"Get that?" he demanded.
"Sure, first thing this morning, Captain."
"Well?"
"We should worry."
Captain Shammer rolled his cigar in his mouth. He wasn"t exactly satisfied with the answer.
"All right," he agreed finally, "but Nick--"
"Yes, Captain." Nick paused alertly, one hand on the door k.n.o.b.
"Easy for a while until we see how things break on this."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"Curtains drawn, you know, and back rooms quiet. Tell the girls to go slow on the piano playing. Did Ike, the dip, come across?"
"Not yet, Captain."
"Pinch him today and give him the cooler. Get me?"
"It"s done, cap."
"Close in on the stuss games. Pa.s.s the word to go easy."
"I get you."
"Mary Randall, eh?" asked Captain Shammer of vacancy when his aid had gone. "Mary Randall! Well, Mary, you sure have got your nerve with you."
Senator Barker was a member of the Governor"s vice investigating committee. The committee had been appointed to frame a minimum wage law for women. He was a person of ponderous bulk and mental equipment. He had slipped into office, not because the people yearned for him, but because there had happened to be a battle on between two factions of his natural political opponents in the fortunate hour he had selected for aspiring to office. Like most other American officeholders he spent his days and nights scheming out ways to continue living at the public"s expense. He perused Mary Randall"s screed as he sat over his morning grape-fruit.
In an intermission in the committee meeting Senator Barker leaned across the heavy oak table and pointed out the letter to the Rev. Wallace Stillwell.
"Did you see that?" he inquired huskily.
Mr. Stillwell nodded and drew his thin lips together. He was quite young and just now carried the burden of having been called from an obscure country pulpit to a fashionable church in Chicago. He knew that the wealthy man who was his sponsor in this new position was interested in whole blocks of houses whose curtains were always drawn. He had never forgotten a certain phrase that great man had used when he came in his own automobile to bear the young pastor to the new field of his labors.
"We want you, Mr. Stillwell," he had said, "because we believe you to be a safe and sane man, one who will not be swept off his feet by wild-eyed reformers and the anarchistic tendencies of the times."
Mr. Stillwell, therefore, knew why he was wanted in Chicago. The knowledge made him cautious in all things. He thought Senator Barker"s question over carefully. Then he nodded calmly.
"Why, yes, Senator," he answered. "One could hardly avoid reading it."
"Well, what about it?"
"Just what do you mean, Senator?"
"You know. What do you think of it, eh?"
"It seems to me," purred the Rev. Wallace Stillwell, "that the whole exploit is worse than fantastic. It is hardly in good taste.
Investigations of the kind this girl has undertaken ought to be left to the men."
"That"s all right," put in the Senator, gloomily, "but I"ve noticed lately that the women don"t seem to be willing to do that. They want to take a hand in such matters themselves." He leaned back in his chair sadly. "It certainly makes it hard for us politicians."
A woman of ample girth and a handmade complexion pushed her coffee cup away and lighted a fresh cigarette. She had just finished reading Mary Randall"s manifesto. Nature had made her beautiful, but advancing years and too much art had all but destroyed Nature"s handicraft. She inhaled the acrid smoke deeply and then raising her voice, called:
"Celeste! You, Celeste!"
A mulatto girl threw open the door, crying:
"Yes, madame?"
"What you doing?"
"Cleaning up."
"Get a bottle of wine. Or did those high rollers guzzle it all last night, the drunken beasts?"
"No, madame. I"ve saved one for you." She opened the bottle and placed the effervescent liquid before her mistress.
"All right, Celeste. Anybody up yet?"
"I hardly think so, madame."
"Well, I"m up and I wish I wasn"t," announced a girl who appeared at that moment coming down the broad staircase. She entered the room.
"Got a head this morning, eh, Nellie?" said the madame, knowingly.
"Yes, I"ve got a head," replied Nellie sullenly, "and a grouch."
"Make it two, Celeste," said the madame promptly, indicating the bottle.
The colored maid poured out another gla.s.s of the liquor. Madame threw the paper across the table to the girl.
"There," she said, "that"s something that will make you worse."
"Where?" asked the girl, as she caught up the paper.
"Front page, big headlines. You can"t miss it."
The girl stepped to the window and pushed aside the heavy curtain. In the morning light she was revealed there pet.i.te and charming, despite penciled eyebrows and carmined lips. Her figure was daintily proportioned. There was grace in every line. Her deep brown eyes glowed as she read the words Mary Randall had written.
When she finished reading the girl crumpled the paper in her hand and filled another gla.s.s. She lifted the wine slowly.
"Here"s to you, Mary Randall," she said.