bit with hesitation that was not without charm, stepped into my

+presence. He spoke with grace and courage, however, when once he was

+launched, and told me his love and asked for Blossom. Then my girl came,

+and pressed her face to mine. Anne, too, was there, like a blessing and

+a hope.

+

+They were married:--my girl and young Van Flange. Morton came to my aid;

+and I must confess that it was he, with young Van Flange, who helped us

+to bridesmaids and ushers, and what others belong with weddings in their

+carrying out. I had none upon whom I might call when now I needed wares

+of such fine sort; while Blossom, for her part, living her frightened

+life of seclusion, was as devoid of acquaintances or friends among the

+fashionables as any abbess might have been.

+

+The street was thronged with people when we drove up, and inside the

+church was such a jam of roses and folk as I had never beheld. Wide was

+the curious interest in the daughter of Tammany's Chief; and Blossom

+must have felt it, for her hand fluttered like a bird on my arm as, with

+organ crashing a wedding march, I led her up the aisle. At the altar

+rail were the bishop and three priests. And so, I gave my girl away.

+

+When the ceremony was done, we all went back to my house--Blossom's

+house, since I had put it in her name--for I would have it that they

+must live with me. I was not to be cheated of my girl; she should not

+be lost out of my arms because she had found a husband's. It wrought

+a mighty peace for me, this wedding, showing as it did so sure of

+happiness to Blossom. Nor will I say it did not feed my pride. Was it

+a slight thing that the blood of the Clonmel smith should unite itself

+with a strain, old and proud and blue beyond any in the town? We made

+one family of it; and when we were settled, my heart filled up with a

+feeling more akin to content than any that had dwelt there for many a

+sore day.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIV--HOW VAN FLANGE WENT INTO STOCKS

+

+

+IT was by the suggestion of young Van Flange himself that he became

+a broker. His argument I think was sound; he had been bred to no

+profession, and the floor of the Exchange, if he would have a trade,

+was all that was left him. No one could be of mark or consequence in New

+York who might not write himself master of millions. Morton himself said

+that; and with commerce narrowing to a huddle of mammoth corporations,

+how should anyone look forward to the conquest of millions save through

+those avenues of chance which Wall Street alone provided? The Stock

+Exchange was all that remained; and with that, I bought young Van Flange

+a seat therein, and equipped him for a brokerage career. I harbored no

+misgivings of his success; no one could look upon his clean, handsome

+outlines and maintain a doubt.

+

+Those were our happiest days--Blossom's and mine. In her name, I split

+my fortune in two, and gave young Van Flange a million and a half

+wherewith to arm his hands for the fray of stocks. Even now, as I look

+backward through the darkness, I still think it a million and a half

+well spent. For throughout those slender months of sunshine, Blossom

+went to and fro about me, radiating a subdued warmth of joy that was

+like the silent glow of a lamp. Yes, that money served its end. It made

+Blossom happy, and it will do me good while I live to think how that was

+so.

+

+Morton, when I called young Van Flange from his Mulberry desk to send

+him into Wall Street, was filled with distrust of the scheme.

+

+“You should have him stay with Mulberry,” said he. “If he do no good, at

+least he will do no harm, and that, don't y' know, is a business record

+far above the average. Besides, he's safer; he is, really!”

+

+This I did not like from Morton. He himself was a famous man of stocks,

+and had piled millions upon millions in a pyramid of speculation. Did

+he claim for himself a monopoly of stock intelligence? Van Flange was as

+well taught of books as was he, and came of a better family. Was it that

+he arrogated to his own head a superiority of wit for finding his way

+about in those channels of stock value? I said something of this sorb to

+Morton.

+

+“Believe me, old chap,” said he, laying his slim hand on my shoulder,

+“believe me, I had nothing on my mind beyond your own safety, and the

+safety of that cub of yours. And I think you will agree that I have

+exhibited a knowledge of what winds and currents and rocks might

+interrupt or wreck one in his voyages after stocks.”

+

+“Admitting all you say,” I replied, “it does not follow that another may

+not know or learn to know as much.”

+

+“But Wall Street is such a quicksand,” he persisted. “Gad! it swallows

+nine of every ten who set foot in it. And to deduce safety for another,

+because I am and have been safe, might troll you into error. You should

+consider my peculiar case. I was born with beak and claw for the game.

+Like the fish-hawk, I can hover above the stream of stocks, and swoop

+in and out, taking my quarry where it swims. And then, remember my

+arrangements. I have an agent at the elbow of every opportunity. I have

+made the world my spy, since I pay the highest price for information. If

+a word be said in a cabinet, I hear it; if a decision of court is to be

+handed down, I know it; if any of our great forces or monarchs of the

+street so much as move a finger, I see it. And yet, with all I know, and

+all I see, and all I hear, and all my nets and snares as complicated as

+the works of a watch, added to a native genius, the best I may do is

+win four times in seven. In Wall Street, a man meets with not alone the

+foreseeable, but the unforeseeable; he does, really! He is like a man in

+a tempest, and may be struck dead by some cloud-leveled bolt while you

+and he stand talking, don't y' know!”

+

+Morton fell a long day's journey short of convincing me that Wall Street

+was a theater of peril for young Van Flange. Moreover, the boy said

+true; it offered the one way open to his feet. Thus reasoning, and led

+by my love for my girl and my delight to think how she was happy, I did

+all I might to further the ambitions of young Van Flange, and embark him

+as a trader of stocks. He took office rooms in Broad Street; and on the

+one or two occasions when I set foot in them, I was flattered as well as

+amazed by the array of clerks and stock-tickers, blackboards, and

+tall baskets, which met my untaught gaze. The scene seemed to buzz and

+vibrate with prosperity, and the air was vital of those riches which it

+promised.

+

+It is scarce required that I say I paid not the least attention to young

+Van Flange and his business affairs. I possessed no stock knowledge,

+being as darkened touching Wall Street as any Hottentot. More than that,

+my time was taken up with Tammany Hall. The flow of general feeling

+continued to favor a return of the machine, for the public was becoming

+more and sorely irked of a misfit “reform” that was too tight in one

+place while too loose in another. There stood no doubt of it; I had only

+to wait and maintain my own lines in order, and the town would be my

+own again. It would yet lie in my lap like a goose in the lap of a Dutch

+woman; and I to feather-line my personal nest with its plumage to what

+soft extent I would. For all that, I must watch lynx-like my own forces,

+guarding against schism, keeping my people together solidly for the

+battle that was to be won.

+

+Much and frequently, I discussed the situation with Morton. With his

+traction operations, he had an interest almost as deep as my own. He

+was, too, the one man on whose wisdom of politics I had been educated to

+rely. When it became a question of votes and how to get them, I had yet

+to meet Morton going wrong.

+

+“You should have an issue,” said Morton. “You should not have two, for

+the public is like a dog, don't y' know, and can chase no more than just

+one rabbit at a time. But one you should have--something you could point

+to and promise for the future. As affairs stand--and gad! it has been

+that way since I have had a memory--you and the opposition will go into

+the campaign like a pair of beldame scolds, railing at one another.

+Politics has become a contest of who can throw the most mud. Really, the

+town is beastly tired of both of you--it is, 'pon my word!”

+

+“Now what issue would you offer?”

+

+“Do you recall what I told our friend Bronson? Public Ownership should

+be the great card. Go in for the ownership by the town of street

+railways, water works, gas plants, and that sort of thing, don't y'

+know, and the rabble will trample on itself to vote your ticket.”

+

+“And do you shout 'Municipal Ownership!'--you with a street railway to

+lose?”

+

+“But I wouldn't lose it. I'm not talking of anything but an issue. It

+would be a deuced bore, if Public Ownership actually were to happen.

+Besides, for me to lose my road would be the worst possible form! No,

+I'm not so insane as that. But it doesn't mean, because you make Public

+Ownership an issue, that you must bring it about. There are always ways

+to dodge, don't y' know. And the people won't care; the patient beggars

+have been taught to expect it. An issue is like the bell-ringing before

+an auction; it is only meant to call a crowd. Once the auction begins,

+no one remembers the bell-ringing; they don't, really!”

+

+“To simply shout 'Public Ownership:'” said I, “would hardly stir the

+depths. We would have to get down to something practical--something

+definite.”

+

+“It was the point I was approaching. Really! what should be better now

+than to plainly propose--since the route is unoccupied, and offers

+a field of cheapest experiment--a street railway with a loop around

+Washington Square, and then out Fifth Avenue to One Hundred and Tenth

+Street, next west on One Hundred and Tenth Street to Seventh Avenue, and

+lastly north on Seventh Avenue until you strike the Harlem River at the

+One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street bridge?”

+

+“What a howl would go up from Fifth Avenue!” said I.

+

+“If it were so, what then? You are not to be injured by silk-stocking

+clamor. For each cry against you from the aristocrats, twenty of the

+peasantry would come crying to your back; don't y', know! Patrician

+opposition, old chap, means ever plebeian support, and you should do

+all you may, with wedge and maul of policy, to split the log along those

+lines. Gad!” concluded Morton, bursting suddenly into self-compliments;

+“I don't recall when I was so beastly sagacious before--really!”

+

+“Now I fail to go with you,” I returned. “I have for long believed that

+the strongest force with which the organization had to contend, was its

+own lack of fashion. If Tammany had a handful or two of that purple and

+fine linen with which you think it so wise to quarrel, it might rub some

+of the mud off itself, and have quieter if not fairer treatment from a

+press, ever ready to truckle to the town's nobility. Should we win next

+time, it is already in my plans to establish a club in the very heart of

+Fifth Avenue. I shall attract thither all the folk of elegant fashion

+I can, so that, thereafter, should one snap a kodak on the machine, the

+foreground of the picture will contain a respectable exhibition of lofty

+names. I want, rather, to get Tammany out of the gutter, than arrange

+for its perpetual stay therein.”

+

+“Old chap,” said Morton, glorying through his eyeglass, “I think I

+shall try a cigarette after that. I need it to resettle my nerves; I do,

+really. Why, my dear boy! do you suppose that Tammany can be anything

+other than that unwashed black sheep it is? We shall make bishops of

+burglars when that day dawns. The thing's wildly impossible, don't y'

+know! Besides, your machine would die. Feed Tammany Hall on any diet

+of an aristocracy, and you will unhinge its stomach; you will, 'pon my

+faith!”

+

+“You shall see a Tammany club in fashion's center, none the less.”

+

+“Then you don't like 'Public Ownership?'” observed Morton, after a

+pause, the while twirling his eyeglass. “Why don't you then go in for

+cutting the City off from the State, and making a separate State of it?

+You could say that we suffer from hayseed tyranny, and all that. Really!

+it's the truth, don't y' know; and besides, we City fellows would gulp

+it down like spring water.”

+

+“The City delegation in Albany,” said I, “is too small to put through

+such a bill. The Cornfields would be a unit to smother it.”

+

+“Not so sure about the Cornfields!” cried Morton. “Of course it would

+take money. That provided, think of the wires you could pull. Here are

+a half-dozen railroads, with their claws and teeth in the country

+and their tails in town. Each of them, don't y' know, as part of its

+equipment, owns a little herd of rustic members. You could step on the

+railroad tail with the feet of your fifty city departments, and torture

+it into giving you its hayseed marionettes for this scheme of a new

+State. Pon my word! old chap, it could be brought about; it could,

+really!”

+

+“I fear,” said I banteringly, “that after all you are no better than

+a harebrained theorist. I confess that your plans are too grand for

+my commonplace powers of execution. I shall have to plod on with those

+moss-grown methods which have served us in the past.”

+

+It would seem as though I had had Death to be my neighbor from the

+beginning, for his black shadow was in constant play about me. One day

+he would take a victim from out my very arms; again he would grimly step

+between me and another as we sat in talk. Nor did doctors do much good

+or any; and I have thought that all I shall ask, when my own time comes,

+is a nurse to lift me in and out of bed, and for the rest of it, why!

+let me die.

+

+It was Anne to leave me now, and her death befell like lightning from an

+open sky. Anne was never of your robust women; I should not have said,

+however, that she was frail, since she was always about, taking the

+whole weight of the house to herself, and, as I found when she was gone,

+furnishing the major portion of its cheerfulness. That was what misled

+me, doubtless; a brave smile shone ever on her face like sunlight, and

+served to put me off from any thought of sickness for her.

+

+It was her heart, they said; but no such slowness in striking as when

+Big Kennedy died. Anne had been abroad for a walk in the early cool of

+the evening. When she returned, and without removing her street gear,

+she sank into a chair in the hall.

+

+“What ails ye, mem?” asked the old Galway wife that had been nurse to

+Blossom, and who undid the door to Anne; “what's the matter of your pale

+face?”

+

+“An' then,” cried the crone, when she gave me the sorry tale of it, “she

+answered wit' a sob. An' next her poor head fell back on the chair, and

+she was by.”

+

+Both young Van Flange and I were away from the house at the time of it;

+he about his business, which kept him often, and long, into the night;

+and I in the smothering midst of my politics. When I was brought home,

+they had laid Anne's body on her bed. At the foot on a rug crouched the

+old nurse, rocking herself forward and back, wailing like a banshee.

+Blossom, whose cheek was whitened with the horror of our loss, crept to

+my side and stood close, clutching my hand as in those old terror-ridden

+baby days when unseen demons glowered from the room-comers. It was no

+good sight for Blossom, and I led her away, the old Galway crone at the

+bed's foot keening her barbarous mourning after us far down the hall.

+

+Blossom was all that remained with me now. And yet, she would be enough,

+I thought, as I held her, child-fashion, in my arms that night to comfort

+her, if only I might keep her happy.

+

+Young Van Flange worked at his trade of stocks like a horse. He was into

+it early and late, sometimes staying from home all night. I took pride

+to think how much more wisely than Morton I had judged the boy.

+

+Those night absences, when he did not come in until three of the

+morning, and on occasion not at all, gave me no concern. My own business

+of Tammany was quite as apt to hold me; for there are events that must

+be dealt with in the immediate, like shooting a bird on the wing. A

+multitude of such were upon me constantly, and there was no moment of

+the day or night that I could say beforehand would not be claimed

+by them. When this was my own case, it turned nothing difficult to

+understand how the exigencies of stocks might be as peremptory.

+

+One matter to promote a growing fund of confidence in young Van Flange

+was his sobriety. The story ran--and, in truth, his own mother had told

+it--of his drunkenness, when a boy fresh out of his books, and during

+those Barclay Street days when he went throwing his patrimony to the

+vultures. That was by and done with; he had somehow gotten by the

+bottle. Never but once did he show the flush of liquor, and that fell

+out when he had been to a college dinner. I had always understood how

+it was the custom to retire drunk from such festivals, wherefore that

+particular inebriety gave me scant uneasiness. One should not expect a

+roaring boy about town to turn deacon in a day.

+

+Blossom was, as I've said, by nature shy and secret, and never one to

+relate her joys or griefs. While she and he were under the same roof

+with me, I had no word from her as to her life with young Van Flange,

+and whether it went bright, or was blurred of differences. Nor do I

+believe that in those days there came aught to harrow her, unless it

+were the feeling that young Van Flange showed less the lover and more

+like folk of fifty than she might have wished.

+

+Once and again, indeed, I caught on her face a passing shade; but her

+eyes cleared when I looked at her, and she would come and put her arms

+about me, and by that I could not help but see how her marriage had

+flowered life's path for her. This thought of itself would set off a

+tune in my heart like the songs of birds; and I have it the more sharply

+upon my memory, because it was the one deep happiness I knew. The

+shadows I trapped as they crossed the brow of Blossom, I laid to a

+thought that young Van Flange carried too heavy a load of work. It might

+break him in his health; and the fear had warrant in hollow eyes and a

+thin sallowness of face, which piled age upon him, and made him resemble

+twice his years.

+

+Towards me, the pose of young Van Flange was that one of respectful

+deference which had marked him from the start. Sometimes I was struck

+by the notion that he was afraid of me; not with any particularity of

+alarm, but as a woman might fear a mastiff, arguing peril from latent

+ferocities and a savagery of strength.

+

+Still, he in no wise ran away; one is not to understand that; on the

+contrary he would pass hours in my society, explaining his speculations

+and showing those figures which were the record of his profits. I was

+glad to listen, too; for while I did not always grasp a meaning, being

+stock-dull as I've explained, what he said of “bull” and “bear” and

+“short” and “long,” had the smell of combat about it, and held me

+enthralled like a romance.

+

+There were instances when he suggested speculations, and now and then as

+high as one thousand shares. I never failed to humor him, for I thought

+a negative might smack of lack of confidence--a thing I would not think

+of, if only for love of Blossom. I must say that my belief in young Van

+Flange was augmented by these deals, which turned unflaggingly, though

+never largely, to my credit.

+

+It was when I stood waist-deep in what arrangements were preliminary

+to my battle for the town, now drawing near and nearer, that young Van

+Flange approached me concerning Blackberry Traction.

+

+“Father,” said he--for he called me “father,” and the name was pleasant

+to my ear--“father, if you will, we may make millions of dollars like

+turning hand or head.”

+

+Then he gave me a long story of the friendship he had scraped together

+with the president of Blackberry--he of the Hebrew cast and clutch, whom

+I once met and disappointed over franchises.

+

+“Of course,” said young Van Flange, “while he is the president of

+Blackberry, he has no sentimental feelings concerning the fortunes of

+the company. He is as sharp to make money as either you or I. The truth

+is this: While the stock is quoted fairly high, Blackberry in fact is

+in a bad way. It is like a house of cards, and a kick would collapse it

+into ruins. The president, because we are such intimates, gave me the

+whole truth of Blackberry. Swearing me to secrecy, he, as it were,

+lighted a lantern, and led me into the darkest corners. He showed me the

+books. Blackberry is on the threshold of a crash. The dividends coming

+due will not be paid. It is behind in its interest; and the directors

+will be driven to declare an immense issue of bonds. Blackberry stock

+will fall below twenty; a receiver will have the road within the year.

+To my mind, the situation is ready for a coup. We have but to sell and

+keep selling, to take in what millions we will.”

+

+There was further talk, and all to similar purpose. Also, I recalled the

+ease with which Morton and I, aforetime, took four millions between us

+out of Blackberry.

+

+“Now I think,” said I, in the finish of it, “that Blackberry is my gold

+mine by the word of Fate itself. Those we are to make will not be the

+first riches I've had from it.”

+

+Except the house we stood in, I owned no real estate; nor yet that,

+since it was Blossom's, being her marriage gift from me. From the first

+I had felt an aversion for houses and lots. I was of no stomach

+to collect rents, squabble with tenants over repairs, or race to

+magistrates for eviction. This last I should say was the Irish in my

+arteries, for landlords had hectored my ancestors like horseflies. My

+wealth was all in stocks and bonds; nor would I listen to anything else.

+Morton had his own whimsical explanation for this:

+

+“There be those among us,” said he, “who are nomads by instinct--a sort

+of white Arab, don't y' know. Not intending offense--for, gad! there are

+reasons why I desire to keep you good-natured--every congenital criminal

+is of that sort; he is, really! Such folk instinctively look forward

+to migration or flight. They want nothing they can't pack up and depart

+with in a night, and would no more take a deed to land than a dose of

+arsenic. It's you who are of those migratory people. That's why you

+abhor real estate. Fact, old chap! you're a born nomad; and it's in your

+blood to be ever ready to strike camp, inspan your teams, and trek.”

+

+Morton furnished these valuable theories when he was investing my money

+for me. Having no belief in my own investment wisdom, I imposed the task

+upon his good nature. One day he brought me my complete possessions in a

+wonderful sheaf of securities. They were edged, each and all, with gold,

+since Morton would accept no less.

+

+“There you are, my boy,” said he, “and everything as clean as running

+water, don't y' know. Really, I didn't think you could be trusted, if

+it came on to blow a panic, so I've bought for you only stuff that can

+protect itself.”

+

+When young Van Flange made his Blackberry suggestions, I should say

+I had sixteen hundred thousand dollars worth of these bonds and

+stocks--mostly the former--in my steel box. I may only guess concerning

+it, for I could not reckon so huge a sum to the precise farthing. It was

+all in the same house with us; I kept it in a safe I'd fitted into the

+walls, and which was so devised as to laugh at either a burglar or a

+fire. I gave young Van Flange the key of that interior compartment which

+held these securities; the general combination he already possessed.

+

+“There you'll find more than a million and a half,” said I, “and that,

+with what you have, should make three millions. How much Blackberry can

+you sell now?”

+

+“We ought to sell one hundred and fifty thousand shares. A drop of

+eighty points, and it will go that far, would bring us in twelve

+millions.”

+

+“Do what you think best,” said I. “And, mind you: No word to Morton.”

+

+“Now I was about to suggest that,” said young Van Flange.

+

+Morton should not know what was on my slate for Blackberry. Trust him?

+yes; and with every hope I had. But it was my vanity to make this move

+without him. I would open his eyes to it, that young Van Flange, if not

+so old a sailor as himself, was none the less his equal at charting a

+course and navigating speculation across that sea of stocks, about the

+treacherous dangers whereof it had pleased him so often to patronize me.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXV--PROFIT AND LOSS; MAINLY THE LATTER

+

+

+SINCE time began, no man, not even a king, has been better obeyed in

+his mandates, than was I while Chief of Tammany Hall. From high to low,

+from the leader of a district to the last mean straggler in the ranks,

+one and all, they pulled and hauled or ran and climbed like sailors in a

+gale, at the glance of my eye or the toss of my finger. More often than

+once, I have paused in wonder over this blind submission, and asked

+myself the reason. Particularly, since I laid down my chiefship, the

+query has come upon my tongue while I remembered old days, to consider

+how successes might have been more richly improved or defeats, in their

+disasters, at least partially avoided.

+

+Nor could I give myself the answer. I had no close friendships among my

+men; none of them was my confidant beyond what came to be demanded of

+the business in our hands. On the contrary, there existed a gulf between

+me and those about me, and while I was civil--for I am not the man, and

+never was, of wordy violences--I can call myself nothing more.

+

+If anything, I should say my people of politics feared me, and that a

+sort of sweating terror was the spur to send them flying when I gave an

+order. There was respect, too; and in some cases a kind of love like a

+dog's love, and which is rather the homage paid by weakness to strength,

+or that sentiment offered of the vine to the oak that supports its

+clamberings.

+

+Why my men should stand in awe of me, I cannot tell. Certainly, I was

+mindful of their rights; and, with the final admonitions of Big Kennedy

+in my ears, I avoided favoritisms and dealt out justice from an even

+hand. True, I could be stern when occasion invited, and was swift to

+destroy that one whose powers did not match his duty, or who for a bribe

+would betray, or for an ambition would oppose, my plan.

+

+No; after Big Kennedy's death, I could name you none save Morton

+whose advice I cared for, or towards whom I leaned in any thought

+of confidence. Some have said that this distance, which I maintained

+between me and my underlings, was the secret of my strength. It may have

+been; and if it were I take no credit, since I expressed nothing save a

+loneliness of disposition, and could not have borne myself otherwise

+had I made the attempt. Not that I regretted it. That dumb concession

+of themselves to me, by my folk of Tammany, would play no little part

+in pulling down a victory in the great conflict wherein we were about to

+engage.

+

+Tammany Hall was never more sharply organized. I worked over the

+business like an artist over an etching. Discipline was brought to

+a pitch never before known. My district leaders were the pick of the

+covey, and every one, for force and talents of executive kind, fit to

+lead a brigade into battle. Under these were the captains of election

+precincts; and a rank below the latter came the block captains--one for

+each city block. Thus were made up those wheels within wheels which,

+taken together, completed the machine. They fitted one with the other,

+block captains with precinct captains, the latter with district leaders,

+and these last with myself; and all like the wheels and springs and

+ratchets and regulators of a clock; one sure, too, when wound and oiled

+and started, to strike the hours and announce the time of day in local

+politics with a nicety that owned no precedent.

+

+There would be a quartette of tickets; I could see that fact of four

+corners in its approach, long months before the conventions. Besides the

+two regular parties, and the mugwump-independents--which tribe, like the

+poor, we have always with us--the laborites would try again. These had

+not come to the field in any force since that giant uprising when we

+beat them down with the reputable old gentleman. Nor did I fear them

+now. My trained senses told me, as with thumb on wrist I counted

+the public pulse, how those clans of labor were not so formidable by

+three-fourths as on that other day a decade and more before.

+

+Of those three camps of politics set over against us, that one to be the

+strongest was the party of reform. This knowledge swelled my stock of

+courage, already mounting high. If it were no more than to rout the

+administration now worrying the withers of the town, why, then! the

+machine was safe to win.

+

+There arose another sign. As the days ran on, rich and frequent, first

+from one big corporation and then another--and these do not give until

+they believe--the contributions of money came rolling along. They would

+buy our favor in advance of victory. These donations followed each other

+like billows upon a beach, and each larger than the one before, which

+showed how the wind of general confidence was rising in our favor. It

+was not, therefore, my view alone; but, by this light of money to our

+cause, I could see how the common opinion had begun to gather head that

+the machine was to take the town again.

+

+This latter is often a decisive point, and one to give victory of

+itself. The average of intelligence and integrity in this city of New

+York is lower than any in the land. There are here, in proportion to

+a vote, more people whose sole principle is the bandwagon, than in any

+other town between the oceans. These “sliders,” who go hither and yon,

+and attach themselves to this standard or ally themselves with that one,

+as the eye of their fancy is caught and taught by some fluttering signal

+of the hour to pick the winning side, are enough of themselves to decide

+a contest. Wherefore, to promote this advertisement among creatures of

+chameleon politics, of an approaching triumph for the machine, and it

+being possible because of those contributed thousands coming so early

+into my chests, I began furnishing funds to my leaders and setting them

+to the work of their regions weeks before the nearest of our enemies had

+begun to think on his ticket.

+

+There was another argument for putting out this money. The noses of my

+people had been withheld from the cribs of office for hungry months upon

+months. The money would arouse an appetite and give their teeth an edge.

+I looked for fine work, too, since the leanest wolves are ever foremost

+in the hunt.

+

+Emphatically did I lay it upon my leaders that, man for man, they must

+count their districts. They must tell over each voter as a churchman

+tells his beads. They must give me a true story of the situation, and I

+promised grief to him who brought me mistaken word. I will say in their

+compliment that, by the reports of my leaders on the day before the

+poll, I counted the machine majority exact within four hundred votes;

+and that, I may tell you, with four tickets in the conflict, and a whole

+count which was measured by hundreds of thousands, is no light affair. I

+mention it to evidence the hair-line perfection to which the methods of

+the machine had been brought.

+

+More than one leader reported within five votes of his majority, and

+none went fifty votes astray.

+

+You think we overdid ourselves to the point ridiculous, in this

+breathless solicitude of preparation? Man! the wealth of twenty Ophirs

+hung upon the hazard. I was in no mood to lose, if skill and sleepless

+forethought, and every intrigue born of money, might serve to bring

+success.

+

+Morton--that best of prophets!--believed in the star of the machine.

+

+“This time,” said he, “I shall miss the agony of contributing to the

+other fellows, don't y' know. It will be quite a relief--really! I must

+say, old chap, that I like the mugwump less and less the more I see of

+him. He's so deucedly respectable, for one thing! Gad! there are

+times when a mugwump carries respectability to a height absolutely

+incompatible with human existence. Besides, he is forever walking a

+crack and calling it a principle. I get tired of a chalkline morality.

+It's all such deuced rot; it bores me to death; it does, really! One

+begins to appreciate the amiable, tolerant virtues of easy, old-shoe

+vice.”

+

+Morton, worn with this long harangue, was moved to recruit his moody

+energies with the inevitable cigarette. He puffed recuperative puffs for

+a space, and then he began:

+

+“What an angelic ass is this city of New York! Why! it doesn't know as

+much as a horse! Any ignorant teamster of politics can harness it, and

+haul with it, and head it what way he will. I say, old chap, what are

+the round-number expenses of the town a year?”

+

+“About one hundred and twenty-five millions.”

+

+“One hundred and twenty-five millions--really! Do you happen to know the

+aggregate annual profits of those divers private companies that control

+and sell us our water, and lighting, and telephone, and telegraph, and

+traction services?--saying nothing of ferries, and paving, and all that?

+It's over one hundred and fifty millions a year, don't y' know! More

+than enough to run the town without a splinter of tax--really! That's

+why I exclaim in rapture over the public's accommodating imbecility.

+Now, if a private individual were to manage his affairs so much like a

+howling idiot, his heirs would clap him in a padded cell, and serve the

+beggar right.”

+

+“I think, however,” said I, “that you have been one to profit by those

+same idiocies of the town.”

+

+“Millions, my boy, millions! And I'm going in for more, don't y' know.

+There are a half-dozen delicious things I have my eye on. Gad! I shall

+have my hand on them, the moment you take control.”

+

+“I make you welcome in advance,” said I. “Give me but the town again,

+and you shall pick and choose.”

+

+In season, I handed my slate of names to the nominating committee to be

+handed by them to the convention.

+

+At the head, for the post of mayor, was written the name of that bold

+judge who, in the presence of my enemies and on a day when I was down,

+had given my Sicilian countenance. Such folk are the choice material

+of the machine. Their characters invite the public; while, for their

+courage, and that trick to be military and go with closed eyes to the

+execution of an order, the machine can rely upon them through black and

+white. My judge when mayor would accept my word for the last appointment

+and the last contract in his power, and think it duty.

+

+And who shall say that he would err? It was the law of the machine; he

+was the man of the machine; for the public, which accepted him, he was

+the machine. It is the machine that offers for every office on the list;

+the ticket is but the manner or, if you please, the mask. Nor is this

+secret. Who shall complain then, or fasten him with charges, when my

+judge, made mayor, infers a public's instruction to regard himself

+as the vizier of the machine?--its hand and voice for the town's

+government?

+

+It stood the day before the polls, and having advantage of the usual

+lull I was resting myself at home. Held fast by the hooks of politics, I

+for weeks had not seen young Van Flange, and had gotten only glimpses of

+Blossom. While lounging by my fire--for the day was raw, with a wind off

+the Sound that smelled of winter--young Van Flange drove to the door in

+a brougham.

+

+That a brisk broker should visit his house at an hour when the floor of

+the Exchange was tossing with speculation, would be the thing not looked

+for; but I was too much in a fog of politics, and too ignorant of stocks

+besides, to make the observation. Indeed, I was glad to see the boy,

+greeting him with a trifle more warmth than common.

+

+Now I thought he gave me his hand with a kind of shiver of reluctance.

+This made me consider. Plainly, he was not at ease as we sat together.

+Covering him with the tail of my eye, I could note how his face carried

+a look, at once timid and malignant.

+

+I could not read the meaning, and remained silent a while with the mere

+riddle of it. Was he ill? The lean yellowness of his cheek, and the dark

+about the hollow eyes, were a hint that way, to which the broken stoop

+of the shoulders gave added currency.

+

+Young Van Flange continued silent; not, however, in a way to promise

+sullenness, but as though his feelings were a gag to him. At last I

+thought, with a word of my own, to break the ice.

+

+“How do you get on with your Blackberry?” said I.

+

+It was not that I cared or had the business on the back of my mind; I

+was too much buried in my campaign for that; but Blackberry, with young

+Van Flange, was the one natural topic to propose.

+

+As I gave him the name of it, he started with the sudden nervousness

+of a cat. I caught the hissing intake of his breath, as though a

+knife pierced him. What was wrong? I had not looked at the reported

+quotations, such things being as Greek to me. Had he lost those

+millions? I could have borne it if he had; the better, perhaps, since I

+was sure in my soul that within two days I would have the town in hand,

+and I did not think to find my old paths so overgrown but what I'd make

+shift to pick my way to a second fortune.

+

+I was on the hinge of saying so, when he got possession of himself. Even

+at that he spoke lamely, and with a tongue that fumbled for words.

+

+“Oh, Blackberry!” cried he. Then, after a gulping pause: “That twist

+will work through all right. It has gone a trifle slow, because, by

+incredible exertions, the road did pay its dividends. But it's no more

+than a matter of weeks when it will come tumbling.”

+

+This, in the beginning, was rambled off with stops and halts, but in the

+wind-up it went glibly enough.

+

+What next I would have said, I cannot tell; nothing of moment, one may

+be sure, for my mind was running on other things than Blackberry up or

+down. It was at this point, however, when we were interrupted. A message

+arrived that asked my presence at headquarters.

+

+As I was about to depart, Blossom came into the room.

+

+I had no more than time for a hurried kiss, for the need set forth in

+the note pulled at me like horses.

+

+“Bar accidents,” said I, as I stood in the door, “tomorrow night we'll

+celebrate a victory.”

+

+Within a block of my gate, I recalled how I had left certain papers I

+required lying on the table. I went back in some hustle of speed, for

+time was pinching as to that question of political detail which tugged

+for attention.

+

+As I stepped into the hallway, I caught the tone of young Van Flange

+and did not like the pitch of it. Blossom and he were in the room to the

+left, and only a door between us.

+

+In a strange bristle of temper, I stood still to hear. Would the

+scoundrel dare harshness with my girl? The very surmise turned me savage

+to the bone!

+

+Young Van Flange was speaking of those two hundred thousand dollars in

+bonds with which, by word of Big Kennedy, I had endowed Blossom in a day

+of babyhood. When she could understand, I had laid it solemnly upon her

+never to part with them. Under any stress, they would insure her against

+want; they must never be given up. And Blossom had promised.

+

+These bonds were in a steel casket of their own, and Blossom had the

+key. As I listened, young Van Flange was demanding they be given to

+him; Blossom was pleading with him, and quoting my commands. My girl was

+sobbing, too, for the villain urged the business roughly. I could not

+fit my ear to every word, since their tones for the most were dulled to

+a murmur by the door. In the end, with a lift of the voice, I heard him

+say:

+

+“For what else should I marry you except money? Is one of my blood to

+link himself with the daughter of the town's great thief, and call it

+love? The daughter of a murderer, too!” he exclaimed, and ripping out

+an oath. “A murderer, yes! You have the red proof about your throat!

+Because your father escaped hanging by the laws of men, heaven's law is

+hanging you!”

+

+As I threw wide the door, Blossom staggered and fell to the floor. I

+thought for the furious blink of the moment, that he had struck her.

+How much stronger is hate than love! My dominant impulse was to avenge

+Blossom rather than to save her. I stood in the door in a white flame

+of wrath that was like the utter anger of a tiger. I saw him bleach and

+shrink beneath his sallowness.

+

+As I came towards him, he held up his hands after the way of a boxing

+school. That ferocious strength, like a gorilla's, still abode with me.

+I brushed away his guard as one might put aside a trailing vine. In a

+flash I had him, hip and shoulder. My fingers sunk into the flesh like

+things of steel; he squeaked and struggled as does the rabbit when

+crunched up by the hound.

+

+With a swing and a heave that would have torn out a tree by its roots,

+I lifted him from his feet. The next moment I hurled him from me. He

+crashed against the casing of the door; then he slipped to the floor as

+though struck by death itself.

+

+Moved of the one blunt purpose of destruction, I made forward to seize

+him again. For a miracle of luck, I was withstood by one of the servants

+who rushed in.

+

+“Think, master; think what you do!” he cried.

+

+In a sort of whirl I looked about me. I could see how the old Galway

+nurse was bending over Blossom, crying on her for her “Heart's dearie!”

+ My poor girl was lying along the rug like some tempest-broken flower.

+The stout old wife caught her up and bore her off in her arms.

+

+The picture of my girl's white face set me ablaze again. I turned the

+very torch of rage!

+

+“Be wise, master!” cried that one who had restrained me before. “Think

+of what you do!”

+

+The man's hand on my wrist, and the earnest voice of him, brought me to

+myself. A vast calm took me, as a storm in its double fury beats flat

+the surface of the sea. I turned my back and walked to the window.

+

+“Have him away, then!” cried I. “Have him out of my sight, or I'll tear

+him to rags and ribbons where he lies!”

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVI--THE VICTOR AND THE SPOILS

+

+

+FOR all the cry and call of politics, and folk to see me whom I would

+not see, that night, and throughout the following day--and even though

+the latter were one of election Fate to decide for the town's mastery--I

+never stirred from Blossom's side. She, poor child! was as one desolate,

+dazed with the blow that had been dealt her. She lay on her pillow,

+silent, and with the stricken face that told of the heart-blight fallen

+upon her.

+

+Nor was I in much more enviable case, although gifted of a rougher

+strength to meet the shock. Indeed, I was taught by a despair that

+preyed upon me, how young Van Flange had grown to be the keystone of my

+arch of single hope, now fallen to the ground. Blossom's happiness had

+been my happiness, and when her breast was pierced, my own brightness

+of life began to bleed away. Darkness took me in the folds of it as in

+a shroud; I would have found the grave kinder, but I must remain to be

+what prop and stay I might to Blossom.

+

+While I sat by my girl's bed, there was all the time a peril that kept

+plucking at my sleeve in a way of warning. My nature is of an inveterate

+kind that, once afire and set to angry burning, goes on and on in

+ever increasing flames like a creature of tow, and with me helpless to

+smother or so much as half subdue the conflagration. I was so aware

+of myself in that dangerous behalf that it would press upon me as a

+conviction, even while I held my girl's hand and looked into her vacant

+eye, robbed of a last ray of any peace to come, that young Van Flange

+must never stray within my grasp. It would bring down his destruction;

+it would mean red hands for me and nothing short of murder. And, so,

+while I waited by Blossom's side, and to blot out the black chance of

+it, I sent word for Inspector McCue.

+

+The servants, on that day of awful misery, conveyed young Van Flange

+from the room. When he had been revived, and his injuries dressed--for

+his head bled from a gash made by the door, and his shoulder had been

+dislocated--he was carried from the house by the brougham that brought

+him, and which still waited at the gate. No one about me owned word of

+his whereabouts. It was required that he be found, not more for his sake

+than my own, and his destinies disposed of beyond my reach.

+

+It was to this task I would set Inspector McCue. For once in a way, my

+call was for an honest officer. I would have Inspector McCue discover

+young Van Flange, and caution him out of town. I cared not where he

+went, so that he traveled beyond the touch of my fingers, already

+itching for the caitiff neck of him.

+

+Nor did I think young Van Flange would resist the advice of Inspector

+McCue. He had reasons for flight other than those I would furnish. The

+very papers, shouted in the streets to tell how I had re-taken the town

+at the polls, told also of the failure of the brokerage house of Van

+Flange; and that young Van Flange, himself, was a defaulter and his

+arrest being sought by clients on a charge of embezzling the funds which

+had been intrusted to his charge. The man was a fugitive from justice;

+he lay within the menace of a prison; he would make no demur now when

+word and money were given him to take himself away.

+

+When Inspector McCue arrived, I greeted him with face of granite. He

+should have no hint of my agony. I went bluntly to the core of the

+employ; to dwell upon the business would be nothing friendly to my

+taste.

+

+“You know young Van Flange?” Inspector McCue gave a nod of assent.

+

+“And you can locate him?”

+

+“The proposition is so easy it's a pushover.”

+

+“Find him, then, and send him out of the town; and for a reason, should

+he ask one, you may say that I shall slay him should we meet.”

+

+Inspector McCue looked at me curiously. He elevated his brow, but in the

+end he said nothing, whether of inquiry or remark. Without a reply he

+took himself away. My face, at the kindliest, was never one to speak of

+confidences or invite a question, and I may suppose the expression of

+it, as I dealt with Inspector McCue, to have been more than commonly

+repellent.

+

+There abode another with whom I wanted word; that one was Morton; for

+hard by forty years he had not once failed me in a strait. I would ask

+him the story of those Blackberry stocks. A glance into my steel box had

+showed me the bottom as bare as winter boughs. The last scrap was

+gone; and no more than the house that covered us, and those two hundred

+thousand dollars in bonds that were Blossom's, to be left of all our

+fortune.

+

+My temper was not one to mourn for any loss of money; and yet in this

+instance I would have those steps that led to my destruction set forth

+to me. If it were the president of Blackberry Traction who had taken

+my money, I meditated reprisal. Not that I fell into any heat of hatred

+against him; he but did to me what Morton and I a few years further back

+had portioned out to him. For all that, I was coldly resolved to have my

+own again. I intended no stock shifts; I would not seek Wall Street for

+my revenge. I knew a sharper method and a surer. It might glisten less

+with elegance, but it would prove more secure. But first, I would have

+the word of Morton.

+

+That glass of exquisite fashion and mold of proper form, albeit

+something grizzled, and like myself a trifle dimmed of time, tendered

+his congratulations upon my re-conquest of the town. I drew him straight

+to my affair of Blackberry.

+

+“Really, old chap,” said Morton, the while plaintively disapproving of

+me through those eyeglasses, so official in his case, “really, old

+chap, you walked into a trap, and one a child should have seen. That

+Blackberry fellow had the market rigged, don't y' know. I could have

+saved you, but, my boy, I didn't dare. You've such a beastly temper when

+anyone saves you. Besides, it isn't good form to wander into the stock

+deals of a gentleman, and begin to tell him what he's about; it isn't,

+really.”

+

+“But what did this Blackberry individual do?” I persisted.

+

+“Why, he let you into a corner, don't y' know! He had been quietly

+buying Blackberry for months. He had the whole stock of the road in his

+safe; and you, in the most innocent way imaginable, sold thousands of

+shares. Now when you sell a stock, you must buy; you must, really! And

+there was no one from whom to buy save our sagacious friend. Gad! as the

+business stood, old chap, he might have had the coat off your back!” And

+Morton glared in horror over the disgrace of the situation.

+

+While I took no more than a glimmer of Morton's meaning, two things were

+made clear. The Blackberry president had stripped me of my millions; and

+he had laid a snare to get them.

+

+“Was young Van Flange in the intrigue?”

+

+“Not in the beginning, at least. There was no need, don't y' know. His

+hand was already into your money up to the elbow.”

+

+“What do you intend by saying that young Van Flange was not in the

+affair in the beginning?”

+

+“The fact is, old chap, one or two things occurred that led me to think

+that young Van Flange discovered the trap after he'd sold some eight or

+ten thousand shares. There was a halt, don't y' know, in his operations.

+Then later he went on and sold you into bankruptcy. I took it from

+young Van Flange's manner that the Blackberry fellow might have had some

+secret hold upon him, and either threatened him, or promised him, or

+perhaps both, to get him to go forward with his sales; I did, really.

+Young Van Flange didn't, in the last of it, conduct himself like a free

+moral or, I should say, immoral agent.”

+

+“I can't account for it,” said I, falling into thought; “I cannot

+see how young Van Flange could have been betrayed into the folly you

+describe.”

+

+“Why then,” said Morton, a bit wearily, “I have but to say over what

+you've heard from me before. Young Van Flange was in no sort that man of

+gifts you held him to be; now really, he wasn't, don't y' know! Anyone

+might have hoodwinked him. Besides, he didn't keep up with the markets.

+While I think it beastly bad form to go talking against a chap when he's

+absent, the truth is, the weak-faced beggar went much more to Barclay

+than to Wall Street. However, that is only hearsay; I didn't follow

+young Van Flange to Barclay Street nor meet him across a faro layout by

+way of verification.”

+

+Morton was right; and I was to hear a worse tale, and that from

+Inspector McCue.

+

+“Would have been here before,” said Inspector McCue when he came to

+report, “but I wanted to see our party aboard ship, and outside Sandy

+Hook light, so that I might report the job cleaned up.”

+

+Then clearing his throat, and stating everything in the present tense,

+after the police manner, Inspector McCue went on.

+

+“When you ask me can I locate our party, I says to myself, 'Sure thing!'

+and I'll put you on to why. Our party is a dope fiend; it's a horse to a

+hen at that very time he can be turned up in some Chink joint.”

+

+“Opium?” I asked in astonishment. I had never harbored the thought.

+

+“Why, sure! That's the reason he shows so sallow about the gills, and

+with eyes like holes burnt in a blanket. When he lets up on the bottle,

+he shifts to hop.”

+

+“Go on,” said I.

+

+“Now,” continued Inspector McCue, “I thought I knew the joint in which

+to find our party. One evenin', three or four years ago, when the

+Reverend Bronson and I are lookin' up those Barclay Street crooks, I see

+our party steerin' into Mott Street. I goes after him, and comes upon

+him in a joint where he's hittin' the pipe. The munk who runs it has

+just brought him a layout, and is cookin' the pill for him when I shoves

+in.

+

+“Now when our party is in present trouble, I puts it to myself, that

+he's sure to be goin' against the pipe. It would be his idea of gettin'

+cheerful, see! So I chases for the Mott Street hang-out, and there's our

+party sure enough, laid out on a mat, and a roll of cotton batting under

+his head for a pillow. He's in the skies, so my plan for a talk right

+then is all off. The air of the place is that thick with hop it would

+have turned the point of a knife, but I stays and plays my string out

+until he can listen and talk.

+

+“When our party's head is again on halfway straight, and he isn't such a

+dizzy Willie, I puts it to him that he'd better do a skulk.

+

+“'You're wanted,' says I, 'an' as near as I make the size-up, you'll

+take about five spaces if you're brought to trial. You'd better chase;

+and by way of the Horn, at that. If you go cross-lots, you might get

+the collar on a hot wire from headquarters, and be taken off the train.

+Our party nearly throws a faint when I says 'embezzlement.' It's the

+first tip he'd had, for I don't think he's been made wise to so much as

+a word since he leaves here. It put the scare into him for fair; he was

+ready to do anything I say.'

+

+“'Only,' says he, 'I don't know what money I've got. And I'm too dippy

+to find out.'

+

+“With that, I go through him. It's in his trousers pocket I springs a

+plant--fifteen hundred dollars, about.

+

+“'Here's dough enough and over,' says I; and in six hours after, he's

+aboard ship.

+

+“She don't get her lines off until this morning, though; but I stays by,

+for I'm out to see him safe beyond the Hook.”

+

+“What more do you know of young Van Flange?” I asked. “Did you learn

+anything about his business habits?”

+

+“From the time you start him with those offices in Broad Street, our

+party's business habits are hop and faro bank. The offices are there;

+the clerks and the blackboards and the stock tickers and the tape

+baskets are there; but our party, more'n to butt in about three times

+a week and leave some crazy orders to sell Blackberry Traction, is never

+there. He's either in Mott Street, and a Chink cookin' hop for him;

+or he's in Barclay Street with those Indians, and they handin' him out

+every sort of brace from an 'end-squeeze' or a 'balance-top,' where they

+give him two cards at a clatter, to a 'snake' box, where they kindly

+lets him deal, but do him just the same. Our party lose over a

+half-million in that Barclay Street deadfall during the past Year.”

+

+“I must, then,” said I, and I felt the irony of it, “have been

+indirectly contributing to the riches of our friend, the Chief of

+Police, since you once told me he was a principal owner of the Barclay

+Street place.”

+

+Inspector McCue shrugged his shoulders professionally, and made no

+response. Then I questioned him as to the charge of embezzlement; for I

+had not owned the heart to read the story in the press.

+

+“It's that Blackberry push,” replied Inspector McCue, “and I don't think

+it's on the level at that. It looks like the Blackberry president--and,

+by the way, I've talked with the duffer, and took in all he would

+tell--made a play to get the drop on our party. And although the trick

+was put up, I think he landed it. He charges now that our party is a

+welcher, and gets away with a bunch of bonds--hocked 'em or something

+like that--which this Blackberry guy gives him to stick in as margins

+on some deal. As I say, I think it's a put-up job. That Blackberry

+duck--who is quite a flossy form of stock student and a long shot from

+a slouch--has some game up his sleeve. He wanted things rigged so's he

+could put the clamps on our party, and make him do as he says, and pinch

+him whenever it gets to be a case of must. So he finally gets our party

+where he can't holler. I makes a move to find out the inside story; but

+the Blackberry sport is a thought too swift, and he won't fall to my

+game. I gives it to him dead that he braced our party, and asks him,

+Why? At that he hands me the frozen face, springs a chest, and says he's

+insulted.

+

+“But the end of it is this: Our party is now headed for Frisco. When he

+comes ashore, the cops out there will pick him up and keep a tab on him;

+we can always touch the wire for his story down to date. Whenever you

+say the word, I can get a line on him.”

+

+“Bring me no tales of him!” I cried. “I would free myself of every

+memory of the scoundrel!”

+

+That, then, was the story--a story of gambling and opium! It was these

+that must account for the sallow face, stooped shoulders, hollow eyes,

+and nights away from home. And the man of Blackberry, from whom Morton

+and I took millions, had found in the situation his opportunity. He laid

+his plans and had those millions back. Also, it was I, as it had been

+others, to now suffer by Barclay Street.

+

+“And now,” observed Inspector McCue, his hand on the door, but turning

+with a look at once inquisitive and wistful--the latter, like the

+anxious manner of a good dog who asks word to go upon his hunting--“and

+now, I suppose, you'll be willin' to let me pull that outfit in Barclay

+Street. I've got 'em dead to rights!” The last hopefully.

+

+“If it be a question,” said I, “of where a man shall lose His money, for

+my own part, I have no preference as to whether he is robbed in Barclay

+Street or robbed in Wall. We shall let the Barclay Street den alone, if

+you please. The organization has its alliances. These alliances cannot

+be disturbed without weakening the organization. I would not make the

+order when it was prayed for by the mother of young Van Flange, and she

+died with the prayer on her lips. I shall not make it now when it is I

+who am the sufferer. It must be Tammany before all; on no slighter terms

+can Tammany be preserved.”

+

+Inspector McCue made no return to this, and went his way in silence. It

+was a change, however, from that other hour when I had been with him

+as cold and secret as a vault. He felt the flattery of my present

+confidence, and it colored him with complacency as he took his leave.

+

+Roundly, it would be two months after the election before Tammany took

+charge of the town. The eight weeks to intervene I put in over that list

+of officers to be named by me through the mayor and the various chiefs

+of the departments. These places--and they were by no means a stinted

+letter, being well-nigh thirty thousand--must be apportioned among the

+districts, each leader having his just share.

+

+While I wrought at these details of patronage, setting a man's name to a

+place, and all with fine nicety of discrimination to prevent jealousies

+and a thought that this or that one of my wardogs had been wronged, a

+plan was perfecting itself in my mind. The thought of Blossom was ever

+uppermost. What should I do to save the remainder of her life in peace?

+If she were not to be wholly happy, still I would buckler her as far as

+lay with me against the more aggressive darts of grief. There is such a

+word as placid, and, though one be fated to dwell with lasting sorrow,

+one would prefer it as the mark of one's condition to others of

+tumultuous violence. There lies a choice, and one will make it, even

+among torments. How could I conquer serenity for Blossom?--how should

+I go about it to invest what further years were hers with the restful

+blessings of peace? That was now the problem of my life, and at last I

+thought it solved.

+

+My decision was made to deal with the town throughout the next regime

+as with a gold mine. I would work it night and day, sparing neither

+conscience nor sleep; I would have from it what utmost bulk of treasure

+I might during the coming administration of the town's affairs. The game

+lay in my palm; I would think on myself and nothing but myself; justice

+and right were to be cast aside; the sufferings of others should be no

+more to me than mine had been to them. I would squeeze the situation

+like a sponge, and for its last drop. Then laying down my guiding staff

+as Chief, I would carry Blossom, and those riches I had heaped together,

+to regions, far away and new, where only the arch of gentle skies should

+bend above her days! She should have tranquillity! she should find rest!

+That was my plan, my hope; I kept it buried in my breast, breathed of it

+to no man, not even the kindly Morton, and set myself with all of that

+ferocious industry which was so much the badge of my nature to its

+carrying forth. Four years; and then, with the gold of a Monte Cristo,

+I would take Blossom and go seeking that repose which I believed must

+surely wait for us somewhere beneath the sun!

+

+While I was engaged about those preliminaries demanded of me if the

+machine were to begin its four-years' reign on even terms of comfort,

+Morton was often at my shoulder with a point or a suggestion. I was glad

+to have him with me; for his advice in a fog of difficulty such as mine,

+was what chart and lighthouse are to mariners.

+

+One afternoon while Morton and I were trying to hit upon some man of

+education to take second place and supplement the ignorance of one

+whom the equities of politics appointed to be the head of a rich but

+difficult department, the Reverend Bronson came in.

+

+We three--the Reverend Bronson, Morton, and myself--were older now than

+on days we could remember, and each showed the sere and yellow of his

+years. But we liked each other well; and, although in no sort similar

+in either purpose or bent, I think time had made us nearer friends than

+might have chanced with many who were more alike.

+

+On this occasion, while I engaged myself with lists of names and lists

+of offices, weighing out the spoils, Morton and the Reverend Bronson

+debated the last campaign, and what in its conclusion it offered for the

+future.

+

+“I shall try to be the optimist,” said the Reverend Bronson at last,

+tossing up a brave manner. “Since the dying administration was not so

+good as I hoped for, I trust the one to be born will not be so bad as I

+fear. And, as I gather light by experience, I begin to blame officials

+less and the public more. I suspect how a whole people may play the

+hypocrite as much as any single man; nor am I sure that, for all its

+clamors, a New York public really desires those white conditions of

+purity over which it protests so much.”

+

+“Really!” returned Morton, who had furnished ear of double interest to

+the Reverend Bronson's words, “it is an error, don't y' know, to give

+any people a rule they don't desire. A government should always match a

+public. What do you suppose would become of them if one were to suddenly

+organize a negro tribe of darkest Africa into a republic? Why, under

+such loose rule as ours, the poor savage beggars would gnaw each other

+like dogs--they would, really! It would be as depressing a solecism as a

+Scotchman among the stained glasses, the frescoes, and the Madonnas of

+a Spanish cathedral; or a Don worshiping within the four bare walls and

+roof of a Highland kirk. Whatever New York may pretend, it will always

+be found in possession of that sort of government, whether for virtue

+or for vice, whereof it secretly approves.” And Morton surveyed the good

+dominie through that historic eyeglass as though pleased with what he'd

+said.

+

+“But is it not humiliating?” asked the Reverend Bronson. “If what you

+say be true, does it not make for your discouragement?”

+

+“No more than does the vulgar fact of dogs and horses, don't y' know!

+Really, I take life as it is, and think only to be amused. I remark

+on men, and upon their conditions of the moral, the mental, and the

+physical!--on the indomitable courage of restoration as against the

+ceaseless industry of decay!--on the high and the low, the good and the

+bad, the weak and the strong, the right and the wrong, the top and the

+bottom, the past and the future, the white and the black, and all those

+other things that are not!--and I laugh at all. There is but one thing

+real, one thing true, one thing important, one thing at which I

+never laugh!--and that is the present. But really!” concluded Morton,

+recurring to affectations which for the moment had been forgot, “I'm

+never discouraged, don't y' know! I shall never permit myself an

+interest deep enough for that; it wouldn't be good form. Even those

+beastly low standards which obtain, as you say, in New York do not

+discourage me. No, I'm never discouraged--really!”

+

+“You do as much as any, by your indifference, to perpetuate those

+standards,” remarked the Reverend Bronson in a way of mournful severity.

+

+“My dear old chap,” returned Morton, growing sprightly as the other

+displayed solemnity, “I take, as I tell you, conditions as I find them,

+don't y' know! And wherefore no? It's all nature: it's the hog to

+its wallow, the eagle to its crag;--it is, really! Now an eagle in a

+mud-wallow, or a hog perching on a crag, would be deuced bad form!

+You see that yourself, you must--really!” and our philosopher glowered

+sweetly.

+

+“I shall never know,” said the Reverend Bronson, with a half-laugh,

+“when to have you seriously. I cannot but wish, however, that the town

+had better luck about its City Hall.”

+

+“Really, I don't know, don't y' know!” This deep observation Morton

+flourished off in a profound muse. “As I've said, the town will get

+what's coming to it, because it will always get what it wants. It always

+has--really! And speaking of 'reform' as we employ the term in politics:

+The town, in honesty, never desires it; and that's why somebody must

+forever attend on 'reform' to keep it from falling on its blundering

+nose and knees by holding it up by the tail. There are people who'll

+take anything you give them, even though it be a coat of tar and

+feathers, and thank you for it, too,--the grateful beggars! New York

+resembles these. Some chap comes along, and offers New York 'reform.'

+Being without 'reform' at the time, and made suddenly and sorrowfully

+mindful of its condition, it accepts the gift just as a drunkard takes a

+pledge. Like the drunkard, however, New York is apt to return to its old

+ways--it is, really!”

+

+“One thing,” said the Reverend Bronson as he arose to go, and laying

+his hand on my shoulder, “since the Boss of Tammany, in a day of the

+machine, is the whole government and the source of it, I mean to come

+here often and work upon our friend in favor of a clean town.”

+

+“And you will be welcome, Doctor, let me say!” I returned.

+

+“Now I think,” said Morton meditatively, when the Reverend Bronson had

+departed, “precisely as I told our excellent friend. A rule should ever

+fit a people; and it ever does. A king is as naturally the blossom of

+the peasantry he grows on as is a sunflower natural to that coarse

+stem that supports its royal nod-dings, don't y' know. A tyranny, a

+despotism, a monarchy, or a republic is ever that flower of government

+natural to the public upon which it grows. Really!--Why not? Wherein

+lurks the injustice or the inconsistency of such a theory? What good

+is there to lie hidden in a misfit? Should Providence waste a man's

+government on a community of dogs? A dog public should have dog

+government:--a kick and a kennel, a chain to clank and a bone to gnaw!”

+

+With this last fragment of wisdom, the cynical Morton went also his way,

+leaving me alone to chop up the town--as a hunter chops up the carcass

+of a deer among his hounds--into steak and collop to feed my hungry

+followers.

+

+However much politics might engage me, I still possessed those hundred

+eyes of Argus wherewith to watch my girl. When again about me she had no

+word for what was past. And on my side, never once did I put to her the

+name of young Van Flange. He was as much unmentioned by us as though he

+had not been. I think that this was the wiser course. What might either

+Blossom or I have said to mend our shattered hopes?

+

+Still, I went not without some favor of events. There came a support to

+my courage; the more welcome, since the latter was often at its ebb. It

+was a strangest thing at that! While Blossom moved with leaden step, and

+would have impressed herself upon one as weak and wanting sparkle, she

+none the less began to gather the color of health. Her cheeks, before

+of the pallor of snow, wore a flush like the promise of life. Her face

+gained rounder fullness, while her eyes opened upon one with a kind of

+wide brilliancy, that gave a look of gayety. It was like a blessing! Nor

+could I forbear, as I witnessed it, the dream of a better strength for

+my girl than it had been her luck to know; and that thought would set me

+to my task of money-getting with ever a quicker ardor.

+

+Still, as I've said, there was the side to baffle. For all those roses

+and eyes like stars, Blossom's breath was broken and short, and a little

+trip upstairs or down exhausted her to the verge of pain. To mend her

+breathing after one of these small household expeditions, she must find

+a chair, or even lie on a couch. All this in its turn would have set my

+fears to a runaway if it had not been for that fine glow in her cheeks

+to each time restore me to my faith.

+

+When I put the question born of my uneasiness, Blossom declared herself

+quite well, nor would she give me any sicklier word. In the end my fears

+would go back to their slumbers, and I again bend myself wholly to that

+task of gold.

+

+Good or bad, to do this was when all was said the part of complete

+wisdom. There could be nothing now save my plan of millions and a final

+pilgrimage in quest of peace. That was our single chance; and at it, in

+a kind of savage silence, night and day I stormed as though warring with

+walls and battlements.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVII--GOLD CAME, AND DEATH STEPPED IN

+

+

+NOW, when I went about refurnishing my steel box with new millions, I

+turned cautious as a fox. I considered concealment, and would hide my

+trail and walk in all the running water that I might. For one matter,

+I was sick and sore with the attacks made upon me by the papers, which

+grew in malignant violence as the days wore on, and as though it were

+a point of rivalry between them which should have the black honor of

+hating me the most. I preferred to court those type-cudgelings as little

+as stood possible, and still bring me to my ends.

+

+The better to cover myself, and because the mere work of it would be too

+weary a charge for one head and that head ignorant of figures, I called

+into my service a cunning trio who were, one and all, born children

+of the machine. These three owned thorough training as husbandmen of

+politics, and were ones to mow even the fence corners. That profit of

+the game which escaped them must indeed be sly, and lie deep and close

+besides. Also, they were of the invaluable brood that has no tongue, and

+any one of the triangle would have been broken upon the wheel without a

+syllable of confession disgracing his lips.

+

+These inveterate ones, who would be now as my hand in gathering together

+that wealth which I anticipated, were known in circles wherein they

+moved and had their dingy being, as Sing Sing Jacob, Puffy the Merchant,

+and Paddy the Priest. Paddy the Priest wore a look of sanctity, and it

+was this impression of holiness to confer upon him his title. It might

+have been more consistent with those virtues of rapine dominant of

+his nature, had he been hailed Paddy the Pirate, instead. Of Sing Sing

+Jacob, I should say, that he had not served in prison. His name was

+given him because, while he was never granted the privilege of stripes

+and irons, he often earned the same. In what manner or at what font

+Puffy the Merchant received baptism, I never learned. That he came

+fit for my purpose would find sufficient indication in a complaining

+compliment which Paddy the Priest once paid him, and who said in

+description of Puffy's devious genius, that if one were to drive a nail

+through his head it would come forth a corkscrew.

+

+These men were to be my personal lieutenants, and collect my gold for

+me. And since they would pillage me with as scanty a scruple as though

+I were the foe himself, I must hit upon a device for invoking them to

+honesty in ny affairs. It was then I remembered the parting words of

+Big Kennedy. I would set one against the others; hating each other,

+they would watch; and each would be sharp with warning in my ear should

+either of his fellows seek to fill a purse at my expense.

+

+To sow discord among my three offered no difficulties; I had but to say

+to one what the others told of him, and his ire was on permanent end. It

+was thus I separated them; and since I gave each his special domain

+of effort, while they worked near enough to one another to maintain a

+watch, they were not so thrown together as to bring down among them open

+war.

+

+It will be required that I set forth in half-detail those various

+municipal fields and meadows that I laid out in my time, and from which

+the machine was to garner its harvest. You will note then, you who are

+innocent of politics in its practical expressions and rewards, how

+the town stood to me as does his plowlands to a farmer, and offered

+as various a list of crops to careful tillage. Take for example the

+knee-deep clover of the tax department. Each year there was made a whole

+valuation of personal property of say roundly nine billions of dollars.

+This estimate, within a dozen weeks of its making, would be reduced

+to fewer than one billion, on the word of individuals who made the

+law-required oaths. No, it need not have been so reduced; but the

+reduction ever occurred since the machine instructed its tax officers to

+act on the oath so furnished, and that without question.

+

+That personage in tax peril was never put to fret in obtaining one to

+make the oath. If he himself lacked hardihood and hesitated at perjury,

+why then, the town abounded in folk of a daring easy veracity. Of all

+that was said and written, of that time, in any New York day, full

+ninety-five per cent, was falsehood or mistake. Among the members of

+a community, so affluent of error and mendacity, one would not long go

+seeking a witness who was ready, for shining reasons, to take whatever

+oath might be demanded. And thus it befell that the affidavits were

+ever made, and a reduction of eight billions and more, in the assessed

+valuation of personal property, came annually to be awarded. With a

+tax levy of, say, two per cent. I leave you to fix the total of those

+millions saved to ones assessed, and also to consider how far their

+gratitude might be expected to inure to the yellow welfare of the

+machine--the machine that makes no gift of either its forbearance or its

+help!

+

+Speaking in particular of the town, and what opportunities of riches

+swung open to the machine, one should know at the start how the whole

+annual expense of the community was roughly one hundred and twenty-five

+millions. Of these millions twenty went for salaries to officials; forty

+were devoted to the purchase of supplies asked for by the public needs;

+while the balance, sixty-five millions, represented contracts for paving

+and building and similar construction whatnot, which the town was bound

+to execute in its affairs.

+

+Against those twenty millions of salaries, the machine levied an annual

+private five per cent. Two-thirds of the million to arise therefrom,

+found their direct way to district leaders; the other one-third was

+paid into the general coffer. Also there were county officers, such

+as judges, clerks of court, a sheriff and his deputies: and these,

+likewise, were compelled from their incomes to a yearly generosity of

+not fewer than five per cent.

+

+Of those forty millions which were the measure for supplies, one-fifth

+under the guise of “commissions” went to the machine; while of the

+sixty-five millions, which represented the yearly contracts in payments

+made thereon, the machine came better off with, at the leanest of

+estimates, full forty per cent, of the whole.

+

+Now I have set forth to you those direct returns which arose from the

+sure and fixed expenses of the town. Beyond that, and pushing for

+the furthest ounce of tallow, I inaugurated a novelty. I organized a

+guaranty company which made what bonds the law demanded from officials;

+and from men with contracts, and those others who furnished the town's

+supplies. The annual charge of the company for this act of warranty

+was two per cent, on the sum guaranteed; and since the aggregate

+thus carried came to about one hundred millions, the intake from

+such sources--being for the most part profit in the fingers of the

+machine--was annually a fair two millions. There were other rills to

+flow a revenue, and which were related to those money well-springs

+registered above, but they count too many and too small for mention

+here, albeit the round returns from them might make a poor man stare.

+

+Of those other bottom-lands of profit which bent a nodding harvest

+to the sickle of the machine, let me make a rough enumeration. The

+returns--a bit sordid, these!--from poolrooms, faro banks and disorderly

+resorts and whereon the monthly charge imposed for each ran all the way

+from fifty to two thousand dollars, clinked into the yearly till, four

+millions. The grog shops, whereof at that time there was a staggering

+host of such in New York City of-the-many-sins! met each a draft of

+twenty monthly dollars. Then one should count “campaign contributions.”

+ Of great companies who sued for favor there were, at a lowest census,

+five who sent as tribute from twenty to fifty thousand dollars each.

+Also there existed of smaller concerns and private persons, full one

+thousand who yielded over all a no less sum than one million. Next came

+the police, with appointment charges which began with a patrolman at

+four hundred dollars, and soared to twenty thousand when the matter was

+the making of a captain.

+

+Here I shall close my recapitulation of former treasure for the machine;

+I am driven to warn you, however, that the half has not been told.

+Still, if you will but let your imagination have its head, remembering

+how the machine gives nothing away, and fails not to exert its pressures

+with every chance afforded it, you may supply what other chapters belong

+with the great history of graft.

+

+When one considers a Tammany profit, one will perforce be driven to the

+question: What be the expenses of the machine? The common cost of an

+election should pause in the neighborhood of three hundred thousand

+dollars. Should peril crowd, and an imported vote be called for by the

+dangers of the day, the cost might carry vastly higher. No campaign,

+however, in the very nature of the enterprise and its possibilities of

+expense, can consume a greater fund than eight hundred thousand. That

+sum, subtracted from the income of the machine as taken from those

+sundry sources I've related, will show what in my time remained for

+distribution among my followers.

+

+And now that brings one abreast the subject of riches to the Boss

+himself. One of the world's humorists puts into the mouth of a character

+the query: What does a king get? The answer would be no whit less

+difficult had he asked: What does a Boss get? One may take it, however,

+that the latter gets the lion's share. Long ago I said that the wealth

+of Ophir hung on the hazard of the town's election. You have now some

+slant as to how far my words should be regarded as hyperbole. Nor must I

+omit how the machine's delegation in a legislature, or the little flock

+it sends to nibble on the slopes of Congress, is each in the hand of

+the Boss to do with as he will, and it may go without a record that the

+opportunities so provided are neither neglected nor underpriced.

+

+There you have the money story of Tammany in the bowels of the town.

+Those easy-chair economists who, over their morning coffee and waffles,

+engage themselves for purity, will at this point give honest rage the

+rein. Had I no sense of public duty? Was the last spark of any honesty

+burned out within my bosom? Was nothing left but dead embers to be a

+conscience to me? The Reverend Bronson--and I had a deep respect for

+that gentleman--put those questions in his time.

+

+“Bear in mind,” said he when, after that last election, I again had

+the town in my grasp, “bear in mind the welfare and the wishes of the

+public, and use your power consistently therewith.”

+

+“Now, why?” said I. “The public of which you tell me lies in two pieces,

+the minority and the majority. It is to the latter's welfare--the good

+of the machine--I shall address myself. Be sure, my acts will gain the

+plaudits of my own people, while I have only to go the road you speak of

+to be made the target of their anger. As to the minority--those who

+have vilified me, and who still would crush me if they but had the

+strength--why, then, as Morton says, I owe them no more than William

+owed the Saxons when after Hastings he had them under his feet.”

+

+When the new administration was in easy swing, and I had time to look

+about me, I bethought me of Blackberry and those three millions taken

+from the weakness and the wickedness of young Van Flange. I would have

+those millions back or know the secret of it.

+

+With a nod here and a hand-toss there--for the shrug of my shoulders or

+the lift of my brows had grown to have a definition among my people--I

+brewed tempests for Blackberry. The park department discovered it in a

+trespass; the health board gave it notice of the nonsanitary condition

+of its cars; the street commissioner badgered it with processes because

+of violations of laws and ordinances; the coroner, who commonly wore

+a gag, gave daily news of what folk were killed or maimed through the

+wantonness of Blackberry; while my corporation counsel bestirred himself

+as to whether or no, for this neglect or that invasion of public right,

+the Blackberry charter might not be revoked.

+

+In the face of these, the president of Blackberry--he of the Hebrew cast

+and clutch--stood sullenly to his guns. He would not yield; he would not

+pay the price of peace; he would not return those millions, although he

+knew well the argument which was the ground-work of his griefs.

+

+The storm I unchained beat sorely, but he made no white-flag signs. I

+admired his fortitude, while I multiplied my war.

+

+It was Morton who pointed to that final feather which broke the camel's

+back.

+

+“Really, old chap,” observed Morton, that immortal eyeglass on nose and

+languid hands outspread, “really, you haven't played your trumps, don't

+y' know.”

+

+“What then?” cried I, for my heart was growing hot.

+

+“You recall my saying to our friend Bronson that, when I had a chap

+against me whom I couldn't buy, I felt about to discover his fad or his

+fear--I was speaking about changing a beggar's name, and all that, don't

+y' know?”

+

+“Yes,” said I, “it all comes back.”

+

+“Exactly,” continued Morton. “Now the fear that keeps a street-railway

+company awake nights is its fear of a strike. There, my dear boy, you

+have your weapon. Convey the information to those Blackberry employees,

+that you think they get too little money and work too long a day. Let

+them understand how, should they strike, your police will not repress

+them in any crimes they see fit to commit. Really, I think I've hit

+upon a splendid idea! Those hirelings will go upon the warpath, don't y'

+know! And a strike is such a beastly thing!--such a deuced bore! It is,

+really!”

+

+Within the fortnight every Blackberry wheel was stopped, and every

+employee rioting in the streets. Cars were sacked; what men offered for

+work were harried, and made to fly for very skins and bones. Meanwhile,

+the police stood afar off with virgin-batons, innocent of interference.

+

+Four days of this, and those four millions were paid into my hand; the

+Blackberry president had yielded, and my triumph was complete. With

+that, my constabulary remembered law and order, and, descending upon the

+turbulent, calmed them with their clubs. The strike ended; again were

+the gongs of an unharassed Blackberry heard in the land.

+

+And now I draw near the sorrowful, desperate end--the end at once of my

+labors and my latest hope. I had held the town since the last battle

+for well-nigh three and one-half years. Throughout this space affairs

+political preserved themselves as rippleless as a looking-glass, and

+nothing to ruffle with an adverse wind. Those henchmen--my boys of the

+belt, as it were--Sing Sing Jacob, Puffy the Merchant, and Paddy the

+Priest, went working like good retrievers at their task of bringing

+daily money to my feet.

+

+Nor was I compelled to appear as one interested in the profits of the

+town's farming, and this of itself was comfort, since it served to keep

+me aloof from any mire of those methods that were employed.

+

+It is wonderful how a vile source for a dollar will in no wise daunt a

+man, so that he be not made to pick it from the direct mud himself. If

+but one hand intervene between his own and that gutter which gave it up,

+both his conscience and his sensibilities are satisfied to receive it.

+Of all sophists, self-interest is the sophist surest of disciples; it

+will carry conviction triumphant against what fact or what deduction may

+come to stand in the way, and, with the last of it, “The smell of all

+money is sweet.”

+

+But while it was isles of spice and summer seas with my politics,

+matters at home went ever darker with increasing threat. Blossom

+became weaker and still more weak, and wholly from a difficulty in her

+breathing. If she were to have had but her breath, her health would have

+been fair enough; and that I say by word of the physician who was there

+to attend her, and who was a gray deacon of his guild.

+

+“It is her breathing,” said he; “otherwise her health is good for any

+call she might make upon it.”

+

+It was the more strange to one looking on; for all this time while

+Blossom was made to creep from one room to another, and, for the most

+part, to lie panting upon a couch, her cheeks were round and red as

+peaches, and her eyes grew in size and brightness like stars when the

+night is dark.

+

+“Would you have her sent away?” I asked of the physician. “Say but the

+place; I will take her there myself.”

+

+“She is as well here,” said he. Then, as his brows knotted with the

+problem of it: “This is an unusual case; so unusual, indeed, that during

+forty years of practice I have never known its fellow. However, it is no

+question of climate, and she will be as well where she is. The better;

+since she has no breath with which to stand a journey.”

+

+While I said nothing to this, I made up my mind to have done with

+politics and take Blossom away. It would, at the worst, mean escape from

+scenes where we had met with so much misery. That my present rule of the

+town owned still six months of life before another battle, did not move

+me. I would give up my leadership and retire at once. It would lose me

+half a year of gold-heaping, but what should that concern? What mattered

+a handful of riches, more or less, as against the shoreless relief of

+seclusion, and Blossom in new scenes of quiet peace? The very newness

+would take up her thoughts; and with nothing about to recall what had

+been, or to whisper the name of that villain who hurt her heart to the

+death, she might have even the good fortune to forget. My decision was

+made, and I went quietly forward to bring my politics to a close.

+

+It became no question of weeks nor even days; I convened my district

+leaders, and with the few words demanded of the time, returned them

+my chiefship and stepped down and out. Politics and I had parted; the

+machine and I were done.

+

+At that, I cannot think I saw regret over my going in any of the faces

+which stared up at me. There was a formal sorrow of words; but the great

+expression to to seize upon each was that of selfish eagerness. I, with

+my lion's share of whatever prey was taken, would be no more; it was the

+thought of each that with such the free condition he would be like to

+find some special fatness not before his own.

+

+Well! what else should I have looked for?--I, who had done only justice

+by them, why should I be loved? Let them exult; they have subserved

+my purpose and fulfilled my turn. I was retiring with the wealth of

+kings:--I, who am an ignorant man, and the son of an Irish smith! If my

+money had been put into gold it would have asked the strength of eighty

+teams, with a full ton of gold to a team, to have hauled it out of

+town--a solid procession of riches an easy half-mile in length! No

+Alexander, no Cæsar, no Napoleon in his swelling day of conquest,

+could have made the boast! I was master of every saffron inch of forty

+millions!

+

+That evening I sat by Blossom's couch and told her of my plans. I made

+but the poor picture of it, for I have meager power of words, and am

+fettered with an imagination of no wings. Still, she smiled up at me as

+though with pleasure--for her want of breath was so urgent she could

+not speak aloud, but only whisper a syllable now and then--and, after a

+while, I kissed her, and left her with the physician and nurse for the

+night.

+

+It was during the first hours of the morning when I awoke in a sweat

+of horror, as if something of masterful menace were in the room. With a

+chill in my blood like the touch of ice, I thought of Blossom; and with

+that I began to huddle on my clothes to go to her.

+

+The physician met me at Blossom's door. He held me back with a gentle

+hand on my breast.

+

+“Don't go in!” he said.

+

+That hand, light as a woman's, withstood me like a wall. I drew back

+and sought a chair in the library--a chair of Blossom's, it was--and sat

+glooming into the darkness in a wonder of fear.

+

+What wits I possess have broad feet, and are not easily to be staggered.

+That night, however, they swayed and rocked like drunken men, under the

+pressure of some evil apprehension of I knew not what. I suppose now I

+feared death for Blossom, and that my thoughts lacked courage to look

+the surmise in the face.

+

+An hour went by, and I still in the darkened room. I wanted no lights.

+It was as though I were a fugitive, and sought in the simple darkness

+a refuge and a place wherein to hide myself. Death was in the house,

+robbing me of all I loved; I knew that, and yet I felt no stab of agony,

+but instead a fashion of dumb numbness like a paralysis.

+

+In a vague way, this lack of sharp sensation worked upon my amazement.

+I remember that, in explanation of it, I recalled one of Morton's tales

+about a traveler whom a lion seized as he sat at his campfire; and how,

+while the lion crunched him in his jaws and dragged him to a distance,

+he still had no feel of pain, but--as I had then--only a numbness and

+fog of nerves.

+

+While this went running in my head, I heard the rattle of someone at the

+street door, and was aware, I don't know how, that another physician had

+come. A moment later my ear overtook whisperings in the hall just beyond

+my own door.

+

+Moved of an instinct that might have prompted some threatened animal

+to spy out what danger overhung him, I went, cat-foot, to the door and

+listened. It was the two physicians in talk.

+

+“The girl is dead,” I heard one say.

+

+“What malady?” asked the other.

+

+“And there's the marvel of it!” cries the first. “No malady at all, as

+I'm a doctor! She died of suffocation. The case is without a parallel.

+Indubitably, it was that birthmark--that mark as of a rope upon her

+neck. Like the grip of destiny itself, the mark has been growing and

+tightening about her throat since ever she lay in her cradle, until now

+she dies of it. A most remarkable case! It is precisely as though she

+were hanged--the congested eye, the discolored face, the swollen tongue,

+aye! and about her throat, the very mark of the rope!”

+

+Blossom dead! my girl dead! Apple Cheek, Anne, Blossom, all gone, and

+I to be left alone! Alone! The word echoed in the hollows of my empty

+heart as in a cavern! There came a blur, and then a fearful whirling;

+that gorilla strength was as the strength of children; my slow knees

+began to cripple down! That was the last I can recall; I fell as if

+struck by a giant's mallet, and all was black.

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVIII--BEING THE EPILOGUE

+

+

+WHAT should there be more? My house stands upon a hill; waving, sighing

+trees are ranked about it, while to the eastward I have the shimmering

+stretches of the river beneath my feet. From a wooden seat between two

+beeches, I may see the fog-loom born of the dust and smoke of the city

+far away. At night, when clouds lie thick and low, the red reflection of

+the city's million lamps breaks on the sky as though a fire raged.

+

+It is upon my seat between the beeches that I spend my days. Men would

+call my life a stagnant one; I care not, since I find it peace. I have

+neither hopes nor fears nor pains nor joys; there come no exaltations,

+no depressions; within me is a serenity--a kind of silence like the

+heart of nature.

+

+At that I have no dimness; I roll and rock for hours on the dead swells

+of old days, while old faces and old scenes toss to and fro like seaweed

+with the tides of my memory. I am prey to no regrets, to no ambitions;

+my times own neither currents nor winds; I have outlived importance

+and the liking for it; and all those little noises that keep the world

+awake, I never hear.

+

+My Sicilian, with his earrings and his crimson headwear of silk, is with

+me; for he could not have lived had I left him in town, being no more

+able to help himself than a ship ashore. Here he is busy and happy over

+nothing. He has whittled for himself a trio of little boats, and he

+sails them on the pond at the lawn's foot. One of these he has named the

+Democrat, while the others are the Republican and the Mugwump. He sails

+them against each other; and I think that by some marine sleight he

+gives the Democrat the best of it, since it ever wins, which is not true

+of politics. My Sicilian has just limped up the hill with a story of

+how, in the last race, the Republican and the Mugwump ran into one

+another and capsized, while the Democrat finished bravely.

+

+Save for my Sicilian, and a flock of sable ravens that by their tameness

+and a confident self-sufficiency have made themselves part of the

+household, I pass the day between my beeches undisturbed. The ravens are

+grown so proud with safety that, when I am walking, they often hold

+the path against me, picking about for the grains my Sicilian scatters,

+keeping upon me the while a truculent eye that is half cautious,

+half defiant. In the spring I watch these ravens throughout their

+nest-building, they living for the most part in the trees about my

+house. I've known them to be baffled during a whole two days, when winds

+were blowing and the swaying of the branches prevented their labors.

+

+Now and then I have a visit from Morton and the Reverend Bronson. The

+pair are as they were, only more age-worn and of a grayer lock. They

+were with me the other day; Morton as faultless of garb as ever, and

+with eyeglass as much employed, the Reverend Bronson as anxious as in

+the old time for the betterment of humanity. The spirit of unselfishness

+never flags in that good man's breast, although Morton is in constant

+bicker with him concerning the futility of his work.

+

+“The fault isn't in you, old chap,” said Morton, when last they were

+with me; “it isn't, really. But humanity in the mass is such a beastly

+dullard, don't y' know, that to do anything in its favor is casting

+pearls before swine.”

+

+“Why, then,” responded the Reverend Bronson with a smile, “if I were

+you, I should help mankind for the good it gave me, without once

+thinking on the object of my generosity.”

+

+“But,” returned Morton, “I take no personal joy from helping people.

+Gad! it wearies me. Man is such a perverse beggar; he's ever wrong end

+to in his affairs. The entire race is like a horse turned round in its

+stall, and with its tail in the fodder stands shouting for hay. If men,

+in what you call their troubles, would but face the other way about,

+nine times in ten they'd be all right. They wouldn't need help--really!”

+

+“And if what you say be true,” observed the Reverend Bronson, who was as

+fond of argument as was Morton, “then you have outlined your duty. You

+say folk are turned wrong in their affairs. Then you should help them to

+turn right.”

+

+“Really now,” said Morton, imitating concern, “I wouldn't for the world

+have such sentiments escape to the ears of my club, don't y' know, for

+it's beastly bad form to even entertain them, but I lay the trouble you

+seek to relieve, old chap, to that humbug we call civilization; I do,

+'pon my word!”

+

+“Do you cry out against civilization?”

+

+“Gad! why not? I say it is an artifice, a mere deceit. Take ourselves:

+what has it done for any of us? Here is our friend”--Morton dropped his

+hand upon my shoulder--“who, taking advantage of what was offered of our

+civilization, came to be so far victorious as to have the town for

+his kickball. He was a dictator; his word was law among three

+millions--really! To-day he has riches, and could pave his grounds

+with gold. He was these things, and had these things, from the hand

+of civilization; and now, at the end, he sits in the center of sadness

+waiting for death. Consider my own case: I, too, at the close of my

+juice-drained days, am waiting for death; only, unlike our friend, I

+play the cynic and while I wait I laugh.”

+

+“I was never much to laugh,” I interjected.

+

+“The more strange, too, don't y' know,” continued Morton, “since you are

+aware of life and the mockery of it, as much as I. I may take it that

+I came crying into this world, for such I understand to be the beastly

+practice of the human young. Had I understood the empty jest of it, I

+should have laughed; I should, really!”

+

+“Now with what do you charge civilization?” asked the Reverend Bronson.

+

+“It has made me rich, and I complain of that. The load of my millions

+begins to bend my back. A decent, wholesome savagery would have

+presented no such burdens.”

+

+“And do you uplift savagery?”

+

+“I don't wonder you're shocked, old chap, for from our civilized

+standpoint savagery is such deuced bad form. But you should consider;

+you should, really! Gad! you know that civilized city where we dwell;

+you know its civilized millions, fretting like maggots, as many as four

+thousand in a block; you know the good and the evil ground of those

+civilized mills! Wherein lieth a triumph over the red savage who abode

+upon the spot three centuries ago? Who has liberty as had that savage?

+He owned laws and respected them; he had his tribe, and was a patriot

+fit to talk with William Tell. He fought his foe like a Richard of

+England, and loved his friend like a Jonathan. He paid neither homage to

+power nor taxes to men, and his privileges were as wide as the world's

+rim. His franchises of fagot, vert, and venison had never a limit; he

+might kill a deer a day and burn a cord of wood to its cookery. As for

+his religion: the test of religion is death; and your savage met death

+with a fortitude, and what is fortitude but faith, which it would bother

+Christians to parallel. It may be said that he lived a happier life, saw

+more of freedom, and was more his own man, than any you are to meet in

+Broadway.”

+

+Morton, beneath his fluff of cynicism, was a deal in earnest. The

+Reverend Bronson took advantage of it to say:

+

+“Here, as you tell us, are we three, and all at the end of the journey.

+Here is that one who strove for power: here is that one who strove for

+wealth; here is that one who strove to help his fellow man. I give you

+the question: Brushing civilization and savagery aside as just no more

+than terms to mark some shadowy difference, I ask you: Who of the three

+lives most content?--for it is he who was right.”

+

+“By the way!” said Morton, turning to me, as they were about to depart,

+and producing a scrap of newspaper, “this is what a scientist writes

+concerning you. The beggar must have paid you a call, don't y' know.

+At first, I thought it a beastly rude thing to put in print; but, gad!

+the more I dwell upon it, the more honorable it becomes. This is what he

+says of you:

+

+“'There was a look in his eye such as might burn in the eye of an old

+wolf that has crept away in solitude to die. As I gazed, there swept

+down upon me an astounding conviction. I felt that I was in the presence

+of the oldest thing in the world--a thing more ancient than the Sphinx

+or aged pyramids. This once Boss, silent and passive and white and

+old, and waiting for the digging of his grave, is what breeders call a

+“throw-back”--a throw-back, not of the generations, but of the ages. In

+what should arm him for a war of life against life, he is a creature of

+utter cunning, utter courage, utter strength. He is a troglodyte; he

+is that original one who lived with the cave bear, the mastodon, the

+sabertoothed tiger, and the Irish elk.'”

+

+They went away, the Reverend Bronson and Morton, leaving me alone on my

+bench between the beeches, while the black ravens picked and strutted

+about my feet, and my Sicilian on the lake at the lawn's foot matching

+his little ships for another race.

+

+THE END

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New

+York, by Alfred Henry Lewis

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       The Boss, and How he Came to Rule New York, by Alfred Henry Lewis

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