“Well,” vouchsafed Caleb, grudgingly, “that’s an answer anyhow, and it comes nearer being sense than anything you’ve said so far. But you’re wrong for all that. You talk about honesty. What’s honesty? The pious Pilgrim Fathers came here and swindled old Lo, the poor Indian, out of his country in a blamed sight more raw fashion than I’ve ever bamboozled the people of the Mountain State. And the Mountain Staters were willing, while the Indian wasn’t. Yet the old settlers are called ‘nation builders’ and ‘martyrs,’ and a lot of other hot-air titles, and they get statues put up to their memories. How about the Uncle Sam’s buying a whole nation of Filipinos and coolly telling ’em: ‘I’m bossing your islands now. Listen to me while I soften your rebellious hearts with the blessed gospel of the gatling gun.’ Yet Uncle Sam’s all right. So’s John Bull, who done the same trick, only worse, in India and Egypt. No one’s going to call America or England or the Pilgrim Fathers dishonest and crooks, is there? Then why do you call Caleb Conover dishonest for doing the same thing, only a lot more squarely and mercifully? The crook of to-day is the hero of to-morrow. And I’m no crook at that. Why, Son, a hundred years from now there’s liable to be a statue stuck up somewhere of ‘Caleb Conover, Railroader, Champion of the People.’ Honesty, eh? What you call ‘honesty’ is just a sort of weak-kneed virtue meaning lack of chance to be something else. ‘Honester than me’ means ‘less chance than me.’ The honestest community on earth, according to you reformers’ way of thinking, is in the State Penitentiary. For not a crime of any sort’s committed there from one year’s end to the other.”
Conover chuckled softly to himself, then continued:
“And there’s something else about me that ought to make ’em sculp a halo onto that same statue. What I’ve done to build up my pile I’ve done open and with all the cards on the table. I have called a spade a spade, and I haven’t referred to it, vague-like, as an ‘industr’l utensil.’ I haven’t took the Lord in as a silent partner on my deals. What I’ve took I’ve took, and I’ve said, ‘Whatcher going to do about it?’ I’ve won out by strength, and I ain’t ashamed of my way of playing the game. I haven’t talked through my nose about being one of the noble class picked out by Providence to watch over the wealth that poor folks’d have had the good of if I hadn’t grabbed it from ’em. And I haven’t tried to square myself On High by endowing colleges and heathens and libraries and churches. I guess a sinner’s hush-money don’t make so much of a hit with the Almighty as these philanthropist geezers seem to think it will. What I’ve given I’ve given on the quiet and where it’d keep folks from the poorhouse. When it comes to the final show-down on Judgment Day, I’ve a sneaking notion the out-and-out pirate—me, if you like—will win out by about seven lengths over the holy hypocrite. That’s another reason why I tell you you’re wrong when you say I ain’t honest. I don’t hope to convince you by any of the words I’ve been wasting. If you were the sort of man reason could reach you wouldn’t be a reformer. I’ve squandered enough time on you for one evening. Save all the pat replies that I can see you’re bursting with, and spring ’em at your next meeting. I’ve no time to listen to ’em now. Good night.”
Unceremoniously as he had entered the room he quitted it, leaving Standish to go as he would.
“I talked more’n I have since that fool speech of mine at the reception,” muttered the Railroader as he clattered down the broad staircase. “But I steered him off from the chance to say what he really wanted to, and I dodged any scene that would be of use to him in his campaign. Too bad he’s a Reformer! He’s got red blood in him, the young idiot. Yes, and he’s not such an idiot either if it comes to that.”
Clive Standish, descending the stairs a moment later, puzzled, disappointed, vaguely aware that he had somehow been tricked, heard the shout of a groom and the thundering beat of Dunderberg’s flying hoofs along the gravel of the drive.
“If he was as much master of the situation, and as content with himself as he tried to make me think,” reflected Clive as he passed out into the darkness, “he’d never ride like that.”
Standish went to the League’s headquarters, where for two hours he busied himself with routine affairs, and tried to shut out memory of the deep, taunting voice and masterful, amused eyes that had held him captive, and had turned him from the real purpose of his visit. And in time the light, sneering eyes deepened into liquid brown, and the sonorous voice into Anice Lanier’s. For whatever theme might form any particular verse of the day’s song for Clive, he noticed of late that Anice was certain to be the ever-recurrent refrain.
Wearied with his evening’s work, Standish returned late to his own rooms. His man said, as he helped the candidate off with his light covert coat:
“A messenger boy brought a letter for you, sir, about an hour ago. He said there was no answer. I left it on your desk.”