THE KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD
Harwood reached the capital on the afternoon of the second day after
Mrs. Owen and Sylvia had gone East, and went at once to the Boordman
Building. Miss Farrell was folding and sealing letters bearing Bassett's
signature.
"Hello, little stranger; I'd begun to think you had met with foul
play, as the hero says in scene two, act three, of 'The Dark
Switch-Lantern'--all week at the Park Theatre at prices within the reach
of all. Business has been good, if you press me for news, but that
paper-mill hasn't had much attention since you departed this life.
Everybody's saying 'Stop, Look, Listen!' When in doubt you say
that,--the white aprons in the one-arm lunch rooms say it now when you
kick on the size of the buns. You will find your letters in the
left-hand drawer. I told that collector from the necktie foundry that he
needn't wear himself to a shadow carrying bills up here; that you paid
all your bills by check on the tenth of the month. As that was the
twenty-ninth, you'd better frame some new by-laws to avoid other breaks
like that. I can't do much lying at my present salary."
She stood with her hands clasping her belt, and continued to enlighten
him on current history as he looked over his letters.
"That young Allen Thatcher has been making life a burden to me in your
lamented absence. Wanted to know every few hours if you had come back,
and threatened to call you up on the long distance at Montgomery, but I
told him you were trying a murder case over there, and that if he didn't
want to get nailed for contempt of court he'd better not interrupt the
proceedings."
"You're speaking of Mr. Allen Thatcher, are you, Miss Farrell?" asked
Harwood, in the tone to which the girl frequently drove him.
"The same, like the mind reader you are! Say, that boy isn't stuck on
you or anything. He came up here yesterday afternoon when the boss was
out and wanted to talk things over. He seemed to think I hadn't anything
to do but be a sister to him and hear his troubles. Well, I've got
embarrassments of my own, with that true sport his papa sending me an
offer of a hundred per month to work for him. One hundred dollars a
month in advance! This, Mr. Harwood, is private and confidential. I
guess I haven't worked at the State House without learning a few tricks
in this mortal vale of politics."
She had calculated nicely the effect of this shot. Harwood might treat
her, as she said, like a step-child with a harelip, but occasionally she
made him sit up. He sat up now. He remarked with the diplomatic
unconcern that it was best to employ with her:--
"Refused the offer, did you, Miss Farrell?"
"I certainly did. As between a fat old sport like Ed Thatcher and a
gentleman like Mr. Bassett, money doesn't count--not even with a
p.w.g., or poor working girl, like me. Hush!--are we quite alone?" She
bent toward the door dramatically. "What he was playing for, as neat as
a hatpin in your loved one's eye, was some facts about the boss's
committee work in that last session I worked at the State House. Cute of
Thatcher? Well, not so awful bright! He doesn't know what he's up
against if he thinks Mort Bassett can be caught on flypaper, and you can
be dead sure I'm not going to sprinkle the sugar to catch our boss with.
All that Transportation Committee business was just as straight as the
way home; but"--Miss Farrell tapped her mouth daintily with her fingers
to stifle an imaginary yawn--"but little Rose brought down her shorthand
notebooks marked 'M.B. personal,' and the boss and I burned them
yesterday morning early, right there in that grate in his room. That's
what I think of Mr. Ed Thatcher. A pearl necklace for my birthday ought
to be about right for that."
Harwood had been drinking this in as he opened and sorted his letters.
He paused and stared at her absently.
"You referred to a caller a moment ago--the gentleman who annoyed you so
much on the telephone. Was I to call him or anything like that?"
"He left a good many orders, but I think you were to eat food with him
in the frosty halls of the University Club almost at once. He's in a
state of mind. In love with the daughter of his father's enemy--just
like a Park Theatre thriller. Wants you to tell him what to do; and you
will pardon me for suggesting that if there's to be an elopement you
write it up yourself for the 'Courier.' I was talking to a friend of
mine who's on the ding-ding desk at the Whitcomb and she says the
long-distance business in that tavern is painful to handle--hot words
flying over the state about this Thatcher-Bassett rumpus. You may take
it from me that the fight is warm, and I guess somebody will know more
after the convention. But say--!"
"Um," said Harwood, whose gaze was upon the frame of a new building that
was rising across the street. He was thinking of Allen. If Marian and
Allen were subjects of gossip in connection with the break between their
fathers he foresaw trouble; and he was sorry, for he was sincerely
devoted to the boy; and Marian he liked also, in spite of her vagaries.
A great many people were likely to be affected by the personal
difficulties of Thatcher and Bassett. Even quiet Montgomery was teeming,
and on the way from the station he had met half a dozen acquaintances
who had paused to shake hands and say something about the political
situation. His ignorance of Bassett's real intentions, which presumably
the defiance of the "Courier" merely cloaked, was not without its
embarrassment. He had been known as a Bassett man; he had received and
talked to innumerable politicians of Bassett's party in the Boordman
Building; and during the four years of his identification with Bassett
he had visited most of the county seats on political and business
errands. The closeness of their association made all the more surprising
this sudden exclusion.
"I said 'say,'" repeated Miss Farrell, lightly touching the smooth cliff
of yellow hair above her brow with the back of her hand. "I was about to
give you a message from his majesty our king, but if you're on a pipe
dream don't let me call you home."
"Oh, yes; pardon me. What were you about to say?"
"Mr. Bassett said that if you came in before I quit to ask you to come
over to the Whitcomb. Mrs. Bassett blew in to-day from that sanatorium
in Connecticut where they've been working on her nerves. Miss Marian
brought her back, and they've stopped in town to rest. And say,"--here
Miss Farrell lowered her voice,--"the Missis must try his soul a good
deal! I wonder how he ever picked _her_ out of the bunch?"
"That will do!" said Harwood sharply. "I'll find Mr. Bassett at the
Whitcomb and I shan't have anything for you to-day."
There had been a meeting of the central committee preliminary to the
approaching state convention. A number of candidates had already opened
headquarters at the Whitcomb; members of Congress, aspirants for the
governor's seat, to be filled two years hence, and petty satraps from
far and near were visible at the hotel. If Bassett's star was declining
there was nothing to indicate it in the conduct of the advance guard. If
any change was apparent it pointed to an increase of personal
popularity. Bassett was not greatly given to loafing in public places;
he usually received visitors at such times in an upper room of the
hotel; but Harwood found him established on a settee in the lobby in
plain view of all seekers, and from the fixed appearance of the men
clustered about him he had held this position for some time. Harwood
drew into the outer edge of the crowd unnoticed for a moment. Bassett
was at his usual ease; a little cheerfuler of countenance than was his
wont, and yet not unduly anxious to appear tranquil. He had precipitated
one of the most interesting political struggles the state had ever
witnessed, but his air of unconcern before this mixed company of his
fellow partisans, among whom there were friends and foes, was well
calculated to inspire faith in his leadership. Some one was telling a
story, and at its conclusion Bassett caught Harwood's eye and called to
him in a manner that at once drew attention to the young man.
"Hello, Dan! You're back from the country all right, I see! I guess you
boys all know Harwood. You've seen his name in the newspapers!"
Several of the loungers shook hands with Harwood, who had cultivated the
handshaking habit, and he made a point of addressing to each one some
personal remark. Thus the gentleman from Tippecanoe, who had met Dan at
the congressional convention in Lafayette two years earlier, felt that
he must have favorably impressed Bassett's agent on that occasion; else
how had Harwood asked at once, with the most shameless flattery, whether
they still had the same brand of fried chicken at his house! And the
gentleman from the remote shores of the Lake, a rare visitor in town,
had every right to believe, from Dan's reference to the loss by fire of
the gentleman's house a year earlier, that that calamity had aroused in
Dan the deepest sympathy. Dan had mastered these tricks; it rather
tickled his sense of humor to practice them; but it must be said for him
that he was sincerely interested in people, particularly in these men
who played the great game. If he ever achieved anything in politics it
must be through just such material as offered itself on such occasions
as this in the halls of the Whitcomb. These men might be tearing the
leader to pieces to-morrow, or the day after; but he was still in the
saddle, and not knowing but that young Harwood might be of use to them
some day, they greeted him as one of the inner circle.
Most of these men sincerely liked and admired Bassett; and many of them
accepted the prevailing superstition as to his omniscience and
invulnerability; even in the Republican camp many shared the belief that
the spears of the righteous were of no avail against him. Dan's loyalty
to Bassett had never been more firmly planted. Bassett had always
preserved a certain formality in his relations with him; to-night he was
calling him Dan, naturally and as though unconscious of the transition.
This was not without its effect on Harwood; he was surprised to find how
agreeable it was to be thus familiarly addressed by the leader in such a
gathering.
Bassett suggested that he speak to Mrs. Bassett and Marian, who were
spending a few days in town, and he found them in the hotel parlor,
where Bassett joined them shortly. Mrs. Bassett and Dan had always got
on well together; his nearness to her husband brought him close to the
domestic circle; and he had been invariably responsive to her demands
upon his time. Dan had learned inevitably a good deal of the inner life
of the Bassetts, and now and then he had been aware that Mrs. Bassett
was sounding him discreetly as to her husband's plans and projects; but
these approaches had been managed with the nicest tact and discretion.
In her long absences from home she had lost touch with Bassett's
political interests and occupations, but she knew of his break with
Thatcher. She prided herself on being a woman of the world, and while
she had flinched sometimes at the attacks made upon her husband, she was
nevertheless proud of his influence in affairs. Bassett had once, at a
time when he was being assailed for smothering some measure in the
senate, given her a number of books bearing upon the anti-slavery
struggle, in which she read that the prominent leaders in that movement
had suffered the most unjust attacks, and while it was not quite clear
wherein lay Bassett's likeness to Lincoln, Lovejoy, and Wendell
Phillips, she had been persuaded that the most honorable men in public
life are often the targets of scandal. Her early years in Washington
with her father had impressed her imagination; the dream of returning
there as the wife of a Senator danced brightly in her horizons. It would
mean much to Marian and Blackford if their father, like their
Grandfather Singleton, should attain a seat in the Senate. And she was
aware that without such party service as Bassett was rendering, with
its resulting antagonisms, the virulent newspaper attacks, the social
estrangements that she had not escaped in Fraserville, a man could not
hope for party preferment.
Bassett had recently visited Blackford at the military school where his
son was established, and talk fell upon the boy.
"Black likes to have a good time, but he will come out all right. The
curriculum doesn't altogether fit him--that's his only trouble."
Bassett glanced at Harwood for approval and Dan promptly supported the
father's position. Blackford had, as a matter of fact, been threatened
with expulsion lately for insubordination. Bassett had confessed to Dan
several times his anxiety touching the boy. To-day, when the lad's
mother had just returned after a long sojourn in a rest cure, was not a
fit occasion for discussing such matters.
"What's Allen doing?" asked Marian. "I suppose now that papa is having a
rumpus with Mr. Thatcher I shall never see him any more."
"You shouldn't speak so, Marian. A hotel parlor is no place to discuss
your father's affairs," admonished Mrs. Bassett.
"Oh, Allen's ever so much fun. He's a Socialist or something. Aunt Sally
likes him ever so much. Aunt Sally likes Mr. Thatcher, too, for that
matter," she concluded boldly.
"Mr. Thatcher is an old friend of mine," said Bassett soberly.
"You can be awfully funny when you want to, papa," replied Marian. "As
we came through Pittsburg this morning I bought a paper that told about
'Stop, Look, Listen.' But Allen won't mind if you do whistle to his
father to keep off the track."
"Mr. Thatcher's name was never mentioned by me in any such connection,"
replied Bassett; but he laughed when Marian leaned over and patted his
cheek to express her satisfaction in her father's cleverness.
"I think it unfortunate that you have gone to war with that man,"
remarked Mrs. Bassett wearily.
"You dignify it too much by calling it a war," Harwood interjected. "We
don't want such men in politics in this state and somebody has to deal
with them."
"I guess it will be a lively scrap all right enough," said Marian,
delighted at the prospect. "We're going to move to the city this fall,
Mr. Harwood. Hasn't papa told you?"
Mrs. Bassett glanced at her husband with alert suspicion, thinking that
perhaps in her absence he had been conniving to this end with Marian.
Bassett smiled at his daughter's adroitness in taking advantage of
Harwood's presence to introduce this subject; it had been the paramount
issue with her for several years.
"I shall be glad enough to stay at Fraserville the rest of my days if I
get through another Waupegan summer safely," said Mrs. Bassett. "The
mere thought of moving is horrible!"
"Oh, we wouldn't exactly move in coming here; we'd have an apartment in
one of these comfortable new houses and come down while the
legislature's in session, so we can be with papa. And there's ever so
much music here now, and the theatres, and I could have a coming-out
party here. You know I never had one, papa. And it would be nice to be
near Aunt Sally; she's getting old and needs us."
"Yes; she undoubtedly does," said Bassett, with faint irony.
Her daughter's rapid fire of suggestions wearied Mrs. Bassett. She
turned to Harwood:--
"Mr. Bassett and Marian have been telling me, Mr. Harwood, that Aunt
Sally went back to college with Sylvia Garrison after Professor Kelton's
death. Poor girl, it's quite like Aunt Sally to do that. Sylvia must be
very forlorn, with all her people gone. I think Aunt Sally knew her
mother. I hope the girl isn't wholly destitute?"
"No, the Professor left a small estate and Miss Garrison expects to
teach," Dan answered.
"Dan is the administrator," remarked Bassett "I'm sure you will be glad
to know that Miss Garrison's affairs are in good hands, Hallie."
"Aunt Sally is very fond of you, Mr. Harwood; I hope you appreciate
that," said Mrs Bassett. "Aunt Sally doesn't like everybody."
"Aunt Sally's a brick, all right," declared Marian, as an accompaniment
to Dan's expression of his gratification that Mrs. Owen had honored him
with her friendship.
"It's too bad the girl will have to teach," said Mrs. Bassett; "it must
be a dog's life."
"I think Miss Garrison doesn't look at it that way," Harwood
intervened. "She thinks she's in the world to do something for somebody;
she's a very interesting, a very charming young woman."
"Well, I haven't seen her in five years; she was only a young girl that
summer at the lake. How soon will Aunt Sally be back? I do hope she's
coming to Waupegan. If I'd known she was going to Wellesley, we could
have waited for her in New York, and Marian and I could have gone with
them to see Sylvia graduated. I always wanted to visit the college."
"It was better for you to come home, Hallie," said Mr. Bassett. "You are
not quite up to sight-seeing yet. And now," he added, "Dan and I have
some business on hand for an hour or so, and I'm going to send you and
Marian for an automobile ride before dinner. You must quit the moment
you are tired. Wish we could all go, but I haven't seen Dan much lately,
and as I'm going home with you to-morrow we shan't have another chance."
When his wife and daughter had been dispatched in the motor Bassett
suggested that they go to a private room he had engaged in the hotel,
first giving orders at the office that he was not to be disturbed. He
did not, however, escape at once from men who had been lying in wait for
him in the lobby and corridors, but he made short work of them.
"I want to thresh out some things with you to-day, and I'll be as brief
as possible," said Bassett when he and Harwood were alone. "You got
matters fixed satisfactorily at Montgomery--no trouble about your
appointment?"
"None; Mrs. Owen had arranged all that."
"You mentioned to her, did you, my offer to help?"
"Oh, yes! But she had already arranged with Akins, the banker, about the
administrator's bond, and we went at once to business."
"That's all right; only I wanted to be sure Mrs. Owen understood I had
offered to help you. She's very kind to my wife and children; Mrs.
Bassett has been almost like a daughter to her, you know. There's really
some property to administer, is there?"
"Very little, sir. The Professor had been obliged to drop part of his
life insurance and there was only two thousand in force when he died.
The house he lived in may bring another two. There are some publishers'
contracts that seem to have no value. And the old gentleman had invested
what was a large sum for him in White River Canneries."
Bassett frowned and he asked quickly:--
"How much?"
"Five thousand dollars."
"As much as that?"
Bassett's connection with White River Canneries was an incident of the
politician's career to which Harwood had never been wholly reconciled.
Nor was he pleasantly impressed by Bassett's next remark, which, in view
of Mrs. Bassett's natural expectations,--and these Dan had frequently
heard mentioned at the capital,--partook of the nature of a leading
question. "That's unfortunate. But I suppose Mrs. Owen, by reason of her
friendship for the grandfather, won't let the girl suffer."
"She's not the sort of girl who would be dependent in any case. She
holds rather altruistic ideas in fact," remarked Harwood. "I mean," he
added, seeing that Bassett waited for him to explain himself, "that Miss
Garrison feels that she starts life in debt to the world--by reason of
her own opportunities and so on; she expects to make payments on that
debt."
"In debt?" Bassett repeated vacantly. "Oh, not literally, I see! She
expects to teach and help others in that way. That's commendable. But
let me see."
He had taken an unsharpened lead pencil from his pocket and was slipping
it through his fingers absently, allowing its blunt ends to tap the arm
of his chair at intervals. After a moment's silence he plunged into his
own affairs.
"You probably saw my tip to Thatcher in the 'Courier'? I guess everybody
has seen it by this time," he added grimly; and he went on as though
making a statement his mind had thoroughly rehearsed: "Thatcher and I
have been pretty thick. We've been in a good many business deals
together. We've been useful to each other. He had more money than I had
to begin with, but I had other resources--influence and so on that he
needed. I guess we're quits on the business side. You may be interested
to know that I never had a cent of money in his breweries and
distilleries; but I've helped protect the traffic in return for support
he has given some of my own enterprises. I never owned a penny in that
Fraserville brewery, for instance; but I've been pointed out as its
owner. They've got the idea here in Indiana that saloons are my chief
joy in life; but nothing is farther from the truth. When Mrs. Bassett
has been troubled about that I have always been able to tell her with a
good conscience that I hadn't a penny in the business. I've frankly
antagonized legislation directed against the saloon, for I've never
taken any stock in this clamor of the Prohibitionists and temperance
cranks generally; but I've stood consistently for a proper control.
Thatcher and I got along all right until he saw that the party was
coming into power again and got the senatorial bee in his bonnet. He's
got the idea that he can buy his way in; and to buy a seat he's got to
buy my friends. That's a clear proposition, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir; I haven't seen that he had any personal influence worth
counting."
"Exactly. Now, I don't intend that Ed Thatcher shall buy a seat in the
United States Senate if our party in Indiana has one to dispose of. I'm
not so good myself, but when I found that Thatcher had begun to build up
a little machine for himself, I resolved to show him that I can't be
used by any man so long as he thinks he needs me and then kicked out
when I'm in the way. And I've got some state pride, too, and with all
the scandals going around in other states over the sale of seats at
Washington I'm not going to have my party in the state where I was born
and where I have lived all my life lend itself to the ambitions of an Ed
Thatcher. I think you share that feeling?"
"The people of the whole state will commend that," replied Dan warmly.
"And if you want to go to the Senate--"
"I don't want anything from my party that it doesn't want me to have,"
interrupted Bassett.
He rose and paced the floor. An unusual color had come into his face,
but otherwise he betrayed no agitation. He crossed from the door to the
window and resumed his seat.
"They've said of me that I fight in the dark; that I'm a man of secret
and malign methods. The 'Advertiser' said only this morning that I have
no courage; that I never make an attack where it costs me anything. I've
already proved that to be a lie. My attack on Thatcher is likely to cost
me a good deal. You may be sure he won't scruple to make the bill as
heavy as he can. I'm talking to you freely, and I'll say to you that I
expect the better element of the party to rally to my support. You see,
I'm going to give you idealists a chance to do something that will
count. Thatcher is not a foe to be despised. Here's his reply to my
'Stop, Look, Listen,' editorial. The sheriff served it on me just as I
stepped into the elevator to come up here."
The paper Harwood took wonderingly was a writ citing Bassett to appear
as defendant in a suit brought in the circuit court by Edward G.
Thatcher against the Courier Publishing Company, Morton Bassett, and
Sarah Owen.
Bassett stretched himself at ease in his chair and explained.
"I wanted a newspaper and he was indifferent about it at the time; but
we went in together, and he consented that I should have a controlling
interest. As I was tied up tight right then I had to get Mrs. Owen to
help me out. It wasn't the kind of deal you want to hawk about town, and
neither Thatcher nor I cared to have it known for a while that we had
bought the paper. But it's hardly a secret now, of course. Mrs. Owen and
I together own one hundred and fifty-one shares of the total of three
hundred; Thatcher owns the rest and he was satisfied to let it go that
way. He signed an agreement that I should manage the paper, and said he
didn't want anything but dividends."
"Mrs. Owen's interest is subject to your wishes, of course; that goes
without saying."
"Well, I guaranteed eight per cent on her investment, but we've made it
lately, easily. I've now got to devise some means of getting rid of
Thatcher; but we'll let him cool till after the convention. Mrs. Owen
won't be back for several weeks, I suppose?"
"No; she and Miss Garrison will return immediately after the
commencement exercises."
"Well, Thatcher brought that suit, thinking that if he could throw the
paper into a receivership he'd run up the price when it came to be sold
and shake me out. He knew, too, that it would annoy Mrs. Owen to be
involved in litigation. It's surprising that he would incur her wrath
himself; she's always been mighty decent to Ed and kind to his boy. But
I'll have to buy her stock and let her out; it's a delicate business,
and for Mrs. Bassett's sake I've got to get her aunt out as quickly as
possible."
"That, of course, will be easily managed. It's too bad she's away just
now."
"It was the first time I ever asked her help in any of my business
affairs, and it's unfortunate. The fact is that Mrs. Bassett doesn't
know of it."
He rose and crossed the room slowly with his hands thrust deep into his
trousers pockets.
"But if Mrs. Owen is guaranteed against loss there's no ground for
criticizing you," said Dan. "There's nothing to trouble about on that
side of it, I should think."
"Oh, I'm not troubling about that," replied Bassett shortly. He shrugged
his shoulders and walked to the window, gazing out on the street in
silence for several minutes. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed.
"I told you, Dan, when you opened our office in the Boordman Building,
that if ever the time came when you didn't want to serve me any longer
you were to feel free to quit. You are under no obligations to me of any
sort. I caught a bargain in you; you have been useful to me in many
ways; you have carried nearly the whole burden of the paper-mill
receivership in a way to win me the praise of the court and all others
interested. If you should quit me to-night I should still be your
debtor. I had about decided to leave you out of my calculations in
politics; you have the making of a good lawyer and if you opened an
office to-morrow you would find clients without trouble. You are
beginning to be known, very well known for a man of your years."
Harwood demurred feebly, unheeded by Bassett, who continued steadily.
"I had thought for a time that I shouldn't encourage you to take any
part in politics--at least in my affairs. The receivership has been
giving you enough to do; and the game, after all, is a hard one. Even
after I decided to break with Thatcher I thought I'd leave you out of
it: that's why I gave you no intimation of what was coming, but put the
details into Atwill's hands. I had really meant to show you a proof of
that editorial, but I wasn't sure until they had to close the page that
night that I was ready to make the break. I had been pretty hot that
evening at the Country Club when I saw Pettit and Thatcher chumming
together; I wanted to be sure I had cooled off. But I find that I've got
in the habit of relying on you; I've been open with you from the
beginning, and as you know I'm not much given to taking men into my
confidence. But I've been leaning on you a good deal--more, in fact,
than I realized."
There was no questioning Bassett's sincerity, nor was there any doubt
that this appeal was having its effect on the younger man. If Bassett
had been a weakling timorously making overtures for help, Harwood would
have been sensible of it; but a man of demonstrated force and
intelligence, who had probably never talked thus to another soul in his
life, was addressing him with a candor at once disarming and compelling.
It was not easy to say to a man from whom he had accepted every kindness
that he had ceased to trust him; that while he had been his willing
companion on fair-weather voyages, he would desert without a qualm
before the tempest. But even now Bassett had asked nothing of him; why
should he harden his heart against the man who had been his friend?
"You have your ideals--fine ideas of public service that I admire. Our
party needs such men as you; the young fellows couldn't get away from us
fast enough after '96; many of the Sons of old-time Democrats joined the
Republicans. Fitch has spoken to me of you often as the kind of man we
ought to push forward, and I'm willing to put you out on the
firing-line, where you can work for your ideals. My help will handicap
you at first,"--his voice grew dry and hard here,-"but once you have got
a start you can shake me off as quick as you like. It's a perfectly
selfish proposition I'm making, Harwood; it simply gets down to this,
that I need your help."
"Of course, Mr. Bassett; if I can serve you in any way--"
"Anything you can do for me you may do if you don't feel that you will
be debasing yourself in fighting under my flag. It's a black flag, they
say--just as black as Thatcher's. I don't believe you want to join
Thatcher; the question is, do you want to stick to me?"
Bassett had spoken quietly throughout. He had made no effort to play
upon Harwood's sympathies or to appeal to his gratitude. He was, in
common phrase, to be taken or let alone. Harwood realized that he must
either decline outright or declare his fealty in a word. It was in no
view a debatable matter; he could not suggest points of difference or
even inquire as to the nature of the service to be exacted. He was face
to face with a man who, he had felt that night of their first meeting at
Fraserville, gave and received hard blows. Yet he did not doubt that if
their relations terminated to-day Bassett would deal with him
magnanimously. He realized that after all it was not Bassett who was on
trial; it was Daniel Harwood!
He saw his life in sharp fulgurations; the farm (cleared of debt through
Bassett's generosity, to be sure!) where his father and brothers
struggled to wrest a livelihood from reluctant soil, and their pride and
hope in him; he saw his teachers at college, men who had pointed the way
to useful and honorable lives; and more than all, Sumner rose before
him--Sumner who had impressed him more than any other man he had ever
known. Sumner's clean-cut visage was etched grimly in his consciousness;
verily Sumner would not have dallied with a man of Bassett's ilk. He had
believed when he left college that Sumner's teaching and example would
be a buckler and shield to him all the days of his life; and here he
was, faltering before a man to whom the great teacher would have given
scarce a moment's contemptuous thought. He could even hear the
professor's voice as he ironically pronounced upon sordid little despots
of Bassett's stamp. And only forty-eight hours earlier he had been
talking to a girl on the campus at Madison who had spoken of idealism
and service in the terms of which he had thought of those things when he
left college. Even Allen Thatcher, in his whimsical fashion, stood for
ideals, and dreamed of the heroic men who had labored steadfastly for
great causes. Here was his chance now to rid himself of Bassett; to
breathe free air again! On the other hand, Bassett had himself suggested
that Harwood, once in a position to command attention, might go his own
gait. His servitude would be for a day only, and by it he should win
eternal freedom. He caught eagerly at what Bassett was saying, grateful
that the moment of his choice was delayed.
"The state convention is only three weeks off and I had pretty carefully
mapped it out before the 'Courier' dropped that shot across Thatcher's
bows. I've arranged for you to go as delegate to the state convention
from this county and to have a place on the committee on resolutions.
This will give you an introduction to the party that will be of value.
They will say you are my man--but they've said that of other men who
have lived it down. I want Thatcher to have his way in that convention,
naming the ticket as far as he pleases, and appearing to give me a
drubbing. The party's going to be defeated in November--there's no
ducking that. We'll let Thatcher get the odium of that defeat. About the
next time we'll go in and win and there won't be any more Thatcher
nonsense. This is politics, you understand."
Harwood nodded; but Bassett had not finished; it clearly was not his
purpose to stand the young man in a corner and demand a choice from him.
Bassett pursued negotiations after a fashion of his own.
"Thatcher thinks he has scored heavily on me by sneaking into
Fraserville and kidnaping old Ike Pettit. That fellow has always been a
nuisance to me; I carried a mortgage on his newspaper for ten years, but
Thatcher has mercifully taken that burden off my shoulders by paying it.
Thatcher can print anything he wants to about me in my own town; but it
will cost him some money; those people up there don't think I'm so
wicked, and the 'Fraser County Democrat' won't have any advertisements
for a while but fake medical ads. But Ike will have more room for the
exploitation of his own peculiar brand of homely Hoosier humor."
Bassett smiled, and Harwood was relieved to be able to laugh aloud. He
was enjoying this glimpse of the inner mysteries of the great game. His
disdain of Thatcher's clumsy attempts to circumvent Bassett was
complete; in any view Bassett was preferable to Thatcher. As the senator
from Fraser had said, there was really nothing worse than Thatcher, with
his breweries and racing-stable, his sordidness and vulgarity.
Thatcher's efforts to practice Bassett's methods with Bassett's own
tools was a subject for laughter. It seemed for the moment that
Harwood's decision might be struck on this note of mirth. Dan wondered
whether, in permitting Bassett thus to disclose his plans and purposes,
he had not already nailed his flag to the Bassett masthead.
"I don't want these fellows who are old-timers in state
conventions--particularly those known to be my old friends--to figure
much," Bassett continued. "I'm asking your aid because you're new and
clean-handed. The meanest thing they can say against you is that you're
in my camp. They tell me you're an effective speaker, a number of
county chairmen have said your speeches in the last campaign made a good
impression. I shall want you to prepare a speech about four minutes
long, clean-cut and vigorous,--we'll decide later what that speech shall
be about. I've got it in mind to spring something in that convention
just to show Thatcher that there are turns of the game he doesn't know
yet. I'm going to give you a part that will make 'em remember you for
some time, Dan."
Bassett's smile showed his strong sound teeth. He rarely laughed, but he
yielded now to the contagion of the humor he had aroused in Harwood.
"It's a big chance you're giving me to get into things," replied
Harwood. "I'll do my best." Then he added, in the glow of his complete
surrender: "You've never asked me to do a dishonorable thing in the four
years I've been with you. There's nothing I oughtn't to be glad to do
from any standpoint, and I'm grateful for this new mark of your
confidence."
"That's all right, Dan. There are things in store for young men in
politics in this state--Republicans and Democrats," said Bassett,
without elation or any show of feeling whatever. "Once the limelight
hits you, you can go far--very far. I must go over to the 'Courier'
office now and see Atwill."