The Mayor of Warwick Part 5

In spite of the trim uniform, the cap and b.u.t.tons, he seemed cast in a larger mould than most men of his kind. He was garrulous without offence, and carried with him some of the atmosphere which only travel gives. He was more fit, Leigh reflected, to command a ship, or to crack the whip over six horses from the seat of a stage-coach, than to pull the bellrope on a Warwick street-car. It was easy enough to engage him in conversation about the coming election, but more difficult to arrive at the point he had in mind. He learned that Emmet had already resigned his place as a conductor to devote his whole time to the work of the campaign, and he began to appreciate the difficulty of meeting him naturally. If he went to his boarding-house, he would doubtless find him away, or not alone. On the whole, considering the shortness of the time and the different worlds in which they moved, he decided that he must make his opportunity, rather than wait for it to come.

"I believe you said that Mr. Emmet boards at your house," he ventured finally. "In that case, you might do me a little favour, if you will.

The fact is, that I would like very much to make his acquaintance, but I hesitate to call upon him at random, knowing how busy he is. If he has a free hour some time, I 'd like to meet him."

"You 'd like to meet him?" the conductor asked shrewdly.

"This is n't politics," Leigh explained, aware of the other's guess, "and for that reason I want Mr. Emmet to consult his own convenience.

If you 'll give him my card and tell him that we have a common friend who wishes us to know each other, he may think it worth while to drop me a postcard and make an appointment. I 'll come to see him any time he's at liberty."

The conductor stowed the card away in his clothes with a peculiar lurch of his figure that reminded Leigh once more of his first impression.

"Am I right," he asked, "in guessing that you once followed the sea?"

"Twenty years," the man answered; "and though I 've been ash.o.r.e as many, they still call me captain--Captain Tucker. The salt water puts its stamp on a man for life, don't it? I was reminded of it this morning when I see in the paper that the Rooshyans had fired on the Hull fishermen off the Dogger Banks. What a shame that was, wa'n't it?

Why, those fishermen are the most inoffensive fellows in the world.

Many a time when I pa.s.sed through that sea they 'd throw up a fish on our deck by way of a present."

Leigh found the conversation which this reminiscence suggested so full of interest, that he made the complete circuit of the line to pursue it at such intervals as his new acquaintance could spare from his duties.

Then, as the steaming rain had begun to fall heavily, he returned to the college. Upon a mental review of his trip, he was inclined to doubt that he would hear from Emmet, but in so doing he forgot to reckon with one of the most powerful of human motives, curiosity. He also failed to consider that his position as a professor at St.

George's Hall would give his advances peculiar importance. His only fear was that the captain might not report the message correctly, and he wished he had been able to write a note. A remembrance of the man's geniality rea.s.sured him, and he reflected that such men were the most approachable and companionable in the world, always ready for a new acquaintance, and imbued with a certain fundamental humanity which is too often winnowed out from more artificial or more cultivated natures.

He went to his work that evening without much thought of the probable outcome of his morning's effort. Like most college professors, he had a number of unfinished problems on hand, any one of which might require years for its solution. The scholar's work, like the housekeeper's, is never done, and like the housekeeper, too, he can cover up his postponements and neglect for a measurable time without censure. He can fail to set the house of his mind in order; he can sweep the dust of unfinished investigation into obscure nooks and corners; he can make fair the outside of the cup and the platter for cursory inspection.

Herein lies his peculiar temptation. The public is p.r.o.ne to take his scientific spirit for granted, and is a long time in opening its eyes.

Meanwhile he lives a life of delightful leisure, teaching as many hours a week as a business man labours in a day. Not one man in a hundred is proof against the seduction of those idle hours, during which literature and art and a cultivated society plead for some share of his attention and filch away his will. And, after all, why not? he begins to ask himself. In a commercial age and a country that thinks upon the surface, his profession receives no adequate recognition. Life is short; he had better reap the reward of his laborious and expensive preparation by enjoying those diversions which he of all men is peculiarly fitted to appreciate.

Leigh honestly meant to be the hundredth man, and to make a name for himself. He had found what might be called an easy place in contrast with the drudgery of the large cla.s.ses he had previously taught. Here was the time, here the problem. The lamp was trimmed, the white sheets of paper were spread out invitingly on his desk. A few logs burned brightly in the fireplace, dispelling the penetrating chill, and the rain beat heavily against the windows, intensifying the distance of the world and his own seclusion.

But now a face hovered between his eyes and the paper on his desk; then the complete figure of the woman he loved came into view, pointing with her small ivory cimeter another and more alluring road. As one may lie and doze awhile in the morning, with a resentful realisation of the impending duties of the day, so now he allowed himself ten minutes of respite, only to discover presently that his allowance had lengthened imperceptibly to an hour.

A knock at the door aroused him, and he shouted an invitation to enter, thinking that Cardington had stepped across the hallway for a chat.

His surprise therefore was great when the door swung open and showed an unknown man placing his dripping umbrella in the corner.

"I got your message, professor," the visitor began. Leigh was instantly aware, above everything else, of the extraordinarily alert glance which he flung into the room ahead of him as he entered. This summed up his total first impression.

"Mr. Emmet!" he cried. "Come in. This is really too bad. I 'm afraid Captain Tucker did n't give you the message correctly. I meant to call upon you. He must have represented that I had some urgent business--but I need n't say how I appreciate your coming, especially on such a night."

"All kinds of weather are alike to me," Emmet answered heartily. "I was up in this part of town, and thought I might better drop in and see you than send a postal."

Now that he was seated, Leigh had a better opportunity for observation, and his fuller impression was decidedly favourable. Emmet was apparently about his own age, of medium height, with the shoulders and bearing of an athlete. He possessed no strikingly fine feature, and yet the whole man was handsome. One took no notice of the shape of his nose or the line of his chin, for these points were neither excellent nor the reverse. What gave him a claim to distinction above his fellows was the splendidly abundant vitality that appeared unmistakably in the rich colour of his cheeks, in his very posture, and in the brightness of his reddish-brown eyes. It remained to be seen whether this brightness might indicate intellect as well as health. For the rest, for the quality that betrayed the man, his expression was not to be read at a glance. Its major message seemed to be goodfellowship, but the seeming failed to strengthen into certainty on closer inspection. Here was a man who could think hiddenly, speak guardedly, wait for others to show their cards, and do all this with a disarming appearance of ingenuous friendliness. The atmosphere he radiated as he sat waiting for his host to explain himself was one of tension without nervousness.

Leigh began as most men would have begun under the circ.u.mstances. He fostered the subject of the weather for a few minutes longer, and produced a box of cigars.

"I never smoke, or drink either, for that matter," Emmet remarked simply. "A politician is like a barkeeper; he can do his business better if he lets drink alone. As for cigars, try one of mine. They 're part of my stock in trade. I guess this one won't explode and set fire to the place."

Leigh smiled as he lighted the cigar, which he found to be a good one.

There was something that made for freedom in the unintentional officiousness with which his guest had thrust aside his hospitality and subst.i.tuted his own.

"Possibly," he ventured, "you might imagine that I have some plan in mind to hand over to you the vote of the college."

"A deal like that would please the bishop," Emmet returned, with unexpected irony.

"It would please his daughter, at any rate, as I believe you know."

"Yes," Emmet a.s.sented, with a nod. "I know what a good friend of mine Miss Wycliffe is."

"We were talking last night," Leigh continued, "about political conditions here in Warwick; and I became very much interested, for munic.i.p.al reform is one of my hobbies. Wherever I 've lived, I 've always been against the machine, at least to the extent of my vote.

Miss Wycliffe told me that you were trying to break up the clique that has ruled Warwick since the war; and when she saw how much she had enlisted my sympathy, she proposed that we become acquainted. That's how I happened to send a message to you by the captain. I did n't know when you were likely to be most at liberty." He paused, and flicked the ashes from his cigar. "I feel guilty to think that I have stolen some of your time, when I have nothing to give you in return but good wishes."

It was impossible to guess whether Emmet were surprised or disappointed at this disclosure of the comparative futility of his visit.

"Good wishes," he said, "are always worth having, and especially from this college, for I tell you there are mighty few men connected with this place that wish me well."

Leigh, remembering the bishop and Cardington, did not doubt the truth of this declaration. He wondered what his colleague would surmise should he come in at that moment. The situation would be complicated, and would no doubt gain in interest, but it was an interest he was content to forego. He was impressed by a hint of pa.s.sion and resentment in his guest's voice, restrained as by one not entirely sure of his hearer.

In Leigh's att.i.tude there was no affectation. He was genuinely interested in the situation, and he brought to it all a Westerner's lack of cla.s.s prejudice, all his appreciation of a man for his intrinsic worth, irrespective of college degrees and family and fortune. It was some time before Emmet, feeling his way by little and little, realised the anomaly of a professor in St. George's Hall with Democratic sympathies. Miss Wycliffe's judgment of the two men, her belief that they would get on well together, was entirely justified by the result, which became undoubted before an hour had pa.s.sed. Emmet was by no means lacking in shrewdness, and, having once become convinced that caution was needless, he talked more freely, until, to his listener's interested observation, he appeared quite another man.

He began to show some of that eloquence of which Cardington had spoken, an eloquence that derived its effect not from the artifices of rhetoric, but from a deep conviction and a personal grievance. He spoke in adequate language, that left no doubt of his meaning, and the meaning itself was sufficiently striking to rivet attention. Leigh began to realise why it was that the bishop had thought him dangerous.

He forgot to wonder at Emmet's gift of speech in the new point of view that was gradually presented to his mind. He was struck particularly by the fact that St. George's Hall, which seemed to him comparatively insignificant in the educational world, should loom so large in this man's horizon that the towers which stood to him for star-gazing and cloistered study and old tradition should appear to Emmet merely the bulwarks of cla.s.s privilege and social tyranny.

The fact that Leigh was a stranger in Warwick must have given his guest a peculiar sense of freedom. One has only to recall the confidences which men that meet casually on the train will sometimes repose in each other, to realise how this can be. Under such circ.u.mstances, each tells his story to unprejudiced ears, without fear that it will one day be turned to his disadvantage. Nor was this the first time in Leigh's life when he had been surprised to find himself the recipient of another's secrets. The conversation finally became almost a monologue, or, more specifically, a statement of grievances.

"I would n't mind, if the campaign were being conducted on the square,"

said Emmet, now thoroughly aroused; "but it is n't. It's hard work to talk against money, and they 've got barrels of it. They 're putting it now where it will do the most good. A thousand dollars to this saloon-keeper and another thousand to that, to keep their heelers away from the polls on election day, may do the trick for them, no matter what I say or do or am. And it's college-bred men, professional men, who are doing it. The whole of the wealthy and educated element of Warwick is leagued against me, and bound to beat me by fair means or foul."

"Corruption in politics is common enough everywhere, I 'm afraid,"

Leigh remarked.

"It's worse here," Emmet declared bitterly; "and here it's a question of cla.s.s against cla.s.s as well. Warwick is said to be the wealthiest city of its size in the country, and the offices have been handed around in a certain set ever since the Declaration of Independence.

The labour unions are uncommonly strong, too, and if they would only hang together, they could have things their own way. I can depend upon the support of my own crowd, but there are always mutual jealousies to be reckoned with between the various unions. Besides, the labouring man will talk boldly enough at times about equality, but he still has a sneaking admiration for the fellow that lives in a big house, and a corresponding distrust of one of his own kind. Let me give you an ill.u.s.tration of it. The other day, Judge Swigart's manager, Anthony Cobbens, was swaggering around the barn down here, talking with some of the men about his horses and dogs, and poking a little fun at me on the side. Such things have their effect. I heard one of the men say afterward that Cobbens was as friendly with them as if he were n't rich at all. It's a fact that he was flattered by the fellow, even when he saw through him."

There was something rather magnificent in the scorn that blazed in the speaker's eyes as he told this incident, and Leigh felt that, no matter what his faults might be, sycophancy never was and never could be one of them.

"It's all the more pitiful," he remarked, "because he gets nothing for it but the contempt he deserves. But I 've heard of this Cobbens. It seems to me that Miss Wycliffe compared him to a weasel."

Emmet laughed, but almost immediately the intensity of his mood returned. "Cobbens is one of your own graduates," he went on, almost as if he held his listener responsible for that fact. "I knew him as a boy, and played with him on the streets. Perhaps that's the reason he 's my worst enemy to-day. His mother was a dressmaker and a widow, but somehow, by hook and by crook, he managed to work his way through St.

George's Hall. Then he became a lawyer and married one of the richest girls in town. What she saw in him, n.o.body knows, but he's a hypnotist, and no mistake. Now she's dead, and so are her parents, and Cobbens and his mother live in her great house and ride in her carriages. He 's a high roller, right in with the judge and his crew, and there is n't a more corrupt politician in this town. There 's a fine specimen of your college graduate!"

"I hope you don't regard him as a typical college graduate," Leigh protested good-naturedly.

Had he been familiar with the alumni of the Hall, he could have made his argument strong by personal examples unlike Anthony Cobbens, but he made his defence of the college graduate general, answering the well-known objections to him in the well-known way. It was evident that Emmet regarded colleges and universities as identified with entrenched privilege everywhere, and with corruption in local politics particularly. It was inevitable that he should have been influenced in this view by his own concrete experiences. The iron had entered into his soul, and its scar was not to be effaced by an evening's conversation. Not infrequently life will be interpreted to a pa.s.sionate nature by one or two persons, be they friends or enemies.

To Emmet, Cobbens and the bishop loomed much larger in the general scheme of things than their intrinsic importance warranted. It was interesting, having heard the bishop's opinion of Emmet, to get Emmet's view of the bishop, a view that was by no means without a certain reluctant respect and admiration. Leigh felt that his prejudice was impa.s.sioned, rather than intellectual, and would yield gradually to a change of circ.u.mstances, whereas the bishop would never revise his judgment. He was impressed also by the fact that Miss Wycliffe could never fully appreciate the conditions that had produced the man whose cause she had chosen to champion, or see that he must needs be a radical, if he thought at all, at least in the present stage of his development. Leigh's own experience in life enabled him to look into both camps with comprehension, for he belonged to the comparatively small cla.s.s of the cultivated poor, and his struggles had been no less intense than those of the man before him, though for different ends.

The effect of what he said was conciliatory, but his visitor was merely convinced that this particular college graduate was an exception to the rule.

"You 're not much like the bishop," he remarked. "I don't say that he is n't the real thing in the way of a gentleman, but he 's as proud as the Old Boy himself."

"I don't know how proud the Old Boy may be," Leigh answered, laughing, "or what he has to be proud of, but I 've discovered that Bishop Wycliffe, underneath his apparent frigidity, has one of the kindest hearts in the world."

"We all know that," Emmet a.s.sented. "He's one of the most charitable men in town. I 'm bound to say, too, that he does n't know anything about the inside workings of that political ring, but it's because he does n't want to know. He just naturally ranges himself with his own cla.s.s on such a question."