THE sun woke Wint in the morning; and the awakening was cruel. Level, white-hot rays burned through his eyelids as though they would char to cinders his aching eyes. He threw his arm fretfully across his face to keep off the glare and lay quietly on the shabby bed, groping back into the night and into the hours of the preceding day in a terrible effort to remember.

There was no more drunkenness in him. The shock of what they had told him had banished that. He was sober. Too sober, in all conscience, for any peace of mind. It was his loneliness that was most torturing. If there had been some one near, some one else in the room, for whose benefit it was necessary to play a part, Wint would have stiffened his resolution and laughed at the situation. But he could not play a part that would deceive himself. Alone in the dingy bedroom in that disreputable place, he burned with shame and tortured pride.

He began to fit together the pieces of the puzzle. He never doubted that it was true the voters had elected him. There had been truth in Jack Routt’s eyes the night before, truth and a sort of triumph. Routt was a good fellow and a true friend; and he rejoiced, no doubt, that Wint had been so honored. Wint, thinking this, grimaced. He knew, without explanations, that his election was a joke; a colossal joke in the first place upon his father, and a grim jest at his own expense. He could imagine the cackling mirth of those who had engineered the thing; and this laughter that he seemed to hear lashed his ears.

He flung himself over on his face and buried his head in his arms and tried to think. He was full of rebellion. He would go away, leave this place, never return....

After a time, he lifted his head and moved his body and sat up on the bed, his feet on the floor. He sat up and looked about him and shuddered in a sick way.

The light of day made this room more hideous than it had been by lamplight. The shattered lamp lay in the grate, and there was a charred place on the floor near the hearth, where the oil had burned itself out, when Wint threw down the lamp the night before. Above the mantel hung the cracked mirror. In it from where he sat, Wint could see a distorted reflection of the ceiling of the room, and an angle of the wall. There had once been paper on this wall, and it had been cracked by the shrinking of the plaster, and picked away by casual fingers, and here and there it hung in short, ragged strips. The bare floor was unclean; the chair near the bed where Wint’s two shoes now reposed was decrepit and lacked paint. One door of the big wardrobe hung awkwardly from weakened hinges. It was a little ajar, and Wint could see a disorder of rubbish inside. On the floor near the chair lay his hat and coat and one sock, where he had dropped them when he had come here and stumbled drunkenly to bed.

He held his head in his hands, and his fingers clenched in his crisp hair.

For some time, his senses had been catching hints of life in the building below him. The smell of burning grease had come up the stairs from the kitchen; and the grumble of voices now and then upraised in protest or abuse had reached his ears. Once he heard, from a distance and muffled by intervening doors and walls, the clamor of quarreling dogs. But these things did not penetrate his consciousness until a new and louder disturbance broke out somewhere below.

A dog barked, snarling and angry; another yelped. The two joined their voices in an angry tumult of sound. Then a woman’s voice, the voice of Mrs. Moody, shouted abuse, and a door opened and cries and barks and snarls redoubled.

Wint lifted his head, in sudden recognition. He heard the thud of some missile that had missed its mark and clattered against the floor; and then he heard the scramble of hard-toed feet racing up the stairs, and the snuffing of eager nostrils. His eyes lighted softly; and he called: “Muldoon!”

There was a yelp of delight and a new scuffle of feet, and Muldoon plunged in through the open door and was all over Wint in a delirious joy at this reunion. The dog leaped up on Wint’s knees; it tried to climb on his shoulders; its tongue sought to caress his cheeks; it nipped his hands lovingly; and all the time it whined a low whine of happiness. Wint, cuffing the hard and eager head, smiled in spite of himself at the dog’s caresses; he smiled, and caught Muldoon by the ears and held him away and shook him affectionately.

“You, dog!” he scolded. “How did you come here? Eh, you?”

Muldoon wriggled in a desperate effort to explain; and then he stiffened in Wint’s arms, and turned toward the door with hackles rising. Wint looked that way and saw Mrs. Moody, panting with the zeal of her pursuit. The virago came in; she bore a stick of firewood in one harsh hand; she made for Muldoon, and her old lips dripped blistering abuse.

Wint drew Muldoon close in his arms and held up a protesting hand. “Wait a minute, wait a minute!” he warned her. “What’s the matter?”

She smiled mirthlessly, brandishing her billet and reaching for Muldoon’s scruff. “I’m a-goin’ to whale that pup, deary,” she told Wint. “He’s been around here all morning.”

Wint hugged Muldoon closer. “Of course,” he said, “he knew I was here.”

She looked puzzled. “He ain’t your’n, is he?”

“Sure,” Wint told her. “He’s some dog, too.”

The woman’s anger vanished. “Well, say now, if I’d a knowed that....” She laughed, her desolately beautiful false teeth glistening between her wrinkled lips. “He’s drove my dog crazy. He come around here before day, and Jim heard him and tried to get out. Woke me up. I drove this one away; but he came back. Jim got out once, and they had it till I broke ’em up. And then a minute ago, Jim got out again, and when I went after ’em with this stove wood, that’n of your’n slipped by me and in and up th’ stairs.”

Wint rubbed Muldoon’s head proudly. “He must have tracked me, found me out somehow,” he explained. “I left him locked up. Hope he didn’t hurt your....”

“Oh, Jim c’n take care of hisself. If he can’t, he’ll have t’ look out.” She looked around the room curiously. “You had callers last night. D’ye remember?”

Wint nodded, bending over the dog. “Yes—I remember.”

The woman studied him. “Thought mebbe you was too far gone to know anythin’....” She waited for Wint to speak; but Wint volunteered nothing, so she remarked: “I see th’ lamp got broke.”

“I’ll pay for it,” Wint told her. She nodded.

“That’s all right. All in the bill. You must’ve been tickled to hear about bein’ elected.”

Wint said nothing. The woman laughed harshly. “Never had a Mayor of Hardiston in my hotel before. Had some sheriffs, and a marshal now ’nd then. But no Mayor!” She shook with mirth at the thought. “I d’clare, I’ll have t’ raise my rates.”

Wint looked at her steadily, with expressionless eyes. He was fighting to hide the humiliation which was stinging him; and he succeeded. His silence at last frightened the woman; she backed toward the door, babbling broken sentences. Only when she was in the hall, with an avenue of flight open to her, did she recover herself. “But I s’pose you’ll forgit old friends, now that you’re Mayor, deary,” she told him.

Wint smiled bleakly. “Don’t count on it,” he said.

She seemed uncertain whether to take this as a threat or reassurance. “I was always a good friend to you,” she reminded him.

He nodded. “Yes—you’ve been consistent, at least.”

She wagged her old head, comforted and grinning. “I guess you won’t forgit,” she told herself. And after a moment: “Will you be wanting some breakfast?”

Wint stroked the ears of Muldoon. “No,” he said. “No.” And he added thoughtfully: “Thank you very much.”

“That’s all right, deary,” she assured him, and so turned at last and went haltingly down the stairs.

When the woman was gone, Wint sat very still for a space, staring at the empty doorway, thinking. Muldoon was on his lap, and Wint forgot the dog, although his hand still played automatically with Muldoon’s ears. The dog was for a time content with this, moving its head now and then under Wint’s hand to get full value from his caresses; but by and by it became conscious of his abstraction, and looked up into his face, and wriggled, and at last muzzled a cold nose under his chin and nudged upward against Wint’s jaw until Wint emerged from his absorption and laughed and caught Muldoon’s head in his hands and shook it. “There, boy,” he whispered. “D’you think I’d forgotten you? No fear, Muldoon.”

Having aroused his master, Muldoon in his turn decided to feign abstraction. He lay down, ostentatiously, across Wint’s knees, and he pillowed his muzzle on his forepaws and lay there with eyes rolling up in spite of himself to watch Wint’s face. Wint cupped the dog’s lower jaw in his right hand and shook it gently. “What are they saying about me uptown, Muldoon?” he asked.

The dog moved its head, then fell into a motionless pose again. Wint bent over it, whispering, half to Muldoon and half to himself. “Laughing, of course,” he said softly. “Laughing! The joke of years!” He smiled grimly. “Tough on dad. He’d set his heart on this Mayor business.”

He looked across to the window, and his eyes hardened. “They meant it as much as a joke on me as on father,” he reminded himself, and his eyes burned. He wondered how the plan had been carried through. Caretall and Gergue must have had their hand in it; they had probably united with V. R. Kite. It would be reasonably easy, he knew. His father had had no real popularity. Winthrop Chase, Senior, was not a likable man. He was not a vote getter. There was a self-conscious condescension about his good-fellowship.

Wint had never paid any great attention to local politics. He wondered idly what a Mayor had to do. He tried to remember some of the things Mayors had done in the past; and he found his only knowledge of the subject concerned with a Hallowe’en prank as a result of which he and two others had been haled before the Mayor’s court and badly frightened.

“He must do something besides that,” he assured himself. “But Lord—I couldn’t even do that.”

What was he to do? That was the thing he had to decide, and he must decide at once. What could he do? Was there any way by which he could nullify the election; resign; abdicate; get himself impeached? He thought of these projects wistfully. They took no concrete form in his mind. He knew nothing of the machinery of local government, knew nothing of the avenues of escape which might be open to him.

He only knew that he would not be made thus the butt of the town’s mirth. His face flushed at the thought; and he got up abruptly and walked to the window, Muldoon pacing at his side and looking up wistfully at his master. He would not do it. They should have their trouble for their pains. They were fools. Impudent fools....

One thing he could do; one thing at least. He could go away. Hide. If he were not here, they could not force him to serve. So much was sure. He would go away....

This decision, Wint told himself, had cleared the air. He tried to believe that it solved all his perplexities; and he bent over Muldoon and cuffed the dog and romped with it across the room, to Muldoon’s delirious delight. Then he began to whistle to himself, and so looked about and sat down on the bed, and drew on the sock which still lay on the floor. He had difficulty in fastening the sock supporter about his leg. The leg of the trousers obstructed him. He fussed over the thing until he was fuming again, and his face flushed with stooping. But at last the trick was done, and he took his shoes from the chair and put them on. He found that one of the laces was broken, no doubt by his drunken fingers when he had unlaced the shoes before removing them. This discovery whetted his resentment and disgust. He knotted the lace and hid the knot under an eyelet of the shoe, where it pressed on his instep and irked him. He kicked the shoe on the floor until it gave him some measure of comfort.

His hat and coat were on the floor. He put them on, brushing the dust from the coat with his hands, and afterwards with a flicker of his handkerchief. Then he crossed reluctantly to the speckled mirror and looked into it.

He saw that his face was dirty, and his collar soiled and crushed. He took the collar off and turned it inside out and replaced it, and it gave him some faint satisfaction to see the improvement thus effected in his appearance. But he was still ghastly. There was no water in the room; and he knew that the bathroom at the end of this upper hall was not made for cleanliness, so he wet his handkerchief with his tongue and scrubbed his face clean with that. The result had a forced and unnatural look, but he was constrained to be content.

He started slowly for the door, but his feet lagged. It was hard for him to make up his mind to face the world again. He thought, uneasily, of remaining here through the day and catching a night freight out of town; and he turned irresolutely back toward the bed, but Muldoon, at his knee, barked softly in remonstrance, and Wint bent and patted the dog’s head and said softly: “Right you are, pup. We’re not afraid of them. But Heaven help the man that laughs, Muldoon!”

The dog wagged its whole body, and barked again, as though in approval; and Wint smiled faintly and went again toward the door. He looked down and saw that his trousers were wrinkled, and he smoothed and tugged at them in an effort to give them some appearance of respectability. When he had done his best for them, he went toward the door again, and this time he did not stop. He went out into the hall, and to the stair head, and so down into the office of the hotel.

Like the bedroom, the office of the Weaver House suffered by daylight. Even the dingy and unwashed window panes could not keep out the pitiless sun; and the room’s ugliness was exposed in hideous nakedness.

The room, save for the fact that the sun instead of a lamp lighted it, was as it had been the night before. The smoky lamp, still standing on the table, gave forth a smell of dirty oil which filled the place and fought with the reek of bad tobacco and the pungent smell of alcohol. Doors and windows were tight shut. At their corner of the table, above their checkerboard, still leaned the two old men. It was as though they had not stirred, the long night through. As Wint came down the stairs, a game ended, and their cackling voices broke into the familiar argument, while their stained old fingers swiftly rearranged the pieces for a new beginning. Then one moved a piece, and both fell silent, and the new game began.

Mrs. Moody sat at her place behind what had been the bar. The only change in the room since the night before was that instead of the reading boy, a man sat by the table. This man was unshaven, trembling, shrunken within his rumpled and baggy garments. His eyes were open, and his head wagged from side to side as he sat, and his lips moved in an interminable, mumbling argument with some one invisible.

Jim, the dog that was just a dog, was not to be seen.

Wint, with Muldoon at his heels, came down the stairs and stopped in front of the bar and nodded to Mrs. Moody. He reached into his pocket, and the old woman got up briskly and grinned at him, the enamel of her teeth a blinding white flash in her wrinkled old face. Her eyes puckered when she grinned; and she laid her hands, palms down, upon the bar.

“Going away, deary?” she asked.

Wint nodded. “What do I owe you?”

“Sorry I ain’t got a bite to offer ye,” she apologized. Then, with a sly glance at the men across the room. “Less’n you wanted to come out by the kitchen in back. A little drop....”

Wint shook his head. “Not to-day. How much?”

She told him and he selected a bill and gave it to her. She took it, and tucked up her apron and delved into the pocket of her loose skirt and produced a dirty, cloth bag. This bag was tied with a string at the top; and she untied the string, and rummaged inside, and found his change, and gave it to him. He took it from her; and as he did so, he turned at a shuffling step and saw the drunken man at his elbow.

This man peered at him; and Wint moved a little away from him. The man followed a lurching step, and grinned placatingly, and mumbled: “Wint Chase, ain’t it?”

Wint nodded. “Yes.” He tried to pass the man and get to the door; but the man thrust out a shaking hand.

“Shake!” he invited thickly. “Wanna shake hands with new Mayor. Voted f’r you, voted f’r you three times.”

Mrs. Moody was leaning across the bar and watching and grinning. Wint hesitated, and then he took the man’s hand and shook it, and tried to release it; but the man clung to it, and lunged closer, and put his other hand on Wint’s shoulder. His weight fell against Wint’s chest.

“New Mayor,” he repeated uncertainly. “Good, nice new Mayor.” He chuckled loosely and wiped his wet mouth with the back of his hand and gripped Wint’s shoulder again, and regarded Wint seriously, studying him. “Good little man,” he applauded. “Make dam’ good Mayor f’r this little town.”

He rocked on his feet, and Wint tried to put the man away without offending him, but the man staggered and clasped his arms around Wint’s neck and giggled weakly on Wint’s breast.

“This’ll be a nice, wet li’l town now, eh, boy!” he exulted. “Eh, boy? Nice, wet li’l town....”

Wint, with a sudden revulsion that sickened him and stiffened his angry pride, thrust the man away and stepped quickly out into the street. He felt Muldoon brush against his legs, and he looked down at the dog and set his jaw.

“You, dog,” he whispered. “They’ve tried one joke too many. Eh, pup? We’ll stay and turn the joke on them, Muldoon. What say?”

Muldoon whined approvingly, fidgeting on eager feet; and Wint bent and clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, you,” he said softly. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

CHAPTER II
JOAN

WINT left the Weaver House at a little before noon, Muldoon trotting sedately at his heels. The street outside the hotel was empty; and Wint was glad of this. He followed it to the railroad tracks, intending to cross the yards and take a back street toward his home. But at the end of the street, he encountered Peter Gergue.

Gergue saw him coming, and stopped, and fumbled in the tangle of hair at the back of his head until Wint came near. Wint would have avoided him, but there was no way to do this, and so he said coldly:

“Good morning, Pete.”

Gergue grinned slowly. “Why—right fair,” he agreed. “Yes’r, it’s a right fair morning—if you look at it that way.”

Wint nodded. He would have passed by, but Gergue stopped him. “I was coming down after you,” he said.

“Why?” Wint asked.

“Oh—I thought you might want company. Heard you was here.”

“Want anything special?”

“We-ell—I did think of congratulating you.”

Wint smiled coldly. “Thanks. That all?”

Gergue rummaged through his hair. “Thought you might have things to inquire about.”

Wint started to say “No” to this, then changed his mind and looked steadily. “You—you mix in politics, don’t you, Pete?”

Gergue looked startled. “Why—some,” he admitted. “Why, yes, I might say—some.”

“Friend of Congressman Caretall’s, aren’t you?”

Gergue spat, and nodded slowly. “I like to help him out—when I c’n manage,” he agreed.

Wint smiled again. “Then you know how this thing happened.”

“Some,” said Peter.

“Explain it to me,” Wint invited. “How was it worked? And—why?”

Gergue grinned slyly. Then he laughed, a shrill burst of merriment of a sort unusual in this man. When this mirth passed, he touched Wint’s lapel. “Cleanest piece of work I ever see,” he declared.

“How was it done?”

“Word o’ mouth! Word o’ mouth! Cong’essman knew folks was expecting something f’om him. He kept ’em expecting. Told everybody he was going to vote for a man named Chase. Got ’em worked up, sittin’ on needles and pins and cockle burrs to know where the trick come in. Everybody knowed they was some trick. Then—last minute—he passed the word to V. R. Kite, and him and Kite passed the word around. Everybody figured it would be a joke on your paw. Whole town took it laughing, and went and done what Cong’essman told ’em t’ do. Writ in your name....”

Wint smiled frostily. “Great joke, wasn’t it?”

Gergue chuckled. “Fine. Take V. R. Kite. Tickled him half t’ death. Like t’ killed Kite.”

“Caretall and my father are against each other, of course.”

“Sure. Your paw comes to the Cong’essman, high and mighty, offering him this ’nd that. That wa’n’t no way to go at the Cong’essman. Amos ain’t used to it.”

Wint nodded. “But why me?” he asked. “Why pick on me?”

Gergue waved his hand. “That made it more like a joke on your paw. Everybuddy knowed what your paw thinks of you. Figured it’d pupplex him. It did, too, Wint. It certainly did pupplex your paw.”

“It would,” Wint agreed. “But—I should think Caretall would as soon see my father elected as me.”

“Yo’r paw had a little too much wind in his sails. Needed a little coolin’ off. Amos gave it to him.”

“But how about Kite?” Wint asked. “Why was he so ready to fall in with it?”

Gergue looked at Wint sidewise. “Why, he don’t like yo’r paw so very much,” he explained, with an appearance of frankness, “and besides that, Kite’s wet, and your paw’s dry. That stands t’ reason.”

“He figured I would be wet, of course.”

Gergue nodded emphatically. “Natural,” he said. “Natural, he figured that way.”

“Did Caretall have that idea, too?”

Gergue wagged his head. “We-ell, now,” he parried, “Amos don’t lay so much on that end of it. He’s a wet man, in politics; but he don’t touch it hisself. I guess he just wanted t’ give you a leg up—see what you’d do. Amos keeps his eye on the young fellows, that way.”

They had crossed the tracks while they were talking, and now they met two men. Wint knew these men casually; they knew him. They were workmen; and they saw Wint and Gergue together, and grinned, and one of them called: “Morning, Mr. Mayor.”

Wint smiled at them amiably. “Good morning.”

“Congratulations!”

“Thanks.” Wint’s cheeks were burning. The men passed by, and he and Gergue started up the hill by a back street that led toward his home. Neither of them spoke. Presently they began to meet other men. One or two men scowled at Gergue, stared angrily at Wint; but for the most part they smiled covertly, and voiced congratulations. Their words seemed to Wint to mark covert jibes.

After a time the two came to a cross street that led toward town; and here Gergue halted and looked at Wint curiously. “Was there anything else?” he asked.

Wint shook his head.

“You wasn’t thinking, maybe, of walking uptown?”

“Not now.”

“Going on home, I guess.”

“Yes.”

Gergue nodded. “All right. When you come uptown, you might stop in and see me.”

“I’ll see,” Wint told him.

“Amos aims to do right by you,” said Gergue.

“Much obliged.”

“You don’t want to hold this against him.”

Wint smiled slowly. “Good-by,” he said.

Gergue nodded. “By-by,” he responded. “I’ll see you again.”

He turned toward town, and Wint watched him for a moment, and then went on toward his home. Muldoon trotted sedately before him, ranging now and then across the street or into a yard to investigate some affair of his own. Wint walked swiftly, for he had an uneasy feeling of nakedness in the light of open day, as though every one he encountered must see the shame that was torturing him. He came to his home through a short cut that brought him by way of an alley to the kitchen door; and when he opened the door and stepped into the kitchen, he saw Hetty Morfee there. Hetty was rolling biscuits on a board, her sleeves rolled to the elbows on her creamy arms; and she turned at the sound of his entrance and stood with the rolling pin in one hand, brushing back the hair from her eyes with the other, and laughing at him softly.

“Oh, you Wint!” she said.

Wint closed the kitchen door behind him and faced the girl. “Is mother here?” he asked.

“She’s in next door.” She nodded her head reproachfully. “You certainly have started something, Wint.”

“Where’s father?”

“Uptown. He telephoned just now to know if you had come home. He ain’t coming home for dinner.”

Wint dropped his eyes for a moment, then lifted his head. “All right,” he said. “I—I suppose he’s mad as a hatter.”

Hetty chuckled softly. “Mad as two of ’em,” she declared. “You certainly have started something this time, Wint.”

He looked toward the biscuit board. “Are those for lunch?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How soon will they be ready?”

“Half an hour. You hungry?” She studied him, solicitude lurking in her eyes.

“Yes. I didn’t have any breakfast.”

The girl moved toward him with the quick instinct of woman. “You poor kid! I’ll get you something now.”

He lifted his hand impatiently. “Never mind. Or—just a glass of milk.”

She laughed, crossing the room toward the pantry. “You just sit down and see.” And while he still stood irresolutely in the middle of the floor, she was back with bread and butter and a glass of jelly and a bowl of milk. She spread these things upon the table, and cut the bread for him, and made him sit down and eat while she hovered over him, her eyes never leaving the brown head as he bent above his plate. Now and then she laughed softly, and more than once she repeated: “You surely have started something this time.”

He ate ravenously. He had not realized his own hunger. But after the second slice, she stopped him. “Now that’s enough,” she declared. “You’ll spoil your dinner.”

He laughed, the first time he had laughed that day. “I guess not,” he declared. “I could eat a house.”

She smiled, carrying the viands back to their places. “Where was you last night?” she asked curiously.

He looked up at her, half resentful, half glad of her friendship and understanding. “Weaver House,” he said.

She made a little grimace. “Golly! You must’ve been pie-eyed for fair.”

He flushed, but he nodded. “Yes.”

“And look what they’ve done to you. It don’t pay, does it, Wint?”

He laughed. “I suppose not.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your paw’s awful mad.”

He got up stiffly. “I suppose so. Well—he’s been mad before.”

“And your maw’s upset.”

“I’ll be up in my room,” he said. “Call me when dinner’s ready.”

She was back at her biscuits, laying them delicately in the pan. “Sure. Go ahead.” The door closed behind him. When she heard the click of a latch, the girl stopped her work for an instant, and looked over her shoulder at the closed door. She remained thus for a space; then brushed her arm across her forehead as though a lock of hair distressed her, and went on with her task.

Wint went to his room, and threw aside his soiled garments, and bathed and was half dressed when Hetty called up the stairs that dinner was ready. He came down into the hall as his mother entered the front door. When she saw him, she lifted her hands, and ran at him, and poured out upon him a torrent of querulous complaint. “Wint, where have you been all this time? Your father is so mad. He’s terrible mad at you. I never saw your father so worked up, Wint. I don’t see what you had to go and do a thing like that for anyhow, Wint. I told Mrs. Hullis this morning I just couldn’t see how you could do it. Your father was so set on getting elected, and everything; and he’d made so many plans, and when he came home last night I said to him—”

Hetty called from the dining-room door: “Dinner’s ready, ma’am.”

“All right, Hetty, I’m a-coming,” Mrs. Chase assured her. “Wint, you come along. I want to talk to you. I don’t see what you’re going to do about it. I don’t see—I said to your father last night that I just couldn’t see how you could—”

Wint broke in: “Mother—please! It wasn’t my doing. I had nothing to do with it.”

“I said to your father last night, when he came home,” she insisted. “He came home so mad, and everything. He was in a terrible state, Wint. He ramped and tore around here like he was a crazy man; and I said to him that I didn’t see how a son could do a thing like that to him. He was tramping up and down, and he kept talking about you, and I said to him that I—”

“I tell you I had nothing to do with it, mother.”

“I think Congressman Caretall ought to have something better to do than to come home here and stir up a son against his father. I told your father so; and I said—”

“He didn’t stir me up against father, mother. It was a trick, a political game. I didn’t know anything about it till they told me I’d been elected.”

“I said to him that I just couldn’t believe it. And he said if it wasn’t true why weren’t you here at home where you belonged? He said you were probably down at Caretall’s, laughing at your father. And I said I just couldn’t see how a son could do a thing like that to a father like him. Because your father has been good to you, Wint. He’s been mighty good to you; and he’s stood a lot. I said to him that he’d stood a lot, and he said you were probably off drinking again somewhere, and that you’d—”

Hetty came in from the kitchen with the plate of biscuits, and set them before Mrs. Chase, and looked at Wint and laughed and pressed her hands to her ears and grimaced at Mrs. Chase’s unconscious head. Wint protested:

“Mother, I—”

Mrs. Chase broke in. “Hetty, those biscuits are just fine. I declare, your things always seem to come out better than mine. I wish I could do it that way. I wish your father was at home, Wint. He likes hot biscuits so. But goodness knows, he wouldn’t have any appetite to eat anything to-day. Hetty told me when she called me to come home that he’d telephoned he wasn’t coming. She told me you had come, and I came right over to tell you that I just didn’t see how you could—”

Wint was glad at last to finish and escape. He went up to his room, his mother’s words pursuing him. The reaction had set in; and he was terribly tired, and sick and full of sleep. He flung himself on his face on the bed, and he tossed there for a space, thinking miserably, and so at last he fell asleep.

He was awakened by a thrumming knock on his door, and sat up and called huskily: “Who’s that?” The door opened, and his father came in.

His father came in, and shut the door behind him. Outside, Wint saw his mother. She was saying something; and the closing door cut off her words. His father ignored her; he slowly turned and faced Wint.

It was late afternoon, almost dusk. Shadows had begun to fill the room. Wint saw that his father’s face was black; and he got up from the bed and stood there for a moment, and he saw that his father was trembling. He took a step forward. “Father,” he said unsteadily, “I want to tell you I had nothing to do with this. I’m sorry. And I’ll do whatever you say to make things right.”

The restraint which the elder Chase had imposed upon himself fled before the wind of passion. He lifted his clenched hands as though he would bring them down upon Wint’s head. “You! You!” he cried. “You’re my son—and you join with drunkards and vagabonds and thieves to make a laughingstock of me.”

Wint protested. “I did not! I knew nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, Wint,” his father cried. The elder man’s anger was terrible. It swept away the poise with which he faced the world, it left him nothing but his wrongs; and these wrongs and his own rage somehow transfigured and ennobled him. In spite of himself, Wint had never respected and loved his father so much as then. He cried again, almost pleadingly:

“Dad....”

“Be quiet!” his father cried. “Don’t speak. It is my time to speak. I have kept silent too long. You have disgraced me with your drunkenness; and now you make a joke of me before the world. You....”

“I tell you, I knew nothing of this till it was done.”

“You lie. You lie, Wint! And even if it were true, you have made it possible by—by your debaucheries. You have given them the chance—you have made me the laughingstock—” he flung his arms wide. “Why even the Cincinnati papers have the story, Wint. They—the whole damned country knows....” His voice broke suddenly; his hands dropped at his side. Resentment fought with affection in Wint; and pride stiffened his voice as he said again:

“I told you I’d do anything, dad.”

“Anything? What good will that do? You and Caretall—laughing at me! I won’t stand it! I’ll break Caretall if it kills me. Caretall is a scoundrel, a crook. He’s debauched the town....”

He stopped suddenly, he became cold and still. “Come down to supper, Wint,” he said shortly. “After that, you can get out. I’ve warned you enough—the last time. I’m through.”

Wint stiffened. “Dad....” he said softly.

His father made a fierce gesture. “Be quiet! I tell you I am through.” He whirled to the door, and opened it, and was gone before Wint could speak again. But while Wint still stood quiet, he returned and called: “I know where you were last night. That was enough. That alone. I’m through. Through!”

This time he did not return. And Wint waited for a space, and then, mechanically and automatically, he picked up his hat, and put it on, and went down the stairs. His mother and father were in the dining-room. He heard his mother’s voice. But he did not go in.

He went to the door and out, and down the walk to the street. As he reached the pavement, the door opened behind him, and he looked back and saw his father standing there. For a moment, the two looked at each other; then the elder man turned his head, and went back into the house and closed the door.

Wint walked steadily down the street. He did not know where he was to go; he did not think of this. And so it was without his own volition that he came to Joan’s home, and saw the girl sitting in a chair upon the veranda, a book in her lap.

Her eyes met his. Her eyes were very serious and sad; but Wint turned in, and came to the steps, and stood there before her. She smiled a little wistfully; and he said, under his breath: “Joan.”

She made no move to answer him. He said again: “Joan....” And then: “Joan....”

She bent her head a little, but her eyes held his. “Wint,” she said, so softly he could scarce hear her words. “Wint—I’m sorry. But—I can’t go on. I can’t—trust you, Wint. This is good-by.”

He felt himself shrink a little at the word; and he stood still for a moment till his senses steadied. Then he lifted his head a little.

“I don’t blame you,” he told her.

She said again: “Good-by!” And he nodded and echoed quietly:

“Good-by, Joan.”

For another moment, their eyes held each other. Then his dropped, and he turned and went down to the street again.

Half an hour later, Mrs. Moody was lighting the smoky-lamp in the office of the Weaver House when Wint came in. She saw him and grinned, and her teeth reflected the lamp’s light like pearls. “Why, hello, deary! Back again?” she called.

He nodded. “The same room, please,” he told her.

She bustled across to the stairs, and paused there and looked at him wisely “A little drop first, in the kitchen?” she invited.

He shook his head. “No—nothing.”

And so presently he found himself in the place where he had slept that sodden sleep the night before.

CHAPTER III
THE STRATEGY OF AMOS

WINT had returned to the Weaver House in a numb revulsion of feeling. He was hurt and angry at the whole world; and he was wholly at sea as to what he should do. His instinct was to fight, to fight the thing out, to fight his father and to prove to Joan that she was mistaken in her condemnation. It was this instinct, with an unspoken thought that he would face the thing honestly, that sent him back to the hovel where he had spent the night before. That was where he belonged, he told himself. It was to such places that his father and Joan had consigned him. So be it. He found a grim sort of satisfaction in flaunting the stigma of his shame.

The greatest single force in Wint’s life had always been his resentment of dictation. A devil of contrariness possessed him; a devil of false pride that made him go counter to all warnings for the sheer joy of opposition. Thus his best friends became his enemies; for their good advice and counsel thrust him into evil paths; and by the same token, those who thought themselves his enemies were as often as not his best and truest friends. There was a stubborn streak in Wint that ruled him; it was rare that the gentler side of him had the ascendancy. One of those rare moments had come when he faced his father on this day. He had been humble, shamed, regretful, ready to make any amends. But the elder Chase, writhing under the ridicule to which the day had subjected him, had been in no mood for gentleness; and the result of the interview of father and son had been a parting which left them both sore and resentful.

The first faint anger in Wint’s heart grew swiftly. When he had seen Joan, and she had sent him away, he coupled her with his father in his thoughts. They were both against him; both thought him nothing better than a drunkard; both thought him a treacherous and ribald fool. And the consciousness of this lifted his head in anger, and stiffened his heart, so that he swore he would fight out the battle and prove to them they were wrong, and then throw his newly won victory in their faces. They thought him a drunken sot; very well, he would fight the fight on that basis. They thought the Weaver House was the place where he belonged; very well, he would fight his fight from that brothel. And it was in such fashion as this, wearing his own disgrace like a plume, that he returned to Mrs. Moody’s disreputable hostelry.

When he was alone in his room, he sat down on the edge of the bed and lighted a cigarette. He rested his elbows on his knees, the cigarette dangling from his clasped fingers, and considered. And as he thought, his face hardened, hardened with the effort to control his own pity for himself. He was immensely sorry for his own plight, immensely resentful of the misunderstandings of which he was a victim. And he was terribly lonely. He missed companionship—Jack Routt, Gergue, even Muldoon. Muldoon would have been the most welcome of them all, but he had left Muldoon at home. He regretted this; and his regret at last became so keen that he could not bear it. With a sudden resolution, he tossed the half-burned cigarette into the grate, and went down the stairs and crossed the railroad and bent his steps toward home. Muldoon, at least, would not condemn him. Muldoon was a faithful sort; a good pup....

He took alleyways and unfrequented streets, and avoided chance encounters. Thus he came near his home without meeting any one, and he went in through the alley and halted under a cherry tree that shaded Muldoon’s kennel, beside the coal house, and whistled softly. The dog might be in his kennel; he might be in the house; he might be roaming abroad in search of his master.

He whistled three times, and got no response. Muldoon was somewhere beyond hearing. He might be in the house; and if he were and heard Wint’s whistle, Wint knew he would bark a demand that he be allowed to come out.

So Wint whistled more shrilly; a long, familiar call.

For a time he got no answer to this. He tried again, and this time he heard the faint sound of a muffled bark from inside the house. This bark came nearer, became clamorous, located itself at the kitchen door, where Wint could hear Muldoon’s claws rattling on the panels.

He started toward the kitchen, then halted. For the windows were lighted; and at one of them Hetty Morfee appeared. She was wiping dishes, and when she came to the window she held a plate, gripped in a dishcloth, in her left hand, and shaded her eyes with her right as she tried to peer out into the night.

Muldoon’s close-cropped head appeared beside her at the window for an instant, and he barked again. Wint shrank back into the shadow. He did not wish to be discovered and he was unwilling to risk encountering his father or his mother by going to the house. He shrank back into the darkness; but he whistled again, and this time Hetty left the window and opened the door, and Muldoon came out like a projectile, and found Wint under the cherry tree, and slavered over him.

Wint was so absorbed in the dog that he did not see, until too late, that Hetty had followed Muldoon. She came on him, under the tree, laughing softly. “It’s you, is it?” she called.

“Yes.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I came for Muldoon. He’s mine.”

She chuckled lightly. “You’re the original Mister Trouble, Wint. Your paw says he never wants to see you again, and your maw’s gone over to tell the neighbors all about it.”

“Where’s father?”

“He stomped off uptown after supper.”

Wint fumbled with the dog’s head. “Thanks for letting Muldoon out,” he said.

“That’s all right. Don’t you want some supper? Come on in.”

“No.”

“Where are you going to spend the night?

“The Weaver House.”

She gave an exclamation of disgust. “That dirty joint!”

“They say that’s where I belong. I can stand it if they can.”

“Oh, don’t be a nut!”

He turned away into the alley, Muldoon at his heels. She called after him: “What’s your hurry?”

“Good night.”

“Your paw’ll come around.”

Wint said nothing. He was moving away. She ran after him and caught his arm. “Wint! Don’t be a nut! Come on back! He’ll come around.”

He released his arm and shook his head. “That’s up to him,” he said. “I’ve eaten dirt. All I intend to.”

She lifted her shoulders, laughed. “Oh—all right. If there’s anything you want from here, let me know and I’ll get it for you.”

“Thanks. And—good night!”

“Good night,” she said; and moved back into the shadow of the coal shed and watched him disappear. Leaning there, one hand fumbling at her throat, she was a wistful and unhappy figure. But when Wint was gone, she laughed harshly, and turned back to her work in the kitchen.

If Hetty had wished to confirm Wint in his resolution to go his stubborn way, she could have taken no better means than to repeat her warning: “Don’t be a nut!” He took a certain delight in being thus unreasonable. What he did was his own affair; it concerned no one else. And he returned to the Weaver House in a surprisingly peaceful frame of mind and climbed to his room and went to bed with Muldoon curled on the floor beside him, and slept soundly and healthfully.

He woke in the morning to find Muldoon sitting by the bed, watching him and waiting for him to stir. When he opened his eyes, Muldoon wriggled and yawned and licked his hand, and Wint chuckled, and got up briskly, and dressed himself and went downstairs. The office was empty when he came down, for the hour was early; and he went out without seeing any one, and followed the railroad tracks to the station. There was a lunch cart near the station; and he crowded in among the toil-grimed crew of the night freight and ate a Hamburg steak sandwich garnished with a biting slice of onion, and drank a great mug of steaming coffee. Some of the men recognized him, and they talked to him with an unwilling respect in their manner. He liked this. They did not seem to be laughing at him, although they professed interest in the manner of his election, and asked him how he had worked it, and what he was going to do now. He told them, honestly enough, that he had known nothing about it beforehand; and he told them, with equal honesty, that he was asleep in the Weaver House when the word was brought to him. They seemed surprised that he should state these things without attempt at palliation; and they seemed to approve of him for doing so. Their attitude gave him renewed confidence, so that he went up toward town with his head high, ready to look men in the eye.

He began to meet people at once. They were for the most part men going to their work; and some of them eyed him angrily, and some seemed inclined to laugh at him; but most of them, like the railroad men, gave evidence of a certain new respect. They hailed him with effusive cordiality as “Mr. Mayor,” but they seemed a little afraid of the sound of their own words, a little afraid of what his attitude might be.

Wint had made his plans. He must get some clothes from his home, must cut himself off completely from his father. To this end he sought Jack Routt. Routt, like every one in town, went to the Post Office each morning for his mail; and Wint found him there.

Routt shook his hand heartily. “Wint, congratulations!” he said, under his breath. “This’ll be a great thing for you. It will steady you, Wint.”

Wint shook his head, some of the sullen anger of the night before returning. He had no wish to be steadied, and he said so. “I can take care of myself,” he told Routt.

Jack nodded. “So you can. But you need something to hold you down. And this’ll do it.” He nudged Wint in the ribs, smiling slyly. “Y’ know, you’ve been hitting it too strong lately. You don’t know when to stop, Wint. This will put the brakes on. Make you tend to business.”

Wint brushed his hand across Routt’s face abruptly. “Cut it,” he said. “Say, Jack, I want you to do something for me.”

“Anything in the world.”

“My father is sore. He thinks I was in on this. So he kicked me out last night.”

“Kicked you out?” Routt was startled and indignant. “Why, say, that’s—Where did you go? Why didn’t you come over to my place?”

Wint said consciously: “No—I went to the Weaver House. They know me there.”

Routt looked quickly around to see if any one had heard. “Sh-h-h!” he warned. “Say, that was a fool thing to do. Don’t let any one find it out. You want to walk straight now—”

Wint cut in. “I want you to go out home and get my steamer trunk and pack it with some things. There’s a blue suit in my closet. And shirts, and so on. Get my overcoat, too. Mother will show you—or Hetty.”

Routt looked at him quickly. “Hetty who?”

“Hetty Morfee.”

Routt looked at Wint and laughed softly. “Oh—she’s working for you?”

“Yes.”

“Nice kid, isn’t she?”

“Yes. And—as I said—she’ll help you if mother won’t.”

Routt nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “I’ll go out this morning. Where’ll I send the trunk? Weaver House?”

“I’ll send for it. You just pack it.”

Routt touched Wint’s arm. “I’ll do it,” he said again. “But Wint,—for the love of Mike, don’t make a fool of yourself! Thing for you to do is to take hold, run the town right, and make a name for yourself. It’s a great chance, Wint. Make everybody see what you’ve got in you. And it’ll be the making of you, Wint.”

The distribution of the morning’s mail to the boxes was ended just then, and the windows opened. Routt broke off and went to get his mail, and Wint, still resentful at Routt’s insistence on the moral advantages of his situation, went to the window. Dave Howells, one of the postal clerks, was there; and before Wint could speak, he had offered his congratulations. These continual good wishes were beginning to irk Wint. He nodded impatiently. “Dave,” he said, “I want you to hold my mail hereafter. Don’t send it to the house.”

“Oh, we always put it in your father’s box,” Howells told him.

“Well, don’t do that. Hold it. I’ll call for it.”

The clerk wanted to ask questions, but decided not to do so. He took out a card and wrote something on it. “I think there’s a letter for you in the box now,” he said. “I’ll give it to you.”

Wint nodded; and a moment later the man handed him an envelope, and Wint turned away from the window. He met his father, face to face, at the door of the Post Office. Neither of them spoke.

Wint had dropped the letter into his pocket without looking at it. When he reached the hotel on the corner, he turned in, and sat down on one of the deep, leather chairs in the lobby, and drew out the envelope. The address, he saw, was typewritten. The letter had been mailed in town. The envelope was plain; and when he opened it he saw that the paper it contained bore no distinguishing mark.

The letter, like the address, was typewritten, and Wint read it once, and read it again with slowly kindling resentment. It said:

This letter was unsigned. Wint read it a second time, and then with tense, stiff fingers he tore it into little bits and dropped these bits into a wide, brass cuspidor beside his chair. As the scraps of paper fluttered from his hand, he clenched his fists; and he looked about to see if any one had been watching.

He hated this preaching, this morality, this harping on the hope of his redemption. He was all right; no harm in him. But they would not leave him alone. They nagged at him; nagged.... He hated it.

He wondered, as an undercurrent to this rage, who had written the letter. It might have been his father, or his mother, or Routt. Routt was a sanctimonious ass about some things. Or it might have been.... He thought it was probably the minister of his father’s church; and he grinned with dry relish at the thought. The old man must have been sadly shocked at Wint more than once; and this letter sounded just like him. Blithering, self-righteous....

He lunged up from his chair, boiling furiously. All his determination to stick it out was gone. He would not do it, would not make a righteous spectacle of himself for the edification of these old women. He went out and turned up the street past the Court House, walking blindly, storming inwardly. He would get out of town, shake the dust of the place off his feet. Let them find a new Mayor.

He was still fuming thus when, in front of the Court House, he met Peter Gergue. Peter rummaged through his back hair and grinned at Wint. “Saw you coming,” he explained. “Thought you might be looking f’r me. So I came down.”

“I’m not looking for you,” said Wint.

Gergue nodded. “All right,” he assented. “Mind if I walk along with you? Going on this way?”

Wint halted in his tracks. “What’s up?” he asked sharply. “What do you want?”

“Me?” Peter ejaculated. “Why—me? I don’t want nothing.”

“What are you so anxious to keep an eye on me for, then? I don’t want you.”

Gergue hesitated, and he looked across the street toward his office; and at last he leaned toward Wint and said slyly: “Tell you th’ truth, it ain’t me. Amos is over at my place. He see you coming, and he was worried f’r fear you’d come up and find him there. He knows you’re mad at him. Don’t want to see you. Don’t want to listen to you. Knows you got a fair kick, and he don’t like to listen to kicks.”

Wint looked across the way, and then at Peter; and then, without a word, he started across the street. Peter went hurriedly after him. “Say,” he begged, “you ain’t going—”

“I’m going to tell that old scamp what I think of him.”

Peter pleaded. “Oh, now, Wint—he’ll be mad at me.” He laid a restraining hand on Wint’s arm. Wint shook it off.

“What do I care what he thinks of you?” he demanded. “Let go.”

“You don’t want t’ see him, Wint.”

Wint went stubbornly ahead. He turned into the stairs that led up to Peter’s office; and Gergue sighed.

“Glory! Well—all right, then. I’ll trail along,” he said; and then he smiled at Wint’s ascending back with amiable satisfaction and followed Wint up the stairs.

Wint had never been in Peter’s office before. He halted in the doorway, struck by the slack disorder of the place. There were spider webs in every corner; there was dust everywhere. The soft floor had been worn by many feet till every knot stood up like a rounded knob, and every nail upreared a shining head. The door of the wardrobe hung open, revealing some battered books inside. The old, oilcloth-covered table at the window was littered with papers and rusty pens, and sagged weakly under the weight of the books upon it. At this table, when Wint came in, sat Congressman Amos Caretall. The Congressman saw Wint, and got up hurriedly, eyes squinting, head on one side. He looked distinctly apologetic; and when he saw Peter behind Wint, he eyed his satellite reproachfully.

Wint stormed across the room to face the Congressman; but even while he approached the older man, some of his anger died in him. Amos was so frankly unhappy, he was so apologetic, the tilt of his head was so plaintive. Nevertheless Wint cried: “What right had you to use my name in this way, Congressman?”

Caretall shook his head humbly. “Not a right in the world, Wint.”

“It was a dirty trick. Underhand.”

The Congressman nodded. “I know it, Wint,” he assented. “I c’n see that now. All the trouble it’s made and everything. If I’d knowed.... But you see, a man gets to playing the game, and he don’t stop to think like he oughter.”

“You hadn’t any right to do it,” Wint insisted; but he was weakening. Nothing is so disarming as acquiescence; and when a man condemns himself, it is human nature to wish to defend him.

“I know it,” Amos repeated. “I ain’t got a word to say, Wint. Except that I’ll help to straighten things out so you won’t have to serve.”

Wint looked puzzled for a moment. “I—what’s that?”

“I say, I’ll help you fix things so you won’t have to take it.”

“What makes you think I don’t want to take it?”

Amos spread out his hands like a man who has nothing to conceal. “Why, that’s common sense. I’d ought to have knowed. It’s a hard job. Prob’ly you couldn’t swing it. Anyway, it means work, and stickin’ to the grindstone; and you’re a young fellow. You like your good times. You wouldn’t want to be tied down to anything this way.”

Wint laughed derisively. “You think you know a whole lot about me, don’t you?”

Amos smiled. “Well, Wint,” he returned. “I’ve seen some of life. I know a lively young fellow like you don’t want to take on a job that means work. And you’re right, o’ course. It ain’t the job f’r you. You ain’t fitted for it. You couldn’t manage it. You’re right. I hadn’t ought to have got you into this. But I’ll help get you out. That’s th’ least I can do.”

Wint looked at the Congressman with level eyes for a moment; and then he turned and looked out of window, saying nothing. Amos caught Peter Gergue’s eye, and Peter winked at him. Amos said humbly: “I sure am sorry about this, Wint. It’s made it hard for you. You can’t stay here now. You might go over to Washin’ton, Wint. I c’d get you somethin’ easy, there.”

Wint turned back to him abruptly; and there was a catch in his voice. “Congressman,” he said, half laughing, “you owe me something.”

Caretall nodded. “That’s right, Wint. ’Nd I’m ready to pay.”

“All right. Here’s what I want you to do.” He hesitated, extended his hand. “I know I’m not fit for this job, sir,” he said reluctantly. “But—if you’ll give me a hand and help along—I’d like to tackle it.”

Amos looked doubtful. “Now, Wint—don’t you get wrong notions. No sense you’re sticking in this mess. I’ll get you out without any—”

Wint interrupted him angrily: “You can’t get me out. Nor any one else. I’m in and I’ll stay in. But—I’d like to have your advice and help when I need it.”

And the Congressman yielded. He took Wint’s hand. “All right,” he agreed. “I’ll back you. I don’t know as you’re right, and I don’t know as you’re wrong. If you can get away with it.”

“I intend to.”

Amos nodded. “Sure you intend to. But can you? Well—we’ve got to see.” He hesitated, seemed to be thinking. “I hear your father and you’ve broke,” he said.

“Yes.”

“That’s too bad. Where are you living?”

“The Weaver House,” said Wint defiantly. But his defiance was misplaced. Congressman Caretall nodded approvingly.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Old Mother Moody sets a right good table, when she’s a mind to. I wish I c’d live down there myself. It’s a good plan.” He looked at Wint and winked slyly. “Always a good plan to play to the workingman,” he explained. “Good idea of yours, Wint. Living down there. Get the workingmen and the railroad men and all to sympathizing with you. They’ll play you for a martyr, and back you strong. You’ll make a good politician, Wint. I c’n see that.”

Wint shook his head. “It’s not politics,” he said. “I—don’t intend to stay there. Just till I get settled uptown. Somewhere.”

Amos studied him. “Pshaw, now! That’s too bad. It’d been a good play, Wint.”

Wint laughed. “I’ll play the game some other way.”

The Congressman nodded. He remained silent for a moment, then said thoughtfully, “I was thinking.... You and me has got to do a lot of talking, planning. I wish you could come and stay with me till your paw comes ’round.”

Wint shook his head. “Thanks,” he said, smiling. “That’s good of you. But I’ll—” He hesitated; for through the window he had seen, across the street, Jack Routt and Joan together. They were talking briskly; and Joan was laughing at something Routt had said. Wint stared at them, with slowly burning eyes; and before he could continue Gergue nudged him in the side and told the Congressman smilingly:

“That ’uz a bad break, Amos. He can’t come live with you.”

Wint looked at him. “Why not?” he asked; and Amos said to Gergue:

“That’s right, Peter. I’d forgot.”

“Why not?” Wint repeated impatiently; he glanced again toward the two across the street.

“Why, he means Miss Joan wouldn’t like it,” the Congressman explained.

“Why wouldn’t she?”

Gergue pointed across the street. “She’d soon teach you manners,” he chuckled. “The Congressman here’s got a nice-looking daughter of his own, you know.”

Wint’s hand clenched at his side. “You’re all wrong there,” he said curtly; and then to Amos: “I think I’ll accept your invitation, after all,” he said.

CHAPTER IV
INTERLUDE

THE weeks between his election and his inauguration Wint spent as a guest at Amos Caretall’s home. At which the townsfolk put their tongues in their cheeks and smiled behind the back of the elder Chase. This open alliance between Wint and the Congressman was taken as confession that Wint’s election had been planned between them; and after a day or two Wint perceived the hopelessness of denial, and perceived, too, that those who believed him concerned in the trick respected him the more for it. Therefore, Wint ceased to deny; and it was one of Amos Caretall’s rules never to discuss a thing accomplished.

Between Amos and the young man, a strong friendship began to develop in these weeks. Congressman Caretall was a good politician, largely through the advice and counsel of Peter Gergue; but he was also a man of level head and good common sense, and he found beneath Wint’s pride and stubbornness a surprising store of good qualities. A week after Wint went to live at his house, he said as much to Gergue.

“He’s a fine boy, Peter,” he declared. “Looks to me like a colt that hadn’t been gentled right.”

Gergue nodded slowly and scratched the back of his head, tilting his hat forward with his knuckles. “He has his points,” he agreed. “But—he ain’t set in th’ traces yet, Congressman.”

Amos looked at the man. “What’s wrong?”

“Noth’n’,” said Peter. “Noth’n’. But—there will be.”

Jack Routt brought Wint’s trunk to the Caretall house and, before he left that day, he took occasion to drop a word of warning in Wint’s ear. “Look out for Agnes,” was his warning. “She’s the darndest little flirt you ever saw.”

Wint lifted his head angrily. “Cut it out, Jack!”

Routt laughed. “I’m only giving you some good advice,” he insisted. “You know—a certain young lady will not be pleased if you pay Agnes too much attention. And Agnes loves to make trouble.”

Wint repeated: “Shut up! Drop it!” And Routt lifted his shoulders and obeyed.

Two or three days after the election, Wint remembered that he was supposed to be working in his father’s office at the furnace. With an unadmitted twist of conscience, he went down to the office, half hoping to see his father and find some common ground for a reconciliation. But the elder Chase was not there, and the office manager greeted Wint coldly and told him that his place had been filled. Wint had ten days’ salary due him, and the manager paid it punctiliously. Wint took the money without thinking, thrust it in his pocket, and went back uptown.

While he was in college, he had been on an allowance; since then his father had paid him a salary out of proportion to his deserts. This was one of the vanities of the elder Chase. His own youth had been hard and straitened; and he took a keen delight in lavishing upon Wint the money he himself had lacked. He did this, not to please Wint, but to please himself; and whenever Wint crossed him, he was accustomed to bring up the matter, to remind Wint of his good fortune as though it were a reproach.

“Be sure I never had money to spend, when I was your age,” he was fond of saying. “And you roll in it. You ought to be ashamed, Wint. You ought to be ashamed.”

Then he would give Wint twenty dollars and tell him to mend his ways; and afterward he would complain to Mrs. Chase of Wint’s ingratitude.

Wint had always taken this money without scruple. Whenever inner doubts perplexed him, he would say: “He’s got more than he can use. I might as well have it as any one else.” In all honesty, he knew the falsity of such an argument; but he used it successfully to stifle the reproaches of his own heart.

A day or two after his visit to the office, however, Amos Caretall asked him: “Wint, you need any money?”

Wint shook his head.

“Didn’t know but you might,” Amos insisted. “Carry you over till your salary starts.”

“I’ve got enough,” Wint said. “Dad was always pretty liberal. Gave me more than I could spend.”

Amos did not seem surprised at this. He nodded his head. “That’s good,” he agreed. “If any one had told me, I wouldn’t have believed it. Wouldn’t have believed Senior had so much sense. Keeps you in his debt, like, don’t he? Keeps you d’pendent on him?”

Wint had never thought of it in that way, and he did not like the thought. He looked uneasy. Amos went on, puffing at his old black pipe: “Guess he figures to get it all back some way. ’F he sh’d come and ask you for something, after you’re in, you’d naturally have to give it to him. Yes, Senior’s a smart man.”

They were sitting in front of the coal fire in Amos’ sitting room; and for a time after that, neither of them spoke. Wint was thinking hard, and in the end he asked quietly: “Know any way I can earn a living till I’m inaugurated?”

Amos swung his head around, tilting it on one side, and squinting thoughtfully at Wint; and presently he smiled approvingly. “Guess you might,” he said. “Might do some o’ my letter writing. You’d learn things, that way. I never had no secretary. I’m allowed one. You c’n have the job, long’s I’m here.”

Next morning Wint mailed a money order to his father without explanation, and thereafter he drew a salary from Amos until his salary as Mayor began.

From his work for Amos, Wint learned many things. He got for the first time an insight into the scope of the Congressman’s work, into the extent of his interests and influence. One of the things he learned was a sincere respect for Caretall’s ability, and he also came to admire the shrewdness of Gergue. Wint did a deal of thinking in those weeks.

Living, as he did, as one of Caretall’s family, he was thrown constantly with Agnes; and the girl put herself out to please him. She and old Maria Hale worked together in this. The girl discovered Wint’s favorite dishes, and Maria produced them and brought them to a perfection that Wint had never known. It was Agnes’ task to take care of the dusting and housework; and she began, after a time, to put an occasional cluster of flowers from the greenhouses next door in his room. When they talked together, she deferred to him with a pretty fashion of tilting her head and widening her serious eyes that he found exceedingly attractive. It stimulated his self-respect; and at the same time it gave him a new respect for her. Since she so obviously approved of him, there must be more to her than he had supposed. She was, he decided, a person of judgment. He had always thought her a giddy little thing with a brisk, gay tongue and laughing eyes. He found in her an unexpected capacity for silence and for attention. She encouraged him to talk about himself, about his plans; she sympathized with him, and advised him when he asked her advice. They became surprisingly good friends.

She suggested, one evening, that they telephone Jack Routt to bring Joan for a game of cards. Wint shook his head; and the girl, without asking questions, made her curiosity so obvious that Wint told her that Joan had cast him off. He leaned forward, elbows on knees and fingers intertwined, staring idly into the fire, while he told her; and the girl leaned back in her chair and listened and studied him, and when he finished she laid her hand lightly on his arm.

“It’s a shame, Wint,” she said.

Wint shook his head. “Oh—she was right!”

“She wasn’t right. She ought to have stuck by you, and helped you fight it out.”

Wint thought so too, and his respect for Agnes rose. But he said insistently: “No, she was right.”

Agnes patted his arm, and then leaned back in her chair again. “It’s fine of you to think so,” she said.

One night Wint asked her to go uptown with him to the moving-picture theater. She was delighted, and she was gay as a cricket on the way. At the entrance of the theater, they came face to face with Jack Routt and Joan.

Wint felt his cheeks burn. Agnes greeted the other two with a burst of rapid chatter that covered the awkward moment. Routt studied Wint, and Joan nodded to him without speaking. Then Routt and Joan went inside, and Wint and Agnes sat three rows behind them.

While the picture was flashing on the screen, Wint watched the heads of the two. He could not help it; and when their heads, silhouetted against the light, leaned toward one another for a whispered word, he felt something boil within him. His reaction was to bend more attentively toward Agnes; and the gay little girl beside him responded to this new mood so that when the film was done and they filed out, she and Wint were the most obviously happy young couple in the house. They had ice cream together at the bakery next door, and walked home in comfortable comradeship, the girl’s hand on his arm.

That night, Wint’s sleep was disturbed and wretched; and next day when he met Routt at the Post Office, he stiffened with resentment. But Routt caught his arm and drew him to one side. “See here, Wint,” he said, “Joan tells me you and she have quarreled.”

Wint nodded.

“You ought to go to her and make it up, Wint. I don’t know what it’s about, but you ought to make it up with her.”

“I’ve nothing to make up.”

“She’s a dandy girl.”

“I’ve nothing against her.”

“It makes her sore to have you chase around with Agnes.”

“There’s no reason why it should,” Wint said stiffly. “She has no hold on me.”

Routt hesitated. “Well, Wint,” he said uneasily, “if that’s so, you’ve no claim on her.”

“Of course not.”

“Then you don’t mind my—showing her some attention? I don’t want anything to come between us, Wint.”

Wint laughed. “Go as far as you like, Jack,” he said cheerfully. “You can’t hurt my feelings.”

Routt gripped his hand. “That’s great, Wint.” He looked about them, and then added slowly: “I think she likes me, Wint. I’m—in to win.”

“Go as far as you like,” Wint repeated.

They separated, and Wint went back to the house and remained in his room half the morning. He was tormented by angry pride and irresolution; he could not decide what to do. A recklessness took possession of him; he repented of his determination to stick, and fight out this fight to the end. He sought for some way out....

Muldoon had become a part of the Caretall household with Wint; and he looked out of the window now and saw the dog starting toward town at Agnes’ heels. He made a move to whistle Muldoon back, then thought better of it. Joan might see Muldoon with Agnes; he hoped she would, hoped it would make her miserable.... He wanted Joan to be unhappy.

As the time for his inauguration as Mayor approached, Wint became more and more uneasy. He felt as though he were about to submit to bonds that would pin him fast; he felt as though he were on the steps of a prison. A fierce revolt began to brood in him and grow and boil.

He broke out once, in a talk with Caretall. He would throw the whole thing over, leave town, go away, never to return.

Amos agreed with this project perfectly. He agreed that Wint was not the man for the job, that it would mean hard work, and difficulties; he thought Wint was wise not to attempt it. He offered to straighten out any tangle and free Wint from the obligations of the office; and he offered to lend Wint money that Wint might make a start elsewhere.

His great complaisance angered Wint, so that he stubbornly declared that he would stick if every man in town urged him to go.

On the morning of the day before he was to take office, he met Jack Routt uptown, and Jack took his arm. They walked together toward Jack’s office, and went in and sat down.

It was evident that Routt had something on his mind. He talked of the weather, of Agnes, of Joan; and Wint, watching him, saw that Routt was holding something back, and at last asked impatiently: “Jack, what’s on your mind?”

Routt looked surprised. “Why—nothing.”

“Yes, there is.” Wint laughed at him. “What’s the matter? Open up.”

Routt hesitated; but at last he said frankly: “Well, Wint, I was wondering....”

“About what?”

“Have you been hitting the booze lately?” Routt asked.

Wint shook his head; his eyes hardened a little.

Routt seemed pleased. He thrust out his hand. “I’m darned glad, Wint,” he said. “Congratulations! You ought to leave it alone. You’re right.”

Wint flushed angrily. “I haven’t sworn off,” he said shortly. “It—just happens—” He stared at Routt. “You didn’t bring me up here to ask that?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

Routt shifted in his chair and lighted a cigarette. “Never mind,” he said. “Forget it, Wint.”

Wint laughed unpleasantly. “Come on. I’m a grown man. What’s eating you?”

Routt lifted his shoulders. “Well—fact is, some of the boys wanted to get up a little supper to-night, at the lodge rooms, in honor of your—inaugural. I told them nothing doing. Said you were off the stuff. They didn’t believe it; and I promised to ask you.”

Wint looked at him angrily. “You’re not my wet nurse, Jack. That supper idea tickles me. It’s on.”

Routt protested. “No, Wint. I won’t stand for it. You’ve stayed off the stuff this long; and it’s the best thing for you. You can’t stop when you once start. So—leave it alone.”

Wint got up hotly. “Go to the devil!” he snapped. “Don’t be an old woman. Who’s running the thing?”

“Dick Hoover. But you leave it alone....”

“Rats! Tell Dick I’ll be there. Or I’ll tell him myself.”

Routt lifted his hands in surrender. “Oh—I’ll tell him,” he agreed. “But you’re a darned fool, Wint.”

“Rats!” Wint repeated; and he grinned. He was unaccountably elated, as though he had shaken off restraining bonds. “Rats!” And he went out to the street with his head high.

Routt picked up the telephone and called Hoover. He was smiling.

CHAPTER V
ALLIANCE

WINTHROP CHASE, SENIOR, was thrown by his son’s election to the office he had counted as his own into a passion in which rage and humiliation were equally commingled.

He was a man fed fat with vanity. He took himself very seriously. He lived a decent and respectable life in the eyes of all men, and he felt himself justly entitled to the respect of all men. He had, before this, seen the smiles of those few who dared mock him; but he had believed them a small minority. When three quarters of the town united in the jest at his expense, he was outraged inexpressibly. And when the city papers took up the story and for a time the whole state tittered over it, Chase trembled and shuddered with his own agony.

His first reaction had been anger at his son; and when he heard Wint had been found, sodden and stupid, in that room at the Weaver House, he cast the boy out of his life, hiding his own honest grief and sorrow under a mantle of resentment and accusation. For he loved Wint, and had wished to be proud of him.

In the beginning, his chief resentment centered on Wint, and he had toward Amos Caretall only that anger which one feels toward a treacherously victorious opponent. But about the time Wint sent him that money order, and stood on his own feet before the world, Chase’s heart softened in spite of himself. He sought to make excuses for his son, and in this effort he found Caretall a convenient scapegoat. By degrees he convinced himself that Caretall had led Wint astray, playing on the boy’s vanity and pride; and after that came the half conviction that when Wint denied all knowledge of the coup, the boy had told the truth. Then all Chase’s anger centered on Amos; and as the first sting of his disgrace passed by, he began to look about him and seek to rebuild the shattered structure of his plans.

He had encountered Amos more than once upon the street since the election, though neither had carried their greetings further than a nod or word. But there came a day when Chase met the Congressman face to face in the Post Office at a moment when there were no others there; and when Chase nodded, Caretall stopped and tilted his head on one side and squinted in a friendly way at Chase.

“No hard feelings, is there, Senior?” he asked.

Chase looked at him, started to speak, flushed, checked himself; and at last said huskily: “Congressman, I want to talk with you.”

Caretall nodded. “That’s fair.”

“Where can we talk?”

Amos scratched his head. “Tell you,” he suggested. “I’ll go along up to Pete Gergue’s office. You go down t’ your place, ’nd then come in the back way. Guess we don’t want it known we’re gettin’ t’gether.”

“Very well,” Chase said stiffly. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

When he climbed the stairs, Amos had sent Gergue away and was sitting at the oilcloth-covered table, slowly whittling a charge for his pipe. He got up bulkily at Chase’s entrance, and motioned the other man to a chair across the table from his own. Chase sat down and Amos, lighting his pipe between his sentences, said slowly: “Chase....” a scratch of the match. “You don’t want to hold this against me.” A succession of deep puffs. “It’s politics. All in th’ game.” A puff. “You was getting too strong for me. I had t’ lick you.” Puff, puff, puff!

Chase struck his fist with quiet vehemence on the table. “It was a dirty trick, Amos.”

Amos shook his head, vastly pained. “Now, Senior,” he protested, “don’t go talking that way. ’Twas all in th’ game. All in the game.”

“It was a dirty trick,” Chase insisted. “You played on my good feelings; you pretended to agree to an alliance with me; you got me off my guard—”

Amos held up a heavy hand. “Wait a minute,” he protested. “Wait a minute, Senior. Let me get this here straight. You come to me with a prop’sition. Wanted to get together. Said you had me licked. I told you if you was elected Mayor, we’d hitch up. Ain’t that right now, Senior?”

Chase moved angrily. “Strictly true,” he confessed. “Strictly true. That’s why I call it tricky. You came to my own meeting and said you were going to vote for me.”

“Guess I said I was going to vote for a Chase, didn’t I? Guess I did. And that’s the way I voted.”

“The town thought you meant me.”

“Not long, they didn’t. Word went around what I meant, all in good time.”

Chase got to his feet, his head back, his face flushed. He leaned down to face Amos, and he slapped his right fist into his left palm. “I tell you it was a trick,” he insisted. “You know it. It was unworthy. And I give you due warning, Caretall—I’m out for your scalp now. I propose to get it. Take your measures accordingly.”

Amos puffed hard at his pipe. He, too, rose; he tilted his head thoughtfully on one side and squinted at Chase. “I don’t like t’ hear you talk that way, Senior,” he said slowly. “You come to me and talked to me till you rightly showed me we ought to get together. I’m ready—even if you did get—”

Chase flung up his hand. “Stop!” he cried. The self-control which he had imposed upon himself was gone. “Stop! Man, man! D’you think I’m one to lick the hand that stabs me? You lie to me, trick me, make a fool of me and a joke of me before the state; and to cap it all you steal my own son out of my house—”

“Heard you was the one to throw him out,” Amos interjected, but Chase went hotly on:

“You steal my own son, take him into your own home, turn him against me, persuade him to help destroy me....” His voice broke with his own rage and grief. “I tell you, Amos,” he said again, leaning steadily forward, “I’m going to get you. Fair warning. Take your measures accordingly.”

Amos looked out of the window; he puffed at his pipe; and at last he faced the other man again, and smiled. “Well, Senior,” he said slowly, “if the land lies so—thanks for the word. As for them measures—I’ll take them like you say.”

For a moment longer, the eyes of the two men held each other. Then Chase turned stiffly on his heel, and stalked to the door and went out.

As he disappeared, Amos called: “G’d day!” But Chase made no answer, and Amos, left alone, grinned slowly to himself and shook his head.

After that interview with Amos, Chase began to emerge from the turmoil of anger and shame in which he had been fighting since the election. His head cleared and his brain cooled, and he began to plan, with a certain newly acquired shrewdness, his next steps against Caretall. In many matters, heretofore, the elder Chase had been as simple as a boy. Now he was becoming crafty. In the past he had honestly believed that the life of self-conscious rectitude which he had led was of a sort to inspire respect and affection. Now he knew that he was wrong, knew that he must always have been disliked or despised by half the town. He had always been benignly courteous; and this courtesy, which was more than half condescension, had made more enemies than friends. He had played a straightforward game; and he had lost.

Like other men before him, in the determination to change his tactics, he went too far. He threw himself into the fight to injure Caretall with an utter disregard for the conventions he had once observed; he sought allies where he might find them; and for the first time in his life, he tried to put himself in another man’s place and guess what the other man would do.

The man into whose place he sought to put himself was Amos Caretall; and the result of his considerations of Amos’s possible future plans threw Chase into the arms of his ancient enemy, into the shrunken arms of V. R. Kite.

The feud between Kite and Chase had never been a concrete thing. It was based upon a thousand minor incidents, none of them important in itself. Kite, as the leader of the “wet” forces in the town, and as the proprietor of half the liquor-peddling establishments, was a man very quick to resent “dry” activities. Chase had always been actively “dry.” And Kite, curiously enough for one of his vocation, was a very thin-skinned man. He found offenses in words that were meant for kindness; he found a sneer in an honest smile.

It was a part of the manner of the elder Chase to smile and nod benevolently upon those whom he encountered. This was automatic with him; and he smiled at Kite with the rest. Kite, a man of fierce and violent temperament, knew that Chase had no kindly feeling toward him; and so he saw in these smiles only sneers. He had complained to Amos Caretall: “He’s always grinning at me,” when Amos asked why he hated Chase; and this was an old grievance with the liquor man.

Kite had been one of those who rejoiced most highly in Chase’s humiliation; and for a week or two after the election, he went out of his way to meet Chase upon the street. On such occasions, he paid back with interest those grins he had resented; he spoke to Chase with exaggerated courtesy and extreme solicitude. He inquired after the other’s health end spirits; he sympathized with Chase in his defeat.

These sports palled upon him only when he perceived the growing change in Chase. For Wint’s father was in many ways at this time like a child that has been punished for a fault it does not understand. The elder Chase was groping for friendliness; he sought it wherever it could be found; and he took some of Kite’s satiric inquiries in good faith and responded to them with such honest confidence that Kite was touched and faintly uneasy.

A few days after Chase’s talk with Amos, he sought out Kite in the little Bazaar which the latter conducted. It was an institution like a five and ten cent store, and did a flourishing business. Next door to it was a restaurant, also owned by Kite, and reached by a communicating passage. In a room behind this restaurant, knowing ones might be served with anything in reason. But Kite went there only for his meals, and most of the hours of business found him at his desk in the rear of the Bazaar.

Chase frankly sought him there. He drew a chair up to face the wrinkled little man; and Kite was surprised, and cocked his head on his thin neck and tugged at his drooping side whiskers until he looked more like a doubtful turkey than ever. “Howdo, Chase?” he said.

Chase nodded. “Kite,” he began frankly, “I want to talk to you.”

Kite tried to grin derisively; he tried to reawaken the old enmity in his breast. But there was something appealing about Chase, and so he said nothing, only waited.

“Kite,” said Chase, “Amos Caretall played a good trick on me.”

Kite looked startled; then he grinned. “Yes, Chase, he did that,” he said.

“You helped him.”

Kite frankly admitted it.

“You helped him,” said Chase, “because you thought with Wint in as Mayor, the town would stay as wet as you want it.”

Kite hesitated, then he nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, that’s so, Chase. What about it?”

Chase leaned back. “Amos made a fool of you,” he said. “He’s going to turn this town dry, with the man you helped elect.”

Kite flushed; he leaned toward Chase with narrowed eyes peering out from an ambush of wrinkles; and then suddenly he threw back his head with his long, turkey neck rising raw and red from his collar, and he laughed cacklingly, so that customers in the front of his store looked that way to share the joke. Chase frowned angrily. “Well?” he snapped, “what’s funny about that?”

Kite dropped a dry old hand on Chase’s arm. “Oh, Chase,” he choked through his mirth, “the notion of Wint making this town dry....”

Chase flushed. He started to speak. Kite interrupted: “Now don’t get mad. Course, he’s your son, but he does like his drop now and then, Chase.”

“I tell you, Amos is planning to do it.”

There was something so deadly sure in Chase’s tone that Kite sobered and looked toward him. “Say, what makes you say that?” he demanded. “How do you know?”

“Amos has sense. He sees this question is the big one in this state. He’s out for Congress again. He’s not going to have it thrown at him that his man let this town soak itself illegally.”

For the first time, Kite began to look worried. “Amos wouldn’t do that. He told me—”

“Told you? He told me many things, too. But none of them were true.”

Kite, suddenly, burst into flame like an oily rag. He threw up a clenched fist. “By God, Chase, he don’t dare try it!”

“Dare? He’ll dare anything.”

Kite stammered with the heat of his own anger. “He don’t dare!” he insisted. “Why, Chase—if he tries that—I’ll—I’ll—” With no sense that his words had been said before, he exclaimed: “I won’t live in the town, Chase. I’ll get out! I’ll shoot him! Or myself.”

Chase leaned forward. “I tell you, he’s aiming to do it,” he said steadily. “So sit down.”

Kite gripped his arm. “Chase, you got to drill some sense into that son of yours. You got to tell him—”

“He’s not my son now; he’s Amos’s. Living with Amos, doing what Amos says. Don’t forget that.”

There was a bitterness in Chase’s voice which silenced Kite for a moment. Then the little man touched Chase on the arm. “See here,” he said softly, “you don’t like Amos any better’n I do.”

Chase smiled mirthlessly. “I’m out for his hide,” he declared.

Kite nodded, chuckling grimly. “He thinks he’s a big man,” he said. “He thinks he can run over us, play with us, use us and then give us the brad. But I tell you right now, Chase....” He lifted his open hand as one who takes an oath. “I tell you right now, Chase, if he tries that little trick—you and me’ll get together, and we’ll hang his old hide in the sun to dry.”

“He’ll try it,” said Chase steadily.

Kite stuck out his hand. “Then we’ll skin him.”

“That’s a bargain,” Chase declared, and gripped the other’s dry and skinny fingers.

It was in this fashion that these two enemies joined hands against the common foe.

CHAPTER VI
THE WHISTLE BLOWS

THE festivities in Wint’s honor on the night before his inaugural were a great success, from every point of view.

There was nothing formal about them. They occurred in an upper room in one of the newer business blocks on Main Street. Only half a dozen young fellows attended them; but these were all chosen spirits, and congenial.

At half past nine, they were all pleasantly illuminated by their libations and the general good cheer of the occasion. At eleven, two of them were asleep quite peacefully in each other’s arms upon a couch at one side of the room. These two snored as they slept. The others were playing cards, and the refreshments which had been provided were in easy reach. Wint and Jack Routt were among those playing cards. Routt never passed a certain stage of intoxication, no matter how much he drank. He reached this stage with the first swallow.

With Wint, it was otherwise. In such matters, he progressed steadily toward a dismal end. As eleven o’clock struck, he had just passed the quarrelsome stage and was beginning to pity himself. He opened a hand with three queens, but when Routt raised his bet, Wint threw down his cards and put his head on his arms and wept because he could not win. Then he took another drink.

After a little, he cried himself to sleep.

Toward one o’clock, Routt and Hoover took Wint home to Amos Caretall’s. The streets, at that hour of the night, were utterly deserted. There was a moon, and the street lamps were unlighted as an economical consequence of this heavenly illumination. Wint was between Routt and Hoover. At times he took a sodden step or two; at other times he dragged to his knees upon the ground, wagging his head from side to side and singing huskily.

Hoover was almost as badly off as Wint; and now and then he joined in this song. Jack Routt was cold sober, and coldly exultant. His eyes shone in the moonlight; and he handled Wint with rough tenderness.

When they were about half a block from the Caretall home, Wint became very sick; and Hoover sat down in the middle of the sidewalk and giggled at him while Routt, leaning against a tree above the sprawling body of his friend, waited until the paroxysms were past and then caught Wint’s shoulders again and dragged him to his feet.

Wint had thrown off some of the poison; he was able now to help himself a little more than before; and they got him to their destination. There Routt propped him against a tree before the house and shook him and tried to impress upon him the necessity of silence.

“Don’t you sing, now, Wint,” he warned. “Brace up. Have some sense. Keep quiet.”

Wint pettishly protested that he liked to sing, and that he was a good singer; and he tried to prove it on the spot, but Routt gagged him with the flat of his hand until Wint surrendered.

“Cut it out, Wint,” he insisted. “You’ve got to be quiet while we get you to bed.”

Then Routt felt a hand on his shoulder, and some one drawled: “You’ve done your share, Routt. Go along. I’ll tuck him in.”

He turned and saw Amos Caretall. Amos was in a bath robe of rough toweling over his nightshirt; and his feet were in carpet slippers. Routt was tongue-tied for a moment; then he found his voice. “I’m mighty sorry about this, sir,” he said. “I tried to keep him from drinking too much. But you can’t stop him. He’s such a darned fool.”

Amos grinned at him in a way that somehow frightened Routt. “He sure is the darndest fool I ever see,” he agreed. “But don’t you mind, Jack. Boys will be boys. You and—who is it?—oh, Hoover. You and Hoover run along home. I’ll tend to him.”

“Don’t you want me to help get him in the house?”

“I’ll get him in. I’ve handled ’em before.”

Routt hesitated: but there was nothing to do but obey, and he obeyed. Congressman Amos Caretall, in carpet slippers, nightshirt, and faded bath robe, watched them go; and then he turned to where Wint had slouched down against the tree and said kindly:

“Well, Wint—come on in.”

Wint wagged his head and began to sing. The Congressman bent over him and slapped him expertly upon the cheeks with his open hands, one hand and then the other. The sting and smart of the blows seemed to dispel some of the clouds that fuddled Wint, and he grinned sheepishly, and got to his feet. Amos put his arm around him. “Come on, Wint,” he said again.

They went thus slowly up the walk and into the house. Amos shut the front door behind them, and led Wint to the stairs and up them.

In the upper hall, one electric bulb was burning; and as they came into its light, Agnes came out of her room. Her soft, fair hair was down her back; her eyes were dewy with sleep; and a flaming, silken garment was drawn close about her. “What is it, dad?” she asked: and then saw Wint lurching along on her father’s arm with nodding head and dull and drunken eyes, and she laughed softly and stepped toward him and shook her finger in his face. “Oh, you Wint! Naughty boy!” she chided.

Her father said sharply: “Get into your room, Agnes!” The girl looked at him, and at the anger in his eyes she turned a little pale and slipped silently away.

Amos took Wint to his room, where Wint fell helplessly across his bed and began instantly to snore. The Congressman looked down at him for an instant with a grim sort of pity mingled with the anger in his eyes. Then he bent and loosened Wint’s shoes and drew them off; and afterward he took off the boy’s collar, and unbuttoned his garments at the throat, and unbuckled his belt so that his sodden body should nowhere be constricted.

“I guess that’ll do, Wint,” he said slowly then. “You’re too heavy for me to handle. Besides, Wint—you ain’t right clean.” He stood for a moment longer, then turned toward the door. At the door he looked back once, snapped out the light, and so was gone.

Wint’s snores were unbroken.

The Caretall home stood in that end of town where the largest of the furnaces is located. A railroad siding passes this furnace, and a switching engine is busy here twenty-four hours of the day. The engine occasionally finds occasion to whistle; and the furnace itself has a whistle of enormous proportions; a siren whose blast carries for miles across the hills. This siren blows at every change of shift, it blows at casting time, and it blows at the whim of the engineer who may wish to startle some casual visitor or friend.

Persons who have lived long in this part of Hardiston grow accustomed to this great whistle. They sleep undisturbed when it rouses the night echoes; and they talk undisturbed when it shatters the peace of the day. It is even told of some of them that when the furnace went out of blast and its whistle was stilled, they used to be awakened in the middle of the night by the failure of the siren to sound at the accustomed time.

Wint’s own home was in the other end of town. He had not lived long enough near the furnace to accustom himself to its noises; and they disturbed him. They penetrated his stupefied sleep on the night of this debauch. The steady roar of the great fires, which could be heard three or four miles on a still night, played on his worn nerves and tortured them; the sharp toots of the switching engine made him jump and quiver in his sleep like a dreaming child; and when he woke in the morning to find Amos shaking him by the shoulder, he was miserable and sick and his head throbbed with the beat of a thousand drums, and seemed like to split with agony. He wished, weakly, that it would split and be done.

When he opened his bloodshot eyes, Amos laughed and jerked him upright and shook some of the slumber out of him. “Come, Wint,” he commanded heartily. “I’ve got a cold tub all ready. Jump in it. Got to get in shape, y’know. Inaugurated t’day.”

Wint groaned and held his head in both hands. “Hell with it,” he scowled. “Inaugural. Whole damn business. I’m not goin’ to do it. Goin’ sleep. Hell with it, I say.”

He tried to drop back on the bed, but Amos laughed and caught him and dragged him to his feet. “Come out of it,” he enjoined. “You’ll be all right.”

Wint shook his head stubbornly; then cried out with pain at the shaking. The fumes of the liquor were gone out of him; he was only dreadfully sleepy and dreadfully sick. He felt as though he were pulled and tortured by pricking wires that tore his flesh, and his eyelids were as heavy as lead and as hot as coals upon his bloodshot eyes. But he opened them, and said heavily: “No, Congressman Caretall. It’s off. I won’t do it. I’m through.”

It was as Amos groped for a next word that the siren began to blow. This was the signal for the morning’s casting. The engineer must have been in good spirits that morning, for he gave more than full measure on the blast. The whistle shrieked and roared till the very windows rattled and shivered in their places; and Wint, at the first sound, whipped up his hands to shield his agonized ears, and dropped on the bed and held his head and groaned until his groan became almost a shriek with the pain. Then, when the siren died into silence, he got dully to his feet, and glared at Amos, who said huskily: “I’d like t’ kill man that did that. Like to dynamite that whistle. Anything—make it keep quiet.”

Amos suddenly smiled; then he chuckled. “Well, Wint,” he said quickly, “there’s ways to make it keep quiet.”

Wint looked at him with torpid interest. “I’ll bite,” he said. “Tell me one.”

Amos waved his hands. “Why, f’r instance, the Mayor has power to enforce the abatement of a nuisance. Make them shut off that whistle, if it’s a nuisance. Anything like that.”

Wint swayed on his feet, and steadied himself with a hand on the foot of the bed. “Can the Mayor do a thing like that—on the square?”

“Why, sure,” said Amos.

Wint grinned; a cracked and painful grin, but mirthful too; and he took a step forward. “Then say,” he exclaimed. “Then say! There’s something in this Mayor job, after all....”

“Sure there is!”

Wint gripped Amos’ arm. “Lead me to that cold, cold tub,” he enjoined.

END OF BOOK II