Part 68

“But you told them from what office you came--from my office?”

“Of course I did, sir.”

“Well, what did they say?”

The clerk's face grew red and betrayed sudden embarrassment.

“Oh, they--they--didn't say anything special: just uppish--only--”

“What did they say?” roared Mr. Converse. “You've got a memory! Out with it! Exact words.”

Clerks were taught to obey orders in that office.

“They said,” choked the man, “that simply because your father was governor of this state once you needn't think you could tell folks in the State House to stand around! They said you didn't cut any ice in politics.”

“That's the present code of manners, eh? Insult a citizen and salaam to a politician!”

“Mr. Converse, I waited an hour in the Vital Statistics Bureau while the chief smoked cigars with Alf Symmes, that ward heeler. I had sent in our firm card, and the chief held it in his hand and flipped it and smoked and sat where he could look out at me and grin--and when Symmes had finished his loafing they let me in.”

Mr. Converse turned to his desk and plunged again into the data.

The next day he put a clerk at the long-distance telephone to call physicians in all parts of the state--collecting independent information in regard to the past and present prevalence of typhoid; he read certain official reports with puckered brow and little mutters of disbelief, and after he had read for a long time that disbelief was very frank. Mr. Converse had rather keen vision in matters of prevarication, even when the lying was done adroitly with figures.

He was not a pleasant companion for his office force during those days; his irascibility seemed to increase. He knew it himself, and he felt a gentleman's shame because of a state of mind which he could not seem to control.

And finally, out of the complexity of his emotions, he fully realized that he was angry at himself and that his anger at himself was growing more acute from the fact that he realized that the anger was justified. For he woke to the knowledge that he had allowed himself to grow selfish. He resented the fact that anybody should expect him to meddle with public affairs--to get into the muddle of politics. And he knew he ought to be ashamed of such selfishness--and, therefore, he grew more angry at himself as he continued to harbor resentment against any agency which threatened to drag him into public life.

He knew where the shell of that selfishness had been broken--it was cracked in the meeting where his chivalry had received its call to arms in behalf of the helpless. Those men had gazed at him, had told their troubles--and had left it all to his conscience! He did not believe those men were shrewd enough to understand so exactly in what fashion he could be snared in their affairs.

“Confound that rascal who inveigled me there!” ran his mental anathema of the strange young man. “He must have been the devil, wearing that frock-coat to hide his forked tail. And here I am now, fighting for peace of mind!”

And his struggle for his peace of mind drove him, at last, to set his hat very straight on his head and march across the street to Colonel Symonds Dodd's office.

The Honorable Archer Converse had made up his mind that no influence in the world could pull or push him into politics. He held firmly fixed convictions as to what would happen to a good man in politics. To get office this man of principle would be obliged to fight manipulators with their own choice of weapons. And once in office, all his motives would be mocked and his movements assailed. Converse was a keen man who had studied men; he was not one of those amiable theorists who believe that the People always have sense enough in the mass to turn to and elect the right men for rulers. He understood perfectly well that accomplishing real things in politics is not a game of tossing rose-petals.

He went to call on Colonel Dodd. He went with the lofty purpose of a patriotic citizen, resolved to exhort the colonel to clean house. It seemed to be quite the natural thing to do, now that the idea had occurred to him. Certainly Colonel Dodd would listen to reason--would wake up when the thing was presented to him in the right manner; he must understand that new fashions had come to stay in these days of reform.

Thinking it all over, considering that really the matter of this water-supply and attendant monopoly of franchises had become an evil, that the prospects of the party would be endangered if the party leaders continued to nurse this evil, Mr. Converse was certain that he and the colonel would be able to arrange for reform, by letting the colonel do the reforming.

They faced each other. Their respective attitudes told much!

Colonel Dodd filled his chair in front of his desk, using all the space in it, swelling into all its concavities--usurping it all.

The Honorable Archer Converse sat very straight, his shoulders not touching his chair-back.

Physically they represented extremes; mentally, morally, and in political ethics they were as divergent as their physical attributes.

“I'm sorry that you were able to take those Danburg men into camp,” said Mr. Converse, couching his lance promptly and in plain sight like an honorable antagonist. “I had been retained and proposed to expose conditions in the management of water systems.”

“I don't know what you mean,” replied the colonel, following his own code of combat and mentally fumbling at a net to throw over this antagonist.

“Yes, you do,” retorted Mr. Converse. “You know better than I do because you own the water systems of this state. But if you need to be reminded, Colonel, I'll say that you are making great profits. You can afford to tap lakes--spend money for mains even if you do have to go fifteen or twenty miles into the hills around the cities and towns.”

“Whom do you represent, sir?”