“An’ the Steeloid Trust has Caleb Conover behind it,” retorted Caleb. “I guess he’s as good a backer as ‘Right,’ any day. I’m expectin’ a tough scramble in order to beat you at the Capital, Blacarda. But I’ll do it. I’ll be on the ground myself. An’ I’ll beat you as sure as I beat you to-day. It’ll mean a fight—a big fight. I know that. But a fight’s somethin’ I don’t generally run ki-yi-in’ away from.”
“All this is somewhat beside the point, gentlemen,” interposed Standish. “Is there any further—?”
He paused and glanced about the table. But no one cared to couch lance at the brute who had thus far held the lists so successfully against the Arareek’s doughtiest champions. At length Caine spoke.
“It appears to me,” he drawled in his lazy, half-bantering way, “that these proceedings have been decidedly informal; even for an avowedly informal meeting. Also, that we have made little real progress on either side. There are several broken heads, and the atmosphere is somewhat heavy with the reek of battle. But I fail to hear any shout of victory. Certainly not from our Honorable Committee. Perhaps you will all pardon me if I suggest that our learned body has gone about the present business in a less tactful way that one might have expected from such natural diplomats. Mr. Conover, you have had to answer some extremely impertinent—unnecessarily impertinent—questions this afternoon. If you have answered them in their own key, I am sure no one can honestly blame you. Unless you care to say anything more, I think the Committee may as well go at once into executive session and put the matter to vote. I so move, Mr. Chairman.”
“Hold on a second,” said Conover. “You people can vote in a minute if you want to. First, I’ve got a word more to say. The main counts against me, as I take it, are that I had a bad start in life an’ that my business methods aren’t any better than the methods of other men in this Club. Also that I ain’t a gentleman. We’ll let the question of my business methods slide. I guess there ain’t as few stones on the carpet as there’s men here to throw ’em at me on that score. Now, as to my not bein’ a gentleman an’ my start in life: I started at the bottom of the ladder. I’m only in the early thirties and I’m not far from the top. How many of you could a’ got where I am if you’d started where I did? Not a man of you. I worked my way up from tally boy of the C. G. & X. yards to the job of president of the whole road. An’ I’m makin’ it the biggest road in the State.
“How’d I do it? By fightin’. I had no pull, no cash, no family at my back. Ev’rybody took a turn at tryin’ to step on my hands whenever I’d grab a new rung of the ladder. But I climbed on—an’ I fought on. To-day I’m as rich a man as there is in Granite. Other rich men were members of this Club an’ got fun out of it. So I joined it, too. I’ve as good a right to fun as anyone. An’ I’m goin’ to have it. That’s why I won’t get out. An’ you can’t put me out. You’re goin’ to vote on my case in a few minutes. An’ you’re goin’ to vote to keep me here. Not because you want to; but because I’ve made you do it. If you hit a sulky dog with an axe-handle, he won’t exactly love you. But he’ll mind you, next time. An’ it’s better to be minded than to be ignored. I guess there won’t anybody here ignore me in future.
“By the way, gentlemen: Just to show how much int’rested I am in the Club’s welfare, I bought in the mortgage on the Arareek’s house and grounds last month. I bought it for fear it might fall in the hands of some crank member who’d foreclose if he was dropped from the Club. Or such a crank as might foreclose if he was treated like a measly social leper at the Club’s blowouts. That’s all, gentlemen. I’ll wait out on the porch for your verdict. Good-day, all. I’ll excuse the Committee from risin’ and escortin’ me to the door.”
He rose, stretched his big frame and lounged out of the room. Silence accompanied his exit, but was split by a dozen excited voices the moment the door slammed behind him.
Caleb Conover was loafing in a low wicker chair on the veranda, a cigar between his teeth and a long frosty glass at his side. He was idly watching the putting match on the green before him. The veranda’s other occupants had more or less unobtrusively withdrawn to the far end of the porch, leaving him quite alone.