"Not yet."
"How much does he want?"
"Nothing."
"Well, but didn't you throw the fear of God into him?"
"We can't purchase and we can't coerce--at least not by mere threats."
"Then, we've got to frighten him by something else, Stein. How'd he get
those things that he's got?"
"He wouldn't say. I scarcely expected that he would."
"Did you put on the political screws?"
"I put on all, as far as was wise. He is a clever young man, and he
knows we can't hurt him so long as he has certain things in his
possession."
The situation apparently passed Hallett's comprehension: it was outside
of his experience.
"But what does he want? He must want something."
"I'm afraid not," the Judge sighed.
"Hell! Of course, he must. Everybody does."
"If he does, I couldn't find it out."
"Well, then," asked Hallett, "what's he goin' to do?"
"Nothing--for a month."
"You don't think he'll keep his word?"
"I'm sure of it."
"Wait a minute," said Hallett.
The Judge waited fifteen minutes. At the end of that time, Hallett's
voice, regretful, but firm, sounded again in the telephone:
"Well," he said, "we've got to get those things he's got. We're all
agreed on that. Understand?"
"Yes?"
"Yes--and it's up to you, Judge."
"Have you any course to suggest?"
"No, we haven't, and we don't want to know anything about courses.
That's your job."
As if Hallett were in the room, Stein bowed his white head to him.
"Very well," he said, and hung up the receiver.
He bent to the pink roses again, and again inhaled their cultivated
fragrance. His face was not perplexed, but it was sad.
"I am sorry," he seemed to be saying. "A nice young man. I am very
sorry, indeed."
He returned the telephone-receiver to his ear.
"Miss Weston?"
"Yes, Judge Stein?"
"Thank you for getting that call so promptly. Now, will you please get
me Mr. Titus?"
"Mr. William Titus, or Titus & Titherington, the mercantile agency?"
"Mr. Alexander Titus, of Titus & Titherington: the one that I was
speaking to before I went out to luncheon."
"Yes, Judge Stein. Just a minute."
There was no long wait before Titus, who owed half of his business as a
financial-agent to Stein and Stein's chief employer, was in conversation
with the Judge.
"Have you secured that report yet?" asked Stein.
"Which one, Judge?"
"The one I asked you for at lunch-time."
"It's being typed now. I'll send it over as soon as it's finished."
"I wish you would. Meantime, get the chief points from the man that
looked into the matter and 'phone them to me."
"All right, Judge."
"Call me up. I have somebody to talk to while I'm waiting."
The Judge rang off and then another time spoke to Miss Weston.
"Is Mr. Irwin in his office?"
Miss Weston said he was.
"Then, please ask him to step in to see me for a moment."
Mr. Irwin was a member of the Judge's firm whose name did not appear
upon its letter-heads, although he had been attached to it for more
years than Mr. Perry or even the younger Mr. Falconridge. He was a
little man with a gray Vandyck beard, pink cheeks, and twinkling blue
eyes.
In the fewest possible words, Stein gave him a description of the
letters that were in Luke Huber's possession. He did not say who wanted
these letters, or why they were wanted, but he left no doubt about the
urgency of the commission he was delivering.
"It is rather a difficult assignment," he concluded, "but it must be
done. There are great interests at stake."
"I think I can manage it," said Irwin cheerfully.
"I am afraid you will have to manage it," said the Judge.
"I'll simply tell my friend----"
The Judge raised his hand and smiled.
"No details, please," said he.
"Very well," Irwin, still cheerful, agreed.
"All that I need add," said the Judge, "is this: we must take only one
step at a time. If we can succeed by persuasion, there is no need to
use other measures. I do not want to use other measures unless he
forces us to use them. Remember that. The first thing to do is to
convince him that we are too strong for him. For instance, he has this
reform nomination for the district-attorneyship. If he could be made to
see that we could take that nomination away from him, he might listen to
reason."
"I see."
"You will report results to me. Not methods, Irwin: only the results,
but please report the results step by step. And understand that whoever
undertakes this matter must not know too much to be dangerous, but must
know enough to make no error."
"How soon do you want the letters, Judge?"
"As soon as I can get them."
"And the outside limit?"
"The first step must be immediate. We must not run so fast that we
stumble; but for the completion it will be impossible to wait long. Say
twenty-eight days from date."
"Right," said Irwin, and walked briskly from the room.
Irwin had a manner of telephoning that was more hurried than the
Judge's, and Miss Weston treated him with greater deliberation.
However, he had soon called up the office of Anson Quirk and learned
that Quirk was there.
"Then, stay there for twenty minutes, will you?" asked Irwin. "I'm
coming right around to see you."
Anson Quirk was a lawyer who had a small office and a large reputation
on the East Side. His round, smiling face shone in every important case
where was endangered the liberty or life of minor politicians or major
thugs; the number of acquittals to his credit was surpassed only by the
number of clients whom he had saved from ever appearing in court. He
called every patrolman, magistrate, and tipstaff in the City and County
of New York by his first name. He was successful before a judge, but he
was magnificent before a magistrate, and with a police-officer he was a
worker of miracles. In his own world, Quirk, whom Stein would have
refused to shake hands with, was what Stein was upon a somewhat higher
plane.
He talked with the bright-eyed Irwin for less than half an hour. Then
he showed his visitor from his dusty office full of law-books that were
never consulted.
"Easy?" he chuckled as he bowed Irwin out. "It's a hundred-to-one shot.
I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll----"
"No, you won't tell me," laughed Irwin. "The less I know, the better
for me. All I want to be sure of is that I can count on you."
"Sure, you can."
"And don't do everything at once."
"Not me. The frame-up comes first."
"Let me know as soon as it's tried. Then we'll talk about the next
move--if one's needed."
"I understand. And whatever's needed, I'll deliver the goods inside of
three weeks."
Irwin said he hoped nothing more would be needed and that a few days
would suffice, and Quirk, screwing a derby-hat on one side of his head,
walked around the corner to the police-station to see his friend, the
red-faced, genial Hugh Donovan, lieutenant of police.
Sec.2. Ex-Judge Stein, in the handsome room overlooking Broadway, had
been having another telephone-conversation with the head of the Titus &
Titherington Mercantile Agency while Mr. Irwin was consulting with Mr.
Quirk.
"That man has saved a bit," Alexander Titus was reporting; "but outside
of his salary he has really only a hundred thousand dollars, and it's
all invested in the R. H. Forbes & Son clothing firm over in Brooklyn."
The Judge made a note of this on a desk-pad.
"I see," he said. "Who is the head of that firm, now?"
"Wallace K. Forbes; I think he's a grandson of old R. H."
The Judge made another note.
"How do they stand? Oddly enough, I have a client interested in their
affairs, too."
"The Forbes people? Pretty well. I had to get a report on them last
week."
"Have they any heavy loans?"
"Only one that might hurt them: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
at call with the East County National."
The Judge's pencil was still busy.
"I want to be quite clear about this," he said--"quite clear: my client
in this Forbes matter is considering an investment. Am I to understand
that if the East County National should call this loan, if it could not
be renewed elsewhere, the firm would become insolvent?"
"Oh, there's no doubt about that. But then, there's no doubt about its
not being called, either. The company's quite sound, Judge."
"Thank you," said Stein. "You will have that other full report sent
over?"
"It's on its way now."
"Thank you again. You had better follow it with a copy of the Forbes
report. If that bears out all you say, I shall instruct my client to go
ahead."
"He'll be safe if he does, Judge."
"Very well. Good-afternoon," said Stein.
He called Miss Weston again.
"Miss Weston," he said, "please get me City Chamberlain Kilgour, and,
while I am speaking to him, call up the East County National and ask
where you can find president Osserman. He will have left the bank, but
I should like to reach him before I go home to-day."
Miss Weston obeyed with her usual readiness to serve this one of her
employers.
Sec.3. Police Lieutenant Donovan had not listened to half a dozen of
Quirk's words before he rose quickly and closed the door of his private
room. His was one of those voices that cannot whisper, but it descended
now to a hoarse muttering.
"How much is there in this for me?" he demanded.
"Nothin'," grinned Quirk.
Donovan's broad palm banged the table at which he sat.
"Then good-_night_," said he.
Quirk was undisturbed.
"Could you do the trick?" he inquired.
"You mean if it was worth my while?"
"I mean what I say: could you do it?"
"Could I do it? Of course, I could. It'd be like takin' pennies from a
blind man."
"Then," said Quirk, rattling some coins in a pocket beneath his round
abdomen, "I guess you'd better get busy."
Donovan's eyes narrowed.
"What's your game, Quirk?" he asked.
"It's not _my_ game, Hughie," smiled the lawyer.
"Well, you're not in it for your health, I know that damn well. If it
ain't your game, whose is it?"
"I don't know for sure," said Quirk.
"Oh, come on. You know me: you've got to cough up if you want me to
help."
Quirk did know the police-lieutenant. He had expected all along to be
forced into an admission; but he was aware that by letting Donovan
suspect reluctance he could the more speedily gain his point.
"Well," he said, "it didn't come to me straight, but I'll tell you how
it did."
He embarked upon a narrative brief and abounding in gaps that Donovan's
imagination was not, however, slow to fill as Quirk intended it should.
The officer nodded comprehendingly. "Then who's at the back of it?" he
asked.
Quirk walked quietly to the door. He opened it suddenly: nobody had
been listening at the keyhole; so he turned to Donovan and said a
certain name.
The police-lieutenant's red face grew redder. He opened and shut his
mouth twice before he spoke.
"Again?" he muttered.
Quirk nodded.
"That's all I know about it," he said.
"Well, why in hell didn't you tell me this right off at first?" asked
the querulous Donovan.
"Because I didn't think I'd have to," pleaded Quirk.
"Have to? Looks to me like the have-to business all came on to me! How
long've I got to put this across?"
Quirk appeared to consider.
"You'd have to begin with the first thing right away," he said, "and let
me know about that. If it didn't work, I'd get my party to give me
fuller instructions, and then I guess you'd have eighteen days."
"I'm gettin' sick of the whole game," said Donovan.
"So am I," said the lawyer blithely. "But what are we going to do about
it? We've got to make a living, don't we?"
"I ain't so sure of that."
"Anyhow, we've got to buy shoes for our kids, Hughie."
"Oh, come on," muttered Donovan, "let's talk business."
They talked business until Quirk remembered another appointment and had
to leave. When the lawyer had gone, Donovan put his head into the large
room next his own and called to a sleepy officer seated at a desk.
"Anderson," he asked, "where's Patrolman Guth?"
Anderson yawned.
"Just come in, Lieutenant," he vouchsafed: "him and Mitchell. He's in
the locker-room."
"Send him in here."
Donovan closed the door and sat at his table, frowning at its surface,
until Guth entered.
"Hello, Bill," said the Lieutenant.
Guth was as big as the Lieutenant and more powerful. He would have been
handsome, but his mouth had been torn in some obscure street-fight, and
the scar from this wound carried the line of his lips to the left corner
of his jaw-bone.
"_How're_ you, Lieutenant?" he replied.
Donovan resumed his study of the table.
"What's Reddy Rawn doin' these days?" he presently continued.
Guth shifted his weight from one leg to the other. As much as that scar
would permit, he smiled, the right corner of his mouth shooting upward
and the left turning down.
"Well," he said, "you know how it is. I warned him he'd got to keep in
the quiet ever since that night him and the Kid shot-up Crab Rotello for
tryin' to steal Reddy's girl."
"Rotello's still in Bellevue, ain't he?"
"Won't be out for near a month yet."
"He hasn't squealed?"
"Naw. You know these here guys: wouldn't tell if they was dyin'--rather
leave it to their own gang to square things. Crab'll wait till he gets
well, an' then he'll fix Reddy's feet for himself."
"Still, you told Reddy what I said you should?"
"Tol' him we was on."
"Find him to-night."
"All right, Lieutenant."
"Tell him Rotello's squealed: he'll believe it because he hates him.
Tell him the Dago's goin' to croak an's give me an ante-mortem
statement--see?"
The patrolman stolidly bowed assent.
"Tell him the only way for him to square me's to do me a good turn,"
continued Donovan.
Guth nodded again.
"Same's we worked on the Crab himself ten or twelve weeks ago," he said.
"I got you."
"That's it. Remember, I don't know much, an' you know a lot less, an'
this guy's got to know less than you do. He's got to pull it off inside
of two weeks. Now, sit down here, an' I'll tell you what he's got to
do. There maybe'll be more later, but this is the start."
Sec.4. The last talk that Judge Stein had that day was one with a
brisk, bald-headed man, whose close-cropped mustache only accentuated
the heavy mouth below it. This man called in person at the offices of
Stein, Falconridge, Falconridge & Perry; he seemed to have come in a
hurry, and he handed Miss Weston a card bearing the legend:
+-----------------------------+
| B. FRANK OSSERMAN |
| *PRESIDENT* |
| EAST COUNTY NATIONAL BANK |
+-----------------------------+
With him the Judge began by being as deliberate as he had been with Luke
Huber. He mentioned the names of the three men upon whom Huber had that
morning paid so unusual a visit to Wall Street; but this time Stein
frankly declared that these three men empowered him to speak.
At the mention of their names, Osserman's fingers played with a thin
gold watch-chain that ran taut through a buttonhole of his waistcoat,
from one pocket to another.
"I dare say that you will remember," pursued the Judge, "that I have
acted with you for these gentlemen on one or two previous occasions."
Osserman cleared his throat. "I hope there is no trouble," he said.
"No. Oh, no; there need be no trouble," said the Judge. Then he sat
and watched Osserman move uneasily in his chair.
The bank-president by saying nothing tried to force Stein to explain;
Stein, by the same means, tried to force Osserman to make a confession
of weakness. At last Stein won.
"Of course," said Osserman, "I know the favors they've done us."
"Exactly," said the Judge; but he said only that.
"And so," continued Osserman, as one who cannot turn back, "our bank
will be glad to do anything we can for them." He paused and looked at
Stein; but Stein only looked pityingly at him. "Indeed," the banker
ruefully resumed, "their connection with our investments and securities
is such that we would have to."
"Exactly," repeated the Judge, bending his face toward the pink roses at
his elbow. But he was a little sorry for Osserman, and so he added:
"Not that the East County is in a position very different, in that
respect, from most of the other banks."
Osserman took a deep breath.
"Well," he said, "what is it?"
"You are carrying," said the Judge, "a call-loan at two hundred and
fifty thousand to R. H. Forbes & Son."
The banker showed his relief. It was clear that he had expected
something more important.
"Are we?" he asked. "I dare say we are."
"Mr. Osserman," said the Judge, "the finances of the R. H. Forbes
company are not long going to be what they should be. In the interest
of your depositors, I should advise you to stand ready to call that loan
when I give you the word."
The banker looked at the Judge and knew that, before this loan would be
called, the Judge's clients would see to it that no other bank would
take it up. That, however, was no affair of Osserman's: he considered
that he was escaping by means of a small service.
"If there's any danger of the Forbes people failing," he said, "it would
be only good business to do as you say."
"Yes," the Judge assented. "The fact of the matter is this, Mr.
Osserman: that young man named Huber, who has been backing Leighton, is
leaving Leighton and will be the candidate for the reform people to
succeed him."
"I saw something about it in the afternoon papers."
"Yes. Now, my clients have no objection to those reformers; we see that
they may do a great deal of good, if they put a temperate man at the
head of their ticket. But we happen to know that this Huber is a young,
hot-headed demagogue. He is the kind of man that attracts the crowd.
He might be elected. If he was not, he would hurt credit by his wild
speeches; if he was, he would undoubtedly upset it by trying to put his
impossible promises into action. The safest thing for Business is to
take the nomination away from him before he gets started: then nobody is
hurt. What money he has (it is not much) is invested in this Forbes
concern. My advice to you is to see Mr. Forbes to-morrow; make him
appreciate how your bank feels about the unsettling nature of this
candidacy, and tell him that you will have to call his loan if the
candidacy continues."
Sec.5. That was a busy night for the president and cashier of more than
one bank in New York City, and for certain gentlemen whose business it
is to negotiate for loans from banks in other cities. Judge Stein's
telephonic talk with City Chamberlain Kilgour was as effective as the
conversation with president Osserman. It is in the chamberlain's
official province to deposit municipal funds with almost whatsoever
institution he chooses, and to withdraw such funds as he may elect: the
thin, energetic figure of Kilgour, long familiar to the tents of
Tammany, was this evening hurrying from private houses to Madison Square
Clubs and from clubs to Broadway cafes. The swift, quiet motor-car of
ex-Judge Stein was busy, too.
Sec.6. Somebody else was busy: Patrolman Guth. Patrolman Guth, in
citizen's garb, was standing almost invisible in the shadowy alley
behind a saloon near Forty-third Street and Third Avenue, and was
muttering to the darkness. And at last the darkness answered.
"I'm on," said the darkness.
*CHAPTER IX*
Sec.1. "No, sir; she's gone out," said the servant that answered Luke's
ring at the door of the Forbes house and his inquiry for Betty on the
afternoon of his interview with Judge Stein.
"To town?" asked Luke.
"Yes, sir; I think so. I think she's gone over to Mr. Nicholson's
Hester Street mission."
Luke had frequently met the Rev. Pinkney Nicholson; he liked him. The
young clergyman was a friend of both Forbes and Forbes's daughter. The
latter often helped in Nicholson's slum-missionary work; an attendance
at Nicholson's church of St. Athanasius was the only occupation that
brought Forbes and Betty even slightly into touch with the world of the
Ruysdaels. With Betty, Luke often went to the Sunday morning services.
Indeed, he had recently become a consistent member of the congregation,
partly because Betty liked the church and partly because Luke himself
admired Nicholson's simple and forcible eloquence and believed enough in
Nicholson's philanthropy to forgive a ritualism that in itself had only
a superficial appeal for him.
"She didn't say when she would be back?" Luke inquired. Until this
moment he had not known how badly he wanted to see her.
"No, sir. By dinner-time, I guess. Would you like to leave any
message, Mr. Huber?"
"Only that if she isn't going out this evening, I'll call."
"Very well, sir."
Luke had hurried to the Forbes house in Brooklyn as soon as Stein left
him, for he knew that Betty was usually at home from three o'clock in
the afternoon until five; but the Judge had consumed some time; there
was a block in the subway and another block on the surface-line at the
subway's end: Luke had missed Betty. There was nothing to be done but
to return to town, where he should have remained in order to be in touch
with the new friends that were announcing him as their certain chance
for the district-attorneyship.
He considered himself ready for the fight. He knew that Stein, although
checked in the engagement at the Thirty-ninth Street apartments, would
not be defeated and would resume the offensive from some other quarter
at some later date; but Luke looked for no serious oppilation by these
secret enemies before the end of the month that he had given them in
which to come to terms. He underestimated, in short, both the power and
the unencumbered license of his foes. He would not realize the handicap
that his grant of a four weeks' armistice placed on his own movements,
he would not believe that his antagonists might violate the truce, and
he refused to credit them with the vast influence and free conscience
which were at their command.
The open war, the war that the reformers and the public saw, was,
however, waging. The Municipal Reform League had taken city
headquarters in an office-building in Broadway below Madison Square
weeks ago, before they began their search for a candidate. At that time
divisional headquarters were opened in every ward in New York, and the
remnants of an older reform organization, left from a defeat ten years
old, were gathered and cemented for present use. Nelson, Venable, and
Yeates were working day and night with their lieutenants, and when Luke
returned to his apartments, the loneliness that he was beginning to feel
because of the sudden end of his duties under Leighton, was banished by
the news that the League headquarters had been telephoning madly for
him.
He bought a newspaper on his way downtown and discovered what was one of
the things that his associates wanted to see him about: Leighton had
issued a statement saying that he had forced Luke's resignation from the
District-Attorney's staff because of Luke's inefficiency.
"You must nail that lie immediately!" cried Venable as soon as Luke
entered the offices of the League. The old man was standing at a desk
with Yeates and Nelson beside him.
"Why did he fire you, anyway?" asked Yeates. "I always thought Leighton
was a rather decent kind of fellow."
"Jealousy," suggested Nelson. "He was afraid of him."
Luke sat on a table and dangled his long legs. He did not like the
necessity that Leighton had put upon him.
"Of course, he didn't discharge you at all," said Venable. "We all know
that. But we have called the committee for the day after to-morrow, and
you must make the public see the matter as we do."
"I'm not so sure that he didn't fire me," said Luke. He chose to be
blind to his hearers' astonishment. "It was a race to see whether he'd
chuck me or me him, and I think it ended in a dead-heat."
"Oh, come off!" said Yeates.
Venable stroked his white hair.
"But the reason?" he commanded. "You must give the full story to the
public. We stand for absolute honesty in politics, and we can't begin
with any suppression of facts in public office."
"Well," said Luke, "I think I gave Leighton, in a general way, to
understand I believed he was willing to use the Money Power in politics,
if he could get it to use." He smiled at them. "Does sound rather
vague, doesn't it?"
Nelson puffed out his cheeks. "Men don't break up a partnership for
such things," said he.
"Leighton and I did."
"Perhaps you did, but people won't think so."
Venable cut in:
"We don't want to pry into your private affairs, and, of course, we
don't expect you to violate any personal confidences that you naturally
had with Mr. Leighton; but a broad statement of the basic facts has to
go to the papers at once. The charge wouldn't be so serious if it was
specific and vulgar, because then you would have no trouble in
disproving it; but Mr. Leighton is a thorough politician; he knows the
value of vagueness, and he gives the impression that he could tell a
great deal if he wasn't so much of a gentleman as to want to spare your
feelings."
Luke slowly got down from the table.
"I will say this much," he replied; "I will answer Leighton in his own
language: I will say he tried to get hold of some documents that would
make trouble for a group of unscrupulous and influential men, and he
wasn't going to use those documents in court or out of it to stop those
men in a wrong they were doing, but only as a means to force them to
give him their political support."
Venable reflected.
"I think it would suit if you published that," he said.
"Did he get the documents?" asked Nelson.
"No," said Luke, "he didn't. Now, send me in a stenographer, and I'll
dictate a statement along those lines."
Sec.2. The headquarters of the Municipal Reform League occupied a half
of the second floor. They were accessible by either the stairs, or any
of the three elevators that all day long shot down and up narrow shafts
from the roof to the hall opening on Broadway. Entering the offices, one
came first to a reception-room; beyond that, one passed along the
cleared side of a railing in the large apartment, behind which sat the
company of stenographers and typewriters, and so came to a series of
offices with ground-glass doors and windows giving upon the street. It
was one of these offices which was permanently assigned to Luke.
Here, pacing the floor between the roll-top desk at one side and the
small safe for private papers on the other, Luke dictated his public
letter. He tried to word it in such a way that its facts would not
sound incredible to the uninitiated reader, would not seem so vague as
to excite suspicion, and would yet convey to both Leighton and Stein the
threat of complete publicity to be fulfilled if the writer were pushed
too far. It was a hard task, but Luke, after several revisions, was
satisfied with it.
"Yes," said Venable, "I think that will do. The reporters are waiting
outside; I sent for them. I have only one addition to suggest."
"What's that?" asked Luke.
"You deal exclusively with your resignation, and yet you are issuing
this statement from the League's headquarters. Don't you think you had
better say something about your candidacy?
"Hadn't I better wait till I get it?"
"You will have it as soon as the committee meets. Everybody knows that.
I don't propose that you should anticipate all the good points of your
letter of acceptance, but merely that you should state what you will
stand for. You could say that your name has been mentioned for the
nomination and that, if nominated, you will make your campaign on such
and such issues."
"All right." Luke shrugged his lean shoulders. He turned to the waiting
stenographer. "Take this," he said:
"In conclusion, I wish to say that my recent experience in the service
of the city has convinced me of the crying need of a new movement for
civic improvement: a non-partisan movement in which the one object shall
be the purification of municipal government and the fearless
administration of the law, all of its supporters working together not
for any man or party, but for the good of New York. Such a movement is
that now started by the conscientious men who compose the Municipal
Reform League.
"My name has been mentioned as a candidate for office on the ticket of
this league, and I shall feel honored, indeed, if I receive my
nomination under such happy auspices. In that event, I shall go before
the people with a frank appeal to them to drive the money-changers out
of the Temple of Justice, the grafters out of the police-force, vice and
crime from the streets; and, if elected, I should attempt to do these
things, as the will of the people who placed me in power, with favor to
no persons, or combination of persons, in Greater New York. But whether
I am nominated or not, I shall take my coat off and roll up my sleeves
and go to work for the Municipal Reform League as for the only present
hope of this city's moral regeneration."
Luke turned to Venable.
"How's that?" he inquired.
Venable agreed that it ought to do.
"_I_ think it's stodgy enough," said Luke.
Venable visibly winced, but passed the comment by.
"I am not quite sure," he said, "about that expression concerning taking
off your coat and so on. Our first appeal has to be made to the
cultivated voters, you see, and we don't want to sound too--well, too
agricultural."
Luke smiled his weary smile. No doubt Venable was right.
"Change that," said Luke to the stenographer--"change it to: 'I shall
put on my armor and take up my broadsword to go into this battle.'"
Sec.3. "Miss Forbes got back?" Luke asked that evening when he again
rang the bell at the Forbes house.
"Yes, sir," said the servant, "she's in the parlor. Mr. Forbes is in the
library. Shall I----"
"I think I can make out with only Miss Forbes--for a while," Luke
interrupted. He started to walk past the servant.
"Mr. Nicholson is there, too," the careful servant warned him. "He
stayed to dinner."
"Oh, that's good," said Luke. "Well, I'll be glad to see him." But his
tone was not so enthusiastic as it had been, and his step hesitated
half-way to the parlor door.
The door was open. Through it Betty heard him, and through it she now
hurried into the hall to meet him, her hands outstretched.
"How splendid of you!" she was saying. "We've just been reading your
letter in the paper, The papers are full of you, and you don't know how
proud we are to know you, and how proud that you come here to see us at
such a busy time."
Her cheeks were flushed, her brown eyes shone. Luke noted a little curl
that escaped from the mass of golden hair, so like a saint's glory to
her head, and seemed to caress one coral ear.
"It's all nothing but my good luck," he said as he took both her hands
in his and thought not half so much of her words as of the woman that
uttered them. "But I didn't expect your father's approval."
"You have it, anyway," she assured him. "Of course, he's a Progressive,
and he thinks you would have done better to come into his party; but he
does admire your courage, and so does Mr. Nicholson."
"Does he?" said Luke dryly. "I hope not: it might go to my head." He
remembered that Nicholson believed in celibacy for the clergy, and he
was glad of it.
The young priest rose as his hostess and her new guest came into the
Eighteen-Sixty parlor. He was a handsome man and his eyes were kindly,
yet he had the face of an ascetic.
"Miss Forbes is right," he said. "New York needs men with high
convictions and the courage of them."
"So does the Church," replied Luke heartily--"and she is getting them
now."
They sat down.
"The Church," said Nicholson, "has always had them. What she lacked was
the co-operation of such men in the practical world. If all of our
millionaires were like some few of them, our work would be easy; but now
we scarcely know which is more dangerous: the evil tyrant or the evil
demagogue."
He talked for some time in this strain, not to weariness, but with the
completeness of the zealot. Nicholson regarded wealth as a sacred trust,
a gift from God given to the great intellects of the world only that it
might be administered for the benefit of the lesser of God's creatures.
He mentioned no specific instance, but he saw in many of the country's
rich men souls that were proving worthy of their trust and others that
were using their money selfishly and even cruelly. For the former he
had the highest regard, for the latter the severest condemnation; the
spiritual and physical welfare of the poor he considered as the especial
care of the more fortunate, and charity was not only the right of
penury: it was the salvation of the rich.
Betty listened to him with a rapt face; Luke honored him, but sincerely
hoped that he would go. Fearing that this desire was becoming too
patent, Luke said:
"The Manhattan and Niagara people don't seem to share your views."
"Ah," said Nicholson, "there you touch a vexed problem, because there
you have to do with a corporation, and it is almost a fact that
corporations have no souls."
"If that corporation ever had any, it is damned," said Luke; "but what
I'm driving at is that the individuals composing a corporation have
moral responsibilities."
The clergyman agreed, but in corporations, he thought, responsibility
was so intricately subdivided and so sinuously delegated that no one man
had much left to him or could incur much guilt for his individual
errors. In connection with most such accidents as a railway wreck,
there was really an ethical basis for the legal phrase "an act of God."
"Not in the North Bridge wreck," said Luke. "It's been shown that the
company used cheap material, didn't have any proper system for checking
its work-reports so as to tell whether ordered repairs were made, and
didn't hire competent men. The company can't get out of this mess by
saying its experts were forced on it by the unions: it hasn't any legal
right to delegate its choice of experts to a union. It's a common
carrier and, if it can't do its work properly, then it ought to stop
work."
Nicholson saw this much as Luke did, and said so at a good deal of
length. It was some time before his part of the conversation lagged and
he rose to go.
Sec.4. Luke waited only until he heard the door close upon the
departing clergyman. Then he turned to Betty with a relieved sigh.
"Phew!" he said. "I'm glad that's over."
She was sitting opposite him in the full glare of light from an
old-fashioned, crystal-hung chandelier. Betty could bear strong lights.
"Why?" she asked. Her brow was puckered, but her lips smiled. "I like
him. He's very good, and he's doing a really great work. I like him
ever so much."
"Oh, yes," said Luke. "Nicholson's all right. He has what he admires in
other men: high convictions and the courage of them. Most of us always
admire in others what we don't have ourselves; but not Nicholson. He is
doing a big work, too. But I'm glad he's gone, just the same."
"Why?" repeated Betty.
Luke rose. He came over to Betty and stood looking down at her, his
arms folded across his chest.
"Because," he said, "I wanted to talk to you."
"It didn't look so. It looked as if you wanted to talk to Mr.
Nicholson."
"I wanted to talk to you and about you."
She stopped fencing. She gave him her full, frank gaze.
"Well?" she asked.
"You know what I want to say, Betty," he answered. "You've seen for a
long time what I was coming to. I held off. I held off because I
hadn't anything to offer you. Even now I haven't much. I haven't half
enough. If I win this fight I'm in, it won't give me anything that
would make me deserve you. I've not been a bit better than I should
be." His voice grew tense. "When I come down to brass tacks, when I--I
beg your pardon; but what I mean is that when I get to the point of
telling you I love you, I see how far I've been from being what I should
be. I---- Oh, hang it all, Betty!" He put out his hands. "I love
you. I've never really loved anybody else and never can. If I win this
confounded--blessed fight, will you marry me?"
She got slowly to her feet: it seemed to Luke minutes before she had
stood up and begun her answer. Then she took both his hands.
"You don't have to win the fight to win me, Luke," she said.
The realization swept over him. He took her in his arms. He looked in
her upturned face--the eyes wide, the sweet, fresh cheeks hot, the lips
parted, breathing quickly--and then he felt the blood rush to his head,
felt it hammer at his temples. It got into his eyes and blinded him.
He ground his lips upon hers.
The dull despair of his last months under Leighton commanded a reaction.
The rushing changes of the last two days had set his nerves to a speed
that would not now cease in whatever physical activities he engaged
himself. These things flung him along a new road; they raced him down a
way of which he had known but little. As he felt the warmth of her
gracious young body next his, he was hurled with such violence down a
course so unfamiliar to him that only the thought of losing his race by
running it too swiftly could serve to lessen his straining speed. Like
a quarter-mile runner stopping himself short in the last hundred yards
before the tape, he almost fell as he forced himself to release her.
"Your father," he panted. He looked away from her: "I must see him
now."
Betty did not understand. She was only exalted by this new thing; she
was only happy.
"Now?" she whispered.
"Yes." He looked back at her and, with a white face, smiled. "He has a
right to know." He caught her hand, pressed it only as tightly as he
dared. "I'll go to him in the library. Wait for me."
Sec.5. Forbes was seated at a round table, engaged in his regular
nightly task of reading the editorial-page of the _Evening Star_,
nodding his head when he agreed with its generalities and muttering
maledictions upon it when it specifically ridiculed the Progressive
Party. As Luke came in, Forbes was in the midst of one of the paper's
attacks on progressivism, and his frown seemed to drive his beaked nose
into his mustache.
"Oh, Huber," he said, without at once relaxing his scowl; "I didn't know
you were here. Come in. Been here long?"
Luke could not have guessed how long he had been in the house.
"Not very," he ventured.
"Sit down," said Forbes. He had not risen. He indicated an easy-chair
near his own.
"Thanks," said Luke; but he did not sit down.
Forbes at last noticed his visitor's nervousness.
"I suppose you've had a hard day," he said. "Pardon me for not
congratulating you sooner on your success. This sheet"--he brandished
the _Evening Star_--"doesn't want anything but to be against everything.
It upsets me every evening. But you've done a big thing. I think you
should have come clear over to our side, but I dare say you will do that
in time. Meanwhile, I'm sincerely glad for your good fortune. You
deserve it."
"You're very good," said Luke. His eyes twinkled a little. "I wonder
if you know about it--all."
"Only what this mealy-mouthed sheet says. It's absolutely inexplicable
to me, Huber, how a paper written by such able men can be so
narrow-minded on broad subjects. However, I think they're going to
support _your_ party, if they may be said ever to support anything."
"I'm afraid they _are_ rather reticent about the real news," said Luke.
"They never tell anything that weighs against their theories."
"They haven't had a chance to tell this."
Forbes looked puzzled.
"What do you mean?"
"It's only just happened." Luke breathed deeply. "I'm engaged to be
married," he said. He spoke with an unusual rapidity. "Engaged to be
married, and I'd like it to come off--the wedding, I mean--right after
the election."
Forbes scrambled up. He wrung Luke's hand.
"Well, well," he said, "you are to be congratulated!"
"I am glad you think so," said Luke, "for you know the girl better than
I do."
"The girl? I know her better----" Forbes's voice rose. "You don't
mean---- You don't mean to say----"
"Yes," Luke nodded. "It _is_ luck, isn't it? It's Betty."
"Bless my soul!" Forbes brought his left hand down on Luke's right
shoulder. "Bless my soul! My little girl! Huber, you--you rather knock
the wind out of me."
He said all the conventional things; his manner showed all the proper
surprise; and both men understood that he had been expecting this news
for a long time and wanting it.
"Huber," he said, "of course this is sudden, and of course I'm an old
fool not to have got over considering Betty a child--a mere baby--but,
now you're here with the announcement, I'm quite certain that, out of
all the men who've been tagging after her, you're the one that I'd want
for a son-in-law."
Luke again mumbled his thanks.
"You're not standing still," pursued Forbes: "you're going ahead. You
have a great deal to you, and Betty's the very girl to make you make the
best of yourself"--Forbes's voice abandoned the commonplace note and
fell to the note of genuine feeling--"then there's your interest in the
Business. Huber, I've always regretted that I didn't have a son to leave
the Business to, as my father left it to me and his father to him. If
you'd married somebody else, and Betty had married some chap that had no
interest in it, the Business might have gone over to you eventually, and
so on to children of another stock than mine; whereas, now"--he looked
around Luke to the doorway--"Betty!" he said.
She had not obeyed Luke; she was standing at the door.
"I couldn't wait," she confessed; but she said it with an allegiance
that was now all for Luke.
"Come here," her father ordered.
He released Luke's hand and shoulder. The girl ran to him and put her
arms about his neck.
"Please be nice, daddy," she whispered. "Please be nice."
Forbes managed to draw a handkerchief and blow his nose.
"I _am_ a fool," he said. "I--Betty, you're looking so much to-night
the way your mother--By George, I _am_ a fool! I think I must be
getting old, Huber."
Sec.6. In the room at the end of the hall marked "Family Entrance" to a
saloon in Fifty-second Street, near Eighth Avenue, a red-headed man
dressed in cheap clothes of fashionable cut, was leaning across a table
at which he was drinking raw whisky with a girl who, had she not been
too heavily painted, would have had a face like that popularly ascribed
to Joan of Arc.
[Illustration: HE FOUND IT NECESSARY TO BE EMPHATIC]
"I've got him showed to me," the man was saying. "He lives at the
Arapahoe on Thirty-ninth Street. I'll play lighthouse. All you gotta
do's put on them glad clothes an' get him into Pearl's Six' Av'nue
place. He's in wrong, anyhow. Then I'll tip off Charley Guth, an'
he'll put Donovan wise an' pinch the joint. See?"
The girl that looked like Joan of Arc nodded comprehendingly.
"But the clothes has got to be real swell," she said.
*CHAPTER X*
Sec.1. As Luke left the Forbes house that night, his step kept time
with the beat of his pulses, and he walked fast. At last he thought
that he saw happiness within reach.
He was not yet happy; he was quite clear about this. One half of him,
perhaps the nobler half, was engaged in a political battle with the
forces of corruption, but it was so engaged that those forces affected
it; they invaded his individuality and, therefore, curtailed his freedom
and curtailed completeness. Happiness, if it was to be found at all,
was to be found only in the perfect development of self, and such a
development was impossible so long as self, seeking expression in
politics, found expression thwarted by an evil opposition in the
political field.
Nevertheless, this opposition, Luke was sure, could be crushed and swept
away; his ideal for the good of the city, which had become his own good,
could be attained; and then, he told himself, that other part of him,
the part that loved Betty and that Betty loved, could enjoy Betty as the
reward of the whole man. It was as if he were one of two runners. Betty
he saw not as the goal, but as the prize to be given him for leading at
the goal; not a prize that any other runner could win by worsting him in
the race, but a prize that he himself could deserve only if he were to
lead at the finish.
He was thinking of this when he left the Subway station and walked
toward the Arapahoe, but under his conscious thoughts the subconscious
self was still tingling with the emotions that had flamed up in him when
he took Betty in his arms and felt her lips on his. He quivered with
the physical recollection, and though the flame had burned, his flesh
found the pain of it sweet.
At the corner nearest the apartment house in which he lived, he became
aware of a woman. The street was nearly empty, but until she was close
beside him he did not notice her. How she came to be at his elbow he
did not appreciate, nor did he at first realize whether she were young
or old, beautiful or ugly.
"Will you tell me the time, please?" she asked.
Luke's experience in Leighton's office had long ago taught him that such
a request was the commonest form of watch-stealing, but he was not
afraid of losing his watch. He stopped under a lamp-post.
"Certainly," he said.
"I know it's late," pursued the woman, "but I don't know how late."
The words were thick. The voice was the voice of all the phantoms of
the street, low in pitch and hoarse, but luring because of all that it
connoted: because of the mystery, the adventure which, after all
knowledge of her sordidness and all understanding of her frigidity, the
woman who most reveals her body has maintained by that revelation's
forced screening of her soul.
Luke consulted his watch.
"It's a quarter to eleven," he said.
He looked at her, and he was glad to look. That she was well-dressed,
but overdressed and wore her clothes with the defiance of one
unhabituated to them, did not impress him. What impressed him was the
face that, in spite of its tokens of much evil done and more evil
suffered, retained the fragile beauty which men associate with
innocence. The calm, broad brow, the gray eyes wide and steady, the
underlip timidly drawn back, the delicate chin upturned above a slim
white throat, reminded him of the pictures of Joan of Arc on trial and
foredoomed by her English accusers.
"It _is_ late, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes," said Luke. He had forgotten about his watch; he was holding it
loosely in his hand.
"I wonder," said the woman, "if it's too late for you to take a little
walk with me."
Her eyes had narrowed coldly; a smile that was a trade grimace distorted
her mouth.
The change in her wakened Luke. He restored his watch to his pocket.
He felt a slight chill at his heart and a self-accusation.
"No," he said brusquely; and started to walk away.
The woman followed.
"Aw, come on," she urged. Her tone coarsened under his refusal.
"No," said Luke.
"Please?" her voice whined. She put her hand on his arm.
Luke shook off the hand. He was too angry with himself to have pity for
her.
"Stop this," he ordered.
"But won't you listen?" The woman's hand returned persistently; it
clutched. "I got somethin' to----"
Luke saw that they were at the door of the Arapahoe.
"I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't stop to listen to you."
He went into the apartment house.
Sec.2. He really was sorry. Once inside the door of the Arapahoe, he
said to himself that the woman had only been plying her trade, and that
what he had visited upon her was a portion of the wrath against his own
momentary weakness. He could never have given way to her, because he
was so firm in his resolve to live worthily for Betty that he could not
enough want to give way to offset the efficacy of his resolve; only the
portion of him subject to his will without being a part of his will had
momentarily weakened; it could not have rebelled victoriously, and
although it merited punishment, the exterior cause of its weakness did
not deserve censure. Altogether, Luke concluded, he had behaved in a
rather contemptible fashion.
His mind was immediately diverted. As he passed the clerk's desk in the
hall, the clerk beckoned darkly to him.
"There are some reporters looking for you here," he whispered. "I sent
them into the waiting-room so's you could get by them when you came in,
if you wanted to. Do you?"
Luke almost laughed as he reflected upon the figure he would have
presented to the representatives of the press, had they been waiting for
him at the door.
"Yes, I'll see them," he said.
They came to him in a body, seven of them. They worked for the morning
papers and, because the evening papers had printed Luke's letter about
his resignation from the District-Attorney's staff, they wanted a fresh
sensation for their journals.
Luke leaned against a pillar in the lobby and talked to them. Most of
them he had met while in Leighton's office. Personally, he was popular
with them, and he liked them.
"I'll say anything you want," he agreed. "But what is there to say?"
The spokesman was a keen man with curling black hair.
"You might develop the last part of your letter," he suggested: "the
part about the big financiers that you're going gunning for."
"I haven't got the gun yet," objected Luke. "Better wait and see if I'm
nominated, boys."
"Oh, you'll be nominated, all right. Come on, Mr. Huber."
"You're going to support the League, anyhow," said a stout little
fellow, whose paper opposed all reformers. "You can tell us how the
League will go for the men at the top."
To this Luke agreed. He began to speak and, as he saw the busy pencils
noting his best phrases upon sheets of roughly-folded copy-paper, he
fell into stride with his subject. He declared that the League meant to
put an end to the influence of Big Business in municipal politics, and,
although he mentioned no names, it was evident what big business men he
had in mind.
The reporters tried to make him mention names, but their efforts only
seemed to restore his caution. They urged him to be specific in his
charges against the present administration of the District-Attorney's
office; but here again they encountered the impassive side of Luke with
which they were more familiar.
"No, no," said Luke; "there may be a time for all that, but this isn't
the time. Just wind up by saying we mean, once and for all, to put Wall
Street out of politics and graft out of the administration of justice in
New York City and to keep them out, if we have to send every financier
and every policeman to jail."
Sec.3. The reporters made all that they could of what Luke gave them,
and the next morning's papers were full of it. Leighton, on his way
downtown, read them with anger against Luke and annoyance with himself
for losing a man that might have been so valuable to him.
He began to be afraid of the effect of Huber's implications regarding
the District-Attorney's office. Remembering that his party was in no
position to risk putting up a weak candidate, he telephoned to George J.
Hallett and was granted an interview: he said he knew of the letters in
Luke's possession and knew how Luke came by them.
Hallett, whose office was almost the counterpart of that in which he
consulted with his master and Rivington, sprawled in a deeply
upholstered chair. He smoked steadily at a cigar, and when the letters
were mentioned, he accepted the mention with complete composure.
"Who else knows about 'em?" he frankly inquired.
"Nobody," said Leighton--"unless Huber's been talking."
"He's got 'em, hasn't he?"
"Had them the last time I saw him."
"Anyway, you haven't 'em?"
"No, of course, I haven't."
Hallett took his cigar from his mouth; he looked at the cigar, and from
it to Leighton.
"I don't see what use _you_ are to us, then," he said.
Leighton understood that the only satisfactory way to deal with this man
was the direct way.
"I can't be any use to you except to tell you where the leak is these
letters came through."
"What do you want us to do for you?"
"I want your support at election time."
"Can't promise it. The other side has just as good a claim on us."
"Heney?"
"An' the whole Democratic organization, yes."
"Would you promise not to interfere on either side?"
"Can't do it. You see, you haven't got much to sell."
Leighton ran his fingers through his black hair.
"Look here, Mr. Hallett," he began again, "we don't know each other
personally----"
"That's all right," said Hallett.
"Well, then, if I can't count on your influence for the election, may I
count on it for the nomination?"
"Who stole those letters?" said Hallett.
"I can count on you people in the matter of the nomination?"
"Yes."
"A man named Rollins."
Late that afternoon it was found that Rollins had made an overcharge for
postage-stamps in the course of his secretarial work. He was arrested
and "railroaded" to jail.
Sec.4. It was somewhat later when the Republicans nominated Leighton
and then, to the amazement of the public, the Democrats and Progressives
each opposed him with candidates so weak that every politician
understood this as a surrender to Leighton in order to defeat the
candidate of the Municipal Reform League. In advance of their
occurrence, however, all these things were gossiped about by the leaders
of every faction and so confidently expected that plans were shaped in
accordance with them. Somehow, they sent word ahead to the Reform
headquarters even on the day of the happening that set them in motion,
and Venable and Nelson, together with the other executives of the M. R.
L. bestirred themselves.
"Where's Yeates?" asked Nelson, as he came into Luke's room, where
Venable and Luke were busy. "That young fellow's never around when he's
wanted."
"He sent in word he had some other engagements," said Venable.
"Had to play golf with Hallett's son, I guess, if it wasn't L. Bergen
Rivington," Nelson sneered. "There's too much society in that boy for
any political usefulness."
Luke looked up from the notes he was preparing for his formal letter
accepting the nomination that the League was next day to offer him:
"Is Yeates a friend of those people?" he asked. "I knew he knew some of
them, but is he a friend?"
"Only socially," he said. "Yeates was born to it, but politically he is
all right. He has high ideals and a really fine enthusiasm."
"Hum," said Luke. "What do you think of this paragraph, Nelson?"
He read from his notes:
"During the past few years, those persons in a position to observe the
inner workings of our politics, both in national and municipal affairs,
have been alarmed to see the steady encroachment made upon them by High
Finance. There is no longer any room left for doubt. The purpose of
this invading power is clear: its purpose is conquest. Unless the free
voters act, and act quickly, the true government of the United States in
general, and of New York in particular, will not rest in the President
or Congress, in Mayors and Boards of Aldermen, in the Constitution, the
charter, or the courts: it will rest in a combination of Big Business
interests that will control the men elected as representatives of the
people."
Nelson slapped his thigh.
"That's it!" he said. "That's the talk. We ought to have had some of
that kind of medicine long ago. Look at all this recent
drug-legislation, for instance. You can't imagine what my firm's been
up against. They're getting an appetite for the wholesale drug-trade
now, these big fellows are, and they're paving their way by lobbies at
Washington and Albany and half a dozen state capitals!"
The three worked over the letter for the rest of that day, having a
scanty luncheon brought into the office from a nearby restaurant, and
talking plans while they ate. All the time callers were sending in
their names with requests for interviews, workers were reporting, men at
the telephone were ringing up to ask instructions, and clerks and
stenographers were running in and out to deliver telegrams and
special-delivery letters and to receive replies.
Luke's only appreciable pause was to read two notes of congratulation
from his mother and Jane, the former commending him for adopting a
course that the writer was sure her husband would have adopted had he
lived, the latter full of pride in his approaching success, but ending
with the postscript: "Jesse [Jesse Kinzer was Jane's husband, the new
Congressman] says that conditions in New York are 'purely local,'
whatever that means." Altogether, Luke had a busy day. He was a tired
man when, at nine o'clock, he again rang the bell of the Forbes house in
Brooklyn.
Sec.5. To Luke's surprise, it was Forbes himself that opened the door.
"I've been looking for you," he said seriously. "Can you come into the
library? I want to see you for a few minutes. It's important."
The concluding words were unnecessary. The tone of the words that
preceded them would alone have been sufficient to warn Luke of trouble:
Forbes's voice was husky, tense, uncertain.
"Of course," Luke assented.
He followed Forbes into the library, and there, as the host closed the
door, Luke saw in the face that confronted him an expression which
conformed with the tone and import of Forbes's first words. The elder
man's face was haggard.
"I shall have to tell you something," he was saying--"something that I
ought to have told you long ago, or as much of it as had happened then.
But, you see, I had no idea it could be so important--ever be so
important." He broke off with a remembrance of his accustomed courtesy:
"I beg your pardon. Won't you sit down, Huber? I quite forgot to ask
you. For my part, I couldn't sit still if my life depended on it."
Luke stood by the center-table.
"No, no," he said. "Don't bother--and don't worry." He thought that
Forbes looked as if death were in the house. "Is anything wrong with
Betty?" he suddenly asked.
"No, it's not that. It's what I say. Of course I never supposed your
going in for the Municipal Reform League movement could have any
business significance----"
Luke, relieved about Betty, was unable to follow Forbes's disjointed
sentences.
"It hasn't," he said. "It hasn't any business significance whatever."
"Ah"--Forbes shook his head--"that's what I thought, too. But it has.
Huber, this may mean the end of R. H. Forbes & Son. Think of it: it may
mean the end of the Business--a business that has been honorably
conducted by my family for three generations."
What such a catastrophe would mean to Forbes nobody knew better than
Luke, but how the Municipal Reform League could be concerned in it was
beyond guessing.
"Won't you try to begin at the beginning?" said Luke. He was used to
getting coherent stories in preliminary interviews with incoherent
witnesses, and he fell into his professional manner.
"It's this way." Forbes turned his gray eyes away and fumbled with an
ornament on the mantel-tree. "When you came into the Business, I had
several loans outstanding--the Business had. They were all well
secured, and you know how solid the concern's always been. With the
money you put in and the earnings, I was able to take up some of them,
but there were the improvements and extensions made necessary by fresh
competition and the new inventions and the machine-trust's raise of
prices. Well, I had to leave a loan outstanding at the East County
National."
"Yes," said Luke encouragingly. "How much was it?"
"Two hundred and fifty thousand. It was a good deal, I know, but, you
see, when I negotiated it----"
"Never mind the reasons now. What were its terms?"
"It was a call-loan," said Forbes in a shaken voice.
Luke's amazement conquered his reserve.
"What? And for two hundred and fifty thousand?"
"Yes. There was the competition. It was growing hot. The
Business----"
"How did you ever arrange it?"
"I was surprised myself at the time to find it so easy, but I was too
glad to get it to ask questions. Now, I wish I had. I believe the bank
was influenced by some people that wanted to get us into trouble--want
to form a ready-made clothing trust."
"It's incredible!" cried Luke. "Not one of the agents that I had look
into your business for me mentioned this."
"I didn't know that, Huber." Forbes looked his appeal. "I ask you to
believe me."
"All right. It was my own fault. I should have asked you more
questions. What puzzles me is how this loan was concealed."
"It was at the request of the bank. They said it was so unusual that
they didn't want it more widely known than was absolutely necessary, and
I agreed because of the credit of the Business. Now I believe it was
all a trap set by the men that want to form the trust."
Luke did not pause to waste reproaches over either his own stupid
blindness or Forbes's culpable rashness. He pressed forward:
"And now they're going to call the loan?"
Forbes bowed his head.
"And we can't meet it?"
"If--if we tried, we could do it only by wrecking the Business."
"But we can go somewhere else. The East County isn't the only bank in
New York."
"That is what I thought. It's what I said."
Forbes was swallowing a sob. "I said it to Osserman--that's the
president--I said it to him himself."
"Well?" persisted Luke.
"Well"--Forbes's eyes met Huber's--"it wasn't any use."
"Now, look here," said Luke. He put into his voice a calm that he did
not feel. "Try to tell me just what happened. I can't advise you till
I know that, even if I'm not the business-fool I seem to have proved
myself to be. First of all, Osserman sent you some sort of word, didn't
he?"
"Yes, of course."
"What was it?"
"It was a letter--just a personal letter."
"When did you get it?"
"About eleven this morning."
"So then you went over to the bank?"
"Yes."
"And asked to see this man Osserman?"
"Yes."
"And what did he say?"
"Well," he said--"I can't tell you exactly; he was careful not to use
definite words; but careful to make his meaning clear."
"What was his meaning, then?"
"He said in effect that he understood you were interested in our
Business."
"What of it? That's what I want to know, Forbes. What's my interest in
your firm got to do with your standing at the East County National?"
"Oh, he didn't say at first. At first he said he understood we were not
sound."
"So you told him he was mistaken and offered to show the books?"
"Of course I did." Forbes's chin shot upward. "I told him that the
Forbes firm was one of the oldest and----"
"Yes, yes. And then he mentioned me. How did I hurt the firm's
standing?"
"He was really very plausible about that. I must say, Huber, that he
rather opened my eyes to a phase of your political activities I hadn't
before thought of."
"What phase?"
"To be quite frank, he called your public utterances wild. He said they
attacked credit and might shake it. He even intimated that if you were
elected, you'd go in for a course of action--you had pledged yourself to
go in for one that would upset credit altogether. And that's true,
Huber." Forbes gained a certain confidence. "When you come to think of
it, the business interests of the city--I mean the sound conservative
business interests--ought not to be made to suffer for the sins of the
big financiers."
Luke recaptured his composure. His face relaxed; he looked lazy and
uninterested.
"So I suppose," he said, "that this banker asked you to tell me to get
out of the fight."
"Yes, but of course----"
"Really, that's the highest testimony to the League's strength that
we've had yet."
"Yes, but, of course, I told him I couldn't do that."
"What did he say then?"
"He said he was afraid the City Chamberlain would withdraw all the city
funds on deposit at the East County if the bank kept on carrying a loan
you were interested in."
"And you took all this like a child?"
"I didn't. You ought to know me better than that."
"What did you do?"
"I was indignant. I told you I was. I said I would not have a loan
from a concern that interfered with the political convictions of its
creditors. I said I would go somewhere else."
"Did you go?"
The sob returned to Forbes's throat.
"Yes, I did," he said; "and it was the most humiliating experience of my
career. When I thought of the firm of R. H. Forbes & Son begging
credit, I could hardly bear it. But I went to the Lexington National."
"They turned you down?"
"They listened very politely and said they would consider the
proposition."
"Well, then," said Luke, "you're crossing a bridge before you come to
it."
"No, I am not; for presently they sent over a messenger with a note that
was no more than an insulting refusal."
"You gave up then?"
"No, I tried again. I tried Clement & Co." Forbes seemed unable to
conclude.
"And they?" urged Luke.
"They wouldn't consider it for a moment, Huber."
Luke did not like to look at Forbes's suffering, but he had to hear the
end.
"Well?" he said.
Forbes flung out his hands.
"What more could I do?" he demanded. "If it became known that the firm
was going begging--yes, begging--from bank to bank, what would happen to
our credit? I didn't dare to go anywhere else. I--Huber, I went back
to Osserman and asked him for time."
Luke sat down. He picked up a paper and made a transparent pretense of
glancing at it.
"Did he give you time?"
"He said he'd give me a week."
"A whole week?" Luke tried to appear encouraged. "That's six good
working days. You can get the money together in that time."
"Huber"--Forbes came over to Luke and stood above the newspaper--"I've
told you what it would do to our credit to try. But I've come to the
conclusion that we could not get this money from any bank in America."
"What do you mean? Not if we have security?"
"Not if we could offer the Metropolitan Life Building for security. Not
from any bank in America."
Luke put down the paper.
"But that----" He stopped a moment, and then went on: "But there's only
one group of men in the country that could put up such a wall."
"That," said Forbes simply, "is the group I mean."
Luke's eyes were veiled. He rose and walked across the room.
Presently, over his shoulder, he inquired sharply:
"What makes you think this?"
Forbes was frank:
"I don't know. I can't tell you. A hundred little things. But I am
sure."
"I thought you said something about a clothing trust."
"I did. It was the same crowd. Now they have some additional reason.
Oh, I couldn't doubt it. It was behind every word Osserman said. It was
standing back of his words, but it was on tiptoe, looking over them."
Luke turned and came up to Forbes. He was quite calm again.
"I know what you want me to do," he said.
"Yes," said Forbes: it was his way of saying: "You have read my meaning,
and I will stand by it."
"Well, I can't do it."
Luke spoke quietly. It hurt him to have to say this thing.
"I was afraid that was the way you'd take it," said Forbes.
"How else could I take it?"
"You know what it means to me, Huber?"
"Yes. I know what the firm means to you, but I can't do what you ask.
You want me to give up what I think is right for the sake of saving your
firm. I can't do it."
"It's your firm, too, Huber."
"Then I've got a right to hurt it."
"I'm not asking you to do anything wrong; I'm only asking you to wait."
"That's just what I can't do," said Luke.
Forbes would hear no more. He twitched with a spasm of weak rage. His
voice rang high.
"You're a fool!" he cried. "You talk as if I were trying to compound a
felony with you. What am I asking? I'm only asking you to hold off for
this campaign. I'm only asking you to stand by the man that took you
into his business--my Business, the one that my grandfather founded and
my father handed down to me. Haven't _I_ stood by _you_? Didn't I trust
you? I've kept out of all these big combinations, but I know how they
work--nobody can help knowing these days--and when I took you in, how
was I to be sure you weren't a dummy representing somebody else, and so
on, higher and higher up, till the trail ended with just these same men?
But no, I trusted you. I trusted you, and now---- You've no right to
humiliate me! You've no right to wreck my Business! Do you know what
you're doing? You're making a beggar out of my daughter--out of the
girl you told me last night you wanted to be your wife!"
Luke had been expecting this. The muscles about his mouth tightened,
but all that he said was:
"I suppose you have spoken to her?"
"Yes, I have. Of course I have!" cried Forbes.
"And what does she say?"
Forbes tried to take Luke's hand.
"Why do you act this way?" he pleaded. "Why can't you wait? They
haven't nominated you yet. Withdraw your name. That won't hurt the
League, and it will only make you all the stronger for the next time;
and by the next time we'll be ready to meet all opposition. This time
you can't be elected even if you are nominated. Why do you want to jump
into the fire?"
"What," insisted Luke, "does Betty say?"
She was at the door. She came in as he asked the question. She looked
from her lover to her father, and then she ran to her father and put her
head on his shoulder.
Sec.6. Luke took a short breath. He wanted to leave them. He felt
that he could not face much more. He wondered what Forbes had said to
her and how much she had heard of what Forbes and he were saying.
"Betty!" said her father. He patted her head. Luke thought that the
caressing hand looked old. "Betty!"
She spoke with her face hidden:
"Oh, Luke, you wouldn't hurt father?"
"It isn't that, Betty." Luke was angry. The girl was behaving as he
thought that a girl placed as she was ought to behave, and he loved her
no less for that, but he was angry at her father's weakness in putting
her in such a position, "It isn't that, Betty, I've got to do it. You
don't understand these things. You can't understand them."
"She knows that _I_ understand them," Forbes interposed.
"What of it?" challenged Luke. "Betty, I've got to do what I think's
right. You wouldn't have me go against everything I believe, would you?
You wouldn't have me do something I thought was wrong?"
Betty half raised her head:
"But it can't be wrong not to ruin us!"
Luke turned his words on Forbes.
"I'll withdraw from the company," he said.
"I couldn't buy you out," Forbes answered. He bit his lip; shame
colored his cheeks. "And if you sold to anybody else it would be sure
to be letting in our enemies. Even the mere report that you wanted to
sell would wreck us, coming on top of those bank interviews."
Luke knew Forbes was right.