Lifted Masks Part 13

It was a United States Senator who did the awful trick, and, to be fair, the Senator did not think of it as an awful trick at all. He came over there in the middle of the morning to see the Governor, and in a few hurried words--it was no day for conversation--was told what was going on. It was while standing out in the corridor watching the perspiring dignitaries that the idea of his duty came to him, and one reason he was sure he was right was the way in which it came to him in the light of a duty. Here was America in undress uniform! Here was--not a thing arranged for show, but absolutely the thing itself! Prince Ludwig had come with a sincere desire to see America. Every one knew that he was not seeing it at all. He would go back with memories of bands and flags and people all dressed up standing before him making polite speeches. But would he carry back one small whiff of the spirit of the country? Again Senator Bruner looked about him. The Speaker of the House was just beginning laying the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was contending hotly for a better hammer. "It's an insult to expect any decent man to drive tacks with a hammer like this," he was saying. Here were men--real, live men, men with individuality, spirit. When the Prince had come so far, wasn't it too bad that he should not see anything but uniforms and cut gla.s.s and dress suits and other externals and non-essentials? Senator Bruner was a kind man; he was a good fellow; he was hospitable--patriotic. He decided now in favour of the Prince.

He had to hurry about it, for it was almost twelve then. One of the vice-presidents of the road lived there, and he was taken into confidence, and proved an able and eager ally. They located the special train bearing the Prince and ordered it stopped at the next station. The stop was made that Senator Patton might receive a long telegram from Senator Bruner. "I figure it like this," the Senator told the vice-president. "They get to Boden at a quarter of one and were going to stop there an hour. Then they were going to stop a little while at Creyville. I've told Patton the situation, and that if he wants to do the right thing by the prince he'll cut out those stops and rush right through here. That will bring him in--well, they could make it at a quarter of two. I've told him I'd square it with Boden and Creyville. Oh, he'll do it all right."

And even as he said so came the reply from Patton: "Too good to miss. Will rush through. Arrive before two. Have carriage at Water Street."

"That's great!" cried the Senator. "Trust Billy Patton for falling in with a good thing. And he's right about missing the station crowd. Patton can always go you one better," he admitted, grinningly.

They had luncheon together, and they were a good deal more like soph.o.m.ores in college than like a United States Senator and a big railroad man. "You don't think there's any danger of their getting through too soon?" McVeigh kept asking, anxiously.

"Not a bit," the Senator a.s.sured him. "They can't possibly make it before three. We'll come in just in time for the final skirmish.

It's going to be a jolly rush at the last."

They laid their plans with skill worthy of their training. The State library building was across from the Capitol, and they were connected by tunnel. "I never saw before," said the Senator, "what that tunnel was for, but I see now what a great thing it is. We'll get him in at the west door of the library--we can drive right up to it, you know, and then we walk him through the tunnel. That's a stone floor"--the Senator was chuckling with every sentence--"so I guess they won't be carpeting it. There's a little stairway running up from the tunnel---and say, we must telephone over and arrange about those keys. There'll be a good deal of climbing, but the Prince is a good fellow, and won't mind. It wouldn't be safe to try the elevator, for Harry Weston would be in it taking somebody a bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing but store rooms; we'll not be disturbed up there, and we can look right down the rotunda and see the whole show. Of course we'll be discovered in time; some one is sure to look up and see us, but we'll fix it so they won't see us before we've had our fun, and it strikes me, McVeigh, that for two old fellows like you and me we've put the thing through in pretty neat shape."

It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the special at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing a long coat and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at all formidable or unusual. "You've saved the country," Senator Patton whispered in an aside. "He was getting bored. Never saw a fellow jolly up so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling for some fun. Said it would be really worth while to see somebody who wasn't looking for him."

Senator Bruner beamed. "That's just the point. He's caught my idea exactly."

It went without a hitch. "I feel," said the Prince, as they were hurrying him through the tunnel, "that I am a little boy who has run away from school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute some band may begin to play, and somebody may think of making a speech."

They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so placed that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure.

The final skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators--coatless, tieless, collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were finis.h.i.+ng the stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations committee in the House was doing the stretching in a still uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and a member who had recently denounced the appropriations committee as a disgrace to the State was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most exquisitely harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member who fought every time they came within speaking distance of one another were now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large wrinkle which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many men were standing around holding their backs, and many others were deeply absorbed in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices were all open, and there was a general hauling in of furniture and hanging of pictures. Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing their best with "finis.h.i.+ng touches." The Prince grew so excited about it all that they had to keep urging him not to take too many chances of being seen.

"And I'll tell you," Senator Bruner was saying, "it isn't only because I knew it would be funny that I wanted you to see it; but--well, you see America isn't the real America when she has on her best clothes and is trying to show off. You haven't seen anybody who hasn't prepared for your coming, and that means you haven't seen them as they are at all. Now here we are. This is us! You see that fellow hanging a picture down there? He's president of the First National Bank. Came over a little while ago, got next to the situation, and stayed to help. And--say, this is good! Notice that red-headed fellow just getting up from his knees? Well, he's president of the teamsters' union--figured so big in a strike here last year. I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow they are all so afraid of, but I guess he liked the idea of the boys doing it themselves, and just sneaked in and helped.--There's the Governor.

He's a fine fellow. He wouldn't be held up by anybody--not even to get ready for a Prince, but he's worked like a Trojan all day to make things come his way. Yes sir--this is the sure-enough thing.

Here you have the boys off dress parade. Not that we run away from our dignity every day, but--see what I mean?"

"I see," replied the Prince, and he looked as though he really did.

"You know--say, dodge there! Move back! No--too late. The Governor's caught us. Look at him!"

The Governor's eyes had turned upward, and he had seen. He put his hands on his back--he couldn't look up without doing that--and gave a long, steady stare. First, Senator Bruner waved; then Senator Patton waved; then Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince waved.

Other people were beginning to look up. "They're all on," laughed Patton, "let's go down."

At first they were disposed to think it pretty shabby treatment. "We worked all day to get in shape," grumbled Harry Weston, "and then you go ring the curtain up on us before it's time for our show to begin."

But the Prince made them feel right about it. He had such a good time that they were forced to concede the move had been a success.

And he said to the Governor as he was leaving: "I see that the only way to see America is to see it when America is not seeing you."

VIII

THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES

"Nine--ten--" The old clock paused as if in dramatic appreciation of the situation, and then slowly, weightily, it gave the final stroke, "Eleven!"

The Governor swung his chair half-way round and looked the timepiece full in the face. Already the seconds had begun ticking off the last hour of his official life. On the stroke of twelve another man would be Governor of the State. He sat there watching the movement of the minute hand.

The sound of voices, some jovial, some argumentative, was borne to him through the open transom. People were beginning to gather in the corridors, and he could hear the usual disputes about tickets of admission to the inaugural.

His secretary came in just then with some letters. "Could you see Whitefield now?" he asked. "He's waiting out here for you."

The old man looked up wearily. "Oh, put him off, Charlie. Tell him you can talk to him about whatever it is he wants to know."

The secretary had his hand on the k.n.o.b, when the Governor added, "And, Charlie, keep everybody out, if you can. I'm--I've got a few private matters to go over."

The younger man nodded and opened the door. He half closed it behind him, and then turned to say, "Except Francis. You'll want to see him if he comes in, won't you?"

He frowned and moved impatiently as he answered, curtly: "Oh, yes."

Francis! Of course it never occurred to any of them that he could close the door on Francis. He drummed nervously on his desk, then suddenly reached down and, opening one of the drawers, tossed back a few things and drew out a newspaper. He unfolded this and spread it out on the desk. Running across the page was the big black line, "Real Governors of Some Western States," and just below, the first of the series, and played up as the most glaring example of nominal and real in governors.h.i.+p, was a sketch of Harvey Francis.

He sat there looking at it, knowing full well that it would not contribute to his peace of mind. It did not make for placidity of spirit to be told at the end of things that he had, as a matter of fact, never been anybody at all. And the bitterest part of it was that, looking back on it now, getting it from the viewpoint of one stepping from it, he could see just how true was the statement: "Harvey Francis has been the real Governor of the State; John Morrison his mouthpiece and figurehead."

He walked to the window and looked out over the January landscape.

It may have been the snowy hills, as well as the thoughts weighing him down, that carried him back across the years to one snowy afternoon when he stood up in a little red schoolhouse and delivered an oration on "The Responsibilities of Statesmans.h.i.+p." He smiled as the t.i.tle came back to him, and yet--what had become of the spirit of that seventeen-year-old boy? He had meant it all then; he could remember the thrill with which he stood there that afternoon long before and poured out his sentiments regarding the sacredness of public trusts. What was it had kept him, when his chance came, from working out in his life the things he had so fervently poured into his schoolboy oration?

Someone was tapping at the door. It was an easy, confident tap, and there was a good deal of reflex action in the Governor's "Come in."

"Indulging in a little meditation?"

The Governor frowned at the way Francis said it, and the latter went on, easily: "Just came from a row with Dorman. Everybody is holding him up for tickets, and he--poor young fool--looks as though he wanted to jump in the river. Takes things tremendously to heart--Dorman does."

He lighted a cigar, smiling quietly over that youthful quality of Dorman's. "Well," he went on, leaning back in his chair and looking about the room, "I thought I'd look in on you for a minute. You see I'll not have the _entree_ to the Governor's office by afternoon."

He laughed, the easy, good-humoured laugh of one too sophisticated to spend emotion uselessly.

It was he who fell into meditation then, and the Governor sat looking at him; a paragraph from the newspaper came back to him: "Harvey Francis is the most dangerous type of boss politician. His is not the crude and vulgar method that asks a man what his vote is worth. He deals gently and tenderly with consciences. He knows how to get a man without fatally injuring that man's self-respect."

The Governor's own experience bore out the summary. When elected to office as State Senator he had cherished old-fas.h.i.+oned ideas of serving his const.i.tuents and doing his duty. But the very first week Francis had asked one of those little favours of him, and, wis.h.i.+ng to show his appreciation of support given him in his election, he had granted it. Then various courtesies were shown him; he was let in on a "deal," and almost before he realised it, it seemed definitely understood that he was a "Francis man."

Francis roused himself and murmured: "Fools!--amateurs."

"Leyman?" ventured the Governor.

"Leyman and all of his crowd!"

"And yet," the Governor could not resist, "in another hour this same fool will be Governor of the State. The fool seems to have won."

Francis rose, impatiently. "For the moment. It won't be lasting. In any profession, fools and amateurs may win single victories. They can't keep it up. They don't know _how_. Oh, no," he insisted, cheerfully, "Leyman will never be re-elected. Fact is, I'm counting on this contract business we've saved up for him getting in good work." He was moving toward the door. "Well," he concluded, with a curious little laugh, "see you upstairs."

The Governor looked at the clock. It pointed now to twenty-five minutes past eleven. The last hour was going fast. In a very short time he must join the party in the anteroom of the House. But weariness had come over him. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

He was close upon seventy, and to-day looked even older than his years. It was not a vicious face, but it was not a strong one.

People who wanted to say nice things of the Governor called him pleasant or genial or kindly. Even the men in the appointive offices did not venture to say he had much force.