CONFLICTS.
Lispenard went back with Peter to the city. He gave his reason on the
train:
“You see I go back to the city occasionally in the summer, so as to
make the country bearable, and then I go back to the country, so as to
make the city endurable. I shall be in Newport again in a week. When
will you come back?”
“My summering’s over.”
“Indeed. I thought my cousin would want you again!”
“She did not say so.”
“The deuce she didn’t. It must be the only thing she didn’t say, then,
in your long confabs?”
Peter made no reply, though Lispenard looked as well as asked a
question.
“Perhaps,” continued Lispenard, “she talked too much, and so did not
remember to ask you?”
Still Peter said nothing.
“Are you sure she didn’t give you a chance to have more of her
society?” Lispenard was smiling.
“Ogden,” said Peter gently, “you are behaving contemptibly and you know
it.”
The color blazed up into Lispenard’s face and he rose, saying:
“Did I understand you aright?” The manner and attitude were both
threatening though repressed.
“If you tell me that I misunderstood you, I will apologize. If you
think the statement insulting, I will withdraw it. I did not speak to
insult you; but because I wished you to know how your questions
impressed me.”
“When a man tells another he is contemptible, he cannot expect to
escape results. This is no place to have a scene. You may send me your
apology when we reach New York—”
Peter interrupted. “I shall, if you will tell me I wronged you in
supposing your questions to be malicious.”
Lispenard paid no attention to the interjection. “Otherwise,” he
finished, “we will consider our relations ended.” He walked away.
Peter wrote Lispenard that evening a long letter. He did not apologize
in it, but it ended:
“There should be no quarrel between us, for we ought to be friends. If
alienation has come, it is due to what has occurred to-day, and that
shall not cause unkind feelings, if I can help it. An apology is due
somewhere. You either asked questions you had no right to ask, or else
I misjudged you. I have written you my point of view. You have your
own. I leave the matter to your fairness. Think it over, and if you
still find me in the wrong, and will tell me so, I will apologize.”
He did not receive a reply. Meeting Ogden Ogden a few days later, he
was told that Lispenard had gone west for a hunting trip, quite
unexpectedly. “He said not to expect him back till he came. He seemed
out of sorts at something.” In September Peter had a letter from Miss
De Voe. Merely a few lines saying that she had decided to spend the
winter abroad, and was on the point of sailing. “I am too hurried to
see my friends, but did not like to go without some good-byes, so I
write them.” On the whole, as in the case of most comedies, there was
little amusement for the actual performers. A great essayist has
defined laughter as a “feeling of superiority in the laugher over the
object laughed at.” If this is correct, it makes all humor despicable.
Certainly much coarseness, meanness and cruelty are every day
tolerated, because of the comic covering with which it is draped.
It is not to be supposed that this comedy nor its winter prologue had
diverted Peter from other things. In spite of Miss De Voe’s demands on
his time he had enough left to spend many days in Albany when the
legislature took up the reports of the Commissions. He found strong
lobbies against both bills, and had a long struggle with them. He had
the help of the newspapers, and he had the help of Costell, yet even
with this powerful backing, the bills were first badly mangled, and
finally were side-tracked. In the actual fight, Pell helped him most,
and Peter began to think that a man might buy an election and yet not
be entirely bad. Second only to Pell, was his whilom enemy, the former
District-Attorney, now a state senator, who battled himself into
Peter’s reluctant admiration and friendship by his devotion and loyalty
to the bills. Peter concluded that he had not entirely done the man
justice in the past. Curiously enough, his chief antagonist was
Maguire.
Peter did not give up the fight with this defeat. His work for the
bills had revealed to him the real under-currents in the legislative
body, and when it adjourned, making further work in Albany only a waste
of time, he availed himself of the secret knowledge that had come to
him, to single out the real forces which stood behind and paid the
lobby, and to interview them. He saw the actual principals in the
opposition, and spoke with utmost frankness. He told them that the
fight would be renewed, on his part, at every session of the
legislature till the bills were passed; that he was willing to consider
proposed amendments, and would accept any that were honest. He made the
fact very clear to them that they would have to pay yearly to keep the
bills off the statute book. Some laughed at him, others quarrelled. But
a few, after listening to him, stated their true objections to the
bills, and Peter tried to meet them.
When the fall elections came, Peter endeavored to further his cause in
another way. Three of the city’s assemblymen and one of her senators
had voted against the bills. Peter now invaded their districts, and
talked against them in saloons and elsewhere. It very quickly stirred
up hard feeling, which resulted in attempts to down him. But Peter’s
blood warmed up as the fight thickened, and hisses, eggs, or actual
attempts to injure him physically did not deter him. The big leaders
were appealed to to call him off, but Costell declined to interfere.
“He wouldn’t stop anyway,” he told Green, “so we should do no good. Let
them fight it out by themselves.” Both of which sentences showed that
Mr. Costell understood his business.
Peter had challenged his opponents to a joint debate, and when that was
declined by them, he hired halls for evenings and spoke on the subject.
He argued well, with much more feeling than he had shown since his
speech in “the case.” After the first attempt of this kind, he had no
difficulty in filling his halls. The rumor came back to his own
district that he was “talkin’ foin,” and many of his friends there
turned out to hear him. The same news went through other wards of the
city and drew men from them. People were actually excluded, for want of
room, and therefore every one became anxious to hear his speeches.
Finally, by subscription of a number of people who had become
interested, headed by Mr. Pell, the Cooper Union was hired, and Peter
made a really great speech to nearly three thousand people.
The papers came to his help too, and stood by him manfully. By their
aid, it was made very clear that this was a fight against a selfish
lobby. By their aid, it became one of the real questions of the local
campaign, and was carried beyond the borders of the city, so as to play
a part in the county elections. Peter met many of the editors, and
between his expert knowledge, acquired on the Commissions, and his
practical knowledge, learned at Albany, proved a valuable man to them.
They repaid his help by kind words and praise in their columns, and
brought him forward as the chief man in the movement. Mrs. Stirling
concluded that the conspiracy to keep Peter in the background had been
abandoned.
“Those York papers couldn’t help my Peter’s getting on,” was the way
she put it.
The results of this fight were even better than he had hoped. One
Assemblyman gave in and agreed no longer to oppose the bills. Another
was defeated. The Senator had his majority so cut down that he retired
from the opposition. The questions too had become so much more
discussed and watched, and the blame so fastened upon the lobby that
many members from the country no longer dared to oppose legislation on
the subject. Hence it was that the bills, newly drawn by Peter, to
reduce opposition as far as possible, when introduced by Schlurger soon
after the opening of the legislature, went through with a rush, not
even ayes and nays being taken. Aided by Mr. Costell, Peter secured
their prompt signing by Catlin, his long fight had ended in victory.
The “sixt” was wild with joy over the triumph. Whether it was because
it was a tenement ward, or because Peter had talked there so much about
it, or because his success was felt to redound to their credit, the
voters got up a display of fireworks on the night when the news of the
signing of the bills reached New York. When Peter returned to the city,
he was called down to a hall one evening, to witness a torchlight
procession and receive resolutions “engrossed and framed” from his
admiring friends. Blunkers was chairman and made a plain speech which
set the boys cheering by its combination of strong feeling and lack of
grammar. Then Justice Gallagher made a fine-sounding, big-worded
presentation. In the enthusiasm of the moment, Dennis broke the
programme by rising and giving vent to a wild burst of feeling, telling
his audience all that they owed to Peter, and though they knew already
what he told them, they cheered and cheered the strong, natural
eloquence.
“Yer was out a order,” said Blunkers, at the end of the speech.
“Yez loi!” said Dennis, jumping on his feet again. “It’s never out av
order to praise Misther Stirling.”
The crowd applauded his sentiment.