Part 37

“Good Jefferson! Don't you know that every city and town in this state where we have a water-plant has already exceeded its debt limit of five percent?”

“Do I understand you as intimating, Colonel Dodd, that there is no help for this present condition of affairs?”

“Look here--I'm neither a Herod nor a Moloch, even if some of the crack-brained agitators in this state will have it that way,” protested the magnate, with heat. “Are you going to print that report before you have given us time to turn around?”

“With one hundred deaths a day from typhoid fever in this state, Colonel, that matter of time becomes mighty important.”

“Look here, Dohl, don't you remember that it was my indorsement that gave you your job?”

“I do, Colonel Dodd. But I'm a physician, not a politician.”

“I see you're not,” retorted the colonel, dryly. “But you're a member of our political party, and you know that the Consolidated and its associate interests are the backbone of that party. There are a lot of soreheads in this state, and we're having a devil of a time to hold 'em in line. Every savings-bank in this state, furthermore, holds bonds of the Consolidated. Do you want to start a panic? You've got to be careful how you touch the first brick standing in a row. Dohl, you leave that report with me. I'll go over it. I'll take the matter up with the directors. We'll move as fast as possible.”

The doctor hesitated, stroking the folds of his manuscript.

“You're not doubting my word, are you?” demanded the colonel.

“No, sir!” Even the physician's sense of duty did not embolden him to persist under this scowl of the man of might.

The colonel took the document from Dr. Dohl's relaxing hands and shoved it into a pigeonhole of the big desk.

“You must understand that pipe-lines to lakes cannot be laid in a minute as a child strings straws, Doctor,” admonished the magnate.

“Do you propose to lay lines to the lakes, Colonel? I need to throw a little sop to my conscience if my report is delayed.”

“Everything right will be done in good time, Dr. Dohl. I will proceed as rapidly as possible, considering that the law, finance, and politics are all concerned. As you are leaving,” he added, giving his visitor the blunt hint that the interview was over, “I must draw your attention to the fact that if you bludgeon the Consolidated with a report like this it may be a long time before we can move in the matter. You'll only scare the banks and set the cranks to yapping. Just remember that you're a state officer and have a weighty responsibility to your party and to financial interests.”

Dr. Dohl went away. He sourly realized that he was only a cog in the big machine; that for a moment he had threatened to develop a rough edge and start a squeak, but the big file had been used on him. It had been used on many another of the State House cogs, as he well knew. Responsibility as to his party! Safety and sanity in regard to financial interests! He knew that these talismanic words had been used to control even the lords in national politics. He departed from the Presence, muttering his rebellion, but fully conscious that a political Samson in modern days made but a sorry spectacle of himself when he started to pull down the pillars of the party temple.

He continued to mutter when he walked through the anteroom.

Most of the men who waited there had faces as lowering as the visage which Dr. Dohl displayed.

The doctor had not lost all faith in his own fearlessness and rectitude of motive, but he was obliged to acknowledge to himself that just then he was a rather weak champion.

“However, I'd like to lay eyes on the sort of man who can unjoint this devilish combination of politics and law and finance,” he informed himself, trying to justify his own retreat.

His eyes, in passing, swept a stranger.

The stranger was a tall young man with wavy hair and brown eyes. He sat patiently, nursing a broad-brimmed black hat on his knees.

“I'd like to see that man!” repeated Dr. Dohl, mentally, sugar-coating his disgust at his own weakness.

If mortal man were gifted with prescience Dr. Dohl would have stared out of countenance the tall young man who sat on a bench in the outer office of the state's overlord and nursed a broad-brimmed hat upon his knees.

XIII

THE CODE AND THE GAGE OF BATTLE

“I appreciate zeal in public affairs,” mused Colonel Dodd, gazing at the door which Dr. Dohl had closed behind him. “But once there was a retriever dog who chased his master with a stick of dynamite that had a sputtering fuse.”

He set his broad hands upon the arms of his chair, derricked himself up, and went over to the mirror. He peered at himself and seemed to rearrange his countenance, much as a woman would smooth the ruffled plumage of her hat.

“We're not murderers,” he informed the composed visage which the mirror held forth to him. “But we haven't got to the point where we're letting lunatics who break up city government meetings, or crank doctors, tell us how to spend a million or two of the money we've worked hard to accumulate. There's getting to be too much of this telling business men in this country how to run their business. If we're peddling typhoid fever in spite of what our analyses tell us, then we'll go ahead, of course, and clean up.” Colonel Dodd was willing to acknowledge that much to himself, surveying his countenance in the mirror. “But we'll continue to run our own business,” he added.