Morrison smiled. He had unbuttoned his top-coat, and his evening garb, in
that congress of the rough and ready, made him as conspicuous as a bird of
paradise in a rookery. "I seem to be double-crossed by my scenic effects,
Blanchard," he stated in an aside to the magnate, who had stepped upon the
platform because that elevation seemed safer than a position on the floor.
"We must fix that! Furthermore, it's hot up here!" He pulled off his
top-coat. He realized that the full display of his formal dress only
aggravated the situation. In St. Ronan's mill he mingled with men in his
shirt-sleeves. He turned and saw Nicolai Krylovensky in the chair where
Lanigan had thrust him. There was no other chair on the platform. Stewart
hastily laid the coat across the alien's knees. "Keep 'em out of the dirt
for me, will you, brother? I'm notional about good cloth!" He pushed his
silk hat into the man's hand and then he stripped off the claw-hammer and
white waistcoat, piled them upon the overcoat; and whirled to face his
audience.
All eyes were engaged with the mayor.
Krylovensky, unobserved, let the garments slip to the floor and dropped
the hat.
"Now, boys, we'll get down to business together in an understanding way!
What's it all about?" Stewart invited, cheerily.
"Just a minute!" cried Lanigan, heading off all the possibilities that
were threatening by a general powwow. "I've just been up against the bunch
here, Mister Mayor, and they're trying to turn it into a
congress-of-nations debate, and it ain't nothing of the kind. And I know
you're in a hurry, and we don't expect a speech!"
"You won't get one!" retorted the mayor, tartly. "I have dropped down here
merely in a business way to find out what's wanted of me as the executive
head of this city."
"Your Honor, I have been preaching the notion of telling the truth
to-night, and I'm going to come across with something about myself,"
confessed Lanigan, manfully. "I've gone off half cocked twice to-day. I've
been thinking it over and I realize it. In your office I grabbed in on a
word or two you said and took it for granted that you were going to lift
the whole load of the people's case up at the State House and stop
anything being put over on the people, whatever it is the Big Boys are
planning. But you didn't promise me to do it."
"I did not, Joe!"
"And I've been telling this gang that you did promise me and that I'd get
you down here to back up my word. I don't ask you to back up my lie.
You're too square a proposition, Mayor Morrison!"
"After that man-talk, Joe, I've just naturally got to make a little of my
own. And the boys can't help seeing that both you and I mean all right. I
did give you good reasons for jumping at conclusions as you say you did,
Joe! Understand that, boys! But my head isn't swelled to the extent that I
believe I can settle everything.
"Now that I'm down here I'll say this. I'll do everything I can, as mayor
of Marion, to straighten things out to-night so that the people won't be
left guessing. Guessing starts gabble and gabble starts trouble! Don't do
any more shouting about 'state steal,' and don't allow others to shout.
Most of us don't know what it means, anyway, and others don't care, so
long as it gives 'em a chance to stir up riots and grab off something for
themselves under cover of the trouble. There are a lot of outsiders in
this country, standing ready to make just such plays! Don't let your ears
be scruffed by mischief-makers, boys. Let's have our city come through
with a clean name! I'm going to do my part as best I can. But you've all
got to do yours--understand that!" He smacked his fist down into his palm.
"Do you bromise me dot Karl Trimbach gets dot seat?" boomed Mr. Weisner.
"The same question goes as to th' Hon'rable Danyel O'Donnell," said
Adherent Mulcahy.
"I cannot promise."
Then sounded that voice of the unknown troublemaker, sneeringly shrill,
the senseless, passion-provoking common, human fife of the mob spirit,
persistently present and consistently cowardly in concealment. "Of course
you don't promise anything to the people! Dudes stand together! Go back
and dance!"
Lanigan began to claw a passage for himself.
"Stand where you are, Joe!" commanded Stewart. "Don't flatter a fool by
making any account of him!"
"Those kinds of fools are going to make trouble in this city before the
night is over, Your Honor!"
"That's the trouble with politics," declared Mulcahy. "Ye can't get a
square promise in politics fr'm th' Big Boys!"
Morrison put up a monitory forefinger.
"But you can get a square promise from me in business--and I can see that
it's time to give that promise and make it specific. That's the way a
business contract must be drawn. Hear me, then! It's the business of this
city to see that no man abuses its good name or its hospitality, no matter
whether he's a resident or comes here because it's the capital of the
state. And I'll see to it that the men up at the State House end
understand that they must play fair for the good of all of us. You must
understand the same at this end. I'll take no sides in politics. The men
who are entitled to their seats in this legislature will have those seats.
I'm only one man, boys! But one man who is perfectly honest and is
depending on the right will find the whole law of the land behind him--and
wise men and good men have attended to the law. Will you take my word and
let it stand that way between us?"
A chorused yell of assent greeted him.
"All right! It's a contract! Mind your end of it!"
He turned sharply from them and faced Krylovensky. The alien leaped up and
kicked the mayor's garments to one side.
"Say! See here, my friend!" expostulated Stewart.
"Down with rulers!" screamed the man. "I'll be a martyr, but not a
hat-rack!"
The mayor walked toward the frantic person. "I'm sorry! I was
thoughtless!"
"You and your kind think of nothing but yourselves. You try to make slaves
of free citizens of the world!" Krylovensky had been buffeted and had
controlled himself. But the fires of his narrow fanaticism were now
whirling in his brain; sitting there on high before the eyes of his
fellows, the men to whom he had been preaching the doctrines of soviet
sovereignty--the supremacy of the people--he had just suffered what his
distorted views held as the enormity of ignominy; he had been used as a
clothes-tree for discarded garments. Used by a ruler!
When Morrison, not realizing that the man had become little short of a
maniac, stooped to pick up the garments Krylovensky dove forward and
struck the mayor's face with open hand. "Now throw me to your dogs! I'll
die a martyr to my cause!" he squalled.
The mayor snapped upright and laid restraining hands on the man who was
threatening him with doubled fists.
A roaring mob came milling toward the platform.
"I'll be a martyr!" insisted the alien.
"I can't humor you to that extent," replied Morrison, in the tone of a
father denying indulgence in the case of a wilful child.
He got between the man and the mob. He held Krylovensky from him with one
hand and put up the other protestingly, authoritatively.
"No man that's a real man lets another man bang him in the face," declared
Lanigan with fury.
"That's a nice point, to be argued later by us when things are quieter,
Joe. Stand back!"
"I'm going to kill him even if you haven't got the grit to do it." Lanigan
was showing the bitter disappointment of a worshiper kicking among the
fragments of a shattered idol.
"I won't allow you to do that, Joe! A dead man can't answer questions.
Stand back, all of you, I say!" He twisted the grip of his hand in the
man's collar until Krylovensky ceased his struggles.
"Do you work in this city?" asked the mayor.
"He works in the Conawin," shouted Lanigan. "And I shook him down this
evening for a gun, a knob-knocker, and a lot of red flags."
Blanchard was backed against the big Stars and Stripes, apprehensively
seeking refuge from the crowd massing on the platform. Morrison caught his
eye. "Seems to be one of your patriots, Blanchard! Shall I hand him over
to you?"
"I never saw the renegade before."
"I'm sorry you don't get into your mill the way I do into mine. I'd like
to know something about this gentleman who doesn't show any inclination to
speak for himself."
"I'm not afraid to speak," declared the captive, all cautiousness burned
out of him by the fires of his martyr zeal. "I'm an ambassador of the
grand and good Soviet Government of Russia."
The mayor preserved his serenity.
"Ah, I think I understand! One of the estimable gentlemen who have been
coming to us by the way of the Mexican border of late! When you picked up
such a good command of our language, my friend, it's too bad you didn't
pick up a better understanding of our country. I haven't any time just now
to give you an idea of it, sir. I'll have a talk with you to-morrow."
The mayor had seen Officer Rellihan at the door of the hall. As a
satellite, Rellihan was constant in his attendance on his controlling
luminary in public places, even though the luminary issued no special
orders to that effect; Morrison's intended visit to the hall had been
quickly advertised down-town.
Stewart glanced about him and found Rellihan at his elbow.
"Here's the honorable ambassador of Soviet Russia, Rellihan," said his
chief. "Take him along with you, keep harm from him on the way, and see
that he is well lodged for the night in a place where enemies can't get at
him."
"I know just the right place, Your Honor," stated the policeman, pulling
his club from his belt and waving it to part the throng.
Morrison broke in upon Lanigan's mumbled threats. "Mind your manners,
Joe!"
"But he hit you!"
The mayor picked up his garments, one by one, inspected them, and dusted
them with his palm; then he pulled them on. The crowd gazed at him.
"He hit you!" Lanigan insisted, bellicosely. "When a man hits me, I lick
him!"
"You're a good fighter, Joe," agreed His Honor, running his forearm about
his silk hat to smooth the nap. "But let me tell you something! Unless you
put yourself in better shape there'll be a fellow some day that you'll
want to lick, and you won't be able to lick him, and you'll be almighty
sorry because you can't turn the trick."
"Show me the feller, Mister Mayor!"
"Go look in the glass, Joe."
"Lick myself--is that what you mean, sir?"
"Sure! If you can do it when it ought to be done, you'll have the right to
feel rather proud of yourself."
He invited Blanchard with a side wag of his head and led the way from the
hall.
"Morrison, let me say this," blurted the mill magnate, when they were on
their way in the limousine. "By reason of this people-side-partner notion
of yours, you have gone to work and got yourself into an infernal fix. How
do you expect to make good that promise?"
"I suppose I did sound rather boastful, but I had to put it strong. A
mealy-mouthed promise wouldn't hold them in line!"
"But that promise only encourages such muckers in the belief that they
have a right to demand, to boss their betters, to call for accountings and
concessions. You have put the devil into 'em!"
"I hope not! Faith in a contract--that's what I tried to put into 'em.
They'll wait and let me operate!"
"Operate! You're one man against the whole state government and you're
defying single-handed the political powers! You can't deliver the goods!
That gang down-town will wait about so long and then 'twill be hell to pay
to-night!"
Morrison had found his pipe in his overcoat pocket. He was soothing
himself with a smoke on the way toward the Corson mansion.
"But why worry so much when the night is still young?" he queried,
placidly.