^. 
 
THE CONVERSION OF THE SENATOR FROM STACKPOLE 
 
IN THE 
 
 ARENA 
 
 Stories 
 
 of Political 
 
 Life 
 
 BOOTH 
 TARKINGTON 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY A. I. KELLER, POWEB 
 
 O MALLEY AND J. J. GOULD 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE 6- COMPANY 
 
 igil 
 
Copyright, 1905, by 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by 
 Ri 
 
 ht, 1904, by Ths . S. McClure. Co,. Copyright, 1903-1904, by The 
 idgway-Thayer Co. Copy r/gHt,; !!,> by John Wanamaker 
 
1912. 
 
 To My Father 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOSS GORGETT 
 
 THE ALIENS 47 
 
 THE NEED OF MONEY 93 
 
 HECTOR 141 
 
"IN THE FIRST PLACE" 
 
 The old-timer, a lean, retired pantaloon, sitting 
 with loosely slippered feet close to the fire, thus 
 gave of his wisdom to the questioning student: 
 
 " Looking back upon it all, what we most need 
 * in polities is more good men. Thousands of good 
 men ARE in; and they need the others who are not 
 in. More would come if they knew how MUCH they 
 are needed. The dilettantes of the clubs who have so 
 easily abused me, for instance., all my life, for being 
 a ward-worker, these and those other reformers who 
 write papers about national corruption when they 
 don t know how their own wards are swung, 
 probably aren t so useful as they might be. The ex 
 quisite who says that politics is ( too dirty a busi 
 ness for a gentleman to meddle with 9 is like the 
 woman who lived in the parlour and complained 
 
"IN THE FIRST PLACE" 
 
 that the rest of her family kept the other rooms so 
 dirty that she never went into them. 
 
 66 There are many thousands of young men 
 belonging to what is for some reason called the 
 6 best class, 9 who would like to be in politics 9 if 
 they could begin high enough up as ambassa 
 dors, for instance. That is, they would like the 
 country to do something for them, though they 
 wouldn t put it that way. A young man of this 
 sort doesn t know how much he d miss if his 
 wishes were gratified. For my part, I d hate not 
 to have begun at the beginning of the game. 
 
 "I speak of it as a game," the old gentleman 
 went on, "and in some ways it is. That s where 
 the fun of it comes in. Yet, there are times when it 
 looks to me more like a series of combats, hand-to- 
 hand fights for life, and fierce struggles between 
 men and strange powers. You buy your news 
 paper and that s your ticket to the amphitheatre. 
 But the distance is hazy and far; there are clouds 
 of dust and you can t see clearly. To make out 
 just what is going on you ought to get down in 
 the arena yourself. Once you re in it, the view 
 
"IN THE FIRST PLACE" 
 
 you ll have and the -fighting that will come your 
 way will more than repay you. Still, I don t think 
 we ought to go in with the idea of being repaid. 
 
 "It seems an odd thing to me that so many 
 men feel they haven t any time for politics; can t 
 put in even a little, trying to see how their cities 
 (let alone their states and the country) are run. 
 When we have a war, look at the millions of volun 
 teers that lay down everything and answer the call 
 of the country. Well, in politics, the country needs 
 ALL the men who have any patriotism NOT to 
 be seeking office, but to watch and to understand 
 what is going on. It doesn t take a great deal of 
 time; you can attend to your business and do that 
 much, too. When wrong things are going on and 
 all the good men understand them, that is all that 
 is needed. The wrong things stop going on." 
 
BOSS GORGETT 
 
I 
 
 GUESS I ve been what you might call kind 
 of an assistant boss pretty much all my life; at 
 least, ever since I could vote; and I was some 
 thing of a ward-heeler even before that. I don t 
 suppose there s any way a man of my disposition 
 could have put in his time to less advantage and 
 greater cost to himself. I ve never got a thing by 
 it, all these years, not a job, not a penny noth 
 ing but injury to my business and trouble with 
 my wife. She begins going for me, first of every 
 campaign. 
 
 Yet I just can t seem to keep out of it. It takes 
 a hold on a man that I never could get away 
 from ; and when I reach my second childhood and 
 the boys have turned me out, I reckon I ll potter 
 along trying to look knowing and secretive, like 
 the rest of the has-beens, letting on as if I still had 
 a place inside. Lord, if I d put in the energy at 
 
4 IN THE ARENA 
 
 my business that I ve frittered away on small pol 
 itics! But what s the use thinking about it?" 
 
 Plenty of men go to pot horse-racing and stock 
 gambling; and I guess this has just been my way 
 of working off some of my nature in another fash 
 ion. There s a good many like me, too; not out for 
 office or contracts, nor anything that you can put 
 your finger on in particular nothing except the 
 game. Of course, it s a pleasure, knowing you ve 
 got more influence than some, but I believe the 
 most you ever get out of it is in being able to help 
 your friends, to get a man you like a job, or a good 
 contract, something he wants, when he needs it. 
 
 I tell you then s when you feel satisfied, and 
 your time don t seem to have been so much 
 thrown away. You go and buy a higher-priced 
 cigar than you can afford, and sit and smoke it 
 with your feet out in the sunshine on your porch 
 railing, and watch your neighbour s children play 
 ing in their yard ; and they look mighty nice to you 5 
 and you feel kind, and as if everybody else was. 
 
 Cut that wasn t the way I felt when I helped to 
 hand over to a reformer the nomination for 
 
BOSS GORGETT 5 
 
 mayor; then it was just selfish desperation and 
 nothing else. We had to do it. You see, it was 
 this way: the other side had had the city for 
 four terms, and, naturally, they d earned the 
 name of being rotten by that time. Big Lafe Gor- 
 gett was their best. "Boss Gorgett," of course 
 our papers called him when they went for him, 
 which was all the time; and pretty considerable 
 of a man he was, too. Most people that knew him 
 liked Lafe. I did. But he got a bad name, as they 
 say, by the end of his fourth term as Mayor 
 and who wouldn t ? Of course, the cry went up all 
 round that he and his crowd were making a fat 
 thing out of it, which wasn t so much the case as 
 that Lafe had got to depending on humouring 
 the gamblers and the brewers for campaign funds 
 and so forth. In fact, he had the reputation of 
 running a disorderly town, and the truth is, it was 
 too wide open. 
 
 But we hadn t been much better when w T e d 
 had it, before Lafe beat us and got in ; and every 
 body remembered that. The "respectable ele 
 ment" wouldn t come over to us strong enough 
 
6 IN THE ARENA 
 
 for anybody we could pick of our own crowd ; and 
 so, after trying it on four times, we started in to 
 play it another way, and nominated Farwell 
 Knowles, who was already running on an inde 
 pendent ticket, got out by the reform and purity 
 people. That is : we made him a fusion candidate, 
 hoping to find some way to control him later. 
 We d never have done it if we hadn t thought it 
 was our only hope. Gorgett was too strong, and 
 he handled the darkeys better than any man I 
 ever knew. He had an organization for it which 
 we couldn t break; and the coloured voters really 
 held the balance of power with us, you know, as 
 they do so many other places near the same size. 
 They were getting pretty well on to it, too, and 
 cost more every election. Our best chance seemed 
 to be in so satisfying the "law-and-order" people 
 that they d do something to counterbalance this 
 vote which they never did. 
 
 Well, sir, it was a mighty curious campaign. 
 There never really was a day when we could tell 
 where we stood, for certain. As anybody knows, 
 the "better element" can t be depended on. 
 
BOSS GORGETT 7 
 
 There s too many of em forget to vote, and if the 
 weather isn t just right they won t go to the polls. 
 Some of em won t go anyway act as if they 
 looked down on politics; say it s only helping one 
 boodler against another. So your true aristocrat 
 won t vote for either. The real truth is, he don t 
 care. Don t care as much about the management 
 of his city, State, and country as about the way 
 his club is run. Or he s ignorant about the whole 
 business, and what between ignorance and indif 
 ference the worse and smarter of the two rings 
 gets in again and old Mr. Aristocrat gets soaked 
 some more on his sewer assessments. Then he ll 
 holler like a stabbed hand-organ; but he ll keep 
 on talking about politics being too low a business 
 for a gentleman to mix in, just the same! 
 
 Somebody said a pessimist is a man who has a 
 choice of two evils, and takes both. There s your 
 man that don t vote. 
 
 And the best-dressed wards are the ones that 
 fool us oftenest. We re always thinking they ll 
 do something, and they don t. But we thought, 
 when we took Farwell Knowles, that we had em 
 
8 IN THE ARENA 
 
 at last. Fact is, they did seem stirred up, too. 
 They called it a "moral victory" when we were 
 forced to nominate Knowles to have any chance 
 of beating Gorgett. That was because it was theii 
 victory. 
 
 Farwell Knowles was a young man, aboul 
 thirty-two, an editorial writer on the Herald, an 
 independent paper. I d known him all his life, 
 and his wife too, a mighty sweet-looking lady 
 she was. I d always thought Farwell was kind of a 
 dreamer, and too excitable; he was always read 
 ing papers to literary clubs, and on the speech- 
 making side he wasn t so bad he liked it; bul 
 he hadn t seemed to me to know any more aboul 
 politics and people than a royal family would. He 
 was always talking about life and writing aboul 
 corruption, when, all the time, so it struck me, il 
 was only books he was really interested in ; and he 
 saw things along book lines. Of course he was a 
 tin god, politically. 
 
 He was for "stern virtue" only, and everlast 
 ingly lashed compromise and temporizing; called 
 politicians all the elegant hard names there are. 
 
BOSS GORGETT 9 
 
 in every one of his editorials, especially Lafe Gor- 
 gett, whom he d never seen. He made mighty free 
 with Lafe, referred to him habitually as "Bood- 
 ler Gorgett", and never let up on him from one 
 year s end to another. 
 
 I was against our adopting him, not only for 
 our own sakes because I knew he d be a hard 
 man to handle but for Farwell s too. I d been a 
 friend of his father s, and I liked his wife - 
 everybody liked his wife. But the boys overruled 
 me, and I had to turn in and give it to him. 
 
 Not without a lot of misgivings, you can be 
 sure. I had one little experience with him right at 
 the start that made me uneasy and got me to 
 thinking he was what you might call too literary, 
 or theatrical, or something, and that he was more 
 interested in being things than doing them. I d 
 been aware, ever since he got back from Harvard, 
 that / was one of his literary interests, so to speak. 
 He had a way of talking to me in a quizzical, con 
 descending style, in the belief that he was draw 
 ing me out, the way you talk to some old book- 
 peddler in your office when you ve got nothing to 
 
10 IN THE ARENA 
 
 do for a while; and it was easy to see he regarded 
 me as a "character" and thought he was study 
 ing me. Besides, he felt it his duty to study the 
 wickedness of politics in a Parkhurstian fashion, 
 and I was one of the lost. 
 
 One day, just after we d nominated him, he 
 came to me and said he had a friend who wanted 
 to meet me. Asked me couldn t I go with him 
 right away. It was about five in the afternoon; I 
 hadn t anything to do and said, "Certainly," 
 thinking he meant to introduce me to some friend 
 of his who thought I d talk politics with him. I 
 took that for granted so much that I didn t 
 ask a question, just followed along up street, 
 talking weather. He turned in at old General 
 Buskirk s, and may I be shot if the person he 
 meant wasn t Buskirk s daughter, Bella! He d 
 brought me to call on a girl young enough to be 
 my daughter. Maybe you won t believe I felt like 
 a fool! 
 
 I knew Buskirk, of course (he didn t appear), 
 but I hadn t seen Bella since she was a child. 
 She d been "highly educated" and had been liv- 
 
BOSS GORGETT 11 
 
 ing abroad a good deal, but I can t say that my 
 visit made me for her not very strong. She was 
 good-looking enough, in her thinnish, solemn 
 way, but it seemed to me she was kind of over 
 dressed and too grand. You could see in a minute 
 that she was intense and dreamy and theatrical 
 with herself and superior, like Farwell; and I 
 guess I thought they thought they d discovered 
 they were " kindred souls, " and that each of them 
 understood (without saying it) that both of them 
 felt that Farwell s lot in life was a hard one be 
 cause Mrs. Knowles wasn t up to him. Bella gave 
 him little, quiet, deep glances, that seemed to help 
 her play the part of a person who understood 
 everything especially him, and reverenced 
 greatness especially his. I remember a fellow 
 who called the sort of game it struck me they were 
 carrying on "those soully flirtations." 
 
 Well, sir, I wasn t long puzzling over why he 
 had brought me up there. It stuck out all over, 
 though they didn t know it, and would have been 
 mighty astonished to think that I saw. It was in 
 their manner, in her condescending ways with 
 
12 IN THE ARENA 
 
 me, in her assumption of serious interest, and in 
 his going through the trick of " drawing me out, " 
 and exhibiting me to her. I ll have to admit that 
 these young people viewed me in the light of a 
 "character." That was the part Farwell had me 
 there to play. 
 
 I can t say I was too pleased with the notion, 
 and I was kind of sorry for Mrs. Knowles, too. 
 I d have staked a good deal that my guess was 
 right, for instance : that Farwell had gone first to 
 this girl for her congratulations when he got the 
 nomination, instead of to his wife; and that she 
 felt or pretended she felt a soully sympathy 
 with his ambitions; that she wanted to be, or to 
 play the part of, a woman of affairs, and that he 
 talked over everything he knew with her. I 
 imagined they thought they were studying 
 political reform together, and she, in her novel- 
 reading way, wanted to pose to herself as the 
 brilliant lady diplomat, kind of a Madam Roland 
 advising statesmen, or something of that sort. 
 And I was there as part of their political studies, 
 an object-lesson, to bring her "more closely in 
 
BOSS GORGETT 13 
 
 touch" (as Farwell would say) with the realities 
 he had to contend with. I was one of the "evils 
 of politics," because I knew how to control a few 
 wards, and get out the darkey vote almost as 
 well as Gorgett. Gorgett would have been better, 
 but Farwell couldn t very easily get at him. 
 
 I had to sit there for a little while, of course, like 
 a ninny between them; and I wasn t the more 
 comfortable because I thought Knowles looked 
 like a bigger fool than I did. Bella s presence 
 seemed to excite him to a kind of exaltation ; he 
 had a dark flush on his face and his eyes were 
 large and shiny. 
 
 I got out as soon as I could, naturally, wonder 
 ing what my wife would say if she knew; and 
 while I was fumbling around among the knick- 
 knacks and fancy things in the hall for my hat 
 and coat, I heard Farwell get up and cross the 
 room to a chair nearer Bella, and then she said, 
 in a sort of pungent whisper, that came out to me 
 distinctly: 
 
 "My knight!" That s what she called him. 
 "My knight!" That s what she said. 
 
14 IN THE AKENA 
 
 I don t know whether I was more disgusted with 
 myself for hearing, or with old Buskirk who spent 
 his whole time frittering around the club library, 
 and let his daughter go in for the sort of soulli- 
 ness she was carrying on with Farwell Knowles. 
 
 Trouble in our ranks began right away. Our 
 nominee knew too much, and did all the wrong 
 things from the start; he began by antagonizing 
 most of our old wheel-horses ; he wouldn t consult 
 with us, and advised with his own kind. In spite 
 of that, we had a good organization working for 
 him, and by a week before election I felt pretty 
 confident that our show was as good as Gorgett s. 
 It looked like it would be close. 
 
 Just about then things happened. We had 
 dropped onto one of Lafe s little tricks mighty 
 smartly. We got one of his heelers fixed (of 
 course we usually tried to keep all that kind of 
 work dark from Farwell Knowles), and this heeler 
 showed the whole business up for a considera 
 tion. There was a precinct certain to be strong for 
 Knowles, where the balloting was to take place 
 
BOSS GORGETT 15 
 
 in the office-room of a hook-and-ladder company. 
 In the corner was a small closet with one shelf, 
 high up toward the ceiling. It was in the good old 
 free and easy Hayes and Wheeler times, and 
 when the polls closed at six o clock it was planned 
 that the election officers should set the ballot-box 
 up on this shelf, lock the closet door, and go out 
 for their suppers, leaving one of each side to 
 watch in the room so that nobody could open the 
 closet-door with a pass-key and tamper with the 
 ballots before they were counted. Now, the ceil 
 ing over the shelf in the closet wasn t plastered, 
 and it formed, of course, part of the flooring in 
 the room above. The boards were to be loosened 
 by a Gorgett man upstairs, as soon as the box 
 was locked in ; he would take up a piece of plank 
 ing enough to get an arm in and stuff the 
 box with Gorgett ballots till it grunted. Then he 
 would replace the board and slide out. Of course, 
 when they began the count our people would know 
 there was something wrong, but they would be 
 practically up against it, and the precinct would 
 be counted for Gorgett. 
 
16 IN THE ARENA 
 
 They brought the heeler up to me, not at head 
 quarters (I was city chairman) but at a hotel 
 room I d hired as a convenient place for the more 
 important conferences and to keep out of the 
 way of every Tom-Dick-and-Harry grafter. 
 Bob Crowder, a ward committee-man, brought 
 him up and stayed in the room, while the fel 
 low --his name was Genz went over the 
 whole thing. 
 
 "What do you think of it?" says Bob, when 
 Genz finished. " Ain t it worth the money ? I de 
 clare, it s so neat and simple and so almighty 
 smart besides, I m almost ashamed some of our 
 boys hadn t thought of it for us. " 
 
 I was just opening my mouth to answer, when 
 there was a signal knock at the door and a young 
 fellow we had as a kind of watcher in the next 
 room (opening into the one I used) put his head 
 in and said Mr. Knowles wanted to see me. 
 
 " Ask him to wait a minute, " said I, for I didn t 
 want him to know anything about Genz. "I ll be 
 there right away. " 
 
 Then came Farwell Knowles s voice from the 
 
BOSS GORGETT 17 
 
 other room, sharp and excited. " I believe I ll not 
 wait," says he. "I ll come in there now!" 
 
 And that s what he did, pushing by our watch 
 er before I could hustle Genz into the hall through 
 an outer door, though I tried to. There s no de 
 nying it looked a little suspicious. 
 
 Farwell came to a dead halt in the middle of 
 the room. 
 
 "I know that person!" he said, pointing at 
 Genz, his brow mighty black. "I saw him and 
 Crowder sneaking into the hotel by the back way, 
 half an hour ago, and I knew there was some dev 
 ilish--" 
 
 "Keep your shirt on, Farwell," said I. 
 
 He was pretty hot. "I ll be obliged to you," he 
 returned, "if you ll explain what you re doing 
 here in secret with this low hound of Gorgett s. 
 Do you think you can play with me the way you 
 do with your petty committee-men ? If you do, I ll 
 show you! You re not dealing with a child, and 
 I m not going to be tricked or sold out of this 
 elec--" 
 
 I took him by the shoulders and sat him down 
 
18 IN THE ARENA 
 
 hard on a cane-bottomed chair. "That s a dirty 
 thought," said I, "and if you knew enough to be 
 responsible I reckon you d have to account for it. 
 As it is why, I don t care whether you apolo 
 gize or not." 
 
 He weakened right away, or, at least, he saw 
 his mistake. "Then won t you give me some ex 
 planation," he asked, in a less excitable way, 
 "why are you closeted here with a notorious 
 member of Gorgett s ring?" 
 
 " No, "said I, "I won t." 
 
 "Be careful," said he. "This won t look well 
 in print." 
 
 That was just so plumb foolish that I began to 
 laugh at him; and when I got to laughing I 
 couldn t keep up being angry. It was ridiculous, 
 his childishness and suspiciousness. Right there 
 was where I made my mistake. 
 
 "All right," says I to Bob Crowder, giving way 
 to the impulse. "He s the candidate. Tell him." 
 
 "Do you mean it ?" asks Bob, surprised. 
 
 "Yes. Tell him the whole thing." 
 
 So Bob did, helped by Genz, who was more or 
 
BOSS GORGETT 19 
 
 less sulky, of course; and is wasn t long till I saw 
 how stupid I d been. Knowles went straight up in 
 the air. 
 
 "I knew it was a dirty business, politics," he 
 said, jumping out of his chair, "but I didn t re 
 alize it before. And I d like to know, " he went on, 
 turning to me, "how you learn to sit there so 
 calmly and listen to such iniquities. How do you 
 dull your conscience so that you can do it ? And 
 what course do you propose to follow in the mat 
 ter of this confession ?" 
 
 "Me?" I answered. "Why, I m going to send 
 supper in to our fellows, and the box ll never 
 see that closet. The man upstairs may get a little 
 tired. I reckon the laugh s on Gorgett; it s his 
 scheme and - 
 
 Farwell interrupted me; his face was outrag 
 eously red. "What! You actually mean you 
 hadn t intended to expose this infamy?" 
 
 "Steady," I said. I was getting a little hot, too, 
 and talked more than I ought. "Mr. Genz here 
 has our pledge that he s not given away, or he d 
 never have " 
 
20 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Mister Genz!" sneered Farwell. "Mister 
 Genz has your pledge, has he ? Allow me to tell 
 you that I represent the people, the honest people, 
 in this campaign, and that the people and I have 
 made no pledges to Mister Genz. You ve paid the 
 scoundrel - 
 
 "Here!" says Genz. 
 
 "The scoundrel!" Farwell repeated, his voice 
 rising and rising, "paid him for his information, 
 and I tell you by that act and your silence on such 
 a matter you make yourself a party to a con 
 spiracy." 
 
 "Shut the transom," says I to Crowder. 
 
 "I m under no pledge, I say," shouted Far- 
 well, "and I do not compound felonies. You re 
 not conducting my campaign. I m doing that, 
 and I don t conduct it along such lines. It s pre 
 cisely the kind of fraud and corruption that I in 
 tend to stamp out in this town, and this is where I 
 begin to work." 
 
 "How?" said I. 
 
 "You ll see and you ll see soon! The peni 
 tentiaries are built for just this " 
 
 
BOSS GORGETT 21 
 
 "S/i, sh /" said I, but he paid no attention. 
 
 "They say Gorgett owns the Grand Jury," he 
 went on. "Well, let him! Within a week I ll be 
 mayor of this town and Gorgett s Grand Jury 
 won t outlast his defeat very long. By his own 
 confession this man Genz is party to a conspiracy 
 with Gorgett, and you and Crowder are witnesses 
 to the confession. I ll see that you have the pleas 
 ure of giving your testimony before a Grand Jury 
 of determined men. Do you hear me? And to 
 morrow afternoon s Herald will have the whole 
 infamous story to the last word. I give you my 
 solemn oath upon it!" 
 
 All three of us, Crowder, Genz, and I, sprang 
 to our feet. We were considerably worked up, and 
 none of us said anything for a minute or so, just 
 looked at Knowles. 
 
 "Yes, you re a little shocked," he said. "It s 
 always shocking to men like you to come in con 
 tact with honesty that won t compromise. You 
 needn t talk to me; you can t say anything that 
 would change me to save your lives. I ve taken my 
 oath upon it, and you couldn t alter me a hair p 
 
22 IN THE ARENA 
 
 breadth if you burned me at a slow fire. Light, 
 light, that s what you need, the light of day and 
 publicity! I m going to clear this town of fraud, 
 and if Gorgett don t wear the stripes for this my 
 name s not Farwell Knowles! He ll go over the 
 road, handcuffed to a deputy, before three months 
 are gone. Don t tell me I m injuring you and the 
 party by it. Pah! It will give me a thousand 
 more votes. I m not exactly a child, my friends! 
 On my honour, the whole thing will be printed in 
 to-morrow s paper!" 
 
 "For God s sake - " Crowder broke out, but 
 Knowles cut him off. 
 
 " I bid you good- afternoon, " he said, sharply. 
 We all started toward him, but before we d got 
 half across the room he was gone, and the door 
 slammed behind him. 
 
 Bob dropped into a chair; he was looking con 
 siderably pale; I guess I was, too, but Genz was 
 ghastly. 
 
 "Let me out of here," he said in a sick voice. 
 "Let me out of here!" 
 
 "Sit down!" I told him. 
 
BOSS GORGETT 23 
 
 "Just let me out of here," he said again. And 
 before I could stop him, he d gone, too, in a blind 
 hurry. 
 
 Bob and I were left alone, and not talking any. 
 
 Not for a while. Then Bob said: "Where do 
 you reckon he s gone?" 
 
 "Reckon who s gone?" 
 
 "Genz." 
 
 "ToseeLafe." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Of course he has. What else can he do ? He s 
 gone up any way. The best he can do is to try to 
 square himself a little by owning up the whole 
 thing. Gorgett will know it all any way, to 
 morrow afternoon, when the Herald comes 
 out." 
 
 "I guess you re right," said Bob. "We re done 
 up along with Gorgett; but I believe that idiot s 
 right, he won t lose votes by playing hob with us. 
 What s to be done?" 
 
 " Nothing, " I answered. " You can t head Far- 
 well off. It s all my fault, Bob. " 
 
 "Isn t there any way to get hold of him? A 
 
24 IN THE ARENA 
 
 crazy man could see that his best friend couldn t 
 beg it out of him, and that he wouldn t spare any 
 of us; but don t you know of some bludgeon we 
 could hang up over him?" 
 
 "Nothing. It s up to Gorgett." 
 
 "Well," said Bob, "Lafe s mighty smart, but 
 it looks like God-help- Gorgett now!" 
 
 Well, sir, I couldn t think of anything better to 
 do than to go around and see Gorgett; so, after 
 waiting long enough for Genz to see him and get 
 away, I went. Lafe was always cool and slow; 
 but I own I expected to find him flustered, and 
 was astonished to see right away that he wasn t. 
 He was smoking, as usual, and wearing his hat, 
 as he always did, indoors and out, sitting with his 
 feet upon his desk, and a pleasant look of con 
 templation on his face. 
 
 "Oh," says I, "then Genz hasn t been here?" 
 
 "Yes," says he, "he has. I reckon you folks 
 have most spoiled Genz s usefulness for me. " 
 
 "You re taking it mighty easy," I told him. 
 
 "Yep. Isn t it all in the game ? What s the use 
 of getting excited because you ve blocked us on 
 
BOSS GORGETT 25 
 
 one precinct? We ll leave that closet out of our 
 calculations, that s all." 
 
 "Almighty Powers, I don t mean that! Didn t 
 Genz tell you - - " I 
 
 "About Mr. Knowles and the Herald? Oh, 
 yes," he answered, knocking the ashes off his 
 cigar quietly. "And about the thousand votes 
 he ll gain ? Oh, yes. And about incidentally show 
 ing you and Crowder up as bribing Genz and 
 promising to protect him making your meth 
 ods public? Oh, yes. And about the Grand 
 Jury? Yes, Genz told me. And about me and 
 the penitentiary. Yes, he told me. Mr. Knowles 
 is a rather excitable young man. Don t you think 
 so?" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, what s the trouble?" 
 
 "Trouble!" I said. "I d like to know what 
 you re going to do ? " 
 
 :< What s Knowles going to do?" 
 
 "He s sworn to expose the whole deal, as 
 you ve just told me you knew; one of the prelim 
 inaries to having us all up before the next Grand 
 
26 IN THE ARENA 
 
 Jury and sending you and Genz over the road, 
 that s all!" 
 
 Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, 
 tilting farther back, with his hands in his pock 
 ets and his eyes twinkling under his last summer s 
 straw hat-brim. 
 
 "He can t hardly afford it, can he," he drawl 
 ed, "he being the representative of the law and 
 order and purity people ? They re mighty sensi 
 tive, those folks. A little thing turns em. " 
 
 "I don t understand," said I. 
 
 "Well, I hardly reckoned you would," he re 
 turned. "But I expect if Mr. Knowles wants it 
 warm all round, I m willing. We may be able 
 to do some of the heating up, ourselves. " 
 
 This surprised me, coming from him, and I 
 felt pretty sore. "You mean, then," I said, "that 
 you think you ve got a line on something our boys 
 have been planning like the way we got onto 
 the closet trick and you re going to show us up 
 because we can t control Knowles ; that you hold 
 that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? 
 Then I tell you plainly I know I can t shut him 
 
BOSS GORGETT 27 
 
 up, and you can go ahead and do us the worst you 
 
 can. 
 
 " Whatever little tricks I may or may not have 
 discovered," he answered, "that isn t what I 
 mean, though I don t know as I d be above mak 
 ing such a threat if I thought it was my only way 
 to keep out of the penitentiary. I know as w^ell as 
 you do that such a threat would only give Knowles 
 pleasure. He d take the credit for forcing me to 
 expose you, and he s convinced that everything 
 of that kind he does makes him solider with the 
 people and brings him a step nearer this chair I m 
 sitting in, which he regards as a step itself to the 
 governorship and Heaven knows what not. He 
 thinks he s detached himself from you and your 
 organization till he stands alone. That boy s head 
 was turned even before you fellows nominated 
 him. He s a wonder. I ve been noticing him long 
 before he turned up as a candidate, and I believe 
 the great surprise of his life was that John the 
 Baptist didn t precede and herald him. Oh, no, 
 going for you wouldn t stop him not by a 
 thousand miles. It would only do him good. " 
 
28 IN THE ARENA 
 
 " Well, what are you going to do ? Are you go 
 ing to see him?" 
 
 "No, sir!" Lafe spoke sharply. 
 
 "Well, well! What?" 
 
 "I m not bothering to run around asking au 
 diences of Farwell Knowleses ; you ought to know 
 that!" 
 
 "Given it up?" 
 
 " Not exactly. I ve sent a fellow around to talk 
 to him. " 
 
 " What use will that be ? " 
 
 Gorgett brought his feet down off the desk with 
 a bang. 
 
 " Then he can come to see me, if he wants to. 
 D you think I ve been fool enough not to know 
 what sort of man I was going up against ? D you 
 think that, knowing him as I do, I ve not been 
 ready for something of this kind ? And that s all 
 you ll get out of me, this afternoon!" 
 
 And it was all I did. 
 
 It may have been about one o clock, that night, 
 or perhaps a little earlier, as I lay tossing about, 
 
BOSS GORGETT 29 
 
 unable to sleep because I was too much disturb 
 ed in my mind too angry with myself - - when 
 there came a loud, startling ring at the front-door 
 bell. I got up at once and threw open a window 
 over the door, calling out to know what was 
 wanted. 
 
 " It s I, " said a voice I didn t know - a queer, 
 hoarse voice. " Come down. " 
 
 "Who s I ?" I asked. 
 
 "Farwell Knowles," said the voice." Let me 
 in!" 
 
 I started, and looked down. 
 
 He was standing on the steps where the light of 
 a street-lamp fell on him, and I saw even by the 
 poor glimmer that something was wrong ; he was 
 white as a dead man. There was something wild 
 in his attitude ; he had no hat, and looked all mix- 
 ed-up and disarranged. 
 
 "Come down -- come down!" he begged 
 thickly, beckoning me with his arm. 
 
 I got on some clothes, slipped downstairs with 
 out wakening my wife, lit the hall light, and took 
 him into the library. He dropped in a chair with a 
 
30 IN THE ARENA 
 
 quick breath like a sob, and when I turned from 
 lighting the gas I was shocked by the change in 
 him since afternoon. I never saw such a look be 
 fore. It was like a rat you ve seen running along 
 the gutter side of the curbstone with a terrier af 
 ter it. 
 
 "What s the matter, Farwell?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, my God!" he whispered. 
 
 "What s happened?" 
 
 "It s hard to tell you," said he. "Oh, but it s 
 hard to tell. " 
 
 "Want some whiskey?" I asked, reaching for 
 a decanter that stood handy. He nodded and I 
 gave him good allowance. 
 
 "Now," said I, when he d gulped it down, 
 "let s hear what s turned up. " 
 
 He looked at me kind of dimly, and I ll be shot 
 if two tears didn t well up in his eyes and run 
 down his cheeks. " I ve come to ask you, " he said 
 slowly and brokenly, "to ask you if you won t 
 intercede with Gorgett for me ; to ask you if you 
 won t beg him to to grant me an interview 
 before to-morrow noon. " 
 
BOSS GORGETT 31 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "Will you do it?" 
 
 "Certainly. Have you asked for an interview 
 with him yourself ? " 
 
 He struck the back of his hand across his fore 
 head struck hard, too. 
 
 " Have I tried ? I ve been following him like a 
 dog since five o clock this afternoon, beseeching 
 him to give me twenty minutes talk in private. 
 He laughed at me! He isn t a man; he s an iron- 
 hearted devil ! Then I went to his house and wait 
 ed three hours for him. When he came, all he 
 would say was that you were supposed to be run 
 ning this campaign for me, and I d better consult 
 with you. Then he turned me out of his house!" 
 
 :< You seem to have altered a little since this 
 afternoon. " I couldn t resist that. 
 
 " This afternoon ! " he shuddered. " I think that 
 was a thousand years ago!" 
 
 " What do you want to see him for ? " 
 
 "What for ? To see if there isn t a little human 
 pity in him for a fellow-being in agony --to end 
 my suspense and know whether or not he means 
 
32 IN THE ARENA 
 
 to ruin me and my happiness and my home for 
 
 ever!" 
 
 Farwell didn t seem to be regarding me so 
 much in the light of a character as usual; still, one 
 thing puzzled me, and I asked him how he 
 happened to come to me. 
 
 "Because I thought if anyone in the world 
 could do anything with Gorgett, you d be the 
 one," he answered. "Because it seemed to me 
 he d listen to you, and because I thought in 
 my wild clutching at the remotest hope that he 
 meant to make my humiliation more awful by 
 sending me to you to ask you to go back to him 
 for me." 
 
 "Well, well," I said, " I guess if you want me 
 to be of any use you ll have to tell me what it s 
 all about. " 
 
 "I suppose so," he said, and choked, with a 
 kind of despairing sound; "I don t see any way 
 out of it. " 
 
 "Go ahead," I told him. "I reckon I m old 
 enough to keep my counsel. Let it go, Farwell. " 
 
 "Do you know," he began, with a sharp, 
 
BOSS GORGETT 33 
 
 grinding of his teeth, " that dishonourable scound 
 rel has had me watched, ever since there was talk 
 of me for the fusion candidate ? He s had me fol 
 lowed, shadowed, till he knows more about me 
 than I do myself." 
 
 I saw right there that I d never really meas 
 ured Gorgett for as tall as he really was. " Have a 
 cigar?" I asked Knowles, and lit one myself. But 
 he shook his head and went on : 
 
 " You remember my taking you to call on Gen 
 eral Buskirk s daughter?" 
 
 "Quite well," said I, puffing pretty hard. 
 
 "An angel! A white angel! And this beast, this 
 boodler has the mud in his hands to desecrate her 
 white garments!" 
 
 "Oh, "says I. 
 
 The angel s knight began to pace the room as 
 he talked, clinching and unclinching his hands, 
 while the perspiration got his hair all scraggly on 
 his forehead. You see Farwell was doing some 
 suffering and he wasn t used to it. 
 
 "When she came home from abroad, a year 
 ago," he said, " it seemed to me that a light came 
 
34 IN THE ARENA 
 
 into my life. I ve got to tell you the whole thing, " 
 he groaned, " but it s hard ! Well, my wife is taken 
 up with our little boy and housekeeping I 
 don t complain of her, mind that but she 
 really hasn t entered into my ambitions, my inner 
 life. She doesn t often read my editorials, and 
 when she does, she hasn t been serious in her con 
 sideration of them and of my purposes. Some 
 times she differed openly from me and some 
 times greeted my work for truth and light with 
 indifference! I had learned to bear this, and more; 
 to save myself pain I had come to shrink from 
 exposing my real self to her. Then, when this 
 young girl came, for the first time in my life I 
 found real sympathy and knew what I thought I 
 never should know; a heart attuned to my own, a 
 mind that sought my own ideals, a soul of the 
 same aspirations and a perfect faith in what I 
 was and in what it was my right to attain. She 
 met me with open hands, and lifted me to my 
 best self. What, unhappily, I did not find at 
 home, I found in her encouragement. I went 
 to her in every mood, always to be greeted by the 
 
BOSS GORGETT 85 
 
 most exquisite perception, always the same deli 
 cate receptiveness. She gave me a sister s love!" 
 
 I nodded; I knew he thought so. 
 
 "Well, when I went into this campaign, what 
 more natural than that I should seek her ready 
 sympathy at every turn, than that I should con 
 sult with her at each crisis, and, when I became 
 the fusion candidate, that I should go to her with 
 the news that I had taken my first great step to 
 ward my goal and had achieved thus far in my 
 struggle for the cause of our hearts -- reform?" 
 
 "You went up to Buskirk s after the conven 
 tion ?" I asked. 
 
 "No; the night before." He took his head in 
 his hands and groaned, but without pausing in 
 his march up and down the room. "You re 
 member, it was known by ten o clock, after the 
 primaries, that I should receive the nomination. 
 As soon as I was sure, I went to her ; and I found 
 her in the same state of exaltation and pride that 
 I was experiencing myself. There was always the 
 answer in her, I tell you, always the response that 
 such a nature as mine craves. She took both my 
 
86 IN THE ARENA 
 
 hands and looked at me just as a proud sister 
 would. I read your news, she said. It is in your 
 face ! Wasn t that touching ? Then we sat in si 
 lence for a while, each understanding the other s 
 joy and triumph in the great blow I had struck 
 for the right. I left very soon, and she came with 
 me to the door. We stood for a moment on the 
 step and for the first time, the only time in 
 my life I received a a sister s caress. " 
 
 "Oh," said I. I understood how Gorgett had 
 managed to be so calm that afternoon. 
 
 "It was the purest kiss ever given!" Farwell 
 groaned again. 
 
 ;< Who was it saw you ? " I asked. 
 
 He dropped into a chair and I saw the tears of 
 rage and humiliation welling up again in his eyes. 
 
 "We might as well have been standing by 
 the footlights in a theatre!" he burst out, broken 
 ly. "Who saw it? Who didn t see it? Gorgett s 
 sleuth-hound, the man he sent to me this after 
 noon, for one; the policeman on the beat that 
 he d stopped for a chat in front of the house, for 
 another; a maid in the hall behind us, the police- 
 
BOSS GORGETT 37 
 
 man s sweetheart she is, for another! Oh!" he 
 cried, "the desecration! That one caress, one 
 that I d thought a sacred secret between us for 
 ever and in plain sight of those three hideous 
 vulgarians, all belonging to my enemy, Gorgett! 
 Ah, the horror of it what horror /" 
 
 Farwell wrung his hands and sat, gulping as if 
 he were sick, without speaking for several mo 
 ments. 
 
 "What terms did the man he sent offer from 
 Gorgett?" I asked. 
 
 " No terms ! He said to go ahead and print my 
 story about the closet; it was a matter of perfect 
 indifference to him; that he meant to print this 
 about me in their damnable party-organ to 
 morrow, in any event, and only warned me so 
 that I should have time to prepare Miss Buskirk. 
 Of course he don t care ! / // be ruined, that s all. 
 Oh, the hideous injustice of it, the unreason! 
 Don t you see the frightful irony of it ? The best 
 thing in my life, the widest and deepest; my 
 friendship with a good woman becomes a joke 
 and a horror! Don t you see that the personal 
 
38 IN THE ARENA 
 
 scandal about me absolutely undermines me and 
 nullifies the political scandal of the closet affair ? 
 Gorgett will come in again and the Grand Jury 
 would laugh at any attack on him. I m ruined for 
 good, for good and all, for good and all ! " 
 
 "Have you told Miss Buskirk?" 
 
 He uttered a kind of a shriek. "No! I can t! 
 How could I ? What do you think I m made of ? 
 And there s her father and all her relatives, 
 and mine, and my wife my wife ! If she leaves 
 
 me 
 
 A fit of nausea seemed to overcome him and 
 he struggled with it, shivering. "My God! Do 
 you think I can face it ? I ve come to you for help 
 in the most wretched hour of my life all dark 
 ness, darkness! Just on the eve of triumph to be 
 stricken down it s so cruel, so devilish! And to 
 think of the horrible comic-weekly misery of it, 
 caught kissing a girl, by a policeman and his 
 sweetheart, the chambermaid! Ugh! The vulgar 
 ridicule the hideous laughter!" He raised his 
 hands to me, the most grovelling figure of a man 
 I ever saw. 
 
BOSS GORGETT 39 
 
 "Oh, for God s sake, help me, help 
 me. . . ." 
 
 Well, sir, it was sickening enough, but after he 
 had gone, and I tumbled into bed again, I thought 
 of Gorgett and laughed myself to sleep with 
 admiration. 
 
 When Farwell and I got to Gorgett s office, 
 fairly early the next morning, Lafe was sitting 
 there alone, expecting us, of course, as I knew he 
 would be, but in the same characteristic, lazy atti 
 tude I d found him in, the day before; feet up on 
 the desk, hat-brim tilted way forward, cigar in 
 the right-hand corner of his mouth, his hands in 
 his pockets, his double-chin mashing down his 
 limp collar. He didn t even turn to look at us 
 as we came in and closed the door. 
 
 "Come in, gentlemen, come in," says he, not 
 moving. " I kind of thought you d be along, about 
 this time." 
 
 " Looking for us, were you ? " I asked. 
 
 "Yes, "said he. "Sit down." 
 
 We did; Farwell looking pretty pale and red- 
 eyed, and swallowing a good deal. 
 
40 IN THE ARENA 
 
 There was a long, long silence. We just sat anc 
 watched Gorgett. / didn t want to say anything ; 
 and I believe Farwell couldn t. It lasted so lon^; 
 that it began to look as if the little blue haze a 
 the end of Laf e s cigar was all that was going t( 
 happen. But by and by he turned his head eve: 
 so little, and looked at Knowles. 
 
 " Got your story for the Herald set up yet ? " h< 
 asked. 
 
 Farwell swallowed some more and just shool 
 his head. 
 
 "Haven t begun to work up the case for the 
 Grand Jury yet?" 
 
 "No," answered Farwell, in almost a whisper 
 his head hanging. 
 
 " Why, " Lafe said, in a tone of quiet surprise 
 "you haven t given all that up, have you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, ain t that strange ? " said Lafe." What .s 
 the trouble?" 
 
 Knowles didn t answer. In fact, I felt might; 
 sorry for him. 
 
 All at once, Gorgett s manner changed; h<; 
 
BOSS GORGETT 41 
 
 threw away his cigar, the only time I ever saw 
 him do it without lighting another at the end of it. 
 His feet came down to the floor and he wheeled 
 round on Farwell. 
 
 " I understand your wife s a mighty nice lady, 
 Mr. Knowles. " 
 
 Farwell s head sank lower till we couldn t see 
 his face, only his fingers working kind of pitifully. 
 
 "I guess you ve had rather a bad night ?" said 
 Gorgett, inquiringly. 
 
 "Oh, my God!" The words came out in a 
 whisper from under Knowles s tilted hat-brim. 
 
 " I believe I d advise you to stick to your wife," 
 Gorgett went on, quietly, " and let politics alone. 
 Somehow I don t believe you re the kind of man 
 for it. I ve taken considerable interest in you for 
 some time back, Mr. Knowles, though I don t 
 suppose you ve noticed it until lately; and I don t 
 believe you understand the game. You ve said 
 some pretty hard things in your paper about me; 
 you ve been more or less excitable in your state 
 ments; but that s all right. What I don t like al 
 together, though, is that it seems to me you ve 
 
42 IN THE ARENA 
 
 been really tooting your own horn all the time 
 calling everybody dishonest and scoundrels, to 
 shove yourself forward. That always ends in sort 
 of a lonely position. I reckon you feel considerably 
 lonely, just now ? Well, yesterday, I understand 
 you were talking pretty free about the peniten 
 tiary. Now, that ain t just the way to act, accord 
 ing to my notion. It s a bad word. Here we are, 
 he and I " he pointed to me " carrying on our 
 little fight according to the rules, enjoying it and 
 blocking each other, gaining a point here and 
 losing one there, everything perfectly good- 
 natured, when you turn up and begin to talk 
 about the penitentiary! That ain t quite the thing. 
 You see words like that are liable to stir up the 
 passions. It s dangerous. You were trusted, when 
 they told you the closet story, to regard it as a 
 confidence though they didn t go through the 
 form of pledging you because your people had 
 given their word not to betray Genz. But you 
 couldn t see it and there you went, talking about 
 the Grand Jury and stripes and so on, stirring up 
 passions and ugly feelings. And I want to tell you 
 
BOSS GORGETT 43 
 
 that the man who can afford to do that has to be 
 mighty immaculate himself. The only way to play 
 politics, whatever you re for, is to learn the game 
 first. Then you ll know how far you can go and 
 what your own record will stand. There ain t a 
 man alive whose record will stand too much, Mr. 
 Knowles and when you get to thinking about 
 that and what your own is, it makes you feel more 
 like treating your fellow-sinners a good deal 
 gentler than you would otherwise. Now I ve got 
 a wife and two little girls, and my old mother s 
 proud of me (though you wouldn t think it) 
 and they d hate it a good deal to see me sent over 
 the road for playing the game the best I could as 
 I found it. " 
 
 He paused for a moment, looking sad and al 
 most embarrassed. "It ain t any great pleasure 
 to me," he said, "to think that the people have 
 let it get to be the game that it is. But I reckon it s 
 good for you. I reckon the best thing that ever 
 happened to you is having to come here this 
 morning to ask mercy of a man you looked 
 down on." 
 
44 IN THE ARENA 
 
 Farwell shifted a little in his chair, but he 
 didn t speak, and Gorgett went on: 
 
 "I suppose you think it s mighty hard that 
 your private character should be used against you 
 in a political question by a man you call a public 
 corruptionist. But I m in a position where I can t 
 take any chances against an antagonist that won t 
 play the game my way. I had to find your vulner 
 able point to defend myself, and, in finding it, I 
 find that there s no need to defend myself any 
 longer, because it makes all your weapons inef 
 fective. I believe the trouble with you, Mr. 
 Knowles, is that you ve never realized that poli 
 ticians are human beings. But we are : we breathe 
 and laugh and like to do right, like other folks. 
 And, like most men, you ve thought you were dif 
 ferent from other men, and you aren t. So, here 
 you are. I believe you said you d had a hard 
 night?" 
 
 Knowles looked up at last, his lips working for 
 a while before he could speak. " I ll resign now 
 if you ll if you ll let me off," he said. 
 
 Gorgett shook his head. " I ve got the election 
 
BOSS GORGETT 45 
 
 in my hand," he answered, "though you fellows 
 don t know it. You ve got nothing to offer me, 
 and you couldn t buy me if you had. " 
 
 At that, Knowles just sank into himself with a 
 little, faint cry, in a kind of heap. There wasn t 
 anything but anguish and despair to him. Big 
 tears were sliding down his cheeks. 
 
 I didn t say anything. Gorgett sat looking at 
 him for a good while ; and then his fat chin began 
 to tremble a little and I saw his eyes shining in 
 the shadow under his old hat-brim. 
 
 He got up and went over to Farwell with slow 
 steps and put his hand gently on his shoulder. 
 
 " Go on home to your wife," he said, in a low 
 voice that was the saddest I ever heard. "I don t 
 bear you any ill-will in the world. Nobody s going 
 to give you away." 
 
THE ALIENS 
 
1 IETRO TOBIGLI, that gay young chest 
 nut vender he of the radiant smiles gave 
 forth, in his warm tenor, his own interpreta 
 tion of "Ach du lieber Augustine," whenever 
 Bertha, rosy waitress in the little German restau 
 rant, showed her face at the door. For a month it 
 had been a courtship; and the merchant sang 
 often: 
 
 "Ahaha, du libra Ogostine> 
 
 Ogostine, Ogostine! 
 Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, 
 Nees coma ross" 
 
 The acquaintance, begun by the song and Pie- 
 tro s wonderful laugh, had grown tender. The 
 chestnut vender had a way with him ; he, looked 
 like the "Neapolitan Fisher Lad" of the chro- 
 mos, and you could have fancied him of two cen- 
 
50 IN THE ARENA 
 
 turies ago, putting a rose in his hair; even as it 
 was, he had the ear-rings. But the smile of him 
 it was that won Bertha, when she came to work 
 in the little restaurant. It was a smile that put 
 the world at its ease ; it proclaimed the coming of 
 morning over the meadows, and, taking every 
 bystander into an April friendship, ran on sud 
 denly into a laugh that was like silver, and like a 
 strange puppy s claiming you for the lost master. 
 
 So it befell that Bertha was fascinated; that, 
 blushing, she laughed back to him, and was noth 
 ing offended when, at his first sight of her, he 
 rippled out at once into "Ahaha, du libra 
 Ogostine." 
 
 Within two weeks he was closing his business 
 (no intricate matter) every evening, to walk 
 home with her, through the September moon 
 light. Then extraordinary things happened to 
 the English language. 
 
 "I ain d nefer can like no foreigner!" she 
 often joked back to a question of his. "Nefer, 
 nefer! you t ink I m takin up mit a hant-orkan 
 maan, Mister Toby?" 
 
THE ALIENS 51 
 
 Whereupon he would carol out the tender 
 taunt, " Ahaha, du libra Ogostine!" 
 
 " Yoost a hant-orkan maan!" 
 
 "No! No! No oragan! I am a greata greata 
 merchant. Vote a Republican! Polititshian ! To- 
 bigli, Chititzen Republican. Naturalasize ! March 
 in a parade!" 
 
 Never lived native American prouder of his 
 citizenship than this adopted one. Had he not 
 voted at the election ? Was he not a member of 
 the great Republican party? He had eagerly 
 joined it, for the reason that he had been a Re 
 publican in Italy, and he had drawn with him to 
 the polls his second cousin, Leo Vesschi, and the 
 five other Italians with whom he lived. For this, 
 he had been rewarded by Pixley, his precinct 
 committee-man, who allowed him to carry pink 
 torches in three night processions. 
 
 "You keeb oud politigs," said Bertha, earn 
 estly, one evening. "My uncle, Louie Gratz, he 
 iss got a neighbour-lady; her man gone in politigs. 
 Af tervorts he git it ! He iss in der bennidenshierry 
 two years. You know why ?" 
 
52 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Democrat!" shouted the chestnut vender 
 triumphantly. 
 
 "No, sir! Yoost politigs," replied the unparti- 
 san Bertha. "You keeb oud politigs." 
 
 "Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, 
 
 Ogostine, Ogostine! 
 Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, 
 Nees coma ross." 
 
 The song was always a teasing of her and 
 carried all his friendly laughter at her, be 
 cause of her German ways ; but it became softly 
 exultant whenever she betrayed her interest in 
 him. 
 
 "Libra Ogostine, she afraid I go penitensh?" 
 he inquired. 
 
 "Me!" she jeered with uneasy laughter. "7 
 ain d care! but you you don look oud, you 
 git in dod voikhouse!" 
 
 He turned upon her, suddenly, a face like a 
 mother s, and touched her hand with a light 
 caress. 
 
THE ALIENS 53 
 
 "I stay in a workhouse sevena-hunder year," 
 he said gently, "you come seeta by window 
 some-a-time." 
 
 At this Bertha turned away, was silent for a 
 space, leaning on the gate-post in front of her 
 uncle s house, whither they were now come. Fi 
 nally she answered brokenly: "I ain d sit by no 
 vinder for yoost a jessnut maan." This was her 
 way of stimulating his ambition. 
 
 "Ahaha!" he cried. "You don know? I m 
 goin buy beeg stan ! Candy! Peanut! Banan ! 
 Make some-a-time four dollar a day! Tis a 
 great a countra! Bimaby git a store! Ride a bug 
 gy! Smoke a cigar! You play piano! Vote a Re 
 publican!" 
 
 "Toby!" 
 
 "Tis true!" 
 
 "Toby," she said tearfully; "Toby, you voik 
 hart, und safe your money?" 
 
 "You help?" he whispered. 
 
 "I help you!" she cried loudly. Then, with 
 a sudden fit of sobbing, she flung open the gate 
 and ran at the top of her speed into the house. 
 
54 IN THE ARENA 
 
 Halcyon the days for Pietro Tobigli, extrava 
 gant the jocularity of this betrothed one. And, as 
 his happiness, so did his prosperity increase; the 
 little chestnut furnace became the smallest ad 
 junct of his affairs; for he leaped (almost at one 
 bound) to the proprietorship of a wooden stand, 
 shaped like the crate of an upright piano and 
 backed up against the brick wall of the restau 
 rant a mercantile house which was closed at 
 night by putting the lid on. All day long Toby s 
 smile arrested pedestrians, and compelled them 
 to buy of him, making his wares sweeter in the 
 mouth. Bertha dwelt in a perpetual serenade: 
 on warm days, when the restaurant doors were 
 open, she could hear him singing, not always 
 "Ogostine," but festal lilts of Italy, liquid and 
 strangely sweet to her; and at such times, when 
 the actual voice was not in her ears, still she 
 blushed with delight to hear in her heart the 
 thrilling echoes of his barcaroles, and found 
 them humming cheerily upon her own lips. 
 
 Toby was to save five hundred dollars before 
 they married, a great sum, but they were patient 
 
THE ALIENS 55 
 
 and both worked very hard. The winter would 
 have fallen bitterly upon an outdoor merchant 
 lacking Toby s confident heart, but on the cold 
 est days, when Bertha looked out, she always 
 found him slapping his hands and trudging up 
 and down in the snow in front of the little box; 
 and, as soon as he caught sight of her " Aha- 
 ha, du libra Ogostine, Ogostine, Ogostine!" 
 
 She saved her own money with German persist 
 ence, and on Christmas day her present to her 
 betrothed, in return for a coral pin, was a pair of 
 rubber boots rilled with little cakes. 
 
 Elysium was the dwelling-place of Pietro To- 
 bigli, though, apparently, he abode in a horrible 
 slum cellar with Leo Vesschi and the five Latti 
 brothers. In this place our purveyor of sweet 
 meats was the only light. Thither he had car 
 ried his songs and his laugh and his furnace 
 when he came from Italy to join Vesschi; and 
 there he remained, partly out of loyalty to his un- 
 prosperous comrades, and partly because his 
 share of the expense was only twenty-five cents 
 a week, and every saving was a saving for Ber- 
 
56 IN THE ARENA 
 
 tha. Every evening, on the homeward walk, the 
 affianced pair passed the hideous stairway that 
 led down to the cellar, and Bertha, neat soul, 
 never failed to shudder at it. She did not know 
 that Pietro lived there, for he feared it might 
 distress her; nor could she ever persuade him to 
 tell her where he lived. 
 
 Because of this mystery, upon which he mer 
 rily insisted, she affected a fear that he would 
 some day desert her. "You don tell me where 
 you lif , I t ink you goin ran away of me, Toby. 
 I vake opp some day; git a ledder dod you gone 
 back home by Tali an lady dod s grazy bout 
 you!" 
 
 "Ahaha! Libra Ogostine, you believe I can 
 make a write weet a pen-a-paper ? I don know 
 that-a how. Some-a-time you see that gran palazzo 
 where I leef. Eesa greata-great sooraprise!" 
 
 In the gran palazzo, it was as much as he 
 could do to keep clean his own grim little bunk 
 in the corner. His comrades, sullen, hopeless, 
 came at evening from ten hours desperate shov 
 elling, and exhibited no ambition for water or 
 
THE ALIENS 57 
 
 brooms, but sat hunched and silent, or morosely 
 muttering and coughing, in the dark room with 
 its sodden earthen floor, stained walls, and one 
 smoky lamp. 
 
 To this uncomfortable chamber repaired, one 
 March evening, Mr. Frank Pixley, Republican 
 precinct committee-man, nor was its dinginess 
 an unharmonious setting for that political bril 
 liant. He was a pock-pitted, damp-looking, soiled 
 little fungus of a man, who had attained to his 
 office because, in the dirtiest precinct of the wick 
 edest ward in the city, he had, through the opera 
 tion of a befitting ingenuity, forced a recognition 
 of his leadership. From such an office, manned by 
 a Pixley, there leads an upward ramification of 
 wires, invisible to all except manipulators, which 
 extends to higher surfaces. Usually the Pixley 
 is a deep-sea puppet, wholly controlled by the 
 dingily gilded wires that run down to him; but 
 there are times when the Pixley gives forth initial 
 impulses of his own, such as may alter the upper 
 surface; for, in a system of this character, every 
 twitch is felt throughout the whole ramification. 
 
58 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Hello, boys," the committee-man called out 
 with automatic geniality, as he descended the 
 broken steps. "How are ye? All here? That s 
 good; that s the stuff! Good work!" 
 
 Only Toby replied With more than an indif 
 ferent grunt; but he ran forward, carrying an 
 empty beer keg which he placed as a seat for 
 the guest. 
 
 "Aha/ta, Meesa Peeslay! Make a parade? 
 Torchlight ? Bandaplay ta ra, la la la ? Fire 
 work ? Fzzz ! Bourn ! Eh ? " 
 
 The politician responded to Toby s extrava 
 gantly friendly laughter with some mechanical 
 cachinnations which, like an obliging salesman, 
 he turned on and off with no effort. "Not by a 
 dern sight!" he answered. "The campaign ain t 
 begun yet." 
 
 "Champagne?" inquired Tobigli politely. 
 
 "Campaign, campaign," explained Pixley. 
 "Not much champagne in yours!" he chuckled 
 beneath his breath. "Blame lucky to git Chicago 
 bowl!" 
 
 "What is that, that campaign?" 
 
THE ALIENS 59 
 
 "Why --why, it s the campaign. Workin up 
 public sentiment; gittin you boys in line, lect- 
 ioneerin - - fixin it right." 
 
 Tobigli shook his head. "Campaign?" he re 
 peated. 
 
 "Why Gee, you know! Free beer, cigars, 
 speakin , handshakin , paradin - 
 
 "Ahaha!" The merchant sprang to his feet 
 with a shout. "Yes! Hoor-r-ra! Vote a Republi 
 can! Dam-a Democrat!" 
 
 "That s it," replied the committee-man some 
 what languidly. "You see, this is a Republican 
 precinct, and it turns the ward - 
 
 " Allaways a Republican!" vociferated Pietro. 
 " That eesa right?" 
 
 "Well," said the other, "of course, which 
 ever way you go, you want to follow your pre 
 cinct committee-man that s me." 
 
 "Yess! Vote a Republican." 
 
 Pixley looked about the room, his little red 
 eyes peering out cannily from under his crooked 
 brows at each of the sulky figures in the damp 
 shadows. 
 
60 IN THE ARENA 
 
 You boys all vote the way Pete says?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Vote same Pietro," answered Vesschi. " Alla- 
 ways." 
 
 " Allaways a Republican," added Pietro spark- 
 ingly, with abundant gesture. " Tis a greata-great 
 countra. Republican here same a Republican at 
 home eena Etallee. Republican eternall ! All 
 good Republican eena thees house! Hoor-r-ra!" 
 
 "Well," said Pixley, with a furtiveness half 
 habit, as he rose to go, "of course, you want to 
 keep your eye on your committee-man, and kind 
 of f oiler along with him, whatever he does. That s 
 me." He placed a dingy bottle on the keg. "I 
 jest dropped in to see how you boys were gittin 
 along mighty tidy little place you got here." 
 He changed the stub of his burnt-out cigar to the 
 other side of his mouth, shifting his eyes in the 
 opposite direction, as he continued benevolently: 
 " I thought I d look in and leave this bottle o gin 
 fer ye, with my compliments. I ll be around ag in 
 some evenin , and I reckon before lection day 
 comes there may be somep n doin I might 
 
THE ALIENS 61 
 
 have better fer ye than a bottle. Keep your eye 
 on me, boys, an foller the leader. That s the idea. 
 So long!" 
 
 "Vote a Republican!" Pietro shouted after 
 him gaily. 
 
 Pixley turned. 
 
 "Jest foller yer leader," he rejoined. "That s 
 the way to learn politics, boys." 
 
 Now as the rough spring wore on into the hap 
 pier season, with the days like spiced warm wine, 
 when people on the street are no longer driven by 
 the weather but are won by it to loiter; now, in 
 deed, did commerce at Toby s new stand so 
 mightily thrive that, when summer came, Ber 
 tha was troubled as to the safety of Toby s 
 profits. 
 
 You yoost put your money by der builtun- 
 loan sociation, Toby," she advised gently. "Dey 
 safe ut fer you." 
 
 "T ree hunder fifta dolla no!" answered 
 her betrothed. " I keep in de pock ! " He showed 
 her where the bills were pinned into his corduroy 
 
62 IN THE ARENA 
 
 waistcoat pocket. "See! Eesa you! Onna my 
 heart, libra Ogostine!" 
 
 "Toby, uf you ain d dake ut by der builtun- 
 loan, blease put ut in der bink ? " 
 
 "I keep!" he repeated, shaking his head ser 
 iously. "In t ree-four mont eesa five-hunder- 
 dolla. Nobody but me eesa tross weet that 
 money." 
 
 Nor could Bertha persuade him. It was their 
 happiness he watched over. Who to guard it as 
 he, the dingy, precious parcel of bills ? He pic 
 tured for himself a swampy forest through which 
 he was laying a pathway to Bertha, and each 
 of the soiled green notes that he pinned in his 
 waistcoat was a strip of firm ground he had 
 made, over which he advanced a few steps nearer 
 her. And Bertha was very happy, even forget 
 ting, for a while, to be afraid of the smallpox, 
 which had thrown out little flags, like auction 
 signs, here and there about the city. 
 
 When the full heat of summer came, Pietro 
 laughed at the dog-days; and it was Bertha s to 
 suffer in the hot little restaurant; but she smiled 
 
THE ALIENS 63 
 
 and waved to Pietro, so that he should not know. 
 Also she made him sell iced lemonade and birch 
 beer, which was well for the corduroy waistcoat 
 pocket. Never have you seen a more alluring 
 merchant. One glance toward the stand; you 
 caught that flashing smile, the owner of it a-tip- 
 toe to serve you; and Pietro managed, too, by a 
 light jog to the table on which stood his big, be 
 dewed, earthen jars, that you became aware of 
 the tinkle of ice and ,a cold, liquid murmur - 
 what mortal could deny the inward call and pass 
 without stopping to buy ? 
 
 There fell a night in September when Bertha 
 beheld her lover glorious. She had been warned 
 that he was to officiate in the great opening func 
 tion of the campaign ; and she stood on the corner 
 for an hour before the head of the procession ap 
 peared. On they came - - Pietro s party, three 
 thousand strong; brass bands, fireworks, red 
 fire, tumultuous citizens, political clubs, local 
 potentates in open carriages, policemen, boys, 
 dogs, bicycles -- the procession doing all the 
 cheering for itself, the crowds of spectators only 
 
64 IN THE ARENA 
 
 feebly responding to this enthusiasm, as is our 
 national custom. At the end of it all marched a 
 plentiful crew of tatterdemalions, a few bleared 
 white men, and the rest negroes. They bore aloft 
 a crazy transparency, exhibiting the legend : 
 
 "FRANK PIXLEY S HARD-MONEY LEAGUE. 
 WE STAND FOR OUR PRINCIPALS. 
 
 WE ARE SOLLID ! 
 
 No FOOLING THE PEOPLE GOES! 
 
 WE VOTE AS ONE MAN FOR 
 
 TAYLOR P. SINGLETON!" 
 
 Bertha s eyes had not rested upon Toby 
 where they innocently sought him, in the front 
 ranks, even scanning the carriages, seeking 
 him in all positions which she conceived as high 
 est in honour, and she would have missed him al- 
 
THE ALIENS 65 
 
 together, had not there reached her, out of cha 
 otic clamours, a clear, high, rollicking tenor: 
 
 "Ahaha ! du libra Ogostine, 
 
 Ogostine, Ogostine! 
 Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, 
 Nees coma ross!" 
 
 Then the eager eyes found their pleasure, for 
 there, in the last line of Pixley s pirates, the very 
 tail of the procession, danced Pietro Tobigli, 
 waving his pink torch at her, proud, happy, tri 
 umphant, a true Republican, believing all com 
 pany equal in the republic, and the rear rank as 
 good as the first. 
 
 "Vote a Republican!" he shouted. "Republi 
 can Republican eternall!" 
 
 Strangely enough, a like fervid protestation 
 (vociferated in greeting) evoked no reciprocal 
 enthusiasm in the breast of Mr. Pixley, when the 
 committee-man called upon Toby and his friends 
 at their apartment one evening, a fortnight later. 
 
66 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "That s right," he responded languidly. 
 "That s right in gineral, I should say. Cert nly, 
 in gineral, I ain t got no quarrel with no man s 
 Republicanism. But this here s kind of a put- 
 tickler case, boys. The election s liable to be 
 mighty close." 
 
 "Republican win!" laughed Toby. "Meelyun 
 man eena parade!" 
 
 Mr. Pixley s small eyes lowered furtively. He 
 glanced once toward the door, stroked his stubby 
 chin, and answered softly: "Don t you be too 
 sure of that, young feller. Them banks is fightin 
 each other ag in!" 
 
 "Bank? Fight? Wat eesa that?" inquired 
 the merchant, with an entirely blank mind. 
 
 "There s one thing it am f," replied the other, 
 in the same confidential tone. "It ain t no two- 
 by-four campaign. All I got to say to you boys 
 is: Toller yer leader and you ll wear pearl 
 collar-buttons!" 
 
 " Vote a Republican," interjected Leo Vesschi 
 gutturally. 
 
 The furtiveness of Mr. Pixley increased. 
 
THE ALIENS 67 
 
 "Well mebbe," he responded, very deliber 
 ately. "I reckon I better put you boys next, 
 right now s well s any other time. Ain t nothin 
 ever gained by not bein open n above-board; 
 that s my motto, and I ack up to it. You kin ast 
 em, jest ast the boys, and you ll hear it from 
 each-an-dall : Frank Pixley s square! That s 
 what they ll tell ye. Now see here, this is the way 
 it is. I ain t worryin much about who goes to the 
 legislature, or who s county-commissioners, nor 
 none o that. Why ain t I worryin ? Because it s 
 picayune. It s peanut politics. It ain t where the 
 money is. No, sir, this campaign is on the treas- 
 urership. Taylor P. Singleton is runnin fer treas 
 urer on the Republican ticket, and Gil. Maxim 
 on the Democratic. But that ain t where the 
 fight is." Mr. Pixley spat contemptuously. "Pah! 
 whichever of em gits it won t no more n draw 
 his salary. It s the banks. If Singleton wins out, 
 the Washington National gits the use of the 
 county s money fer the term; if Maxim s elected, 
 Florenheim s bank gits it. Florenheim laid down 
 the cash fer Maxim s nomination, and the Wash- 
 
68 IN THE ARENA 
 
 ington National fixed it fer Singleton. And it s 
 big money, don t you git no wrong idea about 
 that/" 
 
 "Vote a Republican," said Toby politely. 
 
 A look of pain appeared upon the brow of the 
 committee-man. 
 
 "I reckon I ain t hardly made myself clear," 
 he observed, somewhat plaintively. "Now here, 
 you listen: I reckon it would be kind of resky to 
 trust you boys to scratch the ticket it s a mix 
 ed up business, anyway - 
 
 "Vote a straight!" cried Pietro, nodding his 
 head, cheerfully. " Yess! I teach Leo; yess, teach 
 all these" -he waved his hands to indicate the 
 melancholy listeners- "teach them all. Stamp 
 in a circle by that eagle. Vote a Republican!" 
 
 "What I was goin to say," went on the offi 
 cial, exhibiting tokens of impatience and per 
 turbation, "was that if we should make any 
 switch this year, I guess you boys would have 
 to switch straight." 
 
 " Tis true!" was the hearty response. "Vote 
 a straight Republican. Republican eternall!" 
 
THE ALIENS 69 
 
 Pixley wiped his forehead with a dirty hand 
 kerchief, and scratched his head. " See here," he 
 said, after a pause, to Toby. "I ve got to go 
 down to Collins s saloon, and I d like to have you 
 come along. Feel like going?" 
 
 "Certumalee," answered Toby with alacrity, 
 reaching for his hat. 
 
 But no one could have been more surprised 
 than the chestnut vender when, on reaching the 
 vacant street, his companion glancing cautiously 
 about, beckoned him into the darkness of an 
 alley-way, and, noiselessly upsetting a barrel, in 
 dicated it as a seat for both. 
 
 "Here," said Pixley, "I reckon this is better. 
 Jest two men by theirselves kin fix up a thing like 
 this a lot quicker, and I seen you didn t want to 
 talk too much before them. You make your own 
 deal with em afterwards, or none at all, jest as 
 you like! They ll do whatever you say, anyway. 
 I sized you up to run that bunch, first time I ever 
 laid eyes on the outfit. Now see here, Pete, you 
 listen to me. I reckon I kin turn a little trick here 
 that ll do you some good. You kin bet I see that 
 
70 IN THE ARENA 
 
 the men I pick fer my leaders like you, Pete 
 - git their rights ! Now here : there s you and the 
 other six, that s seven; it ll be three dollars in 
 your pocket if you deliver the goods." 
 
 "No! no!" said Pietro in earnest protestation. 
 "We seven a good Republican. We vote a Re 
 publican same las time, all a time. Eesa not a 
 need to pay us to vote a Republican. You save 
 that a money, Meesa Peaslay." 
 
 You don t understand," groaned Pixley, 
 with an inclination to weep over the foreigner s 
 thick-headedness. "There s a chance fer a big 
 deal here for all the boys in the precinck. Gil. 
 Maxim s backers ll pay big fer votes enough to 
 swing it. The best of em don t know where 
 they re at, I tell you. Now here, you see here" 
 he took an affectionate grip of Pietro s collar 
 "I m goin to have a talk with Maxim s manager 
 to-morrow, I ve had one or two a ready, and I ll 
 put up the price all round on them people. It s 
 no more n right, when you count up what we re 
 doin fer them. Look here, you swing them six in 
 line and march em up, and all of ye stamp the 
 
THE ALIENS 71 
 
 rooster instead of the eagle this time, and help 
 me to show Maxim that Frank Pixley s there with 
 the goods, and I ll hand you a five-dollar bill and 
 a full box o ci grars, see ?" 
 
 Pietro nodded and smiled through the dark 
 ness. "Stamp that eagle!" he answered, "Eesa 
 all right, Meesa Peasley. Don t you have afraid. 
 We all seven a good Republican! Stamp that 
 eagle! Hoor-r-ra! Republican eternatt!" 
 
 Pixley was left sitting on the barrel, look 
 ing after the light figure of the young man joy 
 ously tripping back to the cellar, and turning to 
 wave a hand in farewell from the street. 
 
 " Well, I am damned ! " the politician remarked, 
 with unwitting veracity. " Did the dern Dago 
 bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely 
 didn t un erstand fer honest?" Then, as he took 
 up his way, crossing the street at the warning of 
 some red and green smallpox lanterns, "I ll git 
 those seven votes, though, someway. I m out fer 
 a record this time, and I ll git em!" 
 
 Bertha went with her fiance to select the home 
 
72 IN THE ARENA 
 
 that was to be theirs. They found a clean, tidy, 
 furnished room, with a canary bird thrown in, 
 and Toby, in the wild joy of his heart, seized his 
 sweetheart round the waist and tried to force her 
 to dance under the amazed eyes of the landlady. 
 
 "You yoost behafed awful!" exclaimed the 
 blushing waitress that evening, with tears of 
 laughter at the remembrance. 
 
 She was as happy as her lover, except for two 
 small worries that she had: she feared that her 
 uncle, Louie Gratz, with whom she lived, or one 
 of her few friends, might, when they found she 
 was to marry Toby, allude to him as a "Dago," 
 in which case she had an intuition that he would 
 slap the offender; and she was afraid of the small 
 pox, which had caused the quarantine of two 
 shanties not far from her uncle s house. The 
 former of her fears she did not mention, but the 
 latter she spoke of frequently, telling Pietro how 
 Gratz was panic-stricken, and talked of moving, 
 and how glad she was that Toby s "gran pa- 
 lazzo" was in another quarter of the city, as he 
 had led her to believe. Laughing her humours 
 
THE ALIENS 73 
 
 almost away, he told her that the red and green 
 lanterns, threatening murkily down the street, 
 were for only wicked ones, like that Meesa 
 Peaslay, for whom she discovered, Pietro s ad 
 miration had diminished. And when she thought 
 of the new home far across the city from the 
 ugly flags and lanterns - - the tiny room with its 
 engraving of the " Rock of Ages " and its canary, 
 she forgot both her troubles entirely; for now, 
 at last, the marvellous fact was assured : the five 
 hundred dollars was pinned into the waistcoat 
 pocket, lying upon Pietro s heart day and night, 
 the precious lump that meant to him Bertha and 
 a home. The good Republican set election-day 
 for the happiest holiday of his life, for that would 
 be his wedding-day. 
 
 He left her at her own gate, the evening be 
 fore that glorious day, and sang his way down 
 the street, feeling that he floated on the airy up 
 lift of his own barcarole beneath sapphire skies, 
 for Bertha had put her arms about him at last. 
 
 "Toby," she said, "lieber Toby, I am so all- 
 lofing by you you are sitch a good maan I 
 
74 IN THE ARENA 
 
 am so so I am yoost all-lofing by you!" 
 And she cried heartily upon his shoulder. "Toby, 
 uf you ain d here for me to-morrow by eckseckly 
 dwelf o glock, uf you are von minutes late, I m 
 goin yoost fall down deat! Don you led nothings 
 happen mit you, Toby." 
 
 And she had whispered to him, in love with his 
 old tender mockery of her, to sing "Libra Ogos- 
 tine" for her before he said good-night. 
 
 Mr. Pixley, again seated upon the barrel 
 which he had used for his interview with Toby, 
 beheld the transfigured face of the young man as 
 the chestnut vender passed the mouth of the 
 alley, and the committee-man released from his 
 soul a burdening profanity in the ear of his com 
 panion and confidant, a policeman who would 
 be on duty in Pixley s precinct on the morrow, 
 and who had now reported for instructions not 
 necessarily received in a too public rendezvous. 
 
 "After I talked to him out here on this very 
 barrel," said Pixley, his anathema concluded, "I 
 raised the bid on him; yessir, you kin skin me 
 fer a dead skunk if I didn t offer him ten dollars 
 
THE ALIENS 75 
 
 and a box of cigars fer the bunch; and him jest 
 settin there laughin like a plumb fool and tell- 
 in me I didn t need to worry, they d all vote 
 Republican fer nothin ! Talked like a parrot: 
 Vote a Republican! Republican eternal! Re 
 publican! Faugh, he don t know no more why 
 he s a Republican than a yeller dog d know! I 
 went around to-night, when he was out, thought 
 mebbe I could fix it up with the others. No, sir! 
 Couldn t git nothing out of em except some 
 more parrot-cackle: Vote same Petro. All a 
 good Republican! It s enough to sicken a 
 man!" 
 
 "Do we need his gang bad?" inquired the 
 policeman deferentially. 
 
 "I need everybody bad! This is a good-sized 
 job fer me, and I want to do it right. Throwin 
 the precinck to Maxim is goin to do me some 
 wrong with the Republican crowd, even if they 
 don t git on that it was thro wed; and I want to 
 throw it good I I couldn t feel like I d done right 
 if I didn t. I ve give my word that they ll git a 
 majority of sixty-eight votes, and that ll be jest 
 
76 IN THE ARENA 
 
 twicet as much in my pocket as a plain majority. 
 And I want them seven Dagoes ! I ve give up on 
 votin em; it can t be done. It d make a saint 
 cuss to try to reason with em, and it s no good. 
 They can t be fooled, neither. They know where 
 the polls is, and they know how to vote blast 
 the Australian ballot system! The most that can 
 be done is to keep em away from the polls." 
 
 "Can t you git em out of town in the morn- 
 ing?" 
 
 "D you reckon I ain t tried that? No, sir! 
 That Dago wouldn t take a pass to heaven! Ev 
 erything else is all right. Doc Morgan s niggers 
 stays right here and votes. I know them boys, 
 and they ll walk up and stamp the rooster all 
 right, all right. Them other niggers, that Hell- 
 Valley gang, ain t that kind; and them and 
 Tooms s crowd s goin to be took out to Smel 
 ter s ice-houses in three express wagons at four 
 o clock in the morning. It ain t goin to cost over 
 two dollars a head, whiskey and all. Then, Dan 
 Kelly is fixed, and the Loo boys. Mike, I don t 
 like to brag, and I ain t around throwin no bo- 
 
THE ALIENS 77 
 
 kays at myself as a reg lar thing, but I want to 
 say right here, there ain t another man in this 
 city -- no, nor the State neither that could of 
 worked his precinck better n I have this. I tell 
 you, I m within five or six votes of the majority 
 they set for their big money." 
 
 "Have you give the Dagoes up altogether?" 
 "No, by- - !" cried the committee-man 
 harshly, bringing his dirty fist down on the 
 other s knee. "Did you ever hear of Frank 
 Pixley weakenin ? Did you ever see the man that 
 said Frank Pixley wasn t game ?" He rose to his 
 feet, a ragged and sinister silhouette against the 
 sputtering electric light at the alley mouth. 
 "Didn t you ever hear that Frank Pixley had a 
 barrel of schemes to any other man s bucket 
 o wind? What s Frank Pixley s repitation, lem- 
 me ast you that ? I git what I go after, don t I ? 
 Now look here, you listen to me," he said, low 
 ering his voice and shaking a bent forefinger 
 earnestly in the policeman s face; "I m goin to 
 turn the trick. And I ought to do it, too. That 
 there Pete, he ain t worth the powder to blow 
 
78 IN THE ARENA 
 
 him up you couldn t learn him no politics if 
 you set up with him night after night fer a year. 
 Didn t I try ? Try ? I dern near bust my head 
 open jest thinkin up ways to make the flathead 
 see. And he wouldn t make no effort, jest set 
 there and parrot out Vote a Republican ! He s 
 ongrateful, that s what he is. Well, him and them 
 other Dagoes are goin to stay at home fer two 
 weeks, beginnin to-night." 
 
 "I ll be dogged if I see how," said the police 
 man, lifting his helmet to scratch his head. 
 
 "I ll show you how. I don t claim no credit fer 
 the idea, I ain t around blowin my own horn too 
 often, but I d like fer somebody to jest show me 
 any other man in this city could have thought it 
 out! I d like to be showed jest one, that s all, jest 
 one! Now, you look here; you see that nigger 
 shanty over there, with the smallpox lanterns 
 outside?" 
 
 The policeman shivered slightly. "Yes." 
 
 "Look here; they re rebuildin the pest-house, 
 ain t they?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
THE ALIENS 79 
 
 " Leavin smallpox patients in their own holes 
 under quarantine guard till they git a place to 
 put em, ain t they?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You know how many niggers in that shack ? " 
 
 "Four, ain t they?" 
 
 Yessir, four of em. One died to-night, an 
 other s goin to, another ain t tellin which way 
 he s goin yit; and the last one, Joe Cribbins, was 
 the first to take it; and he s almost plumb as good 
 as ever ag in. He s up and around the house, 
 helpin nurse the sick ones, and fit f er hard labour. 
 Now look here; that nigger does what I tell him 
 and he does it quick see ? Well, he knows what 
 I want him to do to-night. So does Charley 
 Gruder, the guard over there. Charley s fixed; 
 1 seen to that; and he knows he ain t goin to lose 
 no job fer the nigger s gittin out of the back 
 winder to go make a little sociable call this 
 evening." 
 
 "What!" exclaimed the policeman, startled; 
 "Charley ain t goin to let that nigger out!" 
 
 "Ain t he? Oh, you needn t worry, he ain t 
 
80 IN THE ARENA 
 
 goin fur! All he s waiting fer is fer you to give 
 the signal." 
 
 "Me!" The man in the helmet drew back. 
 
 " Yessir, you! You walk out there and lounge 
 up towards the drug-store and jest look over to 
 Charley and nod twice. Then you stand on the 
 corner and watch and see what you see. When 
 you see it, you yell fer Charley and git into the 
 drug store telephone, and call up the health office 
 and git their men up here and into that Dago 
 cellar like hell! The nigger ll be there. They 
 don t know him, and he ll just drop in to try and 
 sell the Dagoes some policy tickets. You under 
 stand me ?" 
 
 "Mother Mary in heaven!" The policeman 
 sprang up. "What are you going to do ?" 
 
 "What am I going to do ?" shrilled the other, 
 the light of a monstrous pride in his little eyes. 
 "I m goin to quarantine them Dagoes fer four 
 teen days. They ll learn some politics before I git 
 through with em. Maybe they ll know enough 
 United States language to foller their leader next 
 time!" 
 
THE ALIENS 81 
 
 "By all that s mighty, Pixley," said the police 
 man, with an admiration that was almost rever 
 ence, "you are a schemer!" 
 
 "Mem Gott!" screeched Bertha s uncle, snap 
 ping his teeth fiercely on his pipe-stem, as he 
 flung open the door of the girl s room. "You 
 want to disgraze me mit der whole neighbour- 
 hoot, lection night? Quid ut! Stob ut! Beoples 
 in der streed stant owidside und litzen to dod 
 grying. You voult goin to marry mit a Dago 
 mens, voult you! Ha, Jia! Soife you right! He 
 run away!" The old man laughed unamiably. 
 "Ha, ha! Dago mens foolt dod smard Bertha. 
 Dod s pooty tough. But, bei Gott, you stop 
 dod noise und ect lige a detzent voomans, or 
 you goin haf droubles mit your uncle Louie 
 Gratz!" 
 
 But Bertha, an undistinguishable heap on the 
 floor of the unlit room, only gasped brokenly for 
 breath and wept on. 
 
 "Ach, ach, ach, lieber Gott in Himmel!" sob 
 bed Bertha. "Why didn t Toby come for me? 
 
82 IN THE ARENA 
 
 Ach, ach ! What iss happened mit Toby ? Some- 
 dings iss happened I know ut!" 
 
 "Ya, ya!" jibed Gratz; "somedings iss hep- 
 pened, I bet you! Brop ly he s got anoder vife, 
 dod s vot heppened! Brop ly leffing ad you mit 
 anoder voomans ! Vot for dit he nef er tolt you 
 vere he lif ? So you voultn t ketch him; dod s der 
 reason! You re a pooty vun, you are! Runnin 
 efter a doity Dago mens! Bei Gott! you beddergit 
 oop und back your glo es, und stob dod gryin . I m 
 goin to mofe owid to-morrow; und you kin go 
 verefer you blease. I ain d goin to sday anoder 
 day in sitch a neighbourhood Fife more small 
 pox lanterns yoost oop der streed. I m goin mofe 
 glean to der oder ent of der city. Und you can 
 come by me or you can run efter your Dago 
 mens und his voomans! Dod s why he dittn t 
 come to marry you, you grazy ut s a voomans ! " 
 
 "No, no," screamed Bertha, stopping her ears 
 with her forefingers. "Lies, lies, lies!" 
 
 A slatternly negro woman dawdled down the 
 street the following afternoon, and, encountering 
 
THE ALIENS 83 
 
 a friend of like description near the cottage 
 which had been tenanted by Louie Gratz and his 
 niece, paused for conversation. 
 
 "Howdy, honey," she began, leaning restfully 
 against the gate-post. "How s you ma?" 
 
 "She right spry," returned the friend. "How 
 you self an you good husban , Miz Mo ton ?" 
 
 Mrs. Morton laughed cheerily. "Oh, he en- 
 joyin de leckshum. He uz on de picnic yas day, 
 to Smeltuh s ice-houses ; an count er Mist Max 
 im s gittin lected, dey gi n him bottle er whiskey 
 an two dollahs. He up at de house now, entuh- 
 tainin some ge lemen f rien s wi de bones, honey. 
 
 "Um hum." The other lady sighed reflect 
 ively. " I on y wisht my po husban could er live 
 to enjoy de fruits er politics." 
 
 "Yas m," returned Mrs. Morton. "You right. 
 It are a great intrus in a man s life. Dat what de 
 ornator say in de speech f m de back er de groce y 
 wagon, yas m, a great intrus in a man s life. 
 Decla h, I b lieve Goe ge think mo er politics 
 dan he do er me! Well ma am," she concluded, 
 glancing idly up and down the street and lean- 
 
84 IN THE ARENA 
 
 ing back more comfortably against the gate 
 post, "I mus be goin on my urrant." 
 
 "What urrant s dat?" inquired the widow. 
 
 "Mighty quare urrant," replied Mrs. Mor 
 ton. " Mighty quare urrant, honey. You see back 
 yon eh dat new smallpox flag?" 
 
 "Sho." 
 
 " Well ma am, night fo las , dat Joe Cribbins, 
 dat one-eye nigger what sell de policy tickets, an s 
 done be n havin de smallpox, he crope out de 
 back way, when s de gyahd weren t lookin , an , 
 my Lawd, ef dey ain t ketch him down in dat 
 Dago cellar, tryin sell dem Dagoes policy 
 tickets! Yahah, honey!" Mrs. Morton threw 
 back her head to laugh. "Ain t dat de beatenest 
 nigger, dat one-eyed Joe?" 
 
 "What den, Miz Mo ton?" pursued the list 
 ener. 
 
 "Den dey quahumteem dem Dagoes; sot a 
 gyahd dah : you kin see him settin out dah now. 
 Well ma am, cordin to dat gyahd, one er dem 
 Dagoes like ter go inter fits all day yas day. Dat 
 man hatter go in an quiet him down ev y few 
 
THE ALIENS 85 
 
 minute . Seem t he boun sen a message an 
 cain t git no one to ca y it fer him. De gyahd, he 
 cain t go; he willin sen de message, but cain t 
 git nobody come nigh enough de place fer to tell 
 em what it is. Sides, it leckshum-day, an mos 
 folks hangin roun de polls. Well ma am, dis 
 aft noon, I so nter n by, an de gyahd holler out 
 an ask me do I want make a dollah, an I say 
 I do. I ain t fraid no smallpox, done had it two 
 year ago. So I say I take de message." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Law, honey, it ain t wrote. Dem Dago folks 
 hain t got no writin ner readin . Dey mo er less 
 like de beasts er de fieP. Dat message by word er 
 mouf. I goin tell nuffin bout de quahumteem. 
 I m gotter say: Toby sen word to liebuh Au 
 gustine dat she needn worry. He li l sick, not 
 much, but de doctah ain low him out fer two 
 weeks; an mejutly at de en er dat time he come 
 an git her an den kin go on home wheres de 
 canary bu d is. Honey, you evah hyuh o sich 
 a foolishness ? But de gyahd, he say de message 
 gotter be ca yied dass dataways." 
 
86 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Lan name!" ejaculated the widow. "Who 
 dat message to ? " 
 
 "Hit to a Dutch gal." 
 
 "My Lawd!" The widow lifted amazed 
 hands to heaven. " De impidence er dem Dagoes ! 
 Little mo an dey ll be sen in messages to you er 
 me! - - What her name ?" 
 
 "Name Bertha Grass," responded Mrs. 
 Morton, "an , nigh as I kin make out, she live 
 in one er dese little w ite-paint cottages, right 
 long yere." 
 
 Yas m! I knows dat Dutch gal, ole man 
 Grass, de tailor, dass his niece. W y, dey done 
 move out dis mawn, right f um dis ve y house you 
 stan in in front de gate of. De ole man skeered 
 er de smallpox, an he mad, too, an de neighbuhs 
 ask him whuh he gwine, he won t tell; so mad 
 he won t speak to nobody. None on em round 
 hyuh knows an dey s considabul cyu us bout 
 it, too. Dey gone off in bofe d rections him one 
 way, her nother. Peah lak dey be n quollun!" 
 
 "Now look at dat!" cried Mrs. Morton dole 
 fully. "Look at dat! Ain t dat de doggonest luck 
 
THE ALIENS 87 
 
 in de wide worP! De gyahd he say dat Dago 
 willin pay fifty cents a day fo me to teck an 
 bring a message eve y mawn tell de quahum- 
 teem took off de cellar. Now dat Dutch gal gone 
 an loss dat money fo me movin way whuh 
 nobody cain t fine er!" 
 
 "Sho!" laughed the widow. "Ef I se in you 
 place, Miz Mo ton, an you s in mine, dat money 
 sho lly, sho lly nevah would be los , indeed hit 
 wouldn t. I dass go in t de do an tu n right 
 roun back ag in an go down to dat gyahd an 
 say de Dutch gal ceive de message wid de bes er 
 bligin politeness an sent her kine regyahds to 
 de Dago man an all inquirin frien s, an hope 
 de Dago man soon come an git er. To-morrer 
 de same, nex j day de same - 
 
 "Lawd, ef dat ain t de beatenest!" cried Mrs. 
 Morton delightedly. "Well, honey, I thank you 
 long as I live, cause I nevah d a wuk dat out by 
 myself in de livin worl , an I sho does needs de 
 money. I m goin do exackly dass de way you say. 
 Dat man he ain goin know no diffunce till he git 
 out an den, honey," she let loose upon the 
 
88 IN THE ARENA 
 
 quiet air a sudden, great salvo of laughter, " dass 
 let him fine Lize Mo ton!" 
 
 Bertha went to live in the tiny room with the 
 canary bird and the engraving of the " Rock of 
 Ages." This was putting lime to the canker, but, 
 somehow, she felt that she could go to no other 
 place. She told the landlady that her young man 
 had not done so well in business as they had 
 expected, and had sought work in another city. 
 He would come back, she said. 
 
 She woke from troubled dreams each morn 
 ing to stifle her sobbing in the pillow. "Ach, 
 Toby, coultn t you sented me yoost one word, 
 you might sented me yoost one word, yoost one, 
 to tell me what has happened mit you! Ach, 
 Toby, Toby!" 
 
 The canary sang happily; she loved it and 
 tended it, and the gay little prisoner tried to re 
 ward her by the most marvellous trilling in his 
 power, but her heart was the sorer for every song. 
 
 After a time she went back drearily to the 
 kraut-smelling restaurant, to the work she had 
 
THE ALIENS 89 
 
 thought to leave forever, that day when Toby had 
 not come for her. She went out twenty times 
 every morning, and oftener as it wore on to 
 wards evening, to look at his closed stand, always 
 with a choking hope in her heart, always to drag 
 leaden feet back into the restaurant. Several 
 times, her breath failing for shame, she ap 
 proached Italians in the street, or where there 
 was one to be found at a stand of any sort she 
 stopped and made a purchase, and asked for 
 some word of Toby without result, always. 
 She knew no other way to seek for him. 
 
 One day, as she trudged homeward, two col 
 oured women met on the pavement in front of her, 
 exchanged greetings, and continued for a little 
 way together. 
 
 " How you enjoyin you money, dese fine days, 
 Miz Mo ton ? " inquired one, with a laugh that at 
 tested to the richness of the joke between the two. 
 
 "Law, honey," answered the other, "dat good 
 luck di n las ve y long. Dey done shut off my 
 supplies." 
 
 "No!" 
 
90 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Yas m, dey sho did. Dat man done tuck de 
 smallpox; all on em ketched it, ev y las one, 
 off n dat no count Joe Cribbins, an now dat 
 dey got de new pes -house finish , dey haul em 
 off yon eh, yas day. Reckon dat ain make no 
 diffunce in my urrant runnin . Dat Dago man, 
 he outer he hade two day fo dey haul em away, 
 an ain sen no mo messages. So dat spile my 
 job ! Hit dass my luck. Dey s sho a voodoo on 
 LizeMo ton!" 
 
 Bertha, catching but fragments of this con 
 versation, had no realization that it bore in any 
 way upon the mystery of Toby; and she stum 
 bled homeward through the twilight with her 
 tired eyes on the ground. 
 
 When she opened the door of the tiny room, 
 the landlady s lean black cat ran out surrepti 
 tiously. The bird-cage lay on the floor, upside 
 down, and of its jovial little inhabitant the tokens 
 were a few yellow feathers. 
 
 Bertha did not know until a month after, 
 when Leo Vesschi found her at the restaurant 
 and told her, that out in the new pest-house, that 
 
THE ALIENS 9.1 
 
 other songster and prisoner, the gay little chest 
 nut vender, Pietro Tobigli, had called lamentably 
 upon the name of his God and upon " Libra Ogos- 
 tine," and now lay still forever, with the cordu 
 roy waistcoat and its precious burden tightly 
 clenched to his breast. Even in his delirium they 
 had been unable to coax or force him to part 
 from it for a second. 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 
 

-TAR back in his corner on the Democratic 
 side of the House, Uncle Billy Rollinson sat 
 through the dragging routine of the legislative 
 session, wondering what most of it meant. When 
 anybody spoke to him, in passing, he would an 
 swer, in his gentle, timid voice, "Howdy-do, 
 sir. " Then his cheeks would grow a little red and 
 he would stroke his long, white beard elaborately, 
 to cover his embarrassment. When a vote was 
 taken, his name was called toward the last of the 
 roll, so that he had ample time, after the leader of 
 his side of the House, young Hurlbut, had voted, 
 to clear his throat several times and say "Aye" 
 or " No " in quite a firm voice. But the instant the 
 word had left his lips he found himself terribly 
 frightened, and stroked his beard a great many 
 times, the while he stared seriously up at the ceil 
 ing, partly to avoid meeting anybody s eye, and 
 
96 IN THE ARENA 
 
 partly in the belief that it concealed his agitation 
 and gave him the air of knowing what he was 
 about. Usually he did not know, any more than 
 he knew how he had happened to be sent to the 
 legislature by his county. But he liked it. He liked 
 the feeling of being a person to be considered ; he 
 liked to think that he was making the laws of his 
 State. He liked the handsome desk and the easy 
 leather chair; he liked the row of fat, expensive 
 volumes, the unlimited stationery, and the free 
 penknives which were furnished him. He enjoyed 
 the attentions of the coloured men in the cloak 
 room, who brushed him ostentatiously and al 
 ways called him (and the other Representatives) 
 "Senator," to make up to themselves for the airs 
 which the janitors of the "Upper House" as 
 sumed. Most of these things surprised him; he 
 had not expected to be treated with such liberal 
 ity by the State and never realized that he and his 
 colleagues were treating themselves to all these 
 things at the expense of the people, and so, al 
 though he bore off as much note-paper as he 
 could carry, now and then, to send to his son, 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 97 
 
 Henry, he was horrified and dumbfounded when 
 the bill was proposed appropriating $135,000 for 
 the expenses of the seventy days session of the 
 legislature. 
 
 He was surprised to find that among his "per 
 quisites" were passes (good during the session) 
 on all the railroads that entered the State, and 
 others for use on many inter-urban trolley lines. 
 These, he thought, might be gratifying to Henry, 
 who was fond of travel, and had often been un 
 happy when his father failed to scrape up enough 
 money to send him to a circus in the next county. 
 It was "very accommodating of the railroads," 
 Uncle Billy thought, to maintain this pleasant 
 custom, because the members travelling expen 
 ses were paid by the State just the same; hence 
 the economical could " draw their mileage" at the 
 Treasurer s office, and add it to their salaries. He 
 heard only vaguely understanding many 
 joking references to other ways of adding to 
 salaries. 
 
 Most of the members of his party had taken 
 rooms at one of the hotels, whither those who had 
 
98 IN THE ARENA 
 
 sought cheaper apartments repaired in the even 
 ing, when the place became a noisy and crowded 
 club, admission to which was not by card. Most 
 of the rougher man-to-man lobbying was done 
 here; and at times it was Babel. 
 
 Through the crowds Uncle Billy wandered 
 shyly, stroking his beard and saying, "Howdy- 
 do, sir, " in his gentle voice, getting out of the way 
 of people who hurried, and in great trouble of 
 mind if any one asked him how he intended to 
 vote upon a bill. When this happened he looked 
 at the interrogator in the plaintive way which was 
 his habit, and answered slowly: "I reckon I ll 
 have to think it over." He was not in Hurlbut s 
 councils. 
 
 There was much bustle all about him, but he 
 was not part of it. The newspaper reporters re 
 marked the quiet, inoffensive old figure pottering 
 about aimlessly on the outskirts of the crowd, and 
 thought Uncle Billy as lonely as a man might well 
 be, for he seemed less a part of the political ar 
 rangement than any member they had ever seen. 
 He would have looked less lonely and more in 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 90 
 
 place trudging alone through the furrows of his 
 home fields in a wintry twilight. 
 
 And yet, everybody liked the old man, Hurlbut 
 in particular, if Uncle Billy had known it; for 
 Hurlbut watched the votes very closely and was 
 often struck by the soundness of Representative 
 Rollinson s intelligence in voting. 
 
 In return, Uncle Billy liked Hurlbut better 
 than any other man he had ever known except 
 Henry, of course. On the first day of the session, 
 when the young leader had been pointed out to 
 him, Uncle Billy s humble soul was prostrate with 
 admiration, and when Hurlbut led the first attack 
 on the monopolistic tendencies of the Republican 
 party, Representative Rollinson, chuckling in his 
 beard at the handsome youth s audacity, himself 
 dared so greatly as to clap his hands aloud. Hurl- 
 but, on the floor, was always a storm centre : tall, 
 dramatic, bold, the members put down their 
 newspapers whenever his strong voice was heard 
 demanding recognition, and his "Mr. Speaker!" 
 was like the first rumble of thunder. The tempest 
 nearly always followed, and there were times 
 
100 IN THE ARENA 
 
 when it threatened to become more than vocal; 
 when, all order lost, nine-tenths of the men on the 
 other side of the House were on their feet shout 
 ing jeers and denunciations, and the orator faced 
 them, out-thundering them all, with his own co 
 horts, flushed and cheering, gathered round him. 
 Then, indeed, Uncle Billy would have thought 
 him a god, if he had known what a god was. 
 
 Sometimes Uncle Billy saw him in the hotel 
 lobby, but he seemed always to be making for the 
 elevator in a hurry, with half-a-dozen people try 
 ing to detain him, or descending momentarily 
 from the stairway for a quick, sharp talk with one 
 or two members, their heads close together, after 
 which Hurlbut would dart upward again. 
 
 Sometimes the old man sat down at one of the 
 writing tables, in a corner of the lobby, and, an 
 nexing a sheet of the hotel note-paper, "wrote 
 home" to Henry. He sat with his head bent far 
 over, the broad brim of his felt hat now and then 
 touching the hand with which he kepi the paper 
 from sliding; and he pressed diligently upon his 
 pen, usually breaking it before the letter was fin- 
 
THE NEED OF MON-EY, -101. 
 
 ished. He looked so like a man intent upon con 
 cealment that the reporters were wont to say: 
 "There s Uncle Billy humped up over his guilty 
 secret again." 
 
 The secret usually took this form : 
 
 "Dear Son Henry: 
 
 " I would be glad if you was here. There is big doings. 
 Hurlbut give it to them to-day. He don t give the Re 
 publicans no rest, he lights into them like sixty you would 
 like to see him. They are plenty nice fellows in the Repub 
 licans too but they lay mighty low when Hurlbut gets after 
 them. He was just in the office but went out. He always 
 has a segar in his mouth but not lit. I expect hes quit. I send 
 you enclosed last week s salary all but $11.80 which I had 
 to use as living is pretty high in our capital city of the state. 
 If you would like some of this hotel writing paper better 
 than the kind I sent you of the General Assembly I can send 
 you some the boys say it is free. I think it is all right you 
 sold the calf but Wilkes didn t give you good price. Hurlbut 
 come in while I was waiting then. You bet he can always 
 count on Wm. Rollinson s vote. 
 
 " Well I must draw to a close, Yours truly 
 
 "Your father." 
 
IM P- THE ARENA 
 
 "Wm. Rollinson " was not aware that he was 
 known to his colleagues and the lobby and the 
 Press as "Uncle Billy" until informed thereof by 
 a public print. He stood, one night, on the edge 
 of a laughing group, when a reporter turned to 
 him and said: 
 
 "The Constellation would like to know Repre 
 sentative Rollinson s opinion of the scandalous 
 story that has just been told." 
 
 The old man, who had not in the least under 
 stood the story, summoned all his faculties, and, 
 after long deliberation, bent his plaintive eyes up 
 on the youth and replied : 
 
 Well, sir, it s a-stonishing, a-stonishing!" 
 
 "Think it s pretty bad, do you ?" 
 
 Some of the crowd turned to listen, and the old 
 fellow, hopelessly puzzled, stroked his beard with 
 a trembling hand, and then, muttering, "Well, 
 young man, I expect you better excuse me," 
 hurried away and left the place. The next morn 
 ing he found the following item tacked to the tail 
 of the "Legislative Gossip" column of the Con 
 stellation: 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 103 
 
 "Yesterday a curious and amusing story was current 
 among the solons at the Nagmore Hotel. It seems that 
 the wife of a country member of the last legislature had been 
 spending the day at the hotel and the wife of a present mem 
 ber from the country complained to her of the greatly in 
 creased expenditure appertaining to the cost of living in the 
 Capital City. Indeed, replied the wife of the former 
 member, * that is curious. But I suppose my husband is 
 much more economical than yours, for he brought home 
 $1.500, that he d saved out of his salary. As the salary is 
 only $456, and the gentleman in question did not play 
 poker, much hilarity was indulged in, and there were con 
 jectures that the economy referred to concerned his vote 
 upon a certain bill before the last session, anent which the 
 lobby pushing it were far from economical. Uncle Billy 
 Rollinson,the Gentleman fromWixinockee, heard the story, 
 as it passed from mouth to mouth, but he had no laughter 
 to greet it. Uncle Billy, as every one who comes in contact 
 with him knows, is as honest as the day is long, and the 
 story grieved and shocked him. He expressed the utmost 
 horror and consternation, and requested to be excused 
 from speaking further upon a subject so repugnant to his 
 
104 IN THE ARENA 
 
 feelings. If there were more men of this stamp in politics, 
 who find corruption revolting instead of amusing, our 
 legislatures would enjoy a better fame." 
 
 Uncle Billy had always been agitated by the 
 sight of his name in print. Even in the Wixinoc- 
 kee County Clarion, it dumbfounded. him and 
 gave him a strange feeling that it must mean 
 somebody else, but this sudden blaze of metropol 
 itan fame made him almost giddy. He folded the 
 paper quickly and placed it under his coat, feel 
 ing vaguely that it would not do to be seen reading 
 it. He murmured feeble answers during the day, 
 when some of his colleagues referred to it; but 
 when he reached his own little room that evening, 
 he spread it out under his oil-smelling lamp and 
 read it again. Perhaps he read it twenty times 
 over before the supper bell rang. Perhaps the fact 
 that he was still intent upon it accounted for his 
 not hearing the bell, so that his landlady had to 
 call him. 
 
 What he liked was the phrase: "Honest as the 
 day is long. " He did not go to the hotel that night. 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 106 
 
 He went back to his room and read the Constella 
 tion. He liked the Constellation. Newspapers were 
 very kind, he thought. Now and then, he would 
 pick up his pile of legislative bills and try to spell 
 through the ponderous sentences, but he always 
 gave it up and went back to the Constellation. He 
 wondered if Hurlbut had read it. Hurlbut had. 
 The leader had even told the author of the item 
 that he was glad somebody could appreciate the 
 kind of a man Uncle Billy was, and his value to 
 the body politic. 
 
 "Honest as the day is long," Uncle Billy re 
 peated to himself, in the little room, nodding his 
 head gravely. Then he thought for a long while 
 about the member who had, according to the 
 story, gone home with $1,500. He sat up, that 
 evening, until almost ten o clock. Even after he 
 had gone to bed, he lay awake with his eyes wide 
 open in the darkness, thinking of the colossal 
 sum. If anybody should come to him and offer 
 him all that money to vote a certain way upon a 
 bill, he believed he would not take it, for that 
 would be bribery; though Henry would be 
 
106 IN THE ARENA 
 
 glad to have the money. Henry always needed 
 money; sometimes the need was imperative - 
 once, indeed, so imperative that the small, un 
 fertile farm had been mortgaged beyond its value, 
 otherwise very serious things must have happen 
 ed to Henry. Uncle Billy wondered how offers 
 of money to members were refused without hurt 
 ing the intending donor s feelings. And what a 
 great deal could be done with $1,500, if a member 
 could get it and still be as honest as the day is 
 long! 
 
 About the second month of the session,the floor 
 of the House began steadily to grow more and 
 more tumultuous. To an unpolitical onlooker, 
 leaning over the gallery rail, it was often an in 
 comprehensible Bedlam, or perhaps one might 
 have been reminded of an ant-heap by the hurry- 
 and-scurry and life-and-death haste in a hundred 
 directions at once, quite without any distinguish 
 able purpose. Twenty men might be rampaging 
 up and down the aisles, all shouting, some of 
 them furiously, others with a determination that 
 was deadly, all with arms waving at the Speaker, 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 107 
 
 some of the hands clenched, some of them flut 
 tering documents, while pages ran everywhere in 
 mad haste, stumbling and falling in the aisles. In 
 the midst of this, other members, seated, wrote 
 studiously; others mildly read newspapers; others 
 lounged, half-standing against their desks, un- 
 lighted cigars in their mouths, laughing; all the 
 while the patient Speaker tapped with his gavel on 
 a small square of marble. Suddenly perfect calm 
 would come and the voice of the reading-clerk 
 drone for half an hour or more, like a single bee 
 in a country garden on Sunday morning. 
 
 Of all this Uncle Billy was as much a layman 
 spectator as any tramp who crept into the gallery 
 for a few hours out of the cold. The hurry and 
 seethe of the racing sea touched him not at all, 
 except to bewilderment, while he was carried with 
 it, unknowing, toward the breakers. The shout of 
 those breakers was already in the ears of many, 
 for the crisis of the session was coming. This was 
 the fight that was to be made on Hurlbut s 
 "Railroad Bill," which was, indeed, but in an 
 other sense, known as the "Breaker." 
 
108 IN THE ARENA 
 
 Uncle Billy had heard of the "Breaker." He 
 couldn t have helped that. He had heard a dozen 
 say: "Then s when it s going to be warm times, 
 when that Breaker conies up!" or, "Look out 
 for that Breaker. We re going to have big 
 trouble." He knew, too, that Hurlbut was in 
 terested in the "Breaker," but upon which side 
 he was for a long time ignorant. 
 
 Hurlbut always nodded to the old man, now, as 
 he came down the aisle to his own desk. He had 
 begun that, the day after the Constellation item. 
 Uncle Billy never failed to be in his seat early in 
 the morning, waiting for the nod. He answered it 
 with his usual " Howdy-do, sir, " then stroked his 
 beard and gazed profoundly at the row of fat vol 
 umes in front of him, swallowing painfully once 
 or twice. 
 
 This was all that really happened for Uncle 
 Billy during the turmoil and scramble that went 
 on about him all the day long. He had not been 
 forced to discover a way to meet an offer of 
 $1,500, without hurting the putative giver s feel 
 ings. No lobbyist had the faintest idea of " ap- 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 109 
 
 preaching" the old man in that way. The mem 
 bers and the hordes of camp-followers and all the 
 lobby had settled into a belief that Representa 
 tive Rollinson was a sea-green Incorruptible, that 
 of all honest members he was the most honest. 
 He had become typical of honesty: sayings were 
 current " You might as well try to bribe Uncle 
 Billy Rollinson!" "As honest as old Uncle Billy 
 Rollinson. " Hurlbut often used such phrases in 
 private. 
 
 The "Breaker" was Hurlbut s own bill; he 
 had planned it and written it, though it came over 
 to the House from the Senate under a Senator s 
 name. It was one of those "anti-monopolistic" 
 measures which Democrats put their whole hearts 
 into, sometimes, and believe in and fight for mag 
 nificently ; an idea conceived in honesty and for a 
 beneficent purpose, in the belief that a legislature 
 by the wave of a hand can conjure the millennium 
 to appear; and born out of an utter misconcep 
 tion of man and railroads. The bill needs no far 
 ther description than this: if it passed and be 
 came an enforced law, the dividends of every rail- 
 
110 IN THE ARENA 
 
 road entering the State would be reduced by two- 
 fifths. There is one thing that will fight harder 
 than a Democrat that is a railroad. 
 
 The "Breaker" had been kept very dark until 
 Hurlbut felt that he was ready ; then it was swept 
 through the Senate before the railroad lobby, 
 previously lulled into unsuspicion, could collect 
 itself and block it. This was as Hurlbut had plan 
 ned : that the fight should be in his own House. It 
 was the bill of his heart and he set his reputation 
 upon it. He needed fifty-one votes to pass it, and 
 he had them, and one to spare; for he took his 
 followers, who formed the majority, into caucus 
 upon it. It was in the caucus Uncle Billy learned 
 that Hurlbut was "for" the bill. He watched the 
 leader with humble, wavering eyes, thinking how 
 strong and clear his voice was, and wondering if 
 he never lit the cigar he always carried in his 
 hand, or if he ever got into trouble, like Henry, 
 being a young man. If he did, Uncle Billy would 
 have liked the chance to help him out. 
 
 He had plenty of such chances with Henry; in 
 deed, the opportunity may be said to have become 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 111 
 
 unintermittent, and Uncle Billy was never free 
 from a dim fear of the day when his son would get 
 in so deeply that he could not get him out. Verily, 
 the day seemed near at hand : Henry s letters were 
 growing desperate and the old man walked the 
 floor of his little room at night, more and more 
 hopeless. Once or twice, even as he sat at his desk 
 in the House, his eyes became so watery that he 
 forced himself into long spells of coughing, to ac 
 count for it, in case any one might be noticing him. 
 
 The caucus was uneventful and quiet, for it 
 had all been talked over, and was no more than a 
 matter of form. 
 
 The Republicans did not caucus upon the bill 
 (they had reasons), but they were solidly against 
 it. Naturally it follows that the assault of the rail 
 road lobby had to be made upon the virtue of the 
 Democrats as Democrats. That is, whether a 
 member upon the majority side cared about the 
 bill for its own sake or not, right or wrong, he felt 
 it his duty as a Democrat to vote for it. If he had 
 a conscience higher than a political conscience, 
 and believed the bill was bad, his duty was to 
 
112 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "bolt the caucus"; but all of the Democratic side 
 believed in the righteousness of the bill, except 
 two. One had already been bought and the other 
 was Uncle Billy, who knew nothing about it, ex 
 cept that Hurlbut was "for" it and it seemed to 
 be making a "big stir." 
 
 The man who had been bought sat not far from 
 Uncle Billy. He was a furtive, untidy slouch of a 
 man, formerly a Republican; he had a great ca 
 pacity for "handling the coloured vote" and his 
 name was Pixley. Hurlbut mistrusted him; the 
 young man had that instinct, which good leaders 
 need, for feeling the weak places in his following; 
 and he had the leader s way, too, of ever bracing 
 up the weakness and fortifying it ; so he stopped, 
 four or five times a day, at Pixley s desk, urging 
 the necessity of standing fast for the "Breaker," 
 and expressing convictions as to the political fu 
 ture of a Democrat who should fail to vote for it ; 
 to which Pixley assented in his husky, tough-ward 
 voice. 
 
 All day long now, Hurlbut and his lieutenants, 
 disregarding the routine of bills, went up and 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 113 
 
 down the lines, fending off the lobbyists and such 
 Republicans as were working openly for the bill. 
 They encouraged and threatened and never let 
 themselves be too confident of their seeming 
 strength. Some of those who were known, or 
 guessed, to be of the "weaker brethren" were not 
 left to themselves for half an hour at a time, from 
 their breakfasts until they went to bed. There was 
 always at elbow the "Hold fast!" whisper of 
 Hurlbut and his lieutenants. None of them ever 
 thought of speaking to Uncle Billy. 
 
 Hurlbut s " work was cut out for him, " as they 
 said. What work it is to keep every one of fifty 
 men honest under great temptation for three 
 weeks (which time it took for the hampered and 
 filibustered bill to come up for its passage or de 
 feat), is known to those who have tried to do it. 
 The railroads were outraged and incensed by 
 the measure ; they sincerely believed it to be mon 
 strous and thievish. "Let the legislature try to 
 confiscate twc -fifths of the lawyers , or the 
 bakers , or the ironmoulders , just earnings," 
 said they, "and see what will happen!" 
 
Ill IN THE ARENA 
 
 When such a bill as this comes to the floor for 
 the third time the fight is already over, oratory is 
 futile; and Cicero could not budge a vote. The 
 railroads were forced to fight as best they could; 
 this was the old way that they have learned is 
 most effective in such a case. Votes could not be 
 had to "oblige a friend" on the "Breaker" bill; 
 nor could they be procured by arguments to 
 prove the bill unjust. In brief: the railroad lobby 
 had no need to buy Republican votes (with the 
 exception of the one or two who charged out of 
 habit whenever legislation concerned corpora 
 tions), for the Republicans were against the bill, 
 but they did mortally need to buy two Demo 
 cratic votes, and were willing to pay handsomely 
 for them. Nevertheless, Mr. Pixley s price was 
 not exorbitant, considering the situation; nor 
 need he have congratulated himself so heartily 
 as he did (in moments of retirement from public 
 life) upon his prospective $2,000 (when the 
 goods should be delivered) since his vote was as 
 sisting the railroads to save many million dollars 
 a year. 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 115 
 
 Of course the lobby attacked the bill noisily; 
 there were big guns going all day long ; but those 
 in charge knew perfectly well that the noise ac 
 complished nothing in itself. It was used to cover 
 the whispering. Still, Hurlbut held his line firm 
 and the bill passed its second reading with fifty- 
 two votes, Mr. Pixley being directed by his own 
 ers to vote for it on that occasion. 
 
 As time went on, the lobby began to grow des 
 perate ; even Pixley had been consulted upon his 
 opinion by Barrett, the young lawyer through 
 whom negotiations in his case had been con 
 ducted. Pixley suggested the name of Rollin- 
 son and Barrett dismissed this counsel with as 
 much disgust for Pixley s stupidity as he had for 
 the man s person. (One likes a dog when he 
 buys him.) 
 
 "But why not ? " Pixley had whined as he reach 
 ed the door. " Uncle Billy ain t so much ! You 
 listen to me. He wouldn t take it out-an -out - 
 I don t say as he would. But you needn t work 
 that way. Everybody thinks it s no use to tackle 
 him -- but nobody never tried ! What s he done 
 
116 IN THE ARENA 
 
 to make you scared of him ? Nothing I Jest set 
 there and looked! 9 
 
 After he had gone the fellow s words came 
 back to Barrett: "Nobody never tried!" And 
 then, to satisfy his conscience that he was leaving 
 no stone unturned, yet laughing at the useless- 
 ness of it, he wrote a letter to a confidant of his, 
 formerly a colleague in the lobby, who lived in 
 the county-seat near which Uncle Billy s mort 
 gaged acres lay. The answer came the night 
 after the second vote on the "Breaker." 
 
 "Dear Barrett: 
 
 " I agree with your grafter. I don t believe Rollinson would 
 be hard to approach if it were done with tact of course 
 you don t want to tackle him the way you would a swine 
 like Pixley. A good many people around here always 
 thought the old man simple-minded. He was given the 
 nomination almost in joke nobody else wanted it, be 
 cause they all thought the Republicans had a sure thing of 
 it ; but Rollinson slid in on the general Democratic landslide 
 in this district. He s got one son, a worthless pup, Henry, a 
 sort of yokel Don Juan, always half drunk when his father 
 has any money to give him, and just smart enough to keep 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 117 
 
 the old man mesmerized. Lately Henry s been in a mighty 
 serious peck of trouble. Last fall he got married to a girl 
 here in town. Three weeks ago a family named Johnson, 
 the most shiftless in the county, the real low-down white 
 trash sort, living on a truck patch out Rollinson s way, 
 heard that Henry was on a toot in town, spending money 
 freely, and they went after him. A client of mine rents their 
 ground to them and told me all about it. It seems they 
 claim that one of the daughters in the Johnson family was 
 Henry s common-law wife before he married the other girl, 
 and it s more than likely they can prove it. They are holler 
 ing for $600, and if Henry doesn t raise it mighty quick they 
 swear they ll get him sent over the road for bigamy. I think 
 the old man would sell his soul to keep his boy out of the 
 penitentiary and he s at his wits ends ; he hasn t anything 
 to raise the money on and he s up against it. He ll do any 
 thing on earth for Henry. Hope this ll be of some service to 
 you, and if there s anything more I can do about it you bet 
 ter call me up on the long distance. 
 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 "J. P. WATSON. 
 
 * P. S. You might mention to our old boss that I don t 
 want anything if services are needed ; but a pass for self and 
 family to New York and return would come in handy." 
 
118 IN THE ARENA 
 
 Barrett telegraphed an answer at once: "If it 
 goes you can have annual for yourself and fami 
 ly. Will call you up at two sharp to-morrow. " 
 
 It was late the following night when the lobby 
 ist concluded his interview with Representative 
 Rollinson, in the latter* s little room, half lighted 
 by the oil-smelling lamp. 
 
 "I knew you would understand, Mr. Rollin 
 son," said Barrett as he rose to go. His eyes 
 danced and his jaws set with the thought that had 
 been jubilant within him for the last half -hour: 
 "We ve got em! We ve got em! We ve got 
 em!" The railroads had defended their own 
 again. 
 
 "Of course," he went on, "we wouldn t have 
 dreamed of coming to you and asking you to vote 
 against this outrageous bill if we thought for a 
 minute that you had any real belief in it or con 
 sidered it a good bill. But you say, yourself, 
 your only feeling about it was to oblige Mr. Hurl- 
 but, and you admit, too, that you ve voted his way 
 on every other bill of the session. Surely, as I ve 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 119 
 
 already said so many times, you don t think he d 
 be so unreasonable as to be angry with you for 
 differing with him on the merits of only one ! No, 
 no, Hurlbut s a very sensible fellow about such 
 matters. You don t need to worry about that! 
 After all I ve said, surely you won t give it another 
 thought, will you?" 
 
 Uncle Billy sat in the shadow, bent far over, 
 slowly twisting his thin, corded hands, the fingers 
 tightly interlocked. It was a long time before he 
 spoke, and his interlocutor had to urge him again 
 before he answered, in his gentle, quavering 
 voice. 
 
 " No, I reckon not, if you say so. " 
 
 "Certainly not," said Barrett briskly. "Why 
 of course, we d never have thought of making you 
 a money offer to vote either for or against your 
 principles. Not much! We don t do business 
 that way! We simply want to do something for 
 you. We ve wanted to, all during the session, 
 but the opportunity hadn t offered until I happen 
 ed to hear your son was in trouble. " 
 
 Out of the shadow came a long, tremulous 
 
120 IN THE ARENA 
 
 sigh. There was a moment s pause; then Uncle 
 Billy s head sank slowly lower and rested on his 
 hands. 
 
 "You see," the other continued cheerfully, 
 " we make no conditions, none in the world. We 
 feel friendly to you and want to oblige you, but of 
 course we do think you ought to show a little 
 good-will towards us. I believe it s all under 
 stood: to-morrow night Mr. Watson will drive 
 out in his buggy to this Johnson place, and he s 
 empowered by us to settle the whole business and 
 obtain a written statement from the family that 
 they have no claim on your son. How he will 
 settle it is neither your affair nor mine; nor 
 whether it costs money or not. But he will 
 settle it. We do that out of good-will to you, as 
 long as we feel as friendly to you as we do now, 
 and all we ask is that you show your good- will to 
 
 us. 
 
 It was plain, even to Uncle Billy, that if he voted 
 against Mr. Barrett s friends in the afternoon 
 those friends might not feel so much good-will 
 toward him in the evening as they did now; and 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 121 
 
 Mr. Watson might not go to the trouble of 
 hitching up his buggy to drive out to the 
 Johnsons . 
 
 "You see, it s all out of friendship," said Bar 
 rett, his hand on the door knob. "And we can 
 count on your s to-morrow, can t we abso 
 lutely?" 
 
 The grey head sank a little lower, and then 
 after a moment the quavering voice answered: 
 
 "Yes, sir I ll be friendly. " 
 
 Before morning, Hurlbut lost another vote. 
 One of his best men left on a night train for the 
 bedside of his dying wife. This meant that the 
 "Breaker" needed every one of the fifty-one re 
 maining Democratic votes in order to pass. Hurl- 
 but more than distrusted Pixley, yet he felt sure 
 of the other fifty, and if, upon the reading of the 
 bill, Pixley proved false, the bill would not be lost, 
 since there would be a majority of votes in its 
 favour, though not the constitutional majority of 
 fifty-one required for its passage, and it could be 
 brought up again and carried when the absent 
 man returned. Thus, on the chance that Pixley 
 
122 IN THE ARENA 
 
 had withstood tampering, Hurlbut made no ef 
 fort to prevent the bill from coming to the floor in 
 its regular order in the afternoon, feeling that it 
 could not possibly be killed by a majority against 
 it, for he trusted his fifty, now, as strongly as he 
 distrusted Pixley. 
 
 And so the roll-call on the "Breaker" began, 
 rather quietly, though there was no man s face in 
 the hall that was not set to show the tensity of 
 high-strung nerves. The great crowd that had 
 gathered and choked the galleries and the floor 
 beyond the bar, and the Senators who had left 
 their own chamber to watch the bill in the House, 
 all began to feel disappointed; for nothing hap 
 pened until Pixley s name was called. 
 
 Pixley voted "No!" 
 
 Uncle Billy, sitting far down in his leather 
 chair on the small of his back, heard the outburst 
 of shouting that followed; but he could not see 
 Pixley, for the traitor was instantly surrounded 
 by a ring of men, and all that was visible from 
 where he sat was their backs and upraised, ges 
 ticulating hands. Uncle Billy began to tremble 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 123 
 
 violently; he had not calculated on this; but 
 surely such things would not happen to him ! 
 
 The Speaker s gavel clicked through the up 
 roar and the roll-call proceeded. 
 
 The clerk reached the name of Rollinson. 
 Uncle Billy swallowed, threw a pale look about 
 him and wrapped his damp hands in the skirts of 
 his shiny old coat, as if to warm them. For a 
 moment he could not answer. People turned to 
 look at him. 
 
 "Rollinson!" shouted the clerk again. 
 
 "No," said Uncle Billy. 
 
 Immediately he saw above him and all about 
 him a blur of men s faces and figures risen to their 
 feet, he heard a hundred voices say breathlessly : 
 " What r and one that said : " My God, that kills 
 the bill!" 
 
 Then a horrible and incredible storm burst 
 upon him, and he who had sat all the session 
 shrinking unnoticed in his quiet, back seat, un 
 nerved when a colleague asked the simplest ques 
 tion, found himself the centre and point of at 
 tack in the wildest mlee that legislature ever saw. 
 
124 IN THE ARENA 
 
 A dozen men, red, frantic, with upraised arms, 
 came at him, Hurlbut the first of them. But the 
 lobby was there, too ; for it was not part of its cal 
 culations that the old man should be frightened 
 into changing his vote. 
 
 There need have been no fear of that. Uncle 
 Billy was beyond the power of speech. The lob 
 by s agents swarmed on the floor, and, with half- 
 a-dozen hysterically laughing Republicans, met 
 the onset of Hurlbut and his men. It became a 
 riot immediately. Sane men were swept up in it 
 to be as mad as the rest, while the galleries 
 screamed and shouted. All round the old man 
 the fury was greatest; his head sank over his 
 desk and rested on his hands as it had the 
 night before ; for he dared not lift it to see the ava 
 lanche he had loosed upon himself. He would 
 have liked to stop his ears to shut out the egre 
 gious clamour of cursing and yelling that beset 
 him, as his bent head kept the glazed eyes from 
 seeing the impossible vision of the attack that 
 strove to reach him. He remembered awful dreams 
 that were like this ; and now, as then, he shuddered 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 125 
 
 in a cold sweat, being as one who would draw the 
 covers over his head to shelter him from horrors 
 in great darkness. As Uncle Billy felt, so might 
 a naked soul feel at the judgment day, tossed 
 alone into the pit with all the myriads of eyes in 
 the universe fastened on its sins. 
 
 He was pressed and jostled by his defenders; 
 once a man s shoulders were bent back down over 
 his own and he was crushed against the desk until 
 his ribs ached; voices thundered and wailed at 
 him, threatening, imploring, cursing, cajoling, 
 raving. 
 
 Smaller groups were struggling and shouting 
 in every part of the room, the distracted sergeants- 
 at-arms roaring and wrestling with the rest. On 
 the high dais the Speaker, white but imperturb 
 able, having broken his gavel, beat steadily with 
 the handle of an umbrella upon the square of 
 marble on his desk. Fifteen or twenty members, 
 raging dementedly, were beneath him, about the 
 clerk s desk and on the steps leading up to his 
 chair, each howling hoarsely: 
 
 "A point of order! A point of or-derl" 
 
126 IN THE ARENA 
 
 When the semblance of order came at last, the 
 roll was finished, "reconsidered," the "Breaker" 
 was beaten, 50 to 49, was dead; and Uncle Billy 
 Rollinson was creeping down the outer steps of 
 the Statehouse in the cold February slush and 
 rain. 
 
 He was glad to be out of the nightmare, though 
 it seemed still upon him, the horrible clamours, 
 all gonging and blaring at him; the red, madden 
 ed faces, the clenched fists, the open mouths, all 
 raging at him all the ruck and uproar swam 
 about the dazed old man as he made his slow, un 
 seeing way through the wet streets. 
 
 He was too late for dinner at his dingy board 
 ing house, having wandered far, and he found 
 himself in his room without knowing very well 
 how he had come there, indeed, scarcely more 
 than half-conscious that he was there. He sat, for 
 a long time, in the dark. After a while he me 
 chanically lit the lamp, sat again to stare at it, 
 then, finding his eyes watering, he turned from it 
 with an incoherent whimper, as if it had been a 
 person from whom he would conceal the fact that 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 127 
 
 he was weeping. He leaned his arm against the 
 window sill and dried his eyes on the shiny sleeve. 
 
 An hour later, there came a hard, imperative 
 knock on the door. Uncle Billy raised his head and 
 said gently: 
 
 "Come in." 
 
 He rose to his feet uncertain, aghast, when he 
 saw who his visitor was. It was Hurlbut. 
 
 The young man confronted him darkly, for a 
 moment, in silence. He was dripping with rain; 
 his hat, unremoved, shaded lank black locks over 
 a white face; his nostrils were wide with wrath; 
 the "dry cigar" wagged between gritting teeth. 
 
 "Will ye take a chair?" faltered Uncle Billy. 
 
 The room rang to the loud answer of the other : 
 "I d see you in Hell before I d sit in a chair of 
 yours!" 
 
 He raised an arm, straight as a rod, to point at 
 the old man. "Rollinson, " he said, "I ve come 
 here to tell you what I think of you! I ve never 
 done that in my life before, because I never 
 thought any man worth it. I do it because I need 
 the luxury of it because I m sick of myself not 
 
128 IN THE ARENA 
 
 to have had gumption enough to see what you 
 were all the time and have you watched!" 
 
 Uncle Billy was stung to a moment s life. 
 "Look here, " he quavered, "you hadn t ought to 
 talk that way to me. There ain t a cent of money 
 passed my fingers - 
 
 Hurlbut s bitter laugh cut him short. " No ? 
 Don t you suppose / know how it was done ? Do 
 you suppose there s a man in the whole Assembly 
 doesn t know how you were sold ? I had it by the 
 long distance an hour ago, from your own home. 
 Do you suppose we have no friends there, or that 
 it was hard to find out about the whole dirty busi 
 ness ? Your son s not going to stand trial for big 
 amy; that was the price you charged for killing the 
 bill. You and Pixley are the only men whom they 
 could buy with all their millions! Oh, I know a 
 dozen men who could be bought on other issues, 
 but not on this! You and Pixley stand alone. Well, 
 you ve broken the caucus and you ve betrayed the 
 Democratic party. I ve come to tell you that the 
 party doesn t want you any more. You are out of 
 it, do you hear ? We don t want even to use you ! " 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 129 
 
 The old man had sunk back into his chair, 
 stricken white, his hands fluttering helplessly. 
 " I didn t go to hurt your feelings, Mr. Hurlbut," 
 he said. "I never knowed how it would be, but I 
 don t think you ought to say I done anything 
 dishonest. I just felt kind of friendly to the rail 
 roads - 
 
 The leader s laugh cut him off again. "Friend 
 ly! Yes, that s what you were! Well, you can 
 go back to your friends; you ll need them!- 
 Mother in Heaven! How you fooled us! We 
 thought you were the straightest man and the 
 staunchest Democrat - 
 
 " I b en a Democrat all my life, Mr. Hurlbut. I 
 voted f er - 
 
 "Well, you re a Democrat no longer. You re 
 done for, do you understand? And we re done 
 with you!" 
 
 "You mean," the old man s voice shook al 
 most beyond control; "you mean you re tryin to 
 read me out of the party ?" 
 
 "Trying to!" Hurlbut turned to the door. 
 "You re out! It s done. You can thank God that 
 
130 IN THE ARENA 
 
 your friends did their work so well that we can t 
 prove what we know. On my soul, you dog, if we 
 could I believe some of the boys would send 
 you over the road." 
 
 An hour after he had gone, Uncle Billy roused 
 himself from his stupor, and the astonished 
 landlady heard his shuffling step on the stair. She 
 followed him softly and curiously to the front 
 door, and watched him. He was bare-headed but 
 had not far to go. The night-flare of the cheap, 
 all-night saloon across the sodden street sil 
 houetted the stooping figure for a moment and 
 then the swinging doors shut the old man from 
 her view. She returned to her parlour and sat 
 waiting for his return until she fell asleep in her 
 chair. She awoke at two o clock, went to his room, 
 and was aghast to find it still vacant. 
 
 "The Lord have mercy on us all!" she cried 
 aloud. "To think that old rascal d go out on a 
 spree! He d better of stayed in the country where 
 he belonged." 
 
 It was the next morning that the House re 
 ceived a shock which loosed another riot, but one 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 131 
 
 of a kind different from that which greeted Repre 
 sentative Rollinson s vote on the "Breaker. " The 
 reading -clerk had sung his way through an in 
 consequent bill; most of the members were buried 
 in newspapers, gossiping, idling, or smoking in 
 the lobbies, when a loud, cracked voice was heard 
 shrilly demanding recognition. 
 
 " Mr. Speaker! " Every one turned with a start. 
 There was Uncle Billy, on his feet, violently wav 
 ing his hands at the Speaker. " Mr. Speaker, Mr. 
 Speaker, Mr. Speaker!" His dress was disordered 
 and muddy; his eyes shone with a fierce, absurd, 
 liquorish light; and with each syllable that he ut 
 tered his beard wagged to an unspeakable effect 
 of comedy. He offered the most grotesque spec 
 tacle ever seen in that hall a notable dis 
 tinction. 
 
 For a moment the House sat in paralytic as 
 tonishment. Then came an awed whisper from a 
 Republican: "Has the old fool really found his 
 voice?" 
 
 "No, he s drunk," said a neighbour. "I guess 
 he can afford it, after his vote yesterday!" 
 
132 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Mister Speaker! Mister Speaker!" 
 
 The cracked voice startled the lobbies. The 
 hangers-on, the typewriters, the janitors, the 
 smoking members came pouring into the cham 
 ber and stood, transfixed and open-mouthed. 
 
 "Mister Speaker!" 
 
 Then the place rocked with the gust of laughter 
 and ironical cheering that swept over the Assem 
 bly. Members climbed upon their chairs and on 
 desks, waving handkerchiefs, sheets of foolscap, 
 and waste-baskets. "Hear im! He-ear im!" rang 
 the derisive cry. 
 
 The Speaker yielded in the same spirit and 
 said: 
 
 "The Gentleman from Wixinockee. " 
 
 A semi-quiet followed and the cracked voice 
 rose defiantly: 
 
 "That s who I am! I m the Gentleman from 
 Wixinockee an I stan here to defen the princi 
 ples of the Democratic party!" 
 
 The Democrats responded with violent hoot- 
 ings, supplemented by cheers of approval from 
 the Republicans. The high voice out-shrieked 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 133 
 
 them all: "Once a Democrat, always a Demo 
 crat! I voted Dem cratic tick t forty year, born a 
 Democrat an die a Democrat. Fellow sizzens, I 
 want to say to you right here an now that prin 
 ciples of Dem cratic party saved this country a 
 hun erd times from Republican mal- diminis- 
 tration an degerdation! Lemme tell you this: 
 you kin take my life away but you can t say I 
 don stan by Dem cratic party, mos glorious 
 party of Douglas an Tilden, Hen ricks, Henry 
 Clay, an George Washin ton. I say to you they 
 hain t no other party an I m member of it 
 till death an Hell an f rever after, so help 
 me God!" 
 
 He smote the desk beside him with the back 
 of his hand, using all his strength, skinning his 
 knuckles so that the blood dripped from them, un 
 noticed. He waved both arms continually, bend 
 ing his body almost double and straightening up 
 again, in crucial efforts for emphasis. All the old 
 jingo platitudes that he had learned from cam 
 paign speakers throughout his life, the nonsense 
 and brag and blat, the cheap phrases, all the 
 
134 IN THE ARENA 
 
 empty balderdash of the platform, rushed to his 
 incoherent lips. 
 
 The lord of misrule reigned at the end of each 
 sentence, as the members sprang again upon the 
 chairs and desks, roaring, waving, purple with 
 laughter. The Speaker leaned back exhausted in 
 his chair and let the gavel rest. Spectators, pages, 
 galleries whooped and howled with the members. 
 Finally the climax came. 
 
 "I want to say to you just this here," shrilled 
 the cracked voice, " an you can tell the Repub 
 lican party that I said so, tell em straight from 
 me, an I hain t goin back on it; I reckon they 
 know who I am, too ; I m a man that s honest 
 I m as honest as the day is long, I am as hon 
 est as the day is long - 
 
 He was interrupted by a loud voice. "Yes," 
 it cried, "when that day is the twenty-first oj 
 December!" 
 
 That let pandemonium loose again, wilder, 
 madder than before. A member threw a pamph 
 let at Uncle Billy. In a moment the air was thick 
 with a Brobdingnagian snow-storm: pamphlets. 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 135 
 
 huge wads of foolscap, bills, books, newspapers, 
 waste-baskets went flying at the grotesque target 
 from every quarter of the room. Members " rush 
 ed" the old man, hooting, cheering; he was toss 
 ed about, half thrown down, bruised, but, clam 
 orous over all other clamours, jumping up and 
 down to shriek over the heads of those who hus 
 tled him, his hands waving frantically in the air, 
 his long beard wagging absurdly, still desperately 
 vociferating his Democracy and his honesty. 
 
 That was only the beginning. He had, indeed, 
 "found his voice " ; for he seldom went now to the 
 boarding-house for his meals, but patronized the 
 free-lunch counter and other allurements of the 
 establishment across the way. Every day he rose 
 in the House to speak, never failing to reach the 
 assertion that he was " as honest as the day is 
 long, " which was always greeted in the same way. 
 
 For a time he was one of the jokes that light 
 ened the tedious business of law-making, and the 
 members looked forward to his "Mis-ter Speaker" 
 as schoolboys look forward to recess. But, after 
 a week, the novelty was gone. 
 
136 IN THE ARENA 
 
 The old man became a bore. The Speaker re 
 fused to recognize him, and grew weary of the 
 persistent shrilling. The day came when Uncle 
 Billy was forcibly put into his seat by a disgusted 
 sergeant-at-arms. He was half drunk (as he had 
 come to be most of the time), but this humiliation 
 seemed to pierce the alcoholic vapours that sur 
 rounded his always feeble intelligence. He put his 
 hands up to his face and cried like a whimpering 
 child. Then he shuffled out and went back to the 
 saloon. He soon acquired the habit of leaving his 
 seat in the House vacant; he was no longer al 
 lowed to make speeches there ; he made them in 
 the saloon, to the amusement of the loafers and 
 roughs who infested it. They badgered him, but 
 they let him harangue them, and applauded his 
 rhodomont ades . 
 
 Hurlbut, passing the place one night at the end 
 of the session, heard the quavering, drunken 
 voice, and paused in the darkness to listen. 
 
 "I tell you, fellow-countrymen, I ve voted 
 Dem cratic tick t forty year, live a Democrat, die 
 a Dem crat! An I m s honest as day is long!" 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 137 
 
 It was five years after that session, when Hurl- 
 but, now in the national Congress, was called to 
 the district in which Wixinockee lies, to assist his 
 hard-pressed brethren in a campaign. He was 
 driving, one afternoon, to a political meeting in 
 the country, when a recollection came to him and 
 he turned to the committee chairman, who ac 
 companied him, and said: 
 
 " Didn t Uncle Billy Rollinson live somewhere 
 near here?" 
 
 "Why, yes. You knew him in the legislature, 
 didn t you?" 
 
 "A little. Where is he now?" 
 
 " Just up ahead here. I ll show you. " 
 
 They reached the gate of a small, unkempt, 
 weedy graveyard and stopped. 
 
 "The inscription on the head-board is more or 
 less amusing, " said the chairman, as he got out of 
 the buggy, "considering that he was thought to 
 be pretty crooked, and I seem to remember that 
 he was read out of the party, too. But he wrote 
 the inscription himself, on his death-bed, and his 
 son put it there. " 
 
138 IN THE ARENA 
 
 There was a sparse crop of brown grass grow 
 ing on the grave to which he led his companion. 
 A cracked wooden head-board, already tilting 
 rakishly, marked Henry s devotion. It had been 
 white-washed and the inscription done in black 
 letters, now partly washed away by the rain, but 
 still legible: 
 
 HERE LIES 
 
 THE MORTAL REMAINS 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM ROLLINSON 
 
 A LIFE-LONG 
 
 DEMOCRAT 
 
 AND 
 A 
 
 MAN 
 
 AS HONEST AS THE DAY IS LONG 
 
 The chairman laughed. "Don t that beat 
 thunder ? You knew his record in the legislature 
 didn t you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
THE NEED OF MONEY 139 
 
 " He was as crooked as they say he was, wasn t 
 he?" 
 
 Hurlbut had grown much older in five years, 
 and he was in Congress. He was climbing the 
 ladder, and, to hold the position he had gained, 
 and to insure his continued climbing, he had 
 made some sacrifices within himself by obliging 
 his friends sacrifices which he did not name. 
 
 "I could hardly say," he answered gently, his 
 down-bent eyes fastened on the sparse, brown 
 grass. "It s not for us to judge too much. I be 
 lieve, maybe, that if he could hear me now, I d 
 ask his pardon for some things I said to him 
 
 once. 
 
HECTOR 
 
AT isn t the party manager, you understand, 
 that gets the fame; it s the candidate. The 
 manager tries to keep his candidate in what the 
 newspapers call a "blaze of publicity"; that is, 
 to keep certain spots of him in the blaze, while 
 sometimes it is the fact that a candidate does 
 not know much of what is really going on; he 
 gets all the red fire and sky-rockets, and, in the 
 general dazzle and nervousness, is unconscious 
 of the forces which are to elect or defeat him. 
 Strange as it is, the more glare and conspicuous- 
 ness he has, the more he usually wants. But the 
 more a working political manager gets, the less 
 he wants. You see, it s a great advantage to keep 
 out of the high lights. 
 
 For my part, not even being known or impor 
 tant enough to be named "Dictator," now and 
 then, in the papers, I ve had my fun in the game 
 
144 IN THE ARENA 
 
 very quietly. Yet I did come pretty near being a 
 famous man once, a good while ago, for about a 
 week. That was just after Hector J. Ransom 
 made his great speech on the " Patriotism of the 
 Pasture" which set the country to talking about 
 him and, in time, brought him all he desired. 
 
 You remember what a big stir that speech 
 made, of course everybody remembers it. The 
 people in his State went just wild with pride, 
 and all over the country the papers had a sort of 
 catch head-line: "Another Daniel Webster Come 
 to Judgment!" When the reporters in my own 
 town found out that Ransom was a second cousin 
 of mine, I was put into a scare-head for the only 
 time in my life. For a week I was a public char 
 acter and important to other people besides the 
 boys that do the work at primaries. I was inter 
 viewed every few minutes ; and a reporter got me 
 up one night at half -past twelve to ask for some 
 anecdotes of Hector s "Boyhood Days and Rise 
 to Fame." 
 
 I didn t oblige that young man, but I knew 
 enough. I was always fond of my first cousin 3 
 
HECTOR 145 
 
 Mary Ransom, Hector s mother; and in the old 
 days I never passed through Greenville, the little 
 town where they lived, without stopping over, a 
 train or two, to visit with her, and I saw plenty 
 of Hector! I never knew a boy that left the other 
 boys to come into the parlour (when there was 
 company) quicker than Hector, and I certainly 
 never saw a boy that "showed off" more. His 
 mother was wrapped up in him; you could see 
 in a minute that she fairly worshipped him; but 
 I don t know, if it hadn t been for Mary, that 
 I d have praised his recitations and elocution so 
 much, myself. 
 
 Mary and I wouldn t any more than get to tell 
 each other how long since we d heard from Aunt 
 Sue, before Hector would grow uneasy and 
 switch around on the sofa and say: "Ma, I d 
 rather you wouldn t tell cousin Ben about what 
 happened at the G. A. R. reunion. I don t want 
 to go through all that stuff again." 
 
 At that, Mary s eyes would light up and she d 
 say: "You must, Hector, you must! I want him 
 to hear you do it; he mustn t go away without 
 
146 IN THE ARENA 
 
 that!" Then she d go on to tell me how Hector 
 had recited Lincoln s Gettysburg speech at a 
 meeting of the local post of the G. A. R. and 
 how he was applauded, and that many of the 
 veterans had told him if he kept on he d be Gov 
 ernor of his State some day, and how proud she 
 was of him and how he was so different from 
 ordinary boys that she was often anxious about 
 him. Then she would urge him to let me have 
 it and he always would, especially if I said : 
 "Oh, don t make the boy do it, Mary!" 
 
 He would stand out in the middle of the floor 
 and thrust his chin out, knitting his brow and 
 widening his nostrils, and shout " Of the people, 
 By the people, and For the people" at the top 
 of his lungs in that little parlour. He always had 
 a great talent for mimicry, a talent of which I 
 think he was absolutely unconscious. He would 
 give his speeches in exactly the boy-orator style; 
 that is, he imitated speakers who imitated others 
 who had heard Daniel Webster. Mary and he, 
 however, had no idea that he imitated anybody; 
 they thought it was creative genius. 
 
HECTOR 147 
 
 When he had finished Lincoln, he would say: 
 "Well, I ve got another that s a good deal bet 
 ter, but I don t want to go through that to-day; 
 it s too much trouble," with the result that in a 
 few minutes Patrick Henry would take a turn 
 or two in his grave. Hector always placed himself 
 by a table for "Liberty or Death," and barked 
 his knuckles on it for emphasis. Little he cared, 
 so long as he thought he d got his effect! You 
 could see, in spite of the intensity of his express 
 ion, that he was perfectly happy. 
 
 When he d worked us through that, and per 
 haps "Horatius at the Bridge" and the quarrel 
 scene between Brutus and Cassius and was 
 pretty well emptied, he d hang about and inter 
 rupt in a way that made me restless. Neither 
 Mary nor I could get out two sentences before 
 the boy would cut in with something like : " Don t 
 tell cousin Ben about that day I recited in school; 
 I m tired of all that guff !" 
 
 Then Mary would answer: "It isn t guff, 
 precious. I never was prouder of you in my life." 
 And she d go on to tell me about another of his 
 
148 IN THE ARENA 
 
 triumphs, and how he made up speeches of his 
 own sometimes, and would stand on a box and 
 deliver them to his boy friends, though she 
 didn t say how the boys received them. All the 
 while, Hector would stare at me like a neigh 
 bour s cat on your front steps, to see what im 
 pression it made on me; and I was conscious 
 that he was sure that I knew he was a wonderful 
 boy. I think he felt that everybody knew it. Hec 
 tor kind of palled on me. 
 
 When he was about sixteen, Mary wrote me 
 that she was in great distress about him because 
 he had decided to go on the stage; that he had 
 written to John McCullough, offering to take the 
 place of leading man in his company to begin 
 with. Mary was sure, she said, that the life of an 
 actor was a hard one; Hector had always been 
 very delicate (I had known him to eat a whole 
 mince pie without apparent distress afterward) 
 and she wanted me to write and urge him to 
 change his mind. She felt sure Mr. McCullough 
 would send for him at once, because Hector had 
 written him that he already knew all the princi- 
 
HECTOR 149 
 
 pal Shakespearian roles, could play Brutus, 
 Cassius, or Mark Antony as desired; and he 
 had added a letter of recommendation from the 
 Mayor of their city, declaring that Hector was a 
 finer elocutionist and tragedian than any actor 
 he had ever seen. 
 
 The dear woman s anxiety was needless, for 
 she wrote me, with as much surprise as pleasure, 
 two months later, that for some reason Mr. Mc- 
 Cullough had not answered the letter, and that 
 she was very happy; she had persuaded Hector 
 to go to college. 
 
 How she kept him there, the first two years, I 
 don t know, for her husband had only left her 
 about four hundred dollars a year. Of course, 
 living in Greenville isn t expensive, but it does 
 cost something, and I honestly believe Mary 
 came near to living on nothing. It was a small 
 college that she d sent the boy to, but it was a 
 mother s point with her that Hector should be 
 as comfortable as anyone there. 
 
 I stopped off at Greenville, one day, toward 
 the end of his second year, but before he d come 
 
150 IN THE ARENA 
 
 home, and I saw how it was. Mary seemed as 
 glad as ever to see me it was the same old 
 bright greeting that she d always given me. She 
 saw me from the dining-room window where she 
 was eating her supper, and she came out, run 
 ning down to the gate to meet me, like a girl ; but 
 she looked thin and pale. 
 
 I said I d go right in and have some supper 
 with her, and at that the roses came back quickly 
 to her cheeks. "No," she said, "I wasn t really 
 at supper; only having a bite beforehand; I m 
 going up-town now to get the things for supper. 
 You smoke a cigar out on the porch till I get 
 back, and - 
 
 I took her by the arm. "Not much, Mary," 
 I said. " I m going to have the same supper you 
 had for yourself." 
 
 So I went straight out to the dining-room; and 
 all I found on the table was some dry bread 
 toasted and a baked apple without cream or 
 sugar. It gave me a pretty good idea of what the 
 general run of her meals must have been. 
 
 I had a long talk with her that night, and I 
 
HECTOR 151 
 
 wormed it out of her that Hector s college ex 
 penses were about twenty-five dollars a month, 
 which left her six to live on. The truth is, she 
 didn t have enough to eat, and you could see 
 how happy it made her. She read me a good 
 many of Hector s letters, her voice often trem 
 bling with happiness over his triumphs. The 
 letters were long, I ll say that for Hector, which 
 may have been to his credit as a son, or it may 
 have been because he had such an interesting 
 subject. There was no doubt that he had worked 
 hard; he had taken all the chief prizes for ora 
 tory and essay writing and so forth that were 
 open to him; he also allowed it to be seen that 
 he was the chief person in the consideration of 
 his class and the fraternity he had joined. Mary 
 had a sort of humbleness about being the mother 
 of such a son. 
 
 But I settled one thing with her that night, 
 though I had to hurt her feelings to do it. I owned 
 a couple of small notes which had just fallen due, 
 and I could spare the money. I put it as a 
 loan to Hector himself; he was to pay me back 
 
152 IN THE ARENA 
 
 when he got started, and so it was arranged that 
 he could finish his course without his mother s 
 living on apples and toast. 
 
 I went over to his Commencement with Mary 
 and we hadn t been in the town an hour before 
 we saw that Hector was the king of the place. 
 He had all the honours ; first in his class, first in 
 oratory* first in everything; professors and stu 
 dents all kow-towed and sounded the hew-gag 
 before him. Most of Mary s time was put in cry 
 ing with happiness. As for Hector himself, he had 
 changed in just one way : he no longer looked at 
 people to see his effect on them; he was too con 
 fident of it. 
 
 His face had grown to be the most determined 
 I have ever seen. There was no obstinacy in it 
 he wasn t a bull-dog only set determination. 
 No one could have failed to read in it an im 
 mensely powerful will. In a curious way he 
 seemed "on edge" all the time. His nostrils were 
 always distended, the muscles of his lean jaw 
 were never lax, but continually at tension, thrust 
 ing the chin forward with his teeth hard together. 
 
HECTOR 153 
 
 His eyebrows were contracted, I think, even in 
 his sleep, and he looked at everything with a sort 
 of quick, fierce appearance of scrutiny, though 
 at that time I imagined that he saw very little. 
 He had a loud, rich voice, his pronunciation was 
 clipped to a deadly distinctness; he was so 
 straight and his head so high in the air that he 
 seemed almost to tilt back. With his tall figure 
 and black hair, he was a boy who would have at 
 tracted attention, as they say, in any crowd, so 
 that he might have been taken for a young actor. 
 His best friend, a kind of Man Friday to him, 
 was another young fellow from Greenville, whose 
 name was Joe Lane. I liked Joe. I d known 
 him since he was a boy. He was lazy and 
 pleasant-looking, with reddish hair and a drawl 
 ing, low voice. He had a humorous, sensible ex 
 pression, though he was dissipated, I d heard, 
 but very gentle in his manners. I had a talk with 
 him under the trees of the college campus in the 
 moonlight, Commencement night. I can see the 
 boy lying there now, sprawling on the grass with 
 a cigar in his mouth. 
 
154 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Hector s done well," I said. 
 
 "Oh, Lord, yes!" Joe answered. "He always 
 will. He s going way up in the world." 
 
 " What makes you think so ?" 
 
 "Because he s so sure of it. It only needs a 
 little luck to make him a great man. In fact, he 
 already is a great man." 
 
 You mean you think he has a great mind ?" 
 
 "Why, no, sir; but I think he has a purpose so 
 big and so set, that it might be called great, and 
 it will make him great." 
 
 "What purpose?" 
 
 Joe answered quietly but very slowly, pulling 
 at his cigar after each syllable : " Hec tor J. 
 Ran som!" 
 
 "I declare," I put in, "I thought you were his 
 friend!" 
 
 " So I am," the young fellow returned. " Friend, 
 admirer, and doer-in-ordinary to Hector J. Ran 
 som, that s my quality. I ve done errands and odd 
 jobs for him all my life. Most people who meet 
 him do; though it might be hard to say why. I 
 haven t hitched my wagon to a star; nobody 11 
 
HECTOR 155 
 
 get to do that, because this star isn t going to 
 take anything to the zenith but itself." 
 
 " Going to the zenith, is he ?" 
 
 "Surely." 
 
 "You mean," said I, "that he s going to make 
 a fine lawyer?" 
 
 "Oh, no, I think not. He might have been 
 called one in the last generation, but, as I under 
 stand it, nowadays a lawyer has to work out 
 business propositions more than oratory." 
 
 "And you think Hector has only his oratory ?" 
 
 "I think that s his vehicle; it s his racing sulky 
 and he ll drive it pretty hard. We re good friends, 
 but if you want me to be frank, I should say that 
 he d drive on over my dead body if it lay in the 
 road to where he was going." Lane rolled over 
 in the grass with a little chuckle. "Of course," 
 he went on, " I talk about him this way because I 
 know what you ve done for him and I d like to 
 help you to be sure that he s going to be a suc 
 cess. He ll do you credit!" 
 
 "What are you going to do, yourself, Joe?" 
 I asked. 
 
156 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Me?" He sat up, looking surprised. "Why, 
 didn t you know ? I didn t get my degree. They 
 threw me out at the eleventh hour for getting too 
 publicly tight celebrating Hector s winning 
 the works of Lord Byron, the prize in the senior 
 debate! I ll never be a credit to anybody; and as 
 for what I m going to do go back to Green 
 ville and loaf in Tim s pool-room, I suppose, 
 and watch Hector s balloon." 
 
 However, Hector s balloon seemed unin- 
 clined to soar, at the set-off though Hector 
 didn t. The next summer began a presidential 
 campaign, and Hector, knowing that I was chair 
 man of my county committee, and strangely over 
 estimating my importance, came up to see me : he 
 asked me to use my influence with the National 
 Committee to have him sent to make speeches in 
 one of the doubtful States ; he thought he could 
 carry it for us. I explained that I had no wires 
 leading up so far as the National Committee. 
 There were other things I might have explained, 
 but it didn t seem much use. Hector would have 
 thought I wanted to "keep him down." 
 
HECTOR 157 
 
 He thought .so anyway, ^because, after a crest 
 fallen moment, he began to look at me in his 
 fierce eye-to-eye way with what seemed to me a 
 dark suspicion. He came and struck my desk 
 with his clinched fist (he was always strong on 
 that), and exclaimed: 
 
 "Then by the eternal gods, if my own flesh 
 and blood won t help me, I ll go to Chicago my 
 self, lay my credentials before the committee, 
 unaided, and wring from them - 
 
 "Hold on, Hector," I said. "Why didn t you 
 say you had credentials ? What are they ?" 
 
 "What are they?" he answered in a rising 
 voice. "You ask me what are my credentials? 
 The credentials of my patriotism, my poverty, 
 and my pride ! You ask me for my credentials ? 
 The credentials of youth!" (He hit the desk 
 every few words.) "The credentials of enthus 
 iasm! The credentials of strength! You ask for 
 my credentials ? The credentials of red blood, of 
 red corpuscles, of young manhood, ripest in the 
 glorious young West! The credentials of vitality! 
 Of virile " 
 
158 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Hold on," I said again, but I couldn t stop 
 him. He went on for probably fifteen minutes, 
 pacing the room and gesticulating and thunder 
 ing at me, though we two were all alone. I felt 
 mighty ridiculous, but, of course, I d been 
 through much the same thing with one or two 
 candidates and orators before. I thought then 
 that he was practising on me, but I came after 
 ward to see that I was partly wrong. "Oratory" 
 was his only way of expressing himself; he 
 couldn t just talk, to save his life. All you could 
 do, when he began, was to sit and take it till he 
 got through, which consumed some valuable 
 time for me that afternoon. I suppose I was pro 
 fane inside, for having given him that cue with 
 "credentials." Finally I got in a question: 
 
 " Why not begin a little more mildly, Hector ? 
 Why don t you make some speeches in your own 
 county first ? " 
 
 " I have consented to make the Fourth of July 
 oration at Greenville," he answered. 
 
 Before he could go on, I got up and slapped 
 him on the back. "That s right!" I said. "That s 
 
HECTOR 159 
 
 right! Go back and show the home folks what 
 you can do, and I ll come down to hear it!" 
 
 And so I did. Mary was, if possible, more 
 flustered and upset than at Hector s Commence 
 ment. She and Joe Lane and I had a bench close 
 up to the stand, and on the other side of Mary 
 sat a girl I d never seen before. Mary introduced 
 me to her in a way that made me risk a guess 
 that Hector liked her more than common. Her 
 name was Laura Rainey, and she d come to 
 Greenville, a year before, to teach in the high- 
 school. She was young, not quite twenty, I reck 
 oned, and as pretty and dainty a girl as ever I 
 saw; thin and delicate-looking, though not in the 
 sense of poor health; and she struck me as being 
 very sweet and thoughtful. Joe Lane told me, 
 with his little chuckle, that she d had a good 
 deal of trouble in the school on account of all the 
 older boys falling in love with her. 
 
 Something in the way he spoke made me 
 watch Joe, and I was sure if he d been one of her 
 pupils he wouldn t have lightened her worries 
 much in that direction. He had it himself. I saw 
 
160 IN THE ARENA 
 
 it, or, I should say, I felt it, in spite of his never 
 seeming to look at her. She looked at him, how 
 ever, and pretty often, too ; and there was a good 
 deal of interest in her eyes, only it was a sad kind, 
 which I understood, I thought, when I found 
 that Joe had been on a long spree and had just 
 sobered up the day before. 
 
 Hector sat above us on the platform, with 
 the Mayor and the County Judge, and when 
 the latter introduced him, and the same old 
 white pitcher and glass of water on a pine table, 
 the boy came forward with slow and impressive 
 steps, and, setting his left fist on his hip, allowed 
 his right arm to hang straight by his side till his 
 hand rested on the table, like a statesman of the 
 day standing for a photograph. His brow con 
 tained a commanding frown, and he stood for 
 some moments in that position, while, to my as 
 tonishment, the crowd cheered itself hoarse. 
 
 There was no mistaking the genuine enthu 
 siasm that he evoked, though I didn t feel it my 
 self. I suppose the only explanation is that 
 he had a great deal of what is called "mag- 
 
HECTOR 161 
 
 netism." What made it I don t know. He was 
 good-looking enough, with his dark eyes and 
 hair, and white, intense face and black clothes; 
 but there was more in the cheering than appre 
 ciation of that. I could not doubt that he pro 
 duced on the crowd, by his quiet attitude, an ap 
 parition of greatness. There was some kind of 
 hypnotism in it, I suppose. 
 
 The speech was about what I was looking for: 
 bombastic platitudes delivered with such earn 
 estness and velocity that " every point scored" 
 and the cheering came whenever he wanted it. 
 
 For instance: he would retire a few steps 
 toward the rear, and, pointing to the sky, adjure 
 it in a solemn voice which made every one lean 
 forward in a dead hush : 
 
 "Tell me, ye silent stars, that seem to slum 
 ber neath the auroral coverlet of day, tell me, 
 down what laurelled pathways among ye walk 
 our dead, the heroes whose blood was our beni- 
 son, bequeathing to us the heritage of this flower^ 
 strewn land ; they who have passed to that bourne 
 whence no traveller returns? Answer me: Are 
 
162 IN THE ARENA 
 
 not theirs the loftiest names inscribed on your 
 marble catalogues of the nations?" He let his 
 voice out startlingly and shouted: "CREEPS 
 there a creature of the earth with spirit so sordid 
 as to doubt it, to doubt who heads those gilded 
 rolls! If there be, then / say to him, Beware! 
 For the names I see written above me to-day on 
 the immemorial canopy of heaven begin with 
 that of the spotless knight, the unsceptred and 
 uncrowned king, the godlike and immaculate" 
 (here he turned suddenly, ran to the front of the 
 stage, and, with outstretched fist shaking violent 
 ly over our heads, thundered at the full power 
 of his lungs): "GEORGE WASHINGTON!" 
 He did the same for Jefferson, Jackson, Lin 
 coln, Grant, and four or five governors and sena 
 tors of the State; and at every name the crowd 
 went wild, worked up to it by Hector in the same 
 way. But what surprised me was his daring to 
 conclude his list with a votive offering laid at the 
 feet of Passley Trimmer. Trimmer was the con 
 gressional representative of that district and one 
 of the meanest men and smartest politicians in 
 
HECTOR 163 
 
 the world. He was always creeping out of tight 
 places and money-scandals by the skin of his 
 teeth ; and yet, by building up the finest personal 
 machine in the State, he stuck to his seat in Con 
 gress term after term, in spite of the fact that 
 most of the intelligent and honest men in his 
 district despised him. It was a proof of the power 
 Hector held over his audience that, by his tribute 
 to Trimmer, he was able to evoke the noisiest 
 enthusiasm of the afternoon. 
 
 Nevertheless, what really tickled me most was 
 the boy s peroration. It gave me a pretty clear 
 insight into his "innard workings." He led up 
 to it in his favourite way: stepping backward a 
 pace or two and sinking his voice to a kind of 
 Edwin Booth quiet; gradually growing a little 
 louder; then suddenly turning on the thunder 
 and running forward. 
 
 " You ask me for our credentials ?" he roared. 
 (Nobody had, this time.) "In the Lexicon of the 
 Peoples, you ask me for my country s creden 
 tials ? The credentials of our pastures, our popu 
 lation and our pride! You ask me for my coun- 
 
164 IN THE ARENA 
 
 try s credentials ? I reply : The credentials of 
 our youth and our enthusiasm! Of red corpus 
 cles! Of red blood! The credentials of the virility 
 and of the magnificent manhood of the Columbian 
 Continent! You ask for my country s credentials 
 and I answer: The credentials of Glory! By right 
 of the eternal and Almighty God ! 
 
 Of course there was a great deal more, but 
 that s enough to show how he had polished it. 
 
 I walked back to Mary s with Joe Lane, while 
 Hector followed, making a kind of Royal Prog 
 ress through the crowds, with his mother and 
 Miss Rainey. 
 
 You see it now, yourself, don t you?" Joe 
 said to me. 
 
 You mean about his doing well ?" 
 
 " What else ? He s just shown what he can do 
 with people. The day will come when you ll have 
 to take him at his own valuation." 
 
 I couldn t help laughing. "Well, Joe," I said, 
 "that sounds as if you, at least, already took 
 Hector at his own valuation." 
 
HECTOR 165 
 
 "In some things," he answered, "I think I do. 
 Don t you take him for an ass, sir. Sometimes I 
 believe he s guided by a really superior intelli 
 gence - 
 
 "Must be a sub-consciousness, then, Joe!" 
 
 "Exactly," he said seriously. "He doesn t 
 make a single mistake. He s trained his manner 
 so that, while a very few people laugh at him, 
 he does things that the town would resent in any 
 one else. He doesn t go round with the boys, and 
 they look up to him for it. He isn t pompous, but 
 he s acquired a kind of stateliness of manner 
 that s made Greenville call him Mister Ransom 
 instead of Hec. You probably think that his 
 request to the National Committee only shows 
 he s got all the nerve in the world ; but I believe, 
 on my soul, that if it had been granted he could 
 have made good." 
 
 "What did he want to run Passley Trimmer 
 into his Pantheon for, to-day?" I asked. 
 
 Joe s honest face looked a little dark at this. 
 "It s only another proof of the shrewdness that 
 directs him, though it was, maybe, a little bit 
 
166 IN THE ARENA 
 
 sickening. He talks gold and stars and eternal 
 gods, about sweetness and light and pure politics 
 and reform, but he wants Passley Trimmer s 
 machine to take him up. Passley Trimmer and 
 his brother, Link, are a good-sized curse to this 
 district, I expect you know, but Hector s court 
 ing them. Link is the dirtiest we ve ever had here, 
 and he holds all the rottenest in this county solid 
 for Passley He s overbearing; ugly, too; shot a 
 nigger in the hip a year ago, and crippled him for 
 life on account of a little back-talk, and got off 
 scot-free. I had a row with him in a saloon last 
 week; I was tight, I suppose, though there s al 
 ways been bad blood between us, anyway, drunk 
 or sober, and I didn t know much what happened, 
 except that I refused to drink in his company 
 and he cursed me out and I blacked an eye for him 
 before they separated us. Well, sir, next day, here 
 was Hector demanding that I go and apologize 
 to Link. I said I d as soon apologize to a rattle 
 snake, and Hector upbraided me in his rhetoric, 
 but with a whole lot of real feeling, too. He was 
 even pathetic about it: put it on the ground 
 
HECTOR 167 
 
 that I owed it to morality, by which he meant 
 Hector. I was known to be his most intimate 
 friend; I had done him an irrecoverable injury 
 with the Trimmers, who would extend their re 
 taliation and let him have a share of it, as my 
 friend. He ended by declaring that he should 
 withhold the light of his countenance from me 
 until I had repaired the wrong done to his cause, 
 and had apologized to Link!" 
 
 "Did you do it?" 
 
 The good fellow answered with his little 
 chuckle: "Of course! Don t you see that he 
 gets everybody to do what he wants ? It s almost 
 sheer will, and he s a true cloud-compeller." 
 
 I wanted to understand something else, and 
 I didn t know how much Mary could tell me ; that 
 is, I was sure that she would think that Miss 
 Rainey was in love with Hector. Mary wouldn t 
 be able to see how any girl could help it. 
 
 "Joe," I said, "does Hector seem much taken 
 with this Miss Rainey?" 
 
 We had come to the gate, and Lane stopped 
 to relight a cigar before he answered. He kept the 
 
168 IN THE ARENA 
 
 match at the stub until it burned out, half hiding 
 his face from me with his hands, shielding the 
 flame from a breeze that wasn t blowing. 
 
 Yes," he said finally, "as much as he could 
 be with anybody at least he wants her to be 
 taken with him." 
 
 " Do you think she is ?" 
 
 He swung the gate open, and stood to let me 
 pass in first. " She could be of great help to him. 
 We ve all got to help Hector." 
 
 I was going on: "You believe she will " 
 
 "Did you ever hear," he interrupted, "of 
 Jane Welsh Carlyle?" 
 
 I thought about that answer of Joe s most of 
 the evening, and it struck me he was right. It 
 was one of those things you couldn t possibly 
 explain to save your life, but you knew it : every 
 body had got to help Hector. Everybody had to 
 get behind him and push. Hector took it for 
 granted in a way that passed the love of woman ! 
 
 And yet, as we sat at Mary s supper-table, that 
 evening, I don t know that I ever felt less real 
 liking for any of my kin than I felt for Hector, 
 
HECTOR 169 
 
 though, perhaps, that was because he seemed to 
 keep rubbing it in on me in indirect ways that I 
 had done him an injury by not helping him with 
 the National Committee, and that I ought to 
 know it, after his triumph of the afternoon. I 
 could see that Mary agreed with him, though in 
 her gentle way. 
 
 Young Lane and Miss Rainey stayed for sup 
 per, too, and were very quiet. Miss Rainey struck 
 me as a quiet girl generally, and Joe never talked, 
 anyway, when in Hector s company. For that 
 matter, nobody else did; there was mighty little 
 chance. The truth is, Hector had an impediment 
 of speech : he couldn t listen. 
 
 Of course he talked only about himself. That 
 followed, because it was all there was in him. 
 Not that it always seemed to be about himself. 
 For instance, I remember one of his ways of rub 
 bing it into me, that evening. He had been deliv 
 ering himself of some opinions on the nature of 
 Genius, fragments (like his "credentials"! 
 had a sneaking idea) of some undeveloped ora 
 tion or other. "Look at Napoleon!" he bade us, 
 
170 IN THE ARENA 
 
 while Mary was cutting the pie. "Could Barras 
 with all his jealous and malevolent opposition, 
 could Barras with all his craft, all his machina 
 tions, with all the machinery of the State, could 
 Barras oppose the upward flight of that mighty 
 spirit? No! Barras, who should have been the 
 faithful friend, the helper, the disciple and be 
 liever, Barras, I say, set himself to destroy the 
 youth whose genius he denied, and Barras was 
 himself destroyed ! He fell, for he had dared to 
 oppose the path of one of the eternal stars!" 
 
 That was a sample, and I don t exaggerate it. 
 
 I couldn t exaggerate Hector; it s beyond me; he 
 
 always exaggerated himself beyond anybody 
 
 else s power to do it. But I loved to hear Joe 
 
 Lane s chuckle and I got one out of him when I 
 
 offered him a cigar as we went out on the porch. 
 
 "Take one," I said. " It s one of Barras s best." 
 
 "Better get in line," was all he added to the 
 
 chuckle. 
 
 A good many visitors dropped in, during the 
 evening, Greenville s greatest come to congratu- 
 
HECTOR 171 
 
 late Hector on the speech. Everybody in the 
 county was talking about him that night, they 
 said. Hector received these people in his old- 
 fashioned-statesman manner, though I noticed 
 that already he shook hands like a candidate. 
 He would grasp the caller s hand quickly and 
 decidedly, instead of letting the other do the grip 
 ping. And I could see that all those who came in, 
 even hard-headed men twice his age, treated him 
 deferentially, with the air of intimate respect 
 that he somehow managed to exact from people. 
 Perhaps I don t do him justice: he was a "mighty 
 myster us" boy! 
 
 I sat and smoked, lounging in one of Mary s 
 comfortable porch-chairs. I managed without 
 trouble to be in the background and I couldn t 
 help putting in most of my time studying Joe 
 Lane and Miss Rainey. Those two were sitting 
 on the side-steps of the porch, a little apart from 
 the rest of us and a little apart from each other, 
 too. Lord knows how you get such strong im 
 pressions, but I was very soon perfectly sure 
 that these two young people were in love with 
 
172 IN THE ARENA 
 
 each other and that they both knew it, but that 
 they had given each other up. I was sure, too, 
 that they were both under Hector s spell, and 
 preposterous as it may seem, that they were un 
 der his willy and that Hector s plans included 
 Miss Rainey for himself. 
 
 It was a mighty pretty evening; full of flower- 
 smells and breezes from the woods, which began 
 just across the village street. Joe sat in a sort of 
 doubled-up fashion he had, his thin hands 
 clasped like a strap round his knees. She sat 
 straight and trim, both of them looking out to 
 ward where the twilight was fading. As the dark 
 ness came on I could barely make them out, a 
 couple of quiet shadows, seemingly as far away 
 from the group about the lamp-lit doorway 
 where Hector sat, as if they were alone on big 
 Jupiter who was setting up to be the whole 
 thing, far out yonder in the lonely sky. 
 
 By and by, the moon oozed round from behind 
 the house and leaked through the trees and I 
 could see them plainer, two silhouettes against 
 the foliage of some bright lilac-bushes. Joe 
 
HECTOR 173 
 
 hadn t budged, but the back of Miss Rainey s 
 head wasn t toward me as it had been before; it 
 was her profile. She was leaning back a little, 
 against a post, and looking at Joe just looking 
 at him. Neither of them spoke a word the whole 
 time, and somehow I felt they didn t need to, and 
 that what they had to say to each other had never 
 been spoken and never would be, It was mighty 
 pretty and sad, too. 
 
 I felt so sorry for them, but it made me more 
 or less impatient with Hector, and with Joe - 
 especially with Joe, I think. It seemed to me he 
 needn t have taken his temperament so hope 
 lessly. But what s the use of judging? When a 
 man has a temperament like that, people who 
 haven t can t tell what he s got to contend 
 with. 
 
 That Fourth of July speech gave Hector his 
 chance. His district managers and the Trim 
 mer faction saw they could use him; and they 
 sent him round stumping the district. Two cam 
 paigns later the State Committee was using him, 
 
174 IN THE ARENA 
 
 and parts of his speeches were being printed in 
 all the party papers over the State. Locally, I 
 suppose you might say, he had become a famous 
 man ; at least he acted like one not that there 
 was any essential change in him. His style had 
 undergone a large improvement, however; his 
 language was less mixed-up, and he seemed 
 clear-headed enough on "questions of the day," 
 showing himself to be well-informed and of a fine 
 judgment. 
 
 In these things I thought I saw the hand of 
 Laura Rainey. The teacher was helping him. 
 The seriousness of his face had increased, he had 
 always entirely lacked humour; yet the spell he 
 managed to cast over his audiences was greater. 
 He never once failed to "get them going," as 
 they say. At twenty-nine he was no longer called 
 "a rising young orator"; no, he was usually in 
 troduced as the "Hon. Hector J. Ransom, the 
 Silver-tongued Lochinvar of the West." 
 
 Things hadn t changed much at Greenville. 
 Mary had always been so proud of Hector that 
 she hadn t inflated any more on account of his 
 
HECTOR 175 
 
 wider successes. She couldn t, because she hadn t 
 any room left for it. 
 
 Joe Lane still went on his periodical sprees 
 quite regularly, about one week every three 
 months, and he was the least offensive tippler I 
 ever knew. He came up to the city during one of 
 his lapses, and called at my office. He was dress 
 ed with unusual care (he was always a good deal 
 of a dandy), and he did not stagger nor slush his 
 syllables; indeed, the only way I could have told 
 what was the matter with him, at first, was by 
 the solemn preoccupation of his expression. A 
 little black pickaninny followed him, grinning 
 and carrying a big bundle, covered with a new 
 lace window-curtain. 
 
 " I am but a bearer of votive flowers," Joe said, 
 bowing. Then turning to the little darky, he 
 waved his hand loftily. "Unveil the offering!" 
 
 The pickaninny did so, removing the lace cur 
 tain to reveal a shiny new coal-bucket in which 
 was a lump of ice, whereon reposed a pair of 
 white kid gloves and a large wreath of artificial 
 daisies. 
 
176 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "With love," said Joe. "From Hector." And 
 he stalked majestically out. 
 
 There was a card on the wreath, which Joe 
 had inscribed: "To announce the betrothal. No 
 regrets." 
 
 Sure enough, the next morning I had a let 
 ter from Mary, telling me that Hector and 
 Miss Rainey were engaged, that they had been 
 so without announcing it, for several years, and 
 she feared the engagement must last much longer 
 before they could be married. So did I, for all of 
 Hector s glittering had brought him very little 
 money. While he had some law practice, of 
 course it was small, in Greenville, and what he 
 had he neglected. Nor was he a good lawyer. I 
 knew him to be heavily in debt to Lane, whose 
 father had died lately, leaving Joe fairly well off; 
 and I knew also that this debt sat very lightly 
 on Hector. I judged so, because in the matter of 
 the advances I had made for his education, I 
 never heard him refer to them. Probably he for 
 got all about it, having so many more important 
 things to think of. 
 
HECTOR 177 
 
 Mary was right: it was a very long engage 
 ment. It had lasted seven years in all, when 
 Passley Trimmer declared himself a candidate 
 for the nomination for Governor and gave Hector 
 the great chance he had been waiting for. Hector 
 "came out" for Trimmer, and came out strong. 
 He worked for him day and night, and he was one 
 of the best cards in Trimmer s hand. 
 
 It was easy enough to understand: Trimmer s 
 nomination would leave his seat in Congress va 
 cant and the Trimmer crowd would throw it to 
 Hector. 
 
 You could see that the "young Lochinvar" 
 was really a power, and I think they counted on 
 him almost as much as on the personal machine 
 Trimmer had built up. Most of all, they counted 
 on Hector s speech, nominating Trimmer, to 
 stampede the convention. If it was to be done, 
 Hector was the man to do it. There s no doubt 
 in the world of the extraordinary capacity he had 
 for whirling a crowd along into a kind of insane 
 enthusiasm. He could make his audience en 
 thusiastic about anything; he could have brought 
 
173 IN THE ARENA 
 
 them to their feet waving and cheering for Ben 
 Butler himself, if he had set out to do it. I believe 
 that most of us who were against Trimmer were 
 more afraid of Hector s stampeding the con 
 vention than of Trimmer s machine and all the 
 money he was spending. 
 
 I was working all I knew for another man, 
 Henderson, of my county, and our delegation 
 would go into the convention sixty-three solid 
 for Henderson, first, last, and all the time. On 
 that account I had to play B arras again to the 
 young Napoleon. He came to see me, and made 
 one of his orations, imploring me to swing half 
 of our delegation for Trimmer on the first ballot, 
 and all of it on the second. 
 
 "But they count on me!" he declaimed. "They 
 count on me to turn you ! Is a man -to be denied 
 by his own flesh and blood? Are the ties of re 
 lationship nothing ? Can t you see that my whole 
 future is put in jeopardy by your refusal ? Here 
 is my opportunity at last and you endanger it. 
 My marriage and my fortune depend on it; the 
 cup is at my lips. My long years of toil and prep- 
 
HECTOR 179 
 
 aration, the bitter, bitter waiting are these 
 things to go for nothing ? I tell you that if you re 
 fuse me you may blast the most sacred hopes 
 that ever dwelt in a human breast!" 
 
 I only smoked on, and so he did "the jury 
 pathetic," and he was sincere in it, too. 
 
 "Have you no heart?" he inquired, his voice 
 shaking. "Can you think calmly of my mother ? 
 Remember the years she has waited to see this 
 recognition come to her son! Am I to go back 
 to her and tell her that your answer was No ? 
 I ask you to think of her, I ask you to put 
 self out of your thoughts, to forget your own 
 interests for once, and to think of my mother, 
 waiting in the old home in the quiet village street 
 where you knew her in her bright girlhood. 
 Remember that she awaits your answer; forget 
 me if you will, but remember what it means 
 to her, I say, and then if there is a stone in your 
 breast, instead of a human heart, speak the word 
 No !" 
 
 I spoke it, and, as he had to catch his train, he 
 departed more in anger than in sorrow, leaving 
 
180 IN THE ARENA 
 
 me to my conscience, he told me. At the door he 
 turned. 
 
 "I warn you," he said, "that this faction of 
 yours shall go down to defeat! Trimmer will win 
 this fight, and I shall take his seat in Congress! 
 That is my first stepping-stone, and I will take 
 it! I have worked too hard and waited too long, 
 for such as you to successfully oppose me. I tell 
 you that we shall meet in the convention, and 
 you and your machine will be broken! The re 
 wards, then, to us, the victors!" 
 
 "Why, of course," I said, "if you win." 
 
 The Trimmer people were strong with the 
 State Executive Committee, and, in spite of us, 
 worked things a good deal their own way. They 
 took the convention away from the State Capi 
 tal to Greenville, which was, of course, a great 
 advantage for Trimmer. The fact is, that most of 
 the best people in that district didn t like him, 
 but you know how we all are : he was one of them, 
 and as soon as it seemed he had a chance to bea, 
 men from other parts of the State, they began 
 
HECTOR 181 
 
 to shout themselves black in the face for their 
 own. When I went down there, the day before 
 the convention, the place was one mass of Trim 
 mer flags, banners, badges, transparencies, but 
 tons, and brass bands. 
 
 I went around to see Mary right away, and 
 while she wasn t exactly cold to me the dear 
 woman never could be that to anybody she 
 was different; her eyes met mine sadly and her 
 old, sweet voice was a little tremulous, as if she 
 were sorry that I had done something wrong. 
 
 I didn t stay long. I started back to the Hen 
 derson headquarters in the hotel, but on my 
 way I passed a big store-room on a corner of the 
 Square, which Trimmer had fitted up as his own 
 headquarters. There was quite a crowd of the 
 boys going in and out, looking cheerful, fresh 
 cigars in their mouths, and a drink or two inside, 
 band coming down the street, everything the way 
 an old-timer likes to see it. 
 
 Passley Trimmer himself came out as I was 
 going by, and with him were his brother, Link, 
 and two or three other men, among them a 
 
182 IN THE ARENA 
 
 weasel-faced little fellow named Hugo Siffles, 
 who kept a drug-store on the next corner. Hugo 
 wasn t anybody; nobody ever paid any attention 
 to him at all; but he was one of those empty- 
 headed village talkers who are always trying to 
 look as if they were behind the scenes, always 
 trying to walk with important people. Everybody 
 knows them. They whisper to the undertaker at 
 funerals; and during campaigns they have some 
 thing confidential to communicate to United 
 States Senators. They meddle and intrude and 
 waste as much time for you as they can. 
 
 When Trimmer saw me, he held out his hand. 
 "Hello, Ben! I hear you re not for me!" he said 
 cordially. 
 
 "How are you running?" I came back at 
 him, laughing. 
 
 " Oh, we re going to beat you," he answered, 
 in the same way. 
 
 "Well, you ll see a good run, first, I expect!" 
 
 He walked along with me, Link and the others 
 following a little way behind; but Hugo Siffles, 
 of course, walking with us, partly to listen and 
 
HECTOR 183 
 
 tell at the drug-store later, and partly to look like 
 state secrets. 
 
 " Sorry you couldn t see your way to join us," 
 Trimmer said. "But we ll win out all right, any 
 way. I shouldn t think that would be much of a 
 disappointment to you, though. It will be a great 
 thing for one of your family." 
 
 "Oh, yes," I said, "Hector." 
 
 Trimmer took on a little of his benevolent 
 statesman s manner, which they nearly all get in 
 time. "I have the greatest confidence in that 
 young man s future," he said. "He may go to the 
 very top. All he needs is money. I speak to you 
 as a relative : he ought to drop that school-teacher 
 and marry a girl with money. He could, easily 
 enough." 
 
 That made me a little ugly. "Oh, no," I said. 
 "He can make plenty in Congress outside of his 
 salary, can t he ? I understand some of them do." 
 
 Of course Trimmer didn t lose his temper; 
 instead, he laughed out loud, and then put his 
 hand on my shoulder. 
 
 "Look here," he said. "I m his friend and 
 
184 IN THE ARENA 
 
 you re his cousin. He s one of my own crowd and 
 I have his best interests at heart. That isn t the 
 girl for him. He tells me that, for a long while, 
 she used to advise him against having too much 
 to do with me, until he showed her that winning 
 my influence in his favour was his only chance to 
 rise. Now, if you have his best interests at heart, 
 as I have, you ll help persuade him to let her go. 
 Why shpuldn t he marry better? She s not so 
 young any longer, and she s pretty much lost 
 her looks. And then, you know people will 
 talk " 
 
 "Talk about what?" I said. 
 
 "Well, if he goes to Congress, and, with his 
 prospects, throws himself away on a skinny little 
 old-maid school-teacher in the backwoods, one 
 that he s been making love to for years, they 
 might say almost anything. Why can t he hand 
 her over to Joe Lane ? I m sure " 
 
 "That ll do," I interrupted roughly. "I sup 
 pose you ve been talking that way to Hector?" 
 
 "Why, certainly. I have his best interests 
 at " " 
 
HECTOR 185 
 
 "Good-day, sir /" I said, and turned in at the 
 hotel and left him, with Hugo Siffles s little bright 
 pig s eyes peeking at me round Trimmer s 
 shoulder. 
 
 Sore enough I was, and cursing Trimmer and 
 Hector in my heart, so that when some one 
 knocked on my door, while I was washing up for 
 supper, I said "Come in!" as if I were telling 
 a dog to get out. 
 
 It was Joe Lane and he was pretty drunk. He 
 walked over to the bed and caught himself un 
 steadily once or twice. I d never seen him stagger 
 before. He didn t speak until he had sat down on 
 the coverlet; then he shaded his eyes with his 
 hand and stared at me as if he wanted to make 
 sure that it was I. 
 
 "I ve just been down to Hugo Siffles s drug 
 store," he said, speaking very slowly and care 
 fully, "and Hugo was telling a crowd about a 
 conver conversation between you and Passley 
 Trimmer. He said Trimmer said Hector Ran 
 som ought to drop Miss Rainey - - and hand 
 her over to Joe Lane. Is that true ?" 
 
186 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "Yes," I answered. "The beast said that." 
 
 "There was more," Joe said heavily. "More 
 that im implied might be taken to imply 
 scandal, which I believe Trimmer did not seri 
 ously intend but thought thought might be 
 used as an argument with Hector to persuade 
 him to jilt her?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What was said ex actly ? It is being re 
 peated about town in various forms. I want to 
 know." 
 
 Like a fool I told him the whole thing. I 
 didn t think, didn t dream, of course, what was 
 in that poor, drunken, devoted head, and I 
 wanted to blow off my own steam, I was so hot. 
 
 He sat very quietly until I had finished; then 
 he took his head in both hands and rocked him 
 self gently to and fro upon the bed, and I saw 
 tears trickling down his cheeks. It was a wretched 
 spectacle in a way, he being drunk and crying like 
 a child, but I don t think I despised him. 
 
 "And she so true," he sobbed, "so good, so 
 faithful to him! She s given him her youth, her 
 
HECTOR 187 
 
 whole sweet youth all of it for him!" He got 
 to his feet and went to the door. 
 
 "Hold on, Joe," I said, "where are you go- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Nother drink ! " he said, and closed the door 
 behind him. 
 
 After supper I went to work with Henderson 
 and three or four others in a little back-room in 
 our headquarters; and we were hard at it when 
 one of the boys held up his hand and said: 
 "Listen!" 
 
 The sounds of a big disturbance came in 
 through the open windows : shouting and yelling, 
 and crowds running in the streets below. The 
 town had been so noisy all evening that I 
 thought nothing of it. "It s only some delega 
 tion getting in," I said. " Go on with the lists." 
 
 But I d no more than got the words out of my 
 mouth than the noise rolled into the outer rooms 
 of our headquarters like a wave, and there was a 
 violent hammering on the door of our room, 
 some one calling my name in a loud frightened 
 voice. I threw open the door and Hugo Siffles fell 
 
188 IN THE ARENA 
 
 in, his pig s eyes starting out of his pale, foolish 
 face. 
 
 "Come with me!" he shouted, all in one 
 breath, and laying hold of me by the lapel of my 
 coat, tried to drag me after him. "There s hell to 
 pay! Joe Lane came into Trimmer s headquar 
 ters, drunk, twenty minutes ago, and slapped 
 Passley Trimmer s face for what he said to 
 us this afternoon. Link Trimmer came in, a min 
 ute later, drunk too, and heard what had hap 
 pened. He followed Joe to Hodge s saloon and 
 shot him. They ve carried him to the drug-store 
 and he s asked to speak to you." 
 
 I had the satisfaction of kicking that little cuss 
 through the door ahead of me, though I knew 
 it was myself I ought to have kicked. 
 
 It was true that Joe had asked to speak to me, 
 but when I reached the drug-store the doctor 
 wouldn t let me come into the back-room where 
 he lay, so I sat on a stool in the store. They d 
 turned all the people out, except four or five 
 friends of Joe s ; and the glass doors and the win 
 dows were solid with flattened faces, some of 
 
HECTOR 189 
 
 them coloured by the blue and green lights so that 
 it sickened me, and all staring horribly. After 
 about four years the doctor s assistant came out to 
 get something from a shelf and I jumped at him, 
 getting mighty little satisfaction, you can be sure. 
 
 "It seems to be very serious indeed," was all 
 he would say. I knew that for myself, because 
 one of the men in the store had told me that it 
 was in the left side. 
 
 Half-an-hour after this --by the clock the 
 young man came out again and called us in to 
 carry Joe home. It was not more than a hundred 
 yards to the old Lane place, and six of us, walk 
 ing very slowly, carried him on a cot through the 
 crowd. He was conscious, for he thanked us in 
 a weakish whisper, when we lifted him carefully 
 into his own bed. Then the doctor sent us all out 
 except the assistant, and we went to the front 
 porch and waited, hating the crowd that had 
 lined up against the fence and about the gate. 
 They looked like a lot of buzzards; I couldn t 
 bear the sight of them, so I went back into the 
 little hall and sat down near Joe s door. 
 
190 IN THE ARENA 
 
 After a while the assistant opened the door, 
 holding a glass pitcher in his hand. 
 
 "Here," he said, when he saw me, "will you 
 fill this with cold water from the well ?" 
 
 I took it and hurried out to the kitchen, 
 where four or five people were sitting and glumly 
 whispering around an old coloured woman, Joe s 
 cook, who was crying and rocking herself in a 
 chair. I hushed her up and told her to show me 
 the pump. It was in an orchard behind the house, 
 and was one of those old-fashioned things that 
 sound like a siren whistle with the hiccups. 
 
 It took me about five minutes to get the water 
 up, and when I got back to Joe s room, a woman 
 was there with the doctors. It was Miss Rainey. 
 She had her hat off, her sleeves were rolled up 
 and, though her face was the whitest I ever saw, 
 she was cool and steady. It was she who took 
 the water from me at the door. 
 
 I heard low voices in the parlour, where a lamp 
 was lit, and I went in there. Mary was sitting on 
 a sofa, with a handkerchief hard against her 
 eyes, and Hector was standing in the middle of 
 
HECTOR 191 
 
 the room, saying over and over, "My God!" and 
 shaking. I went to the sofa and sat by Mary 
 with my hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "To think of it!" Hector moaned. "To think 
 of its coming at such a time ! To think of what it 
 means to me!" 
 
 His mother spoke to him from behind her 
 handkerchief: "You mustn t do it; you can t 
 Hector oh, you can t, you can t. 9 
 
 For answer he struck himself desperately 
 across the forehead with the palm of his hand. 
 
 "What is it," I asked, "that your mother 
 wants you not to do ?" 
 
 " She wants me to give up Trimmer to re 
 fuse to make the nominating speech for him 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "You ve got to give him up!" cried his mother; 
 and then went on with reiterations as passionate 
 as they were weak and broken in utterance. 
 "You can t make the speech, you can t do it, 
 you can t - 
 
 "Then I m done for!" he said. "Don t you see 
 what a frightful blow this pitiful, drunken folly 
 
192 IN THE ARENA 
 
 of poor Joe s has dealt Trimmer s candidacy: 
 Don t you see that they rely on me more than 
 ever, now ? Are you so blind you don t see that I 
 am the only man who can save Trimmer the 
 nomination ? If I go back on him now, he s done 
 for and I m done for with him! It s my only 
 chance!" 
 
 "No, no," she sobbed, "you ll have other 
 chances; you ll have plenty of chances, dear; 
 you re young " 
 
 "My only chance," he went on rapidly, ignor 
 ing her, "and if I can carry it through, it will 
 mean everything to me. The tide s running 
 strong against Trimmer to-night, and I am the 
 only man in the world who can turn it the other 
 way. If I go into the convention for him, faithful 
 to him, and, out of the highest sense of justice, 
 explain that, even though Lane has been my 
 closest friend, he was in the wrong and that - 
 
 Mary rose to her feet and went to her son and 
 clung to him. "No, no!" she cried; "no, no!" 
 
 "I ve got to!" he said. 
 
 "What is that you must do, Hector?" It was 
 
HECTOR 193 
 
 Miss Rainey s voice, and came from just behind 
 me. She was standing in the doorway that led 
 from the hall, and her eyes were glowing with a 
 brilliant, warm light. We all started as she spoke, 
 and I sprang up and turned toward her. 
 
 "He s going to get well," she said, under 
 standing me. "They say it is surely so!" 
 
 At that Mary ran and threw her arms about her 
 and kissed her and I came near it ! Hector gave 
 a sort of shout of relief and sank into a chair. 
 
 "What is that you must do, Hector?" Miss 
 Rainey said again in her steady voice. 
 
 "Stick to Trimmer!" he explained. "Don t 
 you see that I must ? He needs me now more 
 than ever, and it s my only chance." 
 
 Miss Rainey looked at him over Mary s 
 shoulder. She looked at him a long while before 
 she spoke. "You know why Mr. Lane struck that 
 blow?" 
 
 " Oh, I suppose so," he answered uneasily. " At 
 least Siffles " 
 
 "Yes," she said. "You know. What are you 
 going to do? 
 
194 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "The right thing!" Hector rose and walked 
 toward her. "I put right before all. I shall be 
 loyal and I shall be just. It might have been a terri 
 bly hard thing to carry through, but, since dear 
 old Joe will recover, I know I can do it." 
 
 The girl s eyes widened suddenly, while the 
 warm glow in them flashed into a fiery and pro 
 found scrutiny. 
 
 You are going to make the nominating 
 speech," she said. It was not a question but a 
 declaration, in the tone of one to whom he stood 
 wholly revealed. 
 
 "Yes," he answered eagerly. "I knew you 
 would see : it s my chance, my whole career - 
 
 But his mother, turning swiftly, put her hand 
 over his mouth, though it was to Miss Rainey 
 that she cried : 
 
 "Oh, don t let him say it he can t; you 
 mustn t let him!" 
 
 The girl drew her gently away and put an arm 
 about her, saying: "Do you think / could stop 
 him?" 
 
 "But do you wish to stop me?" asked Hector 
 
HECTOR 195 
 
 sadly, as he stepped toward her. " Do you set 
 yourself not only in the way of my great chance, 
 but against justice and truth ? Don t you see 
 that I must do it?" 
 
 "It is your chance -- yes. I see the truth, Hec 
 tor." Her eyes had fallen and she looked at him 
 no more, but, with a little movement away from 
 him, offered her hand to him at arm s length. It 
 was done in a curious way, and he looked per 
 plexed for a second, and then frightened. He 
 dropped her hand, and his lips twitched. 
 
 " Laura," he said, and could not go on. 
 
 "You must go now," she said to all three of 
 us. "The house should be very quiet. I shall be 
 his nurse, and the doctor will stay all night. Isn t 
 it beautiful that Joe is going to get well!" 
 
 She went out quickly, before Hector could de 
 tain her, back to the room where Lane was. 
 
 There : s no need my telling you the details of 
 that convention: Henderson was beaten from 
 the start, and Hector s speech was all that hap 
 pened. If he hadn t made it, there might have 
 
196 IN THE ARENA 
 
 been a consolidation on a dark horse, for feeling 
 was high against Trimmer. It isn t an easy thing 
 to go into a convention with a brother locked up 
 in jail on a charge of attempted murder! 
 
 I ll never forget Hector s rising to make that 
 speech. There wasn t any cheering, there was a 
 dead, cold hush. This wasn t because his mag 
 netism had deserted him; indeed, I don t think 
 it had ever before been felt so strongly. He was 
 white as white paper, and his face had a look 
 of suffering; altogether I believe I couldn t give 
 a better notion of him than saying that he some 
 how made me think of Hamlet. 
 
 He began in a very low but very penetrating 
 voice, and I don t think anybody in the farthest 
 corner missed a single clear-cut syllable from the 
 first. As I may have indicated, I had never been 
 a warm admirer of his, but with all my prejudice, 
 I think I admired him when he stood up to his 
 task that day. For the effect he intended, his 
 speech was a masterpiece, no less. I saw it before 
 he had finished three sentences. And he deliver 
 ed it, knowing that even while he did so he was 
 
HECTOR 197 
 
 osing the woman he loved; for Hector did love 
 Laura Rainey, next to himself, and she had been 
 Dart of his life and necessary to him. But though 
 ;he heavens fell, he stuck to what he had set out 
 ;o do, and did it masterfully. 
 
 Not that what he said could bear the analysis 
 of a cool mind : nothing that Hector ever did or 
 said has been able to do that. But for the purpose, 
 it was perfect. For once he began at the begin 
 ning, without rhetoric, and he made it all the 
 more effective by beginning with himself. 
 
 "Doubtless there are many among you who 
 think it strange to see me rise to fulfil the charge 
 with which you know me to be intrusted. My 
 oldest and most intimate friend lies wounded on 
 a bed of suffering, stricken down by the hand 
 of another friend whose heart is in the cause 
 for which I have risen. Therefore, you might 
 well question me; you might well say: To 
 whom is your loyalty ? Well might I ask myself 
 that same question. And I will give you my 
 answer: There are things beyond the personal 
 friendship of man and man, things greater than 
 
198 IN THE ARENA 
 
 individual differences and individual tragedies, 
 things as far higher and greater than these as the 
 skies of God are higher than the roof of a child s 
 doll-house. These higher things are the good of 
 the State and the Law of Justice ! 
 
 That brought the first applause; and Trim 
 mer s people, seeing the crowd had taken Hec 
 tor s point, sprang to their feet and began to 
 cheer. At a tense moment, such as this, cheering 
 is often hypnotic, and good managers know how 
 to make use of it on the floor. The noise grew 
 thunderous, and when it subsided Hector was 
 master of the convention. Then, for the first 
 time, I saw how far he would go and why. I 
 had laughed at him all my life, but now I be 
 lieved there was "something in him," as they 
 say. The Lord knows what, but it was there; and 
 as I looked at him and listened it seemed to me 
 that the world was at his feet. 
 
 He was infinitely daring, yet he skirted the 
 cause of the quarrel with perfect tact: "The mis 
 interpretation of a few careless and kindly words, 
 said in passing, and repeated, with garbling ad- 
 
HECTOR 199 
 
 litions, to a man who was not himself. . . . 
 The brooding of a mind most unhappily beset 
 with alcohol. ... A blow resented by a too 
 devoted but too violent kinsman. . . ." 
 
 Then, with the greatest skill, and rather 
 quietly, he passed to a eulogium of Trimmer s 
 public career, gradually increasing the warmth 
 of his praise but controlling it as perfectly as he 
 controlled the enthusiasm and excitement which 
 followed each of his points. For myself, I only 
 looked away from him once, and caught a 
 glimpse of Henderson looking sick. 
 
 Hector finished with a great stroke. He went 
 back to the original theme. "You ask me where 
 my duty lies!" His great voice rose and rang 
 through the hall magnificently: "I reply -- first 
 to my State and her needs ! Is that answer 
 enough ? If it be necessary that I should answer 
 for my personal loyalty to one man or another 
 then I ask you : ( Shall it go to the friend who, 
 without cause, struck the first blow ? Shall it go 
 to that other friend who went out hot-headed 
 and struck back to avenge a brother s wrongs ? 
 
200 IN THE ARENA 
 
 Is it only between these that I and many of 
 you are to choose to-day ? Is there not a third ? 
 I tell you that I have chosen, and that my loy 
 alty and all my strength are devoted to that other, 
 to that man who has suffered most of all, to him 
 who received a blow and did not avenge it, be 
 cause in his greatness he knew that his assailant 
 knew not what he did!" 
 
 That carried them off their feet. Hector had 
 turned Trimmer s greatest danger into the means 
 of victory. The Trimmer people led one of those 
 extraordinary hysterical processions round the 
 aisles that you see sometimes in a convention (a 
 thing I never get used to), and it was all Trim 
 mer, or rather, it was all Hector. Trimmer was 
 nominated on the first ballot. 
 
 There was a recess, and I hurried out, mean 
 ing to slip round to Joe Lane s for a moment to 
 find out how he was. I d seen the doctor in the 
 morning and he said his patient had passed a 
 good night and that Miss Rainey was still there. 
 "I think she s going to stay," he added, and 
 smiled and shook hands with me. 
 
HECTOR 201 
 
 Joe s old darkey cook let me in, and, after a 
 moment, came to say I might go into Mr. Lane s 
 room ; Mr. Lane wanted to see me. 
 
 Joe was lying very flat on his back, but with 
 his face turned toward the door, and beside him 
 sat Laura Rainey, their thin hands clasped 
 together. I stopped on the threshold with the 
 door half opened. 
 
 "Come in," said Joe weakly. "Hector made 
 it, I m sure." 
 
 "Yes," I answered, and in earnest. "He s a 
 great man." 
 
 Joe s face quivered with a pain that did not 
 come from his hurt. "Oh, it s knowing that, 
 that makes me feel like such a scoundrel," 
 he said. "I suppose you ve come to congrat 
 ulate me." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "the doctor says it s a wonder 
 ful case, and that you re one of the lucky ones 
 with a charmed life, thank God!" 
 
 Joe smiled sadly at Miss Rainey. "He hasn t 
 heard," he said. Then she gave me her left hand, 
 not relinquishing Joe s with her right. 
 
202 IN THE ARENA 
 
 "We were married this morning," she said, 
 "just after the convention began." 
 
 The tears came into Joe s eyes as she spoke. 
 "It s a shame, isn t it?" he said to me. "You 
 must see it so. And I the kind of man I am, the 
 town drunkard " 
 
 Then his wife leaned over and kissed his 
 forehead. 
 
 " Even so it was right and so beautiful for 
 me," she said. 
 

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