While General Totten was bruising his dignity in the menial work of a
turnkey, Governor North received two visitors. They were furred gentlemen
who entered abruptly by the private door--the before-mentioned
rat-hole--but the waiting cat did not pounce. On the contrary, one of the
furred intruders did the pouncing. It was Senator Corson and he was
furiously angry.
"What kind of a damnable fool has been giving off orders to those
soldiers? I have been tramping around outside this State House from door
to door, held up everywhere and insulted by those young whelps."
"I don't see how that could happen," protested the Governor.
"Who gave off such orders?"
"There were no orders, not in your case. I didn't think it was necessary
to specify anything in regard to you, Senator. Do you mean to tell me that
there's a man down there who didn't recognize you--who refused to allow
you to pass without question?"
"They all know me! Of course they know me. And that's the whole trouble.
They made that the reason why they wouldn't let me in here."
"How in the devil's name could that be?" The Governor's anger that
promised punishment for the offenders served Senator Corson in lieu of
apology.
"I was informed that there were strict orders not to admit politicians.
According to those lunkheads at the doors I came under that
classification." The Senator threw off his coat. "And Daunt, here, was
penalized on account of the company he was keeping. Find out who gave
those orders."
General Totten had locked the doors and was nervously jangling the keys.
"Amos, what kind of a fool have you been making yourself with your
orders?" the Governor demanded.
"I--I think some instructions of mine in regard to admitting any of those
persons whose seats are in dispute--probably those orders were
misconstrued. My guards are very zealous--very alert," affirmed the
adjutant-general, putting as good a face on the matter as was possible. He
fully realized that this was no time to mention that exception in favor of
Mayor Morrison, or to explain that he had intended to have Captain
Sweetsir accept humorously instead of literally the more recent statement
about politicians.
"There are two of those alert patriots who have had their zeal dulled for
the time being," stated the Senator, showing his teeth with a grim smile.
"I stood the impertinence as long as I could and then I cuffed the ears of
the fools and walked in."
"We did issue strict instructions, as Amos has intimated," the Governor
pleaded. "Some of those Socialists and Progressives who are claiming their
seats have hired counsel and they proposed to force their way into the
House and Senate chambers and make a test case, inviting forcible
expulsion. I'm reckoning that my plan of forcible exclusion leaves us in
cleaner shape."
"I'm not sure just how clean the whole thing is going to leave us, North."
The Senator tossed his coat upon a huge divan at one side of the chamber
and invited Daunt to dispose of his own coat in like fashion. Corson came
to the table and sat sidewise on one corner of it. "You know how I feel
about your pressing the election statutes to the extent you have. But
we've got the old nag right in the middle of the river, and we've got to
attend to swimming instead of swapping. I think, in spite of all their
howling, the other crowd will take their medicine, as the courts hand it
to them, when the election cases go up for adjudication. But there's a
gang in every community that always takes advantage of any signs of a
mix-up in high authority. My house got merry hell from a mob a little
while ago. There's no political significance in the matter, however!"
The Governor queried anxiously for details and Corson gave them. He
bitterly arraigned Morrison's stand.
North came to his feet and banged his fist on the table. "What? Take that
attitude toward a mob in his own city? Strike hands with a ringleader of a
riot--do it under a violated roof? Do it after what he promised me in the
way of co-operation for law and order? Has he completely lost his mind,
Senator Corson?"
"I think so," stated the Senator, with sardonic venom. "I'll admit that
the thing isn't exactly clear to me--what he's trying to do--what he's
thinking. A crazy man's actions and whims seldom are understandable by a
sane man. But, so I gather, after showing us, as he has this evening, a
sample of his work in running municipal government, he now proposes to
take full charge of state matters."
"What?" yelled the Governor.
"Yes! Promised the ringleader of the mob to come up here and run
everything on Capitol Hill. In behalf of the people--as the people's
protector!" The Senator's irony rasped like a file on metal.
Banker Daunt was provoked to add his evidence. "It's exactly as my friend
Corson says, Governor. I have been hearing some fine soviet doctrines from
the mouth of Morrison this evening. Not at all stingy about giving his
help to all those who need it! Gave his pledge of assistance to the fellow
in the ballroom, as Corson says. Understood him to say that he is coming
up here to help you, too!"
"I rather expected to find him here," pursued the Senator. "He went away
in a great hurry to go somewhere. But after my experience with your alert
soldiers down-stairs, Totten, I'm afraid our generous savior is going to
be bothered about getting in."
The adjutant-general pulled off his cap and scrubbed his palm nervously
over the glossy surface that was revealed.
"You might give some special orders to admit him," suggested Corson.
"He'll be a great help in an emergency."
"This settles it with me as to Morrison and his conception of law and
order," affirmed Governor North. "I have been depending on him to handle
his city. I'd as soon depend on Lenin and the kind of government he's
running in Russia."
"According to the samples furnished by both, I think Lenin would rank
higher as help," said the Senator. "At least he has shown that he knows
how to handle a mob. But we may as well calm down, North, and attend to
our own business. We are making altogether too much account of a silly
nincompoop. Daunt and I let our feelings get away from us this evening on
the same subject. But we woke up promptly. Morrison was in a position to
help his friends and to amount to something as an aid in that line. Now
that he is running with the rabble, for some purpose of his own, he can be
ignored. He amounts to nothing--to that!" He snapped a derogatory finger
into his palm. "We can handle that rabble, Morrison included." He turned
to the adjutant-general. "Your men seem to be alert enough in keeping out
gentlemen who ought to be let in. Do you think you can depend on them to
keep out real intruders?"
"Oh yes!" faltered Totten, absent-mindedly. He was trying to clear his
troubled thoughts in regard to the matter of Morrison, who was now
presented in a light where politeness might not be allowed to govern the
situation.
"Have they been put to any test of their courage and reliability? Have
they been up against any actual threats from the outside, this evening?"
"No, but I can depend on them to the limit, Senator Corson. I have been on
regular tours of inspection. They are a cool and nervy set of young men
and I have impressed on them a sense of what a soldier on duty should be."
"Very well, Totten! Nevertheless, let us hope that the mob fools have gone
home to bed, including our friend Morrison. He needs his sleep; I believe
he still follows the family rule of being in his mill at seven in the
morning. He's a good millman, even if he isn't much of a politician."
"And I don't look for any trouble, anyway," declared General Totten,
adding in his thoughts, for his further consolation, the assurance that,
at half past eleven, so the clock on the wall revealed to his gaze, such
an early riser as Morrison must be abed and asleep; therefore, the
exception for the sake of politeness did not threaten to complicate
affairs!
But at that instant something else did threaten.
Through the arches and corridors of the State House rang the sounds of
tumult, breaking on the hush with terrifying suddenness. One voice,
shouting with frenzied violence, prefaced the general uproar; there was
the crashing of shattered wood.
The rifles barked angrily.
"My God, North! I've been afraid of it!" Corson lamented. "You have
crowded 'em too hard!"
"I'm going by the law, Corson! The election law! The statute law! And the
riot laws of this state! The law says a mob must be put down!"
An immediate and reassuring silence suggested that the law had prevailed
and that a mob had been put down in this instance. Corson, whose face was
white and whose eyes were distended, voiced that conviction. "If a gang
had been able to get in they'd be howling their heads off. But it was
quick over!"
The men in the Executive Chamber stood in their tracks and exchanged
troubled glances in silence.
"Amos, what are you waiting for?" demanded His Excellency.
"For a report--an official report on the matter," mumbled the
adjutant-general, steadying his trembling hands by shoving them inside his
sword-belt.
"Go down and find out what it all means."
"I can save time by telephoning to the watchman's room," demurred Totten.
"Incidentally saving your skin!" the Governor rapped back. "But I don't
care how you get the information, if only you get it and get it sudden!"
Totten went to the house telephone in the private secretary's room and
called and waited; he called again and waited.
"Nobody is on his job in this State House to-night!" His Excellency's fears
had wire-edged his temper. "By gad! you go down there and tend to yours,
as I have told you to do, Amos, or I'll take that sword and race you along
the corridor on the point of it!"
"We must be informed on what this means," insisted the Senator.
There was a rap on the private door. Again the men in the Executive
Chamber swapped uneasy glances. Corson's demeanor invited the Governor to
assume the responsibility. His Excellency was manifestly shirking. He
looked over his shoulder in the direction of the fireplace, as if he felt
an impulse to arm himself with the ornamental poker and tongs.
"May I come in?" The voice was that of the mayor of Marion. The voice was
deprecatory.
"Come in!" invited North.
Morrison entered. He greeted them with a wide smile that did not fit the
seriousness of the situation, as they viewed it. There was humor behind
the smile; it suggested suppressed hilarity; it hinted that he had
something funny to tell them.
But their grim countenances did not encourage him.
"If I am intruding on important business----"
"Shut the door behind you! What is it? What happened?" demanded North.
Before shutting the door Morrison reached into the gloom behind him and
pulled in a soldier.
Stewart had put off his evening garb. He wore a business suit of the
shaggy gray mixture that was one of the staples among the products of St.
Ronan's mill. His matter-of-fact attire was not the only element that set
him out in sharp contrast among the claw-hammers and uniforms in the room;
he was bubbling with undisguised merriment; Corson, Daunt, and the
Governor were sullenly anxious; even the young soldier looked flustered
and frightened.
"I have brought along Paul Duchesne so that you may have it from his own
mouth! Go ahead, Duchesne! Let 'em in on the joke! Gentlemen, get ready
for a laugh!" Stewart set an example for them by a suggestive chuckle.
"Your arrival in the State House seems to have been attended by
considerable of a demonstration," commented Senator Corson, recovering
himself sufficiently to indulge in his animosity. "Judging from your
success in starting other riots this evening, I ought to have guessed that
you were in the neighborhood."
"My arrival had nothing whatever to do with the demonstration, Senator. Go
on, Duchesne!"
"I jomped myself," stammered the soldier, a particularly crestfallen
Canuck.
"I see you don't grasp the idea," Morrison hastened to put in. "We mustn't
have the flavor of the joke spoiled. I know Paul, here. He works in my
mill. He has a little affliction that's rather common among French
Canadians. He's a jumper." He suddenly clapped the youth on the shoulder
and yelled "Hi!" so loudly that all the auditors leaped in trepidation.
The soldier leaped the highest, flung his arms about wildly, and let out a
resounding yelp.
"That's the idea!" explained Stewart. "A congenital nervous trouble.
Jumpers, they are called!"
"What the devil is this all about?" raged the Governor.
"Tell 'em, Paul. Hurry up!"
"I gone off on de nap on a settee," muttered Duchesne, twisting his
fingers together.
General Totten winced.
"Dere ban whole lot o' dem gone off on de nap, too," asserted the guard,
offering defense for himself.
"By way of showing alertness, Totten!" growled the Senator.
"So I ban dream somet'ing! Ba gar! I dream dat t'ree or two bobcat he
come--"
"Never mind the details of the dream, Paul!" interposed Morrison. "These
gentlemen have business! Get 'em to the laugh, quick!"
"Ma big button on ma belt she caught on de crack between de slat of dat
settee. And when I fight all dat bobcat dat jomp on maself, ba gee! it was
de settee dat fall on me and I fight dat all over de floor. Dat's all! Oh
yes! Dey all wake up and shoot!"
"And nobody hurt!" stated Morrison. He gazed at the sour faces of the
listeners. "Great Scott! Doesn't Duchesne's battle to the death with a
settee get even a grin? What's the matter with all of you?"
"We seem to be quite all right--in our normal senses," returned the
Senator, icily. "I believe there are persons who gibber and giggle at
mishaps to others--but I also believe that such a peculiar sense of humor
is confined largely to institutions for the refuge of the feeble-minded."
"You may go back to your nap, Duchesne!" The mayor turned on the soldier
and spoke sharply. He followed the young man to the door and closed it
behind Duchesne.
He marched across the chamber and faced the surly Governor. "I brought the
boy here, Your Excellency, so that you might get the thing straight. I
hope you believe him, even if you don't take much stock in me!" Morrison's
face matched the others in gravity. There was an incisive snap in his
tone. "I happened to be in the rotunda when the--"
"How did you happen to be in the rotunda, sir--past the guards?"
"I walked in."
"By whose permission?"
"Why, I reckoned it must have been yours," returned Stewart, calmly.
"I gave no such permission."
"Well, at any rate, I was informed by the guards that a special exception
had been made in my case. Furthermore, Governor North, you told me this
evening that if I needed any specific information I could find you at the
State House."
"By telephone, sir! By telephone! I distinctly stipulated that!"
"I'm sorry! I was considerably engrossed by other matters just then.
Perhaps I didn't get you straight. However, telephone conferences are apt
to be unsatisfactory for both parties. I'm glad I came up. I assure you
it's no personal inconvenience to me, sir!"
"There's a fine system of military guard here, and a fine bunch to enforce
it. That's what I've got on my mind to say!" whipped out the Senator. "If
one man and a settee can show up your soldiers in that fashion, Totten,
what will a real affair do to them?"
"Nobody sent for you, Mayor Morrison. Nobody understands why you're here,"
stated Governor North. "You're not needed."
The intruder hesitated for a few moments. His eyes found no welcome in any
of the faces in the Executive Chamber. He swapped a whimsical smile for
their frowns.
"Well, at all events, I'm here," he said, mildly.
He was carrying his overcoat on his arm, his hat in his hand. He went
across the room and laid the garment carefully on the divan, smoothing its
folds. His manner indicated that he felt that the coat might be lying
there for some little time, and consideration for good cloth was ingrained
in a Morrison.