In the past, each day after lunch, Mac Tavish had been enabled to get back to the sanity of a well-conducted woolen-mill business; in the peace that descended on the office afternoons he put out of his mind the nightmare of the forenoons and tried not to think too much of what the morrows promised.
Stewart Morrison had caused it to be known in Marion that he reserved afternoons for the desk affairs of St. Ronan's mill.
Mac Tavish always brought his lunch; he cooked it himself in his bachelor apartment and warmed it up in the office over a gas-burner at high noon.
While he was brushing the crumbs of an oaten cake off his desk, six men filed in. He knew them well. They were from the Marion Chamber of Commerce; they made up the Industrial Development Committee.
"I'm afraid we're a bit too early to see the mayor," suggested Chairman Despeaux.
"Ye are! Nigh twenty-two hours too early to see the mayor!"
"But we 'phoned the house and were told he had left to come to the office!"
"The mayor—mind ye, the mayor—he cooms frae the mill at—"
Mac Tavish remembered the crashing blow to his proud pronunciamiento that forenoon, and his natural caution regarding statements caused him to hesitate. "He is supposed to coom frae the mill at ten o'clock, antemeridian! Postmeridian, Master Morrison, of St. Ronan's—not the mayor—he cooms to his desk yon—well, when he cooms isna the concern o' those who are speirin for a mayor."
The gentlemen of the committee exchanged wise grins, suggestively sardonic grins, and sat down.
Mac Tavish, bristling in silence over his figures, was comforted by the ever-springing hope that this intrusion might serve as the last straw on the overloaded Morrison endurance.
He perked up expectantly when Stewart came striding in. Then he wilted despondently, because Morrison greeted the gentlemen with breezy hospitality, led them beyond the rail, and gave them chairs near his desk.
"Command me! I am at your service!"
"We're on our way to Senator Corson's. We have been invited to meet Mr. Daunt at lunch," said Despeaux; a thin veneer of suavity suited his thin lips.
"Fine!"
"I'm glad to hear you say so. We felt that we'd like your opinion of him and his plans before we commit ourselves."
"I like his personality," stated Stewart, heartily. "But I have only a general notion of his plans."
"Same here," admitted the chairman, though not in a tone of convincing sincerity. "The Senator brought him into my office for a minute or so before they started up-river. Told me to get the boys together and come for lunch. But if it's to put the water-power of this state on a bigger and broader basis, you and the storage commission are with us, aren't you?" Despeaux demanded rather than queried; his air was a bit offensive.
"I'm a citizen of Marion and a native of this state, body and soul for all the good that can come to us, by our own efforts or through the aid of outsiders," declared Morrison, spacking his palm upon the arm of his chair.
"Well, I guess we don't need any better promise than that, for a starter, at any rate. Of course, we knew it—but there's nothing like having a right-out word of mouth." Despeaux rose and pulled out his watch. "We'd better move on toward the eats, boys!"
"Just a moment, however, Despeaux! My father was a Morrison and my mother a Mac Dougal. I can't help what's in me!"
"What is it that's in you?" inquired Despeaux, pausing in the act of putting back his watch.
"Scotch cautiousness!"
"You don't suspect that a man like the big Silas Daunt, of Daunt and Cropley—"
"I don't suspect. I haven't got as far as that! But I want to know exactly what he means by coming into this state. I have a man out getting me some facts about what kind of a devil's mess is being stirred up all of a sudden to-day in politics. Suppose you get under Daunt's hide and find out whether he wants to do us or do for us, on the water-power matter."
An observant bystander would have perceived a queer sort of crispness in Morrison's manner from the outset of the interview; the same perspicacity would have detected something hard under the smooth surface of Despeaux's early politeness. Mr. Despeaux was not so elaborately polite when he retorted that he did not propose to play the spy on a guest while eating a host's victuals.
Mr. Morrison promptly put more of a snap into his crispness.
"Having balanced to partners, for politeness's sake, Despeaux, we'll take hold of hands and swing, with both feet on the floor. That was a good job you did in the legislative lobby two years ago for the crowd that called itself 'The Consolidated Development Company.' You're a smart lawyer and we had hard work beating you."
"I'll tell you what you franchise-owners did, Morrison! You beat a grand and comprehensive plan that was going to take in the whole state."
"It did take in a lot of folks for a time, but, thank God, it didn't take in a few of us who were wise to the scheme. I know why you have called on me to-day. But you haven't put me on record. Let no man of you think I have made a pledge or have committed myself till I know what's what!"
"You're Scotch, all right, Morrison. You're canny! You're for yourself and the main chance. Now let me tell you! You caught us foul two years ago because you jumped the newspapers into coming out with broadsides about a thing they didn't understand. Their half-baked scare stuff made the state think somebody was trying to steal the whole water-power."
"According to that general franchise bill, as it was framed, somebody was!"
"Morrison, in the last two years the people have been educated to understand that broad-gaged consolidation of water-power is what we must have."
"You have put out good propaganda. That fellow you have hired is a mighty fine press-agent," admitted Morrison, smiling ingenuously.
"And the men who get in the way and try to trig development this year will be ticketed before an understanding public for what they are," declared Despeaux.
"Try me as a part of the public, and see whether I'll understand! Ticketed as what, Brother Despeaux?"
"As profiting dogs in the manger of manufacturing, sir!"
There were expostulatory murmurs in the group.
"We're rather non-committal as a body on this matter, Despeaux," protested a committeeman. "We're waiting to be shown. In the mean time, we don't like to have a man like Morrison here called any hard names."
"Oh, I don't mind being called a watch-dog, boys! That's what I am. So you think I'm wholly selfish, do you, Despeaux?"
"The water-power franchises of this state were grabbed away from the people years ago, like the timber-lands were, by first-comers, and the state got nothing! The waters belong to the people. The people have a right to realize on their property! Morrison, considering what kind of a free gift you had handed to you, you've got to be careful about the position you take in these enlightened days when the people propose to profit from their own. It's mighty easy to shift public opinion these days!"
"Yes, I have seen tons of sand shifted in no time by a stream from a squirt-gun," confessed Morrison, placidly.
"And that leaves it a fifty-fifty break between us on the name-calling proposition," rejoined Despeaux, "I'll bid you a kind good day!" He strode away and his group trailed him.
A deprecating committeeman turned back, however. "I know you are honest, Morrison. But a lot of us are beginning to think that the general policy in the state regarding outside capital has been a bit too conservative. These are new times."
"Very!" said the mayor, pleasantly. "They're creaking about as loud as Squire Despeaux's new shoes." There was a snarl of ire from the shoes every time the retreating chairman lifted a foot. "I hope they won't pinch us, Doddridge! Good day!" He sat down at his desk.
Mac Tavish held his place on his stool in silence for a long time. The stiffness of his neck seemed to embrace all his members, even his tongue. Miss Bunker came in from her lunch, bringing the afternoon mail. Mac Tavish maintained his silence while Morrison picked out what were patently his personal letters before surrendering the others to the girl to be opened and assorted. Mac Tavish waited till his master had gone through his personal mail. The paymaster maintained a demeanor of what may be termed hopeful apprehension; this baiting, this impugning of honesty must needs turn the trick! No Morrison would stand for it! Mac Tavish found the laird's suppression of all comment promisingly bodeful. The fuse must be sizzling. There would be an explosion!
But Morrison began to play a lively tattoo on his desk with the knob of a paper-slitter and whistled "The Campbells Are Coming, Hurrah, Hurrah!" with the cheery gusto of a man who had not a care to trouble him.
"Snoolin' and snirtlin' o'er it!" spat the old man.
"Eh?" queried Stewart, amiably.
"Do ye let whigmaleeries flimmer in yer noddle at a time like this?"
"Why, Andy, speaking of a day like this, you'd have the crochets whiffed from your head if you'd go out for your lunch in the pep of the air instead of penning yourself in the office."
Mac Tavish leaped from his stool and marched toward this non-combatant. "Whaur's the fire o' yer spunk, Stewart Morrison?"
"Go on, Andy!" permitted the master, leaning back in his chair.
"Do ye allow such feckless loons to coom and beard ye in yer ain castle?"
"Andy, if I were playing their game, as they call it, I'd say that I'm going to give 'em all a chance to lay their cards, face up, on the table. But, putting it in a way you and I understand, I'm touching a match to their goods."
Mac Tavish nodded approvingly. He did understand that metaphor. A burning match will not ignite pure wool; threads of shoddy will catch fire.
"Aye! The fire test o' the fabric! Well and gude! But the toe o' yer boot for 'em. Such was ca'd for when he said ye set yer ainsel' in the way for muckle profeet!"
"Soft! Soft and slow, Andy," reproved the master. "There may be some truth in what he said. I'll have to stop right here and do some thinking about it! A chap gets to slamming ahead in his own line, you know. All of us ought to stop short once in a while and make a cold, calm estimate. Take account of stock! Balance the books! Discover how much of it is for ourselves, personally, and how much for the other fellow! No telling how the figures of debit and credit may surprise us!"
He spun around in his swivel chair.
"Lora, get Mr. Blanchard of the Conawin Mills on the 'phone, that's the girl!"
"Yes, Andy, I'm going to get down to the figures in my case! I hope there's a balance in my favor—but we never can tell!"
He set his elbows on his desk and clutched his hands into the hair above his temples. Mac Tavish tiptoed away. Morrison had apparently prostrated himself in the fane of figures; in the case of Mac Tavish figures were holy.
"Mr. Blanchard on the 'phone, Mr. Morrison," reported Miss Bunker.
Morrison put questions, quickly, emphatically, searchingly. He listened. He hung up. "Memo., Miss Bunker." He was curt. His eyes were hard. One observing his manner and hearing his tone would have realized that quarry had broken cover and that Mr. Blanchard had not been able to confuse the trail by dragging across it an anise-bag; in fact, Morrison had said so over the telephone just before he hung up. "Get me Cooper of the Waverly, Finitter of the Lorton Looms, Labarre of the Bleachery, Sprague of the Bates." He named four of the great textile operators of the river. "One after the other, as I finish with each!"
After he had finished with all, pondering while he waited between calls, he strode to Mac Tavish and brought the old man around on his stool by a clap on the shoulder. "A devil of a mouser, I am! I've been sitting purring on the top and they have hollowed it out underneath me."
"Eh? What?"
"The cheese, Andy, the water-power cheese! They have been playing me for the cat in the case! Left me till the last, left me sitting on an empty shell! The mice have made away with the cheese from under me. They have engineered a combine! There's a syndicate a-forming! It's for me to tumble down among 'em when the shell caves. I was right about Despeaux!"
"He's Auld Bartie, wi'out the horns!"
"Oh no! Not as smart as Satan, Andy! But smart, nevertheless! Very smart. He has shown 'em a good thing. They're ready to run in! And the devil take the hindmost. I'm the hindmost and I'd better get a gait on."
"But the company ye'll be keeping!"
"You don't suppose that I'll run away from the mice instead of after 'em, do you?"
"A thoct has been wi' me, Master Morrison! May I speak it?"
"Out with it!"
"Ye'll ne'er find a better chance to break from the kin o' Auld Cloven Cootie and mind yer ain wi' the claith business! Resign!"
"It's good advice, backed up by a good excuse, Andy!"
"And noo that I may speak freely," rattled on the old man, after a gasp of delight, "I can tell ye how I hae been list'nin' for yer interests till ten o' the clock each forenoon, and the dyvor loons—deil tak' it, and here cooms back one o' the waurst o' the widdifu's."
It was the Hon. Calvin Dow and Morrison hurried to meet him. "Sum it short, Uncle Calvin!"
"They're going to play straight politics, Stewart."
"God save the state—in times like these!"
"They're going to admit to seats only the Senators and Representatives who are clearly and indisputably elected by the face of the returns."
"The picked and the chosen!" scoffed Morrison.
"The matter of the right to take seats is going to be referred to the full bench instead of being left to the legislature—taken out of politics, they say."
"Going to be put into cold storage, with all due respect to our eminent justices!"
"It means the careful weighing of evidence—and the courts are obliged to move with judicial slowness, Stewart!"
"And in the mean time those picked and chosen ones will elect the state officers whom the legislature has the power to name, will have the machinery to distribute all state patronage and to make the legislative committees safe for the big measures. There's no telling when the bench will hand down a decision."
"No telling, Stewart!" admitted the sage.
"After it has been done, it will be hard to undo it, no matter what the judges may decide as to members."
"But we can't throw the law out of the window, my son! On the outside of the thing, the Big Boys on Capitol Hill are playing the game strictly according to the legal rules. The legal rules, understand! On the outside!" Dow's emphasis on certain words was significant. He put up his hand and drew Morrison's head down close to his mouth. He began to whisper.
"Talk out loud, Calvin!" commanded Stewart, jerking away. "Keep in the habit of talking out loud with me! I won't even talk politics in a whisper."
"It really shouldn't be talked out, not at this time," expostulated Dow, wedded to the old ways. "I have had to burrow deep for it. It ought to be saved carefully—to do business with later! To win a stroke in politics it's necessary to jump the people with a sensation!"
"Try it on me! I'm one of the people. See if it will work," insisted Morrison, after the manner of his methods with Despeaux.
"They propose to go according to the strict letter of the law."
"Important but not sensational."
Dow was plainly having hard work to keep his voice above a whisper. "Returns not properly sworn to or not attested in due form by city clerks, returns not signed in open town meeting or otherwise defective on account of strictly technical errors, no matter how plainly the intent of the voters was registered, have been finally and definitely thrown out by North and his executive council, acting as a canvassing board."
"Damn'd picayune hair-splitting! Why can't they use business horse-sense?"
"I'll tell you what they've used! They've used Tim Snell and Waddy Sturges and a few other safe hounds with muffled paws to run around and lug back to cities and towns deficient returns and have 'em quietly and secretly corrected where it was a case of adding a safe man to the legislature. I know that, Stewart. I know how to make some of my close friends brag to me. I know it, but I can't prove it. Clean-scrubbed are the faces of those returns. They'll show up to-morrow like the faces of the good boys on the first day at school."
"That's North's idea of that game he was talking about, is it?" Morrison exploded. "I don't believe that Senator Corson knows about those dirty details, or is a party to 'em."
"Well," asserted the Hon. Calvin Dow, stroking his nose contemplatively, "Jodrey and I used to cut sharp corners on two wheels of the four of the old wagon, in past times when he was a politician. But now that he's a statesman he doesn't like to be bothered by details."
"Do you see any joke to this, Calvin?" demanded Morrison, not relishing the veteran's chuckle.
"I can't help seeing the humor," confessed Dow, blandly. "The other, boys would be grinding the same grist if they had control of the machinery. It's only what I myself used to do." Then his face became grave. "But, confound it! in these days there seems to be an element that can't take a joke in politics. There's trouble in the air!"
"Probably!" agreed Morrison, dryly.
Dow walked to the window and looked out with the air of a man who wanted proof to confirm a statement. "I reckon I'll let you be informed direct from Trouble Headquarters, Stewart. Headquarters was at the Soldiers' Memorial in the park when I came past. I gathered that they were picking out a delegation to call on you. Post-Commander Lanigan of the American Legion was doing the picking. He's heading the bunch that I see coming across the street."
"Resign!" barked Mac Tavish through his wicket. But the mayor of Marion did not appear to hear, nor Calvin Dow to understand.
Morrison faced the door of his office.
Lanigan led in his companions with the marching stride of an overseas veteran and halted them with a top-sergeant's yelp. Click o' heels and snap o' the arm! The salute made Captain Sweetsir's previous effort seem torpid by comparison. That a further comparison with Home Guard methods and morale was in Commander Lanigan's mind became promptly evident.
"Your Honor the Mayor, we represent John P. Dunn Post, American Legion, and the independent young men of this city in general. May we have a word with you?"
"Certainly, Mr. Commander!"
In the stress of his emotions Lanigan immediately sloughed off his official air. "It's a hell of a note when a bunch of sissy slackers can keep real soldiers ten feet from the door of the city armory at the end of a bayonet."
The mayor strolled over and placed a placatory palm on the shoulder of the spokesman. "What's, all the row, Joe? Let's not get excited!"
"I have been away fighting for liberty and justice and I don't know what's been going on in politics at home. I don't know anything about politics."
"Nor I, Joe, so let's not try to discuss 'em. What else?"
"They've got three machine-guns up in our State House. What for? They are going to put in them sissy slackers—"
"Let's not call names, Joe. Those boys would have followed you across if you boys hadn't been so all-fired smart that you cleaned it all up in a hurry! What else?"
"Why have a gang of politicians got to barricade our State House against the people?"
"Let's keep cool, Joe, my boy, and find out."
"They won't let us in to find out. How are we going to find out?"
"Why, I was thinking of doing something in that line—thinking about it just before you came in."
Lanigan looked relieved, also a bit ashamed. "Excuse me for being pretty hot, Mr. Morrison. But the boys have been saying we couldn't depend on anybody to stand up for the people. By gad! I told 'em we'd come to you. Says I, 'All-Wool Morrison is our kind!'"
"I hope the name fits the goods, Joe! Suppose you boys keep all quiet and calm for the good name of the city and let me find out how the thing stands?"
He was assured of support and compliance by a chorus of voices.
Lanigan trailed the chorus in solo. "Does that settle it? I'll say it does. It's up to you—the whole thing. You've given us the word of a square man! We can depend on you. And we thank you for taking the full responsibility for seeing to it that the people get theirs—and not in the neck, either!"
But the mayor looked like a man who had stretched forth his hand to take a kitten and had had an elephant tossed at him. "It's a pretty big contract, that! See here, Joe—"
"You're good for any contract you take on, sir! We should worry after what you promise!" He whirled on his heels. "'Bout face! Forward, march!" He followed them and turned at the door. "All the rest of the Big Ones seem to be too almighty busy to bother with the common folks to-day, sir! The Governor with his politics, the adjutant-general with his tin soldiers, and the high and mighty Senator Corson with that party he's giving to-night so as to spout socially the news that his daughter is engaged to marry a millionaire dude. Thank God, we've got a man who 'ain't taken up with anything of that sort and can put all his mind on to a square deal!"
Morrison did not turn immediately to face the three persons, his familiars in the office of St. Ronan's. He clasped his hands behind him and went to the window, as if to survey the departure of the delegation.
"What with one thing and another, they're loading the boy up—they're piling it on," observed Dow to Mac Tavish in sympathetic undertone.
"He'll resign out o' the meeser-r-rable pother," growled Mac Tavish. "The word he just gied the gillies! It was as much as to say, 'I'll be coomin' along wi' ye from noo on.'" The old man's hankerings were helping his persistent hope, in spite of his respect for the Morrison trait of devotion to duty.
"Resign, Andy! Confound it, he's only nailing his grit to the mast and planning on what end of the row to tackle first. You'll see!"
Stewart walked slowly, meditating deeply, went through the opening in the rail, sat down at his desk and fumbled in a drawer and sought deeply under many papers. He brought out a book, a worn volume.
Calvin Dow, daring to peer more closely than Miss Bunker or Mac Tavish had the courage to venture, noted that the place to which Morrison opened was marked by a slip of paper, a snapshot photograph.
"Miss Bunker!" called the master. "A memo.!"
She came with her note-book and sat at the lid of the desk, facing him.
"His resignation, I tell ye," whispered Mac Tavish. "I ken the look o' detar-rmination!"
"I want it typed on a narrow strip that I can slip into my pocketbook," stated Stewart. Then, to all appearances entirely unconcerned with the listening veterans, he dictated:
"Meanwhile I was thinking of my first love, As I had not been thinking of aught for years. Till over my eyes there began to move Something that felt like tears."
Mac Tavish bent on Dow a wild look and swapped with the old pensioner of the Morrisons a stare of amazement for one of bewildered concern.
"I thought of the dress that she wore last time When we stood 'neath the cypress-tree together In that lost land, in that soft clime, In the crimson evening weather.
"Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot) And her warm white neck in its golden chain, And her full, soft hair, just tied in a knot, And falling loose again.
"I thought of our little quarrels and strife, And the letter that brought me back my ring. And it all seemed then, in the waste of life, Such a very little thing."
The girl dabbed up her hand under pretense of fixing a lock of hair; she scrubbed away tears that were trickling. So this was it! The powwow over business and politics had not been stirring even languid interest in her. Now her emotions were rioting. Here seemed to be something worth while in the life of the master!
"But I will marry my own first love With her primrose face; for old things are best. And the flower in her bosom I prize it above—
"My God!" Mac Tavish gasped. "Next he'll be playing jiggle-ma-ree wi' dollies on his desk! His wits hae gane agley!"
In the horror of his discovery he flung his arms and knocked off the desk his full stock of paperweight ammunition. Then he was convinced beyond doubt that the Morrison was daft. Stewart did not even raise his eyes from the book; he kept on dictating above the clatter of the rolling weights; his intentness on the matter in hand was that of a business man putting a proposition on paper for the purpose of making it definite and cogent and clear.
But Stewart's thoughts were not at all clear, he was confessing to himself; in spite of his assumed indifference, he was embarrassed by the focused stares of Dow and Mac Tavish. He wondered what sudden, devil-may-care whimsy was this that was galloping him away from business and politics and every other sane subject! He was conscious that there was in him a freakish and juvenile hankering to astonish his friends.
He heard Dow say: "Oh, don't worry about the boy, Andy! We do strange things in big times! Even Nero fiddled when Rome was burning!"
Stewart finished the dictation and closed the book.
"Losh! I canna understand!" mourned Mac Tavish, not troubling to hush his tones.
The girl hesitated, her gaze on her notes. Then she looked full into Morrison's face, all her woman's intuitive and long-repressed sympathy in her brimming eyes. "But I understand, sir!" She arose. She extended her hand and when he took it she put into her clasp of his fingers what she did not presume to say in words.
"Thank you!" said Morrison.
Then he left his chair and strolled across to the old men, while Miss Bunker rattled her typewriter. "It begins to look, boys, like we're going to have quite a large evening!" he remarked, sociably.
