A CALL FOR HELP
The agitated transit of Mr. Lewis Copewell through the anteroom of the
Honorable Alexander Hamilton Burrow created a certain stir. With all
the lawless magnificence of a comet that runs amuck through the
heavens, he burst upon the somewhat promiscuous assemblage already
seated there. The assemblage sat in dumb and patient expectancy. Quite
obviously it was a waiting-list, already weary with enforced
procrastination. Its many eyes were anxiously focussed on the door
that sequestered the great man in the aloofness of his sanctum.
A young woman gazed across her typewriter at the supplicants seeking
audience, with a calm hauteur which seemed to say, “Wait, varlets,
wait! The great do not hurry.”
They returned her gaze sullenly but in silence. None ventured to
penetrate beyond her desk to the portal forbiddingly placarded,
“Private.” None, that is, until Mr. Copewell arrived.
“Where’s Aleck?” demanded that gentleman, mopping his perspiring brow
with a silk handkerchief. “I want to see him quick!”
The young woman looked up blankly. She knew that Mr. Copewell and her
employer were, in their private capacities, on terms of intimacy, but
duty is duty, and law is impartial. Many persons wanted to see him
quick. Since the triumph of civic reform had converted the attorney
who paid her salary from a mere Aleck, who was even as other Alecks,
into Alexander the Great, she felt that his friends in private life
must adapt themselves to the altered condition of affairs.
Accordingly her reply came with frigid dignity. “Mr. Burrow instructed
that he was not to be, on any account, interrupted.”
“Huh?” Into Mr. Copewell’s surprised voice crept the raucous note that
the poet describes as “like the growl of the fierce watch-dog.”
“Huh?”
The young woman became glacial. “Mr. Burrow can’t see you.”
The glance which Mr. Copewell bent on this deterring female for a
moment threatened to thaw her cold reserve into hot confusion. The
waiting assemblage shuffled its feet, scenting war.
At the same moment the private door swung open and Mr. Burrow himself
stood on the threshold. At the sight of him several gentlemen who were
patriotically willing to serve their city in the police and fire
departments came respectfully to their feet. One contractor, who had
for sale a new paving-block, saluted in military fashion. Mr. Lewis
Copewell took a belligerent stride toward the door as though he meant
to win through by force of assault.
But Mr. Burrow made violence unnecessary. His smile revealed a
welcoming row of teeth, which in modern America means “dee-lighted.”
“Trot right in, old chap,” he supplemented.
The young woman looked crestfallen. She felt that her chief had failed
to hold up her hands in the stern requirements of discipline.
“Good morning, everybody!” rushed on Mr. Burrow, with a genial wave of
his hand and a smile of benediction for the waiting minions. This
second Alexander the Great knew that you can abuse a man’s patience if
you are a person of importance and smile blandly enough. Some of the
Cæsars could even massacre and remain popular—but they had to smile
very winningly. “Terribly busy! Must make all interviews brief this
morning,” went on the new dictator. “Must get over to the City Hall!”
Then in view of congealing acidity on the visages of three newspaper
men, he added, since no man is great enough to offend a reporter:
“I’ll have a big story for you boys to-morrow. You know I’m your
friend.” He swept Mr. Copewell into the private office and the door
slammed on his smile.
“I haf been sedding here for an hour alretty,” confided Alderman Grotz
to his next neighbor. The Alderman’s heavy lids blinked with a stolid,
bovine disapproval. “Der more I vait, der more I do not see him. Id
iss nod right!” Alderman Grotz was reported to carry the lager and
bratwurst vote about in the pocket of his ample, plaid waistcoat. Such
discrimination against him was venturesome politics.
“That guy that went in there ain’t like us,” explained Tommy Deveran,
whose florid oratory had been the machine’s prized asset until the
drift of political straws had guided him toward reform. “He wears silk
half-hose where you an’ me wears cotton socks. This here is a classy,
high-brow administration. Myself not bein’ no cotillion-leader, I’m
goin’ to beat it!” The Hon. Thomas rose and beat it in all the majesty
of affronted dignity.
* * * * *
Inside, Mr. Copewell threw his hat and stick on the desk and himself
into a chair. He commenced to speak and suddenly stopped. A fine flow
of high-pressure language was arrested by the sight of Chief-of-Police
Swager, sitting just across the room. The Chief rose and took up his
gold-trimmed cap. The new administration had added to the pulchritude
of its police officials by more jaunty uniforms. The Colonel felt
conscious of a distinguished and military bearing.
“I’m going to shift Captain McGarvey from the Tenderloin—if you don’t
object,” he announced.
Mr. Burrow did not object. He did not know who Captain McGarvey was,
but that fact he did not mention. “What for, Chief, what for?” he
inquired brightly. His air was that of a field-marshal for whom no
little thing is too small to merit consideration.
“Well,” thoughtfully pursued Colonel Swager, “I doubt if he’s on the
level, though I haven’t got him dead to rights yet—can’t prefer
charges. McGarvey’s a machine hold-over and he’s likely to be a little
blind in one eye where some of the thieves and yeggs that used to buy
protection are concerned. ‘Rat’ Connors was seen last night, down at
Corkhill’s place. You know ‘Rat’ Connors?”
Mr. Burrow had not that honor. The name was not on the membership
books of his clubs. “Let’s see—” he repeated carefully, “Rat Connors,
Rat Connors. I don’t, at the moment, seem to place him.”
“Second-story man, drum-snuffer, stone-pincher, porch-climber—general
all-round expert,” illuminatingly itemized the Chief, “variously
wanted for a large assortment of felonies. McGarvey ought to have
ditched him.”
“Ah, yes, quite so,” agreed Mr. Burrow. Mr. Copewell petulantly
shifted in his chair. These matters seemed to him extremely trivial in
view of his own more engrossing affairs.
“This Connors party,” enlarged the Chief, halting a moment by the door
and inspecting with pride the gold oak-leaves that went around his cap
like a garland of greatness, “he’s a solemn little runt with one front
tooth broke and one finger gone off the left hand. He’s got straight
black hair and a face like a rat. He looks like a half-witted kid, but
he’s there with the goods.”
Mr. Burrow nodded. “Go right after him, Chief,” he authorized, “I give
you _carte blanche_.”
Exit the Chief, and in his wake appears at the door the accusing face
of the young woman stenographer.
“Alderman Grotz insists——” she began.
“Impossible!” sighed Mr. Burrow dropping into an easy chair. “I’m
rushed to death just now.” He gazed off across the roofs and searched
his pockets for a cigarette. “Let him wait—let ’em all wait,” he
murmured restfully. “That’s good politics.” Then, turning to Copewell,
whose frantic pacing of the floor disturbed his composure, he
demanded:
“What’s your trouble?”
“Trouble!” exploded the visitor. “Trouble! Why it’s plural multiplied
by many, then squared and cubed and——”
“Well, just for a starter, give us one or two and build up from that,”
suggested Mr. Burrow placidly. “Another girl, I’ll bet.”
“Another girl!” snorted Mr. Copewell. “There isn’t any other girl! All
the rest are counterfeits! There never was but one girl, and I’m going
to lose her!” This with deep stress of tragedy. “You must help me.”
“Certainly, I’ll help you.” Mr. Burrow waved his cigarette with airy
assurance. “But what’s the matter? Can’t you lose her yourself?”
On the facetious and Honorable Alexander Mr. Copewell permitted the
withering blight of his scorn to beat for one awful moment in silence,
then he proceeded to enlighten. “I’ve got to steal this girl, or it’s
all off. You’ve got to help steal her!”
Mr. Burrow appeared shocked. “But my dear lad,” he demurred, “I’m
supervising a police force and a city administration in the interests
of Righteousness with a large R. I doubt if it would be just exactly
appropriate for me to go into the girl-stealing business on the side.”
“All politicians steal,” dogmatized Mr. Copewell, who had failed to be
properly impressed with the piety of the new administration. “It’s
time you were learning your new trade.”
“If it comes to that,” explained Mr. Burrow with a smile, “I have
subordinates who——”
“I tell you this is serious!” interrupted the other tempestuously.
“It’s desperate!”
“I’m very —— busy,” evasively suggested the new political power.
“If you’re too —— busy to help an old friend who needs you,” stormed
Mr. Copewell, “you can eternally go to ——”
“Hold on! Hold on!” placated the other before Mr. Copewell had enjoyed
the opportunity of designating the locality to which Mr. Burrow had
his permission to go. “I merely meant to point out that when you want
something done, it is well to go to a busy man. The other kind never
have time.”