V
THE Freeman H. Pusey of his second campaign was after all the same Freeman H. Pusey Garwood had known in his first campaign. When Garwood entered the editorial room of the Citizen that afternoon he expected, as the result of Rankin’s description, to see a regenerated Pusey, but he found instead the same old character. The little editor sat at a common kitchen table worn brown and smooth by time and elbows and piled with papers that showed deep deposits of dust in their folds and wrinkles.
Those at the bottom of the pile were darkened and seared by age, the strata of later eras were in varying tones of yellow, while those atop, the latest exchanges, were fresh and white, though they showed great gaps where they had been mangled by the long, shiny scissors that lay at the editor’s elbow. The scissors were the only thing about the establishment that shone, unless it were the cockroaches, which ran over everything, and mounted the old paste pot, to scramble as nimbly as sailors up the unkempt brush which held a dirty handle aloft for instant use. The shining cockroaches swarmed so thickly about the brush, pausing now and then to wave their inquisitive antennae, that Pusey, before he could prepare an editorial, had to put them to rout, and he did this with his scissors, thrusting at the merry insects with the point of them from time to time in a way that had become habitual.
The desk had other articles of furniture, an old cigar box half-full of tobacco, with an old corn-cob pipe sticking in it—the only thing there that the cockroaches avoided—and a copy hook, on which Pusey had just hung the sheets of a leaded editorial, to be set up as time-copy. Before him lay a pile of copy paper, and with these implements Freeman H. Pusey molded public opinion in Polk County.
The room was dark, for the windows were thick with dirt. From the room beyond came the slow, measured clank and jar of the old bed-press, then running off the afternoon edition, shaking the building with each revolution of its cylinder. And over all hung the smell of printer’s ink, with its eternal fascination for him who has ever breathed it long.
The clothes that Pusey wore may or may not have once been new. Garwood would have been willing, out of court, and perhaps in court, had he been retained on that side of the case, to identify them as the ones Pusey had worn when last he saw him. Just now, however, the coat was off and hanging on the back of the chair with the same casual impermanent effect that characterized the old straw hat that sat back on Pusey’s head showing the scant hair that straggled over his dirty scalp. The editor was in his shirt sleeves, the frayed wrist-bands of which were edged with black, and his feet for ease were encased in old carpet slippers.
His face, and his mouth, with the small mustache dyed black in that strange vanity which did not extend to the rest of his person, still had its moist appearance of olden times, and he smoked his cigar, blowing the clouds of smoke all about him. Having turned out as much time-copy as the waning energies of his mind could produce on such a hot afternoon he was now clipping paragraphs out of the exchanges to add to those which would keep the printers in work for the remaining hours of the day their union had decreed. He did his work with the leisurely air that settles on editors in the first few minutes that ensue after the paper has gone to press, pausing now and then to stick at a cockroach with his scissors. As Garwood entered, Pusey lifted his eyebrows, and bending his gaze over the rims of his spectacles tried to identify his caller through the gloom of his sanctum. When he saw who it was, he merely said:
“Sit down,” and plunged the point of his scissors into another exchange.
Garwood had been considering this visit for a number of days. The disappointment of arriving home to find that his county had failed to endorse him, had been sinking more and more sorely into his soul. It had seemed to him that a renomination by acclamation was his by rights. Many of his colleagues had already received such endorsements, or vindications as they mostly called them, before they left Washington, and Garwood had helped them to celebrate these triumphs in various bar-rooms.
He had been irritated by the fact that he could not now spend his summer as befitted a congressman, and obtain the rest a congressman certainly requires after his onerous duties at Washington; that is, by taking a dignified walk down town in the morning, and a dignified nap in the afternoon. In the evenings he had pictured himself sitting on the veranda at home, as he now considered the Harkness residence, with his legs crossed and a cane between them, smoking a cigar, and enlightening his wife and father-in-law, while Grand Prairie rode by and said: “There’s our congressman, he’s home for the summer.” But instead he had come home to find his own bailiwick invaded, his old friend Rankin defeated, and his old enemy, Pusey, prospering beyond all expectation, with a respectable newspaper in which he printed articles slyly reflecting upon Garwood, calling attention to the need of a new post-office in Grand Prairie; to the beauties of uninstructed delegations, whereby the people, for whom, in his renaissance, Pusey was more than ever solicitous, could at last achieve their rights; to the fate that pursued arrogant bosses like Jim Rankin, and so on.
But some of his old resolution had come back to Garwood even in his enervation. He determined to submit to defeat, if at all, only after a battle. He was sorry he had scolded Jim Rankin so. After all, though he was no longer chairman of the county committee and had been beaten in the county convention, Rankin was still chairman of the congressional committee, and still his friend. Rankin had only laughed at his reproaches, good natured as ever. It would not do to break with Rankin. And so, he had set out in the morning to see Rankin. He had not found him at any of his usual haunts, nor at the real estate and loan office where Rankin made pretense of doing some sort of insurance business, and going at last to Rankin’s home he had been told by Mrs. Rankin that Jim had gone out of town, she did not know where. He would not be back for two or three days. Garwood’s intention had been to call a conference of his closest friends in Grand Prairie, and outline some plan of action, though none had occurred to him as yet. But he determined to defer this until Rankin’s return.
The notion of calling on Pusey had been a sudden inspiration, born of the necessity of doing something at once, for his inaction was becoming intolerable, especially with stories coming to him constantly of Sprague’s work in other counties.
He sat down at Pusey’s bidding, and taking off his Panama hat, began fanning himself.
“Hot, ain’t it?” said Pusey, still clipping out his little paragraphs.
“Yes,” said Garwood distantly. It was not the heat of the weather that then distressed him. Pusey kept his head turned away, so that Garwood had only the side of his face, and its wizened profile did not show the satisfaction that smiled in it. Pusey was willing to keep all to himself the enjoyment of having Garwood humble himself by calling upon him,—him, whom Garwood had once despised. Indeed, the satisfaction he felt was so lively that he was somewhat mollified in spirit and, had he known it, Garwood could hardly have done a wiser or more politic thing than to pay this visit to this same Pusey.
“Yes, it’s hot,” said Garwood, “though not so hot as it was in Washington. That’s the hottest place in summer, you know, in the whole world.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Pusey, stooping to paste one of his little paragraphs on a sheet of copy paper. He showed, however, no inclination to turn the conversation from its perfunctory channel. Indeed, the conventionality of it rather suited his mood and gratified his pride, so that he was content to keep Garwood under his embarrassment as long as possible. But Garwood launched into his subject.
“I came over to see you, Mr. Pusey,” he began, “and to have a little talk with you about—politics.”
“Ah?” said Pusey, superciliously.
Garwood could have crushed him for his tone as Pusey would have crushed the cockroaches he could never hit, but he was better schooled to his part and he thought of the agonies of defeat. He needed every dollar of his salary now. So he went on:
“You are on the delegation, I believe?”
“I believe I am; yes,” Pusey replied.
“Very well,” said Garwood, unable to resist the impulse to assume his congressional manner, “very well. And I understand that you are opposed to my renomination.”
“I haven’t said so, have I?” said Pusey, turning his head for the first time and squinting at Garwood over his spectacles.
“I don’t know.”
The reply took Pusey by surprise, and he lost something of his position.
“Well, I haven’t,” he answered.
“But you opposed me in the convention.”
“No, not quite that,” Pusey answered.
“Well,” and Garwood smiled his old consequential smile once more and gathered his power to put others ill at ease, “it amounted to that.”
“No, you are a bit mistaken, Mr. Garwood,” Pusey replied. “What I did was to oppose instructions. I believed, you know, in sending a delegation to the convention that shall be absolutely free and untrammeled, so that it might be, as I may say, instantly responsive to the will of the people. That is all.”
“Oh, I see,” said Garwood; “I see. But let me ask this—you are opposed to my nomination, aren’t you?”
Pusey was silent and did not answer for a long time. He cut out another paragraph and cocked his little head to one side, tilting the old straw hat ridiculously as he trimmed the edges of the slip with unusual and unnecessary care.
“No,” he said at length, “I haven’t said that, either.”
“Well, then, to get at it in another way—you will pardon me, Mr. Pusey, for my persistent interrogation—let me ask you this: You are in favor of Mr. Sprague’s nomination, are you not?”
“I haven’t said that, either,” Pusey promptly replied.
“Then, if I understand your position, you are free and untrammeled like the delegation. Is that right?”
“Exactly,” said Pusey, laying down his scissors and his papers, folding his hands in his lap, and screwing about in his chair until for the first time he squarely faced Garwood, at whom he looked pertly, as little men can, through his spectacles, “exactly.”
He snapped out the word as if he relished it.
“Well, then,” said Garwood, hitching his chair closer as if instantly to seize his advantage, “that warrants me in asking you whether or not you can give me your support?”
Pusey lowered his eyes and turned his face away. He began plucking at the few withered hairs on his chin.
“What do you say?” Garwood pressed him.
“Well,” Pusey hemmed, “I am hardly able to determine so important a matter as that instantly, Mr. Garwood. Complications might arise which would not render it expedient for me to—”
Garwood did not wait for Pusey to unwind one of the long sentences he loved so well, but broke in:
“See here, Pusey, let’s be frank about this thing. You and I may not have been friends in the past, but—”
“I’ve always treated you fairly since I ran a party organ, haven’t I?” Pusey interpolated.
“Yes, I think you have, Pusey, and I thank you for it. I’ve appreciated it. I was, in a way, glad to see you get hold of the Citizen, for I knew you could make a newspaper of it; you’ve got the ability.” Pusey glowed, and Garwood continued:
“But I’ve come to see you in your capacity of delegate to a convention before which I am a candidate. I don’t want to take up any more of your time than is necessary, but it has occurred to me that if we had a little confidential chat, we might understand each other better, that’s all. I haven’t come to beg any favors, or any thing of that sort, but merely to see where we stand, what we could expect of each other.”
“Well, I’m glad you called, Mr. Garwood. I am of course honored”—the editor gave an absurd nod of his head in Garwood’s direction by way of a bow.
“As I say,” Garwood continued, warming, “I’ve come to see you as a citizen and as a delegate, and to ask you if you can conscientiously support me for renomination. There is no other candidate from this county, and it seems to me that as a matter of local pride you might prefer a man from your home to one from some other county.”
“Well,” Pusey answered, “there is of course that aspect of the case, Mr. Garwood. I do not say that I will not support you, neither do I say I will. I will say this, that if you are nominated I shall support you for election earnestly and heartily; I may be permitted to add, perhaps, effectively. But for the present I prefer not to commit myself. You understand my position, both as a citizen and as an editor. Of course conditions may arise under which I would give you my vote and my support.”
“May I ask what those conditions are?” Garwood leaned over to ask.
“I do not say, mark me,” Pusey replied in a corrective tone, “that the conditions exist now, but that they may arise.”
“Could you indicate them?”
“I would prefer, Mr. Garwood, to let events take their own course and shape themselves. The convention has not been called yet, and is some weeks off; there will be ample time. I wish for the present to feel that I am free to pursue the course that seems wise to me—as a citizen and as an editor, you understand.”
“Very well,” said Garwood, “I am at least glad to know that you are uncommitted; I am also glad I called, and”—he arose—“I shall perhaps do myself the honor to call again.” He bowed and left, and when he had gone, and the mockery was all over, Pusey took the pipe from the tobacco box, filled it, and lighted it from a gas jet he kept burning for that very purpose. He smoked in a way that evinced no enjoyment in tobacco whatever; he smoked in a dry, habitual way, as he talked, and ate, and wrote, but now he enjoyed his reflections, for Garwood, who once had spurned him, had called and humbled himself. Suddenly, however, an idea struck him, and hastily leaning over and hooking his toes in their carpet slippers behind the legs of his chair, he wrote feverishly for an instant. When he had done he read the item over, drew a line down through it, marked it “must,” and hung it on his copy hook.
The item appeared the following evening in the Citizen. It was this:
“Hon. Jerome B. Garwood called upon us yesterday afternoon. The congressman is looking extremely well, despite his long and arduous duties in the Capital, and the severe heat that marks the recent season of the year at Washington. The congressman is home for the summer. Call again, Congressman.”
The evening following the Advertiser, the organ of the opposition which, in Polk County at least, had never been called into responsibility, copied Pusey’s personal item and made this comment:
“When the congressman calls again he will be wise to take the post-office with him, or something equally as substantial as that which he is said to have received over at Springfield in the long ago.”