An American Politician

F >> F. Marion Crawford >> An American Politician

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It has been seen that the three kept a sort of political ledger, which was
always in the hands of the president for the time being, whose duty it was
to make the insertions necessary from time to time. Some conception of the
extent and value of the book may be formed from the fact that it contained
upwards of ten thousand names, including those of almost every prominent
man, and of not a few remarkable women in the principal centres of the
country. The details given were invariably brief and to the point, written
down in a simple but safe form of cipher which was perfectly familiar to
every one of the three. This vast mass of information was simply the
outcome of the personal experience of the leaders, and of their trusted
friends, but no detail which could by any possibility be of use escaped
being committed to paper, and the result was in many cases a positive
knowledge of future events, which, to any one unacquainted with the
system, must have appeared little short of miraculous.

"What time is it in Boston?" inquired the president, rising and going to
the writing-table.

"Twenty-eight minutes past seven," said Y, producing an enormous three-
dial time-piece, set to indicate simultaneously the time of day in
London, Boston, and Washington.

"All right, there is plenty of time," answered X, writing out a dispatch
on a broad white sheet of cable office paper. "See here--is this all
right?" he asked, when he had done.

The message ran as follows: "Do not withdraw. If possible gain Ballymolloy
and men, but on no account pay for them. If asked, say iron protection
necessary at present, and probably for many years."

Y and Z read the telegram, and said it would do. In ten minutes it was
taken to the telegraph office by X's servant.

"And now," said X, lighting a fresh cigar, "we have disposed of this
accident, and we can turn to our regular business. The question is
broadly, what effect will be produced by suddenly throwing eight or ten
millions of English money into an American enterprise?"

"When Englishmen are not making money, they are a particularly
disagreeable set of people to deal with," remarked Y, who would have been
taken for an Englishman himself in any part of the world.

And so the council left John Harrington, and turned to other matters which
do not in any way concern this tale.

John received the dispatch at half-past ten o'clock in the morning after
the dinner at Mrs. Wyndham's, and he read it without comprehending
precisely the position taken by his instructor. Nevertheless, the order
coincided with what he would have done if left to himself. He of course
could not know that even if his opponent were elected it would be a gain
to his own party, for the outward life of Mr. Jobbins gave no cause for
believing that he was in anybody's power. Harrington was left to suppose
that, if he failed to get the votes of Patrick Ballymolloy and his party,
the election would be a dead loss. Nevertheless, he rejoiced that the said
Patrick was not to be bought. An honorable failure, wherein he might
honestly say that he had bribed no one, nor used any undue pressure, would
in his opinion be better than to be elected ten times over by money and
promises of political jobbery.

The end rarely justifies the means, and there are means so foul that they
would blot any result into their own filthiness. All that the world can
write; or think, or say, will never make it honorable or noble to bribe
and tell lies. Men who lie are not brave because they are willing to be
shot at, in some instances, by the men their falsehoods have injured. Men
who pay others to agree with them are doing a wrong upon the dignity of
human nature, and they very generally end by saying that human nature has
no dignity at all, and very possibly by being themselves corrupted.

Nevertheless, so great is the interest which men, even upright and
honorable men, take in the aims they follow, that they believe it possible
to wade knee-deep through mud, and then ascend to the temple of fame
without dragging the mud with them, and befouling the white marble steps.

"Political necessity!" What deeds are done in thy name! What a merciful
and polite goddess was the necessity of the ancients, compared with the
necessity of the moderns. Political necessity has been hard at work in our
times from Robespierre to Sedan, from St. Helena to the Vatican, from the
Tea-chests of Boston Harbor to the Great Rebellion. Political necessity
has done more lying, more bribery, more murdering, and more stealing in a
century, than could have been invented by all the Roman emperors together,
with the assistance of the devil himself.

CHAPTER XIV.

In all the endless folk-lore of proverbs, there is perhaps no adage more
true than that which warns young people to beware of a new love until they
have done with the old, and as Ronald Surbiton reflected on his position,
the old rhyme ran through his head. Ho was strongly attracted by Sybil
Brandon, but, at the same time, he still felt that he ought to make an
effort to win Joe back. It seemed so unmanly to relinquish her without a
struggle, just because she said she did not love him. It could not be
true, for they had loved each other so long.

When Ronald looked out of the window of his room in the hotel, on the
morning after Mrs. Wyndham's dinner, the snow was falling as it can only
fall in Boston. The great houses opposite were almost hidden from view by
the soft, fluttering flakes, and below, in the broad street, the horse-
cars moved slowly along like immense white turtles ploughing their way
through deep white sand. The sound of the bells was muffled as it came up,
and the scraping of the Irishmen's heavy spades on the pavement before the
hotel followed by the regular fall of the great shovels full on the heap,
as they stacked the snow, sounded like the digging of a gigantic grave.

Ronald felt that his spirits were depressed. He watched the drifting storm
for a few minutes, and then turned away and looked for a novel in his bag,
and filled a pipe with some English tobacco he had jealously guarded from
the lynx-eyed custom-house men in New York, and then sat down with a sigh
before his small coal fire, and prepared to pass the morning, in solitude.

But Ronald was not fond of reading, and at the end of half an hour he
threw his book and his pipe aside, and stretched his long limbs. Then he
rose and went to the window again with an expression of utter weariness
such as only an Englishman can put on when he is thoroughly bored. The
snow was falling as thickly as ever, and the turtle-backed horse-cars
crawled by through the drifts, more and more slowly. Ronald turned away
with an impatient ejaculation, and made up his mind that he would go and
see Joe at once. He wrapped himself carefully in a huge ulster overcoat
and went out.

Joe was sitting alone in the drawing-room, curled up in an old-fashioned
arm-chair by the fire, with a book in her lap which she was not reading.
She had asked her aunt for something about politics, and Miss Schenectady
had given her the "Life of Rufus Choate," in two large black volumes. The
book was interesting, but in Joe's mind it was but a step from the
speeches and doings of the great and brilliant lawyer-senator to the
speeches and doings of John Harrington. And so after a while the book
dropped upon her knee and she leaned far back in the chair, her great
brown eyes staring dreamily at the glowing coals.

"I was so awfully lonely," said Ronald, sitting down beside her, "that I
came here. You do not mind, Joe, do you?"

"Mind? No! I am very glad. It must be dreadfully lonely for you at the
hotel. What have you been doing with yourself?"

"Oh--trying to read. And then, I was thinking about you."

"That is not much of an occupation. See how industrious I am. I have been
reading the 'Life and Writings of Rufus Choate.' I am getting to be a
complete Bostonian."

"Have you read it all? I never heard of him. Who was he?"

"He was an extremely clever man. He must have been very nice, and his
speeches are splendid. You ought to read them."

"Joe, you are going to be a regular blue-stocking! The idea of spending
your time in reading such stuff. Why, it would be almost better to read
the parliamentary reports in the 'Times!' Just fancy!" Ronald laughed at
the idea of any human being descending to such drudgery.

"Don't be silly, Ronald. You do not know anything about it," said Joe.

"Oh, it is of no use discussing the question," answered Ronald. "You young
women are growing altogether too clever, with your politics, and your
philosophy, and your culture. I hate America!"

"If you really knew anything about it, you would like it very much.
Besides, you have no right to say you hate it. The people here have been
very good to you already. You ought not to abuse them."

"No--not the people. But just look at that snow-storm, Joe, and tell me
whether America is a place for human beings to live in."

"It is much prettier than a Scotch mist, and ever so much clearer than a
fog in London," retorted Joe.

"But there is nothing for a fellow to do on a day like this," said Ronald
sulkily.

"Nothing, but to come and see his cousin, and abuse everything to her, and
try to make her as discontented as himself," said Joe, mimicking his tone.

"If I thought you liked me to come and see you"--began Ronald.

"Well?"

"It would be different, you know."

"I like you when you are nice and good-tempered," said Joe. "But when you
are bored you are simply--well, you are dreadful." Joe raised her eyebrows
and tapped with her fingers on the arm of the chair.

"Do you think I can ever be bored when I come to see you, Joe?" asked
Ronald, changing his tone.

"You act as if you were, precisely. You know people who are bored are
generally bores themselves."

"Thanks," said Ronald. "How kind you are!"

"Do say something nice, Ronald. You have done nothing but find fault since
you came. Have you heard from home?"

"No. There has not been time yet. Why do you ask?"

"Because I thought you might say something less disagreeable about home
than you seem able to say about things here," said Joe tartly.

"You do not want me this morning. I will go away again," said Ronald with
a gloomy frown. He rose to his feet, as though about to take his leave.

"Oh, don't go, Ronald." He paused. "Besides," added Joe, "Sybil will be
here in a little while."

"You need not offer me Miss Brandon as an inducement to stay with you,
Joe, if you really want me. Twenty Miss Brandons would not make any
difference!"

"Really?" said Joe smiling. "You are a dear good boy, Ronald, when you are
nice," she added presently. "Sit down again."

Ronald went back to his seat beside her, and they were both silent for a
while. Joe repented a little, for she thought she had been teasing him,
and she reflected that she ought to be doing her best to make him happy.

"Joe--do not you think it would be very pleasant to be always like this?"
said Ronald after a time.

"How--like this?"

"Together," said Ronald softly, and a gentle look came into his handsome
face, as he looked up at his cousin. "Together--only in our own home."

Joe did not answer, but the color came to her cheeks, and she looked
annoyed. She had hoped that the matter was settled forever, for it seemed
so easy for her. Ronald misinterpreted the blush. For the moment the old
conviction came back to him that she was to be his wife, and if it was not
exactly love that he felt, it was a satisfaction almost great enough to
take its place.

"Would it not?" said he presently.

"Please do not talk about it, Ronald. What is the use? I have said all
there is to say, I am sure."

"But I have not," he answered, insisting. "Please, Joe dearest, think
about it seriously. Think what a cruel thing it is you are doing." His
voice was very tender, but he was perfectly calm; there was not the
slightest vibration of passion in the tones. Joe did not wholly
understand; she only knew that he was not satisfied with the first
explanation she had given him, and that she felt sorry for him, but was
incapable of changing her decision.

"Must I go over it all again?" she asked piteously. "Did I not make it
clear to you, Ronald? Oh--don't talk about it!"

"You have no heart, Joe," said Ronald hotly. "You don't know what you make
me suffer. You don't know that this sort of thing is enough to wreck a
man's existence altogether. You don't know what you are doing, because you
have no heart--not the least bit of one."

"Do not say that--please do not," Joe entreated, looking at him with
imploring eyes, for his words hurt her. Then suddenly the tears came in a
quick hot gush, and she hid her face in her hands. "Oh, Ronald, Ronald--it
is you who do not know," she sobbed.

Ronald did not quite know what to do; he never did when Joe cried, but
fortunately that disaster had not occurred often since he was very small.
He was angry with himself for having disturbed and hurt her, but he did
not know what to do, most probably because he did not really love her.

"Joe," he said, looking at her in some embarrassment, "don't!" Then he
rose and rather timidly laid a hand on her shoulder. But she shrank from
him with a petulant motion, and the tears trickled through her small white
hands and fell upon her dark dress and on the "Life of Rufus Choate."

"Joe, dear"--Ronald began again. And then, in great uncertainty of mind,
he went and looked out of the window. Presently he came back and stood
before her once more.

"I am awfully sorry I said it, Joe. Please forgive me. You don't often
cry, you know, and so"--He hesitated.

Joe looked up at him with a smile through her tears, beautiful as a rose
just wet with a summer shower.

"And so--you did not think I could," she said. She dried her eyes quickly
and rose to her feet. "It is very silly of me, I know, but I cannot help
it in the least," said she, turning from him in pretense of arranging the
knickknacks on the mantel.

"Of course you cannot help it, Joe, dear; as if you had not a perfect
right to cry, if you like! I am such a brute--I know."

"Come and look at the snow," said Joe, taking his hand and leading him to
the window. Enormous Irishmen in pilot coats, comforters, and india-rubber
boots, armed with broad wooden spades, were struggling to keep the drifts
from the pavement. Joe and Ronald stood and watched them idly, absorbed in
their own thoughts.

Presently a booby sleigh drawn by a pair of strong black horses floundered
up the hill and stopped at the door.

"Oh, Ronald, there is Sybil, and she will see I have been crying. You must
amuse her, and I will come back in a few minutes." She turned and fled,
leaving Ronald at the window.

A footman sprang to the ground, and nearly lost his footing in the snow as
he opened a large umbrella and rang the bell. In a moment Sybil was out of
the sleigh and at the door of the house; she could not sit still till it
was opened, although the flakes were falling as thickly as ever.

"Oh"--she exclaimed, as she entered the room and was met by Ronald, "I
thought Joe was here." There was color in her face, and she took Ronald's
hand cordially. He blushed to the eyes, and stammered.

"Miss Thorn is--she--indeed, she will be back in a moment. How do you do?
Dreadful weather, is not it?"

"Oh, it is only a snowstorm," said Sybil, brushing a few flakes from her
furs as she came near the fire. "We do not mind it at all here. But of
course you never have snow in England."

"Not like this, certainly," said Ronald. "Let me help you," he added, as
Sybil began to remove her cloak.

It was a very sudden change of company for Ronald; five minutes ago he was
trying, very clumsily and hopelessly, to console Joe Thorn in her tears,
feeling angry enough with himself all the while for having caused them.
Now he was face to face with Sybil Brandon, the most beautiful woman he
remembered to have seen, and she smiled at him as he took her heavy cloak
from her shoulders, and the touch of the fur sent a thrill to his heart,
and the blood to his cheeks.

"I must say," he remarked, depositing the things on a sofa, "you are very
courageous to come out, even though you are used to it."

"You have come yourself," said Sybil, laughing a little. "You told me last
night that you did not come here every day."

"Oh--I told my cousin I had come because I was so lonely at the hotel. It
is amazingly dull to sit all day in a close room, reading stupid novels."

"I should think it would be. Have you nothing else to do?"

"Nothing in the wide world," said Ronald with a smile. "What should I do
here, in a strange place, where I know so few people?"

"I suppose there is not much for a man to do, unless he is in business.
Every one here is in some kind of business, you know, so they are never
bored."

Ronald wished he could say the right thing to reestablish the half-
intimacy he had felt when talking to Sybil the night before. But it was
not easy to get back to the same point. There was an interval of hours
between yesterday and to-day--and there was Joe.

"I read novels to pass the time," he said, "and because they are sometimes
so like one's own life. But when they are not, they bore me."

Sybil was fond of reading, and she was especially fond of fiction, not
because she cared for sensational interests, but because she was naturally
contemplative, and it interested her to read about the human nature of the
present, rather than to learn what any individual historian thought of the
human nature of the past.

"What kind of novels do you like best?" she asked, sitting down to pass
the time with Ronald until Josephine should make her appearance.

"I like love stories best," said Ronald.

"Oh, of course," said Sybil gravely, "so do I. But what kind do you like
best? The sad ones, or those that end well?"

"I like them to end well," said Ronald, "because the best ones never do,
you know."

"Never?" There was something in Sybil's tone that made Ronald look quickly
at her. She said the word as though she, too, had something to regret.

"Not in my experience," answered Surbiton, with the decision of a man past
loving or being loved.

"How dreadfully gloomy! One would think you had done with life, Mr.
Surbiton," said Sybil, laughing.

"Sometimes I think so, Miss Brandon," answered Ronald in solemn tones.

"I suppose we all think it would be nice to die, sometimes. But then the
next morning things look so much brighter."

"I think they often look much brighter in the evening," said Ronald,
thinking of the night before.

"I am sure something disagreeable has happened to you to-day, Mr.
Surbiton," said Sybil, looking at him. Ronald looked into her eyes as
though to see if there were any sympathy there.

"Yes, something disagreeable has happened to me," he answered slowly.
"Something very disagreeable and painful."

"I am sorry," said Sybil simply. But her voice sounded very kind and
comforting.

"That is why I say that love stories always end badly in real life," said
Ronald. "But I suppose I ought not to complain." It was not until he had
thought over this speech, some minutes later, that he realized that in a
few words he had told Sybil the main part of his troubles. He never
guessed that she was so far in Joe's confidence as to have heard the whole
story before. But Sybil was silent and thoughtful.

"Love is such an uncertain thing," she began, after a pause; and it
chanced that at that very moment Joe opened the door and entered the room.
She caught the sentence.

"So you are instructing my cousin," she said to Sybil, laughing. "I
approve of the way you spend your time, my children!" No one would have
believed that, twenty minutes earlier, Joe had been in tears. She was as
fresh and as gay as ever, and Ronald said to himself that she most
certainly had no heart, but that Sybil had a great deal,--he was sure of
it from the tone of her voice.

"What is the news about the election, Sybil?" she asked. "Of course you
know all about it at the Wyndhams'."

"My dear, the family politics are in a state of confusion that is simply
too delightful," said Sybil.

"You know it is said that Ira C. Calvin has refused to be a candidate, and
the Republicans mean to put in Mr. Jobbins in his place, who is such a
popular man, and so good and benevolent-quite a philanthropist."

"Does it make very much difference?" asked Joe anxiously. "I wish I
understood all about it, but the local names are so hard to learn."

"I thought you bad been learning them all the morning in Choate," put in
Ronald, who perceived that the conversation was to be about Harrington.

"It does make a difference," said Sybil, not noticing Ronald's remark,
"because Jobbins is much more popular than Calvin, and they say he is a
friend of Patrick Ballymolloy, who will win the election for either side
he favors."

"Who is this Irishman?" inquired Ronald.

"He is the chief Irishman," said Sybil laughing, "and I cannot describe
him any better. He has twenty votes with him, and as things stand he
always carries whichever point he favors. But Mr. Wyndham says he is glad
he is not in the Legislature, because it would drive him out of his mind
to decide on which side to vote--though he is a good Republican, you
know."

"Of course he could vote for Mr. Harrington in spite of that," said Joe,
confidently. "Anybody would, who knows him, I am sure. But when is the
election to come off?"

"They say it is to begin to-day," said Sybil.

"We shall never hear anything unless we go to Mrs. Wyndham's," said Joe.
"Aunt Zoe is awfully clever, and that, but she never knows in the least
what is going on. She says she does not understand politics."

"If you were a Bostonian, Mr. Surbiton," said Sybil, "you would get into
the State House and hear the earliest news."

"I will do anything in the world to oblige you," said Ronald gravely, "if
you will only explain a little"--

"Oh no! It is quite impossible. Come with me, both of you, and we will get
some lunch at the Wyndhams' and hear all about it by telephone."

"Very well," said Joe. "One moment, while I get my things." She left the
room. Ronald and Sybil were again alone together.

"You were saying when my cousin came in, that love was a very uncertain
thing," suggested Ronald, rather timidly.

"Was I?" said Sybil, standing before the mirror above the mantelpiece, and
touching her hat first on one side and then on the other.

"Yes," answered Ronald, watching her. "Do you know, I have often thought
so too."

"Yes?"

"I think it would be something different if it were quite certain. Perhaps
it would be something much less interesting, but much better."

"I think you are a little confused, Mr. Surbiton," said Sybil, and as she
smiled, Ronald could see her face reflected in the mirror.

"I--yes--that is--I dare say I am," said he, hesitatingly. "But I know
exactly what I mean."

"But do you know exactly what you want?" she asked with a laugh.

"Yes indeed," said he confidently. "But I do not believe I shall ever get
it."

"Then that is the 'disagreeable and painful thing' you referred to, as
having happened this morning, I suppose," remarked Sybil, calmly, as she
turned to take up her cloak which lay on the sofa. Ronald blushed scarlet.

"Well--yes," he said, forgetting in his embarrassment to help her.

"It is so heavy," said Sybil. "Thanks. Do you know that you have been
making confidences to me, Mr. Surbiton?" she asked, turning and facing
him, with a half-amused, half-serious look in her blue eyes.

"I am afraid I have," he answered, after a short pause. "You must think I
am very foolish."

"Never mind," she said gravely. "They are safe with me."

"Thanks," said Ronald in a low voice.

Josephine entered the room, clad in many furs, and a few minutes later all
three were on their way to Mrs. Wyndham's, the big booby sleigh rocking
and leaping and ploughing in the heavy dry snow.

CHAPTER XV.

Pocock Vancouver was also abroad in the snowstorm. He would not in any
case have stayed at home on account of the weather, but on this particular
morning he had very urgent business with a gentleman who, like Lamb, rose
with the lark, though he did not go to bed with the chickens. There are no
larks in Boston, but the scream of the locomotives answers nearly as well.

Vancouver accordingly had himself driven at an early hour to a certain
house not situated in the West End, but of stone quite as brown, and
having a bay window as prominent as any sixteen-foot-front on Beacon
Street; those advantages, however, did not prevent Mr. Vancouver from
wearing an expression of fastidious scorn as he mounted the steps and
pulled the polished German silver handle of the door-bell. The curl on his
lip gave way to a smile of joyous cordiality as he was ushered into the
presence of the owner of the house.

"Indeed, I'm glad to see you, Mr. Vancouver," said his host, whose
extremely Celtic appearance was not belied by unctuous modulation of his
voice, and the pleasant roll of his softly aspirated consonants.

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