CALEB CONOVER EXPLAINS
“I suppose,” volunteered Caine, as he and Conover walked back to town
together, “I suppose you know you behaved like a wild ass of the
desert? That no man with an iota of breeding would ever have said the
things you did, to the Committee members? I only mention it in case you
don’t realize.”
“Oh, I realize it all right,” Conover answered him. “It ain’t a parlor
stunt to sling off your coat an’ grab a lady by the back hair. But if
she happens to be drownin’, it’s the c’rrect play to make. It was a
case for coat-sheddin’ an’ back-hair-grabbin’, to-day, at the Club.
That’s why I did it. It landed ’em. If I’d got up and sprung a flowery
speech, they’d a’ yawned and voted me out. If I’d put up a whine,
they’d a’ been at my throat like a pack o’ hungry wolf-dogs. _Someone_
had to use a whip. An’ I wanted it should be _me_, not them, that used
it. Which same it was.”
“No one will deny that, I think,” said Caine, drily, “If a poll were
taken just now for the best hated man in Arareek, you’d be elected by
acclamation. You said some things that ought to have been said. But you
said them so vulgarly that you seemed to be spitting diamonds.”
“But I’m still in the Club. An’ they daren’t give me the cold shoulder
at any more of their blowouts. They’ll still hate me like poison,
maybe. But they’ll be civil; an’ when Desirée Shevlin goes there with
Mrs. Hawarden, she won’t see folks treatin’ me like I was the original
Invisible Man.”
Caine whistled.
“_So?_” he mused. “That’s the secret is it? I might have guessed. I’ve
been wondering ever since, why you made such a point about being well
received at the Club’s functions. For, unless I’m vastly mistaken,
you’ve about as much desire for personal social welcome as a hermit
thrush. I could see why you wanted to _stay_ in the Arareek, but why
you wanted to attend its--”
“You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree,” growled Caleb, uncomfortably. “At
least you ain’t much more’n half right. Of course it’s nice not to have
Dey made uncomfortable on my account. But I’m goin’ to push my way
into that bunch for my own sake, too. You’ll see a whole lot of things
if you look long enough. To-day was just a flea-bite to what’s comin’
before I’m done.”
“Still bent on ‘taking the Kingdom of Heaven by violence?’”
“Not quite that. I hear Heaven’s got only the _best_ society. I ain’t
after the best. Only the highest. So Granite’ll do as well. Care to
tell me anything ’bout the details of what happened after I left the
Committee room?”
“Everybody talked at once,” replied Caine. “The air fairly crackled
with blue sparks of indignation. I never realized before how many names
a man could be called. It was a liberal education in what not to say.
Then, little by little, the Governors got out of breath, and I moved
for a vote. Vroom amended my motion by suggesting a written ballot.”
“I might a’ knowed it,” crowed Conover in high glee, “No one wanted
the rest to know he was votin’ for me. Good for Vroom! He comes nearer
havin’ hooman intell’gence than I thought.”
“The amended motion was passed unanimously,” went on Caine. “Oh, it was
a rare study in physiognomy when Standish announced the vote. Eleven to
one in favor of retaining you.”
“If there’d been two votes against me, Blacarda could have been
arrested for repeatin’,” ruminated Conover. “Yes, that’s just how I
figgered it would be.”
“I wasn’t surprised at Vroom and Featherstone and the others you so
pleasantly threatened to blackmail,” said Caine, “But I thought at
least Standish and Hawarden--”
“I told you I’d helped Standish’s bank and that he’ll want me again,
soon,” answered Caleb. “His gratitood market is strong on futurities.”
“But Hawarden? You didn’t threaten him. Yet he was muzzled after the
very first attack.”
“No, I didn’t threaten Hawarden to any very great extent,” assented
Conover, “I just reminded him, quiet-like, that I’m payin’ his wife
$8,000 a season to help Desirée in the society game, an’ that maybe the
news might leak out an’ the supplies be cut off if I was fired.”
“Mrs. Hawarden!” ejaculated Caine. “Are you in earnest?”
“I’m not given to springin’ measly jokes. I wanted that the little girl
should have a show. She’s prettier an’ better educated an’ cleverer’n
any of the people in the gold-shirt bunch. But I couldn’t get her into
that crowd. I read in a noospaper about an English duchess that made
a lot of coin by puttin’ American girls into the right surroundin’s,
an’ it gave me an idee. There’s a slump in the Duchess market here
at Granite. But the town’s crawlin’ with old fam’lies that are shy
on cash. An’ about the oldest an’ hardest up are the Hawardens. So I
arranged it with her. It was dead easy. She acted shy of the deal just
at first; but that was only her way, I s’pose. Women that’s coy after
they stop bein’ young an’ pretty always reminds me of a scarecrow left
standin’ in a field after all the crop’s been carted away.”
“Does Miss Shevlin know about--?”
“Does _she_ know? What do you think she is? No, son, she don’t know,
an’ I’ll break the neck of the blackguard that dares tell her. You’re
the only one except the Hawardens that’s onto it.”
“So I am the logical candidate for neck-breaking if the story gets out?
Don’t be afraid, old man. I’d break my own neck sooner than to have
Miss Shevlin’s pleasure spoiled. I suppose she _does_ get pleasure
from being a protegée of Mrs. Hawarden?”
“Pleasure? She’s tickled to death. It’s worth the money twice over to
hear her tell ’bout the places she goes. Say, Caine, _you_ know more
about that game than I do. Has she got any chance?”
“Any chance?” echoed Caine in perplexity.
“You know what I mean. Her father was kind of common,--like me. But
Desirée ain’t. Even _you_ said that once. An’ I guess there’s few who
can spot a streak of mud-color quicker’n you can. I’ve got her into a
crowd where her father an’ the rest of her folks could never have gone.
What I want to know is: Has she got a chance of stayin’ there always?
Of bein’ took up permanent by ’em an’ made one of ’em?”
“It depends entirely, I should say, on whom she marries.”
“You mean if she marries some feller who’s high up in that set, she’ll
be made to home there?”
There was something wistfully eager beneath the Fighter’s gruff
tones,--a something Caine detected in time to check the flippant reply
that had risen to his own lips. He eyed Conover with veiled curiosity
as he asked:
“You would want her to marry such a man?”
“Sure! If he treated her right an’ she was happy. But if she’s goin’ to
be looked down on, an’ guyed behind folk’s fans, an’ reminded that her
old man used to eat corned beef and cabbage in his shirt-sleeves--why,
then I’m damned if I don’t b’lieve I’d buy up the whole of Granite an’
turn the swells out into the next County.”
“It all depends, as I said, on the man she marries,” pursued Caine.
“If she marries a man of good family and turns her back on her old
associates and has enough money of her own--”
“She’ll have it,” interrupted Conover. “She’ll have enough to make her
the richest woman in this burg,--an’ it’ll be in her own name, too. As
for shakin’ folks like me,--if I haven’t got my own foot hold there by
that time,--she’ll do that too. I’ll see that she does.”
“And yet you’re fond of her?”
“That’s why I’m doin’ it, son. An’ remember you’ll keep on bein’ the
only one besides the Hawardens that knows anything ’bout my share in
the deal. Speakin’ of ‘deals,’ Blacarda means trouble for us.”
“In the Steeloid affair?” queried Caine. “I thought you’d won that
fight.”
“I won that, but there’s another a-comin’. I got a tip on it same time
I heard of the incorp’ration, to-day. Blacarda pulls a pretty big oar
in the Legislature. He’s back of that Starke Anti-Combine bill we
side-tracked early in the session. If the Starke bill passes, then
goodbye to our Steeloid corner! I’ve a tip he’s renewed it an’ tryin’
to rush it through before the session closes. It’s to be sprung on the
Assembly, Monday. An’ he figgers on gettin’ it railroaded through. If
it once passes the Assembly, we’re goners. For he’s got the State
Senate where he wants it. An’ the Gov’nor’s on his side. Owns a nice
block of stock in Blacarda’s comp’ny. So it all hangs on the Assembly.”
“You take it coolly--considering you stand to lose something like a
million dollars.”
“A man who can’t keep his feet warm an’ his head cool has about as much
show in finance as a tallow dog chasin’ an asbestos cat through hell,”
observed Caleb, oracularly. “He goes up with a puff and there ain’t any
remains to look for. I’m not in the Steeloid deal to cure me of weak
heart or that tired feelin’. I’m in to win. An’ I’m goin’ to.”
“But the Assembly?”
“I’m not afraid about the Assembly. So long as I’m on hand myself, in
the lobby, to hand out kicks or kisses, I’ll be able to kill the Starke
bill. I’ve gone up to the Capital before, on what looked like a losin’
fight. An’ I’ve licked the obstinate one into shape, an’ scared some
backbone into the weak one, an’ put a little bank-note oil on the rusty
ones--an’ swung enough of ’em into line to give me the votes I needed.
I know this Assembly pretty well. I know who to count on an’ who not
to. I know who to buy, who to bully an’ who to promise. If I sent up
anyone else, he’d make a fizzle of the thing. But, somehow, in all my
business deals, I find if I’m on the ground myself I can make folks do
what I want. You saw how that was, to-day, at the Club. If I’d been
away, an’ you or anyone else representin’ me, I’d a’ been kicked out
of the Arareek so far that I’d a-landed in another State. But I swung
’em. An’ I’ll swing ’em at the Capital. It’ll be a narrow squeak, but
I’ll do it.”
“In other words, if you are there in person, the day the bill comes up,
you can kill it. Otherwise not. Suppose you’re sick, or--”
“Sick!” scoffed Caleb, in lofty scorn. “I’ve got no time to be sick.
An’ s’pose I was? When I worked that merger of the Porter-Hyde Park
road, I had grippe. My temp’ture was up at 105, an’ I had lovely little
icicles an’ red hot pokers runnin’ through every joint of me. Likewise
a head that ached so loud you could hear it a block away. Gee, but I
felt so bad I hated to look up at the undertaker signs on the street!
An’ what’d I do? Worked, up to the Capital, three days an’ nights,
twenty-four hours a day, not once gettin’ a chance to take my clo’es
off or bat an eye. I carried through that merger by the skin of its
teeth. Then when I got my charter I blew myself to the lux’ry of a
whole gorgeous week in the hosp’tal. But not till ev’ry bit of work was
wound up. Sick? H’m! A grown man don’t bother much about bein’ sick
when there’s something that’s got to be done. Besides”--he added--“I
ain’t sick now. An’ I’ll be on hand at the Capital the minute the
Assembly opens, Monday. My bein’ there means the killin’ of the Starke
bill. An’ they can set the date for the fun’ral without any fear of
disappointin’ the mourners.”
“Did you ever hear of Napoleon?” asked Caine, whimsically.
“Sure I did,” responded Conover. “Read part of a book about him once.
Why?”
“Like yourself he was the greatest hold-up man of his day,” explained
Caine, “and he had a conscience of the same calibre as yours. If he’d
been a little bit less of a highwayman they would have laughed at
him. If _you_ were a little bit less of a highwayman they’d put you
in jail. He had magnetism. Probably almost as much of it as you have.
That’s what made me think of him just then. Wellington used to say that
Napoleon’s mere presence on a battlefield did more to win victories
than an army of forty-thousand men. I suppose it’s the same at the
Assembly.”
“That’s right,” agreed Caleb, unmoved. “An’ Blacarda knows it, too.
He’d give ten thousand dollars. I’ll bet, to have me break a leg
between this an’ Monday. But my legs are feelin’ first rate. An’
they’re goin’ to keep on feelin’ better all the time, till they kick
the Starke bill into its grave.”
“I’ll do what I can through the ‘_Star_’ to help,” said Caine. “Just
as I did for the Porter-Hyde Park merger and the Humason Mine charter.
What’s the use of owning a newspaper if one can’t boost one’s friends?”
“An’ one’s own Steeloid stock at the same time?” supplemented Conover.
“We understand each other all right, I guess. Steeloid’s goin’ to take
a rise, after Monday. An’ it’s goin’ to keep right on risin’ for the
next six months.”
“Conover,” protested Caine, “as a highwayman--or financier, to put it
more politely--you are a genius. But as a _man_, you leave a ghastly
amount to be desired. Have you a superstitious fear of the word
‘Thanks’? I offer to put the columns of the ‘_Star_’ at your disposal.
Common decency at least should call for a word of gratitude. Or, if not
for the Steeloid matter, at least for my championing you to-day at the
Club. Surely _that_ wasn’t in the interest of your wonderful Steeloid
stock.”
Conover plodded ahead glumly for some moments. Then he observed, as
though turning to a pleasanter subject:
“In the part of that Napoleon book I read it told how the old-line,
patent-leather ’ristocrats of France fell over each other to do things
that would make a hit with the big ‘hold-up man’. Wasn’t it real
gen’rous of ’em? But then, maybe Napoleon had a cute little way of
sayin’ ‘Thanks,’ oftener’n _I_ do.”