THE STATE TREASURER.
The town had been attractive, but now it sprung into endearment. Emotion
was strong within me and my spirits rose, to find a new interest in
everything and to pick up many a jest by the roadside. I caught the song
of an old man who stood near the turnpike, trimming a young orchard; and
the laughter of a child that was romping on the grass when we stopped at
a toll gate threw sparkles of new life in the air. One sweet thrill of
selfishness had made the whole world musical and glad.
"Senator, whose house is that over yonder, to the left?"
"Mine," he answered. "Oh, yes, this is the first time you've had an
opportunity to view it from a distance. We are out too far to have the
advantage of gas and city water, but we've got room to swing round in,
and that's worth everything. Lumber dealer came one day and wanted to
know what I'd take for those walnuts. I told him that I'd take human
life if it was necessary. Hang me, if I didn't feel like setting the
dogs on him. I do believe," he said, shading his eyes, "that yonder are
Estell and Florence. Yes, Sir, he's got home."
At the gate, beneath the walnut trees, a man and a woman stood looking
toward us. The woman was Mrs. Estell. I had recognized her before the
Senator directed my attention; I should have known her a mile away. Her
gracefulness was so original that she must have been unconscious of its
effect. The soft climate of the South had touched her with its ease, but
she seemed ever on the verge of breaking away from it; and sometimes she
did, not with mere gayety, but with unconquerable strength. She
enforced upon me the belief that she had taken fencing lessons.
"And suppose he should object to our compact?" was a surmise that passed
through my mind; and I did not realize that I had given it actual
utterance until the Senator surprised me by saying:
"None of his business. Our affair. Taking care of the funds of the State
gives him about all he can look after. Helloa, there, Estell, why don't
you come out to meet a fellow?"
"On the keen jump, now," Estell replied, coming slowly to meet us, his
wife walking with him. It might have been the eye of prejudice that made
him look so old, though why should there have been an eye of prejudice?
His mustache was cropped off, stiff and gray, and his skin was thin on
his cheeks and thick under his chin. The Senator introduced us, with
heartiness and a flourish, and the moment I took Estell's hand I knew
that from his lofty position among the money bags of the State he could
not look down and find an interest in me. His nature was financial, his
instincts commercial; and I can say with truth that commerce embodied in
a strong and aggressive personality has always made me shudder. I am
afraid of the man who delights to make figures; I feel that I am in his
power. I might not hesitate to dispute with a most learned theologian,
to hang with him upon the quirks of his creed, but with a pencil and a
piece of paper a banker's clerk can cower me.
The Senator assisted me to alight, the Treasurer lending a pretense of
his aid; and we went without delay to the dining-room where dinner was
waiting. The Estells sat opposite the Senator and me; and the master of
the house and his son-in-law began to talk over the affairs of State.
"Hope you had a pleasant drive," Mrs. Estell said to me.
"Charming; we had a fine view of the town, saw the old fort, and passed
your college."
"Stupid old place, isn't it? But then, it's dear, just like stupid
people. Did you ever notice how dear stupid people are? They are
sometimes our dearest ones. I suppose they feel that about the only
thing they can do is to make themselves dear."
Estell was saying something about $246,-724, or something that sounded
like that amount, but he dropped it to ask: "Florence, what are you
talking about?"
"Stupid people. But you are not interested."
"No, of course not, but I was trying to get at an exact amount, and you
bothered me for a moment."
"It's all right, let it go," said the Senator. "By the way, Mr. Belford
and I have entered into a business arrangement. We are going to run the
opera house and share profits."
Mrs. Estell cried "good." Estell gave her a look of reproof, I thought.
"You mean that you are going to share losses," he said. "The thing was
an elephant on Sanderson's hands."
"But it won't be on ours," the Senator spoke up. "We know how to run it.
Don't we, Belford?"
"I think we do," I answered. "My fellow-players called me the manager's
elephant, and in this case I don't know but we might be pitting Greek
against Greek, or elephant against elephant."
Mrs. Estell laughed and so did the Senator, but Estell drank his coffee
in silence. The subject was permitted to fall, but it was taken up again
shortly afterward, when we had lighted our cigars in the library.
"So you think of going into the show business?" said the State
Treasurer, resting his head on the back of his chair and looking up at
the ceiling.
"Well, not actively," the Senator replied. "That is, I'm not to be
active in the work."
"Oh, I suppose it's all right," admitted Estell; "but it's a new line
and new lines are dangerous."
"But if dangerous, not without interest," the Senator was quick to
retort. "It's settled, at any rate. I'm going to try it."
Mrs. Estell had not accompanied us. I heard her talking to a dog in the
hall, and I listened with pleasure, for her voice was strong, deep and
singularly musical.
"The next session of the Legislature will be a very busy one, I am
inclined to think," Estell remarked.
"Always is," the Senator replied, laughing. "The better part of a new
session is generally taken up with the work of repealing the laws passed
by an older Assembly."
I was wondering whether Estell would ever become deeply enough
interested in my existence to warrant a straight look from his pale and
abstracted eye, when he withdrew his gaze from the ceiling, directed it
at me and said that he was glad to see me so far advanced toward
recovery. It was a mere commonplace which may not have arisen from a
real interest, and which politeness could no longer defer, but it gave
me a better opinion of him.
"I suppose," said I, not knowing what else to say, "that you find your
occupation one of almost painful exactness."
I think that he gave me a look of contempt. I am quite sure that, if he
did not, his eye failed him of his intention.
"I wouldn't stay there ten minutes if it meant play," he replied, and
turning to the Senator he said: "Saw old Dan Hilliard the other day."
"No!" the Senator exclaimed. "You don't mean _old_ Dan Hilliard?"
"Yes, I do--old Dan Hilliard."
"Hanged if I didn't think he was dead. Well, I'll swear! Old Dan
Hilliard! Humph! Why, I met his wife one day about three years ago and
she told me that Dan was dying, that he couldn't live till night. Now
what do you suppose he wanted to get well for?"
"To distress his friends, I reckon. Wanted to get five dollars from me,
and said if I'd give him the money you would pay him back."
My eyes with wandering about the room alighted on two foils, crossed
above a bookcase. I was right. The young woman had taken fencing
lessons. And just at that moment she entered the room, a great dog
following her. At the door she turned about to drive him back. He tried
to spring by her; she caught him, lifted him from the floor and with a
swing she tumbled him out into the hall.
"What _are_ you doing?" the Treasurer cried, with a nervous jump; and
the Senator, who sat facing the door, fell back with a laugh so full of
contagion that I caught it before I had time to strengthen my gravity
with the reflection that I might give Estell a cause to think that I was
intruding myself into a family affair.
"I am teaching old Tiger to behave himself," she replied, with a smile.
"I thought you had knocked down a steer," said Estell, settling himself
in his rocking chair. He shut his eyes, and to me he looked like a man
who longed for rest, but who had almost despaired of finding it.
"Florence," he spoke up, opening his eyes and slightly turning his head
toward her, "see if you can find my slippers, please. You needn't go
yourself," he added. "Send for them."
"I don't know where they are, and nobody else can find them," she
replied; and hastening out, she ran up the stairs, humming an
undefinable tune.
"Tom," said the Senator, "you have about worn yourself out. Why don't
you go off somewhere?"
"Can't--haven't time."
"That's the biggest fallacy that man ever introduced as an economy. Did
you ever know a man too busy to die?"
"No, but I sometimes think I am."
"Why don't you give up the infernal office? Nothing in it, anyway."
"Why don't you give up _your_ infernal office?"
"What!" cried the Senator, and he began to run his fingers through his
beard. "Now that would be a devil of a come off, wouldn't it! How is a
State to get along without laws? Hah! Look at the measures that owe
their origin to me. Tom, it's all right to be tired, but it's dangerous
to trample on common sense. Why don't I give up my office, indeed! Now
what could have put that fool notion into your head? Have you heard
anybody say that I ought to give it up? If you have, out with it, and
I'll make him produce his cause or eat his words. Out with it."
"Oh, I don't know that I've heard anybody say that you ought to give it
up," Estell replied, opening his eyes, but closing them again before he
had completed the sentence.
"You don't _know_ that you have," the Senator retorted, twisting his
beard to a sharp and fierce-looking point. "Estell, old fellow, there
are times for joking, but this is not one of them. I make no objection
to fair and honorable criticism, Sir; you know that. I grant every man
the right to pass upon my acts in office--_in_ office, understand; but
when a man says I ought to resign, why he must show cause, or I'll stuff
him like a sausage with his own garrulity. That's me, Estell, and you
know it."
"Talcom, I reckon that's you. But now to be exact, I haven't heard
anybody say you ought not to be in office."
"Good enough, Tom. It's all right. Yes, Sir, it's all right," said the
Statesman, with no trace of his recent disquiet, but with pleasant,
kindly eyes and a countenance made smooth by the justice of his cause
and the pride with which he regarded his determination to defend his
good name. "But, Tom, you really need rest. Oh, of course, I don't mean
that you should give up public life. No, Sir," he went on, looking at
me, "when a man has once been a servant of the people, he is never
satisfied to fall back among the powerless 'masters.' And, Sir--of
course it wouldn't do to say it everywhere, but I will say it here in
confidence--I have often looked at some poor, obscure devil and have
said to myself, 'Why the deuce do you want to live? You can't possibly
enjoy yourself, for nobody pays any attention to you.'"
And then spoke a voice at the door. I looked around and there Mrs.
Estell stood, holding a slipper in each hand, her arms hanging limp. I
did not catch the words she uttered first, but these I heard and always
shall remember: "And perhaps he has a wife who worships him, and
children that think he's a god. And if I were a man I would rather be in
his place than to have a world of flattery."
With a swift step and a graceful bend she laid the slippers at her
husband's feet. The Senator clapped his hands and so did I, but Estell
neither moved nor opened his eyes until he heard the slippers tap upon
the floor, and then he turned his head to say, "I'm much obliged to
you."
And at that moment she broke away from the soft and dignifying
influences of a Southern atmosphere; she sprang upon a chair, snatched
the foils from the wall, laid one of them across my knees, sprang back
and with mock tragedy cried, "Defend yourself." But before I could get
out of my astonishment to say a word, and as the dull eyes of her
husband looked up sharp with surprise, she bowed with a condescending
grace and with mimic magnanimity threw down the foil and said: "Ah, I
forgot. You are wounded and a prisoner."
The Senator looked on with pride; his face glowed and his eyes snapped,
but Estell grunted: "Mr. er-er-Belford," he began, again becoming
vaguely conscious that I was on the face of the earth, "the Senator had
no son; and that explains why he made a tomboy of his daughter." He
laughed weakly as he said this, and as a piece of good humor it was a
failure, but it proved to me that he was not wholly ill-natured.
"That's all right," the Senator replied, with his eyes on Mrs. Estell,
who had again mounted a chair to replace the foils on the wall. "That's
all right, but her tomboyishness has made her decidedly human, and,
Sir," he added, as the young woman stepped down, "I guess she succeeded
in winning the love of one of the best men in the State. Eh. How's that,
old fellow?"
"Not quite so bad as I expected," Estell answered, rousing up. "You
could have studied longer and framed it worse. By the way, Mr.
Belmont--"
"Belford," his wife suggested, standing with her hands resting on the
back of his chair.
"Yes, thank you. But, by the way, Mr. Belford, where are you from, Sir?
I take it that you are not a Southern man."
"I was born near the old city of Chester, England," I answered. "But I
came to this country when a boy. And among Americans I sometimes assert
that I'm English, but among Englishmen I am often proud to say that I am
an American."
"Good enough," said the Senator. "First rate. That's all you need to say
around here, Sir. Our most famous orator, S. S. Prentiss, used to say,
when reproached with the fact that he was not born in Mississippi, that
any fool could have been born here, but that he had sense enough to come
to the State of his own accord. Belford, we've had some great orators.
We've had men, Sir, that could make you laugh at your own sorrow and
then compel you to look with grief upon your own laughter. But they are
gone, Sir." He got up and stood with one hand thrust into his bosom.
"They are gone, and the world will never look upon their like again.
Why, Sir, Prentiss, with his oration on starving Ireland, made the whole
world weep. Ah, and who makes it weep now? It does not weep, for there
is a measure of relief in tears. It groans, and in a groan there is no
sentiment--the groan is the language of despair. The oppressive
corporation, the heartless money grabber--but I won't talk about it," he
broke off, sitting down and running his fingers through his beard.
"Yes, it's bad," Estell drawled, "but what are we going to do about it,
heigho?" he yawned. "You people may discuss the ills of the world, but
I'm going up-stairs and take a nap."