"And then?" I asked, wondering whether the implication were personal.
"Then I can help--disseminate the knowledge. I may be wrong, but I have an idea that when the people of this country learn how their legislatures are conducted they will want to change things."
"That"s right!" echoed the waiter, who had come up with my griddle-cakes. "And you"re the man to tell "em, Mr. Krebs."
"It will need several thousand of us to do that, I"m afraid," said Krebs, returning his smile.
My distaste for the situation became more acute, but I felt that I was thrown on the defensive. I could not retreat, now.
"I think you are wrong," I declared, when the waiter had departed to attend to another customer. "The people the great majority of them, at least are indifferent, they don"t want to be bothered with politics.
There will always be labour agitation, of course,--the more wages those fellows get, the more they want. We pay the highest wages in the world to-day, and the standard of living is higher in this country than anywhere else. They"d ruin our prosperity, if we"d let "em."
"How about the thousands of families who don"t earn enough to live decently even in times of prosperity?" inquired Krebs.
"It"s hard, I"ll admit, but the inefficient and the shiftless are bound to suffer, no matter what form of government you adopt."
"You talk about standards of living,--I could show you some examples of standards to make your heart sick," he said. "What you don"t realize, perhaps, is that low standards help to increase the inefficient of whom you complain."
He smiled rather sadly. "The prosperity you are advocating," he added, after a moment, "is a mere fiction, it is gorging the few at the expense of the many. And what is being done in this country is to store up an explosive gas that some day will blow your superstructure to atoms if you don"t wake up in time."
"Isn"t that a rather one-sided view, too?" I suggested.
"I"ve no doubt it may appear so, but take the proceedings in this legislature. I"ve no doubt you know something about them, and that you would maintain they are justified on account of the indifference of the public, and of other reasons, but I can cite an instance that is simply legalized thieving." For the first time a note of indignation crept into Krebs"s voice. "Last night I discovered by a mere accident, in talking to a man who came in on a late train, that a bill introduced yesterday, which is being rushed through the Judiciary Committee of the House--an apparently innocent little bill--will enable, if it becomes a law, the Boyne Iron Works, of your city, to take possession of the Ribblevale Steel Company, lock, stock, and barrel. And I am told it was conceived by a lawyer who claims to be a respectable member of his profession, and who has extraordinary ability, Theodore Watling."
Krebs put his hand in his pocket and drew out a paper. "Here"s a copy of it,--House Bill 709." His expression suddenly changed. "Perhaps Mr.
Watling is a friend of yours."
"I"m with his firm," I replied....
Krebs"s fingers closed over the paper, crumpling it.
"Oh, then, you know about this," he said. He was putting the paper back into his pocket when I took it from him. But my adroitness, so carefully schooled, seemed momentarily to have deserted me. What should I say? It was necessary to decide quickly.
"Don"t you take rather a--prejudiced view of this, Krebs?" I said. "Upon my word, I can"t see why you should accept a rumour running around the lobbies that Mr. Watling drafted this bill for a particular purpose."
He was silent. But his eyes did not leave my face.
"Why should any sensible man, a member of the legislature, take stock in that kind of gossip?" I insisted. "Why not judge this bill by its face, without heeding a c.o.c.k and bull story as to how it may have originated?
It is a good bill, or a bad bill? Let"s see what it says."
I read it.
"So far as I can see, it is legislation which we ought to have had long ago, and tends to compel a publicity in corporation affairs that is much needed, to put a stop to practices which every decent citizen deplores."
He drew the paper out of my hand.
"You needn"t go on, Paret," he told me. "It"s no use."
"Well, I"m sorry we don"t agree," I said, and got up. I left him twisting the paper in his fingers.
Beside the clerk"s desk in the Potts House, relating one of his anecdotes, I spied Colonel Varney, and managed presently to draw him upstairs to his room. "What"s the matter?" he asked.
"Do you know a man named Krebs in the House?" I said.
"From Elkington? Why, that"s the man the Hutchinses let slip through,--the Hutchinses, who own the mills over there. The agitators put up a job on them." The Colonel was no longer the genial and social purveyor of anecdotes. He had become tense, alert, suspicious. "What"s he up to?"
"He"s found out about this bill," I replied.
"How?"
"I don"t know. But someone told him that it originated in our office, and that we were going to use it in our suit against the Ribblevale."
I related the circ.u.mstances of my running across Krebs, speaking of having known him at Harvard. Colonel Varney uttered an oath, and strode across to the window, where he stood looking down into the street from between the lace curtains.
"We"ll have to attend to him, right off," he said.
I was surprised to find myself resenting the imputation, and deeply.
"I"m afraid he"s one of those who can"t be "attended to,"" I answered.
"You mean that he"s in the employ of the Ribblevale people?" the Colonel inquired.
"I don"t mean anything of the kind," I retorted, with more heat, perhaps, than I realized. The Colonel looked at me queerly.
"That"s all right, Mr. Paret. Of course I don"t want to question your judgment, sir. And you say he"s a friend of yours."
"I said I knew him at college."
"But you will pardon me," the Colonel went on, "when I tell you that I"ve had some experience with that breed, and I have yet to see one of "em you couldn"t come to terms with in some way--in some way," he added, significantly. I did not pause to reflect that the Colonel"s att.i.tude, from his point of view (yes, and from mine,--had I not adopted it?) was the logical one. In that philosophy every man had his price, or his weakness. Yet, such is the inconsistency of human nature, I was now unable to contemplate this att.i.tude with calmness.
"Mr. Krebs is a lawyer. Has he accepted a pa.s.s from the Railroad?" I demanded, knowing the custom of that corporation of conferring this delicate favour on the promising young talent in my profession.
"I reckon he"s never had the chance," said Mr. Varney.
"Well, has he taken a pa.s.s as a member of the legislature?"
"No,--I remember looking that up when he first came down. Sent that back, if I recall the matter correctly." Colonel Varney went to a desk in the corner of the room, unlocked it, drew forth a black book, and running his fingers through the pages stopped at the letter K. "Yes, sent back his legislative pa.s.s, but I"ve known "em to do that when they were holding out for something more. There must be somebody who can get close to him."
The Colonel ruminated awhile. Then he strode to the door and called out to the group of men who were always lounging in the hall.
"Tell Alf Young I want to see him, Fred."
I waited, by no means free from uneasiness and anxiety, from a certain lack of self-respect that was unfamiliar. Mr. Young, the Colonel explained, was a legal light in Galesburg, near Elkington,--the Railroad lawyer there. And when at last Mr. Young appeared he proved to be an oily gentleman of about forty, inclining to stoutness, with one of those "blue," shaven faces.
"Want me, Colonel?" he inquired blithely, when the door had closed behind him; and added obsequiously, when introduced to me, "Glad to meet you, Mr. Paret. My regards to Mr. Watling, when you go back.
"Alf," demanded the Colonel, "what do you know of this fellow Krebs?"
Mr. Young laughed. Krebs was "nutty," he declared--that was all there was to it.