Mr. Converse rose, unfolding himself with dignified angularity.
"I must remind you, sir, that I belong to the political party of which you a.s.sume to be boss. If you refuse to give common justice to the people, then you are using that party to cover iniquity."
Colonel Dodd worked himself out of his chair and stood up. "I am taking no advice from you, sir, as to how I shall manage business or politics."
"Perhaps, sir, in regard to your business I can only exhort you to be honest, but as regards the party which my honored father led to victory in this state I have something to say, by gad! sir, when I see it being led to destruction."
"Well, sir, what have you to say?"
"I will not stand by and allow it to be ruined by men who are using it to protect their methods in business dealings."
"What ice do you think you cut in the politics of this state?" inquired the colonel, dropping into the vernacular of the politician, too angry to deal in any more grim politeness.
"Not the kind you are cutting, sir--your political ice is like the ice you cut from the poisoned rivers."
"It seems to be still popular for cranks to come here and threaten me,"
sneered the colonel. "It was started a while ago by a shock-headed idiot from the Eleventh Ward."
The Honorable Archer Converse displayed prompt interest which surprised the colonel. "A young man from the Eleventh Ward? Was he tall and rather distinguished-looking?"
Colonel Dodd snorted his disgust. "Distinguished-looking! He threatened me, and I had him followed. He"s a ward heeler. Better look him up!"
His choler was driving him to extremes. He was p.r.i.c.ked by his caller"s high-bred stare of disdain. "He seems to be another apostle of the people who wants to tell me how to run my own business. Yes, you better look him up, Converse."
"Very well, sir! If he came in here and tried to tell you the truth about yourself he"s worth knowing. Furthermore, I think I do know him."
"Ah, one of those you train with, eh? Do you like him?"
It was biting sarcasm, but to the colonel"s disappointment it did not appear to affect his caller in the least. Converse even smiled--a most peculiar sort of smile.
"I must say, sir, that I have been hating him cordially."
The colonel grunted approbation.
"But from now on, sir, for reasons best known to myself, I"m going to make that young man my close and particular friend. You"ll hear from us later."
He bowed stiffly and went out, leaving Colonel Dodd staring after him with his square face twisted into an expression of utter astonishment, his little eyes goggling, his tuft of whisker sticking up like an exclamation-point.
"The first appropriation the next legislature makes," he soliloquized, "will have to be money enough to build a new wing on the insane-hospital. They"re all going crazy in this state, from aristocrats to tramps."
XXII
ENLISTING A KNIGHT-ERRANT
On his way down the stairs to the street the Honorable Archer Converse, moving more rapidly than was his wont, overtook and pa.s.sed Kate Kilgour.
He was too absorbed to notice even a pretty girl. She had finished her work for the day and was on her way home.
When she reached the street she observed something which interested her immensely: Mr. Converse suddenly flourished his cane to attract the attention of a man on the opposite side of the street. Then Mr. Converse called to him from the curb with the utmost friendliness in his tones.
The girl pa.s.sed near him and heard what he said. It was not a mere hail to an inferior. The eminent lawyer very politely and solicitously asked the tall young man across the way if he could not spare time to come to the Converse office.
She cast a look over her shoulder. The young man came across the street promptly. He was the man who had served her in her time of need!
She went on, but turned again. An uncontrollable impulse prompted her.
They were entering the door of the office-building, and the aristocratic hand of the Honorable Archer Converse was patting the shoulder of this stranger. Her cheeks flushed and she turned away hastily, for the young man caught her backward glance and returned an appealing smile.
"Who is he?" she asked herself, knowing well the chill reserve of Mr.
Converse in the matter of mankind.
"Who are you?" demanded Mr. Converse, planting himself in front of the young man when they were in the private office.
The other met the lawyer"s searching look with his rare smile. "The same man I was last time we met--Walker Farr."
"I have no right to pry into your private affairs, sir, but I have special reasons for wanting you to volunteer plenty of information about yourself."
For reply the young man spread his palms and silently, by his smile, invited inspection of himself.
"Yes, I see you. But the outside of you doesn"t tell me what I want to know."
"It will have to speak for me."
"Look here, I have let myself be tied up most devilishly by a train of circ.u.mstances that you started, young man. I was minding my own private business until a little while ago."
"So was I, Mr. Converse."
"You"re a moderately humble citizen, judged from outside looks just now.
How did I allow myself to be pulled in as I"ve been?"
The young man"s smile departed. "I asked myself that question a little while ago, sir, after I was pulled in, for I am a stranger--not even a voter here."
"Well, did you decide how it was?"
"I was led in by the hand of a helpless child--a poor little orphan girl whom I carried to the cemetery on my knees--a martyr--poisoned by that Consolidated water."
The lawyer was stirred by the intensity of feeling which the man"s tones betrayed.
"And it was borne in upon me afresh, Mr. Converse, that the philosophy of the causes by which G.o.d moves this world of ours will never be understood by man."
"See here," snapped the son of the war governor, "take off your mask, Walker Farr! There"s something behind it I want to see. You are an educated gentleman! What are you? Where did you come from?"
Again Farr spread out his palms and was silent.
"You are right about causes. You are one in my case. There may be some fatalism in me--but I"m impelled to use you in a great fight that I feel honor-bound to take up. Now be frank!"
"For all use you can make of me, Mr. Converse, my life starts from the minute I picked that little girl up from the floor of a tenement-house in this city. For what I was _before_ is so different from what I am _now_ that I cannot mix that ident.i.ty with my affairs."