THE LABOURS OF MR. ARDMORE.
While he waited for Miss Jerry Dangerfield to appear Mr. Thomas Ardmore
read for the first time the constitution of the United States. He had
reached the governor’s office early, and seeking diversion, he had
picked up a small volume that bore some outward resemblance to a novel.
This proved, however, to be Johnston’s _American Politics_, and he was
amazed to find that this diminutive work contained the answers to a
great many questions which had often perplexed him, but which he had
imagined could not be answered except by statesmen or by men like his
friend Griswold, who spent their lives in study.
He had supposed that the constitution of a great nation like the United
States would fill many volumes, and be couched in terms bewildering
and baffling; and it was perhaps the proudest moment in Mr. Ardmore’s
life when, in the cool and quiet of the May morning, in the historic
chambers of the governor of North Carolina, it dawned upon him that
the charter of American liberty filled hardly more space than the
stipulations for a yacht race, or a set of football rules; and that,
moreover, he understood the greater part of it, or thought he did.
Such strange words as “attainder” and “capitation” he sought out in
the dictionary, and this also gave him a new sensation and thrill of
pleasure at finding the machinery of knowledge so simple. He made note
of several matters he wished to ask Griswold about when they met
again; then turned back into the body of the text, and had read as far
as Burr’s conspiracy when Jerry came breezily in. He experienced for
the first time in his life that obsession of guilt which sinks in shame
the office-boy who is caught reading a dime novel. Jerry seemed to
tower above him like an avenging angel, and though her sword was only a
parasol, her words cut deep enough.
“Well, you are taking it pretty cool!”
“Taking what?” faltered Ardmore, standing up, and seeking to hide the
book behind his back.
“Why, this outrageous article!” and she thrust a newspaper under his
eyes. “Do you mean to say you haven’t seen the morning paper?”
“To tell you the truth, Miss Dangerfield, I hardly ever read the
papers.”
“What’s that you were reading when I came in?” she demanded severely,
withholding the paper until she should be answered.
“It’s a book about the government, and the powers reserved to the
states and that sort of thing. I was just reading the constitution; I
thought it might help us--I mean _you_--in your work.”
“The constitution help me? Hasn’t it occurred to you before this that
what I’m doing is all against the constitution and the revised statutes
and all those books you see on the shelf there?”
“But the constitution sounds all right. It seems remarkably reasonable.
You couldn’t ask anything fairer than that!”
“So are the ten commandments fair enough; but you’re on the wrong
track, Mr. Ardmore, if you’re trying to support the present
administration with stupid things in books. I don’t follow precedents,
Mr. Ardmore; I create them.”
“But I should think you would have to be awfully careful not to mix up
the business of the executive and judicial branches of the government.
I think I heard Grissy speak of that once, though I’m not certain.
Grissy knows more than almost any other living man.”
“I don’t doubt that your friend is a well-educated person, but in times
like these you’ve got to rise above the constitution; and just now it’s
more convenient to forget it. There’s a constitution of North Carolina,
too, if you’re looking for constitutions, but in good society such
things are not mentioned. Papa always refers to the constitution with
tears in his eyes when he’s making speeches, but papa’s very emotional.
If I could make a speech I should tell the people what I think of
them--that they’re too silly and stupid for words.”
“You are right, Miss Dangerfield. I have felt exactly that way about
the people ever since I was defeated for alderman in New York. But let
me have the paper.”
She turned to the morning mail while he read and opened the envelopes
rapidly. Such of the letters as she thought interesting or important
she put aside, and when Ardmore finished reading a double-leaded
telegram from Columbia, in which the governor of South Carolina was
quoted as declaring his intention of taking immediate steps for the
apprehension of Appleweight, she was still reading and sorting letters,
tapping her cheek lightly meanwhile with the official paper-knife.
“Here, Mr. Ardmore,” she said, drawing a paper from her pocket, “is the
answer to that telegram we sent yesterday evening. Suppose you read
that next, and we can then decide what to do.”
She was making the letters into little piles, humming softly meanwhile;
but he felt that there was a storm brewing. He read the message from
Columbia a number of times, and if the acting governor had not been so
ominously quiet he would have laughed at the terse sentences.
“There must be a mistake about this. He wouldn’t have used ‘diverting’
that way; that’s insulting!”
“So you appreciate its significance, do you, Mr. Ardmore? The iron
enters your soul, does it? You realize that I have been insulted, do
you?”
“I shouldn’t put it that way, Miss Dangerfield. Governor Osborne would
never have sent a message like that to you--he thought he was sending
it to your father.”
“He’s insulted me and every other citizen in the Old North State;
that’s who he’s insulted, Mr. Ardmore. Let me read it again;” and she
repeated the telegram aloud:
“‘Your extremely diverting telegram in Appleweight case received and
filed.’ I think it’s the _extremely_ that’s so perfectly mean. The
_diverting_ by itself would not hurt my feelings half so much. He’s a
good deal smarter man than I thought he was to think up a telegram like
that. But what do you think of that piece in the newspaper?”
“He says he’s going to catch Appleweight dead or alive. That sounds
pretty serious.”
“I think it’s a bluff myself. That telegram we sent him yesterday must
have scared him to death. He was driven into a corner and had to do
something to avoid being disgraced, and it’s easy enough to talk big
in the newspapers when you haven’t the slightest intention of doing
anything at all. I’ve noticed that father talks the longest and loudest
about things he doesn’t believe at all.”
“Is it possible?” whispered Ardmore incredulously.
“Of course it’s possible! Father would never have been elected if he’d
expressed his real sentiments; neither would anybody else ever be
elected if he said beforehand what he really believed.”
“That must have been the reason I got defeated for alderman on the
reform ticket. I told ’em I was for turning the rascals out.”
“That was very stupid of you. You’ve got to get the rascals to elect
you first; then if you’re tired of office and don’t need them any more
you bounce them. But that’s political practice; it’s a theory we’ve got
to work out now. Governor Osborne’s telegram is much more important
than his interview in the newspapers, which is just for effect and of
no importance at all. He doesn’t say the same things in the telegram
to father that he said to the reporter. A governor who really meant
to do anything wouldn’t be so ready to insult another governor. The
newspapers are a lot of bother. I spent all yesterday evening talking
to reporters. They came to the house to ask where papa was and when he
would be home!”
“What did you tell them?”
“I didn’t tell them anything. I sent out for two other girls, and we
all just talked to them and kept talking, and gave them lemon sherbet
and ginger cookies; and Eva Hungerford played the banjo--you don’t know
Eva? Of course you don’t know anybody, and I don’t want you to, for it
would spoil you for private secretary. But Eva is simply killing when
she gets to cutting up, and we made those reporters sing to us, and
all they say in the papers, even the opposition papers, this morning
is that Governor Dangerfield is in Savannah visiting an old friend.
They all tell the same story, so they must have fixed it up after
they left the house. But what were you doing, Mr. Ardmore, that you
didn’t come around to help? It seems to me you don’t appreciate the
responsibilities of being secretary to a governor.”
“I was afraid you might scold me if I did. And besides I was glued
to the long distance telephone all evening, talking to my manager at
Ardsley. He read me my letters and a lot of telegrams that annoyed me
very much. I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on me, for I have trifling
troubles of my own.”
“I didn’t suppose you ever had troubles; you certainly don’t act as
though you ever had.”
“No one who has never been brother-in-law to a duke has the slightest
idea of what trouble is.”
“I’ve seen the Duke of Ballywinkle’s picture in the papers, and he
looks very attractive.”
“Well, if you’d ever seen him eat celery you’d change your mind. He’s
going down to Ardsley to visit me; for sheer nerve I must say my
relations beat the world. I got my place over here in North Carolina
just to get away from them, and now my sister--not the duchess,
but Mrs. Atchison--is coming down there with a lot of girls, and
Ballywinkle has attached himself to the party. They’ll pass through
here to-day, and they’ll expect to find me at Ardsley.”
“If the duke’s really coming to our state I suppose we ought to
recognize him officially,” and Jerry’s eyes were large with reverie as
she pondered her possible duty.
“Do something for him!” blazed Ardmore. “I hope _you_ don’t labour
under the delusion that a duke’s any better than anybody else? If you’d
suffered what I have from being related to a duke you’d be sorry to
hear he was even passing through your state, much less stopping off for
a couple of weeks.”
“Because you don’t like him is no reason why every one else should
feel the same way, is it? I’ve read about the Duke of Ballywinkle, and
he belongs to one of the oldest families in England, and I’ve seen
pictures of Ballywinkle Castle----”
“Worse than that,” grinned Ardmore, with rising humour, “I had to chip
in to pay for it! And the plumbing isn’t yet what it ought to be. The
last time I was over there I caught cold and nearly died of pneumonia.
I make it a rule now never to visit dukes. You never know what you’ll
strike when you stay in those ancestral castles, even when they’ve been
restored with some silly American girl’s grandfather’s money. Those
places are all full of draughts and malaria and ghosts, and they make
you drink tea in the afternoon, which is worse than being haunted.”
“I suppose we might invite his Grace to inspect our militia,” persisted
Jerry. “It would sound well in the papers to have a real duke inspect
the North Carolina troops.”
“It would sound better than he would look doing it, I can tell you
that. Old Wellington may have been all right, but these new dukes were
never made for horseback.”
“He might appear in a carriage, wearing his orders and ride the lines
that way, with all the troops presenting arms.”
“Or you might pin his debts on him and mount him on a goat on the
rifle-range and let the sharpshooters pepper away at him! Please let us
not talk about Ballywinkle any more; the thought of him gives me that
sinking feeling.”
He had opened an atlas and was poring over it with a magnifying glass.
“It’s positively funny,” he murmured, laughing a little to himself,
“but I know something about this country over here. Here’s Ardsley, in
the far corner of Dilwell County, and here’s Kildare.”
“Yes; I understand maps. Dilwell is green, and there’s the state line,
and that ugly watery sort of yellow is Mingo County, South Carolina,
and Turner Court House is the county seat of it. Those little black
marks are hills on the border, and it’s right there that these
Appleweight people live, and dance on the state line as though it were
a skipping-rope.”
“That’s exactly it. Now what we want to do is to arrest Appleweight
and put him in jail in South Carolina, which relieves the governor of
North Carolina, your honoured father, of all embarrassment.”
She snatched the paper-cutter and took possession of the map for a
moment, then pointed, with a happy little laugh.
“Why, that will be only too easy. You see there’s Azbell County, where
the militia is encamped, just three counties away from Dilwell, and if
we needed the soldiers it wouldn’t hurt the troops to march that far,
would it?”
“Hurt them, nothing!” exclaimed Ardmore. “It will be good for them. You
have to give orders to the adjutant-general, and, being engaged to him,
he would be afraid not to obey your orders, even if you told him to go
in balloons.”
“Well, of course, I’d send him an official order; and if he was
disobedient I could break our engagement. When I broke my engagement
with Arthur Treadmeasure, it was only because he was five minutes late
coming to take me to a dance.”
“You were perfectly right, Miss Dangerfield. No gentleman would keep
you waiting.”
“But he didn’t keep me waiting! I was sick in bed with a sore throat,
and mamma wouldn’t let me go; but I thought it was very careless and
taking too much for granted for him to think he could come poking along
any time he pleased, so I ended everything.”
It would have interested Ardmore to know the total of Miss
Dangerfield’s engagements, but the time did not seem propitious for
such inquiries; and, moreover, his awe of her as a young person of
great determination and force of character increased. She spoke of
employing the armed forces of the state as though playing with the
militia were a cheerful pastime, like horseback riding or tennis. His
heart sank as he foresaw the possibility of the gallant Gillingwater
coming out of the Appleweight affair with flying colours, a hero
knighted on the field for valour. The remembrance of Gillingwater
receiving the salutes of the militia and riding off to the wars to the
beat of drums had deprived Ardmore of sleep all night.
“Well, there’s the map, and there’s that insulting telegram; what are
you going to do about it?” asked Jerry.
She seemed to be honestly inviting suggestions, and the very thought
of this affected him like wine. He deliberated for several minutes,
while she watched him. A delicious country quiet lay upon the old state
house; in the tranquil park outside the birds whistled their high
disdain of law and precedent. It was no small thing to be identified
with a great undertaking like this, with the finest girl in the world;
and he could not help thinking of the joy of telling Griswold, the
sober professor and sedate lawyer, of this adventure when it should
be happily concluded. Never again should Grissy taunt him with his
supineness before the open door of opportunity!
“A governor,” he began, “is always a dignified person who doesn’t
bother his head about little things like this unless everybody else
has gone to sleep. Now, who’s the chief of police in a county like
Dilwell--what do you call him?”
“Do you mean the sheriff, Mr. Ardmore?”
“Certainly. Now, give me those telegraph blanks, and I’ll drop him a
few lines to let him know that the government at Raleigh still lives.”
It is in the telegram alone that we Americans approach style. Our great
commanders did much to form it; our business strategists took the key
from them. “I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all
summer” is not more admirable than “Cancel order our number six hundred
and eighteen,” or “Have drawn at sight.” Through the most familiar
and commonplace apparatus clicks and ticks the great American epic in
phrases concise, unequivocal, and apt. Von Moltke, roused at night with
news of war, merely waved his hand to the long-prepared orders in his
chiffonier and went to sleep again; but the great Prussian has his
counterpart in the American magnate who ties up a railroad by telegraph
over his after-dinner coffee. Telegrams were, however, with Mr. Thomas
Ardmore, something more than a form of communication or a mere literary
exercise. Letter-writing seemed to him the most formidable of human
undertakings, but with a pad of telegraph blanks under his hand his
spirit soared free. All untrammelled by the horror of the day tariff,
whose steep slopes have wrought so much confusion and error among
the economical, he gave to the wires and the wireless what he never
would have confided to a stamp. He wrote and submitted to Miss Jerry
Dangerfield the following:
To the Sheriff of Dilwell County,
Kildare, N. C.:
What is this I hear about your inability to catch Appleweight and
the rest of his bunch? Your inattention to your duties is a matter
of common scandal, and if you don’t get anxious pretty soon I shall
remove you from your job and then come. I shall be down soon to see
whether you are pitching quoits at the blacksmith shop or fishing for
lobsters in Raccoon Creek, instead of attending to your knitting.
Your conduct has annoyed me until I am something more than vexed by
your behaviour. The eyes of the great North State are upon you. Wire
me at length just what you propose doing or not doing in this matter.
WILLIAM DANGERFIELD,
Governor of North Carolina.
“What do you think of that?” he asked, his pride falling as she scanned
the paper carefully.
“Isn’t it pretty expensive?” Jerry inquired, counting the words to ten
and then roughly computing the rest.
“I’ll take care of that, Miss Dangerfield. What I want to know is
whether you think that will make the sheriff sit up.”
“Well, here’s what father sent him only about a week ago. I found it in
his private letter book, and it’s marked confidential in red ink.”
She read:
“‘Act cautiously in Appleweight case. Indictment by grand Jury is
undoubtedly faulty, and Foster threatens trouble in case parties are
arrested.’
“And there’s more like that! Papa never intended to do anything, that’s
as plain as daylight. Mr. Foster, the treasurer, comes from that
county. He thought papa was going to have to do something, so he’s
holding back the payment of the state bonds just to frighten papa. You
see, the state owes the Bronx Loan and Trust Company that two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, and if it isn’t paid June first the state
will be everlastingly disgraced.”
“Oh yes; I’d forgotten about that.”
“I don’t see how you could forget about it. That must be almost as much
money as there is in the world, Mr. Ardmore.”
“We’ve got to raise it, anyhow, even if we go to the pawn-shop. I
pawned my watch once when I was in college and Billings--he was
my guardian--had shut me off. Grissy--he’s my friend--Grissy says
pawn-broking is only a more vulgar form of banking. There was a fellow
in my class at college who pawned his pawn-ticket to get money to pay
his laundress, and then gave the new ticket to a poor blind man. He’s
a big man in Wall Street--has a real genius for finance, they say. But
please don’t worry about this rascal Foster. We’ll put some digitalis
into the state’s credit when the time comes.”
“I think your telegram to the sheriff is all right,” said Jerry,
reading it again. “If you’ll go to the door and whistle for the
messenger we’ll get it off. I’ll sign it with the rubber stamp. Papa
hardly ever signs anything himself; he says if you don’t sign documents
yourself you can always repudiate them afterward, and papa’s given
prayerful thought to all such things.”
Ardmore addressed himself once more to the map. It was clear that the
Appleweight gang was powerful enough to topple great states upon their
foundations. It had, to Ardmore’s own knowledge, driven a governor
into exile, and through the wretched Foster, who was their friend,
the credit of the state was gravely menaced. The possibilities of the
game fascinated Ardmore. He was eager for action on the scene of this
usurpation and defiance. Responsibility, for the first time, had placed
a warrant of trust in his hands, and, thus commissioned, the spurs of
duty pricked his sides.
“I’ll wait for the sheriff’s answer, and if he shows no signs of life
I’ll go down there this afternoon.”
“Then you will undoubtedly be shot!” Jerry declared, as though
announcing a prospect not wholly deplorable.
“That has its disagreeable side, but a great many people have to be
shot every year to keep up the average, and if the statistics need me I
won’t duck. I’ll call up my man on the telephone this forenoon and tell
him to put my forester at Ardsley to work. He’s a big fellow who served
in the German army, and if he’s afraid of anything I haven’t heard of
it. If we can drive the gang into South Carolina, right along here,
you see”--and Miss Dangerfield bent her pretty head over the map and
saw--“if we can pass the chief outlaw on to Governor Osborne, then so
much the better, and that’s what we will try to do.”
“But you’re only the private secretary, and you can’t assume too
much authority. I shall have to go to Kildare to visit my aunt, who
is a nice old lady that lives there. The fried corn mush and syrup
at her house is the best I ever tasted, and if papa should come when
he sees that something is being done quite different from what he
intended, then I should be there to explain. If you should be killed,
Mr. Ardmore, no one would be there to identify you, and I have always
thought it the saddest thing in the world for any one to die away from
home----”
“It would be sad; but I hope you would be sorry.”
“I should regret your death, and I’d make them give you a perfectly
beautiful military funeral, with Chopin’s funeral march, and your boots
tied to the saddle of your horse.”
“But don’t let them fuss about pulling off the boots, Miss Dangerfield,
if I die with them on. It would be all right for you to visit your
aunt, but I shouldn’t do it if I were you. I once visited my aunt, Mrs.
Covington-Burns, at Newport for a week. It was a deep game to get me to
marry my aunt’s husband’s niece, whose father had lost his money, and
the girl was beginning to bore my aunt.”
“Was she a pretty girl?” asked Jerry.
“She was a whole basket of peaches, and I might have married her to get
away from my aunt if it were not that I have made it a life-long rule
never to marry the orphaned nieces of the husbands of my aunts. It’s
been a good rule to me, and has saved me no end of trouble. But if my
sister doesn’t change her mind, and if she really comes through Raleigh
to-day in her car with those friends of hers, she will be delighted to
have you join her for a visit at Ardsley. And then you would be near at
hand in case some special edict from the governor seemed necessary.”
“But wouldn’t your sister think it strange----”
“Not in the least, Miss Dangerfield. Nothing is strange to my sister.
Nobody ever sprang a surprise on Nellie yet. And besides, you are
the daughter of the governor of a great state. She refuses to meet
senators, because you can never be sure they are respectable, but
she rather prides herself on knowing governors. Governors are very
different. Since I read the constitution I can see very plainly that
governors are much nearer the people, but I guess the senators are
nearer the banks.”
“Well, I have some shopping to do, and it’s ten o’clock. It would be
hospitable to ask you to luncheon, but mamma cries so much because
she doesn’t know where papa is that our meals at the executive mansion
are not exactly cheerful functions. And besides”--and she eyed Ardmore
severely as she rose and accepted her parasol from him--“and besides,
you know our relations are purely official. You have never been
introduced to me, and socially you are not known to us.”