Had the fantastic bolt of the Sprague clique been left to its own
courses, Shelby would have borrowed no further trouble, but a
fortuitous matter of radishes and ice-water suddenly put the quarrel on
an altogether different level. About the hour when Bernard Graves
hobnobbed with Jasper Hinchey, the third factor in the Demijohn
District's political muddle sat down to dinner in a neighboring city.
"Chuck" O'Rourke was fond of his dinner. A childhood of squalid
poverty had taught him the joy of a square meal. The story of the
years linking the famished boy to the pudgy red-faced man of the
restaurant is unessential,--an everyday story, sordid, and barren of
romance. The present knew him for a prosperous contractor and
politician whose most conspicuous public service had been the adroit
fashioning of Tuscarora County's minority party into a compact
organization, to which the majority party found it expedient to cast an
occasional sop of patronage. He had lived and thrived in an atmosphere
of deals. Only within the fortnight had he aspired to hold office,
since his party had for years lacked the fighting chance which the
revolt against Shelby created. Tempted at last, he abruptly resolved
to enter the congressional race himself, and this same day had effected
the last dicker with other county leaders which would insure his naming
in to-morrow's convention.
The day had gone unwontedly sultry, with a sudden flushing of autumn
with dog-day heat, and his active morning had been fraught with
physical discomfort. He had consumed quantities of beer and whiskey in
his rounds, and had looked upon the wine when it was red. His heavy
fall suit was a weariness, and as he entered the restaurant he loosed
his checked waistcoat, unveiling a row of diamond shirt studs which
galvanized the languid waiters to buoyant life. He was escorted with
pomp and circumstance to a seat in the shadiest window, swept by the
torrid breath of an electric fan.
O'Rourke gulped a glassful of ice-water as he studied the menu card,
and motioned for more. Two other glassfuls went the way of the first,
and the negro refilled the carafe. The man pulled angrily at his limp
collar and discussed his order. Vacillating for a time between broiled
lobster and porterhouse steak with mushrooms, he cut the matter short
by taking both, and buttressed the main structure of the meal with side
dishes of banana fritters and griddle-cakes. He decided that peach
short-cake and tutti-frutti ice cream would stop the gap for desert
[Transcriber's note: dessert?], and expressed a preference for "fizz"
as he scanned the wine list. With a happy afterthought he recalled the
fleeting waiter and ordered him to fetch a cocktail as an appetizer.
The ice-water carafe was within easy reach, and, pending the coming of
the cocktail, it lowered steadily. Hard by, also, stood a dish of
radishes, out of season, but succulent. He cleared the dish, and
meditated assault on its fellow at the table adjoining. However, the
brave advance of the lobster, the porterhouse, and the champagne bucket
diverted him, and he tucked a napkin under his flabby chin with a
genial smile. Then the smile shrivelled; waiters, porterhouse,
lobster, champagne, winked out in utter blackness, and Chuck O'Rourke
slid heavily to the floor.
The dead man's associates met the emergency with a sharp move. The
following morning Shelby caught a persistent rumor that the convention,
wanting its slated candidate, proposed to indorse the candidacy of
Bernard Graves; which same thing, after a moving tribute to the fallen
leader, the convention with cheerful promptness did.
The Hon. Seneca Bowers was unnerved. He had had to cope with no such
outrageous problem in the whole of his honorable career, and in a state
of mind bordering panic he packed his grip and posted to New York for a
conference with the Boss, leaving Shelby to temporize as best he might.
Nor was Shelby inactive. The O'Rourke crowd had been placated in small
matters times out of mind, and he went about the present task in the
usual way, directing one of his people to inquire what they wanted.
These hitherto insatiate gentlemen replied that they wanted nothing,
adding pleasantly that they were well content with what they had. The
possibility of a victory in a gerrymandered district, however won, was
without price. Shelby appreciated their point of view and addressed
himself to measures more feasible. If he could not shake their
allegiance to Graves, he might succeed in preventing Graves from taking
up with them, and the agencies for influencing public opinion which he
could control began accordingly to ridicule the idea of a reform
candidate's accepting such an indorsement.
Graves refused to be drawn, and for forty-eight hours held his peace
with the aplomb of a veteran. Then Bowers came back.
"Has he accepted?" The words were out before he could take Shelby's
hand.
"Not yet."
"Thank heaven. Tell me what you've done."
Shelby recapitulated.
"That's right," approved his senior. "There's nothing more to be done
with Chuck O'Rourke's bandits just now. Graves is the man to consider.
Is he still mum?"
"As a cigar sign. How does the Boss take it?"
"Urbanely, as always. He's silkier every time I see him." Bowers's
memory lingered upon the soft-spoken interview with the great state
leader.
"Well?" Shelby jogged him crisply.
"He knows all about Graves--as he knows about everybody. Says he has
met the scholar in politics before. Do you remember how he took care
of that kid-gloved aggregation which tried to run him out of business a
year or so ago? He dumped this distinguished kicker into the cabinet,
had another made a plenipotentiary, foisted off number three into some
windy commission on the other side of the planet, and so on down the
list. They said it seemed to be in the air that harmony should
prevail."
Shelby laughed.
"The Boss is the smoothest made," he owned. "What does he advise in
this case?"
Bowers leaned forward importantly.
"What do you think the young man would say to an author's job--some
French or Italian consulate?"
"I'll tell you what I say: if the Boss advised that, he's growing
senile."
"I didn't say he advised it. He merely suggested that literary people
bit at that kind of bait. As a matter of fact, he didn't advise
anything. He said if we couldn't fix things with the O'Rourke crowd,
that the situation would have to develop a bit."
"Queer sort of talk," Shelby commented. "I wonder what he wants?" He
puzzled over it a moment. "Well, whatever develops, don't talk
consulate to Bernard Graves. The Boss is a pastmaster at side-tracking
soreheads, but there's a point involved in this case that he doesn't
grasp. Disappointed lovers are probably out of his line."
Bowers shifted his cigar to reply, but thought better of it. His hold
on the wheel was weakening, and he remarked to his wife that night that
this should be his last active campaign. Shelby entertained a similar
opinion.
When the two men met on the morrow the situation had indeed developed.
Persuaded against his own judgment by Volney Sprague, Bernard Graves
had consented to assume the mantle of Chuck O'Rourke, deceased. To the
repressed amusement of his new allies, he stipulated that the
employment of questionable methods should be left to the common foe,
and that they must accept him absolutely unpledged.
Shelby ran a gauntlet of chaff to his law office that afternoon, and
found Bowers awaiting him in bilious mood. He was hazing the rooms
with gusts of tobacco smoke, a sign of nervousness in so deliberate a
smoker. They nodded curtly without words, and Shelby ran perfunctorily
through his mail. Presently he raised his eyes and met Bowers's gloomy
scrutiny lowering through the fog.
"You look like a hired mourner," he remarked, swirling the smoke.
"I feel like a real one."
"Well, don't wear your weeds so conspicuously. The enemy will imagine
they have us scared."
Bowers swore listlessly.
"They have."
"Don't include me. I've a little sand left, I hope."
"It's the most serious fight we've ever had in the district. It's so
unexpected. And I can't see how we are to blame. The organization
backed your nomination cordially. We couldn't foresee that Volney
Sprague would make trouble, any more than we could know that O'Rourke
would gorge himself to apoplexy. And who, for the love of heaven,
would have thought Bernard Graves would step into Chuck O'Rourke's
shoes! I've been in politics for thirty years, Ross, with my fair
share of good luck and bad, but I've never been up against the equal of
this. It's--it's--" He broke off in despair of adequate
characterization.
"Brace up, brace up. You need a brandy and soda."
"I've had two."
"Then take a glass of milk," rallied Shelby; "paregoric, boneset tea,
anything. I'm ashamed of you."
Bowers smiled wanly.
"You're a younger man, Ross. You can rebound. I can't any more. I'm
too old. I--I've lost confidence in myself."
"I haven't lost confidence in myself," ejaculated Shelby. "No such
alliance of thugs and goody-goods shall down me. I'm in this game to
stay and to win."
His stout words in some degree bolstered the discouraged veteran, and
they turned presently to a discussion of ways and means. The outlook
was not cheering. The fusion of the opposition had fallen at a time
when the funds collected to meet the exigencies of an ordinary campaign
had been mainly expended.
"The State Committee must help," declared Shelby. "There's no valid
reason why they shouldn't. The corporations have given them everything
they asked this year."
"I sounded the Boss. He was not encouraging."
"Damn him," said Shelby, "what does he want?" That question would
recur.
"We have raised everything locally that our people will stand, and you
may say that of the Demijohn generally. If there's more to be got, it
must come from those most concerned."
"You mean me, I suppose?"
"It's your political future that's at stake."
Shelby drummed his desk. By and by, taking his check-book, he began to
run through the stubs, jotting figures on a pad.
"I've spent three thousand dollars already," he said at last. "Three
thousand legitimate dollars. I've never footed it up before, and it's
rather staggering. Of course, the big items--the assessments of the
local committee and the other county committees--I had kept in mind.
What I have not realized was the constant drain of small amounts for
this and that,--printing, lithographs, bands, flag-raisings, you know
what. And treats--why, I spent over seventy-five dollars in bar money
alone the day of the Pioneers' picnic, while the County Fair meant the
price of a good horse. It's a good thing for me that the torchlight
idiocy has gone out. Still, the 'Shelby Base-ball Club' is as big a
nuisance. Three thousand legitimate dollars," he repeated. "We now
come to the illegitimate."
The older man winced. Shelby was too frank for him at times. While he
recognized that vote-buying was of occasion necessary for party
success, he made it his boast between his conscience and himself that
he had never directly taken part in it. So now he hemmed, and merely
said:--
"We're fighting a mercenary foe."
Shelby bent for an instant to his figures. Then, with offhand
abruptness:--
"There's something I never told you. When I went into this campaign I
mortgaged my real estate holdings here in town. I tell you now because
I must negotiate a loan on my share in the Eureka, and of course you
are the man to approach."
Bowers started.
"Is it that bad, Ross?"
"Yes; it's that bad. Money's the argument now."
"Suppose--suppose you lose?"
Shelby considered the possibility.
"Then I'm ruined. But I shan't lose. I shall win."
There was less buoyancy when Bowers had left; more studying of the
check-book, much reflection and calculation. Money, money, money; the
thought hounded him.
Down in the Temple carriage drive the worried man could see a boy
holding a mettlesome saddle horse, caparisoned for a woman's use. In
fair weather it stood there at this hour every day. To-day it was
suggestive. Shelby sprang to his telephone.