THE most important thing about Quintus Q. Montjoy, Esquire, occurred a
good many years before he was born. It was his grandfather.
In the natural course of things practically all of us have, or have had,
grandfathers. The science of eugenics, which is comparatively new, and
the rule of species, which is somewhat older, both teach us that without
grandfathers there can be no grandchildren. But only one in a million is
blessed even unto the third generation by having had such a grandfather
as Quintus Q. Montjoy had. That, indeed, was a fragrant inheritance and
by day and by night the legatee inhaled of its perfumes. I refer to his
grandfather on his father's side, the late Braxton Montjoy.
The grandfather on the maternal side must have been a person of abundant
consequence too, else he would never have begat him a daughter worthy to
be mated with the progeny of that other illustrious man; but of him you
heard little or nothing. Being long deceased, his memory was eclipsed
in the umbra of a more compelling personality. It would seem that in all
things, in all that he did and said in this life, Braxton Montjoy was
exactly what the proud grandsire of a justly proud grandscion should be.
He was a gentleman of the Old School in case that conveys anything to
your understanding; and a first family of Virginia. He was a captain
of volunteers in the War of Eighteen-Twelve. He was a colonel in the
Mexican war; that though was after he emigrated out over the Wilderness
Trail to the newer and cruder commonwealth of Kentucky. He was one of
the founders of our town and its first mayor in that far-distant time
when it emerged from the muddied cocoon of a wood-landing on the river
bank and became a corporation with a charter and a board of trustees and
all. Later along, in the early fifties, he served our district in
the upper branch of the State Legislature. In the Civil war he
would undoubtedly have been a general--his descendant gainsaying as
much--except for the unfortunate circumstance of his having passed away
at an advanced age some years prior to the beginning of that direful
conflict. Wherefore the descendant in question, being determined that
his grandfather should not be cheated of his due military meed by death,
conferred an honourary brevet upon him, anyway.
Nor was that all that might be said of this most magnificent of
ancestors--by no means was it all. Ever and always was he a person of
lofty ideals and mountainous principles. He never drank his dram in a
groggery nor discussed the affairs of the day upon the public highway.
Spurning such new-fangled and effetely-luxurious modes of transportation
as carriages, he went horseback whenever he went, and wheresoever. In
the summer time when the family made the annual pilgrimage back across
the mountains to Old White Sulphur he rode the entire distance, both
going and coming, upon a white stallion named _Fairfax_. To the day of
his death he chewed his provender with his own teeth and looked upon the
world-at-large through eyes, unlensed.
Yet he might have owned a hundred sets of teeth or five hundred pairs of
spectacles, had he been so minded, for to him appertained eighty slaves
and four thousand acres of the fattest farm lands to be found in the
rich bottoms of our county. War and Lincoln's Proclamation freed the
slaves but the lands remained, intact and unmortgaged, to make easier
the pathways of those favoured beings of his blood who might come after
him. Finally, he was a duellist of a great and fearsome repute; an
authority recognised and quoted, in the ceremonials of the code. In four
historic meetings upon the field of honour he figured as a principal;
and in at least three more as a second. Under his right shoulder blade,
a cousin of President Thomas Jefferson carried to his grave a lump of
lead which had been deposited there by this great man one fair fine
morning in the Valley of Virginia, during the adjudication, with
pistols, of a dispute which grew out of a difference of opinion touching
upon the proper way of curing a Smithfield ham.
We did not know of these things at first hand. Only a few elderly
inhabitants remembered Braxton Montjoy as he had appeared in the flesh.
To the rest of our people he was a tradition, yet a living one, and this
largely through virtue of the conversational activities of Quintus Q.
Montjoy, the grandson aforesaid, aided and abetted by Mrs. Marcella
Quistenbury.
I should be depriving an estimable lady of a share of the credit due her
did I omit some passing mention of Mrs. Quistenbury from this narrative.
She was one who specialised in genealogy. There is one such as she in
every Southern town and in most New England ones. Give her but a single
name, a lone and solitary distant kinsman to start off with, and for you
she would create, out of the rich stores of her mind, an entire family
tree, complete from its roots, deeply implanted in the soil of native
aristocracy, to the uttermost tip of its far-spreading and ramifying
branches. In the delicate matter of superior breeding she liberally
accorded the Montjoy connection first place among the old families of
our end of the state. So, too, with equal freedom, did the last of the
Montjoys, which made it practically unanimous and left the honour of the
lineage in competent hands.
For Quintus Q.--alas and alackaday--was the last of his glorious line.
Having neither sisters nor brothers and being unmarried he abode alone
beneath the ancestral roof tree. It was not exactly the ancestral roof
tree, if you wish me to come right down to facts. The original homestead
burned down long years before, but the present structure stood upon
its site and was in all essential regards a faithful copy of its
predecessor.
It might be said of our fellow-townsman--and it was--that he lived and
breathed and had his being in the shadow of his grandfather. Among the
ribald and the irreverent stories circulated was one to the effect that
he talked of him in his sleep. He talked of him pretty assiduously when
awake; there wasn't any doubt of that. As you entered his home you
were confronted in the main hall by a large oil portrait of an elderly
gentleman of austere mien, wearing a swallow-fork coat and a neck
muffler and with his hair brushed straight back from the forehead in a
sweep, just as Andrew Jackson brushed his back. You were bound to notice
this picture, the very first thing. If by any chance you didn't notice
it, Quintus Q. found a way of directing your attention to it. Then you
observed the family resemblance.
Quintus Q., standing there alongside, held his hand on his hip after
exactly the same fashion that his grandfather held _his_ hand on _his_
hip in the pictured pose. It was startling really--the reproduction of
this trait by hereditary impulse. Quintus Q. thought there was something
about the expression of the eyes, too.
If during the evening some one mentioned horses--and what assemblage of
male Kentuckians ever bided together for any length of time without some
one mentioning horses?--the host's memory was instantly quickened
in regard to the white stallion named _Fairfax. Fairfax_ achieved
immortality beyond other horses of his period through Quintus Q. Some
went so far as to intimate that Mr. Montjoy made a habit of serving hams
upon his table for a certain and especial purpose. You had but to refer
in complimentary terms to the flavour of the curly shavings-thin slice
which he had deposited upon your plate.
“Speaking of hams,” he would say--“speaking of hams, I am reminded of my
grandfather, the old General--General Braxton Montjoy, you remember. The
General fought one of his duels--he fought four, you know, and acted
as second in three others--over a ham. Or perhaps I should say over the
process of smoking a ham with hickory wood. His antagonist was no less a
person than a cousin of President Thomas Jefferson. The General thought
his veracity had been impugned and he, called the other gentleman out
and shot him through the shoulder. Afterwards I believe they became
great friends. Ah, sir, those were the good old days when a Southern
gentleman had a proper jealousy of his honour. If one gentleman doubted
another gentleman's word there was no exchange of vulgar billingsgate,
no unseemly brawling upon the street. The Code offered a remedy. One
gentleman called the other gentleman out. Sometimes I wish that I might
have lived in those good old days.”
Sometimes others wished that he might have, too, but I state that fact
in parenthesis.
Then he would excuse himself and leave the table and enter the library
for a moment, returning with a polished rosewood case borne reverently
in his two hands and he would put the case down and dust it with a
handkerchief and unlock it with a brass key which he carried upon his
watch chain and from their bed of faded velveteen within, bring forth
two old duelling pistols with long barrels, and carved scrolls on their
butts and hammers that stood up high like the ears of a startled
colt. And he would bid you to decipher for yourself the name of his
grandfather inscribed upon the brass trigger guards. You were given to
understand that in a day of big men, Braxton Montjoy towered as a giant
amongst them.
Aside from following the profession of being a grandson, Quintus Q. had
no regular business. There was a sign reading _Real Estate and Loans_
upon the glass door of his one-room suite in the Planters' Bank
building, but he didn't keep regular hours there. With the help of an
agent, he looked after the collecting of the rents for his town property
and the letting upon shares or leaseholds of his river-bottom farms; but
otherwise you might say his chief occupation was that of being a sincere
and conscientious descendant of a creditable forebear.
So much for the grandfather. So much, at this moment, for the grandson.
Now we are going to get through the rind into the meat of our tale:
As may be recalled, State Senator Horace K. Maydew, of our town and
county, being a leader of men and of issues, once upon a time hankered
mightily to serve the district in Congress and in the moment that he
could almost taste of triumph accomplished had the cup dashed from his
lips through the instrumentality of one who, locally, was fancied as
being rather better than a dabster at politics, himself. During the
months which succeeded this defeat, the mortified Maydew nursed a
sharpened grudge toward the enemy, keeping it barbed and fletched
against the time when he might let fly with it. Presently an opportunity
for reprisals befell. Maydew's term as State Senator neared its close.
For personal reasons, which he found good and sufficient, the incumbent
did not offer as a candidate to succeed himself. But quite naturally,
and perhaps quite properly, he desired to name his successor. Privily he
began casting about him for a likely and a suitable candidate, which to
the senator's understanding meant one who would be biddable, tractable
and docile. Before he had quite agreed with himself upon a choice, young
Tobias Houser came out into the open as an aspirant for the Democratic
nomination, and when he heard the news Senator Maydew re-honed his hate
to a razor-edge. For young Tobe Houser, who had been a farmer-boy and
then a country school teacher and who now had moved to town and gone
into business, was something else besides: He was the nephew of Judge
Priest, the only son of the judge's dead sister. It was the judge's
money that had helped the young man through the State university.
Undoubtedly--so Maydew read the signs of the times--it was the judge's
influence which now brought the youngster forth as an aspirant for
public office. In the Houser candidacy Maydew saw, or thought he saw,
another attack upon his fiefship on the party organisation and the party
machinery.
On an evening of the same week in which Tobe Houser inserted his
modestly-worded announcement card in the _Daily Evening News_, Senator
Maydew called to conference--or to concurrence--two lieutenants who
likewise had cause to be stalwart supporters of his policies. The
meeting took place in the living room of the Maydew home. When the
drinks had been sampled and the cigars had been lighted Senator Maydew
came straight to the business in hand:
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “I've got a candidate--a man none of us
ever thought of before. How does the name of Quintus Q. Montjoy seem to
strike you?”
Mr. Barnhill looked at Mr. Bonnin, and Mr. Bonnin looked back at Mr.
Barnhill. Then both of them looked at Maydew.
“Montjoy, eh?” said Barnhill, doubtfully, seeming not to have heard
aright.
“Quintus Q. Montjoy you said, didn't you?” asked Bonnin as though
there had been any number of Montjoys to choose from. He spoke without
enthusiasm.
“Certainly,” answered Maydew briskly, “Quintus Q. Montjoy, Esquire. Any
objections to him that you can think of, off-hand?”
“Well,” said Mr. Barnhill, who was large of person and slow of speech,
“he ain't never done anything.”
“If I'm any judge he never will do anything--much,” supplemented Mr.
Bonnin, who was by way of being small and nervous.
“You've said it--both of you,” stated their leader, catching them up
with a snap. “He never has done anything. That gives him a clean record
to run on. He never will do anything--on his own hook, I mean. That'll
make him a safe, sound, reliable man to have representing this district
up yonder at Frankfort. Last session they licked the Stickney warehouse
bill for us. This season it'll come up again for passage. I guarantee
here and now that Quint Montjoy will vote right on that proposition and
all other propositions that'll come up. He'll vote right because we'll
tell him how to vote. I know him from the skin out.”
“He's so powerfully pompious and bumpious--so kind of cocksure and
high-an'-mighty,” said Mr. Barnhill. “D'ye reckin, Hod, as how he'll
stand without hitchin'?”
“I'll guarantee that, too,” said Senator Maydew, with his left eyelid
flickering down over his left eye in the ghost of a wink. “He don't know
yet that he's going to be our candidate. Nobody knows it yet but you and
me. But when he finds out from us that he's going to have a chance
to rattle round in the same seat that his revered granddaddy once
ornamented--well, just you watch him arise and shine. There's another
little thing that you've overlooked. He's got money,--plenty of it; as
much money as any man in this town has got. He's not exactly what I'd
call a profligate or a spendthrift. You may have noticed that except
when he was spending it on himself he's very easy to control in money
matters. But when we touch a match to his ambition and it flares up,
he'll dig down deep and produce freely--or I miss my guess. For once
we'll have a campaign fund with some real money behind it.”
His tone changed and began to drip rancour:
“By Judas, I'll put up some of my own money! This is one time when I'm
not counting the cost. I'm going to beat that young lummox of a Houser,
if it's the last thing I do. I'm going to rub his nose in the mud. You
two know without my telling you why I'd rather see Houser licked than
any other man on earth--except one. And you know who that one is. We
can't get at Priest yet--that chance will come later. But we can get
his precious nephew, and I'm the man that's going to get him. And Quint
Montjoy is the man I'm going to get him with.”
“Well, Hod, jest ez you say,” assented Mr. Barnhill dutifully. “I was
only jest askin', that's all. You sort of tuck me off my feet at fust,
but the way you put it now, it makes ever'thing look mighty promisin'.
How about you, Wilbur?” and he turned to Mr. Bonnin.
“Oh, I'm agreeable,” chimed Mr. Bonnin. “Only don't make any mistake
about one thing--Houser's got a-plenty friends. He'll give us a fight
all right. It won't be any walkover.”
“I want it to be a fight, and I don't want it to be a walk-over,
either,” said Senator Maydew. “The licking we give him will be all the
sweeter, then.”
He got up and started for the telephone on the wall.
“I'll just call up and see if our man is at home. If he is, we'll all
three step over there right now and break the news to him, that the
voice of the people has been lifted in an irresistible and clamorous
demand for him to become their public servant at his own expense.” The
Senator was in a good humour again. “And say, Hod, whilst I'm thinkin'
of it,” put in Mr. Barnhill sapiently, “ef he should be at home and ef
we should go over there, tell him for Goddle Midey's sake not to drag
in that late lamentable grandpaw of his'n, more'n a million times durin'
the course of the campaign. It's all right mebbe to appeal to the old
famblies. I ain't bearin' ary grudge ag'inst old famblies, 'though I
ain't never found the time to belong to one of 'em myself. But there's a
right smart chance of middle-aged famblies and even a few toler'ble new
famblies in this here community. And them's the kind that does the large
bulk of the votin' in primary elections.”
We've had campaigns and campaigns and then more and yet other campaigns
in our county. We had them every year--and we still do. Being what they
were and true to their breeding the early settlers started running
for office, almost before the Indians had cleared out of the young
settlements. Politics is breath to the nostrils and strong meat to the
bellies of grown men down our way. Found among us are persons who are
office-seekers by instinct and office-holders by profession. Whole
families, from one generation to another, from father to son and from
that son to his son and his son's son become candidates almost as
soon as they have become voters. You expect it of them and are not
disappointed. Indeed, this same is true of our whole state. Times
change, party lines veer and snarl, new issues come up and flourish for
awhile and then are cut down again to make room for newer crops of newer
issues still, but the Breckinridges and Clays, the Hardins and Helms,
the Breathitts and Trimbles, the Crittendons and Wickliffes, go on
forever and ever asking the support of their fellow-Ken-tuckians at the
polls and frequently are vouchsafed it. But always the winner has cause
to know, after winning, that he had a fight.
As goes the state at large, so goes the district and the precinct and
the ward. As I was saying just now, we have had warm campaigns before
now; but rarely do I recall a campaign of which the early stages showed
so feverishly high a temperature as this campaign between Quintus Q.
Montjoy and young Tobias Houser for the Democratic nomination for State
Senator. You see, beneath the surface of things, a woman's personality
ran in the undercurrents, roiling the waters and soiling the channel.
Her name of course, was not spoken on the hustings or printed in the
paper, but her influence was manifest, nevertheless.
There was one woman--and perhaps only one in all that community--who
felt she had abundant cause to dislike Judge Priest and all that
pertained to him by ties of blood, marriage, affection or a common
interest. And this person was the present wife of the Hon. Horace K.
Maydew, and by that same token the former wife of old Mr. Lysander John
Curd. Every time she saw Congressman Dabney Prentiss passing by, grand
and glorious in his longtailed coat and his broad black hat and his
white tie, which is ever the mark of a statesman who is working at the
trade, she harked back to that day when Judge Priest had obtruded his
obstinate bulk between her husband and her husband's dearest ambition;
and she remembered that, except for him, she might now be Mrs.
Congressman Maydew, going to White House receptions and giving dinners
for senators and foreign diplomats and cabinet officers and such. And
her thoughts grew bitter as aloes; and with rancour and rage the blood
throbbed in her wrists until her bracelets hurt her. Being minded to
have a part and a parcel in the undoing of the Priest plans, she meddled
in this fight, giving to Mr. Montjoy the benefit of her counsel and her
open, active advocacy.
Perhaps it was because he inclined a flattered ear to the lady's
admonitions rather than to her husband's subtler chidings that Mr.
Montjoy confirmed the astute Mr. Barnhill's forebodings and refused
to stand without hitching. He backed and he filled; he kicked over the
traces and got tangled in the gears. He was, as it turned out, neither
bridle-wise nor harness-broken. In short he was an amateur in politics,
with an amateur's faults. He took the stump early, which was all well
and good, because in Red Gravel county if a candidate can't talk to the
voter, and won't try, he might just as well fold up his tents like the
Arab and take his doll rags and go on about his business, if he has any
business. But against the guidance and the best judgment of the man who
had led him forth as a candidate, he accepted a challenge from young
Houser for a series of joint debates; and whilst Mr. Barnhill and
Mr. Bonnin wagged their respective heads in silent disapproval, he
repeatedly and persistently made proclamation in public places and
with a loud voice, of the obligation which the community still owed his
illustrious grandparent, the inference being that he had inherited the
debt and expected to collect it at the polls.
It is likewise possible that Candidate Montjoy listened over-much to
the well meant words of Mr. Calhoun Tabscott. This Mr. Calhoun Tabscott
esteemed himself a master hand at things political. He should have been,
at that. One time or another he had been on opposite sides of
every political fence; other times he bestraddled it. He had been a
Greenbacker, a Granger, and a Populist and once, almost but not quite,
a Republican. Occasions were when, in rapid succession, he flirted
with the Single Taxers, and then, with the coy reluctance of one who is
half-converted, harkened to the blandishments of the Socialists. Had
he been old enough he would have been either a Know-Nothing or a
Whig--either or perhaps both. In 1896 he quit the Silver Democrats cold,
they having obtusely refrained from sending him as a delegate to their
national convention. Six weeks later he abandoned the Gold Democrats to
their fate because they failed to nominate the right man for president.
It was commonly believed he voted the straight Prohibition ticket that
year--for spite.
In the matter of his religious convictions, Mr. Tabscott displayed
the same elasticity and liberality of choice. In the rival fields
of theology he had ranged far, grazing lightly as he went. When the
Cumberland Presbyterians put chime bells in their spire, thereby
interfering with his Sunday morning's rest, for he lived just across the
street, he took his letter out of the church and thereafter for a period
teetered on the verge of agnosticism, even going so far as to buy the
works of Voltaire, Paine and Ingersol combined and complete in six large
volumes. He worshipped a spell with the Episcopalians and once during
a space of months, the Baptists had hopes of him. Rumour had it that he
finally went over to the Methodists, because old Mr. Leatheritt, of the
Traders National Bank, who was a Baptist, called one of his loans.
Now, having been twice with Judge Priest in his races for the Circuit
Judgeship and twice against him, Mr. Tabscott espoused the Montjoy
candidacy and sat in Mr. Montjoy's amen corner, which, indeed, was
altogether natural and consistent, since the Tabscotts, as an old
family, dated back almost as far and soared almost as high as the
Montjoys. There had been a Tabscott who nearly fought a duel himself,
once. He sent the challenge and the preliminaries were arranged but at
the eleventh hour, a magnanimous impulse triumphed over his lust for
blood, and for the sake of his adversary's wife and helpless children,
he decided to spare him. Mr. Tabscott felt that as between him and Mr.
Montjoy a sentimental bond existed. Mr. Montjoy felt it, too; and they
confabbed much together regarding ways, means and measures somewhat to
the annoyance of Senator Maydew who held fast to the principle that if a
master have but one man, the man should have but one master.
The first of the joint debates took place, following a barbecue, at
Gum Spring School-house in the northernmost corner of the county and the
second took place three days later at the Old Market House in town, a
large crowd attending. Acrimony tinctured Mr. Montjoy's utterances
from the outset. Recrimination seemed his forte--that and the claims of
honourable antiquity as expressed in the person of its posterity upon a
grateful and remembering constituency. He bore heavily upon the fact--or
rather the allegation--that Judge Priest was the head and the front of
an office-holding oligarchy, who thought they owned the county and
the county offices, who took what spoils of office and patronage they
coveted for themselves, and sought to parcel the remainder out among
their henchmen and their relatives. This political tyranny, this
nepotism, must end, he said, and he, Quintus Q. Montjoy, was the
instrument chosen and ordained to end it. “Nominate Montjoy and break
up the County ring,” was the slogan he carried on his printed card.
Therein, in especial, might be divined the undermining and capable hand
of Senator Maydew. But when at the second meeting between the candidates
Mr. Montjoy went still further and touched directly upon alleged
personal failings of Judge Priest, one who knew the inner workings
of the speaker's mind might have hazarded a guess that here a certain
lady's suggestions, privately conveyed, found deliverance in the spoken
word.
The issue being thus, by premeditated intent of one of the two gentlemen
most interested, so clearly and so acutely defined, the electors
took sides promptly, becoming not merely partisans but militant and
aggressive partisans. Indeed, citizens who seldom concerned themselves
in fights within the party, but were mainly content to vote the straight
party ticket after the fighting was over, came out into the open
and declared themselves. Perhaps the most typical exemplar of this
conservative class, now turning radical, was offered in the person of
Mr. Herman Felsburg. Until this time Mr. Felsburg had held to the view
that needless interference in primary elections jibed but poorly with
the purveying of clothing to the masses. Former patrons who differed
with one politically were apt to go a-buying elsewhere. No matter what
your own leanings might be, Mr. Felsburg, facing you across a showcase
or a counter, without ever committing himself absolutely, nevertheless
managed to convey the impression that, barring that showcase or that
counter, there was nothing between him and you, the customer--that in
all things you twain were as one and would so continue. Such had been
his attitude until now.
When Mr. Montjoy speared at Judge Priest, Judge Priest remained
outwardly quite calm and indifferent, but not so Mr. Felsburg. If he did
not take the stump in defence of his old friend at least he frequented
its base, in and out of business hours, and in the fervour of his
championship he chopped his English finer and twisted his metaphors
worse than ever he had done before, which was saying a good deal.
One afternoon, when he returned to the store, after a two-hours' absence
spent in sidewalk argument down by the Square, his brother, Mr. Ike
Felsburg, who was associated in the firm, ventured to remonstrate with
him, concerning his activities in the curbstone forum, putting the
objections on the grounds of commercial expediency. At that he struck
an attitude remotely suggestive of a plump and elderly Israelitish Ajax
defying the lightning.
“Listen here, you Ike,” he stated. “Thirty years I have been building
up this here Oak Hall Clothing Emporium, and also hats, caps and gents'
furnishings goods. You--you can run around with your lodge meetings and
your benevolence societies, and all this time I work here, sweating like
rats in a trap, and never is a word said by me to you, vicer or verser.
I ask you as brother to brother, ain't that so, or ain't it? It is,”
continued Mr. Herman, answering his own question.
“But, Hermy,” interjected Mr. Ike, put on the defensive by the turn
which the argument had taken, “but, Hermy, all what I have said to you
is that maybe somebody who likes Montjoy would get mad at you for your
words and take their custom up the street.”
“Let 'em!” proclaimed Mr. Herman with a defiant gesture which almost
upset a glass case containing elastic garters and rubber armbands, “let
'em. Anybody which would be a sucker enough to vote for Montjoy against
a fine young fellow like this here Houser would also be a sucker enough
to let Strauss, Coleman & Levy sell him strictly guaranteed all-wool
suitings made out of cotton shoddy, and I wouldn't want his custom under
any circumstances whatsoever!”
“But, Hermy!” The protest was growing weaker.
“You wait,” shouted Mr. Herman. “You have had your say, and now I would
have mine, if you please. I would prefer to get one little word in
sideways, if you will be so good. You have just now seen me coming
in out of the hot sun hoarse as a tiger from trying to convince a few
idiots which they never had any more sense than a dog's hind leg
and never will have any, neither. And so you stand there--my own
brother--and tell me I am going too far. Going too far? Believe me,
Mister Ike Felsburg, I ain't started yet.”
He swung on his heel and glared into the depths of his establishment.
“Adolph,” he commanded, “come here!” Adolph came, he being head salesman
in the clothing department, while Mr. Ike quivered in dumb apprehension,
dreading the worst and not knowing what dire form it would assume.
“Adolph,” said Mr. Herman with a baleful side-glance at his offending
kinsman. “To-day we are forming here the Oak Hall and Tobias J. Houser
Campaign and Marching Club, made up of proprietors, clerks, other
employees and well wishers of this here store, of which club I am the
president therefrom and you are the secretary. So you will please open
up a list right away and tell all the boys they are already members in
good standing.”
“Well, now, Mr. Herman,” said Adolph, “I've always been good friends
with Quintus Q. Montjoy and besides which, we are neighbours. No longer
ago than only day before yesterday I practically as good as promised him
my vote. I thought if you was coming out for Houser, some of us here in
the store should be the other way and so----”
Mr. Herman Felsburg stilled him with a look and removed his hat in order
to speak with greater emphasis.
“Adolph Dreifus,” he said with a deadly solemnity, “you been here in
this store a good many years. I would assume you like your job here
pretty well. I would consider that you have always been well treated
here. Am I right, or am I wrong? I am right! I would assume you would
prefer to continue here as before. Yes? No? Yes! You remember the time
you wrote with a piece of chalk white marks on the floor so that that
poor nearsighted Leopold Meyer, who is now dead and gone, would think
it was scraps of paper and go round all day trying to pick those chalk
marks up? With my own eyes I saw you do so and I said nothing. You
remember the time you induced me to buy for our trade that order
of strictly non-selling Ascot neckties because your own cousin from
Cincinnati was the salesman handling the line which, from that day to
this, we are still carrying those dam' Ascot ties in stock? Did I say
anything to you then?
“No! Not a word did I say. All those things is years past and I have
never spoken with you regarding them until to-day. But now, Adolph, I
must say I am ashamed for you that you should pick on that poor Leopold
Meyer, who was blind like a barn-door. I am ashamed for you that you
should boost up that cousin of yours from Cincinnati and his bum lines.
If I should get more ashamed for you than what already I now am, there
is no telling what I should do. Adolph, you will please be so good as
to remember that all persons that work in this here Oak Hall Clothing
Emporium are for Tobe Houser for State Senator and no one else,
whatsoever. Otherwise, pretty soon, I am afraid there will be some new
faces selling garments around here. Do I make myself plain? I do!
“My brother--the junior partner here”--he dwelt heavily upon the word
_junior_, making of it a most disqualifying adjective--“he also thinks
in this matter the same way as I do. If you don't believe me, ask him
for yourself. There he stands like a dumb engraved image--ask him.”
And Mr. Ike, making craven surrender, raised both hands in token of his
capitulation and weakly murmured, “Yes.”
*****
The third of the joint debates, which, as it turned out, was to be the
last one of the series, began according to schedule and announcement at
the boat store corner in the presence of an assemblage mustering up
in the hundreds. In fact the _Daily Evening News_ reporter, in the
introductory paragraph of his account, referred to it, I believe, as “a
sea of upturned faces.” Mr. Montjoy led off first. He had his say, for
the better part of an hour, speaking with much fluency from a small
board platform that was built up against the side of the old boat store
and occasionally, with a fretful shake of his head, raising his voice so
it might be heard above the rumbling objurgations of the first mate of
the _Cumberland Queen_ who, thirty yards down the old gravel levee, was
urging his black rousters to greater speed as they rolled the last of a
consignment of tobacco hogsheads across the lower wharf boat and aboard
the _Queen's_ boiler deck. Mr. Montjoy concluded with a neat verbal
flourish and sat down, mopping his moistened brow with a square of fine
cambric. Mr. Montjoy never permitted him-self to sweat and in public, at
least, he perspired but seldom; but there were times when he did diffuse
a perceptible glow.
His rival arose to answer him. He started off--Houser did--by stating
that he was not running on his family record for this office. He was
running on his own record, such as it was. Briefly, but vigorously, he
defended his uncle; a thing he had done before. Continuing, he would say
Mr. Montjoy had accused him of being young. He wished to plead guilty to
that charge. If it were a defect, to be counted against him, time would
probably cure him of it and he thought the Senate Chamber at Frankfort,
this state, provided a very suitable spot for the aging process.
(Laughter and applause.) He had a rather whimsical drawl and a
straightforward, commonplace manner of delivery.
He continued, and I quote:
“Some of you may have heard somewhere--casually--that my opponent had a
grandfather. Stories to that general effect have been in circulation for
quite some little time in this vicinity. I gather from various
avenues of information that my opponent is not exactly ashamed of his
grandfather. I don't blame him for that. A person without many prospects
so far as the future is concerned is not to be blamed for dwelling
rather heavily upon the past. But, fellow citizens, doesn't it strike
you that in this campaign we are having altogether too much grandfather
and not enough grandson? (Renewed laughter from the Houser adherents and
Mr. Montjoy's face turning a violent red.) It strikes me that the stock
is sort of petering out. It strikes me that the whale has bred a minnow.
“And so, in light of these things, I want to make this proposition here
and now: I want every man in this county whose grandfather owned eighty
slaves and four thousand acres of bottom lands to vote for Mr. Montjoy.
And all I ask for myself is that every man whose grandfather didn't own
eighty slaves and four thousand acres, should cast his vote for me.” (A
voice, “My grandpop never owned nary nigger, Toby,--I reckin you git my
vote without a struggle, boy.”)
Along this strain Mr. Houser continued some minutes. It was a line he
had not taken in either of his previous arguments with his opponent. He
branched away from it to tell what he meant to do for the people of the
district in the event of his nomination and election but presently he
came back again to the other theme, while Judge Priest grinned up at
him from his place in the edge of the crowd and Mr. Montjoy fidgeted and
fumed and wriggled as though the chair upon which he sat had been the
top of a moderately hot stove. From these and from yet other signs it
might have been noted that Mr. Montjoy, under the nagging semihumorous
goadings of young Houser, was rapidly losing his temper, which, by our
awkward Anglo-Saxon mode of speech, is but another way of saying he was
not losing his temper at all but, instead, finding out that he had one.
The _Cumberland Queen_ blew her whistle for departure and as the roar
died away Mr. Houser might be heard in the act of finishing a sentence
touching with gentle irony upon the topic which seemed so to irk and
irritate Mr. Montjoy. He never finished it.
Up, from his chair, sprang Mr. Montjoy, and shook a knotted fist beneath
Mr. Houser's nose.
“How dare you?” he demanded. “How dare you indulge in your cheap
sarcasm--your low scurrilities--regarding one of the grandest men the
Southland ever produced?”
His voice turned falsetto and soared to a slate-pencilly screech:
“I repeat it, sir--how dare you--you underbred ignoramus--you who never
knew what it was to have a noble grandfather! Nobody knows who your
grandfather was. I doubt whether anybody knows who your father----”
Perhaps it was what Mr. Montjoy appeared to be on the point of
asserting. Perhaps it was that his knuckles, as he brandished his fist
in Mr. Houser's face, grazed Mr. Houser's cheek.
Mr. Houser stretched forth a solid arm and gripped a handful of sinewy
fingers in the lapels of Mr. Montjoy's coat. He didn't strike Mr.
Montjoy, but he took him and he shook him--oh, how he shook him. He
shook him up and down, and back and forth and to and fro and forward and
rearward; shook him until his collar came undone and his nose glasses
flew off into space; shook him until his hair came down in his eyes and
his teeth rattled in his jaw; shook him into limp, breathless, voiceless
helplessness, and then holding him, dangling and flopping for a moment,
slapped him once very gently, almost as a mother might slap an erring
child of exceedingly tender years; and dropped the limp form, and
stepped over it and climbed down off the platform into the midst of the
excited crowd. The third of the series of the joint debates was ended;
also the series itself.
Judge Priest instantly shoved forward, his size and his impetuosity
clearing the path for him through a press of lesser and less determined
bodies. He thrust a firm hand into the crook of his nephew's arm and
led him off up the street clear of those who might have sought either
to compliment or to reprehend the young man. As they went away linked
together thus, it was observed that the judge wore upon his broad face
a look of sore distress and it was overheard that he grievously lamented
the most regrettable occurrence which had just transpired and that
openly he reproached young Houser for his elemental response to the
verbal attacks of Mr. Montjoy and, in view of the profound physical and
spiritual shock to Mr. Montjoy's well-known pride and dignity, that he
expressed a deep concern for the possible outcome. Upon this last head,
he was particularly and shrilly emphatic.
In such a fashion, with the nephew striving vainly to speak in his own
defence and with the uncle as constantly interrupting to reprimand him
and to warn him of the peril he had brought upon his head, and all in
so loud a voice as to be clearly audible to any persons hovering nearby,
the pair continued upon their journey until they reached Soule's Drug
Store. There, with a final sorrowful nod of the judge's head and a
final shake of his admonishing forefinger, they parted. The younger man
departed, presumably for his home to meditate upon his foolhardy conduct
and the older went inside the store and retired to Mr. Soule's little
box of an office at the rear, hard by the prescription case. Carefully
closing the door after him to insure privacy, he remained there for
upwards of an hour, engaged undoubtedly in melancholy reflections
touching upon the outbreak of his most culpable kinsman and upon the
conceivable consequences. He must have done some writing, too, for
when at length he emerged he was holding in one hand a sealed envelope.
Summoning to him Logan Baker, Mr. Soule's coloured errand boy, he
entrusted the note to Logan, along with a quarter of a dollar for
messenger hire, and sent the black boy away. From this circumstance
several persons who chanced to be in Soule's, hypothesised that very
probably the judge had taken it upon himself to write Mr. Montjoy a note
of apology in the name of his nephew and of himself. However, this
upon the part of the onlookers was but a supposition. They merely were
engaged in the old practice, so hallowed among bystanders, of putting
two and two together, by such process sometimes attaining a total of
four, and sometimes not.
As regards, on the other hand, Quintus Q. Montjoy, he retained no
distinct recollection of the passage homeward, following his mishandling
by Tobias J. Houser. For the time a seething confusion ruled his
being. Mingled emotions of chagrin, rage and shame--but most of all
rage--boiled in his brain until the top of his skull threatened to come
right off. Since he was a schoolboy until now, none had laid so much as
an impious finger upon him. For the first time in his life he felt the
warm strong desire to shed human blood, to see it spatter and pour forth
in red streams. The spirit of his grandfather waked and walked within
him; anyway it is but fair to assume that it did so.
Somebody must have rebuttoned Mr. Montjoy's collar for him and
readjusted his necktie. Somebody else of equally uncertain identity must
have salvaged his glasses and restored them to their customary place on
the bridge of his slender nose. True, he preserved no memory of these
details. But when, half an hour after the encounter, a hired hack
deposited him at his yard gate and when Mr. Barnhill, who it would
appear dimly and almost as a figment from a troubled dream, accompanied
him on the ride, had dismounted and had volunteered to help him alight
from the vehicle, meanwhile offering words intended to be sympathetic,
Mr. Montjoy found collar, necktie and glasses all properly bestowed.
Within the sanctified and solitary precincts of his library, beneath the
grim, limned eyes of his ancestor, Mr. Montjoy re-attained a measure
of outward calm and of consecutive thought; coincidently with these a
tremendous resolution began to harden inside of him. Presently as he
walked the floor, alternately clenching and unclenching his hands, the
telephone bell sounded. Answering the call, he heard coming across the
line the familiar voice of one, who, in the temporary absence of her
husband from the city, now undertook to offer advice. It would seem that
Mrs. Maydew had but heard of the brutal assault perpetrated upon her
friend; she was properly indignant and more than properly desirous that
a just vengeance be exacted. It would seem in this connection she had
certain vigorous suggestions to offer. And finally it would seem she had
just seen the evening paper and desired to know whether Mr. Montjoy had
seen his copy?
Mr. Montjoy had not. After a short interchange of views, when, from
intensity of feeling, the lady fairly made the wire sibilate and sing
as her words sped over it, she rang off and Mr. Montjoy summoned his
butler. His was the only roof in town which harboured a butler beneath
it. Other families had male servants--of colour--who performed duties
similar to those performed by Mr. Mont joy's man but they didn't call
these functionaries butlers and Mr. Montjoy did. He sent the butler out
into the yard to get the paper, which a boy had flung over the fence
palings in a twisted wisp. And when the butler brought it to him he
opened, to read, not the _Daily Evening News_ highly impartial account
of the affair at the boat store corner--that could come later--but to
read first off a card signed _Veritas_ which was printed at the bottom
of the second column of the second inside page, immediately following
the editorial comment of the day. It was this card to which young Mrs.
Maydew had particularly directed his attention.
He bent his head and he read. The individual who chose to hide behind
the nom de plume of _Veritas_ wrote briefly and to the point. At the
outset he confessed himself as one who harboured old-fashioned ideals.
Therefore he abhorred the personal altercations which in these latter
and degenerate days so often marred the course of public discussions
between gentlemen entertaining opposite views upon public problems or
private matters. And still more did he deplore the common street brawls,
not unmarked by the use of lethal weapons and sometimes by tragically
fatal results to one or the other of the parties engaged, which had
been known before now to eventuate from the giving and taking of the
offensive word, or blow. Hardly need the writer add that he had in mind
the unfortunate affray of even date in a certain populous quarter of
our city. Without mentioning names, he, _Veritas_, took that deplorable
occurrence for his present text. It had inspired him to utter these
words of protest against the vulgarity, the coarseness and the crassness
of the methods employed for the appeasing of individual and personal
wrongs. How much more dignified, how much more in keeping with
the traditions of the soil, and the very history of this proud old
commonwealth, was the system formerly in vogue among gentlemen for the
adjudication of their private misunderstandings! Truly enough the law
no longer sanctioned the employment of the _code duello_; indeed for the
matter of that, the law of the land had never openly sanctioned it; but
once upon a time a jealous regard for his own outraged honour had been
deemed sufficient to lift a Southern gentleman to extremes above the
mere written letter of the statutes. “_O tempora, O mores!_ Oh, for the
good old days!” And then came the signature.
Barely had Mr. Montjoy concluded the reading and the re-reading of this,
when Mr. Calhoun Tabscott was announced and promptly entered to proffer
his hand and something more, besides. Mr. Tabscott carried with him a
copy of the Daily Evening News opened at the inside page. His nostrils
expanded with emotion, his form shook with it.
In ten words these two--Mr. Montjoy as the person aggrieved and Mr.
Tabscott as his next friend--found themselves in perfect accord as to
the course which now should be pursued. At once then, Montjoy sat down
at his mahogany writing desk and Mr. Tabscott sat down behind him where
he could look over the other's shoulder and together they engaged in the
labours of literary composition.
But just before he seated himself Mr. Montjoy pointed a quivering finger
at the desk and, in a voice which shook with restrained determination,
he said impressively, in fact, dramatically:
“Calhoun Tabscott, that desk belonged to my grandfather, the old
General. He used it all his life--in Virginia first and then out here.
At this moment, Calhoun Tabscott, I can almost feel him hovering above
me, waiting to guide my pen.”
And Mr. Tabscott said he felt that way about it, himself.
*****
In spare moments at home Judge Priest was addicted to the game of
croquet. He played it persistently and very badly. In his side yard
under his dining-room window rusted wickets stood in the ordained
geometric pattern between painted goal posts, and in a box under a
rustic bench in the little tottery summerhouse beneath the largest
of the judge's silver leaf poplar trees were kept the balls and the
mallets--which latter instruments the judge insisted on calling mauls.
And here, in this open space, he might be found on many a fine afternoon
congenially employed, with some neighbourhood crony or a chance caller
for his antagonist. Often, of mornings, when he had a half hour or so of
leisure, he practiced shots alone.
On the morning which immediately followed the day of the broken-off
joint debate at the boat-store corner, he was so engaged. He had his
ball in excellent alignment and fair distance of the centre wickets, and
was stooping to deliver the stroke when he became aware of his nephew
approaching him hurriedly across the wide lawn.
“Uncle Billy,” began that straightforward young man, “something has
happened, and I've come to you with it right off.”
“Son,” said the judge, straightening up reluctantly, “something happens
purty nigh every day. Whut's on your mind this mornin'?”
“Well, suh, I was eating breakfast a little bit ago, when that Cal
Tabscott came to the front door. He sent word he wouldn't come in, so I
went out to the door to see what it was he wanted. He was standing there
stiff and formal as a ramrod, all dressed up in his Sunday clothes, and
wearing a pair of gloves, too--this weather! And he bowed without a
word and handed me a letter and when I opened it it was a challenge
from Quint Montjoy--a challenge to fight a duel with him, me to name the
weapons, the time and the place! That's what I've got to tell you.”
His uncle's eyes opened innocently wide. “Boy, you don't tell me?” he
said. “And whut did you do then?”
“Well, suh, I came within an ace of just hauling off and mashing that
blamed idiot in the mouth--coming to my door with a challenge for a
duel! But I remembered what you told me yesterday about keeping my
temper and I didn't do it. Then I started to tear up that fool note and
throw the pieces in his face.”
“You didn't do that neither, did you?” demanded the judge quickly, with
alarm in his voice. “You kept it?”
“I didn't do that either and I kept the note,” replied the younger man,
answering both questions at once. “I shut the door in Tabscott's face
and left him on the doorstep and then I went and put on my hat and came
right on over here to see you. Here's the note--I brought it along with
me.”
His uncle took from him the single sheet of note paper and adjusted his
specks. He gazed admiringly for a moment at the embossed family crest at
the top and read its contents through slowly.
“Ah hah,” he said; “seems to be regular in every respect, don't
it?--polite, too. To the best of my remembrances I never seen one of
these challenges before, but I should judge this here one is got up
strictly accordin' to the Code. Son, our ancestors certainly were the
great hands for goin' accordin' to the codes, weren't they? If it wasn't
one Code, it was another, with them old fellers. Quintus Q. Montjoy
writes a nice hand, don't he?”
With great care, he folded the note along its original crease, handling
it as though it had been a fragile document of immense value and
meanwhile humming a little tuneless tune abstractedly. Still humming,
he put the paper in an ancient letter wallet, wrapped a leather string
about the wallet, and returned wallet and string to the breast pocket of
his black seersucker coat.
“Son,” he said when all this had been accomplished, “I reckin you done
the right thing in comin' straight to me. I must compliment you.”
“Yes, suh, much obliged,” said young Houser, “but, Uncle Billy, what
would you advise my doing now?”
He rubbed his forehead in perplexity.
“Why, nothin'--nothin' a'tall,” bade his uncle, as though surprised at
any suggestion of uncertainty upon the nephew's part. “You ain't got a
thing to do, but jest to go on back home and finish up your breakfast.
It ain't wise to start the day on an empty stomach, ever. After that, ef
I was you, I would put in the remainder of the day remainin' perfectly
ca'm and collected and whilst so engaged I wouldn't say nothin' to
nobody about havin' received a challenge to fight a duel.” He regripped
his mallet. “Son, watch me make this shot.” He stopped and squinted
along the imaginary line from his ball to the wicket.
“But, Uncle Billy, I----”
“Son, please don't interrupt me ag'in. Jimmy Bagby is comin' over this
evenin' to play off a tie match with me, and I aim to be in shape fur
him when he does come. Now run along on back home like I told you to and
keep your mouth shet.”
The judge whacked his ball and made an effective shot--or rather an
effective miss--and Tobe Houser betook himself away wagging his puzzled
head in a vain effort to fathom the enigma of his relative's cryptic
behaviour.
Approximately thirty-six hours passed without public developments
which might be construed as relating to the matter chiefly in hand and
then--in the early afternoon--young Houser returned to the house of his
uncle, this time, finding its owner stretched out for his after-dinner
nap upon an old and squashy leather couch in the big old-timey
sitting-room. The judge wasn't quite asleep yet. He roused as his nephew
entered.
“Uncle Billy,” began young Houser, without preamble, “you told me
yesterday not to do anything and I've obeyed your orders although I
didn't understand what you were driving at, exactly, but now I must
do something if I aim to keep my self-respect or to stay in this
race--either one, or both. Unless I take up the dare he's laid down in
front of me, Montjoy's going to brand me on the stump as a coward. Yes,
suh, that's his intention--Oh, it came to me straight. It seems
Mrs. Horace K. Maydew told old Mrs. Whitridge this morning in strict
confidence and Mrs. Whitridge just took her foot in hand and put out
to tell Aunt Puss Lockfoot and Aunt Puss didn't lose any time getting
through the alley gate into my back yard to tell my wife.
“Yes, suh, if I keep silent and don't take any notice of his challenge,
Montjoy's going to get up before this whole town at a mass meeting and
denounce me as a coward,--he's going to say I'm willing enough to take
advantage of being younger and stronger than he is to attack him with my
bare hands, but that I'm afraid to back up my act where it puts my hide
in danger. I know mighty good and well who's behind him, egging him
on--I can see her finger in it plain enough. She hopes to see me
humiliated and she hopes to see your chances hurt in your next race. She
aims to strike at you through me and ruin us both, if she can.
“But, Uncle Billy, all that being so, doesn't alter the situation so far
as I'm concerned. The man doesn't live that can stand up and brand me
as a sneaking quitting coward and not have to answer for it. One way or
another, it will come to a pass where there's bound to be shooting. I've
just got to do something and do it quick.”
“Well, son,” said Judge Priest, still flat on his back, “I sort of
figgered it out that things might be takin' some sech a turn as this.
I've heard a few of the rumours that're be-ginin' to creep round,
myse'f. I reckin, after all, you will have to answer Mister Montjoy. In
fact, I taken the trouble this mornin' to wrop up your answer and have
it all ready to be sent over to Mister Montjoy's place of residence by
the hands of my boy Jeff.”
“You wrapped it up?” queried Houser, bewildered again.
“That's whut I said--I wropped it up,” answered the judge. He heaved
himself upright and crossed the room to his old writing table that stood
alongside one of the low front windows and from the desk took up a large
squarish object, securely tied up in white paper with an address written
upon one of its flat surfaces.
“Jeff!” he called, “oh, you Jeff.”
“Why, Uncle Billy, that looks like a book to me,” said Mr. Houser.
Assuredly, this was a most mystified young man.
“It ain't no box of sugar kisses--you kin be shore of that much,
anyway,” stated that inscrutable uncle of his. “You're still willin',
ain't you, son, to set quiet and be guided by me in this matter?”
“Yes, suh, I am. That is, I'm perfectly willing to take your advice up
to a certain point but----”
“Then set right still and do so,” commanded Judge Priest. “I'm goin' to
take you into my confidences jest as soon as I see how my way of doin'
the thing works out. We oughter git some definite results before dark
this evenin'. And listen here, son, a minute--when all's said and
done even Quintus Q. Montjoy, Esquire, ain't no more of a stickler
for follering after the Code than whut I am. I'm jest ez full of
time-hallowed precedents ez he is--and maybe even more so.”
“Callin' me, Jedge?” The speaker was Jefferson Poindexter, who appeared
at the door leading into the hall.
“Yes, I was--been callin' you fur a half hour--more or less,” stated
his master. “Jeff, you take this here parcel over to Mister Quintus
Q. Montjoy's and present it with the compliments of Mister Houser. You
needn't wait fur an answer--jest come on back. I reckin there won't be
no answer fur some little time.” He turned again to his nephew with the
air of a man who, having disposed of all immediate and pressing business
affairs, is bent now upon pleasurable relaxation.
“Son, ef you ain't got nothin' better to do this evenin' I wish't you'd
stay here and keep score fur the tournament. Playing crokay, I licked
the pants off'en that poor old Jimmy Bagby yis'tiddy, and now he wants
to git even.”
The judge spoke vaingloriously. “He's skeered to tackle me again
single-handed, I reckin. So him and Father Tom Minor are coinin'
over here to play me and Herman Felsburg a match game fur the crokay
champeenship of Clay Street and adjacent thoroughfares. They oughter be
here almost any minute now--I was jest layin' here, waitin' fur 'em and
sort of souplin' up my muscles.”
Playing magnificently as partners, Father Minor and Sergeant Bagby
achieved a signal victory--score three to one--over the Felsburg-Priest
team. The players, with the official referee who maintained a somewhat
abstracted, not to say a pestered, air, were sitting in the little
summer house, cooling off after the ardours of the sport. Jeff
Poindexter had been dispatched indoors, to the dining-room sideboard,
to mix and fetch the customary refreshments. The editor of the _Daily
Evening News_, who was by way also of being chief newsgatherer of that
dependable and popular journal, came up the street from the corner below
and halted outside the fence.
“Howdy, gentlemen!” over the paling he greeted them generally. “I've got
some news for you-all. I came out of my way, going back to the office,
to tell you.” He singled out the judge from the group. “Oh, you
_Veritas_” he called, jovially.
“Sh-h-h, Henry, don't be a-callin' me that,” spoke up Judge Priest with
a warning glance about him and a heavy wink at the editor. “Somebody
that's not in the family might hear you and git a false and a misleadin'
notion about the presidin; circuit judge of this district. Whut's your
news?”
“Well,” said Mr. Tompkins, “it's sort of unprofessional to be revealing
the facts before they're put in type but I reckon it's no great breach
of ethics to tell a secret to an occasional contributor of signed
communications--” he indicated Judge Priest, archly--“and the
contributor's close friends and relatives. Anyhow, you'd all know it
anyhow as soon as the paper comes out. Quintus Q. Montjoy is withdrawing
from the race for State Senator.”
“What?” several voices spoke the word in chorus, only Sergeant Bagby
pronounced it _Whut_ and Mr. Felsburg sounded the _W_ with the sound of
_V_ as in _Vocal._
“Montjoy quits. I've got his card of withdrawal right here in my pocket
now. Tobe, allow me to congratulate you on your prospect of getting the
nomination without any opposition at the polls.”
“Quits, does he?” echoed Judge Priest. “Well, do you boys know, I ain't
surprised. I've been lookin' fur him to do somethin' of that nature fur
the last two hours. I wonder whut delayed him?” He addressed the query
to space.
“He gives some reasons--maybe, yes?” asked Mr. Felsburg, releasing Mr.
Houser's hand which he had been shaking with an explosive warmth.
“Oh, yes,” said Editor Tompkins, “I suppose he felt as if he had to do
that. The principal reason he gives is that he finds he cannot spare
the time from his business interests for making an extended canvass--and
also his repugnance to engaging further in a controversy with a man who
so far forgets himself as to resort to physical violence in the course
of a joint debate upon the issues of the day. That's a nice little
farewell side-slap at you, Houser.
“But I gleaned from what I picked up after I got over to Montjoy's in
answer to his telephone message asking me to call that there may have
been other reasons which are not set forth in his card of withdrawal,”
continued Mr. Tompkins. “In fact, about the time I got over there--to
his house--Hod Maydew arrived in a free state of perspiration and
excitement--Hod's been up in Louisville on business, you know, and
didn't get in until the two-thirty train came--and I rather gathered
from what he said a little bit ago to Quintus Q., in the privacy of the
dining room while I was waiting in the library, that he was considerably
put out about something. His voice sounded peeved--especially when he
was calling Montjoy's attention to the fact that even if he should win
the race now, he wouldn't be able to take the oath of office. Anyhow, I
think that's what he was saying.
“Say, Judge, just for curiosity's sake now and strictly between
ourselves--just what was the message, or whatever it was, that you sent
over to Montjoy's right after dinner? I overheard something about that
too.”
“Oh, that?” said the judge, as all eyes turned in his direction. “That
was jest a spare copy of the Code that I happened to have 'round the
house--with a page in it marked and turned down.”
“The Code--what Code?” Mr. Tompkins pressed the point like the alert
collector of news that he was.
“The Code and the Statutes--with the accent on the Code,” answered the
old judge, simply. “Although, speakin' pussonally, I pay more attention
to the Statutes than some folks do. In fact it would seem like some
persons who are reasonably well informed on most subjects--ancestors fur
instance--ain't never took the time to peruse them old Statutes of ourn
with the care they should give to 'em ef they're aimin' to engage in
the job of bein' a statesman.” He faced his nephew. “Tobe, my son, this
oughter be a great lesson to you--it's a work that'll bear consid'able
study frum time to time. I'm afeared you ain't ez well posted on the
subject ez you should be. Well, this is a mighty good time to begin. You
kin take your first lesson right now.”
He stooped and lifted the lid of the croquet box, beneath the bench upon
which they had been sitting, and fetched forth a large, heavy volume,
bound in splotchy law calf. “I put my other copy here jest a little
while ago, thinkin' somebody might be interested later on in its
contents,” he explained as he ran through the leaves until he came to
a certain page. Upon that page, with a blunt forefinger, he indicated a
certain paragraph as he handed the tome over to his nephew.
“There, Tobe,” he ordered, “you've got a good strong voice. Read this
here section--aloud.”
So then, while the others listened, with slowly widening grins of
comprehension upon their several faces, and while Judge Priest stood
alongside, smiling softly, young Tobe read. And what he read was this:
“Oath to be taken by all officers--Form of Members of the General
Assembly and all officers, before they enter upon the execution of the
duties of their respective offices, and all members of the bar, before
they enter upon the practice of their profession, shall take the
following oath or affirmation: I do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the
case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States
and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to
the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof,
and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the
office of ------------ ------------ according to law; and I do solemnly
swear (or affirm) that since the adoption of the present Constitution,
I, being a citizen of this State, have not fought a duel with deadly
weapons within this State, nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted
a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as
second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus
offending, so help me God.”
Having read it aloud, young Houser now reread it silently to himself.
He was rather a slow-thinking and direct-minded person. Perhaps time was
needed for the full force and effect of the subject-matter to soak into
him. It was Mr. Tompkins who spoke next.
“Judge Priest,” he said, “what do you suppose those two fellows over
yonder at Montjoy's are thinking about you right now?”
“Henry,” said Judge Priest, “fur thinkin' whut they do about me, I
reckin both of them boys could be churched.”