Senator Corson"s secretary was waiting in the hall; he showed the Governor up to the Senator"s study.
Either because the outdoors was not cheerful that morning or because the Senator had been too much engrossed in meditation to remember that daylight would serve him, the curtains of the study were drawn and the electric lamps were on.
Corson was walking up and down the room, chewing on one end of a cigar and making a soggy torch of the other end. He continued to pace while North pulled off his coat.
"I have sent word to Morrison to come here," reported the host.
The mantel clock reported the hour as nine; His Excellency scowled at the clock"s face. "And you got word back, I suppose, that after he has come out of his mill at ten o"clock and has washed his hands and--"
"He"s at City Hall," snapped Corson, with an acerbity that matched the Governor"s. "I called the mill and was referred to Morrison at City Hall.
He"s on his way up here! At any rate, he said he"d start at once."
"Did he condescend to intimate in what capacity he proposes to land on us this time?"
"I"m going to allow you to draw your own conclusions. I"ve been trying to draw some of my own from what he said."
"What did he say?"
"Apologized because I was put to any trouble in locating him. Said he was expecting to be called by me and thought he would go to City Hall and await my summons in order to put himself and the whole situation on a strictly official basis." The Senator delivered that information sullenly.
"What kind of a devilish basis does he think he"s been operating on?"
"Look here, North! If you have come up here to fight with me after the row you have been having down-town this morning I warn you--"
"I have had no row down-town. I wouldn"t see anybody. I wouldn"t talk with anybody. Blast it! Corson, I don"t know what to say to anybody!"
"Well, that"s one point, at least, on which you and I can get together even if we can"t agree on anything else. If you have been so cursedly exclusive as all that, North, perhaps you haven"t been in touch with any of the justices of the supreme court, as I have."
"You have, eh?"
"I called Davenport and Madigan on the telephone."
"What excuse could they give for sending their snap opinions over the wire on the inquiry of a fool?"
"They offered no excuse. They couldn"t. They knew nothing about any telegrams till I informed "em. They received no inquiry. They sent no replies, naturally."
"That--that--Did that--" The Governor pawed at his scraggly neck. "He faked all that stuff?"
"Absolutely!"
Comment which could not have been expressed in long speeches and violent denunciation was put into the pregnant stare exchanged by the two men.
Then the Senator took another grip on his cigar with bared teeth and began to march again.
"Corson, what"s going to be done with that blue-blazed understudy of Ananias?"
"Depend on the wrath of Heaven, perhaps," said the Senator, sarcastically.
"I haven"t had time to look in Holy Writ this morning and ascertain just what kind of a lie Ananias told. But whatever it was, it was tame beside what Morrison told that mob about me last night."
"You"ve had your fling at me about my exclusiveness! What are you putting out yourself this morning in the way of statements?" The Governor banged his fist down on the newspapers which littered the study table.
"Nothing! Not yet!"
"I"ve got to have my self-respect with me when I deliver my inaugural address this forenoon. The only way I can possess it is by ramming Morrison into jail."
"On what ground, may I ask?"
"Interference with the Chief Executive of this state! Inciting the mob against the militia! Putting state property in danger. Forgery--contempt of court! I"ll appeal to the judges to act. I"ll call in the attorney-general. You and I were forcibly detained!"
"Yes, we might allege abduction," was Corson"s dry rejoinder. "Our helplessness in the hands of a usurper would win a lot of public sympathy."
"I tell you, we would have the sympathy of the people," a.s.serted the Governor, too angry to be anything else than literal.
"And they"d express it by giving us the biggest laugh ever tendered to two public men in this state, North. We"ve got to look this thing straight in the eye. I told Morrison last night that no such preposterous thing was ever put over in American politics, and he agreed with me. You must agree, too! That makes us unanimous on one point, and that"s something gained, because it"s an essential point. We can"t afford to let the public know just how preposterous the situation was. A man in American public life can get away with almost any kind of a fix, if it"s taken seriously. But the right sort of a general laugh will snuff him like that!" He snapped his finger. "We"re not dealing with politics and procedure in the case of Morrison."
"We"re dealing with a fool and his folly!" the Governor shouted.
It was another of those cases where the expected guest under discussion becomes an eavesdropper at just the wrong moment; Morrison was not deliberately an eavesdropper. He had followed the instructed secretary to the study door, and the Governor had declared himself with a violence that was heard outside the room.
The mayor stepped in when the secretary opened the door
After the secretary had closed the door and departed Morrison stepped forward. "Governor North, you"re perfectly right, and I agree with you without resenting your remark. I did make quite a fool of myself last night. Perhaps you are not ready to concede that the ends justify the means."
"I do not, sir!"
"A result built on falsehoods is a pretty poor proposition," declared the Senator. "I refer especially to those fake telegrams and to your impudent a.s.sertion to the mob that I said this or that!"
"Yes, that telegram job was a pretty raw one, sir," Morrison admitted.
"But I really didn"t lie straight out to those men in the square about your partic.i.p.ation. I let "em draw an inference from the way I complimented your fairness and good sense. I was a little hasty last night--but I didn"t have much time to do advance thinking."
"I"m going to express myself about last night," stated Senator Corson.
"Will you wait a moment, sir?" Morrison had not removed his overcoat; he had not even unb.u.t.toned it; he afforded the impression of a man who intended to transact business and be on his way with the least possible delay. He glanced at the electric lights and at the shaded windows. "This seems too much like last night. Won"t you allow me? It"s a little indulgence to my state of mind!"
He hurried across the room and snapped up the shades and pulled apart the curtains. He reached his hand to the wall-switch and turned off the lights.
"This isn"t last night--it"s this morning--and there"s nothing like honest daylight on a proposition, gentlemen! Nothing like it! Last night things looked sort of tragic. This morning the same things will look comical if"--he raised his forefinger--"if the inside of "em is reported. If the real story is told, the people in this state will laugh their heads off."
Again the Governor and the Senator put a lot of expression into the look which they exchanged. "I got that mob to laughing last night and, as I told General Totten, that settled the civil war. If the people get to laughing over what happened when Con Rellihan took his orders only from the mayor of Marion, it will--well, it"ll be apt to settle some political hash."
"Do you threaten?" demanded North. He was blinking into the matter-of-fact daylight where Morrison stood, framed in a window.
"Governor North, take a good look at me. I"m not a pirate chief. I"m merely a business man up here to do a little d.i.c.kering. I can"t trade on my political influence, because I haven"t any. You have all the politics on your side. I propose to do the best I can with the little stock in trade I have brought." He walked to the table and flapped on it his hand, palm up. "You are two almighty keen and discerning gentlemen. I don"t need to itemize the stock in trade I have laid down here. You see what I"ve got!"
He paused and, his eyes glinting with a suppressed emotion that the discerning gentlemen understood, he glanced from one to the other of them.
"You"ve got a c.o.c.k-and-bull yarn in which you are shown up as a liar and a lawbreaker," the Governor declared. "You"ve got some guess--so about errors in returns--"
"Hold on! Hold on, North!" protested Senator Corson. "It"s just as Morrison says--we don"t need to itemize his stock in trade. I can estimate it for myself. Morrison, you say you"re ready to d.i.c.ker. What do you want?"