The Art of Disappearing Part 12

"I think it means that Quincy must apologize to the Irish, or nominate himself," said Arthur slowly.

A lively emotion touched him when he first entered the room where the Mayor sat stately and gracious. In him the Endicott features were emphatic and beautiful. Tall, ruddy, perfectly dressed, with white hair and moustache s.h.i.+ning like silver, and dark blue eyes full of fire, the aristocrat breathed from him like a perfume. His greeting both for Everard and Dillon had a graciousness tinged with contempt; a contempt never yet perceived by Everard, but perceived and promptly answered on Arthur's part with equal scorn.

"Mr. Dillon comes from Sullivan," said Everard, "to ask you, as a condition of renomination, that you take back your remarks on the Irish last winter. You did them good. They are so soaked in flattery, the flattery of budding orators, that your talk wakes them to the truth."

"I take nothing back," said the Mayor in a calm, sweet voice to which feeling gave an edge.

"Then you do not desire the nomination of Tammany Hall?" Arthur said with a placid drawl, which usually exasperated Everard and other people.

"But I do," the Mayor answered quickly, comprehending on the instant the quality of this antagonist, feeling his own insolence in the tone. "I merely decline the conditions."

"Then you must nominate yourself, for the Irish won't vote for you,"

cried Everard.

"The leaders would like to give you the nomination, Mr. Livingstone. You may have it, if you can find the means to placate offended voters for your behavior and your utterances on St. Patrick's Day."

"Go down on your knees at once, Mayor," sneered Everard.

"I hope Your Honor does not pay too much attention to the opinions of this gentleman," said Arthur with a gesture for his companion. "He's a Crusoe in politics. There's no one else on his island. You have a history, sir, which is often told in the Irish colony here. I have heard it often since my return home----"

"This is the gentleman who spoke of your policy at the Donnybrook banquet," Everard interrupted.

Livingstone made a sign for silence, and took a closer look at Arthur.

"The Irish do not like you, they have no faith in you as a fair man, they say that you are always planning against them, that you are responsible for the deviltries practised upon them through gospel missions, soup kitchens, kidnapping industries, and political intrigues.

Whether these things be true, it seems to me that a candidate ought to go far out of his way to destroy such fancies."

"A very good word, fancies! Are you going to make your famous speech over again?" said Everard with the ready sneer.

"Can you deny that what I have spoken is the truth?"

"It is not necessary that he should," Livingstone answered quietly. "I am not interested in what some people say of me. Tell Mr. Sullivan I am ready to accept the nomination, but that I never retract, never desert a position."

This young man nettled and irritated the Mayor. His insolence, the insolence of his own cla.s.s, was so subtly and politely expressed, that no fault could be found; and, though his inexperience was evident, he handled a ready blade and made no secret of his disdain. Arthur did not know to what point of the compa.s.s the short conversation had carried them, but he took a boy's foolish delight in teasing the irritated men.

"It all comes to this: you must nominate yourself," said Everard.

"And divide the party?"

"I am not sure it would divide the party," Livingstone condescended to say, for he was amused at the simple horror of Dillon. "It might unite it under different circ.u.mstances."

"That's the remark of a statesman. And it would rid us, Arthur Dillon, of Sullivan and his kind, who should be running a gin-mill in Hester street."

"If he didn't have a finer experience in politics, and a bigger brain for managing men than any three in the city," retorted Arthur icily. "He is too wise to bring the prejudices of race and creed into city politics. If Your Honor runs on an independent ticket, the Irish will vote against you to a man. One would think that far-seeing men, interested in the city and careful of the future, would hesitate to make dangerous rivalries of this sort. Is there not enough bigotry now?"

"Not that I know," said the Mayor with a pretence of indifference. "We are all eager to keep the races in good humor, but at the same time to prevent the ascendancy of a particular race, except the native. It is the Irish to-day. It will be the Germans to-morrow. Once checked thoroughly, there will be no trouble in the future."

The interview ended with these words. By that time Arthur had gone beyond his political depth, and was glad to make his adieu to the great man. He retained one honest conclusion from the interview.

"Birmingham can thank this pig-headed gentleman," said he to Everard, "for making him mayor of New York."

John snorted his contempt of the statement and its abettors. The report of Arthur disquieted the Chief and his counselors, who a.s.sembled to hear and discuss it.

"It's regrettable," was Sullivan's opinion. "Livingstone makes a fine figure in a campaign. He has an attractive name. His independence is popular, and does no harm. He hasn't the interests of the party at heart though. The question now is, can we persuade the Irish to overlook his peculiarities about the green and St. Patrick's Day?"

"A more pertinent question," Vandervelt said after a respectful silence, "would be as to the next available man. I favor Birmingham."

"And I," echoed the Senator.

Arthur listened to the amicable discussion that followed with thoughts not for the candidate, but for the three men who thus determined the history of the city for the next two years. The triumvirs! Cloudy scenes of half-forgotten history rose before him, strange names uttered themselves. Mark Antony and young Octavius and weak Lepidus! He felt suddenly the seriousness of life, and wonder at the ways of men; for he had never stood so near the little G.o.ds that harness society to their policies, never till now had he seen with his own eyes how the world is steered. The upshot of endless talk and trickery was the nomination of Birmingham, and the placing of an independent ticket in the field with the Mayor at its head.

"Now for the fun," said Grahame. "It's going to be a big fight. If you want to see the working out of principles keep close to me while the fight is on, and I'll explain things."

The explanation was intricate and long. What did not matter he forgot, but the picturesque things, which touched his own life afterwards very closely, he kept in mind. Trotting about with the journalist they encountered one day a cleric of distinguished appearance.

"Take a good look at him. He's the man that steers Livingstone."

"I thought it was John Everard."

"John doesn't even steer himself," said Grahame savagely. "But take a view of the bishop."

Arthur saw a face whose fine features were shaded by melancholy, tinged with jaundice, gloomy in expression; the mouth drooped at the corners, and the eyes were heavy; one could hardly picture that face lighted by humor or fancy.

"We refuse to discuss certain things in political circles here," Grahame continued. "One of them is the muddle made of politics every little while by dragging in religion. The bishop, Bishop Bradford is his name, never loses a chance to make a mud pie. The independent ticket is his pie this year. He secured Livingstone to bake it, for he's no baker himself. He believes in G.o.d, but still more does he believe that the Catholics of this city should be kept in the backyard of society. If they eat his pie, their only ambition will be to live in an American backyard. No word of this ever finds its way into the journals, but it is the secret element in New York politics."

"I thought everything got into the newspapers," Arthur complained.

"Blamed if I can get hold of the thing."

"You're right, everything goes into the sewers, but not in a formal way.

What's the reason for the independent ticket? Printed: revolt against a domineering boss. Private: to shake the Irish in politics. Do you see?

Now, here is a campaign going on. It began last week. It ends in November. But the other campaign has neither beginning nor end. I'll give you object-lessons. There's where the fun comes in."

The first object-lesson brought Arthur to the gospel-hall managed by a gentleman whom he had not seen or thought of since the pleasant celebration of St. Patrick's day. Rev. Mr. McMeeter, evangelist of the expansive countenance, was warming up his gathering of sinners that night with a twofold theme: h.e.l.l for sinners, and the same, embroidered intensely, for Rome.

"He handles it as Laoc.o.o.n did the serpents," whispered Grahame.

In a very clerical costume, on a small platform, the earnest man writhed, twisted, and sweated, with every muscle in strain, his face working in convulsions, his lungs beating heaven with sound. He outdid the Trojan hero in the leaps across the platform, the sinuous gestures, the rendings of the enemy; until that moment when he drew the bars of h.e.l.l for the unrepentant, and flung Rome into the abyss. This effective performance, inartistic and almost grotesque, never fell to the level of the ridiculous, for native power was strong in the man. The peroration raised Livingstone to the skies, chained Sullivan in the lowest depths of the Inferno, and introduced as a terrible example a brand just rescued from the burning.

"Study her, observe her," said Grahame. "These brands have had curious burnings."

She spoke with ease, a little woman in widow's weeds, coquettishly displaying silken brown hair under the ruching of a demure bonnet.

Taking her own account--"Which some reporter wrote for her no doubt,"

Grahame commented--she had been a sinner, a slave of Rome, a castaway bound hand and foot to degrading superst.i.tion, until rescued by the n.o.blest of men and led by spirit into the great work of rescuing others from the grinding slavery of the Church of Rome. Very tenderly she appealed to the audience to help her. The prayers of the saints were about to be answered. G.o.d had raised up a leader who would strike the shackles off the limbs of the children. The leader, of course, was Mayor Livingstone.

"You see how the spirit works," said Grahame.

Then came an interruption. The Brand introduced a girl of twelve as an ill.u.s.tration of her work of rescue among the dreadful hirelings of Rome.

A feeble and ragged woman in the audience rose and cried out that the child was her lost Ellen. The little girl made a leap from the platform but was caught dexterously by the Brand and flung behind the scenes. A stout woman shook her fist in the Brand's face and called her out of her name; and also gave the evangelist a slap in the stomach which taught him a new kind of convulsion. His aids fell upon the stout woman, the tough men of the audience fell upon the aids, the mother of Ellen began shrieking, and some respectable people ran to the door to call the police. A single policeman entered cooly, and laid about him with his stick so as to hit the evangelists with frequency. For a few minutes all things turned to dust, confusion, and bad language. The policeman restored order, dismissed Ellen with her mother, calmed the stout woman, and cautioned the host. The Brand had watched the scene calmly and probably enjoyed it. When Arthur left with Grahame Mr. McMeeter had just begun an address which described the policeman as a satellite, a janizary, and a pretorian of Rome.