After the secretary had closed the door and departed Morrison stepped
forward. "Governor North, you're perfectly right, and I agree with you
without resenting your remark. I did make quite a fool of myself last
night. Perhaps you are not ready to concede that the ends justify the
means."
"I do not, sir!"
"A result built on falsehoods is a pretty poor proposition," declared the
Senator. "I refer especially to those fake telegrams and to your impudent
assertion to the mob that I said this or that!"
"Yes, that telegram job was a pretty raw one, sir," Morrison admitted.
"But I really didn't lie straight out to those men in the square about
your participation. I let 'em draw an inference from the way I
complimented your fairness and good sense. I was a little hasty last
night--but I didn't have much time to do advance thinking."
"I'm going to express myself about last night," stated Senator Corson.
"Will you wait a moment, sir?" Morrison had not removed his overcoat; he
had not even unbuttoned it; he afforded the impression of a man who
intended to transact business and be on his way with the least possible
delay. He glanced at the electric lights and at the shaded windows. "This
seems too much like last night. Won't you allow me? It's a little
indulgence to my state of mind!"
He hurried across the room and snapped up the shades and pulled apart the
curtains. He reached his hand to the wall-switch and turned off the
lights.
"This isn't last night--it's this morning--and there's nothing like honest
daylight on a proposition, gentlemen! Nothing like it! Last night things
looked sort of tragic. This morning the same things will look comical
if"--he raised his forefinger--"if the inside of 'em is reported. If the
real story is told, the people in this state will laugh their heads off."
Again the Governor and the Senator put a lot of expression into the look
which they exchanged. "I got that mob to laughing last night and, as I
told General Totten, that settled the civil war. If the people get to
laughing over what happened when Con Rellihan took his orders only from
the mayor of Marion, it will--well, it'll be apt to settle some political
hash."
"Do you threaten?" demanded North. He was blinking into the matter-of-fact
daylight where Morrison stood, framed in a window.
"Governor North, take a good look at me. I'm not a pirate chief. I'm
merely a business man up here to do a little dickering. I can't trade on
my political influence, because I haven't any. You have all the politics
on your side. I propose to do the best I can with the little stock in
trade I have brought." He walked to the table and flapped on it his hand,
palm up. "You are two almighty keen and discerning gentlemen. I don't need
to itemize the stock in trade I have laid down here. You see what I've
got!"
He paused and, his eyes glinting with a suppressed emotion that the
discerning gentlemen understood, he glanced from one to the other of them.
"You've got a cock-and-bull yarn in which you are shown up as a liar and a
lawbreaker," the Governor declared. "You've got some guess--so about
errors in returns--"
"Hold on! Hold on, North!" protested Senator Corson. "It's just as
Morrison says--we don't need to itemize his stock in trade. I can estimate
it for myself. Morrison, you say you're ready to dicker. What do you
want?"
"A legislature that's organized open and above-board, with all claimants
in their seats and having their word to say as to the sort of questions
that will be sent up to the court. Staying in their seats, gentlemen, till
the decisions are handed down! Let the legislature, as a whole, draft the
questions about the status of its membership. I've got my own interest in
this--and I'll be perfectly frank in stating it. I have a report on
water-power to submit. I don't want that report to go to a committee that
has been doctored up by a hand-picked House and Senate."
"You don't expect that Governor North and myself are going to stand here
and give you guaranties as to proposed legislation, do you?"
"You are asking me, as an executive, to interfere with the legislative
branch," expostulated His Excellency.
"Gentlemen, I don't expect to settle the problems of the world here this
morning, or even this water-power question. I'm simply demanding that the
thing be given a fair start on the right track." There was a great deal of
significance in his tone when he added: "I hope there'll be no need of
going into unpleasant details, gentlemen. All three of us know exactly
what is meant."
Senator Corson was distinctly without enthusiasm; he maintained his air of
chilly dignity. "What legislation is contemplated under that report that
you will submit?"
"Some of the lawyers say that a general law prohibiting the shipping of
power over wires out of the state must be backed by a change in our
constitution. Until we can secure that change there must be a prohibitive
clause on every water-power charter granted by the legislature--a clause
that restricts all the developed power for consumption in this state."
"A policy of selfishness, sir."
"No, Senator Corson, a policy that protects our own development until we
can create a surplus of power. Sell our surplus, perhaps! That's a sound
rule of business. If you'll allow me to volunteer a word or two more as to
plans, I'll say that eventually I hope to see the state pay just
compensation and take back and control the water-power that was given away
by our forefathers.
"As to power that is still undeveloped, I consider it the heritage of the
people, and I refuse to be a party to putting a mortgage on it. My ideas
may be a little crude just now--I say again that everything can't be
settled and made right in a moment, but I have stated the principle of the
thing and we fellows who believe in it are going ahead on that line. I
realize perfectly well, sir, that this plan discourages the kind of
capital that Mr. Daunt represents, but if there is one thing in this God's
country of ours that should not be put into the hands of monopoly it's the
power in the currents of the rivers that are fed by the lakes owned by the
people. I'm a little warm on the subject, Senator Corson, I'll confess. I
have been stubbing my toes around in pretty awkward shape. But I had to do
the best I could on short notice."
"You have been very active in the affair," was the Senator's
uncompromising rejoinder.
Governor North continued to be frankly a skeptic and had been expressing
his emotions by wagging his head and grunting. In the line of his general
disbelief in every declaration and in everybody, he pulled his watch from
his pocket as if to assure himself as to the real time; he had scowled at
the Senator's mantel clock as if he suspected that even the timepiece
might be trying to put something over on him. "I must be moving on toward
the State House." He wore the air of a defendant headed for the court-room
instead of a Governor about to be inaugurated. "I must know where I stand!
Morrison, what's it all about, anyway?"
The Governor was convincingly sincere in his query. He had the manner of
one who had decided, all of a sudden, to come into the open. There was
something almost wistful in this new candor. Stewart's poise was plainly
jarred.
"What's it all about?" He blinked with bewilderment. "Why, I have been
telling you, Governor!"
"Do you think for one minute that I believe all that Righteous Rollo
rant?"
"I have been stating my principles and--"
"Hold on! I've had all the statements that I can absorb. What's behind
'em? That's what I want to know. Wait, I tell you! Don't insult my
intelligence any more by telling me it's altruism, high-minded
unselfishness in behalf of the people! I have heard others and myself talk
that line of punk to a finish. Are you going to run for Governor next
election?"
"Absolutely not!"
"Are you grooming a man?"
"No, sir!"
"Building up a political machine?"
"Certainly I am not,"
"Going to organize a water-power syndicate of your own after you get
legislation that will give you a clear field against outside capital?"
"No--no, most positively!"
"Senator Corson, you claim you know Morrison better than I do. How much is
he lying?"
"I think he means what he says."
North picked up his overcoat and plunged his arms into the sleeves. "If I
should think so--if I should place implicit faith in any man who talks
that way--I'd be ashamed of my weakness--and I've got too many things
about myself to be ashamed of, all the way from table manners to morals!
There's one thing that I'm sort of holding on to, and that's the fact that
my intellect seems to be unimpaired in my old age. Morrison, I don't
believe half what you say."
The mayor of Marion made no reply for some moments. Corson, surveying him,
showed uneasiness. A retort that would fit the provocation was likely to
lead to results that would embarrass the host of the two Executives.
"Oh, by the way, Governor," said Stewart, quietly, "I just came from City
Hall. I really did not intend to drift so far from strictly official
business when I came up here. I want to assure you that there will be no
expense to the state connected with the police guard at the Capitol. They
are at your service till after the inaugural ceremonies. Do you think you
will need the officers on duty at your residence any longer, Senator
Corson?"
"No, sir!"
"I agree with you that everything seems to have quieted down beautifully.
Governor, you have my best wishes for your second term. I'm sorry I'll not
be able to go to the State House to hear your address."
He went to the Governor and put out his hand, an act which compelled
response in kind.
"I'm much obliged!" His Excellency was curt and caustic. "After the
vaudeville show of last night there won't be much to-day at the State
House to suit anybody who is fond of excitement."
Before North, departing, reached the door Senator Corson's secretary
tapped and entered. He gave several telegrams into the hand of his
employer.
"Pardon me, gentlemen!" apologized the Senator, tearing open an envelope.
"Wait a moment, North. These messages may bear on the situation."
He read them in silence one after the other, his face betraying nothing of
his thoughts.
He stacked the sheets on the table. "Evidently several notable gentlemen
in our state rise early, read the newspapers before breakfast, and are
handy to telegraph offices," he remarked, leveling steady gaze at Stewart.
"These telegrams are addressed to me, but by good rights they belong to
you, Mister Mayor, I'm inclined to believe."
There was irony in the Senator's tone; Morrison offered no reply.
"They're all of the same tenor, North," explained Senator Corson. "I'm
bracketed with you. You'll probably find some of your own waiting at the
State House for you. And more to come!"
"Well, what are they--what are they?"
"Compliments for the sane, safe, and statesmanlike way we handled a crisis
and saved the good name of the state."
"Now, Morrison," raged the Governor, "you can begin to understand what
kind of a damnable mess you've jammed me into along with Corson, here!
That steer of a policeman will blab, that Scotchman will snarl, and that
loose-mouthed girl will babble!"
"Governor, I haven't resented anything you have said to me, personally.
You can go ahead and say a lot more to me, and I'll not resent it. But let
me tell you that I can depend on the business loyalty of the folks who
serve me; and if you go to classing my kind of helpers in with the cheap
politicians with whom you have been associating, I shall say something to
you that will break up this friendly party. My folks will not talk! Save
your sarcasm for your agents who have been running around getting you into
a real scrape by telling about those election returns."
He snapped about face, on his heels, and walked out of the door.