A Poor Wise Man Part 55

"Have any of your people any influence with the Cardews?"

"No one has any influence with the Cardews, if you mean the Cardew men.

Why?"

"Because Cardew has got to get out of the mayoralty campaign. That's all."

"That's a-plenty," said Pink, grinning. "Why don't you go and tell him so?"

"I'm thinking of it. He hasn't a chance in the world, but he'll defeat Hendricks by splitting the vote, and let the other side in. And you know what that means."

"I know it," Pink observed, "but Mr. Cardew doesn't, and he won't after you've told him. They've put a lot of money in, and once a Cardew has invested in a thing he holds on like death. Especially the old man.

Wouldn't wonder he was the fellow who pounded the daylights out of Akers last night," he added.

w.i.l.l.y Cameron, having carefully filled his pipe, closed the door into the shop, and opened a window.

"Akers?" he inquired.

"Noon edition has it," Pink said. "Claims to have been attacked in his rooms by two masked men. Probably wouldn't have told it, but the doctor talked. Looks as though he could wallop six masked men, doesn't he?"

"Yes," said w.i.l.l.y Cameron, reflectively. "Yes; he does, rather."

He felt more hopeful than he had for days. Lily on her way home, clear once more of the poisonous atmosphere of Doyle and his a.s.sociates; Akers temporarily out of the way, perhaps for long enough to let the normal influences of her home life show him to her in a real perspective; and a rather unholy but very human joy that he had given Akers a part of what was coming to him--all united to cheer him. He saw Lily going home, and a great wave of tenderness flooded him. If only they would be tactful and careful, if only they would be understanding and kind. If they would only be normal and every-day, and accept her as though she had never been away. These people were so hedged about with conventions and restrictions, they put so much emphasis on the letter and so little on the spirit. If only--G.o.d, if only they wouldn't patronize her!

His mother would have known how to receive her. He felt, that afternoon, a real homesickness for his mother. He saw her, ample and comfortable and sane, so busy with the comforts of the body that she seemed to ignore the soul, and yet bringing healing with her every matter-of-fact movement.

If only Lily could have gone back to her, instead of to that great house, full of curious eyes and whispering voices.

He saw Mr. Hendricks that evening on his way home to supper. Mr.

Hendricks had lost flesh and some of his buoyancy, but he was persistently optimistic.

"Up to last night I'd have said we were done, son," he observed. "But this bomb business has settled them. The labor vote'll split on it, sure as whooping cough."

"They've bought a half-page in all the morning papers, disclaiming all responsibility and calling on all citizens to help them in protecting private property."

"Have they, now," said Hendricks, with grudging admiration. "Can you beat that? Where do they get the money, anyhow? If I lost my watch these days I'd have to do some high-finance before I'd be able to advertise for it."

"All right, see Cardew," were his parting words. "But he doesn't want this election any more than I want my right leg. He'll stick. You can talk, Cameron, I'll say it. But you can't pry him off with kind words, any more than you can a porous plaster."

Behind Mr. Hendricks' colloquialisms there was something st.u.r.dy and fine. His very vernacular made him popular; his honesty was beyond suspicion. If he belonged to the old school in politics, he had most of its virtues and few of its vices. He would take care of his friends, undoubtedly, but he was careful in his choice of friends. He would make the city a good place to live in. Like w.i.l.l.y Cameron, he saw it, not a center of trade so much as a vast settlement of homes. Business supported the city in his mind, not the city business.

Nevertheless the situation was serious, and it was with a sense of a desperate remedy for a desperate disease that w.i.l.l.y Cameron, after a careful toilet, rang the bell of the Cardew house that night. He had no hope of seeing Lily, but the mere thought that they were under one roof gave him a sense of nearness and of comfort in her safety.

Dinner was recently over, and he found both the Cardews, father and son, in the library smoking. He had arrived at a bad moment, for the bomb outrage, coming on top of Lily's refusal to come home under the given conditions, had roused Anthony to a cold rage, and left Howard with a feeling of helplessness.

Anthony Cardew nodded to him grimly, but Howard shook hands and offered him a chair.

"I heard you speak some time ago, Mr. Cameron," he said. "You made me wish I could have had your support."

"I came to talk about that. I am sorry to have to come in the evening, but I am not free at any other time."

"When we go into politics," said old Anthony in his jibing voice, "the ordinary amenities have to go. When you are elected, Howard, I shall live somewhere else."

w.i.l.l.y Cameron smiled.

"I don't think you will be put to that inconvenience, Mr. Cardew."

"What's that?" Old Anthony's voice was incredulous. Here, in his own house, this whipper-snapper--

"I am sure Mr. Howard Cardew realizes he cannot be elected."

The small ragged vein on Anthony's forehead was the storm signal for the family. Howard glanced at him, and said urbanely:

"Will you have a cigar, Mr. Cameron? Or a liqueur?"

"Nothing, thank you. If I can have a few minutes' talk with you--"

"If you mean that as a request for me to go out, I will remind you that I am heavily interested in this matter myself," said old Anthony. "I have put in a great deal of money. If you people are going to drop out, I want to hear it. You've played the devil with us already, with your independent candidate who can't talk English."

w.i.l.l.y Cameron kept his temper.

"No," he said, slowly. "It wasn't a question of Mr. Hendricks withdrawing. It was a question of Mr. Cardew getting out."

Sheer astonishment held old Anthony speechless.

"It's like this," w.i.l.l.y Cameron said. "Your son knows it. Even if we drop out he won't get it. Justly or unjustly--and I mean that--n.o.body with the name of Cardew can be elected to any high office in this city.

There's no reflection on anybody in my saying that. I am telling you a fact."

Howard had listened attentively and without anger. "For a long time, Mr.

Cameron," he said, "I have been urging men of--of position in the city, to go into politics. We have needed to get away from the professional politician. I went in, without much hope of election, to--well, you can say to blaze a trail. It is not being elected that counts with me, so much as to show my willingness to serve."

Old Anthony recovered his voice.

"The Cardews made this town, sir," he barked. "Willingness to serve, piffle! We need a business man to run the city, and by G.o.d, we'll get it!"

"You'll get an anarchist," said w.i.l.l.y Cameron, slightly flushed.

"If you want my opinion, young man, this is a trick, a political trick.

And how do we know that your Vigilance Committee isn't a trick, too?

You try to tell us that there is an organized movement here to do heaven knows what, and by sheer terror you build up a machine which appeals to the public imagination. You don't say anything about votes, but you see that they vote for your man. Isn't that true?"

"Yes. If they can keep an anarchist out of office. Akers is an anarchist. He calls himself something else, but that's what it amounts to. And those bombs last night were not imaginary."

The introduction of Louis Akers' name had a sobering effect on Anthony Cardew. After all, more than anything else, he wanted Akers defeated.

The discussion slowly lost its acrimony, and ended, oddly enough, in w.i.l.l.y Cameron and Anthony Cardew virtually uniting against Howard.

What w.i.l.l.y Cameron told about Jim Doyle fed the old man's hatred of his daughter's husband, and there was something very convincing about Cameron himself. Something of fearlessness and honesty that began, slowly, to dispose Anthony in his favor.

It was Howard who held out.

"If I quit now it will look as though I didn't want to take a licking,"