Banker Daunt was provoked to add his evidence. "It"s exactly as my friend Corson says, Governor. I have been hearing some fine soviet doctrines from the mouth of Morrison this evening. Not at all stingy about giving his help to all those who need it! Gave his pledge of a.s.sistance to the fellow in the ballroom, as Corson says. Understood him to say that he is coming up here to help you, too!"
"I rather expected to find him here," pursued the Senator. "He went away in a great hurry to go somewhere. But after my experience with your alert soldiers down-stairs, Totten, I"m afraid our generous savior is going to be bothered about getting in."
The adjutant-general pulled off his cap and scrubbed his palm nervously over the glossy surface that was revealed.
"You might give some special orders to admit him," suggested Corson.
"He"ll be a great help in an emergency."
"This settles it with me as to Morrison and his conception of law and order," affirmed Governor North. "I have been depending on him to handle his city. I"d as soon depend on Lenin and the kind of government he"s running in Russia."
"According to the samples furnished by both, I think Lenin would rank higher as help," said the Senator. "At least he has shown that he knows how to handle a mob. But we may as well calm down, North, and attend to our own business. We are making altogether too much account of a silly nincomp.o.o.p. Daunt and I let our feelings get away from us this evening on the same subject. But we woke up promptly. Morrison was in a position to help his friends and to amount to something as an aid in that line. Now that he is running with the rabble, for some purpose of his own, he can be ignored. He amounts to nothing--to that!" He snapped a derogatory finger into his palm. "We can handle that rabble, Morrison included." He turned to the adjutant-general. "Your men seem to be alert enough in keeping out gentlemen who ought to be let in. Do you think you can depend on them to keep out real intruders?"
"Oh yes!" faltered Totten, absent-mindedly. He was trying to clear his troubled thoughts in regard to the matter of Morrison, who was now presented in a light where politeness might not be allowed to govern the situation.
"Have they been put to any test of their courage and reliability? Have they been up against any actual threats from the outside, this evening?"
"No, but I can depend on them to the limit, Senator Corson. I have been on regular tours of inspection. They are a cool and nervy set of young men and I have impressed on them a sense of what a soldier on duty should be."
"Very well, Totten! Nevertheless, let us hope that the mob fools have gone home to bed, including our friend Morrison. He needs his sleep; I believe he still follows the family rule of being in his mill at seven in the morning. He"s a good millman, even if he isn"t much of a politician."
"And I don"t look for any trouble, anyway," declared General Totten, adding in his thoughts, for his further consolation, the a.s.surance that, at half past eleven, so the clock on the wall revealed to his gaze, such an early riser as Morrison must be abed and asleep; therefore, the exception for the sake of politeness did not threaten to complicate affairs!
But at that instant something else did threaten.
Through the arches and corridors of the State House rang the sounds of tumult, breaking on the hush with terrifying suddenness. One voice, shouting with frenzied violence, prefaced the general uproar; there was the crashing of shattered wood.
The rifles barked angrily.
"My G.o.d, North! I"ve been afraid of it!" Corson lamented. "You have crowded "em too hard!"
"I"m going by the law, Corson! The election law! The statute law! And the riot laws of this state! The law says a mob must be put down!"
An immediate and rea.s.suring silence suggested that the law had prevailed and that a mob had been put down in this instance. Corson, whose face was white and whose eyes were distended, voiced that conviction. "If a gang had been able to get in they"d be howling their heads off. But it was quick over!"
The men in the Executive Chamber stood in their tracks and exchanged troubled glances in silence.
"Amos, what are you waiting for?" demanded His Excellency.
"For a report--an official report on the matter," mumbled the adjutant-general, steadying his trembling hands by shoving them inside his sword-belt.
"Go down and find out what it all means."
"I can save time by telephoning to the watchman"s room," demurred Totten.
"Incidentally saving your skin!" the Governor rapped back. "But I don"t care how you get the information, if only you get it and get it sudden!"
Totten went to the house telephone in the private secretary"s room and called and waited; he called again and waited.
"n.o.body is on his job in this State House to-night!" His Excellency"s fears had wire-edged his temper. "By gad! you go down there and tend to yours, as I have told you to do, Amos, or I"ll take that sword and race you along the corridor on the point of it!"
"We must be informed on what this means," insisted the Senator.
There was a rap on the private door. Again the men in the Executive Chamber swapped uneasy glances. Corson"s demeanor invited the Governor to a.s.sume the responsibility. His Excellency was manifestly shirking. He looked over his shoulder in the direction of the fireplace, as if he felt an impulse to arm himself with the ornamental poker and tongs.
"May I come in?" The voice was that of the mayor of Marion. The voice was deprecatory.
"Come in!" invited North.
Morrison entered. He greeted them with a wide smile that did not fit the seriousness of the situation, as they viewed it. There was humor behind the smile; it suggested suppressed hilarity; it hinted that he had something funny to tell them.
But their grim countenances did not encourage him.
"If I am intruding on important business----"
"Shut the door behind you! What is it? What happened?" demanded North.
Before shutting the door Morrison reached into the gloom behind him and pulled in a soldier.
Stewart had put off his evening garb. He wore a business suit of the s.h.a.ggy gray mixture that was one of the staples among the products of St.
Ronan"s mill. His matter-of-fact attire was not the only element that set him out in sharp contrast among the claw-hammers and uniforms in the room; he was bubbling with undisguised merriment; Corson, Daunt, and the Governor were sullenly anxious; even the young soldier looked fl.u.s.tered and frightened.
"I have brought along Paul d.u.c.h.esne so that you may have it from his own mouth! Go ahead, d.u.c.h.esne! Let "em in on the joke! Gentlemen, get ready for a laugh!" Stewart set an example for them by a suggestive chuckle.
"Your arrival in the State House seems to have been attended by considerable of a demonstration," commented Senator Corson, recovering himself sufficiently to indulge in his animosity. "Judging from your success in starting other riots this evening, I ought to have guessed that you were in the neighborhood."
"My arrival had nothing whatever to do with the demonstration, Senator. Go on, d.u.c.h.esne!"
"I jomped myself," stammered the soldier, a particularly crestfallen Canuck.
"I see you don"t grasp the idea," Morrison hastened to put in. "We mustn"t have the flavor of the joke spoiled. I know Paul, here. He works in my mill. He has a little affliction that"s rather common among French Canadians. He"s a jumper." He suddenly clapped the youth on the shoulder and yelled "Hi!" so loudly that all the auditors leaped in trepidation.
The soldier leaped the highest, flung his arms about wildly, and let out a resounding yelp.
"That"s the idea!" explained Stewart. "A congenital nervous trouble.
Jumpers, they are called!"
"What the devil is this all about?" raged the Governor.
"Tell "em, Paul. Hurry up!"
"I gone off on de nap on a settee," muttered d.u.c.h.esne, twisting his fingers together.
General Totten winced.
"Dere ban whole lot o" dem gone off on de nap, too," a.s.serted the guard, offering defense for himself.
"By way of showing alertness, Totten!" growled the Senator.
"So I ban dream somet"ing! Ba gar! I dream dat t"ree or two bobcat he come--"