II
RANKIN was plainly glad to see Garwood, and as they walked along looked at him with a sidelong glance of pride, as with some artistic sense of pleasure in his handiwork.
“It’s good to have you back again,” said the big Rankin, “let’s go into Chris’s an’ have a little drink just for the sake of the good old times.”
Garwood, who found the new times so much better than the old times, had not yielded much to the warmth of Rankin’s good humor. He was displeased and sore. Rankin felt this, but he had been used to his moods of old, and he loved Garwood with such a frank, lasting affection, and his own heart was so whole, that he refused to think it anything but a mood that would pass. Garwood, though, consented to drink readily enough. Indeed he had been feeling ever since he came down that a drink would put him in better sorts. They went into Chris’s place, and found it cool and pleasant after the hot sidewalk outside, though Garwood, mentally comparing it with Chamberlain’s, felt again his twinge of homesickness for Washington. The bar at Chamberlain’s, he remembered, did not smell of stale beer as this one did. Steisfloss himself was behind the long counter, and wiped his hands on his white apron before extending one of them to Garwood in welcome home.
“What’s it going to be, gentleman?” he asked.
“I’ll have a beer,” said Rankin readily, mopping his hot brow with his big palm.
Garwood hesitated, as though to give the question some thought. Steisfloss and Rankin both looked at him while he was reaching his decision. At last he said, as thought he were conferring a favor:
“I believe you may make me a manhattan cocktail, Chris.”
Steisfloss paused, but only for an instant, and then he said promptly:
“I’m sorry, Mr. Garwood, but I’m out o’ manhattan.”
Garwood glanced at him and smiled faintly. Steisfloss detected the smile, and Garwood instantly feared he had lost, not only a vote, but the influence of a saloon. Rankin sprang to the rescue of both.
“Aw, take a beer,” he said.
“No,” said Garwood. “I haven’t been very well lately—I reckon you can give me some bourbon.”
“That Washington living’s too high fer you, eh?” said Rankin genially. But he saw that Garwood again was displeased and so hastened to mollify him, by adding:
“Oh well, you’ll be all right. It’s this hot weather. You’ll be all right when you’re rested out. You ought to go away somewhere and take a vacation.”
“Yes,” said Garwood, quickly assenting to the proposition, “Senator Ames wanted me to go with him to Rye Beach later on—reckon I’ll have to.”
They drank and left. They found Garwood’s old offices deserted, for Enright had dutifully gone over to the court house in order to be seen among the other lawyers who really had business there, little enough though it was. And when they had tossed up the windows to let some air into the musty rooms, and Rankin had leaned dangerously out on the dusty window-ledge to lower the ragged awnings, they seated themselves as of old, in the worn chairs.
“Well now,” Garwood said, in tones that were almost a command, “tell me about it. How in hell did it ever happen?”
Rankin shifted uneasily. He grew a shade redder.
“Well, to tell you the truth, Jer—” he was about to say “Jerry,” but he found it hard now to call his congressman “Jerry,” so he avoided names; “to tell you the truth,” he repeated, “I never dreamed it of ’em. I never dreamed ’at there was an’thin’ in the talk ag’inst you. I couldn’t believe ’at any one could have it in fer you!” He looked up at Garwood with a trust and affection that were moving, though they did not move Garwood, who sat with his face averted, looking out of the window.
“But, you see,” Rankin went on, “there was that row out at Ball’s Corners, ol’ man Barker was sore ’bout the post-office—”
“I never promised it to him!” Garwood interrupted.
“Well, he thought you did, leastways he said you did; an’ then there was some farmers out in Briggs to’nship who claimed the seed you sent ’em wouldn’t grow—”
Garwood looked at Rankin in stupefaction.
“An’ then,” Rankin went on, “they said you didn’t answer the’r letters ’bout it when they wrote an’ told you.”
“Well, Crawford did, didn’t he?” Garwood said. Crawford was his private secretary.
“Yes,” answered Rankin, “but they said you didn’t answer the’r letters personally. Does Crawford sign your name, or stamp it onto the letters?”
“The damn fools!” Garwood could only exclaim, helplessly.
“Well, you know ol’ General Bancroft’s strong holt al’ays was ’at he answered his constits’ letters right away, an’ in his own hand write. An’—oh, ther’ ’as a lot o’ little things like that.”
“Was there any feeling over my vote on the armor-plate bill?” asked the congressman.
“Oh, some, that is, some talk about your sidin’ in ’ith the corporations, but not a great deal, mostly just such little feelin’s as a man al’ays encounters after he’s been in office a little while. I didn’t think it ’uld amount to much, but—”
“But it did,” said Garwood, setting his lips.
“Yes, it did,” acquiesced Rankin. “But Pusey was at the bottom of it all.”
“Pusey?”
“Yes, Pusey. The truth is I underrated Pusey’s stren’th—that’s the whole of it.”
They were silent a minute, and then Garwood said:
“Well?”
“Well,” Rankin went on, “you see Pusey’s been comin’ up in the world this last year. After he got holt o’ the Citizen, which no one thought he ever could do, he braced up consider’ble an’ started in fer to edit a clean sheet—a reg’lar home an’ fireside companion. You wouldn’t know ’im now—new clothes, plug hat Sundays, an’ he gets shaved.”
“Shaved?”
“Yep, has a cup at the barber’s with a quill pen painted onto it.”
They marveled sufficiently, and Rankin resumed:
“He’s al’ays had it in fer me you know, an’ he’s a pretty slick one, he is, if I must say so. He went to work quiet like, to beat me out—”
“And he did it!”
“Yes, sir, he done it.”
Rankin sunk his hands in his trousers’ pockets and slid his heels across the floor until his legs were stretched out before him. Then he stared abstractedly, thinking of his defeat.
“Well—I’ll get through with it. I read in the papers ’at Congress ’uld adjourn the last o’ May. I thought we’d ought to have an early convention. I wanted to fix it all up and have an instructed delegation waitin’ fer you on your return, so I calls a meetin’ o’ the county committee, settin’ it on Saturday the twenty-seventh. I felt pretty good over it, too, for I thought I’d took Pusey by surprise. He didn’t say nothin’ in the paper, but he ain’t the feller to be caught nappin’—no sir, he ain’t. I didn’t give him credit fer it.”
“Well, what did he do?”
“Do? Why, he didn’t do a thing but—well, I’ll tell it to you in its order. Everything seemed all right. We met at the Cassell House. There wasn’t many there at first, not enough to make a quorum. Then in walks old Sol Badger, an’ with him Lige Coons from Ball to’nship, an’ then who should follow but Pusey himself! Well, I didn’t think nothin’ of it then, fer I s’posed Pusey had come in as a representative of the press, you know, and o’ course, I didn’t feel like sayin’ an’thin’. Some o’ our fellers hadn’t got in yit, but when Es Miller arrived, up jumps Pusey an’ he says, ‘Well, we’ve got a quorum now, let’s get down to business.’ I looks at him a minute inquirin’ like, an’ he smiles back at me with that sof’ grin o’ his, like a cat, an’ he says, ‘I hold Mr. Golden’s proxy.’”
“Proxies!” exclaimed Garwood, “so that was it!”
“Yes sir, ev’ry one o’ them fellers had proxies, an’—well, you can easy see how it come out. When I see how it had been fixed, I changed my plans in a minute, an’ wanted a late date fer the convention, but they proposed an early one, fer the thirtieth. An’ on the test vote they beat us by just one. Well, Pusey had fixed it all up on the quiet. They sprung their early convention, an’, though they hadn’t any candidate, they beat the resolutions to instruct fer you, an’ the delegation goes to the convention fer to support who it wants to.”
“Whom will it support?”
“Well, Sprague, I reckon.”
“I thought it looked like one of his tricks. Has Moultrie held her convention?”
“No, they hold it next Saturday.”
Garwood was silent for a long time. He drew a large cigar from his pocket and lighted it, rolling out its thick, rich Havana smoke until it was half consumed before he spoke again:
“Well, you’ve played hell, haven’t you, Jim?”
Rankin hung his head.
“I’m awful sorry. I haven’t slep’ a night thinkin’ of it, but—I couldn’t help it, Pusey done it, that’s all.”
“Pusey!” sneered Garwood, putting all his contempt for the man into his tone as he sniffed out his name. “Pusey! To think of Jim Rankin’s letting Free Pusey lick him that easy!”
“Well, we’ve al’ays underrated Pusey, I’ve found that out.”
“Yes, you’ve found it out—too late.”
“Maybe. But he’s slicker ’n I give him credit fer bein’ an’ I take off my hat to him, damn his dirty, lousy little soul!”
The two men sat after that, staring out the window, watching the lawyers coming out of the court house across the wide street, Garwood deep in gloom, wondering if he would have to resume that life with the rest of them. They looked so poor, their work so little and contemptible after all he had grown accustomed to in Washington. Rankin, however, could not long endure such a melancholy attitude and he roused his big body presently and said:
“But there’s no use to get down in the mouth. I’ve won worse battles ’an this, an’ so’ve you. An’ we can win this. The delegation’s uninstructed, an’ I forced ’em to put some of our fellers on. It was the hottest convention I ever see. Wisht you’d been here.”
“So do I,” said Garwood bitterly, “so do I—instead I was staying on down in Washington looking after their interests while the dear people here at home were sharpening knives for me. How did you get any of my fellows on the delegation?” he suddenly broke off to demand.
“Well, I’ll tell you. You see, I might ’ave had the nomination fer county treas’rer; they wanted me to take it, fer they feared to make too big a break in the party, but I made ’em let me name half o’ the delegation instead.”
“Half?”
“Yes, half—we split it up, though they got the odd man.”
“You on?”
“Me? You bet I’m on, an’ I’ll be there, don’t you forget that.”
“You didn’t want the treasurership?”
“Well, yes, I might ’ave wanted it, some—it ’uld be a good thing; come in mighty handy just now.” And Rankin expressively rattled the keys in his empty pocket. “But I thought it ’uld look like treason to you, an’ it would; though it wasn’t no sacrifice, you havin’ promised me the post-office. I knew I ’as sure o’ that. When does Bartlett’s term end?”
“In December,” Garwood replied.
“Well, I can hold out till then, if the neighbors keeps on bringin’ things in. You couldn’t hurry it up, could you?”
“No, hardly,” said Garwood. “But, tell me, what does Pusey expect to get out of this?”
“What does Pusey expect to get out of this? Why, not a thing—but the post-office, himself.”
“Has Sprague promised it to him?”
“Yes, fer enough votes from Polk to nominate him.”
“Umph humph,” said Garwood, slowly, through his nose. “Umph humph.”
“But if it’s December the appointment’s made, we can fool him there, we can fool him there,” said Rankin, gleefully.
“Yes,” said Garwood, though not heartily.
And then Rankin leaned over and laid a hand on Garwood’s knee.
“But don’t give up yet, old man,” he said. “We can pull this game out o’ the fire; you can get that nomination.”
Garwood turned on him angrily.
“Yes, oh yes!” he sneered. “Pretty figure I’ll cut going to a convention for renomination without my own county behind me!”
“Well, we can fix that.”
“How? I’d like to know; how?”
“Why, Pusey’s fellers is easy—you can get enough o’ them.”
“How?” Garwood spoke in the hollow sternness of despair.
“Buy ’em.”
And then the congressman threw back his head and laughed.
“Buy ’em, indeed!” he laughed bitterly. “Buy ’em, indeed! Why, man, I haven’t got through paying my debts from the last campaign!”
“Why, you get a sal’ry.”
“Yes, but it costs to live in Washington—God, how it costs! And with a family here at home in the bargain!”
“Well—there’s the old man.”
“Oh, hell!” said Garwood, rising in total loss of patience, “I’m tired of hearing this everlasting twaddle about the old man! He’s not rich, in the first place, and now that he’s out of the bank he’s poorer than ever. You people out here in the wilderness think because a man was once president of a little country bank, he’s a millionaire. He hasn’t anything any more.”
“Tell me, how’d he come to be beat fer pres’dent o’ the bank?” said Rankin, ignoring Garwood’s ill humor in his zest to learn at last the inwardness of a story about which Grand Prairie had been speculating for six months.
“Oh, I’ll tell you some other time, Jim,” he answered. “I’ve got to go now.”
He looked at his watch.