“You’re a terribly original feller, Standish! That remark, now, about all men being ‘born equal.’ It was made in the first place, wasn’t it, by a white-wigged, short-panted hero who owned more slaves than he could count? ‘Born equal!’ Maybe all men are. But by the time they’re out of swaddling-clothes they’ve got bravely over it. That old Jefferson proverb’s responsible for more anarchy and scraps, and strikes and grumbling and hard-luck stories, than all the whole measly dictionary put together. Get down to business, man. This ain’t a p’litical rally. Cut out the fine talk, can’t you? My horse is waiting.”
“I’ve told you already what I wish. I want to know if you will fight like a man for the rest of the campaign, and if the outrages I encountered on my tour were by your order?”
“That won’t take an awful lot of eloquence to answer. What was done to you up-State was planned out by me, and it isn’t deuce-high to what’ll drop on you if you’re still alive when the State Convention——”
“You cur!”
“Meaning me?” queried Caleb blandly.
“You cur!” repeated Clive, his last remaining shreds of temper thrown to the winds. “I was told I’d meet this sort of reception, but I couldn’t believe there was a man alive who had the crass effrontery to confess he was a wholesale crook, and that he was going to continue one. You’ve sapped the integrity, the honesty, the freedom of this city and State. You’ve made us a byword for every community in America. You’ve trailed your iniquitous railroad across the State, crushing every smaller and more honest line, until you are czar of all our traffic. You rob the people by sending to Legislature your own henchmen, who help you steal franchises, and who cut down your taxes and throw the burden of assessment on the very class of people you have already defrauded to the top of your bent. Corruption of the foulest sort has been smeared by you all over the face of this commonwealth, till the people are stricken helpless and speechless under it. Who can help them? Are there ten lawyers in this State who don’t wear your collar, and whose annual passes from your road aren’t granted them on the written understanding that such courtesies are really ‘retainers’? Then, when I try to help the people you have ground to the dirt—when I try to wipe the filthy stain from the Mountain State’s shield—even then you will not fight me fair, as man to man. You stab in the back, like any other common felon, and you feel so secure in your own stolen position, that you actually boast of it, and propose to continue your damnable knifing tactics. Why, Caleb Conover, you don’t even know how vile a thing you are!”
He paused, breathless, still furious. The Railroader was leaning back in his big chair eyeing the angry man with genuine amusement.
“You’ve got the hang of it!” murmured Caleb, half to himself. “The regular reformer shout. I wouldn’t have thought it of you. Honestly, son, it’s hard to take you reformers serious. You’re all so dead sure you’re saying what’s never been said before, and that you’re discovering what no one else ever dreamed of. If only I could buy one of you Civic Leaguers at my own estimate of you, and sell you at your estimate of yourself, it’d be the biggest deal I ever made. Now don’t get red and try to think up new platitudes to beller at me. I’ve listened pretty patient, but I think it’s my turn to do a little shouting, too. I’ve heard you out. Now, maybe it’ll do you no harm to make the same return-play to me. Sit down. You came here to reach an understanding, and get a line on my course, eh? Well, you’ve got a big load of fine words out of your system in the last few minutes. I’ll answer you as best I can, and then maybe in future us two’ll understand each other the better.”
In spite of himself, Clive Standish listened. This thickset, powerful man, whose blazing temper was proverbial, had attended the young candidate’s rather turgid arraignment with every evidence of good-natured interest. He had endured insulting epithet with almost the air of one who hearkens to a compliment. And, in answering, he had spoken so moderately, so at variance with his usual mode of address, that Standish was utterly puzzled, and was half-ashamed of his own vehemence. What one of the Boss’s myriad moods was this, and what end had he in view? Clive checked his own impulse to depart. After all, there was something of justice in what Conover had said about the courtesy due a man who had listened to such a tirade as his.
Standish remained standing at the table, looking across with unwilling inquiry at his host, who lounged at ease in his chair, watching the younger man with a grim smile, as though reading his every thought. Their relative positions were ludicrously akin to those of judge and prisoner. And the compelling force that lay behind the amusement in Caleb’s light eyes strengthened the resemblance.