Trembling with confusion, perhaps with some deeper emotion, Anice nevertheless answered coolly:
“I hope my absence hasn’t delayed any of your work? I was on my way back, when you——”
“Now look at that,” exclaimed Caleb with genuine admiration. “Here’s my hated enemy as red and rattled as if I’d caught him stuffing ballot-boxes or cheering for Conover! And the lady in the case is as cool as cucumbers, and she don’t bat an eye. Standish, she’s seven more kinds of a man than you are, or ever will be, for all your big shoulders and bigger line of talk. Well, we won’t keep you any longer, son. No use askin’ you in, I s’pose? No? Then maybe I’ll drop around to your meeting this evening. I’d ’a’ come before, but it always makes me bashful to hear myself praised to the public. Good night.”
It was late that evening when Clive reached his rooms, for a few brief hours of rest before setting forth on his tour of the State. He was tired out, discouraged, miserable. His much-heralded meeting had been the dreariest sort of fiasco. Scarcely had the opening address begun and the crowded house warmed up to the occasion, when every light in the building had been switched off.
Inquiry showed that a break had occurred in the gas mains which could not be remedied until morning. Candles and lamps were hurriedly sent for. Meantime, though a certain confusion followed the plunging of the place into darkness, the crowd had been, on the whole, orderly. In spite of this, the chief of police, with twenty reserves, coming on the scene, had ordered Standish civilly enough to dismiss the audience. Then the policemen had filed up on the stage, illumining it by their bull’s-eye lanterns, and clustered ominously about the speakers.
In response to Clive’s angry protest, the chief had simply reiterated his order, adding that his department was responsible for the city’s peace and quiet, and that the crowd showed an inclination to riot. Nor could the Arm of the Law be shaken from this stand. The audience, during the colloquy between Standish and the chief had grown impatient, and an occasional catcall or shrill whistle had risen from the darkened auditorium. At each of these sounds the police had gripped their nightsticks and glanced with a fine apprehension at their leader for commands.
The upshot of the matter had been the forced dismissal of the spectators. Standish had scouted Ansel’s suggestion that the whole catastrophe was a ruse of Conover’s, until, as he walked down the dark aisle toward the door, he heard a policeman whisper:
“I was waitin’ for the chief to give some of us the tip to pinch him.”
“An’ let him make a noise like a martyr?” grunted a second voice easily recognized as Billy Shevlin’s. “You must think the Boss is as balmy in the belfry as you blue lobsters. He’d ’a’ had Geoghegan broke if he’d——”
The rest of the reply had been lost.