CHAPTER I.—THE SINGULAR BEGINNING OF A NEW CAREER
ARLY next morning Mr. McCarthy came and took me for a drive. He was a new man, quiet, serious, and inclined to let me do the talking. I thought of him no more as the land-made gentleman. Just the one word was enough for him now.
Something had gone wrong with him, and I wondered what it might be. I hoped he would speak of the love-affair. He put many questions, and said, by-and-by:
“I'm glad you've come, for the railroad work takes half my time, and poor Sal is neglected. I want you to tackle Sal. I'm going to organize a stock company for Sal, and make you president perhaps, and give all my time to larger things. The army of steam-power is going to need help at Albany, and I may try for a seat in the legislature. But you know Horace Bulger runs the county, and I won't buy honor. I've got to beat him. I thought it would be easy, with three hundred voters in my shop, but the first I knew Bulger had stirred them up. They're growling about our machines, and the trouble will last until convention time, you see. He did it to block my game. If I want to go I've got to settle with him.” After a moment of silence, he added: “There's a lot for you to do. I want you to begin by advertising the hygienic value of a bath every day. Keep dinging on the idea that soap and civilization go hand in hand. Let it be understood that a clean mind can only live in a clean body, that decency begins with soap. Let us assail the great army of the unwashed, and increase the respect of the people for Salome, the clover-scented sister of Sal.”
The shop had doubled its size, and now covered half an acre of the river shore.
I found Pearl and Barker in a larger basement shop. The gray-haired man put his one arm around me and held me close for half a moment, and said not a word. Then he sat down and raised his goggles and wiped his eyes, and I remember that I felt a little ashamed of my own weakness.
“Oh, Mr. Barker!” he called, when the goggles were in place again.
Mr. Barker took his stand in the old familiar attitude of receiver for the firm.
“What do we say to the gentleman from New York, and late of St. Lawrence County?”
The dog barked almost gleefully.
“You are right, Mr. Barker. We are delighted to see him. We bid him welcome to the growing village of Rushwater. We do, indeed.”
He led me to the turbine.
“See,” he said, “it runs smoother and makes less noise; it has got dignity; it knows how to handle its power.”
I could not help thinking that it was, in a way, like McCarthy himself.
Well, I had no sooner entered the stirring life of the shop at Rushwater than things began to happen. One day Mr. Horace Bulger came into the office, where I sat alone with the gentleman. The power of Mr. Bulger was universally known and respected. He ran the politics of the county. For years no citizen within its boundaries had been elected to office without his consent. He was born poor; he had neither toiled nor spun; he never seemed to want anything for himself, but, somehow, Mr. Bulger had prospered, and very handsomely, as things went.
“I have something to say to you,” said Mr. Bulger, addressing the hand-made gentleman.
“Say it,” said the latter.
“Perhaps it had better be confidential.”
“Go right ahead. This young man is my private secretary, and knows all my business. If I should sell my soul, he'd have to know the price.”
Mr. Bulger hesitated.
“I do not need to say that your confidence will be respected by both of us,” my friend added.
“Mr. McCarthy,” said the wily Bulger, as he dropped into a chair, “I think you are likely to be nominated by the Republicans of our district for the Assembly.”
“You are too confident, Mr. Bulger,” said the hand-made gentleman. “I will bet you three thousand dollars that I am not nominated and elected this year.”
Those old models of gentlemanhood, after which Mr. McCarthy had fashioned himself, saw no harm in a wager.
The politician thought a moment and smiled. Then said he:
“I will take the bet, and am ready to post the money.”
“Your check is good enough,” Mr. McCarthy answered.
“No checks,” said the other. “Let's make it money.”
“Who shall be the stake-holder?” was the inquiry of my friend.
“Your secretary—if you will vouch for him.”
“I'd trust my life with him,” said the handmade gentleman.
So the money was put into my hands, to be deposited to my credit in Mr. Bulger's bank.
“One thing I have to ask,” Mr. McCarthy added: “You know I have no secrets, and don't want any. I'm not ashamed of this bet, and I hope you're not.”
“Not a bit,” said Mr. Bulger.
“All right then; we've got nothing to cover up.”
“Not a thing.”
“Good! I want everything aboveboard. We can either of us tell the whole truth if it should seem necessary.”
When Mr. Bulger had left us, I turned to my friend McCarthy and said:
“You're sure to be elected now.”
“Of course I am,” said the gentleman. “But he's got some work on his hands. I cannot understand his coming here. To begin with, he'll have to settle that strike for me, and it may not be so easy. He's got to unravel a lot of his own knitting or pay the forfeit. I don't think he knows what it means.”
We both laughed for a moment, after which he went on:
“It's his funeral—not mine. A gentleman can bet, but he could not make a bargain for a seat in the legislature, and it's undignified and immoral to pay for votes. Bulger has got to do the work.”
I regret sometimes that Mr. McCarthy had not then the surer light that came in due time. He was very human, so do not expect too much of him.
That day our evening paper contained this announcement:
Vanderbilt Owns the Harlem Road—Will
The Steamboat King Lead the Iron
Horse Cavalry in its Westward Charge?
“Now I understand,” said the hand-made gentleman; “Bulger was acting under orders when he came here to-day.”
“Do you mean to tell me that Vanderbilt controls the Republican party?” I asked.
“He wants honest and progressive men in the legislature, and has a hand in many a caucus,” said McCarthy. “He's got to do it or have a lot of pirates to reckon with when he goes up to Albany for the legislation he needs. Any man likely to block the wheels of progress is killed in the conventions, if not before. He's paving the way for a new era.”