Part 52

“I know the style when I see it,” pursued Farr. He did not look at Citizen Drew. He was talking as much to himself as to his companion. “Spirit of a crusader harnessed by every-day habit! Righteousness in a rut! Achievement timed to the tick of the clock. But, once in, how he would swim!”

“Think how our affairs would swing along with a man like that at the head of the state!”

“Why hasn't he been put at the head?”

“I have been in delegations that have gone to him”--he waved his hand--“he said he couldn't think of being mixed into political messes.”

“He looked on you wallowing in muddy water and you invited him in. I don't blame him for not jumping.”

“He's a good man,” insisted Citizen Drew. “He gives more money to the poor than any other man in town. The only way I found that out is by having a natural nose for finding out things. He doesn't say anything about it.”

“How he would swim!” repeated Farr. “Steady and strong and straight toward the shore, Citizen Drew, and he wouldn't kick away the poor drowning devils, either.”

“He probably thinks he has paid his debt to the world when he hands out his money,” stated Drew. “When he looks around and sees so many other men holding the poor chaps upside down and shaking the dollars out of their pockets he must think he is doing a mighty sight more than is required of him. But sticking plasters of dollar bills onto sore places in this state ain't curing anything.” He stopped. “I've walked with you farther than I intended to, Mr. Farr. But somehow I wanted to talk with you. There's a meeting of the Square Deal Club this evening at Union Hall. I didn't know but in some way we might--It was thought you might be going to run for office.”

“The registration-office will prove that I'm not. Pass that word!”

“I'll go back--to the meeting. It doesn't seem to be much use in holding the meetings,” said the man. “We hear one another talk--we know we are talking the truth. But nobody listens who can help us poor folks. Well, I'll admit that the politicians come in and listen and promise to help us and we give our votes; but that's all: they give nothing back to us.”

Farr broke out with a remark which seemed to have no bearing on what Citizen Drew was saying.

“He comes out at nine o'clock, eh?”

“Who?”

“The Honorable Archer Converse. Leaves that clubhouse then, does he?”

“Regular to the tick of the clock.”

“Citizen Drew, hold your club in session until half past nine or a little later. My experience with those meetings is that you always have troubles enough to keep you talking for at least two hours.”

Citizen Drew glanced at the face of Farr and then at the big door of the Mellicite Club.

“You don't mean to say--”

“I don't say anything. I seem to be in a queer state of mind to-night, Citizen Drew.” Again there was an odd note of raillery in his voice. “A lot of odd ideas keep coming to me. Another one had just popped into my head. That's all! Keep your boys at the hall.”

He swung off up the street.

He turned after a few steps and saw the elderly man standing where he had left him. Drew was a rather pathetic figure there in the brilliantly lighted main thoroughfare, a poor, plain man from the Eleventh Ward of the tenement-houses--this man who had been striving and struggling, reading and studying, endeavoring to find some way out for the poor people; some relief--something that would help. Farr knew what sort of men were waiting in the little hall. He had attended their meetings. It was the only resource they understood--a public meeting. They knew that the important folks up-town held public meetings of various sorts, and the poor folks had decided that there must be virtue in assemblages. But nothing had seemed to come out of their efforts in the tenement districts.

Farr stepped back to where Citizen Drew stood.

“I think I will say something to you, after all. Tell the boys in Union Hall to be patient and I'll bring the Honorable Archer Converse around this evening.”

He smiled into the stare of blank amazement on the man's face, flung up a hand to check the stammering questions, and went off up the street.

“A decent man's conscience will make him keep a promise he has made to a child or to the simple or to the helpless,” Farr told himself. “I have undertaken a big contract, I reckon, but now that I have put myself on record I've got to go ahead and deliver the goods. At any rate, I feel on my mettle.” Then he smiled at what seemed to be his sudden folly. “I think I'll have to lay it all to those nice old ladies who were foolish enough to put that knight-errant idea into my head,” he said.

XVII

THE MADNESS OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT

Farr glanced again at the big clock in the First National block.