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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..586df30 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51912 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51912) diff --git a/old/51912-0.txt b/old/51912-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 50472cb..0000000 --- a/old/51912-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10656 +0,0 @@ -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 - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOSS *** - -***** This file should be named 51912-0.txt or 51912-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51912/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/51912-0.zip b/old/51912-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index a0cc92f..0000000 --- a/old/51912-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51912-8.txt b/old/51912-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 12914b9..0000000 --- a/old/51912-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10655 +0,0 @@ -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] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** 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 rle 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 rle -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 rle 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 rle 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 ftes -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 rle 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 rle 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 Csar, 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 - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOSS *** - -***** This file should be named 51912-8.txt or 51912-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51912/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/51912-8.zip b/old/51912-8.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index e693641..0000000 --- a/old/51912-8.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51912-h.zip b/old/51912-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 57de776..0000000 --- a/old/51912-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51912-h/51912-h.htm b/old/51912-h/51912-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 298b3cf..0000000 --- a/old/51912-h/51912-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12625 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <title> - The Boss, and How he Came to Rule New York, by Alfred Henry Lewis - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} - .x-small {font-size: 75%;} - .small {font-size: 85%;} - .large {font-size: 115%;} - .x-large {font-size: 130%;} - .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} - .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} - .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} - .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} - .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} - .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; - font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; - text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; - border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -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 - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - THE BOSS, AND HOW HE CAME TO RULE NEW YORK - </h1> - <h2> - By Alfred Henry Lewis - </h2> - <h4> - Author Of “Peggy O'Neal,” “President,” “Wolfvilledays,” Etc. - </h4> - <h4> - A. L. Burt Company, Publishers, New York - </h4> - <h5> - 1903 - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0005.jpg" alt="0005 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0005.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE WORD OF PREFACE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>THE BOSS</b> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I—HOW THE BOSS CAME TO NEW YORK - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II—THE BOSS MEETS WITH POLITICS - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III—THE BOSS SEES THE POWER OF - TAMMANY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV—THE BOSS ENTERS THE PRIMARY - GRADE OF POLITICS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V—THE BATTLE OF THE BALLOTS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI—THE RED JACKET ASSOCIATION </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII—HOW THE BOSS WAS NAMED FOR - ALDERMAN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII—THE FATE OF SHEENY JOE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX—HOW BIG KENNEDY BOLTED </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X—HOW JIMMY THE BLACKSMITH DIED - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI—HOW THE BOSS STOOD AT BAY FOR - HIS LIFE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII—DARBY THE GOPHER </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII—BIG KENNEDY AND THE MUGWUMPS - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV—THE MULBERRY FRANCHISE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV—THAT GAS COMPANY INJUNCTION </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI—THE BOSS IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE - BOSS! </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII—THE REPUTABLE OLD GENTLEMAN IS - MAYOR </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII—HOW THE BOSS TOOK THE TOWN - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX—THE SON OF THE WIDOW VAN FLANGE - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX—THE MARK OF THE ROPE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI—THE REVEREND BRONSON'S - REBELLION </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII—THE MAN OF THE KNIFE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII—THE WEDDING OF BLOSSOM </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV—HOW VAN FLANGE WENT INTO - STOCKS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV—PROFIT AND LOSS; MAINLY THE - LATTER </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI—THE VICTOR AND THE SPOILS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII—GOLD CAME, AND DEATH STEPPED - IN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII—BEING THE EPILOGUE </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE WORD OF PREFACE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - THE BOSS - </h1> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER I—HOW THE BOSS CAME TO NEW YORK - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>Y 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER II—THE BOSS MEETS WITH POLITICS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “W'at's the row here?” demanded the officer. - </p> - <p> - “Take him to the station!” cried Sheeny Joe, picking himself up, a - dripping picture of blood; “he struck me with a knuckle duster.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Why don't you take him in?” screamed Sheeny Joe. “W'at have you to do - with his story?” - </p> - <p> - “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'?” - </p> - <p> - “The first thing you'll know,” cried Sheeny Joe fiercely, “I'll have them - pewter buttons off your coat.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” he asked, coming in front of the officer. “Turn that man - loose,” he continued, pointing to Sheeny Joe. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “These two coves are under arrest,” said the officer, shaking Sheeny Joe - and myself like rugs by way of identification. - </p> - <p> - “I know,” said the other, still in the low cool tone. “All the same, you - turn this one loose.” - </p> - <p> - The officer still hesitated with a look of half-defiance. With that the - red-faced man lost temper. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “You should have said so at the jump,” remarked the officer sullenly. “How - was I to know who you are?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What'll I do with the boy?” asked the officer. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “An' the girl!” screamed Sheeny Joe. “I want her lagged too.” - </p> - <p> - “An' the girl, officer,” commanded the red-faced one. “Take her along with - the boy.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “I'm a taxpayer!” shouted the reputable old gentleman furiously. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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'.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “You 'say,'” mocked the captain, in high scorn. “An' who are you? Who is - this fellow?” he demanded, looking about him. - </p> - <p> - “He's one of my people,” said the red-faced man, still coolly by the desk. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “I'll have his life!” I foamed. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER III—THE BOSS SEES THE POWER OF TAMMANY - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HAT 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Now then, young gallows-bird,” said the functionary, “be you ready for - court?” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Sure! they'll let you go.” My hopes gained their feet. “To Blackwell's.” - My hopes lay prone again. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - There was nothing to brighten the eye in the story, and my ribs seemed to - inclose a heart of wood. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - When my name was called, an officer of the court opened a gate in the - prisoner's pen and motioned me to come forth. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “There was a girl brought in with him, your honor,” remarked the officer - at the gate. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “Who complains of these defendants?” asked the magistrate in a mild - non-committal voice, glancing about the room. - </p> - <p> - “I do, your honor.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Tell your story,” said the magistrate to Sheeny Joe. His manner was full - of commiseration for that unworthy. “What did he assault you with?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “The Dead Rabbit a low resort!” cried Sheeny - </p> - <p> - Joe indignantly. “The place is as straight as a gun.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - The captain grinned easily to find himself thus distinguished. The grin - irritated the reputable old gentleman, who was even more peppery than - reputable. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “That's what they all say,” remarked the captain, stifling a yawn. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “If the court please, I'm told so.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Your honor, it was the Dead Rabbit,” said Sheeny Joe. - </p> - <p> - “Is the Dead Rabbit,” observed the magistrate, to the captain, who was - still lounging about, “is the Dead Rabbit a place of good repute?” - </p> - <p> - “It aint no Astor House,” replied the captain, “but no one expects an - Astor House in Water Street.” - </p> - <p> - “Is it a resort for thieves?” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Is the Dead Rabbit a resort for thieves?” again asked the magistrate. - </p> - <p> - “Well,” replied the captain judgmatically, “even a crook has got to go - somewhere. That is,” he added, “when he aint in hock.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “What will you have, Mr. Kennedy?” purred the magistrate obsequiously. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What do you mean, sir, by calling me an old sport?” demanded the - reputable old gentleman. - </p> - <p> - The red-faced man did not heed the question, but wheeled briskly on the - magistrate. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But he said the Dead Rabbit was a drum for crooks!” protested Sheeny Joe, - speaking to the redfaced man. - </p> - <p> - “S'ppose he did,” retorted the other, “that don't take a dollar out of the - drawer.” - </p> - <p> - “An' he's to break my nose an' get away?” complained Sheeny Joe. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir,” I answered faintly. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER IV—THE BOSS ENTERS THE PRIMARY GRADE OF POLITICS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">P</span>ERHAPS 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Upon the day following my release, as he had bid me. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Big Kennedy told me I must go to work. - </p> - <p> - “You've got to work, d'ye see,” said he, “if it's only to have an excuse - for livin'.” - </p> - <p> - Then he asked me what I could do. On making nothing clear by my replies—for - I knew of nothing—he descended to particulars. - </p> - <p> - “What do you know of horses? Can you drive one?” - </p> - <p> - My eye brightened; I might be trusted to handle a horse. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “How is Mr. Kennedy?” This with exuberance. “It makes me prout that you - pay me a wisit.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm goin' to get him new duds,” said Big Kennedy, “if that's what you're - thinkin' about.” - </p> - <p> - Still, the grocer, though not without some show of respectful alarm, - insisted on a first position. - </p> - <p> - “If he was so well dressed even as you, Mr. Kennedy, yet I haf no - wacancy,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “That's all right,” said Big Kennedy. “I owe you that much for havin' you - chucked into a cell.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “You're the party I'm lookin' for!” was all he said. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Old Mike glanced at me out of his twinkling gray eyes. After a moment he - said, addressing me: - </p> - <p> - “Come ag'in.” - </p> - <p> - That was all I had from Old Mike that journey. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER V—THE BATTLE OF THE BALLOTS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - The reputable old gentleman was set aback by the news. Next he took heart - of grace. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - This open-air selfishness as declared by Old Mike rather served to shock - the reputable old gentleman. - </p> - <p> - “And in politics do you think first of yourself?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “Not only first, but lasht,” replied Old Mike. “An' so do you; an' so does - every man.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Are you a taxpayer?” - </p> - <p> - “I have th' house,” responded Old Mike, with a smile. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Have you given much attention to political economy?” This with an erudite - cough. “Have you made politics a study?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” I nodded. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - Big Kennedy smiled upon the reputable old gentleman, but made no other - reply. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “That's nothin',” returned the other gayly; “I have voted for a president - eighty times before ten o'clock.” - </p> - <p> - In the midst of the laugh that followed this piece of characteristic wit, - Big Kennedy crossed to where I stood. - </p> - <p> - “Send your boys along!” said he. “Let's see how good you are.” - </p> - <p> - My whistle screamed the signal. At the first sharp note, a cry went up: - </p> - <p> - “The Tin Whistles! The Tin Whistles!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - Big Kennedy nodded, and the zealot who saved the ballot-box passed on and - disappeared. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - The hurly-burly had now ceased; all was as calm and equal as a goose pond. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Did we beat them?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “Snowed'em under!” said Big Kennedy. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VI—THE RED JACKET ASSOCIATION - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Gaffney showed not a little shaken. He asked, in a manner sullen yet - beaten, what he should do. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “If I could sell out, I'd quit,” said Gaffney. - </p> - <p> - “Well,” responded Big Kennedy, “I always like to help a friend.” - </p> - <p> - Grocer Fogel bought Gaffney's store, making a bargain. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - As the days drew on, I grew in favor with Big Kennedy, and the blossom - thereof took this color. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “How about the Tin Whistles?” I hinted. “Would they do to build on?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But where's the money?” said I. “These people I have in mind haven't much - money.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “What shall we call it?” I asked, as I arose to go. - </p> - <p> - “Give it an Indian name,” said Big Kennedy. “S'p-pose you call it the Red - Jacket Association.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “But I won't be of age,” I suggested. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “I'll clink your anvil for you!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Bring your sledge, Jimmy,” shouted some humorist; “you'll need it.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Jimmy the Cur! it ought to be,” growled one, whose disappointment over a - fight deferred was sore in the extreme. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VII—HOW THE BOSS WAS NAMED FOR ALDERMAN - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>OW 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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'.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “They're the foot-stones of politics,” said Old Mike. “Kape th' p'lice, - an' you kape yourself on top.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Bunco the foe!” was the watchword; “take their money and 'con' them!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Big Kennedy wants you to come at once to the Tub of Blood,” said Sheeny - Joe. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “They want you inside.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Good-night, gentlemen,” was all I said. - </p> - <p> - “You'll set up the gin, won't you?” cried one, finding his voice. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VIII—THE FATE OF SHEENY JOE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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. - </p> - <p> - “You don't twig!” said he, recovering a partial gravity. “I'm goin' to - send him over th' road for robbery.” - </p> - <p> - “But he hasn't robbed anybody!” - </p> - <p> - Big Kennedy made a gesture of impatience, mixed with despair. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But you spoke of a robbery!” I interjected; “Sheeny Joe has robbed no - one.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Billy, you know where to find the Rat?” Then, when the other nodded: “Go - an' tell the Rat I want him.” - </p> - <p> - “Who is the Rat?” I queried. I had never heard of the Rat. - </p> - <p> - “He's a pickpocket,” responded Big Kennedy, “an' as fly a dip as ever - nipped a watch or copped a leather.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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'.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Sure!” said he. “Tell him to come along.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “What is it, Mr. Bronson?” asked Big Kennedy pleasantly; “what can I do - for you?” - </p> - <p> - The young clergyman's purpose was to ask assistance for a mission which he - proposed to start near the Five Points. - </p> - <p> - “Certainly,” said Big Kennedy, “an' not a moment to wait!” With that he - gave the young clergyman one hundred dollars. - </p> - <p> - When that gentleman, after expressing his thanks, had departed, Big - Kennedy sighed. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - The Rat was uneasily questioning my presence with his eye. Big Kennedy - paused to reassure him. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - The Rat said never a word, but his glance left me and he gave entire heed - to Big Kennedy. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't have to go to court ag'inst him?” said the Rat interrogatively. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - It was the next evening at the ferry. Suddenly a cry went up. - </p> - <p> - “Thief! Thief! My pocketbook is gone!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “There's your man!” whispered the Rat, pointing to Sheeny Joe, whose - footsteps he had been dogging the livelong day; “there's your man!” - </p> - <p> - In a moment the broad man had thrown himself upon Sheeny Joe. - </p> - <p> - “Call the police!” he yelled. “He's got my pocket-book!” - </p> - <p> - The officer pulled him off Sheeny Joe, whom he had thrown to the ground - and now clung to with the desperation of the robbed. - </p> - <p> - “Give me a look in!” said the officer, thrusting the broad man aside. “If - he's got your leather we'll find it.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “That's it!” screamed the broad man, “that's my wallet with over six - hundred dollars in it! The fellow stole it!” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Are you goin' back on me?” wailed Sheeny Joe. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Shall I take bail for him, Mr. Kennedy, if any shows up?” asked the - officer in charge. - </p> - <p> - “No; no bail!” replied Big Kennedy. “If anyone offers, tell him I don't - want it done.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “He got four spaces!” said one in an awed whisper. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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'!” - </p> - <p> - “It's all right, then!” declared Old Mike decisively. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER IX—HOW BIG KENNEDY BOLTED - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>EFORE 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “No harm done, I think?” said I, when we were both ashore again. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - My Sicilian came, as I had told him, and I gave him the knife. He was - extravagant in his gratitude. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - When I told Big Kennedy, he turned the idea on his wheel of thought for - full two minutes. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “What have I done?” said he. “Can I square it?” - </p> - <p> - “Never!” I retorted; “there's some things one can't square.” Then I told - him of Anne, and his insult. - </p> - <p> - “That's enough,” he replied, tossing his hand resignedly. “I can take my - medicine when it's come my turn.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - This want of a money wit is a defect of my nature. A great merchant late - in my life once said to me: - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Why don't you kiss your bride!” cried Anne, at the heel of the ceremony. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - The split came when, by suggestion of Old Mike and - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “You know the meaning of this. I shall tear you in two in the middle an' - leave you on both sides of the street!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “I s'ppose you think you know what you're doin'?” said the other angrily. - </p> - <p> - “You can put a bet on it that I do,” retorted Big Kennedy. “I wasn't born - last week.” - </p> - <p> - That evening as we sat silent and thoughtful, Big Kennedy broke forth with - a word. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER X—HOW JIMMY THE BLACKSMITH DIED - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “How much should it take?” asked the reputable old gentleman. - </p> - <p> - “Say twenty thousand!” returned Big Kennedy, as cool as New Year's Day. - </p> - <p> - “Twenty thousand dollars!” repeated the reputable old gentleman, with wide - eyes. “Will it call for so much as that?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But what can you do with so much?” asked the reputable old gentleman - dismally. “It seems a fortune! What would you do with it?” - </p> - <p> - “Mass meetin's, bands, beer, torches, fireworks, halls; but most of all, - buy votes.” - </p> - <p> - “Buy votes!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman, his cheek paling. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “But their interest as citizens! I should think they'd look at that!” - </p> - <p> - “Their first interest as citizens,” observed Big Kennedy, with a cynical - smile, “is a five-dollar bill.” - </p> - <p> - “But do you think it right to purchase votes?” asked the reputable old - gentleman, with a gasp. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - The reputable old gentleman remained for a moment in deep thought. Then he - got upon his feet to go. - </p> - <p> - “I'll send my son to talk with you,” he said. Then faintly: “I guess this - will be all right.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “That's right!” said Big Kennedy. “The sooner we get th' oil, th' sooner - we'll begin to light up.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “I'm Mr. Morton—Mr. James Morton,” he drawled. “You know my father.” - </p> - <p> - Once in the sanctum, and none save Big Kennedy and myself for company, - young Morton came to the question. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Six young blacks, each with a pleasant grin, marched into the room. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Following the going of the messenger, Big Kennedy fell into a brown study. - </p> - <p> - “Do you think you'll deal in again with the Chief and the machine?” I - asked. - </p> - <p> - “It depends on what's offered. A song an' dance won't get me.” - </p> - <p> - “But how about the Mortons? Would you abandon them?” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Would you quit your friends?” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “Jimmy the Blacksmith and his heelers are driving our people from the - polls.” - </p> - <p> - “You know what to do!” said Big Kennedy, tossing me the scrap of paper. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “I've got you!” I cried, and then wrenched myself free to give me - distance. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XI—HOW THE BOSS STOOD AT BAY FOR HIS LIFE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “You don't think I killed him!” I exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “Who else?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But, Mr. Kennedy,” remonstrated the warden, “I don't know about that. - It's after lockin'-up hours now.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Deuced wretched quarters, I should say!” murmured young Morton, glancing - for a moment inside the cell. “Not at all worth cutting a throat for.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Dave, s'ppose you step outside,” said Big Kennedy. - </p> - <p> - “It's no use you hearin' what we say; it might get you into trouble, d'ye - see!” The last, insinuatingly. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “You'll get done up if you don't!” growled Big Kennedy. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, yes,” replied Big Kennedy, with an ugly glare at the warden, “I said - that it might be a good idea to sweeten him.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - I told him of the Sicilian; and how I had recognized the knife as I drew - it from the throat of the dead man. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “What was that?” he asked, when Big Kennedy spoke of money. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “He could go down to Coney Island an' beat th' shells,” said Big Kennedy - confidently. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - This suggestion appealed to Big Kennedy as good. He thought, too, that he - and young Morton might better set about the matter without delay. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Or for that matter, the wrong either?” put in Big Kennedy sagely. “I've - never seen money lose a fight.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - As Big Kennedy and young Morton reached the door, I bethought me for the - first time to ask the result of the election. - </p> - <p> - “Was your father successful?” I queried. “These other matters quite drove - the election from my head.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “I said that he won in a walk,” returned Big Kennedy. Then, suspiciously: - “Say you aint guying me, be you?” - </p> - <p> - “Me guy you?” repeated young Morton, elevating his brows. “I'd as soon - think of deriding a king with crown and scepter!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - There were no Irishmen in the panel, and I commented on the fact as - strange. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Why didn't you seize him?” questioned the State's Attorney, with a - half-sneer. - </p> - <p> - “Not on your life!” said the witness. “I aint collarin' nobody; I don't - get policeman's wages.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Not guilty!” - </p> - <p> - The Judge's face was like thunder; he gulped and glared, and then - demanded: - </p> - <p> - “Is this your verdict?” - </p> - <p> - “It is,” returned the foreman, standing in his place; and his eleven - fellow jurors, two of whom belonged to my Red Jackets, nodded assent. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Where is she—where is my wife?” said I. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “I think he may come in,” he said. “But make no noise! Don't excite her!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - —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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XII—DARBY THE GOPHER - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>OXY 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Can anything be done with the one who has?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Then you've no hope?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - One afternoon Big Kennedy of the suddenest broke upon me with an - exclamation of triumph. - </p> - <p> - “I have it!” he cried; “I know the party who will show us every paper in - that safe.” - </p> - <p> - “Who is he?” said I. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - When Big Kennedy came into the sanctum on the following evening, the grasp - he gave me was the grasp of victory. - </p> - <p> - “It's all over but th' yellin'!” said he; “we've got them papers in a - corner.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Who is he?” I demanded, my amazement beginning to sit up. - </p> - <p> - “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'.” - </p> - <p> - “Is he a burglar?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Aren't you afraid he'll run?” I said. “You can't watch him night and day, - and he'll give you the slip.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What's his name?” I inquired. - </p> - <p> - “Darby the Goph.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Darby the Goph would lounge and kill time while Foxy Billy moiled. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - The police officer arrived, and Big Kennedy told him to see Darby the Goph - aboard the train. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - “An' a taxpayer,” added Big Kennedy. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” said the reputable old gentleman, “the great thing is to pitch upon - a proper paper.” - </p> - <p> - “There's the <i>Dally Tory?</i>” suggested Big Kennedy. “It's a very - honest sheet,” said the reputable old gentleman approvingly. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - For these double reasons of probity and wrath, the <i>Daily Tory</i> was - agreed to. The reputable old gentleman would put himself in touch with the - <i>Daily Tory</i> without delay. - </p> - <p> - “Who is this Chief of Tammany?” asked the reputable old gentleman, towards - the close of the conference. “Personally, I know but little about him.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But is he a deep, forceful man?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - The reputable old gentleman was bowing us out of his library, when Big - Kennedy gave him a parting word. - </p> - <p> - “Now remember: my name aint to show at all.” - </p> - <p> - “But the honor!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman. “The honor of this - mighty reform will be rightfully yours. You ought to have it.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you prefer money to honor?” returned the reputable old gentleman, - somewhat scandalized. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Four days later the <i>Daily Tory</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - “Papers sail only with the wind,” said Big Kennedy sagely, in commenting - on these ink-desertions of the Chief. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What you must do, father,” said Big Kennedy cheerfully, “is get well, an' - see that I run things straight.” - </p> - <p> - “Jawn,” returned Old Mike, smiling faintly, “this is Choosday; by Saturday - night I'll be dead an' under th' daisies.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XIII—BIG KENNEDY AND THE MUGWUMPS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “And so,” cried the reputable old gentleman, “you call the suppression of - gamblers and base women, puritanism? Casebottle, I'm surprised!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Sure!” returned that chieftain. “There's always more danger in too much - steam than in too little.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Would your last include you and me?” I asked. I thought I might hazard a - small jest, since we were now alone. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “I'm to go with you to his house,” said I. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “McCue!” returned the Chief of Police in tones of surprise. “That man - would never do! He's as honest as a clock!” - </p> - <p> - “Honest!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, and his amazement was a picture. “Well, - what does he think he's doin' on th' force, then?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XIV—THE MULBERRY FRANCHISE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HAT'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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Go on,” said Big Kennedy. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Have you th' people ready to take th' preferred?” - </p> - <p> - “Ready and waiting. If I had the franchise, I could float those eight - millions within ten days.” - </p> - <p> - “What do you figger would be th' road's profits?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Ask what you please,” said young Morton, as brisk as a terrier. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “How much do you argue that I'll require as a preliminary to the grant of - the franchise?” asked young Morton, interrupting Big Kennedy. - </p> - <p> - “Every splinter of four hundred thousand.” - </p> - <p> - “That was my estimate,” said young Morton; “but I've arranged for twice - that sum.” - </p> - <p> - “Who is th' Rothschild you will get it from?” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Good!” ejaculated Big Kennedy, with the gleam which never failed to - sparkle in his eye at the mention of rotund riches. - </p> - <p> - “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: - </p> - <p> - “'Father,' said I, 'you are aware of the New York alternative?' - </p> - <p> - “'What is it?' he asked. - </p> - <p> - “'Get money or get out.' - </p> - <p> - “'Well!' said he. - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “'Store?' he inquired. - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “'Really, it was on my mind to do so,' I replied. - </p> - <p> - “'My scheme is this: I shall make an alliance with Mr. Kennedy.' - </p> - <p> - “'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.'” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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! - </p> - <p> - “'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. - </p> - <p> - “'It was by following your advice, sir,' said I. - </p> - <p> - “'Following my advice!' exclaimed my father. 'What do you mean, sir? Or - are you mad?' - </p> - <p> - “'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.'” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Do you approve my proposition?” he asked of Big Kennedy, “and will you - give me your aid?” - </p> - <p> - “The proposition's all hunk,” said Big Kennedy. “As to my aid: that - depends on whether we come to terms.” - </p> - <p> - “What share would you want?” - </p> - <p> - “Forty per cent, of th' common stock,” responded Big Kennedy. “That's - always th' Tammany end; forty per cent.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “I put in my pull,” retorted Big Kennedy grimly. “You get your franchise - from me.” - </p> - <p> - “From the City,” corrected young Morton. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “You spoke of four hundred thousand dollars as precedent to the - franchise,” said young Morton. “Where will that go?” - </p> - <p> - “There's as many as thirty hungry ones who, here an' there an' each in our - way, must be met an' squared.” - </p> - <p> - “How much will go to your fellows?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “That should do,” observed young Morton thoughtfully. - </p> - <p> - When young Morton was about to go, Big Kennedy detained him with a final - query. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “McGinty and Doloran,” I replied. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “I can tell on the instant,” I said. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XV—THAT GAS COMPANY INJUNCTION - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OUNG 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - One day young Morton told me how the Gas Company had lodged suit against - Mulberry. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “The Gas Company goes vastly out of its way in this!” observed the - reputable old gentleman indignantly. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Let us go over to Tammany Hall,” said I, “and talk with Big Kennedy.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “He seems a most unpromising foundation upon which to build one's hope,” - said the Reverend Bronson dubiously. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “And will he then return to his drunkenness?” asked the Reverend Bronson. - </p> - <p> - “Sure as you're alive!” said Big Kennedy. “The moment I take my hooks off - him, down he goes.” - </p> - <p> - “What you say interests me! Why not send him to my mission, and let me - compass his reform.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “If his case is so hopeless, I marvel that you tolerate him.” - </p> - <p> - The Reverend Bronson was a trifle piqued at Big Kennedy for thinking his - influence would fall short of the drunkard's reform. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Big Kennedy called one of his underlings, and gave him directions to have - the sleeping drunkard conveyed instantly to a bath-house. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Judge Mole,” said young Morton. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “The Gas Company's judge!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman, in - horrified amazement. - </p> - <p> - Big Kennedy, at this, shone down upon the reputable old gentleman like a - benignant sun. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “In what manner,” snorted the reputable old gentleman, “does one of our - great corporations become possessed of a judge?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - The reputable old gentleman expressed unbounded indignation, while Big - Kennedy laughed. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Explain,” said young Morton eagerly. - </p> - <p> - “Because I'll tell 'em to.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Th' Gas Company'll come to me, an' ask for orders.” - </p> - <p> - The reputable old gentleman drew a long breath, while his brows worked up - and down. - </p> - <p> - “And dare you tell me,” he cried, “that men of millions—our leading - men of business, will come to you and ask your commands?” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - The reputable old gentleman looked mystified. Young Morton, for his part, - began to smile. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “'Better see the Boss,' the Street Commissioner will whisper, when the Gas - Company asks what's wrong. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “Humph!” retorted the reputable old gentleman angrily. “Every Esau, - selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, would speak the same.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “There's two hundred thousand dollars' worth of Uncle Sam's bonds,” said - he. “That's your end of Mulberry Traction.” - </p> - <p> - “You've sold out?” - </p> - <p> - “Sold out an' got one million two hundred thousand.” - </p> - <p> - “The stock would have gone higher,” said I. “You would have gotten more if - you'd held on.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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.' - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Big Kennedy, with that, gave my hand a Titan's grip in indorsement of my - resolve. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Now ensues a great heave upward in my destinies. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “What's wrong?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XVI—THE BOSS IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE BOSS! - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “Always go with th' current; that's th' first rule of leadership. It's - easier; an' there's more water down stream than up. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Morton was so much his old practical self that he bade me consider a - candidate and a programme. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “What else can you do?” asked Morton. - </p> - <p> - “I can tell you what was in my mind,” said I. “It was to go with this - labor movement and control it.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “He is an honest man,” said I. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Tell me how,” said I. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “One can't stop a runaway horse with money,” I retorted; “and this labor - movement is a political runaway.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Say twenty-five thousand.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Should I?” I returned. “Now I'll let you into an organization tenet. - Tammany, blow high, blow low, thinks only of itself.” - </p> - <p> - “You would be given half the offices, remember.” - </p> - <p> - “And the Police?” - </p> - <p> - “And the Police.” - </p> - <p> - “Tammany couldn't keep house without the police,” said I, laughing. - “You've seen enough of our housekeeping to know that.” - </p> - <p> - “You may have the police, and what else you will.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XVII—THE REPUTABLE OLD GENTLEMAN IS MAYOR - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE 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: - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Should any get in your way,” said I, “he must be sent to the outskirts. I - shall hold you for everything that goes wrong.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Has Gothecore had experience?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well,” said I, “the care of these colonists is in your hands. Here's - a list of the places where they're berthed.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Public office is a public trust!” cried he, quoting some lunatic - abstractionist. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Never fear; I'll have the city in the hollow of my hand within the year,” - said I. - </p> - <p> - “I will show you where to find a million or two in Wall Street, if you - do,” he returned. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XVIII—HOW THE BOSS TOOK THE TOWN - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE 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. - </p> - <p> - “And why should I not?” said I. “You follow the flag of your interest; I - but profit by your example.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir!” cried the reputable old gentleman haughtily, “I have no interest - save the interest of The public.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “Sir, I deny the term 'prig.' If such were my celebration, I should not - have waited to hear it from you.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “'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?' - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “There is no way to tell how a man votes.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Really, now,” said he, at last, “how many under the old plan would handle - your money about each polling place?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “And so you're the Czar!” said he. - </p> - <p> - “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.'” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” said I, “you said something of the sort.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “No,” I replied, “the thing is news to me. I know nothing of stocks.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - At the beginning, I was cold, doubtful; I distrusted a public approval of - the grants, and feared the public's resentment. - </p> - <p> - “Tammany must retain the people's confidence,” said I. “It can only do so - by protecting jealously the people's interests.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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: - </p> - <p> - “And now I suppose we may give Blackberry its franchises?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What then?” said I. - </p> - <p> - “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 <i>Daily Tory</i>?” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XIX—THE SON OF THE WIDOW VAN FLANGE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN 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. - </p> - <p> - Nor was I unjustified of authority. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Anne did not believe with that savant of nerves. She distrusted my society - plans for Blossom. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “You, yourself, are in its midst.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But it is of my Blossom I am thinking,” I cried. “For myself I am not so - ambitious.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “You tried to put a rope about my neck,” said I at last. - </p> - <p> - “I was misled as to the truth.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “I am ever ready to repair an error.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Still I have no education,” I said, when the Reverend Bronson spoke of - his surprise. - </p> - <p> - “But you have, though,” returned he, “only you came by that education not - in the common way.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “And are not the police good judges of these matters?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Melting Moses, as a name, should do very well,” said I. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Little by little, scrap by scrap, Melting Moses gave me his story. Put - together in his words, it ran like this: - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “After d' foist night he brings her up ag'in. - </p> - <p> - “'Dat's d' number one d'gree,' says he. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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'! - </p> - <p> - “'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?' - </p> - <p> - “But me mudder couldn't tell. - </p> - <p> - “'Give d' old goil d' dungeon,' says d' Captain; 'an' t'row her in a brace - of rats to play wit'.' - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “An' it would too, only she goes dotty. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Melting Moses shed tears at this. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “She's a dame in black,” said Melting Moses; “an' she's of d' Fift' Avenoo - squeeze all right.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Show her in!” I said. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XX—THE MARK OF THE ROPE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “But why do you furnish him money?” said I. - </p> - <p> - “You should keep him without a penny.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But those checks,” I observed, “should be worthless, for you have told me - how your son has no money of his own.” - </p> - <p> - “And that is it,” returned the Widow Van Flange. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - I seized Melting Moses by the shoulder, and so held him back from flying - at Gothecore with teeth and claws. - </p> - <p> - “He killed me mudder!” cried Melting Moses, struggling in my fingers like - something wild. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “What was the trouble?” - </p> - <p> - “Why do you stand for that young whelp?” he cried. “I won't have it!” - </p> - <p> - “The boy is doing you no harm.” - </p> - <p> - “I won't have it!” he cried again. The man was like a maniac. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Go in; I've business with you.” - </p> - <p> - Gothecore seemed to recall himself to steadiness. Without more words, he - entered my door. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Here the eye of Gothecore wandered towards the ceiling, recalling the mad - pranks of young Van Flange. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “It's a cinch, Madam!” - </p> - <p> - “And he'd be murdered?” - </p> - <p> - “Madam, it's apples to ashes!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “It's a hemorrhage!” said Gothecore. - </p> - <p> - The awe of death lay upon the man, and his coarse voice was stricken to a - whisper. - </p> - <p> - “Now Heaven have my soul!” murmured the dying woman. Then: “My son! oh, my - son!” - </p> - <p> - There came another crimson cataract, and the Widow Van Flange was dead. - </p> - <p> - “This is your work!” said I, turning fiercely to Gothecore. - </p> - <p> - “Or is it yours?” cries he. - </p> - <p> - The words went over my soul like the teeth of a harrow. Was it my work? - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But your franchise does not call for a conduit.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “But what do you want the conduit for?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Your charter isn't in the way?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well!” I replied, “there shall be no interference the city. If the - papers grumble, I leave you and them to fight it out.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “I do it for the good of my child,” said I. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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! - </p> - <p> - “'But what is he?' asked Mamma DeMudd, when I proposed you for her notice. - </p> - <p> - “'He's a despot,' said I, 'and rules New York. Every man in town is his - serf.' - </p> - <p> - “When Mamma DeMudd got this magnificent idea into her head, she was eager - to see you; she was, really. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Speaking of new topics, then,” said I, “let me ask of your father. How - does he fare these days?” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - With that, irritated of too much opposition and the hateful mystery of it, - I turned roughly practical. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “You do not understand!” persisted Anne, with sober gentleness. “Blossom - would not wear an evening dress.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “There,” whispered Anne, “there! Look on her throat!” - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “The mark of the rope!” I gasped. “It is the mark of the rope!” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXI—THE REVEREND BRONSON'S REBELLION - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HAT 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “What can we do?” said I, at last. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Let Blossom take the veil,” said Anne. “A convent, and the good work of - it, would give her peace.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “If that be true,” returned the Reverend Bronson, promptly, “give me - Inspector McCue.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “There is, at least, reason to think so,” retorted the Reverend Bronson in - a dry tone. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - When Gothecore came in, I caught him at the first of it glowering - furtively about, as though seeking someone. - </p> - <p> - “Where is that Melting Moses?” he inquired, when he saw how I observed him - to be searching the place with his eye. - </p> - <p> - “And why?” said I. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Well then,” said I, a bit impatiently, “I should have thought a - full-grown Captain of Police was above fearing a boy.” - </p> - <p> - Without giving Gothecore further opening, I told him the story of the - Reverend Bronson, and that campaign of purity he would be about. - </p> - <p> - “And as to young Van Flange,” said I. “Does he still lose his money in - Barclay Street?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “They made quick work of him,” was my comment. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But is he a man of strength? Can he make trouble?” - </p> - <p> - “Trouble?” This with contempt. “When it comes to makin' trouble, he's a - false alarm.” - </p> - <p> - “Well,” said I, in conclusion, “McCue and the dominie are going into your - precinct.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “You'd better keep your muzzle on,” I retorted. “Your mouth will get you - into trouble yet.” - </p> - <p> - Gothecore went away grumbling, and much disposed to call himself ill-used. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Take young Van Flange,” went on the Reverend Bronson, disregarding my - remark. “They've ruined the boy; and you might have saved him.” - </p> - <p> - “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.'” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “And you call him a bad lot,” said I. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “His family is one of the best,” said I. - </p> - <p> - For myself, I've a sincere respect for blood, and some glimpse of it must - have found display in my face. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Would you say the same of a horse or a dog?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What would you call a gentleman, then?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - Morton's theories, while I in no manner subscribed to them, entertained - me. - </p> - <p> - “What should I call a gentleman? Why I should call him the caricature of a - man, don't y' know.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Only this,” returned McCue. “I'd like to have you tell me flat, whether - or no you want these parties pinched.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “If you will be so good as to explain?” said I. - </p> - <p> - “Because, if I am to go on, I must begin by collaring the chief. He's the - principal owner of that Barclay Street joint.” - </p> - <p> - This was indeed news, and I had no difficulty in looking grave. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Inspector McCue sat biting his lips. After a moment, he got upon his feet - to go. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Sit down, Doctor,” said I soothingly, at the same time placing a chair; - “sit down.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXII—THE MAN OF THE KNIFE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Now, what were his words?” said I, for I was willing to discover how far - Inspector McCue had used my name. - </p> - <p> - “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: - </p> - <p> - “'Doctor, what's the use?' said Inspector McCue. 'We're up against it; we - can't move a wheel.' - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “'And yet,' said I, 'we prate of liberty!' - </p> - <p> - “'Liberty!' cried he. 'Doctor, our liberties are in hock to the - politicians, and we've lost the ticket.'” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “There is a debt you owe Above!” returned the Reverend Bronson, the - preacher within him beginning to struggle. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Morton, I remember, did not share my enthusiasm. It was when I suggested - Gutterglory as counsel for Mulberry. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Gutterglory is the most eloquent of men,” I protested. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - “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.'” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “He seemed to think it not open to contradiction.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Who murdered the man? - </p> - <p> - Half the town said Gothecore. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What do you mean?” said I. - </p> - <p> - Then he told the story; and how Gothecore and Melting Moses were taken - from the river not four hours before. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “'Man overboard!' yells some guy. - </p> - <p> - “The man overboard is Gothecore. Two or three coves come chasin' up to - lend a hand. - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Morton had seen disaster on its way. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “The Man of the Knife!” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXIII—THE WEDDING OF BLOSSOM - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">G</span>RAY, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Come with me,” said I. “You shall have a berth; and I've nothing now to - do but seek for it.” - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “Suppose they were to love and wed?” - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - One day I put the question of young Van Flange to Morton. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But his habits are now good,” I urged. “And he is industrious, is he - not?” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Will he not loathe her?” said I. “Will his love not change to hate when - he knows?” - </p> - <p> - “Did your love change?” Anne asked. - </p> - <p> - “But that is not the same.” - </p> - <p> - “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.'” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “My dear sir,” exclaimed the Reverend Bronson, “surely you do not defend - gambling.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “The policy shops stretch forth their sordid palms for the pennies of the - very poor,” said the Reverend Bronson earnestly. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Let me hear,” observed the Reverend Bronson, amused if not convinced, - “what your remedy for the town's bad morals would be.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “You would have difficulty, I fear,” remarked the Reverend Bronson, “in - convincing your gilded fellows of the virtuous propriety of labor.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “You would deal with men as you do with swine?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Sticking to what you term the practical,” said the Reverend Bronson, - “tell me wherein our reform administration has weakened itself.” - </p> - <p> - “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! - </p> - <p> - “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! - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXIV—HOW VAN FLANGE WENT INTO STOCKS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Morton, when I called young Van Flange from his Mulberry desk to send him - into Wall Street, was filled with distrust of the scheme. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Admitting all you say,” I replied, “it does not follow that another may - not know or learn to know as much.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Now what issue would you offer?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “And do you shout 'Municipal Ownership!'—you with a street railway - to lose?” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “To simply shout 'Public Ownership:'” said I, “would hardly stir the - depths. We would have to get down to something practical—something - definite.” - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “What a howl would go up from Fifth Avenue!” said I. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “You shall see a Tammany club in fashion's center, none the less.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Do what you think best,” said I. “And, mind you: No word to Morton.” - </p> - <p> - “Now I was about to suggest that,” said young Van Flange. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXV—PROFIT AND LOSS; MAINLY THE LATTER - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>INCE 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - More than one leader reported within five votes of his majority, and none - went fifty votes astray. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Morton—that best of prophets!—believed in the star of the - machine. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “About one hundred and twenty-five millions.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “I think, however,” said I, “that you have been one to profit by those - same idiocies of the town.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “I make you welcome in advance,” said I. “Give me but the town again, and - you shall pick and choose.” - </p> - <p> - In season, I handed my slate of names to the nominating committee to be - handed by them to the convention. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “How do you get on with your Blackberry?” said I. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - This, in the beginning, was rambled off with stops and halts, but in the - wind-up it went glibly enough. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - As I was about to depart, Blossom came into the room. - </p> - <p> - I had no more than time for a hurried kiss, for the need set forth in the - note pulled at me like horses. - </p> - <p> - “Bar accidents,” said I, as I stood in the door, “tomorrow night we'll - celebrate a victory.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Think, master; think what you do!” he cried. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - The picture of my girl's white face set me ablaze again. I turned the very - torch of rage! - </p> - <p> - “Be wise, master!” cried that one who had restrained me before. “Think of - what you do!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Have him away, then!” cried I. “Have him out of my sight, or I'll tear - him to rags and ribbons where he lies!” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXVI—THE VICTOR AND THE SPOILS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>OR 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “You know young Van Flange?” Inspector McCue gave a nod of assent. - </p> - <p> - “And you can locate him?” - </p> - <p> - “The proposition is so easy it's a pushover.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “But what did this Blackberry individual do?” I persisted. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Was young Van Flange in the intrigue?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What do you intend by saying that young Van Flange was not in the affair - in the beginning?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Morton was right; and I was to hear a worse tale, and that from Inspector - McCue. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Then clearing his throat, and stating everything in the present tense, - after the police manner, Inspector McCue went on. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Opium?” I asked in astonishment. I had never harbored the thought. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Go on,” said I. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “'Only,' says he, 'I don't know what money I've got. And I'm too dippy to - find out.' - </p> - <p> - “With that, I go through him. It's in his trousers pocket I springs a - plant—fifteen hundred dollars, about. - </p> - <p> - “'Here's dough enough and over,' says I; and in six hours after, he's - aboard ship. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What more do you know of young Van Flange?” I asked. “Did you learn - anything about his business habits?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Bring me no tales of him!” I cried. “I would free myself of every memory - of the scoundrel!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “But is it not humiliating?” asked the Reverend Bronson. “If what you say - be true, does it not make for your discouragement?” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “You do as much as any, by your indifference, to perpetuate those - standards,” remarked the Reverend Bronson in a way of mournful severity. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “And you will be welcome, Doctor, let me say!” I returned. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXVII—GOLD CAME, AND DEATH STEPPED IN - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>OW, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - The storm I unchained beat sorely, but he made no white-flag signs. I - admired his fortitude, while I multiplied my war. - </p> - <p> - It was Morton who pointed to that final feather which broke the camel's - back. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “What then?” cried I, for my heart was growing hot. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” said I, “it all comes back.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “It is her breathing,” said he; “otherwise her health is good for any call - she might make upon it.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “Would you have her sent away?” I asked of the physician. “Say but the - place; I will take her there myself.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - The physician met me at Blossom's door. He held me back with a gentle hand - on my breast. - </p> - <p> - “Don't go in!” he said. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “The girl is dead,” I heard one say. - </p> - <p> - “What malady?” asked the other. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXVIII—BEING THE EPILOGUE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HAT 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Do you cry out against civilization?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “I was never much to laugh,” I interjected. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - “Now with what do you charge civilization?” asked the Reverend Bronson. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “And do you uplift savagery?” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Morton, beneath his fluff of cynicism, was a deal in earnest. The Reverend - Bronson took advantage of it to say: - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “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: - </p> - <p> - “'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.'” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - THE END - </h3> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New -York, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOSS *** - -***** This file should be named 51912-h.htm or 51912-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51912/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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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] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** 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 role 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 role -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 role 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 role 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 fetes -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 role 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 role 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 Caesar, 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 - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOSS *** - -***** This file should be named 51912.txt or 51912.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51912/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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-<pre>
-
-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
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
- <div style="height: 8em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- THE BOSS, AND HOW HE CAME TO RULE NEW YORK
- </h1>
- <h2>
- By Alfred Henry Lewis
- </h2>
- <h4>
- Author Of “Peggy O'Neal,” “President,” “Wolfvilledays,” Etc.
- </h4>
- <h4>
- A. L. Burt Company, Publishers, New York
- </h4>
- <h5>
- 1903
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0005.jpg" alt="0005 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0005.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- <b>CONTENTS</b>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE WORD OF PREFACE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>THE BOSS</b> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I—HOW THE BOSS CAME TO NEW YORK
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II—THE BOSS MEETS WITH POLITICS
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III—THE BOSS SEES THE POWER OF
- TAMMANY </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV—THE BOSS ENTERS THE PRIMARY
- GRADE OF POLITICS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V—THE BATTLE OF THE BALLOTS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI—THE RED JACKET ASSOCIATION </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII—HOW THE BOSS WAS NAMED FOR
- ALDERMAN </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII—THE FATE OF SHEENY JOE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX—HOW BIG KENNEDY BOLTED </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X—HOW JIMMY THE BLACKSMITH DIED
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI—HOW THE BOSS STOOD AT BAY FOR
- HIS LIFE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII—DARBY THE GOPHER </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII—BIG KENNEDY AND THE MUGWUMPS
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV—THE MULBERRY FRANCHISE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV—THAT GAS COMPANY INJUNCTION </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI—THE BOSS IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE
- BOSS! </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII—THE REPUTABLE OLD GENTLEMAN IS
- MAYOR </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII—HOW THE BOSS TOOK THE TOWN
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX—THE SON OF THE WIDOW VAN FLANGE
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX—THE MARK OF THE ROPE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI—THE REVEREND BRONSON'S
- REBELLION </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII—THE MAN OF THE KNIFE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII—THE WEDDING OF BLOSSOM </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV—HOW VAN FLANGE WENT INTO
- STOCKS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV—PROFIT AND LOSS; MAINLY THE
- LATTER </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI—THE VICTOR AND THE SPOILS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII—GOLD CAME, AND DEATH STEPPED
- IN </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII—BEING THE EPILOGUE </a>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE WORD OF PREFACE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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?
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- THE BOSS
- </h1>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER I—HOW THE BOSS CAME TO NEW YORK
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>Y 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER II—THE BOSS MEETS WITH POLITICS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “W'at's the row here?” demanded the officer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take him to the station!” cried Sheeny Joe, picking himself up, a
- dripping picture of blood; “he struck me with a knuckle duster.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why don't you take him in?” screamed Sheeny Joe. “W'at have you to do
- with his story?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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'?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The first thing you'll know,” cried Sheeny Joe fiercely, “I'll have them
- pewter buttons off your coat.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?” he asked, coming in front of the officer. “Turn that man
- loose,” he continued, pointing to Sheeny Joe.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “These two coves are under arrest,” said the officer, shaking Sheeny Joe
- and myself like rugs by way of identification.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know,” said the other, still in the low cool tone. “All the same, you
- turn this one loose.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The officer still hesitated with a look of half-defiance. With that the
- red-faced man lost temper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You should have said so at the jump,” remarked the officer sullenly. “How
- was I to know who you are?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What'll I do with the boy?” asked the officer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “An' the girl!” screamed Sheeny Joe. “I want her lagged too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “An' the girl, officer,” commanded the red-faced one. “Take her along with
- the boy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm a taxpayer!” shouted the reputable old gentleman furiously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You 'say,'” mocked the captain, in high scorn. “An' who are you? Who is
- this fellow?” he demanded, looking about him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He's one of my people,” said the red-faced man, still coolly by the desk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll have his life!” I foamed.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER III—THE BOSS SEES THE POWER OF TAMMANY
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HAT 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now then, young gallows-bird,” said the functionary, “be you ready for
- court?”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sure! they'll let you go.” My hopes gained their feet. “To Blackwell's.”
- My hopes lay prone again.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was nothing to brighten the eye in the story, and my ribs seemed to
- inclose a heart of wood.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- When my name was called, an officer of the court opened a gate in the
- prisoner's pen and motioned me to come forth.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There was a girl brought in with him, your honor,” remarked the officer
- at the gate.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who complains of these defendants?” asked the magistrate in a mild
- non-committal voice, glancing about the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do, your honor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell your story,” said the magistrate to Sheeny Joe. His manner was full
- of commiseration for that unworthy. “What did he assault you with?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Dead Rabbit a low resort!” cried Sheeny
- </p>
- <p>
- Joe indignantly. “The place is as straight as a gun.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The captain grinned easily to find himself thus distinguished. The grin
- irritated the reputable old gentleman, who was even more peppery than
- reputable.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's what they all say,” remarked the captain, stifling a yawn.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “If the court please, I'm told so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your honor, it was the Dead Rabbit,” said Sheeny Joe.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is the Dead Rabbit,” observed the magistrate, to the captain, who was
- still lounging about, “is the Dead Rabbit a place of good repute?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It aint no Astor House,” replied the captain, “but no one expects an
- Astor House in Water Street.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it a resort for thieves?”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is the Dead Rabbit a resort for thieves?” again asked the magistrate.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” replied the captain judgmatically, “even a crook has got to go
- somewhere. That is,” he added, “when he aint in hock.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What will you have, Mr. Kennedy?” purred the magistrate obsequiously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you mean, sir, by calling me an old sport?” demanded the
- reputable old gentleman.
- </p>
- <p>
- The red-faced man did not heed the question, but wheeled briskly on the
- magistrate.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he said the Dead Rabbit was a drum for crooks!” protested Sheeny Joe,
- speaking to the redfaced man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “S'ppose he did,” retorted the other, “that don't take a dollar out of the
- drawer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “An' he's to break my nose an' get away?” complained Sheeny Joe.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir,” I answered faintly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER IV—THE BOSS ENTERS THE PRIMARY GRADE OF POLITICS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">P</span>ERHAPS 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Upon the day following my release, as he had bid me.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Big Kennedy told me I must go to work.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You've got to work, d'ye see,” said he, “if it's only to have an excuse
- for livin'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he asked me what I could do. On making nothing clear by my replies—for
- I knew of nothing—he descended to particulars.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you know of horses? Can you drive one?”
- </p>
- <p>
- My eye brightened; I might be trusted to handle a horse.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How is Mr. Kennedy?” This with exuberance. “It makes me prout that you
- pay me a wisit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm goin' to get him new duds,” said Big Kennedy, “if that's what you're
- thinkin' about.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Still, the grocer, though not without some show of respectful alarm,
- insisted on a first position.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If he was so well dressed even as you, Mr. Kennedy, yet I haf no
- wacancy,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's all right,” said Big Kennedy. “I owe you that much for havin' you
- chucked into a cell.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You're the party I'm lookin' for!” was all he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Mike glanced at me out of his twinkling gray eyes. After a moment he
- said, addressing me:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come ag'in.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That was all I had from Old Mike that journey.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER V—THE BATTLE OF THE BALLOTS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reputable old gentleman was set aback by the news. Next he took heart
- of grace.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This open-air selfishness as declared by Old Mike rather served to shock
- the reputable old gentleman.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And in politics do you think first of yourself?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not only first, but lasht,” replied Old Mike. “An' so do you; an' so does
- every man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you a taxpayer?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have th' house,” responded Old Mike, with a smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you given much attention to political economy?” This with an erudite
- cough. “Have you made politics a study?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” I nodded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Big Kennedy smiled upon the reputable old gentleman, but made no other
- reply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's nothin',” returned the other gayly; “I have voted for a president
- eighty times before ten o'clock.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In the midst of the laugh that followed this piece of characteristic wit,
- Big Kennedy crossed to where I stood.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Send your boys along!” said he. “Let's see how good you are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- My whistle screamed the signal. At the first sharp note, a cry went up:
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Tin Whistles! The Tin Whistles!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Big Kennedy nodded, and the zealot who saved the ballot-box passed on and
- disappeared.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- The hurly-burly had now ceased; all was as calm and equal as a goose pond.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did we beat them?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Snowed'em under!” said Big Kennedy.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VI—THE RED JACKET ASSOCIATION
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Gaffney showed not a little shaken. He asked, in a manner sullen yet
- beaten, what he should do.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I could sell out, I'd quit,” said Gaffney.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” responded Big Kennedy, “I always like to help a friend.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Grocer Fogel bought Gaffney's store, making a bargain.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As the days drew on, I grew in favor with Big Kennedy, and the blossom
- thereof took this color.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How about the Tin Whistles?” I hinted. “Would they do to build on?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But where's the money?” said I. “These people I have in mind haven't much
- money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What shall we call it?” I asked, as I arose to go.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Give it an Indian name,” said Big Kennedy. “S'p-pose you call it the Red
- Jacket Association.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I won't be of age,” I suggested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll clink your anvil for you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bring your sledge, Jimmy,” shouted some humorist; “you'll need it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jimmy the Cur! it ought to be,” growled one, whose disappointment over a
- fight deferred was sore in the extreme.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VII—HOW THE BOSS WAS NAMED FOR ALDERMAN
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>OW 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They're the foot-stones of politics,” said Old Mike. “Kape th' p'lice,
- an' you kape yourself on top.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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?
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bunco the foe!” was the watchword; “take their money and 'con' them!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Big Kennedy wants you to come at once to the Tub of Blood,” said Sheeny
- Joe.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “They want you inside.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good-night, gentlemen,” was all I said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll set up the gin, won't you?” cried one, finding his voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VIII—THE FATE OF SHEENY JOE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You don't twig!” said he, recovering a partial gravity. “I'm goin' to
- send him over th' road for robbery.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he hasn't robbed anybody!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Big Kennedy made a gesture of impatience, mixed with despair.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you spoke of a robbery!” I interjected; “Sheeny Joe has robbed no
- one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Billy, you know where to find the Rat?” Then, when the other nodded: “Go
- an' tell the Rat I want him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is the Rat?” I queried. I had never heard of the Rat.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He's a pickpocket,” responded Big Kennedy, “an' as fly a dip as ever
- nipped a watch or copped a leather.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sure!” said he. “Tell him to come along.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it, Mr. Bronson?” asked Big Kennedy pleasantly; “what can I do
- for you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The young clergyman's purpose was to ask assistance for a mission which he
- proposed to start near the Five Points.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly,” said Big Kennedy, “an' not a moment to wait!” With that he
- gave the young clergyman one hundred dollars.
- </p>
- <p>
- When that gentleman, after expressing his thanks, had departed, Big
- Kennedy sighed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Rat was uneasily questioning my presence with his eye. Big Kennedy
- paused to reassure him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Rat said never a word, but his glance left me and he gave entire heed
- to Big Kennedy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't have to go to court ag'inst him?” said the Rat interrogatively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was the next evening at the ferry. Suddenly a cry went up.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thief! Thief! My pocketbook is gone!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's your man!” whispered the Rat, pointing to Sheeny Joe, whose
- footsteps he had been dogging the livelong day; “there's your man!”
- </p>
- <p>
- In a moment the broad man had thrown himself upon Sheeny Joe.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Call the police!” he yelled. “He's got my pocket-book!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The officer pulled him off Sheeny Joe, whom he had thrown to the ground
- and now clung to with the desperation of the robbed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Give me a look in!” said the officer, thrusting the broad man aside. “If
- he's got your leather we'll find it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's it!” screamed the broad man, “that's my wallet with over six
- hundred dollars in it! The fellow stole it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you goin' back on me?” wailed Sheeny Joe.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shall I take bail for him, Mr. Kennedy, if any shows up?” asked the
- officer in charge.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; no bail!” replied Big Kennedy. “If anyone offers, tell him I don't
- want it done.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He got four spaces!” said one in an awed whisper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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'!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's all right, then!” declared Old Mike decisively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER IX—HOW BIG KENNEDY BOLTED
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>EFORE 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No harm done, I think?” said I, when we were both ashore again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- My Sicilian came, as I had told him, and I gave him the knife. He was
- extravagant in his gratitude.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- When I told Big Kennedy, he turned the idea on his wheel of thought for
- full two minutes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What have I done?” said he. “Can I square it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never!” I retorted; “there's some things one can't square.” Then I told
- him of Anne, and his insult.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's enough,” he replied, tossing his hand resignedly. “I can take my
- medicine when it's come my turn.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- This want of a money wit is a defect of my nature. A great merchant late
- in my life once said to me:
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why don't you kiss your bride!” cried Anne, at the heel of the ceremony.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The split came when, by suggestion of Old Mike and
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know the meaning of this. I shall tear you in two in the middle an'
- leave you on both sides of the street!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I s'ppose you think you know what you're doin'?” said the other angrily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can put a bet on it that I do,” retorted Big Kennedy. “I wasn't born
- last week.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That evening as we sat silent and thoughtful, Big Kennedy broke forth with
- a word.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER X—HOW JIMMY THE BLACKSMITH DIED
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How much should it take?” asked the reputable old gentleman.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say twenty thousand!” returned Big Kennedy, as cool as New Year's Day.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Twenty thousand dollars!” repeated the reputable old gentleman, with wide
- eyes. “Will it call for so much as that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But what can you do with so much?” asked the reputable old gentleman
- dismally. “It seems a fortune! What would you do with it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mass meetin's, bands, beer, torches, fireworks, halls; but most of all,
- buy votes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Buy votes!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman, his cheek paling.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But their interest as citizens! I should think they'd look at that!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Their first interest as citizens,” observed Big Kennedy, with a cynical
- smile, “is a five-dollar bill.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But do you think it right to purchase votes?” asked the reputable old
- gentleman, with a gasp.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reputable old gentleman remained for a moment in deep thought. Then he
- got upon his feet to go.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll send my son to talk with you,” he said. Then faintly: “I guess this
- will be all right.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's right!” said Big Kennedy. “The sooner we get th' oil, th' sooner
- we'll begin to light up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm Mr. Morton—Mr. James Morton,” he drawled. “You know my father.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Once in the sanctum, and none save Big Kennedy and myself for company,
- young Morton came to the question.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Six young blacks, each with a pleasant grin, marched into the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Following the going of the messenger, Big Kennedy fell into a brown study.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you think you'll deal in again with the Chief and the machine?” I
- asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It depends on what's offered. A song an' dance won't get me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But how about the Mortons? Would you abandon them?”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you quit your friends?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jimmy the Blacksmith and his heelers are driving our people from the
- polls.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know what to do!” said Big Kennedy, tossing me the scrap of paper.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've got you!” I cried, and then wrenched myself free to give me
- distance.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XI—HOW THE BOSS STOOD AT BAY FOR HIS LIFE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You don't think I killed him!” I exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who else?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, Mr. Kennedy,” remonstrated the warden, “I don't know about that.
- It's after lockin'-up hours now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Deuced wretched quarters, I should say!” murmured young Morton, glancing
- for a moment inside the cell. “Not at all worth cutting a throat for.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dave, s'ppose you step outside,” said Big Kennedy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's no use you hearin' what we say; it might get you into trouble, d'ye
- see!” The last, insinuatingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll get done up if you don't!” growled Big Kennedy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, yes,” replied Big Kennedy, with an ugly glare at the warden, “I said
- that it might be a good idea to sweeten him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- I told him of the Sicilian; and how I had recognized the knife as I drew
- it from the throat of the dead man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What was that?” he asked, when Big Kennedy spoke of money.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He could go down to Coney Island an' beat th' shells,” said Big Kennedy
- confidently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This suggestion appealed to Big Kennedy as good. He thought, too, that he
- and young Morton might better set about the matter without delay.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Or for that matter, the wrong either?” put in Big Kennedy sagely. “I've
- never seen money lose a fight.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- As Big Kennedy and young Morton reached the door, I bethought me for the
- first time to ask the result of the election.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Was your father successful?” I queried. “These other matters quite drove
- the election from my head.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I said that he won in a walk,” returned Big Kennedy. Then, suspiciously:
- “Say you aint guying me, be you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Me guy you?” repeated young Morton, elevating his brows. “I'd as soon
- think of deriding a king with crown and scepter!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There were no Irishmen in the panel, and I commented on the fact as
- strange.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why didn't you seize him?” questioned the State's Attorney, with a
- half-sneer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not on your life!” said the witness. “I aint collarin' nobody; I don't
- get policeman's wages.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not guilty!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Judge's face was like thunder; he gulped and glared, and then
- demanded:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is this your verdict?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is,” returned the foreman, standing in his place; and his eleven
- fellow jurors, two of whom belonged to my Red Jackets, nodded assent.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is she—where is my wife?” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think he may come in,” he said. “But make no noise! Don't excite her!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- —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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XII—DARBY THE GOPHER
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>OXY 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can anything be done with the one who has?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then you've no hope?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- One afternoon Big Kennedy of the suddenest broke upon me with an
- exclamation of triumph.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have it!” he cried; “I know the party who will show us every paper in
- that safe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is he?” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Big Kennedy came into the sanctum on the following evening, the grasp
- he gave me was the grasp of victory.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's all over but th' yellin'!” said he; “we've got them papers in a
- corner.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is he?” I demanded, my amazement beginning to sit up.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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'.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is he a burglar?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aren't you afraid he'll run?” I said. “You can't watch him night and day,
- and he'll give you the slip.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's his name?” I inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Darby the Goph.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Darby the Goph would lounge and kill time while Foxy Billy moiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The police officer arrived, and Big Kennedy told him to see Darby the Goph
- aboard the train.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “An' a taxpayer,” added Big Kennedy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” said the reputable old gentleman, “the great thing is to pitch upon
- a proper paper.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's the <i>Dally Tory?</i>” suggested Big Kennedy. “It's a very
- honest sheet,” said the reputable old gentleman approvingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- For these double reasons of probity and wrath, the <i>Daily Tory</i> was
- agreed to. The reputable old gentleman would put himself in touch with the
- <i>Daily Tory</i> without delay.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is this Chief of Tammany?” asked the reputable old gentleman, towards
- the close of the conference. “Personally, I know but little about him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But is he a deep, forceful man?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reputable old gentleman was bowing us out of his library, when Big
- Kennedy gave him a parting word.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now remember: my name aint to show at all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But the honor!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman. “The honor of this
- mighty reform will be rightfully yours. You ought to have it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you prefer money to honor?” returned the reputable old gentleman,
- somewhat scandalized.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Four days later the <i>Daily Tory</i> 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Papers sail only with the wind,” said Big Kennedy sagely, in commenting
- on these ink-desertions of the Chief.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What you must do, father,” said Big Kennedy cheerfully, “is get well, an'
- see that I run things straight.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jawn,” returned Old Mike, smiling faintly, “this is Choosday; by Saturday
- night I'll be dead an' under th' daisies.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIII—BIG KENNEDY AND THE MUGWUMPS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And so,” cried the reputable old gentleman, “you call the suppression of
- gamblers and base women, puritanism? Casebottle, I'm surprised!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sure!” returned that chieftain. “There's always more danger in too much
- steam than in too little.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would your last include you and me?” I asked. I thought I might hazard a
- small jest, since we were now alone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm to go with you to his house,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “McCue!” returned the Chief of Police in tones of surprise. “That man
- would never do! He's as honest as a clock!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Honest!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, and his amazement was a picture. “Well,
- what does he think he's doin' on th' force, then?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIV—THE MULBERRY FRANCHISE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HAT'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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go on,” said Big Kennedy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you th' people ready to take th' preferred?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ready and waiting. If I had the franchise, I could float those eight
- millions within ten days.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you figger would be th' road's profits?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ask what you please,” said young Morton, as brisk as a terrier.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How much do you argue that I'll require as a preliminary to the grant of
- the franchise?” asked young Morton, interrupting Big Kennedy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Every splinter of four hundred thousand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That was my estimate,” said young Morton; “but I've arranged for twice
- that sum.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is th' Rothschild you will get it from?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good!” ejaculated Big Kennedy, with the gleam which never failed to
- sparkle in his eye at the mention of rotund riches.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Father,' said I, 'you are aware of the New York alternative?'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'What is it?' he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Get money or get out.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Well!' said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Store?' he inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Really, it was on my mind to do so,' I replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'My scheme is this: I shall make an alliance with Mr. Kennedy.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'It was by following your advice, sir,' said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Following my advice!' exclaimed my father. 'What do you mean, sir? Or
- are you mad?'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you approve my proposition?” he asked of Big Kennedy, “and will you
- give me your aid?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The proposition's all hunk,” said Big Kennedy. “As to my aid: that
- depends on whether we come to terms.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What share would you want?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Forty per cent, of th' common stock,” responded Big Kennedy. “That's
- always th' Tammany end; forty per cent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I put in my pull,” retorted Big Kennedy grimly. “You get your franchise
- from me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “From the City,” corrected young Morton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You spoke of four hundred thousand dollars as precedent to the
- franchise,” said young Morton. “Where will that go?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's as many as thirty hungry ones who, here an' there an' each in our
- way, must be met an' squared.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How much will go to your fellows?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That should do,” observed young Morton thoughtfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- When young Morton was about to go, Big Kennedy detained him with a final
- query.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “McGinty and Doloran,” I replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can tell on the instant,” I said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XV—THAT GAS COMPANY INJUNCTION
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OUNG 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- One day young Morton told me how the Gas Company had lodged suit against
- Mulberry.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Gas Company goes vastly out of its way in this!” observed the
- reputable old gentleman indignantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let us go over to Tammany Hall,” said I, “and talk with Big Kennedy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He seems a most unpromising foundation upon which to build one's hope,”
- said the Reverend Bronson dubiously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And will he then return to his drunkenness?” asked the Reverend Bronson.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sure as you're alive!” said Big Kennedy. “The moment I take my hooks off
- him, down he goes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What you say interests me! Why not send him to my mission, and let me
- compass his reform.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If his case is so hopeless, I marvel that you tolerate him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Reverend Bronson was a trifle piqued at Big Kennedy for thinking his
- influence would fall short of the drunkard's reform.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Big Kennedy called one of his underlings, and gave him directions to have
- the sleeping drunkard conveyed instantly to a bath-house.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Judge Mole,” said young Morton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Gas Company's judge!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman, in
- horrified amazement.
- </p>
- <p>
- Big Kennedy, at this, shone down upon the reputable old gentleman like a
- benignant sun.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In what manner,” snorted the reputable old gentleman, “does one of our
- great corporations become possessed of a judge?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reputable old gentleman expressed unbounded indignation, while Big
- Kennedy laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Explain,” said young Morton eagerly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because I'll tell 'em to.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Th' Gas Company'll come to me, an' ask for orders.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reputable old gentleman drew a long breath, while his brows worked up
- and down.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And dare you tell me,” he cried, “that men of millions—our leading
- men of business, will come to you and ask your commands?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reputable old gentleman looked mystified. Young Morton, for his part,
- began to smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Better see the Boss,' the Street Commissioner will whisper, when the Gas
- Company asks what's wrong.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Humph!” retorted the reputable old gentleman angrily. “Every Esau,
- selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, would speak the same.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There's two hundred thousand dollars' worth of Uncle Sam's bonds,” said
- he. “That's your end of Mulberry Traction.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You've sold out?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sold out an' got one million two hundred thousand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The stock would have gone higher,” said I. “You would have gotten more if
- you'd held on.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Big Kennedy, with that, gave my hand a Titan's grip in indorsement of my
- resolve.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now ensues a great heave upward in my destinies.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's wrong?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XVI—THE BOSS IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE BOSS!
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>IG 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Always go with th' current; that's th' first rule of leadership. It's
- easier; an' there's more water down stream than up.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Morton was so much his old practical self that he bade me consider a
- candidate and a programme.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What else can you do?” asked Morton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can tell you what was in my mind,” said I. “It was to go with this
- labor movement and control it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is an honest man,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell me how,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “One can't stop a runaway horse with money,” I retorted; “and this labor
- movement is a political runaway.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say twenty-five thousand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Should I?” I returned. “Now I'll let you into an organization tenet.
- Tammany, blow high, blow low, thinks only of itself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You would be given half the offices, remember.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the Police?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the Police.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tammany couldn't keep house without the police,” said I, laughing.
- “You've seen enough of our housekeeping to know that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You may have the police, and what else you will.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XVII—THE REPUTABLE OLD GENTLEMAN IS MAYOR
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Should any get in your way,” said I, “he must be sent to the outskirts. I
- shall hold you for everything that goes wrong.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Has Gothecore had experience?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well,” said I, “the care of these colonists is in your hands. Here's
- a list of the places where they're berthed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Public office is a public trust!” cried he, quoting some lunatic
- abstractionist.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never fear; I'll have the city in the hollow of my hand within the year,”
- said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will show you where to find a million or two in Wall Street, if you
- do,” he returned.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XVIII—HOW THE BOSS TOOK THE TOWN
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And why should I not?” said I. “You follow the flag of your interest; I
- but profit by your example.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir!” cried the reputable old gentleman haughtily, “I have no interest
- save the interest of The public.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, I deny the term 'prig.' If such were my celebration, I should not
- have waited to hear it from you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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?'
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is no way to tell how a man votes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Really, now,” said he, at last, “how many under the old plan would handle
- your money about each polling place?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And so you're the Czar!” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” said I, “you said something of the sort.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” I replied, “the thing is news to me. I know nothing of stocks.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the beginning, I was cold, doubtful; I distrusted a public approval of
- the grants, and feared the public's resentment.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tammany must retain the people's confidence,” said I. “It can only do so
- by protecting jealously the people's interests.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “And now I suppose we may give Blackberry its franchises?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What then?” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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 <i>Daily Tory</i>?”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIX—THE SON OF THE WIDOW VAN FLANGE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nor was I unjustified of authority.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Anne did not believe with that savant of nerves. She distrusted my society
- plans for Blossom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You, yourself, are in its midst.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But it is of my Blossom I am thinking,” I cried. “For myself I am not so
- ambitious.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You tried to put a rope about my neck,” said I at last.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was misled as to the truth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am ever ready to repair an error.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Still I have no education,” I said, when the Reverend Bronson spoke of
- his surprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you have, though,” returned he, “only you came by that education not
- in the common way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And are not the police good judges of these matters?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Melting Moses, as a name, should do very well,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Little by little, scrap by scrap, Melting Moses gave me his story. Put
- together in his words, it ran like this:
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “After d' foist night he brings her up ag'in.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Dat's d' number one d'gree,' says he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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'!
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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?'
- </p>
- <p>
- “But me mudder couldn't tell.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Give d' old goil d' dungeon,' says d' Captain; 'an' t'row her in a brace
- of rats to play wit'.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “An' it would too, only she goes dotty.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Melting Moses shed tears at this.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She's a dame in black,” said Melting Moses; “an' she's of d' Fift' Avenoo
- squeeze all right.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Show her in!” I said.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XX—THE MARK OF THE ROPE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But why do you furnish him money?” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You should keep him without a penny.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But those checks,” I observed, “should be worthless, for you have told me
- how your son has no money of his own.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And that is it,” returned the Widow Van Flange.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- I seized Melting Moses by the shoulder, and so held him back from flying
- at Gothecore with teeth and claws.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He killed me mudder!” cried Melting Moses, struggling in my fingers like
- something wild.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What was the trouble?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why do you stand for that young whelp?” he cried. “I won't have it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The boy is doing you no harm.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I won't have it!” he cried again. The man was like a maniac.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go in; I've business with you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Gothecore seemed to recall himself to steadiness. Without more words, he
- entered my door.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Here the eye of Gothecore wandered towards the ceiling, recalling the mad
- pranks of young Van Flange.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's a cinch, Madam!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And he'd be murdered?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam, it's apples to ashes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's a hemorrhage!” said Gothecore.
- </p>
- <p>
- The awe of death lay upon the man, and his coarse voice was stricken to a
- whisper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now Heaven have my soul!” murmured the dying woman. Then: “My son! oh, my
- son!”
- </p>
- <p>
- There came another crimson cataract, and the Widow Van Flange was dead.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is your work!” said I, turning fiercely to Gothecore.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Or is it yours?” cries he.
- </p>
- <p>
- The words went over my soul like the teeth of a harrow. Was it my work?
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But your franchise does not call for a conduit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But what do you want the conduit for?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your charter isn't in the way?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well!” I replied, “there shall be no interference the city. If the
- papers grumble, I leave you and them to fight it out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do it for the good of my child,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!
- </p>
- <p>
- “'But what is he?' asked Mamma DeMudd, when I proposed you for her notice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'He's a despot,' said I, 'and rules New York. Every man in town is his
- serf.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “When Mamma DeMudd got this magnificent idea into her head, she was eager
- to see you; she was, really.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Speaking of new topics, then,” said I, “let me ask of your father. How
- does he fare these days?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- With that, irritated of too much opposition and the hateful mystery of it,
- I turned roughly practical.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do not understand!” persisted Anne, with sober gentleness. “Blossom
- would not wear an evening dress.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There,” whispered Anne, “there! Look on her throat!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The mark of the rope!” I gasped. “It is the mark of the rope!”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXI—THE REVEREND BRONSON'S REBELLION
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HAT 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What can we do?” said I, at last.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let Blossom take the veil,” said Anne. “A convent, and the good work of
- it, would give her peace.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If that be true,” returned the Reverend Bronson, promptly, “give me
- Inspector McCue.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is, at least, reason to think so,” retorted the Reverend Bronson in
- a dry tone.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Gothecore came in, I caught him at the first of it glowering
- furtively about, as though seeking someone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is that Melting Moses?” he inquired, when he saw how I observed him
- to be searching the place with his eye.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And why?” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well then,” said I, a bit impatiently, “I should have thought a
- full-grown Captain of Police was above fearing a boy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Without giving Gothecore further opening, I told him the story of the
- Reverend Bronson, and that campaign of purity he would be about.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And as to young Van Flange,” said I. “Does he still lose his money in
- Barclay Street?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They made quick work of him,” was my comment.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But is he a man of strength? Can he make trouble?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Trouble?” This with contempt. “When it comes to makin' trouble, he's a
- false alarm.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” said I, in conclusion, “McCue and the dominie are going into your
- precinct.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'd better keep your muzzle on,” I retorted. “Your mouth will get you
- into trouble yet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Gothecore went away grumbling, and much disposed to call himself ill-used.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take young Van Flange,” went on the Reverend Bronson, disregarding my
- remark. “They've ruined the boy; and you might have saved him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you call him a bad lot,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “His family is one of the best,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- For myself, I've a sincere respect for blood, and some glimpse of it must
- have found display in my face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you say the same of a horse or a dog?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What would you call a gentleman, then?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- Morton's theories, while I in no manner subscribed to them, entertained
- me.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What should I call a gentleman? Why I should call him the caricature of a
- man, don't y' know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Only this,” returned McCue. “I'd like to have you tell me flat, whether
- or no you want these parties pinched.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you will be so good as to explain?” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because, if I am to go on, I must begin by collaring the chief. He's the
- principal owner of that Barclay Street joint.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This was indeed news, and I had no difficulty in looking grave.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Inspector McCue sat biting his lips. After a moment, he got upon his feet
- to go.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sit down, Doctor,” said I soothingly, at the same time placing a chair;
- “sit down.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXII—THE MAN OF THE KNIFE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now, what were his words?” said I, for I was willing to discover how far
- Inspector McCue had used my name.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Doctor, what's the use?' said Inspector McCue. 'We're up against it; we
- can't move a wheel.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'And yet,' said I, 'we prate of liberty!'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Liberty!' cried he. 'Doctor, our liberties are in hock to the
- politicians, and we've lost the ticket.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is a debt you owe Above!” returned the Reverend Bronson, the
- preacher within him beginning to struggle.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Morton, I remember, did not share my enthusiasm. It was when I suggested
- Gutterglory as counsel for Mulberry.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gutterglory is the most eloquent of men,” I protested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He seemed to think it not open to contradiction.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Who murdered the man?
- </p>
- <p>
- Half the town said Gothecore.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you mean?” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he told the story; and how Gothecore and Melting Moses were taken
- from the river not four hours before.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Man overboard!' yells some guy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The man overboard is Gothecore. Two or three coves come chasin' up to
- lend a hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Morton had seen disaster on its way.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Man of the Knife!”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXIII—THE WEDDING OF BLOSSOM
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">G</span>RAY, 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come with me,” said I. “You shall have a berth; and I've nothing now to
- do but seek for it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Suppose they were to love and wed?”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- One day I put the question of young Van Flange to Morton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But his habits are now good,” I urged. “And he is industrious, is he
- not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will he not loathe her?” said I. “Will his love not change to hate when
- he knows?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did your love change?” Anne asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But that is not the same.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear sir,” exclaimed the Reverend Bronson, “surely you do not defend
- gambling.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The policy shops stretch forth their sordid palms for the pennies of the
- very poor,” said the Reverend Bronson earnestly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me hear,” observed the Reverend Bronson, amused if not convinced,
- “what your remedy for the town's bad morals would be.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You would have difficulty, I fear,” remarked the Reverend Bronson, “in
- convincing your gilded fellows of the virtuous propriety of labor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You would deal with men as you do with swine?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sticking to what you term the practical,” said the Reverend Bronson,
- “tell me wherein our reform administration has weakened itself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXIV—HOW VAN FLANGE WENT INTO STOCKS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Morton, when I called young Van Flange from his Mulberry desk to send him
- into Wall Street, was filled with distrust of the scheme.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Admitting all you say,” I replied, “it does not follow that another may
- not know or learn to know as much.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now what issue would you offer?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And do you shout 'Municipal Ownership!'—you with a street railway
- to lose?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To simply shout 'Public Ownership:'” said I, “would hardly stir the
- depths. We would have to get down to something practical—something
- definite.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What a howl would go up from Fifth Avenue!” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You shall see a Tammany club in fashion's center, none the less.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do what you think best,” said I. “And, mind you: No word to Morton.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now I was about to suggest that,” said young Van Flange.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXV—PROFIT AND LOSS; MAINLY THE LATTER
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>INCE 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- More than one leader reported within five votes of his majority, and none
- went fifty votes astray.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Morton—that best of prophets!—believed in the star of the
- machine.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “About one hundred and twenty-five millions.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think, however,” said I, “that you have been one to profit by those
- same idiocies of the town.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I make you welcome in advance,” said I. “Give me but the town again, and
- you shall pick and choose.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In season, I handed my slate of names to the nominating committee to be
- handed by them to the convention.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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?
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you get on with your Blackberry?” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This, in the beginning, was rambled off with stops and halts, but in the
- wind-up it went glibly enough.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- As I was about to depart, Blossom came into the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- I had no more than time for a hurried kiss, for the need set forth in the
- note pulled at me like horses.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bar accidents,” said I, as I stood in the door, “tomorrow night we'll
- celebrate a victory.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Think, master; think what you do!” he cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- The picture of my girl's white face set me ablaze again. I turned the very
- torch of rage!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Be wise, master!” cried that one who had restrained me before. “Think of
- what you do!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have him away, then!” cried I. “Have him out of my sight, or I'll tear
- him to rags and ribbons where he lies!”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXVI—THE VICTOR AND THE SPOILS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>OR 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know young Van Flange?” Inspector McCue gave a nod of assent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you can locate him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The proposition is so easy it's a pushover.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But what did this Blackberry individual do?” I persisted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Was young Van Flange in the intrigue?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you intend by saying that young Van Flange was not in the affair
- in the beginning?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Morton was right; and I was to hear a worse tale, and that from Inspector
- McCue.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then clearing his throat, and stating everything in the present tense,
- after the police manner, Inspector McCue went on.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Opium?” I asked in astonishment. I had never harbored the thought.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go on,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Only,' says he, 'I don't know what money I've got. And I'm too dippy to
- find out.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “With that, I go through him. It's in his trousers pocket I springs a
- plant—fifteen hundred dollars, about.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Here's dough enough and over,' says I; and in six hours after, he's
- aboard ship.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What more do you know of young Van Flange?” I asked. “Did you learn
- anything about his business habits?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bring me no tales of him!” I cried. “I would free myself of every memory
- of the scoundrel!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But is it not humiliating?” asked the Reverend Bronson. “If what you say
- be true, does it not make for your discouragement?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do as much as any, by your indifference, to perpetuate those
- standards,” remarked the Reverend Bronson in a way of mournful severity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you will be welcome, Doctor, let me say!” I returned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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?
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXVII—GOLD CAME, AND DEATH STEPPED IN
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>OW, 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- The storm I unchained beat sorely, but he made no white-flag signs. I
- admired his fortitude, while I multiplied my war.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was Morton who pointed to that final feather which broke the camel's
- back.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What then?” cried I, for my heart was growing hot.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” said I, “it all comes back.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is her breathing,” said he; “otherwise her health is good for any call
- she might make upon it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you have her sent away?” I asked of the physician. “Say but the
- place; I will take her there myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- The physician met me at Blossom's door. He held me back with a gentle hand
- on my breast.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't go in!” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The girl is dead,” I heard one say.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What malady?” asked the other.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXVIII—BEING THE EPILOGUE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HAT 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you cry out against civilization?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was never much to laugh,” I interjected.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now with what do you charge civilization?” asked the Reverend Bronson.
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And do you uplift savagery?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Morton, beneath his fluff of cynicism, was a deal in earnest. The Reverend
- Bronson took advantage of it to say:
- </p>
- <p>
- “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.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “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:
- </p>
- <p>
- “'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.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <h3>
- THE END
- </h3>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
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