The Sturdy Oak Part 20

It was a relief to both men when at this point the door of the office opened and Martin Jaffry entered.

Not since the unfortunate anti-suffrage statement of George's had Uncle Martin dropped in like this. George, looking at him with that first swift glance that often predetermines a whole interview, made up his mind that bygones were to be bygones. He greeted his uncle with the warmest cordiality.

"Well, George," said Uncle Martin, "how are things going?"

"I'm going to be elected, if that's what you mean," answered George.

Doolittle gave a snort. "Indeed, are ye?" said he. "As a friend and well-wisher, I'm sure I'm delighted to hear the news." "Do I understand that you have your doubts, Mr. Doolittle?" Jaffry inquired mildly.

"There's two things we need and need badly, Mr. Jaffry," said Doolittle.

"One's money--"

"A small campaign contribution would not be rejected?"

"But there's something we need more than money--and G.o.d knows I never expected to say them words--and that's common sense."

"Good," said Uncle Martin, "I have plenty of that, too!"

"Then for the love of Mike pa.s.s some of it on to this precious nephew of yours."

"What seems to be the matter?"

"It's them women," said Doolittle.

Uncle Martin turned inquiringly to George: "The tender flowers?" he suggested.

"Look here, Uncle Martin," said George, who had had a good deal of this sort of thing to bear, "I don't understand you. Do you believe in woman suffrage?"

Uncle Martin contemplated a new crumpling of his long-suffering cap before he answered. "Yes and no, George. I believe in it in the same way that I believe in old age and death. I can't avoid them by denying their existence."

"But you fight against them, and put them off as long as you can."

"But I yield a little to them, too, George. What is it? Has Genevieve become a convert to suffrage?"

"Has Genevieve--has my wife----"

Then George remembered that his uncle was an older man and that chivalry is not limited to the treatment of the weaker s.e.x.

"No," he said with a calm hardly less magnificent than the tempest would have been, "no, Uncle Martin, Genevieve has not become a suffragist."

"Well," said Doolittle rising, as if such things were hardly worth his valuable time, "I fail to see the difference between a suffragette an' a woman who goes pokin' her nose into what----"

"You're speaking of my wife, Mr. Doolittle," said George, with a significant lighting of the eye.

"Speakin' in general," said Doolittle.

Uncle Martin was interested. "Has Genevieve been--well, we won't say poking the nose--but taking a responsible civic interest where it would be better if she didn't?"

"It seems," answered George, casting an angry glance at his campaign manager, "that Mr. Doolittle has heard from a friend of his who overheard a conversation between Betty Sheridan and my wife at luncheon.

From this he inferred that the two were planning an investigation of some of the city's problems."

Uncle Martin looked relieved.

"Oh, your wife and your stenographer. That can be stopped, I suppose, without undue exertion."

"Betty is no longer my stenographer."

"Left, has she?" said Jaffry. "I had an idea she would not stay with you long."

This intimation was not agreeable to George. He would have liked to explain that Miss Sheridan's departure had been dictated by the will of the head of the firm; in fact he opened his mouth to do so. But the remembrance that this would entail a long and wearisome exposition of his reasons caused him to remain silent, and his uncle went on: "Well, anyhow, you can get Genevieve to drop it."

If Doolittle had not been there, George would have been glad to discuss with his uncle, who had, after all, a sort of worldly shrewdness, how far a man is justified in controlling his wife's opinions. But before an audience now a trifle unsympathetic, he could not resist the temptation of making the gesture of a man magnificently master in his own house.

He smiled quite grandly. "I think I can promise that," he said.

Doolittle got up slowly, bringing his jaws together in a relentless bite on the unresisting gum.

"Well," he said, "that's all there is to it." And he added significantly as he reached the door, "If you kin _do_ it!"

When the campaign manager had gone, Uncle Martin asked very, very gently: "You don't feel any doubt of being able to do it, do you, George?"

"About my ability to control--I mean influence, my wife? I feel no doubt at all."

"And Penfield, I suppose, can tackle Betty? You won't mind my saying that of the two I think your partner has the harder job."

A slight cloud appeared upon the brow of the candidate.

"I don't feel inclined to ask any favor of Penny just at present," he said haughtily. "Has it ever struck you, Uncle Martin, that Penny has an unduly emotional, an almost feminine type of mind?"

"No," said the other, "it hasn't, but that is perhaps because I have never been sure just what the feminine type of mind is."

"You know what I mean," answered George, trying to conceal his annoyance at this sort of petty quibbling. "I mean he is too personal, over-excitable, irrational and very hard to deal with."

"Dear me," said Jaffry. "Is Genevieve like that?"

"Genevieve," replied her husband loyally, "is much better poised than most women, but--yes,--even she--all women are more or less like that."

"All women and Penny. Well, George, you have my sympathy. An excitable partner, an irrational stenographer, and a wife that's very hard to deal with!"

"I never said Genevieve was hard to deal with," George almost shouted.

"My mistake--thought you did," answered his uncle, now moving rapidly away. "Let me know the result of the interview, and we'll talk over ways and means." And he shut the door briskly behind him.

George walked to the window, with his hands in his pockets. He always liked to look out while he turned over grave questions in his mind; but this comfort was now denied to him, for he could not help being distracted by the voiceless speech still relentlessly turning its pages in the opposite window.

The heading now was:

DOES THE FIFTY-FOUR-HOUR-A-WEEK LAW APPLY TO FLOWERS?