"Oh, the mayor and I are in perfect accord and are handling the situation. I have just been talking with him on the telephone." Totten settled his cigar into the corner of his mouth.
"Where is he?"
"At his residence! Showing that he isn't any more worried than I am."
"Well, if he has got the thing in hand again, I hope he'll stay at his residence. If reports are anything to go by, he didn't help matters by going down-town and making speeches to that rabble."
"Politeness wins in the long run, Lawrence, whether you're talking to the mob or the masters. I make it my principle in life. Tact and diplomacy. Harmony and—"
"Hell and repeat!" stormed North. "You and Morrison are not taking this thing the way you ought to! In accord, say you! He is torching 'em up and you are grinning while the fire burns! Fine team-work! Amos, you get in accord with me and my orders. You keep away from Morrison till I can make sure that he stands clean in his party loyalty."
His Excellency was stuttering in his wrath and the general determined to be discreetly silent as to his recent tender of politeness to Morrison through the captain of the guards. Furthermore, Totten's self-complacency assured him that the mayor of Marion was leaving the affairs on Capitol Hill in the hands of the accredited commander on Capitol Hill.
Governor North pulled open a drawer of the table. He threw a bunch of keys to his brother-in-law. "I had the messenger leave these with me. Lock up all the doors of the Council Chamber. Leave only my private door unlocked."
The adjutant-general caught the keys. "But you certainly don't expect any trouble up here, with my guards—"
"It's plenty enough of a job for a cat to watch one rat-hole! Lock up, I tell you!"
While General Totten was bruising his dignity in the menial work of a turnkey, Governor North received two visitors. They were furred gentlemen who entered abruptly by the private door—the before-mentioned rat-hole—but the waiting cat did not pounce. On the contrary, one of the furred intruders did the pouncing. It was Senator Corson and he was furiously angry.
"What kind of a damnable fool has been giving off orders to those soldiers? I have been tramping around outside this State House from door to door, held up everywhere and insulted by those young whelps."
"I don't see how that could happen," protested the Governor.
"Who gave off such orders?"
"There were no orders, not in your case. I didn't think it was necessary to specify anything in regard to you, Senator. Do you mean to tell me that there's a man down there who didn't recognize you—who refused to allow you to pass without question?"
"They all know me! Of course they know me. And that's the whole trouble.They made that the reason why they wouldn't let me in here."
"How in the devil's name could that be?" The Governor's anger that promised punishment for the offenders served Senator Corson in lieu of apology.
"I was informed that there were strict orders not to admit politicians. According to those lunkheads at the doors I came under that classification." The Senator threw off his coat. "And Daunt, here, was penalized on account of the company he was keeping. Find out who gave those orders."
General Totten had locked the doors and was nervously jangling the keys.
"Amos, what kind of a fool have you been making yourself with your orders?" the Governor demanded.
"I—I think some instructions of mine in regard to admitting any of those persons whose seats are in dispute—probably those orders were misconstrued. My guards are very zealous—very alert," affirmed the adjutant-general, putting as good a face on the matter as was possible. He fully realized that this was no time to mention that exception in favor of Mayor Morrison, or to explain that he had intended to have Captain Sweetsir accept humorously instead of literally the more recent statement about politicians.
"There are two of those alert patriots who have had their zeal dulled for the time being," stated the Senator, showing his teeth with a grim smile. "I stood the impertinence as long as I could and then I cuffed the ears of the fools and walked in."
"We did issue strict instructions, as Amos has intimated," the Governor pleaded. "Some of those Socialists and Progressives who are claiming their seats have hired counsel and they proposed to force their way into the House and Senate chambers and make a test case, inviting forcible expulsion. I'm reckoning that my plan of forcible exclusion leaves us in cleaner shape."
"I'm not sure just how clean the whole thing is going to leave us, North." The Senator tossed his coat upon a huge divan at one side of the chamber and invited Daunt to dispose of his own coat in like fashion. Corson came to the table and sat sidewise on one corner of it. "You know how I feel about your pressing the election statutes to the extent you have. But we've got the old nag right in the middle of the river, and we've got to attend to swimming instead of swapping. I think, in spite of all their howling, the other crowd will take their medicine, as the courts hand it to them, when the election cases go up for adjudication. But there's a gang in every community that always takes advantage of any signs of a mix-up in high authority. My house got merry hell from a mob a little while ago. There's no political significance in the matter, however!"
The Governor queried anxiously for details and Corson gave them. He bitterly arraigned Morrison's stand.
North came to his feet and banged his fist on the table. "What? Take that attitude toward a mob in his own city? Strike hands with a ringleader of a riot—do it under a violated roof? Do it after what he promised me in the way of co-operation for law and order? Has he completely lost his mind, Senator Corson?"
"I think so," stated the Senator, with sardonic venom. "I'll admit that the thing isn't exactly clear to me—what he's trying to do—what he's thinking. A crazy man's actions and whims seldom are understandable by a sane man. But, so I gather, after showing us, as he has this evening, a sample of his work in running municipal government, he now proposes to take full charge of state matters."
"What?" yelled the Governor.
"Yes! Promised the ringleader of the mob to come up here and run everything on Capitol Hill. In behalf of the people—as the people's protector!" The Senator's irony rasped like a file on metal.
Banker Daunt was provoked to add his evidence. "It's exactly as my friend Corson says, Governor. I have been hearing some fine soviet doctrines from the mouth of Morrison this evening. Not at all stingy about giving his help to all those who need it! Gave his pledge of assistance to the fellow in the ballroom, as Corson says. Understood him to say that he is coming up here to help you, too!"
"I rather expected to find him here," pursued the Senator. "He went away in a great hurry to go somewhere. But after my experience with your alert soldiers down-stairs, Totten, I'm afraid our generous savior is going to be bothered about getting in."
The adjutant-general pulled off his cap and scrubbed his palm nervously over the glossy surface that was revealed.
"You might give some special orders to admit him," suggested Corson."He'll be a great help in an emergency."
"This settles it with me as to Morrison and his conception of law and order," affirmed Governor North. "I have been depending on him to handle his city. I'd as soon depend on Lenin and the kind of government he's running in Russia."
"According to the samples furnished by both, I think Lenin would rank higher as help," said the Senator. "At least he has shown that he knows how to handle a mob. But we may as well calm down, North, and attend to our own business. We are making altogether too much account of a silly nincompoop. Daunt and I let our feelings get away from us this evening on the same subject. But we woke up promptly. Morrison was in a position to help his friends and to amount to something as an aid in that line. Now that he is running with the rabble, for some purpose of his own, he can be ignored. He amounts to nothing—to that!" He snapped a derogatory finger into his palm. "We can handle that rabble, Morrison included." He turned to the adjutant-general. "Your men seem to be alert enough in keeping out gentlemen who ought to be let in. Do you think you can depend on them to keep out real intruders?"
"Oh yes!" faltered Totten, absent-mindedly. He was trying to clear his troubled thoughts in regard to the matter of Morrison, who was now presented in a light where politeness might not be allowed to govern the situation.
"Have they been put to any test of their courage and reliability? Have they been up against any actual threats from the outside, this evening?"
"No, but I can depend on them to the limit, Senator Corson. I have been on regular tours of inspection. They are a cool and nervy set of young men and I have impressed on them a sense of what a soldier on duty should be."
"Very well, Totten! Nevertheless, let us hope that the mob fools have gone home to bed, including our friend Morrison. He needs his sleep; I believe he still follows the family rule of being in his mill at seven in the morning. He's a good millman, even if he isn't much of a politician."
"And I don't look for any trouble, anyway," declared General Totten, adding in his thoughts, for his further consolation, the assurance that, at half past eleven, so the clock on the wall revealed to his gaze, such an early riser as Morrison must be abed and asleep; therefore, the exception for the sake of politeness did not threaten to complicate affairs!
But at that instant something else did threaten.
Through the arches and corridors of the State House rang the sounds of tumult, breaking on the hush with terrifying suddenness. One voice, shouting with frenzied violence, prefaced the general uproar; there was the crashing of shattered wood.
The rifles barked angrily.
"My God, North! I've been afraid of it!" Corson lamented. "You have crowded 'em too hard!"
"I'm going by the law, Corson! The election law! The statute law! And the riot laws of this state! The law says a mob must be put down!"
An immediate and reassuring silence suggested that the law had prevailed and that a mob had been put down in this instance. Corson, whose face was white and whose eyes were distended, voiced that conviction. "If a gang had been able to get in they'd be howling their heads off. But it was quick over!"
The men in the Executive Chamber stood in their tracks and exchanged troubled glances in silence.
"Amos, what are you waiting for?" demanded His Excellency.
"For a report—an official report on the matter," mumbled the adjutant-general, steadying his trembling hands by shoving them inside his sword-belt.
"Go down and find out what it all means."
"I can save time by telephoning to the watchman's room," demurred Totten.
"Incidentally saving your skin!" the Governor rapped back. "But I don't care how you get the information, if only you get it and get it sudden!"
Totten went to the house telephone in the private secretary's room and called and waited; he called again and waited.
"Nobody is on his job in this State House to-night!" His Excellency's fears had wire-edged his temper. "By gad! you go down there and tend to yours, as I have told you to do, Amos, or I'll take that sword and race you along the corridor on the point of it!"
"We must be informed on what this means," insisted the Senator.
There was a rap on the private door. Again the men in the Executive Chamber swapped uneasy glances. Corson's demeanor invited the Governor to assume the responsibility. His Excellency was manifestly shirking. He looked over his shoulder in the direction of the fireplace, as if he felt an impulse to arm himself with the ornamental poker and tongs.
"May I come in?" The voice was that of the mayor of Marion. The voice was deprecatory.
"Come in!" invited North.
Morrison entered. He greeted them with a wide smile that did not fit the seriousness of the situation, as they viewed it. There was humor behind the smile; it suggested suppressed hilarity; it hinted that he had something funny to tell them.
But their grim countenances did not encourage him.
"If I am intruding on important business——"
"Shut the door behind you! What is it? What happened?" demanded North.
Before shutting the door Morrison reached into the gloom behind him and pulled in a soldier.
Stewart had put off his evening garb. He wore a business suit of the shaggy gray mixture that was one of the staples among the products of St. Ronan's mill. His matter-of-fact attire was not the only element that set him out in sharp contrast among the claw-hammers and uniforms in the room; he was bubbling with undisguised merriment; Corson, Daunt, and the Governor were sullenly anxious; even the young soldier looked flustered and frightened.
"I have brought along Paul Duchesne so that you may have it from his own mouth! Go ahead, Duchesne! Let 'em in on the joke! Gentlemen, get ready for a laugh!" Stewart set an example for them by a suggestive chuckle.
"Your arrival in the State House seems to have been attended by considerable of a demonstration," commented Senator Corson, recovering himself sufficiently to indulge in his animosity. "Judging from your success in starting other riots this evening, I ought to have guessed that you were in the neighborhood."
"My arrival had nothing whatever to do with the demonstration, Senator. Go on, Duchesne!"
"I jomped myself," stammered the soldier, a particularly crestfallenCanuck.
"I see you don't grasp the idea," Morrison hastened to put in. "We mustn't have the flavor of the joke spoiled. I know Paul, here. He works in my mill. He has a little affliction that's rather common among French Canadians. He's a jumper." He suddenly clapped the youth on the shoulder and yelled "Hi!" so loudly that all the auditors leaped in trepidation. The soldier leaped the highest, flung his arms about wildly, and let out a resounding yelp.
"That's the idea!" explained Stewart. "A congenital nervous trouble.Jumpers, they are called!"
"What the devil is this all about?" raged the Governor.
"Tell 'em, Paul. Hurry up!"
"I gone off on de nap on a settee," muttered Duchesne, twisting his fingers together.
General Totten winced.
"Dere ban whole lot o' dem gone off on de nap, too," asserted the guard, offering defense for himself.
"By way of showing alertness, Totten!" growled the Senator.
"So I ban dream somet'ing! Ba gar! I dream dat t'ree or two bobcat he come—"
"Never mind the details of the dream, Paul!" interposed Morrison. "These gentlemen have business! Get 'em to the laugh, quick!"
"Ma big button on ma belt she caught on de crack between de slat of dat settee. And when I fight all dat bobcat dat jomp on maself, ba gee! it was de settee dat fall on me and I fight dat all over de floor. Dat's all! Oh yes! Dey all wake up and shoot!"
"And nobody hurt!" stated Morrison. He gazed at the sour faces of the listeners. "Great Scott! Doesn't Duchesne's battle to the death with a settee get even a grin? What's the matter with all of you?"
"We seem to be quite all right—in our normal senses," returned the Senator, icily. "I believe there are persons who gibber and giggle at mishaps to others—but I also believe that such a peculiar sense of humor is confined largely to institutions for the refuge of the feeble-minded."
"You may go back to your nap, Duchesne!" The mayor turned on the soldier and spoke sharply. He followed the young man to the door and closed it behind Duchesne.
He marched across the chamber and faced the surly Governor. "I brought the boy here, Your Excellency, so that you might get the thing straight. I hope you believe him, even if you don't take much stock in me!" Morrison's face matched the others in gravity. There was an incisive snap in his tone. "I happened to be in the rotunda when the—"
"How did you happen to be in the rotunda, sir—past the guards?"
"I walked in."
"By whose permission?"
"Why, I reckoned it must have been yours," returned Stewart, calmly.
"I gave no such permission."
"Well, at any rate, I was informed by the guards that a special exception had been made in my case. Furthermore, Governor North, you told me this evening that if I needed any specific information I could find you at the State House."
"By telephone, sir! By telephone! I distinctly stipulated that!"
"I'm sorry! I was considerably engrossed by other matters just then. Perhaps I didn't get you straight. However, telephone conferences are apt to be unsatisfactory for both parties. I'm glad I came up. I assure you it's no personal inconvenience to me, sir!"
"There's a fine system of military guard here, and a fine bunch to enforce it. That's what I've got on my mind to say!" whipped out the Senator. "If one man and a settee can show up your soldiers in that fashion, Totten, what will a real affair do to them?"
"Nobody sent for you, Mayor Morrison. Nobody understands why you're here," stated Governor North. "You're not needed."
The intruder hesitated for a few moments. His eyes found no welcome in any of the faces in the Executive Chamber. He swapped a whimsical smile for their frowns.
"Well, at all events, I'm here," he said, mildly.
He was carrying his overcoat on his arm, his hat in his hand. He went across the room and laid the garment carefully on the divan, smoothing its folds. His manner indicated that he felt that the coat might be lying there for some little time, and consideration for good cloth was ingrained in a Morrison.
Morrison, returning from the shadows, standing in the light-flood from the great chandelier, confronted three men who were making no effort to disguise their angry hostility.
The adjutant-general, nervously neutral, dreading incautious words that would reveal his unfortunate policy of politeness, tiptoed to the table and laid there the bunch of keys. "I'm needed officially down-stairs, Your Excellency!"
"By Judas! I should think you were!"
Stewart placed a restraining hand on Totten's arm. "I beg your pardon, Governor, but we need the adjutant-general of the state in our conference."
"Conference aboutwhat?"
"About the situation that's developing outside, sir."
"I'm principally interested in the situation that has developed inside. In just what capacity do you appear here?"
There was offensive challenge in every intonation of North's voice. His eyes protruded, purple circlets made his cheek-bones look like little knobs, he shoved forward his eye-glasses as far as the cord permitted and waggled them with a hand that trembled.
Morrison's good humor continued; his calmness was giving him a distinct advantage, and North, still shaken by the panic of a few moments before, was forced farther off his poise by realization of that advantage.
"Allow me to be present simply as an unprejudiced constituent of yours,Governor North."
"Judging from all reports, I'm not sure whether you are a constituent or not. I'm considerably doubtful about your politics, Morrison."
"I hope you don't intend to read me out of the party, sir! But if that question is in doubt, please permit me to be here as the mayor of the city of Marion. There's no doubt about my being that!"
"Let me remind you that this is the State House, not City Hall."
"But tolerate me for a few minutes! I beg of you, sir! Both of us are sworn executives!"
"Your duties lie where you belong—down in your city. This is the StateHouse, I repeat!"
"Do you absolutely refuse to give me a courteous hearing?"
"Under the circumstances, after your actions this evening, after your public alliance with the mob and your boasts of what you were coming up here to do, I'm taking no chances on you. You're only an intruder. Again, this is the State House!"
Morrison dropped his deference. He shot out a forefinger that was just as emphatic as the Governor's eye-glasses. "I accept your declaration as to what this place is! It is the State House. It is the Big House of the People. I'm a joint owner in it. I'm here on my own ground as a citizen, as a taxpayer in this state. I have personal business here. Let me inform you, Governor North, that I'm going to stay until I finish that business."
"That poppycock kind of reasoning would allow every mob-mucker in this state to rampage through here at his own sweet will. General Totten, call a corporal and his squad. Put this man out."
Senator Corson grunted his indorsement and went to a chair and sat down. His Excellency was pursuing his familiar tactics in an emergency—the rough tactics that were characteristic of him. In this case Senator Corson approved and allowed the Governor to boss the operation.
"I—I think, Mayor Morrison," ventured the adjutant-general, "considering that recent perfect understanding we had on the matter, that we'd do well to keep this on the plane of politeness."
"So do I," Stewart agreed.
"Then I hazard the guess that you'll accompany me down-stairs to the door.Calling a guard would be mutually embarrassing."
"It sure would," asserted Stewart, agreeing still.
"Then—" The general crooked a polite arm and offered it.
"But your guess was too much of a hazard! You don't win!"
However, Morrison turned on his heel and ran toward the private door. He appeared to be solving all difficulties by flight. It was plain that those in the room supposed so; their tension relaxed; the mayor of Marion was manifestly avoiding the ignominy of ejection from the Capitol by the militia—and that would be a fine piece of news to be bruited on the streets next day, if he had remained to force that issue!
Stewart flung open the door. But instead of stepping through he stepped back. "Come in," he called.
Paymaster Andrew Mac Tavish led the way, plodding stolidly, his neck particularly rigid. Delora Bunker, stenographer at St. Ronan's mill, followed. Last came Patrolman Rellihan, his bulk nigh filling the door, his helmeted head almost scraping the lintel. He carried a night-stick that resembled a flail-handle rather than the usual locust club. Morrison slammed the door and Rellihan put his back against it.
There was a profound hush in the Executive Chamber. The feet of those who entered made no sound on the thick carpet. Those who were in the chamber offered evidence of the truism that there are situations where words fail to do justice to the emotions.
Morrison was the first to speak. He walked to the table before uttering a word; on his way across the room his eyes were on the keys. When he leaned on the table he put one hand over them. "This invasion seems outrageous, gentlemen. Undoubtedly it is. But I have tried another plan with you and it did not succeed. I had hoped that I would not need these assistants whom I have just called in."
"Totten, go bring the guard!" North's voice was balefully subdued.
Rellihan looked straight ahead and twirled his stick.
"I apologize for stretching my special exception a bit, and introducing these guests past the boys at the door," Stewart went on. "I'm breaking the rules of politeness—and the rules of everything else, I'm afraid. But all rules seem to be suspended to-night!"
"Totten!" the Governor roared, pounding his fist on the arm of his chair.
Morrison gave the policeman a side-glance as if to inform himself that all was right with Rellihan.
Then he pulled a handy chair to the table and motioned to Miss Bunker. She sat down and opened her note-book.
"I have come here on business, gentlemen, and you must allow me to follow some of my business methods. The heat of argument often causes men to forget what has been said. I'm willing to leave what I may say to the record, and, in view of the fact that all this is public business, I trust I'll have your co-operation along the same line. And there's a young lady present," he added. "That fact will help us to get along wonderfully well together."
"What's that devilish policeman doing at my door?" demanded the Governor, finding that his frantic gestures were not starting the adjutant-general on his way.
"Insuring complete privacy!" The mayor beamed on the Governor. "Nothing gets in—nothing gets out!"
North grabbed the telephone instrument on his desk.
One of Stewart's hands was covering the keys; with the fingers of the other hand he had been fumbling under the edge of the desk. He suddenly pulled wires from the confining staples; he yanked a big mill-knife from his trousers pocket and cut the wires. North flung a dead instrument clattering on the broad table and found only oaths fit to apply to this perfectly amazing effrontery.
"You need not take, Miss Bunker!" The quiet dignity of Morrison and the rebuke the Governor found in the girl's contemplative eyes choked off the profanity as effectively as would gripping fingers at his throat.
"I realize that all this is absolutely unprecedented—has never been done before—is unadulterated gall on my part, Governor North. Perhaps I haven't a leg to stand on."
"Morrison, this infernal nonsense must cease!"
Senator Corson shouted, leaping from his chair and shaking both fists.
"You need not take, Miss Bunker!"
Corson gulped and surveyed the young lady, and found her eyes as disconcertingly rebuking as they had proved in the case of North.
"Not especially on account of the style of your language, Senator! But you are merely a visitor here, the same as I! At the present time your comments on the business between the Governor and myself can scarcely have any weight in the record."
"What in blazes is that business? Get it out of you!" commanded the other principal in the controversy.
"With pleasure! Thank you for coming down to the matter in hand. You may take, Miss Bunker.
"Governor North, I have been about among people this evening and—"
"You have been making incendiary speeches, and I demand to know what you have said and why you have said it!"
"I have no time now to go into those details. My business is more pressing, sir."
"You're in cahoots with a mob! I saw you operating, with my own eyes, under my own roof," asserted Senator Corson, violently.
"I have no time for discussing that matter." Morrison looked up at the clock on the wall. "This other business, I assert, is urgent."
Banker Daunt had been holding his peace, growling anathema to himself in the depths of a big chair.
He struggled to the edge of that chair. "I am in this building right now to warn the Governor of this state that you are playing your own selfish game to stifle enterprise and development and to discourage outside capital—hundreds of thousands of it—waiting to come in here."
"Pardon me, sir! I have no time to discuss water-power, either! Right now I'm submitting news instead of theories!" He faced the Governor again. "That's why I'm here—I'm bringing news. That news must put everything else to one side. We have minutes only to deal with the matter. And if we don't use those minutes with all the wisdom that's in us, the shame of our state will be on the wires of the world inside of an hour!"
His vehemence intimidated them. His manner as the bearer of ill tidings won what his appeals had not secured—an instant hearing.
"What I say will be a matter of record, and the blame will be placed where it belongs. You can't claim that you didn't have facts. I have been among the people. I have sent others among 'em and I have received reports and I know what I am talking about. There's a mob massing down-town—a mob made up of many different elements! That kind of mob can't be handled by mere arguments or by machine-guns. That mob must be shown! Talking won't do any good. Just a moment! You won't do what you ought to do, Governor, unless you have this thing driven straight at you! In that mob are the men who have voted for various members of the legislature who claim seats and whose seats are threatened. It's a personal matter with those men. You can't soft-soap 'em to-night with promises of what the courts will do. Several hundred huskies are on the way over here from the Agawam quarries Those men don't care about this or that candidate. They have been paid to grab in on general principles—and they're bringing sledge-hammers. In that mob, also, are the Red aliens who keep under cover till a row breaks out; any kind of trouble suits their purpose—and you know what their purpose is in regard to this government of ours. They're coming, I tell you. They're coming on to Capitol Hill!"
"And what have you been doing to stop 'em, after all your promises of what you'd do?" raged North.
"I've been doing the best I could, with what loyal boys I could depend on.But I want to know now whatyou'regoing to do?"
"Shoot every damnation thug of 'em who gets in range of our machine-guns.Totten, hustle yourself down-stairs and see that it's done!"
"Genera! Totten will not leave this room—not now! You're all wrong,Governor."
"That's the way a mob was handled in one state in this Union not so very long ago, and the Governor was right! He was hailed from one end of the country to the other as right!"
"The principle behind him was right—that's what you mean, Governor North.That was just the point he made!"
"Do you dare to stand there and intimate that I haven't got principle behind me? Statute law, election law?"
Morrison glanced again at the clock; then he tossed a bomb into the argument. "The principle in this instance is a pretty wabbly backing, sir. I'm afraid that even my loyal boys will join the mob if the news gets out about those election returns in certain districts—the returns that were sent back secretly to be corrected."
The bomb had all the effect that Morrison hoped for. His Excellency slumped back in his chair and "pittered" his lips wordlessly.
"I don't think the news has actually got out among the general public, but it's apt to leak any minute, sir. You can't afford to take chances."
"Such slander is preposterous!" Corson asserted. "What used to be done—reviving old stories—I say that our party will not lend its countenance to any such tricks." In his excitement he had dropped an admission as to the past in politics while offering a disclaimer as to the present.
"There's no time now for any political discussions," retorted Morrison, curtly. "It's a matter right now of side-tracking a fight. If that fight comes off, Governor North, the truth will come out. And you can't point to a principle in your case as an excuse for bloodshed!"
"If a mob attacks this State House there's got to be a fight."
"It takes two to make a fight, sir. Order General Totten to march his troops out of the State House. Machine-guns and all! Tell 'em to go home and go to bed."
That audacious advice was a second bomb!
After a few moments Senator Corson leaped out of his chair, strode across the room, and plucked his coat and hat from the divan. "Come along, Daunt!" he counseled, his voice cracking hoarsely.
"Hold on, Senator!" expostulated the Governor. "I need your help!"
"I won't allow myself to be mixed into this mess, North. I can't afford to help shoulder the blame where I have not been fully informed. And I won't allow a lunatic to endanger my life. Come on, Daunt, I tell you!"
"If you're bound to go, I'll go along, too," proffered the Governor, rising hastily. "This thing can be handled. It's got to be handled. We'll go where this infernal, clattering loom from St. Ronan's mill can't break up a gentlemen's conference."
Stewart did not suggest that the gentlemen remain; nor did he offer to go; nor did he plead for a decision. He stood quietly and watched them pull on their overcoats.
The Senator led the retreat toward the private door.
Morrison dropped the captured bunch of keys into his pocket.
Rellihan held his club horizontally in front of him with both hands.
"Get out of the way!" yelped Corson.
The officer shook his head.
"General Totten, open that door."
"No chance!" Rellihan growled.
North wagged his way close to the barring "fender" and shook an admonitory finger under the policeman's nose. "I'm the Governor of this state! I order you to move away from that door."
"I can't help what ye are! I'm taking me orders on'y fr'm the mayor o'Marion."
"You see, gentlemen!" suggested Morrison. "It looks as if we'd be obliged to settle our business right where we are—in this room. Time is short. Won't you come back here to the table?"
There was absolute silence in the Executive Chamber—a silence that continued. The dignitaries at the door deigned to accord to Morrison neither glance nor word; they would not indulge his incredible audacity to that extent. As to Rellihan, they did not feel like stooping so low as to waste words on the impassive giant who personified an ignorant insolence that made no account of personalities. They adventured in no move against that obstacle in their path, either by concerted attack or individual effort to pass. They looked like wakened sleepers who were struggling with the problems proposed in a nightmare. It was a situation which seemed beyond solution by the ordinary sensible methods.
After a time Governor North voiced in a coarse manner, inadequately, some expression of the emotion that was dominating the group. "What in hell is the matter with us, anyway?"
Again there was a prolonged silence.
"Seeing that nobody else seems to want to express an opinion on the subject, I'll tell you what the matter is, as I look at it," ventured Stewart, chattily matter-of-fact. "We're all native-born Americans in this room. Right down deep in our hearts we're not afraid of our soldiers. We good-naturedly indulge the boys when they are called on to exercise authority. But from the time an American youngster begins to steal apples and junk and throw snowballs and break windows a healthy fear of a regular cop is ingrained in him. It's a fear he doesn't stop to analyze. It's just there, that's all he knows. Even a perfectly law-abiding citizen walking home late feels a little tingle of anxiety in him when he marches past a cop. Puts on an air as much as to say, 'I hope you think I'm all right, officer—tending right to my own business!' So, in this case, it's only your ingrained American nature talking to you, gentlemen! You're all right! Nothing is the matter with you! It ought to please you because you feel that way! Proves you are truly American. 'Don't monkey with the cop!' Just as long as we obey that watchword we've got a good government!"
Senator Corson was more infuriated by that bland preachment than he would have been by vitriolic insult. While he marched back to the table he prefaced his arraignment of Morrison by calling him an impudent pup. He dwelt on that subject with all his power of invective for some minutes.
"I agree with you, Senator," admitted Morrison when Corson stopped to gather more ammunition of anathema. "But what are you going to do about it?"
He asked the same question after the Senator had finished a statement of his opinion on the obstinacy of the lunkhead at the door.
The Senator kept on in his objurgation. But whenever he looked at the door he found the policeman there, an immovable obstacle.
Whenever Corson looked at Morrison he met everlastingly that hateful query.
Both the question and the cop were impossible, impassable. Corson found the thing too outrageously ridiculous to be handled by sane argument; his insanity in declamation was getting him nowhere.
"There's only one subject before the meeting," insisted Stewart. "We've got to keep this state from being ashamed of itself when it wakes up to-morrow morning!"
Somewhere, in some hidden place in the room, a subdued buzzing began and continued persistently.
The understanding that passed between Corson and North in the glance which they exchanged was immediate and highly informative, even had the observer been obtuse. But in that crisis Stewart Morrison was not obtuse.
Whether it was deference, one to the other, or caution in general that was dominating the Senator and the Governor was not clearly revealed by their countenance. At any rate, they made no move.
"Pardon me, Senator Corson," said Stewart. "I'm quite sure I know where the other end of that telephone line is. I think your daughter is calling!" His inquisitive eyes were searching the walls of the chamber; the source of the buzzing was not easily to be located by the sound.
The Governor suddenly dumped himself out of his chair and started across the room.
Morrison strode into His Excellency's path and extended a restraining arm that was as authoritative as Rellihan's club. "I beg your pardon, too, Governor! But that call is undoubtedly for Senator Corson. I happen to know quite a lot about the conveniences in his residence!"
"And all the evening you have been using that knowledge to help you in violating my hospitality! Morrison, you're not much else than a sneak!" affirmed Corson.
The Governor struck his fist against the rigid arm and spat an oath in Morrison's face, "Get out of my way! I'm in my own office—I'll tend to that call!"
"No, you'll not!" was Morrison's quick rejoinder. "Senator Corson, if you want to inform your daughter that you're all safe—if you want to ask her not to worry, you'd better answer. But I must insist that a private line shall not be used to convey out of this room any of our public business!"
Corson then became the only moving figure in the tableau; he went to the wall, pushed aside a huge frame which held the state's coat of arms, and pulled from a niche a telephone on an extension arm. He proceeded to display his utter contempt for commands issuing from the absurd interloper who was presuming in such dictation to dignity "Yes! Lana! Call High-sheriff Dalton! As quickly as possible! Tell him to secure a posse. Tell him I'm in the State House, threatened by a lunatic. Tell him—"
By that time Morrison was at Corson's side and was wresting the instrument from the wall. He broke off the arm and the wires and flung them across the room.
"There's fight enough on the docket, as the thing stands, without calling in another bunch to make it three-sided, sir! Rellihan, open the door for Mac Tavish! Andy, run to the public booth in the corridor and call Dalton and tell him to pay no attention to any hullabaloo by hysterical women. Tell him I said so! Ask him to keep that to himself. And rush back!"
He turned on the Senator and the Governor.
There was no longer apology or compromise in the demeanor of the mayor of Marion. "I know I'm a rank outsider! You needn't try to tell me what I know myself. I didn't think I'd need to be so rank! But I'm just what you're forcing me to be. I have jumped in here to stop something that there's no more sense in than there is in a dog-fight. They may fight in spite of all I can do! But, by the gods! I'm not going to stand by and see men like you rub their ears! Senator Corson, I advise you and Governor North to go and sit down. You're only making spectacles of yourselves!"
After Senator Corson had recovered his poise his dignity asserted itself and he sat down and assumed an attitude that suggested the frigidity of a statue on an ice-cake. He checked Governor North with an impatient flap of the hand. "You have had your innings as a manager, North!"
He proceeded frostily with Morrison. "There was never a situation in state history like this one you have precipitated, sir, and if I have made an ass of myself I was copying current manners."
"It is a strange situation, I'll admit, Senator," Morrison agreed.
"As a newsmonger, you say, do you, that minutes are valuable?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Well, we'd better find out how valuable they are. Will you send GeneralTotten below to investigate?"
Morrison surveyed appraisingly the panoplied adjutant-general. "I'd never think of making General Totten an errand-boy, sir, if I'm to imply that I have any say in affairs just now."
"You have assumed all say! You have put gentlemen in a position where they can't help themselves." The Senator scowled in the direction of Rellihan. But Rellihan did not mind; right then he was opening the door to the returning Mac Tavish.
"I routed Mac Tavish out of bed and brought him along to attend to errands. He will go and see how matters are below, and outside," proffered Morrison, courteously.
The self-appointed manager gave Mac Tavish his new orders and added: "Inquire, please, if any telegrams have arrived for me. I'm expecting some."
Rellihan again deferentially opened the door for the messenger of the mayor of Marion; Mac Tavish had knocked and given his name. "It's all richt, sir!" he had reported on his arrival from his mission to the telephone.
The exasperated Governor viewed that free ingress and muttered.
Mac Tavish's unimpeded egress on the second errand provoked the Governor more acutely.
"Morrison, I'm now talking strictly for myself," went on the Senator. "I shall use plain words. By your attitude you directly accuse me of being a renegade in politics. To all intents and purposes I am under arrest, as a person dangerous to be at large in the affairs that are pressing."
"Senator Corson, I don't believe you ever did a deliberately wrong or wicked thing in your life, as an individual."
"I thank you!"
"But deliberately political methods can be wicked in their general results, even if those methods are sanctioned by usage. It's wicked to start a fight here to-night by allowing political misunderstandings to play fast and loose with the people."
"You're a confounded imbecile, that's what you are," shouted GovernorNorth.
The mayor turned on him. "Replying in the same sort of language, so that you may understand right where you and I get off in our relations, I'll tell you that you're the kind of man who would use grandmothers in a matched fight to settle a political grudge—if the other fellow had a grandmother and you could borrow one. Now let me alone, sir! I am talking with Senator Corson!"
The Senator squelched the Governor with another gesture. "We have our laws, Morrison. We must abide by 'em. And the political game must be played according to the law."
"I think I have already expressed my opinion to you about that game, sir. I'll say again that in this country politics is no longer a mere game to be played for party advantage and the aggrandizement of individuals. The folks won't stand for that stuff any longer."
"I think you and North, both of you, are overexcited. You're going off half cocked. You are exaggerating a tempest in a teapot."
"If every community in this country gets right down to business and stops the teapot tempests by good sense in handling them when they start, we'll be able to prevent a general tornado that may sweep us all to Tophet, Senator Corson."
"Legislation on broad lines will remedy our troubles. We are busy inWashington on such matters."
"Good luck to the cure-all, sir! But in the mean time we need specific doses, right at home, in every community, early and often. That's what we ought to be tending to to-night, here in Marion. If every city and town does the same thing, the country at large won't have to worry."
Senator Corson kept his anxious gaze on the private door. "Well, let's have it, Morrison! You seem to be bossing matters, just as you threatened to do. What's your dose in this case?"
"I wasn't threatening! I was promising."
"Promising what?"
"That the people would get a square deal in this legislative matter."
"You don't underrate your abilities, I note!"
"Oh, I was not promising to do it myself. I have no power in state politics. I was promising that Governor North and his Executive Councilors who canvassed the election returns would give the folks a square deal."
In his rage the Governor, defying such presumptuous interference, was not fortunate in phrasing his declaration that Morrison had no right to promise any such thing.
The big millman surveyed His Excellency with a whimsical expression of distress. "Why, I supposed I had the right to promise that much on behalf of our Chief Executive. You aren't going to deny 'em a square deal—you don't mean that, do you, sir?"
"Confound your impudence, you have no right to twist my meaning. I'm going by the law—strictly by the statutes! The question will be put up to the court."
"Certainly!" affirmed Senator Corson. "It must go to the court."
Just then Rellihan slammed the private door with a sort of official violence.
Mac Tavish had entered. He marched straight to Morrison with the stiff jerkiness of an automaton. He carried a sealed telegram and held it as far in front of himself as possible. Stewart seized upon it and tore the envelope. "I'm glad to hear you say that about the court, gentlemen. I have taken a liberty this evening. Will you please wait a moment while I glance at this?"
It was plainly, so his manner indicated, something that had a bearing on the issue. They leaned forward and attended eagerly on him when he began to read aloud:
"My opinion hastily given for use if emergency is such as you mention is that mere technicalities, clerical errors that can be shown to be such or minor irregularities should not be allowed to negative will of voter when same has been shown beyond reasonable doubt. Signed, Davenport, Judge Supreme Judicial Court."
Morrison waited a few moments, gazing from face to face. Then he leaned across the table and gave the telegram into the hands of Miss Bunker. "Make it a part of the record, please," he directed.
"Well, I'll be eternally condemned!" roared the Governor. "You're a rank outsider. You don't know what you're talking about. How do you dare to involve the judges? They don't know what they're talking about, either, on a point of law, in this case."
"Perhaps Judge Davenport isn't talking law, wholly, in that telegram. He may be saying a word as an honest man who doesn't want to see his state disgraced by riot and bloodshed to-night." The mayor addressed Mac Tavish with eager emphasis. "What do you find down below, Andy?"
"Nae pairticular pother withindoors. Muckle powwow wi'out," reported the old man, tersely.
"Then you got a look outside?"
"Aye! When I took the message frae the telegraph laddie at the door."
"Was Joe Lanigan in sight?"
"Aye!"
"It's all right so far, gentlemen," the mayor assured his involuntary conferees. "Joe is on the job with his American Legion boys, as he promised me he'd be. Now I'm going to be perfectly frank and inform you that I have made a promise of my own in this case. I haven't meant to be presumptuous. I don't want you to feel that I've got a swelled head. I'm merely trying to keep my word and carry out a contract on a business oasis. It's only a matter of starting right; then everything can be kept right."
He whirled on Mac Tavish. "Trot down again, Andy. I'm expecting more messages. And keep us posted on happenings!"
"Are such humble persons as North and I are entitled to be let in on any details of your contract, Mister Boss-in-Chief?" inquired the Senator.
"I think the main contract is your own, sir—yours and the Governor's. I don't like to seem too forward in suggesting what it is."
"Nothing you can say or do from now on will seem forward, Morrison. Even if you should order that Hereford steer, there, at the door, to bang us over our heads with his shillalah, it would seem merely like an anticlimax, matched with the rest of your cheek! What's the contract?"
"You and North stated the terms of it, yourselves, when you were campaigning last election. You said that if you were elected you'd be the servants of the people."
"What in the devil do you claim we are now?"
"I make no assertion. But when I was down with the bunch this evening I was able to get into the spirit of the crowd. I found myself, feeling, just as they said they felt, that it's a queer state of affairs when servants barricade themselves in a master's castle and use other paid servants to threaten with rifles and machine-guns when the master demands entry."
"I'd be carrying out my contract, would I, by disbanding that militia and opening this State House to the mob?" demanded North.
"This is a peculiar emergency, sir," Morrison insisted. "Outside are massing all the elements of a know-nothing, rough-house mêlée. Even the Legion boys don't know just where they're at till there's a showdown. I can depend on 'em right now while they're waiting for that showdown. They'll fight their finger-nails off to hold the plain rowdies in line. Such boys have been showing their mettle in one city in this country, haven't they? But a mere licking, no matter which side wins, doesn't last long enough for any general good unless the licking is based on principle and the principle is thereby established as right! Now let me tell you, Governor North. You can't fool those Legion boys outside. They have come home with new conceptions of what is a square deal. They're plumb on to the old-fashioned tricks in cheap politics. They're not letting officeholders play checkers with 'em any longer.
"Governor—and you, Senator Corson—this is now a question of to-night—an emergency—an exigency! I have told those boys that they will be shown! You've got to show 'em. Show 'em that this State House is always open to decent citizens. Show 'em that you, as officeholders, don't need machine-guns to back you up in your stand." He emphasized each declaration by a resounding thump of his fist on the table. "Show 'em that it's a square deal, and that your cuffs are rolled up when you deal! Show 'ern that you're not bluffing honestly elected members of this incoming legislature out of their seats by closing the doors on 'em to-morrow. That's your contract! Are you going to keep it?"
Mac Tavish returned. He brought another telegram.
Morrison ripped the inclosure from the envelope.
"It's of the same purport as the other," he reported. "Signed, 'Madigan,Justice Supreme Judicial Court.' Back to the door, Mac Tavish. Here, MissBunker, insert this in the record."
"This is simply preposterous!" exploded the Senator.
"Rather irregular, certainly," Stewart confessed. "But I didn't ask 'em for red tape! I asked 'em for quick action to prevent bloodshed!"
Senator Corson's fresh fury did not allow him to reason with himself or argue with this interloper, this lunatic who was flailing about in that sanctuary of vested authority, knocking down hallowed procedure, sacred precedents—all the gods of the fane!
"Morrison, no such an outrage as this was ever perpetrated in American politics!"
"It surely does seem to be a new wrinkle, Senator! I'll confess that I don't know much about politics. It's all new to me. I apologize for the mistakes I'm making. Probably I'll know more when I've been in politics a little longer."
"You will, sir!"
Governor North agreed with that dictum, heartily, irefully.
"I do seem to be finding out new things every minute or so," went on Stewart, making the agreement unanimous. "Taking your opinion as experts, perhaps I may qualify as an expert, too, before the evening is over."
"Where is this infernal folly of yours heading you?" Corson permitted his wrath to dominate him still farther. He shook his fist under Morrison's nose.
"Straight toward a Bright Light, Senator! I'm putting no name on it. But I'm keeping my eyes on it. And I can't stop to notice what I'm knocking down or whose feet I'm treading on."
The Senator went to Governor North and struck his fist down on His Excellency's shoulder. "I've been having some doubts about your methods, sir, but now I'm with you, shoulder to shoulder, to save this situation. Pay no attention to those telegrams. There's no telling what that idiot has wired to the justices. This man has not an atom of authority. You cannot legally share your authority with him. To defer to one of his demands will be breaking your oath to preserve order and protect state property."
"Exactly! I don't need that advice, Corson, but I do need your support. I shall go ahead strictly according to the constitution and the statutes."
"I am glad to hear you say that, Governor," stated Morrison.
"Did you expect that I was going to join you and your mob of lawbreakers?"
"Your explicit statement pleases me, I say. Shall you follow the constitution absolutely, in every detail?"
"Absolutely! In every detail."
"Right down to the last technical letter of it?"
"Good gad! what do you mean by asking me such fool questions?"
"I'm getting a direct statement from you on the point. For the record!" He pointed to the stenographer.
"I shall observe the constitution of this state to the last letter of it, absolutely, undeviatingly. And now, as Governor of this state, I shall proceed to exert my authority. Put that statement in the record! I order you to leave the State House immediately. Record that, too! Otherwise I shall prefer charges before the courts that will put you in state prison, Morrison!"
"Do you know exactly the provisions of the constitution relating to your office, sir?"
"I do."
"Don't you realize that, according to the technical stand you take, you have no more official right in this Capitol than I have, just now?"
His Excellency's silence, his stupefaction, suggested that his convictions as to Morrison's lunacy were finally clinched.
"The constitution, that you have invoked, expressly provides that a Governor's term of office expires at midnight, on the day preceding the assembling of the first session of the legislature. You will be Governor in the morning at ten-thirty o'clock, when you take your oath before the joint session. But by your own clock up there you ceased to be Governor of this state five minutes ago!" Morrison drawled that statement in a very placid manner. His forefinger pointed to the clock on the wall of the Executive Chamber.
Governor North did know the constitution, even if he did not know the time o' night until his attention had been drawn to it. He was disconcerted only for a moment; then he snorted his disgust, roused by this attempt of a tyro to read him a lesson in law.
Senator Corson expressed himself. "Don't bother us with such nonsense!Such a ridiculous point has never been raised."
"But this is a night of new wrinkles, as we have already agreed," insisted the mayor of Marion. "I'm right along with the Governor, neck and neck, in his observance of the letter of the law."
"Well, then, we'll stick to the letter," snapped His Excellency. "I have declared this State House under martial law. The adjutant-general, here, is in command of the troops and the situation."
"I'm glad to know that. I'll talk with General Totten in a moment!"
Again Mac Tavish came trotting past Rellihan.
Morrison snatched away the telegram that his agent proffered; but the master demanded news before proceeding to open the missive.
"There's summat in the air," reported Andrew. "Much blust'ring; the square is crowded! Whilst I was signing the laddie's book Lanigan cried me the word for ye to look sharp and keep the promise, else he wouldna answer for a'!"
"Gentlemen, I'll let you construe your own contracts according to your consciences. I have one of my own to carry out. Mac Tavish has just handed me a jolt on it!
"Governor North, seeing that your contract with the state is temporarily suspended, I suppose we'll have to excuse you to some extent, after all! Mac Tavish, step here, close to me!"
The old man obeyed; the two stood in the full glare of the chandelier.
Stewart held up his right hand. "You're a notary public, Andrew. Administer an oath! Like that one you administered to me when I was sworn in as mayor of Marion. You can remember the gist of it."
"In what capaceety do you serve, Master Morrison?" inquired Mac Tavish, stolidly.
Stewart hesitated a moment, taking thought. "I'm going to volunteer as a sort of an Executive, gentlemen," he explained, deferentially. "The exigency seems to need one. I have heard that a good Executive is one who acts quickly and is right—part of the time! I'm indebted to Senator Corson for a suggestion he made a little while ago. I think, Mac Tavish, you'd better swear me in as Boss of the Job."