And yet it was sure from the beginning that I must make an alliance with my folk of purple. The movement they shuddered over was even more of a menace to Tammany than it was to them. It might mean dollars to them, but for Tammany it promised annihilation, since of every five who went with this crusade, four were recruited from the machine.
Fifth Avenue, in a fever, did not realize this truth. Nor was I one to enlighten my callers. Their terror made for the machine; it could be trained to fill the Tammany treasure chest with a fund to match those swelling fears, the reason of its contribution. I locked up my tongue; it was a best method to augment a mugwump horror which I meant should find my resources.
Young Morton, still with his lisp, his affectations, his scented gloves, and ineffable eyeglass, although now no longer “young,” but like myself in the middle journey of his life, was among my patrician visitors. Like the others, he came to urge a peace-treaty between Tammany and the mugwumps, and he argued a future stored of fortune for both myself and the machine, should the latter turn to be a defense for timid deer from whom he came ambassador.
To Morton I gave particular ear. I was never to forget that loyalty wherewith he stood to me on a day of trial for the death of Jimmy the Blacksmith. If any word might move me it would be his. Adhering to a plan, however, I had as few answers for his questions as I had for those of his mates, and wrapped myself in silence like a mantle.
Morton was so much his old practical self that he bade me consider a candidate and a programme.
“Let us nominate my old gentleman for mayor,” said he. “He's very old; but he's clean and he's strong, don't y' know. Really he would draw every vote to his name that should of right belong to us.”
“That might be,” I returned; “but I may tell you, and stay within the truth, that if your father got no more votes than should of right be his, defeat would overtake him to the tune of thousands. Add the machine to the mugwumps, and this movement of labor still has us beaten by twenty thousand men. That being the case, why should I march Tammany—and my own fortune, too—into such a trap?”
“What else can you do?” asked Morton.
“I can tell you what was in my mind,” said I. “It was to go with this labor movement and control it.”
“That labor fellow they've put up would make the worst of mayors. You and Tammany would forever be taunted with the errors of his administration. Besides, the creature's success would vulgarize the town; it would, really!”