All the Morrisons were upstickit chiels in point of height.
Stewart had appeared so abruptly, he towered so dominantly, that a
stranger would have expected a general precipitateness of personality and
speech to go with his looks.
But after he had closed the door he stood and stroked his palm slowly over
his temple, smoothing down his fair hair--a gesture that was a part of his
individuality; and his smile, while it was not at all diffident, was
deprecatory. He began to roll down the sleeves of his shirt.
There was the repressed humor of his race in the glint in his eyes; he
drawled a bit when he spoke, covering thus the Scotch hitch-and-go-on in
the natural accent that had come down to him from his ancestors.
"I saw your car arrive, Senator Corson, and I broke the sprinting record."
"And the mill rule!" muttered Mac Tavish.
"It's only an informal call, Stewart," explained the Senator, amiably,
walking toward the rail.
"And you have caught me in informal rig, sir!" He pulled his coat and
waistcoat from the hooks and added, while he tugged the garments on, "So
I'll say, informally, I'm precious glad to see old neighbors home again
and to know the Corson mansion is opened, if only for a little while."
"Lana came down with the servants a few days ago. I couldn't get here till
last evening. I have some friends with me, Stewart, who have come along in
the car to join me in paying our respects to the mayor of Marion."
Morrison threw up the bar of the rail and stepped through. He clutched the
hand of the Senator in his big, cordial grip. "And now, being out in the
mayor's office, I'll extend formal welcome in the name of the city, sir."
He looked past the father toward the daughter.
"But I must interrupt formality long enough to present my most respectful
compliments to Miss Corson, even walking right past you, Governor North,
to do so!" explained Stewart, marching toward Lana, smiling down on her.
Their brief exchange of social commonplaces was perfunctory enough, their
manner suggested nothing to a casual observer; but Miss Bunker was not a
casual observer. "She's ashamed," was her mental conviction. "Her eyes
give her away. She don't look up at him like a girl can look at any man
when there's nothing on her conscience. Whatever it was that happened,
she's the one who's to blame--but if she can't be sorry it doesn't excuse
her because she's ashamed."
Possibly Miss Corson was covering embarrassment with the jaunty
grandiloquence that she displayed.
"I have dared to intrude among the mighty of the state and city, Mister
Mayor, in order to impress upon you by word of mouth that your invitation
to the reception at our home this evening isn't merely an invitation
extended to the chief executive of the city. It's for Stewart Morrison
himself," ran her little speech.
"I hoped so. This word from you certifies it. And Stewart Morrison will
strive to behave just as politely as he used to behave at other parties of
Lana Corson's when he steeled his heart against a second helping of cake
and cream."
She forestalled her father. "Allow me to make you acquainted with Coventry
Daunt, Stewart."
Morrison surveyed the young stranger with frank and appraising interest.
Then the big hand went out with no hint of any reservation in cordiality.
"I'm sure you two are going to be excellent friends!" prophesied Lana.
"You're so much alike."
The florid giant and the dapper, dark young man swapped apologies in a
faint flicker of a mutual grin.
"I mean in your tastes! Mr. Daunt is tremendously interested in
water-power," Miss Corson hastened to say. "But father is waiting for you,
Stewart."
So, however, was the sniveling old woman waiting!
She had not presumed to break in on a conference with another of her
sex--but when the mayor turned from the lady and started to be concerned
with mere men, the old woman asserted her prerogative. "Out of me way. Con
Rellihan, ye omadhaun, that I have chased manny the time out o' me patch!
I'm a lady and I have me rights first!" She struggled and squalled when
the officer set his palms against her to push her away.
Morrison dropped the Governor's hand, broke off his "duty speech," and
with rueful smile pleaded for tolerance from the Corson party.
"Hush, Mother Slattery!" he remonstrated.
"Ah, that's orders from him as has the grand right to give 'em! Niver a
wor-rd from me mouth, Your 'Anner, till I may say me say at your call!"
A prolonged, still more deprecatory smile was bestowed by the mayor on the
élite among his guests!
"I was out of town when I was elected mayor, and they hadn't taken the
precaution to measure me for an office room at the city building. I didn't
fit anything down there. Some day they're going to build the place over
and have room for the mayor to transact business without holding callers
on his knee. In the mean time, what mayoralty business I don't do out of
my hat on the street I attend to here where I can give a little attention
to my own business as well. Now, just a moment please!" he pleaded,
turning from them.
He went to the old woman, checking the outburst with which she flooded him
when he approached. "I know! I know, Mother Slattery! No need to tell me
about it. As a fellow-martyr, I realize just how Jim has been up against
it--again!" He slid something into her hand "Rellihan will speak to the
judge!" He passed hastily from person to person, the officer at his heels
with ear cocked to receive the orders of his master as to the disposition
of cases and affairs. Then Rellihan marshaled the retreat of the
supplicants from the presence.
"I do hope you understand why I attended to that business first,"
apologized the mayor.
"Certainly! It's all in the way of politics," averred the Senator, out of
his own experience. "I have been mayor of Marion, myself!"
"With me it's business instead of politics," returned Morrison, gravely.
"I don't know anything about politics. Mac Tavish, there, says I don't.
And Tavish knows me well. But when I took this job--"
"Ye didna tak' it," protested Mac Tavish, determined then, as always, that
the Morrison should be set in the right light. "They scrabbled ye by yer
scruff and whamped ye into a--"
"Yes! Aye! Something of the sort! But I'm in, and I feel under obligations
to attend to the business of the city as it comes to hand. And business--I
have made business sacred when I have taken on the burden of it."
"I fully understand that, Stewart, and my friend Daunt will be glad to
hear you say what I know is true. For he is here in our state on
business--business in your line," affirmed the Senator. He put his hand on
the arm of the elderly man with the assertive mutton-chop whiskers. "Silas
Daunt, Mayor Morrison! Mr. Daunt of the banking firm of Daunt & Cropley."
"Business in my line, you say, sir?" demanded Morrison, pursuing a matter
of interest with characteristic directness.
"Development of water-power, Mister Mayor. We are taking the question up
in a broad and, I hope, intelligent way."
"Good! You touch me on my tenderest spot, Mr. Daunt."
"Senator Corson has explained your intense interest in the water-power in
this state. And this state, in my opinion, has more wonderful
possibilities of development than any other in the Union."
Morrison did not drawl when he replied. His demeanor corroborated his
statement as to his tenderest spot. "It's a sleeping giant!" he cried.
"It's time to wake it up and put it to work," stated Daunt.
"Exactly!" agreed Senator Corson. "I'm glad I'm paying some of the debt I
owe the people of this state by bringing two such men as you together. I
have wasted no time, Stewart!"
"Round and round the wheels of great affairs begin to whirl!" declaimed
Lana. "The grain of sand must immediately eliminate itself from this
atmosphere; otherwise, it may fall into the bearings and cause annoying
mischief. I'll send the car back, father. I mustn't bother a business
meeting."
A grimace that hinted at hurt wrinkled the candor of the Morrison's
countenance. "I hoped it wasn't mere business that brought you--all!" He
dwelt on the last word with wistful significance, staring at Lana.
"No, no!" said the Senator, hastily. "Not business--not business, wholly.
A neighborly call, Stewart! The Governor, Mr. Daunt, Lana--all of us to
pay our respects. But"--he glanced around the big room--"now that we're
here, and the time will be so crowded after the legislature assembles, why
not let Daunt express some of his views on the power situation? Without
you and your support nothing can be done. We must develop our noble old
state! Where is your private office?"
"I have never needed one," confessed Stewart; it was a pregnant hint as to
the Morrison methods. "I never expected to be honored as I am to-day."
The Hon. Calvin Dow was posted near a window in a big chair, comfortably
reading one of Stewart's newspapers. Several other citizens of Marion,
sheep of such prominence that they could not be shooed away with the mere
goats who had been excluded, were waiting an audience with the mayor.
"You understand, of course, that there is no secrecy--that is to say, no
secrecy beyond the usual business precautions involved," protested the
Senator. The frank query in Stewart's eyes had been a bit disconcerting.
"But to have matters of business bandied ahead of time by the mouth of
gossip, on half-information, is as damaging as all this ridiculous talk
that's now rioting through the city regarding politics."
"It's all an atrocious libel on my administration," exploded Governor
North. "It's damnable nonsense!"
"Old Dog Tray," when he had occasion to bark, was not noted for polite
reticence.
Lana took Coventry Daunt's arm and started off with an elaborate display
of mock terror. "And now politics goes whirling, too! My, how the ground
shakes! Mister Mayor, I'll promise you more serene conditions on Corson
Hill this evening."
There was an unmistakable air of proprietorship in her manner with the
young man who accompanied her.
The Governor shook his finger before the mayor's face and, in his complete
absorption in his own tribulation, failed to remark that he was not
receiving undivided attention. "I'm depending on men like you, Morrison. I
have dropped in here to-day to tell you that I'm depending on you."
Senator Corson had apparently convinced himself that the mill office of
St. Ronan's was too much of an open-faced proposition; it seemed more like
an arena than a conference-room. Dow and the waiting gentlemen of Marion
showed that they were frankly interested in the Governor's outbreak. Right
then there were new arrivals.
The Senator hastily made himself solitaire manager of that particular
chess-game and ordered moves: "Lana, wait with Coventry in the car. We'll
be only a moment. At my house this evening it will be a fine opportunity
for you and Daunt to have your little chat, Stewart, and get together to
push the grand project for our good state."
"Yes," agreed Morrison; "I'll be glad to come." He was giving the young
woman and her escort his close attention and spoke as if he meant what he
said. He blinked when the door closed behind them.
"And what say if you wait till then, Governor, to confer with the
mayor--if you really find that there is need of a conference?" suggested
the director of moves.
"But I want to tell you right now, Morrison, seeing that you're mayor of
the city where our state Capitol is located, that I expect your full
co-operation in case of trouble to-night or to-morrow," His Excellency
declared, with vigor.
"Oh, there will be no trouble," asserted the Senator, airily. "Coming in
fresh from the outside--from a wider horizon--I can estimate the situation
with a better sense of proportion than you can, North, if you'll allow me
to say so. We can always depend on the sane reliability of our grand old
state!"
The Governor was not reassured or placated.
"And you can always depend on a certain number of sore-heads to make fools
of themselves here--you could depend on it in the old days; it's worse in
these times when everybody is ready to pitch into a row and clapper-claw
right and left simply because they're aching for a fight."
The closed door had no more revelations to offer to Morrison; he turned
his mystified gaze on the Senator and the Governor as if he desired to
solve at least one of the problems that had come to hand all of a sudden.
"I can take care of things up on Capitol Hill, Morrison! I'm the Governor
of this state and I have been re-elected to succeed myself, and that ought
to be proof that the people are behind me. But I want you to see to it
that the damnation mob-hornets are kept at home in the city here, where
they belong."
"When father kept bees I used to save many a hiveful for him by banging on
mother's dishpan when they started to swarm. As to the hornets--"
"I don't care what you bang on," broke in His Excellency. "On their heads,
if they show them! But do I have your co-operation in the name of law and
order?"
"You may surely depend on me, even if I'm obliged to mobilize Mac Tavish
and his paper-weights," said the mayor, and for the first time in the
memory of Miss Bunker, at least, Mac Tavish flushed; the paymaster had
been hoping that the laird o' St. Ronan's had not noted the full extent of
the belligerency that had been displayed in making mill rules respected.
But the abstraction that had marked Morrison's demeanor when he had looked
over the Governor's head at the closed door and the later glint of jest in
his eyes departed suddenly. The eyes narrowed.
"You talk of trouble that's impending this night, Governor North!"
"There'll be no trouble," insisted the Senator.
"Fools can always stir a row," declared His Excellency, with just as much
emphasis. "Fools who are led by rascals! Rascals who would wreck an
express train for the chance to pick pocketbooks off corpses! There's been
that element behind every piece of political hellishness and every strike
we've had in this country in the last two years since the Russian bear
stood up and began to dance to that devil's tune! On the eve of the
assembling of this legislature, Morrison, you're probably hearing the
blacklegs in the other party howl 'state steal' again!"
"No, I haven't heard any such howl--not lately--not since the November
election," said Morrison. "Why are they starting it now?"
"I don't know," retorted the Governor. But the mayor's stare was again
wide-open and compelling, and His Excellency's gaze shifted to Mac Tavish
and then jumped off that uncomfortable object and found refuge on the
ceiling.
"The licked rebels know! They're the only ones who do know," asserted the
Senator.
Col. Crockett Shaw, practical politician, felt qualified to testify as an
expert. "Those other fellows won't play the game according to the rules,
Morrison! They sit in and draw cards and then beef about the deal and rip
up the pasteboards and throw 'em on the floor and try to grab the pot.
They won't play the game!"
"That's it exactly!" the Governor affirmed.
Senator Corson patted Morrison's arm. "Now that you're in politics for
yourself, Stewart, you can see the point, can't you?"
"I don't think I'm in politics, sir," demurred the mayor, smiling
ingenuously. "At any rate, there isn't much politics in _me!_"
"But the game must be played by the rules!" Senator Corson spoke with the
finality of an oracle.
"If you don't think that way," persisted Governor North, nettled by
Morrison's hesitancy in jumping into the ring with his own party, "what
_do_ you think?"
"I wouldn't presume," drawled Stewart, "to offer political opinions to
gentlemen of your experience. However, now that you ask me a blunt
question, I'm going to reply just as bluntly--but as a business man! I
believe that running the affairs of the people on the square is
business--it ought to be made good business. Governor North, you're at the
head of the biggest corporation in our state. That corporation is the
state itself. And I don't believe the thing ought to be run as a
game--naming the game politics."
"That's the only way the thing can be run--and you've got to stand by your
own party when it's running the state. You need a little lesson in
politics, Morrison, and I'm going to show you--"
The mayor of Marion raised a protesting hand. "I never could get head nor
tail out of a political oration, sir. But I do understand facts and
figures. Let's get at facts! Is this trouble you speak of as imminent--is
it due to the question of letting certain members of the House and Senate
take their seats to-morrow?"
"I must go into that matter with you in detail!"
"It has been gone into with detail in the newspapers till I'm sick of it,
with all due respect to you, Governor North. It has been played back and
forth like a game--and I don't understand games. There has been no more
talk of trouble since you and your executive council let it be known that
all the members were to walk into the State House and take their seats and
settle among themselves their rights."
"We never deliberately and decisively let that be known."
"Then it has been guessed by your general attitude, sir. That's the common
talk--and the common talk comes to me like it does to all others. That
talk has smoothed things. Why not keep things smooth?"
"Breaking election laws to keep sore-heads smooth? Is that your idea of
politics?"
"You cannot get me into any argument over politics, sir! I'm talking about
the business of the state. I have found that I could do business openly in
this office. It has served me even though it has no private room. I say
nothing against you and your council because you have done the state's
business behind closed doors at the State House. However--"
"The law obliges us to canvass returns in executive session, Morrison."
"I say nothing against the business you have done there," proceeded
Morrison, inexorably. "I can't say anything. I don't know what has been
done. I'm in no position, therefore, to criticize. If I did know I'd
probably have, good reason to praise you state managers as good and
faithful servants of our people. But the people don't know. You have left
'em to guess. It's their business. It's bad policy to keep folks guessing
when their own business is concerned. What's the matter with throwing wide
the doors to-morrow and saying 'Come along in, people, and we'll talk this
over'?"
"That's admitting the mob to riot, to intimidate, to rule!"
"Impractical--wholly impractical, Stewart," the Senator chided.
Calvin Dow came toward the group, stuffing his spectacles back into their
case. Given a decoration for his coat lapel, the Hon. Calvin Dow, with his
white mustache and his imperial, would have served for an excellent model
in a study of a marshal of France. His intrusion, if such it was, was not
resented; with his old-school manners and his gentle voice he was the
embodiment of apology that demanded acceptance. "Jodrey, you never said a
truer word. As old politicians, you and I, we understand just how
impractical such an idea is. But I must be allowed to put the emphasis
very decidedly on the word 'old.' There seems to be something new in the
air all of a sudden."
"Yes, a fresh crop of moonshiners in politics," was the Senator's acrid
response. "And the stuff they're putting out is as raw and dangerous as
this prohibition-ducking poison."
"The trouble is, Jodrey," pursued the old man, gently, but undeterred,
"those honest folks who really do own the country show signs of waking up
and wanting to pay off the mortgage the politicians hold on it; and those
radicals who think they're going to own the country right soon, now,
believe they can turn the trick overnight by killing off the politicians
and browbeating the proprietors. It looks to me as if the politicians and
the real owners better hitch up together on a clean, business basis."
"Excellent! Excellent!" declared Banker Daunt, who had been shifting
uneasily from foot to foot, chafing his heavy neck against the beaver
collar, perceiving that his own projects were only marking time. "Hitch up
on a better business basis! It should be the slogan of the times. Eh,
Mister Mayor?"
"Right you are! crisply agreed Stewart, complimenting Daunt with a cheery
smile that promised excellent understanding.
"And harmony among the progressive leaders of city and state! Eh, Mister
Mayor? What say, Governor North?" The metropolitan Mr. Daunt was not
disposed to allow his commercial proposition to be run away with by a
stampeding political team.
"That's what I'm asking for--the co-operation that will fetch harmony,"
admitted the Governor, grudgingly. "But--"
However, when His Excellency turned to the mayor with the plain intent of
getting down to a working understanding, Mr. Daunt broke up what
threatened to be an embarrassing clinch. As if carried away by enthusiasm
in meeting one of his own kind in business affairs, Daunt grabbed
Morrison's hand and pulled the mayor away with him toward the door,
assuring him that he was glad to pitch in, heart and soul, with a man who
had the best interests of a grand state to conserve and develop in the
line of water-power. Then he went on as if quoting from a prospectus.
"When the veins and the arteries of old Mother Earth have been drained of
the coal and oil, Mr. Morrison, God's waters will still be flowing along
the valleys, roaring down the cliffs, ready to turn the wheels of
commerce. On the waters we must put our dependence. They are the Creator's
best heritage to His people, in lifting and making light the burden of
labor!" was the promoter's pompous declaration.
"You cannot shout that truth too loudly, sir! I have been crying it,
myself. But I always add with my cry the warning that if the people don't
look sharp, the folks who hogged the other heritages, grabbed the iron,
hooked onto the coal, and have posted themselves at the tap o' the
nation's oil-can, will have the White Coal, too! God will still make water
run downhill, but it will run for the profit of the men who peddle what it
performs. I'll be glad to have you help me in that warning!"
"Exactly!" agreed Mr. Daunt. "When you and I are thoroughly _en rapport_,
we can accomplish wonders." His rush of the willing Morrison to the door
had accomplished one purpose: he had created a diversion that staved off
further political disagreement for the moment. "You must pardon my haste
in being off, Mister Mayor. Senator Corson has promised to motor me along
the river as far as possible before lunch, so that I may inspect the
water-power possibilities. Come, Governor North!" he called.
Daunt again addressed Morrison. "The Senator tells me that your mill
privilege is the key power on the river."
"Aye, sir! The Morrison who was named Angus built the first dam," stated
Stewart, with pride. "But we have never hoarded the water nor hampered the
others who have come after us. We use what we need--only that--and let the
water flow free--and we're glad to see it go down to turn other wheels
than our own. Without the many wheels a-turning there would not have been
the many homes a-building!"
"Exactly! Development--along the broadest lines! Do you promise me your
aid and your co-operation?"
"I do," declared Stewart.
"You're the kind of a man who makes a spoken word of that sort more
binding than a written pledge with a notarial seal." Again Daunt shook the
Morrison hand. "I consider it settled!"
Daunt's wink when he grabbed Morrison had tipped off Senator Corson, and
the latter collaborated with alacrity; he hustled the Governor toward the
door. "We must show Daunt all we can before lunch, Your Excellency! All
the possibilities of the grand old state!"
"I haven't got your promise for myself, Morrison," snapped North over his
shoulder. "But I reckon I can depend on you to do as much for your party
and for law and order as you'll do for the sake of a confounded mill-dam.
And we'll leave it that way!"
"There'll be no trouble, I repeat," promised Senator Corson, making
himself file-closer. "North has been sticking too close to politics on
Capitol Hill, and he has let it make him nervous. But we'll put festivity
ahead of everything else on Corson Hill, to-night, and the girls will be
on hand to make the boys all sociable. Come early, Stewart!"
The mayor flung up his hand--a boyish gesture of faith in the best. "Hail
to you as a peacemaker! We have been needing you! We're glad you're home
again, sir."
For a few moments he turned his back on the business of the city, as it
awaited him in the persons of the citizens. He went to the front window
and gazed at the Corson limousine until it rolled away; Lana had Coventry
Daunt with her in the cozy intimacy afforded by the twin seats forward in
the tonneau.
"They make a smart-looking couple, bub," commented Calvin Dow, feeling
perfectly free to stand at Stewart's elbow to inspect any object that the
younger man found of interest. "Is it to be a hitch, as the gossip runs?"
"There seems to be some gossip that's running ahead of my ken in this city
just now, Calvin!" The mayor frowned, his eyes fixed on the departing car.
His demeanor hinted that his thoughts were wholly absorbed by the persons
in that car. "I hope you're spry enough to catch it. Go find out for me,
will you, what the blue mischief they're up to?"
"In politics? Or--"
"In politics! Yes!" returned Morrison, tartly. "What other kind of gossip
would I be interested in, this day?"
He snapped himself around on his heels and started toward the men who were
waiting. He singled one and clapped brisk hands smartly with the air of a
man who wanted to wake himself from the abstraction of bothersome visions.
"Well, Mister Public Works, how about the last lap of paving on McNamee
Avenue? Can we open up to-morrow? I plan on showing our arriving
legislative cousins clean thoroughfares on Capitol Hill, you know!"
"I'm losing fourteen men off the job at noon today, Your Honor! Grabbed
off without notice," grumbled the superintendent.
"Grabbed off for what?"
"Well, maybe, to keep our paving-blocks from being thrown through the
windows of the State House!"
"Who is taking those men from their work?"
"The adjutant-general. They're Home Guard boys."
"Something busted out in Patagonia needing the attention of a League of
Nations army?" inquired the mayor, putting an edge of satire on his
astonishment.
The superintendent shot a swift stare past the mayor. "Perhaps Danny
Sweetsir, there, can tell you--_Captain_ Daniel Sweetsir." The public
works man copied the mayor's sarcasm by dwelling on the title he applied
to Sweetsir.
The mayor took a look, too.
A young man in overalls and jumper had hurried into the office from the
private passage; he was trotting toward a closet in one corner. He had the
privileges of the office because he was "a mill student," studying the
textile trade, and was a son of the Morrison's family physician.
Sweetsir shucked off his jumper, leaped out of his overalls, threw them in
at the closet door, and was revealed in full uniform of O. D. except for
cap and sword. He secured those two essentials of equipment from the
closet and strode toward the rail, buckling on his sword.
Miss Bunker was surveying him with telltale and proprietary pride that was
struggling with an expression of utter amazement.
"The deil-haet ails 'em a' this day!" exploded Mac Tavish. The banked
fires of his smoldering grudges blazed forth in a sudden outburst of words
that revealed the hopes he had been hiding. His natural cautiousness in
his dealings with the master went by the board. "Noo it's yer time, chief!
I'll hae at 'em--the whole fause, feth'rin' gang o' the tykes, along wi'
ye! Else it's heels o'er gowdie fer the woolen business."
Morrison flicked merely a glance of mystification at Mac Tavish. The
master's business was with his mill student. "What's wrong with you,
Danny? Hold yourself for a moment on that side of the rail where you're
still a man of the mill! I'm afraid of a soldier, like you'll be when
you're out here in the mayor's office," he explained, softening the
situation with humor. "What does it mean?"
"The whole company of the St. Ronan's Rifles has been ordered to the
armory, sir. The adjutant-general just informed me over the mill 'phone."
"What's amiss?"
Captain Sweetsir saluted stiffly. "I am not allowed to ask questions of a
superior officer, sir, or to answer questions put by a civilian. I am now
a soldier on duty, sir!"
"Come through the rail."
The officer obeyed and stood before Morrison.
"Now, Captain, you're in the office of the mayor of Marion, and the mayor
officially asks you why the militia has been ordered out in his city?"
Again Captain Sweetsir saluted. "Mister Mayor, I refer you to my superior
officer, the adjutant-general of the state."
Morrison promptly shook the young man cordially by the hand. "That's the
talk, Captain Sweetsir! Attend honestly to whatever job you're on! It's my
own motto."
"I try to do it, Mr. Morrison. You have always set me the example!"
Mac Tavish groaned. He saw mill discipline going into the garbage along
with everything else that had been sane and sensible and regular at St.
Ronan's. And the Morrison himself had come from the mill that day ten
minutes ahead of the hour!
"So, on with you, lad, and do your duty!" Stewart forwarded Sweetsir with
a commendatory clap of the palm on the barred shoulder.
Calvin Dow was lingering. "We mustn't let the youngsters shame us,
Calvin," Morrison murmured in the old man's ear. "We all seem to have our
jobs cut out for us--and I can't tend to mine in an understanding way till
you have attended to yours."
The veteran saluted as smartly as had the soldier and trudged away on the
heels of Sweetsir.
"Ain't there any way of your making that infernal old tin soldier up at
the State House lay his paws off our paving crew?" asked the
superintendent.
"Hush, Baldwin!" chided the mayor, unruffled, speaking indulgently. "We
seem to have a new war on the board! Have you forgotten, after all that
has been happening in this world, that in time of war we must sacrifice
public improvements and private enterprises? Go on and do your best with
the paving."
"Hell is paved with good intentions, but I can't put 'em down on McNamee
Avenue."
"Of course not, Baldwin! That would be using war material that will be
urgently needed, if I'm any judge of these times."
"How's that, Mister Mayor?"
"Why, the hell architects seem to be planning an extension of the
premises," drawled Morrison.