The anonymous letter is still being written. This is the weapon of the
cowardly and envious heart, so filled with venom and malice that it
has the courage or brazenness to go about piously proclaiming the word
duty. Beware of the woman who has ink-stains on her fingers and a duty
to perform; beware of her also who never complains of the lack of
time, but who is always harking on duty, duty. Some people live close
to the blinds. Oft on a stilly night one hears the blinds rattle never
so slightly. Is anything going on next door? Does a carriage stop
across the way at two o'clock of a morning? Trust the woman behind the
blinds to answer. Coming or going, little or nothing escapes this
vigilant eye that has a retina not unlike that of a horse, since it
magnifies the diameter of everything nine times. To hope for the worst
and to find it, that is the golden text of the busybody. The busybody
is always a prude; and prude signifies an evil-minded person who is
virtuous bodily. They are never without ink or soft lead-pencils. Ink
has accomplished more wonderful things than man can enumerate; though
just now a dissertation on ink in ink is ill-timed.
To return again to the anonymous letter. Add and multiply the lives it
has wrecked, the wars brought about. Menelaus, King of the Greeks,
doubtless received one regarding Helen's fancy for that simpering son
of Priam, Paris. The anonymous letter was in force even in that remote
period, the age of myths. It is consistent, for nearly all anonymous
letters are myths. A wife stays out late; her actions may be quite
harmless, only indiscreet. There is, alack! always some intimate
friend who sees, who dabbles her pen in the ink-well and labors over a
backhand stroke. It is her bounden duty to inform the husband
forthwith. The letter may wreck two lives, but what is this beside
stern, implacable duty? When man writes an anonymous letter he is in
want of money; when woman writes one she is in want of a sensation. It
is easy to reject a demand for money, but we accept the lie and wrap
it to our bosoms, so quick are we to believe ill of those we love.
This is an aspect of human nature that eludes analysis, as quicksilver
eludes the pressure of the finger. The anonymous letter breeds
suspicion; suspicion begets tragedy. The greatest tragedy is not that
which kills, but that which prolongs mental agony. Honest men and
women, so we are told, pay no attention to anonymous letters. They
toss them into the waste-basket ... and brood over them in silence.
Now, Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene was always considering her duty; her duty
to the church, to society, to charity, and, upon occasions, to her
lord and master.
"Bennington's men have gone out, the fools!" said Haldene from over
the top of his paper.
"Have they?" Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene nibbled the tip of her pen. She
sighed, tore up what she had written and filtered it through her
fingers into the waste-basket.
"Yes, they've gone out. I don't know what the business world is coming
to. Why, the brick-layer gets--I don't say earns--more than the
average clerk. And Bennington's men go out simply because he refuses
to discharge that young English inventor. ... What are you writing and
tearing up so often?" he asked, his curiosity suddenly aroused.
"A letter."
"Thoughts clogged?"
"It is a difficult letter to write."
"Then there can't be any gossip in it."
"I never concern myself with gossip, Franklyn. I wish I could make you
understand that."
"I wish you could, too." He laid his paper down. "Well, I'm off to the
club, unless you are particularly in need of me."
"You are always going to the club."
"Or coming back."
"Some husbands--"
"Yes, I know. But the men I play poker with are too much interested in
the draw to talk about other men's wives."
"It's the talk of the town the way you men play cards."
"Better the purse than the reputation."
"I haven't any doubt that you are doing your best to deplete both,"
coldly.
Then she sighed profoundly. This man was a great disappointment to
her. He did not understand her at all. The truth was, if she but knew
it, he understood her only too well. She had married the handsomest
man in town because all the other belles had been after him; he had
married money, after a fashion. Such mistakes are frequent rather than
singular these days. The two had nothing in common. It is strange that
persons never find this out till after the honeymoon. Truly, marriage
is a voyage of discovery for which there are no relief expeditions.
So Haldene went to the club, while his wife squared another sheet of
writing-paper and began again. Half an hour went by before she
completed her work with any degree of satisfaction. Even then she had
some doubts. She then took a pair of shears and snipped the crest from
the sheet and sealed it in a government envelope. Next she threw a
light wrap over her shoulders and stole down to the first letter-box,
where she deposited the trifle. The falling of the lid broke sharply
on the still night. She returned to the house, feeling that a great
responsibility had been shifted from hers to another's shoulders.
Indeed, she would have gone to any lengths to save Patty a life of
misery. And to think of that woman! To think of her assuming a
quasi-leadership in society, as if she were to the manner born! The
impudence of it all! Poor Mrs. Bennington, with her grey hairs; it
would break her heart when she found out (as Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene
determined she should) the sort of woman her son had married. She
straightened her shoulders and pressed her lips firmly and
contemplated a duty, painfully but rigorously performed. She cast the
scraps of paper into the grate and applied a match. It is not always
well that duty should leave any circumstantial evidence behind.
The evening papers devoted a good deal of space to the strike at the
Bennington shops. They frankly upheld Bennington. They admitted that
employers had some individual rights. They berated the men for
quarreling over a matter so trivial as the employment of a single
non-union man, who was, to say the most, merely an experimenter.
However, they treated lightly Bennington's threat to demolish the
shops. No man in his right mind would commit so childish an act. It
would be revenge of a reactive order, fool matching fools, whereas
Bennington ought to be more magnanimous. The labor unions called
special meetings, and with one or two exceptions voted to stand by the
action of the men.
There was positively no politics behind this strike; everybody
understood that; at least, everybody thought he understood. But there
were some who smiled mysteriously and wagged their heads. One thing
was certain; Bennington's friend, Warrington would lose many hundred
votes in November. For everybody knew which way the Republican
convention would go; there was nobody in sight but Warrington.
Bennington and Mrs. Jack dined at the old home that evening. There was
plenty of gloom and forced gaiety around the board. John pretended
that he was well out of a bad job; he was not a dreamer nor a
socialist, not he; Utopia was not for the iron age. He told stories,
joked and laughed, and smoked frequently. No one but the mother had
the courage to ask if he really meant to tear down the mills. She came
around the table, smoothed his hair as she had done since he was a
boy, and leaned over his chair.
"John?"
"Well, mother mine?"
"Shall you really do it?"
"Do what?"
"Tear it down."
He did not answer at once, and she waited, trembling.
"You would not have me take back my words to the men, would you,
mother?" quietly.
"Your father loved the place."
"And do I not?" a note of strong passion in his voice. "I shall tear
it down, if I live. Do not ask me anything more about it. Has Dick
been over to-day?"
"He telephoned that he would be over after dinner. He wants you to go
to the speech-making to-night." Patty rose from her seat at the table.
"Patty," said John, rather surprised at his discovery, "you are almost
a woman!"
"You men never see anything quickly," said Mrs. Jack. "Patty has been
a beautiful woman for several months."
Patty started, restrained the impulse to speak, and searched Mrs.
Jack's face. But Mrs. Jack had eyes for no one but John. Her thought
was far removed from her words. That telephone message rang in her
ears every hour of the day. One moment she was on the verge of telling
John, the next she dared not. What had that wretch found out? What
could he have found out? A lie; it could be nothing more nor less than
a lie; but the suspense and the waiting were killing her. Every beat
of her heart, every drop of her blood belonged to this man at her
side, and she would rather die than that doubt should mingle with his
love. She was miserable, miserable; she dared not confide in any one;
Patty was too young, for all her womanhood, to understand fully. Night
after night she forced her recollection through the dim past, but she
could find nothing but harmless, innocent follies. Alas, the
kaleidoscope of life has so many variant angles that no two eyes see
alike. What to her appeared perfectly innocent might appear evil in
the neighbors' eyes; what to her was sunshine, to another might be
shadow.
"Think of it!" said John. "Patty will be marrying before long."
Mrs. Bennington looked at Patty and sighed. To rear up children and to
lose them, that was the mother's lot. To accept these aches with
resignation, to pass the days in reconciling what might be with what
shall be, that was the mother's portion. Yes, Patty must some day
marry.
"When Patty marries, mother," said John, "you shall come and live with
Kate and me."
"You are moving me around like a piece of useless furniture," replied
Patty, with some resentment. "I doubt if I shall ever marry."
"Bosh!" laughed John. "There'll come some bold Lochinvar for you, one
of these days; and then off you'll go. There's the bell. That must be
Dick."
Patty and Mrs. Jack crossed glances quickly. John went to the door
himself and brought Warrington back with him.
"Won't you have a cup of tea, Mr. Warrington?" asked the mother.
"Thank you, I will." Warrington stirred the tea, gazing pleasantly
from face to face.
The lines in his face seemed deeper than usual; the under lids of the
eyes were dark, and the squareness of the jaw was more prominent. John
saw no change, but the three women did. Warrington looked careworn.
"Well, John, I see that you have done it."
"Yes."
"I'm terribly sorry, but you couldn't back down now and live in town."
"You see, mother?" John smiled sadly.
"Yes, my son. You will do what you think best and manliest."
"How's the cat?" asked Warrington.
"It still wanders about, inconsolable," answered Patty. How careworn
he looked!
"Poor beast! It is lucky to have fallen in such good hands."
"When you are mayor," said Patty, "you must give me a permit to rescue
stray cats from the pound."
"I'll do more than that; I'll build a house of shelter for them."
"What time does your speaker begin?" inquired John, lighting a fresh
cigar.
"John, you are smoking too much," remonstrated Mrs. Jack.
"I know it, honey."
"Rudolph begins at nine; if we go then that will be soon enough.
You'll be amused. Have you been riding lately?" Warrington directed
this question to Patty.
"Yes, regularly every morning." Patty dallied with the crumbs at the
side of her plate.
"I don't know what's the matter with me, but I find it wearies me to
climb on to a horse's back. I haven't got back to normal conditions
yet."
"I was wondering where you were."
"And how is Jove?" asked Mrs. Jack.
"He's snoozing out on the veranda. I take him everywhere now."
Presently they moved into the living-room. Warrington longed to sit
beside Patty, but of a sudden he had grown diffident. It amused him to
come into the knowledge that all his address and worldliness would not
stand him in good stead in the presence of Patty. Words were no longer
at his command; he was no longer at his ease. He was afraid of Patty;
and he was very, very lonely. That empty house over the way was no
longer home. There were moments when he regretted his plunge into
politics. He was not free to pack his luggage and speed away to lands
that urged his fancy. He had given his word, and he was too much of a
man to withdraw it. He must remain here and fight two battles.
Mrs. Jack had taken the seat next to him, and was asking him about the
progress of the play. It was going on so indifferently that he was of
half a mind to destroy it, which he did later. His glance always came
back to Patty. She was bent over her basket-work. She was calling him
Mr. Warrington again. Had he offended her in any manner? The light
from the lamp sparkled in her hair. She was as fresh and beautiful as
a July rose. But Mrs. Jack was an artist. She knew how to draw him
out; and shortly he was talking animatedly. It was now that Patty's
eyes began to rove.
John, his fingers meeting in an arch, one leg thrown restlessly across
the other, thoughtfully eyed his wife and his friend. ... It was a
lie; there was nothing in all the world so honest as Warrington's
hand, so truthful as his wife's eyes. Cursed be the doubt that had
wedged between these two he loved!
Time passes quickly or slowly, according to the state of mind. To John
the time was long; to Patty and Warrington it was too short; to Mrs.
Jack it was neither long nor short, but suspended.
"Time for us to go, John. You are not particular about a chair, are
you?" Warrington asked.
"Not I. I prefer to stand up in the rear of the hall. If I am bored I
can easily escape."
"Oh, the night will not be without some amusement."
"Take good care of John," whispered Mrs. Jack in Warrington's ear; as
the two men were about to depart.
"Trust me!" Warrington smiled.
Patty and John observed this brief intercourse. The eyes of love are
sharp. Patty was not jealous, neither was John; but something had
entered into their lives that gave to all trivial things a ponderous
outline.
"Don't let any reporters talk to John, Mr. Warrington," requested the
mother.
"I'll surround him."
"Shall we walk?" asked John.
"We can see better on foot."
"We'll walk, then."
So the two men went down town on foot, and Jove galloped back and
forth joyously. At any and all times he was happy with his master. The
one bane of his existence was gone, the cat. He was monarch of the
house; he could sleep on sofa-pillows and roll on the rugs, and
nobody stole his bones.
"Good dog," observed John.
"Money couldn't buy him. I saw that fellow Bolles to-day,"
tentatively.
"Bolles?" John did not recollect the name.
"The fellow you nearly throttled the other night," explained
Warrington. "He looked pretty well battered up. I never saw you lose
your temper so quickly before."
"He struck me without provocation, at the wrong moment. Who is going
to speak to-night?"
"Donnelly and Rudolph."
"What do you think? Donnelly called me up by 'phone this afternoon.
Wants to know if I really intend to tear down the shops. I told him I
had nothing to say on the subject."
"Tear them down. I should. You're a rich man."
"Money isn't the question. The thing is, what shall I do? I'm not
fitted for anything else."
"Tear down the shops and then build them up again, after a few years.
It will be a good lesson to these union leaders. And you could have
the fun of fighting to build up the trade your father left. You were
talking once of rebuilding entirely."
"Not a bad idea, Dick. Only, I feel sorry for the men."
"Why? Are they free men or are they not? It rested with them just as
much as it did with you. I am far removed from the principles of
unionism, as they stand to-day. I have no patience or sympathy with
men who can not, or will not, appreciate a liberal, honest employer."
"Let's change the subject, Dick."
For a block or so they proceeded in silence.
"John, you're the head of the family. I love Patty better than
anything else on God's earth. Do you mind?" Warrington uttered these
words swiftly, before his courage, which he had suddenly urged to its
highest, dropped back.
John swung round abruptly and brought his hands down heavily on
Warrington's shoulders.
"Is that true, Dick?"
"As I stand here. Oh, I know; I'm not good enough for Patty. I haven't
lived as decently as I might. I haven't gone through life as
circumspectly as you have. I drank; success made me dizzy. But I love
Patty--God bless her!--as I never hoped or dreamed of loving any
woman. You're a man, John; you will understand. I've been alone all my
life; buffeted here and there, living haphazard, without any
particular restraint on my desires. The dear old aunt was the only
tie, and that was delicate till I came home and found how good and
kind she was. I miss her; months from now I shall miss her a
hundredfold. I'm very lonely. You've all been so good to me. To be
alone, and to think of living alone for the rest of my days, is a
torture. My nature craves companionship, and this craving has led me
into plenty of mischief. I love Patty. What do you say, John?"
"Say? Why, you are good enough for any woman alive. I am very glad,
Dick. Patty married to you! You old farmer," affectionately, "I've
always been mentally pairing off you two! Come on; let's hear what the
political windmill has to say. They're burning red fire in front of
the hall."
But a moment gone their feet had dragged with each step; now there was
a lightness that was dancing. John knew that it was all a lie; and his
heart was as light as his feet. Kate, dear Kate! He was a wretch! He
slapped Warrington on the shoulder.
"To think of your marrying Patty, the little sister!"
"Don't go too fast, John," said Warrington with less enthusiasm. "I
haven't said a word to Patty yet; and if she's a sensible young woman,
she'll give me my conge first-off."
"By George, women are strange creatures. It's the truth, Dick; you
can't tell which way they'll go. But Patty's no fool." John hadn't
felt so good in many hours.
"But I love her, and God knows I shall try to be worthy of her, even
if I lose her. ... Sky-rockets!" with an upward glance. "That's the
signal for Rudolph's arrival at the hall."
"Come on, then!"
Rudolph was the great Jeffersonian Democrat, not by excellence, rather
by newspaper courtesy, and that, to be specific, by his own newspaper.
He had come up from New York that day to deliver his already famous
speech. He was one of the many possibilities in the political arena
for the governorship. And as he was a multimillionaire, he was sure of
a great crowd. As an Englishman loves a lord, so does the American
love a millionaire. Rudolph's newspaper was the only one in the
metropolis that patted him on the back regularly each morning. He was
the laboring man's friend; he was the arch enemy of the monopolies
(not yet called trusts); and so forth and so on. For all that some
laughed at him, he was an able politician, and was perfectly honest in
all his political transactions, which is something of a paradox. So he
came up to Herculaneum to convert the doubting. The laboring party
greeted him en masse, and stormed the hall for choice seats.
The hall was a low, rambling structure, bad for the voice, but capable
of seating a few thousands. The curbs glared with green and red fire,
and a band blared out the songs of freedom. The crowds surged back and
forth, grumbling and laughing and shouting. And the near-by saloons
did a land-office business. It was a great night for the man who had
nothing to do. All at once there was loud hurrahing. An open hack
drove up to the entrance, and the great Jeffersonian stood up, bowing,
bowing. The green light on one side and the red on the other gave to
his face a Gargantuan aspect rather than that of a Quixote, to whom he
was more often likened than to any other character in fiction. The
police cleared a pathway for the great man, and he hurried up the
steps. Another cheer, and another blast from the band. Great is
popularity, whose handmaiden is oblivion.
"They'll be doing all this to you some day," John declared, as he and
Warrington elbowed through the crowd, the dog between their legs.
"That's him!" cried a voice.
"Who?"
"The fellow that writes; Henderson's man."
"Salt licks for him!" came in derision.
"He'll give Donnelly a run for the money."
"Not in a thousand years!"
All this amused Warrington.
"How d' y' do, Mr. Warrington?"
A hand touched the prospective candidate on the arm. Warrington saw
Osborne's rubicund nose.
"So you're out, too, Mr. Osborne?"
"I never let meetings go by, Richard. Good evening, Mr. Bennington. A
man with ten millions doesn't look any different from ordinary
mortals, does he? But he is different, or he wouldn't have that
barrel. A million is like a light-house; it attracts all sorts of
birds."
Warrington laughed and went on. Once or twice he lost the dog, but
Jove managed to turn up each time.
"We'll stand at the left," said John; "it's nearer the exits."
"Just as you say. I wish I'd left the dog at home. He's a nuisance in
a crowd like this."
They presently stood with their backs to the wall and looked toward
the stage. Donnelly was already speaking about the great man who was
that night to address them.
"And," concluded the mayor, "Mr. Rudolph will lead us to a victory
such as the party in this state has not yet known." And half a hundred
more final words. Man approaches nearest woman's postscript when he
says: "And, gentlemen, just one word more!"
Meantime Warrington's gaze wandered here and there. He saw many
familiar faces,--politicians, prominent merchants of both parties, and
the usual exuberant hundreds drawn thither only by curiosity. These
were willing to applaud anything and anybody, without knowing or
caring what about. Quiet one moment, roaring the next; murmur, murmur,
like angry waters on shingle. These make and unmake public men; they
have nothing, but they can give everything. Strong tobacco smoke
rolled ceilingward, and those on the stage became blurred and
nebulous. Once Warrington caught a glimpse of a battered face, but it
disappeared quickly. However, he said nothing to Bennington. Again, he
saw McQuade moving about, within fifty feet. From time to time McQuade
stooped, and Warrington knew that the white dog was present.
"Gentlemen," concluded Donnelly, with a flourish, "William Henry
Rudolph, of New York, our next governor."
And, to quote the sympathetic reporters, "tremendous applause shook
the rafters." Mr. Rudolph rose majestically, and smiled and bowed.
Heigh-ho! man accepts applause so easily; the noise, not the heart
behind it; the uproar, not the thought. Man usually fools himself when
he opens his ears to these sounds, often more empty than brass. But so
porous is man's vanity that it readily absorbs any kind of noise
arranged for its benefit.
He began calmly. The orator always reserves his telling apostrophes
till that time when it is necessary to smite palm with fist. He spoke
of Jefferson, the simplicity of his life, the firmness of his purpose,
the height of his ideals. He forgot, as political speakers generally
forget who emulate their historic political forebears, that progress
rearranges principles and constitutions, that what passed as good
statesmanship in Jefferson's time is out of order in the present. Mr.
Rudolph paused in the middle of a metaphor. There was a sudden
commotion in the rear of the hall. Men were surging to and fro.
"Stand back!" cried a firm, resonant voice, full of anger.
The uproar increased. Those in the forward chairs craned their necks.
Some stood up to learn what the matter might be. Others mounted their
seats. A thousand absurd conjectures passed from mouth to mouth.
"Somebody's dropped dead!"
"Sit down in front! Sit down!"
"What's the matter?"
"Where are the police?"
"Put him out!"
"A fight!"
Blue helmets moved toward the scene of action slowly. Mr. Rudolph
still paused and moistened his lips impatiently. Men can give and take
away popularity in the same breath, but a dog fight is arranged by
occult forces, and must, like opportunity, be taken when it comes. We
are educated to accept oratory, but we need no education in the matter
of a dog fight. This red corpuscle was transmitted to us from the
Stone Age, and the primordial pleasures alone resist enlightenment.
Two bulldogs, one tan, the other white, were fighting desperately,
near the exits. In between human legs, under chairs, this way and
that, snarling, snapping, dragging. Men called out, kicked, tried to
use canes and umbrellas, and some burned matches. The dogs were
impervious. Now the white dog was atop, now the tan. So many
interfered that there was no interference.
It was Warrington who had cried out. He had been listening to the
orator; and Jove, smelling his enemy from afar, slyly crept out of his
master's reach. The white dog had also been on the watch. In the drop
of an eyelid the battle was on. Warrington instantly comprehended the
situation, when he saw McQuade, who had every confidence in his dog,
clear a circle. He pushed his way through the swaying wall of men and
commanded those in front to stand back. He was furious. He had no
objections to human beings fighting, but he detested these bloody
conflicts between dumb brutes. He called to Jove, but Jove was past
hearing; he had tasted his enemy's blood. Once Warrington succeeded in
parting the dogs, but the crush prevented his making the separation
complete. Instantly they were at it again. The police made superhuman
efforts to arrive before it was all over. The fight, however, came to
an end as suddenly as it had begun. Jove found his grip. But for the
broad collar on McQuade's dog the animal would have been throttled
then and there.
McQuade lost his temper and his discretion. He kicked Jove cruelly in
the side, at the very moment when Warrington had succeeded in breaking
the grip. Bennington thrust McQuade back violently, and he would have
fallen but for the dense pack bolstering him up.
"I'll remember that kick, Mr. McQuade," said Warrington, white in the
face.
"I don't think you'll be mayor of Herculaneum, Mr. Warrington,"
replied McQuade, glaring venomously at the man who had brushed him
aside so easily.
"Perhaps not, Mr. McQuade," said Warrington; "but at any rate there'll
be a reckoning for that kick. You've been trying for months to bring
these dogs together. You have finally succeeded, and your dog has been
licked soundly. You ought to be satisfied."
Warrington took Jove under his arm and pressed toward the door,
followed by Bennington, who was also in a fine rage. The dog, bloody
and excited, still struggled, though the brutal kick had winded him.
McQuade was no fool. He saw that if Warrington left this way the
impression would not be favorable to the boss contractor. So he made
haste to approach Warrington.
"Hold on there, Warrington. I apologize for kicking your dog. I admit
I was excited; and my dog was getting licked. I am sorry."
"All right, Mr. McQuade," said Warrington, who would have preferred
leaving, minus any apology. He understood perfectly well McQuade's
reason for bending.
"By George!" whispered Bennington, "I'd give a thousand for one good
punch at that ruffian's head. Brute, double-dealing brute! Look out
for him after this, Dick."
"I can take care of myself. Officer, will you kindly get a carriage
for me?"
"Sure, Mr. Warrington," said the policeman.
The two managed to get out. In fact, everybody was moving toward the
exits. They had forgotten Mr. Rudolph, who completed his effort before
a two-thirds empty hall. They say that he went back to his hotel that
night disgusted with humanity and, mayhap, with the fact that the
fight had not occurred nearer the stage. Orators are human also.
As Warrington followed Bennington into the carriage the door closed
and a head was thrust inside the open window.
"Don't forget me when you're mayor, Mr. Warrington," said Bill
Osborne.
"Well?" Warrington was in no mood for banalities.
Bill glanced hastily from side to side, then said, in a stage whisper
that sent Bennington into a roar of laughter:
"I sick'd 'em!"